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It was only Enji’s second time in Hawks’s apartment; Hawks was often in Shizuoka, but Enji was rarely in Fukuoka.
Hawks hung up his jacket and kicked his boots off at the door, leaving them lopsided and several feet apart, but as he walked in and slouched onto the couch with a sigh, two feathers zipped behind him to straighten them up. Enji himself unlaced his boots methodically and placed them respectfully and neatly next to Hawks’s.
Feeling like an intruder, he took a couple of awkward and hesitant steps into Hawks’s living room. Hawks leaned up on his elbows on the couch and peeked over the back, his wings shifting over the armrest. “Do you want to eat in? I have leftover soup from a couple of days ago, or, I have stuff for stir fry.” Hawks’s hair was flattened and sticking to his head at the sides and top where he wore his headphones and visor. Enji wanted to reach out and ruffle it, but he was still stuck awkwardly halfway between Hawks’s living room and the entryway, right on the line between peeling plastic linoleum and the footpath worn into the carpet. “Or!” Hawks said, sitting up fully, showing Enji his whole head of messy hair, “I’ve been wanting to show you that place I mentioned with the really good rolls.”
Enji could tell that Hawks liked to show him around Fukuoka. The only other time he’d been here with Hawks since he got the scar, Hawks had strut and fluttered proudly, showing off his city. He liked seeing Hawks excited like that, so he said, “Let’s go out, I’d love to try those rolls.”
Hawks drooped an arm over the back of the couch to turn and talk. “Ah, well, actually, now that you’ve chosen that, I’ve realized how tired I am and how much I would rather stay in.” He stood up and walked to the kitchen, and Enji drank in the muscles between his wings. They shifted under his thin shirt with his every movement; Hawks was so expressive, even when he was just walking to the kitchen. Enji quickly averted his eyes when Hawks turned his head over his shoulder. “Stir fry or soup?” he asked.
Hawks had said he was tired, and the soup was already made. “Soup sounds great,” he said, trailing after Hawks with another step.
“Okay, actually, thanks for choosing that, because now I’m realizing I wanted stir fry all along. Sorry. Come here,” he said, starting the rice cooker as his feathers rummaged in the fridge. “Let me show you the right way to chop veggies, I’ve been waiting forever to give you a cooking lesson.”
With an explicit invitation, Enji finally followed Hawks. He handed Enji a floral patterned apron as he slipped on his own with red feather patterns. They were both very worn, but almost completely free of stains. Either Hawks was great at laundry, or he was too efficient to ever spill. And, was Hawks wearing his own merch? He knew Hawks had Endeavor merch, and tried not to be too disappointed that Hawks wasn’t wearing a flame patterned apron instead.
“Tie me up, Number One?” Hawks asked in a low voice, and Enji snapped out of it, eyes widening. When he realized that Hawks was showing him his back and holding the ties of his apron, he scrunched up his face very hard in a scowl so that his smile wouldn’t show as Hawks laughed at him. His wings lifted to make way for Enji to tie the bow, and even though he wanted to touch them, he knew he didn’t deserve to. If Hawks wanted him to, though, he would.
“Thanks,” Hawks said, then turned around and grinned cheekily. Stood on his tiptoes and tilted his head up to look into Enji’s eyes. With a finger pointing at his own smile, he teased, “Kiss the cook?”
Enji rolled his eyes like Hawks would—after just a month, he was picking up all of his mannerisms already, dammit. “We haven’t even cooked anything,” he said, then took a step closer to pick up Hawks and set him down on the counter next to the bag of carrots. Even with Hawks sitting on the tall counter, he was just short of Enji’s height. He wrapped his arms around Enji’s neck and leaned forward to rest his chin on his chest so he could stare up at him again.
“I can think of some things we could cook up.”
“Hawks, you think you’re charming, but you’re really not.”
This, the flirting, was more comfortable territory than being in Hawks’s home, his personal life. More comfortable than taking his shoes off at his door, seeing the footpath in the carpet and the hallway he knew led to Hawks’s room. He was so scared of trampling through all of that, ruining it, like he did with everything.
Hawks let him go to reach out with both hands to squish the sides of Enji’s face together. “Yes, I am, you wouldn’t be here otherwise.”
Enji sighed, and, not letting his mushed-together lips and muffled speech break his deadpan said, “I thought you said you wanted a kiss? Or have you changed your mind?”
At that, Hawks let go of his face and leaned back on his hands, raising his eyebrows in invitation.
Enji rested a hand on the counter next to Hawks’s hip and the other close to his shoulder and leaned down to kiss him.
Quickly, Hawks’s arms looped themselves around Enji’s neck to hang off of him and Enji lowered them both down to the counter.
