Chapter Text
Hawks wonders, not for the first time in the last few weeks, what the hell he is doing, and how everything ended up like this.
It all started very simply. He went to UA to give some tips to the hero students, albeit not by his own will. He would rather not waste his time teaching the next generation when there are villains on the loose and people needing help now. (also, he could hardly refer to them as “new generation of heroes” without snickering, he was just about 6 years older than the first years, and without his hardly grown beard, he could be easily mistaken for a third-year student. Older heroes also made their disdain bout that clear as day.)
But his handlers in the commission forced him anyway, saying that if the UA kids were always in the middle of the problems, he might as well keep an eye on them and check for someone with potential. He begrudgingly obeyed, but he didn’t complain too much because it gave an excuse to check on his chickling, Tokoyami, and chat with Nedzu. Also, he was curious to see the infamous class 1A with his own raptor eyes.
He met them in Ground Beta, landing as soon as the students appeared with a tired-looking Eraser Head. The class stood in shock with the presence of the number 2 hero and chatter started. Technically, he should have waited in the ground and introduced himself like a normal person to avoid that, but every second on the ground alone made his anxiety about being too exposed while in a new place even worse. It wasn’t even the first time he visited UA, but the bird part of his brain ended up winning, and he more or less checked every nearby premise around multiple times until he felt satisfied. The chatter died with a single sharp look from Eraser Head. The man was scarier than most villains he met when he wanted to be. He probably hated Hawks now, thinking he did the landing thing just for show. Hawks pushed the thought to the back of his head as Eraser started speaking.
"Hawks is here to share his experience as a pro hero, so for the day he will direct your activities. He also will evaluate your potential, so don’t waste his time or embarrass UA. I will be there monitoring everything, so don’t do anything stupid.” After that, Eraser shoved himself inside of a yellow sleep bag. Honest to God, Hawks was a little jealous of him, as he could not remember the last time he slept a whole 8 hours or half of that. He guessed that working as an underground hero and at the same time as a teacher would be exhausting.
Hawks looked to the students in front of him. He saw a green boy mumbling under his breath and fanatically taking notes while looking at him with shining eyes, a blond boy with gauntlets that seemed torn between being angry at his green friend for the mumbling and scanning Hawks with a glare that would make Miruko proud. Endeavor’s son, Lil Todoroki with his bicolor hair was looking at him with a quiet but kind of defensive stance, a square boy was trying to contain the class, a purple boy that seemed to need Eraser’s nap as much as him and Tokoyami, looking happier than normal, but slightly embarrassed as his friends questioned him about the pro hero.
“Well, looks like we have quite a variety of students here… I don’t know all of you or the specialties of your quirks, but what it seems that you guys are basically divided into agile/stealthy types, powerhouses, and rescuers. I wouldn’t like to treat the class unfairly prioritizing one of the three, so we won’t be focusing much in one of those activities today.” Hawks said with his signature smile and his relaxed demeanor. He felt some of the students gleaming with happiness at the possibility of a calm day and others resenting the same prospect, especially blondie, who he finally recognized as Bakugou, the boy who won the Sports Festival and kept being dragged into dangerous shit by the universe.
He looked at his former intern, and by the way, he looked like someone who just went through all the five stages of grief simultaneously and ended up accepting his destiny, he probably had some idea of what was going to happen. Hawks gave his sweetest smile as he said: “So, we will do an intensive conjunct training of all those aspects and others more subtle but just as necessary aspects in the overall day to day job of a hero.”
"What?!”- Some students shirked. A small grape boy started crying. Bakugou, the finger destroyer kid, and one boy with a weird red hair that probably was one of Fat Gum’s kids looked like they would start training if he even looked at them. Tokoyami, Todoroki Jr, a girl with a way too inappropriate costume (seriously, who makes a 15-year-old a suit so exposed? He would look into it and deal with the fucked up creepy designers later) and the insomniac purple kid that obviously was an Eraser Head fanboy looked intrigued, but kind of defensive. The rest of the class looked like he just had condemned them to death.
He felt a smirk growing in his face with their clear despair, and he felt like Eraser was grinning for the same reason under the bag. Due to his overall relaxed and playful public persona, and the fact that his quirk isn’t as offensive-oriented as most top heroes, most of the people would think that Hawks has a light, simple training routine focused only in his feathers or speed. Even Hawks himself thought that he should ideally have a heavier training so he wouldn’t slack off, as his handlers loved to remember, but again, he mostly spent his time in hero work in the field.
As Tokoyami learned in his internship, and as the rest of class 1A learned in Hawks’ visit that day, that couldn’t be further from the truth. Hawks had a detailed, multitasked, fast and demanding way of training, just like himself.
Most of the class suffered through his personalized training station, exchanging between speeding as fast as they can, watching through subtle signals like small cries or signs of fresh blood to locate civilians, going through unstable rescue scenarios and carefully rescuing heavy dummies and taking them as fast as possible to safe areas, this while being randomly attacked by Hawks himself and his feathers. All of them had some soft feathers in their person, warning him of their localization and status at all times, while he swept between students checking for wounds, fighting them, making mental notes, and redistributing students.
Although Hawks was demanding, he wasn’t brutal. He adjusted the challenges to every student, talked to every student about improvements they could make, learned some names, and forcefully dragged some stubborn students who refused to take pauses Bakugou and Shinsou or took the wounded but also stubborn ones back to Recovery Girl Midoriya . He left clear that they must do the exercise to their capacities, so they can stop or ask for help at any time they wish.
