Archive of Our Own ^beta

Crowded room; sixty-three people gathered around the stage. He counted twelve hired guns on the way in; double that to get the number in the building. More armed bodyguards in the crowd. Two nearby, both standing behind their charges at the bar. Ex-military, shoulder and ankle holsters– Beretta M9, fifteen rounds, Glock 17, seventeen rounds. Maybe eight others in the place worth keeping an eye on. Lighting bad, lots of shadow and candles. Stupid, kitschy aesthetic, aiming for speakeasy jazz lounge and arriving at community performing arts hall. Too much purple.

Slade lets the door close behind him.

It’s loud, a thump that draws the attention of those nearest. The bodyguards tense when they see him. He’s in orange and black, unmasked. Their reactions ripple through the crowd; heads turn. On the stage, Vanessa Carleton straightens up. The other figures on the stage straighten up, too.

Slade ignores it. He walks forward through the tables, and people get out of his way.

They’re keeping the captured Bats in a steel cage with a drain in the floor. Thick black cuffs on the hands and feet, a longer chain running between them. The classic bag over the head. The bird could get out of this in his sleep, and the Bat certainly wouldn’t let the other three out on the streets if they didn’t know their way around locks. But they haven’t picked them.

The cage is not at center stage. Instead, it’s to the left of a purple chaise lounge, ostensibly the main attraction. Half-sprawling across the velvet is Vanessa Carleton, all pale limbs and curling brown hair. Rich red dress, and elegant features, and a baby bird sitting at her feet. 

The al Ghul brat is red-faced. There’s a metal collar around his throat, a small square box at the front. Carleton plays idly with the detonator. The three in the cage are being good for now, knowing their little brother has a bomb strapped to his throat.

They’re naked. Makes sense; lots of hidden surprises in the uniforms. Drake is skinny, sitting hunched slightly to conceal himself. Todd is big, bulky, scarred, his posture boldly upright. And the bird looks– well. He looks like he looks. Bruises, from a thorough beating, maybe some cracked ribs. Blood on his long, elegant feet. He’s lounging back on one elbow, idly tapping his fingers, the light between the bars playing across his skin. If you ignore the bag, the chains, the budding bruises– he could be sunbathing, or chatting in bed with someone. He could be a painting. Slade isn’t looking at him.

He climbs the stairs to the stage. The little demon’s eyes are on him, alive with malice. He’s been gagged, which is understandable. Slade steps deliberately around him, leaning down to kiss the hand Carleton languidly offers. Her perfume washes over him, subtle, sweet. There’s a giant of a man in the shadows behind her wearing a lazy smile and a Sig Sauer P226. Fifteen rounds.

“Vanessa,” he says. He’s allowed to call her that; she wouldn’t be head of the family if he hadn’t put a bullet in her father’s head. “I heard there was an event.”

“Oh, there’s always an event, Slade,” she coos back. “But a couple of uninvited guests tried to break up our little auction.”

“So I heard.”

“So you plan on placing a bid?”

“I do,” he says.

“Monetary?” She wriggles a little, probably wet beneath the red dress. “Or in favors, perhaps?”

“Whichever nets me a win,” Slade says. 

He is capable of winning the auction. This was originally a fairly average meta-human trafficking sale; everyone here– including Carleton, frankly– is firmly on the middle rungs of the criminal underworld. He’d taken her contract years ago, before he’d made his name.

“Tell me you’re not going to buy all four,” Carleton pouts. “That would be dreadfully boring for everyone, wouldn’t it?” 

Dreadfully boring. It’s a put-upon accent; Carleton is rich, but not as rich as she wants to be. As for buying all four– well. That would be inconvenient.

“Just one,” Slade says. He pitches his voice a little louder, and there’s a twitch in the corner of his eye. “May I take a closer look at the merchandise?” He gestures with his head.

“Of course,” Carleton says. “Gabriel?”

The man behind her smiles wider. His front tooth is made of silver. “My pleasure, Miss Carleton,” he says.

He unlocks the cage. Slade has to duck to get through the door, the giant following him in, breathing on the back of his neck. Todd is closest to the entrance, then Drake. They track his movement beneath their hoods. And then, towards the front of the cage, in between the other two and the crowd, rolling forward to sit upright–

Slade pulls the bag off, unceremoniously.

Coal-black hair; tan skin. That mouth. The domino mask is still hiding his eyes– Carleton has saved the big reveal for the end. But he sees Slade, for the first time in six months. 

