Chapter Text
Toshinori stares down into his coffee like it might just reveal the secrets of the universe if he tries hard enough, or at the very least, the outcome of the conversation that Hawks and Satoru are having in the other room.
Even if it had been entirely unplanned, Toshinori thinks it's for the best that those two got to meet and work things out in person.
Hawks had reached out to him after the spectacle he’d made at the Billboard Charts, ostensibly over next steps regarding the Commission (but he had to have known Toshinori would have some choice words for him too) and at the same time apparently Tsukauchi had requested a meeting with Satoru through the contact Satoru had gotten them in the MLA. It was that same contact that had enlightened them to the pervasive surveillance capabilities the Meta Liberation had at their command, and that rather terrifying revelation had caused Tsukauchi to promptly upgrade his office with new ‘renovations’ to counteract them. With that in mind Toshinori had asked Hawks to meet him in the detective’s office, figuring there was no safer place to discuss anything to do with both the Commission or the Meta Liberation Army. That Satoru had gotten their message and showed up at the same time was just staggering coincidence, but nonetheless good timing, as they needed to brief him as well.
In light of that, there were plenty of pressing matters the four of them needed to discuss— some more world-altering and life-changing than others— but Toshinori still believed giving Hawks and Satoru space to sort out their relationship first was the right call.
He has faith in both of them, of course, but he worries regardless.
He sighs down at his cup, the contents untouched and growing tepid the longer he idles here in the break room.
Tsukauchi was off corralling his troops in the bullpen, leaving Toshinori to his brooding thoughts. Not that he’d be able to offer much support anyway; any discussion on Satoru, the reforms, or the Meta Liberation Army could not be done outside the confines of his secure office. Dear La Brava had truly opened their eyes to how sinister digital surveillance could be. And now, more than ever, they needed to keep the Army ignorant of their plans.
Tsukauchi saunters back towards him once he’s finished lecturing his team on their abysmally late performance reviews, coffee just as untouched as the one in Toshinori’s hands. He doesn’t even bother with the pretense of drinking it, just dumps the whole thing in the trash.
“Ready to go back? I think Hawks should be done with his phone call.”
That was their cover for why they’d left him back in the office. La Brava had done an excellent— and painstaking— job walking Tsukauchi through the process of upgrading the building’s network security, but she said it was impossible to be sure of their privacy when so many outside devices walked around the halls, so it was better to err on the side of caution and always assume they could be recorded. This level of paranoia was a bit too stressful for Toshinori’s tastes; he misses the days when all people expected of him was punching bad guys.
“I was waiting for you.” Toshinori follows suit and tosses his cup in the trash.
The scene they return to is… worryingly somber. But nothing appears broken, and no one appears to be in tears, so Toshinori tries to take that as a favorable sign.
They’re both sitting across from each other on the armchairs at the far corner of Tsukauchi’s office, looking as if they’d expected to be interrupted long before Toshinori had knocked on the door.
Tsukauchi’s gaze flicks between them, but he otherwise doesn’t acknowledge the tense atmosphere, heading towards his desk and parking himself against the edge of it. Toshinori takes a seat on the unoccupied couch facing Satoru and Hawks, trying not to let his worry show on his face. Satoru gives him a wan, but genuine smile, which reassures him somewhat.
“How much have you told him about the current situation?” Tsukauchi breaks the ice, question addressed to Hawks.
Hawks startles in his seat, before a sheepish expression crosses his face. “Ah… we haven’t even gotten to it, actually.”
Tsukauchi just takes that in stride with a sympathetic nod. “I’m sorry we couldn’t give you two more time, but we’re pressed enough for it as it is.” He turns to Satoru. “How long do you think your alibi can last? La Brava wasn’t very specific on the details.”
Satoru looks like he’s stifling a laugh. “That doesn’t surprise me. Let’s just say I have until the noon tomorrow at the latest.”
Tsukauchi and Toshinori share a long glance. Not nearly long enough, unfortunately, but it will have to do. From what Toshinori understands of the progress La Brava and Tsukauchi have made, hopefully Satoru won’t have to return for much longer.
Tsukauchi sighs. “Well, to sum it up— in the few days since you’ve been gone, we’ve decided to overthrow the government.”
