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Shouta Aizawa was not in a good mood as he rounded the corner of a hallway and stalked into one of UA’s barest visitor’s rooms.
It had been only a day since he had given his students their internship offers; and yet it had seemed like an eternity of chaos. Some of the students had made sound, respectable decisions – Asui had taken his advice to intern with Selkie and delivered her neatly filled out paperwork promptly and without fanfare before class had begun. Uraraka had surprised him by accepting Gunhead’s offer but her logic about wanting to be well-rounded and work more on her combative skills was laudable. Bakugou, too, had made a logical decision with Best Jeanist; although Shouta was fairly certain the boy had only gone with the highest ranked offer, he had hopes that the calm hero could manage to contain some of his students’ more volatile habits.
Others, however, had not. Mineta’s choice of Lady Mountain was ridiculous – there was no logical reason someone with Mineta’s quirk would want to work with someone who’s quirk was so completely different and Lady Mountain, newly debuted, did not have the expertise to instill any good habits into Mineta. And if what Nemuri had tipsily spat out about the woman when she had been over for dinner was true, she was not at all pleasant to work with, short-tempered, impatient, and rude. She had nothing to offer Mineta, other than the fact that she was objectively attractive and mildly popular for a rookie hero.
Shouta suspected, however, that it was more her beauty that had gotten Mineta’s attention and the only thing that had kept him from rejecting the decision outright was the fact that, if Lady Mountain was truly as awful as Nemuri claimed, she would probably give the boy some well-deserved hell. A bad internship, if nothing else, should at least kick Mineta into thinking with more than his hormones.
Yaoyorozu, too, worried Shouta with her pick. Uwabami was not the worst hero out there, but she was a lot more obsessed with her celebrity status than Shouta liked. She was far more likely to have Yaoyorozu in front of cameras than civilians and, while it was not necessarily terrible that a spotlight student would be getting up close with the media, he had noticed a hopefully temporary lack of confidence in Yaoyorozu ever since the Sports Festival and he did not think being made up and told to pose prettily would be a particularly effective boost to any teenager’s self-confidence. Especially with how much makeup and photo manipulating went into advertisement.
But, as both Nemuri and Hizashi had pointed out before, Shouta was hardly non-biased when it came to these sorts of internships, and there was no other logical reason for denying Yaoyorozu’s acceptance of Uwabami’s offer. He would have to accept it and hope that it went better than he feared.
Todoroki’s decision, neatly passed to him at the beginning of homeroom, upset him far more than almost all the others he disapproved of. Shouta couldn’t pinpoint why exactly Endeavor stroke a chord with him – the man wasn’t the most popular, severe and short as he was with heroes and civilians alike, but he didn’t have a single strike against his career and he had been number two for several years for a reason and it wasn’t like Shouta himself would have scored very high on popularity if he had ever gone the spotlight route. He couldn’t reject Todoroki’s decision to intern under his father just because he didn’t personally like the man.
But there had to be a reason Todoroki had refused to use half of his own quirk until his fight with Midoriya, a reason the boy had a massive burn scar over his eye that was much too large to have been caused by a child’s accidental quirk use. A reason Endeavor’s wife had been quietly moved to a permanent long-term care hospital a decade before Todoroki had stepped into Shouta’s class; a reason the man had buried his eldest child the same year.
Shouta’s entire gut screamed at him that something was not right with that family but no matter how much Shouta had dug into the death of Touya Todoroki and the hospitalization of Rei Todoroki, which he had started looking into way back in the beginning of the year when he had first realized Todoroki refused to use his fire, nothing ever came up. He couldn’t find an exact date for either occasion, let alone a cause.
The most he could find that hadn’t been classified by the hero commission, officially on request from Endeavor’s agency that had cited privacy for the family as a reason, was that Touya Todoroki had a long-term medical condition of undetermined severity, the death and hospitalization had happened in the same year, and that media speculation of the time had leaned towards the idea that the untimely death of their oldest child had led to the hospitalization of Rei Todoroki.
