Birds of Prey

In Which Their Partnership Begins

"What are you trying to prove?"

The Eagle looked back from his work to see Ravenna staring inquisitively at him. He hadn't realized she was watching him. This was the first time she had spoken to him that day. When he came to pick her up that morning, she'd gone with him without protest, and had remained silent ever since. Her near constant silence made her words more powerful, he noticed.

"What do you mean?" He turned around, leaning against the counter on which his equipment lay.

"I mean what I asked. What are you trying to do? Prove Camden wrong for the sake of an 'I told you so'? I find that hard to believe. You don't strike me as the petty kind... and I'm rarely wrong about people." Once again, the Eagle was caught off guard by Ravenna's confidence. There was a biting, cynical undertone to her words- like she saw the worst in people. Like she was looking for the worst in him.

The Eagle approached Ravenna with a long piece of flexible metal in his hands, kneeling so that they were eye-to-eye. "I'll let you believe petty revenge is what I'm after. If I told you what I've really set out to do, you'd laugh."

"And you'd be the first person to ever make me laugh."

There was a momentary silence after these words that neither of them attempted to fill. The Eagle stood behind Ravenna, pushing the piece of metal in his hand through a hole he had carved in her wheelchair. He bent it forward until it was within reach of her chin. As he lowered his gloved hand, it momentarily grazed Ravenna's sunken jawline. She flinched- the first physical reaction he had ever seen from her.

"I'm- I'm sorry. " Ravenna didn't know why she felt the need to apologize. Her sudden movement had hardly disturbed the Eagle's work. I felt, she thought to herself, the sensation of the Eagle's worn glove against her chin burning itself into her memory. It wasn't often that she felt. 

"No harm done." The Eagle stepped back to admire his handiwork. The long metal rod was connected to a motor on each side of Ravenna's wheelchair. By jutting her chin forward, she would be able to activate the motors, propelling herself forward. It wasn't close to sufficient for the Eagle's purposes, but it was a great improvement over no capacity for independent movement at all. "Why don't you test it out?" 

Slowly moving her head forward, Ravenna watched apprehensively as her chin made contact with the rod. However, she pushed it at an angle, causing one of the motors to rotate much more quickly than the other. She swerved off to the side and the Eagle rushed to grab both sides of her wheelchair before she slammed into the wall. 

"Let's try going forward this time, shall we? That's this way, in case you weren't aware," he said sarcastically, pointing. 

"What, did you expect my balance to be perfect on the first try? I've never moved my own body in my life!" Ravenna jabbed back playfully, a smile growing on her face. She wasn't supposed to be enjoying this... but she was. She was moving... she was free. 

Without warning, Ravenna pushed the rod forward with full force, careening straight through the door of the Eagle's modest cottage. 

"Hey!" she heard the Eagle's voice and footsteps behind her as he chased her down the open beach, feeling the familiar sun and wind on her face in a way she never had before. He caught up to her as she was about to turn onto the training ground, but she veered to the side. One of his flimsy gray flip-flops- which were obviously not built for running- flew off his foot as he tried to match her turn and he slipped, falling face first in the silken sand. 

Peals of laughter echoed through the air as he brushed the sand out of his thick black hair and the grooves in his mask. The Eagle looked up to see Ravenna smirking at him. Seeing the cross look on his face, she erupted into a second fit of giggles. "And you... make fun of me... for almost running into a wall," she managed to say. 

I'm the first person to ever make her laugh. 

"Alright, you win this one," the Eagle rose to his feet. "I honestly didn't expect it to go so fast. That means we can do a lot more with the next stage... " 

"The next stage?" Ravenna questioned. Although she had every reason to believe the Eagle was just using her for his own purposes, she'd allowed herself a fantasy of being cared for. Wanted. Some part of her was excited at the prospect of this being just the beginning. 

"I told Camden I'd make you useful to the Jackers," the Eagle explained. "Today is a huge success, but we're not quite there yet," he said mysteriously as he turned around, heading back toward the cottage. For a moment, Ravenna sat there dumbly, before she realized she could follow him. As she glided forward, her head raced with thoughts of what the Eagle had planned for her.