A/N: Another entrance for the Angel of Angst event, this time about Hawks! This work is dedicated to Marsh for claiming that he was going to kill Hawks but then being too much of a coward to pull through. (ily Marsh!) Title from Icarus by Bastille.

Also! Doctors in Japan, at least from my research, are referred to as "sensei", which is why I use that.

TW: temporary character death, descriptions of blood and fatal injuries


Keigo choked on blood. Was it his blood? He couldn't even tell anymore. There was blood all over him, soaked into his clothes, a mix of his and his trainer's. The worst, in Keigo's very professional opinion, was the blood inside him. Not his blood, no, but the spike of hardened blood piercing through his chest from his back, the one that had caught his wing midair and spun him wildly onto it once again.

"Hawks!" he heard faintly, shouted from below. "Report status!"

"..." he opened his mouth automatically to report but no sound came out, only warm, metallic trails of blood.

"Shit, I didn't mean to hit him in the chest, I just wanted to take his wing out!" he thought he heard his trainer say through the ringing in his ears. That couldn't be right, though. The Commission didn't curse and the Commission didn't make mistakes. He must be hearing things.

"Oh god, oh fuck, we're gonna be in so much trouble for this," Keigo's most recent handler said.

Was the air up here thinner than normal? It was the only explanation Keigo could think of for why it felt so hard to breathe, why he kept hearing things that surely weren't being said.

"We've gotta get him down from there!" his handler shouted. Keigo wondered why he thought they had to retrieve him. He could fly, after all.

Suddenly, the spike going through his chest and wing twisted and Keigo found enough air to shriek. The solid blood that made up the spike turned to fluid and Keigo dropped, hurtling three stories to the ground. As he fell, he heard screams but he wasn't sure if it was just his own voice echoing back at him or the voice of the others in the room.

Keigo's broken wing flapped in the air limply, the torn ligaments and muscles unable to control it any longer. He spun madly in the air, every movement causing immense pain.

Finally, he hit the floor.

First, his previously unbroken wing, crushed beneath his body.

Then, his shoulder, smashed nearly to dust by the impact.

Finally, his head hit the floor and he felt it break.

Mouth open, jaw dislocated, he heaved.

Blood poured out once more.

He opened his eyes.

Nothing.

He tried to breathe in.

No air came.

He grasped wildly with his unbroken arm, but all he felt were his own shattered wings and the bloody floor.

He tried to breathe in.

No air came.

He tried to plead for help.

"...!"

He tried to breathe in.

No air came.

A hand landed on the injury on his chest.

He convulsed, his good hand latching on to the person's wrist, gripping it tight enough that he knew their bones must have cracked.

He tried to breathe in.

No air came.

More hands landed on him, trying to roll him onto his back, hurting him more and more and more.

He tried to scream.

No air came out.

He tried to breathe in.

No air came.

He tried to breathe in.

No air came.

He tried to breathe in.

No air came.

He tried to breathe in…

No… air…

.

.

.


.

.

.

Chinen Kansuke was having a truly terrible day. He had been working with Takami Keigo (only to be referred to by his codename: Hawks) for just over four months now.

The brat was well behaved, at least, had been with the HPSC for long enough to know their rules and expectations and still too young to be getting rebellious. He was creepy, though. He stared at Kansuke with his fuckin' intense eyes and hardly ever blinked. Kansuke had complained about it once but he'd been told that the reprogramming to cover that would be later in Hawks' training, it "was nonessential" while the brat was just in Commission properties working with Commission grunts.

All that was nothing compared to this, though. Fuck, he knew this was a bad idea. He should have just stayed as a regular teacher but no, he had to go and start training baby heroes and fucking up and watching them die.

Nausea rolled in his stomach at the thought. God, there had been so much blood. The brat's had mixed with that Vlad dude's and it had been everywhere. The initial collision had happened forty feet in the air so the spray flew far enough to cover over half the floor. Then, as the hardened spikes of blood liquefied, it splashed all the way down to the ground, making the room a red pool of gore.

And the sound, the sound. Kansuke had never seen a jumper but he figured the sound as they hit the ground was probably the same. It was a crunch, oddly wet, sickening and reverberating through his own bones. He didn't think he'd ever forget it.

