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There were a lot of unspoken, unwritten rules that governed the underground in Japan. Simple things, most of the time. Common sense, people would argue. Don’t bring shit into your own neighborhood, keep your story straight, never mess with the Bratva, for fuck’s sake make sure it’s a bucket of water and not tanning oil you’re pranking Endeavor with, etc. Little things that kept the underground running in fine form, matching pace and tune with the tribulations of the limelight world around it.
One of the biggest rules was simple enough: No one touched the Princes Royal.
It was a general, genetic enough title, able to be adapted for any gender or lack of gender one of the Princes Royal may possess. But the concept behind it was what made the rule nearly enshrined in the unspoken law of the underground.
Each domain, each concept of a crime, had a Monarch.
All for One, cryptid though he might’ve been, was one such example. One of the biggest examples of a Monarch. The King of Evil, the King of Organized Crime in all of Japan, it went without saying that people avoided the fuck out of his biological son. The bean might be tiny, adorably green, and Quirkless (for now), but that meant nothing when a few minutes in the kid’s presence gave the denizens of the underground terrifying deja vu, and the chills down their spines that felt like someone was walking over their freshly dug grave.
There were other examples, of course. The Yakuza had their own Monarch, along with drug smugglers, white collar criminals, and so many more. And each Monarch had to meet special qualifications - no one ever knew what those were until someone met them - to seize the title for their own.
The Takami Thief, for all that he never outright claimed the title, was the Thief King of Japan. Even imprisoned - and no one doubted that without the HPSC blackmailing him, no prison would be able to hold the Thief for very long - he held onto his title and his reign with an iron grip.
So when word got around, only a year after holding the title, that the Takami Thief had reproduced, the underground felt a shiver dance down their spine.
Somewhere in Japan, there was a little Prince of Thieves.
“Ababa-bah,” Keigo babbled, slobbering over the plastic block in his mouth, before using it to poke the exhausted figure sprawled out on the floor indignantly. Said figure jolted, and Keigo made a series of chirps and cheeps that sounded eerily like the microwave beeping.
“Hungry, eyas?” the exhausted figure of the Thief King of Japan slurred, pushing himself up from the ground to pluck up his cheeping child, “Where you put it all, I’ll never know.”
This time Keigo used hisses and buzzes to burble something close to the bubbling, boiling pot of water Tomie used to heat up his formula bottle whenever he needed it. Shinya wondered idly if he should be concerned about how quickly his chick was picking up mimicry - and likely would be, when he woke up at 2am to the sound of the microwave going off in his ear - but right now he was too tired to think about it.
“Alright then, baby feathers,” he sighed, settling Keigo onto his hip as he moved inside to warm up some milk, “let’s get you some dinner.”
A long coo and affectionate nuzzle was his reward, and the terrifying Thief King felt his heart soften. No matter how unexpected, or how much he ran them all ragged, his chick was worth everything.
No one saw much of the newborn Prince of Thieves until years after the wee thing had left the safety of the sling his parents used to cart him around when they needed their hands free. A blessing towards the ongoing survival of the rest of the underground, given how overprotective the Takami Thief was of his chick when the little thing could walk and talk and scream for help. No one wanted to see what the winged-thief would’ve been like with a defenseless baby kept underwing.
But when people did see him, it was one hell of a mind trip.
Adorable, was the general consensus towards the little ball of baby-wide gold eyes and jewel-bright feathers. Terrifying was also there, given the child, at four years old, was far more clever than some of the adults they knew, and quieter than his father by far.
Cheerful, was the impossible thing, and the one that made people edge further and further away when the baby prince looked around for someone to talk to, older, predatory gold watching over little wings as he went about.
It was a quiet yawning and a soft cheep that disrupted the planning session. Mostly because, for the six thieves working together in a shitty motel room living space for this particular heist, there wasn’t supposed to be anyone else hidden away nearby.