It stank beyond anything, but there was nothing in the years since to suggest that Endeavor was hiding the abuse of his family or anything else similarly sinister. The two middle Todoroki children had kept remarkably low profiles, but Shouta had been able to gleam that they had both graduated high school with top marks and gone on to university. He knew at least one of them, Fuyumi, still lived at home as she was the second emergency contact on all of her younger brother’s paperwork. And Todoroki himself, while he obviously disliked his father, had never come to UA with unexplained bruises or said anything that suggested anything beyond having a father who was, frankly, a bit of an asshole.
Shouta couldn’t bring a case against someone just because he was an ass, unfortunately, and he couldn’t just outright deny a student’s internship with the number two hero, their own father, for it either. His hands were tired, unless he uncovered something or Todoroki said anything, so he had reluctantly placed the internship paperwork on top of all the other accepted ones and made a mental note to see if Nezu had anything on the second-place hero that was more concrete than a bad gut feeling.
Iida’s paperwork, which the boy had delivered at lunch before speed-walking – he would never dare run inside UA – out of the classroom as though he knew Shouta would have called him back if he waited even a second longer, nearly went straight into the trash can.
Manual was a good hero, moderately popular and a true stickler to the guidelines and laws that governed heroes. Any other time, Shouta would have accepted such a choice from Iida without question. With Tensei still in the hospital and all the intel indicating that Stain was still in Hosu, the city where Manual worked, however, it was only too obvious what was going through the boy’s head.
It had been the closest Shouta had come to outright rejecting a student’s decision and he would have done it without hesitation, had Manual himself not called him at lunch. It seemed Iida, proper as ever, had preemptively sent an e-mail thanking Manual for his offer and declaring how eager he was to learn in the care of the man. Manual, too, had his suspicions about Iida’s motives but he had requested Shouta not reject the internship. It would only anger Iida more into doing something reckless - they couldn’t after all, bar the boy from just taking a train to Hosu and seeking out Stain on his own. Under Manual’s care, however, Iida could be watched and have some sense restored into his head. Manual was, after all, the most by-the-books hero currently active and if anyone could appeal to Iida’s sense of decorum and love of rules, it would be him.
It had left a bad taste in Shouta’s mouth to agree, but Manual hadn’t said anything wrong. Shouta worked firsthand with teenagers and knew exactly how stubborn they could be, especially if something they wanted was taken from them. It would be far better to allow Iida to go to Hosu on an official internship, where he could be watched by pro-heroes and an entire agency, than risk him going out on his own.
Still, even though he had Manual promise that he would not leave Iida completely alone for even a moment, not even to sleep, he couldn’t shake the feeling that it was a horrible mistake. That feeling had stayed with Shouta all day, making him far more irritable than usual and leaving students and faculty alike to give him as wide of a berth as possible. Not even All Might, the cheerful idiot who had hardly learned anything since his start at UA, had dared to say a single word more than a barebones greeting from several feet away when Shouta had arrived to supervise heroics class.
Perhaps Shouta’s mood would have improved once classes ended and he was able to return home and have a rare weekday dinner with Hizashi before heading out for his evening patrol, but even that simple pleasure was dashed apart on the wreckage of an even bigger issue.
Midoriya.
Or, more specifically in this case, the annoying, winged brat that had decided to try and stake a claim on Shouta’s student.
The boy hadn’t turned anything in yet and every time Shouta had seen him, there had been a nervous energy around him and a frazzled look in his eyes. Even when he had been in a low, hushed conversation with Todoroki and Uraraka – most likely discussing the internships – he hadn’t seemed to calm at all.
The safe, logical choice that wouldn’t keep Shouta up during the few hours he got to sleep at night would be for Midoriya to go with the Wild Wild Pussycats. Shouta knew the group and while their exuberant personas were what Shouta’s nightmares were made of, he trusted them to keep his student safe, whole, and – most crucially because, as much potential he could see in Midoriya, there was simply no way he was ready to be thrown to the wolves - away from the media . Hawks, however good of a hero he might be, was young, brash, and completely unpredictable. That didn’t even cover the nest of vipers that was the hero commission and Hawks’ close entanglement with them.
