Chapter Text
Over the years, circuses have lost their spark.
Dick would know— he’d quite literally grown up in one. It was something he was proud of; it was his parent’s legacy. He knew it, his family knew, the whole world knew it. Not shocking news, honestly.
Haley’s circus had been a symphony of effort and artistry. Weeks, sometimes even months, were spent perfecting routines. Performances were designed to dazzle, to leave slack-jawed and in awe, no matter the country or culture of the audience. The comedy skits solely filler— they were genuinely funny, capable of drawing laughter even from the most reluctant parent dragged along by their excited child. Every act had a rhythm; a purpose.
And above all? Passion.
The performers took pride in their craft, and the audience responded in kind. Feeding off the energy, cheering and clapping until their hands were raw and their throats sore.
Now? Now they were dull. Predictable routines recycled ad nauseam. Costumes that looked like they were bought in bulk from a clearance rack. Tents and stages slapped together with the barest effort to resemble grandeur. The magic, the joy—the soul of it all—had been replaced with a singular, glaring goal: profit. No one cared if the audience laughed, gasped, or even paid attention, so long as they paid their entrance fees.
But recently, a new circus had come to Gotham. The first circus to grace Gotham’s presence since… Well, since Haly’s Circus. It was a ballsy move, considering Gotham’s reputation with Circuses and clowns. Dick wasn’t sure if it was a strategic move, or an idiotic one.
A quick look on their, frankly, depressing Instagram revealed absolutely nothing. Besides the fact they should fire whoever set it up, considering they spelt circus as “sercus”, and should never hold a position in marketing again. For the safety of the business.
But despite what more sane people might call a “downright idiotic decision” driven by “absolutely no forethought or research” (as Damian so kindly, and aptly put) Dick’s curiosity was piqued effectively.
He hadn’t planned to go initially. Seriously. The circus, creatively named “Charlie’s Circus” (gee, Dick wonders what the inspiration was) took a little over a week to set up their tents and put up posters.
The posters themselves were basic, with about four variants advertising a different performer. The Hag of Daggers, a bearded lady, the Man of Iron (considering the Man of Steel was kind of co-opted by Superman a couple decades ago). The one most advertised was the Amazing Arach-Kid. It was the cheapest knock-off of them all, copying almost everything about the early Flying Graysons posters, the only change being now spider themed. For some reason.
But despite all that, the memories of his youth, of what the circus used to mean, stirred within him. Maybe his most recent birthday made him nostalgic, making him officially the same age as when his parents fell to their death. Maybe it was the way those knock-off Flying Grayson posters reminded him of the poster in his room at the manor.
Maybe he didn’t even have a full reason at all.
Before he knew it, he’d wrangled (read: blackmailed) together as much of the family as he could to go see it. Which, wasn’t a whole lot considering quite a few were out of state or off world currently, but it was enough to make him smile.
“Why must I come along? I do not see the point,” Damian groused, arms folded tightly across his chest as the group approached the circus grounds. Despite his protests, he made no move to make the Irish exit he was oh so fond of.
“You’re coming because it’ll be fun brotherly bonding,” Dick said, ruffling Damian’s perfectly groomed hair just to annoy him. Damian promptly swatted his hand away, glaring daggers at his adoptive brother.
“You don’t even know if it’ll be good,” Tim chimed in, hands shoved into his jacket pockets. “What if this thing is as boring as all the other ones you’ve complained about?”
“Then we’ll all get funnel cake and call it a night,” Stephanie said brightly, making it clear where her true excitement (and loyalty) lay. “I’m in it for the food, anyway.”
Dick pouted. “You didn’t have to say the quiet part out loud!”
“Don’t underestimate funnel cake,” Duke added with a smirk. “It might be the only thing saving this place from a ravenous Steph.”
Dick rolled his eyes, but his grin didn’t waver. “You’re all so cynical. We stay, we judge, we go home and trash talk. Capiche?”
A lot of the decorations seemed cheap thus far, but Dick can’t blame them. They’re clearly low budget, with only two shows a week, versus the seven to ten a week Dick remembers Haly’s having.
Tim hummed thoughtfully. “This place just came from New York, right? Terrible Instagram page, by the way.” he said, eyeing the food stands and tents. Dick saw his fingers twitch as if to take a picture.
Dick hummed. “Yeah, think so.”
He eyed an older woman with sandy blond hair swallow a fairly large dagger. Damian looked on in disapproval, but that was pretty common when it came to the mistreatment of swords in his vicinity. Guess that was the “Hag of Daggers”. Who was naming these performers?
They meandered through the crowd, seeing clowns on stilts (people were not a fan of those), people juggling and breathing fire, and some good ol’ slap stick. Steph spotted cotton candy and promptly ditched them.
