Dick Grayson

Nightwing

Dick Grayson

## Biography

### Early Life

Richard Grayson was born on December 1st 1991, to circus performers John and Mary Grayson. From birth, he was raised in Haly’s Traveling Circus. His parents were a renowned acrobatics act called the Flying Graysons. He grew up amongst the circus performers, including trapeze artist Boston Brand.

Dick was a natural in learning acrobatics, and very quickly joined his parents in their act. Dick loved the spotlight and loved life on the road, being homeschooled by his mother and traveling every night by train to a new place.

At age five, Dick was the star of his own miniature act, where he donned a feathered bird costume and was nicknamed “Robin, the Boy Wonder”. He became an attraction all of his own, and was a star player.

When Dick was eight years old, Haly’s Circus was set to make their Gotham City debut. But, as they rolled into town, they were greeted by Anthony Zucco, who told Haly that he owed them protection money. When Haly opted not to pay Zucco, he warned that there would be consequences.

The next night, while performing, the rope for Boston Brand’s act and net set to catch John and Mary were cut, causing the deaths of all three performers. Dick was heartbroken watching his parents die right in front of his very eyes. In a panic, the circus was shut down. Luckily for Dick, Bruce Wayne and his girlfriend Silver St Cloud were in attendance that night, and Silver arranged for Bruce to take Dick in as his legal ward.

Dick did not adjust easily to life at Wayne Manor. In addition to his grief, he had never had a stable home life, and so he grew restless. He was enrolled at Brentwood Academy, where whispers of his story spread through the classroom - leading to bullying by his peers. Dick was also extremely frustrated by Bruce’s disappearances and the lack of closure in his parents’ murder case.

One night, he struck out on his own to solve the murder, planning to shake down local gang members and get information on Zucco out of them. This, obviously, did not go as planned, and he found himself in the clutches of the Red Hood Gang. Thankfully, Batman had been tailing the boy since Alfred Pennyworth had informed him that he left.

Batman took the boy home, where he revealed himself to be his caretaker - Bruce Wayne. Dick pleaded to be brought into the fold on his operations. Bruce was hesitant, but with some convincing from Alfred, Bruce gave in. That night, by candlelight, Dick swore to uphold Bruce’s oath of not killing.

Dick spent a year training under Bruce and Alfred, with the former trying to replicate his years of globetrotting combat training, and the latter making use of his MI-6 experience. While Dick excelled in combat, his detective skills were somewhat lackluster. One year to the day of training, suited up in an old suit of armor and a domino mask, they turned young Grayson loose on Gotham for one night (with Bruce lurking just out of sight to keep an eye on him).

In what would become tradition for all the Bat-proteges, Dick was monitored on how many people he was able to help in just one night. By Bruce’s account - he passed with flying colors, as he didn’t return to the rendezvous point until long past when the Sun had risen. On the drive home, Bruce told Dick he could join him, but Dick had already fallen asleep.

When he awoke later that afternoon, Bruce, Alfred, and Lucius Fox spent a few solid hours helping Dick design a new costume for him - bearing the colors of the Flying Graysons and he even decided on his former performance name, Robin, to become his ops moniker.

### Robin

Batman and Robin were dubbed “the Dynamic Duo” by the press. Around this time, Bruce finalized Dick’s adoption paperwork, making him officially his son. The two grew to find harmony. Dick became an effective crime-fighter, and while he was nowhere near Bruce’s level, his detection skills greatly improved. After about a year together, Barbara Gordon crashed a Halloween gala dressed up as “Bat-Girl” and just so happened to save her father’s life from Killer Moth.

He and Barbara had their first solo mission taking on Mad Hatter’s Wonderland Gang to try and stop a sex-trafficking ring - which resulted in both of them being captured by the gang, but managing to escape together without calling the Caped Crusader for help (although he was watching nearby).