But, no matter how much Shouta quietly hoped that Midoriya would take the safe route, he knew that Midoriya was young, almost painfully hopeful, incredibly ambitious, and dangerously reckless. There was little chance, that he wouldn’t jump on the opportunity to work with as highly ranked of a hero as Hawks, everything else be damned. The only variable that stood of chance of tilting the scale in the Wild Wild Pussycats’ favor was Shouta voicing his own opinion but, no matter how many times he had caught Midoriya sneaking a slightly panicked look at him throughout the day, no matter how many times he had been tempted to outright tell Midoriya to go with the Pussycats during their conversation and throughout the day, he couldn’t quite bring himself to do it.
Midoriya needed to make the choice for himself, it would be illogical for Shouta to push him away from an internship that might very well prove fruitful for him because of his own biases and fears.
Knowing that didn’t make him feel any better about the situation, however, and it certainly didn’t make what was about to happen any more bearable.
Just because Shouta was willing to accept that Midoriya could very well choose Hawks, whatever the risks, doesn’t mean he was about to potentially send his student into the lair of the unknown completely blind.
Which was why, instead of going home and quietly dozing off on his own couch to the sounds of Hizashi humming some American song as he cooked a simple dinner, he was stalking into one of UA’s meeting rooms to have a distinctly unpleasant conversation.
The brat was already there, seated slouched down on one of the armchairs in the room, his bright red wings neatly folded behind him and an empty teacup dangling rather precariously on one of his fingers.
At least the rumors about his speed were true. Shouta hadn’t given him much time, when he had sent a text demanding a meeting with the man, to actually arrive at the school. Hadn’t even given him a specific time, other than “after classes”, but the man had, according to the school gate records, arrived and received his visitor’s pass at precisely the same time as classes had ended.
It was pure cheek, Shouta was absolutely certain, but it would be useless to point it out to the smirking barely-adult man in front of him. Shouta wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of a rise apart from a glare leveled as he sat down in the chair opposite him.
“Ooh,” Hawks’ voice was gratingly cheerful, “as icy as all the rumors claim, aren’t you, Eraserhead? Kinda scary.” Shouta resisted the urge to roll his eyes as he reached over and snatched the teacup off the other man’s finger and sat it back down on the table Hawks had stolen it from.
“I deal with too many children all day, I do not want to deal with a grown man acting like one in my free time.” His voice didn’t snap, not quite, but it was a near thing even as he flicked the electric kettle in front of him on.
Damned Nezu and his stupidly contagious “polite” habits. Shouta couldn’t help but begin making tea even when he wanted nothing more than to get everything over with.
Hawks seemed wholly unaffected by Shouta’s attitude as he languidly sat forward, his lips curved into a too-bright smile. Whether it was real or fake, not even Shouta could tell. Either the man was lethally cheerful and non-too-bright, or he knew pretending to be would irk Shouta to no end.
“Ah, Eraser – can I call you that? Whole name’s a bit of a mouthful, ya know? Plus, I’d like to think we’re friendly enough for nicknames –“
“You can call me Aizawa,” Shouta interrupted before Hawks could ramble any further. He didn’t bother asking the man for his civilian name – no one knew it, not even the rare hero who had worked closely with the man and it would be pointless to expect that the man would do anything to alter the shroud of mystery that surrounded him.
Which was the whole crux of the problem of Hawks, in truth. Shouta knew next to nothing and the few things he did know – Hawks’ care-free attitude, his cockiness that bordered on arrogance, his bright cheer – could all be fake, contrived aspects of his hero persona designed to create a popular spotlight hero.
Shouta had never worked with the younger man – Hawks rarely worked with anyone and even if that wasn’t the case, he worked cities away from Shouta – but Hizashi had, once. It had been an awful disaster, an entire elementary school collapsed during a villain attack. Hizashi had been fighting the villain responsible, an irate and oversized man with a earthquake quirk, and had gone to the school only after he had been apprehended.
It had been a brutal sight, which is why it had struck Hizashi as odd enough to comment on, that Hawks had been the only one at the scene – no one could even say why he had been in Musutafu – that had been acting cheerful and cavalier even as he darted in to pull child after child from the wreckage. He’d had a smile for everyone and everything, far beyond what even Shouta’s own bubbly husband could bear to summon, and had even cracked a few jokes after they had finished clearing the site and accounting for all the children and staff hours later when everyone else, even heroes with years’ more experience than Hawks, had been dead on their feet.
