Chapter Text
Over the course of six months, Keigo had sleepless nights, went days without showering, and when the twins were a month old, it reached the point where Keigo called Rumi crying at 2 in the morning, saying he was exhausted and couldn’t do it anymore. So for a month, Rumi temporarily moved in with Keigo and helped him with the twins.
Keigo was so preoccupied with the twins that when the twins were 3 months old, he missed the day that marked the first full year since Toya had left. That day, he folded and organized Toya’s clothes at night after putting the twins down for the night.
Rumi had made Keigo see that he was dealing with postpartum depression and helped him the best she could with what she read on the internet. Recovery Girl also dropped in three times a week, sometimes 5 times.
The twins have just recently started sitting up on their own and were finally eating puree foods. Keigo and Rumi sat in the kitchen, the twins in their high chairs as Keigo fed them banana puree.
“Endeavor is growing tired of you extending your leave every month, ya know?” Rumi says with small concern
Keigo had planned to return to work after the twins were born to avoid suspicion, but he couldn’t bring himself to leave them so soon, especially since Hinokami had been born so small and fragile. At 6 months now, Hinokami had caught up in size with Asuka, but he was definitely quieter than Asuka, more observant.
The twins blabbed, spitting the food out, and he sighed, “I know, I just…how would I even go to work? I have no one to watch them.”
“Recovery girl offered to watch them remember? I mean, with pay, of course, but you don’t really have many options on who could watch them,” she says
Keigo bites his lips nervously as he cleans his son’s face, that were covered in food.
“If you don’t go back soon, Endeavor will come looking for you instead, and you know you can’t have him on your ass, not unless you want to reveal the twins to the world.”
He clenches his jaw, “I’ll go back next month…” he says quietly.
Rumi nudges his shoulder with hers and smiles at him, “It might also help you feel normal again; it could be better for you this way.”
“...Maybe,” he says
—
Keigo stayed true to his word; next month came, and he gave Endeavor the heads up that he would return. He felt so anxious leaving his twins alone with Recovery Girl for the first time. His instincts scream at him to fly back, to take care of his babies. But he stayed, avoiding a lot of people because every question was either “where have you been?” or “Why did you disappear for so long?”
That all goes down the drain when Keigo is told he needs a physical before he’s able to go on missions since he’s been gone for so long, and even worse, it’s not Recovery Girl doing the check-up because she’s too busy helping keep his secret.
What could go wrong anyway? It’s not like he was pregnant again.
—
The bright, clinical lights of the Commission’s medical wing made Keigo’s feathers prickle as he perched on the examination table, wings folded neatly to hide any fatigue. He forced a calm, casual posture, masking the subtle ache in his muscles.
“Vitals are stable,” the doctor said, scrolling through his tablet. “Heart rate, oxygen levels… reflexes are all normal. But these readings, weight fluctuations, hormonal irregularities, and reduced endurance are remarkably consistent with postpartum recovery.”
Keigo’s smirk remained in place, but his wings twitched slightly. “Postpartum? I… don’t follow.”
The doctor exchanged a glance with a colleague, frowning. “We’ve cross-checked the sensors multiple times. The pattern is clear. Muscle recovery is slower, stamina is compromised, and endocrine levels are fluctuating. These are not typical for a male pro hero.”
Keigo’s chest tightened, but his voice stayed steady. “Could be a system error. Maybe the sensors misread something.”
“System error?” The first doctor’s brow furrowed deeper. “Across multiple readings? It’s… highly unusual. These vitals are practically textbook postpartum, yet… biologically, it shouldn’t be possible.”
A Commission handler appeared at the doorway, arms crossed, expression unreadable. “We’ll consider it a minor software glitch. Keep him on schedule. Resume full operations.”
The doctors glanced at one another, hesitation in their eyes, but the handler’s presence was authoritative enough to override their unease.
Keigo flexed his wings subtly, feeling the lingering tremor in his muscles, and nodded once. Inside, his thoughts were sharp and deliberate.
“No one can know. Not the Commission. Not anyone. They’ll rationalize it away, but I have to be careful. Every mission, every patrol… I’ll have to mask every fatigue, every fluctuation, every change. My body isn’t just mine anymore.”
As he left the medical wing, the sterile hum of the scanners still echoed in his mind, a quiet reminder of the secret he carried and the weight of the lie he had to maintain.
