On The Wigs Of A Dream (We Fly Ever Free)

All recognizable characters belong to their respective owners (Cartoon Network, Dragonforce). For a prompt on YJ_Anon_Meme.

It all starts with the dead, but then, doesn't it always?

The whole team is fighting a group of zombie ninjas, which is just about the coolest thing they've ever done, ever. Wally and Robin made all the jokes, Artemis and M'gann made all the faces, and Superboy and Aqualad just shut up and punched zombie brains.

So they're spread out along the outside of Mount Justice, and the zombie ninja hordes are crawling up the sides, and Wally calls out gleefully, "This is just like whack-a-mole! I love that game!"

"Except with one hundred percent more undead," Robin answers, but there's suppressed excitement in his voice, too.

"Kill them with fire!" Artemis cries out, after successfully setting one aflame, and Wally takes a moment out to run over to her and give her a high-five.

"Don't kill them with fire!" Kaldur yells back, four levels up. "They're not smart enough to feel pain, so you just end up with a walking zombie torch that still wants to eat you."

"Right," Wally says, back over by Robin. "No killing with fire, got it."

"Why does everyone keep repeating about the fire?" Conner wants to know, crashing down next to Kid Flash and Robin.

"You poor, sheltered soul," Robin says, even as Superboy launches himself off again, trying to get to M'gann, who's up high, looking for the mind directing the zombies.

Unfortunately, what he doesn't realize is the section of the cliff is unstable, and his impact sends part of it tumbling off and down, taking Kid Flash with it.

And Robin doesn't think, just reacts on instinct. Superboy is up and can't change direction that quick, and he doesn't even know where M'gann is. Besides, he catches people falling off stuff regularly, and so he jumps before even firing off his grapple.

Which, when it comes down to it, is a mistake. Because the grapple punches right through a zombie, and expands across its chest. However, a decaying corpse is totally not a good anchor point, and although Robin grabs Wally's wrist, they take the zombie with them, right into freefall.

"Oops," Robin says.

"Uh, bro?" Wally asks.

"Arrrrrrrgh," says the zombie, and its hand falls off.

And the three of them tumble, with Robin and Kid Flash spreading out and trying to control their descent away from the cliff. The zombie has no such luck, and quickly smacks into a outcropping, making an ugly splat-squish noise.

"Ew," Wally shouts, trying to look at Robin past the wind streaming past him. He's got no traction, nothing to run on, and he's probably gonna die like this, but hey, zombie ninjas are worthy opponents. As long as he doesn't become one. Only, if he's gonna die, he'd really rather his best friend look at him one more time, not be contorting around to reach his back.

If only they'd had more time... But zombie ninja attacks waited for no superhero, and they'd been caught unawares. Robin tries a variety of other measures, but all his stuff is designed for the city, not for the sharp jagged rocks that make up the mountain, and they are running out of time.

"Dude!" he calls, but Robin is ignoring him, and then he hits the release on his cape. Wally has half a second to wonder if it's some sort of Bat!parachute, before he watches it fly up and away from them.
And then it's followed by the back section of Robin's tunic, the streak of red disappearing above them and the ground is really really close now, and okay, he really doesn't want to die, no matter what he was saying about zombies and stuff-

-and a fall of white bursts out of Robin's back, bandage wraps shredding, and out from this unfolded feathers, white and grey feathers that contrast with the pure white paper, and the fall of red that sparkles off them. Feathery appendages that were holy crap they were growing and spreading and Robin's coming right for him now and he can't help it; he winces, just a little.

Then there are hands under his arms, and he's not falling anymore, he's gliding, a controlled fall that spirals them down into the sand below. It isn't a gentle landing; they hit face-first and go tumbling ass over teakettle across the beach, but they're not dead. Not dead is a very good thing, Wally thinks, laying on the sand and blinking up towards the sky.

There's a cloud there that looks like a train, he thinks vaguely. And there's one that looks like M'gann, and ooh, look, a Superboy-shaped one, descending fast. And the one floating behind Conner almost makes him look like he has wings.

He'd laugh, but he gets the feeling that's not funny anymore.

He scrambles up to his feet in a fraction of a second, looking around frantically. And there's Robin, a crumpled heap farther down the beach, a confused jumble of red and black and white feathers.

"Robin? Buddy, you okay?" he says, dashing over and kneeling beside him. "Look at me. Come on, open your eyes, please, yeah, just like that, come on..." and he cradles up his friend's head gently in his lap, trying to straighten out the limbs he can reach. All six of the limbs.

