Disclaimer: I'm not exactly sure how to say this because I can't think of a funny way to say this or a depressing, dramatic, realistic, or foreign way to say this, but I don't own Nightwing. Or DC Comics. Okay? I'm sorry that was a little dull...

Author's Note: Alright, so, Chapter Three's up. I wrote this in one day and had a blast with it. Dick's growing up. Slowly, but he is. One more thing, for those of you who are also reading 'Sincerely Adeline', I haven't had time to finish the next chapter in time, so it will hopefully be up sometime in the middle of this week. This has been such a fun chapter to write so I think it will be a nice treat for everyone reading this. In fact, I'm even going to stop chatting on and on early so you can read this. May I present "Chapter Three: Promises"!

-N-

Flying

Chapter Three: Promises

Sitting at a desk in a school, most children are accustomed to seeing their teacher write on a wall in front of them that they call a chalkboard. It's normally green or black and will have assignments written down on it and eraser marks. During math class, a teacher would pick up a piece of chalk, a smooth, cylinder-shaped, white rock, and writes down an equation for the students to copy and try. Depending on the chalk, it might scratch on the board or possibly only make sounds when the teacher barely lifts the object off the board.

But that wasn't what Dick thought of when he thought of 'chalk'. In fact the only similarity of his thoughts of chalk that were even the tiniest bit similar were the white specks that it left on clothes and hands. There was normally a small tray or bowl involved with chalk in his mind. Very small, but big enough for one to dip their hands in all the way around. It wasn't a cylinder shaped rock. It was a dusty white material that his parents would rub their taped hands and wrists. Then his mother would kiss him on the cheek and follow his father up to the top of the tall trapeze.

To many people, a trapeze was an uncommon sight, but to Dick it was almost like a pen or pencil, something that you saw and used daily. At the end of the day, the trapeze was just where his Mom and Dad went to work. It was something his Dad talked about daily. It was something that was just there. It wasn't scary to watch his parents go up and flip and twist and jump and leap. It wasn't anything extraordinary. Not until one night that is. Dick had gone to bed and so had John and Mary.

He had woken up in the middle of the night. He walked into the kitchen and poured a glass of water for himself. As he sipped the water, he looked up at the window sill where four candles had stood. It was April now, the April after his fourth birthday. He finished his water and was about to walk back to his bedroom, when he heard something. Getting on his hands and knees, Dick pressed his ear to the floor to see if he could hear his parents. He heard the scratching of the pen and his parents whispering. Curiosity peaked his interest. Knocking on the door, he heard the sudden shifting of papers and his mother coming to the door.

Seeing her son looking up at her as she opened the door, she asked, "Dick, honey, what are you doing up so late?"

"Getting water. What are you doing?" He asked, while looking past his mother to see if he could look past her frame and into the other room.

"Just some work for Pop, sweetie. Why don't you go back to bed, okay? You need your rest," She said.

Dick pursed his lips but then shrugged, "Fine, don't tell me."

"I love you," His mother called after him.

Dick looked back and couldn't keep his sour face straight and walked on back to his bedroom. As soon as Mary heard the click of the door and the rustling of bedsheets, she closed the door and let out a breath of air that she had been holding.

"That was close," She whispered.

"You're telling me, I'm sitting on about half of these papers just to hide them," John answered back.

Mary walked back to John and sat back down on the bed and began to start filling out the papers again, "I still can't remember all of these papers when I started doing this."

"That's because there's more, since he's a minor," John whispered.

"Were there this many papers for you?" She asked.

"More than there were for you, but not so much since I was pretty much on my own," John told her.

"Do you think we're doing the right thing? I mean, he's barely four," She inquired.

"Mary, he's a Grayson," He answered, "It's in his blood to do this."

"But what if this is too early? I mean, there's so much that could go wrong," She whispered.

"It's not like we're going to put him up there without a net," John said, "He'll be safe. And we'll be right there with him."

"But John, I just don't think that..."

"Remember when I took you up there for the first time?"

"Yes."

"Remember that feeling?"

"Yes."

"Don't you want him to have that feeling?"

"Yes, but..."

