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What’s he supposed to say?
Loving you hurts.
Loving you means accepting what you think about him.
Accepting what you think he deserves and how much more worthy of redemption he is than me.
So Touya says nothing. He reminds himself that Hawks is a double agent. A spy.
Tells himself that when the man jokes with Twice. When he plays games with Spinner. Burns it into his skin when Hawks pretends there’s anything left inside him - anything more than what the Commission decided not to cut out. He’s their pet project. Name erased (but easily found). A hero purchased, who bought into their perspective.
If he thinks Enji Todoroki is someone worth covering for, then he’s a shell. Ready to cover the sins. To burn himself over and over because the world he sees isn’t all rosy, but while he recognizes the paradise he desires wouldn’t accept him, he’s willing to allow dirtier people to crawl their ways inside.
When Hawks crowds into his space, Touya pushes him back. “Personal space, bird brain.”
A cluck of frustration slips out, but he hides it well enough, puffing up his wings and laughing. “Maybe I’m just cold. Not all of us have space heaters for quirks.”
That’s what everyone expects. They look at his loose clothes - at the lack of effort and assume he keeps himself warm with his fire, so when he grabs Hawks’ forearm, the cold of his touch sends a shiver up the man’s spine, causing his feathers to fluff and the smirk to vanish from his cocky face.
“If you’re cold, get a better jacket.”
Hawks can afford it. Has the money like all heroes on his level with his sponsorships. Toga needs a better jacket. She says she’s fine, and Touya isn’t about to spend his time to steal her something better when he has other things to work on, but Twice will. Any day now, a new coat will show up. It’ll be stolen - another mark against them in the hero’s mind because he won’t ever think to buy Toga a jacket despite how thin she is or how she cuddles up to Twice or whoever is around - everyone besides Touya, because she knows how cold he really is after the first attempt.
“Hmm, gotta remember that for summer. You’ve got to be a dream to have -“
And he keeps going. Flirting and teasing and pushing into spaces where he isn’t wanted. Where he shouldn’t want to go. By all sense, Hawks should see Dabi as dirty. He doesn’t know his birth name. Doesn’t know the sheen that might still remain through blood he wishes he could drain from his veins. He should see a psychopath.
And he does. Doesn’t see a victim. Sees a villain. Doesn’t see anything in Dabi that’s worth chasing. No, the hero has eyes on Tomura, and he’s a fool. That’s going to be what ruins him.
When lips brush against his - not the first time, Touya shoves the man away. “You got your introduction.”
“Yeah? Well, maybe I just want to kiss you,” the blond retorts, smirking as he pulls Touya closer, rocking their hips together and not even trying to hide how hard he is. “Last time was so good, hot stuff. Thought we’d enjoy some time in your room now that I’m allowed around.”
What a joke. Like Touya actually sleeps here. Like he trusts anyone in this dumbass league to know where he keeps his actual stuff. Sure, he has a room, but sleep? He’d rather sleep in a grave.
A flicker of fire sends the bird back, and Touya walks away. “You’re boring me, hero. Go rut on somebody else.”
Because he shouldn't give a damn about him. Shouldn’t love the way Hawks speeds after him, not giving up. Hates it because that determination is all because of the Commission. They want answers, and Hawks thinks he can fuck them out of Dabi, because he doesn’t know Touya. Doesn’t see anything besides the construct the other man has erected around himself. He’s a walking, talking symbol. Stain started it, but Touya, Touya is going to finish it. Hit the nail in the coffin of hero society.
If they tumble now and then -
If Touya lets himself be kissed and caressed and doted upon, then that’s his prerogative. It’s just to make the truth hurt more. Will Hawks be able to look Endeavor in the eyes after fucking his murderous villain son?
There are pictures. He could include them. Put them in the video and talk about how heroes prostitute themselves to get jobs done, but the idea hurts. Which is stupid. The truth doesn’t hurt. It set Touya free. His father is a monster. Hero society lets heroes get away with murder. The world is fucked, well and truly, and when everyone realizes and the system crumbles, no one will be able to protect Enji Todoroki from himself. From all the pain and destruction he sowed.