Satoru stares blankly at him.
“And Haws just announced it to everyone on TV,” Tsukauchi adds, with a level look in the blonde’s direction.
Hawks throws up his hands in protest. “That was all part of Kobayashi’s plan! I thought you guys have been in contact— didn’t she already tell you that?”
“Yes, but the details were frustratingly vague.” The detective narrows his eyes at the official Number Two in a reproachful manner.
“... I hadn’t actually ironed them out myself until I got on stage,” Hawks admits.
“I thought you said it was a love confession?” Satoru croaks out, stunned, head turning towards Hawks.
Hawks winces. “… It was both?”
Tsukauchi rubs his temples. “At any rate, the Commission has gone unchecked for long enough, and this is our best opportunity to bring them down. Between myself and the police, All Might, U.A. and the other hero schools, and Hawks and his like-minded cohorts in the Commission, we finally have enough power to put pressure on the government. Your Otheon handler, Baumann, is aware of the details, and from the way this Meta Liberation investigation is shaping up, we’ll probably have plenty of evidence to launch a formal inquiry with the WHA.”
Satoru is still staring at them, speechless and wide-eyed.
Then he slowly looks around the room, gauging their expressions. Maybe he even thinks they’re joking. But their faces remain serious and unerring.
Toshinori leans forward. “To be clear, we are not asking you to get involved, Satoru-kun.” He lays that out upfront. “Your work with the Meta Liberation Army is plenty already. But this will affect you, regardless. It will upturn the entire hero industry, and from what I understand, could even devolve into a civil war.”
Satoru turns properly alarmed at that. “War?”
“We’re doing everything we can to avoid that possibility,” Tsukauchi adds, fraught with austerity. “But it’s a possibility nonetheless. I haven’t had time to parse through all the data La Brava has collected for us, but from what I’ve seen so far, we have to plan for it.”
Satoru’s expression settles into something difficult to read. His gaze flicks to Hawks. “... Are you okay with this?”
He doesn’t sound accusatory, merely concerned.
“I want the Commission, and even the entire hero industry, to change,” Hawks replies, steadfast. “I think I speak for everyone involved when I say we’re trying to avoid a civil war as much as possible. Ultimately though, it will depend on the response from the Commission. And I can’t see them ceding power quietly, no matter how much support we gain for reforms.”
Satoru accepts the answer with a distant nod, gaze turning inward. It’s hard to say what he thinks of it. The same could not be said for Hawks, visibly tense with his emotions written across his face. Toshinori doesn’t blame him for the concern; this is a scenario Dabi has adamantly gone out of his way to avoid, and for all that Toshinori agrees wholeheartedly with these reforms, he can understand why. Ushering in societal change is a monumental undertaking— it’s far more responsibility than Toshinori has ever taken on before, and he had been the Number One Hero for decades.
This revolution isn’t a burden Toshinori intends to let Satoru take from him. Satoru had told him, that fateful evening in Kamino, that this was a mess Toshinori had helped create, and that he still had a duty to all the people who rely on him for their safety and security. Seeing this through is part of that duty.
But no matter how honorable Toshinori’s intentions are in shouldering this burden, he knows Satoru can’t escape the gravity of it all unscathed. More to the point, Satoru is too much like Toshinori— he won’t want to.
He’s never been able to sit idle when people need him. When there’s something he can do to help. He simply cares too much.
But he’s not alone in this. None of them are. No single person created this situation, and no single person should be held responsible for fixing it.
And from what he’s heard, plenty of his fellow heroes are ready to step in and help.
… Some more unexpected than others.
“But we’re not alone in this,” Toshinori speaks up. “As Tsukauchi-keibu said, there is a whole movement behind this. It’s not just the hero schools and the police, it’s the public, the lawmakers, and even the heroes themselves. Plenty of the top heroes spoke up on behalf of the reforms after Hawks’s speech.”
“They did?” Even Hawks seems surprised by this.
Toshinori nods eagerly. “Oh yes! Even beyond just Endeavor. During the post-Billboard interviews, Jeanist agreed that he felt the Commission had become unfairly biased after everything Dabi did to help in Kamino. Ryukyu had similar sentiments for the Shie Hassaikai mission.”
