Chapter Text
The kid arrives with bags under his eyes that could rival Eraser’s, and in any other situation Hawks would have found the similarities funny. The student even has a scarf similar to the underground hero’s one, which is quite the level of dedication to his (possible) mentor. But riling up Eraserhead about his student will have to wait. Dabi has barely moved from his place, hands buried in his hair since he starts manifesting what was some serious mind quirk’s backslash. In a desperate move to distract him the hero has brought Dabi his notebook, and gotten only a blank gaze for his effort. It’s like the man is not quite registering the world around him.
Hawks could bash his head against a wall for his utter stupidity. The signs were there from the start, ready to be recognised by someone with the correct training. Itchiness or pain around the head and neck area, zoning out, headache, fixed opinions that didn’t quite match one’s belief, sudden mood swing on highly specific triggers, goddamn muddled memory … Granted, the symptoms are subtle and easily mistaken, and Dabi doesn’t exhibit all of them. Which isn’t much of an excuse when Hawks has just finished an entire seminary on the subject. But that is half of the problem with mind quirk, the signs are so subtle that most of the time, the only real way to confirm whether a mind quirk is involved at all is to add another one on top of it and break the hold of the first one.
The second half of the problem is, of course, the backslash if the quirk has been active for too long or if the victim is resisting the hold. Hawks has the sinking feeling that Dabi is in both categories at the moment.
Hence, the kid, Shinsou Hitoshi. A mind quirk as powerful as his, capable of catching multiple people at the same time, is rare. Even rarer is the fact that he hasn’t been nabbed by the Commission already, especially after the Sport Festival. Then again, Nezu had made his stance on the Commission’s strategy on early recruiting quite clear: no matter what happened, his students are entirely off limits. To the point that even though he isn’t directly an agent of the Commission, Hawks has no doubt he will have quite the interesting conversation with the director, once he learned about the kid’s involvement on his demand.
Eraserhead must have explained the situation, because Shinsou immediately goes for Dabi. The first question he asks is met with silence. Hawks has to snap his finger multiple times in front of the singer’s eyes for him to finally refocus on them, and even then he barely seems to hear anything.
“Come on, Dabs. Look at me. Need water? Anything?”
The singer blinks. For a moment, there is recognition in his eyes, and he hums a negative. Hawks forges on.
“Ok, cool. There is a kid here, he asked for your name. Can you answer?”
Another blink, but this time his eyes remain vacant. Hawks has to bite his cheeks to avoid scowling. He is about to try and coaxes the singer for an answer when his own voice emerges right next to him.
“Hey Dabs, you like cats ?”
Dabi makes a noise of confusion, before freezing. His eyes go utterly blank. Hawks wipes around: Shinsou has his eyebrows drawn together, half of his face hidden by what he realizes now is a voice modifier. Quite the clever trick for someone with a voice based quirk. For a second, nothing more happens as the kid seems to engage in a battle neither Hawks nor Eraserhead can see. Then the kid exhales, tension bleeding from his shoulders.
“Ok got him. Relax.”
Dabi’s hand releases the death grips on his hair, before falling on his laps, completely lax. Hawks has to reach out to stabilize him as he starts to sway slightly on his chair, like a doll who’s strings got cut.
“Neat. I need to ask for your testimony: was this harder than ordinary?”
“Yeah, by a long shot. I only ever had one other person that resisted as much as that, and it was only after I already took control.”
Behind Shinsou, Eraserhead is sporting a proud look that Hawks will definitely tease him about later. Right now isn’t the time though, so he instructs the kid to release Dabi. The student hides it well, but he is tense when Dabi blinks back to reality. The singer shakes himself awake, before taking stock of the situation - and, most notably, of the new addition. The instant his gaze lands on the kid, Shinsou seems to shrink on himself. Eraserhead takes a step forward, and Hawks has the sudden revelation that maybe a victim controlled for who-knows-how-long will not take kindly to another mind quirk.
But Dabi’s eyes just slid over the kid. He lifts his hand again, prodding at the back of his skull. As soon as his gaze is away from him, Shinsou exchanges a wide eyed glance with Eraserhead, who shuffles him away almost instantly. The underground hero flashes a thumb up at Hawks, the hero smiles in return with a grateful nod.
