Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Hawks wonders, not for the first time in the last few weeks, what the hell he is doing, and how everything ended up like this.

It all started very simply. He went to UA to give some tips to the hero students, albeit not by his own will. He would rather not waste his time teaching the next generation when there are villains on the loose and people needing help now. (also, he could hardly refer to them as “new generation of heroes” without snickering, he was just about 6 years older than the first years, and without his hardly grown beard, he could be easily mistaken for a third-year student. Older heroes also made their disdain bout that clear as day.)

But his handlers in the commission forced him anyway, saying that if the UA kids were always in the middle of the problems, he might as well keep an eye on them and check for someone with potential. He begrudgingly obeyed, but he didn’t complain too much because it gave an excuse to check on his chickling, Tokoyami, and chat with Nedzu. Also, he was curious to see the infamous class 1A with his own raptor eyes.

He met them in Ground Beta, landing as soon as the students appeared with a tired-looking Eraser Head. The class stood in shock with the presence of the number 2 hero and chatter started. Technically, he should have waited in the ground and introduced himself like a normal person to avoid that, but every second on the ground alone made his anxiety about being too exposed while in a new place even worse. It wasn’t even the first time he visited UA, but the bird part of his brain ended up winning, and he more or less checked every nearby premise around multiple times until he felt satisfied. The chatter died with a single sharp look from Eraser Head. The man was scarier than most villains he met when he wanted to be. He probably hated Hawks now, thinking he did the landing thing just for show. Hawks pushed the thought to the back of his head as Eraser started speaking.

"Hawks is here to share his experience as a pro hero, so for the day he will direct your activities. He also will evaluate your potential, so don’t waste his time or embarrass UA. I will be there monitoring everything, so don’t do anything stupid.” After that, Eraser shoved himself inside of a yellow sleep bag. Honest to God, Hawks was a little jealous of him, as he could not remember the last time he slept a whole 8 hours or half of that. He guessed that working as an underground hero and at the same time as a teacher would be exhausting.

Hawks looked to the students in front of him. He saw a green boy mumbling under his breath and fanatically taking notes while looking at him with shining eyes, a blond boy with gauntlets that seemed torn between being angry at his green friend for the mumbling and scanning Hawks with a glare that would make Miruko proud. Endeavor’s son, Lil Todoroki with his bicolor hair was looking at him with a quiet but kind of defensive stance, a square boy was trying to contain the class, a purple boy that seemed to need Eraser’s nap as much as him and Tokoyami, looking happier than normal, but slightly embarrassed as his friends questioned him about the pro hero.

“Well, looks like we have quite a variety of students here… I don’t know all of you or the specialties of your quirks, but what it seems that you guys are basically divided into agile/stealthy types, powerhouses, and rescuers. I wouldn’t like to treat the class unfairly prioritizing one of the three, so we won’t be focusing much in one of those activities today.” Hawks said with his signature smile and his relaxed demeanor. He felt some of the students gleaming with happiness at the possibility of a calm day and others resenting the same prospect, especially blondie, who he finally recognized as Bakugou, the boy who won the Sports Festival and kept being dragged into dangerous shit by the universe.

He looked at his former intern, and by the way, he looked like someone who just went through all the five stages of grief simultaneously and ended up accepting his destiny, he probably had some idea of what was going to happen. Hawks gave his sweetest smile as he said: “So, we will do an intensive conjunct training of all those aspects and others more subtle but just as necessary aspects in the overall day to day job of a hero.”

"What?!”- Some students shirked. A small grape boy started crying. Bakugou, the finger destroyer kid, and one boy with a weird red hair that probably was one of Fat Gum’s kids looked like they would start training if he even looked at them. Tokoyami, Todoroki Jr, a girl with a way too inappropriate costume (seriously, who makes a 15-year-old a suit so exposed? He would look into it and deal with the fucked up creepy designers later) and the insomniac purple kid that obviously was an Eraser Head fanboy looked intrigued, but kind of defensive. The rest of the class looked like he just had condemned them to death.

He felt a smirk growing in his face with their clear despair, and he felt like Eraser was grinning for the same reason under the bag. Due to his overall relaxed and playful public persona, and the fact that his quirk isn’t as offensive-oriented as most top heroes, most of the people would think that Hawks has a light, simple training routine focused only in his feathers or speed. Even Hawks himself thought that he should ideally have a heavier training so he wouldn’t slack off, as his handlers loved to remember, but again, he mostly spent his time in hero work in the field.

As Tokoyami learned in his internship, and as the rest of class 1A learned in Hawks’ visit that day, that couldn’t be further from the truth. Hawks had a detailed, multitasked, fast and demanding way of training, just like himself.

Most of the class suffered through his personalized training station, exchanging between speeding as fast as they can, watching through subtle signals like small cries or signs of fresh blood to locate civilians, going through unstable rescue scenarios and carefully rescuing heavy dummies and taking them as fast as possible to safe areas, this while being randomly attacked by Hawks himself and his feathers. All of them had some soft feathers in their person, warning him of their localization and status at all times, while he swept between students checking for wounds, fighting them, making mental notes, and redistributing students.

Although Hawks was demanding, he wasn’t brutal. He adjusted the challenges to every student, talked to every student about improvements they could make, learned some names, and forcefully dragged some stubborn students who refused to take pauses Bakugou and Shinsou or took the wounded but also stubborn ones back to Recovery Girl Midoriya . He left clear that they must do the exercise to their capacities, so they can stop or ask for help at any time they wish.

All and all, he ensured that their training was as different of his own as possible… Ba-dum. Ba-dum …and still productive. His mind kept going back to those bad days if he stopped for even a second, so he kept flying all around the place, finding other things to do.

But even trying his best to be fair and give all the students the same amount of attention, he couldn’t help but have some favorites, either because of their fighting style of personality, that he paid a little more attention to. 

Tokoyami was a given since he was his intern and fella in feathers, who he checked up on and embarrassed often enough. Shinsou was another one, with his scarf-and-parkour based style being really dynamic and fast in comparison to others, besides being snarky and overall relatable. He paid attention to Uraraka, and Hawks was determined to teach the girl how to fly properly after that. He also talked to Midoriya and Kirishima, both very kind kids, about other uses to their quirks.

Even so, one of his reactions that quite surprised the others was his liking to the resident explosive boy. Being loud, blunt, and rude to all, everyone expected Hawks, one of the most popular and overall kind heroes, to dislike or even avoid the teenager, but Bakugou was one of his favorites. The kid was talented, fast, and obviously hard-working, even being able to fly pretty well with his explosions, but what really sold it was his personality. The blond was loud, aggressive, had a short fuse, and cursed like a sailor, being basically a younger version of his best friend and at the same time having clear individuality. He could not help but enjoy the boy’s antics, already planning to introduce him to Miruko in the future and making some videos to support his theory that the two of them were long lost cousins or something like that.

What was a little strange, at least to Hawks himself, was the way his mind often focused on Todoroki. Obviously, he knew he was going to pay attention to the boy, he was the son of his childhood hero and one of the top students in the class, even having room for improvement in things like movement and versatility. But what majorly caught his attention was something else that Hawks couldn’t exactly point it.

Something about him was familiar, but that same thing rang alarm bells in his head. It was little things, like the way the boy watched his surroundings at all times, even when resting, not just observant but with a tear of paranoia in it. How when Hawks fought with him and Todoroki fell, he instantly shielded his vitals and looked a little surprised when Hawks offered his hand to help him get up. The cold fury and frustration that rose up every time someone mentioned Endeavour. The way he was always quiet unless when spoken to, and almost never showed his reactions openly, covering them with a poker face at the last second.

Those small things slowly raised way more red flags than it normally would to other people, because Hawks knew what those are. How couldn’t he, if he did these same small things himself and still did some of them? He knew that reasons for it conscious and subconscious, and where they came from. Seeing them so clearly in another person, someone so young, terrified him to no end.

After their training day, the students were exhausted, but having all done lots of progress. The students tiredly, but happily said their goodbyes to Hawks, that generally waved or hive-fived the students. Given that nobody seemed to hate or fear him, he took that as an absolute win. As the students went to get changed, Hawks used the opportunity to approach Eraser Head.

“So, how bad of a headache those brats gave you?” The man said as he looked through some files and drank his coffee. As he filled his mug he offered Hawks another mug. “Want some?”

“Always!” Hawks took it, smiling. As he fixed his beloved caffeine, he said: “It was really good actually. Your students have potential to be excellent heroes!”

The older hero nodded but rolled his eyes. “If they manage to not get themselves killed or expelled until the end of the third year, yes”

Hawks laughed lightly, thinking about the day with the kids. “I think they will manage it.” He said smiling. “Oh, about that, I wanted to ask about that mentorship thing that Nedzu suggested.” Eraser raised his eyebrows. “Do you really want to keep teaching them?” the man asked.

“Yeah! I liked working with some of them, so I wanted to offer training to improve some things and give them my contact in case they are interested.”

“Said the one who didn’t want to teach the next generation.”

“Well, you didn’t spell any of them, so you probably see why I changed my mind.”

Eraser huffed “I hate that I do. So, which ones of them?” 

Hawks entered his apartment by the window, quickly changed out of his costume, and took a shower to try and control the wide thoughts that roamed free in his head now that there wasn’t anyone to pull his focus out of them. He paced quickly as he walked around the place, trying to put some order in his mind, that was way too fast for him to understand. Finally, after God knows how long, he sighed, grabbed a bottle of water, opened his computer, and sat in his chair, staring at the blank screen. It’s okay. He couldn’t look into anything until now because he was stuck at his agency, with case after case, and someone of the commission would notice if he started to go around this. But he was going to look into it now, Todoroki isn’t in danger is he? he is at the dorms, even if he is right, he is safe there. (but what about before that, before the dorms, what happened when he wasn’t paying attention, whyishesouselessOhmyGoD.)   

Hawks closed his eyes and focused on the beating of his heart.   Ba-dum. Ba-dum.

It’s fine. He gave his contact to Todoroki through Eraser. He can ask him if anything is wrong. And if he doesn’t answer, or Hawks still feels like something is wrong, he can look into it. If he finds something wrong, or if it isn’t cleared out, he can talk to Eraser. He got his number, and the man would probably kill for his kids.

  Breathe in . Hawks looks at the ceiling as if it would suddenly give him answers to all of his doubts. Breathe out.

He prayed to whatever God there is that his intuition was wrong. That he was being paranoid, that Todoroki wasn’t like him. He desperately prayed that Todoroki was safe, that he always had been safe and happy, and why wouldn’t he? He prayed for the first time in his life that he was going to waste his time, that he wasn’t going to find anything because he was looking for something that didn’t happen. That he was going to find proof that he was wrong, and that the only thing that he and Todoroki Shouto had in common was their love for heroics.

And with that, Hawks took a deep breath, and Takami Keigo started to investigate the Todoroki family.

Chapter Text

Hawks “woke up”- as if he had closed his eyes for more than five minutes since last night - early in the morning, drinking another one of his endless cups of coffee, taking a bath to try to feel a little less like he had collided with an airplane mid-flight. He grabbed some chicken and more coffee and went to the roof to watch the sun come out while trying to process what he found out last night.

After going through lots of certified media articles, official files, and digging around with some of his contacts for some information that was swept under the rug, there were lots of things that seemed like red flags. He found out that Todoroki Shouto had gained his scar in an incident where his mom poured boiling water in the child’s eye, and the woman was interned in a psychiatric hospital after that. The forms indicated that she did it in a psychotic episode with traits of paranoia, so he looked into her records.

Todoroki Rei had no family history of mental illnesses and there weren't any episodes or registries of episodes prior to that. Things like that didn’t happen all of a sudden on their own, so she probably had weaker episodes before the incident that were left unattended.

Hawks had gone after Todoroki’s medical registries and even though he couldn’t really see the specifics unless he had an official request to a case, what he could see was… odd. The wife and the kids only went to the obligatory check-up yearly consultation, the incident report, and nothing more. Sure, he could understand that Endeavour would be careful to expose his family as little as possible to avoid them becoming targets, but the simplest medical records of normal people were almost impossible to find unless you were that person, their doctor, or a law agent investigating that person. General medical information was the kind of thing that was really well protected because it often contained possibly dangerous information about quirks that can have a lot of repercussions if in the wrong hands, and that was even more guarded when referring to pro heroes and their families, for fear that villains could search it looking for weaknesses.

Hawks was only able to know that their family went to a hospital before because he was a pro hero with access to some public data and knew where to look in the first place, and it took lots of digging. This was the most basic, but the children didn’t even have registries of getting vaccines, dentists, any exam in their lives. Rei was interned, but before that, she didn’t have any either. They probably went to private physicians, but they were pretty unusual compared to general health care because they were expensive and hyper-specialized, and even then there would be at least one note mentioning that fact.

Yet, the most concerning to Hawks were two facts that raised all kinds of flags to him.

First, Todoroki Shouto was never treated in a hospital for his burns. No emergency call to an ambulance, no assessment by a doctor, not even the check-up on the victim that was obligatory in these types of cases, that Endeavour would need to open in order to get someone in a mental institution. Todoroki Rei wasn’t checked over in a regular hospital either, she was directly locked in treatment.

The other, one year before Todoroki Rei’s hospitalization, one of the children…disappeared. Before that, there were always 4 pediatrics check-ups and registrations ever since the younger sibling was born and then… one of them stopped being accounted for, even though he was still a minor and there wasn’t any transference in the registry. He searched through obit certificates and missing children cases, for any mention at all, but there was nothing he could find. It was like one of them had suddenly ceased to exist.

Hawks tried to wrap his mind around the fact his childhood hero had not only been hiding that at least two members out of his family were obviously with serious problems but also was not doing anything about it, not even backstage. His wife was isolated because of mental instability, his youngest had signs of paranoia, trauma and/or PTSD, and whatever in the fucking hell happened to the oldest. There was a chance he wasn’t involved in the origin of these problems, but there were clear signs of neglect and parental irresponsibility in the best of cases, to abuse, to straight-up infanticide in the worst possible scenario.

As the sun rose, he felt like screaming. Both from his headache about all of the shit that may be going down in that household, the really disturbing familiarity of it all to some degree, and his bird instincts to let a cry of war at the first sign of that kind of threat.

Instead, he got up and took the flight to his agency, questioning how biased he was being in this case, if he was somehow projecting it all in some random loose threads, considering the risk of the situation and how to ask for Rumi’s opinion in the matter without making her angry enough to go into a rampage without evidence.

Hawks got to his agency earlier than usual, taking advantage of the short-lived lack of people to make himself more coffee, check his cases in progress, check new cases, and the general paperwork simultaneously with his feathers. He was incredibly grateful for his quirk in times like these, because there was no other way he would be able to run this place without it. Even the more animalistic aspects that normally… bothered him a little (all the blood, all the blood under his gloves-) were majorly useful one way or another. The black marks on his eyes that disguised the bags, his eyes in general for the raptor-like pupils and extra protection that stopped him from destroying his vision with everything, from flying around to paperwork, and the fact that he could survive almost entirely on fried chicken.

He looked at his phone for any extra updates, made a point to ignore most of the messages from the commission about anything that wasn’t a case, and answered the few ones that weren’t about publicity in one way or another. A few years prior, Hawks wouldn’t have dared to ignore his handlers and the general members like that, but going from a newbie to one of the Top Pro Heroes in 4 years made him learn about lots of things, in this case, politics. Growing up inside the commission and being their go-to for delicate missions, he learned to watch everything that happened and have all kinds of tricks and evidence up his sleeve. Even with his giant debt and information about his past they loved to remind him he had, they had a lot more to lose if he showed some of this to the media.

He always felt a little guilty about the withholding of information – as much as he allowed himself to be, this was necessary if he wanted to survive – but at least they were smart enough to never ask him to do the really sketchy things he suspected they did. They preferred to hide them from him at all costs after they concluded that Hawks had no shits left to give about his reputation and that he could and would throw his handlers out of the window if they tried to get physical and no one was crazy enough to try and threaten his friends after the… incident .

Hawks was managing to play his cards slowly and steadily, already getting some alterations like removing the parasites that were his parents from his expenses and getting his agency to actually be his, being in control of everything from the building to his staff after some thorough negotiations (God bless his lawyer, Masayoshi-san. That woman was a miracle worker.) and making their interference as difficult as possible. They tried to guilt-trip him at all steps of the way, and almost did it sometimes, but fortunately, he involved competent people in this before it began to stop him from fucking up in sheer irrationality.

One of the psychologically hardest and at the same time most satisfying was the process of stopping giving part of his income to his parents and closing off his handlers. At the same time that he hated the fact that his mother was living a luxurious life drinking herself to death after practically basically selling her naïve toddler to slavery, the lessons about selflessness that his handlers used to shove a Martyr Complex into his head ended up making him swallow it. At least until he met Miruko and got enough of her spite, intensified by his subtle but chronicle irritability from insomnia, for him to grow a spine after a while.

It was good to actually be free of them permanently, but Keigo couldn’t help the questions in the back of his mind that feared what that meant for him as a person. His mother was probably living in shit, using every cent to drown herself in alcohol, if she was still alive. (Hi) His father was rotting in jail since he was 7, even before ‘Hawks’ became his identity. He supposed that he should feel at least some sadness or pity about it, and have at least a bit of affection for the ones who put him in his world even if they never loved him, or at the very least some of the guilt that the logic of morality told him to feel for ruining someone.

But he felt nothing. No contempt, no remorse.

What actually was a bother in this aspect was the fact that he knew that he should feel something that he just wasn’t. Hawks got so used to routinely pushing down his feelings in order to complete achievements, that the logic that should be in his emotions normally bothered him more than the feelings themselves. Was he a bad person for not feeling bad about it? Was the selfishness that he treasured so much going too far?

Did he even deserve to be a hero?

Maybe that’s why he was the one chosen for the infiltration in the League of Villains. They knew he could get past them more easily because he didn’t have to pretend at not being an actual hero. His relations with them were way better than he expected in fact, maybe that was because deep down, everybody knew he was a horrible person and…

With the noise of someone entering, Hawks startled immediately going from sulking to watching his territory only to relax when he noticed that it was Naomi going in his direction, displeased as she probably tried to guess how much coffee he had already chugged that morning. She had excellent timing, and Hawks swears that the woman must have some kind of empathetic secret quirk that let her know every time Hawks was self-loathing or generally being an idiot and immediately let her contact him somehow.

“ Hey, Ibis! Seems like I beat you today!” Hawks said, smiling and pulling her a seat.

“ Good morning Hawks.” she said a little sleepy as she grabbed some coffee and sat and eyed him warily as he refueled his mug while he checked the final forms. “How many of these have you already had?”

Hawks laughed “Earlier bird gets the worm, my friend.” He said as he sipped some more. “It’s only fair.”

She rolled her eyes as she grabbed one of the forms “Anything new since last night?”

“ Some incidents that the night owls took care of, the conclusion of some cases were confirmed and it seems like the commission is preparing the ground for some mission for me, probably a collaboration one.” He said, eyeing the former paper like it would suddenly explode. “Other than that, same quick stuff and PR bullshit as always.”

Ibis had already started eyeing some files and noting everything while separating the more urgent ones. “How did it go with UA?”

“ It was pretty cool. Trained the students from third to first years, made some observations for all of them, and finished with the infamous 1A.” HAwks grinned. “ A kid from there cried when I said what they were going to do, and I got to see Tokoyami and embarrass him for 2 hours. It was overall pretty fun.”

“ Ah, the melody of children suffering, can’t have a party without it.” She mused. “ Did you find any other decent brats?”

“ Yeah. Actually more than I expected.” Hawks contemplated “Four of them. Bakugou, Shinsou, Uraraka, and Todoroki.”

“ Translate.”

Hawks rolled his eyes. “Bakugou is the one with an explosion quirk who won the sports festival, Uraraka is the girl with the antigravity quirk that fought with Bakugou in that fight everyone kept bitching about because explodey-boy wasn’t holding back on a girl.”

“ Miruko was mad for weeks for that one.” she said, huffing. “Wait, wasn’t Bakugou the one that the school chained to the podium?”

“ Unfortunately. What kind of fucked up people do that shit?” Hawks said angrily, and with a dark look on his face “Every time I remember it, my blood boils.”

“ Yeah, I remember your reaction to it. I had to stop you from flying to UA and tearing the staff to shreds when you found out it happened.” Naomi changed the topic carefully, fully aware of how the incident hit close to home. “What about the other two?”

“ Shinsou entered the class after Kamino. He has a brainwashing quirk and is probably Eraserhead’s secret son, because he uses the same capture weapon.” They both laughed at that. “The kid is pretty quick on his feet even without an enhancer quirk and wants to be an underground hero. So I invited him so that we could teach him the ropes in stealth, agility, and investigation.”

Ibis nodded at that, with a smile on her face that told Hawks that she was already planning something for the poor kid. Both of them were very familiar with underground work, even if hawks was officially a mainstream hero. Ibis or Kuwahara Naomi was one of the best underground heroes in Japan, so much so in fact that almost no one knew that even with the number of cases she solved. She was the one who helped Hawks the most because of that, being basically his right-hand man and manager. The thing is, even with being the number 3 (now number 2, he supposed) and having lights on him constantly, he did almost half of his cases working underground.

His quirk was extremely useful for investigations, with his feathers being easily able to listen to criminals, follow them, going through security systems or locks, knocking them out discreetly and even taking some types of evidence when necessary. But he was even better at planning the investigations, getting information, and finding weaknesses to be exploited.

Hawks continued “The last one is Todoroki, the kid with the fire and ice quirk and bi-colored hair. Lots of raw power, but he could use some work in versatility. Interesting kid.”

“ Endeavour’s kid? Wow, you actually…” Ibis was probably going to make some joke about Hawks being a huge fanboy, but as she spoke the hero’s name, she saw something in Hawks reaction that stopped her. She made a pause then said quietly, as people had started to enter the building. “…Did something happen?”

Hawks sighed “I don’t know for certain.” He knew that she would notice something, but he wasn’t happy that it happened so early. “I’m looking into it.” He gave a small smile.

“ Hit me up if you need some help.” she said, a little worried, feeling something unusual in her friend’s behavior.

“ I will.” He said. A moment passed and then he said “Anyway, I invited Tokoyami plus the four of them for the mentorship program Nedzu talked about. I discussed it with Eraser and gave him a contact number in case they were interested.”

“ Great. I hope they all accept and stay around you for a good while.” She laughed at Hawks’ confused expression. “The time of Tokoyami’s internship was heaven. You were actually eating regularly and didn’t overwork yourself to the point of surviving through coffee.”

“ Hey!” Hawks said indignantly, standing up, “I’m not that bad. And I have to give him a good example!”

“ Excellent.” said Ibis, also standing. “Now multiply that by 4 and actually become a functional human being before I tell them the truth.”

“ You wouldn’t dare!” Hawks said dramatically as the two went to officially start the day.

Near noon – doing some rounds around his area, closing one or two tense cases and managing to escape from the marketing bullshit all the way - Hawks finally stopped just enough to get food at the nearest KFC and went flying right after. He checked his phone and saw that he received a couple of important texts, most of which he wished he hadn’t. He started with the less potentially disastrous one to avoid forgetting later. He wouldn’t get rid of the others any time soon anyway.

Eraser Head: Hawks, I informed the brats about the mentorship opportunity and all of them chose to participate with your agency. They need to send the required forms today to go through the school and then to you.

Hawks: Awesome! Thanks for the help, Eraser!

Eraser Head: Don’t thank me for your future headaches.

Eraser Head sent you four new contacts

Eraser Head: You will have to report all of their hours of mentorship weekly, as well as incidents or official work involving any of them. If any problems of adaptation occur, consult me.

Eraser Head : I normally don’t do this, but given the class record and the fact that you are dealing with five students at once, I will ask you to be present during their training activities and tell me about their performance.

Hawks: Okay. In which type of doc?

Eraser Head: Well, that was easier than I expected

Hawks: What?

Eraser Head: Normally heroes in the high rankings are more troublesome about reporting about the students themselves due to their busy agendas and not being actually official.

Hawks: So, they are mostly assholes. Disappointed, but not surprised.

Eraser Head: Pretty much. Anyway, send it when it’s easiest for you and return all of them in one piece as scheduled.

Hawks: I will.

As Hawks flew over people, he tapped on his phone, so familiar with multitasking it was like second nature. Stopping some purse-snatchers and minor villains here and there.

Hawks created a group

Hawks changed the name of the group to The Nest

Hawks added Fumikage Tokoyami

Hawks added Shinsou Hitoshi

Hawks added Bakugou Katsuki

Hawks added Todoroki Shoto

Hawks added Uraraka Ochako

Hawks changed Shinsou Hitoshi’s username to Sleepy Chickling

Hawks changed Bakugou Katsuki’s username to Salty Chickling

Hawks changed Todoroki Shouto’s username to Sassy Chickling

Hawks changed Uraraka Ochako’s username to Bubbly Chickling

Hawks changed his own username to Mama Bird

Salty Chickling – WHAT THE FUCK??!

