Dick Grayson Clutching Robin!Tim Drake To His Chest: This One Is My Baby I Love Him, I Will Do Anything

imagine bludhaven and gotham having a custody battle over nightwing

Gotham citizen talking to a metropolis citizen: anyway we have a fuck ton of heroes, Batman, Batwoman, signal, red hood, Nightwing, robin

Bludhaven citizen eavesdropping: I’m sorry what the fuck did you say

Gotham: listen pal you got a problem with me??

Bludhaven: yeah asshole, you ain’t the only city in Jersey and every hero in Jersey don’t belong to you get nightwings name out your filthy mouse

Gotham: I’m sorry? Nightwing?? Aka a bat. Yeah no we got a copyright on that shit

Bludhaven: he ain’t a bat dipstick HES A BIRD it’s in the damn name

Gotham: BATS HAVE WINGS

They proceed to tackle each other

Metropolis: bad time to say this I’m sure but New York was where nightwing was first scene right?

New Yorker: don’t bring me into this

https://archiveofourown.org/works/53718373

hiii here is a fic rec i think you would like the author also made another that was really good

I had already read Persephones in hell b4 this one BUT OMG I DID NOT EXPECT TO LOVE THIS AS MUCH AS I DID

Also

This IS MY DICK GRAYSON

Like THIS IS HIM

My son

Also 100% how I think the siblings should sibling

I love the manipulative asshole with a heart of gold Grayson. And him and Jayjay 20/10 I love it

THE FUCKING BLUEJAY STOPPPPP AT THE ALTER IM GOING HOME

(Also I read this at 3 am in a hostel in Prague and idk I need to give it bonus points for ambiance)

Anyway if anyone wants an idea of what I -a complete internet stranger- view Dick graysons character as. It’s this

And to end

I love this section so much

Anyway

100000/10 thank you so much for the rec

I want more but I will not be Icarus I am okay not flying too close to the sun (but if you have more plz do anon)

More headcanons bc I’m alone on new years

(Yes precrisis Dick became nightwing at 19 but too much shit happens and I mix timelines DONT YELL AT ME)

But I love the idea that Dick was just pint sized for all of his Robin run. Like he’s an acrobat we can fully utilize the fact he was mid waist sized for nearly every adult he interacted with until he was like 16-17.

Late bloomer Dick Grayson who can pass for 12 at 15

And then him and Bruce fight and Dick becomes nightwing and all that jazz

And finally FINALLY his growth spurt hits and he drops the baby fat and all that in like 4 months.

And then he becomes nightwing

And he went from like 4’0-4’10 during his whole Robin run and now he’s cresting at 6’0

And living with Wally means that the boy EATS SO MUCH VERY FAST bc u snooze you lose

So he packs on the pounds and skips that awkward gangly stage and all the adorable lil baby fat on his face is sacrificed to the puberty gods in exchange for a sharp jawline and sharper cheekbones

And the titans and the league don’t rlly get along in the early years so we can assume the only person from the league dick has seen or spoken to is Clark

And then they meet again

And the justice leagues BABY is now a like a full grown man

Like he’s GROWN

And Bruce is going through a crisis bc yeah he’s not dicks dad according to dick but he watched him grow up, he raised him?

He was there for every play, show, report card, every doctors appointment and his boy was so small

And now Dick his tiny little Robin is well he’s damn near Bruce’s height?

He somehow turned around and missed his boy becoming a man

He might not be Dicks dad but Dick is definitely his kid

And his kid isn’t a kid anymore?

And then there’s the voice??

Because sure nightwing jokes around all the time but in comparison to the lil bobbin Robin with his “HOLY ——- BATMAN” and his bad puns and his habit of bat-ifying literally everything in existence

But when he’s in charge?

Of a team?

When he’s given responsibility

Yeah no he’s calm, commanding and authoritative. He’s who everyone in the titans looks to for orders even if it means turning their back on the bat.

And yeah?

He’s proud, so so proud of the amazing man Dick grew into both because and despite of him.

But hes also in misery because he feels like he missed that. He wasn’t standing by Dick through that. How could he be when Dick is too hurt to call and Bruce is too scared to ruin things by calling?

Dick Grayson was always his greatest pride and joy, his biggest achievement and now… his boy doesn’t need him anymore

Then Jason comes back

And he’s bigger and meaner and angrier than all hell and Bruce wonders if he’s cursed to never watch his boys grow up.

(Thank god Tim refuses to get taller)

-I am working on a fic for this but I am a bad writer so if anyone has recs plz donations

Now imagine this whole concept with in the de-aging mix

-Dick goes from pushing 30 to saying is 9 and 3/4 which is basically 10 shut up

-and Bruce just melts

-it’s temporary but all stress the wear and tear of the year falls off of him. He has his boy back

-and they’re the dynamic duo, the first Batman and Robin. The never need to speak to understand each other and the way they communicate doesn’t get lost in translation the way it did when he got older.

“You were reckless” went back to being interpreted as “I’m worried about you be safe” instead of a criticism.

