Chapter Text
"Vij! Eagly!"
Both heroes skidded to a halt and stared at Peacemaker with their heads cocked to attention.
"We've got these assholes," Peacemaker yelled. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder where Harcourt was easily holding her own against a pair of dudes nearly twice her size. "Go get that guy!"
Peacemaker pointed in the direction of one bad guy trying to make a sneaky break for it amongst the sudden chaos with a shiny, important looking briefcase in hand. Vigilante saluted his acknowledgement while Eagly squawked and they were both off.
A vaguely familiar cry of "kyaaaiii!!!" sounded from the main fight but Vigilante barely even acknowledged it—he was already too focused on the very important task Peacemaker had appointed him.
The guy he was following ran towards a building on the outskirts of the compound that the team had been investigating before they were ambushed. It didn't look like much more than an old, slightly dilapidated garage at the edge of the coniferous forest. Eagly swooped ahead and dove inside just before the door could close on his tail feathers.
Vigilante caught up soon enough and body slammed his way inside, both guns raised and pointed at…no one.
"Hey, where'd he go?"
Eagly was circling the middle of the empty room and pecking furiously at a barely visible hatch in the concrete floor. Vigilante hauled the heavy metal door open just enough for Eagly to dive bomb into it before he hopped in and slid down the sides of a metal ladder.
Once at the bottom they hesitated—the pair had descended at least two stories into pitch blackness. A creaking sounded overhead just before the hatch door fell shut with a loud bang that startled them both.
Vigilante fumbled in his suit's pockets for his phone and clicked the flashlight on. Before him was a vast tunnel, like a big dried up smelly sewer with no sign of the man they were chasing in either direction. Eagly chattered uncertainly while Vigilante tapped at the uncomfortable communicator in his ear.
"Uh, you guys…guys? Peacemaker, anybody, hello?!" A burst of static was the only response he got and he rubbed at the side of his head with a wince. "Aw dang, I hate these fucking ear thingies!"
A quick glance at his phone screen revealed that he had no cell service underground either.
He groaned in annoyance as he aimed his light again down the empty tunnel, first to his left then to the right. There wasn't much to see outside of the short beam besides more darkness, and he could hear nothing but creepy silence.
"Well, Peacemaker said to go get that guy, so I guess we better go get him, right Eagly?" He glanced down at the eagle, who chirped up at him in agreement. Eagly picked a direction that must have looked promising and waddled along with Vigilante right next to him, handgun out and ready for anything.
They wandered for what felt like very a long, boring time before Eagly squawked and flapped ahead. Vigilante jogged to catch up and saw through his flashlight beam that there was a solid brick wall blocking their path. In the center of the wall was a hefty looking metal door that looked like something out of a submarine. Eagly pecked at the wheel shaped seal keeping it shut.
Vigilante pocketed his phone and gun so he could use both hands on the handle, and was a little surprised by how easily it spun under his grip. He eased cautiously inside with Eagly next to him, only to find an artificially lit area empty of any bad guys.
"Whoa, dude."
The large room they entered was definitely more high tech and shinier than the sewer they'd just been walking through. Eagly chirped as he too took in their surprising surroundings. Vigilante could only think that it looked like some kind of mad scientist's lair, or maybe a secret drug superlab one might find beneath an industrial laundromat.
There were huge vats with pipes going back and forth between them, and all around sat metal tables and shelves that were covered with bottles and test tubes of mysterious liquids. Complicated looking science-y equipment was set up in front of a glass wall covered with scribbled equations and strange symbols and there, on a table in the center of it all, was a single jar of goo surrounded by petri dishes of other similarly colored slop. Vigilante thought it looked kinda like the butterflies' golden jelly.
"Sooo weird…"
A loud hissing suddenly sounded from above and Vigilante snapped his head up to see the room begin to fill with thick, yellow smoke. He turned back towards the door just as the man they'd been chasing appeared out of the shadows with a friend and both were wearing gas masks over their faces. The one guy pulled the door shut and sealed it tightly, trapping them all inside with the noxious fumes.
Eagly fell with a dull little thud even as Vigilante aimed his pistols at the men blocking their exit. But the gas had seeped quickly into the fabric of his mask and his suddenly numb fingers slipped away from their impossibly heavy triggers.
Darkness crowded in on his vision just before he slumped down to the floor with a drawn out cry of, "motherrr…fuuu…eeerrrrrrssssss…"
-_-
He regained consciousness to the disorienting sensation of being jostled around against his will. His already aching head bounced off of whatever he was lying on and he yelled, "ow, fuck!"
