Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

In hindsight, Hawks should have known it would change everything.

That's how these things tend to go. Life rarely gives you a warning before it changes: no red flashing lights or shock of adrenaline, ears aching from the blare of wailing sirens. Change doesn't wait for you to grasp it before you're swept out by the current and into the undertow.

Even after everything, Hawks still has sleepless nights staring at his ceiling, searching for meaning in the pain all three of them experienced. It doesn't seem fair that they had to suffer so much just to find their way to each other, only for it to keep hurting for so long after they got there. This world is too fucked for him to believe in anything like fate, but some days he looks back and wonders if any of it would've turned out the same if he'd done just one thing differently –– if everything needed to go wrong in exactly all the ways it went wrong and right in exactly all the ways it went right just so they could end up here. But other days, it feels like the whole thing was completely inevitable –– full stop, stone-set.

He may never have an answer. Still, it's almost funny that it took all of this to teach him that you can make countless mistakes without the ultimate result also being one. It's strange, how he's lived a life so full of regrets, but can't place which of them he'd dare try erasing, for fear it would change the outcome.

He wishes he could say his optimism never wavered. But there were times he thought one of them, or maybe all of them, wouldn't make it out of this. There were moments Hawks would have done anything to change everything about himself –– thinking that if he were just a little bit faster, he could at least save the other two, even at his own expense. 

How foolish he was, thinking things could end this way without all three of them, hand-in-hand.

Three pairs of hands, meant to be held, instead burned and scarred by the cruelties of human existence and the messes that come with it. They lived far too much of their lives like that, stuffing love in their pockets for fear it would be wrenched away or slip through their fingers –– all unable to fathom that they'd been given something that was never anything but theirs in the first place. 

And even though Hawks still can't make sense of most of it, this, at least, he's sure of: that love, in one of its many forms, was in every last moment of it. In every disaster and every victory, every shout and every laugh, every tear both shed and unshed. All of it. Love was, and is, in everything. Pain, too. But there's love in that, as well.

Hawks shifts. The man beside him stirs but doesn't awaken, his blinding white hair rustling against the cotton pillowcase. Soon, the sun will rise and burn the dawn at its corners, giving way to a new day, rushing in an endless stream of tomorrows. Still, Hawks refuses to leave behind what it took to earn each and every daybreak, how they all fought both through and like hell in order to chip away just one more morning for one another, dragged before each others' feet with trembling wrists and white knuckles. He couldn't forget, even if he wanted to.

The past never dies, after all.

-----------

It all starts with a letter.

An actual, physical letter –– handwritten and everything. A divot in its left top corner from where a paperclip was shoved into it, the kind of mark that comes from something too small trying to hold together a stack too large. It's mottled at the edges from where rain and snowmelt have tried to partake in its writing, leaving comments at the margins in the form of warped water blotches. 

Much of Japan is that way right now. It's an awkward time of the year, the populace floating aimlessly within the liminal space between Christmas and New Years'. Nothing interesting is supposed to happen at a time like this, yet here Hawks is anyway, confronted by an actual physical letter that shakes his entire world.

"Hawks!" it had begun, one of his sidekicks––the Sparrow Hero: Akari, she's new––swarming him as soon as he touches down on the balcony and makes his way inside. The rest soon join her, and he's unable to even reach his office before being crowded like a fallen piece of fruit around an anthill. "He––he accepted!"

"Huh?" Hawks says, wading through the group. "Who accepted what?"

"For the new round of hero student work-studies!" Akari chirps. If her excitement gets any higher, she might just combust, leaving a ground zero hole in the city in lieu of this building. "He accepted your offer!"

Hawks lifts a puzzled eyebrow.

What offer?

Hawks didn't send any offers for the final round of work-studies.

Could she be talking about Tokoyami? Huh. After his second experience with Hawks, Tokoyami had told him politely but firmly that he wouldn't be coming back. Hawks can't say he was terribly surprised –– it left a sour taste in his mouth to offer that first internship almost solely to pry any potential information about the then-League of Villains, and Tokoyami's month-long work-study with him wasn't much different. 

Hawks hadn't known whether to be disappointed or relieved: he wasn't much of a teacher to him, but he still liked the kid. The fact that he's far too busy to take on an intern without having to leave them with his sidekicks probably saved them both from further disappointment. Hawks was satisfied he'd at least been able to guide the kid towards a new move, and he thought that was that.

Has he changed his mind?

"Look, Hawks! He filled out all the paperwork!" Akari's saying despite that Hawks is zoning out right in front of her, lost in the maze of his thoughts. "Even got his teacher to sign it! All it needs is your signature!"

She is holding paperwork, that much is certain, even if she's shaking it too fast for Hawks to read. All he can make out is a clipping from a document with the headline Sports Festival Internship Agency Offers ––  well, at least that explains where the offer came from, even if it's old as shit. But still, who––

"Oh, it came with this as well," Akari says, pulling a piece of paper from the packet. "Here! This letter was clipped to the top of the stack!"

Hawks leans against the back of the couch and slips the paper from her grasp with the whisk of a feather. He pushes up his visor, ready to read whatever the hell she's talking about.

Or at least, he thought he was ready.

How wrong he was.

Dear Hawks,

Thanks for sending me an internship offer at your agency. I want to do my work-study with you. I think we would make a good team and there are some things I'd like to learn from you. Please accept me.

From, Todoroki Shouto

The world glitches.

What.

Hawks stares at the name until the characters blur together. But no matter how hard he looks, it's not disappearing: there's no magic ink eroding the penstrokes, no sidekick announcing they'd made up the whole thing, no camera crew popping up around him to announce he's been pranked. It's really there. 

Todoroki Shouto. 

Todoroki Shouto wants to work with him.

One of the most legendary students in the already-legendary UA Class 1-A. One of only four students admitted by recommendation, one of the heroes with the most busted quirks in modern society. Runner-up in the Sports Festival. The kid who helped take down the Hero Killer, Stain –– because yeah, Hawks knows the truth behind that. 

Not to mention he's Endeavor's––

"That offer was from the Sports Festival," is all Hawks can manage dumbly, interrupting his own rapidly derailing train of thoughts.

This doesn't deter Akari in the slightest. "Well, if he wants to work with you, and you want to work with him, then who cares?" She jumps up and down like a kid who's just been told they're being taken on a surprise trip to the amusement park. "Oh, Hawks, this is so exciting! Todoroki Shouto is gonna intern at our agency! The Number One Hero's kid!"

Yeah, that's what's confusing Hawks the most.

Why the fuck does Endeavor's son want to work with him?

Because Akari is right. Even sending the first offer after the Sports Festival had been mostly an inside joke with himself; he knew Todoroki would never accept. Todoroki had been impressive, and throwing his own hat in the ring had felt more like an expectation than a true extension of a partnership.

Since then, Todoroki's father has become the Number One Hero. Hawks and Todoroki have never even met –– what could he possibly get from Hawks that he couldn't get from his own dad? 

Besides, Endeavor isn't just the Number One Hero. He's Hawks' hero. Why the hell has his own hero's son chosen Hawks over him?

Hawks' stomach churns. He feels sick. 

"U-Uh, let's not get ahead of ourselves here..." Hawks stammers. His wings are heavy against his back, each feather weighing him down like granite. He wonders if he could even fly like this, or if he'd just plummet like a bag of rocks into a splat on the pavement. "Just, slow down for a second––"

"Hawks is telling us to slow down?" another sidekick laughs, slapping his knee as if this is the funniest joke he's heard all year. It's the end of December –– Hawks should be proud of that, and yet. "Wow! Could this day get any weirder?!"

Hawks gulps. He has the distinctly unfortunate feeling that somehow, it can.

"I'm just sayin', it might be a mistake," Hawks tries, as if the letter isn't directly addressed to him and his name isn't on every piece of paper in the whole stack. "I mean, why work with me when his own dad is––"

"Hawks!" his receptionist calls from his office, waving her phone. "Madam President from the Commission is calling. She wants you to stop by her office. She says it's really important!"

Hawks almost snorts. Gee, wonder what that could be about. 

Of fucking course she already knows.

Hawks pushes upright, fluffing his wings and willing them to soften. He flips his visor back over his face, tucking Todoroki's letter into his flight jacket's inner compartment.

"Well, better be off, then," he chirps with a grin, saluting his office. "See ya, everyone! Don't––uh. Don't get your hopes up!"

He hears a few snickers from the crowd. They probably think he's joking. He most definitely is not.

Hawks makes his way to the balcony and climbs onto the railing, taking to the skies. Todoroki's letter is heavy against his chest, constricting his airways –– the sensation of diving too deep in the ocean, pressure increasing painfully, suddenly cognizant of the thousands of tons of water between himself and fresh air. Hawks has always been a shit swimmer, even if it was largely trained out of him. He's supposed to feel free up here in the skies, at least physically. Instead, his feathers feel waterlogged, each wingbeat a fight against a force of nature he can't control.

He only makes one brief stop at a vending machine, guzzling a can of sickeningly sweet coffee to pregame the meeting. It's the only food in his stomach so far today, and he knows it'll make him even more jittery than he already is. He knows the pang in his skull isn't a caffeine headache, but hey, a guy can dream, right?

Hah. Not Hawks, but it's worth a shot anyway.

