## Preface

Far Too Young To Die
Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/23524942.

Rating:
  Not Rated
Archive Warning:
  No Archive Warnings Apply
Category:
  M/M
Fandom:
  僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia
Relationships:
  Dabi/Takami Keigo | Hawks, Dabi & Takami Keigo | Hawks, League of Villains & Takami Keigo | Hawks, Hero Public Safety Commission & Takami Keigo | Hawks
Characters:
  Takami Keigo | Hawks, Dabi (My Hero Academia), League of Villains (My Hero Academia), Hero Public Safety Commission (My Hero Academia)
Additional Tags:
  Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Dissociation, Implied/Referenced Torture, Fainting, Hurt Takami Keigo | Hawks, Takami Keigo | Hawks-centric, Protective Dabi (My Hero Academia), Protective League of Villains (My Hero Academia), Takami Keigo | Hawks Needs a Hug, Hero Public Safety Commission's A+ Parenting, Panic Attacks, raptor stress grip, Animal Traits, Starvation, Self-Esteem Issues, Soft Takami Keigo | Hawks, he gets hurt and doesn't know its bad, my poor birb boy, Wing Grooming, no beta we die like illiterate idiots, wow this is bad, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, welcome to the family birb boi, they commit crimes on saturday and play monopoly on sunday, League of Villains as Family (My Hero Academia), Takami Keigo | Hawks Acts Like a Bird
Language:
  English
Series:
  Part 1 of Hawks Needs Help (And He Actually Gets It)
Collections:
  Best, Genmhasmfffffff, Bnha, comfort fics, Favorite MHA Fanfics, These are so fkn good dude literally HOW, Ruth's assortment of treasures ✨
Stats:
  Published: 2020-04-08 Words: 6,515 Chapters: 1/1

# Far Too Young To Die

by Numanum

Summary

> Hawks takes baby steps backwards, getting closer and closer to the door, as everyone continues to get loud and look at eachother for answers. Well, almost everybody; Dabi is watching him limp away with an unimpressed expression.

> “Those are torture wounds,” Shigaraki points out, crossing his arms and leveling Hawks with a dead-eyed stare.

> “How do you even know what torture wounds look like?” Hawks throws back as he continues to plan his escape. Shigaraki looks at him with raised eyebrows until Hawks looks away again, feeling like an idiot. These people are villains, he knows that (but its so easy to forget-).

> “Right, fuck.”

> Hawks flicks him a two fingered salute before turning tail like the coward he feels like and making for the door. He doesn't get more than four feet before Dabi grabs him by one of his wings and yanks him back.

Notes

> I'm sorry if it's ooc, and I just want to ask you to read the warnings. Nothing gets too descriptive, but I just don't want to trigger anyone! ;^;

See the end of the work for more notes

## Far Too Young To Die

Hawks can handle pain; he wouldn’t be the number two hero without having an extremely high pain tolerance to go with his pretty face and capable body. As a hero, it's almost his job to be able to handle it; villains don’t care if you rolled your ankle while trying to send them to jail (and all heroes had done that at least once, no matter how many denied it). At some point, pain just doesn’t register for heroes, and finding bruises in random places is just expected. If he wanted to get more dramatic with it, he could say that pain is more of a friend than a stranger, and Hawks can usually handle it with the same familiarity that he handles spicy food. But currently, his back feels like it was hacked at with a weed-wacker, pulsing from the beating he’d gotten not even twenty minutes ago, and he isn’t handling as well as he should be. The thin cuts burn with his jacket pressed against them, his head is pounding, his wrists and neck feel rubbed raw, and his wings ache, but it could have been so much worse. It was supposed to be so much worse. The only reason it wasn’t was because he’d had to meet up with Dabi, and his handlers prioritized potential information over his continued punishment.

On one hand it sucks; he can’t even go back to his apartment and wallow because he has to meet with the league. Tonight was supposed to just be a weekly game night that he’s been roped into far too many times before, meaning that the only valuable thing he would be getting was monopoly money and bragging rights. (Skipping out isn’t an option; he learned that the hard way when he skipped and woke up with Dabi’s unimpressed face looming over him and the league in his living room.)