It had, also, been completely at odds to the Hawks Shouta had once glimpsed in his own random encounter. Hours after Hizashi had returned home, dull-eyed and nearly voiceless, Shouta had left him sleeping in their bedroom with a mug of still steaming tea and a bottle of pain pills to go on his own patrol. It had been a quiet night, as if even the thugs and low-level villains that normally dominated the Musutafu night life had been quelled by the tragedy that had overtaken the day. By the end of his shift, Shouta only had to go to the police station to report a single arrest, a drunken man who had been trying to break into a small store.
He had expected the normal suspects of overtired officers strung high on too much caffeine in a nearly empty office. Instead, he had walked in, his would-be-thief wrapped tight in his scarf and faintly snoring, to the sight of several wide-eyed and definitely awake officers locked in a staring contest with the then ninth-ranked hero. Hawks hadn’t been smiling, for once, and his face was sharper for it, his expression cold and his eyes almost predatory. He should have, based on all logic, been resting.
No hero, not even All Might or Endeavor, worked for hours at a disaster like the East Musutafu Elementary collapse and then went back on patrol. Even if they argued for it, even if they still had the energy or at least claimed to, no agency – or school, if they were operating only on a provisional license – would clear them to do it. It was too taxing on a hero’s mental and physical health, it lead to burnout, forced retirements, and early graves.
No agency, even if it was hero-led and owned by the same hero in question, as was the case with Hawks, would have allowed the man out on an evening patrol. And yet, there he had been, without his characteristic smile or good cheer, staring down police officers as though they had personally wronged him.
Shouta had been too surprised to even notice, at first, the small figures hidden amongst Hawks’ fiery wings until one of them whimpered. Two small children, tiny little things dressed in ragged clothing were pressed against the man’s leg, their grubby hands tightly clenched into the tan material of his hero material. Tiny faces, covered in grime and far, far too thin, were staring out with fearful eyes of matching silver. Siblings, most likely, and almost undoubtedly homeless.
Hawks wasn’t known for sticking around with victims – he was a hero famed for his speed and it was far more common to hear of stories where Hawks had dropped a victim somewhere safe before flying back into the thick of things. More than that, while he had been ranked at the top of every “most approachable hero” list that had come out since his debut, he wasn’t exactly known for a parental approach towards little children, too young and too brash for that sort of persona.
Yet, there was no other word except parental that could describe the way Hawks was fiercely protecting the children he had found. Shouta was like a shadow for how much the officers had noticed him and while Hawks had spared a single, dark glance his way before returning his gaze full-force onto the officers, he did not let Shouta’s appearance hinder the argument he had obviously been having for some time.
The officers had apparently tried to take the children from Hawks when they had first arrived, with the promise of setting them up in a foster home for the night and looking into their situation in the morning. Hawks had, evidently, refused to allow the children out of his care unless he was given the guarantee of a vetted home and medical attention for them.
It had been a strange, almost absurd sight, watching this man barely out of his own childhood, argue with officers with twice his age and experience about the proper care for lost children. Hawks had never raised his voice once, that Shouta had seen, but there had been a distinctly threatening aura to each word he said and his wings had never once lifted to reveal the tiny children hidden beneath them.
It had finally ended when an officer had called, not one of the foster homes, but a small-time hero with an emergency foster license known to provide excellent care – Shouta himself had left the few children he had found on his patrols with them – and given Hawks the phone to speak with them.
Hawks had left then, the children still hidden away and his face still ominously blank, with the same frazzled officer. He hadn’t returned in the time it took Shouta to transfer custody of the would-be thief over to a terrified looking officer and fill out all the customary paperwork and Shouta had never seen him up close again.
It had been a strange, unexplainable experience, completely at odds with everything Shouta had heard about the younger hero before and after it. Shouta had no idea who this man really was, what was act and what was real, and he was supposed to just trust him with Midoriya, his most problematic of problem children, without any assurances?
Not a chance in hell.
