David Grant considered himself to be the black sheep of the Grant family and so rebelled to distance himself from his upper-class upbringing. Unfortunately his rebellious streak landed him in jail. After serving 6 years in jail for a crime he didn't commit, on April 30, 1992, David returned to Springfield. He secretly arrived at his sister, Gilly's, wedding to Hamp Speakes and Gilly hid him in her apartment so that Hamp wouldn't find him. One evening, David witnessed jewel thief Jenna Bradshaw and her partner Grady, hiding Alex Spaulding's stolen ring and money from an arriving Frank Cooper, who was investigating the thefts for Alexandra. However, Frank found the items anyway and pocketed them for himself. After David rescued Frank from Grady's goons, Frank let him work at the Diner and although David tried to blackmail him about the stolen money, Frank was unimpressed. Meanwhile, David tried everything to keep from seeing his parents and when he was about to leave town again, Hamp found him and, along with Gilly, convinced him to stay. David saw his parents again but he immediately got into trouble because he stole Ed Bauer's credit card and was arrested. He unwillingly accepted the bail Gilly paid for him and apologized to Ed, though he clashed with Hamp who saw David as a trouble maker. Although his chances of getting freed were bad due to his police record, Judge Frances Collier only sentenced him to two years probation. David only accepted the judgment because he was allowed to stay at Hamp and Gilly's house instead of at his parents'. While by now, he had become friends with Dylan Lewis and Bridget Reardon, he and Hamp's daughter, Kat, couldn't stand each other. One day, while David and Kat trained with dumbbells, David accidentally fell on Kat and, while she was screaming, Hamp arrived and misinterpreted the situation and once again argued with David. Meanwhile, Gilly took intimate photos of Senatorial candidate Ross Marler and the scandalous Blake Thorpe since she was being blackmailed by Blake's father, Roger, to do his bidding.

David put the photos on Roger's desk and Roger found them. Around the same time, Kat had a new boyfriend named Keith, whom David couldn't stand and when he accidentally heard Keith at a party in the Towers club stating to his friends that he would get Kat drunk to seduce her, David locked him up in a room for the night. He and Kat got closer until she learned what David did. Instead of telling Kat about Keith's scheme, David kept quiet but Kat herself would learn the truth about Keith when Julie Camaletti told her that Keith made a bet with the whole football team that either he or David would seduce her soon. Unfortunately, Kat also thought that David was involved in the bet since he loved gambling and, as a result, Hamp assaulted David. Though David was stubborn and refused to defend himself, Bridget was able to convince Kat of David's innocence. Later, David and Kat separately moved into the Reardon boarding house and Hamp immediately warned David to keep his distance from his daughter. In January 1993, David became manager of Company since the current manager, Hawk Shayne, left for Europe. One day, Hamp witnessed David and Kat kissing and immediately punched David and even threatened to kill him. However, soon after, he relented, accepting that his daughter was no longer a child, and David and Kat became an official couple.

One night, while he had a date with Kat, David found Bridget in a car behind the Diner and was shocked to realize that she was pregnant by Hart Jessup and was about to go into labor! Since Bridget refused to go to Cedars, David had no choice but to help her to deliver her baby boy, later named Peter, in the car. He then brought her to Nadine Cooper and had to promise Bridget to keep her secret. As a result of his secrecy, his relationship with Kat became temporarily strained. However, soon after, Kat forgave David and they slept together for the first time. Not long after, Bridget came to David with Peter, whom she had kidnapped, and, although he risked his probation, David helped her to care for Peter until Bridget decided what to do next. Unfortunately, Kat saw him with Peter and David confessed everything, whereupon David and Kat returned Peter to the Lewis's and claimed that they simply found him.

