Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It had been a long meeting, at the end of a long week, but, after all they’d been through, there was something comforting about even the mildly overwhelming roar of so many heroes’ discordant chatter. Ostensibly, the purpose of these meetings was to facilitate information sharing, but Enji knew that they were as much about the reassurance of each other’s presence as anything else. They’d lost enough that it was still a relief to hear Fatgum’s loud laughter, Mirko’s booming voice as she retold the story of some villain capture. One voice he kept waiting to hear and didn’t—and Enji found himself turning to scan the room, until his eyes found bright red wings, and he could let out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. It wasn’t that he didn’t know that Hawks was fine, but there was something about seeing those wings flutter and shift, the slope of his jaw as his mouth edged into a grin as he said something to make Shouto laugh—

Shouto?

Enji watched carefully now, took in the way that Hawks and Shouto were tucked into a corner of the room. Not out of sight, obviously, but far enough away that their conversation obviously read as private. After the laughter ended, Shouto said something else to Hawks, his face falling back into that tight little frown that he seemed to wear most of the time. Hawks listened for a while—actually listened, which was a shock in and of itself, that he wasn’t interrupting to bug and nag like he constantly did to Enji, which much mean this was something serious—and then was reaching out to rest a hand on Shouto’s shoulder. Enji couldn’t see his face clearly, just the edge of his profile, but it was enough to see that the sharp grin that had fallen from his face while he listened to Shouto was replaced now by a soft smile. Whatever he said brought a similar expression to Shouto’s face. Without understanding why, Enji looked away, struck with a sudden pang of emotion, too much all at once, and at first it registered as anger—always anger—but he wasn’t that kind of man anymore, so after a long moment clenching his hands, the tight hot knot of anger loosened, fell into separate threads of—sadness (I’ve never seen Shoto smile like that before, never), jealousy (why Hawks? what did he do to make you smile? why are you sharing this moment?), pride (because I’m glad it’s Hawks, you are both such good heroes, such good men), and, right there at the center of the knot, anger (at himself, always at himself, for not deserving these moments).

“Endeavor-san?” Enji turned around to see the Midoriya kid looking up at him with those huge green eyes, holding one of those notebooks of his, and turned his attention to answering the kid’s question.

“Shouto.”

They were on their way out of the agency, Bakugo and Midoriya arguing over something just a few yards ahead, so Endeavor kept his voice low. The only indication that Shouto had heard him was a slight tension to his shoulders and a muttered ‘what’ so low that Enji almost didn’t hear it.

“What were you talking to Hawks about today? After the hero meeting?”

If anything, Shouto got tenser, his shoulders creeping higher.

“Nothing.”

“Is it something about hero work? Because Hawks is undoubtedly a good hero, but I could help with any questions you have.”

“Drop it, it’s nothing.” Shouto’s voice had edged out of his normal monotone and into a dangerous level of flatness, one that Enji was beginning to learn to heed, so he stayed silent and let Shouto catch up with Midoriya and Bakugo and slot in-between them to play peacemaker.

A week later, Hawks climbed through his office window while he was doing paperwork.

“Hawks.” He was trying for stern, but since everything at Jaku, Enji had had a hard time being stern with Hawks.

“Hey big guy! I know, I know—doors, not windows, but, c’mon, you’ve ridden in your elevator. Long wait, crowded, bo-ring. Why ride when you can fly?” Hawks was crossing the room to lean on an edge of his desk, while he let one of his feathers shut the window behind him.

“What are you doing here?”

“I just happened to be in the neighborhood, decided to drop in, check in, you know—the usual.” At that moment, Enji heard the distinct sound of a stomach growling, and turned to glare at Hawks.

“Really?”

“I mean maybe I forgot to eat lunch, but you know how busy heroing is! That’s not why I dropped by—or at least, not the only reason. I like you for more than your wallet, Endeavor-san.” Hawks was laughing, but his feathers were ruffling in a distinctly nervous way and he was running a hand through his hair. Enji sighed, and shoved his paperwork to the side.

“I’m too busy to go out anywhere—behind on paperwork after that minor gang bust earlier this week. We’ll go to the cafeteria.”

Hawks kept up his inane chatter as they walked through the halls down to the agency cafeteria on the second floor of his building, through the line for food, and all the way to the table, where Enji noticed that, as soon as they sat down, Hawks’ left wing slumped slightly, at an awkward angle.

“Hawks,” he said, interrupting the younger hero mid-sentence halfway through some kind of story about one of Mirko’s sidekicks’ birthday. “How did you get here?”

“Well, you see, when a mama bird loves a daddy bird—”

“You flew, didn’t you?” The sudden tightness in Hawks’ jaw and the bob his throat as he swallowed gave him away. “Hawks—you’re not supposed to be straining your wings or the new muscle in your back like that.”

“Number one, I didn’t know you cared!” Hawks was laughing cheekily, but avoided making eye contact.

“If you strain the muscle, you could do permanent damage. It’s a hero’s job to take care of themselves, Hawks.” He listened to Hawks’ half-hearted apologies and promises, making a mental note to keep a closer eye on the man, and noticed Shouto’s eyes on them from across the cafeteria.

“Was it about starting your own agency?”

“Was what—my conversation with Hawks? I told you to drop it.”

They were walking towards the UA dorms together—Shouto insisted that the students didn’t need to be walked to the door like children, but, thankfully, Eraserhead agreed with Enji that no matter how much the kids had proved themselves in battle, unnecessary risks remained unnecessary.

“Because while I hope you know that I would be happy for you to take over the agency some day, it’s fine if you want to start your own. Admirable, even. I could tell you about the early days of the agency. When I inherited it from your grandfather, it wasn’t—it was essentially starting anew. I could—”

“It wasn’t about starting my own agency.” Shouto had quickened his pace, and they were at the door to the dorms now.

“Well, then, was it—”

Shouto had shut the door in his face.

Enji knew he should drop it. He’d heard enough from his therapist about respecting boundaries, especially the fragile ones his children were trying to draw as they struggled their way towards healthy relationships with their father. But he couldn’t stop thinking about the look on Shouto’s face, that soft little smile—the trust in it, the comfort in it—and the twist of jealousy in his gut when he thought about that smile directed at him. He just wanted to show Shouto that if he would just let Enji in, he could be worth that smile too.

They were washing up after family dinner on a Thursday, the only two left in the estate. Fuyumi and Natsuo had already left to go back to the home they shared with Rei, and Enji would drive Shouto back to the UA dorms soon. Even silently washing dishes, Shouto’s mouth was drawn into a tiny little frown, and Enji couldn’t help but picture that smile.

“Was it about—”

“Seriously? It wasn’t even hero stuff, it was about guy stuff, okay?” Shouto dropped the plate he’d been holding, and Enji winced as he watched it chip against the counter.

“Guy stuff? Shouto, I’m a—”

“Not about being a guy. About being… into guys.”

There was a long, hesitant pause between them. Enji’s mind was flickering between stunned silence and deafening moments of too many thoughts, too much input.

“Because, you know, Hawks and Mirko are the only out heroes in the top ten.”

One thought floated to the top of Enji’s brain, and he couldn’t begin to (refused to) guess at why it was the first thought that came out.

“Hawks is gay?”

“I—Are you kidding?” One of the parts of Enji’s brain that was still working noted a lick of flame flickering across Shouto’s cheek. “I come out to you and that’s the first thing you have to say? You’re not surprised I’m gay?”

This—this he knew the answer to, though his mouth was still moving faster than his brain, and his therapist had warned him about speaking without thinking about thinking through the consequences first, but the last thing he’d said was Hawks is gay and the realization was still ringing in his brain when this should be about Shouto.

“Shouto. When you were six you informed me you were going to marry All Might.”

“And you told me to shut up with that disgusting nonsense!”

“Of course I did—you weren’t going to marry All Might!”

“Oh my—so you’re seriously trying to tell me you weren’t homophobic, that this was just about your stupid hatred of All Might?”

“Of course I’m not homophobic, I—” Enji could feel the temperature rising on both sides of the sink, could see more flames licking across Shouto’s face, uncontrolled, and he stopped himself. Took a long, deep breath the way that he’d practiced, let his mind clear into nothingness and then let himself feel each emotion, let each unnecessary thought drift away until he could find the words he wanted to say, the ones he meant to say.

“Shouto. I’m sorry that I ever made you feel like you had to hide this part of yourself from me. Who you love will not stop me from being proud of you. I understand why you didn’t want to tell me or talk to me about this, and I’m glad Hawks is someone you feel comfortable speaking about this with.”

Shouto looked frozen, eyes wide open, as Enji slowly turned to continue doing the dishes. Silence reigned until they were sitting in the car on the way back to UA, when Shouto finally muttered, eyes fixed firmly out the window—

“Thanks, Dad.”

The next day at the weekly hero meeting, Enji couldn’t help but notice Hawks more than usual. He’d never bothered learning any personal information about his fellow heroes—irrelevant—and he told himself that it remained irrelevant. It shouldn’t change the way that he saw Hawks at all.

