Post by Deleted on Aug 9, 2012 2:02:27 GMT -5
~ Non RP Information ~
Your Name: Dakota
How did hear about us: El Bosso
Other Characters: Namor and Batman
~ Vital Stats ~
Richard Grayson
Type: Canon
Codename: Nightwing
Aliases: N/A
Age: Mid-Late 20's.
Gender: Male
Faction: Justice League
Family: John Grayson (father), Mary Grayson (mother), Bruce Wayne (adoptive father), Damian Wayne (adoptive brother), Jason Todd (adoptive brother), Tim Drake (adoptive brother), Cassandra Cain (adoptive sister)
~ Skills ~
Powers: N/A
Weaknesses: He's human, and he's more of a moment thinker. This can lead to him being in a bad situation.
Abilities: Dick Grayson is highly trained in a staggering number of disciplines - and he has been trained in most of them by the Batman himself. He is a highly competent athlete, martial artist, detective, technician and vigilante, among many other things.
Still, his main asset might be his jaw-dropping talent for athletics - Nightwing is one of the very best acrobats in the world, if not *the* best. He is one of the very, very few persons who can do a quadruple somersault, will casually accomplish three death-defying stunts before breakfast, and can move at an amazing speed along the "rooftop express". His speed and nimbleness are such that he is pretty much impossible to hit with a firearm. Literally tons of ammunition have been expended in his general direction without *ever* connecting, even from the guns of marksmanship experts like the modern Trigger Twins. Tim Drake has often commented that, for the trained-since-birth Grayson, everything looked totally effortless when it came to athletics.
Since he benefits from the assistance of Oracle, Dick does not use his detection skill as much nowadays as he did when he was Robin ; besides, the cases he encounters tend to be more squalid and brutal than the convoluted murder mysteries of old.
Weapons: Batarangs, smaller shuriken-like "Wing Dings", regurgitant gas (tear gas with an additive to make you throw up) pellets smoke capsules. His right gauntlet contains a 100,000 volt stun gun, although his preferred weapons are two shatterproof polymer Escrima Sticks.
~ Appearance ~
Height: 5'10
Weight: 175 lbs.
Hair Color: Black
Eye Color: Blue
Costume: See picture above.
~ Psychological Profile ~
Personality: Dick Grayson is a serious but easy-going young man in his early to mid-20s. He's in a way the perfect big brother : the nicest, most popular hunk in college, only five times as gifted, five times as cool, five times as smart - and ten times as dedicated. He will approach everything with the confidence born of amazing talent and incredible training, yet manage to never seem pretentious in the slightest, always caring for others and being genuinely attentive.
At times, a casual observer might think his Motivation is Thrill of Adventure - he finds rooftop acrobatics or driving the Nightbird just plain *fun*, gets an obvious sense of satisfaction from bringing justice and happiness to the people, and has always some light banter ready for combat - although he's not a motormouth like Spider-Man, he usually seems very relaxed when doing the vigilante thing. However, what actually makes him tick is a deep, burning desire to make the world a better, safer place where justice actually exists. Like the Batman, he wants no kid to ever suffer the losses he went through ; unlike the Batman he does not see the world as a cruel and harsh place, but remembers the wonderful childhood he had. This profound difference in their memories of the time before the loss let Nightwing fight for a better, safer world for honest people around him while his former mentor fight to crush evil. While Batman follows his own obsessive rules, Nightwing is actually sane and a part of society. However, like the Batman, he has a very strong "nobody dies on my watch" code.
Nightwing's courage is amazing - he has faced so much danger and monstrous opponents straight from a nightmare since his early teens that he seem to be fearless and take physical pain in stride without much of a shock. To him it's a mere part of his job, and he can actually defy physical or mental torture with a smile. Even when badly hurt, he'll still act in a stalwart and generous way, saving innocents and bearing little grudge. Likewise, although his life has been a terrifying emotional grinder, he's outgoing, gentle and well-adjusted.