“Really?” Hawks smiles, relieved. “That’s good to hear. It was a little hard to gauge how they felt on stage— I probably didn’t make that any easier, causing such a scene.”
“Endeavor?” Satoru cuts in, in a voice laced with incredulity and confusion.
Toshinori can see it on their faces when his other two companions realize they’d entirely forgotten to mention the final fiasco of the Billboard Charts.
Hawks coughs into his fist. “Oh, right. Well, Satoru, I know you already had a plan in place for dealing with your family… but Endeavor might have derailed them all.”
Satoru blinks rapidly, glasses slipping down his nose. “What?”
Hawks winces. “He, uh, announced you as his son in his acceptance speech.”
Satoru’s expression is utterly blank. “... What?” He says, flatly.
“The context gives it a bit more perspective,” Tsukauchi rushes to chime in. “He expressed his disapproval for the Commission, and also the hero industry as a whole. He basically condemned it as a corrupt system that should never have allowed someone like him to be the Number One. He didn’t go into much detail about your past, but he did emphasize that he failed you as a father, and that you are a better person than he could ever hope to be.”
Toshinori’s not entirely sure if Tsukauchi’s explanation has made things better or worse. Satoru doesn’t look particularly pleased to hear it.
Satoru pinches the bridge of his nose. “That guy… he seriously can’t help but cause trouble for me, huh?”
Toshinori gave a pained wince. “I don’t believe that was his intention,” he protests, weakly. “... But it can’t be denied that he’s certainly caused an uproar with his reveal.”
“I told him to speak to Makoto-san before he makes any more impromptu announcements,” Hawks is quick to assure the former villain. It does serve to relax some of the tension building in Satoru’s shoulders, although he does still seem displeased.
He takes a long moment to digest everything he’s heard, an uneasy quiet filling up the room.
Finally he just sighs, crossing his arms as he flops back in his seat. “I want it on record that I did not cause all this chaos,” he denounces, dramatically. “For once in my life, I had nothing to do with it.”
Toshinori would like to point out that all of this chaos was still caused by him one way or another, but tactfully refrains.
Then Satoru shifts forward from his sprawl, and gets to his feet. “We should sync back up on the Meta Liberation Army tomorrow; I’ll stop by here before I head back to that circus.” He slips his glasses off his nose, tucking them into the front pocket of his jacket. He glances towards Hawks. “In the meanwhile, I’d like to have the rest of the evening off, if that’s alright with all of you.”
Toshinori feels a heavy, inexplicable tension fall over them, even if he can’t parse why. He takes one look at Hawks and Satoru, and decides it’s not his place to know anyway. They clearly have much more to speak on than what a single coffee break can offer them.
“That’s fine,” he says, speaking for both he and Tsukauchi. He smiles. “We can reconvene tomorrow. In the meanwhile, I think you both deserve some well-earned time off.”
//
Eri doesn’t mean to cry.
She wants to be brave, she wants to be a big girl, she wants to be like Yui-chan, who is always calm and doesn’t yell and is always so cool and mature. Yui-chan probably wouldn’t cry the moment she sees Satoru again, but Eri takes one look at him and bursts into tears.
Even a few days without him seems like an eternity in her eyes. Everyone has been doing their best to make her feel comfortable and safe, and Hawks and All Might-san and Makoto-san and Yui-chan and all of Yui-chan’s friends were really nice to her, but it’s still not the same without Satoru.
Eri knows she couldn’t go with him, because it was too dangerous, just like that time when he left to deal with the Yakuza. This time Eri doesn’t run away from the people he asked to keep her safe, and this time Eri was never alone with anyone she didn’t know. This time she doesn’t even have to leave their house either, and even got to go to daycare where she could play with other kids and read books with the nice old lady that watched over them. This time Eri didn't feel scared, or worried, or frightened… but she did feel a bit sad. She doesn’t like being away from Satoru.
But Satoru had to go help people, just like he’d helped Eri. And maybe there was somebody scared and alone that needed Satoru’s help just like Eri did, and Eri didn’t want that person to be hurt and sad anymore, so she put on a brave face and tried her best not to worry anyone.
