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Keigo knows he’s not the best at keeping his cool facade up when he’s faced with certain things. Kids in trouble, animals being hurt, most of them are pretty understandably upsetting things that force his true feelings onto his face.
Then there’s the one weakness he hasn’t encountered too often due to his uncommonly finicky taste in men: pretty guys.
Put a pretty guy in front of him and he turns into the biggest dork. It’s laughable, or it would be, if it wasn’t currently undermining his authority with the very pretty vigilante he’s been trying to arrest for a month. Deku is wearing the most bemused expression as he tilts his head at Keigo, and there’s really no wonder, with what Keigo just said.
He’d finally caught Deku in the act, spray painting his logo onto the building he’d just been in, claiming credit for stopping whatever crime was going on in there that the heroes and police hadn’t tackled for some reason. Months of patrolling the places Deku most frequently left his calling card had finally paid off.
The confrontation had gone pretty traditionally; hero versus civilian who thinks he's big and bad; Keigo telling him to stop where he is and put his hands up, Deku whipping out some weapon that had prevented Keigo from being able to swoop in and slap the cuffs on him, when Keigo had said…
“Come on, Deku. I’m Hawks. Give it up, you know I've got you cornered. You’re outmanned, outgunned, and out…” He’d paused, blinking as he realised he’d been staring into Deku’s sparkling green eyes, gaze straying to the freckles beneath them occasionally. He hadn’t been expecting Deku to be gorgeous; he hadn’t trained for hot vigilantes! He had floundered for something to finish his braggartly quip with.
“...outside," had been the brilliance his mind had conjured up.
This brings Keigo back to right now, him trying not to think about how soft Deku’s curls look, Deku clearly trying not to laugh at him, and the moment hanging in the balance. How are things going to shake out, Keigo wonders, as he looks for ways to regain the ground his verbal fumble has lost him.
Is Deku going to laugh in Keigo’s face before fleeing into the night while Keigo is still functioning a little brokenly?
Is Keigo going to manage to touch Deku’s hair as he arrests him to find out just how soft and fluffy it really is?
Only time will tell.
Deku finally lets out a little giggle. “Ah, yeah, outside,” he says through the hand he's slapped over his mouth to muffle his chuckling, “scary place, I’ll admit, but being here isn’t enough to get me to surrender, sadly for you.”
Keigo eyes the weapon in Deku's hand warily as he flaps his wings to hover in place. It looks like some kind of cross between a syringe and a gun, and without knowing what it does, Keigo can't bank on his speed alone to keep himself safe.
Negotiation it is.
“Interesting choice of words,” he remarks faux casually, “‘a scary place’. What makes you say that?”
Verdant green eyes twinkle dangerously as Deku barks a sharp laugh. “I like you, Hawks,” he says, “because you’re a lot smarter than you like to seem. So please, don’t insult my intelligence by asking that. You know why.”
Humming, Keigo nods, fluttering a little closer, but not enough to be noticed — hopefully. “I’m not trying to,” he says honestly. “Being smart doesn't mean omnipotent, does it? Your reasons are your own, and I don’t know you, Deku. Not well enough to guess your personal motivations for your feelings.”
That part is a patent lie. Keigo has done enough research into the vigilante known as Deku to have a fairly good read on the guy.
He really does only target legitimate bad guys, unlike past vigilantes who are simply out committing crimes for fun and calling it altruism. Wherever he strikes, he leaves the spray-painted 20% on the wall as his calling card, though no one has figured out the significance of the number, yet.
Criminals he takes down are either delivered directly to the doorstep of a police station, or the evidence to take them down is; Deku doesn’t try to deal out his own justice, only bring those escaping the system to it rightfully.
Put simply, his intentions are genuinely good. Keigo's read the profiles on some of his take-downs and he'd personally prefer to leave Deku to his business while he focuses on real villains, but his HPSC handler had been clear enough about their expectations regarding the vigilante.
“Oh, now that’s just rude, lying right to my face,” Deku snickers. “You’ve been following a few steps behind me for months, yet you don't know me well?” He snorts. “Cute. Really, very cute. But okay, let’s say I believe you.”
Keigo is not going to get hung up on Deku calling him cute. He is not, he's a professional, Goddamnit, despite what his apparent lack of stealth skill suggests!
