Circusmaster Grayson

The Team

“And remember to keep your legs straight, or else it looks dumb,” Dick finished as he swung gracefully to a halt on the platform beside Angel and Red.

Angel looked somewhat apprehensive. “I think I can do it,” she said uncertainly.

Red’s jaw was on the floor. “How can you--” Angel touched his arm gently with a pointed look. He rolled his eyes, then sighed. “All right, let’s do it,” he groaned reluctantly.

Dick’s face lit up even brighter. “Sweet!” He was enjoying every second of the lesson. Red and Angel had told him that they had a bit of experience in the trapeze; they just needed some refreshers before they got good. So he was more than willing to see how much they actually knew.

It took him all of five minutes to realize that they had no idea what they were doing. He’d told them, despite their protests, to give it a shot and do their best. Their best, to put it lightly, was trash.

So he taught them the basics. How to hold the bar, how to build up momentum. Once he'd done that, he could clearly see that they had potential. With practice, they could actually perform at shows.

Dick decided that the best way to go about that was to work them to the bone. Once they were sufficiently sore and exhausted, he let them take a break. He found Apollo and Diana watching from the edges of the tent.

"Hello, archers! Your fellow troupe members are pretty good for noobs." Dick was met by stony silence from both of them and a glare from the redhead. "Oookay then. Moving on."

Since the archers were no company and he wanted to give his trainees a better break, he wandered off to entertain himself. Soon he found himself sitting in the shade of one if the large trailers in the parking lot, staring at the ants crawling across the asphalt.

“Hey,” he said to them. Naturally, they didn't answer. “You carrying that dead wasp to your colony?” He could only hear the quiet breeze rustling the distant circus posters and banners. “That's cool.”

“It's cool?! It's not cool at all!” someone yelled. Dick leaped to his feet, then realized they weren't talking to him.

“We've got to get this loaded up before anyone sees it, dum dum!” they were saying. Dick crept toward the corner of the trailer and peered around it. He saw a small, wiry figure reprimanding two other, larger men. They were carrying crates of some sort, and based on how they were acting, their contents were expensive, fragile, or both.

“Now get your sorry butt over there and get loading!” he continued.

Dick looked at the containers. As he stared, he could start to make out what they contained.

His jaw dropped. People were smuggling drugs? In a circus?

Although the more he thought about it, the more it made sense.

Without really thinking it through (which was his first big mistake), he stepped forward and challenged them, “What are you guys doing here?”

They just looked at him. “Who're you?”

Dick curled his lip disdainfully and replied in an extraordinarily important-sounding voice, “I'm a Flying Grayson. And you're toast.” He leapt at the closer of the two strongmen.

Before any of the three men could react, Dick had grabbed the man’s arm and twisted it slightly, then pulled. The large figure found himself staring at the blue, cloudless sky, suddenly with a pounding headache and a dislocated shoulder.

Dick had already moved on to the second big guy, figuring that by taking down the big guns, he could intimidate the smaller man out of fighting. He kicked the man’s belly hard, sending him staggering back, bent over, then Dick smashed his closed fists once into the back of his unprotected head. The man fell to the ground, groaning.