Archive of Our Own

Keigo was eleven when he got his first pair of headphones.

He’d never seen it as an issue before. The world was loud, but before the age of six, his world was small. The most he heard was his father’s curses from the other room, berating Tomie and Keigo like they were to blame for his need to hide.

Sometimes when Tomie would allow him to go to the supermarket, he could sneak a feather down an aisle, just to see what other people looked like. How other people walked. He once overheard a girl his age sing some catchy jingle, but his dad had accused him of blowing their cover. So, Keigo decided better than to parrot the sounds he heard outside their little house or sing anything that didn’t come from one of Tomie’s television on the days it actually decided to work.

The commission was loud. He heard everything.

The world outside of Fukuoka was loud, too. Keigo had to focus. Like—really focus, to make sure he accomplished whatever goal he set out for himself. Otherwise, everything else was louder than his own head, and he learned early on that his head was the only place he was safe.

His performance within the commission had potential. They used that word a lot. He had potential. He still had more mistakes than successes. The concussion he earned on the field one day was proof of that.

Keigo had a goal. He was getting better about manipulating all his feathers—but he caught wind of a conversation—“…fails one more time, we’ll have to go with someone else—”

And he flew straight into a wall and hurt himself.

He insisted on getting back on the field. It didn’t count as a failure—he could argue his way that heroes needed to work through injuries. They made him get an MRI anyway, because he couldn’t deny the ringing in his ears that accompanied every other shudder and displeasure Fierce Wings let him be privy to. Sometimes admitting yes or no was just a huge guessing game. Keigo’s goal was to stay on the field and prove he was a good agent, but say the wrong answer at the wrong time would delay his progress—and Keigo couldn’t afford to lose this new life.

Something came back from his test that was concerning. Mera was chosen to give him the news.

“I’m fine,” he tried to lie. It wouldn’t be the first time they let him back on the field after an injury. He wasn’t going to be of use to anyone just sitting tight.

“Hawks,” Mera said, “how’s your hearing?”

“Fine.”

Mera sighed in exasperation. “Can we skip to the part where you stop lying?”

“I don’t lie,” Keigo lied. If Mera thought he was lying then he wasn’t good at deceiving yet.

Mera rolled his eyes. That was always going to be their relationship.

Out of nowhere, he pulled out something Keigo had never seen before. Some headband with some really big ear covers. Keigo leaned in. It wasn’t unusual for the commission to run sudden tests on him. In fact, it brought some relief. If they were still testing him then he was still of interest.

Something changed the moment they went around his ears. A crisp sound played in the background, like a knife cutting through cake. There was before the headphones and after the headphones. Keigo’s head ached. He had no idea it ached.

“Is that better?”

The question was crisp. Keigo could hear the timber of Mera’s voice, loud and clear. It was the first raindrop after a draught—cool and clear through the haze of heat. The haze of just…living.

“Yeah,” Keigo said. He didn’t have to lie.

*

Keigo’s gotten acquainted with his noise-canceling headphones. And at some point, they realized yellow lenses could help him cancel out physical noise, too. The thought of physical noise was an oxymoron. When Keigo grew bolder, he made that joke. No one laughed.

Keigo improved remarkably. Like night and day. Of course—this meant that after polishing his strengths, they had to make up for his weaknesses, too. Endurance training. His support gear couldn’t become a crutch. He needed to fine tune his ability with Fierce Wings and accommodate for his eyes and ears as needed.

Which involved a lot of testing. A lot of field practice. A lot of repercussions, while trying to find his limits—then follow up trials in order to push his limits. Keigo was to perfect his quirk and sharpen himself like a sword from point to pollum.

He’s not sure how it comes up years later. On a date with Touya, no less. One Touya wouldn’t agree to calling a date, but Keigo still appreciates as a moment of peace from his otherwise hectic schedule. He has it down pat.

They go to the park early in the morning, when school is still in session. There’s a sweet spot just right before the lunch rush, where Keigo can charm a street vendor into getting them food without calling attention to his pardoned war criminal boyfriend and make small talk before a tidal wave of people come through. Feathers—discreet and practically invisible with the autumn day—sweep through the proximity to time when they should move on to their next destination.

Touya is doubtful at first. It takes a lot to keep that nose from scrunching and those eyes from leering in suspicion.

Which makes Touya’s smile more rewarding when he can finally relax into it.

They’re almost a normal, regular couple.

(Aside from the heavy duty makeup and mask Touya wears and the red plumage Keigo is more or less stuck with.)

It’s always a win when he can impress Touya. It means he can be smug about it later.

“I’d say we have thirty minutes,” Keigo predicts. They settle on a park bench.

Thirty minutes just to relax. Just to be them. Keigo can make a space for himself in the day where he’s nothing more than Touya’s boyfriend. There’s less obligation and shame, and more joy.

Touya would obviously never gush or accept Keigo is an absolute genius. Still, his next remark is unexpected. “You’re wearing your headset.”