He stared down at his hands, still covered in blood from where he had tried to stem the flow. The blood was still wet, smudged over his wrists and staining his dress shirt. Kansuke wanted a shower. Kansuke wanted to go back an hour. Kansuke wanted to call in sick today. Kansuke was sick-

"Chinen-san, report." He was jerked out of his roiling thoughts by the President.

He straightened, standing to attention, tucking his blood soaked hands behind his back. "During an exercise Vlad King was running, Hawks was dodging his attacks while trying to retrieve a small box from one place and deliver it to another location," Kansuke began. "We had done the exercise fourteen times already and Hawks was beginning to flag. Vlad-san sent a volley of spikes at Hawks, one of which caught his left wing. When that happened, Hawks' momentum caused him to be jerked backwards, impaling himself on the spike through his upper left chest and diaphragm. Hawks could not speak to give a report. When ordered to lower Hawks to the ground, Vlad-san panicked and lost his control over the blood he was using, allowing Hawks to drop approximately thirty to forty feet to the floor unimpeded. Without the use of his wings, he hit the ground full force, landing on his right wing and shoulder. He lost blood quickly enough that he was pronounced dead by the time the doctors arrived less than two minutes later."

"Hm," the President acknowledged. Kansuke had a feeling that meant he'd be losing his job very soon. "Well. You're incredibly lucky we had the perfect quirk on staff to prevent a serious loss of resources. Hawks was able to be revived. You will be responsible for letting him know that this will not happen again. He has to be better than this. If he isn't, we won't waste our time on him."

With that said the President turned and began to walk down the hallway, her bodyguard following behind at a respectful distance. Kansuke began to relax. Seems like his job was safe.

Just as he thought that, the President paused, turning to face him once more. "Oh, and Chinen-san?"

"Yes, President?"

"You and I will be having a conversation later regarding your future in this establishment." Having said her piece, the woman left.

Kansuke watched her go, dreading the conversation they would have. "Fuck," he whispered to himself.

Well, there was nothing he could do now. Nothing but have a different conversation with the brat. Kansuke's mood soured. God, that fucking brat. This was all his fault! His and that Vald-whatever's. Why did he have to be dragged into their mess? He'd lose his job and those heroes would just get a slap on the wrist. Fuck them, fuck that, fuck all of this!

Kansuke scowled down at his red hands and stalked off to the medical area.


Keigo (no, Hawks, he was always supposed to call himself Hawks) stared at the white wall in front of him. He refused to look to the side where the doctor was still cleaning up towels saturated with red. His hand, pierced with an IV, crept up to press against his chest where there had been a hole just a minute ago. Well, he wasn't actually sure how long ago it had been, given the circumstances, but he knew it couldn't have been all that long. The blood on the floor would be dry if he had been dead for a while, after all.

His hand stiffened and he very carefully lowered it. They hadn't dislocated his fingers in months, he didn't want to stress grip now and ruin that streak. His fingers twitched. Stop it, he mentally instructed them. They didn't listen. Keigo tucked his hands under the blankets so no one would see them shake.

His head jerked towards the door as his feathers sensed someone walking heavily towards his room, almost stomping. (Angry, his training told him. Angry at him, his experience said.) They paused in front of the door and his feathers sensed the vibrations indicating that they were taking a deep breath.

Not a second later, the door swung open and his handler walked in. Had Hawks not already been sitting at attention, he would have straightened up immediately. His handler walked past him, hands in his pockets, ignoring him entirely other than a quick glance upon his entrance.

"Shufuku-sensei," his handler started, "Medical report, please."

The doctor looked up from where he was cleaning his tools, obviously unimpressed. "Well," he drawled, "you were there for most of it. Hawks-kun had a hole through his chest and left wing. His right wing and shoulder had several shattered bones from the impact of falling. Along with that, his jaw was dislocated and we also had to dislocate three fingers to pry his hand from Vlad King's wrist, even after his heart had been stopped fully for two minutes. My quirk means I can reverse the state of an object to a previous one. I used it to heal Hawks-kun but I won't be able to use it again for quite a while because I had to go back almost ten full minutes to ensure he would be brought back uninjured."

