Gotham Playing House (Part One)

In the Gotham night, the cylindrical light from the car headlights gradually turned from the street corner and then shone straight down the street as a sports car slowly drove up to the entrance of a circus venue in the western suburbs of Gotham.

The people getting off the bus appeared to be a young couple. The tall father was carrying his daughter in front, while the mother followed behind, carrying tickets and a bag. On the surface, they seemed to be a very harmonious family of three. But everything ended with a scream from the daughter in the father's arms.

"Wow!!!"

"Stop yelling." Bruce covered Aisha's mouth with his hand, his voice trembling with exhaustion. Selene came up and took his arm, saying, "You'd better not cover his mouth anymore. What if he bites you again?"

Bruce sighed and took his hand off. Aisha, who was in his arms, was very restless and tried to jump out of his arms, but Bruce stopped her with his One Hand.

The reason why this family of three appeared in front of the circus can be traced back to their unusually "harmonious" family time over the past few days.

Theoretically speaking, there is nothing in the world that Bruce cannot learn if he wants to, including parenting theories. However, coincidentally, almost all parenting theories in the world remain only theoretical. In practice, these theories are not only not very helpful, but also completely useless.

There is no parenting theory in the world that teaches you how to deal with an ancient, chaotic being from the universe, hatched from a part of a soul in a dream. Therefore, after Bruce buried himself in studying parenting theories for ten minutes, he realized that he would probably have to create a completely new discipline.

But as the old saying goes, practice makes perfect, and the same applies to raising children. After spending three days with Aisha, Bruce actually figured out a pattern.

Whether it's a characteristic of chaotic beings or a trait common to children, Aisha is very interested in things that move and make sounds.

This should have touched on Bruce's area of expertise, such as building a robot or a toy car to play with Aisha, but he later discovered that Aisha didn't like watching moving things, but rather moving people.

Bruce discovered this pattern thanks to Selene.

Because Bruce desperately needed help, Selene had been staying at the Wayne Manor for the past few days. The old butler Alfred, was overjoyed, but Selene herself was rather sullen.

Although taking care of children is hard work, she can endure it for Bruce's sake. However, the artistic talent ingrained in her bones has nowhere to go, so Selene built a horizontal bar on the lawn of the manor and would swing on it whenever she had free time to solidify her acrobatic skills.

Bruce then discovered that Aisha would be unusually quiet when watching Selene play on the horizontal bar, sometimes remaining silent for up to ten minutes.

Bruce and Selene were overjoyed. During the day, Selene would swing back and forth on the horizontal bar, performing various acrobatic feats to entertain Aisha. At night, Batman would drive his Batmobile, taking Aisha on a high-speed ride through Gotham's highways.

As for why the Batmobile, it's because Aisha only likes cars that can make a loud roar. Other sports cars don't have enough horsepower, and Aisha starts screaming when she gets in them. Only when the Batmobile reaches its top speed can she quiet down.

These past two days have consisted of Selene performing acrobatics for Aisha during the day, including trapeze acts, wall climbing, fire hoops, unicycles, and so on. It's safe to say that if Catwoman's skills were even slightly lacking, she wouldn't have been able to keep up for these three days.

At night, the roar of the Batmobile would echo through the streets and alleys of Gotham. These past few days, Gotham's criminals have been completely at a standstill. Anyone who hears the Batmobile's terrifying engine roaring all night long will feel their heart pounding.

But this situation came to an end on the third night when the Batmobile's tires were stolen.

Yes, you read that right. The tires of the Batmobile, which cost tens of millions of dollars to build, have been stolen.

The incident occurred on an evening when Bruce was about to take Aisha out. The night before, he parked the Batmobile a little further away, but he wasn't worried about safety at all, because the Batmobile was practically a different species from other cars, except for its similar appearance.

Gotham has its share of car thieves, but if they were skilled enough to break into the Batmobile, why would they bother stealing cars in Gotham? Wouldn't it be better for them to work as engineers for any car brand?

But life is unpredictable, and bad luck always seems to pile up. There really is such a genius car thief who would rather give up his job as a technical director and engineer than steal the Batmobile in Gotham.

Bruce carried Aisha to the Batmobile, and seeing his Batmobile with only three wheels left, he was speechless with emotion.

Of course he had a spare tire, but the problem was that the Batmobile was made of very complicated technology. Even changing a tire required Bruce to do it himself. But now that Bruce was holding Aisha, he didn't even have a minute to spare, let alone drag the Batmobile to the Batcave to change the tire and repair it.

Without the Batmobile, Aisha absolutely refused to sleep. If she didn't sleep, Selene and Bruce couldn't sleep either. If Selene and Bruce didn't sleep, they would be even more exhausted and have even less energy to comfort Aisha, which created a vicious cycle.

It wasn't until they saw an advertisement in the newspaper Alfred delivered that morning that the circus, which had been shut down due to the Frozen Gotham incident, reopened.

Bruce and Selene thought that since Aisha really enjoyed watching Selene's acrobatic performances, the circus ones must be even better. If they could get Aisha to sleep, Bruce would have time to fix his Batmobile.

And so they booked tickets and came to see the circus on its second day of opening.

