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It’s almost too easy to get to where Slade is being kept without anyone noticing. Dick doesn’t even have to do much about the security. Some pretty basic looping of the feeds is enough. Granted, he has all the access codes, and it would be a whole lot more difficult to do it without those. Still, considering he’s dealing with Slade, it feels like it should be more challenging than that.
Dick stands before the tank for a long while, watching Slade and thinking. It’s not that he’s come here lightly—he considered and discarded a lot of options before he got to ‘release dangerous superpowered villain that almost destroyed the whole universe back into the world’ in his list.
But there’s something that feels almost inevitable about this. Like Dick was going to end up here, making this mistake from the moment Slade flashed through his thoughts as a possible ally. Everyone else he tried to get involved felt like just distractions, short delays before he ended up here, at the door, or medical tank as it happens, of the only real solution to his case.
Dick snorts at the thought and turns away from the tank and unlocks the controls to wake Slade up. There’s still the not trivial task of convincing Slade to make a deal with him. But the containers of ominous, sickly green liquid Dick acquired in advance are a tactic he’s sure will work. Pretty sure. You can never know with Slade.
It takes some time for Slade to wake up and then to drain the tank enough to be able to have a conversation with him.
“Now what might you possibly want from me? Thought they gave up on trying to interrogate me,” is the first thing Slade says when he gets the mask off his mouth. He sounds almost like himself, but he looks weak and unsteady in a way that looks absolutely alien on him. It looks wrong.
Dick doesn’t feel sorry for how things ended up, nor does he think Slade would appreciate anyone pitying him, unless he could use it to his advantage somehow. But seeing Slade so diminished and unlike himself, kept alive only by machines, makes Dick’s skin crawl. He already made a promise to himself to leave Slade where he is if they can’t make a deal he’s satisfied with, before he went on his quest for a Lazarus pit. But looking at Slade he needs to remind himself again that Slade is here fully and completely through his own actions, and doesn’t need to be saved by anyone, least of all Dick.
Slade’s face though—and it’s another thing that’s utterly strange, seeing him without the eyepatch—looks as sharp and calculating as ever. He looks Dick over, probably seeing a lot more than Dick would like. Any hope that being weakened will make negotiating with him easier dies a painful death in the corner of Dick’s mind.
“I want to hire you.” No need to beat around the bush; it’ll just give Slade more ammunition. And while they’re not exactly pressed for time, Dick would prefer to get this done before someone does come down here and attempts to stop him from doing what he’s about to do.
“I’m not exactly in a position to do, well. Anything for you,” Slade says, emotionless and matter-of-fact like the state he’s in doesn’t bother him half as much as it bothers Dick. “Not that I wouldn’t want to,” he adds with a slow once-over that makes Dick roll his eyes and gather up his patience. Looks like he’s going to need it.
“That’s the payment—I make sure you recover at least enough to get out of that tank and do what I need you to do.” Dick watches carefully, and there’s no change in Slade’s face at all. Either he’s gotten even better at hiding what he feels, or he truly doesn’t care if Dick gets him out of here or not.
“‘Do what you need me to do.’ Could you be more vague? I’m not signing up to any of your hero bullshit. I thought our last dance would have made that plenty clear.”
Dick. Doesn’t flinch. He made absolutely sure he could see flashes of a black void superimposed over everything before him, and still stand and talk and. Not. Flinch. He’s gotten scarily good at ignoring the abyss that seems to want to stare back at him.
“That’s why I’m here and not asking any of the heroes around.” Not asking them right this minute. Dick isn’t about to tell Slade he already tried that and got a bunch of brush-offs from all sides. “I need your mercenary contacts.”
“Hmm. That’s not something that I have to get out of here for. Are you trying to trick me, kid? You should know better.” Slade looks almost amused by the thought. Dammit, maybe he really is okay with staying in this medical tank slash prison indefinitely. Dick’s whole planned out bargaining strategy was based on Slade wanting out.
“You know I’m not. I want you to help me track down who’s been killing and disappearing metas. At least some of those have been professional hits, multiple contractors. You’ll help me find out how they were hired, by who, and then help me track down the client.”
“That sounds right up the alley for your friends. If that was it, you wouldn’t need my help.”
Dick really hates that Slade’s saying something Dick has thought of himself. But even among the people not busy with other cases and unable to help, no one else can see the pattern. Or if they get as far as admitting the deaths and disappearances might be connected and not just the usual course of strange things happening to heroes and metas a lot more often than to civilians, they don’t see what Dick sees—that all the cases have the hallmarks of professional mercenary contracts.
He’s absolutely sure Slade will see the same thing he does, and probably a lot more than that. Dick did not just decide to come here on a whim. Out of everyone, Slade is the most likely to be able to help with this case.
If Dick can convince him to do it.
“I’m asking you. Are you saying you don’t want this time-out to be over yet?” Dick asks, throws it like a challenge. They both know that somehow, someday Slade will get out of here. But how long until the next chance to do so comes along?
One very predictable issue here is that depending on his mood, Slade would absolutely give up the chance to get out early just to fuck with Dick. Normally. Dick is hoping the offer to heal him will let them avoid that.
“And how are you going to do that? Don’t think I’d still be in here, if the League had some way to stabilize me enough to send me off to regular prison. They don’t seem like the type to keep a private prison in their basement just for kicks. Unlike your Robin.”
Dick grits his teeth, ignores the dig. Instead of arguing about things that really aren’t relevant right now, he pulls one of the transparent containers out of the bag at his feet and holds it up, letting it cast a faint green glow over them both. Slade looks at it for only a second before he starts to laugh. So weak he can barely hold himself upright, even with the help of the medical liquid and the walls of the pod, but his laughter still makes Dick twitch and suppress the instinct to look for the nearest exit just in case.
“Only you, Grayson, would be foolish enough. Only you,” Slade says, and chuckles again. He shakes his head like he can’t believe Dick is planning to do this. That makes two of them.
“Is that a no?”
“That might not go so well for you. It didn’t the last time that got used on me. You’re sure you want to try it?”
The absolute black of the Darkness flashes before Dick’s eyes, the same way it has been haunting him every time he’s tried to sleep since he got out. But Pariah is gone, and Slade was only ever a vessel because Pariah made him one. This time will be different.
Hell, Slade isn’t even dead this time. Dick has spent a lot more sleepless nights than he’d ever admit trying not to think about how he wouldn’t have all these new nightmares, if Slade had just stayed dead. The same would be true if only Talia hadn’t killed him. If Brion hadn’t framed Slade. If Slade had never used Tara. There’s an infinity of what-ifs that could have changed the end result, and Dick knows how useless it is to play that game.
So here he is, not fixating on the past, accepting that what’s done is done. Giving Slade a not-quite-blank slate, but something a lot more like it than he probably should. Than anyone else would, at any rate.
