Claws Out (Marvel x MHA fanfiction)

Chapter 20 - Through X-22's Eyes

Hero Public Safety Commission

During the Hosu crisis

X-22

It had been a long day for X-22. A long couple of days, actually. Stuck on a stakeout for three straight days with only his annoyingly skilled partner to keep him company- save for one phone call he had with X-23- and now he was stuck in a goddamned debriefing with his bosses that was dragging on and on and on.

"...As I was saying, the information you collected will be very beneficial in our ongoing investigation of the Nomus. Though I will say that you two could've been a bit cleaner in the execution process." The unnamed Commission president- 22 had been told her name and promptly forgot it- spoke, her turquoise eyes shifting between her two employees before turning and leafing through the reports she had received from them only an hour before.

Truthfully, 22 was only half paying attention to his boss. He had been in so many of these meetings and they always went the same- he handed over any information they gained, gave a rundown of how their mission went and then spent the next hour getting critiques and backhanded compliments.

And while he could complain and quit, the work he did here was all he had since he got out of that godforsaken lab almost four years ago, a fact that he tried to hide from X-23. When he saw his clawed counterpart for the first time since he got out, and gazed into her eyes in the dim glow he had conjured up in her new family's living room, 22 just didn't have it in him to tell her the truth.

The guilt had become so overwhelming in that moment that... that he just lied. Said the first believable thing that popped into his head- told the girl that the doctor had captured him and tortured him instead of the truth. That he was a low-life private detective and not an unnamed assassin and spy for the biggest corporation in the hero world.

The truth was that X-22 got out of the doctor's clutches when he was sent on a mission to assassinate the very hero sitting across from him right now. The truth was that his would-be victim somehow saw right through him and had reached out a hand and offered an escape. The truth was that 22 took it and didn't look back, didn't even think to look back. And even though the Commission was fucked up in their own right, they gave X-22 a home. The least he could do was work for them.

From his spot across the table, 22 could tell his associate felt the same way. Hawks, his aforementioned annoyingly skilled partner, had slouched and rolled his eyes the second the president turned her back on them. He had respect for the Commission and would carry out their orders when asked, just like 22, but even he had his limits with their formal bullshit sometimes.

While the president droned on about quotas and whatever their next mission would be, 22 took the time to inspect the golden blonde seated across from him. In the four years they had known each other, the number three pro had barely changed from the eighteen-year-old who had vouched for and trusted a broken and wounded seventeen-year-old X-22.

Hawks had the same feathery and messy blonde hair, the same stubbly and uneven facial hair that he insisted would grow in with time, eyes that looked like honey with aesthetically pleasing black markings around them, and large bright red wings that were currently splayed out over the top of the chair he was sitting on. It wasn't hard to see why his friend was popular amongst women- and even some groups of men. 22 would often joke that if the hero gig didn't work out, Hawks could always be an explicit type of model.