Work Text:
You thought today was your day.
You woke up early, earlier even than Hawks still sleeping next to you. It allowed you the rare luxury of kissing him awake. Soothing over the skin of his arm and tickle a few feathers. Relish in the draw of his eyebrows and the sleepy blinks as he woke up. Cherish how his eyes closed again, and he pressed into the crook of your neck, falling back asleep within seconds.
Unwilling to disturb him, you stroked your hands over his back and wings until his alarm went off. Then, you rolled out of bed and enjoyed a bracing cup of coffee with him sitting across from you, legs hooked together and bundled up in your fluffiest robe. Breakfast passed quietly in the best kind of way.
You were excited for work. Excited to talk to your coworkers, who you’re finally opening up to more. Excited to work on your current project, excited to challenge yourself and gossip a bit and make a terrible joke about Cal and his perpetual grumpiness.
It went well. Hawks texted you a few times. He knows how much you love the shitty billboards he always manages to find, so you shot messages back and forth about the new ones he spotted. You made dinner plans with him for the little nook-and-cranny place on the other side of town you both love. The first restaurant you ever went to with him. The first place you became friends before sliding into so much more.
Things were finally going right. The scars from Roc didn’t hurt so much anymore. Somedays, you could forget they were even there.
But no matter what goodness you have in a day, the universe has a way of humbling you. Reminding you of certain things and keeping you on your toes.
Today was no different.
Not as you trudge home, bloody and bruised. Head down, clothes torn and covered in sidewalk grime. People stare as you pass, but no one says a damn word. Perhaps they think you’re a hero on your way after a rough day. Better than what actually happened.
It wasn’t your fault. You mouth it over and over. Trying to remember. Trying to fight the well of tears in your eyes.
An angry partner of someone you put in prison based on a story. Someone who felt wronged. Someone who felt hurt and needed to feel in control. An unfortunate alleyway encounter during your afternoon break with no witnesses and a hell of a grudge.
It’s not the first time something like this has happened. Even before Roc, you’ve been roughed up a bit. Intimidation tactics rarely worked on you, not with your indomitable will, but physical violence is always rattling. This time is no different. After Roc, it’s even worse, if you’re being honest with yourself.
You can tell based on the trembling of your entire body, but especially your hands. Always so steady, but not now. You can tell with your fast breathing, the hurried rise and fall of your chest that is wholly out of your control no matter what you do. Your mind screams for safety, for something you didn’t realize you haven’t felt at your job since the incident with Roc.
Loss is funny like that. So is denial. It’s a hard thing to swallow, let alone accept.
Thoroughly unnerved, it only makes you shake harder.
You get the door to your apartment open after three failures. Lately, the deadbolt has been sticking. You keep meaning to look at it, to oil the mechanism if needed, but you kept putting it off.
With a scream caught behind your teeth and the lingering taste of blood in your mouth, you can’t help but regret such a small thing.
The monsters behind you watch, their hands grasping for you, ready to tear you away and rip you apart. Your heart thunders, drowning out anything else. They feed off your terror, and now they’ve come for flesh.
When you finally get the door open, you slam it closed behind you, making the frame tremble. You hastily do up the locks before finally—finally—taking a full, bracing breath in your clutching lungs.
Your head drops against the wood. A good day ruined. You’ll have to text Hawks and cancel dinner plans. He won’t be pleased with the circumstances once you muster up the courage to tell him. “Over-protective” doesn’t even begin to describe it, not to mention how disappointed he’ll be in you for something so small as safety. He’s a hero—if he can feel safe at his job, you should be able to handle being a measly reporter.
As if on cue, your phone starts buzzing in your pocket. You fish it out, staring at the new crack in the glass screen and Hawks’ number flashing across it.
You slide your thumb over the answer button.
“Hey,” you say softly.
“Hey, pockets. You home yet?” Hawks asks.
“Yeah. Just walked through the door. What’s up?”
Hawks sighs.
Oh. One of those nights.
“We’re having a little admin trouble at the agency right now. I told you Shion is on their annual vacation?”
You hum in acknowledgement. Thank god, you think.
