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It isn't that Hawks doesn't know what Dabi looks like these days. The white hair reveal way back during the war was ridiculously melodramatic, and there have been enough family pictures in the news in the years afterwards to notice that most of his scars have been fading from a tortured plum color to beige and pinkish lavender. The raw seams have long since closed, so he doesn't need staples anymore, the raised knots and bumps don't stand out so starkly. His skin is never going to be smooth but at a distance you don't see that. Maybe Endeavor paid for a good cosmetic surgeon.
So in theory Hawks knows what Dabi looks like nowadays. And he knew Dabi and the rest of the ex-League of Villains were coming to the convention -- there was enough bitching about optics and security concerns and whatnot. But he still, instinctively, expects a rangy bastard with a blackest-night mop of hair, a long scene kid coat, and half his face very noticeably marked.
All that to say, he only realizes the poor civilian stuck pacifying the predictable villain interruption is in fact a troll having fun when said voice catches the nearby stage's mic.
"... absolute rule, you say? Yeah, that's pretty cool. How's it work?"
Dabi's voice is... Memorable. Probably due to screaming his vocal cords into well-frayed rope with semi-regularity all throughout his life; it makes Hawks' feathers shudder pretty uniquely.
And he's talking with the villain who's holding the convention center hostage like he's at a bar during happy hour, and also a sociable and friendly guy. Oh. Fuck. Damn it.
"Dabi, nooo," Hawks groans under his breath. Mirko, eyes on the scene, flicks her ear in Hawks' direction and then shuffles sideways through the crowd to reach his side.
"Hm?"
"He's going to pull shit. I don't know what yet--"
"I can't advance to take him down," one of Idaten's sidekicks informs them, tense and confused. "I just--"
Up on the conference stage, the bad guy is holding court, a bubble of free space around him. He's also conveniently bragging about the way his quirk works to an interested-looking, benevolently-smiling Dabi.
"Oh, damn, that's gonna be a pain," Mirko grumbles, and the sidekick, who doesn't have a directional mike on him, tilts his head in question.
"Absolute domain ruler type," Hawks says, trying not to groan and look bothered, because civilians have been noticing more and more and some of them are flocking to the three heroes for protection. "Calls himself the Director and can choose what actions are allowed. Which... seems to be true because none of my feathers have made it through."
They kind of just poke into the guy's radius and stop as though hitting a steel wall. He tries to pick something up and drop it through the field instead, and the rolled-up kleenex tumbles harmlessly until it reaches the bad guy's feet while the full water bottle aimed at his ankle bounces off the field and disappears into the crowd. So Hawks probably can't even drop a capture net or anything. Is it purely intention-based, or is it also results-based? (Can't be only results-based because the water bottle wouldn't even have tripped him.) What if Hawks tricks somebody else into doing something--
"Also he seems to think telenovelas are realistic," Mirko throws in, and Hawks quickly rewinds what he heard while he wasn't paying attention because what. "What I really want to know is why Dabi is chatting him up. Isn't he supposed not to interact with villains as part of his whole... rehabilitation thing?"
"Probably ends today, because the whole League is supposed to be attending and I'm seeing Toga cackling up there on that balcony, so."
"... see what you're doing! Trying to size up the competition--"
"Nah, I'm not doing the villain gig anymore." Dabi lifts his hands; his sleeves pull, baring metal bands. "See? Custom quirk dampeners. Nothing but a trust-fund wastrel son now."
Hawks moves a little closer through the crowd. Some people smartly ran away when the bad guy showed up, but he's been rambling like an ineffective idiot for a bit now and a much-too-big number of the convention guests have just as stupidly decided to stay and gawk.
Now with their luck he's going to disbelieve Dabi, attack him, and then Dabi will pop the cuffs off and--
"How strange! You're not lying at all. Which is good for you... I simply cannot tolerate liars in my domain," the guy adds, trying to sound eerie and threatening. Which he... really does not manage.
But he's also been ordering several guests to dust off a fallen table and chair, set up his throne, and start to fan him with palm leaves torn right from decorative little indoor trees in their pots. And they've been doing it. So. Fuck.
