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When Dabi followed Hawks right into his apartment after an absolute disaster of a day, the most Hawks could muster to say to him was, “Wow, so you can come inside via the front door! Good to know.”
Kicking the door closed behind him, Dabi shook melting snow from his black hair like a dog dispelling water. “Laugh it up, Chicken Nugget. Maybe I’ll break your door next time I visit,” he drawled with a perfect mixture of amusement and seriousness so Hawks wasn’t sure if it was a joke or a threat. Funny how that was proving to be one of the hardest parts of Hawks’ espionage mission: figuring out a pyromaniac’s sense of humor.
The storm outside had fallen like a load of bricks, and even as Hawks darted over to turn up the thermostat, he felt chilled to the bone. It was already difficult to think, but he did his best to keep up his usual level of witty humor - the best weapon against Dabi’s worrisome mix of morbid humor and unpredictable temper. “Or you could, you know, call ahead like a normal human being.” Which Dabi didn’t. Ever. Ever since Hawks had been tentatively accepted into the League of Villains, he’d been subjected to Dabi appearing more or less whenever he liked - usually to call Hawks in for a meeting. It kept Hawks almost constantly on edge, and honestly he didn’t sleep well never knowing when he might need to attend a meeting... but at least Dabi hadn’t set him on fire yet. That counted as a win, right? “Doors and cell phones - those seem to be the things that you’re allergic to.”
“Whereas you’re clearly allergic to shutting up,” Dabi opined, stripping his coat off and dropping it in a snow-encrusted heap on Hawks’ floor, “and sensible coats.” Pale blue eyes lifted to look Hawks over, one unimpressed eyebrow rising pointedly. “Does that fluffy thing even keep you warm? Or is everything about you just for looks?”
Hawks ignored the dig about everything about him being for looks, because part of it was true: the Commission had explained to Hawks early on in his life that looks mattered, and he knew that appearances were as much weapons as his feathers or Dabi’s fire. So yeah, he did and tolerated a lot of things for looks. His coat was not one of those things. “What’s wrong with my coat?” he groused dramatically, even as he followed Dabi’s example and shrugged out of it. At that point he had to admit that he was shivering pretty badly, though, because when he dropped the article of clothing, it was purely an accident. Dabi raised his eyebrow harder, point clearly made. “Hey, my coat did everything it could - it’s just fucking cold out there,” Hawks grumped defensively as he toed off his shoes and got a bit more desperate to rid himself of all the sogginess and snow on him. It had started out as such a nice day: out on patrol, the weather wintry but mild.
Then everything had gone to shit. He’d spent the last hour fighting Dabi and Twice, a task that would have been difficult under the best of circumstances, but was even worse because Dabi and Twice were supposed to think that Hawks was a turncoat, a hero gone bad - but everyone else still had to think that Hawks was a pure-hearted hero. That’s what Hawks had signed up for when he accepted this mission, of course - that fine line between traitor and loyalist - but it didn’t make his day any less shitty. Then the blizzard had rolled in. Thankfully, the snow had sort of cut the fight short, and when everyone had scattered to find some warmth, he’d realized that Dabi had inconspicuously stuck to his side. Probably because the League’s hideout was further away than Hawks’ place. Dabi was lazy that way.
Only once he was in the laundry room and stripping out of his hero uniform (god, he hated this shirt, it was such a bitch to pull off over his wings, but the Commission liked the way it showed off his frame) did Hawks realize that he’d just left a villain unsupervised in his living room. The prospect of getting warm and dry was too much to resist, though, and Hawks was a bird in more ways than just the wings - he also had a habit of slipping into torpor when he was too cold. It was fucking inconvenient and the Commission had helped train him to overcome it when he was small, but he could still feel the pull of it, making all of him sluggish. This was why he usually tried to avoid getting this cold, but today he hadn’t been careful enough. He most certainly would not be ranked as the fastest hero now, in his current condition. Once he’d kicked off everything but his boxers, however, he was able to reach for new clothes right out of the dryer - they weren’t warm, but at least he’d run the damn thing so they were dry. Tugging on sweatpants and a tank-top that felt blessedly loose compared to his hero uniform, Hawks let out a shameless groan of relief. His wings were still a bit soggy with melted snow, but as much as he wanted to just let all of his feathers drop loose so that they could air out, he had enough sense to know that he couldn’t do that with Dabi in the apartment.
With that thought just barely holding firm in his head, Hawks then staggered zombie-like to the kitchen and the kettle. Warm liquid, that’s what he needed, before his bird-tendencies made him fall asleep. He gave his wings a few flaps to speed up the drying process and try to work some warmth into his body.
Dabi was still there, but at least he hadn’t burned anything down. He had commandeered one of the blankets on Hawk’s sofa, though, and was curled up under it and watching Hawks with eyes that dared him to comment.
Which Hawks did, because even torpor wasn’t enough to shut him up: “You look like a burrito with hair.”
Steam was coming up from under the blankets, and Hawks distantly wondered if the only thing keeping the material from catching fire was the fact that Dabi was still rather wet. “And you’re an exhibitionist. You didn’t even close the door to the laundry room when you were dressing, birdbrain.”
Dabi had actually seen Hawks in various states of undress already, from other times when he’d broken in unannounced. The most memorable event so far had included Hawks sprawled out in bed and drooling on his pillow. The whole encounter had actually been terrifying, reminding Hawks of how vulnerable he could be, but dwelling on it helped no one. “That’s what you get for following me home,” Hawks shot back, adding a slight lilt to his words to show exactly how few fucks he gave, “It’s my damn house and I reserve the right to leave doors open whenever I want to. So there.” Brain still cold and foggy even if his mouth was moving pretty fast, Hawks focused on making his way to the kettle. He winced a bit as he walked, but not for any alarming reason - he already knew that he hadn’t gotten much more than bruises from the recent fight, and the pain he was feeling now was an old companion of sorts. The bones of his feet always ached in the cold. “So, are you planning on steaming yourself to perfection in that blanket, my dumpling friend?”
This time Dabi just responded with a noise that could have been a huff of annoyance or a grunt of equanimity and acceptance. It was hard to parse out. Dabi was hard to parse out. Hawks had spent just about every encounter with the pyro from day one wondering if Dabi was going to accept him as an ally or roast him alive, and both options seemed equally likely even after nearly a month of Hawks seemingly working for the League of Villains. Hawks fed the League information about the Commission and got to sit in on meetings, and day by day the League seemed to trust his lies more and more - and yet Dabi still looked at him with that flat, emotionally unencumbered expression that said he could kill Hawks without blinking. For someone with a fire Quirk, Dabi could come across as incredibly cold-blooded.
That thought - that reminder of who he was sharing space with, of who he was playing games with - got Hawks to focus just a little. He swallowed and did his best to push back the torpor a bit more, telling his bird instincts to fuck off for a moment because he couldn’t afford to take a nap right now. He was still on the clock, still working. Matching wits with the League’s arguably most destructive member was part of the job right now. “So, you want some tea?” he switched topics to ask something purposefully harmless instead. He shifted his weight as he stood by the sink, easing the ache in first one foot and then the other. Out of habit, he didn’t look down, because the scars were always the same and didn’t get better with him staring at them. “Or coffee?”
“It’s 8 pm, idiot. If either of us drinks coffee now, we won’t sleep until tomorrow,” came Dabi’s long-suffering answer. A glance showed that his head was out from under the blanket now, although the rest of him was still enshrouded. His hair had a fluffy, dry look, and Hawks had a moment of purely reflexive jealousy as he wished that he could dry off that efficiently.