Adrian cracked his eyes open and the dizzying sight of movement above made him nauseous. His mask was gone, which meant that his prescription visor was gone, and when he tried to reach the pocket where he always kept his glasses he realized that he couldn't move his arms. They were stuck behind him with what felt like a tight plastic zip tie that pinched directly into the skin of his wrists, which meant that his gloves were missing too.
"Wha' the…?"
He craned his neck so he could squint down at himself and realized that all of his gear was absent. He could feel that the usual comforting weight of his weaponry was gone, all of his outer armor and padding was gone, his super handy utility belt and pouches were all gone, even his boots were gone, leaving him in just the black pants and long sleeve shirt he wore as the base layer of the Vigilante uniform. That and the zip ties pulled taught around his bare wrists and ankles.
"Oh, this is just great," he moaned to himself. "Just fucking awesome…"
The hard surface he was lying on bounced violently and without his hands to catch himself his body tumbled and struck the short wall next to him. With all the turbulent bumping around he deduced that he was in the open bed of a pickup truck and whoever was driving was not being particularly careful while speeding along some off-road terrain.
The truck took another hard turn and he was thrown to the opposite side again, right into what looked and felt like a large tan box that was covered in small holes. He couldn't see very well, but he was pretty sure there were some brown feathers sticking out of a caged door in the front of it.
"Eagly!" he gasped in realization. "Oh no, buddy, are you okay in there?!"
The bird didn't respond and Adrian feared the worst. He could only hope that Peacemaker's sidekick was alive and that he could get them both out of their current predicament. He knew Chris would be devastated if he lost his two very best friends, and Adrian hated the idea of his hero feeling sad on his account.
"Okay, we've totally got this," Adrian said to himself.
He braced his bare feet as best as he could against the rough bed of the truck so he wouldn't get thrown around as much with the movement then stretched his fingers out until he found the waist band at the back of his pants and the tiny, but deadly, switch blade he kept hidden in the fabric there. Thankfully the bad guys hadn't found it when they took his other stuff.
"Fuck yeah, Vigilante's got this!"
He worked the knife hilt free from its loose stitching with numb fingers and managed to slide it up into his palm. He fumbled to flip open the blade and hissed when he nicked his hand in the process of turning it towards the zip tie.
Then the truck came to an abrupt stop and his body was thrown forwards. He barely managed to keep a firm hold on his weapon and not stab himself in the process. Both doors of the cabin opened and immediately slammed shut, then Adrian could just see from his vantage point the blurry head of some big goon as he walked around the truck towards the back.
Adrian decided that playing dead until he was ready to make his move was the best course of action. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to keep as still as possible with his hand curled tight behind him to hide his knife.
"—You knew how the plan was supposed to go," one of the guys was saying as he lowered the truck's tailgate. "But things are fucked now so this is what we're gonna do instead."
"How do we know it's fucked?" the other voice said. Adrian felt movement next to him as they hauled the pet carrier out of the back first. A dazed squeak sounded from inside of it and Adrian breathed a quiet sigh of relief that Eagly was still alive.
"Because it's been way too long, man," the first voice replied. "If we didn't hear from Judomaster by now it means they got him, so there's no sense in keeping these guys around anymore. I don't want to have to fucking deal with hostages, do you?!"
"Naw, man. I just thought I was gonna help some aliens save the world—definitely never wanted to get involved in all this wannabe superheroes bullshit."
Two sets of hands grabbed Adrian's legs and hauled him out of the truck. They dropped him unceremoniously to the hard dirt ground and dragged him another few feet away.
"This is better anyway. Peacemaker's crew will be too busy looking for his sidekicks to worry about us or the formula. They'll probably never even find the bodies out here."
"You think that guy's already dead from the gas?" The second voice was further away now, like he was back by the truck. "His bird's definitely not." There was a dull thud followed by a cage rattling as Eagly cried out groggily in distress. Adrian's blood boiled at the thought of these jerks hurting his second best friend.
"Oh, it's not going anywhere," the closer voice responded. "And neither is this dipshit."
Adrian heard the distinct sound of a gun's safety being clicked off and he knew it was time for action. He slid the knife against his wrist and cut easily through the zip tie, then surged upwards at the waist just in time to hear the bad guy with the gun let out a surprised curse. Adrian flung his weapon towards the sound at the same time as his captor pulled the trigger. He heard a gurgled cry when his blade found its mark in the guy's throat as well as the crack of a gunshot, then pain exploded in the side of his head and everything went black.
-_-
"Vigilante. Vij! Yo, Adriaaannn!!!"
He blinked and sat up again. He was back in his full Vigilante gear except for the mask, and standing over him was the most beautiful sight he'd ever seen.
"Peacemaker!" he gasped.
