The Boogeyman - kingburu - 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia (2024)

There are two types of people that should never be trusted. Clever people, and stupid people.

Birdie is a clever person. Smart, charming, Japan’s f*cking heartthrob. Dabi learned the lesson the hard way when he was younger to never fully put his trust in anyone—not even the people he holds close. It’s better not to form an attachment. He got dumped and cast aside when he wasn’t useful anymore. That was before he even became Dabi. He intends to stay ahead of that curb. So, he doesn’t give a sh*t what kind of tactic Hawks tries to pull—if he proves fruitful, good. If he’s a huge pain in the ass, then Dabi has an I-Told-You-So ready.

The other brand of untrustworthy people are stupid people. Stupid people come in all shapes and sizes. Like, Endeavor is stupid to think his time in the limelight won’t expire, and Dabi intends to smother out that obnoxious flame in the best way possible.

But the other- other brand of stupid is inexperienced quirk users. They’re unpredictable because they don’t even know what they’re capable of. Every quirk should be treated like a loaded gun until proven less than a nuisance.

Which brings them to this dumb predicament at one of their hideouts.

Golden Boy Hawks is waiting at the front of their hideout, like he’s ready to walk Dabi to class. Smug. Eye glittering, and wings full. Every conversation is just a never ending game. One of them trying to get intel. The other, not bending. It’s never quite clear who’s being played and who’s playing. They're both playing the other. Dabi doesn’t intend to lose. Hawks may think he’s getting trusted. Hawks lossed a long time ago, if he believed Dabi believed his act.

“I didn’t give you orders,” Dabi says simply.

Hawks smiles at him, all cool and calculated. “Maybe I just missed you.”

“Flattery gets you nowhere, Number 2.”

“Haven’t heard a ‘scram,’ yet.”

“Scram,” Dabi echoes. “You’re not needed.”

“Yet,” Hawks decides to add, because that’s his clever f*cking loophole that Dabi doesn’t even know why he entertains. “Where did you just get back from, anyway?”

“Classified.”

“Classified,” Hawks parrots. “Wow, it’s like I didn’t even clock out.”

Hawks has a talent for carrying on one-sided conversations, like a parakeet left alone in a cage. He’s either really stupid or incredibly dangerous—and most days, it feels like both. Every time Dabi finds himself irked, though, he notices those eyes on him. They don’t blink.

Then it goes south from there. They walk into some conversation between a new recruit and Twice. The first mistake is letting that idiot handle recruits at all.

“Hawks!” Twice cheers, like breathing air is just something to celebrate. A second Twice piles on top of the first, pumping a fist in the air. “What’s up, cool cat?!”

“Yo,” Hawks greets, despite the order to scram. “New recruit?”

“As if!” Says a third twice. A fourth pops up. “ Totally!”

They must’ve walked into the middle of a conversation. Whatever pathetic loser Twice picked up off the street looks riled up and upset. If he can’t even stomach Jin , then there’s no way he’s going to last with anyone else.

“I’ll show you I’m worthy!” The useless recruit says. Then out of nowhere, he shoots a f*cking spitball at Hawks’s forehead.

Hawks probably had the same thought process Dabi did. The loser already looked like a loser, so a f*cking spitball is a harmless grade school prank.

He blinks far too owlishly for a hawk, and wipes it off his forehead. “Huh. That’s—“

POOF!

He suddenly explodes with smoke that reeks of baby powder.

“What the actual f*ck?!” Dabi snaps. He bats at the air—even intends to burn it—but Twice’s dumbass recruit is cackling victoriously like a pathetic villain on a Saturday morning cartoon.

The smoke disappears—leaving nothing but Hawks’s obnoxious hero costume, and—

And a kid.

Golden irises stare from below— far lower to the ground than five seconds ago. Hawks’s black and gold compression shirt—which once clung to him like a second skin—now drapes like a dress to tiny knees. A small fist clutches the spitball in one meager hand. Headphones slip off a much smaller head, almost swallowing the kid’s narrow frame whole.

Dabi is speechless. Twice is speechless. That nitwit rookie is cackling.

“ BEHOLD!” The dimwit roars. “A baby!”

Four gasps come out of Twice in varying octaves.

“Is that Hawks?!” Says one Jin.

“It’s Hawks!” Shouts another.

The wings are unmistakable. Red and flanked at either side of a tinier Hawks, who’s still as a statue as a little face stares up at Dabi in confusion.

“What,” Dabi says once more, “the f*ck just happened?”

The moment he raises his voice, Hawks flinches. No smug look, no smartass remark. He crumbles into himself—then he bolts.

“Whoa!” “Whoa!” “Whoa!” Twice says. “ He’s fast!”

“ Oi!” Dabi snaps. He darts after the bird brat.

Baby Hawks is fast, but he’s nowhere near his adult speed. Weirdest of all, he’s running. Not flying. Running.

Dabi snatches Baby Hawks by the back of his shirt, but Fierce Wings immediately flap.

“Where the hell do you think you’re going?!” Dabi sneers. He could laugh. Hawks spends all evening dangling over him and Dabi can snatch him out of the air like a fruit fly. “You stupid little bird. You have somewhere to be?”

The wings are flapping—fluttering and batting at Dabi without doing any damage.

“ Oi!” Dabi snaps once more, the sound as sharp as a rifle. “I’m talking to you, Number 2!”

He isn’t listening.

He’s trembling.

Sobbing, quietly.

Dabi is hotheaded. Touga likes to use the word passionate, but in this case, it’s a hotheaded sneer that’s making this kid try his best to get into the fetal position.

“Hawks,” Dabi tries, unable to hide the ire. “Calm the f*ck down, you brat.”

“I’ll be good,” the boy whimpers. His voice wavers. Small. “I promise.”

Hawks doesn’t know who Hawks is. f*ck.

It’s not the big reveal that Dabi was setting up for, but he suddenly realizes he’s got a feeble little kid, terrified for his life and flapping wings like a caged animal.

“Keigo,” Dabi tries next. “ Takami Keigo.”

Little Keigo freezes. He’s stiff in Dabi’s hands. Knowing this idiot’s name is supposed to be a fear tactic. A warning that Hawks never should’ve f*cked with them. Instead, he looks terrified for a different reason.

“What’s your plan here, birdie?” Dabi asks. His volume is too loud. Red feathers seem to twitch with his voice—so Dabi needs to switch tactics. “Do you even know where you’re going?”

Keigo is quiet. He glances at Dabi, but there’s no smart remark or even a glare. Just uneasiness.

“Come back with me,” Dabi says simply. “You’re not in trouble. Okay?”

It’s not that Keigo doesn’t seem to trust him. No, there’s something completely different from distrust. Dabi can’t put his finger on it.

“I’ll let you go home after that,” Dabi lies. “To your mom.”

Yeah, right. All the way back to that stupid apartment where Dabi scared the woman sh*tless so he could gain some leverage. But that seems to catch the little bird’s attention.

Keigo’s growling stomach answers for both of them.

“Okay,” he says quietly. Like a prisoner.

Dabi backtracks his own dumbassery to understand what quirk just turned Japan’s No. 2 Hero into a f*cking child. It’s a skinny guy. Long, luscious hair with a few screws missing. He’s a vegan against his will. His saliva reverses the aging of living things and once-living things. Apparently he tried to eat a burger once and ended up with a revived wailing calf in the middle of a burger joint.

“Oh, the world is so cruel,” Twice says. “You’ve never enjoyed steak!” “Medium rare!” “ Well done!” “Covered in Brown Gravy!”

“How long until he turns back?” Dabi asks. As revenge, he fishes Twice’s dinosaur nuggets from the back of the fridge and heated them up. When he places a colorful plate in front of baby Hawks, baby Hawks genuinely looks baffled.

He takes one chicken nugget from the plate and pushes it back towards the center of the table.

Dabi frowns and pushes it back toward him. “What the f*ck— what are you doing?”

Softer tones. The last thing he needs is to set the bird loose around their hideout because of lack of volume control.

Baby Hawks looks at him, confused. He hasn’t gotten out of that getup yet, of his oversized goggles and headphones. He puts the nugget back on the plate and sits back in his seat, shameful.

“It’s all for you,” Dabi says. He pushes the plate back. “You better eat it all, you skinny brat.”

Baby Hawks blinks at him. He’s not as expressive as Adult Hawks. But he’s not as good at hiding his expressions, either. “What will you eat?”

Jesus Christ. “Just eat , you brat.”

He doesn’t intend to raise his voice—but it kickstarts the kid feeding himself.

“Hmm,” says the tortured rookie criminal. He shrugs.

“You don’t know?” Dabi snaps. He retracts his volume when big gold eyes look at him. Dabi points to the plate “ Eat.”

“I’m usually kicked out of the restaurant by now,” the dumbass says. “Burger revivals unusually screaming bloody murder! It’s abnormal! I’m banned from most street food vendors in Tokyo. Don’t even get me started on chickens.”

“What do they end up doing with your sicko animals?” Dabi asks.

The villain strokes his chin. “Kill them and make a burger again, I think.”

Baby Hawks stops eating. Dabi clamps two hands over the kid’s ears.

“You mean he could stay like this?” Dabi snaps. “Can’t you just sh*t on him or something?”

Both Twice and the no good recruit stare at him, wide-eyed.

“ Dabi ,” Twice says. “That’s so evil.”

God f*cking dammit.

“I’m not dealing with this sh*t.” Dabi stands to his feet. “Your dumbass, your recruit. Your problem. Figure out what we’re going to do with him.”

That should be the solution. It isn’t. Dabi saunters back to his own room, where he intends to mind his own damn business for the weekend. The peace lasts for about a minute.

Then there’s a knock at the door.

“Oi!” “Oi!” “ Oi!”

“What!?” Dabi yanks the door open.

He sees Little Hawks first. The kid falls onto his butt, like a domino. Twice is behind him.

Gold eyes stare at him, confused. Hawks doesn’t get up from the ground. In any other circ*mstance, it’d be hilarious to knock the asshole on his ass. Dabi’s suddenly pissed that it isn’t adult Hawks, so it can be that kind of circ*mstance.

“He wanted to know where you went,” says one of the Jins.

“You said you would take me home.” The kid peers up at him. There isn’t much emotion. It’s almost kind of eerie.

“I lied,” Dabi says simply. “Adults lie. Don’t believe everything you hear, kid.”

He should laugh at how stupid this little birdbrain is. How, if or when this all blows over, he’ll be able to torment adult Hawks with all the stupid sh*t he pulled as a walking infant—but.

He can’t.

To his surprise, Little Hawks just blinks at him, troubled—then lowers his head. “Oh.”

Nothing more, nothing less. But he looks like he wants to ask something.

“What?” Dabi asks. Again, Little Hawks hears how loud Dabi is first, before actually listening to his question.

“Is my mom gonna be okay?” Hawks asks. “We’ll go home tomorrow?”

“We’re going home never ,” Dabi says.

Gold eyes stare at him. And again—“Oh.”

“Stick with Jin.” Dabi points over Hawks’s shoulder. “My room isn't bratproofed. Or birdproofed. He’ll get your sh*t sorted out. Got it?”

Hawks stares at the hand above him. Then, tiny fingers reach out to curl around Dabi’s hand.

And he stares. Little Hawks just stares at Dabi.

“Oh ,” says one of the Twices. “ He’s imprinted.”

Oh.

“ f*ck ,” Dabi grumbles.

