Chapter Text
The blaring alarm pulled Hawks from his sleep far too early. Groaning, he groped the bed to find his phone and turn off the stupid thing. Do not forget: Physical. The reminder flashed on the screen and he groaned louder this time. “Fuck,” he grumbled, tossing the phone back onto the bed as he stared up at the ceiling. Why did the commission need to have him see their doctors once a month? And why did this month’s physical have to be today?
The smell of singed feathers still lingered as he started to get up. Dabi always did that… Singed a few feathers in the heat of the moment. At first it bothered him, hurt even, but now it was just a reminder. A reminder of the mistake he continued to make. Standing in front of his mirror he assessed the damage. A handprint-shaped burn still marked his right ass cheek. Thank whatever gods were in existence that was the only thing that couldn’t be written off as something he got on patrol, and it was going to remain covered by his boxers during the exam. As the water for his shower warmed up, Hawks gently preened away any damaged feathers. He didn’t need questions from the commission’s doctors or his handler.
Showers were not a luxury for anyone raised by the commission. Get in, get out, there was no dilly dallying, and definitely no privacy in the commission. Cleaning himself of the remainders of the previous night, the blond sighed. If the commission was aware that he was fraternizing with the enemy without direct orders to do so he’d suffer the consequences. He really should check his schedule before letting the villain in his home. What if he’d had an inspection and his handler came in to find him covered in bruises and come?
Those warm hands were just…so difficult to say no to, though. Especially when the villain pinned him to the bed and held onto the base of his wings… The thought made his dick twitch in excitement. Stopping himself from getting too deep in those memories, he turned the hot water off and stood in the freezing cold spray of water for just a moment longer before turning the water off completely and flapping his wings to dry his feathers before he grabbed a towel to dry off the rest of his body and hair.
After quickly drying and styling his hair into its usual windblown style, Hawks smirked at himself in the mirror. Damn, I look good. The commission will be pleased. He couldn’t afford to anger his handler by showing up in anything other than his hero costume looking as presentable as possible. That was part of the deal. Being a hero with the commission meant never looking disheveled, never so much as leaving your home to get the mail in anything other than your best.
“Huh…” He muttered, looking down at the button on his pants, which refused to meet the button hole on the other side by about half a centimeter. These pants had fit him fine just yesterday . Sucking in a deep breath, he managed to get the pants buttoned and zipped, but only just barely. “Gotta lay off the fried foods, I guess,” he shrugged, smoothing down the front of his hero costume and turning to his side in the mirror. “Still good… They’re going to work me to death, though,” he mumbled, tossing on his jacket and protective gear before heading out of the balcony doors to take to the skies towards the commission.
The building was in the middle of the city. To anyone else, even other heroes, it was just an office building where supportive services were. To Hawks, though? This building held many secrets. The basement held particularly awful memories for the young hero. Memories of bars, blood, shattered glass, feathers plucked, and very, very hot flames. He shuddered as he walked through the doors.
“Hey hey,” he greeted the secretary, winking at her. “Just here for the usual , y’know.” The young woman rolled her eyes at him, clearly tired of his antics.
“You know where to go, Hawks. She’ll meet you back there.”
She was his handler. An intimidating woman who struck fear into his very heart. She was tall, a good half a foot taller than Hawks himself. Her hair was always pulled back into a perfectly curated bun, not a single strand loose. She never showed any emotion. Not when he was a sniffling child who’d just had his feathers removed, nor when he’d nearly been killed by a villain attack. As long as he was alive and compliant , she was carefully emotionless.
The woman looked him up and down then nodded. “You’re early. Good. We need to discuss your next mission with the League of Villains before your physical.”
Careful to remain impartial, Hawks gave her a curt nod. “Yes, of course. I have more information to relay as well.”
The fifteen minutes or so before his physical were spent going over details of his next mission against the league, and Hawks relaying what little information Dabi had offered at their last official meeting. Carefully omitting the details of what happened after he obtained that information, his handler seemed pleased that he was able to get anything out of the villain.
“Very well. Go see the doctor and I’ll meet you afterwards for the exertion tests.” Hawks nodded again, heading down the hallway to the exam room where a doctor was waiting on him.
The doctor was an older man, tall and with greying hair. He was the same man who’d done all of his medical care since he was brought to the commission. Medical care was a term Hawks would use loosely, though. Could unnecessary surgeries and procedures really be considered care? He stepped on the scale, somewhat unsurprised that the number was higher than last time. He could have guessed that from the way his pants almost didn’t button before he’d left.
“Have you been eating off plan, Hawks? Or slacking in your workouts?” Hawks shifted uncomfortably under his watchful gaze. He’d be punished for either of those things, but punished for lying about them, too. Quite the lose-lose situation for him.