It helped that Hawks was here, and so was Yui.
If Eri woke up scared in the middle of the night, one of them was always there to help her fall asleep again. And during the day she was always occupied. She missed Satoru a lot, but there were a lot of new things and new people in her life to distract her. She wasn’t always sad, while he was gone. And if it crept up on her someone would sit with her until she didn’t feel as lonely anymore. A lot of it was really fun, too. She liked going to ‘school’ with Yui everyday, she liked eating lunch and snacks with All Might when he’d drop by to see her during the afternoon, she liked running around with other kids on the playground, and she especially liked when Hawks would take her flying. Makoto had even started giving her piano lessons. And Yui-chan and Izuku-san had thrown her a birthday party with no presents but lots of cake, and All Might took her to a Christmas party. It hasn’t been all bad. She’s actually enjoyed most of it.
But she forgets about all of that the moment she sees Satoru again, bawling immediately when she sees him in the living room.
There’s chaos as all the adults in the room scramble to make sense of it, but Eri hears none of it, burying her face in Satoru’s chest. She hears Yui, who walked her home, and Hawks, who was already in the room with Satoru, and of course Satoru himself, but she has no idea what they’re saying. Eventually it all quiets down, and then there’s just her, sobbing into Satoru’s shirt.
Satoru is petting her hair somewhat frantically when she finally calms down, tense as a bowstring as he sits on the couch with her in his lap.
She feels exhausted once her tears finally dry up, listing heavily against Satoru as her eyes start to droop.
Satoru sighs beneath her. “Oh, Eri-chan… I’m so sorry. You must’ve had a hard time of it, huh?”
She sniffles loudly, turning her face into his neck. “Missed you,” she mumbles.
“I missed you too.” Satoru sounds very sad as he says this. “And I promise it’s almost over, okay? And then I won’t be going anywhere.”
“You’re leaving again?” She asks, dismay and disappointment making tears well up in her eyes again.
“I really, really wish I didn’t have to… but a lot of people are relying on me right now.”
Eri squeezes her eyes shut, clinging to him tighter. It’s very unfair, that she can’t keep Satoru to herself. That she has to share him with everyone else. Eri knows she’s being selfish, but she doesn’t want him to leave again.
“... When do you have to go?” Her voice sounds very small.
Satoru lays a warm hand across the back of her head. “Not until tomorrow.”
That’s too soon. That’s not enough time at all.
“But it won’t be much longer until I can come home for good, so hang in there for me, Eri-chan. And when I’m back, we can go eat our Christmas cake together, and celebrate your birthday, okay?” Satoru runs his fingers through her hair, voice as soft and gentle as his touch. “We’ll take a vacation and everything. Maybe we can go to the hot springs, or the mountains. Or we can take a plane and go anywhere in the world! We could go to the beach, or see a new city. Would you like that, Eri-chan?”
She would really like that. The Christmas party and the birthday party were nice, but she wants to celebrate with Satoru, too, and the beach sounds exciting. But it’s hard to think about things that seem so far in the future, when the present seems so bleak. The thought worms into her head though, imagination starting to flicker. She’s never been to the beach, or the mountains. She’s not even sure what hot springs even are. But it all sounds fun. She’s never even seen the ocean before. She knows it’s bigger than a lake, but she’s never seen one of those either.
“... How big is the ocean?” She finds herself asking, curiosity winning out.
Satoru chuckles. “Super big. So big you can’t see the end of it. And it’s loud, too! And the water is as salty as miso soup.”
Eri can’t fathom it. She blinks rapidly, pulling her face away from his chest. “... The ocean makes noise?”
He laughs. “Lots of noise! Like splashes in the bathtub, but much louder.”
Eri struggles to picture it. She’s seen it in anime and books before, but it’s hard to figure out what it would look like for real. Satoru gently wipes at her face, where her cheeks are sticky and wet.
“We’ll go see it together, okay?” He promises, quietly. “We’ll get you the cutest bathing suit, and we’ll make lots of sand castles, and we can search for seashells along the beach.”
“Okay,” Eri agrees, still sniffling but starting to feel better.
“And in the meanwhile, we’ll see about getting you swim lessons at U.A. They have a pretty big pool there, and you’re gonna need to know how to swim before you can get in the ocean!”