Salty Chickling – What is it with the dumb fucking usernames?

Bubbly Chickling – (((o(*°▽°*)o)))

Bubbly Chickling – We match!!

Bubbly Chickling – This is so cute!

Sassy Chickling – How did you do that thing with your keyboard??

Sleepy Chickling – Black Magic of the internet

Salty Chickling changed his username to Lord Explosion Murder Chickling

Hawks laughed under his breath while knocking down some thieves in a store and moving on to a bank theft. He barely had the time to really think about most of them before finishing and going for the next place. One of them was a pretty big guy though, with some strange wires all around him, probably a powerhouse quirk of some sort which made Hawks a little curious, but raw strength wasn’t really useful when you found yourself being flipped over, so he would never find out what the quirk was.

Sleepy Chickling  – AASHDBHEGFV

Lord Explosion Murder Chickling – WHAT THE FUCK? WHY THE FUCK CAN’T I CHANGE THE LAST PART?

Mama Bird- While you are under my wing, you are my chickling, and there’s no force in the universe that can change that

Edgy Chickling – We are all marked as chicklings in the channel

Edgy Chickling – Only Hawks-sensei can change that and he refuses to do it

Lord Explosion Murder Chickling – What the fuck?? FUCK YOU! Change that shit right now!!

Mama Bird – Nope

Mama Bird – All of you are strong, but you still have some hard work to do

Mama Bird – I will promote you to lil bird when you deserve it

He stopped a car accident and an ugly fall of a kid from a tree while reading the messages with a grin. Then he stopped to greet said kid’s little friends and calm down a worried mother that was on a bench.

Lord Explosion Murder Chickling – THIS IS BULLSHIT

Edgy Chickling – As an actual bird person, I feel offended

Mama Bird – Don’t care

Mama Bird changed Lord Explosion Murder Chickling’s username to Salty Chickling

Salty Chickling changed his username to The Best Chickling

Bubbly Chickling - Bakugouuuuu

Sassy Chickling – Why am I not surprised?

The Best Chickling changed Sassy Chickling’s username to Shitty Chickling

Shitty Chickling changed The Best Chickling’s username to Annoying Chickling

Annoying Chickling changed his username to Badass Chickling

Sleepy Chickling  – jfc, are two you nine?

Badass Chickling changed Saucy Chickling’s username to Braindead Chickling

Braindead Chickling – Fuck you

Braindead Chickling changed Badass Chickling username to Asshole Chickling

Hawks couldn’t believe that he didn’t check the channel for 5 minutes because of a fire and they already went into something like this. The pure, practical realization that they were a bunch of kids was endearing and a punch in the gut at the same time. He knew that, but he never actually had his moments himself so he didn’t know exactly how to balance the duality of dealing with this kind of development. Huh. He would ask for advice about it from Rumi Naomi and Tsunago later. Right now, he needed to keep working and stop the kids from killing one another.

Mama Bird – Okay, enough of this before I put y’all in time out

Mama Bird changed Braindead Chickling’s username to Sleepy Chickling

Mama Bird changed Asshole Chickling’s username to Salty Chickling

Mama Bird changed Shitty Chickling’s username to Sassy Chickling

Mama Bird – Be glad I didn’t mark any of you as eggs

Mama Bird – Anyway, all of you will come to the agency, one extensive solo training for each of you on one day of the week, and longer group sessions and groundworks on the weekends. As those are really demanding, there is a resting area where you can take breaks or eat and separate rooms in case any of you wish to sleep in and stay the weekend or to rest after training.

Mama Bird - I can adapt the schedules if any of you are busy with school or don’t want to train at certain times on the weekend in order to spend time with your families. Or in case any of you prefer to get more training hours, but with moderation.

Mama Bird - I have access to your medical files from UA, but I will send a form about any dietary needs, possible quirk-drawbacks, and authorizations for me to take a guardianship role in case of emergencies. You are all minors, so you need authorization for that, so ask for your parents or homeroom teacher to sign them

Mama Bird - Also, there are other heroes in the agency besides myself that can help you guys out, and I recommend that you speak with them at least once concerning your specific necessities. There’s also a support aisle that you guys can consult or check-in for updates that will be accounted for by UA.

Mama Bird – There’s a separate channel for help that will notify me if you send anything. In the channel, there’s a link for an app only for emergencies that activates location and will alert me, Aizawa, and any pro-heroes in the area immediately if activated, even if offline. All of you have to download it and sign yourselves in before the first lesson on the groundwork.

Salty Chickling – Now that’s the real top hero shit

Bubbly Chickling - aaaaaaa this is so amazing

Sleepy Chickling – Oh god, It’s like getting adopted all over again

Edgy Chickling – Pretty much

Edgy Chickling – The app and bedroom things are new though

Sleepy Chickling – @Mama Bird , you have been talking with Aizawa-sensei, haven’t you?

Sassy Chickling - No wonder sensei has been so calm about it

Mama Bird – I have, but that’s irrelevant

Mama Bird - Anyway, I want all of you in my agency at 2 so we can get started. I’m busy right now, so I will answer any questions then.

Edgy Chickling - I bet 2000 ¥ he was flying and/or fighting while in the chat

Mama Bird- Quiet, egg.

Mama Bird logged off

Hawks hated that he was right. His own opinion about this bad habit changed daily, torn between the guilt of not paying as much attention as he should in case of a sudden attack and the guilt of wasting time by not doing it and consequentially, leaving work to be done later when he could do it now. His PR consultant had the same duality, but regarding the fact that doing it might make him seem lazy or arrogant for some people, but the fact that he could stop crimes and save people fast but calmly every time he was around, even while looking in his phone also made him look powerful and relatable to other people. But it wasn’t like anyone could properly see him doing it anyway, so the man didn’t bug him about it.

He quickly flew to his agency to see the more dangerous messages. He wouldn’t risk it in case some commission lackey was around. After a minute he was there, inside the doors, his wings turning fidgety.

He opened the first one. He knew it wasn’t anything good. It never was.

Bullshit Asshole In a Suit: Hawks. You were assigned to a special mission regarding the suspicious productions that are being investigated. Do whatever is necessary to approach the target and extract information. Further information was sent by another channel. Report back results as soon as possible in order to avoid more incidents.

Bullshit Asshole In a Suit: The commission is also requesting your assistance in order to maintain the public morale. Due to the recent events, it is asked for the cooperation of the highest-ranked heroes between themselves and the occurrence of team-up missions, both for the public’s sake as to maintain a society without the Symbol of Peace, it may become more necessary.

Hawks breathed out, uncertain if relieved or just as nervous as before. Right. Suicidal side quests inside the Suicide Mission while being bound to be around other top heroes, probably to some agenda. Not great, but it could be worse. He could deal with it. He didn’t bother to send an answer, it was not like he could friendly talk his way out of this, and it wasn’t worth the effort to get out yet. He opened the next, thinking about how fucked up it was he felt angrier and more disgusted for dealing with the commission than he felt while talking to a fucking villain.

The World’s Worst Nugget: Hey chicken

The World’s Worst Nugget: Same place as last time, tomorrow at 9

Coffee Addicted Chicken: Will you bother telling me what for?

The World’s Worst Nugget: No

The World’s Worst Nugget: It’s a surprise

Coffee Addicted Chicken: Every time you say that  it somehow involves corpses

Coffee Addicted Chicken: At least tell me in advance

The World’s Worst Nugget: Why? Preparing your innocent soul for the horrendous action?

Coffee Addicted Chicken: Nah. So I can enter the mood for it with my murder playlist

The World’s Worst Nugget: You have a murder playlist?

Coffee Addicted Chicken: Obviously

The World’s Worst Nugget: I don’t believe you

Coffee Addicted Chicken sent The World’s Worst Nugget the “Then Perish” playlist

The World’s Worst Nugget: Your playlist is trash

Coffee Addicted Chicken: My playlist is the best.

The World’s Worst Nugget: Your playlist is the most chaotic thing I’ve ever seen. It somehow has practically all possible genres in its messiest form.

The World’s Worst Nugget sent Coffee Addicted Chicken the “Burn bitch, burn” playlist

The World’s Worst Nugget: This is a real murder playlist

Coffee Addicted Chicken: Huh. I imagined it would have more meta. already imagined the edgy and angsty though

The World’s Worst Nugget: The foundations of any murder

The World’s Worst Nugget: Anyway, you won’t need your playlist, at least not now. Just go and try not to be annoying

Coffee Addicted Chicken: Unlikely, but I will do my best

Coffee Addicted Chicken: See ya then

Hawks hoped that Dabi was telling the truth. He really wasn’t in the mood for going through that kind of bullshit again. They got along relatively well, probably because while Hawks would listen to instructions, he wouldn’t kiss anyone’s ass or let himself be pushed around. He had limits, and that made him more convincing as someone doing things out of his own will, so he may actually not be plotting his murder.

That, and the incident when Dabi decided to find him in the worst possible day, after a really shitty conflict with a handler, in which Hawks finally exploded after months and bitched about the bullshit in the heroes’ business for 15 minutes straight at Dabi, who responded with his own vague but plenty firm complaints. Somehow they ended up trashing society while eating fast food and breaking shit at 3 am, making Hawks identity crisis over if he was or not actually joining them without realizing way fucking worse.

Either way, possibly developing psychopathy aside, he still had to open the last message, the one he was most worried about. The data about the missing Todoroki kid, and the conditions of the other three. Two of them should be adults by now, probably on their own documentation. But Hawks couldn’t risk it and just hope they were ok. He was a hero, he needed to be sure. He needed to be strong.

But when he opened the file, at the moment he learned about Todoroki Touya, Keigo felt as if he was a helpless kid again.

Chapter Text

Hawks woke up in the ground of his apartment at 6 a.m. surrounded by papers and feathers all over the place.Feeling like someone had just replaced all of his muscles with jelly and hit his head with a hammer. Unfortunately, it was a rather common occurrence for Hawks to eventually collapse from a caffeine withdrawal while working on a case for too long. What was really unusual however, was the fact that the living room was a complete chaos, with his punching bag torn to shreds, multiple holes in the wall from tiny holes from feathers to bigger ones from punching and kicking a like. The sofa and table was thrown on the ground, and Hawks was without any gloves, his claws? talons? hands grabbing the remains of a pillow  like his life depended on it.

His first instinct when he noticed this was to jump in his feet  and sharpen all of his feathers immediately.  His eyes darted all around and feathers inspecting every centimeter of the apartment, every entrance, hall and ventilation system. Was there an attack? Were there any treats around? Was it the villains? Did the commission break in? Were there any bugs? Cameras? Were they going to trap him again?

After checking around three times and finding nothing, Hawks slowly tried to calm down his racing heart. Ok. Everything is ok. There’s nothing here. After what felt like an eternity, Hawks managed to get out of his battle stance and started to breathe properly. As soon as he did that though, he was hit with a wave of nausea as he realized that he had no energy. He fell back into the ground.

Well, this isn’t the ideal . Hawks thought as he laid there, trying to process what the fuck happened. There was no threat, so did this meant he did all the destruction by himself? He didn’t lose control like this since… ( nonononono)   … the incident. The wetness in his face suggested that he had cried at some point. He hadn’t cried in years. Fuck . After what felt like an eternity, he managed to let go of the pillow. A while after that, he slowly sat on the ground, trying to focus at getting up. He noticed then that his boots were destroyed, his talons   feet somehow managed to tear the resistant material apart. In any other condition, he would be kind of impressed, that shit was able to stop bullets after all, but that was the last thing in his mind at the moment. He collected himself enough to stand, planning to get some coffee and…

oh.

OH.

The reason his fit hit him like a truck, as he saw the picture a young boy, no older than 13, with blue eyes. Todoroki Touya.

The files. The video.

Motherfucking hell. The goddamn disappearance. The witness. Endeavour. And that motherfucking bastard.

Ok, he’s shaking. Calm the fuck down. Don’t Panic. There’s still the off chance that staying up for 56 hours straight may have caused hallucinations. Maybe part of that was a dream.

He will have to check it again.

The acid burning his stomach suggested that he should eat something first. Fuck it. He turned the coffee maker own, opened his freezer, took a frozen chicken, washed it and started eating while waiting his coffee to get ready, for once grateful for his brain fixation in the sensation of raw meat against his teeth. Comfort food in it’s weirdest, and if one of his handlers saw him they would have a heart attack, but sue him. At least is something he knew for sure he could stomach without vomiting when he opened the files again.

He finished his chicken while drinking his coffee, then washed away all the trails of blood. It wasn’t time for him to go the agency. He had enough time to see the video, read the files, have a mini breakdown, compose himself, take a shower and go to work. Perfect.

Keigo looked at the boy’s picture, trying to shove the sadness, anger and guilt to the back of his mind. He took a deep breath, and started the video. The woman in her thirties that was obviously shaken by something. She had long grey hair, and her face was full of dry tears, When she spoke her voice was shaking. She also had bandages around her arms and one in her face.

WITNESS RECORDING- INCIDENT 2537-B

Detective: here is agent 457326-x of the Hero Public Safety Commission, with the objective to record the witness statement concerning the incident 2537-B, in the jurisdiction of the flame hero Endeavour, that occurred at July 6 th of 2XXX at 3:45 a.m. in the district of Shibuya, Musutafu, Japan. The entire statement is being taken as registry of the occurred, as witnessed by the civilian.

Detective: Could you confirm your name and date of birth for confirmation?

Witness: Y-yes. My name is Akihiko Masuyama. I was born at November 27 th of 2XXX.

Detective: Excellent. Now, Mauyama-san could you tell me where you were when you witnessed this night’s incident?

Witness: I-It was at Sh-Shibuya, n-next to... the Y-Yokashira park...  

Detective: Why were you there?

Witness: I-I was in the street n- next to my apartment. I w-was coming back from my n-night shift at work.

Detective : Hum… Could you describe the events?

Witness: I was w-walking back to home, wh-when I heard some strange n-noises … I got scared and tried to get home faster, but then a v-vi-villain showed up … h-he was being  chased by E-Endeavour. H-he had a k-kid trapped… the p- poor thing seemed terrified and the t-two of them w-wouldn’t stop s-screaming …

Detective: What did the villain look like?

Witness: H-His face was covered, but he had l-large w-wings and really sh-sharp c-cl-claws... H-He was grabbing the k-kid with h-his…f-feet?...th-they looked like a birds’  t-ta-talons…

Hawks tried to ignore the emotional equivalent of being stabbed that spread through his body.

Detective:   What did the kid look like?

Witness: h-he was so…s- small… and h-he looked so s-scared… h-he looked like he was 12 at most, and he had short white hair. H-he was full of b-bandages, and his shirt was t-thorned and b-bl-bloodied… h-his sc-screams… o-oh my g-god the s-screams… i-is h-he-e okay? Is he-

Hawks tried to ignore the feeling of guilt that was like salt and dirt shovel in the stab wounds. He wasn’t very good at it. The usually sane voice that said he couldn’t do nothing about it, that he couldn’t have done something  about it, that he wasn’t involved, just made everything worse.

Detective: I can’t give this information, miss. Please, try to calm down. Your testimony is crucial for this case.

Witness: *crying*…o-o…o-ok… I’m s-sorry…

Detective: It’s okay, miss. Could you tell everything in chronical order?

Witness :…yes… The v-vi-villain came f-flying  through the buildings, h- holding the b-boy… H-he was fast... Really fast. E-Endeavour showed up after… B-Before I knew what was happening, there was f-fi-fire everywhere… H-he…H-he was s-screaming… The k-kid started  s-screaming t-too, but I couldn’t u-understand him… R-right after, E-Endeavour hit the w-winged-man with a r-really big attack... I-I got s-scared by the f-flames.. I f-fell in the g-ground... I h-heard s-screams, and I k-know that one of t-them was t-the k-kid..

Detective: Did you see the villain or the kid after that?

Witness: T-there was s-so much sm-smoke… there was f-fire all around… o-orange and b-blue… I saw E-Endeavour grab the g-guy off the ground, b-but I d-didn’t see the b-boy anywhere. ..

Detective : Did you see anything suspicious? Any movement that could indicate an attempt to hide the boy, or the boy trying to fight back?

Witness: I…I d-don’t… I don’t know… e-everything happened so fast… the b-boy was barely m-moving… b-but E-En-Endeavour… he-he hit that k-kid as well…

Fuck . Fuck . Fuck . FUCK . Hawks hated the world he lived in. He hated the universe, and if God existed, Hawks wanted beat the living shit of that sick, sadistic motherfucker until there was nothing left but the bastard’s remains.

Detective: Miss, you’re in shock-

Witness: N-no…no,… y-you don’t get it… T-that kid… that fi-fire-fireball w-was huge… t-there’s n-no way that h-he didn’t got h-hurt… that v-villain was ba-barely in o-one p-piece…

Detective: Miss, you..

Witness: Is-is he alive?

Dead silent. There was a look of indignation, grief and resolution in the woman’s face. It was the tougher she had been the entire video.

Detective: I can’t give you that information. You already gave us enough information and I’m afraid you are traumatized by the experience, so for the sake of your health, we will be finishing the testimony here. I will recommend that you talk with one of our therapists if you can. Finishing official recording.

The woman started to move her mouth like she was going to protest, and the video ended right there. Hawks watched the video again. And again. And again , until he was sure that the emotions weren’t messing with his judgment. Even then, he still felt horrible every time he watched.

The things that seemed to stress her the most were mentioning the kid, Endeavour, his fath the villain and fire. Hawks couldn’t find anything that could indicate she was lying, but the commission was definitely manipulating the statement by the way the agent made the questions and by the simple fact that the witness was clearly nowhere ready to answer them. After a minutes he recovered and moved on.  

Well, to the paperwork. Hawks got more coffee and went through the files.

HPSC RECORD FILE - INCIDENT 2537-B

Hero: Endeavour (classification: #2)

Classification: Highly confidential

Description: In the event that preceded his arrest, the B-level villain Takami Tsubasa, known by the alias “Crow”, invaded the “Star’s Shine”, establishment responsible by the commercialization of precious jewels, stole an estimated 1.900.500 yen worth in  precious metals and attacked the civilian identified in documentation as Todoroki Touya.  After the intervention of the pro-hero Endeavour Takami Tsubasa captured the civilian as a hostage and attempted to flee the area. 

Endeavour chased the villain from the first encounter until the region of Shibuya, as consequence of the villain’s high velocity that allowed him to avoid attacks. However, in the process of incapacitating the villain, the attack used by Endeavour was of higher force, causing destruction to his surroundings and serious damage to the villain. The pro hero captured the villain that is now incarcerated in Tartarus by theft and murder, but the victim wasn’t found in the area.

A searching investigation for accomplices was made due to the possibility of kidnapping, but none was found. By the nature of the incident and lack of any other leads, Todoroki Touya was considered legally deceased ten years after the incident due to no other progressions in the case.

Registered evidence:  

Identification2537-B.jpg

Testimony2537-B.mpeg

Report2537-B.txt

CriminalFile2537-B.txt

Some important things that the major document “forgot” to mention that Hawks realized at record speed:

1. Todoroki Touya was Endeavour’s son
2. If Touya’s ID was real, then he was 14 when all this shit happened
3. His father Crow was responsible for Touya’s probable death
4. Endeavour was as well, because unless the photos were so well adulterated that not even a guy with literally the vision of a fucking hawk couldn’t find anything off-putting, the hero had seriously burned everything around him, including his own son.
5. That woman wasn’t lying. He was trained to read for lies and omissions, trained to be a perfect agent since he was six. Unless the woman had some very specific quirk that hid all traits of a liar, he was certain that all she said was true, or at least what she believed to be true.
6. Hawks didn’t have Endeavour’s schedules, but he was pretty sure the guy didn’t have any patrol at 3-fucking- am in a practically deserted part of town
7. The Commission was very obviously hiding something about this, and most likely, giving just enough details so that they can use it as blackmail later.
8. Endeavour paid lots of people to put everything about his son’s death under the wraps.
9. There was something really fucking wrong about all of this.

Hawks also had many questions. What in the ever living fuck was a 14 year old doing in the middle of the street at 3 am, and inconveniently right next to a villain his father was fighting? Why did Todoroki Touya seem so damn familiar? What the hell was happening in that damn house?

He felt like his head would explode.

Well, it seems like Hawks was somewhat right. There’s definitely some shady shit happening, and it didn’t seems like just a corruption case. And of course it would be Hawks of all people that find out about this particular case, because the universe was a bitch and loved to throw salt in his wounds. Congrats, universe. It somehow managed to hit almost all the possible boxes.

He would probably should search for some back up now he had proof. Espionage-driven evidence, but evidence anyway. Normally, he would do it immediately, but this was a difficult situation. It would be better talking about something like this in person, without any trackers to some vital people, and then start building alliances from there.

Group name: Animal Crossing

CAW CAW Mothefuckers – Hey guys, can we meet as soon as possible?

Moby Dick, but Better – Wow, what happened? You disappeared for 2 days

The best things in life are Violence & Carrots - Holy shit, the world is ending

 The best things in life are Violence & Carrots - You are never so quiet here, or in general

This bad boy can fit so many jeans in it- yes, and you never ask to meet unless it’s something serious

This bad boy can fit so many jeans in it - Are you in trouble?

CAW CAW Mothefuckers -What? No!

Moby Dick, but Better – no offense, but you are always in some kind of mess

This bad boy can fit so many jeans in it - Is someone the trouble?

Fuck. Keigo knew that they would get that something is wrong when he of all people asked to meet. He loved to hang out with his friends, but he usually was so busy he hadn’t the time to actually plan anything up – that, and the constant guilt of wasting their time and not spending his own working. He hadn’t realized that they would find his lack of interaction weird, even fully aware that if he hadn’t showed up in public they would assume he was dying, and that he would probably think the same thing if it was the other way around.

CAW CAW Mothefuckers - Okay, kind of

CAW CAW Mothefuckers – I can’t talk about it here, but I probably will need to call one or two other people as well

The best things in life are Violence & Carrots - Shit. Whoever it is I’m ready to kick their ass

Moby Dick, but Better - just say the name

The best things in life are Violence & Carrots - I’m in Masaku right now, but I can be there two days tops

Moby Dick, but Better- East coast, give me one day

This bad boy can fit so many jeans in it - I will be with you as soon as possible

This bad boy can fit so many jeans in it - Are you okay Keigo? Really okay?

CAW CAW Mothefuckers -Yes! Don’t worry, I’m fine

This bad boy can fit so many jeans in it - …

Moby Dick, but Better- …

The best things in life are Violence & Carrots - …

This bad boy can fit so many jeans in it - Yeah, I can feel that something is troubling you, I’m going to Musutafu right now

Goddamnit. He knew that one of them would do something like this, especially Tsunagu. The fiber hero was really protective and empathetic, to the point that Keigo was sure that the older blond had a second secret quirk. And apparently, said quirk had a subsection dedicated only to warning him, Rumi and Kugo when Keigo was even slightly bothered. He dreadfully learned that all of them were terribly stubborn, that was probably how they chose to deal with Keigo’s annoying, but equally stubborn ass.

CAW CAW Mothefuckers -Tsunagu, this is not about me

This bad boy can fit so many jeans in it - Too late, already bought the tickets

CAW CAW Mothefuckers -It’s your day off!

Moby Dick, but Better -Give up my man. He's way to stubborn

This bad boy can fit so many jeans in it - I will be in your agency at noon

CAW CAW Mothefuckers -I will be busy with the mentorship

This bad boy can fit so many jeans in it - Good, I planned to pass by and check on Bakugou anyway

The best things in life are Violence & Carrots - Ohh, you actually accepted a bunch of kids?

Moby Dick, but Better -I want to meet them. They must be interesting to get you to adopt 5 kids

Moby Dick, but Better -Which students you chose?

CAW CAW Mothefuckers -Tokoyami, the same goth one from before; Bakugou, the kid from the sports festival that interned with Tsunagu; Uraraka, from the giant boulders attack; Todoroki, the one with the dual hair and poker face; and Shinsou, he entered the class recently but it’s pretty good

Moby Dick, but Better -I know Todoroki and Bakugou from the remedial classes

Moby Dick, but Better -Talented kids, but the little shits are difficult to deal with 

The best things in life are Violence & Carrots - Hah, I really want to see you tutoring a bunch of brats. It must be hysterical

Moby Dick, but Better -Same. Take lots of photos, Tsunagu

CAW CAW Mothefuckers -Omg Rumi, you HAVE to meet Bakugou

This bad boy can fit so many jeans in it – Keigo, no

Moby Dick, but Better – for society’s sake, stop

CAW CAW Mothefuckers -Why???

