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mighty-ant · 1 year

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The Man from F.O.W.L, Part Four

part three

ao3

It had been a long couple weeks since Steelbeak was allowed back at their Duckburg headquarters.

After all his screw-ups, the job of monitoring Fethry had been left to the Eggheads. Their masked cannon fodder might not be the brightest (like Steelbeak was one to talk), but what they lacked in brains they made up for in numbers. Fethry hadn’t made any escape attempts, was barely in contact with the McDucks, and generally just did what he was told. High Command wasn’t worried about him interfering with Project: Alexandria.

Heron kept Steelbeak busy on missions or at the Library of Alexandria, where the massive stone halls were gradually filling with cube-shaped cells smaller than anything even he’d been thrown into.

The ticking clock that had been at the back of his mind for so long, distant and easy to ignore most times, was blaring like Big Ben now. Buzzard’s not-evil evil plan was on speedrun, coming together with a new and alarming sense of finality. They were counting down by the day now, not weeks or months or even years, and they blurred by so quickly Steelbeak could barely keep his head on straight.

One night he was beating down a masked weirdo in a purple cape to get some sort of high-tech dimensional key thing Buzzard needed to get rid of McDuck. Another day he’d be jetted off to Istanbird to fight Fethry’s family for the pieces of a magical sword that didn’t really matter in the long run because Heron was just after one of the girls’ feathers to make clones out of, which… weird.

He got pitted against the kid in red, with a red hat that reminded him of Fethry. It had almost been a month since Steelbeak last saw him, reaching out with kind eyes that he didn’t deserve and just made him angrier. Maybe he was going soft and maybe it was a little pathetic, but against his better judgment he went easier on the kid than he would’ve any of the others. Didn’t leave worse than a couple bruises.

Of course, then the kid went totally ballistic on him, wailing on him like a rabid fighter locked in a cage match, and he stopped seeing any resemblance to Fethry. Not like anything could compare to the original, anyway.

Going back in their underground lair beneath Funzo’s was almost as much of a shock as any of his other missions. He’d been gone so long that everything struck a weird chord between familiar and alien. After having the burnished gold of the Alexandria desert seared into the back of his eyelids and being dazzled by the smells of an Istanbird marketplace, the uniform gray drabness of the base hallways made his senses feel like they’d been muted. Had the walls always felt like prison bars? Or maybe he’d just learned to appreciate fresh air.

He followed Heron, sulking the same way he always did when she dragged him somewhere new. Buzzard had them practically joined at the hip since the whole intelli-ray fiasco, which was its own torture, but the old broad also felt the need to order him around every minute of every goddamn day. What he’d give to be alone, watching a wrestling match maybe, with a beer in his hand. Even a lukewarm one would do.

Or standing in an empty amphitheater, the breeze on his feathers, and Fethry’s upturned face so close to his.

But no. Instead he was here, half-listening to Heron loudly complaining about…something. He was trying hard not to pay attention. At least she’d left the creepy clone twins back in Alexandria to train with the Blot.

This was what his life had turned into. Magic clones and magic-hating robe-wearing psychos. It almost made him miss his fighting days, when things were simple and survival was all he had to worry about.

The halls around them, while pretty uniform, started to get more familiar. It took Steelbeak a second to recognize where he was, but when he did the dread that landed in his gut was a sick and twisting thing, a shiv snuck in beneath his ribs. Heron was leading them toward her science labs, which put them unnervingly close to where Fethry was stationed. After that, he couldn’t help but tune back into whatever Heron was ranting about. He almost wished he hadn’t.

“An insult is what it is! Cluttering what little lab space I have with a simpleton’s excuse for experiments. I doubt he’s even heard of the scientific method! He brings in tanks full of-of mutated barnacles just to look at them, like a child . The fool won’t even dissect the things.”

She was talking about Fethry. And she wasn’t exactly being complimentary. Even Steelbeak wasn’t too stupid to figure that out.

He let his rage live under his skin, sizzling like oil on a griddle, desperate to light. His capacity for violence was a deep well that hadn’t run dry since he was a teen, all feathers and bone, scraping out a living with other desperate, sallow-faced boys. Giving into his anger was second nature, until he started shacking up with evil people smarter than he was strong.

If he didn’t want Heron to snitch on him and get him demoted to Antarctoucan, or possibly hell (knowing the toys Buzzard had in his collection, it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility), he’d keep his mouth shut when she badmouthed the one person he cared about.

