Friday

I'm going to be a little bit late today

That's unfortunate. Did something happen?

The HC has me on the hunt for a prison break
Fuckers won't even tell me what the hell happened, or when

How very suspicious.

Yeah speaking of suspicious, the fuck did you do this time

What makes you think it was me?

I didn't until now, what did you do
Answer me
BITCH

Their footsteps echoed along the long halls, the only noise available aside from the numerous groans or gibbering of inmates. Mirko's face had been set in a grimace since the first floor, but as they closed in on their destination, the urge to complain was steadily becoming more powerful than the urge to keep her mouth shut so she wouldn't have to taste the surroundings.

"It smells like shit in here."

Hawks, walking alongside her seemingly without a care in the world, glanced at her from the corner of his eye with his lips curled into a small smirk. The prison guard that was serving as their guide didn't even grace her observation with a reply. His face was set forward, shoulders up to his ears and more rigid than a boulder.

He'd barely looked at her at all, aside from the single glance that had ended at her ears.

Patrolling the bowels of the most secure prison in the country hadn't been how Mirko wanted her Friday morning to go. Right now she would have still been asleep, until noon blasted her alarm into all four of her ears and rolled her lazy ass out of bed. She'd been out until the early hours of the morning last night, trying to hunt down a different group that broke containment and left a mess in their wake.

That had been unsuccessful; no physical tracks to follow, too much burnt ozone masking the other scents in the air. The sun had been coming up when she finally managed to get home, and her bed was now absolutely filthy after she fell onto it while still wearing her costume.

A few hours later. her phone was lighting up. She probably owed the operator an apology for the things she'd said, but he worked for the Hero Association. He deserved all that vitriol and more.

Apparently they hadn't gotten the memo that she worked alone yet. Hawks had laughed at her expression outright once she clocked onto the fact that he was waiting outside Tartarus' entrance for her. That had been when she realised that they'd never actually told her which prisoner had managed to break out.

The complete lack of communication had her tempted to just turn around, but unfortunately they had called her for a reason. She was the best tracker they had easy access to, and she'd probably feel a tiny bit bad if people ended up dead over her wounded pride.

Hopefully this prisoner was strong, so the fight at the end would at least be worth it.

It was obvious which cell they would be looking into once they finally got to the bottom floor. Aside from the mutilated wall on one side, some idiot had wrapped the entrance up in yellow caution tape. There were no cops present, surprisingly, but two more guards had taken up posts on either side of the busted door.

The guns in their hands were comically big. For a moment, she wondered if they were responsible for the hole in the opposite wall.

"No police response?" Hawks had his hands behind his head, fingers interlocked over his hair. It was so disgustingly casual that she was a bit jealous. If she'd tried something like that, people would have clocked onto the insincerity immediately.

The guard guiding them simply grunted, offering nothing more than that. The other two in the hallway didn't acknowledge them as they approached, their eyes attached to the end of the corridor and their gloves creaking around the guns. Great, either holier-than-thou, or paranoid types. This was why she hated working with the government.

Mirko kept her eyes forward as she and Hawks passed the first guard. Their guide broke off, taking up position in front of the opposite cell's door. Whoever was being housed in there moaned pitifully, too low for anything other than Mirko's rabbit ears to pick up.

Five minutes in and she was already beginning to wonder just what exactly had happened here. The last time the ambiance of a place or person had overwhelmed her this much, she'd been thrown across a lake.

"Well this ain't suspicious," Unfortunately for the rest of the entourage, her sarcasm was pitched too low for them to hear.

"I know, right?" Or so she'd thought.

Natural grace did its part to stop her from stumbling as she followed Hawks past the threshold into the cell. Ever so the picture of relaxation, Hawks shot her a quick wink over his shoulder, his extended wings almost able to touch both cramped walls without apparent effort.

A low buzz, even more quiet than his voice had been, registered in her ears. Some of the feathers he'd shed were vibrating.

One of them floated gently in front of her face. It took two sweeps of it through the air for her to figure out exactly how he'd managed to hear her.

"Fuck is going on here, bird boy?" She shifted slightly, her low and even voice not betraying the fact that she was ready to bounce off the walls at the slightest provocation. This situation was setting off her prey instincts to an uncomfortable degree.

Normally she wouldn't have cared, but normally she wasn't also locked underground on the orders of an organisation that mutually hated her.

Even with his tiny legs, he made the massive step off to the side look natural. Later, he mouthed to her, hidden away behind the wall that hadn't been partially demolished.

"Got a place for us to start?" In this tiny room, Hawks' regular volume echoed to an unsettling degree. If the way the corner of his mouth twitched, he felt the same way.

Blowing away the feather that had decided to circle her head, Mirko cleared her throat, mentally bracing herself before drawing in a deep breath. Her amazing sense of smell might not have been as publicised as her hearing, but it was still enough to almost send her reeling as she finally opened herself up to the conditions of the cell.

The only thing holding back the urge to heave was her sheer fucking will. Hawks took a step back in alarm as her eyes began to water, the acrid stench nowhere near as easy to blink away as her body's biological response.

"Fuck, that's nasty." that was underselling it. Between the mould, dust and whatever types of waste were sticking around, it was tough to differentiate anything else. There was something distinctly human within it all, feminine if she had to guess, which probably amounted to their missing prisoner.

That prisoner also wasn't the dusty set of bones that had at some point recently been inside the room. Nor was the other person who had been present in the cell, a man that carried the faint scent of sweet wine and antiseptic.