He needs the help, though, so this is what he has to do. That’s how it works—it needs to be done, so Dick has to find a way to get it done. Impossible only means he hasn’t tried hard enough. Though if he thinks of it as an escalation, and if Slade declines, he has no idea what the next step would be. Ask Constantine to hit up some demons for him? Hopefully he won’t have to find out.
“‘I’ll take my chances,” Dick insists. He doesn’t need to be confident, he just needs to look confident. “Do we have a deal, yes or no?”
Slade watches him for a long minute, expression unreadable on his barely recognizable face. Then he shakes his head in disbelief again and says, “What the hell, why not? Sure, Grayson. We have a deal.”
Dick hides his sigh of relief by crouching down to pick up the bag with the rest of the containers. Unlocking the controls to get access to what goes into the liquid is a lot more complicated without leaving his own access codes into the system. He can feel Slade’s eye on him as he works through the security layers carefully.
“Something tells me you’re not supposed to be here.”
“What, you were planning to get out of here legally? You’d have to wait a really long time for that.”
“Hmm, you never know. Imprisonment never lasts long for someone like me.”
“You aren’t like you right now, though,” Dick can’t help but remind Slade. He suppresses a wince at his own words right after, and Slade doesn’t react at all. Once again it feels like Dick is the only one affected by the profound wrongness of Slade being depowered and barely able to stay alive even with all the machines. Still, Dick feels compelled to follow up with a reassurance. “We’re going to fix that in a minute.” He’s almost done with the controls.
“How sure are you that you know what you're doing?”
Dick jerks his eyes up, away from the console and up to Slade’s face at the tone of his voice. At how his question sounds like a warning more than anything else.
“You want me to leave you here?” Dick asks, and manages to keep his voice steady. They both know how this is going to end, though. It’s not an accident that neither of them even tried to mention what will happen when their contract is over. Dick has no illusions about getting Slade back into any type of custody afterwards. Once Slade is out, he’s staying out.
It’s not like that’s why Dick came here, but it’s not not why he’s here, either. Despite everything, he’s not about to leave Slade floating in some glorified jar in some dusty basement to be forgotten. Slade deserves to pay for all he did, but not like this.
“That’s not the issue and you know it. Are you sure you want to risk it? Maybe I come out of the green stuff wrong again. Maybe I don’t, and you let me out and get stabbed in the back. All kinds of ways this could go wrong for you, kid,” Slade warns, and he sounds serious, like he cares how bad of a decision Dick is in the process of making. “Have you thought it through?”
Dick shrugs, and pretends his thoughts aren’t tying themselves into knots worrying over those exact scenarios. “Does it matter? We have a deal. You want to back out now?”
Slade just watches him for a minute, then with a shake of his head says, “They never did accuse you of being too cautious. Go ahead.” For a moment he almost sounds resigned, but it passes so fast Dick must have imagined it.
“Our deal doesn’t cover getting possessed, so you’ll just have to not. Anyway, you’re not going to stab me in the back. You owe me for the Crisis,” Dick adds. He tries to not think about all that happened too much, or he’ll stop seeing colors other than black and change his mind about the whole thing. But Slade does owe him for so damn much of it.
“No, I don’t. If you’re pulling me out of here because you think I’ve had a change of heart, you can stop right now,” Slade barks out, sounding as harsh as he ever did when he was whole and healthy. “I was right, about all of it. All the kids look at you heroes and think they’ll be you if they put a mask on, but all they’ll end up being is more statues for your grotesque child cemetery. No one can be you. No one else will ever be you, and it’s time to stop letting them pretend they will.”
What the fuck. Dick has no idea how to address any part of that. ‘And you decided to fix this by putting them in the ground sooner,’ would be his first choice, if he wasn’t stunned silent by the rest of it. The parts Slade never brought up during his rampage or during interrogation. They explain some things and at the same time bring up even more questions about why he did what he did.
Dick has never wanted to know which decisions were Slade’s and which were Pariah’s and the Darkness’ more than he does right now. If it all can even be divided as cleanly as that. It’s pretty obvious there was significant overlap on at least some of them.
Instead of trying to figure out what to say, Dick puts the first container into the system and starts the transfer. Dick watches Slade, who watches him right back as the liquid in the tank slowly turns more and more green as Dick switches out the containers. When the last one is empty and the water glows with a light of its own, Slade lets go of the wall of the tank and sinks under the surface.
He keeps eye contact with Dick until the very last moment.
-
The water is inexplicably murky and doesn’t show more than the faintest shadow of what’s within, despite being a mix of two completely transparent liquids. Dick has a minute or five to start doubting his every action. Then Slade resurfaces, and he’s Slade again.
Dragging him out of the tank goes easier than Dick expected, too. Slade bypasses all the authorization levels that Dick has prepared fake Superman access codes for by simply breaking the glass. The Lazarus water apparently worked sufficiently. At least going by how Dick is pretty sure the tank was specifically built to contain someone with superstrength, even if Slade had none of that when he was put in it.
The green liquid rushes out, covers most of the floor, but the puddle drains away unexpectedly fast.
Despite his initial show of strength and very obvious improvement—he looks like the dip in the green has doubled his body weight only by adding muscle—Slade is clumsy and sluggish. He half crawls, half falls out of the tank, and Dick has to help him up from the floor.
Then again, maybe he’s just forgotten how walking works after all that time spent floating—he seems to regain his balance and coordination by the minute as Dick sneaks them out through a path that should avoid absolutely everyone. He was prepared for it, and he’s made sure there’s as little evidence left as possible of his own involvement, but this is the Hall of Justice. Someone will eventually figure out it was him. (Will they be surprised? Dick can’t help but wonder.)
No going back now.
When they get to the getaway car, which is the second most common make and model used by car rentals in this city, Slade takes the passenger seat without arguing. He puts an address in the navigation app, though. Honestly, that works out much better for Dick—gives him more time before someone tracks them down.
-
The safehouse is a lot nicer than Dick expected. It’s no Batcave, obviously, but it is fully equipped with everything they might need, and everything looks clean and new. Somehow Dick assumed Slade would take him to whichever hideout he was least sorry to lose, and that it would end up being some rundown hole in the wall with a weapons case and a spare suit under the floorboards, or something equally cliché.
Instead it’s well hidden, with a dozen security points they have to get past or disable, and stocked for a damned apocalypse. There’s workout equipment and enough high-end lab equipment to make half the lab techs in the city jealous. Slade doesn’t even need it, he doesn’t ever get poisoned for long enough to need antidotes for anything.
Not that Dick is jealous. But his own safehouses do tend to go more in the way of spare equipment in a bag under the floorboards. But maybe Slade has so many places like this he doesn’t mind losing this one. Not like he couldn’t afford it. Maybe that’s why he keeps doing what he does—to have money to blow on really nice hideouts.