Dabi weighs the available options. Options that Jin should really be doing, since he’s the one who found the stupid dumbass recruit and caused this stupid problem—but even as a baby, Hawks apparently doesn’t know when to scram.

They can’t drop the brat off with his mom. Dabi just scared that woman sh*tless trying to get dirt on her son, and there’s no telling how Takami Tomie may react to a little birdie dumped at her door. Plus—it didn’t take much to get her to sell her son out. Given Hawks’s odd state of mind, it might just be f*cking crueller.

They can’t drop the brat off with the HPSC. Not without several questions followed by a dumbass arrest. They could send the failure of a recruit and just offer him like a sacrificial lamb, but it’s not worth the HPSC trying to interrogate the dumbass bastard for what little information he does know.

They’re absolutely not going to let this bird brat loose in the city by himself. He may have a quirk, but there’s no telling where he might end up, even with directions. Dabi isn’t going to be responsible for this kid waking up and strapped to a table like a f*cking lab animal.

“Eat your f*cking nuggets,” Dabi taps the dining table more irritably, which is hardly touched.

Hawks looks confused.

“ Well? ” Dabi demands.

“I’m full,” Hawks protests quietly.

There’s a headless T-Rex blob at the edge of the plate, near where Hawks sits. The rest of the plate is completely filled. There’s no way this brat is full after half a chicken nugget.

Oh.

“We fed the child chicken,” Dabi says eventually. “We turned him into a cannibal.”

All four Jins gasp. Suddenly, Hawks blinks and shakes his head.

“I like chicken,” Hawks says quietly. “I’m not a chicken. Chickens can’t fly.”

He’s so adamant and firm about it that Dabi could laugh. Instead, Jin and he stare at the kid, who shifts uncomfortably at his seat and stares at the plate.

“Eat more,” Dabi says simply. “Or I’m not taking you home.”

He expects the threat to settle in. It doesn’t. Hawks stares at him.

“Do you want to go home or not?” Dabi laments.

“You said don’t trust adults,” Hawks replies simply.

It’s definitely Hawks. Only Hawks twists Dabi’s words and finds a way to piss Dabi off without even trying. Even if there isn’t a sh*teating little grin going along with it.

“ Eat ,” Dabi demands. “There’s no f*cking way you’re full after biting off the head of one nugget, so you better f*cking eat. ”

Hawks jumps at the sound of his voice. He looks around again—between Twice and Dabi.

Then Dabi remembers Hawks’s earlier question.

What would they eat?

“Twice,” Dabi says finally. “Get some ketchup. We’re eating nuggets.”

Touga absolutely loses her sh*t when sees Hawks. She squeals and clings onto him, like a giant stuffed bird. “So cute ! Are we keeping him?!”

Little Hawks jostles along with her enthusiasm, perplexed. But he’s not frightened. He doesn’t sass her, either.

“Himiko, Himiko,” Twice says.

“Guess what?” Says another.

“Dabi’s a good big brother!” Remarks a third.

“Shut it,” Dabi snaps. He continues his ongoing staring contest with Little Hawks, who’s been completely unfazed.

They fed Hawks. Hawks actually ate, after Jin and he ate, too. They gave Hawks something a little more dignifying—a shirt that they had to cut holes into for Fierce Wings. It only makes him look more childlike. Babyfaced. The little birdie barely has any meat to his bones, despite how chiseled he normally is. That stupid compression shirt usually fits him like a second skin.

After redressing the little birdie, Dabi thinks he understands a little more. His first meal after waking up from a coma felt like too much. His body wasn’t used to so much goddamn food at once. There’s no telling when Hawks actually kicked it into gear and filled out , but a nugget was too much.

So, he instructed Twice to make the kid a chocolate milkshake. Something easier on the stomach.

“What happened to the vegan?” Touga asks.

“Shipped off until Dabi figures out what he wants to do with him,” Twice whispers back.

“Kid,” Dabi says. Little Hawks sits higher on the couch. “Do you know what’s going on?”

Little Hawks blinks. Then he shakes his head.

“How old are you?”

Little Hawks stares at his fingers. Dabi guesses three or four, from how tiny he is. He’s flabbergasted at the number of fingers he holds up.

“Five?” Dabi counts. “How the—Touga, put him down. The kid doesn’t like that.”

“But he’s so cute ,” Touga squeals. ”He’s not saying anything!”

”Birdie, tell her you don’t like it.”

Hawks peers at her.

“Birdie,” Dabi laments. “ Talk. Why aren’t you talking?”

The slight change in tone gets Hawks to flinch. “I’m…not supposed to.”

Trust the HPSC to brainwash this kid early.

No, Dabi decides immediately. That isn’t it.

“Talk as much as you want, cutie!” Touga squeals and holds him closer. If he’s uncomfortable, he doesn’t say. Won’t say.

Dabi beckons him over. “Why aren’t you allowed to talk?”

Hawks hesitates.

“ Keigo.”

“We’ll…” Hawks is quiet. “We’ll get caught.”

“Who?”

Hawks looks even more perplexed. Like the answer should be obvious. “My mom and dad. Me.”

Not the HPSC. Despite the fact no one in this room trusts that shady organization.

“Mommies and daddies are overrated,” Touga laments. “Himiko-neechan will take care of you and your cute face! You’re so cute I could eat you up!”

The birdie actually turns a delicate hue of red, which is the first streak of color that doesn’t make him seem like a total lifeless doll.

“Yes!” Twice coos. “Let Uncle Twice take care of you!”

To his surprise, the imprinted little bird looks at Dabi for guidance.

At some point, Spinner appears. They fill him in on the situation, and he looks as lost as the rest of them.

“We’re not a daycare,” Spinner says. “What are we going to tell Shigaraki?!”

“That we have a new, completely adorable new egg!” Touga says.

“Maybe we could barter,” Spinner suggests. “We could ask for One For All in exchange for the baby. That’ll work, right? Why can’t we just drop him off or something?”

Because given whether or not this situation is permanent, Dabi has no idea what the f*ck the hero community will end up doing with him. Takami Tomie threw her son away with no hesitation.

There’s no telling how this quirk works. Dabi just knows it’s smarter to keep the dumbass locked away so no more sh*t is stirred.

Hawks just sits there. Compliant. Complacent. Normal.

Or—he had been , until Spinner came into the room. Suddenly he looks horrified.

“ Oi , kid.” Dabi snaps his fingers. “Do you understand what kind of situation you’re in now?”

Hawks blinks. He stares at Spinner, then at Dabi.

“Does he know,” little Keigo whispers, “that we ate his children?”

Children.

The dinosaur chicken nuggets.

Dabi looks at Twice and Touga. They gang up on a flustered Spinner.

And—all at once, they laugh.

“ So cute~!” Touga coos.

Dabi doesn’t know why, but he doesn’t trust any of the other dumbasses with little Keigo. The sentiment seems shared. Imprinting, or whatever. Once the kid climbs into Dabi’s lap, he doesn’t want to leave. Eventually, he even starts to doze.

“You’re so good with kids, Dabi!” Touga remarks. “Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

“No.” Dabi never had siblings. “We’ll get this sorted out in the morning.”

They could brainwash him. It wouldn’t even be brainwashing, anyway. It’d be telling him the truth. How f*cked up society is. How the Paranormal Liberation Front is supposed to recreate the world so it’s fairer and better. Hawks even believed it.

Or—he’s made a really good f*cking show of it. A performance is all it is. Someone who can perform for heroes knows how to put a performance up for this little rogue’s gallery.

Either way, the thought doesn’t make it further than that. A thought. At this moment in time, Hawks might as well have no one to go back to, but coercing this brat like this…just isn’t fair.

(Yeah, because exploiting this same brat’s mother and scaring her sh*tless is. )

”Turn back into your asshole self already,” Dabi grumbles.

At some point in time, Shouto was this small, too. Smaller. Dabi wasn’t worthy enough to hold his youngest, perfect little brother by the time Shouto learned how to walk and use his quirk. Quirks. Ice and flame.

Dabi sets Keigo on his bed. To his surprise, gold eyes open and stare at him curiously, like he was never asleep in the first place. Or he’s just a light sleeper.

“Go to bed,” Dabi chides. Quietly. Softer voice.

“Will I ever see my mom and dad again?” Keigo asks softly. He’s not even scared. He’s f*cking guilty.

No. Probably not. Dabi’s not even sure if lying is worth it since this kid sassed him so quickly. The truth might just f*ck him up even more, though.

“Leave that to me,” Dabi says. “Do you trust me?”

Keigo stares at him curiously. He doesn’t nod, or shake his head. Honestly—mad props to this brat.

”Good answer,” Dabi says. “Still not answering your question. Don’t leave this room. You’re safer this way.”

Still, Keigo looks unconvinced.

“You didn’t sell out your old man and mom,” Dabi reassures. “You did just fine, kid.”

Just fine hardly sounds like a compliment, but, Keigo seems to sit higher on the mattress, his wings fluttering ever so slightly behind him. He looks relieved.

There’s no way this kid actually wants to go back, is there?

“Sleep or I’ll eat you,” Dabi warns. “I’m the boogeyman.”

Keigo blinks, confused.

“I mean it,” Dabi continues. He leans over the mattress, trying his best to look the right amount of scary. “Little kids who don’t obey get punished.”

He shakes the bed—and Keigo erupts in giggles. Dabi never thought he’d miss this stupid bird’s snickers so much. Talking to a mannequin was just too damn depressing.

“ Ahhhhh ,” Dabi says with deadpan. He shoves the kid down—gently—and swaddles him in a blanket. Not that Dabi ever needs help keeping warm.

Keigo wrinkles his nose, some feathers coming loose.

“Too tight?”

Silence.

“Keigo,” Dabi chides. “Answer.”

“A little.”

So, Dabi nestles the little bird just a little more comfortably. Even after being swaddled, those golden eyes wander around the room. They fall on something in the far corner.

The little torture circle Dabi made ages ago, with a half singed Endeavor doll. He usually torches it for stress relief.

What a f*cked up thing. Of course this little bird knows how to piss Dabi off as much as the adult one.

“You want the toy?” Dabi asks.

For as expressionless as he’s been, those golden eyes do glitter at the question. It’s probably the most childproof thing Dabi has in the room. He can always find another one to incinerate.

Once Dabi retrieves the toy, he places it beside Keigo. Somehow, the kid finally looks relieved. Keigo finally falls asleep.

Feathers float around the room when Dabi wakes up.

More specifically—a feather tickles his nose. Dabi yanks it out of the air and nearly sets it aflame. Before he does, a snicker catches his attention.

Only for a second. A kid stands at the other side of the room—taller than five, but still small. If he thinks he’s masterful at hiding his sh*teating grin, he’s wrong.

It’s that sh*teating grin.

“Apologies, sir.” The voice is still tiny and prepubescent. A bit more confident than the little boy who worried about accidentally turning his parents in. His shirt drapes around him like a little Kid Icarus. He stands at attention and salutes. “I didn’t mean to startle you. I’ve finished assessing the situation. I can confirm that you’re alive.”

“You grew,” Dabi notes. “What are you—seven? Eight?”

The sh*teating grin was only a second. The smugness glitters in this kid’s eyes, but nowhere else. That’s more like Dabi’s birdie. But the sudden question apparently disarms him. “Ten, sir, but I don’t see how that’s relevant to our current situation.”

Ten. Ten? Dabi was a pipsqueak at ten, but holy sh*t, when did Hawks hit his growth spurt?

“Keigo,” Dabi starts—but he stops as he realizes the name visibly unsettles the kid. “Hawks?”

