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The first time Dick leaves the aviary it’s not because he’s running away. He was born in an aviary and wouldn’t know the first thing about surviving on his own outside of one. No, he leaves because he wants to see the stars. When he was little, before his wings grew in, Dick would sit in his father’s lap, in the shelter of his wings, as his father pointed out the constellations. The circus is a lifetime away from him, gone and never to return, but Dick misses those moments with his father. Bruce is… kind enough, Dick supposes. For a human anyway. But Bruce doesn’t understand that even caged birds long to fly.
Dick doesn’t go far, for the late spring night is still cool and the edges of Gotham stretch farther than he’s used to flying. That, and while he doesn’t think Bruce will report him for running away, Dick doesn’t want to go too far and risk getting lost or worse, caught by authorities. He barely remembers the cages of Gotham before Bruce bought him and brought him home, but he has no desire to repeat the experience.
He finds a copse of trees in a field where the Gotham skyline is barely visible and the major roads leading into town don’t pass through. Settling down on one, Dick watches the stars. The constellations are unfamiliar to him, and he wishes he had a star map to show him the stars he remembers from his childhood.
Dick’s lost in thought and starlight when he hears the shush shush of wings flapping nearby and the soft thump as someone lands beside him. He startles a bit, but it’s just another Winged, which is a surprise in and of itself. The Winged is a little younger than Dick, smaller with dark crimson wings spread out from his back, black tipped like a cardinal. “Hey.” The kid greets Dick with a lopsided smile. “I’m Jason.”
“Dick.” Dick returns and shifts so his wings can stretch out behind him.
Jason plops down on the ground beside Dick and asks, “You okay? I know some people that are sympathetic. They’ll help you.”
“What?” Dick asks, surprised as his eyes fall to Jason’s throat, which is bare beneath the scarf. “Oh.” He sighs. “I’m not… I’m okay. I just came out to see the stars.”
“Oh. I thought….” Jason trails off. He rolls back onto his feet and looks like he’s about to take off.
“Wait.” Dick calls and Jason freezes. “Are you really a wildling?”
“Yes.” Jason replies. “I should go. I saw you on my way back to the nesting grounds and I thought you needed help. I need to go warn my flock.”
“I won’t tell.” Dick rushes to reassure. “I won’t tell anyone there are wildlings here. You don’t have to leave.”
Jason looks torn between the sky and Dick before he sighs and sits back down. “I shouldn’t trust you.” He says simply. “Are you sure you won’t come with me? It’s better than being a bird in a cage.”
It’s tempting. Dick wants to say yes, to go with Jason. “No.” He says instead. “I’m not a wildling. I don’t know how to survive.”
“I’d teach you.”
Dick smiles. It’s so earnest and honest and compared to the false niceties of Gotham’s humans it’s reassuring to hear. “Thank you, but I can’t. I have to go home.”
“Home.” Jason repeats sourly. “You mean you’re going back to your master.”
Dick doesn’t deny that, just rises to his feet and moves away from the tree he was resting near, where the sky is uninhibited and he can launch himself back up for the trip back home. “Will I see you again?” Dick asks instead.
“Maybe.” Jason replies. He hesitates then says, “My flock nests here in the spring before heading north when the fledglings can fly. We’re here for two weeks in the fall too, when we head south again. I’ll check for you near this area when I go hunting. Maybe we’ll see each other again, if Destiny decides.”
Dick smiles, and takes to the sky. Jason watches him go.
*~*~*
Every time they meet, Jason asks Dick if he’s ready to leave the aviary. They don’t meet often, but Dick finds himself sneaking out more and more over the years, in the spring and the fall mostly, to see the stars and to see Jason. They meet twice more that spring before the fledglings are ready and Jason’s flock heads north. By the fall Dick has learned to read the changes in the weather that will tell him approximately when Jason’s flock will migrate.