Previously, this circus in the western suburbs of Gotham was quite popular. It had a variety of animal shows, and in particular, several skilled acrobats who could perform many difficult acrobatic feats.

However, since Gotham was shut down for a period of time due to ground damage, the circus business has not been doing well. This time, the circus boss warmly welcomed the Mr. and Mrs. Wayne upon their reopening.

It wasn't just because they arrived early; more importantly, Wayne was rich. If he enjoyed the show, he could invest and the circus might expand to an even larger scale.

The circus boss originally wanted to invite the family of three to sit in the very front row, in the center, but Bruce refused. One reason was that the lights there were too dazzling, and it was too close to the ring of fire, making it a bit hot. Another reason was that Aisha's appearance was different from ordinary people, and there would be too many audience members in the center, making her easy to be spotted.

Bruce and Selene chose to sit in the far right corner of the front row, which was close to the circus's toilets and exits, so they could leave immediately in case of any emergency.

Audience members entered in twos and threes. There were more people today than on the first day, but the venue was still not full. The boss was standing at the backstage entrance, looked rather gloomy and seemed very dissatisfied with the situation.

He heard some noises coming from backstage, turned around, lowered his voice, and yelled, "What are you doing? Why are you making such a commotion? Didn't I warn you? Wayne's coming today, so you idiots, behave yourselves!"

Then, as if venting his frustration, he complained, "It's all your fault! You want a salary too? Why can't you be like lions and elephants, working your lives for me as long as you're fed?"

"As you can see, the circus business is not good, so I can only pay you one-third of your wages this week."

Several acrobats backstage were furious after hearing this. One of them, a rather tall man, stood up and said, "Hey, Henry! You can't do this! We've worked for you for a long time, and we've made a fortune for you with tickets. We perform dangerous and high-risk acts; we're risking our lives for money. You can't do this..."

"Grayson, you'd better behave yourself! Do you still think this is the time when your Grayson Family's reputation is renowned on the East Coast?"

"Don't forget, your father, Old Grayson, was smashed to pieces during an important performance, ruining your family's reputation. Otherwise, why would the noble Grayson come to perform in my little town?"

"Don't expect anything more. Listen, your wife isn't in good health and takes sick leave every few days. She's already a burden. Giving you her full salary is already me being lenient..."

The tall man across from him, named Grayson, was so angry that his veins bulged. Several of his companions came up to him, pulled him aside, and whispered words of comfort. In the end, he waved his fist, but said nothing, and walked back into the crowd.

The circus boss, however, sneered with a smug air, "Don't think I don't know, that little burden of your Grayson family wants to get into this business too. Tell him to be careful, lest he end up like his grandfather, smashed into a pulp..."

Hearing someone curse his son, Grayson could no longer contain himself. Ignoring his companions who were trying to hold him back, he strode forward and punched the circus troupe leader. Then, pointing his finger at the old man's nose, he said, "You said it yourself, Wayne is sitting outside. You still have to rely on me for today's performance."

"If I leave now, are you planning to use those lions and elephants to try and get on Wayne's good side to beg for money?"

The circus boss wiped the blood from his nose, his neck and face flushed with anger. He glared at Grayson and said, "You'd better finish this performance properly. If anything goes wrong, your whole family can get out!"

Grayson snorted and turned to leave.

In the audience, Bruce and Selene were waiting for the show to begin when they suddenly heard a bell ring twice. Then, a boy carrying a basket came over and asked, "Want some pancakes or bread? And fried onions and cheese slices, only 15 cents a serving..."

Selene peered into the basket he was carrying, which was filled with delicious-smelling food, but Bruce looked up at the boy's expression and said, "You seem unhappy?"

The boy said expressionlessly, "If you don't want it, I'll go ask someone else."

"Give me a pancake, and two slices of cheese," Selene said to him. The boy bent down, took the food from his basket, and handed it to Selene. When he noticed Bruce had given him an extra 10 cents as a tip, he hurriedly returned the money, saying, "It only costs 15 cents a pancake, you've given too much..."

"You probably don't do this kind of work often, do you?" Bruce looked him in the eyes and said, "In circuses and theaters, the tips for vendors and flower girls are about the same as the price of what they sell..."

Selene nodded and said, "I did this job when I was a kid. If the tips weren't enough, I wouldn't be able to complete the task and I would get beaten up."

The boy sighed and said, "I'm not a peddler. It's just that the circus boss doesn't like my father, so he won't let me perform on stage and only makes me do these odd jobs."

"So what do you do? Are you an actor or something?"

Selene looked the boy up and down and found that although he was young, he had a well-proportioned figure, long arms and legs, and some muscle definition could be seen on his arms.

"Of course I'm an actor, and a member of the famous Grayson Family of aerial acrobats. My dream is to become a great aerial acrobat like my great-grandfather, but..."

As he spoke, he glanced back at the backstage area, as if afraid someone was watching him. He said, "Thank you for your kindness, but 10 cents is too much. I only need half. I have to go to someone else. Goodbye."

Selene took the money he returned and muttered, "The Grayson Family? I think I vaguely remember them. They're not from Gotham, are they? You don't see many innocent kids like them in Gotham..."