Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Hawks had been right when he assumed that things weren’t going to be okay just because the fighting was over and done with for the time being. There wasn’t much for him to do around the ginormous… Hawks still wasn’t sure what he was currently residing in or where it was, only that it was incredibly easy to get lost in. The hallways were confusing as hell to navigate, and he wasn’t going to ask a member of the League to act as a chaperone for him whenever he wanted to go somewhere.

Not that it really mattered. Hawks found himself hanging around in Dabi’s room listlessly more than anywhere else, because being around the League of Villains felt like he was intruding on something he shouldn’t be. But at least with him constantly being in the same place, they wouldn’t need to worry about him snooping around in places he shouldn’t either. He was keeping out of their way for the time-being as best as he possibly could.

Nevermind that that was exactly the opposite of what he was supposed to be doing, but they were grieving, and despite the fact that they were villains, Hawks thought that it would be rather cruel of him to cause them more trouble when all they had ever been to him was cordial. Especially because they were already struggling–it wasn’t difficult to tell.

Toga in particular was having a harder time than the others–although she had shown interest in wanting to talk to him at first, Hawks hadn’t seen her since she learned of Twice’s death. According to Compress, she was officially declared healthy enough to leave the infirmary, but she just couldn’t bring herself to get out of bed – there was a room in the building set aside just for her, but she couldn’t even bring herself to lay there.

Toga spent her days lying in the infirmary, staring up at nothing. Sometimes, when Hawks would pass by her room, he’d hear her brokenly whispering Twice’s name. Sometimes, she’d whisper Dabi’s too.

Shigaraki was rarely seen by anybody–not even by Compress or Spinner anymore. They wouldn’t talk to Hawks about it–not that Hawks expected them to–but it was obvious that tensions were high. They were in a period before things began to change drastically, and everyone knew it. They just didn’t know what was going to change–and if that change was going to be good.

Shigaraki was up to something, Toga wouldn’t get out of bed, and Dabi was still connected to machines Hawks had never even heard of before, drifting in and out of consciousness. And whenever he was conscious for a few minutes each day, he’d spend them panicking. Compress and Spinner stayed with him as much as they could, but it was taking its toll on them, too.

They were all exhausted–even Hawks. This kind of exhaustion didn’t disappear after a few hours of sleeping. This kind of exhaustion seeped everything out of each and every one of them until they were merely husks, waiting for something good to happen. Or something bad, too. It weighed heavy on their hearts. A time meant for recovery had turned into an anxious state of limbo.

But with Dabi unable to convey his thoughts about what exactly was scaring him through the breathing tube, all Hawks could do was try a different way of calming him down each day that passed. Surviving one day at a time, even when it was just the two of them. Days passed. And Hawks… Hawks stayed.

The first time Dabi woke up with only Hawks there in the room with him had been incredibly uncomfortable. In the past six months that Hawks had interacted with Dabi, neither one of them had been particularly fond of the idea of showing vulnerability to one another–and for valid reasons too.

Hawks was a hero. Dabi was a villain. It didn’t change the fact that sometimes, a little vulnerability was inevitable–especially after interacting with each other for so long, but it was never for very long. It was never like this. Especially not with Dabi, who knew that the world saw him as cruel and inhuman, and who chose to embrace it. Hawks supposed it was easier for him that way, just like it was easier for Hawks to–

No. Hawks wasn’t about to go there. Not right now.

Lying in a bed with burns littering almost every inch of his body, Dabi didn’t seem cruel or inhuman–but Hawks hadn’t seen Dabi that way in a very long time. He seemed every bit of what he actually was–young, hurt, and terrified. And all Hawks could do was sit there and try to offer him comfort, worrying that by doing so he was overstepping boundaries previously set in place by Dabi–he explicitly said that he did not see Hawks as a friend countless times, at least not really. Hawks didn’t blame him.

But Hawks saw Dabi as some strange sort of… friend, he guessed. He could spend ages trying to find a way to describe how he felt towards Dabi–friend didn’t quite fit, either–but Hawks wanted him to get better, and that was a revelation within itself. Hawks wanted, not for the betterment of hero society, and not for the sake of the Commission.

He wanted something for himself. And maybe hoping for Dabi’s health to improve didn’t sound selfish–if anyone else were to have that thought, it certainly wouldn’t be–but for Hawks? It was the most selfish he’d ever been. And he didn’t even fully know why he chose to be selfish over Dabi, of all people.

Dabi was still a villain. Hawks was still a hero. There was no way that they wouldn’t eventually end up right back where they started–enemies, gazing at each other with nothing but hatred in their eyes. The hatred hadn’t even fully left Dabi’s eyes until recently.

I trust you.

But Hawks wanted to know the Dabi that didn’t look at him with distrust–with hate–a little longer. Hawks wanted to know the Dabi that cried and let himself feel– the Dabi that cared for a little girl, the Dabi that had a family. The Dabi that used to go by Touya. 

Todoroki Touya, believed to have died in a quirk accident at thirteen. And yet… had he?

Hawks wondered if Dabi killed that part of him. Was it easy for him? Did it tear him apart from the inside out? With Hawks, it certainly had–at first, he hadn’t wanted to lose himself. Keigo had been a part of him from the moment he was born, and he had clung to that desperately until there was nothing to cling onto but the Commission.  And when he clung to the Commission, he was just Hawks. He grew comfortable with that–Hawks was a hero. Hawks was everything he was supposed to be.

Only then had he thrown Keigo out.

But Hawks didn’t know what he was supposed to be right now. Just Hawks didn’t feel right. It didn’t feel enough. As the days passed, Hawks watched on silently as more treatments were administered to Dabi, instructions followed closely by the doctors around him–according to Spinner, Dabi’s health was being carefully monitored by Doctor Garaki.

Hawks didn’t really have anywhere to go–as juvenile as it sounded, he felt out of place. Awkward. Like he couldn’t fit in, especially not at the moment. Eventually, it got to the point where he was really only interacting with the League of Villains when he wanted to check up on Yume and the other babies they rescued from Whisper. 

Hawks had never been around a baby before, so watching Spinner and Compress interact with Yume was incredibly awkward. Hawks sat in the corner quietly, watching in curiosity as they tried to play with her. 

Compress was more inclined to coo and pitch his voice higher for her sake. Spinner didn’t–but his tone of voice softened, and he held her within his arms so gently–like she’d break if he didn’t. Maybe after what she’d been through, she would. By now, it was blatantly obvious to everyone that something was deeply wrong with her.

