Keigo is doing great! Spectacular even! He has a boyfriend now! A real life person who liked him enough to ask him out! It might be a little sad that said boyfriend is a high ranked villain who has definitely killed people before but Keigo. is. not. thinking. about. that.
It's fine! The fact this all came about because the commission made him a double agent and he's too scared to betray them or his new roommate/date is fine. If he doesn't think about it maybe it will all work out!
He's lying to himself, he knows it, but what else is he supposed to do? Admit that he was lying? To either party? Absolutely not! He hasn't been this happy or healthy in years! He's pretty sure he's getting all the important food groups, with considerations for his hawk tendencies, for the first time in his life. If Keigo could manage it he would die with the commission thinking he's a loyal asset and Dabi thinking he's a loyal significant other, preferably in 50-60 years, in his sleep, after a very nice retirement.
Keigo should eat something, Dabi left some leftovers in the fridge and his blood sugar is probably low. That's why he's freaking out! His blood sugar is low! Not because he's found himself in an impossible situation stuck between the government agency that raised him and the person he, in the depths of his mind can admit, might love more than anyone he's known in a long time.
Wow! So much better!
Keigo should call in sick. The agency certainly wouldn't like "having a breakdown" as an excuse but, like, they won't stop him. He'll get a very intense phone call though. Which will probably make everything way worse.
Why did he want to be a hero again?
He sighs and stuffs more food in his mouth. It's so good. How is a renowned villain so much better at cooking than him?
Keigo is hyping himself up to leave the apartment when his phone rings, his burner phone. Please, he can't handle another thing today. He stuffs his face into the couch and screams. It's very cathartic. The phone keeps ringing.
"Hello?"
"Hey Kei, so you still want an in with the league right?"
"Yes?" He sure hopes he doesn't sound strangled.
"Great, I'll text you the address, if you screw up I will never make your favorite chicken thing again, or kill you I guess, whatever, depends on how bad it is. See ya, be discreet."
He hangs up. Keigo screams into the pillow again. This is getting so much more complicated. Every ounce of trust he earns brings him closer to his goal of bringing the league down and closer to losing the person he cares about.
There's only one thing to be done. He dons his best disguise and hides his wings and hurries to what is apparently the leagues hideout. It's another shitty abandoned looking bar. It looks just as shady as the last one. Keigo doesn't know what he expected.
He knocks on the door and is immediately almost bowled over by an excited teenager. Toga Himiko he remembers from the files, drinks blood, loves knives. Dabi talks about her like she's his annoying little sister, she probably is in all the ways that matter.
"Hawksie! I'm so glad to finally meet you! Dabi wouldn't tell me anything! And I asked so nicely too!" She pouts, Keigo is slightly overwhelmed. "I knew his mysterious roommate had to be a hero!" She moves even closer and Keigo barely resists the urge to take a nervous step back. "You know..." she pauses dramatically, "he has really pretty blood."
"I'll... keep that in mind?"
"Good," she nods and wriggles her eyebrows at him. Keigo is confused, he didn't know blood could be pretty. If anyone has pretty blood it's probably Dabi though, Keigo didn't know people could pull off burns before.
Focus! Don't get distracted now. He steps around a bouncing Toga and moves into the bar to find Dabi standing next to and talking with Shigaraki Tomura, the dreaded leader himself. He is not in the right state of mind to be dealing with this. They're all geared up like they're about to do something big, like storm a prison or kill the prime minister.
"You live with Hawks?" Shigaraki's voice is raspy and incredulous but he doesn't seem angry.
"Yeah, why? is that a problem?"
He turns his attention more fully to Dabi with a baffled look. "How did you manage that!?"
"I'm very talented."
"At bullying your way into living with a top ranked hero? How is that a talent? It only happened once!"
"To be fair, this is technically the second time I've lived with a top ranked hero."
"What the fuck does that mean Dabi?"
"Don't worry about it, he was an ass anyways, this one's definitely an improvement." Dabi smirks in Keigo's direction and leaves the room, leaving an increasingly annoyed Shigaraki demanding answers behind him. Why is he doing that? Don't leave! How is Keigo supposed to deal with all these new people who are also villains alone?
"Hi! Uh, I'm Hawks, Dabi lives with me, I guess."
Keigo is media trained, not casual conversations with villains trained, why is this happening!?
"Alright, so," oh thank god Dabi's back, "we're going out to do some stuff and it's a little last minute and we need the whole league so we couldn't find a babysitter."
"I still think we should have made Giran do it." Someone grumbles, they are ignored.