The one person who didn’t hold their intelligence over Steelbeak’s head like one held a treat over a simpering pet. Who loved to share, knowledge and stories and smiles, and teased the same out of Steelbeak without guile or ulterior motives. In F.O.W.L, every interaction was transactional, pros and cons weighed, every conversation hiding a secret deal, and Steelbeak was usually the patsy. When Fethry handed him a hermit crab with an intricately detailed shell and pointed out every whorl and groove, he felt like an equal.

And Heron was still complaining.

“—be a miracle if I get any work done. If only Bradford would let me throw that idiot in a cell now and be done with it. I doubt Scrooge or his ilk would even notice he was missing.”

And, well. That was the last straw wasn’t it.

“Don’t call him that,” he muttered. It just slipped out, but he didn’t regret it. Not even when Heron pinned him with a look over a shoulder, like a bug under glass.

“Call who, what?” she asked, perfectly neutral. To the untrained ear, she might’ve sounded curious. But Steelbeak recognized the steel underlying her words and the predatory glint in her eye. If she smelled blood in the water, she would pounce, like a shark.

Though Fethry had explained to him that the shark thing was just a myth.

Steelbeak scowled, playing it off. You could respect your enemy, right? Not that he’d ever thought his old rivals were anything but low-grade chumps.

“The duck. He’s not an idiot. Don’t call him one.”

“Oh? And why shouldn’t I?” Playful and taunting, Heron was the real child around here. An old wrinkly one.

And for that matter, why was he even following her around when there was an Egghead rec room he could be hanging out in? It wasn’t like Heron actually wanted him in her lab, where everything interesting to look at was off limits anyway.

Steelbeak rolled his eyes and stomped past her. He made sure to shoulder check her on his way.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Heron snapped at his back, all traces of humor gone from her voice. She was shrill, obviously embarrassed to have been brushed off so easily. “Look at me when I’m speaking to you!”

“I’m done talkin,’” he growled.

“Hm. You certainly are.”

He took another step before his beak clamped shut against his will, locking under magnetic force. And he knew it wouldn’t open again, no matter how much he screamed.

Blood rushed through his ears as his mind went numb with panic. It had to be Buzzard. Buzzard was the one with the remote, but—how could Buzzard be here? They’d left him back in Alexandria, pacing in his office.

And Steelbeak hadn’t done anything wrong!

Scrabbling at the sides of his beak, his head swiveled back and forth in search of Buzzard’s acid yellow eyes, his deceptive monotone. All he saw was Heron, gray walls, endless hallways.

Heron’s laughter brought his scrambled focus back to her.

She was holding Bradford’s remote in her flesh and blood hand, watching him expectantly, deadly sharp beak curved in amusement. She had the remote . And she was waving it at him.

“Looking for this?”

Steelbeak lunged.

Heron easily sidestepped him, panic making him sloppy. She shook her head and tsked. “Now, now, Steelbeak, is that any way to treat your superior?

“Bradford gave me the remote a few days ago. After all, you’re practically a rabid dog. We needed some way to control you, to avoid another debacle like what you caused at the Satellitehouse.”

Steelbeak swore at her behind the prison of his beak, or tried to at least. When that didn’t work, he squared his shoulders, felt the strength of his fists and the inferno of his rage. He wasn’t a pet on a leash.

Heron cackled at the display. “Keep up with that sort of behavior and I’ll have no choice but to issue punishment myself. Though I could be persuaded to release you if you were to apologize.”

His next insult was just garbled, but the bird he flipped her made up for it. So would the beating he’d give her before he took the remote. He’d beaten her once before, after all. He could do it again.

“Have it your way.” Heron pressed another button on the remote

He’d been set on fire once before.

It was his own fault, really. He got a half gallon bottle of vodka smashed on his shoulder during a bar fight, soaking through his clothes. He’d forgotten all about it a half-hour later when he stepped out for a smoke. The second he flicked on his lighter, he went up in flames. It was funny in hindsight. The best fighter in three cities, with the five guys he’d knocked out still slumped in corners of the bar, rolling around in the dirt trying to wrestle off his shirt and pants that were lit up like the Fourth of July. But in the moment, he only felt the flames, licking at his face, his chest, his arms. Searing, white-hot with a pain he’d never known.

Until then. Until now.

