Chapter Text
Contrary to popular belief, Hawks wasn’t a very online kind of guy.
It was a fair assumption, he couldn’t fault anyone for thinking otherwise -- he’d been the one to plant that belief in their heads, anyway -- but it really just wasn’t his thing. The logistics of using a touch screen with talons just weren’t adding up, and he’d much rather spend his time training and patrolling than scrolling down whatever social media app people were flocking to these days.
That wasn’t to say he never logged in. His accounts were run by a top-notch PR agent, but he still had access, and occasionally, when he was bored out of his mind, he’d like a comment or post here or there. He had all 20 of Endeavor’s posts like and favorited, across all platforms. He’d commented a gif of Sailor Moon on one of Miruko’s posts once and gotten blocked for three weeks. He even followed back a few fans at random, just for the PR boost, and to see them freaking out.
So he wasn’t totally out of the loop, but between around thirty actual interactions online elapsed, and a once-a-week check-in to make sure his numbers were doing good, Hawks was never the first to know what was happening. He figured that if it was important, it would either be on the morning news he put on while getting ready or one of his handlers would mention it in a meeting. Nobody broke world-ending information on Twitter.
Hawks could see the appeal, though. Connecting to so many people across the world he’d never meet otherwise, seeing information from all walks of life, the praise and criticisms in voices he never would’ve heard in person, definitely all had an appeal. If he were stuck on the ground like the rest of the world, he’d probably get sucked in, too.
There was just something a lot more appealing than seeing Best Jeanist’s fifth ad of the day.
Hawks caught the wind in his wings, buffeting him up, higher than any of the civilians below him had ever gone without a plane, and he couldn't think of anything better, not even the constant buzzing in his pocket. Air rushed through the barbs of his feathers and caught, keeping him afloat in the midst of a bustling city. Lights flashed past as he flapped them once, twice, shooting off to wind around the apartments and office blocks, little dazzling stars of the day. They were prettier at night, when they turned neon against a black backdrop. It was a big part of why he didn’t mind night patrols so much. Currently, his nights were taken up by a ragtag group of villains, but he got to fly to those meetings, too, so really, what did he have to complain about?
Fifteen of his feathers were out below him, swooping along to help out on the ground with what he could only see from the sky. One stopped a woman from walking into traffic, two fixed a man’s hair who looked like he was late to something important, three separated a group of teenagers on the verge of fighting, and the others waited, occasionally stopping to bother pedestrians who didn’t look in a hurry, just to make them smile. They were his eyes and ears on the ground, while his own, real eyes and ears looked out for the more far off threats.
Luckily, there hadn’t been many big villains vying for the spotlight lately. If he had to guess, the big shots were laying low with the Paranormal Liberation Front, letting the bottom feeders take up the daily crime in the meantime. There was no gap in crime to take notice of, as the lesser villains got more confident with the heroes letting things slide, so Hawks doubted anyone but him noticed. Everyone liked less extreme villain attacks, so who would bother looking into it like it’s a threat?
Hawks did a barrel roll, a happy, thrilled trill stifled low in his throat, listening to the shudder of cameras below and civilians cheering out his name. No one, that was who was looking into it. No one but him. It probably should’ve been a daunting feeling, being the only undercover agent, the only one in the know, wholly aware he’d have his neck sliced open before he could take his next breath if anyone found out.
But really, it just made him feel useful. Don’t get him wrong, Hawks hated all the lying and sneaking around. He got nauseous after every meeting. Hell, he’d argued against it, as much as he could, when he first got the mission.
The fact it was him taking the brunt of it and not some other hero, the fact he was helping people, the fact he was deemed perfect and useful for the job made it worth the sleepless nights, though.
Even if the perceived calm in big crime was just a front.
Hawks came to a perch on the side of a building, boots coming to hook around the edge. They were designed to look regular, fit five toes and a foot in each and all that jazz, with the bottoms left virtually just a thin, opaque sheet of fabric. It let his talons wrap and anchor to the building, stabilizing him better than any man-made shoe could. It was a little uncomfortable to have the coverings, but a lot of society still didn’t exactly love heteromorphs, and it wasn’t good to scare them off with the weirder parts. It wasn’t like he was hiding it entirely. His wings were pretty obviously not human, and being in the public eye was making people accept it a bit more. Baby steps!
Speaking of the public absolutely adoring him, there was a small crowd already gathering below, phones tilted up in admiration. Hawks was nothing if not a man of the people, and so he struck a few poses -- a cutesy peace sign, a heart, a hand over his face pretending to be bashful, the whole works. It worked, if the flashing lights and excited squeals of women-- and men, he doesn’t discriminate! -- were any indicator.
