Chapter Text
Dynamight, Levity and Psyren were 15 years old now.
Matsukawa believed he hit the jackpot in acquiring Dynamight. That kid was destined to be a pro hero. He had the perfect quirk, looks, and brains for it.
Additionally, they noticed that his skin doesn’t scar in the same way normal peoples’ skin does. The glycerin aspect of his quirk made it so that any cuts and abrasions healed without forming scar tissue. His skin would likely always be clear and flawless like his mother’s. That would reduce the number of cosmetic procedures he’d need in the future.
Dynamight wasn’t perfect though. As puberty took its course, Matsukawa and the Project Upsilon team noticed that his temper was getting more explosive. Quirks are known to affect people’s personalities, so it wasn’t surprising that he had a tendency to lash out. His hormones must have been increasing those natural tendencies. The same thing happened with Hawks around that age. He started displaying more primal behaviors, like the predatory bird his quirk relates to. Kuboyasu and Dr. Fujiwara were able to fix that with behavioral therapy. Dr. Fujiwara began researching medications to fix Dynamight’s behavioral problems too.
The doctor also discovered that Dynamight had been losing his hearing because of his quirk. At this point, his hearing had decreased by about 30%, and that number would continue to rise. For now, they decided not to treat it. If Dynamight could adapt to not rely on his hearing, that could be an asset. Before his debut they’d operate on him to fix his ears so he can start his career at full power, but for now, Matsukawa would work with Dr. Fujiwara and the support staff to create a support item that can prevent future hearing loss after the surgery.
Levity hated her period with a burning passion. It was so unfair that just because she was a woman growing up that she had to experience a week of cramps and blood every month. She wished that Psyren and Dynamight had to suffer with her at least.
It was a good thing she wouldn’t have to deal with it much longer. Dr. Fujiwara explained exactly how reproduction works to her and the boys. Since they’re going to be pro heroes, they can’t afford to risk pregnancy. That was why they were all going to be sterilized. In case the Commission ever decided that they should have kids, their eggs and sperm were all going to be frozen.
The boys were lucky. The sperm collection was easy for them and the vasectomy procedure was relatively simple. Ochako’s surgery would be much more invasive. She probably wouldn’t ever be able to carry her own pregnancy afterwards, so any future offspring of hers would have to be brought to term using a surrogate. But it’s not like she really cared about having her own progeny anyway. She had her hero career to worry about. What would be annoying were the hormone treatments that she’d need after her surgery.
But this was better than throwing away her hero career because of a pregnancy.
As he went through the internship offers for his students, there was one that made Aizawa pause.
This was the first time Hawks had extended the offer for a student to intern with him. Aizawa was wary of this considering the hero’s young age, but he did have a perfect track record.
In the few years since Hawks’ debut, the swift hero had broken the top ten rankings quicker than anyone before him. It was part of Aizawa’s job to identify what makes rising heroes successful so that he can help his students.
The case of Hawks was very unique however. 90% of the time, successful young heroes come from one of the top four hero schools in Japan. Occasionally a student from a lesser known hero school would rise in the ranks. Hero schools are extremely competitive, so everyone always wanted to know which school a hero came from. Hawks, however, never officially revealed where he went to school. He obviously didn’t got to UA, and according to Ms. Joke and the other schools’ teachers that he knew, Hawks didn’t go to any of their schools either. It was an anomaly. Not impossible, but definitely unusual.
The other thing about Hawks was that he somehow pretty much bypassed the entire process of becoming a pro hero. He never worked as an intern, work-study student, or as a sidekick. He made his debut as a fully fledged hero. The only time that had ever happened before was with All Might. Hawks also had his own agency within the same year that he made his debut. It usually took rookie heroes years before they were well established enough to be able to build their own agency.
Hawks became a household name less than six months after he made his debut. All the biggest newspapers were putting his name in the headlines. Ads for everything were saturated with his image, from toothpaste to vacation destinations. And his hero skills were unquestionable- it was no wonder that Hawks was so successful.
Hawks’ background perplexed Aizawa. He could only think of one theory that might explain it: Hawks was probably from an incredibly wealthy family that paid for a private education and helped him get a head start on his career. It was very strange that they didn’t go through the usual channels, but it probably just had to do with personal preferences. He was looking forward to meeting the kid though. After all, Tokoyami was going to intern with him.