“Is that… pickle flavored cotton candy?” Steph curled her lip in disgust. “Why do they only have pickle flavored cotton candy? What the hell kind of joint is this?”
Steph barely got the word “pickle flavored” out of her mouth before Dick practically teleported there.
“I’ll take three, thank you.” He shamelessly handed over the extortionate fifteen dollars, ignoring the disgusted look every single one of his siblings sent him.
“You’re a sick, sick man.” Duke cringed, the neon green of the cotton candy looking borderline radioactive.
“I am a man of culture and taste.” Dick turned a nose up at the mean spirited accusations from his newest brother.
“Cultureless and tasteless, more like.” Damian, his own baby brother whom was his Robin, slandered him.
Dick mock sobbed into his pickle cotton candy.
Tim and Steph looked at each other, sporting a matching eye roll as the two slipped into a bickering match that’d put an old married couple to shame if they weren’t so aggressively gay.
Dick kept an eye on the same, wanting to make sure they made it to the acrobat show. They’d seen the fire breathing, Man of Iron, the bearded Lady, and the Hag of Daggers, so that really only left ‘The Amazing Arach-Kid’. Which Dick could only hope was just a fun play on words and not, like, an actual kid left to do acro in some spider-themed onesie. Also probably against the child labor laws.
Dick says, as though he wasn’t performing as an eight year old.
“Oh! It’s almost six, we should find the acrobat tent.”
“What? It’s still, like, twenty till six.” Tim raised an eyebrow.
“I wanna get good seats! How else will we judge properly?” Dick began herding them towards the biggest red and white tend, throwing away the sticks of his finished cotton candy.
Shuffling through the surprisingly long line to get in, Dick was hit with yet another wave of nostalgia. Letting his attention wander to the stage, studying the equipment with the practiced eye of someone who’d lived this life and loved every second of it.
Suspended high above was the trapeze rig, its bars wrapped in worn leather, the steel cables taut and secured to thick iron frames. The safety net below, while a little faded, looked sturdy enough to do its job. His parents hardly ever used a safety net outside of practice, so it was admittedly nice to see here, shabby as it was.
To one side, a highwire stretched across a dizzying height, its slim cable shimmering faintly under the tent lights. The rigging showed some signs of age, with slightly dulled bolts and scuffed counterweights. They were probably due to be replaced soon.
A teeterboard sat center stage on the ground, its spring mechanism ready to launch performers into flips and vaults. Nearby, a stack of brightly painted crates and barrels hinted at comedic skits. Clowns would probably tumble over them with exaggerated flair, while a sturdy seesaw-like prop suggested slapstick gags involving plenty of unintentional (and intentional) falls.
The whole setup had a sort of… charming scrappiness to it. The equipment could probably use a little TLC, though. He really did not want to bear witness to any accidents tonight. Dick decidedly didn’t want any addition to any performance assorted traumas.
“Do you see how high that wire is?” Duke muttered, his voice tinged with a mix of awe and apprehension as he followed Dick’s gaze. It wasn’t fear of the height itself, but rather anxiety for the performers.
“I see it,” Dick replied fondly. They had a pretty decent set up here, and it was evident a lot of the budget went to arials and acrobatics. He kind of wanted to meet whoever was performing tonight, chat them up and maybe have a bit of friendly competition. It didn’t hurt to get those extra kudos for his reputation, either.
“Awe, man,” Duke sighed, visibly disappointed. “Guess we weren’t excited enough.”
Turns out “early” wasn’t early enough because the seating area was packed. The whole first three rows were aggressively claimed, forcing the group to settle for seats in the middle of the fourth row. And they were fifteen minutes early! Dick blames Tim.
Steph and Duke promptly excused themselves to grab popcorn—or, more accurately, for Steph to scout for whether they’d begun making the funnel cake. Dick had to respect the consistency.
Damian shoved Tim out of the way to sit next to Dick. “This place stinks and Drake is being annoying.”
Tim blinked, taken aback. “Wait, just me? Steph was talking way more!”
Steph, who was still in earshot, whirled around with mock offense. “Excuse me? I was providing charming and charasmatic commentary!”
“Yeah, about how you’re planning to steal funnel cake from children,” Tim shot back, crossing his arms. Duke and Dick shared a raised eyebrows, silently betting on who’d win. Duke picked Steph, leaving Dick with Tim. He hoped he didn’t just lose ten bucks…
“Oh, please,” Steph quipped. “You’d be the kid I steal it from, Little Timmy.”
Before Tim could come up with a retort, and Damian became a convicted felon, the lights dimmed, cutting their bickering short. A hush fell over the crowd as the familiar low hum of a drumroll began to build.
Guess Steph wasn’t getting her funnel cake just yet.