CAW CAW Mothefuckers -I swear to fucking God, the kid must be your secret baby brother or something

CAW CAW Mothefuckers -He has the same style of “I will kick your ass and I will have fun doing it”

This bad boy can fit so many jeans in it - Oh god

Moby Dick, but Better -We’re all doomed

CAW CAW Mothefuckers -Ohhh and you need to meet Uraraka as well

CAW CAW Mothefuckers -She needs a role model, and you would be perfect

Moby Dick, but Better - Never really thought of it, but it’s actually a good idea. The hero market can be really brutal, especially to women

The best things in life are Violence & Carrots – Yeah, someone has to teach her how to kick a bastard’s ass so hard they will never fuck around again

The best things in life are Violence & Carrots - Can’t wait to meet the little menaces

The best things in life are Violence & Carrots - I will be the wine aunt

CAW CAW Mothefuckers- Perfect

CAW CAW Mothefuckers – Have to go now. Send me a message when you’re coming Tsunagu

CAW CAW Mothefuckers logged off

Some days ago, in normal circumstances, Hawks would probably be happy, even surprised to have his childhood hero show up in his agency. He idolized the man for so long, almost as if a distant father figure.

This however, wasn’t in any way normal circumstances, and by what Hawks discovered in the last few hours, the interactions with his childhood hero would probably never be pleasant again. Even if he was wrong, and everything that happened 10 years ago was just a really freaky, tragic accident, his mind was still making way too many associations about the man with things that Hawks didn’t want to touch with a ten foot pole.

Yet, here the flame hero was standing in the waiting area of his office. Hawks felt his heart skip a beat when he entered his office by the balcony, just to see that Endeavour appeared out of nowhere. He internally cursed himself for choosing to have the door made of see through glass so that he could see what was happening outside. At least the man didn’t seem to see him just yet, being distracted by something in his phone.

Did he know about Hawks searching his records? Was he going to threaten him about it? At least he was alone, so no commission minions or lawyers in sight. Was this about Todoroki? Shit, it was uncomfortably close to the time for the mentorship.

Hawks took a deep breath, hoped this was about some villain case, prepared himself mentally for a load of bullshit that could come from this interaction, and opened the door.

“Endeavour-san! What a surprise!” Hawks said with his brand-relaxed smile “What brings you here? Here, come in, take a seat!” he said holding the door for the larger man to enter

Endeavour looked at him with the usual closed expression, but he seemed a little more bothered with the other than usual.

“That won’t be necessary. I only came to discuss a matter, and that should be fairly quick”

Huh. The old tatic of pressing for a quick discussion, and avoiding his office nonetheless. Endeavour was far from being one of the most social heroes, but he knew how to take the lead of a discussion. He was trying to dictate that the problem was fairly simple and had a simple solution (his), while pressing for time and refusing to have the conversation where Hawks authority was by default established.

“Of course! Hana-san, could you grab us a drink? Do you want to drink something Endeavour-san? Water? Tea? ” Hawks smiled and said quickly, giving his secretary an excuse to leave the scene. The older hero just grunted and shook his head. “No? Just a coffee for me then, Hana-san!” He said as he organized some paperwork with his feather and flew high enough to meet the other’s eyes.

“So, what do you want to talk about, Endeavour-san?  A case?”

“No. It’s about Shouto.”

“Oh! Yeah, his mentorship is in a few minutes actually” Hawks breaks eye contact to check the clock, but stares right back in blue eyes right after “He is a great kid. Is there something worrying you?”

“I will be direct. You will cancel his training with you.”

Silence. Hawks reinforced the eye contact. He did not like the tone, given as an order. As if it was obvious. His pupils were probably shrinking.Hawks’ fake smile fell.

“What?” Hawks says way more serious than previously “Why? Did something happen? Is he hurt?”

“Shouto committed a mistake. He will have this… mentorship program under my guidance instead, so he can train his fire”

“Did your son ask for this? If he doesn’t want to do his mentorship here, why didn’t he contact me or his homeroom teacher?”

“It was my decision. I didn’t know about this mentorship program before, otherwise we wouldn’t be having this conversation.” 

“Well, he already has the permission of his teacher and his guardian, even if it isn’t you. He can train here without any problem. And If I didn’t know how to teach him properly, including the use of his quirk, I wouldn’t have invited him in the first place.”

“It wouldn’t be enough, and I didn’t agree to this. As his father, I’m canceling for him” Endeavour closed more of the space between them, grabbing the other’s arm. He could feel the heat of the flames. Disgust invaded Hawks, the motion was way too familiar. He extended his wings, covering anything that wasn’t Hawks from the taller man’s sight.

“Listen Endeavour, the kid chose to be here.  So unless he asks me to get out of this mentorship and has Eraser Head agreeing with it, he will continue to be here.” He was still staring. He probably didn’t blink at any point of the conversation, because the bigger man started to grow more tense by the second.

Hawks felt people approaching by the elevator with his feathers. Six people, all pretty light. Shit, the kids would see this shit show.

“Listen you little punk, don’t you dare question how I raise my son. Stop wasting our time with this nonsense before I get my lawyers involved.”

Ah, calling the lawyers. The “I wish to speak to your manager” of hero world. Well, sucks to be him, because Hawks already checked Endeavour’s legal team. They were pretty good, probably for the huge collateral damage Endeavour left every now and then, but Hawks’ team would eat them alive.

“Wow, you are really going deep for some father and son time, aren’t you? As much as the feeling is touching, I can’t oblige like this. Besides, I’m sure the media would love this.” He said sarcastically with a grin. The man face was full of fury.

The elevator door opened and the kids and Ibis got out, all of them surprised by the unexpected visitor and more yet by the tense air between them and the close proximity. Ibis got in alert mode immediately. Todoroki seemed distressed, then sad, and then angry, in a defensive stance that broke his heart. The other seemed just confused except for Bakugou. He had an uncharacteristic stance, alert and seeming awfully protective of Todoroki. Huh. The kid definitely knew something was up.

Silence. The stance of those two made his instincts scream to take Endeavour as far away as possible from the children no matter what.

“What are you doing  here?” The younger Todoroki said with venom.

Endeavour said letting go of Hawks’ arm.

“Shouto, grab your things.W..”

There was no way no way in hell Hawks would stay there and watch that man’s bullshit. So he did the logical thing and beat his wings strong enough to accidentally slap the flame hero in the face and stop him from talking. Bakugou, Shinsou and even Ibis seemed to be fighting to not to laugh, with varying degrees of success. Small Todoroki looked at him with shock, as if Hawks had just started to grow feathers out of his face, but a little content.

“Yeah, Todoroki-san, Uraraka-san, Bakugou-san, grab your things! We will go out in patrol, so you all need to get in your costumes!” Hawks said gleefully, like the little shit he is. He could feel Endeavour’s murderous aura and that only made his smile get wider when he looked at Todoroki. “Don’t worry about it Todoroki-san, I was just telling Endeavour that everything was okay with the paperwork to your mentorship, so we won’t have any problems.”

Endeavour seemed to get angrier at this, but before he could say anything he started to guide the children to the elevator with his feathers.

“Let’s go, no time to lose! Let me show where you kids can get changed” Hawks said cheerfully following the kids and stopping by Todoroki.

Todoroki looked at his father with a strange expression again and started to run in the same direction as the others, but when he did that his father seemed to recover his previous anger. Hawks saw him closing the space between that and extending his big arm, still covered with the fire of his costume to his son.

“SHOU…” he saw the boy flinch to the sound of his father’s voice, preparing to turn around and get away when Hawks had enough and reacted instinctively.

Hawks put himself between them and grabbed the pro hero’s pulse before he could touch Todoroki, and stared deep in Endeavour’s soul without a trace of the smile that was in his face seconds ago. Both of the Todoroki’s looked at him like they couldn’t believe in what they were seeing.

Endeavour seemed to recover from the shock first, rising in fury before making eye contact with the younger hero, and then showing a hidden apprehension in his eyes, like he saw something that shouldn’t be there. He tried to pull his arm from Hawk’s grasp. He couldn’t. Hawks was way smaller, his gloved hand not even big enough to surround completely the other’s pulse, but Hawks had planted himself in the ground, holding him in the articulations that allowed the pulse to move.  He was gripping hard . Not tight enough to give a man of that size a bruise, and not strong enough to compare to his stress grip, but way stronger than a man of Hawks’ size should be capable of without a force enhancing quirk.

Hawks forced himself to say with the calmest voice possible, but without a drop of his previous carefree attitude.

“I’m sorry for being impolite, but If you have something to discuss I will ask you to do it later. We are already losing precious time that all of us could be using to help people and improve ourselves.” Hawks said without breaking eye contact, his voice cold as ice. “We will have to go now, but please come back later or contact me if there’s still something you want to talk about.”

With that, he finally let go of Endeavour’s arm, he broke eye contact and led Todoroki with him to the elevator with the others. He looked at Ibis and she nodded at him. Everything was so quiet you could hear if a pin dropped.

He entered the elevator, put himself in front of all the children and said:

“And Endeavour?”

The man looked at him, still in state of shock.

“Don’t worry.” Keigo said with his normal, happy voice again. But this time his eyes watched his every movement and his grin was different than his usual smiles, wider, to the point of the sharper, bigger teeth that were usually hidden were perfectly visible. The title ‘Hawks’ suddenly felt extremely appropriate “I will protect Shouto.”

And with that, the elevator door closes and the raptor and his students disappear.

Chapter Text

As the door closed and the previous conflict ended, Hawks turned to the children, preparing himself for all possible reactions, majorly the probable indignation and questions. That was pretty much the worst way to start the mentorships, and if Hawks was wrong Todoroki would likely want to cancel now if he didn’t want to before.

When he looked at the boy however, Hawks didn’t see any traces of anger directed at him. He still seemed a little shocked, and there were definitely some traces of resentment, but it was at something that wasn’t there. He seemed temporarily lost at some good memory, his defensive posture relaxing as the distance between him and his father increased.

“Todoroki-san?” Hawks said as calmly as he could. Heterochromatic eyes met golden ones. The boy looked at him with a kind of nostalgia and… was he flustered? (oh god, he had called him for his first name, of course, he is) And then a little sad? The doubt from before returned. Oh god, he was making the kid uncomfortable already. “If you were uncomfortable with that situation or any of my actions, I apologize. I didn’t know about Endeavour’s visit, otherwise, I would have dealt with it more privately.”

 With that, the bicolored student seemed surprised once again. “You didn’t make me uncomfortable. I would like to know what he was doing here.” 

“If you want to, we can talk about it later. Don’t worry though, you are not in trouble and it will be solved quickly.” Hawks said smiling while they left the elevator, using the now bigger personal space to give a gentle pat on the boy’s shoulder, consciously making the movement visible but easily retractable in case the boy seemed uncomfortable or avoided the contact. He did neither. He actually seemed a little astonished by the small gesture, even if keeping his composure.

“And all of you,” Hawks said, looking at the others. “I really shouldn’t have to say it, but I won’t tell you anything about it unless Todoroki wants me to. Respect his privacy and personal space.”

Shinsou raised his hand. 

“Yes?” Hawks said with a neutral, but more gentle face.

“Will you teach us that arm-grabbing move you used? That was pretty sick.” He said with a lazy grin. Hawks tried to contain his laughter with his hand, only to fail completely when Todoroki interrupted. With a glint in his eyes and his expression completely stoic, he dramatically said, “Yes. I need to do that or life itself will lose it’s meaning. I don’t care if it will take years to learn.” 

Hawks started to wheeze at the impressive acting that seemed directly out of a movie. Todoroki seemed content with his success in transforming one of Japan’s top heroes in a laughing mess.

“Yeah, that was so cool!” Uraraka beamed, “How did you do it? He is huge, but when he pulled you didn’t even move!”

“I will be the one to do it next time.” Bakugou barked with a feral grin “Huh. It seems like this one will be fucking interesting!”

“I think that was the first time we saw Hawks-sensei angry…”  Dark Shadow muttered. 

“What a mad banquet of darkness.” Tokoyami signed, already a usual witness to the chaos.

“Hahaha…  Don’t worry about it,” Hawks laughed as he pets Dark Shadow’s head. “I’m calm now, and I will teach you guys some immobilization tricks later.”

Shit, it seems they are serious. Fuck. Hawks has no idea how to teach that shit because he never learned it . Grabbing stuff literally came more naturally to him than blinking did. Honestly, he has no idea how the hell he managed to hold the log that was Endeavour’s arm in the first place. Sure, Hawks trained himself to be precise as hell his whole life. He knew the weaknesses of the human body like the palm of his hand, and he had studied physics so much that sometimes he is pissed by the fact that he didn’t earn a Ph.D. for it. But even with all of the techniques he learned through his life, he was convinced that 30% of what made it possible was his quirk and 50% was just his pure, bone-deep stubbornness that was so strong that it broke the laws of nature.

He decided that this was a problem for future Hawks, and just made a note to check the more subtle aspects of his quirk later. It may be useful for coming up with new attacks and learning tools. He ushered the kids to hurry up and go change and took them to the changing room.

“Go get changed to patrol, but just to confirm your hero names are...Uravity, Shouto, Mind Freak, Tsukuyomi and...” he was pointing, until stopping at Bakugou, who didn’t have a hero name picked out “How would you like us to call you? Bakugou? Katsuki?” 

“Just Bakugou.”

“‘Kay then.”

As they changed, Hawks took the opportunity to check on his support team’s status. Endeavour’s signal was blocked and checked in record time. Aki was the best. He made a mental note to buy their favorite chocolate and to go talk with them as soon as he is done with the kids. He quickly texted EraserHead.

Hawks: Eraser!

Hawks: Don’t let Endeavour take Todoroki home no matter what.

Hawks: Actually, I need to speak with Nedzu to stop him from going to UA. Better avoid all contact possible.

EraserHead: Oh God, I knew that one of my brats did something.

EraserHead: What happened?

Hawks: Todoroki isn’t hurt.

Hawks: His father showed up out of nowhere in my agency.

Hawks: He appeared right before the mentorship.

EraserHead: How convenient.

Hawks: He wanted to take Todoroki out of his mentorship with me so he could teach him instead.

Hawks: Did he say something about wanting to change mentors with you?

EraserHead: What? No.

Hawks: I figured. The kid doesn’t seem the type to ask others to fight his battles for him.

EraserHead: Exactly. What did you do? How much did the students see?

Hawks: Just the last bit. They didn’t get directly involved.

Hawks: Well, long history short I politely told him no. He didn’t like that, and tried to bring the kid in it.

Hawks: So I grabbed his arm, politely told him to fuck off and get out of my agency, and took the kids with me to patrol.

EraserHead: ….

Hawks: What?

EraserHead: ….

Hawks: I’m starting to get worried.

EraserHead: It was you.

Hawks: What?

EraserHead changed  Hawks’ contact name to Problem Eyas

Problem Eyas: Hey!!!!

Problem Eyas: What the hell? I was defending your kid!

Eraser Head: Yeah, but I’ve only known you for a week and I can already tell that you did something to fall under that category.

Problem Eyas: I’m 22! And did you seriously go through bird terminology for this?

Eraser Head: Being 22 doesn’t help your case at all. And even if it did, time is a construct.

Problem Eyas changed Eraser Head’s contact name to Mean Caterpillar

Mean Caterpillar: That’s fair.

Mean Caterpillar: But what else happened to make you so worked up? You wouldn’t have contacted me immediately if there wasn’t anything bad that happened.

Problem Eyas: This called my attention, and it’s added to some stuff I found out.

Problem Eyas: Can we meet to talk about it? It’s complicated.

Problem Eyas:  I’ve already called some people to discuss the matter, but you are his teacher so I wanted to pass it by you first.

Mean Caterpillar: I appreciate it. And yes, we need to meet. Is it an immediate threat?

Problem Eyas: Not from what I can gather, but I will keep an eye on him.

Problem Eyas: Tomorrow?

Mean Caterpillar: Today. I will be at your agency after the kids’ training.

Problem Eyas: Great.

After all of them were in their hero costumes, they went on patrol. For the first time ever he decided to be proactive and not act super protective at the same time,allowing the students to deal with some incidents by themselves for once.

(Except by the fact that he analyzed every villain he let them fight alone to make sure there was no real damage threat, stayed close every time there were victims involved, separated them into groups,and stuck some tracking feathers on them. He did this all while both solving other cases by the sky and watching carefully in case the students needed help with something. 

It was normally the usual stuff. Stopping small thieves and purse-snatchers,  traffic accidents, helping elderlies to carry their things, helping a lost child, those kinds of things.

His patrol areas tended to be way more peaceful because most of the villains and big operations tended to avoid him like the plague. Considering his unpredictable pattern of constant patrol, basically everything within a 5 kilometers radius from his agency was practically villain free and that everything from that was still a low activity area, especially during daytime.

One particular incident happened a little off his usual patrol area, in a park.

Bakugou, Todoroki and Uraraka were in a group, and they were taking care of a group that suddenly got violent. There weren’t any previous known villains involved, and it seemed like some kind of protest or debate that had gone sour. It was something about oppression, and how people should have more liberty to use their quirks freely. 

The kind of thing that was kind of cool in theory, but resulted in a guy with blades attached to his elbows throttling a guy with a bat face, and a headache for Hawks. In this case, 12 people went nuts, and from what he gathered, the argument seemed to start because the civilian with a bat mutation tried to complain about something that they said. 

Hawks intervened when he saw that the students were outnumbered. Bakugou separated the blade guy from the civilian with an AP shot, Uraraka immobilized him, and Todoroki defended the civilians with his ice as he simultaneously burned the tall guy with shackles in his hands that was trying to hit a woman. The first thing Hawks did was take all the other victims away from the chaos.

A weird man with a yellow suit screamed, “How dare you go against the will of Destro?!”

The man sent a strong electric current in the kids direction. It was deflected by Todoroki’s ice, but Hawks felt his blood boil. He could feel from his feathers that the attack had a high voltage. If it had hit one of them… it wouldn’t have ended well. That guy attacked with the intent to kill .          

Hawks sent his feathers to take down the leader with a strong electric quirk.. Sure, Hawks had been a bit more violent than normal, but he had just sent his feathers to cause impact and make him unable to fight, kind of like bullets but without spelling blood. The electricity user continued to scream, but the screams weren’t from pain of fear. The guy seemed out of a horror movie about cults, even as he was losing consciousness he kept murmuring that name “Destro... Destro...”

Hawks made a mental note to research it later.

Hawks understood why a civilian with a mutation would be upset when one of the idiots tried to lunge for the guy with a bat mutation quirk that Uraraka took to safety.  

“You goddamn blood sucking parasite! You live down with that pathetic quirk and a deformed face, and you think you have the right to say shit?” He cried.

Hawks felt his mood darken. The bastard was either really confident or really stupid to spew anti-mutation bullshit in front of him. Hawks sent some feathers to stab the man’s back, but they deflected. 

The guy stopped and turned to him.

“Ha! Your feathers are useles...” The arrogant dumbass said before being cut quiet.

Unfortunately, to him, Hawks wasn’t really the type that listened to monologues. If pressure didn’t work, he went with the fun way. He picked up the man with 2 feathers by his clothes and spun him into the sky. By the sound of his screams,  Hawks’ attack seemed to work. He took down a very angry woman, and let the guy on the ground as he went to fight another of his friends, deeming that he was definitely too nauseous to cause any problems.  

The civilians started to cause a commotion. Goddamnit.

Todoroki froze the two guys who tried to attack him and made a barricade to stop the civilians from coming too close while Hawks took down a guy that was literally a brick house. Uraraka trapped an violent middle-aged woman and Bakugou took down two guys that spewed threats and tried to destroy local propriety.         

Apparently one of them had a projectile quirk, because a small blade went in Todoroki’s direction as he took down the muscular guy. They were pretty shitty and the guy had bad precision, so it wasn’t really dangerous, but better safe than sorry. Hawks caught it with a feather either way and Uraraka immobilized the last one.

With every single one of them in cuffs, the injured checked by medics, and one of his sidekicks coming his way, Hawks checked in Tokoyami and Shinsou once again and prepared to fly off before he realized that his students were stuck. 

An elderly woman that Todoroki had saved was determined to make him accept some cookies she had in a pot (why did they always have homemade food with them?) Uraraka spoke with some girls that seemed a little younger. Bakugou got immediately surrounded by a bunch of kids. He seemed incredibly frustrated by this, but at least he was following his advice to refrain from screaming, and the kids were too busy trying to climb him to care about his muttered swearing.

Hawks was too busy laughing at his intern that was suffering to remember the first rule of leaving after a case. Bakugou heard his laughter and made eye contact with sadistic glee.

“Hey, brats, do you want to know my boss?” The little shit barked and pointed to Hawks.

Goddamnit.

He liked his fans, and he liked kids, but going away to continue patrol after they cling on to you is incredibly difficult

The good side it’s that the kids didn’t release Bakugou to go with him. Instead, the little gang divided themselves in two groups, the toddlers finishing their mission to climb Bakugou, and the others fawning over Hawks and pulling him to Bakugou’s side so that the kids could alternate between the two blonds.

Kids are too smart these days.

Bakugou quickly learned that using his quirk just made everything worse, enticing the children to come even closer, fascinated by the sparks. Hawks use his feathers to entertain them enough to stop them from trying to climb his wings. Some of them still wanted to be held, and at least 3 of them were petting his wings with great interest at all times.

After some time of accepting their fate, the parents came to get their children back after they took way too many photos. Surprisingly, Bakugou was pretty good with kids. Rather than making them leave by force or sacrificing Hawks’ feathers as a tribute to keep them quiet, Bakugou made his palms spark a little to distract them before their parents pulled them away.

Hawks looked for Todoroki and Uraraka. Todoroki had given in and was finishing a cookie. His smile disappeared when he saw Uraraka. She was talking with a man and a teenager, and she seemed uncomfortable.

Hawks immediately went to intervene. The distance was normal, but Hawks made sure to pull Uraraka back just enough so that he could protect her with his wings if necessary. Bakugou noticed and followed him as well.

“Hey, Uravity.” he said with his tv smile “Talking with fans? How are you mister?”

“Very well, thanks to her.” The man said. He didn’t look at her in a dangerous or inappropriate way, but there was still something wrong. Like he was avalliating her. “She and her friend were pretty impressive out there. Are you teaching them, Hawks?”

“Yep, they are with me in a mentorship program from UA” Hawks said, as he watched the man’s expression turning sour at something he saw behind Hawks’ shoulder.

If Hawks didn’t like the way the man looked at Uraraka, he hated the way he looked at Bakugou. Both of them were familiar. Condescendence and disgust .

“Are you teaching him as well?” the man said. Bakugou snarled.

“Yes, actually” Hawks said with a sharper tone than before. “Bakugou, Uravity, and Shoto that fought just now, as well as two other students from their class. All of them are excellent students.”

And then a middle-aged man snorted.

“Are you sure that you should let those two together? Leaving the poor girl with that brute...”

Hawks had to remind himself that he couldn’t offend civilians, even if they are assholes. So he did the very next thing.

He was a brutally passive-aggressive little shit instead.

“What would be the problem?” Hawks said innocently, as if he really didn’t know what he was insinuating. “Uravity and Bakugou-san work really well together. You must have seen just now, how they worked together to save that hostage and capture the villain with the blade quirk. That not to speak about their combo moves, and even more with the others…”

“But at the sports festival..” The man began.

“Oh yes!” Hawks interrupted and clapped his hands with force to shut him up. “Their performance in the sports festival was amazing, it’s what planted the idea to call both of them. Uravity showed incredible power, drive, and strategic thinking in her fight with Bakugou. She will be amazing when she graduates!” He saw in the corner of his eye that she was blushing, Todoroki was watching, and Bakugou was grinning. “I really don’t see why people were so antagonistic in that fight, honestly, Refusing to acknowledge all of their hard work is incredibly disrespectful. They should be ashamed of themselves, don’t you think?”

The man looked at him shocked, stuttering to respond: “I…I..-I…”

“And Bakugou, he was simply incredible!” Hawks continued, and saw that someone was filming. Good. “His determination and passion for heroics burned like the sun, I knew the moment I saw him that he would be a fantastic hero! And he just proved it further in the sports festival and every time after that! We really need heroes like him, with a rock-solid moral code, courage, ambition and authenticity.”

“H-he-h…” the man was red by now. Hawks didn’t know if it was from shame or fury, and he didn’t care.

