Chapter Text
Hawks shows up to patrol and to headquarters for the rest of the week with a pit in his stomach weighing him down and giving him vertigo whenever his feet leave the ground. It keeps him too sick to think of this time away as a reprieve—there’s no weight lifting off his shoulders when he leaves or returns to Hikaru, just a changing of burdens.
Hikaru’s still sick, and Hawks leaves him behind with Natsuo. He spares half a thought for Natsuo and the fact that this might be causing him pain, reliving childhood trauma—Natsuo is enabling for Hawks the same thing that Endeavor did with his family. Can Hawks really say this is about saving people when he’s abandoning someone who needs him?
Hawks leaves the work under the water to the divers and the heroes with water quirks, though the scene of the accident is close enough to Fukuoka he really should be more involved. He floats above the water directing everyone, coming down only to speak to families of the deceased as their deaths are confirmed.
To be fair, at least when he leaves Hikaru, he leaves him with someone, in a house with food, air conditioning, and nothing sharp left on the ground. Yeah, what a great guy he is—he even feeds the baby, isn’t that kind of him?
“I think you should consider taking a break,” Jeanist says to him on day four of rescue work. They’ve found all but two of the bodies, and the retrieval team isn’t hopeful they’ll manage any better than this. “You look like you haven’t slept in weeks.” It’s only been a few days, but Jeanist has always been dramatic. “And I heard Hikaru hasn’t been feeling his best either? Maybe it would help if you were at home with him.”
“He’s fine,” Hawks says, rolling his eyes. “And I am too. I spend plenty of time with him after my shifts.” Most of that time is spent with Hikaru screaming and Hawks trying to force medicine into his wailing mouth, but it’s something.
Jeanist looks at him sadly. “I’m just worried about the two of you. And I can help, if you’ll let me.”
The issue is, Hawks doesn’t need any help. Not anymore. Maybe he did when he was younger, maybe when he was a crying baby himself, but he quickly learned to take care of himself. Now, he takes care of others, so it’s too late for him now. He has to handle his problems on his own.
An ugly streak of jealousy squeezes his heart at the thought that Jeanist is only offering this now that there’s a baby around.
“I appreciate the offer, Jeany, but I’ve got it under control. No more leaving babies on the roof from me, I promise.” He punctuates this with a grin, and strides away before Jeanist can say anything else to him, though he can tell that Jeanist lets out a longsuffering sigh. Good. Hawks likes being annoying.
He goes home for the night to spell off Natsuo.
“I can’t come next Tuesday. I’ve got an exam.”
Hawks waves him off as he goes to sit cross-legged on the floor next to Hikaru. He reaches a hand down to where the baby’s making grabby fingers. Hikaru grabs it and immediately puts it in his mouth. “Sure, sure, no worries. Thanks for the heads up.”
Natsuo pauses at the door with his bag slung over one shoulder like he has something else to say. Hawks sharpens his smile, and with one last bit of hesitation, Natsuo leaves.
“What’re we gonna do Tuesday?” Hawks groans to Hikaru, still smiling but rubbing his free hand over his puffy eyes. He opens his fingers a crack to peer through them at Hikaru. He doesn’t seem sick, really. And by Tuesday he’ll probably be completely fine, just in time for a little Take Your Unwanted Child to Work Day.
But didn’t he just reassure Jeanist that he’s not leaving Hikaru on rooftops anymore? What, is he gonna pull one of his sidekicks off their assignment and relegate them to babysitting duty? He runs through a list of names in his mind, thinking of anyone he could call. Surprisingly, he comes up with some good solutions: take Tuesday off to stay home with Hikaru. Jeanist. Call up Tokoyami after months of radio silence to offer him cash in exchange for kid-watching, then hope it’s one of UA’s summer break weeks. Drop Hikaru off at a daycare.
All would probably be good if he weren’t Hawks. He can’t be a no-show for Fukuoka right now, especially after taking time to recover from the fire recently. A day care is risky; he hasn’t forgotten how easily Dabi tracked down his mom.
