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Enji Todoroki doesn't have a soulmate mark. It's one of those things that mostly everyone has, like a quirk, but like a quirk there are a few people who don't. And just like a quirk they typically show up in the first 10 years of someone's life when their soulmate is born. As a child he spends hours staring at his mother's, which bears his father's name, fascinated by the thought of who his soulmate might be.
He checks his body in the mirror almost every day looking for it when he's young. It'll show up, it has to.
Of course, some people don't get theirs until they're older. Some people get theirs in their teens. It's a little controversial to get one late, even though no one has any control over it.
The more years that pass, the more worried Enji's parents get about the difference in age between him and his soulmate. When he's 15, he overhears his mother arguing with one of her friends, who says that if he doesn't have one by now, he'd better not do anything about it if one does show up.
As he reaches his late teens he grows distressed, and eventually just cold.
By 18, Enji has given up. If he doesn't have one by now, he refuses to care about it anymore. Soulmates are a stupid thing, anyway. Why should the universe get to say who he spends his life with? He swears to himself that if he ever does get one, he's going to ignore it. He'll burn it off if he has to. His anger seeps into everything he does and he lets it fuel him.
When he marries Rei a few years later - pays off her family for it, even - he's told she doesn't have a soulmark either and he's content with that. She tells him he's the closest she'll ever get to having one and that maybe they are each others, that their marks simply never showed.
Enji smiles and nods, and silently wishes he felt more for her.
He never asks about the small scar on her arm, about the length of a name. For the rest of the time they’re married, it goes unspoken.
Touya is born without a mark. Enji's silently relieved - about half the population are born with one, if their soulmates are older than them, and he thinks he'd be spiteful if his first born had a mark from the day he was born when Enji hasn't developed one in 22 years.
It's just shy of Touya's first birthday when it happens. Enji never thought it'd feel so strange, the itch of the name appearing on his chest like something crawling under his skin. It burns like his fire and he can't bring himself to look for at it hours after it appears. Does he even want to know? He looks.
It says 'Takami'.
Enji feels like he's going out of his mind because that name has been all over the news. The villain thief. It's the only thing Enji can think of when he looks at his chest in the mirror and it makes him feel so sick, it doesn't even occur to him that the man might have a child.
Hawks, on the other hand, is born with a soulmate mark. It's right across his heart, impossible to miss: Todoroki.
His father hates it. Whether it's the hero or not, it's a Todoroki, and he won't have it. The mark becomes a source of aggression and violence whenever his father sees it, lashing out at Hawks as though it’s his fault.
Hawks grows up not knowing what it means to have a name on his skin.
At least, not until the day Endeavor arrests his father and his whole world changes. Hawks learns who Todoroki is and he swears that one day, he'll meet him, whatever it takes. It's the same day Enji burns the name Takami off his own chest permanently, sickened by the only conversation he has with the villain as he puts him away behind bars. He doesn't find out about the man's family and he doesn't want anything to do with his mark ever again.
It's around this same time that Touya starts to burn himself too badly to train and Enji never finds out what his eldest son's mark says because he only notices it for the first time as the skin burns up on his wrist. Somehow watching it burn hurts him more than getting rid of his own. His other children are all born with theirs and Enji withdraws from Touya at the same time he stops his training.
When the Commission takes Hawks in, they're curious about his mark. He finally finds out what it means to have a name on his body and they promise him that if he trains really hard for them and becomes a hero, they'll introduce him to the Todorokis one day.
He doesn't take a day off training for the next ten years. The introduction doesn't get made, but it's a tantalizing promise just over the horizon at all times.
Hawks sees his name up on the hero billboard charts next to Endeavor's and he's so happy he could cry. Finally, they meet. The man he's been idolising for more than ten years isn't all that polite to him, but Hawks doesn't care. He's Enji Todoroki, and Hawks has waited on a knife's edge for this moment since he was a child. But the thing is, Enji has no idea that Hawks' name is Takami, and as much as he wants it to be true, Hawks has no idea if Enji is the Todoroki meant just for him.