That was Keigo’s first slip-up up and he thought it would be his only slip-up.
A month later, Keigo landed on the rooftop, folding his wings neatly behind him. His body ached in ways that no training exercise could account for, and he was running on barely any sleep.
He tugged at the hem of his uniform, trying to brush off a faint streak of milk, but it was stubborn. The scent of baby powder clung faintly to his feathers, almost imperceptible, almost.
“Hawks.”
Keigo froze. Endeavor’s voice carried from the edge of the roof, sharp and assessing. The fire hero’s gaze swept over him, pausing a fraction too long on the faint stains and the subtle sheen of fatigue in his eyes.
“Long night?” Endeavor asked, tone clipped, though his sharp eyes didn’t leave Keigo.
“Uh… yeah. You know, routine patrol stuff,” Keigo said smoothly, forcing a grin and tucking his wings closer to his body.
Endeavor didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he tilted his head, nostrils flaring faintly as if testing the air. He took a deliberate step closer, and Keigo felt the heat of those scrutinizing eyes.
“You sure that’s all it is?” Endeavor said finally, voice low but edged with suspicion. “You’re tired. Clothes… something smells. Are you carrying more than just your usual hero duties?”
Keigo’s heart thumped, but his outward composure didn’t waver. “Nothing unusual,” he said, adjusting his jacket to cover the faint milk stain. “Just a rough night, that’s all.”
Endeavor’s gaze lingered longer than comfortable. Keigo flexed his wings subtly, hiding the trembling under control. For now, the slip-up had been minor, barely noticeable, but he knew the fire hero had filed it away. If Endeavor started digging, every secret he’d been keeping could unravel.
Keigo adjusted his jacket, masking the faint milk streaks, and flexed his wings subtly, forcing calm.
Endeavor lingered a few steps behind, pretending to check the horizon, but his sharp gaze tracked every movement. He noticed the way Keigo’s feathers carried a faint, unfamiliar scent, and how his posture betrayed exhaustion beyond normal patrol fatigue.
“Hmm,” Endeavor muttered under his breath, mostly to himself, jotting a note on a small pad.
Keigo glanced back, catching the movement, and forced a grin. “Everything okay?”
Endeavor’s eyes didn’t waver. “I’ll be keeping an eye on you,” he said simply. No accusation, just a promise.
Keigo’s stomach tightened. For now, nothing was revealed, but he knew Endeavor had already begun piecing things together.
Another month later, Keigo had thought the heat on him was finally dying down, and then he messed up again.
Keigo was exhausted. The twins were 9 months old now, and they were crawling all over the place, and their tiny wings flapped hard enough to lift them a few centimeters off the ground, which led to Keigo bird-proofing the entire house and adding soft padding in their play area.
Keigo was worried about the potential of them inheriting Toya’s quirk too; he didn’t know jack shit about fire quirks, and the little knowledge he had of Toya’s past, the thought of his sons living the same event terrified him.
To say the least, Keigo’s mind was always drifting to the twins, his concerns over them, their quirks, their safety, their future.
On a low-risk patrol, he soared over the city, scanning rooftops, but his wings felt heavier than usual. A sharp gust hit, and his grip faltered on a mission-critical support beam. He caught himself just in time, heart pounding, feathers ruffling in a way that drew the attention of a nearby Commission agent. Keigo plastered a calm expression on his face, flexing and adjusting his posture to mask the tremor. They can’t know.
Later that week, during a coordination drill with other heroes, a notification flashed across his phone: “Asuka spilled all the formula, buy more on your way home!” Reflexively, he glanced down at the screen. His hand closed over it too quickly, but not before another agent, a new trainee with unusually sharp eyes, caught a glimpse. Keigo’s pulse quickened. Too close.
Even his sleep-deprived reflexes were starting to betray him. Dropping feathers slightly out of sync during training, misjudging distances in the flight chamber, he compensated with perfect outward form, but sensors and subtle readings picked up the extra energy expenditure. Endeavor’s note-taking didn’t go unnoticed. The fire hero lingered silently, always present at the edges of Keigo’s missions, observing patterns, measuring fatigue, scent, and demeanor.
By the end of the month, small mistakes, too-early departures, faint traces of baby powder in the uniform, added up in the minds of those watching. Keigo’s careful balancing act was starting to fray. He felt the invisible weight of eyes tracking him, the pressure of questions unasked but implied.