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~~~
"He's too popular to be an asset."
"Then make him less popular."
"Clip a bird's wings, and what good are they?"
"He's a man, not a homing pigeon."
"That's rich, coming from you."
"He's either an asset or a liability. Show me which one he is, and that's how he'll be treated."
"And how would you guarantee that?"
"Break him. What emerges will be the truth."
"What would break him of all people?"
"Endeavor-san! What a pleasant surprise!"
"Hawks."
Todoroki Enji stands just inside the bright prison cell, which has been locked behind him. The walls are thick steel, the ground is bedrock, the cameras behind reinforced plexiglass.
The warden has gone; Hawks sits, unchained and unrestrained, in a solitary chair. His legs are crossed and he looks up with a smile as though Endeavor has happened upon him at a cheery sidewalk bistro sipping a coffee, rather than...here.
"I didn't know you'd be coming by! I'd've baked a cake, otherwise."
"I didn't believe it when they said they'd detained you."
"Detained? Is that what they're calling it these days?"
Enji sees the bristle of feathers - it's subtle, but he knows.
"A popularity peacock, they called you."
"Hmmm. Sounds like someone up at the top is a little jelly of me."
"Perhaps if you weren't so flippant and actually paid attention to what's going on in the world, you'd understand why the Commission is concerned."
"Oh I understand perfectly, Endeavor-san. It's not me you should be worried about."
"Why do you think I'm here, Hawks?"
"To torture me into submission? That might be fun…"
"Because I want to help you."
"Don't pretend like you care all of a sudden, Number Two."
Enji shrugs off the dig at his ranking. This cell is crowded enough - no need to bring All Might lumbering into it like a circus elephant.
"There's something brewing. Underground."
"And you want me," Hawks gestures with a thumb at his wings, "to look into it?"
"No. But they do."
Hawks looks at him, studies his face. Enji looks so much younger without his flames, and yet he looks older than Hawks remembers. There's an exhaustion hanging around him. Could just be that time of year, though. It's almost the anniversary of his son's...well, never mind that.
"As moved as I am by your concern, Endeavor-san, I think I'm perfectly capable of managing a little reconnaissance on my own."
"They want you to infiltrate."
At that, Hawks raises an eyebrow.
"I see."
"You're being detained so that rumors spread about your disloyalty."
"Ruffling my feathers in public, is it?"
"Use it, but don't lose sight of the fact that the Hero Commission works for the greater good."
"I never lose sight of what the Hero Commission works for."
Enji's flames surge, but are immediately put out by a quirk suppressing pulse emitted by sensors in the walls.
"That - that's what got you in here. They asked me...they wanted me to confirm your loyalty."
"Oh."
"Look at me, Keigo."
The smoke in that voice, the lingering heat, it's like standing next to the smouldering ruins of a building. The fire's out, but it can still scorch you, and it's too hot to touch.
Hawks looks up at the man who takes up his entire field of vision now. He's always taken up so much space.
"Yes, sir."
"You cannot fly underground. But you can always fly home. I'll always know where you are, Keigo."
"Yes, sir."
"Good. I'll let them know of your...status. You'll be released soon."
Enji signals to be let out.
"Oh goody," Hawks says to the empty room.
Infiltration is the easy part, as is the banter, and even the seduction. Getting just one of the so-called League of Villains into bed is the trickier, when they're so eager to all pile in there together.
The hard part is sussing out which one.
Ever a bird of prey, Hawks looks for the wounded, the straggler, the loner. They're all wounded. But there's one who lingers out in the open, raw and baiting.
Dabi.
Dabi seems almost relieved to be dealt with one-on-one. He balks at Shigaraki's manic micromanagement, with literal hands in every pot, poking at everything, steering everything.
He knows he's made the right choice when Dabi is reluctant to be intimate.
Hawks is tempted to chalk that up to Dabi's physical appearance, but he's figured out enough to know that he wasn't born looking that way. The grafts and the staples, while a complete lewk, are also part of the man he's become, rather than whoever he was. So he wears his scars and his burnt-out raw skin like a badge, like a shield.
Hence, Dabi isn't shy about what he looks like.
The next instinct would be to see it as an abundance of caution, but Dabi runs his mouth worse than half the heroes Hawks has met, and the way he snipes and snarks reminds Hawks of...well, of himself.
