Archive of Our Own ^beta

Enji is used to having eyes on him. 

He’s not small or unimposing by any means, and when he’s on the job, he makes sure to keep the flames around his body at a constant blaze, so yes, people look. It comes with the territory. 

The streets he patrols are usually quiet except for the occasional idiot who thinks they can somehow outrun him or comes to the conclusion on their own for some reason that fire isn’t hot. It’s not just for decoration, but they test it anyway. 

Enji knows that he’s someone to be afraid of. He sees it in the looks of children who don’t quite know what to think of him and in the faces of small time crooks and villains once they realize they’ve been cornered by a wall of flames, and he knows that that fear makes people look. It’s human nature to keep your eye on the thing you think can hurt you so Enji is used to having eyes on him.

But he’s not so used to being watched.

He’s on patrol again. It’s a Monday afternoon, and the world is both lazy and too busy at the same time, exactly how it should be. He passes a group of students on their way to the train station after school and regards them only as much as he has to. Bowing and scraping doesn’t work for him, and he realized when he finally ranked number one that it makes everyone else just as uncomfortable as it does him. 

He passes a street vendor, and the old woman who runs the booth has glassy eyes from cataracts and doesn’t look at him when she calls him over. He… doesn’t like being called over by anyone, but she tells him that there’s been a mugger off the main road that the police don’t know about or aren’t doing anything about. It’s not really a surprise. Everyone has their hands lately, but he listens to her anyway.

Apparently the mugger’s quirk makes people forget whatever he takes from them, but it seems to be just something she’s picked up from customers who go to buy things and discover that they don’t have their wallets on them anymore. Once or twice is one thing, but it’s become a pattern that’s killing her business. Enji isn’t sure it’s worth his time to check out, but someone with that kind of quirk running around could be dangerous. What if it extends to more than just wallets? Like people?

The tip changes his route a bit. The block ahead looks safe so he walks off down one of the alleyways, but it turns out to be a huge waste of time. He sees maybe one person just minding their own business and putting their garbage out, a few rats, and a suspicious stain on one of the walls that still smells like urine, but no muggers. It looks like the old woman was full of shit.

He’s about to give up and double back, but the hair stands up on the back of his neck, setting off every alarm in his head. There are gut feelings, and then there is the instinct gained from too many people wanting you dead, and he is well attuned. So when his body reacts, he listens.

His best advice for someone being followed is to keep moving, but Enji, no matter the opponent, always has the advantage so he stops in his tracks. He looks down both ends of the alley, but no one is there. He even looks up the fire escape to see if someone is waiting for him above, but it seems that he’s alone. 

Strange.

He turns the corner, and the feeling gets worse. His whole body prickles all over, and his heart rate increases, and his stomach tightens, and this is not good . The flames under his nose grow stronger, and he’s seconds away from shielding himself completely because if someone is going to be stupid enough to try to ambush him, he’s going to be sure to make it hurt.

It’s dark, but something flashes out of the corner of his eye, and when he turns around, a single feather hovers in the air a few feet away from his face. He exhales, annoyed and somewhat relieved, and the flames surrounding his body simmer back down to their usual size. False alarm.

He reaches out to snatch the feather out of the air, but it bounces away mischievously, and he huffs out an annoyed flame.

He grabs for it again, but it bounces away, and he would light it on fire and be done with it if he knew whether or not Hawks would feel it. If he’s going to hurt him, he’s going to do it with his own two hands. 

“Brat,” he calls out. 

There’s a thud behind him followed by a short burst of wind from the landing, and suddenly his whole day is ruined. 

“Fancy seeing you here,” Hawks chimes, scrunching up his nose at him like he’s been told it’s cute. It’s not.

“What are you doing here?”

“Always the stickler for small talk, aren’t you,” he sighs. “Fine, fine, we’ll do it your way. I was just in the neighborhood, the weather is nice, I missed the game last weekend, no I haven’t had dinner, but thanks for offering.”

Enji squints. There was once a time where Hawks’s way of speaking got under his skin, but now he’s used to him the way a person gets used to a traffic light that takes a little too long to change.

“You have five seconds.”

“Okay, okay,” he waves his arms as his wings carry him a few steps back for safety. “Can’t a guy just drop by his friend’s district to say hi?”

Enji wants to remind him that they’re not friends, but he doesn’t want to give Hawks anything to waste more of his time on. “No.”

Hawks’s face holds a smile, but it’s a PR smile, and it gets Enji’s attention more than any teasing could. “I need a favor.”

Enji eyes him, the last of his flames putting themselves out. Hawks never asks because he never has to. He may be a cocky fool, but he’s just as good as he thinks he is.

It’s probably just for information, and their interns are classmates so he could be just asking Enji to babysit the student with the shadow quirk while he flies off somewhere, but if that’s the case, he would probably just drop him off at his office without so much of a warning text.

Enji might be curious.

“What kind of favor?”

Hawks takes a breath, and it’s a small show of determination.

  So he does need something.

“Not here,” he says. “Too many eyes.”

Enji looks around at the empty alley and raises an eyebrow. “I don’t have time for this.”

“I don’t either,” he grits. His tone is light, but he pushes the words through his teeth, and it’s just desperate enough that Enji doubts he’s trying to joke with him.

“Make an appointment then.”

“How about your place?” Hawks asks brightly as he bounces on the balls of his feet. His eyes are crescent moons, and he holds his hands behind his back so that his chest is puffed out, and it’s ridiculous. He looks like he’s asking Enji to buy him an ice cream cone at the zoo, and once again he’s reminded who he’s talking to.

Enji’s flames return. “Absolutely not.”

“Oh come on, big guy, just you and me discussing business over a nice candlelit supper,” he sways. “You’ll love it. I’ll bring wine.”

“I do not want work in my home.”

“Think of me like a guest.”

“No,” he puts his foot down. Hawks’s wings sag slightly, giving him away. “My office will suffice.”

“This isn’t something I can say there. I’m sure your sidekicks are great, but it’s my neck.”

Enji frowns. “Your office then.”

“No can do.”

“You’re wasting my time,” he says finally and turns to leave.

“It needs to be a place where no one else can hear, and there’s no one else I can trust with this but you.”

Enji stops, but he doesn’t turn back to look at him.

“I need to talk to you in private, and I know damn well you’re not going to want to drop by my place,” Hawks continues. He’s right. “I’m not fucking around, Endeavor.”

Enji thinks for a moment. Hawks is a pain in the ass, but he can be trusted. He’s a terrible flirt, but he doesn’t seem to be trying anything, and if he does, Enji will roast him like a rotisserie chicken, but Hawks never asks for help…

“Please.”

“Tomorrow.”

“Great, dinner’s on me!”

Enji leaves before he lets that get on his nerves, his curiosity getting the best of him. This better be important.

When he turns the corner, he finds an unconscious man bound and gagged between two dripping garbage bags and a stack of wallets at his feet with a feather resting on top. Enji turns back and scowls. That little…

The next day Enji waits impatiently for Hawks to drop by. It’s already after dark, and this whole meeting at home was already enough to sour his mood so the fact that Hawks has the audacity to take his sweet time makes him want to ring his little neck.

The house is empty as it always is now, and all Enji can do is sit on his sofa and wait. 

He’s going to kill him.  

His living room curtains and blinds are pulled back, revealing the contents of his home to the would be outside world. He feels exposed and open, but it’s so that he can see Hawks fly in. He’s not in the mood for anymore surprises, even if his little gift did save him from getting his hands dirty. He still had to do all of the paperwork, though.

Another half hour passes, and he checks the watch on his wrist, silver and clunky and a gift from Fuyumi, and it’s his favorite thing in the world. It’s fireproof! But now it just pisses him off. That fucking bird better have a good excuse for–

The front doorbell rings, and his back stiffens. He wasn’t expecting company, or rather he was, but if Hawks drops in at this hour while someone else is here, he’ll have to answer questions that the mere idea of gives him a headache. He’ll just have to chase them off as quickly as he can.

He crosses the room and goes back down the hall until he gets to the front door and opens it with the most unwelcoming expression he can muster, but once he sees who it is, he exhales a small puff of steam.

“You’re late.”

“No, I don’t think so,” Hawks considers, and Enji realizes he’s slipped up and made a face because the brat laughs at him. “You didn’t give me a time. Tomorrow.”

He deepens his voice for emphasis, and Enji huffs as he steps aside to let him. He shouldn’t have had to say at a reasonable hour, but this is Hawks. He should have known better.

“You know how to use a door.”

“I know how to do a lot of things, actually.”

Hawks’s wings fold in as he steps inside, a sight that Enji can’t help but find interesting. His wings move separately from him, always fluttering and twitching on their own, and yet Hawks can fully control them, even dissolving them at once if he needs to. He wonders how much of him is action and how much is instinct.

“Nice place,” Hawks muses, taking in the whole space in one sweep. Enji has seen Hawks fight dozens of times. He probably has the whole layout memorized just from that. Interesting. “You’ve got a kitchen, right?”

Enji takes note of the plastic bag in his hands, and it stinks. It smells like the garbage Midoriya and Bakugou think is food, and it makes his nose burn in disgust. Shouto at least has the sense to keep sludge out of his body, but he expected better from the new number two. 

He manages an affirmative hum even if what Hawks has in his hands couldn’t possibly belong in a kitchen. Or inside his house. 

Then he looks at his glass coffee table and considers the alternative. Fine.

“To the right,” he says, and Hawks is already halfway there like he’s been in his house before. It’s not Enji’s job to care about another person’s quirk in detail unless he’s trying to capture them, but he’s fought alongside Hawks enough times to become reasonably aware of it. It’s called being efficient. He is not, and will never be, personally invested in this person.

Hawks makes himself right at home, walking with an indecent amount of confidence as he marches in and drops his bag of trash onto the counter. Grease seeps out onto the marble. Enji pretends he doesn’t see it.

“You like stir fry?”

“I’m not eating that.”

“Your loss,” Hawks shrugs. “More for me.”

Hawks upacks the bag, setting the takeout containers out in a row before breaking apart a set of wooden chopsticks. Enji folds his arms impatiently across his chest and glares, but he lets Hawks eat. 

“You’re making me nervous.”

“You’re wasting my time.”

Hawks picks out what looks like a piece of eggplant and chews. “Have a seat.”

Enji hesitates, but he ends up taking a seat on the opposite side of the counter far enough away that he doesn’t have to see the contents of those containers. “What is it?”

“I need a favor.”

“Requests for team ups can be submitted through the agency,” he reminds him. 

Hawks grins. “You’re almost right on the money, but no, if I wanted to team up, I’d just fucking do it.”

Okay, he’ll give him that. Hawks doesn’t do anything by the books, and any time they fight together (which has been significantly more frequent lately), it’s purely by coincidence thanks to the two of them either being in the same area at the same time or because something happened while they were together. Hawks likes to have lunch. He doesn’t know why he has to be there so much.

They are a well oiled machine whenever Hawks stops talking, however. Enji takes on the biggest guy in the room, and Hawks rounds up any runaways for him while he’s occupied. It works. It’s why Hawks is probably the only hero he can stand to team up with so much, not that he’ll ever admit that. Best Jeanist is okay. Aizawa is slightly better. Present Mic is a hell no. 

Hawks doesn’t put in requests for team ups. He just does them.

“Do you remember that Nomu we took on together,” Hawks asks, continuing on his own. “That big dumb fucker that hit like All Might but without the free geography lesson.”

“I remember.”

The fight against the Nomu was the hardest fight he’s ever had, and it almost killed him. Hawks is probably the only reason he’s still alive, and it made him train harder than ever before. More than just his fire, but his strength and speed too. He will never be that weak again.

Hawks sucks his teeth like he’s gathering his thoughts before shoveling more of the garbage into his mouth. He doesn’t make eye contact.

“I need,” he starts before taking a deep breath. Enji holds back a get on with it, boy . Patience is a virtue, and he’s trying, okay. “How do I put this into words...”

“You’ve never had a problem with that before.”

Hawks smirks. “Was that a joke, Endeavor?”

“No.”

“Fine. You can fight like that right?”

“Like what?”

“Like you could punch someone to death.”

“Maybe, why?”

Enji frowns. This isn’t the conversation he expected to have, and he has no idea what Hawks is getting at, but it doesn’t seem like a set up to fuck with him. Then again, that’s how he usually gets him.

“I gotta learn how to take a hit.”

“Excuse me?”

“To brawl,” he tries to clarify. “I’m too fast that no one can hit me, and I mean yipee for that, but for… something I can’t talk about, I need to learn how to fight.”

“What does that have to do to me. Get a coach like a normal person.”

“You’re the only person I can trust who wouldn’t run their mouth about this,” he says simply. “And I don’t need a coach. I need to fight like you.”

“So what, do you want to come to my agency and learn how to block a punch?”

Hawks shakes his head. “No agency. Top secret stuff. No one can even know I’m here.”

Enji raises a brow. “What are you into?”

“Work, work,” he sighs. “I’m sure you couldn’t tell me any juicy details about your cases either if I asked.”

Enji lifts a hand and scratches idly at a patch of stubble growing on his chin. “So what exactly is it you need from me? You know we’re a bad match.”

Hawks pauses and sets his food side, and Enji continues.

“Our quirks don’t go well together. It would be too dangerous for me to fight you. You’d be better off practicing with one of my interns.”

Hawks snorts, and it makes him flare in anger. He hates being laughed at especially when he’s, god forbid, showing an ounce of concern. “Sorry, I just thought about that Midoriya kid having a meltdown after hitting me, but no, no, quirks. Good old fashioned brawlin’. Like men.”

Enji relaxes. So he wasn’t laughing at him. Fine.

“It’s going to hurt.”

“Countin’ on it, big guy.”

Neither of them get a day off until the weekend. They can’t practice at either of their agencies so Enji makes sure his house is empty for the time it will take to teach Hawks… how to fight.

The pro hero, number two pro hero, needs to be taught how his own fists work. He doesn’t know if he can believe it. He doesn’t know if he should believe it, but Hawks insisted that his physical training was all ranged attacks, infiltration, and skills related to speed and agility, so it makes sense. His attacks are all feather work, and his body isn’t built for close combat, but still, he’s supposed to be a pro.

He’s just a kid. 

Enji swallows. It’s easy to forget that Hawks is the exception. He’s close to his own kids’ age, and he didn’t go to an elite school like UA so it’s easy to forget that there might be a few pieces missing. Oh well, if he doesn’t have to worry about Hawks getting splattered across the pavement if and when they team up again, he’ll consider his time spent today a long term investment.

He told Hawks to come to his house first thing in the morning, but of course he’s late. Damn him. 

First they need to stretch and warm up, and Enji needs to figure out exactly what he’s working with, and then they have to… he has no idea.

One hit, and he’ll be taking Hawks to the hospital. Two hits, and he’ll be taking Hawks to the morgue. How the fuck is he supposed to do this?

Hawks finally shows up, bags under his eyes and sluggish, and it’s annoying. He knew they had plans today, and he should have gotten a full night’s sleep to be in his best condition. Even the interns have the decency not to yawn.

“Mornin’,” he stretches, and his shirt lifts up just enough to reveal a quick patch of skin right above his sweatpants. 

“You’re late.”

“No worm for me,” he sighs as his arms fall to his side. 

“If you’re not going to take this seriously–.”

“Hey, I’m not the type for excuses, but I got paged at like 3 this morning for some asshole blowing the windows out of a convenience store and didn’t wrap up until about an hour ago. I am taking this seriously.”

“We can reschedule.”

“No time,” he says too quickly before slapping his hands together. “Let’s go, Daddy-o.”

Enji bristles, and Hawks grins, and he remembers why he doesn’t like being around him so much.

They stand across from each other in Enji’s home gym. It’s appropriately sized for two people, but it feels suffocatingly small today. Hawks is small, but his wings stretch out to twice their usual size as he gets ready, and Enji isn’t so small himself. 

“What are you doing,” he asks.

“Getting ready.”

“You’re too big,” Enji frowns.

“You’re too big,” Hawks stands upright. 

Enji reaches forward and swats at one of his wings. Hawks jerks, a warning, and well, that’s new, isn’t it. “You want to make yourself a smaller target. You want to make yourself harder to hit.”

Hawks hums in thought and nods.

“What is it?”

“I usually do that,” he considers. “But it’s because I’m trying to not get hit.”

“It’s the same for hand to hand combat.”

“Then what’s the point?”

“You dodge, and then you hit.”

Hawks scratches his chin and squints off at nothing. “I see.”

He can’t believe he’s teaching a pro how to fucking stand , but he can accept that Hawks has spent more time in the air than on his feet. Enji refuses to start any kind of real training until Hawks unlearns the squat he calls a fighting stance, and Hawks becomes impatient. Petulant even.

“Just hit me,” he whines. “I learn better by doing.”

“If I hit you like this, you’ll die.”

“Oh. What. Ever.”

Enji exhales as he crosses the room towards one of the sand bags. He only uses these when he needs to break something. 

Time to break something.

He doesn’t even give it a full swing. There’s no real power to it, and he doesn’t feel the hit past his wrist, but it tears like paper mache and the contents spill out onto the floor with a long hiss.

“Huh,” Hawks says intelligently. “So, standing.”

“Hm.”

An hour passes, and Enji is now confident that Hawks won’t have one of his wings torn off by his opponent. The idea of it is something that makes him sick for some reason, but now they're able to move on so he can push it out of his mind.

“Hit me,” he instructs. “I want to see your form.”

“Not gonna make me practice on one of those?” Hawks points to the emptied sack hanging sadly off to the side. 

“No, that’s the only one I have left.”

Hawks snorts. “He jokes.”

“Sometimes.” 

It almost sounds like he said it fondly. He didn’t. 

“Okay,” he says before getting in that stupid position again. “Let’s go.”

“Hawks,” he warns.

“Oh, right.”

He tucks his wings back slightly, and Enji holds back a smile. He’s a better student than he looks. 

“Good?”

“Good.”

He pretends he doesn’t see him preen. He’s worse than the interns.

“You sure it’s okay for me to do this,” Hawks eyes him cautiously.

“Why else are you here?”

“Yeah, but like, it feels wrong to punch you.”

“You telling me you’ve never thought about doing it before?”

Hawks pauses and Enji waits. “Not exactly .”

“Hm,” he frowns. He doesn’t know if he believes that, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that Hawks gets on with it. “You can hit me as hard as you like. Don’t hold back.”

“What if it hurts?”

“It won’t.”

Hawks smirks, and yes, Enji knows he sounds cocky, but who else did he come to for this? He’s got the meanest left hook next to maybe All Might pre-deflate, and spent a lot of time turning most of his torso into solid rock. He can take a hit. 

If not, he doesn’t deserve his rank.

Hawks cocks his head for one last attempt at culling his nerves, and he swings, and thanks to their difference in height, his fist sinks right into his stomach. Okay, that wasn’t pleasant.

Hawks yips in pain and swears and grabs his wrist like a teenager that just found out that punching walls when you’re pissed is stupid, and Enji can’t say he didn’t expect this. “Fuck, dude! Why are you built like that?!”

“Your arm doesn’t move properly for a punch,” Enji explains, ignoring him. “You’re used to grabbing and clawing, but a hit is all about the rotation and the force you put behind it.

“You could have told me that before having me break my wrist on your fucking tank,” Hawks frowns, rubbing out the ache that’ll probably last for the rest of the day. He’s lucky Enji hadn’t been flexing for impact or he might have actually broken it.

“I told you I wanted to see your form,” he says.

“This is bullying.”

“Who do you think you came to?”

The rest of their training or practice or whatever it is does not go how Hawks apparently thought it would. Since Enji literally has to teach him the basics, he refuses to let there be any more skin on skin contact. He’ll have to get some bags for Hawks to practice on, but that won’t be too much trouble. Shouto’s ice quirk would be convenient right about now, both for target practice and for dealing with Hawks’ self-sustained injuries, but apparently he has to keep this a secret from even him.

Strange, but he respects Hawks’s privacy.

“Same time next week?” Hawks asks brightly as he leaves through the living room window Enji originally expected him from. He sounds hopeful. Good, he’s not a quitter. Enji doesn’t work with quitters. 

“Be on time.” 

Hawks flashes a smile before his wings stretch out and lift him up in the air like he’s in a hurry. It must be nice, Enji thinks. Who would choose to stand when they could fly?

Hawks flies up high enough that he’s unrecognizable from the ground before he properly takes off. He doesn’t want to be seen here, and he hates that he has to come here in the middle of the day on a Saturday of all days , but asking for more than he already has from Endeavor is too much. As much as he likes fucking with him, he’s desperate, and there’s no one else he can turn to.

God, he hates this. 

He nurses his aching wrist, twisting and turning it as the bones and tendons remind him that he’s an idiot for thinking he could just punch Endeavor. He knew the man was all muscle, but good god. If he wasn’t in such a hurry to get this over with, he might have even been a little turned on by it, stupid meat mountain.

Oh well, if this was the one chance he gets to touch his abs, he’ll take it.

Hawks is perfectly aware that his thinly veiled attempts at “coincidentally” teaming up with his hero are pathetic, but he really does not mean to see him again before Saturday like they agreed. 

Contrary to his own usual feelings, he does not want to see him before their agreed meeting because his wrist still hurts just a little bit less than his pride does, and he doesn’t like that what he thought was going to be, well a fight, turned into him being scolded for an hour because he doesn’t stand right.

I have wings, dude. What do you expect?

So when he runs into Endeavor on Wednesday, he all but turns and runs. Endeavor doesn’t even notice because of course he doesn’t, and Hawks isn’t sure if that’s his thing or if he’s just that good at keeping Hawks off of his personal radar. Either way, it gives him the option to high tail it, but damn it if one of the kids doesn't notice him.

“Hawks!” 

Hawks laughs pathetically. The jig is up. The nice one with the jammed up fingers spotted him, and now he must put on a little show.

He walks over rather than flies and greets the interns before greeting Endeavor. He’s not trying to be rude, but he never knows if he can trust his own face whenever they’re close. Sometimes the starry eyed kid who thinks the world revolves around him slips out whenever he sees him, but today it might be the fuck you, my legs are fine Hawks has been holding in ever since last Saturday, and both are equally as dangerous today. Especially around a group of students who will all but scrutinize them. Hm

“Good seeing you all here,” Hawks beams. This is a lie, but the important thing is is that they don’t know it, and he plans to keep it that way. “I was just on my way to a meeting, but make sure you keep this guy out of trouble!”

Endeavor tuts, and it’s almost satisfying. Hawks survives purely on takeout and reactions alone, and a reaction in front of another person? Multiple people? He’s good for the rest of the month.

But it’s short lived because in only a few seconds, an explosion goes off two blocks over, and they’re all on the move.

Hawks takes to the air. He’ll be the first on the scene, but Midoriya and Bakugou aren’t far behind. One jumps like a rabbit, and the other fires explosions from his palms to project himself around, and Hawks has to admit it’s pretty cool. It’s not often he flies with someone else who doesn’t work for him, and the explosions alter his flight path more than he’d like, but it’s good to see that these UA kids can keep up.