He has to be careful, Dick does, because while he thinks Bruce suspects and Alfred knows he’s leaving the aviary, Dick doesn’t want them to know why or where he’s going. Bruce would never intentionally harm a wildling clan, but he’s human – he believes that Winged like Jason and Dick are best protected by aviaries.
And Jason… Jason loves the sky too much to ever be happy in an aviary.
So Dick sneaks out and takes to the skies towards the outskirts of Gotham where the city lights don’t reach, where farm and field and forest stretch across the land, to that one copse of trees where they first met. Jason finds him more often than not. He teaches Dick to read the night sky, what constellations are which. He takes Dick hunting for rabbits and small game and shows him how to dive like a hawk, swooping and laughing in ways that Dick hasn’t since before he lost his family.
However, as much time as they spend together, Jason never once takes Dick near his flock. Dick doesn’t blame him for his distrust. Dick has refused to leave his aviary every time they’ve met. Even when Jason teaches Dick how to hunt, how to live off the land, Dick knows his home is in Gotham, with Bruce and Alfred. He learns to love the wildling for his independence and dedication to his flock, but Dick knows that life isn’t for him. It’s too fragmentary, and Jason’s always on the edge of hunger, lean and tense and scared whenever there’s the sound of an aircraft overhead.
Dick’s heart breaks when Jason casually mentions one night that he hasn’t eaten in two days because their flock has grown and the few hunters they have can’t keep up with the mouths to feed.
“Come back with me.” It’s the first time Dick has ever asked Jason to give up his freedom. “In an aviary, you don’t have to be scared about food ever again. You’ll never be hungry.”
Jason scowls. "No," He says simply. "I'd rather starve." Then he takes off into the night in a great burst of crimson wings.
It's two days before Dick sees Jason again, though he's come every night. "Go home." Jason says. "Go back to your master, back to your cage."
All Dick says is, "I'm sorry." And Jason's scowl fades. "I just want you to be safe."
"Better free than caged." Jason replies. "Don't ask me again, unless you never want to see me ever again."
*~*~*
Things change when Dick is seventeen and Jason is fifteen. They've been meeting off an on for three years now and they've fallen into a rhythm, but the fall after Dick turns seventeen sees a new addition to the Wayne household.
Tim is small, young. He's fourteen and a late bloomer.
"Never thought it would happen to the Drake family." Dick hears the humans whisper at one of Bruce's many parties. He smiles and nods as he accompanies Bruce, dressed in fine clothing and his wings -- cerulean -- draped in jewels. But Winged don't speak, so Dick doesn't say anything as he listens while Bruce gossips. Listens while Bruce negotiates with the Drake family.
Listens when Tim comes into the aviary, his feathers gray and soft and downy, and holds the boy as he cries. This wasn't supposed to happen to him. Not to Timothy Drake whose family is as influential as Bruce's own, whose blood runs clean and pure (not like Bruce whose mother was a Winged).
It's the first time Dick thinks he might understand Jason's desire for freedom.
When Dick finally goes out into the fields to meet Jason, he does so with secrecy he hasn't needed for over a year now, sneaking out of the aviary garden while Tim sleeps in a nearby nest, because Dick doesn't want Tim to know. Tim will run if he knows, and Dick doesn't know what's worse -- Tim becoming a wildling or Tim being captured after trying to run away.
Jason says, "If he comes to us, we wouldn't turn him away."
"Is it selfish that I don't want him to leave?" Dick asks. He's lying in the shade of a tree, his head in Jason's lap, while the wildling cards his fingers through Dick's long black hair.
"Horribly." Jason agrees with a snort. "But if he can wait a few years, that would be better. When he can fly, it will be easier for him to come to us. We have too many fledglings right now. It's not safe for another among my flock."
A few years, Dick agrees. Yes. If Tim wants to leave in a few years, Dick will help him go.
*~*~*
Life is a series of moments for them, captured and fleeting. When Dick is nineteen, Bruce approaches Dick with hesitancy he doesn't normally display.
"You have no mate." Bruce points out. "Winged are normally mated around your age."
