Chapter Text
Touya was finally back to his room. Recovery Girl had let him leave that morning, and now, midafternoon, he wished he was back there because he was bored as fuck.
He had read all the books in that little library in the house, or at least all the books he was interested in. But if this continued, there was a book about economy, the cover of having caught his eye.
Hawks was out doing hero stuff and Touya tried not to pout at the thought. Stupid bird owed him a date. Touya tried not to think about the kiss he had promised because he knew that he wouldn’t be able to think about anything else.
“Touya!” Yamada called him from the living room and Touya had to wait for a moment, revel in on the fact that he was actual Touya once again.
“Coming!” he said back, standing up and stretching, feeling only pure bliss at the action instead of hot pain. It was enough to put a small smile on his face.
He went to the living room and found Naomasa quietly conversing with Aizawa. Touya hadn’t heard them come in.
They stopped talking once they saw him and Naomasa smiled at him with the biggest smile Touya had ever seen. Which wasn’t that big of a smile, but on Naomasa’s face it was blinding.
“Touya,” Naomasa greeted him. “I’m glad to see you’re okay.”
Touya gave a small nod. He was never good at being at the receiving end of compliments so he didn’t know how to answer.
“No pain, I hope,” Naomasa added in that usual voice of his, almost like he was commenting on the weather, but it was clear that he really cared about the forecast.
“No pain,” Touya confirmed and took a seat right as Yamada out a tray with four cups of tea on the coffee table. Touya took the one with the three chocolate chip cookies on the little plate, no one batting an eye.
“I’m here to talk about your family,” Naomasa said after a few moments, waiting until everyone had had a bit of tea.
Touya nodded, more at himself than as an answer. He had been expecting it. He said so.
“It’s best to talk to your siblings first,” Naomasa advised.
“What about him?” Touya asked.
“Endeavor isn’t important right now,” Aizawa said.
Touya let out a sigh of relief. He ate a cookie. “I want to see my mother eventually,” he said.
Naomasa nodded. “You’re free to do so whenever you want. Just tell one of us.”
“Thank you,” Touya sincerely said.
“As soon as you talk to your siblings, we can start on clearing your name,” Aizawa said.
Touya chocked on a cookie. Logically, he knew that they wouldn’t let him live his entire life in secrete, there would surely be a plan on making him public, but he didn’t expect this.
“Clear my name?” He asked incredulously.
“Making it seem like an extreme case of vigilantism,” Yamada explained.
Touya was even more shocked at that. “Vigilantism? Would that work?”
“We’ll make it work,” Naomasa said. Touya believed him.
He turned to Aizawa. “I want to talk to my siblings.”
“Today?” The pro hero asked.
Touya shrugged, but his fists were sweaty. “Might as well.”
Perhaps, Touya wasn’t that ready to see his siblings again. It might have been the fact that the last time he saw one of them, it was in a class, him a villain and his brother scoffing with barely hidden anger in his eyes.
But he couldn’t go back now. After Naomasa left, Aizawa called all his siblings to his house, telling them that there was something important he needed to discuss with them.
So there he was; sitting on the couch, fists clenching and unclenching, trying to somehow prepare his words.
He wasn’t that successful.
“Your siblings just entered the school grounds,” Aizawa told him a few minutes later, snapping him out of his thoughts. “They’ll be picking Shouto up before coming here.”
Touya wiped his suddenly sweaty palms on his pants, nodding at the words and hearing his blood rushing through his head.
That was it. It was happening. There was no going back now.
“You’ll be okay,” Aizawa said, sitting down on the couch across him.
“Will I?” Touya asked, voice small and eyes on the floor.
“I don’t know what you want me to say,” Aizawa said and Touya finally looked up from the floor.
“I don’t know what I want to hear,” he admitted.
“You think they’re going to hate you?”
Touya had thought about that from the moment he ran away from home and became Dabi. There was no easy answer to that question.
He slowly shook his head. “I think that they’re going to be angry,” he answered. “And they should be. And I think that Fuyumi is going to cry and that will make Natsuo cry and then I will cry.”