"That freedom?"

"Yes, but I..."

"Am a worried mother which is totally natural."

"John!" She said back.

John interrupted, "Well, you are!"

Mary took her pillow and hit John on the back on the head with it, "Ow!"

"Don't tell me you're not worried at all!" She told him.

John sighed, "Mary, I would never put Dick in a situation where I didn't feel safe. If he was up there without anyone, I'd never allow it. But we're going to be up there with him. He'll be okay."

Mary looked down, her pillow at hand and blinked a couple times as she contemplated what John just said. It was true that she was worried. What mother wouldn't be? It was just, it was her Richard. It was her son. It was her little boy. John scooted over and grabbed Mary's hand.

"I promise, I will never let anything happen to Dick. He'll be okay," He whispered as he kissed her hand gently.

Mary smiled and looked up at her husband, "You promise?"

John gently kissed her lips and answered, "I promise."

The rest of the night, John and Mary continued filling out forms. By morning, it was a miracle that they were able to wake up. Around nine, John and Mary took Dick and brought him with them over to the tent, making a quick stop at Haly's where they dropped off all of the paper work. Dick didn't notice as he ran up to talk to Dakar about the twolions, Kimba and Jayna. After petting Jayna on her head, Dick ran back to the tent where he found his Mom and Dad inside waiting for him.

He was about to go sit in the stands, when John grabbed his hand, "Not today."

"What?" Dick asked.

"Go with your father today," Mary said as she went to the woman's side changing room.

Dick watched her go off as his father slightly tugged on his hand, reminding his son to move his feet. Dick did and went into the changing room with his father. John took out his suit, but before he put it on, he took out something else with it. It was fabric that resembled both John and Mary's outfits. Dick's eyes widened when he saw it unfold to be a small uniform that looked like it was meant for him.

"Go on, put it on," John said, gently.

Dick took it in his hands and felt the material in his hands, it was smooth, a silky texture. It had a dark green color with black linings and a red/gold emblem in the middle with his first and last initials on it. His father was half-way through putting on his own costume when he noticed that Dick was still just standing there. Barely noticeable, he cleared his throat and brought Dick back to earth. When they were both done, Dick looked up at his Dad and then down at himself. Again, John took his hand and walked out of the changing room to the tent where Mary was waiting for them.

When Mary saw them, she could make out Dick's face looking up at the trapeze in a slight awe. She walked over and knelt down next to Dick and looked him in the face.

"Wanna give it a go?" She asked.

Dick looked at her, and asked back, "You, you're letting me go up there?"

"You're a Grayson, Dick," His father said, who knelt down too, "You didn't think that your feet would always be on the ground now did you?"

Dick was speechless and kept looking between his parents' faces and the flying trapeze above. John laughed and rustled Dick's hair while his mother gave him a kiss on the cheek. His parents brought him over to the bowl with all of the chalk. As Mary chalked her hands, John taped his own and Dick's small ones, while Dick kept looking up at them and then at his wrists and hands. The chalk on his hands felt like dust, light-weighted. It made him feel all of the pores in his hands. He was aware of himself. Dick felt his suit start to stick to him as he started to sweat. But it wasn't that hot.

His mother ran over to the other side of the trapeze and started to climb up. John gave Dick a shove and Dick began to climb with his father right behind him. Dick took the climb slow, not daring to look down, but his father was patient. He had watched his parents many times before, but there were so many things that he didn't notice. He never noticed how big the trapeze bars were. He never noticed how high up they were. He never noticed how one wrong move could spell out trouble. He never noticed any of it and by the time he was up on the pedestal with his father, all he could do was grab onto his father's leg and stare at the pole because anything else would have made him so dizzy he might have fallen off. It wasn't until John started to untie the bar from it's place that he noticed Dick holding on tightly to the leg of his aerialist uniform.

Smiling, he knelt down again next to Dick, who got to his knees as well, "Something wrong, Dick?"

Never had John seen his son's head bounce up and down so fast. He laughed and asked, "Scared of something?"

"It's so... high." Dick squeaked.

John nodded and put his hand on Dick's small shoulder, "Did you notice that we have the net out today?"

