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For all that Hawks has been a top hero for years, he has to admit: he has never actually stopped a bank robbery.
It’s the cliché of all clichés, he knows, and nobody really robs banks these days. What’s the point, when it’s so much easier to take a go at a jewelry store? So much financial information is kept online, anyways - Hawks can’t actually remember the last time he paid for anything with cash. Maybe modern villains are of a similar mindset. If you can’t hack the bank’s systems, then you probably can’t pullhack pulling off a bank robbery, anyways.
… Sometimes, Hawks kind of wants to try his hand at robbing a bank himself. For the sake of testing security, of course. He’d place bets on succeeding - the silent alarms connect to all local hero and law enforcement agencies, but he’s the fastest hero out there. He’d be in and out in no time, so long as the vault wasn’t too hard to get through.
Now isn’t the time to ponder the integrity of bank vaults, however. It’s just a topic on his mind as he waits in line at a bank. It’s not the tellers’ fault that it’s taking forever - the place seems really crowded - but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s been standing here for fifteen whole minutes and barely moved. He’d be bouncing on his toes if he had any energy. Alas, the building is an old, wooden monstrosity with the kind of old-timey classiness that reminds Hawks of a library, and the kind of old-timey lack-of-centralized-heating that has him huddling into himself for warmth.
Unfortunately, while robbing the place feels like it would be faster than getting through this teller line to cash his check (look, wasting time filling out his direct deposit info for the one-time teamup gig with Edgeshot seemed less important than getting the job done, even though he’s regretting it now), that very same gig has left him rather… plucked, for lack of a better term.
Or, well. That gig, and the one before it. And the one before that. Then the disaster he’d dived in on before that. Plus - look, he’s had a busy week. He lost most of his right primaries to an acid villain who was much easier to take down once he’d realized she was less of a villain and more of a really upset, hormonal teenager literally spewing acid distress everywhere over what has to be one of the most embarrassing quirk accidents Hawks has ever seen. He’d talked her up a bit and stuck through taking some selfies to help with the whole self-esteem issue and maybe make up for the fact that she melted her crush’s shoes, but she leaked acid when she blushed and, well… he wasn’t about to just cringe away from a teenager.
After that was a forest campground surrounded by entirely not-quirk-related fire and in dire need of evacuation, and then came his villain takedown mission with Edgeshot. By the time he walked into his agency this morning, all Hawks had left was cute little baby-looking wings. He’s rearranged the remaining feathers as neatly as possible, but he basically looks like a red cupid. He couldn’t even fly in properly to work this morning, instead relying entirely on the telekinetic aspect of his quirk.
When his secretary saw him, he immediately threw a big fuss and practically forced Hawks out of his own agency for some time off - which he’s now using to take care of the personal errands that have piled up while he worked!
So, it is safe to say that between the lack of feathers and unfamiliarity with bank vault mechanics, Hawks probably wouldn’t be able to rob this bank.
It’s a shame.
Also a shame: Fewer feathers means a shorter sensory range on his wings. Normally, it wouldn’t matter, because Hawks is vigilant to a fault. Not only is it important to be aware of all dangers in hero work, but it just looks fucking cool when he saves someone’s cat from a tree without so much as looking up from burying his nose in his morning coffee.
Currently, however? His secretary’s dramatic declarations of time off mean that he didn’t get said morning coffee, and taking the time off means that Hawks isn’t actually keeping an eye on his surroundings. Instead, he’s staring blankly at his phone as he waits in line, paused in the middle of scrolling through Twitter because he’s so distracted by the bank-robbing fantasy.
It’s very hard to stay distracted when a gun goes off in the building, though.
“EVERYBODY ON THE GROUND, NOW! This is a robbery! Keep your hands where I can see them and nobody gets hurt!”
Hawks closes his eyes, taking a slow breath and trying not to swear. His head is starting to hurt, a telltale sign of caffeine withdrawal even though it’s only ten in the morning because he really is that dependent on the stuff. Really, it’s the perfect time for loud yelling, gunshots, and a life-threatening emergency.
He should have knocked on wood.
Hawks taps, locks, and pockets his phone before raising his hands, turning around nice and slow without lowering himself to the ground as demanded. He’s not in uniform, having gone home to trade his flight suit and aviator jacket for jeans and a fashion tee from a wing-friendly brand, but he’s not exactly unrecognizable. It should soon be very obvious who this little operation has stumbled into. Maybe if Hawks is lucky, they’ll see him and just turn themselves in.
The robbers, on the other hand, are anything but identifiable. They have on stereotypically but unfortunately effective ski masks, and neither of them has any obvious mutation quirk. The presence of guns rather than a reliance on quirks alone means they’re either pretty smart or have weak quirks, and Hawks isn’t willing to bet on one over the other with so many people in the building for the robbers to shoot.
