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“Why did you come to me?” Slade asks with a low rumble in his throat. “You have everyone in the world at your beck and call and yet—“
“I thought you’d understand.” Slade’s mouth snaps shut. Dick has hunched in on himself, curled up on the chair with his arms wrapped around his knees, suddenly looking far too devastated.
Dick looks up, meeting his startled gaze.
Slade steps forward again with a growl at the back of his throat, and shifts.
Dick doesn’t move when the large wolf steps closer, fangs bared, the animal form still nearly clearing Dick’s height with ease. Dick swallows, taking in the scars hiding as patterned fur mottled on his body in tendrils of weeping red.
There’s the largest one, stretching from the centre of his chest out, weaving itself like pulsing veins down to the start of each paw; it curls into a prominent number of scars wrapping in a bundle at his throat, tendrils coming up to meet his muzzle like barbed briar roses.
There’s a few that Dick doesn’t recognise, all now a faded grey — a long jagged scar running down Slade’s back over a shoulder blade, another one at the junction between his neck and shoulder and wrapping down to his elbow while crossing under the blood on his throat.
There’s a few more, but Dick knows he isn’t about to ask anytime soon.
The scars are there for a reason.
Slade growls as if asking, And now? What do you think of me now?
There’s only one other scar just as eye-catching as the one stemming from his heart. The only one other scar that Dick can count.
He reaches his hand forward, carefully brushing the pads of his fingertips over the black and red star-like shape over the mercenary’s maimed eye.
“I knew you’d understand,” Dick whispers under his intense scrutiny.
Slade freezes, ice-grey eye blown wide open as Dick tenderly smoothes down the fur around the scar — from the bridge of his snout up to the top of his forehead, over the crossing of reds and blacks meeting light grey.
He doesn’t know why it’s there, the faded black matted fur covering the back of Slade's head and dripping down the collar of his neck, but he still gently brushes over it anyway.
Jaws snap in warning as Slade jerks back into his body. Slade is really towering over Dick now, glowering down at him, but despite the obvious threat, Dick still can’t find it in himself to meet the challenge nor shrink away from it.
They stare at each other, like this, for another moment before Slade scoffs and turns, leaving.
Dick feels himself sag, a sudden exhaustion hitting him all at once at the sight of Slade’s retreating back. “You're just leaving?"
Slade spares him a glance, "Stay here. And don't go anywhere."
“Don’t make a mess,” Slade gruffly adds on at the doorway, purposeful footsteps halting. “And… don’t worry about the Bat, or your kids. I’ll take care of everything.”
The door slams shut ominously, and Dick doesn’t have the energy to follow after him.
Dick doesn’t know how the mercenary knows, and he doesn’t want to.
Dick closes his eyes.
He’s too tired, anyway.
. . .
Slade Wilson finds a wolf, riddled with so much red in its fur he didn’t know where the blood ended and where the scars started. When the wolf had shifted itself back to a human, he didn't know that the fundamental rules of the world would change with it.
Dickie Wayne is bright but airheaded, cheerful yet oblivious. Nightwing is excitable yet sharp, good-natured but manipulative.
It is fundamentally understood that neither are shifters.
And despite all that, Dick Grayson lies on his couch, passed out with the world around them devolving into quiet chaos.
. . .
Dick wakes up with little fanfare.
He blinks his eyes open, finding the lights turned off and curtains drawn. He stares up at the blank white ceiling, darkened with a lack of a direct light source.
Flexing his fingers, he takes stock of his body’s condition, and with a vaguely surprised realisation, he comes to the conclusion that nothing hurts where everything should.
He tries to sit up, but weakly groans when nothing responds the way it was supposed to. His head just flopped back onto the strangely comfortable pillow, and he ended up dazedly blinking at nothing.
Breathing a soft sigh of resignation, Dick lets his eyes trail around the room almost lazily, this time without attempting to get up. He struggles to piece together coherent thoughts, his head feeling stuffed with cotton and refusing him clarity in his mind. Somewhere, he knows he should be panicking, should be planning.
He can only hear his own soft breathing — calm — and the warmth of the thick blankets tucked to his chin. It’s the most comfortable he’s been since… Dick isn’t sure. He isn’t sure why he should be uncomfortable.
At some point his eyes had closed again, drifting off to sleep, but then his hearing had picked up the sound of soft footsteps, paced and controlled, steadily growing nearer. It stops, and Dick blinks his eyes open, eyelids heavy with sleep still clinging to him, and slowly registers the familiar face at the door.