Touya is always studying him, Double agent or not.

“It’s support gear,” Keigo admits. He didn’t think much of the conversation.

“Support?” Touya snorts. “The fuck you need support for?”

Keigo taps his headphones. “So I don’t get overstimulated with Fierce Wings. Hearing through feathers and through my ears can be a bit much.”

“No shit?”

“Same with the shades.” Keigo taps his glasses. “Yellow filter helps me distinguish what’s in front of me and what Fierce Wings is seeing.”

No matter how sepia toned the world looks, Touya’s eyes will never be anything less than a remarkable shade of blue.

Touya is still studying him. So Keigo takes advantage of it. He nudges his boyfriend.

“Perks of dating me,” he teases. “You get to learn how you could’ve kicked my ass a long time ago.”

Dabi snorts. He’s smug. “Don’t think I need help with that.”

Yeah. Hawks had to train very hard to tolerate the blinding, deafening pain that came from clipped wings and scorched feathers. That was definitely not just, on the job training.

“And yet I’m not the one who needed a pardon from prison,” Keigo says instead. He sticks his tongue out for emphasis.

Touya rolls his eyes—but it’s the encouragement Keigo enjoys. Touya is engaged in the conversation, and Keigo wants to deliver.

“I can see everything,” he says—which is true. “I’ve got about…five or six feathers on either side of this street keeping watch. It’s just a different part of my mind. The yellow filter lets me know what’s in front of me.”

“Compartmentalizing’s almost a must-have then,” Touya remarks under his breath. Because he’s smart. Keigo has a smart boyfriend with the ability to remember everything and polished his skills to become a deadly anti-Endeavor tactician.

“Bingo.”

“And you can hear conversations in all of them?”

“Yep.”

“How fucking annoying.”

“Not really. We’re talking five or six feathers compared to everything else that’s still attached to me.” Keigo shrugs. “I’m all ears for you, babe.”

“So what happens when you lose a feather for good?”

“Like popping a pimple or ripping a scab, I guess. It was a part of me. Then it wasn’t.”

The conversation steers a different direction not long after that.

Touya’s tone grows heavier before Keigo can anticipate it. “But you feel it? Every last one?“

A casual answer would’ve departed Keigo’s lips—but as Touya's demeanor changes, he realizes his boyfriend isn’t asking for a casual answer. In fact, Touya’s already come to a conclusion in his head, and Keigo is only confirming or denying that concussion.

He hates nothing more at the commission. Being perceived before he had a chance to prove himself.

“I’ve built up a tolerance against it,” Keigo reassures.

“Damn,” Touya mutters.

“Hey,” Keigo said sharply. It’s cute when Touya cares—but they were different people back then. That’s why it was so easy to joke about now. “We’re on a date. We’re keeping it positive.”

Touya snorts because, if it was up to him, their dates would be more grandiose than beating lunch rushes and finding a safe corner in public where no one can find a pardoned war criminal and the Number Two Hero. Dating is such a normal idea for normies, but Touya’s idea of normal is gooier than he’d ever admit.

But, in this case, Touya obliges. In fact, he looks even more intrigued. Fascinated, like Keigo is the only thing worth the time of day.

“So what else can you feel?” Touya asks. “With just your feathers, birdie?”

*

The idea of being blindfolded and completely deafened absolutely terrifies Keigo. Sometimes he’d be left alone for days in a dark room, expected to find an escape route and ration food.

It was almost better to fail the test. The more times he succeeded, the more complex those trials became. The longer it took Keigo to get out of a faux hostage situation, and win back his freedom.

Those were practice.

Those were not Touya.

Testing Fierce Wings was pragmatic, strategic, and for reconnaissance purposes.

It was never…sexual.

In fact, Keigo’s never considered using the wings for anything sexual. Fierce Wings is an extension of himself, and himself was a byproduct of a fucked up relationship. Keigo wasn’t supposed to exist. Hawks only exists because of what Fierce Wings can do.

In retrospect, his reaction might’ve been extreme. It’s a simple question. Dabi and he—they’re good now. Together. In love. In the noise of the world, they have each other.

So, post-war and out of reach of the commission, his fight-or-flight shouldn’t have reacted. It shouldn’t have taken him more than a breath to react.

Couples trade things about each other all the time. Keigo knows all the fucked up things about the Todoroki Family, and how Touya is trying to be better. Touya knows about Tomie and Keigo’s upbringing. The extensive detail of his training and education with the HPSC is—well, fucking extensive. Some of which Keigo tries hard to forget but his muscle memory doesn’t. And it’s not like he’s going to spread his legs and pour every intense detail that went into constructing Winged Hero: Hawks.

Touya’s his happy place. His in between where he doesn’t have to think about it, because their relationship is the step after Agent Hawks.

