After college Dick Grayson left Gotham to travel the world on his own, much like Bruce Wayne did in the years before he became Batman. While living abroad, Dick studied many different crime fighting techniques and reexamined his feelings about taking up the role of Robin again when he returned to Gotham. He eventually realized he had outgrown the role of Batman's trusted kid sidekick Robin, and set about developing a new heroic identity all his own.

When Dick returned to Gotham, he moved out of Wayne manor and into a downtown loft above an abandoned warehouse. Money from a generous trust fund set up years before by Haley's Circus enabled Dick to buy the building and he has turned its top two floors into his own high-tech urban headquarters. True, Dick's fortune is small compared to the Wayne billions, but he's got enough cash to keep his crime fighting alter-ego in state of the art weaponry for years.

Batman was respectful of Dick's decision to go it alone. Like any father-surrogate he knew his "first born" had to leave the nest sometime and watched him go with a mixture of pride and regret. Now in his new identity as Nightwing Dick still teams up with his one-time mentor, but Batman often finds his one-time partner has new, and in some cases radically different crime fighting ideas of his own.

Nightwing is quickly establishing himself in Gotham City as a young, powerful and mysterious force for good. Barbara also likes the change in Batman's former sidekick and is looking at Nightwing as a romantic possibility, something she never could see in the old Robin.

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