(no subject)
Title: How You Train Wild Gypsy?
Author: maelithil
E-mail: bigbadmael@hotmail.com
Fandom: DC Comics
Pairing: Bruce Wayne (Batman)/Dick Grayson (Robin I/Nightwing)
Spoilers: Truckload of 'em. Up to and including the current Outsiders arc, Nightwing: Year One, and Judd Winick's latest run on Batman.
Notes: IMHO, YMMV, and all that jazz *grin*
Loyalty. There you have it. You can sum up Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson's whole relationship with that one word. That and desperate need and emotional co-dependency and, most importantly, "sticky and hot".
Not to step on Homer's toes, but I might as well be describing the modern version of Achilles and Patroclus given just how infamous a couple Bruce and Dick are. How infamous a couple they've been, really, since their creation in 1940. Blame Fredric Wertham and his "Seduction of the Innocent", the 60's TV Series starring Adam West and Burt Ward, or, say, Joel Schumacher's Batman and Robin movie and its bat-nipples, but there is no denying the fact that Batman and Robin as a couple are a part of today's pop culture (yes, even overseas! Ratman is a great example).
But how does this affect our current canon? Well, all that meta-baggage they're dragging along is damn heavy. But we can start from the beginning.
Notes:
We're talking about comics here, folks, and if there's one thing comics are it's flexible. Don't expect a single, linear continuity here. You won't find one and you will break your brain if you try and make one of your own. This also allows for fluid storytelling, both in canon and in fanon, because well, you can pick and chose which version of some key event you prefer. If you stick around long enough some writer will change what had been established history for some new, hopefully more interesting, perspective.
Bruce Wayne:
This is a relatively straight forward biography to write. When Bruce Wayne was eight years old his parents were murdered before his very eyes. That is the single, most important moment in his life. It is what defines him, what motivates him, what drives him insane. It is not thirst for revenge that makes him the Batman, but rather a childish need to spare others from experiencing that same pain which destroyed his life. Genius, scared of human contact, bat-shit crazy in his obsessions, Bruce Wayne trained and made himself the World's Greatest Detective and arguably the best human martial artist in the DCU.
His crusade was meant to be personal and solitary, but over the years Bruce Wayne managed to attract a whole army of other dysfunctional individuals who now orbit around the Batcave, the so-called Batfamily. Unlike the Superman-family, the members of the Batfamily share no blood ties. The one thing that drew them towards a life of vigilantism was the Batman himself, and Bruce is acutely aware of the responsibility he bears in regards to his associates' choices. Being the manipulative bastard that he is, he uses his influence to improve their efficiency on the field, with little care for their feelings and emotional needs. Oh, but he loves them so, his little issue-ridden family, therefore he pushes them away before they can hurt him by leaving or dying or growing up. Despite being a great man, good man, Bruce is walking that fine line between being the smartest hero on the planet, and a terrified eight-year-old who needs a friend. It's not a pretty combination, and the man who took the brunt of this latent insanity full in the face is Dick Grayson.
Dick Grayson:
Richard John Grayson, who has never once considered not going solely by the nickname "Dick", is the son of two great circus acrobats, John and Mary Grayson. Together they were The Flying Graysons, and Dick performed for the patrons of Haley's Circus since he was a very young boy. A gypsy, a born performer, and an extremely talented acrobat, Dick lived a happy if unusual life until Tony Zucco, a Gotham mobster, killed his parents to force Haley to pay him protection money. Dick was eight or 10, or 12, or 13... depends on which origin story you're reading) and Bruce Wayne was sitting in the audience. Bruce saw the Graysons plummet to their death as the ropes on the trapeze they were swinging on were eaten away by acid, but most importantly, he saw Dick and within Dick he saw himself.
So Bruce took him in, gave him a home, made him his apprentice and his friend. The word "sidekick" is never mentioned, Batman and Robin are partners.
Things go swimmingly throughout Dick's early adolescence, give or take some near fatal beatings, a life of violence and obsession and the fact that a 20-something year old billionaire put his barely pubescent ward in little green panties and had him dodge bullets all night long. But hey, Dick's happy, Bruce is happy, Alfred is happy if his boys are happy and social services never try to remove Dick from Bruce's care hard enough.
And then Dick grows up. Bruce suddenly realises that he needs to rein his exuberant boy in or lose him, because it's no longer Batman and Robin, but Batman and the Justice League and Robin and the Teen Titans. Bruce forgets he's always been Bruce to Dick and embraces his Batman persona; he becomes distant, strict, cold. Dick bucks against this, pushes Batman, demands independence and respect. Their relationship tilts and goes from equals (or as "equal" as the partnership between an adult and a child can be) to being that of a hero and his sidekick. This chafes both of them, changes both of them and things start going to hell.
The final straw used to be Dick getting shot by the Joker. Bruce freaked out, fired Dick and left him broken and alone with no guidance and no meaning left in his life. Dick picked himself up, and created a new identity for himself: Nightwing. I say used, because they've changed the tables on us. The very very recent Nightwing: Year One storyline presents a different series of events. Bruce needs Dick, needs Robin, to focus entirely on their mission, which would mean Dick abandoning the Teen Titans and the life he tried to build away from Bruce. Dick refuses. Bruce fires him, takes his costume away and, for the lack of a better term, kidnaps another young boy, Jason Todd, to fulfil Dick's role. Dick goes through the necessary motions of shedding his past with Batman, which doesn't particularly work, and embraces his other roots, his father's costume and the name of Superman's Kryptonian hero: Nightwing.
In any case, Dick and Bruce fail to deal in any way, shape or form for a very long time. Jason Todd is murdered, Tim Drake tries to convince his childhood hero, Dick, to return to his role as Robin and manages to get stuck with the job himself. Dick and Bruce strike a very uneasy truce for the boy's sake. It is worth mentioning that in "A Lonely Place Of Dying", Tim Drake's introduction, Batman still instinctively calls Nightwing "Robin". The two of them have most definitely not moved on. At all.
Then Bane breaks Batman's back, and Batman asks Azrael, Jean Paul Valley, to wear the mantle of the Bat until he is sufficiently recovered to come back to the job. Jean Paul goes nuts, nearly gets Tim killed and Bruce finally asks Dick to be Batman, at least for a little while.
