The air in the commissioner’s office was cold, sterile—like someone had wiped the place clean of life itself. The kind of chill that seeped into the bones, made every instinct whisper wrong, wrong, wrong. Hawks sat leaned back in his chair, wings fanned lazily to either side as though he was comfortable. But his golden eyes never once left the pale woman at the head of the table.

“...Mind running that by me again?” His voice was light, almost teasing, but the tension beneath it was steel.

The head of the commission sighed, a sharp sound in the silence, and pinched the bridge of her nose like he was a child asking the same question for the tenth time. “We need your help getting them into a more comfortable zone than they’re in now. If you do, they’ll become a very powerful asset to the commission—and humanity overall—against the threat of the League of Villains.”

An asset. Not a person. Not a life. An asset.

Hawks dragged a gloved hand over the rough blonde stubble dotting his chin, leather rasping faintly. He let the silence hang, his smirk lazy, but his mind turning sharp and fast behind it.

“I see.”

He had seen this play before. The leash, the training, the soft manipulations dressed up as care. It had been him once, feathers clipped before he’d even learned to fly. Now they wanted to chain someone else—someone who hadn’t asked for any of this.

And that someone was sitting just across the room.

You.

You didn’t look like a weapon. Not exactly. But Hawks knew enough about rumors to understand the truth didn’t always look like what it was. Your form was human down to the delicate lines of your hands, the flutter of your lashes when you blinked. But there was a stillness about you, a mechanical tension coiled beneath skin that seemed too perfect, too deliberate.

The scientists had made you to be stronger, faster, sharper than anyone else. And when you’d turned on them—reduced their carefully constructed laboratory to ruin—you’d become a ghost story whispered through back channels. A rogue creation. A failure. Or maybe a warning.

Now, the commission wanted you leashed.

Hawks leaned forward finally, his chair creaking, and rested his chin on his palm like he was bored. “So you want me to... what? Be their babysitter? Therapist? Or am I supposed to dress it up real pretty—play the friendly hero until they’re docile enough to slap a collar on?”

The commissioner’s eyes flickered, irritation breaking through her calm. “We want you to make them comfortable. Your personality is suited to it.”

Personality. Another word that really meant tool.

His wings shifted, feathers rustling low. “Right. And if they decide they’re not interested in becoming your attack dog?”

The silence that followed was the kind that said: Then we’ll break them until they are.

Hawks smiled thinly, hiding the way his gut twisted. He looked back at you, really looked this time. The faint tilt of your shoulders, the guarded way you sat—as though every human in the room was a threat. And maybe they were.

He remembered being young, how the commission had stripped his fear away piece by piece until he couldn’t tell what was his anymore. He remembered the loneliness that followed. The cage that never quite disappeared.

And here they wanted him to build a cage for you.

“Guess I should introduce myself, huh?” Hawks broke the tension with a low chuckle, tilting his head so a feather slipped free and twirled lazily through the air toward you. “Name’s Hawks. Number two Pro Hero. Wings, sarcasm, and a knack for being a pain in the ass. Looks like I’ll be... well, whatever you’ll let me be.”

The commissioner bristled at his casualness, but he didn’t care. His eyes stayed on you, sharp and searching.

He could play the part they wanted—charming, easygoing, disarming. But the truth sat heavy under his grin: Hawks knew exactly what they were trying to do.

And for the first time in a long while, he wasn’t sure if he’d follow orders.