It's fascinating, really: sarcasm. Greek for "tearing flesh". How perfectly suited to this torn-up, stitched-together raggedy man who laughs so openly at everyone, like he's the one telling the joke and we're all just living in his punchline.
Is it a lack of attraction? No, it's clear that Dabi absolutely fucks, and the way his eyes linger - so heavy, like his gaze has a weight of its own - he's daring Hawks to swoop down and swallow him up.
But instead, they dance. If Hawks is a bird of prey, Dabi is some sort of panther - lazy and louche in the sun, slinking as he walks, draping himself over every surface like some enormous housecat, until his eyes narrow and blaze, and he sets his sights on something to swipe at. His jaws are powerful, and he'll break your neck with one snap, if he gives you that mercy. He likes to toy with his food.
A panther, yes.
Two apex predators stalking each other. It's a match made in hell.
It's a match flicked at gasoline.
Dabi flicks a bright blue flame from his thumb and lights another cigarette. The room is momentarily bright, almost like an aquarium - not quite dark, but so full of strange shadows in the eerie blue.
Hawks has never been overfond of the ocean.
They're in a small apartment - Hawks assumes it's Dabi's, though there's nothing personal among the scattered clothes and empty takeout boxes and ramen cups. He tries to look relaxed even though there's nowhere to sit other than a single chair, and a thin mattress on the ground.
The place looks worse than a prison cell.
Or, at least, any cell Hawks has been in.
"You wanted to talk, so talk," Dabi says with an exhale of smoke.
"Nothing specific. Just...I feel like we didn't get to...y'know..."
"Spare me the bullshit, Hawks. You've been trying to hook me for your weak-ass spy act for months now. Spit it out. Whaddya wanna know?"
Hawks lets out a laugh, too loud for the bare walls. It bounces off the damp plaster like sparks from a welding torch, flaring and too bright. He pushes himself off of the wall to stalk towards Dabi, who leans on the opposite wall.
"That's what I like so much about you, Dabi. You talk so fucking much and yet when someone wants you to say something you clam right up or flip the script. Honestly, I really do like that about you. That, and your…"
He runs his hand up Dabi's thigh and brings it to rest just over the bulge in his pants. At rest, it's still an impressively large package. Hawks bites his lip as he bats his golden lashes, his absurd sunglasses pushed up on his head, holding his hair out of the way.
"Unbelievable. You really want this? Really? I give you a goddamn invitation to ask me whatever secrets you want about us, to report back to your precious Hero Commission, and you try to feel me up?" His umbrage is somewhat diminished by the way he snakes his hands up under Hawks's shirt, so warm over the smooth skin of his abdomen.
"Is that a crime?" Hawks asks into Dabi's ear, grinning as he feels Dabi's exploring fingertips graze packed muscle where his wings sprout midway up his shoulders. "Because last I checked, you were into the whole 'breaking the law' thing,
"And you're not," Dabi chides, tickling the down along the tender underside of his wings.
Hawks pouts, the moue of his lips brushing Dabi's smirk. "You keep insisting that I'm not. But when the law is wrong, something's gotta be done about it."
"See, that's where I think you're lyin', sweetheart," Dabi says, his voice as hot as the hands he wraps around the joint of each wing. Hawks gasps at the sudden pain, at the flare of heat that simmers - a threat.
Hawks feels paralyzed, a bird's instinctive terror gripping him as the feathers start to singe and Dabi's voice starts to smoulder. "That is where you don't really believe what you're doing is righteous. I know your type. I've seen your type before: so convinced of your own superiority that it doesn't matter what system you're part of, but as long as you are part of it, it's the right one. It's not about change, or justice, or even freedom for you. You just like the sound of your own voice."
"I -"
Dabi kisses him to shut him up, his tongue rough and insistent. Hawks is almost surprised that it isn't raspy like a cat's.
"You wanna talk? Fine," Dabi says, pushing Hawks away and stripping off his shirt.
Hawks raises a golden eyebrow at that. "Just like that?"
"Just like that. Unless you don't want a piece of this anymore…"
Teeth glint in the light of the city filtering in through the dirty window. The bare bulb in the ceiling gives a scant yellow glow.