Before Bruce reclaims the cape, he and Dick manage to have a talk and clear the air. (Robin 13: 04, 06, 10, 12, 16, 19) Soon after, Bruce sends Dick on a mission to Blüdhaven, Gotham ugly, nasty, stepsister of a city, to investigate the murders of some thugs that washed up in Gotham's harbour.
Dick decides to stay. He now has his own city, his own apartment, his own life. He finds himself financially independent, and finally manages to try and nourish the new found equilibrium in his and Bruce's relationship. Bruce checks up on him, Dick fails to cope but manages to fix his freakout without further incident.
Dick and Barbara Gordon, the former Batgirl, start a relationship that had been long brewing and, strangely, it is this incident that prompts Bruce to finally pop the question. After 14 odd years, Bruce legally adopts Dick, nevermind the meddling of an evil archenemy trying to mess with their heads with phantom relatives and their cunning plans.
In Gotham shit seems to hit the fan on a regular basis; first a horrible destructive earthquake which turns the entire city into No Man's Land for about a year. Then a lethal epidemic that threatens to annihilate the remaining citizens. To top it all off, Bruce Wayne is accused of murdering an ex-girlfriend. Bruce does not deny the charges against him, nor does he seem to care. Dick is the only one who does not doubt his innocence, ever. This is not one of Dick's finest moments, given that it is pretty obvious that he does not doubt simply because he wouldn't be able to cope if it were true. But Batman again denying his "Bruce" identity pushes Dick over the edge and they have a pretty nasty fight. And "pretty nasty" is meant to be read as earth shattering, trauma inducing, bitch fest. Oh, but no worries. They solve the mystery and Bruce gets a tiny sliver of his sanity back.
Things were going too smoothly for our lovely Hunk Wonder though. He had a job he loved, a girl he loved, a team he loved, mental stability and a nice helping of self-esteem. It couldn't last. First his best girlfriend, Donna Troy, gets killed by a Superman android. Dick blames himself and disbands the Titans so he won't lose another family member (because that's what the Titans are to him, family) ever again. His best male friend, Roy Harper, decides that the best way to help him through his funk is to create another superhero team for Dick to lead, without the emotional ties the Titans had. Great, witness the birth of the Outsiders (which was once Batman's old team, just to show you how far from his mentor's footsteps Dick has travelled). Unfortunately, Roy takes six bullets to the chest. He doesn't die, and Dick manages not to self-destruct. Then Barbara dumps him. Her reasoning? He was becoming too much like Batman, which is precisely the one thing Dick has been trying to avoid all his life. Next he gets fired from him job in the BHPD because his captain, Amy, finds out he's Nightwing. After that his circus, Pop Haley’s Circus where he used to perform alongside his parents, is burned to the ground. People die. Then they bomb his home. More people die, including his putative grandfather Yoska and most of his neighbours.
His archenemy, Blockbuster, has figured out his secret identity and wants to destroy not only him but all those he cares for. Blockbuster doesn't get exactly what he bargained for when Dick, who is by now holding onto his sanity with the very tips of his fingernails, doesn't stop Tarantula (let's call her a villain who was meant to be sympathetic and managed to skirt the fringes of pathetic) from shooting him in the head. In the space of a few weeks Dick lost everything he'd been building up for years. And he's killed, or close enough to it that it doesn't matter whether he pulled the trigger or not. Dick's broken Batman's first and possibly only rule. He wallows in his misery and self-hate for a while until a call from Bruce snaps him partially out of it.
Bruce isn't doing any better, mind. Tim quit, so he hires Tim's girlfriend, the Spoiler, as Robin. That goes quite spectacularly badly and she gets fired. To try and prove her worth, Stephanie manages to set in motion one of Batman's deadliest plans to take over Gotham's underworld. Dozens of civilians die, Orpheus (one of Batman's associates) is murdered, Steph herself is tortured to death, Tim, who is by now back as Robin, leaves Gotham for Blüdhaven. Batgirl follows suit. Oracle, Barbara, reaches the end of her patience and takes her whole team, the Birds of Prey, to Metropolis. Dick gets shot. The police turns against Batman, blaming him for the Gang War that terrorised the city.
Batman is back to being utterly alone. Except for Dick, who stays. Unfortunately, another thing that seems to have abandoned ship is their ability to communicate. Witness the emotional train wreck and the heartbreaking conclusion.
Things get complicated here because the previews for the upcoming Nightwing issues show Dick working undercover, with no hint that the situation between them has been resolved. Thing is, Dick has been quite an important player in the past five Batman issues, and they seem to be getting along rather fabulously. Ditto for the last two issues of Outsiders, wherein Dick does snap Bruce's head off for having dared baby-sit him in his new team (Bruce has been secretly funding the Outsiders and Dick feels considerably betrayed) but switches to concerned and needy as soon as Bruce hints at his remembering the JLA mind wiping him (long story, not worth the time as it doesn't pertain to the topic at hand).
So... what happened between them? Who knows. Maybe this month's Nightwing will shed a little light. My magic 8 ball says "Outlook Not So Good". I agree.
Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson:
Let's do ourselves a favour and ignore all the Golden Age innuendo and general perversity, otherwise we'd be here all day.
On the other hand, it's good to be reminded that Bruce and Dick share 65 years of comics’ history. Batman was created in 1939; Robin, Dick Grayson, in the spring of 1940. That's a lifetime. Despite what whiny fanboys (Frank Miller and his issues included) say, Robin does not in any way pollute the pure, unadulterated asshattery of a loner Batman. Batman hasn't been alone since 1940, yet he still manages to play well with others and be a bastard if his hackles rise. See Devin Grayson's run on Gotham Knights for proof.
This is to say, there's something about Batman and Robin's relationship that unsettles some fans. It doesn't necessarily mean the undercurrent is sexual or even romantic. It's just something big. An interesting observation might be the fact that the fans that seem the most disturbed or perplexed are also those fans that can't seem to be able to refrain from referring to Dick as "Richard" or worse, "Grayson". It might just be that our society still retains some of those old, Greek connotations in regards to mentoring. I doubt it, although I don't deny the fact that I find it hot.
