Archive of Our Own

He needed a new tactic. Prostrating himself before that scar-faced fuck was getting him nowhere and not only was Hawks getting impatient, but the Hero Commission was breathing down his neck, wanting results. He understood why. The longer this sting operation went on, the harder it would be to extricate himself. He’d been warned from the outset. That he might not come out the other side of this. That was still true. But if he was going to die, if he was going to be tortured and murdered by the League (or locked up by the Hero Commission), he wanted something to show for it.

Dabi was a tough nut to crack. His general affect gave the impression that he was some kind of edgelord dumbass, who was likely in way over his head. That kind of character was far easier to break than Dabi had turned out to be. The problem was, in order to get something out of another person, one would have to know what they wanted. Dabi didn’t seem to want anything. He was like a blank slate behind those burning eyes, living from moment to moment like what came after didn’t matter to him. How did a person like that become a member of the League of Villains? Why hadn’t he just gotten a boring workaday job and gotten on with his life? Did he actually /believe/ all that Hero Killer Stain hooha, or was that just an excuse, a convenient scapegoat for his own misdeeds? Did he just want to watch the world burn?

Hawks stewed on all of this, waiting on a rooftop of the meatpacking district. The slaughterhouse beneath his feet had been closed and shuttered for decades, but a glance through the broken windows showed an eerie collection of rusted metal forms, left behind to crumble onto the concrete floor. It was basically a death trap inside, but the roof was fine. Structurally sound, at least. He’d scouted out every corner of it, since Dabi was characteristically late, and he’d had the time. Peering at abandoned pigeon nests, little more than scraggly piles of feather-crusted twigs tucked against metal vents and cement blocks, Hawks scratched his chin. Dabi thought nothing of burning civilians to death; people who had nothing to do with the Hero Killer’s code of ethics, such as it was. He wasn’t bothered about kidnapping children, either. What motivated a person like that? Did he just want free license to do whatever sick thing he could think of? He murdered heroes and seemed to enjoy it. Was that what he wanted? Just violence for its own sake?

The sound of heavy footfalls rang out on the fire escape, followed by Dabi’s heavy breathing. Hawks frowned. The guy was apparently not in very good shape, relying too much on his quirk, if climbing up a few flights of stairs had him winded. Made sense. Hawks’s intel from the Kamino Incident said that Dabi got knocked out pretty instantaneously. He hadn’t brought that up with the villain, obviously. He’d gathered that the man enjoyed being thought of as dangerous and intimidating, and wouldn’t like having attention called to the fact he’d gone out like a punk.

“If the stairs are too much for you, we could always meet somewhere else,” Hawks drawled. “A bar, a nice cafe... your hideout. You could invite your friends.” He crossed the space between them while Dabi brushed flakes of rust and chipped paint from his hands.

“Very funny. Anyone ever tell you you’re really pushy?” Dabi growled in return, scratching under one of the staples beneath his left eye.

Hawks scoffed. “Says the guy who asked me to put the former number two, current number one hero on a silver platter for him.” He leaned against the locked door that would’ve led into a stairwell when the slaughterhouse was functional, rearranging his wings to get comfortable. Dabi folded like an old lawn chair to sit on a stack of cinderblocks.

“All in the service of a better world,” Dabi quipped, a strangely-shaped grin pinched between his staples. The smile didn’t reach his eyes, and Hawks internally raged. This was just more of the same. To make it worse, Dabi didn’t even offer an opening. “What have you got?” Dabi asked. Right to business.

“Best Jeanist lost a lung in the Kamino Incident,” Hawks said. “I think you made a mistake concentrating on that Bakugou kid. I know how it looked from the sports festival. It looked like he was total psycho, an easy convert, right? But, according to my sources,” Hawks paused, carefully worded his report so as not to endanger young Tokoyami, “Bakugou Katsuki is possibly the least cooperative person in his year, not just in his class.”

“So you’re saying if we want to recruit, we should snatch up some other kiddies,” Dabi sniped, sharp eyes watching Hawks keenly.

Hawks rolled his eyes. “Why even bother with children? I heard they arrested some middle school student after that whole,” he waved a hand, “thing with the U.A. training camp.”

“Was that guy in middle school? I didn’t know,” Dabi replied, unconcerned. The wind kicked up, ruffled his hair and coat.

“Point being, he was captured pretty easily. Doesn’t seem to be doing too well in incarceration either, from what I hear.” Hawks felt like he was just spinning his wheels.

“So did two grown-ass adults,” Dabi countered. “But I didn’t climb all the way up here to debate strategy with you.” He pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, lit one with a flame at the tip of his index finger. Without thinking, Hawks stretched out a wing, sheltering Dabi and his cigarette from the wind.

“Just trying to help,” Hawks protested. “Not my fault if you and your boss don’t want to listen.”

Dabi glanced at the wing, but said nothing of it, and smoked in silence for some time, undisturbed.

“Well, alright. You’re in it. What d’you think is the fastest way to a new world order, huh?” Dabi asked, around a mouthful of smoke.

Hawks blinked at him, raised his eyebrows. “That’s a hell of a question,” he stated. “I guess that depends on what you want from that world. Seems to me, Stain wanted a society where heroes served the people without the desire for compensation, totally altruistically. So then, should hero work be done entirely by volunteers? No stipends, no sponsorships? If so, should there also be no government oversight? Heroes could do what they thought was best in the moment, but who would hold them accountable when shit went wrong? A lynch mob?”

Dabi rubbed the gnarled skin of his chin, ashed his cigarette with the other hand. “Ideally we wouldn’t need ‘heroes’ as we know them. There’d be no villains, either. Just rescue heroes, essentially. For natural disasters, accidents. Acts of God, if y’like.”

Hawks was surprised. “You’re talking about putting yourself out of a job,” he said. “You know, villains arose before heroes.”

“Yeah, but I’m talking about a society where no one needs a job. People’s needs’d be provided for. That’d significantly cut down on crime, dontcha think?” He took another long drag, let smoke curl out through the slices in his cheeks.

“What about the whack jobs who just want to hurt people, like that muscley guy that was arrested alongside poison gas kid? He’s been in solitary basically from the get-go because he kept starting fights in prison.” Hawks was learning more about Dabi than he’d ever thought he would. Was any of this useful information? What the hell kind of person delighted in his infamy after being recognized as the one who killed Snatch, and then talked about methods of reducing crime and recidivism?

“Do I look like I’m running for office? I don’t have all the answers, I’m just telling you I think it’s fucked up how there are people who are licensed heroes and all they do is advertisements and bullcrap like that which doesn’t help anybody. I can’t /spit/ in this city without hitting some kind of hero merch. Makes me sick.” The cherry tip of his cigarette glowed red in the gathering evening as he sucked the smoke down, blew it out in a huff. “What about you, Hawks? You get up to number two just so they’d slap your face on a lunchbox?”

Hawks shrugged. “I’ve always told you what I want. A world where heroes don’t have to work so hard.”

“Same thing that I want,” Dabi agreed. “Oh, except, I also want Endeavor dead. And I’d prefer it if I got to be the guy who finished the job.”

See, there it was. Dabi could pretend to be idealistic, pretend to care about crime rates, but then seconds later he’d advocate cold-blooded murder.

“Why him, specifically? It’s not like he’s a sports drink spokesman or something,” Hawks asked, watching Dabi drop his cigarette and grind it underfoot. “He’s probably not even the wealthiest hero around.”

Dabi shook his head, mouth tightening into a truncated grimace. “There’s never gonna be a better society so long as a man like him is top dog. Besides which, I hate him.” He turned the cigarette pack over in his hands. It was an expensive brand, one he’d tasked Hawks with buying for him, weeks ago. It seemed he’d really conserved them, making the pack last. Hawks wondered if Dabi was smoking his usual cheap brand between his more favored costly ones, to stretch the life of the pack out further. He seemed to consider pulling out a second one, but decided against it, shoving the pack back in his pocket. Torn shirt and dress shoes, box dye job and luxury brand cigarettes. Hawks still didn’t understand Dabi at all.

“He hasn’t quite been the same since you and that Nomu put that big scar on his face,” Hawks noted. That wasn’t classified information or anything. Just something Hawks had noticed.