“Good to know your fire-Quirk is good for more than property damage and murder,” Hawks’ mouth said without his permission. Damn. The Commission would be so disappointed in him right now - he could just imagine his handler’s expression, watching as his mouth jumped ahead of his cold-fogged brain. When Dabi’s eyebrows drew together in an eloquent, ‘ What the fuck are you talking about? ’ expression, Hawks made a vague gesture Dabi’s way and elaborated, “You dried yourself off.” It wasn’t his most articulate statement, but it got his point across. The Commission had told him a million times that he couldn’t just jump from idea to idea, that even if it made sense to him, it made him look like an idiot to others unless he organized his thoughts into a pattern that was simple and digestible. Unfortunately, it was hard to order his thoughts into a sensible conversation when his brain was still trying its damnedest to go into a state of semi-hibernation. “It’s kinda impressive, in a non-deadly way.”
The whistling of the kettle boiling saved Hawks from more ineffective verbal acrobatics. Without thinking, he made up two mugs, dumping the first tea bags he could find into them. He wedged the sugar container under his arm and managed to make his way to the couch without either dropping something or tripping. His brain was still too foggy to be properly anxious as he sat down on the other side of the sofa from Dabi, and even if his brain had been sharper, it would have merely reminded him that this was hardly the closest that they’d ever been. They’d sat next to each other at League meetings, after all, while Hawks perfectly impersonated a hero-gone-darkside.
Wordlessly, Hawks handed over one mug. Dabi, with merely another grunt of noise, took it. “No idea what flavor it is,” Hawks warned even as he proceeded to dump frankly obscene amounts of sugar into his mug. His metabolism was intense - another side-effect of his Quirk - and since he couldn’t exactly start scarfing raw meat with Dabi there, he’d settle for simple sugars. It wasn’t what his prey-bird body really wanted, but it would do for now, to balance out his energy levels a bit. Usually adding sugar to his body also helped pull him out of torpor.
Dabi watched with both eyebrows rising higher with each spoonful. “Are you trying to put yourself in a sugar coma?” he eventually deadpanned.
“Hey, I burned a lot of energy, give me a break, dude!” Hawks protested, but finally deemed that he had enough sugar when it stopped actually dissolving into his tea, maximum solubility reached. Not even bothering to take the spoon out, he cradled the mug in both hands and started slurping, barely slowing down when it burned his tongue a little. The warmth was heavenly, and he let out another moan like the one he’d emitted in the laundry room.
The wind howled louder outside. The snowstorm was in full force now.
The next few minutes were either peaceful or at least too uninteresting for Hawks’ sluggish brain to care, as he focused on the warmth of the tea to the exclusion of all else. He was vaguely aware that Dabi was there, and that he should be paying more attention to him, but his brain simply refused to maintain that level of alertness until Hawks had thawed out a bit more. It was only once he’d emptied his mug and blinked a few times at the realization that the spoon was poking his cheek and had nearly taken his eye out a few times, and also, ‘ Fuck, I’ve just been sitting here with my guard down. ’
Hawks looked over sharply at Dabi, wings bristling reflexively with a sharp rustle against the couch.
But Dabi hadn’t moved and nothing appeared to have been set on fire. While Hawks spent a few moments having an existential crisis about his own temporary loss of survival instincts, Dabi merely took a slow sip of his own tea and then broke the quiet to ask, “What the fuck happened to your feet?”
And for the first time Hawks realized that he wasn’t wearing socks.
Dabi already knew more about Hawks’ personal life than Hawks had honestly wanted to share with him: Dabi knew that Hawks preferred wearing women’s tank tops when he was home alone, because they were naturally shaped to allow for wings - Dabi knew that Hawks slept almost exclusively on his stomach with pillows piled around him so he could drape his wings atop them like the edges of a nest. Dabi even knew that the marks around Hawks’ eyes were part of his Quirk and not make-up, after startling Hawks awake in the middle of the night. After Hawks had gotten over his initial alarm and had stopped trying to kill the blue-eyed intruder, Dabi - hands held upwards in a parody of harmlessness - had said only, “How do you keep your eyeliner from smudging?”
Standing poised with a detached primary feather sharp and ready in each hand, Hawks had stood tense for a moment longer… then had let go of the adrenaline and anger in a rush of breath and a sighed, “What the fuck, Dabi?” Accepting that he didn’t need to fight for his life, Hawks had sat down on his bed and explained that he’d been born with the marks and that they were not, in fact, cosmetic. They helped cut down on glare when he was flying on sunny days.
Dabi had accepted this with nothing more than a slow blink and an unreadable, “Huh,” and had then proceeded to inform Hawks that they had to get moving or they’d be late. Shigaraki had called a meeting.
Even in that encounter, though, Hawks had had socks on. This was mostly to do with the fact that he hated it when his feet got cold - like now. But even when cold wasn’t a factor, Hawk’s feet were one part of his body that he scrupulously hid from observing eyes, for the plain and simple fact that they were honestly quite hideous.
Hawks followed Dabi’s eyes involuntarily now, looking down to where his heavily scarred toes flexed against the carpet. No toenails, but then again he’d never had typical human toenails. He’d been born with raptor talons to match his wings, but the Commission had made the executive decision early on that those traits were alienating and contrary to the image they wanted to build. Hawks’ memories of the amputations and reconstructive surgeries that had followed were… foggy at best. It was quite possible that he’d blocked out the finer details, for his own sanity. He could see the result at a glance any time he wanted, of course: feet that were now human-shaped but with pale lines of scar tissue showing where surgeons had reached in to rearrange his bones, his toes looking blunt and strange with no nail at the end and instead more scar tissue. The Commission had been deeply disappointed that the end result was so unappealing, but they’d mollified themselves by stating that at least the shape of his feet looked ‘correct’ when he was wearing socks. They then told Hawks to wear socks as much as possible, because even his handler - who’d been with him throughout the entire process and therefore knew what his feet had looked like beforehand - made a face of disgust every time she saw Hawks’ feet.
The few times that anyone had seen Hawks’ disfigured feat uncovered, the responses had been largely the same. The failure of the surgeries was probably why they simply clipped the talons on his hands regularly instead of removing them, too - they still had a slightly bulky look, but it was far less noticeable than the horror that was Hawks’ feet.
Either not noticing Hawks’ mortified expression or not caring, Dabi went on when no answer was immediately forthcoming, “I mean, I saw you limping around from basically the moment you got inside. That doesn’t look new, though.” He gestured with his mug towards Hawks’ feet, but overall neither looked nor sounded especially concerned.
A bit numbly (and not from the cold this time), Hawks answered on reflex, “They ache in the cold.”
Dabi raised an eyebrow, perhaps noting that Hawks wasn’t as chatty as usual. Usually, Hawks had a habit of driving the people around him insane with his words - sometimes accidentally but often on purpose. The Commission had a harder time controlling what he said on a day-to-day basis than they had, say, controlling how his Quirk had been expressed in his body since birth. Feeling a tightening sensation around his chest as if a metal band were constricting around it, Hawks tried to come up with a more witty response - something that would allow him to pass this all off as normal. Somehow. Unfortunately, even though the torpor was lifting in response to the warmth and sugar intake, all Hawks could do was stare at his disfigured feet and tighten his grip on his mug.
