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Azumi had been taking care of Keigo for a few weeks when she realized he had very specific needs that other children didn't. His quirk gave him features of a Sundown Hawk, including the wings, eyes, talons on his feet and scaled patches around his feet. She also suspected he had some mannerisms to match because he would chirp, coo and trill when he felt different emotions. Because of the way his parents had treated him, she knew he was malnourished, still eating everything she put in front of him. He had scars around the base of his wings and around his ankles, but she never asked about them. She was concerned that Dr. Seeks might be correct about how they were caused. After all, not every parent likes the quirks their child is born with.
So Azumi had done a lot of research into grooming habits and upbringing of Sundown Hawks. She researched the best lotions for quirks of scaled skin, files and clippers for animal claws and bird talons. She even had Bleed Stop powder as used for cats and dogs and bright light in case she couldn't clip his nails easily. Rows of brushes and small wet towels for his feathers and special oils for helping with his feathers. This was going to be trial and error, and she could only hope Keigo worked with her on this. She planned to do this Friday night so she would have all night to groom him and she would have all weekend if she messed something up. She may have studied animal quirks at nursing school, but that didn't include specific quirk or maintenance.
Glancing at the clock, Azumi realized it was time to pick him up from the babysitters. A neighbor two floors up named Sion, with a grandson who had become fast friends with Keigo. Jin had a bat based quirk and was only a few months older than Keigo, so the two bonded over flying and seemed to understand each other's odd habits and quirks. Grabbing her large brown sweater, Azumi put hsr blue hair into a ponytail and glanced at the mirror, noting her purple eyes had slight bags under them. Must have been from lack of sleep due to Keigo's nightmares and the extra work shifts she was doing. She would need to catch up on her sleep soon. Sliding her flats on her feet, she stepped out of the apartment to the elevator to head from the fourth floor to the sixth.
Outside Sion's apartment, Azumi could hear the squealing of little children, the footsteps thundering around of the other children, and a few bouts of yelling from Sion for the kids to get off her sofa. Knocking loudly, she waited until Sion answered the door and Azumi smiled at the older woman. Sion was in her late 50's or early 60's with a tight bun of black hair that was held on top of her head with a pipe that she used as a hairstick. She wore traditional Chinese garb and white pants as she opened the door for Azumi to come inside. "Good, you're the first parent to show up and they normally calm down when they realize their parents are on the way."
Before Azumi could reply a red and yellow blur ran at her and she grinned at the happy chirps of the 5 year old Keigo as he hugged her legs tightly. His little red wings were puffed up happily and he grinned up at her, his golden eyes shining with a flushed face. "Hi, Zumi! Jin showed me how to spin all the way around in the air today!" Azumi smiled and bent down to scoop him up, placing him on her hip as she kissed the side of his head. "That's great! I'm sure you can practice it later this weekend at a park. How does that sound?" He nodded and hugged her, letting himself curl up comfortably in her arms as she took his backpack from Sion and Keigo's boots.
He was wearing socks right now, Azumi having noticed he was nursing his feet in his boots more than before. His talons must be really long and it was one of the reasons she wanted to do the grooming with him. As they waved to Sion, Jin and the other children, Keigo looked confused that Azumi didn't put his boots on. "Why are you carrying my shoes?" She smiled at him, keeping an arm under him as he clung to her side, his bird quirk making him lightweight even though she was trying to fill him out with large healthy meals. "Well my handsome bird, I did some research and you know that I said I would learn everything I could to take care of you?" He nodded, golden eyes watching her with a curious predatory gaze framed in black liner and points as she hit the elevator button to go down.
"I found that Sundown Hawks like to be groomed, their wings preened and they have their life mates or other family units help to groom each other. So I decided to take tonight after dinner and groom your wings, hair, feet and shorten your talons so you can walk better. Because I think they're too long and pinching your toes in your shoes. Am I right?" Keigo hid his face in her shoulder but nodded slowly. Azumi smiled gently as she manipulated the door to her apartment open. "Keigo, I told you to tell me if you need anything. That includes if something doesn't fit or if you need help. If your clothes don't fit, I'll get you new ones. If you need your wings groomed, I will do it, but I can't if you don't tell me. Ok?"
