Work Text:
Hawks jumped down from the balcony, letting his wings slow his descent as he landed softly on the pavement. The good news was that all the civilians had been rescued successfully, with nothing more than some minor injuries. The bad news was that those rescues hadn't been accomplished without a significant amount of property damage, and, even worse, the villains had fled. Right into Endeavor's territory.
Which meant, to his joy and regret, a call to his favorite hero liasion.
He dialed the number quickly and counted the seconds before Touya picked up.
"Endeavor Agency, how can I help you?"
"Hey there, hot stuff."
"Oh. It's just you."
Hawks chuckled and shifted his phone to the other ear. "Aww, you don't sound excited to hear from me, blueberry."
A huff. "Don't call me that. And hearing from you at work usually means at least a few hours of paperwork for me, so what did you do, and how much is it going to fu-mess up my day?"
Hawks smirked at his slip up. It must mean dear old dad was around, which would explain Touya's mood. "So there was a rescue-"
"No."
"And in my grand heroic desire to save all the helpless civilians-"
"Stop it."
"The villains may have gotten away and be en route to your dad's area."
"I hate you."
"It wasn't my fault! Was I supposed to just leave the people there to chase them down?"
Touya clearly didn't have an argument for that, so all Hawks heard was shuffling as he found the form he needed. "Just tell me what happened."
Hawks relayed the tale as he is reminded that for all he complained, Touya was good at his job. It only took a few minutes for some extra sidekicks to be dispersed to try and keep an eye out.
"You're welcome."
Hawks rolled his eyes fondly, taking advantage of the fact that Touya wasn't there to yell at him for it. "I'll make it up to you. Dinner tonight?"
A few seconds passed while Touya pretended like he wasn't going to say yes, like they didn't do this song and dance all the time. "Fine. But it better be the good soba. Not the gas station crap you usually get or I'll roast your feathers off."
"Touya!"
"Shit," he said, pulling the phone away from his mouth to yell, "It's just Hawks!"
"This is still a place of business."
"Sorry," he mumbled. Louder, he said. "I gotta go. Six?"
"Six," Hawks confirmed.
Touya hung up without a goodbye, but Hawks had expected that. He still had the rest of his patrol shift to distract him, but knowing what was waiting for him at the end makes it go faster.
—
Hawks made it to Touya's apartment, at six as promised. He still went in through the balcony rather than the front door, both by habit and because Touya knew he was coming anyway. He'd even left the window unlocked for him.
He followed the sounds of chopping into the kitchen, where the sight of Touya's back greeted him. He set down the bag, knowing Touya had noticed his arrival by the tilt of his head.
"You knew I was bringing dinner," Hawks teased.
Touya shrugged. "Needed to do something with my hands."
Hawks frowned, seeing the way his hands shook as the knife continued to move. It had taken time to understand how Touya's anger manifested, the depths of the way rage could take him some days. They'd fought about it, early on, until Touya had yelled, "I'm not angry at you! I'm just…angry."
Hawks stepped forward, waiting for Touya's hands to slow before wrapping his arms around his waist. He took the knife gently out of his hand and set it to the side.
"You know, when I called you blueberry earlier, I didn't know you had actually dyed your hair blue." He pressed a kiss behind his ear, relieved when some of the tension left Touya's shoulders. His hair was still mostly white, but the ends had been dyed a bright blue that matched the color of his flames.
"Felt like a change," he said with a chuckle.
"How did your dad feel about it?"
"Oh, you know. The same way he felt about the ear piercing, and the other ear piercings, and the nose piercing…" Touya turned then, his grin pulling at the scar that ran from his jaw up to under his eye. "But I'm not under his roof, so he doesn't get an opinion."
"You should try a tattoo next."
Touya laughed, a real laugh that made him tip his head back and Hawks had to kiss him for it. They pulled apart and his eyes glittered as he said, "Maybe I'll get a set of wings on my back. Blue and on fire."