He watched Hawks stretch his wings behind himself, laughing at something Mirko said.

Nothing should change.

He watched Hawks take a seat next to his intern, the one from Shouto’s class, leaning over to mutter something to the stoic teen that made a hint of a smile break out on his face.

Nothing should change.

From across the room, Shouto’s eyes on him caught his attention. Shouto looked away before they made eye contact and turned to Bakugo, saying something that started more of Bakugo’s infernal yelling.

Nothing had changed.

Chapter Text

It wasn’t even a week later that Hawks was at his office door again.

“I used the elevator this time. Aren’t you proud of me, number one?” He looked pleased with himself, and a little more put together than the last time Enji had seen him. His wings looked good—fuller than before, no drooping. He could never say that out loud, though, because even Enji had the emotional wherewithal to realize that Hawks hated to be pitied, for anyone to act like Hawks should be anything other than his absolute best, so his brain just skipped ahead to—

“Why are you here?”

At that, something in Hawks’ bright grin faltered, and something somewhere in Enji’s gut fell painfully in response. He’d been trying to be—not nicer, per se, but… better. Not for everyone, but at least for the people who mattered. For his family. For Shouto’s friends. Inexplicably, for Hawks. He’s told himself that he owes Hawks, is all. Hawks’ injuries were his fault (Hawks’ beautiful red wings, another casualty burned up in Endeavor’s flames).

“For lunch. You… invited me?”

Hawks’s tone fell just short of his usual carefree air, and Enji blinked, momentarily stunned by the realization that Hawks actually wasn’t just doing his usual teasing. “I didn’t.”

“I did,” another voice echoed from the hallway outside his office, and Enji’s attention shifted to see Shouto, his friends hovering behind him awkwardly, mismatched eyes meeting Enji’s gaze with a challenging stare. “Is that a problem?”

And—oh. “Of course it’s not a problem,” Enji replied, keeping his eyes on Shouto’s, ignoring the urge to examine the nervous fluttering of Hawks’ wings he could see in his peripheral vision. “I’ll just—uh, see you all later.”

“The reservation is for five,” Shouto said, turning around and heading towards the elevator. “Might as well come too, old man.”

Shouto said nothing further on the subject as the motley group made their way out of the agency and through streets teeming with the midday lunch rush. Shouto said nothing further on any subject, actually, keeping his usual silence. Between Midoriya, frantically quizzing Hawks on his latest villain takedown while scribbling notes in that damn notebook of his, and Hawks, answering good-naturedly and dealing with any civilian interest in the group, the walk passed with as little awkwardness as could be expected. Enji had never thought he’d be grateful for Midoriya’s incessant chatter, but he supposed there was a first time for everything. And, when he was honest with himself, the kid wasn’t that bad; even before Shigaraki, Enji had found himself almost fond of him, if only because he was such a good friend to Shouto. He looked between the babbling boy and Shouto, spying Shouto huffing a short laugh at something Midoriya was saying. Maybe they—should he tell Shouto that he would approve? Of Midoriya? No, Shouto wouldn’t care for his approval, right? Unless… Shouto had, actually, in the end, been nervous about telling Enji about his sexuality, had thought that Enji had disapproved. But would saying he would approve of Midoriya imply that there were choices that Enji would disapprove of? And while that wasn’t necessarily wrong—Enji’s eyes lingered on Bakugo, who was currently yelling at a passerby who’d had the misfortune of being saved from stepping into traffic by the angry teen—for Shouto, Enji would put those feelings aside.

They’d made it the restaurant and were sitting down, and Enji still didn’t know what, if anything, to say to Shouto. Enji never knew what to say to Shouto. He’d spent his whole life working from the scripts of his father, and his grandfather before him, only to realize that they were—that he was a failure, as a hero, and as a father, and to start all over at square one, half his life spent walking down the wrong path. He kept trying to be better, but even still, he knew that more than half the time he said or did the wrong thing—voice too loud, tone too harsh, Shouto’s shoulders flinching imperceptibly or his stare going just that bit more icy. And now there were more landmines for him to desperately try to avoid.

Caught in his own thoughts, he didn’t notice the attention of several sets of eyes on him until he felt one of Hawks’ feathers nudging at his back.

“Sorry, Shouto-kun, didn’t quite catch that,” Hawks said breezily, and Enji glanced over at the grinning hero and wished that he was the kind of person who knew how to express his gratitude in some kind of simple, subtle way.

“I asked if you knew of any gay bars.” Shouto’s stare shifted to Enji, though his tone didn’t change at all. “I decided I’d like to go to one.”

Blessedly, everything was silent for a long moment, while Enji tried to force his brain to think of—if not the right response, any alright response. He instinctively knew that this was a test, of sorts, a public challenge from Shouto, and one he couldn’t afford to mess up—not just in front of Shouto, but in front of Midoriya, bright red and eyes wider than Enji had ever seen them, Bakugo, snorting and rolling his eyes, and in front of Hawks—Hawks who was looking up at him with real surprise in his golden eyes and a light flush across his cheeks, Hawks who had been his biggest fan, Hawks who had looked up to him as a hero since he was a kid, Hawks who was gay.

But time was running out, the moment was stretching too long, and so Enji just sighed and said, “No drinking until you’re 20.”

Bakugo let out a short bark of laughter, though Enji breathed easier when Shouto scowled, as if the laughter was at his expense and not at Enji’s. He cast a half-glance over at Hawks to find that even though the flush on his face had deepened, he was looking back at Enji with a smile, big and bright like he’d done that first time they’d had lunch in Fukuoka. Fuck, Enji needed to thank Hawks. He couldn’t say anything in front of Shouto, it would embarrass him, and it wasn’t like Enji was any good at putting together the right words, anyway, but—

Because Enji was staring right at Hawks, he noticed the sudden tension in the younger man’s body and the shiver that rippled through his wings a half-second before he registered the vibrations of the ground beneath them and the beginning sounds of screams, so he was only a step behind the winged hero on their way out the door, listening to the interns tripping over themselves to follow them.

Now wasn’t the time, but later—he’d thank Hawks later.

Later didn’t come the next time Enji saw Hawks, or the time after that, or even the time after that. Enji was used to Hawks dropping by his office once every couple of weeks, if that, seeing him at top hero meetings, maybe an occasional phone call on a tip or lead one of them had. But somehow, Shouto had figured out that Hawks was working on a long-term case and staying nearby, and so the awkward lunches had become a weekly event, and then twice weekly. Not that Enji had an issue with Hawks’ more frequent presence, but all the moments that he used to get with Hawks bled into their lunches, he didn’t dare say anything to Hawks with Shouto around—he still got the sense that Shouto was assessing him somehow—and he didn’t know how to get a moment with Hawks alone. He could say something, but the words never quite came right to his brain, he always felt half-tripped up, and so he just… left, ignoring the feeling of Hawks’ eyes on him.

And then there were the times Enji was glad Hawks wasn’t around.

The agency was oddly quiet, for once, and Enji walked down to the cafeteria to see a group of his sidekicks huddled around a table with their heads bent low, the interns too, mumbling and passing something back and forth. Shouto glanced up when he heard Enji come in, and Enji saw a shadow of something like amusement pass across Shouto’s face, but before he could really identify what it was, his expression was back to its usual placidity.

“Why don’t we get the opinion of the number one hero himself?” Shouto said, just loudly enough for his voice to carry across the room to Enji’s ears. He started heading for the table, curiosity bleeding into his irritation at his staff for whatever distraction they were entertaining, growing stronger as Burnin herself looked up from whatever was on the table, her normally grinning face horrified and as red as Enji’s flames.

“What is this,” Enji said, staring down at whatever Burnin was trying to half-cover with her body.

“We were just looking at Hawks’ latest advertising campaign. What do you think, old man?” Shouto’s voice had that challenging tone again, as he pulled what turned out to be a magazine from Burnin’s desperate grip and handed it to Enji.

It took all of Enji’s hard-won control to keep the flames on his face from flaring out dangerously as he looked at the image in front of him, but he did note that several of his sidekicks winced at the sudden temperature increase he couldn’t help. Because Hawks’ face was staring up at him from the page, looking over his shoulder from between red wings spread proudly, his usual playful expression suddenly intense, body posed in such a way that he looked half a second from taking off, perched on a boulder in nothing but a pair of too-tight swim trunks. After he’d torn his eyes away from picture-Hawks’ piercing stare, his attention caught on the line of Hawks’ back—a long, lithe line, rippling with the muscle Enji knew Hawks had worked painstakingly to build back up so he could fly again, and—absolutely covered in burn scars, skin mottled and warped, jarring differences where the grafts had been, and Enji couldn’t stop himself from bringing his thumb up across the page to trace the skin. The text, advertising—cologne? who knew?—read “fly free”.

Someone coughed, and Enji realized he’d been looking at the picture for too long. He fought the urge to flare up in embarrassment again, and instead cleared his throat. They’d asked for his opinion?

“Being a hero means being a public figure, which means getting asked to do endorsements and advertising like this frequently. How to handle it depends on the type of image you have and want to project as a hero—endorsements that seem genuine and are well-received from heroes like Fat Gum or Mt. Lady would seem awkward or insincere from a hero like Eraserhead or Nighteye.”

