Sometimes I like too imagine the possibilities about what might have happened if the Justice League had attempted to recruit Nightwing when he first started showing up.
They don’t know he was Robin, they didn’t even know Robin had existed.
He agrees to join under the circumstances of not being partnered with Batman unless absolutely necessary. That’s fine, it wouldn’t be the first time a new member had felt intimidated by Batman… except some time goes by, and it becomes clear that Nightwing wasn’t intimidated.
Nightwing had seemed to be pretty friendly to everyone, yet the moment he crosses paths with Batman, he glares at The Dark Knight until one of them leaves.
Someone asks Batman if he knows why Nightwing seems to hate him. He does, but refuses to say why.
Some more time passes, and a stealth mission happens. Batman and Nightwing are both chosen as the best options to send. Nightwing requests a third member join them “just in case”. The mission is finished, but reports come back about there being tension between the two thanks to Nightwing fighting some of Batman’s orders.
Then Nightwing mentions something about being from Gotham, and how he has a younger brother that lives there with their dad. And around the same time, there’s still obvious tension between the two, but it seems like Nightwing is a little more willing to work with him.
Then an argument happens. No one is really sure what it was about, other than Nightwing storming off after saying “The only reason I’ve been tolerating you is for his sake!”
An out of world mission is planned the next day. It’s over a month long, yet Nightwing is one of the first to volunteer. A week after the mission starts, The Joker causes an explosion to happen and somehow manages to automatically bribes his way into becoming a diplomat in that very same country. They’ve seen Batman violent before, but not like this. Normally his actions are reasonable, yet Superman warned them to tread carefully around him, how he had to stop Batman from going after The Joker with the plan to break his No Killing rule. A lot of them agree that The Joker would have deserved it, but it was alarming that Batman was willing to break his #1 rule, especially when doing so could have risked starting a world war thanks to The Joker’s new diplomatic status.
Then when Nightwing comes back, everything seems fine at first, until a couple days later when he attacks Batman in the middle of a meeting.
“It’s your fault he’s dead! It’s your fault he went there!”
Batman refuses to say anything until he’s able to stop Nightwing’s attack. It looked like he had just restrained his at first, until Nightwing leans into Batman’s chest as he cries. Batman, the member known to be the least physically affectionate, had restrained Nightwing by trapping him into a tight hug.
When Batman mentions taking Nightwing home, it starts a conversation among the remaining members that cause them all to realize something. Just how little they actually know about Nightwing.
They know he has family in Gotham, yet he’s mentioned his favorite hero growing up was Superman while his younger brother’s is Wonder Woman.
Apparently Diana hadn’t known that.
“Batman has a son that I’m a favorite of. I hadn’t planned on telling anyone, but he asked me to sign something for the boy’s birthday a month before Nightwing went on the mission.” she mentions as soon as that’s brought up, which causes another realization.
“Nightwing mentioned his brother’s birthday being around that time.”
It had to of been a coincidence, right? The idea of the man known to be their grumpiest member possibly being the father of one of their friendliest members seemed to be impossible. Yet the more they thought about it, the more it made sense.
Then what exactly happened to cause Nightwing to attack Batman in front of everyone? Does it have anything to do with Superman insisting he keep a close eye on Batman?
