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Five times Hawks was not pregnant and 1 time he was
1.
It's entirely Spinner's fault. He knows nothing of mutants or their anatomy, so the man has been his saving grace when it came to Keigo. But he's still a piece of shit sometimes.
He brought up the hero's mood first, and then his heats, and Dabi had made the awful, misguided assumption that Hawks had told him. Because he did, in fact, have a heat and breeding cycle, but god only knew what that actually meant. To his boyfriend it meant lots of staying home and rutting against just about every surface in their apartment until the thing ended. To Hawks, it meant, as far as he knew, just about the same thing. But Spinner brings up secondary genders and mood swings, and he doesn't have a damn clue. He does know Keigo has been in an exceptionally foul mood lately and that his estrus is late though; research into that has him absolutely panicking.
His sister thinks it's the funniest shit in the world and doesn't know how to keep her mouth shut apparently, because Shouto hits him up with bad Endeavor and All Might parenting memes just a day later. His dad also tries to call him and gets promptly sent to voicemail. The voicemail is some bullshit about being proud of him and apologies for conversion therapy. Because apparently, he's only sorry that it was unnecessary.
Turns out his molt, which he hasn't kept feathers around long enough to really have in years, does all of this too.
The hero comes home with his phone clutched to his chest, the most annoyed look Dabi's ever seen pinching at his brows. And what starts as nothing but confused questioning almost turns into a full-blown fight with Hawks blue in the face, not a clue what he's talking about, and Dabi's own cheeks so red he might just combust from embarrassment alone.
Eventually, the villain throws his hands up and scoffs that Hawks should have told him what all having a secondary gender entailed. The hero's face falls, and he's laughing as the pieces all slot into place. Natsuo had texted him something about Dabi's first kid and marrying an idiot. And he'd kind of assumed the man was cheating on him or something equally irrational because the whole situation was exactly that.
But it makes sense, and he admits that it's kind of his fault for not communicating before sitting the villain down. "I'm molting Dabi, my feathers are shedding and it's really uncomfortable, so I'm sorry if I've been a bit off lately."
Hawks makes that damnable face that he pulls when trying to get out of trouble or reassure the other. Soft and entirely too light-hearted to be anything other than adorable.
He tries, he really does try to blame Keigo for this. To protest that he should have been told and not been such a grumpy fuck. But Dabi is a grumpy fuck, and he's going soft in their old age of 30. "So you're not pregnant?"
"Nope."
And it hits him like a sack of bricks with far too much enthusiasm. "Can you get pregnant?"
The laugh he receives is angelic. "I can," hands find his, and the world itself feels weightless, "if that's something you'd want?"
He nods, rather dumbly looking back, and then there's a hundred-fifty pounds of happy, chirpy bird thrown into his arms. Children, Keigo wants children, and he can really have them.
The second time he has any reason to suspect it is because the media is all over it. He comes out publicly about his gender at a charity event for mutants with specialized medical or dietary needs. Fans run wild with it, but they're generally super supportive of him beyond the occasional homophobic and transphobic tweets that question the example he's setting for their children. He makes a public post about children not allowed or shown that it's okay to be themselves at home are still loved and to never let such hate follow you into adulthood, effectively silencing all that bullshit.
When you're not actively trying to not have a baby, everything is a sign. They've stopped using protection, but Hawks wants to let this happen naturally. There's no pushing, no actively keeping track or stressing over it, which has somehow made it even more stressful. Because his husband is gorgeous and they don't keep their hands off each other ever. So when a hero gossip channel starts talking about the hero gaining weight and looser fitted clothes, well it's kind of a red flag. Which it shouldn't be, he lives with the man for fuck sake, but his bird has, in fact, gained the tiniest bit of pudge that the villain can't quite pin the start of. When had he gained fat over his abs? How far gone are those abs?
There's a lot of speculation regarding why he chose to come out, and most of it is true. A part of it was trying for a child of their own. They've just not said anything about it, and Keigo doesn't want to. He's content letting the world find out when it finally happens, and it seems the vultures know this. The whole segment is an argument over the kind of person he is and if he'd tell anyone. Then it's the loose fitted clothes since he's always been a fashion icon apparently.
It's bullshit because the man has no clue how to dress himself. He just avoided shopping like the plague and wore a bunch of stuff accumulated from modeling gigs, so he always looked like a model. It was hot, but nothing beat him padding around the house in comfy clothes or Dabi's shirts that he'd cut holes into. The happy, inhuman purs as he bundled into loose sweats and blankets. That was the best, and as he got more comfortable with himself, he'd started wearing it out in public too. Nothing beats that. Specifically, him slapped across a magazine cover in Touya's button-up, hickies visible beneath the collar.
