[bleuwing]

super private + low activity portrayal of dick grayson/nightwing from dc. personal portrayal/headcanon based. mostly familiar with: nightwing (1995), nightwing (1996), joker: last laugh (2001), nightwing (2016), and dc vs vampires (2021). written by sean - 22 - he/him. does not follow first! exclusive with joseph's jason todd + ripley's barbara gordon! (and naz's!)

01. extremely private, mutuals-only, low/sporadic activity. tumblr isn't my number one priority, nor is this my main blog. reply-pestering will not be tolerated. if i'm not here, i can usually be found on @jedicide!

02. bigotry and overall nasty behavior will result in a block. non-romani dick blogs, non-jewish harley writers, non-romani wanda + pietro blogs— stay away from me. otherwise, be respectful of one another.

03. my portrayal of dick is a hodgepodge of various comic runs, various headcanons, and some of the animated + live action stuff. i've never seen titans, don't have much of a desire to, and don't know much about the lore in that department. otherwise, i'm winging things unless plotted differently. if you have a specific era if you'd like for me to write dick in, just let me know. i usually steer clear of robin threads, though.

04. circling back to plotting, i personally love it. it's much more enjoyable when i'm creating a fun dynamic with our characters + you! my discord is always available to mutuals upon request.

05. hello there! i'm sean, 22, he/him pronouns, cdt timezone. i look forward to writing with you!

[greatfailure]

@bleuwing: “what gives you the right to choose who lives and who dies?”

the spectral notes of a father's voice echoes through the haunted plains of his empty visor. [i don't think you understand. i don't think you've ever understood.] maybe he didn't understand, or maybe jason understood plenty: bruce wayne had never had to dig his hands into the fucking mud, a single stain from that one walk down crime alley of which fate dispensed. jason todd was filthy from the ground up, a few patches of virtue dotted between the blood and the rot that could only be ascribed to the rearing of gotham's back alleys. it was not the happenings of death that stuck with him, but the slow degradation, bearing witness to the prescribed poisoning of someone close who couldn't beat the taste of it. [and then, the gradual loss of familiarity around him, the faraway friends who had disappeared into the night without a trace to follow, until he was alone completely, without a shadow to hide in.] that is what should horrify them, jason thinks, as rainfall pit-patters against the red skull that shrouds his anguish, any visible allusion to such falling solely to the clenched fists at his side and the tension that bleeds across his taut chest. no, it was them who didn't understand, but how could they? and how could he even attempt to make them? words were sterilisation: the largest of cosmic events could be honed into a short headline, making small of infinitude in its inabilities to accurately encompass the grandiosity of the thing you wanted to say. [how limitless thoughts begin when they are caged inside your head, how narrow they become in the journey to your open mouth.] jason could explain, he could cry even. they would hear, they would forget.

“these people this worthless scum i've scraped off the fucking earth with everything we know about them, what they've done you really think they deserve to live?” jason loads a follow-up question as though pushing a bullet into a revolver chamber: it clicks in quiet protest, a snap of the cylinder as it reconnects with the hammer and the air seems to still around them in anticipation. ready, aim, fire. “did joker?”

[bleuwing]

standing against the backdrop of gotham's twilight, the city breathes beneath them. it's a living entity, composed of both shadows and light, mirroring the symmetry between them. dick listens, the weight of his brother's words sinking deep, tethering to the very marrow of his bones. the words are thick with the kind of raw, unfiltered truth that only comes from the lips of those who've tasted dirt, despair, and death as intimately as jason has. [to truly understand, one must walk the same path the other has tread. to feel the grit under their shoes, the rain washing the blood off their face, and the weight burdening their shoulders. but some paths are better walked alone, understood by no one else but themself.] dick has always invited jason to see him not just as nightwing or the first robin, but rather himself in his entirety: dick grayson— flawed, human, striving for balance on a tightrope that doesn't hardly exist. choosing to finally break the silence, his voice is steady and clear, cutting through the tension like a beacon in the fog. “i've seen darkness too.” his tone is neither accusatory nor dismissive, but laden with the heavy mantle of shared history. the unspoken pain flowing between them. “i've felt loss, anger, the urge to make those responsible pay... but this—” dick gestures vaguely to the space between them, to the city residing below, to everything balancing on the tightrope. “this isn't about what they deserve. it's about what we become. who you become.”

