Chapter Text
One’s wings started developing first. He never said a word about it- the others probably wouldn’t even have known if it was for the way his down feathers started coming out in clumps, leaving trails wherever he went.
Six had picked up a pile of the small yellow feathers and presented them to Grace with a frown. “I think One’s sick,” he had said, and Grace just laughed, gathering all the children to explain what the sudden molting meant.
“Your wings have been developing all along,” Grace explained with a smile, “but around this age, the process speeds up, shedding the remains of your childhood plumage and replacing it with your adult feathers. This usually completes within a year.”
“Is it painful?” Seven asked softly.
“The old feathers falling out is painless, but as new flight feathers start to grow in, it can get uncomfortable. It’s just like any other molt, but a bit longer ”
Everyone turned to One, who now sat with a grimace and his patchy wings pulled close to his body.
“Well, One?” Two started snarkily, managing to not trip over his words. “Does it hurt?”
One got up and walked away, not giving it a response.
(Later, after One became Luther, and his wings finished developing, the teasing of his childhood would be forgotten- after all, everyone usually opted to stare in stunned silence at his shimmering primaries.)
Learning to fly turned out to be a totally different story. He found himself comparing it to learning how to walk- it wasn’t hard, mostly instinct, and he got the hang of it pretty quickly, but he was wobbly at first. Plus, it was pretty embarrassing when he flapped his wings and generated no lift.
“Number One, you’ve got to push off the ground with your feet,” Reginald scolded, watching from the sidelines. “Don’t rely on just wingpower to take off. Your legs are just as crucial.”
One nodded and tried again.
“A lovely golden eagle,” Pogo had classified him as. Luther wore the title with pride, right under ‘Number One.’
Even so, he wasn’t showy with his wings, seeing them as just a convenient tool rather than something to be admired. He was strong enough that he could fly while carrying two others, which often resulted in his siblings (Klaus, mostly) grabbing onto his shoulders and hitching a ride from the ground to the rooftop.
Then Ben died. And the Academy disbanded.
Luther continued with his work.
He continued putting on the domino mask and going out on mission for Reginald, never once hesitating or questioning anything. It was in a situation like that, one where Reginald underestimated the danger (or, perhaps, overestimated Luther’s capability to handle it on his own), and the eagle came back covered in wounds, feathers missing in places.
The worst part of becoming… whatever is was he became, Luther discovered, was losing the ability to fly.
A lot of factors contributed to that factor- the sudden shift in body shape and size, mainly. His wings were large, but not scaled to that.
He never stopped training, but he did it less now. Everytime he did, he’d get distracted staring out the window, or just up. Up at the sky, the blue sky. He missed it. He missed the feeling of the air rushing past his feathers, the adrenaline of a dive that went closer to the ground than strictly necessary, just the joy of soaring over the city.
He had never realized just how much he loved flight- how much he took it for granted- until he lost it.
It was worse on the moon, Luther noted, the longing to be flying. But at least the low gravity allowed himself to have the illusion of fluttering through the air.
It was never the same.
Eventually, maybe he’d stop having the burning, aching- that yearning for flight.
(He never did.)