Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Here’s the thing when you have a party full of bards: it’s never really a party full of bards.

He should have expected it.

He was a bard.

He was also not just a bard.

In hindsight, it was probably for the best, no matter how interesting a party of only bards would have been. Just a troupe of traveling musicians, getting into scandals all over the continent. The usual things bards should be getting into, not poking around in ancient abandoned ruins because there was a rumor about prophecies and magic swords. Then again, if they had all just been bards, then they would be dead at least six times over by now.

Since he knew they weren’t all bards, he rather wanted to know what everyone was. It would have made it so much easier to coordinate spells and special abilities and know where and what everyone’s weaknesses were. To strategize and fight effectively rather than the frantic running they kept doing.

Just once, he’d like to travel with a real bardic troupe. Just once.

“Move it birdie!” Dabi shouted, sliding down the hill next to Hawks. All around them leaf litter and rocks tumbled alongside them. Behind them, there was a roar. A roar that was much, much too close.

They hit the ground running. Hawks was sure he twisted something but hey! Adrenaline was fantastic at numbing the pain. “Where are the others?”

“Shigaraki turned east with Compress and Twice. Toga and Spinner went behind the creature and Magne I think went straight up. We might have to fish her down later.”

Hawks didn’t know what Dabi meant by that, but that was a problem for Tomorrow-Hawks. Today-Hawks had to survive until then.

A hand lashed out, grabbing him by the lapels and dragging him off the barely-there trail animals used. What had been a difficult run turned into a nearly impossible one as they ducked under tree branches and tried not to get caught on brambles and briars.

“Fire might help.” Hawks shouted sarcastically. Dabi’s hand around his wrist tightened, but he didn’t use any fire. Fuck.

He thought Dabi had some sort of fireball spell as a cantrip. Did he not?

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuc-

Dabi slammed him against a tree, trapping him between his arms and breathing heavily.

In any other situation, he might make a joke about their position, maybe give a flirtatious wink and bat his eyes. Instead, he fisted his hands in Dabi’s coat, ready to throw the bard aside and drag him away since Dabi had felt now was the time to give up.

“What the fuck are you-”

He was cut off by Dabi kissing him. It wasn’t a shy press of his lips or a passionate, ‘we’re about to die so might as well’ kiss’ (and wasn’t it saying something that Hawks had experienced more than one of those). No, This was an almost mechanical kiss that, while nice, wasn’t really what he wanted his last minutes to be of.

If they both died, Hawks was going to give Dabi a failing grade for this one in the afterlife.

The sound of the monster grew closer, louder. He felt the trembling of the earth beneath as it approached. Fine. Dabi wanted a last kiss? Then he’d make sure it wasn’t sub-par at least.

He returned the gesture with more force, nipping and licking into his mouth. Dabi let out a ‘murmph’ of surprise, not unlike a cat waking up and, to Hawks’ delight, actually began kissing back.

If he had any brain function, he’d joke about it beginning to get heated with the bard he was sure was actually a fire mage. Instead, his entire brain function was directed towards an incredulous ‘what the fuck’ as he was suddenly not kissing Dabi anymore.

He wasn’t doing a lot of anything except staring at a large, burnt-black scale that was larger than his entire body and wondering what the fuck it was before the world turned dark and he was enclosed in a pair of scaly hands. The outside world grew hot, painfully hot. He’d been in a wildfire once when he was a chicklet and the air felt like it did back them. Dry and hard to breathe through.

The last thing he remembered seeing before he passed out was smoke rising into the sky and a large-scaled snout.

He awoke to Toga trying to pour one of her horribly, iron-tasting alchemical mixtures into his mouth. He sat up, coughing and spluttering and feeling like his lungs had been roasted over an open flame.

A large dragon lay curled around the clearing, acting as a living wall between the league and everything out in the forest. Hawks stared. The dragon stared back with familiar blue eyes.

“Why the fuck didn’t you say you were a dragon?!” Hawks shouted. He immediately regretted it, wheezing and coughing as his lungs and throat told him exactly why he shouldn't do that.

Dabi laughed.

Chapter Text

Hawks eyed the small hut with trepidation. He’d sensed at least four separate wards as they entered; each one weirder than the last. He knew the magic was pulling information from them, but he couldn’t figure out what sort of information it was. None of his charms were going off, and not even the curse laid along his spine was reacting. Nothing seemed off: Your standard forest witch aesthetic. There were herbs hanging from the rafters and comfortable chairs around a banked fireplace. There were several cauldrons of varying sizes around the room and a small alchemical nook that was quiet.

The oddest thing was the large kitchen he could see beyond an archway and a door to a cellar that had several wards over it, and even those looked more functional than worrisome. If the witch was going to apply advanced magic to ensure her cellar didn’t flood or rise above a certain temperature, he wasn’t going to report her for that. Not that he would anyway. That wasn’t his mission.

Dabi kept looking around the room as if he was trying to find something. Hawks’ attention was split between the witch that Shigaraki was conversing with, the way her eyes kept flitting over to wherever Dabi was snooping, and Dabi himself. He lifted up the lid of some pot and Hawks was a hairsbreadth away from pulling him away when the witch laughed, interrupting whatever Shigaraki was asking.

“He’s not in the house, at the moment.” She said, unable to hold back the soft laugh as she went over to the dutch door in the kitchen. She unlatched the top half, letting it swing out before shouting a name.

Hawks heard a high-pitched reply and then the bottom half of the door swung open, revealing two kids. One was covered in cat-like spots and the other had a pair of wolf ears that kept popping in and out of existence. Clasped in the arms of the wolf-cub was a very surly-looking creature with the largest bow he had ever seen on an animal.

It took Hawks a few moments of staring to realize that it was a wyvern, although it was the smallest wyvern he had ever seen. Smaller than the tea-cup wyverns some of the nobility had.

As soon as its vibrant blue eyes fell on Dabi, it started snarling and trying to get out of the kid’s arms, doubly so once Dabi started laughing.

“Enji-” The witch warned, bending down and snagging the wyvern out of her daughters’ arms. The kid pouted at her, but quickly shifted her focus to Shigaraki. Excited barking spilled from her, along with the reappearance of her ears, followed by her shifting to a more lupine form. Shigaraki didn’t seem concerned or annoyed by it. If anything, he seemed pleased, encouraging her to clamber into his lap. He cuddled the kid like it was a common occurence. Maybe it was.

The wyvern snarled and tried to escape the witch’s hands, only to be scruffed and shaken roughly until he stopped growling and went limp.

“Enji? Like… the great wrym?” Hawks trailed off. Dabi nodded, wiping at his eyes as he tried to speak. One look at the wyvern rendered him back into wheezing laughter.

“The very same.” Shigaraki filled in, petting the wolf cub wearing clothes. “Dabi, you want to tell the story or should one of us?”