Chapter 1: An Explosive Offer
Notes:
Content warning for graphic violence/injuries, there is a lot of gore in this chapter and that probably will continue in the rest of the story. This fic is set about three weeks after the events of the last one. Dick is nineteen, he’s been with Deathstroke for six years, and regardless of what he’s been conditioned to think… he’s had a rough time. And it's not getting better anytime soon.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“Sir, he’s not here!” Dick reported, tamping down the surge of panic in his chest in order to keep his voice steady. The punishment for failing would be painful, but Dick had long since learned what happened when he tried to hide anything from Slade. Besides, it was the intel that was flawed, not Dick. There was still time to fix this.
“Get out of there! Now!” His master’s voice was a shout bordering on frantic, with rough emotion where it didn’t belong. Dick was moving for the door as soon as he heard the order but his pulse was racing and his mouth was bone dry. Slade was never happy when Dick failed—and that was the understatement of the century—but he never lost his composure in the field. Not like that. His finger itched for his comm, but he tightened his grip around his swords instead. He wasn’t allowed to question Slade even if his instincts were screaming that something wasn’t right. In three steps he’d be out the door and then he could regroup with his master on the other side of the compound and figure out where the intel had gone wrong. A click echoed through the room before Dick could get there.
Dick turned as time slowed to a stop, his eyes locking onto the crate and the wires leading to the sensor on the wall he’d just triggered.
“Kid!” Slade’s voice was too loud in his ear. He had enough time to register the flashing red and blue lights outside, the hostiles running for their lives, thick smoke filling his nose and lungs, and a deafening crash that shook the building.
Then the pain hit, along with a blast of shrapnel to the stomach.
Dick wasn’t dead.
He was in too much pain for that. Aside from the bone-deep ache settled across his entire body, his stomach burned like it was on fire. Every breath felt like jagged pieces of glass slashing across his lungs and the ringing in his ears was making it hard to focus on anything without turning violently nauseous.
Dick tried to shift his arms and push himself up, but he heard only the clink of metal. He let his eyes open slowly and found himself staring at a hospital room, complete with an IV line running into his arm, handcuffs holding each of his wrists to the sides of the bed, and an overweight cop reading a newspaper in the chair next to the bed, his eyes glazing over in boredom.
The sight of the guard made his back tense. He choked back the pain from the sudden movement, trying to take a deep breath without alerting his guard that he’d woken up. It was harder said than done when every breath felt like being ripped apart from the inside, but Slade’s lessons had sunk in deep.
This wasn’t the first time Dick had woken up in a hospital; for all the training and skill Dick had, the sheer number of contracts he’d been on meant that inevitably things would go wrong. But those times, Dick had always woken up to see Slade staring down at him, keeping a watchful eye on his apprentice no matter how long he’d been out.
Slade barely allowed the doctors and nurses to touch him; he would never leave Dick with a stranger. Between the handcuffs on his wrists, the armed guard and most importantly, the absence of Slade, it wasn’t much of a jump to realize that Dick had been arrested.
The cuffs were loose around his wrists and Dick would have been insulted, except that he understood the officers probably hadn’t expected much of a fight from someone who’d recently been blown up. As he dislocated his thumbs and slid his wrists free from the cuffs, he mused that he was technically doing them a favor. They’d learn to be more careful the next time.
Once his wrists were free, Dick gently pulled out the IV line from his forearm. Then he considered the heart rate monitor attached to his finger that had been steadily beeping away. As soon as he pulled it off, the cop would notice that he was awake. Instead, he looked around. The room was small; big enough to fit a single bed, a chair for visitors and a nurses’ station. The window was bolted shut, which wasn’t surprising (Although Dick remembered being surprised to learn that the bolts had nothing to do with dangerous patients and instead were designed for better HVAC and climate control). Aside from the IV stand, there wasn’t much that could be useful as an improvised weapon. Of course, Dick had a much better option right in front of him. Getting his hands on a weapon was the easy part; the hard part was finding a way out. Surveillance completed, Dick tugged the heart rate monitor off and let out a loud groan to distract the guard from the sudden lack of beeping. The cop looked up, glancing over at his charge before turning back to his newspaper.
“Water…” Dick mumbled, tugging on the handcuffs to make them jingle and trick the cop into thinking he was secured. The officer glanced up again, mouth tightening into a thin line as he considered the request, “Please.”
When there was no response, Dick took a loud, gasping breath and recoiled from the pain. His chest heaved up and down while his face twisted into an agonized grimace. He would’ve preferred if he’d been acting but at least the constant, unyielding waves of pain served a purpose.
The cop sighed, setting down the paper and pushing himself up slowly.
“Alright, alright, I’ll get you some water.”
The cop shuffled off to the door and Dick leaned his head back against the flat pillows. He allowed himself a few breaths to center himself and prepare for the agony that he was about to put himself through. All he wanted was to stay there, to let the doctors and the nurses and the serum put his body back together and wait for Slade to come get him. But he was conscious and still capable of moving, so Slade would accept no excuses.
The door opened again and Dick breathed out. Pain thrummed across his chest, every nerve in his body lighting up at the same time. Ungainly footsteps crossed the room and Dick started a count in his head, timing it perfectly to the man reaching his bedside. When the man leaned over, holding out the little plastic cup, Dick’s hand shot up. He grabbed the officer by the collar and yanked down, slamming the man’s forehead into his. Before he could move, Dick sprung out of the bed and kicked him in the chest. The officer hit the wall hard and crumbled, unconscious.
Dick clenched his teeth as tightly as he could, his injuries sending waves of pain through his body. Slade would give him time to recover once he was back.
But there was no time to get lost in thoughts now, and judging by the way the world was swaying and his body trembled with pain, he didn’t have long before he’d pass out. Dick grabbed the officer’s gun from its holster and turned the weapon on its owner. His finger hesitated over the trigger. Gunshots would get people’s attention and Dick was in no shape for a fight. Slade would accept that, even though he’d see it for the excuse it was.
He pushed open the door.
The ward was quiet, nurses moving in and out of rooms and the white coat of a doctor disappeared into the room across from Dick’s. He headed for the door to the main hallway quickly, wishing that someone had been careless enough to leave behind a coat or something he could disguise himself with, but without shoes the best he could hope for was to move quickly. Luck was on his side for the first minute of his escape. He managed to slip down a long hallway and cut through an empty on-call room. He just had to make it to an elevator, get down to the garage and steal a car. Then he could get back to the safehouse and pass out the instant he was back with Slade.
He heard a nurse shout, then an alarm sounded. The cop Dick knocked out had just been discovered. The loud blaring noise filled the air and Dick’s head pounded with it. He tripped over his own feet as the world swayed, but it would take more than disorientation to stop him. It would take more than disorientation and pain and exhaustion and—
Something was sticking to his stomach and the farther he went, the harder it was to ignore so he reached up to get rid of it. When he pulled his hand away, it was covered in blood. He was panting from the effort it took just to stay on his feet, and the pain was steadily growing worse and worse until he could barely see the hallway around him.
The serum was the only reason he was still on his feet, but he could feel his body struggling to knit itself back together while every move he made ripped the stitches and made the damage even worse. In the back of his head, Dick knew he’d felt worse pain in his life but it was hard to imagine anything worse than this.
The grenade had caught him at point blank range and exploded with enough force to rip a human apart limb from limb. It probably had. He should have been dead; if not for the serum, he would be.
Over the ringing in his ears, Dick could hear the shouts and hurried footsteps as the cops got closer. He didn’t have time for slow and careful, he needed to get the hell out of the hospital before anyone caught him. Dick took off down the hallway, desperate to find the elevator or the stairs with no idea of how long he had before the cops were on him.
It wasn’t that he couldn’t hear the footsteps but he was drowning in pain and it was impossible to focus on any one of the sounds flooding his senses. The steady beep of EKG’s and heart monitors came at him from every side, along with the murmur of conversations that were impossible to tune out or really focus on.
“Your bloodwork came back negative—CODE BLUE— been on the phone with pharmacy for forty minutes and they’re not signing off on the prescription—CODE BLUE— so we’re going to have to run a few more tests to figure this one out—excuse me, where’s the bathroom—scalpel—how are you feeling today—CODE BLUE— myocardial ischemia can be managed with medications, but you may need to consider surgery in the future— drop your weapon and get on the ground— doc I still feel like shit— making the first incision –this is Doctor Parker, I was paged—"
“I said hold it!”
Dick didn’t know when he’d closed his eyes, but when he opened them, he was surrounded by a mix of hospital security and police officers. The gun was still in his hand but he couldn’t get himself to move. It hurt. Everything hurt. He was in no shape for a fight and if he tried to shoot his way out, they would open fire and that would be that. He couldn’t get back to Slade if he was dead.
Dick let his hand relax, dimly feeling the gun fall out of his palm and crash against the ground.
The guards were yelling at him and some of them were getting closer but all Dick could hear was the roaring in his ears. The entire world was pain and he could barely see the hallway around him with the way everything was swaying.
Someone tried to grab his arm and instinct drove his fist into his attacker. Blood gushed down his stomach, warm and wet and the smell of iron filled his lungs. The taser caught him in the arm and Dick spasmed, but this was pain he knew how to handle. Slade had trained him to fight through the seizing muscles enough times that Dick's body practically moved on its own. He reached a shaking hand up and yanked the lines out, a screech ripping its way out of his throat as the electricity arced through his hand straight up his arm.
The second and third blasts hit harder, but it wasn’t until the fourth set of prongs embedded themselves into his bare back that his knees finally gave out. He buckled to the ground, landing face first as blood gushed out from the reopened wound on his stomach. Everything went dark pretty quickly after that.
When Dick woke, his first thought was that Slade had come for him while he was unconscious. His arms were wrapped around himself and secured with a heavily locked straitjacket, and he was lying on a cot in a small, windowless room. This was one of Slade’s favorite punishments once he’d realized that isolation and restricted movement were even more effective at getting Dick to behave than just pain alone.
Not that he wasn’t still in pain. It was a far cry from the blinding agony he’d felt waking up in the hospital, but his entire body ached. His stomach protested every movement he made, sending shooting pains up into his chest and down his back.
With the serum, there wasn’t much that Dick couldn’t recover from in the span of a few days. For him to be in this much pain so long after the incident, it had to have been bad. More than bad. Completely fatal, something that would have instantly killed another man. Being blown up was one of the things people weren’t supposed to survive. A wave of nausea that had nothing to do with his injuries ripped through him.
Slade hadn’t exactly asked for his permission—or really even given him any warning—before giving Dick the serum, which was for the best because Dick knew he wouldn’t have been able to stop himself from fighting if he’d known what his master was planning. He’d had a few years to get used to it, but sometimes it still horrified him what his body could withstand. Not that his horror mattered. He was Slade’s; Dick’s body belonged to his master and Slade wanted his weapon to be perfect. That was the only thing that mattered.
Shoving his thoughts away, he rolled himself onto his side. Dick pushed himself up with just his core muscles but he couldn’t stop the sound that escaped his throat at the spike of pain so intense it nearly knocked him out. For a few seconds, he trembled at the edge of the bed, chest heaving up and down and fingers digging at the fabric pinning his arms as he fought to regain control over himself. It took a long time before the pain finally subsided and he managed to uncurl himself enough to lift his head up. The faint hope that Slade had found him faded immediately.
This wasn’t his cell. Those weren’t the kinds of surveillance cameras his master preferred. Most importantly, his legs weren’t immobilized. Slade wouldn’t have bothered with the straitjacket unless the point was to remind Dick how utterly helpless he was against his master. Completely immobilized, trapped, alone in his cell—no, Slade would never deal out a punishment halfway. Besides, Dick had broken into prisons enough times to recognize maximum security confinement, even if he hadn’t been put into the classic orange. He’d been arrested and after he tried to escape from the hospital, he was transferred to prison. That made sense.
When his breathing evened out, he stood up and slowly paced the room, looking for any weaknesses or bugs or anything that might help him figure out how to make his escape. After a few minutes, it was clear that escape wasn’t going to be a real possibility yet; Dick was still in too much pain and the cell was too well built for him to be able to break down the door or a wall. For now, there was nothing to do but wait.
Dick didn’t have much of a problem with that. His priority was to get back to Slade, but making an unprepared escape from the hospital while gravely injured had only gotten him into a worse position. Now, he had an acceptable excuse for what he was about to do.
Dick slowly made his way back to the cot, lowered himself down as gently and slowly as he could, and closed his eyes.
The next time Dick woke up, the serum had finally finished its work putting him back together. He didn’t have long to savor the lack of pain before his instincts reminded him why he’d woken up in the first place; there were people outside his cell.
The lock snapped open with a loud buzz and clang, before the crash of metal against metal echoed in the small room. The door opened and a team of guards entered; none of them were armed but there were enough of them that Dick didn’t like his odds if he tried to take them all with his upper body immobilized. But escape wasn’t the plan right now. He needed to play along until Slade came for him or he gathered enough information to make a real plan.
“Get up,” the guard ordered and Dick clumsily slid off the bed, stumbling to get his feet under him without the use of his arms. After all, there was no need to let them know how much of a threat he still was. He held still as the guards inspected the straitjacket to make sure it was still secure, the picture of quiet cooperation until they finally ordered him out of the cell.
