#char.🌧 hawks

[pluviophile-imagines]

Pretty Birds and Chickadees 2

in which you’ve been growing close with hawks, but for some reason he keeps pulling away every time you try to take the final step

takami keigo x reader

word count: 4.5k genre: fluff, angst (mild) type: two-shot reader: neutral (no pronouns, neutral terms, neutral clothing) warnings: drinking

part i || prequel

you let him carry you to your room, one arm behind your back and the other beneath your knees with your own arms holding you steady around his neck.

he was laying you on your bed, back resting on the plush mattress, when you spoke. “i thought you were gonna kiss me.”

he froze, wings stilling half extended above him. your arms were still around him, holding him close in an iron grip. his eyes were wide.

“wh—“ he paused, shook his head, and raised his hands to pry himself from your grip. your vague sounds of complaint were ignored, but instead of leaving like you feared he sat down on your bed, wings folded along his back, legs pressed up against your side, one arm reaching around your upper thighs, and regarded you. “when?”

You didn’t see Keigo for a week.

To be honest, you were avoiding him. You got the feeling he was avoiding you too—though that was hardly a meme guess, because his near hourly texts had gone completely silent and with each day that passed you were more determined to make him reach out first. He couldn’t possibly expect you to just forget the incident. If he wanted to reject you, the least he could do was give it to you straight (and then stop leading you on).

It was the friend whose birthday just passed who suggested you get out. Your whole circle was getting tired of your moping anyway. That was how you ended up at a bar downing various alcoholic beverages.

You’d never really been one for this kind of scene. You held your liquor fine, used to it in the context of smaller house parties with close friends, so it wasn’t as if you were drunk off your mind. You were just a dash beyond tipsy though, and when your friends finally got you to talk about the situation your lowered inhibitions let them take you to the conclusion that you should text Keigo.

Okay, that was a lie. Your drunken mind came to that conclusion on its own while you stood outside the bar waiting for an uber with one of your friends. It was barely past midnight, but you were already kind of regretting coming out, especially in such a large group. You’d decided to go home, but at that point aside from your resident sober mom friend you were the least drunk of the entire group. She’d come out to make sure you got into the right car, but the others needed her attention more.

The decision wasn’t entirely thought through. When Keigo received your rambling, typo-ridden apology that might have maybe included how you thought he was handsome, he didn’t reply with teasing; he asked if you were drunk. And when you tried to play it off, he asked what bar you were at.

If you’d been sober, you might have ignored the ache to see him. You weren’t sober, though. You sent him the name of the bar instead, most certainly hoping that he’d show up.

He was faster than your uber.

Your friend yelped as he landed. You did, too—three seconds after her, right as he was breathing a sigh of relief.

“Jeez, chickadee, you shoulda told me you were with a friend. I thought you were alone. Scared me half to death.”

“Hawks!” Your friend turned to you in confusion. Her eyes fell onto your phone, where your thread with Keigo was still displayed. “You uh. Asked him to come?”

“No.” You shook your head.

“I thought they were in trouble,” Keigo said sheepishly, turning to your friend. “I should have asked if they were alone. Sorry.”

“Are you on duty?” she asked. Oh, he was in his hero costume, wasn’t he?

“Yeah, uh. Figured making sure a drunk civilian doesn’t do anything stupid counts as hero work.”

“What about taking a drunk civilian home?”

You blinked at her words, a smile slowly dawning on your face as you realized she’d caught on to what you were trying to do. Your head whipped back to the hero before you and you latched onto his arm, much to his clear amusement. “Fly me home, Keigo?”

“Easy there, chickadee,” he laughed, his unhindered arm coming across to hold you and stop you from knocking him off balance.

“I’d rather stay behind, if it’s okay. I think I’m the only sober one at this point and I don’t really want to leave everyone.” Your friend gave you a wink that you doubted Keigo missed. “You understand, right?”

“Of course. I’ll get them home safe, no worries. If you want me to, that is,” he turned to you for permission. “I’m happy to be of service.”

“I do!”

“Alright, then. I’ll cancel the uber. I like you, Hawks.” Her voice turned stern. “Don’t go ruining it.”

You were pretty sure that had little to do with walking you home. She went back to the bar. Keigo turned to you and pried his arm from your grip.

“You’re a lot less drunk than you seemed over the phone, you know. I’m also not an idiot.”

“I have no clue what you’re talking about.”

“Fine, I’ll play along. Your apartment’s not too far from here. I probably don’t even have to fly, which is good, cause I wouldn’t want you throwing up on the way there.” He turned and crouched before you, presenting his back with his wings pressed forward. “Hop on.”

The wings were less of an issue than one might think. They actually helped more than hindered, made you feel much more secure being carried on Keigo’s back than just his arms would. He set off in the direction of your apartment.

“You really did scare me, chickadee. I thought you‘d gotten drunk all alone at a bar. That’s reckless, you know.”

“Yeah. I’d never do that. We were just going out.”

“You’ve got good friends. They wanna keep you safe.”

“I know.” You smiled dizzily. It was nice not to have to think about walking, but the ride wasn’t exactly smooth. Not that flying would have been better; you got motion sick even while sober when he flew you around.

He seemed to sense that you weren’t feeling so good and let the conversation fade. You focused your mind on other senses; his hands on your thighs, the soft feathers around your body, the city lights all around you and the occasional call of a fan recognizing him. You were in a relatively quiet area of the city without too many people, so that last one only happened a few times. He still greeted them with a short response and a wave of his hand, adjusting his wings in a way that you assumed was hiding you.

You gathered up your resolve to speak up after about five minutes of that.

“Last week,” you mumbled, “when we watched the sunset—“

Keigo shushed you, laughter in his voice (and even in your inebriated state you registered that it wasn’t his genuine laughter, that he was deflecting). “C’mon, no need to talk. Don’t use your pretty head too much.”

“No, no,” you insisted, shaking your head and immediately regretting it as a wave of nausea washed over you and forced you to pause. Keigo stilled (of course he knew immediately, damn those perfectly honed hero’s instincts) and then began walking again as the sensation passed.

“I mean it,” he said. The worry in his voice was real this time; he wasn’t simply trying to avoid a conversation. “Take it easy. Don’t go puking on my hero costume, it’s too expensive to charge you for dry cleaning.”

You murmured a soft affirmative, letting your head fall forward into the fluffy collar of his coat. It smelled nice. He always smelled nice, but it was nicer like this, so strong and overwhelming in the best way. You kind of wanted to press your lips to the base of his neck—almost did, but your drunken mind wasn’t as far gone as one might expect.

When had he gotten to your apartment building? Had you really zoned out long enough for him to get through the lobby and ride the elevator?

Keigo shook with his laughter, strong arms holding you tighter like a strange backwards hug as he made his way down the hallway. “You’re on my back, chickadee. Pretty hard to fly with a person between your wings. I figured flying wasn’t the best option for you right now.”

Had you said that out loud? Oof.

He was shifting now, the door to your apartment before you as he slid you from his back with minimal jostling thanks to a flurry of red feathers. You were digging around for your key before he finally got you braced against his side, one arm still secure around you.

“Here, I got it.” The key was plucked from your hands and the door opened. Keigo bustled you through, shutting it behind him as you began the process of taking off your shoes and coat.

You let him carry you to your room, one arm behind your back and the other beneath your knees with your own arms holding you steady around his neck.

He was laying you on your bed, back resting on the plush mattress, when you spoke. “I thought you were gonna kiss me.”

He froze, wings stilling half extended above him. Your arms were still around him, holding him close in an iron grip. His eyes were wide.

“Wh—“ he paused, shook his head, and raised his hands to pry himself from your grip. Your vague sounds of complaint were ignored, but instead of leaving like you feared he sat down on your bed, wings folded along his back, legs pressed up against your side, one arm reaching around your upper thighs, and regarded you. “When?”

“You were going to, right?” you asked again, pushing yourself your forearms behind you to see him better. “Kiss me? On the roof of that building, before you threw me off,” he made some kind of soft trilling noise of denial at the accusation but you barely heard it, “and took me back home. You were gonna kiss me but you chickened out.”

Golden eyes regarded you, striking with the dual triangles in both corners. They drank in every detail of your face, like he was committing it to memory, or trying to uncover every secret you might be wearing upon it—or, perhaps, both. You were pretty sure the way his thumb began to trace nonsense patterns on your thigh was impulse.

“You’re so drunk,” he said finally, letting out a huff of laughter that you once again recognized as a diversion. “You won’t remember a damn thing I say, will you?”

“I might,” you responded. You probably would; you really weren’t that drunk. But would he be this candid if he knew that? “You should tell me anyway.”

“The truth?”

“The truth. Did you want to kiss me?”

A long pause again, eyes never leaving yours. This time though, he wasn’t looking at you for real, rather he was mulling over the answer to give you.

Then, “Yes. I always do.”

You blinked, taken aback just slightly, but before you could stitch any words together into a coherent sentence he kept going.

“Constantly. Every time I look at you, I have to hold myself back from kissing you senseless, better than you’ve ever been kissed before. I took you up there with this crazy romantic plan to finally do it with the sunset and holding you, but…”

The question hung in the air between you. Why didn’t you? You could have asked it, right then, but could he tell you the answer? Did you even want to know?

“Do you want to kiss me now?” you asked instead, and his shoulders relaxed minutely. The chuckle that he responded with shook your bed, sending trembles through your body. His hand tightened on your thigh in response.

“No.” There was slight laughter in his voice, like the answer should have been obvious. “You’re too drunk, chickadee.”

Despite his words, Keigo leaned in like he was going to do it. Your breath hitched and your eyes fluttered shut as he braced himself above your lounging form.

“When I kiss you, you’ll be sober, you’ll ask me to do it, and you’ll damn well remember it.” He’d bypassed your mouth entirely. His voice, husky and low like he was sharing a secret, came from right next to your ear. It was only after he spoke that your hazy mind registered how his face was turned in towards you, all but buried in your neck. You let out the slightest sigh as he continued. “It’ll be the best fucking kiss you’ve ever had. I’ll ruin you for everyone else. You’ll never wanna kiss another person again. It’s only fair. You haven’t even had to kiss me to ruin me. You’ve got me addicted, nobody else can compare, and you don’t even know.”

Then he was pulling away. You whined before you could stop yourself, lifting your torso hazily to follow his body heat. Your eyes snapped open as he laughed. He was enjoying the whole situation far too much. “You’re a cruel tease.”

“Drunk you might say so, but in the morning when you’re nursing a hangover I think you’ll find that it’s a good thing I’m a decent human being and understand basic consent.” As if in apology, that thumb on your thigh (that hadn’t moved at all since he’d set you down in your bed) began rubbing along your skin softly.

“Will you kiss me then?” you pleaded.

“Maybe.”

“What if I ask you to?”

“Will you remember?”

“No, I didn’t mean ask then.” You shook your head. “I meant what if I ask now? Kiss me in the morning.”

Keigo bit his cheek, holding back a grin. “That doesn’t sound like a request, though I have to admit I kind of like you ordering me around.”

“Will you do it?”

He sighed, expression turning regretful. “I’m not staying the night, chickadee. I’m technically on duty.”

“I didn’t say tonight.” What wasn’t he getting? “I said in the morning. Come back. Kiss me.”

“Ask me when you’re sober.”

You groaned out his name, turning away from him. “Fine. Don’t. Ugh. You’re impossible.”

“Yep. I’m the bad guy. Just awful really, refusing to be a piece of shit and take advantage of you while you’re drunk.” Keigo held something out to you. It wasn’t until you took it from his hand that it registered as your phone. “Text your friends. Tell them you’re home safe. Then get some sleep.“

You caught his arm as he rose from your bed, both hands latching desperately onto his wrist, unwilling to let him go. He laughed again, looking down at you with a dopey, lovesick grin on his face—so certain you wouldn’t remember a thing that he was willing to let down some of his guard and god you hoped he looked at you like that every time you weren’t watching because it made you feel like a fucking deity—and gently pried himself from your grip.

“I’m on duty, chickadee. I can’t stay.”

“If you weren’t, would you?”

Keigo leaned back down, crouching next to your bed with a soft expression. “I know what you’re doing, and I’m not falling for it. I can’t talk anymore. I’ll be back in the morning, promise.”

Whatever protest you were going to make slipped from your mind as he leaned in to press a chaste kiss against your forehead. Somehow, such a stupidly simple action was enough to leave you dazed while he left.

So you did as he told you: texted the group chat telling your friends you were home, then turned over and let yourself fall asleep.

Your cat woke you up. You hadn’t fed him the night before (you’d planned to do it once you got back home, not intending to stay out so late), so he retaliated by standing on your chest and meowing at you until you begrudgingly sat up and got out of bed.

Pretty Boy nearly killed you five times on your walk to the kitchen, getting underfoot and doing his very best to trip you up. You managed to open a can of wet food and plate a quarter of it for him despite the assassination attempts. He was too busy snarfing it down to bother you while you refilled his empty dry food dish and added clean water to the fancy cat fountain (the only type of water dish he’d drink from; anything else he’d ignore in favor of the toilet).

By then you were too awake to attempt going back to sleep despite how late you’d stayed up the night before, so you returned to your bedroom and began to get ready for the day. It was when you picked up your phone and saw the texts you’d sent Keigo that the memory of last night’s escapades came rushing back to you.

Heat rushed to your face at the memory of the things he’d told you. You could almost feel the ghost of his hand on your thigh, the sound of his voice right next to your ear. Then you remembered that he’d told you he would visit this morning, and you shot up from the seat you’d taken on your bed.

Had he given you a time when he was going to show up? Or had he just said he’d come in the morning? You couldn’t let him in while you were wearing last night’s clothes. So you set about your morning routine, brushing your teeth and showering and getting dressed as you slowly processed the fog of last night’s drunken memories. You had a lot to think about before you faced him again.

When you returned to the kitchen, mentally filtering through a list of possible things to bake for breakfast, you barely had time to settle on what to make before a tap at your window drew your attention.

A week ago, it would have been strange for Keigo to wait before entering. Now, he perched right on the other side of the pane with his wings tucked behind him like he was trying to look small and stared at you with pleading puppy-dog eyes that you thought were probably calculated (but kind of made you melt anyway).

Drunk you would have run over to the window and pulled him in. Sober you, still hurting from his rejection and unwilling to give in to his charms unless he stopped acting so contradictory, only beckoned him in with a lazy hand.

He slipped a feather through the window frame, unlatching it and pushing it open with ease. When he stepped through he was hesitant, approaching the kitchen’s peninsula but remaining on the opposite side from you.

“How are you feeling, chickadee?” His voice was uncharacteristically soft, almost tentative.

“Good. No hangover. I wasn’t all that drunk, but thanks for helping me get home safe.”