Nightwing cares a lot for Tim Drake - although he never treats him as a kid, he knows Tim is the closest thing to a little brother he will ever have. He enjoys teaming up with him, and will help to train him when he can, usually running Tim through old training routines the Batman devised for the first Robin. They have clear chemistry and respect between them. Dick, on the other hand, is haunted by the ghost of Jason Todd - it seems to be an echo of his great guild over not having preventing the murder of his parents, and of having generally mishandled this period.
His relationship with the Batman is rather complicated - Bruce Wayne simply does not have the tools to express how much he cares for his the young man who is for all intend and purpose his son, and Nightwing will never be free of the shadow of his formidable 'father'. They tend to be awkwardly and silently defensive toward each other, with a lot of things left unsaid - although they will fight along with each other in a heartbeat. Dick is much more at ease in his role as a leader for the Titans.
Despite being a huge hit with the ladies with his attractiveness, confidence and boy next door charm, his romantic life keeps turning into a minefield through little fault of his own. He keeps trying, though and has an easy, flattering, gently flirting manner.
In Blüdhaven, Nightwing is learning to work alone - while he has always been half of a duo or the leader of a full team. While it flatters his confidence and his need to get out of the Batman's shadow, and doesn't seem entirely at ease with the solo gig - he often relies on Oracle's ideas and investigation. While he knows he's very smart, he's also quite aware Barbara is a genius. While he's an excellent detective, he's not really into the "plans within plans within plans within paranoia" genius of the Batman - he tend to go with the flow and try various approaches instead of obsessively taking intellectual control of any situation.
Lately, Dick has taken more and more Batman-like qualities. Operating alone in a very rotten situation, he has driven himself more and more harshly to live up to his impossible responsibility, becoming colder, more tired and more driven. The consequences of Blockbuster demolishing his life are still unknown at the time of this writing.
As can be surmised from the relative lack of quotes, Nightwing does not really have distinctive dialogue - he speaks fairly normally for a super-hero, without exceptional wit or special patterns of patter. He's relaxed and natural that way.
History: Born on the first day of Spring, "little robin" Grayson (as his mother called him) led an adventurous and happy childhood. One-third of the famed aerialist act The Flying Graysons - along with his father John and his mother Mary - Dick was a natural acrobat. He took to the high wire and trapeze at a very young age, thrilling audiences with his death-defying acts. He traveled the globe with his parents and the rest of Haley's Circus, seeing more of the world in his first ten years than most people see in a lifetime. The boy wonder of aerial acrobatics was billed nationally and was an inspiration for kids everywhere - even a very young Tim Drake begged his father to take him to Haley's.
Then the Circus traveled to Gotham. The Flying Graysons were the top draw at Haly's Circus, the act that pulled in crowds of children and thrill-seekers. And so it was the Graysons whom gangster Tony Zucco targeted when Pop Haly refused to pay him protection money. If Haly wouldn't pay in money, he would pay another way. Zucco sabotaged the rigging for the trapeze. That night, before a stunned crowd of Gotham's leading citizens, John and Mary Grayson plummeted to their deaths. Dick heard the ropes snap and watched his parents die - and then he understood the meaning of the veiled threats he had overheard being made in Pop Haly's office, and how he should have warned his parents.
Among the businessmen and politicians and socialites in the crowd that night was billionaire Bruce Wayne. He, too, had lost his parents tragically at a young age - to a mugging gone bad. Seeing in Dick the same lost, confused and frightened little boy he had once been, Bruce offered to take in Dick and become his legal guardian. While Dick reluctantly settled in at the cavernous, luxurious and lonely Wayne Manor, Batman devoted all of his energies to capturing Zucco.
Dick, however, was very uncomfortable in the manor, under the care of the ever-absent Bruce Wayne. He would have fled the tomb-like Wayne Estate numerous times hadn't it been for Alfred Pennyworth's care. He ultimately did leave, however, wanting to avenge his parents. Racing back to Haly's Circus, he found it under the thumb of Zucco's men. He charged blindly at them as they were threatening the carnies, and was nearly killed - but the Batman swooped in, taking out Zucco's men and declaring the circus to be under his protection.