White hot fire exploded across his face, making it impossible for him to think, much less move, much less breathe. Electricity arced outward from his beak, radiating across his face and down his neck, making his eyes burn. His skin felt like it was on fire. Again.

Steelbeak had borne the fracture of his original beak with a few manly tears, the pain eased by the fact that he’d still won the fight that cost him his stunning good looks.

Here, now, the pain was so overwhelming that his legs gave out. He fell to his knees, barely catching himself from smashing his face on the dumb office tiles with his palms flat against the floor, his arms trembling from the effort of holding himself up.

Just as his brain started to feel like it was boiling inside his head, the pain stopped. As if it had never been there.

He was sent reeling, but unable to open his beak and suck in lungfuls of air, he inhaled and exhaled harshly through his nose. It was like trying to breathe through a straw. His lungs burned and the nerve endings of his face still sung with pain.

His vision swimming, a gray blur that he gradually recognized as Heron’s taloned prosthesis appeared in front of him, wrapping around his beak and dragging his head up to meet Heron’s eyes.

“That was just a reminder,” she said coldly. “A reminder that you are our property. Cross me again and you’ll be getting much better acquainted with all the little surprises I installed in your beak.”

That day in his prison cell, when Heron appeared and talked about a golden opportunity, he thought they’d be partners. He’d be an agent of F.O.W.L, in charge of his own life for once, and more seductive words had never been uttered.

When she called him stupid, a stooge, he accepted that she was his boss (reluctantly. after he shot her and his own evil plan went to pot). But that was fine too because Steelbeak was used to being an attack dog and violence was his first language.

But this? This was worse than jail. Worse than the fighting rings. This was the start to a life of fear. Forget his designer suits—he had less freedom now than when he was dressed in prison orange.

Heron kept talking, but movement in the hallway behind her drew Steelbeak’s eye instead. There was a flash of color at odds with the gray walls, and he willed his bleary vision to focus.

He locked eyes with Fethry, who stared back in abject horror.

What Fethry was doing in this part of the base, he didn’t know. Maybe he got lost, like Steelbeak still sometimes tended to. Whatever the reason, it didn’t matter because if Heron saw him she would kill him. Forget Buzzard’s orders and delicate plans. She’d kill him and make Steelbeak watch.

Fethry was clinging to the wall, looking like his legs might fold beneath him. He didn’t break eye contact with Steelbeak for an instant, big eyes that were meant to marvel at glowing shrimp instead widening in fear as months of lies were laid bare in front of him.

He was under no illusion about whether or not Fethry had seen everything.

Heron was still talking, not seeming to notice or care that Steelbeak’s attention was miles away. She tugged sharply on his beak again to prove whatever point she was making, and Steelbeak took that opportunity to shake his head, just once, at Fethry.

Get out of here, he tried to beg with his eyes. Run .

He knew Fethry understood when a shadow descended over his face and his eyes flooded with tears that Steelbeak didn’t deserve. But instead of turning tail and running for the nearest exit like any sane person, Steelbeak watched Fethry gather himself, tucking his despair beneath a determined mask with frown and furrowed brows. He straightened, pushing off from the wall and drawing himself up to his full, unimpressive height.

Steelbeak didn’t understand what Fethry was doing until he bolted down the hallway and threw himself at Heron, tackling her to the floor with a battle cry.

Steelbeak had to act fast. The only reason Heron budged at all was because Fethry had taken her by surprise.

Heaving himself to his feet, Steelbeak caught Heron first with a kick to the underside of her chin. He followed it up with a punch to the face that he put all of his considerable weight behind, which nearly sent him toppling back to the floor on unsteady feet. But it was done.

Within three seconds Heron was knocked out cold and Fethry looked on, all wide eyed, from where he’d landed beside her.

In the ensuing silence, Steelbeak dipped to one knee, trying to get his breathing back under control.

Fethry wasn’t startled by the display of violence for long. He stood clumsily and rushed over to Steelbeak’s side. His hands fluttered over him, not quite touching.

Steelbeak didn’t understand what Fethry was still doing here.

“Are you okay?” he said, speaking quickly. He was clearly still buzzing with adrenaline. “Steelbeak, Dr. Heron was—she was hurting you, but I don’t understand—”

Steelbeak’s jaw was still locked shut. That put a bit of a damper on this Q & A.

He grabbed Fethry’s shoulder to get his attention, and mimed pressing a button with his other hand. When Fethry only watched him, brow knit in confusion, Steelbeak heaved a sigh and pointed at his beak, shaking his head.

