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After a flash of light, it takes approximately two seconds after Hawks' vision returns to spot a tiny pair of red wings and be up in the air with a small bundle in his arms. He's back at his apartment by the time his feathers deliver the villain responsible for this mess to his closest sidekick, blinking at the glass door of his balcony. Mildly stunned at his own speed, Hawks carefully avoids his reflection and slides the door open to step into his apartment.
He deposits the trembling… thing onto his couch, and texts his sidekick requesting information on the villains quirk. He tells the Commission that League business had come up and that he would be unavailable for the foreseeable future. After a moment of debate, he decides to tell Dabi nothing. The less the nosy bastard knows the better.
He takes a few breaths, stares at his ceiling for a few minutes, then finally turns around to face the tiny kid he’d maybe sort of kidnapped.
The kid stares back.
Mouth pressed into a firm line, eyes large and scared, even as he tries to hide his trembling by clenching his fists in his ragged shirt. Scraggly red wings trying so, so hard to not twitch and cover himself from view.
Right.
Another deep breath has Hawks loosening his shaking hands from the balls they've curled into and he arranges his face into a reassuring smile, planting his eyes somewhere over the kid's shoulder. Yikes. Those wings really do need preening.
"Sorry about all this. I wanted to get you somewhere safe."
No answer. Not that he expected one.
"A quirk brought you here. It should only last a few days." Hopefully. He still hasn’t gotten a text back yet. His eye twitches. "So… I'll take care of you in the meantime."
God knows no one else would do it. He’d been a low maintenance kid, anyway (he’d had to be). Honestly, Hawks could probably just leave him here alone for the duration of the quirk and he'd be fine. Better off than usual at least. Probably better off than with Hawks, even.
His eyes linger on a bruised, dirty cheek.
Come on, Hawks. You're a hero. This is nothing compared to a suicidal infiltration mission.
"Let's get you cleaned up first, yeah?"
Keigo (and god, he hasn't thought of that name in years) hurries to obey when Hawks jerks his head to the bathroom, shoulders still shaking. He freezes when he sees the admittedly lavish inside, before hastily getting out of the way when Hawks sidesteps him to turn on the shower. He lets out a little gasp when he steps in and realizes the water is warm, wings poofing and flapping instinctively.
Hawks lets him splash around for a while, feeling his lips twitch up at the display of delight.
(He'd done the same thing, the first time he'd taken an actual shower. At the shock of having actual warm, running water. Of not having to clean up in a dirty puddle.
Then his handler yelled at him for wasting water and Hawks hasn’t indulged in a long shower since.)
Eventually, he points out the bodywash and shampoo, pointedly ignoring how the kid freezes at his voice.
“Don’t use anything on your wings. I’ll clean them in a bit.”
With that, he steps out, pausing momentarily to wonder if he was supposed to leave a five year old alone in a shower, before deciding he’d be fast enough to react if the kid slipped or something.
He takes the time to dig through all the merch he'd been sent, faintly recalling once receiving samples of a children's line. He checks his phone (a week at minimum???) and stands at the bathroom door for a few minutes clinging to the bundle of clothes and attempts to find his sanity.
After an uncomfortable drying session (gentle, gentle, ah the kid can do it himself, Hawks wasn't good at that), Keigo looks in awe at the gold shirt with embroidered red wings.
"It's like mine!"
He immediately shuts his mouth. It's the first thing he's said all day. Not like Hawks has given him much of a chance (not that he would have anyway).
Hawks nods, "Yup. Like you."
Keigo’s eyes trail towards Hawks' own wings and he realizes he's never explained who he is. He wonders if the kid's pieced it together. Probably. He was uneducated, but he wasn't stupid. He doesn't comment either way, just changes into the new clothes, not minding the hastily but precisely cut hole for his tiny wings, petting over the print when he's done. Hawks wracks his brain to figure out what else to do. What had he wanted as a kid?
Ah. Food.
He wanders to the kitchen, opening his fridge, wrinkling his nose. The prepackaged commission approved meals are definitely a no-go, even if he knows Keigo wouldn’t complain. Hawks himself rarely wants to eat them.
Eggs? Eggs. He can do that. These ones probably aren't expired. They'd be fine once cooked anyway, he’s pretty sure.
His feathers detect Keigo quietly standing next to the island, staring with his hands on his rumbling stomach. Hawks scoops him up with his feathers, depositing him on a stool. Keigo touches one carefully, gently. Detaches his own feather to compare. Hawks lets the feather trace patterns in the air, Keigo trying to match with his own as Hawks scrapes at eggs in a pan.
It isn’t until Keigo’s feather starts to struggle that Hawks becomes aware that he'd unconsciously been mimicking one of his first training exercises. He zips the feather back to his wing, senses Keigo trying to do the same thing and whips around, setting the plate in front of him as the kid blinks and tilts his head.
"All yours," he says after swallowing the saliva flooding his mouth.
This is stupid. He's not equipped for this. He should find someone else to look after the kid.
The thought makes him nauseous.
He deliberately turns away as the kid eats, checking his phone again and answering a few texts and emails and preparing his agency for his sudden week off. He’s always wanted a vacation. He didn’t think it’d come from babysitting his past self amidst the most stressful year of his life, but beggars can’t be choosers.
He waits until the kid hasn’t touched his plate for a few minutes to turn around. Keigo sits perfectly still, gripping his knees. His ugly little wings still twitch.
Right.
“How about I show you how to fix your wings now?”
Keigo blinks at him, unsure. He glances at Hawks’ wings, then his own. If possible, his already hunched shoulders curl even more, wings drawing in self-consciously. Oops, Hawks should have known better. He himself always gets irritated when someone points out his own messy feathers (as if he has much of a choice when he’s constantly on the move and regrowing new ones).