the joker's name is a curse, a wound that never fully heals. he will never understand what jason has gone through— he would be a fool to believe otherwise. but he bore the cicatrices on his knuckles from his own taste of revenge. [it's more than bruce could say.] dick tilts his head to one side and the other as if mulling over the proper word choice. truthfully? there is no right answer. [scratch that— there is an answer etched into his bones and it lingers on the tip of his tongue. but it goes against everything he's saying.] a sigh escapes from his lips, “you have no idea what you're talking about.”

[goodcatastrophe]

NIGHTWING (2016) #79

[bleuwing]

my return arc incoming

[jooheons]

Batman #138 / Joker: Last Laugh #6

[jedicide-deactivated20240404]

I GAVE YOU A CHOICE: ████ LIVE OR DIE.

[detectim]

i can feel it now, like batman used to. electricity and guilt, shadows and sadness . . . kinetic energy and hope.

[greatfailure]

‘ ALL THESE YEARS LIVING IN YOUR 𝙳𝙰𝙼𝙽 SHADOW, ’ a study into the second son, misplaced anger and self-conceived inadequacy. [with @bleuwing.]

[greatfailure]

street rat. child soldier. boy wonder. collateral damage. ‘beloved son’. jason wonders if these fragments of a fractured life would some day coalesce and create something that resembled being whole, an entirety of being. who was he without the crest? bruce had always wanted a project, an heir to mould between his bare hands: scorned when he did not turn out just right. jason longed to give bruce what he wanted in a son, shaving down his teeth in order to sterilize his bite. [but his jaws still snap at empty air with the unslakable thirst that truly cannot be staved, no matter how hard he willed it not to be true. jason bites and he hurts, and that bruce could not abide.] then came the scars, the brutality. the anonymising of the subject, the stripping of dignity and pride through handfuls of flesh until he is no longer a person no, less than a person, simply a mess of blood and pulp and servile notes passed through a voice that is no longer his. his sense of self had been stolen time and time again, reshaped and reformed and eventually, destroyed entirely. [i'll be your robin. those words lingered around him, the suffocating grasp of a ghost: thin white arms thrown around his neck like an infinite loop, cackling into oblivion. you're mine mine mine mine mine.] lips press into a line, what momentarily housed docile elasticity shrink wraps in its safe-searching return to anger. anger towards what was, anger towards everything that could've been. anger that dick had a choice. his malice models to the wrong shape, the cruelty of his eyes honing in on an enemy self-made. mostly because his brother is the only one with him in that moment, the only one who steps in to ask. it is a familiar emotion, something that brings comfort and safety over the sheer vulnerability that permeates his body: something he remits in feelings of exposure, willing himself not to break beneath the cracks in his facade.

“i ” who is jason todd? his brother asks like there is an answer, something lodged deep inside his core, that with a little probing could be unearthed. there's not. jason was fated to that hollow husk of a body, a shell of a person that once held so much promise, beaten until empty. “i don't know.” anyone but this. anyone but this. “just someone better.” someone fixed.

[bleuwing]

jason's response nearly shatters his heart into a million pieces. a broken bird with no wings to flap. they'd been plucked right from his shoulders, the scars not even capable of painting a clear picture. this does, though. he envisions jason falling from the sky, all the shades meshing together into an myriad of blues, until he reaches the surface. SPLAT! and dick doesn't like it. his head shakes once, the image distorting itself in his brain as cerulean irises drift back to the stygian cityscape of gotham. a comfort at the given moment. the history shared between them, a tapestry of triumph and tragedy, resonates in the air— it wraps its hand around dick's throat and squeezes as tightly as it can. suffocating him. no oxygen, no exit. everything about their lives had been that way; the weight placed upon their shoulders, as if it were a crown to be cherished. they'd thought it was at one point. hindsight's twenty-twenty. once the mist fades and the harsh truth is unveiled, it's hard to look back with bright, optimistic eyes. [but bruce did his best, the nagging voice in his head echoes. maybe for him. maybe not with jason. it was joker's blood on the end of nightwing's fists. not batman's.] his mind searches for words, carefully picking through the sentences— he comes up blank. instead, another sigh parts from his lips as a hand is brought up to his hair, fingers raking themselves through the brown locks. “and i thought i was messed up.” hushed under his breath in a soft whisper, his posture straightens. he'll have time to analyze the depth of their conversation later. [in a space where he can be alone— digest it properly. this rooftop is not the place for his own thinking. this is jason's time.] dick gives his legs a final swing in the air before he turns around, standing up in the process. “what do you mean by better? better for yourself? or better for him?” bruce's name doesn't need to be spoken— it swells a dark incense, catching as he bit back the wince.

