Don't Fear the Reaper

99) All's Well That Ends

A/N: 3 things!!! 1st- this is a very long chapter... just a warning. 2nd- this took so many braincells to write, fact check, and edit, so please comment all you're thoughts because it gives me so much joy to see you're thoughts and I need my suffering to be worth it. 3rd- I DID ALL THIS MATH MYSELF (you'll see why this is impressive later). PLEASE BE PROUD OF ME!!! I LITERALLY DID PHYSICS FOR THIS CHAPTER!

Bruce, Batman, was frozen. He had backup plans for his backup plans, failsafes for his failsafes, and more contingency protocols than even he could count, and yet he was frozen. His mind screamed at him to run forward, to do something—anything—but his feet were glued to the rooftop.

He heard the others scream, but it felt distant.

It felt removed.

It felt like the echos of a gun in an alleyway.

It felt like he was a child again, kneeling over his parents' bodies.

When Nico dropped the knife, he'd never felt such instant relief. He'd been terrified, witnessing Nico crack. He had no idea what the kid was seeing, but the man knew enough about him to be sure that it was nothing short of horrific. Bruce, for the first time in literal years, had no idea what to do.

So when Nico dropped the knife, he had made the mistake of thinking the worst was over... He thought they'd be okay.

"Liar."

And then Nico leaned back.

And gravity took over.

And then Nico was out of sight.

No one thought he would do it, so no one was prepared. One moment they were exhaling, the next they were screaming. They tried to snap into action, his children fumbling for their grappling guns, but they had taken too long to snap out of their shock.

They were still better than Bruce though. Bruce hadn't moved an inch. He stood, frozen like the gargoyles around the city, unable to even scream. At least the others tried. At least they failed Nico after attempting something. Bruce just watched it happen like some sick tv show he couldn't turn off.

Bruce watched it all in slow motion—Nico disappearing from view and the subsequent panic that came after.

He knew falling—he had to. He threw himself off buildings constantly, and you can't do that without learning the science of falling. He'd studied gravitational acceleration and the way velocity increased with each millisecond that passed into the fall. He knew the science and he knew the danger; he'd forced his children to learn it too—ingraining it into their minds so that they could calculate their falls without thinking.

So they all knew that the timer started the second Nico disappeared from view.

They knew that they were on a 20 story building, making the distance Nico would fall roughly 60 meters.

They knew that velocity increased 9.8 meters per second, every second.

So each of them knew that they only had 3.526 seconds before Nico hit the ground.

Bruce watched him disappear, and that timer began counting down. He watched as the others tried to act, already knowing they'd be too late.

And then Dick dove off the roof...

And the clock froze.

And he was recalculating.

Nico was free falling, but Dick dove.

Nico was falling from rest, building speed with every passing second, but Dick's descent began with force—he had initial velocity.

1.5 seconds... it would take 1.5 seconds after Nico fell for Dick to catch him.