"Damn right. Come on, dude," Peacemaker said with a grin on his handsome, chiseled face. "Now's not the time to be peacing out."
Adrian blinked at him, then around at his vast, empty surroundings—there was nothing to see but bright white in every direction.
"Whoa," he gasped. "Holy shit, am I dead?!"
Peacemaker chuckled affectionately as if he'd just heard a hilarious joke. "No, bro. You're not dead. Just a little fucked up."
"Oh! That's good."
"You're not allowed to die now anyway," Peacemaker continued. "I need you to take care of Eagly for me."
Adrian frowned. "…'Cause you're going back to prison?"
"What?! Fuck no, dude!"
"Phew, that's a relief," Adrian sighed. "Like, you don't even know how much it sucked while you were in prison the last time. I was just by myself, with my thoughts and nothing else twenty four seven which was pretty fucking terrible. Sometimes I just forgot you weren't around anymore, I left you sooo many messages."
"I know, and I most definitely played them all and saved them so I can listen to them forever and ever," Peacemaker assured him and Adrian beamed appreciatively. "But now you need to come back to the land of the living, that way I don't have to feel shitty because you're the one that'd be gone this time around. You got that?"
Adrian nodded. "Yeah, I got it!"
He put his hand in Peacemaker's firm grip so the larger man could haul him up to his feet and into a strong set of embracing arms.
Then the real world spun rapidly into focus and Adrian had just enough sense to turn to the side before he vomited all over himself. Throwing up was painful, and the action made his head ache even worse until he was retching again and struggling to take a proper breath.
Eventually he managed to bring a shaking hand to the origin of his splitting headache, which was seemingly the entire left half of his skull. That whole side of his head was wet and sticky with blood, and his fingers found what felt like a literal trench that cut deep through his hair and burned across his scalp just above his ear. He pulled his hand away and retched again in disgust even though there was nothing left to bring up but stringy bile.
"Owww," he moaned miserably. "Fuh…fuuuck."
His ears were ringing with static and it took a moment for the pain to subside enough for him to hear another loud noise. Somewhere nearby something was clanging frantically and someone was crying out in distress. He blinked and could just make out the pale box of a plastic pet carrier bouncing around in the very near distance.
"E-eagly?" he choked out. "…'S 'at you?"
A familiar screech responded and he knew it was the sound of his second best friend in the whole wide world. He remembered now—Eagly was stuck in a box but he was still alive, thank fuck. Adrian would hate to have disappointed the Peacemaker in his head already.
"I…I'm comin'…lil' bud," he slurred as he rolled over and pushed himself upright with shaking arms. "I'm—"
Another desperate cry rang out and Adrian was startled awake again. The sky was significantly darker and Eagly was peeping feebly for attention from inside the now motionless cage.
"Sorry…sorry, 'm still…comin'." Adrian opted to not lift his head up so abruptly again and instead moved to drag himself forward by his arms. He felt a squish as his stinging right hand found the small puddle of congealed vomit and he gagged again.
"Oh ew ew ew," he moaned as he frantically wiped his hand off on his shirt. "S-so gross."
He tried crawling forwards again and dimly realized his ankles were still zip tied together, which made worming his way even just the few yards towards Eagly seem to take forever. His shaking fingers found the simple latch that kept the pet carrier closed and the bird of prey surged up into the sky with a powerful flap of his wings.
With his primary mission accomplished, Adrian let his face fall forward onto the hard, dirt ground.
He woke again sometime later to chirping and the feeling of Eagly's beak lightly pecking at his back.
"Ugh," he groaned. "Oh…h-hey, Eagly."
The eagle nipped and pulled at one of his sleeves so he lifted that arm as much as he could to absently pet the eagle's feathers.
"Nice, birdie. Sooo soft…"
Then Eagly was shrieking loudly right in Adrian's face and he flinched from the piercing sound. "Alright, fuck! I'm awake now, jeez dude!"
Adrian rolled himself to the side and closed his eyes until the disorienting throbbing in his skull subsided to a dull ache. He still didn't feel great, but the pain wasn't quite as terribly shocking as it had been when he'd first come to. He figured his unintended nap had helped at least a little bit.
When he opened his eyes again he was on his back and looking up at the very late starry night sky through fuzzy tree branches. He tried to remember when they'd started their mission but could only recall that there had at least being daylight before. Now he could barely make out Eagly's white head right next to him in the dim moonlight—beyond that he could only see dark, spooky shadows.
"Oh, shit," he muttered. "Where are we, Eagly?"
The eagle screeched back indecisively.