“Ooh, you’re icy man. You do this to all the heroes trying to intern your kids or am I just special?” Hawks was unbothered as he rested his elbow on his leg and leaned his head on it. Probably, his ego was too big for him to handle carrying his own head without support.
Shouta didn’t bother responding until he had poured the steaming water into the two cups in front of them, certain if he did, his words would come out far too snappish. “No, I don’t. But you have never interned anyone and Midoriya is a special case.” He answered, his words curt but controlled, as he plopped tea bags into the water with a bit too much force.
Hawks made a show of raising an eyebrow as he lifted his head off his hand. “Special case? Why, just ‘cause he’s going to be able to pop out some fledgings one day and can’t make his hands go ‘boom’?” Hawks threw his hands out as he said the last word, mimicking a small explosion to make it clear which of Shouta’s other students he was mocking. “Seems pretty judgey, coming from you.”
Shouta knew, logically, that he had said similar things himself. He knew he had thrown nearly the exact same words in All Might’s and several of the other teachers’ faces after the entrance exam. Had repeated nearly the same words over and over again in an attempt to smash understanding into the number one’s empty head.
Knowing that, however, did not make dealing with the flippant words from the smirking brat in front of him any easier to deal with. It didn’t make the urge to punch him in the face any easier to deal with either.
But Shouta was a professional, and there was a very good chance he would have to sign away Midoriya’s well being to the man, so he resisted. “What do you mean by coming from me?” His response was perhaps a shade curter than it should have been, a little too accusatory, and he pushed the cup of tea far too aggressively towards Hawks, causing the hot liquid to slosh out onto the saucer underneath it, but that was far kinder than he should have been. Especially when Hawks’ smirk turned a little too knowing as he picked up the offered cup.
“Oh you know, being a teacher and all.” Hawks waved his free hand dismissively. “Figured you’d have a little more faith in your students.” He brought his tea to smirking mouth, completely unfazed by the glare Shouta leveled at him.
“I have plenty of faith in my students. Having faith in them does not mean ignoring the potential issues they may face, nor does it include ignoring the difficulties and disadvantages they may have.”
If Hawks wasn’t going to take Midoriya’s internship seriously, then Shouta would say to hell with it all and tell the boy to go with the Wild Wild Pussycats anyway.
Hawks’ smile didn’t quite drop but there was a change in him – a subtle straightening of his spine and a sharpness to his gaze – that had Shouta thinking he was finally, maybe taking the conversation seriously.
“Well, if that’s the case, what’s the problem, Eraser? Not like I’m going to hurt the kid or throw him to the wolves.”
Or not. It must have been a trick of his eyes – his vision was never going to be as good as it was before USJ and he was still getting used to the subtle degradation the doctors couldn’t prevent – and Hawks was all smiles again as he brought his tea up to his mouth again. This boy was apparently incapable of taking anything seriously.
Shouta picked up his own cup to occupy his hands and lessen the temptations for physical harm but didn’t take a drink form it. “Your flippant attitude about this makes me certain you are too inexperienced to intern any of my students.” He spoke frankly, there was no point hiding the truth. “If you ignore or belittle the very real issues Midoriya will have in this field, then you would do him a disservice I will not allow.”
Hawks’ smile still didn’t waver over the top of his cup. “I didn’t know a homeroom teacher had that kind of sway! You really got that power, Eraser?”
Shouta’s teeth gritted. “Do you really want to test what power I have?” He’d have no qualms, at the end of the day, about ripping a few feathers out of an overstuffed bird if he needed to.
Hawks seemed to finally realize he may have touched one nerve too many because he raised both his hands up in a surrendering gesture, tea nearly spilling from the cup he still held, “sorry, sorry! I should know better than to question an omega about their kids!”
Only Shouta’s years of training kept him from outwardly reacting even as his thoughts all came to a screeching stop.
It wasn’t entirely unknown that Shouta was an omega. He had made no efforts to conceal it in his civilian life, although most people never made the leap over their own misconceptions that would require them realizing he was one. But that was his civilian identity – as an underground hero, that was completely locked away in all his records. His students knew his real name and the faculty of UA knew his name and other personal information, but most heroes outside that realm didn’t. That’s what kept underground heroes like him safe.
