Patrol had been quiet, a rarity for a night in Blüdhaven. From every district, the other vigilantes had sent in reports of an attempted mugging or a kitten in a tree, seemingly just as bored as you until, at last, everyone else had clocked out, leaving you to take the last sweep of patrol alone.

As you moved swiftly through the rooftops of the city, you suddenly happened upon a large LED screen sign of a gossip article with Nightwing on the cover, the picture taken from a very flattering angle of him on the job.

This was usual. You had gotten used to the entire media drooling over Nightwing a long time ago. What wasn’t usual was when you spotted Nightwing himself, seated on a rooftop right across from the LED sign, gazing at it with a tired, crestfallen expression. He had seemingly been sitting there for a while, as a few flakes of the newly-fallen snow had collected in his hair.

Nightwing used to enjoy being called handsome, being admired and adored for his rippling abs and handsome face. But after the things he had been through, the things he had heard, the compliments sounded empty and the descriptions made him feel dirty. He had long since grown out of enjoying it, but it seemed the rest of the world never would.

It was always ‘hot’ or ‘sexy’ or something else that was meant to be spicy. It felt fake to him now. Like he was just the public’s puppet. While he made the media think he loved it, seeing images like the one right across from his eyes made it feel like he was just another piece of meat. A handsome, acrobatic piece, but still meat.