dick grayson.
we fall because someone pushes us. we get up to push back.
the bad guys were no match for batman and robin. i had no idea what i was doing. i was already well acquainted with death. after you see your parents die in front of you, you don't have many fears left. but i did have one fear, that i was a screw-up, a loser, not good enough. i was afraid that he was going to figure it out and that would be the end of that. so, i decided i was going to fight. whatever it took, i was always going to impress him. and more often than not, i was trying too hard. sometimes things got way hard, but that's how eager i was to prove myself. i used to hear people talking about robin and it was always like 'robin, the untouchable'; 'i had never seen a kid more so fast before'.
#yoakkemae a private , selective , and headcanon - based portrayal of dick grayson. . while nu-52 and rebirth events are integrated, his characterisation is pure pre-52.
. . . yoakkemae
interactions. | images. character analysis. | character study.
a deep dive into making the tough calls when no one else will; being the first, the ideal, and the standard; and learning how to fall.
disclaimer. i do not own dick grayson nor dc comics. considering the mess, i probably should.
satan. | they/them. | 28.
activity active muse.
accepting starters, memes, and plots.
important ,
it's not the fall that kills you, it's the sudden stop.
one ,
it's not the fall that kills you, it's the sudden stop.
dick is raising mar'i grayson from the age of twenty-five onward. he and kori share custody of mar'i. mar'i was born when he was twenty-five.
two ,
it's not the fall that kills you, it's the sudden stop.
unless specified otherwise, dick is thirty and is residing in new york city. bludhaven has remained destroyed and will not be coming back in my canon. he has spent twenty-one years as a crimefighter and should not be underestimated. robin joined batman in year one of bruce's timeline and thus predates the justice league, the joker (by a few months), and catwoman. dick has seen the rise of every gotham rogue.
three ,
it's not the fall that kills you, it's the sudden stop.
fanon & rebirth characterisation can go die in a hole. (we hate tom taylor in this household). dick is not a himbo nor is he happy-go-lucky nor is he uber-affectionate.he does deal with depression and severe ptsd (as well as a host of other issues), but since he started to raise mar'i, he has gone back to therapy.
four ,
it's not the fall that kills you, it's the sudden stop.
the dc timeline isn't perfect (especially after rebirth) and neither is my timeline. i may still reference canon events that aren't on my timeline, and some events have been moved or shortened for the sake of a cohesive storyline. or, really, as cohesive as you can get due to the mess that is the dc timeline. anything that tom taylor has done is not canon to my blog and never will be.
five ,
it's not the fall that kills you, it's the sudden stop.
dick had a small crush on babs as a young teen, but he did not do anything about it. this is mainly because i still follow the canon of babs being seven years older than dick. (if you write babs and don't write babs as being seven years older, please let me know!)i also no longer ship dickbabs. i do not erase any of their canon relationship (aside from dick sleeping with babs when he was engaged to kori... that is not dick grayson), and i am happy to write during that part of their canon. i just think that after they broke up, they should just remain as friends.
six ,
it's not the fall that kills you, it's the sudden stop.
dick is not a playboy. he is usually deeply uncomfortable with having sex with someone without being in love with them first.as of right now in my canon, dick has been in a relationship with five people--roy harper, koriand'r, barbara gordon, bea bennett, and shawn tsang. he has slept with helena bertinelli and cheyenne freemont. he had crushes on wally west, garth, and joey wilson.
seven ,
it's not the fall that kills you, it's the sudden stop.
dick is a twice survivor of rape and has been sexually assaulted and harassed numerous times. while i will never write rape, i do mention and make references to these incidents from time to time. they will be tagged.
eight ,
it's not the fall that kills you, it's the sudden stop.
bruce has been abusive to dick. he has also saved dick. this canon doesn't follow the bad/good parent dichotomy but if you think bruce is a perfect father, this may not be the blog for you.
relations ,
dick's favourite people.
♡ capecrusade.
♡ robin: year one | (2000).
♡ teen titans: year one. | (2008).
♡ the new teen titans. | (1980-1996).
♡ nightwing | (1996-2008).