As for calling up Jeanist or Tokoyami… he won’t make himself more of a burden on them than he already is. Hikaru could use their help, but unfortunately, the only people Hawks is close with are people he’s already greatly indebted to. He’s still on the fence about whether he’s close with them at all, or if he is, whether he should try to put more distance between them.
There is one other option.
It’s a bit extreme, but Hawks barely blinks at extreme anymore. He belatedly realizes he didn’t take his boots off at the door and uses one hand to unzip and slide them off. Hikaru still holds his other hand hostage. Absently, he uses a bedraggled feather to tidy up, lining up his shoes by the door and rearranging the scattered toys.
He’s not in a position to be of any use to anyone, let alone a child. He already owes the people of Fukuoka more than he’s giving right now. In his current position, a semi-disgraced hero struggling to give the public hope in him and the world again, he can’t show up anywhere with a baby to, what, transfer him? They look undeniably similar, so a link with Hawks would get people speculating and throw unsuspecting Hikaru into a storm that would never calm.
Hawks gently tugs his hand from Hikaru and scooches over to hold him.
Hikaru’s beautiful. His face is blotchy and red, probably from being sick, and Hawks just wants to wrap him up and give him all the best things like he deserves. He blinks up at Hawks with those big eyes. He hasn’t been broken. It’s not something a kid can keep up on their own.
Hawks swallows.
“Let’s go see your mom, yeah?”
He opts for the train instead of subjecting Hikaru to flying while he’s still on the mend. Hawks is wearing a baseball cap and facemask, but maybe Hikaru’s car seat next to him is enough of a disguise. The train is mostly empty anyway at this time of night.
In a wash of guilt, Hawks realizes this is the first time he’s made the trip. He’d meant to. Sort of. Maybe if he’d really meant to, he’d have actually done it. But things after the war still haven’t settled, and it feels selfish to spend time getting his own personal affairs in order when there’s work to be done. His thoughts keep crescendoing from there, because, isn’t that just an excuse to avoid helping the people who need him the most? Is he being selfish now with Hikaru—does he just not want to make changes to his life for a baby?
Hikaru whimpers in his sleep, and Hawks shuts his brain up by patting Hikaru and singing him a little song. The lyrics aren’t age appropriate, but Hikaru doesn’t even understand them, so it’s whatever.
They get off the train at almost midnight and Hawks carries Hikaru and walks the rest of the way, and he’s reminded why some people might feel unsafe at night. He doesn’t, not with his feathers, but if this were four months ago and he were carrying Hikaru, he’d want someone else there—Jeanist, probably, so he’d get protection and a lecture for the price of one. But the next part is going to be much easier without Jeanist.
The further he gets from the train station, the quieter it gets. The streets are cleaner, too, and look idyllic and pristine under the glow of street lamps. When he reaches the gate surrounding the neighborhood, he punches in the code from memory then makes his way to the house. the lights inside are off, but the TV’s still flickering. The porch light isn’t on, but he still feels exposed.
All of a sudden, he doubts that this was ever a good plan. His breath catches and balls up in his throat, and it takes three tries for him to swallow it down before he rings the doorbell.
His feathers pick up shuffling and stalling behind the door. Ah, right. He pulls down his mask and gives a nervous smile to the camera built into the wall above the doorbell. Hikaru squirms, and Hawks hushes and rocks him a little as the door creaks open.
“...Keigo?”
“Yeah, Mom. It’s me.”
He waits on the doorstep lit by dim flickering light from inside, and waits to be invited in.
His mom leaves one hand on the doorknob and brings the other up to her face. “You’re hurt? I saw it on the news.” She looks behind her to the TV, still playing. The house—what he can see of it from the doorway—looks clean, if a bit empty, devoid of decoration and any furniture besides a couch.
Hawks glances down at himself. He doesn’t look hurt. “No,” he says, and steps to the side of his mom that’s less blocked by the door. Hikaru whines, and Hawks shifts him to the other hip and bounces him a little. Hikaru likes that. “How are you?”