He’s so comfortable with Touya that Keigo doesn’t even realize when it becomes uncomfortable. And discomfort about his wings has a tendency to escalate. Yes, he can do this test. Yes, he can pass it. No, failure is not an option. No, it didn’t hurt (lie.) Yes, they can keep going, he’s fine (lie.) He can prove just how skillful he is with Fierce Wings and dispel any doubt that he’s anything less than capable. Less than excellent.

Even with his boyfriend.

“So you want to blindfold me and block out my hearing,” Keigo summarizes when they’re back in their apartment later that night. “You’re kinky.”

Touya snorts. “You’re a chicken who eats chicken. I don’t think there’s room to talk.”

“Eating karaage and getting manhandled do not fall under the same category and you know it.”

He loves Touya’s laugh. It’s like lighting a candle in a room of abysmal, hopeless darkness.

“Fuck, birdie, you said keep it positive. I’m positive I can get you screaming.”

Ugh. The real lie would be saying that thought didn’t make Keigo hot.

But this is light. Banter is light. So Keigo arches an eyebrow. “By feathers. Your mind just went straight there with Fierce Wings the moment I mentioned it?”

“Been thinking about it for a while.”

God.

Then Touya just…looks at him with this intensity that could cut glass. It snatches Keigo by his throat, and every word he planned on having just struggles to pry its way out of the brain fog he suddenly has.

Not that he’s going to let Dabi know that.

“Opportunistic, huh?” Keigo mutters. “That’s hot.”

Touya snorts again. There’s that gleeful, maniacal glint that Keigo dreamed about, even before the war. “So what do you say, birdie? How about you let me ruffle a few feathers?”

The very thought of getting his feathers ruffled turns Keigo’s stomach inside out and makes him want to vomit. It’s every situation where he sat in the middle of a room while scientists whispered to each other new ways to test out Fierce Wings’ pliability and feats like Keigo was some action figure for kids to pass around a playground. He suggested Toy Stories for movie night, once. Andy’s toys had it easier.

But he’s not there. And Touya’s not the commission. And Keigo actually has a pretty damn hard time making smart decisions around Touya.

“Well?” Touya presses again. Because to him, it’s a simple question, and Keigo isn’t hopping through five-thousand feathery hoops or scenarios.

Hawks doesn’t back out, ever. He’s reminded himself that fear is nothing but a distraction, and persevering is the only way to get what he needs. No one gets rewarded for failure. No one stays for failure.

“Make it worth my while,” Keigo says instead. “I could be persuaded.”

Bluffing is a valuable tool. So is negotiation. It’s useful against enemies and comrades alike.

There’s no room for fear.

There shouldn’t be, as they spend the next half hour searching for an adequate blindfold to cover Keigo’s eyes and his biggest set of headphones that curl around his ears in a protective embrace.

He’s not restrained by any means. Keigo knows the square footage of his own apartment. Hunting for the right one and uncovering every facet was basically mechanical and ingrained in his core. They don’t even tie him up. He’s just…sitting there, cross legged on the bed for which they recently bought sheets. Together, like a couple. The whole new duvet set was both of theirs, and not just Keigo’s.

His heart is the loudest thing in the room. Keigo feels it in his chest and through the stem of the closest feathers to his shoulder blades. This should help cut through the noise in his head—and it does, but something else is louder.

He can’t be nervous.

Being nervous won’t help him pass.

“You good?” Touya asks. The words make the edges of his feathers tingle.

“Kinky,” Keigo breathes aloud. Muses. He’s trained in keeping his voice steady, but the tremble in it might as well be a wailing siren.

He can see the room. He can hear the hum of the refrigerator, and even the smoke alarm from one of their neighbors, who really needs to change the battery. The bedding beneath the tips of his wings is soft. The wall is white, and the headboard is made of wood. There’s a handprint scorched into it from one instance when they got too rowdy.

This should be so much easier.

“Hey, birdie,” Touya says suddenly. His mouth is close to Keigo’s, sharing the small puffs of air between them. The actual sound, though—that concern reaches Keigo from his feathers instead of his ears. “We don’t have to do this—”

“I said I could do it.”

Touya is in front of him. His face, not Fierce Wings. If Keigo wants to see Touya, then he has to move some feathers. That’s his assignment.

“Don’t back out now, Dabi,” Hawks croons. “There’s only room for one chicken and that karaage is waiting in the fridge.”

The worst part is, Keigo might actually be too distraught to conjure some feathers. He’s afraid of what disappointed face awaits him if he tries.

“Safe word?”

Keigo balks. “We don’t need—“

“Safe word?”

Safe words aren’t weak words. They’re there because they love each other.

“Soba.” Nothing kills a boner faster than the noodle obsession in the Todoroki Family—though Keigo might be shooting himself in the foot before they even get started. “But I’m not going to need it.”

Touya sighs. Which could either be a, you’re so annoying sigh, or something worse.

Keigo’s trying to prove a point without making it obvious he’s trying to prove a point. Touya may damn well already know he’s trying to prove a point, but much like most of Keigo’s childhood he’s got practice lying through his teeth until the situation lands where he needs to be.

