Chapter Text
Dabi’s contact list was an amalgamation of things.
There were the expected entries like bloodsucker and handjob but also the more obscure names, like abracadabra, teenage mutant ninja lizard, and team mom and team dad.
Of course, the rotation of contacts was by no means constant. The names changed frequently, depending on the villain’s particular moods. For instance, when Toga was being particularly annoying, bloodsucker became crazy vampire girl. Shigaraki’s name was another that changed almost every week, using rotating between hand man, dusty, piece of shit boss, and buy some moisturizer you fuck (the last one was for when his phone got taken by one of the other League members).
The most frequently updated contact was Hawks’. Dabi gave the bird man a new name almost every day, sometimes multiple times in the same day. It had started off as a joke, but as the two of them met more and more it had become a thing between them—occasionally, Hawks even contributed, though Dabi always liked his own suggestions the best. At some point, Dabi reached a point where he pretty much gave him a new one whenever he thought of the hero, which was quite often—far more often than he would ever care to admit.
Regardless, Dabi’s system for naming his contacts was convenient for many reasons. First of all, it always annoyed Shiggy to no end when he stole Dabi’s phone only to find that he had absolutely no idea who anyone was, and a chance to piss off Shigaraki was always a gift. Plus, if Dabi’s phone ever fell into the wrong hands, no one would be able to decipher the names on the contacts without actually calling them, which would usually alert given that pretty much all of Dabi’s contacts were the League.
Unfortunately, it also had many downsides. Such as now, when the League was scrambling to pack up everything and switch bases because their entire building had been compromised.
It had started off with something like this:
Spinner had been craving a taste of chicken, and had stated as much.
“Why don’t you just order some then? I’m a vegan!” Twice had suggested.
Spinner had looked dejected. “The boss dusted my phone last week.” He had carefully chosen to omit the reason why, lest he piss off Shigaraki by reminding him yet again of his thirty-two consecutive losses in Mario Kart.
“Dabi, give him your phone,” Shigaraki had said, not taking his eyes off his game.
“Why don’t you give him your phone?” Dabi had complained, but he had nonetheless handed it over.
Spinner had accepted the device gratefully. When he had opened to the phone app, he had been surprised but pleased to see that Chicken had been one of the most recent calls. When exactly Dabi had ordered was something Spinner could not recall, but he had brushed it off in favor of calling the number.
The first call had rung for a long while before going to voicemail. Spinner had tried to call again, but unfortunately with similar results. On the third try, Spinner had been tempted to just find the number for a different chicken place himself, when suddenly the call connected.
“Uh, hello?” a voice on the other end had hissed in obvious displeasure.
“Hello? I want to order chicken. How much is it to deliver to this address?” Spinner had asked, quickly rattling off the address to the League’s hideout.
“I’m sorry sir,” the voice on the other end (which Spinner had thought was familiar, though he could not pinpoint exactly why) had replied, sounding pained, “I think you have the wrong number.”
“Who the fuck are you calling?” Dabi had suddenly asked from the side after noticing the commotion.
Suddenly there had been a scrambling on the other end and a slew of indistinguishable voices different from the original could be heard.
“Wait, that sounded like the villain Dabi,” was the only thing that Spinner had been able to make out in the chaos. The statement had been followed by more muffled noises, before the original voice spoke once more.
“No, you must have heard wrong, Police Detective Tsukauchi,” it had said, placing a heavy emphasis on the latter words.
At that point, the entire League had snapped to attention, looking at Spinner with varying degrees of horror as the conversation on the other side of the phone continued.
“No, I believe I heard the same thing,” another voice—this one deeper and more mature but also somehow familiar—interjected on the phone. “They mentioned an address earlier. What was it?”
“Uh, I’m sorry I don’t remember it, Eraserhead,” the original voice replied innocently.
“Hawks, why are you saying our names like that?”
“Like what? Haha, I don’t know what you’re talking about, you’re a pro hero, I should pay some respect to your title, right?” the original voice—which Spinner finally recognized as Hawks—laughed nervously, once again emphasizing a few important words, though he no longer needed to as by then all of the League had already figured out what was happening. He seemed like he wanted to say more, but he was interrupted by another unfamiliar voice, which repeated the exact address Spinner had given.
“Alright, all units scramble. Time is of the essence. We are raiding the location at the address stated before, call in all heroes in the vicinity and—”
There might have been more, but in a sudden panic Spinner had pressed the end call button.
“Oh was that Hawksie?” Toga asked, bouncing over.
Shigaraki whipped around to face Spinner, “You called Hawks?”
“Worse,” Dabi responded lazily, “he called Hawks in front of a Police Detective, an Underground Pro Hero, and probably at least a dozen other officers who are on their way to this location right now.”
“What the fuck Spinner?”
Spinner looked around nervously. “I just wanted to order chicken!”
“How the fuck did you confuse hawks with chickens? They’re not even the same type of bird!”
“It was Dabi’s phone! I literally just called the number that was listed under chicken,” Spinner whined. Everyone turned to look at Dabi, who only shrugged. Shigaraki buried his face in his hands.
“Fuck you all. Fuck this shit. Ugh, everyone get your shit and scram, we’re getting the fuck out of here right now!”
With that, the whole of the League scrambled in different directions to make their quick and messy escape.
All of that brought them to now. All remaining members of the League had abandoned their home base, and were now stuck in some run-down basement in an abandoned building in the middle of nowhere.
“Ugh, you just had to fucking order chicken.”
“How was I supposed to know Chicken was Hawks?”