“Of course. Though I’m sure you didn’t really need it, your friends would have gotten you home.”

“They did, Keigo. They handed me off to the number two hero. I was safer than them.”

You two fell silent. It was strange; there was never really a time in your friendship with him that the two of you weren’t talking. Except for last week, that is.

“Did you like the sunset?” Keigo asked suddenly, breaking the pause. “I never really… got to ask, last week.”

“The view was gorgeous, Keigo. You ruined it by shoving me off a building, though.”

You turned around just in time to see him wince as he raised a hand to rub sheepishly at his neck and clearly fought back the urge to hide behind one of his massive scarlet wings. “That’s fair.”

“More than fair, I think.” You regarded him, eyeing him for a moment before sighing and glancing away. “I don’t get you, Keigo. I think we’re doing so well, getting so close, and I like your company and you take me out to watch this absolutely gorgeous sunset with you and I honestly, genuinely think you’re going to kiss me, finally… and then you get so embarrassed you push me off a skyscraper? What am I supposed to think?”

“I know, chickadee. I’m sorry. I just—“

“I’m not finished. You apparently would rather throw me off of a building than kiss me, but then after a week of ghosting you show up mere minutes after I drunk text you to take me home and,” you paused, waving your hands in a strange pantomime that definitely did nothing to explain what you were thinking as you approached the peninsula, “do whatever the hell it was last night, all suave and attentive and a complete fucking 180 from the very last time I saw you. Like, what even was that?”

“Flirting?” It sounded like a question, like he was suggesting it to himself more than you. “I… if you thought it was too much, I’m really sorry, I—“

“No, I was into it.” You sighed, leaning forward to rest your chin in your palm. “You’re just so confusing, Keigo. Which is it? Do you want me or not?”

“I do!” It was rushed, but Keigo immediately corrected himself, stilling his voice and confidently reiterating the statement. “I do. So badly, chickadee.”

“Then why do you keep pushing me away?”

His wings visibly deflated, seeming to curl in behind him so he looked so much smaller. He retreated back into his collar—not quite so much as you’ve seen him do in the past though, and despite his clear insecurity he maintained eye contact.

“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to. I just… get into this mental spiral, thinking that you deserve better. And that’s not an excuse, it’s really not, but—“

“Well, that’s hardly something you get to decide,” you interrupted.

His feathers puffed up in surprise. “What?”

“What I deserve is my decision, don’t you think? Besides, it’s not about what either of us deserve. I like you a lot, I think you’re cute and you’re apparently constantly resisting the urge to kiss me as you admitted last night, so. Isn’t that enough?”

Keigo blinked at you, too stunned briefly to do anything besides stare with wide eyes and a mouth just barely agape. Then he shook his head and gave a short burst of laughter. “Alright, chickadee. You’ve twisted my arm.”

You frowned. “Hold on, no, you can’t just change your mind that fast. I’m not gonna be satisfied if you’re not going to try. What kind of relationship would that be if you just keep pulling away and making me chase after you?”

“To be honest,” he reached up with his right hand to rub sheepishly at the back of his neck, “I ghosted you this past week to… think it all through. I didn’t want to keep hurting you like that, keep pushing you away. And I came to the conclusion that if I wanted to try this—us—then I’d have to stop that. And I do! Want this, that is. If you do, anyway.”

You let yourself scrutinize him. You’d thought last night that his bizarre honesty, the complete lack of a mask, was because he thought you wouldn’t remember. But he’d been the same since he’d shown up at your window this morning—sincere in a way you’d only ever seen fleetingly before. So maybe it wasn’t because you’d been drunk. Maybe it was just because he wanted to be sincere with you.

He was trying. That was… refreshing. And really sweet.

“I do, too,” you said finally.

“Really?” He was giving you those puppy-dog eyes again, less pleading and more hopeful this time. “You wanna date me?”

“If you’re really gonna try. If you really made that choice on your own.”

“I did. Really. I wanna do right by you, chickadee.”

“You’ll have to take me out on another date, I think, considering how our last one ended.”

Keigo fluttered his wings in protest. “No, no, lemme take you on a real first date. I know a place with great chicken—“

“You know thirty places with great chicken, Keigo,” you laughed.

“This one’s the best. It’s special. You’ll be the first person I take there.”

“And you won’t throw me out a window?”

“I would never.” He placed a hand over his heart. “I might pluck you out of your seat and drag you to the roof, though. That’s always a hazard with me.”

You shook your head, a smile painted on your face as you turned around to face your partially collected breakfast ingredients. Keigo finally stepped around the peninsula and into your kitchen, getting closer to peek over your shoulder at your work station.

You wished that he’d get closer. You were about to reach back and lead him to place his hands on your hips when he spoke, voice teasing. “Hey, chickadee, you said you remembered last night, right?”

“Most of it. I wasn’t that drunk.”

“Then…” he trailed off, moving closer to you before raising his hands to place them on the cabinet behind you, effectively caging you in with an arm on either side. He leaned further in, lowering his voice as he drew close enough to feel his lips brush against the back of your neck as he talked. “Do you have something to ask me?”

After all of that, he thought you’d give him the satisfaction of begging him to kiss you?

“Yeah, actually.” You turned around, finding his face incredibly close to yours in a way that made your heart beat a little faster. You pushed down your flustered feelings, determined to see your plan to completion.

“What do you want?” Still teasing, incredibly cocky, you couldn’t help but smile at his words.

“Keigo,” you lowered your voice, allowing it to become breathy and drawing out his name as you leaned in to him, “would you please…”

You paused, letting the anticipation grow and relishing in the way his eyes dropped to your lips the moment you said his name, glued there as you continued. His pupils expanded and contracted wildly, an action you’d come to know was involuntary and indicated excitement. It made you more than a little giddy as you concluded with, “Get me the flour?”

You didn’t wait for his response; you were ducking under his arm in the seconds it took for him to process your statement, leaving him dazed as you turned back to your breakfast makings.

“Wait, what?”

“Flour, pretty bird. From the cabinet you’re currently leaning on.”

“Wow. You’re such a tease, chickadee.” You couldn’t see it, but you heard the pout in Keigo’s voice.

“I try.”

He came up from behind you to set the flour down on the counter. Just as his hand came into your field of view, you whirled around.

You hadn’t really expected it to work; he was the number two hero, every individual feather in his wings honed to perfection to sense his surroundings, instincts trained to be impossibly swift. Maybe it was proof of how much he let his guard down around you, or perhaps you simply dazed him just by existing nearby. Either way, you managed to grab him by the collar and pull him into a kiss.

Despite being taken by surprise, he melted into your embrace all but immediately. His hands flew to your waist and he pulled you to him, turning his head to kiss you deeper. You released one hand from his collar to thread it through his hair. When you tightened it slightly, nails just barely scratching his scalp, he sighed into you.

You pulled away far sooner than Keigo clearly wanted. He blindly followed your retreat, desperate to reconnect your lips, but you turned to make your way to the sink and left him standing there dazed. How’s that for ruination?

You bit back a grin when he whined. “No fair, chickadee. I waited too long for that.”

“Should have been faster, then.”

[pluviophile-imagines]

Pretty Birds and Chickadees 1

in which you've been growing close with hawks, but for some reason he keeps pulling away every time you try to take the final step

takami keigo x reader

word count: 2.5k genre: fluff, angst (mild) type: two-shot reader: neutral (no pronouns, neutral terms, neutral clothing) warnings: ending is mildly angsty, hawks throws u off a skyscraper but he catches u hes just avoiding his feelings

part ii || prequel

your eyes watched the horizon as the sun finally set, and your breath caught in your throat as it sent one final pulse of golden light across the city, then dissolved against the watercolored blur of the sky. “Wow, keigo. thank you. it’s beautiful.”

for the first time since you’d met him, your companion didn’t give you an immediate response. you turned to him, only to have your heart jump as you realized he’d leaned in impossibly close.

as if in a trance, his eyes were glazed over, piercing golden stare locked onto you—no, not you, your lips. he was looking at your lips, so close that you’d barely need to move to close the distance and kiss him.

was he thinking about that too? was he going to do it? finally?

You left your window unlocked.

It was second nature now, an unspoken summons every other day or so requesting a visit from your winged friend. You had his cell number, but there was something charming about inviting Hawks—or Keigo, as you’d come to call him in the recent months—to barge in on you without truly asking him.

So you left your window unlocked, because all you had planned that afternoon was to bake a cake for a friend’s birthday and Keigo would be welcome company. And you stood at your kitchen counter mixing the batter when you heard him open your window to come inside.

There were feathers freeing your equipment from your grip before you could even greet the hero, a flurry of red stealing your spatula and mixing bowl from your hands to deposit them unceremoniously on the counter and then surround you, pushing and prodding and pulling you around the peninsula separating your kitchen from your living room until you fell directly into Keigo’s arms.

He reassembled his wings as he returned you to your feet, spreading them to their full span because he knew you’d blush at the sight, and even when you caught your balance his hands lingered on you.

He tended to do that now; it had become rare for him not to be touching you somewhere, more often than not all but draping his whole body over yours. His palms merely rested on your waist now, giving you a charming grin that warmed his eyes.

“Hello, chickadee,” he greeted, like he’d run into you on the street rather than barged into your own apartment.

“I wasn’t expecting you, pretty bird.” You pulled away teasingly, making to turn back towards your kitchen, only to be caught in a feathery winged cage and pulled back into the hero’s chest.

“Just dropping in.” There was a rumble to Keigo’s voice, deep in the back of his throat, and the tones were steeped in comfort. “Lemme steal you away for an hour or two. I wanna show you something.”

You laughed in response, playfully batting your way out of his embrace to return to your batter. “I’m baking a cake, Keigo.”

“Bake it, then. I’ll have you back in time.”

“You just said you wanted to steal me away for hours,” you countered.

“Plans are flexible.” He shrugged and followed you around your kitchen’s peninsula like a lost puppy. “C’mon, just for a bit. I wanna show you the best view in the city.”

“Do you now. It can’t wait twenty-five minutes?”

“Sun’s setting in twenty, chickadee.”

“Oh, so there is a time limit. You should have mentioned that.”

Keigo rested his chin on your shoulder. “What’re you making?”

“Just a chocolate cake for a friend’s birthday tomorrow—hey!” You smacked his hand before he could dip a finger in the batter. He laughed, the noise originating right next to your ear, and you ignored the heat that flared up on your cheeks in response.

“C’mon, just a taste.”

“No.”

“But your baking is so good and I’m not gonna get any tomorrow…”

“You’re not putting your dirty ass talons in my batter, bird brain.” Your words were harsh, but your voice was playful, a grin spreading across your face despite your best efforts at stopping it.

“I think my feet would be talons, not my hands.”

You rolled your eyes. “Yes, I’d much rather you put your feet in my batter, thanks.”

“Hey, you’ve never seen my feet. Maybe I really do have talons.”

You paused, turning your body to face Keigo and finding that he was giving you a wide-eyed look with his hands (one bare, the other gloved) raised in surrender. Your gaze dropped without your permission, glancing downward at his boots—not that you’d even be able to tell if they really did conceal talons. You rolled your eyes and swung back around to focus on your batter again.

“Made you look.” He was smug.

“Shut up. Let me focus. I thought we were on a time limit?”

“Does that mean you’re coming?”

“If I can get this cake in the oven. And you leave a feather and promise to come stop my apartment from burning down if needed.”

“Of course, chickadee,” Keigo cooed. “What kind of hero would I be if I let you burn down your apartment?”

“Wouldn’t really be my fault,” you grumbled. You filled two pans with the batter, eyeballing the halfway point, then picked up one and turned around to face the oven. “Would you open that for me?”

There was a red feather at the handle before you finished the sentence. Then there were more picking the pan up out of your hands to place it within, and another collection guiding the second cake to join its twin. Then Keigo closed the oven, and you turned to see him grinning at you with one hand held out.

“Let’s go!”

“One moment.” The oven timer was already counting down, but you reached into your pocket to pull out your phone and set a timer for fifteen minutes. “There. We come back when it’s done.”

“Fifteen minutes? That’s all I need.”

Then you were being swept off your feet, Keigo gathering you into his arms with one behind your back and the other beneath your knees, directing you to wrap your own around his neck as he darted around your peninsula to the window.

The feeling of wind on your skin was familiar by now. This was hardly the first time he’d taken you on a flight. You weren’t entirely sure how far away he was taking you, but he was Hawks—you highly doubted there was any place in the city he couldn’t get to within ten minutes, even with the slightly slower pace he flew with you as a passenger.

It was difficult to talk over the wind, but you and Keigo managed. The words themselves hardly mattered anyway, certainly not as much as the nice angle you got of his jaw and the way he smiled when you made him laugh.

Soon enough, he landed on the top of a building. He set you down, helping you get balanced with hands on your waist and feathers everywhere else.

“Best view in the city, huh?” You looked around, taking it in. You couldn’t see the ground, but the building was high enough that it made your hands clammy.

“Yeah!” Keigo ruffled his wings proudly and sent you yet another charming grin. You watched him approach the small foot high ledge on the edge of the roof and hop up casually. “C’mere.”

You hesitated. Allowing him to carry you was one thing; his hands never left you then, not until you were being set back on solid ground. You knew logically that he was more than fast enough to catch you immediately—that was his whole brand, after all—but knowing that and internalizing it to be comfortable with standing on the edge of a forty story building were two different things.

Keigo looked back at you, reaching out a hand. “Don’t you trust me?”

“Promise you’ll catch me if I fall?” You eyed it, still hesitant.

He turned towards you fully, stepping one foot off the ledge to grab your hand and pull it up to his face, brushing the barest hint of a kiss across the knuckles. “Chickadee, you wouldn’t even get that far. You’re not falling on my watch.”

When you nodded, his grip tightened on your hand, and you allowed him to pull you up next to him. Just that connection was okay at first, his palm enough to keep you steady as your eyes finally took in the view he wanted to show you.

Claiming something was the best in the city shouldn’t be possible, but standing there, taking in the sight of the sun slowly lowering, you decided to take your winged friend at his word. After all, if anyone knew the best view in the city, it would undoubtedly be the man who spent his days soaring through it. And what you saw before you was nothing short of breathtaking. The sun’s final rays set the sky alight, clouds glowing gold and orange and pink with deep violet rimming the edges, gilding the chrome buildings that stretched impossibly high—though none higher than the one you were perched on.

That was the thought that tumbled through your mind and yanked your gaze downward, the thought that sent a bolt of terror through you and tightened your hand around Keigo’s as it fully sunk in just how far down the ground was. But you didn’t have to say anything, because the very man (bless his heroic instincts) was already pulling you closer, wrapping strong arms and cherry-colored wings around your frame securely.