"You're scaring me, Robin," he whispers, staring at the mask so he doesn't have to think about any of it. "Come on, wake up."

And finally, Robin does groan, and stir, and the wings there are still wings what is this even move up halfheartedly. His eyes catch the movement and he looks instinctively. The feathers are the same opalescent grey color he saw earlier, only-

There are red splatters everywhere, red as blood.

And that's when Conner lands, throwing up sand and making a boom that echoes down to the water and back.

"Help me turn him over!" Wally screams, and his voice is high and frantic, because he can't get enough air in his lungs, because his breathing is short and vicious, and none of that matters because his best friend has wings and is bleeding out and the whole wide world turned insane when he wasn't looking.

Or wait, no, that's just Robin. Because he loves his best friend to bits, really, he does, but the brat will never stop scaring him ever, will he?

"What?" Conner says, hanging back at the sight of Wally and Robin wreathed in feathers and sand.

"Help me turn him over! He's bleeding!"

Conner approaches carefully, and gently grasps Robin's arms. He pulls the boy upright, and the masked head lolls over to the side. Wally scrabbles up behind him, ruffling through the feathers and gasping for breath.

"Oh my god," Wally says, so Conner lowers his arm, and lets Robin fold over forwards so he can see the boy's back.

The wings are beautiful, and the whole base of them is painted red. The center of Robin's back is split right up the middle, and the blood has made a pretty explosive pattern on the base of his wings. And he's still bleeding, and there's sand in the cut, and Conner swallows back the bile climbing his throat.

"I got him," he says, and drapes Robin carefully over his shoulder. M'gann! he calls through the psychic link. M'gann, Robin's been hurt so I'm taking him into the medbay and Wally's hyperventilating and not much better-

And he's not much better, either, if he's babbling like that, so he shuts up and jumps.

Robin blinks back to awareness, laying on his stomach, wings spread wide across the bed. For half a second, he almost thinks he's at home in Wayne Manor, but he can feel his wings dragging down. His own bed is wide enough to support them, even spread fully open; Bruce made sure of that.

Something cold and wet brushes his back, and he hisses in pain.

"You're awake!" Wally's voice is concerned and close and far too loud, and Robin winces.

"Ow, yes, I'm awake. What happened? And did I mention, ow?"

He's sure he mentioned the "ow," but Wally ignores that and says, "Dude, what the hell?"

Robin sighs. First things are first, though. "Situation debrief," he demands. "Kid Flash, what happened to the enemy forces?"

Batman's had years to properly train Wally, so the speedster reacts to the tone and the order. "Base is secure, only major injury is you. Zombie ninjas re-deceased. Which would be a whole lot cooler if you didn't randomly pull this kind of shit on us."

And then the burn is back, and something tugs on his back. "Ow," he says again.

"My apologies," Kaldur says. "Please bear with it, this needs to be treated."

"Right," Robin says, and takes a deep breath. The wings start shrinking, pulling back up into his skin in an odd sort of flow. They get smaller and shorter, until they lay flat along his back.

"What the hell are they?" Artemis asks in a hushed voice.

"They're a curse," he says, and shifts uncomfortably. "When I was first starting out as Robin, there was this earthquake. A whole bunch of kids were trapped under a building, including this one older girl. And I went in after them. She was keeping them all calm, and made me take the youngest first, and...well, there wasn't enough time.The roof fell in." He stops to breathe.

"I hate that part," he murmurs. "Choosing who lives, and who gets left behind...no one should have that power."

"So I got the youngest ones out, and this lady, she was standing there watching. Turns out she was a practitioner of voodoo, and her only family was her granddaughter, that girl. So she was waiting, and she looked at me. 'How could you,' she says to me, and won't listen when I tell her I was respecting the girl's wishes. So she looks at me, eyes dry and hopeless, and I still see her in my dreams, sometimes. And she says, 'you'll know the pain of having a dream you'll never reach.' And the next morning, I woke up with these."

He fumbles the wrapping that's still layered across his stomach, and Kaldur reaches over, takes it from him. Robin lets him, laying still while the older boy helps tug out the remains of the wraps.

Finally, Artemis says, "But wings? Aren't they, you know, great?"

Robin sighs, and then raises them once. They grow, and expand, and the wingspan is terrifyingly impressive. And when they come down, the gust they produce rattles the bed Robin's laying on, and ruffles hair and clothing as it passes.

And more blood is suddenly dripping from his back. They all crowd around him, even as Kaldur opens his mouth to chastise him.