The last PR meeting he had, Hawks's allotted amount of time was upped. He used to do about thirty minutes a day of ground work, feet on the sidewalk with the rest of civilization. Less personal contact added to his mystery and helped build up the whole ‘flighty, charming blonde’ persona he had going on. Now that he was No. 2, he had to be a bit more active to keep his ranking -- but not too active. Endeavor had to stay No. 1, which he wasn’t too upset about, so Hawks was left to straddle the line between too much publicity and not enough. Keep himself from going down due to his little stunt at the Billboard Chart rankings, and keep himself from going up due to just how much of a likeable guy he was. And more frequent civilian visits, but he liked to think it was his dazzling personality.
Which meant, his half an hour was stretched to forty-five minutes, and there was an eager crowd ready to take up at least twenty of them.
Hawks dropped down without warning, wings tucked to his sides, slicing through the air, hair shooting straight up. It would make for a cool photo. Of course, he landed perfectly, right in the middle of the crowd, in an area he’d carved out himself by sending feathers to move bodies around. He gave his most blinding smile, looking out across the faces of people who loved him, and spoke for the first time that day. “I have some time to kill, mind if I hang with you guys?”
The flashes tripled with intensity, and Hawks slipped so easily into what they needed him to be.
A woman hesitantly tugged on his sleeve, her other arm completely enveloped by a little kid in the tightest hug Hawks had ever seen. “Could my daughter take a picture with you? I mean, it’s completely okay if not, I know heroes are busy--”
Hawks laughed loudly, immediately dropping to a crouch, right at eye level with the kid. “Aw, of course! I’ve always got time for pics!” The little girl brightened like a miniature star and let go of her mother’s arm, shuffling just a little closer to Hawks. Hawks pulled her into a side hug as the mother lifted her phone, and the grin on his face grew just a bit more genuine when the kid leaned into him. He held a peace sign next to his face and winked at the camera, “Say ‘cheese’!” The camera went off, three times, and then the kid hugged him, abruptly over her nerves. It was adorable, so even if he had a line of people waiting, he allowed it. “What’s your name, kid?”
The girl’s face flushed at the attention. “Um, Reina Minako.”
“Nice to meet you, Miss Reina. And what do you want to do when you grow up?” A tried and true script, word for word. Man, was Hawks lucky these interactions were rarely recorded, or someone might accuse him of being redundant.
Reina’s eyes positively sparkled when she said, louder than anything she’d said before, “A hero!”
Hawks chuckled and patted her head -- did not ruffle her hair, because someone had complained about that in his first year of being a pro. “I’ll be sure to remember you when you’re in the top ten,” he said.
By the time he moved on to the next person, he couldn’t remember that little girl’s name.
“Sorry, can I touch your wings, Hawks?” A man asked, hands already reaching for his feathers.
And, well, as uncomfortable as it was, having strangers put their fingers all over him, it wasn’t like he could say no to a bit of good publicity.
“Sure thing!” Hawks said, stretching out his wings to either side. “Here, you guys wanna see, too?” And then there were curious fingers stroking over his feathers like he was a pet, feeling the soft barbs between the pads of their forefinger and thumb. The civilians murmured at how shiny they were, how malleable, nothing like the swords he sharpened them into in an instant, the same handful of comments he got every time he let people touch his wings.
Man, was he glad for the boot coverings, otherwise someone might ask to touch his claws, and that he’d definitely have to decline.
“Can you feel when I do this?” Someone yanked a little at one of his feathers, just on the line of painful.
“How do you control them?” Someone peered into his wings like a window, like they might see all the little devices he had stuck to them.
“Do they regrow?” Yanked out, completely.
“Can you see where they are?”
“How do they get so sharp?”
Hawks smiled at them all, even the little brat who’d pulled out one of his coverts -- they did, in fact, grow back, and if they didn’t, he’d have a hell of a lot more issues than the tiny pinprick of pain -- and put a finger up to his lips. “Sorry, that’s a trade secret!”
It wasn’t really a lie. The heroes Hawks worked with knew a little bit about his wings, and the Commission knew everything, so it really was kept just to the ‘trade’. Which was how he’d like to keep it. If a villain out there figured out the intricacies of his quirk, then he’d be in some real trouble -- during his regular patrols and his nighttime excursions. Hell, if some of the other heroes he knew found out about them, it would complicate things. Nobody liked being spied on, but Hawks had a feeling they wouldn’t love him if they knew he was a bit more capable in a fight than he pretended.