“Soooooo an old injury then? You’re not giving me much, birdie,” Dabi said with a resigned sort of exasperation. It wasn’t a new look: Hawks’ handlers gave it to him all the time. What was new was that Dabi left it at that, leaning over to put his mug down and then shrug, “Fine. It’s not like I can judge a guy for having secrets. Now give me that mug before you break it.”
When Dabi snapped his fingers near Hawks’ clenched hands, the hero jumped, not realizing how wound up he was until his wings flared awkwardly against the couch. Dabi didn’t look impressed, and just kept his hand out - a hand that, to Hawks’ chagrin, was very much not threatening and not on fire. Unfortunately, this brought up a new problem.
Hawks couldn’t let go of the mug.
Fighting the urge to swear and melt into the couch in pure embarrassment, Hawks silently asked whatever gods were out there if this was just a day to test out all the embarrassing side-effects of Hawks’ Quirk. Because for all that he was the #2 Hero, he honestly had an incredibly inconvenient Quirk - something that drove the Commission up a wall. They’d done their best to help him manage the less convenient parts of his Quirk, like removing his toe-talons and then regularly allowing him to come in and get the ones on his hands neatly trimmed and buffed, but some things they just couldn’t physically remove. Like the torpor. And like the stress-grip that currently had Hawks’ hands clenching down around his mug so hard that if it had been a prey-animal, it would most certainly have been dead. Training since childhood meant that usually these traits didn’t come up, but today had been a hard day and usually home meant he could be himself, so nothing was going in Hawks’ favor.
Glad at least that his brain was more awake now, Hawks pulled the mug in closer and tried to flash a reassuring, relaxed smile. “I think I’ll hold onto it a bit longer,” he waved Dabi off as blithely as possible. “Don’t worry, hot stuff, I don’t break my own things.” Which was a blatant lie, as Hawks had definitely broken things in his own house before - either with an unexpected stress-grip or a careless flare of his wings. Thankfully, he’d bought extra-sturdy mugs a while back to avoid the former issue, so this one would hold up beneath his grip.
Anxiety made Hawks’ hands spasm.
He thought he heard a creak beneath his palms.
Okay, maybe the mug was in more danger than he thought.
Regardless of the danger to the mug, there was simply no way that Hawks would be able to relinquish it to Dabi. Even if he felt like explaining the humiliating issue (that whenever he was anxious his hands just clenched and wouldn’t loosen until he calmed down), which he most certainly didn’t, Hawks was pretty sure that Dabi wouldn’t be much help. Short of the villain burning Hawks’ hands right off, he wouldn’t be any more capable of prying the mug out of Hawks’ grip than his handlers had ever been. They’d broken two of his fingers the last time it had happened, and Hawks still wasn’t sure if that had been an accident or if they’d expected that outcome. Either way, Hawks had let go, and that had been the last time he’d stress-gripped in front of anyone from the Commission.
Thinking back to that occasion - about four years ago - with a wince, Hawks didn’t realize that he was spacing out until suddenly he felt a hand, a very warm hand, around his ankle. He yelped, but at the same time that Hawks noticed the invasion of personal space, Dabi was lifting Hawks’ foot off the floor and pulling it up closer. With his hands unavoidably occupied, his balance momentarily disrupted, and the sofa getting in the way of his wings, Hawks squawked, “Dabi, what the fuck?!” and flailed. Thankfully, his mug was empty, or he’d have spilled it everywhere as he tried to cope with the situation.
Dabi had pulled Hawks’ right foot up far enough that Hawks had to swivel on the couch; when the hero tried to kick with his other foot, Dabi just grabbed it in his other hand. Hawks scowled.
“Stop being such a dramatic princess,” Dabi accused, “It’s not like I’m hurting you.”
“No, you’re just grabbing my feet like a weirdo!” Hawks shot back. When he tried to kick free again, Dabi just gave another tug on both of Hawks’ ankles, causing the hero to slide down the couch without warning. Being a bird, Hawks was actually lighter than he looked - slightly hollow bones for flying - and even if he wasn’t, Dabi was strong . “I don’t know what kind of shitty game you’re playing, Dabi, but I swear-” Hawks warned, flaring his wings threateningly as much as he could with his right one wedged between himself and the back of the couch. At the back of his mind, Hawks was hearing the stern words of his handlers, reminding him that he needed to be making friends with the League’s members, and that more than anything had him biting his tongue and holding back his frustration. Telling himself that he was holding back because of the mission, and also because Dabi was in a position to set his feet on fire, Hawks glared but otherwise resisted the urge to send any razor-keen feathers Dabi’s way.
“There’s no need to give me that look,” Dabi sniped back, glancing up through his messy bangs to give Hawks quite a look in return. “I’m trying to be helpful, dammit.”
“How is this helpful? I nearly fell off the couch!” Hawks protested, quite logically, he thought.
Dabi took his time to answer, and initially seemed to be ignoring the question entirely as he adjusted his grip to more securely trap Hawks’ ankles. He was looking down in apparent concentration at Hawks’ feet, and the #2 Hero felt his cheeks heating up in humiliation at the close scrutiny. He had a very real urge to detach a few feathers and skewer Dabi with them, because a fight seemed preferable to this - and through it all, his hands just clenched harder around the mug. ‘ At this rate, ’ he thought fatalistically to himself, ‘ I’ll not be letting go of it before next week .’
“You caught yourself,” was Dabi’s belated and half-assed rebuttal to the almost-falling remark.
“You still haven’t said how it’s helpful for you to stare at my feet,” Hawks pointed out anyway, hunching down against the arm of the couch. He somehow rallied enough good humor to joke, “Unless you’ve got some sort of foot fetish I haven’t heard about until now.” When Dabi raised his eyes to give Hawks a withering look, the hero shrugged and went on as if Dabi had said ‘no’, “In that case, your fascination with my scarred toes is completely beyond me. Unless you’re just trying to be annoying - which, to be fair, is pretty on-brand for you.”
“Hawks, shut up. I told you, I’m-”
“Trying to be helpful - yes, you said,” Hawks sighed, looking away because watching his own feet in Dabi’s grip was making him steadily more uncomfortable. In fact, he was starting to feel sick with embarrassment. He tried to release the mug, but his anxiety was still far too high for his stress-grip to have slackened. “But I think that’s one of those things that only makes sense in your head.”
“Maybe if you shut your mouth for a full minute, you’d figure it out,” Dabi said laconically, then shifted again - this time pulling Hawks’ right leg in closer, until the hero’s foot was pressed up against Dabi’s torso. “Move your foot and I’ll roast you like a rotisserie chicken,” was Dabi’s threat, and while it sounded half-hearted at best, Hawks still didn’t argue with it, because his brain was currently occupied with the incredible sensation of warmth now seeping into the sole of his foot. He’d always had good reason to suspect that Dabi ran hot, but outside of the occasional grip of Dabi’s hands, this hadn’t actually been proven - now, though, Hawks felt like he’d just pressed up against a hot water bottle, and it was soothing in the extreme. The cold bones of his feet felt like they thawed out instantly, and Hawks’ eyes went wide in honest shock.
And he did indeed shut up.
For a moment, Dabi kept one hand curled over the back of Hawks’ right foot, ensuring that it stayed in place - he was watching Hawks’ face, though, and something in the shocked expression there must have been what he was hoping for. The pyro gave a little pleased sort of grunt, then let go, now turning his attention to Hawks’ other foot.
“What are you doing?” Hawks finally squeaked, in a voice so soft that he barely recognized it as his. He’d never felt so off-balance and oddly vulnerable in his life - or at least since he was just a child, new in the Commission’s clutches - and he didn’t know what to do about it. This was different even than when Commission had first started teaching him that he just couldn’t go around chirping and trilling - he just wasn’t sure if this current situation with Dabi could be categorized as better or worse than that memory.