"I don't want a mate." Dick answers easily, with some confusion in his voice. "I don't want to have children, for one."
For two, Jason has captured Dick's heart. But the wildling will never return his affection. Not while Dick remains in Gotham and Jason has a flock to watch out for.
"An unmated Winged is more likely to sicken and die." Bruce replies, citing a widely known study. "I've arranged a visit to the cages. Perhaps there's a Winged there you'd like to add to the aviary?"
For the next three days Dick is lost in thought, dreading the visit to the cages and unsure of how to tell Bruce that he really, really doesn’t want another Winged in the household. Tim’s just beginning to settle down, his plumage growing in a shade of red that reminds Dick of Jason’s. He can’t fly just yet, only glide, so Dick has taken to teaching Tim to jump from the roof of Wayne Manor so that he can get used to the feel of the sky. So that if (when) the time comes, Tim will be strong enough to leave.
The cages are as horrible as Dick remembers from his youth. The concrete floors and steel bars and lack of sunlight or sky breeds its own sort of despair. It’s just Dick and Bruce who step inside, and Dick’s grateful that Tim is back at the manor with Alfred, that Tim doesn’t have to see what he came so close to experiencing, had Bruce not bought him when he first began to show. Dick doesn’t want to be there, but he steels himself and steps down the first aisle of cells, where Winged huddle in tattered blankets, a mockery of a nest.
Dick’s been lucky, to have grown up in Bruce’s aviary, to know the love and stability of a single home. This is despair, tragic and simple, for these Winged who do not have an aviary, who have either been sold from their homes or just presented and have no home yet.
He finds her at the end of the second aisle, her wings the color of storm clouds draped around her as she sits with her knees pulled to her chest, cheek resting on her knees. When Dick pauses before her cell, hazel eyes flicker up to meet his, but there’s no expression on her face. She’s maybe Jason’s age, and Dick feels a stab of sympathy for her, because this is obviously not her first time in a cage.
“She’s a wildling.” The attendant tells Bruce. “Her name is Cassandra. Poor thing was so traumatized without an aviary she’s completely mute. It’s been hard to find her an aviary because of it. It seems other Winged don’t accept her as part of the flock so easily, even though owners usually don’t have a problem with her. I’m afraid she likely wouldn’t be a good fit for your aviary.”
Cassandra glances away from them, her dark hair shading her face from view, and Dick’s heart breaks. He looks at Bruce expectantly.
He didn’t want to bring anyone into the home, but he can’t stand the thought of Cassandra continuing the cycle of being rejected from aviary after aviary, not when he knows Tim will welcome her. Not when Dick will do everything he can to protect her.
*~*~*
That spring, when Jason’s flock comes, Dick is struck by how much has changed in the five years they’ve known each other. Jason is no longer just a hunter in his flock, but a leader. As he and Dick lay entwined in the shade of the trees, watching the stars, Dick listens while Jason excitedly describes the world outside of Gotham. Jason has been up and down the Eastern Seaboard so many times he has favorite places. Like the hills of Appalachia, or the sandy moonlit beaches of Florida.
“You could come.” Jason says. “You and Tim, now that Tim’s flight feathers have grown in. You don’t have to stay here.”
“I have Cassandra to watch over now, too.” Dick replies. “My flock is growing too.”
“Then bring her as well.” Jason says quickly. At seventeen, he’s grown to tall and broad shouldered, muscled in a way Winged usually aren’t. He’s a predator bird, capable of going to dangerous lengths to protect his flock. “There’s a whole sky beyond Gotham.”
“I couldn’t do that to your flock, Jason.” Dick sighs sadly. “I couldn’t do that to Bruce either. Or Alfred. They’re human but they’re as much my flock as Tim and Cassandra are.”
Jason frowns, deep and lost in thought. “I don’t know what you can see in a human that keeps you as a slave.” He says finally.
“I don’t feel like a slave.” Dick answers.
Jason just glances pointedly at Dick’s neck, where a collar of status is wrapped around his throat, and doesn’t say a word.
