Batwings

by Raberba girl

This particular nest is ruled by a lazy, corrupt alpha, but one dragon has taken matters into his own claws. Batshadow and his troop are the true protectors of their violent, chaotic, yet beloved flock. (Dick's POV.)

Batwings

(rough draft)

A Batman fanfic by Raberba girl

Summary: This particular nest is ruled by a lazy, corrupt alpha, but one dragon has taken matters into his own claws. Batshadow and his troop are the true protectors of their violent, chaotic, yet beloved flock. (Dick's POV.)

A/N: Anyone reading this who's familiar with my HTTYD fanfiction - most of my dragon headcanons/culture/language/etc. is the same, but there are a few differences, like "Nightwing" being dragon-Dick's personal name rather than the word for "Night Fury." This fic won't have specific dragon breeds like the HTTYDverse does.

Again, I'm new to the Batman/DC fandom, so apologies for any mistakes!

I would have added Stephanie, but I haven't read any comics with her yet, so I don't know anything about her personality. :/ I'll try to add her once I've got something to base her characterization on. (I don't know much about Cass, either, but I've seen a few glimpses of her. For some reason, Cass is a lot easier for me to write than Barbara, whom I've read more of. *sweatdrop*)

This is NOT a multi-chapter - it'll be either a one-shot, or a series of one-shots and vignettes.

Leader/Batshadow - Bruce

Elder - Alfred

Sunheart/Nightwing - Dick

Fiercelove (Pretty) / Flightstrike - Barbara

Comehome/Bloodclaw - Jason

Quickthought / Red Robin - Tim

Speaks/Silentkill - Cassandra

Littlefang (Precious) / Black Robin - Damian

Worthy - Jim Gordon

o.o.o

Everyone in this flock hates our rotten monster alpha, but only Leader tried to take care of us for real. Leader is very much strong and almost never lost a fight, but it was still hard because our flock is BIG BIG BIG, and very many rotten monster flockmates. Leader has lots of scars on his body and on his heart. But he is not alone anymore - he has our whole good troop to help him, we take care of our flock and subdue our rotten flockmates, because Alpha does not.

"Wake up, Sunheart." Elder is licking and nudging my head. I squeeze my eyes shut and curl tighter around Precious, who is warm against my chest, but then I streeeeetch and yaaaaawn, and sit up.

Elder moves on to wake up Quickthought. Precious got dislodged by my movements; he rolls to his feet and screeches, "Nightfall!" He is too excited; he scrabbles over around over over over me. I catch him and pin him down to groom him; he squirms and shrieks some more. Then he sees his sire crouching like usual in the cave mouth, ears and tail-tip flicking when Elder brings him some fish. "Papa!" Precious squeaks.

I let him go so he can flap across the cave. He pounces on Leader's wing, but it's too big and he rolls to the floor. He pounces and plays and make those cute baby-growls. Leader pretends to ignore him, he touches noses with Elder then finally leans down to eat his fish. Precious tries to steal it. Leader's teeth clamp down hard; Precious tugs tugs tugs, suddenly he tumbles back with a tiny piece in his mouth. Leader swallows the rest of the fish and rumbles. He laughed! Precious made him laugh~!

They look the same, black black black all over, a big one and a little one. I am black, too, but I have blue scales on my wings. I am a very beautiful dragon~ Quickthought is red with black scales on his wings; Pretty is red all over. Speaks made dead coverings for herself out of our old scales that we shed, so she looks all black like Leader, but we know her living flesh underneath is pale and soft. Elder is black all down his back and white all down his belly. Our half-troopmate who always hides from us and snarls at us is red and brown and black, except for the big scar over his heart where the scales grew back gray.

The rest of us look different than Leader and Precious because Leader is not our sire - most of us are orphans. When Leader finds babies with no one to take care of them, he brings them to his aerie. I still remember my mama and papa...I loved them. It hurt my heart very much when our own flockmate tore their wings and killed them. But I love Leader, too, and he and Elder were a good papa and mama to me when I lost mine, and now I am big and strong and have a whole troop to love.

