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CATGIRL'S POV
When we got to the tent, I felt my heart drop.
They added the net by request of Nightwing, but the drop was still enough for me to freak out.
"Listen, are we sure they don't need a ring leader or something," I run a hand through my hair, "I think that's more of my speed, you know?"
Nightwing crosses his arms over his chest, but his eyes shine with amusement as he says, "They already have a ring leader."
Right, Haly.
I open my mouth but he cuts me off, "And don't even think about hurting that poor old man."
"He's not that old," I grumble and cross my arms, looking away from him and back at the ladder, we have to climb. My eyes shift to the swings attached at the top. "Who even came up with no net acrobatic tricks?" I say staring uncomfortably up at the two thin boards that are supposed to support both Nightwing and I.
"No clue." He hums as he switches his gaze between the boards and me. My eyes meet his and he sighs. "Listen, you can do this. It's no different from what we have been doing since we were twelve." He says as he attempts to reassure me.
"No, it's not," I say, shaking my head. "When I am out on the streets, I can move my whip, I can pick where to go..." shaking my head I point towards the ladder, "Up there? Everything stays still and-"
"And you have to depend on me." He says, cutting me off as his eyes fill with understanding.
My eyes meet his, my own fill of worry. I don't try to deny it, it's the truth.
An awkward silence fills the air as he reflects on what he just learned.
I've never shown him any form of fear for myself before until today and now he knows why. It's not because I think I can't do it. It's because I am terrified because I won't be the only one I have to depend on anymore. I know I won't let myself get hurt, I will be there for myself, but will he?
He turns to me, putting a hand on my lower back as he starts walking us towards the ladder. "Trust me; I wouldn't let you fall." We stop at the ladder and he faces me, his eyes staring into mine as he adds, "I promise."
Something in my stomach does a twist at his words, his actions, his stare, his touch. Him.
I step away and wrap my arms around myself, before looking back to the ladder.
"Okay." I agree before saying, "But I want to fall first."
"Wha-"
"I want to fall first. I want to fall and feel the net catch me so I will know I will be okay. And when we take the net away, I will just keep pretending like it's there." I explain but don't wait for his response as I climb up the stairs of the ladder. "Are there any pretty ways to fall to your possible death?" I ask looking back at Nightwing when I am halfway up the ladder.
He rubs the back of his neck, "A flip couldn't hurt." He says before adding, "way before you think you are going to hit the net, don't try to flip into the net, you could hurt yourself."
I send him a glare before I continue climbing, him watching me from the safety of the floor.
When I finally get all the way to the top, I swear the air is thinner.
I look down and while I jump off of buildings every day and night, doing it without any of my tools feels as scary as if I had never jumped off a building.
I shake my head and tell myself I am being ridiculous.
Then again, fear is your body telling you something is dangerous and is supposed to help keep you alive.
I'm just going to ignore my natural instincts for once and do exactly what I always do, which is do what I am not supposed to do.
My instincts just usually agree with that route.
And with that, I jump.
I give Nightwing no warning, my hair flying up as I free-fall, my stomach feeling like it just might fly out of my body.
I tuck my knees in and do two flips in a row, my ears popping and my body moving faster when I do the flips before just letting my body fall, so I don't land headfirst into the net.
The impact causes my body to jolt slightly, and I surprisingly bounce a little.
Nightwing says something from somewhere behind me, but I don't listen to him, I only stare up at the ceiling for a few moments until I feel a dip in the net and see him trying to get me off of it.
"Hello? Ca-I mean Daisy," He messes up shaking his head in frustration before saying, "I swear answer me, are you okay?"
I look at him before moving to climb off, still trying to absorb everything I just felt.
"Are you okay?!" He says again as I climb down and land on the ground.
I look at him and my face breaks out into a smile," Careful, you almost sound like you actually care about me boy wonder."
His face relaxes and he lets out a laugh of his own before he shakes his head and runs a hand through his hair. "I should have known."
"What?"
"That you are absolutely insane enough to jump without any warning and just lay there and-"
I grab his hand and pull him toward the ladder. "You can rant about how unbelievable I am later, now I need you to teach me how to be an acrobat because that beautiful net will not be there tomorrow." I cut him off, forcing him to start climbing up the ladder.
He doesn't fight me on it and we quickly climb back up to the top of the perch, that's what I will call it.
It reminds me of a little nest for birds, so it's fitting.
When we get up, he takes the trapeze and puts it in my hand to which I stare back at him and blink.
"Right." He says sighing, "So do you think you can just- actually."
He puts his hands on my shoulders and turns me to face the other side where the other trapeze is.
