anythingdrabble | Torchwood: Ianto Crow, Jack, Owen, Team: Prompt 298

Title: Winged
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters/Pairings: Ianto Crow, Jack, Owen, Team.
Word Count: 500
Rating: PG
Summary: Torchwood is dangerous, even for a were-crow.

Working for Torchwood was dangerous, Ianto reminded himself. It was never going to be anything else. Just because he was in his smaller and more agile crow form didn’t mean he was immune to the dangers inherent in his job. Sadly, he’d remembered that a little too late for his own good.

He’d been keeping track of an alien that had come through the Rift, following it and relaying its location back to the team because he’d been able to get to the arrival coordinates far faster than they could. They had to follow the roads, and the one-way system, dealing with red lights and traffic jams, while he could take the more direct route by air.

It wasn’t the first time the team had split their resources this way, and it wouldn’t be the last, or so he hoped, but right now things weren’t looking too good for him. He’d been keeping his distance, flying from one suitable perch to another, knowing that Tosh would be monitoring him on her computers via the tracking chip in the tiny communicator he wore around his leg.

Everything had been going fine until the alien, armoured and decidedly hostile, had left the almost deserted business park where the Rift had dumped it and approached an area where there were people.

The team in the SUV were no more than five minutes away, but by the time they arrived, there was a good chance the alien would have already started killing people, so Ianto had fluttered around its head, pecking at it, trying to drive it in another direction. It had been working, the alien had veered away, raising its arms to shield its head from his sharp beak, but then it had swung one heavy arm at Ianto, and he hadn’t been able to dodge quite quickly enough…

It had only been a glancing blow, but his left wing had gone numb, and although he’d done his best to flutter away, with only one fully operational wing he’d soon tumbled out of the sky, landing awkwardly in a flurry of feathers. He huddled against a wall, one wing hanging limp, as the alien stalked towards him, raising a heavy weapon that looked more like a club than a firearm, and Ianto hopped and scrabbled away, seeking somewhere to hide.

Just as he was certain he was doomed, he heard the roar of the SUV’s engine, then the screech of brakes and the deafening sound of gunfire. The alien crashed to the ground, dead, just a few feet from Ianto.

Before he could blink, Jack was beside him, frantic with concern, and then Owen joined them, wielding a medical scanner.

“Hold still while I check the damage.”

Ianto did as he was told.

“Well, the good news is your wing’s not broken, just badly bruised. I’ll patch you up back at the Hub, once you’re human again.”

As Jack picked him up, Ianto relaxed into his lover’s arms.

“Caw! That was too close.”

The End