you'll never know if you can fly;

dcu multimuse - selective & mutuals only. primary muses; dick grayson, roy harper, and jonathan crane. 

multimedia & headcanon based. muddling together my favorite pieces of canon, and filling in the blanks. some pieces retained from canon prior to the new 52 and rebirth. heavily affiliated w/ @undeadasshcle​.

easy enough; it’s not like he tells clark anything if it enteres incriminating territory. not that eating a batarang is enough to get lectured on, but it’s not something he thinks clark would find impressive anyway - he could eat one too, if he really wanted to. 

once dick has the camera ready to go, kon gives a shoutout to his fans and holds up the batarang with a wave; they know what’s about to happen, eating random shit is weekly content for him. 

he starts with the tip, gently sinking his molars against a wing, bending it slowly, as if it were taffy. it snaps clean off after a quick snap, then he chews a few times before swallowing.

“tastes like metal but something else…” he says, snappng the rest of it in half, getting ready for the next piece.

the intro is kind of endearing, in its own weird little way. dick’s careful to keep the camera steady, and he’s sure the sounds of him snickering are getting picked up. 

“something else.. oh! probably the explosives.” he replies helpfully.

steals a way too big hoodie from dick, right in front of him, with no attempts to hide what he’s doing.

dick just watches, silent, mouth slightly open as damian marches into his closet, and returns with his favorite hoodie, right from the top of his laundry basket. 

“—’cause it’s funny.”

ignoring the first question altogether ( tim doesn’t need more leads here ) kon digs out his phone, tossing it to dick. 

“you can record it for my live feed.”

well, can’t argue with that logic now, can he?

smacks with a paperball! / dick

"do you want to see me eat this batarang?" / dick

the answer is, unfortunately, yes. but the responsible part of dick is telling him not to say that. but, well, he sort of does.

“You’re slurring.” /dick

“i’m not slurring. you are.” dick insists. it isn’t true, and something in him knows that, but he’s nothing if not stubborn. 

sure, maybe it isn’t one of his best decisions, but making good decisions gets really, really exhausting after awhile. and sometimes... sometimes he’s too tired to. he’s too tired to have that fight with bruce again. he’s too tired to argue with jason, or disappoint tim, or be the man damian needs. he’s too tired to pretend everything is fine and peachy with him and babs, and that he definitely has no lingering bad feelings about their break up. too tired to deal with the haven pd, too tired to take on criminals on the street, to stick up for everyone in need, to shoulder all of it. 

and, well, he knows it’s dramatic. he’s really, really good at being dramatic. but now he’s in too deep - as evidenced by the not insignificant amount of rum missing from the bottle on his table. 

all things considered, he isn’t that drunk. part of the patented bat training is learning to hold your liquor and build a tolerance. the preference is always to avoid drinking on a mission, but from time to time it’s an inevitability. and there’s nothing the bats aren’t prepared for. until there is, he thinks bitterly. 

it’s a rare indulgence anyway. with enough time passing between to remember why exactly it’s rare. but of course, the night he doesn’t fight the impulse, kon drops in. and maybe he’s a little embarrassed. feels a little silly about his wallowing. 

“what d’you need?” he finally asks, as if he’d really, truly be able to do anything for kon at the moment. and maybe he can’t quite repress the feeling that this is what he’s supposed to do.

Ivy is working when he shows up in the middle of the night. It's not a rare occurrence, but it has made her more nocturnal than she's used to.  "You know, one of these days, I'm not going to let you in unless I know your actual name.."

of all the reformed criminals, dick can’t lie - he’s got a soft spot for ivy. one of the few who can keep up with his wit, and hold her own in the same. it’s become an unspoken rule around the cave that he gets first dibs on ivy drop ins when they have intel for her - or sometimes when he finds a rare plant that could use a home. and really, that’s a show of trust if anything - hand delivering her something he knows means something to her, and trusting she wouldn’t use it against him.

“aw, ives! you don’t think my parents named me nightwing? it’s on my birth certificate and everything. first name night, middle initial w, and last name ing. it’s one of those hiding in plain sight kind of hidden identities.” he leverages a wink her way, but her comment does give him pause. 

frankly, he can’t think of a good reason not to tell her, except that bruce would probably be pretty pissed off about it. 

“what if we make it a game?” okay, maybe it’s a little juvenile, but he can’t help it. “you know red robin? was robin? but now he’s robin a little to the left? he figured out my name when he was less than ten years old. you’re a smart lady, i think you can do it.” 

he resists the urge to twirl his escrima sticks around to release some of the pent up energy. but he knows how ivy feels about his toys around her babies. 

Tim hovers by Dick's side-- his dead giveaway, 'I want physical affection, and I'm too bad at expressing my emotions verbally to ask for it,' tell.

"What're you up to?" He asks, feigning a casual tone. "Anything I can help with?"

dick is more than familiar with this song and dance. still, a smile tugs at his lips as he pretends not to notice tim right away, or the way he’s hovering just a bit inside dick’s personal bubble - well, the one that exists in theory. on a general human level. his own concept of personal space is all but nonexistent. 

“trying to read this book.” he admits with a wry smile, finally glancing up. “i saw jason reading it and thought it might be fun to yknow. talk to him about it. but...” a small, sheepish shrug. reading’s never been a huge strong suit of his. doesn’t mesh well with his attention span, or his need to be in motion whenever possible. every once and awhile one catches him and he can’t but it down. unfortunately, this isn’t one of them.

needless to say, tim is a welcome and worthy distraction.