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Sometimes, Hawks imagines throwing himself off the roof just to feel the wind in his hair one more time.
It’s not that he’s suicidal or anything, but sometimes, he thinks the pain of colliding with the cement would be preferable to the constant ache in his chest—a longing to return to the sky that can never truly be satiated without his quirk. He’s only twenty-three. He has so much life left ahead of him, and all of it will be steeped with a hollowness he can never shake.
So he stands on rooftops in the middle of the night and peers over the edge, and if he doesn’t think too hard about it, he can imagine that flinging himself off wouldn’t result in his death. It would just be his final flight.
The trouble is, more often than not these days, he doesn’t wind up here alone.
“You shouldn’t be swinging around with that leg,” Hawks calls out, as Aizawa lands clumsily behind him.
“The prosthetic is made to withstand hero work,” Aizawa responds bluntly.
“Not what I meant.” Hawks doesn’t elaborate, though. Aizawa is aware he wasn’t referring to the prosthetic limb itself; the metal isn’t fragile, and the companies that manufacture support items have been working overtime ever since the PLF raid to ensure Pros get the highest-tech aids possible. The worry is how the flesh attached to the prosthetic fairs under such strain.
Eraserhead has not yet been cleared to return to his hero duties, because of the lasting pain in what remains of his right leg. He’s been going to physical therapy in the hopes of improving his condition, but in the meantime…
He’s supposed to be just as grounded as Hawks.
“Maybe I would’ve taken the stairs if I hadn’t seen a man who looked like he was contemplating jumping,” Aizawa replies. He comes to a stop beside Hawks, filling the empty space next to him as if it’s where he belongs. Maybe it is. Hawks has spent too much time alone to know the difference between meant to be and doomed attachment.
“I won’t,” Hawks offers.
He can feel Aizawa’s stare burning a hole into him. He doesn’t meet his gaze. He might not have a quirk anymore, and Erasure may be significantly weakened, but Aizawa’s eye still has the power to strip him bare and expose all of the bloody vulnerabilities Hawks would rather stay hidden forever.
“Not while I’m here,” he finally replies. His tone remains the same as it always does—unamused and tired—but he steps closer as he speaks, arm brushing against Hawks’. Usually, Aizawa doesn’t touch him like this.
Usually, he finds Hawks on a rooftop somewhere and drags him to a hotel room as a distraction from both their miseries, and Hawks follows happily because he will always devour whatever attention Aizawa deigns to give him. Even if it means nothing, in the end. Even Aizawa returns to being a hero and leaves Hawks behind once he is no longer of use.
Tonight feels different, though. Somehow. With Aizawa standing close enough for their limbs to touch, staring out into the night sky just as Hawks has been doing for the past hour. He looks like he might be considering falling over the edge, too.
The difference is that Aizawa could catch himself.
The difference is that, while Aizawa’s injuries may be permanent, they are things he can adapt to. He can re-train his quirk, he can rebuild his muscles, he can still be a hero. He can still live the life he had before the war.
Hawks doesn’t have any of that.
Hawks hit the ground, and everything that he used to be died. The only thing left of Number 2 Pro Hero Hawks is a walking corpse.
“Do you miss it?” Aizawa asks, nodding towards the open air before them.
Hawks does not want to talk about this.
He swallows thickly. Slaps an insincere smile across his face. “Do you miss your other eye?” It functions well enough as a response without him having to say anything at all—without him having to put words to the constant ache in his chest. If he admits how desperately he longs for the life he lost, he ceases to be the highly celebrated pro hero who always has a smile on his face, and can take anything in stride.
If Hawks voices his pain, he is no longer Hawks. He’s an ordinary human trying to fill a role much, much, too big for him.
“I do,” Aizawa admits, like it’s easy, “but that’s not what I meant.”
Hawks presses his lips together. He doesn’t look at Aizawa. Doesn’t look at the patch over his eye, or the metal limb covered by baggy pants. Doesn’t look at all the ways in which Aizawa is broken, because it’s too much like seeing his own reflection in the mirror and remembering his own scars.
“Why do you want to talk all of a sudden?” Hawks asks, teasing. “Thought you said I was unbearably annoying.”
“You are,” Aizawa agrees. “I can’t fathom why I like you.”
For a split-second, the world stops spinning. Everything goes still—the wind, Hawks’ heart, all of the thoughts swirling through his mind. It’s an assumption he could have drawn a long time ago, but to hear Aizawa say it aloud…
“You like me?” It’s meant to sound like a joke, but his tone falls flat.
“Unfortunately.” Aizawa sighs. He turns his body, so he’s fully facing Hawks, and even when Hawks doesn’t do the same, he still lifts his hand and brushes his knuckles against the nasty scar marring his cheek. “You told me yourself when we first met that everyone likes you. I’m not sure why you’re surprised.”
Aizawa must know Hawks didn’t really mean that. It’s a lie his hero ranking forced him to pretend was true, and it was a cheeky way to bite back against Aizawa’s cold indifference. And it would be fine, if Aizawa liked him in the same way as everyone else—if he liked the heartthrob hero that smile at the camera and shows the public only the sides of him that are loveable and marketable.
Aizawa sees him for more than that, though. He always has. That’s the reason he didn’t care for Hawks when they first met.
But now that he’s seen the man beneath the mask—now he admits that Hawks is someone he likes. He doesn’t care for Hawks the hero; he likes Hawks, the ordinary man who wears the skin of his former self like he could ever again be an angel.
Hawks peers over the edge of the building, into the inky blackness below. If he jumped, he could feel the rush of flying one last time, before he splatters on the concrete and goes down in bloodshed like he should have six months ago. It would be so much easier.
And he would lose Aizawa. And Aizawa would lose him.
If he stays here, with Aizawa by his side, he will have a chance to live the sort of life he never previously imagined to be a possibility. He flew into the glass window, losing all sense of flight and direction, but then he was picked up by someone who knows the pain. Someone who is walking the path of healing right alongside Hawks—who struggles adhering to his body’s new limitations and will never find a complete recovery.
Hawks dares to turn his head, meeting Aizawa’s gaze.
The other man is already looking back, with an expression that is uncharacteristically, painfully, soft.
“Hawks…” he murmurs.
“Keigo,” he corrects. Because that’s who Aizawa sees when he looks at him, isn’t it? And that is who was left behind when Hawks went down in a blaze of glory. That is who he has to grow accustomed to being. Hawks the Hero is gone—he is a thing of myth now.
Takami Keigo, however, only now has a chance to begin living.
“Keigo,” Aizawa amends. “Shall we head down?”
“Yeah,” Keigo agrees, voice thick and attention trained on Aizawa’s face instead of the open sky surrounding them. He fits one of his hand into Aizawa’s and grabs hold of his cane with the other. “Let’s go.”
They take the elevator, so when they hit the ground, they can both continue walking forward.