Disclaimer: DC owns Nightwing. I'm only borrowing.
Thanks to Dana for the beta!
Inspired by the opening pages of NW #140. Spoilery? Well… did it ruin Titanic for you knowing that the ship sinks at the end? If not, you should be safe.
Falling With Style
The world looked different from twenty thousand feet up. Through the wispy cloud cover, he saw a tapestry of greens, blues, and whitish grays. From this vantage point, it appeared pristine, untouched by technology. It was also difficult to appreciate exactly how high up he was. Somehow, maybe precisely because he was at this altitude, the ground below appeared unthreatening. As though it really wasn't that big a drop. Appearances could be deceiving.
Bruce wouldn't understand this. He'd never state it outright, but Dick knew that he'd be mentally shaking his head, wondering why Dick of all people could willingly undertake a stunt like this. He smiled sadly. His parents had died in a fall, true… but then, lots of people died in their beds. Nobody expected a body to give up sleeping.
It was time. He leaped out of the aircraft and into vast sky beyond. It didn't feel like he was falling. It felt like he was flying. He felt like he could stay up here for hours—till after the sun went down—and he'd be close enough to the stars to reach out and touch them. Deep-sea divers sometimes experienced 'rapture of the deep'. Was this some sort of 'rapture of the heights'?
He checked his altimeter to gauge whether it was time to pull the ripcord on his parachute. Still too early. Give it another moment or two. He glanced at his watch and grinned ruefully. He was officially two minutes and forty-one seconds late for his meeting with Bruce. Ah well. It couldn't be helped. Even if he used Bruce's override code to activate the JLA transporter, he'd materialize at his current velocity. 'Pavement Pizza' wouldn't begin to describe the mess he'd become. He grinned as he pictured Alfred chucking his remains into a Lazarus pit, just so he'd be able to clean himself up.
He drew a deep breath, and pulled the cord. With his eyes closed, he was sure that his parents were sharing the air current with him. And they weren't aghast that he had chosen to put himself into this danger. They were caught up in the sheer joy of the moment, enjoying the adrenaline rush as much as—perhaps even more than—he was.
But then, Dick thought as his canopy opened above him, it was only to be expected. For the few shining seconds before he touched down on the Manor grounds, the Flying Graysons lived again.