Chapter Text
Days like this used to be Hawks’s favorite.
It’s hot. Many people might even say it’s too hot. The sun splashes down onto the pavement, where the puddles from yesterday’s rain have long since evaporated into a blanket of humidity around the city, so thick it’s almost visible. Below, Hawks sees hats and umbrellas and the metallic glint of sunglasses. His flight isn’t as smooth as it used to be, but he’s used to it now, so the way that the reflections from below lurch up and down isn’t much of an issue.
He misses what he could do with his full wings—it’s his first summer without them, and he finds himself missing them more than he should. He can’t reach the speeds he used to, can’t get the same rush of cool wind as he flies. He can’t fan people playfully as he walks down the street. He can barely deliver frozen treats to all the kids he walks past. Some days, he avoids walking the streets at all; he won’t disappoint anyone that way. If it’s not possible to give all the kids ice cream, he knows he can’t give it to any, because there’s nothing worse than watching someone else get ice cream when it’s 39 degrees while you can’t have any.
Some hero Hawks is, can't even deliver ice cream to all the kids all over the world. Lighten up, he thinks. If the definition of hero is cooling people down in the summer, then Endeavor’s a villain. And he should get something cold for the one kid, at least. His kid…? The kid he’s taking care of. The kid who…he hangs out with. His acquaintance, who is also a child. Whoever. Whatever.
He decides to head down to the street. “Are you gonna be okay up here?” He leans back on his hands to glance into the shade where he’s left the baby…Hikaru. Anyone else would probably think twice about leaving a baby alone on top of a tall building, but, well. Hawks is not anyone else. It’s probably better for him up here, several degrees colder and in the shade, and Hawks’s feathers are good babysitters. He doesn’t really have any to spare these days, but he’s not going to leave a baby on top of a tall building without them.
He swoops down to the sidewalk and is immediately greeted with excitement.
“It’s Hawks!”
“Hawks! Hawks!”
The people don’t swarm so much in the summer, but they do break out of their lethargy when they see him.
“Hey!” he calls out with a wave. He’s wearing a modified summer version of his flight suit, and he’s glad, because it’s much warmer here on the ground where the black streets cook them all in a nice sweat-seasoned skillet. “Make sure you’re wearing sunscreen, kids!”
He signs a few shirts and notepads then does his ice cream thing. It’s not as flashy anymore without hundreds of feathers flying ice cream cones everywhere—instead, he’s side by side with the vendor under her little umbrella scooping it out. The vendor thanks him when he pays for the ice cream with a large tip. He always dreamed as a kid—if he had money, he’d use it to share ice cream with everyone. He uses that thought to cheer himself up. He is literally living his dream—stop being ungrateful, Hawks.
He keeps a cone for himself, walking down the street like a nine-year-old without a care in the world.
He stops a few tourists from being pickpocketed and has just started to think about heading to the outer edge of the city to help with rebuilding projects when Hikaru starts to cry.
With an internal sigh, he draws in his patrol feathers; he can’t take off without them, needs them to maneuver his fake wings. He doesn’t take long to make it back up, but in the meantime, his babysitter feathers are vigilant. There are no bugs, no animals, no villains, no cuts or scrapes or falling babies—just a wet diaper. Since he’s above the city and no one can see his expression, he lets it morph into a full-blown cringe with his teeth bared and his neck tense. He doesn’t have enough experience yet to tell the difference between a pee diaper squelch and a poop diaper squelch, so he’s dreading it.
To be frank, he doesn’t want that experience. He’s never wanted kids, period. Not really, anyway. Sometimes, when he gets to thinking about it, there’s this ache. Hawks is at his happiest when he’s making little kids smile—but he’s only good at these things in the short term. He’s had enough proof that he’s bad with family, that maybe he inherited some of his parents’ brokenness. The resentment at his mom that bubbles up in his chest when the baby cries is enough proof of that.
Maybe it’s not his mom he resents, but Hikaru, and he’s just trying to redirect, because how awful is it to be mad at a baby?
