Unusual Skills And Habits

A Cold Smile

Summary: It was supposed to be just body language but eventally evolved into talking about his anger as well.

Author's Notes: In all honesty I lost interest in DC and moved on to other fandoms and while I didn't feel up to writing much last year, the added pressure with starting uni kind of made it worse but I'm currently trying to get back into it and this fic to me seemed like an easier one to write a chapter for since I have had multiple chapter drafts just sitting there since I last updated.

So I apologise if it isn't my best writing but I'm hoping to get my writing back to what it was before. Other than that I hope you enjoy this chapter.

Keeping a double identity was hard especially when you couldn't be your true self in either. Nightwing had to be the happy one of the bats, the friend of everyone. Richard Grayson was the poor orphan who went to the circus, mathlete, the kid who skipped a few grades, the big brother and of course the easy one to date.

So when it came to acting like a different person, he could do it without a problem and that was why he was the one to go to when you need to get someone to gather info on a case or even a random person because he could trick people into spilling their secrets. Though not many people realise how often he acted in his own life, not even his own family.

Although with their new focus on Dick's weird behaviour they started to notice, not at first but very slowly.

It started with his press smile that all the family had but his always seemed a little cold but he used it with other heroes as well and it was unexpected to say the least.

A lot of his jokes and laughs seemed more forced than they were used to especially when it came to missions, sure there was his usually wisecracks but when others started joking around as the mission turned worse, the more annoyed he got or when he was having meetings and someone made a crack that he needed to lighten up, only for him to respond by adding in a joke that was aimed at said hero not that anyone noticed.

The only heroes he seemed to drop the act around were the four main titans he spent most of his time as robin with. In fact they seem to try and get Nightwing to drop the act a little, not that it seemed to work.

What raised the concern was the villain's response to Nightwing's hidden anger. Most average level thugs seem to not realise much which made sense they didn't exactly run into the hero a lot but the main villains on the other hand. They seemed to realise something that bats didn't.

It was a bad week for Nightwing, most of the brothers knew he was stressed and tired from a big case from his police job that he continued working on while in costume. Normally he would be able to skip the monthly family patrol but unfortunately it was an all hands on deck situation. So he joined much to his obvious annoyance.

They fought the usual villains, like riddler or penguin and it was an average fight but as soon as Nightwing joined in, it seemed as though the villains restrained themselves instead practically asking to be arrested which was confusion and even Jason pointed it out but no one really took it seriously because come on if anyone was to make the villains want to be arrested it would be Batman not Nightwing.

It wasn't until they had a call that an assassination was to take place at the port that it got even weirder. Nightwing was the first one to move, even ignoring Batman's orders to wait until Oricale came back with info on who was hired. In the end the attempt was stopped but no capture of the villain, not even a name since Dick basically straight up refused to give it instead saying "they won't be a problem".

Oracle tried to find any video footage but whoever the assassin was they had made sure to be in the area where the camera hadn't been replaced in two years so there was no chance of getting any footage.

While this did puzzle the brother's and the rest of the family, it may actually give a hint to Dick's weird habits since when he came back, he seemed more calm than he had before the beginning of the patrol.

Author Notes: At first I wanted to focus on Dick ability to act as though nothing is wrong since he is a performer and with Slade's appearance in the teen titans, he seemed to do a similar thing only losing his temper in private or when there weren't many people around. I believe that Dick probably got better at it when learning from Slade.

As for the joke about another hero when they're being annoying, I guess it's another form of mocking (like Slade does but not being blunt about it) but since people know Nightwing as the nice one they don't pick up on it.

I ended up focusing on Dick's temper towards the end, I think he probably got the habit of hiding it from people but not villains (he beat joker to death once) they watched him grow up, they know when he's mad and know it's not a good idea to challenge him.

As for the assassin, I believe on occasion Slade will pop up to challenge Nightwing to see how he's grown or he's heard Nightwing isn't fighting with logic instead fighting with emotion and is like not on my watch, I taught him better and allowed for Nightwing to let loose because he can take it.