H A L E Y ’ S C I R C U S

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The ground is forty feet below me.

There’s no net.

Nothing holding me up. I let go of the flying trapeze and, for a moment, I’m flying. I can hear the gasps, the collective holding of breath, and even a few shrieks rise from below. I’m starting to fall, but I’m not afraid. I just stretch out my arms, and I know she’ll be there to catch me. Because she’s always there. Because she always does.

The gasps echo, louder this time, as we both go sailing through the air. Me, dangling in mid-air, and my mother holding onto my arms with her legs hooked around the trapeze bar.

Then she lets go.

The screams pierce the air. I shut out the audience - the blur of faces and lights - as I tuck into a ball and flip through the air. Once. Twice. What they don’t see is my father, standing on the platform. He let the trapeze bar go right as I finished the first rotation. Coming out of the second, I plane my body out. My hands open wide, the trapeze bar smacking right against the palms. Holding fast, I sail through the air. Dismount, tuck into a backflip, and make the landing on the platform.

The cheers break out, even as my mother is following suit, until all three of us are standing on the platform together. The applause grows in intensity as she dismounts and joins us, then transforms into a standing ovation as we take a bow.

“The fearless Flying Graysons! Let’s have a great Gotham round of applause for ten year old Dicky Grayson. The youngest acrobat performing today!”

I step back, and soon I’m the only one standing on the platform. The performance goes into the second act and I’ve got the best seat in the house.

Stepping back from the platform, I put my back against the tent pole and slide down. The strength seems to go out of my legs and I’m starting to realize that my arms are numb. My heart is pounding in my chest and I’m still trying to catch my breath. Below, it probably feels a little cool inside the tent. Up here, with all the lights, it feels like it’s a hundred degrees.

There’s a strange twang overhead. I look up, but it’s just the tension wires. In between the platforms, mom and dad are really putting on a show. I know every move. I know each routine. But it’s still incredible to witness. It takes my breath away, and I get to see this every day. The audience below? Amazed would be an understatement. I wish that I could be out there with them, but I’m still too little. Mom and dad are worried that I’ll get tired. Tired during practice is one thing. We have nets and safety harnesses while we learn a new routine. It gives us that little extra security to push ourselves to the limit to figure out what works and what doesn’t. Which, in my case, usually doesn’t. I hit the net four or five or even a dozen times some days.

But that’s practice, and this isn’t. So I come in at the start of the performance for the first act, then I’m sidelined for the second, and come back toward the end of the third. But I don’t really have any stunts after the first act.

The sound again. Louder, the cable and support structure giving a snap-CLAP of protest that echoed like a roll of thunder. I heard it. I bet the audience below heard it.

My parents heard it.

They’ve paused their routine, missing the jump. They’re lower than they should be. From this vantage point, I can see that the trapeze is sagging. My dad’s looking up at the cables. My mom’s looking at me. I can see her face.

I can see her fear.

“Mom?”

The cable snaps before I can even get back to my feet. “DAD!” I see them drop, and lunge forward. I collapse onto the platform, peering over the ledge and I see everything.

I see the end of the world.

City of Bludhaven, New Jersey
Present Day

The coffee had been cold for more than an hour.

The styrofoam cup cradled in his hand, untouched, as he sat there. He seemed as oblivious to its presence in his grasp as he was the flash of lights from the roof of the police cruiser. The door to the car was open, one leg extended out to the shoulder of the road. Propped up in the driver’s seat, the former circus acrobat looked as though he was withering away. His clothes might have been slept in.

And that was before the call had come in about a school bus out on Route Sixteen.

The iconic, yellow caravan was reflected in the windshield of the police cruiser. Dick was staring at it when the phone rang. Reaching inside of his wrinkled suit coat, the disheveled man fished out a cell phone. Swiping a thumb across the screen, he brought the phone up up to the side of his head as he answered, “Yeah?”

“This hasn’t been a good two weeks for you, Commissioner.”

The scowl on the man’s well-lined face only deepened. He’d known it was only a matter of time before the political vultures began circling.

This had been a month for vultures.

“This hasn’t been a good two weeks for any of us,” Dick answered, working to keep his voice even as he spoke back into the phone.

“The mayor is asking for advice on what the messaging should be on this,” the man on the other end of the line remarked, before plunging ahead with what was obviously the line that the PR cadre intended to try and tow. “Can we call it an accident?”

With a shake of his head, Dick just rolled his eyes in disbelief. Then, staring at the coffee lingering in the cup, pitched the drink out the door of the car before returning to the conversation. In a much more heated tone. “I’ve got three dead bodies and thirteen missing children,” Dick snapped coldly. Did these politicians even give a damn about any of that? At times, he had his doubts. “That’s thirteen families that are going to show up in the hospitals, looking for their kids who were in the ‘accident.’ How long do you imagine that story’s going to hold water?”

Jesus. He was appealing to a political lobbyist with common sense. That was somewhere between futile and talking to a wall.

“We can’t go public with this,” the man’s voice on the line repeated, though it seemed as though he didn’t have any alternatives or thoughts of his own on the matter. “The outcry could spark a panic.”

“Whatever happened to ‘and the truth shall set you free?’”

“Jesus saves. You know what Jesus doesn’t do? Manage a fucking election campaign,” the man on the phone snapped in retort. There was a pause, before Dick heard, “Tell your people to keep this close-hold. We’ll be in touch regarding the messaging.”

The line gave a click, before Dick was left with the muted warble of the cell phone closing the connection.

He just sat there, in the police cruiser, staring out at the school bus without so much as breathing. Then, he punched the steering wheel as he lurched forward and exploded with a forceful, “FUCK!”

His people were trained to serve and protect. To color within the lines, investigating ordinary crimes.

There was nothing ordinary about what was happening in Bludhaven right now.

Relaxing back into the driver’s seat, Dick looked at his phone. A tap of his thumb brought up his contacts. Without even thinking about it, he started scrolling through the list.

Until his thumb hovered over a name.

WAYNE, BRUCE

He stayed that way for about three minutes, debating in his mind whether to make that phone call or not.

Instead, he put the phone down. His head in his hands, the Flying Grayson was at his wit’s end. He hadn’t been this twisted since he’d walked out on Bruce. But, he was certain of one thing.

Turning to Bruce Wayne for help was not the answer.

Instead, he picked the phone up and, this time, scrolled through the contacts until his thumb landed on CHARLES, SARAH.

This time, he pressed it.

Holding the phone up to his ear again, he heard it ring twice before she picked up. “Sarah? Dick Grayson.”

”Dick?” He almost winced at the surprise in her voice. Not because she was surprised, but because he knew that he’d come that guy who only called his friends when he needed something.

He’d become like Bruce.

”Oh my God, it’s been ages! How are you?”

He forced himself to smile. People could always hear the smile. “Good. You sound good,” he offered, trying to come off as relaxed or casual.

He could try to make conversation or...

No, just get to it. “You have time for a cup of coffee?” Dick asked, before adding “Your office, preferably.”