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It was supposed to be an in and out mission. Raid the base, hack the mainframe, place the explosives.
Fifteen minutes top.
If there hadn’t been an armed guard sitting in front of the mainframe door he wouldn’t have even found the lab. The woman took him off guard, swinging the barrel of her gun towards him and a bullet popped against the wall. He felt the heat of it against his cheek as he narrowly avoided it, tackling her down the steps. As he subdued her, arm wrapped around her throat, his back rested on a white door. It stood out starkly against the concrete walls around them and as she finally went limp, Jack couldn’t help but investigate, his gun drawn and at the ready.
It smelled heavily of antiseptic, which temporarily transported Jack back to his long stint in the hospital after an IED threw his scout vehicle off the road back when he was in the army. He shook it off, eyes scanning the space for any enemies. There were x-rays pinned up, lining the walls and Jack approached one, face screwed up in confusion. Every agent was trained in basic first aid and part of that was recognizing various bones in the bodies to help locate breaks. This particular bone was easy to recognize, a rib cage with the darkened imprint of lungs but they were drastically larger than they should have been. The bones themselves were strange as well, lighter in the middle like there wasn’t actually any bone there.
Jack’s eyes shifted down the line until he wasn’t sure what he was looking at.
Something clattered behind him and he spun around, edging around the circular desk space that was, unsurprisingly, cleared of all documents. They weren’t there for whatever this was but Hydra was well known for their human experimentation, voluntary and...not quite so.
Jack saw the wings first, cocooned around whatever they belonged to but crammed into a crate that was far, far too small. They were a mix of browns and grays and too big to belong to a bird.
Jack stowed away the gun, unsure if it had caused the creature to be frightened or if it was because of the gunfire echoing around the room from outside.
“Hey,” Jack said softly.
The wings trembled a bit but they parted, just a little, but enough for Jack to recognize very human eyes. His mind reeled and his heart began to pound. If he hadn’t realized this creature...this person...was here, he would have reduced this place to ruble. The guilt was sharp and well deserved even though it wasn’t his job to map out who was in the building.
“Can...can you speak?”
“The whitecoats are gone, aren’t they.” the voice was clearly male but eerily flat and defeated. “They left me here.”
Jack didn’t know what to say. He was torn between wanting to reassure him that no, they hadn’t really left him and confirming that yes, they were gone.
“I’m going to get you out of here.”
The wings parted a bit again, feathers catching on the crate sides in a way that must have hurt but the young man didn’t seem to mind. He exposed a bit more of his face, letting Jack have a proper look at him. He had a very sharp jawline and brown hair, just darker than his eyes.
“You’ll let me out?” he asked incredulously.
Jack nodded his head, reaching for the latch. It was on the top, out of reach due to the hard plastic top of the cage. When he opened the door he expected the man to rush him or at least book it away from him but if anything he looked more afraid.
“What kind of experiments are you going to do to me?”
He shouldn’t have been surprised and he wasn’t really, but the anger he felt was sharp and poignant. “None.”
The guy crawled forward before he finally straightened up. He was almost as tall as Jack, but slender wearing a hospital gown. He stretched out his wings and Jack could only gawk at the wingspan. It had to be at least sixteen feet and the underside of his wings were shockingly pale, a creamy sort of color. “I… Did Hydra do this to you?”
The man cocked his head to the side like he didn’t understand. Jack rephrased, “The, uh, the scientists. Did they do this to you?”
“I was born like this in a lab.” Brock nodded at the room. “The whitecoats studied me.”
Jackson’s voice came through his comm and he turned away from the winged man to say that he needed more time. There was a hesitation on Jackson’s end before he confirmed.
“I need you to come with me.” Jack still had a job to do and he didn’t have the time to run topside and deposit him with another agent. “Is that okay?”
The guy seemed to ponder it, eyes roaming around the room before they settle on Jack. “Okay.”
•• •• •• ••
Brock spread his flight feathers, angling himself as he banked sharply around the side of the house. He landed almost silently on the porch, folding in his wings. He carefully eased open the sliding door, intent on slipping right back into bed before Jack even noticed he had left.
He carefully slid back into his spot and got himself situated. In the two years together Brock had found his way in a world built for people without wings. Which made sense because people weren’t meant to have them to begin with. One wing folded slowly over the sleeping body of Jack and the other draped down to the floor as Brock settled on his side.
“I was wondering when you’d be back,” Jack said sleepily.
“Sorry.” Brock shifted a bit, tightening his wing around Jack a bit.
“You’re having the dreams again.”
It wasn’t a question, it was a statement. And, to Brock dismay, it was true.
“Guess I am,” Brock agreed. “It’s not a big deal.”
It was a big deal but Brock hated that it was. He was safe; those years spent surrounded by the walls of a crate, a lab subject to be poked and prodded at, were over.
