Flea

Chapter Seventy One

In no time at all, they had set up an autograph station on Maeve's coffee table complete with different coloured markers and a coffee each. Hawks had hovered (metaphorically) while Maeve struggled with the instant sachets until her incompetence was too much for him to handle. The winged man actually made use of the coffee maker which had been gathering dust. Maeve powered through so much caffeine in a day she quickly lost patience with any form of quality.

Having spent the majority of time with him in open spaces, Maeve never saw his wings as a potential liability indoors. Hawks' heightened senses meant he knocked over less than he could have, but in tight quarters, the hero sent any oddities on countertops flying with flustered apologies. There was grace in the fumbling, however, as everything was caught by crimson feathers before it could smash against the floor. 

He seemed to find her temporary laboratory in the kitchen and office amusingly impressive. Considering her students, colleagues, and certain late night guests found the replacement of snacks with human remains upsetting to say the least she took that as a plus.

When he and Strawberry ran into each other, they both froze. Strawberry immediately dropped down on her haunches, and Maeve swore Hawks' plumage fluffed up slightly. His smile came out as a pearly grimace when the cat began inching forwards in a manner similar to stalking. No, not just similar to...

"Hey, furball. Just passing through," he gritted through his teeth before Strawberry took off in a similar manner to a fighter jet. Her target clearly being his face. Feathers caught her mid-air, but to the kitten's credit, she continued with valiant attempts to swipe him and wriggled around so that it almost looked as if he was catching a fish. Maeve's stomach took a swoop along with the feline when the ginger wormed her way out of scarlet clutches and dropped within a foot of the floor before being caught again.

"Sorry, cats and I don't really get along- Is it okay if I put them outside? I don't want to hurt them..."

With a nod from Maeve, feathers immediately swung open the front door, deposited the cat on the front step, and slammed it shut. Hawks crouched down, his wings brushing the floor behind him, as Strawberry spat at him with fur standing on end. Maeve thought he had new shadows in his face compared to a couple days ago, although it could just be the stubble.

"Always been like that. On street patrols I'm like a magnet, they can't help themselves."

"And what are the cats like?" Maeve asked with a wry smile. Hawks shot her a look, but even with the raptor-like shape of his eyes it wasn't particularly intimidating.

"I wouldn't worry about it, she attacks any strangers with a Y in their chromosomes. A bit misandrist, but then again, so am I at the moment. Shall we get down to business?"

They both took a seat on the couch, Hawks draping his wings over the back, and quickly set up a production line of two. He would sign photos with individual names he'd found from class lists around her apartment and Maeve would vandalise them with gusto. For Bakugo's, he gave several diagrams in the modelling shot of how they'd made him appear taller.

In the week leading up to her pregnancy test, Maeve hated that she'd begun to associate the sitting room with Dabi. Especially the couch, which the villain would often lie on for hours scribbling in his 'gnarly notebook,' as she described it.

It was a reminder of how insidiously the villain had pervaded her life. She couldn't help but compare Hawks' easy smile, the small fluttering of his eyelashes and feathers, to wry intensity that made her often feel physically sick. Dabi hadn't 'visited' her since the incident, which she felt grateful for, and then infuriated that she was fucking grateful to the villain for anything.