benwithaq

every kid thinks their parents are heroes, at least at first. for a couple, that hero-worship lasts well into adulthood. for others, it fizzles away in mutual laughs when they sit behind a wheel for the first time and shush their parents’ backseat driving, or when they take successfully take control of the kitchen for a night. and for some, it slips away much earlier. because rudy talked loudly at dinner about the trust his boss was placing in him at work, smiling smugly at wally as though telling him to take notes. but wally noticed him yelling at his mother when coming home from work, his steps stumbling, his posture menacing over the smaller but no less angry form. and wally had to bite back protests when rudy sneered about aunt iris, spitting the fact that she was adopted in her face, nevermind that she seemed to care for the west family more than anyone else in it. (saying this aloud would only end with a backhand to the face or a belt to the back, though, so wally kept quiet.) and, anyway, when wally grew up and helped the green lanterns slam the doors of a prison cell shut on his fathers face, wearing a manhunter uniform and looking for all the world like the traitor to humanity he was, wally was grateful his hero worship had drizzled down the drain early.

aunt iris was brilliant, aunt iris was kind, aunt iris was beautiful, but aunt iris was human. she stuck bandaids over wally’s scraped knees with gentle fingers and danced in the kitchen of a little apartment while she made wally’s favourite version of mac and cheese. she was real and present and there, but she wasn’t really a hero. because the world seemed to have a new definition of “hero”. there was a man with a cape and a symbol of hope flying unattainably high over metropolis, there were arrows sticking out of steel walls in star city, there were hushed whispers of a leather-clad demon and a beam of brutal light fluttering around him in gotham. but central city? wally’s home? had someone who could run faster than the speed of sound with lightning crackling in his wake, had someone who exuded sheer power, had someone who laughed in two-second television appearances, had someone who made jokes with kids he was saving to calm them down, had someone who cared about the city so goddamn much. he was everything wally had ever seen in a hero, and when aunt iris and her new boyfriend barry (wally kind of liked the guy so far) took him to the flash museum, wally stood in the center of it. he made a slow turn, taking in everything he could see and hear and feel. “s” could mean hope and a bat could mean vengeance, but that red and yellow bolt of lightning meant power to wally, benevolent and uplifting power that made the lives of everyone it touched brighter. 

it took a christmas when wally was in 5th grade for him to realize that the flash was a hero of the people. central city loved him, and the flash loved them right back. but when wally was zapped with lighting, feeling unimaginable pain coursing through every single nerve in his body, barely even registering the chemicals that had gotten into his mouth, it was his uncle barry’s face looking down at him. it was uncle barry that never let go of his hand in the hospital, it was uncle barry that held him up every step of the way when his new powers (his new powers!) left him a stumbling, newborn foal. it was uncle barry that explained every single part of what happened to him, then at wally’s shy insistence, happily showed him around his lab. it was uncle barry that scoffed at his homework and wrote up some much more engaging problems for wally to do for fun. and it was uncle barry that presented him with his very own suit for christmas during that memorable 5th grade, and lifted him up easy as breathing when wally barreled into him for a hug. the flash was the hero of the people, but barry was wally’s hero.

of course, with his new name and new identity and new powers, he was exposed to a network of more super-people. superman was kind, if a bit bumbling. wonder woman’s biceps were bigger than wally’s entire head, but her laugh was as kind as aunt iris’ when wally told her that, and her grip was strong yet gentle when she scooped wally up and let him ride on her shoulders. uncle barry, no, the flash pouted theatrically when wally told him green lantern was funnier than him, but he cheered up when wally gave him a hug. batman was…well, first of all, real. wally honestly hadn’t believed he existed, and stepping cautiously into the batcave for the first time, wally couldn’t reconcile the near-invisible black mass moving silently around an outrageously high-tech cave with a human being. the reason for batman’s invitation became clear soon, though, because if the darkness was real, that meant the light had to be, too. robin was everything wally had ever imagined and more. he one-upped wally’s jokes with puns of his own and broke a man’s nose with a backflip and balanced on top of a telephone wire like he was walking on concrete and ordered curly fries exactly the way wally liked them. wally couldn’t do anything but marvel. 