"Oh, I do want a piece of you…" Hawks doffs his jacket, his shirt, his shoes. Things haven't really been going according to plan, but the plan isn't to gather intel anymore. It's to gain trust. Either way, Hawks has a mission, and he has his skills. He knows the tools he's working with, and those tools look good naked.
Stepping out of his underwear, wings unfurled, Hawks looks like an avenging angel of red and gold. He lets himself be looked at, knowing how his skin catches the light, how the gold bars in his nipples shine, how the cut of his hips holds shadows.
Dabi, shirt off, pants still on, does not look awed. Instead: "On your knees. Beg."
Now that's interesting.
There are two possible responses: argue or submit. The challenge is to decide which one Dabi wants more. Arguing pushes buttons, tests limits, invites banter, invites an exchange of power. Submission lulls the senses, tips the balance in favor of one, but creates a lever that can be pressed on later.
Hawks chooses.
He crows with laughter. "And why would I do that?"
"Because you want someone to tell you what to do. You can't think for yourself, so you need to be told what to do." Dabi's eyes blaze with blue fire, and Hawks feels caught by that turquoise gaze. There's something so familiar about it. Familiar.
Hawks tries to ignore the creeping sensation of danger. It's just the bird reacting to the cat. But it's like a loose tooth that he worries with his tongue - an itch, and ache, a reminder. A loose truth.
"You seem very confident in what you know about me, Dabi."
"Am I wrong?" Dabi asks, pulling a coil of rope from somewhere under the mess in the room. It's nylon rope - the stiff kind, thin as a finger, blue as Dabi's flames. Hawks grins.
"I guess we'll find out," Hawks says, unmoving but for the tilt of his head.
Dabi is before him in a heartbeat, a hot hand around his throat. "I said, on your knees."
There's the smell of singed keratin as Dabi waves away a red bladed feather with his fiery fingers. The charred shaft and withered quill drop to the floor with a hiss. His feathers have always been susceptible to fire. Dabi pushes Hawks to kneel.
Hawks sinks down and lets Dabi bind him, holding onto his little smile as his pliant limbs do as they're told.
It's quick work, and not exactly beautiful, but Hawks thinks that's a sign of the man's nature. The bright synthetic blue is stark against the lush bronze of skin. It cuts strict lines across his sinuous curves and angles, and somehow seems to mirror the patchwork of Dabi's own skin.
The staples.
Hawks lets his eyes run over the way the metal binds scar to skin in sections, rivets instead of knots, punctures instead of thread, sutures instead of rope. Hawks feels his heart race at the recognition of this pattern, at the realization of Dabi's deliberate design. He's no haphazard slob. He has something in mind.
The rope binds his wings to his back, and the bend of the radials jutting over his shoulders like some crude approximation of a crown. If he could see himself, he'd think the way his feathers spread looks like flames. They jostle under the rope and his pinions twitch. He ignores it as Dabi binds his wrists to his knees.
"Now beg."
"For what?"
"Whatever it is you wanted from me. Or am I right in thinking that you can't decide anything for yourself?"
Hawks looks up through his long lashes and meets the jagged smirk with a coquettish pout.
"Please, Dabi. Please, won't you fuck me?"
"No."
Displeasure dances across golden features before Hawks tamps them down. He tries again, more plaintive this time.
"Please? I'll make it good. So good for you...hey, come back!"
Dabi ignores him as he roots around in a cardboard box for something.
Hawks recoils as Dabi shoves his fingers between his lips and pries his mouth open to wedge in a spider gag. The metal is warm from his hands. There's a moment of revulsion as Hawks tries not to wonder whether the gag is clean. His feathers fly out and strike in panic, but Dabi burns them away without a glance as he squats down to look Hawks level in the face.
"Like I said, birdie. You only like the sound of your own voice," Dabi says, his tone matter-of-fact as he slides two fingers in through the ring of the gag and pushes down on Hawks's tongue.
"I don't believe a thing that comes out of that pretty mouth of yours. It's all in the eyes, see? I know you're not really begging me, just like I know you're not really interested in anything any of us so-called villains are trying to do. You want to talk? You want me to listen? Then beg. Beg me with your eyes and not your words, and maybe - just maybe - I'll believe you."