He finally reaches Commission headquarters a short while later. He touches down outside Madam President's office, and half a minute later, he's buzzed inside.

"Hawks," Madam President greets. Papers surround her in neat stacks, varied as rooftop heights in a city's skyline. She sits motionlessly at her stately mahogany desk, befitting a woman of her power: both over the country, and over him. "Good morning."

Hawks almost frowns. It doesn't feel like a good morning. The platitude stings like a slap.

"Morning, Madam President," Hawks says with a casual salute in return, hoping to disarm her with the friendly attitude she herself instructed he be taught. Stupid of him to even try, knowing snakes are immune to their own venom. "What can I do for ya?"

A plastic smile. "I'm sure you already know what this is about," she begins, voice dripping with what he once read as pride –– and even now, it sounds so real. But Hawks knows better. He's no longer that desperate kid seeking the approval of the woman who saved him, no matter what his instincts are screaming at him. "Congratulations on receiving such a remarkable letter. Clearly, you have been doing something right."

It takes everything inside Hawks not to perk up at her words. It's not real, he tells himself again. She's trying to butter him up for something.

"Thank you, ma'am," he says deferently anyway, bowing politely. "Though, I gotta admit...I'm not sure of his motivation behind this."

"That is of no matter," she replies, which it took years for him to read as Commission speak for I don't know, either. "We've been presented with an incredible opportunity. I suggest we take it."

Suggest. Hawks feels a bitter laugh climb up his throat. It never leaves it.

"Oh?" Hawks says, refusing to let himself guess where this is going, even though he has a sinking feeling he already knows. "Whaddya mean?"

"We believe it is a brilliant idea for you to take on young Todoroki as your work-study student," she tells him, and Hawks winces at her wording. We, as if there's already been a meeting about this, despite that Hawks himself learned of it maybe twenty minutes ago. Hawks can almost picture it: a whole room of higher-ups sitting around a table, heads nodding in unanimous agreement. "There are many facets as to why this is quite beneficial to all of your current exploits."

All of his current exploits, she says. As if she doesn't place one of those astronomically higher than everything else.

"Yeah?" Hawks says, refusing to make this easy for her. Or maybe he's just stalling the inevitable. "How so?"

"The former League, now the leaders of the Paranormal Liberation Front, have always been interested in the top UA students," she continues, folding her hands atop her desk. "Primarily Midoriya Izuku, Bakugou Katsuki, and Todoroki Shouto. Considering young Todoroki's closeness to Midoriya and Bakugou, both of whom Shigaraki has expressed interest in, this could work in our favor, along with the fact that he is the current Number One Hero's son––"

"You're kidding me," Hawks interrupts even though he knows she isn't, because she hasn't made a joke in the decade and a half he's known her and she's not starting now. "You want me to use the Number One Hero's kid as a fucking lure––"

A rare expression surfaces on her features, eyebrows jumping at the fact that he's just cursed at her. The scared kid inside him instinctively cringes at the criticism in her gaze. The disappointment he only now knows is a manipulation tactic, meant to make him feel guilty and assume that she's regretting taking him off the streets, hoping it would make him try harder. It worked, back when he was a kid. Still kind of does, even though he's now aware of it. 

She doesn't deign to actively chide him for this. No, she's made sure that whatever he comes up with in his own head is worse than anything she could deliver. Just one of the ways the Commission has broken him into never resisting their iron grasp on his whole being: one look and he's already drowning in shame, regretting ever speaking.

Still, another thing they've trained out of him are his self-preservation instincts. If he needs to swan-dive onto a landmine, then so be it. "I already learned from Twice that Shigaraki is in the mountains for four months, gaining a new power," he attempts, fingers twitching at his sides. "Ma'am, with all due respect, he's not even here––"

"Just because we have four months doesn't mean we need to take it," she cuts him off, eyes even sharper. "We must stop him from completing his power-up before he threatens this entire country with it. We must try everything we can to bring him back from there." She tilts her head. "Or are you saying you'd rather take this slowly and threaten the lives of citizens everywhere?"

Hawks gulps down the bile that surges up his windpipe. "No, ma'am."

"Good." Her gaze softens, but Hawks knows better to think he's off the hook. "Besides, it is more than just that. We're not asking you to bring him in on your infiltration mission––" she says, and the yet hangs unsaid, "––we are also asking you to mold him into your personal backup."

Hawks' stomach drops. The Commission is already mobilizing the hero students to serve as backup in the upcoming war. That's what these work-studies are for.

"I don't think the son of the Number One Hero would be happy to do a work-study with just my sidekicks," Hawks falters.

"You're not going to leave him with your sidekicks," she says smoothly. "You're going to train him personally."

"I'm not really interested in training the next generation––"

"You're not going to be training the next generation," she shoots back. "You are going to be training him, to work with you. Recently, we have recognized there are downsides to you being the fastest hero––" and of course she'd never admit she made a mistake, "––and the perfect chance to ameliorate this setback has fallen right into our lap."

This isn't right. Hawks works alone. They taught him not to rely on anyone. They've personally ensured no one would be fast enough to keep up with him, not even his own sidekicks. He's never teamed up with other heroes; High-End was an exception in every sense of the word, and now here he is, being commanded to drag yet another Todoroki in his doomed flight towards the sun.

"Aw, c'mon. You know I fly better solo," he chuckles, and it's truly a testament to his desperation that he's trying the laid-back act even to her. "What's that the tabloids always say? I'm too fast for my own good. No one can keep up with––"

"Then make him," she says, voice flat and impassive as ever. "Make him keep up with you."

Hawks opens his mouth, but nothing comes out.

"Our country has just experienced a crisis, and we are on the cusp of another," she continues, taking advantage of his momentary silence. "We know you want to do what is best for your country. And not only is this best for your country, but it is also best for yourself."

Hawks grinds his teeth. Of course he wants to do what's best for his country. But he also knows exactly what her last point truly means: she wants him to turn his own hero's son into insurance for the asset they've invested the most in.

"Why don't you go visit your new student?" she says, and bitterness roils inside him at the sudden lightness of her tone. "We've let UA know you're on your way. You're dismissed."

Tongue still tied, all Hawks can do is offer another bow before leaving her office, taking off in the direction of Musutafu.

He already hurt Endeavor in the High-End fight. That scar may have been physically caused by the nomu, but Hawks knows the true cause was him. He wonders how many more Todorokis he's going to have to irreversibly damage before he gets what he deserves.

Was his father not enough? Hawks asks whatever higher being exists in the heavens, despite that it has never once answered him. I have to hurt his son too?

Maybe––maybe he can somehow convince Todoroki out of this. If Todoroki himself rejects Hawks, the Commission won't be able to spin a lie convincing enough to force him into this, not without UA getting in the way.

Hawks closes in on his destination, his jacket still leaden with what he's now just referring to as just The Letter. Proper noun and everything.

UA is a behemoth of a place, towering above the rest of the buildings in the area like a lighthouse on a rocky shore. It sticks out against the horizon in sharp, blocky angles, its geometric facets cutting the scant sunlight seeping through the fog into stripes. It's not a particularly nice day: the main building's infamous wall of windows would normally mirror the sky into cobalt, but today they're just a dull slate, scuffed with the reflections of darker patches of clouds. Hawks tenses as he flies closer –– this is not how he'd planned to spend his day.

As Madam President said, UA has been expecting him, seeing as he's not shot out of the sky the second he crosses the threshold. He touches down just short of the central entryway, choosing to walk the rest of the way.

And someone is waiting for him. The Erasure Hero: Eraserhead leans languidly against one of the pillars. It's just like him to have found the one patch of untainted sunlight to bask in, like a housecat chasing the last ray of sunshine throughout the afternoon. 

Eraserhead stares at him, unblinking. His eyes are achingly dry, making Hawks want to drench his own in saline out of sympathy. His arms are folded, guarding, a sentry posted at the entrance of a crypt. Everyone knows you can't pass until you've solved the sphinx's riddle.

Hawks throws him a lazy wave. "Yo, Eraserhead!" He withdraws The Letter from his jacket, holding it up. "You got any idea what this is about?"

Eraserhead lifts an eyebrow, unimpressed. "I think it's about Todoroki wanting to do his work-study with you."

Hawks honestly can't tell if it's sarcasm. It's hard to tell when everything out of his mouth sounds like it is. "Do you know why?"

"Probably because he feels like he has something to learn from you," Eraserhead replies. 

Hawks starts to laugh, then turns it into a cough when he realizes Eraserhead hadn't meant this as a joke. Whatever test this is, he's probably failing it. He puts The Letter away, almost shamefully. Eraserhead has this distinct ability to make him feel like he's done something wrong already, flattened by the weight of his apathetic stare. "I gotta be honest man, you are givin' me nothing here––"

"I don't owe you anything. You're not one of my students," Eraserhead interrupts. The loose rows of tape draped around his neck rustle in the breeze, like a mummy who was too lazy to finish wrapping itself before climbing back in the sarcophagus. "But Todoroki is."

This, Hawks can work with. He slips his hands into his pockets, meeting Eraserhead's listless glare with a half-lidded one. "Ah, are you saying you disapprove?"

Eraserhead thins his gaze. "And here I thought you had sharp eyes, Hawks."

