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It’s not the only reason Dick loves flying, loves performing on the trapeze, but his bat is one of many motivations for climbing the platform. Every time he launches himself into the air Dick’s soul mark flaps down from its usual perch, hanging off his left collar bone over his heart, and flies under his arm to his back where it spreads its wings.
The bat is small, only the size of his hand with a wing-span twice that, but in Dick’s opinion it’s beautiful, all soft caramel with delicate pointed ears, the colour darkening to black on its little muzzle and gorgeous near-translucent wings. They soar together, and the rush of adrenalin, excitement and joy is something Dick never wants to give up – he hopes his soulmate understands, and he dares to dream that they will, because his beloved bat always, always flies with him every time he and his family perform under the big top.
From what Dick’s mother said, the first coherent word he spoke after months of baby babble and mama and dada was robin, sitting and beaming in his high chair in the kitchen of their trailer and clapping little pudgy hands in delight. “Robin,” he’d kept chanting, which she said meant his soulmate would have a robin on their skin somewhere like Dick had a bat. No-one knows how everyone holds instinctive knowledge about their own soul mark on someone else’s body, or how it’s always one of the first words spoken as a child; over the millennia of human history people have mostly been grateful that they just do.
That’s the first mystery; the second is that the marks move about on a person’s skin with wills of their own.
The bat is usually content to fly with Dick on his back and occasionally swoops about his ribcage, but it never tries to venture down Dick’s arms and legs like his father’s ring-tailed lemur, which loves dancing about all over John’s body, fingers and toes and neck. “Mary,” he’d laugh, “sit still for just a moment, my love!” That’s how Dick learns that everyone is supposed to have some of the qualities and characteristics embodied by the animal on their soulmate’s skin. "It’s why we call you Robin, my little bird," his mother tells him when he's young and asking for a bedtime story, "Pop Haly thinks it's because it was your first full word, but he doesn't have a curious, active, bright little toddler on his hands!"
Dick knows a few of his friends wonder if in that case his soulmate will be like a bat, but he’s not worried. People are just freaked out by bats because they’re nocturnal, a little shy and very silent fliers; they don’t deserve their cult fiction reputations, not even the vampire bats, which his is not, thank you very much nasty brat from Budapest who’d hung around the circus and annoyed him a few years ago. The nose is the wrong shape: he’s fairly sure his is one of the insect-eating ones. Besides, his research tells him bats are the only mammals capable of true flight as opposed to gliding.
Dick thinks they’ll get on just fine.
He just has to meet them.
He’s sixteen and he and his parents still live in the same trailer they’ve had since he was five, and though it’s getting rather cramped it’s still comfortable. They travel about the world with Haly’s Circus, and Dick loves his life but every time he sees soulmates together, or when he sees Sharna find hers and Luigi find his, he wonders. Will they ever meet? How? What if they’re in the same city, but never cross paths? The circus tends to stay on the outskirts, what if they’re within a few miles of each other but don’t know it?
“Dickie, you’re only sixteen,” his mother laughs when he paces around the empty ring under the pretence of stretching, “there’s plenty of time! Don’t forget I met your father when I was twenty-three.”
“I know, I know, he was watching your gymnastics and saw the cat and swept you off your feet to prove he had your lemur, whereupon you both escaped the shackles of parental disapproval and ran away to the circus,” Dick huffs, flipping over to walk on his hands. “But I want to know now!”
“What do you want to know now? Our next stop?” John asks, entering the tent. Mary smiles at him and gestures at their shirtless son, whose soul mark is flapping lazily on his muscled back as the boy turns handsprings.
“Oh,” John says, “well, can’t help you there, son. You’ll meet them when you meet them.”
The disgusted look Dick casts him makes his father laugh.
“Where is our next stop, John?” Mary asks, going back to her neat needlework on Flapjack the Clown’s torn costume.
“Berlin,” he replies, “and then we move through Germany to Italy, and from there to Greece, and then back up through Albania and eventually to England. Jack says if that all goes well for the next few years we’ll head over to America.”
“Yes!” Dick whoops, landing lightly in front of his parents and bowing gracefully to the big top as he does, “finally, a good travel plan. Russia was far too cold!”
“At least you liked the stew,” Mary teases, and Dick grins before waving and cartwheeling out of the ring as Nyla calls for extra hands to feed the elephants.