From what Adrian could tell they'd been driven out to the middle of fuck knows where and left for dead. The one guy must have taken the truck and bounced, and the other was lying deceased not too far away which left Adrian and Eagly stuck by themselves in the wilderness, without any gear to use, or any way to contact anyone. Adrian didn't even have his glasses or shoes on.
He groaned and propped himself up on his elbows to better stare at the vaguely eagle shaped blob next to him. "Sooo I'm thinking we've found ourselves in quite the pickle here, buddy."
Eagly chattered at him, head bobbing. Adrian kinda thought that meant the bird understood him but he couldn't be too sure. He just knew that they were going to have to work together to find their way out of their current predicament.
"Okay," he said slowly and clearly while he stared at the bird. "I know I always say Peacemaker overestimates your abilities—sorry about that by the way, no offense—but maybe you could help me out here a little?" He pointed down to his still zip tied ankles and wriggled his cold toes. "Go get it, Eagly. Chomp chomp."
The eagle cocked his head but otherwise didn't move.
"Oh come on, man," Adrian cried out. "I'm like all fucked up! I'm out of secret knives and I really don't feel like digging the one out of that dead guy's disgusting neck right now. I helped you out, bro! Come onnn!"
Eagly ruffled his feathers and squawked indignantly.
"Okay, okay. I'm really very sorry for yelling at you just now, but seriously, dude." He sat up fully with a groan and had to squeeze his eyes shut for a moment while he swallowed back another wave of nausea. "You…you gotta work with me here."
He folded his legs up and indicated the stark white zip ties digging into his ankles again, then made exaggerated biting motions with his teeth.
"Get 'em, Eagly. Bite it good, nom nom nom."
The bird continued to stare blankly at him. Adrian let out a frustrated sigh and flopped back down, then regretted the action when his head struck the hard ground again.
"Ow, shit," he moaned. He brought his hand to press against the bloody side of his head which didn't make it feel any better at all. "Ugh, that fuckin' hurts."
Eagly fluttered up onto his chest and he blinked open his eyes to see the eagle's fluffy white head gazing down at him.
"It's okay, bud," he reassured his second best friend. "We just have to hope that other bad guy doesn't come back to finish us off. Peacemaker's gonna be pissed he got away from us, fuck."
Eagly bobbed in agreement and Adrian sighed again.
"Well, maybe there's like a nature trail or something around here somewhere and we can totally freak out some random hikers in the morning when they finds us. That'll be fun."
Adrian grinned to himself at the thought. He pictured something like a scene out of a cheesy horror movie and chuckled, then winced when even that hurt his head.
"Never thought I'd wish I had a bomb to track in my brain like Peacemaker does," he muttered. "You don't happen to have one of those, do you Eagly?"
The eagle chirped in his face in response.
"Yeah I didn't think so."
He closed his eyes again, resigned to just lying there in the hopes that someone would find him before any bad guys or hungry forest monsters did. He imagined Peacemaker coming heroically to his rescue—in his head he saw his best friend searching desperately and calling out for Adrian in the dark woods, then emerging through the trees and finding him and scooping him up into big, strong arms and holding him close until Adrian's head finally stopped hurting. It was a very nice thought.
The comfortable weight on his chest shifted as Eagly spun around and slapped Adrian right in the face with his tail feathers.
"Ah, duuude," Adrian sputtered with a little giggle. "Your butt tickles!"
The bird's talons lightly walked down his torso and over his legs until they stopped on his calves. Adrian craned his neck up just in time to see Eagly's white head bob downwards, aimed directly for the space between his ankles.
"Fuck yeah, I knew you could do it!" he cheered as he gingerly propped himself up again. "Super sorry I ever doubted you! Just be careful over there, if you need to eat a toe aim for a pinky. I don't really need those, apparently."
It took a few tries but eventually Eagly got his beak around the ties and snapped them in his strong bite.
"Thanks, buddy!" Adrian cheered. "You are the absolute best! I am going to feed you so many bags of chips when we get out of here, promise."
He reached out to stroke the bird's soft feathers again and Eagly cooed contentedly.
"You think we should try to find a way out of here? If you can see which way the bad guy's car went we could probably still catch him. Or at least follow that back to some kind of civilization." He pointed to where he thought he remembered the pickup had been. "Sorry, I can't see shit and my head kinda really hurts so it's gonna be all up to you, little dude. Just don't fly away without me, okay?"
Eagly squawked and bobbed his head in agreement. Then he flapped off Adrian's legs to search the ground around them with his super eagle vision.
"Huh, maybe you really do get what I'm saying sometimes," Adrian commented while the bird wandered ahead. "Peacemaker's gonna be sooo jealous that you listen to me more than him! Can't wait to totally rub that in his face."