Predictably, Dabi just grunted, “Told you already,” but his voice was softer than before, and this time instead of just staring at Hawks’ poorly-healed foot, he tightened his grip on it and pressed his thumbs into the arch. All the while, the rest of his very warm fingers curled around the long bones on the back of Hawks’ foot, and the sudden heat and pressure were so nice and Hawks more or less melted on the spot. It was only with supreme effort that Hawks choked back an obscene noise, although he wasn’t able to fight the way his muscles slackened, head falling back against the arm of the sofa.
Dabi worked his thumbs in a bit harder, moving them up Hawks’ foot as he went. He was methodical, and even when Hawks pulled himself together enough to notice that Dabi was about to grasp his hideous, toenail-less toes, Dabi merely firmed up his grip so that the jerk of Hawks’ leg didn’t amount to anything. Left foot still trapped and right foot held in place against Dabi’s chest by threat of burning, Hawks swallowed thickly and sunk a bit deeper into the couch. Panic was still a sizzling, acrid taste in the back of his mouth, but he forgot his anxiety for a moment when Dabi called up his Quirk a bit - just enough that Hawks could feel the pyro’s body heat up more where they touched. The warmth sank in deeper, and Hawks gave up on hiding his poor damaged feet.
Dabi seemed determined to massage the ache and cold out of them. His hands were strong, and while Hawks usually would have found that unsettling, he now couldn’t bring himself to care. His left wing sagged to the floor and his right wing flopped over onto his chest, relaxing even as he felt the bones of his feet rolling and shifting with the push of Dabi’s fingers, thumbs, and sometimes the heel of his hand. And all the while, Hawks could feel the almost-burn of Dabi’s Quirk, as if he were trapping his usual flames right beneath the skin so they couldn’t quite scorch anything. Any hotter and it would have been painful.
When Dabi released Hawks’ left foot, the #2 Hero made a mewl of protest, opening eyes that had fallen closed without him noticing. “Don’t fuss, chicken, I’m just switching to your other foot,” Dabi berated mildly, and did indeed move to grab Hawks’ other foot - while pointedly pressing Hawks’ well-warmed left foot up against his stomach. Now it was Hawks’ other foot that could feel the flexion of unnaturally hot muscles through Dabi’s shirt, as the villain shifted a little to get more comfortable. “You sure you don’t wanna tell me what this is all about?” he drawled, watching Hawks’ face now but nodding pointedly down towards his disfigured appendages.
The comfort of having his right foot pressed against Dabi’s fever-hot body was nothing compared to the ministrations of his hands, and Hawks was pretty sure his eyes crossed with the first hard squeeze of heated fingers around his heel. “Don’t wanna talk about it,” Hawks mumbled, eyes half-closed.
“What, you think I’m gonna judge you for a few scars?” Dabi asked, and for the first time Hawks realized who he was talking to: arguably the most scarred individual he’d ever met. Dabi even lifted a hand then to trace a finger down the seam of skin that ran from his ear down to the corner of his mouth, mottled, reddish scar tissue far worse than Hawks’ alongside the pale, healthy skin of Dabi’s cheek and upper lip. “Hiding scars from me is stupid,” Dabi declared with his usual uncompromising bluntness, like he was stating a foregone fact, “Because I don’t give a fuck about scars. Obviously.”
Feeling that he’d somehow offended Dabi without even trying, Hawks flushed and shifted his weight again - then glowered at his hands, which were still clenched around his mug. They’d loosened quite a bit, but the stress-grip was being pretty stubborn this time, refusing to entirely release. “Fine,” he said, feeling like he owed Dabi something, “I used to have talons - like, real avian feet with claws and everything.”
Dabi’s eyebrows went up. Both of his hands, thankfully, returned to massaging Hawks’ right foot - proof that good things sometimes did happen to Hawks. “Did an accident happen?” he guessed.
“No.” The stress-grip that had been loosening… tightened. Hawks had been staring at his own feet, but suddenly couldn’t look at them anymore - so twisted out of their original shape, so permanently alien to him, even if his handlers said that they were more normal now. “They looked too… strange,” he tried to explain, without sounding like he was having a pity party, “It’s hard to be a good hero if people find you too alien, you know - the wings are weird enough. So the Commission fixed my feet up, or tried to anyway.” Hawks stared resolutely down at his left wing, stretching it out and flexing it back in idly, willing himself to get lost in the redness of the feathers. Dabi’s hands had stopped moving, but their grip was too tight to slip loose from, although the heat was nice regardless. “They did the best they could, and when I’m wearing socks, the results are pretty great!” he finished with as much positivity as possible.
Dabi’s voice was a low rasp, a scrape of sound almost like a growl, “Except they cause you physical pain and you don’t even like looking at them.”
“Hey, only in the cold!” Hawks protested, although he pointedly ignored the second part - he didn’t really have a good defense for that. And then his stupid mouth just had to keep running: “And of course sometimes when I’m distracted I forget that I can’t land on a branch and perch anymore. That’s frickin’ embarrassing. I got such a lecture last time by the Commission when someone videotaped me falling off a damn branch.”
Dabi’s grip on Hawks’ foot increased enough that the hero got nervous, and his joking chatter ended as abruptly as his grip around the mug tightened to nearly destructive capacities again. “Uhhh… Dabi? Careful with the fire there, buddy, okay? I hate my feet, but I like being able to walk.”
Despite how generally dangerous Dabi was, he let go immediately. Hawks was partly sad to lose the warmth, but glad that he wasn’t on fire - he was also surprised when Dabi looked down and seemed to check Hawks’ skin for burns. Under other circumstances, Hawks would have laughed at seeing Dabi suddenly so disconcerted and bothered - Hawks might have even accused him of appearing concerned.
The moment quickly passed, Dabi getting his expression under control and returning it to a more normal, stony glower. Hawks tensed to withdraw both of his feet, prepared for this strange moment of camaraderie to be at an end. He already felt like he was in the Twilight Zone, although he still wasn’t sure if he was ready for a return to normalcy - because while the foot massages were weird, they were also fucking awesome.
Instead of ending the encounter entirely, though, Dabi pulled both of Hawks’ feet close (now both were against Dabi’s middle, which felt as hot as a teakettle, just on the good side of ‘too hot’) and then reached forward without warning to snag a finger on the rim of Hawk’s mug. His stress-grip had been once again on the verge of loosening - and once again tightened up instantly as the sudden movement set off alarm bells in Hawks’ head. He actually released a few feathers, but Dabi ignored them entirely, even as the sharpened primaries hovered near his head and shoulders. “And what about this? Hm?” Dabi asked, suddenly awfully demanding for a dude that was in someone else’s apartment without permission.
Hawks tried to pull his hands - and thus his mug - away, without success. “What about what? Stop trying to steal my mug, you have your own.”
It was very distracting to feel the lean muscles of Dabi’s torso flex beneath his feet when the villain leaned further over them, as he huffed out a long-suffering sigh that scented the air with smoke. “Stop acting stupid, birdbrain - I’m asking why you keep holding that mug like your hands are glued to it. Is this some other fucked up thing the Commission did to you?”