Hawks stands valiantly with his arms behind his back.

“What exactly do you think our current situation is?”

Hawks doesn’t hesitate to answer. “My current assignment. Reconnaissance.”

Assignment. Reconnaissance. Takami Tomie’s file mentioned Hawks was relocated young— but was it really that young?

Maybe so. It’s far enough from the birdie’s real age that selling him out was just that easy. Takami Tomie’s attachment to her own son was nonexistent, if it ever existed at all. He might as well be a thing of the past.

“Keigo,” Dabi says, the name rolling off his tongue surprisingly easily. Hawks stiffens at the name. Dabi can only wonder how long since the birdie’s heard it. “Do you know who I am?”

He sees a little bit more of that birdie. A little guarded, like when Hawks was more of a child. But sterner, too.

“I believe we met when I was younger,” Hawks says finally. “My guess is that this assignment is to test my emotional constitution. Does that sound right?”

Emotional constitution. A test. Assignments. What the hell is the HPSC doing with a brat so young? At that age, Dabi barely knew what he wanted to eat for lunch.

“Sir,” Ten-year-old Hawks says. “How would you like me to proceed with this assignment?”

Touga loses her sh*t when she sees the prepubescent bird. She also has appropriately sized clothes, so their birdie pipsqueak has an outfit.

“You got bigger?” She squeals. “They grow up so fast!”

“Pleasure to see you too, Touga-san.” Hawks bows.

There’s gusto there. Sass. An attitude. Dabi’s Hawks, which is different from Dabi’s Keigo, who looked at him with curious golden eyes and waited to be spoken to before he could speak.

Dabi isn’t finished with his inquiry. He doesn’t understand how an owl-eyed little boy, so fearful of the world around him, turns into a little smartass in the span of five years under the HPSC. The smartass , Dabi is used to. But it’s such a drastic change, and so f*cking suspicious.

“He thinks he’s on assignment with the commission,” Dabi explains to Spinner. “But he remembers who I am.”

Something about emotional constitution, or whatever.

Spinner looks mortified. “ That young? What is he, six? Seven?”

“Ten,” Dabi says—the exact same time Hawks does. Again, with the irritation.

Hawks has a f*cking short complex. Dabi would have to exploit that when the asshole is back to normal.

“ Oho !” Twice chirps. A second Twice appears. “He’s back!”

“Nice to see you too, Uncle Twice.” Hawks grins. It’s a different flavor of its own on that face. Fondness.

Jin actually picks the kid up and starts throwing him in the air, pretending Hawks can fly. (It’s as stupid and redundant as it sounds.)

“Hey,” Spinner says quietly, “if he remembers, then we could guarantee he’s on our side. No need to bother with this double agent schtick—”

“Let me worry about that.” Dabi turns his shoulder to the reptilian villain, closing the conversation before it can go any further. “Keigo, let’s get you changed.”

He’s not happy to be called Keigo. Maybe Hawks was just some delusional superhero name that he fantasized about as a kid. Dabi used to do that too—come up with superhero names like an innocent little kid before the world around him.

Dabi doesn’t like Hawks. Doesn’t ever intend to. He’s unsettled by Keigo. Whether it be that smarmy smartass mouth or cautious face, Dabi doesn’t know—but that’s not his birdy.

“I can change myself,” the kid huffs. He’s red in the face, but there’s no telling why.

“Really? Because I tried to let you eat by yourself yesterday and that ended as a sh*tshow,” Dabi retorts.

Keigo looks at him, confused—the concept of yesterday just shy of five years too late.

“Shut up and take my help, you brat.” Dabi takes a pair of scissors and examines the shirt. He blinks only once—then the shirt is out of his hands, taken away by a short flurry of feathers.

“I can do it,” Keigo insists, with that tiny voice of his. God, he was worse at listening than f*cking Natsuo.

It takes a second—but finally, Dabi gets it. Keigo fumbles out of the oversized toga shirt they’d thrown him in yesterday. He’s careful in the way he peels out of it. Red feathers detach from him in a short flurry, until nothing is left of Fierce Wings other than bare wing bones.

In the brief glimpse Dabi receives of the kid, he does see more muscle tone. Just a bit. He’s still on the leaner side, but his ribs aren’t nearly as prominent as they once was. This Keigo may be short, but he eats a bit more than the head of one of Spinner’s chicken nugget kids.

Once he’s satisfied with the shirt, feathers slowly prod Keigo against the thin layer of fabric. A series of little cuts happen—and the wings make accommodations to the shirt itself.

Dabi can’t help whistling appreciatively. Keigo still looks self conscious.

“I told you I got it,” Keigo grumbles.

“People pick on you for your size?”

Gold eyes flitter back at Dabi. They aren’t nearly as good at masking emotion as they are as an adult. They try, though.

“Not at all,” Keigo says. It almost sounds robotic. Bothered.

So Dabi stares him down, unconvinced.

“I’m not very useful if I can’t even conquer a shirt, can I?” Keigo says finally. He gives Dabi a hardened stare, like it’s the equivalent of baring his neck and showing weakness. It’s contempt.

Hawks conquered a prohero whose shirts actually gave most people a run for their money—but Dabi isn’t in the business of hyping up little kids.

Dabi has to crouch, because this Hawks is still too small. He may be more liberal in manipulating his wings, but still not to the menacing extent as his adult self.

He pokes the kid.

“I used to burn my clothes to a crisp by accident,” Dabi confesses. “My parents understood. My classmates thought it was funny because they didn’t get it.”

That demeanor changes. Keigo blinks at him, surprised.

“Bet your parents got it,” Dabi says. “My old man still yelled at me for making s’mores out of my damn shirt, though. Wasn’t as humiliating as the classmates, but it did make me mad.”

A lot of things about his old man makes Dabi mad. Normally he wouldn’t speak of it so freely. Hell—he wouldn’t, at all , but there’s a way Keigo’s gaze flickers, like he knows . Like he can relate.

His parents thought nothing of it. Everyone has a stupid f*cking quirk that embarasses them one way or another growing up. That doesn’t stop kids from being assholes and being mean about it. Quirk screw ups on top of beingthe smallest kid in class just makes for a f*cking psychological horror.

He’s surprised to see Keigo’s frown turn into a mild pout. He sulks. The shirt fits him well, along with the new tiny pair of pants. Dabi can’t even believe a kid could be this small.

“New people just don’t get it,” Keigo grumbles. “Why do I have to make it easy for them ?”

“Don’t,” Dabi says immediately. “f*ck them.”

In retrospect, this might count as mild brainwashing —but it’s worth the confused look that Keigo gives him. This kid might be a smartass, but he’s apparently an age where swearing so freely scandalizes him.

They should just go back. Dabi has no plans for the day, short of playing babysitter. He’d come to the conclusion the night before. Better a babysitter than identifying a zombie, comatose body two to three years from now.

Dabi reaches out and grabs Keigo by the crown of his head. He turns the babyface until two golden eyes stare at him, confused. “Tell me the scope of your assignment, kid.”

Hawks stands properly, as though slipping into the persona of an HPSC agent. “My assignment is collecting intel. I’m to assess the severity of this situation and report back to the HPSC of my findings. There are currently twelve rooms in this facility. Four exits. An average of two windows per room. Escape routes are accessible in two wings of this building.”

What the actual f*ck. For a second, Dabi forgot this kid is a spy, and not just some brat to entertain. He resists the urge to yank at Hawks’s hair. For all he knows, the kid has been feeding the intel back to the HPSC already on who f*cking knows what.

No—impossible. They took all his hero gear and threw it in a safe somewhere. This kid’s been with him all f*cking day. There’s no way Hawks has been in contact with the HPSC.

Dabi seethes. “And what, praytell, do you intend to do with this information?”

Keigo blinks at him now, confused. “From my understanding, I’m currently reporting to my superior.”

Oh. Oh.

“You think I’m—?” Dabi doesn’t even know what to do with that information. Keigo thinks he’s a f*cking agent. Not only that, but his f*cking boss.

“I assume ,” Keigo continues, enunciating his words to sound older than he looks. There’s no doubt it’s a common occurrence. “—that I was assigned here after my last—”

He falters. There’s a hiccup. On someone so small, the hitch is palpable and large. It’s a true hiccup.

“My failure,” Keigo continues—begrudging. There’s a way his eyes flicker. Dabi has no idea what failure this kid is talking about, but suddenly he looks five again, clinging onto the same fear of selling out his parents.

Did the HPSC make him sell out his parents? No—the file didn’t say that. Takami Tomie was so quick to fold and sell out every detail of her son that no rock was left unturned. Still, Keigo’s enunciation of the word speaks volumes.

“There’s room for improvement to minimize my biases.” Keigo parrots the words, as though reading from a report. Maybe he was told those words in a debriefing of sorts.

Either way, they don’t seem like his own. As pragmatic as they sound, his dower expression betrays his recitation.

“And what biases are those?” Dabi asks.

“The people that I’m biased towards, sir.”

Sir is the last thing Dabi wants to be called by an already brainwashed pipsqueak, whose entire existence hinges on the f*cking hero commission.

But then he replays Keigo’s words.

“Who might these people be?” Dabi asks—which is when Keigo looks mildly more annoyed. Dissuaded.

“You, sir,” he says simply.

“Don’t call me sir.”

There is an echo of a familiar look on Keigo’s face. One that very much questions authority and is puzzled by the decisions of society. It’s brief. It’s clear this birdie still tries to be reserved with his emotions. He’s better at it, and somehow worse. This baby bird has developed some sort of backbone to defend himself. On the other hand, his frustration is obvious. He doesn’t recover as well as his older self.

Dabi has no idea when he became such a Hawks expert, but the fine lines are clear. The things that separate Keigo from Japan’s No. 2 Hero. Then he replays the words in his head once again.

“ Me?” Dabi asks, flabbergasted.

Red glows in the little birdie’s cheeks. Hawks won’t look him in the eye, but he tries to look unbothered. Nonplussed.

“What, like your mother—?”

“ No!” Hawks exclaims almost immediately.

Too touchy of a subject. Last they spoke of his mother, Keigo feared a hostage situation. Dabi outright lied to this kid to get him to scram. Hawks didn’t.

Twice said he imprinted. The baby chick f*cking imprinted.

“So you’re waiting on me to give you an assignment?” Dabi asks.

“You certainly aren’t giving me anything else to wait for.”

Brat. A f*cking brat.

“Fine,” Dabi says. “Consider yourself assigned.”

“You didn’t say Uno!” Twice shouts “Draw +4!”

“DAMMIT!” Shrieks a third Jin. “Foiled!”

Keigo looks completely baffled. Dabi would give anything to take a photo and make it a meme across the entire workplace.

“What is my takeaway supposed to be from this?” The kid asks.

“How to have fun and swindle Twice out of all his money,” Dabi says. He bats Keigo on the back. “ Go. ”

The next growth spurt comes in the middle of the night. Completely unexpected.

Baby Birdie has a lot of energy that gets zapped from Poker with Twice. Then Connect Four. So on. But Hawks is more observant as the day goes on. He reads Twice’s body language. And his mood. He tries to get some lesson out of it, thirsting for knowledge the way Dabi once did.

Eventually, they settle back in for the evening. Dabi has no idea what kind of assignment that Hawks anticipated, but he wasn’t going to f*ck with him that way. Not this young.

For a second time, Keigo is in Dabi’s room. Certainly not in circ*mstances he ever anticipated. That f*ckwad vegan was no use, since he never paid attention to his victims past screeching decapitated cows.