While the carnies appeared to be now safe, Dick remained traumatized by his parents' deaths. Wayne had a talk with the youth as the Batman, after seeing to Grayson's wounds at the hands of Zucco's men in the Batcave. Dick told him about his loneliness (as he was seeing more of a mysterious creature of the night like Batman than of Bruce Wayne), his guilt, his desire for vengeance and redemption. The Batman then took the dual step of revealing his secret identity to him, and taking him as an pupil.
Dick started a grueling regimen of mental and physical training - criminal psychology, aikijutsu, cryptology, jujitsu, forensics, karate... - that would last a year. Three months into that training, the Batman finally located Zucco, and he and his ward attempted to apprehend them. Tony Zucco ran as far as he could in face of the onslaught, but Grayson caught up with him and tackled him. The chase had been too much for the man, who had a heart attack ; while an ambulance was called, he died on his way to the ER after confessing.
That death only served to intensify Robin's training regimen, as he realized he was not after vengeance but more after appeasing his guilt about his parents' death - and justice. Wayne, however, was reluctant to have a sidekick - and Alfred told Dick that Bruce would never ask for help, and that if he wanted to have a place at his side he would have to take it.
At the anniversary of the beginning of his training, Dick asked the Batman for a chance to convince him he was worthy by undergoing a final test - a real-world test of his abilities. From sunrise to sundown, he had to elude the Dark Knight on the streets of Gotham, leaving Batman clues as to his location. He passed with flying colors. Not only did Dick succeed in evading Batman, but he also cracked an attempted murder case and brought down Joe Minette, one of Gotham's most powerful mob bosses.
And so Richard John Grayson became Robin the Boy Wonder. Modeling his crime fighting outfit after his old aerialist costume, and taking his mother's nickname for him as his nom de guerre, he became the Batman's partner, his protege, his surrogate son, a laughing, joking bright light in the Dark Knight's otherwise grim existence. Together, they faced the deadly streets of Gotham, night after night, taking down murderers and rapists and arsonists and drug runners. Together, they faced Gotham's most dangerous criminals: the maniacal Joker and schizophrenic Two-Face, the Penguin and Poison Ivy, monstrous Killer Croc and larcenous Catwoman. Moments of glory included a successful solo mission against the Mad Hatter (despite the Batman forbidding him to do so), and saving Batman's life from Blockbuster when Robin encountered him for the first time.
It was Two-Face who became Robin's personal foe, the one villain who haunted his nightmares for years - especially as Two-Face was attracted to the yin-yang duality of the Dynamic Duo. When Two-Face took a City Councilman and Batman prisoner, he forced Robin to choose who should live and who should die. Not realizing the real trick and thinking he had out-smarted Two-Face, Robin hoped only to buy enough time for Batman to save himself and the Councilman. Robin was beaten severely by Two-Face's thugs, humiliated in front of the man he admired more than anyone else in the world. Batman finally succeeded in freeing himself, but not soon enough to save the Councilman. This death left Dick guilt-ridden and angry, and Batman determined not to put his partner in further danger. He ordered Dick to stop his activities as Robin, temporarily sidelining his sidekick until he could be sure of the teenager's abilities to protect both himself and others. This proved to be only the first of several occasions on which their relationship was severely strained.
But despite orders Robin carried on - solo. While Batman was tracking down Two-Face to bring to justice for what had been done to Robin, Dick was busy assuming the guise of Freddy Prince to infiltrate a gang of kids being trained in ninjutsu, as part of a master plan of the supercriminal Shrike. Eventually Dick exposed the child-corrupting syndicate and barely escaped with his life after being saved (once more) by Batman. Shrike seemingly perished - but one of the kids, Robin's reluctant friend Boone, would go on to take up the mantle their former master had just relinquished and reappear years later as the new Shrike. Batman and Robin eventually reconciled and started operating together again.
