Chapter Text
A call came in about a large amount of birds covering a section of the river, causing property damage to docked boats, and interrupting travel flow. Currently, it was nearing the end of Hero and Darwin’s shift as they traveled to the specified area.
“Isn’t it too cold for this many birds now?” Hero asked as he stopped the boat before the large flock spread across the river before them.
“Not for Pochards.” Darwin replied, “They usually don’t stick around in the river though. Must have found something good to eat. Somebody could have been feeding them and caught their attention.”
“How do we get rid of them? Drive through them?”
“The boat’s too slow. Why don't you dive in and scare them off?”
“The water is freezing!”
“Oh? We finally find the great Hero’s weakness. Winter. Are you saying if a child fell in now, you wouldn’t go in for the rescue?”
“A child is different! This is ducks. You can’t compare misplaced ducks to a drowning child.” Hero removes himself from the driver’s seat and moves to the back of the boat. He starts rummaging through the toolbox.
Darwin mumbled mockingly more to himself knowing Hero couldn’t hear him, “I never said anything about drowning. Not everyone who falls into the water is drowning.” He turns around in his seat to see Hero tying a long rope to a tool from the toolbox. “What are you doing with that?”
“I’m going to throw this in, maybe wave it around to scare them off.”
“You could hurt them! They’re a protected species!” Darwin quickly stands up and attempts to grab the potential weapon out of Hero’s grasp, but Hero is able to keep it just out of his reach.
“This shift is almost over and we need to clear the way so we can go home!” He attempts a throw, but Darwin grabs his arm to stop him. ”Let go!”
“If you hurt them, we could get fined, or worse—” In one swift movement, Hero twists his body to attempt to get Darwin to release his arm and pushes him away. He was completely unaware that the struggle had brought them so close to the edge and the momentum throws Darwin into the water. The sudden disturbance frightens the birds and causes them to scatter in various directions. Hero attempted to grab him to pull him back in, but the flock of birds flying past him made it more difficult to see.
Once a majority of the birds had departed, Hero could see Darwin struggle to get a grip on the hull to lift himself from the cold water. “Are you okay?” He asks as he leans over the side to grab Darwin to help him back in. Hero can feel how the freezing water has drastically dropped his body temperature.
“I’m f-fine.” Darwin shakingly spurts out as he’s assisted back into the boat. He stands up and tries to recover from the cold shock, hugging himself to conserve the rest of his body heat.
Hero rushes over to the storage to retrieve the emergency blankets. “I didn’t mean to do that, I swear.” He wraps two of the blankets around Darwin.
Darwin pulls one of the blankets over his head and ruffles his hair to dry it as much as possible. “It’s fine. Oh, no….”
“What’s wrong?” Hero quickly looks him over to find the problem.
“My glasses are down there somewhere... Oh well, I have an older pair with me.”
“Well, we got rid of them at least.” Hero can already sense that this incident is not going to help improve any of his relationships with his coworkers, especially Darwin, who he assumes hates him the most. He takes a moment to notice how the wet clothes clinging to Darwin's body somehow make him look smaller and he’s started to shiver. The action of drying his hair has caused it to spike up in different directions and from the lack of glasses, Hero can see the freckles around his eyes. How has he never noticed those before?
“W-What? Is there s-something on me?”
“No, no, you just look… different.”
“Getting s-shoved into freezing water will do that!” He fully wraps the blankets around himself, annoyed that Hero still sees this as an opportunity to make fun of him. “J-Just drive back now, yeah?”
As they entered the station, Ollie was the first to notice Darwin’s unexpected state. He nudged Prof to grab his attention away from a file and motioned for him to look their way.
“What happened to you?” Prof asked, his tone slightly worried. He could tell that Darwin was shaking under both of the thick blankets. It had become a casual sight to see Hero walking into the station dripping wet, but not Darwin.
Ollie was quick to reply, “Let me guess. Darwin pulled a Hero and dived in to save a kitten?”
Darwin was much too cold to acknowledge Ollie’s remark. “Shift’s over. I’m changing clothes and going home.” He quickly moved past Ollie and headed towards the locker room.
Prof walked up closer to Hero, who currently had a guilty look on his face. “What happened to him?”
“I might have pushed him…”
“What?! We can’t have people seeing officers pushing each other off of boats.”
“It was an accident! We were arguing and it just happened.”
Ollie interjected, “All you had to do was get rid of a bunch of birds.”
“Well, we disagreed about the method…”
“Right, I'm keeping the two of you apart until further notice.” Prof started looking around for the clipboard that usually held the patrol touring schedule, so he could make adjustments. Hero thought that not being stuck in a boat with Darwin for a while didn’t sound like a terrible idea.
“Just so you know, “ Ollie grabbed Hero’s attention once more, “If he dies from hypothermia, Taz is going to kill you.” Even though he knew the comment was overdramatic, Hero understood the sentiment behind it.