“I don’t!” Dick insists. “There are worse things out there, you know, than to be in Bruce’s aviary. He takes good care of us. He listens to me and Tim and he respects Cassandra. He gives us space and willingly looks the other way when we sneak out when we’re not supposed to.”
“You love him.” Jason notes. He sounds disappointed and for a moment Dick’s heart is in his throat. Is Jason jealous?
“He’s the closest thing I’ve had to a father since I was sold.” Dick admits. “In that respect, yes, I love Bruce. He’s my family – the same as the flock is your family.”
“Except my flock is made up of Winged.” Jason growls back. “He’s human, Dick. He’s human and they’ve only ever seen us as birds to be owned, to be caged. You’re an idiot for thinking otherwise.”
It hurts. “You’re wrong.” Dick replies gently. “You’re wrong, Jay. Not every human is bad. Your flock relies on human support for the fledglings, don’t you? It’s the same principle.”
“The humans that support us are abolitionists.” Now Jason has withdrawn from Dick, anger written across his face, a fury that Dick has never seen before. “They don’t keep us in cages. They don’t parade us around in pretty clothing with our wings chained behind us. Your precious master does that to you. How can you be okay with that?”
“He’s not my master!” Dick insists, but Jason’s not listening any longer. He’s risen to his feet and turned away. Those black tipped crimson wings bristle with the force of his emotions, the feathers puffed to make him appear larger.
“Go back to your cage, Dick. You’re obviously happier in it than you are with me.” Then he jumps and his wings spread and Jason takes off across the night sky, leaving Dick alone in his grief.
*~*~*
Damian’s wings are just beginning to grow in when he shows up on Bruce’s doorstep one evening. They’re covered in downy feathers, and the twelve-year-old glares and hisses and spits like a cat whenever anyone comes too close.
“It skipped me.” Bruce tells Dick that evening, when Damian finally falls asleep, his head cradled in Dick’s lap while Bruce watches on from a distance. “I always thought I’d grow up like my mother, and then I didn’t and I thought it was safe.”
“It’s not your fault.” Dick whispers so that Damian won’t wake. He’s exhausted himself, poor child. His mother feared for Damian’s life, and sent him away the moment the wings grew in, knowing that even life in a cage with his father was better than being killed for his abhorrent mutation. “He’s here now. We’ll take care of him.”
“Thank you, Dick.” Bruce still looks stricken, lost. “I wonder, sometimes, if I’m doing the right thing. If it wouldn’t be better if you just went out one night and never came back home.”
Dick freezes, his hand stilling from where he was running it through Damian’s short bangs. “I wouldn’t.” He says, finally. “I couldn’t leave Tim or Cassandra. Or Damian, now, I guess.”
“Maybe you should.” Bruce admits. “I would buy you time.”
“We wouldn’t make it.” Dick admits, and it’s bitter, this confession. “The wildling flocks are barely surviving as is. We’d just be a burden on them. We’d get them caught or slaughtered.”
He thinks about Jason, willing to take Dick and his flock in, if only they would leave Bruce. But it wouldn’t be safe. Dick has never known life outside the aviaries, same as Tim. Cassandra would be fine, but Damian is a fledgling. It’s too dangerous.
Bruce rises to his feet and Dick’s wings ruffle as he shifts backwards to look up at the man he thinks of as a father. “I never meant to ever own a Winged, you know.” He confesses to Dick in the quiet. “When I saw you in the cages, it was an impulse buy. I could see myself in your eyes.”
This is how Dick knows Bruce is different, as Bruce looks down at his son sadly. Bruce may play the part, but he’s never enforced the bars of their cages. He never would. If Dick left and never came back, Bruce would hide it for as long as he could, until Dick was safely away.
Dick could go. He could go to Jason. They could be free.
But he looks down at Damian, asleep in his lap, and he knows he can’t. Jason thinks its physical chains that bind Dick to Gotham, but it’s these emotional ones instead. It’s these ties that bind each heart one to another, because if Dick wasn’t here, then no one else would be. Because he can protect his flock, and Bruce can protect him.
