Author's Note-
Hi everyone!
Before you begin reading, I wanted to post a full summary of what to expect with this fanfiction, since ff,net's descriptions are a little more limited than Ao3, which this is also posted on.
First off a word of warning- this work is manga spoiler heavy. It goes into the Liberation War Arc that I don't suspect will happen until the 6th/7th season of the anime. If you care about spoilers, please don't read this. I don't want to be the one to spoil it for you. If you don't care, then feel free to read and ask any questions you may have! I'm willing to clarify whatever you need if you want to send me a PM. And obviously if you are caught up with the manga, then you know the kinda stress we're all under here. At the time I started posting this on Ao3, chapter 272 had just released, and while this is a canon divergence, it still follows it heavily up until a certain point. There are also quite a few references to MHA Vigilantes, but you don't need to have read that to understand (though I suggest reading it because its SO GOOD!)
Expect this fic to have a lot of angst, drama, romance (slow burn), emotional hurt/comfort, fluff, flirting, childhood friends to lovers, friends turned enemies and back again, childhood trauma, memories/flashbacks, character's cursing, and found family. Oh and eventual smut. I promise though, it is angst with a happy ending.
Main pairing includes Hawks/Takami Keigo and my Original Character. There is some light flirting with Dabi involved as well and maybe references to other relationships within the world later down the line.
I think that's about all I wanted to say! I hope you enjoy the story!
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"Hawks. We have reason to believe that the League of Villains will clash with an extremist group called the Meta Liberation Army. You've heard all the rumors about them, right?"
Hawks clenched his phone hard in his hand. He's heard of them, of course. With all the uneasy talk around the entire country because of the recent villain attacks, the fall of the Symbol of Peace, and the rerelease of that crazed man's autobiography, he'd have to be stupid not to have heard the whispers that went around. Hell, not that long ago a man exposed himself in the street and started screaming for their cause. Not that the number two hero thought much of that man at the time. It only took a second to stop him with absolutely no effort involved. Besides, he had more pressing matters with Endeavor to attend to anyway. But what in the world would the two groups fighting mean?
"I know they exist. But what makes you think they'd attack each other? This Liberation group hasn't done anything too extreme other than a few isolated cases. Why would the League be threatened by that?" Hawks asked, his voice serious.
"We have a source," the Hero Public Safety Commission agent, Watanabe, answered. "We're still gathering information now, but we think it will happen within the next twenty-four hours."
"You trust this source?" Hawks raised an eyebrow at his own question, not that anyone could see him do it while he stood on a skyscraper rooftop.
"As much as we trust you."
Must be some source, the hero thought before sighing.
"Well, what do you want me to do about it?"
There was a pause before Watanabe answered. "Continue with your meeting with the League today. Once you have an opportunity, let us know your location immediately. I'll put as many heroes as we can get on standby to start an impromptu ambush. There's no telling what will happen if those groups collide."
"What about the Nomu production? I thought finding out where that's located was a priority."
"It still is. If we can just capture one of them, we have ways of finding out where they're hiding it all. These are your new orders. Keep us updated," Watanabe directed.
"Roger that."
Hawks cursed after he hung up the phone. That definitely was not the call he wanted. He's been waiting for Dabi to call him with a meeting place so the hero could deliver his, well, promised item for about two hours now. And flying around with a fairly heavy duffle bag while stuck in limbo was starting to get annoying. Especially when a few fangirls saw him and giggled about how he could be hiding a present for a secret girlfriend or something. Man, how that couldn't be even further from the truth. If only they knew, he'd drop to the bottom of any hero rankings within an instant at the very least. Though realistically he'd be arrested and forever socially ostracized even after the scandal calmed down. Actually, maybe that wasn't that bad of an idea. Prison would be less of a cluster-fuck than the makeshift take down the Commission was about to launch. Plus, that would make for some hilarious tabloids, even at his own expense. He had just started to chuckle to himself at the thought of what the headlines would read before his phone rang once again, this time from an unknown number.