Plus, the longer Keigo stays like this, the less Dabi wants interference from others. Touga, Twice, and Spinner might be okay. Shigaraki, maybe. Maybe. But Dabi doesn’t want to risk the little birdie turning into a test subject.

(He needs to stop that. He shouldn’t be this soft.)

Keigo looks around the room, bundled in a tank top low enough to accommodate his wings and a tiny pair of sweats. He’s well fed, after a hamburglar run to McDonald’s. Dabi counted all of the chicken nuggets as the kid ate them.

“Everything looked so much bigger last time I was here,” Keigo mumbles.

“Yeah,” Dabi retorts. “Seems like it was just yesterday.”

Those gold eyes glance at him, confused.

At this age, there’s still an innocence to the bird. Something that glows despite the grayness of the real word.

“Where will you sleep?” Keigo asks.

“Floor.”

“Oh.” Keigo looks deep in thought.

“What?”

Of all things, the kid looks startled by that question before. “I’ve never had a sleepover before.”

The statement is so innocent— especially considering how, not too long ago, Dabi watched this kid school Jin’s ass in poker. All five of them.

“This isn’t a sleepover,” Dabi protests flatly.

“Ah, right.” Keigo bobs his little head, like a pigeon. “Assignment.”

Assignment. He’s so innocent in the way he says it. In the way he bobs his head, parroting the commission while also still showing his age. Dabi isn’t sure how much this kid believes the commission. He also isn’t sure how much of it is just shoved down Keigo’s throat, like all other mindless hero propaganda.

“A sleepover,” Dabi says, “is supposed to be fun. You’re supposed to watch movies and eat a lot of candy, and all that other sh*t that’s bad for kids. You stay up f*cking late and eat the grossest sh*t.”

Red wings flutter with each word, as though twitching with excitement. What doesn’t show on Keigo’s face shows in his body movement. Even if he’s perplexed. “Why?”

“Because that sh*t’s supposed to be hilarious. Don’t think about why. ”

There’s another why at the brat’s tongue, but Dabi grabs him by the back of the shirt.

“H-Hey! Dabi-niisan—”

Dabi seizes, while he swings the kid to and fro in his hand. He almost misses the tiny whimper that slides out of Keigo, so much like when he dealt with the five-year-old brat.

“Hurts,” the little bird squeaks.

Fierce Wings must struggle when Keigo’s grabbed by the small of his back. How interesting. For about a second, until Dabi sees that stoic commission demeanor break, until small ten-year-old Keigo looks even smaller.

Dabi drops Keigo back on his mattress. Keigo does some variation of hugging himself—arms reaching over his shoulders in order to assess his wings. Some feathers fall, trembling as they descend into the air. It’s a huge vulnerability that ten-year-old Hawks apparently hasn’t learned to accommodate for yet. And he’s scared again.

“I am not your niisan,” Dabi snaps. Angrier than he intends. Angrier than he even expects of himself.

Keigo shrinks into himself, his wings cowering with him.

f*ck.

Soft voice. Softer voice. Soft f*cking voice for the kid who’s too young to get what’s going on. Dabi marches towards his door.

“Twice! Touga!” Dabi shouts. “Get ice cream and a movie! We’re having a sleepover!”

They convince Kurogiri to make root beer floats, because Keigo’s apparently never had those either. They argue over what’s child appropriate. Game of Thrones and Squid Game get thrown out. Nightmare Before Christmas. Somehow, Spinner, Twice, and a second Twice nearly get into a fist fight over what’s better: A Goofy Movie or An Extremely Goofy Movie.

All the while, Keigo sits there with his giant root beer float, watching the villainous film critics nearly murder each other. Dabi makes sure to give the brat a second mug when Keigo gets to the bottom of the glass.

Keigo leans into Touga, bearing all the cooing and cuteness as she stretches his cheeks and calls him cute.

By some miracle, they settle on Hotel Transylvania, because it apparently has “something for everyone.”

When he was younger, Dabi would just talk louder until his movie choice won out. It got less and less effective when the rest of the family started developing taste.

Dabi can’t focus on the movie. He wants to apologize. He should apologize, for scaring the brat and being rude about it.

But it’s f*cking Hawks.

But Keigo is a child. One that doesn’t know any better, nor knows anything about Dabi’s own demons. The ones that have festered and show as proof across his entire body.

Halfway through the movie, Keigo glances at him. It’s a reluctant look. Then a content little smile.

No kid should look that happy. Not after getting thrown around.

“I like sleepovers,” Keigo whispers. So pure and innocent. Less Dabi’s annoying Hawks, and more of a child, with his tiny fists over his drink.

Dabi reaches over. He ruffles hair. “Better f*cking finish it.”

Dabi wakes up to a sob.

There’s that smell again—the distinct scent of talcum powder. Keigo is missing from their blanket fort.

A pool of red feathers sits where Keigo once was. Limp and dull, somehow.

“Keigo?” Dabi calls into the evening light. Touga is asleep. Twice is sleep talking. Spinner is—who knows where. Just not here. But Keigo isn’t, either.

The trail of feathers is legitimately unsettling. How limp and loose they are, like autumn leaves.

He sees a little Keigo sitting in a corner. Bigger than ten. Still small.

Crying.

One of his shoulders is blistered with crackling skin. Burned. Fierce Wings barely has anything to it—maybe a feather or two that are flimsy in the stale air. Around Keigo are even more feathers.

“Keigo,” Dabi whispers again. He crawls to the kid—but Keigo shrivels even smaller into himself. His chest tightens with each tiny sob. Each small cry. “What’s wrong?”

The blister on Keigo’s shoulder is a burn mark.

f*ck.

Dabi runs through the evening—of any possibility. Did he burn this kid?

“They said it was necessary,” Keigo says, his voice strained. “The fire. Birds are weak against fire.”

They.

“The commission?” Dabi doesn’t know what’s louder. The wave of relief that he didn’t do this to the little birdie, or the righteous fury.

“They’re not growing back,” Keigo squeaks. He's hiccuping. His voice cracks. It’s unsteady, still smaller than the Hawks that Dabi is used to, but older. And yet he still sounds so small. Broken. “Fierce Wings won’t work.”

Suddenly the plumage around little Keigo doesn’t look like feathers—but bloodshed. Necessary bloodshed to make Hawks learn to endure fire.

“I can’t be a hero,” Keigo says, his voice shaking. He holds his head in his hands. “I don’t have Fierce Wings, I-I—“

“They’ll grow back.”

Keigo hiccups. He peers at Dabi with big, teary eyes. There’s mistrust there.

“You said don’t trust adults,” he says, his voice hollow like his wings.

Of all the statements for this brat to latch onto, it had to be that one. Dabi climbs beside Keigo—who winces at a sudden touch. So Dabi stands up. “Stay here.”

He retrieves a cooling ointment from his room. They’re evil, not resourceless.

“This…might feel weird,” Dabi says slowly. “Can you trust me in this one instance?”

This Hawks is just a little older. Still a little baby faced. His tears don’t help, swelling both his eyes and his cheeks and he gleans Dabi’s expression. But slowly, he nods.

There’s a whimper. Dabi looks at the small of Keigo’s back, where he once snatched the kid like a small kitten. Keigo had flailed then. He trembles now, with only the bare bones of Fierce Wings at his shoulder blades.

The ointment is for treatable burns. To aid in skin that Dabi hasn’t yet ashened to absolute sh*t and can still feel remnants of…something. He has days where he’s diligent in applying it, and days where he wants the whole world to burn and take him with it.

“Tell me what happened,” Dabi says softly. He applies the medicine at the small of Keigo’s back first. Keigo makes a noise—shakes—and then is still. At least for a moment. “What’s this assignment?”

“Training simulation,” Keigo whispers softly. His voice is huskier than a child’s. Still brimming with adolescence and kid-like, but not as pure as untouched snow, like at the age of five. “Maneuverability and agility. Perception. I’m—I’m supposed—“

A sound unearths from the back of his throat, pained—but stifled. Dabi can only imagine how much this hurts.

“Keep going,” Dabi coaxes.

“I’m supposed to build my endurance,” Keigo says quietly. “And seek out the flamethrowers. Fire’s harder to maneuver around. It just…grows.”

Yeah. Dabi learned that lesson the hard way.

“Fierce Wings won’t work. I—I told them, and they told me to find a workaround.” Keigo swallows hard, while Dabi works on the burn mark on his cheek. His eyes are watery again. “What…what if they get rid of me? What if I can’t figure it out—what if m-my mom and I—”

“It’ll work out,” Dabi interjects. “And you’ll be the smuggest damn birdie in all of Japan. Fierce Wings will grow back. It just takes time.”

Keigo looks at him with glassy eyes.

This should be a little more up Dabi’s forte. In theory.

“Your body’s…going through changes , kid.” Dabi makes a face. That’s the limit to his knowledge. “Maybe it’s a bird thing. Like, you’re molting or something.”

“Molting?”

“Yeah. Where all your baby bird feathers fall off and you grow adult ones.” Dabi hasn’t had to research puberty since learning what the word menstruation was for when Fuyumi got all weepy and crazy, but maybe it’s something like that. It’s certainly not like boy puberty.

And he definitely didn’t have the chance to talk about boy puberty with his brothers. f*cking Endeavor probably said figure it out on their own.

He watches Keigo for a second. Waits, as Keigo mouths the word to commit it to memory.

“sh*t,” Dabi says, “didn’t your parents teach you anything?”

He nearly regrets the statement as he says it aloud. Of all people to ask Hawks that, he’s definitely empty in answers. His parents didn’t teach him jack sh*t. And—at every mention of his parents, Keigo either grimaces or shrinks into himself.

f*ck. Screw soft voice— what about smart voice?

“Sorry,” Dabi says next. He pinches the bridge of his nose. “f*ck—Keigo, I’m sorry.”

He should’ve said it earlier. Years ago for Keigo, for hurting him. He had the opportunity to apologize to someone in his life for hurting them.

Keigo peers at him, confused. “Dabi-n—?”

He stops, and they stare at each other. So Keigo understands what Dabi’s trying to apologize for.

No, he doesn’t want to hear that name. Dabi isn’t anyone’s big brother and hasn’t been for a long time.

The last of Hawks’s feathers descend from his shoulder blades, no fiercer than the first snow of winter. At first, Keigo reaches for the feathers, his eyebrows shriveling at the sight. Shaking.

“You’re going to look different from what you’re used to,” Dabi says quietly. “Different doesn’t mean bad.”

Before he can help himself, he kisses the kid on his forehead. Fuyumi once did it for him when he fell off his bike.

Golden eyes peer back at him. A tiny hand raises to a tiny forehead, and red glows in his cheeks.

Dabi wonders if it’s been a long time since someone has shown Keigo a small sign of affection, too. If ever.

Keigo sniffles. He curls into a ball. “Please don’t tell the commission.”

Don’t tell the commission he’s crying over the predicament that is Keigo’s problem and Keigo’s alone—else he wants to get usurped from all of his assignments and put him and his mom on the streets. All over puberty .

There’s no way his deadbeat dad ever explained a damn thing—if that’s where those wings came from. And the commission—the f*cking commission only cared when he was useful. They only notice when his performance is less than adequate, and Dabi knows what that f*cking feels like.

“I don’t tell the commission sh*t,” Dabi promises. “Feel better?”

Keigo nods.

Dabi doesn’t expect the little birdie to nuzzle up against him—but he doesn’t push it away, either.

“Sorry,” he says again softly. While he still has the opportunity, before Keigo falls asleep. “Sorry, kid.”