On the way to Kyushu, he gathers the courage to ask.
"Where's your soul mark?"
Enji tells him that he doesn't have one. Takami - as far as Enji knows - had no living family, so it's as good as true. He doesn't understand why Hawks spends the rest of their time travelling together acting totally miserable.
Eventually Hawks asks about Enji's kids. He tries not to make it obvious that he wants to know how old they are, whether they have soulmarks. He learns that his eldest son is dead. It's crushing. Marks don't go away if a soulmate isn't alive anymore. Fuyumi is a few weeks older than him too. It's almost more crushing to him that she's a likely option, because regardless of what the mark says on his chest, Hawks is very and irrevocably gay. He's never been interested in women and no little skin detail is going to change that.
His mark was there at birth and Enji doesn't have other family, so those are all of his options. Natsuo and Shoto aren't even in the running. He's so miserable about it, he mopes for weeks. When Enji casually tells him that Fuyumi met her soulmate at work, Hawks can't take it.
With tears in his eyes, he tells Enji why he keeps bringing up his children. To say Enji's shocked to learn about his mark is an understatement but it's worse still when he tells Hawks that Touya's mark burned up before he ever saw what the name was.
It's looking more and more likely that Hawks doesn't have a soulmate after all.
It's been his motivation for over a decade, meeting his Todoroki, finding the person he's going to spend his life with.
But the Commission has turned Hawks into a soldier, so soldier on he does.
For months, it carries on much the same. Enji is still Hawks' hero. They still work together, and Hawks still trusts him with his life. When he goes undercover with the League, he's very careful to never let them see his bare chest.
When the war comes, Hawks finally learns who Dabi is.
He learns it on the brink of death, wings all burned up and lungs full of smoke, Twice's blood still wet on his hands. He doesn't die there, but when he demands to know who Dabi is when he calls him by his real name, the one he had to give up, and Dabi says 'Todoroki'... it feels like he might as well have.
Hawks collapses with Touya's name on his lips and an ache in his chest like he's never felt before. Soulmates, he thinks as he's carried to safety, slipping in and out of consciousness. Starcrossed soulmates. That's surely how he knew Hawks' name...they're made for one another. The universe chose them for each other. And Touya was going to kill him anyway. He passes out before he can breathe a word of it to anyone.
It's about an hour from then that Enji gets the same revelation. He stares up at Dabi, frozen with shock because his son is alive. His son is not only alive, but he's a mass murderer. He's not only a mass murderer...he's Hawks' soulmate.
He must be, right?
Enji's never cared more about soulmarks than he does at this moment. But the second revelation comes moments later on the hijacked TV broadcast like the hardest slap across the face he's ever received, harder than his father ever delivered with the hand with his mother's name on.
Hawks is Keigo Takami.
Takami.
Everything lines up at once.
Of course the villain thief isn't his soulmate, because that wouldn't work. The timing was twenty years too late. Enji had never been able to explain it before, but part of the investigation into the villain meant looking for family, and he had none. At least, not anywhere Enji or the police could find. Keigo Takami must have slipped through the cracks, away from Enji's grasp. He doesn't know what he would have done about it then if he'd known, if he'd found the child bearing his name over his heart, meant for him. He's heard that the closer the mark is to the heart, the more intense the love that follows. There's no time to do anything about it now because he has to fight for his life, for everyone's lives. There's no time. As soon as the fight is through, he looks for Hawks, still reeling from the truth. He finds deep in his chest that he still cares about this so much, all he can think of is finding him.
Hawks isn't waking up. Enji finds out what Touya did and he's as heartbroken as the day he thought he'd died. If Hawks doesn't pull through, he doesn't know what he'll do with himself. Enji berates himself for being so bitter. He should have just told Hawks the truth when he asked about his soul mark, that he'd burned it away like a child having a tantrum because he was so determined not to let a name have such a significant impact on his life. He let shame control him. And now, there might not be a chance.
