Pretty sure he was expecting the future to look like everything but what the future actually looks like.
Does anyone else does this thing where you put effort into something and then proceed to make something dumb as a break from it in order to keep it balanced?
Also if Ballister is missing his scar it's because he lost it the space-time continuum, not because I realised too late that I forgot it-
Referenced Master Concept Post from the Short Stories on A03. Just a silly world that pops up now and then in the back of my mind.
BASIC PREMISE
In this AU, Grant does not die while attempted to murder the Titans. The Titans ping that Ravager is showing signs of cardiac failure (at least TWO of them possessed the ability to hear guy’s heartbeat) and communicate as such to their team members. They still can’t STOP him via combat; but they CAN send Wally out to get a tranq and, with Dick being read up to speed, several other drugs and tools to keep Grant both sedated and level. Turns out that anesthesia and cardiac problems have a looooong history of working around one another so this work-around is IRL plausible. Crazy but it's a comic... also not totally beyond Dick Grayson’s canon abilities/knowledge. A stretch but not that far of one given all of canon!
Grant survives, but ends up in custody of the Titans. Unfortunately for them, Grants near death experience did what his childhood trauma failed to do and activated his meta gene. Now possessing an enhanced healing factor and literal hysterical strength (which means he's just really hurting himself by over doing it and then healing inhumanly fast. It's not technically "super strength" the way Slade's, and late Rose's, serum and latent gene works), Grant escapes the Tower (the Titans do let him go, Dick has sensibly, if creepily, chipped him and his clothes).
HIVE is not at all impressed. Their plan was for Grant to die trying so they could hire Slade at a bargain deal. For ease of concept, let's say they assume Grant's death while he's with the Titans and call Deathstroke up anyway.
Grant escapes while Slade is still observing his new targets and assume his eldest son is dead. The hilarious "I'M OKAY" meet up ensues and Grant gets to spend time with Slade (Dad! Noticing me!) ... but eventually sees senses that what he wanted from his Dad and what he’s going to get are two different things.
This epiphany probably occurs after a few ass kickings by the Titans too where Nightwing ends up fighting Deathstroke (despite the girls on the team being more or less walking weapons and therefore more logical answers) and completely ignores/by passes Ravenger (correctly) as the lesser threat. ((Grant ends up having Draco Syndrome and Slade finally is like “Say less about Nightwing.”))
Joey and Addie (Grant’s little brother and his mom) ally with Dick a la canon which is the eventual tipping point for Grant.
Joey moves in and brings his “fussy” (Joey’s word) older brother with him. Grant falls fast and hard for Nightwing, much to Joey’s amusement ((Which, awkward, he’s been a main antagonist)) (((Roy was the one who usually, somehow, ended up having to fight Grant in close combat and so Roy is the most against it.)))
Joey flirts more with Dick because of this! Dick canonically thinks the way Joey flirts/woos is how he’d like to be treated and so there’s a lot of shit Joey gets to give Grant over Grant’s more fumbling attempts.
Grant becomes the grumpy, awkward, den-mother of the Titans.
WORLD BUILDING
The Titans are now an international team with Towers and contacts spanning the globe. Dick is the nexus of this.
He jokes that it's only because he’s one of the few who can speak with anyone from any given place at a time vs an actual leadership role. No one else is laughing at that because it’s palpably untrue.
This shift made the Justice League (re: Bruce) very twitchy but just as in canon they were unable to shut the Titans down. Here, the Titans don't collapse in on themselves and so kept growing.
The UN actually has far more contacts with the Titans vs the Justice League (which still calls itself the JLA). The Titans and their respective Towers are, much to the disagreement and constant bickering in the aforementioned UN, unaffiliated with local governments. They can work with governments and agencies but are not beholden to them. The Titans, more or less, have carved out what’s technically Titans Sovereign territory. ((Dick is thrilled to no longer have to juggle multiple, international, tax returns for teen superheroes.))(((Because, yes, Dick canonically had the Titans registered and paid their taxes. The nerd.))) The real reason isn’t the tax benefits thing (though Dick and Victor loudly disagree as the two who most often had to figure those forms out) but because the local governments very quickly attempted to use the Titans in their area as military assets. ...One or two Titans died due to this. And despite them willingly fighting for their country, the resulting backlash on their less willing team members and the government’s use of their image and deaths pushed Dick to step in as Nightwing. The long standing rule now is that if your country goes to war with another country (hopefully not another Titan’s country) you can take leave of the Titans to fight… but you do so as a civilian in your civilian ID with all the risks that accounts for. ((It’s not a pretty answer and Dick is grateful that it hasn’t happened more than twice. Still two times too many. I as author am aware, especially now, that this is also not a great answer but it's the one I have.))
