the robin & the canary; young justice

o24: Performance

Potential TW for this chapter: Panic Attack/Mentions of Panic Attacks

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B R U G E S
December 22, 20:05 CET

If you had told Reese a week ago that she would be coming back here less than forty-eight hours before her birthday, she probably would've thought you were crazy.

It wasn't like she hadn't had fun at Haly's Circus the first time around--it was where she had initially met her boyfriend, of course--but she and Dick hadn't even had the chance to exchange names before his parents were killed by Tony Zucco, and then everything went to hell.

But, here Reese was, almost five years later, dressed in a sparkly red-and-white unitard with her hair braided down her back, styled in such a way that the silver streak wasn't visible. Before she had entered the ring, Reese had had Roy, who was standing eight feet to her right, splash almost an entire bottle of body glitter over her, so once Jack Haly turned the lights to the tent on, she would literally be sparkling.

She and Dick were both wearing the golden arrowheads around their necks, and Silverbird couldn't help but wonder what everyone else thought about them. Even Wally, who hadn't actually come with them, was still a little bit confused about how exactly they worked, but then again, that could've just been the redhead still being a skeptic.

As Reese waited for the ringmaster to start the show, the brunette glanced around the shadowed center ring, shifting her foot against the dirt floor and noting the positions of the rest of her team. Like she had said, Roy was standing about two meters to her right, dressed in a similar red-and-white outfit, a more simple bow than the one Red Arrow usually used hanging at his side.

On the other side of the ring was Artemis, holding a bow like Roy's and dressed exactly like Reese, sans the body glitter. Behind Reese stood Conner, the genomorph shifting against the three large barrels that were next to him.

This mission was stupid.

Not the premise of it, Reese admired Dick for being able to come back to the circus after what had happened, wanting to make sure that whatever was going on didn't implicate the people who had raised him in any way, but Reese didn't understand why she had to be the one covered in glitter.

Feeling her nose tickle, the almost-thirteen-year-old choked back a sneeze and tilted her head upward, straining her eyes behind the lens-less domino masks she and the others were all wearing to catch a glimpse of the platforms seventy feet above her head, where Dick and M'gann were getting ready to do their trapeze act.

Reese knew that to keep their cover, they all needed to do a different act concerning their skills (hence her sparkly gymnastics routine that was going to start in about two minutes). It was also why Dick was up on the platform with M'gann.

She knew that the trapeze was her boyfriend's specialty and that he was good at it, but that didn't mean Reese wasn't still a bit bothered, and why wouldn't she be? The last time that the Boy Wonder--before he had been the Boy Wonder, obviously--had had anything to do with a professional trapeze act, almost his entire family had died.

Plus, this trapeze act, eerily like the final performance of the Flying Graysons, was also being performed without a net, and if that wasn't bound to bring up some hard memories, Reese didn't know what would.

"I can hear you worrying," Dick's voice sounded softly in the brunette's ear as Reese's vision split.

For a second, Reese felt a bit dizzy, because, from the side of her vision that was from the Boy Wonder's point-of-view, Silverbird was only just able to see herself, looking as small as an ant, from where Dick was standing almost one hundred feet above.