Hawks pulls through, of course, but there's so much to do that the chance to talk about it just doesn't present itself. Hawks is depressed; he thinks he might not get his wings back. At least, tat's what he tells Enji is wrong. Now Enji knows who Hawks is to him, he feels his pain.
No, that's not right. Since the day they met, he's felt it. Hawks has been constantly frustrating to him, chatty, boisterous, everything he can't usually stand - Enji wouldn't have tolerated it from anyone else. But with Hawks, it was always there. The draw. The spark. He's out of his mind thinking about it.
He wonders if everyone feels like this when they find their soulmates.
In the end it's Hawks who brings it up first. They're still both in the hospital and Hawks slips into his room late at night, after the last checks have been done for the evening and no one can interrup them. He's finally out of his oxygen mask but still bandaged up to his neck. He sits down beside Enji's bed quietly.
"You've figured it out, haven't you?" Hawks asks when Enji looks at him. "About my soulmate."
Enji doesn't know how he knows. He nods.
Hawks tells him he doesn't know what to do.
He's apologetic and sad. Enji's not connecting the dots, and he starts to think Hawks is unhappy that they're soulmates. After everything he's learned about Enji recently, from the video Touya made and from his family, Enji doesn't blame him. How could he be happy with Enji Todoroki as his divined partner for life? Enji has so many regrets. He's been such a bad person.
Hawks is so young, anyway. For the first time in 30 years, Enji thinks about the argument he overheard about how he shouldn't do anything about his soulmate if they were that much younger than him. That he should leave it alone. But Hawks is devastated and it aches deep in Enji's chest. He doesn't think the feeling will ever go away.
"I'm sorry," Hawks says, honey eyes damp and expression overwhelmed. Enji misses his smile. He always looked at Enji like he was the world.
"This can't be easy for you either," Hawks continues. "I wish it wasn't true. And I don't know what to do, because I know we're going to have to take action and I don't know if I can trust myself to do the right thing. I've wanted this so much, for so long. I just don't know."
Finally, finally, it clicks. It's a little inappropriate, but Enji laughs. He can't help himself.
"Hawks...who do you think your soulmate is?"
Hawks eyes him warily and he finally says it out loud.
"Touya. Dabi. Your son."
He looks ashamed of himself. Enji reaches out and touches his shoulder. It's a gesture of physical intimacy unlike anything they've shared in the past and he feels it ignite every nerve in his body, making him feel alive.
"It's not Touya, Hawks."
Hawks fixes him with the sweetest, most confused look and as Enji stares at him in the dull blue light of the darkened hospital room, he realizes very suddenly that he loves him. He's in love with him. God, he's such a fool. As soon as he accepts the thought, it's obvious how true it is. How long it's been true.
"Then who...?"
"It's me," Enji finally says. It's like taking a breath he's been struggling to take his whole life. "I'm your soulmate."
He has to explain himself. It's shameful to do it, to show Hawks the scar over his heart where he burned the name away after arresting his father. When he starts talking he can't stop, explaining all the years he spent thinking there was something wrong with him for not having a mark and how bitter he was when it finally appeared. Hawks listens quietly, letting him talk until he runs out of steam. The silence that follows makes Enji's heart beat faster, nervous about what Hawks is going to say.
Then, quietly, Hawks confesses: "I always wanted it to be you."
Hawks crawls up onto the hospital bed beside him and that's where they have their first kiss. Their first night together. Two broken men meant for one another their whole lives. He never wants to be apart. They talk all night, late into the night about the things they've been through over these damn marks on their skin. Hawks tells him about the Commission and Enji fumes about it, that for all those years the Hero Commission knew and no one ever deigned to tell him. He tells Hawks that it's over now. He'll never leave his side again, and he'll never let anyone else hurt him.
Every moment of pain has led to this and despite everything going on around them, Enji Todoroki is the happiest he's ever been.
When it's all over, Hawks comes with him and clings to his hand the whole time as Enji gets 'Keigo' tattooed over his heart, right over the faded old scar.
"Careful," Hawks teases, as it's finished. "I heard those things are there forever."