Hawks ignored the way that made his heart rate kick up. "Not gonna start with something smaller?"
"When have I ever?" He quipped, accompanying it with a long look at Hawks.
He did the math quickly in his head before grabbing Touya's hand and pulling him laughing into the bedroom.
Touya liked cold soba better anyway.
—
Later, Hawks traced his finger across Touya's back, over the seam where the scarring started on his back. Even with the whole of the number two hero's bank account at their disposal, the burns had been severe enough that the aftereffects would always be visible.
"Knock it off," Touya mumbled into the pillow. He made no move to actually stop Hawks though, so he assumed he wasn't too mad.
He pressed a kiss to the seam at the center of his shoulder blades. "Do you ever think about working somewhere else?"
Touya stilled at his words. "Sure. I've always wanted to be a fire breather in the circus. Know when they're in town?"
He should drop it. They were having a nice night and Hawks didn't really want to be thrown out on his ass, but his mouth moved faster than his brain. "I'm serious. You hate it there."
"Keigo-"
"Touya."
He sighed and rolled away from Hawks' touch and onto his back, accepting that this conversation wasn't one he could wiggle out of. "It's a job. It pays for this place and food. I can't expect much more than that."
Hawks scoffed. "You went to the best high school for hero work in the country-"
"In general studies," Touya interrupted.
"Still! People see a UA transcript and trip over themselves to schedule an interview."
"You hiring, Birdie?"
Hawks dropped his head to rest on Touya's arm. "You're deflecting."
"I didn't invite you over for a lecture. I get it enough at work."
"I'm not lecturing, okay? I just-"
Hawks knew life had never been easy for Touya, that he'd bled for everything he had. But Hawks also had a box of UA merch that he kept in a drawer in his room as a teenager, watching every class of grads accept their diplomas and knowing he was different.
Touya squeezed his hand, too good at knowing when he was escaping down a spiral. "I know."
"Any agency would be lucky to have you. You're the smartest person I know."
Touya laughed at that, pulling his hand away. "You gotta get out more then."
Hawks leaned up on his elbow, trying to follow Touya as he moved. "No one knows quirks like you. It's like you see someone work for two minutes and you know immediately how they did it. Do you know how valuable that would be to an agency? And your dad has you filling out paperwork."
"There are already quirk databases— a party trick like that isn't all that useful."
Hawks stood up, marching over to the dresser and pulling a beat up composition notebook out of the second drawer. He sat back down on the bed, flipping to the page where he knew his own information was recorded.
"I've had my quirk database record memorized since I was nine. This-" he pointed to the carefully drawn diagram of one of his feathers, with Touya's scrawl detailing each of the functions. "-is not an ordinary record. Screw an agency. If a support company had someone like you, they could have concepts for items way faster."
"I don't know how to build that stuff."
"You don't have to! You just-give them the idea. And it was an example. There's a thousand things you can do." You don't have to anything to prove to him.
Touya's frown pulled downwards. "He'd never let me."
"Your siblings—"
"Are different. Natsu and Yumi….he wrote them off a long time ago. And Shouto is obviously off being the dream son. I'm…something else."
Hawks hated it, but the feeling of being trapped, of being made for one purpose was a familiar friend at this point. Still, if Hawks himself was stuck in his cage, he could at least try and help Touya see that there were ways out of his.
"I think if he saw that you had a dream that isn't being a hero, he would worry less."
Touya tched unhappily. "He doesn't worry about me. He just doesn't want me to go crazy and embarrass him again."
Hawks could live a thousand lifetimes without understanding all that had happened in the Todoroki household. "Then what about you? If it won't make him happy either way, what exactly do you get out of it?"
Touya's eyes flitted uncomfortably, hand squeezing at the sheets as his thoughts flew miles away from Hawks. Eventually, he relaxed and stood. "I'm hungry. You coming?"
Hawks frowned but stood. Touya's mind was never going to change in a day.
"Right behind you."