It takes a bit of time to explain what happens to the singer. He keeps touching his neck, flipping pages from his notebook, eyes unfocused. Hawks describes the usual mind control effect, and at first it seems like he hasn’t been heard at all. But Dabi is nodding to what he is saying, just notably slower than usual. He shakes himself two, three times during the entire explanation, as if in the brinks of falling asleep. After the third time, Hawks bites the bullet:
“How do you feel?”
The man is looking at a particular page from his notebook. A quick glance over Dabi's shoulder shows that the notes are about a stadium near the sea. He has a suspicion that it’s not as innocent a detail as it seems- there is still, after all, a mysterious underground clinic to find.
“You’ve ever had a pain that creeps up so slowly, you don’t realize it’s pretty fucking bad until it disappears? That's the closest I can describe it.”
The singer grimaces. The staples on the corner of his mouth pull on the healthy skin in, yet he doesn’t school his expression immediately. Instead, he reaches a hand up to prode a staple.
“It’s weird. I don’t know why my thoughts were like that one day ago when now it seems absurd. I think...”
Dabi pauses. After all this time, Hawks has seen quite a few expressions on his scarred face. But when the singer looks at him, for the first time Hawks sees sorrow.
“I think I hated my brother one day ago. Couldn’t even think about him without heating up. And now it’s just… I fucking held that kid one hour after his birth. Why would I ever want to…”
He stops again, swallowing. Hawks hands him a tissue, only to see it stains with red when Dabi uses it to gently dab at his eyes. Not for the first time, the hero wonders just how much this man has endured.
“It’s fucked up. There is no reason to make you hate your family.”
To his surprise, Dabi snorts at that.
“Oh, there are plenty. I think they wanted to make me a villain.”
Hawks can see it, can imagine the inferno burning in those eyes getting fuelled by anger and hurt instead of passion. The worst villains, from his own experience, are the ones that stop at nothing to reach their goal. One only has to have heard Dabi’s songs to see how deep the pit of his despair could be: with that kind of emotion powering him and a quirk that could bring down cities, he would have been near unstoppable.
But at the same time, villains set on a goal rarely go beyond said goal. No matter how effective Dabi would have ended up to be, trying to create one villain to bring down only one family sounds rather wasteful.
“Your family must be quite influential to get that kind of special attention.”
That gains him another snort. The singer is pressing the tissues to the corner of his eyes, and Hawks notes with satisfaction that he seems a bit more grounded now. At the very least, there is less blood on his eyelashes.
“Ah. Just my father. He kinda deserves it for being such a bitch. Don’t know how you stand him.”
Hawks blinks, thoughts screeching to a halt. He points at himself with wide eyes, certain there must be question marks hovering over his head given how flabbergasted he feels. Months spend searching for and trying to assemble every little piece of Dabi’s puzzle, and he has met his father without noticing?
“Hawks. Fire quirks. You worked with Endeavor literally one week ago.”
It’s the second time in one night where Hawks feels the sudden urge to bash his head against a wall. He settles on face palming. Eraser sent him a judgemental look when reentering the room, which is more than earned given that Dabi has started patting him on the back after he refuses to drag his hands away from his face.
At least, Hawks can enjoy seeing the underground Hero decompose himself live when, upon restarting the interrogation, Dabi gives his real name instead of his alias. They might say revenge is best served cold, but in this instance Hawks will gladly take burning hot instead.
***
UA’s Educative Team - Work only
Pinned message Nezu said “ Please keep any recreational activities out of this chat. Looking at you Yamada. ”
Principal: @Shota Aizawa , I have heard that @Hizashi Yamada has joined you with a student outside UA’s gate. I understand your frustration about the situation, however this is not the time to launch an investigation. Especially one unrelated to our current emergency.
Rec. Girl: You’re kidding me. I warned you, if you’re disturbing my patient, I will personally trample you to the ground.
Vlad King: I knew he was acting weirdly when we came back. I should have just knocked him out.
Principal: While this would have prevented the current scenario, I would strongly advise against any inside fighting.
Snipe: Do we know where they are? I can go and retrieve them.
Eraser: No need, we finished here. @Nezu , it seems Nomus have a vulnerability. We also found a location of interest, though we might need to examine it later. I’m sending you the detailed report right now.
Midnight: What??
Present Mic: Chiyo if endeavor comes over don’t let him see todoroki
Eraser: That too.
Rec. Girl: …For now I’m going to pretend like I don’t understand the implication there.
Snipe: What sort of mad investigation did you two lead and why is Endeavor involved ?
Principal: I stand corrected. Please relay my thanks to everyone involved. I expect all your sources are in good care?
