phoenix: I hope you stick with it! It's a long haul one. 45 chapters is a lot to stick with lol.

Hellibleri: I loved writing Hawks when he's being an idiot more than the nice scenes he's in tbh. Lol it was such a fun character to write.

Here's the next chapter! Uber-early, it's 1 AM. Enjoy~

Luffy was sitting at the coffee table, waiting for the tutor. It all felt weird. Why was he here? The child walked to the window, putting his hand on the glass. He was out of that world. But what world was he in now? Luffy looked back at the living room. This is what he'd wanted for three years. Somewhere soft, able to be himself, not hide his quirks, not hide who he was from everyone out of safety concerns.

What hero would be happy someone shared their quirks? And he seemed honest when he said he just wanted Luffy to fly to feel better. Looking at birds, they looked so free, not bound to the earth or whatever was happening below. He balled his hand into a fist that then relaxed.

It didn't matter right now, he was going to learn. He wasn't going to be illiterate anymore. He would pour everything into learning and not being completely useless. What grade were kids his age in, anyways? Would he ever go to school? Be a normal kid? Did he want that? He didn't remember ever wishing to go to school. It was always for a friend, someone who cared about him. Or a home to stay in, sleep on a bed, be sheltered from the rain.

Was that where he was now? Hawks definitely wasn't or was ever going to be a father figure or uncle. A brother would be too familiar. Was he a friend? Could eight year olds be friends with someone his age? How old was the cut off age for being friends? He would think about that later when there was a knock on the door.

He opened it to see a normal looking person with a big bag of books and another full of supplies. She smiled at him, and said her name was Anise and she'd be his tutor. He moved aside and let her in. There was no table or desk, but the coffee table was fine to sit at. She laid out multiple notebooks and pencils.

The first lesson: teach him how to hold a pencil. That was easy, even if his writing was incredibly messy. But that was the first lesson. He was starting from kindergarten. It would take time, but hopefully would be faster the more work he put into it. He traced words and letters and then did basic math problems that wouldn't need to be written down.

He wasn't totally uneducated, he knew how to count to twenty. So, problems adding two numbers together was somewhat easy. They did basic things like that until Luffy was moderately good at them. Not good enough to be fully educated about it, but good enough to work on his own in the large packet for that week.

They worked for three hours before a break and then resumed for another three hours, this time learning how to read. The first part was math and learning how to write letters. Then the next part was reading. This topic was spent a lot more time on. Reading was something you needed to know to function in the world properly. He should know how to read at his age, and he would learn as fast as he could.

After that day's lesson was done, he had a lot of homework to do. He looked at the packet in dissatisfaction. "Can you bring more? I want to learn as much as I can as fast as I can, even if it's a lot of work."

"Going easy for the first week is important to learn your limits. After that, I'll be happy to give you extra work. You did well today. Keep practicing with the words and basic math, okay? We'll focus more heavily on reading tomorrow." Luffy accepted this and nodded, thanking her for helping him.

The way he spoke sounded harsh and impatient, but she seemed to know he wasn't meaning any disrespect. She left and he locked the door behind her before hurrying back to the coffee table to work on what work he was given for that week. There were pages and sections assigned for each day.

He worked hard on writing, able to write letters fine by an hour. Then he went to working with numbers, memorizing up to fifty, adding thirty more numbers to his ability to count. He was supposed to be in third grade, and the lady treated him like a third grader. He didn't feel like one. He felt too old to be that age. He stared down at his hands. The scars that hardened his heart. He felt like an older person trapped in a kid's body, though he was stupid like a kid. At least, education wise. He didn't feel like a stupid person, maybe uneducated fit the way he felt.

Luffy was at least smart enough to fight and live on his own, not die or submit to anybody else. Not join a gang, not show his full quirk in front of anybody else. He completed that night's packet soon, going over his work and rewriting the letters, recounting the numbers. This was the start. He'd catch up. But what would he do when he did catch up? Would he ever go to school?

