Chapter Text
Dabi can’t tell whether it’s his quirk or anger which is burning through him as he watches Hawks drive one of his primaries through Twice’s back. How could he be so fucking stupid? How could he possibly think that their lives could have ended in anything other than flames? He caught part of their conversation, he knows Twice blamed himself for the attack in his final moments but Dabi knows it was really him. It was his fault.
He knew from the fucking start that Hawks was nothing but a tool of the Commission, that he was never going to pick his side over all theirs and yet he still allowed him into the League, the PLF, his fucking bed.
Hawks might be too fast for his own good but he isn’t quick enough to escape Dabi’s swift retribution. Dabi’s body is running on autopilot, flames bursting out of every part of his body engulfing the room and Hawks’ wings.
The wings he loved being wrapped in.
But that love isn’t enough to stop the pain from the inevitable betrayal he hates himself for being willingly blind to. Dabi is utterly consumed by the need to inflict the pain on Hawks, he promised him in the beginning that this end would be awaiting him should he sell out the League. Should he pick anyone over Dabi.
Hawks screams as his feathers burn and disintegrate and Dabi feels himself grin at the sound, letting go of whatever tenuous grip on his sanity Hawks once helped him hold. He’s carded his fingers through those wings often enough to know how sensitive they are, to know how much agony the man is in. There were plenty of nights he used that to his advantage and gripped them as he pounded Hawks into the mattress or whatever surface was available.
Dabi stalks forward to the man that is frantically trying to extinguish the fire that is clinging to his feathers, enjoying as the traitor writhes around, doing his best not to remember the other ways he has made him writhe. Distantly he remembers the first time he noticed how small Hawks’ was without his wings, how he loved the way his large hands would grip Hawks’ waist.
He almost wishes they could go back to that.
Before he allows himself to wallow too much in the past, he brings his boot down on Hawks’ ribs, forcing him back onto the floor. Shaking with effort, Hawks’ turns his head to look at Dabi over his shoulder through the flames.
“I can’t believe you murdered him!”
Dabi has never been so grateful for his tear ducts being burnt shut as he has been now, he could lie and say it was for Twice but they’d both know that it would be a lie.
“I didn’t want to! I didn’t have a choice! I’m so sor-” Hawks’ sentence ends abruptly with a wince as Dabi’s foot presses him harder into the floor.
“YES YOU DID! Of course you had a fuckin’ choice! You chose them after fuckin’ everythin’ they did, you still chose the fuckin’ Commission over us. Over ME!”
“It’s only ever been you, Dabi! I promise, I choose you! Let me show you, let’s go!” Hawks desperately pleads, clearly looking for a way out, to survive this situation. Only ever looking after his own fuckin’ skin.
Dabi cackles, “I always told you, your promises mean shit to me.”
“Dabi, please, let’s go! I love y-”
Dabi kicks Hawks for good measure, scared he will allow the traitor to work his way out of the mess he brought upon them. The fire is still raging around them.
“You don’t love me, you never fuckin’ loved me! You don’t even fuckin’ know me!”
“Yes, I do!”
“You don’t even know my fuckin’ name!”
“Then tell me!”
Dabi grins, he can only imagine the picture of hell he must be with his crazed face in the light of his flames.
“Touya Todoroki.”
Keigo’s face crumples in anguish and Dabi takes joy in the hurt. Before he has the time to bask in the revelation, his damn fledgling intern interrupts and all he can do is watch as the man who was once his hope is taken away from him.
He must be in hell, or purgatory at least. He just feels like he’s floating outside of his body, unable to feel anything around him, entombed in darkness and any sound that reaches his ears are muffled and indecipherable. After all these years of imagining how he would finally take his father down, he didn’t envisage the rest of his fucking family being there to defend the man who destroyed them.
Dabi always thought death would be quieter than this. For years he has been looking forward to the day where his thoughts were no longer consumed by his shitty father and all his failings, and yet he can’t even find peace in death. He is doomed to be haunted by failures, his mistakes, his family. Burning from the inside out in his final blaze of glory wasn’t enough for him in the end.