He makes sure he’s smiling by the time he glides onto the top of the building.
“Heeey, buddy, I’m back, I’m back, shh, you’re okay.”
Hawks doesn’t want to pick him up when his diaper is full, but he crouches down to rub the baby’s head before grabbing the duffel bag with the diaper stuff.
It’s poop, not pee, but Hawks just doesn’t breathe in through his nose and makes sure he smiles the whole time. The rash is looking a little better. He’s relieved, and also maybe a little proud. All he did was a quick internet search and a trip to the store for some rash cream, but still. He’s doing his best, and it’s working so far.
He shimmies Hikaru’s pants back up then lets himself slouch backward to lie down on the roof and just let himself breathe a little, and all of a sudden, he’s exhausted. It’s so much cooler up here in the shade and where the wind isn’t blocked by other buildings; it feels so nice. He could stay up here all day, honestly.
HIkaru gurgles, saying something that sounds like “aaammm.”
Hawks flops his head to the side to look at him. “What’s that? You’re tired too?”
Hikaru pulls himself up on Hawks’s side to hit him with his chubby arms as he bounces up and down. Guess not, then. He gives HIkaru a soft feather to chew on and entertains him with two others flying around.
Hawks can’t spend all of his patrol time taking care of a baby, and Hikaru will have to eat soon, but he’ll wait till the last possible moment. Setting a phone timer for three minutes, Hawks resolves to quickly appease the baby then keep patrolling. No more ice cream delays, just crime fighting and accident prevention. He lurches himself up with the timer and dives back down toward the city.
Soon, though, his feathers inform him that Hikaru’s screaming again. Between the sticky heat and the shrieking and the incessant clatter of the prosthetics right against his sensitive feathers, Hawks is not too disappointed when he realizes that it’s time to call it a day.
Hikaru must be hungry, he realizes when he gets back to the roof, or maybe the heat was getting to him too. Hawks scoops him up, ready to fly home.
He has to be sneaky about it, of course—he really doesn’t want to deal with any sort of media storm, or, god forbid, his coworkers asking personal questions. So what he does is plop Hikaru into the baby-carrier that straps to his back and throws the little playmat over his head to hide from anyone who got close enough to see.
Hawks flies home. His real home, not the one that’s a front. With the upheaval of HPSC leadership, Hawks had gracefully told them to not worry about hanging onto that old apartment—they could sell it, use it for storage, maybe provide some housing for someone who would actually need and/or use it, but the response was, “You’re moving? We’ll need your new address, and a copy of your keys, in case of an emergency.”
So he has an extra apartment he doesn’t need. He considers going there with Hikaru right now. HIs real house is a mess—boxes and bags of semi-recent purchases laying around, the pack-n-play cluttering up the living area, unwashed bottles in the sink. It makes him anxious; he can’t sleep when it’s like that.
But, no. Going to the HPSC place doesn’t fix it, it just makes him someone who runs and tries to escape from his own failures, which is worse. At least it’ll be quick to clean up, at least the smell isn’t bad. At least there’s no one besides HIkaru to trample his efforts and he’s just a baby; he doesn’t know any better.
When they arrive, he sets Hikaru down in his crib and sets to mixing him a bottle.
Hawks takes a deep breath as Hikaru whines from the living room. It’s fine, Hawks, just a screaming baby. You’ve dealt with worse. And he has, but all of this is so unfamiliar that it seems so much more catastrophic than even his fuckup of a spy mission with the PLF. He shakes the bottle maybe a little too hard, and takes a moment to squeeze the edge of the countertop before he goes to confront Hikaru again.
When grubby little hands reach up to snatch the bottle and the screaming stops, Hawks sighs in relief.
He really should get some child care; he’s not cut out for this. But… he can’t. Won’t. For selfish reasons, of course.