But on the other hand, everything hurts and he just wants to flop onto his uncomfortable bed in his stylishly empty apartment and not get up until someone (either his handler or Dabi) finds his body.

Both hands are pretty much the same; Hawks doesn’t really see a positive side to his current situation.

Honestly, he isn’t even sure what he did to deserve the punishment, but he’s almost certain that he deserved it. His handlers wouldn’t discipline him without a reason, however harsh they may be at times. Out of all of the things the commission does to make his life hard, they just want him to be better. They even avoided hurting his wings when they punished him, leaving him able to do his job, which is the job that they want and the people need for him to do. And as grateful as he is that he can at least still do what he was trained for, it doesn’t lessen the agony that his back is going through as he hurries to throw on his jacket. The skin around his wings hadn’t escaped the punishment and Hawks is almost positive that he can feel the skin splitting as if he was still being punished, as if whatever they had been using to hit him was still being whipped against his back.

It burned harshly, and almost felt jagged as it was whipped across his skin again and again, overlapping cuts lighting each others nerve endings on fire at the raw feeling, his pathetic jerking against the table as his limbs bruised themselves against the restraints and his back arched and tensed-

Hawks shakes the memory away as he dives out the nearest window- for convenience, he tells himself. He’s not running, he has no reason to. As much as he tries to convince himself of it, every breath he pulls in gets easier as he flies away from the building behind him. Flying feels as freeing as it does painful; every wing beat pulls at his ripped skin, not even bandaged due to his sudden departure. The blood will be a bitch to get out, and he might just have to ditch the jacket all together due to all the stains currently spreading across the inside of it. Hawks shakes his head to clear it as the dull rooftop of a building comes into view, preparing himself for a rough landing (having all of his feathers, for once, doesn’t stop his back from screaming as he uses the muscles to control his wings) in the middle of a roof in a bad part of town, wheezing a bit as the sudden movement rubs his wounds against the inside of his jacket. He lands roughly and barely manages to stay on one knee until the pain recedes to manageable levels again and he can breathe again.

When he finally collects himself off of the rough ground of the roof, Dabi is standing next to the roof access door with a carefully blank expression that somehow shows a shocking level of bitchy impatience at Hawks apparent tardiness for someone who didn’t even show for the last meeting.

(Dabi seems to run like a city bus schedule; if you're early then you’re on time, if you're on time then you’re late, if you're late then you're dead. It's similar enough to a bus schedule, and shockingly similar to the Hero Public Safety Commission’s schedule that Hawks had taken to it easily, despite the odd hours that it called for. Hawks mentally dubbed it Dabi Time in his head and he has yet to think of it as anything else.)

Pulling in a gasp of air as he attempts to stretch, Hawks winces both in pain and embarrassment as he walks over, quickly ducking inside and trying to pretend like his back isn’t on fire. If he doesn’t pay enough attention to whatever the pyromaniac is doing, Dabi might actually let him burn, game night truce or no. The thought doesn’t bring anything but a tired weariness, and Hawks resolves to focus on anything other than that fact that death didn’t sound that terrible to him at the moment. It wasn’t like he’d had a building fall on him while doing hero work (this time), or been thrown from the sky without enough feathers to fly (again), or been suplexed into the ground by someone with a strength quirk and gotten his ribs smashed (he doesn’t recommend it). Those things weren’t great, but at least then he’d have the right to complain if they’d happened this time. Honestly, getting punished by his Handlers was so far down the list of ‘most painful things’ that it almost didn’t even count. The life of a hero almost guaranteed worse things happening every day, especially if you were as high up as he was.

(And everything was fine, but he didn’t even know what he did he couldn’t get better- couldn’t fix it if he didn’t know what he did-)

The trip down to the floor of the building, where he assumed the others were, was almost as excruciating as the set of holes that Dabi’s eyes were burning into Hawks’ back, but he didn't stop walking. Honestly, Hawks didn’t even know where he was supposed to be going, it would make sense for Dabi to be leading, but he kinda figured that Dabi didn’t want him at his back as much as the reverse was true. The villain, for all of their trading of witty quips and even non-hostile moments, obviously didn’t like the winged hero. Which was fine, just really, really awkward in moments that required the smallest foundation of trust. Like this one.