He followed along quietly as they led him out of the cell block, along twisting corridors and up towards the main body of the prison, and through door after door until he was standing in an interrogation room. There was a man in a well-tailored suit sitting on one side of the table, a briefcase resting by his chair. He looked up when the door opened, giving Dick a curt nod.
The guards shoved Dick down into the open chair and it occurred to Dick suddenly that this was the first time he’d been on this side of the table. He’d done plenty of interrogating before, back when he was… with… the Titans and before… before that with—
The lawyer cleared his throat and Dick used it as an excuse to shove the sudden wave of painful thoughts far, far away.
“My name is Mitchell Gabon, I’ve been appointed as your legal representation,” the man began, and Dick began to tune him out. The man went on for a while as Dick focused his energy on building a mental map of the prison, cataloguing all the cameras, swipe panels and security features he’d passed on the way in. Some of the prisoners they’d passed had been wearing thick black collars, and while that wasn’t enough to be sure, he had a bad feeling about exactly where he’d ended up.
“You’re going to want to pay attention for this next part,” the lawyer said sharply. Dick raised his eyes up and fixed the man with the most uninterested look he could. The kind that showed he was playing along even if he couldn’t have cared less.
“Officially, we have been completely unable to determine your identity. Your fingerprints came back without a match, facial recognition failed, and we haven’t found any witnesses or associates that were able to identify you.”
“Unofficially, the Warden has provided us with a detailed file containing the known crimes and suspected activities of a high-profile mercenary believed to have been recently killed in action. If said mercenary was willing to cooperate with their legal counsel, the government would be prepared to offer a significant reduction of their sentence” the lawyer continued, “As his closest known associate, they would be able to provide information on Deathstroke the Terminator that would be of significant value to the federal government.”
Dick didn’t doubt that. But the idea of giving up Slade’s secrets was as laughable as it was terrifying. The lawyer waited for exactly one beat before continuing.
“Regardless, I advise you to plead guilty on all charges.”
Dick wasn’t supposed to talk without permission and Slade wasn’t here to give it. He was in enough trouble as it was, he had no intentions of getting into any more. Besides, it didn’t matter what the lawyer could offer him; there was nothing that could make Dick betray Slade. It wasn’t worth dignifying him with a response.
The lawyer nodded like he hadn’t expected anything else, before tapping the stack of papers against the table and reaching for his briefcase.
“In that case, we’re done for now. I’ll be back for your court appearance once your official lack of identity has been processed. If you have a change of heart between now and then, the Warden has all the information she needs to contact me.”
With that, the guards opened the door to let the lawyer out, leaving Dick alone with his thoughts. Thoughts like the fact that the lawyer said “she”. There weren’t very many female Wardens, and even fewer that ran prisons specializing in the containment of metahumans. In fact, there was only one.
The door swung open again, bringing more footsteps and even more people.
“You should’ve taken the plea,” the new voice was dripping with condescension and it pissed Dick off. He refused to turn around or acknowledge the Warden even as she circled around the table before taking the seat the lawyer had just vacated.
“Welcome to Belle Reve,” said Amanda Waller. Something in Dick’s chest tightened at the confirmation that he was… maybe… in a little bit of trouble. He kept his face neutral and his posture perfect as if he was shadowing his master at an important meeting. “Renegade, isn’t it? I know all about you and your boss.”
When Dick didn’t respond, Waller held out a hand and one of the guards behind her handed the warden a stack of forms. She set them down on the table and began filling them out.
“We held off on your intake paperwork, just in case you decided to play ball. I’m glad you didn’t; it means I get to keep you all to myself,” Waller said casually, scribbling across the documents, initialing here and checking off boxes there. Dick was tempted to try and read it upside down, but he knew the Warden would see it as a sign of weakness. “Do you have a name?”
Dick didn’t answer, keeping his face blank and his gaze fixed on the wall. He wasn’t being defiant or submissive; this was all just beneath his notice. Escaping from inside Belle Reve would be nearly impossible, but Slade would come for him soon. And then Dick would be punished for his failure during the mission, for making a mistake that nearly cost him his life, for getting arrested and then for failing to escape from the hospital, but once he’d been punished, Slade would forgive him. He would give him time to recover, make sure the grenade hadn’t done any lasting damage that the serum couldn’t fix, and then someday Dick would be back in his good graces.
He took a slow breath in, remembering the smell of Slade’s sheets, the warmth of Slade’s bulk pressed against his back and the feeling of firm, possessive kisses being trailed down his neck.
Dick was Slade’s. He’d messed up badly but he would accept whatever punishments he earned. Waller was nothing. She had nothing on Slade, and absolutely no idea who she was messing with.
“John Doe it is,” the warden said, scribbling her pen against the forms. Dick held himself still, refusing to give her the satisfaction of a flinch at the sound of his dead father’s name. The woman seemed amused by that as she recapped her pen and handed the forms off to one of the officers standing behind her chair.
“Well, congratulations, John,” Waller said with a very cold smile. “You exist now, and you’re dead. Your boss won’t be coming for you.”
Despite himself, Dick almost laughed. If she thought there was anything in the universe that could stop Slade Wilson from taking back what was his, then she wasn’t nearly the threat she thought she was.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I must not have made myself clear.”
Waller didn’t look very sorry. In fact, she looked even more amused as she accepted an envelope from the other guard behind her and pulled out a picture. She put it on the table, allowing Dick to track the motion as she slid it towards him.
Dick slowly looked down at the picture and nearly threw up as soon as he realized what he was looking at. He wasn’t squeamish; Slade had taken him on far too many contracts to be phased by the sight of blood. But this wasn’t just blood.
It was a crime scene photo taken from above of a dead man lying on the ground. Most of a man. The head was intact, but an explosive force had ripped through most of his body armor, leaving chunks of flesh and muscle and the gooey remains of his internal organs scattered around the gaping hole where his stomach should have been. The man’s entrails were hanging out and it seemed nothing short of miraculous that there was still enough of them to be recognizable.
And of course, there was plenty of blood too.
It took him a few seconds to process the fact that he was staring at himself.
“That is quite a healing factor you’ve got,” Waller said admiringly. Dick’s eyes were glued to the gruesome pictures and he couldn’t tear them away. “You were declared dead on the scene as soon as the EMTs arrived. They scooped you into a body bag and carted you straight to the morgue. You’re lucky that one of the techs noticed you were breathing before they started the autopsy.”
Dick fought back a shiver, flashes of memory of being surrounded by darkness, then frigid metal under his back and all around him, the bright lights of flashing cameras and the hum of voices. He could feel Waller’s eyes on him as she continued the story, but he couldn’t stop staring. Those were his intestines hanging out of his torso, the chunk of purple goop by his hand was part of his liver, and that shredded bit of pink was all that had been left of his stomach. Dick’s hands dug into the fabric of the straitjacket, pulling his arms even tighter around himself. He was weak, he hated himself for it but… he should’ve been dead. He should be dead.
“They had you rushed to the hospital for emergency surgery while they tried to figure out what to do with you. Then you went ahead and woke up early before attempting a violent escape; after you were contained, they contacted us about a dangerous metahuman. And of course, as soon as I saw you, I knew exactly who we were dealing with.”
Dick stiffened.
Slade had never tried to keep a low profile for himself, but Dick’s identity was a completely different story. That was a secret that no one would ever know.
“You’ve had an impressive career, Renegade. And I always recognize talent. Speaking of which, you’re in luck. I have an opportunity for you and your timing couldn’t be better,” Waller flipped through the stack of papers. “I’m assembling a task force for an extremely dangerous, most likely fatal assignment and I think you’re perfect for the job.”
Dick finally managed to tear himself away from the photos and looked up at the Warden.
“I thought that might get your attention. Here’s the deal; tomorrow, you’re going to be on the team that attempts to fix a very, very big problem. If you make it back, you get ten years off your sentence. If you don’t, well, you’ll be dead. And to make sure that you don’t get any ideas…”
Waller waved at one of the guards behind Dick and they all moved at once. Two of them grabbed him by the arms, a third wrenched his head to the side and held him still while a fourth approached him with a syringe. Dick was helpless as the tech stuck the syringe into his neck; he didn’t have enough momentum to thrash and the guards were strong enough he couldn’t break their grip. He didn’t flinch when the plunger was pressed and injected something into his neck, despite the fact that it hurt and that there was no possible good explanation for what Waller had just done to him.
When the needle was pulled away and the guards released him, Dick yanked against his restraints, a snarl on his lips. He didn’t feel any different. There was no instant dulling of his senses in the way a chemical inhibitor would, no gradual change in sensation that meant he’d been drugged, and nothing to indicate what the needle had done. Waller took the opportunity to fill him in.
“That injection contained a small, localized explosive that can be remotely detonated at any time I choose.”
Dick stared at her. A bomb. In his neck?! That had to be some kind of a sick joke, not even Slade had ever resorted to tactics like that. Of course, Slade hadn’t needed to.
Waller took in the look on his face and leaned forwards, superiority radiating off her impassive expression.
“I wouldn’t lie to you, John. I don’t give enough of a shit for that. We both know you can survive quite a lot, but I’m willing to bet that even that healing factor of yours will have trouble with your brain scattered all over the walls.”
Dick’s stomach dropped through the ground as the realization set in and all he could hear was his heartbeat pounding like a drum.
It was ironic, in a cruel and painful kind of way. Waller wanted to steal Dick from Slade the same way Slade had stolen him all those years ago. His stomach twisted at the thought of Slade abandoning him. Slade would never leave him. Dick was his. But if he truly thought Dick was dead… well Dick knew firsthand how easily people gave up searching once that happened and Waller knew exactly what she was doing.
“From now on, you’re mine.”
Dick froze, his heart stopping in place. Then came the anger, burning and vicious.
“I am not yours!” He snarled, throwing himself forward even as the guards grabbed him and held him in place. Thousands of hours of training abandoned him as he thrashed wildly, outrage taking over conscious thought at the idea of Waller claiming something that belonged to Slade.
Waller’s mouth twisted into a smirk and she let out a snort.
“He speaks,” she mocked. She pushed her chair back and stood up before strolling to the door. As she left, she ordered, “Take him through processing and get him back to his cell. And drop the jacket, he knows what’s going to happen if he makes any trouble.”
He couldn’t see her face but there was no mistaking the smug victory in her voice. Red-hot rage coursed through him. He wanted to jump over the table and rip her throat out, to bury his knives inside her chest and tear off her limbs one by one. But he didn’t move, not even to test his mobility when the guards unlocked his straitjacket and freed his limbs after what was probably days of being trapped in it. He clenched his jaw, grinding his teeth together and digging his fingernails into his palms.
For a few seconds, the room was quiet. Blood welled up under his fingernails and Dick tried to focus on the little pricks of pain to steady himself. If he attacked her, the warden would blow his head off and he would never get back to Slade. Waller turned around, completely unintimidated as she looked Dick in the eyes.
“I suggest you get some sleep. Task Force X ships out in the morning, bright and early.”
Notes:
Every time I write something, I make sure to include some ridiculous details about the story that aren't relevant and never come up and nobody ever has to know about it. But this time, I'll tell you. Dick is wearing a hospital gown during his escape, which means by the end, he's running around the hospital with his butt cheeks hanging out. Try taking this fic seriously after knowing that. You're welcome. ❤️
But seriously, thank you for reading this. I’ve got the rest of the fic all planned out and I’ll definitely continue it if there’s enough interest, so please leave me a comment to let me know if you want to see more!
Chapter 2: Waller's Angels vs The World
Notes:
In the beginning, there was an idea. A short idea, three thousand words max. And then it was two chapters, but really one of them was more of an epilogue. But then some more angst pushed its way in and I couldn't just leave it out, I'm not a monster, so it got a little longer. Anyways, this fic is definitely only going to be six chapters and an epilogue at the most. I'm absolutely positive. Like 80, 82% sure.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Dick stared at the uniform. It was well constructed, designed to fit his build and Waller hadn’t cheaped out on the armor.
That didn't change how wrong it was. His uniform was ruined and there was nothing to be done about it but allowing Waller to dress him made him sick. Dick reached for the sleeve of his new jumpsuit, ripping off a long strip of orange fabric. At least he could make sure he was wearing his master's colors.
He started to get dressed, ignoring the many, many soldiers surrounding them. Besides, their attention wasn’t really focused on him. If he thought there was any chance at all that Waller had been lying about the bomb in his neck, Harley Quinn stripping down in front of a group of horny, stressed-out soldiers would’ve been the single greatest distraction he could have asked for. Dick pulled on the chest piece of his new armor, plotting out the route he would’ve taken.
The soldier three in from the left side had gotten lazy, he would be dead before he realized Dick was charging him. Six shots from his newly-stolen weapon would take out the nearest soldiers and the four guarding the closest entrance to the compound would be next. He’d take them out as he stole the Humvee, grabbing the General who’d just been talking to Waller as a hostage to stop the rocket launchers from blowing up the vehicle immediately.
He’d be outnumbered driving away, and that was assuming that Waller wouldn’t order them to blow him up regardless of his hostage.
It was a small consolation that even his hypothetical escape was doomed before it began.
