Chapter Text
Hawks liked to think he wasn’t scared of many things. He wished he could say he wasn’t scared of anything, but that would be a bold-faced lie. So, he was scared of a few things - not that he would ever openly admit that to anyone. But he couldn’t help how he froze whenever his Handler contacted him, how he felt as if one breath away from dying when called before the HPSC President. And his biggest fear, that should perhaps be obvious: losing his wings.
His wings were the one thing in the world that Hawks couldn’t imagine living without. The one thing that granted him any semblance of freedom.
The constant threat of having them burned or torn away was also the main reason for why he was so scared of anything to do with the Commission. They made Hawks who he was today, but they could also so easily tear him apart.
Unfortunately, unlike most other people’s fears, Hawks couldn’t escape his. It wasn’t like spiders or height, fears relatively easily avoided. No, it was impossible to escape what owned you, after all.
That all being said, Hawks was proud to say he wasn’t scared of many things, even if he would never admit what they were aloud. Because what’s the point of admitting something that can’t be changed. But then he found a new fear, one that he almost didn’t wish would disappear: Akatani Mikumo.
When his Handler told Hawks to take on an intern from U.A.’s class 1-A, to gain further information about the attack earlier that year, Hawks had eagerly watched the Sports Festival. He’d watched it a few times in the past, but hadn’t ever been overly interested. He didn’t like seeing so many children have fun while exploring their abilities with one another. He didn’t like the unsettling wave of jealousy that washed over him. He had, however, been excited to see a boy with a bird head - Hawks was adamant in his belief that there were never enough people with avian-based Quirks and immediately felt a kinship with the youth. But then his eyes had been drawn to another boy - one rather plain in appearance, but intriguing in style.
Akatani had fought with careful skill, never wasting a movement, closely watching his opponents. It was clear even through the came that Akatani had more experience than his peers, even if at times his hands seemed to twitch for items not on his person. Hawks wondered for a moment if the boy was secretly a Vigilante, but he stayed up-to-date on that sort of news and easily dismissed the notion. His next guess was that the boy had grown up in a dangerous neighbourhood that would require him to know how to protect himself.
Too curious to leave the matter alone, Hawks requested the student’s file. And while, yes, where the boy lived could explain his prowess on the field, it wasn’t what made the winged Hero pause. No, what made his heart stutter was the boy’s Quirk status.
Quirkless.
The plain-looking, far too skilled for his age, boy who took second place was Quirkless. Hawks could already imagine the inevitable uproar within the Hero community. Quirkism ran rampant among many of the more powerful Heroes, deeming those with weak or useless Quirks beneath their recognition. But now, televised internationally, someone without a Quirk had shown everyone up.
Hawks sent in an offer for Akatani and Tokoyami, deciding he would be happy with either boy accepting his offer. When Akatani accepted it - the response made just a day after offers were delivered - Hawks didn’t hesitate to finalise it. Yes, he wouldn’t enjoyed spending time with a fellow bird-mutation individual, but Akatani’s existence was of too high a priority to ignore. Hawks knew, without a doubt, that the boy wouldn’t’ve received many offers on account of him being Quirkless, and the winged Hero wasn’t about to let that dissuade the boy from making history. And if Hawks could play a role in helping Akatani achieve that? Well, then Hawks would be honoured.
The Commission kept Hawks from openly admitting to having a mutation Quirk, making it difficult for Hawks to advocate for fair treatment of people like him. He knew that the HPSC would quickly try to keep Akatani from becoming Japan’s first Quirkless Hero. So, Hawks was going to do whatever he could to get in first and help the boy instead.
And yet, it didn’t seem like the boy would need any help. Because instead of greeting a shy, Quirkless kid like Hawks had expected - because why would anybody not behave like that after growing up Quirkless in today’s society when faced with the Number Three Hero - Hawks was met with a force of nature.
He was met with a boy who knew far too many dangerous pieces of information.
So, Hawks gained a new fear: Akatani Mikumo.
Not that Hawks was scared of Akatani - rather, Hawks was scared of what Akatani could be capable of. He was scared of what Akatani offered him. He was scared of the boy that knew about his leash and wanted to help sever it.
Hawks had grown… not comfortable of his role in life, but accepting. Hawks knew to obey his Handler and do whatever the HPSC told him to do. He knew he would never be free. He was used to it. Why fight what couldn’t be changed?
Akatani decided that that wasn’t good enough, however, and Hawks began to let himself be caught up in the boy’s metaphorical typhoon.
Hawks started to think his own thoughts, forced to not follow the HPSC narrative when Akatani asked him questions he’d never been prepared to answer. Hawks started wondering if maybe he did deserve to be something more than simply ‘Hawks’.
And then the end of the internship came and Akatani gave him his first taste of true freedom: an untraceable phone that the Commission couldn’t monitor.
But more than that, Akatani gave him a taste of who he never knew he wanted to be: Takami Keigo.