“C’mon,” Keigo whines. “Don’t tell me you came just from looking at me like this. Even I’m not that hot.”

He reaches out with both hands in childish jest in order to deescalate the tension. It’s not until his arms reach a body that he remembers he’s not alone. He’s not on the other side of a two-way mirror waiting for orders.

Instead, he’s sitting across from his boyfriend, who has been anything but an immovable wall since they met. His arms lock onto shoulders, and there’s fluidity to Touya leaning in to kiss him.

Keigo can smell the remnants of singed skin. He can also smell the stirfry sauce from their lunch, after standing next to the venue and waiting for their food to be ready. He feels Touya’s lips—every crease and fold and softness, along with the gentle graze of piercings that could nip and snag and pinch if they weren’t careful. Or, if they played their cards right, nip and snag and pinch in all the right places.

He feels it. Sure, he doesn’t necessarily keep his eyes open when they make out, but there’s a difference between batting some eyelashes and being absolutely deprived of the decision.

Keigo kisses and sips Touya’s mouth because it’s a familiar dance. Touya’s scent is familiar. His skin is familiar. Even the way he moves his body is familiar. It’s important to assess what’s going well in a situation before Keigo can deduce how to avoid panicking.

He’s still trying to lean into Touya’s kiss as his pillar of sanity, before Touya just. Pulls away. Out of sight and scent and hearing.

“Touya?” Keigo’s ashamed to admit how unsteady his own voice sounds.

The bed creases behind him. Touya didn’t leave him. He’s just in a different place.

Fierce Wings twitch and flutter about as he’s pulled into Touya’s lap. They’ve gotten used to accommodating and folding with Touya’s own frame. No one else holds him like this.

No one else kisses the crook of his neck this way. His wings tingle in Touya’s close proximity as they always do. He can feel every bit of Touya—every crease of his shirt and every inch of bare skin and staple as they brush against feathers. He can feel Touya’s breath on his neck. It spreads down at his scapular feathers at the base at his shoulder blades. It’s his secondary coverts that can feel Touya’s pulse.

“You are so pretty,” Touya whispers against a bed of feathers. “You know that?”

It’s electrifying. The intentional breath and mouth close to the root of his wings. Every bone and feather is suddenly very aware of Touya. The words are so light and far from his ears, but Touya might as well have be a voice in Keigo’s head.

“Oh,” Touya chirps next. He kisses inside Keigo’s right wing—near the marginal covert. He combs a hand through primary and secondary feathers—and they comply. They’re soft, like they’re down feathers. “You like that—?”

He yanks his hand away all of a sudden, and Keigo knows why.

“Shit,” Keigo says. He whirls around to reach the sliced palm. “Here, let me—”

“Birdie, it’s okay.” There’s a firmness to Touya’s tone. Of course Keigo managed to fuck something up enough that there needs to be a tone. “Didn’t even cut skin. See?”

Keigo does see, with some feathers that ascend from him. It takes a second for him to focus. The world isn’t loud, but his head suddenly is with panic.

“I do something bad?”

“No.”

“Keigo.”

“You didn’t.” There’s no easy way to say Touya’s voice sent a chill up Keigo’s spine so fucking good that it scared him as much as it should. No one gets close to his feathers like this unless it’s to hurt him. To test him.

They never really discussed fucking featherplay when they started sleeping together, but there isn’t an ounce of Keigo that has ever associated this accursed quirk with intimacy.

“Ha, ha,” Keigo says as a last-ditch effort. “Caught me off guard. Add it to the list of ways to kill me.”

He’s stubborn about resetting. Keigo sits against his boyfriend, cross-legged and adamant about continuing.

“This better end in an orgasm,” Keigo huffs.

Touya reaches around him and squeezes his thigh. Not sexually, just…just because he can. “Did you like where I was touching you?”

There’s a witty remark that dies in Keigo’s throat. It’s not positive or lighthearted, but a brand of warmth and affection different from their normal pejorative.

“Here?” Touya whispers once more at his scapular feathers. He kisses down the center of Keigo’s spine, near tertiary feathers that suddenly make Keigo shiver. “Make a sound if you can hear me, bir—“

“A-Ah…” Keigo’s back arches. His gasp cuts through the rest of Touya’s request with more precision than what Fierce Wings could’ve done to his boyfriend’s hand.

They’re sensitive. Keigo’s tertiary feathers at the root of his wings are apparently sensitive, and Touya places his mouth on them with a hot breath. Keigo shakes because the vibration of Touya’s lips alone stroke him like a chord.

“That’s a new sound,” Touya remarks against a left feather as he kisses it. He gives Keigo’s thigh a squeeze at the same time, and the vibrato just carries until it reaches Keigo’s groin. The heat swells like Touya’s set Keigo aflame from the inside, and suddenly, Keigo finds it hard to swallow.

