III. From the Cage We Fly

Chapter Two

"Stop being so insolent. Sit down." Touya doesn't move from the middle of his room, chest heaving and panic clawing its way up through his stomach and into his throat. He doesn't trust himself to speak, he feels hoarse and raw from his screaming. No matter how much he wants to take a step back, towards the safety and solidarity of his cell- he can't move.

Endeavor sighs and motions again towards the chair on his side of the room.

"Touya, don't make this harder on yourself. Sit. Down." Though Touya has started to go by his birth name again, hearing his father call him that is foreign and it leaves a bad taste in the back of his throat. He feels like he's nothing but a helpless child again.

He supposes that he is pretty helpless in his situation though.

Through some higher force, Touya manages to take a hesitant step forward. And another one. He comes up short and looms over the back of the plastic chair. His quirk cancellation handcuffs feel like bear traps against his bony wrists- he's long since lost feeling in his hands and fingers. Occasionally Touya will force himself to twitch a finger just to remind himself that they're still there. He tries not to do that too often though, the screaming of pins and needles surge up with every movement of his cold hands.

Endeavor stiffly motions for him to sit again, this time its accompanied with a terse sigh. Never the man for patience, Touya finds himself thinking. His eyes shift from the controlled hand gesture of his father and his faint reflection in the glass captures his attention.

He looks like a stranger.

Since being put in prison, they had made sure to erase all case of identity. What stares back at him only makes the bile grow thicker in the back of his throat.

Outfitted in a loose white cotton tee shirt and sweat pants, Touya's fairly convinced for a fleeting moment that he's locked away in a hospital- fated to wither away like a fading wallflower upon a crumbling wall, just like his mother.

The uncomfortable bite of his handcuffs brings him back to reality. Touya's eyes study the bandages on his arms through the reflection, a faint recollection creeps on the edge of his mind. Right. They took out his medical staples and piercings. Seeing those bandages wrap around his arms, shoulders and neck only further pushes the feeling of being a child again.

Each ticking second feels like an unbearable stretching of an hour and Touya can't help but to feel like he's spiraling into the dark depths of memories he thought he suppressed once and for all. His hands clench within their steel containment, the prickling of his fingers makes Touya tighten his jaw. Counting again would be futile now and instead, Touya takes the only solace he can claim.

Endeavor's scar that covers nearly the whole left side of his face. A mar to remind Endeavor of his own cruelty for the rest of his days.

He wonders if he would've been able to actually kill Endeavor that day. Would he have been able to follow through with Hawks at Endeavor's side?

Would he have had to kill the both of them to make things believable?

Would Touya have been able to stare down into Hawks' honey eyes, wide with fright, and strike him down the same way that he had with that heroine, Brisk, back in Hosu?

Would he have been able to live with himself after that?

Touya decides that he's thankful that Miruko decided to hop into the middle of things that day.

Though, he can't help but to feel bitter that he's stuck in here because of Hawks to begin with. Maybe Shigaraki was right and he should've picked someone else to deal with Hawks in the beginning.