They pull up a recent picture of him in his hero costume too, with another from when he was twenty-three. Which just isn't fair. And he's furious at the side by side when they start on him having gained weight. "Look, all I'm saying is, it's possible. Hawks has always been the ideal body type, always in top shape, so why now right after such a reveal?"
He wants to shut it off, but the fire user finds himself planted on their couch, listening to the whole section.
He finds Keigo checking himself out in the mirror later that night after dinner. His shirt pulled up, an eyebrow cocked almost to his hairline as he rubs a hand over his stomach.
Something warm- uneasy- blossoms in the scarred man's chest. He walks up behind him, wrapping arms around the winged man before cupping the underside of his belly. "What're you doing beautiful?"
The hero laughs, a sweet, languid thing. "Just checkin' out my new food baby. Ain't they great?"
A dark, youthful chuckle reverberates through Dabi. "The news says you're getting fat."
Hawk's rolls his eyes, combing a hand back through Touya's hair. "Yep. Anyone would with someone at home to cook for them like I got. And besides," he scratches the villain's scalp, sighing back into him, "I'm healthier than I've ever been, not living off instant ramen anymore. The weight doesn't bother you does it?"
He's just eaten, so the hero's stomach is a bit bloated, but the slightest hint of meat softens the curve of his abs and pectoral muscles too. It's not much, certainly not something you'd notice unless you were looking for it, and the protective heat from earlier flares back to life. Whoever's watching him close enough to even call this gain is a miserable rat.
Still, he takes in the curve of honeyed hips and sun-kissed skin, the gentle heft of his lover's body, and smiles. "I'm trying to knock you up, a few pounds better be the last thing from my mind."
It's baby stuff that seems to accumulate in the bottom of Keigo's closet and a frazzled reassurance not to worry about it. He never really learns what the stuff is for until they're invited to a baby shower and getting absolutely sloshed in Gang Orca's kitchen, which may be a bad time and place to be drinking, but nobody seems to be complaining as he chats up the mom-to-be about slurred baby dreams.
4.
It's food, plain and simple, because Hawks is walking around their house in nothing but a stolen button-up he knew drove Dabi crazy and eating peanut butter chips . Regular peanut butter hadn't been good enough, so they'd gotten Fuyumi to pick some up on her way over to get a dress Keigo had bought her for the upcoming hero's gala. A fancy thing, far more expensive than anything she could have afforded on a teacher's salary and picked to match Miruko's, which Fuyumi was not permitted to know anything about until the banquet itself.
It's a big deal to her, and absolutely hilarious to everybody else because the damn thing has already proven it's worth a hundred times over in entertainment alone. Rumi has not a clue what it looks like, or even that Fuyumi is coming. But Natsuo's told her that Rumi was the one who wanted to do this. It's all some scheme to set them up together by him and Hawks, and it's working. His sister is so stupidly worried about looking her best and what she's even going to say because she is going as Rumi's date. And his husband has somehow convinced her that Miruko, loud-mouthed with no shame whatsoever, is too shy to tell her first.
Yumi adores the dress, and it fits her a bit too well for his tastes; he fucking detests the slit up the side, but that's her favorite part. Unfortunately, his own hero hadn't exactly deemed her arrival reason enough to put on pants or anything other than underwear under his shirt, so he's still padding around like that- eating those peanut butter chips by the hand full- from when she arrives and gets ready to leave.
Touya's pulled out into the hall with her, and Fuyumi convinces him to walk her to her car with this strange look in her eye. They're in the elevator when she brings it up. "So can I say congratulations yet?"
He cocks his head, brows furrowing. "What?"
"He's just casually eating peanut butter chips. That, my dear, is a pregnancy craving and if you catch him in the pickle jar, you should pick up a few tests." She pats his shoulder, almost sympathetically.
In sickness and death, I will be there.
The first thing he notices is the emptiness, the second is the cold. An eye cracks open to the alarm on the bedside table. It's far too early for the hero to be at work yet, but the space he'd preoccupied is ice cold; he's been out of bed for a while.
The next thing he notices is the bathroom door cracked, the mood lighting set low- probably to not wake him- but Keigo is not coming back to bed and he's not one to leave the door open either. They've both got more than a few privacy issues, just not someone comfortable enough for that no matter how sleepy. So when the silence prevails, and his heart begins pounding in his own ears, Dabi can't wait anymore. He slips out of bed and knocks on the door frame, careful to keep his gaze from actually peering inside.