That’s true. Eri’s never been in a body of water bigger than a bathtub, at least from what she can remember. She definitely doesn’t know the first thing about swimming. And it’s a goal to work towards while Satoru is away. She’ll learn how to swim, so that when he gets back, they can go to the beach together.
“What about Hawks and Meow-san and Yui-chan?” Eri asks, wiping at her ruddy cheeks. “And Izuku-san? And Shouto-san?”
Satoru blinks a few times. “Yeah, they can all come too,” he says, after a beat. “Why not? We could go for the weekend. Meow might hate the beach though, cats don’t really like water. So we might have to leave him here.”
Eri nods seriously. She knows from bath time that Meow does, indeed, despise water.
Satoru thumbs away her leftover tears with a gentle touch. “So just wait for me a little longer, Eri-chan. Then we can all go together.”
“Okay,” Eri agrees, starting to feel very tired as she rubs her eyes. She played a lot today on the playground with Kai and Itsuki. And she didn’t take a nap because she’s six years-old now, not four year-old babies like they are.
Satoru pulls her closer towards him, until she’s leaning against his chest again. Then he settles back against the couch. “Why don’t you sleep for a little bit, Eri-chan? I’ll still be here when you wake up.”
It’s hard to protest when she feels very warm and comfortable, curled up against him. “Okay,” she says again, eyes slipping shut.
She’s drifting off as she feels warm breath against her hair, and soft words she’s too far gone to hear.
“I love you, Eri. Sleep well.”
//
Hawks leaves with Yui under the excuse of fetching dinner, unsurprised to find his former intern is distinctly unimpressed with him after his public spectacle earlier. It’s a mild response in comparison to what he expects from Makoto— he was already on the woman’s shit list for hurting Satoru, and as much as she loves a good publicity stunt she much prefers to be the one creating them, not cleaning them up.
Yui doesn’t actually confront him about it directly. She just gives him a long, stoic look before asking, “Do you know what you’re doing, Hawks?”
It’s a little humbling to feel so put in place by a teenage girl, but he manages to bear it with some modicum of grace. He owes it to her to be honest, so he answers, “No. But failure isn’t an option here.”
Yui just sighs in response, and lets the subject drop. He has no idea if that’s her vague seal of approval or if she’s just too tired to deal with him right now. He feels bad when he thinks about how much he’s had to rely on her these past few days; even with a break from band activities she’s still a full time student, and taking care of a child is already exhausting without that on top of it. With that in mind he tells her to take the night off. He and Satoru can handle Eri for the night, and from the sound of it, they still have much more to discuss than he could have ever expected.
The thought has anxiety gnawing in his gut, but there’s nothing to be done for it. He’s already told Satoru everything. All he can do now is wait to see what Satoru has to say in response.
His stomach still feels tied into knots when he returns to the house alone.
He’s relieved to be greeted with significantly less crying than there had been when he’d left to give Eri and Satoru some time alone, but it’s short-lived and overtaken by another surge of anxiousness quickly enough.
As he makes his way into the house proper, his feathers pick up a distant vibration from Eri’s bedroom; it’s the sounds of her breathing, even and rhythmic with sleep, and the cat purring beside her. When he peers into the living room, he sees Satoru standing alone in the center of it, glasses off, staring out into the darkness outside.
Hawks swings by the kitchen to grab a couple plates, returning to the living room to see Satoru hasn’t moved from the spot he’d last seen him in. Actually, that’s not entirely true. He’s pulled out his phone, and looks deeply invested in whatever he’s watching on it. It only takes Hawks a few seconds to figure out what it is; he recognizes his own voice tapering off, and the beginning of Endeavor’s speech.
He’d already heard Endeavor’s words in person, but it’s not any less shocking to hear them for the second time. He sets the takeout on the ottoman in front of Satoru, but doesn’t make a move to open it himself. His stomach feels like a massive hollow pit, food the farthest thing from his mind right now.
He tries to gauge Satoru’s thoughts from his expression, but even without his glasses on he’s still impossible to read.
Back in Tsukauchi’s office he’d seemed annoyed by his father’s antics, but not particularly upset. As he’d said, he always expected for that truth to come out eventually, even if Endeavor being the one to admit it hadn’t been in his plans.
