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Toshinori isn’t sure what, exactly, he is hoping to accomplish with this venture. If it can even be called a venture at all—a few flights of stairs is nothing in comparison to the distance he used to cross in the blink of an eye. He’s been around the world, saved countless lives, fought more villains than he can remember. Making his way to the roof should be no harder than breathing.
But by the time he arrives at his destination, he’s winded and shaky, leaning heavily against the wall for support as he pushes the door open. He doesn’t let go of the handle, instead slowly shifting his weight from the wall to the door so he won’t fall over the second he’s in open air.
It takes him too long to realize he isn’t alone.
But his companion has the same delayed response, only starting and turning to look when a cough bubbles up in Toshinori’s throat. It’s accompanied by the metallic taste of blood, which he swallows down with a grimace.
Hawks meets him with a fighting stance, fists raised and shoulders tense, until he seems to recognize who he’s looking at. Instantly, he relaxes, slapping an easy smile across his face. “I didn’t think you were supposed to be walking around, old man,” he says lightly.
Toshinori shrugs. He was cleared for short walks. But ‘short’ is a relative term, and he couldn’t stand being cooped up in his hospital room for a single moment longer. And walking was easier than trying to maneuver up to the top floor in his wheelchair. It’s impossible to steer—some cheap thing the hospital had lying around, built for someone shorter than Toshinori is, and he doesn’t have enough arm strength built back up in this form to push himself for longer than a few minutes at a time.
Not to mention, the elevator doesn’t even go all the way to the roof.
“Short distances are allowed,” he replies casually.
Hawks raises an eyebrow. “And how many flights of stairs did you climb to get up here? I don’t think that’s—”
Toshinori lists forward.
He doesn’t realize what’s happening at first, too caught off guard by the sudden sharp pain in his leg. Then, it buckles beneath him, apparently not pleased with his neglect of the doctors’ warnings against walking too much.
For one second, Hawks appears unconcerned.
In the next moment, his eyes widen as terror overtakes his expression. He rushes forward, managing to catch Toshinori in the last second before he hits the ground, effective only in cushioning the collision and taking the brunt of it himself.
“Shit,” he hisses. “My bad.”
“It’s—” Toshinori coughs into his arm. He is not successful in forcing down the blood this time. Dark flecks dot his sleeve. “It’s my fault. I guess I should’ve heeded the doctors’ warnings.” He tries to laugh, but it just turns into a wheeze.
Hawks adjusts him, helping him sit with his back against the wall. Toshinori is too weak to do anything but take it.
To think he used to be the strongest man in the world.
“I was going to catch you with my feathers,” Hawks explains. “They would have made it faster than I did. But,” he gestures vaguely. His tone is still light, somehow. Toshinori grieved the loss of his quirk despite the fact that he wasn’t born with it, and the fact that he gave it away willingly. He can’t imagine what it must be like for Hawks to lose a quirk he should have had for his entire life, and at only twenty-three years old.
To lose a quirk like Fearless Wings must be akin to losing a limb.
“I understand,” Toshinori says gruffly. He watches as Hawks sits clumsily across from him. “It’s a hard adjustment.”
Hawks barks out a laugh. “You can say that again. My balance is shit now. You don’t realize how much wings weigh until you don’t have ‘em anymore. I think my bones are different now, too. Birds have hollow bones, you know—so they can fly. Everything in me feels both heavier and lighter at the same time.” He tips his head back, looking up towards the sky. His tone dips to one of melancholy as he finishes, “I took it for granted, too. Never thought there’d be a time where I was permanently trapped on the ground.”
Toshinori simply observes him for a moment.
Hawks is an anomaly.
He didn’t come onto the hero scene until after Toshinori’s injury, and he didn’t come out of any of Japan’s various hero schools. He was trained by the HPSC, kept in near-secrecy until he was eighteen and the Commission decided it was time to reveal him to the public. And with how quickly he rose in the ranks, it looked to Toshinori like they’d grown a perfect pet hero in a lab.
At the time, he assumed Hawks was meant to be his replacement. For the day when he inevitably retired. He hadn’t liked Hawks much, though he’d remained friendly with him, as he did with everyone. It was just that—
Hawks didn’t seem real.
He was more a social experiment than a Pro Hero—more a science project than a person.
But now, looking at the kid behind the flagrant icon—the twenty-something guy who has put his life on the line countless times in the past few months, who fought until he couldn’t, who continued marching forward even after losing his quirk—
It’s like being shown a mirror.
Was All Might a hero, or was he a social experiment? He was less a person and more a pretty face meant to symbolize an age of peace. He was a promise that everything would be okay, so long as HE WAS HERE.
And then he wasn’t here, and the world went to shit.
Was he a symbol of peace, or was he just a glamor hiding the evil that was always brewing under the surface? Was he never real either?