The broken, cracked rasp is not what he expects back. "T-Touya?"
"Can I come in?" Worry flares up in the scarred man's chest, and he gives the hero a moment before a choked hiccup cuts off any kind of answer he may have gotten. Dabi pushes the door open slowly, giving Keigo a moment to say something if need be before he steps into a crooked mess.
His lover is curled up on the floor, leaning against the toilet bowl as his eyes study the white tile absently. He's in nothing but a nightshirt and boxers, briefs stained a hauntingly off black beneath the dim lights. The inside of his thighs are dipped a dark crimson, blood pooled onto the tile beneath him too. The villain steps closer, stopping only when he notices the toilet water just as red, dark clumps sitting at the bottom of the bowl. A chill runs like white-hot panic down Dabi's spine as he crouches down next to Keigo, a tired whimper coursing through his veins as the little bird curls further in on himself. The clenched teeth, desperate fear, and emptiness in Hawk's eyes stings, hurts as though his body were to melt all over again as he rests his hand on a shaky knee. "What is this, what happened?"
The blonde hiccups, voice hitching around a weak, desperate breath of air. As if the life won't leave his lungs fast enough. "I wanted to surprise you."
"What?"
His little one sniffles, tears welling back into bloodshot eyes. "I didn't tell you because I wanted it to be a surprise, I'd already had an ultrasound scheduled for a few weeks from now."
The hero wails, whole body trembling as tears fall freely down puffy, pale cheeks. Realization sets in like a horrible Halloween prank, a thousand-pound weight. Some spectral nightmare. Touya grabs him, pulling his songbird into a tight embrace and cradling the blonde's head against his shoulder. Fingers stress grip into his shirt, his hero desperately pawing to find purchase any closer to the only source of warmth- of comfort- as he buries his face into the older man's neck and screams. Cries his fucking heart and lungs out as his lover holds him breathlessly. The villain's jaw hands wordlessly until the one clinging to him begins babbling apologies steeped in anguish and self-hatred. "I'm so sorry Touya, I- I don't know, I'm so sorry-"
The arms around his tighten, Dabi's own eyes screwing shut before they snap back to the bloody scene in front of him as he buries his face into blonde locks. "Keigo no. It's not your fault baby. You couldn't, you did everything just right. I know you did. You couldn't help this."
The sobs never cease, as he rocks their body's slowly, closer. "It's not your fault. It's not your fault." And the ache settles into his chest like an anguish that has always belonged, lonelier than one has ever been in his lover's arms.
Hawk's body strains, and it hurts in a way one only wishes were physical as the emptiness settles into him. Like the space his body had begun to make was a gaping wound, a hollow crevasse carving canyons into his skin. Where the wind within bellowed in his mind, an old and vacant home known to long decrepit things. Like the light of life had never graced it at all. "I'm so sorry."
The hands upon him heat just a few degrees, and Dabi's breathing falls uneven, as unsteady in his own right. Eyes glued to the blurring porcelain surface. "No Keigo, don't say that. How long have you known?"
A vague, empathetic part of him chimes up with a month or so, with a Hamilton reference he's too numb and motionless to actually laugh at. Some odd, cynical comfort for the throbbing mind. A heated, hateful thing in the recess of a tortured heart. He chokes; the words physically hurt. "They found it during a blood test, for my physical last week. I was going to let you find out during my ultrasound."
A rueful little smile stretches up across tan lips. The only reason Dabi knows is because of how tight he's held the other close. The scarred man swallows. "We should get you to a hospital."
There's still tears beyond the dehydration, fighting hot salt against his own body's requirements. Touya's eyes sting, because at least Hawks has gotten to cry.
He stands them up, the ragged songbird still trembling, and spars the toilet bowl one last look before he turns Keigo towards the bathroom door. He flushes it with one foot, catching the handle with his toes and hardening his nerves. Prays a final goodbye to their unborn child, and lets the light die.
1+
Keigo's bent over the kitchen counter, wings flaring as they knock over a specula holder by the stove. It's not the best place to have been doing this, not in hindsight, but he's holding onto the side of the sink for dear life, other hand tangled in Dabi's hair as he crowds over him, and he looks so damn good chanting the villain's name.
He pushes them onto the couch and curls up on the arsonist's chest afterward, just wants to sleep instead of cleaning himself up. He starts his heat the next day; it ends early, abruptly cut off. He knows then and there, wants to laugh at the sheer cruelty of it. Like the gods playing some sick joke because they'd stopped . He couldn't do it again, couldn't lose another one lest he loses himself too. But it's happening, and nothing Touya says or does can get him to talk about the distance he puts between them in the days following. It's difficult to wrestle with until the instincts kick in, and Rei's birthday rolls around.