After tracing the letters for the sixteenth time, he started to make them on an extra piece of lined paper from one of the notebooks he hadn't used yet. He spent at least an hour writing off hand the letters of the alphabet. It wasn't too hard, and he felt he memorized them as uppercase pretty soon. The uppercase versions seemed easier to memorize to him, but you can't only write in uppercase, and he worked on lowercase letters.

While he worked, he thought about the challenge Hawks had brought up. To combine two quirks. And he thought of two that might work, that he already had. He tried it out, knowing he couldn't burn other things with Endeavor's flames unless you did it purposely. His shirt was off as he grew the large wings, and then carefully spread a layer of fire over the feathers. It didn't burn them, in the same sense that Endeavor had boots covered in flames and they weren't damaged.

The feathers didn't burn away, and Luffy awkwardly beat the wings back and forth. It was difficult and threw him off balance, knocking him to the side. It wasn't too surprising that this was difficult, this was an extra body part being added, not a new emitter power.

"Yeah, it's really hard to get a hang of," Hawks said in amusement, walking inside. He didn't even notice it was dark out. "I see you've been able to use two quirks at once." Luffy said he'd never tried something like this before. "Then you're a pretty fast learner. I'm sure it will take you awhile to be able to fly. You didn't grow up with them as they grew with your body. For you, they're just suddenly there."

Luffy nodded, letting go of the flames and absorbing the wings back into his body until there was no trace of them being there. He put his shirt back on. "I bought supplies for something healthy to make. It'll probably taste like shit since I haven't and I doubt you've cooked it, but it's worth a try. Could always order an emergency pizza." Luffy was reluctantly curious, but didn't ask what it was. "I found it online a couple months ago but never tried it." He was taking off his hero costume, and had normal clothes underneath. It all looked so heavy.

Luffy hesitantly asked what it was. "Cranberry balsamic chicken. It's apparently eaten at Christmas, but no one can just say you can't eat something unless it's the holidays. So, we'll try making it and hope a fire doesn't start," Hawks said lightly.

"I have a fire extinguisher quirk. I saw a firefighter use it once," Luffy said quietly. Hawks smiled and said that was convenient. Luffy nodded in agreement. He started to cook, watching the video of making it on a tablet. He asked how the day went. "Maybe focus on not burning the food."

Hawks chuckled and admitted that was the smart thing to do. Luffy didn't point out when the chicken started to smell burnt. Hawks didn't miss this either. "Damn," he said, flipping one of the chicken breasts to show the bottom was burnt.

"Can't you just cut off the burnt bottom?" Luffy asked, never having actually cooked a meal in his life. He'd made cereal that morning, but that was hardly cooking. Hawks said he'd try, but after he cut the bottom off, whatever he'd been doing wrong was still wrong and burnt the chicken again. "Maybe turn the temperature down?"

He did that, but the sauce had gotten hard with the lower temperature. "Well, before I ruin the rest lets just take what's left," the pro-hero said easily, pulling the chicken out of the mixture. He put the unsavory looking food on the plates and both of them tried it. It was disgusting, but Luffy would eat any food he was given. "That was not a success. You don't need to eat gross food anymore, Luffy."

"We're just gonna waste it?" Luffy asked, not understanding how people could waste food so easily.

"I think we wasted it the moment I tried to cook something interesting," Hawks said. "Pizza it is." Luffy took the chicken and asked if he should just burn it up so there was none in the garbage can and might get smelly. Hawks said that was fine and there wasn't even a burnt smell after he vaporized what was left of the failed dish with Endeavor's blue flames.

He got on the phone and ordered some pepperoni after Luffy told him he was fine with anything. While they waited, Hawks asked how the day went again. "Fine. Reading was the most difficult part. Math was fine, you have to at least know some math even on the streets. My handwriting is shit."

Why was he talking so much? Maybe because Hawks was easy to talk to and seemed like a good listener. "That's good. I was taught in a facility, so it wasn't that fun to learn there," he said honestly.

Luffy was quiet before he asked what he would do after he was at a fourth grade level, since he would probably be there by the time he was caught up and learned everything needed. "Do you want to go to school?" he asked, sitting on the couch while Luffy was on the carpet. It still felt unfamiliar to sit on a comfortable thing like the couch, and even lying on the bed was strange. Hopefully he'd get used to it soon.