All and all, he ensured that their training was as different of his own as possible…
Ba-dum. Ba-dum
…and still productive. His mind kept going back to those bad days if he stopped for even a second, so he kept flying all around the place, finding other things to do.
But even trying his best to be fair and give all the students the same amount of attention, he couldn’t help but have some favorites, either because of their fighting style of personality, that he paid a little more attention to.
Tokoyami was a given since he was his intern and fella in feathers, who he checked up on and embarrassed often enough. Shinsou was another one, with his scarf-and-parkour based style being really dynamic and fast in comparison to others, besides being snarky and overall relatable. He paid attention to Uraraka, and Hawks was determined to teach the girl how to fly properly after that. He also talked to Midoriya and Kirishima, both very kind kids, about other uses to their quirks.
Even so, one of his reactions that quite surprised the others was his liking to the resident explosive boy. Being loud, blunt, and rude to all, everyone expected Hawks, one of the most popular and overall kind heroes, to dislike or even avoid the teenager, but Bakugou was one of his favorites. The kid was talented, fast, and obviously hard-working, even being able to fly pretty well with his explosions, but what really sold it was his personality. The blond was loud, aggressive, had a short fuse, and cursed like a sailor, being basically a younger version of his best friend and at the same time having clear individuality. He could not help but enjoy the boy’s antics, already planning to introduce him to Miruko in the future and making some videos to support his theory that the two of them were long lost cousins or something like that.
What was a little strange, at least to Hawks himself, was the way his mind often focused on Todoroki. Obviously, he knew he was going to pay attention to the boy, he was the son of his childhood hero and one of the top students in the class, even having room for improvement in things like movement and versatility. But what majorly caught his attention was something else that Hawks couldn’t exactly point it.
Something about him was familiar, but that same thing rang alarm bells in his head. It was little things, like the way the boy watched his surroundings at all times, even when resting, not just observant but with a tear of paranoia in it. How when Hawks fought with him and Todoroki fell, he instantly shielded his vitals and looked a little surprised when Hawks offered his hand to help him get up. The cold fury and frustration that rose up every time someone mentioned Endeavour. The way he was always quiet unless when spoken to, and almost never showed his reactions openly, covering them with a poker face at the last second.
Those small things slowly raised way more red flags than it normally would to other people, because Hawks knew what those are. How couldn’t he, if he did these same small things himself and still did some of them? He knew that reasons for it conscious and subconscious, and where they came from. Seeing them so clearly in another person, someone so young, terrified him to no end.
After their training day, the students were exhausted, but having all done lots of progress. The students tiredly, but happily said their goodbyes to Hawks, that generally waved or hive-fived the students. Given that nobody seemed to hate or fear him, he took that as an absolute win. As the students went to get changed, Hawks used the opportunity to approach Eraser Head.
“So, how bad of a headache those brats gave you?” The man said as he looked through some files and drank his coffee. As he filled his mug he offered Hawks another mug. “Want some?”
“Always!” Hawks took it, smiling. As he fixed his beloved caffeine, he said: “It was really good actually. Your students have potential to be excellent heroes!”
The older hero nodded but rolled his eyes. “If they manage to not get themselves killed or expelled until the end of the third year, yes”
Hawks laughed lightly, thinking about the day with the kids. “I think they will manage it.” He said smiling. “Oh, about that, I wanted to ask about that mentorship thing that Nedzu suggested.” Eraser raised his eyebrows. “Do you really want to keep teaching them?” the man asked.
“Yeah! I liked working with some of them, so I wanted to offer training to improve some things and give them my contact in case they are interested.”
“Said the one who didn’t want to teach the next generation.”
“Well, you didn’t spell any of them, so you probably see why I changed my mind.”
Eraser huffed “I hate that I do. So, which ones of them?”
Hawks entered his apartment by the window, quickly changed out of his costume, and took a shower to try and control the wide thoughts that roamed free in his head now that there wasn’t anyone to pull his focus out of them. He paced quickly as he walked around the place, trying to put some order in his mind, that was way too fast for him to understand. Finally, after God knows how long, he sighed, grabbed a bottle of water, opened his computer, and sat in his chair, staring at the blank screen. It’s okay. He couldn’t look into anything until now because he was stuck at his agency, with case after case, and someone of the commission would notice if he started to go around this. But he was going to look into it now, Todoroki isn’t in danger
is he?
he is at the dorms, even if he is right, he is safe there.
(but what about before that, before the dorms, what happened when he wasn’t paying attention,
whyishesouselessOhmyGoD.)
Hawks closed his eyes and focused on the beating of his heart.
Ba-dum. Ba-dum.
It’s fine. He gave his contact to Todoroki through Eraser. He can ask him if anything is wrong. And if he doesn’t answer, or Hawks still feels like something is wrong, he can look into it. If he finds something wrong, or if it isn’t cleared out, he can talk to Eraser. He got his number, and the man would probably kill for his kids.
Breathe in . Hawks looks at the ceiling as if it would suddenly give him answers to all of his doubts. Breathe out.
He prayed to whatever God there is that his intuition was wrong. That he was being paranoid, that Todoroki wasn’t like him. He desperately prayed that Todoroki was safe, that he always had been safe and happy, and why wouldn’t he? He prayed for the first time in his life that he was going to waste his time, that he wasn’t going to find anything because he was looking for something that didn’t happen. That he was going to find proof that he was wrong, and that the only thing that he and Todoroki Shouto had in common was their love for heroics.
And with that, Hawks took a deep breath, and Takami Keigo started to investigate the Todoroki family.