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Dick was lonely as a child. He was the only child living and traveling with the circus. His best friend was their elephant, Zitka, who was the same age as him. Zitka’s mother had died when they were around 3 years old, and Zitka was as lonely as he was, so the two of them spent a lot of time together, when he wasn’t training. He spent a lot of time training.
Now as he taught gymnastics to kids, it sometimes occurred to him that the way he trained as a child wasn’t exactly normal. I mean, his parents were always kind to him, but there was a certain weight of expectations, of always pushing him to be the best. In hindsight, he wasn’t entirely sure if his childhood was compliant with child labor laws, considering how extensively he trained. But he supposed it had worked: as a child, he was the world’s best acrobat, capable of a quadruple somersault. As an adult, well, he was the world’s best competitive gymnast, amongst other things. And his abilities, trained from birth, had always been part of what enabled him to be the hero that he was.
Dick didn’t regret his childhood. He still remembered the circus fondly. But in hindsight as an adult, he realized it wasn’t the perfect place he’d always viewed it as. But still, he tried not to examine it too closely. But as a gymnastics teacher, he tried not to push the gymnasts as much as he’d been pushed. Especially those under the age of 13, he ensured they did not have especially long training hours and he wouldn’t let them practice tricks when they should be focusing on recovering from injuries. He emphasized that gymnastics should be fun and the importance of taking care of your body.
He was a hypocrite.
He had gymnastics competitions in the near future, so he trained long hours, late into the night. Pommel horse was becoming his personal enemy, but he was good at it, as much as he hated it and found it boring. He felt peaceful swinging on the horizontal bar, or from the rings, both of which reminded him of the trapeze. Though he hated stopping to hold poses on rings as was the way of competitive gymnastics, it gave him too much time to think when the movement stopped.
He didn’t want to think, about the people he’d failed to save. His parents, who he watched fall, feeling powerless to do anything. His city, Bludhaven, where so many died but he was just as powerless to do anything. He practiced until his muscles ached on nights he didn’t have patrol. On nights he did patrol, he took out the anger in his veins on the random criminals haunting the street. He found himself feeling disappointed that there were far less criminals than there used to be, then forced himself to ignore that thought.
Dick was surrounded by people most days, between friends, family, and people he worked with. But he found himself feeling lonely in a crowd, for he was always performing, pretending to be fine. He didn’t want them to realize how sad he was, deep down. He was supposed to be the happy one. It was worse over the summer now that Jason was away on a trip, and Tim was always so busy with everything, and in general, Dick didn’t want to be a burden to his younger brothers.
He’d visited Titans Academy at one point, to talk to the meta kids from Bludhaven under his guardianship about their plans. Some of them expressed interest in returning to Gotham, and he persuaded them to stay at Titans Academy until late August, since Dick would be traveling a lot over the summer, but that they would get settled in before the school year began. He needed to figure out a better long term plan for them, but he found he lacked the mental bandwidth to figure it out at the moment.
At the start of July, Dick was contacted by the Gotham Zoo, concerning Zitka. Gotham’s Zoo was actually located in Bristol, since there was more space there and it was generally safer for the animals compared to downtown, which was definitely a good thing considering the mess that No Man’s Land had been.
Anyways, when Dick was a young teenager, there was a lot of backlash about circuses keeping exotic animals, especially elephants. It took him a while to understand the reasons for the backlash and reconcile it with his memories of the Circus, they’d always tried to treat their animals well, they didn’t strike them or anything. During that time, Bruce had funded for the Gotham Zoo to have a spacious elephant sanctuary and had arranged for Zitka to be moved there from Haly’s circus.
Dick had visited Zitka often over the years. He had special permission to visit Zitka directly after hours, in a space separated from the other elephants. He had visited her often over the years….at least, when he wasn’t busy avoiding Bruce, Gotham, and any other reminders of his past. After Jason had died, well, he went over a year without visiting Zitka. When he finally returned, one of the zookeepers had mentioned that Zitka had exhibited signs of stress and grief.
That happened to overlap with the first time Zitka was pregnant, enrolled in a reputable breeding program to help the population of the species. Elephants had long gestation periods and she had recently been impregnated shortly before the start of his absence. Apparently, after he went two months without visiting, she exhibited increasing stress behaviors which ultimately culminated in her miscarrying the pregnancy around the 8 month mark.