“I haven’t been slacking. I have had to eat out more recently because of all of the long shifts I’ve been pulling.”
The doctor only responded with a disgruntled hrmph, continuing in his examination. Poking and prodding, he didn’t seem to find anything else off about him, and didn’t ask anymore questions.
After he was dressed, his handler entered the room to ask how the exam went. Upon hearing of his weight gain she clicked her tongue. “We’ll have to adjust your workout routine to account for this. Come back after patrol tonight.” The woman didn’t need to explain that he was going to be punished for this. He wondered what it would be this time. Something painful no doubt. Whips? Burns? Would they break his bones before having a healer come to fix them up? He supposed he would find out later.
The exertion part of the physical was more brutal than usual, and he tired out much faster than he normally would have. Despite this, the thought of making his punishment worse kept him going. By the end of it, his hair had fallen out of it’s gel and was plastered to his forehead with sweat and his feathers were completely disheveled. His handler looked displeased.
“Your weight gain has caused you to become slow. Even more reason to up the frequency of your workouts, Hawks.” She scribbled something in her notebook, probably adding more lashes or upping the severity of his punishments.
“S-sorry… I’ll cut out meals on the job.” Did that mean he may not eat at all some days? Yes. Would starving himself keep him from being punished further? Possibly. The fact his handler made told him he chose the right words.
“Go get cleaned up and ready to report to your agency for patrol. Come back here when you’re done tonight.”
Hawks did as he was told, washing himself up and redoing his hair before he took off to his agency for patrol.
“I don’t know, Miruko, I just feel kind of bleh, you know?” Hawks waved at yet another fan as he walked down the street on patrol with Miruko.
The rabbit hero gave him a concerned expression. “Maybe you’re getting burned out? I mean, you do pull 24 hour patrols a lot. Maybe you need a vacation?”
The look at Hawks returned to her was absolutely incredulous. “You know as well as I do that vacations are out of the picture for me. A hero’s job is never done. There will always be villains, always be natural disasters. I will always be needed somewhere for something.” Another raving fan waved from across the street, and Hawks sent a feather to sign the notebook they were holding out. Even if he wasn’t at the commission’s beck and call, there would always be people around who would recognize him. How could they not, with his huge red wings that always drew such attention?
Miruko rolled her eyes and punched him playfully in the arm. “Whatever you say, Mr. Number Two. Everyone deserves a break every once in a while, though, so think about it?” Hawks hummed, nodding to her even though he had no intentions of doing such a thing. The commission wouldn’t allow him to take a break even if he wanted it.
A good hero doesn’t take vacations.
Hawks could still hear his handler’s voice in his mind, from years ago when the commission had only just started their training. He could even still feel her fingers pressing on his vertebrae, fixing his posture as she pulled his shoulders back. Back then, he’d thought that she cared for him. In reality, that was all part of their manipulation. The woman didn’t care for him or anyone. Just like the commission didn’t care for anyone, not really.
Suddenly, Miruko was pulling him into an alley. They were running? Why? The winged hero shook his head and realized they were chasing a villain and Miruko was screaming directions at him. It took a second longer than usual, but he finally processed exactly what she said, his wings lifting him to the sky so he could land in front of the villain with one of his longest feathers in his hands like a sword.
The villain was trapped, and he knew it. Panic was evident in murky green eyes. Seemingly unable to control himself, the villain’s stretchy body shot out to hit Miruko square in the chest. It did little other than push her back. “Hawks! Now!” She called, and Hawks moved without really thinking. Pushing the feather into the villain’s back, carefully avoiding major organs, the man collapsed onto the ground.
“Miruko, your rope,” he instructed, taking the rope from the rabbit girl to tie up the unconscious man. Patting him down for potential weapons, Hawks found a pen with a needle and some sort of medication in it. “Trigger… He must’ve had only a miniscule dosage. Did you see the way he panicked? Like he wasn’t in control… This is bad.”
Miruko stood over the men, looking down as the would-be villain started to wake up. “I thought this drug had yet to make it to our prefecture?” She took the pen from Hawks, looking it over as he pulled out his phone to call the police. “We must have caught him while he was injecting.” Hawks nodded to her, that was his thought exactly.
After giving their statements and seeing the police off with the villain in cuffs, the two continued on their patrol. It was relatively quiet after that, thankfully, because Hawks had a feeling he’d be in for a rough time once he made it back to the commission.
“Wanna go out for a drink? To celebrate the take-down of another villain?” Miruko was standing beside him at the door to his agency. “I think we both deserve it!” Her smile was infectious, but Hawks wasn’t catching it.