Keigo’s next spurt gets him to fifteen. Dabi wakes up to Keigo standing out on his balcony, enjoying the sunrise. A trail of red feathers remain across the length of Dabi’s room, but none as breathtaking as Keigo’s current wings, which simply glow under rays of morning sunlight.

They’re fuller. Stronger. This Keigo comes up to Dabi’s chest now, no longer small enough to be batted away with one arm. There’s a sterner look to his face as he studies the horizon.

The feathers at the ends of Keigo’s wings seem to twitch as Dabi walks towards them.

“You raided my closet,” Dabi notes.

This Keigo is more familiar. He shrugs. “Figured you wouldn’t miss a shirt.”

There’s a richness to his tone. Sweeter, and honey-like that hasn’t borne the weight of Japan yet, but has somehow compartmentalized from his own demons.

“I’ve aged, but you haven’t.” Keigo glances at him now, his eyes as gold as ever. Curious. He’s babyfaced compared to the Hawks that Dabi knows—but he’s more cognizant. Wiser. This brat is more dangerous now than he was while he was molting. “You still look…”

“Like sh*t?”

“Like a dream.” Keigo studies him quietly. “Out of my reach.”

Dabi could laugh. “You’re still a few years too early to be flying close to this sun, birdie.”

There’s a quirk of a smile. Of some wry mischief, hidden beneath a calculating guess. One would never guess that this was the same little boy who was crying in Dabi’s arms just the night before. Hawks wouldn’t want anyone to know, either. Not if that put his carefully crafted career and mother on the line.

“So, what?” Keigo asks. “A time travel quirk?”

“De-aging.”

“De-aging. f*ck, me?” Keigo mutters. The curse flows out of his mouth with an eerie ease.

“Seems like you’ve finally got some grit to you.”

“How long has it actually been?”

“Two days.”

“Damn.” Hawks makes a low, disillusioned whistle.

Dabi can’t help himself. “What’s it look like to you?”

Hawks glances his direction. He shrugs. He’s still young—probably about Shouto’s age. Only—Dabi thinks he’s learned more about Keigo in the last few days than he was ever allowed of his family.

“I got my bad parts,” Keigo says. “And my…regular parts. Then once in a while, I have memories of this place.”

He sounds nostalgic. “What, no ‘good parts’?”

“I said memories of this place, didn’t I?” Keigo asks, his tone just slightly cheeky. He smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. It’s not as skillfully constructed at fifteen as it someday will be at twenty-two. “You always had a beautiful view of the sunrise from your room.”

He says it like he’s lived a whole life beside Dabi’s side. Is still living a whole life by his side.

“Why,” Dabi asks finally, “do you bother staying with the commission?”

The more he learns, the more Dabi isn’t sure if Hawks is even lying to him. If Hawks ever had. This agency burned his wings. It teetered peace and safety over a chasm of callousness and nothingness, and instilled the fear that Hawks was replaceable, even as a kid.

Hawks was replaceable and unimportant to every person in his life. And he stands here, now, at the age of fifteen with full acceptance of his circ*mstance.

And it’s only fifteen. There are seven more years to let that reality sink in, and yet he’s already this tired. This yearning, for a sunrise at the balcony of a f*cking villain hideout, of all things.

“Where else would I go?” Keigo asks. He almost laughs. “My mother—”

“Your mother isn’t sh*t,” Dabi says, the irritation bubbling. The anger, stewing for the last fifteen years of Keigo’s life and yet having only started two days ago for Dabi himself. “Forget her.”

Keigo doesn’t have a rebuttal. He doesn’t protest—and in some ways, he looks even more tortured. Dabi wonders if this is just something else he’d never express in front of the commission—unless he wants to look weak and ungrateful.

“She did her best,” Keigo tries to reason quietly. Tries.

“Your mom hasn’t been part of your life in a decade,” Dabi reasons. “She sold you out. She’d still sell you out, now, if she had to choose between you and herself.”

Keigo glances at him. Maybe he’s suspicious. Maybe not. Dabi doesn’t really care. Tries not to, anyway.

“You know, I send her money once a month. About half my paycheck.” Keigo laughs softly to himself. “She doesn’t respond to any of the letters that I send her. My handlers get mad when I write to her. It’s a loose end. Something to exploit. It’s safer for her to remain anonymous.”

It really would’ve been.

“But she still cashes my checks. Every single one, since I was six. I thought—maybe my letters are being intercepted. But—if she loved me as much as I loved her,” Keigo says, “she’d do anything to find me, right? Anything to make sure the message got through?”

Like breaking into his own home, just to see his family one more time, with all the remorse just knotting at the back of his throat.

“So I tried to hand deliver a message once. I snuck out,” Keigo confesses. “I put it in her mailbox and I waited. I saw her take it. I—”

He shudders as he sighs. It’s a mild tremble. One that could ruin his own composure, but he clearly tries to keep his cool.

“I watched her throw it in the trash,” he says finally. Quietly. “Like I was just trash.”

Dabi’s chest tightens. The rage coils in his chest. He can feel the burn of his own skin—a soft simmer of rage. “f*ck her.”

Keigo glances in his direction. There’s no no telling how old the story is. How long ago he tried to see his mother—but the frustration is there. The sadness is there. The experience passed, but emotions just don’t go away.

“She chose to have a new life, and technically so did I. The commission gives me that opportunity,” Keigo says. “I’d still be stuck in a damn shed with my old man without them. Worse—I might’ve turned into my old man. I owe them my life.”

“You owe them nothing.”

“Dabi-san—”

“You had a life. They interfered and think you’re better off with it. sh*t is still sh*t, no matter what it smells like.”

“Ew.” Keigo wrinkles his nose like a prissy princess.

Dabi actually laughs. There’s a smile that curls across Keigo’s face, but it’s small.

“You know—for as little as I’ve seen my mom in all these years,” Keigo says quietly, “I think I’m happier to see you.”

Dabi’s chest tingles. He can’t remember the last time anyone was happy to see him. His existence alone was barely a happy event for others.

“Bullsh*t,” he rouses. “You’ve had better company.”

“You asked about my good parts, didn’t you?”

He did, but the more Dabi learns, the less he likes. The angrier he is. The more… protective he is, and the more he has to battle that reminder in the back of his head. This birdie is a spy, and he shouldn’t be trusted, or pitied.

Even if his life isn’t sunshine and rainbows like Dabi expected, they’re still on opposite sides of the law. Hawks has seven more years in this deaging spell, and while he’s embittered now, at the age of twenty-two, Hawks’s commitment to the damn commitment is still there. One conversation at fifteen isn’t going to steer him off the beaten path.

But, Dabi has at least a few more hours where neither of them have to think about that. Their f*cked up pasts or otherwise.

“C’mon,” Dabi says. “Let’s get some more root beer floats.”

Nineteen-year-old Keigo is a f*cking trip.

It’s not too long from when he made his hero debut, and not too far off when he broke into the Top 10. A goddamn smug prodigy that has all of Japan fooled with that sh*t eating grin and godawful gold eyes.

At least—that’s the Hawks that Dabi is used to. Not the one who wakes up in Dabi’s bed, looking defeated. Dabi spent the rest of the evening dissecting everything he could find about Hawks. Very rarely does he have to go over data more than once—but Hawks’s record was infuriatingly clean and non-controversial that the only thing media could report on was his handsomely smart mouth—which is a stupidly mastered skill.

Is he a natural? No. And his nineteen-year-old self proves it when he wakes up, staring at the ceiling. Dabi doesn’t even hear the kid stir. It’s probably something trained into him, to have advantage over any potential captors. Or a coping mechanism so he didn’t have to deal with his asshole parents first thing in the morning. Deal with anyone, for that matter.

“I’m here again,” Keigo says quietly. It’s unbothered. Unsurprised. Un…masked. “You know they think I’m sh*t at flirting?”

If Dabi was sipping water, he’d do a spit take. It might actually be the commission’s sick and twisted method of knocking him out.

But Keigo continues—as Keigo, and not carefully crafted Hawks. He’s still not at that age where he considered the change.

“You’re sh*t at flirting,” Dabi grumbles, while he packs away his laptop and his notes.

“And yet somehow I’m in your bed.”

Cheeky. f*cking cheeky. Dabi rolls his eyes with an ungodly degree of irritation—but the corner of his mouth twitches in contrast. He glances over his shoulder, where Keigo is still staring at the ceiling, deep in thought. There’s no vigor to the smartass remark. Just frustration.

“Fifteen years of them making sure I’m at peak performance and know every single one of my weaknesses. Of ingraining it in my head not to get attached to people because it’ll form a weakness.” Keigo chuckles. It’s an irritation that’s been rubbed raw. Frustration for striving for something he’s never good enough for. “And suddenly I’m still inadequate because my social engineering skills are subpar. How f*cked up is that?”

Dabi snorts. “f*cked up that there’s a tactical name for flirting for heroes.”

Keigo laughs. But he doesn’t protest or disagree. He’s not in a defending mood for the commission, it seems. “It’s my current assignment.”

Current. Which means, at some point in time—“Your assignment is to hit on people? ”

There’s a snort. Belligerent and tired. Keigo gathers into a sitting position, and Fierce Wings curl around him. He’s dressed in nothing but a blank t-shirt and some sweats from Dabi’s closet. He just looks…normal. This conversation they’re carrying—there’s no stench of death or a teetering dance of deceit and misplaced trust. In some ways, Keigo just looks like he belongs there.

“I have to train my mind and body to handle high stress situations, no matter the context. Everything I do is for the sake of the mission. Of keeping the peace. No matter the cost.”

Dabi doesn’t like the f*cked up implications of this assignment. “You’re the cost. You’re dispensable. You f*ck up this assignment and they’ll just find some other kid to groom.”

To his surprise, it’s the first time Hawks wrinkles his nose. He scratches his head. “I wouldn’t call it grooming—“

“So what’s the extent of your assignment?” Dabi interjects. “They make you f*ck someone? For this f*cking social engineering bullsh*t or whatever?”

He hates how he nails it on the head. That there’s this visible falter in Keigo’s expression that he doesn’t risk showing in the presence of the commission.

At the end of the day, Keigo is just a kid. He’s not much older than Natsuo now—who spends all his time with his girlfriend. Who found happiness outside of their f*cked up family and has found a way to smile outside of that house. Maybe they never got to reconcile, but Dabi can be happy for Natsuo for that.

“I hear first times aren’t all that cracked up to be, anyway,” Keigo tries to say. He doesn’t look Dabi in the eye. He shrugs.

“Your body stopped being yours the moment you got recruited in the commission. Think about that, birdie.” Dabi frowns. “All they’ve ever done is f*ck you up. Some kid like you—you should’ve been going to school and living a happy f*cking life with a happy f*cking family.”

“Yeah?” Keigo laughs. “Some of us aren’t that lucky, Dabi-san.”

“No, we’re not.” Some of them get pulled away against their will. Sometimes staying is even worse, when every decision seems to work against them. Against Dabi, when simply existing is a problem because he didn’t come out as expected. Every decision to make amends for simply existing pushed him further away from his family, to the literal point of no return.

“You’re telling me joining the League of Villains would help me get white picket fences and a happy family?”

Dabi snorts. But they stare at each other now. They didn’t necessarily go out of their way to hide their organization. But Keigo hasn’t mentioned it before. At this age, he must’ve put two-and-two together. He’s infuriatingly smart. It’s why Dabi hates Hawks.