-Bruce laughs again in a way he hasn’t since Jason died and all the bats are there for it. They see Bruce Wayne as the man when his life was 1 tragedy instead of a million. And if they thought measuring up to Dicks Robin was hard actually seeing makes it seem impossible. They kid just fits in a way none of them feel like they do (they do fit they all just have issues)

- and then a crisis happens and 9 (10-shut up) Dick just isn’t as competent as Nightwing (obviously 20 more years of experience and aging will do that) but Dick also can’t work outside of Batman and even when working with Batman he struggles to fill in the huge gaps that his older self filled seamlessly

-and Bruce sees how Much his boy has grown, how much he’s changed and developed and matured and how did this little sweet boy become the future standard for heroism.

He’s so small

-Dick gets turned back into his almost 30yro self and thanks Bruce for looking out for him a second time and does Bruce say anything about how proud he is of his boy, how much of a joy it was to raise him.

No

He just says

“Anytime”

I don't know where else to put this and I'm losing my mind over it. The passage of time in Dick Grayson's life haunts Bruce. His son is almost thirty. His son is nine. His son has been fighting crime for twenty-one years. His son is trying on the Robin costume for the first time. His son is sixteen and insisting on driving the Batmobile with a license he hasn't even had for a full week. His son is twenty-four and wearing the Batman suit. His son is ten and has aced a test that Bruce puts on the fridge. His son is eighteen and leading the Titans. His son is thirteen and falling asleep on Bruce's shoulder. His son is his child. His son is a man.

Bruce's eldest son, his first son, is a man that Bruce can never stop seeing the child in. Dick is grown and matured and Bruce is glowing with pride, and he will never find equilibrium. He will never be able to fully reconcile the boy and the man. Time is slipping through their fingers and Bruce would give anything to hold that nine year old again. He loves his son, both past and present, and that love of the past clings to him like a ghost. That nostalgia haunts him. He is proud of who Dick has become and will always mourn who Dick no longer is.

SEE

This is where I get annoyed bc I love cracking jokes about dicks dating life

But this is how I 100% feel about it

Dick loves flirting, he’s a flirty guys I’m pretty sure he’s flirted with everyone from raptor to batwoman (before ID reveal)

Dick and his friends flirt with one another all the time

But like dick has has 3-4 very serious relationships and only 2 have been genuinely consistent throughout his 80 year tenure as a character

Tim went through that in a week

And I feel like people seem to equate dicks friendly flirty personality + being canonically very very good looking as sleeping around.

Now personally I live laugh love demisexual Grayson it’s my drug feed it to me

But if you want/headcanon him sleeping around fine live your life

But be SO FR OKAY the scenes where dick is explicitly like “what are you doing”

“I don’t like this”

“I feel uncomfortable”

Are very obviously not him cracking a joke. It’s just him being like a normal person who does not want people looking at him like a ribeye

-oh but dick slept with babs b4 his wedding to Kori. Okay and babs has been pregnant with Bruce’s child, and been married to Tim.

Dc writes out of character shit to keep the plot moving we been knew, literally everyone agrees it’s not in character for him and it’s never been in character for him

I usually don't talk too much about it cuz it's kinda an awful trope to be honest, but, I was seeing this so much lately, and I just can't with this-

The amount of people who think Dick has had many partners and is a playboy when many of the women (and some men) they use as examples are women who have kissed or touched him WITHOUT his consent is... It's horrible.

I don't know why people think it's normal or a "reward" that so many people have crossed Dick's boundaries just because they tend to portray these people as visually attractive.

Today I just saw a compilation of this kind of situations, and there were 35 photos, and many more were missing. Each image was more uncomfortable than the last.

TW: I'll post some of the comic panels on this topic, they get progressively more uncomfortable, it's nothing that explicit, but still.

In the photos you can see the @ of the account where I got the panels from.

There are many more (like Catalina or Liu panels), that are even more explicit situations, but I think this gets the point across.

I saw people trying to justify Dick being a playboy by saying that maybe he hypersexualizes himself in response to trauma (a real response, it can happen), but this would make more sense if the authors did it on purpose and with that intention, but that is not the case. They don't sexualize Dick's character to give depth to his trauma, they barely even talk about it AT ALL.

So that definitely doesn't excuse it, at least not as a justification from the authors, now if they use it as HC it makes more sense, but only thanks to the fans' interpretation. If it were entirely up to the authors, there is no reason for Dick to be sexualized, not beyond fanservice.

And I hate it.

It's very different to create a sexy character than to sexualize them to the point of objectification.

(This is all a joke)

I love the Dick is pushing thirty and all the Batkids tease him about it and he’s dramatic. But what’s infinitely funnier is in the Robin story (the one illustrated by piccolo) Dick looks young enough to go undercover as a student in highschool.

Which means that Dick with a little bit of effort can pass for 17-19

Which means Jason ‘drawn like a 40 year old whose doing 20 to life in prison built like a brick shithouse’ Todd

Definitely looks older at 23 than Dick does at 27

And so the boys get their licks in and Dick does his howls moving castle let me lie on a bed dramatically like an 18th century women fainting

Calls Kori like ‘babe be honest am I too old for you, do I need Botox? HAVE YOU SEEN A GRAY HAIR PLEASE’ on speaker in front of the Batkids because honestly it’s a funny joke.