♡ titans | (1999-2003).
♡ titans/young justice: graduation day. | (2003).
♡ outsiders | (2003-2007).
♡ batman and robin | (2009-2011).
comics ,
what i take inspiration from.
character ,
being a crimefighter was an outlet for my grief.
name richard "john" grayson.
aliases robin. nightwing. renegade. batman.
age 30.
dob march 21st.
pronouns he/him.
gender cis-male.
orientation bisexual.
race roma (one american paternal grandfather).
status gymnastics/acrobat instructor. vigilante of gotham city and new york city. leader of the titans. member of the justice league.
birth place bern, switzerland.
location travels between gotham city, new jersey; bludhaven, new jersey; and new york city, new york. mainly lives in bludhaven (pre-destruction) and new york (post-destruction).
known languages english, asl, romani, french, spanish, italian, german, japanese, mandarin, arabic, tamarean, russian, and kryptonian. he can get by in norwegian, hindi, urdu, tamil, hungarian, and portuguese.
education level graduated high school. dropped out of university after one semester.
family. mary & john grayson (deceased parents). bruce wayne (adopted father). alfred pennyworth (father-figure). jason todd (younger adopted brother). cassandra "cass" cain-wayne (younger adopted sister). timothy "tim" drake-wayne (younger adopted brother). stephanie brown (younger sister figure-ish). duke thomas (younger fostered brother). damian al ghul-wayne (younger adopted borther, son figure).
birth order although all but one are adopted, the order from oldest to youngest: dick, cass, jason, tim, steph, and damian. as for the order of adoption, from first to last: jason, dick, tim, and cass. duke has been fostered by bruce and not adopted, damian is biologically related to bruce.
children mar'i grayson. damian wayne.
arrests? dick turned himself in for the manslaughter of blockbuster. he did not do any time for it.
prison time? when dick's parents died, he was placed in juvie. this was for a few weeks until he broke out.
height 5'10".
weight 157lbs.
build dick has broad shoulders but has a narrow waist.
hair color black.
eye color blue.
wardrobe tends to prefer casual wear. t-shirt, jacket, and jeans. he likes to wear his father's leather jacket.
marks/scars dick is covered in scars--bullet wounds, knife wounds, cigarette burns--you name the injury, dick has the scar from it.
UNIQUE FEATURES dick is what people would call "classically" handsome. his clothing also doesn't tend to hide his physique. even those who don't like him have to admit that dick is attractive, and that holds true even when he is in the mask.
approximate iq. high. definitely genius-level.
mental conditions/disorders ptsd. depression. dissociation, depersonalisation, and catatonia are all prevalent when triggered.
obsession(s) helping others. being prepared. being a safety net for other people around him.
phobia(s) the people he loves falling to death and being unable to catch them.
sociability dick has one of the highest social skills of all of the batfamily members, which means he's below average for most people. he doesn't trust people right away, and sometimes with vigilantes/heroes he doesn't know and haven't researched extensively, he can be a little hostile. with civilian strangers, dick knows how to be personable. he was definitely better at interacting with other people as a kid, but growing up with bruce has somewhat stunted him in the sociability aspects (as much as he'd hate to admit it).
hobbies none.
diet dick eats healthy, but sometimes he doesn't have the time to sit down to have a meal. he tends to be more of a snacker or protein shakes with all the necessary nutrients kind of guy.
most valuable possession(s). the flying grayson's circus poster. his dad's leather jacket. his mum's tarot card deck (destroyed in an explosion). his parents' wedding rings.
intelligence dick has been called the world's greatest detective when bruce was lost to time and, upon his return, the world's second greatest detective. dick has trained to be a detective from an early age, but he also unconsciously calculates physics and motion in his head. he also has amazing spatial awareness.
accuracy as dick knows how to calculate physics and motion without thought, he has impeccable accuracy and can hit near anything with near anything.
teamwork dick mainly does best as a leader, having run several teams and leagues throughout his years as a vigilante, but dick also knows how to put his ego aside and follow someone else's lead. his teamwork skills are top-notch as long as he's not on a path of self-destruction.