He hates Hawks even more, knowing how much social engineering and actual f*cking grooming went into turning a scared little boy like Keigo into Hawks. How even flirting is just engineered.

Hawks stares at him expectantly. One that’s getting to Dabi’s Hawks, but isn’t quite there yet. It’s f*cking horrifying imagining how many more years Hawks endured to get to Dabi’s Hawks, because it’s clearly not the f*cking sunshine and rainbows that irritated the f*ck out of Dabi about the No. 2 Hero.

Slowly, his demeanor casts a sadder shadow. Sadder than Hawks intends, but Dabi’s spent days studying that face. He’s learned what the molding of Hawks looked like, while getting to know Keigo.

“I don’t even know what’s me anymore,” Keigo says softly. “If…there was ever a me. If…I’m allowed to have a me.”

“Me and the league f*ck you up that bad?”

Keigo closes his eyes and shakes his head. Dabi almost wishes it was him who got into Keigo’s head and f*cked up the future No. 2 Hero. It’d be less painful knowing in a matter of a few months, he hurt this bird versus fifteen years being preyed upon by an organization that considered him disposable. An experiment at best.

Maybe he isn’t lying. Maybe Hawks finally reached a breaking point at age twenty-two, and all Dabi did was harvest intel on a guy who had every right to be upset with society. Society is sh*tty, after all—no matter which direction the light shines. Heroes can be just as sh*tty to their kids as villains are. Sometimes villains are actually better and more accepting.

It has to be the right villain, and the right hero—-and Dabi has yet to meet a hero deserving of mercy. Someone truly f*cking golden and too good for this world.

“You have a good first time?” Keigo actually asks. He looks as small as five. His wings are too big for him, and the shakiness in his voice is unmistakable. “Is it good, like, any time? ”

“Can be.” Dabi shrugs. “Just need to be in control.”

Keigo snorts. “Yeah. The flirting.”

“No. In control of your own body because you want it for yourself.” Dabi glances at the bird. Before he can help himself, he reaches out and touches the small of Keigo’s back. It was once a place he yanked and pulled to wrangle the bird. It’s vulnerable—but it’s also proof that Keigo is only human. Something he and the rest of f*cking society clearly needs a reminder of.

Dabi’s own body has been f*cked up and out of his control for a long time. There’s little that he actually cares about anymore because it’s easier that way. It leaves him less exposed. Not like how Keigo is now, struggling between attachment and detachment and self worth.

“You’re f*cking infuriating,” Dabi mutters. “Always in my grill. Always flashing that stupid f*cking smile and saying things that both piss me off and make me laugh. If that’s commission conditioning then they did a good f*cking job and I hate that for you.”

He pulls his hand away when he’s assured Keigo is no longer shaking.

“But I’ve probably laughed more in these last few days than I have in a long f*cking time. And those are the parts that you keep trying to hide from your handlers,” Dabi confesses. He wrinkles his nose. “You’re actually making me care about you, and there’s no f*cking way that’s programming. I hate your job, but I hate you, too. And trust me—that’s all you. Half the sh*t you do, I’m sure your handlers don’t approve of, and it both pisses me off and is f*cking hilarious.”

Keigo actually laughs. Titters. It’s a good sound to him, after so much fear and sobbing. “How did a good guy like you end up in the League of Villains, Dabi-san?”

Good. Dabi, good. Dabi could laugh at the way those words are strung, but Dabi could easily cry, too. And those tears are too f*cked up to ever be good.

“A lot of f*cked up circ*mstances out of my control,” Dabi mutters, “and some more f*cked up decisions that are in my control.”

“Sounds like we have a lot in common, then.”

Dabi grunts.

He should hate this bird. This kid, who made a name for himself young and is known as a top hero in Japan. Three days ago, he did. Now—he’s not sure. He used to hate himself a little more three days ago, too.

The bed squeaks softly beneath them. A hand finds itself on Dabi’s cheek. He feels bits and pieces of it. Bare fingers, and a bit of palm. Keigo looks at him, when only moments ago Keigo couldn’t even look at himself. Keigo leans so close that Dabi can see his own reflection in the pools of his eyes. Dabi barely recognizes himself—but Keigo looks at him like soaking all of Dabi in.

It’s a soft and chaste kiss. Sweet, even—not in flavor, but in gesture. Of all the harm and assignments and all of the other sh*t that this birdie’s been through, the kiss is the gentlest thing Dabi has felt in a long time.

The fingers are gentle, stroking through his hair. It’s as steady as breathing, as Keigo’s mouth is against his own. There’s a tremble to Keigo’s hands—but never, would his handlers allow him to show this fear. He needs it. But—

“Not like this, birdie.” Dabi pulls away. He needs to. He doesn’t want to—but even the things he wants have limits. Dabi learned that the hard way, and he’ll be damned to burn himself again for it.

He keeps Keigo’s hands cuffed between his own. Shackled, in their own way, but far from the commission. Far from his sh*tty parents. Either of their sh*tty parents.

Keigo looks glass-eyed. Small. It aches to look at because Dabi knows how that feels.

“Right,” Keigo mutters. His face is red, voice barely above a whisper. It’s out of his control. “f*ck. Sorry. I—”

“If I take you home, will you stay there until you turn back to normal?”

He's at a safe age now. At least one where Dabi doesn’t have to worry about some f*cked up cuckhold kidnapping Keigo and experimenting on him.

Keigo hesitates—but eventually nods. Dabi can let go of him.

Upon Keigo’s request, they see the rest of the league one more time. Twice, Spinner, Touga, Kurogiri. Even Shigaraki graces them with his presence, looking puzzled.

“Hawks,” Shigaraki observes. He frowns. “You look…different.”

At this age, Keigo still hasn’t met Shigaraki. Still, he nods, as though completely in his element. “Yeah. It’s—”

“Dumbass one-off villain hit him with some ray. We just got stuck with the results,” Dabi says. It’s not a lie, even if it isn’t the whole truth. But Dabi isn’t going to assist anyone brainwashing another kid against their will. He’s had enough of it for the weekend. “He’s lucid enough to go home. I’m booting him.”

Shigaraki looks puzzled, but he isn’t necessarily all there these days. Dabi isn’t one to judge. This, however, he’s one-hundred percent there for Keigo from start to finish. Just to be safe.

“ Aw, you were so cute!” Touga throws her arms around Keigo, unprecedented. It’s a wonder if hugging is considered too interpersonal for the commission. The first time Dabi received a hug after waking up, it was so overwhelming that it nearly hurt.

Keigo tenses at the gesture—but he hugs her back. Of all things to consider a threat, Touga should never be one.

“I’ll always be your uncle, Hawks,” Twice sullenly declares.

“Brother Hawks!” Shouts another Twice.

Spinner is giving Dabi a look. It’s better to ignore it.

They share one last root beer float with the kid. That one is Kurogiri’s suggestion. It’s placed in front of Keigo, along with a plate of food they all make sure he finishes.

There’s no denying the wistfulness in Keigo’s eyes as he eats his food. He eats more than just the head of a dinosaur nugget and finishes his food, even if he won’t quite look Dabi in the eye. That’s okay. Dabi’s used to people avoiding eye contact with him.

Kurogiri opens up a portal to transport them back to Hawks’s apartment.

“You know where I live?” Keigo asks, surprised.

Dabi shrugs. “Been over a couple of times.”

Mostly to sift out Hawks’s apartment assess how bugged the place is—but even that needed to be a careful dance. No one is more distrusting than a f*cking double agent. Dabi would be stupid to be a spy spying on a spy.

It’s just the two of them in Hawks’s apartment. In the darkness. Keigo looks around, mystified—so this apartment must be on the newer side. It’s minimalist. Far less items around than Dabi initially anticipated. A place to live isn’t necessarily always a home , though, so maybe there’s a reason the place is so vacant.

Eventually, Keigo turns back to him.

It’s just the two of them again. No league. No Spinner, wondering why they kept this secret under wraps from Shigaraki. This whole deaging sh*t. No Touga for hugs, no Twice to be stupid. Just Keigo, standing close to his future height and still not filling out the frame that Dabi knows so well.

There’s a peculiarness in the way Keigo stares at him.

“So how old am I supposed to be?” Keigo asks finally. “How long do I actually get to live?”

“Twenty-two.”

”I make it to twenty-two?”

“You make it long enough to annoy me.”

Keigo laughs softly, though it’s never quite as rich as what Dabi’s used to. That richness has been carefully orchestrated to appease the commission. But also—something about iit suddenly feels like it was genuine around Dabi. That those snickers and that teasing wasn’t just…an act.

“Uh,” Keigo says eventually, trailing off. He’s not used to showing weakness. His wings falter around him like a cage. “Sorry—about that kiss, I was—”

”Birdie.” Touya reaches out before he becomes another person’s regret. “All I said was, ‘not like this. ’”

There’s a softness in Keigo’s eyes. One that’s hardened with age—but it’s still there. It’s Keigo. Not Hawks. It’s—

“Hawks. ” Best Jeanist’s voice. “Hawks, do you hear me?”

It erupts—from somewhere. A comm.link.

The sound is so erupt that even Keigo gets startled. He starts palming around the apartment—until he finds the link. ”H…Hello? Who is this?”

“Hawks! You’ve been radio silent for three days! I was worried! ”

“Ah—” There’s a clear change in Keigo’s voice. It’s controlled. Conditioned. “Sorry, sorry—I was with—Dabi-san? Where—?”

It’s an act.

And Dabi needs to f*cking remember that Hawks is a liar and can’t be trusted.

He disappears before Hawks notices he’s gone.

Three days pass. Surely by now, Hawks is back to normal. Dabi can’t be bothered to reach out and check on the No. 2 Hero. Nor should he give a sh*t. Best Jeanist’s voice resonating through that f*cking comm.-link loud and clear is proof that Dabi shouldn’t care about that asshole. It shouldn’t matter, anyway. Hawks is likely to come around and annoy the sh*t out of him whether he likes it or not.. Dabi hardly ever seeks that asshole out, first.

Plus—Dabi knows all of the lying birdie’s secrets. Best Jeanist being alive is proof he’s a f*cking liar and shouldn’t be trusted. They could kill him, right now. They could shun him.

Except—a twenty-two-year-old Hawks should definitely know that Dabi knows. Memories of the league didn’t disappear each time Hawks aged up.

So Hawks knows that Dabi knows. And Dabi knows Hawks is a liar. It’s not like Dabi let Keigo near much while at their hideout—if only to keep that kid from being brainwashed more than he already was. Dabi knows more about Takami Keigo, Codename: Hawks than he ever could’ve anticipated after a rendezvous with his bitch mother. Dabi can exploit every f*cking thing about the little birdie.

Maybe…maybe they would’ve been better just brainwashing him. Coercing the brat into thinking they were better. f*cking his head up so he would stay.

But again—despite everything, that thought doesn’t reach Dabi’s mouth. There’s no plot or plan to revert him. Dabi wanted to f*ck Hawks up on an equal battleground. Not as a lost little kid.

Overall, it’s not like there was a lot of damage caused. Touga and Twice mope about how much they miss a baby birdie. Shigaraki remains confused. Spinner distracts him with some games. sh*t like that. So Dabi doesn’t know why he’s so pissed.

He shouldn’t be so angry that Hawks actually betrayed him, when Dabi should know better than to trust him in the first place.

But he also shouldn’t be so angry that he hasn’t heard from Hawks since dropping the hero off in that pathetic excuse of a home. It’s nothing more than a hero-fied hideout of his own.