When Dick returned and heard about what had happened, he’d felt really bad. Zitka was so happy to see him when he returned, in a way that made clear that she had feared he was dead. She’d hugged him with her trunk and played with his hair for hours. Dick told her about how his brother had died, and that he’d avoided everyone in his grief; she may not speak English, but he felt she’d understood him. They’d always understood eachother pretty well.
Anyways, returning to the present, the zoo contacted him because it had been a while since he visited, and Zitka was exhibiting stress behaviors again. He’d gotten into the habit of visiting her at least monthly since he’d moved back to Gotham full-time, but he hadn’t visited since April, because of what happened in Bludhaven at the start of May. He vaguely remembered that in April, they’d talked to him about how they’d recently inseminated her, though they weren’t yet sure if it had taken. So, 3 months, he was overdue for a visit, and she was maybe pregnant, which considering what happened before, might make her more anxious than normal. He thanked the zoo for contacting him and arranged to stop by that evening.
He didn’t technically own Zitka, she was owned by the Zoo, which was a nonprofit, accredited zoo. However, Bruce donated a fair bit to the zoo for the elephant’s care specifically, and Dick was officially listed as her sponsor of sorts, and he had some control, such as they could not move her to a different zoo without his permission.
Dick went to the zoo that evening, after normal visiting hours had closed. The zookeeper in charge of Zitka’s care talked to him a bit, confirming that Zitka was pregnant with her second pregnancy, though it was still early. They thanked him for coming and expressed their concern that when he was away for a while, Zitka might become stressed again. Normally she was fine if he went 3 months without visiting, but she may be more sensitive with the pregnancy. Dick resolved to visit more and promised to that effect, though also mentioned sometimes he got busy and lost track of time and encouraged them to contact him as needed.
Zitka’s enclosure included two other female Asian elephants, a 40 year old who acted as the matriarch and the matriarch’s 20-year-old daughter. Elephants had a lifespan of 50 to 70 years. The matriarch and her daughter, many years ago, had been brought here from a smaller non-accredited zoo where they’d had limited space, and it was fortunate that they had welcomed Zitka into their herd, though Zitka remained the odd one out of sorts. They didn’t have any male elephants at this zoo, coordinating with another zoo to obtain samples for pregnancy.
Anyways, Dick was led to an area that was separate and closed off from the main elephant enclosure, where only Zitka was present, for him to meet her. While they were confident Zitka wouldn’t hurt him, there was some concern of the other elephants seeing him as a stranger. Zitka squealed in excitement when she saw Dick was there, though she kept her feet gentle on the ground. Her ears flapped in excitement and she raised her trunk in greeting, eagerly wrapping it around him and lifting him up with it, pulling him close for a hug, staying gentle throughout.
“Hey, girl, sorry I haven’t visited in a bit, things have been busy, but I’m okay,” Dick said softly, petting her the way she liked it. She rumbled in a happy sound, continuing to use her trunk to fuss over him. Dick relaxed under her hug.
“I heard you’re pregnant, that’s good, right? You can have family again. I’ll try to visit more, don’t want you worrying over me,” Dick spoke softly to her.
She warbled uncertainly. “I think you’ll make a good mother, Zi, you’ve always been so caring. And you’ve got a lot of people around here to help you, yeah? I look forward to meeting your calf,” Dick comforted her.
They enjoyed eachother’s company for a few hours until Zitka got tired. Dick kissed her trunk before leaving, and she waved her trunk bye at him as he waved back. He left the enclosure, returning to the back area where the zookeeper, Marnie, was waiting on him.
“It’s always interesting seeing you interact with her. She’s gentle with humans in general, patient with us zookeepers, but you, she treats you like a member of her herd,” Marnie observed.
“I am, in a sense. I…how much do you know about her history?” Dick asked.
“I know she was rescued from the circus where you grew up, but we don’t have much records about her time there, just that she was born in captivity and when she was born. I’ve reviewed all of her records since coming to the zoo. We at the zoo have had a fair bit of turnover in staffing, I’m now the lead elephant behaviorist, I was concerned about her anxious behaviors in pregnancy, especially because of the records from the last pregnancy with the miscarriage. I reviewed the previous zookeeper’s physical journal on the animals, which is separate from the official digital records, and it mentioned they suspected her previous anxiety was related to worry about you,” Marnie answered.