“You should move in with me,” Hawks says, ruining the build up as he pops off Touya’s dick and crowds over him. Three fingers still move inside, careful of the burns and the staples and all the damage which he never asks about. “My place is so much better than your room.”
“I like my shit hole of a room.”
Hawks’s nose wrinkles. He doesn’t believe him, but that’s fine. This isn’t the shit hole room he’s talking about, and if Hawks can’t keep his head in the game, then this is a pointless exercise in futility. Touya hates wasting time.
“If you moved in with me, I could get you treatments,” Hawks whispers, pulling the fingers free. He says nothing about the blood beading near Touya’s neck where he’d strained a bit too suddenly on the jump from two to three. “You know, I think you’re a pretty boy under all this.”
Just this. Never specified. Under the scars? Under the sins and darkness and murders and mental break? A lot of him looks like his mother, and odds are Enji Todoroki would’ve married her and fucked her even if she was hideous as long as he could get that perfect child out of the equation. In the end, Touya doesn’t believe a word Hawks says.
They fuck, and he expects that’ll be the end of that line, but it keeps coming back up.
“The Commission sends me a lot of healing quirk substances and new medicines,” Hawks informs him randomly one night.
They weren’t supposed to meet. Touya just wanted a goddamn cigarette in peace, but here the hero is. Probably for the best. Snubbing out the cigarette before he can even breath it in, Touya laments ever trying and becoming addicted to something that could cause him harm. He’s already a wreck, but he needs his body fit to fight. Needs to prove a point. There’s self-harm in the process, so he had shrugged the first few cigarettes, but now? When he’s so close?
“Give them to Spinner. He’s good at sorting through that shit,” Touya tells him.
Hawks frowns, crouching down instead of actually sitting next to Touya like a normal human being. “I didn’t bring them for the League.”
Of course he didn’t. “Why are you so interested in cleaning me up, hero? If you want to fuck a pretty boy, I’m sure you could -“
“No!” Hawks practically throws himself forward, blocking the world the best he can with his wings before a faint twitch about his eyes sends him back to that feigned casualness. “I’m just saying - you’ve got the worst damage. Your quirk obviously hurts you.”
“Wasn’t my work,” Touya lies.
Apparently, he tells it well enough because the horror on Hawks’ face looks remarkably real. Shaking his head, Touya stands, but Hawks gets in front of him with this fierceness in his eyes. Must be what he looks like when he looks at a villain. The real him. All that hatred and fury and damnation. It’s nice to finally see it. Better to prepare himself for when it happens in battle.
“Who?”
He asks it like he actually cares. Like Touya could name anybody in all the world, and Hawks would fix it.
“Todoroki,” Touya offers, though he doesn’t specify which one.
Immediately, the glare is gone. Hawks rolls his eyes. “If you don’t want to tell me, don’t be a dick about it.”
Of course, you don’t believe me.
“I like my scars. They’re part of me,” Touya informs him. Another lie. They hurt so much. Everything hurts all the time, and he can’t stop. Has to reopen them and spread them and tear apart every inch of himself because there is no way he’s going out of this world without taking that damn bastard with him. “Don’t bring it up again.”
But just like the fucking, Hawks doesn’t listen. He weasels his way in and cozies up because it means nothing to him. Lies. All of it. Every offer to have Touya move in with him is just a trap. Every bit of medicine offered is just another attempt to figure out who he is. They think they’ll get him if they can just undo the damage.
In the end, the world burns, and Touya survives. People protest. The Commission flounders. It’s beautiful. So close to what he wants. Almost there - so close, so close. Just a bit further and he’ll get to watch the pinnacle of everything wrong in hero society shatter.
Right now, the man’s pride must be hurting, but that’s not enough. Enji Todoroki obviously doesn’t love anything. Might even be incapable of it, but he covets, hoarding admiration and praise - everything for his legacy. This glimmering little potential now rests entirely on Shouto.
Poor kid. He doesn’t deserve to die. Touya would prefer not to kill him, but Endeavor doesn’t love anyone, so the closest he can get is wrecking any hope of redemption for the Todoroki name in the hero community. That means Shouto has to die.