“Well, the person they left in charge is out sick right now. Nasty case of that bug that’s going around. So I have to stay late and try to help play catch up with a couple of the other admin folks. I won’t be able to make dinner tonight. I’m so sorry, I know we both were looking forward to it.”
You shake your head, still facing your front door. “It’s all right, Hawks. I don’t really feel like going out today anyway.”
“Really? Why?”
Even through the phone, you can feel his intense attention snap to you. To your breathing and every change in your tone. If you had worn your feather necklace today, he would be able to hear even your heart and the roar of blood in your veins.
If you had worn your feather necklace today, maybe he would have saved you.
Not your fault, not your fault, not your fault. It’s a beautiful lie that does absolutely nothing for you.
“Kind of turned into a crap day,” you say with a shrug. You don’t know why you lie. There’s no need for it and you know it. “I’d rather relax tonight. Maybe we can order takeout from there tomorrow instead? My place?”
Hawks doesn’t quite buy it. “You sure you’re okay? You sound tired.”
“I am tired,” you admit. So tired. Of not feeling safe, of this wicked spiral you’ve been in where nothing you do makes you feel in control. “But I’m okay. Promise.”
“If you’re sure. I can make arrangements if needed. Just say the word.”
You sigh. He really is too good for you.
“No, Hawks. It’s okay. Take care of your work.”
“You’re too good for me,” Hawks says.
You laugh a little. The irony isn’t lost; no, it looms over you, a whole different kind of monster.
“I think you’re the one that’s too good for me,” you reply. “My hero.”
“Don’t go all sweet on me now. I really will just leave this mess as it is and fly right to your side.”
You can almost see the way his wings must be puffed up against his back. The soft smile on his face you never get tired of.
“Do your work,” you chastise. Your myriad of wounds throb, but you ignore them. “And make sure you eat, or I’ll pluck you bare.”
“Promises, promises,” Hawks taunts. “You know I love you, right?”
You smile. Your split lip starts bleeding again with the movement, scabbing breaking. “I do. I love you, too, Hawks.”
“Have a good night,” he says, almost a whisper.
“You, too.”
You end the call before you give in to the swelling emotion in your chest, to the trembling that comes back full force as you turn around and face your lonely apartment. The tears well up, spilling over this time as full-blown sobs rip from your hyperventilating chest.
You slide against the door all the way down to the floor, wrapping your arms around your torso and pushing your forehead against your knees. Delayed stress and fear barrel through every vein of your body.
You hug yourself tighter. It’s only a mimicry of Hawks’ hold, his arms and his wings. It doesn’t help slow anything as you give in to the brutalization of your wounded body, feeling everything at once and nothing at the same time.
It’s a bitch and half to pull yourself together enough to get your feet under you. To pull yourself up and walk to the bathroom. You kick on the shower, turning the water to scalding. You take off your ruined clothes, balling them up and slamming them into the small trash can. Between the dirt, blood, ripped buttons, and new holes, there’s no saving them.
You keep crying as you stand beneath the shower. It’s impossible to stop now that you’ve started. Impossible to stop the shaking even under the hot water. It runs red for a bit, then clear. Your wounds aren’t life-threatening. A few might need two or three stitches, but nothing terrible. The bruising really is worse, bone-deep and aching, but there’s nothing you can do about them at home. Worst case, you could go to a hospital and see if they had a healer on staff, but the probability is low. Healers are too rare and too overworked for someone with just bruises and superficial flesh wounds.
After cleaning said wounds with another round of antiseptic out of the shower, you settle for butterfly bandages since you don’t know how to suture a wound shut. You’re thankful you have that much. You’re notoriously poor when it comes to foresight like keeping your medicine cabinet and first aid kit properly stocked.
You dress in the comfiest clothes you own—safe ones you’ve had for years upon years. Your fingers automatically start worrying at the hem, like they always do when you wear these particular clothes. You consider trying to make something light for dinner—perhaps some rice and veggies, or miso soup, but the thought is so overwhelming, you can only try to get your breath back as you shuffle into your bedroom.
Usually, you would leave the bedroom door open, but today you close it. And lock it. You check the windows, making sure those are locked, too. Then, you crawl into bed and hug one of your pillows to your chest. You stare at the wall.
And keep staring.