This is shaping up to be a contender for the top ten most embarrassing villain-related debacles of the year. Ugh. Maybe he can weaken the floor to drop him down into the parking garage. (No, too expensive to repair, the Commission will complain.) Or find somebody to forbid oxygen from entering his bubble. (Outlawed for being unethical, on second thought.) Or--
"Seriously?" Dabi's mouth opens; nothing comes out. After a little bit he closes it and chuckles. "Damn, that's useful. So, whatcha here for then? What's the big plan? You looking to bother some heroes?"
The guy looks down his nose at Dabi. It involves tilting his head backwards, because even standing one step down on the stairs, Dabi's taller than he is. "I am looking... for entertainment."
"Oh?"
"Since those plebeian Heroes have ruined my show!"
... It then comes out that what he means is that a gossip TV show (that, Hawks knows because the bitching got intense at a photoshoot, invented a whole secret torrid romance between Mount Lady and Great Explosion Murder God Dynamight) got sued into oblivion. Out of the blue. For no reason. She was secretly pregnant with triplets!
"I'm so fucking embarrassed," Hawks mutters behind his hand. Mirko snorts.
Also, one of his oldest, most frayed feathers made it through the second he stopped paying attention to it and lost his telekinetic grip on it. Yippee. Here's hoping the guy accidentally stabs himself on the quill then.
Like, there's a sleeping drug on it. Maybe if he stops thinking about it, it'll work.
"And therefore, I am! In my domain! Demanding a story."
He reclines on his throne (a plastic chair with somebody's fur coat on it.)
"A story to make me laugh. A story to make me gasp! A true story."
"So," Mirko comments, hands on her hips. "Downside of Dabi being stitches-free is that he's not gonna pop one and stop grinning like that."
"Mngh." He wouldn't stop for so little anyway. Ask Hawks how he knows.
He watches as the ex-villain tilts his head, considers the setup with the civilians being made to offer the dude drinks and little canapés pilfered from the snacks bar, and then pulls up a chair and sits, too, turned halfway outwards like they're both on a TV show.
"Can't lie. Can't use violence against you. Have to respect our roles in your show? Obedient retainers, overlord holding court, fellow villain..."
"Very good," the Director says, wary but a little flattered.
Dabi's eyes crinkle, he's smiling so hard. Oh, fuck this shit. Hawks is out. (Hawks wishes. Can't be seen leaving the scene of an active hostage situation though--)
"So what you mean is, this is the perfect place to tell all about how Pro Hero Hawks popped my cherry."
MOTHERFUCKER.
Hawks says it in his head. Outside of his head he goes "Hhh." The noise is thankfully covered by the crowd's reaction. (He frays his shirt where the wings come out, though, because he's always controlling the primaries closely in public but usually his down feathers don't try to do the switchblade thing.)
Why the fuck is he outing Hawks and their years-ago one-night stand now--
Wait. What the fuck. Wait a sec. No.
He must have found a way to lie.
"Yes," Dabi continues after a suitable dramatic pause to let the room quiet down. Oh no, there's hundreds of people in here and three fourths of them have their phone out recording. "I do mean Winged Hero Hawks deflowered me. Robbed me of my innocence. Killed my last unicorn. You want the deets, or?"
"Haaaawks?" Mirko whispers from the corner of her mouth.
Hawks refuses to look at her. "Fuck off. No."
"You didn't--"
"Mirko, I like you. Fuck off." Dabi wasn't a -- he wasn't. No. That's not how it happened.
It's a distraction. Somehow. Dabi's pulling some con. Hawks knows that gleeful face. It's going to go bad for somebody and he has to be ready for that. He can't let himself be distracted by the pageantry.
"Make it entertaining," the villain says after a moment of (boggling) deliberation.
Dabi leans toward him, an elbow on his armrest and his head tilted like he thinks he's charming, that burnt nugget, and his voice drops into something... velvety. "Oh, it's the funniest thing that ever happened to me."
Some big professional cameras flash. A teenager on the Idaten sidekicks's other side looks up at him with her eyes wide and a hand -- conveniently holding her phone -- covering her mouth in shock. Hawks gives her a tense smile and puts a feather over her camera.