He nodded again, face still hidden as she slipped her shoes off and hung up his bag. He peeked out at the living room and saw all the grooming supplies and couldn't confine the curious chirp he made. Azumi set him down to the ground and gently ruffled his hair as she took off her sweater. "Hungry for dinner?" He nodded as he walked over to the brushes and clippers. When he had been with his parents, they never bothered to even try and take care of him like this. The only time they even cared about his wings or feet were when they had held him down to a table and- Keigo shivered as he tried not to think about it, his wings came around to hide him, scared. Azumi wasn't going to do that to him. She had been so good to him and he loved it when she played with his feathers before bed or when they cuddled. He was sure she wouldn’t try to do that, but those clippers looked scary.
Azumi walked up behind him and gently rested a hand on his head. "What's got you so scared, little bird? Don't like something you see?" Keigo shook his head no as he reached up to gently take her hand and hold it. "You- you're not going to hurt me, right?" Azumi crouched down and rubbed his cheek with her free hand. "Of course not. The whole point is to make you feel good. Like a spa day or when I do my nails. It's not going to hurt and if it does, we'll stop. Alright?" He nodded and she held his hand to lead him back towards the kitchen island where a steaming bowl of stovetop pasta with chunks of chicken and sausage mixed into it with warm broth poured over top.
Keigo ate quickly, glancing back at the living room as his wings puffed up a bit. "Zumi? Is this something we have to do often like baths?" Azumi thought as she ate and nodded. "I believe so. Let's see how you feel about it. At the very least your talons need to be cared for and your pretty wings preened." A spread of pink covered his cheeks with his wings being called pretty. He knew Azumi liked his wings, she was always playing with them. He asked for seconds and Azumi gave him the rest of the pot of noodles. Washing some of the dishes as he finished and handed his bowl to her. She smiled and told him to go sit on the sofa. He stood watching her wash the dishes for a moment before walking cautiously over to the sofa and hopped up onto it. Eyes on the brushes and lotions and all the other things he had no idea what they were for.
Azum turned off the kitchen light and walked over to sit down next to him and smiled, the TV remote in hand and the TV turned on to show the hero network, which she knew was his favorite. “I figured this might help you focus a bit. So, do you want me to tell you what all this is for? Or just start doing things?” Keigo bit his bottom lip and his wings curled around him slightly as he leaned towards the table. “I know what some of it is, but not all of it.” She smiled and began to run her fingers gently through his hair, causing his eyes to close a bit. She began with the brushes and combs, and the towelettes, talking about how she needed to trim and brush his hair. Then she carefully moved her finger down to his wings, running her fingers through his fluffy soft feathers as she explained how to groom and preen his wings. Lastly, she gently rolled the hem of his pants up to mid shins and noticed he tried to flinch his feet away, but she gently held his left foot, gently rubbing his foot as she looked at his long dark brown, almost black, talons. “And the clippers and files are to shorten these so they don’t pinch in your shoes.”
Keigo bit his bottom lip as he looked at his feet and how gently she was tracing his toes. His feet looked like normal human feet in shape, but the skin around his ankle and along the top of his foot was a maroon red scaled pattern like a bird foot would be. His nails were also much darker, thicker and pointed when compared to a human’s toenails. He knew his fingernails grew pointed, and he had watched Azumi carefully clip them down and file them smoothly when she did her own nails. Those clippers didn’t look like these clippers though. These looked like they could take off one of his toes, and another tool looked like a hook, which he looked concerned over. Azumi reached up and gently put her fingers on his chin and tilted his head up to look at her, her purple eyes softly darting between his worried golden eyes. “What’s wrong my handsome bird?”