I am almost scared he is going to kick me off this perch before he starts correcting my form, commenting where I should focus on tightening what muscles throughout the routine.
He taps my feet with his own; keep them straight, toes pointed. He taps my legs; keep them flexed the whole time. He presses his hand between my shoulder blades, his fingers spreading over them; pinch them together, keep your back engaged.
I grip the trapeze tightly, trying to remember everything he is saying before I feel him step closer, so close I can feel his breaking on my neck because I put my hair up in a ponytail after the fall.
I don't move as he reaches over my head, our arms touching as he grabs hold of the trapeze bar, his hands right next to mine.
"We are going to swing for a few seconds and then I am going to try a trick, show you how to do it." He says, and I nod my head to keep a shiver from going down my spine, him being so close his breath fans across my neck as he talks. "If you need, you can let go, you have the net to catch you."
"Okay," I say, shaking my thoughts clear as I look down before back up, "one."
"Two." He continues.
"Three." We both push off, and suddenly we are flying through the air, our bodies pressed against each other.
This drop is different, you can feel the tension of the wire holding you up as you swing, and as we swing back and forth, Nightwing instructs me to move with him, it isn't that different from the idea of a regular swing, the feeling almost the same.
I almost let go of the trapeze when Nightwing hooked his legs with mine and let's go off the bar, his body flipping backward and pulling me down with the force of his weight.
"What the actual f-"
"You are fine, just keep swinging. Don't move your legs, keep them straight." He says his voice a lot louder because he knows I won't be able to hear him if he is facing away, which now he is facing down. Down to the floor.
He is insane.
I let out a breath and do what he says, and after a few swings, his weight disappears and I watch as he does two flips before straightening his body out and catching the other bar.
I stare in amazement as he replaces his hands so he is facing me with a grin on his face when he notices the look I am giving him.
"A warning would be nice," I say after a few moments, trying to seem less impressed than I actually was.
"Thought I would just keep you on your toes." He smirks before looking up at the bar. "Let's get some basics out of the way." He pulls himself up and puts the bar in between his knees before letting his hands go as he did with me. He stares at me upside down, "Your turn."
I shake my head but a smile creeps its way onto my face and I mirror him, doing what he did moments before.
When we are both upside down he raises an eyebrow at me. "What, no backtalk?"
"None needed," I say because I feel a lot better about being up here. It doesn't seem as scary as I thought, especially right now. "Do you like my backtalk? There can be more backtalk if you want, hubby."
That damn smirk is back as he says, "Okay, darling, come join me."
My face falls but I recover and pull my upper body to the bar. I hold on and let it go with my knees so I am swinging normally again.
Nightwing, looking slightly impressed with me, his brown eyes shining with something else too.
"Okay, just look at my hands, that's your target. Let go at the peak of your swing and aim for my hands when I swing your way."
I move my body to get more acceleration, my eyes fixed on his hands, which are outstretched and open for me to grab.
I don't let myself think about it before I let go, tucking my body like I saw Nightwing do to flip twice and straighten out my body. His hands, thankfully, were still in the place I thought they would be and as he is swinging back this way, his hands grab hold of mine and we are suddenly swinging again.
I let out a laugh before I could stop myself and look up at him before I looked back at my bar still swinging.
If I do a backflip...
He watches my eyes go to the bar, surprise on his face before I look back at him and nod and the next time we hit the peak of the swing, he launches me backward, and I tuck into two flips before straightening out. I manage to, barely, catch the bar backward and look back at him.
"Your turn to catch me." He says, and I turn myself upside down so my hands are free to catch him.
He doesn't move from his state upside down, which tells me he knows a lot about how to do this from his time on the last mission.
Instead, he unwraps his legs at a speed that could rival the speedsters on the team before he flips towards me.
I watch his hands, waiting before he is close enough and, when he is, my hands grab hold of his.
This time it's him who lets out a laugh and, without telling me what to do, decides to try to land on the perch.
He catches himself but I am too slow to catch on and try to untwist my legs.
He realizes this too late, his fingers trying to hold onto me, but he misses my hand, and I swing back.
Having already started to undo my legs, I decided to take advantage of the net and let go of the bar.
I land in the safety of the net, and a few moments later, it dips again.
I blink to the side of me, Nightwing looking back.
"You okay?"
I shake my head before I start laughing and look back up to the bars replaying the scene in my head.
His worried expression softens before he joins me, looking up and laughing.
"So," he says when our laughter dies down, "We might need to work on the landing."
I turn to him, my eyes alight with amusement. "You think?"
He grins, "Just a little."
"A heads up would have been nice, love." I tease, sitting up.