There's command in Dabi's too-quiet voice that Hawks feels like a backhand to the face, and all of a sudden he's seventeen again, learning the slow lesson of obedience.
Spit pools in his open mouth and he tries to swallow it down as Dabi's fingers wiggle over his tongue. His lips, pried open, are stretched wide. Then Dabi is standing again, unzipping his trousers and pulling his cock free.
Big.
Hawks can't help it if his eyes widen at the sight, and he does beg. Part of him begs for mercy, another part begs to be used, a third part begs for release.
Dabi sees the shine in golden eyes as he guides the tip of his half-hard length past the ring of the gag. There's a burst of salt through the taste of metal on Hawks's tongue - a funk, a musk of bitter lessons and hardscrabble living. Hawks tries not to choke on the taste, on the smell.
Groaning, Dabi ignores Hawks as he uses his wet, open mouth to stroke himself to hardness. Hawks blinks away tears as his jaw stretches to accommodate the intrusion, as his throat constricts. It's easy enough to ignore the reflex, even with a cock as big as this one. Not to brag, but Hawks has had bigger.
Hawks knows how the tears hang in his eyelashes, how they leave a delicate tracery down his cheeks. He lets himself choke on a sob, sending a spasm through the aperture of his throat and squeezing around the tip of Dabi's cock as it pushes deeper yet.
Please, his eyes say, tawny and teary and wide. Please, he says with what parts of his mouth can move, letting the word roll his tongue beneath the thrusting shaft, letting his lips twitch so that Dabi can read the word there.
Dabi fists a hand in golden hair, looking down the slope of his nose at the tears, the flushed cheeks, the way his cock slides in and out of that mouth. Wordless, Hawks is easier to read.
Please.
Neither Hawks nor Dabi knows who it is he's trying to convince. But that doesn't matter now, does it?
"Good boy," Dabi says with a smile.
And in that instant, Hawks does choke.
~
"Good boy," Endeavor says with a smile.
Keigo lets the praise wash over him like cool water, sluicing away the sweat and tears and stench of ozone that clings to him. The nodes taped to his chest, his thighs, his wrists, his feet, his neck, his balls...they're quiet now, though the buzz of electricity and their threat still lingers just underneath Keigo's skin. He swears he can see the sparks in the backs of his eyelids. Every feather feels like it's about to fly out, every hair on his head. His fingernails itch. His dick is so hard.
It's the electricity. It's an electrical impulse. It's an impulse.
"Again."
Keigo pants, then nods, screwing his eyes shut as he presses the button in his hand, closing the circuit and sending electricity coursing down the wires and into the nodes. He counts backwards from ten. At zero, he lets the button go, and the self-administered torture ends.
"Very good," comes the voice like thunder, rolling just behind the flash of lightning. Keigo's arms quake as he grips the chair he's in. As the pain subsides, he looks up into fiery eyes that pin him like a moth in a glass case - possessive, studying, calculating.
Endeavor's hands, like the rest of the man, are so big and not made for delicate actions, hot and hard yet gentle in a way. It's a secret Keigo knows and keeps safe in his heart.
It's in the way Endeavor moves slowly but precisely as he peels the adhesive nodes from Keigo's bare skin, the way his hands are always warm, the way he brushes his thumbs over each mark left by the shock of high voltage, the way he lingers over burns in the shape of his own fingers dotting tender thighs and slender hips.
Keigo keeps his grip on the chair as Endeavor works. It's so quiet now that the buzzing has subsided. He keeps his eyes on Endeavor as he turns his broad back to put away the clips and wires. He keeps his eyes on Endeavor when he wipes at Keigo's sweaty brow with a cool washcloth.
"Look at me," Endeavor says when Keigo's eyes drift shut. Keigo obeys.
"You were very good this time," he says as he wraps thick, warm fingers around Keigo's dick, still hard, twitching like there's an electrical node shooting volts through it.
Relief, trust, gratitude, safety, home. Feelings well up in Keigo's heart while his mind is still a buzzing mess. The steady bass of Endeavor's voice soothes the lingering tremolo of electricity caught in his ears. A balm for his body, his mind, his heart.
The hand on his cock is steady, encouraging. "Good boy," Endeavor murmurs, so close to Keigo's face. "You did so well. I'm proud of you. Let go now."