"You finally called! I was starting to think you actually kicked the bucket this time. I didn't take you for a man that would leave someone hanging like this," Hawks joked after he answered.
The voice on the other end was somewhat hoarse, as it always sounded, and it didn't return the playful tone. "Did you do what I asked? Because I'm not going to waste my time if you didn't."
"Of course I did, Dabi. I told you that you can rely on me," Hawks said, a little more seriously. "Now, do you want me to prove that to you or not?"
"I'm going to tell you the address to meet me at. You better be there in less than thirty minutes. I've got things to do," Dabi directed.
"Less than thirty minutes after I've been kept waiting for two hours? So cruel."
"If you wanted nicey-nice, you should've stuck with the heroes."
Hawks sighed. His subtle fishing for more details wasn't going to get anywhere with this guy. "I've told you already- I don't vibe with this crowd. They've kept me caged for too long."
"Then don't complain."
Dabi named the location, which ended up being some small abandoned factory in the next town over. Though with his amazing speed and the ability to fight traffic by flying over it, the half an hour time limit wasn't an issue for Hawks at all. The place itself looked old and dingy. It was a series of rectangular buildings that looked like they've been abandoned for years. Zero signs of any residency by humans. No small paths made by footprints in the sand or areas that look like they have been recently used. The stillness of the location gave Hawks a sense of foreboding. If this place wasn't the League's hide out, then Dabi would be going against his word yet again. The agreement was that if Hawks brought the goods, Dabi would let him further into the League's inner workings. Going out and fulfilling the villain's insane requests should've proved his loyalty enough. Unless Dabi was going to keep stringing him along for some sort of fool. If that was the case, Hawks would need to rework his angle for this mission. If this Liberation thing didn't ruin it forever, anyway.
Dabi was leaning against a flimsy looking half rusted metal wall at the side of one of the warehouse buildings, his arms crossed over his chest. The villain looked as edgy as ever- he wore the same tattered leather jacket and faded pants as the other few times they've met and he adorned a series of staples that connected healthy looking skin to harsh looking scars, though the hero wasn't sure if those were actually holding his skin together or if it was just for the aesthetic. Dabi was wearing a familiar expression as Hawks landed a little ways in front of him. The hero thought it looked like an expression belonging to a lazy big brother who was both amused and annoyed by whatever it was you were doing, though he wasn't sure why he had that impression. But the description fit well enough. Maybe one day he'd be able to joke with the man about it without fear of getting turned into a burnt chicken nugget.
"You know, this whole setup reminds me of a drug deal. Me with this big black duffel bag here, you wanting to see what I've got. What do you think?" Dabi rolled his eyes in response. "Damn you're a tough one to crack today. Can't a man make a joke?"
"If you want to compare murder to a simple drug deal, then you might be even more of a fucked up bastard than I am. And that's saying something," the villain stated.
Hawks raised his eyebrows and shrugged. "You have a point. But here," he dropped the bag in front of Dabi's feet, "is proof of my commitment to the cause."
Dabi walked a few steps forward before bending down to unzip the bag. In it was a body, it's long lanky limbs awkwardly crunched together to fit inside. Its blonde hair was a complete mess, eyes closed like it might be sleeping, but the blood splatter and gaping wound in its chest betrayed that impression. Dabi chuckled. His expression shifted into a crazed grin that made Hawks feel a small chill on his back. Despite the unnerving feeling that grin gave him, the hero remained stoic.
Don't let your emotions get the best of you.
"Best Jeanist?" Dabi asked, looking up at Hawks. "You know, I'm actually shocked. I was expecting a low profile nobody hero."
Hawks shrugged. "You were the one doubting me, so I had to deliver. Besides, it was perfect. He's been out of commission because of his 'injuries'," Hawks made air quotes around the word with his fingers, "which have been healed up for some time so he's just being lazy at this point. Because he's been keeping low lately, his disappearance won't make news for a bit. When it does, it'll shake up the hero society. And on top of all that we've already gotten rid of the number three hero."
"You've put a lot of thought into this, haven't you?" Dabi noted. "Do you have a completed hit list or something?"