He arches his wings closer to his face a bit. It won't stop the attempts to get live reactions. Might block some angles though. That dramatic bastard only sounds amused.
"Okay, this was during the war, during the time he was pretending to be a convert to the Liberation Army, whatever."
... It's public knowledge. Bringing it back up will not ruin his standing.
Dabi can't lie about what really happened to make him look worse.
(Dabi can probably make it sound as melodramatic as he -- what did he mean, pop his--)
"I don't know how the rest of these idiots ever bought his act but whatever, the boss said he was in so he was in."
From the gallery overhead, a plastic goblet full of champagne comes sailing, and crashes into the invisible barrier. The thrower is -- oh, it's Shigaraki Tomura, holding his middle finger up as far out over the barrier as he can stretch. Dabi waves back with his own finger up without even turning to look.
"But Hawks -- he was so slick and glib, and all that fake-ass amiability, pissing him off was the best part of my day. Yeah?"
The villain looks a little drawn in against his will. Well, Hawks is glad somebody is entertained.
Dabi pats his pockets absently, shuffles his feet to cross ankles together, nonchalant. "Gotta grant it to him, he could come up with some pretty nice zingers right back." He goes fiddling with the cuff of his pants leg and emerges with a cigarette. "So, you know how, when you're in a fight with a jock, the best way bar none to make them lose their shit is to hit on them?"
Somebody in the public goes "woohoo". It's not anybody from the League.
Hawks is going to go and live in Patagonia.
"Y-yeah? Of course. Haha."
"You call them sweetheart in a purring tone, you can watch their hackles go up in real time, it's great." The look on Dabi's face turns borderline dreamy.
With that white hair haloed around his face, he looks as rapturous as an angel. Hawks doesn't know what his body is doing but the murderous rage and the mortal embarrassment are not enough to completely quell the aspirations of his dick, because that traitor gives him a twinge.
Eyes still on the show, Mirko leans her shoulder against his, tilting her head to get in whispering range. "Soooo. How truthful is that."
"I'm not a jock," Hawks mutters back, because his only choices are a) make a joke at his own expense or b) say out loud, in a room full of mikes, 'I knew he was flirting to piss me off but I also thought he was flirting to flirt, and now I am starting to question that,' and it feels a bit too raw.
If he didn't realize where Hawks' head was at, does that mean that when Hawks--
"Anyway, gotta hand it to him, Hawks was hard to crack, but throwing back his fake-assery with just-as-fake pet names cracked me up and we weren't allowed to throw a fist, so." He slaps a hand on his thigh, as though he really needs to make sure the attention of the room is on him at this point. "There I am, getting on his last fucking nerve, as with every other day. And -- for once, for the first time, a whole month in, he finally loses his cool."
"Nice," the so-called Director admits, reluctantly.
Dabi's laughing, shoulders shaking, grinning wide to invite the man to laugh along; the Director's going to crack, soon.
"Gets in my face all 'shut your mouth', and me laughing, asking 'you gonna make me?' -- and then he's coming in for a headbutt, is what I'm assuming..."
He generously leaves a pause for the audience to go 'ouuuuh' there. Maybe this is a psy-op to launch his talk show host career. Maybe Hawks should look up the next flight to Patagonia. Those sheep won't raise themselves.
"--and I can give people a sporting chance, he didn't use his quirk, I'll give him a second before I use mine."
He pauses, pointed. Gives a nonplussed look.
"Tongue in my mouth."
... Maybe Hawks will just fly to Patagonia straight on.
The shrieks of shocked laughter in the crowd, the gasps, the way half of everyone turns to seek Hawks out, rising whispers and people pointing him out with their whole arms and tails and whatever else, he's had so much PR training to deal with public attention he could get a doctorate on the topic, he's been through so much worse, he's -- he's.
Dabi wasn't flirting.
Dabi didn't know Hawks thought he was flirting.
He, uh. He might be feeling a little sick, actually.
