Who: Dick Grayson What: Doing what he does best, in Blüdhaven. When: Friday night, November 26 2010 Where: Blüdhaven, New Jersey Warnings: Violence and language?
After sixteen years with Colin, suddenly being without him was more then a little weird for Dick. The two had rarely ever not gotten along, though they hadn't been completely without disagreements. Mostly when it came to Colin's involvement, or lack there of in the JL. They were similar in a lot of ways but when it came down to it, Colin wasn't the fighter. Dick was. He was never as involved in the JL as Dick thought he should be, though at least he was there when it really counted. That was more or less their compromise. Colin carved time out of his life to do Dick's job, and Dick didn't complain about how much overtime Colin put into his own job. So when Dick woke up without Colin last Sunday, he knew he had to return the favor. He went to the office every day and did Colin's job to the best of his ability. Which, admittedly, wasn't all that great. Dick wasn't without a political mind, but vigilante politics, Gotham politics didn't exactly translate with the rest of the world. Dick was grateful every day when night came, that was when he could really be himself.
Just like every other night that week, once he'd gotten home he'd immediately stripped out of his work clothes (so not his style) and into his Nightwing gear. Then he'd hopped onto his bike that he'd found gathering dust in the Batcave on Sunday and road out to Blüdhaven. He hadn't been since Colin and Owen had taken the trip and then Colin and Owen had broken up. No amount of pushing had gotten Colin to budge on the subject, he refused to go back, and Dick couldn't really blame him. Selfishly, Dick missed Tim. It had been weird as hell for him for Colin to date his adoptive brother, even weirder as hell for him that Colin had started dating men, but they had been good for each other. Or at least, Colin had been good for Owen. Then the bastard had broken Colin's heart, and if Dick had been in a different body, he would have beaten the crap out of the low life. No matter. Now Owen and Tim were gone, out of their lives, and there was enough going on in the JL and at the Agency to keep them both busy.
Dick had been curiously absent the week before, something that still unsettled him especially in light of now Colin's mysterious disappearance, but he knew what had happened to Ainsley. Both from Colin's e-mail account and a few brief conversations with Bruce. The whole thing tore Dick apart. Ainsley was the last person on earth who deserved such a brutal death, and it had taken all the self control he had without Colin to not go hunting for the Joker in Gotham this week. The only reasons he didn't were because if he got himself killed, he'd have been taking Colin's life from him too, and there was also Bruce to think about. He was sick of his mentor, his friend always getting the shit end of the stick. People Bruce loved always seemed to end up dead, and Kyle certainly didn't deserve it either. It filled Dick with an inexplicable rage that could only be cured by a night out kicking some good old fashioned criminal ass.
Blüdhaven was exactly how he'd remembered it. Pre-huge giant crater sized hole it had become, that is. There were still the same sickos, scum bags, every other kind of villain out there just begging to be taking down. He spent the better part of the night just making the rounds, busting drug rings and pulling innocent bystanders out of sticky situations. As much as he didn't mind being saddled with Colin, he hadn't felt this good in a long time. He felt like his old self, like he still had a purpose, and that purpose was to be that thing that goes bump in the night. The thing that criminals fear. Normally that would be Batman, but Batman had a kid to look after. Kyle's kid. That thought would have seemed weird to Dick if it weren't for the fact that this wasn't the first time Bruce had taken in an orphan. Hell, if it hadn't been for Bruce, Dick wasn't sure what would have happened to him. Nothing good, he knew that much. After his parent's deaths, Bruce had been the light at the end of the tunnel, a gateway to the life that Dick knew he had always been meant to lead. As Dick soared through the air from a balcony into an alleyway, immediately bum rushed by a group of thugs that only took a few minutes to take down, Dick couldn't help but enjoy himself a little. He'd come a long way since his days in the circus, but what they'd said about him then was still true to this day, despite how long ago he'd shed the Robin suit.
"Look at that kid fly! He really is a boy wonder."