over the years, he realized a couple things about his best friend. first, dick grayson, from the very beginning, had cast aside the notion of being “batman’s sidekick.” robin wasn’t a continuation of batman. robin was different, in everything from costume to demeanor to fighting style. dick wasn’t following batman’s legacy, he was creating his own. second, no matter how many times dick’s world burned down, he would always rebuild it. nightwing was a fitting name, a sort of poetic justice to it that wally himself never would have considered had dick not pointed it out. when robin was taken away from him, and the two of them lay huddled together, seething and devastated on clark kent’s couch, he built himself up again as nightwing. when jason todd was murdered, the robin suit cast aside as if caught up in a curse, dick wept at his mistakes, then did everything possible to correct them, gently but insistently shaping tim drake into a damn near perfect vigilante, an artist turning soft clay into an unbreakable vase. when dick’s memory was ripped away from him, with time he clawed his way back; when his father was killed, he built up batman again and honoured him the only way he knew how; when the feeling of touch and sensation and love that he used to adore was brutalized into the opposite by a spider, he broke apart in the presence of the titans, placing his trust in their capable hands, then with their help, stood taller than he ever had before. the amount of strength that took was awe-inspiring to wally. finally, third, dick never lost his light. the warmth that draws everyone to him, the kindness that healed their wounds, the mischievousness that broke their chains of despair and buoyed them upward in laughter. he never once lost it. he didn’t let many people see his breakdowns or his temper, but no matter the witness, he chose light over succumbing to the damning, over and over and over again.

a hero is someone you idolize, someone you aspire to be. wally had been trying to embody what dick stood for almost the entire time he knew him. from the way dick hugged him, the way the titans supported him unconditionally, the way the justice league respected him, the way central city loved the flash fiercely, and he loved them right back, wally liked to think he’d been successful.

oh not at all, although it’s kinda hard for me to figure out how to put stuff like this into words so apologies in advance if this gets a little all over the place

this might be a bit of a weird place to start but given that i’m an artist i have an easier time thinking in terms of visuals, so first off: when i think ‘dick grayson’ i’m almost always referring to nightwing, but i consider ‘used to be robin’ such an integral part of his character that it informs a significant chunk of his design. like i usually draw his hair neatly cropped and parted symmetrically down the middle, reminiscent of but not exactly the same as this kind of hairstyle:

which is kinda funny considering when i do draw him as robin i just have his hair sticking up all over the place, but in my defense i think he’s too young to care about his hair here

it’s not all about surface level looks though, i see even modern nightwing dick as evoking the general vibe of golden age comics, if more in idealism than aesthetics. he’s got kind of a boy scout thing going on, and it feeds into his approach to vigilantism more than anything else. that’s part of why, if you’re prone to noticing these sorts of things, i always draw him as having better posture and more dramatic body language in costume than in civvies

might be as good a time as any to bring up that i think dick is a standout case among all the bats concerning his secret identity — i think nightwing and dick grayson are distinct aspects of his personality, but they are both equally Him. to contrast—there’s an argument to be had as to whether or not batman is the ‘real’ bruce, at the very least his two identities seem starkly separated from each other, i don’t see cass as being meaningfully distinct from black bat/orphan(?) at all, to jason red hood is a symbol and a statement and a threat, to damian robin is a legacy, etc. dick grayson and nightwing are just different genuine pieces of the same person.

as for more specific personality stuff, despite the Classic Superhero streak i think dick is ultimately more devoted to people than any kind of moral code. so like for instance the fact that he follows the no-kill rule has much more to do with loyalty to bruce than his own ideals. i don’t think he *wants* to kill in general (more than anything else i see dick grayson as just a deeply, profoundly Good person. not to say he’s perfect or can’t make mistakes, but in my more melodramatic moments i’d just outright say his real superpower is having the strongest moral compass in the entire dc universe) but his strict adherence to that rule isn’t due to personal conviction or some kind of necessary self-control

on an interpersonal level (and i’m keeping this within the batfam bc 1) limited knowledge and 2) this is already getting long) i’ve mentioned before i think he’s got a serious case of eldest daughter syndrome, but unlike most such cases he’s actually pretty well equipped for dealing with it. to an extent. he takes on responsibility almost automatically, and has an impressive capacity for managing people and anticipating what they need (emotionally or otherwise). combined with his experience leading a team, his training, and being a naturally gifted strategist, he has a hard time justifying looking the other way when his family needs him. unfortunately he’s also one of those people who keeps operating at peak performance right up until the second he falls apart entirely, and he’s much more cognizant of his physical limits than his emotional ones.