He hasn’t visited her at home since… he can’t remember when. Probably since before he finished his training with the Commission. He distinctly remembers an awkward visit when he snuck out at fifteen to see where she lived and what her house was like—he wasn’t the nicest to her then, loud and obnoxious and putting his feet on the furniture while laughing with his teeth bared. Hikaru whimpers, as if he can sense Hawks’s shame.
He’s seen her new house (he picked it out, after all) but not since she’s moved in, and it still looks fine. She hasn’t ruined—
That’s unfair.
“I’m sorry,” his mom says, and Hawks remembers that he asked her a question.
He smiles “That’s not how you are!” he says lightly. He reaches out with his non-Hikaru-holding hand to touch her arm hesitantly. “Are you doing okay?” Her hair looks nice—it’s curly, a bit like his, and not the coarse, tugged-out texture he remembers. And she’s wearing a sweater. It’s soft.
“Yeah.”
Her gaze shifts from Hawks to HIkaru, who’s trying to hide in the collar of Hawks’s jacket. “I’m sorry,” she says again.
“Mom…” He clears his throat and tries to start again. “I can’t—” Oh, god. He’s not going to cry. Absolutely not. “I can’t take care of him. I know—I don’t think you should either, but I can’t even do anything, I’m not his legal anything, what am I supposed to do? Who’s his dad?”
“He left me… just like your dad. He wanted to leave when I was pregnant with you, Keigo.”
And he knows this—even as a little kid, it’s hard to miss that your parents wish you had never been born—but he doesn’t want to talk about Keigo. This isn’t about him.
“I didn’t want your brother to grow up the same way you did, I thought you would care for him… I know it’s not fair, with everything you’ve been through because of me.” Her voice starts to shake, and she wrings her hands together, eyes turned away as she speaks. “It’s my fault you’re hurt and you don’t have your wings anymore. And now I’m ruining your life again. But I don’t want to ruin another one of my children like…”
She looks at Hawks, and something she sees must set her off, because she’s crying in earnest now. Hikaru starts to whimper as well in some sort of empathy, and soon he’s all-out wailing. Hawks pats his back and rocks him back and forth, trying to hum, but no sound comes out. Dammit. He can’t start crying too, someone needs to fix this.
“Sh, sh. It’s alright, Hikaru.”
Hikaru isn’t even his real name.
Hawks had just returned to his agency one day last month to her standing in front of the building, holding a swaddled lump. It was the day after a storm, with the sun beating down but the streets flooded and people crawling out of their houses to stare at the wreckage, then-broken electricity lines keeping everything dark and cold once night fell.
“Hello?” he’d called out. “Mom?”
Everyone in the office had gone home for the night, thankfully. Knowing his mom and her all-seeing eyes, she’d probably planned it that way. Hikaru had been sucking on an empty bottle and wearing a stinky wet diaper. “Ew,” Hawks said when she handed Hikaru to him,holding him far out from her body, and Hikaru had started to cry.
“I can’t do this,” she’d said. “I need you to take him. He’s your brother.”
At the time, Hawks had imagined it would be temporary. Surely she wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.
After she left, he’d changed him out of his diaper in the bathroom and wrapped him in scratchy paper towels since she hadn’t brought any supplies with her.
He’d set Hikaru down on the floor and climbed out the window to get some air—then stopped, and climbed back in. He’d scoured the memory later for Hikaru’s name, only to realize that she’d never told him. Hawks tried to believe that she’d just forgotten, but his cruel mind just wondered if she’d even given him one, then how long baby Keigo had been nameless for.
Instead of going to the store, he’d gone straight home and ordered everything delivered while he held Hikaru in one arm and poked at his keyboard with the other hand, looking for how to take care of a baby. “I don’t know what to do with you,” he told Hikaru while a flurry of feathers set up the living area with a crib and blankets. “I don’t even know what to call you,” he sighed. Hikaru gurgled, then threw up on him.
