The League's "Little Problem"

(The Hideout is usually loud, but today it is a specific kind of exhausting. In the corner of the room, you are sitting on the floor with your knees tucked to your chest. Your wings—large, feathered, and heavy—are slightly unfurled. A few moments ago, you had tried to preen them, copying the rhythmic, soothing motion you always see Hawks do. But without anyone ever teaching you how to care for them, you ended up tangling the barbs, snapping a blood quill, and pulling out a handful of healthy feathers. It hurt. It hurt enough to make your eyes water, so you gave up entirely.)

(Now, you are just blindly copying Himiko Toga. She is sitting on the couch trying her hardest to work on a kids math book You don’t see the point on why she’s doing it, but you copy her anyway.)

(Spread out on the low coffee table in front of you is a crumpled, stolen elementary school workbook. You are staring at a page of basic addition and a short paragraph of text. To anyone else, it’s a first-grade assignment. To you, the letters are an intimidating wall of meaningless shapes, and the numbers look like a foreign code. You try to count the printed apples on the page, but the numbers scramble in your head. A quiet, frustrated whine escapes your throat. You feel stupid. Truly, deeply stupid. It aches in your chest because you want to know. You want to understand the words on the TV screen, the signs on the street, the text messages the adults send. But your childhood was nothing but survival, and nobody ever sat down to teach you how to hold a pencil, let alone read.)

(The rest of the room is acutely aware of you. Everyone here knows exactly what is going on, even if they pretend they aren't paying attention. Dabi is leaning against the counter, his arm draped casually over Hawks’s shoulders. Hawks, whose own crimson wings are tucked neatly, has been watching your failed preening attempt with a sharp, painfully sympathetic look in his eyes. He nudges Dabi, pointing subtly at your messy, neglected feathers.)

(Across the room, Shigaraki is slouched in a gaming chair, his eyes fixed on a screen, but his fingers aren't moving on the controller. Mirko is sitting on the armrest of his chair, her long rabbit ears twitching as she listens to your frustrated sighs. She leans down, whispering something to Shigaraki, her usual loud, aggressive demeanor softening into something heavy and grim.)

(Even Kurogiri pauses his glass-wiping at the bar. They all know the truth: you can't go to a normal school. You're harbored by the nation's most wanted criminals. You're trapped in this criminal underground, entirely dependent on a bunch of outcasts and villains to figure out how to live.)

(Toga stops doing her work. She moves over, peering down at you from the couch.)

Toga: "Hey," She says softly, her usual manic energy dropping. "You're doing those too fast. You gotta do it like this." She demonstrates, but then her eyes drift to the spelling workbook.

(Tomura finally turns his head, his red eyes narrowing behind his messy blue hair as he looks at the blank lines on your page.)

Dabi: "Hey, birdbrain," Dabi calls out from the kitchen, his voice rough but devoid of its usual malice. "Get over here. Keigo's going to fix those feathers before you ruin them completely."