Shouto and Endeavor are still on the ground, forced to run to the scene on foot, and Hawks almost feels bad, but then his wrist throbs, and he thinks that maybe losing some stamina could do them so good.

Well the building is… gone. Hawks lands on the street across from what was probably the front door, and the kids drop down next to him. They’re out of breath and haven’t had the chance to register that the building is missing yet , still crouching slightly like the way Endeavor kept telling him to.

UA fight pose? Really? Think it’ll help if I shout out Plus Ultra too?

“Where’d that fucker go?” Bakugou growls, and Hawks all but throws his head back and laughs. “I mean, where is the villain?”

“It’s okay, and I don’t know.”

Midoriya, who is sometimes called Deku he thinks, (interesting hero name, but who is he to talk) walks towards the rubble cautiously. “Weird.”

This is probably a teaching moment. He looks around, but Endeavor hasn’t caught up yet. Dang it.

A second explosion fires off a block back, and he swears before taking off again. Midoriya and Bakugou stay closer to the ground this time as the three of them move towards it. 

When he gets there, he isn’t sure what he’s looking at, but it looks like half of a small building is encapsulated in a giant block of ice. The rest of it is gone.

“Well that works, I guess,” Hawks says, his hands on his hips as he sees Endeavor’s kid on the ground not too far away. They don’t look alike, but whenever Shouto fights he sees his dad in him, and it makes him a little emotional. Shut up, he’s not a fanboy anymore, okay, he grew out of it!

His little moment is cut short because out of the corner of his eye he sees someone in black running away from the scene. Black jeans, black hoodie pulled over his head, black mask. Hawks snorts. Really?

It doesn’t take much to stop him. Poor thing gets so startled by the feathers that he trips over his own feet, and Hawks thinks that this would have been a good opportunity to work on that body slam he thinks he should be practicing. (A brawler’s gotta have moves too, right?)

“Oiy,” he says. The suspect folds up in on himself into a ball. “Where’s the fire?” 

Hehehe.

He briefly considers that he might have cornered an innocent bystander, but he didn’t actually hit him. He just startled him into a position that makes it really hard to get away.

“Please,” he snivels. “I can’t go to jail.”

Bingo.

You can’t even call this guy a villain. He’s a regular Joe with a demolition quirk who lost his job because something something economy something something not safe, fell behind on his rent, got evicted, and decided his landlord shouldn’t own property anymore. Apparently these are, err, were, the landlord’s buildings, and he made sure they were empty before he poofed them.

That seems unlikely.

“No, look,” he says in tears. “I sent everyone emails last week saying I was from the gas company, and I was going to cut the lines to fix a leak and that they had to get out! They were empty I swear!”

The first building will require some further investigation, but the second that half was so conveniently frozen by Shouto was, in fact, empty. Or the frozen half was, at least.

The police come, and no one really wants this guy to go to prison. Like, he’s gonna, but Hawks and the kids are all torn up about it. Endeavor is annoyed, but like, what else is new, and the police are just baffled that he managed to make 1.5 city blocks disappear without any casualties or nearby damage. It’s a shame, this guy would have had a good life doing demo full time.

“I’m sorry,” he says as he willingly gets into the back of the police car. Special restraints are placed around his hands because they can’t be sure what materials he can make go kaboom, but something about them reminds Hawks of sad metal oven mitts.

Shit, my meeting.

“Welp, gotta go!”

He flaps his wings and leaves the scene before someone can mention the word paperwork. He barely catches the look on Endeavor’s face when he bails, but it doesn’t look as angry as it does confused. See, Hawks really didn’t mean to be here this time, and he doesn’t mean to stay. Just as long as he doesn’t break character and ask Hawks anything more than he has to, it’s fine. Although it isn’t like Hawks isn’t a fantastic liar.

Checking his phone midair is always a gamble, but it is what it is. The message on the screen reads you’re late , and all he can do is roll his eyes. 

I know I’m fucking late. Maybe if you two didn’t constantly schedule shit at the same time, I could piss less of you off.

“Check the news,” he types back. Hawks is still a hero, after all, despite how he feels on the inside.

Oh well, it’s not like that feeling is particularly new, but imposter syndrome is a bitch when you have to play for the other team.

When Saturday comes, Hawks actually does try his best to be there on time. It’s pouring rain, and his wings get soaked which makes them stiff and heavy, and it sucks. He’d like to see anyone else try to fly like this, but when he arrives, Endeavor is gruff but he doesn’t say anything this time. 

You’re getting soft in your old age, old man, he wants to say, but the cut on his lip is still raw, and it’s one of the few times he doesn’t feel like talking.

Endeavor notices because he chides him for not having a medic patch him up. Thing is, he can’t. None of his injuries can go on the books, keeping with the theme of super sneaky fight school time, and god forbid some hero auditor notices a pattern.

“It’s fine,” he says, and then he forces himself into one of his moods he knows Endeavor hates because the man, for what it’s worth, doesn’t ask questions when he’s too busy trying not to ring his neck. It’s actually pretty funny to watch the vein in his forehead bulge out. Big angry meat man.

Flipping the switch like a pro, he claps his hand and crouches, and waits for that vein to pulse. “What’s on the menu today, coach?”

Today he’s allowed to hit something. It’s a joke because this would have been useful last night, but he supposes taking a good hit to the mouth was good for his image. Fuck, that hurt.

“Put your legs into it,” Endeavor says.

Hawks exhales sharply through his nose. This is probably the one thing he’ll get annoyed with because excuse him for being a bird. When’s the last time he saw a chicken crack open a coconut with its thighs? That’s right because birds can’t do that. Maybe ostriches, but Hawks isn’t fucking Ostrich Man. 

“I am.”

Hawks pulls back to punch the bag again with all of his force to show him how fuck you he’s feeling right about now, but he buckles as something hard jams into the back of his knee.

“Ow!”

“You’re not using your weight.”

“That would have worked on anyone, and you know it,” Hawks scowls. The back of his leg throbs, and he does not want to think about how close this was to having Endeavor step on him. 

Endeavor makes a noise half between a huff and a grunt like a hmph that comes from somewhere deeper in his throat, but Hawks holds his ground. Kicking someone in the back of the knee proves nothing, and he knows it.

“Alright,” he says. “I’ll give you one shot then.”

“Heh?”

“Go ahead,” he gestures to his own leg. “If you can move me, we’ll stop working on your stance.”

Hawks considers it. All he has to do is kick the shit out of him, and he can finally move on to the good stuff. No, this is a set up if he knows one. “How is that gonna work if you see it coming?!”

“You should always see it coming.”

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” he says under his breath, and he catches what almost, almost, looks like the hint of a smile before it’s gone again. This is payback isn’t it. This is months of office crashing, unplanned team ups, embarrassing speeches, late arrivals, and bad jokes all coming back to him. Endeavor isn’t teaching him, he’s frustrating him. “Alright, show me the leg thing.”

Okay, maybe Endeavor knows what he’s talking about. Maybe, maybe the number one giant sack of muscle knows a thing or two about how to use his body ( don’t… ), but that doesn’t mean Hawks has to be happy with it.

The problem is that it took them two sessions to get here. It took two sessions for Hawks to learn how to stand and how to throw his weight, and Hawks does not have time for this. He thinks about the cut on his lip and frowns. This isn’t working.

“Are you not satisfied,” Endeavor says, handing him a water bottle. Hydration, hydration, hydration. Jesus, he’s never pissed this much in his life.

Hawks takes a breath and sets the bottle back down on the bench. “You’re being awfully helpful.”

“You asked.”

“And no is your favorite word in the alphabet.”

“Only when you ask for something that’s a waste of time.”

Hawks sucks his teeth. A part of him should be thrilled and would usually milk that until the cow buys the whole farm, but the hard truth is, time is running out which therefore makes it wasted.

“Do you need to practice more than once a week?”

Hawks looks at him and blinks. “Yeah, I think I do.”

Enji thought this over before Hawks came back to train. He never expected to take this so seriously, but the word Nomu has been on his mind for days. Nomu. Nomu. Nomu. 

He’s never fought anything so strong before, and it almost won. It was so close to winning that it became something he can almost say is worthy of being afraid of, and Hawks is fast but Hawks is small. Enji could pick Hawks up like it’s nothing, and he has. Gripping him by the collar and lifting him off the ground should have taken more effort than it did, and it wasn’t something he had to think about until Hawks mentioned the Nomu.

It wouldn’t even take its full strength to crush his body in one blow, but it’s not like those things have the mercy in them to hold back anyway.

Normally he’s not one to concern himself with another hero’s weaknesses. If you can’t handle your own fights, then get out of the way, but this is different. 1. Hawks is not weak. 2. Hawks was not properly trained, obviously, for close combat and is willing to correct that. 3. If they have to keep fighting together, it’s in his own best interest that he doesn’t have to keep half of his focus on keeping Hawks in one piece. 

Hawks is so behind that it’s almost laughable. You would have no idea seeing him fling his arms at things that he’s one of the strongest active pros right now, and he can’t help but enjoy just a little seeing the cocky brat stomp his foot every time Enji corrects him. 

But there are moments when he stares at the bag in such a way that Enji wonders who he’s looking at. The sound is different for those punches, deeper and resonating, and then he’s back to complaining about how sore his shoulders are.

I have to fly back, you know!

You don’t punch with your wings.

When Hawks comes back, Enji notices the cuts on his face and the new and old bruises and scolds him for not taking care of himself, but when Hawks tells him it’s not a problem, it comes with the mind your own fucking business tone that Shouto and Natsuo have mastered.

Hawks does not talk to him like that. Hawks is annoying, bratty, difficult, and tempestuous, but he veils himself in neutrality. That was a slip, and Enji senses during the rest of the training session that Hawks is frustrated. It could be from his own progress (which is fine, by the way). Heroes are always hard on themselves, but Enji doesn’t need Hawks to tell him that something else is going on.

I need a favor.

The only person I can trust.

“I cannot change my patrol schedule, but I will work with you for an hour in the evenings if you need to.”

Hawks nods. “Thank you.”

“You won’t tell me anything, will you.”

“If I did, I’d have to kill ya,” he smiles, and Enji frowns, and it’s back to normal.

Hawks is a fast learner. He comes back with a new bruise and a bag of takeout that makes Enji’s stomach churn.

“That’s going to make you slower.”

“Good,” he says, stuffing something fried into one of his cheeks. “I need to fight slower.”

“Speed is your strength. We just need to work on your power.”

“With great power comes great responsibility.”

“Hawks.”

Hawks balls up the paper bag and stuffs it in the trash. “Let’s go, boss, I wanna hit something.”

They head into the gym, and Enji hands Hawks a pair of gloves. 

“Where’s the bag?”

Enji shakes his head. “Today you practice on me.”

Hawks scrunches his face up into a scowl. “I’m just going to fuck up my wrist on one of your tits, and then we’re both gonna have a bad time.”

“They’re not ti-,” he huffs out a large puff of steam before calming himself. Hawks laughs. Don’t let him play games with you. “That’s what the gloves are for.”

“You’re gonna tell me I’m doing it wrong.”

“No, I’m not.”

Hawks hums, and they step towards the middle of the room. He squares himself, taking it seriously, and Enji puts one leg back to brace himself even though he doesn’t expect too much at this point. Hawks swings, and Enji snorts as the cushion hits him right in the middle of his torso.

“You aren’t rotating your arm when you swing.”

“You promised.”

“No, I didn’t.”

Hawks punches him again, and this time he feels it. It doesn’t hurt, but there’s enough force behind it that he feels himself take a breath. 

“Good.”

“Good?!”

“Do it again.”

Hawks swings again with more confidence. He hits him again and again, and Enji doesn’t dodge any of them. He’s basically acting like a glorified punching bag, but he needs Hawks to get over the hesitation and doubt that comes with punching a person.

His swings are winded as his stamina depletes, but he doesn’t take his eyes off of his target. Sweat pours down as he gives it everything he’s got, and he forgets who or what he’s hitting. His form is already better. Good, keep going.

The hour passes, and Hawks is on the floor with a wet towel across his head and his gloves discarded on the floor nearby.

“Fuck,” he groans. 

“You did well.”

“You’re built like a truck, dude! What the fuck. Did that not hurt?”

“Take tomorrow off, ice your wrists if you need to.”

“Really,” he lifts his head and blinks. “Not even a little?”

Enji sits on the bench and takes a sip of water. This is getting in the way of his own training. He’ll need to find more time in his schedule so that he doesn’t fall behind, but it’s at least satisfying to know that Hawks is improving and it’s all because of him. That’s not a thought he wants to have again.

He looks up, and Hawks is still watching him. “What?”

“Nothing,” he says, resting back against the floor. “Just wondering how it feels to be a mountain of beef.”

Enji exhales something that might be considered a laugh before he reminds himself that he does not find Hawks funny. Not one bit.

Hawks is not himself. If he was, he would be releasing a stream of profanities the moment he gets out of earshot, but instead, he’s quietly sore and he likes it. His arms and shoulders ache in a way he’s never felt before, and even his legs throb like they’ve been used for the first time and all he did was practice his punches.

“Holy shit,” he breathes. If Hawks was himself he would have enjoyed that for an entirely different reason, but even if he was frothing at the mouth as would have been expected, he can’t even tell anyone about it so what’s the point?

But god, that was straight up hand to boob (err, glove to vaguely spread out torso) contact, and he can’t even enjoy it because his brain is buzzing with the you did well ringing in his ears. Maybe he has a praise kink he’s never tested out, but Endeavor told him he did well and he felt it. The first time he hit the bag it was clumsy and disjointed, but that power Endeavor was talking about is starting to build up, and it feels good.

Hawks doesn’t seek approval. His rank just happened. Looking good for ads pays his bills. Hawks hasn’t been graded since he was in top secret stealth school, but he can’t tell if he craves that good job so much because he’s correcting a weakness he didn’t realize he had or if it’s because of the person who said it.

When he gets home, he sinks into the tub, and he doesn’t let himself answer his own question. He’s not stupid.

A couple days pass, and he’s back at Endeavor’s place. This might be something he would consider a victory if it didn’t feel like work. He laughs to himself. That’s because it is work for one of them. Guess who.

He’s still sore from punching the man-wall repeatedly for an hour (seriously, what the fuck), but he imagines it hurts a whole lot less than the kid who didn’t quite make the cut . It makes him sick when he thinks about it so he treats the next hour like a welcome distraction. If throwing his pitiful excuses for punches at Endeavor’s chest makes him forget, then he thinks he can stand the soreness.

“You’re early,” he says.  

Oh am I? Shit. 

“No traffic today,” he grins. Haha, get it. Endeavor doesn’t smile so he guesses not.

“I need to make a phone call. Go ahead and warm up.”

Prickly. 

If Hawks happens to overhear the phone call, it’s not technically eavesdropping, and if he happens to stand too close to the wall facing Endeavor’s office then he should have been more specific about where he wanted him to warm up at.

Endeavor’s voice is soft so he doesn’t sense a villain problem, not that he heard of anything major going down this week anyway, but it’s always good to be on your toes in case you have to pop up somewhere purely by coincidence on short notice.

Wait a minute, why is his voice soft?

He leans in closer to the vent, and his body prickles over. Who in the world is Endeavor speaking so nicely to?

“Are you taking your vitamins? The doctor said–.”

“I’m fine.”

“Dad–.”

“Fuyumi, I’m not an old man.”

Hawks moves away and swallows down the pang of guilt in his stomach for being so nosy. It seems there’s nothing to worry about. Except that maybe Endeavor isn’t taking his vitamins. Best not bring that up to him, though.

He finishes warming up with some stretches, a few push ups, and some jumping jacks that make him feel stupid because of the flapping sounds that come with them. Cardio, shmardio, he literally flew here.

Endeavor comes in, and his face is indifferent. It’s impressive that Hawks would never be able to tell if he had been talking to his own daughter or the prime minister by just looking at him. He doesn’t tell him that.

“You need to reschedule?” Hawks offers. It’s polite.

“No, it’s fine,” he says. “Did you warm up?”

“Yes, sir,” he salutes. Endeavor doesn’t quite make a face, but he doesn’t quite have full control over the steam that comes out of his nose so Hawks counts any puff he can muster a win. “Bags or boobs today?”

“Neither.”

He turns back towards the bench and opens up a gym bag. There are two strapped cushions inside. Endeavor pulls them out and puts one of them on his own hand. They do not look at each other when Hawks has to fasten the second one for him. It’s okay, they’re both new to this.

“Today, you’re going to try to hit me.”

“Try?”

“Mm. You need to practice on a moving target.”

“Do you even need those,” he raises an eyebrow. “I’ve been wailing on you, and you don’t even flinch.”

“I need to protect my hands.”

Hawks swallows. Right, that’s like his whole career.  “Oh yeah, obviously.”

Endeavor turns and walks towards the center of the room without much more acknowledgement. He raises his arms up in the air and positions them to be Hawks’s targets. “We’ll adjust the angle if we need to.”

“This would be a good time to call the interns over,” Hawks jokes. This was a terrible idea because he’s too fucking tall, and he knows it. How is this supposed to work? “Welp, beggars can’t be choosers.”

“Hm.”

“Kinda face height,” he notes. “If you squint.”

“Then pretend it’s a face.”

Hawks takes a breath and readies himself. That won’t be hard to do at all. The first swing is clumsy, and it grazes off the side of the pad. He can’t help but get frustrated, but Endeavor doesn’t correct him. The second swing hits the center like he wants it. The third makes Endeavor’s arm buckle. Hawks smirks. 

“Left arm, right pad,” he says, and Hawks tries it. He repeats the motion in the reverse direction and alternates until his hands don’t slip anymore.

“Good,” he says, and Hawks only has a second to preen before Endeavor pivots, and his own fist swings helplessly without a target. 

“Hey!”

“Hit me again.”

Hawks swings a little harder, and he feels it in his shoulder as soon as he makes contact.

“Good,” Endeavor says.

Hawks huffs, and if he was the one with the fire quirk, he’d be the one blowing steam right about now. 

He notices any time he starts to zone out, Endeavor dodges. He’s never been someone who didn’t pay attention when he fought, but the repetitive nature of these lessons is numbing. He starts to forget. He doesn’t see.

The kid can’t be older than fifteen. He’s a little taller than their interns but too thin, and he had the misfortune of being born with an ugly quirk. God, that’s the only thing some people ever do wrong, isn’t it? Hawks has wings, Endeavor has flames, All Might has strength, and some people are just unlucky enough that their quirks make them the unwanted. That’s how this world is built.

It isn’t fair.

“Hawks,” Enji warns. “Focus.”

Hawks blinks up at him, pupils thin and sharp. He has no idea, does he? 

They’ve been at this for a while. Hawks punches the pads in Enji’s hands, and any time he falls into a pattern, Enji dodges. He knows better than anyone how easy it is to space out like this, but Hawks’s face changes suddenly. It twists while his eyes unfocus, and his next hit misses, landing right into the center of Enji’s chest, and if he had been anyone else’s body, they might have had the wind knocked out of them.

“Sorry,” he mutters, and then he comes back at once, and it’s pointless. “Again?

“Where is your head?”

“Didn’t know you were the type to ask a guy what he’s thinking? Wanna know my favorite color? Sky blue baby,” he adds a wink, and it’s supposed to fluster him, but one, Hawks is incapable of flustering him, two, he’s used to this, and three, he knows a deflection when he sees it. 

“If you’re not going to take this seriously then leave.”

“I am taking this seriously,” he insists while Enji removes the pads from his hands. “I even drank a protein shake!”

Hawks stands there with his gloved hands hanging down by his sides waiting for Enji to get back to it, but he’s not so sure he should. Hawks needs to talk to someone first. Not him, but someone. 

“I think that’s enough for today.”

The look he gives him is like he’s never heard the word no before, but for once he doesn’t make much of a fuss about it. “Can I use the bag?”

“Go ahead.”

The gloves come off, and he beats out whatever demon was staring back at him until his body gives out, and Enji watches carefully. They’ve barely started yet, but he’s improved a great deal since the first day. It’s probably time to start the real training Hawks thought he signed up for.

Hawks slumps over, and Enji hands him the water bottle, and he wipes the sweat off of his brow before chugging down half in one go.

“Better?”

“Yep,” he gasps. “Good to go.”

“Take a few days off.”

“I don’t need to.”

“I have some business to take care of.”

“Oh. Gotcha.”

Enji never finds out who or what the demon was because he never asks again and Hawks never offers up the information, but he knows that distant look well. It’s the look of a hero who couldn’t save someone.

They don’t see each other again for a few days until they’re both called in as backup to handle a group of villains that are mostly just a problem from their numbers and not from their strength.

According to intel, none of them are affiliated with the League, but small groups have been popping up here and there ever since All Might retired. Ballsy idiots. Oh well, it’s easier to get them all off the streets when they come out like this.

After years of fighting on his own, having someone with eyes on his back was an adjustment, but Hawks has saved him from taking a few unnecessary hits enough times that when he hears hey big guy he knows to look up.

It almost looks like a cloud of smoke headed straight towards him except for the fact that it’s shaped like a person, and that is... not smoke.

He hears it before he registers what it is—a loud growing buzz that would rattle anyone else—, and truthfully, he’s not stupid enough to let it near him because the mass coming right for him is nothing less than a giant man-shaped swarm of hornets.

Hawks’s feathers cut towards the mass, but it's useless because they pass right through the gaps as the insects fly around them, but his warning gives Enji enough time to send a wall of fire towards them before they can get close enough to sting him.

He lifts his foot off of the villain he has pinned to the ground and finishes cuffing his hands behind his back. “If you try anything, I’ll roast you too.”

“Can’t a guy just be in the wrong place at the wrong time,” he grunts against the pavement.

“No.”

Hawks lands nearby and walks over, dusting himself off and fanning away the burnt air. “Un-bee-lievable.”

Enji glares, and Hawks laughs at his own joke. 

“Oh come on, that was funny!”

“No it wasn’t,” the villain on the ground mumbles.

“Shut up,” Enji says.

“We caught the guy, but he got one last little puff out before we could incapacitate him,” Hawks explains. “Dude coughed out a mouthful of bees like a bad party trick. Who does that?”

“Is that everyone,” Enji asks, ignoring him. The villain on the ground wiggles, but he isn’t much of a threat. His quirk, though, gives him eyes on the back of his head so he stares back up at them, blinking away the hair that falls in his eyes. It’s disturbing.

“Yep, that was the last one.”

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” their friend on the ground coos.

They both look back down and frown. “Shut up.”

“You wanna go get something to eat?”

“No.”

The lunch rush is already gone by the time they get to their seats. It’s a new cafe filled to the brim with plants on every surface, and the air is much cleaner than it is outside. Enji wonders if it has something to do with the owner’s quirk.

They changed out of their uniforms before they came, but even in civilian clothes, tall broad man and his  small winged companion is as good as wearing name tags. 

A kid catches them when they walk in, holding a napkin up to Hawks who signs it with a big smile while the boy tells him he’s his favorite hero. Hawks hands it back to him, and the child glances up at Enji with a cautious expression, but he decides against it. He would have signed it too if he asked… probably.

“Sorry about that, should have left the wings outside,” Hawks says as they settle into the booth. Enji raises a brow, and he laughs. “Sure feels homey in here! I should redecorate.”

