Chapter Text
The Hero Public Safety Commission’s goal is to serve and protect the Heroes that keep our communities safe.
“Infiltrate the League of Villains.”
Hawks almost couldn’t hide his surprise. Almost.
“The League of Villains is an up-and-coming group of villains,” the President explained slowly, tapping her stack of papers on her desk. The sound grated on his ears. “They attacked some Hero students recently, and apparently had ties to Stain.”
Hawks really couldn’t help but grimace at that. Stain… boy, did he have opinions on that shit stain.
“While they haven’t caused any massive damage or media or civilian outrage yet, the traction they’re gaining from their association with Stain is… concerning, to say the least. We need you to meet with their—seemingly—new recruiter.”
Hawks let his persona’s typical smirk fall over his face like a veil, posture perfectly relaxed even as his mind sharpened and reeled with the new information he was running over in his head. “Well, since I don’t have a choice anyways, what do we know about this new recruiter guy?”
The President narrowed her eyes at him—she wasn’t happy with his snark. But she didn’t say anything, nor did she indicate that she was going to punish him for it. Translation: she was satisfied Hawks was playing his Hero persona’s role, even at her expense.
“We don’t know much yet,” she admitted regretfully. “Their new recruiter supposedly has a fire quirk—a powerful one. Scouts report that he has a bad tendency to set people who don’t meet his criteria to join the League on fire, so don’t fail.”
Well, that’s comforting. As if the Number 3 Hero could meet any villain’s recruitment criteria. He shifted a little uncomfortably, wings still as stone to prevent them from twitching. “All due respect ma’am, I’m not sure the Number 3 Hero meets his… ‘criteria’.”
“Then make yourself meet his criteria,” the woman said coldly. Hawks clicked his mouth shut. There was no point protesting—none of the President’s requests were questions. They were orders, and Hawks was nothing if not obedient.
“Yes, madam.” He’d already pushed his luck today, no need to push it any further.
“Good. Your head Handler will give you the briefing files. Start as soon as you possibly can.”
“Yes, madam.”
“You’re dismissed.”
He bowed respectfully, then walked away without another word. As promised, he was handed the briefing files, neatly packed in a lifeless Manila folder. He tucked it away safely in his coat and got back to his patrol like the good little solider he was.
Hawks was, on the surface, a Hero. The Number 3 Hero in the country, no less. He was everything a Hero should be: friendly, tirelessly passionate about his work, aesthetically appealing to the public, marketable, and proficient in his work. He was fast as the wind, each individual feather trained and honed until they could be moved as fast as lightning could strike. He got in, swooped up criminals, eased the public, and got out without even touching the ground most of the time. He was the textbook definition of efficiency. His fans were ravenous, taking any chance they could to question and touch the Hero too fast for even the most parasitic of reporters. He kept the girls and the gays salivating whilst simultaneously being a figure of idolization for men—and even some women—who wanted to be as swift and efficient as he was.
On the surface, he was perfect. Flawless. Nothing but a genuinely good, hardworking Hero, if not a little vain. A piece of eye candy to consume; a pillar of safety in his community.
It was all an act.
Behind his carefully curated mask laid another intricately carved facade. Under his shiny smile and cocky remarks and brutal “honesty” laid something… dark. Something twisted and gory and gruesome, that had been broken and reformed so many times that you couldn’t even see where the cracks were anymore. It was like an entire face made purely of scar tissue, without a single living cell left to be seen. A puppet sown with the skin of a long dead child.
Hawks didn’t ever bother to look to see what was behind that second mask. If he had to guess, he’d only find a gaping black hole, devoid of the little chick he once was. Empty. But he didn’t want to know, so he never took it off, never checked. Never spent a moment without some sort of mask on. Temporary or forged from the searing metals of his childhood, something was always there, hiding whatever was hiding behind the murderer under the “Hero.”
Because that’s just what he was—a cold-blooded, heartless murderer. He had enough blood on his hands to fill an ocean. It still baffled him, how nobody else could see the scarlet dripping down his fingertips and staining his skin; it was always there.
The moment he got back to his empty penthouse, he pulled out the file to look it over, flipping through pages with his feathers as he shrugged his jacket off and took out some pajamas. Chances were this was going to be his last night of anywhere close to 6 hours of sleep for… however long this mission lasted, and he wanted to get as much shuteye as he could.
