Work Text:
Walking without headphones was a weird experience.
As you got ready for work this morning, your sole pair had evaded you. They weren’t in your bag, your pocket, on the counter… You imagine they had fallen into the void for the day and sighed, admitting defeat. Walking without headphones couldn’t be that bad right?
Wrong. You felt off balance walking down the streets on the way to work. Were you walking slower? And was it always this loud? Business men aggressively yelling into their bluetooth, mothers trying to soothe their crying child, groups of kids laughing on their way to school… thunder?
The loud rumbling you heard in the distance gave you pause. It was a beautiful day out, not a cloud in the sky. You heard the noise again, closer this time.
You studied the faces of the people around you, just to confirm what you were hearing was out of the ordinary. A few others had paused around you, looking up at the sky searching for the storm clouds that weren’t there.
rumble… rumble..rumble.
The noise kept moving closer and closer, with less time between each crash. Until finally you could hear screaming from behind you.
“-CUATE THE AREA!”
If you thought the street was loud before, it couldn’t compare to the noise that surrounded you now. On the street, drivers were honking their horns trying to speed along traffic while others chose to abandon their car, slamming the door shut, and running down the street with everyone else.
You watched as everyone fled in the opposite direction of the noise. Without even realizing it, you had begun to move, pressing your heels into the concrete and willing yourself to go faster.
CRASH!
Your left leg staggered forward as the earth rocked beneath you. Unable to land your foot properly, you felt the world shift until your nose hit the concrete with a sickening crack. Your lips felt warm as the blood trickled over them, but beyond that small sensation you felt nothing at all. No pain, just a bubbling panic telling yourself that you needed to get up and you needed to move now.
The scene around you was so loud, booming voices of possible villains and hopefully heroes, crowds running, people screaming, and although you could hear it all you felt like you could hear nothing at all beyond your own breathing.
Get. Up.
You tried pushing yourself up by your hand, and bending your leg until your foot hit the ground to support you, but every time you tried to find a second of balance, you were thrown off by someone running by. Some mercifully only bumped your sides, causing you to sway, while others unknowingly stomped your hand back into the street.
There were so many…so many people rushing past, and not one person helped you.
You tried once more, determined to lift yourself off the ground and run away. You felt yourself push up from the concrete and, to your amazement, the concrete disappeared beneath you as you were pulled into the sky.
Were you.. Dying? You flailed your arms to check and you could feel the wind being cut by your movements. Nope, not dead, you thought. Just… flying. Which you typically didn’t do. Still you were airborne, and headed straight towards the civilian safety zone.
You couldn’t have been in the air for more than 30 seconds when you were dropped off behind the barrier. From the corner of your eye you saw a gleam of red jet back towards the danger. After a series of deep breaths and a few short wow-I-almost-got-killed-how-crazy-is-that laughs, your awareness began to return and the pain in your nose became problematic. On shaky limbs you looked around for on site medics. While you waited for them to treat the man in front of you, you sent a text to a co-worker saying you would be late today.
--
When you entered the agency, you were quickly bombarded by your co-workers.
“Go home!”
“Are you crazy?”
“Get some rest!”
They all seemed to say at once as you tried to shush at them so you could say (very unconvincingly) “I’m fine!”
“No! You aren’t.” Your desk neighbor Hana said, towering over you as you slumped in your office chair. “You were just caught in a villain attack and you need to go home and rest.”
“Kenji was there too!” You accused, pointing over at Kenji standing behind Hana’s shoulders with his arms crossed.
“Yeah but unlike you I didn’t break my face!” Kenji shouted pointing at your undoubtedly messed up face.
“For your information I did not break my face” You shot back stubbornly, “I only slightly dislocated my nose…” You mumbled under your breath.
Kenji threw up his arms in frustration before stalking away, leaving you with Hana who looked thoroughly unimpressed by you. As she glared down at you once again you felt yourself shrink into your chair.
“Hear me out... It’s a Friday and you were clearly just badly hurt. What could you possibly have to do that couldn’t wait until Monday?”
That was the problem. It was Friday, and you had a whole lot to do before Monday. It was past you’s fault it piled up, but you couldn’t blame yourself too much. A villain attack wasn’t on your mind when you decided to organize your computer files for two hours yesterday instead of finishing the coding for the citizen satisfaction survey, and next week was month end, so if you waited until Monday it would just stress you out.
