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Dick pressed shaky hands to his face and tried to remember how to breathe. Smoke was—was everywhere, even though he’d gotten a fair number of blocks away, and he could hear screaming and sirens in the distance.
Blood. Everything smelled like pennies and gunpowder and smoke, his suit was covered in ash, and when he lowered his hands he saw that they were gleaming a sickly red.
Not his. Or maybe his—his side was aching where they’d gotten him with a knife, and he hadn’t had time to do more than apply a hasty pressure bandage in between all the running.
Fuck. It had all gone so spectacularly wrong so quickly Dick hadn’t been able to stop it.
Dick was used to Gotham. Bludhaven. New York City. Places where people were annoyed that a vigilante was butting into their business, but not surprised. You could expect a nosy mask whenever you were up to no good, and, for the most part, people knew that they couldn’t stop him. Sure, they tried, but it was more effort for effort’s sake rather than a legitimate threat.
But Dick wasn’t in vigilante stomping grounds. He was half a world away, and some people decided to deal with masked trespassers using the nuclear option.
They’d tried to shoot him down in a hail of gunfire, but Dick managed to escape that with some bruised ribs thanks to his bulletproof suit, and he’d gotten the hell out of dodge before they brought out the armor-piercing rounds.
So they slapped an immediate, outrageous bounty on his head, and turned the whole city into a kill box.
It was like getting rid of one missing spider by burning the whole house to the ground, and in Dick’s shocked confusion, most of his opportunities to get out had gone up in smoke. Quite literally.
Dick leaned back against the brick and watched the smoke trails. Three of them now, each in a different part of the city. Every time Dick poked his head, they tried to blow him up. The streets had cleared quickly—clearly city-wide warfare wasn’t new to residents—and within the first hour, bounty hunters from around the world began landing, eager to claim the prize.
There was a glint on a rooftop four buildings down. Not aimed at him, but it looked like his moment to breathe was up. Dick crawled out from the little overhang and made his way to the stairwell, careful to keep his movements fluid—the smoke had turned the sky dark, but the sun was still up, and he could not afford to be spotted.
It took him three tries to unlock the door to the stairwell with trembling fingers. He’d lost his communicator, he didn’t know if anyone was trying to rescue him, he didn’t even know how many hours had elapsed from that stakeout gone wrong. The traffickers had moved too quickly, too reactively, and Dick hadn’t been prepared for it.
His mistake. His fault. Every one of the screaming faces he saw when he closed his eyes, red and ash-streaked and he couldn’t even stay and help, they were after him, the best he could do was get away and hope that no one took advantage of the smoke to raise more chaos by going after whatever emergency services dared to show up.
Dick half-collapsed the moment he tried to stand up, and had to catch the railing—his left ankle throbbed wrong, he didn’t even remember where he’d twisted it, his memories snapshots of running and hiding and ever increasing desperation.
He was a rat in a maze, and he was being stalked into the ground.
Ordinarily, nightfall would be a good thing. Nightwing was a creature of the night, his suit the perfect camouflage, and surely he’d be able to find a way out of the city under the cover of darkness.
Dick pushed himself to his feet and breathed deeply as his vision swam. Blood loss. Smoke inhalation. Exhaustion. The shaky aftereffects of hyperawareness as he ran and ran and ran, unable to stop, unable to take a single fucking moment because there was a target on his back and everyone was aiming for it.
These people were perfectly willing to destroy the whole city and everyone in it to kill him.
He had to find somewhere to lie low. Somewhere to breathe. Somewhere he could treat the gash in his side, wrap his ankle, wash his face, get a drink of water that didn’t taste like blood. Somewhere to strip out of the Nightwing suit, grab a disguise, clean up enough that no one would connect a bloodstained, ashy dark-haired stranger with Nightwing.
To come up with some plan, any plan, any way to get out of this city and get back home.
But he didn’t have a safehouse in the city, didn’t know anyone he could trust, barely knew the city at all. The last time he’d been here, it had been more of a rest stop than anything else, he didn’t even know a decent takeout place, much less any sort of gang alliances or organizations with which he could barter safe passage.
If he had anything to barter at all, with the bounty hanging over his head.
Wait a minute.
The last time he’d been here.