He reached down and held his foot around the ankle, right over the thinsilvery scars that she hadn’t mentioned, but they both knew were there. “I’m scared it will hurt.” Azumi smiled and gently rubbed his cheek, moving her hand to rub the back of his neck, causing his wings to flutter and flap a bit as he trilled, eyes closing. “Keigo, have I ever done anything that intentionally hurt you?” He shook his head no, enjoying the touch on his neck. “You can watch TV and completely ignore what I’m doing if you want, at least as far as your feet go. I just want to help.” He bit his bottom lip before taking a deep breath and nodding his understanding, stretching his feet back out. “Okay.”
She smiled and turned the volume up, figuring they might as well get his feet done first since that was the main thing he was worried about. For starters, she went and got a large bowl of warm water and a towel, gently setting his feet into the bowl and earning a chirp from him at how warm the water was. He seemed comfortable making his cute bird noises around her, and she noticed he was trying not to look at her as she carefully clipped his finger nails, then took the large square file to file the edges so they weren’t rough. Once she finished, he looked at them curiously as she pulled his feet out of the water and patted them dry with a towel. The Hero Network was running a special on the top ten heroes of the year, and they both knew when it got to the top two, it would be Endeavor and All Might, so the other heroes mentioned were taking some of Keigo’s focus as he tried to also pay attention to what Azumi was doing. Carefully, she took the hook and gently cleaned along the edges of his talons. He giggled a bit, because it tickled, and she made sure to get both feet so he knew that she would be done with that.
Oddly, Azumi seemed hesitant when she got the clippers, and started at the tips of his talon, slowly clipping down with each one. Keigo twitched at the pressure on his talon, but so far, no pain at all. She got through one foot, pausing to get the file and file along the sides and bottoms and then rounded the ends so they definitely looked like talons, but much smaller and neater. Peering down, he chirped happily as she got a white lotion and massaged around his foot, ankle and the heel of his left foot. It tickled again, and Keigo giggled as he tried not to pull his foot away, his left foot feeling so much better than his right foot now that Azumi had taken a whole ten minutes just to make sure it was done right. He held them both side by side and winced at the length difference. He really needed them shortened if they were so long. “Well? What do you think?” He grinned and gave her a quick hug before shifting so she had easy access to his right foot. “It feels so light and comfortable. Can you do the right one please?” She smiled at how comfortable he was now and carefully held his foot as she got the clippers. “Each one is different, so I can’t just rush into it and cut them short. It has to be slow so I don’t clip one of the veins in your nail. So until you are older, you’ll need to let me do this, probably every other week, alright?” He nodded, eyes focused on the TV so he could ignore the pressure from the clippers.
He was watching a recap of one of the fights from earlier that day in between the fifth and fourth hero in the rankings when a commercial cut in. It got loud and the screen was suddenly full of people yelling and noises as a promotion for a type of ear doctor. Unfortunately, it made Keigo flinch and he moved his foot as Azumi went to clip, and multiple things happened at once. He felt a sharp pain in his toe that ran all the way up his leg. His wings flapped out and hardened to sharp quill-like points as he cried out and yanked his foot away. Azumi swore and dropped the clippers because he had moved his foot forward as she was clipping and then had yanked it from her grasp just as fast. Blood dripped into her hand, onto the floor and his foot was pulled close to him as his wings enclosed around him making a cocoon of sharp red feathers as he cried and she could see blood drops on the sofa. She’d knicked the vein on his middle toe on his right foot because it had moved too close to where she intended to clip.
