(A/N: Helloo everybody! Sorry for not updating in so long, I don't really have an excuse. I'm hoping to be better on that and I'm also planning on editing this story a bit, since the first few chapters are an example of my writing from a while ago and I'm in the process of editing and making said writing more up to my current skill level. Once again, sorry for the delay and thanks to all that have stuck with me and reviewed! It means a lot. Enjoy!)

The week following the incident in the alleyway was rather uneventful. The school year was now almost officially halfway over, and I was extremely proud to note that my grades were actually pretty decent. Not stellar—not straight A+'s or anything like that—but still, decent. Babs is certainly one awesome tutor—and that is coming from a student standpoint, not a friend's point of view.

I don't want to jinx it or anything, so I won't say it out loud, but I do think that things are definitely looking up. Everything has been about as good as it can get, really. Bruce has been bearable and hasn't gone on one of his obsessed three-days-without-sleeping rampages, or whatever it can be called. My grades are doing all right, I have a hot redhead that knows my secret as my tutor and nighttime patrol partner, and Carl and I have been hanging out a lot more.

I really, really hope nothing happens that'll screw it all up.

But then again, that might be too much to hope for.

So might as well enjoy it while it lasts, right?

So enjoy it I did. Walking into the school on Monday after Alfred dropped me off; I was in an actually really good mood. Still fairly tired, but not overly so, considering what time I got to bed last night. Morning, actually. I felt pretty ready for my math test today, and I figured I would actually be able to focus well enough in my classes.

It was going to be a good day. I was absolutely sure of it.

The first period bell went off as I reached my locker, warning me that I had only seven minutes to get to my first class of the day. For me, it was English. I couldn't help but smile as I stuffed the books I didn't need yet into my locker and closed it, re-locking my lock and twirling the com a little.

I wasn't a fan of English, but that was at least one of the three classes I had with Carl.

Shouldering my backpack, I made my way into the flow of students heading to first period and moved in the direction of my English classroom. I reached it with time to spare and slipped inside, finding my seat and sitting down.

People were still filing in and kids were all over the place, sitting on top of the desks and chatting with one another, throwing paper airplanes and sending quick texts before the start of class. I smiled at the normality of it all. Not saying I like school—far from it—but I don't mind the everyday predictability of it. At least it was something I could count on being consistent and ordinary everyday-unlike, it seems, most things in my life are.

"Yo Grayson! My man!"

I turned around in my seat to see Carl bounding toward me, all smiles. I do not know where that kid gets all his energy but boy does he have it. I don't want to know what would happen if he got his hand on a can of Monster. I would not want to be present for the result.

"Hey, Carl," I greeted him, smiling. "S'up?"

"Not much," he said, sitting on the top of the desk adjacent to me and dangling his feet over the side. "Keeping myself sane. Can you believe it? School's halfway done already!"

"I know right?" I said, laughing. "Halfway to summer."

"And halfway to being done with sixth grade," Carl said, raising an eyebrow. "We won't be the little tykes anymore. We'll be big time seventh graders!"

"Yeah…" I said. I hadn't thought much of that. "And then we can look down on all the incoming sixth graders!"

Carl grinned. "That'll be fun," he said. He glanced out the window for a moment, his smile fading somewhat.

"Hey, Dick," he said slowly, looking back at me. "Can ask you something?"

I frowned at his seriousness. That was unlike Carl. "Yeah, shoot," I said.

Carl opened his mouth to ask—

But at that moment the bell rang and our teacher, Miss. Doppler, entered the classroom.

"All right, everybody take their seats!" she hollered, and everyone clambered to find there desks.

"Ask me later, okay man?" I whispered to Carl.

Carl frowned, looking unhappy, but he nodded and rushed toward his seat.

I watched him go, brow furrowed, wondering what he had been about to ask me. What was bothering him so much that he would look so troubled? Everything had been great between us, and nothing in school seemed to have gone wrong. Our tutoring sessions together had all been wonderful, and both our grades have been awesome…what could…?