While Slade disappears into the bathroom to wash off all the sludge, Dick sets up all the info he has in a neat timeline for Slade. And when Slade comes back, finally looking mostly like himself, Dick makes him let him into the places someone would put that kind of contract out. The kind of places one can find mercenaries willing and able to carry out hits on metas and powered heroes. Not really places Dick is confident he could hack, even if he found all the right ones.
Not a problem for Slade, obviously. He even has some kind of system that keeps logs of everyone else’s contracts, which Dick’s pretty sure means Slade has long since hacked the sites’ servers. Not surprising, and nothing Dick is going to complain about.
He’s setting Slade’s computer up to run a search for similar contracts on all available extremely secret mercenary hangouts, when Slade apparently gets bored of being helpful. Honestly, he’s lasted longer than Dick expected.
He cages Dick in against the desk, so close his front is pressed against Dick’s back, and doesn’t move an inch when Dick turns around as best as he can in the very limited space between Slade and the desk. He could just jump over the desk. Slade would probably not trash all the equipment on it just to stop him. But that feels like giving up, backing down, and Dick doesn’t give up.
When they’re face to face, Slade leans even closer. So close Dick can hardly see anything but the curl of Slade’s mouth as he smirks.
“Are you sure I won’t just take you out and sell you to your mystery client?” Slade taunts. One of his hands settles on Dick’s hip, right above a hidden pocket for weapons. Dick breathes in, holds his breath. “I bet they could outbid you…”
Slade’s other hand goes for something else behind Dick’s back, and Dick doesn’t wait to find out what Slade’s trying to distract him from. He twists, hooks a leg around Slade’s knee and throws Slade. Exhales. They end up on the floor, only halfway on a gym mat, Dick kneeling above Slade.
“As if you could,” Dick says and smiles as obnoxiously as he can. Slade reaches for his shin and Dick falls back, rolls, and—
They spar, or that’s how Dick chooses to see it. They both go at it harder than it’s polite to when not actually trying to maim someone; Dick because he needs an outlet for all the stress, and Slade most likely just because he can. But no one does get maimed, so it counts as sparring.
Dick wins more than he loses. Slade is still not one hundred percent, still recovering, and not at his best even with the help of the Lazarus water. He fights like someone trying to get used to a new body, which isn’t too far off what’s going on. They spar for a long time, until they’re both worn out, covered in sweat and breathing hard. It’s new—seeing Slade be just as affected as Dick feels. Not something he’s going to see again anytime soon, if ever.
For once it feels like Slade has to put just as much effort into their fight as Dick. Still, it takes them an hour until they’re both done, and most of that time it’s almost a tie. Dick comes out on top, but not by much.
Hell, maybe Dick should have guessed something was wrong with Slade, that he wasn’t himself, when Dick won against him back at the tower. When he won so fast, because they both know Dick is capable if he puts his all into it. If Slade pushes him too far. Then again, Slade had no reason not to let him win, not with how many hostages he had.
The spar ends when both of them can no longer get up from the mats, lungs burning and every square inch of muscle too sore to move.
It’s strangely meditative, lying on the floor, breathing hard almost in synch with Slade who’s lying on the same mat, almost close enough to touch. Until Slade recovers enough to roll over and half on top of Dick and says, “since we’re here already,” with an exaggerated leer.
Dick throws him one last time before Slade can do anything more than feel up Dick’s very sore thighs. “In your dreams,” he huffs, and uses way too much willpower to get up off the floor. Time for a shower.
The bathroom door closing behind him cuts off the sound of Slade’s gravelly laughter.
The search log hasn’t found any ongoing contracts that match the ones Dick’s investigating by the time Dick is done with his shower. So he occupies himself with a post-very-intense-workout stretching, and when he’s done with that, he goes over everything he already has one more time, looking for anything he might have missed.
Before too long he nods off on the sofa. He doesn’t mean to, but he hasn’t slept in a couple of days, too busy getting everything in place for the jailbreak and chasing the case at the same time. It’s more or less inevitable.
The dreams are another thing that’s inevitable.
Blackness twists around him, eyeless and full of black black teeth, and e m p t y. It snuffs out the candle easily, and Dick can no longer feel it in his hand, can’t light it without finding it. Can do nothing while feeling like he’s covered in tar—heavy and smothering and only liquid enough to spread until it covers everything. He’s going to be swallowed by the Darkness, and alone alone alone in the void.
Dick is gasping for air when he manages to knock himself out of the dream. It feels like he’s gotten a couple of hours, probably, but he needs more sleep to be at his best tomorrow, so he doesn’t bother getting up. Just stays on the sofa until his heartbeat slows down enough to try for some more shut-eye.
The overhead lights are off, leaving the room in a yellow-y twilight. There’s something in the corner of his vision, and when Dick turns his head, he finds Slade sitting on a chair and watching him. Slade doesn’t say anything, just keeps watching him with an inscrutable expression. He looks like he’s been at it for a while. Dick is too tired to think of anything to say, so he just sighs and closes his eyes.
In that half-waking exhaustion it almost feels good to have someone watching over him, even if it is Slade. Maybe especially Slade, who must know the Darkness better than anyone.
It doesn’t take long until Dick falls asleep again. And inevitably he falls back into the dreams of Darkness, but for the first time in months he’s not there alone. He dreams about Slade right there with him. It makes sense, since Slade was there with him, and it makes sense that they’re fighting, since that’s what they did when all of Dick’s appeals to Slade’s better nature failed. It’s what they always do.
It’s still better than the emptiness. And somehow in Dick’s dream it feels more like a spar than a fight to the death it really was. It makes Dick feel—not alone.
He wakes up rested in a way he hasn’t been in a long time. And they have a lead to follow up on. A new meta contract that fits Dick’s case.
All in all Dick feels surprisingly okay about hiring Deathstroke.
-
Even with the advantage of all the stolen contract information, they’re still late. They get there just in time to see the captured meta get carted away, and the only option is to follow the mercenary to the drop off point.
That was Slade's original plan, which would make Dick suspicious, but he knows for a fact they got notified the moment the contract went up. There was no way they could have gotten there any faster. So letting the mercenary lead them to the client it is.
It makes Dick feel like he’s working for the Owls again, letting some gym assistant that’s done nothing to deserve this other than having slight superstrength get kidnapped just to help his case, and he hates it.
Thankfully Slade must notice Dick’s rapidly plummeting mood and doesn’t taunt him over one thing or another. Maybe he’s just focused and professional because they’re finally on the actual job instead of sitting around and waiting. But no, Dick remembers Slade stopping for some back-and-forth or just to mess with Dick while on a job lots of times.
Whatever the reason, Dick tries not to question it, lest Slade abandon his unusual bout of thoughtfulness.