Surely if he was alive he would be suffocating with the pain of incinerating his body, especially if the echoes of Hawks’ screams of losing his feathers was anything to go by or his own echoing through Sekoto Peak as a child.
Instead there is nothing. No. It’s worse than nothing.
All he has left are his shitty memories which only serve to torture him.
This must be hell.
Dabi both hates and enjoys recruiting for the League. He hates that he has to skulk around shitty old warehouses and alleyways, dealing with shitty ass people but he enjoys the time by himself, and being able to turn the same shitty ass people to ashes. The League isn’t exactly a bustling social scene, but there are days when Toga’s bloodthirsty excitement and Twice’s crazy is too overwhelming and he just wants to be left the fuck alone.
He’s sitting precariously on an old iron workbench, savouring the shitty acrid taste of the cheapest cigarettes he could pick up enjoying the silence. Dabi is feeling particularly highly strung today after getting into some argument with Shigaraki that he can’t quite remember now, so he really hopes that he comes across some people he could use for kindling.
After a few hours of sitting around he decides it’s probably time to call it quits and head back to base. He fishes his beaten up old phone out of his pocket, ready to dial for Kurogiri when he hears something just beyond the broken windows. The slow beating of wings? He shoves his phone back into his pocket and stands alert, his flames gently licking his fingers at the ready.
A large familiar silhouette crowds the doorway, large wings blocking the light.
“Hey there, hot stuff.” An equally familiar, annoyingly confident and casual voice calls out to him, as the figure steps forward into the trickle of light that has broken into the warehouse, confirming his suspicions.
“You’ve got five fuckin’ seconds hero before I roast you.” Dabi warns, grinning, looking forward to a worthy fight.
“Is that how you treat everyone who wants to join the League?”
Dabi barks out a disbelieving laugh, does this stupid fuckin’ pigeon think he’s stupid enough not to know a spy when one presents himself to him?
“Nice try, pigeon.”
Hawks reaches into his flight jacket and Dabi watches cautiously. He knows it isn’t the Number Three’s style to use anything other than his feathers in a fight, but he is still surprised when the man slowly pulls out a folder and throws it to the floor between them.
“The fuck is that?” Dabi asks, not making a move.
“A gift, to show you and your boss I’m serious.”
“Tell me more.” Dabi might be stupid enough to entertain the hero, but he is certainly not stupid enough to allow his attention to be diverted from him.
“Hero patrol routes for the next month in a number of prefectures that might be of interest to you.”
“So a trap, then?”
Hawks shrugs, “you can do what you want with the info, not telling you to go anywhere or do anything, just thought you’d find it interesting. No traps, promise.”
“Your promises mean shit to me, hero.”
Hawks’ chuckles, “I’m sure. My private number is also in there, should you need it for anything. Not trying to track you, I’m sure you’ll be using burners. But if you need anything else…”
“Do you make it a habit of giving guys your number, pigeon?”
By now Dabi has relaxed his position some, but has still left the folder between them. He notices that Hawks isn’t as casual as he wants to appear, his wings seem too rigid in comparison to the rest of him. Not that he knows shit about birds, or Hawks in general.
“Jealous you’re not the only one with my number, hot stuff?” Hawks smirks.
“Fuck off.”
“I promise you’re special, Dabi.”
Hawks’ flirtation makes Dabi’s skin crawl, he’s seen this persona plenty of times against his will on the TV and hears it from Toga gushing like the school girl she is when she’s flicking through whatever magazine she’s picked out of the trash. He knows it’s all part of his act, but the only time anyone’s ever flirted with him was when he was doing whatever he could to survive and earn enough money to get him through the day.
“I told you, your promises mean shit to me.”
“Ah, c’mon hot stuff, don’t be like that.”
Dabi grumbles at the nickname, regretting not burning the bird immediately on stepping foot in the warehouse.