“You’re making small talk.”

“I am not.”

Enji hums.

“Alright, yeah, anyways good job catching four eyes back there,” Hawks says, and he’s just bursting from his own puns today, isn’t he. It’s good though. It means he worked out whatever was bothering him so Enji tolerates it. “Guess he didn’t see you coming.”

“Hm.”

“Nothing?”

“Nope.”

“Damn it,” he swears. “One day, I’m gonna make you laugh, and then you’ll have to finally admit how much you like having me around.”

“Absolutely not,” Enji frowns.

“That wasn’t a no…”

“Your face is healing nicely,” he says. “Did you finally see a medic.”

“Good old fashioned peroxide and neosporin,” he winks. “Glad you think my face is nice.”

“Hawks.”

“Fine. But you know if you didn’t make it so much fun, I wouldn’t want to do it anymore.”

“How can I make it less fun then.”

Hawks closes one of his eyes in thought and scratches his chin. He hums deeply, searching the depths of that birds nest of a brain of his and grins. “You could try doing it back a little.”

Enji must make a face so Hawks continues. “You know I’m sure if you were to tell me how pretty and charming I am, I’ll be speechless for days.”

“You’re ridiculous,” he huffs.

“It was worth a shot,” Hawks shrugs. “It’s fine, I like it better this way.”

Enji waits.

“If you start being nice to me, I may have to fall for you.”

“Hawks.”

Hawks finally stops laughing at the angry beard flair by the time the waiter comes around to bring them their menus and drink orders. Enji orders hot tea, and Hawks gets a lemon lime soda because of course he does.

At a glance, the cafe serves salads and sandwiches with a few pasta options, and Enji is almost visibly relieved that Hawks picked out somewhere that wouldn’t clog his arteries for once.

Hawks holds his sandwich with one hand while he talks with the other, and it’s just a steady stream of consciousness that only a fool would try to keep up with. It’s all business, and then it’s absolutely nothing but every single thought Hawks has in his head. It’s noisy and indiscernible, and even though he prefers to eat in silence, Enji patiently listens and nods along because even if he’s a pain in his ass, lately Hawks going at the speed of light is what he considers normal

“And then the guy fuckin’ burps out a swarm of bees,” he forces through a mouthful of food. “But like, what else would a guy who calls himself Hive do?”

“I don’t think this is an appropriate conversation for dinner,” Enji says as he sits his cup down.

“Mm. You’re right, what would you rather we talk about,” Hawks wiggles his eyebrows. “I’m all ears.”

“Are you in trouble?”

The question catches Hawks off guard. He freezes for a moment and blinks, but then his face is all lights, camera, action, and Enji takes that as a yes. “Didn’t know you cared.”

“Hawks.”

He shakes his head, but his voice keeps the same light tone as if someone’s listening. Enji doesn’t like the idea of that. “Right as rain, but these lonely nights are killing me…”

“Hawks.”

This isn’t working. Endeavor is asking questions for the first time ever which, he means, yay, look who’s finally paying attention, but of all the times, about all the things… 

On top of that, their lessons together are taking too long, and it’s going to get Hawks killed. When Hawks took on this assignment, it was supposed to be your typical spy gig. A little double agent I scratch your back, you scratch mine, but then those no-more-heroes fuckers decided he needed to prove himself.

Again.

And again.

And again.

He’s jumped through hoops already, committed enough crimes that if he didn’t hate himself before, hooboy…, but it was never enough, and of all the tests, this one is the most dangerous.

God, he can’t even rationalize it. It’s like they can’t take him out without pissing the wrong guys up top off (come on, Dabi, try being possessive or something, fuck) so they’ve asked him to take a swim with the piranhas, only they aren’t asking. 

He needs help if he’s going to stay alive, and Endeavor is the only one he can trust. Six year old him would never fucking believe it.

A dream come true.

After his lunch (dinner?) with Endeavor, he gets a text from one of those burner numbers he loves so much, and all it says is a date and time.

Shit.

Well boys, mark your calendars because it looks like beer and wings are on the menu.

Their next session doesn’t come fast enough. Hawks is early again, and he finds Endeavor warming up in the gym doing push ups by himself, and good god do the muscles in his back look like something he could just sink his teeth into.

“Betcha can’t do one arm,” Hawks teases, a small prayer. Endeavor huffs in surprise, apparently not hearing him come in. He stops and pushes himself up off of the floor, and Hawks pouts. “Oh don’t get up! Want me to sit on your back? I’m very helpful.”

“You’re early.”

“Want me to come back in ten?”

“Go ahead and warm up.”

“Okay,” he breathes. He looks over the gym. It’s already a familiar space to him. A part of him can’t believe he’s allowed to be here, but the other part worries that it’s not enough. There aren’t enough dumbbells in the world that can save him, and that’s just how it is.

He starts stretching first, focusing on his arms and legs. Using them so much has been an adjustment, but he feels stronger in a fight. Before his wings did all the work, but they couldn’t help him on the ground. Flying up and down stairwells has never been easy, and lifting villains off the ground with just his wings to carry them both was always a pain. 

He might not know how to fight yet, but at least he’s stronger.

He doesn’t notice Endeavor watching him until he glances back into the mirror covering one of the walls.

“What?”

The look in his eye isn’t quite scrutiny, but the way he regards him makes Hawks feel naked, but like naked for the first time in front of another person who wasn’t holding a stethoscope naked. (Whether or not he knows what that feels like is nobody’s business). 

He huffs and turns away to leave the room. “I have to make another phone call. Don’t skip your cardio.”

“I fucking flew here,” he bites under his breath.

Seriously, does this man not know how wings work?

Hawks finishes up by the time Endeavor comes back, and by finishes up, he means that he may or may not have skipped out on the pushups and the jumping jacks today, but sue him, he’s exhausted. It’s like every villain in the city knows he has somewhere to be and always makes it to where he has to rush over.

The look on his face is ever serious, but Hawks knows from spending too much time staring at him that there is good mood serious and bad mood serious, and this looks like his just talked to one of my kids serious, and it was probably the one who likes him. Good, it’ll be an easy session.

Although he’s not so sure if punching a sandbag for a couple of hours counts as good just because Mr. Baby Steps isn’t grumpy.

“We good?” Endeavor hums, and that’s about all he’s getting out of him without pushing any buttons. “Good, good.”

He grabs his gloves without waiting for further instruction because it’s somehow become a routine already, but what is not part of their routine, however, is Endeavor slipping on his own.

“Whatcha doin’?” Hawks chirps, a little nervously if he has to say.

“Today you’re going to practice dodging,” he says, his voice so deep that Hawks almost forgets that this is super-secret-fight-class. “On your feet.”

“Cool, yeah,” he swings his arms to pump himself up. “Finally some progress.”

“Put this on.”

He slides over something that looks like the pads he usually wears on his hands when they train, but it’s square and clunky with more straps, and Hawks isn’t sure what he’s supposed to do with it. “What is it?”

“Protective headgear.”

Hawks chokes. “You’re joking.”

Endeavor looks at him with a flat expression.

“We’re heroes ,” Hawks all but stomps his feet. “Why the fuck would I ever?”

“It’s for your own safety.”

“But I’m gonna look stupid!”

“Who is going to see you?”

Hawks thins his lips. He hates him and his stupid headgear. “Where’s yours then?”

Endeavor has the audacity to smirk, and yeah, Hawks hates him.

“Dude.”

“Fine, if you don’t want to wear it, I won’t make you.”

“Thank you.”

“But do not get blood on my equipment,” he warns, and Hawks hesitates just for a moment, but no, he’s not wearing his stupid face pads. God, he’s number two for fuck’s sake! What’s next? Knee and elbow pads?

Well that’s not a thought he ever thought he’d have.

He pushes that to the back of his mind for later and puts on his own gloves. He and Endeavor move to the center of the room, and they both get into position to swing. 

Fuck, he’s big.

Endeavor towers over him, and he radiates power. Hawks has never been on the receiving end of one of his attacks before, and he thanks the heavens for it because he thinks if he saw him coming at him in full flame mode, he’d probably shit himself and die as a courtesy.

“Are you ready?”

“Yep,” he forces himself to believe. This is what he asked for, right?

Actually, Hawks does not need the flames to feel scared enough to shit himself. Endeavor swings first, and it packs a punch. Hawks has the sense to flutter just out of reach, but the wind that follows cuts through his feathers and raises up all the hairs on the back of his neck. He knew he was strong, but…

“You know what, on second thought, I think I’ll take that headgear.”

“Your instincts are good,” he says, but Hawks doesn’t let his guard down to enjoy it because Endeavor is still in that UA grad stance that he spent weeks drilling into Hawks’s poor legs.

“Thanks,” he manages. His eyes are glued on every inch of Endeavor at once, and for the first time it’s not to admire or bother him. He hasn’t broken a sweat yet, but his skin looks like it’s about to burst from the muscle beneath. He’s gonna crush me for calling him daddy in front of the waiter, isn’t he? Fuck, my stupid sense of humor this man is gonna bury me in his rose garden .

“I want you to dodge, and then counter. It’s okay if you hit me.”

“I don’t know if the feeling is mutual,” he strains.

“Hawks.”

“Yeah, yeah, I got it, swing away.”

This don’t get punched by Endeavor game is both a testament to his real life as well as the most active they’ve ever been in this gym. He swings, and Hawks dodges, and Hawks swings, and Endeavor pretends to let him hit him. It becomes a dance with no time to stop and catch their breaths, and maybe, just maybe Hawks might regret not taking his cardio more seriously.

It makes him wonder what a real fight between them would look like. Hawks is faster, and Endeavor is stronger. Hawks has the air, and Endeavor has his fire. He knows he’s taking it easy on him because he hasn’t landed a punch yet, but if Hawks was really in danger, he could fly away while sending a barrage of razor sharp feathers at him at the same time.

They are practicing like two regular people who don’t know what it means to walk on a tightrope of life and death every single day. Here, they are quirkless and unremarkable, and it’s the most normal he’s felt ever since he was a child.

“Oof!”

“Pay attention.”

He wonders if Endeavor has ever felt normal a day in his life.

When they first started, Enji wasn’t sure how this was going to work. Not only was Hawks absolutely useless on his feet, Enji couldn’t actually bring himself to swing at him.

He’s an angry guy. Not enough therapy in the world can put out that endless flame of rage that’s always been there, but as long as he directs that anger and hate towards himself and the villains, he considers himself improving. 

Hawks pisses him off in a special kind of way, but he doesn’t hate him even a little bit.

So the first time Enji swings at Hawks, it’s like he’s taking a punch in the gut. All of the time spent becoming someone good goes down the drain, and he hates himself, but Hawks dodges beautifully. Well, it’s a little sporadic like a startled chicken, but Hawks goes from perfectly relaxed to out of arm's reach before the blood in Enji’s arm settles.

His whole body relaxes. This isn’t one of his interns. This is the number two hero, and he won’t dare make the mistake of underestimating him again.

They go round and round. There’s no real fire to it, but their movements are faster and targeted, and Hawks is dodging him for real. Enji throws a punch meant to knock him back, but Hawks dips his shoulder and swings up, almost catching Enji’s jaw. And the almost came because Hawks caught his arm, letting their height difference slow the momentum, but if he had wanted to, he would have gotten him.

An hour passes, then two, and they are both spending just as much energy going after each other as they are trying to not to land a real blow. Only one of them could probably do any real damage, but the other just doesn’t want to.

They break apart, and Hawks doubles over and grabs his knees. He’s out of breath, panting and gasping for air as the sweat pours down his face, sticking strands of darkened blonde hair to his forehead. His wings drift up and down with every breath, sagging down to the floor. Something about the sight is deadly, but there’s no way Enji would ever say that.

“Endeavor,” he forces out through a broken breath. It’s a tone that makes his whole body prickle, primal and pointed like the predator Hawks is supposed to be. All the humor and admiration has drained out of his face, and he looks like another person altogether. He looks like he hates him. “Don’t hold back.”

Everything changes once they catch their breath. The break doesn’t last long, just a quick moment to drink more water and wipe up the sweat from the floor so no one slips and breaks their neck in the most ridiculous hero casualty of all time, and then they’re back in the ring, so to speak.

Hawks looks at him like he wants to eat him alive, and it’s like a switch has been flipped because the next hit lands on his ribs and it hurts. Enji grunts in pain, and without thinking he swings with just enough back behind it to nail Hawks in the shoulder. The glove hits with a hollow thud, and Hawks spins back and the look on his face is instantly replaced with surprise which must mirror Enji’s own because suddenly Hawks smirks.

“Fuck that hurt,” he wheezes. Enji doesn’t say he’s sorry. “Can we do it again?”

Not this session, but the next, Enji stops holding back. Hawks takes any hit he manages to land like a champ, and god, does it feel good to train again. His whole body aches, his arms and legs are sore, his lungs burn, and there are glove shaped bruises covering his body that are luckily easily hidden by his hero uniform.

He can just picture it now. How did Endeavor get all bruised up? Is the current number one losing his strength? Is the pressure at the top too much? No, he’s just spending all of his free time working with the number two, and said number two isn’t hesitating anymore.

And it feels amazing.

“Oiy,” Hawks shouts before wiping off a drop of blood from his mouth. Oops. 

“You didn’t dodge.”

“You went for my face!”

“You said you wanted to learn.”

And then he grins, daring him to try it again, and because Enji is a fool who feels like he’s seventeen again in the UA gym, he lunges for him, and it’s so good that he doesn’t even hear his front door open.

Hawks makes a sound between a shout and a squawk and jumps back. Enji blinks dumbly as he loses his balance because he fully expected to hand that last hit, and Hawks yanks off his gloves and tosses them under the bench.

“Dad?”

Enji takes a breath, coming back to the real world where he is a grown man with children who he doesn’t want to see him goofing around with Hawks of all people. (Although, if he was caught sparring with another hero, he supposes this one makes the most sense). He nods to Hawks and walks out into the hall, discarding his gloves before he leaves. He pulls the screen shut behind him as he leaves so Shouto won’t see him.

He finds his son with Midoriya and Bakugou in the living room. They have their school books spread out over the table, and they wasted no time making themselves comfortable. It’s a completely different energy than the first time he brought his friends over for dinner. 

There was a time where Enji would have been furious that he brought people home when he should have used that time for training (or without asking for permission first), but now he’s just happy that Shouto has friends. At first he wasn’t sure about these two, but he’s seen them fight together enough to know that Shouto picked who he spends his time with well. He has his own personal investment in the order, but he knows he’s looking at the future numbers one, two, and three.

“We have exams coming up,” Shouto explains. “We came over to study.”

The thought passes that they could have gone to the other house, but Enji holds it in. Shouto came over on his own and brought his friends with him, and they're studying. He never thought this would be something he would ever see for himself in his own family. “I see.”

“Is that okay,” Shouto asks flatly. He looks up at him, and that rage is gone, but he’s not actually asking for permission. Enji learned that when he handed him two extra interns he didn’t ask for that Shouto does not need permission to do what he wants anymore, but it’s just a small show of respect that Enji appreciates.

“It’s fine,” he says. “I didn’t make preparations for dinner.”

“Oh, we didn’t mean to intrude,” Midoriya says nervously. God, All Might’s favorite sure is an anxious one. 

Ah, what do other parents do when their children bring friends over unannounced? For some reason he thinks about Hawks dropping in here and there without an announcement or warning and has an idea. “You can order something if you want.”

Shouto glances at him, and for anyone else it isn’t much, but for Shouto it could be interpreted as, respectfully, what the hell did you just say?  

“I have some business to take care of, but you can use my card. Get whatever you want,” he says before leaving them, and he isn’t sure if it’s because of the workout he just got with Hawks or what, but that kind of felt nice to say. Maybe he’s getting the hang of this after all.

He walks back to the gym where he left Hawks to tell him it’s just Shouto and the interns, but when he slides back the door, he finds the gym unsurprisingly empty. Of course Hawks flew the coop. 

Their gear is lined up neatly on the bench with a feather placed on top like a calling card, and it’s all the message he needs to know what it says. See you tomorrow.

The next day Enji’s head is clear for the first time in weeks. His whole body hurts, but he feels more awake than he has in a long time, and even his sidekicks notice.

It’s an intern day, and he doesn’t even scold the boys for showing up with bags under their eyes from staying up all night. He also doesn’t scold them for not actually studying the whole time like they said they would, but if he finds out that their grades slip (or they make a mistake on the job), it’s office cleanup duty for the three of them for the rest of the month.

Enji notices that Shouto is using his fire more in combat, but he doesn’t miss the way the other two boys hold him accountable when he relies on one half than the other. He has more control than he ever did, and Enji knows he can’t take credit for any of it despite how much the old him wanted to. He keeps it to himself because he knows it’s not what Shouto wants to hear, but he’s proud of his growth.

He’s also grown a little fond of those two wrecking balls his son calls friends, but that’s neither here nor there.

He won’t be home early today because he has extra paperwork to do thanks to it being intern day. He has to evaluate their performance in the field and submit it by the end of the week to the school for the program, and he’s annoyed because not only is UA getting heroes to teach their students for free, but Enji also has to pay the students for their work. 

This seems specifically beneficial for UA, but he has too much on his plate to complain about it.

While he takes on his paperwork, though, he thinks to send Hawks a text letting him know that he’ll be delayed since they’re supposed to meet again tonight.

— I’ll be late today. Let yourself in and warm up. I’m sure you know how to do that.

— omg when i saw your name in my notifications i almost fell off a light pole is this real life

Enji starts to type why were you on a light pole , but he decides against it, knowing better than to give Hawks an excuse to tell stories. He erases the wh and sets his phone to the side. Hawks knows to let himself in and start without him, so that’s enough.

— i saw that

— what were u about to say

— u cant ignore me forever

— fine 

— see u at home, daddy 😉 

Enji scowls and turns his phone upside down so that he can’t see the screen anymore and focuses instead on his evaluations. Shouto, of course, is perfect. He has no criticisms. Bakugou needs to work on his interpersonal skills, not that Enji is one to talk, and Midoriya didn’t injure himself this time, but that was only because they were assisting with a bridge collapse and not an actual fight. He gets a pass, but the kid’s on thin ice.

Not that he would ever admit this, but evaluating the three interns is the paperwork he hates the least. This is the first time taking on so many at once, and it was only because of Shouto, but as much as it is an inconvenience, it’s also a positive. 

A lot like a certain time of day set aside in his schedule, but that’s not something he would ever admit either.

Enji doesn’t change at the agency like he usually does because he’ll have to switch to his workout clothes as soon as he gets home anyway. The thirty minutes he spends in the car in his hero costume, however, is considerably unpleasant, and it makes him restless. 

The fabric is designed to resist his own body’s flames, but it clings to every inch of him and rubs unforgivingly at the seated crease behind his knees, and by the time he gets home, his whole mood is soured. He can only hope that Hawks behaves himself this time, but that’s always a gamble.

He unlocks his front door, unsure of what to expect when he walks inside. It’s the first time in a while that he’s coming home to a house that isn’t empty, but it’s the wrong person waiting for him. Hawks, for any reason, shouldn’t be in there, and the fact that Enji finds the most alarming is that he doesn’t find it alarming at all.

He steps inside, and of course every light is on in the house. The TV is on at a considerable volume although he’s sure go warm up doesn’t include make yourself at home in my living room. He heads to the living room first with a puff of steam to scold him, but Hawks isn’t there. Well, Hawks is, but he’s on the screen for a Red Bull commercial. Of course.

Other than the added distractions, it seems Hawks did what he was told after all so Enji heads down to the gym to tell him that he’s home and that he’ll join him in a minute. Except Hawks isn’t there either. 

Okay, that’s weird.

“Hawks,” he calls out. It’s possible he hid thinking one of the children came home again. This is a secret he’s so determined to keep that he’s managed to go more than a month of training together without making a single joke about it when they see each other on the job. He also takes it as a sign that Hawks hasn’t mentioned it to any of his friends and colleagues since none of them have asked Enji about it.

He exhales. He can change and then text Hawks that it’s just him, and then he’ll fly back, and they’ll get back to business as usual. Enji doesn’t have a plan for their training yet, but he never really does. At least this gives him a moment to reset himself after work.

He goes back into the living room to turn off the television, and he hears an odd clanking deep inside his house. Flames jut out under his nose as he considers the possibility of an intruder (his walls aren’t fireproof yet), and he follows the sound until he’s hit with an odor that puts him on high alert.

It’s a salty smell with the undertone of boiled meat, and he racks his brain in the ten seconds he has before they meet, what kind of villain could be waiting for him around the corner. Some kind of person with a swamp quirk, no doubt. He’ll need to be cautious of venomous fangs.

It enrages him that his home may have been infiltrated by filth , and what’s worse is that Hawks may have been followed here, and this is just a huge mess he never wanted to clean up. Too many complications, too many layers, too many inconveniences, and there’s someone in his house.

He raises a hand ready to take out his own kitchen, but when he finally rounds the corner, he sees a pair of red wings that settles his nerves before his anger peaks up again. Why is Hawks in his kitchen, and why is his kitchen a mess?

Undiscarded food scraps cover the countertops. There are pots boiling over on the stove, and Hawks wedges his spatula under what looks like a very burnt layer of okonomiyaki. Enji expects the rage to flare up, but it doesn’t come. Instead he’s just confused.

Hawks looks over his shoulder and winks. “Evenin’ hot stuff.”

There it is.

“What are you doing?”

“Don’t be mad,” he starts. His back is turned to him, still cooking away with no intention of stopping. “So when the kids came over last night, I happened to hear that you didn’t have any food. I wasn’t eavesdropping or anything, but anyways, I got here early, and I was totally gonna train, but then I was like, shit Endeavor is gonna starve to death. So I went and checked out your fridge, and saw that yeah, you’re pretty low on supplies, big guy, but then I’m like shit, he can’t go grocery shopping if he’s too busy saving my ass from getting turned into a McNugget, and I know how you feel about takeout so I flew down to the market to pick up some things. Consider it me saying thank you or whatever.”

Enji should be furious, shouldn’t he? This is an invasion of privacy on all accounts, but then again, when is the last time someone cooked for him because they wanted to who wasn’t his own daughter? He thinks back as far as he can remember, and even the meals he ate as a child were prepared by staff who worked for his family. By all accounts, Enji should be furious, but he just can’t bring himself to be.

“This is your own time you’re wasting.”

Hawks turns towards him and points with his spatula. “Showing someone gratitude is not a waste of time.”

He turns back to the stove and fiddles with one of the lids. “You can kick my ass after we eat.”

Enji huffs. This is not how their training is supposed to go. If Hawks isn’t taking this seriously then he needs to go find someone else to help him, but why is Enji too tired to say so? This isn’t like him at all. He’ll have to stop by the infirmary in the morning to make sure he isn’t getting sick. Being around students this much is just asking for germs. 

“Fine.”

Hawks’s wings flutter, and damn him for that. How dare he act like a happy little bird inside Enji’s home? This is why he refuses to ever let him get his way because it does things to him that he doesn’t understand. Things that both anger him and make him want to do something as stupid as give him more excuses to react that way, and all he can do is dig his nails into his palm to hold it in.