“I’ve got you,” he assured you, voice low like he’d scare away the view—not that it was your primary focus anymore, what with his chest pressed against your back and his face tucked into the crook of your shoulder.

He was too much sometimes. You could never tell how serious he was; was all of this intended to be romantic, the touching and the teasing and the whisking you away to watch the sunset? Or was he simply being friendly?

It seemed absurd, assuming this was just being friendly. But with Keigo—with Hawks—you could never be sure, and he sure as hell wouldn’t tell you.

“Better?” His voice rumbled right next to your ear, causing goosebumps to rise along your bare arms and your eyes to flutter slightly as you resisted the urge to close them and lean into his embrace.

You pulled away instead, ignoring the way his wings seemed to hesitate before opening up to let you out. His hand lingered on you, a featherlight weight on the small of your back that you knew you ought to remove but couldn’t bear to. It felt nice, his leather-clad fingers spread out in that intimate touch. If it hadn’t been just the two of you out here, if you’d been at some gala or even just walking around a crowded street, it might have been something almost territorial. Instead it was just reassuring; a silent reminder that he wouldn’t let you fall.

Your eyes watched the horizon as the sun finally set, and your breath caught in your throat as it sent one final pulse of golden light across the city, then dissolved against the watercolored blur of the sky. “Wow, Keigo. Thank you. It’s beautiful.”

For the first time since you’d met him, your companion didn’t give you an immediate response. You turned to him, only to have your heart jump as you realized he’d leaned in impossibly close.

As if in a trance, his eyes were glazed over, piercing golden stare locked onto you—no, not you, your lips. He was looking at your lips, so close that you’d barely need to move to close the distance and kiss him.

Was he thinking about that too? Was he going to? Finally?

His hand was still on your lower back. All he’d have to do was pull you in. He didn’t, though; instead, subtly, almost imperceptibly, he moved closer, now only a hair’s breadth away and practically brushing his lips against yours.

Fine, then. You’d do it, if he was going to be a tease—

Your phone went off. The sudden noise seemed to snap Keigo from his reverie and he jolted back, leaping away several steps. You held back a groan as you reached into your pocket to answer whoever was calling you only to realize with growing annoyance that it wasn’t even a call, but rather the timer for your cake.

“Keigo—“ you cut yourself off when you saw him, staring at you with wide eyes and a face redder than you’d ever thought possible from him, trying to hide it in the collar of his jacket but failing miserably. The sight sent the words tumbling from your mind.

Fuck, he was cute. It had to be illegal. You only wanted to kiss him more.

Suddenly resolute, you started towards him, reaching out to grab the sleeve of his jacket and tug him towards you. To your surprise, the noise he let out was something like a whine, and it only made his eyes widen even more as his blush deepened and he tried to burrow further into his collar, one fluffy wing swinging forward to provide further protection.

“Keigo—“ you started again, laughter in your voice, but this time he cut you off by shoving you.

If your timer hadn’t ruined the mood, that certainly did. The stupid bird would apparently rather throw you off a building than let you kiss him.

At least he caught you, not even seconds after he threw you off, arms securely around your torso as he spread his wings and halted your descent.

You hit him, palm slamming into his clothed chest as you let out a belated yelp. He was too fucking fast; by the time your mind registered everything, you were being carried off.

Keigo laughed at your weak hit, somehow managing to pretend he hadn’t been melting down not even a minute ago. “Don’t hit the pilot! You’re hundreds of meters up in the air, chickadee.”

“Dick,” you grumbled. Above you, he only grinned. You didn’t think he’d caught on to your change in mood just yet.

Did he know what he was doing? How utterly cruel, if he did. Pretending like he wanted to kiss you to what, make fun of you? Had you not made it obvious you wanted him to go through with it?

Why was it all so complicated? Why did he have to be so goddamn confusing?

You didn’t bother talking to him the whole way back to your apartment. He didn’t try to strike up a conversation. That was probably a bad thing; it allowed you to fester in your hurt, and by the time your building came into view that hurt had evolved into cold anger.

Keigo flew in through the open window the two of you had left from and deposited you solidly into the floor of your kitchen. The oven timer beeped just as you landed. You still didn’t speak as you turned it off and set about taking the cake out to begin cooling.

“Thank you for coming,” Keigo said finally, voice tentative. You didn’t respond. The pause was awkward, tension hanging in the air. He ended up breaking it, clearly still hoping to salvage the afternoon. “Do you think we could—“

“I have to frost this cake.” The words came automatically, emotionless. “You should go.”

What did I do? was what you really wanted to ask. Why did he have to pull away? What was stopping him?

Did he expect you not to take it personally?

He hesitated leaving. That was your only consolation; that he was slow in approaching the window, clearly waiting for you to change your mind, hoping that you’d turn around and beg him to stay.

You didn’t. Keigo flew off on silent wings, his departure indicated only by the click of your window latching.

[pluviophile-imagines]

In Your Arms Masterlist

i wish time would just stop when i’m in your arms

A collection of short fics about cuddling with various characters, with no particular organization and updated entirely on the author’s whim. Characters to be added as inspiration demands

Hawks

Shigaraki

Bakugo

Aizawa (COMING SOON)

[pluviophile-imagines]

Pretty Boys and Problem Children

in which your troublesome cat escapes your apartment, and the number two pro hero saves the day—then sticks around because you’re cute, and quick witted

takami keigo x reader

word count: 2k genre: fluff type: one-shot reader: neutral (no pronouns, neutral terms, neutral clothing) warnings: none

sequel

there was something of a ruckus below, yowling and curses drifting up from the alley. you cringed, knowing from experience how vicious your furry son could be, and you weren’t entirely surprised when it was the cat who reappeared first. he scrambled up the fire escape and through the open window, standing behind your legs with back arched and fur on end.

“back so soon, pretty boy?” you cooed, bending down to stroke his back in a futile attempt to calm him.

“a hero’s work isn’t finished until his charges are happy, sweetheart.”

Considering the number of times your cat got out on a weekly basis, it was almost inevitable that some poor pro hero was going to return him to you looking like they’d gone toe-to-toe with a minor league villain.

The animal in question was a medium-haired grey tabby with white covering all four feet, a tom you affectionately called Pretty Boy and not so affectionately called Stinky Bastard Man. His name depended on your mood and exactly how loud he was being in his demands for food, or play, or to open the window so he could stage an elaborate escape attempt involving flour, a dishrag, and your snakeplant Wilhelmina.

Really, you couldn’t be blamed for your priorities lying with an emergency repotting and cleaning up the remnants of the cookies you’d been trying to bake rather than immediately leaving to find your godforsaken feral creature.

And he was loud, okay. You knew that when he eventually returned, his yowling outside the window would rouse you from even the deepest of slumber. Sometimes it was the cat himself; sometimes it was a neighbor calling to demand you let the feline back into your home.

This time, however, to your most incredible surprise and at the most inopportune time (you were in the middle of brushing your teeth, like, come on) it was the number two pro fucking hero who rapped on your window with a hissy cat in hand.

By the time you’d rinsed your mouth, you didn’t have time to throw on anything more substantial than your sleep clothes and you found yourself opening your window to Hawks himself perched there, wings folded behind him, your stupid demon cat struggling in his hand.

He was staring at Pretty Boy when you threw the window open, entirely missing your approach until you were suddenly mere inches before him and there was no glass separating you two. He looked up, speaking before he really got a good look at you.

“Does this belong to…” he trailed off as he blinked owlishly and seemed to size you up—then, from the way his eyes were lingering, apparently decided to appreciate your choice in sleepwear; a favorite t-shirt now so small it was more like a crop top, and a pair of lounge pants too form fitting for you to wear in public.

He appreciated it so much that your damn cat managed to squirm and thrash just enough that the hero lost his grip, and then he disappeared into the night with a streak of silver. Both you and Hawks stared down at his now empty hand, then at where the cat had disappeared, and finally back to each other before Hawks spoke again.

“I’ll get that.” With a cheeky wink and a lopsided grin, he was off.

There was something of a ruckus below, yowling and curses drifting up from the alley. You cringed, knowing from experience how vicious your furry son could be, and you weren’t entirely surprised when it was the cat who reappeared first. He scrambled up the fire escape and through the open window, standing behind your legs with back arched and fur on end.

“Back so soon, Pretty Boy?” you cooed, bending down to stroke his back in a futile attempt to calm him.

“A hero’s work isn’t finished until his charges are happy, sweetheart.”

The voice made Pretty Boy sprint off into the depths of your small apartment. You looked up to find Hawks standing at your window again, leaning on the ledge with his forearms draped lazily into your apartment.

“As sweet a sentiment that is, Hawks, I was talking to my cat.”

“You don’t think I’m pretty?” He pushed his lower lip out in a pout that somehow worked on him—but also highlighted the new scratch on his chin, three red lines marring the skin there.

You didn’t respond directly, instead bringing your hand up to thumb at your own chin.  “You’ve got yourself a battle scar there, hero.”

He pulled back, looking at his reflection in the glass of your window before returning to his spot and giving you a roguish wink. “I think it makes me look rugged. Besides, you should see the other guy.”

“I saw him. I still think he won.”

“You saw him? He’s very dangerous, sweetheart, you should do your civic duty and point me his way. Don’t worry, I’ll protect you.”

“Oh? And what if I’m stalling for time so he gets away?”

Hawks clicked his tongue in faux disapproval. “Then I suppose you’d be aiding and abetting a villain and I’d have to take you in.”

“A villain?” You laughed, breaking character. “Since when was my cat a villain?”

“Have you seen what he did to my face? He’s vicious. Completely out of control. He belongs in Tartarus, really.”

“Are you sure you didn’t provoke him?“ Hawks hadn’t, you knew. Pretty Boy was just a menace. But it was fun to play coy. “Did you pull his tail?”

“I’ll pull your tail,” Hawks replied, in a tone that seemed to imply he thought that was a really good line.

You couldn’t help bursting into laughter, if only to prevent yourself from cringing. In fact, you were nearly doubled over, wiping tears from the corners of your eyes. “Oh, good lord, that was absolutely horrible.”

He had the decency to look sheepish. “Not my best, I’ll admit.”

You’d flustered him, finally, he’d been the one to crack after you’d so expertly given back what he threw, and oh it was glorious. He was smiling broadly, a light blush dusting the bridge of his nose and his upper cheeks that only highlighted his sharp amber eyes. He truly was an attractive man; you knew as much from the news and the marketing, but here he was leaning into your apartment and in person it was all the more apparent. He was wildly charming, too. You almost felt bad for teasing him, but he wasn’t gone yet, at least.

“Not your best? What if I really did have a tail, hm? What would you have done then?”

“I don’t think I’d have said it.”

“You shouldn’t have said it anyway.” You giggled again, uncontrollably, at the thought of how confidently he’d spoken and the suggestive raise of one eyebrow. He’d been so proud. “Really, it was so bad.”

“Mmm,” he hummed, embarrassment long forgotten as he made a show of stretching his arms before him, and then his wings behind. The gesture certainly had an effect you were sure was intended. “But beforehand? How was I doing then?”

“I won’t lie, you weren’t too shabby, pretty bird.”

His feathers and his chest puffed up at that. He stood up with something of a roguish smile on his face. “Pretty bird? I like that, chickadee.”

Oh, you liked chickadee, too. The nickname made you want to grin uncontrollably, but you kept your composure, focusing on how unabashedly cute his preening was (and taking advantage of the excuse to unabashedly check out his wings).

“You did say my cat was a criminal, though.” You pursed your lips, bringing one finger up as if pondering. “I’ll have to deduct points for that.”

“I think you know your cat’s a menace. You’re just lucky I’m the hero who found him and not some stickler for the rules.”

“Hey, only I get to call my cat a menace.” You approached the window to lean on the table in front of it. The window still separated you and Hawks, but with him standing behind it you were almost missing his proximity—though you were now far closer than ever before as you braved your chin in one hand. “He is one, though, I won’t lie. This is the third time this week he’s run off.”

Hawks shook his head, drawing closer to you and leaning through the window once more. “How neglectful. You ought to have chased after him.”

“Out the window? Awfully dangerous.”

“Ah, but a dashing winged hero could have come to your rescue.” He ruffled his feathers again—you were starting to think he’d caught on to how much you liked those wings, not that you minded.

“How disappointing that I missed out, but unfortunately I was required here for emergency surgery.”

“Oh?” He raised his eyebrows.

“Yeah, Pretty Boy decided to sacrifice Mina in his quest for freedom, so I was focused on her in the immediate aftermath.”

“And Mina is…” he trailed off, leaning in almost conspiratorially.

You leaned in to meet him, faces mere centimeters apart as you lifted you hand to point above you. “Wilhelmina, my snakeplant. You’ll notice she’s in a hanging planter now, instead of on this table.”

“Thank goodness you saved her. Collateral casualties are so tragic.”

“I saved the cookies, too.”

“And the cookies? Wow, very impressive. At this rate you’re a better hero than me.”

You hummed in agreement, then began to pull away, using the hand you’d been pointing to Mina with to flick Hawks playfully in the nose. He was stunned by the action, apparently, because in the time it took for you to reach the counter, pick up the container of cookies, and return to your previous position he hadn’t moved at all, only watched you with an expression of interest he didn’t bother to conceal.

Then his eyes landed on the container of cookies, and he gave you a boyish gasp. “For me? You shouldn’t have.”

“I’m giving you one, pretty bird, because you returned my problem child to me, but not the whole box.”

Hawks rose to his feet on the other side of the window, pressing a gloved hand to his heart (and, you noted, not so subtly spreading his wings to their full glory. Yeah. He knew you were into it). “I would never.”

“Very believable.” You took the top off the container, holding it out for him.

You watched as he inspected for a moment, before his face seemed to light up and he reached in to pull out one shaped like a pair of wings. He met your eye, raising an eyebrow in silent question as he placed the cookie between smirking lips.

You only laughed. “Yes, it’s a cutter set based off the top ten pro heroes. Congrats, number two, you found yours.”

Hawks opened his mouth to continue, but paused, the smile dropping from his face and his gaze falling from you as he finished the cookie and seemed to be listening to something. You only caught the vague, nearly silent sound of someone talking and it finally registered that he was listening to an earpiece before the sound cut off and his attention was back on you with an almost wistful expression.

“Sorry, sweetheart, this was fun, but—“

“Duty calls,” you finished, and he gave you a sheepish grin as you closed your cookie container.

“I’ll keep an eye out for your problem child in the future.”

“That’s an awfully minor thing to think about, I’d imagine.”

“Well, how else will I find an excuse to talk to his cute owner again?” Hawks shook his head, tutting his tongue. “Nah, I’ll wait for him to stage another escape attempt and scoop him up for you. Maybe he’ll inflict an even worse wound and you’ll have to stitch me up, wouldn’t that be fun?”