When Enji’s hands snaked into Hawks’s hair and Hawks sucked a hickey onto his collarbone, Enji pulled up, breathless, and gestured with his head to the side, silently asking if maybe there was a better place to do this than the counter next to their food.
Just then, the rice cooker dinged.
“Food first,” said Hawks, sliding off the counter.
Enji stood awkwardly as Hawks washed the carrots, not sure how he could help.
“So, Enji-san,” Hawks started. He set up the carrots on the cutting board and spun the knife, tossing it with a flashy spin and catching it effortlessly, seamlessly using the momentum to start chopping the carrots. Like everything he did, he sliced with precision and wicked speed. “I think it’d be a good idea to tell people that we’re dating, don’t you think?” Without a single stutter in his hands, he moved onto the next carrot.
“Oh?” Enji’s heart started pounding.
“It’s just… it’s not super fun to hide it, you know? We don’t have to announce it or anything, just kind of let people figure it out.”
Enji supposed he did owe it to Hawks. After all, he was the busier one, so he’d been sacrificing more. And his children were always going to find out eventually; it didn’t seem like he and Hawks were going to be over any time soon. God, he hoped, at least, but he wouldn’t blame Hawks at all if he wanted it to be.
“Okay,” he agreed, and picked up a knife to help out.
“No, no, don’t lift up the knife so far, that’s so inefficient! You gotta do it like this.”
When Hawks gave Enji a ride to work, he usually dropped Enji on the roof of his agency with all the grace of dropping a banana peel in the trash.
Enji was starting to get the hang of it after the past view times Hawks had visited, catching himself with a big burst of flames then tapering them off slowly until he stood on the ground. The first time Hawks had dropped him off at work, he’d thought he’d set him down on his feet, and Enji’d fully expected to have to shut the door in his face to prevent him from following the entire way up to his personal office. Instead, Hawks hadn’t even slowed down, just swooped closer to the roof and let go. If Enji hadn’t trained his reflexes relentlessly his whole life, he might have broken an ankle. Maybe a leg, a wrist. His pride. Now, he knew the timing and intensity to blast his fire for a dignified landing.
Today, Enji braced himself to be dropped, tightening his core and bending his knees slightly, but Hawks slowed them down with a flap of his wings and set him down lightly, almost daintily. Enji wasn’t annoyed, just… well. Maybe a little annoyed. He glared upward.
Hawks blocked the morning sky with his wings, hovering a couple of feet off the ground. The sun was bright behind him, outlining him in shining light, his hair glowing golden. He lifted the visor up and quirked his lips to blow the hair out of his eyes.
He lowered himself just a little, so his chin was about even with Enji’s eyes, then clasped his hands behind his back and leaned in. Enji couldn’t stay irritated with Hawks when he got that soft smile on his face, and barely had time to return it with one of his own before Hawks’s eyelashes brushed Enji’s cheek as he lowered his head to kiss him. His lips were warm, but his nose was cold in the morning chill, and when he pulled back, Enji noticed fondly that it was slightly red as well.
“I’ll see ya tonight, Enji-san!” Hawks called, already several feet higher and pulling his visor back down.
Enji forced himself to wipe the ridiculous smile off his face and call up his barbed flames before descending from the open sun to his boxy office. With Hawks close by to help with the areas most affected by the past year of destruction and attacks, it was easy for him to drop by and take Enji to work, and he’d been doing it since they’d started…dating, officially, so his sidekicks were getting used to him. They had not, however, seen them kissing in broad daylight on the roof of his agency. Hawks had lingered so long that this time he was sure they had. For Hawks’s sake, he hoped a lot of people had seen, but for his own, he hoped they hadn’t.
“Shouto’s in your office,” his secretary informed him as he strode past. Enji softened his flames, just a little. He wasn’t sure if that was what Shouto needed, but he was willing to try. He pushed away his guilt to find his resolve. Shouto didn’t need his guilt, didn’t need Enji looking sad and pathetic and wasting his time. No, Enji didn’t deserve to dwell; it was selfish. Resolving to be better was the harder thing to do, but it was the right thing. He could wallow on his own time.
Enji walked into his office and did not rest a hand on Shouto’s shoulder like he wanted to. Instead, he sat down at his desk across from his son and rested his elbows and clasped hands on the wood. In response to Shouto’s serious frown, he gave a serious smile.
“Shouto! I’m glad to see you, how are you?”
“I came to ask you about your fireproof support gear,” he said, still frowning.
“Great!” said Enji, trying to inject some sunniness into his voice like Hawks would to lighten Shouto’s mood a little. “I’ve been—”
“I saw you kiss Hawks on the roof.”
To prevent himself from stammering, Enji swallowed hard and nodded.
