"You're wearing that?" Dinah said the second she got a good look at me in the back of the town car, where we had just pulled up to her apartment building. She was wearing a blue dress and her favorite leather jacket with boots, her standard outfit.

"Well, hi, Dinah." I put my purse on the floor so she could sit down. "What's so wrong with this outfit?"

The temperature was just right, so I was wearing skinny jeans, a green top, and flats. The jeans were form-fitting, but not super tight, and the green top was a long sleeved button down. The color looked nice against my red hair, which was up in a neat ponytail. I was put together, but not trying too hard. Nerd-cute, I guess. Not sexy by any stretch of the imagination, since Dinah usually took over that role when we went out together.

"He's obviously into you, so why not go for it? Flash a little cleavage or something. Unbutton a shirt button. You finally grew boobs, really nice ones at that, so use them." She got in and shut the door.

"Because flirting with someone I'm investigating isn't a good idea. And he just asked me to the circus—that's hardly a love confession." I looked down at myself and considered unbuttoning another button. I automatically kept my appearance as modest as possible around Bruce (and Alfred, though mostly Bruce) because I could tell they were mildly uncomfortable with me being more womanly all of a sudden, breaking up the boys club the cave was before for good. They'd had two years to adjust to the fact that I wore and actually needed a real bra that wasn't a double A-cup and could no longer easily go undercover as a pre-pubescent boy, but they still weren't fully used to it.

I undid the next button down.

Dinah laughed. "Fine, fine. Should be fun, even if it is part investigation. And if you aren't going for him, I will."

"On the outs with Oliver again?" I stretched my legs out too as the car lurched forward.

She sighed and leaned her head against the window. "Suddenly, it's an open relationship. Which he told me when I noticed some other girl call him right after we hooked up."

"Yikes."

"Yeah."

"So you're taking a break?" I glanced at myself in a small mirror I dug from my purse.

"Yeah. I need to take a break from guys in general." She looked out the window. "So I can live vicariously through you once you go out with Dick."

"Dinah." I put my hand on the door handle, wanting to jump from the car and run to the circus just so she wouldn't convince me to actually do it. I would get there faster too—we were stuck in traffic and barely crawling down the street.

"What? Even if you aren't fully into him, you could at least make out with him. That would be worth it, according to the rumors on one of his fan-sites—apparently he's a good kisser and an even better lay."

"You're just pushing me right into this, aren't you?" I said, laughing. "First you tell me to flash my boobs, now you're telling me to lose my virginity to him."

"In the best case scenario, yes. Plus if I'm going to be re-living my first time, it should be with someone who's good and not some random guy who claims to be fifth in line for the throne of some island nation. All that royal inbreeding back in the day must have made him have a genetically tiny penis."

I bit my lip to keep myself from laughing any harder, but totally failed. The guy she was talking about was a guest at a Wayne Foundation event that I'd invited her along to three years ago, and he latched onto Dinah the moment he saw her. He was tall, blonde, and handsome, her perfect counterpart…until she decided that she wanted to have sex and he was her lucky first choice. He was a great until the actual penetration, which hardly felt like anything, then he didn't last long and cried himself to sleep next to her. When she first told me this in full detail, she was crying, mostly out of annoyance, but now we laughed about it.

Soon, the car parked next to the performer's entrance of the Gotham Entertainment Center and the driver opened the door for us, a handler taking over the moment we were outside. I could see several trailers, where some of the performers slept, I guessed, down the alley.

"Hello, Ms. Wayne, Ms. Lance," the handler said, smiling widely and holding the door to the building open for us. "So glad you could make it. Dick is waiting for you inside. Excuse the mess—we're setting up a few things for the other acts."

The performer's entrance was a long, dimly lit hallway that led into the backstage area, which was the opposite of long and dimly lit. Everything was smushed together because of all the people going in and out of doors, squeezing through costumes and scenery pieces that took up space in the hallway. It got a bit better once we got to the acrobat area, which didn't have as much stuff hanging around. The handler knocked on Dick's door, which he answered pretty much immediately. He was wearing a white tank again, and blue shorts. I wasn't even sure where to look — his arms were so perfectly muscled and his everything else was just as nice to look at. But I settled on his face because that was both good and socially acceptable.

"Hey!" His smile lit up his whole face. "Glad you guys could make it. Are you Dinah?"

"Yeah, nice to meet you." They shook hands.

"I'm a little pressed for time, unfortunately. Our rehearsal ran a little long, so you'll just have to be totally surprised." He glanced at the clock on the wall. "Maybe I can take you to your seats for now, then we could grab food after?"

"Sounds great," Dinah said before I could mention that I might not be able to go for long. She pinched my side when I opened my mouth.