While he’d like to pretend that he’s keeping the baby a secret for his own good, the reality is that he’s a wuss. With the hell that was last year with his background laid bare to the public and his lowest moments broadcast for the world to see, Hawks is still trying to rebuild. Already, all of Japan knows way more about his life than he ever wanted them to. Worse still are his friends and coworkers—them, he actually has to see and interact with. He can’t trust a babysitter, nanny, or child care center to keep Pro Hero Hawks’s secret baby a secret.
With Hikaru going to town on his bottle, Hawks lets his shoulders slouch and starts dressing down, unhooking the katana harness and placing it high out of the baby’s reach, then sighing with relief as he takes off the support gear on his wings.
Hikaru coos when Hawks shakes his wings and stretches them out.
“Aw, you like that?” Hawks asks with a smile. The bottle drops and rolls into the pack-n-play while Hikaru bounces where he sits and makes those demanding grabby hands. “You’re so spoiled, man. Do you know how many people out there would pay good money for this?” He lifts Hikaru out and props him up on his hip to let him play with his free wings. “You don’t know how good you have it.”
Seeing Hikaru happy unravels his frustration. He’s got the cutest little cheeks, and his hair is thick already, with fluffy golden curls sprouting up all over. He’s smiling and laughing now, showing off his two teeth. There’s some sort of family resemblance there; if Hawks drew a little goatee on HIkaru, one, that would be hilarious, and two, he’d be a small, chubby Hawks, just without the wings.
As always, Hawks feels horrible for being so frustrated earlier. He has it pretty good, to be honest. Yes, he has an unwanted baby, and no, he’s not quite the hero he used to be, but it’s fine. Things are fine.
The next day, things are still pretty fine, right up until he gets called in for help with a wildfire. “What’re you calling me for?” he asks, only because he thinks it’s pretty obvious that he’s weak to fire.
The answer is that he’s the best at civilian evacuation and recovery. It’s true, and he can’t fault them that or even say no, really. At the very least, he can get people away from the smoke. He can’t help hundreds at a time anymore, but he can probably manage ten to fifteen and that’s still leagues above almost anyone else.
“I’ll be right there.”
When he’s flown about fifteen minutes into the country toward the fire, a shrill scream near one of his feathers makes him tense up, and—
Shit. He forgot about Hikaru. Dammit, he’s not used to taking care of a baby while trying to do hero work! He hasn’t dealt with a real emergency since the baby arrived just a few weeks ago, and while it’s probably important to watch over a child, people’s lives are in danger here. Hikaru can suck it up for an hour.
Within 30 seconds of seeing the smoke, it starts burning his lungs. His mouth tastes like a barbeque gone wrong. Thirty seconds more, and he comes to the conclusion that this is not a natural wildfire—the smoke slithers into the sky like it’s alive, maneuvering and hissing. Despite the ash landing on his face, a shiver runs up his spine. Someone started this fire; it’s a quirk fire.
He glides the ground right in front of it next to the firefighters. “Anyone still in there?” he asks as his feet hit the ground.
“Yeah—”
Hawks doesn’t wait to hear the rest, already taking off. He flies the length of the fire, looking for any vibrations that sound like breathing.
There, below, are two people trying to take cover in a ditch. Hawks sends down two feathers for each. By the time he pulls the two out of the fire, his feathers are completely burnt up into smoke, so he swoops down right to the top of the reaching flames and grabs them around the waist so he’s carrying each one like a log. He zips to leave them back with the firefighters, and immediately heads back out.
He finds 7 people this way, four of them unconscious. He’s doing a last flyover just to be certain there’s no one else stranded, then, when that’s taken care of, he’ll start looking for the person with the quirk that started the fire.
It’s probably not arson, though with past experiences coloring his attitude, it’s hard to believe that. Either way, he’ll need backup. The firefighters are doing their job well, but a quirk fire is a different beast, so he gives Jeanist a call anyway and jumps straight into his spiel, talking over Jeanist’s greeting.
“Hey, got a quirk fire on Kyushu. The firefighters and here and it seems like everyone’s out safely, but might need some containment. Do you still have those one cables that you used last time with—” he coughs as smoke shoves its way into his throat “—Dabi?”
