A/N: This is the semi-official final part of the Re series. As with all the others, it has its flaws. The author is aware of them, but feel free to point them out anyway if it will make you feel any better. No, seriously, the author won't mind. At this point, the term AU is probably not even worth mentioning, this being part 7 and all.

Because this is the end, the author will be putting notes at the end of each chapter, talking about writing this series. Also, I will be dropping the imaginary third person for the duration. If you're not interested in reading my comments about stuff I did or why I did said stuff, feel free to skip the author's notes. Some people write stories in such a way that they require author's notes, but that's just lazy writing, far as I'm concerned.

Gotham

December 19th, 01:30 AM

Nightwing had been walking high wires since he was little more than a toddler. It had been his first real skill, that and trapeze. He had never once needed a net, not as a child, not as Robin, and certainly not since taking the monicker of Nightwing. His natural sense of balance perhaps even exceeded that of Batman. For this reason, he had never feared heights. He'd never had any reason to.

Where someone else might lose their balance and fall, Nightwing knew that he never would. He had even done battle on the equivalent of a high wire, with someone trying to knock him off, on more than one occasion. His hand-eye coordination and reflexes were also such that, even should he fall, he would be able to catch himself if there was a way to physically do so. This was why he could fling himself off tall buildings without hesitation, because there was no uncertainty in him.

It was as close to flying as any mere human could ever come, what he did.

In his whole life, he had never looked down and wondered what it would be like to fall. Falling was somehow unreal to him, like fairy dust and unicorns.

And yet, now he could feel himself shaking. The ground seemed very far away, and the opposite end of the rope even further. It was fear he felt.

I can't do this.

A hundred or so feet above the ground, suspended between two points by little more than a thread, a blasting wind blowing almost strong enough to lift him off the wire entirely. The dead weight he was carrying didn't make it any easier. But none of that was truly what had thrown him. Nor was it even the deep gashes in his back, weakness from blood loss seeping into his limbs.

The wire he was on wasn't designed for this. It trembled with his weight, and shook in the wind. He was almost certain one end would snap any second, and then he would have to catch it with one hand, while holding onto his cargo with the other. He had done exactly this exercise a thousand times before.

And yet, the ground seemed to be swaying below, and he felt deeply terrified, as he never had before. Not on a tight rope anyway.

I'm going to fall.

Nightwing shifted the weight he was carrying. As he did so, a sharp jerk on the wire almost made his prediction into a reality. Looking over his shoulder, Nightwing saw a pair of glittering silver-gold eyes. The owner of those eyes was the very reason he was out here.

The four legged creature bore a striking resemblance to the Hydra of Greek mythology, a multi-headed thing halfway between being a lizard and a snake. Its clawed forepaws, or hands, or whatever they were, were clutching at the line. It slithered forward, having no need to fear the height, as a fall wouldn't bring about its demise.

Nightwing watched its progress out onto the wire with dawning horror. Even if he didn't fall, even if he kept going, the creature would overtake him before he made it to the other side. There was only one choice.

Crouching awkwardly, he pulled a knife from his belt and cut the wire. In the same motion, he caught it in his hand. He swung through the air, spinning so that, when he hit the building on the other side, it was with his back. The air was knocked violently from his lungs and he gasped.

He had done it to protect his passenger, who was still unconscious. He held her with one arm, the other occupied with holding onto the slick wire.

A roar-hiss-snarl of rage attracted his attention to the side where he'd started. The Hydra glared at him, savage fury alight in its reptilian eyes. Its fore claws were dug into the side of the building and it leaned forward almost as though it intended to jump.

Nightwing could think of only one good thing in this entire mess: the creature either couldn't shape shift, or didn't realize that it could. It could not grow wings and fly, nor could it suddenly increase its agility and make the leap from one building to another.

There was a groaning overhead and Nightwing looked up. The wire was beginning to come loose from its housing. It was also starting to fray. If they hadn't been too heavy before, they certainly were now. Looking back across the expanse between the buildings, Nightwing was hardly surprised to see that the Hydra-thing was gone.

He turned desperately to the person he was holding, willing her to wake up. He couldn't climb up with one hand, and if they didn't get off this wire soon, they would both die.

"Come on. Wake up. You have to wake up," he whispered urgently, then shouted over the roaring wind "Artemis, please!,"

In his distress, Nightwing had utterly forgotten that her name was different than it had been before, and had been for months now. She was now Tigress. But he didn't care.

"You've gotta wake up. Come on,"

Even now he only half believed what was right in front of him. He still felt certain that there was a way out of this, that there was still a way to survive. There had to be. But he was out of options and there was no time left. With a sickening snap, the wire broke in two.

I'm going to die.

Nightwing fell.

A/N on the origin of Re: It had been, literally, years since I wrote a fan fiction. Occasionally, while I was watching a show, a story idea would flicker in the back of my mind and I would toy with it for a little while before dismissing it as amusing but not interesting enough to write down. I used to write fan fiction almost exclusively, too afraid to create my own characters, I suppose. But I've moved on from that, and write original works for the most part.

On watching Young Justice for the first time, I was struck by a thought somewhere in the series. Basically when Nightwing finds out Miss Martian fried Kaldur's brain. And Nightwing sort of... doesn't react. At all, really. Which is technically in character, but still feels a bit like there's something not there that ought to be. I shrugged it off.

That is, until I wrote a story which is far superior to anything I had ever written before. It stood like a mountain of gold in a sea of dead fish, which is a bizarre analogy but just go with it. Unfortunately, everything I tried to follow up this golden story with fell terribly, comically short. I needed distance. I also needed relief. It's very stressful to try and write something that's amazing, knowing as you're doing so that you're failing so miserably that it's not even funny.

I write primarily to relieve stress, and I was becoming quite stressed. And then I happened upon fan fiction. I realized that there was freedom in that. I could write whatever dead fish story I wanted and nobody would care, including me. They were unpublishable and so I couldn't make money off them even if they were the most beautifully written story ever. Not that I've ever made money off a story, mind. It's just that there is the possibility if you're writing something original.

And so, I wrote a Star Trek fan fiction. It was so awful that it was funny. And so I wrote another one. I averaged about 10k words before getting bored. So I was writing 10k fan fiction. I then rewatched Young Justice. And so, the journey of Re began.