“Yeah, I, uh, at the time, I didn’t realize my absence would affect her so much,” Dick mused. “Zitka and I were the same age, we were born the same month, both born into the circus. Zitka’s mother died when we were about 3 and a half, I…don’t remember what the cause was, I was young so no one told me. But Zitka was young too and she was quite distressed about it, though she was still young. The elephant trainer said no one else should disturb her, but I would sneak in and talk to her through the cage, comforting her. We were the only kids in the circus, so we had to stick together, that’s how I saw it. She was like a sister to me. I got bolder and learned to pick locks and would enter the cage with her, and no one else knew about it, until one night I fell asleep there with her trunk wrapped around me. They concluded my presence helped her, so then I was always allowed to visit, without the sneaking around, so I visited as much as I could, whenever I wasn’t busy training myself,” Dick explained, feeling wistful.
“Elephants are social animals. It makes sense, under such circumstances, with her being so young, that she would’ve learned to view you as one of her herd, in a sense. Elephants are smart enough to know that humans are different from them, but she definitely seems to see you as family,” Marnie observed.
“Yeah, well, she is family. I remember when she first came here to the zoo, a few years after I, uh, moved to Gotham, she looked worse than she’d been when last I saw her. And she was so happy to see me, she was so eager to grab me in a hug like we used to that she banged her trunk against the glass. The zookeepers wouldn’t let me into the enclosure so, uh, I snuck off and snuck in again, and she calmed down once she could see me properly. After that, I got formal permission to be able to visit her properly. I think she knew my parents died, she would’ve picked that up from the behavior of everyone at the circus, but I think she thought I had died too, because I went away, and I didn’t have an opportunity to tell her bye when we were parted. So, uh, yeah, that’s probably why she exhibits anxious grief behavior when I’m gone too long,” Dick admitted.
“I’ll be honest, when I first got here and reviewed the files and the mentioned connection to you, I was…..worried that it was just manufactured because your father is a donor and you wanted to see her, but that really the connection to the Circus would just be traumatic for her. So I was wary when observing your visit the first time, but then it became clear that she really did care about you,” Marnie explained.
“She probably wouldn’t react so well to the people who had trained her. I mean, they never hit her, as far as I knew, I would have fought them if they tried, and I never saw such marks on her. But…they did yell at her some. But I was never the trainer, never had power over her, I was an innocent child like she was, we were both children trained to perform tricks for an audience and we grew up together,” Dick explained.
“I guess I didn’t think to look at it that way, that you were being trained to perform tricks too. How old were you when you started training as an acrobat?” Marnie asked.
“As long as I can remember. My mother performed trapeze through most of her pregnancy with me and she would take me up on the trapeze when I was a baby, they joked I was on the trapeze before I could walk. I could swing on a bar, near the ground, before I could walk more than a few steps. I trained the fundamental skills from the time I was a toddler, training hours a day, and I first joined their performances when I was 5. By 7, I could do the quadruple somersault and I was a star. I loved to perform and felt happy in my childhood, it was all I had ever known, but in hindsight I do know it wasn’t normal, and that the way Zitka and I were treated there wasn’t exactly right. I don’t really talk about it publicly, just brushing it off, sometimes with a joke,” Dick said. Saying he grew up in the circus sounded like a fun fact, most people never bothered to think through the implications of that.
“I see. I appreciate you talking to me, giving me more perspective on things. I do desire to do the best we can to care for Zitka, not just physically but also mentally, and more insight is helpful for that,” Marnie replied.
“Yeah, I’m glad she’s cared for. Um, I’ll try to visit at least once a month? But sometimes I get busy. Definitely feel free to contact me if she gets agitated like that again, before it gets bad,” Dick offered.
“Yeah, we’ll be in touch, feel free to reach out to arrange a meet up, anytime,” Marnie replied.
Dick went home. Then he went down to the gym, training on the bar until his hands hurt. As a child, he used to train until he had blisters on his hand from catching the bar, then would bandage them and train some more. He tried not to think about it too much. His parents were good people, he didn’t want to remember them differently, so it was best not to look too close.