"Good. I was a little worried. Dragging you both out here and not being able to hang out." He started walking toward the performance area. "I got you great seats though. Perfect for seeing our new trick."

They were great seats, even better than the ones that Bruce and I had. They were actually a little bit farther away from the stage, but we could see the entire stage from above without a problem. Dick had to leave to finish getting ready, so Dinah and I talked a bit more until the lights flickered to signal the show starting soon.

"Please silence all cell phones," a voice said over the loudspeakers. Dinah and I dug through our bags to turn our phones off. I had my regular Barbara phone and my Bat phone. Barbara phone didn't have messages, but Bat phone had one from Bruce. I decoded the message—

Stay on task, Robin. Don't forget why you're there.

My mood flipped from good to angry in moments. Nice to know Bruce trusted me to do things on my own. I wasn't sure why I was surprised that he would send me something like this, especially when it involved Dinah or anyone else my age.

The show started, but I couldn't focus. I kept going back in my mental history, trying to think of moments when I'd slipped up. I had perfect recall and I couldn't think of a single freaking one.

"I wonder how long he'll be in there," Dinah asked, checking the time on her phone. I needed to get her a watch for her birthday so she wouldn't be so dependent on it. We had been out of the show for about five minutes, max.

"Why? Are you hungry?"

"Nope, just waiting for something…" She looked down the hall. "Oh, here he comes."

He had changed into jeans and a t-shirt, and I was really happy to see that he was the kind of guy who could be hot in regular clothes, his hair mussed up. And that smile. God, this was not good.

"Ready? I was thinking about this 24-hour diner near here." He ran his fingers through his hair, glancing at the floor, then up at me. "Probably not as fancy as you're used to. Well, definitely not as fancy."

"Sounds good to me," I said.

Suddenly Dinah's phone beeped. "Oh, excuse me."

She stepped away a little and answered. I couldn't tell who she was talking to by her tone, but I definitely heard her say, "I'll be right there, okay? Okay, bye."

Uh-oh.

"Hey, I'm really sorry, but I can't make it. My mother needs help at the flower shop—huge order for a wealthy client at the last minute." She sighed. "I already bailed on her earlier this week and I promised I'd make it up to her."

"Wow, that sucks. Who orders flowers on a Saturday night?" He looked legitimately disappointed, but I knew Dinah too well to be. It was a set-up.

"I know, right? I guess I'll have to tag along some other time?" She hugged me goodbye. Before she tried to pull away, I clutched her tight.

"I swear, Dinah…," I whispered.

"You'll thank me later." She let go. "Nice meeting you, Dick."

"Nice meeting you too, Dinah." Dick waved as Dinah practically sprinted off past him, throwing me one more glance and a thumbs up over her shoulder.

"So, just us, then?" He tucked his hands into his pockets and looked at me expectantly. "If that's fine."

He looked so hopeful that it made my heart lurch a little bit. His expressiveness that worked so well on stage was working over me over.

Before I could stop myself, I said, "Yeah, let's go."

And that smile again. The next time Dinah and I trained together, I was going to kick her ass.

"Hope you don't mind that we take my motorcycle. A lot faster than the train," he said when we got to the parking lot. He handed me a helmet from the back bin.

"It's fine. I have one myself." He didn't have to know it also was armed with enough stun guns and non-lethal weapons to knock every one of the elephants in his circus unconscious.

"Really? I don't see you as the motorcycle type." He sat on the bike. "More of a sports car type."

I slid my helmet on to hide my grin before I climbed on behind him. "Well, you're right about that too. How'd you guess?"

"The way you walk." He started up the bike and headed toward the diner before I could ask him what that meant. But the way he said it sent a nice chill down my spine that was only worsened when I pressed against him. I stole a sniff of the back of his shirt, which smelled like clean laundry and what I assumed was that mysterious boy scent Dinah talked about a lot. And he was warm, which was nice when we started zipping through the streets to the diner.

The diner was kind of a dive on the outside, but the inside smelled like Alfred's famous (to us) bacon, which calmed the nervous knot in my chest that I hadn't realized was there. The hostess sat us in a green vinyl booth in the corner, a little away from everyone else. I stretched out my leg and accidentally brushed his, and he did the same a few seconds after, quietly apologizing. I focused on the menu instead of the warmth radiating from his legs that I was probably imagining. The menu was fifteen pages long, with everything from breakfast to dessert, but Dick wasn't even thumbing through it.

"So…" I glanced up at him. "What do you usually get?"

"Whatever Brenda brings me." He looked past my shoulder and smiled. "Hey, Brenda."

"Hey, hun." Brenda, the waitress, said, smiling widely at Dick. With her white hair and warmth, she reminded me of a grandmother from a cookie commercial. "Brought a date this time?"