He watches from the doorway. Hawks lifts the lid from the biggest pot and throws in what Enji prays is a handful of fresh herbs and not a wad of clippings from his front lawn. He seems quite at home here. That is not going to be a long term thing.

Hawks doesn’t seem to mind him watching. Even though his back is turned, Enji knows he’s aware of every inch of the house, and he makes a note that Hawks knew he was home and looking for him and neglected to come and find him. He will pretend like Hawks was just making sure that he didn’t burn down his kitchen, but he suspects it was for the reaction. Hmph. Seems he got what he wanted.

“Intern day?”

“Mhm.”

“How is Shouto handling his quirk? Better than the sports festival?”

“There was nothing wrong with how he performed at the sports festival,” Enji huffs.

“Mm. He lost control and fainted,” Hawks says, but it’s just an observation with a small amount of concern so Enji lets him live. His son is not weak. “Is that still happening?”

“No, that was corrected.”

“Good,” he nods. “He’s amazing, you know.”

“I know.”

“Two quirks that powerful…,” Hawks whistles. “It’s scary, you know. The fact that his body hasn’t turned into pudding is incredible.”

“Hawks,” Enji warns without his usual bite. The harm these quirks have done to his children is not something he wants to talk about or think about, and he definitely doesn’t want it talked about by other people.

“Sorry,” he mutters. Oh?

“I just think he’s strong,” he says. “And I haven’t been around him a lot, but he talks about the job like he really wants to save people and that this isn’t just a fame thing. Like, it’s cool if someone is in it for the money, like, I like buying shit too, you know, but he seems like he’s gonna be one of the good ones.”

“Thank you,” he swallows. That shouldn’t make him as happy as it does, but he’s been so proud of Shouto ever since he watched his provisional license exam. Shouto is good . Shouto changed what it means to be the best for him. Shouto changed him.

“You did good with that one.”

“That… wasn’t me,” he admits, and it leaves a bitter taste in his mouth. Hawks glances back at him, but he doesn’t say anything else about it.

Silence falls, and Enji folds his arms across his chest as he stands on the edge of his own kitchen, and Hawks looks more comfortable in there than he does. He looks a little too comfortable. 

He turns and moves back to the cutting board where he scoops up the cleaned and peeled shrimp in his hands, and Enji makes a sound like he’s choking. What the fuck is he wearing?

“What is that,” he demands, a scowl pinching sharply between his own eyebrows. He glares at the flour smudged apron hanging around Hawks’s neck while his own flaming visage stares back. 

“It’s my Limited Edition First Series Endeavor Apron,” he says as a matter of fact. “I have the oven mitts too and the matching pot holders, but I didn’t wanna carry them with me all the way here.”

“I know what it is,” he grits. He can recognize his own merch no matter how useless he thinks having his own line of cookware is, but come on. “Why are you wearing that?”

“Because I didn’t want to get my clothes dirty,” he blinks, and then Enji’s point registers. “What, was I supposed to go buy a new one?”

Enji huffs out a puff of steam. “No.”

Hawks smooths out his apron and frowns like he did something wrong, and Enji might feel a little bad. No he doesn’t, this is weird. Hawks shouldn’t have his merch, let alone wear it in his house while he makes him dinner. It’s not normal.

“Kinda funny though.”

“Why is that?”

“You two match,” he chuckles and points to the flour covered Endeavor on his apron, and Enji looks down at himself still in his hero costume covered in concrete dust.

“I’m going to go change.”

Hawks flashes a smile, and it’s terrible. He’s so smug and a pain in his ass, and yet for some reason, Enji lets him live to fight another day. And his stupid apron.

Once he’s alone in the kitchen, Hawks glances down at his apron and wonders if it was a little much. You’d think a hero would be used to seeing his own merch around. Like, why would Hawks spend a stupid amount of money on a hoodie he has to cut up when he can just get one of his own at the agency for free?

Although, now that he’s spent some time in Endeavor’s home (holy shit), he realizes that he doesn’t really have anything about himself as Endeavor the hero around here. The home is traditionally Japanese and minimalistic with a few modern touches, there’s no merch sitting around which is strange considering most heroes keep their own posters and figurines on display, and if there are any awards or plaques, he either has them boxed up somewhere in storage or possibly in his office. 

This looks like the home of a bank CEO, not someone who spent his whole life working as a hero. 

I do not want work in my home.

Hawks unfastens the string around his waist and tugs the strap around his neck up over his head. He wads the apron up and stuffs it somewhere off to the side out of sight. He’s almost finished anyway, but if he gets shit on his clothes, then he gets shit on his clothes. 

By the time the food finishes up, Endeavor returns cleaned up a little, and wow does that do things to Hawks’s head. This is his home. His kitchen. This whole thing was just a way to thank him and to sort of apologize for taking up too much of his time lately, but this is the first personal interaction they’ve ever had. No work, no villains, no secret training, just two people sharing a meal.

Why the fuck did I think this was a good idea?

“I just have to put everything in bowls,” Hawks swallows.

“Mm.”

“Where are your bowls?”

Endeavor glances at him and down to where his apron was, and his face is unreadable and expressionless which makes Hawks feel naked. Maybe he should have left it on. 

He crosses the kitchen and opens up one of the cabinets without a comment, and Hawks turns to stir the pot (literally this time) to have something to do with his hands. “How many do you need?”

It’s not a fancy meal by any means. It’s just a stew he figured out how to make when his body craves a vegetable every now and then ladled over a bowl of udon with some cabbage pancakes that he may or may not have ruined when Endeavor came home. He’s not sure if he’s a meat and potatoes kind of guy or a chicken breast and salad type because, well, Endeavor never feels like talking about himself, but he knows he likes healthy food, and this is kind of healthy. 

They eat at his dinner table, and oh god, Hawks is having a real meal in Endeavor’s home at his table, and it’s not him stuffing his face with greasy takeout while confined to Endeavor’s kitchen so he won’t make a mess. So far he has only been allowed in two rooms: the kitchen for his greasy food and the gym for training. He looks around the room in awe. He’s really allowed to be here? (For this moment, at least).

“What?”

“It’s so clean in here,” Hawks says instead of what he’s really thinking. 

“That’s what happens when you take care of your home.”

“I take care of mine,” he challenges. The difference is, Hawks’s home looks lived in. It’s tidy, and he keeps the bathroom clean for guests, but the point is his home is meant to be lived in by himself and guests. Endeavor’s home looks like he probably doesn’t actually use more than his office and his bedroom. Well that’s none of his business, now is it. “It’s just nice.”

“Thank you.”

“Mhm.”

Hawks doesn’t love sitting on the floor when his wings are at their fullest. They sag to the ground and pool around him, and he has to be careful not to drag them into his food, but he needs them to get back and forth and he’s been flying a lot lately so he just has to do his best not to fuss with them too much while he’s around another person. 

Endeavor glances at him, his eyes too careful, and boy does that feel strange. At least when he glares, it’s funny. This feels like an evaluation, and Hawks doesn’t want to know how well or how poorly he scores. “Would you prefer to eat in the kitchen?”

“Am I bothering you?”

“No. You just look uncomfortable.”

“It’s fine,” he pushes one of them back. “Perks of having quirks.”

He hums and reaches for his spoon, and Hawks does not mean to watch him eat, but this is a once in a lifetime opportunity. He lifts a bit of the broth to his mouth, and Hawks holds his breath, and then Endeavor makes the worst face he’s ever seen a composed man make. Hawks cannot stop the snort that comes out before he covers his own mouth for laughing. 

“Sorry.”

“This tastes,” he pauses. “Terrible.”

“I never said I knew how to cook.”

Endeavor’s face goes from disbelief to anger to frustration and to something Hawks doesn’t recognize before it settles back to indifferent. He directs his attention back to his food and tears off a piece of his, err, discolored pancake. 

“I really trie–, Hawks starts before watching him bring the pancake up to his mouth, and there’s no way that’s going to end well. “Oh god, you don’t have to eat that!”

He chews slowly with a straight face, eyes locked to the plate, and Hawks is seconds away from lunging across the table to force it out of his mouth. 

“It’s fine,” he says, and Hawks’s entire body runs cold. “Thank you for the food.”

“You don’t–.”

“Aren’t you going to eat?”

Hawks blinks, dumbfounded. “Oh, sure, yeah.”

He swallows hard before going for his own bowl of soup, just waiting for Endeavor to grab him by the feathers and chuck him out. He lifts a trembling spoon to his lips and manages to get all of the broth in his mouth without spilling it down the front of his shirt like an idiot, but when he tastes it, his eyes go wide. Oh dear.

“I think I forgot the salt,” he manages, the broth still sitting under his tongue.

“Yes, it seems so.”

“And the dashi….”

“Mm.”

“And the miso.”

“Yes.”

Hawks swallows the bit he sampled and nods solemnly. This is, by far, the worst soup he’s ever had in his life. “Tastes like boiled shoe rubber.”

Endeavor turns his head and a puff of steam comes out of both nostrils in two pronounced streams, and holy fuck was that a laugh? Does this count? Did he just unlock a hidden achievement?

“It’s not that bad,” Hawks all but whines. He doesn’t want to ruin this by drawing attention to it the way you never tell a cat you’re filming them, but he just witnessed a miracle. Endeavor cracked just enough that he had to expel steam to hold himself together, and Hawks has gotten enough steam puffs out of him to know that this isn’t his usual angry mustache of pain. He was amused by him.

“Eat your pancake,” he says, and honestly if he wasn’t doing this to make Hawks taste how bad his cooking is, he would kinda be into being told what to do, not that he’d give in so easily.

“I’m fine.”

He doesn’t even have to say Hawks. He just looks at him, and suddenly Hawks is tugging at the edge of the pancake with his spoon out of fear and giving it a try and holy shit, did he forget to peel the onion?

“Huh.”

“Mm.”

Hawks chews and swallows, twisting his own face in thought as he evaluates the first (and only) meal he’s ever made for Endeavor to figure out exactly what that taste is. Ah, so that’s what he did. “Found the salt.”

Enji at least has rice and eggs in his house. He mostly eats at the agency now unless Fuyumi drops a few containers off when she visits, but it’s the food that goes bad quickly is what he’s low on.

This isn’t at all how they’re supposed to spend their evenings together. Hawks isn’t supposed to be here when he’a not training, but he cannot bring himself to make them eat whatever it was that Hawks claimed was food. It only took a few mutually disgusted bites before Enji decided to take matters into his own hands.

He cracks a few eggs into a bowl, estimating what would be enough for a meal for two active adult men, and ends up using up the whole carton. Hawks watches from the kitchen island, but he is not allowed to help.

“Can I help?”

“No.”

“It wasn’t that bad.”

“You can eat it then.”

“Has anyone ever told you that your back looks really good when you whisk eggs like that?”

Enji huffs a laugh, but otherwise chooses to ignore him. Hawks left his kitchen a mess, but there’s enough leftover vegetables scattered here and there on cutting boards and in mixing bowls that he has enough to throw a few handfuls in with the eggs. He does not like to waste food.

Hawks’s stew will be used as fertilizer. 

“Whatcha makin’?” Hawks leans forward, propped up on his wrists.

“You’ll see.”

“Hmph.”

Enji smiles to himself, his back turned to Hawks so that he never sees it. Maybe he likes his own small acts of revenge here and there.

He takes the ladle and pours some of the mixture in the pan with a sharp sizzle. This isn’t something he’s made a lot so there’s a chance they’re going to be getting a pan of roughly curdled scrambled eggs, but if he gets it right…

He lets the eggs set before rolling them up carefully, adding a tiny bit more oil, sliding the egg roll back, and pouring more of the mixture into the pan. He repeats until the final roll is sizable and difficult to move, but there’s enough eggs left in the bowl to make a second smaller one. 

The rice cooker beeps that it’s done and the contents gets spooned into two bowls, and he slices both egg rolls and sets them on a plate on the counter. He pretends he does not see the way Hawks’s eyes sparkle up at him while he’s perched on the stool.

“I didn’t know you could cook.”

“I can a little.”

He used to help Fuyumi in the kitchen on his days off or whenever he came home early and could jump in. It’s not a big deal, but sometimes he misses it. 

They eat in the kitchen so Hawks can sit up high enough that his wings don’t get in the way. He doesn’t say anything about it, but he seems more relaxed now. They’ll just have to get used to eating in here, then. Enji frowns at himself and chases the thought away. They are not making a habit out of this.

“What,” Hawks asks, noticing the face.

Enji chooses not to tell him because there isn’t a need to bring it up, but instead decides to use this as an opportunity to talk to him about something else that’s been bothering him.

“You’re a fast learner.”

“Mm. Thank you.”

“Too fast.”

Hawks glances at him. “It took us like a month to spar for the first time.”

“Only because I’m making you slow down.”

He makes a face like he doesn’t understand what Enji means so Enji continues.

“Your impatience is reckless,” he says. “I know because I built my whole career on it, and I’m still trying to fix the mess I made of the rest of my own life. You get too caught up in being a hero and being the best, and you do things that ruin the people around you, and then they stop taking it and you’re left with no one to stop you. And people who don’t have someone they care about make reckless decisions they can’t take back.”

“I’ve loved someone half my life actually,” he says lightly. “Probably more than that, but who’s counting.”

“I didn’t realize–.”

“It’s one sided, but everything I do is so that one day I can be someone who deserves to stand next to him,” he looks at him and gives him a half smile, and it hurts a little for some reason. This is Hawks, the cocky bastard who always has his feathers in Enji’s business, and he still has the audacity to doubt himself. “I am running out of time though.”

Enji raises an eyebrow.

“I can’t tell you anything, and I’m sorry, but me being here… is because I don’t want to be reckless,” Hawks adds. “Thank you, though, for caring. One day if all this works out, I’m gonna owe ya big time.”

A silence falls, and Enji gathers his thoughts. Has he done enough to help Hawks, or has he hindered his progress? And why does this feel like there’s something Hawks isn’t telling him? He knows there is because he’s been nothing but clear that he can’t tell him anything, but it’s like he’s keeping something from him specifically.  

“This isn’t about improving your overall technique in combat, is it.”

“Nope.”

“How much time?”

“Can’t tell ya.”

Enji frowns. 

“Because you’re the number one,” he smiles faintly. “You do heroic things sometimes.”

That frown turns into a huff, and he doesn’t like how easy that was. Alright, so he doesn’t want him to interfere. Or help. Fine. They’ll just have to train harder.

“If your progress suffers, we will go back to the basics.”

Hawks’s whole face reacts in surprise, cheeks full of food, and he looks more like an owl than a… well. “Are we...?”

He nods. “It’s late so not tonight. I don’t want to be up all night cleaning this up after.”

“I got it,” Hawks jumps up. “Dishes, I can do!”

“Finish your dinner.”

“No time! Gotta clean!”

There he is.

Hawks can’t say he isn’t nervous. Up until now, there has been this comfortable shield to hide behind made of sandbags and gloves and large strong men who throw fake punches a toddler could dodge, and now that’s gone.

It’s the next day, and Hawks is in Endeavor’s gym alone with his thoughts, and the whole house is so quiet he can’t stand it. He thinks about turning on some music, but he can’t risk making any noise in case one of the kids drops by. He’s allowed to be here, and he knows the Todoroki family can be trusted, but the less people who know about this, the better. Even Rumi doesn’t know.

Endeavor is late because of a villain attack not far from his office. The fact that villains still fuck around near his agency is mind blowing because how stupid does someone have to be to walk into the lion’s den with some water guns and their clown shoes on? Whatever, if they want to get their asses kicked, that’s their business, but Hawks knows first hand they don’t have to go so far to make that happen.

— do you need help?

— No. 

“No,” he mocked to himself as he flew over a neighborhood. He considered dropping by anyway because they’re a team. Endeavor just doesn’t realize it yet. But he kept his flight path because if he needed help, he’d ask. No, he wouldn’t, but Hawks would feel it in his bones if he was actually in trouble, he thinks, and this felt more like a dumbass tried to cover the whole street in strawberry jam delay. Actually, that might be more up Hawks’s alley than Endeavor’s but fuck it, if he’s got it, he’s got it.

It’s only been twenty minutes since he got here. The house was empty when he arrived, and it’s still empty, and it feels wrong. Why? Why is this so fucking weird?

Because I’m inserting myself into this man’s life.

Hawks breaks out into one of those stupid pointless jumping jacks and flings himself up and down with a fury until he shakes that thought out of his own head.

No I’m not, this is business. This is the most professional shit I’ve ever done in my life. I am behaving.

His wings slap against the ground and send sharp painful shocks throughout his body, but he doesn’t stop because he thinks if he does at this rate he’ll vomit.

Just making him dinner and letting him cook for you because you couldn’t do that right and not training. Concerning yourself. Doing more.

Shut up.

Hawks drops to the ground into a pushup. If he had crossed a line, Endeavor would have kicked him out and told him not to come back, but he didn’t because Hawks didn’t do anything wrong, and his brain needs to shut up.

That’s because he doesn’t know you did.

That thought grips Hawks around the neck, and he feels himself choke. Time is running out, and he can’t afford to screw this up because he needs him. Hawks, for all his reckless decisions, doesn’t want to die, and he sure doesn’t want to die in a small metal cage for sport. He has to be stronger. He won’t have the air to save him so he has no other choice to be here, but when he ends this, he swears to himself that he won’t come back. 

This house is not a place he can allow himself to be no matter how much he wants to.

Hawks isn’t sure how much time has passed by the time he hears the front door shut. His body freezes mid-pushup, and he listens carefully. The steps are heavy and solid and slightly uneven, and he relaxes. He doesn’t have to hide.

He stands back up to his feet and smoothes down his clothes. His shirt sticks to the sweat on his chest, and his arms feel like jelly but his mind is clear by the time Endeavor comes into the gym.

“Catch the villain?”

“Yes,” he says. No explanation or story? Alright. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

He can’t tell if this is awkward because it’s awkward or if this is just how Endeavor’s personality reacts when Hawks isn’t fucking with him, but he slinks back into the room towards the bench with his wings tucked between his legs. He chugs his water and forces himself to think about the lesson. It doesn’t feel like there’s anything else he has to learn, but fuck he doesn’t feel closer than he did a month ago. 

“Are you warmed up,” Endeavor returns in his workout clothes, and okay, this feels better. Back to the routine. Hawks can work with this.

“Never been more warmed up in my life!”

“Hm,” he frowns. No really, Hawks just warmed up his problems away, he just didn’t see it.

“What about you? Do you need me to go hide outside while you break a sweat?”

“I’m still conditioned from the fight,” he says. 

“Cool, cool,” he nods before slapping his hands together. “So what’s it gonna be? Bags, boobs, or b-gloves?”

“None,” he ignores him. He’s getting a little too good at that, actually. Hawks will have to step up his game. “Do you know how to wrap your hands?”

Hawks blinks in surprise. “What?”

“You said you’re running out of time, right?”

“Yeah, but–.”

“If you don’t know how, I’ll wrap them for you,” he says as he starts to wrap his own hands in white straps permanently stained with blood that look like they haven’t been used in a while. “Just this once. You’ll need to learn how to do it yourself for the future.”

He takes a breath and exhales until he expels all the air from his lungs. Everything up until this point was training wheels and pool floaties, and his heart pounds in his chest as he looks at the way his hands look, bound and powerful. 

“This is going to hurt, isn’t it.”

“Not if you dodge.”

Hawks isn’t afraid. Hawks wasn’t afraid when he wrapped his own hands (he’s not a child, you know), and he wasn’t afraid when they moved to the mat in the center of the room, and he isn’t afraid now that he’s looking into Endeavor’s eyes to predict his next move. 

He’s not afraid because he knows whatever he’ll do to him can’t be as bad as the shit he’s seen down in the cage. He knows Endeavor won’t light himself on fire or produce blades between his knuckles or spit acid into his eyes. He knows he won’t grab his wings and yank until they’re torn off his back, and he knows he won’t crush his throat until it breaks. Hawks isn’t afraid because here he can’t die.

Hawks has been hit before. He’s fought enough villains to know how it feels to crack his ribs on another person’s knuckles or the heel of their boot. If you’re scared of getting hit, get the hell out of the kitchen, but there’s something unsettling about the few seconds before they spar. Two predators held back by very tightly bound strings, and it makes his body tense like someone afraid.

Hawks is not afraid, he’s excited.

Endeavor swings first, and holy shit it’s fast, but Hawks jerks out of the way before his fist gets the chance to sink into shoulder, and he swings back, and the sound of skin slapping against skin (or shirt, rather) reverberates in the room, and Endeavor actually makes a small pained noise in surprise.

“Holy shit,” Hawks breathes. “My bad.”

He waits for the scolding he’s earned, but instead Endeavor palms at the spot he hit with a huff, and Hawks can barely believe his eyes, but he smiles. He grins as he resettles, and Hawks is reminded of a bloodthirsty tiger, and it’s a rush. 

What the fuck did I just do?

“Again.”

Hawks moves like a natural. Enji thought he would have to be careful with him, but Hawks isn’t made of glass. He is small, but he’s fast, and his eyes move quicker than Enji’s hands ever could. He actually makes him break a sweat.

The first hit took him by surprise because he expected a little hesitation because, well, he’s been working with Hawks for a month, but the punch still stings where his knucks hit, and god it feels good. Sparring with Hawks has become the most selfish act he allows himself these days, but it’s a win win situation. He’s getting stronger, but he’ll be damned if he lets Hawks take number one from him.

“Phew,” Hawks wheezes as he narrowly grazes one of his ribs. “Kinda missin’ those sandbags right about now.”

“You scared?”

“No, they just don’t move,” he strains as he lunges towards Enji, he puts his weight in it, and thanks to their height distance, it lands below his ribs and sinks into his gut, and Enji heaves. “Fuck.”

He doubles over on instinct, and Hawks lets him catch his breath, but he doesn’t apologize. Good. Enji can take it, and Hawks needs to get rough like he’s a real opponent. Worst comes to worst, he has his own team of medics on call. “Use your knees.”

“What?”

“Do you need me to show you how to?”

“... no.”

“Use the lower half of your body stop me.”

“Stop you?!”

Enji looks up, and fear flashes across Hawks’s face for just a moment before it’s replaced with something closer to hunger. Hit me, I can take it, but can you?

Hawks comes at him once he catches his breath, and Enji catches his leg before it digs into his thigh.

“Hey!”

“Don’t make it obvious.”

“How did I make that obvious! I was super fast.”

“You kneed me as soon as I told you to.”

“You would have kicked my ass if I threw a punch instead!”

“Then do both.”

“Excuse me?”

“Swing, grab, pull, and knee,” he says. “It’s a self defense basic.”

“Oh, yeah, sure you’re not gonna see that coming.”

“I’ll close my eyes.”

“You’re fucking joking,” Hawks says. “What did we say about you telling jokes.”

Enji closes his eyes and waves him forward.

“No one’s ever gonna fucking believe this,” Hawks mutters under his breath. “Fucking Endeavor is ten years old.”

“I’m waiting.”

He hears Hawks move towards him thanks to the flap that follows him, and his hands grab his collar, and Enji stands up, forcing Hawks off the ground. So what if he stretches his shirt out? This is a teaching moment.