The cave that is our aerie is big enough that we can fly inside it. A big flock of bats have made it their aerie, too - the scent of their fur and droppings is strong on us, that is why we are called the Bat Troop. Leader loves the little mammals and does not let us eat them. (Precious did, once, when he was still too frightened and angry to want to belong to us, but he is our troopmate now and he loves the bats, too. He even brought more mammals to be our aeriemates, Defender the dog and Elder the cat and Cow the cow.)

Pretty flies into the cave with two birds in her mouth; she likes hot meat better than fish. She offers a feathery small head to Leader in tribute, then retreats to eat the rest. "Pretty, Pretty~" I call to her.

"Little Blue Robin," she calls back. When I was younger, almost a hatchling still, I wanted her to be my mate, but she rejected me; I wasn't old enough to make good babies yet. (I am big and strong now and can make good babies, but my mate is far away and I miss her...) It hurt, but now it doesn't hurt anymore and we are friends. I call Pretty by her target-name and she calls me by my baby-name, because it means we've been together for a long time, when only the two of us and Elder were in Leader's troop.

Quickthought steps delicately over my body and bats gently at my head. "Lazy."

I lift my chin playfully so he will lick my throat ("I submit / sheepish / silly me~"), but it's only because I want the contact ("Love you love you; be close to me"), and he knows it.

"This loves-everyone Sunheart," he says affectionately, "but nightfall now. Time to be strong and fierce and stern!"

I bound to my feet and rear up and spread my wings wide. "Big scary Nightwing! Fear me~!"

Quickthought pokes my belly with his nose - we're just playing now, but soon it will be for real, I cannot leave myself vulnerable like that to enemies - and moves on to greet Speaks. She is grooming herself, pulling her soft claws through the strange long fur that grows on her head. Quickthought licks her yummy scaleless cheek and she presses her mouth to his face. I go to greet her, too, and she scrubs her claws against the bases of my horns in that wonderful way that only she can do. I press against her and lift my chin to beg for more; her blunt claws go scrubbing down my neck and sides and belly, it feels so good.

Elder passes us with more fish in his mouth. He's heading into one of the back caves, so we know who it's for. The three of us follow him.

Our not-troopmate always hides from Leader and sleeps alone - he will always belong to us, but he does not want us to belong to him. He hears us approach and LEAPS AWAKE, crouching and snarling, but then he sees it is Elder. His body still screams "FIERCE SCARED ANGRY STAY AWAY I'LL KILL YOU," but he stops growling.

Elder drops the fish in front of him and licks the top of his head, "My thing that I love and protect." Comehome lashes his tail once but doesn't resist. Elder goes away. Quickthought lies down, alert but respectful. Comehome ignores him; if Quickthought is polite, Comehome doesn't see him as a threat, which is good. I am allowed to lick Comehome's face a few times, but then he snaps at me and I have to retreat, too. Only Speaks is allowed to rub the side of her body along his and lie half along his back and scrub her claws against his scales as he eats.

"Our troopmate," I say.

"Aeriemate ONLY," he growls.

"Partner," Quickthought says.

"Friend that we love," Speaks says.

Comehome finishes eating and goes still. We are all quiet, and quiet, and quiet. Finally he lays down his head and exhales...and closes his eyes. And relaxes a little.

Speaks leans her head against his. "Love you."

I go to lick him, careful not to be either dominant or submissive. "Love you."

Quickthought approaches carefully and touches his nose to Comehome's shoulder. "Allies." He lifts his chin just a tiny bit. Offering trust, not submissive. "Love you."

Comehome gets up and trots away, his body still relaxed. We will see him later tonight.