Enji wasn’t surprised that Natsuo and Fuyumi were quick to contact him after Shouto. Those three were always calling each other these days. Enji usually watched it with a detached sort of happy pride, not letting himself feel too good about it. Yes, he was happy that they were connecting, but when Fuyumi said, “Hang on a sec, Dad, Shouto’s calling,” seeming to forget how he used to isolate them from each other, it was Enji’s duty to remember. So, when Fuyumi approached him a week later with “Shouto told me,” Enji made himself feel the anger and the hurt that Fuyumi didn’t show, and directed it at himself.
“Shouto told me,” she said, “that you’re hanging out a lot with Hawks?”
“Yes.”
Fuyumi laughed her high-pitched anxious laugh. Enji was familiar with it—it always made an appearance when he entered a room unexpectedly. “What he actually told me was that you’re dating him. Which. I know that you, and- and Mom- well. I’ve spoken with him, I don’t want him getting any crazy ideas, he doesn’t quite understand these things. You and Hawks are only—“
“Fuyumi.”
“—told him you wouldn’t, you really care about the family now, plus, he’s my age—”
“Fuyumi.”
Enji sighed, glad Fuyumi couldn’t see his expression.
“Shouto’s right.”
Enji heard nothing over the phone. He squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his palm into his forehead, conflicted. He waited for a second, tense, but Fuyumi was calm and collected when she said “Okay. Good night,” and hung up.
He would not feel guilty about dating Hawks; it would be unfair to him. Hawks didn’t deserve Enji’s doubts and hang-ups. He could feel guilty about Fuyumi’s distress, though, so he did.
Enji didn’t tell Hawks about Fuyumi, or Natsuo, who showed up in person the next day to yell at him.
“You can’t be in a relationship,” he snarled. Natsuo was different than both Fuyumi and Shouto; he stood in the far end of the room and shouted. “Not after what you did to Mom. If Hawks has so much as a frown on his face I will make sure people know. There won’t be a single newspaper that isn’t frothing at the mouth for your arrest.”
He paced the room, and Enji resisted his own urge to pace, sitting at the table with his shoulders tense and head down.
Natsuo’s fist smacked the wall, and Enji very determinedly did not flinch. “Don’t you think he’s got enough to deal with? If you really loved him, cared about him, whatever, you’d leave him alone! His wings just barely grew back and you’ve seen the shit everyone’s giving him over everything.”
Natsuo paced closer. “I—” he started, then stopped. “He’s- Touya- I—”
He deflated, and looked at the hand-sized dent in the wall and grimaced. “I hate that I’m wanting to believe you about changing. I don’t forgive you.” He stalked to the door and, with his hand and the doorknob, turned back around. “I’m watching, like you said. Know that,” he spat, and left, guiding the door shut behind him with a soft click.
Enji knew Natsuo was right. But he was so careful with Hawks.
“You’ve heard about that splinter group of the PLF, I’m assuming,” Hawks said as he neatly set his shoes down at Enji’s door with his hands this time, not his feathers.
“Yes.” He didn’t want his caution to translate into stiffness, but he was sure it did. Weren’t he and Hawks supposed to be dating? It had been more than a month; why did Enji still greet him at the door by hanging onto the handle for longer than necessary, letting Hawks walk several steps ahead of him before he shut it?
“Oh, lighten up, dude,” Hawks said from the kitchen, now rummaging through the fridge. “At least their target is heroes, not civilians.” He came out of the kitchen with one of the energy drinks he’d stocked the fridge with. He took a step closer to Enji and quirked his head to the side. “But that’s not what’s got you worried, is it.” He stood in front of him, blocking his path.
Natsuo and Fuyumi were right. They were. But he couldn’t regret this. He owed just as much to Hawks as he did to his family. “It’s nothing. I’m just tired.”
Hawks shot him a flat look. “You’re not tired, I’m tired. You’re old, but that doesn’t give you an excuse to be mopey whenever you want. So, hm. Lemme guess. Talk with Shouto?”
“Yes,” he snapped, annoyed at Hawks’s perceptiveness, then stiffened again, remembering what Natsuo said.
“Shouto,” said Hawks, stepping over the back of the couch to sit while expertly balancing his drink. “He has a right to hate you, after what you did to him, hm?”
And Enji hated not being able to look people in the eye when they had these conversations. People? Hawks. He didn’t have these conversations with anyone but Hawks. And he needed to look him in the eye, he owed it to him, so he made his way to the seat across from the couch.
“He does. But it will not make me resent him.”
“Good,” Hawks said with a sharp nod, and left it at that.
Enji was lucky that he was not a man to run from the truth or make excuses. Not anymore.
If he were, he’d feel hunted right now.
