Huntingbird One-Shots

Ruffled Feathers (AU)

A.N. This is a winged AU and the picture on top has what Bobbi's (Top) and Hunter's (Bottom) wings look like, as well as a drawing that I did that gave me the inspiration for this. Also, don't fully know why, but I am hooked on the idea of Hunter having had a bad childhood, so that will probably be a recurring theme in these one-shots. Also, this turned more into a character study disguised as a one-shot, but I really like it. Also, how do you guys feel about daemons like in the Golden Compass books/movie?

Hunter had the kind of wings that would be considered handsome, keyword would. While the contrast of dark and light brown that was seen in the wings when they were folded close to his body was rather stunning and whisper of powerful, broad wings. Once unfolded though, those whispers fell silent, while the wings weren't completely ruined, they obviously showed signs of maltreatment. With the feathers becoming in more and more disarray the closer to the base and center of the wings you got. He could still fly, just not the long distance and high-speeds that were normally attributed to his wing type.

As a child, he was never taught proper preening along with his father not helping him preen as often as he should. This led to disfigured wings as a child, which slowed his flight skills. Luckily or not when he joined the army, every recruit went through an artificial molting process which resulted in losing all of their feathers before having them regrow during basic. After that though, Hunter's wings got minimal attention mainly due to his lack of trust and ease of lying. This lack of care is what lead to his ex-wife walking in on him battling to try and coerce all the feathers that he could reach back into proper alignment after a particularly nasty run-in with Hydra.

"What the hell are you doing Hunter?" Bobbi asked leaning against the doorway with her arms crossed. He had sworn that he had closed that before he began his what would be hours long endeavor.

"Trying to get myself into proper order, and I would prefer if I had some privacy," He said, shifting his wings so they weren't in her line of sight.

"You do realize that I have seen you naked literally hundreds of times, plus I've helped you preen before, so unless you want to spend forever trying to fix yourself and miss your video game time with Mack I would recommend you let me help you," She said moving even farther into the room.

"Fine," he huffed, turning so his back was to her, "But this is only because I made a bet with Skye about how this game would turn out."

"When are you going to learn the bets are never going to work in your favor?" Bobbi moved to that she was also sitting on Hunter's bed with his wings within arm's reach. "You've seemed to get the ends alright enough but now it's time to spread them," she commanded as he patted the crest of one of the wings. Hunter complied and opened his wings up so that Morse would be able to fix those that he hadn't been able to reach. "Christ Hunter, when was the last time that someone helped you preen?"

"Idaho, Hartley, and I had a plan set up but-" The man looked over at the picture of the three of them from their time in Monaco that was on his nightstand.

Bobbi had wanted to make a comment about how it had been almost a month since the SHIELD agent and other mercenary had died but was more focused on the sorrow that she knew was plaguing her ex-husband. "I'm sorry. I heard what happened, I'm so sorry." Bobbi went to place a hand on his shoulder but was shrugged off the minute that she touched his flesh.

"Look, if you're here to get info out of me...again, using what happened is low even for you. So, either help me or leave okay?" Hunter's voice was clipped but had underlying currents of sadness and possibly even hope to it.

The statement made Bobbi sad and angry at the sad time, she was sorry for the friends that Hunter had lost, but this was also reminding her of the issues that they encountered during their marriage. Him always being paranoid that she was hiding something from him, which more often than not she wasn't, along with his inability to ever talk about things that bothered him; which, from what she had gathered usually had to do with either his wings or childhood.