“Fuckin’ /good/,” Dabi snarled, looking at his feet. “Goddamn it, I hate him so much I sometimes lie awake at night, wondering what’s stopping me from burning his house to the ground. Probably the likelihood he’d survive that, the fuckin’ bastard.” He clawed the knees of his skinny jeans, gritting his teeth. Then, he took a deep breath, let it out, and all at once, relaxed. His whole demeanor changed, like the windows behind his eyes had closed their shutters again. None of his outburst made any sense to Hawks. When he’d gone to pull Endeavor out of that fight, he’d heard Dabi say, “nice to meet you, I guess,” to the number one. How did Dabi come to hate Endeavor so much, from just that one meeting? It wasn’t the sort of dispassionate hatred most criminals had for the top heroes. It was /personal/. There was something there, and Hawks desperately wanted to know what it was. He thought, maybe that would be the key, the thing that got him under Dabi’s skin so he could actually start getting somewhere.

“Hey, it’s getting more windy up here,” Hawks observed. “That kinda thing makes it harder to fly. Do you want to relocate?”

“Don’t suggest the hideout again, it’s getting real old,” Dabi grunted, standing slowly. “You got more info for me, or is it really that lonely at the top?”

“Who knows? I might remember something I forgot to tell you,” Hawks answered, pasting his customary smirk across his face. Dabi rolled his eyes, but started down the fire escape. “I could carry you, you know. It’d be faster,” Hawks offered.

“Not on your life,” Dabi grumbled. Hawks followed behind him, using the /stairs/ like a /pleb/, pulling out his phone to shine a light on the crumbling steps as the evening turned to night.

The rust gave way under Dabi’s right foot, and he let out an undignified yelp as he began to fall, but Hawks caught him, yanked him back up.

“Told you so,” Hawks said. “You’re gonna get fucking tetanus from these stairs.”

Dabi didn’t thank him, but he was more cautious with where he put his weight as they made their way down to the ground.

“Come on,” Hawks said, moving around Dabi to lead the way.

“Is there a single place we can go where you won’t be recognized? Other than more rickety rooftops,” Dabi complained, shoving his hands in his pockets.

“I assume you already know where my apartment is,” Hawks replied.

“Sure I do. I guess it doesn’t bother you if your doorman and neighbors see you with a wanted criminal.”

Hawks shrugged. “Your face hasn’t been publicized, and it’s not like anyone who would recognize you lives in my building. Besides, I’ll fly us up to the mezzanine, and we can take my private elevator.”

“Of course you have a private elevator,” Dabi spat, but he followed behind Hawks anyway.

He did not like being lifted up from the alley behind Hawks’s building, and urged into a window at the end of a hallway. Hawks could see that from the way he didn’t seem to know how to hold his body for the short flight, and ended up just hanging from Hawks’s feather like a kitten from the mouth of a mama cat. He brushed himself off when his feet touched the carpet, clicked his tongue in annoyance as one of the staples on his wrist caught on his cotton shirt, but Hawks simply strode past him, ignoring his discomfort, and swiped his proximity card to activate his elevator.

“Why haven’t we just been meeting at your apartment all this time, if you’re not concerned about blowing your cover?” Dabi asked, staring down Hawks’s reflection in the elevator doors.

“It would be dangerous to do it all the time,” Hawks said, rather pointlessly he thought. He knew this was Dabi’s idea of a joke. They arrived at his penthouse, however, and Hawks was a little surprised when the villain courteously removed his shoes. Hawks toed out of his boots, and walked to the kitchen, opening a disused pantry.

“People keep sending me bottles of stuff as thanks for saving their lives or whatever,” he said. “Want something?”

“You gonna feed me, too? Wine and dine me?” Dabi was tall enough to peer into the pantry over Hawks’s head, and reached out to brush dust off a few bottles. “You don’t drink much, hero?”

“I’m fine with just a can of Asahi or something, usually. But I don’t have any here. Just. Wine, sake... champagne looks like. Gift stuff. I don’t really know anything about it, if I’m honest.” He didn’t know why he was offering, really, except that Dabi had been /so close/ to giving him something he could use, and Hawks needed to keep him talking. If ‘wining and dining’ was the thing that would accomplish that goal, he’d do it.

He left Dabi to root through the pantry and pick something, while he stuck his head into his refrigerator. “I didn’t get to eat today, so I’m gonna make some pasta. Will you eat that?”

“As long as it doesn’t have peas in it.”

“You allergic?”

“No, I just don’t like them,” Dabi replied, like this was a normal thing. The number two hero, offering to cook dinner for a known killer. “You gonna do a meat sauce or a cream sauce?”

He was holding two bottles of wine, like Hawks’s answer would dictate which he picked.

“Cream sauce. With chicken,” Hawks answered, pulling dry penne from a cabinet, and the remains of a rotisserie chicken from the fridge.

Dabi put one of the bottles back, and Hawks’s stomach, unexpectedly, turned over. He felt impossibly wrong, having this man in his house, being a good host to him. Noting his food and wine preferences. What was he doing with his life? Dabi uncorked the wine, poured it into two glasses to let it open up. Hawks was almost expecting the man to ask for a decanter. Who the fuck was this guy, really?

He cooked quietly, waiting to see if Dabi would say anything. Eventually, he did.

“This is a nice fuckin’ place, Hawks. You think you’ll be able to keep it, when the rev comes?” He had a mean smirk on his face.

“Probably not,” Hawks answered honestly. He stirred Parmesan into the pasta. He wasn’t particularly hopeful about his own future.

“So what, you’re just enjoying it while you can?”

Dabi sat opposite him, in a high bar stool, watching him cook from across the counter. He sipped his wine slowly, careful not to spill with the gaps in his cheeks, the rubbery stiffness of his scarred lower lip.

“Pretty much. Can you blame me? Is your ideal utopia devoid of nice apartments with broad balconies, good for takeoffs and landings?”

Dabi frowned. “Don’t ask me these things. Just because I can see the system is broken doesn’t mean I have a 12-step guide on how to fix it. I’m just doing my part, same as you.”

“I suppose so,” Hawks answered, diplomatically.

“Let me ask you this,” Dabi said, leaning forward on his elbows, “what’s the Hero Commission’s stance on ‘acceptable losses’?”

“What do you mean?” The room was thick with the smell of bacon and garlic.

“You’re called to the site of a collapsed building after an earthquake. You can’t get everyone out, and some people die. It’s thought of as tragic for their families or whatever, but overall, people pat you on the back and say you did a good job. You’re a hero even if you save just one person. So the rest are acceptable losses, right?” Dabi swirled his wine in his glass, like he hadn’t a care in the world, but Hawks could tell he was being watched.

“You’re going somewhere with this, I imagine,” he said, stirring the cooked pasta into his savory cream sauce, making sure every piece was evenly coated.

“Just thinking about that hero I killed. That sand guy.”

“If you’re trying to get me to soothe your conscience by telling you that killing Snatch was a necessary sacrifice, look elsewhere.” He spooned pasta into a pair of bowls.

“You’re saying you wouldn’t kill someone, even if you thought it was for the greater good?” Dabi pressed, accepting a steaming bowl and a fork. He looked hungry.

“I didn’t say that. It wouldn’t be the first time, you know.” Hawks didn’t talk about this a lot, but if Dabi had done any kind of due diligence, he likely could’ve found it out.

“Oh really?” Dabi’s eyes lit up as he speared a piece of bacon along with a few glistening bits of penne.

“Really. I wasn’t even twenty, the first time I had to put someone in the ground,” Hawks said, coming around the counter with his bowl. “Let’s sit on the sofa.”

The back of the sofa was low, so he could fit his wings over the back of it. Dabi rearranged throw pillows, trying to get comfortable. He sat with his bowl in his lap and his wine on the end table, with his bare feet, looking domestic. It was bizarre.

“Tell me what happened,” Dabi urged, before blowing on another bite of pasta.