The ringmaster strode into the center of the stage, clad in a dazzling (read: tacky as hell) coat of crimson and gold that shimmered under the spotlight. His booming voice carried effortlessly across the tent.
“Ladies and gentlemen! Boys and girls! Welcome to a night of wonder, daring, and delight!” the ringmaster announced, his voice ringing through the tent as the steady drumroll built the tension. “Prepare yourselves for the extraordinary, the astonishing, the absolutely unbelievable! The show begins... now!”
The drumroll reached its peak, and with a dramatic flourish, the spotlight swept upward to reveal the first performer perched high above the stage. A man in a white and red costume waved grandly to the crowd before swinging onto the trapeze. The audience clapped politely as he performed a few rudimentary tricks— basic flips and graceful swings that showcased control but lacked flair.
Two more performers joined him, each clad in similar glittering costumes. Men in white and red, and the women in white and blue. They moved with confidence, transitioning through formations and passing between trapezes, but the moves were predictable and lacked the edge Dick was expecting— or, well, hoping to see.
Tim leaned toward Dick, his tone flat. “You dragged us here for this?”
Dick swatted at him. “And this is the last time I take you anywhere fun.”
Though he couldn’t disagree. The tricks were technically fine; safe was always good. The crowd seemed otherwise engaged as they picked up the tempo, the flashy lights and bright costumes doing wonders to cover up the overall simplicity. The siblings just had an otherwise different threshhold for impressive, considering their frame of refference was quite literally just Dick.
But even then, there was no spark, no passion. No magic. He resigned to going home disappointed and also to the inevitable flaming via siblings.
But then, just as one of the performers finished an awkward landing on the platform, the ringmaster’s voice boomed again.
“And now, prepare yourselves for the one and only Amazing Arach-Kid!”
The spotlight shifted upward again, revealing a much smaller figure poised on a separate platform, high above the others. It was a boy— young and wiry, dressed in a combination of the other’s costume. A tasteful combination of red and blue, likely inspired by Superman if Dick had to guess, with the addition of the occasional spider web hand stitched in. His face obscured by a half-mask (not dissimilar to their domino masks, actually) painted on rather than an actual mask. For a moment, the crowd was silent, uncertain what to expect.
Without warning, the boy leaped.
The gasp from the audience was audible as the kid— Arach-Kid— launched himself into a dramatic triple flip, his body twisting gracefully through the air before he caught the trapeze with gusto. The crowd erupted into applause, the energy in the tent shifting instantly.
It didn’t stop there. Swinging with a force that sent his trapeze soaring higher than any of the others had dared, releasing at the peak of his arc and spun into a double somersault. Instead of catching the next trapeze, he landed neatly in the arms of one of the adult performers, who looked genuinely startled by the boy’s flamboyance. He grinned, waving excitedly at the audience as they roared with applause.
From there, the routine transformed. Arach-Kid became the centerpiece of the act, seamlessly incorporating daring flips, twists, and transitions between trapezes. He was passed between the adults, easily covering up any mistakes they made. Their previous mediocrity eclipsed by his sheer skill and energy.
“Whoa,” Duke watched in awe, leaning forward in his seat. “Now that’s what I’m talkin’ about!”
“Where was this guy for the begining half of the show?” Tim asked humorously.
They all made their own comments, complimenting and critiqueing, but Dick was pleased to see they were finally starting to enjoy this a little bit. Even Damian almost complimented the mystery teen, though it was more so a ‘he’s at least not as bad at the other ones, I suppose.’
Dick felt pleased with himself for a moment, seeing his siblings enjoy themselves.
The warmth in his gut immediately vanished, his breath catching as the kid’s body twisted into the unmistakable maneuver— it was the move his parents spent years developing, the move lovingly passed onto their child. Dick knew it like he knew his heart beat in his chest.
The boy ended his routine with a jaw-dropping quadruple somersault, barely managing to catch the final trapeze one-handed. The overall move was performed well enough, but the landing was all wrong and evidently improvised to the trained eye.
Gasps and cheers erupted from the audience, their applause thunderous as he let himself swing for a moment, letting the crowd bask in his daring. Then, with a fluid motion, he swung back, releasing the trapeze bar for one final flourish.
Dick’s whole body went rigid, his stomach churning in… in anger. His heartbeat in his ears drowned out every cheer and excited exclamation. Of course, anyone who knew the Wayne’s would’ve immediately clocked that move. That blatant copy of the Flying Grayson's poster was starting to make a whole lot more sense.
Even with the stage empty, shouts and applause echoed for a long time after the boy left.
For a moment, Dick couldn’t move. He grew up angry, he lived his adolescence basking in it every time he put on the Robin costume. Jason might have held the title of the one with anger problems now, but that crown was inherited from Dick. So one could imagine seeing his move, his legacy left to him by his parents, might set him off just a bit.