Meanwhile, one day, David witnessed a guy named Vinnie Morrison and his friends threatening Frank's uncle Stavros and David forced Vinnie to apologize to Stavros and leave. Later, Kat convinced David to come to a family dinner at the Grants but David's mom, Vivian, immediately disliked Kat and only saw the bad guy in David. As a result, David left and ended up rescuing Bridget at Laurel Falls when Vinnie attacked her. On the same evening, Vinnie and his gang ransacked the Diner and when David arrived, he provoked Vinnie. Although Vinnie threatened David with a knife, Frank's father, Buzz, stopped him and got him to leave. Later, Vinnie and his gang beat up Hart after Hart tried to rescue Bridget and David helped Hart and threatened to kill Vinnie if he ever tried to hurt his friends again. Unfortunately, the following day, Vinnie attacked Stavros and also threatened Kat with his knife and David arrived on the scene. Incensed by Vinnie's racial slurs, the pair got in a fistfight that resulted in Vinnie falling on his own knife and dying. Kat witnessed this and, although David tried to resuscitate him, Vinnie died. Shocked, a panicked David ran away since he was afraid he'd be convicted of murder and Bridget hid him in the Bauer garage apartment. Although Kat told everyone that Vinnie's death was an accident, the police didn't believe it and David was a wanted man, while Roger, as the manager of a TV station, had David described as a serial killer on WSPR. In addition, Roger let the truth come out regarding David's stay in prison six years ago: At that time, Gilly was working for Miles Davenport and when she realized that he was actually a gigolo who forced his models to have sex with his clients, Gilly confronted him with the truth, only to have him try to strangle her. As a result, Gilly apparently shot and killed Davenport and ran into a 15-year-old David on the street. She told him everything and after David found Davenport dead, he told the police that he had killed Davenport to protect Gilly, since he thought he wouldn't be charged due to him being underage. Though the arresting cop, Macauley "Mac" West, wanted to help him he suddenly disappeared and David actually went on trial since his fingerprints were on the murder weapon, and was sentenced to six years in prison.

Now in the present, Gilly confessed to everyone that she had killed Davenport but the police believed that she was just lying to protect David. Meanwhile, David came to Kat and she fled with him in Ed's car that Bridget had given him and the couple hid in the Jessup farm barn, while Hamp went to the police to charge David for kidnapping Kat. Desperate, David went to his mom and asked her to help him. Although Vivian agreed, as soon as David went packing, she called the police on her son but an arriving Gilly stopped her and helped a stunned David to flee again. Now Kat wanted to steal a car to David's dismay but Vinnie's uncle, cop Joe Morrison, who wanted David to pay, caught her. Hart also found David but helped him until David was forced to flee again when police officer A.C. Mallet showed up. David then went to Laurel Falls where he was supposed to meet Kat. However, Hamp saw him and beat him up. Although Hamp let David go, he forbade Kat to ever see David again and Bridget and Hart helped David to hide in a church in Clayton. David blamed himself for all the problems he caused to everyone, especially Kat, and soon after, Gilly brought Mac to David. Although he distrusted Mac, Mac wanted to help David since he had a taped confession of Joe stating that Vinnie indeed intended to kill David and that Joe had paid witnesses to keep quiet. At this moment, Joe arrived, caught David and was about to kill him but Mac overpowered him and a fleeing David was caught by Mallet, who knew David's whereabouts from Kat. Meanwhile, journalist Nick McHenry had found Gilly's former colleague at the escort service, Norrie Ryan, the sister of none other than police chief Ryan, and she confessed to the murder of Davenport.

Apparently, six years ago, after Gilly had left Davenport's room, Norrie arrived and, instead of helping Davenport, who was just injured on his shoulder, she shot him a third time and killed him. Norrie's motive was that Davenport had raped her and, as a result, she had a handicapped daughter with him. After killing Davenport, Norrie confessed everything to an arriving Mac and he wanted to help her and David so he destroyed evidence and let himself be fired from the police force, However, Ryan let David take the blame anyway because it was election time and Ryan needed to pin the crime on someone in order to keep his job as chief of police. Now Ryan was suspended and, although Gilly and David were both acquitted of Davenport's murder, D.A. Jim Haggerty arranged a hearing for David regarding Vinnie's murder. This time, everyone helped David and he reunited with his parents, especially Vivian. Even Hamp testified on David's behalf and after Kat accidentally heard outside how Joe threatened Vinnie's friend, Tommy, to keep quiet that Vinnie wanted David's death, Kat talked to him and Ross got Tommy to confess the truth. David then apologized to Vinnie's family in court, he stated that he would never forgive himself what he had done and although Joe refused to accept the apology, Vinnie's aunt did and Judge Arthur got the charges dropped. Although David was now a free man, he needed time to come clean with everything.