He’s smart enough to turn it into a flinch. Everyone watching will think that’s what it is, the ex-Robin spotting his old enemy. But his shoulders slump, infinitesimal. Relief. 

Slade slaps him. 

It’s not for show; his hand moves without conscious instruction. Dick’s knocked onto his side, catching himself on an elbow. The crowd of stupid fucking mid-level criminal hangers-on are probably laughing. Slade can barely hear it over the roaring in his ears. Relief.

“Nice to see you too, Slade,” Dick says. He rearranges his body, lounging back again. He’s probably convinced himself the hit was for the audience. “What brings you to Gotham? Sightseeing?”

“Shopping,” Slade says. “Get on your knees.”

It’s not a big cage. Todd’s chains clink before a swift movement from Drake stops him. The giant behind Slade–Gabriel– makes a soft noise, not quite a groan.

Dick doesn’t move. He lets his head fall to the side. “A little cliched, don’t you think?” he asks.

Gabriel steps around them both, almost clipping Drake’s foot. He looks like he’s going to haul Dick upright, but Slade waves him off, hearing but not seeing him grumble as he backs away. Dick hasn’t even glanced at him; his eyes behind their mask have been locked on Slade’s. Good boy.

Out loud, Slade says– “Shall I go and play with your brother?”

Dick’s lip curls, a flash of real emotion. A moment passes; then he rolls gracefully to his knees, sighing a little like he’s being put out. There’s a muffled noise of protest from by the couch, and then a thump.

Another moment. “Open your mouth,” Slade says, when he can be sure his voice will come out bored. 

Todd snarls like an animal; Gabriel leans over and gives him a solid blow to the cheek. Jeers rise from the crowd. Slade doesn’t look at any of them.

Dick blanches. Fake. Slade thinks. His head lowers a little before he forces it back up, angled at the general area of Slade’s chin. After a moment, bloodlessly, his mouth hinges open.

A soft mouth, absent its usual grin. Pink tongue. Even white teeth. Slade watches his thumb slide in, battered black leather. The air is pressing against his eardrums. The crowd must be howling, laughing. The other Bats must be cursing him to hell and back. He can’t hear them. He knows that behind the mask, Dick’s long-lashed eyes have found his.

“I’m going to buy you,” Slade tells him. His voice comes out soft. “Keep you, just for me. Little bird in a cage.”

The bird’s head is lolling back, just slightly. He makes a soft helpless sound around Slade’s thumb, which is all the way in, now. His mouth is spread around it. His cock twitches, not enough to be noticeable from the crowd, when Slade strokes the back of his unresisting throat.

“I know,” Slade murmurs at him. He’s not paying enough attention; two of the men in the front row by the stage have Glocks, but he can’t tell the model, can’t force himself to look away long enough to check. “I know, it’s a lot, isn’t it, bird? It’ll be hard at first, but you’ll get used to it.” He’s thinking about it; leashing him to the big bed in his favorite safehouse. Licking him out in the shower, his hands slipping on the tile as he fights to stay upright. Pressing strawberries into his mouth.

Something’s gone wrong, while he’s been woolgathering. Dick is newly still. Too pale. His cock has stopped its twitching; after a moment, infinitesimally, his head tilts towards his brothers. His tongue presses against the underside of Slade’s thumb, entreating, offering.

Fucking–

This wave of fury is stronger. Slade battles it down. His fingers tighten on Dick’s jaw and he has to force them to relax before he breaks the bone. He breathes out through his nose in what hopefully sounds like lust and presses the underside of his thumb deliberately against the inside of Dick’s cheek, letting him feel the hole he made in the leather before he came in. “Should I take this off?” he asks, loud enough that Gabriel can hear, flicking at the mask with his other hand. Hiding the bird’s face from the crowd. “Show off those pretty blue eyes?”

Dick sags briefly, infinitesimally; there’s a moment where his face twitches, like it does when he’s trying not to cry. Then he gets his teeth in the right position and bites down, hard.

Slade curses loudly, yanking his thumb out. He leans down and punches him in the vulnerable underbelly, letting Dick fold up around his fist. He ends up in a ball on the floor, breathing in desperate gasps, exactly the way someone does when they’re hit hard enough to make the diaphragm spasm. Todd spits curses at him behind the bag over his head and what is clearly a powerful gag.

“Hey,” Gabriel says. He smiles at Slade from across Dick’s twitching body. “At least you’ll have fun breaking him in, right?” He leans down and slaps Dick casually on the ass.