Despite the death of the Councilman, and many other close calls, Dick was happy. He took to the crime fighting life as naturally as he had to that of a circus acrobat. A pun-spinning prankster, a martial artist and detective of the first class, Robin the Boy Wonder became a legend in his own right - though Dick never quite saw it that way, as he was aware that Batman was the one criminals ran from in fear, not Robin. At one point, though, Robin wore the Batman costume - an incident that helped to create the Batman underworld mythos that he was unkillable, that he would always rise again like some unholy scion of Dracula. When Batman was gravely wounded by a group of thugs, Dick used an exoskeleton to wear one of the Batman costumes, much to the dismay of the rejoicing criminals who asumed it was the same person.
The status quo of Batman-and-Robin was dramatically changed by two events. The first was the appearance of Batgirl - Barbara Gordon. She was an uninvited guest, at least from Batman's point of view. She took his name and his symbol and began to fight crime, without his permission. The Boy Wonder, on the other hand, took to her immediately... though it was obvious part of his approval was an adolescent crush. It was Robin who finally convinced Batman to let the interloper join their close-knit family of crime fighters, and Batgirl was soon as well known in criminal circles as the Dark Knight and the Boy Wonder. When the Batman was busy elsewhere Robin and Batgirl would often team up, or enjoy something of a relationship.
The second event which proved so important was Robin's team-up with two other sidekicks, Kid Flash (later Flash) and Aqualad (later Tempest). On their own, the teen heroes joined forces to stop the villainous Mr. Twister. Shortly thereafter, the trio was joined by Speedy (later Arsenal) and Wonder Girl (later Troia) to rescue their mentors in the JLA from a mind-controlled thrall. The five young heroes discovered in each other an acceptance and friendship that their mentors could never truly offer ... and so they remained together. At Wonder Girl's suggestion, they took the name The Teen Titans and, under Robin's leadership, soon began having adventures of their own, far from the protection and oversight of their elders - who were busy saving the world without them as the Justice League of America, anyway. The Titans would know various incarnations and split several times. The Titans were another point of friction between Bruce and Dick, however, as the headstrong Robin had chosen to reveal his identity to his teammate despite Batman's objections.
But Batman casts a long shadow, and the Boy Wonder would not remain a boy forever. In his late teens, Dick moved out of Wayne Manor to attend Hudson State University in the town of New Carthage. Though he never admitted it out loud, Bruce suffered a bad case of Empty Nest Syndrome as well as from the loss of the balancing effect of Dick's presence. To make matters more difficult, their relationship had become increasingly strained as Dick matured. While Bruce became even more intense, more dedicated, Dick began to crave that which he had lost long ago: a normal family. The final break came when Robin was shot in the shoulder by the Joker ; though not fatal, the injury was an omen, a forewarning of what might happen - and it played on all the left-over doubts in Batman after the Two-Face incident. Bruce decided that he would not ignore the obvious twice, and again forbade Robin to be a masked adventurer.
Furious, hurt, resigned, confused, Dick returned to Titan Tower and his friends in New York City. He dropped out of Hudson after only a semester - obviously he unconsciously hoped Bruce would react to this failure and demonstrate he cared somehow, but there was no reaction. Batman took away the Robin costume - Dick would no longer be Robin, could no longer be Robin. Then Batman made the young Jason Todd the new Robin - the replacement taking the very identity Grayson had created and defined for so many years. Wayne also legally adopted Todd as his son, which he never had done for Grayson. Utterly dejected, Dick left the Titans after making Wonder Girl the new leader. Kid Flash, who also had entered a point of personal crisis, left the Titans at the same time.
Uncertain what to do, he turned to someone he knew would understand : Superman. Very briefly, Dick had considered giving up the whole crime fighting gig ; but he couldn't imagine his life any other way ; he had even imagined that someday he would be Batman. He loved it. But if he couldn't be Robin, what would he be ?
Superman had the answer. Long ago on Krypton, a man has been cast out by his family - just as Dick had been. He dreamed of a world ruled by justice, and set out to protect the helpless of Krypton. His true identity was never revealed. He was known only as Nightwing. Dick adopted that name as his own.