They do finally end up boarding a ship three years later to cross the Atlantic, and Dick stares out at the white-capped ocean from the prow and hopes. He knows he’s the last of the original troop brats to grow up – while the circus gains and loses a few members each year, his parents, the animal-training family, the blue-faced clowns, and the contortionists are the ones who first formed Haly’s Circus back in the day. John and Mary Grayson are still fit, healthy and excellent trapeze artists but he’s heard late-night conversations about college and a career and his soulmate and a place to put down roots if Jack Haly’s own indeterminate health doesn’t improve.
Dick has no idea what kind of ‘career’ he’s supposed to want, as if being an aerialist isn't enough, but he does want his soulmate – has wanted them for a long time, even if other people say he’s still young, and that it’s okay, even encouraged, to sow your wild oats before you settle down – and if they’re here in America, well, the country is huge. There has to be something he’s good at and can do if his family does end up retiring from the circus.
Dick sighs and strokes his bat through his t-shirt, its wings wrapped around its little body as snugly as ever as it hangs with delicate feet from his collarbone.
“I hope you’re out there,” he whispers, and lets the sea breeze snatch his words from his lips as the salty sea spray mists up around him.
After their very first – and extremely successful – show in Virginia, Dick is hurrying across the camp to help shift a caravan that’s caught in a pothole when he knocks into someone walking out from behind the big top and goes sprawling to the ground.
“Shit, sorry!” A man says, sitting up from his own tuft of grass and reaching out a hand to pull Dick up. “Are you hurt?”
“No, I’m fine,” he says, accepting the hand mainly because it’s polite, “I’m sorry too, I should have been watching where I was –” he breaks off and almost wrenches his hand out of the man’s to snatch at his arm when he catches a glimpse of a bird fluttering under his sleeve. Is this –?
His face falls. It’s a peacock, and as he watches it proudly displays its glorious tail.
“I’m sorry,” Dick’s manners return abruptly, and he blushes bright red as he practically leaps back, “mine is a bird so...” He rubs a hand over the back of his neck awkwardly, apologetic grin a trifle lopsided. It is a peacock though, and he scolds himself for the laugh he feels bubbling in his chest – his is a robin, he’s hardly in a position to laugh.
“Ah,” the man says, glancing at the mark at his elbow, understanding flooding his face as he lowers the arm Dick’s released. “Well, that’s a shame. You don’t have a dolphin, by any chance? No? Worth a shot,” he winks, and though he’s relatively good looking, he doesn’t bear Dick’s robin and isn’t as quiet as his bat, so that’s that.
“Yeah, well, sorry for bumping into you, and good luck,” he says, smiling and sidestepping the visitor as he strides off across the campground, disappointment warring with relief in his chest.
He doesn’t find his soulmate as they make their way down America’s east coast, so at least the Flying Graysons can still fly together, bright colours and incomparable grace pulling in audiences, but Dick knows his bat has been a little restless lately. It still spreads its delicate wings every performance as they fly out across the gap together, but once it shifts across to his right collarbone and back, something it’s never done before. Dick promptly drops the costumes and costumes he’s carrying, and endures a day of scolding on his absent-mindedness, but he knows his bat. For as long as he remembers it’s always been on his left side, furled over his heart – Dick has a strong suspicion his soulmate is just a little bit protective – so he lives in daily hope and thrilling fear of finally seeing his robin too.
They enjoy three nights of standing ovations in Metropolis, where a very nice if somewhat bumbling journalist asks for permission to conduct a brief interview with some of the circus performers, and then drive on down the coast and past the bay to set up on the fringes of Gotham City.
He’s barely set foot inside it but Dick can tell there’s just something about Gotham. He’s heard a few things from people they’ve met up the coast, and it’s certainly night to Metropolis’ day, but Dick likes it. The gothic architecture is striking, the feeling on the streets is a little frenetic, and the slight haze over the bay turns sunsets into a blaze of oranges, purples and reds.
Fliers are posted and sideshows are organised two days before the circus begins, and the Flying Graysons practise their world-famous netless routine one last time for good measure the afternoon of their first performance. Retiring to the trailer, Dick strokes the bat as it settles down once more and watches curiously as a vast array of people stream into the fair ground, trying to pick out interesting faces. It’s his usual pre-performance routine, but when he slips backstage and begins dressing, something feels wrong. Dick doesn’t know how, exactly, but he’s suddenly convinced there’s something off about tonight’s show. He thinks back to the dozens of people he saw streaming through the gates and the feeling that something is wrong, someone is out of place, grows.
He paces once he’s dressed, examines the audience through a gap in the backstage curtains and scrutinises the props backstage, but just as he starts warming up, stroking the bat absent-mindedly as he stretches, Dick forgets every single rule bred into him and dashes out in search of Haly, ignoring his parents’ horrified whisper-shouts behind him.
