kaciart: This is from an AU Teal and I (mostly...

This is from an AU Teal and I (mostly Teal) had been talking about; where Tim is a reporter.

And you’re spoiled to have a little snippet written by Teal

It would have been exhilarating, all that weightlessness; the rush of wind and danger that swept through his hair and across his face. Yes, it definitely would have been exhilarating, if it wasn’t goddamn frightening— plain and simple. His fingers clenched around his camera, holding it close to his body, reflexively…protectively.

Not that it would matter in the end, but he had his priorities; his own mission. He clenched his eyes shut, counting the seconds until— well, UNTILL. There wasn’t a need to finish the sentence, and his mind refused to go there. Although, currently, his mind was a cornucopia of panic and internal screaming— and he was sure more than a little was less than “internal”

Soon…soon, it would happen. Crashing, breaking, bleeding on the pavement. It wasn’t the falling that was frightening, but the waiting. And wasn’t that the strangest final thought a person could have, he mused.

But the pavement never came, and with an arm wound tightly around his chest, the weightlessness didn’t seem so frightening. His whole body relaxed all at once, the camera slipping from his fingers as his stomach flipped nauseatingly— gratefully.

It seemed like hours composed entirely of a single moment before his feet were back on solid ground. His knees wobbled and he keened forward. And once again, the arm was back. Protective. Sturdy. Strong.

He turned around to face his savior, trying to look sheepish. Instead, he just managed to look nauseous. As Nightwing tightened the hold around him, the frown more evident in the crinkle of his brow than on his lips (as if the man just simply wasn’t used to frowning), he realized that this wasn’t simple. And the man…certainly was anything but plain. And frightening?

“Um…hi,” he said, voice gently rasped from both screaming and humiliation.

“Hi yourself.” Nightwing’s brow smoothed and his lips crooked up at the corners just slightly and he felt his heart beat hard in his chest. And it felt like he was falling all over again.

Oh yeah, Tim thought to himself. It was goddamn frightening.