Hawks just could not believe his eyes, and even if by some small chance he could believe, he would just outright refuse to. Yet, here he is standing in his living room with none other than Dabi standing in front of him with a cold and unreadable icy gaze.
"No." Hawks crosses his arms and glares back at the man, "No way in hell; don't you live at that bar with the rest of your friends or something?" Dabi says nothing for a long moment and lets out a huff.
"Shigaraki wants someone to watch you. Unfortunately I drew the short straw and got stuck on babysitting duty now."
"Babysitting?! I don't need-" Dabi closes the distance between the two of them and stands over Hawks. Hawks instinctively backs up and balls up his fists as he stares up at the disfigured man.
"Frankly, I don't give a fuck on what you think you need or not. We just got to make sure that you can be trusted," Dabi's turquoise eyes seemingly pierce into Hawk's soul, "So just stop bitching."
"I don't bitch!" That draws out a low chuckle from Hawks apparently new housemate. "One of us is probably gonna end up killing the other, y'know." Dabi smirks.
"Then perish," He shoulders past Hawks and makes his way to the kitchen. "Makes my job a hell of a lot easier."
This whole predicament however, makes Hawks' own job a hell of a lot harder and with a sinking feeling, he wonders if he will be able to even pull off this whole double agent thing. Or maybe he should just buy a one way plane ticket to Hawai'i and live out the rest of his days lounging lazily on white sand beaches with a nice cold glass of mai tai.
The smell of smoke stirs Hawks from sleep and cracks his eyes open with a grumble. In the dark, he spies the steady glow of a cigarette's cherry and he scrunches up his nose.
"Dude, I have a balcony for that shit. I'm not gonna get my damn down deposit back if my apartment smells like fucking cigarette smoke." Whether on purpose or not, but Hawks is putting his lost down deposit on the former, a waft of smoke is blown towards him.
"It's too cold out." Hawks reaches over and turns the lamp on, glaring over at Dabi. Dabi is casually sprawled across the sofa, as if he owns the place, and takes another hit from the cigarette. He leans his head back and blows rings with the smoke, ignoring Hawks' annoyed huffs.
"You literally have a fire quirk! I'm sure that you could keep yourself warm out there." Dabi side glances Hawks and rolls his eyes.
"I'm pretty sure I could also set the whole building on fire too." He replies nonchalantly, as if he was just talking about the weather instead of committing a massive act of arson. Hawks ruffles his feathers irritably.
"Dude."
"Point is, I don't want to go outside. It's cold and I'm comfortable. Deal with it." With a final intake of the cigarette and another puff of smoke blown his way, Dabi reaches over and extinguishes it against the wall.
"Are you for real right now?! You are literally the biggest insufferable prick I've ever had the misfortune to meet!"
"Hey, I don't got time for that bullshit."
"You obviously must have enough time to smoke and- for fuck's sake!" He spies multiple marks on the wall from previous extinguished cigarettes, "You've been here for not even a full twenty-four hours and you've already marking up my apartment!"
"I'm building character for your apartment. It's called art, look it up."
"I can't believe you." Hawks feels Dabi's smug gaze as he walks to the bathroom. He briefly wonders if this is how a bird feels before the cat pounces and he shudders at the thought. There was just something about his self proclaimed roommate that screams predatory. Hawks came to that conclusion the first time they met and he didn't like that hungry look in his eyes then and he sure as hell doesn't like it now. He curses at his superiors for even offering this job to him, didn't they know how dangerous it was to play with fire?
Adjusting to having a villain living with him was something that Hawks never really thought he would have to prepare for. If he were to be honest, he's thankful enough that it's Dabi and not someone with a yandere overdrive such as Himiko or that odd Deadpool knock-off, Twice. At least most times, Dabi is either out doing whatever heinous crimes he feels like or he's on the sofa smoking and lazily flipping through channels.