The crowd laughs. Someone shouts “At least take a picture!”

“Shall we?” Slade asks, gesturing for the door of the cage. “I need a drink.”

They exit the cage, Gabriel proceeding, Slade looking at the knob of his spine over the collar of his shirt. The other Bats have inched over towards Dick, who’s picking himself up off the floor, cuffs jangling. They huddle together. 

The al Ghul brat swears around the cloth in his mouth. He’s hog-tied, having managed to tip himself over; Slade drags him unceremoniously upright by the collar, letting his thumb rest casually over the bright red light that indicates it’s functional. The brat goes stiff with surprise; Slade slaps him easily across the face, letting go as he does, knocking him over again. 

“Growing pains, Slade?” asks Carleton throatily. She’s pressing her thighs together beneath the dress.

“Something like that,” Slade says. He walks around the couch so he can lean casually against the back and talk in her ear, watching the crowd. Someone flicks their daiquiri at the caged Bats, splashing across Drake’s knees. Two more bodyguards in the wings of the stage. Beretta, fifteen rounds, Herstal, twenty rounds. Nobody in the rafters. Sloppy. “When’s the auction starting?” 

“Ten minutes,” she says back. Gabriel has taken up a position at Slade’s five o’clock. “Can I get you a drink?”

“Wouldn’t mind one,” Slade says. He glances at her digital watch. Almost time. “What kind of whiskey do you have?”

“The Maccallan’s good,” Carleton says. “But personally–”

Slade closes his eyes. 

The explosion comes elsewhere in the building, on the other side of the door Slade came in. The power goes out immediately, abruptly. Shrieks rise from the crowd. Slade swears again, exaggeratedly loud, backing up as Gabriel rushes forward towards his principal. 

His eyes are adjusted, and enhanced by the serum. His gun is out. The other bodyguards are shadows against the exit signs. Bang, timed with the second explosion, and Beretta goes down before he can even draw; bang, timed with the third, and Herstal drops, gun falling from his limp fingers. With the noise of the fourth explosion he blows off Carleton’s head, chunks of skull whistling through the air. The fifth is on a delay, no more sounds to disguise the gun, but he wouldn’t use a bullet anyway, for Gabriel, given where he had put his hand earlier; Slade steps up behind him, fisting a hand in his greasy hair, and punches him in the side of the throat hard enough to crush his windpipe. He falls, twitching, clutching soundlessly at his neck. 

The Bats are out of the cage, keeping low. The crowd is screaming in the blackness. “Here,” Slade says, barely audible, and the shadow that is Dick moves for him unhesitatingly, trailed more reluctantly by his brothers. The fifth explosion blows the front door off, and bodyguards in the room start firing into the gap. The smarter ones are looking at the stage, but Slade unceremoniously kicks open the exit door, and the bird and his brothers pour through it behind him.

Two more guards in the white-tiled corridor, Beretta, Glock. Bang, bang. Slade reloads. The generator kicks on as they run. Another pair come around the corner, both Sig Sauers. Bang, bang. Reload. They don’t even get a shot off. Dick’s not a gun person; he probably can’t even tell how impressive this is. “Slade,” Dick says tightly as he fires. Slade ignores him, but when the next pair come around the corner Dick slides past him, trailing bloody footprints, and leaves them groaning but alive. Slade almost shoots them both, too, but. No need to waste the ammo.

Slade’s car is parked in the lot with the rest. The attendant wiggled his eyebrows at him on the way in, so he kneecaps him, despite Dick’s noise of protest. The click of a button unlocks his rented SUV. A code disarms his leftover surprises. Todd, the only sensible one, picked up the Beretta and the Glock from the corridor; he spots another set of guards coming out the door behind them and aims. Slade’s aiming too, but it’s Todd that Dick lunges for, ruining his line of fire, sending the guns clattering under someone’s Toyota. Slade handles the incoming guards, feeling something childish in his chest. “In,” he says, reloading one more time, and they all scramble into the car, Dick in front with him and the rest in the back, everyone naked except Slade and the al Ghul brat.

They peel out of the lot. Someone gets a shot off, putting a hole in the ignored stop sign, and then they’re out of range. Slade takes a few random turns to lose pursuers, clicks a button that sends the fake license plate clattering to the pavement. It’s almost three am. Streetlights whip over them; he risks turning his head to glance at Dick, his profile briefly illuminated, then dark, then golden again. For some reason he’s still got the bit of wire Slade slipped into his mouth clutched between his fingers. The entire car smells like sweat and adrenaline.