“Shoot! Keigo? Keigo sweety are you ok? I need to see to stop the bleeding!” He was crying, she could hear it, and he didn’t move his wings even a crack as she hesitantly tried to touch one of the sharp feathers. It was like being pricked by a large thorn, and she stuck her finger in her mouth once she saw a drop of blood on her forefinger that she had poked with. “Ouch. Sweetie, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to cut so close. Your foot moved. Please let me see it?” He whimpered, inside his red cocoon which he felt was a safe haven for himself. He was holding his right foot and pressing his shirt over the toe that was still bleeding. His shirt was blue, same as his jeans had been, and he watched the patch on the toe start to turn brown from the bleeding. His eyes watered as he blinked quickly, too scared to uncurl himself as he listened to Azumi’s pleas. It hurt. It hurt so much! It wouldn’t stop hurting even when he held his shirt to it! He made a scared chirp as he heard her speaking again. This time, he knew she was using her quirk because she only said three words and he felt his wings opening up and his shoulders going slack.
Azumi used her quirk as soon as she realized he wasn’t going to open up. She nicked his vein and she knew that was going to keep bleeding until she got the bleed stop on it, or it soaked through whatever he was holding on it. Taking a deep breath, she spoke clearly as she watched him. “Relax, Keigo. Relax.” His wings fell open immediately, his shoulders slumped and he stared at her, mouth hanging open as his entire body relaxed. She saw he had wrapped his t-shirt around his foot and she kneeled with the bleed stop powder, quickly moving his shirt and hand and grabbing his foot, dipping it right into the small bottle of powder and pulling it out. Blinking, he bit his bottom lip and started shaking, his panic overwhelming her quirk that had gotten him to relax so quickly. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry, Zumi, I’m sorry!” Azumi set the bottle aside and gathered him into her arms in a warm hug, hands holding him firmly as he shook. “Shh shhh shhh. It’s alright, it was an accident. You’re alright see? It stopped bleeding already.” He peeked down at his foot and blinked thinking the powder was going to get covered in blood, but it seemed to have stopped the blood as soon as it hit the clipped open vein. “See? All better. You’re alright, and I’m not mad. You reacted like any little boy would if something hurt you. It’s alright.” Keigo buried his face in her chest as he shook and gripped the sweater she was still wearing.
“I get in trouble when I don’t do as I’m told. Mommy would hit me or lock me in the closet. I-I didn’t mean to hide. It hurt and I got scared.” She looked down at him and rubbed his back. “I know. It’s alright to be scared. I understand, and I bet it did hurt. But Keigo?” He peeked up at her, expecting a stern face, maybe a lecture on listening in the future. Instead, she was smiling, her facial features were so calm and smiling at him. “Next time we’ll keep the TV off so you don’t get scared and move your foot, ok? It was my fault for not holding your foot better and we got it to stop bleeding. So all is well, alright?” He slowly stopped shaking, now looking at her in awe. Azumi was always amazing to him, every time something happened and he feared she would get mad, or punish him, or hurt him. She always found a way to make it seem like it wasn’t such a bad thing. He’d never heard an adult say something was their fault, so that was a new one for him. And she wasn’t upset at all about his cocoon or reaction to the pain. He looked about to say something when she pointed to the TV. “Endeavor is on.”
That got his attention. So much so she was able to reposition him and hurry up to finish clipping the last two toes. She carefully filed all but the middle talon, figuring it needed time to heal the top. Even with the trim, it was much shorter than the rest of his taloned nails, and she was very careful when it came time to work the lotion on his scaled skin. He was enthralled with the story on Endeavor, so much that he didn’t make a noise, only stared. For a moment, Azumi was concerned that she relaxed him too much with her quirk, but once it went to a commercial, he glanced down to see what his foot looked like. “Thank you for doing this. It feels much better than before.” She smiled and leaned forward to rest her forehead on his. “Thank you for being so brave about it. Just like a hero would be, you know.” His face went a bit pink as she picked up the bowl of water and headed for the bathroom to dump it, and to get some cleaner to get the blood out of the carpet and sofa.