Cryptic. "Oh?" Hawks starts, light despite the discomfort roiling in his guts. It's not often he feels this supremely outclassed, like he's years behind in this conversation when they've been talking for maybe a minute. "What do you mean?"

"You saw my signature on the forms, didn't you?" Eraserhead replies, pushing upright. "Wait here. I'll bring him down."

Without another word, Eraserhead disappears behind the doorway: unhurried, despite that Hawks is now buzzing with nervous energy. What the hell was that? So he––doesn't disapprove? Huh. Hawks feels his wings fluff without his input. Something about the implication of Eraserhead's maybe-approval makes him feel weirdly fulfilled, and Hawks thinks he might get it now. For someone with the outer shell of a wet blanket, no wonder his students adore him. 

After a few long minutes, the door creaks open again.

And out emerges Todoroki. He's wearing a neatly-pressed UA uniform and powder-blue sneakers, their toeboxes mottled with well-loved scuffs. Shouto's lips part in surprise, and two mismatched eyes lock onto Hawks. 

One is a dark, flat gray not unlike the overcast sky, and the other is a brilliant, piercing turquoise: the color of a sky-drenched ocean, like looking up at a wave from within its curl. It's almost the exact same shade as Endeavor's, but aside from the violent crimson hue of half his hair, the resemblance between them largely stops there.

Not to mention the massive scar that swallows the left side of his face like a sinkhole, cracked at its perimeter. Almost certainly caused by some sort of burn, despite being on the part of his body most resistant to fire, stamped across his otherwise porcelain complexion like a butcher's brand. 

Hawks has seen it in pictures and on TV, but in person, it really does look excruciating. 

Not for the first time, Hawks wonders how he got it.

"Well, if it isn't young Todoroki-kun!" Hawks chirps, tossing up a hand in greeting. "Fancy seein' you here."

"Hawks," Todoroki says simply. With the walkway's staircase still between them and baroque pillars on either side, his posture goes from stiff to statuesque. "You're here."

"Sure am," Hawks replies. He sweeps into a deep bow: one hand across his torso, the other outstretched, a stage performer before the curtain call. "Wing Hero: Hawks, at your service."

Todoroki shuffles in place. "Service...? Um, I don't need anything right now." Wide-eyed, Hawks blinks at his reply. Is he joking, or did that really fly over his head? "And Aizawa-sensei said you sent for me, so..."

Yeah, definitely flew over his head. Hawks lets his smile widen, and his next words melt into a laugh. "Haha, I did! Sorry, figure of speech. Let's start over." He straightens, one hand loosely perched on his hip. "It's nice to meet ya!"

"Nice to meet you too," Todoroki says, descending the steps to stand before him. "Can I help you with something?"

"As a matter of fact, you can," Hawks responds, fishing around for The Letter. He waves it like a flyer distributor at a street corner. "I, uh, I got your letter. I was pretty surprised! Most kids just submit their work-study responses electronically, y'know."

Todoroki slips his hands into his pockets. "I know," he acknowledges. "But I write letters to my mom sometimes, and she said that when you have something really important to tell someone you can't see in person, you should send them a letter." A small nod. "So, I wanted to take her advice. She helped me write it."

Hawks' smile dims a couple watts. The thought that the kid had a conversation with his mom about this is weirdly sweet, and it makes Hawks' chest pang with guilt. So he'll be letting even more people down today, then. Hah. Something different. "That's good advice! Very earnest." He returns The Letter to its resting place. "Anyway, Todoroki-kun––"

"It's Shouto," he corrects. "You can call me Shouto. It's my hero name, after all." He pauses as if hesitating, then shakes it off. "That's what you should call me, since we're going to be working together."

"Right. About that," Hawks begins. He has to do this carefully –– let the kid down easy, and make Shouto think it's his own choice. "The offer I sent you was from the Sports Festival."

"Oh." Shouto pauses. "Is it expired?"

"W-Well, no, but––"

"Ah, that's good. My classmates said it might be since it was from a while ago, but I'm glad you still want to work with me."

Hawks winces, realizing he had an out and just failed to take it. "Yeah, of course!" Hawks fluffs up his wings, his feathers fanning like festival confetti –– a distraction tactic, meant to draw attention away from a situation and towards him. It will put people at ease, his handlers had promised during grueling practice. People are calmed by pretty things. "But, are you sure you want to work with me?"

Shouto tilts his head. "What do you mean?"

"Well, I'm the hero who's too fast for his own good," Hawks tells him, pointing at the massive appendages spilling from his back. "Not even my sidekicks can keep up with me."

"Really...?" Shouto muses. He squints at Hawks' primaries the way a student would look at a diagram on the whiteboard from the back of the class. Maybe he thinks he can keep up, somehow. In fact, Hawks is half-expecting a 'Plus Ultra!' but instead, Shouto says simply, horrifyingly: "That sounds lonely."

And it smacks into Hawks like a punch to the gut. "Nah, it's great!" he lies, almost breathless. He can't think about it. He can't let himself think about it. If Hawks allowed himself to dwell on every night alone and every secret he can never tell, he'd have broken years ago. "Being alone means I can fly free, untethered by anyone."

Shouto looks thoroughly unconvinced. "Someone once told me––uh, I mean, I used to think I lived in a different world from everyone else," he begins. "I thought it was better that way. But my friends taught me that isn't true." He rocks on his heels, creaking gently against the flagstone. "I don't think being tethered to others is a strictly bad thing. So, maybe you might also like it better if there's someone in the sky with you."

Hawks presses his wings together, hoping to hide the tremble in his feathers. He feels rattled –– a canary trapped in a cage being shaken by an insistent child, testing how hard he has to jerk the bars until he starts squawking. All Hawks can manage is, stupidly, "But you don't have any wings."

"Bakugou can fly with explosions," Shouto counters effortlessly. "So, I think...I can figure something out."

Hawks forces a chuckle, barely suppressing the impulse to hide behind his jacket's plush collar. Okay, time to pivot. "Y'know, your friend Tokoyami-kun isn't coming back to my agency," he tries, lifting a gloved finger. "He didn't like working with me. I wasn't very good at teaching him."

Shouto hesitates for a long moment, biting his lip as he visibly mulls it over. Hawks almost gets his hopes up––maybe that was enough of a deterrent?––but instead Shouto finally says, "That's okay. Aizawa-sensei says everyone has different learning styles."

Hawks' eyebrow twitches. Wow, this is going comically poorly. Another swing and a miss. Is the kid actually this dense? Most people would've picked up on Hawks' subtle rejections by now, but instead Hawks is a contestant on a gameshow wipeout course, smacking into obstacles and slipping in mud at the amusement of the audience. He hasn't had this many faceplants since he was first learning how to fly blindfolded. 

"Uh...he's right! Smart guy." Hawks fiddles with his visor. "But, I think I'm just not a very good teacher in general––"

"I learn best by example," Shouto interrupts. "You don't have to put together lessons for me or anything. I can learn a lot just by watching you."

"B-But you can watch me on TV, can't ya?"

"Not up close," Shouto insists. "And definitely not more than I would learn working directly beside you."

"Beside me...right." For the first time, Hawks allows himself to picture it –– his feathers catching the updraft of Shouto's shifting temperatures. Two extremes in a single person: the scorching tropics of the equator existing in harmony with the planet's icy poles. "Right. Our quirks!"

"Our quirks?" Shouto repeats.

"Our quirks aren't a good match-up for working together," Hawks lies, yet again. 

Despite Hawks' obvious fire weakness, he and Shouto really would make a remarkable team. Fierce Wings is excellent for reconnaissance, suppression, along with search and rescue, but he lacks power in physical confrontations. His feather-swords are useful for quick dispatches, but against true power-types, he's pretty helpless. 

Shouto himself is susceptible to a beatdown too, but together, that mutual weakness is almost completely removed. Hawks' detachable feathers could keep them both out of harm's way as he and Shouto whittle down an opponent, rendering the enemy immobile through a combination of ice and flames.

Hawks is probably the only one fast enough to maneuver through Shouto's lightning-quick elemental moves to provide true backup for him. And if they get attuned to each others' thought patterns, Shouto's wide-range attacks could corner villains into slim openings with Hawks at the end, reducing the violence inflicted by Shouto's extremes.

Shouto can give ground and long-range coverage while Hawks covers the skies. And if Shouto does figure out some way to join him in the clouds, it would leave almost nothing, no one, out of their reach.

Together, there's little they couldn't do.

"Really?" Shouto says incredulously. "I don't think that's true."

Yeah, there's no arguing that. "Er, maybe not, but I do have a pretty vicious fire weakness," Hawks tries anyway. "You saw my fight alongside your dad against the High-End nomu, right?" He ruffles his feathers, separating the barbs and curling them in, the crooked vanes reminiscent of the charred remains of a down pillow after a house fire. "I basically got turned into fried chicken."

"Yes, I saw that fight," Shouto confirms. His fingers idly tug at the gold button on his blazer cuff. "You were really amazing. He definitely wouldn't have won without you."

The back of Hawks' tongue pools with acid. He wouldn't have had that fight at all without me, he wants to say. Everything that happened to him that day was my fault. 

"Aw, c'mon, give your old man some credit," Hawks quips instead, returning his wings to their resting state. "If anything, I was holdin' him back. I'd hate to do the same to you."

