The wind swirled.

And swirled.

Windows shattered.

Footsteps began racing towards the room but she stopped them, slamming doors. This city couldn't be saved. Her children weren't safe here. Here they were hurt. Here they were damaged. Here they couldn't escape. Other cities, Star City, Metropolis, they did not hurt their Winged as Gotham did. Gotham was corrupt. Gotham was evil. Gotham needed to die, starting with Batman. Bruce Wayne. They were one and the same. How dare he, hurt her child. How dare he condemn was Damian was. How dare anyone. She would raze this city to the ground. She would save her children.

The winds whipped around the building, her consciousness stirring. Cracks appeared in the foundation, the remaining windows shattering. Cracks ran up the building, bricks falling and the hospital shaking. Alarms blared, ordering an emergency evacuation. The Wind realized something. Her child, Damian, was still in the building, sleepy and dazed. He would most likely not escape without damage. So she created a gap. She had a spinning wall of air surrounding the hospital, debris being thrown at the pedestrians outside. She threw her consciousness against the winds swirling, giving the appearance of a tornado. She created a gap. She gave him time.

And just as she had predicted, he took that opportunity. Tim Drake - the current Robin to Bruce's Batman. In a blur of red, green, and yellow, he darted between the gaps and started running for the stairs. She kept them from crumbling while under his feet. She watched him burst into Damian's room.

And waited.

"Shit." Tim cursed. He lunged for the bed, not stopping to wonder why this room seemed intact. It didn't matter in the moment, not when Damian was lying in a bed after passing out, who had only begun to sit up and get up. Bruises and faint burn marks covered his body, purple splashes in the shape of fingerprints on his throat. Tim might not have liked Damian much, but he refused to leave the boy here to die.

The room's white walls were clean, spotless, the lilac curtains flying wildly throughout the room due to the sheer force of the wind outside. The glass window was sattered, small pieces scattered across the tiled floor. Damian had just tried putting weight on a bandaged leg when Tim lunged for him, knocking the boy's centre of gravity into Tim's chest. Quick as could be, Tim's arm was supporting the underside of Damian's knees while his other arm curled around Damian's shoulders, pressing the younger boy's head into Tim's chest. Damian's eyes were wide, and as predicted, he started struggling.

"Stop it." Tim snapped, feeling the annoyance rise up like a fiery tsunami. "You're injured, on painkillers, and slow. A liability. We will get out faster if you just stop and let me carry you." Tim looked down at the dark skinned boy in his arms, sighed, and then began running.

Began calculating.

This room was exactly the same as Tim believe it to be - six meters wide and eight meters long. If he jumped from the bed, it wouldn't give him enough propulsion. His gaze flickered over to the night table - would it hold his weight, give him the altitude to clear the window, could he avoid the objects - yes yes yes. Tim jumped, his right leg placing itself squarely on the night table, muscles contracting under the strain as he forced himself upwards. He launched himself towards the open window, a grapple in hand as he simultaneously brought his legs up and to his chest as he cleared the window. At the height of the leap, he launched the grapply, it getting caught in the building opposite to the hospital.

Tim kept his momentum, the grapple pulling tight. He had Damian cradled in his right arm, his pelvis thrust forward to support Damian's lower body as his left was extended out with the grapple locked on. He landed smoothly on the opposite side of the roof, placed the grapple back into his utility belt, and hefted Damian up.

Damian screeched, cutting himself off mid-scream, biting his lip. It scared the crap out of Tim, who looked down to see why Damian was in pain like this. His medical report indicated that Damian had minor burns, nothing to this extent. Tim placed Damian down, ignored the boy's whimpers, and eased his shirt off.

Then Tim stared.

And stared.

And stared.

Because there were two living, breathing, moving tattoos placed right on Damian's shoulder blades. They were massive, almost extending down to his hips. Tim reached out with a gloved hand, and as soon as he came into contact with the tattoos, images began flooding his brain. A young Damian, smiling, shaking, mumbling to himself, his body mostly covered by a pair of grey wings with a white stripe in the middle. They were downy, soft, not yet ready for flight, and Tim could feel through Damian that he felt the same. He saw Talia's horrified face, he saw her trying to pry Damian's hands from his hair, he saw her bring him something to believe in - something to love - something to be protected by, he watched the red little ball of fluff win Damian's heart, he watched Talia step back and allow the majority of her son's love to be given to this small creature who Damian named Goliath because he believed that the creature would grow to fly mountains-

Tim's hand pulled away like it had been burned. His heart was pounding, sweat shone on his brow, and he was breathing heavily. Damian was a Winged.