The people ate it up. Mysterious, flighty, charming Hawks, the best version there was.
“Hawks, can you sign this?”
And Hawks did, taking the outstretched marker and signing the back of a hat, adding little wings to his signature just for good measure.
“Hawks, can we take a picture?”
And Hawks did, arm slung around the shoulders of whoever asked, always with a sparkly wink to the camera. He liked to take the kind of photos people would print out and put cute little charms on.
“Takami Keigo, a minute of your time?”
“Hawks, you were so cool in that fight yesterday!”
Hawks responded brightly, as he always did, an unusual mix of humble and self-confident that had people vying for his approval.
“Takami Keigo, just a minute!”
“Hawks, can you say ‘hi’ to my brother for me?”
And Hawks did, waving to the phone shoved in his face and playing it perfectly, if only for the vague sense that his eye was twitching for some odd reason.
“Takami Keigo!”
“Hawks, can--”
Hawks turned and just barely caught himself from smacking face first into a microphone. He did a quick surroundings check, but none of his feathers, even the fifteen he’d flown out around the group to keep an eye out, noticed even the vaguest change in the air. He stared at the man on the other end of the microphone, at the full camera pointed toward him on the shoulders of a strikingly muscular woman, and didn’t see a single thing off.
Yet he felt a tugging at the back of his mind, saying something was off, he was missing something.
Hawks smiled and lifted a hand to push the mic back a little, just so it wasn’t bonking him on the nose. “Hey, sorry, usually when someone wants my attention, they call my name,” he said, laughing as easily as breathing.
“That’s--I mean, that is your name, isn’t it? Takami Keigo?” The reporter asked, brows furrowing up. It made him look like an upset cat with its nose scrunched up, which Hawks was probably not supposed to tell him. It wouldn’t be good to destroy a man’s confidence for the rest of his life, even if it did give Hawks the funny image of him staring at himself in a mirror, only to see a cat in a business suit staring back.
“Nope, sorry! Must’ve gotten your source wrong.” It wasn’t a big deal; reporters, fans, and heroes alike were always trying to weedle his name out of him, going on and on about the importance of ‘the real one’, not ‘just’ his hero name. In interviews, it was easy to brush off-- “Why does that matter? The only person I wanna be is Hawks, your hero!” -- and in person, he could just as easily change the topic, quick and smooth enough that not even Best Jeanist had noticed. It left those who were more determined to scrabble at any source of information they could get, all vying to be the first to unmask him.
The reporter looked stunned. “But-- it said--”
“Hey, don’t sweat it!” Hawks reassured as quickly as he could. Would giving a reporter his ego death be enough to keep him down at No. 2, or would it totally tank his rating to, god forbid, the bottom of the top ten? He wasn’t quite willing to find out. He even gave the guy a pat on the shoulder for good measure. “People get bad sources all the time. It’s part of the profession.” The reporter, and now, even some of the other civilians, had quieted down to give him wide eyed stares. “Flattered that you’re thinking of me, though!”
“Do you really not recognize that name?” The reporter asked, more hushed than before. He sounded like some bystanders did when Hawks would arrive on scene, watching in horror as some heinous crime was committed, knowing they couldn’t do anything but rely on heroes to fix it. But there was no villain, or natural disaster, or freak accident. The street was entirely calm.
Hawks rubbed the back of his neck. “Aw, man, am I supposed to?” The reporter simply stared at him, sweat beading on his admittedly large forehead. Hawks gave him ten whole seconds to think of a response, and when nothing came up, he decided to save the guy from further embarrassment. “Well, it was nice meetin’ ya anyway. Keep up the good work!” Hawks pretended to check his watch, which wasn’t on his arm, and let out a low whistle. “Looks like that’s all the time I have. Great meeting you all, and, uh,” Hawks gave his cheekiest smile, the kind that had other pro heroes scoffing at him and calling him a ‘pandering idiot’, “remember to vote for me in the next rankings, ‘kaaay?” He winked, and the somber mood that had dawned immediately dissipated into endeared laughter.
With a satisfying flap of his wings, Hawks was lifting off the ground, soaring through the city in seconds. The crowd disappeared into little multicolored dots on the street, and then, to just a blur, and with it, any lingering sense of unease.