The folder contained a summary of the new task—the synopsis of the League, the threat they posed, and the objective of his mission—and a rough profile of the man he was meant to get in contact with. Based on what the Commission scouts had gathered, he stood at roughly 5’8”-5’9”, had black hair, scarred skin held together with… staples…?, and striking blue eyes. There was also a list of all the recorded reasons he’d burnt potential recruits to ash.
- “Too quiet”
- “Too chatty”
- “Too loud”
- “Too annoying”
- No clear goal
- Goals don’t align with League goals
- “Bad vibes” (?)
- Made a joke about rape
- Part of a human trafficking ring
- Had a fire quirk
- “Too boring”
- Part of a yakuza
- Tried to attack him
Okay. So, not much to go off of there. The scouts must’ve been useless as fuck if this was all they could gather. Most of this was too unspecific and subjective for him to actually use. Not too loud, not too quiet, not too chatty, not too boring, not too annoying—and not a single one of these notes told him what exactly was considered too much of any of these parameters. It’s like being told there’s a line but the ground is red, the line is green, and you are color blind.
But, there was something he could work with. No clear goal. Goals don’t align with the League’s goals. That told him that he’d need specific goals to tell him—ones that aligned with the League’s goals, whatever those were. Joke about rape. Part of a human trafficking ring. That told him that he at the very least didn’t want people like… that in the League, and at the most he had some sort of morals that ruled rape as bad. And fire quirk? Really? Not that Hawks had to worry about that, but damn. Petty ass reason to reject someone and then kill them.
He figured it would be best to start by crafting a disguise and persona to go and test the waters with. Just dip his toes in, see what he was working with and what it would take to get him in. He could say that his quirk was… floating. Yeah. If things went poorly and he needed a speedy escape, he could use feathers under his clothes to fly him to safety while maintaining his cover. He read the League of Villain’s synopsis, hoping for a clue to what their real goals were.
Destruction, downfall of Heroes, target on All Might. Some newer members thought to share some idealogies with shit Stain. Distaste of Hero Society.
He could work with that. He’d make a disguise, meet this recruiter guy, and then use what he’d gathered to make a story for why the Number 2 fucking Hero would want to join the League. He still felt like this whole mission was a ridiculous idea—he sure wouldn’t let the Number 2 Villain or whatever just walk into an important Hero congregation, that’s for sure—but Hawks was also… very good at what he did.
Lying. Manipulating. Listening. Gathering information, caluclating and understanding risks, acting quickly. Slicing jugulars faster than the human eye could see, luring people into a false sense of security before he struck hard and fast and deadly. He was a well-honed weapon, a tool of destruction.
One way or another, he’d complete this mission. One way or another, he wouldn’t let his superiors down.
*•o•*
He had his disguise ready. He was on the move. Soaring over the city in the middle of the night, searching for his target. His keen eyesight eventually caught him—a head of black hair, purple scars, pale skin and shiny, shiny staples—loitering in some warehouse. Smoke drifted from the broken-in roof, and a pile of ash was on the floor. He appeared to be on his phone, typing something. Perfect.
Hawks landed lightly on the roof, then repositioned to the still-standing beams within the roof. Silent. Nothing more than a shadow.
Despite this, after a moment the mystery man perked up. His muscles went rigid, like he had a feeling that something was wrong. Very wrong. So he had good instincts. Probably not in Hawks’s favor, but he couldn’t exactly condemn him for it either. It was a nifty thing to have in terms of personal benefit.
Hawks carefully perched just within eyesight on a beam, sitting with his hands behind him and supporting his weight. Languid. Casual. Unbothered. Eventually, the villain did spot him, and Hawks smiled and waved.
Almost immediately he was dancing out of the way of a burst of blue flames.
The familiar hit of adrenaline brought a sharpness to his mind that he thrived off of. It wasn’t necessarily that he enjoyed it, but it had been vital to his survival since he was a just a baby, and it continued to serve him well in his dangerous line of work.
He floated safely to a lower beam with the help of well-concealed feathers, face schooled into an openly curious but otherwise unreadable expression. This fire-wielding, shiny recruiter’s eyes flicked to him and Hawks was almost thrown off by how brilliantly blue those eyes were. They bore into him with a cutting ferocity and equally slicing skepticism.
