(Chicago City)
Inside a local training center, a young man was pounding a heavy punching bag as if it were his mortal enemy. His hands were numb from the constant impact, a dull ache radiating up to his elbows, but that didn't stop him. If anything, the pain was a tether, keeping him grounded in a world that often felt like a fever dream.
He kept going. Each strike was a rhythmic explosion of leather against skin. He was panting hard, his breath coming in ragged gasps, and his body was drenched from head to toe in sweat. His workout gear clung to him like a second skin, but he ignored the discomfort. In this moment, there was only the bag, the movement, and the burning in his lungs.
This was Richard Sebastian Grayson—Dick to those who knew him. He had jet-black hair, currently damp and slightly longer than he usually kept it, framing a face that was already beginning to lose its boyish softness. At seventeen, Dick was tall and possessed the kind of natural, athletic build that turned heads. He also had a twin brother, Marcus Sebastian Grayson—Mark for short. Both were seniors at Reginald Vel Johnson High School, navigating the typical pitfalls of teenage life.
But Dick carried a secret that not even Mark knew. He was a reincarnator.
In his past life, Dick's memories were a hazy blur of names and places he couldn't quite grasp anymore. However, one thing remained crystal clear: he had been a massive DC fan. He had lived and breathed the lore of Gotham and Metropolis, and his absolute favorite character had been Nightwing, the original Robin.
Imagine his shock when, seventeen years ago, he opened his eyes to find himself reborn as Richard Grayson. At first, he thought he'd hit the cosmic jackpot—he was going to be a hero in the DC Universe! But as he grew, the confusion set in. There was no Gotham City. There was no Metropolis or Central City. Instead, he lived in a world where the greatest hero wasn't a man in a bat cowl or a cape with an 'S', but a man called Omni-Man.
Dick knew Superman. He knew Sentry. He even knew the darker parodies like Homelander. But Omni-Man? The name meant nothing to his fanboy memories. And the "Guardians of the Globe"? They looked like Justice League knock-offs from a budget Saturday morning cartoon.
Eventually, he stopped looking for the familiar and accepted his reality. He had a loving mother, a twin brother who shared his face, and a father who could fly through the vacuum of space. He had spent his childhood preparing for the inevitable. He knew that in any superhero world, peace was a fragile illusion. Danger didn't just knock; it tore the door off its hinges. So, Dick did the only logical thing: he trained. He mastered martial arts, tactical thinking, and physical conditioning. If he couldn't have powers, he would at least be the best version of the character he was named after.
Back in the gym, Dick's focus narrowed. He took a deep breath, centered his weight, and prepared for one final, explosive round. He cracked his neck, flexed his sore knuckles, and threw a solid, straight right.
CRACK!!! BOOM!!!
The sound wasn't the usual muffled thud of leather. It was the sound of a structural failure. The heavy bag didn't just swing back; the vinyl casing split down the middle, spraying sand and synthetic filler across the floor like a burst artery. The steel chain anchoring it to the ceiling snapped, the links flying upward and embedding themselves in the acoustic tiles of the ceiling.
Dick froze. He pulled his foot back, staring at the ruin of the bag. The gym, usually a cacophony of clanking plates and grunting athletes, went deathly silent.
"Uh... sorry?" Dick muttered, his voice cracking slightly. He didn't wait for the manager to come over with a bill for the equipment. He grabbed his duffel bag and vanished out the side exit before anyone could ask how a teenager just kicked a hundred-pound bag into orbit.
—---------
Once he reached a secluded alleyway three blocks away, Dick dropped his bag and leaned against a brick wall. He was breathing hard, but not from exhaustion. It was adrenaline.
"Finally," he whispered, looking at his hands. They were trembling, but not with pain. There wasn't a single bruise on his knuckles.
He looked at a heavy, industrial-sized dumpster at the end of the alley. It was filled to the brim with construction debris. Dick walked over, hooked his fingers under the rusted metal lip, and lifted. It came up as easily as a shoebox. He lowered it slowly, trying to wrap his head around the sheer scale of the strength.