TLDR: The Titans are international, and a huge group, and at this point Dick is the face and defecto Leader of Titans Global vs the original Titans Tower and team. He networks, helps train, oversees, and organizes dozens of Titans. Which are all of his favorite parts of the job, really.
Canon Changes (Drastic)
Mirage goes differently, as Miriam struggles to impersonate Grant. Dick still downplay's Miriam's SA's of him and it still creates problems in his relationship. Dick is also, eventually, raped and assumed the whole time (just as in canon) that Miriam was his actual partner. She again reveals that it was her and that Dick should have "been able to sense the difference" but this time, with both Kory AND Grant baying for blood the other Titans are corrected early and harshly. There's still fall out, and Dick is still raped in a place he assumed was safe with his rapist wearing the face and mannerisms of someone he loves... but it's acknowledged as rape and blame is not slapped on the victim instead of the rapist. (Miriam has all of Dick's life floating around in her head as well as false memories of a long standing relationship with him. YES she had every tool available to fool him and NO IT'S NOT DICK'S FAULT THAT HE WAS RAPED.) (We are also not blaming Kory for how canon went down either - not happy I need to say this bit out loud as I assumed that was obvious but of course she's allowed to have feelings about those events. Holy shit. Kory's support is what is actually pivotal in this AU.)
Jason Todd still calls Dick's cellphone despite knowing Dick is off planet... here, though, Dick has left his phone with his boyfriend/husband. Grant interferes with Jason's plans to run off to Ethiopia. Several possible routes: (1) Grant stops it cold. (2) Jason runs off anyway and Grant either (a) succeeds in calling out Sheila Haywood and stopping Jason before there’s ever a warehouse handover or (b) In rescuing Jason after Jason goes to the meeting after Grant said NO. Or (3) Fails to save Jason, even if he was there. Especially if he was there.
Tim Drake still shows up on their doorstep one evening. Grant is the adoption instigator there, surprising even himself. And as opposed to Jack Drake threatening Bruce Wayne with a gun, Grant helps himself to Jack's nice scotch one evening and the two have talk... neither Tim nor Dick are impressed but depressingly it works (and then Jack is murdered).
Dick's Territory
As well as overseeing his new “home” city. TBD but it’s not Bludhaven. I’m leaning towards Chicago or New York. New York is classic Titans and Nightwing - they had a temporary base there at one point. Would also let me work in my favorite cracky ideas of 'Elloise of the Plaza Hotel' reference character as one of Nightwing’s NYC benefactors. But Chicago probably works better...
FUN DETAILS OF THE HUSBANDS AU
Dick's Side Projects
These are my usual HC's for how Dick affords his NW gear but...
Dick has built up a strange fortune via a bunch of enterprises that he like, sets up, fixates on, makes profitable, then passes over to a team he hand picks and moves on to the next thing.
(1) "Big Red’s Garage" (based on Roy)
BRG is a low-income community focused work/trade opportunity. Skill training is given on site. One of the work requirements in all the contracts is that they have to stay clean. There’s decently rigorous testing. These garages start up on the West Coast, but spread relatively quickly once Dick gets the systems (both literal computer wise and literal application wise) down.
(2) [NAME TBD] A Coffee Chain
Idea was developed when he started taking college classes + the number of times the Titans crashed for lack of coffee or wanted a late-night to 24hr coffee shop. Dick, being Dick, actually went ahead and did it. Dick, being Dick and also a dick, did not tell the Titans that the coffee shop they started frequenting was his. There are, of course, hero themed drinks based on locale (the Titans from Dick’s era are the Staple drinks though now some have faded from memory that people know the drinks better than Dick’s now dead friends…) and also a lot of fan-produced hero-merch is available for sale in each location.