Especially when they finally catch up only to find two dead men and the meta about to join them. Dick does everything he can to save the guy. Then he stays kneeling next to him until he gets his grief and dismay under control.
“That’s Morrison,” Slade says and points to one of the bodies. Normally that wouldn’t be necessary. Dick did read Morrison’s profile on the way over and knows what he looks like. But the bodies are badly burned, since getting abducted apparently triggered an all new fire-breathing ability alongside the super strength. It still wasn’t enough to save the guy. “Which makes this your client.” Slade points at the other burnt body. “There’s an envelope with the ‘upon proof of completion’ part of the payment in his coat.”
Dick gets everything not burnt to crisp out of the dead client’s pockets. The money is there, and a couple of IDs which look like they might even have his real name on them. Or if it isn’t, Dick can try to trace the forgeries and get something from whoever made those.
“Okay.” Dick gets up. He really wants to drag his fingers through his hair, but his gloves are still covered in blood. “Okay, the emergency services will be here soon, so we should—”
Slade interrupts him with a very firm, “No.”
“Slade,” Dick growls, as much warning in his voice as he’s currently capable of. Unfortunately Slade never did care much about warnings of any kind. If anything, he takes them as challenges. Even when it really fucking isn’t the time and place for it.
“Richard. You have your answers; looks like we’re done here. This is where we part ways.”
Dick shouldn’t be surprised Slade is trying to get out of their deal as soon as possible, but with how badly this day has gone Dick can’t stop the swell of rage that Slade trying to leave him on his own drags up. He needs Slade’s help, and he went through a lot of trouble to get him here, and signed up for a whole lot more that’s going to follow when the League discovers what he did. He’s not letting Slade off the hook with nothing to show for it but a few more dead bodies.
“No way. We’re done when I say we’re done. We go back, look for the next contract, we find what the fuck this is all about.” He takes a deep breath and counts to five to keep himself from shouting. “Then we’ll be done.”
Slade watches him for a while, arms crossed over his chest and face closed off, a tension in his jaw that means he strongly disagrees. Dick almost expects they’ll end up fighting it out, which might not be the worst thing with how aimlessly angry he feels. But then Slade half shrugs and says, “Suit yourself.” Like it doesn’t matter.
It almost gives Dick whiplash how fast Slade switches between intensely disapproving and disinterested. This is one gift horse he should be looking in the teeth, but he really doesn’t have the energy to spare for questioning Slade’s moods.
-
They make their way back to Slade’s safehouse mostly in silence. Dick checks if there are any simultaneous hits out on any other metas, and starts a search for the dead client’s ID name. And then, when they switch transports the final time, leans his temple against the cool glass of the window and rests his eyes.
He hates watching people die. It never gets better, never becomes something he’s used to. Which is good, but fuck, he wishes he didn’t ever have to do it again.
Dealing with it, the whole process of getting over it enough to keep his mind on the case is beyond strange to do while no further than five feet from Slade the entire time. He should be the worst person for it, someone that has killed possibly more people than Dick has ever saved; has definitely tried to. Someone whose presence right after a failure like today should make Dick see red. Instead it feels almost calming. If anyone knows death intimately from both sides, it’s Slade, and he doesn’t seem to care much about it either way.
With just a few exceptions. Dick almost starts a fight, almost opens his mouth to shout at Slade about his lack of empathy for anyone who doesn’t share his DNA. It might make him feel better, directing the maelstrom of all the varied bad things he’s feeling towards someone else, something else.
But Dick knows what he’s like when he gets this bad; knows he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from bringing up every grievance until he’d get all the way to everything Slade did during the Crisis, and that would go—badly. And the reprieve from his own mind wouldn’t last anyway.
So he keeps his eyes and his mouth shut and focuses on the cool glass against his skin.
Dick’s rage slowly drains away leaving him listlessly tired.
When they finally reach their destination, he scrubs the blood off himself and drops on the sofa, and is dead to the world almost instantly.
Sometime in the early morning—which is only a few hours after he passes out, so it counts as middle of the night instead—Dick wakes up. It takes him a minute to realize he feels unsettled because the dreams that keep him up weren’t the same tonight. He’s gotten too used to the vivid terror of them.
Now his heart isn’t racing nearly as much as it usually is after his nightmares for a change. He can’t even see the black nothingness all that clearly behind his eyelids, when he dares to close his eyes. There’s vague images of it, sure, but mostly he recalls him and Slade, alone together. Since Slade was the one to drag Dick into the void, it’s only fair that Dick can now drag an image of him into his nightmares to keep the worst of them at bay.
Strange, but whatever works. And what does seem to work is apparently reminding himself that he wasn’t alone in it, not until the very end.
Of course, that brings back the dream-like memory of Slade watching him sleep the previous night. And from one second to the next Dick becomes acutely aware he’s being watched again. He finds Slade in the same place as before, chair once again dragged to the middle of the room and facing the sofa Dick is sleeping on.
It’s Slade, so he doesn’t even try to pretend like he’s doing anything less creepy. He just looks at Dick, something too intense in his expression, something that makes the hairs on the back of Dick’s neck stand on their ends and his heart speed up again.
But he still isn’t ready to deal with whatever this is. So he closes his eyes, turns his back to Slade and goes back to sleep.
When he wakes up the second time, it’s day, and Slade is in the kitchen, doing something on a tablet. Probably something criminal and very serious. But while Dick waits for his coffee, he entertains himself by imagining Deathstroke playing candy crush during solemn villain meetings, because who the hell would dare call him out on it?
He’s still suppressing giggles at the thought of Luthor declaring war because Slade beat his high score while he was busy monologuing, when Slade gets up and says, “Eat something. You’re going to need the energy,” and leaves. Not before giving a once-over to Dick’s extremely comfortable pajamas, though.
It really isn’t the time. Dick is going to have to think about it at some point. But not yet.
Slade is right about the food, unfortunately. Dick was too beat and upset to eat anything last night, and now his body isn’t thanking him for it. So after a brief check to see nothing urgent has come up while he slept, he cleans out as much of Slade’s food as he can. Doesn’t make much of a dent with the crazy amount of supplies, but it’s the thought that counts.
When he’s done, he brings up the dead client’s history. It looks like the name on the ID really was his real name. That, or John L. Henders is an extremely good fake identity, with everything filled in all the way back to part time summer jobs and kindergarten records.
Actually Dick is more and more convinced that might be exactly what it is, since absolutely nothing in the guy’s background explains why he’d suddenly be hiring people to kidnap and kill metas. Or where he’d get that kind of money.
Dick can’t find any flaws or clues in the identity that might give him a thread to follow, though. It frustrates him.
“Get up.”
Dick startles out of his fruitless research and looks at Slade. He’s on the mats, wearing a very basic version of the Deathstroke suit. No weapons or anything on him. “You could be nicer to me, if you want something.” Though what Slade wants is pretty obvious. Dick didn’t notice any issues when they were pursuing their target yesterday, but Slade would know better than Dick if he’s back to one hundred percent.