“Jack,” he hisses, loping along the barrier separating the first rows from the ring, “Jack!”
“Dick, what on earth –?” Haly starts from where he’s standing watching the strong man and the clowns tumble about. “What are you doing here? You’re on in five minutes!”
“I know, but something’s wrong! Please, we need to put the net up, we need to have the net for our performance!” Dick pleads quietly, clinging urgently to the ringmaster’s sleeve.
“Nonsense, Dick! The show is advertised without the net, we can’t just –”
“Yes, we can! We have to! Please, Jack, please, something’s wrong, I know it is!”
He’s desperate and afraid and not entirely sure what’s got into him, but the clowns are beginning their retreat as the strong man and his assistants prepare their last act, and he has to move. Catching the eyes of his friends, his circus family, the helpers and assistants and rigging managers who are standing close by, Dick darts away to the net’s storage box and begins unfolding it. Soon Carlos and Mia are by his side, uncertain but loyal, and as the lights dim for the trapezes to be lowered, Dick hooks the last of the fasteners into its corresponding niche and scrambles for the rigging.
His parents are furious and there are whispers ebbing and flowing through the audience, but Dick doesn’t regret his actions: he knows he’s right, and Jack Haly can only roll with it.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he roars, stepping once more into centre stage, “the act you’ve all been waiting for! From Romania to England to Gotham, with all the world in between, we bring you the one and only family who can perform the quadruple aerial flip with their eyes closed! You’ve never seen their like before, ladies and gentlemen – they’ll take your breath away and by the end of the night you’ll swear they have wings! Without any further ado, I give you the amazing, astounding aerialists, the Flying Graysons!”
The drums roll, the crowd goes wild, and the spotlights fix on them. John, Mary and Dick strike their poses, smiles as bright as their costumes, and then the first bar swings out for them. John leaps, flies, lets go, somersaults, and swings on to the roar of the crowd; Mary jumps too and soars out, and Dick can hear something groaning and twanging in the way only over-stretched metal can.
He has no more time to ponder it; the bar flies back towards him and with the instinct of a lifetime, he leaps. The bar smacks into his palms and the air lovingly brushes his face, but halfway through his swing he knows something is wrong with the tension in his trapeze. He lets go, twists, and catches his father’s wrists so they can fly together while his mother somersaults over to the platform. When she’s ready John releases him and Dick flips, somersaults, and grabs the bar again, the cheers of the crowd a secondary noise in his ears under the rush of blood. Dick’s halfway through another swing, preparing to catch his mother, when, with a twang, the trapeze breaks.
He’s suspended for a millisecond as the world holds its breath, heart stopping and stomach dropping, and then he plummets as the screams begin.
Dick has been learning how to fall ever since he first learned to fly, so he does his best to angle himself so his back will hit the net, the solid part of his body rather than fragile fingers and limbs, but he doesn’t have enough time: he slams into the net with his right shoulder and feels his collarbone crack. Pain lances through him, hot and fierce like lightning, but it’s not as bad as it could have been – from that height it could have killed me oh my god! – and Dick bites his tongue against it as he begins making his way to the edge of the net, awkwardly waving his good arm to show the spectators he’s alive.
His parents reach the ground as he makes it to the edge of the net and they’re there to help him off; his mother hugs him as tightly as she can without hurting him and his father runs his hands along Dick’s back and shoulders to reassure himself his son is still in one piece. Haly is by their sides a moment later, and he sends on the fire-breathers to distract the crowd, still loud with shock, as the Flying Graysons strike a quick pose before John and Mary wrap an arm around Dick and hurry him backstage.
“Dickie, oh my god, Dick, are you alright? You could have been seriously hurt, how did this happen?” John is frantic as they sit Dick down on the trunks near the back, and Mary crouches in front of him to examine the collarbone.
“I’m fine, dad,” he says, smiling tightly as his mother gently begins to probe the bone, “I hit with my shoulder so – ouch!”
“Sorry, sweetie,” Mary murmurs, but carries on as Dick grits his teeth.
“The wire’s frayed through!” Tovich bursts in from the ring with the broken trapeze in his hand, followed by someone Dick doesn’t recognise. “How did you know, Dick? If you hadn’t insisted on the net, you might –”
The stagehand cuts himself off, face white, as Dick’s parents find some part of him to hug in shaken, terrified relief.