He does the same, only he weighs more than me so the sudden movement causes a dip in the net and me to fall towards him.
One second we are a good distance apart, the next we are practically nose to nose, and his hand goes to my waist to stop me from falling completely on him.
"I will keep that in mind next time, sweetheart." He says his eyes flickering from my eyes to my lips and my stomach explodes into a nervous frenzy.
I stare at him and I can't help but mirror his actions.
It's the adrenaline, I tell myself. The nerves, the feeling that his hand is burning through to my skin, the small bit of excitement bubbling in my chest.
It's the adrenaline.
His brown eyes study me and I do the same. I don't know what color I thought his eyes would be, but it wasn't the chocolate brown looking back at me.
He was looking at me so intensely that I thought I might just spill all of my secrets.
And I looked back just as intensely.
His hair was a mess over his head, like usual, falling perfectly over his eyes, his mask.
And for the first time since I had met him, I wanted him to take off his mask and for me to take mine off.
I wanted to tell him everything at that moment. Everything about Rogue, everything about my past, everything about what I was going to do.
I didn't want to hide who I was, and I didn't want him to either.
I stayed frozen even though I imagined reaching for his mask. I wonder if he would even let me take it off. Probably not.
I have to remind myself he still thinks I am crazy. He still thinks Rogue is right.
He didn't move either, and it seemed like he was having trouble too, his body frozen like mine, our eyes the only things moving, and sometimes they were frozen to each other.
I don't know how long we stayed like that, in what seemed like our own little bubble, our own peace of the world before we were broken apart by a voice.
"Well, sorry if I am interrupting something."
Haly.
Our heads snap to him, and I recover first, slipping down from the net, "You weren't interrupting anything, we were just practicing."
The man smiles at me, as I shake whatever just happened off and out of my mind.
"I just wanted to see how you two were doing," He says as Nightwing lands next to me. Haly looks at him, "I talked with the others for a little while just now and they said it was Daisy's first performance with your group."
"You don't have to worry, she will be great up there, it will be like my sister never left," Dan reassures him.
"I'm not worried about the show, I want to know how you are feeling, Daisy," Haly says, looking at me.
I give him a reassuring smile, "I am good, we are just going over some small things."
Small things include how to do trapeze stunts apparently.
When Miss Martian said acrobatic stuff, I didn't immediately go to trapeze work, maybe silk work, or something but I feel like trapeze work shouldn't have just been described as "stuff."
Haly puts a hand on my shoulder and squeezes it, and I understand how everyone is so comfortable with him. He hasn't even known me for a day and has already seemed genuinely worried about how I feel.
"Well, if you need anything let me know," he winked at me before looking at Dan and saying, "Don't work her too hard, and remember you both need to eat and sleep too. Tomorrow is important, but you need to take care of yourselves."
Dan nods with a small smile, and we watch as the lovable man in front of us smiles one last time before turning and leaving the tent.
This circus has lost so much, had so much bad press, and keeps being targeted and that man is still putting smiles on people's faces.
I shake my head throwing the thoughts out and look at Nightwing, who was still looking to where Haly disappeared.
"Okay, show me the routine, show me what I need to do." I practically demand, walking back to the ladder, with new determination.
We've got to save this circus.
Again.
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After about an hour and a half, I had learned the routine and all of the things the others would be throwing at me. Artemis and Roy, who apparently goes by Will now because of the clone situation, would be shooting arrows at us, Conner would be throwing up barrels we would be ducking through.
Worse thing worse, I think Conner would catch me if I fell, but the idea still wasn't too comforting.
When we got back to the cart, Will said, "Wow, they are both alive."
Artemis catches on with the joke, placing her hands on her hips, and looks us up and down, "And no claw marks or bruises, practice must have gone well."
I roll my eyes at them and move to sit on my bed, hiding my wince as my stomach pulls.
Earlier my body was too pumped with adrenaline to even realize my stomach was pulsing in pain, and now that I have calmed down, the pain is much more noticeable.
I just hoped it was only noticeable to me.
Nightwing might believe that it was just soreness, and I knew I would be sore from flipping through the air as much as I did, but now I was kind of concerned I tore open my stitches.
I feel like they aren't because that had to have hurt enough for me to realize. The only problem is that I can't really check with all of them standing around me.
"Practice actually went well. Cat is a natural." Nightwing says to the others, avoiding looking directly at me.
It was like that for the rest of the practice. We both could barely look at each other after the little incident.
And even though nothing happened, I can't help but feel something shift between us. Like something isn't the same as before, or maybe it is and we just are more aware of it.
I don't know. And I don't want to know.
Right now all I want is to get this mission done and to get Rogue away from the team.