Slade takes a menacing step towards Dick. It’s pretty amazing how he can make a basic movement like a single step look menacing.
“Or not. Of course you couldn’t, what was I thinking?” Dick gets up and leaves the research for later. Another spar it is. “Sure you want me to kick your ass again?” he asks, smile filled with confidence he doesn’t feel. He very barely won the last time, and Slade’s probably recovered a lot more of his strength and coordination in the short time since.
He’s not about to just give up, though.
On the next exhale Slade gets close enough, and Dick springs into action. His kick connects, and it still makes Slade stumble. So do the next ten or twenty, even if he has to abort twice as many moves to avoid getting thrown across the room, Slade’s fingers ghosting over Dick’s ankles and wrists, a hair's breadth from grabbing him. He doesn’t retreat fast enough to escape it every time, and Slade is fast.
Suffice to say Dick does not get more wins than losses this time.
He thought Slade was almost back to normal yesterday and the day before, but now, seeing how much faster than before he is, Dick knows he was wrong. It’s so damn easy to forget Slade isn’t just human, maybe slightly stronger and more durable. Hell, Dick has seen him fight an army of superheroes even if he was carrying around a cosmic entity at the time, and he still keeps forgetting.
And then Slade gets from being across the room to pinning Dick against the mats before Dick can blink, and he remembers.
“Not sure this looks like you kicking my ass,” Slade says with a grin, from above Dick and not even slightly breathless. His hold on Dick’s wrists feels so immovable it must be breaking some law of physics. “Still sure I won’t truss you up and sell you to the highest bidder?”
“Fuck you.” Dick, on the other hand, is far too breathless to think of anything more clever to say. Fuck Slade’s unnaturally fast recovery, even if that’s exactly what Dick was aiming for with the Lazarus water.
“What, not just in my dreams?” Slade laughs and leans down closer to Dick’s neck, like he’s going to bite or—
Dick doesn’t wait to find out or what. He only manages to throw Slade off halfway, but it’s enough to get out of the hold. But it kind of sets the theme for the rest of the spar. Slade finds increasingly elaborate ways to pin him to the mats. On his back most of the time. On his front, and with Slade’s weight plastered to his back, too. Not so good technically that Dick can’t get out with some effort, but that’s almost definitely on purpose.
Because it’s a game for Slade, and why end it too soon? It’s a game that Dick is definitely losing.
The worst part is that it’s getting to Dick, having Slade pin him down and press all up against him bodily time after time. Slade doesn’t even have to make any more insinuations on what else they could be doing to ramp up the tension until it feels like they could cut it with a knife.
Dick has no idea if it’s payback for yesterday, and any number of other things, or if Slade is simply having fun at his expense. But his wrists ache from how many times Slade’s fingers have wrapped around them oh so tightly, and he’s on the verge of giving in and just not getting out of it the next time Slade pins him. Just staying underneath him and seeing what happens. What Slade does with him, if Dick gives him free rein.
It’s already difficult to make his body remember he should get away and not lean into every touch like gravity is pulling him towards Slade. Even if it’s supposed to be a spar. Oh hell, it stopped being a real spar a while back and they both know it.
Dick still doesn’t tap out.
Just when it feels like the destination they’ve been hurtling towards is so close Dick can taste it, they’re interrupted by a chime from the computer.
Slade doesn’t try to stop him from getting up and checking it out, and Dick wouldn’t let him if he did. But he still feels almost disappointed. Damnit. They can resolve whatever this is after the case is finished.
-
There’s another meta contract fitting the usual parameters. Clearly Dick was right about this not being over, but he refrains from any ‘I told you so’s. The best option for an ambush is the drop off point, so this time they go for that first. It needles at Dick, not even trying to interrupt the abduction, but they tried that one already, and it didn’t work out so well.
The building is just remote enough to be good for its illicit purpose. An empty industrial building among a whole lay of other half abandoned buildings. No one around to pay attention to what's going on when there happens to be any activity.
The upside is it’s not difficult to get into. Maybe that should have been a sign. But Dick feels unreasonably safe, or maybe invulnerable is more accurate, with Slade at his back. It’s why he’s not nearly as focused on looking for traps as he would usually be. Or maybe that wouldn’t have helped, because—
The locks on the metal door slam shut behind them, when they get to what looks like the room they’re looking for. Dick whirls around, but there’s no one there. The whole building seems to be empty except for him and Slade.
Not for long, since whatever alarm they tripped that locked the doors must have sent out an alert. Either whoever’s using the place will get spooked and run, or they’ll come in guns blazing. Depends on what they think their chances of taking down both Nightwing and Deathstroke are.
Whichever way it goes, they should find a better position. Sitting duck isn’t Dick’s best look.
“I can probably get the door open, unless you feel like showing off and punching through it,” Dick tells Slade. “Just give a minute to check if there’s anything useful in those papers.” He waves at the messy pile of documents on the desk. It’s the only piece of furniture in the whole room. At least Dick won’t have to search through too much potential evidence. “We can leave and find a better position right after.”
“Afraid I can’t let you do that,” Slade says and leans back against the desk, arms crossed over his chest.
Dick stares at him for a lot longer than he should before Slade’s words start making any kind of sense. Even then, he still doesn’t think it’s—he must be wrong.
“You tripped the alarm. On purpose.” He didn’t, he wouldn’t, but Dick needs to ask just to check and eliminate the possibility—
“Mhm. Not like I need help keeping you here, but terms are terms,” Slade says, easy, like every word isn’t hitting Dick like a shard of ice. Isn’t making him feel like his heart is stuck in his throat.
Terms. Slade is working for someone else.
“You betrayed me.”
Forcing the words out still doesn’t stop it all from feeling like a bad dream. It’s Deathstroke, and Dick should have expected it, should not be so utterly surprised by it.
“Waller offered me a deal before you did. No hard feelings.” Slade still looks like none of this is all that important. Just a chat they’re having about the weather or coffee preferences, or anything else that isn’t him stabbing Dick in the back. God, Dick should be angry, but he can’t feel anything over how loudly his mind is trying to resist accepting what’s going on.
He’s not even sure why; Slade did try to kill him and all his friends, recently. Not for the first time either, and fuck, maybe that’s a pattern Dick should have paid a lot more attention to, instead of folding at the first hint of some positive attention from Slade. How is he so stupid?
“No hard—” Dick inhales, exhales. He needs to breathe. He needs to move, but he’s not sure his legs would hold him up if he tried, so all he has is breathing. “You could have just told me!” When Dick offered him a deal, or at any point between then and now.
