Mmm, maybe this wasn't such a good idea. Akane hung back at the sock store's doorway, gasping as a hero sidekick wearing a falcon-like mask was hurled at a nearby building. Luckily, a few of Hawks' feathers swept in at the last minute and jerked him to a halt. She let out a relieved breath.

It had been a month since Akane had first dipped her toes into the idea of vigilantism. If you could even call it that. For the most part, she kept an eye out for villains and criminals on the live social media news accounts and showed up to heal the worst-off victims before the paramedics got there.

She didn't go in for the whole domino mask situation since her wings would give her away, but she did usually pull a mask up over her mouth and nose and keep her hair under a hood. There were plenty of other winged people in the city, after all.

Overhead, the most famous winged person in Fukuoka soared back toward the fight, a red feather blade in hand. Hawks clashed midair with a villain, dodging as stingers came whizzing at him. They struck the ground, burrowing into the pavement.

This was the first time she had ended up in a situation where the villains were in full swing while the heroes were putting a stop to it. Or, well, one hero, honestly.

There were three villains working as a team. The spiky-haired woman had some kind of, er, slow-mo Quirk? It caused whoever she was looking at to slow down like they were moving through Jell-O. It was the only reason Hawks' sidekicks had caught up with him for once, though now that they were around, the woman was having a hard time getting a lock on Hawks. The second villain, a woman wearing a pink jumpsuit, had some kind of strength-based Quirk. She was the one flinging sidekicks around like she was a scary human trebuchet. The guy with the hornet wings and the stingers that shot from his elbows was the last of the trio and maybe the scariest just because of how fast he could shoot the stingers.

The villain team had been terrorizing the shopping district. Civilians were scattered about, but Hawks' sidekicks were moving them out of danger. Technically, Akane was also a civilian. She had been shopping at her favorite novelty sock shop when the villains had started causing chaos outside, yanking bags and wallets and purses from shoppers. They hadn't even been subtle about it. Most likely it was because of the rumor that Hawks was out of town.

Jokes on them, he wasn't.

Nearby, she saw a couple teenagers huddled behind a large potted plant. The girl had a gash on her leg, and the boy was hugging her close, peeking over the pot and covering her the best he could. The stingers that the hornet villain shot had landed way too close to them; they must have been scared to move.

Akane pulled her mask up over her nose, yanked up her hood, and dropped her bag of very cute socks and slipped away from the doorway, keeping close to the building. She jumped as a bench went flying at her, white wings springing open as she dodged upward. She zipped over and landed by the couple, pulling her wings back in tight.

"Hi," she said, nervous, "We should probably all leave, can I heal you?"

The couple stared at her. The boy nodded. "Please, help her."

The girl hesitantly moved her leg toward Akane as a part of a building cracked and fell in the street.

Akane put her hand on the girl's leg. For a moment, her own leg stung as the gash on the girl's leg disappeared, but it was quickly replaced by a numb, cool feeling before that sensation faded as well. The only thing left on the girl's leg was a new pink scar, like the wound had been healing for a few weeks. Akane wiped the leftover blood off on her jeans. She was starting to ruin a lot of clothes that way.

"Thank you," the girl said.

"You're welcome," Akane said, ducking her head. Glass shattered. "You two might want to go."

"What about you?" the boy asked even as he started to get up, pulling the girl with him.

"I'm, um, I'm right behind you," Akane said. She offered an uncertain smile with her eyes and stood up along with them.

The movement caught the attention of scary pink jumpsuit lady. She grinned, her mouth full of pointy blindingly white teeth. Akane couldn't tell if she would be a dentist's nightmare or dream.

"Fresh meat!" the villain said, stomping in their direction.

Akane balked, her wings fluttering. She wanted to fly away, but Hawks' sidekicks were busy with civilian wrangling and the slo-mo villain, and Hawks was in the middle of fighting off hornet-man. Someone had to distract Jumpsuit Jane. Giving the teenagers a gentle push, she took to the air again. There was a discarded shopping bag full of books on the ground. Diving for it, Akane grabbed the bag and pulled out a book. Paperback manga. Still. She flung it at the Jumpsuit.

"Hey!" The villain held up her arm and the book bounced off her forearm.

"Sorry!" Akane yelled back and then shook her head. This was a villain. Get it together, Hirano! "Nevermind!"

"You can't take back an apology!"

"I didn't mean to apologize to you," Akane said. She skipped backward across air as the woman jerked a hydrant out of the ground. "Do you have to do that? That'll come out of our taxes." The hydrant came zooming at her, and she squeaked as she flew upwards to get away from it.

"Get back here and let me punch you."

"No, thanks," Akane said. The teenagers were long gone. She tilted her wings and shot upward, getting a better view as she landed, tightrope style, on a wire holding a banner over the shopping path.

The wire dipped. "Hey there," Hawks said, "Haven't seen you around."

"You sure haven't…"

They were a mirror of each other, wings spread out as they balanced. His wings were enormous; hers were smaller and more streamlined.

"Maybe you should skedaddle?" He smiled. "For safety reasons!"

Akane tilted her head to the side, bewildered. Had he just used skedaddle unironically? And it was sort of cute.

She didn't get a chance to answer as the wire snapped between them, one of the hornet guy's stingers severing it. Neither she nor Hawks went anywhere, simply shifting in midair.

Hawks' eyes narrowed as he glanced over at the hornet villain. "We were having a conversation."

"Were we?" Akane asked.

"Well, yeah," he said, "You were about to contribute more to it." A couple stingers came shooting at them, but Hawks cut them out of the air with his feather blades, slicing faster than she could see. Akane zipped behind a sign, clinging to the metal as she tried to get out of the way and not be a bother.

"Hawks! Watch it!" one of the sidekicks shouted as a piece of rumble was rocketed into the sky by Jumpsuit Lady.

A third stinger came faster than the other two while Hawks was distracted and slammed into his shoulder, catching him near his wing. He jerked midair, his wing spasming as the other compensated, spinning him in a circle.

Akane let go of the sign and darted forward, grabbing him by the arm. Together, they bobbled their way through the air and crashed through an open window of an upper level okonomiyaki restaurant. He grabbed her waist and swung her around at the last moment so she landed on top of him as they awkwardly hit the floor instead of him crushing her. If she had been stronger, maybe she could've landed them upright, the way he would've if he hadn't been hurt.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

"Let me see your shoulder," she said, sliding off of him.

"Uh—"

She tugged at his arm, trying to get him to turn. Once he did, she wrapped one hand around the stinger, the other splayed beside it so she could brace. "Sorry, and I mean it this time."

"Wait—"

Akane yanked the stinger out. But he didn't react beside sucking in a shocked breath through his teeth. No yelling, no cursing. "Hold still, please." There was a hole in his jacket and shirt and she could see threads of hornet venom spreading across his skin. She pressed a palm to that exact spot.

Ow, ow…an echo of his pain twinged across her back and then faded. She could only do that a few more times that day.

He glanced over his shoulder at her. "You can heal?"

"Maybe," she said, trying to hide in her hoodie. "You might want to go do the hero thing."

"Thank you for definitely healing me," he said, offering her a quick grin. His golden eyes became more serious. We're going to talk about this later."

"Probably not." If she had it her way, he wouldn't be able to find her.

"Bet," he said, standing up. Feathers swirled around her, and suddenly she was on her feet. He winked at her. "See you around." With a flash of red wings, he was back out the window and she was hurrying away, determined to never catch his attention again, no matter how that smile of his made her want to smile right back.