You laughed. “I thought you had somewhere to be, pretty bird?”

“Ah, you distracted me. Guess I’d rather stay here with you.”

“Goodbye, Hawks,” you insisted, but the smile on your face and the teasing in your voice made it clear you didn’t really want him gone.

He left anyway, yet again putting on a show as he stretched out those crimson wings (and this time, when you returned his show by fanning your face exaggeratedly, he winked) before giving you a mock salute and taking to the sky.

You closed the window behind him just as Pretty Boy made an appearance from your bedroom, winding his way between your feet. You crouched down, scratching him under the chin.

“I’ll let you off this time, ya stinker. But don’t think this makes up for all your shit.”

[pluviophile-imagines]

Defected pro hero Hawks, with a story eerily similar to his predecessor Lady Nagant, who slaughtered half the hero commission higher-ups on a rampage one day and is considered one of the most dangerous villains out there, mostly a high-class thief but also known for targeting heroes who are later outed as corrupt, morally or otherwise.

(Who looks a little like Keigo, the guy living in the apartment next door, who helped you lug your couch up five flights of stairs and knocks at your door asking for sugar nearly every day though you’d think by now he’d have bought some)

Is this a good time to mention I’ve been thinking abt villain!hawks lately

[pluviophile-imagines]

My Lady

in which captain shigaraki tomura intended to take everything from the commodore who sank his ship—his wealth, his home, every treasure he’d collected in his journeys. but there was one thing he hadn’t factored into his perfect revenge scheme: falling in love with the man’s fiancé

shigaraki tomura x reader

word count: 15.2k genre: fluff, enemies to lovers, slow burn type: one-shot warnings: threats of violence, infidelity reader: fem (she/her pronouns, fem terms, fem clothing) note: while in a technical sense this fic contains cheating (the reader is engaged to be married to hawks), the reader and hawks are not emotionally devoted to each other and not together in a modern sense. it’s an arranged marriage and the two characters are not in love

the words were coming forth before he could think about them. he’d realized long ago that such a thing was hardly rare when he talked to you. you simply had a profound effect on him; one which made his careful consideration go fuzzy, made him struggle to keep up the act. “you deserve someone who loves you, my lady. someone you love back.”

your back straightened. you turned your head just barely so that you could settle your gaze at him through the corner of your eye, lids heavy and face unreadable. “that’s a romantic thought, tenko. naïve, I think, but romantic. i used to daydream of it as i used to daydream of sailing. but it’s just as out of reach, just as cruelly close and unattainable as the sea.”

“what if it wasn’t?” he needed to stop talking. “what if it was right here? a man who loves you, ready to take you away on his ship?”

shigaraki tried to keep his breath steady. he tried to keep his expression innocent. he tried to convince you that his question was merely hypothetical.

he hoped you knew, somehow, that it was anything but.

Shigaraki Tomura wanted to destroy everything that Commodore Takami Keigo, the navy’s illustrious Seahawk, held dear.

He still remembered the sight of his burning ship the day the commodore finally succeeded in sinking it; the smell of fire was etched into his mind, the ash heavy in his lungs, the golden red glow of the flames as they reduced the ship he’d inherited from his master to a skeleton of smoldering remains to be swallowed by the sea impossible to forget. He’d lost all but seven of his crew in the fire—seven crewmates who held strong by his side, his most loyal companions.

That was over a year ago. He’d spent that time rebuilding his power, his notoriety, his crew—now, he was Captain Shigaraki of the Decaying Lady, the pirate king, a far more fearsome and respected man than he’d ever been before his defeat, and he hadn’t lost a battle to Takami Keigo since.

But it wasn’t enough. No matter how many of the Seahawk’s ships he sunk, none of them came close to meaning as much as the All For One had meant to Shigaraki. No matter how many times they came to blows on the open seas, it never satisfied his lust for revenge. He wanted to ruin Takami’s life.

It was a life which had only been getting better and better. Just as Shigaraki rose in infamy, Takami too gained in power. His new title as commodore was proof of as much, along with the enormous ships he captained and the grand manor he'd built.

And you, his new fiancé.

He’d first caught wind of the Seahawk’s engagement while he and his crew were resupplying at a remote oceanside town. The chosen soon-to-be bride—you—was the daughter of a recently retired admiral, a man who Shigaraki had never met personally but whose name was made familiar by reputation. Apparently, according to the heartbroken barmaid Shigaraki had accosted (who had apparently been convinced the commodore was in love with her, poor girl), Takami had spent the past three months courting you, and had proposed a few weeks ago. When he followed up on that information by sending Jin to pay off a dock worker at Takami’s local port, he learned that you’d moved into the manor in the recent week, and that the commodore was already back out to sea, leaving his home and his lover unguarded.

Shigaraki Tomura wanted to take everything from Takami Keigo. Every ornate sword he’d stolen from the hands of Shigaraki’s fellow pirates, every gilded treasure he collected on his journeys, every extravagant article of clothing he wore like an expensive peacock, every hint of wealth and success that Takami kept in his manor down to the manor itself, Shigaraki would take it all. He’d pillage whatever was worth reselling, and then he’d return the favor Takami gave him all those months ago and burn the house to the ground. Whatever he deemed unworthy of taking would be destroyed with the home, melted into the ground or burnt to a charred crisp like the wooden walls.

And you, the woman the Seahawk loved—you’d burn with it. Takami Keigo would be heartbroken.

The plan was simple, as these things went. He’d already secured a spot as a servant at the manor; he’d work it for three months to get an inside understanding of the household’s inner workings. That was perhaps a bit longer than inherently necessary, but the satisfaction of Takami returning to find that the pirate king had lived in his household for months on end without his notice was too good to pass up.

So, nearly two weeks since you’d moved into the manor, Shigaraki started his first day. After a brief tour and an introduction to the rest of the small staff (only seven servants including the housekeeper and butler), he was put to work bringing out breakfast.

You sat at the head of the table with the butler standing behind your shoulder. In your hands was a folded piece of paper—a letter, clearly. As he drew closer Shigaraki could see the Seahawk’s seal on the back. You looked bored, and perhaps a bit melancholy, eyes scanning over the words slowly with no reaction to what they said.

Glancing up from the letter as he approached, you set it down carelessly and sat up straighter. “Oh, good.”

“Are you done reading, my lady?” The butler stepped forward, reaching for the discarded paper.

You waved it off dismissively. “Yes, done enough, it was all trite formality.”

“Understood.”

“Was there anything from my father?” Your voice sounded tentative, or perhaps hopeful.

“No. That’s the only correspondence this morning.”

You sighed, clearly choosing to drop the topic as you turned your attention back to Shigaraki. “I haven’t seen you before. Are you new?”

“Yes, miss,” he responded.

“You’ll address her as ‘my lady,’ boy. That’s her proper title,” the butler barked.

You gave a strange side-eyed look to him, expression chagrined, but when you spoke it was to Shigaraki. “What’s your name?”

“Shimura, my lady.” Fine. If you wanted to be pedantic, then he’d play along.

You cocked your head, eyes scanning his form before meeting his gaze. “Is that your family name?”

“Yes.”

“Your full name, if you would?”

“Shimura Tenko.” Saying the name felt final. He had to work to control the smile rising on his face—and it was good that he did, because you seemed to be scrutinizing him with a pensive look in your eye. You couldn’t possibly be onto him already, could you?

“Shimura. Well, welcome to the manor, I suppose.” You lifted a hand and waved him off dismissively. “You may go, I’m sure you have obligations that don’t include indulging in your boss’ morning conversation.”

He bowed, exiting in the same manner he’d entered. Something was strange about the whole encounter. On paper, he supposed, it ought to have been perfect; nobody had questioned why he was there, you’d dismissed him quickly, it was just long enough that he wouldn’t be suspiciously invisible but not enough to stand out. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that you knew something.

Shigaraki didn’t see you again until a week after your first meeting. It was a large building; plus, he got the distinct idea that you preferred to be alone. He didn’t care much—there were many reasons to befriend you and just as many to keep his distance. Takami had most certainly shared his various exploits with you, including those involving Shigaraki, and the last thing he needed was for you to recognize him within the first week. However, conversely, you certainly knew a great deal about Takami and it could be beneficial to become a confidant of yours. He decided to simply let the cards fall where they may and take advantage of whatever he was dealt.

He’d been assigned to clean the library, though, and he found you there, tucked into a corner perched on a plush armchair with your legs folded up beneath you and your skirts pooling around you. You had a book one hand, held open with your well kept fingers, and you used your other hand to prop up your head.

You glanced up when he approached.

“Shimura, right?” you asked. At his nod, you set down the book and began to rise from your seat. “I’ll get out of your way.”

Shigaraki shook his head, all too willing to play up the polite servant boy image he hoped you’d gotten from him the previous meeting. “You’re no bother, my lady. You can stay.”

“Oh, but I wouldn’t want to be a bother.”

“I’d enjoy the company, if it’s not too bold.”

You hesitated, halfway to standing. Slowly lifting your head to look at him, you fixed him with a discerning gleam in your eye. It was strange; he almost felt as if your mere gaze turned his very skin invisible and bore every thought and feeling he held before you.

“It’s not,” you said finally. “I’d enjoy your company, too.”

Sitting back down, you tucked your feet up under you once more, pulling your skirts up as well to keep out of his way as you rested your book open on your lap to keep reading. He dusted in silence for a while, acutely aware of how you kept glancing up at him, especially when he reached up to dust the higher parts of the shelves.

It was only when he was mostly done that you spoke.

“You’re awfully tall, Shimura.”

He had to hold back his laughter. Yes, he was, he supposed—that was why he’d been assigned to dust the shelves, considering he was the tallest among a staff of the stout housekeeper, the greying butler, the three maids around his age and the two young footboys.

“I am, my lady.”

“Would you mind getting me a book before you leave? It’s at the top of that bookshelf,” you pointed just next to him, “near the left corner. The red one.”

He found it quickly and pulled it from the shelf before striding over to you and silently handing it over. As he did, though, he saw the title.

“Astronavigation?”

Looking up at him and fixing him with a keen smile, you raised the other book so that he could see it was about tides. “I’m making my way through Keigo’s collection of nautical works.”

You pointed backwards with your thumb and he followed the gesture to find a stack of fifteen or so books behind you; clearly the ones you’d read already.

“You’re a curious woman...” he murmured, not entirely realizing he’d said it aloud.

“Excuse me?”

Shigaraki’s head snapped back to find you staring at him and realized, belatedly, that he’d been rude.

“Apologies, my lady.” It was rushed, tone not quite as controlled as he would have wanted. He cringed.

You raised an eyebrow. When you spoke, he heard laughter in your voice. “Shimura, I’ll be frank. If I was going to be angry at your... indiscretion, that apology would have done nothing to endear you to me.”

Your words conflicted with your tone. Were you angry? He couldn’t tell. His confusion must have been clear, though, because you answered the question for him.

“Lucky for you I wasn’t angry, and I find your honesty refreshing. Everyone’s so withdrawn around me. It’s nice to have someone who stumbled over those pretenses,“ you paused, tilting your head and giving a smile that was almost impish. “Someone who doesn’t call me ‘my lady’ until he’s been corrected. You should drop that, by the way. I don’t like it, but they all insist.”

“Why?” He was asking before he really thought about it.

“My fiancé drilled it into them. You’ll still have to say it when he’s around, but as I’m sure you’ve been told he won’t be back for months. Besides,” you blinked, and again Shigaraki got the unnerving feeling that you were staring right through him, “I have a feeling you’re a capable man. I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”

There was some kind of implication in your words, he could tell from the tone of your voice. He just wasn’t sure what it was.

“I’m afraid your housekeeper wouldn’t have that,” Shigaraki replied, glancing to the side slightly before tacking on, “my lady.”

He gained a laugh for that, hardly stifled but kind of sad and accompanied by a similar refrained, morose smile.

“True enough, I suppose. I look forward to seeing more of you, though, Shimura. You’re the first hire since I came here.”

Ah. That made him understand, kind of. The other members of the staff had been around longer than you—Takami, presumably, had hired them himself. Which meant that they, just as much as the manor and everything else within, were his.

But… well, you were the Seahawk’s too, so why did that make you sad?

You were sitting on the roof.

It had been nearly a month since he’d first met you. Shigaraki was lighting the third floor when he happened to glance through a window and see you sitting just outside—not on a balcony, but on a second floor roof that jutted out just slightly, perched on the rounded shingles with your knees pulled to your chest and your skirts carelessly draped around you.

“My lady?” he was calling before he thought about it—truly, he ought to have let you be and moved on with his night—but you turned to look at him through the window and gave him a charming smile.

“Shimura. The sky’s so clear tonight. Come out and join me.”

“I have to finish this corridor, ma’am.”

“I’ll help you if you come out for a moment. Sit and look at the stars with me, indulge your young, naïve boss, just a bit.”

There were many adjectives he might use to describe you after having gotten to know you better over the weeks; many that he had used, in his letters to his crew—eccentric, shrewd, cunning, pretty—but naïve was certainly not one of them.

Keeping a low profile meant not being caught on the roof at night with the lady of the house. Joining you was hardly in his best interest.

He stepped out onto the roof.

You clapped your hands, cheering. “Good choice, my friend. You won’t regret it.”

“Mmm, we’ll see.”

You were right, of course. The sky was nice; the nicest he’d seen since he’d come to live on the island, though he’d seen better on the Decaying Lady. He almost wished he could tell you that as you and he lay back together to look up at it. You held your hand up above you, pointing out constellations and rattling off ancient stories to explain them. He paid rapt attention and tried to ignore how mesmerised he was by your voice.

He’d become so mesmerised, apparently, that he didn’t realize you’d changed the topic until you said, “Keigo will be visiting in a week.”

Shigaraki sat up, turning to look down at you. He’d known, of course, but it was through his own network, not because he’d been told by someone at the manor. “Ah.”

“You’re the only member of the staff who hasn’t met him, is all. I figured I’d give you a fair warning.”

He’d met the man far more times than any other member of the staff, actually. It was actually fairly pathetic; Takami spent so much time at sea that a man who wanted to kill him had spoken to him more times than his own fiancé (and now, the very man had spoken to his fiancé more times than he had). Of course, Shigaraki wouldn’t be seeing Takami now—he’d be found out immediately. So he’d been talking about a heavily pregnant sister, entirely fictional, who would be giving birth conveniently the same day the master of the house would be visiting.

“I’m not entirely sure why I’d need a warning,” Shigaraki settled upon saying.

You sat up next to him, fixing him with that examining look he was beginning to think was a permanent fixture on your face. A cool breeze blew across the roof and ruffled your skirts.