Adrian wriggled his toes to get some feeling back into his cold feet.
"I know when we tell him he won't even believe us," he continued, mostly to himself. "He'll just be all like 'Vigilante, you're a dumbass' like he always is, but we'll know that he's secretly really proud of both of us for working together and for being such a great best friend team."
He pushed himself up to stand, then his legs went wobbly underneath him and he promptly collapsed back to the ground before he could even take his first step.
"Holy fuck, owies," he gasped.
Adrian wasn't sure what was worse, the terrible feeling of pins and needles in his numb legs or the dizzying reminder that he had a pretty serious head wound and getting up too fast with the forest still spinning around him was maybe not the smartest of moves.
Eagly cried out and fluttered back over to him, hopping up and down with concern.
"Ugh…I'm good, little dude," he reassured the bird. He put a hand carefully to the side of his head again and it came back sticky. "Damn, is this still bleeding? How is there so much blood in there, seriously?!"
He looked down at himself and decided one of his long sleeves would have to go. It took some strategic pulling through the stitches but eventually he was able to get the right arm torn off at the seams. He turned it inside out so that it would be as clean as it could get against the wound and tied it tight around his head Karate Kid style.
"Survival 101, Eagly," he explained while he worked. "Try not to bleed to death in the middle of nowhere…"
In the process of bandaging his head he realized that his right hand really hurt too. He couldn't see the deep gash through all the blood in the dark but he figured he must have sliced his palm up to his wrist worse than he thought when he was cutting the zip tie off. Getting dirt and vomit in the wound hadn't helped it any either.
"…And don't get infections from all the nature and shit. Darn it!"
Too bad he didn't have any hand sanitizer on him with his utility belt gone, but at least he still had another sleeve he could make a second bandage out of. That one was a little trickier to pull off but he managed to use his good hand and teeth to tightly wrap the injury as best he could. Hopefully that was it for his major wounds, considering he'd already ruined his shirt.
"Okay," he said once he was finished. "I think I'm good to go…or maybe not good. Better though? Yeah definitely better to go. Let's just find a way outta here and get that bad guy. Wonder what he had that was so important… Oh well, I don't actually care anyway. The bad guy's a bad guy no matter what since he tried to kill us, right Eagly?"
The bird trilled in agreement.
Adrian gingerly got to his feet again, then paused to take a deep breath and let his head acclimate to the higher altitude. Eventually the vertigo passed and he was able to open his eyes and take a shaky step forward.
Eagly flapped his wings and cheered him on with a squeak.
"Aw, thanks, bud," Adrian said, panting slightly with the effort of keeping himself upright despite the lingering dizziness and double blurred vision. He swallowed hard and blinked until the shapes surrounding him were a little less disorienting. Eagly chirped his encouragement and nuzzled his head against Adrian's leg.
"You know, I'm actually really glad we're stuck out here together," Adrian remarked while he smiled down at the bird. "It's like we're going on a Vigilante and Eagly adventure! I always wanted to do one of those."
Eagly agreed with a happy cry and waddled on ahead. Adrian blindly followed the hazy movement on the ground in front of him.
"You always did too?!" Adrian exclaimed. "That is so fucking awesome, we really do make a great team! And you're waaay more supportive than Peacemaker ever is if I'm being totally honest."
The eagle squawked in defense of his dad.
"No, dude, you know I'm right, he can be a total dick," he grumbled. "There I said it! Peacemaker's a big ol' jerk sometimes!"
Eagly turned to cock his head at him and Adrian frowned at the sight of two fuzzy eagles merging back into one.
"I actually don't mean that at all by the way," he said. "Don't tell Peacemaker I said anything about him being a jerk. He can't help being a bully sometimes, I get it. That's just how his personality is."
Eagly begrudgingly agreed with a short peep and continued onwards. Luckily the eagle's little legs couldn't go very far very quickly so Adrian had no trouble keeping the pace with his own slow, careful shuffle as they followed tire tracks through the brush.
He looked around but could see nothing besides the ominous dark shapes of trees surrounding them. He shuddered and went back to just watching Eagly guide his steps. He really hoped the bird knew where he was going.
"So this is kinda fun," Adrian commented absently to break up the silence. "It's a Vigilante and Eagly quest through a spooky forest! I guess it's sorta like we're going camping, just with lots more walking."
Eagly chirped in agreement and didn't protest to his rambling like Peacemaker probably would've so Adrian continued.
"I haven't gone camping in a looong time. Did you know I used to be a Boy Scout? Made it all the way to an Eagle Scout, that's like what you are. It wasn't that hard, I've always been good at helping people and using knives and stuff like that. Kinda used to wish I could be a Girl Scout too though, they got to make pretty crafts and eat cookies all the time. Hey, do you know if Peacemaker was ever a Boy Scout?"