“It’s alright, I’m fine!” he insists, awkwardly patting his parents’ shoulders, “I saw someone backstage who wasn’t supposed to be there, and some of the rigging supplies had been moved around and the tools were in the wrong order when I was warming up. That’s why I kept feeling like there was something out of place, but I also knew something was wrong because of my bat. Look,” he yanks down the neckline of his costume with his good hand, “he always flies with me on my back at every performance, but this time he stayed on my collarbone. I knew something was wrong, he always flies with me. Look!”
The bat uncurls from his left collarbone as he’s speaking, flaps around his back, and circles under Dick’s right arm to hang from the fractured bone, delicate wing-claws grasping at the ridge under his skin as if to pull itself closer to the ache and help in some way. “He’d never let anything happen to me,” Dick says quietly, stroking a finger over the restless mark.
Silence holds for a few seconds, only the noise of the audience filtering through from the ring, and then someone says, “Sir, you can’t be here – sir!”
They look up at the commotion, and it’s the dark-haired man Dick saw following Tovich backstage. He pushes past the other circus performers to get closer to Dick, and drops to his knees in front of him, an awestruck look on his extremely handsome face as he gazes at the bat.
“I knew something was wrong the moment you started performing,” he says, voice low and deep and rich, as he raises his eyes to Dick’s. “My robin was very distressed.”
He pulls back the cuff of his shirt to reveal his right wrist, where a graceful little robin is fluttering madly on the soft skin below the base of his palm. Dick reaches out, the world slowing to this single moment like he’s in a dream, and strokes his fingertips over the frantic little bird. It calms the moment his skin makes contact with his soulmate’s, russet feathers settling and smoothing.
Spellbound and suddenly overwhelmed with shyness, Dick slowly lifts his eyes to meet the man’s smiling blue ones.
“Hi,” he murmurs, a laugh warm in his voice.
“Hello,” his soulmate says, just as softly, a tiny tender smile hiding at the corner of his mouth.
Their gaze is the only thing in the world, until the rest of it comes rushing back. Their perfect bubble disappears as Dick’s mother continues her examination of the broken bone, provoking a pained hiss and jolt from her son.
“Ouch! Mum!” He tears his eyes away from his soulmate, cheeks flushing as he hears giggles and murmurs of congratulations from everyone nearby, and she smiles apologetically. He glances back at his soulmate and laughs softly.
“Maybe we should continue this when I don’t have a freshly broken bone?” he says, and the man grins.
“Perhaps that would be best. My car is outside, we’ll go to Gotham Hospital. Can the circus spare you for the evening?”
“I won’t be performing for a while,” Dick pulls a face.
“Is a hospital necessary?” Mary asks worriedly, “We can set the bone here –”
“Please, I insist,” Dick’s soulmate says, standing, and holy physiques he is gorgeous – tall and strong with powerful shoulders and thighs that send blood rushing to Dick’s cheeks...among other places. “I’ll cover the cost, and I can offer you all a place to stay in Gotham if you need it?”
“Told you he was protective,” Dick snickers, grinning brightly up at him. The man flushes lightly as he glances away from Mary but his eyes are steady and very tender when they come to rest on Dick’s face.
“I probably am,” he admits, “but the bone does need to be set.”
“In that case, I’m coming, and John will stay to look into the trapeze wire,” his mother decides, grabbing a shawl from the table nearby and tying it into a sling for Dick’s right arm.
“Excellent,” the man says, and turns to lead the way out. He turns back as Dick stands, and holds out his left hand with a bit of a sheepish look on his face. “I should probably introduce myself – Bruce Wayne.”
“Richard Grayson, but call me Dick,” he says, taking the hand and shaking it.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Dick,” Bruce replies, a faint purr in his voice as he squeezes Dick’s hand.
“The pleasure’s all mine,” he murmurs huskily, stepping closer and feeling electricity flicker across his skin at their proximity. Bruce’s eyes darken and Dick shivers deliciously.
“Broken collarbone,” his mother reminds them from somewhere nearby, and they both blush hotly.
“Yes, of course,” Bruce says, a little flustered but charming nonetheless, “this way.”
Dick has no idea what he did to deserve him, but as the bat flutters under his collarbone he knows he’ll hold onto Bruce for as long as he lives.
He slips his hand into Bruce’s as they make their way to the car park, and Dick can tell Bruce is a little unsure of physical contact when the man starts slightly but grips his hand nonetheless. That’s alright, he’ll be patient until Bruce is comfortable with them – they have all the time in the world to get to know each other.
The lights of Gotham shine as brightly as the stars overhead and the world is stretched out in front of them, theirs for the taking, together.