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Everything hurt.
Not in the freshly beaten up by classmates and tutors way, not in the nighttime Dark Shadow panic attack way, but in the same vein as when the Commission tested him against someone he was hopeless against.
And that is exactly what seemed to be happening. Fumikage had simply stepped out from the dorm to take a walk to the nearest convenience store for an egg salad sandwich and maybe a soda to reward himself for passing the last test with the ghost of the good luck hug Hawks had given him two days ago still wrapped around his body.
He had barely made it off campus before he was set upon by her. A villainess strong enough to completely blindside both himself and his Quirk, she had quickly overwhelmed his powerful long range attacks and gotten close - his glaring weakness against close combat something he had to fix as soon as he could. His continued existence at the moment depended on his ability to alter his fighting style appropriately, and unfortunately it seemed that he wasn’t adapting quickly enough.
The woman’s fist slammed down into his solar plexus yet again, dangerously close to breaking his collarbone, and he coughed painfully. The glowing light coming off of the villainess made Dark Shadow hiss and retreat further into his host’s body just as Fumikage rolled out of the way of a vicious kick that followed a series of jabs. Fumikage forces his aches to the back of his mind with the mantra ‘It can get worse, you must not break’ running through his skull. He tried not to show his growing anxiety as the villain he was fighting once again blocked his attacks with practiced ease and cornered him yet again. Dark Shadow was barely able to counter the latest round of attacks, and Fumikage found himself horribly overwhelmed and getting closer to a panic attack.
The villain looked almost pitying as she threw him against a steel guardrail, wherever the hell that came from, and stepped on his right leg with enough force to break it - and Fumikage couldn’t help but let out a pained scream as she did just that, snapping his fibula on her first try. It might’ve seemed like a lucky shot if it wasn’t so precise.
He called upon Dark Shadow once more to attack, but all the Quirk was able to do was push the villainess off. The trouble with being attacked during an afternoon out was that Dark Shadow was a little too susceptible to light and could be brought to submission with the right counter. How this villain was able to repulse Dark Shadow so efficiently was, frankly, a terrifying thing to dwell upon - she knew his weakness.
The woman stalked forwards again just as Fumikage was able to get his weight on his left leg and her body seemed to glint with even more ominous bright light as the sun shined directly overhead onto her.
“Sorry kid,” she said, not sounding apologetic in the least, “but you were getting in the way. The boss doesn’t like how close you and the other one got so quick. So they sent me.” She smirked and suddenly Fumikage wasn’t standing anymore, kicked back to the ground as the woman brought her heel down once, twice, and then a third time, snapping his right tibia as well.
The teenager let out another shriek of agony and collapsed, nearing unconsciousness. The villain simply looked at him and chuckled as she began to walk away, barely a scratch on her.
“‘Revelry in the dark’, huh? Well where there is darkness, there will always be a light ready and waiting to overpower it.” She held up a hand and called behind her, “If you survive, I hope you learn from this. Forever, your Nemesis.”
And that was the last Tokoyami Fumikage heard before he passed out, his hand just out of reach of his phone. It had been broken during the fight and couldn’t be used, tracked, or recovered. His eyes closed before he could see a bright red feather flutter and fall just across the street. His breathing stumbled, stuttered, and then evened out as he felt himself falling through the air, down, down, into the dark...
Meanwhile, flying over Aichi Prefecture, the Winged Hero Hawks was taking his sweet time coming “home” from a mission in Kyoto. The Commission had been breathing down his back to get more intel from the League while also upping his quota of missions to complete. After all the intel he got, every mission completed and all those villains put away, nothing was ever enough for those power hungry bastards.
All in all, it was annoying and exhausting for the perpetually laid back hero, but he made do. If he happened to take it slow returning after finishing missions in record time, well, they shouldn’t be sending him from places like Nara and Shimane all the way to Miyagi and Nigata. All on his own flightpower, too!
He was starting to get tired of being jerked around like a puppet and used for his image, and more so than that, he was becoming even more aggravated with the adults who forced children into the program by threatening their families or setting up “accidents”.
