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After splashing another handful of cold water onto his face, Hawks blindly grabed the plush towel hanging off to his right. He looked up into the mirror, squinting from the bright light, and studied himself. The natural black lines under his eyes masked the dark circles, slightly, but they also drew attention to the bloodshot redness in his sclera. A double edged sword—Hawks' lips tightened at the wayward thought. It was an apt descriptor for a lot of things about him.
Hawks scowled, and found himself being critical about that too. His face was supposed to always be at ease and pleasant to look at. But it wasn't the middle of the day, in the middle of the street, in the middle of some paparazzi well-orchestrated public stunt. Just the middle of the night, in the middle of his bathroom having woken up in the middle of a dream.
The scowl deepened and Hawks closed his eyes so he wouldn't have to see the deeper creases in his brow. He put his face back into the damp plush towel and tried to wipe it away with the water that clung to his eyelashes and hoped maybe it would wipe away some of the clinging memories too.
In the dark, flashes of blue danced behind his eyes, faded, but still on the edges of his mind. He hadn't been prepared for the dreams to come back. Infiltrating the League, dancing that dangerous dance with Dabi—who seemed just as eager to set himself on fire as he was Hawks. The blue fire.
A small boy with even smaller wings who thought being a hero meant saving everyone.
Of course the dreams would come back. Keigo's nightmares came back from the dead with just as much indifference to Hawks mental well-being as Touya had.
Hawks—who was trained to be more perfect machine than man or bird—only had one question.
Did the Commission know?
It seemed impossible they wouldn't. As good as Hawks was, the Commission was always just that bit better. Had they sent Hawks in knowing? They had to. Was it a test of his loyalty? Possibly. Or, was it just the easiest way to tie up a singed loose end? It certainly wouldn't be the first time.
He looked back into the mirror before flicking his eyes to the clock on the wall. Too early to be up, but too late to bother attempting to go back to bed. Hawks closed his eyes with a deep sigh, blinking open slowly when the blue flashed again behind his eyes.
Fingers stress gripped the expensive sink, and the marble groaned under the pressure. The fight with the Nomu and Endeavor had been a lot—but he knew it wasn't memories of Dabi's flames that had woken him up tonight.
Hawks closed his eyes, willing every small muscle fiber in each finger to loosen. In the dark the fire burned, but it was the soft laughing that accompanied it that burned him more.
”You can't catch me, Touya!”
”Hawks!—” more laughter.
“Hawks.”
Hawks opened his eyes and looked up at his handler. His knees ached from kneeling. He looked at her but more of his attention was on the room. It put him on edge being here. The office was just as soulless as his apartment bathroom. Made sense—knowing this was the woman who had designed it for him.
“You're spacing out,” she said in that disapproving tone of hers. Maybe that was just her voice though, Hawks doesn't think he'd heard any other tone coming from her—not when those steel eyes were pinned on him anyway.
”Hawks!”
”Touya! That tickles!”
Hawks hissed with the sharp familiar sting of his handler's quirk that bit into his skin. He opened his eyes, not realizing he had closed them again.
Ah, she was mad—the sting turned sharper—furious.
“Yes Mam,” Hawks said evenly, despite the raw feeling of his skin cracking open.
The feeling let up, but only just.
“You're lucky Endeavor was able to think ahead enough to pull the public to his side after that little stunt—” she continued her lecture.
Hawks tried to listen, made sure he looked like he was listening. Her lecture, dull, was repetitive after hearing similar ones for over a decade. Not like the one Dabi had given him last night tucked away in that dirty warehouse with Hawks having only one primary for defense.
Even fatherless here, in the office at his handler's mercy, Hawks' heart drummed steady and dull. Not like last night.
Hawks opened his eyes again, unbothered by the pain or by the anger shaking through his handler's posture. How sloppy of her to let him see that. He was probably going to end up in the room, at this rate.
She continued her lecture. “Endeavor—”
Endeavor
Now there's a dangerous line of thinking. Endeavor and Dabi, Endeavor and Touya.
The Commission knows. They must.
Hawks cracked his eyes open. The small room was lit up by bright lights imperceptibly embedded into the stainless steel walls that mirrored a warped version of Hawks' limp posture back to him. His body kept upright only by the ropes digging into his arms that had been wrapped tightly around the chair he was in. He didn't bother to twist his wrists or flex his forearms to test the ropes. They weren't specialized to keep him docile and in place, that was what his training had been for.
His training which had also taught him how to infiltrate.
Infiltrate the League.
Get the trust of Dabi.
Trust was a difficult task, but not as difficult as gaining the trust of the Commission. Infiltration though... that was much easier.