Shufuku-sensei, as Hawks' doctor was evidently called, turned back to his bloody towels, scowling at the smudges of red all over his tray. Hawks' stomach turned at the sight and he forced his eyes away to meet the eyes of his handler who was now looking at him.

"Hawks," the man said, facing his medical cot and tucking his hands behind his back, "today was completely unacceptable. This was a routine training exercise and you messed up spectacularly. You're training to be a hero, someone who helps people. How do you expect people to trust in your abilities if you're unable to even help yourself?" His handler stared into Hawks' eyes.

Hawks wasn't sure if he was supposed to answer or not. It seemed like a rhetorical question but the expectant look on the man's face said otherwise. "I wouldn't, sir."

"That's right, you wouldn't," his handler sneered. "You wouldn't be a hero, you'd be a burden. Again."

Hawks flinched back, reminded of his mother, how she had shunted him off to the first person who had offered her something for him. (He was pretty sure she would have given him away for free, though, given the way she looked at him when she thought he wouldn't notice.)

The man sighed and Hawks snapped back into the present. "You are a child, though, so we forgave you this time. We brought you back. We will not if anything like this ever happens again." The man's gaze bored into Hawks. "Shufuku-sensei won't be able to use his quirk for quite some time now. That means if he is unable to help someone else, it will be your fault. As a hero, you're supposed to protect those around you. Due to your incompetence, you've only put them at risk."

Hawks bowed his head in shame. It was true, wasn't it? It had been such a simple task and yet he had blundered it so badly, forcing someone to waste their quirk on him when it could have gone to someone else. He hoped fervently that Shufuku-sensei wouldn't need his quirk until it regenerated. If anyone died because of him…

His fists clenched in determination underneath the blanket. No. He would do better. He wouldn't let something like this happen again. He would be better, stronger, faster, a true hero, someone worthy of all the effort put into raising him. (Someone like Endeavor, his heart whispered. No, replied a voice that sounded too much like Touya, nothing like Endeavor.)

"Look at me, Hawks," his handler said. Hawks' head jerked up from it's bowed position. "You have great potential, Hawks. That's why we took you in, that's why we're spending our time training you. However, today proved that you also have the potential to be a great waste of time as well. Take care that you aren't. The Commission does not waste resources."

Hawks fought to keep his wings from hiding against his back in dread, knowing the Commission hated him giving away his emotions like that. It was hard, though, hearing someone who had worked with him so often telling him that he was on the verge of being abandoned (again).

His handler sighed once more. "I don't think I'll be working with you anymore, Hawks. I don't want my effort to go towards projects that will fail. Goodbye, Hawks." The man nodded at him once before turning and leaving the room.

As he did, Hawks felt his pupils pin, shrinking in as he noticed the rusty red staining the hands and lower sleeves of the man's sleeves which he had had tucked behind his back. He hadn't noticed the scent of blood on the man because of how overwhelming the smell was in the room already. Flecks of red were common enough when you worked around Vlad King that he had brushed those off as well. This, though, those hands covered in blood, up and past his wrists, those were the hands of someone who had tried (had failed) to save him.

Hawks wished he was permitted to know the names of his handlers. He wanted to know the name of the person who had done their best to save his life.

(The next week, upon telling Touya, the older boy hugged him tight to his chest. "It wasn't your fault," he said, "and if someone saves your life then abandons you, they don't deserve your admiration."

Keigo, always Keigo in the presence of his one and only friend, knew they were both thinking of Endeavor.

Keigo, never truly Hawks when Touya was there, thought about that a lot when they told him the Todoroki children were missing.

"You saved me, Touya," he whispered into his pillow that night, "but then you left me, like everyone else. Was I not good enough for you, too?")


A/N: Did you enjoy? I loved writing this, so I hope you did!

So *technically speaking*, this work ties into my longfic Found Family of Flame but you literally don't need to read that to enjoy this. Do read it if you want to, though, it's about Rengoku from Demon Slayer waking up in the bnha world and adopting the Todorokis and it's super fluffy lmao