“It’s a shame that so many people are so bitter, do you imagine how sad must someone’s life be for them to attack a 15 year old boy because of some swear words?  Because he treated his opponents with respect?” Hawks vented, going all the way. “They keep forgetting that all of them are kids, and that they are complex human beings, so they judge without knowing! Imagine, thinking that one of UA’s top students, one that basically is the personification of Plus Ultra, could ever be a villain? The only explanation is that they have no idea what a villain is! I can’t tell you that it doesn’t make any sense and….”

“Okay, okay, we understand, Pep Talk is over!” An extremely red Bakugou is trying to hide his face and pull Hawks at the same time, with Uraraka’s help. “We are ready, let’s go! ”

“What are you talking about, let Hawks finish!” Todoroki said, looking extremely entertained with his classmates suffering.

“You are right Shouto, I didn’t even have time to talk about you and…” As soon as Hawks said those words, Todoroki’s face turned completely white and that was Bakugou and Uraraka’s turn to laugh.

“Let’s go! Right Now! ” Todoroki said with sudden urgency. “Crime waits for nobody!” And he was advanced to the patrol area with his ice. 

Hawks waved bye for the people in the park and took flight.

After some more mixes, Hawks found himself stopping for a water with Bakugou. He made sure to make the boy stop for hydration every couple hours. By the changing colors of the sky, he could tell, that his patrol is coming to an end. They were sitting in the roof that was the meeting point, waiting for the others when he asked.

“Why did you do it?” the teenager asked.

“What?” Hawks quirked an eyebrow.

“That old man.” Bakugou said. “Why did you say those things? He’s just a random extra!”

“True.” Hawks smiled. “His opinion doesn’t matter. But people like that, that speak shit about other people, that try to diminish someone to fit their opinions, really annoy me. Normally I don’t really care, but I did today.”

“Why?” Bakugou said. “I can take care of myself! I don’t need you to fight for me!”

“True.” Hawks said again. Bakugou seemed a little startled with this. The kid was really defensive and he wondered if it was an effect of the kidnapping. “You are strong. But just because you can fight your battles by yourself, it doesn’t mean that you need to ,”

Bakugou seemed to consider that.

“Besides, I didn’t say anything I don’t 100% agree with and confirmed it myself.” Hawks continued. Bakugou showed a wave of embarrassed anger. “I already discussed my opinion on the matter with the UA staff, and I was never shy about it. It was going to happen eventually, that man was just the asshole who paid for it.”

Bakugou snorted. “And the media? Aren’t you afraid that this can’t harm your reputation.” 

“Nah,” Hawks said. “Actually, I hope they divulge it so more bastards like that guy know that they aren’t worth shit. And don’t worry about the repercussion, my brand is already basically me not taking shit from old assholes anyway.”

The boy laughed harder. 

“I didn’t really expect you to have so much bite.” Bakugou says, “You are a top hero and  obviously strong, but I thought you were all happy-go-lucky.”

Hawks laughs, “Yeah, I will admit I have a bit of a temper myself. I just show it in a more subtle way.”

“Why, though?”

“Hm?”

“Why do you pretend you aren’t angry when you are? Why don’t just send them all to hell?”

“Firstly, because if I act calm enough, I eventually calm down for real. If I acted out with clear anger every time I’m stressed, I would be the first hero to die from a heart attack on his twenties.” Hawks said. “Secondly, because it’s easier to trick enemies and make allies like this. There are a lot of social and psychological aspects in the hero world, because connections are important for getting opportunities and information. Always chase down the info, kid”

“Thirdly, because it gives me a reputation as a ‘happy-go-lucky’ hero.” Bakugou looked ready to insult him for the last point, but Hawks kept talking. “So, when I show I’m pissed, when I finally lose my shit, people know that shit got  real. I tend to accumulate my anger when I need it, for the big stuff, and when that happens, I take it all out and it is glorious.” Hawks said with a toothy grin. “Especially if I’m fighting some really bad villains. Their reactions are something I will treasure for the rest of my days.”

Bakugou lets a bark of laughter at that and nods to Hawks with a sharp grin of his own “Well, it sure as hell threw that flaming trash can off his rhythm.”

Hawks fought himself to decide if he apprehended the kid for calling the number two hero a flaming trash can. His petty side won. Hawks laughed.

“Oh no, you haven’t seen me in all my fury. It’s way messier than that.”

“When will I see it, then?” Bakugou said, a bit joking and a bit curious.

Hawks thought about the recent events, the commission, the League of Villains, Endeavour, the Todorokisas he saw the others coming to the roof.

“If we are lucky, never.”

Chapter Text

The kids mostly cooperated with this system, probably because Tokoyami had knelt to thank the heavens at the beggining of the patrol when he realized they would actually do groundwork instead of just cleaning duty. He would soon regret that, as he tried to recover his breath laying in that same ground with Uraraka and Shinsou.

Todoroki and Bakugou seemed to be holding better, but also tired. The first seemed distracted by something, and he kept glancing at Hawks occasionally. The former was drinking the water he bought and complaining about being babied while they returned to the agency, but with less heat than his comments earlier that day.

Tokoyami had improved since his internship, getting quicker in his flight and attacks, but his defense was low since he tended to stand still while using Dark Shadow. By himself, couldn’t block attacks without taking some damage. That was a potentially dangerous loophole because, with their connection, it meant that if an enemy wounded one of them, the other would go down as well. He also noted that Tokoyami still seemed somewhat hesitant in his attacks, probably afraid of Dark Shadow going rampant.

Bakugou was already excellent in combat, so Hawks accompanied him in rescues and interacting with the civilians, preferably with few people and no media. The explosive boy was stubborn, but he was a quick learner. After one or two tries, Hawks learned that he responded well to constructive criticism if it was objective and gave directions for improvement. It took some little bumps, but by the end of the patrol, he was already better in things like keeping his volume lower, using more professional language to avoid scaring civilians, and using his confident personality as a way to comfort people.

Todoroki’s minimalistic expressions were pretty useful to keep composure, but Hawks noticed that he got anxious when he needed to talk with people, especially on one on one. The boy had some difficulties with socialization in general, but he seemed more confident in a mass of people, even when the media was involved, maybe because it wasn’t so personal. That turned out to be pretty handy, because it made his mentorship with Hawks known to the public, and that meant that if Endeavour tried to make him exchange, it would call attention. Hawks also instructed the kid to avoid property damage while using his quirks in urban and more closed spaces, making a mental note to train his precision later.

 He expected to have to do the same with Shinsou at some point, but when he commented about it, the boy showed himself to be firm and charismatic with civilians. It made sense that Shinsou had already practiced socialization since it was an important part of his quirk, but the interactions seemed to tire and frustrate him, so Hawks focused more on his combat efficiency and speed. Uraraka had dealt really well with rescues and civilians, so he made her go to more combat situations. The girl didn’t have much offensive ability by herself, but the training she had previously with Gunhead seemed to help her, so Hawks planned on extending that.

All of his mentees were introverts or lone players at heart in some way or another, probably a deep cry of Hawks’ subconscious to stay with his own low maintenance kind. Normally, people would prefer the opposite, but normal people slept 8 hours a day and didn’t have to deal with the press every single day. Even Uraraka, that was a friendly sunshine, seemed to get tired after most interactions with the public.

But hey, they managed to patrol extras areas without losing time, the kids learned something, he got to look of improvement points and no one had a screech, so he considered it to be effective.

As they got back to the agency, after all of them got checked for injuries, Hawks made the kids take a break and eat something while he made the paperwork of the patrol. After they changed clothes, he took them to the resting room and pointed to the kitchen.

“Hydrate, eat something to recover energy, change clothes, and rest. In half an hour, we are going to the training area.”

Some grunts erupted from the group.  Shinsou lost no time and immediately plummeted in one of the sofas. Hawks snorted a little at the similarities he had with Aizawa. Tokoyami sighed and grabbed some apples, while Uraraka and Bakugou went for some water.

“There is soba…” Hawks looked at Todoroki, who seemed to consider the compartment in his hands a surprise gift from heavens.

“Our cooks made some food following your dietary needs, so feel free to take it.” Hawks said, a little humored by the sudden good mood.  “They made some portions of what you asked for in the forms. There are also some snacks if you prefer something lighter.”

Shinsou raised his head from the sofas’ pillows in interest. Bakugou went to investigate the fridge while Todoroki happily slurped his cold soba.

“Aren’t you going to eat too, Hawks-sensei?” Uraraka asked.

“Nah, I’m good.” Hawks smiled. “I lunched, so I’m not really hungry.”

Uraraka frowned at that. Tokoyami also paid attention to the conversation.

“It has been hours since lunchtime though!” Uraraka said. “And you went around a lot during the patrol!”

“Uraraka is right, Hawks-sensei.” Tokoyami said, “ You’re a pro, but it’s important to eat. You worked hard, you need to eat.” The then grinned and added, because he’s a little shit: “ Also, I know there is not a moment you aren’t hungry.”

“After I finish these… “ Hawks never completed the sentence, because Uraraka started to look at him with puppy eyes and Dark Shadow joined her, like the traitor that he is. Hawks kept eye contact for some seconds before grunting and accepting his defeat, waking up the fridge to grab some chickuzenni.

“Hah. Not bad…” Bakugou said as he judged a bowl of spicy curry he had just heated. “Still needs some pepper though.”

Hawks’ eyebrow quirked in surprise, as he microwaved his food. The food usually wasn’t shy of seasoning, as he very well knew from his addiction to the chefs’ steak. “There are some condiments in the top drawer.”

“Nice” Bakugou said as he purred a concerning quantity of hot sauce and Shinsou and Uraraka checked the fridge. “Do you guys live here or something? Didn’t expect to even have a kitchen.”

“More or less.” Hawks shrugged while taking his plate and coming back to his paperwork. “We work both during the daytime, like most agencies and nighttime with our underground heroes. There is almost always someone around here, so things like cooks and resting rooms are a necessity.”

“Huh.” Shinsou searched him with his eyes, he noted that Todoroki also looked at with something akin to surprise.

“What?” Hawks quirked an eyebrow.

“You always refer to the agency as ‘we’ or ‘ours’.” Shinsou considered as he ate a hamburger. “Don’t you own the agency?”

“Well yeah, but it’s not just me.” Hawks tilted his head to the side. “Everyone here works hard to do their part so we can keep saving as many people as possible. Lots of people help me to run this place smoothly- like Ibis, Newton, Aki, Masayoshi- so it feels kind of wrong to say it’s only mine.”

Shinsou nods in understanding, seeming glad, albeit surprised with his answer. Bakugou and Todoroki seemed both lost in thought. Tokoyami just keeps eating, already used to the dynamic. Uraraka opened her mouth to say something, but at that moment, Ibis felt that it was the perfect opportunity to embarrass him and magically showed up in the door.

“Aw, Hawks!” She said with a mockingly sweet voice. “We love you too!”

Some of the kids giggled while Hawks rolled his eyes.

“I take it back. You just accepted to work here so you could bully me daily.”

“True, but no one can say I don’t love my job!” she said as she looked over his shoulder. “You ate after patrol? What a surprise! Which one of you managed this feat?”

Tokoyami pointed to Uraraka, who reddened a little with the attention.

“You also helped, Tokoyami-Kun!” She said, pouting.

“Convinced our resident workaholic to eat regularly on your first day? Impressive, kids!” Naomi grinned as she looked at all the students. Hawks elbowed her ribs jokingly and checked the time.

“Glad you decided to grace us with your presence. Now let’s get going?”

Shouto looked stunned at the open, big training that Hawks brought them to.  The place was full of different gadgets and equipment to simulate different scenarios, with lots of space, and what even seemed like separated, closed areas. Even being used to pro-level training ever since he could remember and training at UA, Shouto was blown away at the difference. It didn’t seem a scenery integrated kind of structure, but the entire thing was so extensive that it seemed like they could spend days exploring everything in the room. There was a really complex looking airborne training system that seemed to adapt to an urban environment, a pool, what seemed like a really realistic climbing area, multiple machines he had no idea how it worked, and an impressive collection of different weapons, guns, knives, and chains.

After his classmates seemed to recover focus, Hawks stood in front of them with two people that he assumed to be other pro heroes on his side.

 “Okay, so first some introductions!” Hawks started, gesturing to the women who took them to Hawks when they entered the agency. She was slightly taller than Uraraka and had curly black hair that reached her shoulders. The first thing Todoroki noticed when meeting her were her pretty purple eyes, that seemed to be somewhat highlighted, perhaps by her dark skin.   “You met Ibis already when coming here earlier. She is the underground hero with the most solved cases of Musutafu, and she is amazing in investigative work, agility, physical combat, and stealth. I asked her to help us because of her experience and because her quirk is really handy when learning new things.”

“Own, birdie!” Ibis joked with a dramatic tone “You make me blush.”

“You may also have noted that she is also a little shit.” Hawks continued, ignoring her. His tone was serious, but he realized Hawks was probably joking if the unknown person’s barely contained laughter was anything to go by. “That of course, automatically resulted in us becoming friends the moment we met and eventually working together. Meaning that she is trustworthy, but don’t believe a word she says about me. It’s all lies.”

“Afraid that I will tell them your embarrassing histories?” Ibis said with a sharp grin. “You are no fun.”

After spending so much time with Aizawa-sensei, it was kind of weird to see an underground hero that showed her emotions and joked so easily. He wondered that she must be like Hawks, that was usually warm and funny but that could become serious and focused in the blink of an eye -(just like Him ).

Hawks was a strange person. He was at the same time easier and harder to understand than everyone else. He smiled and joked, but also acted in a calculated way constantly - he identified that meters away. It was how he was trained to act, after all - and yet, always that he looked at him or his peers, Hawks had that warm look (he still had his doubts, but he was sure that the pro wasn’t faking it. He knew the false ones way too well. The warmth that attracted you close, just to burn you when it had the chance).

Shouto was slowly getting used to warm looks, words, and touches again. No. He had never get used to them before. Before they were a luxury.  The warmth of his friends. The warmth that appeared in Aizawa’s eyes when he thought no one was looking, that was kind of similar to Hawks’ but not quite. The softness that slowly started to appear in Natsuo and Fuyumi lately, after he finally started to know his siblings.

The thing is, Shouto had absolutely no idea what he had done to earn that specific warmth. All of his peers received some version of it from Hawks, regardless if they realized it or not, but this one felt somehow more personal. (He had only ever met two people with that look, and before visiting his mother, he hadn’t seen it in years. He missed that look so much.) Like if Hawks looked at him and recognized something like they had some point in common, but Shouto couldn’t figure out what it was.

“Well kiddos, how you all heard of our dear resident bird, I will be helping a bit. Hawks never was one for taking apprentices, least of all so many, so I’m curious about what you are capable of.” Ibis said while analyzing all of them with a Cheshire smile. “My name is Kuwahara Naomi, AKA Ibis. My quirk is writing. I basically cause events by writing what I want to happen and connecting it to the object or person. Of course, there are limits to that. I can’t break the laws of the universe, and obviously, there are limits to how much I can use it. In case you are having trouble figuring out how to do something, my quirk can be pretty handy to check if you can do it and how. The downside is that having your body controlled can be an unpleasant experience, so I will only use it if you agree.”

Shouto raised his eyebrows in surprise. The quirk seemed really powerful, kind of similar to Shinsou’s. He was a little confused about how it worked, but if it could use their quirks in a specific way, it was a smart move to use it in this context.

“What the hell?!” Bakugou roared. “I don’t need your fucking handicap!”

Goddammit, Bakugou. This is why they couldn’t have nice things.

“Ohhh, you must be Bakugou, right?” Ibis analyzed the blond with some amusement, seeming completely unbothered by his insults “Hawks told me about you. Do you have a problem with using my quirk in training?”

“I don’t need a fucking cheat to learn new moves” Bakugou growled.

“Oh, but don’t worry!” Ibis said with a sweet smile “I can’t use my quirk to simply shove a new ability inside you. It’s more of a check-up to see if it’s possible in the first place, then see how you do it and learn how to do it by reverse engineering.”

“Besides…” She said, pointing in Hawks’ direction “Pretty sure you all know that already, but any training where Angel here is involved can’t be called an ‘easy way out’ in any context.” She opened a scarier grin, “regardless of the method, he will work every single one of you to the bone. This is just a way to save some time.”

Work us to the bone? What did that mean? Were Hawks going to make them train until there were only bones? Shouto remembered against his will of all the times that he was left without any food after disobeying, after falling way too many times, the hunger and visible ribs. But it didn’t make sense, Hawks had even let them eat before training after all.

 “Stop scaring the kids!” Hawks protested, hitting her face with a wing. “And serious, that reference? Hahaha. Very original.” He said, rolling his eyes as the other two adults laughed. The person with aquamarine hair and golden eyes who hadn’t spoken anything until now made a series of hand movements that Shouto couldn’t understand. Whatever it was, it made Ibis laugh even harder and Hawks snort, trying to hold the laughter.

He almost jumped with the burst of sudden laughter coming from Shinsou and Bakugou’s indignant scream, that apparently understood whatever that was.

“WHAT THE HELL BITCH??” Shouto realized with a shock that his ears were red. He didn’t recall ever seeing Bakugou embarrassed before.

“What did they say to make him so flustered?” He asked Shinsou, really curious. 

“ SHUT THE HELL UP HALF ‘N’ HALF!! ”

He was pushed out of the way by a breathless Shinsou, still trying to compose himself from the rare laughter “Todoroki…” he said. “You didn’t get that, did you?” Shouto shook his head.

“Oh my God, you lost it…” Shinsou held his shoulder in condolence, uncharacteristic of the normally distant boy. “I’m so sorry, buddy…”

“Anyway, let’s keep going!” Hawks said as he recovered from the fit of laughter, as he gestured to the person who had caused it. “This is Yuzuki Aki, they lead the agency’s hero support area and they also help me with some of the investigations. Most of the intelligence and training tech here is their creation, so they came around to see you guys training to develop more specific alterations in the machinery. They also offered to take a look at your costumes and support items and made a few observations, so after training, go to their lab so you guys can discuss it.”

“You lot already noted, they are mute and communicate mainly by JSL, but they can hear and  some of you probably won’t have any problems with understanding signs.” He looked at Shinsou and Bakugou .“To the rest of you, there are support items in the lab that can convert their notes in audio, but I had already discussed with Aizawa-san and Present Mic about offering extra classes of JSL in UA. Honestly, I think that it should be in the obligatory curriculum of the hero course a long time ago because even if most heroes don’t talk it, it’s still stupidly useful, from communicating with civilians that are Hard of Hearing, to planning and sending signals to allies in long distances or in stealth. We will be using it in training and whenever the situation calls for it in the field, so take it seriously.”

“Shinsou and Bakugou, since Mic confirmed that both of you are already fluent, I will ask for you to try to help and talk with your colleagues using signs as much as you can. Obviously it will take time, but all the more experience the better, since both of you have more difficulty with teamwork.”

“You want me to waste my time chatting with these losers?”

“Socialization is the bane of my existence...” Shinsou grunted.

Hawks raised an eyebrow “The options are that, or we needing to waste time here during training hours.” Both of the boys frowned. “That’s what I thought. Anyway, let’s get started!” Hawks said with a sharp grin.

Uraraka, Tokoyami, and Shinsou seemed a little intimidated, but with traces of determination. Bakugou strangely seemed to calm down, with the ever-present fire on his eyes now focused in Ibis and Hawks with anticipation. As much as the blond could be insufferable, Shouto really liked that specific trait, that made the crude classmate weirdly magnetic to everyone around here, that had a similar effect of an adrenaline shot.

Shouto imagined that he would be more nervous about this, yet he wasn’t. Even though he knew it wasn’t going to be like the training with his father (Aizawa-sensei would never allow it), the range between his two points of reference were scarily big. Somehow, the anxiety on the pit of his stomach this morning had just disappeared sometime along the day.

“Uraraka, you will be working on your control. More specifically, the trajectory of objects that float with your quirk and the manipulation of their gravity. The first objective is to see if you can keep them floating in a constant height. From then, learn how to change that accordingly and to use external forces to open more possibilities for flight and making your aerial attacks with more precision. Let’s also try to mix your movement with debris in G-zero  so that you can use your quirk more without getting nauseous.”

All seemed quite surprised by the explanation. Normally, they worked with more general concepts, so it was shocking learning on the first day that Hawks intended that they learned completely new abilities. Uraraka seemed a little overwhelmed.

“Todoroki, let’s see how you can focus your power in precision. There are multiple ways to do it, but first, let’s go for the multiple-use one. Let’s work on your coordination so you can use your quirks to mold your ice in specific shapes, that way you could use it for stabilization in rescue situations, and make weapons and tools for when large scale attacks aren’t an option. Another one would be concentrating your fire in a single point and release it so you can hit smaller areas but with more power, and overall use it with more liberty.”

Shouto blinked in surprise. He had never actually thought about that. He knew his attacks were majorly pretty simple lash outs of power, but that has been working well until now. He supposed that Hawks was right in pointing that out either way since brawn could simply not be enough in rescues, or if he went again with more brute force. It was still surprising that he had such a detailed plan though. He imagined what would happen if he wasn’t able to.

“Bakugou, you have great control of your quirk, so let’s use it to maximize your flying and options of attack. I have some flight techniques that I will pass by with you that can improve momentum, in case of attacks, and stability, in case you have to fly holding a civilian, for example. For attacks, it would be interesting to improve your precision so you can use more your quirk in more unstable places, that can be done by equilibrating the distribution of the force of your explosions, or using implosions.”

His classmates seemed to be holding their breathes as if expecting to see if Bakugou was going to explode and start screaming at the number 3 hero for telling him what to do. But Bakugou, contrary to his personality, wasn’t really the type to disrespect teachers or authority. Shouto expected a grump or something like that, but instead, Bakugou opened a feral smile that matched uncannily with Hawks’ grin. He suddenly understood why the winged hero seemed to like the explosive teen.

“Tokoyami, we will work on your defenses and overall agility. Your flight has improved a lot, but you stay still way too much while you fight and we need to change that. So let’s try to apply the flying into the combat, so you can be both dodge and attack quicker, and try to find an alternative for situations where flying isn’t an option, like in closed spaces. We will also go through your control in the dark, but gradually.”

Unlike the rest of them, Tokoyami didn’t seem surprised. Dark Shadow seemed a little nervous, but he seemed to be expecting it.

 “Shinsou, let’s polish your agility to be more effective both in movement and attack. I see that you already have an excellent grasp in parkour, so we will be using that with your capture weapon and some gymnastics. For your quirk, I have some ideas to facilitate initiating and maintaining brainwashing. Let’s start with trying to make commands without communicating orally, and work up from there.”

Shinsou raised his eyebrows at the part about his quirk, like he didn’t expect that Hawks would focus on it. From what Shouto could remember, most of his training at UA seemed to focus on physical combat, since it was harder to improve mental quirks in many aspects outside of practice. Nevertheless, Shinsou smiled in determination.

“ALL of you are also going to train with quirkless fighting, hand on hand combat, and fight with weapons. We’re also going to see about the weak points of the human body, and both how to defend it and how to attack it.” Hawks said as his eyes traveled between them. “Most of you must be surprised that I intend to train you in some completely new abilities or ways of using your quirk. Normally, this is something that each hero makes themselves individually, but in the field, what options you have to use your quirk can be the difference between life and death. Now, do any of you feel comfortable with using Ibis’ quirk to check weather these options are viable of not? We intend to film so you can watch your movements after.”

All of them nodded.

“Hawks-sensei,” Tokoyami said. “Since I have previous experience working with Ibis-sensei, I would like to go first.”

Hawks nodded. Tokoyami gave a step ahead and seemed to relax. Ibis wrote something in a post-it and stuck it to Tokoyami’s chest. Immediately after, Tokoyami started moving way faster than normal towards the climbing area. Dark Shadow grabbed firm objects near them and used them as leverage to pull Tokoyami forward to the top. After a few seconds, Hawks sent some of his feathers to attack him. From earlier, it was obvious that the winged hero wasn’t using them as fast as he could, but it was still quick to the point Shouto could barely see them moving. Dark Shadow and Tokoyami kept pulling each other away from the feathers. Eventually, Tokoyami reached the top, and the sense of complete focus that was in his posture faded away, and he sat at the top of the giant urban mountain to recover his breath.

Hawks used some of his feathers to take Tokoyami down and gave some pats in his back.

“You were amazing Tokoyami!” Hawks said with a grin, as he quickly preened the boy’s feathers. “Your time was less than half of last time! 2:05!”

Tokoyami smiled tiredly and sat on the near bench to take a breath. Shouto noticed that the Post-it wasn’t in Tokoyami’s chest anymore.

“Is someone up to it?” Hawks asked. Uraraka stepped forward immediately.

“Just don’t try to resist it.” Ibis wrote another note, but this time, she gave Uraraka a small dumbbell before sticking the note on her arm.