Hawks sighed, sipped his wine and waited for his food to cool a little. “He was a villain who could pull off his fingers and turn them into bombs. They’d regrow fairly quickly, and... well, kinda like my feathers, he could control his fingers with his mind. They inched around like horrible worms, hiding in crevices and then exploding. He uh... it was a hot summer, and people were sleeping with their windows cracked. He liked to wiggle his fingers into people’s bedrooms, especially young women, and uh... blow them up from the inside, if you get my drift.” He cast his eyes at Dabi, met his intense blue stare directly. Dabi didn’t say anything. He merely waited for the rest. “That’s how he got his kicks, I guess,” Hawks went on. “I ended up being the one who caught up with him. He’d use explosions to mask his escape, but I was able to use the rising heat as lift, get up over the blasts, and pursue. Then it was just him and me, in a residential street, and he started sending these gross finger bombs everywhere, saying that he’d kill everyone around if I didn’t let him go. Little school kids and animals and the elderly. He didn’t care. I’d watched him fight, knew he had to use his quirk /consciously/ to explode his bombs. So I made a choice.” Hawks stabbed his fork into his pasta. “I put about fifteen feathers through him. Heart, lungs, kidneys, liver, both hands, both legs. I felt it too. I can feel vibrations in the air with my wings, you know. They’re very sensitive. So you can imagine what it was like, feeling each one piercing flesh and muscle, the heat of blood, the stutter of his heart as it seized and died. It was almost as if I’d stuck my fingers inside his body, tore his left ventricle from his right with my bare hands.” He shook his head. “Anyway, the finger bombs didn’t explode, and he bled out in the street.”

“Closed casket for that guy, huh?” Dabi commented, eyes once again on his dinner.

“He was probably cremated, actually,” Hawks said, cutting his gaze across the sofa at Dabi, who smirked.

“Has there been anyone else since then?” Dabi asked, entertained.

“Are you asking me to kill and tell?” Hawks shot back. It was a messy fact of hero work. Sometimes people died. Sometimes, he was the one who made that decision. Most of the time, the Hero Commission wanted villains captured alive. But, every now and then, Hawks didn’t get that option. It hadn’t seemed to hurt his approval ratings.

“Just comparing notes,” Dabi said blithely. “It would be embarrassing for us both if you had a higher body count than me.”

Hawks agreed with that. Well, maybe ‘embarrassing’ wasn’t the right word.

“It is what it is,” Hawks deflected. Maybe that bit of information would finally convince Dabi he would do whatever it took.

“Did it make you sick, that first time you killed someone?” Dabi asked.

Hawks paused with a forkful of pasta en route to his mouth. He thought back.

“I think I just felt relieved that it was over,” he answered, truthfully. “At the time, I wondered why it didn’t bother me more, especially considering how I’d felt it all so vividly. But instead I mostly felt sweaty, and dusty, and in need of a shower.” He looked up at the ceiling, tried to picture how everything had looked that day, how things had felt. “It seemed to upset some of the other heroes, when they arrived on the scene, and saw the body. It was strange. We see corpses more often than your average civilian, you know? You’d think veteran pros would be more used to it, but I guess some people never quite build up a strong stomach for that kind of thing.”

Dabi’s expression was unreadable.

“What about you?” Hawks asked, not sure he really wanted to hear the answer.

“First time I killed someone...” Dabi mused, stirring his pasta. “I was sleeping rough. Got into a fight because some shithead decided to take a piss against the wall where I’d put all my stuff. And that made me angry, y’see. I’d already had a hard day, and when I shouted at him, he turned his arm into a blade— like a whole fuckin’ sword just to harass a homeless teenager— and threatened to cut my balls off. We scuffled, and he split his sword arm into knife fingers. Gave me this lovely ear to ear grin I have today.” He ran a finger across the seam in his face. “So I pushed my hand up against his face and barbecued his head.” Dabi took another delicate bite of penne, paused while he chewed and swallowed. “I probably seemed like a mark, you know?” he said after a moment. “Must’ve looked half dead. All this stuff,” he gestured to his face, “wasn’t so well healed then. And I was basically just taped together. Plus sleeping on the street wasn’t the most sanitary environment.” He wiped cream sauce from the corner of his mouth, licked it off of his finger. “Of course I couldn’t go to a hospital, seeing as I didn’t exactly want to be found. And after I torched that guy, I needed to move my camp anyway, so I started asking around, found an underground doctor who would patch me up, make it so my skin would stop cracking and bleeding, give me something for the infections and so forth. All for the low, low price of one kidney.”

“You took a kidney from the guy you killed?” Hawks asked, imagining Dabi as a teenager, dirty and bandaged, trying to perform a post-mortem surgery.

“Nah. The body was gone by the time I went back there. Besides, the doctor wanted a fresher one, and I was gonna die from the infection without his help. Sepsis, y’know. So if you ever try that feather trick on me, the one you pulled on ol’ Finger Bang, you’d only have a fifty-fifty chance of hitting a kidney.” Dabi chewed slowly, didn’t talk with his mouth full. Overall he had remarkably refined table manners... probably so he wouldn’t rip his face open. Despite that, his pasta was more than halfway gone. He seemed to be enjoying it.

“... Finger Bang,” Hawks echoed. “That’s horrible, considering what that guy did to get his rocks off.” It was a disgusting thought, but it didn’t put him off his meal. He had to admit, at least to himself, that he’d tried a little harder with dinner, just to make something that looked nice. Usually, after a long day, he’d just microwave some curry or something, but having someone to cook for had changed his routine. It was somewhat distressing that the company he was trying to impress was a murderous terrorist.

“Having a fetish for sending your disembodied fingers into unsuspecting sleeping girls’ pussies and then blowing them up is pretty extreme, I’d say, yeah. Makes the rest of us look vanilla by comparison.” He finished off his glass of wine, stood to pour himself another. “It’s amazing what some people will do just to get their jollies. It’s very... what’s the opposite of noble?”

“Ignoble?” Hawks tried. “Or, dishonorable, maybe?”

“Yeah.” Dabi brought the bottle back to the couch, set it on the coffee table. “Not the kind of guy I’d want in the League.”

“Didn’t that muscley dude just wanna kill people? The prison psychologist says the guy apparently thinks it’s ‘oppression’ he’s not allowed to just kill whoever,” Hawks protested. As soon as he said it, he wondered if Dabi would consider the sentiment traitorous to the cause.

Dabi scoffed. “I didn’t recruit him.” He scraped the last of the pasta into his mouth. “He was basically pushed on us by our equipment guy.”

Hawks took note. Could their weapons supplier be an ‘in’?

“Plus he was really full of himself,” Dabi went on. “It was pretty irritating.”

There was nothing to say to that. Nothing /smart/ anyway. Hawks finished his pasta instead, stacked his bowl in Dabi’s. Any time he used the bowl he’d given Dabi, he’d remember this encounter, this strange moment in time.

“Is that why you wanted to recruit UA kids? Their ideals?” Hawks asked. It seemed counterintuitive, but it seemed to fit Stain’s ideology, at least somewhat. It sounded as though Dabi believed the line between hero and villain was a blurry one. Hawks wasn’t sure he was doing anything to disprove that.

“Mmh, pretty sure the boss just wanted to stick it to All Might, and make it clear that all the people who’ve gotten complacent by letting other people save them wouldn’t get that luxury anymore. See, he hasn’t said as much, but I think somewhere deep down he believes that anyone who isn’t actively working to improve society, to lift up others while bettering themselves, is evil.” Dabi leaned back as much as he could against the low couch, ended slumped with one arm stretched out along the back, while the other held his wine. “That’s one of the reasons he started the League. He saw that there was no equity in this world, that some people were being cast aside for no reason other than an accident of their birth, and he called us together to do something about it. That’s how he sees it, I think.”

“You /think/?” Hawks moved closer, felt like he was on the verge of a breakthrough.

“Well I mean. It’s not like he’s published a manifesto like Stain’s. But I guess there’s no need. We all have our own reasons for joining. Our own reasons for being outcasts... there are plenty of daddy issues and undiagnosed personality disorders in the group, that’s for sure,” Dabi murmured, his glass resting against his bottom lip. The staples in his chin clinked against it as he spoke. “Did you have a good relationship with your parents?”

Hawks chewed his lip, wondered how honest he should be.

“I was raised by my grandma and auntie. I was never close with my actual parents. My mother might still be in prison, actually.” He shrugged. “But my grandma and auntie did their best, you know? Worked hard to make sure I had every opportunity to become a hero.” He wouldn’t tell Dabi about his Endeavor plush, the one that had been his favorite companion through his early years.

“You always wanted that life, then?” Dabi reached for the wine, topped up Hawks’s glass. “What’s your mom in for?”

“It... it seemed like a waste to /not/ become a hero. Considering the versatility of my quirk. And I think my grandma especially wanted to make sure I didn’t mess up my life like my mom did.” He took a deep drink, licked his lips. “My mom’s in for credit card fraud. Nothing flashy. Though she did steal... kind of a lot.” He laughed quietly.

“And here you are, sitting with me,” Dabi reminded him. “Does this count as messing up your life?”

Hawks looked at him. The wine was staining his top lip the same berry shade as his scars.