Keigo feels his spine liquefy and shoot out of his cock like an electrical charge, like a switch flipped, like a circuit completed. As he cums, Endeavor's whispers wind their way around the strings and sinews that hold Keigo's sense of self together. That voice is entwined with the fibers of his being, inextricable. Satisfaction, pride, fulfilment, identity - these are spun with the thread of Endeavor's will.
"I'll always know where you are, Keigo. You can always fly home."
"Yes, Sir."
"Good boy."
~
Hawks is baffled when he begins to cry in earnest at the pressure on the fissures of his mind. There's something about the way Dabi says good boy that kicks his pulse up and makes him crave.
Maybe it's because he saw him so recently, or because of the nature of the mission, or just the way Dabi seems so much bigger from this angle, but Hawks feels that bone-deep need he thought he'd finally shaken.
He doesn't know if he can do this now. He's shaken, questioning everything, spiralling out of his tight control and into the fluttering, flighty mess of an infatuated boy looking up at his hero.
Years of conditioning need years of deconditioning, after all. Layers of remove, of protection, of defenses like sarcasm and gallows humor and flippancy and being desired by everyone… Hawks hardly knows what's himself or the layers lacquered over the wide-eyed boy. When you cut through the very thread that holds the tangled knot of self together, is it any wonder that you're a frayed bit of string?
He supposes he could've tried therapy instead of fucking everyone and everything that made him feel a shred of self-worth. But, here we are. Hawks can't quite figure out why he's suddenly so affected, but he is. His brain gropes at the threads that snap and slip just out of reach from understanding. I'm a professional. I can do this.
What Hawks has yet to admit is that Dabi is wrong about him.
Because Hawks does want what Dabi wants - to let go of being a hero. Hawks just wants to live in a world where he doesn't have to give a shit. He's just so tired and there's no such thing as a hero. Everyone's just a person and having more power doesn't make you any less fucked up.
Though Hawks knows that power, for heroes and villains alike, just helps self-righteous narcissistic manipulators operate on a larger scale.
Dabi notices when Hawks lets his mind wander, when he drops the role of pretty doll and is absent. Hawks is held up only by blue nylon and rough hands in his hair. It's the most revealing thing about Hawks so far, and Dabi studies it carefully even as he winds up for an orgasm.
It's not often that Dabi lets himself have one, because he's not done punishing himself, apparently.
Something about Hawks reminds Dabi of himself. There's something in the specific way he reads power, the way he carries himself as a bigger man than he is, how he tries to take up space in a room even if he's not the largest person there. The swagger, the braggadocio...it's all so familiar.
Dabi used to do that when he was younger. When he was trying to wriggle out from under his father's thumb. Yes, there's something about Hawks that reminds Dabi of the struggle to be the opposite of what The Flame Hero Endeavor wants.
Fuck Endeavor.
That very name seems to conjure up the man himself as the room grows oppressively hot and feels cramped, crowded with too much. Dabi grimaces as he tries to ignore the intruding memories. He grips Hawks hard by the chin and wrenches the golden head back to peer into those teary amber eyes. His fingers dig into bronzed skin, hard enough to bruise. There's something else in those eyes now, and it pulls Dabi back to the task at hand.
"I don't see any begging," Dabi says, the sound of his voice shocking both of them out of their reveries, pulling them back into the grimy apartment and the grimy act they're performing. It's all a performance, they both think, holding onto the familiar task of pretending, instead of letting their thoughts run away with them.
Hawks screws his eyes shut and tries to pull his head away, feeling for the tug in his hair, the quickening of pace that accompanies the struggle. They like it when I struggle, Hawks thinks, calculating not bitter.
Dabi keeps Hawks where he is, doubling his force and his pace. They both want this to be over.
It's over soon, with Hawks moaning around the deep strokes into his throat and thrusting his hips against the boot that presses against his cock. It's pathetic, grinding like a desperate dog on a dirty shoe. Dabi is delighted, Hawks is at least getting off.
They cum, Hawks first, efficiently, letting his well-trained body do the work. Dabi cums at the sight of such debasement, such a lack of pride. He withdraws and shoots his load across Hawks's face, spattering him messily.
Dabi tucks his spent cock away, unties Hawks, offers him his discarded shirt to wipe his face with.
