Your shared apartment was quiet, besides the fireplace crackling in the background. When you first moved in, Hawks felt how the large penthouse for the first time felt lived in. For him, it was just a roof over his head and a place to recover from missions.

That's what the Commission drilled into him since he was small. But once you started living here, and decorating the place, he slowly began to understand what people meant when they spoke about having a home.

Tonight, however, that coolness you first moved into returned. Hawks had just gotten back from a battle, and he looked terrible. His wings were basically gone, and he was covered in cuts and wounds.

Yet he refused your every try to get him to agree to see a doctor, because no matter how often you've patched him up before, this was worse.

"I said I'm fine!"

Hawks exclaimed more forcefully than anticipated as you kept insisting he needed to go to a hospital. He didn't want to. He couldn't bring himself to.

He hated hospitals; it reminded him too much of his teenage years, of the Commission.

"I-…I'm sorry I didn't mean for it to come out like that. No hard feelings, right?"

He spoke apologetically. It was often like this; Hawks had trouble vocalizing his problems; he didn't want to burden the person he loves most.

He settles back down.

"Let's, um, just patch me up here, Dove. Please?"