The dazed look never left Yume’s face, and the only time she ever exhibited emotion was when she became upset–she’d cry nonstop for hours, and absolutely nothing Compress or Spinner did to try to calm her down worked. Hawks would’ve offered to try to help them instead of just awkwardly watching it all unfold, but Yume didn’t trust him.

Eventually, she’d end up quiet again, and then it was back to that dazed look–that numb expression. It was wrong, and painful to see on someone so young. Every bone in Hawks’ body wanted to help her, in some way. Somehow.

The one time Hawks had so much as moved a step closer in her direction, she had screamed herself hoarse. From that moment onward, Hawks had found himself particularly well-acquainted with the farthest corner in the room from her.

Babies were kind of terrifying–especially Dabi’s baby, who could burst into a flurry of blue flames at any given moment. She hadn’t since the outburst at the factory, but Hawks wasn’t willing to risk stressing her out to the point of causing both of them to burn again. She had left quite a nasty scar on the side of Hawks’ face. As soon as his wings were healed, he’d need to leave and get a haircut before making a public appearance.

When Hawks voiced the fact that Yume was evidently uncomfortable with him, Compress shook his head in denial, before pausing. “I… Perhaps you’re right, Hawks. It could be the trauma from being kidnapped. She might not trust you, because the last new person she met stole her away from the people she’s most comfortable with.”

Hawks didn’t even know that babies could develop trauma, but once the word was uttered in reference to Yume… There was no other word to describe her actions, her unending fear. And even Compress and Spinner, who had known Yume for most of her life, were way out of depth–they didn’t know how to deal with what that trauma entailed.

They could comfort her when she cried, but not for very long. They could hold her and get her to sleep, but she never slept through the night. They could get her to eat, but not enough. She wasn’t happy. She was hurt, and not just by the burns running up the left side of her arm from her quirk–those would surely leave scars–but mentally, as well.

“She wants Dabi,” Compress sighed tiredly, once they had finally gotten her down for a nap. “It’s–she knows Spinner and I, but we’re not who she’s looking for. Out of everyone in the League, it was always Dabi who took the most responsibility for her, because he is her father. And Yume loves him. She needs him.”

But Dabi was badly injured, lying unconscious in an infirmary bed with a tube down his throat and bandages covering almost every inch of his skin. Dabi had lost an arm–had lost so much blood, that even Garaki’s methods of healing him were not fully linear.

Even with the strings that Shigaraki had pulled, Dabi’s prognosis was grim–he could very well be dying right at that moment, right as Hawks cautiously watched his daughter. With the tension caused by Twice’s death and Shigaraki’s newfound determination to work on whatever he was doing alone, the potential of Dabi dying was yet another thing for the League to be worrying about.

It was obvious that they were in complete disarray. Part of Hawks–the one that was what he was supposed to be–knew that this was the perfect opportunity to begin striking them where it hurt. The League of Villains were down two members, injured, and horrifically weak. 

There was something there within him though, and oh– it loathed the very thought of doing that. It wasn’t just unheroic, but it felt like a direct attack against something–someone–that Hawks hadn’t considered for so long that it left him winded to think about him now.

Keigo. The part of him that hurt–the part of him that felt so much more than Hawks ever could. Who used to hate his wings, and who wanted to be different from his broken mother and father. Keigo, who took the first opportunity handed to him to become something more–something greater, and who lost himself in the process, without even noticing it until it was too late. 

That part of him who never grew up.

That part of him who was still that same hurt child, trying to come to terms with the fact that he’d never be loved. It had been and would always be about finding something he was born for instead, and he had found it with the help of the Commission. But at what cost? Throwing away the last shreds of his humanity?

He was supposed to. It would make being just Hawks easier. Heroism was never about being human to the general population–it was about getting the job done, and being something they could idolise. It was about being an object of their attraction. Hawks did that well–so well, in fact, that he wasn’t sure where his curated personality began and his true self ended. 

It felt strangely like back when he killed that woman, loathe as he was to admit it. Hawks was floating constantly, unsure of where to go, or if he even had a choice as to where he was headed–so he blocked it all out instead. He shouldered it, because that was what he was supposed to do.

He didn’t want to, though.

He really, really, didn’t want to.

————

As Shouto dined with his father and older sister, he tried his hardest to avoid both of their gazes, but Endeavor’s, most of all.

Shouto was aware that his family knew that something had happened to him, when he returned home beaten and bruised and disoriented out of his mind. Scared and unnaturally quiet too, even for him. Days went by, where Shouto would attend school during the week and come home for the weekend, and he still couldn’t bring himself to act normal.

He said he was fine. But it wasn’t hard to tell that he was far from it.

He knew he was concerning them–Fuyumi most of all–by acting differently, but he couldn’t help it. Every time he spoke to her or anyone else in his family, the images of Touya lying in that bed, burnt but alive flashed in his mind.

Touya was his older brother, but he was also Fuyumi and Natsuo’s older brother, too. And they knew him better than Shouto. They grew up with him–played with him as children, ate together, slept in the same room together. All those things that Shouto never got to do with him, they did .

It stung–it probably always would, but it stung even more that Shouto knew that he’d break their hearts by telling them about Touya. It took them all years to get over his death, and even still he knew that they weren’t fully over it.

Natsuo bought the same brand of hoodies that Touya used to wear, only because it reminded him of their brother.

Fuyumi once showed him a collection of drawings that Touya had made with her when they were only three and four years old–fairies and unicorns, fire and heroes. As a young child, Touya had always made sure to draw their father at the forefront of every single one of his doodles. She still kept his old drawings safe in a cardboard box in her room.

Even their parents hadn’t forgotten about him. According to Fuyumi, their mother had been practically catatonic in the hospital when they told her of her eldest sons’ death, prolonging the time she’d need to recover from the damage done to her psyche. Once she began to heal–once she began to write letters to her children, she always included Touya.

They remained in a drawer in her room at the hospital, carefully placed in envelopes, never to be opened.

And Endeavor, who Shouto knew was trying to atone for his past actions, frequently visited Touya’s altar. He’d stay there for hours at a time, sometimes, just… sitting there in silence, a strange sort of tension thick in the air. It was the burden of guilt–of knowing that he was the one who ruined his eldest child. That, for all intents and purposes, he killed him.