Touya combs another hand through Keigo’s primary feathers this time, spreading a hand like offering a dance.

Keigo can feel it. Each callous and groove and joint of Touya’s hand and fingers. He can see Touya’s palm, gliding through plumage as though stroking hair. It’s intentionally delicate and soft because Dabi fucking knows him.

“There we go,” Touya whispers into marginal covert feathers at the end of Keigo’s wings. There’s weight as he props himself. He’s readjusting so he can better focus on Keigo’s wings. Better focus on Keigo. “No Fierce Wings needed. Just pretty wings for the pretty birdie.”

He snickers at his own joke.

There’s a whimper at the back of Keigo’s throat that just refuses to die. “Quit that.”

“Quit what?”

“Shut up.”

“Shut up? I could be saying a lot worse back here.”

“Well, do that.”

“Tch.” God, even that sound suddenly makes Keigo’s toes curl. “No.”

“No? What do you mean no?”

“I’m admiring my boyfriend, dumbass.”

“Well, stop it.” Keigo takes matters into his own hands and starts shimmying out of his pants. “Fuck me and get this over with.”

“Get this over with?” Touya echoes. His voice takes on a different pitch. He has the audacity to pin Keigo’s hands beneath his own and prevent further pantsing. “Birdie, what do you think I’m doing to you right now—?”

“Being slow as fuck, Dabi.”

“What?” Touya snorts. “You’re served on a silver fucking platter for me and don’t expect me to take in every last feather of you?”

Heat burns in the shells of Keigo’s ears. He shudders, as the edge of Touya’s finger glides up the base of his spine and caresses the base of his neck. It’s warm. Touya might as well have taken Keigo’s moans and poured them in the palm of his hand.

Touya cups Keigo’s face and brings it close. His breath tingles against Keigo’s skin. Then he retracts.

Only to bury his face into Keigo’s feathers again, into alulas.

“Look at my birdie,” he whispers, with a smirk visible and palpable at his lips. It evokes a sob Keigo knows he won’t be able to take back. “Turning such a pretty shade of red, just like his wings. Such a fucking knockout.”

Keigo shudders.

Touya kisses feathers. He pools them in his fingers as he stretches his arms, manually spreading wings like parting curtains against a window in order to welcome the warmth of morning light. Like any fucking bird, Keigo crashed into the window—this pristine and clear path—before he even knew it was there. His heart slammed right into Dabi’s before he knew it.

He pulls away for just a moment. Long enough for Keigo to yearn for that mouth on him again. Instead, Touya combs his hands through either wing, as delicate as breaking the surface tension of a still pond.

“Can’t believe I ever could’ve singed something so breathtaking.”

This is agonizing.

Which is when Keigo can actually make out the shit-eating grin and see it from every angle.

“Oh my god.” Keigo makes a noise.. His own voice is heavy and dewy—overwhelmingly warm like the rest of him. “This is warfare.”

There’s a cackle behind him that makes his dick twitch. It’s criminal for Touya’s laugh to be so fucking hot. “In what way?”

“Yes,” Keigo manages to squeak with all the indignation he can muster.

“You’re not enjoying this?”

“No. This is the opposite of foreplay, this is forefoul.”

“You mean forefowl?”

“Damn it.”

Each of Touya’s laughs hit Keigo like a firework shooting into a pitch black sky—full of light and illuminating. He combs through Keigo’s feathers again, and Keigo is fooling no one into thinking he is maintaining an upper hand and not turning into putty. He can’t even enjoy a good fucking pun like he normally would, because Touya’s laugh is the only thing Fierce Wings wants to latch onto. Touya’s smile needs to be enjoyed from every angle.

It’s so gentle and unthreatening, combined with the way Touya just…just pets him that Keigo can barely keep his composure.

Touya found a new use for Fierce Wings—one that doesn’t involve turning Hawks into fried chicken, and is rewarded with warmth and laughter any time Keigo just exists by breathing—and it’s fucking terrifying. How could he peel Keigo apart like this, and reduce the best and only useful thing about Hawks into nothing?

Keigo knows he’s supposed to be pretty. But actually being pretty—being called pretty and drowning in each word as Touya buries his face into Fierce Wings and calling him all pretty—is so disjointed from the rest of reality. The rest of Keigo’s reality.

Of all the places he’s finally allowed himself to fold, he didn’t think his quirk could even be an option.

“I love you,” Touya whispers across each feather. “Every fucking infuriating part of you, including each and every one of you fucking double agent feathers. Don’t forget that.”

Keigo shudders again.

“I love you, Keigo.”

He sobs, his voice so miniscule in his throat that not even he can hear it.

Then Touya relinquishes his grip around Keigo’s own hands. Then he allows Keigo’s pants to come off. He curls his fingers under Keigo’s waistband, with no difference in care than how he’s handled feathers, and drags them down until Keigo is bare from the waist down. He’s hard and throbbing and aching—and it’s not just his fucking dick or the need to be fucked. His heart aches, too.