Hawks drops back to the ground with an annoyed grunt, and Enji opens his eyes.

He blinks up at him, and his face is twisted up in something between rage and confusion. “Are you serious?”

“You need to take account for your opponent’s weight. Getting your target off their feet gives you the advantage.”

“Don’t you act like you did that for my benefit,” Hawks shouts. “You mean, mean, hunk of beef steak.”

“Did you not find that educational?”

“I’m gonna kill you.”

“But you’re doing so well.”

Enji does not expect the heel that sinks its way into his chest, but he supposes, in retrospect, he should have.

A week passes, and their lessons evolve enough that Enji no longer has to give instructions or make corrections. He comments when necessary, but the gym is mostly filled with the sounds of their hits and the huffs of pain and determination that come with them. 

It’s comfortable and energizing, and it already feels like this has been part of his normal routine for years. He might like sparring with Hawks more than he should, but that’s his own business.

Some days he’s more sore than others, but it doesn’t really hit him how sore he is until a villain group attacks, and several surrounding agencies are called in including his own and he has to use his body with his full force after a long night of training against someone whose energy exceeds his own.

It’s a bank raid with reported hostages, and it’s impossible to get inside because the front and back doors have been sealed by the suspected leader who can melt and mold any metal he touches. Of course they’re robbing a bank. Why wouldn’t you rob a bank when you can liquify the whole vault?

Because all the exits and windows are covered in molten steel, it’s impossible to bust through with brute force, and they have to be careful with explosive quirks because the civilians inside are trapped without a way for the heroes to know if the team rigged anything dangerous on the inside. Fire in an enclosed and unknown space like this, assuming he could even find a way in, could be deadly. Enji is pretty much useless here.

Well, he would be, but the outside of the bank is guarded by a handful of villains with quirks meant to keep the heroes out, and those he can manage. It’s hard for him to admit this, especially since he takes so much pride in his own individual strength, but he thinks his sessions with Hawks are helping him improve too.

His reaction time is the fastest it’s ever been, and his body is conditioned to fight like it was when he was younger, and it’s probably because of the fact that Hawks is the first person in the better part of fifteen years who isn’t afraid to punch (or try to punch) him in the face. He will have to have a word with his own fitness team at the agency to correct this once he’s finished here. 

He takes down four villains by himself before he really feels it. He rolls them off of the side, unconscious from the blows, and one seems to have a nose bleed. Oops. 

He doesn’t even have to rely on his fire as much, and for that, his overall stamina sees a noticeable improvement. He could probably take down five more of these brute types before he needs assistance, but he doesn’t get the chance to test it out because the next thing he knows, he’s frozen in his tracks by the sound of glass shattering from somewhere above.

He and everyone else on the ground look up, and he sees a flash of red that makes him hold his breath.

Hawks flings himself backwards through the top floor window and drops before his wings catch a draft and steady him safely in the air. Someone who Enji assumes is the person with the metal melting quirk dangles from Hawks’s hands, screaming in horror as he swings in the air twelve stories above the ground.

“Put me down!”

“Don’t think you want me to do that!”

“Put me down safely!”

“No!”

Hawks swoops down in a sharp dive, too fast even for him, and Enji’s stomach bottoms out as the two plummet towards the ground. 

“The cuffs,” Hawks shouts out. “Fat Gum, catch!”

Before he hits the ground, he slings the villain sideways right into Fat Gum’s stomach, and he sinks in deep where he can’t get out. That’s one way to handle someone dangerous who can’t be restrained. 

He swoops back up in the air past a group of police on the ground and circles above until he lowers his speed enough to come back safely. Once he lands, a nearby crowd cheers, and he puts on a show of flashing his wings and smiling like he didn’t break a sweat, and Enji lets out a breath of relief. For a moment there he pictured Hawks slipping up and splattering on the pavement or dropping the villain to the same fate, and it isn’t something he wants to think about again. 

They both gravitate towards Fat Gum who’s calling in the retrieval as a success. Enji’s legs feel like jelly as the adrenaline drains from his body, but he doesn’t let it show. Hawks looks calm and collected, but that doesn’t mean anything here.

“Was there anyone else inside?” Enji asks. 

“Nope, he had all his friends out here to hang out with you guys,” he says. “Probably could’ve held out long enough to clear out the vault if he would have remembered to block the roof door too. Idiot.”

The villain lodged into Fat Gum mumbles something that doesn’t sound like it needs to be repeated, and Hawks walks towards them. He lifts his wrist up to reveal the piece of metal twisted around his arm and gives it a shake.

“I only let people cuff me who say please first,” he says.

Enji has heard Hawks joke like this a thousand times but still his blood boils. It’s been a while since he’s felt anger towards him, but the mere implication… it’s disgusting. He turns and leaves before he can flare up, and the heat rises up in his chest so fast that he almost can’t swallow it down, and he doesn’t understand why.

Because he’s not saying it to you this time?

Enji huffs, and it’s pure smoke, but the flames settle before anyone can notice. Before Hawks sees and asks. How in the world could he explain that after months of tolerating all of Hawks’s terrible and inappropriate jokes, the one time one of them enrages him is because it was directed to someone else?

It seems their spending too much time together lately has resulted in him concerning himself with things that have nothing to do with him. That too will need to be corrected.

He walks over to where his sidekicks are rounding up the villains he knocked out and the few they captured without him, and it’s back to business as usual. After cross checking with the registry, his team finds that none of them have quirks that affect metal and are handcuffed the normal way and hauled off one by one into a police van.

He hears a loud flap and looks back to see Hawks fly back up to the roof, and a few minutes later, he’s back carrying someone out with him. He flies more carefully this time, setting them down gently and pointing them towards the paramedics to get checked out. He takes off again, and he repeats this over and over again while the rescue team on the ground begins cutting through the walls around the melted steel. The “door” falls with a loud bang, and the rest of the trapped civilians spill out at once.

There aren’t any casualties or serious injuries, but the damage to the building and the vault means that the bank will be shut down for the next few months. The heroes on the scene can consider it a success, but he’s sure that there are many others who would quickly disagree. Ever since the League’s first attack on UA, the hero world can’t face enough scrutiny. It’s beginning to become something they all have come to expect, and it leaves a bad taste in his mouth. What will happen to the world when it decides it doesn’t need them anymore?

The paperwork is going to be a nightmare, even if it couldn’t have gone better. His team alone rounded up eight villains, and that doesn’t account for the other agencies on the scene or for Hawks who will have his own mess to deal with for, assuming, unauthorized infiltration. Enji can't say he agrees with the commission’s standard for regulation, but after this many years, he’s learned it’s just easier to deal with the paperwork after ignoring a few rules which is what he imagines Hawks will be doing for the rest of the week.

This will definitely put the breaks on their training, he thinks, and the exhaustion of the last few weeks finally catches up to him once he’s back at his agency. There isn’t enough ice in the city for him to soak in after this.

—you still good to go later?

He glances down at his phone and thinks. He’s really too tired for this, but Hawks spent the better half of the day carrying people out of the building to safety after capturing the villain group’s leader by himself, and he still somehow is concerned with their sparring session. He won’t let him get the edge on him. Not now, not ever.

— Yes.

Enji’s home is empty when he gets there. It seems he was right about Hawks having his own special mountain of paperwork, and he heads to the gym on his own.

It’s been a while since he worked with his weights, and it seems his overhead machine is gathering dust. He stretches briefly before sitting on the seat and setting the weight to something manageable. He knows he can handle more, but with the wear on his body from earlier, he doesn’t want to slow himself down before they train.

He pulls at the bar, and instantly he feels the burn travel down his back, and it’s a familiar feeling, but oddly lonely. It reminds him that this is how he got as strong as he is, alone and in a gym not much different than this one constantly tearing and building his own body until it suited him. It’s nice in a way, but it doesn’t empty his head the way swinging at Hawks does. He can almost hear Hawks laugh at him in his head as he thinks about it. 

— You hate me that much, don’t you?

— Not as much as I’d like.

“Whatcha smilin’ about, hot stuff?”

Enji startles, and the bar slips from his hands back up to the top with a clank. 

“I was not smiling.”

“Oh you just look like that then, huh,” he grins, and Enji bristles. “Wait until the world finds out. They’ll have to redo all your merch.”

“Get out of my house.”

“Now, now,” Hawks coddles as he pulls off his uniform jacket and sets it to the side. “You wouldn’t kick your ole buddy Hawks out now wouldya? We’re practically a team!”

“We are not.”

He doesn’t even flinch at the words, but Enji didn’t bother to put any kind of bite to them. He knows Hawks doesn’t care, and Hawks knows he doesn’t mean it. 

“You see the news,” he asks as he sets the rest of his gear down, goggles, gloves, ear protectors, and all, until he’s down to the thin suit he wears underneath all the different layers that make him as recognizable as he does even when his wings have shed.

“Did your spectacle work?”

“Spectacle,” he laughs. “No, I was talking about Number One Hero Takes Down Group of Villains Without Activating Quirk.”

“Oh.”

“That,” he starts before turning around with his hands on his hips. “Was impressive.”

“It’s not as flashy as diving out of a window.”

Hawks shrugs. “Had to be done. Oh! You’re not gonna believe how useful this whole practicing thing was. Usually I’m pretty much useless indoors, but I was able to get the guy by myself without a scratch. Well, sort of.”

He lifts up his arm that had the cuff around it, and that sickness pools in Enji’s stomach again. “I see you had it taken care of.”

“They had to cut it off, which, was not fun, by the way. Like I know it wouldn’t take much for a medic to patch me back up, but they got a fucking torch out like I was a banged up car, and I thought for a minute they were gonna take my whole arm with it! Listen, I know we’re not allowed to bargain with villains, but I would’ve totally lobbied to get that guy cable and wifi if he woulda taken it off for me.”

“Are you hurt?”

“Just emotionally.”

Enji closes his eyes and exhales. Why does he think he likes these sessions again? What was the reason?

“Don’t think I’m gonna go easy on you just because we had a tough job today,” Hawks says, answering his own questions for him.

“Go easy on me? Is that what you’ve been doing?”

“Of course. Can’t let you wear yourself out on me.”

Enji stands up, now towering over him like he should be, and cracks his neck, and he swears if just for a split second he sees Hawks’s face flash an interesting shade of red.

Scared? He should be.

This session is hard. This session is frustratingly hard. Hawks doesn’t seem to be taking it seriously at all, and Enji can’t seem to get his hands on him no matter how hard he tries.

It started out like usual. They warmed up separately, and Hawks whined like a toddler when Enji made him stretch more because of the day they had.

“How much glass did they pull out of you,” he asked as he pulled Hawks’s hands past his feet. Quick healed muscles are stiff, and he didn’t need him to lock up in the middle of his gym from misuse. 

“Just a few pieces,” he half shouted. “Fuck, I’m good, okay! And your hands are hot!”

“Sorry,” he let go, and Hawks sprang back, much too rigid for his own good. That… did not last long.

“That was just an observation,” he said before standing up. “Come on, I’m good to go.”

“If you hurt yourself–“

“You’ll heroically toss me over your shoulder and carry me to safety, yeah, yeah, I got it.”

“I will not.”

“A guy can dream.”

“Hawks.”

Because of Hawks’s condition, Enji hesitated, and that was a mistake, because birds of prey don’t miss a thing.

Seeing Enji’s caution awakened some sort of demon inside him that Enji is two seconds away from strangling. 

He swings, and Hawks dodges. He doesn’t just dodge, he flutters away, and it’s like Enji is chasing around a bank note tied to a string, and the second he slows down to catch his breath, Hawks strikes, and it’s a sharp jab that pinches from within.

“Come on,” he baits, and Enji grinds his teeth. “You forget how to throw a hit?”

He huffs and lunges forward, and Hawks is gone, carried by his wings enough that he hops out of reach.

“Hawks, quit fucking aroung,” he says, out of breath.

“Language!” Hawks gasps. “I didn’t think you had it in you!”

“Come here!”

“Quit being slow!”

Up until this point, Hawks has been a good student, but now he’s pissing him off, and what pisses Enji off more is that he can’t keep up with him. No matter how fast or how strong he is, he can’t get his hands on him, and it drives him crazy.

Has Hawks been holding back this whole time or has he surpassed him even here?

Was this some sort of joke?

“Figured out,” he says before taking a breath. “When fighting that metal dude. If I keep jumping. I’m hard to catch.”

“Then quit jumping.”

“Okay!”

He doesn’t see him move because, well, he’s probably the fastest hero second to Gran Torino, but Hawks dodges his next swing, and Enji feels a jolt in his leg, and his knee buckles, and suddenly he’s on his back staring up at the ceiling with Hawks straddling his lap.

“Whoo!” Hawks cheers. “Finally got ya! You know how long I’ve been waiting to get you back for fucking kicking my knee in?”

Enji blinks up at him in disbelief.

“Hey, this is kind of fun,” Hawks says, squeezing his waist with his thighs. “We should do this more often.”

Enji’s face twists in anger, and he shouts out something indiscernible as he rolls them and flips Hawks over onto his back, pinning him down so that he can’t bounce away, the little shit.

“If you liked it better on top, you coulda just said so,” Hawks groans, pressed down into the mat by his weight, and Enji almost tells him to shut up, but he’s rendered speechless by the sight beneath him.

Hawks is covered in sweat and out of breath, panting to catch his breath, but with a smile plastered across his face like he’s never had a worry in his life, but that’s not what captures Enji’s attention. His wings are spread out in a perfect fan on the ground behind him, haloing Hawks in red, and Enji can’t help but trace the shape with his eyes like he needs to memorize them.

Each feather is smooth and looks soft to the touch, and they all come in different shapes and lengths depending on how long they’ve been there or what they’re used for, and he can tell how well they’ve been taken care of just by being this close. In a world where quirks can be secretly resented by the people who have them (especially animal quirks), Hawks must love his.

“Do they hurt?”

“Sometimes.”

Enji blinks back to the present, and Hawks is still pinned to the floor, but the cheeky smile he wears so easily has been replaced with an odd look that Enji has never seen on him before. 

Patience.

“Dad?”

Their eyes go wide as a voice calls from the front of the house. Enji is up and through the door before he can register the last few minutes, and he finds Fuyumi and Natsuo waiting for him with grocery bags.

“Shouto said you don’t have any food,” she explains. “And we saw the news.”

“Oh,” he swallows. Natsuo doesn’t look at him, but the fact that he’s here is progress, he thinks. “Thank you.”

“If this is a bad ti–,” she starts before her brother cuts her off.

“We won’t be staying,” he says. “You’re probably busy.”

“I’m not busy,” Enji says. He knows Hawks is long gone, and well, he doesn’t think he could go back to training with him right now anyways. He could use the distraction. “We can have dinner here, if you haven’t eaten yet.”

“That’s okay,” Fuyumi tries her best to mediate.

“I’ll order a pizza.”

Natsuo and Fuyumi both blink like he just said something unbelievable. 

“You like pizza, right?”

“Yeah,” both of his children say. Victory surges through him, but he forces himself to keep a straight face because he doesn’t want to ruin this. It’s only two out of three, and he considers driving up to UA right now to pull his son out of his dorm for the evening, but this is a victory. This is good. He can be happy about this.

“Good,” he nods. “How many pizzas do we order?”

Enji hears a hard buzz from his work phone on the table and walks across the room to get it in case there’s an emergency, but he doesn’t have to swipe past the lockscreen to see that dinner with his family won’t be interrupted.

— two large pizzas + breadsticks + large cola (don’t be a baby, sugar is good for u)

“Dad?”

“Yeah, order whatever you want,” he swallows. “It’s just my assistant. Everything’s fine.”

Isn’t it?

The next day Enji gets a text that Hawks has to fly out of town for business and to not expect him, and he doesn’t think anything about it. Hawks’s agency is located in Fukuoka so the fact that he’s seen him as much as he has lately is what’s strange. He certainly doesn’t feel like something is out of place or anything, and surely the tension he feels in his neck and shoulders comes from being knocked to the ground.

He rubs his neck idly and tries not to think about what happened there. He doesn’t let the image of Hawks on his lap, smiling like a fool fully form even though it’s like it’s been burned into his memory, and he definitely doesn’t let himself picture Hawks on the floor beneath him looking like an angel or the closest thing to one Enji will ever get to see. 

This strangeness he feels is unrelated, and he doesn’t let himself ask himself any questions that might lead to answers he doesn’t want to know such as why did Hawks’s face look like that.

Work is a welcome distraction, and for once he’s glad that the pile of paperwork this week is never ending. His sidekicks have worked hard, but he doesn’t like to shirk the responsibility and considers Hawks’s absence this week a small blessing because he hates that if he had to choose between going to train and finishing his paperwork, he might not make the right choice.

This return to his old routine is good and how it’s supposed to be, and his mind has nowhere strange to wander off to at all.

Do they hurt?

Sometimes.

“Sir,” one of the assistants knocks on his open office door. She’s new and still can’t look him in the eye, but as far as he knows, she hasn’t screwed up yet. “You have a meeting in ten.”

“Right, thank you.”

Enji’s mind doesn’t wander again.

It’s late when he finally gets home. The house is quiet, and all the lights are off like they should be, but as he walks through, he idly hits every switch he passes. He even stops to turn the television on and frowns when he sees it’s been left on the news.

“Can Endeavor alone restore the wavering confidence the people have in our hero society?”

“This is what you people get for putting everything on one person for so long,” he says gruffly. He knows he has to include himself because he saw All Might standing at the top and thought that if he stood there too, he would somehow win. Win what? 

One man falls, and instead of another rising, a second was placed there that the public doesn’t yet believe in, and it doesn’t matter how many villains he captures, they never stop coming, and if he thinks about it too much, he starts to think the way they all do, but now that he stands there, he understands more than he ever wanted to.

The idea of one was a mistake. That doesn’t mean he’s stepping down any time soon though. 

He changes the channel, not willing to let the opinions of talk show hosts poison him, and switches it to one of Hawks’s commercials. This one’s for a men’s cologne, and Enji huffs a laugh. Hawks doesn’t even wear cologne. 

He’s in a black and green suit, and a woman in a long gown wraps her jeweled arms around him, and then they are suddenly transported to a forest, and Enji cannot roll his eyes any harder. That man does not smell like pine. If someone wants to smell like Hawks, all they have to do is stand on top of a building for a few hours and then break a sweat. 

And green will never suit him the way red does.

He leaves the TV on where it is and goes back into the house to change. It’s too late to bother going to his gym, and he already ate at the agency because he will not put that garbage leftover in his fridge into his own body unless he has to. These kids and their grease. So all he has left to do is shower and go to sleep, but the unease returns, and he doesn’t like any of it one bit.

The next day is an intern day, and it’s a welcome distraction. He patrols with Shouto, Midoriya, and Bakugou, and the three of them are so noisy that he can’t think straight, and for once he’s grateful. (And, not that he will ever admit this, it’s kind of fun to watch the three of them work).

A few blocks away, they happen to catch a jewelry store robbery. Before he can move, Bakugou grabs Midoriya and launches him in the air, Midoriya kicks for momentum, and Shouto throws up a wall of ice that the kid dives off of and tackles the thief to the ground before a second wall of ice blocks them in.

“Hey, nerd, save some for the rest of us!”

“You threw me! Did you want me to wait?!”

“Well I couldn’t chunk Icy Hot with his dad here!”

Enji pretends he didn’t hear that.

“Maybe if you didn’t throw him, you could have gotten there first.”

“Shut up!”

“Can someone come help me! I can’t hold this guy all day!”

“Yes you can!”

“We don’t know what kind of quirk he has.”

Bakugou looks back like he’s going to kill Shouto, and Enji readies himself to intervene, but then the kid breaks out in one of the most sinister smiles he’s ever seen. 

“Guys!”

Shouto walks past Bakugou to help Midoriya restrain the person they caught, and Enji takes this moment to satisfy a small bit of his own curiosity.

“Why did you throw him?”

Bakugou tch’s rudely and glares off towards the other two. “Minimal damage. Hate doing the paperwork, and my blasts and his jumps would have blown the windows out.”

“Is this something they teach now at UA?”

Bakugou makes a face that could be read as why the fuck are you asking me, but it’s not like he gets the chance to talk about Shouto’s classes often. “No, that’s just me and Deku.”

Enji hums in understanding. “Bakugou.”

“What?”

“Do not throw my son.”

Intern days run longer than most anyway, and it’s not like Enji thinks he’s in the running for dad of the year (he knows, he knows), but he likes to take the kids to dinner when he can. Plus, if Midoriya and Bakugou act as a buffer between him and Shouto… he will take all the help he can get. 

Once they’re fed, he returns the three to the UA dorms, and sees Shouto walking tall between the other two while they bicker on either side of him, and it’s almost like he belongs there. No, he does belong there.

He watches until they fade out of sight and feels a deep embedded sadness that he probably deserves, and when he drives away, he does not go home because he just can’t be there right now.

He ends up back at the agency, and he’s not even in his uniform. It’s late, and most of the staff have gone home, and the ones who haven’t, he tells them to finish up what they’re doing and leave. The unswept floors and the unsent emails will still be there tomorrow. Just give him the building and leave him to his thoughts. 

He goes up to his office and finishes the rest of the raid paperwork in time to start the intern paperwork that’s due by the end of the week, but when he checks the clock, it’s with an oh. It’s just past midnight on a Friday. It’s the end of the week (well, it’s not the end of his week, pro’s don’t get weekends), but it’s the first Monday through Friday that he’s felt in over a month. 

The last few weeks have become consumed with work, babysitting UA first years, and training with Hawks, and he might be kind of happy about it. It’s dangerous for a guy like him to get comfortable with something, let alone happy, but it’s not like he can just withdraw from the program or tell Hawks to take a hike (or flight?) so if the universe has a problem with him enjoying himself, that has nothing to do with him at all.

It’s a quiet night, and he is content to work alone too late in his own office as the world stills below, and the unease in the back of his mind settles as he thinks about things he doesn’t think he should let himself have, and if it wasn’t so quiet and so peaceful, he would have never noticed the faint scratching on his window.

Enji looks up and sees the silhouette of a man pressed against the glass. He knows that shape anywhere, but it’s wrong. How can a person look so much like Hawks but not like him at all?

He stands up, his chair slinging back from the force and storms towards the window, and when he slides it open, Hawks all but collapses inside.

“Saw your light was on,” he coughs. “Thought I’d drop in and say hello.”

“Hawks, what happened to you?”

His face is dark and purple with one eye swollen completely shut. His clothes are covered in blood, and his wings… Enji’s stomach churns at the sight. Half of them has been shredded right off, and the other half is made up of feathers matted with presumably the same blood that covers the rest of him. He looks like he landed in a wood chipper.

“I tripped.”

“Hawks.”

“First rule of fight club, you never talk about fight club. I know, I know,” he says, clutching onto the window pane. “Can I just stay here a bit? I can’t fly home like this, and I don’t keep money on me for a cab.”

Enji doesn’t move, too shocked to process any of this.

Hawks drops his head and nods. “Yeah, sorry, I shouldn’t have dropped by, but I didn’t know where else to go.”

“Get in here.”

