My Rugged Heart [Hawks x OC]

Chapter 5

Akane sat on the bar of a city light, swinging her legs, watching the moon rise over Fukuoka. A few weeks had passed since her, er, agreement with Hawks. She helped out when she could and he didn't turn her over to the authorities. It had taken her several encounters to actually trust that at the end of them, he wasn't going to grab her by the wrists and toss her into the back of a cop car but nothing like that had happened so far. He was certainly faster than her and actually had combat skills. If he wanted to snatch her at any time, he could have.

But he hadn't.

Instead, Hawks had simply left her alone and let her work. The only time he truly acknowledged her was with a soft two-toned whistle, high then low, in her direction. Right after that, he would take off, and his sidekicks would show up with the police in tow. She had learned to clear out of the area quickly after that whistle. Did that mean he had trained her? Hmph.

She watched people wandering below as they enjoyed their Saturday night. Quirks were allowed to be used in this particular area, so she wasn't the only one in an odd place. Nearby, a boy was perched horizontal on the side of a wall and a girl breathing fire into animal shapes for a group of her friends. A couple was dancing in midair to music drifting out of a café.

This place didn't see much crime except for the occasional purse-snatching attempt. Still, she wasn't entirely surprised when company landed beside her.

"Off duty, Hirano?" Hawks asked with a small smile for her before he aimed a larger, celebrity-style one at a few people who had noticed his arrival.

"Never on it," she said, "What are you doing here?"

Hawks stretched his massive wings, the feathers rustling. A few drifted off and curled away on a phantom wind, moving down to street level. "I'm taking a break. Can I sit with you?"

"I thought we weren't supposed to look like we're working together," she said, glancing up at him, her eyebrows lifted.

"Sitting together isn't working together," Hawks said, "It's just being friendly."

"And no one's going to think it's odd that you occasionally hang out with a girl who has white wings, which the vigilante also has?"

It was Hawks' turn to lift his eyebrows. "So we're acknowledging that you stand out." He waved a hand at her and sat down anyways without her permission, drawing his own wings in. "But anyways, there are other people in the city with wings like yours. A few. And you usually wear some kind of mask and hide your hair. Plus, we've already had dinner."

True. "That was more like a meeting with food."

He grinned. "What a weird way to describe what was definitely dinner."

Akane rolled her eyes. "We can agree to disagree."

"Whatever you'd like."

Something felt off. It was something in the air, a vibe she was getting from him. As they sat there together, silence drifting down between them, Akane shifted from watching the people below to watching him. She had seen him in action enough times to recognize that there was something different about him at the moment. He had a smile plastered on his face, and he lifted a hand to wave at some people taking pictures, but the glow from the streetlight would do a lot to ruin the pictures.

That smile seemed so fake right now.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Hawks' wings fluttered back, some of the red feathers falling. He always seemed to be losing feathers, but she knew he could detach and reattach them with his Quirk. Hers didn't work like that. If one came out, she couldn't reattach it. He pulled his wings in tighter and offered her that same fake smile. "About dinner? Or our general lack of agreement on dinner?"