Chapter Summary: Tokoyami and Spinner discuss science and ideologies while bonding over their mutations.
Chapter 5: On the Nature of Things
One day the weather turns cold, and Tokoyami can feel the frost sinking into his bones. He huddles up under the meager blanket, missing his cloak and clothes. Dabi took them yesterday, claiming they smelled – and after a week in them, he really wasn't wrong. Tokoyami was given the privacy to bathe with a cloth, soap, and water from the sink, but Dabi had refused to give him clothes until he was done. It was an unnecessary tactic. Even if he was willing to attempt escape while naked, there were no windows in the bathroom.
The League "gifted" Tokoyami with ill-fitting sweatpants and a black shirt that couldn't have smelled much better than the clothes he'd been wearing. He still felt naked and vulnerable in them, especially without his choker. The only things he had left that were truly his own were the guitar strings and his flashlight. They were so useless that Dabi had laughed and wished him luck playing the air guitar when he pulled them from the pocket of his sweatshirt before handing it over. Perhaps he could tie the strings together and strangle himself if things got truly desperate, but he doesn't want to die.
Tokoyami shivers and tugs the blanket tighter around himself. He doesn't mind cold weather personally; cloudy skies mean that Dark Shadow can safely come out without the threat of losing control, and Tokoyami feels at home in his heavy black clothes. These borrowed clothes are thin, however, and the fluorescent lights provide neither heat nor comfort.
He's often wondered how the villains manage to fund (or steal) enough electricity to leave the lights around him constantly, and now he's beginning to believe it's at the expense of heat. When winter comes the heroes might not need to fight the villains in order to win. Snow could trap or freeze entire League.
"Except for Dabi," Tokoyami thinks. "He stands a good chance of melting his way out."
"I don't like him," Dark Shadow thinks.
"Because of his fire?" Tokoyami asks.
"Because he keeps taking pieces of you. ...and also because of the fire," Dark Shadow replies.
There's the sound of footsteps outside his door. Tokoyami untangles himself from the blanket just in time for the door to open. It's Spinner, grinning at him and hiding one hand behind his back.
"Hey, kid! Oh-" Belatedly, he knocks on the inside of the door. "Can I come in? Didn't meant to wake you."
"I wasn't sleeping," Tokoyami says. "It's rather hard to do with all the lights."
Spinner frowns. "Guess it would be. But hey! At least you have your own room."
"I have my own room at home. This is my prison cell, complete with surveillance," Tokoyami replies, gesturing to the camera in the corner.
"You could turn this into your room anytime, you know, no security required. You just have to prove that we can trust you," says Spinner.
"I don't want this room, or anything else you're offering. I'm not telling you anything about my friends or my school," says Tokoyami. His response is practically robotic at this point. The villains ask for information every day, and his answer hasn't changed. So far they've only tried to lure him with promises of freedom or power, but he knows one day soon his luck will run out. Shigaraki has looked ready to disintegrate him from day one.
Spinner sighs and shakes his head. "I didn't come here to argue with you. I brought a present. Just don't tell anyone."
He pulls his hand out from behind his back and proudly displays a metal box with a grated front. Tokoyami frowns at it. "A radio?"
Spinner scoffs. "No, a space heater! It was my turn to check on the security feed. I saw you shivering and, well, it's fucking cold today. I'm supposed to be keeping an eye on you, and this room is small so it'll be warmer for both of us anyway."
Tokoyami blinks. "Oh. I – thank you?"
"Don't mention it!" Spinner replies, setting the space heater down in a corner. "Seriously, don't mention it. Shigaraki thinks if you cool down you'll be easier to work with, but I don't want to see you catch pneumonia or something. I don't know a lot about birds, but I do know they fly away for the winter."
"I'm not a bird," Tokoyami replies, a bit offended by the (common) assumption. "I do not share their behaviors."
"Liar," Dark Shadow prods. "You sing, you collect things, together we fly!"
"I'm not a lizard, either. Doesn't mean I can't learn a thing or two about them and use it to take care of myself." Spinner tugs on his jacket and rubs his hands together in front of the heater as it begins to warm up.
It takes Tokoyami longer than it probably should to work out why the villain has a portable space heater in the first place. "You're cold blooded."
"Kind of?" Spinner says. He pulls over a chair, spins it around, and sits on it backwards. "I'm sensitive to cold weather, but I can regulate my own body temperature."
"Reminds me of—" Tokoyami clamps his beak around Asui's name. He refuses to give the villains even that much information about his classmates, particularly when the knowledge could be used against Asui. He'd rather keep the villain focused on him. "Not all corvids migrate, you know."
Spinner cocks his head. "Corvids?"
"Corvidae – a family within the order Passeriformes and the class Aves, or birds. It includes crows, ravens, rooks, jackdaws, jays…"
"And you?"
"No. I am homo potentia," Tokoyami replies, glad that science is one of his better subjects. It's a fascinating time to study biology, after all. The world's top scientists only recently agreed that, genetically, most people are no longer homo sapiens.
"How about me? Got any big words for lizard man?" Spinner asks.
"Homo lacerti, or perhaps crocodilia, of the class Reptilia," Tokoyami replies. "I do not know your quirk well enough to presume more than that. But that's not really what you are. You're the same as I am, and everyone else with a quirk. Homo potentia – powerful man."
