Chapter Text
The air was heavy, weighed down by something foreboding and inescapable. It followed Falcon with every step, and he wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. The specific way the feathers on the back of his neck were standing on end was something he had long ago learned not to ignore, but there was something very different about it this time, something distinctly familiar… in a very ominous and faintly irritating sort of way. Falcon rubbed at his tingling skin with a soft growl. With his senses constantly on high alert, he was hardly unaccustomed to feeling like something was amiss, but at the same time he wasn’t sure what was currently causing it, and that was driving him crazy. Once again he glanced over his shoulder, narrowed eyes hunting for whatever potential threat was making his plumage twitch. He tried to shake off the feeling, but it lingered, and he clenched the shopping bags in his right hand just a bit tighter as his left squeezed his concealed handgun.
Sharp talons clicked against the cement as Falcon made his way through the parking garage, following the same path he did every day down the less public portion of the underground lot. It was always dimly lit and hardly the most direct route to his residence, but Falcon preferred the road less traveled. The doorman was far too social for his tastes, and the neighbors were always nosy, spouting endless, relentless drivel that grated mercilessly on his every nerve. Rich socialites with nothing better to do, he supposed.
Falcon grumbled softly to himself as he entered the staff elevator (one of several unexpected perks he had gained from befriending the nighttime maintenance man). He rubbed at the back of his neck in an attempt to alleviate that lingering tingle, but the feeling only grew worse as Falcon exited the lift and made his way swiftly towards his apartment. He looked over his shoulder one final time before stepping inside his home, all the while glaring down the hallway in both directions as if daring that invisible threat to reveal itself. Nothing did of course, but Falcon continued to eye the empty passage suspiciously until the door was fully closed.
A curt sigh greeted the welcome sight of his ever pristine and discerningly adorned residence, but the relief it conveyed was short lived as being inside only seemed to intensify the sensation of unease even more. Just as Falcon was about to convince himself that he had simply gone crazy, a shuffling in the kitchen caught his attention putting him on full alert and instantly instigating the reveal of his previously hidden Flock 45. He moved towards the sound with swift but calculated steps, weapon ready to attack and shopping bags still clenched in his fist. A few rapid, silent strides placed him just outside the entry to his kitchen. He paused only briefly to listen for his target before whipping through the doorway and expertly placing his sites and his aim on the intruder.
Narrow-eyed anger changed to dumbfounded surprise almost too quickly to process. “You have got to be fucking kidding me,” Falcon mumbled under his breath, annoyance seeping into every syllable.
There, in his own personal kitchen of all places, was Mark fucking Beaks, grinning that infuriating grin and apparently completely un-phased by the firearm pointed right between his eyes. “Hey, Gravesy!” he said with seemingly oblivious enthusiasm. “‘Bout time, was getting suuuper bored. Posh pad though, totally digging the uptight gay guy vibe.”
Falcon snarled at the wink and one handed finger gun that punctuated that statement. “What the HELL are you doing in my apartment?!”
“Chillin’, duh,” Mark answered, lifting himself onto the counter and apparently making himself quite at home as he tapped away at his phone. “Oh, btw I bit like everything in your fridge. It was all majorly gross.” He cocked a brow, pulling his attention away from his phone for a second as he looked skyward and thought about that. “Might wanna go shopping.”
That fact was quite obvious given the state of disarray his kitchen was now in, and Falcon snarled at it, dropping his bags roughly on the counter as if to say I just did. He didn’t say it, in fact he was probably incapable with his teeth clenched so tightly, but the twitching of his angrily narrowed brow said it for him. Not a word was uttered as he rounded the large kitchen island but a steady slew of furious noises trickled from his beak and didn’t stop until he had grabbed a satisfying fistful of Mark’s neck. Being manhandled and dragged out to the balcony by his throat didn’t seem to bother Mark much as he was still talking the entire time, but then again Falcon wasn’t really holding hard enough to choke him (as tempting as that sounded). He did, however, increase the pressure just enough when Mark’s babbling grew too annoying to bear.
“Careful, Gravesy,” Mark choked out with a laugh. “This is kinda hot.” He rolled his eyes at the glare he received in return. “Omg, you still can’t take a joke?!”
No answer.
“Come ooon, I just want to talk.”
“I don’t know what gave you the impression that I want to hear anything you have to say, but this ends now!” Falcon yelled, lifting his captive over the terrace edge and dangling him hundreds of feet above certain doom.
Mark stared down past his feet, just as unimpressed by the 37 stories between him and the ground as he was the previous time they had done this dance. “Oh, right. The roof thing. Lived it, loved it, totally over it. What else ya got, big guy?” he asked nonchalantly.
“Believe me, you do not want to know,” Falcon snarled.