Spurned by all the injustices he suffered over the years, David decided to become a cop although Kat wasn't too happy about his decision. In January 1994, David took the test to go to the police academy but failed. Not long after, Bridget decided to fight for Peter's custody against his adopted mother, Vanessa, and, unlike Kat, David immediately helped her. To help, he stole attorney Ross Marler's office keys and, along with Bridget, sneaked inside to search for custody cases in which the biological mother was given her child back. He later also "borrowed" law books to study custody cases but Ross saw him with one of his books at Company and David had to confess everything. Instead of informing the police, Ross hired David as his assistant and became Bridget's lawyer. Kat, on the other hand, was dismayed that David risked his probation for Bridget but thankfully everything ended well when Bridget and Vanessa agreed to share custody of Peter. As the summer began, though happy with David, Kat decided to spend the vacation with her mother, Tia, in Europe. A few weeks later, while David was considering marrying Kat, he got a letter from her in which she stated that she would stay a while longer in Europe. As a result, David realized that things had changed between them since Kat didn't write him a love-letter but a non-personal postcard. However, David still wanted to marry Kat and, since Frank re-opened his detective agency, David gladly became his partner.

Not long after, masked criminals at Lewis Construction attacked Dylan and a trucker named Carroll. Dylan's truck and money were stolen. In addition, one of Dylan's workers was a saboteur and the criminals wanted to kill Dylan. So David and Frank investigated and one day, after David rescued a young woman named Gabriella from masked men, she confessed to him that she had witnessed the attack on Dylan. Although Gabriella ran away out of fear, she returned and David hid her in the cellar of the boarding house, whereupon Gabriella gave him and Frank a key pendant that a masked man had lost on the scene. The design on it was similar to a ship from Chicago and David and Gabriella (who sneaked into David's car) drove to Chicago to talk to the salesclerk. But the salesclerk had to send them to the retailer in Wisconsin where the key pendant was originally bought and David and Gabriella learned there that an older woman was the buyer. To catch the criminals, in cooperation with David and Det. Patrick Cutter, Dylan announced to his workers that he would get a freight of plaster and that he himself will drive the truck on another route. On the road, Dylan stopped, while David was hiding and when the criminals (who all had a dragon tattoo as a symbol) arrived, Cutter and his cops were about to arrest them but, unfortunately, the criminals had captured Gabriella and were able to flee. Gabriella escaped and later arrived beaten-up at David's and gave Cutter the key pendant. One evening, while David and Gabriella were dancing, Kat suddenly arrived and told David that their relationship was over because she had found another man and would move with him to Boston.

Saddened, David let himself be comforted by Gabriella and he swore to protect her from the criminals. Meanwhile, Matt Reardon (Bridget's brother) was suspected as the saboteur because the key pendant belonged to him (Vanessa had bought it) but he was innocent although he didn't want to tell anyone about his alibi (Vanessa, who he had a tryst with). One day, while David and Gabriella were kissing and Gabriella unbuttoned her shirt, David was shocked to see the dragon tattoo of the criminals on her shoulder. So he realized that she was spying on him all along but instead of confronting her, David just informed Frank and blamed himself that he hadn't realized the truth earlier. Then Dylan was hit by a car and even became blind and, after Cutter arrested Gabriella, David pretended to be a FBI agent and freed her so that she would bring him to her accomplices. After they talked things out at Lewis Construction and David was about to bring her to the police, the boss of the criminals, Gabriella's uncle Carlos Lopez (who wanted Dylan off of his property and was responsible for the hit and run with Ed's car and tried to make it look it like as if the drunken Ed had done it), arrived and kidnapped both of them. The criminals were about to kill David but Frank and Cutter arrived and the criminals were caught. Although Carlos tried to flee with a car, Dylan had disconnected the distributor and stopped Carlos. With the criminals in prison, the charges against Gabriella were dropped after she testified against Carlos but since she was an illegal immigrant, she was about to be deported back to Costa Rica. To prevent this, David arrived in her cell with Frank and a priest and married her. Meanwhile, Dylan, who was still blind, wanted to leave town for a blind school in Wisconsin and he asked to write a goodbye letter from him to Bridget and asked David to take care of Bridget after he left. Although he was angry at Dylan's decision to leave, David helped him anyway. In January 1995, David and Gabriella slept together for the first time and David wanted to stay married even after Gabriella would get her green card. However, a few days later, Gabriella was arrested and about to be deported again. Although a shocked David arrived in prison and was ready to leave with her, Gabriella told him that she had just used him to start a new life (she was a prostitute in Costa Rica). She also had a $5,000 check from none other than Vivian and the filled-in divorce papers with her. After a frustrated David left her, a tearful Gabriella get rid of the check since she did love David but felt that he deserved something better than her. Furious at Vivian, David made a scene at the Springfield Inn and told his mother that she was dead in his eyes.

