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1.
Dick can fly long before he fledges, the feeling of moving against gravity as familiar as his parents’ arms around him. He’s been training and practicing for what feels like his whole life, and he loves the feeling of flight as he leaves the trapeze bar behind and soars towards Dad’s outstretched arms. He loves the cheering and clapping from the audience when he nails his quadruple somersault, and the way Mama smiles when they all take a bow at the end of their routine.
Mama’s fingers run through the downy baby fluff of his wings at night before bed, cleaning sawdust from his feathers. Dad keeps some of the ones that have fallen out in a little box with Dick’s first baby tooth that fell out, which is kind of cool and also kind of weird.
His feathers don’t need proper preening yet, not like Mama and Dad’s. When they preen each other, they’re oiling flight feathers and smoothing barbules back into place. Dad teaches Dick how to help with Mama’s feathers, making them all lie neat against each other, clean and pretty.
He can’t wait to grow his adult feathers. He often wonders what they’ll look like, whether his wings will look like Dad’s or Mama’s, or parts of both, or neither. He’s excited for the day his parents will teach him to fly in a different way.
They never get the chance.
2.
Bruce is weird, Dick learns early on after the man takes him in. Finding out he’s Batman only explains some of it. Even though Bruce is an adult, Dick can tell he doesn’t know what he’s doing sometimes. He knows how to defuse bombs and climb buildings and get out of chains like an escape artist, but he doesn’t know simple stuff like how hugs work.
The first time Dick hugs him, to thank him for something he says about grief and remembrance, when Dick’s feelings are too big to find his own words, Bruce goes all stiff like he’s surprised. It takes him so long to put his arms around Dick and hug back that it’s like he’s not quite sure what he’s supposed to do when someone hugs him.
He doesn’t really seem to know much about kids, either. Somehow he knows when Dick tries to lie about not having had a bedtime at the circus, or about how eating chips instead of vegetables is good for kids, but he doesn’t know about preening Dick’s wings at first.
He’s been trying to preen himself, because he’s flexible enough to reach, and he can just look over his shoulder in the mirror, but it’s not the same. And when he gets playground debris all stuck in his feathers after getting in a fight at school, he can admit he could use some help getting it all out.
“Huh.” Dick says when they’ve sat down, him with his wings spread and Bruce cleaning the dirt from them.
“What?”
“I thought maybe you were really bad at preening or something, and that’s why you never do it. But you’re not.”
Bruce is quiet for a little while, like he’s thinking.
“I didn’t think you would want me to.” He finally says. Maybe at first he would’ve been right, but even though he can do it himself most of the time, it would be awfully lonely to never have anyone preen him again, Dick thinks.
“Does Alfred do your wings?” He asks, wondering if this is like the hug thing.
“I do them myself.”
Maybe Bruce is lonely. Dick thinks about it while he waits for all the dirt and bits of mulch to be gently removed from his feathers.
“Done.” Bruce says, hands leaving his feathers. Dick shakes his wings out and folds them up, turning around.
“Your turn.” He insists. Bruce’s eyebrows go up. He makes a little circle with a finger, prompting Bruce to turn around and spread his big wings out.
His feathers are already clean and mostly unruffled, but that doesn’t mean Dick can’t help straighten out the few that are out of place. He runs small fingers through Bruce’s glossy black wings, tucking a stray feather back into place here and picking a bit of lint out there. Bruce sits perfectly still the whole time, but Dick thinks he relaxes as he works (it’s just hard to tell sometimes).
He used to think solid-colored black or brown wings were boring, compared to more flashy patterns like barred feathers, and multi-colored wings, but Bruce’s plain black hue shines with a subtle iridescence that’s really pretty up close.
“Okay, all done.” He announces when he’s fixed what little there was to fix. Bruce folds his wings back in and turns back towards Dick.
“Thank you.” He looks fond, and Dick smiles. It’s a good thing Bruce has him, or he’d never figure this stuff out.
3.