For some reason, that makes Shouto avert his gaze. "I'm not him, though," Shouto murmurs, his heavy lashes fluttering like snowflakes getting lost on their way to the sidewalk. "I'm not."

Hawks softens his grin. "Yeah, I know. But while we're on the topic, I gotta admit," he finally stutters, lifting his palms in what's nearly surrender. This is the last straw he has the chance to grasp at, and he needs to spit it out before Shouto sears it to cinders like the rest of the pile. "I really don't get why you'd wanna work with me when you could just work with––"

He never finishes his sentence. 

Or rather, he can't. 

Hawks' spine stiffens, internally kicking himself. He should've expected this. He should've seen it coming, but the booming voice echoes through his hollow bones like a funeral gong nonetheless.

"Shouto!" 

Shouto closes his eyes and releases what sounds inexplicably like a resigned sigh.

"Endeavor," he says simply. No follow-up.

Hawks lifts a brow. 'Endeavor'? Not 'Dad'? Huh. Maybe it's a hero family thing. 

Endeavor stomps towards them until he's close enough to feel the heat radiating from his costume. Flames roil from his face in lava flows, haloing his hulking figure. His expression is pinched in fury Hawks knows he deserves.

Shoving down the guilt, Hawks greets him with a two-fingered salute. "Yo, Endeavor-san! Nice day, isn't it?" Wow, fifteen years of Commission training, and all he can come up with to defuse the obvious tension is a comment on the weather that's not even true? His handlers would be so proud. "Oh, merry belated Christmas. And happy early New Year!"

And if looks could kill, Hawks would die faster than a bird smashing into a skyscraper window. Endeavor shoots him a scathing glare that says, I'll deal with you in a minute. Hawks gulps.

Turning his attention back to his son, Endeavor folds his arms. "I just received word that the last of the work-study assignments had been sent out," he starts. "I couldn't help but notice a distinct lack of an acceptance in my inbox."

Shouto's expression barely changes, but Hawks thinks it hardens. Closes off. "That's because I didn't send you one."

It's blunt, like many of Shouto's other responses, but it lacks the childlike awkwardness his earlier ones had. Like there's a purpose to it. Stating the obvious just to make a point. 

A vein bulges in Endeavor's temple. "I can see that," he grinds out. "I was under the impression you'd be coming back after serving your internship with me. Imagine my surprise when the Commission informed me whose offer you had accepted." He lifts up his chin. "I thought I must be hearing things."

The corner of Shouto's mouth creases downwards. "I don't have to imagine anything. And you're not hearing things, either." He straightens his blazer. "I accepted the offer I wanted to accept. There's nothing more to it."

"Is that so?" Endeavor enunciates, the air pressure around them increasing in an exponential uptick. "Were you unsatisfied with your experience as my intern?"

"I wasn't," Shouto says slowly, carefully, as if he's trying to dial it back. "I learned what I wanted to from that. There's just––nothing else I want you to teach me."

Endeavor scoffs. "That's ridiculous. There is nothing he can teach you that I can't."

Insistent, Shouto shakes his head. "That's not true."

"It is," Endeavor says callously, as if Hawks isn't even there. As if there isn't maybe three feet between them. Or maybe he just doesn't care. "There is no point in choosing him over me."

"That's not true," Shouto says again, softer this time. "There is. I––I have a reason."

So there is an actual reason, Hawks says to himself. And yeah, Hawks agrees Endeavor is the better option, but his words still sting a surprising amount. 

"Then what is it?" Endeavor booms, and Hawks is sure it was only meant to be a question but it comes out like a demand. He stomps closer, and Shouto tenses. "Why do you want to work with him––"

This is getting out of hand. "Whoa, is it just me, or is it gettin' a little too hot for a December day?" Hawks quips brightly, fanning himself with a hand. It's pathetic that it took this long for his training to kick in, but Hawks will admit he didn't exactly expect the need to bust out the crisis mitigation toolkit during this trip. 

"Let's turn down the stove to a low boil, Endeavor-san. I didn't mean to step on anyone's toes. Shouto––" Endeavor growls at the use of his son's given name, so Hawks pivots. "U-Uh, Todoroki-kun? San? Sama?" He throws in the towel when Shouto gives him a weird look. "Believe me, I was just as surprised as you were when I got Shouto's letter."

"You," Endeavor grouses. Ah, so it's finally Hawks' turn to get chewed up and spat back out. "Back in Kyushu, you said failing the Provisional License Exam tarnished Shouto's reputation, yet you still sent him a work-study offer?" There's something almost bruised in Endeavor's expression, but it seems a wounded lion has no less killing intent. "Were you lying to me?"

"I accepted the offer Hawks sent me after the Sports Festival," Shouto cuts in, and fuck, how far Hawks has fallen, needing a child to bail him out. "But he said it was still valid."

Hawks fights off a wince. Oi, I said it wasn't expired, not that it was still valid, he wants to correct, but what's the point? All he has in him is a feeble shrug, his wings rising and falling with the motion. "Well, he's not technically wrong."

"A technicality, is it?" Endeavor repeats, eyes narrowed into slits, but even the thinnest crack in a volcano can still leak magma through it. "And here I believed you lived your life on whims."

Hawks' smile nearly falters. He should be glad that Endeavor buys it: the irreverent, breezy persona the Commission crafted for Pro Hero Hawks. He should be grateful for how different Hawks is from the little boy once named Keigo.

Hawks thinks of his father, the beer and bitterness on his breath, the mutters of Shoulda never been born as he drove a boot into Keigo's tiny sternum. Then he thinks of Tomie, of Why do you even have those wings? as she glared at the two blood-red limbs gushing from his back –– proof of the sin of his existence, given a life and a body he never asked for. Then he thinks of the Commission, observing his training with cold, detached gazes, like he'd already disappointed them before he'd even begun.

Then he thinks of the public, watching his every move like the countless eyes that always hovered around his mother, just waiting for him to make a wrong move. Waiting until he soars too high for his wings to catch him.

He thinks of the pre-recorded script of his entire life, never penned by his own hand, his early-grave ending that's already been written; and he can't recall a single choice he's ever freely made. 

"Guilty as charged," Hawks says instead, shooting Endeavor a wink and a finger-gun. Endeavor makes a sound of disgust at him –– as always, the clueless, happy-go-lucky attitude that makes the media fawn over Hawks and his fans go rabid only feeds the flames of Endeavor's temper again. "What can I say? I'm a go-with-the-flow kind of guy." But he can't forget why he's here. Shouto should be with his father. A father who loves him, even if––especially if––Keigo never could've. "Can't say I expected to be swept up in this current, though. Yeesh! I thought I was finally gonna be able to take it easy..."

Facing Shouto, Endeavor huffs, satisfied. "See? Even Hawks himself thinks your selection was ludicrous."

Alright, that's a running long jump of a logic leap. "W-Well, I wouldn't go that far––"

"My work-study assignment is my choice," Shouto interrupts, unfazed. His mismatched eyes haven't left his father's. Then he wrings his hands, suddenly reserved. "I want to become a hero on my own terms. With my own decisions."

"You're making a huge mistake," Endeavor counters, unrelenting. "You got second in the Sports Festival, Shouto. And you failed the Provisional License Exam." He bears down on his son like the afternoon sun in the dead of summer, oppressive and stifling. No number of plug-in fans or ventilators could cool off the space around them –– circulating nothing but hot, hot air. "I will not sit back and watch you fail again."

Hawks' wings prickle with the urge to move, the urge to fix this –– even if the effort is beginning to border on pointless. A task being impossible has never stopped it from being asked of him.

In any case, second place is hardly a failure, is it? Not for anyone other than Hawks, anyway. "Ah, that's right! You were runner-up, weren't ya? Sure is easy to forget you didn't take home the gold after shining so brightly." Shouto really was incredible, back then. Sure, his ice had been impressive, but the feral look across his features when he fought the bone-breaking kid is what ultimately made Hawks pick up the pen. "Ooh, maybe the real reason he sent me The Letter is because I'm also number two––"

But Hawks must have hit some sort of crucial nerve, because Endeavor's entire body twists with rage as he whirls towards him and roars, "Is this a joke to you?!"

This time, Hawks can't suppress a flinch. He knows Endeavor has never flipped over him, but it seems all the goodwill he built from backing him up in the High-End fight eroded as soon as Shouto chose Hawks over him.

He doesn't think he'll ever forget the feeling of that fight: the awe as he watched Endeavor streak across the skyline like a comet, every bit the shining light of a hero Hawks has always strived to be. The fear and guilt that wracked his guts at the thought that Endeavor might not win. Because of him. And so he'd ripped off his wings and offered them like a religious sacrifice, putting the only part of himself that's worth something on the altar and watched it burn.

Hawks gulps, trying not to stare at the scar he carved into Endeavor that day. A rough, angry patch of red, eating up nearly the entire left half of his face.

It matches his son's, almost.

Hawks can't take something precious away from his hero. Not again.

"Of course not, Endeavor-san," Hawks says, forcing his voice to soften. "Hey, I understand. He's your kid. You only want what's best for him."

"You could never understand," Endeavor wavers, and if Fierce Wings are telling him right, then Endeavor is almost trembling. "This is his destiny. Shouto––is everything to me."

What would be considered affectionate, loving words coming from a parent inexplicably make Shouto's jaw set, teeth grinding in a grimace.