He was safe because this man, his Jack, had found him and swore that no one would ever put him in a crate again.
And so far, he’d kept that promise.
“I wish there was more I could do for you.” Jack rolled over to face him, green eyes sleepy but concerned. He rested his forehead against Brock’s. “Shield can get you a therapist you know. Someone you can talk to — ”
“No.”
Brock didn’t want a doctor. Never again would he face someone with a whitecoat, someone who’d want to dissect him to see how he worked, someone who was itching to draw endless vials of blood and touch his wings.
Jack insisted they were good people and Brock knew that they probably were but he couldn’t, no matter what Jack said.
“Even if it’s over a webcam?”
“Even if it’s over the webcam.” Brock said bitterly. “There’s no magic fix for dreams, Jack. They’ll go away eventually.”
Jack sighed quietly and pressed a chaste kissing to his lips. “If you insist.”
“I insist.”
They settled back in, Jack rolling over and shifting back until Brock’s front was flush with his back. As he drifted it out he toyed with Brock’s feathers, zipping a few of them for him. Learning to take care of his wings had been a strange experience for the both of them. Jack had helped to the best of his ability as Brock tried to make up for years without proper care.
Jack had panicked when Brock’s feathers began to fall out and for an hour or two Brock fed into the hysteria before admitting that he was just molting. Jack was a good sport and was always eager to help when it came to tending his sixteen foot wingspan and his ravenous hunger.
But it was more than Jack helping him with his wings. He taught Brock how to be a person. With a trench coat Brock was free to go places, to be properly free since he was rescued from the lab in a base owned by an organization called Hydra.
On Brock’s very first outing they went to the library where Brock marveled at the rows of books while Jack returned a small stack of his own. Afterward they went to a diner and sat at the counter because they had stools. Brock had his very first plate of fried chicken and waffles — and ordered two more and a strawberry milkshake.
Sometimes he wished he was normal. Well, he often wished he was normal. He spent the days wandering the woods while Jack was away and sometimes he was alone for days at a time when he was on missions. A strange nagging fear always stayed with him. What if the whitecoats found him again? Or worse, what if Jack rescued a different specimen and decided he liked them better?
On TV he saw couples going out together to movies but Brock wasn’t sure he could cram his wings into the seats he saw and that made him wish he could just cut them off and be normal instead of a feathery freak.
But then Jack came home and no matter how dirty or sweaty or bloody he was, Brock would hug him and Jack always hugged him back, even with his wings making it difficult.
•• •• •• ••
“So he really is a bird man.” Jack stared through the double glass where the said bird man was sitting.
“That’s an oversimplification,” the scientist replied. “He has avian DNA.”
“Huh.” Jack wasn’t too sure what else to say.
“It’s actually amazing. This kind of genetic binding is...far beyond our time.”
Jack wasn’t impressed in the slightest by what the Hydra scientists had done to him. But, if he were to be completely honest, he had to agree that this man was amazing. His wings were an array of colors. The primary feathers were silvery in color, the secondaries were a smoky gray, and the contour feathers were tawny and dappled with white splotches. They were, for lack of a better word, beautiful.
“He has porous bones so he must be capable of flight. His wings are healthy but they’ve been cut.”
“What?” Jack jerked out of his stupor. “Is that permanent?”
The idea of a creature like this being unable to leave the ground the way he was so clearly meant to, was sickening.
“Goodness no. The cut feathers will eventually fall out and new ones will take its place. The real question now is what to do with him.” the scientist frowned at the man. “It would be a shame to make him stay on base here for the rest of his life. He’s had far too much time being studied and treated like a specimen.”
“Well I live out of the city. I have an extra bedroom.” Jack didn’t intend on saying that, it just sort of tumbled out of his mouth.
The scientist was a quiet a moment and Jack could feel his eyes on him.
“I’ll run it by my superiors. He’s healthy enough to be released, pending he comes in for an annual check up. He wouldn’t be able to go to a normal physician you see.”
Jack nodded his head. “I can do that.”
•• •• •• ••
Brock hated having wet feathers.
The idea of being waterlogged and unable to fly if needed made panic creep up his spine. He did his best to dry them when he got out, mostly to avoid leaving puddles of water behind him on Jack’s floor.
Their floor, Brock reminded himself. Jack always reminded him that this was his home as much as it was Jack’s.
Jack was away already, heading off on another classified mission. That wasn’t anything unusual. Brock spent his morning wandering the seemingly endless property, pausing by the little natural pond to drop peas in the water. The fish were always eager to eat them and Brock was just happy to be free, truly free, in a place like this.
The fresh air helped dry his wings faster and the earlier he made it to the pond the higher the chance to catch sight of the family of ducks living in the reeds. It was always interesting to see them, animals that were actually meant to fly and it was through them that Brock taught himself to fly.