“What about Shouto?”
“He’ll be confused,” Touya said. “Even when I was back home we never spent that much time together. I don’t know if he remembers me.”
The front door opened before Aizawa could answer him and the Pro hero stood up and send him an assertive look. Touya tried to give him a reassured smile back but it probably looked more like a grimace. With a nod, Aizawa went to the entrance where Yamada could be heard talking to their guests.
Touya didn’t have any time to think or swallow or run away before his three siblings were in the living room, suddenly quiet. He distantly heard Yamada say that he’ll be in the kitchen with Aizawa if they needed them but all Touya could focus on was the face of his twin sister and how her eyes had begun tearing up, small icicles appearing and making their way down her cheeks and he longed for, needed, her hug.
“Touya?” Fuyumi whispered, taking a small step forward and Touya was on his feet immediately but he didn’t move.
“Yeah,” he said, voice breaking and he cleared his throat and sent them an awkward grin, arms on his sides and Fuyumi ran to him and hugged him so tightly it hurt but for the first time in his life, it was a pain that he welcomed.
He hugged her back just as fiercely, feeling her cold face that was nested on the space between his shoulder and head and he took a deep breath in, her shampoo scent filling his nostrils, smelling of citrus with a touch of peppermint and Touya felt his own eyes tearing up, drops running down his cheeks and evaporating before they touched chin.
They slowly pulled away, Fuyumi wiping at her eyes with a wobbly smile and Touya turned to Natsuo.
“It’s really you,” Natsuo said, awe in his voice.
“It’s me,” Touya confirmed and that’s all Natsuo needed before he pulled him in for a hug. It didn’t last as long as Fuyumi’s did, but it was still warm. This time though, it was Touya’s face that was nested in the space between a shoulder and a head.
“When did you get so tall?” He asked when they broke their embrace, his hands on Natsuo’s shoulders and looking him up and down, taking him in and feeling nothing but pride for his brother.
“During all those years we thought you were dead.” Was Natsuo’s answer and Touya dropped his hands from his shoulders as if he touched fire, Fuyumi’s alarmed whisper of Natsuo! bringing him back.
“No, he’s right,” Touya said. “I need to explain a lot of things.” He finally looked at Shouto. His younger brother was standing at the entrance of the living room, fists clenched by his sides and a frown on his face.
“Shouto,” Touya said, the name falling from his lips with ease, kind and quiet and Shouto took a few steps forward.
“I’m sorry,” Shouto said. “I don’t really remember you.”
Fuyumi let out a sob at the words and Touya touched her shoulder before gesturing them all to sit.
With a deep breath, Touya started explaining. “After that training accident,” he said, mouth twisting at the words, knowing that they were a lie but finding no better words to describe it. He didn’t need to; his siblings knew what it was anyways. “I spent a couple of days in the hospital in the private ward. They had managed to take the pain away and so I ran away easily enough.”
“Father told us you died from your injuries,” Fuyumi spoke, a whisper really.
“He probably thought I died on the streets,” Touya said with a shrug. He had been over that for years now, the disappointment of having no one look for him after running away.
“I found a back alley surgeon like a week after I ran away and he put skin grafts over my burns and I lived with him for a while until I healed.”
“You don’t have skin grafts now though,” Natsuo pointed out.
“Thank fuck for that,” Touya said. “Back alley surgeons do not guarantee good results.”
Natsuo snorted at that.
“I lived on and off the streets for about a year, pickpocketing to get food,” he said, pausing to sigh, knowing that what he was about to talk about next wasn’t going to be easy for neither of them.
“I started hanging out with some new villains,” he said, closing his eyes tightly at the gasp he heard from his sister. “I never stayed long with them, I never wanted to become a villain.”
There was a sudden breath intake from Shouto and Touya looked at him, knowing that his younger brother had heard through the lines.
“So you were a villain,” Shouto said.