None of the heroes who knew would have told Hawks his real name before Shouta gave them permission – even idiots like All Might knew and respected the sanctity of civilian identities – and there had been no chance that Hawks would have been able to connect his family name to his actual identity in the few minutes’ that he’d had it.
The only other way to get such information would have been from the hero commission but all of his personal information should have been listed as classified with no chance for anyone, regardless of their hero ranking, to access it. Unless they had an in with the commission but that would imply the commission was releasing classified information openly enough that Hawks felt comfortable revealing it and that was a different issue entirely.
Hawks seemed to realize that his words had sent off alarm bells in Shouta’s head. “Hey now, I don’t know what you got going on in that head of yours but before you hitch a ride on the crazytown carousel you should know, I only knew that because of the scent.”
“The scent?” Shouta asked, his voice dangerously calm. There was little chance of that, considering Shouta had always been careful to keep his scent, naturally faint anyway, as neutral as possible with mild blockers and heat medication when it was necessary. Just because he had no care to actively lie about his secondary sex didn’t mean he wanted to field inappropriate comments from teenagers every day.
Hawks nodded, tapping his nose. “Heightened senses means heightened everything. I could smell angry protective omega before you even came in here. Didn’t mean anything by it though, honest!”
Shouta wasn’t sure if he believed him. It was true that Hawks’ mutation quirk gave him keener eyesight and hearing, but whether it applied to all his senses was another matter entirely. Tokayami, who was the closest Shouta had to a student with a similar bird mutation, did not have a sense of smell significantly stronger than his classmates, at least not that he had disclosed. But that didn’t make it impossible, and while Shouta as a whole didn’t know whether the man in front of him was a liar or not, he at least seemed to not be actively trying to harm and Shouta couldn’t exactly throw him out of UA for what could have very well just been a lucky guess.
He allowed himself to relax, marginally. “Midoriya is not my child.” He said, dropping the question for how Hawks knew he was an omega for a later time in order to get back to the matter at hand.
“You sure about that? Not hiding a secret love child or anything like that?” Hawks had gone from vaguely threatening to irritable teasing and seemed utterly unaffected when Shouta glared at him, his eyes flashing in his anger.
“Don’t be ridiculous.
Hawks held up a hand again, dismissing the words with a careless flick of his wrist. “Just kidding, Eraser! Man, I get why Nezu keeps you here. Real protective of the baby heroes, aren’t you?”
Warning bells, more distant than the glaring ones that had shrieked when Hawks had called him an omega, chimed in the back of Shouta’s head. Hawks’ questions seemed a little too pointed, despite his joking demeanor, as though he was saying something without saying anything.
Shouta’s appointment to teach at UA hadn’t exactly been approved of by the Hero Commission – Nezu had gleefully shown him all the politely sexist letters he had received before burning them – and the reluctance they had about him had only gotten worse over the years as Shouta had continuously expelled any student he thought lacked potential. But Nezu had never budged, not even once, and the Hero Commission had eventually stopped trying to outwardly oust him, even when he had made the decision to expel his entire class.
They had limited other avenues they could pursue, without directly flouncing heroics laws; they couldn’t speak publicly against his appointment as he was underground and Shouta’s students who reached graduation had some of the best statistics out of all new heroes, so they couldn’t make any official complaints that he was unfit either.
They could, however, send in a hero close to them to see if they could sense anything out.
Hawks’ questions were potentially harmless, of course. Shouta had more than his fair amount of paranoia. But he also knew excepting Midoriya as a student and not expelling him despite being quirkless and an omega was more than just controversial – if the Hero Commission had sent Hawks to intern Midoriya, it wasn’t just Midoriya’s future at risk.
But Hawks was also obvious about the questions, and Shouta didn’t believe a hero trained by the commission would be so transparent if they were truly fishing for information.
Were the questions nothing? Were they warnings? Were they exactly what they looked like to his skeptical mind?
Shouta didn’t know. And he hated it.
“They are my responsibility. It is my job to see them through their education and make sure they’ll survive in the world of heroics.” Shouta forced himself to answer in a blank, almost bored tone. No reason to let his suspicions air out in his tone.
