Birds of a Feather Collection

Love at First Crash

—A movie night gets crashed by a little birdie.

Winter.

Not exactly your favorite month. It brought clustered streets and either satisfied or disgruntled people due to the holiday rush. Then again, it wasn't your least favorite either. Winter set a good weather for idling around and drinking a nice warm beverage.

And tonight, just like every other night since the nights became cooler, you sat outside in the balcony just over your room. Having the attic-turned-bedroom as your main abode had its perks. The added space outside being one of them. You made it your own not much longer after you moved it and with it having an outlet, it gave you the liberty to do whatever you wanted up there. Like watching a movie on your laptop out in the open with only a light blanket for cover.

Though you're sure it'd be better with company.

The thought brought a heavy sigh out of you as you snuggled further into the soft fleece for comfort. True, you weren't the most social of butterflies but that didn't mean you completely hated interacting with others. It was kind of a bummer that you rarely got invites from coworkers to go to outings; even rarer the times when your few close friends would go out. Most if not all were shuts-in like you, so those times seldom came.

Which, in the end, left you alone on your balcony, out in the open, to watch the first movie you found streaming: a scary one. Not your first choice, but since you knew that if you decided to search for another, you'd most likely spend the rest of the night doing that. So you just let it play.

Perhaps not the best of ideas when you started hearings things out of nowhere. At first you thought them to be from the movie until you paused it and realized they weren't. They weren't even from below. They were coming from above. It was just as you looked skyward that something big and brightly colored crashed onto your balcony. A petrified screech escaped you as you dashed out of your seat and scurried down the skylight into the haven of your room, laptop and fleece blanket forgotten. Heart beating a mile a second, you let it calm down and tried to assess exactly what happened.

Something fucking crashed on my balcony.

Something big. Something brightly colored. And it was still scurrying overhead. Braving a peek through your skylight while being at the ready if things went south, you spotted it. Whatever it was.

No, not whatever. Whoever. A person had crash landed on your balcony and laid there, moaning and groaning in apparent discomfort, in a heap of limbs...and what looked like wings.

Bright red wings.

Recognition struck you like a ton of bricks but what spurn you to action and back out into the open space of your balcony was that, aside from the red of his wings, the vibrant color also marred his face and parts of his clothes. Running out, tripping a little and catching yourself as you went, you reached the Winged Hero, Hawks, and skidded to a stop next to him. He groaned under his breath as you turned him to see his injuries better. It was then that you finally saw his amber eyes gazing shocked back at you.

For a moment neither of you spoke, bewilderment rushing through you at the ridiculous circumstances. That quickly went away, though, when you saw him holding his side as the spot darkened, what looked to be blood seepeing through his undershirt. Blinking away your disbelief, you instantly ran back to the blanket you'd been using and brought it back to wrap around him.

Hawks let out a cough that choked him a little as his amber eyes searched you for a moment. "What are you-"

"Don't talk. And don't move either."

First aid-thinking for a second, you remember seeing it in the kitchen. You quicky let him know you'll be back before storming down the skylight again. Through a rush, you pick up the kit, some clean bandages, and a bag of ice before coming back up. He thankfully listened to you, if because he actually minded your words or because he couldnt move was up in the air. Frankly, you didn't care to knwo.

Before you even tried reaching out to him, you looked him straight in the eye to make sure he was okay with it. "I'm going to see to your wounds now, alright?"

Leaving no room for him to say no, Hawks simply nodded and let you take his hand away from the biggest wound on his side. Something had cut through fabric and skin. Something thin and small that seemed to just graze him. Bullet or knife were your best bets. As you prepared a gauze with alcohol, you talked him through what you were doing just so he wouldn't freak out. You knew it was likely not needed-him being a hero and all, he surely got many injuries every other week-but you could't help it. As a nurse working in the ER, appeasing patients was something that came as naturally as breathing did. This wasn't quite Kyushu's hospital but a patient was a patient all the same.

Thankfully, it didn't look too deep. Doubted stitches would be necessady. really. While disinfecting it though, you hear him hiss a little and turned up to make sure everything was alright with him. Hawks only let out a nervous chuckle that he tried hiding behind a mildly dirty collar.

"It's okay to tell me if it hurts." The wound was quite large after all. More than what a single bandaid would cover anyway. And guessing by the rest of his injuries, he had plenty to be complaining about.