“I like Hawks,” Burnin had said when he walked into work the next week.“And if you hurt him, I know where you live, and also all of your weaknesses.”
“Thank you, Burnin,” he’d responded dryly.
Later that very same afternoon, after teaming up with Jeanist, he sat hunched and confined in the back seat of Jeanist’s car.
“You know this isn’t my usual area of operation,” he told Enji with his eyes on the road.
“I do,” Enji responded, refusing to ask why are you here like Jeanist so clearly wanted him to.
“I’m going to tell you something,” Jeanist said, pulling off of the city street and into a gravel lot next to an overgrown park. He pulled the keys out of the ignition and the rumble and hum of the car stilled, along with the air conditioning. “Six months ago, Hawks was sitting in that very same seat.” He unbuckled and twisted to look at Enji with disdain. “He fit a little better. Fitting you into the backseat is like trying to shove a phone into the back pocket of skintight jeans.”
“Thanks,” Enji responded dryly.
Jeanist turned to glance in the rearview mirror, then twisted back again.
“He was there because he could barely walk. And he needed to see his mother.”
The car felt smaller. It pressed on his shoulders and the glass of the window mocked him, trapping him in with so little air. Hawks had never mentioned his mother to Enji.
“This was the day that we came to see you in the hospital.”
Enji managed a nod.
“I know he’s younger than you, and I know your past.”
Enji nodded again.
“But I can see that you’re a better man, and you care about him. He’s good for you.”
“He is,” Enji said, but it felt strange. The shade of overgrown trees kept them from cooking in the car, but it was warmer than it had been without the AC.
“That day, he needed to see his mother, so I drove him to her house. She was not there,” he said, eyes heavy and serious. “I won’t tell you things that are Hawks’s place to say, bBut. Your son” —and didn’t that suck out all his oxygen, fire in a box, your son— “blackmailed her for that info. She gave it up, and she ran.”
Hawks’s mother. He was Fuyumi’s age. And Touya—
Jeanist started the car again. The blast of air conditioning hit cool against Enji’s skin and made him realize that he had beads of sweat forming on his brow. He decided to leave them there and not wipe them off.
“He’s good for you, but you need to be good for him. Hawks is a capable and independent young man, and I trust him to not stay in a dangerous relationship. But understand this, Endeavor.” Jeanist turned back to the wheel and started backing up, glancing again in the rearview. “That should not be his responsibility, and I am not afraid to give up my Number Two status should the law not like the way I handle my personal business.”
It seemed all Endeavor could do was nod in slight shock, and only after going back to his agency and filling out reports did he realize that Jeanist may have just threatened his life.
The talk stayed on his mind: Jeanist had every right to be worried based on Enji’s track record, and he was apparently close to Hawks—close enough he’d been asked to drive Hawks to his mother’s house, instead of Enji. Hawks had only mentioned his parents once to him, and it had been in the context of Enji’s own family. Why did he trust Jeanist to drive him there? What did Jeanist provide that Enji didn’t? Was it his nicer car? Was it—
Suddenly, he remembered that Jeanist had said the day we came to see you in the hospital. He berated himself for being stupid, then resolved to keep quiet about Jeanist’s visit. Hawks did not need to be reminded of Enji’s failures; he deserved to be as carefree as possible, especially when he already had so much going on.
“Hey man,” Hawks said over the phone the next day. “I’m gonna be a little late tonight, those PLF leftovers are popping up again.”
“That’s alright, Hawks.Your duties take priority.”
Hawks made a sort of strangled laugh over the phone. “Look, I’ve never really been in a relationship before, but I actually think you’re supposed to say, Hawks, do you even care about me, you’re always putting your work before us! I miss you, come home, I’ll wear those tight pants I know you—oh hey, listen to this, I guess we weren’t obvious enough.”
Enji heard the crackle of air rushing over the microphone, then people shouting.
“Hawks, are you talking to your girlfriend? Who is it?”
Enji could picture Hawks’s smile and his little wave. Maybe he was even sending out a few feathers to sign things for people. And more than anything, he was sure Hawks was grinning ear to ear as he said, “Yeah, it’s my daily phone call with Endeavor!”
“I thought you were busy.”
Hawks sighed and there was another crackle of wind over the phone. “Yeah, I am. But part of being a hero is just… reassuring people that you’re there, you know? That heroes really do exist. Sometimes that’s enough to save people.”
“I’ve never done that.”
“Right. Not intentionally, anyway. You always were a little too focused on your goal to notice.”
Enji started to speak, but Hawks cut him off. “You were a good hero then, but you’re a better hero now.”
“Hawks…”
“If you weren’t so far away, I’d invite you to meet me here so we could team up, Number One.”