But now that Shouto knew what happened to Touya–knew that he survived Sekoto Peak and went on to become Dabi, all because he didn’t feel loved by their father– a man who should’ve cared; a man who should’ve loved them all unconditionally … It made him sick. It made him disgusted.

How dare he sit there, mourning Touya like that? He didn’t deserve to. His father didn’t deserve his mother or any of his siblings. He didn’t deserve to be a hero. He didn’t deserve to be Number One.

Shouto stared at his food, unblinking. It was soba. He really wanted to eat it, but he felt like throwing up all of the contents of his stomach. It took all of his concentration not to.

“I made your favourite for tonight, Shouto,” Fuyumi smiled at him from across the table, but her eyes remained filled with concern. 

“Thank you,” he murmured quietly, but he made no move to eat. Shouto simply listened to the quiet sound of chewing and cutlery scraping the dishes on the table. He tuned out Fuyumi and his father’s awkward attempt at keeping up a conversation, until–

“Shouto,” his father coughed awkwardly in that way he always did whenever he wanted to try to be a good parent. The time had long passed for him to try. “Is something… wrong?”

Shouto was not a stranger to rage, but it had been a while since he felt it in the way that he did currently. It was all-encompassing, like the blood that ran through his veins was made of pure molten lava. It didn’t matter that he gritted his teeth and took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. It didn’t matter that he had long gotten past his hatred for his father, leaving apathy in its wake.

It all came rushing back in that moment.

“Did you ever ask Touya that?” Shouto snapped, and the silence that followed was absolutely deadly. It was typical for Natsuo to bring up Touya in a conversation, but not Shouto. Shouto didn’t really know Touya–before now, he didn’t have much to say about him.

But now that he knew the things that he did, he had so much to say that it was tearing him apart. Here he was, eating dinner with the man who made Touya into Dabi. Here he was, trying to pretend that nothing was amiss when his older brother–who was already supposed to be dead–might actually be dying this time around.

And Shouto didn’t know one thing about him. Not really–not personally.

And he might never get the chance to talk to him again.

“Shouto–” Fuyumi started, gasping in surprise.

“Did you ever ask Touya anything at all?” Shouto continued, because now that he started talking, he couldn’t help but continue. “Did you ever once show that you cared about him? Did you even care about him?”

Shouto half-expected his father to protest his words, so full of vitriol–to argue against it. After living with him for so long, the sudden change, the sudden need to atone, was not yet solidified as permanent. And even if it remained, it would never be enough. Not for Shouto. Not for Natsuo. And certainly not ever for Touya.

“Touya was…” His father paused, trying to find the right words. “Touya was my eldest son, my first-born. I loved him, but I was never once a good father to him, even before his quirk–” he swallowed thickly.

 “–Even before his quirk started to hurt him. I never asked him anything about his own thoughts and ideas. I never knew anything about any interests he may have had besides becoming a hero. I pushed my ambitions and my goals onto him, and I only ever showered attention onto him when we trained. When he could no longer do that, I ignored him. I would go days at a time without talking to him, hoping he’d stop hurting himself because of it. I taught him that the only thing that mattered was being what I wanted him to be, and then I…”

“You neglected him,” Shouto sniped. Your love for him was conditional, he thought instead.

“...I did,” His father said quietly, standing up. “And because I neglected him, his death is my fault entirely. I’ll never forget that for as long as I live. I apologise, but if you’ll excuse me–”

The first thing Fuyumi did when their father left the room was turn her gaze onto his own, which were equally as steady as hers. She looked contemplative, her dark blue eyes so intense as she stared, that Shouto couldn’t help but think of Touya and all those times they had interacted. Touya’s eyes were a brighter blue than hers, and he didn’t have the tiny flecks of grey within them that Fuyumi’s did, but they shared the same eye shape. 

Even their frowns were similar to an extent, but Fuyumi’s frown had a certain sadness to it that his never would. It reminded Shouto of the one that he’d seen on the face of their mother, back when he was younger.

“Shouto,” Fuyumi said softly, instead of chiding him for the way he spoke to their father–which Shouto had half-expected her to do. “You’ve been acting weirdly for a while now, and I don’t mean to pressure you into telling me what’s wrong, but I’m… I’m really worried about you.”

It was uncomfortable for Shouto to feel so many emotions after suppressing them for most of his life, refusing to be human. It saved himself from having to deal with more pain, but he’d thrown that coping mechanism away when he fought Midoriya at the Sport’s Festival. 

There was nothing preventing him from feeling the whirlwind of hurt in his mind now.

But he knew now that sometimes, it was by allowing yourself to feel pain and sorrow that made you become more interconnected with your humanity. Grief–utterly agonising in its intensity, was a powerful thing. An important thing.

Being human wasn’t easy for anyone, nor was it always pretty. It was ugly sometimes–an utterly heinous thing to be, but that was how it was meant to be. The world was full of ideas and things that Shouto struggled to understand, but he was beginning to learn that perhaps, that wasn’t necessarily abnormal.

Because humanity wasn’t black and white. Just like the world, what it meant to be human versus nothing– versus not being human at all–wasn’t meant to be easy to navigate. It wasn’t meant to be easily comprehensible. 

Shouto grabbed at his chest, because it felt like his heart was about ready to explode. “I don’t know what to do, Fuyumi,” he admitted brokenly, the words leaving his lips before he could contemplate saying nothing at all. “I don’t–I don’t know what to do–”

When Fuyumi dropped everything and ran to envelop him in her arms, Shouto started to really cry. At first, he didn’t know he was doing it–he would cry when he was younger, but eventually he learned that it was better not to. He’d cried when he learned about Touya, but he never once cried like this before.

The sound of sobs racking his body was completely foreign to him–the way his breath caught and pained gasps escaped his mouth was hard to get used to, but Shouto bore it. 

“You know you can tell me anything you want to, right?” Fuyumi whispered, nimble fingers carding through his hair–much like their mother used to do when he was little. “Or Natsuo. We care about you so much, Shouto. If something is bothering you…”

“I don’t think he wants our family to know,” Shouto replied, his voice hoarse. “At least not like this. He only told me when he had no other options available… And I’m not good at breaking this kind of news, Fuyumi. I’m not… good with people. I don’t know how to tell you. I don’t want to hurt you, or Natsuo, or mom–”

“Has this got something to do with our family?” Fuyumi’s brows furrowed–a telltale sign that she was beginning to become a little anxious herself. “Shouto, you’re only sixteen. If I can help you–”

“I can’t, I can’t–”

“ Shouto ,” Fuyumi looked him dead in the eye. “Something is obviously bothering you. Don’t worry about protecting me, okay? I’ll admit that I’m worried, but I’d rather you tell me and be less stressed out than you are now, rather than you keeping it all bottled up inside.”