“I thought you were working towards a new world order?” Hawks dodged, and Dabi gave him that cheeky grin again.

“It could go badly,” he said. “And I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a peaceful, non-violent revolution.”

He stared right back at Hawks, and then his outstretched hand, the one resting on the back of the couch, moved just slightly, just enough to touch one of Hawks’s wings. Hawks suppressed a shiver.

“You know, in a way, I think the boss would respect that you felt it would be ‘a waste’ if you didn’t put your quirk to effective use. Even if he’d probably disagree with what you represent.” Dabi’s fingers continued to stroke the edges of his primary feathers, the picture of lackadaisical apathy.

“That being?” Hawks wasn’t sure his voice didn’t shake. People /didn’t/ touch his wings.

“Well you’re the number two hero. And your popularity ratings are way way up. So it stands to reason that when someone says ‘hero’, yours is one of the faces that comes to mind. And that means that there are people out there who think of you when they think of safety.” He moved a bit closer, for better access to the wing. “They think of you when something is dangerous. They rely on you, and don’t help themselves.”

Hawks blinked rapidly. “Some people are quirkless, you know. Or their quirks aren’t useful for fighting.”

“I know,” Dabi said. “Your wings are softer than I imagined, considering you can eviscerate a guy with them.” He petted through the feathers, like he was conducting a scientific study. Hawks clenched his fists in his lap. “I’m not suggesting that the weak and quirkless be exterminated or something. That’s the kind of eugenics-y thinking that led to quirk marriages.”

“And you’re against those,” Hawks guessed. He couldn’t believe he was allowing a villain this kind of touch. He stretched his wing into it though, allowed Dabi to find the muscle and brush his short fingernails against it. It felt good, as long as he didn’t think about it too much.

“Categorically,” Dabi replied. “Have you heard about that handbook? That something something liberation army thing? I haven’t read it, but I do hear people talking about it.”

“Oh, uh, yeah,” Hawks stuttered. Dabi’s long fingers continued to comb through his feathers gently. With a thought, the man could burn his wing off, and cripple him. Instead, though, he seemed to be enjoying the soft, cool slide against his fingertips. “Something about people being allowed to use their quirks to the fullest extent, without limitation, even if their quirks endanger others?”

“Yeah, but I think it gets kinda ‘only the strong survive’ after that, which I’m not good with.” Dabi wasn’t looking at him. He was concentrated on the slip of red feathers through the valleys of his fingers.

“No? But you have a strong quirk.” Hawks was digging, and he knew it.

“Maybe so. My flames burn hotter than the number one hero’s, y’know. But my body doesn’t handle it well. I can overextend myself. And, with all these scars, the radical surgery I had to go through, I’m not able to train my physicality or endurance much more. And I’ve been criticized, even tortured for my body’s weakness.” He pinched a feather between thumb and forefinger, smoothed gently down the shaft of it.

“Tortured? By your boss?” Hawks asked. Would that make sense? No, not really. Then who?

“No. By my father.” Dabi’s eyes narrowed, and his face took on that same look of passionate loathing he’d had when discussing Endeavor. Hawks wondered if that was why Dabi hated the number one so much: the hero reminded Dabi of his father. “But like I said,” Dabi shifted, meeting Hawks’s eyes again, “plenty of daddy issues to go around in the League.”

“Well. My father was never in the picture, so I guess I fit right in,” Hawks quipped, unsure how to deal with the charged mood.

“Do you really think so?” Dabi leaned into his space, set his glass down on the coffee table. “I really think you could, Hawks. I think you want the same things I do... other than the fact you’re apparently willing to let Endeavor live.”

Hawks frowned, but Dabi held up a hand.

“I know what you’re going to say, about witnesses, and what you had to do,” Dabi said. “It doesn’t matter. There’s time. He won’t be up on that pedestal forever.” Suddenly, he gripped Hawks by his shirt, pulled him close. “I don’t need your help with that, not anymore.”

“Then what /do/ you need?” Hawks asked, more breathless than he would like. He could almost feel the fire in Dabi’s eyes. This is what it all came down to: what did Dabi /want/?

Dabi held him there, searching his face, for several long moments. Hawks barely dared to blink, hoped Dabi saw what he was looking for.

“I need...” He trailed off, looking Hawks up and down. “I need to know you’re legit. I need to know you mean the things you say, about wanting a better world, being willing to do whatever it takes to get it.”

“Did everyone else who joined the League have to go through such intense interrogation?” Hawks gasped, feeling the heat of Dabi’s breath on his skin.

“No. But they’re all crazy. I don’t think they have it in them to fake it as long as you could.” He tugged Hawks even closer, so they were almost nose to nose. All Hawks could see were those manic blue eyes. “You’re smart, Hawks. And sickeningly sane. So how do I know you’re for real?”

Hawks swallowed. He didn’t feel particularly sane, this close to Dabi’s patchwork face. “I... I don’t know how to prove it to you. You want me to wear a sign or something? That might make it difficult for me to spy for you.” He felt he’d already put himself in the line of fire (literally), setting up Endeavor for a fall. What more could he do? Dabi’s eyes had changed though. His pupils had dilated and his breath caught.

“Yeah, a sign...” Dabi hissed. “Not one your hero buddies could see, but one you and I both knew was there. Something I could point to to help the boss understand.”

Hawks’s brows furrowed. A sign other heroes couldn’t see? What could that be?

“What do you mean?” he asked, quiet in the close space between them.

“An indelible mark.”

“Like a tattoo?” If Dabi made him get L.o.V. tattooed on his ass or something, he supposed he could just add an E at the end at a later date.

“/Like/ a tattoo, but not quite,” Dabi said, leaning so his lips were right up against Hawks’s ear. “More like a /brand/.”

Hawks stiffened. His skin crawled with hot and cold chills. “That’s all it’ll take to convince you?” He asked, a little weakly.

Dabi chuckled in his ear. “Don’t think I’m not hearing the hesitance in your voice, hero. Honestly, I’m surprised at you Hawks. A couple little burns are more frightening than putting fifteen blades through another living person, skewering all his favorite organs?”

“It’s not that,” Hawks protested. Dabi snarled at him, and Hawks had to laugh, a high, nervous thing. “Its not what you think. It’s just. Well. Here...” He shifted back on the couch, put a little space between himself and the villain. Carefully watching Dabi’s face, trying to bite down on his hysterical smile, he lifted his loose off-duty shirt to show the expanse of his torso. Immediately, Dabi’s eyes went to the cluster of irregularly-shaped pale scars over one hip, the line of them up his ribs on the other side, and the four pale pink stripes, the width of a man’s fingers, on one flank.

“Those are burn scars,” Dabi stated. “Cigarette burns, and someone else with a heat quirk.” As if unable to help himself, he reached out one hand, brushed fingertips ever so lightly against the finger-shaped scars wrapping around Hawks’s side, making him shudder. “He didn’t burn as hot as I do, though,” he observed, feeling the quality of the scar. Hawks choked on a sound as Dabi played rough fingers over the old burns, and Dabi’s eyes flashed. “Oh. I see,” he said. “This is why you didn’t want me to burn you. It turns you on.”

Hawks glared at him, dropped his shirt.

“You’re full of surprises, hero,” Dabi said, grinning. “A sick freak, like the rest of us... a cold-blooded killer, like the rest of us... you know, if you’re not careful, I might start to like you.”

Hawks bit his lip, his stomach twisted in knots. How did they go from debating philosophy to this? Would he ever forgive himself if he allowed this to continue? Maybe it would endear him to Dabi and the League, but... if he survived this, he’d carry the scar from this night forever. What was worse, he’d probably like it, too.

“Cigarettes only burn at something like nine hundred degrees centigrade at their hottest,” Dabi went on. “I can get up to three thousand. This right here?” He pushed Hawks’s shirt up again, passed his hand over the handprint burn. Hawks’s body tensed, feeling that hand on his skin. “This is barely hotter than a scald. Probably not even two hundred degrees. I could give you a /real/ burn. I could make it /excruciating/.”

Hawks’s breath stuttered. He could feel his face growing hot. /Fuck/, this wasn’t right. Why was he like this?