Tim's blood ran cold.

Mockingbird wings.

No two wings were the same.

"Robin?"

At the sound of Kon's voice, Tim whipped around. He glanced back down, noting that Damian had passed out. He stood, mind running a million miles an hour as he paced. "Kon, remember how that Winged saved me? Mockingbird wings. I've see so many Winged, Kon, no two wings were the same. The Gotham baddies say the same sort of things, like 'There's no one else like me' and the like. Damian's a Winged, Kon." Tim hissed, spinning on his heel and staring at the boy on the ground. "He's a Winged and he has mockingbird wings. I don't know how, but those tattoos on his back have kept the actual wings hidden." as Tim spoke the tattoos stretched out, almost as if they were trying to cover the body beneath them. "But he kept it secret from me, from everyone, not even Bruce knows! We looked for the Winged gene, it said he didn't have one!"

"Calm down." Kon floated closer, landing on the roof and lightly gripping Tim's biceps. "I have an idea. Maybe the Winged gene wasn't there because you were looking for evidence of it in a human. You were looking at a Winged's genetic makeup. He wouldn't have had a Winged-carrying gene because those only go to humans who could potentially have a Winged child."

"Oh, Kon, you're totally right. And by us only isolating for one gene, we didn't see the bigger picture." Tim melted into Kon's arms, sighing. "But what do we do? If we leave him here, everyone's going to find out. They're throw him in Arkham for sure." Tim looked down at Damian. His voice was steady, calm. His nerves betrayed that calm, his heart rate slowing down but still going. "Kon, grab him and get to the Tower as fast as possible. He saved my life, I'm saving his."

"Tim, are you-"

"Yeah. I'm sure."

Tim and Kon stared each other down, the silent conversation soon turning both to Robin and Superboy. Superboy nodded, picking up and cradling the unconscious Winged child, taking care to not touch his back. Superboy flew off, leaving Robin behind. Tim sat down heavily, pulling off his mask, and hiding his head in his hands. All his life, and he really meant all of it, he had been told the Winged were bad. Dangerous. Every story book had a princess in a tower, a knight in shining armour, and a Winged keeping the princess locked up. In most games, movies, shows - the bad guys were Winged and the good guys were human, and that's all there was to it. Tim even fought them, night in and out.

But still. He knew better.

Tim knew every species could be cruel just like every species could be kind. The Winged in Gotham needed help. Tim knew they weren't really getting it at Arkham. But if Tim was honest with himself… the help that the Arkham inmates needed was to be let go. But the asylum itself drove them insane, and had destroyed any chance they had. Tim knew that.

Tim also knew that Bruce was too consumed in hatred to ever care.

The boy was lighter than Kon thought. A quick x-ray scan, and right away Kon could tell that Damian's bones were hollow. Even though he hadn't been hurting the kid, Kon loosened his grip anyway, angling the kid to better protect him from the wind. Kon wondered why. Maybe he'd be too heavy to lift off if he did have cartilage? Kon thought. Robin had put him in charge of Damian, and he was determined to do his job. Damian… Tim's new little brother. A kid born from assassins who Tim distrusted like the best of them. But in an instance where Superboy wasn't there, Damian had saved Tim.

Damian was Winged. Personally, Kon thought that that should be okay. Hee he and Superman were, aliens stranded on a foreign planet, with powers. Stronger, faster, smarter than a normal human, and with several other abilities to boot. If they were allowed, accepted even, praised here, why were the Winged not? Kon didn't get it. Not at all.

Back on the rooftop, Tim stood. He had to go talk to Bruce, do some damage control. Tim glanced behind him at the giant tornado surrounding the hospital. People were screaming, and Tim knew that saving Damian dammed a lot of the others in there But… for just a second, there had been a break in the tornado, that had led him to Damian's room. He was sure that if he had entered any other room, he would've been killed. But that would imply that this tornado was sentient. Tornadoes weren't-

NO.

Tim choked, a voice slamming into his skull and depriving him of any thought had had. This being was powerful, otherworldly, deadly. And it wasn't even fully conscious, Tim could feel the waves of sleep coming off of it.

THE TORNADO IS NOT SENTIENT. BUT I AM.

With that, the monstrosity of nature gave one final, violent twist, and vanished. Just plain freaking vanished. Tim's mouth fell open. What the actual hell was that? It was just… gone. There was an entire tornado surrounding a hospital and it had just vanished. Tim gave up on life, lying face down and screaming into the roof's pavement. This was going to be a nightmare.