"Cat?" Artemis questions, waving her hand in front of my face, "Earth to Cat?"
I blinked looking up at the four pairs of eyes looking back at me.
"Sorry, yeah?" I say and stop myself from showing any form of embarrassment over my absentee mind.
"We said we are going to get something to eat..." my face stays blank causing her to continue, "They have a big dinner going on... you coming?"
"Umm..." This is my chance to check on my stitches, "You guys go ahead and I can meet you all there. I just need to call Catwoman real fast, she called earlier and I totally forgot to call her back." I lie implying that something may go wrong if she didn't hear from me, causing Will and Artemis to nod.
Nightwing is finally looking at me, and he goes to open his mouth, but Conner beats him to it.
"Actually, I have to call Miss M., so I can stay with Cat and we can walk over together so no one is lost." He offers, and to them, I am sure it looks like he is making sure I can't do any shady business, but I know exactly what he is doing.
Artemis shares a look with Nightwing and shrugs, "Okay, see y'all soon."
With that, the three of them leave, leaving Conner and I.
"I'm fine," I say after a moment. "It just hurts a little and I want to make sure it's not bleeding."
He nods, before taking out his phone and turning the other way, "You can check, I actually did want to call M'gann too."
I smile at him, grateful to have someone on my side for once before he completely turns and I take off my top.
The skin was puffy and red, but it didn't seem that the stitches were damaged.
I sigh in relief before taking out some of the cream Alfred gave me and putting some of it on the wound. He was right, it made it feel better and heal a lot faster than normal which I was grateful for.
I put my top back on and wait for Conner to end his call before we leave for dinner.
Conner seemed to know where we were supposed to be going so I just followed him until we got to a big opening with a lot of abnormally dressed people and food that smelled really good.
Acts of all kinds walked past us and I had a hard time keeping track of them. Clowns, fortune tellers, lion tamers, and more.
No wonder this circus was as successful and as targeted as it was.
My eyes scan the crowd before Conner nudges my arm gently, so he won't hurt me, and nods to them.
"Looks like the twins are picking a fight again."
I raise my eyebrow at the 'again' in that sentence, but follow Conner just the same, walking up to the group.
"Come on, Carlo, you said the exact same thing last time." Artemis defends, her arms crossed, and her chin up in the air as she looks at the two guys in front of her.
"And it's still true, it's bullshit that you guys come in and take the top spot after all these years." Carlo snarls. "You guys aren't even an actual act! You look up your name and nothing comes up!"
His brother pipes up, "And when we finally figure out why Haly trusts and adores you so much, we will make sure everyone knows what you guys really are."
"Excuse me," I step in front of Artemis, Will, and Nightwing, "Is there a problem here?"
The two men look at me and one scoffs, "Another one, are you kidding me! You don't even look like them!"
I scoff back, mocking him, "Are you kidding me? I'm a wife, and one you should back away from."
The two share a look before laughing at me, causing me to cross my arms and cock my head to the side.
"There is a problem, Sweetheart." Carlo says nodding to the group behind me, "because the family you married into are nothing but lying-"
"Well, they clearly must be better than you if Haly gives them the best spot." I point out, though I am sure something on the end of bribery gets us the first spot every time.
No way does he just trust us.
"Listen, Love,-"
"You listen, that's kind of my wife, so I don't appreciate the pet names," Nightwing interjects playing the mad husband role, and somehow managing to get me behind him.
"So now Dan Danger wants to talk," Carlo sneers.
Nightwing doesn't so much as flinch, his glare still on his face and I sense this ending badly.
"You better watch that wife of yours-"
Nightwing clenches his jaw and I know I need to get back in between the two and end this before someone ends up on the floor.
And my bet is going to be on Nightwing.
I put my hand on his chest and push him back as I step up again.
"Well-"
"Listen here, and listen closely," I say slowly, but manage to put on a soft and innocent-looking expression.
"No, you listen, you can't just-"
"Stop cutting me off or I will cut something of yours off." I threaten, and they pipe down. I look them both in the eyes for a few seconds each before I continue low enough so only we could hear, "The way I see it, is you have gathered enough attention to us with your outbursts. And as you two seem to care so much about your public image, imagine how great it would be after a rumor gets around that you hit on a married woman, and made her cry because you threatened her new family."
Their eyes widen and they look around at the people who stopped to watch the conversation unfold.
"It's your choice really," I continue, "but I am going to start crying in three..." I make my face morph into a real-looking hurt and insulted expression and put my hand to my mouth as if I couldn't hold in a sob. "Two." Tears gather in my eyes, and I start sniffing, "One-"
"We get it!" Carlo exclaims before he realizes he said that way too loudly and he shakes his head and nods to his brother, "We get it, we will be going. Good luck with your performance. Break a leg."