Fuck, he almost did, didn’t he? All the digs at someone else outbidding Dick. Slade was laughing at him from day one, and Dick thought he was being friendly. Finding ways to get over all the fucked up things they did to each other during the Crisis, maybe.
“And pass up the chance to get out of that tank? Plus it wouldn’t be good practice, warning someone I have a contract on them.”
Fuck good practice, Slade hasn’t bothered with that before, not when Dick was involved. Now he suddenly cares about good practice?
And.
On them. Dick feels faint, his legs not quite steady. He had to steel himself to not just let Slade out anyway, even if he refused Dick’s offer; might have let him out anyway after going through all the trouble of finding out how to. And Slade.
Slade took a contract on Dick.
“You still made a deal with me. You’re going to break it?”
“‘Find the next contract, find out what the fuck this is all about. Then we’ll be done.’ And here we are. Done. Found the next contract, and now you know what it’s about. I even told you who the real client is. Job’s finished. You know I like being efficient.”
Fuck, Slade really took a contract on him.
Not to kill him, clearly. At least not yet. But getting locked up by Waller on a warpath against everyone even remotely enhanced doesn’t look like an all that much better option.
He has to get out of the place before whoever is supposed to transport him gets here. Staying and waiting for a rescue isn’t an option. There’s no way he can trust his distress signal and trackers are still working right, not after Slade has had access to Dick’s suit and equipment. Access to everything for days.
But one look at Slade makes it clear he’ll have to fight his way out. Against Slade and a locked metal door, and whatever backup Slade is waiting for.
Dick isn’t getting past Slade. He considers it, but he remembers how their last spar went. That first day after Slade got out of the tank, Dick could have done it, but not anymore.
He feels another stab of searing betrayal when he realizes that’s what the sparring was for—Slade was testing himself and Dick, making sure he’d be able to take Dick down when the time came. Fuck, Dick thought Slade was—He almost gave in. Planned to, after the case was over.
But it was a test. And now they both know Dick isn’t getting out of here.
“Why?” Dick’s voice doesn’t break on the question, but he can feel it waver. “Do you think this is going to go well for you? That when she’s done picking off all the other metas, everyone from heroes to civilians to villains, that she’ll just make an exception for you?” This is nothing like trying to appeal to Slade in the Darkness, but it also feels exactly like it. It might be just as likely to fail. For a moment Dick’s vision flashes black.
But they’re not trapped in some kind of metaphysical void and Slade isn’t possessed, not this time. Logic should be enough. Making a better counteroffer; that’s what Slade must be after, if he hasn’t knocked Dick out yet.
Maybe.
It’s the only chance Dick has right now.
“Or is that part of your deal with her? Do you think she won’t go back on it the moment you’re no longer useful?” Dick is desperate, but he’s not wrong, and Slade must know it.
“I’ll deal with that when it happens,” Slade says, unconcerned.
Right on cue Dick hears the faint sounds of several cars stopping somewhere outside the building.
“Slade. Don’t do this. Help me take them down instead.”
“It’s already done. You had your chance to back out and you didn’t take it.” Slade doesn’t sound in any way regretful, and why would he? But Dick thinks back and wishes he had let Slade go after that first meta contract they were too late for. Though would it have changed anything? Dick would still have ended up here, and maybe Slade would have been waiting for him.
There’s probably a dozen other ways out Dick will find, if he does get taken in, but he’s desperate. Unreasonably desperate, and he knows it’s partially because of the fresh, still bleeding wound of unexpected betrayal, but that doesn’t lessen the panicked urgency he feels.
“Whatever you want,” Dick offers, begs. “You said I was the trophy; you’re just going to give me away now?” The trophy, the ‘no one else will ever be you’ that Slade said with such enraged admiration. It has to be worth something.
Dick doesn’t know if he’s scared or relieved, when for the first time since they got here there’s a glimmer of interest in Slade’s face.
“Be specific, Richard. We both know you’re not going to give me anything I want.” He sounds interested too. Not overtly, but he’s finally paying attention.
“I can’t give you anyone else’s life, but you can have me. Do whatever you want with me.” It’s not that much of an improvement, not for Dick. But if Slade agrees, whatever he does end up doing—and Dick’s mind flashes to that shot Slade took at him the last time Dick offered himself, the one only Jon’s timely arrival saved him from—at least the people rounding up metas will take a hit as well.
At least they won’t also have Deathstroke on payroll. Dick doesn’t think Waller is big on giving second chances, so if Slade reneges on this contract, she won’t be making another offer.
Maybe it will be enough to save Dick’s friends from being picked off one by one.
Slade looks at him, clearly considering if it’s worth it, breaking a contract over him. In the silence they can both hear the heavy steps of at least a dozen men running somewhere downstairs. Just a couple of minutes left.
Dick tries to think of anything else he could offer that would make a difference. And he remembers the spar again. The way Slade toyed with him in more ways than Dick was aware of at the time. But also the way he held Dick down, again and again. Maybe that part wasn’t just to make fun of him and to set up some messed up lesson about trusting the scorpion; not just to distract him. Maybe that’s what Slade wants instead of an uninterrupted shot.
Dick finally stops resisting the pull of gravity, and folds down to his knees.
“Slade. You can have me.”
Whether Slade agrees or not, time for bargaining is over—there’s noise on the other side of the door. And Dick is equally afraid of either outcome. It only takes another few impossibly slow seconds and then Slade’s stance changes just enough to let Dick know he’ll agree..
“Well, I did get you here. The moment they’re in here, that’s my part of the contract done.” Trust Slade to twist any terms into whatever suits him best at the moment. But Dick isn’t going to complain, not after he begged on his knees for that exact thing.
The metal doors slide open, and Dick gets back on his feet in a flash.
The tactical team, fully armored and equipped with far too many weapons, some of which Dick doesn’t even recognize, spills into the room. Dick takes the first two down with well-placed kicks in a single jump. For a second he thinks Slade’s changed his mind, or that the whole conversation was just to play with him, to stall him. But then Slade punches through a guy’s helmet, and Dick stops feeling like his blood might freeze in his veins.
Even with Slade at his side, it’s not a walk in the park. Slade takes several shots that look like they go through the armor. Some kind of very localized stun grenade goes off far too close to Dick’s face, and renders him almost useless. He stumbles, vision hazy and swirling and muscles not quite under his control. Someone gets a hit in and Dick ends up on the floor, not particularly sure where he was hit. Slade ends up finishing off the last of them on his own.
And then it’s over.
And all Dick has to do is keep his part of the bargain. Spitefully he wishes he could betray Slade right back, but that’s not a road anyone wants to go down, not against Deathstroke. Slade reserves a whole separate magnitude of destruction specifically for people that try.
Even if Dick wanted to, he’s absolutely helpless. He can barely feel his own face, he’s in no position to backstab anyone.