It’s not freedom, but is Jason really free? Sure, he can go where he wants, but he’s always looking out for danger, always moving at night to avoid the search parties in the daytime. He goes without food because he lives off the land, but he sacrifices security for those skies that Dick can take for granted. Dick can fly, knowing his nest will be there when he comes home. Maybe he’s freer than Jason is. At least Dick thinks so.
*~*~*
Eight years. Dick is twenty-two which means Jason is twenty. Spring comes and Dick flies to their meeting spot. He waits and watches the stars and thinks about how things have changed in the last eight years. Dick’s flock has grown, Jason’s has become two now, and he leads the smaller of the two flocks with the aid of a few older wildlings.
He doesn’t think anything of it, as he watches the moon streak across the sky and the predawn light in the distance, that Jason didn’t come. He doesn’t always come. Sometimes Dick is too early and the flock hasn’t made its way to Gotham yet.
Dick is surprised when he touches down in the backyard and heads through the kitchen to the aviary and he sees Bruce still awake, nursing a cup of coffee at the kitchen table. Bruce doesn’t stay awake when Dick goes out – it’s part of the way they pretend that Bruce doesn’t know what Dick is doing.
“You’re safe.” Bruce comments, and the words are so unusual they freeze Dick in his place. “I was scared.”
“Bruce?” Dick questions as Bruce rises and comes to stand in front of him. They’re of a height, which always surprises Dick when he realizes it, because he remembers being just a child when he came to Bruce’s aviary. “What’s wrong?”
“They found a wildling flock.” Bruce admits. “On the outskirts of Gotham. Witnesses saw a few wildlings in the sky and reported it to the police. Over twenty wildlings were captured.”
Dick’s heart sinks, dread welling in his chest. “No.” He whispers. It can’t be. It mustn’t be. If it’s Jason’s flock…
He doesn’t dare finish the thought.
“I’m sorry.” Bruce says before he leaves.
Dick sleeps in restless fits that day, fear waking him every few hours. Darkness can’t come soon enough, though Dick is extra cautious when he flies to the meeting place. He can’t get captured, not when there might be patrols looking for any wildlings that were missed in the initial raid.
He doesn’t stay long. A few hours and no signs of Jason and he returns home. The next morning, he finds Bruce before the man leaves for the office. “We need to visit the cages.”
Bruce just nods. “Tell me about this wildling.”
So Dick does, spilling the story out. He says far more than he should, explaining about Jason’s habits and dreams, about how Jason was born to a human mother and father and fled as a fledgling. It’s more than Bruce needs to find him, but Dick needs to talk about Jason and once he starts, he can’t stop.
When he finishes, he’s exhausted and he and Bruce are no longer alone. Tim and Cass and Damian linger in the edges of the room, listening and not judging. “I’ll find him.” Bruce promises. “I’ll bring him home.”
They go to the cages.
Dick searches up and down the aisles while Bruce talks to the attendants. “I’m looking for a bird to compliment my favorite.” Bruce explains, all sweet and sugar. “He’s got such lovely blue wings. I was thinking a Winged around his age with red wings would be ideal.”
“Oh of course, Mr. Wayne!” The attendant with them replies, and fawns over Bruce in a way that might have made Dick sick to his stomach if he weren’t so used to seeing it. “Unfortunately, the perfect Winged has already been sold, but we have a few with orange and one with silver wings that I think would complement your Winged nicely.”
“Already sold?” Bruce asks, even as Dick’s heart plummets into his stomach.
“Yes, one of the wildlings they caught outside Gotham a few days ago.” The attendant says. “He was a handsome boy too. Very broad shouldered compared to a lot of Winged and he had these gorgeous wings. Crimson like the sunset tipped in black at the primaries. It’s no wonder he was snatched up almost immediately.”
