#stray bird

[mensministry]

Stray Bird Boutique Hotel, Yellow River, Zhongwei, Ningxia, China,

STUDIO QI

[sassycassie-s-writing]

Stray Bird

By: SassyShoulderAngel319

Fandom/Character(s): DC, BatFam - Jason Todd/Red Hood

Rating: PG-11/T- (minor violence)

Original Idea: I dunno. Nothing in particular.

Notes: (Masterlist)(By Character)(About Me) This one’s been sitting in my drafts for ages along with a bunch of others that I’ve been sitting on. I’m gonna try to get some of them posted ‘XD @jason-todd-squad @welovegroot @batboys-and-other-messes

^^^^^

Thud! Thwack! Pow! Crack!

Grunting and the sounds of blows and bones breaking filled my ears. I curled up tighter against the wall in the shadows, desperately wishing not to be noticed.

Just as quickly as it begun, it stopped.

One man stood victorious over the others. He was tall and strong powerfully built. There was a gleaming red helmet over his head and a red bat symbol on his chest.

Red Hood. I recognized him from news reports.

He approached me carefully, holding out a hand. “Are you alright, miss?” he asked. I shrunk away from him as much as I could, pressing my side against the bricks even harder. I whimpered. If he’d taken three men down in fifteen seconds, what was he going to do to me when he realized what I was?

He noticed that I was absolutely terrified, because he dropped his hand, but put both of them up, palms out.

“It’s okay, miss. I'm not going to hurt you,” he said. When I didn’t reply, he sighed and lifted his hands. I yelped. “Don’t worry. Just taking this off.” He pressed the jawline of his helmet. Something on the back of it released, allowing him to pull it off.

He was handsome, but intimidating. Strong jawline, intense gunmetal blue eyes, black hair with a streak of white at the front. He knelt in front of me and offered me his hand again.

“C’mon, little one. I'm not going to hurt you. We’ll get you somewhere safe before these bozos wake up,” he entreated.

Steeling my courage, I reached one hand out and took his. He helped me up.

^^^^^

As the girl stepped into the light, Jason almost gasped.

She had wings. Huge and strong. Under the grime and dirt covering them, they might have been white. She held them so tightly to her back Jason was surprised that she didn’t break the joints.

He shook his head to clear it. “Yeah. We’re going to take you somewhere safe. Come with me,” he said, popping his helmet back on. “I promise I won’t hurt you. No one will ever again.” He kept a loose but comforting grip on her hand as they crept out of the alley and onto the abandoned street. It was nearly four in the morning—it was a wonder that there were still lights on in the city. Why wasn’t everyone asleep?

Jason slung his leg over his bike. “Do you know how to ride?” he asked.

She nodded tentatively.

He patted the seat behind him. “Hold onto me tightly. Keep your wings in,” he said.

“You don’t… you don’t think I'm a freak?” the girl asked quietly.

Jason shook his head. “Princess, my two best friends are a wayward Amazon and a faulty Superman clone. My two best friends before that were a recovering alcoholic and an alien princess who had hair that was literally on fire. A girl with wings is not the strangest thing I’ve ever seen,” he said.

The girl carefully got on the back of his motorcycle, wrapping her arms around his middle and burying her face in the back of his jacket. “Drive careful,” she muttered.

“Of course,” Jason said.

He drove them back to his safehouse—the old bunker under Police Plaza.

Familiar figures were waiting for them.

“Gee. I thought it was Batman’s thing to pick up strays, Hood,” Nightwing said.

^^^^^

I stared. Red Robin, Nightwing, Robin, and Batman were all standing in the bunker where Red Hood had brought me. I could barely see them in the darkness. I wondered if they could see my wings or if it was too dark. I was huddled slightly behind Red Hood.

“She was being attacked, meathead,” Hood snapped at Nightwing. “I took the dudes out.” He turned to look at me, removing his helmet again. “Let’s get you cleaned up, okay? I’ll show you to the shower and then deal with these guys,” he said. I nodded and followed him past Batman and the other vigilantes. I heard Nightwing gasp as I ducked under a spotlight. The other three were silent.