Dick pushed the entire line of thought out of his head and reached for his weapons. First the knives, then the guns and the fresh boxes of ammo that Waller had supplied him with, and finally, his swords. When he was fully armed, the death grip on his lungs seemed to ease up. Dick was deadly on his own, but now with his equipment returned, he was the perfect weapon his master had painstakingly crafted him into.
The only thing left to do was the most important. Dick reached for the strip of orange cloth he’d ripped off earlier and tied it around his neck like a collar. No matter what Waller made him do, no matter what uniform she put him into, no matter who’s command she put him under, his master’s colors around his neck would make sure no one could forget who Renegade belonged to.
By then, Waller’s other prisoners had finished suiting up and were gathering in a loose circle. Dick stayed where he was until Waller’s right-hand man made an impatient gesture for Dick to join them. The soldier tightened his grip on his assault rifle as Dick shot him the darkest glare he was capable of, but Dick was already moving before the order needed to be repeated.
Unbeknownst to Waller, and to most of them, Dick had already met them all. Harley, Killer Croc and Captain Boomerang were unpleasant echoes from his past, but that was so long ago that Dick couldn’t muster up any emotion at all towards them. But the fourth one…
“Hope you’re a better shot than your boss is,” Deadshot joked. Dick tightened his grip on his sword, hatred filling his chest and his throat at the fact that his master’s enemy dared to insult him.
“Easy,” Waller’s man warned, putting himself between the two of them. He reached out a hand and Dick pulled back before he could make contact.
“Don’t. Touch. Me.” Dick growled. The soldier stepped back, raising his hands and his eyebrows like he was acquiescing to the whims of a crazy person. It pissed Dick off to be lumped in with the likes of Harley Quinn and Killer Croc and… Deadshot.
But there was nothing he could do about it and their new commander was already moving to stand in front of them, two dozen soldiers at his back.
“Listen up, assholes. I’m Rick Flag and from now on, you do every single fucking thing I say or you die.”
Once upon a time, Dick would have rolled his eyes at a speech like that but now it wasn’t worth the energy. Flag was tense, knowing that the group he’d been handed would eat him alive the second they sensed weakness. But the anger in his eyes and the fear hiding behind the brave front had nothing to do with the violent, dangerous psychopaths staring him down.
That wasn’t to say he didn’t detest them; the disgust on his face was clear and Dick didn’t blame him in the slightest. He gestured to the woman at his right, who was wearing a white mask that covered the top half of her face and had both her hands on the katana sheathed at her side. Although judging by her stance, she had no interest in keeping her weapon stowed.
“This is Katana. You piss her off, she gets to skewer you. Consider that your only warning.”
Dick tuned out most of the briefing, but it didn’t escape his notice that Flag never actually gave them any information on what the threat was. Not that it mattered. Dick’s only real mission was to keep himself alive, no matter what Waller or her cronies wanted.
It wasn’t long before they were being herded onto the chopper and strapping themselves in. Dick’s eyes stayed fixed on the SUV the warden was watching from, staring down Waller until the bay doors closed.
Dick ignored everyone for the entirety of the helicopter ride, keeping his eyes fixed on the ground. On his left, Killer Croc was doing the same thing. If the whole mission went like that, with every one of the psychopaths ignoring each other, that would be perfectly fine with him. But on the other side, Boomerang was bitterly complaining about the cold and next to him, Harley Quinn was keeping up a constant stream of chatter that Dick was trying to tune out as hard as he could.
If he was being completely honest with himself, he didn’t really mind the noise. Or the company (Deadshot very much excluded). Once upon a time, he’d thrived on being surrounded by other people. But they weren’t Slade, and the soldiers were actively responsible for keeping Dick from his master, so it was pure, excruciating torture.
Except that when Dick was being whipped or beaten or branded or starved, he’d always known that the punishment would bring forgiveness. The pain was really redemption and it was only temporary and once he’d been given the punishment he deserved, Slade would take care of him.
“What the hell is that?!” Quinn yelped, her face glued to the window. Dick looked out to see the city below them crawling with black electricity, dark fog writhing above the buildings and a massive column of living smoke surrounding the tallest skyscraper. It was something out of a nightmare.
But it reminded him of something. A giant ship descending over the city, blocking out the sun and sending hordes of flying aliens out in every direction.
He’d been alone in a new city, and then all of a sudden, he’d had a team. He’d had friends. He’d had—nothing. Not really. He was just waiting for his master to come and take what was his, even if Robin… even if Dick hadn’t known it then.
He shouldn’t think about the days before Slade. They didn’t matter. He shoved the thoughts away, instinctively turning to Slade so that his master could forgive him (or punish him) for the transgression. And then he remembered that Slade wasn’t there.
There was a pang in his chest, so intense that it seemed to almost vibrate through him. And when had he started trembling? Dick took a deep breath, exhaling sharply as he clenched his hands into fists and forced himself to get under control. He was in the middle of hostile territory and this was the worst place to show any kind of weakness.
Before Dick could lose himself any further, there was an earsplitting screech and a high-pitched whistling before the helicopter veered sharply to the side. The hold jerked suddenly, throwing them all against their seat restraints. Explosions split the air as the gunner tried to fight off their attackers but the dogfight didn’t last long.
A deafening bang rocked the helicopter and alarms began to blare as they suddenly lost altitude. Dick was intensely impressed with the pilot that they hadn’t been sent into a freefall when the engines failed.
But they were falling.
Fast.
“Brace yourselves! We’re going down!” Flag shouted, and if Dick had been standing at his master’s side, he would’ve muttered, “and here I thought the ground was up,” in response to such a stupid comment.
Slade usually enjoyed Dick’s sarcasm (he only ever directed it at others, he would never dare to insult his master) and if he was in an especially good mood, Dick might even be treated to a smirk or the rare fingernails gently raking through his hair, the way a cat might be scratched between the ears.
And Dick had held out so long before that confession had been forced out of him, that he didn’t know if he hated when Slade compared him to a pet or if he secretly longed for it to be true.
“You can’t train a cat,” the boy had whispered to his master while his cheeks flushed red with shame. To his surprise, Slade chuckled and tilted his head up as he wrapped a calloused palm around his neck.
“But you can train a dog. Would you like that? To be my bitch? I could collar you, treat you like a wild animal to be tamed, teach you to heel.”
Dick shivered and the fingers around his neck tightened. The look in Slade’s eye was hungry and for the millionth time, Dick felt like prey who’d been caught by a predator that wanted nothing more than to tear him apart.
“That’s not what you want, is it?”
Dick hadn’t trusted himself to speak, had known well enough by then that the truth would be met by punishment and a lie by a punishment even worse.
“Answer me,” Slade ordered, his voice no less cold for the amusement in it.
“No, master,” Dick was shaking underneath Slade’s hand, fighting to keep himself still.
“You want to be taken care of, don’t you, pet?” Slade’s fingers carded through Dick’s hair, sending shivers down his spine at the same time that ice-cold fear rose in his stomach. Dick was helplessly frozen, intensely aware that he was completely at his master’s whims. If he tried to resist, he would be beaten. His master would be brutal and fierce and when he was done, he would do exactly what he wanted with him anyways. “Don’t worry, pet, I’ll take care of you. I’ll take care of everything. All you have to do is be mine.”
Slade’s lips were on his. With one of Slade’s hands gripping the back of his head and the other still wrapped around Dick’s neck, Dick couldn’t move away. He’d never been kissed before so he had nothing to compare it to, but he’d spent so long imagining what it would be like to kiss Kory (or even Rachel) that he was shocked by the rough, coarse stubble grating against his chin. And he’d imagined the nerves, his heart pounding a little too fast as they looked at each other sheepishly and leaned in until they were close enough to share a breath. But the fantasy did nothing to prepare himself for the terror building in his stomach at being trapped in Slade’s grip, his master’s tongue pressing into his mouth as Slade took what he wanted. Because the kiss was… it wasn’t terrible and Slade's scent was so very familiar to him from so many nights of being held close in the man's bed, but with every second that it deepened, the fear in Dick’s chest solidified as he became more and more sure of where it was going.
Slade pulled back but left his hands where they were, keeping Dick exactly where he wanted him.
“Relax,” Slade whispered. The pad of his thumb traced across Dick’s neck before pressing down on his jugular. Dick shivered, his pulse jumping until he could barely breathe, unable to pull his gaze off the lust burning in his master’s eye. Slade was going to fuck him. Slade was going to fuck him and there was nothing Dick could do to stop him. “Let me take care of you.”
Of course, if Slade was in a bad mood, a single word from Dick’s mouth would be met with a sharp backhand, followed by another punishment once the mission was over. But a stinging slap to the face was worth preventing the inevitable fury if Slade believed Dick had retreated too deeply into himself.
It had taken Dick a long, long time to understand what his master wanted from him, partly because Slade kept changing his mind. But that didn’t matter. All that mattered was that Dick did understand what his master wanted from him now. And that this was really not the time or the place to get lost in his own head. Dick dragged himself out of his thoughts, grateful for the first time to be in a helicopter that was currently falling out of the sky and hurtling towards his possible doom.
Dick braced himself as best as he could for the crash, protecting his head and spine and keeping his breathing steady as the chopper slammed into the ground. It was loud, the horrible crash of metal grinding and warping suddenly, the impact throwing him against his harness. But then it was quiet.
Dick took a deep breath and catalogued the fact that he’d survived the crash unscathed.
Unfortunately, as it quickly turned out, so did everyone else. Which meant that Dick was still stuck with them. Flag wrangled his troops quickly and efficiently, ordering his men to free the pilots and gunners from the wreckage before ordering them to move out before whoever shot them down could catch up.
They’d gone down in the outskirts of the city, far from the horrifying tower in the center but still close enough that it was clear they were in hostile territory. Dick took advantage of the brief pause as Flag’s men surveyed the area for immediate threats to check his weapons and make sure they hadn’t been damaged. A sense of profound relief washed over him; his weapons were the only reminders of his master he had, losing them would be like losing his master all over again.
Of course, that relief only lasted until Flag ordered the group to move and Harley Quinn immediately decided she was bored.
“So your name’s John?” Harley asked, snapping her chewing gum noisily. He ignored the clown, following behind Killer Croc as they headed in a loose formation down the destroyed avenue. “That whatcha go by in the real world?”
“His name’s not John,” Deadshot called over. Dick’s grip tightened on his swords, and he wished suddenly that the bomb in his neck hurt enough that there was no chance of forgetting why he couldn’t just slice off Deadshot’s head and be done with it. “He’s Renegade. They made it up because they don’t want his boss knowing he’s alive.”
“Ooh, fake name! Very fun, you seem like a real riot, kid,” Quinn exclaimed, walking backwards in an attempt to keep herself directly in his line of sight.
He tuned out the pestering and the increasingly pointed questions and eventually the clown got tired of trying to bother him and moved on to Killer Croc.
“Beat it, clown,” the reptile snarled.
“So would you say you’re a crocodiley man, or just a really, really manly crocodile? Like in general, do you consider yourself more in tune with people or other amphibians? Also, are crocodiles amphibians because I forget and Gen Bio was like, a million years ago.”
“Reptiles,” Killer Croc grunted derisively, “amphibians can’t swim for shit.”
“Oh, I bet,” Harley Quinn agreed, pursing her lips together as she nodded seriously. “Everyone knows amphibians are a buncha pushovers.”
“Tasty though,” Killer Croc grinned, showing all his teeth.
“Ya ever eat people?”
Killer Croc’s grin got even wider. Harley’s eyebrows rose excitedly.
“Would you eat me?
“Hell no.”
“Awww, why not?”
“Too skinny.”
Harley pretended to blush, waving her hand in mock humility.
“You’re so sweet!”
While the others were distracted, Dick focused all his attention on planting himself squarely in the center of every security and CCTV camera they passed. With his free hand at his side and firmly out of view of Flag and the soldiers flanking them, he flashed a coded signal over and over.
Waller was a bastard, but she was a careful one. Dick knew the odds of her allowing anyone to find out about her squad were nonexistent, but there were a lot of cameras and it would only take Slade one stray video clip to find out that his apprentice was alive. And to find out about the bomb and realize that Dick was doing everything possible to keep his master’s property intact, that if he was able to return to his master’s side, he would do it in an instant.
They picked their way carefully through the wreckage that used to be a city; Flag and his troops on high alert, Dick keeping a close watch for surveillance cameras, and the rest of the squad doing a not-so-subtle job of looking for the most convenient spot for an escape.
Dick was more than a little surprised that none of them had tried yet.
“We’ve got movement up ahead,” the man on Flag’s left said suddenly. Flag made a fist and gestured, using a form of military shorthand that Dick didn’t recognize. But clearly the soldiers did because they all fanned out, weapons raised and all of them on high alert. Dick’s weapons were already in his hands. The gun in his left was for range, and the sword in his right was for comfort. Anything and anyone that tried to touch him would be dead before they got the chance.
Boomerang was hanging back, digging around in his coat for what turned out to be a can of beer. Flag turned and the glare on his face was murderous. Dick had no interest in fighting for Waller or following the soldier’s lead but he had no intentions of giving them any reason to detonate the charge. He needed to stay alive so his master could find him, not get himself killed because he had to play stubborn.
