Archive of Our Own ^beta

Dick Grayson was a professional, thank you very much. 

He’d been on the scene longer than his other siblings, so it wasn’t such a surprise that he was one of Leslie’s less frequent visitors. Make no mistake, he was just as reckless as the rest of them (he was a bat, after all), but he managed to avoid the more serious injuries most of the time. 

And thank god for that because he’s always had a hell of a reaction to the heavier painkillers. They were never allergic reactions, obviously they wouldn’t subject him to that, but he always ended up higher than he should for longer than he should be. And somehow his highs made him even more chaotic- something many people would have thought impossible. 

Luckily for everyone when Dick needed medical attention, he was usually fine with some light painkillers and getting stitched up in the batcave. But as everyone knows, luck never lasts.

The mission had actually been going pretty great. Dick, Bruce, Damian, and Steph had all been working on something small that ended up being a distraction from Penguin, and they’d just been rounding up the last of the goons when one of them chucked a well-aimed rock at Dick’s knee.

It was a dirty move, but it didn’t work in the guy’s favor. He may have taken down Nightwing, but when he didn’t stand back up, the guy got the full wrath of Batman, Batgirl, and Robin. Yeah, he got taken down real quick.

Dick had to be carried back to the batmobile by Robin, and then was passed to Bruce to get carried to medical facilities in the cave. 

According to Alfred, his patella was pretty fucked. According to Leslie, it wasn’t too bad, but it definitely needed surgery. 

While he went under, the family drew up a quick ‘babysitting’ schedule for the next two days because Dick could not be left without at least two other people in his presence. He’d either cry and monologue about ‘betrayal’ and loneliness, or he’d give his babysitter the slip and start some sort of chaos.

Luckily for Tim and Duke, who had the first shift, Dick stayed asleep practically the entire time. All they had to do was swap out the ice pack on his knee a couple of times.

The trouble didn’t start until Jason and Cass were on babysitting duty. Dick had asked for his phone, and after having Barbara disable any apps that a high Dick would get into too much trouble on, they decided to hand it over.

While it’s true that Dick couldn’t manage to mess up any of their lives, Barbara failed to account for (or maybe just didn’t care to account for) Dick becoming a public menace. Because for some reason he still had access to twitter.

And he decided it would be the perfect place to state his grievances. 

Obviously he had to keep his identity concealed- he may be tripping, but this had been too instilled in him to ever forget. He decided to make a new account, using one of his many many burner emails. He briefly considered just naming it nightwingofficial or something similar, but then it would surely get taken down by Bruce or Tim or Barbara.

After some deep thought (but not really), he decided on flipfrackpaddywack . It was simple and mostly anonymous. He chose a picture of one of his favorite gargoyles of the Gotham skyline as his profile picture. For the bio, he wrote “ born to entertain, forced to have a tragic backstory™️ ”. It was perfect.

Now for his first tweet. 

There were so many people to bash, so who should get the honor of being first? 

The Joker has always been top of his shit list, but that just meant that he should be roasted after the account gained popularity so more people could see it. Last month when he was fighting Ed, the man had told him he wished Tim had shown up. That one kind of hurt, he’d make sure to roast him soon enough. Jason stole all the oreos from Dick’s go-to safehouse, which is an unforgivable sin.

He mulled it over a while longer before realizing who would make the perfect first victim. After all, it was Penguin’s fault his knee was fucked up. It’s only karma.

‘Penguin wants to be the monopoly man SO bad but he doesn’t have the rizz ’

He exhaled strongly through his nose, not wanting Cass or Jason to question why he was laughing, and turned off his twitter notifications before falling back asleep. 

☼☼☼☼☼☼☼

The next time was almost too easy. 

Steph and Barbara were keeping him company today, and Barbara gave him a knowing look the second he asked for his phone. Luckily she didn’t say anything. She may have been better at hiding it, but she had just as much of a thirst for chaos as Steph did.

The two of them looked at him with interest as he logged onto the new account and discovered that the tweet had done surprisingly well. Now it wasn’t viral by any means, but it had a little over 200 likes. 

And now for his next target.

He mulled it over for a minute before deciding to get Harvey. The guy hadn’t wronged him recently, but Dick thought of a joke the other day that he couldn’t let go to waste. 

‘If I was Two-Face I would’ve found an opera house to live under, but he went past the point of no return ’

It may be more niche, but it was still hilarious. 

He considered posting again then and there, but was quickly distracted by food. Alfred’s sandwiches were the best lunch he could’ve wished for, and Dick didn’t want to miss it. He got on his crutches and made his way to the kitchen with Steph and Barbara.