The next portion of his patrol passed by seamlessly. A couple more interactions with his adoring fans, a couple minor villain encounters, a couple more waves and winks at the cameras down below. His phone kept buzzing in his pocket, but never the ringtone he’d set for Dabi or Twice, so it was easily ignored. If anything were really important, or dispatch needed him, they’d be patched through on his headset.
Which was to say, only those in the Commission could actually reach him during patrol, which was exactly how he liked it.
His biggest problems left were currently pinned to the wall and ground -- Punk One and Punk Two, as he’d so aptly named them. Too weak and new to be in the PLF, and too overzealous for the average cop to take care of. Luckily for them, Hawks took them down in a matter of minutes.
Punk One was a scrawny guy with some sort of magnetism quirk. Proximity based, weak, and limited to four magnetic items at once. The guy had a pretty decent plan, with his buddy writhing on the ground, but failed to account for any heroes in the area. Strategy and a quirk suited for theft didn’t matter much when three feathers were all it took to keep him down.
Punk Two was a bit stronger, just about the only thing they had going for them. They were the one who did most of the threatening in whatever store they’d robbed -- electronics? Weapons? Hawks didn’t know, he’d returned everything with his feathers as soon as the two criminals were down. -- so Hawks could say with good certainty that they’d be the one getting more jail time. A shame, really. He said as much, if only to irritate Punk One and Two.
“It’s just a shame, ya know?” Hawks rambled, pacing back and forth between the two collapsed criminals. His sidekicks were behind today, so he had to at least wait until someone caught up. “With quirks like yours, you could’ve been a decent hero. Well, not top ten, but maybe a low five hundred?” Punk One started to respond, something gruff and annoyed and insulted, and Hawks leaned down to press his lips shut with a feather. “That was rhetorical, dude.”
“You don’t even know both of our quirks,” Punk Two grumbled, right into the dirty concrete. Maybe Hawks should’ve pinned them rightside up, instead. He wouldn’t want to sully his name with excessive force complaints, or, God forbid, come off as uncaring as Endeavor.
Hawks squatted down next to Punk Two, running his eyes over their whole body, taking in every scar and beauty mark and deformity. It was true he didn’t know their quirk, but there was a lot to gain from observation. Scars, primarily on their arms and hands, the results of defensive wounds. Ears angled forward just enough to be unnatural. The way they’d fought, always trying to get in close, trying to get their little hands around any part of Hawks.
It was contact based, then, and something to do with hearing. Possibly a mental quirk, like that kid at UA who lost so anticlimactically, activated on touch rather than a response. Either they received information on contact, or transmitted it.
Punk Two squirmed a bit under the threat of feathers.
Hawks grinned. “Yeah, but I give respect where it’s due, ya know? You guys were determined. If only you put that determination to something other than-- what did you guys do? Rob a Panasonic store?” He snorted, shaking his head. “Valiant effort. Plus Ultra and all that.” Punk Two’s eye twitched.
A familiar ringtone called out from Hawks's pocket, his cue to leave. His sidekicks would find those two eventually. Hawks left without a cursory ‘goodbye’, only throwing a two-fingered salute their way as he shot into the sky.
Higher and higher, until he was certain nobody, not even someone with a good hearing quirk, would be able to eavesdrop. And then higher still, until the air got just a little thin, and clouds made the city look like a hazy, blurred fog.
Since Endeavor’s little meeting with a Nomu, Hawks made sure to be more careful. It was getting a little too real for his tastes; someone was permanently scarred because of Hawks's involvement. He couldn’t afford to play fast and loose with his mission now. The weight of the world was on his shoulders, and he refused to let anyone else take the fall for it.
Keeping himself airborne, just like those wing strength exercises he used to do, Hawks pulled his phone from his pocket and awkwardly maneuvered his talons out of the way to press the ‘accept’ button. The League wasn’t such a big fan of his earpiece, claiming it was probably being traced by his agency or the Commission, which wasn’t entirely wrong, but definitely made calls with them a bit more tedious.
Hawks had a feeling Dabi just wanted to inconvenience him.
Phone pressed to his ear, Hawks followed his regular patrol path, only from a higher altitude than normal. It wouldn’t do good for others to notice a deviation. While his feathers searched the streets below for trouble, Hawks greeted Dabi with a cheerful, “Hey there, hotstuff! Ready to get accused of being my girlfriend again?”
Off to a great start, he heard Dabi’s barely contained huff from the other end of the line. “Aren’t you awfully chipper today,” he grumbled. It might've come off a bit more threatening if Hawks couldn’t hear the annoyance seeping through the phone speaker.
“Don'tcha like it? Chipper’s kinda my whole brand,” Hawks laughed.