Present Mic: I stayed behind just in case and hawks gave one of his feathers
Present Mic: He is coming to help by the way
Principal: I gathered. He just landed on my balcony. I will exceptionally overlook his trespassing.
Midnight: I feel like the vast majority of us don’t have enough context to understand what’s happening but hey, reinforcement, i’m not complaining
***
To say Touya is exhausted would be an understatement.
His head feels weird. Or it would be more accurate to say that his thoughts feel weird, which is even worse. He has a hard time putting words on what it feels like, or even how he feels at all. He didn’t lie to Hawks, it’s close to an old pain disappearing when you didn’t even know it was there. At the same time, it is also like shaking an arm awake after blood circulation has been impaired for too long.
At first there isn’t any sensation, and it doesn’t move no matter how hard you think about it. You can grab your wrist with your other hand, try to shake it awake, and it’s like grabbing a corpse’s hand- no strength, no feedback from your own body, nothing. Then blood comes back to your arm, and marching along with it are one million ants biting your skin from inside out. By then your arm is listening again to your command despite the army patrolling its vein, but its movement is still slow and painful. Only once the swarm has passed is your arm back to normal.
Replace arm by thought, and that’s close to what’s happening. Right now, Touya is waiting for the ants to get the fuck out. Or maybe this is his new normal state since the kid took control- and he is not thinking about feeling someone fighting in his brain, not when there is already far too much to deal with. It’s a good thing the kid ordered him to relax, because Touya doubts he would have been half as compliant otherwise. But that command had more effect on him than the best blunt he ever took, basically morphing every muscle he has in a pile of goo. He is infinitely glad for it.
He would also very much like a refill, if possible.
Present Mic is looking at him with those worried eyes that look a bit like his mother’s. Touya blinks at him, and considers the very real possibility that he just spoke aloud. The man has been visiting him at regular intervals since that famous night. Officially, it’s to ensure the security of the last four contestants since the contest has already been a target. Unofficially, it is to not so subtly check on his mental state.
There was a statement from UA’s staff a day before. For all that Touya hasn't slept much, it seems worse for Yamada and Eraserhead.
“Do you mean coffee… ?”
Touya actually means weeds. Precisely the mind variation from highschool students with mind quirks. But coffee seems like a good enough substitute right now, so he gives a thumb up.
“Alright! Don’t move, I need to stretch a bit anyway..”
Finally good news on this shitty day.
Present Mic steps out of the room. He probably didn’t have time to do his hair before coming, and so Touya is left watching a cascade of hair dance as the man exits the room. It’s a sight a tad too familiar to him, the image of his mother’s hair overlapping with reality for a second. He closes his eyes and breathes, counting his breath until he hits ten, and takes stock of the situation.
Touya’s situation is: alone in a room he has called home for months now, around the evening, without the energy to move from where he has slouched on his bed and with an army of ants stomping on his brain. The TV is proving to be quite the distraction from said ants, volumes low to avoid a worse headache than the one he is already nursing.
Touya’s problems are: he was mind controlled for years, and now needs to filter between his actual opinions and whatever was implemented in his brains. He also has a secondary healing quirk, which is the result of what’s probably mad science. He would very much like to use it, but doesn’t really know how or if it will work.
There is also the problem of his identity being suddenly blurted out- and, with it, the walking red flag that is his father. It seems anticlimactic. Like he should have somehow made a show of it, that his name could be only uttered if suitable dramatics were in place. That caution had protected him on the street, yet it seems so foolish now. His last-name might be a dead giveaway, but he has avoided giving his first-name to even Magne. Even in his own head, Dabi has been living for longer than Touya.
Which, now that he is thinking about it...
He flips to the last page of his notebook, takes a pen, and writes a new point on the list that he has started there. So far, it reads:
Shit that more than probably comes from the mind fucking:
-hating my bro
- hating my father ? that one is def me
-forgetting where the mansion was.
-calling myself Dabi in my head.
He scratches his head as he reread those points. The ants are starting to recede. Or at least it feels easier to think. Which is why he realizes he isn’t the only one to have never given his actual name. In Hawks’ case, no matter the setting, the man always uses his Hero’s alias. Touya casts a glance on the feather lying on his desk, and resolves to at least ask him his actual name.
There is a sound at his door. Magne’s head appears, one eyebrow arched over her sunglasses.
“Wow. You look like a zombie. More than usual.”