☼☼☼☼☼☼☼

After the delicious meal and a nice nap, Steph and Barbara were relieved by Damian and Duke. Damian seemed reluctant to hand Dick his phone, but he gave in eventually.

Dick didn’t even look at how the last tweet had done before typing out the next one.

‘Riddler once said I just didn’t get his aesthetic, I think he should get some bitches ’

After that he turned off his phone and decided to turn on a movie and forgot about his twitter. 

It wasn’t until they’d finished watching Singin’ in the Rain and Scooby-Doo! Music of the Vampire that a sudden laugh from Duke caught his attention.

“What’s so funny?” Damian asked.

“Oh nothing.” Duke responded. 

Dick and Damian both raised an eyebrow at him.

“Fine, it’s just some stupid tweet.” He elaborated, passing his phone to Dick so he and Damian could read it.

Dick wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but when he saw his own tweet he couldn’t help the cackle that escaped his mouth. 

He was glad his notifications for the new account were off because this tweet had gotten a lot more attention than the others. Nearly 300 replies, over 500 retweets, and almost 10k likes.

He looked through the replies and was pleased to find people adding their own additions to the joke. One of his favorites being, “ there’s a reason he ain’t called the rizzler ” with a few crying emojis following it.

Damian shot him an odd look, so Dick cleared his throat and muttered a “nice” before handing Duke’s phone back.

“That was unfunny and absurd.” Damian stated.

Dick nearly pouted, but managed to keep a somewhat neutral expression. Some people just didn’t get his humor.

“Whatever,” he said. “Let’s just go get some dinner.”

☼☼☼☼☼☼☼

The next day, Dick was officially sober enough to not need a babysitter. Sadly that meant he was also sober enough to feel a little shame over his tweets. Only a little though, because they were still pretty funny.

He briefly considered deleting the account, but eventually decided against it. Clearly people liked it, so he may as well keep it going. Who was he to deny the people some entertainment.

He wandered to the pantry to find a snack as he considered what to tweet next. He reached for the package of oreos only to discover it was empty.

His immediate reaction was to roast the Red Hood next, but he decided to investigate a little more first. Just because Jason had eaten the oreos in his safehouse didn’t mean he was guilty this time too.

Besides, Jason was too proud to put an empty package back in the pantry. He’d left the last one right on the counter of the safehouse’s small kitchen, and it wouldn’t make sense for Jason to switch things up now.

Dick was making interrogation plans for everyone in the family when he walked past Bruce’s study. The door was open, which was odd, but he let it slide after seeing a few oreos stacked on a napkin.

“What the fuck, Bruce?” he interrupted whatever work the man had been working on. 

“Dick, is everything alright?” Bruce raised an eyebrow at him.

“Oh, don’t act like you don’t know what you did.”

“But I don’t.” Bruce looked at him with concern.

Dick looked up and sighed, trying his best to remain patient. He wasn’t very confident in his ability not to yell right now, so he settled for a slow gesture to the napkin.

Bruce looked at it before looking back at him. 

“Do you… do you want one?” he asked.

Dick glared at the man before answering.

“You know I did want some, so I went to the pantry. And you know what I found, Bruce?”

Bruce looked very uncomfortable, but Dick didn’t stop glaring. “Dick, we can always get more oreos-”

“This isn’t about taking the last oreos,” Dick cut the man off. “This is about finishing the package and just leaving it there like a goddamn sociopath!”

Bruce looked taken aback by that, clearly the man had been expecting something more serious.

“Really?” Bruce asked. “ That’s what this is about?”

“Have you no shame?” He paused for dramatic effect before walking out of the room.

“I can’t even look at you right now.” he muttered before closing the door.

Now, should he roast Batman or Bruce Wayne? 

Definitely Batman. He hadn’t talked about civilians yet, so the timing of him bringing up Bruce would be too suspicious. 

He thought about what to type for a while. He couldn’t use any information that a normal Gotham civilian wouldn’t have access to, so all his best roasts were off the table. Too bad, hopefully he'd get to use his other material some day.

He decided he’d settle for some minor humiliation instead.

‘Anyone else hear the Batmobile blasting Cascada last night? That shit was loud as hell. ’

Sure, Dick had hacked the system to blast it, but nobody else had to know that. To any passerby it probably seemed like Batman was just vibing to some iconic early 2000’s hits.

Within the first two minutes, the replies were rolling in.

‘bro i fr thought i was hallucinating or smth ’

‘OMG! U HEARD IT TO! ’

‘* too ’

‘WAIT THAT WAS REAL LMFAOOO ’

Dick smiled to himself before going about the rest of his day.

He decided that if he was still mad about the oreos in a few days he’d roast Bruce, but until then he’d just let the insults come to him naturally.

☼☼☼☼☼☼☼

Spoiler alert: three days had passed and he was just as mad about the oreos.