shortcomings as a fighter, dick doesn't have many weaknesses. he's been trained hard ever since he was a young boy--first, as an aerialist, and then as a crime fighter. for the most part, the only way to get one over on dick is to surprise him and hit him hard and fast enough that dick can't get back up. sometimes, when he was younger, dick could get overconfident, but time and trauma has tempered that.
do not underestimate dick as a fighter nor as a detective. dick has beaten bruce in a straight brawl before, and he has also gone toe-to-toe with the likes of deathstroke. while he is not the best fighter in the dc universe, dick is at least top ten, if not top five.dick is strong and fast for a baseline human. he hits hard, moves out of the way, and can take a beating. he has been known to continue working even over periods of insomnia and is determined enough to push through injuries. this can be a detriment.dick also has incredible hearing and can hear anyone try to sneak up on him. the most notable is when garth, an atlantean, could not sneak up on him while underwater nor could deathstroke sneak up on him when the two of them were mourning joey's loss.that isn't to say that he can't be caught by surprise, but it is notoriously difficult to do so.
timeline ,
being a crimefighter was an outlet for my grief.
childhood (pre-gotham).
0-7. dick is born in bern, switzerland. he then spends the next seven years raised as a professional acrobat and aerialist as they travel with haley's international circus. the circus mainly makes stops in europe and asia.
childhood (gotham).
8. when the circus travels to america for the first time that dick can remember, one of their tour stops is at gotham city. it is then when his parents fall due to tony zucco putting acid on the ropes. cps in gotham takes dick from the circus and promptly places him in juvie due to his background and his heavily accented english. dick escapes after a few weeks in order to find zucco and kill him. bruce, with one year under his belt as batman, stops dick from killing zucco and helps to guide him to find justice through the justice system instead. he then takes dick in as a ward and dick starts to train to become batman's partner.
9. dick becomes robin, the batman's partner, after a gauntlet that leads to the arrest of several bad men. bruce also meets superman for the first time, and dick meets clark kent when dick loses a challenge with clark and has to do an interview with him. the joker and catwoman also make their first appearances.
10. dick finds many successes as robin and sometimes single-handedly captures criminals even without batman's intervention. harvey dent is doused with acid, and dick and bruce now have to contend with two-face. while bruce and a judge are held hostage by two-face, dick bargains with two-face and the judge ends up dying. for his mistake, two-face starts to beat dick to death with a baseball bat as bruce watches. bruce escapes and stops two-face before he could kill dick. when dick first wakes up, bruce fires dick as robin and when dick is fully healed, he runs away and joins the vengeance academy (an off-shoot of the league of assassins). dick is tasked with killing two-face but can't bring himself to do it, and when he finds himself over his head, bruce comes to rescue him. together, they stop the vengeance academy and arrest two-face.
11. the alien invasion happens, and dick is kept in gotham as bruce helps to form the justice league. dick had urged bruce to make connections with other heroes, and that is partially why bruce gets involved with the justice league as much as he does.
12-13. nothing too notable happens, but dick does meet the justice league as robin, some before others.
childhood (teen titans).
14. dick battles against mr. twister with kid flash (wally west) and aqualad (garth). due to their success, they decide to form the teen titans. wally brings speedy (roy harper) to join the team while diana brings wonder girl (donna troy) to join as well.
14-16. dick balanced his work with the teen titans (and new members joined as the years went on) and gotham until the teen titans dissolved after the death of a peace activist on their watch.
17. raven (rachel roth) brought the teen titans back together to fight against trigon, her father and a demon from an alternate dimension. the teen titans continued under dick's leadership even as the line-up changed.
18. dick leaves the manor to go to hudson university, but he makes a promise to bruce that he will manage to balance his work with the teen titans, college, and gotham. however, dick had been late coming to patrol to back-up bruce in gotham city once and the joker got the drop on dick--shooting dick in the shoulder. when dick came to, bruce fired him from being robin, and dick moved to new york city to be a teen titan full-time, dropping out of college as well.
adulthood.
