#idk im writing out my family tree for the graysons and if u ignore court of owls we have bare bones to work with

[mysterycitrus]

mary and john grayson are interesting in the peanut gallery of dead parents because unlike pretty much everyone else, they exist exclusively in the before, and rarely the after.

both the graysons and the waynes are plot devices for tragedy, sure, the literal inciting incident to heartbreak, but while the waynes tangibly haunt the story in the manor, in their painted likenesses, in gotham as a whole, the graysons remain largely absent.

jack drake returned from the dead only to die again. sheila haywood smoked over her son’s body. david cain heard his daughter speak and wept.

but who are the flying graysons? aside from phantoms their son thinks of fondly. their ghosts are crucial to literally everything. they must fall, they must hit the ground, and their son must watch. but what happened before? they live in the pocket anecdotes for every passerby who happened to be at the circus that night. they are a poster on the wall. they are the colours worn by children. but they still exist in absentia.