Dabi gripped the edge of the mug with one hand, and his other hand clamped over Hawks’ left wrist - and it was at this point that Hawks panicked. A) He didn’t want Dabi to know about his embarrassing habit of grabbing things unrelentingly in times of stress, and B) he also didn’t want Dabi to break or burn his hand in an effort to wrench the mug free, as he seemed intent on doing. Dabi was lazy to a fault most of the time, but Hawks had also been around the pyro enough to know that he could be almost manically determined as well, so who knew how much damage he’d do if he set his mind to taking the mug, especially if he thought that Hawks refusal to give it up was a choice?
To make matters worse, when Hawks growled something flustered and threatening and made to back up that threat with his feathers, Dabi swung his head to the side and exhaled sharply through his nose - and fucking fire came out. Hawks yelped as the feathers were singed to ash in a second, his brain (always at least slightly connected to all of his feathers) stuttering to a halt as it was bombarded with four feathers simply ceasing to exist. It wasn’t like losing a limb, but it was still startling like an electric carpet-spark to his nerves... especially since Hawks wasn’t exactly at his best at the moment anyway.
For a moment, Hawks was dazzled by Dabi’s apparent ability to breathe fire - then he was disoriented by the unplanned disintegration of feathers - when he came back to himself, it was to Dabi grunting with effort trying to pull the mug free. It would have been kind of funny, the two of them fighting over a mug, if Dabi’s hands weren’t heating up. Suddenly all Hawks could think of was how the strain on his fingers felt like when his handler had broken them, and that he really didn’t want his hands to end up like his feat. “Don’tburnmyhandsIcan’tletgo!” Hawks ended up pleading in a rush, looking wide-eyed at the pyro.
Surprisingly, Dabi froze in place, head jerking up to meet Hawks’ gaze in surprise. Dabi looked a lot larger like this; Hawks still had his feet braced on Dabi’s unnaturally warm middle, but had bent his legs at the knees instead of pushing Dabi away, because that would just add to the tension Dabi was already putting on Hawks’ grip. Blue eyes narrowed in consternation for a moment, before suddenly Dabi’s expression evened out again as if recognizing something in Hawks’ expression - probably fear.
Dabi’s grip loosened without letting go; while still leaning over Hawks, his body lost some of its tension. “I’m not going to burn you, birdy,” he said, in a tone that would have been categorized as soft if it didn’t have such a smoky rasp to it - and if Dabi was ever soft. Only then did Hawks realize that he was breathing quickly, and that he’d released quite a few more feathers, even if he hadn’t had the mental focus to weaponize them properly. “Now, just tell me why you can’t let go.” He gave a small tug on the mug but otherwise stopped yanking.
Reluctantly holding back his feathers from another attempt at violence, Hawks narrowed his eyes and replied, “I don’t see why I owe you that explanation.” He’d briefly considered outright denial that there was anything to tell… but it was pretty obvious at this point that there was something fucked-up going on with his hands.
With no more emotional response than a slow blink, Dabi agreed, “You don’t. I’m just a nosy fucker.”
Hawks rolled his eyes and huffed, “That does not entitle you to an answer, asshole.”
Dabi tried on a grin, which as always, looked oddly charming and gruesome at the same time, as the staples alongside his mouth pulled. “I’ll massage your feet more if you tell me?”
Okay, when exactly did Dabi learn how to be persuasive without violence? Hawks found his defenses failing as he looked down reflexively at his feet, wiggling his toes a bit against the honestly blessed warmth of Dabi’s torso. The wind chose then to howl a bit louder outside, reminding Hawks not only of the cold he’d been subjected to today but also of the fact that he was probably stuck with Dabi until the storm went away - meaning he had the choice of giving in and getting it over with now, explaining another of his Quirk’s weird side-effects, or else he’d probably be subjected to hours of Dabi badgering him.
Deflating and willing his feathers back into his wings, Hawks glared at Dabi and muttered, “Fine. But you owe me at least another thirty minutes of foot massaging for this.”
That, surprisingly, went over without any further negotiation. Dabi’s smirk was smaller this time, but very pleased as he sat back against his side of the couch and immediately wrapped one hand around Hawks’ left heel and the other around his toes. “Deal. Now spill.”
Trying not to let his brain get clouded again by the instantaneous feelings of euphoria that came from having his foot massaged with fever-hot hands, Hawks tipped his head back and spoke his answer to the ceiling, “It’s called a stress-grip. It’s a bird-of-prey thing.”
“Go on,” Dabi grunted. He balanced out his bossiness by pressing his thumb into the pad of Hawks’ foot, where significant reconstructive surgery had left him with lingering aches even on nice, warm days. Hawks was helpless to resist the sigh that rose out of his chest, or how his eyes fluttered closed.
He kept them closed as he answered stiffly, “When I’m stressed, my hands just… grip. And then they lock in place. Like a falcon refusing to let go of prey.”
“So you… really can’t let go?”
“That’s what I said, sparky. Take it or leave it,” Hawks dismissed as blithely as possible, when in reality he was feeling the knot of anxiety in his chest tighten in time with his hands. He was the #2 Hero - yet he didn’t even have control over his own hands. He could understand why the Commission had been so focused on training him out of this issue from an early age. On days like this, he really wished that they’d succeeded.
For a while, silence followed. Dabi kept kneading at Hawks’ feet, which would have been heavenly if Hawks weren’t constantly dying inside waiting for a response. He wasn’t even sure why he cared about Dabi’s opinion so much - forgetting the fact that Dabi was a villain, Dabi was arguably insane , or at least morally abnormal enough that his opinions should have been the last thing Hawks ever took into account. Yet here he was. Staring up at the ceiling because he was afraid to look down and see pity or disgust on Dabi’s patchwork face.
“So it’s related to stress?” Dabi finally asked, tone giving away nothing.
“Yup.”
“So you’re stressed right now?”
“I don’t know, Dabi - should I be stressed about a villain I just fought today following me home and making himself at home on my sofa?” Hawks retorted, finally lifting his head to look at him.
“You don’t like me here, chicken, you’ve got the means to force me out,” Dabi replied, not looking up from his task but jerking his chin towards one of Hawks’ wings.
“Not without getting my house set on fire.”
Dabi shrugged, supremely unperturbed, “Hey, it was your choice to seek out the League of Villains and get tangled up with us.”
“Hence my high levels of stress,” Hawks quipped, but then sagged back tiredly against the couch again. He was starting to wish that he’d just gone ahead and eaten the raw meat in the fridge - much more nutritionally satisfying than the sugary tea he could already feel his body burning through, and at this rate, it seemed like Dabi was nosing out all of his weird habits anyway. He’d naively hoped that Dabi would leave before now so that he could have a proper meal in peace, but now with the storm preventing that, the demands of his body were just adding another layer of shitty icing to Hawks’ Terrible Day Cake.
Dabi looked up at him then, and like before, seemed to survey Hawks’ face, reading who-knew-what in his expression. Dabi wasn’t exactly a social butterfly, nor was he known for taking the time to understand emotional cues and the nuances of body language in non-battle situations - usually, Hawks was the one who did that, reading people and finding out just how to act to make them relaxed and happy. Now, though, Dabi seemed to be showing a unique level of understanding, and abruptly changed tactics. “Let’s see if I can help.”
What followed was another scuffle, more minor than before. Hawks didn’t bother threatening evisceration by feathers this time and Dabi didn’t call forth any fire, but a lot of complaining and flailing later, and Hawks legs were now thrown to either side of Dabi’s waist, and the villain was a lot closer. He had his hands pretty much where they’d been before: one on the lip of the mug, the other over Hawks’ left hand, although this time he promised with thinly-veiled impatience, “I’m not going to try and yank your hands off! Jesus, calm down.”