He shrugged. "I was never interested in school. Just friends and a place to live," he replied honestly.

"You would make friends at a school," Hawks pointed out reasonably. Luffy knew that was true, and nodded. "Something else wrong?"

Luffy was quiet for a moment before he asked, "Who wouldn't be bothered by someone else having access to their quirk? Not everyone is weird like you." He didn't really mean any disrespect, he was just being blunt.

"Well, you could always pick one quirk and use that as your main one. Just because you can use them doesn't mean you have to, and it doesn't mean you have to tell everyone about it." The pizza came and there was a buzz from below and Hawks left to go get it and bring it back up. It was a big pizza that they would share. "I'll try to get less take out." Luffy said he didn't have to do that. "I don't want to ruin your health when you've already been starved for years."

"You don't have to care about that stuff," Luffy said. For once, Hawks frowned.

He replied, "If I care about getting you education, then I would care about your health. I want you fed, and not with crap food only. Maybe I'll try something a little more basic than a holiday dinner. It was kind of ridiculous to start out so complicated instead of just regular food that wasn't bad for you," he explained.

Luffy asked if his wings got in the way a lot. "Nah, I'm really used to it. Though I do have to have shirts specially made. Kind of a small trade off for the quirk." He asked if it was heavy. "I'm also used to the weight. And they're not very heavy, you might have noticed that with your version." Luffy had. He'd thought they'd be much heavier, even if it did add some weight. It unbalanced him, but it wasn't hard for them just to be there.

He asked Luffy if he'd tried out the game station, Luffy shook his head. He didn't want to break it. "You have to risk breaking it if you want to play with it," Hawks said reasonably. Luffy was sour, not wanting to be forced to play. "Not gonna force you, but you should at least know how to set it up when you do want to play. C'mere." When he saw Luffy frown he added, "Please."

Luffy walked to the TV and sat in front of the game station while Hawks read the manual and then set it up for him. It was easy, press the power button, put the game in and select it from the menu. "Huh, that was pretty easy," Hawks said, and then said that was nice, didn't need to do too much for it. Luffy nodded and then Hawks said he had to do some paperwork, the most boring aspect of being a hero. The child nodded, and Hawks went into a room he hadn't opened the door to, and saw an office like room.

He was encouraged to try out the games. Luffy looked at the games' cases, and judged which to play by the pictures and what he remembered of Hawks' explaining what they were about. He chose one that looked the easiest. He turned on the game station and put the disk inside, taking the controller.

The game was about what seemed like an angel assassin, based on real life people. The cut scenes were actual humans, and one of them had huge blue wings, the main character. He was able to figure out the controls by the symbols on the screen, not needing to read the words that came with it.

He played it for an hour, doing absolutely terrible, but determined to get the hang of it. The controls were hard and it was a difficult game for a first timer. But he would manage, he wanted to be a fast learner in all things, even silly ones like this.

When there was another cut scene, Luffy furrowed his brows and wondered if it would work. This was a human with the wing quirk. Luffy put the controller down after pausing the game's cutscene and attempted to draw out the blue wings. It worked, but these wings were bigger than Hawk's, the feathers barely touching the ground when he stood up.

Of course, that might be because he was eight years old and already short for his age. But, they were wings distinctly different than Hawks. But would anyone recognize them from the video game? Maybe it could just be similar, and wouldn't be nearly as noticeable if he used the number three pro-heroes quirk.

He flapped them in the hallway, finding they were somehow lighter than Hawks even though they were bigger and wider. They were taller than he was and spread out his body length when they were both unfurled. He pulled them back in tightly. He'd taken his shirt off. Well, maybe Hawks would be happy with this, since he so badly wanted to teach Luffy how to fly. Now he wouldn't be seen as the same.

Hawks came out, not looking irritated even though Luffy was sure he distracted him from his work. "Where'd these come from?"