Dick shook his head 'no', "Well, it's up. You wanna know why?"

Dick looked at his Dad and waited for the answer, his blue eyes wide, "It's because we wouldn't ever put your life in danger. We love you too much to do that."

"But it's so... What if I can't hold on?"

"You won't have too. Not this time. I'm going to hold onto you until you learn how to on your own. You okay with that?" John asked.

Dick looked up at his father and then over at his mother on the other side, who was waiting for her cue. Then a slight nod followed. John smiled, but he didn't get up.

"Dick, you want to know why we're letting you try this?"

Dick nodded his head.

"Because of the feeling it gives us, what it reminds us of, everything about it. You know, your mother and I were married under the big top. The first date, I took your mother up here. And you know what else, the first time for each of us on this bar, it was like flying. It still is like flying. We may not be like Superman who can fly on command, but this is how we can fly," John told him, "Do you understand?"

Dick finally added words to his nods, "Yeah, I think so."

John smiled and picked Dick up in his arms. Dick wrapped his arms around his father tightly. John held Dick with one arm and the bar in another. He nodded over to Mary and Dick knew what came next. He closed his eyes and felt his Dad take the step off of the pedestal. He grabbed onto his dad for his life. Finally, he felt the swinging begin to come back the way they had come. He opened his blue eyes and saw the pedestal behind them, the ground below them, and his mother swinging in front of them.

He turned his head and looked around. He felt something, a feeling of invigoration. A feeling that let his stomach loosen up. His shoulders quit being so tense and he started to notice the wind in his short black hair. A small smile came to his face. John looked down and nodded over to Mary after he saw Dick was comfortable.

"You ready to go see your mother?" John asked.

Dick looked up suddenly and then realized what that meant, "Dad, no, no, NO!"

He screamed as he felt his father let go of the bar and flung both of them over to his wife. Mary caught hold of John's hand, slightly winded with the added weight that Dick was to her usual comfort level. Dick dared to look up and saw his mother smiling down at him. John grabbed Dick around his waist.

"Want to give your mother a hug?"

Dick didn't see how that was possible as his mother was hanging upside down. But he didn't have time to ask. John had flung his son's arm up, which Mary grabbed in a second and swung over to the other side, while Mary grabbed her son's other arm. Dick closed his eyes, but felt his mother swing them up into the air and in a second, he was sitting on her lap while she was sitting on the bar. She smiled at him as he grabbed his mother in a tight hug. As he did, he felt his heart hammering fast, way fast, faster than it had ever gone before.

"Mom?" He asked, "Why's my heart beating so fast?"

"It's how your body reacts to this, Dick, it's normal," She answered.

"I like it," He said.

"Ready to go again?" She asked.

Dick nodded, a smile on his face.

Throughout the day, John, Mary, and Dick flew through the air up on the flying trapeze. From outside the tent, Pop Haly could hear screams mingled with laughter and delight. By the time they got out, it was dark and most people were having dinner. The Grayson family walked back to their trailer, Dick barely able to keep his eyes open. But his hands held onto his parents' hands tightly.

"Did you like that, Dick?" John asked.

Dick nodded and yawned slightly, "Thank you. That was fun."

"You're welcome," Mary answered, while passing a kiss above Dick's head over to John.

John smiled a 'I told you so' smile and they kept walking back. They had talked about what was required when it came to working on the trapeze with him. It was a lot of work, but he didn't care. He loved it already. He loved the feeling that came with it. He loved his parents being right there with him and holding onto him as though he was the only thing that mattered. And they'd never let him fall. They never would. He'd always be safe.

Always.

-N-

A/N: So how was it? Please Review! I'm finding that with each new chapter, I'm enjoying writing this story even more and more. Also, I guess I should also preface the next chapter. The next chapter is something I wrote a couple months ago to help me cope. My family had to put down my dog, Goliath, and since writing's my medicine, I wrote the next chapter you will read back then. Just a little warning. I haven't changed anything, so if my tone is different, that's why. Back then I was sad and depressed and crying my eyes out. So yeah. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Later!

Rena