“Touya,” Keigo whispers. He hears his own voice through Fierce Wings—how fragile it is. If Touya applied any more force or pressure, Keigo thinks he might actually shatter into a thousand pieces. “I need—”

To prove himself. To prove he’s worth all this praise that Touya is giving him. To prove, that despite the way Touya uncoils his wings and render them as useless as a fucking feather boa, that he’s still strong. Keigo knows better than to break, even if the wetness in his own eyes doesn't.

“Not yet,” Touya mutters. He buries his face between Keigo’s shoulder blades once more. The word is lost like a needle in a haystack, but Keigo can hear it out loud and clear. He can feel the vibrations against the scapulars. “Soon.”

Soon. Keigo’s hard, and Touya can only say soon.

Touya helps Keigo out of his shirt. It’s never occured to Keigo until now how good Touya’s gotten at it.

Other people Keigo’s had sex with saw Fierce Wings the same way Keigo did: an inconvenience. Often times, they propped hands or grabbed somewhere they shouldn’t, and Keigo would fake his way through orgasm so there was no risk of exploiting a weakness. He’d bare his teeth and then leave as soon as possible to try and make up for an awful night. It’s taken a lot of mental endurance to bear through discomfort from crushed bones or yanked feathers. Picking a scab always hurts less than someone else doing it, of course. Keigo knows his limits. His partners fail to consider if he has any.

Touya’s never made the same mistake twice. He’s never put his full weight on feathers or bones a second time—and never on purpose. He’s intentional. Even in the way he pulls Keigo’s shirt off, Touya’s fingers stretch the slots of customized fabric, before gliding the shirt off Keigo. Keigo doesn’t even have to dispel himself of his wings.

Then, Touya continues this dance of nudging Keigo forward until he’s on his stomach. Despite every instinct earlier telling Fierce Wings to combat Touya’s touch—to negate the idea of ever getting burned again, Touya stretches each wing until they take up the space of the bed. Another typical inconvenience.

Except, as Touya straddles his hips from above, Keigo can feel fingers combing through each feather. He hears the appreciative sigh at Touya’s lips, and can even see that glow of admiration.

Touya means it when he says he’s taking in every last feather. Of course he fucking does. A guy doesn’t just passionately plan to usurp his own father for ten fucking years and leave a blind spot.

With each kiss at the base of Keigo’s neck down to the middle of his back, Touya’s fingers brush against the feathers closest to him.

“Fuck,” Touya mutters—because his eloquence always finds a way to sting. “How’d I end up so lucky?”

How’s it fair for Touya to even say something like that?

“War crimes,” Keigo blindly spouts. He rocks ever so slightly, just to confirm Touya’s own arousal against him, even if it isn’t in him. It’s hard not to moan from the space between the comforter and his dick. “Incineration. Jail time. Multiple surgeries. A presidential pardon.”

“You’re deflecting.”

“I don’t deflect,” Keigo protests. “These sheets are nice. It’d be an awful shame if we didn’t ruin them.”

“Oh,” Touya promises with brash confidence, “we will.”

Keigo shivers again. “I’m literally presenting.”

“Birdie,” Touya says with exasperation, which surely would follow with some halfhearted insult about how Keigo is needy and impatient, and Keigo can retort with, I’ll show you needy and impatient—but it doesn’t. Instead, Touya falls quiet.

Keigo has to check to make sure Touya is still there—and all feathers point to Touya suddenly staring at him with a different kind of fascination.

“Birdie,” Touya repeats. “Birdie.”

“Yes?” Keigo asks. He’s not above whining like a child to get this whole experiment over with. He doesn’t expect Touya to just crawl over him, careful of pressing into any feathers, and reel him back for a kiss.

A warm and needy kiss. He can’t see Touya’s smile—not from this angle—but he can feel it. Keigo moans, twisting as much as humanly possible to take in all of Touya. He does whine when Touya has the nerve to pull away. Keigo can see bits and pieces of Touya’s face, but he’s tired of not seeing the whole picture. Of juggling trying not to hurt his boyfriend and prove that he can take it, and it shouldn’t cause him this much distress.

Touya snorts. “I don’t know what fucked up thing you’re too proud to tell me about this time—”

“There’s no fucked up thing—”

”—that we’re going to end up arguing about after this because you’re a stubborn asshole who can’t admit when he’s lying,” Touya continues, as though Keigo hever interrupted at all, “but you need to remember that I don’t give a shit about your status as the commission’s little pet. Never fucking did.”

“And here I thought you just thought I was cute,” Keigo mutters. He doesn’t anticipate Touya’s grip on his face to tighten. It pinches him.

“And your childhood was fucked up,” Touya continues. “Like, my childhood was fucked up—but your childhood was fucked up, birdie.”