“Where are we going?” Someone demands, haughtily. Looks like the demon brat got his gag off.

“You tell me,” Slade says, merging onto the highway. Sooner or later they’re going to ask him why he helped. He hopes the bird has a story cooked up. “How the hell did you get captured by those idiots?” he asks, to delay the inevitable.

Dick rubs over his forehead. “We didn’t get captured by them,” he says shortly. “We got captured by Sionis, escaped, and ran into them. And we got captured by Sionis because we made some mistakes.”

A snort from Todd. “Funny way of saying the brat here got cocky and almost got us killed.”

Slade can hear the demon bristling. “I am not the one who–”

“Guys,” Dick says.

Both of them go silent. 

Slade risks another look. Dick’s bent over one of his feet; as Slade watches, he wiggles a shard of glass out of his big toe and drops it in the cupholder. The smell of his blood is rich in the close confines of the car.

“You will stop and release us immediately.” says the demon.

“With no clothes? No radio?” Dick turns in his seat to look at the other three. He must be signing something; clever, given Slade would have to turn his head to see. He’s leaning closer, though. Slade can feel his body heat.

Someone else signs something back. Fabric rustles. Then– “Hood,” Dick says resignedly, as Slade’s spare pistol cocks next to Slade’s ear. 

“Pull over,” Todd says. 

“It’s biometrically coded,” Slade says. “It won’t fire for anyone but me.”

“Should I test that out?”

“Put it down, Hood,” Dick says.

“Who sent you?” The demon brat’s voice is high and snotty. “Was it the League of Shadows?”

“Tell us who hired you or I start shooting.”

“He’s going eighty miles an hour, Hood, you shoot him and we’re going to be stains on the pavement–”

“How exactly are you planning on shooting me with a gun that won’t fire?”

“Wilson, I demand you tell me immediately who–”

 Drake, who has been silent so far, blurts– “How do you know he has blue eyes?”

A pause. 

“What,” Dick tries.

“In the cage!” Drake says. “He said something about you having blue eyes!”

Another frozen moment.

Then Todd pulls the trigger.

“Jesus fucking Christ!” Dick kicks into the backseat. The gun doesn’t shoot– Slade wasn’t lying– and it goes flying into the closed window, then clattering towards the floor. Everyone is talking at once, demanding answers. Dick is shouting at Todd. Todd is shouting at Dick. Damian is shouting at everyone.

“ENOUGH!” Slade hammers on the dashboard. He thinks his blood pressure’s gone up ten points. “All of you, shut the fuck up! Todd, give me my fucking gun!”

Todd’s weight shifts, clearly about to do something that is not that. “Jason,” Dick snaps, and with a curse Todd shoves the gun forward into Slade’s line of vision. His trigger discipline would give Adeline an aneurysm. 

“It’s a fucking old man gun, anyway,” Todd sneers.

“Old man gun?” Slade almost turns to look at him. 

“It’s got what, eight rounds?”

“Some of us actually hit what we’re aiming at,” Slade snaps. 

“Yeah, if you want to reload every two seconds–”

“You’re supposed to–” Slade stops himself, forces his breath out through his nose. “We’re going to my hotel,” he announces, taking the exit. His hands don’t shake, but they want to, all misspent adrenaline brought through by the click of a trigger, and other things. The bird better have a story. “There’s a first aid kit in the glove box,” he announces to no one.

The bird doesn’t ask him why someone with a healing factor would have a first aid kit. He turns on the little light above the passenger seat and silently pulls glass out of his toes, sluicing the wounds out with the plastic water bottle the little demon passes forward. 

Everyone else is quiet. Slade can hear their heartbeats, not entirely relaxed, and their abrupt movements as they sign at one another. He can hear Drake’s thoughts, too. Calculating what it means, that the bird wasn’t surprised Slade knew what color his eyes were.

Slade should have left the other three in the fucking cage. 

The bird has the last pieces of glass out and his feet neatly wrapped by the time Slade pulls into the brightly lit hotel garage. He activates the looping device he put on the security camera footage so no one notices three naked men climbing out of the car. The ride up to the penthouse in the private elevator is awkward. Todd is looking at him like he’s about to lunge. Drake’s expression is even worse, clearly painting a picture in his head. The bird is limping.

When the elevator dings open Slade storms off towards his room. He hasn’t been sleeping in the master– no need to be predictable– and his gear is mostly packed. He stops in the bathroom to rinse the blood out of his beard and slings his duffel over his shoulder. It’s packed except for a few pairs of sweatpants, which he tosses at the naked birds clustered around the counter in the kitchen area.

