idea that's been rotating in my head for a bit as i'm learning canon,,,
batfam wing au. not sure if it'd be better as a "the bats have wings for some reason" or "everyone has wings" or soul wings or whatever. important part is: wings. they have those.
i see a lot of variations on what kind of wings the whole batfam would have, and while i haven't seen an iteration i dislike yet, imagine this:
dick with owl wings
like, depending on how au we're going and what continuity, could be perfectly innocent. he flies a bit quieter than everyone else, maybe.
but. what's got this rotating in the brain microwave.
let's say it's a soul wings type au. where everyone has wings, can hide them at will, but don't get them until their teens or such.
an au where maybe, early on in his days as robin, dick got yoinked by the court of owls. and then, years later, he sprouts owl wings? that can't feel good. it's an ever present reminder of what he was being trained for once. a remainder of what he almost became. and, admittedly, incredibly useful too. they're large, warm, beautiful and terrifying.
i'm just imagining the ways he'd have so many thoughts about it but hide that out of not wanting to talk about the court until its been so long that its just kind of... weird, to bring up how he feels about his own wings now. even better if maybe he grew his wings while he & bruce were fighting, maybe he was staying with the titans? and so it's a long, long time before anyone who even knows enough to make any connection to the court ever sees his wings.
and maybe, years later, when they're fighting the court again, for the last time- please, he hopes, for the last time- maybe everyone finds out his connections. cobb, the capture long ago. and a lot of behavior of his seems to make a bit more sense, now. for someone who loves the sky so much, he's always struggled to take good care of his wings. and now they know that's because of how conflicted his feeling get when he looks too long.
or maybe, he doesn't get taken by the court. he gets his wings, and doesn't really have any weird feelings about them- they're huge, pretty, and jason doesn't even pretend to be annoyed when he pulls the younger robin in close with them!
and years pass. until eventually, whenever the court of owls becomes relevant comes to pass. i haven't read that yet, but, still. dick finds out about his heritage. his connection to the court. what they wanted him to be. and suddenly, his wings feel like a promise of a destiny he doesn't want.
and sure, they win, the court goes down or whatever. but his wings are still and always will be owl wings. maybe he finds out they'd planned to take him the moment they first saw his wings. the moment he grew them, was when they started trying to take him. they just kept getting intercepted, maybe.
or another universe where dick sprouts his wings, and he wants to celebrate- everyone celebrates when they get their wings! except he has to go on a mission in space, and then his brother's dead & he's not talking to b, and then he's alone in bludhaven.
when tim shows up to get him to be robin again, dick isn't there.
sure, contacting him had been spotty for a while- but nightwing had finished a case just last week! right? except, as tim looks into it, the last case attributed to nightwing was over a month ago. the last spotting of him within the week he got back from space.
and he finds programs, very well-hidden, that are slowly generating the responses people have been getting from dick. it's set to respond slower and slower, until eventually theres no response at all. but gradual enough you might not notice for much too long.
and now tim's got another issue to fix while he takes up the mantle.
and maybe it takes much too long before anyone other than him realize they should be looking at all. and when a talon, ginormous owl wings, starts popping up visibly? well, all that they find is one of the court's going against them, one with a seemingly soul winged destiny to be with them.
maybe cass is who finally gets the talon to share. while tim was definitely getting through dead end leads pointing towards the court, cass is who finds out her oldest brother doesn't know who he is anymore. it's cass who he opens up to, about how he vaguely remembers them coming for him as soon as he took the time to preen for the first time. but before that? nothing, just... feelings.
feelings that led him to rebel one day.
i don't know. just had wing aus and talon!dick on the mind. been reading a few too many fics & wanted to combine the angst in the talon aus with wings. someone's probably done this and i just haven't seen yet :3