“My inability to calm down is part of the problem!” Hawks hissed, by now feeling very harried and just wanting Dabi to leave so that Hawks could sit sullenly in silence and wait for his damned stress-grip to fade away naturally, “And you’re adding to that problem!”
“Just stop wriggling,” Dabi demanded, and Hawks, honestly against his better judgment, did as he was told, looking theatrically up to the ceiling as if for guidance there. “If you roll your eyes any harder, they’ll fall out of your head, now stop being a drama queen,” Dabi chastised rather boredly, but then focused in on their hands and grew more serious, “You relax just fine when I massage your feet, so maybe it’ll help on your hands. They’re cold as ice anyway.”
Hawks hands really had gotten a bit cold once he’d drunk all of his tea, leaving him with nothing but empty ceramic beneath his clenched hands. He narrowed his eyes, still uneasy but lacking a witty rejoinder or solid argument - not that Dabi seemed to be listening to any of his arguments anyway, solid or otherwise. When he felt the mug beneath his hands heating up and realized that Dabi’s left hand was pushing heat into the material, he hissed and tried to pull away, only to have Dabi’s right hand grip his wrist more tightly - also infused with unnatural warmth.
“Easy, easy,” Dabi said, that rasp in his voice like the scrape of a cat’s tongue around a purr, “I told you, I’m not going to burn you, birdy. I haven’t so far, have I?” Blue eyes looked up from under shaggy black bangs, and Hawks met the sincere gaze grudgingly. Dabi was often pretty blunt, and for once, that was something of a positive trait. “I’ve had these fires in me nearly all of my life - I know how to heat ’em up and how to keep ’em cool. It’s been a long time since this…” Dabi lifted his hand from the mug to run his fingertips over his jawline and the side of his neck, all of the flesh there horribly scarred. Any sort of joke or retort that had been building behind Hawks’ lips faded, guilt slipping in as he thought about what a big fuss he made about his comparatively minor deformities. Dabi was almost half scar-tissue, from what Hawks had seen.
Dabi’s hand lowered back to the mug, although it only lingered there a moment longer - just long enough to make the mug feel full of tea again, a soothing level of warmth radiating out of it. “Nowadays I only burn what I want to, and that’s not you today. Got it?”
That last bit sounded equal parts reassuring and equal parts threat, which was just plain confusing, but the earnest, firm look in Dabi’s eyes ultimately got Hawks to bob his head in a nod. “Whatever you say, sparky,” he got out, swallowing when his voice came out a bit thin and dry.
“Hm. Good,” Dabi grunted, and slid his left hand from the mug to Hawks’ remaining hand, so that now he was cupping Hawks’ hands around the heated mug - and with Dabi’s palms already heating up, that meant warmth sinking in from all sides.
And… fuck, yeah, that was pretty calming, especially when Dabi kept his word and the heat never reached a painful level.
“There you go - see? Just relax,” Dabi said, one thumb stroking from the back of Hawks’ thumb down to the bone of his wrist and back again. The touch was firm and sure, a line of warmth being tattooed into Hawks’ skin. “No trouble here,” he continued to murmur, while Hawks just continued to stare at their touching hands, going from uneasy to befuddled to accepting as he watched Dabi’s strong, dexterous fingers move. Sometimes he’d feel the faint scrape of one of Dabi’s staples, where irrevocably damaged flesh met normal skin at the villain’s wrist, but it wasn’t as strange as Hawks had expected. Likewise, while Dabi’s touch was often as forceful as his personality (like when he curled his fingers underneath Hawks’ wrists, pressing in hard while his thumb wove circles on the back of each wrist), sometimes there was unexpected gentleness, too (like when he simply trailed his fingertips up the tendons on the backs of Hawks’ hands, past his knuckles, all the way to his fingertips, as light and warm as moths made of the sun).
One thing that Dabi didn’t do, though, was try to pry Hawks’ fingers away, and maybe that was what ultimately did it. Somewhere between Dabi accepting the oddity of Hawks’ feet and Dabi not trying to literally break Hawks’ stress-grip… Hawks felt a knot inside of his chest starting to relax.
It felt so strange that a villain he barely knew somehow could figure out how to handle him better than the actual Commission handlers who had raised him.
“Close your eyes, Hawks,” Dabi coaxed.
“Bossy,” Hawks murmured, but it was like he was slipping into torpor again - not from cold this time, but just because he was tired and comfortable - and he did as he was told. His right wing sagged a bit, and red feathertips brushed Dabi’s arm and shoulder. Such a touch let Hawks visualize where Dabi was without looking, but he honestly hadn’t done that purposefully for once.
He also honestly didn’t realize when his hands fully let go - not until he felt calluses brushing his palms as Dabi’s hands took the place of the mug.
“Careful,” Hawks said, eyes still closed but a feeling of relief so strong in his chest that it hurt. He still meant the warning, though, finishing, “If I get startled, I’ll probably grab again - and my grip strength is a lot harder on hands than it is on ceramic mugs.” Already the relief in his chest was getting tangled with anxiety again, based on the very real fear that Dabi would choose fire as a way to keep his hands from being squeezed too hard. Hawks hadn’t held anyone’s hands in ages because the Commission always warned him about the damage he could do - although he’d never actually broken anybody’s fingers, he’d been raised on the warning that he could . Hawks started trying to pull his hands back.
Dabi let one hand escape, but caught the other, startling Hawks into opening his eyes. Before his hand could spasm in alarm, Dabi had it in his grip, fingers folded around the back of Hawks’ right hand and thumbs pushing against his palm - coaxing Hawks’ fingers into spreading as he kneaded upwards. “Do your worst, chicken-nugget, I’m not afraid of you,” Dabi drawled, once again getting comfortable and focusing on his work. By now, Hawks’ legs were basically wrapped around his waist, and Hawks’ right wing almost constantly brushing him.
Utterly befuddled, Hawks just blinked stupidly for a moment, then candidly replied, “I didn’t think you were. I’m just surprised that you’re not making threats.”
“Don’t need threats for you,” Dabi grunted quietly without looking up. The statement made no sense, but Dabi didn’t seem interested in elaborating.
After a prolonged stress-grip, Hawks’ hands were always tight and stiff, so the feeling of Dabi’s heated hands working up and down his palm was quickly getting addictive. Hawks knew he was ruined now; he’d be wishing for this after every stress-grip, to say nothing for his feet wishing for a hot massage on any cold day now. “You know,” he tried wheedling, thinking ahead, “If you ever get caught out on a stormy day, and you’re in the area, you can always stop by.”
Dabi chuffed a laugh, a knowing smirk just barely pulling at the staples alongside his mouth. “Oh, I can, can I? I thought you hated it when I broke in.”
“That was before I knew you had magic hands,” Hawks flattered without hesitation, giving his fingers a wiggle then stilling them again as Dabi kept working.
“Tell anyone and I really will roast you,” Dabi warned. Despite that, however, his hands stayed at a non-dangerous heat, and Hawks found himself relaxing. All of Dabi was very warm, so even though the pyro was only paying attention to one hand, wherever they touched (which was really in quite a few places) was cozy.
“Soooo if I don’t tell anyone-” Hawks tested the waters, giving his wings a thoughtless rustle. Dabi cast him a gimlet look. “-I can expect more of this?”
“Don’t push it.”
Hawks laughed. “Seriously, don’t you know me? I always push things.”
“You really fucking do,” Dabi said under his breath, “I have no idea why I put up with you.”