Nightwing
Nightwing made his debut in the Colorado Rockies. His friends were in danger, betrayed by one of their own. Allied with the assassin/mercenary Deathstroke, the Titan Terra had turned on her teammates - and might very well have succeeded in killing them all had Nightwing not intervened like the proverbial cavalry. Deathstroke escaped, and the unstable Terra killed herself.
This time, Dick elected to remain. He made his home in New York, not far from Titan Tower. Having seemingly outgrown his adolescent crush on Batgirl, he had fallen in love with fellow Titan Starfire. An alien from the planet Tamaran, and an exoti warrior-princess, Starfire a.k.a. Koriand'r a.k.a. Kory was a loyal if tempestuous lover. Where Dick now only had bitterness and aggression from Bruce, he had compassion and understanding from his teammates and love, honest love, with Koriand'r - and with his new life in New York seemed to escape the shadow of the Batman. Dick and Kory were together for close to three years - until Kory was recalled to Tamaran and ordered to marry a prince to seal a treaty and bring peace to her homeworld. Though he knew the marriage was politically-driven, Dick was still deeply hurt when Kory elected to remain on Tamaran and go through with the wedding.
Heart-broken, Nightwing returned to Earth and resigned once again as leader of the Titans. He set out on his own. For a time, he was even involved with the cult known as the Church of Brother Blood. He returned occasionally to Gotham, where he met his replacement. During this period, the Joker struck two devastating blows - a gunshot shattered Barbara Gordon's spine, permanently crippling her and meaning the death of Batgirl ; and a devious plan resulted in the death of Jason Todd, also at the hands of the sinister clown prince of crime.
Jason's death weighted on Dick's conscience, but also sent Batman on something akin to suicidal rampage ; he took irrational risks, facing opponents he was ill-prepared to meet, and nearly died several times. Alarmed by Batman's actions, thirteen year-old Tim Drake (who had long ago uncovered the identities of the Dynamic Duo, recognizing Robin's world-class acrobatic moves since he was a childhood fan of his circus performances) tried to convince Dick to return to Batman's side as Robin. Dick refused. He could never go back to being Robin again - but there was no reason that the brilliant Tim could not be Robin. Initially, Batman refused to even consider taking on a third protege ; he would not risk the life of another child. Won over when Tim helped them take down Two-Face, Batman finally agreed to train the Drake kid, a decision he has never regretted. Nightwing, meanwhile, had bonded with his successor, becoming a surrogate big brother. Perhaps regretting that he did not know Jason better, he spends as much time as possible with Tim.
Starfire's Tamaranian husband eventually died, and she returned to Earth and to Dick. Though they moved back in together, things were never the same again between them. Tragic events followed - during the so-called Titans Hunt in which many Titans were severely injured or some even killed, all under the betrayal of Jericho (who later died) and the directorship of the apparent Wilderbeast Society. Struggling to keep everyone together as best he could and out of a fear of loss, Dick proposed to Kory, to which she agreed. Yet, the ceremony would be cut short with the appearance of a former Titan, Raven, who with an empathic attack managed to drive a wedge between the couple before the vows could be taken. Dejected, hurt and once more bewildered, Dick quit the Titans once more as it came under government sponsorship, and left it in the care of Arsenal's leadership. With the aborted ceremony, Dick and Kory decided to end their relationship.
Though the break up was mutual, Dick remained hurt for a very long time. That hurt was only compounded when Bruce chose someone else to succeed him as Batman. His back broken by the redoubtable villain Bane, Bruce needed someone to carry on in his place. Too proud, too uncertain of his former ward's feelings, Bruce chose Jean-Paul Valley a.k.a. Azrael II, a man he barely knew. This choice soon proved disastrous.
Valley, who had a complex history of mental and genetic manipulation, went mad. While Bruce suffered through intense physical therapy and retraining, Valley went on a rampage in Gotham. Far more ruthless, far more bloody, then the real Batman, "Az-Bats" left a trail of terrified and maimed criminals in his wake. Only when Bruce was fully recovered, only when he was sure again of his own abilities, did he dare take on Valley. And even than, he needed the help of Nightwing and Robin.