The recording tapers off just after Hawks hears himself shouting out to the crowds about a complete overhaul of the system. The living room passes into an unsettled silence, and all the while Satoru continues to stare down at his phone with an indecipherable look.
Finally, he looks up.
Hawks can’t even begin to guess what he’ll address first.
His father, trying in his own way, to protect him, but also probably making a massive publicity mess? Hawks inciting the very revolution he’s tried so hard to avoid getting involved in? And invoking his name multiple times in the process?
“Did you seriously mean it?” Satoru asks, strained, voice breaking in the middle of his question.
Hawks opens his mouth. Closes it. Then opens it again. “... You might have to be a bit more specific than that.”
“What you said— about me. About us.”
Ah— so it’s not his father, or even an impending revolution that has him looking so out of sorts. It’s Hawks and his ridiculous love confession.
“I— this is not how I planned on telling you this but… yeah. I meant every word.” Hawks replies, flustered. “I want to be with you, Satoru. I want everything. Everything we had before, and more besides.”
Satoru smiles weakly. “You know I can’t… actually have babies, right?”
Hawks chuckles. “Yeah, I know. But you got Eri somehow, didn’t you? I figured we could just repeat the process.”
“Accidental and vaguely illegal child acquisition?” Satoru returns, amused.
“Adoption,” Hawks counters, laughing.
Satoru blinks. A distant and somewhat wistful expression crosses his face. “Oh,” he says, softly.
“Only if you want,” Hawks rushes to say. “And I mean that, about, uh, everything. I realize I just sprang this all on you out of the blue and I know it’s a lot. I don’t expect you to answer now, either, I just wanted to make sure you knew how I felt and—
“Yes,” Satoru cuts him off, voice hitching. “That’s my answer. Yes, I want all that too. The kids, the house, the marriage and the family pet and whatever else you apparently propositioned me with on live television—”
Hawks at least has the good grace to look a bit bashful about it.
“— that all sounds perfect. That’s— that’s what I want, too.” He’s saying everything Hawks wants to hear, yet Hawks can’t help but feel a sinking pit dropping in his stomach. His tone is all wrong; low and wistful where it should be effusive and joyous.
Hawks smiles tremulously in response. “And yet you told me earlier that you still had some things you wanted to come clean with, before you could agree.”
Satoru meets his smile with a shaky one of his own. “Some things? More like a lifetime’s worth of things.”
He wipes a hand over his mouth, quiet and troubled in a way Hawks isn’t entirely sure he’s ever seen him. He’s never known Satoru to be insecure about anything, least of all himself. He’s always seemed so perfectly at ease with his own sense of self and his place in the world. No matter the situation, he’s always so unequivocally and nonchalantly himself. But in this moment, right now, when it’s just the two of them, he almost seems scared.
The thought seems so absurd. Satoru is the strongest, he’s literally invincible.
And yes, Hawks knows that there’s a living, breathing human beneath that infinite cloak of divinity, who feels loss and sadness and even loses his way, just like everyone else. But they’ve talked about all of that, and it sounds like they’re both on the same page about learning from their mistakes and moving forward from them. And he already knows how Hawks feels about him. What could he possibly still be afraid of?
Satoru scrubs both hands over his face, rucking up his hair, as his legs finally seem to collapse on him and he sinks slowly onto the couch. He blinks up at Hawks with those magnificent eyes of his, shockingly bright and haunted with things Hawks doesn’t think he’ll ever truly comprehend.
“What if… what would you think if I told you this wasn’t my first life?”
Hawks blinks a few times.
There’s a long moment where those words just sit there, shocking and heavy in the still air between them, so blunt and yet so surreal.
He tilts his head. He rolls his shoulders, then scratches his chin. He blinks up at the ceiling for a few moments. Then he looks back down.
“Honestly? I’d tell you that’s the most believable thing I’ve ever heard about you.”
Satoru’s mouth drops open in shock.
“You— what?” His mouth hangs open, hands dropping from his hair to collapse in his lap.