“I’m not—”
“You’re always Number One in my heart! Anyway, I’m here, gotta go. Like I said, I’ll meet you tonight, but it’ll probably be an hour later than we planned. See ya. And! Say hi to Tokoyami, take good care of him for me!”
Before Enji could wish him luck, Hawks had hung up, so he slid the phone back into his pocket then glanced up to see Tsukuyomi, Shouto, and Deku hurriedly start gesturing and laughing to each other like they hadn’t just been watching him.
“Hawks says hi,” he said bluntly, and quite enjoyed Deku’s panicked gulp and Shouto’s glare. Tokoyami, as always, looked unaffected, but Dark Shadow’s eyes narrowed as he leaned in slightly. Tokoyami was a good intern—much more teachable and level-headed than Bakugou. Originally, he’d only taken him on as a favor for Hawks, but his focus and camaraderie with Shouto had quickly won him over. Dark Shadow, however, had been growing more and more hostile with him, and as Endeavor led them through the street back to his agency, he swore he could feel dislike radiating from them, so when they arrived he let Deku and Shouto chat with his sidekicks and ordered, “Tsukuyomi, with me,” and held him back on the sidewalk.
“If I’ve done something, tell me. Your attitude is getting worse, and I can’t let it affect Shouto or Deku.”
Tsukuyomi tilted his head and creased his eyebrows like he didn’t know what Enji meant, but Dark Shadow behind him scowled and Enji sighed. “Or maybe it’s just Dark Shadow.”
As Tokoyami turned and saw the expression Dark Shadow was wearing, he blushed a darker and warmer color of black.
“It’s just… Dark Shadow is tied to my emotions. I’m sorry, I will try to do better in the future.”
“That’s not enough.” Enji crossed his arms, and Tsukuyomi tensed. “You need to face the problem directly, as do I. Tell me why Dark Shadow hates me, and we’ll work through it.”
Tokoyami relaxed in relief, then tensed up again. “Dark Shadow does not… hate you. He’s just… protective.”
“Protective.”
“Of Hawks.”
“Well, Hawks isn’t here.”
“It’s not- he’s picking up on my emotions. We, last year in the raid, we found him almost dead. From Dabi. Todoroki Touya. And Todoroki-kun told us that what he said later was true. We just don’t want to see him hurt again. Dark Shadow and I… we care about him. And he’s dating you now. So, we are protective.”
Tsukuyomi bowed respectfully, then pulled up and pointed with his head at Dark Shadow, who grudgingly bowed as well. People passing them on the street glanced at them curiously, but continued on their paths.
Enji himself had not given too much thought to Hawks immediately after the raid—he’d been seriously injured himself, then consequences of his past behavior came to haunt him. He’d been completely caught up in his family for several months, and only after everything calmed down had he been able to take a step back and appreciate how Hawks had been a light in the darkness he’d been wallowing in.
Tsukuyomi was understandably attached to and concerned about Hawks and understandably wary of Endeavor, so he accepted, and bowed, more deeply than Tsukuyomi had.
“I understand. If you do not trust me, I at least ask you to trust Hawks. Trust that he sees… something in me.”
Tsukuyomi stayed blank-faced, but Dark Shadow had softened and was considering. “Okay. I do trust Hawks. And I trust Todoroki-kun when he says you’ve changed and stopped hurting your family. I say leave it alone out of respect for him. But if Hawks sees something in you that’s not there, and something happens,” Tsukuyomi’s eyes narrowed and his mouth hardened, “with either him or with Todoroki-kun, I don’t think I’d be able to hold Dark Shadow back.”
Enji took a deep breath through his nose and worked very hard not to roll his eyes. He was one of the strongest heroes and he knew Dark Shadow was weak to light. If Tsukuyomi ever tried to fight him, he’d stand no chance, unless Enji purposely lost. If he ever hurt Hawks though, he might accept that punishment. “Thank you for being forward with me, Tsukuyomi. I’m going to be equally forward with you. The person I am now would die before hurting Hawks or my family. That won’t be necessary. I hope our working relationship will improve in the future.”
“Yes, Endeavor-san.”
He gave a sharp nod and avoided thinking about the conversation for the rest of the day.
The following week when his secretary informed him that Yagi Toshinori had scheduled a lunch, he knew what was coming, and when he walked into the restaurant, he got straight to business.
“All Might.”
All Might gave him a smile and a cheery wave.
Enji sat down and cut him off when he opened his mouth to speak. “If you’re here to tell me to watch myself with Hawks ‘or else,’ you can leave. I’ve heard it already, don’t waste my time.”
In the past, he might have told All Might that he wasn’t threatened, and it would be to cover up the fact that he did, in fact, feel very threatened. Not that All Might would hurt him, but that he’d patronize or look down on him. Now, though, he just looked thin and exhausted, his shoulders unconsciously bowed, and Enji wished he could go back to when he saw All Might as an impossible goal. Not as another man under the weight of the world.
