<div class="floatleft">(http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/original/11115/111158823/4145675-marvel-wants-joseph-gordon-levitt-for-doctor-strange.jpg)</div><div class="floatright">(http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/original/11119/111195216/4557194-8073001623-18868.png)</div><hr/><strong>Name:</strong>Richard ‘Dick’ Grayson<br/><strong>Nom de Guerre:</strong>Nightwing<br/><strong>Affiliation:</strong>The Bat-family<br/><strong>Time:</strong>October 17, 2015; 2000 hours | Saturday<br/><strong>Location:</strong>Batcave 2.0 | Hamilton Building | South Gotham<br/><strong>Tagging:</strong>Oracle, Superboy, Batwoman, Spoiler. Red Hood Mentioned.<br/><hr/><br/>To Dick Grayson, better known to many as the hero ‘Nightwing’, life was made up of a series of moments. Some moments seemed to happen in an instant, finishing their run before he was fully aware of what had just happened, like the mugging that he’d just stopped while he’d been patrolling the streets of Gotham. He’d done little actions like that, small acts of vigilantism, countless times going back to when he still thought girls had cooties. He’d done it so many times, his body went on autopilot.<br/><br/>Make a quip to let the mugger know of his presence, give the poor bastard a second chance to reconsider. Dodge the errant bullets that the scared muggler will shoot in a desperate attempt to succeed where all others had failed. Make another quip about expensive bullets are, and how flattered he is that the mugger thinks so highly of him. Disarm the mugger with a well timed strike from an escrima, send the gun flying into the alleyway. The mugger would leap away from Nightwing to try and grab the gun, putting some distance between them and the normal citizen. A few strikes with the escrima, a few batarangs thrown, and the would be mugger was feeling worse for the wear. At that point, all Dick had to do was handcuff the perp to a light pole and give the police an anonymous tip to come and pick up some trash.<br/><br/>Dick had done it thousands of times before, as Nightwing and earlier, what felt like a lifetime before, as Robin. At this point, it was ingrained in him, as much as a part of his muscle memory as breathing or walking. But that didn’t stop the adoration and joy that the would be victim showed from feeling any less sweet. It was the reason he still put on the tights every night, the reason that he put his life on the line, for that brief moment of surprised joy that the average citizens of Gotham showed whenever they found out that there were still people who cared and would go out of their way to protect others.<br/><br/>It was why, no matter what, Dick knew he’d be helping the citizens of Gotham until the day he died. And in that moment, Dick couldn’t help but let out a  silent curse as a smile spread across his face.<br/>“Damn, looks you were right again Bruce” Dick muttered under his breath once he’d gotten away from his adoring public and had a moment to himself.<br/><br/>Bruce Wayne had once Told Dick that Gotham was a special place that he could never leave if he wanted to. At the time, Dick didn’t understand and thought it was just the nostalgia talking. But slowly Dick was coming around. It took years, and Bruce’s death, but he was starting to understand. Gotham was a place like nowhere else; it was a proud city riddled with corruption and darkness. Most people had written it off a city of sin not worth fighting for. And yet there was still beauty to be found in the city, in architecture that had stood proudly for centuries. Or in the people, who had forged for themselves a truly unbreakable will.<br/><br/>Bruce Wayne, his adopted father, the man who had mentored into the excellent crime fighter he was today, the person he looked up to the most in his life even when he hated the man, had been a Gothamite until the day he died. A normal human, with no special powers beside from the same iron will that countless people in Gotham had received from the tragedies they’d seen in their lives, had decided to make sure that no one else would need to grow up as cold and callous as he had. That no one other young child would see their parents gunned down. And in the process, he’d ended up doing more than any one man should have been capable of. Stubborn even to the grave, it wasn’t a normal criminal with a gun that had killed him, or some super villain with a death ray, but an actual alien invasion. A full blown war, that’s what it took to truly kill Bruce Wayne.<br/><br/>Bruce had been born in Gotham, demonstrating what it meant to be part of that city with every fiber in his being. He hadn’t died there, but he had damn sure made it proud. Dick just hoped that he could do the same, even if he wasn’t a true native son.<br/><br/><br/>Just as Dick prepared to leap into the night and swing off to find some other crime to fight, a small buzzing in her earpiece let him know that something was up. The chirping voice told him that someone had triggered an alarm in the Kane Batcave, the high rise command center of one Kate Kane, an old wayne family friend and a fellow crime fighter. As Batwoman, she’d helped save the city countless times, both by herself and alongside Bruce. She and Dick had even teamed up a few times, which had been full of innuendo that Kat had been kind enough to put up with before letting him know that swung for the other team.<br/><br/>As Dick made his way towards the Hamilton building that housed this secondary bat-cave run by the gorgeous redhead, who was sadly off the menu to Dick, he couldn’t but reminisce over how things had changed since the death of Bruce.<br/><br/>Slowly but surely a new bat family was forming, replacing the old one that had been crumbling even before the death of Batman. Kate as Batwoman was a natural leader, the responsible mother to Dick’s more fun loving father. There was the angry and troubled brother in Jason Todd, a former Robin who had gone through a literal resurrection and come up slightly worse for wear on the other side. And then there was Stephanie Brown, the child of a third string villain who ended up getting taken down by his own daughter with some assistance from Jason. Kate had seemingly adopted two strays of her own, Felicity Smoak, a former hacker whose life got turned around thanks to Kate, and Conner ‘Kon-el’ Kent, an honest to god clone of Super-man. It was the definition of a rag-tag family, but Dick, who’d grown up in the loving arms of circus folk, wouldn’t want it any other way.<br/><br/>With one final swing, and a graceful quadruple flip accompanied by applause from the imaginary audience that accompanied everything he did, Dick landed on top of the Hamilton Building and made his way down to Batcave 2.0.<br/><br/>“I came as soon as I heard the alarm sounded. What's the emergency, Conner finally discovery that the internet has porn on it?” He asked with a teasing tone, walking over to look at the console and see what had made Felicity, or Oracle as the cute goth hacker was calling herself now, pull the alarm and let the Bat Family know something big was going down.