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He would swear that he spent a solid 80% of his time patrolling anymore, although logically he knew that has always been the case. He just was a bit more salty about it during the winter. Temperature was a doubled-edged sword for him; flames were the only way to truly destroy or damage is feathers, but in the subzero temperatures he couldn’t slow his loss of body heat. His wings weren’t necessarily the same as the rest of his body, as they weren’t connected by any blood vessels in the feathers, but every beat of his wings seemed to drive the cold deeper into his core. Even wearing his full winter outfit, he couldn’t suppress the first few shivers as snow began to fall.
The sparkling white crystals were beautiful. If he weren’t so busy, maybe he would entertain the thought of inviting you for a winter walk, and starting a snowball fight before heading inside to curl up next to a fireplace. It was the kind of weather that made the heart yearn for warm drinks and intertwined limbs underneath of a shared blanket. Keigo still hadn’t figured out how you had known when his birthday was, but the gift of homemade cupcakes from the day before was so thoughtful and sweet that it almost brought him to tears of joy.
His mind was quickly changed about the snow as the winds began to pick up, whipping white until the visibility was so poor he could barely see his hand in front of his face. He could really feel the loss of body heat now. Patrol would just have to wait until the blizzard passed, or he would be an unfortunate Hawks-popsicle, which would be entirely useless to the commission and his hero agency.
It was a miracle when he finally managed to stumble onto the landing pad of his office building, ready to warm up and hide out away from the storm. The office should be empty- he had made it abundantly clear that if the weather began to turn nasty it was better to pack up and finish whatever needed to be done from home.
To his surprise, the office lights were on and it was almost swelteringly warm. You were there once again, and protective anger flared to life. “What are you doing here?” He scolded, rushing to your desk. “Your health and safety come before any stupid job or piece of paper. You should have headed home before the storm started to get bad.”
Your face was panicked and fearful, but strangely you didn’t seem to be worried for yourself. “You’re safe!” You wiped beneath your eyes with the back of your hand and your shoulders shook quietly. “I couldn’t go home. I couldn’t leave until I knew that you were safe. I knew you left for patrol, and I couldn’t stop thinking of you getting hypothermia somewhere where no one would find you, or you dragging yourself back here and not being able to warm back up. No one could get a hold of you, your phone just went straight to voice mail, and I just couldn’t bear the thought of coming back to the office if you weren’t here.”
He was equally touched as he was panicked. Now the script was flipped, and Keigo was confronting his own internal crisis. When the power inevitably gave out, he had no way of ensuring you didn’t freeze.
“C’mon, we need to act fast.” You broke through his own panic by tugging at his sleeve, rushing to pour boiling water into half a dozen thermoses with tea bags. “Grab the four blankets from Yamada and Hirata’s desks. I’ll offer to have them cleaned later.”
Keigo did as he was told, but it was then that he heard the sputtering of the furnace giving out once again. He was thankful that you had had the foresight to crank the heat as high as it would go to delay the process of cooling to frigid temperatures, however he couldn’t help but internally curse whoever had attempted to fix it previously as well as the city power grid. With a little luck, maybe that electric kid from UA would be in the right position to restore power. Until then, his sole focus was on keeping you warm.
“Okay, so lay one down on the ground.” You instructed, wrapping a blanket around his shoulders. “When trying to conserve heat, the ground is the biggest heat sink because air is a poorer conductor. Now, sit, and can you extend your wings kind of ahead of you? I’m going to try to drape one over you.”
“I think that should work.” He nodded, not quite sure what your plan was. To his surprise, you crawled into his wing canopy, sitting with your back flush against his chest and between his bent knees. You drew your own knees up, and draped the final blanket over both of your bodies, tucking the edges behind his back. Finally, you peeled off the spare coat he had given you before, and flipped it so that its soft collar was nestled against your throat, and the rest draped down your front. The thermoses were nestled on either side of his legs, and hesitantly he wrapped his arms around you. With a pang of irony, he realized he had gotten his wish, but he couldn’t shake the worry to enjoy the situation.
The silence was both comfortable and tense, curled up together listening to the winds continuing to howl outside. You broke the quiet by lacing your fingers with his. “Your hands are so cold,” You whispered, snuggling closer to his chest and clasping his hands between your own. “I hope you didn’t get frostbite.”
“I’m okay now.” He tightened his grip around you, and counted your even breaths until you fell asleep in his arms. If Keigo set you down on the couch in the corner of his office when the dawn came, marked the door “Do not disturb”, and sent out a message for everyone to only come in if they could make it and no earlier than noon, that was only his business anyhow. So long as you were safe, he could wait out any storm.