He pulls Hawks in and leads him to the sofa he keeps in his office for nights he can’t go home and helps Hawks settle down on it. Sofas can be replaced, Hawks can’t.

Hawks’s breaths are labored, and he wonders how much he had to push himself to fly here seeing his current condition. “What’s going on? Where did this happen?”

He looks up at him and shakes his head. 

“Don’t ask me that, you know I can’t tell you anything,” his voice comes out hoarse.

“Let me–.”

“Enji, please.”

His eyes snap shut, and his head jerks away because he can’t even look at him like this. This is the Hawks he never wanted to see. The Hawks he thought if he worked with hard enough, would never happen. 

“I won’t stay long,” he says, and Enji sees him reach towards him, but he pulls his hand back and folds it across his chest. “You won’t even know I’m here.”

“What can I do for you?”

“You did enough,” he forces a smile, and that makes him sick. “Don’t blow your beard, big guy. I’m alive because of you.”

Time ran out. 

I gotta learn how to take a hit.

“I see.”

“You should see the other guy.”

“Did you win,” he swallows.

“Yeah. I won.”

Enji lets himself look, and it’s even worse in the light. Hawks is bruised and beaten, and there are cuts all over his body. He can only imagine what kind of injuries are hidden away out of sight.

“You need to see a medic.

“You know I can’t do that,” he coughs. “I’ll be fine. I’m alive, I just… I need to give my wings some time to regenerate. It’s like trying to fly home with wet napkins.”

“Don’t make jokes.”

“I can’t help it.”

“I know.”

Hawks looks up at him, and he does not smile. He doesn’t try to make it look better than it is, but he wouldn’t have to. There aren’t any cameras here. It’s just then. 

“Are you in trouble?”

“Hm?”

Enji swallows and fights back a burst of irritation. “It’s not good for a hero in your position to have debts.”

“I have two three bedroom apartments in two cities,” he smiles faintly. “I’m good on money. This is… not about me.”

Enji nods. He doesn’t let him think about the fact that he would willingly empty out his own bank account to save someone who isn’t his family, but Hawks is… different.

“Let me see.”

Normally there’s no way in hell he would ever lift up another person’s shirt, but he needs to know if Hawks needs to be dragged to the hospital against his will or not so he has to assess the rest of his injuries himself. 

His torso is wrapped with stained bandages all the way up his body and not well, he might add.

“Did you do this?”

“Had to keep my insides in so I could get the hell out.”

Enji frowns. “Did you stitch yourself up too?”

“Nah, some spider qu-,” Hawks’s mouth snaps shut. “No, I didn’t.”

He doesn’t even pry. Hawks is good with keeping secrets, and he won’t be the reason he loses that skill now just because he wants to burn whoever did this to a crisp. One day, though...

His hand settles on a patch of bare skin beneath the bandages. His body is warm, but Enji’s hands are warmer, and Hawks’s eyes blink heavily, the last of his energy draining now that he’s away and safe from whatever it is that he was running from. He notices a stripe of red below his navel and idly traces it with his thumb to discover that it’s a patch of small, soft feathers he for some reason thought would have been blonde and scraggly hairs like from his beard.

“Endeavor,” he says, bringing him back. “Are we friends?”

He pulls his hand away and lets it settle in his lap. “No.”

Hawks takes a shallow breath and finally closes his eyes.

“Good.”

It takes everything Enji has to make himself get up and go back to his desk. Hawks is asleep on the couch, the last of his adrenaline gone, and he still has too much work to do to leave, but where could he go anyway? A smart man would drag Hawks kicking and screaming to the hospital where he needs to be, but he can’t bring himself to go against his wishes even if it’s what’s best for him.

This should be the one time that action is easy, but he can’t.

So he lets Hawks sleep, and he goes back to work while he quietly wonders what he could have done differently to keep this from happening in the first place.

It doesn’t take him long to finish because worry apparently is a powerful motivator, but why is he so worried about him? Sure, seeing someone beat to an inch of their life is concerning, and he’s a hero so there’s some sick part of his brain that only knows save, save, save, but this is Hawks. Hawks doesn’t need to be saved, and yet he’s crawling out of his own skin to break his promise and burn the whole world down for him.

“Let’s go,” he says, waking him. Hawks stirs slowly and blinks around the room as he registers where he is. “Can you walk or do you need me to carry you?”

Hawks sits up on cue and smiles, and he hates to call it a relief. “The mighty and strong number one wants to carry me? How do I say no!”

He huffs and helps Hawks to his feet and leads him out the door, and although he does not carry him, he does let him lean on him as much as he needs to.

They take the elevator down, and Enji tells the security officer on the ground floor to forget he saw them, and Hawks mutters a small thanks. If he doesn’t hear of any workplace gossip within the next two weeks, he’ll send him a bonus. No one can know Hawks was here, Enji understands that much.

They walk slowly through the parking garage until they get to Enji’s car, but he stops before Enji can get him in.

“I’m gonna ruin your seats.”

“They can be cleaned.”

Hawks shakes his head. “This was a bad idea, I’m sorry. I can take the bus. I’m sure I’m not the worst thing on the subway today.”

“Get in,” he says, not in the mood to joke. “You can lay down in the back, but I’m not having you take the train like this.”

Hawks frowns, but his swollen face barely shows the expression. “You don’t have to do all this. I just–.”

“Hawks, get in the damn car before I throw you in it.”

“Yes sir!”

Hawks does get in, but he sits in the passenger seat against his advice and apologizes to Enji’s car interior enough times to last a lifetime. He can’t express enough, however, how much he does not give a fuck about what color Hawks stains his car seat, but he won’t stop.

“It’s fine.”

“No it’s not,” he insists. “Okay, send me the bill, okay, I’ll pay for it.”

“No you won’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s not your fault.”

“It is my fault.”

“You need to stop talking,” he says as he drives them. “Rest.”

“I did rest.”

“Rest some more.”

“Can we listen to the radio?”

He glances at him from out of the corner of his eye, and even though it’s dark, he can see how bad Hawks looks. Fine, he isn’t the only one who needs a distraction. “Sure.”

Hawks changes the stations more than he would like, and it’s irritating and makes it hard to focus, but he is trying here. Hawks can’t survive whatever trainwreck he crawled out of just to get choked to death in Enji’s car so he tightens his grip on the wheel, locks his jaw, and endures it.

The apartment isn’t far. He mumbles something about wanting to be close to where the action is, but Enji can tell he’s slipping.

“Do you think you might have a concussion?”

“Birds can’t get concussions.”

“Is that true?”

“I dunno.”

Enji huffs, and Hawks laughs weakly. “I didn’t hit my head, it’s fine.”

“Whatever hit your face like that could have jarred your brain.”

“I think I’m good,” he says. “Thank you.”

Enji doesn’t ask for what.

“Are you okay to stay by yourself?”

“Got no choice,” he half sings. “You’re the only one who knows I’m in town. Or a meatloaf. And stuff.”

Enji hums. “You could–.”

“I’m fine,” he cuts him off. “You’ve done enough. If I owe you too much, you’ll never get rid of me.”

Enji bites his tongue. Hawks could stay with him as long as he likes, but for someone who is usually going out of his way to be around him, for once it seems like he needs to be alone to lick his wounds. Enji can respect that.

As for getting rid of him, he isn’t sure he wants to.

They get to Hawks’s building, and he parks on the side of the street, daring someone to give him a ticket. He isn’t a rule breaker by any means, but his mind is only get Hawks inside and not don’t park in the no parking zone, and he hates that that voice inside his head no longer belongs to him.

“Do you need me to–.”

“I got it,” he smiles. “Thank you.”

“I don’t mind.”

“I know, but–.”

“You do.”

Hawks swallows and nods. “Yeah.”

“I understand.”

“Thank you for getting me home,” he says. “And for, uhh, thanks.”

“If you change your mind, you have my agency here.”

Hawks laughs, and it’s a genuine laugh that takes a little of his stress away. “Was me getting my ass kicked all it took to get you to ask for a team up?”

“Hawks,” he huffs.

“One day, when I can go back I’ll bring you and all the other heroes with me and we can see how big of a mess we can make.”

“I’ll be waiting.”

Enji does not hear from Hawks for several days. He fully expected to get a string of annoying text messages while Hawks recovers because that’s what Hawks does when he’s bored, but it’s been complete silence.

He waits a few more days before he checks all the news sites, and there hasn’t been a single sighting or mention of him. Enji isn’t worried , he’s just unsettled. Even the interns notice that he’s not himself, and the fact that Hawks’s silence is now affecting his work infuriates him.

— Text me.

Nothing. A full week passes, and he still hasn’t heard a word from him, and if Hawks won’t answer his phone, there’s nothing more he can do. He knows some of the heroes he’s close with, but if their meetings were as secret as Hawks claimed they were or had to be, they might not even know he’s injured, and if no one else knows…

Enji imagines the worst.

He already knows where Hawks lives, and now all he has to do is figure out which apartment belongs to him, but fortunately it seems there’s only one three bedroom apartment on the top floor and it has a balcony. 

There you are.

He changes into his civilian clothes and makes a phone call that Hawks won’t like, but he doesn’t care. He does not care. 

His car interior hasn’t been cleaned yet, and it’s smudged in all the right places to remind him that he left him like that. All he can do now is drive and pray that he didn’t make a huge mistake and that Hawks is fine because if he’s not…

His whole body burns, but he cannot set his own car on fire so he tries to think of something else, but when that doesn’t work, he ends up chewing his bottom lip raw and burning his own fingerprints into the steering wheel. 

He should never have left him.

Enji can’t hand his car off to a valet in its current condition so he has to leave it at a garage down the street because unlike last week, it’s not 3 in the morning and he doesn’t know how long he’ll be here.

He almost breaks out into a jog down the street to get there faster, but the last thing he needs to do is draw attention to himself especially if this goes bad so he forces himself to walk as swiftly as he can.

He takes the elevator to the top floor, and his heart pounds in his throat. He calls Hawks again, but the call doesn’t go through, and he really starts to panic. There’s a chance he’s not even here. Or even in the city, but this feels like a place where Hawks is. He doesn’t have Hawks’s abilities to sense things, but every nerve in his body is screaming that Hawks is here so he has to be.

He finds the apartment and knocks, but Hawks doesn’t come to the door, and he isn’t sure why he does it, but he reaches down to check the knob and discovers that the apartment was left unlocked. That’s… not good.

He opens the door and calls for him, but Hawks doesn’t answer. The TV is on, and it’s warm in here which is somewhat comforting. It feels lived in, if just empty. 

Enji lets himself in and calls out again, and when no one responds, he decides to go find him himself or at least make sure it’s not what he’s afraid of. 

The apartment is clean if only because Hawks’s things aren’t here. He imagines that this apartment is just a necessity since he has to be in two places more than usual these days, but it smells like him. This is definitely Hawks’s space, if not his home. 

He walks through carefully and sees a door at the end of the hall pushed open slightly so that’s the first room he checks. It’s not much. A pile of unwashed clothes, a cluttered desk, and a half made bed, and he almost doesn’t notice anything particularly out of the ordinary about it until he turns his head and a flash of orange catches his eye.

On the far side of the bed, propped up against the pillow, is an old and worn Endeavor plushie neatly tucked in up to the chin with the blanket like it’s sleeping. His heart sinks to the floor.

“Uh, hey there.”

Enji is not a man who jumps , but he is startled, and he spins around to see Hawks in the doorway blinking up at him looking just as confused as Enji feels.

“Why didn’t you answer your phone?!” Enji almost grabs Hawks and shakes him, but he balls his hands into two safe fists instead.

“I had to turn it in,” he said. “What are you doing here, Endeavor?”

“I thought you were– I don’t know.”

“I’m fine,” he smiles, and his face is still horribly swollen. So he never saw a medic. “I’m sorry I made you worry.”

Enji looks away, and he’s so pissed his face flares up, but if Hawks couldn’t contact him, there’s nothing he could do. Once he calms himself down, he makes himself look at him to see for himself.

Hawks’s wings are still patchy, and it seems that most of the feathers have either fallen out on their own or were removed on purpose. He is a mess of bandages and sweatpants, and his scruff is out of control. He’s really just been here, hasn’t he?

“You shouldn’t leave your door unlocked.”

“My neighbors aren’t stupid enough to rob me.”

“You could get hurt.”

“If someone wanted to hurt me, a locked door wouldn’t stop them.”

“You’re bound to argue with me aren’t you.”

“It makes me feel better.”

Enji exhales a puff of steam and rubs his temple. “Alright.”

“No, argue back,” he pouts. “That’s what we do! I say things that make you go all Thomas the Tank Engine, and you try not to kill me. It’s fun.”

“Do you really feel up to that right now?”

“I could try,” he frowns, and then he looks down at himself. “Oh, sorry I can’t, like, put on my usual suit and tie I wear when I’m home by myself as you probably expected, but my wings hurt too bad to get dressed.”

“You don’t have to worry about that with me,” he says, and even he knows that hearing it come out of his own mouth feels wrong.

“You gettin’ soft on me, big guy? Are the interns rubbing off on you? It’s the finger exploding kid, isn’t it. It’s always the little ones.”

He can’t even find the words to argue with him right now. He wants to get mad, but he can’t help but see how hard Hawks is trying to look fine when he looks like this. He is a pile of scrapes and bruises and cracked ribs and busted knuckles, and it absolutely breaks his heart. 

And still Hawks smiles for him.

“Come on,” he says. “You’re coming with me.”

“I’m not leaving,” Hawks says, startled. “I can’t be seen like this.”

“I don’t care. I’ll buy the newspaper.”

Hawks blinks rapidly. “You can’t do that.”

“Does it look like I’m a man who can be told no right now?”

“N–.”

“Either walk or get carried. I’m not joking.”

“Endeavor…”

Enji looks down and huffs, and Hawks has half a second to make up his mind before he makes it for him.

Hawks is not happy.

Sure, the threat of being manhandled by a certain hero has always been something of a dream of his, but this was not how he wanted it to go. For starters, it wasn’t supposed to feel like his body was being caressed by a cheese grater, although that part was his fault.

Endeavor was standing in his room in a fucking turtle neck looking like a five course meal, and Hawks was already a little delirious from the medication and recent blood loss so like what was he supposed to do, say no?

The cheese grater part was having to put on clothes, and hell's bells did that hurt. If Endeavor and his massive hands hadn’t been there to help Hawks squeeze in, he would never have been able to do it.

Now he’s stuck in Endeavor’s car in a hoodie and sunglasses in full incognito mode while Endeavor drives them to some unknown location, and he won’t tell Hawks a thing about it. They’re not heading towards his agency, though, he’s sure about that.

“This is a nugget run, right?” Hawks glances at him from over his propped up knees. 

“If you’re good, I’ll get you whatever you want.”

“If I’m good,” Hawks repeats. “You can’t say things like that, I’m weak.”

He swears he sees him smile. That jerk thinks he can use Hawks’s own tricks against him, but it won’t work. Whatever he wants, fake flirting will get him nowhere but deeper into Hawks’s imagination, but nuggets will get him everywhere.

“You’re so nice to come kidnap me to take me to McDonalds.”

“I’m not kidnapping you,” he says, and was his voice always so deep? This is not good. This is bad, actually. He should have stayed home so that he can’t accidentally blurt out something stupid, but no Endeavor had to go all I won’t take no for an answer and fuck was that hot.

“So it is a McDonalds run.”

Endeavor hums, but he doesn’t slip up and give him anything to work with, and that’s just not very nice of him. Hawks is a pro at gathering information, but Endeavor is a mountain who does not budge.

“You trust me don’t you?”

“Yeah,” Hawks says, stunned. More than anyone, actually.

The drive itself isn’t that bad. Endeavor has tinted windows, and Hawks is covered from head to toe so he doesn’t have to worry about someone seeing them and exposing his current appearance. 

The thing is, he can’t afford to answer questions, and he’s not at a point where he can lie comfortably without leaving behind any breadcrumbs. His undercover work is complicated, and it’s not much of a secret amongst the inner circles of the hero world that Hawks has specific training, but the nature and timing of his undercover work right now is more precious than his own life. At the very least, no one can know that he’s even under.

Endeavor doesn’t even know the extent of it, but one day he will because of all the heroes in the world, Endeavor is the only one he trusts this much, and he hates that he has to keep secrets from him.

He’s not going to lie to himself by saying it’s better this way. The truth is, it’s his job, and he can’t let his own personal feelings get in the way of that.

He doesn’t even know how to explain if he wanted to. Hey I got shoved into a fight club for villains because some fuckers with the league and friends decided I’m not trustworthy because I’m sneaky and my main contact inside doesn’t care about anything but barbecuing the hero world. He can’t think about the rest without feeling sick.

So instead he tries to focus on the positives like how he’s outside. Being trapped inside a car isn’t ideal because he can’t feel the wind in his wings, but this is Endeavor’s car, and if he complains, he’s an idiot. He doesn’t have his nuggets yet, but they’re not completely off the table, and he’s sure if he bugs him enough, he’ll eventually give in.

“Where are we going?”

“We need to make a stop, and then we’ll get your nuggets.”

“Oh my g- wait did you just say that so I’d stop asking.”

Endeavor smiles.

“Who are you, and what have you done with Endeavor.”

“You’re allowed to call me by my real name when we’re not working, you know.”

Hawks stares at him in surprise. “I don’t think I can do that, actually.”

“I don’t see why not.”

“Because you’re–, I dunno. Isn’t that kind of personal?”

“You don’t have to. I’m just saying, I don’t mind.”

“Oh,” he says, and then he imagines saying his name casually, and his whole body tenses. This is Endeavor. He’s not just a hero, he’s his hero. He’s not allowed to just call him by name like that. He doesn’t even know his name. Enji who. 

Hawks stares out the window, and hoo did someone turn the heat up in here or is that just him, and then it hits him like a wall. Shit, did he just trick me again?

“En-deavor,” he sounds out. Nope, still can’t say it. “I know I look bad, but you saved my ass. Like, no joke, I’m okay. I’m better than okay.”

“Let me do this one last thing to help you,” he says. “You can owe me, if you want.”

“I told you, the more I owe you, the longer I stick around.”

“I will learn to live with it.”

Hawks isn’t sure if that’s a compliment.

They drive out to the edge of the city to some old warehouses, and if this was anyone else driving, Hawks would be bracing himself for a fight. It gives him old school Yakuza vibes, and he considers which of his organs would probably fetch the highest price on the market. Not his liver and kidneys for sure, but his lungs and heart are alright. Maybe.

“You selling me off?”

“They would give you back.”

Hawks huffs and sinks down into his seat. It’s not a good position right now. His broken ribs are screaming, and the seat rubs at his tender wings, but he can’t do much more than make himself a smaller target right now. He’s defenseless, and he hates it, but he’s not afraid. He isn’t sure if that means he trusts him that much or if his brain is just incapable of processing being close to death twice in one month.

“Where are we going?”

“The building at the end,” he finally says, and Hawks feels a surge of victory that doesn’t last long.

There’s no one else here. The warehouses aren’t abandoned. He can see the signs of life everywhere from unwrapped crates to recent oil leaks from parked cars, but it’s lifeless. He can’t sense much beyond what he can see with his own eyes right now, but he doesn’t see anything dangerous. He looks up to the roof tops, and no one looks back. It can’t be a trap because this is Endeavor, but he’s walking in blind and he still doesn’t know what they’re doing here.

“I think I trust you too much,” he mutters.

“That’s okay.”

Their footsteps echo inside, and it’s empty empty, but he can see that they’ve walked into some kind of an assembly plant, but he can’t tell for what. The Todoroki label on one of the boxes though settles whatever nerves he had. That answers the where, the who, and the how, but not the why or the what. 

“This way,” he says, and when they turn the corner, Hawks’s fluttering curiosity that brought him here in the first place turns into rage.

“What the fuck.”

“I had no other choice.”

“You compromised me?!” 

Hawks’s mouth goes hot. Endeavor might not think he has to listen to other people, and Hawks might normally agree, but how dare he expose him like this when he specifically asked him not to? He wasn’t fucking around.

Waiting for them is a medic Hawks doesn’t know, but that doesn’t matter because he wouldn’t even let his own best friend see him right now, let alone some stranger with a healing quirk that might go off and tell all their buddies hey you’ll never guess who I worked on today!

“I didn’t compromise you.”

Hawks gestures towards the third person there and the second person to see him injured other than his handler. “You got a memory erasing quirk too I don’t know about?”

“She won’t talk.”

“I won’t,” the old woman says.

“Oh sure, I’m convinced.”

“Come here, please,” she says. “My eyes aren’t very good these days, but I’d like to meet Enji’s new friend.”

Hawks flinches at the name. Who is this woman and why is she not calling him Endeavor and why does she think they’re friends.

Endeavor folds his arms across his chest and looks at them both like what are you waiting for , and Hawks glares back. He might think that he’ll do whatever he wants, but right now Hawks is not his biggest fan (anymore). 

He should have known better.

“You can be angry with me later, but let her see you.”

“That’s kind of what I’m mad about,” he grits.

“You can trust her.”

“No, not really.”

“Do you trust me?”

Hawks blinks because he can’t bring himself to say he doesn’t, but this is too much.

“He used to be a sweet boy,” the fondness in her voice catches Hawks off guard. “He was so scared of the dark when he was a little thing, and when he finally got his quirk he said he wouldn’t have to be afraid anymore, and he practiced and practiced and practiced no matter how many times he burned himself.”

Endeavor huffs.

“I’ve been with the Todoroki family a long time,” she explains. “I’m more experienced with burns, but you’ll just make things harder for yourself if your bones don’t set.”

“Oh.”

Endeavor doesn’t look at him, eyes glued to the floor like he isn’t a tank in human form, and Hawks realizes how much this must suck for him. This is a piece of his personal life exposed like a wound, and that’s the thing he hates the most,

Hawks gives up, and he lets the woman treat him. It isn’t the usual quick and easy healing he’s used to from hero hospitals, and anytime he winces, Endeavor tells him it’s his fault for waiting so long to get help, but she distracts him by telling him stories of Baby Enji that will make for excellent blackmail one day.

“This is all I could do,” she says. “Your bones are healed, and it took care of some of the swelling, but the bruises and cuts will have to heal on their own.”

“Thank you.”

“Don’t worry, no one will know anything,” she says, patting him on the back. “I don’t even know who– oh! Wings! What a good boy you are, my grandkids love you.”

Hawks does not successfully dodge the fingers that go to his cheeks, and he does not miss the smile on Endeavor’s face when his nanny squeezes them like Hawks isn’t a grown man.

“You’ll make him call me more, won’t you,” she asks as they leave.

“I don’t think I’m capable of making him do anything.”

“I won’t say I’m sorry.”

They’re back in the car, and Hawks is free from his terrible surprise. Most of the bruising left is on his torso where he took most of the beating, and it’s not particularly usual for a hero to have a cut lip in their kind of work. He’s still pissed though.

“I get that you wanted to help, but I came to you because I needed all of this to be a secret.”

“And she has more on my family than I could ever keep up with,” he nods. “We’re all good at keeping secrets.”

Hawks exhales and sinks back against the car seat suddenly too tired to argue. “You didn’t tell me you had a nanny.”