There was something odd, then, about the way Dabi spoke. Like the scent of something rotting. “Oh, I know all about your brand,” he said, and Hawks could hear how the words twisted as his lips curled.
Alright, weird. “Aw, are you a fan? I’m startin’ to get flattered over here!” And sweaty. Something in his brain didn’t love the way Dabi was speaking, but it wasn’t helping him discern why. It was that useless part Hawks had tried to train out of himself years ago, and found that, no, actually, he couldn’t just brute force the paranoia out. He caught a particularly rough gust of wind and imagined that creeping feeling getting blasted away with it. Best Jeanist suggested that once -- to a sidekick, not to Hawks, but he may have been eavesdropping a bit. And hey, it worked like a charm! “So, just a tip to you and your li’l band, there’s been about a grand total of one crime today. Keep up the silent treatment and more heroes are gonna start noticing. I don’t think most of ‘em will, but I’d bet at least the top five are gonna take note.” A risky move, giving them actual advice, but he planned to more than make up for it with Endeavor. He had a couple books and a pack of highlighters with his name on them, waiting for him all seductive and in their original packaging at his apartment.
Feathers on the ground swooped in to stop a car crash, and for a few seconds, that was all he was worried about. Getting everyone safe didn’t take long, even if there was always that nagging fear he’d been too late before it even started. Crisis averted, he split his attention once more, fractured neatly into every feather below and the phone call.
The phone call that was dead silent.
Hawks even glanced at his connection, but it was still going strong. It wasn’t unusual for Dabi to ignore him, but on a phone call he started? Just rude. “Uh, hello? You still there?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m here,” Dabi said, and for a moment there, just at the start, he cut out.
Hawks gaped at nothing in particular. “Did you mute yourself? Come on, we’ve been talking for five minutes, you can’t be bored already!”
“Get over it,” Dabi muttered. “Are you online much?”
Hawks let a real frown grace his lips, eyes sharpening, as if he could see Dabi’s angle just by narrowing his gaze at the clouds. He came to a stop on a particularly high skyscraper, hooking his talons over the edge and his free hand around the spire. “No, not really,” Hawks said, millions of motives flickering through his mind, desperately trying to parse which Dabi was working off of, “I’d say 90% of my posts are from my PR team. Funny, right? They don’t even trust me with my own accounts! Why do you ask?”
Truthfully, he hadn’t given it much thought before, but the League probably had some accounts online Hawks should be tracking down. Especially the younger ones -- not Kurogiri, and Twice didn’t seem like the type, but the others would likely appreciate the hordes of information it could get them.
Add that to his ever growing list of duties.
“Toga was wondering,” Dabi said, dropping the topic as soon as it had come. The sound of a lighter flicking carried over the phone. Hawks's feathers prickled. Someone other than Dabi was listening. “Anyway, drop by the base after patrol. There’s something we gotta show you.”
“What time?” Hawks checked his nonexistent watch. “I’m hoping it ends with a ‘PM’.”
“Did you not hear me? After patrol. Come straight back, no delays,” Dabi demanded. Hawks wasn’t entirely sure if his bad mood was because of the ‘something’ they had to show him, or if it was just Hawks's ineffable charm working its magic. Either way, Dabi was more agitated than usual, and it had Hawks on edge. “If you’re lucky, I heard the boss is on base tonight. Might get your dream come true and meet him.”
Hook, line, and sinker, Hawks really had no choice but to accept, even if he knew exactly what Dabi was trying to do. Any chance he had at meeting Shigaraki, he’d have to take. He’d said so much in one of their first meetings -- that he’d admired the guy and would love to meet him some day, not that he was dying to put him in prison -- and Dabi always made sure to hang it over his head.
Still. It was the closest he’d gotten. Shigaraki wasn’t easy to meet, and even if it was a lie, all Hawks could do was sigh and turn on a 100-watt smile. “How could I ever turn that down?” Hawks laughed as obnoxiously as he could. “What are his favorite flowers? I’ll stop for a bouquet on my way down.”
“No delays,” Dabi repeated, stressing every syllable. Hawks took great pride in his ability to annoy him to that point. It was a fine line between the most annoying conversation of Dabi’s life and getting Hawks's wings burned off, and boy, did Hawks love to walk it.
“Got it! See ya tonight, honey!” Hawks said, and the call went dead before he could even get to the punchline.
Well. Hawks thought that was pretty productive.
The moment he slipped his phone back into his pocket, it began buzzing again, and he took off to finish the rest of his patrol.