"The alcohol stung is all." Amber eyes stayed on your hands as you pressed several pieces of gauze onto his side to cover the wound after daubing it with some antiseptic. It's after asking him to hold his shirt up so you can wrap some bandages over it that he perks up more. "You're awfully calm for someone who just saw me fall onto your balcony. Things crash land on you often?"

The way he put it gets a chuckle out of you but you quickly clear your throat to focus back on the task at hand. "No, they don't, but I've seen stranger things in the ER."

"You a doctor?"

"Nurse."

"That's why you're so gentle."

The comment, despite being said so low under his breath, is loud enough for you to hear, and it throws you off for a good moment. "Excuse me?"

"I didn't mean it in a bad way," he immediately retorted.

"In what way then?"

"Well." His voice drawls on muffled by the collar of his jacket as he averts his gaze. "Most doctors here are just kinda dicks and your beeing gentle kinda gave me a hint that you weren't one."

You didn't fault him on that. Though you couldn't speak for other hospitals or clinics in Kyushu, your workplace was rather filled to the brim with stuck-up doctors. There were exceptions but the fact that there were any at all spoke to the problem itself. Usually, they would shove their work onto the nurses and spent their shift goodness knew what; you'd certainly seen more patients alone than when accompanied by a doctor, though, that was for sure.

"I suppose so," you muttered under your breath. Seeing as you were done with what looked to be the most pressing of injuries, you gave him one last look over before meeting his gaze that hadn't torn away from you the whole time you thought of a reply. "Where you chasing a villain?"

"Late night chase." His hand reached down to touch the bandages but you quickly smack it away, telling him not to. "It didn't last long though. I was on my way to the hospital, actually, but I guess I fell asleep on my way there."

"You guess? Isn't that dangerous?"

"Very," it amazed you that he somehow managed to say that with a toothy, lopsided grin. "Guess I'm lucky that my guardian angel knows how to treat injuries."

Though too cheesy for your liking, you couldn't help the bubbly chuckle it brought out of you. "You say that to every girl whose balcony you crash on?"

"You're lucky number one, sweatheart!"

It simply amazed you how nonchalant he was about just having crashed landed from exhaustion, especaly with those injuries.

"Your injuries aren't so bad aside from the one on your side, so you should be okay. Maybe you should hang the wings for the night, though, and consider going home on foot, Mr. No.2 hero. Wouldn't want you crashing again."

"Nah, I'm good. Flying's faster, anyway." He stood with a flourish, his massive crimson wings spreading out as he turned to the ledge of your balcony and readied to take flight.

Unable to believe just how stubborn he was, you instinctively snatched onto his wings and saw his whole body jerk in reponse to the aggressive touch. "Let me give you a ride then. I'd hate to hear in the morning news that you crashed again and hurt yourself more or, godforbid, you hurt others."

"How little confidence you have in me," he countered with a mild pout.

"With good reason," you readily replied. "Now stop being such a stubborn parrot and accept the damn lift."

Hawks mulled over the offer for a few minutes before his wings finally folded back to neatly tuck behind him. He flashed you a grin before nodding. "Alright, you win, angel. You get to take me home from our first date. How romantic, huh?"

"Very," you couldn't have said that with anymore sarcasm lacing your voice had you actually tried. "I'll get my car from out back so just wait out front. You think you can do that without hurting yourself?"

Hawks gave off a silly two finger salute with that shit-eating grin on his face. "Aye, aye, cap'n." His wings unfurled before you could notice, though, and he jumped off before you had a chance to stop him. Instead of the graceful drop you hoped for, Hawks barely landed on his feet, slipping a bit on the slightly iced sidewalks.

When he turned up to give you a thumbs up you couldn't help but heave a sigh of mixed relieve and exasperation. "I meant wait out front through the door, you bird brain!"

"Too slow! And if you don't hurry, I might just take off home too!

Feeling he wasn't kidding around, you rushed down into your apartment, taking your keys as you put on some slip on shoes, and hurried down the flight of stairs to get to your car in the garage. But as you waited for the garage door to open, you couldn't help but lightly slam your forehead against your steering wheel.

Your quiet movie night had turned to such craziness so fast that you could hardly believe it. But as you saw Hawks waving at you from your rearview mirror, one single thought formed along with the amused, lopsided smile on your lips.

Well, at least this is better than a dumb, scary movie.