Fethry’s gaze flickered from Steelbeak’s eyes down to his beak and back again. He raised a small, tentative hand between them.

“Steelbeak. Can you not…you can’t speak?”

He caught Fethry’s hand before he could stop himself. Gently, he reminded himself. Gently. While smaller than his own, it wasn’t soft or unblemished, the hands of somebody who’d never worked hard for anything. There were calluses along Fethry’s fingers, his palm, and some old scars so deep they were visible beneath the feathers.

He squeezed Fethry’s hand once before turning to scan the floor around where Heron had fallen. It would be just his luck if the remote got smashed and his beak never opened again, leaving him to slowly starve to death.

But no. There it was in the corner, all in one piece.

“That’s what Heron was using to hurt you,” Fethry murmured as Steelbeak picked up the remote. There were a couple buttons on it, all of them labeled, thankfully.

Magnetize, electro-shock, and detonate.

He tried hard not to think about that last one and pushed the magnetize button. He heard something in his beak shift, click like a key turning in a lock, and his beak fell open with his sigh of relief.

“They locked your beak shut too?” Fethry whispered furiously, grabbing Steelbeak’s arm with his small hand as he moved around to stand in front of him. Steelbeak had the presence of mind to drop the remote in his pocket before Fethry could look at it too closely.

He leaned back when Fethry reached both hands up to his face. Anyone else, and he might’ve broken bone.

“What’re you doing?” he grunted, throat raw from his muffled screaming.

Fethry let out a cute little huff, gesturing for Steelbeak to get closer. “Would you let me see? I wanna make sure you’re okay.”

When Steelbeak hesitated again, Fethry let him. He waited, eyes big and patient, and his thumb rubbing gently against Steelbeak’s sleeve.

He felt a blush threatening at being under such undivided attention, and Steelbeak desperately reminded himself that he beat up people for a living. Still, he was only one guy and let himself be tempted by Fethry’s sweetly grasping hands.

Steelbeak knew he was too tall for Fethry to reach without straining himself so he knelt again, folding one leg behind him. And though he tried to hide it, a part deep inside him (deep, deep, deep down) was still shaken by the presence of the remote in Heron’s hands. How many were there? Who else had the power to turn him into a silent shell of a man using the tool they’d given him?

Fethry kneeled down too, which kind of defeated the purpose, but he moved so slowly and kept his hands where Steelbeak could see them with such intent that it made him think that Fethry maybe wanted to avoid looming over him like Heron had been doing. Not that he understood what he’d done to deserve that kind of thoughtfulness.

He watched Fethry’s face as he got close and tentatively placed small, gentle hands against Steelbeak’s cheeks. He searched Fethry’s expression for any sign of fear or resentment, but all he found was concerned determination as he carefully tilted Steelbeak’s head this way and that, prodding near his beak with his thumbs without ever touching the prosthesis. Fethry’s attention was centered entirely on what his hands were doing, leaving Steelbeak free to stare his fill.

They hadn’t been this close to each other since that day in the amphitheater, and Steelbeak had forgotten how much he enjoyed the view. The laugh lines at the corners of Fethry’s beak, the bags under his eyes, usually so bright and guileless now narrowed with focused intent—focused on helping him . Steelbeak’s gaze drifted further, to the long line of Fethry’s neck, and he fought the temptation to run his knuckles down the side of it to learn if his feathers were as soft as they looked.

Steelbeak really did blush now, which Fethry obviously noticed, even while in the zone. He palmed the side of Steelbeak’s cheek, meeting his eyes with a worried little divot in his brow. “Are you okay? I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

Steelbeak swallowed thickly. “N-nah, just stings a little.”

Not a total lie. His face was mostly numb now, with the nerves occasionally tightening and radiating leftover pain. But Fethry didn’t need to worry about that.

“Okay, good.” Fethry smiled, a small thing lacking his typical exuberance but no less genuine for it, more like a secret shared between them. His hand was still on Steelbeak’s cheek, his thumb gently rubbing back and forth beneath his eye. “You look tired, buddy,” he murmured.

Steelbeak shrugged, glancing away. He didn’t know what to do with his hands. Part of him wanted to wrap them around Fethry’s waist but he nixed that mother-of-all-bad ideas real fast. “So do you,” he blurted, for lack of anything else to say. Stupid .