“Turn of phrase,” you said finally. “You don’t really need a warning. Keigo hardly notices the staff, anyway. He’ll have some inane meeting I won’t be allowed to attend and then we’ll have an awkward dinner where he and I try and utterly fail to engage each other in conversation.”

Shigaraki blinked. He almost recoiled, the disdain and boredom in your voice like a slap to the face. You spoke about Takami that way? Your fiancé? The man you surely loved?

He couldn’t even respond. You’d never spoken of Takami with any particular emotion, positive or otherwise, but he figured you were simply a private person—or perhaps that being away from him was trying in a way you didn’t want to share. But you were clearly dreading his visit, as if you’d rather he didn’t even bother.

“Don’t worry, you won’t have to witness that,” you said, breaking him from his thoughts. “He doesn’t like the staff watching him eat.”

“You don’t sound very excited about this visit. Don’t you miss him?”

You raised an eyebrow. “No, not particularly. I doubt he misses me—in fact, I know he doesn’t. He has plenty of company.”

The insinuation there didn’t escape Shigaraki. Of course he knew about the commodore’s infamous womanizing ways. He always assumed (hoped, really, in the vain belief that the Seahawk was a chivalrous man, however annoying) that Takami had stopped all of that when he gave you the ring on your finger, and that the stories he continued to hear were mere aftershocks that refused to fade.

He’d look into it. The idea put an odd, uncomfortable feeling in his chest, one which apparently showed on his face because you laughed.

“I don’t care that much, Shimura. No need to feel sorry for your poor lady. Those women are far more excited to see him than I’ll ever be.”

You directed a confident, reassuring smile at him, yet there was an undertone of sadness to it. His hatred for Takami was so immense he’d doubted it could get any more fierce, but somehow, you managed to stoke the flame, add fuel to the fire.

“I still think it’s awfully discourteous, my lady,” he said, and he meant it.

“Well, thank you for your concern, Shimura. Now. I promised I’d help you light the corridor.”

You began to rise—Shigaraki rushed to beat you to his feet and offer a hand, which you took happily. He ignored the warm tingling in his palm where your fingers touched him. It shouldn’t have surprised him that they were soft, but he wasn’t used to soft hands, and he enjoyed the sensation more than he cared to admit.

He helped you back through the window too, allowing himself to smile slightly when you giggled and hiked up your skirts on your way down. It genuinely surprised him when you made your way towards the candle he’d set down on a table.

“I’ll get one from my room,” you said happily, and you were gone through a door just as he arrived at the table himself.

It seemed you were serious about helping him. He wondered, fleetingly, how often you did this sort of thing. Surely this wasn’t your only time—you were all too casual in bringing back your own candle, pressing the wick to the flame that burned at the tip of his until it caught and then turning about to find the nearest unlit oil lamp on the wall.

He was almost captivated as he watched you stretch upward on the tips of your toes, your skirt rising from the floor and your hand braced on the wall as you held the flame to the lamp’s wick until it, too, caught. When you pulled back, he realized he’d been staring, and quickly averted his gaze towards his candle as you turned towards him.

“Come on now, I won’t do it for you. I’m still paying you, you know..”

That you were. He pushed all lingering thoughts of you from his mind and moved to join you at the opposite wall, easily reaching up to light his own lamp.

The two of you finished, predictably, in half the time it would have taken him ordinarily. You met him at the center of the corridor and raised your candle to your lips, blowing out the flame easily.

“There we are.” You gave him a grin, leaning forward to nudge his shoulder with your own in a very unladylike motion. “All done, and nobody even saw us. That’s a success if ever I’ve seen one.”

Shigaraki nodded in agreement. “Thank you, my lady.”

“Thank you, Shimura, for joining me outside. I enjoy your company. I’ll have to steal you away more often.”

And you were gone just like that, disappearing back to your bedchambers with your candle in hand.

“Captain, you’re not paying attention at all.”

Shigaraki’s head snapped away from the sun setting over the water to face Magne. She and Dabi sat staring at him, the map of the manor spread out, forgotten, on the makeshift rocky table between them. They occupied a small, hidden cave on the shore of an island not too far from the one that housed Takami’s manor—the Decaying Lady couldn’t stay nearby, but Shigaraki decided to use his day off while Takami visited as an opportunity to meet with his crew.

“What's troubling you?” Magne continued.

“Please don’t,” Dabi drawled, “we don’t need to have a heartfelt talk, we need to make a plan.”

Magne shot him a glare before turning back to Shigaraki. “Ignore him. Tell me.”

Shigaraki frowned. “I don’t think they’re in love.”

Magne and Dabi exchanged a brief bewildered look.

“Who?” Magne asked.

At the same time, Dabi raised an eyebrow and said, “Takami and his fiancé?”

Shigaraki nodded. “Why are they getting married if they’re not in love?”

His two underlings sat quiet for a moment, clearly processing his question and how best to respond. He understood—he wouldn’t be asking it if the answer were simple.

Finally, Magne piped up. “I’ll be honest, captain, I thought we all knew it was unlikely they were in love.”

“Power,” Dabi cut in. “Power and wealth, that’s the answer. Love is rarely the reason for marriages among people of their stature, boss. Figured you’d know that.”

What? That was—no. That didn’t make sense.

“I’m still not following.”

Again, his companions exchanged a look.

“Takami’s a decorated naval officer. He’s respectable, young, up-and-coming. She has wealth and titles, and comes from a good family. That’s the exchange. No love necessary.” Dabi shrugged. “That’s what marriage is for—more prestige, more money, more power. It’s that simple.”

“But she doesn’t have wealth, or power—they’re not hers, they’re her father’s. So what does she get out of it, if her husband doesn’t even love her?”

“She maintains her comfortable lifestyle. It’s not as if she has much of a choice; if her father deems Takami a suitable match, that’s it. What else could she need?”

Dabi said it so simply, like it was obvious. Shigaraki was beginning to feel foolish. He no longer liked the conversation, and he didn’t fully grasp what was so obvious about marrying for anything other than love.

“You’re a romantic, captain,” Magne said. She sounded endeared more than anything; almost proud of him. “I am, too. I’d never marry someone I didn’t love. Dabi’s just a cynical bastard who doesn’t believe in marriage.”

Dabi scoffed, but didn’t deny it, not that it was any kind of surprise for the acerbic, closed-off quartermaster.

“Enough of this,” Shigaraki said. “Get back to work.”

Shigaraki found you on your favorite roof the first day he returned.

It was foolish of him, but despite knowing that he ought to be focused on asking other servants about how long Takami would be gone for or any changes to the scheduling, he couldn’t help but feel drawn to you. It was as if he couldn’t focus on his mission if he didn’t know how you were doing.

“I missed you, Shimura,” you said to him as he stepped out behind you. “I didn’t quite realize just how much I’ve been enjoying your presence until you were gone.”

“Sorry, my lady. I had family business.”

“So I was told. I hope all’s well.”

“It is. My sister’s recovering and I have a healthy baby niece.”

“That’s good.”

The conversation lulled. Shigaraki would have responded, but he got the feeling you wanted to float in the silence for a moment. He sat down a little ways behind you instead. You leaned back, bracing yourself on your palms and looking out over the water with a wistful, and perhaps a little bit melancholy expression on your face. He waited for you to speak.

“I wanted to sail, you know. When I was a child. I loved the ocean. My father would take me on his ships while they were docked.” You sighed, glancing down at the gown you were wearing like it had insulted you. “But that’s not a woman’s place, certainly not a lady’s. Keigo is my father’s inheritor. I’m just… a prize. A reward for my fiancé’s good work. Another medal to gather dust with the rest of his impressive collection—just, one that comes with heirs.”

Those words were almost angry—a sad, long burned out kind of flame like you were tired of it. You’d never said it before, not openly, but now that you had Shigaraki realized he’d known. It was obvious in the way you continually asked him not to use your title, the way you fiddled with your ring like it burned you with every second it touched your skin, the way your smile faded at the mention of your fiancé: it wasn’t simply that you didn’t love Takami, you held hatred there, a smoldering ember in your heart. And if there was hatred, then perhaps…

No. That was a dangerous thing, the plausibility that you might be as willing to throw Takami to the wolves as Shigaraki and his crew were to be the pack. It made his mind go to dangerous places, think up dangerous alternatives, imagine dangerous outcomes. But that would be so much more complicated; killing you was cleaner, right? No chance of you returning.

Still, a little thought in the back of his head grew louder, more defined. You weren’t the lovesick fool he’d assumed you’d be—you hated your engagement, perhaps even hated Takami. If Shigaraki offered you an answer, a way out… would you take it? Would you go willingly?

Wouldn’t that be poetic. Better than offing you, better than making Takami wallow in his guilt, better than forcing him to bury you; have him live knowing you left him, willingly, without hesitation. His fiancé running off with his rival.

Shigaraki liked the sound of that.

But he had to make sure, so he tentatively inched himself closer. “Do you hate him?”

He didn’t bother asking himself why he sounded so cautiously hopeful when he said it. All part of the act.

“Keigo?” You turned to your companion, and at his nod you sighed before returning your gaze to the sea. “Do I? Perhaps. I hate plenty of things about him, plenty of things that he represents. But do I hate him? That’s a question I don’t believe I have an answer for.”

“Does he… not care for you?”

You laughed bitterly, short and curt and almost dismissive. “I haven’t an answer for that one either, Shimura. Does he? He cares about what I can give him. He cares about my wealth. He cares about my status. But me? My father wants Keigo as his son. Keigo wants my title and my good breeding. And so, the transaction is made.”

There was still so much left unsaid, unexplained. Shigaraki moved forward further, now standing right next to you at the edge. “You told me before that the commodore enjoys… company. How are you not included in that?”

You wrinkled your nose in distaste. “My fiancé likes the chase. He likes to pursue, to draw a woman to his bed or earn an invite to warm hers. He likes to be denied and then welcomed, a push and a pull, something to be entertained by—and, trust me, he hasn’t given that up despite putting this ring on my finger. I was never a challenge. I’m… boring. I’m guaranteed. I have no choice but to sit here surrounded by servants who refuse to call me by my name and wait for him to return from his far more alluring exploits.”

There were a great many things Shigaraki should have thought upon hearing such information. The only thing that rattled in his brain, however, was that either you were a fool for thinking any man could be blind to your charms or Takami was even more of one for actually denying you the affection you well deserved.

Far more alluring exploits. Shigaraki had been to countless islands, met countless women who found his reputation appealing. He doubted it was possible for a woman more alluring than you to exist. If Takami truly took you for granted and neglected you for however many harlots might cross his path, then, well, he deserved to have you plundered.

“He’s a fool, then,” Shigaraki sneered, angry and vicious. Subconsciously, surely, he’d known all along, but for some reason the way you spoke, so forlorn and bitter and scorned… he barely had time to tack on a, “My lady,” to the end.

You gave another laugh. This one was happy and tinkling, lilting with genuine amusement and (though it might have been wishful thinking on Shigaraki’s part) affection. “You know what I like most about you, Shimura? All the others refuse to say my name. It’s always ‘my lady’ or worse: ‘Mrs. Takami.’ You, though… you hesitate. Every time. Sure, you say it anyway. But it’s an afterthought. That’s how I know you’re talking to me for real.”

He caught the hidden meaning to that—he was getting better at reading between the lines of your words. The others only saw you as Takami’s fiancé, but he saw you as your own person. Perhaps it was foolish (there were, of course, so very many people who didn’t have the luxury of living in an enormous manor enjoying the wealth their family accumulated over the years, all work being done by the staff), but Shigaraki couldn’t help but feel sorry for you. Having all those people around you but never even hearing your name, the only man who bothered really talking to you one who didn’t love you and was largely absent—it had to be lonely.

There were so many things about you that were enticing, but chief among them was a lust for adventure that you couldn’t quite hide from him. He could see it in the way you looked at the ocean, or talked about the sky; down to even the way you breathed, like you wanted the air to smell different, less stale. You wanted to be out there, not stuck in this manor, and to Shigaraki’s own surprise he found himself yearning to be the one who’d break you out.

“Of course, my lady. I enjoy talking to you,” he said at last, having realized you were waiting for him to speak. “If it’s not too forward of me to say, I missed you in my absence, as well.”

It would be a lie to claim he was entirely surprised to find that he meant it.

“It’s not too forward at all,” you assured him. “In fact, I’m glad. It means this friendship isn’t quite as one-sided as I feared.”

“Well, I consider you a friend. More so than the rest of the staff, to be honest. That’s probably foolish of me.”

“If that makes you a fool, I’m just as guilty.”

No, you weren’t. You at least thought he was a simple servant—he’d allowed himself to get attached to you knowing he was living a lie.

You could never be a fool.

Shigaraki’s duties within the household had long included cleaning in the room everyone referred to as the armory (it was a silly name, in his opinion, because really it just housed Takami’s fancy unusable swords that sat on walls collecting dust).

It was still one of his favorite rooms in the manor. Though many of the swords were decorative and completely useless, just as many were expertly crafted, perfectly balanced weapons that Shigaraki couldn’t help but admire. He would, of course, be taking all the good ones in the upcoming raid—the others could melt with the home’s flames.

The first thing he noticed this time around, though, was that there was a new sabre displayed on the wall.

It was fairly ornate, the handle intricately carved, almost delicate in its complicated, swirling design of metal shaped to look like the ocean’s waves. The blade was well-used, though; it was clearly not simply for display, and it was just as clearly well cared for, the steel polished and sharp and the leather grip newly re-wrapped.

“That used to be my father’s,” a voice said from behind him.

Shigaraki whirled around to find you leaning against the open door frame. You pushed yourself off and walked in, coming to stand next to him in front of the sabre.

“Pretty, isn’t it?”  You reached forward and traced the leather grip with one finger. “When I was a kid, he’d let me play with it. The women on his staff would throw fits—they always said I’d lose an eye or a finger—but his crew loved it. Though, to be fair, they loved most things I did.”

His mind’s eye conjured up an image of a little you, five or six years old, swinging around the sword half your height. It was an undeniably adorable thought. He understood why your father’s crew would be taken with you. “I’m sure you were a very charismatic little girl, my lady.”

“Oh, you flatter me, Shimura, but you’re wrong. I’m still a charismatic little girl.”

Well, one of those things was correct. Though he might not quite use charismatic if he were to say it—more like enthralling, or captivating.

“Keigo brought this sword last week. He visited my father while he was gone and, well, was given this. He has his own, though, so here it sits.”

Shigaraki knew all about Takami’s sword; that preposterous, gaudy thing designed to look like it was fashioned from birds’ feathers. It was probably dreadful to clean—in fact, he hoped it was. He hoped even the slightest of inconveniences were as bad as they could possibly be for the commodore.