It wasn’t his safehouse, but it was heavily fortified, alarmed, and would be empty. He wouldn’t be able to stay more than an hour or so, but Dick just needed somewhere where he could sit without worrying about a laser sight on his head.
Getting past the security took more time than he’d liked—he had the codes for some of it, but not all of it, and there were enough alarms on the unassuming house to make a fortress weep. He had a pounding headache to add to the gash in his side and his ankle was definitely screaming at him after that last sprint down an alleyway, chased by gunfire.
Luckily, no one had spotted him slinking along the fences in this residential neighborhood, and once he was past the gates, he felt like the air smelled cleaner—he could finally take deep breaths again.
The first step past the threshold was pure, unadulterated relief. He nearly crumpled in the entryway, leaning back against the door and exhaling slowly.
His hands were shaking. Bloodstained hands. Gloves dark with soot. He felt grimy, he felt—he felt unclean.
How many people had he watched die today? How many people died because they unwittingly got between him and a bullet, a bomb, a knife? The traffickers themselves, civilians on the streets, mercenaries fighting over who got to bring him down. Death, destruction, massive casualties.
All because of him.
Dick wanted to curl up and shudder through the screams clawing inside of him, to cry, finally cry, to get a chance to process everything that had happened since the stakeout had gone so very wrong—but he couldn’t.
This was only temporary safety, and he’d set the timer the moment he entered the first code. He needed to get cleaned up, form a plan, and get out. The sooner the better.
Dick managed to limp to the bathroom and sank down against the tile, taking a couple seconds to breathe before hunting for the medkit. He stripped out of the suit with little care—he was probably going to have to leave it behind anyway, the city was on too high an alert, and if Dick Grayson got caught with Nightwing’s suit, everything was done.
His hands looked alarmingly pale under the harsh light. Logically, he knew that he’d been wearing his gloves the whole day, that the blood and ash had smudged on kevlar, not skin, but he scrubbed at his hands anyway, searching for bloodstains that weren’t there.
The medkit was well stocked, more a field kit than a first aid kit, and Dick managed to clean the gash in his side before replacing it with a new bandage. His fingers felt nowhere near steady enough for stitches, and he couldn’t take a painkiller now, not when he was already teetering on empty. His ankle was slightly swollen, but he couldn’t feel a fracture, so he wrapped it, resolving to snag an ice pack while he pondered where to go next.
He cleaned his face last, gently unsticking the mask, and not daring to look into the mirror until the water no longer ran a dirty red.
He looked like shit.
His eyes were sunken, his skin waxy, there was still ash in his hair, and his eyes looked faintly fractured. Like he could see the parts of him that were cracking. He cupped his hands together under the faucet and pressed his face to the water, the tears dissolving as he made a strangled gasp.
This whole city had turned into a warzone. Because of him. Countless dead or injured, just to kill one man.
Dick clutched the counter before his knees could give out entirely, and turned away from the mirror.
He needed…supplies. Clothes. Water and food. Ice pack. He needed to sit and make a plan. He could not afford to have a breakdown.
He hobbled out of the bathroom, clutching his escrima in one hand. First was the bedroom—most of the clothes were too big for him, but Dick needed to get out of the tank top and leggings, both stuck to his skin with sweat. There were a couple of clothes in smaller sizes, and he managed to snag a shirt and a jacket from them, one size smaller than he’d have liked, but serviceable. For pants, he took one of the larger sweatpants, rolling up the cuffs and pulling the drawstrings tight.
The kitchen was next—his mouth was dry, and he needed to eat something before the weariness pressing at his senses took over, but he passed a notepad on the coffee table on his way there, and paused.
He didn’t have any time to waste…but it would only take a couple minutes. And—and there was a sick, twisting feeling inside of him that told him that this would be his last chance.
He had no way of getting a message out to his family. No communicator, no reliable phone service given the traffickers’ stranglehold on this city, no dead drop, nothing. There might’ve been a secure communication line in the safehouse somewhere, behind more traps and alarms, but Dick didn’t have the time to search for it. And if he got killed, it was highly unlikely that any message on his body would make it back to them.
If he got killed. Dick almost wanted to laugh. It was looking more and more like a certainty. The trap had already closed around him, now it was just a matter of waiting for that lucky shot.
It didn’t matter how well he disguised himself, if they were willing to kill anyone who even remotely matched his description. No point in running, if they were going to shoot at anything moving. No point in hiding, if they were willing to burn down the city to smoke him out.