Fethry laughed, full-throated and beautiful, and it made Steelbeak smile involuntarily. “Well, I’ve been losing sleep worrying about this friend of mine. You might know him: tall, handsome, a pretty great junior oceanographer.”

Steelbeak felt his smile freeze. There was no way…

“You really mean that?”

Fethry blinked. “What, that you’d make a good oceanographer? I mean, I’m no expert but you’re a great listener and that’s the first—”

“What? No, no.” Steelbeak leaned back and wrapped his hand around Fethry’s, pulling it down from his face. Gently, gently. “Did you mean—we’re-we’re friends? Still? After I treated you like crap?”

“Of course!” Fethry’s smile melted into a more hesitant expression, and he chewed on a corner of his bill. “I assumed—you didn’t want to? Say all those things? That it had something to do with all this.” He waved one hand in a big circle, like he was trying to encapsulate all the recent craziness, from the monochromatic hallways to Heron’s crumpled body on the floor and all the secrets F.O.W.L was still keeping from him. “And I may not completely understand what’s happening here yet, but I know that Dr. Heron and-and F.L.O.W aren’t good people. They-they could’ve killed you.”

“Nah, they wouldn’t kill me, they still need me.” Steelbeak scoffed, all false, familiar bravado, because he’d seen that last button on the remote. The whole time he thought he was free, he’d actually had a loaded gun held to his head. “But they knew I…liked you. Heron knew. And if they thought you might ruin their plans, they would’ve killed you. I know they would’ve. But I thought if they saw we weren’t friends anymore, you’d be safe. And you were. Till now.”

Fethry straightened, looking aghast. “I couldn’t stand by while they were hurting you!” He clapped his other hand around Steelbeak’s, so now it was Steelbeak’s hand in the middle and Steelbeak being comforted. “And we’ll make sure they never have a chance to hurt you again. We’ll go to my Uncle Scrooge and explain what’s happening—I assume they hired me so they could use me against him later?”

“Uh, yeah—”

“Then with your help, we’ll be able to stop them!” Fethry was grinning, and it should’ve been a relief to see him so happy but a weird ringing had started up in Steelbeak’s ears. “You were on the bad guys’ team, no offense, so you can tell us everything we need to know about how to stop them. I helped stop the Moonlander invasion you know! Well, technically Mitzy did most of the work.”

There was no way. Leave F.O.W.L? Sprouting wings and flying to the moon on a rainbow sounded more plausible. Steelbeak would go down with F.O.W.L and he’d long since made peace with that. A guy like him only got so many second and third chances at life. Now it turned out that day might be sooner rather than later.

“Fethry.” Was it the first time he’d ever said his name out loud? It sounded too close, too personal coming out of his mouth. “I can’t help you. I’m staying with F.O.W.L.”

Fethry gaped at him, and Steelbeak tried to (ha ha) steel himself against the weight of his betrayed expression. But again, Fethry wasn’t speechless for long. Living on a derelict underwater station must’ve given him quick reaction time.

“Stay here? Are you crazy? Steelbeak, look at what they’re doing to you! If you stay–if you stay who knows what’ll happen to you. What if they hurt you even more? What if-what if they kill you?”

“I know,” Steelbeak growled. His resolve was buckling and pushed himself to his feet to get away from the intensity of Fethry’s stare, his voice that deepened with his frustration. It was attractive too, but that was neither here nor there.

“Do you?” Fethry demanded, sounding angrier than Steelbeak had ever heard him. He didn’t let Steelbeak avoid eye contact, standing up too and moving in front of him.

“Course I do,” Steelbeak muttered, but it sounded weak even to him.

Nobody had ever fought for him like this. Fought him sure, but never this. People didn’t care if he lived or died but Fethry did, not that Steelbeak understood why. And Steelbeak wasn’t built to care about anyone but damnit he did, and it scared him. This duck who twisted him up inside with his smiles and his niceness and his trust could make or break him with a word and that made him so weak .

He wanted to grab Fethry and never let go. Like a wild animal caught in a trap, he wanted to gnaw off his own limb and run rather than let anyone help him.

But Fethry kept challenging him, impassioned like Steelbeak had never seen him. “Then why are you still here?”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“Then explain it to me!” Fethry insisted, getting right in Steelbeak’s face. He raised himself on his toes even, like that would make a difference. “Let me help you! Don’t you realize how important you are to me? You don’t have to do this on your own—”

Burning with frustration and shame and want, Steelbeak grabbed Fethry by his narrow shoulders and pinned him against the wall, ducking his head to kiss him hard on the mouth (not too hard. his beak could chip granite and he didn’t want to imagine what it might do to Fethry’s face if he was careless). Nervousness made him a little rough at first, his grip too tight, as fear of rejection swirled noxiously inside him.