The door to the bedroom was pushed open slowly, and a tiny, red-winged figure slipped into view, blanket-wrapped around him and trailing behind him like a little cape. He yawned again, baby face scrunching up adorably that made the hardened, experienced thieves want to coo, and revealing little predator-sharp baby fangs.
“Daddy?”
Really, if the red wings hadn’t been a giveaway, then the fact that they were in Shinya’s room, and only one person would’ve been so bold as to bring their child along with them to a job, would’ve given it away.
At the other end of the table, Shinya shifted, relaxing as his little chick came into his line of sight, “Here, Kei.”
Little feet pattered silently across the carpeted floor, beelining towards Shinya without as much as opening an eye. Face scrunched up in displeasure, he held his arms up in the unmistakable gesture of children everywhere declaring: pick me the fuck up.
Shinya chuckled, and picked him up, letting them get a glimpse of the little prince snuggled into his side, before a massive red wing was drawn over the snoozing, cheeping bundle of chick. Predatory gold gleamed at them mercilessly for a long minute, watching them sweat, before Shinya turned back to the plans, reopening their discussion in a much softer voice than before.
People who interacted often with the Takami Thief often got used to the terrifying levels of paranoia he could inspire in anyone he caught interacting with his chick. And whatever whiplash people got witnessing the Takami Thief’s downright parental behavior around his chick, only cemented that unwritten rule.
No one messed with Takami’s little Prince.
Which is what prepared everyone for the downfall of the HPSC well over a decade before it happened. No one thought that Takami was sitting idly in prison while his son was held hostage by one of the most powerful organizations in the country.
And then, when the little Prince of Thieves returned to the spotlight, just as charming and cheerful as he’d been as a chick, but with the ruthless cleverness that had haunted the whispers of his name honed into something closer to world destroying than merely terrifying - a blade that would turn against all enemies, even the ones who held the leash around his neck - well. Anyone who’d been tempted to try something against the newest pro-hero rapidly reconsidered.
Takami Keigo, the Pro-Hero Hawks, might’ve been a bleeding heart, but he had all the cunning, intelligence, and drive that had made his father Thief King of Japan only a handful of years out of high school. That the bleeding heart, combined with the little prince’s underground upbringing, lent him to being more considerate of down-on-their-luck criminals, leaving most of the underground alone unless they directly hurt him or his...it made them even more comfortable with that decision.
Hawks was a good hero. One of the best, as his swift ascendance lent credence to. And to those who saw him out and about, doing everything from helping cats out of trees to rescuing two hundred people from a burning office building, there was a level of respect that built towards the too-young pro-hero. Fukuoka especially seemed to rally around their little bird, the canny old denizens remembering a time when a little red-winged child would run about the old streets, an imposing, red-winged man never far behind his trail of bright laughter.
And though he encountered more than his fair share of villains - he was a pro-hero, after all - as a little Prince Royal, the underground was ever open to him, should he need it.
“It’s no use!” Endeavor growled, hands slamming into the table, filled with frustration. It was a minor blessing that he’d consented to turning his quirk off in the conference room, or all their - admittedly piteous - evidence would’ve gone up in flames. The rest of the team in the room - a handful of the top ten heroes because of the seriousness of the team up required - threw him exasperated glances, more than fed up with the mild tantruming that had been going on over the course of the entire day.
Keigo had been late to the meeting - he’d run into a hostage scene in progress en route, and the heroes had been too far away to respond so he’d just nipped in, nice and quick. He’d even managed to talk down the gunman, ending the scene with the poor guy sobbing into his jacket about his mother’s medical bills as he let Hawks handcuff him gently. He’d ended up tucking another business card for a good lawyer into the gunman’s pocket and resolved to check in on the guy’s mom later.
But all that was to say that even if he knew it was an intelligence failure that had Endeavor frustrated, he didn’t know what the specifics were behind it. And he was a little leery of the atmosphere in the room to risk questioning the big guy. The room was already hot enough he’d had to shuck his jacket ten minutes in.