Instead of blushing, he just grinned even broader. "Just a friend. This is Barbara. Barbara, this is Brenda."

"Well, nice to meet you. Coffee for you two? Juice? Or are you ready for food?" She scribbled a circle on her notepad to get the ink running again.

"I'll probably need another minute," I said, skimming the menu. "But coffee, I guess?"

"Same," Dick said.

Brenda smiled, almost flirtatiously. "I'll put on the good stuff for you."

"You come here a lot, I take it?" I asked him once Brenda was out of earshot.

"Yeah, most nights after a show. I work up an appetite."

"Any suggestions, then?"

"Yeah, definitely." He leaned forward, putting his finger on my menu to point at something. "The potato pancakes are good. And the sausage. And the pancakes. Just all the breakfast stuff. And the lunch and dinner stuff."

"So everything, basically?" I felt an involuntary smile spread across my face.

"Pretty much."

"I'll get the pancakes, then." Terrible food before a patrol, but I hadn't had anything since lunch. "With the bacon."

Soon Brenda came back with the coffee and took my order, leaving Dick and me alone again. I could hear his leg jiggling under the table, and he was absently scratching at a hangnail. This suddenly felt like a date—the secluded booth, his nervous leg twitch, the sweat that had suddenly bloomed under my armpits when I looked at him (thank god for my cardigan). The thought made my mouth go dry before I remembered all the techniques I knew to keep calm under pressure.

"So what did you mean before when you said I was more of a sports car type?" I asked.

Finally, his cheeks went a little pink. "From the way you walk. I don't know. You seem very…self-assured. Not a lot of girls our age walk like that."

He said it like it was a good thing. It was the first time I'd heard it put that way. "You've been watching me walk?" I asked, immediately focusing on dumping sugar into my coffee after.

"Just a little bit." He grinned. "It's a very circus walk too. I was a little surprised."

"Circus walk?"

He poured cream into his coffee, forgoing the sugar. "You have to be pretty confident, or at least appear to be, to be in the circus, especially in acrobatics. You can't hesitate with your movements or you might get hurt."

"Hm." I stirred my coffee just to have something to do with my hands. "So I'd fit right in with the circus?"

"Yeah, if you like traveling and being overly close to a bunch of strangers who've become your family." His words had a fondness to them that made my heart lurch.

"You've been there your whole life, then?" I asked, even though I knew the answer.

"Yep. I can't remember living in any one place for more than a year at a time, really." He shrugged. "I'm not sure if I like it because I'm used to it, or if I like it because it really works for me."

"Maybe you're just built for it. I know I'm not naturally the high society parties type."

"Mm." He nodded. "You have to go to a lot of those?"

"Yeah, it kind of sucks. A lot of butt kissing, that kind of thing." I crossed my legs just as Dick stretched his out a little bit, making our knees touch. This time he didn't move them or apologize.

"Sounds like fun." He smirked, but there wasn't any malice in it.

I snorted. "Buckets of fun."

"So, what's your average day like?"

"Seriously?" Even I got bored thinking about my average, non-Bat days. "You honestly want to know?"

He shrugged. "I'm curious about you. It's not often that I get to talk to non-circus girls for more than a few moments, especially ones who are…y'know."

"Billionaire heiresses?"

"I guess. I was going to say cool with a genius level intellect, according to your Wikipedia page." He hid a bashful grin behind his coffee mug. "Which I had to check out, sorry."

I couldn't help but smile too seeing his smile and that dimple in his left cheek that I was becoming really fond of. "Do you always Google a girl before you hang out with her?"

"Not always, but you're a special case." He moved his knees to touch mine again.

I didn't move mine away, even though I felt like he could feel my fluttering pulse through the place where our knees met. Thinking about how he made me react only made me blush and sweat even more, which started a feedback loop of self-conscious twitches. I could stare down the barrel of a mob boss's gun, but this guy was tearing me to pieces with a smile.

Then the arrival of our food reminded me of Alfred, who reminded me of Bruce, who reminded me of the mission I was supposed to be on. The DNA had shown that Dick was Batboy, and we still didn't know his motive. What if he knew who I was outside of my Barbara Wayne persona? He could be flirting to break down my barriers, which he was succeeding at. I busied myself with eating so I could pull it back together. A side effect of living with Bruce was becoming just as paranoid as he was. I pushed the anxiety aside, looking back at Dick.

Just once, I wasn't going to let Bruce dictate my life from afar. Besides, I could get information out of him if I played the game right. Even though the thought of Dick flirting with me to bring me down gave me a nervous lump in my chest.

"So, your typical day," Dick finally said after we'd both gotten through half of our plates without a word.

