Chapter Text
As it turned out, Dabi did in fact know where to get diapers first thing in the morning.
He even got extra tiny ones meant specifically for newborns, and showed Hawks how to fit them onto a squirming bird-baby.
What he wouldn’t do was change Fledgling himself, no matter how much the hero begged.
“Just once! Please, that last one nearly killed me!”
The dark haired villain shrugged, leafing through the manual on the bottle sanitizer that had arrived the day before. “And I care about that why?”
Groaning, Hawks faced the now week old something, face pinching as he began to undo what would no doubt be another horror show.
“How can someone so cute make something so nasty? All she’s eating is formula - and it’s organic. Organic shouldn’t smell like that.”
Neither Dabi nor Fledgling deigned to answer, one busy fiddling with the settings on the new appliance and the other engrossed by the sight of a passing dust mote, bird eyes wide and unblinking as she tracked its slow progress across the room.
The last few days had been...weird. If Hawks was being honest, he might upgrade weird to completely-fucking-insane.
Roughly seven days ago, give or take a few hours, he was one of Japan’s most eligible bachelors, a ranking hero, and a local and international heartthrob.
And now he was also a dad to what may or may not be a human baby, but definitely acted a lot like one if her inability to sleep through the night said anything about it.
He was exhausted. The hero hadn’t looked directly in a mirror since Wednesday, but he knew he had to be a mess. A tired, greasy, spit up covered mess of a man.
The only thing keeping him from going completely off the deep end, as nuts as it was, was the career criminal currently checking that Fledgling’s favorite bottle was clean enough to use.
Because Hawks had somehow entered the Twilight Zone and ended up in a world where Dabi knew everything about babies. Did he like them? Not even a little. But he was the one who had set up the crib in Hawks’ gaming room-slash-nursery, had chosen the right bottles, the best formula, recommended how to work on scheduling his sleep around the infant’s own and had even allowed the new father a few Fledgling-free hours a day to sleep off the worst of his stress headaches.
He didn’t know why Dabi kept coming back, supplies in hand, but he did.
Every. Single. Day.
If it wasn’t for all the homicide, Hawks would consider the other to be a god among men just for being the only person he’d spoken to since Friday who was capable of responding in actual human speech.
Or maybe if he’d start helping with - “Oh, gross!”
Fledgling blinked up at him, chirping as he tossed the monstrosity he’d just unleashed into the nearby garbage bin, slamming the lid shut with a feather while he reached for the wipes.
That look...
Hawks felt himself melt, just a little, as his daughter’s big, beautiful eyes met his own, the tiny black markings framing them perfectly.
I have the world’s cutest kid!
Dabi had noted on the second day that Fledgling seemed unusually aware and active for her age, and Hawks, after a quick online search, had to agree. She was the right size for a newborn (not counting the small but intimidating black claws on her hands and the terrifying monster talons on her bird-like feet), but she was just a little too well-coordinated to fit in with her peers.
The handy solution to that when he did take her public? One word: Quirks.
Of course his daughter (and the falsified tests were on their way - wasn’t it nice when the Commission’s veritable library of blackmail material was used for good?), with her clear mutant type Quirk, wouldn’t be expected to follow standard physical or behavioral milestones for babies. It just meant she was gonna grow up strong like her daddy.
Being different wasn’t freaky it if was impressive, and no one would say his little Egg was anything less than amazing!
His adorable baby bird wiggled again, and Hawks felt his grin freeze as something warm and wet met the bare skin of his hands and wrists.
“Wha - Fledge, noooo!”
Fledgling ignored his complaints, returning to her dust watching activities.
Dabi wasn’t much better, the apathetic asshole.
“And that’s why you don’t zone out before you get the fresh diaper on. You’re lucky she’s not a boy or that would’ve been your face.”
Fledgling chirped as her new dust mote buddy caught the light.
Hawks could feel the ends of his sleeves beginning to moisten as he fought to contain the mess to the confines of the changing pad.
Was seven days old too soon to start potty training?