He’s got everything planned out. LoV has its plans, but Touya has them all out paced. They think they know what’s going on - that Tomura isn’t getting buried underneath All For One. It’s so obvious. Spinner will get it soon enough. Will realize the leader he follows is being put in a box inside his own head, and that just isn’t Touya’s problem anymore. He’s got a plan.
And with Best Jeanist and Hawks still around, Touya knows he needs to be careful. Needs to keep his head down and pull them all to him before he explodes. Turns himself into a bomb to take out every last single one, and as they go the way of Pompeii, then he can gaze out from the fire at the coward that is Enji Todoroki, laughing and dancing as the man protects himself and finally - finally - has no choice but to accept the truth about what he is.
So many years, so much planning, and Touya has all his points guarded. He’s on his way to Hell, but he’s the captain of this ship.
He just didn’t expect the damn pigeon to go off script.
Which says a lot. Because he planned for a number of different reactions and plans from Hawks, but after years of following orders and plenty of new authority figures to bow down to, Touya didn’t expect Hawks to come at him like this.
One day, he is healing in his shit hole room. The next, he’s waking in a penthouse suite. Everything hurts. Everything.
Parts of him that didn’t have nerves anymore hurt. No more patchwork nerves. Every inch of him screamed, and he can’t say a thing or even move before a sharp pain hits above his elbow and he’s down again into the darkness.
If Hawks came at him sideways (a plan Touya actually had a response prepped for), he would’ve known more about how Touya’s system worked. Luckily for Touya, he hadn’t, so the medicine runs out before it should, and even birds have to sleep. He’s dead in the rafters over the ridiculously large and low bed, but there’s at least one feather on every single one of Touya’s limbs (wrapped around his wrists and ankles and neck), so any movement will wake the hero.
Except, that’s assuming Touya gives a damn about the man waking up. He knows how to throw up high heat, and the confusion and anger at being caught unaware makes it burn all the hotter. It hurts more. Hurts so goddamn much more than it has in so long, but he’s better at controlling the pain now than he had been, so he’s already created a sphere around himself when Hawks wakes up. The hero panics, revealing a needle in his hand. Stupid. If the guy had any clue, he would’ve put in an IV. Probably doesn’t have the medical know-how for that though. Good.
“Touya,” Hawks yells, launching himself toward the fire like a madman. His wings aren’t fully recovered. They’re a mess of regrowth, but he’s got enough to fly, which won’t be true long if he keeps this up. “Calm down! You’re safe!”
Touya dodges, stunned that Hawks keeps coming when he should keep his distance from the fire for his own safety. “If you want me calm, stay back!”
Somehow, that actually works. Hawks freezes, backing away and patting himself out. He’s already coughing, but there’s a desperation in his face. The second the fires down, he’ll launch.
Throwing up a wall of fire between them, Touya jumps out the window. He can’t fly. Not exactly, but he’s learned how to slow his fall, and launching isn’t too hard when needed. Both are things Hawks knows. Things he has used, but then there’s a panicked cry, and Hawks launches himself through the fire and out the building after Touya.
It’s a good show if anyone is watching. Hawks trying to get to him while he tries to fight the bird and still slow his descent and guide himself where he wants to land. Obviously, Hawks hasn’t slept well recently, or their battle knocked something loose in the idiot’s head, because there’s no sense to the way Hawks nearly kills them both trying to catch Touya. They both land on the ground, and all those eyes are on them, but Hawks shoves up his wings, puffing as best he can with the feathers he’s got.
“Don’t fucking do that,” Hawks pants against Touya’s neck, and a well-placed hit would stop all this, but Touya gives himself a break because he can see his face in the mirror-like surface of the buildings window.
All his scars, all the staples - gone. His face isn’t his own. It’s one that he’s never seen. The face of a Touya who had a better life. Maybe the damn Touya who listened to his mother and left Enji Todoroki to his obsession, to the hypocrisy that formed the core of Endeavor’s being. There’s almost nothing of him there in the glass. Those are his eyes - the same as his father’s but the shape of his mother. Otherwise, he looks so much like her.