They’re not related, but they look very alike as they look at him. All of their heads cocked expectantly, except the bird, who’s staring down at the marble.

“Showers there and there,” Slade says, pointing. “Yesterday’s Chinese food in the fridge, if you want to risk it. Water in the tap. They’ve got my credit card on file, so don’t destroy anything.”

“You’re leaving?” the bird asks. He doesn’t sound surprised.

“‘I have no desire to be here when daddy Bats comes calling.” Slade doesn’t look at him.

The bird picks up a pair of sweatpants and silently leaves the room, careful not to brush past Slade.

“Why’d you help us?” Drake asks.

“How long have you known who we are?” Todd asks.

“Who says we will allow you to leave?” Damian demands.

“Ask your brother,” Slade said, ignoring the last question. He drops his bag on the coffee table, unslings his swords to add them on top. Shuffles the spare magazines around. Realizes he left his toiletries in the bathroom.

Well.

He’s pulled down the hall by invisible hooks, wedged under his skin, piercing fat and tissue. He locks the bedroom door behind him. The water is already on, the inner door to the white-tiled bathroom open slightly. Steam drifts out.

Slade drifts in.

The bird is sitting maskless on the shower floor, sluicing himself off with the handheld showerhead, his feet held carefully outside the glass to keep the bandages dry. He hasn’t turned on the overhead light, so it’s just the warm orange glow of the lamps, shining over the wet, soap-slick skin. He looks up when Slade comes in, watching him with the blue eyes that have caused so many problems tonight, and for the last five years. Slade should go. Instead he leans back against the sink, folding his arms.

“Do I owe you?” Dick asks. He asks like he knows the answer.

“Yes,” Slade says. “I’m going to make you do all of the sick pervert shit I’ve been holding back on.”

Incredibly, Dick laughs.

It’s the cackle Slade remembers from his younger days, high-pitched, delighted by life. It makes something strange and unpleasant happen in his chest, so he turns around to the sink, pulling his gloves off. Soaps up his hands, his forearms, cleaning blood out of his knuckles. 

Stupid to be in here, with the others outside. It’ll be hard for Slade to climb in the bird’s window if the Bat has a guard mounted outside it. Not that he’s done that, lately.

The water cuts off. The bird stands, graceful even with the cuts on his feet, rubbing the towel over himself. He’s looking at Slade while he does it. The ends of his hair drip over his collarbones.

“Come here,” Slade hears himself say.

“The others–”

“Wasn’t asking.”

The bird drifts closer. Slade takes the towel from him, sets it aside. “Hands behind your head, bird,” he rasps.

Dick obeys, lacing his fingers behind his skull without being told, wincing as the movement tugs on his ribs. Slade goes there first, poking, prodding. Not broken, but he’ll have fantastic bruises. A boot-print over his back, right side, low enough to have missed the kidney. A few scrapes through the old bullet graze Slade left on the soft skin of his right hip; he frowns over those, decides they won’t scar. Random reddening spots on the round curve of his left bicep, held at its best angle by the upright arc of his elbows. Slade finds the knife slash he left years ago, traces it. Dick’s heartbeat is quick but steady. He’s watching himself in the mirror. Slade kneels to inspect his feet, lifting them up one at a time, cupping the knee as he bends them so he’s not putting all his weight on the other one. He wouldn’t smell infection yet, but Dick was generous with the iodine. He lets the left one down, setting it a little farther away from the right than it was.

“Oh,” Dick says, when his hands start to slide up. “Slade, no one– nobody–”

Slade makes an agreeable noise. He believes him– he’d smell it if it wasn’t true, might even smell who to find and kill, but apart from a hand-shaped bruise on the inside of the right knee his bird is untouched, here. He lays his hand over the mark and squeezes until it’s his handprint, bigger, darker, and then slides up further, touching smooth skin, soft, slick. Spreads the round halves of his ass, inspects what’s between them. Dick is taking slow, controlled breaths. Slade tucks his thumb in his mouth to wet it and strokes over the entrance and then slides it inside, slow but inexorable. Tight. Unused. Neglected, he thinks, and curves his thumb a little.

Dick makes a soft noise.

Slade stands without removing his thumb. Dick’s eyelashes are fluttering. His mouth is open and wet, his pupils blown, his eyes hazy with pleasure. He’s staring at himself in the mirror.