He flips her off, knowing full well she won't take it to heart, and lets her bully him into sitting up and eating the food she bought. There are so many red tapes around the whole mind manipulation thing that he has been sworn to silence on basically everything. She knows that he talked about something difficult with Eraser, and that’s about it- he suspects she thinks it’s related to his father, which isn’t totally wrong.
She knows his name. It’s alien to hear it again after so long. Magne is, of course, an angel that spotted immediately how uncomfortable it makes him. They strike a deal: if he calls her by her name, she can throw his own. He has yet to do it, but knowing she understands his reluctance is nice.
Present Mic comes back with coffee. Magne needles him until he sits with them on the bed, Magne squishes between them and Touya against the windows.
That’s the position they are in, when the alerts flashes on the TV, and the heroes raid the villains' base.
They watch as the task force, led by All Might and Endeavor, bursts through the wall. It takes barely a minute before dark portals open everywhere, spouting dozens of Nomus on the heroes while the villains disappear. All Might jumps out of the building, presumably in pursuit. There is too much yelling to properly understand what's happening: even the newscasters struggle to form a comprehensive commentary.
The heroes must have gotten Eraserhead’s warning though. Some of the Nomus suddenly stop attacking, turning their head around in confusion after a second. Touya wonders if there were enough heroes with mind quirks, or if they had to enroll the purple kid as backup. It’s enough to make the remaining Nomus easy to handle, and for a moment it seems like this will be less dire than expected.
Then the camera changes. Magne grips his hand. On the screen, there is a crater of destruction, and a mass of sheer power in human form in the middle. The new villain bats away Best Jeanist like a cat discarding a broken toy. The kidnapped kid is in the middle of it all, eyes bloodshot and searching for an exit. Touya squeezes back Magne’s hand.
Suddenly there is a red streak, and the blond student is dropped directly in the news helicopter by Hawks’ feathers. The hero himself is dancing around all the villains' attacks, maneuvering in the air like a fish in water. There is a background noise of the journalist asking the kid the standard rescue question as the camera keeps on filming the mad ballet. Touya sees the giant wings that were wrapped around him two days ago slowly but surely getting smaller, and understands with crystal clarity that Hawks cannot get out alive without help.
Which is when All Might finally arrives.
The rest of the fight is. Well.
Seeing a symbol of society that was believed by many as indestructible suddenly crumble is indescribable. For all that All Might has always been just a man, he has been such a permanent figure for the last two decades that thinking of his fall is like waiting for the pyramids to erode. It’s something that might happen, but surely not in this time -and what would the landscape even look like without its signature feature?
The answer: Kamino Ward, razed to the ground. The frail old man that is All Might brandishes his fist in victory. There is black snow falling around the old hero: Touya can practically taste the ashes through the TV.
In a daze, he sees Magne’s face slack with shock right next to him. Present Mic is staring at his phone with wide eyes, typing like a madman. Touya feels like he is underwater as he checks his own phone- but there is no new message. And there is no point in calling the bird in the middle of an emergency.
He still hits Hawks’ contact without thinking. He gets an answer to his call nearly an entire day later.
***
“You’re good?”
“ Shouldn’t I be the one asking that? This shit was insane. You got hit?”
”Ha, not much. Lost all my feathers, so I’m grounded for now.”
“ Might be the right time to take some vacations. It’s not like you can do much without your wings.”
“Maybe yeah. Don’t think it's in the cards though.”
Silence. Dabi’s -or, well, Touya’s - breath can be heard over the phone.
“ Are you seriously thinking about working? Now?”
”I’m a hero. That’s what I do.”
”So? I’m a singer, and you don’t hear me singing right now.”
”I’d like to.”
Another silence.
”You’re concussed aren’t you?”
”Uh. No, I don’t think so.”
”Is there someone keeping an eye on you? Or do I need to come over and sit on you until you’ve recovered?”
”Please do.”
This time there is what suspiciously sounds like coughing.
”Alright, definitively concussed. Are you at least in a hospital?”
”I am! They won’t let me go out.”
”Good. You stay there until the people in white kicks you out.”
”But they need help with the aftermath!”
“And what are you gonna do to help? You’ve said it yourself, your wings are gone for now. And you’re injured. What sort of hero would let an injured man get out of the hospital?”
“ I can still help! There is paperwork to fill, deposition and witness testimony and there is your story too! I got Nezu on it so it shouldn’t be long before we find the mansion you talk about and then… “
“Alright alright I get it. You want to be useful. Then what about that.”
