The lanky teenager wasn't sure what he felt more, paranoid anxiety that those...metal titans weren't every single car that passed him, or the parked ones he passed. There was some pride, that he had gotten himself and the Raphael kid to safety, even though it hurt more then he let on to his mom...
Guilt worked through his frame, throbbing in his heart at the thought of his mom. Jack had wanted to spill everything, what really happened, not the same story he had come up with on the spot facing Raphael's mother as to why he was escorting the boy home. It hadn't been an outright lie, yet not the whole truth.
The young man pushed his hand through his hair, scratching lightly at his scalp. Looking around again on his way back to school, he only had one class after lunch, an early day. His wings shifted in the harness he got, a lone from his 'Aunt Margaret' to help against the still random cramps left over from the 'adventures' of yesterday. It was a good thing the children's hospital wasn't far from the teen’s school. Jack knew the reason as some of the things were shared with the hospital, like the pool and gym.
"Hey you limp chicken!" A young male voice yelled from a passing car, and without looking up or over to know who it was Jack lifted a hand to flip the jerks off. Excluding that he didn't react to the other insulting slurs, though he did smirk as the gym teacher heard and bellowed at Vince and his croonie-wannabees.
Jack walked through the open front doors, wincing as his left wing caught and banged against the frame. Reaching out he pulled it back into place and tightened the harness a bit more.
"Are you okay?" A slightly accented voice asked, pulling the teens attention away to see a shorter girl wincing and holding her own wings tighter to her in response to seeing the small tremors under a blue-grey feathers. The teacher she had been talking with paused and noticed too.
"Yeah I'm fine," Jack assured both, blinking only a moment at the girl's brightly dyed hair. He had seen far more interesting things working in retail the last few years, and smiled. Easily sliding the retail-mask on as he hitched his own wings back into place.
"Are you sure Jack?" the English teacher asked, the blond woman looked worried, "You didn't have a harness in this morning's class."
"I really am," Jack promised, holding his hands up, his bag dangling from his right wrist, "Just some muscle strain from a bad flight yesterday...and rolling over off the bed onto one last night."
The girl winced, her own shorter wings twitching at the thought and possible memory of doing the same at one point or another, "Ooo... ow man."
"Do you need to see the school nurse?" The older woman asked, placing a hand on the girl's shoulder.
Jack gave a small salute, "Nah, mom's friend checked me out at lunch when I brought her food. I'm good Miss Jade. Plus I'm going home after school, not work."
"Alright, be careful then Jack," Miss Jade said after the boy as he left to his locker, then glanced down, "Come on Miko, let’s get you that book."
"Cool...who was that Miss Jade?" the girl, Miko was heard asking as the older teen tried to be a little more graceful on his way down the hall.
Well, that had been embarrassing.
Jack rubbed the bridge of his nose, still faintly hearing Vince's whining voice and the thunder rumbling of the gym teacher. That at least still made the teen smile a bit as he headed early to his last class of the day, glancing out of each window to look at the semi distant cars. Jack got a chance to talk to his teacher about an upcoming report, and took a seat at the back so he wouldn't block anyone's view of the protector. Jack got to barrow a geology book for the weekend after class, unable to resist thumbing through it before a small, brown haired and winged form ran into Jack outside.
"Whoa!" Jack jerked the book up in reflex, eyes widening as his wings strained at the harness, one side giving as it was designed so the gray appendage could fling out and catch his balance as the other wing slipped out as well.
"Sorry!" A young male voice Jack knew cried, flinching but the older teen caught himself from falling on the boy by giving two half wing beats.
"It’s okay, Raph was it?" Jack smiled, glancing around and spotted the sleek, riderless motorcycle that looked exactly like the living titan from yesterday as well. The reason for all the fear and now cramping of over stressed wing muscles. Jack narrowed his eyes, knowing it was a common model, that other students could have one... but he folded his wings, reflexively shielding the smaller boy and his own still puffy soft brown wings, "It’s okay, really, I was just reading and not looking where I was going. Did I run you over? Are you're wings okay?"