“I see.” Bruce is careful to keep his voice neutral, even as Dick looks away, hiding the tears gathering in his eyes. Hiding the way he wants to scream. Jason was here and now Jason is gone and Dick….
He was too late.
“Can you tell me anything about the person who bought him?” Bruce asks the attendant.
“Oh no, sir! Our records are confidential, but I can say I have a feeling you’ll get to see him eventually. It was a rather well to do gentleman and you don’t hide a Winged that gorgeous in an aviary never to be seen again.” She laughs, and it’s all Dick can do not to break down here in public.
*~*~*
Days turn into weeks.
Dick does his best to keep his spirits up, to be the leader of the flock. He dresses up in silks and jewels and hope for every gala, attends and smiles on Bruce’s arm and looks around ballrooms and galleries for any hint of crimson wings. When he can he sneaks away with the other Winged and questions them, ever searching for Jason. Dick finds two members of Jason’s flock this way, young girls both of them, maybe sixteen or seventeen, who confirm that Jason was captured alongside them. Dick also learns that Jason is still in Gotham, for some of the Winged have seen him at other events, though they can’t say much about his circumstances of these encounters. Many don’t know anyone is even looking for Jason, so no one is watching for him. After each event, Dick returns to the aviary and drops wearily into his nest, exhausted and heartsick.
He rarely sleeps alone these days. Most of the time Damian crawls into Dick’s nest and snuggles next to him. His adult plumage is growing in nicely, but Damian had made a habit of nestling under Dick’s wings back when he first came to the aviary, and Dick has done nothing to dissuade him. Other times it’s Tim or Cass, or more often both. One buries themselves down in a heap of feathers while the other keeps a silent vigil.
Dick has always been the heart of the flock, the emotional center. He’s the eldest, and therefore the de facto leader. He was the one who taught Tim to fly and Cassandra to sign with her hands. He was the one who took Damian under his wing and showed the boy that there was still good in life. That life was still worth living here, in Bruce’s aviary.
Days turn to weeks and spring turns to summer before Dick finally sees Jason again. Of all the places, it’s a charity gala at Wayne Manor, an event where all of Bruce’s aviary is present. Dick and Cass accompany Bruce, Storm Gray and Ocean Blue in a sea of wings and humans, pretty and dolled up and jeweled. Dick is scanning the ballroom idly, watching Tim and Damian as they interact with other Winged who are not occupied by their owners. It’s out of the corner of his eye that he sees crimson wings.
Jason looks so different now than he did when they last saw each other, almost a year ago. He’s dressed in fine clothing, shimmering fabric and gold jewelry around his neck and arms and wings. It’s so different from the rough-hewn jeans and tattered shirts that Dick is used to, the clothing of a runaway replaced by the clothing of a pet, that Dick has to looks more closely before he recognizes him. The collar around his neck doesn’t suit him. No collar ever would, but this one is especially egregious in its filigree and inset gems with a delicate gold chain wrapped around the hand of the man he accompanies.
Dick buries his face against Bruce’s neck, their unspoken signal for when Dick is exhausted and needs a break from socializing. Bruce makes his excuses and moves away, and only when they’re alone, Dick whispers. “Jason is here.” He ruffles his feathers in the general direction he wants Bruce to look.
Cass hears and nods once. She smiles at Dick reassuringly and then ducks away, leaving Dick alone in Bruce’s arms. “Are you ready?” Bruce asks. At Dick’s nod, he leads them over to where Jason’s master is engaged in conversation.
While Bruce engages in the careful courtship of pleasantries with the socialites, Dick looks over Jason more carefully. He looks surprisingly good; healthy if not happy. Jason meets Dick’s eyes as soon as they approach, and as Dick watches Jason’s expression twists into a scowl, those blue-green eyes flickering back and forth between Dick and Bruce.
Dick wants so badly to reach out, to reassure himself that Jason is real, that he’s here. But he doesn’t. Instead he turns his attention to Bruce, who is commenting on Jason’s owner’s rare find.