On the one hand we have Bruce Wayne, the Batman, vengeance and despair and obsession, who one day meets his twin-in-the-making.
A boy, Dick Grayson, marked by the same tragedy, who is taking the first steps towards Bruce's same self-destruction. And Bruce recognises this and puts a stop to it. Gives the boy a purpose, helps him find his revenge (because Tony Zucco is caught, and dies in almost all versions, and that's where Dick and Bruce differ. Dick got closure, Dick moved on) and then... keeps him.
It is often repeated that Robin is the light to Batman's darkness. Robin creates the anchor that keeps Batman on the right side of human, and while the role is filled by other boys (and a girl), first Jason, then Tim and lastly Stephanie, none manage quite as well as young Dick did. Dick is Bruce's greatest accomplishment, and his designated successor (see JLA: Obsidian Age, wherein a dead Bruce makes Nightwing leader of the Justice League).
But let's leave this idyllic, sappy view of things. It wasn't all daisies and rainbows. Bruce did some undeniable damage to Dick's psyche. Dick is starved for affection, and so grateful once he receives it, that he will hook up and feel responsible for anyone who makes him feel wanted. Barbara knows this, Bruce knows this, Helena knows this, and Tarantula now has first hand experience of the fact. In fact, some of the villains know this as well: Ra's al Ghul, Hugo Strange and Deathstroke do, just to mention three of the deadliest. Dick is still repressing and denying, or rather, accepting it as a given.
His need to please stems primarily from Batman's attitude. Batman demands the best and in return is rather stingy in
distributing approval and especially praise. Let us not even dream of open, physical affection. Dick knows he's capable and qualified, he just doesn't realise that Bruce thinks the same. Which means that when he's with Bruce he always has to try too hard to feel comfortable in his own skin. This, of course, doesn't imply that Dick doesn't challenge Bruce. He's no Jason in terms of raw pushing of the limits, but he trusts his own judgement and has no problem in speaking up against direct orders when he thinks Bruce is endangering himself or the mission.
There is one very touching example of this in Batman/Nightwing: Bloodborne. If you ever decide to read just one Batman and Nightwing related comic, well, IMHO, this is the one. After leaving for some unknown Siberian land Batman turns his transmitter off. Alfred, fearing the worse, sends Dick to investigate. Dick's plane is shot down by local rebels and he's alone, trying to pinpoint the location of Batman's last signal or pick up any sign of a heartbeat. It does. And we've never seen them this cuddly since the Comic Code was implemented. Of course, Bruce acts stoic (please note the use of "Dick", instead of the usual "Nightwing"), though this time it's for good reason. Bruce has been infected with a lethal, contagious disease and he doesn't want it to spread. Dick is in no way deterred, and manages to save Bruce by injecting himself with a potentially deadly dose of vaccine and then performing a full blood transfusion between the two of them. Kicking rebel butt all the while. DAAAAWWWWWW.
Dick's greatest fear is failing Bruce when he's needed the most. After the events of Transference, a 4 part storyline on Gotham Knights 8 to 11, he does, however, come to understand that (although he only confesses to us readers, and not to the would-be recipient of his unsent letter, Bruce). Transference is probably one of the most interesting arcs in Devin Grayson's run on Gotham Knights. And I don't just say this because it's PURE PORN.
Hugo Strange figures out the Batman's identity and plans to take Bruce's place. He is unaware of the multitude of ducklings that surround whom he thought was a lone warrior. Therefore, Hugo decides they should be annihilated. A brilliant psychologist, Hugo corners Bruce Wayne and this forces him to erase his own memory of his identity as the Batman, in order to make Hugo doubt his discovery. Meanwhile, Dick and Tim see the Batmobile, supposedly carrying Batman, explode. Dick freaks out, but decides that if Bruce were dead he'd know. While digging through the Batcomputer, Tim finds some files written by Bruce, describing Batman's activities. These files are also about the various Batfamily members, and are in fact the precursors to Bruce's breakdown in Bruce Wayne: Murderer. Dick's file is... interesting. And it freaks him out considerably.
But no matter, for Doc Strange has decided for a hostile takeover. There is inappropriate touching. Dick doesn't take this very well. At all.
Long story short. They kick him out. Bruce comes home, uninjured but apparently totally unaware that he is the
Batman. Dick tries to snap him out of it with a kick in the head. It doesn't work. So they, Dick and Tim, let themselves be captured by Hugo Strange to try and figure out what the hell is going on. Too bad Hugo is very good at what he does. And what he does is read people. Oops.
So, we have canonical confirmation, or rather, canonical implication that... well, the best way to describe Dick and Bruce's relationship is sticky and hot. Well, I could have told you that, but it's always nice when the author agrees with you.
The fallout, if you could call it a fallout, from this whole shebang is that Bruce figures out that his Bruce Wayne persona has no relationship with either of his pupils, and that it might as well be rather useless. But, most importantly, we get Dick's letter as a sort of inner monologue in Gotham Knights #14.
Which gives us Dick's devotion, Dick's growing understanding of Bruce's devotion, which is a nice step in the right direction. As for Dick's somewhat understandable fear that no matter what he does, what they do, Bruce's past and Bruce's issues will still prevail over their shared history, well, Bruce has refused more convenient bargains for his parents' lives. He's also never made things easy for his family, his vigilante family, when the comparison to real blood ties has come up.
But that adoption paper changed things. Because the difference between "ward", a word Dick hates so much, and "son", a word which doesn't truly fit, because Bruce was a friend and a partner before he ever thought to try and be any kind of father, is important to Bruce. In Bruce's mind, family is "the only definition of forever that has any meaning" and it all stems from his self imposed obligation to his dead parents, but why wouldn't it also mean death, given the cut and dry statistics? The only Robin he adopted, Jason Todd, was the only one who died (this being way pre-Stephanie and let's not touch the Willingham induced Tim-adoption *rage* I feel these days). That's why he gets Dick to promise.
Dick craves stability, constancy, a place by Bruce's side always. Bruce needs people he loves to stop dying, because he has enough issues as is, thanks. The adoption works. Nothing changes, Bruce said it himself, but I guess they need the silly piece of paper.