“Why the fuck do you want to join us anyway?”
“You’re not the only ones who think hero society is corrupt as shit. I wanted to fucking save people, not be paraded around for modelling gigs and sponsorships.”
“Oh boo hoo, so you’re sick of having your pretty photo taken which makes you want to become a villain? Sure, pigeon.”
“You think my photos are pretty?” Hawks smirks again and it takes all of Dabi’s willpower not to melt it off his face.
“Fuck off, stop fuckin’ wastin’ my time.”
“You’re the one that’s been sitting here for hours. Think you’ve been wasting your own time.”
“You been watchin’ me?”
“Wanted to be sure the meeting was just with you and me.”
“Wanted me all to yourself, pigeon?” Now it’s Dabi’s turn to smirk but the hero doesn’t seem as unfazed as Dabi felt. All he wants is one opportunity to not feel on the back foot in this whole interaction.
“Why wouldn’t I, hot stuff?”
“Fuck off, pigeon. I’m not goin’ to fall for the same shitty fake smile you give the shitty public. You’ll have to try a lot fuckin’ harder than that if you want us to take you seriously.”
Hawks has the audacity to chuckle and look embarrassed, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly.
“Sorry, it’s been so long since I’ve been someone other than Hawks.”
“So who are you behind Hawks?”
“Who are you behind Dabi?” Hawks shoots back, without missing a beat.
“I’m just Dabi, pigeon. S’all you need to know.”
Hawks doesn’t press the issue, which he is grateful for, although he’s sure it’s just a spy tactic to get Dabi on side quicker. He’s playing the long game and Dabi knows it.
“Truth is, don’t really know who is behind Hawks. It’s a Commission crafted role that I just play. They spend more time perfecting that role than they do on serving society.”
Again, another well crafted answer that he’s sure he’s been fed to make him seem more grey. Although, there’s something that Dabi can’t quite place in the way he delivered the lines, it sounded far more real than anything else he’s said to Dabi so far.
“Whatever. Is this it? ‘Cuz I’ve got better things to be doin’.” Dabi asks, patience running out.
“Nice talking with ya, hot stuff. I look forward to working with you.” Hawks smiles, saluting with a single finger before starting to head back out of the room.
“Bold of you to assume I’ll be in touch.”
“Haven’t you heard? The magazines say I’m irresistible.” Hawks smirks, launching himself into the sky without another word.
“Stupid, fuckin’ pigeon.” Dabi grumbles, grabbing his phone out of his pocket and messaging Kurogiri like he wishes he had done before getting himself into this mess.
Dabi doesn’t know how much time has passed since he died, but things are slowly beginning to change around him. There are slight moving shadows and the muffled sounds accompanied by a steady hum. He doesn’t understand what is happening, why it’s taking so long to be welcomed by the fires of eternal damnation or whatever the fuck is awaiting him.
He still has no feeling of his body, not that he expects to. Every time Dabi feels somewhat conscious, he feels his heart drop in his chest. Or he imagines he does, he’s sure he burned through both at the end. He just wants to let go, there’s nothing left for him now.
He’s destroyed everything he ever touched, how could he have been destined to do anything else with the cursed quirk that was forced upon him by his shitty father’s ambition? How could he have ever felt anything but rage when he was constantly burning from the inside?
But he did feel something other than rage, and that destroyed him more than his anger could.
There’s no harm in admitting it now that he’s dead, but he felt deeply and passionately for Hawks. For Keigo. And he was stupid enough to think that the bird felt the same. After all the time they spent together, he thought he knew when he was speaking with Hawks and when he was speaking with Keigo. But clearly he didn’t know him as well as he thought he did.
Why the fuck does his chest still tighten when he thinks of that damn traitorous bird? Why can he still feel so strongly when it comes to Hawks when he can’t feel anything else at all?
Why does Keigo still follow him even in death?