“Oh, same. I don’t know why a lot of people put up with me,” Hawks agreed with an easy wave of his free hand, thinking of how often Endeavor looked millimeters away from murdering him. Hawks had that effect on certain people, and he’d long ago accepted that he had no control over exactly who those people were. Despite his proclamation, Dabi let go of Hawks’ right hand only to beckon for the other one, which Hawks gave over eagerly. Dabi shifted a bit where he sat to get more comfortable, which meant leaning against the back of the sofa - pinning Hawk’s right leg and wing against it. “My leg’s going to fall asleep,” Hawks pointed out.
Dabi’s grunt said he didn’t care. Something about that had the last of Hawks’ uneasiness seeping away, and with a flicker of thought, he released all of his feathers - leaving some trapped between Dabi’s arm and the sofa, but the rest he willed into a nice pile on the floor. Dabi, for his part, looked a bit startled, blinking at the newly denuded appendages. Well, not completely denuded - the primaries and secondaries were now on the floor, leaving just the smaller feathers and downy coating. It was much easier to get comfortable then, with his wings taking up far less space, and Hawks hummed contentedly as he tucked them in against his upper arms.
“You look like a baby chicken,” Dabi ended up saying, “A red one.”
“You’re lucky you’re good with your hands, because your flattery needs work,” Hawks informed him.
“Rude,” Dabi purred back, and really, by the suddenly low tone of his voice and the glint in his pale blue eyes, Hawks should have expected the next bit would be pure trouble, “For your information, flyboy, I’m good with my mouth and my hands.”
Hawks’ wings jerked in surprise - even the feathers on the floor shifted.
The glint in Dabi’s eyes became a small smirk. “I notice that you’re not doing the stress-grip thingy - does that mean I can get away with innuendos?” he asked with all the laziness of a tomcat draped over a rooftop.
“Just when I thought today couldn’t get any weirder,” Hawks murmured to himself, even as he tried to wrap his brain around this new development. Louder, he said, “I’m actually, like, really good at not stress-gripping things. Most of the time. Plus, it’s called a stress-grip, not a Dabi-saying-weird-shit-grip.”
For some reason, that had Dabi frowning again. “Why do you say it like that?” he asked after a long moment, although his gaze remained on their hands, and the massaging continued uninterrupted.
Hawks’ eyebrows pulled together in bemusement. “Say what like what?”
“That you’re really good at not doing something that comes natural to you,” Dabi actually surprised Hawks by elaborating.
With a disorienting jolt, Hawks remembered exactly who he was talking to: Dabi, member of the League of Villains. When Hawks had first infiltrated the group, he’d learned the expected things - how destructive they were, how against the general structure of the Commission and such. He’d also found out some less expected things as well, sometimes things that he wasn’t sure how (or if) to report to his handlers. One of those things, which had seemed rather harmless at the time, was how the League unilaterally supported even the most troubling of Quirks. He’d just never really considered that that might apply to him, with so much of his Quirk being pruned and trimmed by the Commission to make it not troubling.
Hawks had taken too long to answer, but instead of getting impatient, Dabi just took that as a sign to pick up the conversation again himself, “Whatever your Quirk does, that’s you . It’s not something that you train yourself out of - or, fuck, that the damn Commission trains you out of, or whatever - it’s just you .”
Feeling himself getting uncomfortable again, Hawks split his focus between responding to Dabi and not clenching his hands - especially the left one Dabi was holding. “Something can be ‘just you’ and still be a disability.”
The frown on Dabi’s face deepened, the blue of his eyes hardening almost to anger even as his voice took on a bit of an edge, too, “This is not a disability.” As he spoke firmly, he also tapped the palm of Hawks’ already-tensing hand. Dabi just went on more fervently, now reaching back to one of Hawks’ feet again, running his thumb along one of the long scars where surgeons had literally rearranged the bones. “And neither was this. No more than these are.” With his last sentence, he went from Hawks’ foot to grabbing one of the feathers that Hawks had loosed, waving it in the air like a pennant.
As he’d spoken, Dabi’s volume had been rising in small but steady increments, and more than that, the words he was saying hit him more directly than Hawks had been anticipating; his hands shook with the effort of remaining open, and he felt his chest tighten as he tried to keep his breathing even, too. Through it all, though, Dabi just mercilessly met his eyes, and then moved suddenly to catch Hawks’ wrist - pulling it closer and pressing his scarred right wrist into Hawks’ tensing right hand. “Do it,” he said, voice gravelly and low and almost threatening, even as Hawks’ startled eyes jumped between the pyro’s face and soon-to-be-trapped arm. Dabi just went on steadily, “It’s not bad or disgusting. Stop assigning moral qualities to things that your body does.”
Hawks tried to pull away, but it was hard because if he used his other hand to pry Dabi’s hand loose, then that was another potential body part for him to stress-grip. His feathers started swirling on the floor, but he wasn’t sure if or how he wanted to use them, and Dabi was just right there , with Hawks’ legs still thrown around his waist. “Dabi!” he tried to play it cool, aiming for a fed-up, chastising tone but feeling like his throat was closing up with anxiety, “Dabi, stop fucking around. I’m going to-!”
“You’re going to do what your Quirk does naturally,” Dabi cut him off, “So fucking do it, Hawks.”
“No!” Hawks snapped, finally getting angry - or afraid. He was flashing back to the Commission again, to his hands stress-gripped around a door-handle of all things; he’d been seven, and he’d wanted to leave. He hadn’t wanted to be in that room anymore. He wasn’t getting the lessons right and it was making everyone upset. In the present, he tried to just sound frustrated, because that was more befitting of a brave #2 Hero, “Are you nuts? I’m going to leave bruises on your arm, I’m fucking serious!”
“And I’m fucking serious when I say I don’t fucking care.”
Hawks rolled his eyes, but his chest felt like it had a metal band around it, and he was remembering his handlers wedging the head of a screwdriver under his seven-year-old fingers to pry them loose. At that age, the strength of his grip was greater than the actual durability of his fingers, and he could still remember the sound and feeling of one of his metacarpals cracking even as one of his fingers dislocated. Shaking his head and closing his eyes, Hawks tried to push down the memory even as he shot back with less anger and more fear than before, “You’re going to care, and when you do, I’m not going to be able to let go, and you’re going to try and burn my fucking hand off!”
Speaking his worries out loud unfortunately sealed the deal, panic getting the better of him and both of his hands locking closed, like a baby falcon trying to grip onto something safe and solid. Instead, all he got was his left hand clenched on nothing and his right hand locked down hard around Dabi’s right wrist.
Hawks was immediately hyperventilating, trying to gather his feathers back to his wings so that he could protect himself, even as he tried and failed to let go. He was barely aware that he was murmuring, “No. No, no, nononono…” until Dabi was drowning him out, free hand stroking Hawks’ shoulder and then retreating to just rest on his leg when Hawks flinched away.