Time passes in blinks and the cycle of your mind obsessing over the events that occurred in that alleyway. You should really let it go. You should report it to work, tell Hawks, and move on. You’re safe at your job, you tell yourself. Over and over. But as soon as those words pass through your head, you remember how your screams echoed through the parking garage as Roc and his men drugged you and hauled you to a secondary location. How they took turns hurting you. The bite of the knife over your jaw, the drag of it down the side of your face before it plunged into your thigh.
You remember the fury on the face of the man this afternoon. His big body, wiry in its aged strength as he shoved you against the brick of the alley and laid into you with his fists and his knees. How you fell and curled into a ball, taking it. Not even screaming because you were so shocked and the hurt didn’t register through the flood of adrenaline. Besides, he beat the breath out of you just fine.
You remember his spitting words, wielding insults that cut almost as deep as the broken glass that caught in your side and pricked your cheek. You remember his parting words—“I’ll be watching you. Don’t you ever fucking forget it.”—and start crying again.
You don’t know exactly what’s wrong with you. Really. You’ve had no trouble putting on a brave face at every challenge thrown your way, no matter the threats, no matter the anger or the actions against you. So why now? What’s so different?
You don’t have an answer.
Around eleven at night, you can’t take it anymore.
You sit up and grab your phone, muffling your crying as best you can. Every poisonous thought in your head rears up, telling you not to call Hawks, not to bring him into this when he’s had a busy day. That you’re not worth his time, not over something like this. Something he can’t fix for you.
Your independence has always been beneficial, but its flipside is just as debilitating when it comes up. You wait for a trickle of bravery, of courage, to press the CALL button.
The phone rings a couple times before Hawks answers.
“Pockets? Why aren’t you asleep?”
His voice is hushed, gentle with the late hours.
Without meaning to, you cry into the phone.
“Pockets? Hey, what’s wrong?” Less gentle this time. More urgent, heroism and protectiveness kicking in.
“Are you still at work?”
“Just finishing up—tell me what’s wrong. You almost never cry.”
“Can—ugh, can you just come over?”
“Are you okay?”
“Not particularly.”
Hawks tries again. “Are you physically okay?”
You laugh wetly. The butterfly stitches aren’t holding well, even with your stagnancy. “Not particularly,” you repeat. “How good are you at stitches?”
Hawks curses. You hear his booted feet pound across his office, hear the moment he throws himself out his office window based on the sudden silence followed by the scream of the wind. Your heart is in your throat, at the knowledge, the immediacy of his actions.
The sound on the phone changes in a moment, linked through his headphones and no longer quite so loud. “I’ll be there in three minutes tops. Stay on the phone with me, okay?”
“It’s not—it’s not that serious. I promise. I just—” you break off again, trying and failing to get control of yourself.
“It’s all right,” Hawks soothes. “I’ll be there soon, and I’ll do whatever I can to help. Okay?”
“Okay.” You shiver despite the body-heat trapped under the blankets with you.
“Will you tell me what happened?”
“I—I’m trying really hard to stop crying, so maybe not now.” You get up and walk to the bedroom window, unlocking it and cracking it just for Hawks. Vulnerability sneaks up on you again, making you half-run back to your bed.
“My brave thing,” Hawks praises. “You know you don’t have to hide from me like that, right?”
“I do. I just—I’ll tell you about it when you’re here.”
“Thirty seconds.”
“I think this’ll be your new personal best.”
“I’m coming for you at top speed, pockets. Not even god could keep me away from you right now.”
You hang up the phone just as a shadow pauses in front of your windows.
Hawks is alighting inside a moment later, worried golden eyes already seeking you out among the mess of blankets and pillows on your bed.
Said eyes widen at the state of you, at your red-rimmed eyes, one of which is swelled shut, and at your nasty split lip among the myriad of other tiny wounds peeking out past the hems of your clothes.
“Hey, woah,” Hawks says, moving right over to you and reaching for you. Something darkens his gaze as he understands exactly what he’s looking at. He’s not in his hero costume, just a black hoodie and a pair of joggers. His headphones slide off his head. “What happened? Who did this?”
You shake your head, moving out of his reach. “It doesn’t matter.”
Hawks stares at you, anger intensifying in his face. “It does matter.”
