FicWad

You thought being a news reporter would be easy. A breeze, with your Lie Detector quirk. But you had to catch a big break in order to actually achieve anything, and nothing has seemed to fall into place for you. Only small news, small pro heroes to interview.

Until, finally, you came across Endeavor and Hawks. Since Hawks was your absolute favorite pro, you knew he must've been ecstatic to be working next to the big man. You remember his early days, eighteen and a fresh face in the hero society. He was pretty much the same as he is now. Goofy and laidback, but still with a solemn touch. He had some layers to him, and he was good at what he did. And fast at it, too. And in one of his very first debuts as a hero, he explained his goal, and his idol. Enji Todoroki. You didn't particularly like the man for his cold demeanor, but he was your idol's idol. Apparently, he was ambitious. You waltzed up to them, eyes filled with that fangirl curiosity, as you finally got your turn in the crowd.

"Hello there, number one and two!!!" You smile, wide. "I'm a small news reporter, and I was wondering if you'd maybe want to be interviewed? I have sooo many questions!" Hawks shakes your hand with a smile.
Endeavor frowns. "No, thank-"

"Of course!" Hawks smiles. Before signalling to Endeavor to get down to his rather small level. He whispers something in his ear, something you can't make out. You really hate how your Quirk won't be able to coerce them into telling truths, just distinguishing their statements into facts and lies.

You blink. Fuck, you weren't prepared for this at all. You searched your pockets for your voice recorder, coming up empty-handed, but luckily finding your pen and pad.

"Hey, we should probably do this at a place we can sit down. Shall we head to the restaurant we planned on going to, Endeavor-san?" He points to the tallest building in a five mile radius, to the top. That's… one of the best restaurants in Kyushu. You gulp. It's okay. You don't have to order anything, anyways. And it wasn't like you were terrified of heights. Noooo, not at all.

They walk off, giving photos to people as they pass, but soon after you follow with light, tentative steps, you arrive with them. Hands clasped together in front of you, your fingers fidget, nervous. You're lucky you wore your contacts today.

Elevated so far up, you scratch at your neck. The three of you step into the restaurant, and are seated. You brush past Endeavor as he sits, bumping arms. Perfect. You apologize, voice small, before sitting down. Hawks scoots in next to him, and you bring out your pen and pad again.

"Would you prefer I ask you both at the same time, or…?"

"You have personalized questions?" Endeavor raises a skeptical brow, and you flush.

"To be fair, I didn't expect to run into both of you in Kyushu, but I have specified questions for all the top heroes."

"Then you should probably do us one at a time, eh Endeavor?" Hawks nudges him with a smirk, and the top hero glares down at the bird.

"I'll go first then."

And so you activate your Quirk on him, colored contacts hiding the red and green switching.

"You don't have to answer anything you don't want to, or you can lie for all I care…" You click your pen.

You go through a series of questions you had practically memorized for Endeavor, mostly surrounding his mysterious family. A mentally ill wife, a dead oldest son, a youngest son with a scar that came out of nowhere when he was five? Not to mention the two middles being almost entirely out of the picture. Not literally, of course. Every family picture included them. But they seemed so stiff.

But everything he said turned out to be lies. Every heartwarming feeling that came with family. Except… No… All of his hidden secrets of being cold hearted towards his family seemed past tense. He seemed to genuinely care about them, now at least. You suspect abuse in his past, and your mind flickers to your own experiences with that. Mortified, and mostly biased, your heart constricts as you consider confronting him then and there.

But then he frowns, looking at the empty table space in front of you. "I figured you wouldn't order anything, but you didn't even get something to drink?" He signals to a waitress and looks at you with expectant, fire blue eyes. "What do you want?"

Hawks smiles. "Wow, Endeavor-san~ Didn't peg you to be the considerate type."

"Shut up, Hawks."

"Ah, um. Water's fine," you murmur.

"Come on, kid, Endeavor's paying. You can afford to be a little bit pricey." Your face twitches in annoyance. You were a solid six years older than him, and you felt a strong urge to point it out.

"I said, water's fine. And I'm twenty-nine, so don't call me kid."

"Ooh, snarky~ Liking that, little miss reporter."

Endeavor seems set on ignoring your banter, ordering you water, and you turn back to him, for one last question. "If you could go back and fix one mistake or regret, what would it be?"

He frowns, his fingers curling up on the table. "I would've made more time for my family, treated them better. I was so ambitiously focused and buried myself in my hero work. I want to make up for that now, more than anything. I already promised my youngest that I'd be a number one hero he could be proud of." Truth. All of it. Your heart thrums in your ears. Can abuse be forgiven? Can abusers really change? Those thoughts play on repeat in your head. You decide to move on to Hawks.

That's when a Nomu comes crashing through the window. You duck, but still get grazed by flying glass. Luckily, it’s just a shallow cut on your upper arm. Immediately the two heroes are called to action.

The Nomu… speaks? Yes, it's going on about wanting to fight the strongest person around. Endeavor punches it. "Yours truly is right here in front of you. Let's take this outside." He uses his flames to float outside the window, smirking. Before telling Hawks to evacuate the building. A feather grabs onto your shirts and carries you out the window, along with many others. You know you're pretty much safe, as he sets you down on the ground. And you watch the fight going on up above.

It's havoc and chaos, but just when people begin to lose hope, a kid… That kid who admires Endeavor so much and wanted his autograph moments earlier, shouts at the news reporters in earnest. Telling them he's trying his best to keep everyone safe, and how we should be rooting for him.