But he’s not. He’s stronger. He didn’t just give up and accept the life his parents wanted for him. Didn’t let himself be bought and sold and used in the name of legacy. His soul remains his own. No matter how tarnished, he made those decisions, and that isn’t his face.
A hand reaches out, covering his eyes as Hawks crowds him. “No fire.”
“Get your damn hands off me,” Touya growls, but it isn’t fire that prickles his eyes.
This wasn’t supposed to happen. This isn’t his face. Nothing feels like his body anymore, and it hurts, it hurts so goddamn much.
Crooning, Hawks nuzzles and cuddles. “We need to get back inside. Too many people - they’ll take pictures. They’ll let them find you.”
Fighting back the hot tears and ignoring the way his body reacts to the close proximity, Touya hisses, “Fuck off.”
“They plan on killing you. I-I couldn’t let them do it, let them hurt you.”
Well, that’s not news. He expects them to come after him. Shouto and Enji and every goddamn hero, including Hawks. They were all going to come after him - to try to kill him. He knows that. That’s what he planned for. Because that made sense.
So many questions come to mind. The dumbest questions -
What did you do to me?
Why are you still pretending to care?
He's got a plan, and Hawks is throwing him off guard, using their physical relationship because what easier way to undermine what Touya’s done than to present him as some kind of victim who was kidnapped by Dabi and not Dabi.
But even Touya has a difficult time believing that. Plus, he’s exhausted, so Hawks manages to get him back into the damn penthouse. When the man comes over to him, Touya throws up fire in frustration. “No sedatives.”
“You need to sleep. The medicine is experimental. It takes energy. You need to sleep,” Hawks rambles, and he looks so nervous.
Touya huffs, “I’m sure I also should eat.”
“Food. Yes, I can, there’s a combini, but maybe I should order - but what if someone saw you,” Hawks paces back and forth. “If your father and Shouto come, they’ll try to kill you. They said they were going to. I overheard them, but don’t worry. I won’t let them.”
Everything is a mess. Just keeps getting messier.
Penthouse isn’t safe enough. Hawks takes him to this ridiculous hotel and honestly seems to be surprised it is a love hotel, but he doesn’t try to make a move. Just hops around like a paranoid pigeon, never satisfied they’re in a safe place.
After a week awake, four moves, and confirmation that he’s been out for a month, Touya decides enough’s enough. Hawks barely sleeps. He throws himself over Touya at night like a blanket, and the paranoid look isn’t good. Honestly, he’s a great actor, and the white-haired man is half-convinced.
Or he would be if he didn’t know better.
He does. There is no way Hawks gives a damn about him. This is all just a long con.
So he makes a plan and gets out - because he’s learned how to sneak out of most places, and this isn’t the first hero he’s worked around in his life. When he ends up back at the LoV, Tomura just stares. They all do.
“What happened to your face?” Toga asks.
Chewing on his nails - well, at least they solved that issue - Tomura can’t seem to look away, but he asks, “Where have you been?”
“Fixing his face,” Toga points out like Tomura has asked something stupid.
Touya just says, “Hawks.”
Slight nod, and they get back to planning. Touya has a lot to catch up on, and he can’t count on his plan to have run okay in his absence.
Except, he doesn’t get a chance. Hawks shows up - almost gets himself killed, and Tomura kicks them both out, telling Touya to “take care of it” before he comes back around. It would’ve been easier if the bastard had just dusted the hero.
“Why are you doing this?” Touya roars once they’re far enough away not to lead heroes around the area - though if the LoV has any sense, they’ll ditch the place immediately. “I’m not some damsel in distress. I’m a murderer! I’ve killed people, and I’m planning on doing it again.”
It’s so stupid. Tears rise to his eyes as his fire pours out of him, but Hawks throws himself forward, jumping right into the flames like an idiot. “I love you! I won’t let them hurt you!”
Killing him would be easiest. The man killed Twice. He’s a pain in Touya’s ass (somewhat literally) and despite everything Touya said about his face and scars, the man still tried to fix him. To make him into someone he’s not. Some kind of poster boy acceptable victim. Something softer than he was on the inside.