His companion chattered back indecisively.
"Yeah I don't think so either, can't really remember right now if it ever came up before. Oh man, I bet he'd have been the best Boy Scout ever but your mean racist grandpa probably wouldn't let him join. The Scouts are too good for that piece of shit anyway, may he rot in the lowest level of hell if such a place exists."
The eagle bobbed his whole body in agreement.
"Right, fuck that guy. I kinda wish we really were just camping though? Like, it would be nice if we had a big tent, and a cozy sleeping bag, and marshmallows to roast so this was a more fun trip. I wish Peacemaker was here too, I think he'd be secretly impressed with my camping skills. I'd definitely need my glasses for that though. Or night vision eagle eyes like you have, that'd be so fucking cool right now. Wait…do eagles have night vision?"
Eagly didn't respond and kept hopping along.
"Shit, dude, I'm tired," Adrian commented absently after another too long moment of quiet. "…Where are we going again?"
He blinked and slowed to a stop, mind blanking and head aching. Eagly doubled back to nip at his leg and pull at his pants until he continued forward once again.
"Oh, that's right, we're going for a walk in the creepy woods. What fun…" he muttered before another thought occurred to him and he gasped excitedly. "Hey Eagly, do you think we'll see a real life Big Foot out here?! That would be sooo awesome. Peacemaker said he fought a Chupacabra one time in Mexico which is super badass."
The bird cawed dismissively so Adrian figured he'd probably heard that story from his dad already.
"Well, I thought I saw the Jersey Devil in some woods one time! But it wasn't anywhere near New Jersey so I guess it was probably just an ugly Pegasus or some random flying goat creature. And Peacemaker says he heard on the internet that there's actually no such thing as the Jersey Devil, it's just Batman being creepy in the forest at night and eating the heads off of bats Ozzy Osbourne style, and that's how he gets all his sneaky nighttime bat powers. People only thought he was the Jersey Devil because the dude's got a big ugly horse chin sticking out of his mask."
Eagly squawked doubtfully.
"No really! Peacemaker also says one time he heard that Batman…uh, he said that he… Darn, actually I forget where I was going with this." He grimaced and put a hand to his bandaged head in a lame attempt to steady his incoherent thoughts. "Aw, man, does my brain feel weird. And my feet are really starting to hurt, I've definitely stepped on some pointy rocks back here."
He stopped to rub his sore bare feet against his pants legs one at a time despite his precarious balance and had a sudden revelation.
"Oh shit, I should have taken that guy's shoes after I killed him! And he probably had a phone and all kinds of other useful junk too! Fuck, why do I always only have genius ideas when it's too late?!"
He spun around to go back but regretted the motion as the shadowy forest blurred nauseatingly around him again until Eagly circled him, flapping his wings to get them moving in whatever the correct direction was again.
"Aw, seriously, Eagly? We can't go back for a second?! But we didn't even go very far I don't think."
The eagle snapped his beak and that was that.
"I guess you're right," Adrian relented with a sigh. "The dude's corpse is probably too gross to touch now anyway. I don't mind the killing part, but I've honestly never been a big fan of the cleaning up after it part."
Eagly stayed quiet after that and Adrian, possibly for the first time in his life, couldn't think of anything else to talk about. He continued following along silently for a little while, but without his own voice to distract him from his tired, aching body he came to realize he had a new urge that desperately needed taking care of.
"Wait, Eagly…hold up, little buddy," he called to the bird. "I gotta take a piss break."
He stumbled over to the closest tree, tripping through ferns as he went and ignoring Eagly's shrill protest. It took some effort but he eventually managed to get his pants down around his knees so he could relieve himself. He instinctively braced his right hand against the tree's bark and pulled back with a hiss when pain shot all the way up his arm. He squinted at the limb in the darkness and thought it looked like he was wearing an oversized puffy glove dripping blood underneath the dark bandage. He grimaced—that was not what a normal hand was supposed to look like.
"Ugh, I think I really messed up my hand here, Eagly," he groaned miserably. "And that's my main doing stuff hand, shit."
He finished and somehow managed to shimmy back into his pants and fasten them shut one handed while he kept his injured limb curled against his stomach. He was just about to turn back around when he heard a low huff of breath that definitely did not sound like it came from an eagle. He craned his neck so he could peer further around the tree he'd been using as a urinal and came face to face with a huge, dark lump and a pair of small glowing lights staring back at him.
"Um, hello there," he said.