Hawks does his best to clean up. It's in his hair. He's had worse.
Dressed again, they study each other. This was not what either had expected. There's something still unsaid, and the pretense of talking has utterly failed.
Instead, Dabi says: "Fly home, birdie. Come back when you've got something to say."
Hawks blanches and his heart races again. Dabi quirks an eyebrow at the strange reaction but says nothing as Hawks leaves through the front door.
Hawks takes the stairs up to the roof of the building and perches on the ledge in the mist of a late October night. He waits until he's done shaking to take flight.
Enji hears the flutter of wings on the balcony of his office.
He's at the agency. He spends most of his time here.
The house is so big and feels so terribly empty when no one's home. Natsuo's been living at the university dorms. Fuyumi and Shouto are with their mother for the week. There are meals in the fridge labelled with each day Fuyumi is gone. He's eaten them all already, even though it's only been two days.
The house is empty save for the ghosts of what he's done.
So he avoids the house, stays at the agency.
And now, wings.
He looks up from… he has no idea what he's been reading, staring at the same line for an hour.
Wings, like he's summoned them here out of some twisted longing.
Enji wishes he felt sick about it, but he doesn't.
"What do you want, Hawks?" Enji asks, sliding the glass door open.
Hawks merely looks up at him, wings drooping, shoulders slumped. Enji feels worry nibbling at the wires in his head like a rat in the walls. Part of him wants to know what's wrong, to offer comfort, such as he can. He's never really lost that urge. He could try being kind.
"You said you'd never come back here," he says instead.
When Hawks doesn't snipe back, it's clear something is wrong.
~
"I'm never coming back here," Keigo says, sounding petulant despite his best efforts.
"You will do as you're ordered," Endeavor says, his voice like stones falling into a well - cold, hard, echoing.
Keigo puts on his best smirk, full of sauce and sass, leans across Endeavor's desk and drawls, "Awww, will you miss me, Endeavor-san?"
"You will mind me, boy. You will do as I say, do as I intend!" Endeavor fumes from his desk chair.
"Or what, you'll kill me, too?"
The fist that hits him isn't half so hard as the broken sound that tears itself from Endeavor's throat.
It's a low blow, and one Keigo has never tried before. There's no quirk, no flames. Only a fist - the raw anger and hurt burning hotter than any fire. Do not test me, boy, he'd warned. And now he's being tested. And someone's going to fail.
Keigo laughs, a hysterical sound that's half incredulous, half gleeful. "You would! You'd kill me just like him, just to prove your point. Just to prove you're right! And for what?"
"Shut. Your. Mouth!" Endeavor pins Hawks to his desk by the arms, his wings crushed under his back.
"I'm done with doing what you say," Keigo spits back, not bothering to struggle. "I'm done with doing what this fucked up Commission says. You're all just a bunch of power-drunk tyrants obsessed with yourselves and this fucked-up sense of justice. I don't want to be a hero!"
I don't want to be a hero, dad!
Keigo's voice sounds just like Touya's did.
"You're WEAK! Only the weak submit! Only the weak give up!"
"So what? So what if I'm weak? You afraid that if I'm weak it'll look bad for you? Endeavor's little protege amounts to nothing but a failure?"
"It would be a waste, Keigo. A waste of your potential, of the power you have, of all the good that you can do. Have I taught you nothing?"
"Is that all I'm good for? To be the things you taught me to be, that you want me to be?"
If I'm good for nothing, then nothing's what I'll be. Father.
Endeavor feels the heat of anger, of betrayal simmering under his skin. How dare this boy speak back to him like this. How dare this boy, that boy, any boy disrespect him so. His thighs press forward, pinning Keigo's shins as they hang off the edge of the desk.
"Prove me wrong, then. Prove me wrong about your weakness, about your failure."
"No."
"No?"
"I'm not falling for that. Not anymore. If I'm going to be worth something, it'll be what I want, not what you want, and your opinion of me be damned. I'm sick of being your project, your doll, your plaything. I'm sick of being a substitute for the son you killed with your obsession. I'm sick of whoring myself out as a shining star just for a crumb of praise from you!"
"If you're a whore, it's because that's what you are, not what I've made you," Endeavor says, too quietly. The disappointment cuts cold through the heat of Keigo's speech. He wraps a massive hand around Keigo's throat.