There’s no great retort. Nothing the white-haired man can say. He never planned for this. Not the sex or Hawks’ reaction to the reveal. None of this is making sense.
“Then stop,” Touya tells him. “You don’t have to pretend.”
Hawks holds tighter, sobbing, “I’m not pretending.”
“You’ll never convince me you’re telling the truth.”
Sad tweets and mournful crooning follows. Hawks looks at him with those desperate eyes of his and hangs on like a marionette who had its strings cut. Hope starts that he’ll let go. Show his true colors and finally whatever block that is stopping Touya from killing him will go away, but then there is the touching. Kisses and caresses and wordless begging in whistling keening.
Pushing back, Touya hates how weak he is to attention - to this sort of overwhelming affection. “Stop.”
“Love you,” Hawks insists, kissing along the underside of his jaw.
Whatever love is, this isn’t it. Touya has never seen love, not really, so he can’t be entirely sure, but this one-sided steam-rolling hits too close to home, and he won’t be some trophy wife who just parrots her husband’s words.
“You don’t.”
“I do,” the hero insists.
Touya sighs, but he’s his mother’s son in some ways - weak. He scarred over these parts of himself before, so he just needs to save up and tear himself down again. It hurt. Shit, it hurt so bad that he almost died, and that time, it had been an accident. A loss of control, but if he did it again, he could scar himself and then the kisses and touches and lies wouldn’t reach inside. He was so much stronger when he had his own face.
“Love you” loses meaning, Hawks says it over and over, finds a hotel and just takes him apart, fingering him and sucking marks into newly healed flesh until he’s shaking.
It feels good. Sex with Hawks is always good. He knows what he’s doing. Probably did it with other undercover gigs, so all those bird sounds are probably put on and not a real sign that he’s losing control and actually cares like some part of Touya wants to believe. The animalistic flash in his eyes - the spread of his wings and the thrust of his hips isn’t some breeding instinct activated because he wants Touya that badly. It’s all just a show.
“Hawks…”
“Keigo,” the blond insists, and this is so exhausting. He’s wearing down Touya’s shields, and it is so much harder to keep his face from showing his emotions without the scars to force him. All that pain to remind him.
Sighing, Touya murmurs, “Keigo, you don’t love me.”
“I do.” Those gold eyes stare straight into Touya’s soul, pinning down his trembling and terrified heart as the hero proclaims, “And I know you love me too.” Before Touya can protest, the hero curls over him, keeping his cock buried in the mess he’s made of the slightly too cool body beneath him. “Or you would’ve killed me.”
“You aren’t my main priority,” Touya retorts.
“Yeah, well, you’re mine,” Keigo informs him. “No more hurting yourself.”
“So killing is fine, I just can’t use my fire?” the taller man sneers.
Poor pigeon looks so torn. Caught and desperate and panicking - he’s going to ground, hiding away from the world that is burning all around him, and for some unknown reason, Keigo decided he wants to take Touya with him.
“Best revenge is a life well-lived.”
Touya laughs, and Keigo smiles so hopefully it almost hurts. “I’m going to make that old bastard suffer, and when it finally sinks in that his precious legacy is ash at his feet, then I’m going to kill him too.”
“It’d be worse if he knows you’re out there and can’t find you,” Keigo argues. “You’re the only kid of his who he bothered to love. Even Shouto - he doesn’t look at them the way he looks at you.”
Wouldn’t that be nice?
“Nobody loves me, bird brain. I was the problem child who wouldn’t just shut up and do what I was told,” Touya explains, remembering how exhausted his siblings looked each time he went to train. Every time their mother ended up on the ground because Enji Todoroki blamed her for the monster he created.
Keigo doesn’t reassure him. Not surprising considering the man keeps muttering about how Endeavor and Shouto plan to kill Touya (and how it was apparently a family decision), but the bird holds tight, swearing, “I love you.”
He says it over and over again as if repetition will make Touya believe him. It becomes nonsense and background noise, which is good. It helps to tamp down the small, tiny, insignificant part of Touya that wants to say it back.