Shouto hesitated, his heart pounding loudly in his ears. “...You have to promise not to tell anyone. Not mom, not Natsuo, and especially not dad. Not until I know that it’s okay for them to know.”

Fuyumi’s hands began to tremble. She took a deep breath.

“...Okay, you’re really worrying me, can you tell–”

Shouto just shook his head. “ Promise me.”

Fuyumi exhaled shakily. “I… Okay, Shouto. I–I promise. I won’t tell a soul. Whatever you tell me stays between us.”

Shouto tended to be out of his depth in average, day-to-day conversations. When it came to picking up on social cues or navigating what was okay to say and what wasn’t, he always had to learn by making a mistake first. It wasn’t something that came naturally to him. Hesitantly–a little fearfully, Shouto opened his mouth.

He began speaking, right from the beginning–from hiding in the bushes with Midoriya and Bakugou, interacting with Dabi, commenting on his strange relationship with Hawks, all the way to how he was chosen to go along with the two of them to fight against Whisper, leaving his teacher and friends behind.

Fuyumi listened intently through it all, nodding and softening her gaze in sympathy whenever something she thought was rather distressing came up in the conversation. She had a couple of questions about Hawks’ presence that Shouto tried his best to answer, but then Shouto got to the one part that hadn’t left his mind since he experienced it. The part that had his heart picking up in pace once more.

“Fuyumi,” Shouto breathed, feeling like the walls were about to cave in on him. “Touya didn’t die that night on Sekoto Peak. He survived.”

Fuyumi’s hands jerked violently. A moment of tense silence passed between them, as the words ruminated in her head and she tried to gain her bearings. “Are–are you saying–”

Shouto nodded, and Fuyumi made a distraught-sounding noise in the back of her throat. “...I talked to him. I held his daughter–she has hair similar to mine. Fuyumi, he’s not lying. Dabi is Touya. ”

“I don’t think–Shouto, that’s not possible –”

All Shouto could do was say that it was true over and over again, as Fuyumi grew more frantic in denying what he was saying. She looked like she was about to fall apart–like she was seconds away from shattering.

“Shouto, this isn’t funny,” Fuyumi’s voice cracked. “Don’t–don’t say that, please don’t–don’t–”

“...Fuyumi,” Shouto whispered brokenly, and the silence that followed was damning. There was nothing else left for Shouto to tell her, and nothing else for Fuyumi to do except sit there and stare at him, hopefully with realisation dawning on her that Shouto was not a liar–especially not for something like this. 

“No,” she whispered back, beginning to ramble anxiously. “ No. No, he–he wouldn’t… You need to understand, Shouto, that when we were small–I think I must’ve been no older than four–Touya’s favourite game to play was heroes. We’d run around in the garden for hours, and I–I’d get so upset because he never let me be the hero. It always had to be him…He always had to be the one to save the day, like Endeavor, like our father. Even if he survived that day on Sekoto Peak, Touya wouldn’t become a villain.”

“Fu–”

“– I knew him like the back of my hand,” Fuyumi wheezed, tears streaming freely down her face. “W–we were only a year apart in age. He was my big brother. I–He wouldn’t. Shouto, he was so kind, so–so determined to be a hero. So determined to be good enough for dad. He’d never –”

Fuyumi’s breath hitched as she took a deep breath, shakily wiping the tears off her cheeks. Her face was flushed; her eyes hazy with sadness–she looked youthful everywhere but her gaze–the maturity in it so startling, because it had appeared there long before it was ever supposed to. “...He died that night, Shouto. They only found a tiny piece of his jawbone. A–and isn’t Dabi known to have a deep-seated hatred for our father? Maybe he’s trying to–to get to him through you…?”

“But he cried!” Shouto stressed, growing more desperate as the conversation continued. “I tried to talk to him, he had a tube in his throat! Fuyumi, I told him he’d always be our big brother, and he looked sad after I said it . I know he’s Touya. ”

A sob escaped Fuyumi’s mouth, tears brimming in her eyes once more as she rapidly shook her head back and forth. She looked a little green as she clapped her hands over her mouth. She looked physically ill as his words hit her.

Shouto took a step back.

He was hurting her. 

He felt like he was going to be sick too.

The tension between them in that moment, as they stood in front of each other in silence was unlike any other interaction Shouto had experienced with his siblings. Any tension that existed beforehand had always been nothing more than awkward–and Shouto hadn’t really minded that. He was used to awkward conversations.

But this felt more like an argument than anything else. And Shouto… Shouto had spent so many years without being able to interact with his siblings that he didn’t want to make the line separating them even bigger. Even harder to cross.

“...You don’t believe me,” Shouto’s voice shook. He understood why, but he wondered if it was okay to be upset too–because to Fuyumi, him begging her to believe him probably felt like listening to a stranger speak. He was her brother, but one she didn’t grow up with. One she hadn’t been allowed to speak with frequently until this year, despite living in the same house.

It wasn’t her fault that their relationship was still strained because of their upbringing, but it stung anyway.

“I’m sorry,” Fuyumi whispered back, her eyes red and swollen from crying. She didn’t deny that she didn’t believe him, and that hurt. It felt like being stabbed in the heart. “I’m– I’m so sorry, Shouto.”

Shouto knew that she meant it–that she was truly apologising for not being able to believe his words. She wouldn’t hurt his feelings on purpose. Fuyumi desperately wanted a normal family–one that loved each other and cared for each other. One where she didn’t feel like she was holding them together. 

Nobody had the heart to tell her that they would never be a normal, happy family.

But Shouto didn’t have the heart to pretend that it could be a possibility right now, either. Not to her face–not while her frantic apologies echoed throughout the hallway as Shouto left to go back to his room.

“ I’m– I’m really sorry, Shouto!”

“I know,” Shouto muttered to himself tiredly. He understood.

But like everything to do with their family, it didn’t feel like enough.

It didn’t make it hurt less.

———--

Hawks knew it was only a matter of time before his absence from the spotlight became the hottest new gossip for the citizens of Japan–he was the Number Two Hero, so it was natural for them to want to know what he was up to and why he wasn’t out there stopping villains.

The headlines began pouring in day after day. 