“We may have to do your wings and hair after I get the blood out of the carpet. Don’t want it to stain.” Azumi smiled and began to dab and wipe at the spots of blood as he looked down at his feet. Even the right foot, which had been in pain before, felt so much better than before. He knew they were going to fit his shoes better, and the scaly parts of his foot seemed to be smoother since Azumi had put that lotion on them. Aside from the accidental clipping of his talon to the vein, he really liked that and didn’t think he would mind doing it every other week. Especially if he got head pets and gentle kisses from Azumi again. Once she was done cleaning up the blood, she sat back down and smiled, motioning with her fingers for him to turn around. “Alright handsome birdy. Turn around and spread out those beautiful wings for me so I can preen them.” He giggled and turned to sit on the short part of the L shaped sofa. He knew it would give Azumi the best access to both of his wings. His eyes went to the TV as a close up profile of All Might took over the screen. Then, he felt Azumi gently running her fingers through his feathers, adjusting or flipping them, occasionally removing one that had come out but was stuck there. He trilled, unable to stop the noise from coming out of his mouth as she worked gently on his wings, first the left, and then the right.
Normally, there was an oil gland near the edges of his main wings and the joints that dispersed a mild bit of oil that could be rubbed in to help make his wings water resistant. Azumi would stop her preening every few minutes to pour a thin dollop of oil into her hands and rub them together before continuing where she left off, and it made her fingers able to perform magic on his wings. Even though it took almost an hour to preen and brush through his wings, it was much faster with the oil because they moved easily and seemed to relax under her touch. Both wings were preened and brushed with no incident. He didn’t even stop her when she massaged the base of each wing, ignoring the thin silvery scars that were there from his parents. It reminded him that Axumi and his parents were two very different people. His parents only wanted a small body to claim food stamps and money from the state. They didn’t care about him, or if he hurt, or even the level of personal grooming that Azumi was doing for him. Keigo sort of wished Azumi had wings or feathers so he could try to groom her in return.
Once she had finished his wings and the muscles around the base of each wing, she hugged him close from behind, smiling and nuzzling his cheek with her own. “There! Your wings have been preened and groomed. See how they feel?” He chirped and nuzzled her cheek back before ruffling them a bit and spreading them out, eyes wide. “They feel really good. Not achey or gritty at all!” Azumi laughed at his description before grabbing the brush and wrapped a large towel around him. It was so large it pooled around where he was sitting, and it wasn’t until she got the hair scissors that he realized she wanted to catch the hair she was about to trim. “Azumi?” She started gently brushing his hair, using her fingers to trail the brush along his scalp as she made a curious noise in response. “Hm?” He heard a light snip and then more brushing. “Thank you for taking care of me. Not just this but everything you do. I know it’s hard and I’m a problem.” Azumi paused before shaking her head as she kept working on his hair. “You’re not a problem, Keigo. I said I would do whatever I needed to to take care of you, didn’t I? I promised to feed you, clothe you, handle whatever your needs would be. What kind of mommy would I be if I let your hair get long and knotted? Or your wings get dull and messy? Or if your talons grew too long and you couldn’t walk on them? I may be learning as we go, but I’m happy to, and if something doesn’t work, we can always try again, or find a different way to do it.”
He smiled and let her trim his hair and brush it with her fingers and the brush, moving to the comb when it became more about trimming then untangling. Keigo thought Azumi was the best mommy he could have asked for. She’d been nothing but kind and caring since she asked him to stay with her. Truthfully, he wasn’t sure what he would have done if Azumi had thrown him out after he ended up on her balcony during that blizzard. But as he saw the gentle smile on her face and how much she was doing just to take care of him, he couldn’t think of anywhere else he would want to be. So he chirped happily and held his wings still until she was done with his hair. WHen she had curled up the towel, and put all the supplies away, making notes on what was used and what they didn’t need, she sat back down in front of the TV with him, and he easily crawled into her lap, hugging her as his wings wrapped around her carefully.
“Thank you mama. You’re the best.” Azumi wrapped her arms gently around him and planted a kiss on top of his head before glancing at the news on TV. “Of course my handsome bird. Of course.”