Midoriya had reached into his backpack to get his notebook, but Shouto shot an impatient glare at the magazine in Enji’s hand.

“That’s why I don’t do these kind of things often—not because I disapprove of them categorically, but because they don’t fit with my image. The hardest thing to balance with endorsements and advertisements is how to appear in them while still maintaining enough an appearance of strength that people feel they can count on you as a hero in times of crisis. Hawks is the current hero who achieves that balance best.”

Enji noticed, with some small satisfaction, several jaws dropping around the table. He didn’t often praise others, but what he was saying was true—he’d known it from the first time he’d patrolled with Hawks, that the younger man could pull off a public image that simultaneously led people to both genuinely like him as a person and genuinely trust in him as a hero. It wasn’t until after Jaku that he’d realized just how much of a well-orchestrated facade it had all been, but it just made Enji admire the man more—that Hawks knew what it meant to struggle for the success.

“And the best heroes can make these opportunities work for them. Hawks’ injuries after his—after the—” Enji stumbled slightly, thinking of Touya’s face twisted in maniacal glee, “after last year are public knowledge, to a degree. By taking an opportunity like this, he ends the quiet speculation about them while still showing them from a position of strength. And the product tagline might as well be a hero slogan here—not only emphasizing the strength in flying, but the freedom of showing the scars.”

Midoriya was writing so quickly Enji thought he could hear the pencil ripping through paper, and Shouto was looking up at him with a dumbfounded expression on his face. None of them knew he was essentially paraphrasing a conversation he’d had with his PR agent long ago, on whether to attempt reconstructive surgery to reduce the appearance of the scar on his face after the battle with the High End, but the point had been the same both times. He’s glad Hawks got the chance to make this point, to show his strength for the whole of Japan to see, because—Enji glanced back down at the magazine in his hand, the glossy sheen of the paper over the gnarled lines of the scars, and realized his thumb was running over the proud angle of Hawks’ back again.

He tossed the magazine back onto the table, where it landed with a smack that seemed too loud for the suddenly quiet room.

“Now get back to work, all of you.”

The next week, Shouto came to Enji’s office of his own volition for the first time since he’d started at the agency. Enji dropped his paperwork immediately.

“Shouto.”

“… Endeavor,” Shouto returned, and Enji tried not to let the missing ‘Dad’ bother him. It was enough that Shouto was here—speaking to him, learning from him, tolerating him. He didn’t deserve to ask for more. So he just nodded, waited while Shouto realized that Enji wasn’t going to say anything about the form of address.

“What you said about Hawks’ ad campaign…” Something twisted in Shouto’s expression, and Enji startled to realize that he looked almost… sad, or guilty, just for a moment. “It’s not something we’ve talked about a lot in school yet. I know some of the other students at their internships and work studies have gone along to things like that, and I wanted to…” Shouto trailed off, just the hint of a blush on his cheeks, embarrassed at having to ask, and Enji understood.

“Of course. I don’t often do those, but I could find another hero for you to shadow to—”

“No,” Shouto interrupted, all traces of his blush gone. “I mean—I’d like to see how you handle it.”

And Enji hadn’t done any kind of advertising campaign in at least ten years, but—Shouto cared about how he would handle it, as a hero. Shouto wanted to learn from him, and not anyone else.

“I’ll talk to my secretary and try to get something set up.”

In lieu of a response, Shouto just nodded and turned to head for the door. After hesitating for a moment longer, watching his son’s back with a mix of hope and pride and guilt, Enji finally reached for the paperwork he’d set down when Shouto first walked in.

“Thanks,” Shouto suddenly said, stopping on the threshold and looking back over his shoulder at Enji. In the moment before the door shut between them, Enji thought he could see a hint of that same guilt he’d seen before, when he’d mentioned what Enji had said about Hawks. But then the door closed, the expression was gone, and Enji was left to chalk it up to underlying guilt about Touya—something Enji was painfully familiar with—and let it go.

Chapter Text

Fighting the urge to sneeze as the man in front of him frowned, then resumed attacking him with a makeup brush, Enji was forcibly reminded of why he hated doing this. Only decades of a hard-won sense of professional responsibility and the memory of the stricken expression on Hawks’ face kept him from storming out of the studio, ad campaign be damned.

He’d arrived promptly, the UA trio in tow, expecting nothing more than a day of mild discomfort and, at worst, a difficult conversation with the professionals in charge of the shoot explaining why the three teenagers he’d brought had destroyed some piece of equipment. Ironically enough, he’d been in the middle of explaining to the three teens how he had trusted his secretary and his PR agent to make the arrangements for today, the importance of finding personnel you could trust and not micromanaging all aspects of your hero career, when the door to the interior waiting room had flung open and Hawks had strolled through.

“Number one! Boy, was I surprised when they told me you’d be doing this one with me—I mean, you haven’t done an ad campaign since that fire safety public health bit in March of—I mean, sometime around then, I guess—but this is going to be great! A little more risqué than I thought you were willing to do, but number one’s gotta be full of surprises, I suppose, so—”

Hawks had stopped short at whatever look must have been on Enji’s face, and Enji hastily tried to rearrange it into something less—less Endeavor, more calm and patient new Enji. His head felt like one of those vintage ping pong machines, thoughts bouncing around all incoherent dings and bells and flashing lights, without attachment to each other or any throughline: ad campaign with Hawks, Hawks knew that the fire safety campaign was the last he’d done, god that had been embarrassing and easily a decade ago, wait—risqué?

“I need to make a call,” he’d said, blowing past Hawks and the flicker of hurt momentarily clear in his eyes as he made his way to a private restroom and called his agent. By the end of the call, she was nearly in tears, but it was clear to Enji what had happened. Or rather, who had happened. Shouto—who had informed his agent that Enji’s agreement to do an ad campaign had included a desire to collaborate with Hawks, and who had worked with his agent to identify this as the perfect collaboration.

Enji closed his eyes against another puff of makeup and suppressed the flames of irritation that were threatening to escape. The makeup artist had been working on this for ages, never seeming happy with his work. Enji supposed it must have been difficult to apply facial makeup to someone whose face was half covered in scars while not actually covering the scar itself—because that was the final thing that had kept him from walking off of the set. The campaign centered around being comfortable in one’s own skin, and, along with he and Hawks as the celebrity face of the campaign, featured civilians who had been, in one way or another, scarred or otherwise reshaped by the parade of villain attacks starting with Kamino. It barely—barely—outweighed the fact that the actual product they were advertising was underwear.

He kept his eyes closed against the onslaught of now some sort of spray that, as it dried, made his face feel briefly tacky before fading into a smooth layer of nothingness atop his skin. Apparently, that was the last step, because the makeup artist, with a hum of satisfaction, let him up out of the chair and shepherded him back into the main room, where little clusters of people were murmuring as they fiddled with cameras and lights. And, of course, Hawks was already there, watching them work. He’d apparently eschewed the robe they’d given Enji as a nod to modesty—and really, of course Hawks didn’t give a whit about modesty—but it meant that, as he approached, Enji could see the line of his wings, red seeming almost to glow in the soft lighting that was being set up, an ember flaring right before it sparked into flame; the lean muscle in his back, taut and defined even while Hawks was at ease, belying the easy grace he’d always carried his wings with; tapering as it led down to the top of the tight underwear that they were supposed to be selling; and over it all, down the length of his back, the warped and mottled texture, physical proof of what he’d survived. No, no matter what he’d implied to his agent on the phone earlier, or what he’d say to Shouto later, there was no way Enji could have ever walked away from this shoot.

Hawks’ wings ruffled, just slightly, and Enji froze as he realized that, quite without his conscious permission, his hand was raised, reaching out, only inches from the span of Hawks’ back. How funny—Enji hadn’t been aware of what he was doing, but of course Hawks would have been. With his wings, he’d probably been aware of every breath Enji had taken since he came out of the dressing room.

“Number one?” Hawks said, something hesitant in his voice, even as he kept his eyes on the set up going on in front of them. Right—he’d of course have been able to feel Enji’s sudden halt. Which meant—Enji had been about to—what? Touch him? Yes, something in Enji’s subconscious answered, touch him, run one of his own warm hands down the length of scar tissue, feel every ridge and warp, the way he’d unconsciously done to the magazine image of the same thing. And Hawks would have just… let him?

Enji was still frozen in place when Hawks finally craned his neck to look back at Enji over his shoulder.

“I’m—sorry,” Enji choked out, tearing his eyes away from Hawks’ back to catch his face. For a split second, whatever expression had been on Hawks’ face caught, froze in place for a half second before it melted into something—different. No less soft or fond than it had been, but different, and—shit, Enji wished he were better at this, because he had no idea what emotion he’d seen on Hawks’ face for that split second, and while he wasn’t sure if he could decipher it even given all the time in the world, he would have liked to at least try.