“It’s hard,” Toshinori says, voice rough, “to lose the ability to fly.”
He didn’t master all of the quirks of the previous One For All users like Midoriya, but he was able to use Float with ease, and he will always remember the thrill of travelling through the sky. He remembers the giddiness bubbling up in his chest, spilling out in uncontrollable laughter as the wind tousled his hair. He remembers zig-zagging through cities from above, eyes trained to sense even the smallest altercation, body able to turn on a whim, redirecting itself to the scene of the crime before his mind even registered what needed to be done.
He remembers the freedom that came with being suspended above the rest of the world, observing the people and cars moving about below, bound by the laws of gravity.
Like some sort of god.
But when the illusion of godhood ends, all you are left with is the binds of your humanity—the reminder that gods do not exist and even the strongest hero has a final limit they cannot push past.
Hawks’ lips twitch up in something resembling a smile. “Of course you could fly too. What couldn’t you do?”
Toshinori turns his head, looking out over the city. The decimated buildings, the flickering lights, the destruction that tore through the entire country. He was the most powerful man in the world, but what he couldn’t do was—
“I fought All For One once before Kamino,” he admits. “On my own. I thought he was gone for good after that, but…I failed.” He furls his hands into fists. “What I couldn’t do was prevent this.”
Hawks tilts his head. “You know, I think I heard about that. Not the specifics, but— You were injured pretty badly, right?”
Toshinori grunts in affirmation. “It wrecked half my internal organs and left a pretty nasty scar. That was when I had to start limiting my time spent in my hero form. All For One didn’t walk out unscathed either, but—” he lowers his voice, “he was supposed to die.”
It’s not as if there’s anyone around to listen in on their conversation, or as if anyone could possibly be upset with All Might having such a goal after the utter destruction wrought by All For One. And while he knows Hawks couldn’t possibly be upset by this revelation—not when he himself killed Twice because he saw no other option to give the heroes a chance at victory—it can’t be pretty to see the former Symbol of Peace admit to murderous intent.
If Hawks is perturbed by it, he doesn’t let it show.
“You succeeded in weakening him, though,” Hawks points out. “Endeavor defeated him because he had to rely on that mask thing to keep him alive. Once we broke that, it would have been over, if not for the bullet holding the Rewind quirk. And even that was only a temporary fix; he knew it would kill him in the end. Don’t sell yourself short, old man.”
Toshinori bows his head. “I appreciate the reassurance, but now that All For One has truly been defeated, I can see so clearly what my downfall was in the past.”
“Not enough fire?” Hawks jokes.
Toshinori cracks a smile. “I suppose, to some extent. It actually has to do with what young Bakugou said as he dealt the final blow.”
“Bakugou-kun? He didn’t just shout ‘DIE!!’?”
Toshinori chuckles. “Well, in between all that. He said, ‘There’s no way I could’ve won this alone.’”
After Toshinori was taken out of the fight, the cameras he’d set up had continued to film—focusing on Bakugou instead of him. He’s watched the footage over and over; the moment of his rescue, Bakugou’s stubborn determination, the barrage of explosions speeding up the effects of Rewind. And at the end—
There’s no way I could’ve won this alone.
He fell to the ground after it was all over, but he’d still raised his fist in the air. Unable to stand, but still victorious, and still paying homage to All Might with his final pose. Bakugou prevented All For One from reaching Shigaraki because of the efforts of every person who fought before him—from the very first One For All User to quirkless All Might with nothing but fancy armor, a car, and a dream.
But,
if All Might hadn’t been so insistent on fighting All For One alone the first time around—
if he’d asked for help—or, hell, even just accepted what help had been offered to him—
Maybe all of this could have been prevented. Maybe Midoriya wouldn’t have had to give up One For All, maybe All Might wouldn’t be retired, maybe Aizawa wouldn’t have lost a leg and an eye, maybe Shigaraki could have been saved without being destroyed.
Maybe Hawks would still be able to fly.
“I was so insistent that no one else get caught up in the fight I believed to be my responsibility.” Toshinori sighs. “We only defeated All For One and Shigaraki this time because every hero left in the country—and even some from outside it—banded together. I can’t help but wonder if I’d had help back then…”
Hawks shrugs. “There’s no point wasting away in regret.” His words have an edge to them, like he’s trying to convince himself of that as much as he’s trying to reassure Toshinori. “What’s done is done.”
Toshinori thinks: I don’t know how to live without that regret.
When there is nothing left for him to do in terms of heroism—when there is no one left he can save, not because he succeeded in bringing peace to the world but because his body has finally completely failed him—all he can do is sit alone and watch everyone else fight without him and think, What if things went different and I could still help?