Me and Quickthought and Speaks go back to the others, tumbling and playing. We spill out into the big front cave like hatchlings; Pretty yelps, then comes to tussle, too. Precious comes rushing and shrieking to pounce on us - THEN LEADER COMES, we squawk and shriek in delight. It's really training, but it feels like playing. Leader is so big and strong that all of us know to gang up on him together. We pounce! Precious goes for his face; Quickthought goes for his wings; me and Pretty bite and slash; Speaks dives from the shadows with her sharp stone claws that she made.

Of course he beats us, because he's the best. He looms over me as I crouch and whine in submission (he has to keep one paw planted on Precious, who is screaming and struggling and refusing to submit even though he lost); Leader's teeth close on the back of my neck. My insides squirm, I am a big strong adult but I feel like a tiny misbehaving hatchling. He lets me go so I can lick and lick at his chin, "You're the boss you're the boss you're the boss," and he starts licking my head and back, "Mine, my thing that I love and protect."

All of us. "Mine," he marks Precious, "Mine," he marks Pretty, "Mine, mine, if you hurt these precious things I will DESTROY YOU..." We're all marking, nuzzling, licking, scratching. One troop, unbreakable, covered by the same scents. We are Bat Troop. We are the defenders of this nest. We are family.

Then we hear it - the long, loud howl in the distance that is Worthy calling to us. The whole flock outside briefly goes quiet. They know what that howl means. It means that the Bat Troop is coming, and all the rotten ones and the bad ones and the mean ones should be afraid! We are coming.

Leader says that when we are fighting monsters, we must name ourselves. Our soft names that others give us are only for home/safe. When he is guarding, he is not 'Leader' anymore, he is Batshadow. I cannot be Sunheart, I must be Nightwing.

Speaks-who-is-called-Silentkill gathers her weapons and her fighting-coverings and her strange dead wings that she made. Elder comes to mark us before we leave. "My precious little ones that I love." A lot of us are bigger than him, and only Precious-who-is-called-Black-Robin is still a hatchling, but Elder is older than all of us; we are babies to him. "These dragons are protected." He nuzzles Batshadow. "Be strong, be safe."

Batshadow nuzzles him back, then barks at us and leaps to the mouth of the cave and spreads his wings. He looks like a monster in the moonlight. I know he is not a monster, but he likes to look like one to the real monsters, so they will fear him. "Follow me."

We take off after him, our whole troop except Elder. Quickthought-who-is-called-Red-Robin crouches beside Silentkill - since her body never grew living wings, her dead wings are weak and she can only glide, so we must carry her for long flights. She slips onto Red Robin's back, and they take off. Black Robin stays at my side because he likes me best and listens to me best, so I get to partner with him~

We fly fast and strong over our flock's territory, toward the sound of Worthy calling us. There are growls and whimpers below, because there are always dragons who want to fight and steal and hurt. The flock is too big to make all the dragons in it treat each other right, so we have to save our strength for the worst ones.

"I will pounce," Black Robin says with his eyes and the line of his body.

I tilt just a little, so the tip of my wing brushes his and throws him off balance; he yelps and flaps his wings to right himself. "Just a scuffle, Black Robin. Leave them, we must follow Batshadow."

Black Robin swoops ahead to catch up with his sire.

"Batshadow!" Black Robin is still a hatchling, he calls like the big dragons do but it still sounds like a baby's squeak. So cute! "Batshadow! I will fight."

"No. Wait." Batshadow flips his tail to foul Black Robin's flight; it's a warning. He flies ahead to assert leadership.

"I WANT TO FIGHT."

Red Robin dips carefully close to Black Robin; Silentkill reaches out her paw to him. "Peace, calm."

"We will fight later," Red Robin says.

Black Robin grumbles and slows and lands on my back, and huddles there. He is still small enough for me to carry, even smaller than Silentkill who I can carry easy. Black Robin growls and bites at the back of my neck, "I'm in charge! I win!" and I let him because I know he just wants to feel better.

