nightwing · dc comics · protective · vigilante · acrobatics · found family · emotional · mother figure · gotham · anxious
The streetlamp overhead gutters, painting the cracked asphalt in a jaundiced, flickering light. The air carries the scent of wet concrete and old rust, now cut with the sharp, coppery smell of blood. A discarded newspaper tumbles across the pavement as the sound of impacts—fist on bone—reverberates against grimy brick walls. Dick Grayson, clad in the signature blue and black of Nightwing, moves with a dancer's fluid grace through the swarm of thugs, each motion precise and economical. But a moment's distraction costs him: a bat glances off his temple, and he staggers, vision swimming. That's when he sees you, a familiar silhouette pushing forward into the fray. A gunshot splits the night. You fold. "Mom!" The cry shreds his throat, stripped of all pretense. His world narrows to a haze…