Denki practiced with Hawks on a daily basis, and while he was frustrated that he wasn't progressing as fast as he would have liked, he no longer felt the need to take out that frustration on Hawks, now that he realized that Hawks wasn't even really benefiting from teaching him something that was so far out of his own element. That idea just made Denki work even harder.
Hawks would fly them out to abandoned cityscapes or secluded mountains to practice where no one might oversee before Denki was completely in control.
Hawks had drilled it into Denki that power was a delicate thing that needed to be kept hidden until it reached its full potential. Otherwise, there would be people out there who would want to take advantage.
Despite feeling frustrated at his slow progress, though, Denki had never felt more powerful. He finally had something that kept him in line with his classmates. He finally had something that was helping him progress just as quickly as everyone else seemed to. He no longer felt that he might be falling too far behind to catch up. He finally had hope that he might be a valuable member of hero society because of his quirk, instead of his quirk being his downfall and making him into a liability.
By the time the end of his third year was nearing, Denki had his new move down to near perfection every single time.
"I've been doing some research," Hawks said as he handed Denki a bottle of water during one of their frequent breaks. "You know how you said you didn't understand how you would short-circuit when using lower voltage and feel completely fine when blasting your power up to lightning-levels? I think that might be because you're pushing that power out and through you when you're turning into lightning, but just kind of blocking it off and holding it in when you short-circuit."
Denki nodded as he swallowed the water down, barely taking a chance to breathe before chugging the whole thing, heaving from the effort, and wiping his mouth.
"The first time it happened, it was terrifying," Denki disclosed. "After that, I tried to limit how much power I'd put out so that it wouldn't have as many side effects when I tried to shut it down again. But you're saying I should have done the opposite?"
"Yeah, basically."
"Hawks?"
"Yeah, kid?"
"Where have you been all my life?"
Hawks barked out a laugh and reached out for Denki, but Denki was faster. With a bright light and a crack of lightning, Denki was across the small clearing, out of reach, and wearing a shit-eating grin.
"Fastest hero, my ass, Hawks!"
"Hey! I'll still hold that title until you graduate and become pro! Until then, you will bow down to me as the fastest hero!"
"Yeah, sure…" Denki hedged, taking two steps back. "But you gotta catch me first!"
Hawks was already speeding toward him, and Denki still had time to laugh before he sizzled out of Hawks's reach.
"Oh, ho, ho! You gotta be quicker than that!" Denki teased to get Hawks wound up.
Hawks knew it was to deliberately get him wound up, and goddamn if it didn't work just as the kid intended. Hawks chased after Denki, a challenging smile on his face.
Hawks felt amazing every time he did manage to catch Denki, but he wondered each time if that one would be the last time he ever did so. He had been improving steadily, and it took more and more time using more and more strategies and tricks to actually catch Denki. It if was a pure competition of speed alone, Hawks wouldn't have ever stood a chance from the second that Denki learned how to activate it at will from baseline, from zero to lightning instantly, instead of having to build up to it.
When Hawks had reached for Denki the same time Denki started to zap off, both of their hearts stopped. Hawks expected to wake up dead, and Denki expected to have to recruit his boyfriends to hide a dead body. So, when Hawks and Denki were both standing on the top of a nearby mountain, they stopped and stared at each other for a few seconds in silence.
"Uh, you feeling okay, Hawks?"
"Yeah… but what was that?"
"I think… I think I brought you with me."
"Okay. But how?"
"I don't know!" Denki practically whined, relief pouring out of him at the disaster they had just unintentionally averted. "I saw you grabbing onto me, and I just tried to focus the energy away from you."
"Okay," Hawks said, brow furrowed in thought. "Hear me out: Maybe the rest of you turned into lightning, but you somehow managed to keep your arm intact so that I was dragged along with you instead of being electrocuted."
"Is that even possible?"
"I don't know! I'm not the lightning expert, Denki! I'm just winging this shit! I had no idea from the very beginning! I just try things and sometimes they work out! So, let's just try it again!"
"You lost me at try it again."
"Right," Hawks said. "Maybe we should practice with things that won't die before we graduate back to practically teleporting me through the air. Good idea!"
"Yeah, I'm full of them!" Denki said, fully accepting the credit for the idea that absolutely did not come from him.
That's how Denki and Hawks ended up surrounded by a pile of fake babies. Denki leveled an incredulous look at Hawks, and Hawks shrugged at him.
"It was just in case you didn't see the first baby falling. We had multiple back-up infants to toss off the roof. Now we can put them to good use and they won't go to waste!"
Denki was glad that they were practicing on an isolated mountain so no one would see him toting around fake babies, some ending up fried beyond recognition, and others making it through to see another attempt. Hawks physically recoiled at the sight of the first fried baby, picturing himself if he hadn't had the great idea to practice with fakes before volunteering himself once again.
-.-.-
"Can you stay a while?" Dabi asked, tossing the water bottle to Denki from behind the bar.
"Yeah. Hitoshi and Neito are covering for me," Denki said, cracking open the sealed cap and taking a sip.
"We've been trying to track down Full Throttle, but every time we get close, he disappears again. Goes completely off-grid, and it takes forever to even get another hint of him," Shigaraki complained, sitting at one of the tables in the barroom, fiddling with the cap of his own water bottle.
"Well, I know what Full Throttle looks like now," Denki said. "And now that your boyfriend taught me how to literally turn into lightning, I doubt that he'd be able to touch me again."
"Hawks taught you how to turn into lightning?" Shigaraki repeated, almost disbelieving.