At this point, Hawks is too tired to argue about it anyway; his back feels both more numb and even more painful with every step he forces himself to take, the bruises on his wrists and neck (thankfully mostly hidden by his hero outfit), were their own special kind of pain, and it felt like his head was being stuffed with cotton that bees had nested in. And, as nice as it was to have a fluffy inner lining when he was flying through cold air, the fluff was only catching and pulling at the mess that he was currently calling his skin. Anything that managed to scab over even slightly as quickly caught in and ripped at by the seemingly harmless fluff that he typically enjoyed the feel of.

After leaving to meet for game night, Hawks had felt disconnected from his body a bit, and it'd only gotten worse and worse as time slowly crawled on. It came in waves, and it never fully took the pain away, so it was just really inconvenient and disruptive to his thought process. Especially when he's walking through an abandoned building with a certified, and shockingly unrepentant, murderer (who could deem him a liability at any moment and roast him) to go meet with other wanted criminals. To play monopoly.

Hawks just wanted to get the meeting over with and leave.

A grunt and a harsh jerk on his wing was the only clue he was given before he’s steered into an empty room with Dabi right behind him. So empty in fact, that the rest of the league wasn’t there, but Hawks could hear them nearby. His wings tensed in alarm as Hawks tried to figure out just what Dab was going to do; this ending in a fight was currently his main concern. The room seemed big enough, but Hawks had no doubt that adding any sort of furniture would make it seem too small, his dead body being the furniture in this case. Or maybe that was just him projecting (wishing, hoping, please he didn’t wanna do this anymore it hurts-); his back itched and the skin felt too tight over it due to the swelling of the welts and bruises quickly growing, getting worse by the second. The floaty feeling was making it really hard to concentrate.

Dabi makes a displeased noise and levels Hawks with an annoyed look that went with it perfectly, “You were late.” Hawks shrugs noncommittally in response, “I was busy,” he stresses the word playfully, meeting the villain's eyes after he examined the empty room for a stray monopoly board. “Don’t worry though, you saved me from my busy schedule, thank god for game night with wanted criminals,” he jokes mildly, hoping that the small joke will incite something other than rage. Dabi looks to the side, rather pointedly, at a somehow still functioning clock on the wall that read just past two in the morning. Which meant that Dabi was one, challenging his social life, and two, completely aware that he had shitty meeting times, he just didn’t care. Sarcastically flicking his gaze between Hawks and the clock, Dabi didn’t look amused as his face twisted into something colder, something that nearly made his wings shake against his back.

“What, too busy doing hero work?” Dabi sneers lowly, throwing a pointed look at Hawks’ jacket. Hawks’ fuzzy brain screams at him to also look at his jacket, but he doesn’t see anything out of the ordinary with it other than a sauce stain. “Hm, no? I came from the commission this time. You got me all to yourselves today,” Hawks laughs distractedly, trying his best to keep his back as straight as possible and the floaty feeling at bay. He needed to concentrate if Dabi was going to start something, or his body really would clog up the room. Scoffing, Dabi leans closer. “Don’t fuckin’ lie to me, birdie. Ya got villain blood on your jacket for fucks sake.” Dabi was seething now, leaning forwards with his hands clenched in his pockets, and Hawks’ wings began to fluff up in alarm behind him, catching Dabi’s eye and receiving a harsh look.

It would have been threatening if everything didn’t feel like it was upside down and underwater.

It takes Hawks far too long to respond, filling the air with a thick one sided tension that he can’t really focus on enough to reciprocate. “...jacket?” Hawks parrots cluelessly after he registers that Dabi expected a response. His hands paw at the sleeves of his jacket, shifting each one this way and that in an attempt to see what Dabi is so angry about. The only blood that could be on his jacket would be his own, and it couldn’t have gotten past the thick rolls of fluff that lined the inside. He quickly double checks his sleeves before his eyes catch against the sauce stain again and he laughs. “That’s just barbecue, hot stuff.” Hawks rubs at the stain absentmindedly. He sure hopes it’s a sauce stain; if it isn’t and Dabi somehow knew, it would suck. Dabi stares harder and Hawks double checks again, just to be sure. Again, nothing out of the ordinary. He’s seconds from confirming his earlier words when he’s interrupted.