“They’re obstructing the information flow,” Endeavor snarled, jabbing pointedly at the image on one of the monitors they were looking at, and Keigo looked over idly, wondering if it would be more informative about the whole thing if he could recognize the -
Oh. Keigo’s eyebrows shot up. That was Marya’s bar. It was a neutral haven for those of the underground, frequented by a mix of the heroic underground and the criminal. Limelight heroes in the know tended to dress down and put in regular appearances. Information brokers made it a go-to location drop. No one started shit in Marya’s bar because she’d eviscerate them, then put them back together, and drop them into Tokyo bay in an icicle that would slowly melt away come morning for the authorities to find them.
And they were talking about an info broker, someone who was there regularly, not one of the random drop ins, which mean they were probably after -
“You’re looking at the bartender from Lockhaven?” he asked, making several of his coworkers jolt, and Keigo realized idly that it had been the first time he’d spoken in the last hour.
Endeavor threw him a dirty look, clearly annoyed with having to go back over what was a well-established point, “Yes,” he ground out, “she’s the only one with the information we need.”
Best Jeanist picked up from there, throwing a disapproving look at Endeavor as he seemed to realize why Keigo was asking, “We’ve approached her through our underground connections, and even a few underground heroes, to purchase the information from her, or see if it was available elsewhere. Unfortunately, she’s been rather stubborn about that unwieldy group in the harbor - to a degree where we’re sure Lockhaven’s planning on doing something themselves. And no one else has the information.”
Keigo hummed, considering what he knew of the group by the dock they were targeting, and Marya’s own spine of steel, her gray but strong moral compass… his eyes widened. Darted over to the list of targets.
Oh. Of course. The answer was so simple.
Lockhaven wasn’t planning on acting themselves. They couldn’t, without risking a great deal from the underground.
One of the targets they had was a Prince Royal.
An annoying one, to be sure. Even Keigo’d heard of his temperament, haughty entitlement because of his mother’s Queen title. Even though, if rumors were correct, he’d inherited very little of her charisma or cunning intuition in the Trade. And one, Keigo was almost positive, was all but begging the underground to shank him, having run up an insane amount of debt without equalizing.
Even if the underground opened its doors to the Princes Royal, that didn’t mean they got everything for free. Especially as they got old enough to stand on their own, there was a level of expectation that came with maintaining that title, and a mutual respect that developed. A respect that lent them to dealing with unfortunate Princes Royal who went too far, when the underground could not.
Which meant that while Marya might not sell that information to well-known heroes or other underground affiliates… she’d sell it to him. Or even trade it, if the information exchange was good enough. It might even reduce the overall potential casualties or injuries from civilians caught in the crossfire...yes, that was a plan.
He blinked himself out of his thoughts, studying the pro-heroes in front of him, who’d gone back to bickering the moment Keigo had submerged into his own thoughts.
Now, he thought, how to convince them to let me do it?
He blinked again, as another thought darted through his mind, brow arching as he considered it. He was the Number 3 Hero, after all. It would even fit his profile.
Best ask forgiveness instead of permission. His Daddy taught him well.
He pushed himself up, drawing all eyes, and smiled absently, thoughts racing as he waved, “Be right back.”
“Hawks? HAWKS, WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU’RE - ,” the conference room door closed on Endeavor’s deafening, demanding roar, and Keigo almost felt bad for the rest of the team which would be stuck listening to the Number 2’s devolving rants and temperature tantrums until he got back.
Though, not enough to stop him from taking off from the nearest open window big enough to squeeze through. He had a quick flight to make, and a pit stop at one of the safe houses he kept in this area to grab some safe, discreet clothes. Heroes on duty were not welcome in Lockhaven. Off duty was another thing entirely.