Even if the lips that said it are particularly full and kissable…
Deku continues before Keigo can follow that particular train of thought, and what a relief it is. Thinking about kissing the vigilante he’s trying to arrest is Dangerous Territory™.
“If I believed you, I’d tell you that I don't go after good guys, people that have only made small, non-violent mistakes, or anyone deserving of a second chance,” Deku tells him, ticking the items off on his gloved fingers. It’s all true, Keigo already knows, but, interestingly, the vigilante is telling him the truth.
Unexpected, you could say.
He inches closer as Deku carries on speaking.
“I’d tell you, Hawks, that the system isn’t flawless, and as you are someone whom it’s personally failed, just like I am, I’d think you’d understand wanting to fill in its gaps.” Deku cocks his head further, his expression almost sly. “Am I really wrong? I don't think I am. I think you’d be going after the same assholes as me if you didn’t have that pretty, government leash on you.”
Like a rookie, Keigo visibly winces at the reminder of his situation. Deku is right on the money with all of that, and he knows it, too, from the confident swagger in his stance. Even as he continues to aim the needle-gun-thing at Keigo, he looks cocky and self-assured.
Deku takes it upon himself to fill the ensuing silence. “I’ll offer you a deal, Hawks.”
Suspicion drips from Keigo's response of ‘what deal’ and Deku smirks as he proposes that Keigo accompany him on his vigilante work for the rest of the night.
God, he looks good when he smirks, Keigo thinks while Deku is explaining that if Keigo honestly doesn't feel better for doing some real good, he’ll come in quietly, but if he enjoys it, Keigo has to leave Deku alone to do his work from now on.
Against his better judgement, Keigo says yes. It’s a terrible deal because Keigo already has a heavy inkling of how things will shake out, but he takes it anyway.
Call it a dork with a crush professional curiosity, he tells himself, already thinking of spinning it as surveillance of the target if his handler becomes a problem.
It’s been a long time since Keigo last stayed up all through the night. The HPSC don't want their unofficial spokesperson looking overworked, like almost all other heroes are, after all, do they? So there's been a very strict schedule of when to sleep imposed on Keigo ever since he was taken by the HPSC as a child, one that certainly doesn’t account for all-nighters.
Doing it with Deku, staying up through the night and following him around as he helps out the people most heroes forget about — sex workers, homeless people, and abused kids running from home in the middle of the night — is deceptively easy.
By midday, when he's officially back on as Hawks, Keigo will probably be ready to keel over. His shift had been ten minutes from ending for the night when he found Deku, after all. But that’s later.
Right now, however, he feels electrified with energy and ready to just keep going. Telling Deku this gets him an almost affectionate snort and a reminder that he can’t help anyone if he’s unconscious with exhaustion, to which Keigo pouts.
The first rays of sunrise only make Deku look more ethereal. It took a while for Keigo to pack his attraction to the vigilante away when they first started out the night before, but he had managed it and stopped tripping over his own tongue as a result.
How he looks bathed in the orange-golden glow of the first morning light throws Keigo back into the same crisis of oh shit he’s so gorgeous that he’d been having when trying to arrest him in the first place.
“So, Hawks, what do you say? Am I going to jail, or are you going to let me keep doing my thing?” Deku asks, reminding Keigo of their deal. His green curls, which had started off styled in a loose and lazily slicked-back style, are now in disarray after a long night of kicking ass and playing Criminal Delivery Boy for the police, but Keigo thinks it only makes him look more real.
Which is frankly dangerous for Keigo, because it makes him feel like he might do something ridiculous, like ask the vigilante out, or tell him how gorgeous he is. He won’t, but it would be oh-so-easy to, with Deku looking like he is right now.
Keigo sighs and Deku grins, bright and beaming, somehow correctly reading the subtext of Keigo’s sigh. He knows Keigo’s not going to arrest him, not after all they saw and did together through the night. Not after seeing how much good Deku does for the people in his area.
“What’s the 20% about?” He asks instead of confirming what the vigilante already suspects. All night, he's been trying to work out what it means, as well as what Deku’s quirk is. From the way he fights, Keigo’s thinking something combat-related like enhanced reflexes or speed.
Deku raises an eyebrow. He looks cocky as hell like this, and damn it, it should not make him even more attractive than he already is. “You haven’t guessed?” He asks back. Keigo shakes his head and Deku hums thoughtfully before speaking again. “I’m not technically a vigilante, you know. Not really.”