Uraraka smile turned into a focused expression the moment it made contact. She threw the dumbbell upwards and activated her quirk before it could fall on the ground. When it floated to the height of her shoulders, she touched two of her fingers again and the dumbbell stopped going up, instead just floating there. She used her quirk again, and the object starts to fall, but way slower than normal. Then, the focused expression faded and the dumbbell kept falling slower until she completely released her quirk.

“Good work, Uraraka” Hawks said with a grin. “It seems my theory was right!”

“H-how? What theory?” Uraraka asked looking at the equipment with shock.

“I suspected that there was an error on your quirk registry.” Hawks said. “It is described as Zero Gravity, and you normally just used it as such, but in the sports festival you left all the debris in basically the same height for a while, regardless of the size. If it was just outright canceling gravity, you wouldn’t be able to collect the debris of multiple, different-timed explosions without sending most of it to the stratosphere. So your quirk must be able to control gravity in levels instead of outright annulling it.”

If Midoriya was here, he probably would have had a heart attack from hearing the number three hero analyzing quirks just like him, albeit in a way more didactic manner. Uraraka seemed to have a hard time processing this strange fact of life as well.

“Wow,” Shinsou said. “You pay lots of attention, don’t you?”

“Of course!” Hawks said. “It’s important to know how to process information, especially in the field. How would I teach 5 chicklings properly if I didn’t?”

“Thank you for your help, Hawks-sensei!” Uraraka suddenly said as she bowed, with a burning determination in her eyes. “Your input was incredible! I would have never realized it otherwise!”

“No biggie. I’m sure you would have figured out sooner or later, kiddo.” Hawks said. “I just accelerated the process a bit. It’s my job, fastest hero and all.”

“The true wise warrior never cowers away from the knowledge enveloped in darkness.” Tokoyami said solemnly.

“I’m so fucking glad Deku isn’t here.” Bakugou grumbled. “He would be halfway building you an altar while muttering like a maniac because you are almost as nerdy as he is.”

“I will take that as a compliment, Mister 4.0-GPA.” Hawks said and laughed at the string of curses the blond pulled. Shouto realized that unlike other heroes, the man somewhat indulged Bakugou’s foul temper, taking everything with amusement and responding with teasing of his own. It almost reminded him of Natsuo. It seemed so natural that Shouto asked himself if Hawks was secretly Bakugou’s older brother. Well, both of them are hypercompetent blondes with messy hair and no hesitation to wreck someone, even if Hawks was a little quieter on that part. But what about their quirks? Were one of them adopted? Were...

He was put out of his line of thought by Uraraka moved beside him, finally noticing that Bakugou had stopped bickering with the number three hero. Shouto decided to focus on something more immediate for now.

“How does the quirk  feel like?” Shouto asked. He noticed that the kanji that were in the post-it had disappeared. He wasn’t close enough to tell what was written, but he saw the ink.

“Pretty normal actually,” Uraraka said smiling. “It’s just like when you are really focused on something so you just do another thing instinctively. I didn’t even realize it was happening before being released.”

He felt better hearing that, but Shouto still felt himself procrastinating. The idea of losing control, even if not completely was disturbing, but it was something he needed to overcome. Bakugou seemed to think similarly, as he kept glaring holes at the underground hero.

“So, anyone wants to go?” Hawks asked.

 “I will go.”Shinsou sighed and walked to the underground hero.

Ibis whispered something in Shinsou’s ear that made him frown a little and then laugh. Hawks looked at her with irritation. Did he hear it? Shouto was closer, but he didn’t hear a thing. The support designer, Aki, grabbed their cell phone and seemed to film something with it despite the training camera being on. Hawks made a funny face at them. After the second camera was ready, Ibis stuck the Post-it, Shinsou turned to Hawks and said “Hey.”

“What is up chickadee?”Hawks responded without hesitation, and his face blanked down fight after. Shinsou made a series of movements with his hands. When he finished, Hawks flew into the air and made an impressive series of acrobatics in the air. He landed right after, and both him and Shinsou seemed to recover.

“That was awesome!” Hawks said beaming, congratulating with a tap on the back Shinsou. The boy looked a kind of surprised by the action. Good to know that Shouto wasn’t the only one that found the winged hero confusing. “And thanks for not going through with what that evil woman suggested.”

“ Me? What kind of defamation…” Ibis started. Aki made some gestures.

“I know how you guys are, and I’m not impressed.” Hawks looked at him and Bakugou. “Do you guys want to do it?”

“Let’s get this shit over it!” Bakugou grumped.

Bakugou growled and walked to Ibis, who took him a bit farther away, next to the training wall.

“Imagine that the wall is that’s crusty McHands face!” Shinsou screamed. Hawks laughed. Shouto felt laughter stuck in his throat, making the best to contain it.

Bakugou snorted and opened his mouth to reply, but he read what was in the paper, and the feral smile from before reappeared. He grabbed the post-it and glued it into his arm. Right after, he touched the wall with one of his hands and focused for a few seconds. Shouto heard a cracking noise, saw the wall explode completely into dust. The explosion didn’t expand out of the wall as usual and didn’t leave a single piece of debris.

“Excellent job man! You will be the most efficient one-man-demolition-team ever! Give Miruko a run for her money!” Hawks said, raising his arms, and curiously his wings, to the sky. 

“Shut up. I didn’t do shit.” 

“Hey, that’s not true! Ibis’ quirk takes a toll on things like this, and it doesn’t do the work for you.  It compels you to do it if you can, so the fact that you have the ability to do it deserves to be recognized.”

“He is right, kid.” Ibis said. “If my quirk could make people do whatever, there wouldn’t be villains anymore. This is like a psychological support item of sorts.“ 

Aku signed something, and whatever it was it made Bakugou barked a laugh and Hawks signed something back. Bakugou started signing as well.

“What are they talking about?” Uraraka asked to Shinsou.

“The Aki lad said something about a history where they and Coffee Bird- I’m assuming that is Hawks’ JSL name - tried to use the quirk with some support item to help with something that Hawks flying around non-stop for a week and how that somehow ended in… the creation of a cult in the US?”  

What the fuck.

“WHAT?” Dark Shadow said.

“I don’t understand some of the signs, they are probably technical stuff, but I’m sure of the rest.”

“And what is Hawks saying?” Shouto asked.

“Hard to say. He is kind of far away and he is fast. Said something about gymnastics and Bakugou’s technique and...Holy shit, is he using his wings to sign?”

Hawks was indeed moving his feather and wings in a discreet but organized pattern, while still making gestures with his hand and looking at Bakugou. Was he having two conversations at the same time?

Whatever he said seemed to convince Bakugou as he stopped signing. He seemed annoyed as he finally accepted the acknowledgment and rolled his eyes when Hawks lightly squeezed the boy’s shoulder, with a surprising lack of explosions or yelling as a result.

Hawks feared no man, and he was definitely Bakugou’s brother. 

Bakugou’s grin came back with the proud look and he joined the others.

“That was impressive.” Shouto said when he passed through him. He didn’t know exactly why.

Surprisingly, for once, Bakugou didn’t take everything he said as an offense.

“I know.” He said with a low tone. “Don’t half-ass it, Icyhot.”

“Todoroki, do you wish to go?” Hawks asked. It was weird how he always asked like they had a choice about doing the training or not. What would he do if someone said no?

Shouto nodded. He felt a little bit better as he walked in the opposite direction. Ibis approached him and he read what was written in the note as she put it in his left arm.

“Use your quirks to make a functional sword. Don’t get hurt.”

He blinked, and the next thing he knew, he was holding a long and sharp ice katana and his classmates staring at him.

Shouto remembered moving his right hand to make a block of ice and then using his left side to vaporize part of the ice letting the ice block with the shape of a katana, lastly using his right side again to make the blade sharper. He remembered thinking about swords while doing it and had the muscle memory of it, but it was like he was pushed a little into the future.

Hawks studied his katana with a trained eye. Shouto awkwardly gave the ice sword to the hero like he was offering a sacrifice. Hawks held it, testing its weight and structure. The cold didn’t seem to bother him.

“Awesome Todoroki!” Hawks said beaming, with a weird spark in his eyes. “Do you have any experience with swords?”

Shouto shook his head. “I saw some katanas, but I never learned how to fight with them.”

He and his classmates almost jumped when Hawks quickly slashed the sword at an unsuspecting fight dummy. The thing was tore in half and Hawks ignored everyone’s surprised glares as he analyzed the blade once again. Whatever he saw, he seemed satisfied because he smiled and said.

“Don’t worry about it. I can teach you about knives and swords if you would like.” He said returning the sword with a smile.

Shouto looked once again at the destroyed dummy that had a thick steel structure, then his classmates, back to Hawks that somehow still didn’t feel threatening even though he obviously feared no man or God  and said: “I would really appreciate it.”

Of course, ten seconds later, Bakugou and Shinsou were fighting over a cool sword with a black and red dragon design.

(They spent the rest of the training trying to replicate the commands on their own with varying degrees of success and hitting each other with wooden swords and knives. Hawks even let them pick one of the real weapons for when they are capable enough to actually use them. Shouto chose one with a Ying yang pattern on it. )

Chapter Text

They drilled some resistance exercises into the kids for one last time before they finished their training for the day. Aki finished their notes and went to their workstation, excited to go through the kids’ hero costumes. As the kids were catching their breaths, Hawk's phone vibrated in his pocket." He pulls it out to see a message from Hana bannering across the screen.

Saviour of The World and My Soul: Best Jeanist just arrived, he is waiting in your area.

“Hey guys, I have to see Jeanist, he just arrived.” Hawks warned.  

“Best Jeanist is here?” Bakugou screamed, caught off guard, sparking his hands a little like it was an instinctual habit. 

 All of the students were clearly surprised. Uraraka stopped looking through her backpack to look at them, eyebrows arched. Tokoyami did that little thing where he moved his head a little to the side when his attention was caught by something, with Dark Shadow appearing and looking at Hawks and then everyone in the room. Todoroki stopped evaporating his ice for a moment to stare at Hawks, the position of his jaw suggesting that he was biting the inside of his mouth in thought. Shinsou’s gaze, that before was fixated into the sky with concentration, traveled to them when Hawks spoke, moving his position just a little between his last push-ups making his head turn to the conversation.

“Yeah, he visits every once in a while.” Hawks said, already in his feet, smiling to himself at the chickling's little quirks. “Ibis, can you take them to the training grounds? I will be there on the schedule.”

“Wait, why is he here?” Bakugou grunted.

“Mostly to enjoy my wonderful company.” Hawks said jokingly as if Tsunagu’s reason to go to the other side of the city wasn’t 90% exactly that. The feeling was mutual, so it wasn’t like he was one to talk. “Ah, he’ll probably drop by to check on you, he said he wanted to say hi.”

Hawks left the room and flew through that floor’s opening to his office. The agency was built with each floor divided in two, and united by a bridge section in the center, that left enough empty space in the middle to allow Hawks and other heroes to fly easily between them through different floors. The place was full of windows, balconies, and open areas for the same reason. Was it extra? Yes. Was Hawks ashamed of the fact that he changed the entire building’s architecture because he isn’t patient enough to wait a few seconds for an elevator? Not in the slightest. 

“Tsunagu!” Keigo beamed and ran into his friend’s direction. Keigo was happy to see him, especially considering that he looked better since Keigo last visited him in the recovery week.

“Hey, Keigo!” They hugged, Keigo facing a huge piece of familiar denim. 

“How are you? Did the doctor clear you out to be here?” Keigo checked the taller blond. He seemed fine, albeit skinnier than he would like. “You should be resting!”

“Pot, meet kettle.” Tsunagu rolled his eyes, huffing Keigo’s messy hair. “I’m fine. It wasn’t that serious. The doctors already let me go back to small hero work.”

“You needed lung surgery!” Keigo exclaimed indignantly. Kugo, Rumi and he almost had multiple heart attacks when they were informed of Tsunagu’s injuries. Keigo had molted out of stress, Kugo had to be kicked out of the hospital and Rumi’s sleep-schedule was worse than his .

“Yeah, but the doctors were really good,” Tsunagu said. “I’m still in one piece, I just can’t go deep dive or run a marathon and really heavy things.”

“You are a hero! It’s already really demanding!” Keigo complained. Both of them knew this. They had different versions of this conversation way too many times, but normally on the opposite orientation. 

“That’s why I’m going easy for now.” Tsunagu said. “You should follow your own advice you know.”

“I’m not hurt!” Hawks complained. He really wasn't, he was luckier than most heroes. His quirk made injuries more unlikely, since he attacked from far away and easily dodge. He wasn't in danger .

Nothing that he couldn’t deal with.

“Yeah, but you don’t rest nearly enough.” That was Tsunagu’s turn to search for any injuries or concerning signs. Keigo hadn’t changed since the older hero last saw him, but whatever Tsunagu was looking for, he found it. “And there’s something troubling you. When was the last time you slept a full 8 hours?”

“I already told you, I’m fine!” Keigo avoided the question. He really respected and liked Tsunagu, both as a hero and a friend, but from time to time, the older man acted more like a worried parent. It took a while for Keigo to fully understand and accept the alien feeling and tone that at first he assumed was condescending, but  was really  just a reflection of the man’s protective nature. “That’s not the problem.”

“What is it then?”

“It’s about a case.” Keigo sighed. “It’s really complicated and can be harmful to society if we don’t deal with it right, so I called…”

Keigo was interrupted by a notification of his cellphone, as he checked.

Saviour of The World and My Soul: Eraserhead is here, I took him to Naomi & the kids.

Workaholic Bird Boss: Thanks, I’m on my way

“Cool.” Hawks said, feeling his mood start to improve.

“What?” Tsunagu asked. “You are with that smile that you use when you are planning to mess with someone.”

“Aizawa is here! Just waiting for Detective Naomasa now.” Hawks hurried to the halls, ignoring the comment.Tsunagu followed him. “Let's go, he is with Ibis and the hatchlings.”

“Any reason why you are so excited about  it?” Tsunagu asked.

“I’ll show them the best part of the agency now! ” Hawks grinned. “From what I heard I think Aizawa will like it, so I waited to keep the surprise!”

Tsunagu laughed, knowing exactly what Keigo was talking about.He entered the elevator, determined to makeHawks use it for once.

“Let’s go then.” The taller blond said. “This ought to be interesting. I haven’t been there in a while too.”

Keigo talked about the changes he had made in the area since Tsunagu's last visit and asked about his own place while they walked to the training area. Since he had already warned the kids the other hero would be here,  he just barged right in.

“I’m back chicklets! Hi Aizawa, welcome to my humble nest!” He said, waving to Aizawa. Aizawa nodded a response and as a greeting. “This is Jeanist, some of you already know him personally. He is cool, just don’t wear anything exceptionally ugly.”

“Hi Jeanist, long time no see!” Ibis greeted. “How are you doing?”

“Good to see you Ibis. “ He responded. “I’m fine, thank you. What about you?”

“Same old, same old.” Ibis looked at the kids, and then grinned. “But with the fresh meat over here is bound to get some extra fun.”

The kids seemed tense, so Tsunagu talked.

“Nice to meet you all. Please ignore the last part of what Hawks said. “Tsunagu said, giving Hawks an annoyed glare. “While it was surprising, I understand why Hawks decided to participate so deeply in this program. It’s easy to see by the way he talked about all of you, especially when I got the chance to see some of those talents personally.” 

Bakugou got a little red from that. Tsuganu continued, “From those I haven’t seen, I’m eager to witness, then get to know all of you.”

Some of them nodded or smiled. Bakugou seemed a little nervous. Tsunagu talked with Aizawa and Ibis, probably waiting for the surprise to fade a little, while Hawks cheeked over the kids, who were all talking amongst themselves. After a little while, Bakugou went to the corner of the room. Tsunagu gave Hawks a ‘dome-with-me-look’ and went to talk with Bakugou, wanting to avoid overbearing him. Hawks snuck close, but far enough that he could slip away if the kid seemed bothered by his presence.

“Hello, Bakugou-kun!” Tsunagu greeted. “It’s great to see you again.” 

Bakugou acknowledged him with a grunt and a nod.

“Oh yeah, you had a week with him. How was the internship with Jeanist?” Hawks asked Bakugou, curious about his friend’s recent methods of making his interns suffer. He might just take some notes. “It must have been a trip. ”

Bakugou’s face contorted into a deep scowl. “He made me wear skinny jeans and drowned my fucking hair in products.” 

Hawks made a face at the last part.

“Oh, I know your pain. It took me a week to get all the gel out.” Hawks laughed, because yeah, he felt Bakugou’s Pain. Tsunagu was the reason his hair developed resistance to all products on earth. Tsunagu joked to this day that Hawks’ hair is actually made of feathers because his wings somehow gained some of that resistance after molting.

“He did that to you too?” Bakugou says, eyebrows rising to his hairline.

“Yeah! I think it’s kind of a rite of passage, he did that to anyone who ever worked at his agency at least once. I visited once and he pulled me into it.” Hawks laughed. “Don’t worry though, he is not allowed to have hair products inside my agency, so we’re safe.”

“Good. He wasted three hours trying to mess with my hair.” Bakugou complained, hunching his shoulders.

“It refuses to be tamed at all costs,” Tsunagu shakes his head, taking his hands out his pockets. “I’m pretty sure it’s somehow connected with your quirk, Bakugou-kun. It’s just…” Then he made an explosion motion next to Bakugou’s head.

“Shut up!” The teenager screamed.

“Hey, you managed to defy Tsunagu’s style dominance?” Hawks exclaimed, gawking at Bakugou with glinting eyes. “Me too! No matter what he did, it always came back to a bird’s nest after five seconds!”

“Why are you so happy about that?!” The explosion user scoffed, crossing his arms across his chest.

“It’s awesome, chickling!” Keigo beamed, ruffling the boy’s head. Bakugou let off some explosions of irritation, but Hawks dodged them with ease. “Your hair defeated science, God, and one of Japan’s greatest heroes!”

It was a little weird how Bakugou always went out of his way to show disdain and avoidance of affection, but never actually showed signs of discomfort. Quite the contrary, he slightly leaned into it, orbiting towards the person a little more and relaxing a little each time. The kid was clearly touch-starved and repressed lots of his emotions. Keigo made a mental note to talk about it with Aizawa later and give the kid extra preening later.

“Untaming Blonde Bros!” Hawks raised his hand for a hive-five. There was a good chance that Bakugouwould leave him hanging, but he rolled his eyes and replied with a slap to Hawk’s palm. It was probably just to bother Tsunagu, who exaggeratedly rolled his eyes at his antics, but Hawks felt really good about that for some reason.

Keigo knew how to read Jeanist, and he was obviously amused. It’s incredible how you can tell so much about his emotions with most of his face hidden. He was looking at Keigo in a weird way though like he was really curious about something. He also felt some stares in his back and noticed that Todoroki was looking at him like Hawks held all the answers of the universe.Uraraka had the same expression she had with the cats.

Fortunately, Tsunagu caught on and changed topics before the boy felt their stares and stormed toward his classmates to blast their faces in.

“I saw the training. You have improved a lot.” He said. “Have you thought about what I told you?”

“I’ll let you guys talk.” He turned on his heels and strolled away to give them some privacy, (Which is pretty hard, since his quirk made it all too easy to hear them well from the other side of the room, even if they were whispering. A guy has to try, though.) but Bakugou pulled him back.

“Don’t bother, he is just being shady,” Bakugou snarled. “‘S just about my damn hero name.”

“Oh, really now?” Hawks felt a flutter of warmth rising in his chest, a Cheshire grin tugging at his cheeks.. “Would you… mind giving me the deets?”

“You’re looking at Ground Zero.” Bakugou turned his gaze toward Tsunagu, looking him in the eye. The older man hummed in approval, but Bakugou didn’t seem to notice. He seemed to look for Hawks’ reaction next, so Hawks just smiled, and unlike most limes, It came naturally. Bakugou continued, “Ground Zero is where an explosion begins, at its strongest. I will rock this world to its core with a single explosion, destroy all of the stupid bullshit that stand on my way and make something actually decent out of it with the pieces. No matter what extras say.”

Hawks could tell that Tsuganu’s smile tugged at his lips, even if he couldn’t see half of his face. “It sounds amazing.I’ll be happy to see it.”

“Hell yeah!” Hawks tapped the boy’s shoulder and nodded. “You’ll definitely blow us all away, Ground Zero!”

Bakugou rolled his eyes so hard at the pun that Hawks was a little worried for his eyeballs and cursed under his breath, but he had a small smile between sneers and his posture relaxed, so Hawks considered that an absolute win.

As much as Shinsou Hitoshi worked hard all his life so that he could become a hero, there were certain things that he never expected to happen.

Finding himself laying on the training tatami of the number three hero’s agency while cursing his own existence was definitely one of them.

He had no idea how he ended up here in the first place. When Hawks showed up to teach 1-A, he hoped to be ignored at best, disrespected at worst, once he had entered the class later than everyone else, was focused in underground work that was the exact opposite of Mr.My-fanbase-is-so-ridiculously-big-that-I-managed-to-single-handedly-stop-the-hunt-of-birds-without-even-trying (literally. Somehow the guy made hunting for sport become the equivalent certificate of assholery with just a tweet. NGOs must love the guy.)

The winged hero obviously had very different ideas though, because the second the blond saw him moving through Ground Beta with his capture weapon, his expression transformed into something that looked just like Espresso’s chaotic glee whenever the feline saw a particular fun bird to chase.

When Hitoshi saw the area, he realized that this entire day must be an incredibly lucid dream. This couldn’t be real. He already got lucky being adopted by his childhood hero and managed to enter UA’s hero course. There is no way his life can possibly be this good.

Maybe it’s a hallucination caused by a severe case of sleep deprivation.

Hitoshi is brought back to reality to the ungodly cry of war, his sanity slipping away as he watches Hawks, the Number Three Pro Hero of Japan, disappear inside a mountain of cats, climbing on him to the point the man is barely visible in the sea of meows and fur.

Hitoshi hesitantly turns around to the others. His classmates are all frozen in shock, even Tokoyami that had been to the agency before. Best Jeanist watched the scene and even with his whole face covered, the man’s amusement was clear as day. Hitoshi made eye contact with his dad, purple and black, eyebags on dry eyes, and opened a telepathic bond he did not even know existed with a single shared thought.

What the hell? 

The moment ended as they heard a burst of muffled laughter under the living mountain and remembered that the number three hero was being attacked - or more accurately aggressively greeted- by a herd of cats. Hitoshi was kind of jealous as he discovered the world’s best way to die.

Hawks slowly escaped from the mountain of cats, as some of them moved to investigate the newcomers, but the blond still was holding three cats in his arms, one in his shoulder, two were glued to his wings, other surrounding his legs, and one sitting in his head.

Oh God, Hawks, one of the most powerful heroes of the world, it’s a crazy cat lady.

Hitoshi had no idea what to say.

“I see that you like cats.” Hitoshi says, like an idiot. Hawks laughs.

“Isn’t that the underestimation of the century?” Best Jeanist says with humor in his voice, as he uses some strings of denim to entertain some of the cats.

“Says the man that has a zoo in his house.” Hawks says, struggling as one of the cats tries to steal his visor.

Shouta picks up a cat that took great interest in his capture weapon while muttering something about problem children, but his scowl doesn’t last long as he pets it. 

As the students get surrounded by an onslaught of fluff and tiny meows, Uraraka doesn’t hesitate to fawn.

“What the fuck?” Bakugou says. “Why the fuck are so many cats here?”

“Oh, those are the agency’s cats.” Hawks says. “Feel free to play with them, all of them are vaccinated and healthy. Not all of them are touchy though, and some are jumpy, so avoid scaring them, please.”

“Agency’s cats?” Todoroki questions.

“Kind of. I’m the one who brings them here and cares for them, but some of the people who work here do their part. Sometimes, they even adopt them.” Hawks said. “They stay here because this space is the better option for lots of cats, and I spend more time here than in my place on most days. Plus, petting cats during breaks is great for morale and stress relief!”

“How did you get more? ” Tokoyami asked with something akin to horror. “Weren’t you castrating them?”

“I do!” hawks said while using one of his feathers to play with an orange kitty. “Some of them were even adopted, but more cats kept following me.”

“Following you?” Shouta arched an eyebrow.

“Yeah!” Hawks smiled. “That’s how this started, actually. Cats really like me for some reason, and sometimes, when I’m flying around, they follow me back here. A bunch of them started sticking around, so I started taking care of them. More cats showed up, and I ended up making a space just for them, and next thing I know, it basically turned into a cat shelter. Now it’s even an official animal rescue point.”

Hawks was officially his third favorite hero now, losing only to his dads. 