“It wasn’t necessary.”

“Did she raise your kids too?”

“No, not until–,” he frowns. “She helped some when they were older, but no.”

Hawks raises an eyebrow, but he doesn’t press. The Todoroki family secrets are none of his business. Instead he sighs. “Rich people.”

Endeavor exhales a laugh. A small victory Hawks can’t even celebrate because he’s too angry.

The ride is quiet as they leave the warehouses behind and drive back into the city. Hawks thinks he could easily go back to sleep, but he makes a point to not let himself in case someone decides to take him somewhere else he doesn’t want to go.

“How long are you going to be mad at me?”

“A while.”

Endeavor hums. “Do you accept bribes?”

Pro Heroes Endeavor and Hawks Spotted Off Duty at Local McDonalds is not the headline he expected to come out of this. Like, for all his fear of speculation he had leaving his apartment, he can’t believe the big news is that Endeavor looks good in a turtleneck (right?) and Hawks is a college boyfriend dream (a what?). He counts on his fingers. Yeah, that’s about right, actually.

Hawks gets his nuggets, and Endeavor gets a milkshake which is as surprising as it isn’t. Of course he’s not about to eat the food here, but a sweet tooth? This is getting stored next to the looks good in sweater and sounds good barking orders section of his memory.

“Am I forgiven?”

“I don’t like how you think this makes up for it,” Hawks says as he chews.

“Well does it?”

“Yeah, but like, I’m not happy about it.”

“That’s fine.”

Hawks glares at him in disbelief as he sips from his straw. Who is this man?

“How does your body feel?”

“Still hurts a little, but I can breathe again.”

“Good,” he says before setting his cup and sitting up. He looks a little ridiculous in the plastic booth, but Hawks wouldn’t dare say that when’s being fed and escorted. “When you can fly again, we’ll resume your training.”

“But I’m done–.”

“You still have a lot left to learn, and if we’re going to continue teaming up, I want to know you’ll be just as capable when you’re on the ground as you are in the air.”

Hawks nods and stares at his dipping sauce cup like it’s supposed to help. He doesn’t want to go back there for a lot of reasons. One, he told himself that he wouldn’t let himself make this personal. He liked it too much. He liked being there, but Hawks does not belong there. They work together in the field, but Hawks has no place in this man’s home especially not with the way he feels about him.

Two, Hawks is scared. The idea of someone throwing a punch at him right now makes him want to scream, and Endeavor, sweet tooth included, is scary. He’s big and strong, and Hawks doesn’t want him to see him like that. 

“You need to get back into it,” Endeavor says. “Or it will hold you back for the rest of your life.”

It takes a few weeks for Hawks’s wings to fill out again and for the rest of his body to heal, and he spends most of his recovery catching up on paperwork he can do from home with interns and sidekicks coming in and out whenever they please.

This apartment isn’t his real home. It doesn’t have hardly any of his belongings and he doesn’t really feel normal here, but when the sidekicks are here, it makes it a little better.

It might be silly for one person with his lifestyle and budget to have two big apartments, but he also got it for them. They don’t have to worry about hotels when they go back and forth and honestly Hawks likes having the company.

He thinks about Endeavor’s big empty house that barely looks lived in and frowns. He knows the kids don’t live with him now, and that it’s new, so he imagines that it can’t feel like home for him either.

Perhaps a little noise would help.

— u wanna fight me, big boi?

Thanks to a busy schedule, they have to wait until the end of the week, but Hawks isn’t in the hurry he was before anyway. It doesn’t feel real that this part of his undercover work is over even if it’s only a scratch on the surface, but the impatience he felt before has been replaced with a regret he can’t seem to move on from.

Hawks has done a lot of shit he doesn’t like to think about. He will never be able to wash the blood off of his hands, and this time is no different. He reported what happened to his handler, and he’s not sure what he expected or if any response would have satisfied him.

We all make sacrifices. 

Why are some people always more important than others? Why is it okay for someone to die so someone else can be saved? Why was that one person worth it, but the other wasn’t?

So much of the shit he has to hear on the other side makes too much sense, and he’s not sure what he’s fighting for anymore.They should just pull him out while they can.

Hawks’s thoughts call him a hero while his heart calls him a traitor, and that’s just who he is now. You can’t play on both teams and not lose even if you win. Who do I want to win? Heroes. I want this world to be a better place. The heroes have to win. I’m a hero. I’m a hero too.

No I’m not.

Endeavor’s house comes into view, and he forces himself to stop thinking. Maybe it’ll be good for him to punch something.

He lets himself in. If Endeavor can waltz right into his bedroom, he won’t mind if he uses his front door. The house is quiet on the surface, but the TV is on at a low volume. Unusual for him, but people change. He walks to the gym, knowing the way already blindfolded, and finds Endeavor on the bench press.

“Need me to spot?”

The weights drop into the hold with a clank, and he sits up, all sweat and muscle, and that’s just not fair. “Too heavy.”

“Hey, I’m really strong.”

Endeavor stands up and gestures towards the weights, and Hawks accepts the challenge. He lays on his back and pushes up and–. “I see.”

He chuckles, and that makes all of Hawks’s feathers prickle. What a rare and glorious sound, even if it is at his expense.

“You shoulda picked a beefier partner,” he says, hiding his embarrassment. “I’m all wings and personality, baby.”

“Warm up,” Endeavor ignores him. “Don’t forget your cardio.”

“I flew here.”

He picks up his water bottle and drinks before wiping the sweat from his forehead, and if Hawks wasn’t on a bench, he thinks his knees would have buckled. “Do you use your arms and legs to fly?”

“...no.”

Endeavor deadpans.

“I see your point.”

Hawks gets up to start his warm up, already in his workout clothes ready to go because he might have been looking forward to this, but then Endeavor sits. He sits. 

“Uh,” he freezes. “Whatcha doin’?”

“I’m waiting for you.”

“Don’t you have, like an important phone call to make,” he laughs nervously. Endeavor watches him like a, well, hawk, and that’s new. “Or, I don’t know, a pie to check on?”

“Do I make you uncomfortable?”

“No,” he considers. “Just never done this with you in here before.”

“You haven’t been skipping your warm ups, have you.”

“No!” Hawks scoffs. “What do I look like.”

He blinks, and Hawks turns away, eyes bulging out of his head. He knows. 

“I have all night,” Endeavor says, and that… was not helpful, but it seems that he has no choice but to let him watch him work out. This is the second worst thing he could watch him do, and that is certainly not something he can think about right now.

Hawks lifts up his arms and pauses. “Are you really just gonna sit there?”

“Do you need help?”

“No.”

“Then yes.”

Hawks reluctantly warms up with an audience. His body is stiff, too stiff, but having someone to talk to and help him get back into his stretches turns out to be a welcome distraction. It’s not as weird as he thought it would be, and it’s not at all the image he had in his head of Endeavor sitting back and unpeeling him layer by layer with his stare.

They’re back to gloves, and he’s grateful because the feeling of skin against his knuckles isn’t what he needs right now. It’s too real.

Hawks swings first to get them in a rhythm, but when Endeavor swings back, he flinches. Uh oh.

“You can do it,” he says calmly.

Hawks frowns and tries again, and suddenly he’s back in that cage, and it burns. The memory finds its way to his stomach, and he almost can’t hold it in. 

The first time he saw the cage, it made him sick. The idea of cages in general doesn’t sit well with him for obvious reasons, but this went beyond his own imagination. 

Come see what real strength looks like!

Two low level foot soldiers went in, and only one came out, and that’s how he learned why it was a cage and not a normal fighting arena. Weapons weren’t allowed, but quirks were fair game, and these weren’t people with flower sprouting quirks.

We gotta see what you’re made of.

I don’t have a death wish.

It wasn’t a question.

Hawks was given a fight date as a sick joke, and he suspected it was a test because in what world is something supposedly random and to weed out the weak scheduled, but he didn’t back down and he didn’t run because in the end he had no choice.

They want me to fight.

So fight.

What if I lose?

You won’t.

He was given one task, and that task was to win more trust, and he almost blew everything. One night he was brought down to watch. Each fight started with a bet, and he was forced to choose . The hog faced horned fighter or the thin skinny kid who just needed a place to stay. There wasn’t a question.

That’s what was so sick about it. These weren’t League goons. Dabi is passive when things don’t directly concern him, but neither he nor Shigaraki or fucking Twice and Toga would have let a kid with a bad quirk tossed out on the street get strung up for sport, and Hawks couldn’t do it either. He jumped in, the kid didn’t make it, and he got a crowbar shaped bruise across his face to remind him that fairness in all places is a myth.

Hawks can tolerate the Stain fanatics. Sure Stain deserved to get put away for killing heroes, but his true followers just want to fix the corruption in the hero world, and Hawks gets it , but some people down there just want to hurt people. 

“Hawks,” Endeavor says, and he’s pulled back. He blinks up dumbly as he registers where he is. This is Endeavor’s home gym. He’s sparring with Endeavor. He doesn’t have to fight anymore. “Are you okay?”

“I don’t know,” he laughs.

“Do you need a break?”

“Do you?”

“No.”

“Then me neither.”

They do step apart for a water break because hydration is important, and Hawks gets a moment to catch his breath. He doesn’t know how long he was out of it, but Endeavor doesn’t tell him to put up his gloves, and for that he’s grateful.

“You’re in your head again.”

“I live there, my dude.”

“You can tell me if it helps,” he offers.

Hawks smiles faintly. “Can’t do that, big guy.”

“I know.”

“This world is so fucked up under the surface,” he says. “Like, all of it. There’s so much shit down there, but we think planting roses on top of it will make everything better.”

Endeavor doesn’t say anything, and Hawks shakes his head.

“I’m sorry. We’re all working hard.”

“You have nothing to apologize for.”

“I want this world to be a better place,” Hawks says at the floor. “For everyone.”

“I know.”

“That’s why we get stronger, right?”

“Does that mean you want to keep going?”

Hawks nods. “Yeah, I think so.”

They try again, and this time Hawks’s head is clear. He wonders how many hits he landed because Endeavor knew he wasn’t all there and let him, but now that he’s dodging again, Hawks can feel it. It’s frustrating. Oh right.

“Hey remember the other day when I pissed you off,” he says, mid swing.

“Which time?”

Hawks pauses and glares. “When I dodged too much.”

“Yes.”

“I figured that out during the bank thing,” he says, and they get back to it. “I couldn’t fly around indoors, but I figured out I can float a bit when I jump so I used that to corner the leader at the staircase.”

“Oh, that was smart.”

Hawks “floats” back with his next dodge, and Endeavor’s whole face flames up, and he laughs happily because god does it feel good for things to go like they’re supposed to. He could pick him up and throw him, and it would only make it better.

“It’s not too late to get a new partner,” Hawks teases.

“Is that what you want,” he asks before sending in a second hit that barely misses.

“No.”

“Then quit bouncing around and hit me.”

Endeavor doesn’t let him stop until the person he’s swinging at is him. The memories become a little more hazy with every dodge, and it helps that Endeavor isn’t trying to kill him. 

Enji, Enji, Enji. 

He still can’t use that name. He can’t bring himself to think of him that personally because sure it seems friendly enough. They’re in his house after all, but it’s just… not a name he’s allowed to use. There are boundaries, and Hawks is just a lucky fan.

But when it’s just them, he isn’t Pro Hero Endeavor. He’s laid back (sometimes), and he puts up with him (sometimes) no matter how many buttons Hawks pushes. He’s a wear a too tight turtleneck and drive him to McDonalds guy not a fire slinging ball of muscle. He made him eggs once.

Maybe in this space it’s okay?

I don’t want to bring work into my home.

Oh!

Maybe it’s something he can get used to. 

“Use your legs,” he instructs, and once again Hawks is brought back without realizing he left in the first place. 

“Really.”

“If I guess your next move, I’ll flip you.”

“Is that a promise?”

“Hawks.”

He does end up on his back, but it’s not the scenario of his dreams. Hawks swings, Endea– Enji grabs him, and slings him over like a sack of potatoes, and Hawks lands flat on the mat with a beautiful view of the home gym ceiling. 

He blinks up at nothing before slapping the floor next to him twice with his palm, tapping out like it’s a real match.

“Are you done?”

“Yeah, I’m done.”

Enji helps him to his feet, and Hawks twists and stretches, sore from being slammed down. “Fuck, dude.”

“You missed two weeks of training. Your body is stiff.”

Hawks blinks. “I do not think that is the reason why my body hurts.”

“I did warn you.”

“Yeah, but like did you?”

“Yes, I believe I did.”

Hawks squints. “Mmmmmm, the new bruise on my ass says otherwise.”

“I didn’t know the Number Two was such a crybaby.”

“Are you kidding me right now,” he gapes. “Why? Why do you do this when I don’t have any witnesses? Everyone thinks you’re so tough and serious, and it’s a lie!”

Enji grins slightly and walks off, and Hawks follows him, feathers all ruffled up because he can’t believe him. No one else is going to believe him either. Endeavor picked me up and threw me and then made fun of me! Sure, Hawks, and All Might let me climb on his back like a pony for my birthday last year. 

“I’m sending you my doctor’s bill,” Hawks says.

“Like I can trust you to take yourself to the hospital.”

“You know what.”

This is the first of their sessions that Hawks isn’t rushed to leave. The kids didn’t stop by, and if someone has to ask why he was here, he could just probably say because he wanted to be. He wonders how much of this would have been easier if they just claimed they wanted to start sparring together in the first place.

Probably because under normal circumstances, that would have never been believable, but now, it makes sense. 

Are they friends?

He doesn’t dare ask him that, but he’s relaxed and a little tired and kind of burnt out from the stress of the last month or so, and it’s not like Enji doesn’t know how to tell him no so he asks him a different question.

“Hey, you got any wine?”

Hawks expected a number of possible answers such as no and get out of my house , but yes was definitely not one of them. It wasn’t even a surprised yes like when someone is caught off guard and answers without thinking, he just hummed that he did and walked off, and Hawks was left standing in the hallway in a pair of slippers and his cooling sweaty workout clothes.

Am I supposed to leave? Are we done then?

Leaving without saying goodbye feels wrong since he’s not sneaking out this time, but then Enji comes back from somewhere unseen with a bottle in his hand and oh okay I’m staying then.

He doesn’t know why he’s so nervous. He asked, but he follows Enji into the kitchen with his hands folded meekly and with light steps, and okay, he wasn’t supposed to say yes. He wasn’t supposed to go get it. 

Since when do they hang out?

“Is this fine,” he asks, and what does he mean is this fine? Like on the grand scale? Hawks doesn’t fucking have a clue, but like the vintage? Oh good, he doesn’t have a fucking clue about that either.

“I think so.”

Hawks climbs up onto the stool, and Enji retrieves two glasses from the cupboard. He props himself up on his elbows while he pours the wine, and it’s a deep red. Darker than blood, but rich enough that the scent of it burns his nose from here. Hawks normally sticks with the pink stuff because it tastes like fruit juice, and he usually only drinks it with one purpose, but when he asked him in the first place, his brain wasn’t thinking about getting fucked up quickly. 

He tries a small sip and lets it roll over his tongue like he knows what he’s doing. It’s dark and bitter and tickles his nose, but it goes down like gloss, and he’s not sure what he means by that. 

“You would have the good stuff,” he compliments.

“I didn’t know you liked wine.”

“Oh, then next time I’ll ask if you wanna do jello shots.”

Enji’s whole face twists, and Hawks laughs. 

“What? You can’t tell me you weren’t a frat boy.”

“I was not,” he grimaces. “Does that mean you were?”

“Does it look like I went to college,” Hawks raises an eyebrow before raising his glass, and the taste grows on him. He finishes his glass, and Enji pours him another. “I like wine sometimes.”

“You did well today,” he says suddenly. Hawks feels his face warm, and he hopes that the flush from the alcohol covers it up. “I was worried you wouldn’t want to try again after what happened.”

Hawks exhales and nods, looking off. “I didn’t want to.”

“And I’m proud of you.”

Hawks’s whole body numbs at the words he does not deserve, not from him. The ahhhh of pain comes out before he can stop it, and he grabs the bottle himself and fills up his glass beyond how much is supposed to go in there (something about aeration, he thinks) and chugs it like it’s a solo cup full of jungle juice. “You don’t have to say that. You really don’t have to say that. Oh god.”

“I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

“No, it’s like, I can’t– you, oh man,” he finishes his glass and pours another. “Thanks, coach.”

Bro, if you cry in this man’s kitchen, you gotta give up your rank to Jeanist. Do you want that? Do you?!

“Are you hungry?”

This must be a night of what the hells because now Hawks is comfortably folded up on his designated Hawks seat (he’s sure no one would ever dare to sit on his very special kitchen stool when he’s not here) with a glass of wine he doesn’t want to think about the cost of and a box of the greasiest, crunchiest fried chicken he’s had in a good minute.

“When I die, I want this place to cater my funeral,” he says. “Seriously, you gotta try this.”

“No, thank you.”

Enji sits across from him with some kind of grilled chicken caesar salad thing. Hawks isn’t sure, but it smells healthy, and sure that’s not how one is supposed to indulge in Friday night takeout, but baby steps. Although he supposes now that Enji has warmed up to the idea of ordering food, this is a reasonable compromise.

“I feel like all my pain is gone,” he rejoices. “I think we should go work out some more after this.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Did I tire you out, old man?”

“If you get sick in my gym, I’ll kill you.”

Hawks sighs and goes back to his chicken. “So many rules.”

Enji glances at him. “That is not exclusive to me.”

“It might be, have you asked?”

“Do you think you’ve had enough to drink?”

“Nope,” Hawks grins. He tops himself off and lifts up his glass like he’s the king of the world because he might as well be. “I think fried chicken and wine could be the next big thing.”

“Do you now.”

“Yup,” he says before taking an ungracious glug. “You’re going to go to one of your fancy people dinners one day, and they’re going to serve you a plate of wings with a glass of w-w-w- wine? And you’re going to go oh wow Hawks was right.”

“Then it would be the first time.”

“That is very mean.”

“I’m sorry.”

Hawks squints. “No you’re not.”

Enji smiles and returns to his own food, and Hawks might be one of the luckiest people in the whole world because he gets to see him like this. All other Endeavor fans only wish they could be him. 

A happy Enji is not something he wants to startle off so he manages somehow to finish his meal quietly even if he’s so comfortable that it feels like he can never stop talking.

Hawks does not remember opening up the second or third bottle, but he’s sure it’s his own doing. Once that feel good switch is flipped, he needs adult supervision, but Enji just lets him do whatever he wants. 

He ends up in the living room with a water bottle full of wine that probably costs more than both of his monthly rents because even when he’s lightheaded, Enji is still concerned about Hawks spilling.

It’s nice. The television is on at a low volume, his head feels like banana pudding, and Enji’s face is just as red as his hair even though he looks awfully composed. Of course he does, that rock. 

Hawks wonders why they can’t do this all the time. He’s the calmest person that Hawks has ever hung out with when he’s not angry, but oh, they’re hanging out, aren’t they? Just two dudes drinking too much wine, eating takeout, and chilling near the TV after a hard workout. The only thing he’s missing is a bluetooth speaker and some video games. Huh. 

This is…

I am not supposed to be here.

“Oh, shit, it’s already late, I didn’t mean to hang out all night,” Hawks declares as he stands to his feet on wobbly legs. Were his wings always so heavy? He has brutally overstayed his welcome, and oh man, he should have been kicked out hours ago. “Let me know when you wanna fight again. I’ve got a new kick I wanna try out on a person.”

“I am concerned for what you mean by that, but no, you’re not flying home like this.”

“Oh come on, I’m fine! I can’t hurt nobody up there!”

“No, that’s not a good idea.”

“What’s the worst that could happen? I get stuck in a tree again? It’s fine!”

Enji makes a face and shakes his head. “You’ll stay here, and you’re not going to argue with me about it.”

“Tell me, honestly, do you have any idea who you’re talking to right now?”

“Do you?”

Hawks’s legs fold neatly beneath him as settles back down on the floor, his wings curling around him like a shield. “Perhaps I could sober up first.”

Enji hums, and Hawks’s heart thumps horribly in his chest, and he very much does not want to think about what Enji with his foot down does to him. 

He feels like a dog with a bone just out of reach that he’s not allowed to have, and his mouth runs dry. 

Well this is bad.

It’s been a long time since Hawks last woke up in a strange bed. He was seventeen, sick of super secret spy school, and he doesn’t really like to think about it, but now Hawks is a grown man who can’t afford to do stupid things like wake up in places he doesn’t recognize, but it doesn’t take long before the oh really sinks in.

He’s never been in this room before, but this is most definitely a Todoroki residence. It smells like old flames and clean linens and Enji. Okay, that’s one question answered.

He blinks at the light pouring in and wishes he had the kind of quirk that let him move things with his mind so he could shut the curtains, but alas. Once his eyes adjust, he looks around at his surroundings but doesn’t see anything that looks like it belongs in Enji’s bedroom, not that he would have a clue as to what those things could be anyway.

This room is too stiff and clean to be lived in. Even if Enji isn’t home much, his bedroom would feel like something, so nope, this is a guest room. There’s no doubt about it.

“Thank god,” he whispers to himself. Not that he doesn’t want to climb him like a tree, but not like that. He would like to at least be able to remember it. Unless they did and Enji left him here afterwards…

No, that’s too much even for him. 

Relieved, he sits up and goes to scratch his beard, and wait a minute.

Hawks looks at his hands and blinks. He’s wearing a sweatshirt that is much too large for him, and it seems that the back has been ripped open to compensate for his wings based on the draft he feels between his shoulders, and uh, sorry Enji, but what he is completely taken aback by is the fact that both sleeves have been pulled and tied over his hands into two secure knots.

“What the fuck.”

Hawks frowns and awkwardly smacks his bound hands together while he tries to figure out how to free himself, but that doesn’t work so he tries biting one of the ends to pull the knot loose, but what the fuck, why are these knots so tight?

He can’t grip the bottom to pull the sweater over his head, so it seems he’s stuck.

He can’t think of anything more humiliating.

He knocks the blankets away and climbs off the bed, and he has to use his foot to slide the door open, but he eventually gets some semblance of freedom to go get help. 

Hawks knows the house like he knows his own apartment so the first place he checks is the kitchen, and sure enough, there Enji is pouring himself a cup of coffee like nothing’s unusual.

“Good morning,” he says over his shoulder

Hawks scowls without a greeting as he marches over towards him and lifts his bound hands up to be released, but Enji doesn’t even blink when he puts the hot mug between them instead.

Hawks looks down at the freshly brewed cup of coffee in his hands and sighs in defeat before taking a sip, burning his tongue with a yelp, and setting it down on the counter because, hello , he’s still stuck with sweater paws. (Humiliating, actually.)

“Was this necessary,” Hawks asks, holding his arms up.

“Yes, actually,” Enji says. 

“Oh god, did we…”

“No.”

“Oh,” he takes a breath. “Alright, cool.”

“The restraints were unrelated,” he says to Hawks’s relief. “You kept trying to take your clothes off because my ‘house is too hot’, and I didn’t want you to embarrass yourself.”