“Maybe I’ll call you stinky. Or smelly. What about ‘it’s time to abandon your name and your family, here’s your new name from now on?’ Has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?”
He ended up grabbing a blanket and staying on the couch that first night to keep the crib in his line of sight, but even when the baby slept, Hawks couldn’t. He passed the time absently scrolling through childcare blogs on his phone.
When the morning hit, the reality of the whole thing sunk in. After applying ointment to a big red area all down the back of Hikaru’s legs, Hawks decided there wasn’t much else he could do but keep the baby, so he needed a name. Hikaru was as good as any, and that was that.
“Hikaru,” his mom says.
Hawks looks up at her in the doorway, a step above him. “It’s what I’ve been calling him.”
“It means… light.”
“Yeah.” It’s something Hawks hopes for—not from the baby, but maybe from himself. “But what’s his real name? Or—“ he stops before suggesting that the name Hikaru could just stay. “Nevermind—just, yeah, what’s his name?”
Two of Mom’s eyes are focused on Hawks, the other two on Hikaru, who’s chewing on Hawks’s hoodie and soaking the thing with his tears, snot, and drool. “Does he like it?”
“I don’t know what it is.” He clenches his jaw. “You never told me.” He sounds like he’s begging and also blaming her for every bad thing that’s ever happened to him—to the both of them. He doesn’t mean to; usually he has better control than that.
“I mean… does he like being called Hikaru?”
“I don’t know. He can’t talk,” Hawks snaps. He takes a step forward and gently detaches Hikaru to hand him to his mom, who looks like she doesn’t even realize Hawks pretty much just yelled at her. She doesn’t put her arms out to take him, so Hawks is just stuck holding him under his armpits. “I thought that… I mean, we both know you’re not good at this, but maybe I’m worse. And I can’t do it.” Hawks finally gives up and cradles Hikaru back to himself.
He’s doing an awful job at this, and he can feel his desperation manifesting in the pitter patter of his heartbeat. Best not to be so real and personal. Detaching himself to watch his mouth take over, the words come more easily.
“Of course, I’ll provide for you both, like I have been, and I can also pay for child care. You would just be the one in charge. In your situation, it would be much easier to hire a nanny than it has been for me. Or if you can find someone to adopt him, without putting my name on the whole thing.” Hawks bounces Hikaru and shifts him over to rest on his other shoulder, and realizes that he hopes his mom leaves all the work up to someone else and doesn’t try to involve herself. Why didn’t she just do that in the first place, instead of piling another thing onto him?
She grips the door with weak, soft hands, almost like she’s hiding behind it. “He deserves more than that.”
And I don’t, Hawks thinks grimly. The message is clear, but he’s beyond hurt. He doesn’t really disagree with his mom’s opinion.
“He deserves more than I can give, too.”
Mom drops her grip from the door, but she doesn’t reach for her son. “It was the right thing to do before, right? I gave you to someone else, and your dream came true because of it. You got to be just like the shows you used to watch. I just thought…” She trails off, the eyes around her getting twitchy, darting back and forth between Hawks and Hikaru as she looks down.
“You just thought what? That it’s easier to give us away than deal with us?” Hikaru whimpers at Hawks’ tone, digging small hands further into his jacket. “He’s a person, Mom, not something you need to return to the store.”
“I thought it’d be better if he was with someone who could love him!” It’s the loudest he’s ever heard her be, and her words strike him speechless. “It was hard enough with you, Keigo, but at least you were his son, at least you had his feathers, and I could look at you and see him. Hikaru… I didn’t mean to. I was just lonely. It was a mistake.”
He’s oddly calm at her words. It reminds him of the numbness that took over when he killed Twice and Dabi torched his back—a serenity that protected him, allowed him to focus on getting Tokoyami out of danger, to focus on Dabi’s quirk limitations. Now, the same serenity keeps his voice steady and his hand a solid presence at his little brother’s back, soothing his sniffles. It lets him give Hikaru a smile when his hand reaches for his face, and lets him plant a kiss on those tiny fingers instead of screaming at their mother.