Fethry made a sound of surprise, and Steelbeak was seconds from wrenching away, throwing himself out the nearest emergency hatch and letting the ocean have him.

But then Fethry sighed against his beak, impossibly kissing him back , and his hands rose, settling softly against Steelbeak’s wrists. From there they moved, achingly gentle, up his arms and neck, rising to cradle Steelbeak’s jaw in his palms.

Any Egghead could walk in on them. Heron might wake up. But none of that registered with Steelbeak as he gasped against Fethry’s mouth, trembling all over.

He pulled away first, his chest heaving and heart thundering in his ears, to hang his head between them. “Sorry,” he said hoarsely, like an idiot. Stupid . “Sorry. I shouldn't've—”

Fethry’s hand was warm on his cheek, but not warmer than the kiss he pressed to the corner of his beak. It startled Steelbeak enough to make him look up, and he was floored by the tears in Fethry’s eyes.

“Buddy,” he said, smiling. “Do you even know how long I’ve wanted to do that?”

“Huh?”

Fethry shook his head, but he looked like he was trying not to laugh. “I care about you,” he said plainly but no less heartfelt, in a way that made Steelbeak feel like he’d been hit with the stupid setting on the intelli-ray. “A lot. You’ve been a friend to me these last few months, my best friend, when you didn’t need to be. And I don’t want to leave you here with these…these people.”

Steelbeak grabbed the hand Fethry had on his cheek, sick with the fear that Fethry would remove it. He still might. “I’m not much better than them. I told you before, Feathers, I’m not…good.”

Fethry blinked hard against a wave of fresh tears. Man, Steelbeak wished he could stop making him cry.

“You’re good to me ,” he said firmly. And Steelbeak didn’t really have a comeback for that. He’d try, for Fethry.

“Come with me. Let me help,” he said softly, not trying to move out of Steelbeak’s surely too-tight grip, caressing his cheek with the pad of his thumb. “You don’t have to be in this alone anymore.”

Steelbeak could already feel himself folding like wet cardboard. Nobody had ever looked at him like that before. Touched him like he was a breakable thing.

“I can’t do this if I don’t know you’re safe, and at this point I can’t even keep me safe.”

Fethry smiled wryly. “Haven’t you heard of safety in numbers? My family’s all about stopping bad guys.”

“Your family?” he repeated skeptically. “The ones who left you alone for ages?” Steelbeak had been put in solitary for a measly 23 days. He couldn’t imagine years of it, not in his worst nightmares.

Fethry shrugged, but for once Steelbeak wasn’t fooled. “They still don’t know about that part.”

“Well they should.” He scowled, wrapping his free hand around Fethry’s thin shoulder. Fethry straightened at his more serious tone. “I don’t care about the McDucks. But I do care about you.”

Steelbeak wouldn’t be surprised if the stars had disappeared out of the sky, cause there they were in Fethry’s eye. “So you’ll come with me?”

“You couldn’t keep me away.”

Steelbeak started to lean forward, but hesitated. He’d been careless before, almost forcing himself on Fethry, and he wouldn’t do that again.

But Fethry smiled, hooking his fingers in Steelbeak’s bow tie. Startled, Steelbeak didn’t resist as he was tugged down, and Fethry slotted their beaks together in another kiss. And Steelbeak had kissed men and women before, for missions and for fun. Emotion rarely factored into it.

Fethry kissed him like he cared about him. Steelbeak hoped he was kissing him back the same way.

When they pulled apart, their breath mingling, Fethry’s hands remain pressed against his chest, warm even through the fabric of his shirt. Steelbeak’s hands hovering over Fethry’s ribs, not quite touching.

“We should probably get out of here before Dr. Heron wakes up,” Fethry whispered.

“Good idea.”

Steelbeak grabbed his hand, and together they ran to a new kind of freedom.

#ant writes #finally some romance #!!#the thrilling conclusion #steelbeak is a mess #fethry is a sweetheart #buzzard has a remote to lock steelbeak's beak and then it was never brought up again #until NOW #fethsteel #au #fethry duck #steelbeak

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