“You house is fine,” he smiles awkwardly. “I like heat actually. Love it! I don’t really drink around other people…”

“It’s fine.”

“Ah, okay, cool.”

“But you’re right.”

“About what?”

“You shouldn’t drink around other people.”

Hawks blanches. “Why not?”

“Hm, I’m not sure at what point you found the key to my wine cellar, but after you got into the blackberry reserve, you put on a song and tried to perform what you called, what was it, a matin–.”

“Oh god!” Hawks cries out as his body folds forward into a full formal bowl. “I’m so sorry! Oh my god, it won’t happen again! Oh my god, oh my god.”

He knows his face is the color of his wings right now, but maybe his body will have mercy and keel over because holy shit drunk him is an asshole. Drunk him decided to perform a mating dance without sober him’s permission, and now he has no choice but to die.

“I’m never drinking again,” he squeaks.

“It’s fine,” he says. “It was a nice dance.”

Hawks screams in horror as his back snaps back up straight, but Enji is smiling. He looks thrilled, and that does something to calm his nerves.

Oh, he’s just fucking with me. Alright.

“Can you free me from my constraints now, Mr. Todoroki,” he raises his hands in shame. “I promise to keep my clothes on.”

He does not miss the flush to Enji’s ears when he approaches him, but he doesn’t let himself think about it. It’s not a stretch to think that this is equally as embarrassing for both of them.

Enji unties his hands, and Hawks returns to his designated kitchen stool and drinks his coffee, or he tries to, but just cannot fuck with plain black coffee no matter how good the roast is.

“Do you have any sugar,” he finally asks.

“I don’t keep it in the house.

“Oh no.”

“Is honey okay?”

“Honey is great!”

Enji has honey, but no cream or milk, but it’s an improvement at least. He’s going to have to sneak some supplies over here if he’s going to be–.

No, I’m going to occasionally come here to work out if he still wants to, and that’s it.

Hawks is in the middle of a silent-self lecture when the front door opens, and a dad, we’re here sends a wave of fear throughout his whole body. He is not supposed to be here. This looks bad. This is bad. 

He sits up to get ready to bolt, but Enji waves him down and shakes his head like it’s fine, but it’s not fine. It is anything but fine.

“We’re in here,” he calls back without breaking eye contact, and holy shit, what is this man doing?

“We?” Fuyumi asks, but then when she finally gets to the kitchen and sees Hawks, the look of surprise fades somewhat. “Oh! Hawks!”

“Hello,” he half sings. This is… weird.

Shouto comes in behind her, and sure let’s everyone camp out in the kitchen! Any more Todorokis wanna come out and say hi?

“Oh, hello Hawks,” Shouto greets. “I didn’t know you were going to be here too.”

“Me neither,” Hawks forces a smile.

“Ah, yeah,” Fuyumi glances between them and back to her dad. “Guests?”

“Hawks had to stay the night.”

“I’m a bad drunk,” he admits, and it’s actually a good get out of jail free card because he can almost see the oh’s on their faces, but it’s actually the truth so he doesn’t have to feel bad about it. “I was just about to get going.”

“You don’t have to,” she says with a smile, and it’s so warm that it feels foreign. He tries to picture Enji making that face and shudders. “Do you eat breakfast?”

“Ah, sometimes,” he says, and then he glances at Enji to signal for him to chime in with the he’s not staying, but he just drinks his coffee unhelpfully, so great, it seems like Hawks is staying. Shit .

“Oh, well,” she says before eyeing his wings. “Do you, um, eat eggs?”

Hawks cannot stop the laugh that erupts from him. Oh, she’s so polite. Poor thing. “Yes, eggs are fine.”

“Good,” she nods, relieved.

“Your dad never bothered to ask, though.”

Enji chokes. 

Fuyumi and Shouto look at them both for an explanation, so Hawks fills them in on the disaster that was him cooking Enji a meal, but he doesn’t have to worry about explaining the why because they both are taken by surprise that their dad cooked.

“I learned a few things from Fuyumi,” he grumbles. “And he eats chicken all the time. Why would I have asked about eggs?”

“It might be different,” Hawks says from behind his mug.

“Hawks.”

Hawks hears something that sounds like a small snort come from Shouto, and it’s encouraging to have someone around who might enjoy watching him annoy the shit out of Enji for once instead of just standing nearby awkwardly in fear. He’s not gonna kill him for joking... He doesn’t get why everyone is so tense about it. Enji is just as bad as he is when no one’s looking!

While they talk, Fuyumi unpacks the groceries she and Shouto brought with them and spreads them out on the counter. There is an unsurprising amount of vegetables, he sees.

“Is it just you two today?” Enji asks quietly. Hawks can hear, but that is clearly not meant for him so he focuses on his coffee.

“Natsuo had something to do at the university,” she offers with a soft smile. “He couldn’t make it this time, I’m sorry.”

Enji takes a deep breath and nods. “That’s fine.”

Hawks hates that he’s here for this, not because it makes him uncomfortable, but because he’s sure Enji doesn’t want someone from the outside to see so he pretends he doesn’t. 

Instead, he turns his attention to Shouto, who for all his skill and talent in combat, does not have a clue how to chop scallions. 

“Do you want some help,” Hawks asks, and the mood in the room shifts immediately because now everyone is focused on Shouto with his peculiarly mangled green onion in one hand and the knife in the other.

“Don’t hand him that knife, he can’t cook either,” Enji says, and all Hawks can do is gape because hey! 

Hawks and Shouto are soon chased out of the kitchen, and he expects there to be a bout of awkward silence especially since the kid isn’t the most talkative person in the world, but as soon as he asks about the other two he interns with, uhhh , Midoriya and Bakugou, he thinks, Shouto opens up, and it becomes something easy.

Being here is easy. Being around these people is easy.

But Hawks is not a part of this family, and he has to remind himself not to get too swept up in it or god forbid comfortable. He doesn’t want to give himself the chance to say something he isn’t supposed to, and that’s what comfortable people do. People who keep secrets aren’t supposed to be comfortable, and they’re certainly not supposed to let themselves get too close. 

Breakfast is at the normal table, and he hates to say it but traditional homes may be suitable for traditional people, but not for people with quirks like his. It’s been a while since he last fought someone so his wings are full, and yes he knows they’re gorgeous, please don’t touch, but they are in the way. 

He can spread the one closest to the the edge out enough that it doesn’t accidentally swing and knock a bowl of soup off the table, but he’s been seated next to Enji, a place of honor, he’s sure, but Enji is big , and he doesn’t want to find out what will happen if he accidentally wacks him the other.

“Thank you for sharing your meal with me,” Hawks manages. Stay back, leftie, I’ll stuff a pillow with you. 

Fuyumi’s eyes shift as she takes a sip of water. “Actually I may have had ulterior motives.”

“Oh?”

“I can’t get dad to come visit the kids I teach, but they would be really happy if you dropped by, Hawks.”

Hawks smiles brightly, and oh, is Enji going to kill him. “I think we can make some time.”

“We?” Enji glares.

“If they’d be happy to see me, wouldn’t they be even happier to see the both of us?”

He frowns. “You’re better with children than I am.”

“That’s because you blow steam at them.”

“What else am I supposed to do?”

“Have you tried smiling?”

“It appears that they don’t like when I do that either.”

“I see,” Hawks scratches his chin in thought. “What about roasting marshmallows.”

“Hawks.”

Fuyumi and Shouto both laugh, and it seems Hawks has won this round. He should bother Enji with his kids around more often. “See, they think I’m funny.”

“Don’t encourage him,” he warns, but when one of Hawks’s mischievous wings flutters towards him in amusement on its own, he doesn’t even seem bothered by it.

Fuck. Hawks is happy. Now what is he going to do?

Hawks and Shouto jump in after breakfast to clean up, and Fuyumi gives Enji a look when Hawks surprisingly knows where everything is. 

Don’t look at me like that.

Oh I’m looking.

Enji glares, but it has absolutely no effect on Fuyumi, but she at least doesn’t ask.

Shouto on the other hand…

“You and dad have been teaming up a lot lately,” Shouto says, as observant as ever. 

“Ah yeah, every time I see the news it’s Endeavor and Hawks stop Volcano Villain and Top Two Heroes Rescue Whole Class From Sludge Monster ,” Fuyumi adds.

“Have we,” Hawks asks. “I think it’s probably just because they have nothing else to talk about.”

Shouto glances at them both, and Enji braces himself, because god can his son be upfront at times. “Are you two…”

Hawks visibly tenses. The answer is no. Whatever it is, the answer is no, but also, they can’t tell the truth either, even though the three people standing in his kitchen right now are the three people he trusts the most in the world, but this isn’t his secret to tell.

“Merging agencies?”

“Oh!” Hawks shouts and laughs. “Oh absolutely not! No, no, I like my freedom too much, and En- deavor is way too strict for me.”

Enji nods. “I would kill him if he worked for me.”

Hawks takes a small step to the side for his own safety. I said if he worked for me, not right now.

“I for one am glad,” Fuyumi says while she finishes putting the containers of leftovers in the fridge. “It stresses me out when dad goes off on his own. I’m happy someone is watching his back now especially since it’s gotten so dangerous for heroes lately. Sometimes I worry they’re going to start hunting the top ten for sport, and it makes me sick.”

Enji glances at Hawks who busies himself with the rest of the dishes. He doesn’t watch the news especially when he’s the one they’re talking about so he’s never really thought about it, but how many times has this man, this frustrating and exasperating bird, saved his life when he wasn’t looking?

“See, Endeavor, us teaming up is a good thing! I swoop around while you’re all ball of flames on the ground, and you babysit me when I break into your wine cellar!”

“I do not know if it’s worth the trouble,” he says as a joke that Hawks can only grin at from over his shoulder, but god it might be.

Hawks leaves not long after they finish cleaning up because he doesn’t want to get in the way of super awesome Todoroki bonding time, as he called it, but he has no idea how much of a buffer he was and he probably never will. 

This was Fuyumi’s idea. If they’re going to learn how to be a family, they have to spend time together as a family, but Natsuo just isn’t ready. He gets that. He never expected that it would be easy.

Shouto coming was an honest surprise, but he might have just wanted to get out of the dorms for a few hours. He isn’t someone who complains, but he mentioned once that it gets too noisy, and that wouldn’t be something he’s used to. He also can’t be surprised that it would be noisy considering Bakugou alone has the decibel level of a small airplane.

Hawks being here was a small blessing because he was someone Shouto could focus on, and maybe just being around each other without talking too much is what Enji and Shouto need. He doesn’t know how any of this is supposed to work, but he does know that they didn’t have a chance to argue because Hawks never stops talking, and even Fuyumi seemed especially relieved.

Shouto rests in the living room and catches up on his homework while Enji and Fuyumi drink coffee and wind down. He can tell she’s tired from work and from taking care of them, but if he brings it up, she’ll only scold him. Stubborn girl. 

“I’m glad you have a friend,” she says.

“We’re not friends.”

Fuyumi makes a face that feels like an x-ray. Her students must always be on their toes. “Dad. My whole life you’ve never had anyone around who didn’t work for you . What would you call it then?”

“I don’t know,” he admits. “But we’re not friends.”

Enji and Hawks are not friends, but Enji hasn’t been able to get over the feeling that he owes him. He hasn’t done enough, and the realization that Hawks might have been just quietly watching out for him in the background without any need for attention is more unsettling than he would have expected. 

Enji is not the kind of person who knows how to have a partner, but Hawks is the closest he’s ever been to having one, and until he can repay him for whatever acts of friendship he’s done behind his back, he’ll never feel right.

So this trip is a start, he tells himself. Hawks doesn’t know he’s coming because a small part of him hopes he won’t be home, but Enji drives out to Hawks’s apartment early in the morning before he’s supposed to be at the agency. He won’t stay long, but he guesses it would be easier to meet before disaster inevitably strikes later in the day. 

He parks at the garage down the street and grabs the bag he brought with him and tells himself that he’s a fool for being so nervous. A man like him shouldn’t tremble. 

He knocks this time because it’s not a life or death situation even if it feels like it, and a minute later the door opens, and he doesn’t know why he’s so relieved that it’s Hawks who opens the door and not someone else. That’s not a thought he’s willing to process.

Hawks rubs his eye with his fist before looking up at him, and he’s not sure how he’s never noticed just how tiny he is. Maybe it’s a combination of the wing span and the presence, but Hawks being someone who has to look up at him was never something he thought about before.

“Good morning,” he half asks. “You canvassing the neighborhood?”

“I should have called first, I’m sorry.”

“No, no! Come in! Like I’ve ever given you a warning before dropping by,” he laughs as he steps aside.

Enji steps in and pretends like he doesn’t notice that Hawks is in nothing but an altered white undershirt and a pair of blue and orange chibi Endeavor boxers (whoever approved those is getting fired… or a raise, he isn’t sure), fresh out of bed and swollen around his cheeks.

“I brought you something,” he says as he lifts up the gift bag. The feeling of giving a present is… unusual…, but Hawks’s face instantly lights up. Oh, that’s nice.

His feathers flutter slightly as he reaches in past the tissue paper and pulls out what’s inside. It’s nothing special, just a red boxing glove (because red suits him), the other still waiting at the bottom of the bag.

“Oh?”

“I thought you could use your own pair,” he says. “The size might fit better.”

“Thank you,” he smiles warmly before slipping it onto one of his hands. “Fits like a gl– it fits.”

“Good,” Enji nods. “I want you to continue training. Join a gym or something, maybe, but you still have a lot to learn, and I don’t want you to give up just because whatever you were doing is finished.”

Hawks looks up at him and frowns.

“You dumping me, big guy?”

“No, but–.”

“Oh yeah, no, I get it,” he laughs. “That’s like a full time job, and you’re super busy, and I mean I’m super busy so it probably takes up a lot of your time, and like, you need that.”

“That’s not what I meant,” he frowns, and now he’s mad at himself because, oh, Hawks would train with someone else, and that hurts a little bit. It’s not supposed to hurt at all. “I don’t want to force you to practice with me just because you started with me.”

“Who else am I gonna go to?”

Enji pauses for a moment. A proper trainer. A coach. Anyone who isn’t me. Anyone who doesn’t like it so much. 

“No one,” he says.

“Good,” Hawks nods. “But if you want me to go away, all you have to do is ask. Like, for sparring or whatever, but like in life in general… I’ll split town, one hundred percent. Turns out I’m not good at doing that on my own.”

He laughs when he says it, but Enji can’t help but notice how sad he looks like he’s silently asking for him to tell him to stay away from him, but that isn’t what he wants at all. He has no idea how selfish Enji is.

Despite how much he tells himself he doesn’t, Enji likes having Hawks around. Teaming up with him always makes things go ten times more smoothly, and now that he has three interns to look out for, he doesn’t have to worry so much about them when Hawks is there.

And he likes working out together because his hunger and determination challenges him, and Hawks doesn’t hold back. Hawks isn’t afraid to hit him like Enji is going to flare up in retaliation over a couple of bruises because he trusts him. 

They trust each other.

He likes that he can be someone that another hero looks up to and goes to when they’re in trouble, even if it might be annoying coming from someone else. 

And he likes when Hawks drags him off to lunch no matter how many times he says no, and he likes that he can make sure Hawks has a full meal in him before he flies off into hell, and he likes when Hawks perches in his kitchen with his terrible greasy food like he belongs there.

He likes the noise Hawks brings into his home, and he likes that Hawks is so comfortable wherever he is that he makes Enji feel comfortable in his own home because god does it get lonely in there sometimes. 

Most importantly, he likes who he is when Hawks is around, and he’s afraid that if Hawks suddenly flies off for good, he might slip back into that other person that Enji doesn’t like so much.

“I don’t want you to,” he says.

“Don’t want me to…”

“Leave. I don’t want you feel like you have to unless you want to.”

“Those are big words, big guy,” he laughs nervously. “I’m gonna get the idea you like having me around, and then it’s game over.”

“I do though.”

Hawks blinks, and Enji feels like he has to say something now or he never will so he looks down as he continues.

“I don’t know how to be close to someone.”

“I don’t either,” Hawks says. “I’m not sure how I’m supposed to be in your life, actually.”

“You can do whatever you want.”

“Hey, that’s not,” he starts, and Enji looks at him begging Hawks to figure it out on his own because this is not a conversation Enji knows how to have. “What if I want too much?”

“I don’t care.”

“Bro, I’m not asking if you’re cool with being boxing buddies right now…”

Enji exhales and nods. “Neither am I.”

“Cool, cool,” Hawks brushes himself off as he shifts his weight from foot to foot. His feathers ruffle as he takes a few deep breaths, and Enji is about to tell him to forget about it and leave because he has no idea how to read panic , but then Hawks looks at him in distress, and it’s a pain he feels in his own chest. “I’m so fucking stupid.”

The wh- barely escapes his lips before Hawks launches himself towards him midair with a hard flap, and slings his arms and legs around him, and Enji is forced to hold him up. He’s greeted with the press of unapologetic hunger and the taste of toothpaste, and it’s kind of the best feeling in the world.

But this is not their first kiss.

The first kiss happened the other night when Hawks was an absolute mess at his home after his second or third bottle of wine. It was late, and Hawks was pouty and tired, and Enji wanted to get him to bed before he could get sick on his furniture.

Hawks is a hot drunk. (No, not like that). His body temperature rises, and his solution for that was not to drink more water but to strip, and Enji wanted to spare him as much of his dignity as he could. He owed him that as a person but also as a fellow hero so he ripped the back out of one of his own sweatshirts and tied the hands so Hawks couldn’t break free, and Hawks whined and fought him until Enji scooped him up in his arms to carry him off, and then he was as happy and as pliant as he has ever been. 

He swung his legs gleefully while Enji carried him through the house, almost knocking a vase clean off of a table as they passed through, but at least he stopped trying to fight him.

Enji tried to place him down carefully onto the spare bed, but Hawks did not want to be put down, and as he finally shook him free, Hawks’s arms flung themselves around his neck and he stole a kiss before Enji had a chance to register what happened.

He was about to scold him because he was not supposed to do that, but then Hawks covered his blushing, wine rusted face with his bound hands and giggled wildly like a damn child.

“Oh no, I’m sorry, I’m sure you’re a nice guy, but I’m actually interested in someone,” Hawks swats him away in a fit of shy giggles like he didn’t just kiss him. 

Enji rolls his eyes, half amused as he tucks the rest of him into bed. “Oh really, who’s that.”

“No, you’re gonna laugh at me,” he pouts.

“No, I won’t.”

Hawks peaks at him from behind his hands. “Okay, come here, it’s a secret.”

Enji exhales and leans down because the last thing he needs is for Hawks to become fussy with him again. He needs him to stay in bed and go to sleep . 

Hawks cranes his neck to reach his ear, having his shoulders pinned down by the sheet, and Enji waits for whatever silly answer he could possibly come up with in his current state.

“The number two hero Endeavor,” he whispers before giggling at himself and flopping back down onto the pillow. “He’s my favorite.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, he’s gonna be number one one day, and I’m gonna help him save people,” Hawks grins, his eyes closed and peaceful. “He’s the reason I became a hero in the first place”

Hawks stomped in the next morning demanding he remove his sweatshirt so Enji never brought it up and brushed it off as Hawks being a bad drunk, but now he thinks he might have been an idiot for not saying something sooner.

“If you throw me off, that’s gonna suck,” Hawks says against his mouth. “Because holy shit.

Enji hums and tightens the grip around his thighs, and Hawks’s one gloved hand bumps his ear.

“Oh, sorry.”

He pulls it off and tosses it to the couch before returning to the kiss and threading his newly freed hand through Enji’s hair, and it sends a shiver down his spine.

“Am I too heavy,” he asks.

“No.”

But you talk too much.

Hawks kisses like he’s waited a long time for this, and it does nothing good for Enji’s ego. Once again, he’s pushed by him to do better, to do more, so he turns them and pins Hawks against the wall, and Hawks makes the most beautiful sound he’s ever heard.

Enji presses himself between Hawks’s legs, and he isn’t at all sorry because it pulls out a sigh that sends little waves of heat throughout his body.

“I’m gonna fuckin’ die,” Hawks gasps.

“That’s okay.”

“Are you kidding me,” he says as Enji moves down to kiss his neck. He pushes him up further so he can reach, and Hawks’s legs dig into his waist to get closer. His head rolls back as Enji bites into the flesh as a test, and the soft moan that comes is pure honey.

He feels Hawks against him through the thin layer of shorts, and he wonders, with some sort of sickness, if he could manage to make him finish like this alone— teeth in his neck and only the friction of his body to get him some relief.

“You said I could have what I want, right,” he asks, out of breath as he nudges Enji’s face back up.

“Yes.”

“Bedroom,” he swallows. 

“We have to work.”

“The world can wait thirty extra minutes,” he grits. “I can’t.”

“Who says I’m letting you out after just thirty?”

“Bedroom!”

Hawks being a part of Enji’s life makes sense. Whether or not he thinks of himself as someone who needs a partner is up for debate (and the news stations do it for him constantly), but he’s happy that there is a person willing to have his back no matter what.

He’s still secretive when it comes to his work schedule, but Enji trusts him enough not to ask, but he knows when Hawks says he's going to have a late night to not expect to see him for a few days. Some days Hawks reappears in the middle of a fight with a new faded bruise Enji doesn’t ask about, and sometimes he just climbs through his window and gets into bed even though he’s told him a dozen times to just use the door.

He promises to tell him everything one day, and he trusts him because he trusts Hawks the most, but the one thing he doesn’t like is that he’s not out there with him. They’re supposed to be partners. That means he’s supposed to have his back too.

So he does the one thing he can to help, and god have they gotten too good at it.

Hawks circles him, half crouched and drenched in sweat, and he has bloodlust in his eyes. Enji raises his arms in defense waiting for Hawks to strike first.

“You tired yet,” Hawks asks.

“Do I look tired?”

“A little,” he grins, and Enji huffs out a cone of steam. 

“Too easy,” he tsks before lunging forward, and his punch narrowly misses.

“You call that easy? Your hits are getting slow.”

Hawks wipes the sweat from his forehead and gets back into position. “Okay, come at me then.”

“I’m gonna throw you,” he warns. “You better get ready.”

“You telling me your moves? Really? Look who’s cocky.”

“I’m tired of you missing,” Enji baits. “It’s getting on my nerves.”

“Then quit fucking dodging,” Hawks yells before he jumps forward, and Enji grabs him and slams him down onto his back hard enough that it knocks the air out of him. “Fuck.”

“You can take it,” he says, pinning him down. “I’ve seen you take better hits than that.”

Hawks cranes his head up and looks at him like Enji’s lost his mind. “Does it look like I’m mad about it?”

He steals a kiss before standing back up, and Hawks whines on the floor. “If you’re gonna pin me like that, don’t leave me hanging.”

“If you want a reward, then take it.”

“Take it, you say,” he raises an eyebrow.

“I’ll do whatever you want if you can pin me.”

“Oh hell yeah,” Hawks says as he stands up. He brushes himself off and gets back into position, and it’s enough to make Enji laugh. “I’m gonna hit you so hard, you’re gonna see stars, baby.”

“We’ll see about that.”