"--was so fucking perplexed, dude, I just stood there. What's happening? Then he bites me and I'm like, 'oh, okay, this still makes sense. He's pissed off but he can't fight so here's a workaround, he's so weird, that's hilarious.'"
"Dabi, you dumb fuck!" Toga yells from the gallery. Dabi gives a slow, thoughtful nod, like he has to give her that one, but then also gives her a middle finger like an afterthought.
Hawks' chest is still doing something weird. Like his stomach trying to crawl up his esophagus, maybe.
"And hey, I've never been afraid to double down when somebody tries to intimidate me with weird shit. You live as a villain, you can't afford that, you get me?"
The Director startles a little, like he was getting drawn enough in it that he didn't expect being addressed directly. "Oh -- yeah! Yeah. Can't lose your street cred. Yeah. I agree."
"Anyway, I let this happen for a little while, hands going places, whatever, it didn't hurt or anything. I figured he was trying to gross me out so I'd throw the first punch and like hell that was happening--"
The villain gives him a judgy look. "Dude."
Yeah. Hawks also wants to go "Dude."
That isn't how he remembers that moment. The bare facts maybe, but the vibe. How can their impressions have been so mismatched?
Dabi's mouth, so hot, exhaling in his mouth. Dabi's grunt when Hawks grabbed two handfuls of thighs -- halfway up his ass -- to shove him against the wall and squeezed. The way his breath hitched, making Hawks' feathers twitch, when Hawks found a patch of pristine skin to set his teeth into.
How did that still look like roughhousing to him?
Dabi laughs. "I know, shut up. Just kinda smirked at him, like, 'something rustle your jammies, bird boy?' And lemme tell you he was really up in my grill by then."
The Director gasps, forgetting to pretend to be above it. "And then?"
"Then I'm like, okay, I'm bored, gonna have to put an end to this. Pull out the second stock reply card of the night. 'That all you got?'"
The whole room makes aspirated noises of trying-to-keep-quiet, and various other hamster squeaks. Hawks has no clue what his face is doing. His mouth is open in raw disbelief, he thinks, but that's as far as he can even visualize. Oh god.
"And then?!"
Dabi's face turns from hilarity to blankness so fast Hawks gets whiplash. "Then he introduced me to my prostate."
... Hhhghhgd jbgb.
Hawks almost gets knocked to the ground by Mirko's back slap. The crowd is shrieking and hollering too loud for her to speak, but she nods at him like she's reluctantly impressed. "Shit taste," she mouths, "but great execution." Hawks wants to die. In Patagonia. And have a sky burial with some hungry condors. Yeah.
"Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god," the villain is chanting, at the edge of his seat. Dabi has shuffled forward, too, both elbows on his knees and looking like he does on his best, most social days, all playful irony and charisma.
"Turns out if you're lucky and some asshole is mashing your taint--"
"DABI!" someone hollers. Oh, it's him.
Oh, now Dabi is turning around in his seat, sloooowly, with his smile widening into that deranged cackling grin--
He winks. Hawks makes an aspirated noise of. Some kind. Probably incensed. He's incensed, so that tracks. Fucking--
Then the son of a flaming bitch turns away and back to his little gossip session like Hawks is just another gasping little fan instead of the other protagonist of his entirely too graphic tell-all. "Anyway next thing I knew I was getting my guts rearranged on Spinner's bed."
Hawks... gives up. Hawks sinks down to sit on his heels in a crouch, both hands joined in a triangle before his face, and works on his breathing and his sharp and pointy bits.
"Dabi, you bastard!" Spinner yells over the crowd. "I knew your bitch ass didn't eat yogurt!"
"What," Dabi yells back, "did you want me to use Toga's? She was a teenager, that's gross!" and then immediately turns back all casual and friendly, "Blew my mind, blew my spine."
Mirko pats Hawks' head. Hawks wishes he had feathers up there to use as caltrops. "At least your street cred is rising."
"Well, that's something," he replies, muffled in his hands. His face feels like burning against his fingertips.
At least he didn't misread Dabi enjoying it.
"Fuck but rage had a real nice motivating effect on him. Couldn't feel my fucking legs when he was done, so of course I had to light a cigarette and be like 'guess that was less boring than the card game downstairs'."