I felt my blood turn to ice as a thought hit me.

It couldn't be anything Bat related…could it?

Carl didn't know anything about me being Robin. Bruce had made that very clear: NO one knows about our secret. At least not without his permission. I was strictly not allowed to tell, and I knew what the consequences would be if I disobeyed.

An angry Batman is not a good Batman.

I hadn't let on anything to Carl. I was sure of it. I had been as careful as careful can be. He couldn't be suspicious of my double life, could he? I bit my lip, worried. Carl is my friend and I trust him. But I don't know what would happen if he was armed with that kind of information. I would need to make him swear not to tell anyone…but before I could do that, I would have to make sure he even knew, without telling him the secret, in case I was wrong with this entire assessment and he doesn't know it at all, and—

"What do you think, Mr. Grayson?"

I snapped out of my thoughts fast, looking up at Mrs. Doppler.

"Huh, wha?"

The class laughed and I blushed. Miss. Doppler raised an eyebrow somewhat sternly, though she was smiling a little. She was one of the few teachers in the school I actually liked. She was actually nice—something I could not say for all my other teachers. Listening to most of my teachers was like having to listen to the Penguin monologue. (Incredibly boring. You have no idea.)

"Have you been paying attention Mr. Grayson?" Miss. Doppler asked kindly.

"Uh…not really," I admitted, running a hand through my hair.

"Well, then," Miss. Doppler said. "Who can explain to Mr. Grayson what we were discussing?"

No one raised their hand, and I let out a sigh of relief. Maybe if no one answered, I'd be off the hook.

Then—as if to spite me, the little demon child—Carl raised his hand.

"Yes, Mr. Sampson," Miss. Doppler called on him.

Carl smiled at her. "We were discussing adverbs, and the different things that they can modify in a sentence."

"Correct," Miss. Doppler said, smiling at him before turning back to me. "Now, Mr. Grayson," she said, and I groaned inwardly. "My question was: what does an adverb modify?"

"A verb?" I guessed.

Miss. Doppler nodded. "Correct. And?"

"Um…" I hesitated, biting my lip, straining my brain to remember Barbara's tutoring session the night before. "Other adverbs?"

"Also correct," Miss. Doppler said, smiling. "Very good, maybe you were paying attention somewhat after all."

She moved on, reviewing some more material we had learned the day before. I slumped in my seat, glad that was over. I shot daggers at Carl the rest of the class period, furious at him (though not really) for setting me up like that.

He simply grinned at me like some sort of mini Joker, smug about his little display.

I made a mental note to steal his dessert from him today at lunch as pay back, and maybe his pencil case for good measure.

~O~

The day progressed slowly but surely, and as I predicted, it was turning out to be a rather high-spirited, happy day. The water fountain decided to spray the girl who tried to drink from it after me instead of me, Al had packed me an egg salad sandwich—my favorite—for lunch, I managed to eat half of Carl's cupcake before he managed to snatch it back, and he didn't even notice me sneak his pencil case out of his backpack.

Oh, it was a good, good day.

And it was about to get even better!

As Carl and I left Science together, heading toward our lockers with goggles in hand, Carl seemed to have forgotten all about what he was going to ask me about in English, and was giddily keeping a secret from me that he was obviously dying to tell.

"Oh, just tell me already," I complained, shoving my goggles and Science binder back in my locker.

"Nope," he said. "Not gonna. I wanna see your face when you find out!"

"Find out what?" I whined, giving him the show he wanted. I actually really wanted to know. What was so big that Carl actually wanted to keep the secret from me? He never kept secrets from me. He had a loud mouth when it came to telling me about something.

Carl just shook his head. "You'll see next period," he said, closing his locker.

I frowned, shutting mine as well. "Gym? What's so big about gym class?"

Carl just grinned. "Yooouuu'll seee," he said in a singsong voice. "C'mon, let's go!"

