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Hawks was roughly roused from sleep by the sound of Shigaraki’s shrill, angry voice permeating his eardrums. He’d conditioned himself to be alert to even the tiniest sign of danger while on this undercover mission, and a pissed off Tomura Shigaraki had the ability to set his nerves alight with situational awareness almost on reflex.
In reality, their commander posed quite little threat to him, as long as his position in their good graces remained steadfast, but he never felt like he could relax around the man, and he supposed he couldn’t begrudge himself that slight ever-present paranoia. He figured it could very well save his life one day.
Hawks ruffled the disorientation from his limbs and crept out of the room he’d been napping in to see what all the fuss was about.
Unsurprisingly, he was harping on Dabi.
He had a picture of Eraserhead, of all people, in his four-fingered grip, and was flapping the photo wildly in Dabi’s face.
“Why do you even HAVE a photo of Eraserhead in your room, Dabi?”
“Oh come on, boss, don’t pretend you’re the only villiain who has a hard on for Eraser—”
“FIRST OF ALL, you arrogant ass, I do NOT—”
“Oh come, on, it’s no big deal. Everybody has the hots for him. I bet you everyone here has at least one photo of him they’ve got squirrelled away—”
Hawks’ back straightened, wings tucking protectively inward. He considered leaving, but the other League members began trickling into the common area to join in on the hot goss.
Shigaraki’s face had the most color Hawks had ever seen in it. He looked furious. He looked mortified.
He looked guilty.
Dabi’s grin turned wicked.
“Shiggy, care to share what photos you’ve been keeping of him? You’ve been tracking his career longer than any of us, you probably have some really good ones—”
“I have NO such thing," he hissed.
“Come on, admit it, he’s hot, for a pro.”
Shigaraki scowled up at his friend.
“I don’t understand what you even see in him. He isn’t your type at all.”
“What’s not to like?” Dabi grinned, delighting at how every word was making Shigaraki cringe. “He’s older,” he began counting on his fingers, “he’s tall, loves to wear black…”
“You hate pros. You hate ALL pros.”
“I mean, yeah,” Dabi replied, “but he does so much work to not draw attention to himself, and then has this badass quirk that literally none of us are immune to, and I do like a man who can kick my ass.”
Hawks kept very still. This information was not important for him to remember. He wasn’t filing away “things that turn Dabi on, #1: likes a man who can kick his ass…”
He didn’t care to file away the fact that nearly every other reason Dabi found Aizawa attractive were the literal opposite descriptions of Keigo, but what did that matter? Shigaraki had said Eraserhead wasn’t Dabi’s usual type, so.
Hawks centered himself. This wasn’t about him. This was about Aizawa, apparently, and his alleged League of Villainous fans.
“Aww, no fair,” Toga appeared at Shigaraki’s shoulder, eyeing the photo which—presumably—held the image of Aizawa in question, “how did Dabi manage to get a shirtless photo of him? And he’s all sweaty from training!?”
She made a haughty noise of what Hawks assumed was her version of shock in the face of treachery, “I need your dealer.”
“You too, Toga??” Shigaraki rasped, with what looked like betrayal in his face.
“He’s like a father to my dear Izuku and Ochaco,” she smiled, destractedly, “who doesn’t like a daddy?”
“See?” Dabi leered, “Daddy. Toga gets it.”
“He is only 31—”
“Where did you get this one, Dabi?” Toga chirped, “I want one! Mine’s boring. Just a snaphot of him buying groceries in his civilian clothes.”
“How on earth did you manage to—"
“Wait, go get it Toga, I wanna see,” Dabi spoke over him, “I bet he still wears black, even when he’s not in uniform.”
Toga’s resulting smile was far more devious than it should have been, given the circumstances.
“He does.”
Before Shigaraki could scold her further, she zipped off to retrieve it. By then, the others had decided that, yes, this was absolutely the pot they wanted to stir.
“Are you the only one who doesn’t have a fancam pic of Eraserhead, Shiggy?” Twice asked, ever the generous soul. Before he could respond, Bubaigawara continued.
“I have several; you can have one of mine.”
Shigaraki put up his hands, inhaling rapidly.
“That won’t be necessary, Twice.”
“While we’re swapping spank bank photos—” Hawks’s eyes widened as he willed himself not to react, thanks Dabi—“Go get your photos, Twice. Let's see 'em.”
“Twice, no.”
“You sure, boss? They’re really nice. I’ve even got one of him tying up another villain with his fancy scarf-thingy.”
“You WHAT” Toga and Shigaraki exclaimed in unison.
Toga had just reappeared with her prize, eyes twinkling with what Hawks assumed to be a healthy dose of sadomasochism. Twice didn’t seem to notice.