19. while working with the teen titans, dick gets kidnapped and brainwashed by brother's blood. this was also the year that bruce adopted jason todd and made him the new robin. dick found out about the adoption and about the new robin from the newspaper, and while he had been angry at bruce for the decision, he gave jason todd his blessing by giving him the old robin costume and his phone number in case he needed help or if bruce was being a little too much.
20. dick gets kidnapped against by brother's blood and is rescued by the teen titans and jason. his brainwashing is finally broken thanks to their intervention and dick has to come to terms with what he did under brother's blood mind control. a month later, dick is in space and jason dies. when he arrives back from space, a young teen titan informs him about jason's death, and dick has a breakdown, especially after he realises that neither bruce nor alfred called to tell him and they already held the funeral without him. he goes to confront bruce, and bruce punches him and formally kicks dick out of his life by asking him to return his keys to alfred. dick, reeling from both jason's death and the argument, does as he asks and doesn't speak to bruce or alfred for the next year.
21. tim drake finds dick at the circus and asks him to return to being robin. dick refuses but follows tim to gotham. it is the first time in a year that dick has spoken to bruce or alfred, and he manages to reconcile with bruce and therefore alfred. both he and alfred are amused when tim argues with bruce that batman needs a robin, and even though dick wonders if it was a mistake to have another robin after jason's death, dick helps to train tim to become robin.
22. the mirage incident happens. superman is killed for the first time. dick proposes to kori and the wedding is stopped halfway through the ceremony due to an attack. bruce's back had been broken from bane at this point, so after he and kori breaks up (and kori leaves to go to space), dick quits the titans and goes to gotham to take over for batman with tim as his robin until bruce's back heals. when bruce is better, dick goes back to being nightwing. after a few months, a doctor with a grudge misdiagnoses the joker with a brain tumour and tells him he only has a month to live. because of this, the joker decides to get the last laugh and through events, robin is assumed to be dead. dick steals black canary's motorbike, goes to the church where he knows joker is, and is about to arrest the joker when the joker talks about jason and his death. dick snaps and beats the joker to death in a rage, and he only stops when tim tackles him. dick realises that he killed the joker, and bruce ends up giving the joker cpr, and the joker ends up living. dick isolates himself from the batfamily for a bit.
23. dick goes undercover in bludhaven to be a cop in order to clean out the dirty cops. while he, garth, donna, wally, roy, and lian meet for lunch, they decide to restart the titans after the team dissolved. dick is incredibly overworked due to his time as a titan, a cop, and patrolling bludhaven, but he is not the leader of the titans until much later. donna dies protecting dick from a robot superman, and dick quits the titans and isolates himself. roy creates the outsiders to help dick out of his depression, and dick ends up leading the outsiders. after his iteration of the outsiders dissolves, he ends up accidentally causing a traffic jam, causing blockbuster's mother to die. this causes blockbuster to have a vendetta against nightwing. when dick grayson and nightwing are found to have the same bullet wound, blockbuster realises that nightwing and dick grayson are the same person. he then hires tarantula to break his relationship up with babs, goes to burn down haley's circus while dick is performing there, and blows up dick's apartment building. dick spends the next few days determined to bring down blockbuster with tarantula's help, and when dick speaks to the reporter that told blockbuster about his bullet wound, blockbuster shoots the reporter dead. blockbuster threatens to do the same thing to every single person that dick ever speaks to, and dick--emotionally and physically exhausted--does not stop tarantula from killing blockbuster. he has a panic attack on the rooftop and tarantula takes advantage of him. from then, dick follows tarantula in a haze until she almost gets them married until bruce calls dick back to help deal with a crisis in gotham. it turns out that steph accidentally started a gang war and dick, still under denial, also calls tarantula to come help. dick ends up getting shot in the leg and passes out, and when he wakes up, he finds out that steph was tortured and killed by black mask. dick is absolutely done with everything, and he decides that he wants to take control of bludhaven through three different arenas. first, though, he joins the mob as an enforcer (going by "crutches" due to still needing crutches for his gunshot wound). dick also finds deathstroke and becomes renegade to help trade rose wilson. during this time, his old mob boss was arrested and his wife was killed, leaving his sixteen year old daughter alone. dick rescues her from a home and takes her somewhere safe. as he continues to train rose, he and rose ends up having to battle against superman, and dick chooses the moment after the fight to confront slade and tell him to keep metahumans and the secret society out of his city. at his request, sophia is taking control of the mobs in bludhaven, dick has an in with the police captain, and with him blackmailing slade with rose, dick has a monopoly over both crime and the cops and therefore the city should be safe. however, out of spite for threatening him with rose, slade and the secret society bombs bludhaven with chemo a day later, causing a lot of the city to explode and for there to be extreme radiation in the city. dick goes on a suicidal mission to rescue as many people as possible until he can't any longer and bruce takes him back to gotham city. unfortunately, bludhaven is destroyed and about 100,000 people are killed; although, there are a few thousand survivors. (yeah, the year from hell for dick.)