In an odd sort of way, they fell into a rhythm of dealing with each other. Both know the other is unhappy with the situation and maybe that's what started their competition to see how much they can drive the other up the wall. Figuratively of course, Hawks tells himself that he would never even try to touch the fiery man with a ten foot pole.
It was just one of those days where Hawks wish he never crawled out of bed to begin with. After dealing with a particular irritating capture at work, all Hawks is looking towards is flopping down on his bed and sleeping until the end of time. He stumbles into his kitchen, trying to ignore the throbbing of his headache and the restricted vision from a swollen eye. Hawks flings open the fridge and blindly feels for the milk. Nothing sounds better than some Oreos and milk to him right now.
He pauses.
Eyeing the milk carton he then shakes it slightly. Nary a sound of swishing milk. His hands curl and crush the empty milk carton. How can he enjoy his Oreos without milk? That would be like eating a peanut butter jelly sandwich without the peanut butter. Or eating buffalo wings without the chicken. Hawks slams the milk container into the trash and curses Dabi.
If it's a war Dabi wants, a war is exactly what he will get.
They sit in silence as Hawks drives to a grocery store. Who knew that for such a lithe man, that Dabi had a never ending hunger. Hawks briefly wonders if this is how it felt to be harassed by a plague of locusts. He grits his teeth, driving is supposed to be Hawks' time to unwind and jam out to his music. Unfortunately, Dabi has way different taste in music than him and had the audacity to try to switch his radio station. If Hawks can't listen to some good old Snoop Dogg, then Dabi sure as hell can't listen to Dir en Grey. They settled on driving in awkward silence instead.
He side glances Dabi and narrows his eyes, despite him telling Dabi to put on his seat belt, he still sits with a smug smirk as he scrolls through his phone.
"So why do you need to come with me to the mart?" Without even looking up from his phone replies back in a bored and monotone voice.
"How many times do I gotta tell you? I'm stuck babysitting you."
"What do you think I'm going to do? Cry to the hero agency that you're harassing me?"
"You do cry a lot." Hawks slams his hands against his steering wheel and looks over at him with disbelief.
"I do not cry!"
"I've seen you watch Lion King. You totally cried." Dabi snorts and tries to hide a grin.
"It was sad!"
"It was fucking stupid."
No one insults the Lion King to Hawks' face.
No one.
Without warning, Hawks slams down on the breaks and watches in smug satisfaction as Dabi lurches forward and smashes his face against the dashboard.
"What the fuck?!" Dabi pulls back from the dashboard and glowers over at Hawks as he holds his nose, "The hell was that for?" Hawks shrugs.
"Break check. Sometimes my breaks act up and gotta make sure they're working." It was a lame lie, Hawks admits. Dabi narrows his eyes at Hawks before picking up his phone from underneath his seat.
"Get that shit fixed then, god damn." He grumbles as he reaches for the seat belt and Hawks tries to stifle his laughter.
"I warned you bro." Dabi glares at him again and shakes his head.
"Don't."
"Don't what?" Hawks asks innocently. He turns his attention back to the road but can still feel a hole being burned into the side of his head from Dabi's gaze.
One thing that really ruffles Hawks' feathers is how Dabi puts in a new roll of toilet paper. Why on earth would someone put it in the wrong way? No matter how many times he flips the toilet paper to the right way, the next time he uses it, it's flipped back the wrong direction. Hawks sees red as he flips the roll back the right way. He'll get Dabi back, patience is key.
His patience is rewarded early in the morning. He stirs awake from the cracking of Dabi's joints as he gets up from the sofa and makes his way to the bathroom. Hawks rubs the sleep from his eyes and stretches, enjoying his peace.
Then he hears a splash of water and a started yelp.
"Are you fucking serious?!" Hawks chuckles to himself and turns over in his bed, quickly falling back asleep to the muffled curses from Dabi.
Living with a villain certainly isn't on Hawks' to do list but he might as well entertain himself by driving Dabi insane. After all, Dabi was the one that started this. As the saying goes- if you mess with the bull, you get the horns.
And Hawks is just getting warmed up.