The Director cackles, swatting at Dabi's shoulder. "Oh, you bitch." Dabi grins back.
"Meanwhile I'm still trying to wrap my head around how I basically doubled myself down into Pro Hero Hawks blowing a load up my--"
"TOUYA-NII, MOM WILL BE WATCHING THIS."
Oh good god. Awesome. Dabi's little brother is here. So are all his old classmates too for sure. Like, say, any ex-interns. Surely Hawks was already at maximum embarrassment capacity here and this in no way makes it worse. Uh huh.
At least it seems to actually give Dabi pause, because Hawks can hear him skipping ahead in his recitation of Hawks' hatefucking prowess.
"--anyway. Basically went through the whole thing in a state of 'this is weird, but okay.'"
Director is now straight-out giggling. He sounds like a turkey. "Oh my god, you disaster. What the hell. How."
"Yeah, yeah. The funny bit approaches, don't worry."
That wasn't the funny bit? How, Hawks despairs, how is he going to ruin his rep worse --
Dabi pats the guy's forearm in commiseration. Huh.
"So then I'm watching him leave -- he goes stomping out, he's so furious, and lemme tell you it does really attention-grabbing things for his ass..."
(hfhghbhhh.)
"--and then I think..."
Dabi starts tilting his head to the side, eyebrows taking on a perplexed squinch in slow-dawning revelation.
"'... Do I... like guys...?'"
Hawks exhales hard in his muffling hand.
Over there in the bubble, the Director is in stitches; Dabi smiling his casual heavy-lidded smile and resting an arm on the bad guy's shoulder. How the fuck, Hawks thinks distantly, is this not a flirty smile? How does anybody blame him for getting confused--
-- the bad guy stops laughing all at once. He looks like a little kid who's realizing the candy is actually chalk.
"Oh... Oh, this isn't funny."
Dabi smiles back, toothy, eyes crinkled. "I think it's hilarious, personally."
The Director tips over in slow motion; Dabi watching him topple out of his chair with vague interest. His protective bubble pops against Hawks' feathers and he's sending them in a flash to pin down and slam some dampening cuffs at wrists and ankles, even as he and Mirko and the Idaten kid start pushing their way through the crowd.
Even then, he doesn't fully understand until he looks back at Dabi and Dabi has a red, frayed feather dangling from his hand, one of the sedative-tipped ones Hawks lost contact with.
"That's not fair!" the second-rate villain howls from the floor. "How?! You cheated!"
"I did not, actually. You said we must play our roles, yeah?"
He leans into his chair to see the guy's face; and the crowd hushes, freezing, to behold that last bit of theater--
"My role was a fellow villain. Sudden betrayals are kind of a thing with us, you know?"
He stands, long legs unfolding, bats imaginary dust off his way-too-low-collared shirt, and turns to amble his casual way to the bar, waving the hand holding the feather over his shoulder. All Hawks can do is watch him leave and seethe.
"Everybody knows I hooked up with a villain now," he mumbles to Mirko after they manage somehow to bulldoze their way out with the captured villain in tow. Is that going to be the topic of his next ten years of interviews? Villainfucking? Seriously? Dabi had his whole shitshow of a life to choose from if he wanted to dunk on somebody, and he chose this?
Every two-bits reporter and blog-haver in the building is chasing them, so they won't escape for long, but if he can meet the police at the door instead of one of those corridors maybe he can fly off--
"But also," Mirko counters, bounding along, "everybody knows the villain is gagging for it."
Hawks stops in the middle of the greeting hall. Oh. Hey.
"Ohhhhh, hey."
Then the flood of reporters bursts past the corridor's turn, so they make a run for it.
--
EX-LEAGUE OF VILLAINS SEXILED BY HOT WINGS!!
Torn apart by war, League arsonist Dabi and Pro Hero Hawks rekindle torrid sexual affair.
"I GAVE MY INNOCENCE TO HAWKS, AND NOW I AM SINGLE MOTHER OF TWINS," SAYS SON OF ENDEAVOR.