It was only another 3 hours of work, it was 1:00 PM now, you didn’t have anything else major on your plate, you had to execute on your mission.
Even if Hana was going to stare you down with both hands on her hips.
“Hana,” you said her name in a sing-song voice. Maybe you thought it would ease some tension from her shoulders. “Listen… Hey! Rolling your eyes is not listening! I have one task I need to do before Monday, just one! My nose doesn’t hurt, I’ll have the whole weekend to look forward to, and I won’t have to worry about the CSAT codes!”
She huffed, but her arms had fallen to her sides and in the next second she had sat down slumped at her desk chair.
“I’m going to bomb the satisfaction survey with zeros next month just to spite you…” she mumbled, and at that moment you knew you had won.
“And risk our precious KPIs and our hero’s reputation?”
She was glaring at you now, maybe you had risked a step too far.
“Just do your damn coding.”
And code you did.
Something that occurred to you very early on in this job, is that for the most part when people anonymously write a satisfaction survey, they don’t think anyone actually reads them. So they just go off in the text box.
Working for a hero as polarizing as Endeavor, you got a handful of negative comments.
I don’t think i can feel safe if the guy protecting me can’t SMILE for ONCE in his career.
FAKE NUMBER ONE! ALL MIGHT FOREVER!
Hero’s like Endeavor are the reason society is collapsing. If people look into this guy for more than one second they would see that the pieces don’t match up. Wife hasn’t been seen in year and his son at UA has a giant scar across his face. Is this the guy we want as our number one?
These comments all came with scores of 0’s are 1’s but always categorized as highly dissatisfied. For the theme codes you sorted them to lack of trust or hero bias.
At the start though, reading what people had to say about Endeavor had surprised you.In your mind, he was the number two hero, heroes were great, so he was one of the greatest?
You had never thought any deeper than that truly. Reading the first few surveys had definitely disillusioned you. After being the lead analyst on the citizen surveys for the past year, you had seen it all at this point.
I mean sure, for every negative comment there were twice as many positive comments.
I can’t thank Endeavor and his sidekicks enough for stopping that lightning villain on the highway. My children and I were just ahead on the road, if he had continued for even 5 seconds more I don’t know what would’ve happened. I feel so grateful to Endeavor for my and my children's safety.
I thought having a flame hero would be way more destructive, but he keeps damages down! I saw a fight outside my apartment window, not so much as a scratch on it!
Endeavour is a dilf and he can choke me with his biceps then drop my corpse into a dumpster.
Admittedly, the thirst comments were your favorite to read. Coding them as just physical attraction felt so tame for how wild they truly were. They were a nice break to the otherwise monotonous and mind numbing work.
Made worse by the fact that you didn’t have your headphones. And that your nose was now in near constant pain as the medicine wore off. And that at any sign of weakness, Hana was ready to push you from your desk and out the doors.
Stay strong.
So you did. Until 6:00 PM. You had underestimated how long the coding would take. That in combination with the perfect storm of shitty conditions, you found yourself gathering your stuff to leave the office late on a Friday.
You had already lost the day to hell when you couldn’t find your headphones and smashed your face into the concrete. At this point nothing could save you so at least you wouldn’t feel guilty eating out and grabbing snacks at the convenience store.
You deserved it. Today was shit. Today was not good.
Today was…
Standing at your desk, in the first moment of stillness for the whole day, you felt uninvited tears begin to blur your vision.
You were hoping this would wait for when you got home, food in hand, safe and alone. But the shock from the attack and the stress induced motivation from work had worn off and you were left shaking.
You almost died. You hadn’t even seen the villain, but the crowd, and the running, you were almost trampled.
You took a shaky breath in. Then out. And repeated the process until the sting in your eyes eased.
In. Then out.
You pressed your knuckles just below your eyes, wincing slightly at how sensitive the area by your nose had become. Your fingers caught a few tears that had managed to spill over and then wiped away whatever was left.
With a deep sigh, you slung your work bag over your shoulders and headed through the empty office towards the elevators.
As you called for the elevator to take you down to the lobby, you pondered the idea of heading straight home and ordering delivery instead of picking something up along the way. Once again, you deserved it. Get home, get home quick, and relax.