“Slade..?” He croaks out, and is suddenly very aware of how parched his throat was of water.
Without a word, Slade strides into the room, eyes scanning him as his hand reached over to the bedside table. A cool glass of water is raised above him, and Dick whines. At the unimpressed and unmoving face of Slade, Dick huffs wriggles himself up properly, hands taking the glass greedily.
Dick blatantly eyes Slade as he sips the water, not bothering to hide his suspicion. The mercenary just crosses his arms and leans against the wall patiently, eye closed as if in deep thought.
“How long?” Dick finally broke the silence, setting his glass down onto his lap.
Slade hums and looks at him, “Two days. You woke up three times.”
Dick doesn’t know what to say.
“Oh.”
Then, something nags at the back of his mind.
“Oh shit,” his eyes widen down at the empty glass in his hand as his memories come back to him all at once.
The Crime Syndicate. Luthor. Bruce.
Bruce.
The mission.
Spyral.
His breath hitches.
“Oh shit.”
Dick slowly drags his gaze to stare at Slade, horror somewhere just beneath the surface.
“I—“ it comes out strangled, tight in his throat.
He forces a calm breath.
He manages to utter out—
“I’m not supposed to be here.”
—right before his mind is clawed down into panic.
. . .
“You know, they say you’re dead.”
He should move.
”For a moment there,”
He should get up—
“I thought you were dead.”
—and leave.
“They really seem to be mourning you.”
Dick squeezes his eyes shut, and pulls the blanket over his head.
He waits.
Nothing happens.
He has to leave.
(He doesn’t move.)
. . .
“And where do you think you’re going?”
Dick can’t summon the energy to be defensive.
“I thought you’d be happy.”
There’s no response, and so Dick finally straightens to meet Slade’s heavy gaze, strapping his bag in place over his shoulder.
There’s no indication of any emotion on Slade’s face; not a furrow between his brows or a pleased glint in his eye.
Dick mentally takes stock of what little things he has on him.
He’ll need to purchase a luggage case, fill it up with tourist things like clothing and get a bunch of cash and nick someone’s card while funneling money from shell companies into their account, figure out where the closest and best shady ID forger is, and then make enough of a scene that Spyral looks into him, but not enough so that another hero or villain would get interested.
He has a lot of prep to do, and then he needs to actually execute it, and fuck, couldn’t Bruce have at least given him a shoddy fake ID and cover—?
“Don’t be an idiot, Grayson.”
There’s no inflection in Slade’s voice at all, and it sends a spike of fury at hist heels.
“You can’t stop me,” Dick glared, growling.
He miscalculated.
He hadn’t expected Slade to be so angry.
. . .
Something snaps in Slade.
He’d looked after Dick for a week and a bit now, kid looking lost and confused the whole time, barely getting out of bed and hardly resisting when Slade forces care onto him.
The brat had come to him, beaten bloody and half to death with the world grieving behind him.
Slade’s been patient, the most patient he’s ever been in… well, in a long time.
He’s been patient, not demanding answers the first time Dick had awoken. Nor the second. Or the third. He’s waited the whole last week, just taking care of the vigilante, because Dick came to him for a reason.
And now the self-sacrificing hero is just leaving without having intended to say even a word.
Something snaps.
"Then why. Did you come here.” Slade demands, growling as he stepped forward. “Am I just a joke to you?”
He keeps going, and going, and Dick backs up, matching him step for step until he hits a chair and falls onto it with a grunt. The bag slides onto the ground with an echoing thump, the sound resting heavy in the air.
The look in Grayson’s eyes is so fucking familiar that something snaps in Slade.
. . .
Slade waits.
I thought you’d understand.
And thinks about the last time he waited here like this, just last week.
I knew you’d understand.
. . .
There’s a thrumming of danger under Slade’s skin, rippling with purpose as he makes his way deep into Gotham.
The kid doesn’t have a damn clue what he’s saying.
He doesn’t.
And yet Slade feels a sort of fury that was once swallowed down, now coming forth to the surface with vengeance.
The brat doesn’t know what he’s saying.
Slade curls his fingers into his palms, making a matching set of trembling fists.
(”Worthless piece of shit!”)
Slade grits his teeth, lips curling back in an almost wordless snarl behind his mask.
(Sharp pain as he falls onto floor with a heavy thump, blinding hot white down his back that has him arching his whole body with tears in his eyes, arching his body to futilely escape the knife.)