He couldn’t—he wanted to—he couldn’t let it end like this. He wouldn’t be able to get a message out, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t write one.
He kept it brief. Family only, or he’d be writing for an hour, and a couple sentences for each of them. Nothing about where he was or what had happened—no reason to waste time on details they’d be able to figure out, not when the purpose was to affirm that he loved them.
He folded the note when he was done, and left it on the center of the coffee table. He had no idea whether it would actually make its way to his family, but he could hope. Could hope that they—not that it meant anything, Dick wasn’t a fool, a couple dozen hook-ups weren’t any worthwhile leverage, but he hoped that there was a…fondness. Something to spur the letter actually being delivered—it wouldn’t be too out of the way, and Dick had nothing to pay with, but it was a very small favor.
Even mercenaries acted on whims sometimes.
It took him longer than he’d have liked to tear himself away and limp to the kitchen. He almost drowned himself with the first glass of water, and paced himself slightly better with the second as he hunted through the kitchen for food. He found ice packs in the freezer and pulled one out, grabbing a box of protein bars from the cupboard.
It took three protein bars and another two glasses of water before the frantic desperation writhing inside of him slowed. The headache had receded slightly, and Dick took slow, even breaths as he tried to steady himself.
Blood. Death. Violence. So much of it, a city clamoring for his blood and—and it was bringing up other memories, unwelcome memories, memories of an apartment blown up and a circus on fire and running and running until he was facing his tormentor and watching him laugh over the ruins of his life and—
Dick pressed his hands to his face. No. Not here and certainly not now. He held his breath to quiet his racing heart—which was the only reason he heard the faintest creak of the wooden floor.
Dick immediately straightened, grabbing his escrima. The kitchen light was on, so it wouldn’t be difficult to find him, but his mind was on screaming alert—he could imagine them tracking him here, but how had they gotten inside, this place had some of the best security money could buy and he hadn’t heard anything to suggest a brute force entry.
He moved to the wall neared the kitchen entryway and pressed against it, fingers tight on his escrima. He couldn’t hear any other sounds—someone practiced at moving silently, and Dick wasn’t wearing his armor anymore, he couldn’t move as fluidly with a sprained ankle, he had nothing but two escrima and dying desperation against his pursuer.
Dick took a deep breath. Held it. And lunged out to face—
The only person who would’ve been able to make it past the security without a sound.
“Slade,” Dick said blankly. He didn’t raise his escrima. Slade, not dressed in Deathstroke armor but still very much armed, didn’t raise his gun.
It was drawn though, pointing at the ground as Slade scanned him with one sharp, cold eye.
“Grayson,” Slade responded coolly, “What are you doing here?”
Taking refuge in the only safehouse he knew of, a safehouse that was supposed to be empty, Slade wasn’t supposed to be on the continent and even though he would’ve gotten a notification when the entry code was entered, it should’ve taken him significantly longer than twenty minutes to get here.
Unless he’d already been on his way.
“Wanted some snacks,” Dick said, but he couldn’t make his voice light, and the words fell flat. His grip on the escrima didn’t tremble. He was beyond trembling. Numbness was creeping in now, sliding easily next to the exhaustion, and the portion of his mind calculating escape routes was getting fainter and fainter.
He had two escrima sticks. And his hand-to-hand skills, hobbled by a sprained ankle and soreness and exhaustion. Against Deathstroke the fucking Terminator.
Escape was a nice daydream.
He really shouldn’t have come here. Slade apparently had the same thought. “You decided to break into a mercenary’s safehouse with a bounty on your head,” Slade said flatly. It wasn’t a question.
“Any port in a storm,” Dick tried, finally managing to dredge up a smile. Slade couldn’t miss that he wasn’t wearing his suit, and Dick couldn’t hide that he was keeping his weight off of one ankle.
“It’s half a billion dollars,” Slade said, still toneless, “To bring them your head.”
Dick could feel the ice slipping down his spine. “They don’t have half a billion dollars,” Dick said quietly.
“It doesn’t matter,” Slade shrugged, gaze still fixed on him, “The wolves are out. No doubt they’ll turn on your traffickers once they realize their payday’s a lie, but by that time, you’ll already be dead.”