After this... okay, I lie. There is no after this. Dick's devotion to Bruce has never appeared filial to me, nor has Bruce's had any resemblance to a fatherly one. Oh, I believe they might easily kid themselves into categorizing it that way and locking the rest someplace deep. Any confirmation of love, coming from either side, is always sweeter than water to a parched throat for these two. Neither of them has ever lived in any kind of normal, familial, atmosphere. Neither have their friends and colleagues, for the most part. Superman isn't merely physically an alien, he's an alien because he has a mother at home who bakes him pies.
Dick and Bruce's parental figure has been, for better or for worse, Alfred. I doubt they even completely understand the relationship between fathers and sons, which, strangely enough is more natural to one Oliver Queen and his ward, Roy Harper.
Dick Grayson and Women:
Most specifically two women; Barbara Gordon, the Oracle, and Helena Bertinelli, the Huntress. I'm not going to say Dick never loved either, because that would be bullshit. If anything, Dick's major fault is that he loves too much and that he'd rather be taken advantage of, than even think about selfishly demanding something from a relationship.
Barbara and Bruce are more alike than either would care to admit, and so's Dick's role in their life. I wasn't going to compare Dick's affections, nor measure them, and I'm not going to claim that Dick's love for Barbara stems from the similarities between Barbara and Bruce himself. I don't think so.
Helena Bertinelli is another story entirely. The Huntress is vicious, more so than the Batman. She wants to be accepted by the Batman and in some ways she thought that sleeping with Dick Grayson, the favourite son, would ease the way into the Batfamily proper. There was no malice in the act. She wanted company, Dick felt lonely. They had sex. What's interesting is what happens before and after said sex.
In the Nightwing/Huntress mini series, Dick and Helena meet while working on the same investigation and form some sort of uneasy (on Dick's part, Helena methods are still rather... unorthodox) partnership. At one point Dick is about to break it off, and Helena figures out why. She reminds him of Batman, and it's making him nervous. Not ten pages later, though, Dick and Helena are joined in holy liplock, about to embark in one-time sex that for once in the world of mainstream comics doesn't come with preaching and/or "edginess". Just two people who wanted to find comfort in each other.
Then comes the after. Dick's Super Ego kicks in, and lo and behold does it look like Batman. Actually, it might just be Batman's most probable reaction to the news (though it's not, he takes it exceptionally well). So Dick does what any sensible man his age would do, he gets out of bed to have a nice chat with his friend Barbara.
Witness the condensed version of Dick Grayson's troubles with the female gender:
1) "The point is that every time someone's even nice to you, you feel this almost pathological need to--"
2) "Now you're making me sound like I'm just afraid to-- to--"
"--to be alone?"
3) "Look, I get that she reminds you of-- I get that she feels familiar, honey"
Three's particularly interesting. Why? Because Barbara stopped herself. Had she meant to say Kory, Dick most recent ex-girlfriend at the time, she would have said it. She has before. Sure, it could be Kory anyway, but who have they been comparing Helena to? That'd be Batman. Who appears again in a somewhat safer comparison just under that.
Thing is, Helena does remind him of Bruce. Is this part of the reason why he slept with her? If we interpret Barbara's cut-off remark as involving Bruce Wayne, then yes, it could be. Barbara, who knows him exceptionally well, made it a statement not a question.
The only sure fact, though, is that Dick slept with Helena and that he kept looking out for her. She fought him briefly but violently over in the NW title, they made out again, and Dick explained why it couldn't work between them. Despite that, when Helena was shot at the end of No Man's Land, he went and kept her company when she was all alone on New Year's Eve. At the beginning of the Batman/Huntress: Cry For Blood mini, Dick was one of the only members of the Batfamily to take Helena's claims of innocence seriously. Dick tried to be the voice of reason but one thing changed all that. She hurt Batman.
Watch Nightwing go from concerned ex-lover to rabid dog in one panel. She clearly did not do that on purpose, yet Dick pays her no mind while he tries to pound her face in.
In last year's issues of Outsiders, Dick and Helena couldn't even walk along the same corridor without snapping at each other like school children. Ironically, Barbara made her peace with Helena and they became the best of team-mates in Birds of Prey.
Talk about a turnaround.
Is Dick Bruce-sexual?:
Why, that sounds cosy and wonderfully... neat. It's also silly. Dick has had numerous relationships with other women, whose only connection to Bruce would have been having no connection whatsoever to Bruce. See Donna Troy with whom he just "hmmm"-ed. But that does, in a way, make sense. While Bruce might not directly affect his choice of sexual partners, he certainly affects Dick's subsequent relationship with said partners. Huntress only "turned", in Dick's mind, when she hurt Batman. Hell, Dick impulsively proposed to Kory in New Teen Titans #99 only because he'd just had a rather bad fight with Bruce. The reverse is also true. Barbara dumped him because he was becoming too much like Bruce (and a truckload of other reasons, but that was the official send-off note).
Batman also needed Dick's not too subtle push to reveal his secret identity to Selina Kyle and she specified that just because they'd kissed didn't mean Batman could treat her like his "toy wonder".
In conclusion:
Why I like Bruce/Dick? Because it's perfect, hits all my kink buttons, my love buttons, my UST buttons, my daddy-issues buttons, my mentor/student buttons, my we get something new to chew on every week buttons.
Also, it's not very often that one finds a fandom with a slasher for an author. Read Devin Grayson's views on the Dick/Bruce relationship present in her writing here. *grin*
Canon Recs
Devin Grayson's run on Gotham Knights
Batman/Nightwing: Bloodborne
Nightwing/Huntress Mini
Judd Winick's current run on Outsiders
Robin: Year One
Dark Victory
Nightwing
Batman
Batman: The Animated Series/Batman: Gotham Knights
Fanon Recs!
Good Dick/Bruce fic is unfortunately very scarce. It's an obvious pairing which gets liberally sprinkled all over other fics, but damn hard to write as the main focus.
Iconic by thete1 and buggery
This Whole Experiment Of Green by harriet_spy
Seven Night by 3jane
Five Things That Never Happened To Dick Grayson by cereta Wonderful, fantastic gen. With just the tiniest sparkling of pre-slash if you squint.