Robin was also more than eager for Bruce to form the Justice League, as he had developed a fascination with Superman (rumor has it he asked the Man of Steel for an autograph upon their first meeting) and a not-so-secret crush on Wonder Woman.

Batman and Robin’s rogues also began to grow more eclectic. On one occasion, Poison Ivy executed a breakout at Arkham Asylum and kissed Batman - pitting him against his sidekick, where, surprisingly, Dick was able to hold his own against Bruce. The growing metahuman villain threat led Batman and the Justice League to form the Titans as a training camp for their young heroes - and Dick was decided to be the leader of their first class.

During their first year on the Titans, Dick and Barbara had an unspoken hormone-fueled attraction, but both were too scared to act on it, which led Barbara to resent new team member Starfire when she joined the team the next year, and started off with a bang when her first interaction with the team involved kissing Dick in order to learn the English language - and thus a spicy romance ensued.

However, Dick returned to his old restless ways, and wasn’t happy with just Starfire, and so he gained a reputation in his teenage years for being a bit of a man-whore, including one-night stands with Zatanna, Aquagirl, and one incredibly awkward date with Supergirl (which both still refuse to comment on).

Dick’s blossoming independence was driving a wedge between him and Batman - as their crime fighting styles were beginning to clash. It came to ahead when the trio was pursuing the Joker and the bickering of Batman and Robin got them just distracted enough for Joker to get a shot into Dick’s shoulder. Dick decided it was time to surrender the moniker of Robin and spent the summer prepping the Titans for his absence, electing Cyborg the new leader of the team.

On the day Dick was set to leave Gotham and start at Hudson University, he and Bruce got into an intense screaming match - before Dick stormed off in a rage and left some harsh words with Barbara on his way out.

At Hudson University, Dick studied law, and he was damn good at it. When winter break of his freshman year came around, he learned Bruce had taken a new ward. Rather than return to Gotham for break, he went to Jump City, where he burned his old Robin uniform on the rooftop of Titans’ Tower while sipping beer and cursing his old mentor under his breath. Starfire found him there and the two slept together that night, and the next morning Dick brushed her off and skipped town back to Bludhaven.

In his college years, Dick kept up the man-whore reputation, completely frightened of commitment. He became somewhat of a party boy, but always kept it within reason and never lost his senses too much. Once, while walking home from a party, he spotted two guys trailing him and managed to lure them into the alley where he knocked them unconscious - much to the shock of his date - Lori Elton. But, Lori was smitten with Dick after this and the two had a pretty long-lasting relationship.

Dick graduated from Hudson University in 2013, with plans to propose to Lori soon. He started working in the mail room at a legal firm in Bludhaven - but it wasn’t quite scratching his itch. So, he bailed on it and went through the police academy, and became an officer in the Bludhaven Police Department.

Lori and Dick would eventually break up when Starfire knocked on his door one day to introduce him to his daughter, Mar’i. Disheartened by this revelation, Lori decided to break things off. Dick was saddened by this, but he understood. Soon after, he moved into a new building and started hooking up with a fellow tenant, FBI agent Catalina Flores.

### Nightwing

Not long after this, Dick was called back to Gotham for an all hands on deck emergency after Barbara was shot and the new Robin was kidnapped by the Joker. Dick led his former team once more to try to find the clown, but they were unable to save Jason from his clutches.

While in mourning at Titans Tower, Kara told Dick of a Kryptonian folk tale about the heroes Nightwing and Flamebird. Feeling inspired, Dick hodge-podged together his own super suit and took up the name of Nightwing. His first mission as Nightwing brought together Bruce’s old Outsiders team and some graduated Titans to track down the Joker - quietly turning him in at Arkham Asylum.

Bruce dropped off the grid a few months later. Dick, meanwhile, resigned from the force and moved back to Gotham City, and stayed by Barbara’s bedside for months until she recovered. While she would survive, doctors reported she would never be able to move her legs again.