Lost in your own head, you missed the loud voice carried down by the elevator towards you. You didn’t even really hear the ding that it had arrived, you just saw the doors open and let autopilot carry you forward.
So admittedly you were slow to notice the boss of your boss’s boss who was also the number one hero standing in the corner of the elevator. And even slower to notice the unmistakable red wings of the number two hero crowding the small space.
You had stepped halfway into the elevator, but your feet wouldn’t carry you further as your brain downloaded the information.
Thankfully your body reacted before your thoughts had fully caught up, and on instinct you threw your head far down in front of you until you were bent at the waist in a low bow.
“I-I apologize for interrupting!” Your voice echoed on the mirrored walls of the elevator. How was it weak and loud at the same time? Obnoxious and timid?
“Oh, really It’s no worries,” Hawks insisted lightly, but your processing queue was backlogged and his assurance fell on deaf ears as you got lost in your own thoughts.
Was that all you had to say to them? To your boss and Hawks?
You wouldn’t even be standing here if it wasn’t for him. It hadn’t taken you long to put two and two together, it was weird that he was in Tokyo, but you know the moment you saw the shot of red fly back to the attack site. It was just confirmed later in the day, half listening to your coworkers chat about the fight earlier in the morning.
“And thank you! Thank you for-” you spilled, but were interrupted by the elevator door trying to close and harshly bumping into your side.
“Be careful.” Endeavor ordered as his large hand grabbed onto the side of the elevator, holding the doors in place. “Get in. Please.”
“Right,” you stammered, rising from your bow and stepping past the doors. “Of course. Sorry. Won’t happen again. Thank you.”
You shuffled to stand in the middle of the elevator as close to the doors as possible. You wanted to leave a large gap and to prepare yourself to bolt out, politely, once you’ve reached the ground floors.
Shame crept up the back of your neck and settled in a burning sensation within your cheeks. It was quiet between the three of you. And you had never been able to find comfort in silence, but for once you felt more safe to keep your mouth shut than to prattle on about nonsense in the presence of strangers.
So you just watched the numbers on the screen above the door countdown one by one and imprinted the side of your pointer fingers with half moons left by your thumbnail.
“Is that new?” Hawks inquired with a level tone. You looked over your shoulder, questioning if he was even speaking to you and found his eyes locked with yours leaving no room for doubt.
He was smiling, it was a casual question, but the way he watched you made you want to shrink.
For a second, you wondered what he meant. Is what new, your bag? Your Shirt? But his eyes never strayed from your face, and that’s when it clicked in.
“Yes.” You hesitated, wondering if you should expand further, but ultimately decided not to since you didn’t trust yourself to say more without further embarrassment.
Hawks hummed, seemingly settled by your answer but didn’t tear his eyes away from you.
“Why did you come into work today?” Endeavor questioned and you felt yourself go cold.
“I… didn’t manage my time efficiently and needed to finish the citizen satisfaction survey coding before Monday.” You admitted, perhaps adding to much detail but felt compelled to reply honestly.
He let out a grumble of annoyance, “Damn those surveys.” He mumbled before focusing back on you “Show me your ID.” He demanded with a quiet and erie authority.
With shaky hands you grabbed the lanyard from your neck and handed it to him. He observed it carefully, before taking out his mobile and snapping a picture.
“Don’t come into the office Monday. Work remotely if you need to. Get rest.” He ordered while handing the lanyard back to you.
Lamely, you nodded and wondered how much longer this elevator would take and if you would die from shame before ever seeing beyond these four walls again?
Mercifully, you reach the ground floor and the doors open wide to the lobby of the agency. As you had originally planned, you move off the elevator first, murmur a polite goodnight to the heroes behind you, and begin your speedy escape.
“Hey, real quick before you head out,” piped Hawks from behind stopping you from reaching the revolving doors at the front.
Endeavor moved past without another glance. With his long strides he made his exit in no time at all, leaving you and Hawks behind.
You sighed, trying to let your nerves escape through your breath. Working in the hero industry, you had run-ins all the time. Though to be fair, today had been long and you never had prolonged exposure to the top two heroes by yourself, but you did in fact need to calm down.