When he ducked into Lockhaven half an hour later, dressed in an old zip-up hoodie, wings shrunk and tucked away at his back, in a comfy pair of leggings and boots, not one person who knew him as Hawks would’ve recognized him. So it didn’t surprise him at all when Marya took one look at him and grinned.
“Well well,” she huffed, voice low and gravelly, but nonetheless welcoming, “It’s been a while, little prince.”
“Surely not that long?” he said, grin curving his lips, “People are telling me they see me so often they get sick of me. Can’t have that, now can we?”
Marya hummed, “Well, we see an awful lot of pro-hero Hawks, to be sure,” she said, something flashing in rich-colored eyes, “But it’s quite the timing you’ve got, little prince. There’s a situation we’ve been looking to - take care of, that needs your particular expertise.”
Keigo’s grin turned sharp. He’d been right on the money, then.
“This wouldn’t have anything to do with a situation on the docks, would it?” he asked, voice pitched low so only she - and the handful of eavesdroppers with sensory quirks - could hear.
Marya huffed and shook her head, “Of course,” she grumbled, “that’s what you’re here for, isn’t it?”
The number of rapid-fire text messages he was getting from the hero team waiting on him rumbling away on his cell phone was a testament to that.
Keigo smiled, slow and devious in a way no one ever saw Hawks, “If I tell you when and where,” he pitched, “you can keep your people out of the crossfire.”
Marya arched a brow, “And the - problem, in question. He’ll be removed from the equation?”
“He’ll live,” he drawled, sharp eyes catching on some of the slumps that went around the bar, “But he sure as hell won’t be a problem for you anymore, so long as the Queen doesn’t take offense.”
Marya waved him off, “You’re a little prince, yourself,” she noted, eyebrows arched pointedly, “You’re accountable to each other, even if your job makes you more inclined to that than the others. She’ll take it up with you if she has to, but he’s been wearing her out as well, if rumors have it right.”
Color him completely unsurprised. He can only imagine the amount of business Lady Sleight must’ve been losing because of her son’s fuck-ups, not to mention how he was tanking her reputation.
His attention was immediately recaptured when Marya pulled a slim, pocket-sized book from a compartment in the bar counter, sliding it over to him soundlessly. He tucked it away in an inner pocket as discreetly as he could manage it. He knew what it was, after all. Her quirk was incredibly useful in this line of work.
“I’ll be waiting on those dates, little prince,” she said, and he offered her a grin and a nod of agreement before he slipped away.
He sent off a quick “omw~” with a cheeky little bird emoji to the team waiting on him, ignoring the way his phone buzzed with renewed energy as he summoned the rest of his waiting feathers and took to the sky. He definitely didn’t have time to go and change back, so his coworkers would get a glimpse of what he looked like off-duty. Shame that, but oh well. Couldn’t be helped.
He ducked through the same open window he’d taken off from, at most two hours ago, and he could almost feel the seething heat wafting off of Endeavor, even with his quirk mostly inactive in the conference room. So he didn’t bother with teasing the big lug when he swanned into the room, grinning like a satisfied cat.
Instead, he dropped his loot onto the table in front of him. He dug a canine into the meat of one finger, then tapped the bloody digit twice on the book, and revelled in the shocked looks from across the room as it rippled and reverted to a massive dossier filled with all the information they’d been looking for.
He slid it across the table to Miruko and Endeavor, who’d been arguing about the information the most, and watched them do double takes when they realized what they were holding.
“Feathers, how the fuck - ,” Rumi stared, staring, gaping at the contents of the dossier, and Keigo grinned even as he shrugged.
“I asked.”
And really, that’s exactly what he’d done. It wasn’t his fault his co-workers didn’t know the whole story.
All in a day’s work, was all.
Takami Keigo, the pro-hero Hawks, had been the Prince of Thieves since his unexpected birth. And that meant a lot more than people realized it did.
That was just the way they liked it, though.
There was a reason the rules were unwritten, after all.
end.