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After evacuating 200 people from what would have been a fatal train crash, Hawks asks everyone where they’re headed. Most of them are on their way to work on the other side of town, and since Hawks has no other urgent matters of business to attend to so early in the morning, he sends most of the passengers with a feather to fly them to their destinations. He’s already captured the villains behind the crash, so he leans against a lamppost and starts scrolling through his newsfeed while he waits for someone to come pick them up. There’s nothing really new, just some doubts about Endeavor’s approval ratings, the discovery of some ancient pottery, and some speculation about the uptick in villain activity. Hawks sighs, more familiar with that last one than he’d like to be.
“Hey!” he hears. It’s one of the three villains who caused the train crash from where he’s sitting cuffed to a fire hydrant. It’s been a bit of a wait for the transfer squad to show up; there aren’t many on duty right now because there’s not much demand for villain capture and transfer until at least lunch hour.
“What’s up?” he asks, clicking off his phone and pushing off the lamppost.
“What’s taking them so long?” the villain asks. “It’s pretty chilly.”
“Yeah!” the other two pipe up in agreement.
“I don’t know, guys. Sorry.” He contemplates giving them his jacket, because it is chilly, but he’s pretty sure at least one of the Commission’s bugs is embedded in the zipper and he doesn’t want it to get zapped with the same technology quirk that made the train go off the rails. He snaps his fingers as an idea comes to him. “But, uh, wait here.” He gives them the universal “I’m watching you” sign and leaves one of his last small feathers behind to head back to the train station where there’s always some old lady selling blankets of some sort. He doesn’t have much to spend his too-high Number Two Hero paycheck on, so he likes using it for things like this.
The villains are right where he left them, but now he can hear their teeth chattering. “Here,” he says, tucking a blanket around each of them and another over all three.
Five minutes later, he’s perched on the top of the lamppost instead of leaning against it, and most of his feathers have returned from escorting everyone to work. The weather app on his phone says the sun will rise in 10 minutes. He likes to watch the sunrise from the air, likes the long shadows the city buildings cast over each other as much as he likes the orange and red clouds. It’s different where he sits right now—not quite in the air, not quite on the ground—but still pretty. It would be a lot nicer with a coffee in his hand, though.
He takes the villains’ orders, flies off, and is back with four coffees.
“Oh, your hands are… a little full,” he says when he remembers the quirk-suppressing restraints. But they’re cold and anyway, he doesn’t want 3 good coffees to go to waste. He took all three of them in a fight easily enough, and he can’t think of a way they could use their quirks to get out of normal handcuffs anyway.
When the transfer crew finally shows up, Hawks is down to the last little bit of his coffee and has learned that the three villains were scouted for their quirks and blackmailed into crashing the train by some villain named ReDestro. He writes down the name in his notes to look into later and explains that to the transfer crew. “They might need some witness protection stuff. I’ll go check on their families-” he sees that a press crew’s arrived, a reporter bundled up in her jacket obviously waiting to talk to him, “-after I talk to that reporter. Thanks, guys!”
The reporter waves to him, bouncing a little to keep herself warm. “Good morning, Hawks!”
“Good morning! Here,” he says, a hand on her shoulder. With a sidestep, they’re in the sunlight. “It’ll be a little warmer in the sun.”
She beams at him but doesn’t blush or stutter, which he appreciates. “Can I ask you some questions about the train crash earlier?”
He snaps his fingers into finger guns. “Ask away, ma’am.”
It’s a typical interview, including the final question: “Do you have anything to say to your fans?”
“The early bird gets the worm!” he says with an exaggerated wink.
“Do you eat worms, Hawks?”
“Do I– what?” He leans to look at the cameraman; he’s still recording. “Well, I have eaten worms before, but really, who hasn’t? But that was, like, on a dare, I think. It’s not like I eat them for breakfast every day, you know?”
He leaves the interview and shows up at the Commission offices half an hour later with the families of his three new friends. The kids are mostly in their pajamas, and the youngest, who tells him her name is Keiko, is clutching a Hawks plushie. Hawks immediately melts into a pile of goo and holds her hand the entire trip. He imagines his younger self, holding his torn and re-stitched Endeavor, and he wonders if this little kid’s heart is exploding the way his own would have. She smiles up at him with wonder and joy that light up her whole face. Hawks doubts he ever smiled like that, and feels a fierce desire to protect her from the world. Here, she’ll be safe from ReDestro. The Commission has no reason to look at her twice, he reassures himself. And he can turn himself into an effective distraction if need be. This is the safest place for her right now.
“Hey, Prez!” he calls out. “Remember that big project I’m doing for you? You owe me, big time, so I’m calling in a favor!” He gets everyone situated, orders a couple boxes of donuts to the office for their breakfast, and gives little Keiko-chan a hug before leaving.