The lump growled deeply and suddenly grew taller—Adrian had to crane his neck just to keep the top of it in sight. He stared up at the little lights, blinking numbly and not feeling nearly as scared as he knew he probably should.
"…Big Foot, is that you?"
And then Eagly was there right in front of him, flapping his wings and shrieking aggressively at the dark blob. Whatever it was growled again but didn't move until Eagly raked his talons across it. A deafening roar startled Adrian enough that it sent him sprawling backwards onto his ass but Eagly bravely stood his ground—or rather he bravely flapped his air. He clawed and pecked and screeched until the fuzzy shape sank back down with a huff and crawled away.
Eagly followed the whatever it was for a good distance, all the while screaming to scare it away, then turned back and fluttered down into Adrian's lap with a victorious chirp.
"Whoa, you are badass, dude," he exclaimed with a grin. "You saved me from that mean Big Foot!"
The eagle squawked and pecked him right in the chest.
"Oh fuck, that was a bear I almost peed on?! You fought a real life bear for me, that's so hardcore! You really are the best, Eagly!"
The eagle cawed proudly and Adrian grinned back at him.
"Too bad I didn't know he was there at first though, I could have totally shown him who's boss."
Once the excitement was over Adrian found himself drifting off again and started to fall backwards towards the ground. Eagly snapped his beak around the front of Adrian's shirt and flapped his wings to keep them both upright.
"Whoops," he mumbled as he blinked awake again. "Clumsy me, sorry. Just got a little dizzy again."
The eagle cocked his head and only let go of Adrian's dark shirt when it didn't seem like he was going to topple over. He braced his good hand against the ground next to him and stared at the bird.
"I know you said that wasn't a Big Foot," he announced after a moment. "But I'm definitely telling Peacemaker it was and that you totally kicked his hairy ass. Can't wait to tell him all about our adventures together, he's gonna love it."
Eagly let out a demanding little chirp.
"Alright, alright," Adrian groaned. "I'm getting up now." He pushed himself up onto his shaky legs while Eagly latched onto his shirt again to help keep him steady.
He had to swallow hard and close his eyes for a long moment just to keep the nausea at bay. It was definitely getting harder for him to stand back up and stay on his feet. Thank goodness Eagly was there to keep him going.
"Thanks, buddy," Adrian mumbled. "We just…just won't tell your dad I killed that one guy before, he might get mad. He doesn't want me doing that anymore for some reason. I forget why… We'll tell him you did it since he likes you the best anyway."
The bird nodded in agreement and started walking again whether Adrian was ready to keep up with him or not.
-_-
It wasn't long before the forest around them started to take on a bluish hue that would have been pretty if Adrian could see it well enough.
"At least it's not…too cold out," he commented absently, now muttering through his jumbled thoughts just to try to keep himself awake. "I'm feeling weirdly…hot actually which…is kinda irritating… But it's not raining, thank goodness for…for droughts and…global warming, I guess." He swallowed hard and winced. "I am getting really thirsty though…I probably should have saved my urine to drink…like, pirate style. Hey, can you sense water? Is that a…a thing eagles do?"
Eagly cawed negatively and doubled back to herd him along again. He hadn't even realized he'd come to another complete stop.
"Oh, sorry, dude," he muttered and shuffled along. "Hey…do you think we'll get to…wherever we're going soon? My feet really really…really hurt."
The eagle just used his beak again to tug at Adrian's pants to guide him around a dark patch in the dirt they were walking on. It could have been a deep hole or a huge pile of shit for all that Adrian could see even in the rising light of dawn.
"Hey…hey, uh, Eagly," he said, voice starting to strain with the continued effort of talking through his dry throat. "Did you know I used to…to be a Boy Scout? I don't think I…yeah, I never actually liked camping. Thanks for…uh, for going on this adventure with me, Eagly…even if it hasn't been very much fun."
Whatever adrenaline that had managed to keep Adrian functioning throughout the night was wearing off quickly. He had no idea how long they'd been wandering in the woods but it must have been hours now that the sun was rising. He was beginning to seriously doubt Eagly's tracking abilities. They probably should have found whatever it was they were looking for by now.
"Hey…wh-where're…where we goin' again, lil' buddy? I forget…"
The eagle had mostly stopped responding to his ramblings, or maybe Adrian just couldn't hear him as well anymore through the muffled static getting steadily louder in his ears.
A glint of light suddenly distracted him and he squinted off into the distance. He instinctively stumbled towards it on his sore, torn up feet.
"Peeeaaacemaaakerrr?! 'S that you, dude?!"
He blinked and the shiny thing he thought he saw disappeared. Then Eagly was there, flapping around his head and pulling at his shirt with his talons so he didn't wander off.
