Flames (A Hawks X OC story)

Chapter 3

Mai

"He's training with my Dad. I thought my training was intense when I moved here... Izuku's is Insane! He texts me after every session talking about how his entire body hurts." I was sitting on the edge of a building during one of my patrols, swinging my legs backwards and forwards while surveying the streets. 

Hawks was hovering nearby, his patrol had ended as soon as mine started but for some reason, he had insisted on staying nearby for the first part. I had to admit it was nice to have company while managing the extra mental load of explaining to Izuku that he couldn't tell his current or future classmates about me or Dad. My little brother was a curious soul, he wanted to know everything he could as soon as possible. Which meant I received a million texts each day as he thought of more questions. 

"He knows how dangerous being a hero actually is right Mai? We've had our fair share of life-or-death situations." Hawks rolled his left shoulder as he spoke, obviously thinking back to our preliminary hero examination. 

I looked away, focusing my attention back on the civilians below. My hands burned and my shoulder ached in remembrance, dragging me back to my first year at UA. I nodded my head, picking at the edges of my costume's skirt as we sat in silence. I knew deep down that there was no way of me stopping Izuku from taking the entrance exam, he had wanted to be a hero since the day I met him... That didn't mean I wanted him to go down the same path I had. 

Dad had always wanted to be a hero, he wanted everyone to see him as "The symbol of peace". I wasn't set on that when I was a kid, I'd been certain that support items were my future. My mother had convinced me that hero work was for people far stronger than me. Honestly, I had agreed with her until I met Dad. He was probably my biggest reason for becoming a hero, I never wanted him to feel as helpless as he had when I was 10. 

"Earth to Phoenix, you still with me?" Hawks had moved from alongside me to directly in front of me while I was distracted by my own thoughts. I jumped at the change in view, catching myself on a glyph before I could slip off the edge of the building. 

"I'm here. I'm just... thinking about why I became a hero." I pushed myself off the side of the building, placing smaller glyphs below my feet to hold me up. I turned towards where Hawks had decided to float, smiling at the sarcastic smile that was building on his face. 

"It always seemed to me that you had as much a choice as I did. It doesn't matter what pushed us into the hero career, we were kind of designed for it Mai." Hawks had moved to fly next to me as I walked above the streets. " You're a good person, that means you never could have stood by with your quirk and let people get hurt. It's against your nature." He wasn't necessarily wrong, sometimes it felt like my body moved on its own as soon as someone was in trouble. 

"Okay, who are you and what have you done with Hawks?" I let out a laugh, pausing to watch as someone ran down the sidewalk. I watched as he slipped between people, waiting for him to grab a purse or wallet. 

" Don't tell me you've forgotten what today is Phoenix? It's been exactly 6 years since we met! I guess I'm just happy that we're still on talking terms, lord knows I've given you enough reasons to move away by now" He let out his own breezy laugh, that stupid easy-going smile coming back onto his face. 

"I think you mean 'Thank you for making sure I survived that last 6 years Phoenix'. If the licensing exam was any indication of your skills at the time, I'm not sure you would have survived to 18." I threw a glyph down to the street, stopping it right as a criminal went to turn a corner. I watched as the police caught up to him during his confusion. 

We continued to reminisce on our first mission together throughout the patrol, it was a welcome distraction from the family stress I was dealing with off the clock. Eventually, I convinced Hawks that he needed to go back to his office and do his paperwork... More like bribed him with bringing teriyaki skewers to the weekly meeting if he had all his incident reports done by the end of my patrol. 

I had just walked out of my building after my shift when Kiera ran out to stop me. From the look on her face, I could tell that she was about to give me bad news. She slung an arm around my shoulder and started walking down the block towards Hawk's agency with me, leaning her head in to whisper. 

"The commission wants to meet with us tomorrow morning about UA's classes... We meet with them at 9:30. Please don't be late" She moved her head away from me again as we walked. I groaned slightly, my steps faltering as I started complaining. 

"An early morning meeting to talk about classes. Are they trying to make me quit?" Kiera let out a laugh and my complaint and brought me to a stop outside the agency. 

"I heard from an old classmate that a couple of the teachers put in for retirement, you know UA is always trying to get graduates to take classes there. I mean at least then you could make sure Izuku doesn't get himself killed on the first day." I flinched slightly, Kiera was right of course. Teaching at UA would be the exact thing that would let me help Izuku, it would also mean working with my Dad and fewer hours at the agency. Plus I'd probably see Hawks a lot less for our weekly meetings if I wasn't patrolling as much...

I needed to get that obnoxious birdy out of my head before I said something embarrassing. I fully blamed Keira for always making comments about us, it didn't matter how I felt about Keigo Takami... Hawks was the Commission's best asset. Which meant he was completely off-limits to anyone from my family line. 

"Oh! Katsuki called me in a huff yesterday. Apparently, I'm a horrible sister for never telling him that you were a pro-hero." I pushed my face into my hands. Today just kept getting more and more stressful, and I had dinner with Dad tonight as well... 

"I made him promise not to tell anyone, he knows it works the same as me. Izuku and Katsuki are the only people allowed to know who Phoenix and Firefly really are." I was more worried about Izuku's apparent inability to keep secrets from Katsuki, there was no way he made it through high school without telling that kid about One For All.

Keira waved goodbye as she continued walking towards the train station. A skip in her step and a smile on her face. I steeled myself before turning towards the nearby supermarket, mentally preparing for yet another dinner of Izu bombarding me with questions. I was probably halfway through climbing up a shelf when a bright red feather knocked the box I was reaching for down into my hands. I turned around expecting to see Hawks standing somewhere in the aisle only to see the store sitting almost empty. 

I trudged my way towards the train station with shopping bags piled on my arms. Grumbling about Dad being unable to do his own shopping this week. He was over-extending himself like usual so when he wasn't helping Izuku train he was stuck in bed coughing his lungs up. Honestly, I could kill him some days. At least if the meeting tomorrow was about teaching I would be around to make sure the two of them don't get themselves sent to the nurses' office every hour.