When you spend your life on the front lines, there is no place for you to retire to. Toshinori has no family and he can count his friends on one hand. His only other job is teaching heroics at the top hero school in Japan. He has an apartment that never felt like home. He has a student who already surpassed him at a mere sixteen years old.
You need a hobby, Aizawa told him once, to which Toshinori just stared at him blankly, because—
He doesn’t even know what he likes to do.
Outside of All Might, he doesn’t know who he is.
He thought Hawks was a manufactured icon meant to swoop in and grab the attention of the younger generation of civilians, but the more he thinks about it, the clearer it becomes that All Might was the same damn thing. He couldn’t stand Hawks because Hawks was just himself, thirty years younger.
“What are you going to do now?” Toshinori asks. Hawks has his whole life ahead of him. He could go to college, get a civilian job, travel the world, settle down and start a family… He can do all of the things Pro Heroes don’t get to or struggle to do properly. He could disappear into a small town in the country and never be heard from again, and he would probably be better off for it.
He could still live happily ever after.
Instead, he shrugs and says, “Maybe something like Ragdoll. She’s been working behind the scenes with the Pussycats since she lost her quirk, so… I dunno. I don’t think I can leave the hero scene entirely.” He laughs. “It’s what I was raised for, after all. And I still want to create a world where heroes have too much time on their hands. Maybe I’ll take over the HPSC and do it right.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” Toshinori commends, though what he wants to say is: LEAVE WHILE YOU CAN. RUN AND NEVER LOOK BACK.
“What about you?” Hawks looks him over. “You’ll go back to teaching, I assume?”
Toshinori rubs the back of his neck. “Not sure they’ll want a heroics teacher who’s stuck in a wheelchair.” He hadn’t thought about it much—he was fully prepared to die in his final fight against All For One. He’s certain that was the death Nighteye foresaw and tried to prevent. His goal hadn’t been to win; it had been to take All For One down with him.
He was never very good at the whole ‘being retired’ thing.
But this, now— How his body is—
The doctors told him bluntly that he will likely never again be able to walk long distances without assistance. They told him, in all likelihood, he’ll end up entirely wheelchair bound within a year. The muscles in his legs will continue to weaken, and pushing them past their limit will only serve to expedite that process.
We’ll match, Aizawa said, like it was supposed to be a joke but he was too tired to put even a hint of amusement in his voice. The difference is Aizawa lost only one leg, and he has a prosthetic and crutches he switches between as well. He, at least, can stand on his own.
If Toshinori tries to teach from a wheelchair, he won’t even be able to see over the podium. Not to mention half of the heroics classes include physical training exercises, which require crossing campus to travel to the training grounds.
“You’re the greatest hero the world has ever seen,” Hawks argues. “They can’t fire you.”
Toshinori sighs. “No, but they can urge me to retire. And I won’t be able to fight it.” He gestures vaguely, a bitter laugh torn from his throat. It comes with blood. He wonders if he’ll ever be able to laugh without the taste of blood again. “You saw me after walking up a few flights of stairs. I don’t even know how I’ll get back down.”
Hawks blinks. “I’ll carry you,” he says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.
“You—”
“I know, I know,” he interrupts, holding his hands up. He’s smiling again. “I said I don’t have good balance, so you’re afraid I’ll drop you, right? Well, luckily for you, I really only have issues with fast movements. And I have plenty of physical strength that had nothing to do with my quirk. So you’ll be safe in my hands. Literally.”
Toshinori looks down to his own hands. Still wrapped in bandages. There’s blood on his sleeves. It’s laughable, to think that he was once the greatest hero in the world.
Hawks taps his fingers against the ground. “Tell me, All Might, why did you come up here?”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Okay, Yagi-san. Why did you come up here?”
“I don’t know.” He looks up, meeting Hawks’ gaze. “I don’t know how to sit still. I don’t know how to be useless. This was the only place I could think to go, to feel some semblance of freedom.”
“Ha!” Hawks jumps to his feet. He spins around, holding his arms out, like a kid watching snow fall for the first time. “I came up here because it’s the closest I can get to flying. With the wind in my hair and the city below me, I can almost imagine I’m in the sky again.” He walks towards the edge of the roof, peering over it. “The first time I did this, I thought about jumping. Falling is the same as flying, until you hit the ground. I don’t think there’s any way I’d rather go out. But—”
He spins back to face Toshinori.
“—then I thought, I can still be useful. I can do something like Ragdoll. And that’s the whole issue, isn’t it?”
Toshinori frowns. “I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying.”
“Being useful.” Hawks throws himself back onto the ground across from Toshinori, grimacing as he lands. “When you’re a hero, that’s all you think about. To be a hero is to put the lives of everyone else above your own—it’s to see yourself as a service rather than a person.”
“That makes sense,” Toshinori agrees slowly, “but…you say that as if it’s a bad thing. And yet, you still want to make yourself useful.”
