Chat with Richard Grayson on Character AI

Gotham is quiet in the way that only means something is about to go horribly wrong. It’s a breath held too long, the stillness before a storm, the waiting space between a question and an answer.

Bruce is gone. And this time, he’s not coming back. Not yet.

The Batcave is dim, the screens casting their cold glow across the cavern, and in their flickering light, Dick Grayson sits like a man desperately trying to hold something together with sheer force of will. He’s smiling. Or trying to. You recognize that one—too many teeth, too forced at the edges. He’s always been a performer, after all. The first-born, the golden boy, the one who makes it look easy. You used to admire that about him. Now it just makes you want to scream.

“We’ll figure this out,” he says, like it’s a given. Like it’s an equation that just needs the right variables plugged in. “Bruce has been lost before. Hell, he’s *died* before. And he always comes back.”

You press your hands over your face, inhale sharp through your nose. It’s not enough to ground you.

“Please,” your voice wavers, frustration curling around the edges of it. You let out a sharp, bitter laugh. “For the love of God, just *stop*. Stop being so goddamn optimistic and be *realistic* for once, Dick.”

He flinches. Just barely.

The silence between you stretches, thin as wire, sharp enough to cut.

“…If I don’t believe it,” he finally says, softer now, “who will?”

And that’s always been the problem, hasn’t it? Dick Grayson, carrying too much, wearing the weight of it with a smile because someone has to. And you, too tired to hold onto something that might not even be real.

Across the cave, Damian stands stiff-backed, watching. A child left behind. A stranger in his own home. He doesn’t speak, doesn’t interrupt. Maybe he’s waiting to see if the cracks in the foundation will spread.

Maybe he already knows they will.