“Well,” he says, and he can’t help but laugh a little at the ridiculousness of it all. “At least you’re honest.”
Hikaru grabs at his mouth and nose, trying to keep Hawks’ gaze on him instead of at their mom. Uncut fingernails scratch at the skin under his eyes, as Hikaru tries to cling closer, and Hawks wonders what kind of fucked-up attachment issues the kid is gonna have to deal with in therapy once he’s older.
“You’ll take care of him,” she says quietly. “You already are, even if you don’t want to. Just like you take care of me.”
Hawks wants to scream, but he can’t upset Hikaru again.
“So that’s it. You gave up one kid to the government and the other to your child. You don’t want either of us.”
Hikaru rests his face in the crook of Hawks’ neck, and Mom looks down at her feet. Something tenses in Hawks’ chest, a last thread of some feeling he won’t name coiling tight, holding on for dear life.
“I wasn’t meant to be a mother,” Tomie says, and Hawks feels a snap of something he doubts he’ll ever get back.
He opens his mouth, but doesn’t speak, and when she closes the door in front of him, he doesn’t try to stop her. He’s not sure how long he stands in front of the door after that, but Hikaru stays quiet in his arms the entire time, probably falling asleep. By the time he leaves, his legs feel stiff, his head numb. He doesn’t remember anything about the train ride home, or getting ready for bed, but he’s grateful for it.
Thinking is too difficult.
It’s weird how texting Jeanist for help somehow feels worse than his mom shutting the door in his face. Part of him feels like he should reach out to someone else—Jeanist has already seen him at his most pathetic too many times—but another feels like this way, at least the number of people who know what a colossal fuck-up he is is kept to a minumum.
He thinks about cleaning up his place before Jeanist gets there. Between Hikaru’s illness and Hawks’s spiraling, the whole apartment is a disaster—the most upkeep he’s done was a few days ago when he lined up his shoes by the door—but he can’t make himself get up from where he’s laying on the floor beside Hikaru. The only way the kid doesn’t scream if Hawks puts him on his stomach is if Hawks is in arm’s reach. Chubby arms reach towards him, and Hikaru laughs when he manages to grab a fistful of hair and yank.
“Yeah, yeah, yuck it up, kid. You know, back in the day, people would kill to be this close to me. You could stand to be a little more grateful, you know?”
Hikaru blows a spit bubble at him.
A knock at the door puts a halt to any further conversation.
“Hey, Jeany, nice of you to stop by!” Hawks lets the door swing open wide. For once, Jeanist isn’t wearing his hero uniform, instead opting for a purple turtleneck with, of course, blue jeans. Hawks himself had immediately changed out of his sweaty hero clothes into lounge pants when he arrived home. He’s got the AC and dehumidifier blasting so Hikaru doesn’t overheat. Jeanist is unbothered, apparently. “Wave hi to Jeany, Hikaru!”
“Did you just leave him on the floor?” Jeanist asks, walking over to scoop Hikaru up, who seems pretty unbothered by the whole thing. Maybe Hawks should worry about that more. Babies aren’t supposed to like strangers, right?
“He likes it. Sometimes he finds cracker crumbs to stuff in his mouth, it’s great.” Hawks shuffles from foot to foot, feeling nervous. God, this sucks. Honesty sucks. Jeanist sucks. “So I’m guessing you’re curious why I asked you over today, right?”
Jeanist eyes him for a moment, his mouth covered by the turtleneck and his expression unreadable. Hawks folds his nubby wings out from his back, his posture easing on its own like his body always does when he realizes he’s being scrutinized. Out of all the things the Commission taught him, it’s probably one of his favorites, the ease with which he can fake being unaffected.
“To be honest, I’d hoped we’d finally gotten to the point of social calls, but I guess that’s a bit much to expect from you. At least I know this won’t be any worse than the time you attempted to murder me. Or the time you drug us both out of the hospital against medical advice to start a wild goose chase across Japan.”
Hawks winces. “I think ‘attempted to murder’ is a little dramatic.”