“My injuries are my own responsibility.” Hawks’ voice was soft, so different from his usual joking tone, and so was the half-smile he was giving Enji, and he thought that Enji was apologizing for his scars and not for the aborted… whatever Enji had been about to do, but the mistake didn’t matter, because Enji was sorry for so many things that did specifying them even matter anymore? Enji let his hand drop, clenching reflexively into a fist.

“I hope that made you feel better when I said it to you than it makes me feel now.”

And that, at least, pulled a laugh from Hawks, even if Enji hadn’t meant it to. He’d been sincere, because, well, he’d meant it when he’d said it to Hawks, had known that Hawks had done everything he could, that he wouldn’t even be alive to have the scar if it hadn’t been for Hawks, but hearing his words parroted back at him didn’t make the gaping maw of guilt hollowing out his chest feel any less painful.

“It didn’t, but it’s okay big guy—I forgive you.” There was something playing at the edges of Hawks’ expression again, something in the corners of his mouth and the slant of his eyes, that Enji couldn’t quite see, but—

“Hawks,” he started, hand unclenching and reaching forward again to—

“We’re ready for you, Endeavor-san, Hawks-san!” It was only by virtue of a long hero career that Enji stopped himself from jerking in shock at the sudden call. Hawks didn’t flinch either, but Enji had seen the brief widening of his eyes and the little twitch of his wings that meant he’d been caught off guard too.

The team was bearing down on them now, positioning them at different angles to the light, posing them like little marionette dolls, snapping test shots and then doing it all over again. There wasn’t a moment when they were out of the spotlight glare of the attention of the whole set, including the three teenagers Enji had, for a moment, forgotten he’d even brought, and that fact alone made Enji want to flare up in frustration. He hadn’t known what he was about to say, back there in their quiet moment, and when he’d been in it he’d felt flustered and uncomfortable, but he wanted it back, to let it play out—not this, both of them with their public faces on. Hawks, with his public face on, laughing and joking with the set team in a way that, while not a lie, never quite seemed to fit as comfortably on his face as whatever had flashed between them.

And, so, if Enji spent the whole time between shots studying Hawks’ face, trying to recollect every tiny detail of the expression that he’d glimpsed earlier, every shade and nuance of it, well—no one would have to know, would they?

“Did you see what you needed to see?”

They were alone in the car together, heading from the agency back home for weekly dinner. Shouto had been studiously avoiding his gaze since they’d left the shoot, but even turned away as he was, Enji could see the flickers of guilt on his son’s face as he posed the question.

“I—yes,” Shouto answered, voice almost too quiet for the evening street noise rising around them.

Enji recalled his anger from earlier that day, the number of things he’d imagined saying to Shouto as soon as they were in private—about responsibility, about duty, about respect. He exhaled. Somehow, looking at Shouto’s face, it felt better to have imagined saying them and then let them go than he thought it would feel to actually say them.

“It was a good campaign,” he said, trying to soften his voice to match Shouto’s tone. It was still too loud, a little too strident, but by the way Shouto’s head jerked up to look curiously in Enji’s direction, he’d caught the attempt.

“It—your agent is very good. She said she has a list, always, of offers she thinks you’d accept, in case you ever want to.”

Enji snorted out a half-laugh. “She is very good. I told you—there are many facets to being a hero. It’s important to know what you’re good at, and what you’re not. It’s… a lesson I didn’t learn for a very long time.”

Shouto nodded, but the silence that fell between them felt—comfortable. Not tense, not awkward, not like it was covering a thousand screams and insults and fights buried in the rubble of their forced quiet. Just comfortable. Enji let his gaze wander over to Shouto, to his left side.

“This campaign is the one I would have chosen, off of her list.”

Shouto jerked, just slightly, in his seat, and turned a curious stare on Enji.

“Had I been consulted,” Enji continued, fighting a laugh at the flush rising on Shouto’s cheeks.

“Really?” His son’s voice was hesitant.

“Really,” he answered, nodding in a way that brooked no disagreement. He let it sink in for Shouto for a moment, let the blush start to fade from his cheeks, and then added, “Though I would have negotiated for the shots to be in something other than my underwear.”

At that, Shouto couldn’t even attempt to hide his embarrassment, his face so red that it was hard to make out where his scar even began, and Enji couldn’t hold back his laugh any longer. Shouto shot him a look of surprise, and then, seeing something in Enji’s face, he let out his own little huff of laughter, barely more than an exhale, and—it wasn’t quite the soft smile he’d worn talking to Hawks at that hero meeting long ago, but, to Enji, it wasn’t bad either.

Chapter Text

“You don’t have to do this, number one.” Hawks’ voice was high and nasal, throaty around the way he was using one feather, turned flexible but strong, to keep his nose pinched as they walked through the halls of Enji’s agency, his sidekicks and staff giving the two of them a wide berth. Enji pretended not to hear one of his newest sidekicks duck down a side hall and dry heave.

Enji sighed, careful to manage the resulting inhale with delicacy so he didn’t wind up like his poor sidekick. “Shouto’s control over his fire isn’t yet as strong as that over his ice. That is my responsibility as his mentor… and my fault, as his father.”

Hawks’ steady but quick pace through the halls stuttered for a half-second, barely noticeable, but then he was moving as if it had never happened, with only a quick glance shot Enji’s direction. Hawks’ expression was doubtful, but Enji ignored the question there. It was his fault. They’d been walking back from lunch when they’d heard a villain attack—a gang of them, again, which was growing more common, but low-level quirks, barely a threat. So much so that Enji had held Hawks back with one hand, and nodded to the boys, let them handle it so he could evaluate their performance, with he and Hawks ready to step in should the need arise. And they’d handled it admirably, really. It was only that one of the villains had managed to rupture a sewer line, and while Shouto had frozen the spray nearly immediately, he’d also managed to, right at the end, as Enji and Hawks were stepping forward to round up the restrained villains, let a lick of flame get just a bit too close, melting the ice and releasing cold, partially congealed sewage sludge all over a horrified Hawks. Hawks had intended to head straight back to his hotel room—had insisted on it, actually—but if there was something Enji could confidently say he had over Hawks, it was stubbornness. And so in the end, they wound up here, with Hawks following him through the back hallways of his agency towards the bathing facilities.

In their hushed little argument over Hawks’ plans, there was one question Hawks hadn’t asked of Enji—why he’d insisted on Hawks’ return to the agency with him. It was still hanging between them, even now, as they approached the locker rooms, the weight of an answer that they both knew but didn’t want to voice. Even if it made him feel a little overheated with shame to realize Hawks knew his reasoning—that for as inscrutable as Hawks was to Enji, Enji was an open book to him in return—he mostly felt cooling relief that Hawks wouldn’t make him say it. They both knew that with his wings coated in that disgusting, clinging sludge, most of his feathers were only a few degrees above useless. It didn’t matter that Enji had months of firsthand knowledge of just how competent Hawks was without any feathers at all, that he knew intellectually that Hawks was safe in the six blocks between the incident scene and his hotel room—what mattered was that something in him lodged between his heart and his gut screamed that Hawks was vulnerable again, that if he got hurt it would be Enji’s fault again, and any suggestion that Enji let Hawks out of his sight was inconceivable.

But Enji didn’t think he could have put it into words, and apparently Hawks didn’t need him to, and so he just held the door to the locker rooms open so Hawks could step through in a quiet that was, if not quite content, at least understanding.

“Lockers here, showers that way,” Enji broke the silence. “Do you need me to grab someone to get your gear washed?”

Hawks frowned consideringly down at himself. “Caught most of it on the wings, actually. My flight suit and pants are probably fine, but I’ll take the jacket in with me to rinse off.” Something in his expression caught as he looked back up at Enji, just a flicker that remained incomprehensible. “Thanks again, number one.”

“It’s fine,” Enji repeated, for what felt like the fifteenth time. He hoped that this time he’d managed to convey the sincerity of it, instead of the rote politeness that it seemed to always carry despite his best efforts. “I’m going to shower myself, so let me know if you need anything.”

Yet again the expressions on Hawks’ face shifted through a kaleidoscope of variety, a half moment of surprise melting into—hunger? anger? embarrassment?—before Enji could even register the details, much less decode them into a coherent thought. Hawks was fast, anyway, in everything he did—speeding along at a velocity that would be reckless if Hawks didn’t think even faster than he did everything else—so it shouldn’t have been a surprise to Enji that Hawks would feel just as quickly, leaving Enji fumbling behind in his wake.