“So you basically used your agency and status as a top hero to adopt dozens of stray cats?” Dad asked, while two other cats played with his long hair.

“Pretty much!” Hawks nodded, which seemingly disturbed the cat laying on his head. “Own! Jay, don’t bite my hair! Shinsou, be careful, Swan is on your hoodie.”

Sure enough, a cat with short white fur and hazel eyes was snuggled in a little ball inside his hood, with a big, grey bobtail cat investigating the hood as well. Hitoshi offered his hand for the grey cat to smell and then petted them between their ears.

“Did you name a cat Swan?” Hitoshi snorted.

“Yep. That’s Peregrine by the way.” Hawks said, pointing to the cat that Shinsou was petting. “The black one playing with your scarf is Raven. The white kitty with black spots that is playing with your hair is Crane. The grumpy one that is laying on your feet is Goose, he normally isn’t that social, so he must like you.”

“The one using my head as a pillow is Jay. This little one in my shoulder is Parrot, he’s pretty loud and I’m pretty sure his dream is to become a pirate. The calico here is Wren, this siamese is Rook, the kitty sleeping in my coat is Kiwi, and the ragdoll attempting to destroy my boots is Pavo. The big pair trying to overthrow me as the resident apex predator by using my wings as giant climbing toys are Eagle and Falcon. Eagle is the Maine, fluffier one, and Falcon is the one that looks like a mini tiger.”

“Are you sure he isn’t an actual tiger?” Tokoyami asked. Hitoshi couldn’t really blame him, almost all the cats were bigger than usual, especially for street cats 

“What the hell do you feed these cats?” Bakugou asked, trying and failing to be menacing while rubbing the belly of a grey cat. “They must eat better than half of our class.”

“Organic cat food, some supplements when necessary, and the tears of my enemies.” 

“You give them organic? What kind of cat food?” Hitoshi asked.

“I usually buy the Happy Neko, it’s a small brand made by the  Kazui family from Masui, that rural city.” Hawks said. “ It’s a little more expensive, but the quality is way better and it improves the cats’ health, especially the newly rescued ones.” 

“It’s the same we feed our cats as well” Shouta nodded with a hint of approval.

“Really? So cool!” Hawks says “How many do you have? What are their names?”

“We have four. Espresso, Cocoa, Jelly, and Tea.” Hitoshi says instinctively with a smile.

And then he realizes that he forgot that his classmates were here and that he practically admitted raising cats with his teacher. Todoroki seems to be almost exploding and the others are glaring at him with alarm.

He blames Hawks and his stupid bird-cats.

The blond didn’t seem to notice the bafflement, as he looks at Hitoshi with a smile so bright that it hurt to look directly, kind of similar to Eri’s own. Was there an operation that the top heroes did to gain this type of power? The weird thing is that the current one seems completely spontaneous, and Hitoshi couldn’t tell if the hero was really happy about Hitoshi’s fuck up or if it was simply about Hitoshi deciding to interact with it.

“That is so cute! Favorite drinks theme?” Hawks asked, petting one of the cats. “I knew you had a cat-person vibe, the cats really like you! Was it you who named them?”

“Just Espresso. My little sister named Cocoa, and my parents the other ones.”

“That’s so cute!” Hawks fawned. “A cat family!”

Hitoshi thought that seeing the man that was training him to death mere minutes ago beaming while playing with a cat’s little paws was something he would never see. It should feel out of place, but it didn’t.

“Yeah.” Hitoshi said, smiling a little. He felt like Eri would love to meet the blond and his cats. Would it be rude to ask for permission to visit? “The names kind of match with them. Espresso has lots of energy and is always playing around. Cocoa is really sweet and demands lots of pets. Tea is lazy and sleeps a lot, though she likes to sing. Jelly is a fat, squishy bastard that doesn’t like strangers, but will sit on our laps and make us unable to move for hours.”

Hawks laughed. “They sound amazing.”

“I want to ask about these fur-balls, but I feel like that would take a while. How many do you have anyway?” Hitoshi asked

“Yeah, it would take a while. Right now we have 23 cats, and more to go because we have 4 pregnant cats.” Hawks pointed to an inside big area next to the building with big glass windows, with mini rooms, and a big area full of toys where some cats could enter through little cat doors. Shit, that cat shelter must cost more than the orphanage that he used to live in. Between them, Hitoshi saw a round, black cat that was clearly in the middle of gestation. “The number normally fluctuates between 15 and 40 cats, as new cats come and the ones that live here find new homes.”

“New homes?” 

“Yeah, not all of them live here.” Hawks said. “Some are lost cats, some are just chilling and go back home by the end of the week. Sometimes I steal the cats out of shelters when they are overpopulated or if any of them need treatment. And even then, I can’t monopolize all the cats of Mustafu, so when someone shows interest in adopting there are people who look into it, and if they are suited, they can take them home. Lots of heroes come here for it actually, the Wild Pussy Cats come over here every few weeks to raid as many kitties as they can, they even bring a kid with them sometimes.”

“Don’t you get worried that the villains will try to hurt your cats or something?” Aizawa asked.

“Well, that happened once.” Hawks said with a sinister, sharp grin for a second. “And then never again! I got the cat back, and it solved itself.”

Well, they didn’t have the time to unpack all that. 

Dad looked torn between concern and approval for the tone. Ignoring the casual mention of a probable murder that his mentor just made, Hitoshi changed the subject.

“Hawks?” Hitoshi took advantage of the fact that this was the first chance he got to talk with the hero more privately. “Why did you choose me for the mentorship?”

“Kid, I have lots of experience with villains. I have seen people become monsters, and I couldn’t see you becoming you one in a million years.” Hawks said. “I have only been around for a day, and I can already tell that you are honest, kind, determined, and hard-working. People just act like morality and people are something black and white. Before quirks, they used race, nationality, gender, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation to mark our value as people, and they still do. Quirk discrimination is just like that, because judging people by their actions, personality, and values involve more brain cells than most of those assholes are willing to use, so they use something obvious and that no one can control. They diminished us to keep their privilege, and that costs more than anyone will be able to understand.”

“Like anyone would ever think that your quirk is villainous…” Hitoshi mumbled, and almost had a heart attack when Hawks turned to him. Hawks wasn’t supposed to hear that. How did he hear that?

Before Hitoshi could start to apologize, he said.

“It doesn’t look like it nowadays, but before I was a hero lots of people were afraid of me and my quirk.”
Hitoshi looks bewildered.

“Mutation type quirks sometimes are seen as… wild. Less than human. The fact that mine is based on a predator and influenced in other forms besides the wings, plus the conditions... In which I grew up didn’t help. The whole telepathic feather-knives thing also came out of nowhere, and my mom...didn’t like that.”

The underestimation of the century there, Keigo. Hawks thought. She acted like I was going to stab her the second she let her guard down. Her paranoid eyes, with pupils almost invisible from whatever she injected that time. 

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T̸̡̮͔̝̹̗̣̜̞̒̒̓̀͒̓͘͟h̸̛͉̫̪̗̩͎͉̻̃̿̒͋ͅe̷̡̗̪̪͖̫̫̬̮͑͌̉̏̔̀̀̊͘͝ ŝ̡̢͙̯̱̟̱͔̟̋̀̀̌͞͡ç̶̛̦͕͎͉̗̯͆͋̃̃̿̌͐r̷̟̫͈̯̪̞̬͋̆̌̈̌̕͞͝e̦̳̺̰̻̜̦̤̩̓̎͗͒̔̅͛͋͗ͅā̸͖͖̮̗͍̜̝̯̀͛̓̅̋͐͘m̶̙̻̠̟̤̃̉̐͌̔͘͢͝i̶̧̨̛̦̯͉̫̺͎̿̉͗͊̉̚̚ͅn̶̛̛̘̳͈̗͕̗͍̓̊̓̄̈̑̍g̸̼̪͕̞̜̠̠̋͛̅̄̇̅̀̚͢͝ͅ,̡͎̲̮͓̦̘̏̉̅̅̑̆̿͑̃͞ t̸̡̧̟̘̮̣̾͊͂̒̊̅͠h̷͙͚̝̳͈̭͋̐̾͒͝͡e̷̺̠̬͍͈͖̯̱͚̥̋́̔͛̽͑̓̈ b̧̧̭͕͍̤̟̖̊́̃͋̃̃͑̈́͟u͈͈̙͎͔͔͇̽̏̋̓̏͞r̢̛̛͈̦͔̜̲̟̱̩͋͂́̅̃̀͘͟n̵̡̨͇̜͉̳̊̔̇̇̆̐̽̂i̮͍͙̠͔̻̱͎͍͇͛̽͐̀́n̶̡͓̰̻͙̅͌͛͆͆̂͢͠g̼̲̖̻̤̠͒̓̀̅͘,̱̲̮̱̳̬̎͒̔̀̿̔̀̿͠ t̸̘̘̥̳̩̜̣͉̯̔̌̚͝ḩ̛͎͈̞͇̟̥̖̖̽̆͊͡ĕ͇͉̟̮̪͗̆̃͆͠ f̱̻̭̹̗̜͖̻͑͒̑̿͒̆̇̄͜ͅȩ̨̘͎̭̩̹̫̼̳̃͆̈́̌̂̐͡e̸̱̩̬̣̻̮̤͌̓̄̅̄̌͋̊͡l̷̢͉̤̬̒͐̎̂̾̚͜i̡͇̜̬͔̭̯͇̯͌͐̋͝ņ̛͎̭̮͖͖̹͒̆̑̈̏̔̍ͅg̡͖̲̭̳̫͙͌̈́̋̈̄̒͋͟͡ ọ̩̦̰̙͋̈́́̇̑̚͝f̼̳̜̝͚̹̼̝̙̎̄̇̕͝ ś̸̡̘̖͕͐̒̂̔͠͞ͅm̹̫̞̬̩͍̊͂̿͋̍a̢͓̪̟͙͇̓̍̓̋̋͗͆͜ĺ̸̢̖̭̯͍̙̀̌͋̂̾̀l̴̬̱̤̥̟̽̈̌̾̊̅͜͝ f̯̖̮͙̩̓͆̽͒̈̽̏͘͠e͍̱̬͙͎͖̩̠͌̓̆̉̊͐̔͝ͅa̸̧̢̝̱̻͓̼̥͍̅͆͛͛͝ͅt̴͈̲̩̼͓̥̞͙̾̈̔̎̎̿̅ḩ̷̛̝͖͚͕̺̟̌̏͑̋̿͟ę̶̨̝̦͈͎̓̑̄̇̉̑̏͒̚͠ŗ̢͎̟̣̣͎͕̌̍̍̎͑͝ͅs͕̟̹̪̽̉̈̌͆͜͢͟ b̛̘͚̬̱̝͇͇̓̎͗̄e̷̤̲͚͇̪̫̅͛̾̈́̇̚̕i͈͎̼͖̪̘̞̟̍͛̓̑͜͢͞ņ̜͉̪̤̻͕̠̱͇̌͛̏̀̈́͠g̡̛̝̰̤͓̀͊͌̒̓̌́͟͜ p̩̥̬̝͈̞̠̠͂̉̽̏̾̿̑̓̿͘͢ľ̡̗̳̫͙̤̰̒͊̓̇̓͊̒͑ṳ̢̙̥̫͇̞̹͎̊̿͐̃́͌̒͂͡c̻̘̥̦͎̓̄͆̕͘͡ǩ̸͉̼̜̳̙̭̮̣̮̏̔̏̂̏̽̎͟e̜̩̠̝̬̱̓̊̉͟͢͜͡d̸̨̡̡̟̰̣̼́̎̀̑͟͡...̷̣̞̲̮̞̼͐̓̌͒͒͑̕͡

Not that she didn’t deserve it if he did stab her.

“Because of these conditions people thought that I was bound to end up a criminal. And honestly, it was likely because the options weren’t good if I wanted to survive. Some... tried to incentivize me to use my quirk, but in a fucked up way. “

(The way He smiled when He saw him using his feathers to grab things,  how fast they were, the glint in his eyes when he saw how he could make them sharper than a knife.)

.

‘̷̯̘̟͚͙̞̣̗̿̈́̿͂̃̈́̒̓͟͠L̹̮̭̣̼̆̆̉̏́̂̕͟e̶̱̯͇̞̙͌̓̔͗̓͌̕͘ṱ̪̟͓̫͇͐̏͋̐̚’̵̗̝͍̤͈̋̋̏͆̽͝ṡ̖̺̲̰̲̪̰̪͚͕̈̑̿̃͊͊̃̇̕ t̮̦̻͕̭̝̰̜̑͂́͋͛͡ẹ̴̡̧͔͎̎̔̌̄́̎͒͟a̛̩̮̮͖̪̘͕͐̾̃͆͢͝c̷̯̜̞̪̟͍̜̘͑̄̓̉̑̋̚͟͢h͈͔̥̟̙̃̍̍̓̏̓͐ y̸̨͎͇͇̺̌͗̍̎̀̚͢͝ͅơ̦̟̺̣͓͚̻̖̖͕͐̌̍ų̼̗̣̺̦̺̺̼͗̌̂̐͛̚ h̡̖̲̞̺͓̯͈͌̍̃͑͊͑͆̍̕͠o̧͎̯̟͔͔͈̼̊͊̈̋̕͟͢͡w̡̱͔̺̙͉̘͛͋̂̓̀͐̚͘͡ t̘̳͇̜̳̠̏̊̿̈́̕ó̶̡̭̜͎̱͈͕̫̼́͐͂̎̔͑̂ f̲̳̙̖̤͓̥̣̆͛̋͛̃̏͆͌͘͠ͅḽ̡̳̳͚̟̲̬͆̾̃̽̅̑͆̓ẙ̫̘͕̩̣̄̎̎͌̒̽̂͝,̝̟̝͔̟̬̥͕̊͂̆̽̐͋̈́̕̚͢͞ n̛̯̮̙̬̪̓͐͒̑̌͑̉͆͜͜͜͞ë̵̢͓̭̬̮̓̈́̏͜͞͞s̨͍̜̙̙͚̾͒̍̃̈́̑͋̕͘̚t̸̤̯̯̬͎̞͎͋͌̅̊̉l̴̨̪̲͙̠͕͓̲̎̎̎̅̏̎̕͡ĩ̶̫͚̟̜͍̪̫̘̘̝̊̉̀̆͊͘̚n̢̡͈̖͉̪̺͉̍̒̈͑̏͟g̷̮̟̩͇̳̮̠̞̣̘͋̃͛̚̕͝.̶͍͖̰̲̊̋͑̇́̈̀͢͜

̮̻̲͔̝̤̏͂̾̂̄̓͝͡ͅ

̗͍̒͛͒̍͑̓

̸̨̨̰̳̮̫̞̗̟͑̆̿͌͋̚Y̧̙̘͇̘̪̙͙̓́̓̿͘ő͍̗͍̪͚̦͙͙̌́̌̓͘̕u̶̡͍̱̼̣͍̜͒̀̅̊̉ w̻͚͓͈̗͎͚̓̊̐̐̌̍̔͡͠͝ͅi̮̟̥̯͓̻̗̮͐͂͊̐̎͂̓ͅͅl̵̗̟͎̦̙̯̥̞̥͈̋̿̓̅̿̕l̢͖̺̮͕͔͎̙̞̇͑͛̅͛̓̚̕͢͠ n̗͈̬̹̥̭̣̳͍̂̃̏̇̅̅̔͆͢͠e̡̧̝͎̫͛̂̍̕͞͝e̢̖̲͎̮̺̒̃͂͋̌̒͞ḓ̸̨̧͓̻͉̫̏̽̌͢͢͝ͅ ţ̴͔͉͖̹͖̺̩̻͕͑̓̾͌̒̉ơ̴̧͕̪̗̜̤͈̝͑͗͑͑͠ ḵ̢͙̻̩̂͋̑̾̏͢͝ņ̷͔͓͉̱̭̮̳̭̈́̈͆͌͊̆̚ö̹̬̲̞̪̳̲̫̑̾̀͐̋̍͂̆̇w̘̝̪̰̭̞̲̑̿̅͋͛͘͠͞͞ͅ ḩ̴̯̼͕͔͎͂͆͑̄̿͂͂̏͘͝ȏ͍͕̯̮̙͗̔̾̄̑̋͛͝ͅw̴̧̡̡̳͓͚͗̽͌̿͢͢͞ ṫ̢͈̱͔͆͐̕͢ȏ̷͔͚͕̮̭͍̩͊͑̒͋̇͜͜͝ ḣ̶̯͍͕̼̮͆͂̇̌̋ṵ̪̞̺̥͎̦̈̆̍͋̏͆̾͘͟͠n̶̨̧̛͓͓̗̼͎̦̻̿̄͛͗̒̕͟t̶̡̡̬͍̤͙͖͉̋̔͊͋̄̆͛͠ a̶͖͎̞͍͓̯̗͐͑̋̂͝f͍̠̙͚̳̊͑̀͋̀̆͢ẗ̤̳̙̰͕̗͕̏̈̃̚͝ȩ̴̦̺̺̯̗͂̈́̅̾̌ŗ̵͔̫̫̯̓̇̿͑̋̊͑̚̕͠ â̡̢̭͇͇̺̻̗͆̾͌̍͟ͅl̼̱̰͈͌͌͐̄̒̅͟͞ͅl̢͕̯͖̱͈̞͈̟̍͛̐͋̿̅͜.̴͔̟̦͓͖͈̬̹͈̿̇͑̎͐̿͞’̵͉̖̘̺̒͊̃̍͒̊̉̕͠ͅ

̸̢̻͎̭̑̽̎̇͑̇́͛̕̕͜

“Some people hated it and tried to hurt me. A few looked at the wings, ignored everything else, and just saw an angel. Not a scrawny kid with a bird quirk. A signal of god, not a person. I always hated those more.”

“The… the church thing?” Hitoshi said, remembering the sign dialog. “How was that?”

“You caught that? Impressive kid, Ibis is quite fast on her hands. She also keeps inventing new signs randomly.” Hawks said, pulling himself out of his thoughts, controlling the itch to reach on his pocket to the lighter out of habit. “Yeah, that’s one of the legitimately funny stories of that kind. It happened when I was visiting the US for a mission some years ago. There were some asshats from a Church making a protest against LGBTQ rights, and being really misogynistic for some reason. There was this guy with a stick up his ass giving a sermon and I ended up flying up there so that I could speak. The man kept going how the visitor was an ‘honored guest blessed by God’. I showed up with a bunch of pride flags that I threw for the activists that were trashing that bullshit and started this dramatic rant about how God said to love each other, to let other people live freely, and worry about the intolerance caused violence cases instead and somehow finished in how all women are Queens. The minister kept trying to interrupt me but my lungs are better than a homophobes. When I finished, the guy asked how I could insult the Lord like that and accused me of being gay. I said ‘Bi, actually’, threw glitter on his face, and flew off. The activists went fucking insane.” 

“Oh my God!” Hitoshi was choking from laughing.

“That’s what they said.” Hawks smiled. “That’s the incredible story of how I came out. Some people filmed it and I posted it on my Twitter.”

“Holy shit!” Hitoshi wheezed. “The media must have exploded!”

“It did. The PR almost killed me, but I received tons of glitter from fans so it was definitely worth it.” Hawks chuckled. “I also discovered after a while that a good way of avoiding uncomfortable questions about sexuality is just stare at the camera like you are in The Office with a resting bitch face. Another good response is simply saying ‘Trans Rights’ as a response to any question better yet if it makes no contextual sense and leave. Sometimes I would shake it up and start ranting about structural racism, misogyny, global warming when it was something especially stupid”

“THAT WAS YOU?” Hitoshi was going to fucking die. Kaminari and Sero will die as well when they hear this. “When did you decide to become a meme legend?”

Hawks shrugged. “I didn’t, but by my second year as a Pro, I was already living off coffee and stubbornness, so I no longer gave a shit about that and started to do and say  whatever.”

“No wonder you are so popular.”

“Not so much with old people and who takes advantage of those prejudices, but that doesn’t matter.” Hawks said. “The point is there will always be people who will judge you. People that hate you just by existing. What you can do is remember that they aren’t worth it. You may need to deal with them, but they aren’t worth holding your breath. Be as happy as you can possibly be, if only to spite them.”

“Hawks-sensei, how do you take care of a cat?” Todoroki asked.

“Nice. I think he’ll give Aizawa a headache later.” Hitoshi said. “Thanks for the talk. Go help him to smuggle a cat in the dorms, I want to see that.”

“No problem, it’s nice to speak with you Shinsou!” Hawks ruffled his purple hair. “Call me anytime! Now, let’s see how much time it takes to destroy the No Pets rule!”  

Hitoshi smiled as he observed Hawks teaching Todoroki, Uraraka, and Bakugou how to take care of a kitty and pass on the wisdom of cat lovers, like the best places to pet them and how to make them stop from destroying random propriety.

This might be actually fun after all.

After Hana-san told him that Detective Naomasa had arrived, the last one of this little group, Hawks flew to his office to do a quick check-up to make sure everything was in order, telling the kids that he had some matters to attend with the other heroes. Most of them either got  changed or kept playing with the cats, and some rested in the break area before Aizawa came around to take them to Height’s Alliance.

Just as he had finished organizing the work station, Aki arrived, holding the tablet with a writing-audio feature that they used when they had to talk with someone who didn’t know sign language. They were always cursing the company that made it for the stupid interface and AI structure, mostly making prototypes of support items for mute people on their own, but unfortunately, they were still in development and in government evaluation. 

‘Hey, boss!’ Aki cheered with their usual golden retriever energy, making Hawks smile a bit, completely ignoring the tablet and signing instead. ‘Thanks for the chocolates! They were delicious, and the work with the kids was really fun’! They took a minute to analyze his expression and frowned. ‘Why the long face though? Is this about the big fire guy?’

“Yeah, we are going to talk about this now actually. Thanks for your help with the files!” He said as he signed out of habit. Hawks tried to cheer himself up a bit, but purple eyes still seemed a little worried.

 The usual pretending techniques never worked with them. Keigo couldn’t really tell if it was because of their quirk or if they simply knew him way too well. Hawks had met Aki even before he debuted as a pro hero when he started to search into cases that the commission gave a blind eye when he managed to escape his handlers. His teen years were a legally-questionable-mess, but they allowed him to discover some useful tricks and loopholes and met a bunch of allies, that went from close friends like Aki, to eventual headache-inducers, like that shitty Hot Topic pyromaniac (Keigo knew that he wasn't much better, but at least he kept his angst on the inside, far from his clothes.). 

Keigo met Aki in one of those legally-questionable instances while learning about the workings of electronics, security systems, and gear and more importantly, how to manipulate them without anyone noticing. Aki was the youngest besides him in the middle of shady hackers, unauthorized testing, and black-market government engineering, standing out like a sore thumb with their long turquoise hair, energetic, shining purple eyes, and baggy t-shirts full of old pop culture references. The last person Keigo should be around to avoid calling attention to.

So obviously, they instantly hit off and started working together in an isolated basement in a quiet part of town while watching centuries-old movies.

‘Sure’ they signed, ‘ I wanted to ask something though.’

‘Anything for my favorite mad scientist!’ Hawks says while signing.

‘I wanted to invite one of The Tech Support Students of UA to work here in an internship. There is lots of rough talent there.’

‘Oh, cool’ Hawks continued. ‘Any specific preference?’

‘That one first year from the Sports Festiva.’ Aki signed ‘H-A-T-S-U-M-E  M-E-I. Crazy kid, but passionate and creative. She has a record of explosions though.’

‘I remember her! Funny kid!’ Keigo answered. ‘Good thing that there is a whole anti-fire system then. She can even use the special workshop if necessary.’

‘ You mean the Hawks-proof workshop.’ They teased. ‘Do you agree with it then?’

‘Sure, I will revise the paperwork necessary to confirm that it’s all okay, then negotiate with Nedzu so you can invite her.’ Hawks signed without speaking.

‘Oh! Are you going to UA? Can I come with you? I want to see their department’

‘I’ll go tomorrow after morning patrol. If that works for you I can text Nedzu asking for you to visit. It will probably take a while though, I had planned to discuss the whole… Endeavor situation.’  Hawks signed in silence, gesturing the signs for ‘big’ and ‘fire’ followed by a series of personalized swear words that Aki had invented.

Aki chuckled at that. ’ After so-early-that-it-merges-with-the-night morning patrol or actual-normal-timed morning patrol?’

Hawks frowned. ‘Normal.’

‘Works for me then. But seriously, when was the last time you slept?’

‘I slept some hours last night.’ He said.

Aki raised an eyebrow

‘Okay, I fell unconscious for some hours, but the principle it’s the same.’ 