‘WHERE IS HAWKS?’

‘NUMBER TWO HERO GONE MISSING?’

‘PRO HEROES SCRAMBLING FOR ANSWERS!’

It was making Hawks more than a little anxious, though. His wings still weren’t healed–the bullet that Whisper had put through them did a hell of a lot more damage than he originally anticipated, and gossip going around about his whereabouts meant only one thing for him: the Commission was going to start getting more pushy with his progress. They needed him back, and they needed him to do his job.

The mere idea of that made Hawks so sick that he simply shoved his phone away from sight. He had only bothered to respond to one message–Rumi’s message–asking if he was okay. 

I’m alive lol, was what he had said in response. He felt bad for not waiting long enough to read what she typed afterward, but he was spiralling and he couldn’t help it. He was stuck here, with broken wings alongside the League of Villains, who weren’t mean. They weren’t cruel to him. They were just hurt people grieving.

Hawks had no choice but to learn that intimately, because when he wasn’t looking after the babies he had helped save from Whisper, he was with Dabi in the infirmary, staying by his side. He was allowed to roam around–Compress had told him that they weren’t holding him hostage–but Hawks didn’t want to leave him. It wasn’t entirely out of obligation either.

And so Hawks continued to stay. He sat there for hours at a time, anxiously waiting for Dabi to do something that warranted a response. Slowly but surely, Doctor Garaki had been able to restore most of the damage that had been done to him by his own quirk–he still had burn scars going up his arms and lining his jaw, crawling further up the sides of his face… but they were similar to how they were before that explosion in the factory. 

Nothing the doctors did would ever bring his arm back, though. That would be something he’d have to learn to live with. If he even did live. Hawks was surrounded by so much pain and sorrow that he found himself continuously praying at night for Dabi to get better instead of sleeping. He’d stare at the ceiling and over and over again, think: Come on, you’ve taken so much from him. Let him have his life back, at least.

Why? A cruel voice in the back of his head would pipe up. So that you can steal it from him yourself? It is what you’re obligated to do, Hawks. Do not forget what you are.

Not who. What. Because Hawks wasn’t somebody–he was a thing, carefully moulded to be whatever was most needed. He could delude himself into thinking he’d sworn he’d make his own choices from here on out, but he was nothing more than a caged bird. It was glaringly obvious to him now. He never had any autonomy right from the beginning. He was never free.

The only thing that changed was that he was no longer able to pretend that he was okay with that. It was a seed of doubt planted within him long ago, slowly festering until it blossomed.

“I know,”  Hawks muttered to himself. He didn’t need the constant reminder, and yet they were there anyway. It was unavoidable, because every step he took–every sentence he uttered–would either lead to him either doing what the Commission asked of him, or failing. And Hawks wasn’t allowed to fail.

But Hawks was beginning to question what would happen if he did– and why he didn’t want to fail in the first place. It made him uneasy, the thoughts slowly creeping into the back of his mind that told him he didn’t really want to succeed–that he only wanted it because that was what the HPSC told him he wanted. 

But who was Hawks if he wasn't meticulously intertwined with the Commission, their wishes–their very desires? Hawks hated that he kept wondering what he’d be without them. He hated that he kept thinking of who he was long before the Commission.

It wasn’t supposed to matter. And yet it mattered a lot to him anyway. It was ruining him and everything that he was supposed to be, and Hawks wasn’t even able to hide it. He saw the looks sent his way when he watched Compress and Spinner with Yume. And although he never once saw him with his own eyes, he felt… watched by Shigaraki, as though he was keeping a close eye on him in other ways, still distrustful of him but curious. 

It sent a chill up Hawks’ spine–to be read so easily by the people he was supposed to fight against. 

He wondered if it was for the better or for the worst that he chose to help Dabi all those months ago with a separate mission instead of just continuing with exactly what the Commission had asked of him–would he be like he was now, or would he still be exactly what he was trained to be? It was a futile question to ask. There was no way to change what had happened.

Hawks just hoped that the world would eventually be better off for the decisions he had made. 

I don’t want to be just Hawks anymore. I want to be somebody. I want to be able to care, he thought. It was becoming a frequent doubt in his mind–that he was not whole; there was a part of him missing. Maybe there had always been a part of him missing, but Hawks had never felt empty without it until now. Until Dabi.

You are something, The louder part of him whispered. Hawks is all that you need to be. Society’s idea of a perfect hero is you.

Hawks was stuck in an endless cycle of questioning who he was and why he was that way with no definitive answer in reach for the next few days. He wished those hours went by fast–he wished that he didn’t spend the entirety of it pacing around next to the bed Dabi lied in or the cot in the corner of the room that his daughter now slept in, because the League had moved her closer to him as a last-ditch effort to get him to wake up. 

The doctors had removed a lot of the machines Dabi was attached to–like the breathing tube–but his prognosis was still grim. The chances of him waking up were still slim to none. 

Compress watched him from that corner quietly, and Hawks watched back. They both had bags underneath their eyes now–and despite all their differences, it was comforting to be able to see that same insanity reflected back at one another through a different pair of eyes. 

“Do you think he’ll…?” Hawks didn’t even get the chance to finish his sentence before Compress’ shook his head sadly.

“There’s nothing more the doctor can do for him.”

A bout of silence passed between them, heavy with the implications of what those words meant. “...Hawks?”

Hawks turned toward him, swallowing heavily. “Yeah?”

“When…” He paused, looking down at Yume sleeping soundly–a rare occasion. A tear fell from his eye, and Hawks watched it trail down his cheek with a heavy heart. Compress was quick to wipe it away and smile at him like it had never happened. “I apologise– If one day we’re all gone, would you make sure she’s happy?”

“Wha–”

“I beg of you,” Compress murmured tiredly. “Dabi trusts you, I trust his judgement, and I don’t have anyone else to ask but you. We might be beyond saving–her father might be dying, but our dear Yume has her whole life ahead of her. She’s just a baby. Would you save her from our kind of fate, hero?”

As Hawks stood there, looking back and forth between Compress and Yume’s cot, feeling the frame of the bed Dabi was lying comatose in brushing against his leg, he became overcome with such a strong feeling of hopelessness that it left him winded. Unconsciously, he brought his hand up to clutch at his chest, feeling as though he was seconds away from a heart attack.

“I–” Hawks began shakily.