There is the sound of something moving at the other end of the phone, then the distinct sound of a guitar being tuned.
”You park your feathery ass on a bed, and you help me with a little something.”
***
Somewhere in an old house, hidden from the eyes of heroes, a door opens just enough for a wraith to look inside.
Shigaraki has finally tired himself out. The room is a wreck, as is the man himself. He has ended up curled up on the remains of what once might have been a sofa. Kurogiri watches the slow rise and fall of his chest, counting the seconds between each new inhale.
The League of Villain is disbanded for now. Their members went into hiding, on Kurogiri’s prompting when it appeared Shigaraki couldn’t lead anymore. Compress had saluted this decision, and led most of the other members with him out the house. Spinner had lingered for a bit more, until a particularly violent crash was heard. That was a good hour ago. They have been alone ever since.
There is no dark screen to whisper words. No doctor’s appointment to hurry to. More importantly, and perhaps the most surprising: his neck does not bother him anymore. The heroes’ attack is a blur of events that he could barely decipher right now, yet he knows exactly when this particular pain has stopped. There had been a foreign hero among the task force. One who was known for having a quirk that could bend emotion of people they share a glance with. At the exact moment he had met their eyes, the permanent tingle at the back of his head had disappeared.
Kurogiri has yet to inform the doctor of this new developpement. He, quite petulantly, doesn’t think he will.
Shigaraki’s chest roses. Kurogiri calmly counts to six while watching it fall and rise again. The Master is in prison. Kurogiri isn’t enough of a fool to believe this will stop him. But on the other hand, he let Kurogiri lead the League out despite the fault in his design, which makes his head hurt and forces the doctor to make adjustments. This more than anything is proof that the Master makes errors. Because now Kurogiri is thinking around borderline traitorous thoughts, feeling like he is walking a tightropes, and nothing has happened.
O ne, two , the chest roses, three four, the chest fall. It would take less than that to make it stop definitively.
There. He has actively thought of it.
Nothing happens. Experimentally, Kurogiri opens a portal right over Shigaraki. There are quite a number of rumbles that he could have dropped. Yet Shigaraki breathes three more times, none the wiser.
Kurogiri thinks of evenings spent playing with his ward at his new games, of building bases in a world where the Master doesn’t have control. Thinks of ranting and rages, followed by quiet apologies and a helping hand. Think of precious objects destroyed, of guilt filled eyes and the way pinkies fingers try to always be up to avoid any unwanted pains.
A blanket drops from the portal. Quietly, Kurogiri closes the door.
Decision made, he starts plotting. There is much to do to get his ward on his feet. Finding clothes and foods, for once. A more permanent shelter, too. Maybe something away from the city and it’s many prying eyes, where the kid could benefit from the lack of an overbearing Master. But most importantly, there is a Doctor’s appointment to attend to.
“Finally! You took your time. We lost quite a lot of Nomu, there is no time to- hey what are you!”
There is banging against the glass as the empty tank automatically fills with liquid. That disgusting mustache is soon getting soaked as more empty threats are thrown. Kurogiri watches as the man tries to swim in the too thin tank, to get to the top and get one more breath of air - but the claws of the machine are already advancing, grabbing him by the heels and dragging him down. The computer in front of the tank is beeping cheerfully as a mechanical arm full of ice-blue liquid lodges itself into the spine. The man convulses, veins bulging on his neck and face, and Kurogiri lets his eyes fall on the plate under the tank.
“May what he had in store for you be as painful as he imagined it.”
( From somewhere far away, an answer is sung:
The past is gone
It went by, like dusk to dawn
Isn’t that the way
Everybody's got the dues to pay… )
When he raises his eyes again, the man’s mouth is open with a silent scream. There are delicate fractals of frost growing all over his body. Kurogiri does not need a PhD to understand that stuffing multiple quirks in one body is a delicate matter, one that can easily fail if the right balance is not found.
How sad.
It won’t take long to cover his traces -just a quick walk through the server’s room, then one through the underground laboratory. No one will question his presence. Then he will be able to take away Shigaraki, where they will be in peace. He has no illusion on how strongly attached the young man is to his Master. But distance has the power to erode all ties, and Kurogiri has nothing but time on his hands.
***
A shuffle on the phone. The guitar has quieted.
“So. What do you think?”
Hawks finally manages to tear his eyes from the white wall. He has to clear the lump in his throat before speaking. In the doorway, the nurses hurriedly get back to work.
“I think it’s perfect.”