Chapter Text
Hawks never really understood it. He saw the cards and the presents, he heard the wishes and the jokes, he watched the games and the celebrations. He knew what they were for, but he didn’t get it. It didn’t make any sense why they all cared so much about it. Celebrations meant the day was special in some way, that it mattered to everyone’s involvement, that it brought something good into the world. He was an accident that ruined his parents’ lives; that wasn’t worth celebrating.
There was a knock on the door. Hawks looked up as Mera entered the small room he’d been staying in since he started at the commission. It was bland, just a spare room on one of the floors that they’d put a bed and wardrobe in, and later a desk, when he got too old and wings too large for Mera to comfortably tutor him at his own office desk.
“You got the time to come with me for something?”
“I’m obviously not in a training exercise at the moment, I can afford to throw another one in.”
“It’s not a training exercise.” Hawks cocked his head to the side. He stood up as Mera beckoned him out.
He quickly hopped over to wait at the lift up to the higher floors – not that they weren’t already on one of the higher floors, but Hawks at least lived on the lowest of those that required security passes to enter – and turned to watch Mera. The man instead headed elsewhere, towards the stairs the lead to the floor below. Though confused, Hawks still followed Mera, tucking his feathers against one another to shrink his wings so they would be far less obvious once they were in public. He didn’t leave the high security floors often – in fact, he could remember every time he had.
When he’d just started with them and didn’t yet trust them, so Mera had to hold him as tightly as he possibly could to stop him from flying back into the building so he could get a professional to look at the injuries he’d sustained in the years before they met. When the previous president was killed and the floors were closed off for the police investigation, apparently needed to confirm the suicide, even if all the staff knew otherwise. When a villain attacked the building and it took two months to repair, so he stayed at Madam President’s apartment because Mera lived with his girlfriend, and they couldn’t let her know about him. It was only those instances and the last was five years ago, when he was still a pre-teen.
“Look alive, chick, we’re going somewhere.” Mera tipped Hawks’ head up as they left the building. “I thought you weren’t supposed to call me that anymore because it was a reminder of Her.”
“We’re out of the office, who’s going to tell anyone? Besides, I can’t use your name, can I?”
“Alright. Where are we going?”
“To start with, the train station.”
Mera didn’t tell him anything else about their destination. The most Hawks knew was that it was in Fukuoka, because that was where the train ticket was to. Wasn’t that where they’d been discussing having him work? For much of the journey, he was looking out of the window, watching the scenery fly by, whether it was a field, a herd of cows, a small village, a city, another train passing them in the opposite direction, or something that took him completely by surprise, which Mera described as a theme park, though his efforts to explain what that was were lacking, as everything he could come up with involved some combination of words Hawks had never heard before.
They had a bit of a walk after getting off the train, so Mera ducked into a café to get them some drinks, taking a moment to describe what everything meant besides just coffee, since the office didn’t have much variety. They headed through the streets, Mera checking a map on his phone every so often. He stopped at a tall building, nodding Hawks inside.
Stopping outside a door, Mera took out a key. “Are we visiting someone?”
“Not quite. Go in.”
The apartment was rather basic. A lounge and kitchen separated by a counter, a bedroom and bathroom behind respective doors, a balcony off the lounge, and perhaps more Hawks couldn’t immediately see. It had standard furnishings, tables, chairs, a television, kitchen appliances, but no décor. Hawks stood in the centre of the main room, watching Mera with a confused cock of his head.
Smiling, Mera held out the key. “This year’s all about getting you debut ready, hm? Can’t do that if you’re still reliant on us for everything and it looks good for people to see you around town leading up.”
“Is this?”
“Your new apartment.” Hawks’ feathers fluffed up. “Entirely yours. I can help you bring everything over. I’m free next weekend if you want to go shopping for décor, casual wear, anything else you think of over the days. Definitely knives, we couldn’t get you any in advance because we’d have to carry an entire set of knives across quite a lot of the country. And a phone, otherwise you’d have to carry your laptop around for us to contact you.”
“I…”
“Don’t know what to say? Happy birthday, Hawks.”