“It’s what Dabi would want for her,” Compress interrupted sadly. “It’s what we all want for her. Just… Swear to me that you will make sure she is safe if something happens to us – that she won’t end up here when she is our age, bitter and cold.”

B̶u̶t̶ ̶w̶h̶o̶ ̶w̶i̶l̶l̶ ̶s̶a̶v̶e̶ ̶h̶e̶r̶ ̶f̶r̶o̶m̶ ̶a̶ ̶f̶a̶t̶e̶ ̶l̶i̶k̶e̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶r̶s̶,̶ ̶T̶a̶k̶a̶m̶i̶ ̶K̶e̶i̶g̶o̶?̶

Stop trusting me, please. Stop, stop, stopstopstopstopstop–

“I–” Hawks’ voice came out weakened. Broken. He looked away, only to come face-to-face with Dabi. His breath hitched.

I promised him.

Despite everything, he had made promises to Dabi over and over again. 

Despite everything, those promises remained intact to this day, and Dabi trusted him . 

“I’ll…” Hawks swallowed thickly. “I’ll do my best.”

I’m sorry, Dabi. I don’t know if there’s even such a thing as truly saving someone anymore.

Compress let out a small sigh of relief. Hawks could no longer muster up the strength to look him in the eye, or look in the direction of him and Dabi’s daughter at all. 

He couldn’t pull his gaze away from Dabi.

I’m sorry for the monster I’ll become in your story.

But about two days later, everything changed. The very beginning of the end to everyone’s sorrow. The start of something new.

Dabi woke up for good this time. And Hawks?

Hawks was there with him when it happened–when the sound of the heart rate monitor Dabi was attached to began to beep frantically as his eyes flew open, bright blue in their intensity and filled with emotion , more than Hawks could ever recall them having.

“ Fuck! No, no – ”

Hawks couldn’t move anywhere even if he wanted to. He never thought he’d hear that voice so alive again–that familiar rasp now lacking the hatred that had been intertwined in it for most of the months Hawks had known Dabi. But now there was no animosity in it. There was just– 

“ Dabi.”

“Oh my god,” Hawks thought he heard Compress whisper in shock from across the room, where he held Yume in his arms.

“ How long?” Dabi wheezed, eyes widened in panic as he tried to sit up. He failed, grunting in pain when there was nothing on the right side of his body to push off of. His breath audibly caught in his throat as he ignored both Hawks’ and Compress’ voices urging him to lie back down. “What the fu–where– what. Fuck– how long was I asleep?!”

“Dabi, you really need to lie down–”

“ How long?!” Dabi tried to snap, but to Hawks’ ears it sounded a lot more like pleading instead. Like he was completely broken and desperately trying to find the shards that were left of himself so that one day, he might be able to try to piece himself back together again. “Where’s my daughter? Where’s Shouto? Where– Where is everyone else? Hawks, Where am I–?”

“Dabi!” Compress interrupted softly, moving closer to him with Yume in his arms, her eyes still droopy from sleeping–a rare occasion for her. “Dabi, she’s here. Your little girl’s right here.”

Hawks couldn’t even begin to comprehend what it was like to be there in that room as Dabi reunited with his daughter. It was far more personal and vulnerable than he had ever anticipated seeing Dabi–even after staying with him in the infirmary the entire time he was unconscious, watching him panic for those brief couple of minutes where he woke up but wasn’t quite there . It was like watching a completely different person when Hawks tried to compare him to the Dabi from a few months ago–hell, even the Dabi from weeks ago. 

Hawks wondered how long Dabi had been hiding who he was for it to burst out of him like it did now, because it was truly a sight to see–a sight that made Hawks feel like he was intruding on something that he shouldn’t. He watched Dabi long enough to see Compress carefully help Yume into Dabi’s arms and for the first appearance of blood in his eyes before he forced himself to look away.

Compress murmured to Hawks that he was going to go try to find the rest of the League to tell them the good news, before he was off. He looked visibly unsettled too–as though he wasn’t quite sure what to do with the emotions Dabi was exhibiting at the moment, like he wanted to find a way to help him but couldn’t. If Dabi was anything like he was with Hawks when he was with the League of Villains, he was far more than closed-off. He was downright unreadable sometimes.

He avoided anything that made him look like more than a villain to those around him. But now he wasn’t. There was no attempt at apathy this time around.

“She’s still a baby,” Dabi breathed shakily, sounding unendingly relieved. He repeated it again, and again, like the realisation was soothing to him. Hawks wondered what that meant–why wouldn’t she be? Did Dabi think he was unconscious for longer than he was? “She’s still a baby.”

Dabi made a strangled sound in the back of his throat. Hawks could barely hear him when, sounding unusually small, he said; “...She was burned?”

Hawks knew what he was referring to–the scars that ran up the left side of her arm, not quite big enough to reach past her shoulder but close enough that the sight of it alone was startling to see on someone so young. Hawks couldn’t even imagine the thoughts that were running through Dabi’s head at the moment–but he made the mistake of looking up to meet Dabi’s eyes in an attempt to find out.

Dabi looked like a mess, with blood seeping out of both of his eyes and down his cheeks without any sign of stopping as he held his daughter closely to his chest, his one arm violently shaking. Yume’s tiny hand reached up to touch his cheek gently–almost as if she understood that her father was upset–and Dabi neither did nor said anything, but Hawks saw the question directed at him reflected within his eyes.

How could he not, when he too wished that someone would tell him he wasn’t a monster? That he wasn’t watching one of the most stoic people he knew completely break down in front of him as he reunited with his daughter while fully knowing he’d have to tear them apart again one day–probably sooner rather than later? 

Did I do it? Was it me? Did I burn my own daughter? 

Hawks shook his head once. You are not a monster, Dabi. You haven’t been one to me in a long time.

That was all it took for every muscle in Dabi’s body to untense as he pulled his daughter closer to him. And he cried– truly, properly cried , loud and ugly and sounding like he was letting out everything that had happened to him in the last few weeks and more. His sobs were guttural–a mix of sorrow and elation, of pain and of eternal relief that she was okay–that she was here and alive .

And so was he.

Yume made a quiet, tiny little noise–one that did not signify that she was unhappy or scared, and it was the first time that Hawks had ever seen her act in a way that didn’t make her seem almost robotic. He marvelled over the way that she turned her head to look at Dabi as she babbled slowly–hesitantly–with tears in her eyes as her hand rested on his chin. 

She was so small–so young and innocent. She loved Dabi, not because she was not yet old enough to know the things he had done, but because he loved her too. He’d burn the world for her if she wanted him to, and Yume, despite being so young, knew it.