Hawks laughed. "Don't most people?"
"Hm." The villain sighed. His scarred arm reached out and grabbed the arm of the deceased hero in the bag. Dabi's hand erupted in a small, but wild blue flame as the arm of the corpse began to light up like a torch. Hawks took a step back as the smell of burning flesh hit his nose. It was the most horrifying thing he's ever smelled. Worse than the one time he forgot to take the trash in his penthouse out before going on a month-long mission abroad. And he had tossed food in there that had that long to fester. He had to resist the urge to look away from the spectacle. The hero didn't like the idea of disrespecting a deceased body, but he couldn't let Dabi or the League know that. He had to be as ruthless as them, if not more so.
"Well, even if you've managed to make that look like Best Jeanist, it is a real body. Meaning you did kill someone. I have to credit you for that."
"Geez, do a DNA test if you want, it's him." The hero ran a hand through his golden blonde hair before pushing his blue tinted goggles to the top of his head. "Have I proven myself to you enough? You know if I get linked to his disappearance, I'll need to have a place to crash."
"Is your clean up job that shitty that you'll get caught?"
"Obviously not. I'm a lot of things, but I'm not sloppy. You know that people nowadays feel like they can't trust anyone. They'll put the blame on whoever they think would have the slightest motivation, whether or not they have proof. You understand that."
Dabi crossed his arms again. "Yeah. Too bad for you though, the plan's changed. And not by my choice." The villain's voice was more like a grumble and his eyes darted to the side as he spoke the last sentence. "If what we're doing now goes well, you can meet the rest of the League in a few days. I'll call you again."
Hawks watched as Dabi launched a ball of blue fire at the bag and body before walking away. The winged man stood still and his mind began reeling. If the plans have changed, then the tip off the Commission received about the League battling the Liberation Army must be correct. But why? What could have provoked that sort of hostility between the groups? Too bad the surprise intervention wasn't going to happen. That would've been way too easy to be real. Nothing about this infiltration has been, since so far the whole thing has been just a month of Dabi going back and forth on Hawks's worth and commitment. Though understandably so. It makes sense that the number two hero reaching out to the most notorious villain group in Japan would raise a number of red flags. He expected to spend a good amount of time just gaining their trust, but this Liberation crap threw a wrench into the plan. At least there was a chance that one group would take out the other, but what if they didn't? What could possibly happen then? He wasn't sure he wanted to find out, but right now, he didn't have much of a choice. The best he could do is go back to his temporary office and update the agency with what he has. Pushing Dabi into letting him come with him was going to be out of the question if he wanted to maintain whatever semblance of trust he's built to this point.
The blue flames still shined bright in front of Hawks. The putrid smell was pushed away as a breeze wafted through the air and bits of the bag already started turning to ash. Dabi's fire quirk was insanely powerful. It had to be to turn a corpse to cinders as quickly as it was now. It could easily rival Endeavor's Hellfire. At least Hawks suspected it to have its drawbacks, so Dabi wasn't totally invincible. He couldn't confirm, but he assumed that the various skin grafts on the villain's body was because his own quirk burned him when he used it in excessive amounts. It wouldn't be the first time the hero has seen someone with a quirk so powerful that it destroyed the user's body, and it definitely wouldn't be the last. Or it could have totally been something Dabi did to himself just for the dramatic effect. Honestly, the hero wouldn't put it past him to do something like that. The fire being that vibrant blue was probably the most interesting part. The more Hawks looked at it, the more he felt something familiar about it. Like an old memory, but he couldn't place where or when he's seen it before.
Hawks shook his head to clear it before spreading his large crimson wings and heading back downtown to the Commission building. The only thing he could possibly do regarding his mission at this point would be to trail Dabi, but he doubted that would work. That villain was a guarded one. It was highly likely he would eventually notice he's being followed, or at least set up a way to prevent it, like that weird teleportation thing he did after the high end Nomu attack.