Then came the real test. The one he'd been dreaming of since he was a toddler watching his dad fly off to "work."
He crouched low, tensing his calves and thighs. He visualized the air as something he could lean on, a medium he could conquer. He pushed off the asphalt with an explosive burst of speed.
He soared. He cleared twenty feet, then thirty, his heart leaping into his throat as the rooftops of the alley rushed toward him. He felt the wind whip past his ears, and for a split second, he thought he had it. He reached out his arms, waiting for that gravity-defying "click" his father had described.
It never came.
Gravity, which had briefly been a suggestion, became an absolute command. Dick hit the apex of his jump and plummeted.
"Wait—no, no, no—!"
He crashed back down to the alley floor with the force of a meteor. The asphalt shattered beneath his sneakers, spiderwebbing in a five-foot radius. He landed in a perfect three-point stance, but the impact jarred his teeth. He stayed there for a moment, waiting for the levitation to kick in. He waited for his body to drift upward, even an inch.
He stayed firmly planted on the broken ground.
"Okay," Dick grunted, standing up and brushing the dust off his jeans. "Maybe it's a delay. Maybe I just need to... focus harder."
He tried again. And again. He could jump high enough to clear a two-story building in a single bound. He could run fast enough that the world became a smear of color. But the moment his feet left a solid surface, he was just a projectile. He couldn't hover. He couldn't fly.
He was the son of a god, but he was still tethered to the earth.
—------------
As Dick walked through the front door of the Grayson home, the smell of his mother's cooking acted like a sensory reset. Debbie Grayson was in the kitchen, humming to herself as she plated dinner.
"You're late," she said without looking up. "Mark's already washed up. Your father just got back from... well, you know".
"Sorry, Mom. Got held up at the gym," Dick said, trying to keep his voice level. He walked over to the table where Mark was sitting. Unlike his usual self, Mark wasn't just staring at his salad; he looked strangely dazed, his hands gripped tightly beneath the table.
Mark looked up, his eyes scanning Dick's face with an intensity Dick hadn't seen before. "You look like you saw a ghost. Or hit a wall".
"Something like that," Dick replied, sliding into his chair.
Nolan entered the room a moment later, still wearing his "travel writer" sweater. He sat at the head of the table, his presence commanding the room. "How was your day, boys?" he asked, his voice warm but underpinned by Viltrumite steel.
Mark opened his mouth to speak, but Dick beat him to it. He felt the need to get it out—to share the weight of the secret he'd been carrying all afternoon.
"Actually," Dick said, his voice quiet. "I think the gym bag might be the one thing I don't need help with anymore".
With the slightest twitch of his fingers, Dick picked up a heavy silver dinner fork and folded it into a tight, metallic knot with the same effort one might use to crumple a piece of paper.
The silence that followed was deafening. Debbie stopped moving, a plate half-set on the table. Nolan leaned forward, his eyes igniting with a fierce, prideful intensity. "Richard," he breathed. "When?"
But the most striking reaction came from Mark. His jaw didn't just drop; he looked absolutely floored, staring at the knotted fork as if it were a ticking bomb.
"You... you too?" Mark stammered, his voice trembling not with envy, but with pure, unadulterated shock.
Dick blinked. "What do you mean, 'too'?"
Without a word, Mark reached out and grabbed his own fork. With a sharp, metallic snap, he didn't just fold it—he crushed the tines into a solid ball of silver. He looked up at Dick, his eyes wide. "I was taking out the trash ten minutes ago. I threw the bag... and it just kept going. It cleared the neighbor's roof".
Now it was Dick's turn to be shocked. He had expected to be the one delivering the big news, the one finally stepping into the family legacy. To find out his twin had awakened on the exact same day was a twist he hadn't seen coming.
Nolan let out a sharp, barking laugh—a sound of pure triumph. He looked between his two sons, his chest swelling with pride. "Both of you. On the same day. This is... unprecedented".