Hawks had been thinking of Keigo a lot lately, and so he’d also been thinking about his life before the Commission took him in too–he’d been thinking about his parents. His mother, who was weak-willed and broken and his father, who was a villain. It was hard to remember everything from back then clearly–he only had a few memories of his early life as Keigo, but he didn’t think he’d ever forget the fear, all-encompassing and constant.

Keigo had lived most of his life in fear of his father and his heavy hands. And then… he was gone, taken away by Endeavor. That was how he’d learned heroes were real. But those first few months after his father had been arrested were spent in fear too. Hawks remembered the way he had half-expected a punch to the face upon every corner he turned. Every harsh sound used to make him flinch.

His father had been a cruel man most of the time, only stopping to acknowledge his son when he was needed for a job. As a means to an end. It used to hurt his feelings when he was a kid–and that hurt had been quelled only by the affirmation that villains simply don’t make good fathers. It wasn’t his father’s fault–it was simply his designation in life. Nothing could’ve been different if he had tried because it was in his nature. The HPSC hadn’t dissuaded him from thinking that way.

And perhaps that was why Hawks’ mind ran so fast when he first learned that Dabi was the father to a six-month old little girl–trying to look at what he had learned about Dabi and make it fit with the newly-discovered, quite frankly ground-breaking   information he had learned. And Hawks had admittedly floundered as he processed it, realising that Dabi cared for his daughter deeply–that he did things for her that his own villainous father never would have done for him. 

That Hawks would not be saving Yume by taking her away from Dabi like the Commission took him away from his parents–in fact, that deeply-rooted idea that he’d been saved by anyone at all was beginning to unravel even further. Hawks was not in danger, nor would he say that he was being abused, but he felt trapped more often than not. Constricted to the confines of what he was ordered to do and nothing more.

When Dabi looked at him again after calming down a bit, cheeks stained red from his tears, there was another silent question in them: Are we still playing stupid games. Do you remember what I told you? 

Hawks was tired of those games for now–and so was Dabi and the rest of the League. Was it possible to just… let it rest for a moment? To sit there and pretend that nothing was wrong? To let Dabi reunite with Yume, and in a few minutes Shigaraki, Spinner, and the others?

“I’m glad you’re alright, Hot Stuff,” Hawks said, half-jokingly and half-diplomatically–most certainly a little awkwardly. He was nsure what to do with himself, alone in a room with Dabi, who had just been extremely vulnerable in his presence. “And… your daughter too.”

“Thank you.”

Hawks froze, and then blinked multiple times, absolutely sure he must’ve heard the words Dabi replied with incorrectly. There was no way– “I– what?”

Dabi stared at him intently, head cocked slightly to the side and eyes twitching in irritation in such a familiar way that Hawks felt like he couldn’t breathe. But instead of insulting him–instead of making a sly comment or downright threatening him, Dabi said it again–ever so earnestly that it sounded foreign on his lips. “Hawks… Thank you for what you did.”

What.

“Do you have brain damage?” Hawks blurted nervously, and then cursed at himself internally. Why would he even say that? Why was he not filtering himself at all? All of that training he had put up with was going right out the window, and he was making a complete and utter fool of himself. “Maybe they should do some cognitive testing on you to make sure the fire didn’t cook your brain… or something. Or maybe not. I–” he swallowed. “I’m sure you’re fine. You’re good. You’re getting better!  You’re alive, and so is your daughter. So everything’s just peachy–”

“ Birdie,” Dabi deadpanned weakly, interrupting him. Yume made another quiet sound in his arms, still tentative and hesitant–but far more than what she had been doing with Compress and Spinner. “You’re rambling.”

Birdie. Birdie. Birdie. Hawks never thought he’d hear that name again. It was strange, because despite everything that had happened between them… Hawks never once wanted him to die. Quite the opposite, really, even when they didn’t get along. Because Dabi… Dabi was–

Dabi was indescribable. Dabi fueled him with a fire and fury he didn’t know existed within him. He created a burning desire within Hawks’ mind to understand him–to talk to him and fight with him and simply be with him so that he could learn who he was. Dabi made him say and do stupid, stupid things. And yet when Hawks was with Dabi, he never felt more alive.

“I–” Hawks paused, wincing slightly. “I don’t know what to say to you. I thought about what I’d tell you if you ever woke up, and I never could find the right words. I told myself I’d just figure it out, but it didn’t work out that way. I’ve been thinking about how you said you trusted me non-stop, it won’t leave my mind–”

Dabi raised a brow.

“–And I don’t know what’s next,” Hawks finished, and he was startled to find that not one bit of it was a lie. He was speaking the truth–the full truth–to Dabi. “Because it’s not over.”

And that was it–it wasn’t over. It wasn’t going to be over until Hawks put an end to it. Until he took that step forward and began to act, they were at a standstill, because Dabi trusted him–the one thing he’d been working all these months for, and now Hawks hesitated to use it against him. 

Hawks didn’t want Dabi to look at him like the monster he was yet. He didn’t want to hurt someone so innocent as Yume, either. Despite his orders, Hawks just wanted more time. Not only for himself, but for everyone else too.

“What’s next…” Dabi murmured, staring down at his daughter’s face. A look of pain flickered across his features for just a moment–but it was long enough for Hawks to see it. To feel that pain too.

“Does it have to happen right away?” Hawks whispered, the exhaustion that had seeped into his bones making a reappearance once again. “Whatever’s next… does it have to be right now?”

Maybe whatever was going to happen next didn’t have to happen right then and there, but Dabi and Hawks were powerless to stop the passing of time on their own. Perhaps it was their last shreds of naivety that deluded the two of them into thinking they could just exist away from everything the world had to offer for a moment in time, or perhaps it was simply the fact that they were tired that led them to praying for a brief reprieve from the fighting, the trauma.

Hawks had spent forever aiming for the top. He never once expected to be wishing for a moment where he wasn’t precariously placed so dangerously high above everyone else. 

Dabi stared at him, his head tilted ever-so-slightly. That calculating look used to unnerve Hawks. It didn’t anymore. He had missed it.

He had missed Dabi’s presence–although it was a little different now. He was still the same man who Hawks had talked to, but he was… more open. More emotional. He wondered if having his trust was all it took to see this side of him, or if something else had changed too.