It could be like this, Slade thinks. Dick’s gained back some of the weight he lost. He wraps a hand carefully around the front of his throat, and the steady thud of his heartbeat doesn’t change. It could be like this. Dick’s fingers unlace and his arms curve around the back of Slade’s neck, his head tipping back further, searching–

Someone curses from the kitchen area.

Reality slams back in before their lips touch. Slade pulls his hands away, ripping his thumb out. The bird stumbles, catching himself on the sink, mercifully looking down, away from the mirror. A muffled noise comes out of his throat.

Slade snatches up his gloves, remembers his toiletry bag at the last second. Leaves. 

The hooks under his skin are back again, though, in the bedroom. There’s a big one through his guts, tugging. He sits on the bed. Moving slow, curled around the sensation of impalement, he unzips his bag. Puts his shaving kit on top of the guns and magazines and swords and knives. It’s not actually the same ugly green duffle they gave him when he was sixteen, but it’s one just like it. 

Slade was in Stockholm a month ago. It had been raining. He’d wandered into an art gallery, looking for something nameless. Whatever it was, he hadn’t found it.

The door to the bathroom opens. In his peripheral vision he can see the bird leaning against the wall, crossing his arms. He’s wearing Slade’s sweatpants.

“Haven’t seen you in a while,” the bird says.

He grunts. “Long-term contract.”

“You bodyguarding now?” A flash of hope.

“No.”

A deep breath, through the nose. Finally– “A dislocated shoulder’s too much, then? That’s what finally makes you stop?”

Subluxated. “Who says I’ve stopped?” Slade slides his hands into his gloves.

“Good to know that’s all I had to do.”

“All you had to do was tell someone, actually,” Slade says. It comes out nasty, which is how he wants it to come out. “You’ve got plenty of friends willing to sit outside your window waiting for me, don’t you? Daddy might even have let you sleep in his bed.”  

“Yeah, well. I didn’t do that.”

“I know.” Slade yanks the zipper closed. Stands up, slinging the bag over his shoulder. The hooks are in his lungs. His eye, tugging it inexorably to meet blue ones. “A guy could get the wrong idea from that.” He goes to leave.

Dick steps in his way. “Getting the wrong idea seems to have made you stop coming by,” he says. “Is that all it takes? If I’d come a couple more times the first night you broke in, would you have run away with your tail between your legs then, too?”

The back of Slade’s mouth tastes like metal. He says, lewdly– “I don’t think you could have come any more times if you’d tried.”

Dick’s face contorts. “Do you even know what you want?” he demands.

Idiot. He’s an idiot. “What I want,” Slade gets out, “Is for you to get some fucking self-respect.”

Dick’s head jerks back. His body follows, twisting; he half-stumbles out of Slade’s way.

Good. Slade pushes open the bedroom door. The light and shadow of the hotel suite seem strange, too bright, too dark. It feels like when he first lost his eye, before he learned to compensate for the loss of depth perception. Then he comes out of the hallway and finds the goddamn Batman standing in his living room.

Great.

“Deathstroke,” Wayne says. His cape is drawn tight around him, sucking the light in. His head cocks to the side. The bird’s brothers are standing around him, with the smug air of having found a bigger bully.

“Wayne,” Slade says, deliberately obnoxious about the name. Slade’s quick on the draw. Not that quick. Still, they’re not attacking him. He keeps the couch between him and them, moving for the balcony. 

“Why did you intervene?” Wayne asks. He’s moved only slightly, following Slade with his eyes.

“Wouldn’t you like to know.”

“I would.”

Slade pauses at the door to the balcony. The bird has followed him down the hallway, watches from behind his family. He’s got a hand on the wall, like he’s propping himself up.

“Always useful to have the Bat owe you a favor,” Slade says.

It’s not too late. It’s not too late. That’s believable enough. Dick will sell the lie.

“I don’t do favors,” the Batman says.

Dick would sell the lie. There’s a hook in his heart, twisting, twisting. “Really?” Slade says, and his voice is awful. Insinuating. “Because your kid’s pretty free with his.”

Dick has a good poker face. But his mouth twitches, just a little, and every head in the place has turned to look at him, except Drake, who’s pulling something sharp off Batman’s belt. 

Slade throws himself back through the door. Glass explodes outward. Something whistles over his head, sharp enough to cut air. Slade rolls to his feet and bolts, leaping from his balcony to the neighboring balcony to the one two stories down. He’s able to hear footsteps behind him, the sudden pounding of hearts. Someone is shouting, too. It doesn’t matter. He runs.