As he expected, the Commission wasn't happy that Hawks didn't have good news to share, but they also weren't surprised. Their mysterious source alerted them the next morning that the suspected battle was beginning and didn't update them again until the evening. Apparently, the battle was long and extremely destructive, and while they didn't have the full details of the dynamic between the two groups, it was known that they were both still standing. With all the unknown still hanging in the air, the Commission sent Hawks on his own scouting mission to see if he could pick up on anything new from a distance. Even if their source was still alive on the inside, getting as much information as quickly as possible was going to be key. And that's how he landed himself on a hilltop along the outskirts of the partially ruined city of Deika, once again on the phone.
"The city is wrecked pretty bad. There's a crater in the middle of the city and the remaining buildings along the ring of it look like they've been… partly disintegrated?" Hawks observed. He might be a ways away, but his sharp bird-like eyesight let him notice some of the details without getting too terribly close.
"The work of Shigaraki then, probably," Watanabe mused.
"Yes, but… I'm not sure, it doesn't seem like something he'd be able to do based on what we know about him. I really can't imagine he ran around in a perfect circle to destroy everything then work his way in. And by the way this looks, it seems like it came straight from the epicenter of it all," Hawks said. "I'm sure there's news reports on this by now, you can see the pictures for yourself."
"Yes, you're right." There was a pause before the Hero Commission agent spoke again. "Possibly the work of quirk enhancement drugs. The League did attack Chisaki while he was en route to prison and made off with some of the drugs confiscated from the Shie Hassaikai hideout. Those are known to be getting incredibly more potent, especially after the 'instant villain' issues a year back."
"I'll look into it. There's just something that-" Hawks got cut off when his feathers sensed movement coming from his right. Human footsteps. One set sounded incredibly heavy as they quickened their pace, the other set remained light and delicate across the dirt as they continued a more leisurely gait. "I'll have to call you back."
Before Hawks had time to turn and see who the two individuals were, a large hole appeared in the ground below him. He leapt up into air and hovered, his flashy wings easily keeping him afloat as he pulled out the two long feathers he used as his close combat weapons. A man, who frankly looked like he's seen better days, emerged from around a few trees. He was large and covered in scrapes and bruises. His broad shoulders and neck connected to a bald head with a face that was pretty red, like he was in some sort of heated rage.
"Come back down here! You stupid hero! You'll pay for snooping in on our business," the man yelled with a shaking fist.
Hawks looked down at the pit below him, then back at the man before he smirked. "You're not well suited to fight someone who can fly, are you?"
"I've got somethin'!" The man pulled out a handgun and pointed it at Hawks. It was such an obnoxiously dramatic movement, like something out of a cop movie.
"Bold of you to be so confident that a simple gun can take down the fastest hero in the game. You want to try it?" Hawks chuckled, putting his hands up in a mock surrender.
The man snarled before looking back behind him. The source of the second set of footsteps appeared now. It was a woman, with a somewhat slender build and long brown hair. She looked nearly flawless compared to her compatriot. Maybe she managed to avoid the recent fighting. There was no doubt in Hawks's mind that these two must be a part of the Meta Liberation Army. Probably scouting to make sure people like him weren't poking around to find out what really went on yesterday. The media might publish some bullshit about how citizens stepped up to help the heroes save the day, which was an amazing cover story to gain more sympathizers, but it was obvious even the Liberation Army knew that not everyone would buy into it.
The woman looked at the hero with an eyebrow raised. Her curious look went blank as she let out a suddenly exasperated sigh.
"You got any ideas to get him down, Yoshioka?" the man asked, turning to the woman. She looked from Hawks to her partner, her crystal blue eyes looking intently on the angry man's face. The gun in his hand began to drop as she spoke.
"Actually, I suggest that you forget Hawks was here at all. I want you to continue this round like normal and not report that you saw him. I also suggest you go on ahead of me, not think anything is strange about me falling behind, and I'll catch up with you in just a few minutes."
The man's eyes glazed over as he seemed to hang on every word that her honey-like voice spoke. Her every syllable. He nodded in response before continuing forward, moving past Hawks without a second glance. The woman and hero watched him go in silence and she finally spoke again when he appeared to be out of earshot, but she didn't look up at Hawks.
