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The mission had been simple, at least on paper. Infiltrate the league, gather information, apprehend the villains. He would get in touch with their pyromaniac, Dabi would be his key into their mists as their main recruiter. When Hawks had finally been told of a time and place, he had obviously gone to meet the villain. That was when he made his first mistake.
Hawks had let himself be ensnared by brightest color of blue he’d ever seen, almost the same color as the fire quirk users flames. Dabi had smirked at him, catching him off guard, Hawks had cursed himself for getting careless so easily. But he had gained an in into their fold, and that’s what matters.
The villains weren’t like he expected, he knows what they do, their crimes. Read the reports, heard the stories. What they didn’t say, was just how painfully human they were. Same age as him. They were childish, normal. Free in a way he could only dream of, he never expected he would come to know them. His second mistake.
Gets closer to them, among the things he learns about them is that Toga likes pomegranates, Mr. Compress likes sushi and that Shigaraki tends to throw fits whenever he loses a game. Also the fact that Dabi hates fish, one of the few things he knows about the man, other than everyone’s shared hatred of heroes. Though he might add one thing to the list of Dabi’s likes, himself.
From their first meeting they both noticed a slight attraction towards each other, whether purely for sex or something more, he doesn’t know. It starts off small, he tries to act coy, tries to feel in control. But he isn’t, and Dabi notices that, uses it to his own advantage.
When they fell into bed together it should have felt like a mistake, but it didn’t, Hawks felt so alive under the scarred touch of the pyromaniac. In the aftermath of their rendezvous, how the warm fingers that brushed through and played with his feathers made him preen, made him chirp. It caught him completely off guard the first time it happened, feeling embarrassed to let himself do something he spent years trying to unlearn.
Though the thing that probably surprised him the most was that Dabi encouraged it, kept running his fingers through his plumes, scratching where he had learned makes him coo. Hawks had expected disgust at worst, and mocking at best, never the pure delight that lit up Dabi’s face.
And Hawks being the fool that he was, let himself be encouraged, let himself follow his instincts he spent so long to stamp down.
He had told himself the encounter was a one time thing, a simple lapse in judgement, but it kept happening. Again, and again, and again. Hawks told himself it doesn’t count as a mistake, it’s a simple honeypot trick, a way to get closer to his targets. And that, was a mistake.
It kept happening, the meetings, the sex and the times they spent together in the afterglow. Dabi seemed to be the type to dip after having his fun, but ever since the first time the man had stayed. Hawks once sterile apartment has begun to smell of cigarettes, he gets used to it.
It turns into something dangerously close to a relationship, the steps a little mixed, but they’re there. They hang out together, they eat together, spend time together. Hawks doesn’t know whether this counts as another mistake, or whether it’s all just one big mistake he keeps dragging out, ignorance is bliss.
Hawks learns that Dabi is a dork, and jackass, he likes to trip people up. Snickers as he watches them struggle, Hawks tries to reprimand him, but the grin he’s met with stops him. It is a little funny. His camera roll is full of pictures of them, blurry pictures of him and dozens of selfies of Dabi. None of them are taken by Hawks, he will always cherish them.
The day he kills Twice is almost just a blur, a swirl of movements and the sudden, painful heat engulfing his back. And the ringing of a long forgotten name.
They still meet up, he stops bothering to count his mistakes. His back is a burned mess, and like a moth to a flame Hawks goes back to the hands that did it. The touch a little crueler than before, gripping him harder, fingers digging into his hips as they move. Though just as warm as before. Afterwards when they run along his ruined back, through the meager feathers, the softest kiss is pressed to them. Even through all the scarring, he still manages to feel it.
He lets himself imagine it’s an apology.
The announcement doesn’t come as the surprise it probably should be, Todoroki Touya, son of Endeavor. The eyes had been an obvious give away, the small information he managed to pry out of the pyromaniac another.