So, trust issues. Relatable. “Hey there,” Hawks drawled, voice light but intentionally deeper and rougher than it naturally was.
“How much did you see?” was the immediate response from the villain. His voice was low, dark, raspy. It sounded like his vocal cords had been deeply damaged, maybe more than once. Hawks wouldn’t be surprised, based on the deep scar tissue around his neck. He must constantly be in pain, with that much clearly poorly healed scar tissue. Means that he probably also has the pain tolerance of a war veteran.
Hawks shrugged, stepping slightly into the light of the moon. “Enough. No judgement here, though.” He knew this man wouldn’t be able to identify him even in the best of lighting; he had an expertly applied wig of dark, tousled brown hair, brown eye contacts, makeup to hide his eye markings and change the perceived shape of the upper half of his face, and a mask on for good measure. “Not like I haven’t been down that path myself.”
That seemed to give the villain pause, and while he didn’t relax his stance, something inquisitive sparkled in his jarringly blue gaze. “You’ve killed someone?” It was less of a question. More of a statement.
Good. He had him talking instead of blasting rivers of fire at Hawks’s face. Kind of a morbid conversation starter, but clearly efficient in this situation. “Few times,” he admitted nonchalantly. “Hard to avoid when you’ve lived in the slums as long as I have.”
The irony wasn’t lost on him, how he’d escaped the slums as a child to avoid needing to resort to such measures only to end up a far more frequent and dangerous killer than he ever would’ve been as some orphaned, lower class citizen in the dumps of society.
The other man finally relaxed his fighting position, muscles still tense but not primed to attack unprovoked. Hawks concealed a satisfied smile. The scarred man tilted his head, studying him like a scholar would an ancient text. Hawks had thrown on some intentionally scruffy clothes—brown pants, a thin and worn gray t-shirt, and an even more worn and torn black leather jacket—and his posture was adjusted to something confident but not showy. A silent sturdiness in a body that made itself naturally smaller to avoid unwanted attention. It was closer to the tiny, out-of-the-way Keigo than Hawks dared be in a long time. “And how long is that?” the villain asked, his voice carrying a natural drawl that almost ticked Hawks off. How the Commission wished Hawks had that much natural sass in his voice. It was a great look on his Hero persona, and they probably would’ve preferred to beat the sass out of him rather than coax and drag it into him.
Hawks allowed himself a heavy chuckle and floated gently to the ground, feet hitting the floor silent and steady. The villain watched him during the entire descent, one eyebrow raised. “Since the day I was born,” he responded with only the faintest edge to his voice. One that suggested acceptance but not necessarily pleasure with his fabricated situation.
The man hummed again, considering him. Hawks stood undeterred under his cynical gaze. “So, what are you doing around these parts, then?” the arsonist asked after a long moment.
Ready. “Well, I’ve been hearing rumors about a new group contesting the Heroes. League of Villains, if I remember correctly. And I heard that a certain black-haired arsonist was the new head recruiter.”
“You wanna join the League?”
Aim. Hawks shrugged. “That’s still to be seen. What I want is to see change, and if not change, the demolition of the status quo. I’m merely here t’ see if this ‘League’ of yours has what I’m lookin’ for.”
A smirk grew on the stapled face in front of him. “What’s your name, newbie?”
“You can call me Haru.”
The smile turned into a suspicious frown. “Right. Last name?”
“Nunya biz.”
“So you have one of the most common fucking names in Japan and you refuse to disclose your last name?”
“Makes me hard t’ research, I know,” Hawks sighed. “Not my fault my parents were so horrifically unimaginative. Works out well for things like this, though. Keeps me safe from stalkers, thas for sure.” He tilted his head slightly. “How’s about you? What should I call you by?”
“Dabi.”
It was Hawks’s turn to hum. “‘Cremation.’ Your parents really name you that?”
“Nunya biz, ‘Haru’.”
Hawks genuinely laughed at that. Fire. “Hey, I’m not gonna press, no need ta get defensive. I understand hiding a name. Respect it, even.” Even if it makes my job that much harder, asshole. If telling you a full name wouldn’t make me an obvious fraud I would’ve told you a full name. Maybe that could’ve fostered some trust for a real name from him, but here we fucking are. “A name holds a lot of power.”