“What the fuck—” Dick heard one of the soldiers whisper, and then he caught sight of what had them all staring. At first, it looked like a wall of smoke at the end of the road. But the smoke was moving, and it had limbs and beady eyes and mouths filled with sharp teeth and Dick had seen some horrifying things in his life but he’d never seen anything like these creatures.
The line of monsters broke as they all charged and suddenly the air was alive with gunfire. Weapons fired and the monsters went down, but it wasn’t enough. Dick was near the back of the group and from this angle he was more likely to shoot one of Flag’s men. He held back, trying to observe what he could and figure out the monsters’ weaknesses before any of them got close enough for it to matter.
Up ahead, Katana charged into the fray. He heard her shouting and grunting as her sword slashed and hacked through the mass of enemies.
“The fuck are these things?!” Deadshot shouted, firing at the gooey monsters as they staggered down the street towards him. Harley was swinging her mallet like the maniac she was, but Dick could admit that it was effective. Killer Croc ripped one of the creatures apart with his bare claws. Black goo sprayed in every direction and the foul smell assaulted Dick’s nose. Even Boomerang had his knives out and was relentlessly stabbing anything that got near him.
Dick fired, dropping the nearest monster to the ground in a puddle of ooze.
That was one.
He stayed at the back of their loose formation, taking in the battleground. Flag’s men were struggling; their gunshots cracked through the air as they opened fire, but his gut instinct that only a direct headshot would take the creatures down was right. They were outnumbered badly enough that every miss worsened the odds against them.
Katana was faring well. She’d figured out that mere decapitation wasn’t enough and had adjusted her technique to impale the monsters through the head before running them clean through. By Dick’s count, she’d taken down nine of them on her own.
Dick fired three more times, cleanly picking off the few creatures that got past the front line of soldiers. He heard a crackling hum and his head snapped up, trying to pick out shapes through the dense, ominous fog shrouding the entire city. There were more of the creatures overhead, their forms writhing and crackling with electricity even as they dripped black ooze. Dick didn’t understand how they were flying, but the lack of visible wings didn’t seem to both them.
None of the soldiers had noticed them yet so Dick pulled himself up a lamppost and vaulted up to the balcony of the nearest building. He fired six shots in rapid succession, dropping the first four creatures out of the air and shooting down a billboard from the next building over to give the squad some aerial cover.
The soldiers had finally noticed they were being attacked from above and half of them repositioned to help Dick cut down the flying creatures. One of them lunged at him, gooey black talons clawing at Dick’s face. In one motion, he holstered his gun and switched his sword to his left hand, skewering the creature and slicing the blade up to rip the creature to shreds from the chest through its head.
He straightened, taking a quick count. There were six more that had gotten past him and the soldiers below already had them in their sights. The rest of the soldiers were still near the front line, trying to provide backup for Katana and Killer Croc as they tore their way through the mob. The rest of the squad was occupied, leaving Dick the only one to notice that Flag had been swarmed. The soldier let out a shout as one of the creatures bit into his shoulder before the group grabbed hold of him and started flying upwards.
For a second, Dick didn’t move. They weren’t trying to kill him; they’d have already shredded him to pieces if they were. That meant the creatures wanted him alive, and more than a decade of experience told Dick that it meant whoever was behind the attack, whatever had made these creatures and leveled the city, wanted Flag. He was tempted to let them take him.
The creatures would bring him straight to their master and following them would be the easiest way to find out who was behind all this. But on the other hand, Flag seemed like a competent leader and Dick had no intention of gambling with his own life if the man was killed.
“They’ve got Flag!” Deadshot called.
“Good riddance!” Harley snapped as she slammed her sledgehammer through yet another of the creatures and let out a disgusted yelp as she was covered in gooey black viscera.
“Hey, dumbass, he dies, we die!” Deadshot returned, but Dick already had his weapons holstered and was scaling the side of the building to follow the creatures up. Flag was shouting and trying to hit the creature holding him but the attack was useless without any leverage.
Dick launched himself off the side off the building, flipping twice to build momentum and striking out with his feet as he hit the bottom of his arc. He caught the creature in the chest, ripping Flag out of its grip.
They fell the remaining ten feet to the ground. Dick landed smoothly and Flag a lot more roughly. But he was alive, so Dick wasn’t worried. The gunfire was still going strong, but there was something different about it. Dick looked over at the front of the group and saw Lawton standing on top of a car.
Deadshot had found his rhythm, his wrist guns alternating in a pattern that was almost mesmerizing, every shot aiming true as the monstrous creatures fell one after another; the focus, the tenacity, the sheer display of deadly hyper-competence made Dick understand just why the mercenary was such a threat to his master.
It wasn’t long before the mercenary finished his work.
With one final shot, the last of the creatures exploded into a spray of goop.
Deadshot unloaded the empty magazine and surveyed the gooey remains lying in the street. Then he nodded once and jumped down from the car, the picture of confidence and smug satisfaction. Despite how much he hated the man, Dick couldn’t fault him for either.
The street fell silent again.
Deadshot turned around and met his stare. The two of them looked at each other silently, Dick’s masked eyes fixed on Lawton’s red scope. Something passed between them and Dick realized it was respect. His heart jumped in terror, but Slade wouldn’t be mad at him for accurately assessing skill, no matter how much he hated the person that skill belonged to.
“Sound off,” Flag ordered as Katana rushed to his side to help him set his injured shoulder. The soldiers counted off and Flag frowned when he understood the damage. They’d lost a few; it was far from catastrophic, but it had been less than an hour and they’d already sustained significant losses.
Dick wasn’t surprised. Everything Waller had said made it very clear she expected this to be a suicide mission.
“We need to set up cover, we’re outnumbered a hundred to one. We can’t go in blind,” Flag said.
They ended up taking cover in a nearby building that was missing the top floor and otherwise in perfect condition. Dick kept to the back of the group. The soldiers were still eyeing him warily and he wasn’t sure if he should take pleasure in the fact that he unnerved them. It didn’t matter what they thought of him—as long as they didn’t think he was weak.
Their positioning was strategic; they were still a long way from the epicenter and the flying patrols, and from up here, it was easy to see the swarms of creatures prowling the streets below. The group they’d encountered before had been relatively small, but they were already down a few of Flag’s men and the more enemies they had to fight through, the higher their losses would grow.
Flag pulled the binoculars away with a frustrated growl. The soldier on his right lifted his own binoculars to keep watch on the horizon. Dick didn’t need any gear to make out the demonic creatures flying through the sky, circling the tower, and letting out ear-splitting screeches that split the air apart.
“We’re not going to get close enough in broad daylight, we’ll move in at eighteen hundred hours.”
Dick picked a spot as far away from the group as he could get, sitting down with his back against the wall so he could keep an eye on everything. The others members of the squad grabbed ration packets and began to tear into them—literally, in Killer Croc’s case—but Dick had no interest in food. He was too busy being miserable, missing his master and feeling on-edge from being surrounded by people who weren’t Slade.
For the most part, everyone left him alone. Unfortunately, that didn’t mean everyone left him alone.
“Here ya go, Renny. Can I call you Renny?” Harley bulldozed in without waiting for an answer. “I got packet of grossness number one and packet of gross numero dos. Take your pick.”
She held the rations out, wiggling her eyebrows enticingly. And didn’t move when Dick made no effort to take one. Eventually, Dick realized she wasn’t going to leave until he did, so he tugged one of the ration packs out of her hand. Instead of leaving like he wanted her to, Harley plopped down on the ground next to him and tore open her own food pack.
“So what do you think Flag’s deal is? Think he’s single? Not that I’m interested, but he seems like he hasn’t had any in a while and boy does he need it.”
Harley prattled on, and Dick knew that he should tune her out or find another spot to sit.
But something stopped him.
It had been so, so long since anyone just… talked to him. Slade talked to him, but his master didn’t really do casual conversation. And even on the rare occasions that he did, Dick could never forget that he was his master’s property, he would never dare to speak to his master as an equal.
But Harley was just talking. To him. Like he was a person just like her who might want to hear what she had to say. That he had things to say back.
It wasn’t just that, though. When Slade spoke to Dick, he either expected an immediate answer or for Dick to listen silently. But Harley was just talking. And while she didn’t seem to mind if Dick paid her any attention, she seemed delighted that he hadn’t gotten rid of her.
Which he should have done. But every time he opened his mouth to tell her to leave, the words refused to come out. So instead, he sat silently and let her blabber away next to him until the sun started to set and the soldiers began to pace restlessly and Flag had begun to plot their next movements. Boomerang had somehow pulled Deadshot and Croc into a game of cards and every hand brought a new argument that had the nearby soldiers sliding further away to avoid getting caught in the middle.
Harley let out a facesplitting yawn suddenly, reaching her arms up above her head and arching her back as she stretched and twisted. On the way down, she turned her face towards him and let out a breath.
“We’re ready to make a move if you are,” Harley whispered and Dick was genuinely impressed that she was capable of subtlety. She’d timed it well, too. The soldiers had gotten too comfortable, they’d assumed the villains wouldn’t cause any trouble after a few hours of quiet. “Digger’s got the others waiting for my mark. If we all go, we can take out Flag and be outta here before you can say ‘arrivederci’. Waller’s bluffing, there’s no fuckin’ way she’s really got us rigged to blow.”
Dick watched her carefully. He shouldn’t say anything; he wasn’t supposed to speak without Slade’s permission and it didn’t matter to him if the rest of the psychopaths he was stuck with got themselves killed. But this time, the words came out easily.
“She’s not.”
Harley frowned. The manic look in her eyes faded as something a little more dangerous replaced it.
“Are you sure?”
Dick’s heart pounded and he remembered the cold, satisfied look on the Warden’s face. She wasn’t bluffing.
“Positive.”
Harley’s mouth pinched into a tight line as she considered the words. Her eyes drifted shut and she took in a deep breath, her hands clenching into fists and a dark look twisting across her face. Then she exhaled and all the anger disappeared into a bright grin.
“Well. Guess we gotta come up with something else, then. But we’re gonna get outa here, Renny. It’s just a matter of time.”
Dick’s mouth felt dry but the pain in his chest felt suddenly lighter. She sounded so completely sure of herself that it made Dick stop.
In the horror of Waller ripping him away from his master, not to mention the all-too-unpleasant experience of being blown up and his body stitching itself back together, plus the constant stream of adrenaline and hyperfocus from being sent into a battlefield surrounded by people he couldn’t trust, Dick had forgotten the most important thing of all.
It was impossible to keep secrets from his master. Dick knew that better than anyone.
Right now, Slade might have thought he was dead, but someday he would find out the truth. And he would come for Dick as soon as he knew he was alive. Harley was right. It was just a matter of time. No matter how careful was, no matter how long it took, Slade would come back for him. He would.
Dick nodded at Harley. She grinned even wider and there was genuine delight on her face.
“I like you, kid. You’re a good listener. Ya know, I am too. Sometimes. If I can ever get myself to shut up!” Harley cackled, shooting him a wink. Dick didn’t smile back. But there was something inside his chest that felt a little bit warmer and despite all his training and situational awareness, the tension in Dick’s spine loosened. Just the tiniest bit.
His master would come for him someday. And in the meantime, against all the odds, it turned out that Harley Quinn wasn’t the worst person to be stuck with.
Notes:
Harley took one look at Dick and went, "Wow this kid is fucked all the way up, I can't not poke at him."
Sadly, there wasn't room in this chapter for Waller to make Dick's life even more miserable, but you have all that and more to look forward to in the coming chapters! Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed, please leave me a comment to let me know!
Chapter 3: Waller's Angels vs The Enchantress and also Waller
Notes:
In this chapter, I've experimented with something known as "medias res" to give a sense of drama and distortion from the get-go. In other words, I started by stabbing our boi because if he's not grievously injured (physically or emotionally) then honestly what's the point?
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“Ren!” Harley shrieked.
Dick looked down to see the claws sticking out of his stomach. The pain hit him in waves; the first was slow and gentle as it washed over his whole body. Serum or not, impalement brought shock. Instincts carried him through it, forcing air in and out of his lungs even as his diaphragm spasmed and his body tried to rebel. The shock passed quickly, and Dick knew he’d done the right thing when the world pulled back into clarity.
The second wave of pain was sharp. He could feel the talons inside him, the sharp edges tearing through muscle and bone and everything else.
They picked their way through the city carefully and slowly, trying to avoid another fight. Flag’s route was well planned; it wasn’t possible to avoid every patrolling group of the nightmarish horrors, but they managed to pick off the smaller groups and the soldiers had figured out how to target their enemies to account for their aim.
The squad was staring at Dick in open-mouthed horror.
Killer Croc reached out a hand like he was trying to figure out how Dick was still on his feet. Dick pulled himself away before the reptilian hand could get near him and the spike of pain that shot through him was a typhoon that nearly knocked him off his feet.
“There’s more!” Katana shouted, alerting the group of soldiers at the back a few seconds too late. They were overrun in a matter of seconds and went down screaming.
It was quiet.
Deadshot was staring at him. Dick couldn’t see his face underneath the man’s mask, but his body language screamed shock. And confusion. And gratitude.
Dick should have felt anger. He shouldn’t have done it. His master would never have allowed him to, his master would have been delighted that Deadshot was dead but Dick had disobeyed the order that hadn’t even been given and he didn’t regret it.