Hawks relaxes his expression, hoping it makes his smile look more genuine. "Wow, such a doting parent. I'm touched," he says gently. He switches his weight, addressing Shouto once again. "Seems like your dad really cares about you, kiddo. Maybe he has a point?"

Shouto shakes his head almost violently. "No. He doesn't have a point," Shouto insists, and there's something strangely desperate in his tone. "I don't want to work with him. I want to work with you."

Hawks nearly does a double-take at the strength of his words. The Letter alone was evidence enough that Shouto really does want to be his intern, but this is a startling amount of pushback on his behalf. 

Endeavor swallows hard. He honestly looks a little hurt. "It's time to face reality," he says anyway, voice still hard, face still scowling. "We both know your fire side needs serious work. You have no chance of learning something that valuable from the Commission's little pet."

"There are other ways for me to practice using it," Shouto shoots back so quickly it makes Hawks' head spin. Any more of this back-and-forth, back-and-forth, and Hawks will fall right over, wings be damned. "My fire is a part of me. I realize that now. But it's not––more than me." He steels his posture, resolute. "Being a hero is more to me than that."

"Being a hero? And you think Hawks can teach you that?" The blaze of his mustache flares like the forked tusks of an oni mask, frightening enough to drive away evil spirits and send disobedient children running to hide behind their parents' legs. "You need to be preparing for real hero work, not learning how to pose for cameras like a peacock––"

Hawks doesn't let his smile drop, no matter how much he wants it to. He followed Endeavor's career closely as he was growing up. Somewhere in his early teen years, he realized the Commission was molding him into the type of hero Endeavor couldn't stand, but he thought it would be worth it, as long as he could save others. As long as he could put the people he rescues at ease, become the beacon of hope to them that Endeavor always was to him.

He thought he could take it. He was prepared for it, and yet––a cruel voice inside Hawks wants to wrap his dirty talons around the throat of his childhood self, pry that Endeavor plushie he used to clutch for comfort from his pitifully-weak grasp and hiss He's gonna hate you, he's gonna hate you, he's gonna hate you so so much––

Hawks forces a laugh, yet another attempt to defuse the tension he now knows is fully useless –– like a negligent lifeguard pulling a body from the bottom of a pool, pumping on its chest as if there'll still be something other than water in its esophagus at the end of this. 

"Ouch, Endeavor-san," Hawks chirps, flapping his wings, "Y'know, I'm right here––"

But he might as well not be. Endeavor's entire world has narrowed to Shouto and Shouto alone, locked in a battle in which there's only room for two: Shouto staring him down with defiance like a soldier turning on their own general, unwilling to keep following orders they don't believe in. 

"Real hero work, huh?" Shouto repeats, but there's poison laced into his echo. "Because everything you've done is so heroic? Everything?"

The flames on Endeavor's face flicker. Shouto's words must be surprising from how his expression untwists, rigid posture loosening. His eyes dart around in sudden clarity, as if he hadn't realized the ground he's been stomping on this whole time is actually made of glass. 

Endeavor's arms fall awkwardly to his sides. "Shouto," he says carefully, well aware that all it takes is one wrong step to crack it. "I thought we've been getting along better lately."

An irritated scoff. "Don't just decide things like that one-sidedly." Shouto straightens his already pencil-straight tie; a gesture for the sake of doing something with his hands. "I told you everything I felt towards you was pointless. I didn't say it was groundless." His next words are quiet, almost lost to the midwinter breeze. "There's a difference."

Endeavor clenches his fists, but there's no anger in it. Just resignation. Like he already knows he's lost the battle but is determined to go down with honor regardless. "Didn't you tell me you wanted to find out what kind of father I was going to be?"

Brows pinched, Shouto tilts his head, evidently failing to make the connection. "That doesn't have anything to do with this," he eventually says. "I do. But that doesn't mean I want to work with you."

"But you said Endeavor the hero was amazing, so why––"

"I meant that. And I still think it's true." Shouto draws in a deep breath, winds back what he must already know is a knockout blow. "But that doesn't change the fact that I have far more to learn about being a real hero from Hawks than I could ever learn from you."

Hawks' first reaction is that of pure, unadulterated shock, his bushy brows shooting to his hairline. Damn, the kid thinks that highly of him? Why? What the hell has Hawks ever done to earn this level of admiration from anyone, let alone his personal hero's own cherished son? Before today, he and Shouto have never even met––

Then Shouto's words sink in. 

And all of a sudden Hawks feels drenched in slime, filth oozing between the vanes of his already tainted wings. Muck surges up his windpipe, and he nearly vomits right then and there.

Because Hawks wasn't sent here to mentor Shouto, to guide him through heroics, to give him the care and kindness he clearly deserves. He was sent here to dangle him out like a lure for sharks and wait for jaws to start snapping. The hero studies students are already getting turned unwittingly into child soldiers –– he's here to upgrade Shouto into a child weapon, one whose trigger Hawks himself is supposed to pull. Just like Hawks became for the Commission. 

Look how that turned out. 

Hawks is about as far away from a real hero as someone could possibly get. Pro Hero Hawks is just a glittery facade, a shiny illusion meant to delude the masses, slapped like a piece of gauze to hide a wound that will never heal. To cover up that dirty kid from a filthy bloodline, cursed to spend the rest of his life making up for the fact that he was born. 

He thinks of all the innocent people he's watched die at the hands of villains for the sake of his mission, of all the heroes who have been hurt, or worse, thanks to information Hawks gave them. He thinks of Best Jeanist stuffed into a body bag, not dead but certainly not alive, of all the people he could be saving if not for Hawks' selfishness. He thinks of all the people whose lives he's ruined with the shady shit he's done for the Commission behind closed doors. 

Endeavor was wrong about him. He's not the Commission's pet –– he's their attack dog. 

He's well aware he owes the Commission everything for making the mistake of dragging him from hell. There's no room in that contract for Hawks' own desires, but this, here, is where––for the first time in his fucking life––he'll finally draw the line.

No. He can't do it. He won't do it. He's not going to repay the man who saved him by taking away his son, dragging him into the unfixable mess of Hawks' fucked-up life. He refuses to turn Todoroki Shouto into another piece of dirty work he does for the Commission. 

Enough of this. He needs to go. Madam President will be furious, but it's not the first time he's disappointed her and it won't be the last, and any punishment she throws at him will be well worth walking away from this.

Hawks shifts his weight, ready to spin on his heels and leave this place. Lifting a hand, he prepares to say goodbye.

His eyes fall on Endeavor, on the litany of micro-expressions flitting across his hero's face, the threads of hurt snagged beneath the shock and the anger: the kind of knot that can't be untangled, only cut out. He advances towards Shouto, looming over him like a giant getting ready to stomp on a town.

"That's absurd," he rumbles, his massive hands closing in on Shouto's shoulders as if he can physically shake some sense into him. "Stop this foolishness. You'd realize everything I can teach you if you would just remember––!"

Then Endeavor freezes, as if he's just realized he's said the wrong thing. He extinguishes the flames on his face in something almost like shame. He slumps, cutting his height by a third. 

But it's too late. 

Shouto's eyes glaze over. His breath hitches, blown pupils darting frantically across his father's towering figure: the colossal hands mere inches away from him, the ghosts of fury still haunting Endeavor's face. 

He takes a step back, two, then it's like his knees can no longer support his weight and they buckle beneath him, crumpling him to the ground. He scrambles back, ripping his cuticles on the pavement. He gazes up at Endeavor, staring both at his father and at something far, far away.

Hawks' jaw drops. He can sense it in every feather –– Shouto's heartbeat increasing like a dubstep bassline before a drop, the sweat gathering along the expanse of his skin, pooling on his temples, tracing down his back like the black marks left by screeching tire tracks. His rapid, messy breathing like a hot-air balloon's sputtering hearthflame, just moments before giving in to the long, deadly plummet.

And he's shaking.

Hawks has never once doubted what Fierce Wings tells him, but there's a first time for everything. Throughout the years, he's become attuned to the nuances in physical reaction based on emotion. There's a difference in shaking from laughter, shaking from anger, and shaking from, from––

From fear.

From not just fear, but terror. Terror borne from being utterly helpless. Shouto's two-toned hair cuts a gruesome contrast against the bleak sky like blood through snow: a rabbit dragging its half-eaten body through a frozen tundra, knowing there's nowhere to hide in the open, damning wasteland, and it's only a matter of time before the hunter finds it again to finish the job.

Then Shouto's gaze flicks towards Hawks. Just for a bit, just for a moment –– he probably didn't even mean to do it, and the look is gone in less than a second. But it's a look that Hawks, that any hero, is trained to recognize from day fucking one, a look Hawks would recognize even if he were on his final breath.

Save me.

Hawks moves without thinking.

"Hey, hey, hey! Simmer down, Mr. Spitfire!" Hawks says to Endeavor, putting himself between father and son. He crouches to Shouto's height, and Shouto looks at him with wild eyes. "What's goin' on, kid?"

Shouto says nothing. Just raises his hands feebly in defense as if he's expecting to be smacked.

Hawks nearly loses the war against keeping the horror off his face. He pushes up his visor so Shouto can look him directly in the eyes. He takes off his headphones and sets them on the ground, hoping to look as bare and non-threatening as possible.