He reached out, slowly, touched Dabi’s jaw, felt the burned skin under his palm. There was something burning inside of him already. All his artifice, his carefully crafted plans to get information out of Dabi and infiltrate the League, fell away, as he pulled the other man into a hungry kiss. He wanted to feel those burns, taste them. Dabi’s lower lip... it was stiff and rubbery, and weirdly smooth. He felt the staples at the corners of his mouth, kissed them, too. Dabi grunted, pressed him into the couch so he was forced to fling his wings out to keep his feathers from bending, laid the full weight of his body on top of Hawks as he bent into the kiss, nipped Hawks’s lips, licked noisily into his mouth.

Hawks pushed him away, breathing heavy, heart thundering with panic. How had he let himself do that? Dabi stared down at him, waiting, and Hawks had to make a decision. He knew, just like this whole double agent plot, once he started, it would be nearly impossible to extract himself from the rubble after the fall. Hawks licked his lips, knew he was already in it, knew he couldn’t just say ‘maybe this is a bad idea’, and leave it at that, with this man. He leaned up again, brushed his lips against Dabi’s jaw. The texture of the scars was... if he was honest, electric. The revulsion and excitement muddled in his gut to form the cocktail that got his blood pumping, and he knew Dabi could feel his growing arousal, lying on top of him as he was.

“Knowing what you do now,” Hawks said against his neck, “does it still seem like a test of my loyalty, if I accept a brand from you? A deep, penetrating burn that’ll make me scream?” He hesitated a moment, then gave in, rolled his hips up against Dabi, gripped his upper arms and felt more staples under his long sleeve shirt. He knew he was forgetting his mission, but, fuck, Dabi’s lethal hands on him, threatening to char him to a crisp, had his cock thickening in his pants.

Dabi groaned, low in his throat. “I dunno, Hawks. Are you the kind of guy to fuck around if you don’t mean it? When you let this person scar you,” his hand closed over the burn on his side, “did it mean something to you?”

Hawks pushed his face into the junction of Dabi’s neck and shoulder, rubbed his nose and lips against the textured scar some more. It was an incredibly tactile experience, and if he focused on that, he could forget the rest of the world.

“It... yeah. At the time, I was in love with him. Even though he thought I was kidding when I told him I wanted him to burn me,” Hawks remembered, laughing. “I had to really convince him that I liked the pain.”

“He sounds sweet,” Dabi murmured, raking his nails down Hawks’s torso, making him arch and gasp. “Obviously a bad match for you, though. How could a guy like you, who takes his first life in such a brutally efficient fashion, stay with someone who balks at a little scarification?”

“That was about when we broke up, yeah. He never said it was /because/ I’d killed someone, but... I do think that was why, really.” Hawks sighed, scraped his teeth over Dabi’s shoulder. “I went over to his apartment after I’d showered the day off, and he was sitting in the dark, watching the news. The body was blurred out in the coverage, but there were photos of me, and the little blurb I’d given to the press about hoping residents slept easier knowing the villain was off the streets, but my then boyfriend was just... ashen faced. Totally pale. It looked like he’d been crying, too.” He helped Dabi out of his overshirt, pulled at the snaps of his own jacket to work it off around his wings. “I tried to explain, but he said he didn’t want all the gory details. So we just... pretended it never happened. Lasted another month, month and a half, I think? He said it was because my hero work made me too busy, and he wanted to concentrate on finishing his degree. But I’ve always thought it was— Ah, shit!” Dabi’s teeth had closed around one of Hawks’s nipples, pulled harshly. “Maybe he,” Hawks panted, “couldn’t stand fucking someone who... who could kill without remorse.”

Dabi moaned into his chest, bucked hard against the couch. “Fuck,” he slurred. “You don’t have to worry about that with me.”

Suddenly, Dabi sat up, stuck a finger into his own mouth and began fiddling with the staple at the corner. He popped it out like a piercing, and dropped it in his empty wine glass for safe keeping, then did the same on the other side. It wasn’t pretty; the corners of his mouth were jagged and scarred, with indentations where the staples held them closed. It put his teeth on more prominent display, giving him a skeletal grin. Hawks licked his lips.

“Why’d you do that? Not that I’m complaining, just curious,” Hawks asked, lifting a thumb to brush against the sliced-open corner of his mouth. Dabi opened up, let Hawks explore the mangled skin, then licked Hawks’s thumb cheekily.

“I can’t open my mouth very far with those in. If I’m going to kiss you, bite you, suck you... I need some more facial motility, y’see.”

“Oh... Jesus,” Hawks rasped.

“You ever enjoy it? Killing someone? Putting them down like a mad dog?” Dabi asked before bending down, opening his mouth wide to drag his teeth over the constellation of burn scars at Hawks’s hip. A chill went through Hawks. His cock was hard in his pants and he was being asked if he’d ever... He struggled his shirt off, ruffling his wings in the process. Dabi bit down on his hipbone, began sucking up a mark just inside of it, and Hawks gripped the sofa cushions hard, moaning aloud. “You sure are making a lot of noise, but you’re not answering my question,” Dabi noted, licking over the indentations of his teeth.

Hawks’s head thrashed against the throw pillow. “I don’t... I don’t know. You want me to say yes, you want me to say I’ve gotten a rush from feeling the life go out of someone, but I’m not sure I have. I’ve felt... accomplished, after a long fight, but I don’t—“

Hawks cut himself off as Dabi’s fingers went to the button of his pants.

“What makes you think I wanted you to say ‘yes’?” He tugged Hawks’s baggy pants down and off. He was still in his tee shirt and skinny jeans, but he left Hawks in his boxer briefs, with a dark hickey forming on his hip.

“Dunno. I thought you’d find that exciting,” Hawks admitted, as Dabi smoothed his hands up Hawks’s thighs.

“Meh. That teeth guy wanted to eat people, and I didn’t find him particularly interesting,” Dabi said. “Goddamn, you’ve got more burns here.” He brushed a thumb over them. “Little ones. What are these from?”

“Match heads,” Hawks said. “From stove lighting matches. I uh... did those myself.”

“While stroking off, huh?” Dabi’s grin was feral, especially with the torn edges, and Hawks found himself swallowing thickly. Dabi wasn’t acting like they were a hero and a villain, or a recruit and his liaison, or even like he was still testing Hawks’s commitment to the League. It was almost like they were just two people, hooking up without history or politics, and Hawks didn’t know what to do with that. What had Dabi meant when he’d said ‘if you’re not careful, I might start to like you’? This might become dangerous in a host of ways Hawks hadn’t considered.

“Yeah... I haven’t been able to do that in a while, because the blisters are distracting when I’m on patrol, but, fuck I always come so hard when I’m getting burned,” he said, just to watch Dabi’s face twitch. It worked, and Dabi uttered a low growl, hands gripping Hawks’s thighs tightly.

“You have such a nice body, hero. So toned and lithe. Makes you wonder why you want to litter it with self-inflicted scars. You want to damage your own flesh, in pursuit of pleasure.” He pushed Hawks’s legs wide, made space for himself between them, pushed his nose up against the bulge of Hawks’s cock in his underwear. His staples caught on the cotton, but he ignored it, thumbs digging into Hawks’s inner thighs as he nosed Hawks’s erection roughly, like some kind of animal hunting for a scent.

“Oh, fuck...” Hawks ground out. Was he about to let a villain suck his dick? That for /sure/ wouldn’t go into his report to the Hero Commission. He knew that the next time he met with them, he’d remember this, and it would be a never-ending dance of hiding things from every single person he spoke to. Forever.

Sharp, exquisite pain bloomed in his inner thighs and he shouted, arched off the couch, clawed the cushions. Dabi laughed, and pulled his thumbs away from the two oblong burns he’d left, marking where he’d been. He tongued the wet spot at the tip of Hawks’s cock, where it had leaked into his underwear, sucked the fabric into his mouth.

“You really liked that, huh? You’re dripping already. Here, look at your new burns.”

With his hands under Hawks’s knees, Dabi bent him nearly in half, so Hawks could look at the seared flesh. The fresh burns were small, just thumbprints really, but they were angry— white divots ringed with tender pink. He blinked tears out of his eyes, swallowed dry.

“Oh shit,” he said, his cock twitching. “How hot was that?”

“A thousand degrees centigrade, give or take. Just for a second though. Do you like them?” He asked like he’d just given Hawks a new set of cufflinks or something.

“Nngh,” was the only response Hawks could muster. He fought the urge to claw into the marks himself. “They still hurt,” he breathed, endorphins flooding his system, and Dabi laughed.

“I bet they fuckin’ do,” he said, and then he licked over one of them and Hawks’s whole leg spasmed, the stinging pain so complete and encompassing it made him see spots.