Red Hood took me to the end of the bunker to a small, cramped space with a concrete shower.

“Need a hand washing your wings or anything?” he asked.

I shook my head. “I'm used to doing it alone,” I said.

He nodded. “Holler if you need anything,” he remarked before ducking out of the small room.

“Thank you!” I said as he shut the door.

I stripped out of my clothes and turned on the shower.

^^^^^

“What are you doing here anyway?” Jason asked Bruce, Dick, Tim, and Damian. “I haven’t been causing any more problems than usual.”

“So that explosion yesterday had nothing to do with you?” Tim demanded.

Jason scrunched his eyebrows. “No I wasn’t even in that area of Gotham yesterday. You can check security cameras in the theatre district and see I was there all day. Honestly keeping me in line doesn’t require all four of you to turn up. You coulda just called,” Jason said, keeping his temper in check for the sake of the flighty bird-girl through the other door.

“And what about the stray?” Bruce asked.

“Like I said, she was being attacked. I took out the men who were hurting her—they’re alive—and brought her here to clean up and be safe,” Jason said. “She was terrified and injured and I figured I should give her a hand.”

“She has wings,” Tim said.

“Astute observation, Sherlock,” Jason snapped.

“Jason,” Bruce warned.

“What? You gonna tell me to play nice with my brothers? C’mon, B. You know me better than that.” Jason took a deep breath, trying to calm down. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to ask you all politely to get out. I got stuff to attend to and that girl with wings is at the top of the list. I gotta figure out where she’s from and what help she needs. So, thanks for dropping by. Hope I don’t see you again soon.” He started pushing Dick and Damian toward the door, causing them to bump into Tim and Bruce.

The rest of Jason’s family filed out. Jason slammed the heavy metal door and locked it. He rolled his eyes and turned back to the rest of the bunker.

The shower was still going, so he strolled over to his giant computer and whistled while he set about seeing what he could find on this new girl. She’d shed a feather on the floor just outside the bathroom that Jason scooped up to run through a DNA scan, looking for a name. He also took her fingerprints off his leather jacket.

Was that weirdly invasive considering she was showering in the next room over? Probably. But if he could find out more information, he could find some way to help her.

An Instant Message popped up on his screen.

Nightwing: Good to see you playing nice.

Red Hood: Shut up.

Nightwing: I'm serious, J. You act like you don’t care about anyone or anything. But when we’re out of the frying pan and into the fire, you always give us a hand. Always. I know you care about innocents. Protecting civilians. It’s just good to see you offering the same care to someone as unusual as we are.

Red Hood: Bold of you to assume she’s not innocent just because she has wings.

He quit out of the IM program and went back to running his tests.

Nothing. She didn’t have a name. Nor any DNA in any database he could access. He grunted in frustration—

And quickly closed all the windows he had open as she emerged from the bathroom. Her hair, skin, and wings were all clean, but she was still wearing her filthy clothes. Jason would have to fix that… “Is… everything okay?” she asked timidly, massaging the end of one of her wings between her hands.

“Everything’s fine,” he replied. “You feeling any better?”

“Yes. Thank you for being so kind to me.”

“Of course.”

“I, uh, I don’t have any way to repay you…”

Jason spun around in his chair to look at her. “Kid. You don’t have to repay me for a shower and a ride away from thugs who were trying to hurt you.” He paused. “I never caught your name,” he said.

She shook her head. “I don’t… I don’t have one,” she said. She pushed up her filthy sleeve to reveal a 00319 branded into the muscle of her left deltoid. “I was three-nineteen.”

“Where are you from?”

She shook her head. “A terrible place,” she said.

“If you’re another one of CADMUS’ creations I'm going to level that building and destroy everything underneath it,” Jason muttered. He met her eyes again. “You wanna stay here for a little while? I’ll keep an eye on you till you figure out what you want to do.”