Spinner grins. "I like the sound of that! I kind of like homo lacerti, too. Maybe I should change my name – but nah, I can't go around calling myself a homo. Er, no offense if you're gay. No one here cares, unlike all the heroes who have to hide who they really are."
Tokoyami almost laughs. "I can't believe this is the conversation I'm having with a villain. When I'm rescued and they ask if you hurt me, I'm going to have to say 'No, we talked about science and then they tried to council me on sexuality.'"
"Well, yeah," says Spinner. "We're humans too, y'know? That's what the heroes always forget. They think they're better than everyone else, that they're more homo than homo potentia. We're gonna show 'em that we're all homos!"
At that, Tokoyami can't help it anymore. He bursts into laughter, the sound of it filling the small room.
"Wait, that's not what I-" Spinner starts to protest, but then he gives in and smiles. With his forward set jaw and wide mouth full of teeth some might call Spinner's smile menacing, but to Tokoyami it seems familiar. With a pang he realizes Spinner's face reminds him of Shoji. He went to apologize to Shoji one night after the summer training camp and ended up more than forgiven. They'd talked all night, and by morning Shoji was comfortable enough to take off his mask.
"You know, I've never seen you laugh. It's nice, yeah?" says Spinner.
Tokoyami said about the same thing to Shoji. He stops laughing and looks away, his heart aching with homesickness. "A hero must maintain good humor even in the face of danger. A hero's laugh will lift up the hearts of those who hear it, and so save them from succumbing to despair. A hero must always smile."
"What asshole told you that?" Spinner growls.
Startled by the response, Tokoyami stares at him. "Pardon?"
"Who taught you to believe that bullshit? It's not right to make people think they've got to smile all the time. That's part of what makes heroes so inhuman," Spinner stands and starts to pace around the room, his gestures growing more elaborate as he works himself up to the topic. "It's like heroes aren't supposed to have feelings. Stain understood that. He embraced anger and pain, and he purged all the fake heroes who smiled like plastic toys. You know what happens to people who think they've always got to pretend to be happy? They spread their misery around where no one can see it. They poison the world, and they pass it on to kids like you."
Spinner pauses and studies Tokoyami for a moment. Then he practically pounces on him, pressing him back against the wall. "Are you happy here?"
Tokoyami swallows. There doesn't seem to be a correct answer, but a lie would be too obvious. "No."
"Fine then. You don't have to smile. Not for me, not for you, not for anyone here. You can hate us if you want to. That's fine, as long as it's real. I'm so tired of the way society deludes itself into believing everything and everyone are okay," Spinner says.
Caught between Spinner and the wall, Tokoyami barely has the room to breathe. Spinner isn't actually threatening him, however. At least, his knives are sheathed, and that's as close to non-threatening as the League gets. That makes it easier for Tokoyami to speak his mind. If Spinner wants the truth, then Tokoyami will give it to him:
"You're right. It's not okay. It's not okay to kidnap someone and hold them against their will for days on end. It's not okay to watch them constantly and threaten their friends and family. It's not okay to let them freeze, and to make it too bright for them to sleep or function. None of this is okay. But that's not society's fault, that's yours. If you're going to have an ideology, you had better own up to your part in it."
Spinner presses in closer, growling in his throat. Then he grins. "You've got the right idea after all. There's still some free thought in there, safe from U.A.'s indoctrination."
"Says the one who emulates a serial killer to the point of wearing the same mask," Tokoyami replies. "What's your excuse?"
Spinner leans back and shrugs. "I'm a follower, not a leader, but I know a good idea when I see one. Stain and Shigaraki both know 'heroes' are bullshit. They're mostly advertising, and whoever has the brightest smile and the most money gets to decide what's true. Stain didn't tell me to follow him. He just shared his ideals, and those of us who were worthy heard the truth in his message. I didn't get to choose a lot of things about my life. I got dealt a bad hand, just like you. But now I know what direction to go."
Tokoyami shakes his head. "You're not making any sense. You talk about choice, yet you've left me with none."
Spinner crosses his arms. "Hey, I'm not the one who brought you here. And if you'd just join us, you'd be free as…well, as a bird."
"I'm not interested. I won't hurt anyone. You don't need to demolish society in order to change it," Tokoyami says.
"You're young. You've got plenty of time to learn that's wrong the hard way, but let me save you the trouble: we don't need society. All these laws and social ideals – they're lies, just like a hero's smile. They're supposed to make you feel safe when the truth is you're anything but. There will always be some people in power stepping on the people beneath them, especially when their power is threatened."
"That doesn't make anarchy any better!" Tokoyami argues. "People will die."
"People always die," Spinner replies. "But before they do, they'll have the chance to live."
"That's…" Tokoyami sighs and shakes his head. "Enough. This war of words gets us nowhere."
A moment of quiet follows, both of them kneeling awkwardly on the cot and avoiding eye contact. Tokoyami shifts the blanket off of him, realizing that he doesn't need it anymore. He glances at Spinner. "Thank you for sharing your heat."
Spinner smiles and ruffles Tokoyami's feathers, much to his annoyance. "Sure. Us mutants have to stick together, right? No matter what the rest of the world says."