“It was around the time Stain had started to appear. And his philosophy was showing the word how corrupt the hero system was and how heroes are not what the public thinks they are.” He ran a hand through his red hair, slightly pulling at the ends, the small wave of pain bringing him back. “And I agreed with him, of course I agreed with him, how could I not? I was the sole product of everything he believed to be true. And so I became what I was.”
He looked at his siblings and then his eyes stayed on Shouto.
“I became Dabi.”
That was it. The truth was out. Touya didn’t dare speak anymore. His eyes were closed and his head bowed, waiting for his siblings to yell at him or attack him or maybe leave without speaking another word to him.
“At the school,” Shouto started speaking and Touya looked up at him so fast his neck cracked. “When I asked you why you became a villain and you said that your father made you what you are, I was mad. I was mad because I thought of father and everything he did to me and mom and how I never thought of becoming a villain.”
Touya felt tears run down his face, evaporating like they always did before going far. “You were always stronger than me,” he rasped.
“No, Touya,” Fuyumi said, taking his hands in her cold ones. “You are strong. You survived.”
“Aizawa sensei said that he brought you back because you asked for help,” Shouto said.
They were silent after that, each one in their own head, running the conversation over and over again until it finally started to make sense.
“So, what happens now?” Natsuo asked.
“I,” Touya said, clearing his throat and then starting again. “I’d like to keep in touch with you all,” he said.
Fuyumi smiled at him, big and bright and watery and Touya could do nothing else but send her a small smile back. “I’d like that as well.”
“Yeah, that works,” Natsuo said and held a fist for Touya to bump.
Then, they looked at Shouto.
“I don’t really remember you,” he repeated from earlier. “And you being Dabi is still something I have to come to terms with, but I’d like to get to know my older brother,” he said with a nod and a small tilt on his lips that looked nothing like a smile, but coming from Shouto was everything and more than whatever Touya could have wished and hoped for.
Later that day, long after his siblings had left, Touya found himself in the room he had started calling his own, sitting on the bed, lost in thought, while the real owner of the room was sitting on his desk, homework in front of him.
Hitoshi always groaned when he did his homework, Touya found it amusing.
“Did talking with your family go well?” Hitoshi asked, snapping Touya out of his thoughts. The younger boy was looking at him, playing a pen, notebooks open on his desk but forgotten.
Touya hummed. “Better than expected.”
Hitoshi nodded once and put his pen down, choosing to fidget with his fingers instead. Touya rolled his eyes.
“Just ask,” he said.
Hitoshi glared at him. “I can’t just ask you! How do you even ask someone to tell you their identity that was hidden for a reason, that reason being why the became a villain!? It’s not easy!”
Touya raised an unimpressed eyebrow at him while Hitoshi took several deep breaths, calming down.
“I’m Touya Todoroki,” he said, a small part of him enjoying the way Hitoshi’s mouth hanged open.
“Touya Todoroki,” Hitoshi repeated in a whisper. “Todoroki’s older brother, oh fuck.”
“Yeah, well,” Touya said.
“That’s so fucked up,” Hitoshi said, and then laughed.
Touya figured that laughing was the best reaction out of all the possible others, but he still found it weird.
“And I thought my life was fucked up.” Hitoshi wiped at an imaginary tear before looking at him, acceptance clear in his face.
There was a clear invitation in Hitoshi’s words. He was ready to talk about his trauma with Touya, only if Touya was ready to hear it.
He gave a small nod.
“My quirk is called Brainwashing,” Hitoshi told him, starting from things Touya already knew.
“It’s a verbal quirk and is activated when I ask someone a question,” Hitoshi said, adding things Touya didn’t know.
“When my quirk first appeared I didn’t know how to control it and my birth parents didn’t know how to support a child that was scared to even speak and so they gave me up for adoption,” Hitoshi said in a way that spoke of someone who had spent years trying to overcome the trauma and was finally succeeding.
“My foster parents were awful, all six of them. They all knew about my quirk since it was in my file and I was forbidden from speaking, or else.”
The ‘or else’ implications were strong, but Hitoshi had grown stronger.
