Your personal Tumblr journey starts here
Okay listen there are 5000 timelines so stay with me as I cobble like 10 together for angst reasons.
(My weird fanon x canon take on Dick becoming nightwing)
I am a Bruce kicked Dick out truther
So
Bruce freaks after Dick gets shot and goes ‘this can’t go on’ and Dicks like what?
Bruce decides that Robin is done, Dick can’t be Robin anymore. But Bruce doesn’t have that right, it’s Dicks name! Hell it’s Dick mother’s name for him, Bruce has no right!
Except he does, he made the suit, he made the tools, the schedules, the taught Dick most of what he uses on a day to day basis.
Which means he can take it away.
And he does.
Dick of course doesn’t stand for this, which causes a big argument to get even bigger. Alfred is furious because Dick is still a child, a child who just had a bullet pulled out of his shoulder. Bruce should’ve let the boy rest before starting this argument.
But now that it’s brought up, it’s never going back down, Dick won’t take this loss of control as anything other than a lack of trust that he can handle himself. He won’t see that Bruce is worried for him, that Bruce can’t stand to lose him.
They get into a screaming match and it’s bad, Dick Grayson is one of the few people who get pull Bruce out of callous logic and into cruel rage.
So Bruce says something I’m sure at least 50% of children with tenuous relationships with their parents have heard
“If you don’t like my rules get the hell out of my house” or some various, maybe Dick gets him to yell at him for the first time possibly ever that hot raging anger that makes tears bundle in the corner of your eye. Maybe Bruce’s anger is cold that’s honestly your choice.
But Dick… Dick doesn’t take him all the way seriously and pushes just a tad more, yells one last thing. In a rage, maybe something about his parents, or Batman or this whole fight being Bruce unable let go of the image of a loved one dying by gun.
Well whatever he says..that’s it
Bruce’s voice goes back to the dead Batman growl and he tells Dick it was a mistake to make him robin, leave the suit and drop his keys with Alfred.
Now Bruce is a very intelligent man, Bruce is a very calculated man. You’d think that Mr. Very smart and calculating would realize how that sounds to a young teenage boy.
Especially a young teenage Boy whose first experience with the Gotham was being place in a juvenile detention center and being forced away from a life he knew with people he loves.
But no. Bruce is being an idiot and does not realize that he basically just went.
My house
My stuff
My rules
I made you
If you want to make your own choices you get the fuck out and don’t take anything from me.
Nope doesn’t get that at all
Alfred is horrified because he thinks that Bruce is behaving like a spoilt seven year old (oh if you don’t listen to me you can’t play with my toys)
But he doesn’t say anything, just watches as Dick tries to fit 7-9 years of his life into a backpack.
Watches as Dick leaves all the expensive gifts and allowance money Bruce has given in and only takes the money he got from working summer jobs (it builds character which Alfred is a big fan of) or mowing lawns or tutoring kids.
He needs a place to spend the night but him and babs are on the outs, him and the titans are tight but the closes people to him location wise are not Donna or Wally so he doesn’t feel safe collapsing and sobbing into their arms.
It’s Roy, the closest person to him rn is Roy and him and Roy haven’t gotten over their teenage crush/I must be better than you thing and Dick doesn’t wanna be ridiculed (which Roy would never but our boys in a bad headspace)
All and all it leads to him freaking the fuck out in the pouring rain, but fuck it he doesn’t have time for this. He’s on his own now, fine. Whatever he can do this.
Cue Liu, the boys home and the violent manipulation our boy goes through in canon.
“I thought she loved me but she was using me” and keep the age gap fucked up here for angst purposes later!
And he can’t do this
Fuck that
After that shit show and he’s dismantled her little empire and gotten her arrested… he, like a very logical 16/17 year old. Has a fucking huge panic attack. Huge enough that his heart rate jumps so severely a certain blue boy-scout comes to check on him.
And sees his nephew in the pouring rain, violently dissociating, looking thinner, more worn and dead eyed than Clark’s ever seen him.
Yeah no, that’s not gonna work for Clark.
He takes Dick back to metropolis and we get Clois parent comfort hours.
Lois decides she’s gonna Kill Bruce
Clark decides he’s not gonna stop her
Dick gets better with them, less jumpy.
The comfort of people who’ve loved you since your were a child + regular trips to kanas farms for menial labor jobs around animals and southern cooking. Do wonders for a boy wonder lol.
They do the infamous “have I ever told you about the story of Nightwing and flamebird”
It’s a title freely given and that’s a huge difference.
Dick goes back to the titans, does his lil costume change and new name reveal. And then leads them as well as he always had. Without the pressures of disappointing the bat, I mean he’s already ruined that relationship.
The titans do great work, become a respected team, take a bunch of kids under their wings.
They’re messy, drama filled, mirage still happens, Roy gives in to addiction, Wally has a heart condition. Dicks fighting everyone for the right to marry Kori. He’s still being manipulated by brother blood.
But they make it through.
Kori and Dick aren’t together anymore, they both make the mature choice that they need to heal separately. And maybe if they’re better they’ll try again.
Roy has Lian and with Dick and Wally’s help. Gets his shit together
The titans is an entirely independent organization from the league, Dick Grayson will not take a Dime of Bruce’s their money.
Merch sales, stock trading and tax write offs keep them afloat.
He hasn’t spoken to his Dad since he was 17, he turns 20 a week after Donna dies.
He’s met and helped Jason for 2 years in bludhaven but he doesn’t touch Gotham.
Because that’s Bruce’s.
Bruce gave him Gotham, Bruce gave him Robin, Bruce gave him a family.
So Bruce could take it away
And Dick
Internalizes this SO heavy
The titans can’t touch Bruce, Nightwing can’t trust Bruce, he quits any/every job he land if he finds out they’re so much as using Wayne operating systems. His relationship with Jason is entirely separate from Bruce. So much that, Bruce knows about the hanging over of the Robin suit and literally nothing else.
He doesn’t know about aspen, he doesn’t know they meet up for food once a week, or that they’ve taught each other their mother’s recipes. He doesn’t know that they’re close.
When Batman’s busy, Bruce’s life falls down the list of priorities. Jason’s doing his Robin duties, getting good grades and living his life. Bruce doesn’t need much more.
I need Nightwings early habits to be Dicks full on trauma response to basically being informed that the life he fought for was actually a loan that could be taken away from him.
He buys his childhood circus
He buys his apartment building
He doesn’t involve Bruce when the circus burns or building explodes.
Doesn’t involve Bruce when his relationship crumbles. Or for tarantula/ blockbuster/deathstroke/crutches advice.