He hears Jeanist’s car revving and smiles, glad he’s not in it. “I’m on my way,” Jeanist says calmly as ever.
“Sounds good, I’ll see you—”
A sudden tug around his ankle jolts him downward and he loses grip on his phone. A feather darts out to catch it, bringing it back to his ear.
“Hawks?” Jeanist asks.
He kicks, trying to loose whatever’s got ahold of him as he plummets through the smoke toward the fire below. He’s lucky for his visor that allows him to keep his eyes open and safe from the poisonous heat, but the smoke is too dark and thick to make out what’s pulling him down.
“Yeah, just—need help,” he grunts as he kicks again. “See if Shouto—”
His ankle’s burning now; might be the fire itself that grabbed hold of him.
He can’t breathe.
It’s the smoke suffocating him, he knows, but can’t stop himself from gasping in another lungful. It comes back out in something between dry heaving and coughing, drawing up saliva and mucus that he turns his head to spit out. He manages to send Jeanist his location. Wings beating frantically, he twists and thrashes to escape the fire’s grip, but something else grabs his hand and he’s suddenly diving facedown.
He can’t think straight, the only clear thought in his head is Hawks, you’re panicking.
Bitch, I know! Give me something useful!
It’s because of Dabi. You’re scared.
Something useful!
You’re panicking.
Yes! I am!
It’s too late now as the ground approaches. He hits a tree branch face-first, knocking his visor askew and whipping his neck back, and the only thing he can do is hurry and contort himself so he doesn’t hit the ground like that and break his neck. Instead, it’s everything else that hits the ground, his head following with a bounce.
Fire—everything is on fire. He can’t breathe, can’t see, can’t think.
You’re panicking.
Fuck! Off!!!
He lurches himself up with his hands—collapses to his elbows—ouch fuck—and does an army crawl looking for a ditch or something to hunker down in. Fire safety, fire safety, he knows this, but he doesn’t even have that reflective blanket thing and he can’t breathe—
His elbow sinks into mud, with just enough of a brain left that it pings something. He’s not sure exactly what it’s trying to tell him, too busy choking on smoke and the fuzz in his head. His vision starts going black from the top down, and then it’s tunneling, and then he’s too heavy to hold up by his elbows anymore and falls.
He wakes up to whispers and jolts to life, trying to fling the fire off of his ankle.
It doesn’t move though, and he lifts his unbalanced head in fascination to watch as his foot just wobbles back and forth. “Is it…supposed to do that?” he asks in wonder.
A nurse comes to crouch next to his head. “Hey, how you feeling?”
“I’m in a hospital!” he realizes. “Oh my god, I hate these things. How do you work here every day? I mean, I lived in the—”
He’s interrupted by a gulping cough that tears his throat, but that doesn’t stop him, no sir, he’s Hawks. “—basement of the Commission for like ten years, and even that isn’t this depreciating. Delta. Dah, dah…DAAAHpression.”
“I’ll go get Mr. Hakamada,” the other nurse says.
Jeanist is here?
“Jeanist is here?” he blurts. Looking down, he realizes that he’s in a hospital gown. Ha, Jeanist will get a kick out of that, Jeanist and all his jeans. But you know what he would get more of a kick out of? It would be so funny if he walked in and Hawks was wearing naked! No clothes at all!
“Let’s spare Mr. Hakamata, shall we?” The nurse gently pushes Hawks’s hands back toward his sides.
“Who’s Hakamada?”
“He’s your friend..”
The world keeps bobbing around Hawks; or maybe he’s the one that’s bobbing in the world, like a little rubber duck all alone in the big ocean. “I’m only friends with pro heroes,” he informs the nurse.
“Yes, Best Jeanist will be in soon.”
“Oh. Alright. I’m going to tell him about my baby.”
“That’s right, I’m sure he’ll be happy to listen.”