“Which one’s your favorite?” It seemed like a simple enough question, but he knew you well enough now to recognize the playful glint in your eye. Apparently, though, you misinterpreted his hesitation, because you gave him a slight nudge with your shoulder and laughed lightly. “Come now, Shimura, you’ve been combing this room weekly for months now, surely you must have a favorite.”

You were planning something, he just wasn’t sure what. Either way, he didn’t particularly mind playing into your skillful hands. He lifted a finger and pointed towards a sword tucked into the far corner.

It was one of the few blades in the room that wasn’t displayed proudly. Shigaraki had recognized it immediately, but Takami obviously didn’t know what it represented—and to be fair it was an unassuming weapon on its own, decently crafted and plain in design. But it was the sword Shigaraki had once used, back when he was the captain not of the Decaying Lady but of the All For One, and there was only one other blade in existence that held a candle to it: the one he used now, handmade, beautiful, the sword of the pirate king. The one he pointed to wasn’t that of a king, but of a prince; but he had been a prince before, and so it was still his.

He’d thought it lost, waterlogged at the bottom of the sea with the remains of his other ship. He couldn’t wait to take it back.

Following his indication, you turned around and made your way to where it sat propped against the wall. He watched you pick it up by the handle, hefting it in one hand, and for half a moment he had the absurd fleeting thought that you’d laugh at his choice (why would you? You were hardly the type to do so. And why would he care, however unlikely it was?).

Instead, you turned back to him and tossed him the sword.

He caught it on impulse, slightly panicked by the sudden motion but managing fine enough not to fumble and let it fall to the ground.

“It’s simple, but I have to say you have good taste. That was always my favorite before but, well, I’m awfully biased. I don’t know the story of that one like many of these others, or I’d regale you with it. I’ve never been inclined to even hold any of these things, they’re all Keigo’s really, but…” trailing off, you reached out purposefully and lifted your father’s sword off its display. “This one’s rightfully mine.”

He heard every minute word you implied with the resentful tone you took for the last sentence. For whatever reason, despite everything, to you this was the worst of Takami’s crimes: a stolen sword, your father’s legacy. His grip on his own sabre tightened.

“That’s a solid grip. It looks almost like you’re used to holding a sword.” Oh. That was what you were getting at, then. Couldn’t you have just said it outright? He looked up at you, meeting your eye just as you said what he expected. “You know how to use it, don’t you?”

“Yes, my lady.”

You raised your father’s sabre, shifting your fingers on the hilt, and he realized that you also looked like you were used to holding a sword. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from the way your hand circled the leather; he remembered how soft your skin was every time you took one of his own offered hands. He was captivated by the firm hold you had, the controlled maneuvering of your wrist as you lifted the blade to face him.

“Let’s spar.”

Your words really shouldn’t have surprised him. In a way, they weren’t exactly unexpected, just jarring.

He should have said no; he was supposed to be a servant boy, why would a servant boy know how to use a sword? But that rational voice was completely drowned out by the part of him that selfishly wanted nothing more than to see how well you could use one. Would you be playful? Would he hear one of those laughs that made his chest grow warm and heavy? Would you bite your lip or stick out the tip of your tongue like you did when you were concentrating hard on something? You looked so confident; was that founded? He wanted to find out. There was nothing more important to him at the moment.

“Okay,” he agreed, and raised the sabre in his own hands to cross yours.

Nothing could have prepared him for how good you were.

You had him on the ropes within the first few seconds, startling him with how fast you lunged and how skillful you maneuvered your blade. He’d planned on pretending to be far worse than he truly was, going through the motions and blowing the fight, but it was clear with your first strike that it would have been unnecessary.

He blocked your blow and the familiar metallic sound of the blades meeting sent a thrill down his spine. He met each of your following attacks with one of his own, but you kept one step ahead of him. Those few seconds before he’d truly begun to spar with you were proving to be his downfall; you were easily as good as he was, and you weren’t letting him fall into his normal rhythm.

Your blades crossed in front of his eyes, half a moment of calm allowing him to say, “did your fiancé teach you this, my lady?”

He knew the answer—Takami was good, but your technique was just different enough from his that you’d certainly been taught by another. You were impressive, but a bit textbook, clearly never having been in a real fight like himself or the Seahawk.

The grin that lit up your face was impish as you struck again and he deflected. A harsh, exhilarating clang of metal on metal rang out in chorus. “My fiancé doesn’t even know I can fight.”

The statement made Shigaraki’s heart skip a beat. He held back his own grin, one that would surely have been embarrassing. The fact that you trusted him but not Takami with something like this—your knowledge of this elaborate, intimate dance—made his heart swell with smug pride.

But beyond that, the fight itself was something special. Somehow it wasn’t so violent when he performed it with you rather than an enemy, or even a member of his crew. Dabi was a favorite sparring partner, but even when they weren’t truly aiming to harm it was harsh and unloving. With you, it was different. It was softer, somehow almost affectionate.

If anyone could hear his thoughts they’d think him insane. Affectionate. Yes, of course, you were so very affectionate as your steel bit into his cheek and left a thin mark that oozed red; as you pushed him backwards and pressed further. He must be some form of deviant—not that such a thing would be surprising. He was a damn pirate.

Apparently, that train of thought was his downfall. He didn’t notice your foot, hidden deceptively by your billowing skirt, darting out. It hooked around his ankle and pulled him down to let gravity slam him heavy into the floor.

It was over in an instant. His sword was out of his hands with a flash of your own, his back was against the ground, and you were standing with your foot on his chest, pointing your own sabre down at him.

He was frozen, unable to move, and he was very certain it had little to do with your blade mere inches from his throat. His eyes were glued to where your hand gripped the handle (firm but easy, somehow perfectly natural in your manicured fingers), entirely unwilling to let himself look anywhere else for fear of how he might react.

You had other things in mind. You moved the sword minutely, softly tracing up his throat and then under his jaw until the tip rested just under his chin. Then, just as soft, just as slight, without threat and merely bidding him to do as you desired with a silent motion, you applied more pressure and tilted his head upward to meet your eye.

You were still breathing heavily, staring down at him with that wondrous gleam in your eye and a wide, victorious smile lighting up your face. His heart was pounding in his chest, so loudly he almost feared you could hear it. He watched, captivated, as you broke that brilliant smile by drawing your lower lip between your teeth.

And suddenly he was thankful beyond reason for the wretched sword that kept him down, because if it weren’t there he would have kissed you.

The urge was abrupt and overwhelming when it washed over him. He wanted to lunge upward and pull you down, connect his lips with yours, feel you in his hands. He wanted to knock the wind out of you and flip you over just to hear the way you’d giggle—and the breathy way your laugh would stutter off when he’d press a heated kiss to your throat in retaliation for your steel. The sword that kept him from acting out his desires was the cruelest and most benevolent thing in the world.

“I win,” you announced, voice low, intimate and jubilant.

He swallowed thickly.

You plagued his thoughts every moment from then on. It was like you’d carved your name in his heart; he couldn’t rid himself of you. He thought about you before, of course, so very intelligent and capable and enthralling and pretty. Now, though… call it his own unconventional proclivities as a pirate, but the memory of you pointing a sword at his throat ran through his head every second of every day. The mere thought of it exhilarated him—your heaving chest, your triumphant smile, the steady grip of your hand on the saber’s hilt. He’d catch a glimpse of just your finger and his mind would fog up to the point of disuse.

It was probably obscene for a servant to be thinking so excessively about his lady. Luckily he wasn’t really a servant boy, and the pirate king could think about whoever he damn well pleased for as long as he desired. Still, he tried his best not to let any other staff catch on to his newfound infatuation.

His best wasn’t enough. He knew that they whispered to each other, and they whispered warnings to him as well, advising him not to pursue anything. He appreciated them though they weren’t particularly applicable. By the time Takami learned of Shigaraki’s closeness with you, he’d be long gone (and, perhaps, you with him). But more importantly it was through these warnings that he came to terms with the fact that this infatuation was hardly newfound. It had been brewing for some time; the sparring match had merely been the boiling point.

You kept shooting him fleeting glances, too. You’d seek him out more often, speaking with him in darkened corners and private balconies away from peering eyes, your smile bright and demeanor cheerful. You seemed happier than he’d ever seen you. It was, perhaps, a little arrogant, but he liked to believe it was because of him.

You took him out on little secret adventures, too. He could always tell when you were planning them; you’d spend the whole day in this strange mood, staring at him when he wasn’t looking but never addressing him directly, that all too familiar sparkle of mischief a permanent fixture in your eye. That was how he wasn’t surprised when he found you waiting for him a few hours after the sun had set.

“Come with me,” you ordered.

“Where?”

“Just come.”

And so he followed dutifully behind you through the jungle behind the manor, led by the wrist you were pulling. You held a lit oil lantern in your other hand, but aside from that the winding path you led him on was illuminated only by the full moon and brilliant stars above. Soon enough, the two of you emerged from the trees to find a cove—small, with pale white sand, sheltered by enormous rock outcroppings that surrounded it. He didn’t recall ever seeing it from the Decaying Lady before; it must have been largely camouflaged when looking from the sea.

“Pretty, right?”

Shigaraki turned to you to find that you had set the oil lamp down in the sand and were bending down to unlace your boots. You were right on the edge of the water, soft waves coming up almost to the edge of your skirts, and you looked like you were glowing with the silver moonlight coming from the sky and reflected in the water.

“Yeah,” he said. “Really pretty.”

The snort you let out broke him out of his daze. You were looking back at him with an amused, flattered grin and a raised eyebrow. “That was awfully cliche, Tenko.”

You’d been calling him that too, he’d come to notice. You’d thrown away his last name, only using his first. The intimacy of it didn’t escape him; though he’d long given up that name, he still liked the way you said it.

You were headed towards the water now. He rushed forward to grab your wrist and pull you back. Shigaraki had long come to foster a healthy dose of respect for  the sea—the cove might have seemed calm, but he didn’t want you getting too far out at night while he was still on shore.

“Wait for me,” he demanded, letting go of your wrist to hurriedly bend down and take off his own shoes. He haphazardly cuffed up his pants in the vain hope that they might stay dry, though he had a feeling you wouldn’t let that happen.

When he finally rose to his full height, you were watching him expectantly. “Ready?”

“Yes, my lady.”

That was all you needed as you, in turn, took hold of his wrist again and pulled him into the water. He probably ought to have been thinking about other things—the tides, the temperature of the water, what little sight he had in the moonlit sea—but his mind couldn’t focus on anything other than how nice it would have been to maneuver his hand within your grip to lace his fingers with yours.

He was right about getting his pants wet. Within minutes, you’d dragged him out until the water reached his knees, his mid-thighs, up to his waist—and you would have kept going if he hadn’t stopped you.

Even in the dim light of the night sky, he could see you pout. But he held fast, keeping you from going deeper. In silent retaliation, you dropped down into the water to your shoulders.

The sudden motion made a laugh bubble up within him. Even the lower half of your face was below the glimmering surface, your eyes glinting up at him with that impish sparkle. He had no time to react when you lashed out with your arm and pulled him down with you.

Shigaraki plunged under for mere moments, not nearly long enough to worry him. When he surfaced, he stayed crouching like you, bobbing his head up in the air. You cackled, the sound echoing in the silent night—you had so many different laughs, all so captivating and gorgeous. He thought he could die happy listening to any of them.

This one, though, bid him to retaliate. So he raised his hands and splashed you, causing a small wave of saltwater to drench that little very top of you that had yet to be submerged. Your sputtering, surprised protests were downright adorable, making him grin wildly.

“Oi!” you shouted. “You can’t do that!’

“Oh dear, did I get you wet?” You splashed him back; it was almost pathetic compared to his, so he told you as much. “Is that all you have to give me, my lady? Weak.”

You sank down into the water again, up to your eyes, but Shigaraki was ready when you lunged this time. Instead of letting you pull him under, he caught your arm and pulled you towards him, launching the two of you back towards the beach and hauling you up out of the water with him until the two of you stood, laughing uncontrollably, in knee-deep shallows.

He realized he was still holding you only when the laughter began to die down. He pulled his hands away regretfully—how he wished so desperately he didn’t have to—and the two of you stood there in comfortable silence, you looking out at the dark horizon, him staring at the flickering flame of the oil lantern that stood guard dutifully on the beach.

You broke the silence with a simple question. “Where did you learn to sword fight, Tenko?”

“I taught myself.” That wasn’t entirely a lie—his master had been cruel in his teachings, offering no proper instruction and simply making Shigaraki learn by picking up a sword and fending off attacks. It had left him with more than a few scars, though those were long faded and covered up by far more recent ones by now.

A cold wave slammed into the back of Shigaraki’s knees, threatening to pull him down into the saltwater again. It likely would have succeeded, if not for you surging forward to grab his arms and steady him with a laugh. It made him smile, your laugh, as natural and involuntary as his heartbeat. You led him back away from the water, out of the sea until you two were right on the edge with waves only just caressing your bare feet.

“Your father taught you to fight, didn’t he, my lady?” Shigaraki asked.

Your smile was fond, if a little sad. Your tone reflected the same when you spoke. “My father always wanted a son. My mother died in childbirth, and I was their only child. He was devastated. He never remarried, but he raised me lovingly, teaching me so many of the things he wished to share with his son. My love of the sea and sky are inherited from him, as are many of my eclectic talents, my skill with the sword among them.”

“Did he teach you to use a pistol, too?”

“Yes.” God he wanted to see you shoot. You laughed. It faded quickly, though. The faraway look that appeared in your eye as you looked out towards where the moon was reflected in the glassy waves. “Sometimes it feels like he was the one Keigo courted, not me. For every letter or gift I received from my fiancé, my father got two. And when he visited he’d spend all his time in my father’s study. If he had been the one to ask me, I probably would have said no. But he asked my father, and my father told me, and he was so happy that I couldn’t deny him. It wasn’t as if I had any other prospects. And Keigo’s a fine enough man, he isn’t cruel to me, he lets me have my eccentricities. If I’m to be married to a man I don’t particularly like, I’d much rather he be absent than overbearing.”

A fine enough man. The way you spoke made Shigaraki’s blood boil, though he wasn’t angry at you. Your standards shouldn’t be that low—a man who simply wasn’t cruel to you instead of adoring you; one who allowed your eccentricities rather than cherished them. And for what? So that your father could have a son? If your father truly loved you, shouldn’t he have seen how Takami did not?

“Tenko,” you said, breaking him from his thoughts. “Don’t waste your hatred on Keigo. I knew coming into this agreement that he wouldn’t stop finding company in others. Marriage for women like me is rarely for love. My relationship with him is transactional.”

The words were coming forth before he could think about them. He’d realized long ago that such a thing was hardly rare when he talked to you. You simply had a profound effect on him; one which made his careful consideration go fuzzy, made him struggle to keep up the act. “You deserve someone who loves you, my lady. Someone you love back.”