Sure, the initial tweet had satisfied him enough to act civil towards Bruce, but he was still upset. 

He wasn’t going to target Bruce again, yes it would be easy, but he’d already gotten the man once. Jason, however, still had to pay for his oreo-related crimes. 

‘Fun fact: if you place a pack of oreos in a candle-lit circle on your roof while blasting Lady Gaga’s Americano, the Red Hood will appear. Use this information wisely. ’

Dick had made sure to time this tweet perfectly. Enough people should get the memo with enough time to buy oreos and candles to set up in time for Jason’s patrol.

It would minorly confuse the guy, but it probably wouldn’t cause much harm. Also, if things went according to plan then Jason would bring back enough oreos for everyone.

Bruce may have bought more oreos to try to make up for before, but oreos gained through pettiness would taste a thousand times better.

After Jason had left for patrol, Dick made his way straight to the batcave so he could monitor patrols with Barbara.

“Here to enjoy the show you set up?” Barbara asked as he sat down.

“I have no clue what you’re talking about.” he responded in an unconvincing tone.

“Sure.” she rolled her eyes. “Just like how you had no clue who hijacked the batmobile’s radio the other day?’

“Yeah. Exactly like that.”

“Whatever” Barbara chuckled before her eyes snapped back to the screen. 

“It’s starting.” she whispered, handing Dick a spare comm.

He put it in his ear, and sure enough he could barely make out Lady Gaga’s voice.

" Don’t you try to catch me, don’t you try to catch me, no, no, no, no."

“What the fuck?” they heard Jason mumble into the comms. “This isn’t you Oracle, is it?”

“No, what’s happening?” Barbara asked, feigning ignorance.

“Someone’s blasting Lady Gaga, don’t you hear it?”

“No, try moving in a little closer.” Barbara suggested.

Sure enough, as Jason crept closer to the music a circle of candles came into view.

“Oracle, keep an eye out, I’m approaching the circle.”

“Alright, I’ll let you know if I see anything.” 

Despite knowing that the circle would probably only contain a pack of oreos, Barbara still kept an eye out.

“What the hell?” Jason whispered.

“What did you find?” Barbara asked, already knowing the answer.

“A pack of oreos and,” he stopped and fumbled with a small piece of paper. “A note written in crayon addressed to Mr. Red Hood Sir ?” 

Dick had to cover his mouth to keep from cackling.

Barbara elbowed him before saying something about how cute that was. 

…

Jason ended up finding six more ‘summonings’ before calling it a night. 

Luckily all the civilians were smart enough to leave the roof before starting the music. Jason probably wouldn’t have killed any of them, but he’d definitely start asking questions and that definitely would’ve scared some people.

The next day at breakfast, Jason didn’t hesitate to bring it up.

“So which one of you fuckers set that up last night?”

Jason took the table’s confused looks as a sign to elaborate.

“I mean, I appreciate the oreos, but the Lady Gaga has not left my head for more than five minutes.”

Dick thought of confessing then and there, just so he could rub it in, but he decided against it. Sure, he may have made the account in a drugged-up delirium, but he would be lying if he said he still didn't find it funny.

Duke chuckled quietly, but unfortunately for him it was still enough to get Jason’s attention.

“What do you know?” He narrowed his eyes.

“Do none of you guys follow that new Gotham account?” Duke questioned, looking around the table.

“Duke, you know those accounts are full of shit, right?” Tim asked gently.

“No, no, no! Just-” Duke hurriedly pulled up the account on his phone and slid it across the table to Tim.

Tim grew a smile as he read through the tweets. 

“Holy shit.” 

“Right?”

Jason stomped over to Tim and snatched the phone from him. 

Dick could tell when he read the most recent tweet because his jaw dropped dramatically.

“I can’t tell if I want to give this guy some oreos or slap him into next week.”

“Then do both, you coward.” Damian deadpanned.

The room descended into madness after that, but that was just a normal breakfast at the manor.

☼☼☼☼☼☼☼

Dick hadn’t made any personal twitter attacks against his family since then. He’d been randomly shading rogues or commenting on the latest Gotham gossip for a few months now, and people still weren’t over it.

He still hadn’t told anyone the account was his, and as far as he knew Barbara and Steph had kept their silence as well. Cass probably knew, but that was a given. In fact, she’d probably known since the first tweet, but she’d never said anything so he didn’t either.

He was currently sitting in the batcave and reading replies to his account, when the batmobile zoomed into the cave. 

He was ready to make fun of Bruce for the way he pulled in, but was surprised (and definitely a little scared) when Damian came out of the driver’s side. Sure, they all knew he could drive, but that didn't mean they actually let him- not if they could help it.