“Deathstroke. Why are you here?”
(”Hah, good luck surviving without me.”)
Slade stops at the edge of the rooftop. He’s attracted their attention. Good.
“What else do you think?” Slade scoffs, “For a contract."
(“Don’t lie to me, boy.”)
Technically, it wasn’t a lie.
“Right,” Red Robin dryly replies. “And I don’t suppose it includes an assassination, or maybe a murder? Thievery? Kidnapping?”
(A blunt hit to the back of his head that has him sprawling across the ground.)
“Don't be ridiculous.”
“Uh-huh. Sure,” the hero raised an eyebrow behind his mask, ineffectively conveying his disbelief.
(A small snarl, “I’m not lying!”)
“What are you expecting to do anyway, even if I was?” Slade challenged, sauntering forward into his space.
(In hindsight, it didn’t matter. Whether he was really lying or not; if there was a good reason or everything was just made up to punish him just because.)
“I’ll stop you.”
“You won’t,” Slade scoffs.
(It hadn’t mattered then. It never does.)
“No, maybe not on my own.”
Slade eyes the shadows.
(But also, it’s always been his own fault in the end, hasn’t it?)
“I’d feel honoured, if, you know, you would stop accusing me of such nefarious intentions,” Slade drawls out, unflinching even as the shadows move,
“What else am I supposed to think?”
(”You want respect?” A hand wraps around his throat.)
Slade doesn’t lie.
He’s almost offended that Red Robin implied it.
(“I’ll show you respect.”)
“Well—“ Slade starts, but stops upon hearing the heavy swooping of a cape.
Slade hums, tilting his head in telegraphed consideration.
His arm darts forward, fingers snagging the Bat in front of him into a tight hold, pressing the boy’s back to his chest. His other hand slides out a knife up to the kid’s face in an implied threat.
(The fingers tighten around his neck, squeezing mercilessly, wringing the life out of him, and he can’t do anything but helplessly flail, trapped under immovable weight.)
“I’d step out if I were you,” Slade calls. “All of you.”
(”Come out you little brat!”)
Circling around them were Robin, Orphan and Batman himself. Red Hood’s on the next block over, maybe with a sniper set-up, and Spoiler was on standby, still patrolling but there for backup. Signal was likely back at wherever the Bats’ home base was, being their “dayshift” (as Grayson had usually affectionately teased).
“Release him,” Batman growled.
“You cannot win against us all,” Robin declared.
“Get back,” Batman snapped. “He’s too dangerous, Robin.”
“I can take him!” Robin cried out, anger twisting his features, a pup’s growl starting at the back of his throat.
“Robin!” Batman glared with his low rumble.
Slade carefully watches them, but Orphan doesn’t seem too concerned, most of her attention focused on him.
(“I did not raise a coward!”)
“How’s the big bird?”
Everyone freezes.
There’s a sharp cry, Red Robin violently twisting out of Slade’s grasp, bo staff extended and cracking across his mask.
Slade doesn’t flinch—
(”I did not raise you to be weak!”)
—only calmly stepping back, making the kid’s next swing go wide.
There’s a crunch of gravel, boots sliding across cement, the tell-tale of the lifting of a cape with a high jump, and Slade ducks under the swing aimed at his head from behind.
“Did I hit a sore spot?” Slade mocks.
He isn’t intending to target his little bird’s kids, but they’re in the way of getting to Wayne.
Slade has questions, and he wants answers.
(His arm pulled roughly, a large rough hand clamped around his bicep in a remorseless grip.)
“That’s enough!” Batman stepped forward, addressing the two youngest.
“But Father!” Robin protested, a snarl on his lips.
(Anger brimming in his eyes, the heat burning his heaving chest just as much as the sting across his face; he’s panting in exhaustion, pulling back from the painful grip in futile resistance.)
“Stay away from them,” Batman growls, as much addressed to the Robins as it is to Deathstroke.
Red Robin snaps, “I can take care of myself, Batman.”
(”I’m not!”)
Slade mockingly puts his hands up in surrender, “They’re the ones who charged at me. I didn’t do anything, so you’re welcome for not cutting them up. Though, I have to say,” his voice dropped along with his hands, “consider it your first warning. I’m not that gracious.”
(He lands on the floor, just thrown without care, arm dangling awkwardly in a painfully unnatural bend — yet he can’t help but end up breathing a silent breath of relief.)
His statement caused the boys to prickle up again, both tensing.
