Birds of a Feather

Oh, you say that now...

          Hawks was very quiet on his end of the phone now, which was extremely rare for him.
"Hawks?" Karasu asked gently, tapping the back of her phone nervously. She didn't want him to be mad at her- she was worried he'd react by pushing her away again. "Are you upset?"
"Upset isn't the right word. Or maybe it is, I don't know." He said slowly. "First thing, why do you want to find Mom all of a sudden?"
Karasu sat down on the roof and laid back, looking up at the clouds in the sky above her. "It isn't really sudden for me, if I'm being honest," she admitted. "Listen. You have been the greatest thing for my life, seriously. If I could go back in time, I'd make every decision the same. Without you, who even knows where I'd be at this point. But I've always... wondered what Mom is doing. The HPSC bou- adopted you when you were like... what, eight? Nine, maybe? I lived with her until I was twelve. I want to make sure she's at least okay."
Hawks made a small noise and was quiet again- but he took a deep breath and responded, "you're right. I've thought about it myself too, lately. Despite everything- I guess she's still my mom and I don't want her to die or anything."
Karasu let out a relieved sigh. "I was worried you'd be mad at me for asking."
          "Final question about this- for now." Hawks said, and suddenly he landed on the roof behind her and hung up the phone. He had a strange, unreadable expression on his face as he looked down at his little sister. "You said you've always had the thought. So why now?"
Karasu stood up quickly in surprise, brushing her clothes off before pushing her phone into her pocket. She didn't look him in the eye for this answer, tugging nervously as a piece of her hair. "I want to know why she left me." Her voice was quiet, like she was ashamed of the answer.
A wave of guilt washed over Hawks as he looked down at his little sister. He knew that the reason she was thinking about this again was because of what he'd said to her in the street when they had fought. As much as part of him genuinely wanted to locate their mother, another hated her for any part she had played in either of their lives. Part of him had felt as though their mother had chosen Karasu over him- until his little sister had found him and he saw the state he was in, that is. "I'll put some feelers out first thing tomorrow, okay?" Hawks pulled her into a hug. "If at any point, you change your mind about this- you can tell me. I'll pull the plug. I don't care if I've located her, contacted her, whatever. You're the top priority here, so as long as you're saying 'go' for this it's happening."
Karasu hugged him back. It made her happy to hear him say things like that again, he hadn't said it since before their fight. She stepped back and finally looked up at him. "I hope you're being honest, that this isn't a problem for you."
"I don't love it," he admitted, "but I get it." He ruffled her hair, smiling as she swatted his hand away. "My goal is, and has always been, to keep you safe and happy."
She smiled now and hugged him again. "You really are the best older brother I could ever ask for."
Hawks grinned and hugged her back. "You've kinda been a headache over the years," he teased her as they stepped away from each other. "Okay. I actually need to get going. See ya soon, kid. Talk to Shoto about all of us getting together sometime, and I'll talk to Endeavor."
          "Okay!" Karasu called up to him as he flew away and let out a relieved breath before she flew back to the lawn. At least he isn't mad at me about this. She pushed her hair out of her face and grinned when she saw her boyfriend standing on the porch waiting for her.
"I saw Hawks land on the roof when I got dropped off." Todoroki said as she walked up to him. "I figured he'd only show up here to talk to you."
"To be fair, it could've been Tokoyami," she pointed out and kissed his cheek quickly.
"That's fair." He slid his hands around to the back of her waist. "Is everything alright with him? Why'd he come all the way here?"
Karasu liked being held by him, it was the time she felt the most safe and normal these days. "I had something I needed to talk to him about, and I guess he was just nearby." She shrugged, playing with a button on his shirt. "I want to try and find my mom."
His eyebrows raised in surprise. "Really?" He asked her carefully, trying to sound like he was genuinely curious and not questioning her decision. "Are you sure?"
"Mostly," she admitted. "It's just something I need to do. Part of me wants her to know what she's missed, you know? She chose to leave- to not fight any of what was happening, to not try and find a middle ground, to vanish without so much as a last goodbye to me. I need to know why she made the choices she made. Why she didn't even mention me in her letter to Hawks."
Todoroki nodded. "I can understand that." He knew what it felt like to have that feeling of emptiness where a parent should be- and she had it from both ends.
"She probably saw at least Dabi's broadcast and Hawks' press conference with Endeavor and Best Jeanist. Potentially my broadcast as well, but mine wasn't as widely watched as either of those were." Karasu leaned her forehead onto his shoulder and took a deep breath.