(relatedly but kind of a side note, i have a whole Thing about his relationship with damian i’m very in my feelings about it don’t look at me)

imo the fanon idea of him as The Fun One or the emotional one is wildly oversimplified and downplays his competence, but there’s a little bit of truth to it, in that a lot about dick grayson flies directly in the face of the darkness he’s surrounded by. tbh if i had my way he would always be written specifically as a slap in the face to anyone who sees kindness as naive, but i understand that my desire to weaponize fiction in response to things i find mildly irritating is “unsustainable” and “you can’t just do literally everything out of spite” or whatever

but also lowkey i think my joke character summary for him from way back in like january when i knew almost nothing abt dc and was p much just poking fun at the fandom still kinda hits

Because he was trained to kill people. And he was trained to be ruthlessly efficient. And yeah, Batman was always obsessed with them not killing, but Dick draws the line earlier than that.

It's not that he's against killing, per se. It's wrong, sure. But there are circumstances that necessitate it, and even then, there are worse crimes than murder. He's forgiven plenty of people for killing.

He's lived a life of violence and he's thrived in it.

But he hates it.

He'd rather be performing, using his body for art, not as a weapon.

No one else ever sees it that way though.

Since he was a child, they've only ever seen his potential. His potential for death and chaos and destruction. Not for love or joy or kindness.

It's why he worked so hard to make Nightwing gentle and approachable. It's why he's spent countless hours shaping his technique into something less terrifying and lethal than an owl's talons.

It's why he uses escima. Although he was trained to kill with it, it's easier to modify than any style that utilized a blade.

Dick Grayson does not want to be, has never wanted to be, a weapon.

Every person he's ever met, it feels, wants him to be one. It's weird, he thinks, how much other people care whether or not he kills, or tortures, or beats people into comas.

Diana, and Donna too, they came from the same culture after all, had had a saying about not using more force than necessary. He liked that. He understood it. It made the goal helping people, instead of merely gaining power.

People mocked Batman for the lack of extremes in his methods. But Nightwing used even less force. Even less violence.

That wasn't by accident.

It was a conscience decision on his part, just like how Superman refused to kill so that people would trust him, Nightwing refused to use more violence than necessary.

Anyway I was out with my friend in the next town over and we went to a McDonald's because she really wanted an ice tea and we go through the drive through. The man greets us out of the little speaker and asks for our order and she says "Hi! Could I get a large sweet ice tea please?"

Silence.

Longer silence.

And I knew in my heart what was happening.

So I leaned over and said, "It's on page two of drinks, under juice, then the third one down."

Another much shorter silence.

Then:

"What the - how the hell did... Uh. I mean. Thank you?"

“Except Gus. He’s always been interested in my brains.” “No, that much of a fool he’s not.”

Various sketches of various Wolves at various points of their lives

Anyway his name was Nemo, he was this huuuuuuuuuuuge capitalist. Super into trickle down economics and shit, his dick was big though. But that’s private! I’m not going into that. Anyway back to why this post reminded me of him. When I woke up I was all bandaged up already and Nemo apologized, he asked if I wanted to watch SpongeBob with him. I said sure, why not. Not even in fear or anything. I wasn’t scared. I’m always prepared to die at any moment, no matter what. Never in my life have I feared death. I’ve been reborn so many times, death isn’t that scary when you know what happens after it and your friends do as well. This was before I even had a crush on Nicole so I didn’t even have that regret punch in me. I was just like sure, ok, why not Nemo, let’s watch SpongeBob.

He put in a DVD and we watched the entirety of season 5.

oh he’s angry. his son goes around beating up criminals and breaking the law and he knows batman. but the thing is, batman and robin have been these distant, almost mythological figures for so long. gotham thinks of the duo as heroes, as not as people. and jack drake didn’t realize what exactly constitutes as being robin.

jack can’t hear his son anymore, not unless he wants to. granted, he had always been a quiet child. but now, his footsteps were completely silent. his breathing was almost nonexistent. his voice could carry across a room if he wanted, then shroud itself in fog, muffling it instantly. tim would just suddenly appear, at the kitchen counter, in the office, next to or behind jack. jack never saw him coming. and when jack reminded his son of these things, albeit a little shakily, tim blinked in surprise, as if he wasn’t even aware he was doing these things.