“No,” Dabi said eventually, after what felt like an entire lifetime of silence to Hawks. He sounded strangely quiet–contemplative, almost. 

 “...No, it doesn’t.”

———--

It had been hard to process the feeling of waking up when he’d been positive that he’d never wake up at all, staring at the ceiling with the beeping of a heart monitor in his ear and instantly being transported back all those years ago to when he was sixteen, far from home and three years older than what he was supposed to be.

It wasn’t Dabi who opened his eyes first. It wasn’t Dabi who flailed and panicked. It was Touya. Or perhaps it was both of them, because ever since he held Yume in his arms and came to the realisation that he had not missed as much time as he had the last time he was comatose, he hadn’t quite found the energy to push Touya to the back of his mind again. He was tired of trying–of pretending he didn’t care.

Dabi was supposed to care about one thing and one thing only: revenge.

But Touya lived with his heart on his sleeve and loved with a kind of burning passion that startled most people because of its intensity, and the destructiveness that followed. It had even startled him, because that love that was currently inside of him wasn’t the embers of what existed years ago. It wasn’t what was left of Touya. It was in full effect, roaring and bright as he looked down at his daughter and thought; I was a fucking idiot, pretending not to love you.

The admittance made its way to the forefront of his mind almost instantly–when he had first opened his eyes, Dabi had been convinced for a moment that he must’ve missed watching her grow up, and that… that had scared him more than anything else ever had. He had hyperventilated as he imagined not being there for Yume’s first words, her first steps, her first day of school. 

In that moment he had felt helpless, feeling as though his daughter’s childhood had slipped through his fingers without him even noticing.

And then she was in his arms again, and everything was right. It didn’t matter that he was in excruciating amounts of pain or whether or not he was Touya or Dabi–because no matter what, he was her father. He loved her. And that was what mattered.

He always had loved her, he just hadn’t been ready to admit it. 

I’m sorry, he’d thought, as sobs continued to escape from his lips and bloody tears poured down his face. Out of the corner of his eyes, he’d seen Hawks standing awkwardly to the side, watching him in shock. He too looked a little sickly, with bags under his eyes that rivalled even Eraserhead’s . There was a story there, Dabi was sure of it. But he hadn’t cared about it much at that moment, because he had his little girl in his arms for the first time in far too long. I love you, firefly. I’m sorry. 

Firefly. He used to avoid that nickname like the plague, but it was fitting for her. It was… nice.

There was still that part of him that wanted nothing more than to rip, tear, and destroy with his flames. There was still that part of him that longed to see the look of horror on his father’s face as he realised what he had helped create. Maybe that part of him would never go away–but now there was Touya, louder than ever before as he continued screaming in his head. I do not want to die and lose my daughter in pursuit of my own goals. She deserves better than a shitty excuse of a parent. 

He wouldn’t be like his own father.

And so in the moment where he’d been forced to choose between saving himself for his plans of revenge or choosing Yume, he’d chosen her. He had burned. 

And Touya would do it a thousand times over if it was necessary. He’d choose his daughter over anything in the world. He couldn’t pretend that he wouldn’t anymore. He wouldn’t pretend. He had nearly lost her… and that scared him.

“You’re awake.”

Touy– Dabi looked up, watching as Compress re-entered the room with Shigaraki and Spinner in tow. Hawks looked surprised to see Shigaraki, but coughed an awkward goodbye to Dabi as he headed out. Dabi’s eyes followed him the entire time, unbidden. Something was wrong with Hawks. He would figure it out later.

And something was wrong with Shigaraki too. Dabi surveyed him quietly. He was… There wasn’t anything openly wrong with him, but he held himself differently. In a way that did not look natural on him. “I am.”

Shigaraki opened and closed his mouth over and over again, as if he couldn’t quite find the right words to say to him. Eventually he must’ve settled on something, because he stopped pacing and stared deep into Dabi’s eyes. “ Why?” He seethed.

“Why what?” Dabi drawled, feeling strangely defensive all of a sudden as he fell into comfortable territory: antagonising Shigaraki. “C’mon, boss, use your words–”

Spinner bit his lip nervously.

“Dabi,” Compress interrupted stiffly, voice shaking. “ Don’t.”

“Okay, you want words, Touya ? Here: you could’ve called us,” Shigaraki hissed. “You could’ve fucking called , and we would’ve answered.”

“You were b–”

“Do you really think we wouldn’t have tried to help you, you idiot?” Shigaraki snapped. “Do you think any of us would have left you and your daughter to nearly die like that?”

“I–”

“ No!” Shigaraki screamed. “ Shut the fuck up, Dabi, and stop running away! Look around at us.”

“Wha–”

“ Look,” he spat. Dabi had never seen Shigaraki so pissed off before. “Do you know where Toga is?”

Dabi swallowed. He had been meaning to ask, but he was thoroughly cowed now. “No.”

“Because Twice died, and she thought you were as good as dead too! She’s barely gotten out of bed for weeks! What do you think she’d be like if you actually fucking died, dumbass?” Shigaraki’s breath hitched. “What the fuck do you think the League would look like without you and your daughter? Do you think we’d just fucking what? Get over it? ”

“I’ll talk to her–”

“ Yeah,” Shigaraki interrupted sharply. “You will, as soon as you’re better. I won’t have one of my valuable players injuring himself further when he should be improving his stats.”

“I’m sorry,” he whispered–and he meant it. He was sorry.

Shigaraki froze. After a moment of tense silence, he awkwardly replied: ”if you ever need help, don’t go off on your own when you don’t need to. Remember that.”

Spinner had an interesting reaction to that, Dabi noted. His face contorted as he sent a look in Shigaraki’s direction. Spinner must’ve discovered something that Shigaraki didn’t want him to know–something that Spinner didn’t approve of. 

Shigaraki, you fucking hypocrite, Dabi thought slowly, realisation dawning on him that that must’ve been why Spinner was acting so strangely next to Shigaraki when usually he tended to be the most comfortable.

“Yeah?” Dabi murmured carefully, eyeing Shigaraki calculatingly. “...You too.”

Shigaraki scoffed disinterestedly, waving a hand as he turned around and left the room suspiciously fast. Spinner’s mood noticeably soured further, and Compress’ cautiously surveyed him out of the corner of his eye.

Whisper may be dead, but something else was going on with the League. There was still so many things happening that needed to be addressed.

Hawks too–the way he had acted when they talked was driving Dabi fucking crazy.

And Dabi was going to get to the bottom of it.