“Red. Robin,” Orphan speaks, and the younger vigilantes immediately settle down, though grumbling all the way and glaring at Slade with identical suspicion.
“Leave, Deathstroke, if you have no business here.”
(”Stop wasting my time.”)
Slade inclines his head, lightly remarking, “I hope you know what you’re doing, Batman. Would be a shame if all your birds flew the coop, wouldn’t it?”
It sparks annoyance from the three children, Orphan included, at the insinuation that their loyalties could be swayed to him so easily.
It’s only in Batman where that spark holds recognition.
Slade smirks, hidden behind his mask.
Bingo.
(The voice in his head has gone quiet, finally.)
(It's unsettling.)
. . .
I thought you’d understand.
Slade closes his eye, taking a breath.
I knew you’d understand.
He opens his eye again, smiling pleasantly at Batman.
“What have you done?” The so-called Dark Knight demanded.
(“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?” His father screamed in his face, nails digging into skin as Slade’s roughly shaken.)
“You’re a fool.”
(“What I should have done ages ago,” Slade hissed, pulling away from his grip.)
“You won’t get away with this.”
(His father stopped, looks at him blankly, then smiled widely.)
“Oh, I already have.”
(Slade watched as the man who had raised him was taken away.)
(Somehow, he had known even back then that one way or another, the man would come back to haunt him in any way he could.)
. . .
In the end, it was easy to get to this point.
Deathstroke hadn't been lying when he'd talked to Red Robin.
He really was going into Gotham for a contract. Except this time, Deathstroke would be the contractor and others would be the ones to accept the contract.
He needed the Birdies distracted and out of his way, and that was honestly disappointingly easy to get done.
But at least he'd finally gotten that fun final little one-on-one time with the Big Bad Bat before the Dark Knight would be ruined.
The whole thing was honestly short notice, because Gotham wasn't the only ones with players on the board. But even with the plan needing to be executed perfectly in a short timeframe, it was still done meticulously.
Then, exactly to the second, everything had fallen into place.
Batman had stepped a line, and he would pay.
Deathstroke might have very little lines he abided by, but he does still have them.
And well, he's always bending the rules for a certain pretty bird anyway.
. . .
"Slade…" Dick looks up at him as he enters the safehouse.
Slade elects to ignore him, instead methodically stripping himself of his armour and weapons to tuck them away in a repurposed shelf.
"Is anyone hurt?" Slade gruffly asked, not looking away from disassembling his gun.
"No," Dick quietly replies after a moment of hesitation.
There's a pause.
"Good," Slade stiffly says, moving away to leave after locking his gear up, ignoring how several pairs of eyes track him across the floor.
"Wait," the youngest pup hisses, hackles raised. "What are your intentions with Richard?"
Slade looks back at them all at the doorway for a moment – just taking those few seconds to genuinely mull the question over.
He finally replied with a sardonic, self-deprecating grin; "Do I need to have one?"
He quietly slips out, down far into the hallway in the room furthest in the corner. He'll let the pack rest. They've had a rough day, and no doubt the week ahead of them will be even longer.
. . .
There're warm hands brushing his fur and just the presence of bodies resting on or against him; there's something akin to pack in the air that has him relaxing, completely avoiding the immediate instinct to attack.
He flicks his ear in agitation when there's probing at his shoulder, stirring slightly into wakefulness. Someone who registers almost as pack hushes him, and there's a soft hand running over the spot apologetically.
There was something that brought him here, into almost awaking, but whatever nightmare it had been doesn't matter when finally, after so long, he's dreaming of something that doesn't hurt.
"Are we sure he isn't actually secretly a giant teddy bear or what?"
"He can still kill you without much effort, or are you a moron to have forgotten that?"
"Yeah but so can Jason and he–"
"Do you really want to finish that sentence, replacement?"
"Shush. All of you."
He huffs, finding himself grumbling a bit at all the noise.
"Go back to sleep, Slade," someone murmurs.
So he does.
But not without the last wonder of – ‘what's the little bird and his pack doing in my dream…?’
But it doesn't hurt.
It doesn't hurt, and it's almost like he has a pack again. He can just lie there and drift, pretending it’s all real. Even if it’s just for this one moment. Even if he knows that he’s better off alone — if not for himself, than for the sake of everyone else.
It doesn't hurt.
(He's been hurting for a long time now.)
He sleeps.
And when he woke up, his dream was still there.
(He'd been hurting, alone, for so long now.)
It's a deep relief that aches.
But it still, somehow, doesn’t hurt.