Nightwing returned to Gotham and helped his mentor/father stop Valley. He was glad to do so. But Bruce had one more favor, another favor, to ask. He was not yet ready to return as Batman. Would Dick remain in his place ? Would Dick agree to wear the mantle of the Bat?
Reluctantly, he did so. He faced Killer Croc and the Ventriloquist, the Ratcatcher and a riot at Blackgate Prison. He even came face-to-face with his worst nightmare: Two-Face, holding Robin hostage in a morbid echo of past events. This time, though, he didn't play by Two-Face's rules, and he won. This time, no one died. Dick had finally conquered his long-time fear of the insane, disfigured maniac.
While his skills as a detective and scientist and martial artist proved more than up to the task, Dick found the costume an ill-fit. Dick discovered that while he could play the part of Batman, he could not fill the role. He was Nightwing, not Batman. He was and is Dick Grayson - a friendly, well adjusted young man fighting for justice - not Bruce Wayne - a brooding dark god relentlessly hunting injustice.
When Bruce finally returned, for good, it all came out. They finally talked, as they should have done years ago. Dick finally realized how much Bruce actually cared, and came to understand why Bruce did not immediately ask him to step in as Batman : Bruce was proud of Dick, of the life and name he had made for himself ; he did not want to take that away from him. Bruce, for his part, came to realize how much his seeming rejection had hurt Dick and how badly he had handled Dick's departure all those years ago.
Dick then flew to England to find Alfred Pennyworth, who had left Bruce's employ after Bane's assault. Dick found and rescued his old friend Alfred, and went on to thwart British terrorists plotting to blow up the Chunnel. For a short time, Dick considered retirement but Alfred produced some documentation showing that the Flying Graysons may have had a connection to the country of Kravia. While following this wild goose chase that ended triggering the collapse of the Kravian nobility, Dick learning little new about his parents, but became romantically entangled with a young woman he saved from kidnappers, Maggie Sawyer (not relation with the American police officer). However, it turned out that Maggie Sawyer had arranged the kidnapping to seek attention from her abusive father, then ended up killing herself while Nightwing was busy battling the racist prince of Kravia to prevent ethic cleansing.
From here Dick took some time to follow up some other cases, his next bringing him into a courtship with Emily Washburn as he faked a marriage to her to attempt to uncover a black widow murderess... which turns out to be Emily's friend, Annelise. Having fallen in love with Emily along the way, the relationship does not last as Emily leaves betrayed.
When Gotham was ravaged by The Clench, a deadly ebola-like plague, Nightwing - the rifts between him and the Batman mostly healed - crossed armed quarantine lines to help. Some time later, when the city was leveled by an earthquake, Nightwing joined Batman and Robin and other heroes as they tried to free people trapped in the rubble, distribute much-needed supplies, and keep the city calm.
Meanwhile, when the bodies of dead made men begin to float upriver from Blüdhaven, Batman sends Nightwing to investigate. As bad as Gotham is, Blüdhaven is worse. A former whaling town turned industrial center, Blüdhaven is hopelessly mired in drugs and corruption ; everyone is on the take, especially the police. And at the top once sit Angel Marin - but the corpses of his wiseguys were one of the few visible signs that Roland 'Blockbuster' Desmond, a gargantuan sociopath, was quietly taking his place. He placed a hefty bounty on the investigating Nightwing's head, which any number of assassins (such as the Scarecrow, Lady Vic, Stallion or Brutale) have attempted to collect on. All have failed.
While in Gotham covering for Batman who was elsewhere on other missions, Nightwing encountered the Huntress as the two were both investigating mobster who was falsely accused of killing a prostitute. Working together, they made the mistake of becoming lovers - which was obviously doomed from the start. Solving the case, they parted ways both unsure what to make of the situation, and each other. Although they keep an obvious physical attraction (especially on the more aggressive Huntress' side), they are aware their personalities and philosophies are incompatible.