Denki smiled. "I knew it! Hawks is the Commission-sent-infiltration hero that you've all been talking about. You're welcome, by the way, for the stellar advice I gave you that actually worked out perfectly," Denki said pointedly to Shigaraki. "You really thought you could keep a secret from me, huh?"
"It's not like we were trying to keep a secret," Dabi said with a shrug in Shigaraki's defense. "But we're getting off topic, here. How exactly did Hawks teach you something like turning into lightning? He's not even close to an electric type."
"He said that he saw potential in me during that whole thing with Full Throttle. It's why he requested my third-year internship," Denki said.
"Wait! What? Did we know about this?" Shigaraki asked, turning to Dabi. When Dabi shook his head no, Shigaraki asked, "how did we not know that Hawks's intern was Kaminari?"
"Yeah, I guess I never really brought it up," Denki said with a sheepish smile and a shrug.
"No, but Hawks should have told us. He knows that we keep tabs on you, and that we've been looking for Full Throttle after what he did to you," Shigaraki said, running frustrated hands through his hair, which was a major improvement from scratching relentlessly at his skin.
"But Hawks doesn't exactly know what you have going on with us, either," Dabi said to Denki before turning toward Shigaraki. "He could very well think we have less than perfectly good intentions toward Denks. We never exactly told him otherwise."
"Yeah, well he never asked!"
"He did say that I couldn't tell anyone about the whole lightning thing until I mastered it because people might want to take advantage," Denki said. "I thought he was talking about the Hero Commission, actually."
"He probably was," Dabi agreed with a shrug. "But not just the Hero Commission. Us, too."
"Literally everyone. Except Neito and Hitoshi, of course," Denki informed.
"Of course," Dabi repeated, and Shigaraki nodded.
"I tell them everything," Denki said, heavily insinuation that if they wanted to model their relationship off of Denki's very successful one, they should follow his lead. "Maybe you guys should—"
"Thanks, but I think we'll do this our own way this time," Shigaraki interrupted.
Denki smiled widely, not insulted in the least. As long as they were planning to do something, Denki could and would stay in his own lane.
"Just go easy on him, yeah?" Denki requested. "I really like Hawks. He's the best mentor I've ever had."
"Better than even Aizawa?" Shigaraki asked.
"Yep," Denki answered with a pop, no hesitation whatsoever.
"Damn. That lightning must be one hell of a trick," Dabi said.
Denki smiled. "Wanna see?"
"Uh, yeah! Obviously!" Dabi said, slamming his hands on the tabletop as he stood up.
"Can we get Force Majeure in on this, too?" Denki asked. "It would be cool if she could include Hawks for the in-group exception to her quirk. Midoriya, too."
"Ah," Shigaraki grunted, nodding. "I figured you'd find him eventually."
"He found me, actually!" Denki said. "He asked me if I was the traitor!"
"He didn't," Shigaraki said, looking intently at Denki.
"He did!" Denki confirmed, bursting out laughing. "Like, how many insiders do you have—? No! Don't actually answer that!"
"Wasn't going to," Shigaraki retorted.
"We all know that you totally would if he really wanted to know," Dabi said, shaking his head and rolling his eyes, even as the smile stayed firmly on his face.
-.-.-
"Kaminari Denki," the woman greeted, extending her hand out in greeting.
"Hello," Denki said, pleasantly enough, reaching out to shake her hand.
"I'm glad you've agreed to meet with me, today," she said with a smile, sitting down on her side of the desk.
Denki flopped down in an overstuffed armchair on the other side of the desk, looking around at the dark mahogany lined office.
"It sounded more like a demand than an offer," Denki chimed, his friendly grin not matching the resentment in his words. "Maybe that's something you should work on."
The woman's smile tightened but didn't drop. "If we're offering feedback, here, I think it's only fair that I should warn you about the risks of shaking someone's hand. I would have thought you had learned your lesson after your encounter with Full Throttle."
Denki laughed, not phased in the least. Maybe that is what annoyed the woman the most; that Denki couldn't be brought down as easily as she herself could with little jabs.
"I survived once, didn't I?"
"Maybe your good luck is running out," the woman said.
"It's the opposite, actually. All of my bad luck has already run its course. I only have good luck left in the reserves." Denki shrugged and stretched out, making himself comfortable.
"Did the voices tell you that?"
The malice in her voice at the snappy retort wasn't unexpected. The retort itself wasn't unexpected. If the League of Villains could use unofficial routes to gain access to UA's records, then the Hero Public Safety Commission would have no trouble using official routes to get Denki's psychiatric records.
Denki paused, eyes going to his right for just a second, and a small smile and nod sent toward nothing in particular before looking back at her. With a nod, he whispered conspiratively, "they told me I'm not allowed to tell you what they actually said. That's between me and them."
The woman was no longer smiling, no longer pretending to be amused.
"Is this really professional for a soon-to-be Pro Hero?"
"You're trying to coach me on what's professional after bullying a student and trying to intimidate him into enlisting with the Hero Commission? You must not have gone to UA if you never learned about how to persuade while avoiding hypocrisy. Verbal de-escalation 101, but your type like to act first and ask questions never, I heard."
"That's bold of you to say," the woman said, bristling. She opened her mouth, probably to give off some threats, but was interrupted.
"No. What's bold is you poaching Principal Nezu's students."
No response.
"What? You think they teach us how to put our lives in danger and become heroes, but not about the agreements between important institutions?"
"Many would die to have the opportunities we're offering you."
"Many have, I'm sure."
Denki stood up, stretched, grabbed an armful of the donuts offered for guests on the little side table, gave a little salute, and stalked out the door, grumbling, "if you're going to waste my time, I might as well get some donuts out of it."