Dispassionate. Detached. Utterly unemotional, and it cracked something inside of him.
Dick took a shaky breath and relaxed his grip on his escrima. Winning a fight against Deathstroke, like this, in the man’s own safehouse, injured and unarmored, was so far from possible it wasn’t even on the same planet. Dick couldn’t beat Slade’s reflexes, and right now all Slade had to do was raise the gun and shoot.
Slade clearly knew it too, because he looked away from Dick, scanning the room as Dick struggled to connect thoughts in his exhausted mind. There had to be something—something to convince him—favors, money, something to persuade the world’s deadliest mercenary from snatching an easy prize.
Dick wasn’t a fool. He knew who he’d gotten into bed with, he knew that a fuck didn’t buy him any goodwill, he knew that Slade was a killer for hire.
But there was a difference between knowing and standing in front of the man with a five hundred million dollar bounty on his head.
It didn’t matter if the traffickers weren’t serious about the money, Dick had no doubt they’d change their tune if Deathstroke walked in to claim that bounty. And half a billion dollars was nothing to sneeze at.
Slade had found the folded note, and was reading it. Dick hadn’t expected anything else, but he felt uncomfortably exposed at watching Slade read a private letter to his family right in front of him. Casually, like he didn’t care about turning his attention away from Dick, a breathlessly nonchalant threat that he could kill Dick without even looking up from the paper. He’d even holstered his gun.
Slade looked at him when he was done reading the letter. There was something dark and vicious in his face, something roiling behind that level expression, and he didn’t move his gaze off of Dick as he reached into his pocket and drew out—drew out a lighter.
The paper burned easily and quickly, and it shouldn’t have hurt as much as it did.
Dick blinked rapidly, eyes prickling as Slade shook the ash off his glove. It—it was stupid. Sentiment. Always clinging to sentiment. Of course Deathstroke wouldn’t go to Gotham, of course he wouldn’t do anything without getting paid, and of course he’d especially not want to meet any Bats after putting a bullet through his skull.
Dick could’ve maybe bought Slade off if the bounty wasn’t so high—he didn’t have access to five hundred million dollars at the drop of a hat. And the narrowed eye and irritated countenance didn’t lend itself to being persuaded through other means, even if Dick could leverage a good lay against Slade’s thrill for his job.
He knew that Slade had a soft spot for him, knew that the mercenary enjoyed their games of cat-and-mouse, knew that he was enough of a challenge to pique Deathstroke’s attention.
He also knew that none of it would prevent Slade from carrying out a contract.
This wasn’t a surprising turn of events. Just a sorrowful one.
Slade hadn’t moved to unholster his gun, simply staring at him, and Dick—Dick was tired. He was weary down to his bones, and he didn’t know if Slade wanted him to fight back, wanted a semblance of a hunt, but he was too tired to play a game he knew he’d lose.
He took a deep breath, and sank down to his knees. He set the escrima sticks down against the wooden floor, and didn’t look up as he laced his fingers behind his head. It would hurt less if he didn’t see it coming.
“Giving up?” Slade said coldly, “Just like that?”
“I can’t win against you, Slade,” Dick said softly, “And there’s nowhere to run.” Because he could outfox Slade, outrun Slade, even outthink him if he was ready for it, but he wasn’t. Half-formed pleas kept sliding apart in his head, and Dick had no tricks left up his sleeve.
Just please finish it quickly, he didn’t say.
“Not even going to beg?” Slade asked, his tone still emotionless. He hadn’t moved, Dick could see his boots, but he couldn’t see if he’d unholstered the gun. If the gun was pointed at him, finger curling around the trigger. “Not going to point out the consequences of offing Nightwing, all the ways it’s not worth it, all the trouble that’ll land on my head?”
Dick almost raised his eyebrows. “Since when are you afraid of trouble?” he asked.
“Not going to offer up a better deal?”
“Is there a better deal than half a billion dollars?” Dick almost laughed, feeling eerily weightless, “If there is, let me know, I’d like to make a bargain.”
Slade stepped closer, and there was a bite in his tone. “Not even going to offer to spread your legs?”
Dick looked up. Slade hadn’t drawn a weapon, he was just staring down at Dick, expression taut, eye narrowed.
“Would it work?” Dick asked, half-curious.