Keigo happened to drop a few feathers as he passed over Shizuoka, hoping maybe to get a line on his favorite little bird or even his tasty treat of an informant, and he perched on a building to wait for a sign. If he got one at all. He’d wait ten or fifteen minutes before leaving, he supposed.
Hawks was just about to fly off, maybe get some karaage from a shop, when one of his dropped feathers screamed back at him.
The first and only time he had heard that kind of scream was during a sanctioned battle when he lost control and nearly broke Fumikage’s arm. It had broken something in the Winged Hero to cause a kid that kind of pain, and ever since he’d gone out of his way to only show Fumikage kindness and affection if it was possible. He wanted to show the kid that they could be friends, and that he could protect them both if needed. At some point, and Keigo honestly couldn’t tell when, that friendship had turned into something more like… kinship.
If the little bird was screaming like that, all over again, something was very wrong.
Hawks locked in on the sound and immediately took flight, headed towards that awful scream before it fell silent. The vibrations coming from his feather told a hopeful story - Fumikage was likely unconscious, not dead, since his breathing could still be felt.
Hawks pulled his headphones over his ears and his visor down over his eyes so that he could pick up speed safely, so when he landed after a few more minutes - and honestly, it felt like the longest minutes of his life so far - his heart had leapt into his throat the second he saw the state of the student he had taken in. Up close it was painfully clear that the teen had gone through hell and back.
The hero took a glance at the kid’s right leg and saw how it had been broken twice over. The bruises and fractures that littered the kid’s body hadn’t come from the Commission, he would have recognized the pattern of injuries, but they definitely came from someone associated with those bastards. He knew who had done this, he just couldn’t remember who it was. That wasn’t the point though.
They had set this up. They had hurt his kid.
If they were willing to throw him away, then they couldn’t have him back.
So Keigo set out to take care of Fumikage on his own. He was willing to break ties with everything and everyone that had made him, if only to keep his kid safe and out of the hands of the damned Hero Commission. So he began by placing an emergency call to Eraserhead, with Nedzu patched in of course, and managed to acquire temporary lodging at UA.
This was going to be a long day. Hell, this was going to be a long life, and the longest fight of his career . But if it saved a child, possibly more children lured into the HPSC’s clutches… he would gladly fight.
Three hours later
Keigo had his hands clutching onto Fumikage, sitting in a chair by the kid’s hospital bed. He had done everything possible to keep the kid safe and off of the Commission’s radar after that nasty fight, and it would take some time to see if his work and those favors paid off.
In the meantime, he had resorted to shedding all his feathers except the few holding his kid’s body and disguised himself by changing clothes and wearing a hat and dark sunglasses to disguise his hair and distinguishable eyes. He had hidden his feathers in a backpack and carried Fumikage all the way to UA, keeping a close eye on the broken leg and fractured collarbone the whole time, and now was just waiting for Fumikage to wake up from Recovery Girl’s work. She had been able to rouse the kid awake enough to activate her Quirk on him, but the boy had slipped into a heavy slumber and had so far shown no sign of waking.
God above, please let him wake up.
Fumikage, somehow having an inherently impeccable sense of timing, chose that moment to shift his head and blink into awareness, waking with an uneasy chirp that broke into shallow coughs. Keigo smiled and took the moment to squeeze his kid’s hands to get the boy’s attention and focus him.
“Hey, kid. It’s Keigo, Hawks. I found you, you’re at UA and Recovery Girl worked on you while you were out of it. She managed to wake you up enough once I got you here to fix your leg, but I doubt you remember that, so just take it easy and keep your weight off the leg,” Keigo said, keeping a soft and easy cadence.
The bird boy simply looked at the man claiming to be Keigo and tilted his head, confused and wary. The soft, hesitant question that followed showed the hero just how fragile the teen’s trust was.
“...Where are your wings?”
Clearly, the kid was still a little dazed from the pain medication. It still pulled a laugh from the Hero, and he smiled at how much even just his laughing relaxed his little bird. It was true how much of a difference his wings made, kind of like Present Mic and that signature, ridiculous hairstyle.