Blue eyes narrowed at him, and there was weight in that stare. In that sentence. “So it does.”
They stared at each other silently for a moment after that, both feigning relaxation, cautious of each other, studying each other.
This “Dabi” guy was… well, he certainly didn’t make a fuss about fitting in with the norm. One look told Hawks that this Dabi didn’t run from modern beauty standards; modern beauty standards ran from him. He had dark, grotesque patches of marred purple skin stapled back to what was left of his healthy skin all over his body. His hair was messy and wild, a stark black against the paleness of his skin. Though it felt like it was the skin that was stark against the rest of him, with his dark hair, dark scar tissue, and dark emo getup.
Oh, and this guy was a total emo. A swift glance at his staple-decorated edgelord coat and similarly styled pants and Hawks figured that once he’d started using staples to hold himself together he’d leaned fully into that aesthetic because wow. Every single article of clothing on this man’s body just shrieked MCR enthusiast.
The eyes were the one thing that stood out as much as the disturbingly gory scars. They were just so… blue. So incredibly, hypnotically blue. They were mesmerizing, like two pools of blue sand that he could just sink into and vanish in forever.
“Haru, you said?”
“Yep.”
More stifling silence. Hawks was starting to feel that creeping slither up his back again, that weight in his chest as his nerves started to become alarmed at the extended loss of his wings. Without them he felt bare, exposed, vulnerable. He wanted to shift and reassemble his wings on his back (most of his feathers were spread throughout the warehouse by now, listening, waiting, poised to strike if needed) and cower under the safety they brought, but years of training in acting and self-restraint kept him completely inconspicuous.
Without warning, the man reached into his pocket took out a cheap phone and tossed it at Hawks. The undercover Hero caught it swiftly and looked at it—he’d nearly impaled the guy in every artery at the sudden movement.
“Don’t lose it, don’t put any other contacts on it.”
Hawks almost went still with surprise, but forced himself to stay as minimally animated as usual. He let himself smile under his mask, knowing it crinkled his eyes with its sincerity. “I take it this means I’ll be hearing from you?”
“‘Too be seen,’ Haru.” Bullseye.
With that, the arsonist turned around and strolled away with all the hurry of a sleepy house-cat.
Okay, wow, this guy was kind of a dick. Not that the banter wasn’t a little bit fun, but still.
Assholeness aside though, that had gone… spectacularly. It was kinda unfortunate that he would be retiring this “Haru” mask so quickly, but the fact that this had gone so smoothly was a good sign that he’d made at least a few correct choices in this interaction. Of course, this would all be much trickier when presenting himself as a Hero, but if it was this easy for “Haru”, Hawks wasn’t concerned about it being too much of a struggle to wear this villain down.
He only had 3 hours left to sleep once he got home and a report to write out. Hawks sighed as he dropped on his balcony and dragged his weary body to collapse on his couch and pull out his laptop to get started on the report.
“Found the assigned asset of the opposing party in disguise. Made a persona of a lower class criminal with three kills to his name. Introduced to the opposing party’s asset as ‘Haru.’ Made contact, received a burner phone and instructions to wait for a text message from the opposing party’s asset and to not input any additional contacts into the burner phone. Requesting to proceed with operation by approaching the opposing party’s asset under no alias.”
Hawks looked over the mission files again, and stopped to really soak in the single sentence stating the goal of his mission. He had to pause when he read it through again.
End Goal: Quietly assassinate the leader of and all assets of the “League of Villains” as quickly as possible.
Dabi wasn’t “the opposing party’s asset.” He was a target.
*•o•*
Operation Veil Status Report 1
Date: 05-28-XXXX
Asset: 117-2
Target: League of Villains recruiter “Dabi”
“Found the target and approached while in disguise. Crafted persona ‘Haru’: a lower class criminal with three kills to his name. Introduced to the target as ‘Haru’. Made contact, received a burner phone and instructions to wait for a text message from the target and to not put any additional contacts into the burner phone. Requesting to proceed with operation by approaching the target without an alias to begin the infiltration process.”
The Hero Public Safety Commission’s goal is to serve and protect the Heroes that keep our communities safe.