He took of down the hall in a speed walk (no running in the halls) and I followed him, bursting with curiosity. We took the stairs down to the gym two at a time, and I felt my anticipation grow as we made a break for the guy's locker room. Carl was ahead of me by only a couple feet, but he came to a sudden stop as we entered the locker room, causing me to run into him.

"What?" I huffed, hurriedly collecting myself.

Carl simply grinned from ear to ear. "Read the board," he said.

I frowned, but obediently looked at the notice board—a whiteboard that the gym teachers wrote what activities we were doing each day. I hardly looked at it—frankly, I never cared what we did in gym class; it was normally stupid anyway. But Carl always did. I just didn't see what would be so interesting that he would ask me to read—

I froze as I looked at what was scheduled for the day.

There, in the box for Monday, there were two words written in big, fat red marker.

GYMNASTICS UNIT.

I felt my mouth drop open and heard Carl laugh.

"See?" he said. "Toldja you'd like it!"

"G-gymnastics?" I got out. "We're gonna do gymnastics in gym class today?"

"Not just today," Carl said, pointing to the board. "The rest of the week too!"

I stared at the board for a long moment, and sure enough, everyday this week had GYMNASTICS UNIT written on it in the same big red marker.

I could hardly believe it. Gymnastics. Gymnastics! We were doing gymnastics in gym class! FINALLY something worthwhile! Something I was good at—no, amazing at! I grew up doing gymnastics. I mean, I grew up in a circus, where half the people that worked there could do a triple flip in their sleep. Trapeze and gymnastics were second nature to me—no sweat. Even though I hadn't been in the circus since my parents died, I know I haven't lost my edge in the slightest. Being Robin has certainly kept my speed, agility and flexibility at its peak.

I'm sure I can ace anything that the gym teachers can throw at me.

Carl was still grinning madly at me. "The moment I saw it, I thought of you," he said. "You can still do it, right? All the things you learned in the circus?"

"Yeah, of course!" I said, grinning just as widely as Carl now, excitement coursing through me. I laughed. "This is going to be so awesome! I wonder what we're all gonna do? Tumbling maybe? Parallel bars? Pommel horse?"

"I dunno," Carl said. "We'll have to see. Lets hurry and get ready; we've already wasted a bunch of time."

I nodded and scurried to my gym locker, hurriedly unlocking it and throwing out my gym clothes before roughly putting them on in recorded time. I met Carl at the locker room entrance and we both sprinted for the gym, Carl roughly stuffing his glasses on as we went.

We slowed to a walk as we reached the doors of the main gym, walking in with wide eyes. I couldn't suppress a smile when I saw the gymnastics equipment strewn across the shiny gym floor. I suddenly felt like a kid in a candy shop. Three balance beams, uneven bars and parallel bars, tumbling mats, two vaults, and even a pair of rings strung from the ceiling. No pommel horse though. I guess very few people would have the upper body strength to be able to do that (besides me, anyway).

This was going to be way awesome.

A loud clap grabbed everyone's attention and all eyes turned to Mr. Jeustosky, the gym teacher.

"All right, everyone!" he said in a big, commanding voice, silencing all chatter. "As you've all obviously guessed, we're starting our gymnastics unit today! This will go on for a week. We're going to start with the basics and the rules, since we don't want anyone getting hurt or trying anything outside their skill level."

I couldn't help but grin a bit. A whole week of gymnastics! And forget the basics, I was a pro, I'd be able to skip all that stuff in a jiffy.

"Okay," Mr. Jeustosky said, surveying the class, which had about forty to fifty sixth graders in it. "How many people here take or have taken gymnastics before?"

Practically beaming, I raised my hand, along with about four other kids—all girls, I saw. That made my smile fade a bit. Stupid guys think that gymnastics is just a girls sport.

"Okay, so a couple of you," Mr. Jeustosky noted. "How many of those five are currently still taking gymnastics?"