I stop my sniffling, my face relaxing again, and turn to my group, "Something tells me he meant that literally." I blink the tears away before looking at them.
They stare at me for a few moments before Will says, "Fine, I will say it first, that was impressive."
I smile lightly, "One of the first things I learned was how to fake innocence, and I didn't really even have to lie, they did what I said they did, they just didn't expect me to cry."
"Taking advantage of egotistical males," Artemis says, looping her arm in mine, "I like it. Now let's eat."
Nightwing doesn't move with us at first, causing me to grab his arm.
I didn't want things to be weird with us, so I am just going to pretend it never happened.
"Come on, dear. Swinging in the air for hours needs to be rewarded with food." I tease, and he shakes his head, a small smile on his face before he follows.
Artemis shares and looks with the other two, before we all walk to get food together.
While we were eating, a few people came up to talk to us either to welcome us to the circus or to talk about the argument earlier.
"I figured our lead would come from that," I say to no one in particular. "Usually the guilty party likes to get involved in drama."
"She's right," Will says, making me slightly annoyed, but I let it slide.
I know I'm right, I grew up in Gotham where stuff like this happened all the time.
I don't have time to be annoyed for long because a guy taps on my shoulder.
"Sorry to interrupt, I just wanted to make sure you were okay," he explains, flashing me a smile before doing the same with Artemis, "I saw what happened earlier with the brothers."
"I'm fine, thank you for asking," I smile at him before turning my body to point more to him, to make him think I am more interested than I really am. "Have you been with the circus for a while?"
He pulls up a chair to our table, sitting next to me and Artemis.
Artemis raises her eyebrows at me as he does so, to which I shrug and look at Nightwing next to me, who looked as confused as us before I looked back to the mystery guy.
"I've been here for about a year," He says, leaning back slightly.
He is trying to seem cool and confident.
"And have the brothers always been a pain?" Artemis asks.
"They just like to be the best and when they aren't they get mad." He shrugs before leaning in, "I wouldn't listen to them, they are just jealous."
I could feel the guys looking at each other before Nightwing speaks up, "We figured."
The guy looks at the boys and for a moment the guys seem to finally realize it's not just him, Artemis, and I at the table.
"Yeah." He says leaning back slightly, puffing up his chest.
Ohh, macho man.
I fight an eye roll.
Instead, I pretend to be interested, playing with a strand of my hair as I say, "Man, I would think a circus wouldn't have much drama going on."
"Yeah, apparently this circus has a bad habit of getting flagged by the police too." He says nonchalantly.
"What!" I fake exclaim and look at Artemis as if saying 'did you hear that?'
"Woah, why?" Artemis says catching on, leaning in and matching my wonderstruck expression.
"Apparently kids are going missing at the shows now," he shrugs, "It's really sad."
"Do they know anything about it? And what's the word..." I look to Artemis, playing dumb.
"Oh, I know what word you mean... what is it!" She says pretending to think.
"Any leads?" The guy supplies.
"Ohhhhh." We both say together, "That's it!"
"No," he shakes his head," apparently they think it's someone who joined recently, but they already talked to everyone."
We could hack into the police records. See what they think.
I look the man up and down before deciding by the way he is looking at Artemis and I. He isn't a mastermind, he is just trying to hit on us.
I look to Nightwing, Conner, and Will where the guys can't see and silently tell them to get rid of him.
I look back and the guy pulls out his phone, "Could I get y'alls number?"
"Sorry, I am married," Artemis says with a shrug.
The guy raises his eyebrows, "I thought y'all were siblings?"
"We are, well not her," she nods to me," but my husband is at home."
The guy doesn't seem too upset about it as he turns to me.
Nightwing wraps his arm around me and I lean my head on him.
"Sorry, she married into the family." He says it for me and I don't mind because I am trying too hard to not read into my reaction to having his arm around me.
It feels comfortable, not weird, but safe. And even thinking that feels weird.
Regardless, I smile up at him and peck him on the cheek before looking at the guy again because he didn't seem convinced at Nightwing's words, but now he sure does.
"Got it." He says and smiles again before getting up without a goodbye.
I shake my head. If this mission is just going to be dealing with people like him, I'm going to be bored out of my mind.
Nightwing takes his arm off my shoulders and we both move further away from each other than before.
So much for it not being awkward.
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A/N:
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ohh, a little drama this chapter, what was your favorite?
do you like the new chapters?
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thanks for reading, don't forget to vote & comment !!
xoxo, author