there are scars all over his body. objectively, jack knew that. batman and robin fought brutally, of course they would be injured. seeing the marks littered all over tim’s skin, however, is another matter. there are slashes and stabs. puckered skin that looks like a bullet hole. clean lines with little hashes, a nicely healed and well-taken-care-of injury. ugly, jagged streaks that scream pain, that jack felt nauseous seeing, let alone having the strength to bear it. tim acts like they’re normal, acts like assimilating all these scars were a mark of progress, a mark of strength. he rubs lotion on them a couple nights a week, falling into a routine. there’s a story behind each and every one of them, a life saved behind each and every one of them. jack doesn’t know whether to be somber or relieved at the fact that tim will never tell them to him.

tim’s reflexes are catlike, his instincts sharp, his mind always working a split-second faster than anyone else’s in the room. jack will accidentally drop something, and tim will catch it out of the air, easy as breathing, and hand it to him. as a test, jack dropped a ceramic mug filled with coffee on purpose. it landed in tim’s perfectly outstretched palm, not a drop of the drink spilled. tim was still on his phone with the other hand, but he looked away enough to raise an eyebrow at jack. jack didn’t question how tim knew he had done it on purpose. tim knows things, things that he has no reason to know, until he explained how he knew them. he had all of jack’s nervous tics memorized, apparently, and picked up things from other people uncannily accurately. dana poured acceptance and affection into the kid, and jack loved her for that, but he knew that tim scared her, just a little. jack was left wondering when his son had become the modern-day sherlock holmes.

and tim knew people. he’d casually reference batman or nightwing in a conversation, acting as if he knew them personally. which. well. apparently he did know them personally. but it wasn’t just the heroes from gotham, no. someone had once called tim while he, jack, and dana were cooking dinner together, sort of a bonding activity. tim had answered, then put the call on speaker, then continuing to chop a couple vegetables. (he looked far too comfortable with a knife in his hand. tim flipped it between his fingers and in the air with an ease and grace that made it impossible to tear his eyes from. and he wasn’t even trying.) then the sounds of an explosion came in, causing jack and dana to flinch, but tim didn’t even more. apparently, the flash was calling him, all the way from central city, where he was fighting killer robots, and asking for advice because apparently, someone named ‘bart’ had told the flash (the! actual! flash!) that tim had worked out a way to defeat them once before. tim advised them on how to get under armour platings and where the weak spots were while mashing potatoes with a fork. then tim said goodbye and good luck with a cheerful tone before hanging up. because apparently the flash calling him was something that didn’t faze him anymore. jack never said anything about the pictures hanging up in tim’s room, of a too-small kid in a robin suit, a boy in a leather jacket and an earring, someone more hair and goggles than boy, a girl with a confident smirk flexing her biceps, a girl with a bow and arrow, and a literal ghost. he also didn’t say anything about the photos of tim and that boy in the leather jacket, just to two of them. in those pictures, tim was laughing harder than jack had ever seen in his life.

tim was still his son, but he wasn’t entirely himself. jack couldn’t get rid of robin, no matter how hard he tried. tim moved like a predator when he was just walking down the stairs, a new grace in his movements. his eyes flicked to all possible exits any time he entered a room. he was no longer afraid to walk the streets of gotham at night, treading calm and sure even as jack and dana hurried quickly home with their shoulders bent. 

his son was important. his son was powerful. his son walked and talked and laughed amongst gods, and they showered him with respect. jack was beginning to think he was foolish for ever believing he could take robin away. 

Part 1 can be read: here. 

The sky is dark and the only light thats illuminates Dick’s sedan comes from the lampposts in the hotel parking lot. The car’s passenger door is wide open and the overhead light is on. Dick is leaning his hip against the inside of the passenger door, pointing the camera at the seat Jason is curled up in. Jason’s eyes are closed and his arms are crossed loosely over his chest. 

“Are you gonna get out of the car or am I gonna have to lock you in and leave you here all night?”  

Jason grumbles something and turns his head further into the seat. 

“How are you even this tired?” Dick huffs. “I’m the one who’s been driving nonstop for hours while you had your little cat naps.”

Jason sighs heavily through his nose. “Watching you drive is so boring.”

“Excuse me for not balancing on a stick and juggling puppies for your entertainment, princess.”

Jason peaks one eye open. “Can you do that? Juggle puppies?” 

“Stuffed ones, sure. Now are you coming or not?”

Jason raises his arms and wiggles his fingers in Dick’s direction. “Piggyback?”

“Seriously?”

Jason waves his arms impatiently and grumbles some more. 

“They don’t call you ‘brat wonder’ for nothing, huh?”

“Nobody calls me that except for you!” 