Surveillance by cereta Dick/Babs, Bruce-->Dick
Consequent by thete1
Do feel free to throw some recs my way, if you happen to know of any other good Bruce/Dick fic out there. *grin*
Author: maelithil
E-mail: bigbadmael@hotmail.com
Fandom: DC Comics
Pairing: Bruce Wayne (Batman)/Dick Grayson (Robin I/Nightwing)
Spoilers: Truckload of 'em. Up to and including the current Outsiders arc, Nightwing: Year One, and Judd Winick's latest run on Batman.
Notes: IMHO, YMMV, and all that jazz *grin*
Loyalty. There you have it. You can sum up Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson's whole relationship with that one word. That and desperate need and emotional co-dependency and, most importantly, "sticky and hot".
Not to step on Homer's toes, but I might as well be describing the modern version of Achilles and Patroclus given just how infamous a couple Bruce and Dick are. How infamous a couple they've been, really, since their creation in 1940. Blame Fredric Wertham and his "Seduction of the Innocent", the 60's TV Series starring Adam West and Burt Ward, or, say, Joel Schumacher's Batman and Robin movie and its bat-nipples, but there is no denying the fact that Batman and Robin as a couple are a part of today's pop culture (yes, even overseas! Ratman is a great example).
But how does this affect our current canon? Well, all that meta-baggage they're dragging along is damn heavy. But we can start from the beginning.
Notes:
We're talking about comics here, folks, and if there's one thing comics are it's flexible. Don't expect a single, linear continuity here. You won't find one and you will break your brain if you try and make one of your own. This also allows for fluid storytelling, both in canon and in fanon, because well, you can pick and chose which version of some key event you prefer. If you stick around long enough some writer will change what had been established history for some new, hopefully more interesting, perspective.
Bruce Wayne:
This is a relatively straight forward biography to write. When Bruce Wayne was eight years old his parents were murdered before his very eyes. That is the single, most important moment in his life. It is what defines him, what motivates him, what drives him insane. It is not thirst for revenge that makes him the Batman, but rather a childish need to spare others from experiencing that same pain which destroyed his life. Genius, scared of human contact, bat-shit crazy in his obsessions, Bruce Wayne trained and made himself the World's Greatest Detective and arguably the best human martial artist in the DCU.
His crusade was meant to be personal and solitary, but over the years Bruce Wayne managed to attract a whole army of other dysfunctional individuals who now orbit around the Batcave, the so-called Batfamily. Unlike the Superman-family, the members of the Batfamily share no blood ties. The one thing that drew them towards a life of vigilantism was the Batman himself, and Bruce is acutely aware of the responsibility he bears in regards to his associates' choices. Being the manipulative bastard that he is, he uses his influence to improve their efficiency on the field, with little care for their feelings and emotional needs. Oh, but he loves them so, his little issue-ridden family, therefore he pushes them away before they can hurt him by leaving or dying or growing up. Despite being a great man, good man, Bruce is walking that fine line between being the smartest hero on the planet, and a terrified eight-year-old who needs a friend. It's not a pretty combination, and the man who took the brunt of this latent insanity full in the face is Dick Grayson.
Dick Grayson:
Richard John Grayson, who has never once considered not going solely by the nickname "Dick", is the son of two great circus acrobats, John and Mary Grayson. Together they were The Flying Graysons, and Dick performed for the patrons of Haley's Circus since he was a very young boy. A gypsy, a born performer, and an extremely talented acrobat, Dick lived a happy if unusual life until Tony Zucco, a Gotham mobster, killed his parents to force Haley to pay him protection money. Dick was eight or 10, or 12, or 13... depends on which origin story you're reading) and Bruce Wayne was sitting in the audience. Bruce saw the Graysons plummet to their death as the ropes on the trapeze they were swinging on were eaten away by acid, but most importantly, he saw Dick and within Dick he saw himself.
So Bruce took him in, gave him a home, made him his apprentice and his friend. The word "sidekick" is never mentioned, Batman and Robin are partners.
Things go swimmingly throughout Dick's early adolescence, give or take some near fatal beatings, a life of violence and obsession and the fact that a 20-something year old billionaire put his barely pubescent ward in little green panties and had him dodge bullets all night long. But hey, Dick's happy, Bruce is happy, Alfred is happy if his boys are happy and social services never try to remove Dick from Bruce's care hard enough.
And then Dick grows up. Bruce suddenly realises that he needs to rein his exuberant boy in or lose him, because it's no longer Batman and Robin, but Batman and the Justice League and Robin and the Teen Titans. Bruce forgets he's always been Bruce to Dick and embraces his Batman persona; he becomes distant, strict, cold. Dick bucks against this, pushes Batman, demands independence and respect. Their relationship tilts and goes from equals (or as "equal" as the partnership between an adult and a child can be) to being that of a hero and his sidekick. This chafes both of them, changes both of them and things start going to hell.
The final straw used to be Dick getting shot by the Joker. Bruce freaked out, fired Dick and left him broken and alone with no guidance and no meaning left in his life. Dick picked himself up, and created a new identity for himself: Nightwing. I say used, because they've changed the tables on us. The very very recent Nightwing: Year One storyline presents a different series of events. Bruce needs Dick, needs Robin, to focus entirely on their mission, which would mean Dick abandoning the Teen Titans and the life he tried to build away from Bruce. Dick refuses. Bruce fires him, takes his costume away and, for the lack of a better term, kidnaps another young boy, Jason Todd, to fulfil Dick's role. Dick goes through the necessary motions of shedding his past with Batman, which doesn't particularly work, and embraces his other roots, his father's costume and the name of Superman's Kryptonian hero: Nightwing.
In any case, Dick and Bruce fail to deal in any way, shape or form for a very long time. Jason Todd is murdered, Tim Drake tries to convince his childhood hero, Dick, to return to his role as Robin and manages to get stuck with the job himself. Dick and Bruce strike a very uneasy truce for the boy's sake. It is worth mentioning that in "A Lonely Place Of Dying", Tim Drake's introduction, Batman still instinctively calls Nightwing "Robin". The two of them have most definitely not moved on. At all.
Then Bane breaks Batman's back, and Batman asks Azrael, Jean Paul Valley, to wear the mantle of the Bat until he is sufficiently recovered to come back to the job. Jean Paul goes nuts, nearly gets Tim killed and Bruce finally asks Dick to be Batman, at least for a little while.