Dick’s wings are full of pin feathers. It’s the first step of fledging—these are his flight feathers growing in, and when they’re done, preening will help them unfurl, revealing his adult plumage. He’s supposed to be excited, proud to be growing up and ready to see what the new feathers will look like. But he has mixed feelings. It’s awkward-looking, it’s uncomfortable to have wings full of prickly pins, Bruce won’t let him out on patrol until they’re done growing because of the risk of breaking one and causing heavy bleeding, and most of all, his parents aren’t here to be part of it.
It’s so unfair that it burns, knowing Mama and Dad will never see him grow up. Mama won’t preen his adult feathers for the first time. Dad won’t let him measure his growing wingspan against his, back to back with wings spread out like he’d once done with downy little kid wings. They won’t keep a feather from his first molt, or watch his first attempts at flying.
Alfred sits with him one evening when he’s particularly upset about it.
“Don’t pick at them.” He tuts as Dick prods at the pin feathers on the wing he’s pulled so he can look at them. Dick huffs but lets go of the one he’d been fidgeting with.
“I’m not ready.” Not ready to reach such a big milestone without his parents, to feel all the hurt of being without them fresh in a way it hasn’t been for a while.
“Growing up waits for no one, I’m afraid.” Alfred says sympathetically. They sit quietly for a moment, Dick stewing in his feelings.
“It’s supposed to be special.” He grumbles. That, too, is unfair—that he can’t just appreciate everything to come. Alfred hums.
“I knew another lad who felt much the same when he fledged.” He says softly. “He plucked his first pin feathers. Trying to deny the inevitable only served to irritate the skin of his wings, unfortunately. We can’t go back, nor can we change the past.”
“I know that.” Of course he does.
“Grief is an odd thing. We heal with time, but it may never truly leave us. It comes and goes, often when we don’t expect it. That is to say that there will be times when you feel this way on happy occasions. Winning an award in school, your graduation ceremony, your first date—joy can remind you of who is missing. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have those special moments.” He sighs, a small thing. “Thomas and Martha were dear friends of mine. I can say with certainty they would have wanted Bruce to be happy, even without them. I never had the pleasure of knowing your parents, but I imagine they’d want the same for you.”
“They would.” Dick sniffs. Mama and Dad loved him, they would want him to have special moments, like Alfred said. Like fledging. He thinks they’d be proud of him, and what he does for this city wearing their colors. He hopes so. He hopes they’d be glad he has Bruce and Alfred to be here when they can’t.
He folds his pin-covered wing back behind his back. The new feathers will keep growing in with or without him poking and prodding at them.
(When they’re ready and the keratin sheaths begin to fall off, Bruce will be the one to help his new feathers unfurl with their first preening. And when he molts, Alfred will keep a shed flight feather tucked away with one from Bruce’s teen years. It won’t be the same as having Mama and Dad, but Dick still has a family.)
4.
Tim’s wings are a mess when they get back to the Cave. He keeps them folded against his back on patrol, tucked under his cape, but they’re still windswept and mussed from all the activity of the night. He’ll start fledging any day now, and then he’ll be benched until his new feathers are ready to unfurl, but for now he’s all downy kid fluff as he stretches his wings out, flapping a few times with a yawn.
“C’mere, you’re all ruffled.” Dick sits down on the bench outside the locker room and pats the cushion next to him. Tim comes to sit and and let Dick straighten his feathers. He’d been shy about it at first, but it turns out Tim loves being preened.
Dick combs his fingers through the soft fluff, fixing where it’s been rubbed the wrong way or awkwardly flattened down. It’s nice to be able to do this for him, watching him relax while Dick takes care of his wings.
It had been bittersweet at first, a reminder that he’d never had the chance to preen Jason. Jason had been slower to trust and less free with physical affection, hesitant to let anyone touch his wings. He’d preened Dick just once, towards the end, teasing him about getting Condiment Man’s ketchup on his feathers while he helped wash it out.
(Dick had torn out one of his longest primaries and buried it shallowly in the dirt over Jason’s grave, an old tradition from his parents.)
Tim yawns again, and Dick smooths out the last bit of down that had been sticking up.
“Sounds like it’s bedtime for baby birds.” He says lightly, and Tim huffs.
“I have things to do, Dick.”
