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Damian approached the library in search of his elder brother. He had been working on his school assignment but he required some... outside opinions. He didn't want to ask Richard for help— not that the eldest was in Gotham in the first place— and there was no way was he ever going to bow down to Drake of all people. Cain, while beyond respectable on the field and tolerable during 'sibling wars' (Brown's words, not his), was not really the best choice to give this particular kind of academics assistance. And since Todd had decided to, and Damian quoted, "crash for the weekend and kill Bruce with my one man rebellion" and Damian had been told that his second eldest brother was knowledgeable in this particular field, Todd would have to be the one to assist him.
As soon as he reached the large double doors, however, he almost turned around and leave at the sight that greeted him. He had heard ruckus even beyond the corridor but had decided to ignore it in favour of getting his school work done as soon as possible. Inside the library were Richard (who Damian was certain was supposed to be in Bludhaven this week), Brown and Drake. That wasn't necessarily a peculiar sight. Nor were the collection of canned beverages on one of the tables. What was, were the... things sticking to their bodies. Or more specifically, the feathered wings sprouting from their backs. Damian had seen many great bizarre things in his life. But this...
"We should try sky diving," Richard was saying, his icy blue and white wings stretching as he perched on the edge of a bookcase.
"Oh, yes!" Brown's wings unfurled to show pure purple feathers. "And we go paragliding part-way down!"
Drake's yellow and orange wings were neatly folded as he worked on his laptop, piping up, "Or winggliding."
Brown exploded into a fit of laughter as Richard finally turned to acknowledge Damian. "Hey Dami! Come join us!" The elder leapt down from the shelf, wings opened wide as he... well, Damian wouldn't call it gliding... maybe falling with some aerial resistance. He neatly landed in a roll, stood up and waved Damian over.
Damian prided on his quick reflexes and responses but this... to put it simply in words of Brown, this was a 'Brain-Jam' situation. He closed his eyes, took a breath, exhaled, before opening them again. Nope, they were still there, colourful wings and all. Had he accidentally gotten a dose of fear toxin last night? This seemed like something it might conjure.
Brown turned to him, waving an opened canned drink in the air. "Oh, hi Damian! Come on, I want to see what colour you will get."
Drake looked up from his laptop, taking a sip from his mug in hand. "I'm still going with the favourite colours theory, which mean it has some sort of psychological thing going on.”
“Which I disagree,” Richard spoke, wings unfurling. “Just because Nightwing is blue doesn’t make it my favourite colour.”
Drake narrowed his eyes, seemingly in deep thought. “Well that messes things up a bit. We need more subjects to have a more sufficient data. We should try to get Jay again and see what he gets as well."
The eye roll Brown gave was record breaking in exaggeration. "I don't know how are we supposed to convince him. We tried remember? And he called us lunatics, flipped us off and left the library." Damian found himself agreeing with Todd.
"As if he isn't a lunatic himself."
"Not untrue. The only person who lacks lunacy in this house is Alfred. Everyone else is insane."
"I am not," Damian snapped, more out of indignant reflex than anything else.
"Then join us." With a challenging smirk, Brown snatched one of the unopened cans from the table and offered it to him. A dare.
Damian huffed, crossing his arms and Richard slipped beside him, blues feathers brushing his shoulder. "C'mon Dami. It'll be fun!"
He inspected the can from afar; blue and white with red lettering and an illustration of two red bulls ramming into each other against a yellow circle.
"Red Bull gives you wings, Damian," Brown sing-songed, waving the can in a supposedly tantalising manner. "Don't wanna have wings? We can go winggliding together."
Todd was right. They were, indeed, lunatics. With that in mind, he turned and left. He couldn't believe that those three were part of this deranged family. Part of his family.
"Maybe we can try to get Cass and Bruce instead."
Cain definitely would agree to this insanity. Father would be helpless to this as well.
"Or Babs!"
At least Damian still had Pennyworth and Todd as his family. Yes, he would find them and 'team-up'. Together, they will survive this contagious winged lunacy. Maybe he could convince them all to set up a base at the bunker. Or one of Todd’s better safehouses.