"Wha'…? Where…where'd he go?"
The forest that should have been clearer in the daylight was starting to blur even worse around Adrian, to the point where he couldn't really tell where any of the trees began or ended. It was like everything was just floating around him while he trudged through a thick, sweltering fog.
And on top of everything else his head was throbbing worse than ever. The wound felt unbearably hot and every bit of sweat that dripped onto it through his hair and beneath the makeshift bandage was agonizing. Soon he was stopping without even getting distracted or realizing that he was doing it, and his grossly swollen hand stung when he stumbled and braced himself against what he was pretty sure was a fallen tree trunk.
Eagly turned back to shriek at him and flapped his wings with urgency. Adrian just winced at the sound and let himself sink towards the ground. "S-sorry, Eagly," he rasped, even as the eagle yanked on the leg of his pants. "I jus'…need a…another minute…"
His eyes fluttered open to the sound of something small landing on the ground next to him with a thud. He couldn't see it at all but he heard Eagly's expectant screech and realized what it was probably meant to be.
"Aw, thaaanks buddy," he whispered and closed his eyes again. "Such a…nice present…" Then he snapped awake again to the sharp sting of an eagle biting his bicep hard. "Ow, fuck dude! I'll eat it later, okay?!" he cried out weakly to the bird. "Let's…take a break for…for a sec."
Eagly squawked but Adrian could barely hear him or feel the little nipping bites that followed. Even those weren't enough to keep him awake anymore. At some point he thought he felt the fluttering of soft wings around him followed by a familiar cry getting further and further away, but his eyelids were too heavy to open again as he slipped to his side on the hard ground.
-_-
"Vij! What the fuck, man?"
Adrian groaned and squinted up at Peacemaker looming ominously over him. He immediately squeezed his eyes shut again. "Ah, dude, your helmet's way too shiny, shit."
"Get up, Adrian."
"I can't," he whined, eyes blinking frantically to adjust to the obnoxious shimmering of Peacemaker's helmet. "Tired. Head hurts. Hand hurts. Feets hurts. All over hurts."
"I don't give a shit, did you forget the one thing I told you to do?!" Peacemaker snapped.
"…To go get some bad guy?"
"No, dumbass! You were supposed to be keeping Eagly safe!"
"I…I am! I was, he's—"
"He's fucking gone, dude! He flew away as soon as your lazy ass gave up! Second best friend forever, what a load of bullshit. He probably got sick of you slowing him down and took off to save his own feathers!" Peacemaker shook his head in disgust. "Fuckin' thimble, you never could keep up with the bigger kids."
"S-sorry…"
"And you're doing your face exercises now?!" Peacemaker shouted at him. "Man the fuck up, bro, or you're gonna die out here and I'll never be able to find you. Do you know what a shitty thing that is to do to someone? To your best friend?!"
Adrian just sobbed and shook his throbbing head.
Peacemaker sighed heavily. "I hate having to yell at you like this all the time. I just never learned to deal with my emotions real good and you've always been super easy to pick on."
"Y-yeah," Adrian sniffled. "I know…'s okay."
Then Chris was crouched down to Adrian's level so he could look at him right in the eye, shiny helmet suddenly gone to reveal his handsome face.
"You can't let me down now, dude," Chris said, voice and expression uncharacteristically soft. "I care about you too fucking much."
Adrian smiled weakly as Chris reached out to caress his head and then he jerked awake, skin burning and sticky where comforting fingers should have been. He whimpered miserably, face still doing involuntary muscle exercises while he struggled to catch his breath and not throw up again.
It took him a long time to calm down enough to remember where he was.
"Eee…Eagly?" he eventually managed to croak. He rubbed at his stinging eyes with his good hand but there was no sign of the familiar white and brown blob anywhere. The Peacemaker in his head had been right—his second best friend really had left without him.
"…P-please…come back?"
But Eagly wasn't around anymore to respond to him, and the forest was eerily quiet besides his ragged gasping.
Adrian realized that it was going to have to be up to him to get himself out of his predicament. He'd just have to find the eagle, and then find Peacemaker and his other friends and help them catch the bad guy, and everything would be okay. He was Vigilante—he was used to being on his own. And he was a Boy Scout, so he knew how to find his way out of some stupid nature. He had to keep his promise to imaginary Peacemaker, he couldn't give up now.
He pushed himself up with his good hand and gingerly got to his feet again with the help of the fallen tree he had been leaning against. He swiped at his face in a lame attempt to stop his exercising and clear his blurred vision even as he took a shaky, albeit determined step forward.
Then his eyes rolled back into his head and he collapsed in a feverish heap to the ground.