“Shhh, shhh. Easy,” Dabi was saying in a voice that was so unexpectedly low and soft that Hawks wouldn’t have recognized it if he weren’t right there, watching the sounds come out of Dabi’s mouth. In contrast to the usual grumpiness and violence that Dabi employed, his words were as soft as smoke, curling gently through the air as he gave Hawks’ right knee a squeeze. Hawks ignored him, and instead frantically tried to use his left hand to disengage his right one, but that was doomed to failure from the start, seeing as his left hand was locked in a fist. When Dabi’s hand went from Hawks’ knee to reach for said fist, Hawks jerked it back as if he’d been burned, despite the fact that Dabi’s skin hadn’t heated up beyond normal body temperature yet. “All right, all right. Easy, birdy. No burning here. Just take it easy,” Dabi went back to hushing steadily and calmly. His hand retreated, but this time only far enough to rest on Hawks’ side, ignoring how the hero wheezed out a sharp breath, ribs retracting as if they could individually pull away from Dabi’s persistent hand. Again, though, no burning heat followed, just the firm pressure of a warm hand. “You’re not hurting me, and I’m not hurting you,” Dabi said with irrepressible logic, although he did glance up with a raised eyebrow to drawl, “Unless you’re planning to skewer me with some of those feathers of yours. Then we might have a problem.”
Somehow that was what knocked Hawks out of his spiral, as he went from watching Dabi’s shockingly-not-on-fire-hands to instead blinking in bewilderment at his own wings. At some point, they’d mostly regained their feathers, and all of his primaries - whether re-attached or not - were hovering around Dabi’s head and shoulders where Hawks had defensively arched his wings up. He withdrew them hesitantly, still breathing too fast and memories of dislocated fingers too clear in his memory.
Dabi nodded and made a mild humming noise of approval. His free hand stroked Hawks’ side a little, as if in thanks, or perhaps just checking that Hawks was still going to let his hand stay there without further freaking out. “There, see? We’re good,” Dabi stated as if nothing all that spectacular had happened, although his voice was still quieter and softer than usual, as if he were talking to someone with a migraine. “You’ve got an impressive grip, but it’s nothing for me to get excited over.”
“I’m not hurting you?” Hawks had to ask. He pressed his shoulders and the backs of his wings into the couch, hunching in on himself as he remembered past chastisements. His wings were still arched forwards a bit, although now they were closer to his body, feathers all reattached now and shielding his torso defensively.
“No.” Dabi flexed his hand and Hawks reflexively gripped harder, the hero instantly swearing in frustration at his own inability to stop it. All Dabi did was hold his hand still again and give a mild grimace. Blue eyes thoughtful and calm, he amended, “Like I said, you’ve got a damn strong grip, but I like a bit of pain.” Something perhaps a bit dangerous glinted in his eyes as he smiled a lopsided smile, one canine tooth flashing even as he raised his free hand to touch the scarred skin of his jaw. “I’m used to a helluva lot more.”
Flustered and utterly unequipped to cope with this, Hawks just stared for a moment before dropping his head back onto the couch and covering his face up with his wings. If hiding was a coward’s move, then so be it. “I hate you,” he grumbled without conviction, just for something to say.
Dabi ignored the comment, choosing instead to ask, “Where’s the TV remote? A hero like you has lots of channels, right?”
Sighing gustily, Hawks flicked his left wing and sent three feathers across the room, where they slid expertly beneath the remote he always kept tucked behind the television when he wasn’t using it. With the ease of much practice, he willed his feathers to transport the remote back to Dabi without opening his eyes or otherwise moving. Both of his hands were still clenched tight and his chest ached in the aftermath of his panic, but at least he felt like he could breathe, and apparently Dabi really wasn’t going to get upset at his stress-grip and burn himself free.
The television came on. Hawks heard a few channels being flipped. Something about hockey. Then the volume was turned down to a low hum. Dabi spoke into the quiet that followed, and his voice was at that unexpectedly soft timbre still, “Want me to massage your hands again until they let go?”
“You’d better, seeing as this is your own damn fault,” Hawks griped, but then tensed up even worse as he waited for Dabi to touch him. He kept his eyes clenched tightly closed and tried to keep his wings from trembling even as he felt Dabi turning, making himself comfortable again. He ended up, after a bit of awkward wriggling on both their parts, with Hawks legs both across his lap. When his free hand touched the hero’s hand locked around his wrist, there was still no burning fire, no painful wrath, just the same level of intensely soothing warmth as before coming out of Dabi’s skin. Hawks felt relief like a wave nearly knock him over, and he let out a shaking breath as subtly as possible.
When he opened his eyes, Dabi was half-turned to watch a hockey game on the television while his free hand idly massaged Hawk’s fingers and knuckles. His right hand had to be falling asleep, but there was truly no indication that he was bothered in the slightest. Hawks tried to follow his example, even though it felt like he had to remember how to calm down, to settle in where he was, to breathe in a normal pattern again. With every second that Dabi just accepted his stress-grip without comment, however, Hawks felt some of the old memories fade back into the past. The hero had to look over periodically, surreptitiously scanning Dabi’s features, just to check if the pyro was starting to grow frustration - but every time he saw the same thing: just Dabi lazily watching television, unbothered. Every time Hawks confirmed that, he calmed down a little bit more. He twitched and tensed up again when Dabi stopped massaging his hand to instead reach in the other direction, but Dabi was just reaching for the blanket he’d been bundled up in earlier. “So your feet don’t get cold while I’m working on your hands, birdbrain,” Dabi griped, but with nothing more than his normal level of snark. Dabi let their joined limbs rest on Hawks’ stomach while he rearranged the blanket one-handed, ending up with both of them covered warmly to the waist before going back to his previous task.
“You can nod off if you want,” Dabi said quietly after an unmarked stretch of time, in which the only noise was that of the hockey game and the snowstorm outside. When Hawks looked from the television to Dabi, he was met with a mild look from half-lidded blue eyes. Dabi shrugged and continued off-handedly, “Anxiety is exhausting. Do you still stress-grip in your sleep?”
The question pulled forth more insecurities, and Hawks felt his stomach knot up, but this time it was easier for him to pull the answer out of his mouth, “Sometimes. Usually I let go after I nod off.” Usually, of course, he was too anxious and panicked to sleep in a situation where he was stress-gripping - now was different, though.
Dabi nodded and looked back to the hockey game. It had gone into overtime without them really noticing. “All right. Whenever this hand lets go, I’ll move on to your other one.”
“Don’t you need sleep, too?”
But Dabi just shook his head. Without turning his head or changing his relaxed, steady tone of voice, he explained frankly, “I didn’t have a panic attack. So I don’t need to sleep it off like you do.” Propping his socked feet up on Hawks’ coffee table shamelessly (which also served to tuck Hawks’ legs in more snuggly against Dabi’s warm body), Dabi finished up in something more like his usual grumpy tone, “Now do that thing with your feathers and turn off the lights, because I can’t reach.”
Feeling the unaccountable urge to giggle, Hawks nonetheless smiled in a mixture of bewilderment and shy delight as he replied, “I live to serve,” in his most lackadaisical tone. Dabi rolled his eyes but warmed up his arm a bit more beneath Hawks’ hand until it felt like he was holding a sun-warmed stone. Soon the lights were off, and there was only the low hum of the television - Dabi turned it down a few decibels more without being told - and the flickering glow of it through Hawks’ eyelids as the game continued. “I might not fall asleep, you know,” he commented, because there was a fizzy feeling behind his breastbone that he didn’t know how to quantify, and he always dealt with new things by talking - even if he was doing so now with his eyes closed and his feathers relaxing out of his wings again. “Because there’s a villain in my house.”
Dabi made a snorting noise that might have been disgruntled but might also have been a stifled laugh. “Sounds like a you-problem,” he grunted.
And somehow that made everything feel normal again, enough so Hawks snickered but didn’t say anything more. And he did indeed fall asleep, lulled into a soft darkness by the knowledge that the storm was locked away outside while he was very warm right here. Sitting next to someone who, strangely enough, didn’t mind the little problems that came with his Quirk.
~^~