The pain was probably punishment enough. His master wouldn’t have stabbed him in the stomach for disobeying, even that was too extreme. So even though his master wouldn’t be pleased, Dick had already paid for it.
Deadshot looked up a little too late, just in time to see the enemy he’d missed.
Dick shoved him out of the way hard enough to send the man flying. At the same time, his swords flashed through the air and sliced the creature into pieces… but not before wickedly sharp claws sliced through the spot Lawton had been standing, ripping through Dick’s armor and gouging into his side.
“Renegade,” Flag snapped his fingers, trying to catch Dick’s attention. Dick’s vision swam as he forced his head up. Despite the sharp tone, the soldier looked worried.
Dick opened his mouth to answer and blood spilled out. Internal bleeding. Not good, but Dick had been blown up the week before and was still standing. In a few hours he would be fine. Flag’s eyes widened in horror but before he could say anything, Dick braced himself.
He yanked the severed arm out, ripping the claws out of his stomach in a single, brutal motion. He clenched his teeth and fought back against the pain but he couldn’t stop the involuntary grunt as the last of the knife-like talons tore free from his skin.
He dropped the severed limb to the ground and bowed his head, fists clenched as his chest heaved up and down.
The squad was staring at him in horror.
“You—you’re bleeding!” Harley sputtered, the first one to break the silence. Her hands flew up to point out the obvious, in case Dick had somehow managed to miss the fact that the pink sinew of his muscles was hanging out of his body and his heart was pounding in overdrive to replace the blood that had gushed down his side. Or the pain.
The squad rushed forward suddenly but then they were gone.
“Give him some space!” Deadshot ordered and they all stepped back. Dick’s head spun and the world throbbed.
“ Tend the wounded, we can’t afford anymore losses this early,” Flag ordered. Half his men went running off, the other half stayed gathered in a loose circle around them, held back by Deadshot's outstretched arm.
“You saved my life. I thought I was done for sure,” Deadshot said, taking a step closer. Dick didn’t draw away, his eyes glued to the roll of bandages in his outstretched hand and Lawton took that as a cue to close the distance between them to hand Dick the medical supplies, “Thank you.”
Dick hesitated, looking down at the roll of bandages. He was fine. The serum was already closing the wounds and it hurt less and less to breathe with every second that passed. But they would heal faster and hurt a lot less if they were properly cleaned and wrapped, and Deadshot was offering to help. He hadn’t said it in as many words but he was.
“That’s a bad spot to wrap yourself,” Lawton said, gesturing with his free hand, but he didn’t make any attempt to get closer. He was right; Dick could do it, but it was going to hurt and from the angle he would need to reach, he would probably tear the wound further while trying to clean it. Especially with how muddy the pain was making his brain and how his mind kept fading in and out.
Dick took a deep breath, trying to focus on the pain to ground himself enough to answer.
“Do it.”
The words were short and felt like a betrayal, but nothing happened. There was no punishment for showing weakness or speaking without his master’s permission. And there wouldn’t be. Slade wasn’t here.
Slade wasn’t here.
“Hold still,” Lawton instructed, unraveling the bandage. Dick’s body locked up and it had nothing to do with the other mercenary. Slade wasn’t here.
Dick couldn’t breathe. The world seemed like it was spinning, the floor trembled like it was about to split underneath him. His master wasn’t here.
“That feel okay?” Lawton asked.
“Ren? Uh, Renegade? Are you…”
“Flag, something’s wrong.”
In the back of his mind, Dick could register the voices around him, could track the movements as the squad repositioned around him.
“The hell did you do?!” Flag demanded. A gloved hand waived in front of his face. Slade wasn’t here. Fingers snapped, the click echoing in his ears. Dick needed Slade. He was unraveling from the inside out without him. His head hurt, but not as badly as his chest ached, and his lungs were flailing uselessly because he couldn’t get enough air in.
“No one’s home,” Killer Croc said.
“I don’t know! He was fine and then he just—” Lawton’s voice was defensive until a new voice cut him off.
“Move over!” Harley snapped.
She was right in his space and if Dick had any control over his body he would’ve shoved her away as hard as he could. He didn’t want her near him—he didn’t want any of them near him. He needed his master, he needed to be with Slade and no one else. But Slade wasn’t here. Slade wasn’t here and it had been a week since the explosion and his master should have found him by now! And if he wasn’t here then there was only one explanation, which was that Slade really thought he was dead and there was no one—nothing to come back for.
“Hey, hey, hey, Ren. Renny, look at me,” Harley said soothingly, her voice full of worry that tightened Dick’s stomach until he couldn’t breathe. He was weak, and worse, they could all see it.
“Look at me.”
Her tone was sharper, the words hard and firm and commanding. Dick couldn’t stop himself from obeying the order on instinct; Slade had been drilling obedience into him since the day he kidnapped him and right now resisting any kind of authority was more than he had in him.
“What’s goin’ on?” The harsh tone was gone and that gut-wrenching look of concern was back. Dick took a deep breath, his hands shaking.
“I… haven’t been away from him for this long since… in six years.”
Harley’s face twisted, her mouth pulling back into a grim line and Dick braced himself for the unwanted pity. But that look wasn’t pity. It was just sadness.
“Shhhh, it’s okay. We’re gonna do some breathing, alright? Just follow with me, I’ll count for you, all you gotta do is breathe.”
Harley’s voice was a lifeline. Dick couldn’t understand it, but he grabbed on to it anyways, holding on to each of the numbers as she called them out, focusing on letting his chest rise and fall.
“That’s it, Renny. You’re okay. You’re fine.”
Fine? Fine?! Dick wasn’t fine, Slade wasn’t here!
“I need him,” Dick choked out. Harley put her hand on his shoulder and he stiffened like the touch burned him.
“Look, a little codependence is nothing to be ashamed of. I remember the first time Mista J and I split, I was just wasting away in Arkham thinking I was gonna die just from missin’ him. But I didn’t, and you’re not gonna either.”
“You don’t understand,” Dick shook his head frantically. She didn’t understand, he had to make her understand. “It’s my fault, I should’ve—”
“Tough shit, kid,” Harley interrupted. Her voice was suddenly hard as stone and it snapped him out of his panic. “There’s a bomb in your neck, you can’t go anywhere. Not your fault. If he wants you back, he can take it up with Waller.”
There was a bomb in his neck.
Slade didn’t want him to be numb, but Slade wasn’t here.
His master wasn’t here.
To get back to him, Dick just had to stay alive.
For now, he could be numb for that. Just to get the mission done.
He could pull himself back to his feet, dust off his weapons, and fall in line when Flag ordered them to move out.
He could stay quietly at the back of the pack and keep to himself while the serum slowly put him back together. He could eat the rations Harley brought him and answer Flag's terse check-ins and let Deadshot clean the bandages over his stomach as repayment for saving his life and just be numb and not think about how angry his master would have been if he knew about any of it.
But it didn't matter. All that mattered was that Dick was able to fight before Flag decided to cut him loose. And he did fight.
He fought his way through a building filled with even more of the demonic creatures, covering himself and picking off any threats that came near him without his mind ever really being there.
And after all that was over, he could let it all numbly wash past him as the rest of his squad uncovered the truth about their mission because it was nothing to him.
“Fuck this shit,” Harley snarled, getting right up in Flag’s face, “You expect us to come out and die for you when this is all that bitch Waller’s fault to begin with?! I might be a bloodthirsty psychopath but at least I don’t drag other people into cleaning up my messes!”
“The hell do you think you’re going?” Flag shouted.
“For a drink, shithead!” Lawton shot back, “Or are you gonna blow us to smithereens for that?!”
Flag didn’t move. Deadshot stormed into the bar across the street, and Captain Boomerang saluted the soldier cheerfully with his middle finger before following Lawton.
Killer Croc was right behind them but he turned back to fix Flag with a vicious snarl.
“One of the good guys?” the reptile scoffed, “Then I’m amphibian.”
Katana stepped up beside Flag and Dick thought the murderous look in her eye was about to be turned on them. But instead, she pushed roughly past Flag and followed the supervillains.
“You need to go have a fuckin’ word with your boss,” Harley jabbed Flag in the chest and the man didn’t even attempt to stop her. “You know where we’ll be when you figure your shit out.”
Harley turned to go and looked back over her shoulder.
“Come on, Ren,” Harley said.
But Dick didn’t move. He couldn’t risk it. Flag looked at him and sighed, his shoulders dropping.
“Go with them,” he ordered, like an admission of defeat.
Captain Boomerang was behind the bar when Dick followed Harley inside and as soon as he stepped through the door, the world jolted back to unsettling clarity. The restaurant was one of the only buildings that had survived unscathed, and after days of trudging around an apocalyptic wasteland and letting his mind fade in and out while his body healed, it stopped him dead in his tracks to be somewhere so... normal. So completely normal.
Of course, Dick hadn’t been to a restaurant in years. Not since the last solo contract Slade had sent him on.
Slade hadn’t let him out on his own in a long time and Dick had never been able to figure out what he’d done to mess up so badly. The mission had been a success; Dick’s performance had been exemplary. He was positive of that. But Slade never gave him an explanation, had simply beaten Dick to the ground the next time he’d requested to go out on his own and that had been that.
Dick had spent years trying to understand why Slade had changed his mind. He’d tried to let it go, but the few contracts he’d taken on his own had been some of the best days he’d had since… since before. They had been a chance to prove himself to his master, but more than that, they had been the only time he could make his own calls. The missions were his; a chance to make his master proud while also having just a tiny bit of breathing room from him.
Oh.
Dick stopped walking suddenly, dumbstruck with the realization. That was exactly why his master had forbidden him from going on solo missions. Because Dick wasn’t supposed to have autonomy; he couldn’t. He was a weapon and the only thing he was supposed to do was obey.
That was one mystery solved.
The clink of glass pulled his attention back to where Boomerang was setting out a line of shot glasses and grabbing bottles of booze from under the bar. He filled the line of shots and gestured for the squad to take them.
“Bottoms up,” he said, taking a swig straight from the bottle. The others each grabbed a shot and downed it. Dick didn’t move and as soon as he noticed, Digger pushed the last glass at Dick.
Dick shook his head.
“Come on, mate,” the Aussie insisted, “Those ribs are healed up fine and after today, we all need it.”
“I’m not old enough.”
There was silence. Then Harley let out a cackle, and soon the entire squad was laughing hysterically. Dick glared at the shot like he could make it explode just by looking at it.
“Sorry—sorry!” Harley gasped, “That’s just—Renny, that’s the saddest thing I ever heard.”
Killer Croc pushed the shot glass at him.
“Need a drink.”
Dick shouldn’t. But then again, refusing an order from a giant reptile monster had the potential to be a very bad idea. And Flag had told him to go with them to the bar, where he knew they’d be drinking. Besides, it wasn’t like Dick had never had alcohol before.
Slade had made sure he was capable of fighting with any number of intoxicants, hallucinogens or toxins in his system.
The burn felt good. The liquor felt like it was lighting a fire inside him that burned away the pain and the numbness. Two more shots and a calm settled over him, the tingling across his skin soothing the unrelenting horror of his master’s absence.
By the time he joined the others in being fully drunk, the alcohol had almost convinced him that everything would be okay. The panic and the pain and the desperation felt so far away, and it was so much different than just being numb and so much better, and so did Slade’s rules and he didn’t care about any of it. All he wanted was another shot and for Harley to put a hand in his hair again and Captain Boomerang to tell another story and for Flag to never come back and to just stay right here with his squad until Slade came back for him.
"You kinda remind me a someone," Harley slurred as she swirled her straw around and around in her glass, "Y'ever been to Gotham, Renny?"
Katana was looking at him a little too intently.
“You’re nineteen,” she finally said. Dick honestly wasn’t sure if it was supposed to be a question so he didn’t bother to answer.
Flag came back. Dick knew he would. Waller wasn't going to let them go, not for anything.
Slade wasn't here.
Stay alive. That's all that mattered.
“Why’s it always gotta be bloody wizards?” Boomerang grumbled, and Dick agreed with him.
“I can give you what you truly desire,” the Witch crooned, her voice a nearly silent whisper in the back of his mind and a deafening boom in his ears. The world around him seemed to shimmer and then he was standing in very familiar room filled with sunlight and plants and books and plush lounge chairs. He looked down and saw green and red and yellow in place of his black and orange uniform. There was laughter around him, a tall, broad-shouldered man slinging his arm across the shoulders of a teenaged boy with dark hair and crooked teeth. A girl with red hair called something out to them but he couldn’t hear it, couldn’t understand a word of what was happening.
He didn’t understand. Where was Slade? This wasn’t what he wanted, the only thing he wanted was his master.
“You could be free of him,” the Enchantress whispered in his mind, and he could feel the moment that a tendril of power stroked across the crack in his chest. Dick dropped to his knees as the power pulsed and emotions exploded out, grief and rage and desperation and hopelessness and terror and fear and exhaustion and love pouring through him, forcing him face to face with the things he’d been forced to bury.
The man turned towards Dick and he could see the black and yellow emblem on his chest.
A bat.
Dick stumbled back, fear thrumming through his entire body as he scrambled away.