"You need to be more careful where you take phone calls. You shouldn't be calling the Commission unless you're about five miles from the border of the city, or maybe two or so miles up. People around here preach about freedom, but they watch everything that goes around like a, well, hawk." Her face was completely stoic, her tone flat. "Now if you'll excuse me."
The woman began to follow the direction the man went, but Hawks landed in front of her and pointed a sharpened feather at her chest. She stopped, her expression unchanging. Standing ground level so close with her now, he could see just how small of a figure she had. He wasn't a tall man by any means, but she still stood a good four to five inches shorter than him. Her oval shaped face and round eyes showed no expression even as he attempted to threaten her.
"Yoshioka, was it? Why should I believe you both won't sell me out?"
"My quirk is called suggestion. If I tell a person what I think they should do, they'll do it. No questions asked. They don't even know I influenced them. I'm happy to try it on you if you need a reason to believe me," she shrugged. Hawks dug the tip of his feather into her clothing. She still didn't flinch.
"How about instead you tell me why I shouldn't kill you and your buddy where you stand?" he asked, his golden eyes narrowing as he glared at her. He wanted to believe her. He didn't want to kill anyone that he didn't have to. Resorting to those measures always made him feel conflicted, but the mission had to be his first priority over everything else.
She sighed again before looking at him. Or rather, somewhat above him. He felt like her blue-gray eyes focused more on his eyebrows or forehead as she spoke her next words. "You shouldn't kill me, because Project Eta would be very disappointed to have lost their spy."
The mention of Project Eta sent Hawks's head spinning even more than it already was. No one outside of the Hero Commission knew about it. As a matter of fact, most of the Commission didn't even know. That was the program he was a part of. The program that trained him to be a hero since they took him in at the ripe young age of six. Hawks got closer to her, the sides of his feather swords placed at the front and back of her neck. She looked mildly shocked now; it was the first genuine show of emotion he's seen of her yet.
"How do you know about that?"
"Because I'm a part of it. How else would I know?" Hawks only glared at her. He knew everyone who was involved with Project Eta. It was a small, extremely exclusive team. He would've heard of her before. Yoshioka sighed at his lack of response and looked at the ground, her voice a whisper as she muttered her next words. "You need more proof? Fine. Eta. Epsilon. Gamma. Omicron. Sigma."
Hawks dropped the swords. He can't remember the last time he heard that string of characters. It was definitely a long ass time ago. There was really no need to use them. It was supposed to be the password used to find other members of Project Eta or to see if someone is being impersonated. He never had a reason as of yet to believe that the other Project Eta team members weren't themselves. Granted, the only team members he knew where his superiors at this point. As far as he knew, he was the only kid to fully complete the program, though the Commission originally intended to have more just like him. He was just the only one able to push himself all the way through the rigorous training. That being said, that passcode was something he never expected to hear or say again. To the point where he almost thought it was dumb that they spent time to teach him a secret code in the first place. Yet here it was, spoken in front of him. Further proof that she was, in fact, telling the truth.
"You're the source within the Meta Liberation Army, aren't you?" he asked, feeling slightly dumbfounded.
She nodded in response. "I'll keep in touch. There's a lot that happened within the past day and I'm still trying to figure it all out myself."
Yoshioka walked past him while he stood still. He prided himself on his ability to keep his cool. When it was necessary, anyway. Part of Project Eta's training was to instill that emotional control into him. But it was hard not to feel his world at least slightly rocked off its axis now.
"Hawks…" Yoshioka said from behind her shoulder. Her voice had a strange soft quality to it now. "Keep being cautious. Pick who you trust very, very carefully. And I… I know what you went through. You weren't the only child who was raised by the Commission."
She turned away and continued walking. It was a while before his feathers picked up on the vibrations of her voice through the air. It was still soft and so quiet that normal ears wouldn't even be able to hear what she was whispering to herself, even from a closer distance.
"Don't let your emotions get the best of you."