There's a whole new gash on the pale skin of his back, dripping and smeared, staining the feathers closest to his spine a brighter shade of red over the dried blood already there. And what's worse is the prominent lines of parallel scar tissue, that speak of repeated trauma.

The wings sweep back up, and the cut bleeds harder.

"For chrissakes, don't move them!" Wally says. "That's gotta hurt like...hell..."

"Exactly " Robin says wryly. "I'd give anything to fly. And I can, now, but..."

"'The pain of a dream you can never reach'..." M'gann murmurs, and reaches out to take his hand. Wally sets to work binding the new wound, and Kaldur helps.

"The pain of moving them makes it nearly impossible to keep aloft long enough to fly. I can glide, but then I can't walk the next day."

"You keep trying, don't you," Conner states.

Robin's smile is edged with pain and grief. " So do you."

"I don't rip open my back every time I try," he points out.

"I know, but still, it always...I mean, I have wings. What's the point of them, if not to fly?"

"The human body was never designed to bear wings large enough to lift us," Wally says quietly. "The damage you do, just carrying them, is bad enough. But to try flying...dude, that's just masochistic. You're insane."

Robin shrugs, and hisses in pain. "I never claimed to be otherwise," he says, and ducks his head into his arms. "And can you imagine what it's like, to have your fondest dream right in front of you, just beyond your fingertips? Could you stop?"

And Wally thinks of the months of experiments, all the explosions and chemical burns and all the electrocutions he endured before finding just the right balance to get his speed, and shuts his mouth.

"So that's why you hide them?" Kaldur asks, thinking of Tula, and how he thought he almost...and thinks he understands, maybe a little.

"Not...as such. The bindings help keep me from moving them, and spread out the weight so I can support it better. Because they're magic, or, hell, I don't really know why, they shift size, but the mass never changes."

Conner reaches out, then hesitates. "Can I...would it hurt if I touched them?" He'll respect Robin's wishes, but he knows about reaching for something, for flight, for acceptance, only to have it slip away into the dark.

"Go ahead," Robin says, and spreads them a little to make it easier.

He runs his finger down a feather, and smiles a little. It's soft, but sturdy, and it feels nice. Soon, the others are touching, too, and Robin breathes out and relaxes, and the wings flow out enough that there's enough room for everyone. Except Kaldur, who's pasting a bandage right over the line of Robin's spine.

"Please don't do that again," Kaldur says quietly. "I know I can't influence you, or order you not to, but you almost ripped your spine right out of your back. Just...think, next time, please."

"I've never tried to carry someone else before," Robin admits, lulled into a pleasant haze from the petting and preening. "And I'd rather not try it ever again. No offense, Wally."

"None taken," Wally says quietly. "And, uh. Thanks. Thank you for saving me. You knew it would hurt..."

"Losing you would hurt more," Robin says sleepily. "I don't have many friends, you know. Not enough to spare. All you guys would be worth it." Everyone smiles at one another over the fall of feathers, and then Robin adds, a touch of the old humor back in his voice, "Except Megan or Conner. Not diving off cliffs for you guys anytime soon. You can find your own way back up."

And M'gann laughs and runs a hand through the pinfeathers. "Of course," she says, forming a pair of wings of her own on her back. "They're so pretty, you know?"

But Robin's out like a light. Kaldur finishes taping up the wound, and considers rebinding the wings. But they're spread out and flopped everywhere, and he decides it's far more trouble than it's worth. But he's curious, and runs his hand along the feathers, as well. They're not as soft as he'd expected, but much smoother, and warm.

And if he didn't pull himself away right now, he'd get caught up in it. "I'm going to go call Batman," he says. "Will one of you wash the blood off?"

"Sure," Artemis says, and moves to take the bowl and cloth from him, but Conner gets there first.

"Right," she says, and backs off. The wash of red, all the way out towards Robin's shoulders is really quite appalling.

"Can you imagine...?" M'gann asks her quietly. Artemis looks at the Boy Wonder, exhausted and bleeding and a little broken, and thinks of her own wish. Her dream to get out of the shadow of her father, to be one of the good guys, to hold her broken family together. And with her dad gone and her mother home, and her new team, sometimes she thinks she just might get it, right up until Cheshire appears again.

"I think, a little," she whispers back. If her voice is any louder, it runs the risk of breaking. "Can you?"

And M'gann thinks of how she wants to be accepted into their team, and society, and how her years of television have both helped and suffocated her. She can act, but never quite understand, not really. Humans are so strange and unreachable, for all she longs to be one of them.

"Yeah," she says, swallowing past the lump in her throat. "Yeah, maybe a little."

End