“You don’t belong to the Bat,” Slade’s hand cracked along his cheek and Dick’s head spun from the force of the blow. The grip holding him up dropped him to the floor and Dick cried out as his cracked ribs screamed in pain. Heavy footsteps slammed along the floor and Dick desperately tried to pull himself out of their path, crawling in a pathetic, doomed attempt to get away. Slade’s boot landed on his back and Dick sobbed as he pushed down, the sudden intense pressure an agonizing weight on his broken body. “You belong to me.”
“Never,” Dick hissed, forcing himself free of the Enchantress’ magical hold, “I belong to my master."
“Ren, heads up!” Deadshot shouted and Dick took a second to process the fact that he was the last one to break himself free of the Witch's spell and more importantly, that he was really back this time. There was no way to know how else the magic had fucked up his head but he'd been numb for days and that wasn't allowed, Dick couldn't let himself lose any more time.
With one shake of his head, Dick was moving into position for Deadshot's throw. He sprinted at Killer Croc, using his momentum to run up the reptilian’s back and launched himself into the air. One hand shot out, grabbing onto a piece of the debris orbiting above the sorceress’ head, swinging him through the air into the perfect position. His other hand unsheathed his sword. Time seemed to slow down. The Enchantress screamed, the room crackled with electricity and the smell of ozone filled the air, his squadmates shouted and grunted and smashed and hacked and ripped through the circle of minions surrounding them, and the cloth-wrapped heart sailed through the air. Dick’s sword flashed silver as it buried itself deep. A shockwave of power slammed out, knocking Dick out of the air and throwing the entire room back as the Enchantress screamed her last.
Dick rolled to an effortlessly smooth landing, the heart still impaled on the end of his blade. As he watched, it crumpled into dust and blew away in a gust of mysterious wind.
“That’s that dealt with, then,” Captain Boomerang clapped his hands together to brush of the dust and dirt and grime and ooze.
Harley popped up at his side, reaching up on her tiptoes to mess up Dick’s hair.
“You are one badass kid, Renny,” she beamed.
Armored trucks were on site by the time they made it back outside, helicopters and searchlights illuminating the area overhead until it was so bright the night might as well have been day. These were the cleanup crews that Waller and her sponsors had prepared to clean up whatever mess had been left behind.
Flag was nowhere to be seen; he and his men had rushed the Enchantress’s host onto a stretcher and they’d all disappeared in the direction of the nearest Medivac. But there was someone else waiting for them.
Waller crossed her arms over her chest and strolled out the meet the squad with every bit of the confident arrogance Dick remembered.
“I can’t say I expected you all to survive, but there’s no denying that your methods were effective. The United States thanks you, both for your service and for ensuring that there is a force capable of responding to future significant threats.”
It took Dick a few seconds to realize what she was saying, but Deadshot was already stepping forward, a loaded weapon in each hand.
“You cannot be serious,” Lawton ground out. “You are not taking us back to lockup after the shit you just put us through.”
“You were informed of the arrangement and were made aware of the risks,” Waller answered calmly. She didn’t look phased in the slightest by the danger of a pissed-off Deadshot, but then again, she did have a bomb in his neck to ensure that he wouldn’t shoot.
“Yeah, the risks that came from cleaning up your mess!” Harley shot back. One of the heavily armed guards tried to grab her arm and she slapped him away. “Hands off!”
“You can take it up with your lawyer, Quinn. In the meantime, we have a massive cleanup to undertake and you all have somewhere else to be. Now are you going to come quietly or does this need to get ugly?”
Waller’s guards had them all surrounded, minimum three for each. Dick’s heart started to pound a little too fast, his eyes flicking around to each of the ten men approaching him. He could take them all, he still had two loaded guns and one of his swords and it wouldn’t take more than a few seconds for him to kill them all, but there was a bomb in his neck and he’d be dead the instant he moved.
“Put your weapons on the ground and put your hands behind your back,” the guard in front ordered. Dick couldn’t breathe. The mission had only taken few days, but it felt like it had been a lifetime since the warden had made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. The offer that he’d get ten years off his eventual sentence if he made it back. If he made it back to prison. Where Slade wasn’t going to rescue him from, because he thought Dick was dead.
They were throwing him back in solitary, and Dick could either go quietly or Waller would blow his head off.
Dick’s heart pounded, horror blooming in his chest. He was going into solitary.
Permanently.
“Hang on, you can’t fucking—” Boomerang shouted as the guards manhandled him to the ground and cuffed his arms tightly behind his back. He thrashed helpless as they started dragging him to one of the many prisoner transport vans that was waiting to deliver them back to Belle Reve. “We had a fucking deal! We had a fucking deal, you bloody cunt!!!”
Waller met his eyes calmly.
“We did have a deal. Successful completion of this mission in exchange for a reduction on each of your sentences, which have already been processed. As far as I’m concerned, everything’s settled. You’ll be contacted if we have need of your services again.”
Dick knew he would’ve been trembling if his body hadn’t been frozen in terror at the looming threat of isolation. The warden’s face was cold, her expression unforgiving, and he knew there was as much of a chance of her showing mercy as Slade would’ve.
Still, Slade liked when he begged. Maybe Waller did too.
Waller looked at him and Dick met her eyes, allowing the terror to show on his face. It killed him to show his enemy weakness, but if it worked…
“Please.”
Dick’s voice was a whimper and he had no control over how shaky he sounded. For one glorious, cruel second, surprise crossed Waller’s face and he felt the slightest glimmer of hope. But then it was gone.
“Take them away,” Waller ordered.
Notes:
In case you're wondering, the person that Renegade reminds Harley of is Batman.
Anyways, the day is saved, the squad all made it back to Belle Reve safe and sound, and all is well. Oh and Dick is going to be in solitary confinement for two months. Haha fun, right?
Good night everyone, I'm gonna go to bed now. If you liked this chapter or you like this fic, leave a comment and let me know that you want to see more. The plan for this series has grown to be about six fics long and I'd love to have to motivation to actually finish them all and put them up for you guys.
Chapter 4: Welcome to the Club
Notes:
When we last left off, Waller was throwing Dick in solitary. Spoiler alert, he's not doing too well. And Waller is honestly a little bit disturbed by the fact that the ruthlessly cold-blooded mercenary with over three hundred confirmed kills has turned out to be a thoroughly brainwashed nineteen year old who has had multiple panic attacks and dissociative episodes in the span of like four days, and despite that, is perfectly capable of following orders in the middle of either one.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Dick pounded at the door, throwing himself against it and ignoring the throbbing pain in his arms. Slade liked when Dick begged. He liked pushing Dick to his breaking point and forcing him past it until Dick was desperate and frantic enough to do anything for the punishment to end. Dick didn’t remember what the punishment was for this time, but he’d been stuck in the room for weeks, the only break in the silence when the slot in the door slid open to deliver and remove trays of food and clean clothes.
He’d been screaming for what felt like days, slammed his fists against the door and the walls so hard for so long that his right wrist had snapped. His healing factor would take care of it so long as he kept it properly set, but Slade wouldn’t forgive him for permanently injuring himself. So for the past day, Dick had been forced to throw himself against the door instead, painting his shoulders and arms with deep purple and black bruises that began to fade as soon as they appeared.
“Master, please!” his voice was a desperate sob as he frantically slammed himself into the door loud enough that Slade would be able to hear it no matter where in the base he was, “Please! I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, master please, please…”
He begged and screamed and sobbed until his voice gave out, his vocal cords shredded and raw until it hurt so badly he physically couldn’t make any more sound come out. And after a few minutes of quiet tears slumped against the door, the serum had knit him back together enough to keep going.
He couldn’t remember how many times the cycle had continued by the time he heard noise coming from the hallway outside. It felt like hours by the time the footsteps got close enough to unlock the door and it slowly opened and—Dick’s heart stopped.
That wasn’t Slade in the doorway, it was… it was…
The man frowned, and something about him screamed familiarity but Dick had been trapped in a nightmare of isolation and confusion for so long that his brain refused to put the pieces together. He said something to the guard closest to him, but Dick didn’t bother listening to what it was.
There was an opening and Dick took it, bolting for the door. But the guards were ready, and despite how much the serum enhanced his already impressive strength and agility, he’d been locked up and malnourished for so long that it was laughably easy for the three guards to subdue him. They dragged him back inside the cell, holding him still as the first man considered Dick carefully.
Dick shook in their grip, fighting against his panicking brain to figure out a way to escape. But he was outnumbered and completely unarmed and in unfamiliar territory and there was no sign of Slade and Dick was so confused and lost it made his head spin.
“Do you know where you are?” the man asked in a firm voice. Dick wanted to spit at him, because of course he knew where he was, he was in his cell and Slade was punishing him for something Dick had done wrong but as soon as he’d had the thought, he felt nauseous and off-balance. Something was wrong about all of this. Slade wasn’t here. Why wasn’t Slade here?
He looked down at himself and realized suddenly that he wasn’t wearing his uniform or any of the clothes Slade had given him. He was in a light brown jumpsuit that screamed standard issue, a set of numbers printed on one side of his chest. And now that he was actually looking instead of desperately screaming and begging in the hopes of Slade taking mercy on him, he realized that the walls were all wrong. This wasn’t his cell.
“Where’s… where’s Slade?” he demanded, too confused and lost to even begin to care that he was showing weakness, “Where am I?”
“You’re in prison,” the man answered calmly and the words rattled around Dick’s skull, “You were arrested three months ago. My name is Rick Flag.”
Flag. Flag. The name sounded familiar, and the words sounded right but they couldn’t be. That was impossible. Dick couldn’t have been arrested because that would mean Slade wasn’t here and that was… that wasn’t possible. Dick was Slade’s. He needed to be with Slade, anything else was unacceptable. But the man was telling the truth. But that didn’t make sense.
“Why do I know you?” Dick pleaded, desperate for answers that would make his brain stop spinning.
“After you were arrested, you were put on Task Force X under my lead.”
Dick’s hand rose to his neck unconsciously. The guards holding him tried to stop him, but Flag shook his head and they released him. The skin under Dick’s hand felt normal, but his stomach sank like a dead weight. He didn’t know why, but the answers were dancing at the edge of his brain, just barely beyond reach. Flag frowned.
“There’s a bomb in your neck. It was the Warden’s insurance to make sure that the members of the task force wouldn’t attempt to escape.”
There was a bomb.
There was a bomb in his neck.
Waller would kill him with the push of a button if he stopped cooperating, if he so much as twitched at the thought of escaping. Escaping and going back to Slade, who thought he was dead. Slade thought he was dead.
The world snapped back to clarity, Dick’s thoughts suddenly righting themselves as if a switch had been flipped.
“How long?” Dick whispered, terrified by the answer. Long enough that he’d completely lost himself, long enough that the days and nights had turned into an endless nightmare, long enough that his desperate brain had gone back to what it knew best.
“You’ve been in solitary for two and a half months.”
Dick froze, horror unfurling in the pit of his stomach. The longest Slade had ever left him alone was twelve days after the first and only time Dick had disobeyed a kill order. Since the day Slade let him out, Dick had never even hesitated.
“I’ve been trying to negotiate with Waller for your release into gen pop, and she’s finally agreed to remove you from solitary. I want to get you out of here; this is cruel and you don’t deserve it. But I need you to help me help you, John.”
Dick flinched back violently, his father’s name hitting him like a knife to the chest.
“Renegade,” Flag corrected, a look of apology twisting over his features, “If you agree to answer some questions for me, Waller will have you moved out of solitary. You’ll still have your own cell, but you’ll get yard time, meals in the mess hall, and with enough cooperation I will get you moved into gen pop.”
Dick’s hands shook at the offer.
“What kind of questions?” he asked quietly, terror spiking through him at the thought of giving up anything on Slade.
Flag sighed at his reaction.
“We need something real from you, kid. I’m sorry, it’s pretty clear you’re scared shitless to tell us anything, but we have to do this on Waller’s terms or you’re not going anywhere.”
Dick shivered, but Flag was wrong. He wasn’t scared of Slade, he was scared of the fact that he was weak. Flag pitied him. Even Waller pitied him if she was seriously willing to negotiate for his release. He was scared of what would happen when Slade came back and saw how pathetic he was. Barely three months away from his master and Dick was a quivering wreck, willing to throw away all of his master’s teachings and beg for something as pathetic as being let out of a room. Dick had been shot, starved, beaten, burned, blown up, drowned, disemboweled, whipped, flayed and flat-out tortured for information and he’d stayed strong and made his master proud. Yet here he was. Desperate for the release Flag was offering.
He was pathetic. His master would be disgusted. For what felt like weeks, Dick had been pounding on the door of his cell, begging and screaming for his master to free him, had been out of his mind with desperation to earn his master’s forgiveness. But he’d been wrong. His master wasn’t here. He would come for him, Dick knew he would be back for him someday because he HAD to, but he wasn’t here now.
The cell was quiet.
Finally, Flag took pity on him and started talking again.
“Let’s start basic. We know you’re nineteen, you told Harley you hadn’t been away from him in six years. By my count, that means you’ve worked for Deathstroke since you were thirteen—”
Worked for?