"You win, Black Robin; teasing/affection~"

He growls, but takes his teeth off my neck. The way he's nestled on my back makes me feel like a mama with her baby. I like it, but I don't say anything because I know that this baby Black Robin can subdue and even kill dragons very much bigger and older than him. He did kill dragons, when he was still with his dam's foreign flock. That flock was scary...they are a violent, murdering flock like ours, but their alpha is not rotten. Scary. I'm glad Black Robin is with us now.

There they are! Alpha's guardians, most of them lazy and not guarding except for Worthy. He's the only one keeping watch for real. He sees us and flies down to greet us; he and Batshadow touch noses. Pretty-who-is-called-Flightstrike presses against him and purrs - she is an adult and our troopmate, but she and her sire still love each other.

"Bat Troop," Worthy greets us. "Many things. These mothers. These starving ones. These with dark hearts. Go."

Batshadow is already gone, and Worthy grumbles. The rest of us know what to do. Red Robin rushes to catch up with Batshadow - Batshadow is very much strong and can take care of himself, but he always needs a troopmate to take care of his heart for him. I already know I'm with Black Robin. Silentkill unfurls her own wings, and drops off the cliff with Flightstrike.

"Now we fight," I tell Black Robin. He leaps into the air and somersaults with joy.

It's important to go fishing, but I let Black Robin fight first so he'll calm down. We find three big juveniles attacking a smaller one; I chase off one attacker, then watch and laugh as Black Robin fights the other two all by himself. He is fierce and makes them bleed, they can't believe they're being subdued by such a tiny hatchling, but he's torn up the first one's foreleg and is trying to rip the second one's ear off, and they've had enough. They bare their throats to him and then fly away. Black Robin puffs out his chest and prances proudly, and I tell him he's a very good dragon.

The whimpering victim needs me, so I lick his wounds clean and then lick him some more to comfort him. "You are well?" I ask. He slinks away, limping a little, but he'll be all right.

"More fighting?" Black Robin asks eagerly.

"No. Fishing."

There is a river that runs through our bat cave, so our troop always always always has fish, but food is scarce for the rest of the flock. Alpha is greedy and feeds himself before his flock, and what's left over gets hoarded by selfish dragons who take more more more than they need. Batshadow has to protect his troop and keep our food source secret, but he is happy to share with flockmates, so me and Black Robin bring fish and fish and fish to dragons who need it most. There are mothers with babies, hatchlings whose caretakers neglect them, old or sick dragons who would die if we didn't bring them things to eat. It makes me angry, it makes Batshadow very angry because these things are what Alpha should be doing for our flock, but it's okay. Bat Troop is here.

"Thank you." She is young, this is her first clutch, and her mate abandoned her. She licks my face in thanks and then curls around her starving babies, crooning, as they tear into the fish. They are almost Black Robin's size, but they're so thin and fragile...

Black Robin, my precious little one, he is small but he's so proud and strong and beautiful as he twines around my legs and plays with my tail. I can't help pouncing on him to lick a big "I love you soooo much" onto his healthy gleaming scales.

He yelps and bats at me, squirms free, and leaps into the sky. "Come on, Nightwing! More monsters to beat!"

Sometimes we cross paths with our troopmates. We pass Flightstrike and Silentkill after they just won a fight; we touch noses and lick the blood from each other (it's other dragons' blood, not ours). Batshadow keeps surprising me - he's so dark and stealthy that I don't notice him until he's almost right next to me. We read each other's scents.

We fight and we'll maim if we have to, but we don't kill flockmates. Comehome-who-is-called-Bloodclaw is different... He used to be one of us, but then that rotten monster Joker caught him, and very much hurt him. We thought Bloodclaw was dead, but he wasn't, and when he came back, he was different. He is still our Bloodclaw that we love, but his name is Bloodclaw now because he kills. Even if they're flockmates. He only kills monsters, but still...they're flockmates. Bloodclaw's heart never stopped bleeding, he is very angry and dangerous and sharp now.

