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Sometimes I feel like us as the bat family fandom forget how starry eyed people get about Nightwing canonically.
Because with the exception of early era Tim most of the Batkids are like. lol that’s my loser older brother or some variation of yeah…he’s some guy I guess? He helps me with homework?
And Nightwing is the canonically a center of multiversal light.
When Heroes meet Nightwing they do the vigorous handshake and the “it’s an honor to meet you sir, I have heard so much about you oh my god”
There are so many character where they are literally shown giggling and kicking their feet whenever Nightwing talks to them.
Even the people who don’t have the celebrity level worship of him respect the hell out of him and call him as soon as they need help.
From raven to Starfire to Superman to Superboy to all or the flashes there is so much respect and awe given to this one dude.
And it is deserved
But imagine you are Damian Wayne and you’ve been working with what 90% of the people you’ve met (all bats) have been calling an embarrassment to your father’s legacy.
Your mother hates him and your Grandfather doesn’t feel that strongly about him.
The red hood calls him an embarrassment and a coward and he couldn’t even keep Red Robin from running away.
Your father tells him that he never should have been Batman
And you’ve worked with him and you know what you think everyone is full of shit about him and you and him the new Batman and Robin are the best no matter what anyone says.
And fuck it the fact he keeps going in a suit that everyone tells him he’s not good enough for is scratching something in your brain that you’re refusing to acknowledge because why would you feel that way? You are the circus freak have nothing in common (shut up)
And then you meet the justice league and all the extended teams.
And people are falling over themselves to listen to a word out of your brothers, your Batman’s mouth. They wait for a nod or headshake and dictate decades worth of planning on it.
Both Drake and Todd’s hero teams ask him for advice with or without their designated bats presence.
The man of steel asks for child rearing advice and wonder woman cracks a joke about a spar
Newer heroes whisper about him in the halls
He’s literally your favorite hero’s favorite hero
And it’s breaking Damian’s Brain
Because well… he kinda gets slapped around in Gotham. He’s the butt of half the jokes the other Batkids make and Dick just smiles and takes it.
The rogues have a bounty on nightwings ass and he gets leered at by goons, rogues, civilians and anti-hero’s alike and he doesn’t say anything.
He lets oracle crack jokes about a pretty face and having to do everything herself
Let’s Jason run the alley despite the fact that apparently he knows how to take it back
Apparently he’s had 12 people tailing Drake since Paris and despite being the man Ra’s Al Ghul calls detective has yet to notice. (Because you can’t tell me Dick was just magically at the right place to catch Tim falling to his death on coincidence)
And necessary to peace talks because he’s the best they have at deescalation
Like imagine you are a child who was raised to believe power is this obvious, all consuming thing. That the ones who control the board are visibly larger than life figures who fought their way to the top and cling to power by even the thinnest hangnail if they had to.
People who ignore simpler morals or an overall greater goal or good
And then you’re taken in by the man who whispers the correct answers into the larger than life figures ear.
Like I feel like that would have such an impact because Dick didn’t take power from anyone to reach his goals, it’s why his siblings don’t really defer to him unless in crisis.
Dick didn’t take power, no people just looked at him and decided he was the best option to give it to.
Everyone basically looked at this kid and went, yeah you’re the future of all heroism.
And if that dude can’t even get Bruce Wayne’s respect what chance does Damian Wayne have
Question?
We talk about how Tim, Jason and Damian’s parents raised them pre Bruce but why don’t we talk about Dick Graysons.
Bc even before all of the court of the owls shit the way that man was raised was wild.
So remember Dick was a member and active participant of a circus as a child. A trapeze act without a net who was expected to pull his weight since he could walk.
That means that despite what everyone thinks John and Mary Grayson absolutely could not afford to gentle parent their child.
At all.
Dick had to know how dangerous his life was forever. He has to be perfect because if he fails him or his parents die. They die with a mistake. Don’t stretch your hand out far enough and someone falls.
And despite the fact that the Romani aspect of his character was born out of a writers need for fetish content. I still find it interesting to explore.
And since I am European! Halys circus truther
It gets more interesting because the anti-Romani sentiment in Europe is vile, obvious and violent. (And I say this as a poc who grew up outside of Europe and moved here for college. Like you’d never imagine the type of shit they say about a group of people with no shame before turning around and commenting about how crazy it is that poc are treated poorly in the rest of the world.) Now imagine your child is working a dangerous gig while being part of a hated minority and you have to go and advertise your whole families location because you are the centerpiece of a show.
Yall think Mary and John Grayson didn’t teach their kid to lie? To fit in with any group humanly possible.
You think Mary and John didn’t teach dick to switch from, mama to mom to Daj. To switch accents and tones and languages since before he could walk on his hands?
You think that this kid who grew up traveling everywhere wouldn’t know how to integrate himself so fully into the society he’s in that he’s invisible as an outsider?
When Dick talks to Bruce in Juvie right before hes taken in as a ward he has an American accent. A Gotham accent and not the ones the other kids has no Dick has a Bristol accent. When he first meets Alfred he has a charming softly British accent, the kind that isn’t immediately noticeable unless you share the accent. The softening of the vowels and heavy central consonants. Think kids who went to British schools abroad and learned English from people with British accents.
Bruce notices this but doesn’t think much of it I mean kids can adapt to their environments startlingly quick maybe the kid just kinda picks up accents.
But then Dick becomes robin and he’s horrifically good at it from the get go.
Which sends alarm bells in Alfred’s head because he raised Bruce at that age. He taught Bruce to defend himself at that age. Bruce wouldn’t be about to do 1/10 of what this kid can do.
No eight year old should be able to throw items with that sort of precision even a child as good at gymnastics as dick. No child should be that comfortable with a knife in his hand.
And of course dick always had an excuse, he grew up around fire breathers and knife throwers of course he’s good.
And Bruce notices when Dick goes out as Robin and begins to help people because for the first few months, he never speaks first.
He’ll save someone and when they thank him, he’ll reply in their exact accent.
The crime alley rougher tones
The high class smarmy Bristol accent
The open vowel Jersey accent
When he meets Superman there’s the barest edges of midwestern twang in his every word.
And it’s just unnerving
He flickers between cultures like their clothes in his wardrobe, accents like they’re a new set of perfectly fit shoes.
He’s just good at it.
And it’s a game to him.
He sees how close he can get to your accent without coming off as suspicious.
By the time he’s being doing the Robin shtick for a while and knows the areas he just immediately switches to the most common accent there even if there aren’t any people around.
His facial expressions and hand gestures change as well.
It adds to the myth of the Batman because the gcpd for a long while believes any Robin reportings to be a myth because one minute someone is reporting a Jersey accent the next genial Californian, or a tv safe reporter tone, one minute the kid is conversing in perfect Russian the next he’s speaking Spanish like he grew up in Mexico.
When he wants to get away with a mistake his voice switches to one indistinguishable from a scared child, with a mild stutter, overgramarization and the scared world slurring children do that makes your heart soft
When he wants people to listen to him his he’s eloquent and enunciating perfectly. He sounds far older than his years.
And everyone thinks they’re hearing the real Dick Grayson speak and it makes their hearts happy because look at how he puts on a show for everyone but trusts me enough to talk without lying.
Without ever realizing that they’re one of the people watching the show.