Slade’s expression spasmed. Answer enough. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Slade said flatly. “You’re not even surprised.”
The words hurt. But Dick let himself breathe though the ache. “I know you’re a mercenary,” he said softly, “I’ve known the entire time we did this. And I’ve never asked you to choose between a contract and me.”
“Not even when the contract is you?”
No. Not when the choice was so painfully evident. Dick wasn’t in the habit of self-flagellation. He didn’t need to hear confirmation of what he already knew.
“Why did you even come here, then? Walking straight into the lion’s jaws is unlike you, kid.”
“There was nowhere else to go,” came out rawer than he liked, his voice almost cracking. He didn’t know Slade was already in town, he—he might’ve hoped that there was some part of Slade, no matter how tiny it was, that would’ve looked at a contract for him and decided not to take it—
But why would he? Why, when he knew Dick so well, when Dick could practically land in his lap wrapped up like a present, when it would be so easy for him, why would he let the opportunity pass?
It wasn’t like Dick could make it out of this one. If Nightwing was going to end up dead one way or another, might as well pick up the bounty while he was at it.
Dick let his eyes fall shut. He wondered if he’d hear the gunshot before dying. If he’d feel it. If he’d even notice. He should’ve asked Jason what dying felt like. If it hurt.
They’d never read his letter to them, but hopefully they would all still know. How much he loved them. How much he’d miss them. How much—
“Get up.”
Dick snapped his eyes open in surprise, he hadn’t even heard Slade move, but the man was right in front of him, expression a storm cloud. Dick straightened, confused and with more than a little trepidation, lowering his hands because it wasn’t like he could stop Slade from reaching out and snapping his neck.
One hand did curl around the back of his neck, but it didn’t twist. Instead, there were lips pressed to Dick’s, harsh and plundering, and Dick’s surprised sound was swallowed up.
It took a moment for his mind to reboot, to understand that Slade was kissing him, which was—okay. Dick could get behind the idea of one last fuck. There were definitely worse ways to die.
He curled his fingers against the front of Slade’s shirt, and pressed against the floor enough to gain a little leverage, responding to the kiss. He didn’t reciprocate with teeth and aggression, gentling it, turning it softer—if this was going to be the last thing he ever did, he didn’t want it to be a fight.
The quick pinch at the side of his neck was another derailment, and by the time Dick switched tracks enough to realize he’d been stuck with a needle, the floor was already roiling beneath his feet.
Slade’s arms around him were the only thing holding him up as dark spots began to gather, and it wasn’t—it didn’t hurt. It felt like falling asleep, exhaustion pulling him down, quiet and peaceful, and the last of the trepidation uncoiled.
“Little bird,” he imagined in Slade’s voice, before the darkness took over.
Sunlight woke him up, soft and warm, like he was drifting in a golden bath. He felt sore, like he’d gone to bed without stretching, and he didn’t want to get out of the soft fluffiness enveloping him. It felt so nice, and he didn’t want to move, and he wondered if he could stay here forever.
At least five more minutes.
What time was it anyway, usually his alarm would’ve waken him up long before it got this bright outside—Dick blinked open sticky walls, and saw nothing but golden sunlight.
It hit him that he was awake. He hadn’t expected to wake up.
Dick propped himself on one elbow—on the unfairly comfortable bed, and scanned the very familiar room, ending on the man sitting cross-legged next to him, reading something on his laptop.
“What,” Dick rasped, “The fuck.”
“Water’s on the nightstand,” Slade said without looking away from his laptop, “Knife wound didn’t need stitches, and ankle’s only sprained, but you probably have some minor smoke inhalation. Nothing serious.”
There was, indeed, water on the nightstand, and Dick was parched. He drained three glasses before he felt hydrated enough to figure out what was going on. “I repeat,” Dick said blankly, “What the fuck.”
Slade turned enough to fix that one-eyed stare on him. “What?” he asked, like Dick’s confusion was not clear and obvious and with just cause.
“You didn’t kill me,” was somehow the first sentence Dick managed to put together.
“You can really tell you were raised by the World’s Greatest Detective.”
The words were annoyed, but the tone itself was sharp. Like Slade was angry. Dick scrubbed at his face and tried to get himself to wake all the way up. An irritated Deathstroke was not something he could deal with half-conscious.