“Hawks. Please, not now.” Arguing over what’s right and wrong is not why you called him over.
He hesitates, obviously conflicted, but relents, moving around the bed to your side and sitting next to you. His cold, wind-chapped hands find your jaw, turning you this way and that as he surveys you. Feathers ruffling in a way that can only be described as pissed, Hawks says, “That lip will need stitches. Where else are you hurt?”
Wordlessly, you ignore your shaking and pull your shirt off with Hawks’ help. The gashes on your shoulder and side are open and trickling blood, scabs and butterfly bandages not enough. Hawks examines them and comes to the same conclusion. His hands wrap around your waist, gentle over the bloom of bruises on your skin.
He sends a feather to find your first aid kit. “What happened?” Hawks asks again. He’s careful to avoid a commanding tone.
Still trembling, you open your mouth and begin to explain. Only a few tears trickle out of you during it. Hawks listens, head cocked and pupils only pinpricks as he preps to suture your wounds shut. When you tell Hawks what the man said to you, how he shoved you against the brick of the alley and started hurting you, more tears fall, but you push through.
You manage coherency until—
“I don’t feel safe anymore,” you whisper. Your crying renews, hunching your shoulders. “I don’t—don’t think I’ve felt safe in a long time.”
You cover your face with one hand in shame, shoulders hunching, curling in on yourself, hiding from Hawks’ eyes. You wait for him to tell you you’re wrong, that you’re overreacting or your feelings don’t make sense given what you do for work. Tough shit, he’ll say. You knew what you were signing up for, and besides, it’s not that bad. Anything. You wait for judgement from the one person whose judgement matters to you. Preparing for despair is never easy, but you take the challenge, bracing your heart.
“Oh, my love,” Hawks whispers. “I had no idea. I’m so sorry.”
Warm lips brush your hairline. Your hand drops, looking up into Hawks’ face and seeing only understanding and empathetic anguish.
“You don’t think it’s stupid?” you ask. You can’t help yourself. You have to know.
“Not at all,” Hawks answers quickly. His fingers move smoothly with the needle and thread, practiced and efficient. It hurts. You wince with each push and pull, but it’s not terrible.
“Oh.”
“Did you expect otherwise?” Hawks raises one eyebrow, his expression carefully neutral otherwise.
“Yes,” you whisper. “I thought you would be—I don’t know. I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”
“What did you think I would say?” Hawks prompts.
“Just...that I was weak. Or stupid. Or—or that I was being ridiculous and don’t have the right to complain when you do ten times the dangerous stuff I do as a hero, so—”
He floats a feather to your mouth, pressing the vane against your lips to stop you mid-sentence.
“You always think I’ll confirm those nasty thoughts in your head,” Hawks observes, head tipping slightly. His suturing hands don’t hesitate as they keep tugging and pulling your flesh back together. “And I never understood why, but I think I do now.”
You sniffle and wince a little. The feather pulls back from your mouth but lingers, tucking itself behind your ear. “Why’s that?” you ask.
“Because you think you deserve it,” Hawks says. He blinks. “And you think you’re stronger than these feelings and experiences and you want those words to remind you to keep pushing, but you taught me those words and thoughts are bullshit. I deal with the same thing, and you know it. So that’s bullshit and I will never, ever say or think that about you. Especially when you’re hurting.”
Nameless, caustic emotion builds in your throat. You can’t tell if it’s from the pain of the sutures or from the truth behind his words. “You don’t have to be nice to me if you don’t want to. You don’t have to—”
“But I want to, pockets.” He clips the last suture on your side, tying it tight. He moves to the next gash on your shoulder above the ripple of an old burn scar from the incident with Roc. “And I’m not ‘being nice.’ I’m being myself.”
“Okay,” you reply. You have nothing else to say that isn’t some desperate attempt at control, and even though you’re wrung out and hurt, you know that irrationality and refuse to give it space anymore. You need to get some sleep and work through more of this before you’ll make up your mind about Hawks.
You lean into Hawks as much as you can after that. He doesn’t fight you, just adjusts himself so he can keep working at his usual quick, efficient speed.
Suturing your lip is by far the worst of the cuts that needed stitches. Your eyes sting at each deep pinch, your face a powerful grimace. Hawks coos at you, his eyes flicking over your pained expression.