And then they go to a bar

And Dick gets ID checked

At 27

He’s been a hero for 19 years

He just got fucking ID checked at the bar

And then when they get into the bar

Jason gets called sir

And he gets called Dude

Because he looks barley legal apparently

And that’s even fucking worse

How is it everyone can laugh at him for being old and HE DOESNT EVEN GET OLD MAN PERKS.

HE HAS OLD MAN BONES, THEY SOUND LIKE HE NEEDS WD-40 (what do you mean that because of the 23 years of intense acrobatics and the 19 years of punching People, and carpel tunnel inducing precision shut up)

And Jason finds it even funnier until dick desperately asks how old the barkeep thinks he is and the dude goes like “idk 21? Barely”

And Jay laughs until the dude went “yeah I mean you look like a kid whose uncle is taking him here for his first drink”

And Jason cuts the laugh mid HA and goes “excuse me?”

Anyway now Dick if finding it funny again

It stops being funny all together when he’s the only one to get ID’d on Tims 21st birthday

Because Tim is 4’0 (it’s only a 3 INCH HEIGHT DIFFERENCE dICK)

And has baby fat on his cheeks at 21 and he can still pitch his voice into an androgynous or fem voice.

(Tim paid the bar keep to do this, he’s stirring shit)

As an enjoyer of both as well plz carry on. I just think the difference is hilarious.

I genuinely love how in batfam fanfics….

Dick is like: little D (Damian), Timmy Tim, little wing (Jason) I’m on my way my baby bros!!!

And then in canon….

Dick: *perpetually perturbed by his codependent siblings but knows he’ll never not answer cause who else is gonna pull their dumbassses out the gutter*

roy’s whole pitch to dick at the start of outsiders is so fucking funny when you actually think about it. bc it’s like:

dick: I can’t be on a team again, I won’t lead friends and family into danger anymore!

roy: cool cool of course man, no problem! it’ll just be strangers and coworkers this time. no deep emotional bonds, I promise! ignore the fact that you’re one of the people I love most in the world and we’ve been family to each other for half our lives and I’m creating this team specifically to help and support you

dick: seems legit, I’m in

A list of my fav Dick Grayson with eldest daughter syndrome fics

As an eldest daughter there’s something so refreshing about Dick working through his familial trauma as well as all his other problems so here are some of my fav fics I’ve compiled over the past like week LMAO

1. https://archiveofourown.org/works/43704451/chapters/109898020

- such such such a good fic, i loved the exploration of dick’s trauma at spyral

2. https://archiveofourown.org/collections/DickGraysonsuffers/works/40771257

- absolutely loved this one shot,,, dick is always doing his best to play mediator because he’s known bruce the longest and understands his motives the most but playing mediator and understanding both sides is an exhausting task so i love the fact the author explored that here

3. https://archiveofourown.org/works/44614405

- another really good oneshot. This one is less eldest daughter syndrome and moreso exploring dick’s trauma after the catalina incident but if clark showed up right after. i think what i enjoyed most abt this fic was the vulnerability and numbness after the incident,,, def resonated with it to a degree and i liked dick and jason’s interactions, they felt realistic.

4. https://archiveofourown.org/works/41451366

- omg omg this author. This author. Phenomenal. I heavily encourage yall to read more of their stuff if you like this oneshot because all of their stuff is good. But this fic specifically was just so so so so good. I felt dick’s emotions and stress in this one,,,when you force yourself to carry the weight of your entire family’s emotional wellbeing—including your own—onto yourself, it weighs on you. So much so that its not unrealistic to go nonverbal. I just resonated a lot with this story and found that dick’s stress was extremely well written. Def one of my favs

5. https://archiveofourown.org/works/36497065/chapters/99737508#workskin

- this one. This is the favorite. It’s kind of lengthy but it’s so so so worth it. The spiraling (pun unintended) of dick’s mental wellbeing is written beautifully. Not to mention the core of the entire fic is dick wanting to get himself help, something that i think is incredibly important when writing abt mental health. Outside influences can only do so much and i found it really beautiful when dick finally found it in himself to stay just that much longer to check on damian. Also speaking of, the dick and damian parent/child relationship in this is just so so so good it hurts. fell in love with their dynamic in this one, especially with dick’s obsession with not letting damian carry all the weight of dick’s stress on his shoulders. That is peak eldest daughter syndrome and it was written phenomenally. Pls read this

EDIT** ADDED SOME NEW ONES

6. https://archiveofourown.org/works/36329323/chapters/90570550?view_adult=true

- this author is SO GOOD. Pretty sure ive already put another one of their fics on this list but this one is def my favorite of theirs. Just so so good

making one of those "why i left the left" grifter videos but it's increasingly obvious i was exclusively hanging out with people who draw che guevara and fidel castro getting eachother pregnant and have based my entire conception of communism off of that