## Preface

Ride
Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/17933030.

Rating:
  Mature
Archive Warning:
  No Archive Warnings Apply
Category:
  M/M
Fandom:
  僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia
Relationship:
  Hawks/Todoroki Enji | Endeavor
Characters:
  Hawks (My Hero Academia), Todoroki Enji | Endeavor
Additional Tags:
  One Shot, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Smoking
Language:
  English
Stats:
  Published: 2019-02-26 Words: 906 Chapters: 1/1

# Ride

by Nicolefrickle

Summary

> A scene that instantly popped in my brain when I saw Kim's lil doodle. Enji sending Hawks off to his train.

## Ride

Hawks rocks forward and stops where he stands, stretches his wings, untenses the muscles in his back. The train slows and screeches ahead of him as he spins and waits for Enji to catch up. Really, it's only an excuse to stare. Enji is frowning, he always is, but Hawks can't quite get to the root of it today. Impatience or annoyance or simply feeling tired - they're the easy answers. They fit.

But if they're true, why does Enji insist on walking Hawks to his train, always?

"What?" Enji finally stops next to him, fists at his side, clenched like he's holding tight to his secrets. He peers around the train station. Hawks quirks his head back.

"I think you like watching me go."

Enji makes a little noise of disapproval, giving Hawks a side glance that could mean anything and everything. It's hard to get a read on him in private, let alone in the open space of a train station, surrounded by voices and stares of recognition. They're a spectacle together. The sight of the top two is enough to make everyone a little starstruck - and number two isn't immune to the sight of that fiery beard either.

Though after so long, Hawks is an expert at ignoring everything but what he wants. Wants badly. He blinks at Enji slowly, like he's about to ask for a favor and then tease out a yes afterward.

"Say you'll miss me?"

"I'm not saying that," Enji refuses, but all the while he's stepping closer. The liar. Hawks' mouth twitches in the sort of guilty smile that only follows little crimes, like taunting the number one hero, like pushing his buttons in public to make him squirm - and leaving a feather for him to see, front and center on his office desk.

He'll find it and loathe it like he's never hated anything else.

He'll love it.

Hawks sways on the balls of his feet, shoves both hands in his jacket pockets, looking to Enji again. He fiddles with their contents as he pushes back, "Say a goodbye, then."

"You'll be back in a week."

"Or maybe you'll finally scare me away, number one," Hawks replies, but he's a liar too; he smiles through it, and when Enji presses his mouth in a line it's because he's smiling back in a way. Like everything else, it's just under the surface. He's gotten closer now. It feels like breath of air when Enji says,"Hawks."

No one could say his name that way. It feels as warm as it sounds, weightless, perfected. Hawks tilts his head again as if to say What, but any innocence he tries to give is lost and devoured in his grin. He makes sure to use the hero's name when he says back. "Endeavor." Endeavor. It's as foreign as calling him Todoroki, and he can see Enji's eyebrows furrow stubbornly.

"You're unbearable."

Hawks laughs and tucks his wings tight to his back. From his pocket he pulls a paper cigarette that he'd rolled himself, sticks it right inbetween his smile to answer, "You seem to manage just fine."

Enji grunts in dismissal and throws a hard look at the cigarette. "There's nothing in it," Hawks shrugs convincingly. Enji can't seem to tell if he's joking. He's glancing at something behind him, then, and Hawks finds the time from a clock on the wall. Train's almost here. Enji must feel it too. He's watching as Hawks bites the rolled paper, looking back, waiting patiently for his very first goodbye.

Instead, Enji looms over him. Doesn't say a word. He raises his hand to cup Hawks' chin and holds it there, holds his gaze like nothing is so important. His thumb traces down his jaw and just brushes his bottom lip. Hawks can barely keep a straight face. He flinches to realize how hot both their skin is, and sees why when Enji moves to light the end of his cigarette. It's a small flame carefully pinched between his fingers - Hawks didn't even have to say please.

The tip of the cigarette catches and furls red hot to black, and they're alone together in this one moment as the smoke rises. It doesn't last. Even with his wings pulled in there are people gawking, and Hawks can't move closer like he wants to. He can't do anything he wants to. He lets Enji's large hand fall, untouched like a tragedy, and takes the first puff because it's the only thing he can do. Hawks doesn't get a goodbye from Enji; it'd be more concerning if he did.

With a minute to spare, he blows an excessive cloud of smoke and walks right through it, pushing past the dividing metal bar to catch his train. The breaks screech on the track and ask to take a week away from him, away from Enji. Hawks can only keep his one day.

He started liking patrols, when for years they'd been his least favorite thing; isn't it funny?

Hawks pulls the cigarette from his mouth and turns around, walking backward with his wings open again, just enough. A little flutter. Enji is still standing there on the other side with his frown that's anything but a frown - and Hawks only has to see it to start beaming.

Thirty seconds before the train leaves and Enji finally calls out his secret, in disguise.

"You're going to miss it, Hawks."

## Afterword

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