"Just breathe," Hawks says softly, with calm he does not even remotely feel. This is––this is fucking bizarre. Still, Hawks has to compartmentalize, at least for now. He's an overthinker second, a hero first. "C'mon, breathe with me. In, out." 

It takes thirty seconds or so, but Shouto finally falls in step with Hawks' slow, deep breaths. "That's it. You're doin' great," Hawks reassures. "Look around." He puffs up his wings just enough to block the looming form of Endeavor behind him. "We're at UA. Your favorite teacher and all your friends are nearby. And me, too." He offers a friendly grin. "You're gonna be alright. You're safe."

After another few minutes of guided breathing, Shouto's clouded gaze clears, and he suddenly comes back to himself. Hawks outstretches a hand to help him up but Shouto shoots upright on his own instead, wobbling as he tries to stand on his shaky legs too quickly, face flushed with what Hawks doesn't want to recognize as shame.

"You okay?" Hawks asks him.

Shouto coughs. His eyes are red with unshed tears he's clearly holding back by sheer force of will. "I'm fine," he rasps, then a moment passes, and he corrects, "I will be fine."

Returning his headphones and visor to their rightful places, Hawks exhales a sigh of relief. Once he's sure Shouto isn't gonna fall apart the second he steps away from him, Hawks spares a glance at Endeavor.

And Endeavor looks––Endeavor looks mortified. Hawks never knew he could make a face like that, lost and strangely helpless: like a child playing with a gun from their parents' cupboard, only realizing its purpose when the blood of the person who walked in on them is pooled at their feet.

"Shouto," he gasps, but the damage is beyond already done. His hands hover uselessly in front of him, like he knows he'd break his son if he tried to reach out. "I-I didn't mean to––"

"Didn't mean to what? Remind me of your teachings?" Shouto snaps. His voice is raw, bloody from the double-edged sword he's just slashed them both with. "Because you think it's physically possible for me to forget?"

"Dammit." Endeavor presses a palm to his forehead, eyes squeezed shut, the conductor of a trainwreck he's not supposed to be able to look away from. Finally, he peers at his son through his fingers. "Shouto, I'm so sorry––"

"Save it." Shouto's voice cracks, and Hawks breaks along with it. "Don't bother putting on the parent act when the only one you're doing it for is yourself."

Endeavor looks at his son like he's a tragedy. 

And Hawks can't fucking take another unhappy ending. "Don't worry, Endeavor-san," he placates, and it seems like Endeavor has to physically tear his gaze away from Shouto to notice him. "I promise to be a good role model to your son. I'll take great care of him."

Hawks gives Shouto's hand a reassuring squeeze. "We're gonna have tons of fun together, kiddo," he says, and the hope that blossoms across Shouto's features is almost too much to behold. "We'll make a perfect team. I'll teach you a lot!"

He's genuinely shocked that he doesn't stutter, because––what the actual fuck is he saying? He realizes, distantly, that he's just officially cemented his and Shouto's partnership, which is exactly what he's been trying most of this conversation and the entirety of the last one not to do.

Hawks has always been too fast for his own good, but now his words are spilling out faster than he's even thinking of them. His brain-to-mouth filter has clearly broken, because all that remains in his mind is the fear in Shouto's eyes when he'd fallen to the ground. Hawks doesn't do projecting, but his memory keeps flashing back to that useless fucking kid who used to cower in his cupboard, praying to a god who never listened that his father wouldn't find him--

But this is Endeavor he's talking about. A hero. Hawks' hero, and his whole being floods with shame for even making the comparison.

Hawks is well-trained in the art of telling people exactly what they want to hear, but when he starts, "How about this?" an olive branch is the best he can manage as concession; equivalent exchange is clearly off the table now that Hawks has just taken from Endeavor more than he could ever possibly give him. "I'll send you frequent updates on Shouto's progress. Meticulously detailed, too! You won't be left out of the loop one bit. Sound good?

With a final sigh of defeat, Endeavor schools his expression. "Fine," he concedes. "That––that would be fine. For now."

"Great!" Hawks crows, flashing him a thumbs-up and a cheesy grin. "You'll be hearing from me soon, then."

Endeavor rolls his eyes as he begins to walk away. "Don't half-ass this like you do with everything, Hawks," he warns, and he can't meet Shouto's eyes when he tells his son, "and Shouto, I'll be waiting when you change your mind."

"Don't count on it," Shouto calls after him.

Endeavor doesn't turn around.

Once he's completely disappeared from the horizon, Shouto turns to face Hawks. It's almost eerie how quickly all traces of emotion wash away from his expression.

"Sorry about all that," Shouto mutters, absently scratching at his temple. Then, he dips into a polite bow. "And, um, thank you for accepting me. Even though you didn't want to." 

Ah, so he could tell Hawks was trying to reject him. Hawks officially feels guilty about that. "Of course, kid! It's no problem. Like I told your dad, we're gonna have a blast." He offers an easy smile despite the nausea twisting his guts into scouts' knots: bowlines, hitches, the whole works. "Anyway, this was enough excitement for one day. Our first real day together will be the day after tomorrow! I just wanted to come and meet ya."

Shouto laces his hands together. "You didn't have to make such a long trip for me," he says self-consciously. "UA is far away from Fukuoka."

Hawks waves him off. "Hey, it's no sweat. Everything's a lot faster with these," he reassures, jabbing a thumb at his feathers. Then, he points an instructive finger at his new student. "Get ready, chickadee. It won't be easy!"

Shouto's lips twitch into a little smile at the nickname. It might be the first time he's seen the kid smile, actually. That thought alone nearly flips Hawks' grin into a frown. "I wouldn't want it to be."

"That's what I like to hear! It's settled, then." Hawks snaps to attention with a mock salute. "I'll be your senior from today! Even though you're taller than me!"

Shouto's smile widens to a proper grin. It's startlingly soft. "Okay. I'll see you soon, Hawks," he says with a tiny wave, turning back towards the school building. "I'm looking forward to it."

Hawks watches as Shouto slips back through the cherrywood door, clicking it shut behind him. It's only once Fierce Wings can no longer feel the vibrations of his footsteps that he allows himself to drag a hand down his face –– what the hell has he just gotten himself into? 

Save me, Shouto's eyes had pleaded him. Save me, Keigo used to beg his Endeavor plushie.

An icy cold creeps into Hawks' chest. 

He can't help the feeling that he hasn't saved Shouto at all. 

Hawks goes through the rest of his day on autopilot. This whole thing has him feeling lost and off-kilter, not to mention he just actively put himself on his personal hero's shit list. He has no clue what the fuck his daily life is gonna look like from here on out, between balancing his undercover mission at the Paranormal Liberation Front, his regular hero activities, and mentoring a work-study student. Todoroki Shouto, at that.

He furrows his brows as he flies through the city. The longer he dwells on Shouto and Endeavor's interaction, the less sense he can make of it. What the fuck was that? It's clear the two of them aren't on good terms, which in itself is shocking enough. Endeavor is the Number One Hero. Hawks' hero. Every time his own father broke another beer bottle against his brittle body, Hawks used to dream about what it would be like growing up with him instead.

Contrary to public opinion, Hawks isn't an airhead. He recognizes a panic attack when he sees one. He remembers the irony of the Commission teaching him how to talk someone down from one when they never helped him through his own when he was younger, forcing him to get through them by himself to 'build mental strength and resilience.'

Hah. Joke's on them, unless they'd been trying to turn him into a neurotic basket case whose only coping mechanism is masking.

It's late by the time Hawks finally finishes everything he'd planned to get done for the day. Weary in both body and whatever's left of his soul, he glides back to his apartment, only to freeze midair a short distance away when he's back in range of the surveillance feathers he always leaves around his place.

Dammit.

He glances up, half-expecting to find the stars laughing at him.

He doesn't want to deal with this after the day he's had, but his own desires have never had any bearing on his life and that's not about to change. As always, he's just dragged along like a fish on a line.

Hawks touches down on his balcony. Pushing up his visor with a final sigh, he slips inside.

Dabi stands languidly in the middle of Hawks' living room. A cigarette is nestled between his ruined lips, hazy gray tendrils coiling through the seam bisecting his face like a dragon's maw.

He's only bothered with one of Hawks' overhead lights, harshening the shadows beneath the hollows of his gaunt cheekbones. His scars look almost black in the scant lighting, gnarly as the char left in a skillet after burning raw meat. His chain links of staples glint beneath the warm yellow fluorescents like highbeam headlights on a night drive, or festival lanterns floating atop a river, lighting the way to the afterlife for the dead. 

He doesn't even turn to face Hawks when he enters, because of course he doesn't. Dabi has this way of making it seem like the whole world is supremely boring, like Hawks would have to drop a bomb on the city just to get him to lift his head.

"Dabi," Hawks starts, lighting the fuse. That's what the Commission wants from him: results, uncaring of the casualties. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

A long exhale, polluting Hawks' apartment with more exhaust fumes. Dabi lifts his shoulders in the least innocent shrug of all time, one corner of his mouth twitching upwards in a mockery of a grin. "Can't a guy drop in on his favorite hero with no ulterior motive?"

Hawks snorts. No ulterior motive? Oh, please. He's pretty sure Dabi would have an ulterior motive just deciding what to have for dinner.