“On your back, dumbass,” Dabi points out helpfully, pinching the bridge of his nose between his fingers. Shit. Hawks feels his mouth form a small ‘o’ as he drops his sleeve and freezes; Dabi watches on in mild despair, as if wondering how Hawks could be any stupider. At least he doesn't look like he’s seconds from roasting the room and everything in it, ie Hawks. He still looks like he’s a bit murdery though, like Hawks had in fact been hunting villains all night instead of just reporting to the Hero Public Safety Commission. Feeling the need to defend himself. Hawks quickly sputters out a half assed response, “Oh, no. No, no, no. That's uh- mine,” he finishes lamely, looking away from Dabi’s burning gaze to focus on his nose instead. Fuckin’ stupid bird, can’t even keep a jacket clean. Hawks feels his eyes begin to burn with tears that won’t ever fall because of his stupid quirk; for once he’s thankful for it, if it means not crying in front of one of Japan’s most wanted, especially over something as stupid as a ruined jacket. Something shifts in Dab’s expression, but Hawks is too busy trying to blink the focus back into his suddenly blurry vision to see it. A pause. “That's a lotta blood for one person, pretty bird,” the villain mutters skeptically. He might have said something else but Hawks is, once again, feeling like he could sink through the floor at his feet in both dizziness and despair at the situation. Nothing feels real at that moment, and it’s so odd, especially when compared to everything usually being too much for him all the time. It feels like crashing from a high, or like trying to live in a syrup bottle.

Hawks still can’t see very well.

Hawks blinks away the tears and Dabi is a little closer than before. Another pause, this one far longer and far more awkward than the first one, stretches between the shortened distance. Finally, Dabi sighs and begins stomping forward to tug at the bird hero’s jacket, “show me,” he demands roughly.

Hawks feels like the air had been sucked from the room as the tugging pulls the blood matted jacket fluff from his wounds, exhaling harshly and nearly falling backwards as he jerks to get away. Fight or Flight kicks in, and even though he’s a bird of prey, Dabi might as well be a hunter in that moment for all of the good that it does him and his stupid animal brain. His wings give a few panicked, uncoordinated flaps that only make the pulling skin worse, but they give him the momentum he needs to separate himself from a heavily scowling Dabi. He quickly chirps out a little, “I’m fine, all good,” before taking a few more steps back to create a larger distance between them. Dabi simply stalks towards him again, taking two steps forward for every one step Hawks takes back. He looks more murderous than usual, and Hawks begins using his wings to propel himself backwards, no matter how much his back burns at the frantic movements. It’s all a haze of pain and mild panic in his brain, a game of cat and mouse, up until Hawks, who had not been focusing on anything but creating distance between himself and a lethal threat, slams himself back first into a wall.

The sudden burst of pain causes his vision to grey out and his knees to buckle, and he distantly hears a pained shriek. It’s absolute agony, and if the room had felt empty of air before, now air might as well have never been there in the first place. He crumbles onto his hands and knees (not his back, thank god for the small mercies of life) before his body lists sideways and his ribs hit the unforgiving concrete below him. It jostles his back and he lets out a small whine that only gets bigger when he feels hands tugging at his jacket again. The frantic and painful tugging is coupled with muttered curses and harsh shoves against Hawks’ wildly flapping wings as he lays there in a useless heap. After numerous tugs that have Hawks gasping into the dusty ground, a heat that has nothing to do with swelling and more to do with fire flashes in and out of existence so fast that Hawks wouldn’t have noticed it if it hadn’t somehow taken his jacket with it.