He learned that he could move his feather, though it was a laborious process to learn, but he found he was able to angle and spread his flight feathers to have more control when flying. At first Brock had just wanted to see if he could do it. But when he showed it to Jack he saw the amazement in his eyes and his new goal was to impress him.
The ducks had left the reeds and were in the pond, mom tail up and the ducklings clustered around her. Brock kneeled with the baggy of peas. He tossed a few near them and the ducklings immediately swam over, curious, before they began to gobble them up.
It was a good way to spend a morning when Brock was alone even if he wished he had the oil they did so his feathers wouldn’t get wet. He stretched out his wings in hopes of them drying faster. When the mother surfaced she quickly corralled her babies back to the reeds and Brock got back to feeding the fish.
When the baggy was empty and his wings only a bit damp Brock found his way back to the two story house. There was a garage beside it, with Jack’s tool bench and his motorcycle. The only time Brock was in there was when Jack was working on his motorcycle. It was nice to sit and talk.
Jack had built the porch off their room for Brock. Ground take offs were still a work in progress but Jack never pressured Brock about it. He never even pushed Brock to learn to fly either, it had always been his choice.
Lunch was lonely but he went upstairs intent on stretching his wings properly. The sun was warm on his skin as he stepped into the porch, stretching out his wings. The sun felt nice on the cream plumage inside his wings. With a breeze brushing against his face, he tipped forward.
Air rushed through his feathers as he pushed down in one mighty stroke. He rose rapidly, banking once he crested the roof. Sometimes he sat on the roof to catch his breath — flying was, after all, a full body workout. It felt nice to stretch his muscles and he knew once he got high enough he could ride the air currents.
It didn’t take long to find out strong enough to carry him and he glided above the treetops. Wind rushed in his ears and hair, the sensation of being weightless was incomparable to anything Brock could think of. After he felt properly warmed up, he angled his body downwards and tucked in his wings.
The way the ground rushed up at him was a thrill of adrenaline and in the very last minute he snapped open his wings and was yanked upwards. A robin flying beneath him accepted his presence after a moment of evaluation. Birds rarely flew away from Brock. It seemed the wings made them consider him to be a particularly weird one of them. Sometimes Brock thought that was accurate.
When he touched back down, he stumbled a bit. Landings were much harder than they sounded.
As Brock crawled into bed that night he looked wistfully at where Jack should have been laying. He missed him enough that it hurt; and it was only the first day.
•• •• •• ••
Coming home to Brock was the highlight of Jack’s day. And after a three day stint in Columbia it was even better.
As soon as he parked the truck Brock was standing in the driveway, chest bare because finding a shirt that could accommodate his wings was too much of a hassle and, well, Jack couldn’t complain with the way he looked. He was tall and slender. For him to support such a massive wingspan, and to be able to actually use them for flight, he had very toned pecs and holding his body straight while flying had toned and sculpted his abdomen into perfect ridges.
But what Jack liked most about Brock wasn’t his peculiar appendages or his muscular body, those were simply a cherry on top of the bravest, smartest, most resilient man Jack had the honor of knowing. To be friends with him was a dream, but being able to call Brock his...that was a fantasy.
Brock melted against him, uncaring of the dirt under his nails and the smear of blood on his cheek from shrapnel grazing him. Brock’s head fit perfectly under his chin and Jack hugged him back the best he could with his duffel over his shoulder.
“Hi.” Brock mumbled against his chest.
“Hi yourself.”
While Jack showered, Brock perched himself on the bathroom sink and talked about what he had been up to. His landings were improving, Brock told him with a proud tone to his voice. Jack thought Brock had every right to be proud of that because no other person in the world could claim such a feat.
“Also we need more peas.”
Jack was well aware of where the bags of frozen peas kept going but he didn’t mind. During dinner Brock talked to him about the ducklings’ progress and how the mother duck still didn’t trust him yet but he wasn’t going to give up hope. Jack was glad that Brock found some sort of stimulation being cooped up while he was away.
They went on infrequent outings when Brock got too stir crazy. Mostly to the local diner but Brock never seemed to get bored of it. He was steadily eating his way through the entire menu. The waitress, Tish, who was always working had accepted that Brock consumed three times the amount of food a normal person did but she never questioned it. And she always gave them free pie at the end of the night.
As they sat down to watch TV, Brock’s right wing curled around Jack’s shoulder. It was hard to cuddle without his wings to be involved and they were at times awkward to work around, but Jack had quickly adjusted. Although being the little spoon took a lot of adjustment.
Brock rested his head on Jack’s shoulder. “Thank you.”
Jack shifted a bit, confused. “For what?”
“For saving me.”
Jack squeezed his side. “I think you might have saved me, actually.”