"Wait, so we both have them?" Mark asked, a grin finally breaking through his shock. "Can you fly, Dick? I felt like I could almost float when it happened".
Dick's expression darkened slightly, the "grounded" reality of his afternoon returning. "No. I tried. I can jump... I can jump really far. But I can't stay up there. I just fell".
Mark tilted his head. "That's weird. Because I think I can".
Nolan stood up, his chair scraping against the floor. The pride in his eyes was overshadowed by a new, intense curiosity. "Come. Outside. Both of you. Now".
-----------
The backyard was bathed in the pale glow of the porch light, casting long, jittery shadows across the grass. The air was cool, but Dick could feel a strange heat radiating from his own skin—a buzzing energy that felt like it was trying to claw its way out of his muscles.
Nolan stood in the center of the lawn, his arms crossed, looking less like a suburban dad and more like a general inspecting fresh recruits.
"Alright," Nolan said, his voice dropping an octave. "Mark. You said you felt like you could float. Try it. Right now."
Mark took a shaky breath. He looked at Dick, then back at his father. He squeezed his eyes shut, his face contorting with concentration. For a second, nothing happened. Then, his sneakers let out a soft scuff as they left the grass.
It wasn't a jump. It was a slow, steady ascent. Mark rose six inches, then a foot, wobbling in the air like a buoy in rough water.
"I'm doing it," Mark whispered, his eyes snapping open. "Dad, I'm actually doing it!"
Dick watched his brother hover, a bitter-sweet pang hitting his chest. He felt the power in his legs, the same density that had allowed him to crater the gym floor earlier, but there was no "lift." He felt heavy. Anchored.
"Good," Nolan said, his eyes tracking Mark with a clinical intensity. "Now, Dick. You said you couldn't stay up. Show me what you can do."
Dick stepped forward. He didn't close his eyes; he just focused on the oak tree at the edge of the property, its highest branches swaying thirty feet up. He didn't try to "float." He just pushed.
The ground beneath Dick's boots didn't just crack—it exploded. A spray of dirt and sod flew outward as he launched. He didn't drift up like Mark; he went up like a surface-to-air missile.
In a blur of motion, he was level with the top of the tree. For a heartbeat, he hung there in the cool night air, looking down at the roof of their house. He reached out, trying to grab the "feeling" Mark seemed to have, trying to find the handle to the sky.
But there was nothing to grab.
Gravity reclaimed him with a vengeance. He plummeted, hitting the grass with a bone-shaking thud that sent a tremor through the yard. He landed on his feet, but his knees sank deep into the dirt from the impact.
"See?" Dick said, breathless, looking up at his brother who was still drifting peacefully three feet off the ground. "I'm fast. I'm strong. But the second I stop moving, the earth wants me back."
Nolan walked over to Dick, placing a heavy hand on his shoulder. He looked up at Mark, then down at Dick. There was a flicker of something in Nolan's eyes—not disappointment, but a deep, calculating curiosity.
"It's rare," Nolan said quietly. "Even among our people. Sometimes the power manifests... differently. Mark, you have the full gift of flight. Dick... you have the raw physical output, perhaps even more than your brother, but your connection to the planet's gravity is... stubborn."
"Is that bad?" Mark asked, drifting back down to the grass, his feet touching the ground with the grace of a feather.
"No," Nolan said, a small, sharp smile tugging at his lips. "It just means your training will be different. You are both Graysons. You are both Viltrumites."
Nolan looked up at the stars, his expression unreadable. "And tomorrow, the real work begins. The world is going to look a lot smaller to both of you from now on."
Dick stood up, brushing the dirt off his jeans. He looked at Mark, and for the first time, the twin bond felt different. They weren't just brothers anymore. They were something else. Something dangerous.
"Race you to the roof?" Mark joked, though his voice lacked its usual confidence.
Dick looked at the shingles thirty feet up. "I'll get there first. I just might break the gutters when I land."