Which means he’s planning to sit down here in front of a screen until he falls asleep on the desk. We’ll see about that. He keeps stroking idly through Tim’s short feathers, pretending he’s not done preening him. If he can keep him sitting still a little longer with nothing to do to keep him awake, Tim will fall asleep, or at least get sleepy enough to let Dick get him upstairs to his room without too much protest.
It’s cute how easily it works, Tim’s wings drooping and head nodding as he tries to stay awake despite clearly being tired.
“Are you almost done?” He asks blearily, and Dick hums.
“Almost.”
He waits, hands running over soft wings soothingly. Tim starts to nod off again. Eventually he fails to keep himself from actually falling asleep a for a few long seconds before he finally lifts his head again. Got him.
“Alright, up we go.” Dick stands and pulls Tim to his feet. Tim looks unhappy about that, blinking tiredly. “Come on, Timmy, let’s get you upstairs.”
He yawns as Dick herds him towards the elevator, folding his wings against his back.
“Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing, making me tired. ‘S not fair.” He mutters. And yet it worked anyway. That’s the power of big brother skills in action.
5.
Dick sits down on the bench outside the Cave locker room, taking a moment. Just getting dressed had made the laceration across his ribs burn beneath the bandages. He can’t wait to lie down in bed, after the night he’s had. Being Batman is a different beast from Robin or Nightwing, and he’s still not used to it.
He reaches back to try to straighten out the worst of his ruffled feathers and has to stop as his injury protests again. He stretches his wings out instead, pulling one around in front of him, but that stings too. He sighs and folds his wings in. He’ll deal with it tomorrow.
“Tt.” Damian’s disdainful tongue click announces his arrival. “You look awful.”
“Thanks.”
Damian frowns at him for a moment, looking at his wings and his unbrushed post-shower hair.
“Turn around.“ He orders, sitting down next to Dick on the bench. “Since you’re currently incapable, I’ll do it for you.”
He doesn’t know if Damian even knows how to preen adult feathers (is still learning what he was and wasn’t taught in the League), but he turns and spreads his wings anyway. It’s nice of the kid to offer, and he doesn’t want to discourage that.
Damian approaches preening with the same precision he applies to everything, small hands neatly cleaning and oiling and guiding barbules back together. It feels like he knows what he’s doing after all. It’s nice. Dick hasn’t had anyone preen him for… a while, now. Bruce is gone (the loss so fresh that Dick is still missing the primary he ripped out to bury at his grave) and half the family has left Gotham. It’s just him, trying to hold everything together as much as possible and feeling like he’s failing at most of it.
Or rather, him and Damian. Giving him Robin has been good for him, Dick is watching him learn and grow every day. He’s still a stubborn, arrogant little brat, but he’s a good kid. He likes art, and animals, and he’s been trying out every video game in the manor since Dick sat him down with Animal Crossing in an attempt to find him more normal, age-appropriate activities to fill his free time.
And he’s sweet enough to preen Dick’s wings when he can’t do it himself. He hasn’t let Dick preen his little fluffy wings yet, but it’s only a matter of time. He just needs to learn to accept that expression of love and care—because Dick does love him. Even when it’s like trying to hug a porcupine, Damian is his youngest brother and his Robin and in some ways almost a son, and Dick would take a bullet for him. Is this how Bruce felt when Dick was this age?
Damian withdraws his hands when he deems Dick’s wings “acceptable” and stands from the bench.
“Now go to bed. You should try to minimize the length of Batman’s absence from the streets by healing quickly.” He orders, as if Dick has any control over that. But it’s his way of saying he cares. He’d been worried when Dick got hurt.
Dick ruffles his hair on the way to the elevator, which always makes him puff up with annoyance. Big brother privilege.
“Maybe we can have a movie night tomorrow, since we’ll be staying in.” He suggests. Damian has strong opinions on a lot of kids’ movies, but he can still be convinced to sit down and watch one from Dick’s childhood occasionally (though he mainly tries to pick things he thinks Damian will actually like).
“The next Star Wars?” He’s trying not to sound too interested, but Dick knows he’s really been enjoying the original trilogy. Next up is Return of the Jedi.
“Of course. With popcorn and everything.”