“That’s what you get for calling me old.” The camera points away from Jason towards a red Ford truck that’s parked next to them as Dick turns and squats down next to Jason’s seat. “You got five seconds to hop on.” 

The camera picks up the sound of a rustling jacket that’s followed by a smack. A hiss of pain is heard at the same time the camera wildly jolts from the truck towards the ground. 

“Ow! Dude!” 

“You said five seconds!”

Static. 

Dick is making laps around the parking lot to get in some exercise before they have to get back on the road. Jason is leaning against the back of the sedan. He’s eating an apple with one hand and filming Dick running towards him with the other. 

“I can’t wait to show you how stupid you look right now,” Jason yells through a mouthful once Dick is within hearing range. “At least security is probably getting a good laugh watching you—ah!” Jason has no time to dodge as Dick unexpectedly lunges towards him instead of running past him. 

“What was that?” Dick pants as he wraps his sweaty arms around Jason and gives him a tight squeeze, trapping the camera between their chests. “You wanted a hug?” 

“Ew! Get off of me!” 

“That breakfast food across the street smells good, doesn’t it?” 

“The only thing I can smell is your gross pits! Let go!” 

“Only because you asked so nicely,” Dick says sarcastically, releasing his hold.

The camera points at the ground towards Jason’s white and blue Reeboks. 

“You got your sweat stains all over my shirt! You’re so annoy—”

Static.

“Hey, Dick,” Jason says, “check me out.”

Dick pans the camera away from the gas stations’s tacky t-shirt collection over to where Jason is standing next to the sunglasses rack. Jason’s wearing a pair of circular sunglasses with blue lens, and he’s wearing a tote bag over his shoulder that says: You only live once! Don’t squander it living in Indiana!

“I dig the tote bag,” Dick says, making sure to zoom in on the wording. “You can carry your Cheetos around in it.”

“Already thought of that,” Jason says, opening the bag and showing off his Cheetos and Coke. 

Dick shoves the tote away. “Hey, hey! Don’t show Alfie the goods!” Addressing the camera, he says, “Don’t have a cow, Alf. I promise I’ve been feeding him better than this.” 

“Oh yeah, those milkshakes were super healthy.” 

“Maybe you’d like a salad for dinner then.” 

Jason scrunches up his nose. “What I’d like is a new pair of shades.”

“You need a pair cooler than those,” Dick says, indicating to the blue ones Jason’s wearing. He scans the sunglasses rack and plucks out a knockoff pair of black wayfarers. “Here, put these on.” While Jason puts them on, Dick grabs a pair of knockoff aviators and fits them over his own eyes. He turns the camera around to face himself. “How do I look?”

“Like a bootleg George Michael,” Jason snorts, and Dick turns the camera back around to face him. The wayfarers look good on him. “We should get you a dangly cross earring to wear to finish the look.” 

“I’m sure we won’t have trouble finding one in nowhere Indiana,” Dick says wryly. 

“Hey, boys!” The man behind the counter calls out to them. The camera lowers and films the scuffed floor. “Are you filming in here?”

But what if Gotham citizens have NO idea who Batman is, but they are pretty sure Red Hood is Bruce Wayne.

Consensus is that Bruce snapped one day at the villains that try to dismantle everything he works towards, so he just started shooting.

How badly he reacts at first depends on how early it is after his comeback and rise as the Red Hood... As good as a wrathful angsty event would be, there’s enough of that in canon, so I’d place the beginning of the rumors and all out conspiracy theories a year or two after and also after any thawing/armistice he and the rest of the batfam have toward each other.

So instead of going on a rage filled murder spree, Jason fumes a bit. Kicks in a few rapist’s teeth. And after a bit of that, it dawns on him that this is the BEST THING EVER.

So he leans into it. He makes sure to never be seen at the same time as Bruce Wayne. Not hard actually, he and Bruce have similar patrol times and patterns.

He starts keeping a handful of Wayne Enterprises Employment Innitiative cards on him, slipping them into the pockets of people he saves, if they look like they need a leg up.

If he’s gotta talk, he makes sure to leave off the gutter slang and slide his accent up a bit. It’s not very evident with his voice modulator, but people notice, and the message boards jump on it soon enough.

If he stands, it’s with posture that Alfred ingrained. If he writes anything, it’s with the lovely looping cursive that was ALSO Alfred trained. It’s not Bruce’s handwriting. It’s not even his, but it’s juuuuust close enough there are youtube videos where amateur handwriting analysts have gleefully deconstructed it for both sides of the conspiracy.