“Grayson, father was injured. Carry him to the medical facilities while I fetch Pennyworth.” His brother told him as he ran to the stairs.

Dick made his way to the passenger side and opened the door. Bruce was sitting there, holding some gauze to his torso.

“What happened?” Dick questioned, not wanting to aggravate any injuries when he picked the other man up.

“It’s nothing.” Bruce rasped, still in the cowl.

“Bruce Batman Wayne, what the hell happened?” Dick knew his middle name was Thomas, but for some reason whenever he tried to accurately full-name Bruce it never had the same effect.

“Stabbed- it’s not too bad” the man mumbled with something similar to shame.

“Did it go all the way through?”

Bruce shook his head, and Dick took that as an invitation to gently scoop the guy up and started carrying him to the infirmary.

Dick had just gotten Bruce settled in and added a few more gauze to the wound when Alfred made his way in, Damian hot on his heels.

Alfred evaluated the wounds as he put on some sterile gloves.

“It’s not too bad. No need to call Leslie, but you will need to spend at least a couple days on bedrest.”

Bruce opened his mouth to argue, but immediately decided against it after seeing the butler’s glare.

He mumbled something, and Alfred seemed satisfied. 

Dick decided to leave for now and give Alfred space to work.

…

Dick was making his way down to visit Bruce, but stopped at the door when he heard Bruce on the phone.

Sure, he knew that eavesdropping was generally considered rude, but Bats operated differently than most people. It was still rude, but it was a slightly more acceptable type of rude.

It was actually a pretty boring conversation until Bruce grumbled something about ‘I’ll see you there .’ before hanging up. That had gotten Dick’s attention.

Later, he did some digging and found out that there was supposed to be a Justice League meeting the next afternoon. And that Bruce was likely planning to leave bedrest to attend said meeting. 

Dick wasn’t going to let that happen. 

They’d had arguments about this type of stuff plenty of times over the years. Most of which ended with more arguments. If Dick wanted to win this, he’d have to come up with a more creative plan.

He thought for a moment before it hit him! Bruce was terrible at socializing in the cowl on a good day, if Dick could weaponize the man’s awkwardness, then he might get him to ditch the meeting of his own free will.

He got onto twitter again and started typing.

‘If you think Brucie Wayne’s celebrity crush is Batman, you’re sorely mistaken. It’s clearly Superman smh’

It was perfect. 

Now he just had to get Duke to show Bruce the tweet. After that, it should all go according to plan.

He got up and started on his path to find Duke, but only had to search for a minute before he heard the teen’s unmistakable laugh coming from the library.

“What’s so funny?” Dick asked innocently.

“Nothing,” Duke wiped a tear from his eye. “Just that dumb twitter account again.”

“What did they say this time?”

Duke said nothing in response, opting to show him the phone instead.

Dick laughed, but not about the tweet itself as much as the whole situation.

“You should show that to Bruce” Dick suggested through his laughter.

Duke looked absolutely appalled at the suggestion, which was perfectly reasonable.

“Why would I do that?” Duke asked in absolute disgust.

“Well obviously he couldn’t care less about rumors surrounding Batman, but he likes to know what people are saying about Bruce Wayne. I’d say it’s gained enough popularity to warn him about it- that way he won’t be surprised if any interviewers bring it up.” Dick lied easily. Well, maybe he wasn’t outright lying, but he was definitely stretching the truth.

“Oh, I guess that makes sense.” Duke responded, still not pleased at the idea.

“I’ll come with you, if you want. It can be pretty awkward at first.”

“Yeah, thanks.” Duke sighed in relief.

Bruce had done a horrible job at hiding his displeasure with the tweet, but at least he made a comment about his persona doing its job.

Bruce had shared more thoughts towards the tweet after Duke came up with an excuse to leave the room.

“If Clark ever sees that cursed rumor, I may need to fake my death again.” he deadpanned.

Dick made no attempts to hide his laughter at Bruce’s suffering. 

“So,” Bruce interrupted. “Do you want to work on a case with me tonight?”

Dick smiled at his plan’s success. It had worked perfectly, “It would be my pleasure.”

“Good.” Bruce gave him a small smile. “Maybe we can discuss your social media choices since it seems I’m free for the night.”

☼☼☼☼☼☼☼

Bruce wasn’t very happy about the account, but he didn’t ask Dick to delete it or anything, so Dick kept up with his chaos.

And if that chaos sometimes benefitted Bruce as a reward for his silence, then so be it.

So maybe when the Justice League fumbled on a mission and pissed off Batman, the member most at fault would get a little roast. 

It made Bruce smile, so that was another bonus.

And if Victor asked him about the account when they were catching up over lunch? 

Well, then Victor had no real proof.