Hitoshi didn’t speak for several minutes after that, but Touya didn’t blame him. He knew that it was still recent, Aizawa had only adopted him over just slightly over two years ago. You don’t get over drama that severe that fast.
“We’re both fucked up,” Touya said, successful in lightening up the mood and making Hitoshi snort.
“Now leave, I have a date to get ready for,” Touya said, getting up from the bed.
Hitoshi groaned good naturally and started to gather his notebooks, shoving them into his backpack.
“Just don’t do anything on my bed, please,” he said.
Touya snorted and made no promises.
Going to dates with Hawks was something that Touya had grown to look forward to, even if they’ve only been to two of them. There was just something about spending time alone together that filled him with immense joy, all the awkwardness gone as soon as they saw each other.
Touya wouldn’t call it love, but damn it, it felt so close to it. Maybe one day. Tomorrow sure did look promising.
“Another picnic?” Touya asked. He didn’t really have to ask, Hawks was standing at the entrance of the Aizawa-Yamada house holding two bags of food and a blanket under one arm.
“Yep!” Hawks said, feathers ruffling as he spoke, betraying his excitement and nervousness.
Touya figured he ought to be nervous as well, but today had been a good day and he didn’t want to mess it up with feelings he had no reason to feel.
The walk to their usual place was silent, except from the soft humming coming from Hawks who was swinging the bags of food gently as he walked.
Touya would have offered to take one of the bags but he was too enamored with the other to even speak.
Fuck, maybe it is love.
Before Touya could lose himself in his thoughts, they had arrived in their usual date place, and he took the blanket from Hawks and put it down, letting Hawks arrange their food like every other time.
“I got pasta this time,” Hawks said, passing him a couple of take-out boxes.
“What would you do if I told you I was lactose intolerant?” Touya asked, eyeing the white sauce on his plate.
“Oh no, don’t tell me you are, I got tiramisu for dessert,” Hawks pleaded.
Touya snorted. “Relax, I’m not.”
Hawks breathed out in relief. “Well, good. I don’t know if I could put up with dating a lactose intolerant person.”
“Oh?” Touya raised an eyebrow. “Is that so?”
Hawks nodded, cheeks stuffed with pasta. There was a smidge of sauce on his bottom lip that Touya desperately wanted to lick away but he refrained by stuffing his own face with pasta.
“Yeah,” Hawks said after swallowing. “Imagine having to always think before buying something in case it has lactose in it.” He sighed, overreacting.
“And you barely think before buying food anyways.”
“Exactl-Hey!” Hawks pointed at him with his chopsticks. “I’ll have you know I spent fifteen minutes trying to choose which dishes to get for today!”
“Oh?” Touya couldn’t help but tease him. “And is today special?”
Watching Hawks turn as red as his feathers was almost as good as feeling no pain every time he moved.
“You know,” Hawks said, looking at his food. “It’s special since you talked to your siblings.”
Touya hummed in agreement. “Is that all?”
Hawks nodded, albeit slowly, and went back to his food. Touya let him off this once, both because he didn’t actually know how to bring the kiss up and also because damn it Hawks this is some fucking good pasta what the fuck.
After their food was done, and the sky was dark, they got closer and closer, until Hawks’ wing was over Touya’s shoulder, keeping him both close and warm, plate of tiramisu in-between them.
“That’s a good tiramisu,” Touya said, quietly. Anything louder than that felt like it would break whatever was happening.
He felt more than heard Hawks hum in agreement and then he felt Hawks’ finger tilting his face up.
“You know,” Hawks murmured and Touya was enthralled, just like that. “I’ve always loved your eyes. Blue like your fire.” Hawks pressed a small, feather like, kiss on Touya’s nose. “Beautiful.” And then a small, barely there kiss on his lips, finally, finally, oh God, finally.
Touya let out a shuddering breath against Hawks’ lips. “Again,” he whispered and waited none as he leaned in for a bruising kiss that felt like the sea hitting the shore, sudden and all consuming, dangerous if fell into it unprepared, for drowning was something Touya had no experience with but if it was like Hawks kissing him, he thought that perhaps, it would be a lovely death.