He tells her first. Goes to visit her early in the morning with a little red box and a positive pregnancy test inside. Needs her the most.
She's ecstatic to be a grandmother, doesn't stop gushing and talking about the happiest moments with her own children. Each story, every smile is like a balm on his frazzled heart. Her laughter tears his nerves apart, seems to wretch them open and ease them out one by one until he's calm again in her presence. "It happens, and it's nobody's fault, especially not yours, but I assure you it's worth trying again. The heartache just makes room for you to love them more.'
She puts her hands on his stomach, and he's assured. For the first time since his miscarriage, it feels okay again. Like he can have this, and he's allowed to be sad still. Allowed to still want this.
A knock at the door is three very confused Todoroki siblings, and that's how Touya's the absolute last to know.
He wouldn't have found out for a while longer since the hero decided to give them the reveal he couldn't last time. But they get into a rather nasty fight, as couples do, and he blurts it out riding an emotional high. "But I need you to be here for our child!"
And the world seems to freeze as the villain's jaw drops. The league had long disbanded, but they both knew this couldn't work with him pursuing vigilante work. Touya's hands come up to cup his face, cradling the blonde's head as he wiped tears from Keigo's cheeks.
"Our child?' He seems a little dumbstruck, grasping at words that won't form on his tongue. "Oh angel I wasn't- that's not what I was saying. I could never leave you," his hero's eyes find the floor and stay there. "Is it true, are you?"
The bird nods, "Yeah, and I can't do this without you."
The older man smiles, pressing their foreheads together before he lowers himself to his knees, eye level with the hero's tummy. "That's not what I was saying baby, I'm not going anywhere I promise. I'll give it up, all of it I'll be here."
Hands slide up his hips, and he rubs them over the barely-there bump before leaning in to rest his face against it. The body above him trembles. Keigo wraps both arms around the raven's head, holding him there as he leans over him. "I have an appointment next week for bloodwork and ultrasounds. It was the soonest they could get me in, Dabi I don't even know if my body can do this."
Touya tenses, hugging his partner fully. "What?"
Hawk's voice cracks, and he shudders around more tears that he can't shed. Because he knew. They'd told him after the first time that this was fruitless. "I don't know if my body can carry this child to term. I don't produce enough progesterone to keep the baby, our baby ."
"You said you don't know, so there's hope right?"
"They're gonna do some blood tests and see if they can start me on hormone injections or something . But if they can't, I can't be alone Touya. I can't do this alone if they sit there and tell me that there's nothing I can do. That I can't carry our child ." He shakes and quakes, wings tucked tight as his body clutches around the other man like a lifeline. Hot salt brims in amber orbs, blurring the bird's vision.
His husband clutched him closer, turning his cheek against the bloated belly. He smiles. "Your stomach is warmer than the rest of you."
The angel sucks in a breath, leaning back to card a hand through ebony locks. His voice is wet and wistful. Like the words brought some silent reprieve. "You think they'll have your quirk?"
His husband chuckles, a tired, warm thing. "God I hope not, if my mom's genes would come through for me though, wouldn't be so bad." He rises to his feet, taking Keigo's hands. "If you're not producing progesterone then you're not going to make it to next week." The hero's eyes widen, distress and hurt crossing his features. "Let's get you to the ER tonight. I don't care how long it takes, or what we have to do. But they could give you something . We can do something ."
Hawks nods, slowly pushing himself into his lover's arms, seeking the warm, confidence, and comfort. Dabi holds him, a hand around his hips ever-present to ground him as they make their way to the car. Keigo is latched onto his hand or clothes the whole way, through every question and room they're moved to.
They do in fact give him a progesterone injection, and make him an appointment for another much sooner than he'll be seeing his own doctor.
His test results will take a few hours to get back, but they'll be the moment of truth. Until then they exam him and the baby to check their development.
He's confused at first, unable to imagine much showing up on an ultrasound so soon, but Keigo's first has the beginnings of an embryo and "gestational sac", whatever the hell that is.
It takes a second to realize he's crying as his face heats and the hand in his tightens around his fingers. The screen holds little, just a dark mass in his uterus with the tiniest, curled up fetus. Barely visible, but undeniably there, undeniably theirs. They've talked, imagined it a thousand times over and fantasized, but Dabi just hadn't imagined he'd be the one crying, praying his thanks for their unborn child.