This is an edited and slightly expanded version of something that appeared on my tumblr blog a little while back. My spell checker isn't working properly for some reason, so sorry if there's any stupid little mistakes I've made.

The BLU team first met in early winter. Everyone was quick to spot that the Medic's had dove wings, and Scout was part sparrow, and even if they hadn't recognised his plumage to start with, everyone's told again and again that the Soldier's bald eagle.

The only person no one was sure about was the Spy.

His wings were broad but not especially large, and a strange mixture of colours. Orange primaries, black secondaries and a muddled, ticked pattern in greys, browns and blacks across his coverts. His tail wasn't anything special to look at either, just a curve of large, dull brown feathers. All together, not really what you'd expect of a stylish spy. His RED equivelent had mapgie wings and everyone agreed that that was more fitting, though not to their spy's face.

When asked about it, the Spy fobbed the team off, saying it was considered rude in France to enquire about another person's bird type. None of them really knew much about the country, so they accepted it as true and left him alone after that. All apart from the Scout, though he never got a straight answer on the subject, no matter how much he pestered the Spy.

By the time winter was nearly over, nobody really cared. But that's when his new tail coverts started to come through. To begin with no one really noticed; the new quill sheaths could have just been him molting. Besides, no one wanted to be caught paying too much attention to another man's tail feathers.

But then the first new feathers lost their sheaths, and they were certainly more interesting than the drab ones underneath. They were shimmery blue-green, fish-tail shaped feathers that caught the light whenever he was uncloaked. Which soon became quite the disadvantage on the battlefield. The enemy Sniper seemed to spot him every single time.

The Spy knew the Medic recognised his new feathers by the way he smirked everytime their paths crossed. But he didn't say anything to the rest of the team. It would be much more entertaining to see how long it took them to realise.

Then the other tail feathers with their ocelli started to show through and everybody got it. Huge, iridescent blue-green feathers with eye patterns at the tips are pretty damn easy to recognise. Even the Soldier got it right on his fourth guess.

The Spy was a peacock.

An honest-to-god peacock.

Everyone says they should have known. The Scout tries to claim he always did.

By the time spring had well and truly sprung, he'd got a full train of two hundred tail feathers following him wherever he went. The rustling sound did not help his sneakiness at all, or his mood. The others soon learnt to avoid him when he was being bad tempered and swishy. It was easier than trying to fish a balisong out of your back by yourself.

The next time he went to backstab the RED Sniper, things didn't work out quite how they should have done. He was creeping up on the oblivious man, all his thoughts concentrated on that vulnerable bit of spine between the Sniper's black-breasted buzzard wings.

He didn't even notice when his tail started to flare out.

A swishing sound startled the Sniper, making him glance around. He expected to see the BLU Spy looming over him, knife in hand. What he wasn't expecting to see was exactly that, but also an additional one hundred and seventy eyes staring down at him as the Spy's tail went into full display mode.

There was a long moment of mortified silence in which neither of them moved; the implications of this taking a while to filter through.

Then the entire battlefield was filled with irate yelling and incomprehensible screaming as two men's voices went several octaves higher and many decibels louder than normal in their defensive indignation.

When he woke up in respawn, the Spy hoped it had just been a hugely embarrassing one-off.

But it wasn't.

It seemed he couldn't so much as approach the enemy Sniper without his tail fanning out of its own accord. It was infuriating and confusing. He hated the long-faced, scruffy-feathered, piss-throwing bushman. He was not in any way, shape, or form, attracted to the man. It just appeared that no one had got around to informing his tail of that.

He had to resort to using his Ambassador to pick the RED off from a distance, but it just wasn't the same. The only good thing about the Sniper was getting to backstab the bastard, and he didn't even have that to look forward to anymore.

Eventually the Spy decided to just give up, and go back to his old backstabbing routine. If he was quick enough, he was sure he'd be able to do it before his tail gave him away.

But this time something even worse happened. It appeared that there might be something to that old 'absance makes the heart grow fonder' phrase. Or in this case, the tail.

Not only did he end up displaying, but without meaning to let it happen, he found himself rattling his tail at the Sniper. Not only was this 'shivering' impressively loud, it was also the ultimate peacock seduction technique.

It doesn't work on the Sniper.

More angry shouting and screaming filled the air.

Five minutes later the Spy respawned.

Two more months. That's how long it would be before he shed his tail. Two whole months.

Merde.

I love the wings AU idea and have an idea for another little fic using it that I hope to get around to writing one of these days.