"If anyone knows what it's like to have and navigate an extremely complicated relationship with their parents and their siblings, it's me." Todoroki said as he tugged her closer.
She smiled slightly before she pressed a kiss to his lips. "Okay. We should get inside before Iida comes out here to chastise us for PDA on the porch."
He smiled and kissed her back a little longer than she had kissed him initially, holding the back of her head. "As much as I'd rather stay out here and do this, you're probably right." He kissed her temple as he slid one arm around her waist to keep her close as he walked into the dorm building with her.
カラス
           Hawks landed on the end of his street, shoving his hands into his pockets. Theoretically, he could just land on his lawn but walking to his house allowed him to get a little taste of normalcy, one of the few he'd ever gotten in his life. It had felt more normal when Karasu was living with him- having the kid he was raising waiting for him at the gate every evening. She'd started doing that only a few months after she'd come to live with him- it had been the first sign that she was warming up to him. When she'd started asking questions every evening the second he got onto their lawn, he'd realised she was lonely. Being raised by the HPSC, he'd never really been around peers growing up so he had forgotten that she might need some. That's why he'd started bringing her along whenever he knew other pros would be bringing relatives of a similar age to her. After a lifetime of keeping secrets, she'd been too nervous to make friends. Then again, that has been part of the point of UA. He hadn't really considered that she might end up falling head over wings in love with Endeavor's youngest son, but that had turned out to be one of the best things for her too. He unlocked his front door and stepped inside, closing and locking the door behind him. The empty house still felt foreign to him when he came home each day. He missed his sister.
           Hawks walked upstairs to Karasu's room, sliding the door open and leaning one shoulder against the frame. He had decorated the room for her himself before he'd gotten custody- he'd thought it would make her see how much he valued her and having her here. That it would feel less like coming to a strange place, and more like coming home.
It hadn't.
She hasn't changed most of the decorations, though. It had taken him a couple years to realise she did that out of consideration for him. When he had asked her, she told him that no one had ever done anything like that for her. That it made her feel special.
That had almost broken Hawks' heart.
And for all the times she said his sense of decor was tacky, she'd taken a fair amount of what he'd chosen for her almost five years ago with her to the dorms. He walked to her window, brushing his fingers over the star chart she'd drawn on her window. She'd written notes about how their star signs worked well together- and he noticed a little further away notes about Todoroki as well. There was a split between her notes about his star chart, and below it were notes about him. They started off with notes about their friendship, and quickly turned almost into love notes. Hawks almost never went into his sister's room to respect her privacy so he hadn't seen them before.
At the bottom of the window was a small note, the ink wasn't very sun faded so it was probably from just before she moved to the dorms.
'I wish I could talk to Mom...'
           She wants to find Mom. Hawks sighed as he left her room and closed her door, turning back down the hallway to his kitchen. He filled his electric kettle with water and turned it on, leaning back against his porch. He hadn't told his sister that he'd known where their mom was living before she had run to, in her words, stop making trouble for him. He'd been afraid she would pick Tomie over him for the longest time, and after a while he was worried it would just cause her pain to be in any contact with their mother.
No, he thought, that's a lie I've always told myself. I'm worried it'll cause me pain to be in any contact with my mother. I'm worried I'll have all my own feelings of terror and abandonment come rushing back to me when I see her in person. I'm worried she'll only care about Kara and have little to no interest in me. He sighed as he picked out a tea bag for himself and set it in his mug. I'm worried I'll still hate her.
Hawks had hated his mother for years after he'd been basically sold to the HPSC by her, and again after he'd seen how she let Karasu face another form of neglect despite her financial ability to support her. The only benefit he'd seen to the fact that he was taken from his mother would have been her ability to care for his at-the-time baby sister.
I'll talk to her before Kara does. I need to make sure she won't do or say anything to upset her. While her letter did seem pretty stable and regretful- she didn't mention Kara at all, which makes me even more wary about this entire thing. This has the potential to crumble the last of my little sister's self esteem if it goes wrong. So if I see it going wrong, I need to be ready to pull the plug before that can happen. He poured the boiling water into his cup and set a timer on his watch to steep it, walking to his fridge and pulling out his carton of milk. Hawks couldn't deny that one of the things he was curious about regarding his mother was, in fact, her reasoning for leaving her daughter behind. She'd already lost one child to the HPSC- so it confused him that she seemed to willingly give up her second as well.
He removed the tea bag from his tea and poured in the milk when his timer went off. "Mom... where the hell are you?"