Over the course of several months Hawks has been slowly integrating himself within the League, much to Dabi’s surprise. He made it known to no end that he did not trust the feathery bastard, but it all seems to have fallen on deaf ears. Or perhaps Shigaraki has a longer game and a plan that he hasn’t made the rest of them privy to. But it irritates the shit out of Dabi. Especially as he’s the dumb bastard responsible for the pigeon.
He’s become Twice’s drinking buddy, not that Twice notices when Hawks switches to water because he can’t handle his alcohol as well as the others. He allows Toga to drone on about the shitty UA kids that she’s obsessed with whilst she paints his talons (which he was incredibly cagey about showing off). Hawks even talks politics and how to change society with Shigrakai which really threw him off the first time he stumbled across that.
Fuck he hopes Shigaraki has an actual fuckin’ plan.
Sick of the active buzz of the hideout, Dabi steps outside on the roof to enjoy the quiet and a smoke. He also just wants some fuckin’ space from the damn bird. Since Dabi was given the order to bring Hawks to the hideout, Hawks seems to be around all the time, bringing food because he just ‘happened by a takeout’ or just texting him randomly asking if the League needs anything. Or because he happened to see something that reminded him of Dabi, usually some ugly stray cats in alleyways that Hawks finds ‘cute’.
He doesn’t know how he feels about it, Hawks is still the annoying pigeon he’s always known him to be but there seems to be something a bit more real about him these days. He doesn’t have the fake smile plastered on his face in every meeting now and doesn’t seem to be trying so hard.
The flirting is still there though.
At first Dabi thought that was just Hawks’ default setting when he opened his mouth but after seeing how he interacts with the other members that doesn’t seem to be the case. Which, again, he doesn’t know how he feels about this. He doesn’t like the idea that Hawks has pegged him as an easy target for some kind of shitty honey trap.
But he also doesn’t hate the idea of a quick fuck with the hero as much as he probably should.
The shuffling of feet brings his attention back out of his thoughts and to his surroundings. He doesn’t have to look around to know that Hawks has joined him on the rooftop, the sound of feathers against clothing and surfaces is something he’s becoming keenly aware of.
He waits for whatever dumb quip or flirtation from the bird to break the silence, but is surprised when nothing comes. Instead, the bird stands beside him, close enough that Dabi can feel his presence but not so close that he feels suffocated by him, which he appreciates.
When the fuck did he start tolerating this bird’s presence?
“What do you want, pigeon?”
“I like roofs, bird thing.” Hawks replies, shrugging.
“Whatever.” Dabi grumbles, wondering why he even bothered with breaking the silence.
“It was getting too loud down there, I needed some quiet time.” He admits.
Dabi doesn’t reply and just takes another drag of his cigarette, staring out into the darkness of the city, allowing the silence to settle again between them.
After a few minutes, Hawks carefully shuffles closer without a word and Dabi peers down at him.
“The fuck are you doin’ pigeon?”
“‘M cold.” Hawks mumbles into the collar of his flight jacket.
Dabi makes a face and looks back away, trying to ignore the shivering man beside him, he almost succeeded until he heard the sound of teeth chattering which cut right through him. He tolerates it for a little longer before pulling the overgrown chicken closer to him without a word.
Hawks lets out a surprised almost squawk, not that he would ever admit that, and he allows himself to bask in Dabi’s warmth. One of his wings curls around Dabi’s back.
Dabi tells himself that he’s only doing this because the distraction of the shivering and chattering chicken beside him would irritate him more than this does. He’s doing what he can to preserve his peace, that’s all.
He can’t remember the last time someone pressed themselves up against him, but his body sure remembers how to react.
His cigarette burns out too quickly and he misses something to occupy his mouth, instead he worries one of his mouth staples trying to think of anything other than seeing how far this birdie would go for his shitty spying. He chances a glance down at the man and finds sharp golden eyes trained on his mouth.