When he gets to his agency, it’s immediately apparent that everyone there has been off task by the way there’s a sudden vigor in keyboard clacks and lack of talking or humming.
“Morning,” says Maro, his secretary, as he hands Hawks a stack of papers. “See you got an early start, huh?” He’s holding back a laugh, and Hawks tugs his shirt to examine it for any “kick me” sticky notes.
“Okay, Maro-san. Spill. What’s so funny.” He opens his wings, because without them, he’s shorter than Maro and not at all intimidating.
“Hey, Miya-chan! Show Hawks that video!”
It’s a news report, featuring a reporter with a cascade of scales for hair.
“This’ll brighten your day,” she says. “Hawks brought the villains blankets and was drinking coffee with them when the police-”
“Aw, how cute," says Maro. "Skip to the good part, Miya-chan,”
“-thing to say to your fans?”
“The early bird gets the worm!” Now that he’s seeing it on video, his wink looks like a weird twitch and his voice is nasally and annoying.
“Do I really sound like that?”
Both Maro and Miya-chan shush him.
“Do you eat worms, Hawks?”
“I eat them every day for breakfast, you know.”
He blusters. “Wha-”
They both glare and shush him again.
The screen switches back from the interview to the newsroom.
“You heard it here, folks. We’ve called in our local bird expert to weigh in. Thanks for being here, Jiang-san.”
“Thanks for having me. I’ll just start by saying that I’m not surprised. Pro Hero Hawks has the wings of a bird of prey, but if you look at his mannerisms, he acts more like a sparrow, or a songbird, maybe. If you notice, he’s always tilting his head to the side like this-” she tilts her head in a way that Hawks knows he has a habit of, “and he doesn’t glide into his landings, he likes to flutter down. And these species of smaller birds, instead of hunting, eat worms and insects, so it makes sense for Hawks. I do wonder where he gets them, though? It’s not like city concrete is a good habitat for worms—he probably has to buy them in bulk.”
“How interesting! Thank you, Jiang-san. Back to the train crash, which was-”
Hawks crosses his arms. “You guys, that is not what I said. I said I ate worms once on a dare, and it’s not like I eat them every day for breakfast!”
“No way,” Miya-chan interjects. “I know you’ve been trained to respond to reporters. You’d never be so careless with your words if you didn’t mean them.”
“Oh, come on!” He throws up his arms in defeat, then laughs because, admittedly, it is pretty funny.
It’s less funny when it’s all anyone will talk to him about, all day.
“Hey, Hawks!” a man calls to him, five minutes into his patrol. Hawks flies a little lower and turns around to wave. The man cranes his neck up at him. “My dad has a fishing and tackle store, and he uses fresh earthworms, so it’s probably better than those mass-produced buckets. He’s a big fan of yours; he’d love it if you dropped by!”
“Actually, I-”
He looks so excited. And his dad would love it if he dropped by. Ugh. “Yeah, sure! What’s the address?” Hawks takes the business card and flies off. Even if he doesn’t eat worms, that was still very nice of him
He goes about his day as usual, swooping and diving all over town. Occasionally, he sends his feathers under doors to find some less obvious crimes, but it’s a busy day with accidents and villains, so he ends up needing all of them back.
In the short minutes of flight time between each situation, he checks his phone for anything from the Commission about the status of the villains’ families, but the only text he receives is one confirming the time of his photoshoot next week.
Because he was on the job so early, he didn’t have time to pack himself a lunch in the morning, so he ends up swinging by a sandwich shop.
“Oh! Wait here, Hawks-san!” says the girl taking his order. She rushes back and adds a package to the sandwich bag with a wide smile. He thanks her and gives her a generous tip.
He takes a quick break on a nice secluded rooftop while he eats. He likes these little moments of peace that he manages to find during the day, a few minutes where it’s just him, the whistle of the wind, and the hundreds of meters between him and the ground. They mostly come during his meal breaks, the only time during the day he bothers to stop moving. He can’t excuse inactivity with no purpose, but if it’s to eat, it’s not unproductive.
When he opens the bag to get his sandwich out, his hand touches something slimy and moving.
“Euagh!!”
He yanks his hand away in disgust.
“Please, please, tell me it’s not worms.”
The worms had been in the paper parcel the girl had slipped into his bag, but now, they’ve somehow made their way free and are squirming over his sandwich. Indecision catches him and he freezes: he doesn’t waste food. Would never, could never, with his upbringing. The worms aren’t dirty—in fact, they’re almost horrifyingly clean—shiny and slick. If he doesn’t eat the sandwich, he can’t justify getting something else and taking twice as long to get back to work, so his lunch break would end. And he likes his lunch break. Needs it, almost.