When you looked, Hawks was still smiling, the acuteness from before replaced by something softer.
“It looks like it hurts.” He commented and you smiled, finding it slightly silly that a pro hero who must receive injuries on a weekly basis would be concerned.
“It hurt the most when they had to set it back in place.” You remarked wincing at the memory from the morning. The pain was bad, the sound was worse. “Now it’s just sort of… constant which makes it duller. It hurts, but it’s not so sharp.”
He nodded along to your explanation, but it didn’t seem to ease whatever worry he had.
“How did this happen?” He pressed firmly.
“Oh I-” I forgot my headphones this morning. I was almost trampled. I was saved by a tiny feather. “I fell.” You answered feebly.
That seemed to spark something in him. His smile dropped and the remnants of his previous intensity simmered closer to the surface.
“That must’ve been a nasty fall to land on your face like that.” He deadpanned, looking over your neck, your arms, and your legs. Searching for an answer.
“It was. I really think I would’ve been a goner if it weren’t for you.” You conceded, knowing without a doubt it was true.
Hawks cocked his head to the side, “If it weren’t for me?” He questioned.
“Yeah,” you drew out, puzzled by his confusion, “From this morning’s villain attack. I had fallen in the crowd, one of your feathers got me out before I was too hurt.”
You watched the pieces connect for Hawks as he sighed and smiled warmly. “Ah, of course, my mistake. I’m happy to see you’re unhurt.”
“Yeah, me too…” you replied shifting from one foot to another, “Sorry…”
“For what?” He said with one of his bushy eyebrows raised.
“I’m just not usually this scattered when I meet heroes,” you chuckled feeling the awkwardness pass over and release from you.
“So you meet heros often then?” He teased, sounding much more like the Hawks you had seen in interviews.
Not that you watched his interviews.
The giggle that escaped your lips would haunt you later that night.
“I mean, maybe not that often.”
So embarrassing.
Also a lie. You worked with heros your whole career. Your reports weren’t just for Endeavor but all the heroes within the agency. And this agency was one of the largest in Japan.
“I see, so maybe I’m special.” He shrugged with a cocky grin settling into his face.
You giggled, again, acting like a silly girl with a high school crush.
“Haha you’re so stupid.”
The words left your mouth and a second later a new kind of awareness set into your bones.
Did you just..?
His eyes were wide, his smile was still there but it was the kind of awkward smile people have when someone in the rooms says something so out of pocket.
Oh god. You were that someone.
“I-I mean-“ you stammered searching for any reason why you would just call the number two hero and man who saved your life stupid.
Not finding any, your shoulders sagged as you let out a deep sigh.
“Sorry I don’t think you're stupid. Have mercy on me. I think my brain broke along with my nose.”
Hawks was dumbfounded. What an interaction this has been.
Growing up in the commission and being a hero industry plant, he doesn’t get to have conversations like this often. He secretly treasures every minute he gets to have with someone outside the hero world.
Talking with regular citizens could sometimes soften the blow of having no control over his life. At least he was being used to protect weird, awkward, normal people like you.
At least that’s how the commission frames it.
“Ha!” He shook his head in glee “Sure why not. Mercy granted!”
Your shoulders sagged in relief. Hawks was still snickering at you, but you supposed him being amused was better than being offended.
“Good, maybe now I can catch a break.” you mumbled and wishing to your lucky star it would happen.
Villain attack, working late, and sharing an elevator with Japan’s top two heroes? Hawks had to hand it to you, that was a pretty impressive day.
He enjoyed charming his fans, and it would be a lie to say he wasn’t trying to charm you earlier. After he realized your injuries were from a villian attack and not the result of ongoing abuse, he wanted to make you smile. And blush. And maybe stumble on your words a bit
But he had promised you mercy.
“Alright champ, let’s get you home.” He said, turning you by your shoulder to face the exit of the building.
“Please,” you practically moaned like you had never heard a better idea.
Hawks chuckled and continued to carefully guide your walk out of the lobby and onto the busy street.
“So,” he starts as the two of you walk onto the sidewalk, “which way are we headed boss?”
“Oh” you stammered, not putting two and two together that his offer to get you home was sincere. “I take a right here and walk for about 15 minutes then take a left… but you don’t have to walk me all the way!”