Keigo shudders at the touch, his body remembering, knowing the command even as his mind rebels. He's helpless against the hot hands that squeeze him, wrapping around his wings, around his neck, pinning him like the little bird he is. He's lifted bodily off the desk as Endeavor holds their faces close and burns with menace and fury.
His wings are singeing, each feather that flies from him turns to ash in the cloud of flame at Endeavor's back.
Black spots dance over his vision as the great fist around his throat tightens. He kicks his legs weakly.
Weak.
Keigo wonders if this is how Endeavor's son died, or whether he'd roasted himself alive like the rumors said. Either way, Keigo is sure he's going to die.
His hands claw uselessly at the thick fingers closed around him, scratching and scrabbling at Endeavor's wrist, but it, too, grows too hot to touch.
Darkness takes him.
Keigo is revived with kisses, smothered with them as Endeavor weeps over him, pleading with him. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Keigo. Please. Forgive me. Don't leave me. Forgive me, I love you. I love you."
He hears it all as if from deep underwater, where flames can't reach him. Keigo hates the water.
Kisses, urgent and hungry and demanding - Endeavor is still incapable of anything delicate. Even this plaintiveness is selfish, a demand, a request, something for Keigo to give and Endeavor to receive.
But the kisses are like air while he's drowning, like the bright open sky while he's drenched and dragged under. He needs it, craves it, no matter how much he tries to deny it.
Keigo succumbs, pulled up from the water gasping and heaving great lungfuls of life-giving air as Endeavor breathes hot and heavy into his mouth. He stirs, wings rustling, arms encircling those mountainous shoulders.
Endeavor lets out an explosive breath of relief when Keigo shows he's alive, responsive, still his.
He strips away Keigo's clothes, half burning them, half tearing them. Naked now, small and exposed, lying on Endeavor's desk like a grotesque doll, Keigo feels his resolve flit away like a sparrow after spring. I'm weak. I'm nothing. Nothing without him.
Endeavor rummages in a drawer and pulls out lube. Because he still keeps it there, even though Keigo's been staying away. Even though Keigo's sworn he'll never come back.
Keigo laughs again - at himself, at the absurdity of trying to leave this man, leave this life.
Two fingers, hard and thick, and Keigo doesn't even bat an eye. His body is used to it, molded to the shape of Endeavor's massive desires, pliant and obedient and responsive.
"Don't leave me, Keigo. Stay with me. Come home. Come home."
Keigo isn't sure when he started crying, but the tears blur his vision even as he screws his eyes shut as Endeavor fingers him open further. There's the press of a fingertip on his prostate - god, his hands are so big - and Endeavor looms over him like a giant, like the sun, filling his vision with nothing but dancing spots and turquoise eyes.
Four fingers, prying him open like a heavy door, like a recalcitrant fruit, two hands now, fingers hooking the ring of muscle and pulling him wide, wide enough to see inside, gaping and clenching around nothing as he works him open more, more, more.
Always more.
Always demanding, taking, breaking down his resistance, splitting him open like a marrowbone to suck dry.
Keigo slips into the space Endeavor has carved into this world for him, shaped a certain way, just so. It's easy to return home like this, to fall into the comforting pressure of the known, of the familiar.
Familiar.
Family.
"Mine," Endeavor rumbles like a volcano shifting in the bedrock.
Endeavor gazes at Keigo spread-eagled and spread open and messy with lube and blooming bruises and skin thickened over the years against the burns.
"Mine."
Gaping open, held wide by Endeavor's relentless fingers, he stares into that hole he's made to fit himself. There's no one else who could fit him like this. Not his wife and her frigid body. Not his dead son. Not the living ones either. No. There's only one person who he can prise open like this and sink himself into like he belongs there.
Endeavor's cock is as huge as the rest of him, absurd in proportions that give everybody pause, but give Keigo a pleasure he's addicted to. There's nothing can compare. He's ruined for all others. No matter how far he flies, how deep he sinks or high he rises, there will be no one who can compare to Endeavor. No one will fill his aching need as deeply as the one who carved this emptiness into him.
Keigo sighs and moans with abject desire as his body begs for Endeavor. The weight of Endeavor's body pressing into him, onto him, around him...it's too much for his mind, and the cracks slip like plates tectonic, grinding edges as the magma roils and the earth finds a new shape while mountains turn to liquid and boil away the sea.
