Chapter 29
The city breathed in orange and purple, bathed in that golden hour that made even the sketchy rooftops look kinda romantic. It was the part of patrol Miles always liked best—quiet, not because there was no crime, but because it hadn’t woken up yet. He could just… swing. Be.
He perched on the edge of a billboard, mask rolled up halfway to snack on a granola bar. He didn’t even like granola that much. It was just the only thing that survived swinging without smushing.
A flutter caught his attention. Something small and fast—then not so fast.
He turned just in time to see a tiny bird tumble from a wire and land hard on a rooftop ledge across from him.
“Yo—” He was already moving.
It didn’t take much to get there. A single flip, a thwip of web, and he landed with a soft bounce near the shivering creature. It was a dove. Or a pigeon. He couldn’t tell birds apart. But its wing was bent wrong, trembling in place like it was too scared to move.
Miles crouched low, speaking soft through his half-mask. “Hey, little guy. What happened?”
He moved slow. Real slow. Reaching into his bag for a protein bar wrapper—gently wrapping it around the bird like a weird superhero blanket.
“You’re okay. You’re okay.”
The bird didn’t peck or freak out. It just… stared up at him. Like it knew. Like it recognized the pause in the city too.
Miles sat there for a while with it curled in his hands. Just breathing. The granola bar forgotten beside him.
A broken wing. Nothing huge. But enough to knock it out of the sky. Enough to remind him how fragile flying things could be.
“I get it,” he murmured. “Sometimes the landing’s the hard part.”
He didn’t have the power to heal wings.
But he could at least keep them from breaking more.
The dorm door creaked open softly. Ganke didn’t look up from his game console, thumbs flying. “You’re back late. Patrol?”
Miles didn’t answer immediately. He was holding something.
Wrapped in a carefully folded hoodie—like a swaddle—was the tiniest bird any of them had ever seen. Its wing stuck out at an odd angle, and it blinked up at the overhead lights like it had never seen anything brighter than moonlight.
“What the—?” Ganke dropped the controller.
“Shhh,” Miles whispered. “He’s hurt. I didn’t know where else to take him.”
That’s when Gwen poked her head in from the hallway, barefoot, hoodie half-zipped. “You brought home what?”
“Miles found a bird,” Ganke answered, eyebrows climbing. “Like, a real one.”
Gwen stepped into the room, then paused. Her entire face softened. “Oh… oh no. Look at his little face.”
The bird gave a single chirp, wobbly and confused.
From down the hall, Amaya’s voice floated in. “What’s going on—did someone say bird?”
Now it was a full dorm emergency.
Within five minutes, Miles’ hoodie was repurposed into a makeshift nest in a shoebox. Ganke looked up YouTube videos on how to stabilize a broken wing, Gwen brought cotton swabs and an eyedropper, and Amaya found a tiny bottle cap and filled it with water like a proud mom.
“This is the cutest hospital I’ve ever been in,” Gwen muttered, crouching beside Miles as he gently dabbed the bird’s feathers with a warm cloth. “What’s his name?”
“I didn’t name him,” Miles said quietly.
“I vote Mochi,” Amaya said immediately.
“Toast,” Ganke countered. “Because he’s warm. And fluffy.”
Gwen tilted her head. “Cloud? Marshmallow? Something soft.”
Miles just stared down at the bird and smiled to himself. “We’ll let him pick, when he’s ready.”
They all went quiet after that. Watching. Hovering. Letting the soft rise and fall of the bird’s chest steady them.
“I hope he makes it,” Gwen whispered.
“He’s in the right place now,” Miles said.
Four heads snapped toward the doorway at once—Gwen still holding the bottle cap of water, Miles halfway through making a nest out of an old scarf, Ganke with a literal first-aid-for-wildlife tab open on his tablet, and Amaya holding a tiny blanket she’d been cutting out of a sock.
Dorm Supervisor Ramirez stood in the doorway, one eyebrow raised high enough to touch the ceiling.
Ganke spoke first. “We can explain.”
“I bet you can.”
Ramirez stepped further into the room, arms crossed. Her eyes fell on the bird in its makeshift shoebox bed, sleeping soundly.
“Is that a wild animal in my dorm?” she said, voice calm but deadly.
“Mildly wild,” Gwen muttered. Amaya elbowed her.
“I found him hurt,” Miles said, standing up, “and I didn’t want to leave him out in the cold. We’ve taken care of him.”
Ramirez sighed like she’d aged twenty years on the spot. “This is a school dormitory. Not Wild Kratts: Rescue Edition. You know I have to report this. You’re lucky the thing didn’t have mites or avian flu.”
They all looked appropriately chastised. Even the bird blinked innocently from the scarf-nest.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Ramirez snapped at it. “I’m assigning all four of you to animal shelter volunteer work for the weekend. If you’re so passionate about saving small creatures, you can do it under adult supervision. With gloves.”
“What about Mochi?” Amaya whispered.
“Who?”
“The bird,” Gwen and Ganke said in unison.
Ramirez pinched the bridge of her nose. “Fine. One of the science teachers can arrange for him to be taken to an actual wildlife rehabilitator. And you—” she pointed at Miles— “can explain why you think dorm rules are optional later.”
He winced but nodded.
As Ramirez stormed off, muttering about “teenagers and birds like this was a Disney movie,” silence settled in the room again.
“…So we’re doing animal shelter work now?” Ganke said.
“I mean,” Gwen smirked, “if there are puppies involved…”
Miles shot her a look. “You just like chaos.”
The moment they stepped through the shelter doors, the smell hit them like a warm, fuzzy wall of dog breath, cat fur, and disinfectant. Gwen scrunched her nose. Ganke immediately sneezed. Amaya just whispered a dramatic, “I was born for this.”
“Welcome to Hearts & Paws! You must be the… ah—‘volunteer detentions,’” said the cheerful shelter coordinator, an older woman with a badge that read Cecilia and a beagle in her arms. “No worries, we always need extra hands.”
Miles nodded politely while Gwen tried not to burst laughing at Ganke, who was already being handed a bag of used litter.
Ten minutes later, their little group had been split into different tasks:
Amaya was assigned to the puppy pen.
Ganke was tragically stuck cleaning cat enclosures.
Gwen was tasked with walking some of the older dogs.
And Miles, somehow, got the cuddly job of bottle-feeding orphaned kittens.
“I can’t believe you look good doing this,” Gwen called to him through the small hallway as she held the leash of a grumpy dachshund named Cinnamon.
Miles grinned. “These guys are just tiny meows of chaos. I respect it.”
One of the kittens promptly climbed onto his hoodie and sneezed into his curls.
Amaya passed by, arms full of chew toys. “This is the happiest punishment of my life. Can we get in trouble more often?”
Cecilia returned with a clipboard. “You four are naturals! Honestly, if you keep this up, I might draft you for the weekly volunteer team.”
Ganke muttered from the corner, halfway inside a cat condo, “I’m being blackmailed by a tabby named Susan.”
As the afternoon wore on, Gwen found herself genuinely smiling. The stress from ballet, her parents, grades—everything—faded just a bit each time a dog licked her hand or tugged her playfully. Miles kept sneaking glances her way, heart stupidly full.
Later, when the group reunited in the break room for snacks and water, Gwen leaned her head on Miles’ shoulder.
“Hey,” she whispered, “thanks for saving that bird.”
He smiled down at her. “Anytime.”
Amaya interrupted with a cracker in her mouth. “So, are we adopting Mochi as our unofficial emotional support bird or what?”
Ganke raised a brow. “Only if Susan the tabby can be my nemesis.”
They all laughed.
Somehow, volunteer detention didn’t feel like punishment at all.