The world, if not for his own gasping and the thumps of his wings against the wall and ground, would have been dropped into harsh silence. His jacket being gone, burned his frantic but tired mind supplies, sucks but he quickly makes peace with it. It actually helps with the pain; the lack of jacket fluff clinging and ripping free with every breath is a huge relief. And it isn’t like he was left with nothing; his halter top still covers the base of his back and it still clings to his torso and halfway down his arms. Hawks can actually take in stuttering breaths up until fingers prod his back and he arches away with a frightened and pained squawk, the sudden movement tearing at his skin once more. The fingers retreat quickly after that and a low buzzing set in, occasionally broken up with more buzzing that he can faintly call curses. He’s so far gone into a daze that when a hand grabs his chin roughly and jerks his face up he only chirps slightly in a dazed sort of alarm, not even really seeing what’s in front of him. A sudden increase in the buzzing causes him to twitch slightly, and the new pitches hurt his ears when they mix together to form an uneven monster of a noise. Simply deciding to close his eyes, both to hide from the buzzing and to stop the room from spinning, Hawks lets out a small puff of a breath into the floor. Seconds later, something taps his face hard enough for his eyes to flash open as he startles a bit. Dabi’s face enters his view, eyebrows pinched and mouth moving before he scowls and retreats. Air is slowly returning to the room as he lays there with nothing touching his back, clearing his head of the fog that had filled it. Soon enough, Dabi’s looking down at him again with an unhappy expression and a hard glint to his eyes. It’s almost funny, how even in this weird place where nothing really felt real, Dabi looked angry. The humor lasts about as long as Dabi forcing his body into a fireman's carry does. There are flashes of the other league members, and Hawks barely remembers to ask what he had done wrong, because if he was bad and about to be punished he should really remember- But then his world tips dangerously as Dabi rounds a corner and suddenly he can’t really focus on words.

After that, things faded scarily fast into nothing.

Unfortunately, Hawks wakes up, in extreme pain, to someone manhandling him onto a table, stomach down. His immediate response is to jerk away, but when he attempts it the skin over his back is pulled harshly and several sets of hands snag his bruised wrists. However, the person manhandling him drops their hold with a surprised curse. Hawks nearly eats shit against the corner of the table, barely catching himself with the help of the other hands, and his back is screaming at him, but he’s standing almost on his own and nobody’s really grabbing him anymore.

Hooray for small victories.

The small victory is short lived as he’s hauled fully onto the table anyway and his automatic thrashing is quickly subdued by bruising holds on his limbs. He still jerks and bucks, but he can’t do much and everything hurts anyway and he doesn’t know what he did wrong and for all his pleading they still won’t tell him, not even his handler-

And then suddenly he doesn’t really exist.

It’s not great, but Hawks can recognize it when he checks out of his body like it's a cheap hotel room; he can feel himself go limp, his breaths evening out, his eyelids falling halfway shut as his heart rate slows. He watches from outside his own body as he his back is taken care of, bandaged oh so carefully, like the league of villains actually gives a fuck. The bruises are poked at with gentle fingers, but apparently it's decided that there's nothing that can be done for them. His body is loose and ready for pain, which is probably why it tenses as the hands leave him and suddenly small fingers dive into his hair, larger ones into his wings, and four fingers simply rest on the inside of his left wrist, where the bruising is arguably worse. After several moments of what seems to be poorly timed grooming, Hawks is feeling himself sink rapidly back into his body, trying to quell shivers at the unnaturally gentle touches. If the way that the petting slowly stops is any indication, he doesn’t really do a good job. Fuck. Fingers clench in the feathers of his left wing as he tries to throw himself off of the table, causing him to not get as far and slam his hip into it so hard that his leg goes numb, and he doesn’t get far before he’s dragged back. This time he stays put.

His fingers grip the edge of the table so hard that his knuckles turn white, but Hawks flat out refuses to break eye-contact with Dabi, who looks equal parts annoyed and relieved to see him on the fucking table. Hawks just levels him with a blank stare before slowly pushing himself up and sitting, still on the table. The rest of the league seems ready to restrain him at any point, like he’s a flight risk. Jokes on them, Hawks isn’t sure that he could fly without fucking up his back even more.

“What the fuck happened, Hawks?” Shigaraki asks tiredly, sounding like he’s simply out of fucks to give and he forgot to get more from the store.