カラス
          Karasu leaned her head on her boyfriend's shoulder as they sat on the couch in their dorm building. Everyone from classes A and B were buzzing around, a small group of them sitting on the couch for quieter conversations. Normally, Karasu would be with the more lively crowd- but for at least a moment, she just wanted to stay beside Todoroki. She was actually currently wishing they could just sit on the porch and be alone for a moment but that would probably result in some sort of lecture from Iida on socialising or something.
Karasu turned to look and see who was around them; Bakugo was seated on the other side of the same couch as them, Shoji and Tokoyami seemed almost to be dozing in the couch directly catty-corner to them. Kuroiro was seated on the couch directly across from them, not-so-subtly staring at Komori.
I'll keep that in mind, Karasu smiled to herself. She curled her hand around Todoroki's arm and smiled as she leaned her head on his shoulder.
           Todoroki pulled his phone out of his pocket, reading through the text his father had sent him. "Endeavor said he'll confirm an evening for everyone to sit down together," he said quietly. "He says all the work study students will be there, too."
"I don't want to have dinner with your family again, IcyHot!" Bakugo said immediately.
"Hawks'll tell Shinso when he informs him he's being taken on in a work study with him," Karasu informed him as she sat up to look at her other classmate. "Tokoyami, Hawks will be in touch officially but all of us are going to take an evening to have a sit down with Endeavor and his work study students as well as the rest of the Todoroki family to set a plan going forward."
Tokoyami nodded. "Thank you for informing me, I look forward to it."
"Oh, you say that now..." Karasu joked as she settled back beside Todoroki. "Although Fuyumi and Mrs. Todoroki do make the best food, so I'm excited to have that again."
"Mom said you can call her Rei, you know." Todoroki looked down at her.
"I physically cannot, Shoto." She told him and kissed him quickly. "Okay, as much as I'm loving this, I'm going to go be social for a while."
"I'll catch up with you later." He kissed her back before she stood up.
          Karasu smiled, letting her fingers slip from his as she walked over to the crowd.
"Decided to tear yourself away from Todoroki?" Shinso joked when she reached where he was standing.
"I decided to give him a break," she joked back. "Are you having fun? I know things like this aren't necessarily your scene, but-"
"It's actually pretty fun." Shinso admitted, looking around at all the people chatting. "I still definitely feel like an outsider because of how good of friends you all are with each other, but I do appreciate all of you doing something to welcome me."
"If you're trying to suss out who to make friends with besides me, I suggest Ashido." Karasu said as she grabbed a soda out of the fridge. "Will you open this for me?"
"Yeah," he did so and raised an eyebrow as he handed the can back to her. "Ashido? Why her, specifically?"
"I think she'll help liven you up." She answered as she took a drink.
"Like you and Todor-" Shinso paused and turned back towards her. "You're trying to set us up, aren't you?"
Karasu paused, glancing at him over the edge of the can. "What? No. I'm just suggesting someone I think you'd like as a friend to you."
"How did you ever survive that undercover mission?" He laughed and shook his head. "Y'know, I'll think about it. In a friendly way, not in a romantic way."
"That's also how I go Todoroki, just so you know. I asked him to be my friend." She said with a sing-song tone, turning her gaze over to her boyfriend. He was sitting on the same couch as Kuroiro now and chatting with him. He looked over at her and smiled as they locked eyes for a moment. Things like that still had the power to give Karasu butterflies. She appreciated that she never had to wonder if he was still in love with her- in his way, he made it clear. He didn't even mind that everyone around them saw it as well. That was something about him that had surprised her; he was such a private person typically, but not about her. He didn't care if everyone could see how in love he was with her, he even preferred it that way.
"This is most of what being in this dorm is like, isn't it? You two making eyes at each other all the time." Shinso sighed.
"I'd be lying if I said no." Karasu grinned.
"So does this mean our sparring lessons are over? Now that I'm in the hero course." Shinso asked as he leaned against the counter, turning his attention back to her.
"Probably." She looked up at him. "I mean, you will be part of our training now. Meaning at some point, you'll get the crap beat out of you by everyone, not just me."
He gave her a look.
"Okay, okay. With your quirk and knowing everyone in this class... you actually probably have a fighting chance. Except maybe Tokoyami, he's not much of a talker." Karasu smiled as she looked around at her classmates. "Although maybe Dark Shadow. I wonder if you could hypnotise him. That might actually get a reaction from Tokoyami."