“Hoooo scary face. Hold that pose!”
Falcon snatched the phone that had just been shoved into his face, and before Mark could even react he chucked it against the balcony floor where it shattered into a million very satisfying pieces. He didn’t miss a beat before flipping Mark head over heels, gripping his ankles and shaking him violently until every bit of his ludicrous backup phone supply was depleted.
Mark squawked in fear, grabbing blindly at the precious tech but failing to catch any of them before they were out of reach. Falcon yanked him up higher so that he was still upside down but now face to face with the other man’s fury, but instead of intimidating Mark as Falcon would have hoped all it did was antagonize him. “HEY! Not cool, Graves! I’m seriously gonna fucking flip if you don’t get me a phone right now!”
“You are hardly in a position to be making demands!”
Mark’s scowl faltered, giving way to an abrasively smug smirk. “Hate to break it to ya, big guy, but neither are you.”
Falcon’s eyes narrowed as he pulled Mark closer, their beaks practically touching as he scowled at the infuriating parrot. “And what is that supposed to mean, exactly?”
“Means check your bank account, hot stuff.”
Falcon eyed him suspiciously, but did just that, shifting to hold both Mark’s ankles in one hand as he checked his phone with the other. There glaring back at him was a very non-standard notification that his bank account had been “Beaksed” and he no longer had access to it. At that point the pew pew pew scrolling across his screen only added insult to injury.
“WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO?!”
“Beaksed up your account obviously,” Mark said, smirk only extending even as his fingers trembled erratically from phone withdrawal. “Can you like, put me down now? Gettin’ kinda dizzy here, and if I’m gonna be upside down and dizzy I better be drunk and getting laid.”
He received only a glare in response.
Mark let loose an annoyed groan, drawing it out for an unnecessarily long time. “Look, we both know you didn’t have enough money in that account to afford the lifestyle you have obviously become accustomed to,” he said with a gesture towards Falcon’s elegant abode, “You’re drowning in debt and I’m here to offer you butt tons of money, so you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours. Cool, cool?”
Falcon’s suspicious expression only intensified, but he released Mark anyway, pulling him back to safety and dropping him head first onto the floor. “Not a single thing about this is cool,” he grumbled, turning his back on the parrot and reentering his home as he swiped furiously at his phone in an attempt to remove the apparent Beaks virus it was now infected with.
Sitting upright with a groan, Mark cocked his head at Falcon as he watched him walk away, pausing to eye his tight ass as the larger bird lingered in the doorway.
“What precisely are you here to propose?” Falcon said through still clenched teeth in a way that showed how enthusiastic he really was about getting sucked into yet another Beaks’ brand scheme.
“Oh, nothing fancy,” Mark said, lifting himself from the ground and sauntering into Falcon’s home like he owned the place. “Recent… events have left me in need of some muscle and well,” he paused, eyes roaming slowly down Falcon’s body, “you’ve got plenty of that.”
Falcon wasn’t quite sure what to make of that comment, so he ignored it. “Who says I need your help?” he scoffed. “There are plenty of rich people in this city with nothing better to spend their money on, why would I waste even a second of my time protecting the person I want to murder most in the world?!”
Yellow eyes narrowed, sadistic excitement radiating from Mark’s demeanor even as he gnawed on his fingers to keep the anxious appendages busy. “Because I’ll burn your ass real bad if you don’t,” he said. “No one in a million miles will ever hire you again.”
It felt like an empty threat –Falcon wanted very badly to convince himself of that—but it was well within Mark’s power to do, and as it was that singular spoiled brat had already effectively ruined Falcon’s reputation. The internal struggle was painted all over his face as he glared at his still unusable bank account.
Mark’s eyes rolled skyward as he finally pulled his fingers free of his mouth to snatch Falcon’s phone away from him. “Look, Gravesy,” he said as he tapped at the smartphone with what seemed like impossible speed, “we both know you’re gonna say yes, so I’ll save you the trouble and agree for you.” He tossed the phone back at the older man, turning his back to him and making his way towards the door. “Now keep in mind that’s just a down payment, we’ll talk deets tomorrow.”
Falcon cocked a brow at that, inspecting his phone which not only showed restored access to his funds, but a new, exorbitant amount of zeros after what was previous a balance of a little over one hundred dollars. His eyes widened in shock, but his mouth drooled over the wealth that he so desperately needed.
“Be at my office bright and early, Gravesy!” Mark yelled from the entryway. “Bring lattes. Remember, almond INFUSED foam!”
With that he was gone as abruptly as he had appeared, leaving Falcon staring dumbfounded at the recently slammed door. The internal struggle within him lasted only seconds before he relented with a tense inhale of air. “Bloody hell.”