“You do hero work without a licence, so that's exactly what you are, sunshine,” Keigo snarks back, making Deku huff a laugh.
“Sunshine?” The vigilante questions. Blood rushes to Keigo’s face; he hadn't meant to say the nickname he gave Deku in his head out loud.
Sunshine is exactly what he reminds Keigo of, though. Bright and warm, chasing away the darkness.
“Unimportant,” Keigo dismisses with a flustered wave of his hand. “Tell me more about how you aren't technically a vigilante, hm?”
Deku eyes him cautiously, which shouldn't feel like a punch to the gut, but does. It had felt like they’d built a sort of tentative trust up through the night, but apparently, that’s all in Keigo's head.
Deku’s next words explain the look away immediately. In a soft, hesitant voice unlike anything Keigo’s heard from him so far, he whispers, “Well, vigilantism is defined as using a quirk in the capacity of a hero without a licence to do so. I’d have to have a quirk to meet that definition, Hawks.”
Stunned into silence, Keigo can only blink at Deku stupidly for a minute before he regains his higher brain function. He immediately holds out his hand, which Deku eyes like it’s a venomous snake before slowly clasping it with his own. Keigo immediately pumps his arm up and down while Deku's stays limp as overcooked spaghetti.
“What are you doing?” The not-vigilante asks warily, but Keigo isn’t offended by it, now. He knows how their country treats quirkless people.
“Shaking the hand of the most badass guy I’ve ever met,” he tells Deku honestly. “I’ve spent all night thinking you had some sort of quirk that enhances your fighting, and it’s just been all you. That’s kind of amazing, Deku.”
It takes a minute for Keigo's words to sink in, Deku’s self-defence mechanisms likely weighing them for lies, but there are none to be found. Keigo has never been so impressed by another person in his life. The sheer strength of character it takes to go out into the night and work to save people who might spit on you if they knew your quirk status, with no superhuman power to back you up, is astounding to him.
When Deku reaches the conclusion that Keigo’s not mocking him or lying, a big, sunshiny smile breaks out on his face. It makes him look transcendent, and Keigo has to choke his next breath out, his chest is so tight at the sight.
“You can call me Izuku,” Deku — Izuku — says as he finally shakes Keigo’s hand properly in return.
Keigo swallows. “Then I’m Keigo,” he offers. “But I’d appreciate it if you don't call me that in front of anyone.”
“Right, right, mysterious hero persona,” Izuku teases. Keigo grins before realising their arms are no longer moving to shake, but their hands are still held together, and he drops Izuku's with a hot flush on his cheeks.
Izuku giggles. Keigo blushes brighter even as the sound makes him feel all warm inside.
“Would you— no, never mind,” Izuku mumbles, “I should really get going, actually, so…”
Keigo frowns slightly. “Go on. Would I, what?”
Izuku’s full lips pull into a grimace. “It’s nothing, it’s stupid,” he mutters. Keigo shakes his head.
“I’m sure it’s not. Tell me, please?”
The ‘please’ seems to do it, and Izuku gives in. “You just seemed to have such a good time last night that I was wondering if you’d maybe want to do this again, but I shouldn’t have asked, you’re a real hero, you can’t be—”
“I’d love to!” Keigo blurts out, cutting him off. “I— I love my job, I do, but I haven’t felt like I’m really helping people anywhere near as much as I did last night. It’s all I ever wanted, to feel as though I’m making a positive difference in the world. So, yeah, I’d really like to do this with you again,” he finishes with an awkward-as-hell shrug that raises his wings slightly.
Izuku’s back to looking amused instead of uncomfortable and that’s enough to make up for how much of a dork Keigo feels around this good, gorgeous man with a hero’s heart.
“And the fact that you'll be breaking the law factors into that, where exactly?” He challenges with a light smile.
Keigo shrugs again. “It’s a risk, but a worthwhile one.” He’d already decided as much halfway through the night as Izuku talked a homeless teenager down from a panic attack with gentle, soothing words, that making that kind of difference would be worth the hell he might have to pay.
Especially doing it at Izuku's side.
It’s plain for Keigo to see why he calls outside a scary place after only one night working at his side, but maybe, hopefully, together, they can make at least this one area a little less scary — and if he’s lucky, when he plucks up the courage to ask Izuku to go for dinner afterwards, he’ll say yes.