Mirko barely stopped herself from letting out a long, incredibly creative list of curses. It wouldn't go against anyone's expectations of her, but it would also draw attention to the fact that this had just become a million times more complicated for her.

Fuck sakes, V, what did you do this time?

It could have been a coincidence. She didn't really smell him too often, mainly because it was a pain in the ass dealing with the sensory overload enough to ignore it again, but whenever she did it was a little different. Within the same conversation or round he could cycle from faint traces of ozone, to something crisper and cleaner. Parchment and ink to mint and chamomile. She'd never really questioned it and stopped bothering to notice after the first few times.

But underlining all of it was always the same two things. Sweet wine and antiseptic.

She was going to kick his ass extra hard the next time she saw him. It was the least he deserved for forcing more work her way on what should have been a long weekend.

Her stomach roiled again, thankfully empty if she did lose her ironclad control. She'd been too busy and then too tired to eat anything last night, and hadn't had the chance before being called on that morning.

Apparently not everybody had that issue, though.

"I smell food." Hawks, having been watching the expressions playing across her face with a blank one of his own, raised an eyebrow. One of the guards standing outside the cell shifted further upright, the flash of silver against the side of his neck reminding her of why exactly she was here.

"Fish, fruit, yogurt… some kinda soup with not a lot of spices." And tea, but the bubbling gut was warning her to not mention that.

"Huh. You can smell all that?" Hawks' wings flared once more, drawing all the feathers he'd spread around the cell back into them. None of the information he'd been gathering was offered to her, whatever that may have been. "Can you smell what I had for breakfast?"

"Chicken nuggets." The way his face lit up had her rolling her eyes. It was a sad day in off-brand hell when she was left feeling like the responsible one. "Can you focus here?"

"Aww, relax, number thirteen." Her eyes narrowed at the reminder, something which she knew he noticed, even if he seemingly paid no mind to it. There was still some tension in his stance, easy to see even in the low lighting from the corridor. "Anything else you pick up on?"

With a moment of thought and another glance around their dilapidated surroundings, Mirko tapped the steel toes of her hero boots against the floor. The resulting knock came back solid.

"I got nuthin," The lie slipped through her teeth glibly, sprinkled liberally with the truth. Without her knowing exactly who had pulled this shit off, she would have been completely in the dark. "We have a buffet in her cell, no traces in the hallways, a busted Quirk suppressor system, and no clue how the hell all of it is related."

Reeling one foot back, she kicked the far wall of the cell with all the might she was confident her shoes could actually take. The resulting impact shook the room, sending Hawks stumbling and bringing two of the guard trio rushing in with rifles raised.

To their credit, it took them little more than a split second to figure out what had happened. The first one exited the cell with a roll of his eyes, while the second followed him, his rifle shouldered and discipline far more intact.

Hawks was still staring at her feet, though thankfully not like people usually did while she was out and about. Disadvantaged though he may have been with her insider knowledge, she could still see the gears in his mind turning, and there was no shame in her realisation that they were all probably spinning much faster than her own ever would.

"We'd be looking for a burrowing Quirk that can get around all the sensors, cancel out the suppressors, and leave no trace behind to the point where I can't uncover it." His wings fluttered slightly as he murmured, a few feathers drifted away to slide across the ground on winds that didn't exist. "Damn it Kaina, what the hell did you get yourself into this time…?"

There was no way he'd already forgotten that Mirko could hear him. The name meant nothing to her, but it would likely stick with her anyway, especially considering she was probably going to meet the woman later that same day.

What did he know that his bosses didn't?

"I don't think there's anything else I can do here." In the field she may have been one of the best trackers in the country, but with a trail that could be manipulated to an extent she didn't even know, there was little doubt in her mind that sticking around would be largely pointless.

Her abused stomach and war veteran nose couldn't help but agree. Usually she would have set her mind to tough it out and go on the hunt anyway, but right now all she really wanted was some food and sleep.

Followed immediately by kicking the shit out of the dumbass that stole her heart one day and now seemed to be on a warpath with all of Japan the next.

With a sigh and one last glance around the cell, Hawks' lips dipped into a momentary frown, before the expression was eased from his face and replaced with that easy smile. Even after watching it form, she was hard-pressed to notice the raging thoughts it was masking.

"Time to do a little prison break of our own, huh?" He laughed, gathering up his feathers once more. In spite of her rampant desire to leave, she waited for him by the door, ignoring the guard opposite that was doing absolutely nothing to hide the fact that he was glaring at her again. He moved to step forth when Hawks reappeared, only stopping in his tracks when the hero raised a hand.

"We'll find our way out." The guard opened his mouth. Whatever he'd been about to say was cut off by Hawks clearing his throat pointedly. "Get some forensics on the scene before letting the other prisoners out."

The guard on the further side of the door coughed out a small laugh. For a moment, the expression on Hawks' face grew brittle, and Mirko's gut soured further. Without a second thought, she grabbed Hawks' forearm, leading him back the way they'd come.

There was little doubt left in her now about what kind of place this was. It was harder to figure out which would have been worse, whether they'd meant for her to see it, or they simply didn't care if she figured it out on her own.

"I fucking hate it here" Hawks muttered, easing his arm out of her grip. She couldn't disagree with him.

The guilt was there, trying desperately to pry her mouth open and spill her secrets. That whoever Kaina was, she was either the safest she'd ever been, or dead. If it was the latter then she must have been a terrible person, but the former suggested something far more sinister. Something far more likely.

Something that kept her mouth shut and her speculations locked deep within her chest, lest they be heard by the kinds of people that she'd never learned how to fight. .

Her instincts were very rarely wrong, after all.