"Right." I wiped my mouth with a napkin. The bacon was almost as good as Alfred's, and twice as greasy. "It's really not that interesting. I usually get up, go for a jog, read, sit in on board meetings for the Wayne Foundation, hang out with Dinah, stuff like that."

Even though the answer was half-assed, he nodded. "See, that's not that boring. I figured you would just be sitting around at parties all day, kissing butts."

I laughed. "Even in the morning?"

He grinned. "All day, all night. Just a line of wealthy old butts for you to kiss. Kiss a butt cheek and they throw money at whatever project you're doing. "

"You've figured me out. Are you going to put that on my Wikipedia page?"

"It'll be our secret," he said.

"You promise?"

"Boy Scout's honor." He put two fingers up, then paused. "I don't know what the salute is, but close enough."

"I think that's right." I felt my phone buzz in my purse next to my leg, but ignored it. "Since you know about my secret days, you have to tell me about yours."

"That's fair." He polished off his sausage. "I usually get up kind of late, workout, see what everyone else is doing. Then I decide what to do from there. There's never a typical day."

"So one day you could be doing your crazy tricks, then another you could be riding an elephant around?" I stirred what little was left of my coffee, wondering if I should push him for more information. I'd kept mine, but from the way he talked, I felt like he would give up a bit more.

"Pretty much."

"That sounds pretty awesome."

"Yeah, I'm lucky," he said. "It can get a little dull, though. It's nice to move and meet new people."

"Date new people?" I blurted, my curiosity getting the best of me. My phone buzzed again, meaning it could only be Bruce. I pushed him to the back of my mind. If something were truly urgent and crime-related, my phone would chime with a different ringtone and not my regular-Barbara Wayne phone. He never did this.

"I guess." Thankfully he just smiled. "Is this a date?"

"What?"

He suddenly looked lost. "Oh, sorry…I just thought that since you mentioned dating…"

"No! I mean, yes. I guess it wasn't, but now it is one since Dinah left us…" My paleness, yet again, didn't do me any favors. My face was probably as red as my hair. "If you want it to be."

"Only if you want it to be." His smile finally turned a little shy.

The warmth in my chest that I hadn't really felt in a long time, the way I felt when I sipped a warm drink on a cool day. "I think I'd like it to be."

"Same here." Tension in his shoulders that I hadn't even noticed melted away. My phone buzzed yet again. "Do you want to get that?"

"I guess I should." I dug the phone out. Bruce, just as I suspected. "Excuse me."

"Hello?" I answered once I was at a good distance.

"You aren't with Dinah," Bruce said.

"No?" I frowned a bit. "I'm at dinner with Dick Grayson. We were going to go out with Dinah, but she had to leave."

"You're at dinner with him?" I could hear the cold judgement in his voice. He didn't even have to say anything more—he'd already leapt to his own conclusions.

"I am." I felt anger bubbling up in me. I had it under control, even if this had turned into a date. It wasn't like I was flipping through photos of me dressed as Robin or anything.

"I assume that you're doing what's best for the…business." He still sounded tense. "I'm sending a car to pick you up in fifteen minutes to get you home."

"I—"

But he had already hung up. He could press just the right buttons with me and it was getting more and more irritating as the years went by. I knew he was a smart man and I believed in his mission, but god, sometimes he pushed it too far. And with an action, came an equal and opposite reaction.

I tucked my phone back into my pocket and went back to the table, hoping I looked more put together than I felt. Dick was counting change and put it into his wallet.

"I took care of the bill, if that's okay." He stuffed his wallet back into his pocket. "It's getting kind of late."

"You didn't have to do that," I said, playing with the band of my watch so I wouldn't have to look at him in the eye.

"I always pay for my dates." He stood and put his napkin on the table. "Ready to head out?"

"Yeah, there's a car coming to pick me up at the theater." I bit back a sigh.

"I'll get you back, then." He guided me back to his bike with a hand on my back.

We rode in silence, and by the time we got back, the limo was waiting for me. I hopped off the bike and handed him the extra helmet.

"Can I text you?" He asked, pulling out his phone. "Maybe we could plan a date instead of falling into one by chance."

"I'd like that." I pulled out my phone and gave him my number. He texted me back so I'd have his. "See you around, then."

"See ya." He leaned in and gently kissed me on the lips. It was a polite kiss, but my lips tingled even after he pulled away.

I backed toward the limo, smiling. He waved as we pulled away. I relaxed into the limo seat, tossing my purse to the opposite side. Alfred rolled down the barrier between the front and the back, glancing at me through the rearview mirror.

"Did you have a good time, Miss Barbara?" He had a knowing look in his eye.

"I did, Alfred." I looked at Dick's contact info in my phone. "It was really fun."