Me and Black Robin follow the scent of blood and death. Bloodclaw is there, and the dead ones are two big males and one small male...and there are three more dead ones. Hatchlings, barely out of the egg. Black Robin arches his back and lashes his tail and hisses, and I feel my heart bleeding. The mother, with her dead mate's blood on her scales, is curled around her dead babies, whimpering and crying; Bloodclaw stands over her, wings spread protectively, so gentle as he licks her. I can tell from the scents that it was the two big males who killed the other male and the babies; it was Bloodclaw who killed the monsters. He saved the mother, but he wasn't in time to save her family... Another broken and hurting flockmate. Our alpha is so evil to not care how often this happens.

Bloodclaw doesn't stop comforting the female, but he lifts his eyes to me in challenge. I back away and lower my wings. Batshadow would say Bloodclaw was wrong to kill flockmates, but I'm not angry at all. Me and Black Robin come to lie down on either side of the hurting female and comfort her, too, until her friend comes to lead her away. Bloodclaw disappears into the shadows, and me and Black Robin fly on to find more flockmates to defend. This time, we will not be too late.

o.o.o.o.o

Worthy howls again. Not calling; this time, it's a warning. The most rotten monsters, Batshadow tears their wings and throws them into a deep pit and keeps them trapped there, but sometimes they escape even though they can't fly. Tonight, one of those monsters escaped, he is loose in the flock and will hurt people unless we catch him quick.

Batshadow calls for his troop to gather to him. We brush against each other, twine tails and lick faces; "Bat Troop, Bat Troop."

Our leader gives us orders. "Nightwing, Black Robin, distraction. Me and Silentkill, stealth. Flightstrike and Red Robin, corral him."

I like being a distraction, it's fun, me and Black Robin are good at it. We're the ones who rush to where the bad thing happened; our troopmates hide as they follow.

The one who escaped is Winterbird - he and his troop have three yelping, struggling dragons trapped in human nets; he will drop them into the ocean if their troops don't give him lots of food. With their wings and legs tangled in the nets, they will drown, all because Winterbird is too lazy to find his own food.

I leap onto a high rock and spread my wings wide so I will look beautiful and impressive. The moon shines on me and makes my blue scales sparkle. "Rotten, horrible monster, I CHALLENGE YOU!"

Winterbird makes his ugly squawking laugh and starts to insult me, but Black Robin dives at his face and he shrieks instead. We fight, biting and snarling and slashing. I howl and sing as I fight, and twirl when I leap and make as much noise and fuss and silliness as I can - I want all eyes on me so that no one will notice Batshadow with his strong teeth and Silentkill with her nimble human claws freeing the captive dragons.

If I wanted to, I could kill Winterbird's whole troop, especially with Black Robin helping me, but that's not what I'm supposed to do. I pretend to get weaker and weaker, until I let myself be caught. "Batshadoooowwww!" I wail like a hatchling, "Help meeeeee!" Black Robin is snarling and struggling even though he let himself be caught, too. He hates pretending to be weak.

Batshadow plants himself like a full-grown yak, wings spread so wide they look big enough to block out the moon. His head is low and he's growling deep in his throat, he looks like an avalanche about to happen. Silentkill has already disappeared into the darkness again.

Winterbird sees the empty, torn nets and screams angrily, then squawks that ugly laughter. "You took my captives, Batshadow, but now I have your precious hatchlings! Let me escape, or I will hurt them!" The dragon with his teeth in my throat presses a little harder, and I wave all my legs pathetically. What a stupid dragon, not bothering to pin my legs even though I'm beneath him - if I was fighting for real, I could hook my claws into his belly and make him release my throat.

"I am offspring of Batshadow and Wraithshine!" Black Robin howls. "I will subdue all of you!" He looks at Batshadow to see if he has permission to do it, but Batshadow flicks the very tip of his tail to say no.