He kept his head bowed in submission and listened to the recalibration tape that was on its fifteenth repeat. Thirty six hours in the room. A dull repetitive reminder of his mission, of his debt, of his only usefulness being a tool. He had heard it so many times it was engraved into his hollow bones—he supposed that was the point.
There—the tape made just the softest crackled noise—the sixteenth loop.
Being in the room, isolated and stripped down to just his compression suit, made him cold before it made him numb. He wasn't supposed to know how long he'd been in here. But he'd found the first imperfection in the loop by the time he was twelve. By sixteen he could find five. It was practically a digital clock for him now.
It kept him sharp and grounded, allowing for his mind to spend its energy elsewhere. Tonight it was in the commission file room, the one he wasn't supposed to know about.
Reading was one of the few limitations of his feathers, and even he wasn't quite so good to be able to effortlessly feel out the impressions of printer ink or the rare pen scratch in the soft manilla envelopes tucked into the cold metal cabinet that had honestly been a joke to unlock, but they flit about the room doing what they could. It was time consuming, but Hawks—who was now on the eighteenth loop—had nothing but time.
Briefly, Hawks thought about his quip to the media about one day wanting too much time on his hands—one of his many well practiced lines to sell his young nonchalant persona—and it almost made him smile.
His feather brushed slow and methodically over the file he had pulled out. If it had been any thicker Hawks probably would have needed another night in the room, but it was pathetically thin and egregiously incorrect.
Dabi. Dabi's calculated temperature limits—wrong—they were in for a shock when they find out how much hotter he can go. Dabi's height-wrong-his languid stoop hid a lot of his height but they miscalculated the boots too. Dabi's eye color—
Flashes of blue reflecting off the cold metal walls bounced behind Hawks’ eyes. Snuffed out with the hot deep laugh against the sensitive skin of Hawks neck more threat than flirt.
Hawks’ heart had still skipped a beat all the same.
Endeavor. Dabi. Touya… The Commission must know. Hawks was sent to him to wrap up the loose thread.
The fibers of the paper that had Dabi's file written on it was rough against Hawks’ sensitive covert as it felt for the minute changes of texture that told him what the Commission knew. What they themselves wouldn't tell him.
Eye color—right. Hair color—unknown.
Unknown.
The feather stilled, then backtracked to more carefully move over the raised printer ink on the paper. Unknown. How could they not know?
The obvious dark cheap dye covering soft snow white hair. Blue eyes that lit Hawks on fire—brighter and hotter than the flames ever could—always licking at the edges of his consciousness.
Touya
Unknown. The Commission didn't know.
Hawks finished scanning the paper, just to make sure, but more and more of the data only listed unknowns and speculations.
He could cause another scene. Spend another night. Find Touya's file again—he knew exactly where it was—make sure.
Deceased. Deceased. Deceased.
Hawks didn't need to spend another night here, the file never changed—he was the only one who ever still looked at it.
”Watch this!
“Okay”
“Are you watching?”
Feathers fluffed up, laughter. “I'm watching Touya.”
“Can you see me, Birdie?”
“Birdie.”
Hawks opened his eyes, but didn't turn to greet his visitor. He had thought retreating to the roof would delay this a few more minutes. Foolish. Touya had never let him run away from things, and Dabi even less so.
He looked up instead. Watched the slow blink of an aircraft moving across the sky, almost blending into the stars. He could blend much better. Blending into the sky, into the hero charts, and into the dingy bar of the league. Hawks was good at blending in.
And Dabi, who noticed enough to follow him to the roof, was good at plucking him right out of it and making him feel exposed and seen, impossible to blend in—like a fresh wine stain on a white hand-crafted silk tablecloth.
His wine-red feathers ruffled in the wind—picked up the minute flare of heat from Dabi lighting his cigarette, before the wind snatched it away.
“Come home with me,” Hawks said to the wind and to the stars and maybe even to the aircraft so far away.
The cigarette flared with the drag of Dabi's breath. Smoke and oxygen pulled deep into lungs that were already so damaged.
It dropped to the ground, then snuffed out by a boot.
Hot nicotine heavy air kissed across Hawks’ cheek. His feathers shifted, but Hawks was trained better than to let them reach out to the warmth behind him.
Get Dabi's trust. Infiltrate the league.
They hadn't known. They still don't know. But how could they not?
Hawks knew now because deep down, Keigo had always known.
Endeavor's strength. Enji's anger. Dabi's anger. Touya's strength.
The fire burned. It burned everything. It burned a quiet family for years—and a young boy for hours on a cold winter night.
Hawks’ eyes shot open to blue burning him. Blue staring down at him from two achingly familiar eyes full of something that wasn't anger for once. A kiss to his bare knee reminding Hawks of the position he was in.
“Still with me, Birdie?”
“Always.” Hawks said.
Keigo's dreams were back.