When Dabi, or is it Touya now?, makes his way into his apartment later it nearly makes him slip. The white hair instantly draws his eyes, looking so incredibly soft and pure. It’s a juxtaposition, the hair, the eyes and the scars that grow between each meeting. The staples barely holding the man together. Fate hasn’t been kind to them.
Later as Dabi Touya, as Hawks is getting fucked, they’re facing each other. He has to keep his eyes closed, it hurts to look, to see. The strange softness that makes him want to scream, what could’ve been and all the failures mistakes that led them here, together.
His partner obviously doesn’t like that, hand digging into his jaw hard, it only makes him clench his eyes harder.
“Look at me”, he minutely shakes his head, his lips a thin line.
“Look at me!”, it hurts how hard he’s gripped, but years of punishment training has made him resilient. Hawks tries to turn his face away, they stopped moving a while ago, both have gone soft by now.
“Keigo”, it’s said so softly he thinks he might have imagined it, but it comes again, and again. It rends him apart.
“Keigo, please, look at me”, it sounds so broken, so sad, Hawks Keigo didn’t stand a chance. Opening his eyes, he’s met by the sky on a sunny day, the ocean in the summer, the eyes of Todoroki Touya. And something inside him yawns, consumes him.
It takes some time, but they start moving again, both captured by each other’s eyes, blue on gold. He thinks he might be crying, he doesn’t know, doesn’t feel like he knows anything anymore. Their movements desperate, he’s clinging to Touya, afraid of letting go. Their kiss messy and full of spit, but oh so perfect.
They both finish with each other’s name on their tongue, Keigo grunts as Touya collapses onto him, arms still wrapped around the scarred shoulders. He runs his fingers through the white softness, for a moment he could forget, forget the world waiting to consume them, their destiny that trails them.
At times he wonders if he flies too high, too lost in the moment to realize, it’s a long way down.
In his dreams he sees a different them, someone happy, no weight holding them down.
The war ends, they won, but the cost was high. Keigo lost his quirk, the amount of destruction that while take years to fix, and the ones that never will. When he woke up from his comatose state he’d learned of the villains fate, spinner and compress imprisoned, Shigaraki and Toga are dead, and Touya’s barely hanging on.
He shouldn’t have, it was selfish of him, almost cruel, but he asked the Todoroki’s to see their long lost son. Just about begged to come along one day, just to see, it wasn’t his place to waste the few precious minutes Touya could speak.
Keigo had taken one look at the where Touya was kept, and the only thought in his head, was that it looked like a coffin, yet to be buried.
They want to make him take over the Commission, but should he? Keigo doesn’t know, maybe, he’s experienced, he’s well spoken. Well liked. That’s what they say. But all he can think of is Touya, stuck in the vat he slowly dies in, it’s horrible. A fate deserved for his crimes. Doesn’t make him any happier.
The Todoroki’s allow him to come along to visit, sometimes they ask for time alone, but most of the time he can tag along. He watches as they talk, how the siblings try to include Touya in their daily lives, how Touya’s voice is so weak and gravelly.
A couple times they had let him visit Touya alone, even let him use the few minutes he was able to speak. And Keigo talks, about things, mundane, his new role within the Commission, about Spinners new book. Tells him he started baking, made a sourdough starter, used it too early and made an edible rubber ball. Touya never answers, but he doesn’t need to, it would break them both. This farce of a future, it won’t last long.
It’s sunny when Touya dies, he receives the news from Touya’s family, and it feels like drowning. He’s invited to the funeral, he comes, it’s somber. Only him, the Todoroki’s and a priest. Who but them would mourn a villain? The picture they used was taken a long time ago, so young, so innocent.
Keigo thinks of the pictures he selfishly keeps for himself, the smiles hidden on his phone. He thinks of how different it could have been, Keigo wishes he could have protected it. He will help create a world for people like them, a world where they would all be loved.
He dreams of them, under a vast blue sky, a field of sunflowers. And the children they should have been.