"So, congrats Hawks, this is Eri," he pulls a tiny little girl from where she was hiding behind him. "Do not screw this up. I left stuff in the fridge you can microwave. Don't touch her if she starts glowing. Don't watch the news. We'll be back by tonight sometime, maybe, hopefully, we'll see."
With that, Dabi ruffles the little girl's hair and leaves with the rest of the league without any additional explanation. Apparently whatever it is they're doing really is last minute.
Keigo stares.
Eri stares back.
Keigo kind of wants to cry. Hawks doesn't do kids, he's the kind of hero to save lots of them but it's more of a grab and go kinda thing. It's not like he hangs out with them outside of autographs and selfies. He doesn't even have to comfort them very often, he's usually fast enough to get them to a police officer or a parent before they realize what's happening.
The last kid he hung out with was his intern Tokoyami and Keigo is pretty sure Eri and him have very little in common.
He should probably report this or something. At least tell his agency what's going on, but... he saw the video of Shigaraki and his surprise guest from a while back. He saw it multiple times in fact. He knows the HPSC's contingency plans and at least one of them includes holding this little kid hostage to lure the league out into the open. Despite what they said in the post-stream press conference, Keigo isn't stupid. There's no way this little girl is being abused or held as insurance, at least not by the league.
He remembers the first weeks after Dabi moved in, where he was obviously bothered by something and living with him was an escape. He remembers the increasing slip ups and the relief once the video came out and Dabi felt able to talk more openly about his sweet new little sister.
"Can I have an apple?"
"Sure kid, show me where they are?"
She nods very seriously which makes Keigo want to laugh a little, he doesn't want to offend her though so he stops himself.
He gives her the apple and she gives him a funny look.
"You're supposed to cut it."
He is? Well, ok. He shrugs and takes it back, finds a knife and cuts some small pieces for her. She gives him another look that tells him he did something wrong again but ultimately decides to munch on her apple without comment. He starts staring off into space, barely remembering to blink "properly."
"Why are your wings red?"
God, he just wants to scream into a pillow. Reconsider his life choices, maybe curse his parents out again, that might make him feel better. He shifts his attention back to her and shrugs.
"I don't know, always have been."
"Huh, can you fly?"
"Yeah."
"That sounds cool!"
"Yeah."
She looks vaguely disappointed by his lack of answer, oh, oh.
"Wanna go flying with me?"
"Really!?" There's the excitement.
"Sure, but we should probably wait until it gets dark out."
"Right, Himiko says it's important to be subtle and sneaky, like ninjas!"
"Yeah, ninjas." He really needs to get it together, Dabi asked him to babysit, well not in so many words but still. He's going to try!
"Wanna see something cool?" She nods and he floats one of his feathers in an acrobatic display of movement, dancing around her head to make her giggle, it's a very sweet sound. He keeps it up for as long as he feels is entertaining.
"Is there anything you wanna do while we wait for them to get back?"
She thinks about it for awhile, serious as a little kid can be before taking him on a tour of all her favorite things. They color and play her favorite video games, which Keigo is slightly impressed to see are actually child appropriate, they play hide and seek, she shows him the baking competitions she likes.
It's actually kind of nice, it gets his mind off his ongoing existential crisis at least. He heats up the food Dabi left them and it's just as good as everything else he makes, even microwaved.
He has a feeling his phone is blowing up but leaves it on silent. If he doesn't look at it he doesn't have to think about it.
He and Eri go on their promised flying adventure. Keigo will never get tired of showing people how amazing it is to be in the sky. It's the most free he ever feels. She looks so happy to be up in the air, he knows the feeling. It just isn't something you can explain, it has to be experienced.
She falls asleep before he touches down and he gets why Dabi was so mad about her obvious abuse, Keigo certainly isn't going to complain the man doesn't have arms anymore. It honestly might be a little better than he deserves.
He isn't sure Eri's comfortable waking up alone and in the dark so he sets them both up on the couch and leaves for a minute to make himself a snack. He ignores the dozens and dozens of notifications and checks his news feed to pass the time.
Tartarus is on fire.
He quickly closes his news feed, turns off his phone and goes back to staring blankly at the descending numbers on the microwave.
He startles when it beeps and eats his snack in silence.
Tartarus will be fine. probably. maybe.
It's not like Keigo can do anything about it now anyways. He'll worry about it in the morning. Keigo is doing important hero work infiltrating the league of villains right now.
He goes back to the couch, Eri snuggles into his side in her sleep.
He needs a vacation.