Before Bruce reclaims the cape, he and Dick manage to have a talk and clear the air. (Robin 13: 04, 06, 10, 12, 16, 19) Soon after, Bruce sends Dick on a mission to Blüdhaven, Gotham ugly, nasty, stepsister of a city, to investigate the murders of some thugs that washed up in Gotham's harbour.
Dick decides to stay. He now has his own city, his own apartment, his own life. He finds himself financially independent, and finally manages to try and nourish the new found equilibrium in his and Bruce's relationship. Bruce checks up on him, Dick fails to cope but manages to fix his freakout without further incident.
Dick and Barbara Gordon, the former Batgirl, start a relationship that had been long brewing and, strangely, it is this incident that prompts Bruce to finally pop the question. After 14 odd years, Bruce legally adopts Dick, nevermind the meddling of an evil archenemy trying to mess with their heads with phantom relatives and their cunning plans.
In Gotham shit seems to hit the fan on a regular basis; first a horrible destructive earthquake which turns the entire city into No Man's Land for about a year. Then a lethal epidemic that threatens to annihilate the remaining citizens. To top it all off, Bruce Wayne is accused of murdering an ex-girlfriend. Bruce does not deny the charges against him, nor does he seem to care. Dick is the only one who does not doubt his innocence, ever. This is not one of Dick's finest moments, given that it is pretty obvious that he does not doubt simply because he wouldn't be able to cope if it were true. But Batman again denying his "Bruce" identity pushes Dick over the edge and they have a pretty nasty fight. And "pretty nasty" is meant to be read as earth shattering, trauma inducing, bitch fest. Oh, but no worries. They solve the mystery and Bruce gets a tiny sliver of his sanity back.
Things were going too smoothly for our lovely Hunk Wonder though. He had a job he loved, a girl he loved, a team he loved, mental stability and a nice helping of self-esteem. It couldn't last. First his best girlfriend, Donna Troy, gets killed by a Superman android. Dick blames himself and disbands the Titans so he won't lose another family member (because that's what the Titans are to him, family) ever again. His best male friend, Roy Harper, decides that the best way to help him through his funk is to create another superhero team for Dick to lead, without the emotional ties the Titans had. Great, witness the birth of the Outsiders (which was once Batman's old team, just to show you how far from his mentor's footsteps Dick has travelled). Unfortunately, Roy takes six bullets to the chest. He doesn't die, and Dick manages not to self-destruct. Then Barbara dumps him. Her reasoning? He was becoming too much like Batman, which is precisely the one thing Dick has been trying to avoid all his life. Next he gets fired from him job in the BHPD because his captain, Amy, finds out he's Nightwing. After that his circus, Pop Haley’s Circus where he used to perform alongside his parents, is burned to the ground. People die. Then they bomb his home. More people die, including his putative grandfather Yoska and most of his neighbours.
His archenemy, Blockbuster, has figured out his secret identity and wants to destroy not only him but all those he cares for. Blockbuster doesn't get exactly what he bargained for when Dick, who is by now holding onto his sanity with the very tips of his fingernails, doesn't stop Tarantula (let's call her a villain who was meant to be sympathetic and managed to skirt the fringes of pathetic) from shooting him in the head. In the space of a few weeks Dick lost everything he'd been building up for years. And he's killed, or close enough to it that it doesn't matter whether he pulled the trigger or not. Dick's broken Batman's first and possibly only rule. He wallows in his misery and self-hate for a while until a call from Bruce snaps him partially out of it.
Bruce isn't doing any better, mind. Tim quit, so he hires Tim's girlfriend, the Spoiler, as Robin. That goes quite spectacularly badly and she gets fired. To try and prove her worth, Stephanie manages to set in motion one of Batman's deadliest plans to take over Gotham's underworld. Dozens of civilians die, Orpheus (one of Batman's associates) is murdered, Steph herself is tortured to death, Tim, who is by now back as Robin, leaves Gotham for Blüdhaven. Batgirl follows suit. Oracle, Barbara, reaches the end of her patience and takes her whole team, the Birds of Prey, to Metropolis. Dick gets shot. The police turns against Batman, blaming him for the Gang War that terrorised the city.
Batman is back to being utterly alone. Except for Dick, who stays. Unfortunately, another thing that seems to have abandoned ship is their ability to communicate. Witness the emotional train wreck and the heartbreaking conclusion.
Things get complicated here because the previews for the upcoming Nightwing issues show Dick working undercover, with no hint that the situation between them has been resolved. Thing is, Dick has been quite an important player in the past five Batman issues, and they seem to be getting along rather fabulously. Ditto for the last two issues of Outsiders, wherein Dick does snap Bruce's head off for having dared baby-sit him in his new team (Bruce has been secretly funding the Outsiders and Dick feels considerably betrayed) but switches to concerned and needy as soon as Bruce hints at his remembering the JLA mind wiping him (long story, not worth the time as it doesn't pertain to the topic at hand).
So... what happened between them? Who knows. Maybe this month's Nightwing will shed a little light. My magic 8 ball says "Outlook Not So Good". I agree.
Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson:
Let's do ourselves a favour and ignore all the Golden Age innuendo and general perversity, otherwise we'd be here all day.
On the other hand, it's good to be reminded that Bruce and Dick share 65 years of comics’ history. Batman was created in 1939; Robin, Dick Grayson, in the spring of 1940. That's a lifetime. Despite what whiny fanboys (Frank Miller and his issues included) say, Robin does not in any way pollute the pure, unadulterated asshattery of a loner Batman. Batman hasn't been alone since 1940, yet he still manages to play well with others and be a bastard if his hackles rise. See Devin Grayson's run on Gotham Knights for proof.
This is to say, there's something about Batman and Robin's relationship that unsettles some fans. It doesn't necessarily mean the undercurrent is sexual or even romantic. It's just something big. An interesting observation might be the fact that the fans that seem the most disturbed or perplexed are also those fans that can't seem to be able to refrain from referring to Dick as "Richard" or worse, "Grayson". It might just be that our society still retains some of those old, Greek connotations in regards to mentoring. I doubt it, although I don't deny the fact that I find it hot.
On the one hand we have Bruce Wayne, the Batman, vengeance and despair and obsession, who one day meets his twin-in-the-making.