"Game's cutscene," he replied shortly. Hawks broke character and snorted into his hand, saying Luffy's power was crazy. Luffy frowned and Hawks made sure to say he wasn't trying to be offensive. Just didn't expect he'd get a quirk from playing a video game. "It's only cause the actors were real. Not the games," Luffy said defensively.

The pro-hero smiled and asked if Luffy wanted to try flying practice after his tutor and after he came back home from work. Luffy looked uncomfortable, but agreed. Why not? If he fell off the building, he was sure one of his quirks would activate and save him. Didn't know which one, but out of all 35, one had to help him.

He would expect Hawks to catch him, but who knows? "We can practice on the roof. It's very wide, so practicing would be relatively easy. You won't be flying anytime soon, but learning how to move with the wings," he explained, looking happy and even excited. Luffy asked if he really only wanted Luffy to be happy or if there was another big factor. He was honest, like Luffy thought he always was, even if he sometimes sounded upbeat and like he was just making things up. Luffy didn't think that was true.

"I want someone to fly with. Pretty silly, but there are no other pro-heroes or sidekicks that can fly." Luffy knew he was being honest. Hawks… maybe he wasn't such a bad guy. Well, time would tell if he was being sincere in his words and actions.

Luffy said he'd never shared a quirk with anyone, so it would be weird to be similar. Hawks pointed out that those weren't his wings. They weren't red or shaped the same way. Luffy asked what he meant. He hadn't noticed the hooks on them. "Those parts look more like a bat's wings, but you have feathers.

"Pretty sure you'd be able to cling to things, but that's not a necessity," Hawks said. Luffy looked up and did see them. They were sharp. He moved the wings slightly, flapping them to the side. It knocked him to the side, But Hawks caught him and propped him back up by the arm. "Maybe we'll do this outside. I have to make dinner, and then if you want we could go out and try. Are you finished with your homework?"

Luffy nodded, not mentioning he spent an extra hour going over everything again, memorizing as much as he could. He cautiously asked what he was making. "Second attempt at a chicken dish, but I won't screw it up this time. One of my sidekicks gave me an easy recipe." They still had chicken in the fridge that hadn't been ruined the night before.

After he was successful in making lemon chicken, and Luffy ate multiple servings, since he'd been having normal sized lunches and breakfasts. Hawks didn't stop him, didn't seem surprised with how much Luffy could eat. "How was it?"

"Not burnt."

"I'll take that as a compliment," the pro-hero said easily. Then he grinned. "Ready to go try?" Luffy nodded. There was a stairway across from the stairs on the floor below that headed to the roof, where they both went. It was windy, but not too much. Hawks positioned himself a few meters from Luffy. He took his shirt off and grew the large blue wings. The wind blew him backwards from the air pushing his wings.

"Fold them in and the wind won't be too bad," Hawks said, having to speak over the whistling of the wind in their ears. Luffy clumsily did that, curling the wings until they were compressed behind him, the wind not impeding him anymore. "The wind is the best tool to teach you to glide," Hawks said and got a bungee cord that was tied to a pipe of the air conditioning.

He had Luffy wrap it around his chest, under his armpits tightly. He told the boy to open his wings wide. Hawks took his legs and pushed them up until he was parallel to the rooftop. The wind in his eyes burned them, so Hawks put his sunglasses of his costume on him, making his sight just fine.

Luffy was gliding, off balance, but catching himself all right. He attempted to spread his arm out, but it made him off balance and he put them back in. Hawks pushed his left wing up to get him back on balance. The man told Luffy he was going to make the cord longer to get him higher. He said he was okay with that and the cord got looser, Hawks standing on the highest part of the air conditioner unit to put Luffy higher by putting a hand on his chest.

This was scary, but also cool. He slightly tipped one wing to the side, thinking of bird turning, and he turned to the left. The cord was loose enough to let him sway back and forth. He angled the wings to make him slightly higher and then downwards.

Hawks was smiling triumphantly. "Notice something? What's your mouth doing right now?" he asked, sounding almost bragging. Luffy was smiling. "Told you flying was amazing. Imagine how freeing it will be when you can actually fly." Luffy felt himself looking forward to that. If he could go wherever he wanted, that would be awesome. He nodded in agreement.