the distance between them is broken, dick taking the first step forward. his expression softens, benign yet timid. [a dog can have the muzzle, but sometimes it slips. jason can slip.] “i don't know what it's like to be you, jay... but i know the anger. of not knowing who you are— wondering what comes next after the crest. but you know our worth isn't defined by him, right?” the door to the cage is open; it has been for awhile. the leash is on the floor. why are you still inside the cage? dick sighs, hands running themselves down his face— his head shaking. “it never has been.”

[bleuwing]

“babs, you’re a genius.” ╱ “but you already knew that.” “babs, you’re beautiful.” ╱ “but you already knew that.” ████ a study into 𝚏𝚛𝚒𝚎𝚗𝚍𝚜 𝚝𝚞𝚛𝚗𝚎𝚍 𝚕𝚘𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚜! [dickbabs version! → @pastreturn, @orhacles.]

[bleuwing]

@scareal1ty ███ “i don’t want to be afraid anymore.”

it's a true and raw sentiment, a vulnerability dick doesn't see much of these days. he can empathize with it. fear— a natural bone in the human body. it takes a lot to push down and not allow to bubble to the surface; most people can't. he hasn't had a choice. afraid isn't a word in his vocabulary— neither is giving up. (an afraid vigilante doesn't make much of a change in the world.) dick can't say he isn't familiar with wren francis, nor her story. it took over the media like a typhoon. he knows the story, recognizes how she's a survivor— just like him. (just like everyone else he knows in this world.) dick doesn't know whether to be sad the number grows, or to be grateful it does. surviving versus dying > a question he never thought he'd find himself pondering, and yet does in the bustling coffee shop. his head cocks to the side, a sip of his black coffee taken before he exhales a breath. one he'd been holding in far longer than he'd realized. “fear doesn't do anyone any good. it'll eat away at you— you can't think like that.” easier said than done. he chooses to try a different approach, both hands resting on the table before fixing his posture. he levels with her. “you're a survivor. you're wren francis! you shouldn't be afraid, because you're a badass!”

a pause and a beat passes before a lightbulb is flickered on above his head. “hey— you could always take up jujutsu!”

[stavroginas]

— Samantha Hunt, The Seas

[bleuwing]

@pastreturn ███ “we’re working to stop the monsters and to stop people from turning into monsters.”

a part of him believes that. he's believed it since he was eight-years-old; before he even slipped into the nightwing suit, but rather the red and green one with an r sprawled across the top left side. but the numbers scream otherwise. [and the cycle continues.] each year, gotham grows dirtier, seeping further into the bloodstream of the city. if it isn't already poisoned, it will be soon enough. (if bruce were here— he'd make the argument the city was poisoned long before his birth.) and that makes it easy for dick to disregard what barbara says, head turning away from her in response, an exasperated sigh making its way up his esophagus. his stomach churns. a hand is brought up to his hair, pushing a stray lock away from removing the mask from his flesh. “i'm tired, babs. do you know when the last time was i got a full nights sleep?” body twisting, his facial features contort into one of light exacerbation. his mind is set on one thing solely: climbing into bed. not having a conversation about the monsters in the dark. but he'll appease her— just this once, dick tells himself. [it isn't the first time; it won't be the last. happy life, happy wife girlfriend.] “you can't change my mind on this. i'm already set on it. i was before i even walked through the door.”

the nightwing suit clinging to his body, sleek and near shadow-like, is began to be lifted off in parts until he's left in nothing but boxer briefs and a loose fitted white t-shirt. [this is the part where he walks into the bedroom and hangs it up.] he doesn't move. instead, the suit is tossed onto the couch— disregarded as if it's the morning newspaper. for the first time since he can remember, a memory of the circus peeking through the curtains of his mind, he feels free. a weight lifted off his burdened shoulders. “i'm giving bruce the suit tomorrow. i, on the other hand, will be going to law school.” a lie— dick grayson isn't sure what he's doing with his life. but he'll figure it out.