A boy, Dick Grayson, marked by the same tragedy, who is taking the first steps towards Bruce's same self-destruction. And Bruce recognises this and puts a stop to it. Gives the boy a purpose, helps him find his revenge (because Tony Zucco is caught, and dies in almost all versions, and that's where Dick and Bruce differ. Dick got closure, Dick moved on) and then... keeps him.
It is often repeated that Robin is the light to Batman's darkness. Robin creates the anchor that keeps Batman on the right side of human, and while the role is filled by other boys (and a girl), first Jason, then Tim and lastly Stephanie, none manage quite as well as young Dick did. Dick is Bruce's greatest accomplishment, and his designated successor (see JLA: Obsidian Age, wherein a dead Bruce makes Nightwing leader of the Justice League).
But let's leave this idyllic, sappy view of things. It wasn't all daisies and rainbows. Bruce did some undeniable damage to Dick's psyche. Dick is starved for affection, and so grateful once he receives it, that he will hook up and feel responsible for anyone who makes him feel wanted. Barbara knows this, Bruce knows this, Helena knows this, and Tarantula now has first hand experience of the fact. In fact, some of the villains know this as well: Ra's al Ghul, Hugo Strange and Deathstroke do, just to mention three of the deadliest. Dick is still repressing and denying, or rather, accepting it as a given.
His need to please stems primarily from Batman's attitude. Batman demands the best and in return is rather stingy in
distributing approval and especially praise. Let us not even dream of open, physical affection. Dick knows he's capable and qualified, he just doesn't realise that Bruce thinks the same. Which means that when he's with Bruce he always has to try too hard to feel comfortable in his own skin. This, of course, doesn't imply that Dick doesn't challenge Bruce. He's no Jason in terms of raw pushing of the limits, but he trusts his own judgement and has no problem in speaking up against direct orders when he thinks Bruce is endangering himself or the mission.
There is one very touching example of this in Batman/Nightwing: Bloodborne. If you ever decide to read just one Batman and Nightwing related comic, well, IMHO, this is the one. After leaving for some unknown Siberian land Batman turns his transmitter off. Alfred, fearing the worse, sends Dick to investigate. Dick's plane is shot down by local rebels and he's alone, trying to pinpoint the location of Batman's last signal or pick up any sign of a heartbeat. It does. And we've never seen them this cuddly since the Comic Code was implemented. Of course, Bruce acts stoic (please note the use of "Dick", instead of the usual "Nightwing"), though this time it's for good reason. Bruce has been infected with a lethal, contagious disease and he doesn't want it to spread. Dick is in no way deterred, and manages to save Bruce by injecting himself with a potentially deadly dose of vaccine and then performing a full blood transfusion between the two of them. Kicking rebel butt all the while. DAAAAWWWWWW.
Dick's greatest fear is failing Bruce when he's needed the most. After the events of Transference, a 4 part storyline on Gotham Knights 8 to 11, he does, however, come to understand that (although he only confesses to us readers, and not to the would-be recipient of his unsent letter, Bruce). Transference is probably one of the most interesting arcs in Devin Grayson's run on Gotham Knights. And I don't just say this because it's PURE PORN.
Hugo Strange figures out the Batman's identity and plans to take Bruce's place. He is unaware of the multitude of ducklings that surround whom he thought was a lone warrior. Therefore, Hugo decides they should be annihilated. A brilliant psychologist, Hugo corners Bruce Wayne and this forces him to erase his own memory of his identity as the Batman, in order to make Hugo doubt his discovery. Meanwhile, Dick and Tim see the Batmobile, supposedly carrying Batman, explode. Dick freaks out, but decides that if Bruce were dead he'd know. While digging through the Batcomputer, Tim finds some files written by Bruce, describing Batman's activities. These files are also about the various Batfamily members, and are in fact the precursors to Bruce's breakdown in Bruce Wayne: Murderer. Dick's file is... interesting. And it freaks him out considerably.
But no matter, for Doc Strange has decided for a hostile takeover. There is inappropriate touching. Dick doesn't take this very well. At all.
Long story short. They kick him out. Bruce comes home, uninjured but apparently totally unaware that he is the
Batman. Dick tries to snap him out of it with a kick in the head. It doesn't work. So they, Dick and Tim, let themselves be captured by Hugo Strange to try and figure out what the hell is going on. Too bad Hugo is very good at what he does. And what he does is read people. Oops.
So, we have canonical confirmation, or rather, canonical implication that... well, the best way to describe Dick and Bruce's relationship is sticky and hot. Well, I could have told you that, but it's always nice when the author agrees with you.
The fallout, if you could call it a fallout, from this whole shebang is that Bruce figures out that his Bruce Wayne persona has no relationship with either of his pupils, and that it might as well be rather useless. But, most importantly, we get Dick's letter as a sort of inner monologue in Gotham Knights #14.
Which gives us Dick's devotion, Dick's growing understanding of Bruce's devotion, which is a nice step in the right direction. As for Dick's somewhat understandable fear that no matter what he does, what they do, Bruce's past and Bruce's issues will still prevail over their shared history, well, Bruce has refused more convenient bargains for his parents' lives. He's also never made things easy for his family, his vigilante family, when the comparison to real blood ties has come up.
But that adoption paper changed things. Because the difference between "ward", a word Dick hates so much, and "son", a word which doesn't truly fit, because Bruce was a friend and a partner before he ever thought to try and be any kind of father, is important to Bruce. In Bruce's mind, family is "the only definition of forever that has any meaning" and it all stems from his self imposed obligation to his dead parents, but why wouldn't it also mean death, given the cut and dry statistics? The only Robin he adopted, Jason Todd, was the only one who died (this being way pre-Stephanie and let's not touch the Willingham induced Tim-adoption *rage* I feel these days). That's why he gets Dick to promise.
Dick craves stability, constancy, a place by Bruce's side always. Bruce needs people he loves to stop dying, because he has enough issues as is, thanks. The adoption works. Nothing changes, Bruce said it himself, but I guess they need the silly piece of paper.