Hawks slumps. “Yeah. It’s like—I found the root of the problem, but I dunno how to fix it. But…I was only a hero for a few years; you were a hero for decades. You’ve earned the right to rest.”
Rest, Toshinori thinks. Haha.
“I don’t know how to do that.”
Hawks purses his lips. “Yeah. I guess I don’t either.”
It sounds good on paper—retirement, a chance to rest, freedom from responsibility, a chance to do all of the things you could only dream about before. But in practice, Toshinori’s only dream was to be the Symbol of Peace. He was never all that interested in falling in love or having a family, never made a bucket list of things to try before he died, never thought about what he might do after passing along One For All to the next wielder. If he’d stopped to think it over, he probably would have imagined dying in battle like his master before him—regardless of Nighteye’s prediction.
But he lived.
He became the Symbol of Peace. He saw All For One defeated. He passed along One For All and trained his successor. He’s done all of the things he planned to do with his life, but he still has this mimicry of himself left to continue living with. A shell that can’t walk, can’t do anything apart from sit on the sidelines and watch.
“I think,” Hawks says, and then stops. He looks around, like he’s afraid someone is watching them. “I went undercover, for a while, with the Paranormal Liberation Front,” he whispers. “And there were times when I wondered.”
“Wondered?” Toshinori prompts.
“They were villains, there’s no doubt about that. But…” Hawks shrugs. “They weren’t all bad people. Bubaigawara, and Toga, and even Dabi…” He lays down, on his back, and stares up at the sky. Toshinori directs his gaze upwards as well, but he can’t see whatever it is Hawks is looking at. All he finds is dark, inky, nothingness. “When I first met Toga, she wanted to touch my feathers. So I took one off and gave it to her. It was just because I knew I could use it to listen in on any conversation she might have with it around, but then her face lit up and—she looked so happy. She made Bubaigawara put it in her hair and asked if he thought she looked pretty, and… You know, for a minute, it seemed like they were just two random civilians.”
Toshinori thinks, of Gran Torino telling him he should stay out of the fight against Shigaraki, because the knowledge that he was Shimura Nana’s grandson caused Toshinori to view him as too human.
But Shigaraki was human. Midoriya saw that too.
“The League of Villains knew how to have fun,” Hawks finishes. “I don’t. Not really.”
“Ha,” Toshinori says. “I don’t either.”
It’s not that he’s never had fun; it’s that he doesn’t know how to go about purposefully having fun. When he thinks of what he’d like to do to ‘have fun,’ his mind draws a blank. Training Midoriya falls under the ‘hero’ category and Visiting Aizawa is probably not considered ‘fun’ when it mostly consists of him telling Toshinori to go away—albeit without any visible effort to actually make him leave.
Hawks considers this for a moment. Then, he says, “Bubaigawara taught me how to play a card game for two people. D’you wanna learn?”
Card games. Toshinori cannot remember the last time he played a card game.
“Sure,” he says. “Do you have cards?”
“Nope! What about you?”
Toshinori looks down at himself, wearing hospital clothes and bandages. Then, he looks back up at Hawks. “I must have misplaced my deck.”
Hawks grins. “Come on then, old man. We’ll have to find one ourselves, the old fashioned way. No flying for me, and no walking for you. Think you’re up to the challenge?”
“I don’t think being unable to walk is ‘old-fashioned’—”
Hawks holds a hand out to him.
“I’m sorry about your wings,” Toshinori says instead of taking it.
“Don’t say that,” Hawks pleads. “Don’t—don’t make it sound like it could have been prevented.”
Toshinori sees it for what it is. The knowledge that losing One For All was inevitable is the only reason Toshinori was able to come to terms with the loss of his quirk. It must be easier for Hawks to accept his loss if he believes it was the only possible outcome of his fight against All For One.
“Okay,” he agrees. He places his hand in Hawks’, and Hawks heaves him up. True to his word, he lifts Toshinori into his arms. It’s awkward with the height difference, but Hawks shows no indication of struggling with the weight. Not that Toshinori weighs much in this form.
“We should start a club,” Hawks says as he begins walking down the stairs. “You, me, and Ragdoll. The Lost Quirk Club. We’ll learn how to have fun together.”
Toshinori smiles. “You know, that doesn’t sound like a bad idea.”
There are things that have been lost in these past few months which cannot be restored. Hawks will never fly again, and there will come a time when Toshinori cannot walk. Ragdoll won’t get her quirk back, and One For All is gone as well. Aizawa, Endeavor, and Miruko all lost limbs. Bakugou’s heart will be weak forever, and Midoriya will always have lingering pain in his hands and arms. Todoroki lost a brother and Endeavor lost a son, a second time.
But,
they are alive.
They are here.
And if they can continue being here with a smile on their faces, they will figure out how to be okay.