Dick flexed his jaw, loosening the tense muscles. He slowly forced his body to relax until he could exhale the breath he’d been holding. Okay. Okay.
His siblings all shot him varying degrees of concerned looks, whispering amongst themselves. Maybe they tried to include him, maybe they knew better. Dick stared ahead at where the performer who’d stolen his move disappeared behind the stage.
Despite how time felt frozen to Dick, the show continued regardless. The lights shifted again, smoothly transitioning to the next act: a somewhat clumsy but otherwise entertaining tightrope routine. One performer started with a wobbling walk, arms flailing for comedic effect. Another joined, balancing precariously with a broomstick for support. The final performer added a unicycle to the mix, pedaling shakily across the thin wire as the audience laughed and clapped in delight.
It was… objectively funny.
But Dick barely noticed. His good mood had evaporated, replaced by a heavy knot of unease in his chest. At this point, they must have a hive mind with how they immediately filed out of the tent without a single word exchanged.
“That was—”
“—was that—?” Tim and Steph said at the same time, snapping their mouths shut at their overlap.
“That was your move,” Tim finished firmly, his eyes locked on Dick’s. It was the odd, and maybe slightly off at times, way Tim would study something.
“It’s not possible,” Duke added, glancing at the tent they’d just left. “Right? It’s your family’s thing. There’s no way some, well, random kid would know it, right?”
“I am more concerned with how he knows it,” Damian said, taking a surprisingly delicate tone. “This is your domain, Richard. You must have answers.”
Dick didn’t respond right away. He couldn’t. His hands were clenched into fists at his sides, his breathing shallow. In disbelief, he muttered, “I don’t.”
Steph frowned. “Okay, well... what do we do?”
“We’re detectives. We find out who he is, how he learned it, and what the fuck is going on here.” Dick said sharply, his voice colder than any of them had expected.
Tim’s brow furrowed. “Do you think this is, like, deliberate?”
Dick shook his head uncertainly. “I don’t know. Maybe. I mean, it’s... it’s not out of the realm of possibility, but...” He exhaled through his nose, frustrated. “I need answers. This isn’t something you just pick up on YouTube.”
The group left the small but packed circus, their earlier excitement replaced by a shared tension. Dick got mad sometimes, for sure, but usually he was able to have his argument with Bruce and storm off to Bludhaven and blow off steam like any good emotionally repressed vigilante.
The October air was chilly as Dick led the walk back to his car. Tim doesn’t think Dick noticed, or ever would notice, how much he looks like Bruce when he’s angry.
They settled in the car, tense. “And you’re sure there’s no one who could’ve—?”
“Last I checked, I’m the last Grayson left and I certainly don’t remember teaching anyone, let alone some spider themed kid from a no-name circus.” Dick bit out, voice as frosty as the temperature outside.
“Well, you are a gymnastics coach, so I thought maybe…” Steph petered off, tasting the unlikeliness of his own words.
“I don’t just go around teaching that move to civilian students.” Dick hissed, effectively silencing any other inquiries.
They all exchanged looks, deciding to give Dick as much space as they could considering they had a forty minute drive to the manor. Too bad they didn’t take separate cars, it was… kind of awkward being stuck around a pissed of Dick.
Guess Dick ‘it doesn’t hurt to spitball’ Grayson didn’t apply when he looked angry enough to, well, rival Jason on his worse days.
Tim shot a message to the group chat. The one specifically without Dick. Or any of the older, less cool Robins and Robin adjacent.
unsupervised & unadvised
Now
Honorary Robin
I don't think I've ever seen him this angry
Honorary Robin
lowkey what do we do
Red Robin
help him investigate but idk
Red Robin
its not like we can just go jump this random kid for answers
Green Robin
I would not be averse to stepping up.
Red Robin
if dick managed 2 not do tht i think u can too
Green Robin
You deserve to be publicly executed for your grammar.
Red Robin
thx
Purple Robin
Ugh shut up for a sec dude this is more serious than tim having dropout grammar
Red Robin
fuck u too
Honorary Robin
I feel like he's gonna do smth reckless
Purple Robin
DO you see it in the light?
Honorary Robin
I can't tell if that's a dig or not
Red Robin
prolly
Red Robin
but dk you??
Honorary Robin
nah just a feeling
Green Robin
Richard had enough feelings for all of us right now, so that's unnecessary.
Red Robin
i hate when ur funny
Green Robin
Not like it is hard to be funnier than you anyways
Honorary Robin
Damn…
Purple Robin
just kys atp
Red Robin
ur full legal name will be at the top
Purple Robin
you love me <3
Seen