There were many preparations to be made before Class Zero made their debuts as pro heroes. Currently, their training was going well, and all of their outside attachments had been taken care of. Quite sadly, in the past few years, Bakugou Mistuki and Masaru had tragically died in a car accident in Italy and the Urarakas unfortunately perished in an unsolved villain attack. Dynamight and Levity were not informed so as to not disrupt their progress in training. They wouldn’t care anyway, considering they hadn’t seen their parents in almost ten years.
Tokoyami was the same age as Class Zero. This fact shocked Hawks. From his observations, there seemed to be a huge gap in maturity between Class Zero and 1A.
Tokoyami was so naive and filled with hope- it was refreshing. It reminded him of the first time he met Class Zero and they were just babies. Hawks was naive back then too.
It was really nice having Tokoyami around. A fellow bird! He was thrilled to share advice and best of all, he helped teach Tokoyami the best thing about being a bird: flight. Flying was probably Hawks’ favorite thing in the whole world. Soaring through the clouds, feeling the wind in his feathers… There was nothing like it. He didn’t get to indulge himself often considering how busy he was with hero work, but when he was soaring he truly felt at peace. It was the most natural thing there was.
It would be difficult for Tokoyami to rise high in the ranks with his obvious mutation. Every time he heard him make a bird noise, Hawks cringed internally. It would be rude to advise him to stop making those noises, so Hawks held his tongue. He remembered how ashamed he felt when his trainers made him stop making bird noises when he was younger. Maybe he wasn’t being helpful to Tokoyami’s career, but Hawks wanted the kid to be able to act like a kid. Gang Orca’s mutation was far worse than Tokoyami’s anyway, and he was extremely successful.
When the Commission first told him to pick out an intern from the UA Sports Festival, he was a little worried that he wouldn’t be up to the task. After all, what could such a new hero teach a student from the best hero school in Japan? Class Zero had been receiving highly personalized training for years- at this point they were just fine-tuning everything that they had learned before. Surely Class 1A couldn’t be too far behind…
How wrong he was. It turned out that the average hero student didn’t even begin their training until they were more than 10 years old. Some didn’t even start until high school! Hawks couldn’t even imagine how far back in his career he would be right now if it weren’t for the Commission taking him under its wing. The gap in skill within Class 1A alone was baffling. There were some more privileged students such as Todoroki and Iida that had trained since early childhood while others like Kaminari and Aoyama had only barely started their training. This made Hawks glad that the Commission was teaching their own hero students; there was more structure which guaranteed that all of the heroes would be fully prepared for the work at their debut.
Hawks was at the top for a reason. He had surpassed nearly all of the other heroes in just a few years because the Commission prepared him well.
There was a small part of him that wished he could take Endeavor’s son as his intern too. It was entirely selfish of him. He just wanted to learn more about Endeavor. It would have been a great excuse to get to talk to him more. It was too bad their quirks were so incompatible. Having Little Todoroki as an intern would just be dangerous for Hawks and useless for Todoroki. What could Hawks even teach the kid anyway? He wasn’t surprised at all to find out that Little Todoroki would intern for his father. Who wouldn’t want to intern for Endeavor?
If there was one hero that Hawks looked up to above the rest, it would be Endeavor. It started out when he was little and the flame hero saved him from the hell that was his parents. Hawks’ early life was cold, lonely, and hungry. His parents treated him like scum— if he was even acknowledged at all. Endeavor burned the Takami family to the ground, which allowed Hawks to rise up like a phoenix from those ashes. He owed everything good in his life to Endeavor.
As Hawks was exposed to more of the world, he naturally learned more about Endeavor. The man worked harder than anyone else, constantly striving to be the best. He might not be the friendliest hero, but that’s because he was busy resolving more cases than even All Might! Hawks hoped he could get to that point someday, where his personality didn’t matter as much as his success rate.
And somehow, on top of all his hero work, Endeavor had a family. He was very protective over them, making sure to keep their lives private and away from his hero work. Despite being the #2 hero for years on end, nobody knew much about his family. It was only because he went to UA that everyone learned that the youngest son wanted to follow in his dad’s footsteps as a hero. Apparently the older kids were grown up and lived normal adult lives.
Hawks couldn’t imagine ever not being a hero, but maybe if he had had a dad like Endeavor, he also wouldn’t understand the necessity of heroes in their flawed society. Maybe in a world where he had a dad like Endeavor, society wasn’t flawed at all.