Later that year, David helped his friends and played confidant to Bridget as well as Frank's kid sister, Lucy. He also helped Blake Marler prove that her stepdaughter, Dinah, had faked her own kidnapping. Meanwhile, David continued to act terribly to Vivian and his father tried to get him to soften towards her by telling him that Vivian deserved respect because she had helped Dr. Martin Luther King to fight for civil rights of in the 60s. But David was unimpressed. Meanwhile, Frank had to close his agency due to lack of clients. At this time, Brent Lawrence raped Lucy and one day David talked to a woman named Marian Crane about how he much he hated Brent for his crime. Unfortunately, Marian and Brent were one and the same person and, to get revenge on David, Marian loosened the screws of the scaffold of Lewis's construction site on David's first day there and David, along with the scaffold, fell on the floor right into Josh Lewis and Matt. Although Josh and Matt only had minor injuries, David had a severe head injury and fell into a coma at Cedars until he had successful surgery. Since Vivian touchingly cared for her son, David reunited with her although he was still put off by her arrogance. Later, David befriended Marcus Williams who was the son of non other than the famous Griffin Williams whom David adored for his hard fight for civil rights. Not long after, Marcus was accused of killing Cutter but David believed in his innocence and wanted to help him. Around the same time, Hart returned to town and since he had recently learned that he was Peter's father, a worried David wanted to protect Bridget from him. Meanwhile, Griffin himself arrived in town to David's delight to help Marcus and, finally in 1996, Marcus was exonerated when Marian turned out to be Cutter's murderer. Meanwhile, although over the years, David had considered Bridget as his best friend, he confessed to Matt that he was in love with her. After Bridget realized Hart's bad character (since he slept with Dinah), David confessed his love to Bridget and stated that he loved Peter like his own son. But, at this moment, Hart arrived and wanted to be a part in Peter's life and, when Bridget was ready to give him a second chance, David was furious. In addition, Bridget told David that she just loved him as a platonic friend and, hurt, David wanted to join Griffin's fight and agreed to leave town for a job at his organization in Denver, Colorado so that he would no longer have to see Bridget. He said goodbye to Bridget and his family and left Springfield. A few months later, David learned by phone from Charles that Griffin was actually Gilly's father due to an affair with Vivian and David ignored Vivian's attempts to call him. A few days later, Gilly announced to the family that she would leave town for parts unknown and that David would join her.

In July 1998, Charles suffered a heart attack, so David returned to Springfield and learned that the Santos crime family was responsible for his state of health because Charles had bought malfunctioning equipments for Cedars and they blackmailed him because of it. David then refused Vivian's offer of a great job at Spaulding Enterprises. However he did accept Josh's offer to spy on Vicky Brandon and Alan Spaulding when Alan hired him as a security officer at Spaulding. At Spaulding, David learned of Alan's plans to clone his lover Annie Dutton. However, the expert in cloning, Dr. Michael Burke was against this, and in a moment of desperation he decided to detonate a bomb in the Spaulding lab to destroy his formula. Learning what was about to happen, David alerted Josh and, along with Vicky, they all tried to convince Michael to back down. At this moment, Alan arrived with his security guards and, when Michael accidentally dropped the bomb, he put the table in front of him to protect the others and died in the explosion. Soon after, to David's surprise, Vicky turned out to be a Spaulding. When the news came out, Vivian encouraged the reluctant David to pursue her. Meanwhile, Jenna left her and Harley Cooper's detective agency to spend more time with her children and David stepped in as Harley's partner. In 1999, Spaulding took over Lewis Oil and David and Vicky argued about that since David tended to side with the Lewises. To help the Lewises, David stole Vicky's ID, found a nurse named Cynthia (who had been paid by Alan to kidnap Teri DeMarco) and got her confession on tape so that Josh and Reva would prevent Alan from freeing criminal Annie from prison. Unfortunately, Vicky realized David's schemes and, to get revenge, she flirted with David in his apartment and stole the tape when David went to get wine. Though she and David went into bed but Vicky stopped before it went too far. Meanwhile, when Josh and Reva confronted Alan with the tape, there was just Vicky's singing on it and David realized that Vicky had destroyed the tape. Despite what she'd done, the pair remained a couple.

