"So, how's surface life been, kid?"
Dr. Ito asked a question, his voice cheerful, and Keigo looked at his companion. He was escorting the number two hero down a hallway in the underground hospital, and Keigo wasn't expecting it.
"Uh..." Was all he managed to get out.
"Oh, I'm sorry, is this not a good time to ask?"
"Well, considering that almost everything from here to everywhere is burning or toppling or swarmed with villains, I'd say it's any other Tuesday..." Keigo joked as they rounded the corner, much like they had in the past weeks as they were on their way to the room where they did his treatments. It was always freezing and almost too light because of the florescence, but it was familliar, its only redeeming trait.
"I'm so sorry..." Dr. Ito expressed his sympathy.
"No, it's fine. If I don't make jokes about it, I'll cry, and I don't think that's a very becoming face on the No. 2 hero."
"There's no shame in crying..." Dr. Ito put his hand on Keigo's shoulder as they approached the room. The door slid open automatically, and the same exam table and monitors and syringes greeted and glared at Keigo.
"For me, there is." He replied.
"I doubt that."
There was a bit of silence after that. Keigo sat on the exam table, and Dr. Ito pulled out his stethoscope out of his lab coat, hoping to monitor Keigo's heart rate. He picked up a clipboard and scritched some things down on the exam document. He sighed when he finished.
"Hey, at least after today, you won't have to come back to this place for a while. Musty mole-hole."
"It's not that bad..."
"You spend four months straight down here and then tell me that."
The two laughed a bit, then Dr. Ito made for the door. Something was missing, though, and it was freaking Keigo out.
"Uh, Doc?"
"Hm?"
"Where is she?"
"Coming."
Dr. Ito smiled, his wrinkled face folding into itself in a few tired folds, as he stepped out of the hallway in the opposite way they had come. It was then, in the undertones of his therapeutic shoes stepping farther and farther away, that he heard the sounds of shuffling coming. A delicate pitter-patter of feet after something metallic got closer and closer, and, not knowing what exactly to do other than listen, Keigo stood next to the exam table in anticipation.
The first thing he saw was Lily, slightly crouched as she whispered tiny little drabbles of encouragement, "You're doing so good, just a few steps more. He's still waiting for you, you can do it."
The next thing he saw made him freeze.
Her walker was adorned with half-torn-off stickers, with the tennis balls on the bottom covered in a layer of brown gunk from the underground hospital's floors. Her hair was falling out its braid in whisps, fleeting across her face. A few beads of sweat made the determination on her face shine more brightly than a star. Her shoulders swayed slightly back and forth with every step she took as the walker shimmied slightly forward on the linoleum, her wings moving likewise.
What had seemed impossible had come to pass.
Little Bird was walking.
He started to cry by the time she got in the doorway.
"You're...you're..."
It was then that Little Bird saw him, too, and in a moment of pure frenzy, she did something reckless. Throwing off the walker, she bounded across the floor, nearly falling every time, her eyes focused on nothing else. She only stopped when Keigo caught her up in his waiting embrace.
"I... I did it, Kei!"
"I know... I...."
"But then why are you crying?"
"...because I'm sad I won't get to push your wheelchair anymore."
"...you liar."
They hugged, even though it hurt both of their wings to be held. As she was about the same height as him, Keigo held the back of her head, his face slightly in the nook of her neck. He was still crying as he managed to get out what he wanted to say,
"I'm so proud of you."