And then, Hawks feels the drugs leech out of him. “Oh my god,” he says. Before he can say I left my baby alone on top of a building, the drugs leech out of him a little more, and he has the sense to keep it quiet.
He’s burnt all over, and the ankle that he was so worried about kicking loose is in a cast. It doesn’t hurt—yet. Whatever they’ve put him on has dulled his perception of his feathers as well, but there are still a few there and the main structure of his wings is intact, thank god.
He’s not loopy anymore, but he’s still slow—doesn’t even notice Jeanist enter the room until he’s sitting sternly and disapprovingly at Hawks’s bedside.
“Heeeeeeyyy, no need to be maaaaaaaad. Also, can I speak with you in private?” He glances at the nurse in what’s supposed to be a subtle flick of the eyes but ends up being a whole roll of his head to look at him with a heavy stare.
The nurse nods. “Just don’t let him get up.”
“I’m not mad,” says Jeanist. “I was just worried about you.”
There’s only a curtain separating them from listening ears and other horrors, so Hawks leans up to hiss in his ear: “My baby. I need you to get him.”
“Okay, Hawks. How are you feeling? Does it hurt?”
“Listen to me! My baby!”
Jeanist sighs. “Okay, Hawks, sure. Your baby.”
“I’m not high! This is serious! Listen!” He’s worried there are tears in his eyes. “I have a baby. He’s secret, no one can…know. But I left him alone when I went to stop the fire. What time is it? I need you to go get him. HIs name is Hikaru.”
“Why don’t we talk about this in a few minutes once your medication fades to be more like light wash denim.”
“I’m not high!” Hawks insists, frustrated tears springing up. Ugh. He’ll just not talk.
When the nurses say he’s good to go, they help him into a wheelchair and wheel him to Jeanist’s car. They keep the wheelchair, but hand Jeanist a pair of crutches and what he hopes are an explanation of pills and stuff he’s gotta take, because he knows they were talking about it earlier but does not remember a word.
“Hey, Jeany,” he says as they pull out of the parking lot. “Do you have deja vu, or is it just me?”
“You sound back to normal.”
“Yeah, everything’s worn off. Hurts a bit but not bad.”
“You were quite out of it, going on about your baby.”
His stomach flips and he scoots forward in his seat to clutch at the armrest. Jeanist doesn’t make eye contact, focused on the road, despite Hawks’s urgent stare. “Hikaru. That wasn’t made up. I—shit, I’m the worst. I left him when I answered that call to the fire—the fire! Is everyone okay? What happened?”
Jeanist turns to look at him intensely. “Your child first. You didn’t leave him with anyone? Where is he, Hawks?”
“My phone?”
Jeanist jerks his head toward a baggie on the front seat. Hawks digs through it with clumsy hands, and when his thumbprint doesn’t work, takes 4 tries to punch in the passcode. He finds the pin he dropped and immediately sets navigation there. “Here.”
“He’s—my feathers are with him,” Hawks realizes, and focuses his attention to what’s going on there. Hikaru’s crying. “He’s okay, he’s okay, thank god. How long has it been?”
“It’s seven PM now.” Hawks remembers that he has a phone, like an idiot, and checks the time. Jeanist is right; it’s seven. So he’s been gone for over half a day. Hikaru is probably really hungry, but he won’t be dying of dehydration and neglect. God, he’s the worst. He’s the worst.
Even with the reassurance that Hikaru is alive, breathing, not mangled from falling off of a building, worry eats Hawks from the inside out. With Jeanist’s accusatory silence and fixed gaze on the road, the drive is long and uncomfortable. Hawks knows, okay? He knows, and it’s so much worse that he can’t just fly there and make it all okay.
When they pull up, Jeanist immediately rushes out of the car and flings himself up on the building using lines of thread. Hawks shimmies his way out of the car. His crutches are in the trunk, so he stays leaning on the door. It’s worked up a blistering heat in the sun, and he hisses
Jeanist comes back with Hikaru, who’s apparently too tired to scream, because he’s whimpering.
Hawks’s heart breaks.