With that, Hawks heard some voices and turned to the elevator, grateful for a distraction to save him from a scolding. The doors opened a little later and Aizawa, Naomasa, Tsunagu, Ibis and Aki walked out of it, and Hawks calmed down to see it was them. Aizawa and Detective Naomasa seemed a little surprised to find the younger hero starring the second the door opened, but Ibis and Tsunagu, already used to the other’s eccentricities, walked inside the office, as Hawks closed the blinds.

“Hello Detective, Make yourself at home!” Hawks gave them a small smile, shaking Naomasa’s hand. “Great, everyone already involved is here. Please sit.”

“What is so urgent Hawks?” Aizawa questioned, blunt as always, and looked at Naomi and Aki. “And how are they involved?”

“Aki and Ibis work here, they have already helped me with the case.  Jeanist is here a neutral third party as a top hero, or well, as neutral as it can get, really.”

Keigo took a deep breath and grabbed some water bottles from the freezer, using the motion to use his feathers to check for any spies or the distinguishable prickling of cameras and recorders. He found none besides the security system that only he and Aki had access to, but he felt Aizawa’s eyes on him, this probably looked weird to him. Hawks handed the waters out before all of them sat down.

“Firstly, all of this is off-records in the moments, so depending on how things progress, we will need secrecy. I already got in contact with some people for support as well.” Hawks began. “Detective, I will be sending you the information I gathered in a safe way, but I need you to leave the reports without many details to avoid undesired attention. I would also appreciate it if you used your quirk to confirm the veracity of what I will talk about in case there are any doubts.”
Naomasa sobered and nodded, “Of course.”

Even to Aizawa, who knew Hawks for way less time than the others, the sudden shift in the other’s behavior was clear as day. Hawks rarely worked in cases with teams, let alone asked the support of other top heroes for it. The fact that he had called an off-registry investigation, an extreme tool used only by top heroes that basically meant that they wrote themselves a note saying they could look into whatever the fuck they wanted, basically meant that he was completely hiding it from everyone that wasn’t directly involved, including the Hero Commission.

“What is this about?” Best Jeanist said, alarmed “You rarely call for off-records.”

“And how does that involve my student?” Aizawa asked, already tense.

Hawks took a deep breath, expression dimming. “I’m investigating Endeavour for corruption, forgery, and manipulation of documents, suspicion of child abuse, suspicion of domestic abuse and possible infanticide, as well as the Hero Commission for covering his tracks.”

Hawks explained everything, the gaps of documentation in the Todorokis’ most essential files, Rei’s hospitalization, the disappearance and probable death of Touya Todoroki, the omissions, and weird additions in the HCSP files, the weird appearance of Endeavour earlier that day, and Shouto’s concerning behaviour.

“Fuck” Naomi whispered “With the shitshow that he pulled earlier and the kid’s reaction to it, I was sure you would be running a talk like this sooner or later.” She slapped her hand over her forehead. “But I didn’t expect it to be such a deep hole. That explains why you looked like you were going to drop him in the nearest river.”

“K-Hawks…” Tsunagu was the one to break the silence “Are you sure you should be in this case?”

Hawks opened his mouth to defend his case, but Aizawa seemed to take the question like it was a suggestion that maybe they should just give Endeavour a warning note and forget all about it. Before any of them could protest, Tsunagu continued.

“I know that you are perfectly capable of going through with this investigation and that not even the Universe Itself could manage to make you leave the Todorokis’ side while Endeavour walks freely.”  Tsunagu defused, “But I know this case involves extremely sensitive subjects that are personal triggers for you. I’m worried about how this could affect your mental health.”

All eyes were on Hawks now.

“I’m aware” Hawks sighed, “I know that emotional troubles would normally stop me from being part of this. Hell, I’ve known the kid for a day and a half and I’m already attached! But this isn’t a normal case, and I need to keep working on it until I have the whole picture and I know for sure that Shouto and his family will be safe.”

“In this specific case, I think that Hawks’ direct involvement will be more beneficial for the case.” Naomi sighed. The underground hero obviously didn’t like what she was saying. “This case is a big deal, and they will make everything to get us to drop it. Hawks has more contacts and action courses because of his position, making it harder for them to sweep this entire ordeal under the rug.”

“Without Hawks’ active presence, our options will be reduced.” Naomasa pointed. “It will be a lot harder to make the court accept the more hardly acceptable evidence, and the power imbalance involved.”

‘It would limit our tech options as well since Hawks is already experienced with the technical side of the investigations and its equipment.’ Aki wrote. ‘But ’I’m also worried about how it would affect you, though.’

“Also, what do you mean by ‘his position’?” Aizawa asks Ibis.

“I’m kind of in a special spot,” the young hero explained. “While I’m a mainstream hero, I also make underground operations and investigations, so that gives me more liberty to hack into the system or do extensive research. I also work for the commission regularly, so I have more access to the inside.”

“How the hell did you manage to be simultaneously the number three hero and an underground hero?” Aizawa asked, “This should be fucking impossible, especially with your quirk.”

“I have my ways. Why do you think I called Shinsou? I have some good experience in the underground, even if unconventional, and I’m not even the best. Ibis is.” Hawks shrugged. 

‘ And technically, it should be impossible. That’s why they designed the action protocols like this. It gives them more control.’ Aki complemented, using their tablet.

“They didn’t count with a caffeine driven feral chicken.” Ibis sneered.

“Yes. I pride myself in being one of the commission’s biggest cases of shooting themselves in the foot, even if they didn’t fully realize that yet.” Hawks stated.

“When do you sleep?” Detective Naomasa asked, bewildered.

“He doesn’t” Jeanist shook his head.

“Hey!” Hawks complained. “I will let you know that I slept last night!”

“Did you sleep or did you pass out?” The cynical blond asked.

‘Passed out .’ Aki snitched, the traitor.

“It doesn’t matter!” Hawks tried to keep the conversation on track.

“Yes, it does.” Aizawa said, looking at him similarity to how he looked at his students. (Scary.)

“You are just as bad as me.” Hawks said. “Anyway, this doesn’t matter. Tomorrow I will contact Detective Naomasa, and try to get some extra info. The day after, I’m bringing Gang Orca and Miruko as well. We need as much support as possible. Aizawa, I would like to be with you when the time of talking with Todoroki-Kun about it comes.”

“Of course you will be.” Aizawa said matter of factly. “You are the one who is primarily investigating it. Besides, I think the kid seems to like you, so it will make things easier.”

Hawks sighed.

“I really hope so.”

When Hawks and the other heroes left, Shouto stayed behind to play with the cats, take a shower, and put on a fresh set of clothes. Eventually, his anxiety got the best of him, so he followed the path to Hawks’ office. They were leaving with Aizawa-sensei, so whatever they were talking about shouldn’t take long, but Shouto hoped that there was enough time so that he could question the pro Hero about…several things, actually. Hawks was a confusing person and most of their interactions threw him fora loop. He knew that not all Pro Heroes were like Endeavour, but some things, especially the little details, still confused him to no end.

Shouto reached the waiting area, and a woman with grey hair and with two pairs of arms was sitting on the table, looking at something in a few papers. She heard him coming and raised her head in his direction.

“Oh, you must be the UA student Hawks told me that would possibly show up?” The woman said. “Todoroki Shouto, right? The meeting isn’t over yet, but it shouldn’t take much longer. Take a seat.” She pointed to the seat with one of her hands. “Do you want anything to eat or drink? There are always some things in the reception and I can ask for the kitchen to make it otherwise.”

Shouto blinked, a little disoriented by the woman’s energy.

“I’m not hungry, thanks miss…”

“Sasaki Hana, darling.” She said. “Are you sure? Hawks’ training sections can be really drilling. It was pretty hot outside today. Would you like a smoothie?The strawberry ones are the best!”

His perplexity over the offer must have somehow shown in his face because Sasaki-san handed him a plastic cup and straw with a smoothie in it and went back to work. Shouto took an experimental sip, he had heard Uraraka and Midoryia talk about smoothies but he never had actually tasted one. He widened his eyes with surprise at the flavor, it was way sweeter than he expected and with a good texture.

A sudden noise startled him.  He looked around, and saw one of the cats from earlier pawing the glass of the window, the one that he had played with earlier- Swan, if he wasn’t mistaken. The secretary looked at the cat, smiled, and opened the window, to pet its fur. The cat walked around the room and then stopped to stare at him.

Shouto crouched to pet Swan, who purred happily. To his surprise, the cat jumped and settled in his lap, taking advantage of the warmth of his left side.

Shouto panicked a little and forced himself not to move. After a while, he experimentally petted her, and when she didn’t move away, he ended up relaxing and turned to check his phone. After what felt like five minutes, but probably was more, the office’s door opened, revealing Hawks, as the others left the room. Best Jeanist and a man who was probably a cop said his goodbyes, Aki waved and went to their lab and Ibis started to chat with Sasaki-san.

“Hey, Todoroki-kun! Sorry to keep you waiting!” Hawks greeted. Swan stretched to smell the others and Hawks gave her a quick pet. “I’m glad to see you made a new friend!” He said, beaming.

“Yes, I… wanted to talk in private.” Shouto said. Then he looked at the cat in his lap. He didn’t know if the cat could be here, the lady on the desk hadn’t said anything, but his chest  squeezed a little in the thought of her leaving. “She followed me here.”

Hawks laughed. “Yeah, she is a little clingy. Feel free to bring her if you want to, I bring some of the cats here sometimes.” 

Shouto looked at him with surprise, unsure if he was serious. Hawks just nodded and he threw the empty smoothie cup in the trash bin and picked up Swan, holding the cat in his arms before Hawks changed his mind. 

“Do you want me to wait here, Todoroki?” Aizawa asked.

“It’s fine, Sensei.” Shouto said, standing up. “ The others were in the break area playing with the cats, I’ll join them when we are done.”

“I will go there before someone tries to hide a cat inside their backpack.” Aizawa huffed.

“Do you want me to show you the way?” Hawks’ secretary, Hana-san asked.

“No need, I remember the way.” Aizawa said, entering the elevator.

Hawks smiled, and opened the office’s door, holding it open with a feather to let Shouto enter easily, and then closed it, not bothering to close the blinds like they were before. 

Shouto looked around Hawks’ office. It was different from what he expected, the walls were a soft sky blue, the room filled with two-meter windows, and Shouto noticed that there was an open area to the ceiling. Shouto noticed when he entered that the whole agency was…taller than usual, everything always seemed a little higher, and that feeling was especially strong in Hawks office,  that had shelves and even furniture in places that a normal human could never reach. However, it was needlessly big for the sake of status like Endeavour’s office, with it’s energy being the complete opposite. It felt...homey. 

In the center of the office,  there was a big semi-circular table with two levels and some drawers on the sides, that was at the same time organized and chaotic, with a computer with three monitors and at least three keyboards, a lamp, multiple folders, office supplies and stacks of paperwork, and somehow it still had free space so that  he could be perfectly visible to anyone across the big, weirdly shaped black office chair that probably was specially designed for people with wing mutations.

In the other side of the room, there was a pair of comfortable-looking burnt-yellow sofas with red pillows and  a little black table between them, a mini refrigerator, a coffee machine next to the cabinets next to the refrigerator. There were two fire extinguishers attached to a wall. for some reason. A bit more worried about safety in the work environment than normal, but nothing Shouto would complain, especially if it meant that Hawks would have the option to spray Endeavour with anti-flammable foam in case he came back to bother him.

The image of that happening made Shouto smile.

Shouto noticed with curiosity that the place must have been decorated by Hawks himself, considering the little personal touches that were everywhere. There were lots of photos in the pictures and in frames next to the table and little plants in colorful pots. Most of the photos showed landscaping and passage images in impossible angles, some of nature and others from urban environments. There were also lots of pictures of birds and cats of the agency, Shouto even noticed one of Swan that was in his arms right now. Shouto wondered if it was Hawks himself that took those pictures. He didn’t know a lot about photography, but they looked well-captured. 

There were only two pictures with people that Shouto could see, one in the center of the wall featuring Hawks, Ibis, Aki, the secretary and some other people Shouto didn’t recognize in what looked like the agency. The other was almost hidden, framed in the work table and angled towards Hawks’ chair. Shouto caught a glimpse of Hawks, Miruko, Best Jeanist and Gang Orca in civilian clothes. They were all laughing at something, Hawks and Miruko making funny faces, without any of them looking at the camera, blurs of limbs moving in a lower quality than the rest of the pictures.

Shouto had never seen pro heroes like that before. It was the kind of picture that would never be in some publicity stunt or with any practical objective, the type that his some classmates constantly snapped at each other just for the hell of it. The type of picture that his friends shared with him all the time, because they were having fun and decided to document it to remember it.

That fact made Shouto’s heart warm a little for some reason. 

“Take a seat.” Hawks said, gesturing to the sofas. Shouto sat down, with Swan following him and playing with a pillow and Hawks sitting across from him. 

“What did you want to ask me?” Hawks inquired.

After some seconds, Shouto finally managed to speak.

“Why?” He said with the same confused sentiment he held on all day.

“Hm?” Hawks said, confused.

“Why did you do it?” Shouto asked firmly.

“Why did I do what?” Hawks looked confused, turning his head a little to the side.

Why are you acting like you care?

“Why am I still here? My father came to make you cancel my mentorship, right?” Shouto said instead.

“Well, yes, he wanted to. Why? Do you want to do your mentorship somewhere else?”

“No!” Shouto said quickly, trying to control his panic. The last thing he wanted was to return to training with his dad. (the worst wasn’t even the burns and the bruises. They were nothing compared to the never-ending exhaustion, the tension in his bones …)  “I-I..”

Hawks slowly motioned towards him, put his hand on his shoulder and squeezed it softly. The touch was small, but weirdly comforting, unlike the usual contact he received (...breath with me Shou…you are safe...) After a while, he felt himself calm down and Hawks looked into his eyes. 

“ I...I want to do it here, but… why didn’t you just cancel it? Why didn’t you do what he said?”

“If you want to continue here, you will study here.” Hawks said with a tiny, gentle smile. “You have your authorization, even if it’s not his. And while I’m involved, I’m not letting anyone make you uncomfortable, even parents or pro heroes. You have my word. ”

Why?

“ Why bother intervening? Why do you keep shielding me? Why did you grab his arm?” The words escaped his lips sharply before he could think. He looked down at his feet. “You didn’t  have to get involved! I can take care of myself, so why do you keep defending me when you don’t have to?”

Hawks took some seconds considering the question, looking at him. Really looking at him. It made him a little worried, but at the same time, he appreciated that he hadn’t given him some random, automatic response.

 “Because you are a child that I want to teach and watch out for. And that includes protecting you, supporting you, making sure that you are happy. I signed up for this and I’m not half-assing it.” Hawks said calmly, in a serious tone but with a painfully earnest sincerity in his voice that Shouto could feel in his skin. “Because your father isn’t my student, you are. The training is yours. Your life is yours. The choice is yours. So what matters here is how you feel about it, not him, not anybody else. “

Shouto felt something that was scarily similar to what he felt in his fight with Midoryia at the Sports Festival or when he visited his mother in the hospital for the first time, like something had just changed . It felt like what he imagined was going through the five stages of grief simultaneously but in the extreme opposite end of the spectrum.

Hawks continued.

“I will protect you, and I will stand up for you and all the others, even when I know that you can do it yourselves, no matter how big or how small. And you looked disturbed, so I acted.” Hawks said, looking at the blue and grey walls, squeezing gently his shoulder again. “I don’t care if it will make my work with him harder, because it’s worth it. You deserve all support, Todoroki-san.”

(I will always be there for you Shouto!)

“Shouto…” He muttered to himself, suddenly being hit by an avalanche of nostalgia.

Hawks twisted his head curiously again. And Shouto's brain finally caught up with what he said. He didn't mean for Hawks to hear it.

“You… you can call me Shouto. It’s my hero name anyway, and you work with my father, so it will avoid confusion…” He muttered, really, really wanting to exchange quirks with Hagakure right now.

Hawks beamed brightly, a little similar to the blinding energy that Midoriya tended to have every once in a while and gave him a side hug.

“Thanks, Shouto-kun! I really appreciate it!” Hawks smiled, ruffling his duo-colored hair. It reminded of how Fuyumi sometimes liked to play with his hair, on the few times he got to be with her as a child. He did his best to ignore the strange warmth that Hawks caused, that was now stronger than ever.

“Thanks for talking with me.” Shouto said, having no idea what to do with the situation. “I will go find Aizawa.”

“No problem! Stay safe!” The blond smiled. Shouto walked towards the door when he was called.

“Oh, and Shouto-kun?” Shouto looked at the hero. “Even if it isn’t about hero stuff, I’m here if you ever need any help, if you are in trouble or just want someone to talk to, okay? Send a message or snap the feather I gave you, and I will be there.”

Shouto felt himself giving him a small, but happy smile almost without realizing it. “Thank you.”

Chapter Text

Hawks’ phone vibrated from the corner of his desk. He tried to ignore it, opting to finish up some paperwork and do some research on some of his current cases. After an hour, he finally gave up and grabbed it. By the annoying amount of calls his handler and PR agent made, he figured the debacle of earlier had hit the social media. He grunted and opened Twitter. His name and the sports festival was trending in japan. He sat on his sofa and scrolled through, not even bothering to read it, though he did laugh at the memes about it. He found the original video and retweeted with a comment. 

TheTwitterBird @Hawks

HawksVideo.mkv

To everyone who antagonizes my kids, I challenge you to an Agni Kai 

3,2, 1, and…

His phone screams with the notifications and he checks the response.

253 M Comments and retweets:

Me and the Boys at 2 am @Glamourbitch

Beautiful! King! We stan one bird!! Bakubae was so cute, omg, he was blushing!!! And Todobae’s face, the perfect meme!!! My crops were watered, my skin is clean, my hotel is Trivago

DetectivePikachu @Whey!

I would like to thank our lord and savior Hawks, and whoever blessed soul that filmed this. It’s the most emotion I ever saw from those two @TrippingAcid @TheBoulder @SmallMight see this.

No thoughts, just Hawks’ eyeliner @BirdWatcher

It’s incredible how brutal this felt even though Hawks’ tone was so polite. Hawks gives some burns better than Endeavour 

I believe in Hawks supremacy @ASimp5682

OMG, this was so cute???? Can we talk about the fact that Hawks apparently adopted at least 3 kids???

The Last Airbender @Windy Boy

PETITION TO MAKE HAWKS THE NUMBER ONE HERO, NOT ONLY HE IS BETTER THAN ENDEAVOR ON EVERY LEVEL BUT HE. IS.A.MAN.OF.CULTURE!!!!

Hawks laughed at the last one, sent the link to his tweet to his agent and told his handler he was heading out to meet his contact. Swan jumped on his lap as he checked the heroes’ group chat. He smiled as he remembered how Todoro- Shouto liked the cat. He might have to harass Aizawa and Nedzu to loosen up the ‘no pets’ rule. The kid deserved one. 

MUSTAFU HEROES

Siren Head

https://twitter.com/HeroNews/Hawks-defends-interns/6732956

Siren Head

I knew it. I knew that we shouldn’t have allowed Hawks and Eraser to interact directly. They are too powerful now. 

Bugs Bunny 

Fuck yeah!!!

Too Tired for this shit

Shut up Mic

I Am Groot 

@Untitled Hawk Don’t you think you exaggerated a little? He was just a civilian 

Untitled Hawk

  @I Am Groot Bakugou and Uraraka are just teenagers, they shouldn’t be dealing with this bullshit. Civilian or not, I won’t stand for any disrespect or harassment towards them.

Glad to hear from you though, I’ve wanted to talk to you and some other heroes for a while about a related subject. Pls send a call whenever you free to chat : )

Siren Head

Woods, run

Bin Chicken

Press F to pay respects

It’s called Fashion, Karen

F

Under The Sea

F

Bugs Bunny 

F

Siren Head

F

Your Neighbour Totoro

F

I Am Groot 

 What?? What’s going on??

Untitled Hawk

  :   )

Medusa

Stop scaring him Hawks. Be nice.

Bin Chicken

Lmao

You didn’t see him doting the kids, there is no hope for this one.

Untitled Hawk

Shut up Ibis! I didn’t dote on anyone!

Bin Chicken

Yes you did

It’s called Fashion, Karen

Yes you did

Siren Head

Yes you did

Bugs Bunny 

Yes you fucking did

Your Neighbour Totoro

Yes you did

Untitled Hawk

You 3 weren’t even there!!

Your Neighbour Totoro

You repeatedly steal students from other pros and then adopt them as your own. You must spoil your own rotten

It’s called Fashion, Karen

Like an inverse cucko

Bugs Bunny 

You are a soft bitch, I don’t need to be there to know

Siren Head

My son came back from your agency with an exceptionally good mood and 100 more pictures of cats on his phone than when he left. It doesn’t take a genius to connect the dots.

Eri asked to visit btw

Untitled Hawk

I would be honored to introduce her to my humble nest

Your Neighbour Totoro

Aren’t you worried that you might possibly have to fight for custody? It was a nightmare to get Tamaki back

Siren Head

Nah, Shouta officially marked Hawks as a problem child lmao

Now it's just a matter of time

 Ψ(☆ｗ☆)Ψ

Bin Chicken

Adusjanlficjaewjniueqrnlv

Bugs Bunny 

BWAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Untitled Hawk

Welp, I will ignore this vaguely threatening connotations

And the overwhelming amount of traitors in this chat.

Got work to do

Hawks tried to click the logout button before Tsunagu, Naomi or Rumi could show up and complain, but he was beaten to the chase. 

Too Tired for this shit

No, you won’t

It’s 12 am

Why are you awake? How are you awake?

Aizawa is a damn traitor and a hypocrite, he thinks.

Untitled Hawk

Why are you awake?

None of you can judge me, you are awake as well

Bugs Bunny 

Shut up you damn pigeon

Go to sleep before I go over there beat your ass

Bin Chicken

Most of us are finishing work, or in the underground heroes’ case starting

Not continuing.

It’s called Fashion, Karen

Go to sleep Hawks

Untitled Hawk

Okay, jeez

Untitled Hawk logged off

Hawks looked at his notebook and his coffee machine, his hands and feathers itching to continue his damn research and gather proofs for his ongoing projects, especially this new one. But he knew that if he started now, he wouldn’t stop. Plus that would probably require standing up, and Swan was still comfortable on his laid legs.

Hawks grunted, adjusted the cat, and laid down. He was still a mess from passing out yesterday, and this probably was the best chance of a few hours of sleep he would get for a while, in the safety of his agency on the dead on the night, fed and low on caffeine. It was easy to sleep away.

Keigo met Dabi in an alley in a desolate, mildly violent, part of town at 3 am after the latest set of nightmares, the blurry pictures still fresh on his mind. He was dressed casually, not even bothering enough to wear gloves or even shoes because honestly, they were well past that.

Basically, he was camouflaging by emanating the energy of a broke college student who made really poor life decisions. It was impressive how effective it was, no one ever looked twice, especially if he was hiding his wings or using dye on his feathers.

‘because you are nothing without ‘Hawks’.’ the familiar memory hissed.

“Hey, chicken.” Dabi came through the shadows, unknowingly saving him from a spiral. “You’re late.”

Keigo contained a wince at how the staples moved and pulled when Dabi talked. He is not used to those yet.

Or all the dead skin, some over old scars and others that were completely new.

If you had been more thorough. if you had searched harder. if you hadn’t given up on him like everyone else…

Keigo bottled up the pang of guilt and fury. He would deal with that later.

“Excuse me for not reaching the other side of the city under the one minute that you gave me as a heads up.” He said. “Breaking the sound barrier isn’t exactly subtle.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it.” Dabi said. “Considering the ‘fastest man alive’ thing in a society full of quirks, my standards are high. Still, I’m convinced that is bullshit.”

“I work rescuing people, so bursting the eardrums of everyone around me is kind of counterproductive.” he said lazily and sat by Dabi’s side.

“So what are you doing here, mister songbird?” Dabi prickled annoyingly.

When the commission told him that Dabi was his contact, it only supported his theory that this was all an elaborate plot to get dirt on him or kill him. Keigo almost had a heart attack. Had they figured it out? How? Why now?

Were they going to try and capture him ?

No. Don’t panic. Calm down.

No. If they knew about his outings there were lots of things that would call their attention and more efficient ways to hurt or threaten him if they knew too much. They would have tried to stop and punish him if they had found out when he was still in their custody, they would have used that card to keep him under their finger when he first debuted and started to resist, and Keigo would have noticed if they had found out recently.

He checked, again and again, in all angles, and couldn’t find a breach, so he eventually had to accept that it was just the universe fucking with him. Subtlety was never one of the agents or the president’s strong points anyway, no matter how much she believes otherwise. There are things that even she can’t control.