“Ah yes,” Jason’s owner says, and while Dick is sure Bruce knows his name and face, Dick has no such clues. “He’s quite the wild one. Took some work to tame him, and some days are better than others. He’s sadly not quite as well trained as your beauties are, Mr. Wayne.”
Bruce smiles, his best and most charming smile, and says, “Yes, it does take quite a bit more work than most people are prepared for, to tame a Winged. Let’s just say I’ve had practice.”
It’s a lie, but Dick gets a feeling he knows where Bruce is going with this lie, so he ignores the way Jason’s frown deepens and just glances submissively up through lowered eyelashes.
“Perhaps you can give me pointers, then.” Jason’s owner laughs and Jason flinches from the sound in a way that breaks Dick’s heart. “I’m about at the end of my rope, you see. I didn’t expect a wildling to cause so much trouble.”
“Well, then.” Bruce comments with false sincerity. “If it ever becomes too much, let me know. I’ll take him off your hands. I’m still looking for a mate for my eldest here. I think they’d make quite the matched set.”
Jason’s owner seems to consider it, “Perhaps.” He muses, but in the end doesn’t budge. Not then, anyway.
Walking away from Jason is the hardest thing Dick has ever done.
*~*~*
It doesn’t pay off for another few weeks, when summer heat begins to fade to fall, Bruce’s gambit. Dick doesn’t see Jason again during that time. Everyone seems to walk on eggshells around Dick now, afraid that one wrong word and he’ll shatter into a thousand pieces. It certainly feels that way, knowing that Jason is so far away and wanting but unable to go to him.
Dick’s never been good at pining, for all that he’s had eight years of practice.
The call, when it comes, happens during the day when Bruce is at work. Dick only finds out when Alfred calls him out of his nest and hands him the phone. “I’m going to get Jason.” Bruce tells Dick. “His owner called me today.”
“That’s good.” Dick replies faintly. “That’s good, Bruce.”
“Dick…” There’s hesitance there, in Bruce’s voice. “I don’t know what kind of shape he’ll be in. You should be prepared, just in case.”
There’s a flurry of motion in the aviary when Dick shares the news, as the flock readies for a new arrival. By unspoken agreement, Damian and Tim take off into the upper rafters, where they’ll be out of immediate sight when Jason arrives. Cass stays on the ground though, far enough away to give privacy but close enough to help if Dick needs it.
Finally, Dick hears the sound of the aviary door opening. He spins on his heel and catches his balance with a flap of his wings, feeling as excited as a nestling when Jason steps through the door. “Jason!” Dick shouts and with a flap of his wings crosses the space between them.
Jason doesn’t look up as Dick lands in front of him and Dick finds himself ducking down to catch Jason’s gaze. “Hey.” Dick greets softly. “Jason, it’s okay. You’re safe now.”
Jason’s expression is blank when he looks up at Dick, closed in a way Dick’s never seen before. “Safe.” He repeats dully.
“Yes.” Dick smiles and tries to hide just how Jason’s attitude scares him. “It’s okay. Stay with us for the winter. Come spring if you want, we’ll leave. I’ll go with you this time. We’ll make a new flock, the two of us.” He reaches out for Jason, to wrap the younger Winged in his arms but Jason pulls back, his wings flaring defensively.
“Jason?” Dick hesitates his eyes finding the way Jason looks to the side, his jaw clenched.
Then, Jason spreads his wings, and Dick sees it. Jason’s primaries have always been tipped in black, giving a beautiful contrast to the crimson. Now, however, the wings end abruptly, the black slashed through in a horizontal gash. Jason’s primaries have been cut.
“Safe.” Jason repeats and Dick feels horror rise in his throat. “I guess I am now, aren’t I? If this is what you consider safety.”
This isn’t what Dick wanted. He never wanted this for Jason, not in those half-formed dreams where he imagined Jason coming home with him to Bruce’s aviary. Dick wanted Jason, but not like this. Never like this.
“Isn’t this what you wanted?” Jason asks. “I’m yours now. I’m safe.”