“Would you believe me if I said zip-lining?” Hawks quips, taking advantage of his distraction and sliding off of the table, being careful not to strain his back too badly. The flight home, if he could even manage to get himself off the ground, was going to suck. Shigaraki scoffs at his answer, looking ready to dust him then and there out of the sheer convenience of never having to deal with this shit again. Spinner leans towards him, looking ready to help at a moment's notice, a movement that Twice copies on his other side. As if Hawks was going to collapse like a swooning maiden or an elderly man on a frozen pond. Jerkily waving his hand in a dismissive gesture, the hero begins his slow inching towards the door, throwing an easy smile at the others in the room. “I mean, have you guys seen those things, they’re death traps man-” Spinner stops him.

“Who got you, Hawks? Surely if you were missing for too long we would have known.” He sounds so reasonable, and just concerned enough that Hawks almost spits it out, almost makes up some lie about being captured just so he doesn’t have to explain that he’d deserved it. But everyone is looking at him, and his proud posture wilts, his wings curling around his shoulders in an effort to hide him as he stops his slow trip to what he assumes is a door that leads outside. This job depends on a lot of trust; if Hawks can’t even admit why he was bleeding out from his back, then he can’t expect to be trusted, or to be let in on actual meetings. Honestly, at this point the only thing holding him back is his own selfish pride, and good heroes- good people, even- aren’t supposed to have that. So he sighs, and repeats what he’d told Dabi when he’d first asked,

“I was at the Hero Public Safety Commission due to a stupid mistake I made-”

“He wasn’t missing at all then!” Toga interrupts, looking like she caught him doing something incriminating. Twice immediately launches into an argument about interrupting people or something. Hawks isn’t sure what they're going on about, but as long as he doesn’t have to actually explain anything more, he’s fine with being talked over. Spinner and Shigaraki are watching the debate like a tennis match, looking anxious and annoyed respectively. Dabi seems to have decided that nothing is worth his time and just left. Only Kurogiri is still looking at Hawks, who can’t bring himself to make eye contact. “Finish speaking,” he coaxes softly. Hawks glances around and sees that everyone else was still sucked into either debating or spectating said debate. So he does.

“I was- I don’t even know, careless? I had to be, uh,” Hawks shifts his hands through the air as if grasping for the right word,”-punished,” he finishes weakly, having a stare-down with the floor. Kurogiri seems to quietly mull this over. “You don’t seem the type to be careless-” and Hawks wants to cry in relief that that's what the other decided to focus on. Not the fact that he was bad enough to need correction, not that the correction has happened at all. Just a mild refutation is the best thing that could have come out of this. Everything crashes and burns half a second later, when Dabi suddenly appears two feet from his face, like a goddamned ghost here to fuck him over.

“Because he fuckin’ isn’t,” Dabi growls out. There’s fire in the villain’s eyes as he just glowers broodingly at Hawks, and the hero can’t even look away because he’s, like, almost positive that Dabi knows too much, like he somehow heard more than what Hawks actually said. The debate had apparently ended, and now everyone’s staring at him with emotions ranging from confusion to anger, and he doesn’t really know what to say. Dabi’s mouth drops open again, and Hawks can’t let that happen, so he pushes onward.

“I don’t even remember why, okay?” Hawks defends, turning his gaze away to look at a far wall. “It just helps me get better-”. And all at once, everyone explodes.

“What the fuck, Hawks-”

“How long-”

“What does that even mean-”

Hawks takes baby steps backwards, getting closer and closer to the door, as everyone continues to get loud and look at each other for answers. Well, almost everybody; Dabi is watching him limp away with an unimpressed expression.

“Those are torture wounds,” Shigaraki points out, crossing his arms and leveling Hawks with a dead-eyed stare.

“How do you even know what torture wounds look like?” Hawks mindlessly throws back as he continues to plan his escape. Shigaraki looks at him with raised eyebrows until Hawks looks away again, feeling like an idiot. These people are villains, he knows that (but its so easy to forget-).

“Right, fuck.”

Hawks flicks him a two fingered salute before turning tail like the coward he feels like and making for the door. He doesn't get more than four feet before Dabi grabs him by one of his wings and yanks him back.

