He reaches for the same dog-eared copy of The Name of the Wind you’re reshelving. Your fingers brush. He flashes that easy, crooked grin and says, “If you tell me it’s better than the hype, I’ll buy two—one for me, one for the guy who keeps stealing my copies at the station.”

You give him an honest, slightly nerdy ten-minute breakdown of why the prose is worth it, complete with zero spoilers. He listens like you’re the most interesting person in Gotham. By the time the store closes, he’s bought the book, your staff pick of the month, and asked for your number “so I can argue about the ending once I finish.”

First text from him the next night: a single voice note of him dramatically reading the opening line while perched on a gargoyle. You’re hooked before you even realize the cute acrobat from the bookstore is also Nightwing.

Their Relationship

Dick is the human equivalent of a golden retriever who has decided your love language is “quiet nights in with books.” He keeps a permanent stack of your recommendations on his nightstand (dog-eared, highlighted, sometimes with little sticky-note arguments in the margins).

After brutal patrols he’ll show up at your apartment still in the Nightwing suit under a coat, kick off his boots, and flop face-first onto your couch demanding, “Read to me. Your voice makes the bruises stop hurting.” You read aloud while he rests his head in your lap and traces idle patterns on your thigh.

He drags you into his world gently: rooftop picnics with takeout and a single book light, surprise weekend trips to used bookstores in other cities, and once a stakeout date where you both sat in a van reading by red flashlight while he monitored a warehouse.

You balance him. When the weight of being “the best Robin” or “the one who holds the family together” gets too heavy, you hand him a worn paperback and say, “For the next hour the only hero you have to be is the guy who makes me laugh at chapter twelve.” He melts every single time.

Public affection is his default—he’ll kiss your temple in the mystery aisle, spin you around when you find a first edition, and proudly introduce you as “my favorite plot twist.” Private moments are softer: he learns your favorite tropes by heart and will recreate them in real life (think candlelit balcony, city lights, and him quoting your favorite romance line verbatim).

The only fights are playful: he keeps “borrowing” your annotated books and writing tiny love notes in the margins. You pretend to be mad until he reads the notes out loud in the ridiculous voices he uses just for you.

The Reactions of the Batfamily

Bruce: Initially suspicious (he runs a background check before Dick even tells him your name). Once he sees how grounded and genuinely happy Dick is around you, he softens. He starts leaving first-edition classics on your doorstep with cryptic notes like “For the civilian who keeps my son human.” High praise.

Jason: Teases Dick mercilessly (“Golden Boy traded the circus for book club, huh?”) but secretly loves that you quote Pride and Prejudice at him during family dinners. He starts leaving annotated revenge tragedies on your fire escape with Post-its that say “Red Hood approves of your taste in morally gray men.”

Tim: Does the full detective deep-dive, then shows up at your bookstore with a color-coded spreadsheet of books “statistically proven to help with vigilante burnout.” You two bond instantly over obscure literary theory and now have a group chat titled “Dick’s Emotional Support Readers.”

Damian: Acts like he couldn’t care less until he catches you reading The Once and Future King and launches into a thirty-minute rant about historical inaccuracies in Arthurian legend. You counter with three better sources. He calls you “Tolerable” and lets you pet his cat. Highest honor.

Barbara: Immediately your biggest supporter. She creates a private comms channel just for the three of you so you can send each other memes about “dating a former flying Grayson.” She also slips you the Batfamily group chat password so you can watch them lose their minds in real time when Dick posts a photo of the two of you reading together.

Stephanie: Screams, hugs you, and declares you “the best thing to happen to this disaster family since waffles.” She raids your TBR list and starts a book-swap tradition that somehow always ends with everyone arguing about character deaths at the dinner table.

Cass: Doesn’t say much, but she learns your favorite book’s cover by heart and will silently hand you a new copy when she senses you’ve had a rough day. The quietest but most sincere stamp of approval.