“No,” Dick interrupted. His hands were trembling and as much as he hated himself for the show of weakness, he couldn’t make them stop. He shouldn’t be saying this. He shouldn’t be saying anything at all, let alone things that Slade would be furious at him for voicing out loud, but Slade knew how desperate isolation made him. Slade knew Dick would do anything to make it stop, to just not be alone. The list of Dick’s sins was too long to remember now, this would just be a tiny blip on the radar. Slade wouldn’t hold this one tiny slip against him. “I don’t work for Sl… Deathstroke.”
Flag raised an eyebrow, dubious and judgmental.
“Then how would you describe it?”
Dick swallowed. It should have been easy to say. Slade had beaten the words into him years ago, carved them into his very being with bloody beatings and brutal punishments—and then with gentle, comforting touches and warm, glowing words of praise when the lessons finally started to sink in.
For years, the words had just been a truth. A plain and simple fact, something as obvious as day. And in bed, when it was just Slade’s hands on him, Slade taking and giving and touching until Dick burned, they were his lifeline. They made everything better and so much worse and every time Dick thought he would fall apart under the weight of it all, they held him together.
It was a truth Dick had embraced years ago. But staring at Flag, he hesitated. His tongue felt heavy and his chest tightened and suddenly he couldn’t make a sound. For all that Dick hated Waller, despised her for taking him from Slade and putting a bomb in his neck and locking him in isolation, he respected Flag. He’d been handed a squad of insane maniacs and lunatics and somehow held them together long enough to defy all the odds on an impossible mission. And he respected Dick too. Dick… didn’t want that to change. But if Dick wanted any chance of Flag keeping his word to get him out of solitary, he had to give him something.
“I belong to him.”
Silence hung in the air. Nobody wrote anything down and Dick knew with absolute certainty that ever word was being recorded.
“How did you meet Deathstroke?” Flag asked calmly.
Dick tried to answer, but he couldn’t. Slade had been toying with the Titans—toying with him—long before they ever knew he existed. But telling Flag any of that would be revealing secrets that Slade would truly never forgive him for.
He just shook his head.
“Is Wilson your father?”
“No!”
The word burst out of Dick’s mouth before he could stop it.
“Do you have any family?”
Family? Slade was his family. His only family. His master was the only thing in the world that mattered to him. Nothing from Dick’s life before Slade was of any consequence, all that mattered was being a good weapon for his master.
Suddenly, all Dick could remember was the fire in his younger self’s eyes all those months (and years) ago when he’d been caught in that time-displacement blast. He’d doomed himself and struck the final blow to the hope that refused to sizzle out. But the boy in the cell had made a mark on him too; the crack in his armor was growing, bit by bit. No matter how hard Dick tried to push the feelings back down, they kept returning.
Despite his every instinct screaming at him, Dick nodded.
“Do they know where you are?”
“No,” Dick’s voice trembled. “I’ve been dead for a long time.”
Flag watched for a while but he didn’t break the silence. Finally, he said, “Tell me the cities you’ve been to. That’s all. No specifics, just any city you can remembering going with him.”
Dick… could do that. No names, no dates, no specifics, just the places Slade had taken him. Even if they had suspicions, just the confirmation that Deathstroke had been in the city wouldn’t be enough evidence to pin anything on him.
Flag listened quietly, paying rapt attention to every word Dick listed off. When he was done, Flag nodded and gave Dick a serious nod and the approval sent a wave of relief through him as much as it sent his heart pounding into overdrive. They’d made a deal, and Dick held up his end so now Flag would hold up his—
“Thank you, Renegade. I can work with this.”
Flag made a motion as if he was preparing to leave and panic surged in his chest as a choked-sound escaped Dick’s mouth.
“You said—”
“I made you a promise,” Flag cut him off solemnly, “Waller has to sign off on it, and the instant she does, I will pull you out. The end is in sight, you have my word.”
The next thirty-six hours were the longest of Dick’s life, and that was well and truly saying something. When the sound of footsteps returned, Dick was half-convinced it was just a hallucination. But then the door was opening and there was no sign of Flag but the lead guard held the door open and made a gesture for Dick to move out of the cell.
“Up and at ‘em, Doe,” the guard called.
They led Dick to a shower block and he showered as quickly as he could; even though the water was cold and the soap was so slimy it was nearly unusable, it felt incredible to finally get clean. The sink in his cell just didn’t cut it.
Flag was waiting for him when the guards led Dick back out into the hallway. Dick froze at the sight of him, the rush of desperate emotions that had been swirling around in his head ever since the guards opened the door solidifying into a hard ball in his chest. He tried to say something; Flag had kept his word and gotten him out but his tongue stuck against the roof of his mouth and his eyes itched and Dick realized with more than a little shock that he was on the brink of tears. His jaw locked shut, teeth clamping down so hard that they cut off the tip of his tongue.
The pain was good. It grounded him, along with the sharp tang of iron filling his mouth. It was bad enough that he’d had to buy his release with Slade’s secrets, he had to get control of himself or his master would never be able to look at him the same way again when he finally came for him.
“You’ve got laundry duty,” Flag told him. “Keep your head down, stay out of trouble, and above all else, do not give Waller any reason to put you back where you came from. Do you understand?”
Dick nodded, still unable to make himself speak.
“Good. I’m sticking my neck out for you, kid. Don’t make me regret this.”
Dick didn’t answer him but his stomach twisted over on itself. He was grateful; so far he’d only seen the shower block and a few hallways, but it was infinitely better than being trapped in isolation. He just didn’t understand why Flag was doing any of this.
And he also didn't know what Flag saw on his face that made the man add, “Don’t kill anyone.”
“Is that an order?” Dick’s voice was a whisper, his heart pounding like a drum beat.
“Yes,” Flag’s face was cold, harsh lines set into it suddenly. Relief flooded over Dick at the single word, while the pit in his stomach loosened. He’d been explicitly ordered not to kill anyone, under any circumstances. When Slade found him, Dick would be able to explain away his behavior, to promise Slade that he’d only thrown away Slade’s teachings and training in order to guarantee he’d stay alive long enough to get back to his master.
But what it really meant was that as long as Dick was in Waller’s clutches, he didn’t have to kill. And Flag had just given him the only excuse he’d ever need to justify it.
Dick couldn’t stop himself from looking up at Flag in gratitude.
“Thank you.”
Flag was staring at him with an unreadable expression. Then he asked a question that made Dick blink.
“What’s your body count?”
“I… I don’t know.”
“Give me your best ballpark.”
Dick thought back to all the lives he’d ever taken and a chill ran down his spine. He’d sworn to himself that he would keep count. And at first, he had. He remembered every single one of them. But the years dragged on and his count racked up higher and higher until he really, truly couldn’t keep track of them all.
But he tried to think of how many it was, and Flag frowned when he told him the number.
“How many since the hospital?”
That, Dick did know.
“Thirty-eight.”
“And not counting monsters?”
There’d been the cop at the hospital. Dick had stolen his gun and then… no. He hadn’t. So that meant…
Dick froze.
Flag hadn't said anything else to him until he steered him to the door to the laundry room and turned to go.
“Stay out of trouble, kid.”
Dick’s second day in the mess hall, a group of prisoners approached him.
“I heard they just let you out of solitary,” their leader said, “But I know you’re new around here and that sort of treatment is usually reserved for the worst kinds of fuckers, so what’d you do to get put away so fast?”
Dick paused mid-bite, thinking through his options as he took in the newest threat. All but one of them wore the inhibitor collars that marked them as metahumans and given that he didn’t recognize any of them, they were all small-time criminals at best. Their strength was in numbers alone and they knew it; without his armor or his towering Master at his side to strike fear, Dick looked small, unassuming, and like a perfect target to anyone stupid enough to underestimate him. The men were curious about him, but that curiosity only came out of boredom. He wanted to be left alone, which meant he needed them to understand there wasn’t going to be any entertainment that came out of bothering him.
“Two hundred and ninety-seven counts of manslaughter,” Dick said quietly. There was a pause before the man let out a laugh that was all bravado, as if Dick couldn’t hear the discomfort behind it.
“What, couldn’t hit two hundred ninety-eight?” the man challenged.
Dick looked up at him with blank eyes and a small smile that he knew would unnerve anyone that saw it.
“Are you offering?”
It was a threat and it wasn't. There was no heat behind the words, no promise of following through, it was just a show of the fact that nothing the man had said stuck, and that Dick wouldn't rise to the bait if he tried again.
“C’mon.”
As they walked away, Dick did his very best to ignore how closely all the guards were watching him. Flag’s warning echoed in his head; if he stuck a single toe out of line, Waller would make sure he never saw the outside of a cell ever again.
Three-and-a-half weeks after his release from solitary, Waller summoned her Suicide Squad again.
“Renny!” Harley exclaimed, throwing her arms around him as soon as the guards escorted him through the door. Dick stiffened but after months of isolation, all the fear of Slade finding out he’d let someone else touch him was overwhelmed by sheer desperation for human contact. His arms twitched at his sides as he couldn’t bring himself to hug the woman back, but he relaxed into her grip, his eyes squeezing shut as he buried his face into the crook of her neck.
“It’s good to see you, mate,” Digger put a hand on his shoulder, shaking him once in camaraderie. Lawton nodded at him, a real smile on his face but he didn’t try to touch him. Dick was grateful for that; Slade wouldn’t forgive him for letting a man he hated as much as Deadshot lay so much as a finger on him, no matter the circumstances.
Waller entered the room without fanfare and instantly the room grew cold. Waller regarded them all sternly, her gaze pausing on Dick for a brief moment before it hardened and moved on to Killer Croc. She moved to the front of the room and did an about-face before nodding at the guards by the door. After a few seconds, a line of guards wheeled their new squad mates in. Dick was privately grateful that they'd let the old members walk themselves in; he hated being immobilized. He also hated being grateful to Waller for anything and that list was starting to add up.
“Oooh! We got some fresh meat!” Harley squealed, clapping her hands and jumping up and down. Dick watched her out of the corner of his eye, wondering if the mania was an act to unnerve their new squad mates, or if it was just the genuine result of months of isolation. Either way, he didn’t blame her.
“Fresh meat?” Killer Croc repeated hopefully, looking up at the prisoners with a hungry look in his eye.
“Not that kind of meat, mate,” Boomerang patted him on the arm.
Waller cleared her throat.
“Introductions—”
“Ooh, me, me!” Harley jumped in, “I’m Harley Quinn. Doctor, Harley Quinn. I use she/her, I’m a Libra, I like drinkin’ margaritas and taking long walks on the beach.”
“Quinn, stuff it,” Waller snapped before introducing their new members and explaining the rules. There were five of them this time. Doubling the size of the squad was a bold choice, but honestly that was nothing surprising from what he knew about Waller. It was more than a little worrying if she thought that the mission was dangerous enough to require twice the firepower.
(She’d only sent five last time and that Witch had torn an entire city to shreds and spit out its bones)
Instead of paying attention while Waller explained the bombs she’d just injected the new members with, Dick took a headcount.
He recognized all of them; Slade made sure he was familiar with anyone they might go up against. There was Killer Frost and El Diablo, and that could get messy if their personalities meshed as poorly as their powers. Then Bronze Tiger and the Electrocutioner, neither had powers but the former had fought Lady Shiva to a standstill and the latter was a brilliant engineer with a truly nasty streak. The last was Magpie, a common thief with no qualms about killing anyone that got between her and a score.
Ten psychopaths, maniacs, and homicidal freaks, all stuck together with bombs in their neck. What could go wrong?
“So what’s the mission this time?”
The transport van pulled to a stop, and instantly the whole atmosphere tensed. Dick felt his heart stop as Flag frowned, climbing out of the van to meet Waller. The Warden was standing in the yard, just like she had been when her suicide squad had emerged triumphant from their first mission. Right before her guards had dragged Dick away and thrown him to rot in solitary for months.
They’d lost two members. Magpie had been crushed when the building collapsed, Tiger had sacrificed himself to get the rest of them out. Dick had heard the crunch of bones under a thousand tons of steel and concrete and the single scream she’d released, and there was no room for doubt that the woman was dead. Bronze Tiger… Dick almost hoped he was too. Waller wouldn’t fall for a fake act of sacrifice, unless he’d managed to strike a deal with her, the warden would’ve used her failsafe to make sure none of Task Force X’s mess came back to bite her.
Dick was braced for the worst. But he clung to the hope that Flag would keep his word, that he'd meant it when he promised Dick he would keep him out of solitary.
Waller opened her mouth and Dick flinched. But then he processed what she'd said.
“You did good work. In recognition of the death toll your actions averted, I’m moving you all out of solitary. And, there will be facilities made available to you to train as a squad to better prepare for your next mission. I will only warn you once; if any of you does anything to make me regret this, you will all be back in solitary before you can blink. Am I understood?”
“Yes ma’am!” Harley cheered, grinning and hopping up and down as she clapped her hands.
Waller disappeared inside the prison, and when the rest of the squad began to go in behind her, their mood was markedly more cheerful.
“Ren,” Flag’s voice stopped him from following the rest of the squad inside. Dick turned before stepping to the side where the man was waiting for him. He waited until Killer Croc had disappeared inside before pulling something out of his gear bag and handing it to Dick. “Here.”
Dick took the walkie-talkie, eyebrows furrowing in confusion.
“What’s this for?”