Soon after, David's wish came true and he finally became an officer in the Springfield's police department. Vicky wasn't happy about it and after David was injured at a mission, Vicky nursed him back to health. Then, one day, at Company with Vicky, David saw Pilar Santos and, furious at the invasion of the Santos' mob in Springfield, he promised himself that he would destroy them to get revenge for his father. So David cooperated with Frank and let him be arrested for corruption in front of Vicky and his parents so that he would be able to investigate undercover against the mob. Unlike Vicky, Charles immediately realized David's undercover work and tried to talk him out of it but David was determined to bring the mob down. Meanwhile, with Frank's advice, David befriended Pilar in the hopes of getting info on the Santoses from her and they even went to a concert together, something that disturbed Bill and Vicky. Later, to earn Pilar's trust, David told her that the police were planning on conducting a raid in the Santos mansion and Pilar warned her family. One day, when Bill confronted David with his closeness to Pilar, David accidentally dropped his mini cassette recorder but Frank intervened before Bill was able to realize everything. Frank was furious at David and, on Frank's advice, David left Vicky to protect her. Since David had rescued the Santos's against Frank's faked raid, Ben and Carmen Santos hired him to spy on the police. Although Vicky was an obstacle since she cooperated with Ben at SanCorp against the Spauldings, David convinced her to remain loyal to the Spauldings. Later, after David gave Ben, the Santos lawyer, info on Spaulding's "Starnet" project, the Spauldings immediately blamed Vicky for it but David defended her to Phillip Spaulding and confessed to her what he'd done. Unfortunately, this led to the end of his and Frank's undercover work. A short time after, Ben was murdered and David and Frank investigated, whereupon they were forced to arrest Michelle Bauer for his murder due to the testimony of a witness named Ruth Lockhart.

In 2000, Michelle stood trial and after David had to testify against her, Ross declared his testimony as invalid because he was full of prejudices due to his hatred of the Santoses. In addition,, David was forced to confess that Frank had let Michelle home to her husband Danny on Christmas and this led to Frank's temporary suspension. Finally after Michelle was convicted of murder and was about to be sent to prison, David argued with Jesse Blue (the men couldn't stand each other anyway because Jesse was jealous at David's friendship with his girlfriend Drew) and Jesse apparently suffered a heart attack. Although David wasn't convinced, Rick confirmed the attack and Danny used the distraction to free Michelle, whereupon he knocked David out and fled with Michelle in a police car. Though David and the cops followed them, they didn't reach them anyway. Later, Vicky returned from New York and since she had no place to stay, David let her move in with him. Finally, when Ruth's son Charlie, whom David liked, was saved from Carmen, who had had him kidnapped, Ruth confessed that Carmen had paid and forced her to testify against Michelle. Finally after Vanessa's testimony about her and Carmen's involvement in Ben's death, David and Frank arrested Carmen before she was able to skip town and Michelle was acquitted of murder. Since David had been wrong about Michelle, a guilty David considered leaving the police force but Vicky convinced him to stay. Although David initially considered Ruth to be a bad mother, they both came closer anyway and David helped her to get a job at Company. In addition, he promised Ruth not to prosecute her for her cooperation with Carmen. Vicky, on the other hand, was jealous at David and Ruth's closeness and since she and David had been doing nothing but arguing, they finally parted ways. Although Ruth confessed her feelings to David, she soon left town with Charlie for Chicago to get a job and David was alone again. In 2001, David led a secluded life and investigated when Danny was accused of shooting and killing Carmen. However, it turned out that Carmen was alive. That summer, David transferred to a precinct elsewhere and left Springfield again.

In early 2003, Harley contacted David, now a private investigator in Paris, and asked him to get her some information on Alexandra. Though David was able to obtain the information, the package he sent was intercepted by Eden August, who gave it to Alex.