“You’re doing great, just a couple more, okay? Almost done.”
All you can do is grunt and try not to yank away from his gentle, firm hands. You feel the brush of feathers on the back of your head, making sure you don’t tug away too hard and risk hurting yourself more.
Hawks’ hands lower, taking the offending needle with them once he’s finished. You exhale, shaky and overwhelmed in the worst possible way. At this point, your head is nothing but static, residual fear, and pain.
A couple of feathers bustle away the first aid kit, bloody bits of gauze, and torn open packets of sanitization pads. They return with a bottled, sweet drink from your fridge and one of your favorite pre-packaged snacks you keep hidden in a cupboard.
“I’m not hungry,” you say, your voice hoarse.
“At least get some sugar in you,” Hawks asks quietly.
You mutely shake your head, refusing the cold drink. You don’t need it. The pounding of blood in your head and the sparkles across your vision signaling an impending migraine from the stress and pressure from crying. A small paper cup appears, carried by yet another feather. Inside is a couple of pills that rattle when the feather shakes the cup, trying to get you to take it.
“C’mon, pockets. It’s a pain pill and an anti-inflammatory. It’ll help.”
“Migraine,” you say, waiving the pills away. You can already feel your throat deciding not to obey your commands to swallow anything that isn’t a liquid. It’s like the muscles deny any efforts to move.
The feather sets the paper cup on the bedside table. You keep your gaze down, watching the light bugs dart around your line of sight. You can’t look at him again. Not with this humiliation on top of the one that left you battered and bloody.
An exceedingly warm hands itches into your lap, loosely wrapping around one of your own cold hands.
“Pockets,” Hawks says, his voice low. “Look at me.”
Your eyes close. Swallow painfully. “Fuck you, Hawks.” It’s the weakest you’ve ever been.
“Being defensive won’t get you anywhere, you know. Look at me.”
Taking as deep a breath as your bruised ribs will allow, you drag your heavy gaze up until you’re looking into that heartbreakingly earnest and beautiful face once more.
“It’s all right,” Hawks says once you meet his eyes. Liquid honey ready to drown you in sweetness.
When you don’t respond, Hawks says, “It’s okay. You’re okay, pockets.”
Your lips twitch, eyes falling. Hawks puts a knuckle under your chin, tipping your face back up. “You’ll be all right. Believe me.”
“I can’t,” you whisper. “I don’t—I don’t know what to do. I don’t feel safe.” You don’t know what else to say.
“I know. We’ll figure something out in the morning. I have all day tomorrow off. You and I will think of things to help you and this feeling will go away. You don’t have to be courageous about this when we can do something to help you.”
“Courageous? I’m a coward, Hawks. I couldn’t even scream or go back into work and let someone know what happened. I just—laid there and took it and then ran off.” You nearly spit the words, self-hate an old, unwelcome friend that lingers beneath your skin like a poison you thought you cured yourself of a while ago.
“You did what your body and brain told you to do to keep yourself safe. You wanted to just get somewhere safe,” he says like it’s the most natural thing in the world, “so you might feel safe enough to clean yourself up. And now, you’re all cleaned up. And you’re safe.” He pauses, shifting on the bed so his arms can pull you into a warm, soft hug. “You’re safe.”
“You love making me cry,” you accuse as fresh tears flood your vision. It’s almost a wail at this point.
“I love you,” he corrects. “I’m just happy to be here, however you’ll have me.”
You relax into his hold, pushing yourself closer until you’re all tangled up with him and his pretty red wings. The sensation of those feathers under your hands has you sobbing harder, shaking apart in his hold.
His arms don’t waiver as you move and adjust and give him everything. This awful, unbearable weight of fear that shouldn’t exist, but exists all the same. The horror of what happened to you—both months ago with Roc and just this past afternoon, and all the little things in-between that reinforced how terrible you feel about your current work environment and how vulnerable you are. They bully through every defense and wall you’ve built, shattering the very foundation of your confidence and belief in yourself. Hawks takes every cry and the salt of your tears in the shoulder of his hoodie.