“Satoru,” Hawks starts, not unkindly, “We’ve both come to agree that your powers make no sense, and that you regularly break the rules of science and the known universe. On a related note, nothing about you ever seems to make any sense. Quite frankly, hearing you come from another world is the only thing that makes sense.”
Also, he’d be able to tell if Satoru was lying. His heart rate or his body posture would have given him away. And both of those are telling him that Satoru’s not lying— he’s just anxious and worried.
At any rate, Hawks means what he says, too. It has to be the truth, because nothing else could ever make as much sense.
Satoru leans back, those big, heavenly eyes of his looking brilliant and striking and quite literally otherworldly in the low light. Hawks sinks to his knees in front of him, reaching out to cover his hands with his own.
“And anyway, I’ve managed to roll with all the rest of your secret identities, what’s one more on top of that, really?” Hawks jokes, grinning up at him.
It works in startling Satoru into a choked up laugh. “I’m being serious here,” he protests, smiling back.
“So am I!” Hawks insists. “Listen, there will be nothing more mortifying than realizing I’d been banging my coworker’s son for months— and then joked about it to him without even knowing. You could tell me you’re a deep space prince turned fugitive on the run from the galactic empire and I’d be sighing in relief.”
He’s only mildly joking. Realizing he’d been sleeping with Endeavor’s estranged eldest son, while the man was out on his mad chase to find him, and then up and joking about the older hero wanting to fuck the son in question, was one of the most bewildering and horrifying events of his life.
“It’s nothing quite that exciting, to be honest,” Satoru replies, eyes twinkling with mirth. His hands slowly turn under Hawks’s grip, winding their fingers together. “My old world was really not all that much different from this world… except for the music! I still can’t get over that. There’s so much great music erased from history, it’s an absolute travesty.”
And he knows there are so many more pertinent questions to ask here, but all his thoughts fly out of his head at that and—
Hawks stares up at him with wide eyes, realization dawning hard and fast in his eyes. “That’s where your music comes from? They’re from your old world?”
“Yeah, I’m not actually any kind of musical genius,” Satoru admits, without an ounce of shame.
“I mean, that’s still pretty impressive, to remember them all and be able to recreate them,” Hawks remarks, still a bit floored by the prospect. Again, though, it just makes so much sense in hindsight. Just yet another piece of the puzzle slotting seamlessly into the mosaic of Satoru’s life.
“And you didn’t even really deny it!” He realizes, gasping. “You even told me that all your songs weren’t written about anyone you know in real life, that they weren’t about your personal experiences at all! I never even saw it!”
“In your defense, transmigration is a really absurd conclusion for anyone to come to,” Satoru consoles him, voice dry with humor.
Hawks blinks at him in a new light.
“And your name… it really is Gojo Satoru, isn’t it?”
Satoru’s eyes go a little soft around the edges as he nods. Hawks squeezes his hands.
“Yeah, it is,” he answers, in a quiet voice.
Hawks frowns at the subdued tenor his tone has taken. It’s not that Hawks dislikes the name or thinks it’s odd, but Satoru was born into this world with a perfectly pleasant name. Satoru was nice, but so was Touya. Obviously he can personally understand having traumatically parental associations with your birth name and eschewing it for a name of your own choosing, but Satoru has never once seemed disinclined to the name Touya. He doesn’t seem to mind when Fuyumi, Natsuo, or even Endeavor uses it. He responds to it without incident. He just seems to prefer Satoru.
And maybe that’s just time and circumstance speaking; he’d lived an entire life with that name, and uses it for a large portion of this one too. It’s very possible he’s just grown used to it.
But something in his gut tells him it’s more than that.
“Does it mean something special, to you?” He asks, carefully. “Your name, I mean.”
Satoru blinks at him, long and slow.
“It’s just— you seem attached to it.”
Satoru blinks again.
“Which is totally reasonable, of course,” Hawks tacks on hastily, “and it’s your name, and I’m happy to call you whatever you want to be called… but you have a lot of names, and you don’t seem to mind them— but you also don’t seem particularly partial to them. I guess what I’m trying to ask is if there’s a reason you prefer that over all the others.”
Satoru had always intrinsically understood his own preference for his hero name over his birth name, and had seamlessly accepted that without even having to be told. Hawks has always appreciated that, even if he has a hard time expressing just how much that unspoken acknowledgment means to him.