He steels himself, then fishes his sandwich out of the bag. There are two plump worms clinging to it, and he flicks them off, tensing his jaw as a thread of disgust slithers down his spine. He opens the sandwich to check for any worms adventurous enough to brave the mustard, and, not finding any, forces his way past his gag reflex to take a bite of the sandwich.
It’s good, but his enjoyment is somewhat tainted by the fact that he’d had to fish it out of a pile of worms. To distract himself from that, he scrolls through social media as he munches on his sandwich. The tag #HawksWormTeamup is trending on twitter, calling for him to team up with the Eco Hero, Worm.
He groans, wishing he weren’t Number Two. Such a high ranking means that people actually notice and care when he does something stupid like this. He’s never known the peace of being allowed to goof up, not as a child, not in training with the Commission, and certainly not after his hero debut since he immediately caught everyone’s attention and soared to the top of the charts. He does value being a shining light for everyone, but sometimes he wishes he could relax, help people and save them without being in the spotlight.
Oh well. He has more things to do today, and while he’d love to sit and mope, he’s got to keep going. He flies over a park and dumps the worms into the grass and the sandwich bag into a trash can, then picks up altitude again.
In the air, he calls the Commission.
“Hey, any updates on the ReDestro thing?” he asks. “How are those families?”
“Any updates on Shigaraki?” replies the vice president.
Hawks rolls his eyes so far back he sees the sun above him and it leaves a blue spot in his vision when he blinks. He’s careful to not let his annoyance make it to his voice, though. “Not since my last report. I have a meet-up with Dabi tonight, I’ll keep you in the loop.”
“In that case, I’ll update you when you report tonight.”
“Okay, thanks,” he manages to grind out before hanging up. They always did like to have something to hold over his head, no matter how fleeting.
And he always liked to mess with them, so he changes course and heads straight for Commission Headquarters. He lands on the roof and debates walking in the front door versus slipping in through a window. If he takes the front door, it would show them that he does what he wants, how he wants. However, he might get stopped before he makes it to the families. If he sneaks in, it’ll show them that their control gets to him, that he’s scared of open disobedience, but he’d be twice as likely to make it to see the families before he’s caught.
It’s not that much of a choice, really. This isn’t about him—it never is.
He knows it gets stuffy on the top floors and people leave their windows open a crack, so he sends a feather to find an open window and an empty office, then slips in easily. He has to detach almost all of his feathers to fit through, then reattaches them once he’s inside except for a few he sends ahead to scout his route. He walks casually and unhurried, knowing that he won’t run into anyone. Most of the congestion happens near the front door anyway, and he’s avoided that on purpose, after all.
The families are downstairs in the housing where he grew up.
He’s glad they’re on the better-furnished side, and not in the white-painted brick cubes where he lived for fourteen years. They’ve already had a traumatizing day; they shouldn’t have to deal with the Commission dehumanizing them on top of that.
“Hey, guys!” he waves, and he’s glad that he came straight here without stopping to antagonize the Commission, because everyone’s faces light up when he enters. The brightness of their smiles washes over him, seeping through and flooding his chest with relief. He hadn’t picked up on the tension and bitterness he was feeling until they’d swept it away.
Hah. He wanted to be a shining light for them, but instead, they’ve turned into one for him. Little Keiko-chan runs up to him for a hug, and her dad grins at him in apology. His heart swells and he thinks he’s maybe grown a little too fond of people that he hasn’t even known for a day.
“Hawks!” she says, bouncing a little. “I got you something!”
“We’ve been stuck here all day,” her dad explains. “She insisted we watch the news so she could see the hero that’s keeping us safe. And, uh, she made me order these here.” He smiles down at Keiko, a little sheepishly, but with obvious affection in his eyes.
Hawks, touched by Keiko’s admiration and her father’s care for her, beams. “Thanks!”
Keiko hands him a small round container, and the smile stays frozen on Hawks’s face. It takes everything he has to keep it there—she’s giving him worms.
“Thanks, Keiko-chan,” he manages. She looks up at him expectantly, waiting for something.
Oh.
Oh, no.
He can’t break her little heart like this; she would be devastated—he’s going to have to eat one. She’s so excited, watching him for his reaction. He never stood a chance.
Making sure his smile stays intact, he pops off the lid to see the wriggling worms. He smiles harder, squeezing his eye into slits so she doesn’t pick up on his horror, and with two fingers, grabs one and holds it in front of his lips.
Being a hero means sacrificing himself for the greater good.
He crushes the worm with his teeth so he doesn’t have to imagine it swimming around in his stomach, then swallows it and tries to clean his mouth out with his leftover spit.
He pats his stomach, adding in an “Mmm, delicious!” for good measure.
Keiko-chan looks up at him like he’s just hung the sun in the sky, and for that, he thinks, he’d eat a thousand worms.