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Day 6: "Do your worst"
"Do your worst." Hawks had said, maybe a couple of days ago - but he'd mostly lost track, his mind too hazy with pain to get a good read on the time, especially when he was being kept somewhere underground in dark and dingy conditions.
In hindsight, it'd been a bad idea to taunt and egg on his captures - but he'd been trained to withstand torture and not give any information away no matter what anybody did to him. Yet..maybe he had been a little cocky, the fame that had come with his recent debut made him feel invincible, but he was still undeniably human.
As they kicked him in the chest for what must've been the fiftieth time, ribs cracking from the force, he couldn't even remember what they'd wanted from him in the first place. Maybe there wasn't anything - only their hatred for heroes.
"Pretty boy's still barely made a sound, think we can make him sing?" One of the men said as Hawks blinked up at them, dazed with pain and exhaustion.
"Yeah boss, go for the wings. Bet they'd fetch a hefty price on the market."
Fear suddenly struck Hawks' heart as he realised what they were talking about. They were going to take his wings - the thing that made him useful.
He couldn't be a hero without his wings, he'd be nothing.
The boss moved behind Hawks and he snarled loudly, straining against the restraints that they'd put him in.
He only laughed, putting his hands on his wings. "You really are a little animal huh?"
A handful of his feathers were violently yanked out and Hawks tried to kick out, only struggling more with the restraints that kept him from properly using his quirk. His feathers were so sensitive, having them ripped out sent sharp pain shooting through his back and through the rest of his body, leaving him trembling.
"They came out pretty easy." Another one of the men spoke up, a smug grin on his face.
Hawks wanted to kill them all.
"Hero still hasn't said a word though." More of his bigger feathers were ripped out, leaving him gasping for breath. The room felt too small - he was too enclosed and he couldn't breathe.
Why hadn't anybody come for him? He thought he was doing well - why had they left him?
A horrible crack suddenly echoed through the room and he couldn't help but let out a raspy scream, his one wing hanging limp behind him. The pain was unbearable - causing his body to spasm as he tried desperately not to start sobbing.
"There we go. How about the other one?"
"No no no you can't-" He'd passed the point of being properly lucid, begging pathetically to people who wanted nothing more than to see him suffering as much as possible.
If the commission knew he'd started begging, they'd probably break his other wing too.
The second snap seemed louder and even more painful as the first, causing fat tears to start rolling down his face - his body not knowing how else to deal with the overwhelming pain coursing through him.
It didn't stop, not for hours or maybe days, he didn't know anymore. They continued beating him, slicing him and cutting off his air supply until he was dizzy and light headed - sure that he'd pass out and be temporarily freed from the hell he was in. But it never happened, his body kept him awake through every tortuous second.
He missed his mom, he wanted to go home.
He was so so exhausted, not even noticing when somebody new had walked into the room, a seemingly large scarf wrapped around his neck. It was probably somebody else coming to hurt him in more unimaginable ways, but he couldn't do anything to stop it. He couldn't move, couldn't get his wings to do anything, could barely even raise his head.
Maybe it was somebody who would finally put him out of his misery.
｡ﾟ•┈꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱┈• ｡ﾟ
Aizawa hadn't expected his usual night-time patrol to be so eventful, let alone to find the recently debuted hero Hawks - the one that nobody had been able to stop talking about since he arrived on the scene.
The kid looked young, as young as his students. It made him feel worse about the whole situation.
"Hey kid." He knelt down infront of him, scanning over what those bastards had done to him. The first thing that he noticed were the bruises that were covering almost the entirety of his skin, followed by his wings, much smaller than he'd remembered seeing on the news, hanging limply behind him.
The young hero was wheezing, definitely a sign of broken ribs and hell knows what else.
"..Don't take my wings.." Hawks whispered, so quietly that Aizawa almost missed it. It made his heart clench.
"I won't do anything to you, just here to get you out." Aizawa searched through the pockets of the men that he'd taken down, quickly finding a key in the boss' trouser pockets. As quickly as possible, he unlocked the quirk suppressing cuffs that had been tightly wrapped around Hawks' wrists, leaving bloody indents.
"Just hang in there kiddo." He couldn't help the endearments that slipped out..he was just a child, a horribly injured one at that.
After removing the rest of the restraints from Hawks' red raw skin, he fell forward against Aizawa, the only thing keeping him upright being the tight chains. His eyebags were even darker than Aizawa's, an impressive feat in itself, yet he still hadn't closed his eyes, instead his pupils were like tiny pinpricks as his panic refused to leave.
"You're safe now."
"I did bad." He whispered again as his whole body shook. "'M gonna get in trouble."
"You didn't do bad, Hawks, you were tortured."
"I shouldn't have gotten caught in the first place." Tears began slipping down his face, making him look even younger. "My wings don't feel good."
"We'll get them sorted, don't worry..you just need to rest."
"I don't like the doctors." Hawks gripped onto Aizawa hard, digging into his skin while letting out little distressed sounds.
"The doctors at the commission?"
Hawks nodded, his shivering getting worse.
"Then I'll call a different doctor, a nice one." Aizawa took his scarf off and wrapped it around Hawks gently. It didn't offer much, but the younger buried his face into it and held it close regardless. "How does that sound?"
"Okay..if they can stop everything from hurting."
"They will." Maybe it was all a terrible idea, but Aizawa was not going to hand the kid over to people who he was afraid of. "Can I pick you up?"
"Yeah.."
As Aizawa lifted Hawks up, he realised that he barely weighed a thing. It was like picking a small child up..prehaps something to do with his quirk.
"Easy.." He murmured as Hawks hissed in pain, his eyes screwed shut as he continued to grip onto Aizawa's hero costume desperately. "You're alright."
The young hero continued to let out wheezing breaths, but he relaxed just slightly in Aizawa's arms - realising that he was safe. "I'm so tired." It sounded choked out, as if it was difficult to admit.
"Close your eyes and rest, I won't let anything else happen to you."
"You promise?"
"I promise, kid."
Aizawa knew that he'd made the right decision as he sat in the back of Mic's car as he drove them home, watching Hawks curl up against his side.
｡ﾟ•┈꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱┈• ｡ﾟ