"Yours," he cries, "Yours! Always! Please!" Keigo's voice breaks like his mind, too overwhelmed, the fissures filled in by the molten heat and all-consuming fire he's filled with as Endeavor fucks him harder through his pleas. Huge hands grip narrow hips and push trembling thighs and haul him up and down the great searing length of him.
Ragged, boneless as a doll, Keigo can only hook his elbows under his knees and hold on for dear life as he's used and used and used and used and use me please fuck please oh fuck fuck don't stop fuck fill me up fuck me make me cry make me yours I'm yours don't stop don't ever stop I won't leave you I promise I love you I need you oh please oHF UC KKK FUCK FUCK! ENJI! PLEASE! ENJI!
"MINE!" Endeavor thunders as he cums like a geyser, pumping hot and thick as his balls seize up and empty out into Keigo's spasming body, deep and hot as the very earth's core, burning him from the inside out, radiant.
Tear tracks and bruises and sweat and ash are smeared all over Keigo, filthy as he's dropped back onto the desk. Endeavor collapses on top of him, his weight oppressive and crushing and everything Keigo has craved.
No matter where he goes, Hawks will always fly home.
~
"You came home," Enji tries again. Hawks peers at him.
Turquoise eyes flash in the dark room, and Hawks looks like he's seen a ghost. And perhaps, he decides, he has.
Hawks thinks of surgical staples and nylon rope and blue fire and the thick weight of a cock on his tongue. He thinks of hands too big to resist and deep promises and flying and the hot gush of cum inside him.
There's something pulling him this way and that, and Hawks doesn't know yet what direction he'll choose. But he knows, now, standing on the cold balcony of Endeavor's Agency office, that suddenly he's the one with the secrets to keep.
"I'm here to make a report. Sir."
Enji looks surprised, and Hawks squares his shoulders as he brushes past the only man he's ever loved to sit in the far chair and prop his shoes up on the desk.
"What did you learn?"
"Wouldn't you like to know?"
"Are you making a report or a scene?"
"Tut, tut, Endeavor-san. So impatient. I've come to report that the League of Villains is planning some sort of insurrection, but that they've yet to mobilize any numbers great enough to be of concern. They're a rag-tag bunch, fragmented and disorganized, bickering among themselves like children. But there's something - or someone - at work behind the scenes, and I haven't quite figured out who."
"That's it?"
"That's it."
"So what do you propose we do?"
"Send me back in."
"I hadn't realized you'd pulled out."
"That's what I said," Hawks jokes.
Enji doesn't register it. He's thinking. Considering. Hawks stands and traipses over to where Enji still stands by the open glass door.
"Have you gained their trust?"
"Such as it is, yes. But I'm working on one specific member who I think I can get to."
"You think?"
"I need something first. A promise."
"You know as well as any that the Commission doesn't make promises."
"No, not from the Commission. From you."
"Me?"
"Promise me, Enji," Hawks says, looking up through his long lashes, pushing his glasses aside. "Promise me that no matter how far I fly, no matter what I say or do, even if you don't know where I am, that you know I'll come home."
There's a beat where Enji wants to scoff at this statement, to point his finger at everything Hero Hawks has done to make a mockery of being a hero, to accuse him of betraying his trust.
But then he sees the droop of feathers, the shadow of sleeplessness under smudged makeup, the purpling of a bruise in the shape of fingertips. Jealousy rears its absurd head and sinks its fangs into Enji's mind. He shrugs the viper off, fighting the poison of a possessiveness he no longer should feel.
Can he do this?
Enji nods, once, final.
Hawks measures him up, and seems satisfied. It's unnerving to be gauged like that, and Enji finds he doesn't like it. Something's shifted now. Hawks - no, Keigo - is putting his trust in him again, but without Enji asking. It's new. It's oddly professional, given their history. Apparently this is how they are now, tamping down the embers between them, with Hawks flippant as ever and Endeavor aloof.
"Then I'll see you around, Endeavor-san. Pass my report along to the Commission, would you? Thanks ever so. Toodles."
Hawks is gone before Enji can think of a reply.
~~~The rest is in the manga~~~