Hoping to be for the 'Haven what Batman is for Gotham, Dick settled down in a low-rent apartment and quickly landed a job as a bartender in a police bar. His work as a vigilante was much tougher - he was basically alone, not wanting to rely on the Batman and having very few honest cops with whom to ally - least of whom police chief Redhorn, an ally of Blockbuster. He had to create his own networks of information and grip over the city, with help from Barbara Gordon (now known as Oracle) - and for a short while had to rely on information from "Deadly" Dudley Soames, a crooked cop playing a formidably dangerous game between law enforcement and playing off criminal factions.
While maneuvering to keep the very dangerous Blockbuster in check, Grayson had to keep juggling with various problems, such as a tentative romance with his superintendent, Bridget Clancy, the spectacular thefts of the acrobatic sister act called the Double Dare, or the actions of a young bull-headed vigilante who had coincidentally called himself Nite-Wing. The end result of eighteen years in Blüdhaven's foster care system, Nite-Wing is a sociopath who believes himself to be a hero. Armed with a steel baton and garbed in a hockey jersey, Nite-Wing spent his nights cracking skulls and stealing money from criminals. The real Nightwing has had to rescue Nite-Wing on more than one occasion, and has often been blamed for the latter's brutalities. Unaware that Nite-Wing was an homicidal brute, Dick even took him under his wing for a short time - but had him arrested when Ryerstad tragically murdered an undercover FBI agent, Cisco Blaine.
During this time, Dick also found himself fighting alongside Oracle in post-quake Gotham, when the city had been declared a no man's land by the federal government. There had been romantic tension between them for some time, but Barbara just didn't admit Dick could love a crippled woman. He eventually won her over.
Looking for an angle to have a long term effects on the crime and corruption in Blüdhaven, Grayson enrolled in and graduated from the local police academy. Once within the system, he managed to find a few good cops, such as his partner Sergeant Amy Rohrbach or detective Addad, who want to clean up their city just as badly as Dick - and was made a member of a secret cop organization struggling to build a file on corruption within the department. However, juggling with a day job as a cop and a night life as Nightwing proved exhausting, and Dick started doing a fair amount of mistakes. At one point, during a fight with Sylph, he was thrown on a highway ; although he survived the harrowing experience, the resulting pileup led to the death of Blockcbuster's mother, who had a cardiac condition - an event which would have dire consequences. He also was nearly killed by Shrike IV, looking for revenge after an early case Dick had solved as Robin.
The issues with vast corruption were eventually solved, though, after Nightwing secured the journal of Mary Redhorn, the chief of police's estranged wife. There were enough names and dates in it, along with the documents amassed by he secret anti-corruption club, to trigger a Federal investigation and sweeping arrests and retirements within the force. Due to severe personnel shortages, many remaining cops were suddenly promoted. Dick's ex-partner, Sgt Rohrbach, became a Captain while Detective Addad came to head the department.
Due to fatigue, Dick became less careful about his secret identity (and, thus, Batman's secret identity). Amy Rohrbach understood who he was when Nightwing intervened to save her from a home invasion lad by a small force of corrupt cops. Feeling betrayed that a masked vigilante had infiltrated the force, she fired Dick shortly after. Blockbuster also came to learn that Nightwing was Dick Grayson. Which was very, very bad news - as he was now recovered from his heart transplant, and considered Nightwing to be directly responsible for the death of his mom.
Blockbuster launched a ruthless campaign to destroy Nightwing's life. Most notably, he had the Firefly attack the Haly Circus by setting the big top on fire, resulting in many deaths and wounded carnies and customers ; Nightwing nearly killed himself attempting to save everyone, and was morally devastated by the blow. A short time later, Blockbuster had Dick Grayson's building bombed. The firebombing killed many friends of Nightwing as well as John Law, a novelist best known for having been the Golden Age hero called the Tarantula II.
An attack by an agent of Blockbuster, Tarantula III, was also the catalyst for a breakup between Dick and Barbara, which had been brewing for some time. Barbara still had strong issues with her crippled legs and self-image, and couldn't stand Dick's habit of living in the past and always remembering about the good old days with the first Batgirl - his time as a cop, risking his life day and night like her father did, and Nightwing slowly becoming more like the Batman, also helped considerably in wrecking their relationship.
Rp sample You know me!