Your back straightened. You turned your head just barely so that you could settle your gaze at him through the corner of your eye, lids heavy and face unreadable. “That’s a romantic thought, Tenko. Naïve, I think, but romantic. I used to daydream of it as I used to daydream of sailing. But it’s just as out of reach, just as cruelly close and unattainable as the sea.”

“What if it wasn’t?” He needed to stop talking. “What if it was right here? A man who loves you, ready to take you away on his ship?”

Shigaraki tried to keep his breath steady. He tried to keep his expression innocent. He tried to convince you that his question was merely hypothetical.

He hoped you knew, somehow, that it was anything but.

“What kind of a question is that?” The tremor in your voice made him think you might.

When he didn’t respond, you turned to him fully, further explanation coming easily as it always did from you. “He loves me? He would never tire of me, abandon me, move on? Despite the fact that I’d no longer be an advantageous match? He’d be devoted, he’d hold my hand, he’d whisper sweet nothings to me as I cast away the only life I’d ever known for the uncertainty of his sea?”

Yes, yes he would, all of it, everything for you. You deserved it. He didn’t have a mansion or servants or fancy medals but he had a crew, a ship, a heart that would be yours if—

No. He hadn’t offered yet. He hadn’t even asked the others, and he wasn’t about to invite you to join him if his crew didn’t want you.

But if he did offer, and if you said yes, he would give himself to you for the rest of his life. If you said no… it would break his heart to let you go, surely, but not so much as if he killed you. He’d let Takami have you, if that was what you so chose—even if he knew you’d be happier with him, cherished, treated the way you deserved to be.

Shigaraki didn’t say any of that, though. “He loves you,” was what he said, as if those three words could get across every sentiment he wished so desperately to tell you.

“I suppose our views on love are much the same, then.” You caught a little bit of it, clearly—at the very least you understood that to him, love meant everything you’d described. You blinked, that all too familiar gleam shining in your moonlit eye, like you were picking him apart at his seams and knew exactly what made him tick. Your voice when you continued held an equally familiar tone—that one you used when you wanted to tell him something hidden, laced with double meaning. “If this hypothetical, mysterious sailor is also a man of similar opinions, then yes. I’d go with him.”

A cold wave washed over Shgaraki’s feet. Everything you said, everything you did, everything you made him feel, it was all so intoxicating. And dangerous. Like steering his ship in a storm, every sentence you spoke a bolt of lightning threatening to sink him—except he wasn’t so sure was opposed to getting hit.

Scratch that. He’d been struck by your lightning months ago (and every single day following the initial bolt), and he wasn’t opposed at all. In fact, he liked it. A lot. Wasn’t that why he wanted you with him?

He pulled you down onto the beach. Your surprised, jovial yelp stole the breath from his lungs as cold water washed over the lower half of his legs.

It had been nearly a week since his spar with you, and every moment he’d spent with you in that time, however fleeting, had tempted him to kiss you. He was hungry, starving, and yet was forced to hold himself back despite the fact that there was nobody around and he was braced over you with arms splayed on either side, holding his face above yours.

You made this whole thing so very difficult. It was your fault—you looked so goddamn kissable, staring up at him with starlight and that exquisite twinkle in your eye, pleading with him to throw away any sense of decorum he needed to maintain for the sake of his cover.

But his self restraint held just strong enough to resist. He rolled off you, ignoring or perhaps imagining the tiny whine of disappointment you let out as he fell back in the sand and looked up at the sky with you.

He raised his hand, finger pointing to a random spot. “What’s that one?”

Your snort was anything but ladylike. “That’s not a constellation, silly. Have you been listening to me in the slightest?”

Yes, he had. He just wanted to hear the amusement in your voice caused by his mistake. More importantly, though, if he was lucky…

And he was. You raised your own hand, fingers reaching up to press against his palm and redirect his pointing, heedless to the way your touch set his skin alight.

“That’s Cassiopeia. She’s one of the brightest constellations in the sky. And right here, next to her—he’s harder to see, she outshines him—that’s her husband, King Cepheus.”

“You want to spare the fiancé.”

Shigaraki sat at his desk in the captain’s quarters aboard the Decaying Lady, looking over the dark wood at Dabi, who had repeated his statement in an incredulous tone.

“I want to ask her to join us.”

Dabi stared at him like he’d grown a second head, seemingly having said all he was capable of. In various spots throughout the small cabin, the rest of Shigaraki’s skeleton crew lurked—Kurogiri, Himiko, Jin, Atsuhiro, Shuichi, Magne, his closest companions. Every other person aboard the ship was irrelevant, ever changing and only loyal enough to keep alive, but these seven were steadfast, they’d been with him since before the All For One sank; he wouldn’t take on an eighth without their approval.

“Why?” Dabi finally said, no less flabbergasted than before.

“She’s intelligent, educated, not bad with a sword, likes the ocean.”

“Likes the ocean.”

“Are you just going to keep repeating everything I say?”

“Likes the ocean…” Dabi scoffed. “If that’s all it takes to be a good pirate, then my seasickness and I make a godawful one.”

“You’ve managed,” jeered Shuichi.

“She has insider knowledge of the navy, too,” Shigaraki piped up. “She’s valuable enough.”

Atsuhiro narrowed his eyes at him. “You’re reaching, Shigaraki. Why would you—“

“Captain,” Dabi interrupted, bored like always, “if you tell us you’re sweet on this girl I’ll mutiny.”

Shigaraki sighed, slumping back in his chair as he kept eye contact with Dabi. “And if I told you I was in love with her?”

Whatever Dabi’s answer might have been was drowned out by Toga’s squeal of excitement.

“Romantic! Tell us more!” Jin said. “Disgusting! Stop talking!”

“How dreamy,” Magne sighed.

“She’s a prissy high class lady, Shigaraki,” Dabi drawled. “Don’t let a pretty face make you forget that she’s Takami’s fiancé.”

“Trust me, I’m well aware,” Shigaraki grumbled. He drummed his fingers on his desk, irritable, annoyed at himself for his feelings—angry at fate that it was so damned difficult. Couldn’t you have just been a servant girl?

He didn’t even have the heart to wish that you were a shrew; he didn’t want to imagine never having fallen for you.

“Would she join?” Finally, from the back, Kurogiri spoke up.

Shigaraki sat up straighter, meeting the older man’s eye—his caretaker, his oldest companion, the most experienced of everyone in the room. If Kurogiri denied him, Atsuhiro and Shuichi would follow suit, and that would be it. “I think so.”

“Have you asked her?” Kurogiri raised an eyebrow.

“Not directly. I’m not so brainless or selfish even in love. I wouldn’t ask without seeking your collective permission first—that’s what this is, of course. And I’d never tell her who I am or my intentions if she had an inclination to foil our revenge plot—which she might, of course. I’m not a mind reader. But in a roundabout way, yes, I have asked her and received a positive response. But I have to admit… despite how careful I’ve been, I’m starting to think she knows.”

“Knows?” Dabi repeated.

“That I’m…” Shigaraki rolled his hand forward dismissively, trying to find the right phrasing.

Atsuhiro finished for him before he could find it. “That you’re Captain Shigaraki Tomura of the Decaying Lady, the pirate king, inheritor of the All For One and rival of her fiancé the Commodore Takami Keigo? That you’re there to steal her wealth, burn down her house, and kill her? Or that you’re madly, illicitly in love with her?”

“All, I suppose.”

“All, he supposes.”

Shigaraki fixed Dabi with a chilling glare. “I’m growing tired of your repetition, quartermaster.”

“Understood, captain.” Of course he understood—he just wouldn’t stop. The insufferable grin on his face said as much.

“How long?” Kurogiri asked.

That could have meant two things, so Shigaraki answered the easiest. “I began getting suspicious about two weeks ago. Though, admittedly, it might just be wishful thinking.”

Shuichi looked stunned. “You want her to know you’re a pirate infiltrating her home?”

“He wants her to know the real him,” Toga said dreamily. “He wants her to be in love with who he truly is, not his alias. How cute!”

That wasn’t exactly how he’d have phrased it, but it was close enough. Apparently the look on his face got that across.

“Gross,” Dabi groaned. “You look like you’re about to start penning poetry.”

Jin turned to him. “Let him be, it’s sweet! I agree, it’s revolting.”

“You’re quite positive that she’s expressing interest in you?” Kurogiri sounded concerned. Coming from any of the others, Shigaraki might have taken offense. But he knew what Kurogiri was truly asking.

“If she doesn’t return my feelings then she’s having good fun playing with them.” Shigaraki could hardly bear the prospect of that.

“Toying with a poor infatuated servant boy’s feelings is exactly the kind of thing women like her find entertaining.”

Shigaraki fixed Dabi with another glare, this one far more scathing. “You don’t know her. I’ve spent three months with her. She’s close with other members of the staff, but she’s different with me. She seeks my company, alone. Yes, I’m confident enough that she returns my affections.”

The way you talked to him was just so fond, stark contrast to the bitter way you spoke of Takami. How cruel of you to give him such hope, if you really would reject him.

“Then, it seems, we have three most likely possibilities.” Atsuhiro raised a gloved hand and held up three fingers. “One, that she’s entirely oblivious to the captain’s true identity and believes she’s fallen for a servant boy, in which case revealing who he is might scare her off. Two, that she’s well aware of who he is and has fallen for him anyway, which is the scenario most likely to lead to her agreeing to join us. Or three, that she knew immediately and has been playing our young, strapping captain for a fool the entire time, plotting with Takami to foil our revenge plan from the start.”

Shigaraki’s shoulders slumped as he heard the last scenario. But, even if it were the case… “It’s not as if I’ve told her our plans. Even if she were acting against us, she wouldn’t know when we planned to make our attack, and we know from sources other than her that Takami is days away.”

No harm done if it was the case. But Shigaraki hoped beyond reason that it wasn’t.

“Fine.” Dabi seemed at least slightly placated. “We’re voting on this, then?”

Shigaraki nodded. “Yea or nay, whether I’ll ask her to join.”

“I’m unconvinced. Nay.”

That was hardly surprising. He highly doubted he’d ever have been able to sway Dabi’s opinion without the man having met you. He knew, though, that if you joined Dabi would warm up to you eventually, and certainly not antagonize you too excessively until that happened.

“I think we could use more women on the crew!” Toga was grinning. “I vote yea!”

Next to her, Jin spoke. “A lady friend would do you good, boss. Yea.”

“Perhaps I’m being overly cautious here, but I’m not a fan of the risk.” Atsuhiro cocked his head. “My vote is nay, though I would very much like you to prove me wrong.”

“I think it’s incredibly romantic.” Magne gave another wistful sigh. “Yea.”

“I… agree with Atsuhiro.” Shuichi sounded disappointed in himself. “Nay, but… only barely, I suppose.”

They were even. That wasn’t good. Shigaraki looked towards Kurogiri in the back, the tiebreaker. More than that, though, Kurogiri’s approval was more important than the others—not to the voting system, but to Shigaraki. Sure, he hadn’t met you, he was passing judgement on someone he had yet to know, but it was a question of whether he had a desire to know you, and Shigaraki certainly wanted that to be the case.

Kurogiri didn’t speak for a time. He stood and stared at Shigaraki for a good few heartbeats, as if he was trying to find the right answer from his captain’s face. Shigaraki felt like his heart was going to explode. Finally, he nodded, and quite simply said, “Yea.”

“That’s four to three,” Magne announced. “Yea’s take it.”

Shigaraki nodded his thanks to Kurogiri, and the man only returned it.

“I’m asking her to join, then. Tonight.” And if you said no, he’d get you out before the manor burned. But the others didn’t need to know that. “You’re dismissed. You all have jobs to do.”

They all filed out quickly, mingling with each other. Only Kurogiri stayed—certainly because he wanted to speak with Shigaraki more about you, the woman who’d stolen his former ward’s heart.

Before they could have that discussion, though, Dabi paused at the door.

“For the record, captain,” he said, still sounding disinterested and not facing the man he addressed, “she says no, she never deserved you.”

And with that, he left.

They attacked at night. Dabi’s eyes practically glowed as he spoke of the way the manor would burn so brilliantly, teeth sharp in a smile that carved through his scarred face. Shigaraki led his crew through the town and back towards the building he’d called his temporary second home for three months.

It felt odd to stride through its halls in his usual captain’s garb. Accustomed to the simple clothing of a poor worker, the sound of his boots and the weight of his large coat almost threw Shigaraki off. The sword and pistols strapped to his body, too, were strange.

The staff had already evacuated by the time they arrived. Atsuhiro, having scouted ahead, informed him that you’d chosen to remain in your bedchambers; though he hadn’t seen you, nobody had. Shigaraki had no way of knowing how you were taking things. Were you melting down? Had you predicted this, and were completely calm?

Was Atsuhiro wrong and you’d left the manor already, and Shigaraki would never see you again?

Jin and Himiko were immediately taken by a set of golden candlesticks. Magne made a beeline for the crystal and Shuichi went for the silver in the kitchen. Atsuhiro was admiring the paintings on the walls; Dabi didn’t bother doing the same for the various medals proudly displayed in elaborate cases. Their captain, though, had his mind on a far greater prize than any of them.

Shigaraki practically sprinted up two flights of stairs, leaving his companions behind to pillage. It was careless—he ought to have been more cautious, the possibility that someone remained hardly slim, but his mind was racing far too much to think clearly.

You weren’t in the sitting room, so he went through it and made for your bedroom. He’d only been in about two times—neither with you, but enough that he gathered how it was undoubtedly a barren, lonely space. Takami’s room was his study, but this one was hardly your sanctuary. You’d always preferred the library.

You were standing at the window on the opposite wall, back to him, when he opened the door. The light of an oil lamp on your desk and the full moon outside were the only things illuminating the room.

You didn’t seem scared, but you didn’t move—not even your head. You stayed there, eyes fixed on the horizon, even as you spoke before he could open his mouth.

“Hello, Tenko. Or Shigaraki, I suppose you’d rather.”

You knew.

He should have been cautious, or suspicious, or tentative. He should have wondered what you had planned, but instead the knowledge thrummed within him like the beat of his heart. You knew, you knew, you knew.

You knew who he was. How long had you known? Did you put two and two together during the raid? Was it sometime over the months you’d been growing closer to him?

“I was going to kill you,” he admitted. “I was going to burn you with the manor.”

He wanted your laugh to be sorrowful, wanted to feel the ache of his heart as you acknowledged his betrayal. Instead, it was bittersweet, and the words that followed made his mouth feel dry. “That’s a horrible way to die, Tenko. How cruel, punishing me for your rivalry with my fiancé.”

“I thought you were in love with him.”

“But I’m not.”