I kept my hand up, even though I wasn't paying for lessons at the moment. Didn't need to, when I have a whole room of the Batcave dedicated to gymnastics and Bruce to teach me anything I don't already know. I already had a lie set up if he asked me where I was taking lessons.

Luckily, he didn't, but he did smile at me, and I noticed I was now the only kid with their hand up.

Oh, splendid. This'll be fun.

"Richard," Mr. Jeustosky said, smiling, and everyone turned to look at me. "You're taking gymnastics."

Suddenly, I found myself feeling incredibly nervous. Seriously, I can go out wearing green pixie boots and scaly underwear every night, but for suddenly I feel sweaty when a bunch of sixth graders are staring at me?

I have serious issues.

"Yeah," I said, relieved that my voice was even. "I…uh, grew up in the circus."

The truth can't hurt.

Mr. Jeustosky raised an eyebrow, as if to say 'Really?' before realization hit him.

"Ah, that's right," he said, smiling. "The Flying Grayson's, correct?"

I felt like I had suddenly got stabbed with a knife to the heart at the name. Sheesh, get a hold of yourself Grayson!

"Yeah, that's right," I said.

Mr. Jeustosky practically beamed. "Well then Mr. Grayson! You're practically a natural! Would you mind demonstrating the equipment for us?"

I shrugged. "Sure, why not?" I said.

"Great," Mr. Jeustosky said, smiling at me before addressing the whole class.

"All right, class," he said. "Now that we have established who has experience, it seems clear that we are going to have to do stations. I've asked various teachers to come supervise during the different class periods, so there will be a teacher at each set of equipment to spot you. I'll let you just this once pick your groups—of five or less please!—and assign you to a station. That'll be tomorrow. Today, I will explain the rules of each different type of equipment, and Mr. Grayson here will demonstrate. Understand how this is going to go down?"

Everyone nodded vigorously and Mr. Jeustosky clapped his hands again. "All right, we'll start with the balance beam," he said. "Mr. Grayson, if you please?"

I smiled and made my way toward the gym teacher, feeling excited for I think the first time ever in gym class. This was way too cool!

Mr. Jeustosky led the class over to the beam before turning to me. "I assume you've done the beam before?" he asked.

I nodded. The trapeze was my specialty, since that was the main circus attraction, especially with my family, but we all learned gymnastics. We mastered all the equipment the sport has to offer, even though we never did the beam at a performance.

"Great," Mr. Jeustosky said. "Why don't you show us what you've got?"

"It'd be my pleasure," I said, bowing for fun and blowing a kiss to the crowd. I heard a couple girls giggle. Bonus!

With the gracefulness that years of practice has granted me, I slipped off my gym shoes and jumped up onto the beam, balancing perfectly with one socked foot in front of the other, arms out loose but even.

"Now watch how he keeps his balance," Mr. Jeustosky said, narrating my movements. I knew I should probably block him out to keep my concentration, but I could do these sorts of tricks in my sleep and it made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside to hear his praise.

Putting my focus back on the beam, I took a deep, calming breath, before bending my knees, dividing my weight evenly on the balls of my feet. Then, without warning, I launched myself into the air, feeling my body arch as I let my back move into a C-shape, facing the beam, and put my hands out in front of me. Even though I knew it had only been a second since I jumped, everything seemed to lay out in slow motion for me. My hands came down on the beam, one in front of the other, flat on the slightly chalky surface, and once they were down firmly, I moved my body out of the curve and pulled myself into a handstand in once slick movement. In another split second, I put all my strength into my arms and pushed myself back into the air, arching my back again, the opposite way this time, and landed on the beam again, one foot in front of the other.

I didn't wobble. I didn't even bend my knees that much to help me stick the landing.

Smiling widely, I raised my hands up like an Olympic medalist, before bowing to my crowd.

Everyone clapped and I beamed at the looks of awe on their faces. I felt incredibly awake and alive; no doubt from the adrenaline that always floods my system whenever I do flips.

Did I mention how much I love gymnastics?