Shaking his head, Hawks crossed his arms, gently rubbing his hands up and down on his biceps. “Can’t. I’m needed at the commission once I finish up paperwork.” Ruby eyes narrowed at him, boring into him. Rumi was his one and only friend in the world, and she knew that he had… issues regarding the commission. He’d refrained from telling her everything, but on one or two occasions while drinking at her apartment, he’d let spill that the commission wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.
Her hand gripped his shoulder, a calming pressure as she started to walk past him. “Yeah, yeah. Call me if you change your mind, chicken legs!”
It was late when he finished his paperwork and made his way to the commission for his workout and punishment. Would the workout be the punishment? No, that would be too much wishful thinking. Surely the workout would just be the precursor to the punishment. At the very least, his handler wasn’t awful enough to cause him bodily harm and then force him to exert himself in such a way.
“Hawks, pick up the pace. How can you be a decent hero if a little bit of running leaves you breathless? Can’t rescue anyone with that sort of stamina.” The intercom screeched from the ceiling.
He nodded, blond hair plastered to his forehead with sweat as the speed on the treadmill was increased remotely. It was hard. When had it gotten so difficult to run? He could do it with ease just days ago! His handler continued to push him past his measly limits until all he wanted to do was collapse on the ground.
Taking in quick, panting breaths caused pain to shoot through his rib cage. Stars swam in his field of vision. Stay on your feet, Hawks. You’ve handled worse. He blinked the lightheaded-ness away, and much to his surprise the treadmill slowed. Was the workout already over? He’d done all the reps asked of him on the various weight machines, and the treadmill was the final thing, his handler had assured him.
The woman waiting on him at the entrance after he’d cleaned up a little seemed impatient. He knew why. He’d taken an extra two minutes washing his face in order to delay his punishment ever so slightly. Surely his handler wanted to be done with her day. Maybe she would postpone the punishment for tomorrow?
“Follow.” The command was short, her lips pursed into a thin line as she started down the hall. They would go to the basement, he knew the route well. Could walk it in his sleep, even.
Exiting the elevator behind her, Hawks felt his heart ache at the sight of the cages. Children, just as he had been, locked away. Most of them were covered in bloodied bandages. Every one of them had tear-stained faces as they watched him walk past. More than half of them wouldn’t make it out of here alive, and if they did their life would likely be as terrible as his own. Constant surveillance, abuse, being pushed past limits he didn’t even know he had. Hawks wished he could save them all. Get them out. He only knew of one person to escape the clutches of the commission, and that person was probably long-since dead.
“Remove your shirt and jacket.” The door was slid closed behind them, and two large men waited in the sterile room. This was the torture room, as he thought of it. Its technical name, given by his handler, was the reeducation room , but if the tools that lined the walls were any indication, reeducation was just a fancy word for torture.
“Count your lashes aloud. If you lose track, I add five more. If you speak out of turn, I add ten. I hear you cry, that’s twenty. Silence other than numbers. ” Hawks nodded. Each of the men took one of his arms to hold him up once the pain got unbearable.
“One.” He hissed as the leather whip made contact with his back and feathers. As if the stinging of the lash across his back wasn’t bad enough, the contact with his feathers broke them, only compounding the pain. He was certain his feathers would be out of commission for a day or two at minimum once the woman was done with him.
By some miracle, or perhaps desensitization, Hawks remained standing and didn’t cry once during the whole fifty lashes. “I’ll send a nurse in to bandage you. You get two days to regain your feathers. No patrols during that time, but I have a disciplinary meeting for you to attend tomorrow at o-six-hundred hours. Leave as many broken feathers as possible here so that you can regrow them faster and so that you don’t look beat up in the morning. I’ll send a car for you.”
Hawks could only nod, his voice constrained by the painful lump in his throat. If he spoke, he might break out in sobs, and that would only make matters worse. The handler’s heels clicked against the tile as she left. Once she was gone, the hero collapsed to the floor, curling around himself. The nurse who came in after his handler had left was the same one who usually worked with the doctor he saw at the commission.
“Hawks, may I remove the broken feathers?” He nodded to her, knowing that if he were to leave with broken feathers attached to his wings his handler would be even more upset than she already was. The removal process was almost as painful as the breaking had been. Also as painful as the lashes he’d received. The smell of disinfectant stung his nose before it ever touched the filleted skin on his back. The young woman wrapped bandage after bandage around his torso. “I’m sorry. She instructed me not to heal you until tomorrow.” The words were soft, hardly above a whisper, because they both knew if anyone heard them talking both of them would be punished. Hawks could only nod, thankful that it was just 24 hours he would be suffering the pain of the lashes. On shaky legs, the hero left, catching a cab back home to avoid as many fans as possible.