Keigo shudders again. There’s no way to separate the level of frustration in Touya’s voice on his behalf. It’s just there. For all the ways they battled during the war, the way they revisit each other now feels like it shouldn’t exist. This second chance to stand together and do right by each other, by all means, shouldn’t exist.

“So,” Touya continues, smug as usual. The heat of his mouth is warm on Keigo’s own—but then he splays his palm across the base of Keigo’s back. Keigo so badly wants to fold feathers around that hand and coax it in every way possible. “When I’m telling you I love you, birdie, it’s because I love my birdie.”

Keigo’s chest aches.

”And my birdie,” Touya says, his voice low, as his hands glide down bare skin. Keigo can’t make sense of the path he takes, until he realizes Touya is touching old battle scars. Touya buries his face into Keigo’s left wing—intentionally, to make sure his message is heard loud and clear. “—knew how to piss me off with every inch of him—wings included. Which means this bastard made me fall in love with all of him too. Wings and all. Got it?”

Touya shimmies carefully, with his knees on either side of Keigo. He puts the weight of his palm on Keigo’s ass cheek, and his thumb teases Keigo’s asshole like the bastard hand that it is.

The other hand glides across one of Keigo’s wings, which have since grown docile against Touya’s touch. They fold, even, each and every one of them leaning into Touya’s palm as bare skin crosses path of them.

Keigo thrusts into the mattress, very aware of the sorry puddle of precum right beneath him. He whimpers, in agony over the thumb at his asshole that just refuses to take the plunge. Refuses to sink into Keigo like he’s used to and wants.

Touya leverages himself with his other arm so he can bury his face into feathers.

“Birdie,” Touya murmurs. “I know you can hear me. What’d I just say?”

He thumbs every ridge of Keigo’s ass in one hand, and rubs base feathers with the other.

“You love me,” Keigo hears himself say.

“What was that?” His asshole boyfriend says back.

“You love me,” Keigo says louder, now, so each feather can hear. The words vibrate against his deafening headset, and he can see all of Touya’s smug face, and capture the appreciative gleam in Touya’s eyes at every fucking angle of Fierce Wings.

“Good birdie.”

Not fucked up Keigo. Not even more fucked up Hawks. Birdie. Touya’s birdie. Touya’s boyfriend. Touya loves all of him, the same way Keigo makes sure Touya knows Keigo loves all of Touya and Dabi, too.

There’s some relief as Touya unmounts him. Keigo hears the snap of a bottle cap, and his dick twitches gleefully at thought. He fucking wiggles eagerly—and whines when the only thing he’s rewarded with is a single finger.

“C’mon,” Keigo begs. “More.”

Touya actually chuckles. “I’m not done with you yet.”

“Save it for round two then.”

“No,” Touya has the audacity to say. “I’m trying to get you all fucked up in one go, birdie.”

Asshole. Fucking asshole.

Keigo keens as another finger is in him. He feels them stretching him.

He feels Touya’s other hand splayed across his wings, rubbing and twisting feathers more intimately now, like he’s digging his fucking finger nails into plumage.

“Oh fuck.” Keigo gasps. As he thrusts, Touya has the audacity to pull at feathers. Not violently—but enough that Keigo feels pleasure rocking in him and rubbing him. He thrusts into the mattress, desperate to maximize this trifecta of heat, but every graze of his wing turns his arms into jello. Fierce Wings should not be this sensitive.

He should not be this—

“Oh god.”

—simpering mess, unable to prop himself up. As he arches back, Touya meets him with a kiss between his shoulder blades.

“There he is,” Touya murmurs. “How’s that feel?”

Good. So fucking good.

“Please,” Keigo begs hoarsely. He’s muffled in his own mind, but he wants to be louder. “I need you.”

He wants Touya to hear, in deafening clarity, and drown out everything else. Nothing else exists in sight or mind around Touya. Not now. The world is loud, but Touya has made damn sure his voice is louder.

“Fucking hell, Keigo,” Touya whispers. It’s so inaudible and full of marvel that Keigo barely hears it, even with every feather folding and desperately trying to be held by Touya’s free hand.

The first thrust reminds Keigo of his first pair of headphones. An onslaught of warmth during a blizzard. The first sip of water in blaring heat. Touya cuts through him, and Keigo can only spread his legs wider and sob.

He can feel Touya in him. He can see Touya’s face—every wrinkle, along with a sheen of sweat that just glows in his face. There’s a bead of sweat that trickles down his face, against the contour of his skin. It catches at a staple, and Touya wipes it with the palm of his own hand before returning it to Keigo’s left wing. He doesn’t even blink. Touya’s completely focused on Keigo, and on thrusting.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Keigo chants, his hands grasping at the duvet with a gasp. His legs tremble as Touya bucks into him.

His elbows fold, while Touya digs one hand into Keigo’s hip, but splays the other on the small of his back. A pinky meets Keigo’s right wing. A thumb meets his left one. His palm flattens, and Keigo just rakes against the bed with another moan.