All Might smiled even harder, somehow. It looked painful. If Enji did that, his face muscles would probably spasm.
“Ah, ha, ha, no! Of course not! I’m here to, to… I just wanted to talk to you about the… students. Your son. Is. He’s doing very well in his classes!
“Shouto has always excelled in his classes.”
“Yes, he’s very bright. He’s very quiet, but he’s very focused. Works very hard. Very attentive. His work is exemplary.”
“I know.”
A waiter came by, and Enji shook his head with a glare. The waiter left.
“He’s made several friends,” continued All Might. “They’re very good friends. He’s a good influence on them, Midoriya and Bakugou especially.”
Enji couldn't deny that it made him proud. Shouto, his son, the voice of reason. But still, he nodded tersely and waited for All Might to run out of material so he could leave. All Might dragged a hand down his face and sighed.
“Shouto is… an exemplary student. And just… about Hawks. I’ll admit I’m worried. He’s very young, and much smaller than you. And you, I don’t know if you’ve ever been with a man. Just… be careful with him. And use—”
Slamming his hands on the table, Enji stood up and glowered down at All Might before immediately turning to leave. As he stalked out of the restaurant, he lit his flames to hide the hot red blush on his neck and face. There was no need to tell All Might that so far it’d only been Hawks that had been using—
“Enji-san!” he heard from above. He turned on his flames a little higher as Hawks fell in step easily beside him. “Hope you’re happy to see me, because I’m going to be spending the rest of the day with you! Left a feather and let a member of that breakoff group get away, and I think I found their base. Guess where! Wanna come with? Seven PM.”
“Hello, Hawks,” he said very nonchalantly, and not at all like he’d just been lectured by All Might about their sex life.
“Ah, I think Shouto’s figured it out, at the very least.”
“Figured what out?”
Hawks gestured between them with both hands. “This. He gave me this look, and then the whispering with Tokoyami and Midoriya, and you know I caught every word,” he said and directed a barrage of feathers right at Enji’s face. Instinctively, he lowered his flames, and Hawks laughed.
“Since you just walked out of a restaurant, I’m assuming you don’t want to grab something to eat?”
“Actually. Go ahead and take me somewhere.”
“Really? Sweet, I ran into this cute Mom and her kids outside of your agency and they recommended this place a couple of blocks over.”
True to his word, Hawks stayed with him all day. Everything went better after eating a delicious bowl of soup and with Hawks there to wrap things up with speed and a sense of humor. By the time 7:00 came around, Enji was relaxed, almost. At the very least, he wasn’t anxious for the task ahead of them.
Or, he wasn’t anxious until he followed Hawks into the piano shop the splinter group was hiding out in and stumbled over Hawks’s limp body on the ground.
Immediately, he flared his flames and scanned the room. He wouldn’t shut down this time, he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t freeze, he had a job to do. He took down a woman with a melting quirk, easily. A woman with a screen on her face. A man with wool growing on his arms, another woman with a screen for a face. He cuffed them all and used their jackets to tie around the screen sisters’ faces, just in case there was something more to the quirk. They shouted at him, but he didn’t care to listen as he hauled them outside and called the pickup crew, a terse conversation of nothing more than Enji snapping out the address before hanging up.
Then he allowed himself to break down. He knelt next to Hawks, careful not to step on his wings and shakily felt for a pulse. He was alive, heartbeat strong, normal. He worried about moving him for a possible spine injury, but decided that Hawks hadn’t had enough time before Enji entered to have picked up another injury on top of the one that had apparently knocked him out. Or, he rationalized, scanning him over, he hadn’t been injured at all, and a quirk had done it. Hopefully. And hopefully it wasn’t a powerful quirk.
But leg was bent in a way that it shouldn’t be, and he didn’t wake up when Enji called his name, when he tapped his face, when he picked him up and his head lolled over Enji’s bent elbow, or when he gathered his wings into his arm so they wouldn’t drag as he carried him.
He stepped over another body on his way out the door. Technically, it was his duty as a hero to check on them, and, if they were a villain, restrain them, but Hawks took priority. Being a hero didn’t matter so much if he couldn’t be one for Hawks.
His worry abated a little when they explained his condition at the hospital, but not before they’d said, “We’ve called in his next of kin,” and Enji had seized up and sat immobile until the nurse had hurriedly explained, “Oh my god, I shouldn’t have started with that, oh my god. I’m so sorry, sir! He’s fine! He’s really fine! It’s just hospital procedure since he’s in a coma—”
“A coma!?”