That was the turning point of the fight. The Nomu was decimated far up into the sky due to Endeavor's strong hellfire. He plummets to the ground, and you feel your heart constrict once more. Fortunately, Hawks catches him with the last of his feathers ⁠— most of them were incinerated in the fight. Endeavor stands, a clenched fist raised to signal his victory. The crowd and practically all of Japan roar and cheer for him. You're silent, on the contrary, still stuck on his secret past.

You stare at him as he continues down the road. Only to be confronted by Dabi, an LOV member. He's already so beat up and bloodied; so is Hawks. You feel frozen as Dabi confines them both in a wall of blue flames.

Luckily, Miruko steps in to save the day, scaring Dabi off. One water hero later, and the fire clears. So does the smoke. Endeavor collapses, worn. You clutch your pencil and pad tight tight in your pocket, and walk off as the crowd storms them, concerned and excited. You feel a certain gold-eyed gaze plastered to your back as you leave. Moments ago you'd seemed ecstatic to meet them ⁠— now you were leaving them without a word? Of course he's suspicious of you.

You fall onto your couch with a sigh. Do you tell your boss about this? He barely believes the extent of your Quirk as it is, and certainly wouldn't promote you or your story on a hunch. You seriously need a drink, but you're also too exhausted to go to a bar. Cheap alc from the minifridge it is, then.

Hours of alcohol later, your doorbell rings. Who could that be? In your groggy mind you find the strength to stand and open the front door of your one bedroom apartment, revealing a certain number two hero at your doorstep. You immediately step back, startled, and trip backwards over literal air. He catches you with one small feather, looking at you in silence. He breaks it when he manages to upright you, locking eyes with you. "I thought your eyes were (e/c)." Ah, yes, the contacts. You glance over to where they rest on the coffee table in their case. He has one rather long feather attached to what's left of his wings.

"Well, I thought you only had small feathers left, but we were both wrong."

"Yeah, well, if I'm in a rush they grow back pretty quickly. Your eyes. They're white."

"Yeeeup. It's part of my Quirk."

"Okay then, little miss 'reporter.' What is this Quirk, and what exactly happened during Endeavor's interview?"

Yeesh. You're too wasted to think straight, but you manage to gulp and say something. "Basicallyyy… I'm a human lie detector." You tap his hand and look him in the eyes. "Tell me a fact, and then a lie."

"Um… The sky is blue, and I'm completely straight."

"The second one was a half lie, but you get the point." Your eyes shift from half green, half red, back to white.

"So… you used it on Endeavor."

"Sharp, as expected of you Hawks." You laugh. "Yeah. It was… a lot. He's hiding a lot. But… I'm not going to put anything on the news." You sigh. "All his secrets caught me off guard, but he's a good person, a good hero at the very least, and I don't want to hurt the hero society anymore than it already has been hurt."

"A reporter's word is worth nothing to me, Miss (L/N). You're from a very small news organization with a very low rank. Anything you could possibly have that could shock everyone would promote you instantaneously."

You scoff. "Like anyone would believe me."

"Try me." He sits himself down on your couch, taking his feather back.
You turn, arms crossed. "You love Endeavor. You idolize and admire him. Do you really want to know?"

"Very much so."

You sigh and sit down beside him. "It's his family. He hurt them. I don't know the details, but I do know in his past he didn't care about his family and didn't treat them right."

"Yeah… I already knew that."

"Wh-?"

"I was childhood friends with Touya Todoroki, the dead eldest child. I knew about everything. And while knowing about his past made me prejudiced about him at first, at the very beginning of our friendship he came clean about everything to me, right off the bat."

"He didn't know you and his son were childhood friends?"

He shook his head. "We met in a precarious situation. Even if he did know, he wouldn't think that Touya would've confessed to his friends about everything. But we were also childhood sweethearts, too, so."

"Oh… That's sweet. My condolences."

"It's okay. It's in the past." He stands, smiling. "Okay. You know the truth, and while I'd love to just trust you to keep quiet, I hope you understand that I can't." You nod, almost afraid of whatever he's planning. "That being said, Endeavor needs an intern. Not like, a hero intern. Someone to get him coffee, clean his office. You'd be paid handsomely, and it would be a way for me and Miruko to keep an eye on you. I won't tell him you figured anything out."

You gulp. "And if I refuse, and publish the news anyways?" Not that you wanted to.

"Endeavor's career might get trashed immediately, but I will trash yours as well."

You tug at the collar of your shirt, and nod. "Okay. I'll take the job." He nods and starts walking away to leave. "Wait! What if I accidentally screw up the interview?"

"I'll personally be recommending you to Endeavor, so you won't have to worry about getting the job. You do have to worry about keeping the job, however. You have a week to learn everything there is to being an intern."

Well that would require no effort whatsoever. You'd been an intern for so long in your early twenties. But you supposed it wouldn't hurt to freshen your mind and relearn everything.

And so you do. To say the least, you're more than prepared for the upcoming job.

You arrive at Endeavor's agency, where Hawks is waiting at the front door. You grimace. "Okay… Let's do this."

"Nice outfit."

You were wearing a black pencil skirt and a white button down with a tie over it. You feel as though he's being sarcastic, but hold your tongue. You didn't really have much worth showing off, so you stuck to a simple formal outfit. You walk in with him, and he smiles and waves to all the employees there.

These people are going to be your coworkers, and you smile shyly at them as you pass.

All the way up to the top, you feel sicker and sicker as the elevator lifts you two up. Arriving at the top floor, he leads you down the hall to his office. Okay. You can do this. It's not like your career depends on it, or anything.