Hello~ This is Fates here and my first contribution to this lovely site, despite its disparaging subject matter. I hope you all enjoy!
Disclaimer~ Young Justice and its characters do not belong to me.
It was surreal sometimes, the way life could twist and turn like a bird in flight, rise and plummet like the swell of a wave in the middle of the sea. The unpredictability, some would say it made life worth living, an adventure to enjoy through thick and thin. Others would say how difficult and harrowing the challenges sudden change could bring.
He just found it funny.
Funny how his life could go from being a circus acrobat with a loving family to a broken orphan within a day.
Hilarious how he thought could achieve justice through becoming a hero, using the moniker Robin as a tribute to his dead mother.
Simply a riot how he thought he had actually found a new family within the Justice League and the Team, each helping to fill the void his dear family had left.
Amusing the way it all fell apart. The arguments with Bruce. Jason and Tula dying. Kaldur going undercover. His plan. His mistake. Artemis and Wally leaving the Team. And the clincher, Wally, Wally dying.
The real joke was the way everything had fallen apart after that, though. He left the Team thinking that would help.
Wrong.
He increased the time he spent on the streets of Bludhaven, patrolling as Nightwing almost every hour his civilian side didn't demand, hoping it would help him find peace.
Hopeless of course.
His routine slipped, broke, cracked, days filled with a stumbled haze, half-eaten meals, and unspoken screams, nights thick with blood, pain, and living nightmares.
Bruised ribs, split lips, blood caked knuckles, and countless scrapes, cuts, and bruises, left untreated in favor of a half-baked sleep filled with fading speedsters yelling accusations, the dim sound of ringing phones unsettling an already restless sleep.
Still, never had it crossed his mind that it would end like this, a truly hysterical end to his pathetic life.
A rooftop, as true to his high flying nature, was, of course going to be involved. An unknown villain stalking and ambushing him, scissor kick to the head dazing the already exhausted hero. The roof tilting on an axis beneath him as he tried to recover, shaking the cotton from his head as his opponent calls a muted challenge, eerily familiar as, quick and teasing as a mythical faerie, a punch is delivered to the same spot of origin as the first hit, world flashing blue as his eyes are knocked skyward to the smoggy skyline.
Again a weak recovery, hands moving in a protective X to block the next strike to the chest, but the obvious feint slips past the guard, another brutal blow sent towards his face, this time the stars merely metaphorical as he reels from the strike, barely able to see the blurred orange, black, and gray shape facing him. A concussion had already set in or perhaps worsened from a forgotten blow from the near past, injuries, events a single entity in his hazy memory.
A quick strike to chest, jab to the ribs, sweeping kick to the legs, acrobat's movements slow and sluggish in response.
How odd it was he found himself slowly not caring.
Each blow seemed to sap another ounce of his will to live, the supply already at an all-time low after the series of tragedies that seemed to saturate his young life.
And how entertaining it was that an echo of arguments that seemed to follow each footstep he took, flashbacks to when a certain redhead was still around, yelling at him, furious and loud, but alive. Beyond a hologram, beyond a tribute, beyond a memory.
The next attack lands unburdened, no defense even raised, and the rain of blows that follow land similarly, insults falling on deaf ears. The barrage of abuse continues to fall, an accompanying symphony of self-inflicted mental abuse joining in as well as more voices join the first, shouting, laughing, and jeering as he's pushed back, the edge becoming dangerously close.
But it wasn't that easy, never was, never would be, tormentor taking great joy in dangling him close to the edge before tossing him back to the center again to begin anew.
Insults, accusations, blow after blow, fell, smashed, whirled, but he didn't care as the latest kick sent him rolling, arm dangling uselessly over the cityscape below, blood dripping from a fresh cut delivered who knows when. Hardly felt it as his attacker, familiar for sure, lifted him by the neck, entirely detached from his instincts and usual thirst for knowledge.
"The great Nightwing reduced to this. Pathetic to say the least but pays well none the less." The assailant taunts, hanging the part-time hero over the side, the dull roar of traffic fading in and out of pounding ears.
And with that the release.
Plummeting.
Plunging.
Falling.
Falling.
Falling.
Just like his parents.
Just like how it always should have been.
Just like everyone wanted.
And for the first time in a long on he felt at peace, the noise in his head fading to static, flashes of memory fading to a dull gray.
No life flashing before his eyes, regrets having already haunted him up until this point.
No last minute revelations of things he should live for, fight for.
Nothing as his back slammed to the ground, bones shattering into a million pieces like his parents before him.
Nothing that is except a wisp of ever familiar red locks, a flash of bright green, the echo of the edge that he had truly fallen over.
Simply a faint whisper of words as the light, his life, faded into nothing.
I'm considering an alternate (happier) ending if anyone is interested, please just let me know! This will also be posted to my account on ArchiveOfOurOwn if that is anyone's preferred format. ~
~Fates
