Strength doesn't make a hero

Chapter 2.2

The mother looked up, a sincere look in her eyes. "Thank you, Hawks. So much. I owe you so much. You saved my daughters life." She bowed, holding Kohana a little tighter to her body.

A little bit embarrassed, Keigo scratched his neck. Somehow he had adapted this habit from Izuku. "Don't worry, it's my job. No need to thank me."

"But you still saved her, didn't you?" The woman let her daughter down and bowed again, gesturing for her daughter to do the same. After a moment she straightened up again and looked into his golden eyes. "So thank you so much."

"Like I said, no problem. I know how you must have felt. I have a fledgling on my own, and I didn't know what I would do if someone threatened my fledgling's life like this." Hawks smiled brightly, mumbling under his breath: "I would probably kill them."

"What was that?" The woman asked curiously.

"Nothing." He tried his best to cover his obvious lie with a laugh.

The woman luckily was polite enough to discreetly ignore it. "So the rumor about you having a child is true?" After a second of silence she continued. "I didn't know you were married or something like that." She sounded a bit disappointed.

"Well I'm not," Keigo retorted, feeling slightly uneasy. He hadn't yet thought about how to handle the reporters and everyone. "I'm not," he repeated in lieu of something else to say, before he started rambling. "It's a long story, and I would love to tell you more about it, but look at the time, it's getting late. Hero work and so on. I should really get going now, but it was a pleasure to meet you. Make sure to check your daughter by the paramedics. And maybe consider going to a therapist with her, but I have to leave now," he said, already turning to go. "Uhh... Goodbye?"

Before the woman could answer he flew away. He hated when fans wanted to know more about his private live – or wanted to flirt with him.

He flew over to Tsukauchi and gave a quick mandatory statement. Shortly after, he left the crime scene and flew back to his agency to write the report.

When he finally arrived at his agency, what he really wanted to do was nothing more than to lie on the couch and sleep. But he couldn't. He still had to write this stupid report.

So he sat down at his chair with a sigh and opened his laptop. Before he could turn it on, though, his new sidekick, Silver Beak, stormed into his office.

He just graduated from Shiketsu High. His quirk was literally a silver beak, so his hero name was kind of uncreative, but Keigo preferred to have people with bird quirks in his agency.

Keigo was about to ask what's wrong, but Silver Beak spoke up before he was able to. "Hawks-sama. I'm so sorr-"

Keigo sighed and interrupted him. "How many times do I have to tell you to drop the formalities? Use -san or, even better, drop it completely like everyone else around here."

"Okay, Hawks-san." Keigo couldn't help but shake his head. "So, I'm so-"

Keigo interrupted him another time. "You don't have to apologize for everything. It's fine. Now breath and then tell me what's going on."

After a few seconds the sidekick was able to calm down and continued. "Well your son, you know, brown wings, green eyes and hair and fre-"

Keigo didn't know if he should laugh aloud or facepalm. "You know, I was surprised myself, but, apparently, I know how my son looks like."

"Right, I'm sorry. Well, what I mean is that he is in a villain attack right now and that he is on TV."

"WHAT?!" Keigo screamed at the now intimidated sidekick. "Why didn't you say that right away?"