“Sure thing, big guy,” Hawks said as he turned away, his voice oddly strangled. Enji didn’t have long to puzzle over it before Hawks began stripping away his uniform, revealing the sinewy strength of his arms, the expanse of his back and then the leanly muscled lines of his legs, all understated strength and grace, and Enji suddenly found it difficult to breathe. He turned away before he could truly stare, before he could spend too long considering why he was struggling not to stare, and stripped out of his own uniform quickly and mechanically before heading to the showers. He showered in the same fashion, on autopilot. He wasn’t thinking about Hawks showering a few stalls down, but at the same time, there was an… awareness. Like he didn’t even need to actively think about it for the back of his mind to pulse with his presence, a flashing lighthouse beacon of Hawks, Hawks, Hawks. Enji tucked this knowledge in the same place he’d stored the swooping breathlessness of seeing Hawks shedding his hero costume, and the panic caused by the idea of letting a vulnerable Hawks out of his sight, and the tightness in his throat and chest when he’d run his fingers across the splay of Hawks’ back and those bright red wings in the print ad, and the incomprehensible explosion of emotions that had churned through him for those few moments when he’d reached out to Hawks at the photoshoot, and every other confusing burst of feeling he’d felt when it came to Hawks. He didn’t know what they added up to—loyalty, or guilt, or fondness, or fear—but he knew that this time, with Hawks, his fellow hero, maybe the only person who still believed in him, maybe his only friend—he couldn’t afford to get it wrong.

So he finished his shower with the exact same quick efficiency as he did every day, meaning that he was already out in the locker room, re-dressed in the slacks and sweater he kept for days spent on paperwork, considering whether it would be strange to check in on Hawks, when the sound of water running ceased and Hawks stepped back into the main locker area, into Enji’s line of sight. There was that feeling again, his throat gone dry and a weight on his chest stopping his breath in its tracks as Hawks ran a hand through his damp hair and the drops of water wrung from the movement traced a delicate path down his angular face. Enji had turned away from the sight, attempting to catch his breath, when he heard a swear from the other side of the room.

“Hawks?” He turned to see the younger man still in the towel he’d exited the shower in, opening and closing lockers furiously.

“I can’t—did you ask someone to wash my clothes?” He was clearly agitated, wings ruffling in erratic patterns, the line of tension in his shoulders obvious even to Enji.

“No,” Enji confirmed, his momentary breathlessness already forgotten in the face of Hawks’ uncharacteristic distress, “You said it wasn’t necessary.”

“It—wasn’t,” Hawks said, slamming another empty locker shut. “But I can’t find them now, and all I have is my jacket, and I—and I—”

He seemed to run out of steam as quickly as it had built up, stopping mid-sentence, his wings drooping behind him.

“Someone must have come in and grabbed them by mistake. Your flight suit is distinctive—couldn’t you send a feather?”

Something twitched across Hawks’ expression at that, a flash that was close to a wince, and he shook his head.

“Usually I could but… they got dirty, and then they got wet, and I need…”

Hawks’ sentence trailed off into a kind of shameful silence that made Enji frown. Without a word, giving Hawks the time and quiet he often wished he’d been given, Enji turned back to his own locker and rifled through its contents until he found an old pair of drawstring sweatpants and a cotton t-shirt, then offered them to Hawks, who was still frowning down at his empty hands. Taking them with uncharacteristic silence, Hawks, under Enji’s observant stare, clenched his hands in the fabric and then exhaled long and low before looking up at Enji with an intensity Enji wasn’t prepared for, brow furrowed as if puzzling something out.

“You can tear the shirt to fit your wings. It’s an old workout shirt, I can just get another.”

Hawks nodded quietly, turning away with the sweatpants in hand, and Enji politely turned his head to the side, ignoring the rustle of fabric that accompanied Hawks’ swift dressing. When Hawks cleared his throat and Enji turned back, Hawks was still shirtless, straddling the low bench next to the lockers, but swamped in Enji’s sweatpants, even with the drawstring pulled tight and the bottoms turned up several times. Something about the sight of it tugged at Enji’s core, a warmth that reminded him of the contentedness he’d sometimes feel when a family dinner went particularly well, but with a core of heat that felt like it could spark into something infinitely hotter.

“My wings need to be preened, before my feathers are back at full function,” Hawks said suddenly, reaching behind himself to rub at the gap of skin between his wings while one of them wrapped around him. “It can take a while, so I’d planned to just do it at my hotel.”

Enji heard what remained unspoken between Hawks’ words. When it came to hero business, with Hawks, he always could.

“I’m sorry that I pushed you to come here, then.”

He didn’t bother saying that Hawks could or should have told him this before. The specifics of heroes’ Quirks, and especially their limitations and vulnerabilities, were closely guarded knowledge, for obvious reasons. That Hawks had even told him now was such a sign of trust that Enji was almost floored by it. He sat down on the bench behind Hawks, now close enough to see that there was a patch of skin he’d always assumed was burn that instead glistened with some kind of oil, and that it was this oil that Hawks was dragging his fingers through before massaging into his feathers.

“I could help.” His voice was quieter than before, a deliberate hush that for once came easily, as if even his own uncooperative body and instincts could feel the necessity.

Hawks darted a glance backward at Enji over his shoulder, his eyes wide with something that Enji would call fear if he could figure out what on earth Hawks was afraid of. After a moment, his wide-eyed stare relaxed into something softer, if no less uncertain looking for it, and his mouth quirked upward into a smile.

“… okay, number one.”

Enji settled into a position slightly closer to Hawks’ back while Hawks readjusted the wing he wasn’t preening himself, stretching it back within Enji’s reach. At first, Enji simply took a moment to carefully watch Hawks’ own movements: the careful gather of oil, the delicate massage into each feather, the careful arrangement of each to lay neatly in line with the feathers nearby. When he reached out to at last gather some of the oil on his own fingers—big, clumsy, compared to Hawks’ easy grace, but he was trying to be so gentle—he could almost feel the shudder that went through Hawks. He paused, but Hawks just ruffled his wings as if to say ‘get on with it’, and Enji began mirroring Hawks’ movements.

They were quiet for several long minutes, Enji focused intently on each of the feathers in front of him and under the spell of hushed intimacy that seemed to have fallen over the two of them. He couldn’t stop considering his hands, calloused and scarred from years of his own Quirk’s abuse, clumsy at best and destructive at worst, always hurting others, intentionally or not, and the precious trust Hawks had shoved into them with nothing more than a smile.

“Thank you.”

The words were out before he’d fully considered them, but, well, hadn’t he been waiting for a good time to thank Hawks for weeks now? Hawks’ wings jerked slightly in surprise, and Enji let go of the feather he’d been preening before his grip could tug at it.

“I should be the one thanking you, big guy,” Hawks said with a slightly nervous laugh. Enji was only partway through piecing together what he should say next—god, he wanted to be so careful with Hawks, not that Hawks needed it, Hawks was strong, but because he deserved better than Enji’s wrong motions, wrong words—when, as usual, Hawks was already ahead of him. “They didn’t need this before Jaku. Well, I had to do this when I was young, but then the feathers got more resilient. Doctors say they’ll probably get back there with time and attention, but until then, I guess I’ve got the number one hero as a glorified groomer.”

Enji knew that the words were meant as a joke, to try to lighten the intensity of whatever had fallen over them, but he just exhaled softly as he daubed more oil onto his hand.

“I would happily help with this whenever you need me, if you’d like.”

Enji watched carefully as another shiver raced down Hawks’ spine, but Hawks stayed quiet.

“Thank you for trusting me with this,” he continued carefully. For some reason, it was easier with Hawks facing away from him and his attention on Hawks’ wings, no facial expressions to try and fail to track, the intricate pattern of red distracting him from the guilt that choked him when he considered the web of burn scars on Hawks’ back. “And for what you’ve done for Shouto. What you’re doing for Shouto.” Hawks’ wings rustled in what Enji took to be surprise, but he kept moving forward. “I know he spoke to you about his… about his sexuality. He eventually spoke to me about it, but… I’d given him reason to believe, long ago, that I wouldn’t… approve.”

Enji paused for an exhale that felt more weighty than the breaths that had come before it, staring for a beat too long at Hawks’ feathers in his hands. Hawks was oddly still, waiting for the space of that same long beat. Enji wasn’t even sure he was breathing, for that moment.

“He was wrong, but… I’m glad he could turn to you when he needed someone, and I couldn’t be there for him.”

“Big guy,” Hawks started, in a tone that was trying hard to match his usual teasing, but shot through unmistakably with the threadiness of some emotion, “don’t worry, we gays watch out for our own—”

“I”m glad it was you,” Enji interrupted, needing to make this clear, before he lost the words. “I… I have a… difficult relationship with Shouto. But I… trust you. In general, and with him. You’re… You truly are… I would be lucky, if Shouto turned out to be a hero like you. You’re a better hero than me. A better man, too. After everything that’s happened, that… You are… incredible, Hawks.”

Hawks turned suddenly, tearing his wing out of Enji’s loose grasp and swinging his body around until he was facing Enji. There was something to the expression on his face that Enji had never seen before, terrifying in its tenderness.

“Endeavor,” he breathed out, eyes flitting over the planes of Enji’s face, searching. Enji didn’t know what Hawks was looking for, but he couldn’t help himself from leaning forward slightly, drawn in by that softness in Hawks’ eyes, by the way that Hawks’ breath stuttered and the flash of delicate pink as Hawks wetted his lips. It was blinding, the simple curve of Hawks’ upper lip. Maybe that was why Enji didn’t see it coming, stared at the rosy bow until it moved out of his line of sight and pressed itself against his own lips. Enji hadn’t been kissed in years, not since Rei. His eyes were open—but Hawks’ had fluttered shut. Enji noted, oddly disconnected from the moment, that Hawks’ long eyelashes rested against the top of his cheek. Such a delicate touch. Against Enji’s naturally elevated body temperature, Hawks’ lips felt cool, like a breeze on a hot summer’s day. He smelled like an intoxicating blend of Enji’s own soap and shampoo and the distinctive musk of the oil they’d been using to preen his wings.