Not lying on the floor and not when Slade picks him up, throws him over his shoulder and carries him out. Okay maybe a little more in position when he’s being carried over Slade’s shoulder, but it’s not like he can do anything while still stunned so badly he’s not even sure he’s conscious all the time. Probably not, going by how fast they seem to get back to the safehouse. He loses at least a little time somewhere in between.
-
He’s definitely conscious when Slade forces some kind of disgusting syrupy liquid down Dick’s throat. Whatever it is makes his head clearer, if slowly. He watches Slade pull bullets out of his own side, barely wincing as he does it.
Eventually Dick remembers he should be worried. But by then Slade’s moved on to patching up him, so he puts worrying off until later. Until a moment when he’s not getting stitched up—turns out what landed him on the floor was a shot to the shoulder not a punch. Or maybe both? He definitely got shot. Flesh wound, but unfortunately the concussion no longer blocks his ability to feel pain.
When Slade is done, he disappears for a while. Dick stays lying on the couch, slowly sobering up.
So Waller is doing something that involves killing off harmless metas and hiring Deathstroke to help capture Nightwing. It’s bad. Worse than he expected when he started putting the case together, maybe.
He should do something, but he’s too exhausted to think. Too hurt and exhausted for anything, so like he usually does these days, he starts seeing black more and more until everything is Darkness, whether his eyes are closed or not.
Sometime later he feels the prickling sense of being watched. Slade again. And despite the wriggling hurt of betrayal still churning inside him, Dick can’t help but relax a little. In just a few days he’s gotten so used to it that it makes him feel safe. With Slade he has all kinds of things to fear when awake, but at least he no longer has to fear falling asleep.
When he wakes up, he’s alone in the safehouse. Some of the equipment is missing; enough to make it look like Slade isn’t coming back.
Dick isn’t sure how he feels about it. Mostly still feeling the stab of betrayal every time he allows himself to think about it. Half of the anger is at himself for falling for it. For trusting Slade of all people blindly. For dismissing all the little quips Slade made about betraying him, hell, since the very beginning. Since he was still in that tank, less than half alive.
He was planning to betray Dick from the very beginning and he didn’t exactly hide it. If Dick looks at it differently (he doesn’t want to look at it differently), Slade was warning him again and again how it would end. Dick has no idea what to do with that, no idea if he should tally it in the ‘pros’ or the ‘cons’ column.
Just as he has no idea what to do with Slade abandoning that plan to make a new deal with Dick. And then apparently leaving without collecting. Whatever way he had in mind for how to do it, which Dick is especially not going to agonize over.
Maybe he should feel grateful, or in Slade’s debt. But the hurt and anger and all of Dick’s injured pride isn’t quenched by Slade just changing his mind at the end. Not even if that change of heart is what saved Dick’s skin.
And if anyone is in someone else’s debt, it’s definitely Slade. Dick hasn’t decided what he’s going to do if Slade does come to collect at some point. But he stands by what he told Slade about Slade owing him for everything that happened with the Crisis.
Inadvertently being the reason for Dick’s nightly terrors getting a little milder doesn’t make up for giving him those night terrors in the first place. Just like a single assist after Dick got on his damned knees to beg for it doesn’t make up for the betrayal that put him in that position in the first place.
It doesn’t.
But maybe it’s something.
Dick feels more than a little lost and conflicted.
But he finally has leads and a very specific direction to point others in, so he gathers everything relevant to the case, and leaves as well.
-
It’s weeks before he hears from Slade again. Or anything about him, really. He does mention working with Deathstroke when he brings the meta issue to the League, but doesn’t directly confess to releasing him.
And then, to his surprise, no one brings it up. There is no evidence linking him to the break out in the League systems when he checks, once again with a cloned set of someone else’s credentials. He was efficient, he knows, but he definitely didn’t pay enough attention to not leaving evidence. Not enough to fool anyone who would have ended up investigating.
It’s beyond suspicious. He isn’t sure if someone he knows is covering for him, or if it has something to do with Slade. If whoever is doing it plans to use that information against him, it won’t work. Dick went into it prepared to take the fall, and he will weather the consequences if he has to. Not facing those consequences the moment he came back is the strange part.
The only real option is choosing not to worry about it until it becomes an issue, so that’s exactly what Dick does.
That’s the same strategy he’s taking with Slade and the deal he made with him. Not thinking about it. The only place he can’t escape thoughts of Slade are the dreams, where a construct of Slade still hangs around and makes the Darkness more bearable.
But Dick’s not all that surprised when Slade does show up.
There’s a fancy party at some rich Gothamite’s manor. Dick keeps deliberately forgetting whose house and party it is, and the hosts keep glaring at him with more and more heat every time he thanks someone other than them for throwing such a lovely event within their earshot.
Eventually even that isn’t enough to keep away the stifling boredom, and Dick takes a minute out on the terrace. It’s still early, barely dusk, but the air is pleasantly cool.
“If Waller sent you to take me in again, it won’t work so well in public,” Dick says when he feels a presence right next to where Dick is leaning forward, bracing his forearms against the railing. That’s unlikely to be the reason why Slade’s tracked him down, but Dick isn’t about to start the conversation by asking if Slade is here to collect. Mostly because even with weeks to think about it, Dick still hasn’t decided what he’s going to do if Slade really is here for that.
“Oh, I don’t know, Richard Grayson getting abducted for ransom in broad daylight, I think I could pull it off,” Slade muses, and it sounds like he’s making fun of Dick for having a civilian identity at all.
A hand on the center of his back, and Dick is about to shrug it off, but Slade presses close against his back when Dick stands up straight. “You’d have to go along with it,” Slade half-whispers. “Do whatever I say,” he adds and starts to lead Dick back towards the house. “Never be seen again. Have you seen the statistics on kidnapping-turned-murder? Things go wrong.”
It would sound like a threat and then some, if he was anyone else. As it is, Dick can tell Slade is playing some kind of game with him again. He gets a pretty good idea what kind when Slade’s hand moves down to settle on Dick’s hip.
Before he can figure out how he feels about it (mostly angry, somewhat turned on), and if he’s going to go along with whatever pretend kidnapping this is (probably yes, see the turned on part, among other reasons), Slade changes tracks. (Though even if it’s a fake kidnapping, Dick wouldn’t put it past him to send an actual ransom demand to Bruce just because he can while he’s at it.)
“But no, my contract with them was over back when I said so,” Slade says, voice no longer sounding like it’s a current about to drag Dick under. “My contract with you, on the other hand…”
And it’s back to sounding like a drowning attempt. On anyone else Dick would call a voice like that honeyed, but there’s nothing sweet about Slade, or all the things he manages to imply with just the way he trails off. Nothing sweet about the way he pushes Dick against the wall and cages him in against it.
They’re in the furthest corner of the terrace, barely hidden from anyone else who might decide to get some air by a bunch of vines and houseplants. Finally face to face.