In all honesty, Hawks thought their usefulness to each other would've run out by now. Now that the League has become the Paranormal Liberation Front, Dabi is technically no longer his contact. Hawks thought this game of theirs would end once the two organizations merged, except––

Except the Front has seemingly decided that Dabi's still his fucking handler or something, because all of Hawks' information still goes through him.

This is, of course, a fact Dabi seems to take endless delight in. He drops in on Hawks often, sometimes to give him instructions, sometimes just to mess with him. Or maybe he's trying to catch Hawks off-guard, see if he'll slip up and blow his cover –– just waiting for an excuse to immolate him. 

Hawks can't tell if Dabi's here tonight on assignment or of his own volition. He's never been able to get a good read on him.

"Ah, so this is a social call, then," Hawks muses, taking a step in their practiced routine. He's always matching Dabi's tempo, never setting it. Someone has to be the lead in a dance. The other is left to scramble after them, always half an eight-count behind. "Lucky me. Maybe if you didn't beat me home, I'd have time to put out the welcome mat."

Dabi's insincere grin widens, flashing tombstones of impossibly white teeth. "For little ol' me? I'd say I'm flattered, but..." His expression falls on his next exhale, and he plucks his cigarette from his lips, dusting wet ash onto the rug. The most depressing confetti in the world. "Sorry, but it'll have to be a red carpet if you wanna impress me."

"Right, because that's my number one priority."

"Mm...should be." He takes another lazy drag. "Can't say I'm feelin' particularly welcome, though. Or could it be you're hiding something you don't want me to see?"

"Maybe I just don't want you touching my shit," Hawks retaliates.

Shaking his head, Dabi tsks. "Aw, c'mon, birdie," he hums, stepping closer. The bridge before the waltz's chorus, prepping the footwork to do something awful like spin him around or dip him. "Don't you trust me?"

He extinguishes his cigarette on the back of Hawks' disgustingly expensive couch, letting the carcass fall dead to the equally exorbitant carpet. He snuffs out the remaining embers with a stomp of his boot, smearing the rug with entrails of flax fiber and nicotine. 

Hawks frowns, flicking his gaze to the ashtray on his coffee table he bought for this purpose specifically. He knew Dabi would never use it. That's why it's there. He squirms because he knows Dabi likes it –– likes to feel like he's won. Dabi's eyes track the movement, and it's only due to the sensitivity of Hawks' feathers that he can sense Dabi's shudder of satisfaction like an addict getting a hit. His face hardly changes, though, his irritating smirk becoming maybe a drop more smug. 

Hawks sighs. He doesn't give a shit about any of the furniture in his apartment, all of it purchased for him by the Commission. Catalogue-perfect and lifeless, belonging more on a magazine cover than a real person's living space. Hawks hardly spares a second glance at any of it. All he ever uses is the bed, and it's never long, at that. This place has never felt like home to him. 

Not that anywhere else ever has, either.

Wordlessly, Hawks sends a feather off to gather the dustpan, making short work of the cigarette then emptying it into the ashtray himself. He tosses Dabi a lopsided grin.

"As much as you trust me," he finally says.

"That little? Ouch." Dabi hisses in artificial pain, imitating the look of someone who's just touched a stove they hadn't realized was still smoking. "You cut me deep."

Hawks can only pray his face doesn't betray the pang of hopelessness that hits him at Dabi's words. After all this time, after everything he's done, Dabi still doesn't trust him. He's beginning to think he never will.

"Didn't realize you had any feeling left in those fried nerves of yours," Hawks says instead.

"Who said anything about nerves? I'm talkin' about my feelings." Dabi spins around, a petulant child denied candy at the checkout line. "By the way, if the next time you come home it seems like all your furniture's been moved a little to the left, you're imagining things."

Is Dabi seriously pre-gaslighting him? Wow. "Duly noted."

Hawks scans his apartment. Dabi has clearly been here for a while. There's damning evidence in the form of a half-empty takeout container from Hawks' fridge, dents in his couch pillows as if they've recently been used, and an open beer bottle in the middle of the counter despite that a coaster is right fucking there.

For all Hawks' ability to gather intel, he actually has no idea how Dabi manages to find his way into Hawks' forty-fifth story penthouse without being spotted. It's sure as hell not through the long trek up the fire escape, that's for certain. Man has all the endurance of a Victorian orphan.

Yet somehow, Dabi has come to know his way around Hawks' apartment with practiced ease. He's even crashed on Hawks' couch more than once –– not that Hawks has ever been home for it, but he has enough boot-prints on his armrests and singe marks on his throw pillows to prove it. All in all, it's left everything in Hawks' apartment smelling faintly of Dabi: his signature scent of burnt leather, antiseptic, and nicotine. 

"I see you've made yourself at home," Hawks comments.

Dabi turns to face him. "For someone who sympathizes with our cause so fervently, you sure are treatin' me coldly. How about some of those famous Commission manners?" He slips his hands into his pockets. "What's that phrase again? Mi casa es tu casa?" He shoots Hawks a disapproving look when there's no reaction, as if Hawks is supposed to be familiar with foreign slang. Then, Dabi jabs a finger at him. "We're out of milk, by the way."

We. God, Hawks wants to throttle him. "I'll put it at the very top of my shopping list. Happy?"

Dabi makes a show of looking around then pointing at himself. "Who, me?" Then he grins, wide and horrifying, and Hawks can see flashes of teeth between the loose seam severing his face. Not for the first time, he wonders if Dabi purposefully staples his mouth a little wider than a normal smile, just so it can get a tiny bit closer to his eyes. "Always." 

Hawks feels his wings deflate. Dabi must have real emotions somewhere in there, hidden behind his permanent shroud of vaguely amused indifference. Some days, Hawks would give anything for a peek behind the curtain. Others, he'd rather torch the whole theater instead.

But that's not a topic he can rib Dabi about tonight. He's tried before, and it never goes well. Instead he sighs, shuffling towards the counter to stare at the pile of torn-opened envelopes and trinkets scattered atop the marble surface.

"Did you read my fan mail?" Hawks asks him.

Dabi lifts a shoulder. "Got bored waiting."

Hawks raises an eyebrow. Dabi bores easily, but he's also easily entertained. It's a gift, Hawks supposes. Problems rarely solve themselves. "It's illegal to read someone else's mail, y'know."

"Ooh, postal fraud," Dabi says with a shudder, holding out his matchstick wrists. "Can't let me get away with that one, hero. Go on, put me in chains."

Hawks has to bite down on the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling. Aside from the bare-teethed animosity neither of them make any real attempt to hide, there are these––moments between them. Moments that are far more dangerous to Hawks than all the thinly-veiled threats could ever be.

It reminds Hawks of the reason he had to take out the batteries of his smoke detector: Dabi had smoked one too many cigarettes and set off the fire alarm, forcing Hawks to shove Dabi in his pantry before security arrived. He'd used his wings as giant fans and emptied as much air freshener as he could into the foyer as he assured building staff that no, he was fine, he just can't cook for his life –– and when they finally left and he freed Dabi from his temporary prison, Dabi had inhaled once and nearly hacked out his lungs.

Man smokes like a fucking chimney, yet he couldn't handle half a can of Febreeze? That simple discovery had sent Hawks into hysterics –– actual hysterics, nothing like the charismatic, musical laugh the Commission scripted for him.

Hawks had almost forgotten what it felt like to laugh for real, but in that moment, he'd found himself doubled over, wheezing with ugly laughter while Dabi looked at him like he'd grown a second head. Dabi had ended up laughing too, and that's how Hawks found out what Dabi's real laugh sounds like: a short, surprisingly soft little noise, as if he's on the verge of being out of breath.

Hawks shakes himself from the memory. He glances back to find Dabi still staring, waiting with a grin as he braces for Hawks' reaction.

Dangerous, Hawks reminds himself. 

He swallows his laugh.

"God, you're so fucking dramatic," he huffs instead, and Dabi cackles.

"I live to please."

"Then shame on me for showing up empty-handed," Hawks shoots back, kicking up against a bar stool with a quicksilver smirk. "I'm fresh out of roses to throw out your feet."

Dabi's eyes flash, and he seems almost giddy. Yeah, Hawks won't be getting any new assignments tonight: this is what Dabi came here for.

Unlike most villains, Dabi is shockingly patient. But at times like these, Hawks wonders just how long he's waited for a dance partner that can keep up with him. 

"Sure isn't much in this pile," Dabi comments, rifling through the opened stack. He was surprisingly meticulous when he did it: envelopes rip-free and uncreased, pried open as carefully as love confession notes stuffed into a locker. "How sad. I'd have thought the hero with the second-highest approval rating would get more love than this."

Hawks swallows hard. He does get more love than this. Significantly more. But a couple years back, Hawks stumbled upon a hidden mail room in the Commission headquarters only to discover they've been curating his fan mail –– only the most pristine, adoring letters made it to him, the rest tossed away like combustible trash left in an alley. 

There was a time, once, when he considered telling Dabi about everything the Commission has done to him in order to convince him that he really was switching sides. After all, the best lie is the truth; but a small, ugly part of himself feared that Dabi would never believe his sudden change in allegiances, if he heard it all. Feared that once Dabi knew how thoroughly they'd broken Keigo, he'd realize Hawks couldn't be anything but forever their loyal fucking dog.

