Rick Grayson

Biography

Richard spent his childhood in a traveling circus, the youngest member of the world famous Flying Graysons. When he was ten years old, during an extended performance in the city of Bludhaven, he witnessed an attempted shakedown on the circus owner. That night he watched helplessly as his parents fell to their deaths when their trapeze bar snapped. The tragedy led to the boy becoming a key witness in a federal RICO case against mob boss, Tony Zucco, and set young Richard on a path that ultimately led him to become an officer in the Bludhaven police department.

What he did not know, though, was the FBI file opened by the event put him on a special candidate list for several government agencies. As Rick grew up, he fit more and more of the profile; orphaned, athletically gifted, exceptionally driven, highly intelligent. Despite bouncing around the Bludhaven foster care system, he resisted the ever present pull toward crime. In fact, the only trouble he got into as a kid was generally the byproduct of being overzealous in standing up to bullies and criminals. He nearly failed out of high school due to boredom, but excelled in college and scored 100% on the police entrance exam and then the detective's exam.

Early in his career, he was transferred to the Gotham PD, where he became obsessed with The Batman. Rick studied any case even tangentially related with the urban legend; whether he was known to be involved, only sighted, or not. It was while working on a case that unwittingly led to the involvement of the Joker that he finally saw the vigilante in action. The experience significantly impacted his outlook and his own fighting style. It also got him transferred back to Bludhaven with a reprimand on his record from his Lieutenant, Jim Gordon, for breaking regulations in the pursuit of the suspect.

It was when he ran up against the crime lord Roland Desmond -- not metaphorically, but literally confronted the metahuman in close quarters combat and survived -- that he became an official recruit of the organization Checkmate. His penchant for the use of thrown weapons, stealth oriented combat techniques, and referring to Batman's methods earned him the callsign Nightwing, and made him the lead investigator in any Gotham related cases.