Thirty-One
- DC Universe, Nightwing
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He's stripped to the waist, baring about half his scars, and his hands are taped. He leaps, and his hands find the rings, and he kicks his feet out in front of him in the same movement, carrying his body up and over, over and back, back and down, down and forward. He was an acrobat first. For a moment he lets himself enjoy the motion of it. There's an easy joy in momentum, in cutting the air.

People in this business get hurt. It happens.

He stills himself and knots the muscles of his arms and his chest, pulling himself up into the Iron Cross. His hands do not quiver on the rings. The line of his arms and his shoulders is perfect, and his legs are straight, and he points his toes straight down and focuses at a spot on the wall. It doesn't hurt. It doesn't even burn yet. In five minutes it will burn. In twenty, he'll let himself stop.

People in this business get hurt. It happens.

Finally he drops out of the Cross, his arms burning, and hangs from the rings. He draws his legs up to his chest, the muscles in his stomach clenching, and then points them straight out in front of himself. He sights along the lines of his legs, past his flexed ankles to his pointed toes, and then he lets his legs fall again.

People in this business get hurt. It happens.

He bends at the knees, legs folding up behind him, and then his legs uncoil and snap forward, and he takes that momentum and lets it carry him upwards again, only this time he stops, poised in a perfect curve with his head down, standing on the fists clenched around the rings. His feet aim for the ceiling. He stares at the ground. This position makes the blood rush to his head. It always has. Sometimes he does this when he wants to think. He doesn't want to think now, but still, here he is, thinking.

About how people in this business get hurt, and how it happens, and how it takes him by surprise every time.