“Sit the fuck down, hero,” growls Dabi as he all but drags Hawks back int the main part of the room. It’s almost like being put on display, or up for auction; everyone, including Toga, is just… staring at him. His voice itches to crack jokes about his looks and flash photography, but the frown on Twice’s face is kinda stopping that train before it leaves the station. The mood of the room has dropped drastically, going from tense to almost... sad in a soft way. Hawks doesn’t really understand it when Toga quickly pulls him to her, not being as careful as she should be with his back but he can appreciate the effort. He still lacks that same understanding when Twice joins the hug, arguing to himself too low for Hawks to hear; it's something about Hawks being too thin, and that being rude to say.

(Honestly, it wasn't the first time someone had said it, but Hawks was never quite sure how to explain that he needs food that the commission says he doesn't. The stuff they feed him is normal for people without a predatory bird quirk, and it makes him sick if he has too much. He convinces himself that it's the reason that he's so fast.)

It almost feels like he’s drowning all over again. He hadn't even done anything to deserve the affection, the concern, and it was slowly taking his world apart because nothing was given for free, not to him. When he manages to pull himself together enough to not just stare blankly over the shoulders in his vision, his eyes find Kurogiri, who looks at him consideringly before deciding, “You’re remarkably similar to us, Hawks.” And Hawks, a hero, raised with every opportunity that he could hope to have, fed regularly, saves people, Hawks-

Somehow, he doesn’t feel like that assessment is wrong.

From the jerky nod Dabi gives, Spinner’s little smile, and the slightly less creepy stare he gets from Shigaraki, they seem to agree.

The villain sandwich he’s found himself in has become less of a hug and more of a hold; and Hawks can’t actually remember the last time he was just held. So he allows his eyes to slide shut, allows himself to raise his hands and clutch at the two who only hold on together. He tries not to enjoy it too much, lest he get too used to it- but it can’t hurt to enjoy it while it lasts. He may never get this again, and he wonders briefly what will happen after he lets go. As luck would have it, and because Dabi apparently has a radar for this kind of thing, the moment is ruined a few short breathes later when the flame villain demands for an explanation.

And Hawks, despite all his training not to, shatters.

And so he tells them;

He tells them about saving people from a car crash and getting sold to the commission for it. He tells them about how he learned not to cry in the first week. He tells them about the cosmetic surgery, about the weeks spent in agony while training on new feet, about how often he forgets his own name, how it was legally changed. He admits to years of everything being kept from him, of being harshly punished, of the leering stares, of the constant threats for more cosmetic surgery held over his head like a guillotine’s blade-

And he feels both like he’s free and like he’s only fulfilling the tale of Icarus when he tells them he’s a spy.

Dabi just snorts while Kurogiri solemnly nods, “we know.”

Hawks feels his eyes grow wide, his breath stuttering in his chest, “you knew?”

Dabi looks at him incredulously, “of course we knew. Why the fuck else would you only be invited to Monopoly night?”

And Hawks can choke out a laugh, but that’s the last of his air. He starts falling apart for the second time in ten minutes, his wings shake harshly as they curl over him, and Dabi looks at him like he’s crazy before mild panic coupled with realization slides over his face and he reaches out. Hawks is shaking against a wall twenty feet away between one second and the next, and he’s sliding down it because he can’t keep his knees strong enough to support him. He knows he looks pathetic, hell, he feels pathetic- but that doesn’t change anything. He’s failed his mission, his cover is blown, and he’s probably going to die here where nobody will find his body for weeks- maybe even months. He’s curled against the wall, his side pressed to it and his feathers aren't obeying his desperate attempts to get them to respond, to get rid of the threats in the room because they’re going to kill him, and even if he gets away he’s dead-

The commission has no use for disobedient heroes who blow their own cover.

A hand reaches past his feather walls and his stupid bird brain just grabs it tightly, latching on to something that’s going to kill him like it will be what saves him. He clutches at it like a lifeline, and it barely keeps him just floating away. Everything is too bright, too loud, too fucking much right now- Hawks can feel a high whine coming from his throat, and can barely hear a low voice telling people to, “leave, get the fuck out,” as shoes shift against the floor next to him. The voice sends vibrations against his sensitive feathers, each one a raw nerve ending, and the tears build up in his useless eyes again at the stimulation. It doesn’t hurt, and that makes him untense bit by bit, but it still feels far too rough. The skin under his gloveless (when had they been taken off-) fingertips is rough, and probably being stabbed into with his sharp nails hard enough to make most people jerk their hands back or try to pry him off. But this hand, and the wrist attached to it, doesn’t jerk or pull. It just allows Hawks to hold it, and it’s the only thing that can hold his focus.