“Shed my feathers. Didn’t want to be noticed, I kind of figured that you got hurt because of your connection to the Commission and to me so I wanted to get you somewhere safe without putting you in more danger,” he answered, and Keigo opened the backpack he had purchased and shed his jacket in order to will his feathers back to his wings. Thankfully he was able to complete his transformation, so he stretched obnoxiously and laid a hand on the soft feathers of his kid’s bird head. “See? I’m back to normal now.”
Fumikage relaxed more and almost immediately began to speak, falling into the training of debriefing as soon as he was able to. He told the entire story of the fight, from how the villain got the drop on him and how her Quirk seemed to perfectly negate his own to his last moments of consciousness.
Keigo’s heart dropped as he put the remaining pieces together. Fumikage was unaware of how easily the woman could have killed him.
Nemesis was, after all, a contracted villain with the HPSC.
Without thinking, Hawks blurted out, “Kid, I’m getting you out of there.”
Fumikage paused in his recounting. “Why? Why would you do that,” he questioned.
Keigo paused and took a moment to think his next actions through before he slid onto the hospital bed and wrapped his arms around the teen. He didn’t know how to explain it, not properly with words, so he tried a different tact. “...I never had a family. Not really, not anyone who loved me that I can remember. You do, and I want you to be able to keep them by your side,” he stopped, his smile falling into something more pensive, “I’ll be here for you through it all, no matter what.”
Fumikage met his eyes with lingering confusion, then shifted closer and tucked his head under the blond’s chin. The painkillers that prevented him from feeling his injuries were clouding his mind and kept his inhibitions lower than usual, loosening his tongue and letting him say what first came to mind. “Keigo,” he began, “I don’t think my parents can stop the Commission from coming after me again, not without them getting threatened again. But… you can help. So, maybe you could stay close? My parents would understand… you met them, they liked you.”
Keigo’s breathing hitched, his smile brightening despite the serious subject. “Aw, kid I’m touched. Don’t worry, I’m actually working on it already,” he admitted, “I had to tell Aizawa and Nedzu everything. Eraserhead’s got a reputation in the underground and can help me stay off the radar, and in the meantime Nedzu and UA are protected territory for you. The HPSC can’t touch a kid here, not without going through Nedzu himself.”
The kid noticeably relaxed and smiled slightly, “Well that’s good at least, I’m glad you’re working on a plan for both of us. I’d be worried if you didn’t think of a way to keep yourself safe too.”
His mentor continued on, noting the renewed comfort Fumikage was taking from his words, “Well then you’re gonna love this, I’ve also ensured that there is room here for me. I can’t keep going back to those people, not after everything I’ve had to watch them do to you, so I’m going to work with Nedzu and a separate agency to bring the Commission down,” he cracked a smile, “Maybe Nedzu will offer me a job like your teachers.”
Looking down, the hero noticed that the raven-headed teen was nearly asleep, lulled by the cadence of Keigo’s rambling. Encouraged by the quiet and the way the young bird was curled into his arms, he admitted something that had crossed his mind more than a few times in the past. It also helped his slight nerves that Fumikage was so tired and medicated that he might forget it. “Every time you got hurt, punished for something out of your control, I had the urge to protect you, shelter you and keep you safe from further harm,” he smiled softly, “And before I looked in on your file, I even thought of going so far as to adopt you. Ridiculous I know, but there’s something about you, kid.”
Fumikage nuzzled his feathers against the blond’s shoulder sleepily, “I would have liked that, I think. And just because I have parents doesn’t mean… you’re like a brother to me. You can protect me just like that. Already… already are.”
With that, the young man fell back asleep, a restful and natural change from his earlier near-comatose state.
But Keigo stayed awake. Not that he couldn’t sleep, hell, he’d flown all the way from Kyoto earlier and was ready to curl up and sleep for a day and a half. He simply couldn’t get Fumikage’s final words out of his head - “You’re like a brother to me.” He felt pride rising deep within him, along with affection and a sense of responsibility that was far more powerful than the calling heroism had ever given him.
He wasn’t going to let Fumikage fall ever again.
After all, that’s his new - not so new, not really - little brother, and nobody gets in the way of a protective Hawks.
The Commission would understand that soon.
They just don’t know it yet.