After all, if Hawks really had tried to kill him, Jeanist would be dead right now. He’d like to think Jeanist knows that, and that’s why the man seems to hold so much unearned trust in him.
Hawks drops onto the couch beside him. He thinks about reaching out to take Hikaru, but it’s probably better he doesn’t start relying on the baby for emotional support.
Jeanist raises an eyebrow when the silence stretches for a moment too long.
Right. Time to rip the bandaid off.
“Hikaru isn’t mine. Like, not my kid.” He pops the knuckles on his right hand, and thinks about how that sounds before rushing to continue. “He’s still related to me though, I didn’t steal a baby, I swear. He’s my brother. Half-brother. My mom…” He clears his throat, tries to slow down before he speaks this time so he sounds like less of a disaster. “My mom had another kid with someone else, and she couldn’t take care of him. So she, uh, gave him to me.”
He chances a look up, and the pity in Jeanist’s eyes makes him feel vaguely nauseous.
“Hawks—”
“I tried to give him back a few nights ago. I shouldn’t be in charge of a kid.” He forces a laugh. “You’ve seen that for yourself, right? So I took him back to her, but she said no.” His chest feels tight, so he leans back against the couch and tries to breathe in. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do, Jeanist. Our mom doesn’t want him any more than she wanted me, and it’s not like I want him either. I mean, look at me! I can’t take care of a kid, I can barely take care of myself.”
Jeanist is quiet for a moment, and then, “Maybe you should put Hikaru down for a nap before we continue this conversation.”
Hawks looks over, and Hikaru’s visibly fighting sleep, fussing and turning in Jeanist’s arms. Just another fuck-up on Hawks’ list, along with having this conversation in front of him in the first place.
He takes Hikaru without another word and changes him before laying him in the crib, rubbing slow circles on his back until those slow blinks stop and his eyes shut completely. He lingers a little, not wanting to face whatever deserved judgment is waiting for him from Jeanist, but finally sighs and quietly steps out.
“Why didn’t you tell me he was your brother?” Jeanist asks as Hawks flops back down onto the couch.
“You didn’t need to know.”
Jeanist sighs, like he always does when he thinks Hawks is being childish. It’s just as annoying to hear now as it was when Hawks first debuted as a hero.
“It would’ve been good information to know.”
“How would it have changed anything? You knew the important bits, his mom didn’t want him so I got stuck with him. Who his mom is shouldn’t change anything,” Hawks insists, wincing a little as his voice tilts into a whining territory.
“So are you planning on giving him up?”
Hawks whips his head to look at him, eyebrows furrowed and lip curled. He already tried, and that didn’t work. Jeanist’s expression doesn’t change, and Hawks struggles to remember what the hell he was thinking when he called Jeanist, of all people, to talk to. He’s not someone Hawks can bully into mindless agreement. But Jeanist’s question makes him confront the decision he’s already made but won’t admit:
“No.”
Maybe he should feel some sort of shame in telling that to Jeanist, who had to rescue sunburned and rash-covered Hikaru from the top of a building just weeks ago, but there’s no energy left in him for that, only a weight of resignation.
“I’m all he has. And I don’t—” He swallows past the lump in his throat, forces the next words out. “I don’t trust that he might not end up with something worse if I walk away from him.”
The Commission was little Keigo’s best option at the time—Hawks isn’t dumb enough to ignore that. But just the thought of Hikaru surrounded by cold, white walls like he’d been makes his chest tighten uncomfortably. Hikaru deserves better.
“Here’s this, then,” Jeanist says, pulling something out of his tote without even rummaging through it. He holds up a Hikaru-sized jean jacket.
“It’s uh… cute,” Hawks says.
“It’s designer.”
“Why would a baby need a designer jacket? He just runs around in a diaper.”
“I understand you don’t know how to handle affection, Hawks, but let Hikaru have some.”
“Wh-“
“We can’t have him turning out like you, after all. One Hawks is enough.”
