Archive: Ask first, please.
Disclaimer: All characters property of DC Comics. What I have done with them is mine. Don't they look happier? ;)

Nightwing woke up gay.

...which, in his case, was pretty much par for the course. Dick Grayson lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling, not quite daring yet to roll over and see who the warm body next to him belonged to.

It really got tiresome sometimes, he mused, being the slut of the DC universe. In the fanficcers' minds, anyway. Okay, even in canon the list of his lovers read like a teenager's fantasy list: Kory, Mirage, Emily, Miggie, Helena, Clancy, Babs. The fic'cers paired him with all of those women and more, including Donna (she was like his *sister!* Yuck!), Jesse, and women he'd barely even met.

But the *slashers*... oh, the slashers. They were unstoppable.

They'd decided he was... flexible. Which meant that he was pretty much destined to end up in bed with every male hero in the DCU, at some point or another. And did they ever ask what HE thought about it?!

Fat chance.

First and foremost, of course, there was Batman. Well, usually he was Batman. Sometimes he was Bruce Wayne, which was just weird, because they'd both pretty much forgotten how Bruce was supposed to act. But that was okay, because it gave the Writers more to work with. Sometimes he and Bruce had issues about his being Bruce's student, almost his son. Most of the time he and Bruce had to work through mass quantities of emotional turmoil before, inevitably, they ended up in bed together, regardless of any "issues."

There were two different series pairing him with Tempest, and a scattering of solo fics. He hoped Garth's wife Dolphin remained unaware of them, just like he prayed that Babs never found out what he was doing on his nights off...

There were fics about him paired with Arsenal and Jericho and Green Lantern and Azrael and "Nite-Wing" and Changeling and Robin. (Gar? And Tim?! Both of whom had always been like his little brothers?! Oy...) In one notable case he'd crossed universes and spent the night with Ares, the Greek god of war. He'd heard rumblings about a Superman story in the works, and even a Flash fic, which was pretty amazing because Wally held the title of Straightest Man in the DCU now that Barry was gone. Except Wally had already been paired with GL and Piper, so he supposed it was inevitable.

And THOSE were only the beginning. He'd heard... things. About a threesome with Tempest and Arsenal, and another with Tempest and Green Arrow. (The young one, thank God.) About him and an AU version of himself. About... himself as Arsenal's love-slave, strapped to a table, for all of the Titans to wander by and use...

Dick groaned silently to avoid waking his bed-partner.

And why? Why, why, WHY had the DC slashers fixed on him as their favorite subject?!

Maybe it was his name. A perfectly fine, decent, INNOCENT Golden Age name... and they'd made it into something obscene. All because his Creators had decided that Richard Grayson needed a nickname, and "Rich" wouldn't do. So they'd called him Dick.

HE had no problem with his name. But everyone else... giggled. There was no changing it, not after so many years, and he'd heard all the jokes by now anyway.

Or maybe it was...

"Good morning, Richard."

He'd have to think about it later. He turned over to see the emerald face of J'onn J'onzz, the Martian Manhunter, regarding him fondly. His eyes widened for a moment as his fic-persona began to settle back over him, and then he smiled back, and leaned over for a kiss.

Somewhere not too far away, Babs grinned and started to download.

{end}

'rith humbly begs the Manhunter's pardon and asks that he forgive her, since she has some perfectly innocent cameos for him in a few upcoming fics... And it's Falstaff's fault anyway, he suggested it.