After a while of gliding, Hawks loosened the cord even more, Luffy not knowing how long it was in the beginning but seeing it was quite long now. He told Luffy, if he was comfortable with it, to fly in a circle. He was high above the building, but trusted the cord to not having him crash or fall over the side.

Hawks was flying beside him for extra security. Luffy was wobbly, not the picture of skilled, and ended up turning too far to the left and falling towards the roof, nervous and unable to raise his wing. Hawks was there and caught him when he fell.

The blue wings were sucked back into his back. "Very good first try, I'm impressed," Hawks praised, unstrapping Luffy and coiling the cord back around the air conditioning pipe. Unofficially showing their practice was over. "I was thinking. Since you were able to use the wings and Endeavor's quirk at the same time, you could use your strength you get from All Might to pump your wings harder to go faster, once you are able to stably fly."

Luffy said the strength was always there. It was one he couldn't turn off. Hawks said he didn't move like he had super strength, surprised. Luffy was like a normal person in everything he did that Hawks had seen so far. "It would be inconvenient to be strong all the time and not act like a normal person. Things are easy to lift or move, but there's no point in using it for no reason," he explained.

Why was he so talkative? Why was he acting buddy-buddy with him? He didn't want to trust anybody and get hurt more. Be thrown away like his family had, for whatever reason. But Hawks had been honest and blunt with him. If it were to anybody else, they might find that rude. But Luffy expected to be told the truth, never going to accept anybody who told him lies.

He was so sure heroes were different. Maybe Hawks was just an odd one out of the hundreds and thousands of heroes out there. Those that preach justice and the safety of the little people, even when they abandon large parts of the country. Hawks didn't preach justice, didn't convince Luffy there were good people and things out there, made him go anywhere he wanted, forced him to go outside when he didn't want to. Hawks just let him do whatever he wanted as long as it was reasonable.

It was a relief from what he'd been expecting. And he didn't sense him lying about his reasoning to teach Luffy to fly. It wasn't a power that would make him the best hero. It was being used to make him happy. A far cry than somebody secretly manipulating him to be a hero without him noticing, even though he would. It would be easy to notice.

"You said you can control the powers to the fullest once you store it away?" Luffy was surprised he said store as well. Had he said that already? Most would call it stealing, right? Even if the original person didn't lose theirs, he was still stealing them.

He nodded and said, in a sour voice, "I don't even need to work at it."

"What about what we just did? You're working on it to use it, right? Maybe you could use this as a dominant quirk or something else mixed in it. You used the flames and wings at the same time, right? Maybe you could use others and mix them to be more of your own."

Hawks was right, he was having to practice flying. It wasn't a quirk he would learn overnight, and that made him not frown. That there were at least some quirks that he had to work at. He'd rather use one of those as his dominant quirks. And he could fly anywhere without it being weird if he used it as his dominant quirk.

"There's no need to figure it out soon, but maybe brainstorming would be good for you to be confident in your quirk. And not ashamed, right?" Luffy frowned, but nodded.

"Why do you know so much stuff? Can you read minds?"

Hawks said, "God no, that would be a terrible quirk. I was trained in interpersonal skills as a kid. I'm just good at reading people or getting a feel for their personality. An upside of that training." Luffy said nothing. It was 10:00 by now, so he said he was going to go to bed.

"Okay, see you tomorrow. Do you want an alarm clock or for me to wake you up before I leave?" Luffy said he'd have an alarm clock, not wanting to have to have him wake him up every morning. It would be too much to ask. He was given an old digital clock in one of the closets. "I never need this anymore. The magic of smartphones." The hero gave it to Luffy, who knew enough to plug things into the walls.

He figured out how to set the time, looking at Hawks phone screen to set it with the right numbers to tell time. He brushed his teeth in the bathroom and then went to bed, waking up at 8:00 to shower and get ready for the tutor.