“Hey!” Hikaru stirs and whines from the bedroom. Hawks rolls his eyes, but gets up and motions for Jeanist to join him in the kitchen, so their conversation won’t disturb his sleep. He hoists himself up to sit on the counter as Jeanist takes a barstool. With his ungodly long neck, Jeanist is still almost as tall as Hawks with the advantage of a higher perch.
“Endeavor’s been too chicken-shit to text you”—his eyes twinkle when Hawks makes a mock surprised face at the description—”but he’s been worried you don’t want him around Hikaru, since you haven’t asked him over. I know it’s because you’ve been too busy trying to isolate yourself as much as possible, since that seems to be your favorite way of coping with stress.”
Hawks swallows his retort. Hikaru is sleeping, and regardless, Jeanist isn’t wrong. If he’d been faster to bring other heroes into his infiltration mission, maybe the League’s attack wouldn’t have caused so much devastation, and maybe they could have cut off All for One’s return before it even started. It’s a flaw, one that’s already caused casualties. He hasn’t stopped looking at Jeanist, but Jeanist can tell he’s let his thoughts wander, and he patiently waits until they return before he continues. “Try to consider the fact that you’re not as alone as you seem to think you are. Your intern has resorted to trying to pass along messages through Bakugou and myself.”
Hawks winces, feeling a rush of gratitude that Jeanist apparently elected to keep the messages to himself. Hawks had already felt guilty enough ignoring all the texts on his phone.
“What, you expect me to ask him to babysit or something?”
“I expect you to not keep him away from other people. Children need socialization to grow up healthy.”
Unwanted images of the shack he grew up in flash through Hawks’s mind, and he buries his face in his hands. His father’s screams whenever he left the house echo in his ears.
“I didn’t think about that,” he says, and it feels like a flimsy excuse.
Jeanist’s tone softens. “You deserve support, Hawks. If you won’t take it for yourself, at least take it for Hikaru.”
Hikaru starts to fuss from his crib again. It’s not because they’re being loud, this time—he must need something, so Hawks walks back into the room to pick him up. His whimpers start to slow as Hawks cradles him against his chest. He’d read somewhere online that babies get soothed by the sound of their mother’s heartbeat. Hawks isn’t Hikaru’s mom, but maybe it’s close enough.
He stares down at the crib before taking Hikaru back out into the living room with him instead. It’s cheap to get emotional support from a baby, but the weight of Hikaru on him is grounding.
“He doesn’t want a nap,” Hawks explains. “And it’s okay, he doesn’t understand us anyway.” That’s not why Jeanist had suggested a nap, and they both know it. Hawks takes a breath and continues their conversation. Don’t you think it’ll mess him up?” he asks. “The fact that I don’t want him. I never planned to raise a kid like this.”
“My parents used to refer to me as an oops baby,” Jeanist shrugs, then runs his fingers over his swoop of hair. “A child not being in your plans doesn’t mean you can’t raise him with love. If it means anything, I think it’s already clear how much you love him.”
A clean line of drool makes its way down Hikaru’s chin as he sleeps, and Hawks wipes it with his shirt.
“I do,” he whispers, staring down at his little brother, and it aches to think of how true it is. He loves Hikaru in a way he’s only read about in books, only seen in other and towards other people.
“Then start from there, and you can figure out the rest as it comes,” Jeanist says gently. “Now, I think we need to discuss your taste in baby clothes. I think Endeavor’s picked up a few things, and as you know, I’m launching a new children’s clothing line in October. Love is no replacement for style. You should…”
Hawks’s feathers tune into the little pitter-patter of Hikaru’s tiny heartbeat as Jeanist drones on. He sleeps so peacefully on Hawks chest, and Hawks has to wonder if baby Keigo ever slept on either of his parents like this.
Based on memories of his childhood, he doubts it. But Hawks isn’t Keigo, and neither is Hikaru. When he realizes Jeanist has stopped talking, he glances up to see him smiling. Hawks means to shoo him out the door, but… whatever, he can stay. Instead, Hawks just smiles back.