“No, no! Not like that, oh my god I’m such an idiot I’m so sorry, not like that! Well, actually yes like that, but let me explain!”
Enji crossed his arms and felt his flames start to flicker over his face. “Fine. Explain.”
“Okay, okay, one sec, lemme get my thoughts in order. Okay. Okay. So. It’s a quirk. Sleeping Beauty. The user can put anyone asleep as long he makes eye contact with them. And- and, they stay asleep for the same time that he does, until he wakes up.” As the nurse spoke, his voice evened out and slowed down. “The user also ended up in the hospital for observation. We're keeping an eye on him, partly because of Hawks, so we know when he’ll wake up. It seems that in order to use his quirk, he injected himself with a drug, and took too much. It could be a couple of days until he comes out of it, so Hawks- it means- basically, when he wakes up, Hawks does.
“And aside from that,” he glanced at his clipboard, “he’s got—Hawks does, not the villain—a broken leg and bruising from the fall. He may have hit his head but we’ll have to wait till he’s awake to test for a concussion.”
Enji nodded. “When can I see him?”
“Oh! Yeah, yeah, right now, if you like.”
He nodded and stood up, towering over the nurse. “And who’s listed as his next of kin?”
“Uh, I don’t think I’m allowed to tell you—no! Wait, wait, yeah, for you, of course, Endeavor. Sir. I don’t know how she’s related to him, but Ukai Tomie?”
He nodded again and followed the nurse to Hawks’s room. Endeavor didn’t know how they were related either. Should he? He wished he did.
Hawks’s assigned room was surprisingly cozy for a hospital room, with soft and warm half-bright lights and a cramped setup of two armchairs and a medical counter surrounding the lifted bed. Although the chair was already so close, Enji moved it closer so he could reach out and take Hawks’s hand in his. His gut twisted as Hawks’s fingers snapped limply into position. Hawks was asleep, so of course there was no exaggerated gesturing, no squeeze back, he told himself. It’s no reason to worry, it’s not.
He was still holding Hawks’s hand when the door opened. He did not stand to greet the guest, nor did he let go. And he stoically kept his face blank as two eyeballs floated into the room before anyone stepped in.
“Ukai Tomie, I presume.”
She nodded, a slow and weightless kind of nod, like she wasn’t aware she was doing it. “Endeavor.”
“Who are you to Hawks?”
She didn’t answer; she didn’t even look at him, the floating eyeballs pointed absently around the room and the eyes in her face vacantly pointed at Hawks.
“He always looked up to you. You gave him more than I ever did.” All of the eyes turned stare into Enji. “You’ll take care of him, won’t you? You won’t… you won’t hurt him.”
And Enji—he knew. He knew why everyone was confronting him, and he wouldn’t back down from it or make any excuses for himself, but dammit! He’d had enough! This relationship with Hawks was important to him, and to Hawks too. He wouldn’t let people keep turning into something it wasn’t.
“I’m not going to fucking beat him. I’m not using him,” he hissed. “I lo- care about him a lot. I respect him. I would never. Do you respect him? Do all you people coming after me respect Hawks? You think he can’t make his own decisions? You think he’s naive? I’m done wallowing, and I’m done bowing my head and accepting this. I would never hurt Hawks. You hear that? Never. You don’t need to threaten me; hurting Hawks is the last thing I would ever want to do! I would die before I hurt him! Stay. Out. Of our business!”
He was standing now, towering over the small listless woman and almost trembling with rage, clenching Hawks’s limp hand so tightly that the fingers and knuckles had slid over each other to compensate under the pressure. He released a deep breath and softened his hold as he sat back down and gently ran his thumb over Hawks’s hand. He didn’t apologize, just looked straight at Ukai until she met his eyes.
“Good,” she said with a nod, sharper than the one she’d given earlier.
“You’re… are you his mother?”
Her eyes unfocused again, and she blinked quickly twice. “Yeah,” she said in a wobbly voice, then, in a whisper, “Yeah.”
The anger had deflated out of him, and it was probably a good thing. If it hadn’t, he’d probably be shouting at her.
“Would you hurt him?” he demanded, and she shook her head.
“Never again,” she promised.
A lump rose in Enji’s throat, and he closed his eyes, feeling Hawks’s hand in his. “‘You avoid him. But you care about him.”
“He… shouldn’t have to be seeing me around.”
He pointed his eyes upward behind his eyelids in lieu of squeezing them more tightly shut. “Yeah,” he said, the word finally escaping from behind the lump. “There’s no right way to do it, it seems.”
They sat in silence for a while, Ukai Tomie’s eyes slowly roving the room but never focusing on anything, not even Hawks. Enji switched to holding Hawks’s hand with his left so he could pull out his phone. When Ukai left, she gave him a hesitant bow and an attempt at a smile, and Enji gave her a terse nod back.
