▸── concrete jungle

Finn reached for Ingrid’s book as she joked about him needing to wear a mask in public from now on. He gave an easy laugh thinking about just how true that statement rang. It was part of the reason he loved being Night Wing. Finn Myers got to fade into anonymity. The public loved Night Wing and Dove and Lynx, he guessed, because of what they did for the city—what they did for the people. They protected them. And the three of them expected nothing in return for their actions. No one was able to call him out for the things his family has done. No one accuses him of only doing good to help with his father’s reelection. Finn liked doing good just because he liked helping people. Also being a superhero was pretty badass.

“Maybe a mask wouldn’t be a bad idea,” he agreed perusing through the annotated pages. There was a piece of Ingrid pressed in every page, marked in nearly every margin. It was endearing. “I definitely will not ignore it,” he laughed, flipping immediately to the Mr. Elton drawing in question. “Honestly, from what I’ve read of this you’re spot on. This is substantive literary criticism,” he joked waving the drawing for emphasis.

He placed the book carefully back on the table as he got up to get his coffee. Finn wasn’t sure what was more troubling at this point, his lack of a consistent sleep schedule or his inane caffeine addiction. He took one last look at his phone and the growing number of notifications before switching it off and stuffing the thing in his pocket. As he waited in line one, then two, then a stream of people started running past the windows of the coffee shop—very obviously running away from something.

The other patrons in the shop shifted nervously, but full-blown panic hadn’t quite set in when Finn made the hasty excuse to lock himself in the bathroom and make the transformation into Night Wing. As he struggled with pulling himself out of the window and into the ally, the lights in the building went out. He cursed, already having a pretty decent idea of who was behind that particular outage.

Night Wing landed beside his partner in…fighting crime. How she made it here before him was a mystery as he had been mere blocks away. “And nice of you to wait up for me,” he responded, flat out grinning as he stepped up beside her. Night Wing stilled for a moment as she sarcastically apologized for interrupting his nap. For a brief moment, he panicked that she had somehow discovered his identity—had seen the twitter post of him asleep on the bench in the park. But he ruled it out quickly. Dove would surely mention something if his identity had been compromised, if only to call him out for being careless.

He had tried to figure out her identity once. Had spent a long weekend in a Google spiral as he clicked through image after image of her—sometimes next to him, as Night Wing anyways. He’d been certain that there had to have been something that she’d slipped up on that would have revealed a morsel of information pointing to who she really was. But that search had been a fruitless one. It had been disappointing at first, before he recognized that it was probably best if they didn’t know each other’s identities. It kept them both safe that way. And that was one thing he wasn’t willing to compromise—her safety.

When she winked at him, his smile appeared back nearly as quickly as it threatened to slip away. “Good thing I woke to a dream then.” He cringed inwardly. God, he had it so bad. It was like every smooth or charming thing he could say in any given moment slipped just out of reach the moment she’s around. He very rarely found himself frazzled by anything, but he found that Dove had that effect on him.

Night Wing tore his attention away from his partner and surveyed the scene before them. The orb was peaking out from between two buildings up ahead, already having grown in size since he’d landed on the roof. It was sucking power directly form the square. They’d dealt with an attack like this before. Hunt was drawing mass amounts of energy for something big, but none of them had been able to figure out for what. Thankfully, they’d managed to stop him quickly before. Hopefully they would get that lucky this time. He turned back to Dove and watched as the wheels turned in her mind, formulating a plan. When she finally asked him to cover her, he simply nodded. “Always.”

He watched as she took a running start and flung herself off the roof, not a shadow of a doubt that she would fall. Her grappling hook shot out and Dove used the momentum of her swing to catch the air under her wings. Night Wing admired the fluidity of her movements, of the sure way she carried herself, and yes, definitely the way that she looked in that suit. Damn, he had to get ahold of himself. He shook his head, as if clearing the mental fog that always came when she was around and launched into movement behind her. She’d asked him to cover her, and he would not let her down.

He could feel the presence of the orb as they moved closer to the square. The feel of all that electricity in the air was eerie and made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. The streets near the orb were nearly empty now as people ran in mobs away from the fight that was bound to ensue here. Night Wing scanned the scene for any sign of Hunt, but all he managed to spot was Lynx picking herself up from the ground. That wasn’t a good sign.

His eyes shifted back to Dove just in time to watch a flash of darkness knock her from the sky. She’d been a breath away from grabbing the orb out of the sky, but that wasn’t what he was concerned about now. Night Wing didn’t even look to where Hunt had landed. His every thought narrowed in on his partner as she fell through the sky.

Flapping once, he gained the speed he needed before tucking his wings in close to his body and sliced through the air until he caught up with Dove. Without a thought, he pulled her to his chest. “I’ve got you, Birdie.” He tried to backflap his wings hard enough to keep them from colliding with the ground at a break-neck speed. But he wasn’t fast enough. At best, he’d merely managed to keep them from splattering against the pavement.

Night Wing wrapped his wings around the two of them and shifted his body so it would hit the ground first. The cement bucked slightly beneath them, making a small crater in the center of the square. If that hadn’t hurt like a bitch, he would’ve thought it was cool. He groaned after the impact, realizing that he still had Dove pulled tightly to him.

“You okay?” He wheezed, still catching his breath. “Because truthfully, that sucked for me.”