He sat up and got another glass of water, sipping it slowly as he looked around, hunting for clues. He was on Slade’s bed, half-twisted in the blankets, still wearing the same clothes he’d stolen. There was a fresh bandage on his side, and his ankle had been rewrapped.
Judging by the sunlight, it was late morning. Judging by his mildly grumbling stomach, Dick couldn’t have been out for more than half a day.
He finished the glass of water. Slade had turned back to his laptop, and Dick studied him. He couldn’t see any weapons, and Slade had changed into softer clothes. He wasn’t hiding his laptop screen, and Dick could see him scrolling through news articles. They weren’t in English.
“You didn’t kill me,” Dick repeated.
“Guess we need to revisit the possibility of concussion,” Slade muttered, but he didn’t turn back and Dick narrowed his eyes.
“Why?” Dick asked, level and steady.
“Why what?”
Dick had more than enough practice in dealing with uncommunicative bastards, especially when they were trying to hide something. He reached forward to swipe at the laptop, pulling it to the side and settling in front of Slade in one smooth movement.
“Why didn’t you kill me?” Dick asked, keenly aware that there was still ample opportunity to go through with it. But if there was one Slade was not, it was wasteful, and there was no reason to—to drug him unconsciousness and then do nothing.
“Were you hoping I would?” Slade asked, expression aggravatingly blank. He was doing a stunning impression of a rock wall, and Dick had grown up with Bruce.
“Hoping? No,” Dick said, trying not to let the rawness out, “But expecting? Yes.” It hurt, it still hurt, even in the bright, sunny bedroom, even well-rested and miraculously alive, staring up at the man Dick fully expected to put a bullet into his skull.
“Pragmatic,” Slade said. It didn’t sound like a compliment.
Dick narrowed his eyes. “Don’t give me that,” he bit back, “I know you. I know what you’re capable of. I know how many people you’ve killed. I don’t know how many of them you slept with before you murdered them, but I know that number isn’t zero. You can’t be—” annoyed? Irritated? Angry?—“Offended by the assumption.”
Slade stared at him, and Dick felt something squeeze inside his chest at the carefully blank expression.
Shit. Slade was offended by the assumption. He was—he was actually angry that Dick thought he was going to die.
“I’m not—” he felt strangely breathless, “I’m not the first person—you aren’t—you can’t—you can’t tell me that you’d throw a contract for me. You don’t—you made it clear—the sex was fantastic, but that’s—that’s all it was. Don’t tell me that it was good enough to make up for half a billion dollars.”
Slade’s face was still expressionless. “There is no half billion dollars.”
“What?”
“You were right,” Slade said, “The traffickers didn’t have that kind of cash. Once that was revealed…mercenaries and bounty hunters don’t take too kindly to being cheated. There is no bounty, and the trafficking ring’s been mostly ripped apart.”
Dick stared at him. “What.” Slade nodded to the laptop, and Dick pulled it closer. He could translate enough of the article to get the general gist—the city-wide mayhem was over, several traffickers were dead or in custody, and there were several shots of huddled, fearful, cautiously hopeful faces being led out of warehouses.
That was…not the outcome Dick was expecting. He’d seen the night ending in bloody carnage, with his own corpse as a cherry on the top—he’d never have been able to redirect a small army of mercenaries and contract killers so easily and smoothly. Even distracting them would’ve just caused further chaos, not this bloody but neat solution.
Dick finished reading every article Slade had open before he dared to poke at the feeling inside of him. “You did this,” Dick swallowed, “For me.”
Silence.
Dick screwed up his courage to look up, to meet that inscrutable blue eye. “You did this for me,” Dick repeated, quieter but more confident.
Slade didn’t say a word. Didn’t agree. Didn’t refute. Didn’t stop Dick from crawling into his lap and wrapping his arms around him and burying his face in his shirt and taking several gulping breaths as the feeling overwhelmed him.
It felt like a freefall. It felt like a safety net. It felt like stepping off a high wire and trusting that he’d be caught.
It was terrifying.
It was safe.
Arms wrapped around him in turn, pulling him closer, holding him close. “You’re worth a hell of a lot more than five hundred million dollars,” came the quiet voice, and Dick didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
They definitely needed to have a conversation about this, but for the moment Dick was alive, and safe, and sunlight fell like liquid gold around them, warm and bright.