[bleuwing]

gonna be working on memes + my reply to joseph (most likely) later! consider this post though as a plotting call! i’ll reach out so we can get the ball rolling with dynamics 🕺

[bleuwing]

ㅤㅤ—ㅤㅤONE 𝐒𝐎𝐍 RETURNS FROM THE 𝙶𝚁𝙰𝚅𝙴 AS ANOTHER 𝘌𝘕𝘛𝘌𝘙𝘚 IT ( . . . ) WHAT A 𝗙𝗜𝗧𝗧𝗜𝗡𝗚 ᴱᴺᴰᴵᴺᴳ THIS HAS BECOME. ████ a study into brotherhood, the curse of the dead, and new beginnings — [ @greatfailure ]

[bleuwing]

@clownite ███ “why am i always doing bad things in your dreams?”

his batons rest at his sides, wide shoulders rising into a meek shrug, all his attention fixed on the blonde. “not sure. might have something to do with the fact you're usually doing bad things outside of them, too.” one wrong move and dick knows he can take her down swiftly— or so he assumes. the mask may disguise his face, but they don't masquerade the rate at which is eyes begin flicking around the room. surveying the surrounding space. cement flooring, cheap drywall on all four sides of the square, two windows to his left/her right. they're the easiest place to establish an escape. [a knockdown on the concrete would knock her out, but then what? take her back to his apartment with zip-ties until he can get in touch with vought? no, that wouldn't suffice.] there's also the drywall... another escape tactic she can utilize. features scrunching in his own self-made dubiety, his irises backtrack to harley as he curses softly under his breath, “shit.”

he can see the events unfolding before they do: she escapes and he's left empty-handed. she's smart— smarter than him in more ways than not. it'll be easy for her, but dick won't go down without a fight. his grasp on his batons tighten. “you're not doing a good job at covering your trail if i'm finding you. c'mon harley— i thought you were better than that.”

[bleuwing]

@greatfailure ███ “i’m so sick of people telling me who i am.”

the feeling used to live inside him like a parasite. the wondering of who he was. burrowed deep inside every dark crevice of his body and bones— aching, rotting, consuming. the mantle of robin has been passed down through generations; once a bird, always a bird. the raincloud above their heads will never drift, it only continues to grow with each year. his desire to be like batman has dissipated over years. those times have long passed, feeling more like a draining eternity than just a mere few agonizing years. the question had presided itself afterward: who was dick grayson? nightwing, the batman, robin, or purely himself. the answer, as clear as it may be for others, still isn't clear to him. but he's dropped the question from his mind— not out of defeat of apathy, but from an understanding. his identity is not defined by a single mantle or name. it's woven from each experience, choice, and moment. he'll never understand how jason feels, how he aches. dick presumes he never will, but the throe rasping through his voice paints a clear enough picture. “you've done a pretty good job at not listening to them. gotta give yourself some credit there.”

one lap around the rooftop and beneath the mask he dons, he peers down at the rotting city. almost grateful it's not his mess to deal with. but gotham will always beckon him back home— if not the city whispering his name, then the people in it. jason being one of them. [and blüdhaven's even worse.] at the edge of the rooftop, dick plops down, legs kicking out into the crisp wintery air. “who do you think you are?” is it a line overstepped? dick doesn't feel so, but jason may think differently. he always has. the robin falling from the sky, unable to brace for impact. neck craning in the other's direction, an observing gaze landing on his brother. as if he's attempting to read through a terribly difficult book. “all other opinions aside: who do you want to be?”