(3) A health cereal brand
Because he could.
(4) He's an investor and tech-partner in Joey's start up
I usually write Joey working on technology to help those with speech related disabilities or impairments. Dick lends a hand, largely because he's usually both nosey and competent, and I usually have Joey thank him by shunting paperwork his way. Whenever Dick refuses to heal or rest, he gets "promoted" at the company. By the time Joey dies, Dick is in the c-suite... which made him vey sad (as it meant Joey died upset with him on some level).
Children
The idea that Grant wants kids, but not his genetics (trust issues, for a start) and Dick wants to make his husband happy (and has always wanted family). It starts with Garfield and Rachel (using a mix of canons here). Then Jason. And then, later, when Donna has her son Robert (aka "Rob," the same nickname used for Dick by the original six Titans) they take him in. The prophecy regarding him becoming a Lord of Chaos can kiss their ass (defy fate). ((Robbie's entire existence is tragic in ever iteration. It would be nice to both let Donna divorce her much older (author-insert, eheobophile) husband and win custody over her kid and not worry too much over the world ending prophecy of days. I also personally have mixed feelings about the motherhood role the authors place on Donna... so while I still adore the strong feelings she's written as having about her son, I sort of like this route as a way to circumnavigate the classic 'motherhood as pinnacle' trope.))
Eventually, after a very long period of time and multiple discussions; Mari (Nightstar) Grayson also exists. Grant and Kory almost had issues because Grant is easily jealous and insecure. But Kory is amazing and doesn’t take Grant’s shit and calls him out. So many conversations between Grant and Dick but Grant eventually feels secure enough for Mari to exist.
I also imagine that Rose stays with them on and off and, eventually, it is likely that Respawn (who I always name Reed) will make an appearance one way or another.
Grant took Dick’s last name. GG = Grant Grayson for a few reasons. First, his dad is essentially immortal. Joey kept Slade's name, despite the divorce. (Dick is like… you don’t want to keep your mother’s name? Grant in point of fact does not.) Later, Grant argues that even Rose took Dad’s name!
The real reason? Dick isn’t “the Last Grayson” anymore or ever again.
Home
Grant and Dick have a town-house/condo. Three levels. With dry-erase walls on the first floor with notes and photos and magnets given and left and written by all their friends - and children. Grant says, often, that they have so much space because they have too many kids. To be fair to Grant, there was a point in time where most nights of the week he and Dick ended up on the sofa because 3-5 teenagers were piled in their bed and the guest bed contained 2-4 “grown” Titans. To be fair to Dick, that tapered off after two years or so as the kids found their feet and either started going to college or moving out to help organize the other Titan branches.
Dick is not a Cop (anymore). Grant’s biggest won argument is, of course, Dick quitting the police force. He quietly put up two photos in the back-entrance by the kitchen. It’s two headshots, side by side; one of a 17-year old Slade Wilson in his military uniform and one of a 19-year old Dick Grayson in his officer uniform. Both of the young men in the photos are smiling and proud of themselves. Grant has replaced the photos twice and they won’t be moved a third time. Between those photos on a small wall between the garage and the kitchen is a plaque commemorating a victory to Grant Grayson and a tiny article detailing Detective Grayson's retirement. (Dick stuck it out through to detective, got what he needed from the force i.e. routed out an amazing amount of corrupt cops, and then quit after getting better people in power.)
Misc Details
Grant wears his ring obsessively/proudly. It’s nth metal, which is beyond absurd. Grant’s genuinely not sure if Slade donated it or if Dick won it off him (in combat) but he’s very sure that Dick got it from Deathstroke one way or another. The other, more reasonable alternative, is that Dick got it via his connections to the Hawks but Grant is well aware that is the Red Herring here.
Undecided if in the AU... If Grant ever becomes a Lantern (dies and comes back as a Black Lantern or simply gets a ring through the distribution system as one does) he's going to be a Star Sapphire and his power ring is usually worn by Dick. Because Star Sapphire.