Hawks woke up after two days, and Enji had booked them both train tickets to Fukuoka. He’d paid extra for them to be in a private first-class box of eight seats where they could both sit comfortably and Hawks could stretch out his wings behind him and his cast-covered leg in front of him. No long flights until the concussion was gone, the doctor had said. Yeah, yeah, Hawks had said. If Hawks tried, then he’d fling him over his shoulder and carry him home like a sack of potatoes, Enji had said, and Hawks had winked.
On the time warp quirk-enhanced bullet line, the trip was only two hours, and Hawks was surprisingly quiet, sitting on the seats across from Enji and staring out the window until halfway through when he turned back around.
“You know, on that day that I flew to visit you just barely?”
“The day you broke your leg? Yes.”
“Forgot to tell you, but Fuyumi called me.”
“Fuyumi? Why?”
“Ehhh,” Hawks said with a vague hand gesture. “Probably because she didn’t want to come all the way to Fukuoka.”
“No, I mean—”
“Relax, Enji-san, I’m just messing with ya. Nah, she called to give me the shovel talk.”
Enji wasn’t familiar with that.
“Like, oh ho you’re dating my daughter, if you hurt her they’ll never find your body,” Hawks explained. “Because I’d bury it. With a shovel.” He sighed and leaned sideways against the back of the seat. “But with Fuyumi it was more like, don’t insert yourself any further into my family, if you tear down the progress we’ve made I’ll, I dunno, freeze you or something. Freezer talk instead of shovel talk? She’s a lot like you, though. It was kinda cute.”
“Was she rude?” He’d need to talk to her, but he’d have to be careful, like Fuyumi said, he wouldn’t want to wreck the—
“Nah, just very direct, you know. Honestly, it makes me feel good you have someone looking out for you.”
Enji was oddly touched too, even if he was irritated that she’d done it. Hawks didn’t deserve the same onslaught that Enji had gotten in the past couple of weeks.
“Heh, at least, on the bright side,” Hawks said, hopping over to Enji’s side to lean against the wall and prop up his legs on his lap, “you don’t don’t have to worry about that from anybody on my end.”
“Are you kidding?” Enji snapped.
“What, cast too scratchy for you? Want me to go back to the other side?”
“No, the shovel talk thing.”
“Ah… no, I don’t really have any family. Not the kind that would care, anyway. You’re the closest I’ve got.” A feather poked at his cheek as Hawks spoke.
Enji turned and shifted himself in the seat so he could look Hawks in the eye. “Hawks. In the past three weeks, I’ve been given the ‘shovel talk’ by Best Jeanist, Natsuo, Shouto, your intern, All Might, and your mother.”
Hawks’s brow furrowed. “I… really? When’d you meet my mom?”
“In the hospital. Yes really, Hawks. They love you, and I think that’s what counts as a family, don’t you?” He set a hand on Hawks’s cast.
“I—” Hawks turned away and swiped at his eyes. “Really?” he chuckled. “They did? They threatened you, Endeavor, Number One most intimidating? That’s actually so hilarious, I can’t picture, Tokoyami, oh my god, Enji, was Tokoyami all emo about it? I bet he was, that’s so funny, and All Might? For real? What I wouldn’t pay to have had one of my feathers there!”
Enji felt his lip curling up into a smile. “You just missed that one, actually, that was when you caught me right outside the restaurant a couple of days ago. I was talking with him there.”
“I- What!? Dammit, the man who’s too fast for his own good, and I missed that by what, five minutes?”
Enji leaned back, and, smiling, closed his eyes. “Mm. More like two.”
“Two minutes!?” Hawks sighed and shifted against him. “And Jeanist… I’m actually touched. And– and. My mom. I.” Enji glanced over to see him rubbing at his eyes again. “I’m– wow. That’s– wow.”
Hawks’s emotions were apparently contagious, and Enji’s eyes started burning. If he were really really desperate to avoid tears, he could always dry out his eyes with a little proximity to fire, but he didn’t want to.
“They love you,” he said and reached to grab his hand. “We all do.”
“Enji?”
“Yes.”
“You mean that?”
“Of course I do, you think I’d let you put your clunky cast on my lap if I didn’t love you?”
Hawks laughed wetly, and Enji laughed along with him, even with tears wetting his cheeks.
“Thanks,” Hawks said. “For everything. For dealing with all of that, and for telling me.” He pushed himself up on his hands and tilted his chin. Enji leaned down to meet him halfway.
“Mm,” Hawks said, face close. Somehow, even his breath smelled like hospital antiseptic. “Careful with me now. I’m already injured, and I prefer you un-shoveled.”