After this... okay, I lie. There is no after this. Dick's devotion to Bruce has never appeared filial to me, nor has Bruce's had any resemblance to a fatherly one. Oh, I believe they might easily kid themselves into categorizing it that way and locking the rest someplace deep. Any confirmation of love, coming from either side, is always sweeter than water to a parched throat for these two. Neither of them has ever lived in any kind of normal, familial, atmosphere. Neither have their friends and colleagues, for the most part. Superman isn't merely physically an alien, he's an alien because he has a mother at home who bakes him pies.
Dick and Bruce's parental figure has been, for better or for worse, Alfred. I doubt they even completely understand the relationship between fathers and sons, which, strangely enough is more natural to one Oliver Queen and his ward, Roy Harper.
Dick Grayson and Women:
Most specifically two women; Barbara Gordon, the Oracle, and Helena Bertinelli, the Huntress. I'm not going to say Dick never loved either, because that would be bullshit. If anything, Dick's major fault is that he loves too much and that he'd rather be taken advantage of, than even think about selfishly demanding something from a relationship.
Barbara and Bruce are more alike than either would care to admit, and so's Dick's role in their life. I wasn't going to compare Dick's affections, nor measure them, and I'm not going to claim that Dick's love for Barbara stems from the similarities between Barbara and Bruce himself. I don't think so.
Helena Bertinelli is another story entirely. The Huntress is vicious, more so than the Batman. She wants to be accepted by the Batman and in some ways she thought that sleeping with Dick Grayson, the favourite son, would ease the way into the Batfamily proper. There was no malice in the act. She wanted company, Dick felt lonely. They had sex. What's interesting is what happens before and after said sex.
In the Nightwing/Huntress mini series, Dick and Helena meet while working on the same investigation and form some sort of uneasy (on Dick's part, Helena methods are still rather... unorthodox) partnership. At one point Dick is about to break it off, and Helena figures out why. She reminds him of Batman, and it's making him nervous. Not ten pages later, though, Dick and Helena are joined in holy liplock, about to embark in one-time sex that for once in the world of mainstream comics doesn't come with preaching and/or "edginess". Just two people who wanted to find comfort in each other.
Then comes the after. Dick's Super Ego kicks in, and lo and behold does it look like Batman. Actually, it might just be Batman's most probable reaction to the news (though it's not, he takes it exceptionally well). So Dick does what any sensible man his age would do, he gets out of bed to have a nice chat with his friend Barbara.
Witness the condensed version of Dick Grayson's troubles with the female gender:
1) "The point is that every time someone's even nice to you, you feel this almost pathological need to--"
2) "Now you're making me sound like I'm just afraid to-- to--"
"--to be alone?"
3) "Look, I get that she reminds you of-- I get that she feels familiar, honey"
Three's particularly interesting. Why? Because Barbara stopped herself. Had she meant to say Kory, Dick most recent ex-girlfriend at the time, she would have said it. She has before. Sure, it could be Kory anyway, but who have they been comparing Helena to? That'd be Batman. Who appears again in a somewhat safer comparison just under that.
Thing is, Helena does remind him of Bruce. Is this part of the reason why he slept with her? If we interpret Barbara's cut-off remark as involving Bruce Wayne, then yes, it could be. Barbara, who knows him exceptionally well, made it a statement not a question.
The only sure fact, though, is that Dick slept with Helena and that he kept looking out for her. She fought him briefly but violently over in the NW title, they made out again, and Dick explained why it couldn't work between them. Despite that, when Helena was shot at the end of No Man's Land, he went and kept her company when she was all alone on New Year's Eve. At the beginning of the Batman/Huntress: Cry For Blood mini, Dick was one of the only members of the Batfamily to take Helena's claims of innocence seriously. Dick tried to be the voice of reason but one thing changed all that. She hurt Batman.
Watch Nightwing go from concerned ex-lover to rabid dog in one panel. She clearly did not do that on purpose, yet Dick pays her no mind while he tries to pound her face in.
In last year's issues of Outsiders, Dick and Helena couldn't even walk along the same corridor without snapping at each other like school children. Ironically, Barbara made her peace with Helena and they became the best of team-mates in Birds of Prey.
Talk about a turnaround.
Is Dick Bruce-sexual?:
Why, that sounds cosy and wonderfully... neat. It's also silly. Dick has had numerous relationships with other women, whose only connection to Bruce would have been having no connection whatsoever to Bruce. See Donna Troy with whom he just "hmmm"-ed. But that does, in a way, make sense. While Bruce might not directly affect his choice of sexual partners, he certainly affects Dick's subsequent relationship with said partners. Huntress only "turned", in Dick's mind, when she hurt Batman. Hell, Dick impulsively proposed to Kory in New Teen Titans #99 only because he'd just had a rather bad fight with Bruce. The reverse is also true. Barbara dumped him because he was becoming too much like Bruce (and a truckload of other reasons, but that was the official send-off note).
Batman also needed Dick's not too subtle push to reveal his secret identity to Selina Kyle and she specified that just because they'd kissed didn't mean Batman could treat her like his "toy wonder".
In conclusion:
Why I like Bruce/Dick? Because it's perfect, hits all my kink buttons, my love buttons, my UST buttons, my daddy-issues buttons, my mentor/student buttons, my we get something new to chew on every week buttons.
Also, it's not very often that one finds a fandom with a slasher for an author. Read Devin Grayson's views on the Dick/Bruce relationship present in her writing here. *grin*
Canon Recs
Devin Grayson's run on Gotham Knights
Batman/Nightwing: Bloodborne
Nightwing/Huntress Mini
Judd Winick's current run on Outsiders
Robin: Year One
Dark Victory
Nightwing
Batman
Batman: The Animated Series/Batman: Gotham Knights
Fanon Recs!
Good Dick/Bruce fic is unfortunately very scarce. It's an obvious pairing which gets liberally sprinkled all over other fics, but damn hard to write as the main focus.
Iconic by thete1 and buggery
This Whole Experiment Of Green by harriet_spy
Seven Night by 3jane
Five Things That Never Happened To Dick Grayson by cereta Wonderful, fantastic gen. With just the tiniest sparkling of pre-slash if you squint.
Surveillance by cereta Dick/Babs, Bruce-->Dick
Consequent by thete1
Do feel free to throw some recs my way, if you happen to know of any other good Bruce/Dick fic out there. *grin*