Said people have all hit the floor at this point, scooting to the walls, and their panicked murmuring is slowly fading as the robber’s threat echoes through the building. Hawks and the robbers are the only ones left standing.
The same person who had shot at the ceiling earlier jerks her gun at Hawks, stepping forward with a clomp of steel-toed boots.
“What the fuck are you waiting for?” she demands, “Get on the damn floor, asshole, or I’ll put you there the fast way.”
“Bon,” her partner says from where he had frozen upon laying eyes on Hawks, “We’re in trouble. That’s Pro Hero Hawks.”
The quiet whispering of the captive civilians in the building jumps in pitch, and Hawks makes out his hero name travelling down the line in a hopeful susurration. Just his presence is enough to take people off-edge, and he should find it gratifying, but - he really wishes that the civilians would stay quiet and not draw attention, right now.
“Do I look like an idiot to you?” she spits, blazing eyes not leaving Hawks’s. He cocks his head, unblinking. “I know who it is. He’s been in the news all week, losing every useful feather on his skinny back. I saw him walk in here before we set up. He’s not Pro Hero Hawks right now, moron. He’s our prize hostage.”
Hawks grins, all teeth and affably slumped shoulders. “Aw, you’ve been watching me on the news? Tell me they’ve been catching my good angles.”
She moves her gun three inches to the left and shoots without a moment’s hesitation. Someone behind Hawks shrieks, but he doesn’t have space to flinch or look. The bullet whizzes so close to his head that pressure pops in his ear, and a few seconds later he registers a sting and slight warmth trickling down his ear.
“Never seen an uglier mug in my life,” she throws back. “Now get on the ground before I kneecap you. Trust me, I won’t miss, and the cops are probably gonna want you with your knees intact.”
Well, that just puts his back against a wall, doesn’t it?
“Yes, ma’am,” he murmurs, and sinks to his knees. The drip of blood keeps running down the side of his neck, ticklish and probably soon to be staining his shirt. He shouldn’t have worn white today.
Her partner laughs, high with anxious disbelief. “It can’t seriously be that easy. You’re Hawks.”
Hawks shrugs, keeping his hands in the air. “What can I say?” he asks, “You really caught me on a bad day, man. I haven’t even had a coffee. Think I’m gettin’ a migraine, but that might be the bullet your girl just put in me…”
He flutters his tiny wings pointedly, showcasing their diminutive state, and a few feathers detach and drift to the ground sadly.
“Eh, it barely grazed ya. If she wanted a bullet in ya, you’d have a bullet in ya. You really look larger than life on TV,” the male robber says thoughtfully, stepping forward until he’s barely two feet from Hawks. He’s still holding the gun, pointed squarely at Hawks’s chest, but his grip is more relaxed. “You’re kinda short in real life. And seeing a top ten pro like you on his knees is kind of a power trip. I can’t believe a gun and a bad day is all it took.”
“Yo, please don’t make this weird…” Hawks requests, cringing back in genuine discomfort. If Rumi were here, she’d have already rammed this guy’s firearm up where the sun don’t shine, but Hawks is trying to do this whole thing with as little effort taken as possible, thanks. He doesn’t want to have to exert himself because one of the bank robbers turns out to have a weird thing about Hawks on his knees.
The woman, who had left Hawks to her partner and vaulted the counter in a motion that sent all his scattered feathers swirling, whirls around at that. When she sees how close her partner has gotten to Hawks, her eyes go from narrowed in irritation to so wide he can see it even through the ski mask.
“Clyde, step back - ”
That’s as far as Hawks lets her get.
See, the thing about Pro Hero Hawks is that he’s very flashy. He has fuckoff huge red wings and a big personality, and sends his feathers flitting every which way on a whim or a rescue. That’s what most people pay attention to about him, and it’s what makes him so popular! It’s really funny how much of his abilities don’t make it to the average person’s attention in comparison to that, though, especially since he doesn’t make most of what he can do a secret.
For example: His speed, which is not particularly impacted at close range even with most of his feathers missing.
Clyde blinks, starting to turn his head. By the time he’s opened his eyes, Hawks has twisted his gun out of his hand, dropped the cartridge onto the floor and sent it skidding in the opposite direction from where he wings the gun, and wrenched the man himself onto his knees and into a headlock.
“Hm,” Hawks comments, “You’re right. This feels better when I’m the one on my feet.”
“B-Bonnie,” the guy chokes out, and falls silent when he finally gets a look at his partner.
She too is rather indisposed. Instead of the tender care of Hawks’s forearm pressing into her throat, though, she has several adorable and very sharp baby feathers pinning various parts of her uniform to the wood of the teller’s counter. Her gun is also nowhere to be seen, mostly because Hawks had taken the time to disassemble it entirely. It is currently scattered across the floor in several pieces.