‘Listen closely and watch their body language, eyas. Unless it’s their quirk, not even the best liar in the world can control their heartbeat.’

Besides, Keigo was probably one of the only bastards out there that were capable of connecting one random tiny red-head brat that lived in the streets and pretended to be quirkless, with Dabi, a man that had so many scars that one would think that a mutation was the only explanation of how he was still alive. A man that hangs out with a bunch of villains, commits arson, kidnaps 15-years old and kills people.

Keigo recognized him because he had seen the blue flames. And even then, it was the small things that confirmed it. The shape and color of his eyes, the shape of his face, the way he wielded his fire. 

Keigo watched the videos where he appeared, again and again. The anger that he felt when he realized it, even if it was weaker, was still present.

The universe spitting on his face yet again.

The good thing is that Dabi knew him, which made trusting him more likely. The bad thing is that Dabi knew him, so that made him more aware of the giant arsenal of bullshit that Keigo pulled years ago. So basically, Dabi was the living version of “Everyone that knew me as a child needs to die,” and the commission was top priority on that list.

“We already talked about this...” Keigo said, sighing.

“Oh, shut up.” Dabi said, sneering. “I know you didn’t get involved in this on your own initiative. You were never clean, Tori . You had your contacts even before I met you. The league doesn’t have anything special to make you want to join, and if you wanted inside information, we both know that you could pull some strings without getting directly involved. So who sent you? The handlers you complained about so much? And why are you going through with this?”

Keigo winced at the old nickname. He didn’t really expect him to even remember.

“Stop trying to avoid my questions,” Dabi hissed at his silence.

“Do you remember when you told me that you kept going to make your dad pay? That he hurt you, and no one did anything about it? You probably joined the league for that reason.” Hawks said ignoring Dabi’s snarl and continuing, his patience thin. “I’m doing this for a similar reason.”

“You’re right, this wasn’t my idea. The people that I complained about gave me this mission and I’m following their bullshit for now because this is my way into the deep shit.” Tori Hawks Keigo continued. “I was waiting for them to give me a mission like this because I need a channel to all the information they buried even from the inside, and I need to do this right for my plans to work. So I took my chance.”

“You are the number two hero, who the fuck has the authority to...” Dabi went quiet for a second, and his eyes widened as if he just realized something. “...the government... Holy shit, is this all about the government?”

“If it were up to me, I would be screaming at you for ghosting me for years and then drag your stupid ass to the doc. Maybe take advantage of the trip to beat some bastards, and call it a day” Keigo said. “But unfortunately, the commission is really adamant on having me killed in the world’s most obvious infiltration mission, and manhandling my contact would probably raise too many questions.”

“Now, why did the commission send you, hero ?” Dabi said condescendingly. “Doesn’t seem the smartest move. You aren’t exactly inconspicuous.”

“Officially? To get inside information from the League. Unofficially?” He shrugged. “Mainly to have something to swing over my head and keep me in line. I have been way more independent since I debuted, and they didn’t like that. No offense, but the league isn’t a priority. You guys don’t go around killing babies for fun or overthrowing the government, but still have enough hype to be relevant”

“Why not just kill them, blondie?” Dabi asked.

Keigo welcomed the dark grin that split in his face. He chuckled.

“I considered it. But it's not enough .” He spat, bitterly. “ I want to expose them and watch them rot in jail. I want to reform the system. Killing them would be easier, but it wouldn’t free me. It wouldn’t make sure that everything wouldn’t end up the same, only with different names.”

He paused.

The ‘But, obviously, I have some backups if anything goes to shit.’ went unsaid, but clear as day.

Dabi knew him too well not to hear it.

“What do I win from helping you?”

“From one, it would actually keep the League from getting hunted down and arrested, at least as long as they don’t start hurting civilians and targeting heroes unprompted. Letting me in would allow them.” Keigo Hawks said.”Besides, I’ll dare to say that fucking up the government is with your interests and I’m more than willing to help with that. Two, you get to enjoy my wonderful company once again.”

“Oh, fuck off…”

“You know it’s true. And three, if you help me with my goals, I will help you with yours. I assume that at least one of your targets is in the hero world? Probably relatively influential?” Hawks said, and Dabi looked like he just ate a lemon. “Don’t look at me like that, you always hated the hero industry way too much for it  not to be personal.”

“This is something I have to do myself, on my terms. ” Dabi said. “Don’t stand in the way, chicken.”

Keigo resurfaced and huffed a sigh of annoyance. He didn't have the time to have that discussion for the 100th time. So much for keeping things professional.

Why are you so keen on getting your hands dirty? A part of him wanted to scream. Why won’t you let me help? You know I can, you know I would, and it would be so much easier!

Why did you disappear? You are ruining yourself when you could have built a new life! A part of him resented Dabi for it, even though he was just the same.

A part of him hated Dabi for becoming just like him.

Both of them were hurt.

Both of them held to their grudges with an iron grip, full of bitterness.

Both of them did monstrous things to get to their objectives.

Both of them are willing to destroy themselves. 

The difference is that while Dabi ran away from everything out of hatred, Keigo stayed out of hatred. 

The difference is while Dabi was willing to burn everything to get to an end and was clear about that, Keigo lied and lied, to others and to himself, building ideals, projects, reputation, and relationships that would most likely go up in flames the second he let the mask fall.

I wonder who was crueler.

‘Corrupt yourself, to put everyone else at ease.’

“I get it. Suit yourself.” Keigo said, tucking the newest migraine-indulging introspection deep on the darkest corners of his mind, for him to deal with later. “I’m just trying to help. Knowing you probably is gonna be dramatic as shit. Just don’t die in the process, will ya?”

“You are way too chill for the idea of murdering a random guy than anyone would expect from a hero.” Dabi sneered. 

He didn’t know if Dabi was purposefully rubbing salt in the wound or if he just found the idea of ‘Tori’, the part of Keigo he knew.

Keigo couldn’t really blame him.

“Shut up asshole, I literally asked for a name or social number when we were 13.” Keigo complained, as he tried to ignore the cold rage that washed over him every time he remembered the memories that haunted his past.

(All the times when young blue eyes were filled with tears after a nightmare, the hatred and hurt in his voice every time he spoke about his father, how when Keigo first found him, Dabi was almost dying ...) 

Keigo, the supreme king of pretending he wasn’t incredibly mad with the world at all times, shrugged in the most nonchalant way he could. “Besides it’s a child abuser or someone who ignored child abuse. At this point, one less of those in the world won’t keep me up at night. I have more pressing matters to have a guilt trip at 3 am about.” 

I have done worse things for more selfish reasons.

How many people did Keigo kill?

How many lives has Keigo ruined? 

Even if most of them deserved it.

'̵̢̛̼͖̟͕̖̺̟́̒̈́̀̌G̴̗̪͕̭͉̊͂̆̊̇͠ơ̵̛͓̙̹̬̓̎̃͠o̶̧͒̈́̈́ͅd̷̙͙̽͒͐̇͌̀ ̴̧̢̛͇̠͉̰̥͌̂͜job, m̶̝̐̓̇̃͝y ̶̛̛̣̞̯͉̰͊̽͘ļ̶̥͇͙̘͖̈̆͛̎̚͘͜͝͠ȋ̶̳̍̑́ľ̶̟͖̭͗͗'̴̘͓͔̮͚̪͌͒̔̕ͅ ̴̘̳͎̉f̷̧̬̽͋ĺ̵̲̭̤͉̔ê̷̮͔̗͒͊d̷͙̫̱̒̊ͅg̶̫͊͊̆͊̋̊͝l̸̡̛͍̣͐͛̉̾̄̽i̷̘̪͓͎̰͂n̸͕̲̗̱̉̄g’

His mind suddenly ran to that familiar voice.

Shut.up.

“So, there is another reason why you called me here or just the same dramatic song and dance?” Tori Keigo Hawks asked, trying to change subjects to a less self-destructive line of thinking.

Dabi huffed.

“Shigaraki and the league are obviously suspicious of you, so they asked for proof of your alliance. They talked about the chances of it being worth it, and I’m here to give you a new task.”  Dabi paused as if to give a dramatic effect, like the asshole he is. Hawks just stared as he waited for him to continue.

“So, you will have to prove yourself to the League by killing Best Jeanist.” Dabi said.

Killing Best Jeanist.

“ What?! ” He said with acid in his voice. He had to consciously make his feathers stay soft.

Dabi rolled his eyes. “If you want to join the League, you will have to kill the number four hero.” He said, as if he hadn’t said the most revolting thing ever.

Tori-Keig- Hawks considered, logically for a second, if he should go along with it. He could fake his death and ask Tsunagu to be out of the scene for a while. The Commission would tell him to do it, to allow his infiltration into the League of Villains. 

‘An individual sacrifice, for the greater good.’ He heard, in the voice of the president

'͕̮̩̻́̑̽͌I͉̾t̛̯̻̾'̰̫̑̊s̺̜͚͖̓͋̈́͠ ̳̘̓̄̕͜f̗̚ö̞r̨͎̮͚̂̈́̑͗ ̛̟̩͚̅͆ÿ̯͔̟̈́͌o͖̥̜̣͍͋͗͆̊͞u̥͔̙̭͊͋̔͡ŕ͍̦͛͂͟ ̫͗o̠̠̤͊̇̓̕͜w̹̟̪͕͉̎̄̎̚ǹ̨͙̟̖̰̎͛̚͠ ̳̩̰̅̿͢͠͡ğ͕͓o̟̖̒̊ọ͖͌̔d̘͕̏͘͜,̹͡ ̜͉̯͗̄͑͋͢m̻̺͕̓͘͡y̼͇̟̙̤̐̋̒̇͐ ̩͓̳̃͑̉e̪͎̝͎̅̿̄̓ŷ͙͍͍͙̈́̅̚å̧̘͈͖̒͗̓̚͟ś̝͖̫͂.̓͢'͎̮̣̻̼͑̈́̔̍̏

(Red. Red. Red. Everything red, the walls, the ground, Keigo’s wings and talons too sharp, His hair. The smell of blood and the dry, disgusting texture… t-the thing that once was a man… 

(Dad) His smile. His dark, satisfied smile.)

His finger screamed for the matches, for the familiar feeling of the overbearing heat, and the brightness, to just watch everything burn away…

Calm. Down.

‘Greater good’ his ass. A world where Tsunagu didn’t live on was bound to be worse, even if it allowed him to stop the League and all the roots planted by All for One. The simple notion was enough to make everything inside of him sharpen. Even if he faked it, he refused to take anything away from Tsunagu.

Tsunagu who was so kind to everyone.

Tsunagu who could comfort people with a smile even if his eyes are the only visible part of his face.

Tsunagu who worked so hard to make Japan a safer place to live.

Tsunagu who tended hurt birds back to health.

Tsunagu, who joked with Keigo, Kugo, and Rumi about everything. 

Tsunagu, who playfully tried to tame Keigo’s bird-nest of hair when he first visited his agency.

Tsunagu, who dropped everything to support Keigo when he sent a message earlier that day.

Tsunagu, who was the first person Bakugou told his hero name.

Tsunagu, who supported him in his first years, as Hawks fought against the 

Hero Commission to become Keigo again.

Tsunagu, who saved thousands, millions of people during his life, sometimes without even realizing it, including Keigo.

They wanted him to kill Tsunagu.

Fuck. Fuck fuck fucking fuck, no. No!

No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. 

.

N̴̡̨͇̼͔̪̺͌͊͛̑̑͂́͟͜O̧̢͉̲̺͋̑̑͒͋!̨̬̫̪̺̋̒̅͗̊

He wouldn’t.

N̷̖͈͎̝͎̤̦ͤ̔o̘̭͗̿͒̚͠t̶̻̟͙̗̖͔̟͇ͣ̈ͣ ̷̠̻̭͙͂̿ͅa̿͏̠͉̦͉̠͓̥̪g̪̯̦ͮ̅̔ͣȁ̴͙̺̰̬̅į͙͔͊͑̂͐n̒̕.̯͎̯̜͍̰͕̦̿̇̾ͯ͝.̴̞̻̝͚̯̞͓ͯ̈́.͓̫̩ͯ̋̈́ͥ͠ ̜͈͓̳̹͉̋̈́͟N̼͙̱̳̙ͫo̢̳̘̟͇̣̰̤̮͆͊ͬt̳̦̮̤̔ͮ͘ ̪̥̜͕̤̹͖̖̂͞a̍ͩ̈͏͎͚g̤͕̰̮̙̮̟̩̈̏͟a̩̘̣͛͞i̴̠̭̺͇ͭ͒ͅn̴̖̭̰ͩͧ͆́.͉̱͖͒̕ͅ.̭̹̐̋͋͋.̶̤̤̻͈͎̖̳̌̿

͙̱̬͖̦̫̞̜̖̠̃̑̇͂̊̕

“ Dabi .” He said, doing his best to make his irritation visible without outright exploding. “When we talked about an agreement, right in the beginning I made it very clear that some people were off-limits, even if they were heroes. Best Jeanist is on that no-interaction-no-harm list.”

“Well, Shigaraki said to do it.” Dabi said, shrugging. “So, if you really want to join in...”

“Fuck it.” He said sharply. “I’m not out here planning for years just to end up as someone else’s bitch. Let me make this very fucking clear, while I’m breathing. No one is killing Jeanist, not villains, not the heroes, and definitely not the League. “

Dabi crept closer, looking at his eyes with a carefully blank face.

“What will you do about it, Big Bird?”

“I think you already know.” Keigo said, voice sharp and cold as ice. They glared at each other, until Dabi broke the silence.

“Thought that you wanted to join the League. Didn’t your President tell you to?” He whispered, searching nerves to prickle.

Keigo felt himself at the edge of an explosion. His hands twitched to reach for his lighter.

“Oh, go fuck yourself. When did I ever do something that wasn’t on my own terms?” He growled. “Fuck the president. Joining the League is the best-case scenario for me , but I won’t kiss anyone’s ass to get in. I’m well beyond caring that much about anything, and you know that even if this doesn’t work out, I’ll have it my way eventually. Would you rather profit on it or not?”

“Look at our birdie, all grown up.” Dabi mocked, “Already manipulating the two sides of the law. Congratulations on your grown backbone! I’m sure letting the Number Three hero of Japan join the villain organization I’m part of, won’t come back to fuck me up later.”

He laughed.

“You may be a bunch of assholes, but the league is far from being the worst ones, and you know some shit that you shouldn’t. The further you are from the commission the better for me.” Keigo rolled his eyes. “Besides… If you worry about that so much, why the hell are you talking with me now? Clearly, You didn’t bother  to do it in the last few years.”

“Look Hawks , you have to kill someone into the top ranks, the higher the better, so unless you have a better target...” Dabi said ominously.

“I do.” Tori Keigo Hawks cut. This was Dabi’s turn to look surprised.

“What?”

“The creation of the League didn’t give me a sudden epiphany to destroy the system, beef jerk, and you know it. I’ve been looking around for years now, investigating everyone around me and some of the top heroes need to be taken care of. Murder is not my preferred method to deal with them, but I could do it.”

Dabi blinked. “Do you have a hit list for heroes?”

Keigo repressed a wince.

“More or less.” He shrugged. “I normally just take them out of the scene or make investigations to make them pay for their crimes through the justice system, but sometimes it’s necessary a more imminent approach.” 

“Not even going to the classic ‘but murder is wrong’ argument?”

“We both know that would be wasting my breath.” Keigo said, feeling tired.

Keigo was a great liar and an amazing actor. So much so that sometimes it scared him. The darkness that he needed to show for this mission when he interacted with Dabi came in way too easily.

The fear of it merging with him, the fear that it was never a lie in the first place.

He was an excellent liar, able to trick even himself.

But it wasn’t really Dabi’s fault, he wasn’t at fault for it, he was a reminder of it.

It was ironic how the commission trained a perfect criminal when trying to create a perfect hero. They tried to shove a sense of duty and selflessness, a twisted morality of sacrifices with convincing expressions. Trying to create a puppet. 

It might have worked, if Hawks’ hearing was normal and he didn’t listen to the whispers from the other side of walls and glass, including his mother selling him to the Hero Commission. If Hawks couldn’t sense them with his feathers, feel the beating of their hearts accelerate when they would lie to him or feel the traces of satisfaction and sadism when they beat him up. If every instinct in his body didn’t scream at him to not trust them, to keep his guard up, that these people were twisted in a way he didn’t understand. If the years with his parents hadn’t taught him how to lie and play his part, how to keep quiet for his own survival.

But it was the commission who taught him that morals are the first thing to break when pressure enough was applied. Those heroes, in concept, were basically individual soldiers playing model, or the other way around. That death was hardly the worst punishment one can suffer. That good and evil were subjective concepts, ones that were constantly used to manipulate. 

Does it matter?

These years, the cold hatred remembered him that Keigo was alive.

Dabi sighed. “I won’t do anything for free. Do you want intel on the underground? So do I. Not just on the League, but I want my personal little bird to share what he hears on both sides.” 

The bastard has the guts to grab Keigo’s chin with a scarred hand, analyzing his face with the arrogant smile of someone who knows that they are pushing all the buttons. The patience needed to stop himself from swearing Dabi’s entire existence was way too big. “And if you want protection for your people, I will get it for mine as well, inside and outside.”

“That’s fair.” He says, pushing Dabi’s hand off. “As long as the League isn’t as fucked up as the bastards I’m hunting and don’t mess with those I want around me, we are cool. This applies to any others as well;”

“Shit, I almost forgot how high your bar to target bastards are.”

“Growing up under one of Japan’s biggest offenses against human rights will do that to you.”

Dabi hummed. “Well, you seem stressed. Wanna set something on fire?”

“ Oh God, yes.” Keigo groaned, for once not containing his impulse and grabbing his lighter and the hairspray can, completely ignoring what just happened and not bothering to control his feral grin. “I need a break. Where?”

“There’s a dumpster on the next block. No one’s gonna care if we set it up in flames.” Dabi said.

“Great!” Keigo smiled like a mad man and then held Dabi that squeaked in surprise. “Let’s go!” He prepared to take flight. 

“Don’t you dare, you fuck-” Dabi realized what he was going to do a second too late and was cut abruptly by the free fall out of the window as Hawks grabbed him and took flight. “-ING CHICKEENNNNNN!!!!!”

“Ahahahahaha!” Keigo laughed “It's been far too long! Hold on tight!” He said out of habit, as Dabi was already firmly planted on that familiar, but nostalgic grip, from someone that is already used to flying with him.

He was aware, logically that this was an incredibly stupid thing to do. Dabi could easily burn his wings and make both of them fall for their death, even approaching a villain like this was idiotic. 

But right now, he didn’t care.

“Fucking bastard, I’ll make sure that I vomit on you!”

Keigo ignored him, focusing on the revigorating feeling of the wind's vibrations on feathers as they arrived in the dumpster and he landed on. No one around, no electrical buzzing of cameras or bugs.

“Way faster than walking.”

Dabi shook his head as he recovered his balance. “You just like to take any chance you get to make me miserable”

“That’s a bonus.” Keigo beamed as he reached for his pockets and looked for a good target.

A wardrobe, the scraps of a destroyed car, some tires, a bunch of papers…

Mannequins.

Fire. Brightness. Heat. Flames dancing. Burn. Burnt away.

Perfect. Keigo grabbed his air-filtering mask and threw Dabi another one. He grabbed it but gave him a pointed, annoyed look. 

“You know that this is an argument you can’t win.” Keigo deadpanned. “Put the damn thing on.”

Dabi rolled his eyes. “Yes, mom .” He said as he put on the mask but still looked unhappy about it.

“Don’t worry, It’s black, it won’t mess up with your whole punk aesthetic.”

“Fuck off.”

Keigo pulled out his lighter, the sweet form small in his hands, and watched a little flame ignite to life with a pleasing click. He stopped for a second to watch the small thing dance, it’s core purple-blue and growing orange, then grabbed a can of hairspray, shaking it. He positioned the can and sprayed, his blood full of euphoria, and for a second he saw half dozens of faces in the plastic features, people who spilled blood and found a place in his nightmares. 

He watched as the bright flames doused the mannequin, the still humanoid form  getting black and slowly deforming, the plastic funding together into a beige mess,  fake cranium exposed, the fire dancing and spreading to some papers who were around. 

He let his hands feel the heat, almost igniting them on the fire.

“Wow, that is a little concerning.” Dabi said, standing at his side.

“Better to vent here in an extremely fucked up way then exploding later”

“Fair enough” Dabi snorted.

A few minutes later, Keigo sensed movement with his feathers and turned to see Dabi setting the rest of a car on fire. Bored of the already starved fire consuming the mannequin, that now was more of a pile of carbonized goo.

He watched the bright blue flames dancing, so hot that he could feel from the distance with his feathers. He walked to Dabi and sat on his side, watching the fire and the one who started it.

They stood there for a while, then Dabi broke the silence.

“Also, congratulations.”

“For what?” 

“For stealing all of those UA brats.”

“Wha- I didn’t steal? Where did you take that from?” Keigo asked.

“Please, we both know you are never giving them back.” Dabi said. “I saw the video of you tearing through that random asshole and embarrassing the kids going all proud-parent-like. It’s trending on Twitter.”

Shit.

Hawks forgot that Dabi had 6 years to learn how to bother and check social media.

Well, forget those extra days of laying low and leaving the kids far from the view of villains and the commission.

But it was probably fine. Most criminals knew better than to mess with Hawks and the people around him, and even the president wasn’t arrogant enough to try and touch a single hair of those kids’ heads while they were under his gaze.

Not after last time, not after those results.

Snap.Snap.Snap.Snap.Snap.

He might have to make some more efforts to guarantee the safety of their friends and family, but it was nothing that he wasn’t prepared for.

“Interesting choice of kids, by the way.” Dabi commented.

Hawks glared at him, which made him roll his eyes.

“I know, I know.” The bastard said. “If I, the league, or anyone else touches your poor, tiny baby-birds you will hunt them down, skin them alive, and use their bones to make artisanal knives or something. I will try and keep the others away from the UA brats, especially Bakugou.” 

Hawks felt a pang of disgust at himself. Just by being here, casually chatting with someone who hurt them, he was betraying the kids’ trust.

Not like you never did that before.

When will you ever learn that you can’t play house with everyone, Keigo? Why do I keep doing this?

Because you are selfish, his mind responded. And you can’t help but ruin people by invading their lives.

“I meant that I get why you got the bird-kid and floaty girl since you are a sucker for everyone who can fly, and you probably vibed with Bakugou and the purple-kid on a deep, personal level since y’all share that little-shit energy and you are an overprotective asshole. ” Dabi commented. “But why Todoroki Shouto? Wouldn’t he go with the flaming trash bin instead?”

Keigo snorted, remembered the name sign he had created to Endeavour, and exploded in a burst of full blown laughter. Dabi looked at him weirdly.

“Ahahahaha….. why do you care? Keeping tabs on Endeavor?” He said after recovering his breath.

Dabi shrugged, but in a tense way that said that he had hit the nail in the head.

“It’s just weird that he chose not to go with his own father.” he said, with a strange tone.

“Normally it’s what is expected. “ Keigo said casually. “But I invited him, and he came.”

“And why did you invite him?” Dabi pushed.

Because he reminded me too much of myself, too much for me to let it go.

“He is an interesting kid, so I got curious.” Keigo answered. He smiled. “He is a good kid. I like him.”

“Will you give him back to Endeavour when the mentorship is over?”

No.

“I might consider if he proves himself worthy.”

Dabi raises an eyebrow, with a strange spark on his eyes, almost concealing… suspicion? Anger?

“The kid?” Dabi said with dryness in his voice.

“What?! Jesus, of course not!” Keigo answered, perplexed as to why he had that reaction or even thought that.  “Endeavor. I’m already planning how to fight him for custody.” He made it sound like he was joking, even though he really wasn’t.

Dabi laughed, but it was a bit strange. It had a sense of relief in it, and a bit of hidden bitterness, like he was contemplating an irony that Keigo didn’t get.

“What is it to you?” 

Did Dabi know something about the Todorokis? He isn’t the type to target a hero’s family, is it? Is that why he hates Endeavour?

“Curiosity, it’s all.”

“How much do you know about the Todorokis?” Keigo asked. Does he know something?

“I know enough.” Dabi said, kind of somber. “Walls have ears.” Then he gave him a shitty grin. “Plus I watch Keeping Up With The Todorokis.”

Keigo rolled his eyes. “Dealing with you is worse than herding cats.” 

Dabi chuckled. “I’ll take your word for it since you have a greater experience in that subject than 99% of the crazy cat ladies.”

“Shut up, Hot Topic.”

They continued bickering into more mindless topics, as the blue fire roared and extinguished, allowing themselves to forget who they were for once until the sun arrived and the city called them with it.