Dabi is angry at how angry he is. And angry at himself.

Until he gets a text on his work phone.

🐥: I need to see you.

Need. Someone needs him. Hawks needs him. All this silence in three days, where Dabi knows too much, and Hawks knows that he knows. Hawks is folding first.

And for some reason—Dabi is relieved.

They could meet on a random rooftop. Or somewhere, out in a field. Somewhere neutral. Hawks knows where he lives, so Hawks could just show up. Dabi decides to show up. Hawks made the first move coming to the hideout. Made the first move to f*cking kiss him, and to text him.

Dabi’s tired of operating on the birdie’s time. He breaks into the apartment in his normal cadence and rhythm with Hawks, and has himself ready on the couch when Hawks appears. It’s not even an hour before Hawks shows up because Dabi knows Hawks’s schedule. He had to, if he wanted to find Takami Tomie without raising suspicion.

Plus, Hawks was all about keeping Dabi on his toes. Dabi doesn’t stay on his toes for anyone. If Hawks thinks he can nibble, then Dabi will show him what a shark bite really looks like.

The lights turn on. Under most instances, Hawks sees him coming before seeing him coming. f*cking Fierce Wings and all. Instead, Hawks opens his front door like a goddamn civilian. Hawks actually looks surprised to see him on the couch. For about a second.

“Dabi.” No Dabi-san or Dabi-niisan . “Yo.”

“Yo.” Dabi has his feet kicked over the coffee table, keeping up with this pathetic guise. He pretends to look at a magazine Hawks had on his table. Some tabloid with a thirst trap photo of Hawks, photoshopped to sh*t. “Who let your ugly ass on a magazine cover?”

“Got your attention, didn’t it?” f*cking asshole.

That’s about as normal as their conversations usually were, BDAH. Before de-aged Hawks. Hawks toes off his shoes. He sits across from Dabi on the couch. The apartment doesn’t leave much for sitting, since it’s not really a warm and fuzzy kind of environment. Usually there’s a joke about cuddling up between them that Dabi isn’t stupid enough to entertain.

Hawks is back to normal. Back to Dabi’s stupid f*cking Hawks, in that frame and wingspan that very much makes the Number Two Hero. And still, off.

“I take it you got my text?” Hawks asks casually. “You never responded.”

“I don’t respond.” They only text when they need each other.

“Hm.” Birdie is speechless. This is agonizing for both of them. “So, my f*cked up upbringing good enough proof that I’m wanting to turn to the dark side?”

“Number 3 is still alive. Your proof is as good as the f*cking carcass you showed me. You lied to me.”

“You hunted my mother down.”

Hawks’s voice is colder. It's sturdier and harsher than he’s ever sounded before, including every moment of this rouse leading up the incident.

Hawks is tense on the couch. Dabi isn’t a soft marshmallow, either. They’re sparing glances at each other. Only glances.

“What,” Dabi says, “you follow your snail mail to her front door again to see her trash it?”

Hawks hates him. Pure, steely anger behind those golden eyes with no easygoing guise. It's the truest he’s ever looked at Dabi. But then he ducks his head.

“No,” Hawks says. “She disappeared again. All on her own. All I found was a letter saying she was okay.”

There’s a bitterness in his voice. They’ve let go of any and every false pretense.

“You know, Dabi, you’re a strangely nice guy.” Hawks has a peculiar tone now. Intrigue. “Like, really nice. Under all those staples you’re a pretty big softie, aren’t you?”

Dabi can’t believe what he’s hearing. He finally looks over—and realizes he had it all wrong.

Hawks is hanging at the edge of his seat, looking relaxed as ever. He slouches. He studies Dabi, but with this easiness that’s escaped Dabi in the last few days since escaping this stupid apartment. The f*cking audacity.

Dabi scoffs. “Shut the f*ck up. You don’t know sh*t.”

Hawks actually smiles at him. But it’s eerie and calculated. “sh*t still smells like sh*t, no matter what it looks like. If I remember that saying correctly. Been a couple years since I’ve heard that, though.”

“Whatever.”

“You know everything about my life and even my old name.” Hawks’s gaze narrows. There’s no tremble, nor is there a waver. It’s well-sculpted and almost as soulless as the f*cking magazine Dabi pretended to peruse. “And I don’t even get to know your real name.”

“My name is Dabi.”

“Mine is Hawks,” Hawks says—with derision. They both know it’s not the name Dabi used in the last few days. “You could’ve killed me.”

“I could kill you now.”

“You showed up at my apartment.”

“You texted me.” Dabi’s jaw tightens.

Hawks doesn’t have to budge. Doesn’t have to do much. He doesn’t blink, but he’s somehow got the upperhand. “You answered my text.”

He’s not talking about hitting a f*cking send button. Dabi sitting on this couch, waiting for the hero to appear is a response all in itself.

“You’re not killing me,” Hawks says. “I’m not dead.”

“Not like you could kill me. Your track record is pretty sh*tty.”

Hawks snorts. And despite himself, Dabi relishes in getting an unbridled snicker out of him. Somehow that doesn’t seem rehearsed.

“So you looking for the right moment to exploit me then?” Hawks asks. “Some huge reveal for my name in the public, so you can publicly humiliate me?”

“Like I care to give you any time of day.”

“ You went after my mother,” Hawks says once more. His voice is as sharp as a quill. It could cut, if it tried.

“You were a threat, and Best Jeanist’s life is proof of that.” Dabi doesn’t get bitten. He devours. He’ll bare his fangs and fight a bird who’s flying too close to the sun. The commission instilled this arrogance in him, and Dabi will rip every feather out himself to humiliate the untrustworthy bird. Just like they should have. “This where you defend the f*cking commission, like your f*cking mom? Because we both know how f*cked up they made you.”

He’s hit a nerve. Hawks’s jaw is tight. Hawks is scowling at him, absolutely on edge without that sh*t eating grin. They’re hardly talking about alliances now. There’s nothing political about this arrangement.

“f*ck, Hawks, you’re rich. ” Dabi pinches the bridge of his nose. “Just walk away. You’re smarter than this.”

“And what, go to the League of Villains?” Hawks snorts. “Want me to recap the last couple of months for you, where you don’t trust me?”

“Because I don’t. There’s no f*cking reason I should trust Hawks.”

Hawks is silent. “But you trust Keigo?”

It’s a true hitch where Dabi doesn’t have a rebuttal. It’s not hesitation. Dabi’s said the name so many times over the last few days, but it’s the first time he’s heard it from Hawks’s mouth. In that voice. This Hawks is also Keigo. The one Dabi had the pleasure of knowing, under that stuffy plume of feathers.

Hawks actually laughs. He touches his own face and pinches the bridge of his own nose, too. “God, Dabi—this whole thing has just been—it’s so f*cking screwed up. Holy sh*t.”

“No sh*t,” Dabi retorts. “Why weren’t you smart enough to dodge a f*cking spit ball?”

“I don’t know!” Hawks exclaims. He even throws his arms in the air, like a kid. It almost looks rehearsed. Almost. But slowly, his limbs descend, like branches of a tree sinking with the weight of its own leaves. There’s a laugh, because they’re both hysterical at this whole f*cking ordeal. And it’s hollow. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to know. Best Jeanist told me I was radio silent for a week, so he was worried, even though he was supposed to stay low. It’s been a week, but I’ve known you at the rest of the League for what feels like my entire life.”

He says it with so much fervor that Dabi’s chest actually aches.

“Why are you even in the league?” Hawks asks next.

“Who else would have me? Jail?”

“Bet the square footage is nice.” Hawks is deep in thought. He’s focused. “I could talk to them and try to get you all pardoned. You wouldn’t—“

“What, and live your f*cked up life or shunned?” Dabi snorts. “Hard pass.”

“You can’t possibly tell me this is a better life for you.”

“Really? Because last I checked, there’s nothing in your life that I want. Someone called time with the league his good parts.”

Hawks is silent. He’s lost all semblance of any kind of rebuttal, but is still trying.

Yeah. The League of Villains is f*cked up. It’s called the League of Villains. The commission is on no higher pedestal, for what they do to people like Takami Keigo.

Maybe it’s part of why he detests Hawks so much. They’re so far on opposite ends of what they stand for, and yet have a foot on the other side of this morality line. Evil doesn’t exclusively mean not good. Hero doesn’t mean uncorrupt.

They could argue in circles. Dabi thinks they both know this.

“You let me kiss you,” Hawks says quietly.

“You kissed me,” Dabi says just as quietly. It’s the weakest f*cking argument in the world. They’re still arguing. This is a fight, but there’s no winner. The truth is, they both have lost a lot. Touya lost everything. Keigo was never allowed to have anything of his own.

Dabi and Hawks sit on this couch as a direct result of that. Neither of them have turned out better because of it. Hawks is right. It’s just f*cked up.

To his surprise, Hawks doesn’t try to bite back. Instead, Hawks bows his head back and relinquishes a painfully long sigh.

“When I was nineteen, I needed control.” He stares at the ceiling like it holds all of the answers. “Those instances with the League—they were absolutely not in my control, but they weren’t under my handlers’ control, either.”

“I get it. Don’t get all f*cked up over it, birdie. I’d kiss a face like mine to piss off the right people, too.”

He expects a laugh or a titter. Instead, Hawks’s gaze doesn’t budge from above him. It’s then that Dabi realizes it’s less a primordial being with all the answers and more like a jail cell. “Those memories—they’re just…they’re in there. Part of my core now. But not like new memories. They feel like they just…resonate with who I always was.”

“You deserve better.”

“I got you, didn’t I?”

f*cking hell. Dabi attempts to scoff—but Hawks doesn’t intend to give another inch. Instead—Hawks snatches him by the face in the most gentle manner. Hawks would never be stupid enough to do this without a motive.

Keigo has done every action these past few days without motive.

“You said ‘ not like that ,’” Hawk whispers. Keigo whispers. “Nineteen years on this planet and it’s a villain who’s protecting me, and a whole league of them who treated me better than my own family and my workplace.”

It’s as f*cked up aloud as it has been in Dabi’s head.

“I didn’t kiss you out of spite, asshole,” Hawks says. “I kissed you all those years ago because I wanted to. I wanted to. Me. You’re supposed to be an assignment and I actually feel like I’m someone around you. I feel like there’s a me .”

f*cking. Hell. Dabi’s heart aches in his chest. It skips, even, like some virgin school girl with all the innocence of an afternoon confession before Dabi can shove it in the far pits of hell like the rest of his old identity.

The hand against his cheek is as gentle as it was the other day. It doesn’t tremble—it’s direct. Hawks isn’t a scared teenager at the mercy of his handlers or the commission, trying to fight every day for his position as an agent. He’s as weathered as when Dabi first met him—but it’s unscripted.

Dabi so badly wants it to be unscripted. “Hawks—”

“I don’t want to be Hawks right now. He’s not who I am with you.”

There’s a knot in Dabi’s throat. As he looks into golden eyes, he realizes they’re one-hundred percent serious.

It’s Dabi’s Keigo. Dabi’s Keigo, who leans in close, and coaxes Dabi toward him.

“You can be so annoying,” Keigo says cheekily, the words just vibrating against Dabi’s mouth. “You know that?”

“Shut the f*ck up.” Dabi kisses first this time. He’ll be damned to let Keigo do it again—out of spite, or as a means of control. Keigo’s been forced to do many things just for simply existing, with no round of control.

This isn’t something to be forced. It’s a need. Dabi needs to show Keigo that Keigo is worth something, and he knows that after both their f*cked up childhoods, Keigo needs it too.