Dick gets a moment to look at Slade, and he looks—good. Healthy and like himself, and even smirking in that special way of his that promises no one else will like what he’s about to say or do. Not at all like he’s about to expire. Not teeming with the corruption of a universal cosmic force even a little bit. If anything, he looks better than ever.
Goddamn, Dick hates him.
He’s had far too much time to let the anger at both the betrayal and the save stew, and suddenly it’s boiling over.
Slade is doing his own check, looking Dick over thoroughly. Dick hopes the burning rage he feels is obvious on his face; hopes the radiation of it scalds Slade faster than he can heal. Hopes it’s obvious Dick hasn’t forgiven anything Slade’s done, and isn’t going to.
So it definitely isn’t Dick that moves first right before their lips crash together.
He tries to pour all of his anger at Slade into the kiss. He’s pretty sure all it does is amuse Slade and then spurs him on after Dick bites his lip until he tastes blood. Instead of holding on to Dick’s hips, suddenly his hands are everywhere—sliding under Dick’s shirt, grabbing his ass, unbuckling his pants and pushing them down faster than Dick can draw enough air to protest.
“This—isn’t how kidnappings usually go for me,” Dick says, when his mouth is finally free for a moment.
“Really? This,” Slade squeezes his ass again, no clothes in the way this time, “isn’t how you buy your way out?”
It should add fuel to Dick’s anger, but instead it makes a tidal wave of arousal sweep through him so suddenly he barely manages to suppress a moan, and doesn’t quite manage to hide the way he shivers.
He tries to hit Slade anyway, to push him away just on principle. But Slade catches his arm and raises it up where he can hold it against the wall. The grip he has on Dick’s wrist is just as immovable as when they fought, and Dick can't stop himself from testing it again and again by trying to twist his hand out of it.
“It’s not how you convince the bad—bad—bad men to let you go?” Slade bites the side of his neck after every ‘bad’, each bite harder than the last one.
“Will it make you let me go, Mister Wolf?” Dick asks with a silent laugh. Slade’s dirty talk is veering off into every Red Riding Hood themed porn Dick has ever seen, and somehow it still does it for him. Distracts him far too easily from every single thing he’s been preparing to tear into Slade for at first chance available.
Slade doesn’t laugh, though Dick can feel his lips curve into a smile against his skin. “Depends on how good you are for me,” Slade drawls. “I did get paid handsomely to steal you away.”
Just as the words remind Dick of all the reasons he’s beyond angry, Slade pulls Dick’s thigh up and hooks it over his hip. Dick is left balancing his weight on the tip of his foot, but he’s more than okay with it. His balance is great, and the way he can grind his hard-on against Slade in this new position is even better.
He could get off just like this, grinding against Slade as Slade whispers his lines into Dick’s skin. Fuck, he’d love to ruin Slade’s suit, come all over it.
“But maybe I’ll decide to keep you for myself.” Just as Slade’s saying it, whispering it like a threat, or maybe a distraction, he pushes a couple of fingers against Dick’s hole, slides them inside. He moves them slowly, but nothing about what he’s doing feels slow. Not the efficient way he gets Dick slick and ready, nor the way he kisses him again like he wants to know exactly how Dick’s anger tastes. Except Dick is no longer angry, because there’s no space for it.
When the kiss breaks, Slade is suddenly right there, pulling his fingers away and pressing his cock inside, making a space for it inside Dick’s body. And it. It takes up so much space.
Dick opens his mouth and no words come out. He tries again, and the only one he can find that he remembers how to say is, “Slade.”
He isn’t sure if what he wants to say is ‘Slade, wait’, or ‘Slade, I can’t’, or maybe ‘Slade, yes’.
Either Slade assumes it’s the last one, or he doesn’t care; he keeps going until there’s nowhere further to go, until he’s all the way inside. And then he moves. Pulls back only enough to roll his hips and grind his cock in deeper again.
Dick still can’t find words, and still has no idea what the hell he’d say if he could, so all he does is hold on. And keeps holding on to Slade as the shallow pushes turn into deep, hard thrusts; until Dick isn’t talking, but is definitely making a whole lot of noise.
So is Slade, but he’s muffling most of it by keeping his mouth occupied with marking up Dick’s neck thoroughly.
Not nearly as thoroughly as he fucks him, though. Too hard and too fast, and so much better than Dick imagined. He’s never—he can’t think as the tension coils tighter and tighter inside him. All it takes to break it is another brush of Slade’s shirt against his cock. Dick comes with a scream.
Seconds or minutes later, he’s not sure, a muttered ‘fuck, yes’ breaks through the haze. He feels Slade’s thrusts stutter to a stop, and then the strange feeling of Slade coming deep inside him, that makes an aftershock of pleasure rock through him.
They stay there, against the wall and each other for another minute. For once Slade seems almost as breathless as him, and it hasn’t even taken a fight.
When they finally disentangle, Dick is happy to see he did come all over Slade’s clothes. Some of his petty enjoyment is ruined by Slade simply buttoning his jacket over the mess. Slade, though, looks like he’s taking a lot of pleasure from pulling Dick’s pants up his lube and come slicked thighs.
Fuck, they’re a mess. Dick is a mess, and he still needs to go back inside and leave the normal, not jumping over the railing way. Now, before he recovers enough and starts screaming at Slade for things he’s done and for things Dick’s still not sure he even had a choice in.
Dick’s had a while to think of every single action of Slade’s he’s less than okay with, and he sure did use that time productively.
Also there is, possibly, an equal chance he might, instead of shouting and accusations, go for getting on his knees for Slade again. So he absolutely has to leave, now.
He takes a few determined if unsteady steps away from Slade and towards the terrace door. But Slade follows him, guides him towards the door with a hand on his back, all polite like he didn’t just fuck his brains out against the facade of a building.
Right before Dick steps inside, Slade slaps his ass so hard Dick yelps and then immediately schools his shock into a glare. He’d worry about blushing, but his face must still be too flushed from the sex for any additional blushing to be noticeable.
“I’ll be seeing you. We have unfinished business, you and I,” Slade says, and only then takes his hand off Dick’s ass. And disappears into the crowd like nothing fucking happened. While Dick is left standing there, used and just sore enough he’ll probably have an ever so faint limp for the rest of the day, if he doesn’t constantly focus on hiding it.
Several of the nearest guests are staring at him with various combinations of shock and blushing of their own on their faces. Whatever ends up in tomorrow’s Gazette will be a lot more scandalous than him being rude to the hosts.
Dick hates Slade so much.
He feels angry and turned on, and he can’t wait to pay Slade back for it. And now, after that charming farewell, Dick knows he’s coming back at some point. After this, Dick no longer owes him anything, if he ever did, regardless of Slade’s opinion on the matter. So whatever game Slade tries to play with him next, Dick is going to win.