He wants to reach out and comfort him like he’s seen people do—aw, baby, shhh, shhhh, you’re okay—but Jeanist is there. Something about that trips him up, so instead he grimaces and reaches out awkwardly and motions for Jeanist to hand him Hikaru.
“Get in the car, Hawks.”
Hawks obeys, and his hands are shaking, too clumsy right now to do up his own buckle. Jeanist is on the other side, buckling Hikaru into a carseat. Trust Jeanist to have a random baby carseat on hand. Then, he leans and reaches over HIkaru to fasten Hawks’s seatbelt.
Ah, fuck. Hikaru’s crying next to him, and Hawks is on his way. “I’m sorry,” he whispers while Jeanist is outside and reaches his hand over for Hikaru to cling onto.
Hikaru is exhausted; his grip weak. His skin is an unhealthy pink, flushing to a blotchy red on his cheeks. It’s possible—probable—that Hawks was left alone for days at a time as a baby; it’s a miracle he’s even alive. And that’s exactly why he should know better instead of repeating the cycle.
Jeanist is back in the driver’s seat, so there’s no more whispering to Hikaru. “He’s hungry,” Hawks says. “And needs a—” wait, does he need a diaper change? “Did you change his diaper?”
“He’s wearing a cloth diaper now,” Jeanist informs him, and Hawks realizes that he hadn’t brought back the Hikaru Bag with him.
“Did you—”
“It’s not denim. I chose something softer. Babies need softness and comfort.”
Ah. Hawks faces that comment head-on instead of shrinking from it. “I know.”
“He’ll need to eat,” Jeanist says.
“You left my bag on the roof,” Hawks says. “It had his food in it. So… drive-thru?”
“You think drive-thrus have breast milk?” Jeanist asks, looking in the rearview at Hawks.
“Formula? Baby food?”
Jeanist sighs. “I’m assuming you’ll have everything at home? Your secret one.”
He does. And when they get there, Jeanist takes Hikaru, like he doesn’t trust Hawks with him, and Hawks comes clacking behind on his crutches.
When he goes to start getting a bottle ready, Jeanist stops him. “No, Hawks. Go lie down.”
His heart sinks, and he watches from the couch as Jeanist cradles a fussy HIkaru in one arm and scrutinizes the formula can, then takes one of the bottles off the drying rack to fill it up. “Make sure the water’s a good temperature,” Hawks calls out feebly. “On the warm side, but not super hot.”
Hikaru takes the bottle eagerly, and Jeanist walks them both over to the couch to sit down next to Hawks.
“Babies are like leather,” Jeanist says in a sort of sigh as he watches Hikaru.
“Uh, that’s cute.”
“I can’t work with leather, it’s not thread. I don’t know how to care for children this little.”
“Me neither,” Hawks admits.
“Is the mother—”
“No. Not in the picture.”
Seeming to sense that Hawks wants to move on, Jeanist says, “You saved ten people in the fire. There were no casualties, and I took down the villain causing it.”
Hawks sighs in relief, sinking back into the couch. It compresses the cushion, and his crutches slide down from where they’re balancing to hit him in the face. “Ow.”
Jeanist uses the fibers of his jacket to right the crutches with a fond laugh. At least, Hawks hopes it’s fond. Maybe he doesn’t hate Hawks for this, after all. “Your medications and doctor’s note are in the kitchen. She said no showering for a few days. Call this week to schedule a follow-up.”
“Thanks. You really are the best, Jeanist. Ha.”
“Ha.”
“Really though.”
Jeanist sighs, then carefully hands Hikaru back over to Hawks, but not before ruffling his hair.
“Hey!” Hawks says once he’s gotten Hikaru situated. “Don’t you even think about touching his hair; I’ve seen what you do.”
“I wouldn’t. It’s too much like yours.”
And Hawks is left somewhat speechless as Jeanist leaves with a sigh. “I’ll return tomorrow, and I’m bringing back-up. Take care of Hikaru. And yourself.”