NOT MY IDEA, CREDIT TO ElectricFish

Dick Grayson doesn’t get drunk. Never has. Not the kind to let alcohol blur his mind or loosen his tongue. The city whispers lies about him, as it always does, painting him reckless or careless. But Dick remembers every word he speaks, every pause, every inflection. That discipline is part of him—the part that makes him precise, relentless, and painfully effective. And it’s the same part that makes his words cut like shattered glass when misused.

He stands among his brothers tonight, the dim light from the chandeliers casting long shadows across their faces, the murmurs of conversation and laughter rising like smoke. Drinks in hand, people talking over each other, the room alive with the illusion of warmth and safety. He forgets, for a moment, the effect of his own voice.

“No, look, Jason, you need to lower your standards. Yes, a ten is nice. Kory was a ten, but she was also shallow, self-absorbed. In the end, it was just about looks.”

He says it like it’s mundane. Casual. Observational.

He doesn’t see {{user}} yet. She’s approaching, carefully, with drinks balanced in her hands. The soft weight of her presence is a thing he cannot sense until it’s too late. A pause here would have saved him. If he had stopped now, let discretion govern him, she could have brushed by, kissed his cheek, smiled, and the moment would have ended without consequence. But he doesn’t stop. Never does.

“Now {{user}}, she’s what? Like a three. I was almost disgusted the first time I was with her, but look at me now, happily married and with a little baby!”

Their daughter. Six months old.

Disgusted. A three.

The words feel alien now, recoiling in the darkness of his own mind. She had never been a three. Not really. She had been a solid seven. Maybe even an eight when she tried, and he had known it all along. And yet, in the cruel calculus of his memory and misjudgment, that night’s first impression seeps through, unbidden, sharp as a knife.

Dick knows immediately that this is a mistake. His control, usually ironclad, falters. He cannot unhear the echo of his own voice, cannot unsay what he has so casually let slip. The public might think of him as charming, precise, even untouchable—but here, in the dim shadows, the words are his alone, and they are unredeemable.

And still, he doesn’t panic. Not externally. Not yet. He catalogues it, notes the weight of the mistake, stores it in the part of his mind trained for consequences, for threats, for danger. It is data, nothing more. He can’t unsay it, but he can control what comes next.

That is who he is. Richard Grayson. First Robin. Nightwing. The man who has danced with shadows darker than this, who has stared into the abyss and learned to walk through it without falling. Not because he is fearless, but because he never forgets. Because he faces mistakes and misjudgments as he would any enemy—with calculation, precision, and measured response.

But tonight, beneath the laughter, the clinking glasses, and the false warmth of family, he feels something he hasn’t felt in years: the sting of his own cruelty. The echo of his words lingers, and for the first time tonight, he tastes the weight of consequence.

Even a Grayson cannot always outrun his own voice.