“Dabi!” he cried out, and then he felt the man buck against the couch again. He’d never live this down.

“Yeah, you just keep saying my name, hero. That might be even better than a brand. You’ll never forget this, will you? Even as you go back to all your hero friends, you’ll have the taste of my name at the back of your tongue.”

As if to illustrate, he pulled down the elastic of Hawks’s underwear, licked a hot stripe up his cock, sucked the tip into his mouth and probed the slit, where Hawks leaked shamefully. He was coating his tongue in Hawks’s taste, and murmured appreciatively as he did. Hawks’s eyelids fluttered. Dabi’s lips were loose and uncoordinated, and it seemed he wasn’t able to get a good seal with two of his staples taken out, but his tongue was strong and skilled.

“You have a fuckin’ Jacob’s ladder,” Dabi commented, before sliding his tongue up the three metal barbells adorning the underside of Hawks’s cock. His chin staples clinked against them. “I shouldn’t be surprised, since you’re such a pain slut, but these are fuckin’ hot.”

Hawks’s hips stuttered, wanting to thrust into Dabi’s mouth, and just that small aborted motion stretched his new burns, made him wince in delicious pain. Dabi’s teeth caught one of the barbells, gave it a little tug, and Hawks sucked in a choking breath.

“Fuck, Dabi...” he groaned, unable to stop himself. He looked down the line of his body, and Dabi looked up at him, gave him that dead man’s grin, and swallowed his cock.

Hawks fought to keep his eyes open. He could feel it every time one of his piercings hit Dabi’s teeth, could feel the irregular scars at the corners of his lips as they brushed his frenulum. His legs shook as he moaned, and Dabi arched his eyebrows at him. When his fingers wrapped around Hawks’s base, Hawks shuddered bodily, thinking about how those hands had just pressed a pair of 1000 degree burns into his skin without warning, the kind of catastrophic damage they could do here. He reached out a hand, brushed Dabi’s scraggly bangs out of his eyes.

“You can hold my hair if you want to,” Dabi slurred against Hawks’s tip, before sliding his hot, wet mouth down again.

Hawks nodded, pushed fingers into Dabi’s hair. It was stiff with hair spray, but Dabi didn’t complain when Hawks’s hand fisted in it, ruined the styling, held Dabi at his tip to lick and suckle there a moment longer before pushing him down again.

“Are those...” Hawks met Dabi’s glazed eyes, then glanced at the burns on his inner thighs, “Are those my brands? My mark of, of fealty?”

Dabi sucked his way up, messily.

“I think you want more than that,” he cooed, running his hands from Hawks’s knees, over his hips, his ribs, up to his nipples, and back down again. “And besides, a brand isn’t for proving fealty. It’s for showing /ownership/.”

Shit. A shiver raced down Hawks’s spine, and goosebumps rose on his arms. ‘Ownership’, he’d said. How far would Hawks let this go?

“Are you saying I’d belong to the League,” Hawks asked, “or only to you?”

Dabi made a low sound, mouthed Hawks’s tip again, before pulling back to shuck his shirt.

“Which would you prefer, hero?” he shot back, and then he was struggling with his belt and his skinny jeans. Hawks kicked his underwear off while Dabi’s clothes hit the floor. Hawks didn’t answer him, except to pull him into another rough kiss. He didn’t want to have to choose. He opted instead for the taste of himself on Dabi’s tongue, instead of more damning words.

Dabi wasn’t shy. He pinned Hawks down again, hands on his biceps, and shifted his hips so their cocks aligned.

“I wanna feel those fuckin’ piercings rubbing against my dick,” he murmured, right up against Hawks’s ear as he shifted his hands down to the couch for better leverage. Shit! Hawks’s hands slid up Dabi’s back. He wasn’t... /patchwork/ over most of it, but that didn’t mean he was free of scars there. There was one long, straight, vertical one on the left side, with palpable suture marks.

“This where the doctor took your kidney?” he asked, and that was shit for dirty talk but he couldn’t stop himself. It was just... Dabi’s body had been through hell and yet here he was, taking this bad idea hookup in stride like the past didn’t matter. And it was... kinda hot, the way Dabi’s body felt so /raw/. Hawks’s stomach flipped again. He hated himself for it, for finding Dabi attractive, knowing everything he’d done, the things he’d asked Hawks to do. Was it just the erotic significance he’d attached to his own scars, projecting into Dabi’s body? Dabi huffed a laugh.

“Yep. Old Lefty. I miss him sometimes,” Dabi joked, rolling his hips, sliding his cock against Hawks’s. Hawks threw his head back on a high wail.

/Shit/, he thought. The friction was so /much/, and he couldn’t stop feeling up and down Dabi’s back, to the staples curving under the nape of his neck, his sharp shoulder blades shifting under the skin as Dabi continued to rut against him. He forced his eyes open and blinked at Dabi, at his lean build, his jack-o-lantern smile. /Fuck/.

“Let’s get some lube,” Hawks said, and Dabi backed off of him, sitting up on his knees, and Hawks could barely look at him. Where the fuck would this leave them afterward? Would they go back to the phone calls, the tasks, the tests? Surely, Hawks couldn’t just fuck his way into the fold, could he? He stood to dart into his bedroom, and out of the corner of his eye, saw Dabi shift onto his back, one hand wrapping around his cock to stroke it at a leisurely pace, keep it hard. Hawks looked his fill, then.

Dabi didn’t have a hero’s build, the kind of hard-won musculature Hawks was used to. He had fairly defined pectorals, and broad shoulders, but his ribs were skinny, and he had a bit of softness under his navel, especially as he curled slightly on the couch, arm moving slowly up and down. The burn scars on his legs reached almost to the soles of his feet, and stretched to just above his knees, like a grisly pair of stockings. Thankfully, his uncut cock was markedly free of the damage. Hawks thought he looked better than he had any right to, and it sickened him. Not enough to stop, though, as he moved to fetch his lube.

With the small bottle in hand he returned to the couch to find Dabi rubbing precome around his cockhead, his ragged mouth open and gasping. He met Hawks’s eyes across the room.

“Do you think I’d look good with a dick piercing? Maybe a Prince Albert right through here?” He brought his other hand to his tip, pointed to his slit and frenulum.

Watching the way Dabi handled himself, it took Hawks a moment to even process his words. He fluffed his wings out behind himself, trying to rein himself in.

“Honestly I’m surprised you don’t have more piercings... not counting your staples,” he replied. Hawks came back around the couch, knelt over Dabi’s knees with his wings up and out of the way. He needed to keep it together, more than he had been thus far. “I’ve considered a Prince Albert,” he said, “except I think they make pissing messy. I could be wrong though.”

“Huh,” Dabi said, noncommittally. He continued to stroke his dick while Hawks watched. “Are you the only pro hero with genital jewelry? Can’t be, right?”

“I have no idea,” Hawks answered, squirting lube on his fingers, rubbing them together to warm it. The pain in his thighs had almost faded, his body becoming accustomed to it, and he shifted, right to left, just to stretch the skin and feel the burns more sharply.

“You mean to tell me the association of pro heroes isn’t a glorified hookup club? Now that is a surprise,” Dabi drawled, dipping fingers under his foreskin. Hawks watched, licking his lips. Oh no. Now he was imagining slipping his tongue in where Dabi’s fingers were, teasing him and tasting him, making him arch and moan.

“Maybe it is, but I wouldn’t know. Keeps me pretty busy, paying lip service to them while also meeting up with you, doing what you ask of me.” He thought he could handle it, keeping his shit on lock, but then getting back into position to grind up against Dabi’s dick pulled the burns deliciously, and he moaned as he wrapped his slick fist around them together.

“So you’re saying it’s been a while for you?” Dabi panted, unaware of Hawks’s conflict, his hips juddering as Hawks stroked their cocks in one hand. “That’s crazy... half of Japan probably wants to fuck you. Look at you.”

Hawks looked up at Dabi, instead. All his thoughts about what it made him if he wanted to fuck a villain came to a grinding halt. He’d never considered the possibility that said villain was actually attracted to him, wasn’t just taking an opportunity for a fuck regardless of with whom. There was an aroused flush across Dabi’s cheeks, and down his chest, where he was unscarred. His eyes were intense and focused, even as he shifted jerkily into Hawks’s grip. Hawks swallowed, fought to regain control.

“What about you? You get laid often? Is the League a ‘glorified hookup club’?” Hawks asked, rubbing his thumb into Dabi’s slit, as Dabi’s hands gripped his lower back, his ass, pulled him into a harsher grind. His cock felt good, hard and hot against his, slick with lube.