You hate how much you cry, but you’ve been pent up. A solid seven minutes later and you’re dry-eyed and swollen in the face. You never cry for long. Your skin feels flush, and that migraine is pulling itself into righteous placement behind your straining eyes. Hawks carefully moves your torso back from him, using his thumbs to wipe away the residual wetness on the tender skin beneath your eyes. All you focus on is gold and how concerned Hawks looks.
When he leans in and kisses you on your lips, you still in exhausted surprise. Hawks pulls back, glances at you, and then does it again. You watch his eyelids flutter, his golden lashes almost long enough to touch his own cheekbones when he closes them.
Hawks kisses you like you mean something. You suppose you always have, but this kiss—it’s hard to describe. Your belly melts a bit, your skin prickling even as your head throbs painfully with the growling migraine. Hawks’ lips and tongue are easy and careful, not like your some eternally fragile thing, but like he’s silently telling you, it’ll be all right, love, and I’m right here with you, and I love you, and I hear you, let me help.
You sag, boneless. He keeps kissing you until you’re both panting for breath, a pleasant buzz rising to your lips. You don’t have the capacity for desire at the moment, and Hawks knows better than to push it, but you wouldn’t mind more kisses. Not in the slightest. You automatically chase his mouth for more when he pulls back, but he lets his forehead rest against your own, feeling the heat of your skin and the stickiness of the sweat from earlier.
“Hawks,” you whisper, relentless and loving.
“I know,” he says. The biggest part of you believes him. That he does understand. “I know, pockets.”
“Stay over tonight?” you ask, fisting the material of his hoodie. “I’d rather not be alone.”
“I don’t want you to be alone, either,” he says. “I’ll stay. Text Cal and tell him you’re not coming in tomorrow. Right now.”
You obey. You don’t have the energy or capacity to start another conversation about whether to go to work tomorrow. Firing off the text, you then turn off your phone and its myriad of alarms, tossing it onto the bedside table with the paper cup of pills.
Once that’s done, feathers appear with new sleep clothes to change into. Your top is covered in blood and discarded at the end of the bed, while your pants are much the same. You wiggle out of them, letting Hawks help you where he can. You usually wouldn’t let him, but his fussing is entirely too appreciated tonight.
Finally settled, Hawks tries to get you to take the pills again along with one of your migraine meds and a sleeping pill, but when you try, you choke on them and the water, spitting them back into the cup. Your throat still won’t listen. Hawks just rubs your back and mumbles about trying again later.
You gratefully let Hawks move you around after that. He pulls down the covers and settles you in for bed. His feathers flit around, preparing your apartment for the night. They check the locks and draw the blinds. Hawks leaves you for a few seconds to double check all the locks himself before returning. He climbs into bed with you, stripped to his boxers. He takes the time to get the sheets and comforter settled around you until he satisfied with how tucked in you are before he settles himself, wiggling closer to you.
You bridge the gap with a hand and a throaty noise that has him closing the distance even more. The skin-to-skin contact almost hurts with how sensitive you are thanks to your migraine, but you don’t want to be parted from him. It’s stupid and dramatic and you’ll have a crisis over the desperation tomorrow, but for now, you cling until you’re as satisfied as you’ll possibly get.
No, that’s not quite right. You cling until you finally, finally feel safe. Only then does your body relent in its tension, leaving your body loose-limbed and droopy. Hawks again arranges you until you’re both happy with the position, sleep creeping in slowly but steadily.
Dizzy with it, you blink your eyes open a few times, finding Hawks staring at you as you slip closer towards slumber. Part of you begs for shame, for embarrassment, but those eyes are so kind, so gentle as fingers delicately trip over the skin of your face, trailing from temple over cheek and jaw, down to the point of your chin, and back again. Sometimes, they drift off and skim your nose and the bow of your chapped lips. It’s such a light touch you can’t help but relax further. A few times, his lips brush your own, gentle and chaste.
Hawks is safe. Hawks won’t hurt you. He’s here and he’s caring for you and he loves you.
The world goes smudgy. You fall into a deep, hard sleep that is thankfully dreamless for the most part. When you do jerk yourself awake from the sensation of falling or feet nailing into your sides, Hawks’ strong arms are there along with the press of his lips to your forehead and mumbled nothings your brain refuses to register as anything other than sweet.