Keigo texted because he needed this. Needed them.

It’s that nerve wracking chaste kiss again. Dabi desperately chases it —that tentativeness of exploration and coaxing that was swept under the rug every other time he’s ever sought intimacy. He needed to feel with other people. Anything, to just know that he could.

But in this kiss with Keigo, he feels everything. The light brush of Keigo’s fingers against his jawline. The tufts of golden blond hair, splayed like the rays of a gentle morning sunrise. He feels Keigo chasing that same feeling—one they were both robbed of in their childhood.

Maybe in a other life, they wouldn’t be so f*cked up. They’d be perfect for each other the way Dabi wishes they weren’t.

“Dabi,” he breathes. “I—“

“Touya.” It almost hurts to say aloud. But he doesn’t want to be Dabi right now, the way Keigo doesn’t want to be Hawks. He wishes this was a normal f*cking experience, and that he was just some normal guy in his twenties, fallling for someone else that makes him so giddy that he just wants to go home and tell his family how happy he is.

“Touya,” Keigo whispers. It’s f*cking beautiful on his mouth. Touya doesn’t want to hear it any other way. “I want more.”

His heart skips a beat, but Dabi isn’t shoving it down in the hell of his own mind like everything else.

“Me too,” Touya says.

They’re putting a pause on Dabi and Hawks because they f*cking deserve to.

Touya kisses Keigo with more fervor. He revisits that lingering desire from the other day, when Keigo braved his own nerves and punctuated a sentence for the both of them. It’s been— f*ck , Touya’s never had something ache and sing like this in his chest. Not for anyone.

He kisses with experience earned out of spite and frustration, but he wants to fix it. Touya mouths Keigo. Touya.

He pulls Keigo into his lap, and Keigo doesn’t resist. In fact, Keigo lets him. There’s a gasp at Touya’s ear, so insanely hot that the sound just surged all the way down to Touya’s groin.

Touya kisses below the shell of Keigo’s right ear. Keigo bares his neck—but it isn’t a game of submission. Touya wants to bask in every sound that erupts from that stupid mouth. Every nip causes Keigo to buck into him with just as much enthusiasm.

“ Touya,” Keigo moans—and it isn’t just that co*cky asshole Hawks making Touya roll his hips. It’s his Keigo, too, cheeky and all. “f*ck. I’ve spent my whole life wanting this.”

Touya doesn’t know if Keigo means an experience like this—or this experience with him . But he wants to deliver. He wants to be worth something to someone, finally in his life.

Red wings twitch and flutter with each kiss—hiding them from the rest of the world as Touya rips away Keigo’s shirt. There’s a bit of struggle, wings and all—but this Keigo is more adept with accommodating clothing than he was at ten. His shirt comes off with ease.

Touya is sucking on a nipple and teasing another before he knows it. There are scars in Keigo’s body—ones that were photoshopped to hell in that magazine, because they tarnish the image of this perfect golden boy. A blemish makes a bad boy. Too many scars is too damaged and no longer of good use.

He kisses a trail down Keigo’s stomach, down the ebbs and flows of each battle wound and muscle. Touya unfastens Keigo’s belt, and the moan he receives in return is delicious.

Keigo is wet and hard. If there’s a way to train his f*cking dick, then it deserves a f*cking Academy Award for how prominent it is beneath his boxers. The trail of hair poking out of the hem is a mix of gold and copper.

Touya shifts his weight, so Keigo will topple onto the cushions. He reaches to drag Keigo’s pants down his ankles—but stops short. He glances back at Keigo. “Can I—?”

“ Please .” Touya’s pretty sure Keigo only sounds that way because he asked. Because no one’s ever just had the f*cking decency to just ask.

Touya devours Keigo. There’s really no eloquent way to describe it. He puts Keigo into his mouth fully, admiring taste as much as sight. It’s salty and slick, warm at the back of his throat.

“ Ah,” Keigo croons. It’s so raw and unrefined, and all that Touya wants to hear. “Touya—oh my god—”

Touya’s doing this. Touya’s making Keigo feel good. Touya is capable of making someone feel good, for once, instead of being some upending disappointment.

He’s focused. Every inch of Keigo is sheathed down Touya’s throat. He swallows Keigo and cocoons around him like a tasteful delicacy.

“I,” Keigo chokes. “Lube— oh…”

Each sound is a gift for every birthday and Christmas Touya no longer got to have.

The lube appears out of f*cking nowhere. It can’t be far. It’s partly empty, like it was used recently. Touya suddenly wonders how often Keigo has just jacked off on this couch alone, and the thought is just f*cking divine.

Touya retracts from Keigo’s dick, but he almost catches a second wind of it as it causes Keigo to buck. The back of Touya’s throat is hollow, missing the mold of Keigo’s length in him.

“f*cking hell,” Keigo mumbles under his breath. “Who taught you that?”

“Doesn’t matter.” It’s definitely the first time Dabi’s found use for it, if it’s leaving Keigo across this couch like a puddle. Touya uncaps the bottle and pours the lube in his fingers. He’s delighted to find Keigo hoisting himself on his elbows, lifting his ass for presentation.

The first finger goes in surprisingly easily. Keigo erupts into another moan upon penetration—but it’s not as tight as Touya anticipates. It’s already slick, even—so Touya pumps another finger in. The shock must show on his face.

“C’mon, Touya-kun,” Keigo teases. “I had three days to prepare for you.”

Oh. f*ck.

This cheeky f*cking bastard. Touya’s cheeky f*cking bastard. He barely registered Keigo climbing on top of him again. Or kissing him in a trail so delicate that Touya could be rice paper. There’s a mouth at the crook of Touya’s neck, nipping softly on coarse and uneven skin.

Keigo’s mouth finds his own again—spreading the warmth and affection for them both . He allows Keigo to take his shirt off. Touya isn’t ready for the way Keigo stares at him.

There’s a palm at his chest, bridged at skin where Touya’s flesh meets Dabi’s scorched soul.

“Hurry up, birdie,” Touya demands softly. “I’m not getting any softer, dumbass.”

Keigo snickers. But he also stares with fascination. “No. I want to see all of you.”

It’s nothing like Dabi’s first time—or second, or third—or any other f*cking time where Dabi was horny and just f*cking wanted to get something over with.

He raises his head in hopes of a kiss, and is rewarded swimmingly just for existing. Keigo insists on another finger in himself, rocking so gently and trilling like a pretty bird in Touya’s ears.

The hiss is a mix of pleasure and surprise when Touya’s finally in Keigo.

“Oh, sh*t,” Keigo mutters, so uncharacteristically clumsy as the tip of Touya’s dick meets his—“ A-Ah…”

f*ck, Touya thinks he’s found his favorite song ever. He thrusts up and into Keigo, feeling held and covered each time. He knows it feels good, as Fierce Wings just flutters with each thrust.

“You feel so good, birdie,” Touya mutters. “ f*ck— all the things I want to do to you— ”

“Please, holy sh*t…” Keigo’s voice is skewed and high. Best of all, it’s conducted by Touya like a beautiful symphony. “I need you.”

Touya is needed. Touya is making him sound like this. Touga likes Keigo as much as he likes birdie, and birdie is as cheeky and as much of a smartass as Hawks.

He thrusts harder into Keigo and watches the beautiful bird’s face light up like fireworks, as a mix of warmth and red just blooms across his face and perfect body. No one’s ever known him like this. It’s not an assignment, or something plaguing Touya that he tossed aside like the rest of his f*cking self.

“f*ck,” Keigo breathes. Whimpers. “I’m so close—“

His wings spread, flying so freely across Touya’s dick like a piece of art to be enjoyed at every angle. Touya belongs in a goddamn mausoleum, but Keigo is a garden to be enjoyed. They’re connected at one entrance, where one path crosses into another. They change the pace from dust and misery to a garden with the serene sounds of Keigo’s moans and the heat across his cheeks, like sunset over a quiet pond.

There are probably don’t touch the exhibit signs displayed everywhere, permission given to no one but each other. Everyone else has stomped on them and smeared their fingers to ruin their essence, but they choose each other.

“Good,” Touya says. “Make a f*cking mess , birdie.”

It’s Keigo and Touya.

It’s Hawks and Dabi.

They both cum at once—and boy, did they f*cking need it.

They go a few more rounds. It’s just easier than talking about it—and probably just f*cking relieves some tension that’s pissed Dabi off about Hawks since day one.

But eventually they can’t just run away from this f*cked up circ*mstance. Not when it’s turned into cuddling on the couch, with Touya delivering kisses in the middle of Keigo’s back. He’s cuddling. Touya has never gotten to cuddle before.

“So we gonna talk about this?” Keigo asks, after what seems like hours. They only stopped because they ran out of lube. Touya wouldn’t have minded hiding from his feelings for a couple more hours, so he’s mad they ran out of lube.

“Do we have to?” Touya asks. It’s meant to be derisive and callous. Uncaring, but if he could follow through with that, he wouldn’t be running his fingers up and down the small of Keigo’s back, only to enjoy those shudders.

“I don’t want to,” Keigo admits. Then he falls quiet. “I want this.”

It hurts, because Touya wants it too.

“Tomorrow we’re Hawks and Dabi,” Keigo mutters. He chuckles softly. “I don’t think I can trust Dabi.”

“You shouldn’t,” Touya admits without hesitation. “I don’t trust Hawks.”

“You shouldn’t,” Keigo says with even less hitch.

They’re silent. No movement, no gesture to break this illusion. Touya badly wants this to be the reality. To have an afternoon lounging on the couch on a random weekday with his arms wrapped around a lover. He wants to laugh his f*cking head off and bicker, and go on dates just to make someone laugh too. To make Keigo laugh in all the ways Hawks has genuinely laughed for him.

“This is our between,” Keigo says eventually. It’s an observation.

Touya loves how that sounds. Ours. “This is starting less and less like a one night stand.”

It should be a joke, if it didn’t scare Touya sh*tless. But even those nerves are only shaken for a minute. Keigo turns to him, with only the barest of wings on his back after Touya demanded him to succumb to a mess.

“I want this,” Keigo repeats. His voice is hopeful. It’s so pure and raw that Touya wants to be hopeful too.

“We’re both gonna get hurt,” Touya warns. He’s not even sure if he’s telling Keigo, or himself.

“You care if I get hurt,” Keigo says instead. Of course he has selective hearing. He’s infuriating because of it. “I care if you get hurt, too.”

“So this is a bad idea.”

“The worst.”

“I want it, too.” The words leave Touya’s mouth before he can help himself. Of everything he’s refused to let come out of his mouth because of this incident, it’s one truth he can’t deny.

Keigo flutters, looking delighted at the thought. Touya did that. Touya’s the reason Keigo looks like that.

“This is our in between,” Keigo repeats.

“Yeah,” Touya echoes. “Ours.”

He loves the smile on Keigo’s face. His Keigo. His birdie.

“Okay,” Keigo says—and he allows his voice to be unsteady for Touya. No one else. He laughs, even. “This is going to be f*cking painful—“

Touya kisses him to block out the thought. There’s no use for Hawks and Dabi in their in between, and they’re just gonna have to accept that. He’s thankful Keigo is quick to agree.

“Wouldn’t want to be pissed off at anyone else in this world but you, birdie.”

It’s f*cked up, but there’s a laugh. Keigo kisses him again—as sweet and real as Touya would’ve wanted in another life.

Hawks and Dabi are a tomorrow problem.

Touya and Keigo deserve this peace now.