He’d like to return the favor, if he can.
Satoru blinks a final time, looking stunned. Then an almost mystified look of wonder passes over the white-haired man’s face. He shakes his head with a rueful smile.
“You know, somehow, you always come to the right conclusion, even when you don’t have any of the pieces,” he remarks, amused.
Then he takes a shuddering breath as he says; “You’re right, it does have meaning. It’s a bit hard to explain without the context, but in my last life, the society I was born into had three big clans with exceptional powers. Mine, the Gojo clan, was one of them.”
“And you were the heir to the clan?” Hawks guesses.
“Oh, not just any heir, I was the heir,” he reveals, dryly. “The heralded heir to both of the clan’s most prized techniques, a power that only comes into existence once in a millennia. The holder of both the Six Eyes and the Limitless technique. I was The Honored One long before I was Gojo Satoru.”
Hawks frowns up at him, at his flat and distant expression, a certain sadness sinking in his chest at the thought. He must have had so much responsibility to bear, before he ever even got to figure out who he really was as a person. From the very first moment he’d opened his eyes he’d been burdened with legacy and the weight of expectation.
“So you never really had the chance to be anything else,” Hawks observes, sadly.
His companion shrugs it off. “I thought I left the stifling confines of that clan behind and grew out of always being called Young Master Gojo, but I guess a part of me never stopped thinking of myself like that. I could never forget just what I was, the clan and the alignment of powers that made me, the role I was defined to play in that society. Even in this life, I’ve had a hard time disconnecting from it.”
He smiles, but it’s a small and false thing that doesn’t reach his eyes. “You know, in that life I was given just one name, Gojo Satoru, and it was irrefutable and immutable. I couldn’t escape it. So it’s kind of funny that in this life I’ve managed to amass such a collection of them!”
He ticks them off one by one; “There’s Dabi— which I didn’t even get to pick!— and Six Eyes, and Todoroki Touya, and of course Ru-kun… and we can’t forget the ineffable Toru-chan, crossdresser extraordinaire! Oh, and there’s Ruru too, a famous karaoke singer in very specific Tokyo R&B clubs who only makes an appearance when I’ve had a little too much to drink.” He looks terribly amused by that last one.
“Aren’t you forgetting one?” Hawks asks, softly.
This impossible man of many names tilts his head.
“The person beneath all those names and titles— Satoru,” Hawks says, with a warm smile. “Not Gojo Satoru, just Satoru. I don’t know what you call that person, but to me, he’s Satoru.”
Those celestial eyes stare down at him, bright and unreadable, like stars and fractal galaxies; as mercurial and impossible to comprehend as always. But the man who owns them is easier to read than ever. He looks more surprised than Hawks has ever seen him, like he almost can’t comprehend something Hawks finds to be rather profoundly simple. All those names and facets of his identity all lead to the same person, at the end of it all, and no matter what name that person is going by or whatever dramatic and fabulous cross-dressing outfit he happens to be wearing, they’re all the same to Hawks. He’s the person Hawks is in love with.
His expression slowly fades into something fond, as he gazes at Hawks.
Those sparkling eyes of his close in a flutter of lashes, as the man above him huffs out a small laugh.
“Satoru, huh?” He smiles. “I guess that’s not so bad, as far as names go.”
It’s what all the people most important to him in life call him— in this life and the last. Satoru . He can’t say he dislikes it.
Hawks finally gets up to sit on the couch beside him, smiling back with a soft expression. There’s a moment where he’s a bit too overwhelmed to look the hero in the eye, feeling uncharacteristically vulnerable and shy. He doesn’t know what to say to this man, who’s always seen him for who he really was, even when Satoru himself couldn’t figure it out.
Then Hawks knocks their shoulders together playfully. “So, tell me a little more about this Ruru. I’ve never heard that one before!”
Satoru chuckles, feeling more relieved than he could ever put into words when Hawks steers the subject to lighter waters. Hawks entwines their hands together again, and gives him an encouraging squeeze.
He takes a breath and starts his story.
“Well, it all started when Makoto insisted we do a karaoke night but didn’t want to pay for a private room…”