It wasn’t until Hawks leaned back, ever so slowly, eyes still closed even as the space between them widened, that the realization formed properly. Hawks had kissed him. The thought brought a sharp inhale, but breathing still felt difficult. Thinking felt even harder—his mind wrapped in a fog of the scent of them mixed together, the way Hawks’ lips had warmed against his own—but he needed to, because he didn’t understand why—why him? Why would Hawks ever…?

“Why would you do that?”

The words fell from his lips before he even realized they were doing so. He should have stopped them, but his mind was racing. Why him? Enji had done nothing but cause Hawks pain, in one way or another. He’d failed him, had gotten him burned, had proved that the hero Hawks had looked up to as a child was nothing more than a hollow, broken man who’d ruined the lives of his own family. He didn’t deserve the strange friendship Hawks had given him, much less—this. He lifted his eyes to meet Hawks’ gaze just in time to see whatever softness had fallen across Hawks’ face shatter in the wake of his own careless words.

For a fraction of a second, Enji could, for once, read the expression on Hawks’ face clearly—pain, and shame, and devastation, a hurt so evident that Enji could almost feel it himself. And then it was gone, the moment of clarity and the hurt on Hawks’ face both. Instead, his face was a mask, unreadable, and Hawks was halfway to the door before Enji even realized he’d moved.

“Hawks, wait—”, he started, stumbling to his feet in unforgivable clumsiness, but Hawks was out the door without a backward glance, and Enji was left standing in the middle of the locker room, with nothing of Hawks left but an ache in his chest and a smear of oil on his hand.

He just needed to talk to Hawks. If just given the chance, Enji felt certain he could do better. He had to do better, in spite of the jumbled mess of confused and unidentified emotions surrounding the idea of Hawks in Enji’s head, in spite of the blank uncertainty that came to mind whenever Enji tried to imagine what he would actually say to Hawks. He had to do better because this failure, on top of all his others, was too much to bear. Hawks had been gone by the time he’d finally managed to stumble out of the locker room and start properly searching the place. He hadn’t been by the agency the rest of that week, his agency sending over a note that Hawks was busy on an active case. Enji had even taken to leaving his office window open, but no Hawks ever swooped through it. Enji had even sent Hawks a text message, asking when he would next be by the agency, but hadn’t gotten an answer.

But finally, Enji had a chance. It was the weekly hero meeting, which meant Hawks would be here. All Enji needed to do was get Hawks’ attention after the meeting, when Hawks couldn’t brush him off. He looked up at the image of himself in the restroom mirror, drops of cold water running down his face, having done nothing for the hint of sallowness in his skin or the bags under his eyes. He didn’t blame Hawks. It wasn’t Hawks’ fault that every time Enji closed his eyes, he pictured either the perfect arch of Hawks’ lips, the gentle brush of eyelashes against cheek, or instead witnessed that moment of crystal clarity, the grief and pain in Hawks’ expression, and the jagged edges of a shattered Hawks dug into Enji all over again.

Upon reentering the main conference room, it only took a few seconds for Enji to spot the bright red of wings at the edge of his vision, his heart rate spiking even before his brain had fully processed the image. Hawks was standing in a corner, talking to Shouto. A piece of tension Enji hadn’t realized he’d been carrying eased at the sight; Hawks was too good to punish Shouto for his father’s failures, but the fear had persisted anyway. Enji wondered what they were talking about that the two of them looked so serious, Shouto almost shrinking in on himself, but he took his seat anyway. He could figure that out later, after he’d fixed things. That was his first priority; the rest was irrelevant.

When he heard Shouto shuffle into a seat between Bakugo and Midoriya, he looked up to clock where Hawks was sitting, to ensure a plan to intercept Hawks before he ever made it to the door. Instead, he scanned the table quickly and then was left to watch Hawks disappear out the door, just a flash of red gone with the thud of the wooden door closing. The meeting started, and ran on, and then ended, and through it all Enji had only stared at the door, which remained stubbornly closed.

Chapter Text

It had been two weeks since Enji had last spoken to Hawks, and Enji was fine.

He was frustrated, yes. He’d been contacting Hawks, both through his agency and on his personal cell, with increasing frequency and absolutely no success. Some sidekick at the agency just kept blandly telling him that Hawks was busy with a mission and would contact him when he was free, which was at least better than the deafening silence Enji received when he tried to contact the winged hero himself. And yes, he was ashamed. He’d replayed those last few moments in his mind so frequently that even someone as dense as him could see how badly he’d managed to mangle the response to being kissed. In his own defense, he hardly had much experience with it (kissing, kissing men) and even less (honestly, embarrassingly, none) when it came to being kissed by people he felt things for with the confusing depth and intensity he felt when it came to Hawks. And, of course, he was angry—mostly at himself, but he couldn’t help the undercurrent of anger he felt at the thought that Hawks would run away from him, not even give him a chance to collect his thoughts, to explain, to make things right. Then he would think about all the ways that he had lost the right to that benefit of the doubt, and his anger would turn right back around on himself.

But he wasn’t taking it out on those around him, the way he would have once. He was acutely aware of the fact that he was more irritable than usual, that his emotions were tearing him up from the inside out and an unhealthy part of him whispered that he would feel so much better if he could just yell and burn, the way he always had. It was only because of months of careful awareness and practice, just like training a muscle group, that a stronger part of himself reminded him that he wouldn’t actually feel better—he would just make everyone around him feel worse, and the guilt it would engender would fester inside of him until it made him even angrier.

So instead, he was carefully blank. If he was working with a sidekick and he felt his irritation flare up, felt the anger rushing to the surface, he carefully withdrew. If someone mentioned Hawks’ name, instead of snapping at them the way he wanted to, he left the conversation. And if he spent too much time in the training room, burned through a few too many dummies—well, there were worse ways of making himself fine.

It was there that the Bakugo kid found him, hauling out a new dummy to replace the one he’d burnt a hole through the center of. Enji looked up to see him leaning in the doorway to the training room, arms crossed even as he couldn’t quite meet Enji’s eyes.

“Spar with me,” he requested, with an uncharacteristic lack of profanity—though still his customary rudeness. Enji considered refusing—first on principle, and then out of a fear that his mood would bleed through and he’d go too hard on the kid. Then he noticed the seriousness in Bakugo’s eyes, and nodded in assent. Bakugo had gotten better since Jaku, but his default position still seemed to be that while he would suffer through the painful expectation of mentorship, he needed no one’s help. This was a big step for him, and Enji wouldn’t let his personal issues affect yet another young hero. So he shoved the dummy he was carrying to the side of the room, and moved to the center.

Oddly enough, Enji found it easiest to work with Bakugo out of his three young interns. Midoriya was sweet, but almost too sweet--the kid was strong, and sharp as a tack, but those big green eyes made him feel like he was kicking a puppy every time he barked an order or a criticism. Shouto was his own particular landmine, and things had grown even more strained between them since whatever interaction he’d witnessed between Shouto and Hawks. If there was one thing he’d managed to learn, though, it was that pushing Shouto for anything before he was ready to share would only have unexpected and usually negative consequences. With Bakugo, though, words didn’t seem to be necessary. Enji was bad at them, and if anything, Bakugo’s words were usually at odds with both his actions and the truth. So they kept it simple—he wanted to spar, they sparred, no discussion necessary, both moving smoothly into position and beginning, usual rules in mind, pulling punches and quirks only to the extent necessary not to injure.

They were on the third bout, Enji winning but quickly tiring from the effort of fighting while holding back on top of his earlier training, when Bakugo finally spoke up again.

“Your shitty kid means well, you know.”

Enji raised a brow right before he shoved a palm under Bakugo’s outstretched arm, diverting an explosion.

“IcyHot. He’s been spending too much time with that damn Deku. Thinks what people need is to be pushed into talking about their shit.”

He was interrupted by a grunt as Enji landed a solid hit on his side, right before he managed to blast away from Enji’s charge and over his head, close enough to get a couple of hits on Enji’s back before Enji lashed out with fire to put some distance between them again.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Enji admitted, frowning as he tried to piece together Bakugo’s vague assertions with Shouto’s behavior. If anything, Shouto had been avoiding him lately, not pushing him into anything. Bakugo quickly averted his eyes, and Enji could’ve sworn there was the faintest hint of a blush there—though maybe it was just the natural flush of exertion from their sparring.

“C’mon, old man, don’t make me say it.”

Enji continued staring blankly, not closing the distance between them for the spar. Bakugo didn’t either, shifting uncomfortably and crossing his arms again.

“With Hawks.”

Enji froze, hoping that this wasn’t a distraction technique before Bakugo went in the for the win, because if it was, the kid was winning. Even the mention of Hawks sent a confusing mix of anger and shame rushing through his veins, and now—Shouto was involved? Sure, with talking to Hawks, to inviting him around, but Enji didn’t understand what that had to do with Enji himself.