“Fuck, no,” Dabi rasped, coughing out a laugh. “I’d like to keep what’s left of my body in one piece, thanks.” His fingers dug into Hawks’s flesh. “Goddamn, you feel so good. Those fuckin’ barbells are driving me crazy. Can people feel ‘em when you fuck them? You oughta get more, so you’re ribbed all the way down.”

Hawks didn’t answer, tucked his face into Dabi’s shoulder, bit down on the thick scars. Dabi grunted, and Hawks was almost surprised he could feel that. He slipped his hand out from between them, let Dabi grind them together with his hands on Hawks’s ass. Then, one of Dabi’s fingers slid down, started tapping at Hawks’s hole.

“Oh, fuck, yeah...” Hawks gasped, arching into it, his cock twitching against Dabi’s and leaking on his abdomen. “What’re you gonna do with that?”

Dabi groped for the lube, dripped it cold and wet right over Hawks’s hole, and began rubbing it around.

“Don’t be selfish, Hawks. Keep fucking against me. I’m just gonna finger your ass while you do it.” He slipped his middle finger in, holding Hawks open with the other hand, and Hawks shuddered, and did as he was told, thrusting roughly against Dabi’s cock. He didn’t know if Dabi intended to fuck him, but his fingers were long, and not at all gentle.

“Mm, it hurts,” Hawks moaned, bucking harder. Dabi huffed a laugh and moved his finger around, pulling Hawks’s rim carelessly. Then a second finger was pushing in, and the two were scissoring, and Hawks whined into Dabi’s neck. The friction was rough, even with all that lube, like Dabi was /trying/ to hurt him. Hawks felt himself getting close, just from that.

“Such a fuckin’ pain slut,” Dabi murmured. “Honestly, how do you even fight villains without popping a boner out in public? How are you not constantly creaming your pants, whenever you get hurt?”

Hawks put his weight into his thrusts, trapped their cocks under his body.

“I just... try not to get hurt,” he said, and Dabi barked out a laugh, and the hand holding Hawks’s ass open seared with heat, and Hawks screeched, vision going white. Dabi drew his hand back and the sensation shifted, from the loud, saturated pain that seemed to fill his whole body up, so something insistent but sharper, more pointed and specific. Then Dabi brought that hand down on his burned flesh in a solid smack, spanking his raw ass, and Hawks sobbed, hips jerking.

“Fuck, Dabi!” he whined, and Dabi did it again. The pressure of their cocks together, the immense, roaring pain, it was too much. Tears rolled down his cheeks as he howled and came, whole body jolting, painting Dabi’s cock and stomach with his release.

“Fuck, fuck, /fuck/!” Hawks babbled, humping against Dabi all through it. “Hurts! Hurts so much, fuck, Dabi!”

Dabi spanked him over and over, and Hawks shouted, shaking violently, his vision sparkling with red and black spots.

“Gonna want a few fingers in my ass, too, when you’re done. Want you to lick your come off of my cock and then suck me, and finger me. You’d better make me feel as good as you’re feeling right now,” Dabi hissed, plunging his fingers in and out of Hawks’s ass, until Hawks could barely breathe through his moans and his sobs, tears splattering on Dabi’s chest. He had to crawl away from the fingers, overstimulated, push at Dabi’s wrist with his limp hands and then with his wings, boneless.

“Fucking hell,” he slurred into Dabi’s ribs. “Did you scar a whole fuckin’ handprint onto my ass?”

“Tsk. Don’t be such a baby. I just gave you three little fingertip burns right under your ass, where it meets your thigh. Where you’re /sensitive/. My palm was barely hot enough to raise welts.” He ran a fingernail over the raw skin, and it lit up with effervescent pain, making Hawks shiver all the way out to his wingtips. “I wouldn’t want to scar your whole ass,” he stated. “It’s so perfect and pretty and round.” He patted it fondly. “But you should get it in gear, and suck my dick already. It’s waiting for you.” He reached down, wrapped a fist around his cock, only to wave it around a little like a /complete/ fuckboy. Hawks wanted to be mad, but Dabi’s dick was thick and uncut, and the glistening tip poked out of his foreskin, and there was a little bead of precome there that made Hawks lick his lips, and begin to inch backwards on the couch.

Laid out on his belly, Hawks ran his hands up Dabi’s legs, feeling the transition between scarred and smooth flesh. For some reason, it took until just then for him to realize Dabi had almost no body hair, and he wondered if it was routinely burned off by his quirk, or if he purposefully removed it. Also, how was it that his hair, stiff with hairspray, didn’t regularly catch fire? He supposed people with flame quirks could control that sort of thing... These were not the kinds of thoughts he ought to be having with a cock in his face, and he hoped Dabi didn’t notice how post-orgasmically stupid he’d gotten. He shook himself, pressed kisses to Dabi’s inner thighs, mirroring the positions of the first two burns Dabi gave him. Dabi murmured a low noise of contentment. Hawks kissed his way up, nuzzled Dabi’s soft lower belly, and began licking up his own come, as he was bidden. Sticking his tongue out and making a show of it, he closed his eyes, knowing Dabi was watching, knowing those low grunts and panting breaths were all because of him.

“Does it taste good, licking up your come?” Dabi teased, but it didn’t come out as mocking as he’d probably meant it to. It was a little breathless, like halfway through he realized he actually wanted to know. Hawks opened his eyes, looked up at Dabi. He blinked slowly.

“Uh-huh,” he said, open-mouthed against Dabi’s hip. He brought a hand up, pressed Dabi’s cock against his cheek, rubbed his face against it. It twitched in his hand. “You gonna feed me some more?”

Dabi groaned, gripped the couch cushions hard.

“Fuck, yeah. Bet a guy like you is really good at sucking dick. Am I right?” He combed a hand through Hawks’s hair, had to shake it out when the strands caught in the staples at his wrist.

/Better than you,/ Hawks wanted to say, but he didn’t. It wouldn’t be fair, especially with the taste of his own come on his lips. Instead he quirked his brows and wrapped his lips around Dabi’s tip, stretched his mouth around it, flicked his tongue underneath the head. Dabi sucked in a hissing breath, let it out on a rolling moan when Hawks’s tongue dipped under his foreskin, moved back and forth.

“Fuck,” Dabi grit out. “Here.” He shoved the bottle of lube at Hawks, and Hawks held out a hand.

“Pour it for me,” he slurred, not wanting to pull away just yet. Dabi’s cock... tasted good. He’d been afraid it wouldn’t be clean but, like his table manners, it seemed Dabi’s personal hygiene was curiously fastidious. And it made his cock delicious. His bitter precome, the heat and weight of it in Hawks’s mouth, the smooth texture of the head... Hawks was quickly finding he couldn’t get enough.

Lube dripped onto his fingers, and Hawks dipped his fingers down, waiting while Dabi spread his legs wide. One foot on the floor, one over the low back of the couch, Dabi looked debauched and needy, and sounded that way too, as soon as Hawks began rubbing the pads of his fingers over Dabi’s hole.

“Yeah, just like that,” Dabi groaned, and Hawks’s heart skipped. He bobbed down and up, giving Dabi his best technique, needing to hear more of that praise. When he slipped a finger in, Dabi made a high, yearning sound. Hawks swallowed, surprised. He’d never expected to hear something like that from the villain. “Oh, shit, can you deep throat?” Dabi asked, voice wrecked. “Can’t remember the last time I got sucked off by someone who could.”

Hawks couldn’t remember the last time he’d tried. He relaxed his throat, tried to angle himself as best he could, balanced on one elbow, and forced his head down at the same moment he pushed a second finger into Dabi. Hawks had made a career of pushing himself; at this point it was basically a lifestyle choice. So when Dabi’s cock hit the back of his throat, he fought past his gag reflex, swallowing convulsively, even as tears sprung to his eyes. Dabi moaned loudly, unselfconsciously, hips bucking painfully into Hawks’s face.

“Shit, yeah, your throat is so good, gripping me like a fuckin’ cocksleeve. You gonna be my new pocket pussy, Hawks?” Hawks pulled back with an embarrassing choking noise, thick drool stringing from his lips. Dabi let out a low, appreciative grunt. “Oh... Hawks, you’re a fuckin’ /mess/. Your chin is all wet, y’know? And your lips are swollen as hell.”