An unfamiliar warmth settles in his chest, Dabi is used to the feeling of fire and burning under his skin but this is different and not wholly unwelcome. He’s not sure there was ever a time that someone else made him feel a heat that wasn’t accompanied by a melting rage. Although, the bird has definitely managed that too.
The golden eyes slide up to his and quickly look away, a faint blush appearing on his cheeks. It’s the first time Dabi has managed to gain the upper hand in their interactions, the first time he’s been able to unbalance the usually unflappable bird.
These quiet and close moments seem to be happening more and more, but only when the other members aren’t around. Dabi has done his best to try and avoid being left alone with the bird, but Hawks seems to find ways to seek him out with shitty excuses. Like now.
But maybe if he takes charge, show the bird who’s really in control, he’ll know to stop playing with fire and finally back the fuck off. Dabi isn’t the easy mark Hawks has pegged him to be.
Without thinking the hand on Hawks’ back reaches up and grabs the back of the man’s neck and pulls him closer, crushing his lips against Hawks’. The hero opens up without hesitation, which Dabi takes full advantage of, the hand on the back of Hawks’ neck sliding up and gripping his hair, eliciting a moan from the shorter man.
Dabi’s pierced tongue probes the heat of Hawks’ mouth, capturing every moan and breath that escapes him. Enjoying the feeling of Hawks’ melting into him, surrendering himself to him without question. Before Hawks could get too used to the sensation, Dabi breaks away and smirks at the sight before him. The usually put together, confident hero, a panting mess, lips swollen and eyes wide. All because of him.
“Warm enough now, pigeon?” Dabi asks, not bothering to hide the smugness from his voice.
Hawks awkwardly clears his throat, running a hand through his hair.
“Yeah, thanks hot stuff.”
Dabi continues to smirk, stepping back into Hawks’ space and the wide eyes look back up at him. He leans his head down, their lips almost touching and Hawks closes his eyes expecting another kiss. Dabi is tempted to give it to him, addicted to the power trip that comes from dominating the hero.
Instead, he lowers his voice to a deep husk, almost to a growl.
“How far will you go, pigeon? To join us?”
His eyes flutter back open, intensely gazing into Dabi’s turquoise eyes matching his intensity.
“All the way. Right to the end.”
The feeling of having the upper hand is slowly disintegrating, he wasn’t expecting such an earnest response from the hero or to believe his words so readily. He wasn’t expecting to want to kiss the man again for reasons beyond control or manipulation.
Dabi hopes that his smirk didn’t falter as he processed Hawks words.
“Glad to hear it.”
Dabi steps back out of Hawks’ space, and heads towards the door.
“Enjoy the roof, birdie.”
Death is starting to become much brighter than he anticipated, especially with where he was sure he was heading. It’s becoming louder too, he still can’t make out words but he can make out different tones or… voices? The shadows from before have more of a human shape to them, they come and go, flitting around the space beyond him.
Every so often he’s certain he can feel something akin to pain in various parts of his non-existent body. This all feels backwards, he thought that you would go from feeling to non-feeling, not the other way around. He can’t even succeed in death.
He doesn’t know how many trips down memory lane he can take before he breaks completely, not that he was holding it together at the best of times anyway. Is it possible to kill yourself again even if you’re already dead and without a body? It fucking better be because Dabi cannot take anymore of this shit.
A sudden pain to his face jolts the rest of his body and for the first time in fuck knows how long he’s aware of a body again. Sort of. The makings of a body, but not the non-corporeal form he was hoping to be at this point.
Time is surely passing, or something is happening as the pain comes more frequently now. It disappears after there’s a flurry of activity around him. In his more coherent thoughts he feels like a fish in a tank, especially when he’s certain he can see human shadowy figures peering at him.
Occasionally he thinks he recognises the figures or their tone-voices from just beyond the ether or is certain he hears soft crying. He lies to himself, convinced that it’s just his memories becoming stronger, that this is finally his time. A last bombardment of mental torture before he’s finally able to let go.
It’s better than the alternative that he’s not really dead at all.