And oh, how Keigo wanted to trill in delight at hearing his name. He hadn’t heard it in so long, but he knew it was his. The name ‘Keigo’ wrapped around him like his wings, a warm comfort of knowing that that was who he was. He’d never completely forgotten his name, but it was buried deep within him along with all his ‘undesirable’ bird traits. So, later that day, when he was finally on his way back to the HPSC-approved apartment he called ‘home’, Hawks allowed himself a brief stop atop a random skycraper. Hawks became Keigo, and Keigo chirped in delight. Keigo let himself be him for a moment.
But only that one moment, because if anybody ever caught Hawks being Keigo there would be serious repercussions.
But Hawks couldn’t stop entertaining the idea of being Keigo. Knowing that Akatani knew about him - knew about Keigo and his life with the Commission - scared him, so he couldn’t shake the thoughts of the boy away. Whenever somebody asked him a question, he answered how his Handler would want him to, while internally thinking differently. Keigo wanted to be Keigo.
So, months after the internship, having not once touched the phone given to him by Akatani, Hawks let himself dream of being Keigo. Of course, the dream was shattered at his next Endurance Training - what he’d started internally calling ‘Conditioning Session’. But shattered things didn’t disappear. The pieces remains, just waiting for somebody to put them back together. The moment Keigo got ‘home’, he grabbed the untraceable phone and left. He flew aimlessly for hours before stealthily approaching Akatani’s apartments, not once letting himself consider that the boy might’ve rescinded the offer. His fear of what Akatani was capable of increased when it didn’t take long for him to feel safe.
Shortly after, he felt scared for Akatani when the boy was kidnapped during his school camp. He is, initially, pissed that the boy hadn’t snapped his feather when the attack began, before realising that that would’ve been pointless considering the travel time between there and Fukuoka. And the he was immediately relieved that Akatani hadn’t snapped it when Keigo could then provide a location for where he was being held.
Yet still, the rescue wasn’t quick enough for Keigo’s liking. Akatani, bloodied and bruised, and still fighting - but not against the people who took him. No, Akatani fought for them. Not with them or against Heroes, but for their right to be treated as members of society. It was… shocking, the first time Keigo visited Akatani and he saw two of the League’s members present. One of them had apparently already considered joining Akatani - joining for what, Keigo wasn’t sure - and the other clearly suffering from a mental illness.
Akatani, at that point, made it clear to Keigo that he wouldn’t stop fighting to save as many people as he could - civilians, Heroes, and Villains alike - and that he would still save Keigo - but also that Keigo could go get “stuffed like a crispy rotisserie chicken” if the Hero even thought to arrest the Villains present.
And after everything Akatani was already doing for him? Yeah, there was no way Keigo would arrest people the boy wanted to save.
That was when Keigo then learned that Akatni was Izuku, a Quirkless boy tired of his past with knowledge of the future, and an information broker called ‘Toxic’. At that point, keigo decided to stop being surprised about anything relating to Izuku’s existence.
So Keigo was scared of a few things, and he was willing to admit it. Many of those things related to the HPSC, and one of which was a Quirkless teenager named Izuku.
He refused, however, to acknowledge his fear of the growing emotions within him for a certain scarred man. Keigo decided he had enough fears to deal without without adding that one on top as well.
——
X months later
Keigo, reluctantly, decided he needed to update his list of fears. Oh, he as definitely still scared of what Izuku could do, but he was now also most definitely scared of the boy himself.
It had only been a month since Rumi made him accept that he was a panicky gay for Touya. It didn’t matter that the scarred man was recently almost a Villain called Dabi, or that he was currently a possibly-masochistic Vigilante called Soen, even that he was simply an arsonist at times. Keigo had it hard for Izuku’s housemate. And, of course, Izuku knew that - not helped by the fact that the boy had blatantly played match-maker for the two.
Keigo was fairly certain that Touya felt similarly about him. He’d seen the way Touya’s eyes lingered, noticed hwo the man always drifted toward him when they were in the same room. Of course, Keigo could be wrong. But Keigo had also seen Izuku smirk whenever the Hero and the Vigilante interacted. Smirked like he knew they were both pining and too scared to do anything about it.
Which led to why Keigo was scared of Izuku. Because Keigo and Touya had been just about to kiss after arguing about their feelings when Izuku got home. Keigo had been flustered, of course, and Touya had been insufferably indignant. And Izuku… oh, the Cheshire-wide grin that spread across that boy’s face… For once in his life, Keigo seriously considered migrating with other birds just to get away from whatever that grin promised.
Izuku stopped refering to them as individual people after that. They were no longer Keigo and Touya - no, there were collectively ‘Hotwings’. It didn’t matter how much Touya threatened to burn the boy alive, the name calling didn’t stop. Rather, Keigo dare say, it only increased in fervour.
Keigo had thought to visit U.A., agreeing to assist in a Heroics class for a day. And while everyone else called him Hawks, Izuku called him ‘the second half of Hotwings’. Not once did the boy elaborate to his classmates, but the other students all caught on pretty fast. He spent the rest of that afternoon class constantly dodging questions about his love life.
[not complete]