24. dick moves to new york city and sees jason for the first time since his death. he also nearly dies taking a laser for bruce and he, bruce, and tim end up travelling for a few months. after they return, damian joins the family and attempts to kill tim to take his place in the family. then, damian and tim gets kidnapped by ra's and dick ends up rescuing both damian and tim.
25. bruce "dies", and dick ends up taking the mantle of batman. alfred gives the mantle of robin to damian, and when tim swears that bruce is alive, dick assumes that he is in denial. tim, however, begs for time to figure it out, and dick allows it but tells tim to reach out when he needs help. for a year, dick and damian fight together and help to protect gotham along with steph. also during this time, mar'i is born. jason gets arrested and sent to arkham by jim gordon, but dick has helped to clean up arkham and it is actually a mental health institution rather than the abusive sanitorium it had been before. (the joker is also not in arkham at this time). however, it was suggested that since jason is not insane that he gets sent to a regular jail, but dick is against that because he knows jason could run circles around anyone in jail. however, the transfer happens regardless, and jason ends up murdering over 50 people through poison while in jail. dick becomes the leader of the justice league, and lian dies. dick also ends up trapped in arkham and fights against slade wilson, and this battle continues as he chases slade down. even though slade gets away twice, when dick finds slade in a hospital bed later, he ends up smacking him across the face with an iv.
26. bruce returns from being lost in the timestream and even though dick and bruce attempt to share the batman title for a few months, it ends up being too much, so dick returns batman to bruce fully and leaves to go to chicago as nightwing. the court of owls come after dick and the rest of the batfamily, and dick learns the truth about haley's circus and the court of owls and how he was supposed to become one and would have been if bruce hadn't taken him in first. a few months later, right before dick's 27th birthday, damian is murdered.
27. reeling from damian's death, the crime syndicate is able to get the drop on dick, and he ends up being tortured and unmask on live television. he is then strapped to a bomb that would only stop if his heart was stopped, so luther kills him in front of bruce and selena. however, luther also revives him a few minutes later, and bruce gets the idea to use dick's death to send him into spiral, especially after he was unmasked. bruce forces dick to go undercover in spyral, and dick manages to bring down spyral even though bruce gets amnesia. he brings tim, jason, damian, and babs into the fold of the mission, and after they help to take down the corrupt parts of spyral, dick comes back from spyral, but with everyone thinking that he faked his death and lied to them about his death on purpose. the only people who even are open enough to ask for the truth are damian and steph.
28. dick is back to new york city and is restarting as nightwing again as people no longer remember that dick = nightwing. he starts to reconnect with any of the titans that are alive, particularly with the other members of the fab five, ignores bruce, and he finds out about mar'i. he goes back to therapy so that he feels better prepared to help take care of mar'i due to his time at spyral.
portrayal ,
being a crimefighter was an outlet for my grief.
canon ,
short quote. it looks best around this length.
comics. *
robin/nightwing/batman. | vigilante. | 9-30.
untagged. takes place throughout the comics timeline.
young justice. *
robin/nightwing. | vigilante. | 13-.
untagged. takes place throughout the young justice animated series timeline. i have watched the entire series. (do i remember the last two seasons is an entirely different thing...).