“I’ve got another one with him beating some guy to a pulp…”
Toga was subtly shaking, inching closer to him with undisguised interest. Twice didn’t seem to notice.
“I’ve also got another one with him using his machete on some poor, unfortunate villain—”
“JIN!!” Toga screeched, frothing at the mouth, “WHY ARE WE JUST HEARING ABOUT THIS NOW??”
“I didn’t think it was—”
“Make it fast, buddy, before Toga loses it,” Dabi's smirk was insufferable.
“Okay, okay,” he gave them a placating gesture and an apologetic look to Toga before rushing off to his own room.
Hawks looked to Spinner, who was slowly approaching Shigaraki like he’d been wounded. Before he could say anything, Shigaraki turned his sour gaze onto him.
“You have one too, don’t you?”
Spinner had the grace to look embarrassed.
“He’s good with animals,” he shrugged, “who’s not a sucker for a man who takes in all the strays?”
Shigaraki’s face contorted as if he’d just taken a bite out of a particularly large lemon.
He looked at Mr. Compress with accusation in his red, rimmed eyes. Mr. Compress made an open, easy gesture with his gloved hands.
“It’s always the quiet ones,” he said with a knowing tilt of the head.
Dabi was cackling.
Shigaraki punched him.
Bubaigawara reemerged with a handful of photos from his room, whereupon Toga promptly pounced on him and tore them away.
She brought them over to Shigaraki, held them out for him to look at one by one.
The color in his cheeks, which had seemed to recover its pale complexion after a while, immediately revved back up to crimson.
“Why do you have so many of these, Twice?” Shigaraki looked rattled, but ultimately defeated in his quest to appear unaffected. He was slightly sweaty now.
“Well, isn’t it obvious? His quirk is super sexy.”
“What?”
Shigaraki looked up at his friend with that same, guilty look in his eyes.
“His quirk,” Twice continued, unperturbed, "You know my relationship with my quirk is…complicated,” he seemed to smile, beneath his mask.
“The fact that he could cancel my quirk at any time…it’s just…even the concept…that’s just one of the only quirks out there where I could fantasize about being a regular person with someone. Being sane. Normal.”
Shigaraki looked stricken. The knowing look on his face gave him away instantly.
Hawks knew in that moment that Shigaraki had also absolutely made this connection long ago. And that he’d rather die than admit it.
Their leader recovered with minimal spluttering.
“Where are you guys even GETTING these photos of Eraser, huh?”
One by one, each of them turned around to look at Kurogiri, who until now had just been lurking in the background like a smokey sentinel.
When Shigaraki saw where they were all staring, and inherently put two and two together, he audibly gasped.
“KUROGIRI?!?!”
“I don’t see the problem, Tomura,” Kurogiri replied, placidly.
As Shigaraki struggled to find words, Kurogiri cocked his head.
“I acquired photos of Eraserhead for you when you asked, why would I not do the same for the others?”
“That’s not what I…”
Shigaraki stopped himself.
“Wait…”
He looked at his guardian for a long minute, who blinked calmly back at him.
“How do you get all of these pictures of him? You take them yourself, don’t you?” Shigaraki’s embarrassment seemed to evaporate.
“How do you do it?”
“With warp, obviously,” he responded.
“But like…how do you know where he’ll be? What his habits are?”
For a painfully uncomfortable moment, Kurogiri didn’t answer. Eventually, all he said was,
“I just know.”
Well, that’s not creepy at all, Hawks thought to himself. Best not to let that one out of his sights, that’s for sure.
As Hawks attempted to stealthily extricate himself from further involvement, he caught sight of Shigaraki lowly asking Twice if he could “borrow” two of the photos presented. Hawks’ eyes were better than most, and he couldn’t resist satisfying this one modicum of curiosity.
The first was the one mentioned earlier, which depicted Aizawa subduing a villain with what Hawks personally thought was a rather excessive use of his binding cloth. The poor sod was bound so effectively that they looked like they couldn’t move a muscle.
The second picture he tucked to his chest showed Eraserhead after he’d physically tackled an assailant to the ground. He’d overtaken them with what Hawks assumed was his hand-to-hand combat skills, and held the villain pinned beneath him, with his hand on their neck.
Shigaraki's eyes were dark, and his breathing was a little patchier than it had been a moment before. He slipped the photos into his pocket.
Well, Hawks can't unsee or unhear any of that, but he guessed that was just par for the course around here.
He turned around, smiling, and pushed himself out of the chaos of the common room as they devolved into bickering once again. But as he slunk back to his room, curiosity satiated, he couldn’t help but imagine; Eraserhead was a man who worked very hard not to have any attention, recognition, or time in the spotlight. What kind of delightful reaction would he have if he knew how many fans he actually had?