“You had no reason to return. If I took you and told you not to come back, you wouldn’t try. So I was going to kidnap you, dump you off at a town where he’d never find you, and threaten you for good measure, to ensure you’d stay away.”

“Would you have visited me?”

Shigaraki bit his lip. “Monthly. Me, or a member of my crew. To make sure you stayed hidden and followed my instructions.”

“How kind.” Kind? He’d just admitted he’d met you with the intent to murder you—that he’d planned to kidnap you, imprison you, force you to live in exile. And you called him kind?

You raised your hand. He was mesmerized by the motion, eyes tracking your fingers until they came to rest on his chest. When had you gotten so close? No—no, you were still standing at the windowsill. He had walked to you. He had closed the gap, magnetically drawn to you like his heart was the needle of a compass and you the stalwart northern pull.

“Would you like to know something, Tenko?” Your gaze flitted upward from your hand at the same time as his. Your voice was low, like you were telling him a secret. Your eyes were hooded.

He couldn’t even answer verbally, only managing to nod and hope that it didn’t seem too desperate—not that he could hide anything from you, with the hazy look on his face and his erratic heart and the way his breath hitched when you said his name.

“I knew the whole time.”

The whole time. You’d known from the start. You’d welcomed him into your home and let him accompany you alone and even put a sword in his hands—and you’d known.

“How?” he breathed out, mind still foggy and far too focused on the heat of your palm through the thin fabric of his shirt.

You shrugged, the roll of your shoulders drawing his greedy eyes to the slope of your neck, your collarbone, the low neckline of your gown. “Keigo keeps journals meticulously. I get bored.”

Of course. That was exactly the kind of thing you’d do, wasn’t it? Sneak into your fiancé’s study and read his journals; find the childhood name of his nemesis and remember it well enough to catch on immediately when the new servant introduced himself. Shigaraki had to fight the smile that threatened to bloom on his face.

“Why, then? Why didn’t you tell him immediately?”

You gave a quick, quiet huff of laughter. “Why? I don’t know. When we met I was reading a letter from him, the first one I’d gotten since he’d dropped me off at his own home and left not even a day later. Perhaps I was feeling vengeful. Perhaps I was simply taken with you on sight. But then by the next week, well, I was fascinated by you, and…”

You trailed off, almost sheepish, and the implication of why made Shigaraki’s heart skip a beat.

“And?” he asked, practically pleaded, desperate to hear you say it.

You picked that up—of course you did—and tightened your hand on his chest, gripping his shirt in those fingers that held him hostage. His eyes were drawn to your mouth as you bit your lip; he was fairly sure you’d done it on purpose.

“And perhaps it became something beyond enjoying your friendship. Perhaps I found myself falling for the roguish pirate king disguised as a servant boy.” Perhaps. His heart soared, his mind running wild wondering how long you’d been pining and if it had been nearly as intense as his own. Your hooded eyes scanned his face, reading him like one of your thick books. “Your turn, Tenko. What do you want with me?”

Well, now that you were asking, it felt awfully presumptuous. I want to steal you away was quite the statement, but it was the truth. Shigaraki wanted you to run off with him, he wanted to throw you over his shoulder and carry you to his ship, he wanted to sail away with you—he wanted to nab you right out from under Takami Keigo’s nose, no longer simply for the humiliation and anger that he would feel knowing his fiancé eloped with his greatest rival but because the damn peacock didn’t fucking deserve you.

You, so beautiful, so enthralling, so loud and boisterous and bright. You, stuck in the manor like a bird with wings clipped by your fiancé who spent months at sea seeking the company of other women because he found you boring. As if you, with your brilliant mind and your lethal sword and that unimaginably radiant glint in your eye that always made him want to fall to his knees in adoration before you, could ever be boring—could ever be anything but downright extraordinary.

Takami’s fucking loss, really. Boring. Because the women whose beds he warmed must have been so much better. Shigaraki doubted the chase you claimed Takami loved so much was anywhere near as thrilling as your grin when you held the point of your sword at his neck, your unreserved cackle at midnight on the manor roof, the way you took him by the hand and led him into cold seafoam under the cover of night. His rival had that handed to him on a silver goddamn platter and the fool hadn’t even bothered.

“You’d make one hell of a pirate, my lady,” Shigaraki said finally. For the first time since he entered the room, his voice was steady and confident.

There. He’d said it, laid the card right there on the table for you. Hopefully you wouldn’t balk away.

But you pulled your hand from his chest, and he felt his heart go with it.

“Is that so?” you asked. Shigaraki ached at the heartbreak in your voice, low and pained as you took a step away from him—the most you could take—and turned back towards the window.

What had he done wrong?

As always, you were one step ahead of him, ready with the right words to express your implication while he was left mute. “Do you want me? Or do you just want to make sure he can’t have me?”

Yes. He wanted you. Takami was insignificant.

He reached for you on instinct, hand on your upper arm. He’d touched you before but now, with the context of lady and servant drowned in the waves beyond the window, the feeling of your soft skin beneath his hand exhilarated him. It wasn’t enough, even as his other hand came to rest on your waist from behind. He knew that even if he gave in to the little voice screaming at him to pull you in and hold you as tight as his strength could allow, it still wouldn’t be enough. He couldn’t possibly hold you close enough, but oh how he’d try if you’d let him.

Shigaraki moved without thinking; no cognition, just instinct. His lips were pressing against your shoulder before he could stop, and despite the fabric of your gown preventing direct contact he felt the way you shivered under his kiss.

“I want you,” he murmured, muffled by fabric but loud enough that you heard—loud enough that you melted back into his body with a soft sigh, guided by his hand inching its way around your waist. “The Seahawk is irrelevant.”

He could feel the hitch in your breath and, for the first time, realized that perhaps he had you enraptured just as you did him. That instinct took hold of him again and he didn’t bother pushing it down; he placed a second kiss right on the edge of your gown’s fabric, half of his mouth making contact with the soft skin of your shoulder.

“I want you,” he repeated, as much for himself now as for you, breathless and giddy and terrified. A third kiss, fully on bare skin, almost to the nape of your neck. It was so illicit, the full contact making it more real than anything else—yes, he was kissing you, you were letting him place his wicked mouth on you, you were encouraging him to do it.

“I want to steal you away.” He let his lips follow up the side of your neck and then along the line of your jaw, a tender, featherlight kiss between every word pressed into your skin, emboldened by the way you turned your head to beckon him closer.

The scene he staged with you was completely profane, servant boy latched to his lady’s jaw, holding her in no decent manner—but he wasn’t a servant anymore, no, he was the pirate king Shigaraki Tomura, here to pillage every treasure within his enemy’s manor, and you were undoubtedly the greatest treasure he’d found.

He removed the hand not wrapped around your waist from your arm to tenderly grasp your chin, turning your head so that his greedy mouth had more access as he continued to breathe out words between kisses. “I want you at my side. I want you to be the first thing I see when I wake. I want you to be mine just as I’m yours.”

He hesitated before he met your lips. The hunger to kiss you for real, that ache he’d had to push down for weeks, roused itself stronger and more powerful than ever before, but he hesitated.

Shigaraki had always been bad with words. You’d always known how to break the silence, elaborate on your thoughts without his prompt, and he cherished that about you. He loved listening to your voice. Actions, though, were his forte—and this long-awaited kiss was an action he’d been craving to take for far too long.

He withdrew. It didn’t escape him how you tried to follow, pushing back against him and raising your hand in an attempt to keep him at your jaw. The feeling of you physically lamenting his retreat spurred him onward as his hands flew to your waist and firmly, quickly, spun you about to face him. He allowed himself a single heartbeat of hesitation to take in the view of your surprised expression—your eyes wide, those teasing lips parted just slightly, head tilted upward towards him. And then just as quickly, just as suddenly, without hesitation or restraint as he threw any semblance of moderation out the window behind you, he drew his hands up to cup your face and finally, finally pulled you into the kiss he’d so desperately been wanting.

If Shigaraki had ever held any kind of notion that his infatuation would be appeased by a single kiss, that once would be enough and his hunger would be satisfied, then he was wildly wrong. It was like this was his first sip of the finest wine and he was now addicted, except that had been the case long before he’d even gotten a taste. He’d become addicted by the mere thought of it, his own imagined fantasies of how it might taste when he finally got it, and now that he was truly digging in at last it was overwhelming and enslaving in the most glorious of ways.

Yet still, that wasn’t quite right, because a fine wine was a luxury and he could live without luxuries. Your kiss was more than a simple luxury; it was a necessity, for now that he’d gotten that first taste he felt he might die if he couldn’t continue having it. The finest of wines wasn’t quite accurate—it was a breath of fresh air, it was the sustenance that kept him moving, it was the very lifeblood pumping through his veins.

Your lips were softer than he could have possibly imagined. The smell of your hair flooded his senses. You were the most heavenly thing he’d ever tasted. And oh, when you sighed, he not only heard the sweet, breathy sound but felt the vibration in his mouth and his hands.

Shigaraki pulled you up further, pressed closer to you. Following the slope of your neck, his left hand migrated downward, and then came to stop with his thumb on your throat, his fingers spread wide across your nape. One of your own hands flew upwards in response, threading through his hair and then tugging desperately.

It drew a noise from him that could only be described as a whine. He might have been embarrassed, except that you seemed to very much enjoy it, if the way you renewed the kiss was any indication. Your lips moved all the more frantically, your other hand coming up to join its twin (his hair was going to be a verifiable rat’s nest when he finally pulled away and damn him if he didn’t wear the messy locks with pride) as you fell backwards until the small of your back hit the windowsill. He felt the bob of your throat under his thumb as you swallowed thickly.

That was what got him to pull away—not a desire to end the kiss, but a sudden urge to latch his mouth onto that throat you so indecently exposed to him.

He moved his thumb to place his lips there, open-mouthed and wanton. His other hand dropped from your face to wrap itself once again around your waist, pulling your whole body flush against him. And he spoke again, breathless, murmured against your delicate skin, raw and unrestrained and throwing caution to the wind.

“Please,” he begged, no longer caring how weak he might sound because he wanted you to know just how damned weak you made him. “Please, come with me. I need you. Please.”

“Yes,” you breathed in response, hesitation kissed from your very mind. “Yes. I’m yours.”

Two simple words. It was all you ever had to say.

Surging back upward, Shigaraki captured your mouth again with a kiss somehow more searing and frenzied than the last, relief and euphoria and enthusiasm buzzing in his veins—you said yes, you wanted to come with him, you needed him like he needed you.

Your hands left his hair. He whined again—any loss of your touch was devastating—but that devastation was nothing compared to the way he felt when those hands came to his chest and gently, but firmly, pushed him away.

He was panting when he followed your silent request. He almost felt like a fool for how much his heart plummeted, standing there looking at you silently. His heart beat heavily in his chest and he counted the beats as you regarded him with a soft expression.

“Don’t look at me like that,” you said finally, voice thick with some heady mixture of desire and apology and endearment. “You look like a kicked puppy. We can kiss all we want on your ship, captain. But we can’t stay here.”

Oh. He quite liked the way you called him captain. He tucked that into the back of his mind to bring up later. Of course he knew that the two of you had to leave, but couldn’t he have just one more kiss? He’d waited so very long. He’d been so very patient.

Apparently, like always, he wore that sentiment on his face, because you raised your hands to cradle his face as he had yours when he initiated that first kiss, and leaned in. He closed his eyes, anticipating the feeling of your lips once more, but they didn’t fall on his—they fell upon his nose, which scrunched up at the sensation.

Then you were gone.

His eyes shot open. You were no longer standing between him and the window. He whirled around frantically (really, what had you done to him—Shigaraki Tomura,the pirate king, lost and desperate when you weren’t in eyesight) but he found your form moving towards your desk. He met you there swiftly and snaked both arms around your waist so that he could bury his head into the back of your neck.

“What are you doing?” he asked. “I thought we had to go.”

“I’m writing a note. To Keigo. I figured you might want to sign it.”

“Oh?” Shigaraki pulled up, resting his chin on your shoulder to read what you were hastily penning down.

He didn’t bother trying to bite back his grin. You were brutal, scathing yet so brief as to be dismissive. It was hardly three sentences long, a simple goodbye and good riddance. Then you signed your name (your name, oh your name, he mouthed it into your shoulder as you wrote, already so sweet and natural on his tongue despite not vocalizing it just yet) and held the quill up to him.

Shigaraki took it, not bothering to let you go as he signed his own name right below yours, the ink merging with the dried letters above to create a beautiful union.

“It’ll burn with the manor if we leave it here,” he said into your neck, having turned his head back into it before he’d even set down the quill.

“I was planning to leave it in the foundation outside for him to find.”

The fantasy played in his mind’s eye: Takami racing home in his ship far too late to do anything at all to stop it, coming through the town and up the cliff to the smoldering remains of what used to be his opulent manor, just the stone foundation and charred wood left—and your note, tucked away for his keen eye to find, telling him that his fiancé had left with a servant boy who was really the pirate king, a story corroborated by the mouths of the staff who would let him know that the man had gone by the name Shimura Tenko.

“You’re so perfect.” Shigaraki pulled away (as much as he didn’t want to) trailing his hand down your arm until it found your palm and then lacing his fingers with yours. He used your interlaced hands to guide you away from your desk, lifted yours to his mouth, and placed a kiss on your knuckles—then he turned it over and landed a second on the inside of your wrist.

“We’re never getting out of here,” you whined.

“You should stop distracting me, then.”

“Only if you stop getting distracted by me.” You leaned in, batting your eyebrows in an exaggeratedly coquettish manner that probably shouldn’t have made his heart skip a beat the way it did.

He raised his free hand to press his pointer finger teasingly against your forehead and push you away, just slightly. “Brat.”

“Am I no longer your lady?” You poked out your lower lip, and Shigaraki had an overwhelming urge to kiss away the pout you were giving him.

He blinked instead. Then he turned towards you fully, grasping your other hand to lace your second set of fingers with his, and looked down at you with an impish grin.  “I thought you didn’t like the titles?”

You cocked your head, giving out a low hum that indicated you were pondering. Then you lunged, gripping both his hands stronger to yank him down so that you could connect your lips with his.

The kiss was sweet but over far too soon, lingering and leaving him wanting more as you pulled away—and promising more, more which he could hardly wait to partake in when the two of you finally made it to the Decaying Lady.

“It’s grown on me coming from these lips,” you sighed. “I quite like the sound of being your lady.”

“Do you now? Well, then,” he let go of your hands to grab your waist and lift you up.

You let out a noise, something between a slight yelp and a giggle, that made him lean in to kiss your throat again. The way it faded out, became breathy and giddy, was something he’d dreamed about—but the reality was far better.

He started for the door, your arms coming to wrap around his shoulders as you continued to laugh and enjoy his sudden insistence on carrying you. “Let me take you to my ship, my lady.”