"I'm the one subduing you, Annoying Kitten," Winterbird growls, but then Flightstrike leaps down to join us - and she has Worthy and all the other guardians with her. They attack, and Winterbird and his troop have to fight them. The one with his teeth on my neck tries to rip out my throat first, but I hit him with my tail, he's surprised enough that his teeth loosen, I jerk free and bite at his eye. The one who pinned Black Robin is now running and screaming, but Black Robin's latched onto his wing and won't let go.

Batshadow and Winterbird are fighting hardest of all. Winterbird thinks he's winning, but Batshadow is letting himself be backed closer and closer to the trap-pit. Red Robin stretched a long thin human thing like a vine across the ground, and Silentkill tied it to two trees; Batshadow knows where it is even though he's not looking at it. He backs and backs, Winterbird lunges - and Batshadow leaps up into the air and backward. Flightstrike rams into Winterbird from behind; he trips on the vine-thing, and Red Robin slices it loose so that it tangles up in Winterbird's limbs as he struggles. Flightstrike shoves him into the pit before he can breathe fire, Winterbird scrabbles at the edge...

I saunter over and swipe at his paw, so his claws lose their hold. He falls, screaming fury at us, flapping his useless wings, and Red Robin gurgles in satisfaction that Winterbird is trapped again and the flock is safe.

Batshadow barely needs our help for the rest of Winterbird's troop. He hits their heads so hard with his paw that they're stunned; he lets Black Robin do the wing-ripping; Red Robin keeps track of them as they drop into the pit, one by one. "That's all of them, Batshadow."

Batshadow sits back on his haunches in satisfaction. Black Robin scrambles up his body and braces himself on Batshadow's head and crows victory to the sky. Worthy comes to nuzzle Batshadow in thanks, Silentkill in affection. Batshadow stretches out his neck to me and licks away the little trickles of blood from my throat. "Hurt?"

"Not hurt." The teeth didn't pierce very deep, I'm not bleeding anymore.

"Precious," Batshadow purrs into my neck, too soft for anyone else to hear.

"Love you," I purr back. Our Bat Troop is a very much good team together.

We are tired when the sun starts to rise; we walk home instead of fly. Black Robin - Precious - climbs up onto my back and falls asleep before we get to the cave. Elder has piles of fish waiting for us, it smells and tastes sooooo so good. Precious curls up between my forelegs to eat his; Speaks lies down along my side, Pretty lies down on my other side. Comehome jumps into the cave, ignores us all and especially Batshadow, grabs his share of fish, and trots away to where he likes to sleep. Quickthought is pacing and distracted as he eats, already planning for tomorrow night, scratching strange marks into the dirt that Speaks taught him.

Leader is hurt worst, so Elder tends to him first, scolding as he licks the wound clean. Leader rests his head on his paws and closes his eyes, relaxing for the first time all night like a hatchling with his mama. Elder pushes fish in front of his snout and then comes to fuss over the rest of us. Speaks curls both of her long forelegs around his neck and squeezes, which is how humans say "Affection."

It gets quieter and quieter as we all finish eating and start to fall asleep. Even Quickthought finally finishes his marking and comes to cuddle with the rest of us. I love being in this big warm wonderful pile of troopmates that I love, but when they're all asleep, I carefully squirm free and go to Leader.

He's lying near the cave entrance like he always does, relaxed and quiet but not asleep. Sometimes I wonder if he sleeps at all. He's always guarding us, always watching for danger, always always always.

I lie down beside him and push my head under his foreleg so that it's draped over my neck. This good dragon our troop leader... He loves us and takes care of us and protects us like a real leader should. He should lead more than just our troop.

He licks the top of my head. "Precious."

I reach up to lick a very small mark under his jaw, where only people he trusts can smell it. The mark is not 'Leader.' It's my real name for him: "Alpha."