Perhaps Hawks could hear the warning in them, despite how placid Shouta tried to make them. Perhaps the words pleased him somehow. Maybe they angered him. Perhaps they were exactly the right thing to say or precisely the wrong thing. Shouta didn’t know. But Hawks seemed to finally, finally take the situation more seriously.
“I respect that. I really do. Gotta train them up right, you know? I wanna do that with Midoriya.” Hawks’ smile as he spoke was a little smaller, perhaps a little more real. Perhaps just more of the act.
“Why him and not another student?” Shouta carefully watched Hawks’ face as he asked. “What caught your attention?” Was it the commission or actual interest in Midoriya?
Hawks’ grin turned sharp. “Kid’s strong as hell. Knocked Endeavor’s youngest around like it was nothing and it took a whole explosion to get him down. Whose attention wouldn’t that grab?” A lot of people, surprisingly. Or, more accurately, it couldn’t keep anyone’s attention. Not past his secondary sex and quirk status.
“And you don’t think you’ll have difficulties with his secondary sex and quirk status?” It was better to be frank with this question. Midoriya would get no reprieve once either were out; Shouta needed to be sure that Hawks would handle it appropriately.
“Nope.” Hawks obnoxiously popped the ‘p.’ “Kid’s strong and has a good heart, the rest is just details. Details are boring.”
How Hawks could tell Midoriya had a good heart just from the Sports Festival, Shouta had no idea. But the man wasn’t wrong and, more importantly, despite all the lies and misdirections Shouta was absolutely sure Hawks had given him in their conversation, his answer this time rang as true.
Perhaps the only truth he had been given in the entire conversation, and it was to the most important question.
Shouta still didn’t like the boy, still had no idea if he was in front of him because of the commission or because he was bored, but he was sure of at least one thing.
Hawks believed Midoriya could be a hero.
“If he goes with you, the media will find out he’s quirkless.” He finally said after a moment of silence. Hawks shrugged.
“They’ll be nosing around all the kids who stood out at the festival, they’ll find out eventually. I’ll keep him safe.”
“He’s reckless.”
“I would hope so. If I’m going to put the effort in, I don’t want it to be boring.”
“He’ll run towards any danger you may find, regardless of his own safety, if he thinks even a single person is in danger.”
“Isn’t that what makes a good hero? If any of us had any proper self-preservation, we wouldn’t be doing this.”
Shouta couldn’t exactly disagree with that, not while he still had weekly appointments with Recovery Girl and a twinge of pain in his elbow that would probably never completely go away.
He had no other questions for the mans; despite his frustrations and misgivings, there was still no reason to deny Midoriya’s chance to work with him. And he did believe, despite himself, that Hawks would keep his student safe.
He stood up from his seat and placed his undrunk cup of tea back onto its saucer. “He received another offer as well, there is no guarantee he will choose you.” He announced. Hawks gave a dismissive nod as he also stood up, taking his cue to leave without fuss.
“Of course, yeah. He’ll choose what’s best for him.” He placed his own cup down and offered his own hand out for Shouta to shake, a peace offering of some sort.
“If he chooses you, your agency will be informed tomorrow. Follow the signs out.” Shouta ignored the hand; he would accept an offering perhaps when his student returned unharmed, and not a moment before.
Hawks seemed unbothered by the rude dismissal, merely turning his outstretched hand into a cheery little wave before stuffing both hands into the pockets of his pants. Shouta watched him as he made his way out of the room, a light whistle on his lips.
He turned away once the man was out of sight, certain Nezu was keeping an eye on his cameras and would know if Hawks made any suspiciously wrong turns. His gaze landed on the cup Hawks had been holding and he noticed, for the first time, that tea inside of it was completely untouched.
All that time Hawks had been holding the cup, gesturing with it in his hands, bringing it up to his smirking lips as Shouta had spoken, and he had never once taken an actual sip. And Shouta had never noticed.
With a whispered but heartfelt curse, Shouta picked up both cups and went to toss out the now lukewarm liquid.
He really hoped, despite knowing the likelihood that it would go unheeded, that Midoriya would decide to work with the Wild Wild Pussycats.
He really hated the winged brat.