“For the record,” he tells her with a wink, “Stepping back wouldn’t have actually helped.”
He really hopes that her quirk has nothing to do with eye contact, because the glare she is levying at him right now could truly kill. Slow, piercing blink aside, however, she doesn’t move. Her partner, on the other hand, starts wriggling.
Hawks holds him tighter, frowning for a moment at the choking sound that elicits before he realizes the man isn’t trying to wiggle out of his grip - rather, his skin is bubbling, turning bulbous and blue as his whole body just expands.
Hawks tightens his hold further. His next move isn’t the most ethical option he could have taken, but it only takes a few seconds for the guy to slump in his grip as the blood flow to his brain is cut off. He’ll wake up very quickly, but it’s enough to cut off whatever transformation he’s trying, and hopefully he’ll learn his lesson and not try again.
“Now,” Hawks sighs, “It’s kinda supposed to be my day off, and I think my secretary might have my head if I walk back in tomorrow with an incident report. Any chance one of you lovely civilians could just… call this in and pretend you caught the robbers?”
“I… I pressed the silent alarm,” one of the tellers says hoarsely, barely above a whisper. He’s slowly peeking over his desk, though still leaning dramatically away from where Bonnie is pinned two desks down.
“That’s perfect!” Hawks chirps, beaming at him in a way that he hopes is reassuring. Man, he doesn’t usually have to do the All Might shtick this much, but it’s not often that someone brings a gun out. Quirks might be volatile and unpredictable, but they’re easier to access than guns and most heroes don’t see them around much anymore.
“You did a good job,” Hawks reassures the teller, and twists himself and his hostage slightly to face the rest of the room. The civilians are starting to un-huddle slightly from where they’re pressed against the cold marble floor, and sirens are starting to echo in the distance. Which is great, because the man in his arms is starting to stir.
“Shush,” Hawks tells him when he groans, “Don’t try your quirk or I’ll put you out again. Hey, you with the red coat. Please go outside and let the good officers know that they’re good to come in, yeah?”
The responding mumble from Clyde is mostly incomprehensible, and lost regardless in the bang of the front doors when the girl he’d nodded at runs to the bank entrance and pries open the doors. The robbers had managed to bar them, but only by shoving a crowbar through the handles.
The next few minutes are filled with some hectic police procedures that Hawks can work through in his sleep by now. At some point somebody takes Clyde away from him, and he’s directed to a police security van alongside Bonnie after being thoroughly checked for more weapons. Hawks helps the search using his feathers, but also reserves the remaining 20% of his brainpower for lamenting the fact that he’s very unlikely to cash his check today.
All in all, it’s still a more productive day than he had expected. He’s not supposed to go looking for trouble on his days off, but he’s managed to find it a few times regardless. This is the first time he’s nabbed something as big as a bank robbery, though. There’s really only one thing that could make this day better.
“Hey, loser!”
“Mm?” Hawks looks up, blinking. Rumi is standing in front of him, uniformed and holding two cups of coffee with one outstretched towards Hawks. She must have been in the area, or else was just drawn by her absolutely superb instincts when it comes to sniffing out a fight.
“Oh! Rumi, you’re my favorite,” Hawks gasps, nabbing the coffee and throwing his arm around Rumi’s shoulder. He has to reach up to manage, and she immediately takes it as a challenge, wrestling him down one-handedly until she’s the one using him as an arm-rest.
“It’s okay,” Hawks chokes out once she releases his throat, “You brought caffeine. I still love you.”
“Should’ve kept it for myself,” she mutters, “Since you ain’t got the decency to leave any of the fight for me.”
“Ah, shit,” Hawks says, “You’re right. Tell ya what, I’ll let them kneecap me next time, and you can be my bunny in shining leotard.”
“And don’t you forget it,” she confirms, nodding firmly. The grin tugging at the edges of her lips betrays her, though, and Hawks buries his face in his paper cup of sweet, sweet caffeine before he starts beaming. It’s black, just like his soul becomes without caffeinated sustenance, and with enough sugar that he’s definitely going to crash later. Perfect.
“Say, Rumi,” Hawks ponders as life finally starts seeping back into his bones, “You think I could pull off robbing a bank?”
“Nah,” she replies immediately, utterly merciless in her dismissal, “I know I could, though. C’mon, let’s go, the cops are startin’ to clear the area and I’m not an attention whore like you. I don’t wanna deal with reporters bogging me down.”
Hawks’s brain is stuck on ‘buffering’ for a few seconds, still not quite up to normal operating speeds.
“Wait,” he realizes, squinting at Rumi as she walks away. “Wait, what do you mean you know you could rob a bank? Rumi? Rumi, wait up!”