Chapter Text
To be honest, Hakamata Tsunagu wasn’t exactly sure what he was signing up for when he joined the Hero Commission. He had grown up with the hopes and dreams of becoming a pro hero that could save everyone. When those dreams were dismissed (because his quirk wasn’t suited for hero work, they said), he was offered the next best thing: a spot in the Hero Public Safety Commission.
The amount of work that was handed to him was tough, but his passion led him through it all. The Commission gave him a chance to interact with heroes, and that was more than enough of a reason for him to stay. Plus, they were seriously understaffed, so it didn’t make sense to leave them and the hero society in shambles.
After a couple of years of working for the Hero Commission, and Tsunagu thought that he was finally getting used to his strenuous schedule, another new (and possibly more difficult, with how his superiors were wording it) task was thrown at him.
The order started normally. He was assigned a new job and a higher position. They had found someone with great hero potential, and he was to take care of them.
That was the normal part.
If he wasn’t paying super close attention, he would have missed the fact that the ‘someone with great hero potential’ was only fucking eight years old. They mentioned it only once as an offhand comment, and if that wasn’t setting off alarms in his head, the child’s daily schedule surely did it.
Of course, there had been previous occasions where Tsunagu didn’t quite agree with the Commission and their actions, but he decided that they were made for the greater good of the hero society and regular citizens and brushed them off.
But as Tsunagu stared down at the small child before him, looking too thin and too scared for any normal eight year old, he thought that there was nothing that could justify these actions. The Commission had finally gone too far, crossing over Tsunagu’s well established line of tolerance.
They had trusted him with this information, and they were so fucking wrong if they thought he would just follow it without retaliation.
Tsunagu’s mind drifted to less appropriate thoughts along the lines of murder, but he had to steer himself to nicer, softer thoughts as he cleared his throat to prepare for speaking to the child whose name he didn’t even know.
“Hello,” he greeted in the sweetest tone he could manage. “My name is Hakamata Tsunagu. I’m your new,” he paused, trying out the word on his tongue, “...handler.”
The boy’s eyes widened, his body shook, and his feathers ruffled from fear, but he still managed a quiet reply. “It’s nice to meet you, sir.”
Tsunagu smiled, although he cringed from the title. “Please, just call me Tsunagu. And what’s your name?”
“My name is Ke-.” He stopped, biting his tongue in panic, and his eyes filled with fear. “Hawks! My name is Hawks, sir! I mean, Tsu---Tsunagu, sir! I--!”
“It’s nice to meet you, Hawks,” Tsunagu said and watched the boy physically relax at not being reprimanded for his slip up. Huh. Tsunagu wondered who the fuck was heartless enough to scare a child so much that he would be so frightened by making such a small mistake. He had to schedule a meeting with Hawks’s previous handler later to make some inquiries, he thought.
Hawks shrank back, trembling even more, and Tsunagu realized that he must have had a bit too much malice in his eyes. He opened his mouth to apologize, raising his hand slightly, and Hawks flinched.
It was a tiny movement, with all of his limbs becoming stiff, but Tsunagu had to be blind to not notice it.
Oh, fuck it, he was going to go rogue. At least it was a healthier alternative than the murder plans that he had, so well crafted that anyone who found the body (if they found the body) would assume that it was an accident and nothing more.
A week later, his name and face were in the newspapers, listed as a “dangerous individual”, and wanted for kidnapping, attempted murder, and property damage.
Yes, Tsunagu mused, holding Hawks closer in his arms. He should have expected that something like this would happen when he accepted the position in the Hero Commission.
-----
Tsunagu had no idea how he got to this point.
Okay. He did, but he would rather not think about it, thank you very much.
Maybe it all started when he went over the boy’s training schedule. Maybe it all started when he agreed to take the job. Maybe this little rebellion had been building up inside of him and Hawks had been the thing that released it all and let all hell run loose.
What he did know was that he had taken a sad child, an important tool of the Commission, and ran.
If anyone told him that he would be wanted for something like this two years ago, he would have laughed at their face and blatantly told them that he wouldn’t risk something like his future for one child. It wasn’t that he hated kids, he just didn’t particularly like them.
Well. That really showed how good he was at predicting the future.
They were currently sitting on the roof of a building, peering down at the bustling city below them. Tsunagu watched Hawks looking around curiously, seeing the outside for the first time in years.
His (former) superiors were fools, painting a bright red target onto their own backs and thinking that no one could possibly be out to get them.
Nevertheless, maybe Tsunagu should have planned this escape a little better. He had some food and cloth on him that he could use, but other than that, he didn’t have any other resources.
He shifted the large cloth that he had draped over them, contemplating whether it was really a good idea to hide in such an obvious place. With Hawks’s quirk, the roofs of buildings would probably be the first place they looked. It was surprising that the Commission hadn’t found them yet; the cloth that he was using as cover proved to be more effective than he had thought.
“Um…”
Hawks’s quiet voice was enough to snap Tsunagu out of his thoughts and throw away all of his regrets about the situation. Right. He was doing this for Hawks. He was saving someone.
That definitely made him more of a hero than the Commission would ever be.
“Thank you,” Hawks continued shyly, “for bringing me out here. I’m sorry for the trouble. We can go back now.”
“Oh hell no,” Tsunagu scoffed almost immediately and without thinking. “We’re not going back there. Not if I can help it.”
“But,” Hawks said pleadingly. “They’ll be mad. I have to go back to become a hero.”
“Listen,” Tsunagu said, pausing to choose his words. “I’m your handler, right? So I’m technically in charge of you. The rule was that you follow everything I say. And I say we run away. Got it?”
Hawks stared at him for a moment, and then nodded slowly.
Tsunagu really hated using the “power” of Hawks’s handler to control him. Even though he was desperate, his order still left a bitter taste on his tongue.
Tsunagu tried changing the subject to lighten the mood that he could feel becoming heavier and heavier as every second passed. “So. Hawks is only your hero name, right? What’s your real name?”
When he saw the young boy flinch, Tsunagu knew that he had fucked up. He was never one for social interactions, and apparently his lack of experience was coming back to bite him in the ass.
“Oh. I mean, we should try to get to know each other better. Uh, are you hungry?” Tsunagu tried again in a fruitless effort to keep up the conversation. When he was met with silence, he sighed. “Listen, kid, I-.”
“Keigo.”
It came out in a quiet whisper, barely audible over the loud whistling of the wind in his ears. Tsunagu wrapped the cloth around them tighter.
“Pardon?”
“My name,” Hawks repeated. “It’s Keigo.”
“Oh.” Tsunagu smiled. “Well, it’s nice to meet you Keigo. Are you hungry?” He dug through his pocket and fished out a granola bar. “Eat up. It’s going to be a long night.”
Things went well for another few nights of hiding on roofs and in cheap motels, and eating convenience store food (Tsunagu may or may not have threatened a few teenage clerks with a knife, but as far as he was concerned, it didn’t really matter anymore, considering his record).
And then, of course, life had other plans for them, and everything went downhill from there.