Luckily, the kid wasn’t moving in for the kill. Unfortunately, he was continuing. “Inviting him around, shoving him in your face all the time, that goddamn photo shoot, the locker room shit.”

“Locker room…?” Enji’s brain stuttered, whirred as it tried to put new facts in context. “That was Shouto?”

“You didn’t know—aw, shit,” Bakugo said, grimacing. As quickly as he’d brought up the subject, he seemed to suddenly close off, narrow-eyed stare flickering between Enji and the door, mouth twisting into a pensive frown, before he finally slunk around the room to the door. “Shit. Good spar. Three for three. And about that other shit… you didn’t hear anything from me.”

“Right, good spar…” Shit, they had sparred, Enji needed to be giving feedback. His brain felt like it was wading through quicksand, but he managed to get out a few cursory critiques. “Your maneuverability is good, but work on new moves—you were getting predictable.”

Bakugo just nodded once, firmly, and then bolted from the room. Enji didn’t bother stopping him—he needed to be able to hit harder than he could in a spar right now. He pulled the dummy out of the corner and began a set of drills, letting muscle memory take over as his brain worked overtime through Bakugo’s words. He had known that Shouto had been the one inviting Hawks, and he’d even known that Shouto had been the one to arrange for the photo shoot. But Bakugo made it sound like it was all related, part of some plan, some plan that had also involved stealing Hawks’ clothes from the locker room, and it had something to do with Enji as well.

And, Enji realized with a punch so hard the impact reverberated up through his whole arm, Hawks had known. Because he’d talked so seriously to Shouto that last hero meeting, and Shouto had looked so awkward and—ashamed, that was the expression that had been on Shouto’s face, then and every time he looked at Enji now. It was harder to read things on Shouto, because he was so expressionless most of the time, but Enji was familiar enough with both his son and feelings of shame that it was almost painfully clear in retrospect.

Muscles aching and only baby steps closer to understanding, Enji stepped away from the punching bag. He was tired of the frustration and the confusion and feeling a half-step behind everyone, even fucking Bakugo now. One part of him—the loud part, the part that he’d let rule him for decades—wanted to march out, drag Shouto into his office, and yell at him until he explained everything. But even if Enji could manage a moderately more restrained approach, he was intimately familiar with shame—the insidious way it turned you angry and defensive, yelling and avoiding blame and doing anything to avoid admitting to the problem, to avoid validating that shame, giving it more power over you even as you attempted to avoid it. Neither of them were ready for that conversation yet—like father, like son, apparently.

So he was back at square one—Hawks. But now he was done waiting. He was ready to use all of the tools at his disposal.

“Endeavor! What a surprise. Now I know I’m back on the streets, but I hope you’re not calling for a team-up—you know I work solo, and don’t think being down an arm is going to change that.”

“Mirko,” Enji replied, already fighting back the urge to snap. He knew it was just because he felt overwhelmed, and he even liked Mirko—her approach to and philosophy about hero work wasn’t too far off from his own. He just needed to keep his worst self at bay. “I was glad to hear you were back to work.”

“No small part thanks to you. I owe you one. But what’s this about?”

“About that, actually.” Enji hesitated, trying to push down the anxiety rising within him at the idea that this would amount to exposing his soft underbelly to someone, showing them the places he was vulnerable, an invitation to strike where it would hurt most. He reminded himself that he liked Mirko, trusted her—trusted her with his life, at Jaku. As did Hawks. “I need a favor.”

“For you, big guy? Sure, I’ll do my best. Whatcha need?”

There was a long pause, while Enji swallowed heavily around the tension in his throat. He hoped Mirko couldn’t hear the gulp over the phone line.

“Do you know what mission Hawks has been on, or when it will end? I know you’re close and I… need to speak to him.”

He heard a rustling sound over the phone, a pause, and then the unmistakeable sound of a door shutting. The low hum of background noise from Mirko’s side of the line cut out suddenly.

“Is this about work?” The irreverent laughter was gone from her voice now, replaced by a stern sharpness he’d never heard from her, not even when she was taking down villains.

“It’s none of your business what this is about.” Enji matched the sharpness in her tone, bristling at the idea of opening up any more. He couldn’t help but feel protective of whatever this thing between him and Hawks was.

“So that’s a no,” Mirko replied with a snort, not kindly, and Enji felt a lick of flame, entirely inadvertent, crawl up the side of his face.

Before he had managed to put together words that didn’t carry too much anger, Mirko sighed, and then gave him an address. “That’s Hawks’ place. I didn’t tell you any of this, but there is no mission, he’s just finally taking a long overdue break.”

“Thank you,” Enji said, not caring that his relief was audible.

“But listen. You better fix this. If you don’t, if you break his—just, if you hurt him again... I don’t care that you’re the number one hero or that I’ve only got one arm left, I will kick your ass.”

And then the line clicked.

By the next morning, Enji had taken the day entirely off and was already in a car heading towards Fukuoka and Hawks. He’d switched from the train to a car in Hiroshima to avoid attention, because he wanted to protect Hawks’ privacy and nothing drew attention like his own controversial face, even in civilian clothes, but he was glad of it by the time he was nearing the address Mirko had given him. Whenever he’d thought about it, he’d expected Hawks to live on the top floor of some soaring residential tower, with big windows he could fly in and out of at will, up in the air where he belonged. He was surprised, instead, to find himself driving out of the city, following the twists and turns of the coastal road to reach a modestly sized traditional home, butting right up against the rocky shore.

His confusion evaporated the instant he got out of the car and, turning to focus on a flash of movement that he’d caught out of the corner of his eye, was greeted by the sight of Hawks’ wings, brilliant red against the unbreaking blue of sea and sky. He had his back to Enji, flying near the shore. While he watched, Hawks flapped once, flying so low and slow towards the vast expanse of sea he was practically hovering, and then Hawks tilted his wings just so, a tiny adjustment barely noticeable, and he was soaring, lifted high and fast over the waves by the air currents. He banked slightly, and Enji could see the lines of his profile illuminated by the warmth of the morning sun, and—maybe because he’d been up all night and driving for hours already that morning, maybe sleep-deprived and dazed by the endless rolling road, maybe because he’d spent all yesterday evening and the time on the train just sitting with his thoughts about Hawks, letting himself feel them and examine them as he tried desperately to figure out what he was going to say, maybe just because of the disarming softness of the morning light and the sea salt on the air—he let the thought fly free.

Beautiful.

Hawks was beautiful, and maybe Enji had always thought so.

He hadn’t realized that, in his distraction, he’d let go of the car door until it fell shut with a slam that startled Enji and drew Hawks’ attention. Enji didn’t have nearly enough time before Hawks was landing in front of him, brow furrowed and head tilted and a little frown on his face, beautiful and so utterly oblivious to the fact that a black hole was about to open up in Enji’s chest and swallow him whole, all from the crushing weight of this final, certain realization—that Enji wanted to find out whether he could taste the sea salt on Hawks’ lips if he were to kiss him right now.

“What’s going on? How did you find me here? I mean—is it a villain? Something bad if you’re here—no, wait, you’d be out fighting, not here, but—”

“Hawks,” Enji interrupted, knowing his voice sounded strangled, but whether it was his tone or the look on his face, Hawks fell silent, eyes narrowing as he looked at Enji the way he sometimes looked at a particularly puzzling piece of intel.

Enji took a deep, steadying breath before he continued. “Nothing’s wrong. Not like that. This isn’t about hero business, it’s… I just wanted to… I needed to talk to you.”

It didn’t take a sharp eye to see the tension that snapped through the lines of Hawks’ body for a long moment, incongruous with the lazy morning sun, before Hawks forced casualness back into his posture.

“About what? We don’t have anything to talk about but hero business, number one,” Hawks said with an affected nonchalance that made Enji bite the inside of his cheek so hard he half-expected to taste bitter copper.

“Hawks, please,” Enji said, closing his eyes against the pain of Hawks pushing him away again, with his words and his body language. The raw note in his voice must’ve given Hawks pause, because he actually fell quiet in its wake, letting that hoarse please sit between them. “I… I have to say… and, please don’t interrupt, I—you know I’m not good—” Enji’s breath caught in his throat—“not good at this, at… talking.”

“You were good enough at it before,” Hawks murmured, half under his breath, but just loud enough for Enji to hear, and to know exactly when Hawks was talking about.

“I thought about that for weeks,” he admitted quietly. He heard Hawks’ sharp inhale, and took the silence that followed as acquiescence.

He cleared his throat and opened his eyes, if only to look at the crumpled sheets of paper he pulled from his back pocket. Looking at Hawks still felt like too much—like he might lose his nerve and run, or lose all sense or reason and just go chasing the taste of salt on Hawks’ reddened, wind-chapped lips.

“First—I’m sorry. For Shouto and… the things he’s done. I… I think you’ve spoken to him already, maybe, and I still don’t really know why he did those things, but—it doesn’t matter, because you don’t deserve to be put in the middle of our issues, as father and son, and I’m his father, and I should have—if it weren’t for me he wouldn’t have—I… I take responsibility, as his father.”