Hawks opens his mouth. This isn't––this isn't that bad, in the grand scheme of things. In the grand scheme of all the shit they've done to him that deep down Hawks knows is utterly fucked, even though he should be nothing but eternally thankful to them. 

He wants to say it. He wants to tell him, but he can't bring himself to admit how much it aches that even the love he receives has to be perfect.

So instead he lies, "I told you, heroes are underappreciated. Especially me." He rakes a frustrated hand through his windswept hair: textbook exasperation, lesson one. "Everything I do for the masses, and that's all the thanks I get? No way. I'd rather have a nap."

And just like that, the playful air between them dissipates, smothered like a bonfire drowned in sand. Dabi closes in on him, close enough to touch, looming over him despite that their height difference is only a few inches. He tilts his head, staring straight through the pathetic scraps of Hawks' soul with those eyes. 

Those eyes. In all Hawks' life, he's never seen anything like them. They're a strangely similar shade to Endeavor's, but carry a different kind of warmth: the kind of warmth that's like the steam rising from dry ice, the sensation of touching something so cold it burns. 

And they're so, so blue. Blue like the sky, like the sea, like an arctic glacier backlit by the dawn. Blue like the reverse gradient of a twilight sky, glowing from the last rays of the sun; tiny embers pinpricking his irises like flecks of starlight, telling stories with their connected shapes. Hawks could stare into them for hours, trying to decipher what secrets the asterisms hold. 

If they were on anyone else, Hawks would call them beautiful. Maybe the most beautiful he's ever seen.

Dabi has this way of looking at him that cuts through all the layers of bullshit, decimating every carefully-constructed wall Hawks has ever built and ripping off the masks all at once. Cuts through the shimmering facade of Pro Hero Hawks and right at Takami Keigo.

Truthfully, Hawks hadn't even known Takami Keigo was still a real person until Dabi looked at him like that. It's wonderful. It's terrifying. Dabi is the last person on earth who he'd want to see through him like this. 

It's dangerous to every part of himself: his mission, his job, his very identity. One wrong move and it's game over. His time is up. 

"That so?" Dabi finally says. He's got on that awful smile again, the one that makes him look as if he likes to eat live puppies, and that's how Hawks knows he's thoroughly fucked. "Guess I'll have to send something to add to the stack."

Hawks suppresses his frown. Great. More head games. Everything's always on his terms, like a cat playing coy with its affections. Or maybe he's just toying with his food before eating it. 

Morbidly, Hawks finds himself wondering if the mouse in that old cartoon ever considered just letting himself be devoured, exhausted from week after week of running.

But he doesn't let it show. He can't. Instead, Hawks' features lilt into a coy smirk. "Could it be you're actually a fan, Dabi?" he teases. If this is still a dance, it's on broken glass with bare feet. "Remind me to send you my new limited-edition action figure."

"Nah, think I'll pass," Dabi returns. His voice is just barely louder than a whisper; like a secret, only for Hawks' ears. "What fun is a hunk of plastic when I can play with the real thing?"

Hawks' stomach flips. The statement is closer to the truth than he'd like. He has a feeling half the shit Dabi does is for his own entertainment, and Hawks is nothing more than another pawn on Dabi's 5-D chessboard. Other days, he feels like Dabi has invented his own little game specially for Hawks; not that he's ever bothered telling Hawks the rules to it. Yet here Hawks is anyway, showing up for rigged match after rigged match.

"You think you can toy with me?" Hawks murmurs, rising to the challenge. "Maybe I've got you right where I want you."

Dabi lifts a brow. When he leans in, Hawks can feel the heat of his breath in his bone marrow. 

"Well," Dabi purrs, "that makes one of us."

Hawks bites down hard on his lip. He knows Dabi's just trying to fluster him so he lets himself blush, ducking halfway behind his flight jacket's collar. Satisfied with this reaction, Dabi steps back, extracting a cigarette from his coat's inner pocket and lighting it with the tip of a finger.

But before he can slip it between his lips, Hawks snatches it from his grasp with a stray feather and takes a long drag of it himself. He exhales a thick smoke cloud right in Dabi's face, relishing in the split-second shock that flickers across his features. 

Dabi's surprise quickly morphs into amusement. "Look at you, Number Two," he marvels, watching Hawks in distant fascination. The way you'd watch a trained animal at the zoo. "That was awfully smooth. Don't tell me you're a smoker too."

With Hawks' shitty bird lungs? Yeah, no. Air's thin enough up high without his throat covered in tar. "Not often," Hawks admits, because despite that logic, it does occasionally happen. "Once-a-month indulgence sort of thing."

"Indulgence, huh." Dabi snorts, mocking. "Wow. We got a real bad boy over here."

"Can it," Hawks replies, waving him off. He pushes away from the kitchen island to dust the cigarette into the ashtray, unlike some people. "I'm not the only hero who's smoked before."

"Maybe not. But those other heroes aren't you, are they?" Dabi says, following close behind. He's a shark circling a diver who's made the fatal mistake of cutting themself on a reef, blood seeping from their wetsuit in damning pink coils. "Mr. Perfect."

Hawks snuffs his vice against the porcelain. "See, this is exactly why I can't stand that reputation," he complains. "Like, seriously? They'd throw me to the fucking wolves if I so much as get caught with a cigarette?" He takes off his visor and headphones, tossing them haphazardly towards the coffee table and missing deliberately. "You can't even hotbox a cage. No more bars. I wanna fly free."

Dabi gives him a sarcastic round of applause. "Ooh, good one. Very convincing. I'm moved, truly." It's moments like this that Hawks thinks Dabi has never believed anything from the start, and this could all be one big joke at Hawks' expense. It probably is. "So. You got any new info for me?"

Hawks almost sighs in relief. Finally, time for business. It's strange, because it really didn't seem like Dabi came here tonight to talk shop, and Hawks refuses to believe Dabi is giving him some sort of reprieve.

"The hero schools' work-studies are starting now," Hawks begins, shucking off his flight jacket and hanging it over the back of the couch. "They want to restore the public's faith in the future of heroes and show off how great the students are."

The lie comes easy. It's a half-truth, really. Right outcome, wrong reason. Like most of the shit Hawks does.

Dabi nods consideringly. "Right, of course," he says caustically, glaring at the wall. Is Hawks about to be on the receiving end of another rambling tirade against hero society? He braces for the headache. "Gotta show the mindless masses that those little hero factories are pumpin' out more of their favorite bullshit."

"I know, right?" Hawks leans against the couch. And because a good actor always grounds their performance in reality, he lets all the confusion and frustration from the day rake his voice across the gravel when he grinds out, "And like always, I'm left with the shortest fucking end of the stick."

Dabi whirls around, genuine surprise stamped across his expression. "Really?" he says, catching on immediately. Reading between the lines, reading Hawks as effortlessly as always. "They made you take on a work-study student? Personally?"

"Well, the Commission doesn't know how busy I really am," Hawks replies, folding his arms. "I can't exactly tell them where I spend my copious spare time, now, can I?"

Dabi pauses, visibly pondering this. "You could leave the little shit with your sidekicks," he suggests.

"And draw attention to my constant absences?" Hawks scoffs. "Not likely."

"I see." Hawks can't tell if Dabi buys it. He never can. For all Dabi can see through every mask Hawks has tried in vain to superglue over his true self, it's almost infuriating that Hawks can't seem to peer through his. "So you really are gonna have your hands full with some wannabe brat."

Hawks slumps, wings curling in on himself. "Looks like it."

Dabi's mouth splits into the kind of grin that comes from watching something bad happen to someone you don't like. "Pfft. Poor Feathers." He switches his weight. "You workin' with that blackbird kid again?"

"Nah, he didn't really like me."

Dabi huffs a private little chuckle. "Well, there's no accounting for bad taste."

Hawks pouts. "Shut it, staples," he snaps petulantly. But he can't get sidetracked. "I'm working with a different kid this time."

Dabi perks up. "Oh?" he taunts in that flashfire voice of his; and Hawks is reminded, yet again, how easily he burns. "Tell me, what poor little bastard's got the misfortune of riding your ugly-ass coattails for the next few months?"

Hawks frowns at himself, realizing he's just set up a question he actually has to answer. Dabi will find out anyway, won't he? If there's one thing Hawks has learned in the time they've known each other, it's that Dabi has his ways. Hawks can never hide anything from him, no matter how hard he tries, a fact that will someday spell his undoing –– but there's no way around it now. He briefly considers just shoving Dabi out his penthouse window, but that would probably cause more problems than it solves. 

Willing his fight-or-flight instincts into silence, Hawks reminds his sharpened feathers he's not here for either. In the end, despite everything, Hawks is still an optimist. It'll be fine. The worst part of removing a bandaid is the dread before you rip it off. Right?

So Hawks braces himself, and answers:

"Todoroki Shouto."

Dabi's jaw drops. The forest fire in his eyes extinguishes as if it were nothing more than a lit candlewick. And for a brief, mildly hysterical moment, Hawks can't remember why he ever wanted to peer behind Dabi's mask in the first place, because he looks utterly stricken: Hawks squirms, horror mounting as if he's learned something he really didn't want to know, like looking at a burning car on the side of the highway only to realize there's someone dying inside.

"What?"