That day passed much like they first, him doing his best during the lesson. He was praised for his improvement just by going over his work multiple times. He'd memorized a lot and was able to recall it all during the session. It felt… nice, to be praised like this. Made him feel like maybe, just maybe, he could be worth something someday.

He didn't know how he felt about school, but it was what would have to happen eventually. He wouldn't get a job anywhere if he never went to school, after all. Even not a hero job, something simple would probably also require him to have at least a basic education. People were homeschooled, but if he was going to stay with Hawks and not get dumped like he said he wouldn't, Luffy wouldn't want him spending unnecessary money on him for learning at home.

After that, he spent three hours of homework when it would take a normal person working through it normally maybe 45 minutes. It didn't matter to him, he wanted to be impressive the next day, too.

After that, he cleaned up a little bit, and found a vacuum in the closet. He knew what it was by walking past a thrift store and seeing one. That was when he was six, three months after being abandoned. Back when he used to be interested in things. He had asked the shop lady what it was, and she explained it, as well as a broom.

He had no money to buy and no home to use it at, but now that curiosity paid off. He took it out and vacuumed the apartment, lifting the couch easily, as well as his bed and dresser. He avoided Hawks' room, even if the door was wide open. He seemed to do this on purpose, Luffy thought. Maybe he knew Luffy wouldn't go inside, but also was showing that he wasn't hiding anything. From what he could see from the open door, it was a normal bedroom looking like Luffy's except there was a plastic bin with feathers in it. Maybe he shed them?

And there was a master bathroom attached, but he hadn't seen it, was just told about it. Luffy opened a few windows to get fresh air in. This place was comfortable. He didn't mind being there all day. He'd been outside for three years, some time in a comfortable indoor environment was great.

After Hawks came back, they had leftovers of the chicken last night, and Luffy hesitantly asked Hawks how his day was, since Luffy's was boring to talk about. He noticed the cleaning carpet and kitchen and thanked Luffy for doing that.

"There was a car pile up on the freeway not far from here. I was able to get everyone to safety before the semi that hit everything ended up exploding. It'll be a mess to clean up. I'm not too good strength wise so I can't pick up heavy objects like cars, but I am good with evacuation and smaller crimes," he explained. "So, not too boring."

He then asked if he wanted to practice flying again that night. Luffy nodded, actually looking forward to that more than anything else. He wanted to be good enough to fly as soon as possible. Not that he knew if Hawks would let him fly by himself, since he was still a kid, even if he'd looked after himself for years.

They tried the bungee cord again, this time making it so Luffy was far above the surface of the flat roof. He was flying in circles. Hawks was holding the inner wing up in case it dipped too much, correcting his position so he didn't fall or mess up. He was told to try and increase the height, which was easy as it was just angling his wings up and then down.

He was stupid and tried to impress Hawks by doing a twirl that actually worked, even if he wobbled a bit at the end. Hawks laughed and said not to push it fast. It takes time to fly safely and with the utmost control. Luffy still thought he was impressive.

Why did he want to be impressive? Probably because he felt like he wasn't a waste of space if he was praised. He took the laugh in a good way, not a dismissal or cruel intended laugh. After over an hour of circles and wobbles, Hawks called it a night. "I'll widen the area so you can fly in larger circles around the edges of the building, but not too close that you'd fall." Luffy nodded and pushed the wings back in and dropped a few feet to the roof, being unhooked.

"You're a fast learner, I doubt it will take too long for you to be able to fly by yourself," he said. Another praise that Luffy hid a smile and kept in a thank you. He was trying to not be friends with him, but Hawk was likable. He probably would like him less if Luffy was or was planning to be a hero in the future.

He had no idea what he wanted to do in the future, but that was over a decade away. Well, at least six years away, considering what high school he went to. He had watched the news with Hawks on the first night despite trying to pretend he wasn't, when he was sitting behind the couch. UA was a prestigious school that had won an award that year.

But there were other high schools listed there, UA just was number one with whatever the competition and award were for. He didn't care much, and had gone into his room after that. But high school was far away. He didn't have to make a big choice in awhile. He would probably go to a normal school.