“You’re so fucking pretty,” Touya mutters. “God, it’s—holy shit, it’s a fucking crime for you to look this good—”

He puts that emphasis into a particularly hard thrust, like a fucking punishment, and squeezes the base of Keigo’s wings. Keigo cries out so loud that his throat burns.

Keigo falters again as a hand finds itself on his dick, which is so soaked in its own precum that there’s hardly any traction. Keigo’s so hard it hurts, and as Touya fucks into him, Keigo adamantly thrusts into Touya’s hand.

“Gonna,” Keigo gasps, “come—”

“Good,” Touya has the nerve to say. It’s such a fucking relief to hear how pleased he sounds. How happy he sounds. “Don’t hold back.”

He gives Keigo a firm squeeze. Fierce Wings takes flight, spreading across the length of the bed once more. The pleasure jolts through him with Touya thrusting into him, and Touya stroking him, and his back trembles at the weight of Touya’s smile. He feels it through every inch of his body, including every feather that felt the privilege of Touya’s hands.

Keigo hears the heat of his own moan and feels it in his chest. He feels the reverb at the root of each feather attached to him, and he trembles until the very end of his climax.

He almost doesn’t feel Touya’s mouth against his wings. A loving kiss as Touya rides into his own orgasm.

“Good birdie,” Touya whispers. “So fucking pretty.”

*

He loses track of where all Touya’s hands have traveled. They took a fucking scenic route of every piece of him, along with Touya’s mouth. So, after Touya finally comes, he accidentally smears a cum-stained hand on one of Keigo’s wings when he tries to prop himself up.

“Oh, crap,” he mutters—more offended than Keigo is. “Shit, hold on.”

He grabs a towel and starts wiping Keigo off. He reaches for a wing—

“S’fine,” Keigo murmurs. “Just help me shower it off here in a sec.”

The hand on him is gentle. Keigo forgets he’s blindfolded until Touya peels the mask off his face and helps him remove the headphones. Light trickles through the corner of Keigo’s vision, and his eyes strain as they adjust to another perspective. The first thing Keigo sees in his immediate vision, though, is Touya’s face. Touya’s impossibly blue eyes assess him.

Keigo can’t help the snicker under his breath. He detaches the soiled feathers just to look at them. They’re wet, crusty, and gross.

“You got cum in my wings,” he mutters. “There’s my cum. In my wings.”

Touya looks at him quizzically.

“My cum,” Keigo whispers. “In Fierce Wings. I fucking came.”

“Yeah,” Touya retorts—with this very in-character brutishness and arched eyebrow that betrays this agonizing emotional warfare. “You sure did, birdie. All over the fucking bed. Like, holy shit.”

Keigo titters one more time.

He lets Touya guide him into the shower. Keigo’s pretty sure he can’t fly in a straight line even if he tried. Once the water envelops him, Keigo feels like he’s in Touya’s embrace all over again. He hardly registers Touya rinsing him off. Hell—he can hardly register anything at all. Which is a first.

“Everything okay?” Touya asks. The question’s at his ear. It actually tingles to hear Touya’s voice next to his ear after an afternoon of feathers.

I’m fine is always on Keigo’s tongue. He doesn’t need it right now.

“Yeah,” Keigo says instead. ”I feel great.”

He’s surprised how relieved Touya looks.

“What?” Keigo teases. “Afraid you broke me?”

He doesn’t expect for Touya’s demeanor to sour even more, looking even more worried for him.

“A bit,” Touya mutters. “If I ever hurt you again—”

”You didn’t.”

“If I ever hurt you again,” Touya repeats because he’s learned what the commission never cared to learn, “I’d fucking hate myself.”

Touya cares about him. Touya cares about him, and it’s a thought that Keigo wakes up to every morning. It’s what Keigo needs to remind himself of, every time the conviction to lie resurfaces.

The world is loud, but Touya’s love is louder. Keigo doesn’t know how he got so fucking lucky.

“Well don’t.” Keigo raises his head and kisses Touya emphatically. “That was perfect.”

He turns around and leans into Touya. His wings plop near and around Touya, damp and spent. Touya wraps bare arms around him, and Fierce Wings returns the embrace. There’s a sigh of relief at the base of Keigo’s neck.

“Gonna tell me what fucked up thing happened this time?” Touya whispers. It vibrates in the shell of Keigo’s ear, but he can feel the concern in his own chest. The circles Touya rubs into his knuckles now. It’s still gentle. Still comforting.

Touya’s loyalty and respect for Keigo doesn’t change at the drop of a hat. It’s not a test he needs to pass.

“Yeah,” Keigo whispers. “After we’re clean. Promise.”

He shudders as Touya kisses the crook of his neck.

There’s a smile at Touya’s mouth. Keigo can feel every bit of it on his skin.

“Love you,” Touya whispers.

Keigo says it back immediately. “Love you too.”

No need to lie about that. Not ever.