He heard an inhale from Hawks that seemed to precede a response, and held a hand up.

“Please, I just—need to get it all out. Hawks, you—I can’t keep up with you. Not with… this stuff. I need… time, to sort my thoughts out and then say it all right.”

Another deep, steadying breath. He could do this. He’d started out easy—not that Shouto was ever easy, but it felt that way compared to what he was about to say.

“And… I’m sorry for… what I said to you. In the locker room.” He paused to force himself into another inhale, because breathing suddenly felt difficult, like his body was reflexively trying to choke off the words before he could say them. “After we kissed.”

He heard Hawks make a soft, choked-off noise across from him, but he couldn’t look away from the papers clutched in front of him now, pretending like the way they shook was caused by the wind and not the trembling in his own hands.

“It’s not… I didn’t… I mean, I did mean it. But not… not like—it wasn’t…” He stopped, swallowed heavily, and forced himself to focus on the words he’d written down. “I’m bad at emotions, and people. I can’t figure them out, or read people the way you can. And I constantly say the wrong thing. I’ve been trying. To be better. But I’m… slow. And clumsy. And I mess up. I messed up.”

“I shouldn’t have said what I said. I understand how it must have seemed, how hurtful and inappropriate a response it was. And, separate from what I’m going to say next, I apologize for that.”

He chanced a glance upward. Hawks was staring at him with wide eyes, shock written clearly across his face, but there was something softer there too, a vulnerability amid the hesitation, and the reminder of it—that Hawks had, without Enji ever noticing, opened himself up enough to Enji to be vulnerable to him—Hawks, number two hero, double agent, sharp, brilliant Hawks who used his fake smiles to build walls around himself but for some reason let Enji in—somehow that gave Enji the confidence to keep going, not bothering to look down at the words he’d long since memorized, rehearsed over and over in the car on the long drive.

“When you kissed me, I didn’t know why. Because I am, objectively, a bad person. I’ve been cold and cruel and ignorant to the hurt I caused. I…” Enji fought to swallow past emotion rising to choke him. “I’m the reason for the scars on your back. I’m the reason your wings were burned.”

He could see the change in Hawks’ face, that mulish look he always got when Enji was being stupid and Hawks was going to set him right, but Enji just shook his head and continued.

“So I didn’t understand why you could possibly want to kiss me.”

He had to pause again, forcing the cool sea air into his lungs, and, shit, maybe it was better Hawks lived out here, because Enji didn’t know if he’d be able to get through this anywhere other than this quiet, cozy little corner of the world.

“But that doesn’t mean I didn’t want it.”

Enji was looking at Hawks, so he saw the words crash over him, like a wave breaking against the shore, the expressions racing across his face, the sharp intake of breath, the flutter of his wings.

“I… I don’t think I would have ever realized I wanted it until after it happened. This is all… hard for me. New. Not just that you’re—a man. I don’t know if I’m—” The word, half-formed in his throat, choked him, felt too big and not quite right at the same time (you’re not gay, a voice in his head whispered, even as another screamed, you’ve fallen asleep to dreams of running your hands across Hawks’ back, pulling his body close to yours), so he forced it back down and changed tack. “I’ve never thought about it much. It’s never been… important. But it’s never been like this. I’ve only ever—only with Rei, and that was… arranged. There were expectations and I knew what to do to meet them.”

“This is… confusing. But not bad. I just…” He was finally out of words on the papers in front of him, but there was something left to say, and so he just said it. “I missed you. I don’t care about the rest of it. But when you—losing you hurt. Come back, Hawks.”

There was a long silence between them, Hawks’ gaze slightly unfocused, lost in thought. Finally, he blinked at Enji. “Is that all of it? Can I—can I talk now?”

Enji nodded, feeling a tightening in his chest in preparation for whatever Hawks was going to say. Instead of speaking though, Hawks took a tentative step forward, closing the distance between them, one hand coming up to reach for Enji’s face.

“Are you—do you really mean it? Do you really want this?”

“Yes,” Enji breathed, as Hawks lifted himself up on his toes—and maybe, if Enji had been paying more attention, he’d have noticed Hawks was hovering slightly, but he was distracted by the soft, unbearably gentle press of Hawks’ lips against his again, and the knowledge that yes, he could taste salt. He felt bowled over by the sensation, by Hawks, but he made a conscious effort to do more this time, to show Hawks what was behind his insufficient words, so he pressed back, softly, and raised his own hands to either side of Hawks’ face, cupping it between his palms and trying so hard to be tender. Hawks made a soft, fluttery sort of noise in the back of his throat, and when he finally pulled back Enji felt like he’d been drowning, short of breath and lightheaded.

“I’ll mess up again,” he blurted out, like now that he’d opened the floodgates he couldn’t stop being sincere with Hawks. “I’ll hurt you and push you away.”

“So what?” Hawks answered, a dazzling smile spreading across his face like a punch to Enji’s gut. “I’ll mess up too—run away again, clam up, put up walls. But you know how to pull me out, and I know how to read between the lines when you get all grumpy, and we’ll both try to be better.”

Enji realized his hands were still cradling Hawks’ face, and he abruptly flushed and tried to drop them, only for Hawks’ own to come up and keep them in place.

“I’m being presumptuous, but… we can take it slow, big guy. Keep it quiet. Figure it out for ourselves. If you… if you’d want that.”

And it was the tremulous quiver of uncertainty in Hawks’ voice just then, at the end, the moment of doubt, that led Enji to pull Hawks close and wrap his arms around him, burying his face in the hair at the crown of Hawks’ head and ignoring the startled flap of wings, just inhaling Hawks, settling something in him that had gone turbulent and yearning the moment he’d heard about Hawks’ injuries in Jaku.

They were back in their usual restaurant—all five of them, the boys arrayed on one side of the booth and squabbling, Hawks pressed up against Enji on the other side. It had been a few weeks—quiet and comfortable, Enji’s window always open for Hawks to fly through, weekends spent in Fukuoka, long and sometimes painful necessary conversations they could only have in the dark, clasping each other’s hands while they spoke like they were each other’s anchor, planting the seeds of something brand new and tending it carefully. The first week Hawks had come back for lunch, Shouto had spent the whole meal with an embarrassed blush, unable to make eye contact. He and Enji had never spoken about the pranks—Hawks had reassured Enji that Shouto felt bad enough on his own about using Hawks to try to bait Enji into revealing an expected discomfort, and, besides, Hawks had said with a laugh, he would find out eventually that his mischief could come with unintended consequences. Then he’d raised his eyebrows and reached out with greedy hands to pull Enji into a kiss.

The food arrived, and Enji watched Shouto quietly mediate an argument between Bakugo and Midoriya over whether Midoriya should be eating more. In spite of all his yelling, Bakugo was right, Enji thought absentmindedly—Midoriya burned through calories with a quirk like his. The thought turned into a reminder, and he took the plate of extra chicken wings he’d ordered and slid its contents onto Hawks’ own plate with a quiet hum. Hawks never ordered enough food for himself, Enji thought fondly as the winged hero noticed the gift with a quiet, happy sort of noise Enji privately called a coo. He’d heard them more and more, these past few weeks. He’d told Hawks that once, called it his happy coo, only for Hawks to squawk indignantly that just because he had wings didn’t mean he made bird sounds, thank you very much. Enji smiled at the memory, looking down at Hawks munching happily on some food. Hawks looked up, catching the tail end of Enji’s soft smile, and whatever he saw in it made him lean up to place a gentle kiss on Enji’s cheek.

It was the kind of thing that had become commonplace on weekends in Fukuoka and late nights in Enji’s big, empty house (not so empty when Hawks was there), and so Enji barely thought twice about it until he heard the clatter of chopsticks against the wooden table from the other side of the booth.

Shouto was the source of the dropped chopsticks, his eyes wide and expression blank. Midoriya’s already big, puppy dog eyes had gone even bigger, practically goggling at the two of them, but there was a blush spreading across his freckled cheeks and the beginnings of a smile. Bakugo looked—smugly satisfied.

“Oops,” Hawks said cheerfully, and Enji would’ve thought he didn’t feel bad at all if he couldn’t see the nervous fluttering of his wings and the too-fast pulse of his heartbeat at his throat.

Enji sighed. “So much for keeping it between us,” he growled, but he softened the blow by reaching out to take Hawks’ hand under the table and giving it a reassuring squeeze. He felt Hawks relax into the grip, enough that he could turn and give Enji his most wicked, brattiest grin.

“I said oops!”

And, somehow, just like the magic Hawks always brought to his life, it worked. He’d have to talk to Shouto, of course, have the conversation he’d been working on planning since that first morning on the beach, and the tension wasn’t entirely gone, but for now, there was laughter from the other side of the table—Bakugo, watching the twist of emotions on Shouto’s face and cackling—not, Enji realized, unkindly.

“I told you extras, now pay up,” Bakugo said with a triumphant tilt of his head.