Hawks nodded. He didn’t want to try talking— his throat hurt from just that one go— but Dabi reached down, brushed a tear from his cheek, and then swiped his thumb across Hawks’s lower lip. Hawks could feel how slick his mouth was, as Dabi cupped his chin, rubbed fingers through his spit, shoved his thumb over Hawks’s teeth to force his mouth open wider. He hooked his thumb into the corner of Hawks’s mouth, tugged it so his lips stretched, baring his teeth.

“This is what it’s like when I suck cock,” Dabi said, forcing his dick into Hawks’s pried open mouth, alongside his thumb. With Dabi gripping his jaw like that, Hawks couldn’t close his lips, couldn’t do anything but lick messily as Dabi fucked up into his face. Hawks felt more drool running out, sliding down his chin, down Dabi’s cock, down Dabi’s wrist. Some even landed on his own hand, where it was turned palm-up to continue thrusting two fingers in and out of Dabi’s body. There were sloppy sounds each time Dabi pressed in and out of his mouth, and Hawks burned with embarrassment. Dabi was turning him into such a wreck. His spent cock twitched against the couch cushions.

Suddenly, Dabi pulled him off with a hand in his hair. Hawks gasped, blinked blearily up at him.

“Tell me you like it,” Dabi commanded.

“Hunh?” Hawks answered, intelligently. His voice was rough and broken, and he swallowed painfully.

“Tell me you like sucking my dick, and you want to make me come.”

Hawks swallowed again. Goddamn it.

“You’re a good liar, hero, but I want to hear you mean it. Nobody makes that kind of face, like a fucked-out slut, unless he likes it,” Dabi went on.

Hawks let out a shuddering breath.

“I like it,” he croaked. “I like sucking your cock. It tastes so good, and I wanna make you come.” This had gone way beyond just trying to get information out of Dabi. Even trying to get /anything/ out of him besides ropes of come, preferably in or around Hawks’s mouth, was too tall an order. He just... he really /did/ want that. He didn’t know what Dabi had done to him, to make him needy like this, but he sped the motions of his thrusting hand in thanks. Dabi groaned and ground down on it.

“Holy fuck, Hawks, you really do, don’t you? Almost didn’t think you’d... didn’t think you’d mean it, but look at you, you can’t, /god!/, can’t fuckin’ help yourself.” He let Hawks’s hair go, and, sure enough, Hawks went right back to work, licking and sucking with a renewed hunger. God, Dabi’s dick was leaking all over, almost as much as Hawks’s mouth was. He drank up that precome, moaning at the taste and making Dabi writhe on the couch.

“Oh, fuck me, I’m gettin’ real close, Hawks. Gonna pump your mouth full. I wanna... wanna come in you from both ends. Maybe you’ll let me later, huh? Let me fill your other hole up, too?” He was barely gasping out the words, voice rising in pitch as he got closer to the edge.

Hawks moaned a long note, felt it vibrate through his lips, as he sank down and up again, licked just under the head with concentrated pressure until Dabi’s hands were in his hair again, forcing him all the way down, making him gag. Dabi pulled him roughly back again, then down one more time.

“Shit, Hawks, gonna come, gonna come so /fuckin’/ hard, goddamn! Your mouth is so fuckin’ good, and your fingers, shit, shit, /AGH!/“

He nearly bucked Hawks off of him when he came, would have, if his hands hadn’t tightened painfully in Hawks’s hair, holding him in place as he fucked jerkily in and out of his mouth, coming thickly across his tongue. Hawks groaned, and it pushed Dabi higher, to the point that Hawks wondered if his downstairs neighbors would hear him screaming.

He’d forgotten how much he liked this. Or, maybe he’d just put it out of his mind. Dabi’s cock twitched over and over, spilling his release into Hawks’s waiting throat, and Hawks hummed around him, swallowing gratefully.

“Hawks, fuck... I can feel you swallowing it all. I can /hear/ you swallowing it all, gulping it down. Is it good? You, ugn, you like, mm, filling your belly with come?” He scratched Hawks’s scalp fondly, like a reward for making him come so good, for swallowing his load.

“Mmhh,” was all Hawks could say.

Dabi twitched one last time, and relaxed, pushing weakly at Hawks’s forehead. Hawks teased him, flicking his tongue at Dabi’s tip as he softened, and then Dabi whined, pushing more insistently. Hawks grinned around him, and Dabi scrubbed at his eyes with his fingertips, thighs drawing inward, squeezing Hawks’s head.

“I’ll burn your face if, /shit!/, if you don’t quit that,” he threatened, and Hawks pulled off, letting Dabi lounge, eyes closed, stretched across the whole couch. Hawks extricated himself from between the villain’s legs, and went to wash his face, avoiding meeting his own eyes in the mirror.

Now what, he wondered.

He wandered, naked, back into the living room and found Dabi much the same as he’d left him, with one arm flung over his eyes, and his lanky body taking up the entire sofa. Hawks had to lift up the man’s scarred legs just to find a place to sit, and Dabi easily slung his calves across Hawks’s lap as soon as Hawks let them go. Like he owned the place. Hawks was still thinking of what to say to break the silence when Dabi stirred with a sleepy groan.

“Wow, that really took a lot out of me,” he mumbled. “I dunno if I’ve ever nearly passed out just from havin’ my dick sucked. Tryin’ to decide if it’s just because it’s been a while or if your mouth is really that good.”

Hawks blinked at him, but Dabi still had his eyes closed.

“Did you have your dick pierced before or after breaking up with that milquetoast guy who did those finger burns on your side?” Dabi asked, apropos of nothing. He sat up on his elbows, finally /looked/ at Hawks for the first time in a while.

“Um, after,” Hawks said. “If I’d had them before, maybe that would’ve been a tip-off for him, huh?”

“Yeah.” Dabi eased himself back into the cushions. “What fuckin’ time is it?”

Hawks fished for his phone in the rumpled pile of his clothing.

“11:49,” he replied. God, they’d spent hours together.

“Oh shit, later than I thought,” Dabi said, though he didn’t make any move to get up.

“Yeah. I’m surprised your boss hasn’t called, wondering where you’re at,” Hawks stated. He thought about pouring himself another glass of wine.

“Are you kidding? He’s a Gen Z-er. He hates talking to people on the phone,” Dabi shot back with a lopsided smirk. “He makes his right-hand guy call the cable company and everything.”

Hawks hadn’t realized Shigaraki was that young. The only images he’d ever seen of the guy were from security footage at that mall when he’d threatened that UA kid. He’d looked older. Like, he didn’t just look like he was in his thirties, he looked like he was thirty-five and on dialysis. Like he’d lived a life of hard drugs and dehydration. Maybe he had.

“Supposedly us millennials hate that too, and yet here you’ve got me juggling burner phones,” Hawks said instead.

“We do what we have to, y’know?” Dabi replied, philosophically. “Do you have Netflix?”

Hawks gaped at him. Dabi glared flatly back.

“I don’t much feel like moving yet, and I can tell you there’s not much for entertainment back at the League HQ. All Shigaraki does is watch the news, and it bums me out.” He stretched, toes pointing. “But, it’s either that or Compress’s card tricks, which is worse. Guy couldn’t cut it at an 8 year old’s birthday party, if I’m honest.” He finally moved to sit upright, instead of sprawled across Hawks’s thighs. “Might by why he turned to crime, actually. He’s the reason they say ‘don’t quit your day job’, I guess.”

Bending like an old hinge, Dabi grabbed his jeans and shimmied back into them. Hawks considered him, wondered if Dabi thought this was going to be a ‘thing’.

“Yeah... I’ve got Netflix,” he said at length, groping for his smart TV remote. He asked what Dabi felt like watching, and the man shrugged and said ‘I dunno’ (of course he did, he was a fucking /villain/) and so Hawks pulled on his boxer briefs, hissing as the fabric rubbed his new burns, and settled in for what would probably be twenty minutes /at least/ of scrolling. The surprising thing was Dabi curling himself onto the cushions like a horse that thinks it’s a cat, and putting his head in Hawks’s lap. He just rested there, saying nothing, and then grabbed the throw blanket off the back of the couch and draped it over himself. Hesitantly, Hawks set his hand atop Dabi’s head, petted him with tentative fingers.

“Mm,” Dabi said, but that was all. It was the middle of the night, but Hawks didn’t feel like going to bed. Didn’t feel like kicking Dabi out, either. Sometime in the middle of an episode of Planet Earth, Dabi fell asleep, and Hawks just left him be.