Dick Grayson

A/N: Part of the Life After Robin series.

Dick was the first. The first Robin, and the first to leave Bruce's Mission.

When he moved to Bludhaven, he only wanted some space to be his own hero out of Batman's shadow. He only took the job with the police to do a little bit more good, but soon he was running himself ragged trying to do both of his jobs. Eventually he had to make a choice between his day job and his night job, and after a lot of consideration he quit as Nightwing. He could still fight crime, but from within the system and without nearly as much wear and tear on his body. And for a change he could be himself without any pretenses. It was as if a huge weight had been lifted, although he still had dreams of flying through the air, only the jump lines keeping him from becoming nothing more than a stain on the road.

Those dreams were the worst he ever had, worse even than the nightmares of his parents' death or the horrors he had seen in either of his jobs, because he woke up and knew he would never feel that freedom again.

***

It didn't take Dick long to be promoted to detective. Although he was more of an athlete than a thinker, he had been trained by Batman. He didn't want to be a detective, but unfortunately he didn't have any choice. Trained, clean detectives were few and far between in Bludhaven. He bought himself a trapeze and tried not to think about how much he missed being Robin. Jason was Robin now, anyway, trained by Bruce and himself. He couldn't go back no matter how much he wanted to, no matter how much his bones ached with the desire to go and do something active. Even if some small part of him insisted that he could go back. The tops of all of the file cabinets at the precinct were now kept clear so that he could sit (crouch, do one-handed handstands) on them. He didn't dodge bullets anymore.

***

When it happened, Dick was coming out of the coffee shop with coffee for himself and some of the other detectives. A car drove by, spewing bullets in a drive-by shooting. One of them hit Dick's kneecap. He would never walk without a cane again. He would never run, wind in his face. His trapeze grew dusty. He stopped drinking coffee.

Sometimes he woke in the middle of the night from dreams of flying through the air. The next day, he would go to work with red eyes.

Slowly, the file cabinets became cluttered again.