"Well look who finally showed up."

Dabi responded by flipping Shigaraki off as he stepped into the room, making his way over to drop himself into one of the chairs. Thanks to his talk with Hawks last night, he hadn't been able to sleep very well for the second night in a row, which definitely didn't help his mood.

"Have you seen it?" Toga asked before he was able to get in a word edgewise, looking far too entertained by whatever it was that she was inquiring about.

"Have I seen what?" Dabi responded, cocking his head towards Toga in the only physical motion that he made to look over at her.

"Izuku released another video this morning!" Toga bounced over with the phone to hold it out and show it to Dabi, practically sticking it in his face before pressing play. To be honest, the thought of watching another one of those conspiracy videos did not appeal to Dabi at all. Was it possibly the fear of needing to confront something inside himself that he didn't want to? Maybe, though he'd never say that.

"Hi, I'm Izuku Midoriya!"

"I'm Shouto Todoroki."

"Now as you guys know, we usually only do one episode a week, but after seeing our last video we got a pro hero that wanted to share his thoughts on the matter!" Midoriya seemed to be practically vibrating in his seat as he spoke, sitting next to their guest.

"To further investigate the theory that the villain Dabi is actually my older brother Touya Todoroki, Hawks, the Number Two Pro Hero, has joined us today." Todoroki said, seeming less influenced by the pro hero that was sitting on the couch next to him. Though he did have a little bit of that star struck look in the back of his eyes.

"Hi y'all." Hawks was sitting comfortably between Todoroki and Midoriya, giving the camera his signature slightly lazy smile and a brief wave. His wings were spread out behind both of them and covered most of the back of the couch, filling up the frame.

Even though the two younger boys were supposed to be hosting the show, and Hawks really wasn't that much older than them as opposed to Hawks' age against the other pro heroes, he still seemed to command the space and all the attention. To anyone watching, he'd clearly steal the show, but he caught Dabi's attention for a different reason.

Dabi wouldn't like to admit that he was starting to be able to tell Hawks' normal behaviors that well, but he could tell that the winged hero wasn't operating at one hundred percent here.

Of course, he knew that Hawks knew Touya, so this whole thing was probably hitting closer to home with him than he was comfortable with. Dabi still wasn't sold on the idea, and would prefer if everyone would just stop talking about it, but that probably wasn't going to happen now. Certainly not now that these kids had gotten a pro hero to speak up about it.

"I'm not at liberty to say too much without permission since most of what I know is classified, but I will tell you what I can say." Hawks explained, which Dabi could understand, seeing as if there really was a coverup there then they likely wouldn't let Hawks spill everything on the internet like this.

"Of course."

"Well, to start off with, I'm going to detour and talk about Touya for a bit, since we were friends back when we were little." Dabi knew this about Hawks, knew that Hawks knew whoever he thought that Dabi really was, so why was he suddenly worried?

Pushing that down, he allowed his eyes to linger on the screen, trying not to stare at Hawks as he slightly reclined on the couch. He seemed so at ease with this, which was completely different to how he was when Dabi had talked to him the night before.

"Even though Touya was the son of Endeavor, and he was training to become a hero like me, he always used to talk about how he really didn't want to be a hero. I mean, nobody likes hypocrites and people who aren't true heroes, so I can understand why he was frustrated with the system. I wouldn't be surprised if that could be sadly twisted into a villainous intent."

Dabi was actually feeling uncomfortable now, like this was something that he shouldn't be watching with the other members of the League around. It was like a weird sense of deja vu, and he definitely did not like it. Hawks opened his mouth to continue talking, but Dabi reached up to push pause on the video before he said anything else.

"Don't we have better things to do than watch this video?" Dabi said evenly, contrary to the pounding in his chest that he could suddenly feel.

Toga pouted, taking her phone back away from his face and tucking it into the pocket of her sweater. "Fine, be a party pooper. I'll just watch Izuku by myself."

As Toga slumped back into her own chair, there was a brief pause of silence before Shigaraki moved on to what they had actually met about, so the video with Hawks was momentarily forgotten.

—————————————————-

Returning to his apartment after the meeting, Dabi stomped out the cigarette on his porch that had been in his fingertips before heading inside. Closing the door behind himself he let out a sigh, shrugging off his coat to hang it up before kicking off his boots.

Normally he would take a shower after being out and change into something more comfortable, but he didn't this time, heading straight for the couch. It was already a late night, nearing 2:30 in the morning, so what was a few more minutes to watch whatever Hawks had been going to say in the video.

Laying onto his back on the somewhat uncomfortable cushions Dabi allows himself one small groan of discomfort before shifting into position, pulling out his phone again and lifting it up to reach his eyes. Already the video had way more views and comments, but Dabi didn't look at them yet, sliding his finger a few seconds in to continue where he had left off.

"As I said before, Touya and I used to be friends when we were younger, so I spent what little time I could with him. He was tight lipped about everything, really, so it was hard to get him to share about himself, but I do know that his quirk was hot enough to burn himself. It happened a lot when we were training." Hawks' voice broke into the silence of the apartment, which was only accompanied by the sound of Dabi's own breathing. Of course Dabi knew that his quirk burned his own body, it only took his one attempt at using his quirk to figure that out. Having a body that didn't fit your quirk was a somewhat common thing though, wasn't it? That green haired kid broke his bones all the time, and there was that other electricity kid that fried his brains a lot too.

"When I was twelve, Touya stopped showing up. At first I thought, hey, maybe he just got sick of me and didn't want to be friends anymore. But then he didn't show up to training either, and no one said anything. I tried to get some answers, but apparently it was confidential what happened to him. Still is." Interesting. Why would they hide the fate of a well known hero's kid, unless it was something that would make them look bad?

"I wasn't so sure of this whole conspiracy at first, but after thinking about it, those similarities are too close to just be accidental. I can't say too much, but just know that the Hero Commission and I will be looking into it further."

Well, shit.

"In the meantime, everyone, even though this sounds like a fun theory to prove, please don't go getting yourselves into danger because of it. Let us pros handle it." Hawks said, though this partially seemed to be aimed at the two students sitting on either side of him as well as those who might be watching through the screen.

For a crack theory this was certainly getting out of hand, and Dabi knew that nothing good was going to come of this. He had to nip it off before it got any bigger and people were going to actually believe it, because having tons of civilians and heroes walking around while knowing more about you than you do yourself was not something Dabi was exactly happy about. And he still wasn't 100% sure it was actually him!

Letting out a hiss of a breath through his teeth, Dabi switched to his messages, pulling up his conversation with Hawks before shooting off two quick texts.

[2:14 am] sender - we need to talk

[2:14 am] sender - now