[hider=WITHDRAWN][center][img]https://i.imgur.com/baAgPvi.png[/img]
[sub]"Mary Jane's Last Dance" | Prologue | [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ak_ZqsOOJ8g]Post Theme[/url]
[ [url=https://www.roleplayerguild.com/posts/5224538]next[/url] ][/sub][/center]
[b]HALY'S CIRCUS[/b]
Gotham City, New Jersey
[i]September 16, 1966[/i]

[indent][color=gold][i]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.[/i][/color]

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

[color=gold][i]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 [b]twang[/b] 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 [b]snap-CLAP[/b] 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. [b]“DAD!”[/b] 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.[/i][/color][/indent]
[center][color=black]+ - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - +[/color][/center]
[b]STATELY WAYNE MANOR[/b]
Bristol Township, New Jersey
[i]January 1, 1968[/i] | [color=gold]Present Day[/color]

[indent][color=silver]”[b]HAPPY NEW YEAR![/b]”

The young boy sat up, not entirely awake.

To be honest, he didn’t remember going to sleep. It left the child disoriented as he was jostled amid the whooping and hollering. Blinking several times, a yawn gripped him as the fog began to lift from his brain, even though his body felt like it weighed a ton. 

This was... well, Dick didn’t know what it was ‘sposed to be called. The living room? Except half the rooms in the place were living rooms. It was the one next to Mister Wayne’s study. The one with the clock.

Yeah, [i]that[/i] clock.

Anyway, Dick found himself halfway in the lap of Miss Agnes. Which, that wasn’t her name. Well, it [i]was[/i] her name. But not, like, her official name. That was Mrs. Walden. She was Old Money. One of the Wayne Foundation’s biggest donors. Apparently, she’d been Mister Bruce’s mom’s teacher. Or, maybe she’d been Bruce’s teacher too? Anyway, she knew the Waynes or the Waynes knew her. Alfred would even go and get her for these kinds of things. 

She was different from most of the people who came to these events. She actually [i]talked[/i] to Alfred. Like, not to complain about the food or ask for more wine. She and Alfred would talk about [i]the war[/i]. That’s what they called it. [i]The war[/i]. Like it was the only one, or something. They never said [i]which[/i] war. It was just [i]the war[/i].

Miss Agnes liked Dick. Said he reminded her of her son. Now, Dick didn’t know much ‘bout folk, [i]especially old folk[/i], but he thought that Miss Agnes must be really sad. Her husband had died in some kind of crash in a stock market. Like, airplane or car? Dick didn’t know. He didn’t know what a stock market was either, but apparently, Miss Agnes had been alone for a long time.

Her son, the one that Dick reminded her of, he’d died when he was about Mister Bruce’s age. He’d been an officer in the Navy stationed in Hawaii on some ship called [i]Arizona[/i]. She had a daughter, but Dick got the sense that she didn’t anymore. Miss Agnes never talked about her much.

Around them, the whooping and hollering had no sign of letting up. These people were louder than the circus. And this was a damn monkey suit to boot! Shifting uncomfortably, Dick reached a hand up to tug at the collar of the shirt and bow tie that was choking him. Alfred had some stupid tuxedo thing tailored to fit him. Like [i]everything else[/i], it had been Mister Wayne’s. 

Everything in this whole goddamn house belonged to Mister Wayne. Including, it seemed, Alfred and Dick.

Ol’ Man Lincoln had freed the slaves. Could circus freaks get some relief here?

This party was some kind of gas. The boy’s steel-blue eyes moved across the room. He quickly found Mister Fox. There wasn’t a lot of colored folks. Well, colored folk who weren’t, like, hired on to help Alfred with the party. But, what Dick [i]didn’t[/i] see was a colored kid. 

Luke had probably split to mellow out in Dick’s room. Shit, Luke was crazier for it than Dick was. It was just big and empty, like the rest of this ol’ house. But there were all four G.I. Joes -- that was all of them, except for the colored one -- and Dick had gotten the operation game for Christmas. If he had to guess, Luke was probably playing operation.

Aw, nuts. Who was he foolin’? Luke was probably under the covers asleep. Which was where Dick [i]wished[/i] he was right now.

They had another day before they started back to school from Christmas break. Mister Wayne had said that Luke could sleep over since it was a New Years Party and Mister Fox was coming. And where was Dick? Smack dab in the middle of [b]Oldsville[/b], New Jersey. The last exit off the highway to hell.

“Isn’t it exciting!” Miss Agnes remarked, a hand squeezing Dick’s shoulder. For his part, Dick’s head just rolled back as he sagged against the elderly matron. “Nineteen sixty-eight. It’s almost a new decade,” the woman mused aloud.

“Heavens,” she uttered a moment later, her other hand clutching at the pearls she wore. She seemed to be looking off into the distance as she said, “I suppose it will be a new century before any of you know it.”

The remark prompted the boy to adopt a quizzical expression. Rolling his head so that he was looking up at the lady, the boy asked, [color=gold]“What is a sentry?”[/color] When she looked back at him, the boy explained, [color=gold]“People always say [i]deal of the sentry[/i] and stuff.”[/color]

“[i]Cen-tur-ee[/i],” Miss Agnes said, in that drawn-out tone that instantly reminded Dick that the old lady was a teacher. He could totally picture it, as she continued, “A [i]sen-tree[/i] is someone who stands guard. A [i]cen-tur-ee[/i] is one hundred years. The year eighteen hundred to the year nineteen hundred is a century.”

[color=snow]“I expect that Master Richard should find his bed.”[/color] 

No one talked like that. Except for one person. Who was also old. Well, maybe not as old as Miss Agnes. 

As Alfred appeared at the end of the settee, the immaculate British butler looked down at the matron [color=snow]“And what of you, madam? Shall I freshen your drink? Or would you prefer I fetched your coat instead?”[/color]

Miss Agnes gave a dismissive wave of her hand. “I am perfectly capable of fetching my own coat, sir,” the woman remarked, as she leaned forward.

Then, she seemed to stall there a moment, before she settled back against the seat with a sigh of defeat. “However, I may not be capable of getting up from this seat,” the woman remarked flatly. Then, extended a hand out toward the boy as she said, “Some help, Dicky.”

While Dick labored at getting Miss Agnes off the seatee, Alfred slipped back into the crowd to get some additional help of his own.[/color][/indent][/hider]