When Barbara got out of the hospital, she accepted a job offer from Amanda Waller, where she began to uncover government conspiracies operating in plain sight - and developed an interest in one of Hugo Strange’s projects called Spyral. With only so much she could do from a wheelchair, she convinced Dick to go undercover as a Checkmate courier to investigate the project.

Under the alias of Freddie Dinardo, and code-named Rook 37 by Checkmate. His mission in Spyral further exposed the Titans and Justice League to the secret cabal known as the Light. His time undercover was cut short when the League of Assassins attacked Gotham, and Bruce needed all hands on deck, so Feddie went AWOL.

He returned to Gotham as Nightwing, and tried to keep the Bat-Family’s footing in the city, but that started to fall apart when Bane snapped Bruce’s spine in half. Dick begrudgingly took up the mantle of Batman while Bruce was jetted off to Nanda Parbat with Lady Shiva to heal.

Dick didn’t like being Batman, and he struggled to work with his many new sidekicks, including the third Robin, Spoiler, and a new Batgirl. Whilst battling one of the League’s agents, an assassin codenamed Knightfall, Tim managed to knock the assailant’s mask loose - revealing him to be none other than Jason Todd, somehow back from the dead. Shellshocked by this revelation, Jason took off, leaving Dick stunned and motionless.

Dick would later be knocked unconscious by a mob commanded by Anarky, leading Azrael to become a brief violent Batman. Thankfully, Bruce made his return, coinciding with the inauguration of a new President who agreed to let superheroes come back - leading to Gotham’s liberation.

More than content to step down as Batman, Dick returned to the Nightwing identity and moved to Happy Harbor. While mulling over evidence of the Light and frustrated with the bureaucratic limits of the new ARGUS sanctioned League and Titans, Dick decided to reform the Outsiders.

### Nightwing and the Outsiders

Dick went on a recruitment spree that included several former Titans like Cyborg, Thunder, and Empress, as well as an assortment of new heroes like Freight Train, Geo Force, and Looker, as well as veteran members of Batman’s team like Metamorpho and Katana.

The new Outsiders were well-equipped to exist in the gray space that the League and Titans could not. One of their missions led to the capture of Cheshire, who then revealed that veteran Titan Roy Harper was not who he seemed - but rather a clone created by Cadmus.

While some of the Titans began investigating this thread, eventually leading to the real Roy being found and briefly turning to villainy, Dick began hatching his own plan. He convinced Kaldur’ahm and Artemis Crock to go into deep cover into the Light to expose them in ways that even the Outsiders couldn’t do, tearing them apart from the inside.

Over the next several months, Kaldur gained favor with his birth father’s organization, NEMO, culminating in the faked murder of Artemis and her placement as an undercover agent within HIVE. While the mission was successful in collapsing nearly half of the Light, it also resulted in the destruction of part of San Diego and Dick’s home town of Bludhaven.

Disheartened and embarrassed by the consequences of his actions, Dick rescinded his membership to the Justice League and handed over his leadership position on the Outsiders to Grace Choi.

While the rest of the Bat-Family left to tour the globe and undergo training with Bruce, Dick stayed behind, rekindling his relationship with Barbara and proposing near the end of the year. The two moved in together and Dick started going to law school and began studying for the Bar Exam. He also took care of Mar'i while Kori was off world.

Bruce has since returned, leading Dick to pass on the mantle of Nightwing to Stephanie Brown while he stays hitting the books. There are rumors circulating that he’s taken up the Freddie Dinardo alias once more to continue investigations into Spyral, the Light, and the remnants of the OMAC Project - as well as investigating the Court of Owls conspiracy and lending his efforts to rebuilding Bludhaven. Dick has also been taking Mar'i for some weekends and trying to be active in the whole dad business. Things seem to be looking up.

## Trivia

* While operating as Freddie Dinardo, Dick dyes his hair brown and wears color contacts.
* Dick shaves his legs regularly.