“I don’t want to intrude—”

“You’re not intruding. There’s a cot in the corner. Feel free to crash. And, uh, before you do, here.” He got up and went over to a storage bin. He pulled out a pair of sweatpants and a sweatshirt. “These’ll probably be a little big on you, but they’re clean. If you need to cut holes in the back, feel free.” Jason pulled a pocketknife out of a drawer and passed it to her with the clothes. She accepted them and looked up at him.

“Thank you,” she offered.

“It’s no problem,” he replied.

She slipped into the bathroom.

^^^^^

The sweatpants were way too long on me and the sweatshirt the same. It bagged on my short torso but the holes for my wings were perfectly sized in a way I didn’t usually get with normal clothing that fit me.

The clothes were comfortable though. Soft and warm. The clothes I’d worn with the doctors were stiff and scratchy. I’d gotten used to the feeling, but these clothes made me want to fall asleep.

I went back out into the rest of the bunker. Red Hood was still sitting at his computer, typing away. I didn’t say anything to him, just walked over to a cot in the corner. It looked different from the cot I used to sleep on in my room—my cell. That one was mesh suspended between the metal frame. This one had a… what was the word? Mat? Matter…? Mattress! This one had a mattress on it. I glanced back at Red Hood as I put my old clothes at the foot of the cot.

“I never got your name,” I said. “I know you’re Red Hood but that’s all.”

He turned and just looked at me for a moment. “I'm Jason,” he finally said.

I nodded. “Thank you, again, Jason. For everything.”

“You’re welcome. Get some rest. We’ll get you a name and anything else you need in the morning,” he said.

I crawled under the blankets covering the cot. It was softer and more comfortable than anything I’d ever slept on. I sighed with pleasure and relaxed for the first time in… a long time. I released the tension in my wings and let them relax too. No one was going to hurt me in the middle of the night.

I wasn’t sure why I trusted this Red Hood—Jason—as much as I did, but I couldn’t help it. Something about how genuine he seemed made me believe that I really was safe. I hadn’t felt safe since Dr. Evans left. She used to keep the other doctors from pushing me too hard.

With a sense of security, I pulled the blankets up over my shoulder, and fell into the deepest sleep I’d ever had.

[hyyhyuka]

Ok but what if Raven and the tribe did lead Qrow to believe his Semblance is bad luck but because they are superstitious Like they see him shifting into a crow and immediately ostracize him, afraid he'll bring bad luck

[himaanshu]

Translation of Stray Bird (R.N.Tagore) in Hindi

'टैगोर' (R.N.Tagore) की सूक्ति कविताओं की पुस्तक स्ट्रे-बर्ड (Stray Bird) का बाबूजी द्वारा किया गया हिन्दी भावानुवाद प्रस्तुत करुँगा क्रमशः । गीतांजलि का भावानुवाद भी किया है बाबूजी ने, जिसे समयानुसार अपने ब्लॉग सच्चा शरणम पर प्रस्तुत करता हूँ ! बाबूजी की रचनाओं के लिए अलग ब्लॉग 'अखिलं मधुरम्' पहले से ही अस्तित्व में है ।

Translation of 'STRAY BIRD' (R.N.Tagore) in Hindi

1. The mystery of creation is like the darkness of night, it is great. Delusion (misleading) of knowledge are like the fog of the morning.

१. सृष्टि रहस्य परम गरिमामय ज्यों निशि का अंधेरा ।    अरुणोदयकालीन कुहासा सदृश ज्ञान-भ्रम तेरा ॥

2. What you are you don't see. What you see is your shadow.

२. तुम हो कौन नहीं यह तेरे लोचन पथ में आया ।     जो तुमको दर्शित होता है वह है तेरी छाया ॥

3.That I exist is a perpetual surprises which is life.

३. यही कि मैं स्थित हूँ यह अविरत है आश्चर्य कहानी ।     'जीवन' संज्ञा इसको ही देती आयी है वाणी ॥