Raphael's nervousness started to fade, reassured he wasn't the only reason for crashing into the teenager, and the not so strangely sense of protection that came from a larger set of wings to hid behind. His father and mother were wingless, but his two uncles on his father's side weren't. Sometimes it was hard being the only one in the family with feathers. "I'm fine, mom put a heat pad between my wings last night like your mom said to."
For a moment Jack grinned, shrugging a few times to get his wings to close most of the way again. "Yeah, that feels really nice huh?"
Raphael nodded, beaming now, "I wanted to say thank you in person," the brown haired boy said, his wings fluffing out and half slicking back down, he glanced around, "You know, for saving me and all."
Jack patted the leading edge of a round wing, "It’s okay Raph, it really is. You're safe now, we're safe. But I don't really think we should talk that much about what really happened." Jack added in a quieter voice, spotting the sharp black wings of another student and a few others without wings.
"I don't think anyone really would believe it..." Raphael said looking down, and hugging his own book.
"No...but hey," Jack knelt down carefully, now looking more up at the younger boy as he smiled, ignoring how his wings were loosely held and getting on the sidewalk and in the grass. "I believe, was there... if you need to talk Raph," he reached back to tuck the geology book away in the side bag at his hip. Then Jack grabbed his phone, "I mean it, about that thing or anything else? You call me, or text me. I check my phone on breaks at work- well at work but I'm not supposed to respond until break."
"Do you really mean that?" Raphael asked, looking up from the sidewalk, offering his phone for the number to be put in, brightening as Jack's response was to lift his phone to take a picture with it as the ID before passing the cell back.
"Yeah I do. If you're scared, or if there ever is real bullies, or want to learn how to exercise your wings." Jack nodded as he promised, seeing more than a connection born of running for your lives together. This was a kid with feathers in a featherless home. Jack remembered seeing those family photos displayed in the hallway yesterday.
"Is that how yours’ are so big?" Raphael asked, looking to either side at the grey-blue wings that framed him.
"Ah, no, not exactly." Jack rubbed the back of his head with his own cell phone, "I'm from a different line I guess? I don't know what or who my father was, he had wings like mine apparently, but my mom doesn't have wings. I hope they don't get any bigger."
"They can get bigger?" The boy asked, reaching up to push his glasses back into place, reaching out a little as if wanting to touch before remembering his manors. Only the right wing shifted up into range and Raphael touched it, feeling the thin but strong cores of muscle under the smaller feathers from someone actively flying, but still not as strong as it could be.
"...maybe." Jack admitted slowly, sighing as he shrugged, "I'm not done growing in the body. You know that dull achy feeling in the legs?" he got a nod, "Yeah... I think my wings just grew bigger first and forgot me, I'm always running into things now."
Raphael tried not to giggle outright as he smiled wider now, "Yeah, I do that a lot too, I heard mom and dad talking about putting me in a room on my own soon."
"Just, keep your bed in the middle of the room." Jack advised as the crowd of students faded, "And any extra blankets folded on the sides of the bed when your wings start growing." His mom accused Jack of hording ever blanket in the town as his wings draped onto the ground normally, "They won't be as stiff in the morning if your wings are resting up on a blanket or pillow compared to if they're on the ground."
Meep-beep.
The odd sound, like and unlike a car horn had both youths looking up, blinking in the automatic response to see if the sound was to get their attention. As it turned out, it was.
The dark yellow muscle car with black stripes was standing almost innocently at nearer side curb. Driver-less it rolled another half a foot and the passenger side door opened as if by ghost hands. A mechanical, low volume churr and chitter, the same from that mecha that had been the last they saw in the drainage tunnel before running.
Reflexively Jack grabbed and pulled Raphael close as he sat upright, the large grey-blue wings banging into each other at the wrist joints as they tried to close around in a shield like way, "Oh nonono, we're noooot going to talk about robot-car fight club." he tugged the smaller boy as Jack moved to get up.
"I don't think it wants to hurt us," Raphael said, peeking between the large pinions, frowning at the alien sounds that once more seemed like another set of words he half knew. The boy wasn't that sure how he knew, but it was listening to a heavier accent, you almost got it but not quiet understanding fully.
"What, it wants us to get in?" Jack guessed from the wagging door, and blinked as he got a chitter in return. He looked down and fumbled to catch the shorter boy who had slipped between the grey wings and out of reach, padding closer to the car.