And so he’s left here, staring at harsh purple scars that are held to the healthy skin with shiny staples that still glint in the limited light of his wings. Minutes or hours could be passing, he doesn't know. Time feels irrelevant and fluid. Something brushes against his left wing, straightening the ruffled feathers, and Hawks can only gasp and lean into the offered comfort. He begins to count time passed according to the rate of fingers running through his feathers, and having that control helps. When Hawks can uncurl himself enough, he sees Dabi, crouched next to him and carding his free hand through the messy red feathers that cover his wing that isn’t currently trapped against the wall. Dabi peers at him through the small crack in his defenses and hums, “hey there, pretty bird.” Hawks chokes on another laugh at the nickname, but this time his lungs are able to refill afterwards and he just breathes. It’s fine; it doesn’t look like Dabi really minds his lack of response as he continues to let Hawks hold his wrist. His eyes never leave the calm teal of Dabi’s as he’s slowly brought out of his wings, just as Dabi’s hand never strays from his wing. Soon enough, he feels okay enough to slowly attempt to relax his grip, to force himself to let go, and huffs a breath of relief when his fingers stiffly follow his directions. Dabi takes his, now free, hand and immediately shoves it into the feathers of Hawks’ other wing, which requires some shifting but when they finally manage it Hawks very nearly chirps. He’s never had anyone take care of his wings without reason; sometimes, if he had to go somewhere important, the Commission would do it, but it was always harsh and they used hairspray to keep them looking nice. Brushing hairspray out of his feathers took hours every time it happened, and it hurt.

So when Dabi just stays there, slowly tracing the bones of his wings and just preening him, it feels so nice that it’s almost unreal.

When the first little chirp makes it past his lips, Hawks doesn’t even notice at first. It's only after Dabi’s pause that he flushes with embarrassment. He feels his face burn as he just stares at the ground in front of him, and he can feel Dabi’s stare on the back of his head as he asks, “you chirp?” He stresses the word, like he can’t believe what he heard, and when Hawks chances a glance over his shoulder Dabi meets his eyes and his face is priceless. Hawks, feeling a lot better now, lets out a slow and obviously sarcastic chirp in response. Dabi retaliates by pulling him further from the wall and carding his hands through the feathers again. The closer he gets to where the wings connect to Hawks’ back, the more frequent the chirps get, which Dabi quickly realizes and immediately exploits to his best ability.

By the time Dabi removes his hands, Hawks feels like a puddle of hollow bones and fluffy feathers. He groans in protest when Dabi hauls them both up from the ground, his stiff legs wanting to give out but reluctantly supporting his weight. Dabi hands him his halter top, and he pulls it on over the bandages that wrap around his chest, for once unconcerned with how it might look. A hand snags his wrist as he goes to leave, and his breath catches when Dabi calls out, “Where do you think you’re going.” It’s not even a question, just a gentle reprimand, and Hawks feels himself relax again.

“My apartment?” He tries, cringing at the look Dabi throws his way. “We live here.” It’s an offer as much as it is just a flippant reminder, and Hawks isn’t really sure what he’s supposed to do with the information. His cluelessness must show on his face, because Dabi just rolls his eyes and starts walking to a different door with Hawks slowly following behind him.

“There’s no way this is your base,” Hawks defends, hoping that he doesn’t sound as lost to the villain as he does to his own ears.

“No,” Dabi concedes, not turning around and not stopping his long strides, “it’s not.”

A shit-eating grin spreads on his face as he turns and leans in, “the base is next door.” And Hawks can feel the way his jaw drops in disbelief. Dabi stretches like a cat, looking pleased, before gesturing for Hawks to follow him.

“Welcome to the family, birdie.”

## Afterword

End Notes

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