“They won’t itch as much after,” he offers.
Keigo considers that, his eyes trailing once more over hawks’ wingspan. Hawks stretches them out. Just a little.
“Will they be pretty like yours?”
Never.
Hawks closes his eyes and smiles, letting his wings flex again. Keigo mimics the action. “Yup!”
Not that one preening session could make up for the years of neglect and lack of proper nutrition anyway, but…
Well, he remembers how painful the new feathers coming in felt. How he used to rub his back against the walls or trash or bottles and would get smacked and yelled at for being a nuisance and leaving broken feathers everywhere. He hadn’t figured out how to properly preen until well into his years at the Commission after he’d finally gotten sick of the large tweezers his handlers used. He’s still not sure he has it completely right.
It’s better than nothing, he guesses. He can do this much. Pass this knowledge, if it will even stick. There’s no way of really knowing how this quirk truly works. If anything Hawks does will make a difference.
Keigo tenses when Hawks steps behind him, fingers curled tightly in his shirt, talons no doubt prickling little holes in the fabric. Hawks raises his hand, hesitating briefly before removing his gloves, knowing Keigo spots his own filed down talons. His hand hovers over a wing before carefully smoothing down a feather. Keigo trembles even more.
“Okay?” A nod. Not that he’d expect anything else.
He probably can’t really count that as consent, but Keigo won’t complain. He’ll feel better after, at least.
He goes over a few more feathers, Keigo curling up more and more each time, shoving a hand in his mouth. Should Hawks stop? Is he doing it wrong? It doesn’t hurt when he preens his own feathers but maybe it didn’t feel good on Keigo’s damaged baby feathers.
Well, he’d just be quick about it, then. The water from the shower had taken care of most of the grime and Hawks was a professional at speed-preening. The kid could handle a few more minutes. One wing finished (and ignoring that Keigo is now essentially a tiny ball perching on his kitchen stool), Hawks pushes down the guilt and starts on the next. He smoothly pulls out a feather that he could tell must have been particularly bothersome and Keigo lets out the tiniest chirp.
They both freeze.
Hawks stares blankly at his microwave clock, watching the minutes pass as Keigo rushes to apologize again and again.
“I’m sorry! I won’t do it again, I promise, I’m sorry. I’m sorry-”
Hawks should tell him it’s okay. He should promise that he’s not going to hurt him. He should chirp back, so that Keigo learns that there’s nothing wrong with his bird noises.
Instead, he leaves the room.
He paces. Goes through a few different breathing exercises. Plucks out a few of his own feathers and tugs his hair until he gets a fucking grip. It wasn't a big deal stop it–
His eyes fall on his one personal possession, sitting on his dresser so it can watch him while he sleeps. The Endeavor plush is held tightly to his chest before he even realizes he'd moved.
Right. Calm down. This isn’t about you.
He stares down at the worn little thing. He should give it to Keigo. He doesn't want to. It's his. Keigo would need it more, Hawks doesn't need a crutch. He’s a hero, not some scared kid.
He squeezes it again. Breaths in and out through his nose a few times. Makes his decision and walks back out to his kitchen. The clock informs him that more time than he’d realized has passed.
He’s not surprised that Keigo is nowhere to be seen.
Too bad Hawks is just as good at finding people as their father had been at finding them.
He sits down next to his mostly empty coat closet, opening the door just a sliver.
"Hey," he starts. He wants to apologize. He’s not sure how. "Found something of yours."
He pushes the door open just enough to present the plush, keeping his grip light despite how much he wants to cling. He hears a gasp and it’s yanked away. He can feel Keigo curl around it and freeze as he realizes he’s what he’s done.
Hawks closes his eyes and exhales.
“Come out when you’re ready.”
He stands up, knees creaking, and stumbles over to the couch. He stares at his blank TV.
He’s far too exhausted for doing so little.
He’s not sure how long he sits there before his feathers inform him that Keigo has made his way out of the closet. Small, nearly silent footsteps stop on the edge of his living room, taking him in.
Do I look like her? Hawks wonders.
Keigo approaches after some hesitation, Hawks turns his head to look at him (that’s doing better, right?). The kid is hugging the plush tightly, wings curled around him, but smile tentative and hopeful when he sees that Hawks is watching him.
“Thank you for finding Endeavor-san.”
Hawks doesn't get it.
Doesn't get how his mother could look at that expression and turn away without a care, extra eyes purposefully pointed away. How his father could smack it off. How the Commission turned it into a perfect weapon.
His eyes burn.
"He saved me." Keigo tells him. Looks at him with glittering eyes.
"Yeah," Hawks croaks. "Me too."
Did he?
Keigo stares at him, head once more tilted in curiosity. "...do you save people too?"
Do we?
Hawks thinks of blood on his feathers. Of cold dark rooms. Of destruction he purposefully led to his hometown and of his hero laying on the ground, blood spurting from his face.
"...I don't know."
Something soft presses against his hand. He closes it automatically around his plush, squeezes. He looks down at it, then at Keigo.
The boy shifts on his feet before standing still, eyes narrowed in determination, a stubborn pout on his lips.
"You can have him. You need him more."
Hawks blinks. Snorts. Laughs.
He pushes back tears before they fall, and sets the plush back in Keigo’s hands.
He gathers him in his arms, squeezing.
The kid's feathers ruffle. He lets out a tiny squeak, the feeling of a hug unfamiliar. Hawks is the same. Tiny thin arms wrap around his chest, little hands buried in his jacket.
Hawks sighs and rests his cheek against fluffy blond hair.
"You're already a better man than me."
He hopes it stays that way.
He knows it won't.