Raphael shook his head, and smiled, "No... I think just me, you're too big." he fluffed his wings when Jack made a strange sound, his own larger wings arching up, after a click-buss and whistle, Raphael looked back and pointed to where a motorcycle was coming.
Jack spun to face the other rider-less vehicle, swallowing thickly.
"Relax kid, we're not going to hurt you," a mechanical, somewhat gruff female voice said lowly, so not to carry to anyone still around.
Jack laughed nervously, remembering that threat of being hunted down, "Um, look, we haven't said anything I promise-"
"Oh, wow." The younger boy said behind him, half way inside the churring car. The 'tone' somehow being a cross of encouraging and cooing it seemed arching the door open wider for Raphael's uncoordinated wings.
"Hey, Raph I don't think that's a good idea-" Jack started spotting what was going on and stepped closer as the boy turned to plop down and cocooned himself happily in his downie appendages.
"I think it’s okay," big brown eyes looked around his mottled pattern wings, smiling a little shyly, and maybe a little too trustingly as the door edged closed gently, but firmly.
"No, no," Jack moved but the yellow car was already pulling away.
"Hey, hey take it easy, Bee' won't ever hurt the kid," the motorcycle- the same dark blue of earlier.
"Just kidnap him?!" Jack hissed, looking back to the female voice, and after the yellow car, his wings arching half unconsciously to get away only he could think from something that he knew was bigger and very likely faster than him on ground level: straight up.
If these big awkward wings where good for something, it was that Jack could take off from a stand still. When he really had to get air born there wasn't a need for jumping, or bounding off some set of stairs, brick wall railing or whatever someone with smaller wings needed.
"No, Optimus just requesting, hey wait," The motorcycle moved closer recognizing the signs of body language almost too late. The teen had taking three steps out into the road, away from the big old orange trees in the front yard of the school. "Scrap," the holoform flickered on and the motorcycle kept a scanner on the human, switching to an internal communication line, ::He's off, do you have a scanner on him too?::
::Yeah, and something else interesting partner-::
::Don't mind it Cliff, we need to get this kid.::
::I really think you should watch who's watching your bumper. Hey, are you listening? Turn your comms back on!::
Jack scanned around, trying to spot the car, unsure if he could get Raphael out or even stop it... he tilted his wings to fly low, more gliding. Unfairly at the same moment he spotted the motorcycle fallowing him, Jack's left wing spazzemed, causing him to swing unexpectedly to the side. He had to flap ungracefully and hurriedly to keep from crashing into the ally way, stumbling and spinning his arms. The already hurting left wing banged into a dumpster and jerked his wings close, catching pinions on a pallet of the right one. Hissing as a motorcycle came after him into the alley, Jack pulled up his wings almost like a shield, wincing as he eyed the thing changing. Parts shifting and expanding, coming into viable existence as they locked into place.
It seemed impossible that much robot fit into the motorcycle Jack stood taller then.
The blue and silver mecha, female and woman like in her general shape and form as well as the voice, though deeper with her comparative mass. Long slender fingers, metallic digits that were somehow looking like they were more solid yet flexible silver, her hands spread with palms up in a peaceful gesture, "Look, Jack is it?" She asked tilting her head before shifting to rest a hand on the ground and hunching to be closer to the teen's level as he backed up, one wing-that left one-t she saw spazzem. "I'm not going to hurt you. I just need to talk to you."
"That's okay, you made it really, really clear before: no talking about robot fight club." Jack was backing up still, using both hands to pull up the still shivering left wing, his own fingers digging in under the feathered layer to feel and make sure he hadn't broken his wing on top of everything else in the last 24 hours. "I don't want to get involved, I'll stay safely as far away as I can. I don't want to be anywhere near talking cars- or motorcycles- or even if there's planes, that want to get me killed!"
"You're personal safety is exactly why Optimus Prime has requested your presence." the mecha said as she shifted to movie closer after the human as Jack backed up, lowering herself so the glowing blue optics were nearly level with him.
They were close enough for Jack to both see his reflection as well as the purple rings in the glowing blue. Jack swallowed, "Optimus...wait what? Who?"