"Amazing," Mr. Jeustosky praised, smiling almost as wide as me. "You did it so fast and so effortlessly. Like you do it every day."

I kinda do, I thought, but simply shrugged and smiled. "Would you like me to do a couple more?" I asked.

Mr. Jeustosky waved his hands at the beam. "Knock yourself out," he said.

I frowned. "I certainly hope not," I said jokingly, with fake sincerity.

Mr. Jeustosky laughed. "Go ahead, kid," he said.

I smiled, before executing a perfect backflip, adding a double flip in midair for show. Then a cartwheel, a one-handed handstand, and a blind flip where I couldn't see the beam below me to stick the landing.

The class just stared at me in awe as I finished, doing a flip off the beam for good measure and landing lightly in front of them on the gym floor.

It was totally worth it to see their faces.

And it just kept getting better from there.

From the balance beam, we moved on to the vaults. I didn't even ask for Mr. Jeustosky's permission to go before I was off, giving myself a running start at the spring board, doing a flip onto it and feeling myself launch into the air, a laugh escaping my lips at the feel of the wind I was creating on my face. Then I came down on the beam, landed with my hands and did a handstand, before pushing myself up and doing a backflip onto the mat.

I beamed at the class's applause and whistling, before jumping off the mat and running back to the front of the vault and doing another trick without giving myself a second to breathe. This time, I ran onto the spring board normaly and did a triple flip in the air, before straddling the beam, my hands keeping me up and my legs out on either side of them, toes pointed. Then, in one fluid movement, I pushed my butt up and let my legs move up into another handstand, this time moving my legs out into the splits, before pushing up with my hands and twirling my legs around in midair like a pinwheel, snapping my legs together and becoming upright just a split second before I hit the mat.

As I jogged back to the class, they all stared at me with wide eyes and slacked jaws.

"Fantastic," Mr. Jeustosky whispered in awe. "You learned all that at the circus?"

Most of it. "Yeah," I said, slightly winded from the physical exertion. Despite myself, I was sweating. I ran a hand through my untidy hair, moving it out of my face. "It took a lot of practice though."

Mr. Jeustosky seemed at loss for words. Instead of speaking, he simply gestured toward the rings.

I grinned wide, my eyes sparkling.

Oh boy, was this too fun.

HOLY GYMNASTICS, BATMAN! HAHA!

~O~

Quite of few tricks later, I was back in the locker room, changing out of my gym uniform and sweating a lot.

I had received all sorts of compliments as class had been dismissed—even from some jocks that had never spoken to me in my life.

I felt like a superstar. That was me. Dick Grayson, the Gymnastics Wonder.

Thank you whoever thought of the gymnastics unit!

I stand by what I said earlier. Today was a good day.

I met Carl outside the locker room a few minutes later. He was still smiling like he had been before, but with more awe than earlier.

"Dude, that was totally wicked," he said, punching me lightly on the shoulder. "I knew you were good but not that good! You're, like—Olympic material, man!"

I laughed. Somehow, I didn't see the Olympics in my future—but then again, who knows?

"I don't know about that," I said. "We'll see."

"Still," Carl said. "That was pretty amazing. Did you see the look on everyone's faces? I wish I could do that. I'm the least flexible person in the whole universe."

I grinned. "We'll see about that," I said, punching him back lightly. "Maybe all you need is the right teacher. Like, maybe…I don't know…moi?"

Carl grinned at me, eyes shining. "Are you for real?"

"Have I ever lied to you?" I asked.

Carl pretended to be thoughtful about it. "Well…"

"Hey!" I said, fakely hurt.

He smirked. "Just kidding," he laughed. "I'd be honored to have you teach me, Richard Grayson of the Flying Grayson's. Can I have your autograph as well?"

"Oh stop it," I said, rolling my eyes. "You're making me blush."

He laughed and we said our quick 'later's before going our separate ways to our next class.

I grinned the whole way.

Today was a good day.