He raised one of his bushy brows. You always wondered if his face was enhanced by makeup. A little eyeliner here, maybe some pencil there… but up close you could now conclude those brows weren’t the work of a makeup artist. They were God’s work. Or maybe the universes? Karma?
“Would you rather fly?” He deadpanned with a slight flex to his wings.
“No no, HA, no,” you wheezed shaking your head incredulously, “Yeah no. Me? I’ve flown enough today. Thank you for offering. But no. No definitely no.”
“How many no’s was that?” He wondered, eyes to the skies pondering, “Six? Seven?”
“I just,” you started lifting your arms by the shoulders thinking of what else to say.
“Don’t get me wrong, I understand. It’s just, do you know how many people would kill to be in your position?” He joked, flashing his ungodly white smile.
“Which position is that,” you questioned, “working late on a Friday? With a broken nose? And a near death experience?”
He whistled and nodded his head solemnly.
“Yeah alright. Enough nonsense for one day. Let’s get you home.” He declared leading you to the right and on the way home.
Although it was nice of him to offer you the walk home, you didn’t realize that meant you had to keep pace with the number two hero. Who was just as fast walking on the sidewalk as he was flying in the sky.
Also, for a hero, he didn’t seem very observant to your stress and huffed strides. Instead he was just prattling on about restaurants and how delivery apps were ruining the social fabric of the food scene.
“I mean don’t get me wrong,” he continued, still not noticing you were firmly a few paces behind him and trying to close the distance, “I love the convenience of it! As a bit of a celebrity myself, it’s nice to have an option where I don’t have to interact with people to get restaurant quality food. But everything in moderation and what’s happening these days is not-“
“Sorry! Do you mind?” You wheezed out finally stopping to catch a breath.
“Oh,” he paused, looking at the intersection, “do we turn here?”
“Nope! Just…” you sighed, containing the urge to rest your hands on your knees. It made you wonder if it was his fault or if you were just that out of shape. “You walk a bit fast. And I’m not getting much air from my nose as it is.”
You could almost hear the little calculator tapping away in his head, trying to sum up this situation.
“Right,” he nodded, “of course. Sorry, I don’t walk with people too often I guess.”
“Honestly, same.” You sympathized, pondering on your usually uneventful commute to and from work. “Usually I just listen to music. Of course today was the one day I couldn’t find my headphones.”
As you spoke the two of you resumed your walk, this time side by side.
“God that’s the worst,” he groaned with his neck stretching back.
“I know right?” You agreed enthusiastically, “I told my coworker that today, and he said I was brave for rawdogging the commute.”
Apparently it was his turn to stop walking, because he paused and looked at you with the same questioning eyes from the elevator.
“What?” You asked suspiciously.
It unnerved you how easily he switched between a carefree nature and unprompted intensity.
Still, he just stared at you like you were some equation scratched out in chalk.
“I don’t think that means what you think it does.” He decided after a moment.
“What?” You puzzled, thinking over your last statement. “Rawdogging?”
“Yeah,” he replied, staring down at you evenly, “rawdogging. I don’t think you know what it means.”
Your brain sputtered and stopped. While the two of you were walking and he was droning on and on about food delivery, you felt your previous intimidation slip away.
He was easy to talk to, because his attention wasn’t devoted to you. You liked that. There was a safety in walking behind him and just nodding along to his rant.
And it’s not like he fully ignored you. It was almost like watching a performance of some kind. Maybe a crowd work comedy show, and you were the lucky audience member to join in on the bit.
He’d ask your opinions, have you ever ordered food? How often? What’s your motivation? But even if your answers weren’t the most riveting, he did a good job carrying the conversation on his back.
Now though, his attention on you was so sharp you felt like he could hear your neurons firing like little gunshots.
“Am I wrong?” He pushed but how were you supposed to answer that?
Your throat felt so dry. If this was a cartoon, you would have been drawn with a dramatic bump in your neck being gulped down as you shook your head no.
He smirked, “Yeah. I didn't think so.” He concluded and began walking again. “Come on, you’ve had a long day. Let’s get you home.”
You nodded matching pace with him on the sidewalk but still mentally catching up in the past minutes events.
“Oh and don’t look that up when you get home. I think you’ve had enough excitement for one night.”