“Harley has the other,” Flag started, and the faint stirrings of hope that Slade had tracked him down, that Flag had been waiting for the right moment to help his master take him back, that Dick was getting out of here all died in his chest. But there was another, much smaller and deeper buried part of him that felt… exactly the opposite.
The device was a heavy block of plastic and polymer, the kind of standard issue tech that had been all the rage before personal comms had become the superior choice.
“Now these will be monitored at all times, and I don’t think I need to remind you that Waller can and will have these confiscated for anything beyond their intended use. But she agreed that you needed someone to talk to, and I think Harley is good for you.”
“…why?” Dick’s heart pounded in his chest.
“You don’t do well with isolation, kid. And even if you did, you don’t deserve to be locked up like that.”
“That…” Dick’s head spun, trying to process what Flag was saying because he was wrong, Dick did deserve to be locked up if Slade felt he did. And if he deserved isolation, then he did deserve it and Flag was wrong. Besides, this was Waller’s prison. She made that call, not Flag, no matter how much the older man wanted it otherwise. “That’s not how it works.”
He could hear how pathetic he sounded, his chest tightening in fear at the show of weakness. But Flag didn’t pounce. He just sighed.
“If it wasn’t for Deathstroke, would you be here right now?”
Would he be here? Locked up in Belle Reve for a tiny fraction of the crimes he’d committed at Slade’s side?
He almost laughed.
If it wasn’t for Slade… he would still be a Titan. Would still be Robin. He would still be at Batman’s side, he would still be Bruce’s son instead of Deathstroke’s property.
“No,” Dick answered, clear as day. Flag nodded once, pushing the walkie-talkie back towards Dick.
“This way, you always have someone to talk to.”
"Alright, now that we're all here, I give to you all your new training room," Flag said, gesturing to the room around them, “Despite the odds, you’ve all hung around long enough that Waller decided it was worth the investment to build training facilities.”
“Private mess hall? Now you’re talkin’!” Boomerang grinned, rubbing his hands together in anticipation as he took in the tables and benches against the wall on the side of the room closest to them. Dick's attention was caught by the sparring mat taking up a quarter of the large room, and the shooting range at the back that took up even more.
“I like it,” the Electrocutioner nodded, crossing his arms over his chest.
“It’s nice digs,” Deadshot agreed. Dick agreed with him too. For a facility inside a prison, it was extremely well equipped. Dick was most definitely looking forward to having a space to train away from the prying eyes of Belle Reve's general population.
“It’s like our own little Batcave,” Harley wiggled her eyebrows, “All it’s missing is the giant playing card and the T-rex.”
Dick stiffened like she’d punched him in the stomach, dizzying nausea flooding his entire body. His spine went numb, tingles traveling all the way down until he couldn’t feel his fingers or his hands or his arms or his feet or his legs or anything. The shadows in the corners stood out against the bright fluorescents, the darkness spreading until he could hear the steady “drip…drip…drip” of water off the stalactites and the fluttering wings and high-pitched screeches of the bats high overhead.
“No way you’ve been to the Batcave,” Captain Boomerang rolled his eyes.
“Have too!” Harley grinned, “Batsy’s got it filled with all kindsa—"
“No.” Dick growled.
That wasn’t his place anymore. The boy who’d once been at home amongst the shadows, the lightness to balance the Knight’s dark, was dead. Homesickness wasn’t allowed—it wasn’t possible. Because that wasn’t his home, his home was at his master’s feet.
Horror bloomed in his stomach, something in his chest tightening until it was agony to breathe. His eyes burned and worse than all of that, Dick could feel his face heating up despite his desperate efforts to control himself.
He wasn’t supposed to disagree, he was a weapon for his master and nothing more.
The squad was staring at him with varying degrees of concern, from the guards’ training their sights on him to Flag with an arm outstretched to hold them back. The part of his brain that was trained to always pay attention to his surroundings saw Flag nod at Harley, catalogued her slow and gentle approach, and pulled himself backwards as she tried to put a hand on his shoulder.
“Hey, you’re right. It’s not much of a cave in here, it’s really more like a… clubhouse. Yeah?”
Dick didn’t answer.
“Ren, look at me,” her voice was firmer, but not quite an order. Dick looked at her anyways, focusing everything else he had on keeping count over his breaths. Slade never minded his panic attacks once Dick was trained well enough to obey orders even with his mind disconnected from everything else, so Dick had no choice but to learn to pull himself out of them on his own. “It’s just a clubhouse, right?”
A clubhouse. That was fine… no, that was… Dick… liked that.
He nodded slowly.
“It’s our own little clubhouse,” Harley repeated.
The numbness followed Dick through the rest of the tour. He followed behind Killer Croc to the mess hall, ate his allotted meal in stiff motions, made his way to the laundry room and set to work on the tasks assigned to him with all the precision and grace of a robot.
The Batcave always smelled like mineral water. Deep below ground there was always a natural chill, but the strategically placed heaters and titanium support walls made sure the temperature was always comfortable. As a child, Dick had adored how the sparring rooms and the infirmary and the crime lab gave way to the natural rock, the Batcomputer nestled in the center of the cave like a showpiece.
He tried to shove the feelings down but the crack in his chest was bigger than ever and he couldn’t force it away before it was back. Things he hadn’t thought about in… memories kept drifting in the harder he tried to push them away.
“Good work, chum,” Batman’s gravelly voice was warm and the gloved hand patting his back in approval had made Dick feel like he was flying.
He’d… Dick had… Dick had loved Bruce so much. Bruce never tried to be his dad, had promised Dick over and over and over that he never wanted to replace John Grayson, but Dick had known even then that there was enough room inside him to love Bruce like a father too.
Worse than remembering how much he loved him was remembering how much they’d fought. By the time he’d run off, Bruce had been a constant source of frustration, and a source of rage at the worst of it. But he’d always loved him and respected him and wanted Bruce’s approval. Moving away to Jump had been their compromise, a way for Dick to reach the independence he’d been chasing and a way for Bruce to prove that he trusted him.
Dick sat on the ground, his back resting against the bedframe, curling his arms around his legs and squeezing like it would keep him from falling apart even as some far-off part of his brain catalogued the fact that he was back in his cell. He despised himself for showing weakness; the guards outside and the cameras inside could see everything, but it was a habit that he couldn’t break himself from.
In all his years with Slade, his cell had always been his sanctuary just as much as it was his prison.
The blanket of numbness was slipping away the harder he tried to hold onto it. For once, the void in his chest was in agreement with the rest of him. Dick shouldn’t be numb. His master didn’t want Dick to be an unfeeling machine, he wanted all of Dick for himself. But Slade wasn’t here and with every day Dick spent away from him, he could feel himself slipping further and further away from the perfect weapon his master wanted him to be.
Dick was falling apart. He was being ripped apart from the inside out, the things inside of him bursting free with all their might without Slade there to help him keep them buried. It hurt. It hurt so badly to remember all the things he’d spent so long forgetting but they weren’t his anymore and he didn’t want them. He wanted to push them out, he wanted to empty himself out and let the numb emptiness wash over him until his master somehow found him and took him back, or until Waller decided to push the button and end it once and for all. But he couldn’t do that—even if the grief in his chest made it impossible, his master had forbidden him from letting himself check out for good.
He knew what he needed to do, but it hurt. It hurt too badly and Dick was so alone and he wasn’t strong enough to do it by himself. He missed his master; he needed Slade, he wanted him so badly that he wished he could just fall over dead so he didn’t have to go another second without his master there. He wanted Slade’s arms around him, he wanted to be surrounded by the scent of gunpowder and blood, he wanted rough, calloused hands running over his skin as Slade pulled the emotions and the memories and everything else out of him with nothing but cruel, loving, beautiful, horrible words.
“Ren?” The walkie-talkie by the door crackled with static, Harley’s voice coming through softly. It was still untouched from where Dick had left it the day Flag had given it to him.
“Harley,” Dick breathed, feeling numbness crawling up his throat like icicles, “I need…”
His voice cut off and his chest rose and fell in a frantic rhythm. The radio in his hand fell to the floor and Dick didn’t remember even having picking it up in the first place. It hurt. It hurt. It hurt so bad and all he wanted was Slade and Slade wasn’t here and Dick was seized with the desperation to grab himself by the throat and crush his own windpipe because his master was all that Dick needed in the whole world and he was gone and Dick couldn’t breathe without him and all he wanted was for the endless pain to stop. But that wasn’t his choice to make; it never would be. Dick was Slade’s property. Killing himself would be stealing from his master and Dick would never, EVER betray his master like that.
Besides, with his healing factor, it wouldn’t even work.
“Ren? You still there?” Harley’s voice was louder now, more confident and she didn’t stop there. The next words were practically an order, “Talk to me, Renny.”
Dick didn’t know how he managed to pull the device back into his hands or press the button, and he would never, ever know how he got the next words out.
“It hurts,” he whimpered.
Notes:
Awwww look Dick is reaching out and asking for help from his support network! I'm so proud of him <3 Thank you for reading, please be sure to leave me a comment if you're enjoying it!
If you're not subscribed to this series, make sure to check out the next work Pyre, which is a prequel surrounding the events of Robin's "death." It's both dramatic and traumatic and I highly recommend you check it out.
Also, for your consideration, here's a treat I didn't have room for in this chapter. Please enjoy the mental image of Waller (in her room, late at night after a very long day of warden-ing and protecting their nation's security) watching the video feeds of Dick screaming and throwing himself against the walls for days on end (read: literal weeks) because Flag won't stop sending them to her and Waller being genuinely tormented about it. Because on one hand it is horrible to watch and the kid has absolutely no idea where he is and clearly thinks he's being punished by Deathstroke (which makes all the questions she has about the relationship between student and master all the more difficult to ignore and push aside) and the sound that his bones make when they crack against the door is the stuff of nightmares, but on the other hand he's an intensely dangerous mercenary who has never shown any remorse or hesitation and Waller has a responsibility to the safety of her other prisoners and she can't risk anyone's well-being because she's getting soft.
Chapter 5: Nothing Stays Buried
Notes:
Welcome to the comfort section of hurt/comfort! Not that any part of this wild ride is a particularly fun time for Dick.
There's one scene in here that's not from Dick's perspective and I didn't really mean for that to happen but now that it's in there there's no way I can take it out.I hope you enjoy and I also hope I make you suffer with this chapter, just a little :)
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
When Flag gave him the radio, Dick had no intention of ever picking it up. He needed his master, not Harley, and with the constant monitoring from Waller and her guards, the risk of giving away Slade’s secrets was too high to ever be worth the risk.
And then Dick had broken down and his master wasn’t there and in his desperation, he’d reached out to the only person he had. Harley had somehow coaxed him through it, letting him scream and cry and grieve, her voice a constant lifeline as Dick drowned.
She hadn’t said a word about it when the squad reconvened in the newly christened Clubhouse the next day, and Dick had been grateful and relieved that she didn’t expose how weak he was (even though he could feel Flag’s eyes on him the entire time). But that night, she’d called in on the walkie-talkie almost the instant that the guards shut the door.
Furious with himself and embarrassed at how pathetic he’d been, Dick hadn’t answered. Except Harley didn’t care. After a few minutes passed and it became clear that there wasn’t going to be a response, Harley had blown a raspberry and said, “Well, let me tell you about my day because you are not going to believe what Irma Jean said to me!”
Dick tried to ignore the long, rambling story about the indignity Harley had endured over in the woman’s cell block and how her weeding partner in Belle Reve’s tiny prison garden—Imogene, not Irma Jean, Harley had corrected after about forty minutes—had selfishly hoarded the best trowel. He ran through his nightly stretching routine, trying to focus on the burn in his aching muscles instead of the clown’s voice, but eventually he snapped. He knew what she was doing, he knew that she just pitied him for his pathetic breakdown the day before and she was overcompensating by trying to pretend they were friends. Dick was Renegade; property of Deathstroke the Terminator. He was a weapon— nothing more— and weapons didn’t have friends. Dick deserved to be punished for his weakness, not coddled.
He grabbed the walkie-talkie, turned it over and reached for the button that would disconnect the power, but his finger froze.
If he turned it off, Harley’s voice would be gone.
Dick would be left in his cell.
Alone.
“—and so then I say to Lazy Suez, that’s Imogene’s cell mate’s buddy’s sister-in-law’s cousin, well if you didn’t eat the rutabaga, and I didn’t eat the rutabaga, then where the hell is it?! Anyway, after all that, turns out it was still in the ground ‘cause we never bothered pickin’ it!” Harley cracked up, cackling loudly into the receiver.
Dick sat on the ground with his back against the wall and his head leaning back to stare at the ceiling. The walkie-talkie was still in his hand, his finger resting on top of the button to turn it off.
He fell asleep to the sound of Harley’s voice.
Dick knew he shouldn’t let it become a habit, but day after day passed by in a steady rhythm that gradually grew more and more familiar and he’d been trained to adapt to whatever schedule his master set out for him. At first, Harley only checked in a few times a week, on nights when Flag had spent the squad’s time in the Clubhouse focusing all his attention on Dick. She hadn’t cared that Dick never answered, she just asked him a couple questions about his day and then launched into a full play-by-play of whatever nonsense was on her mind.
Days turned into weeks and then a month, and Dick was just getting settled in his routine; wake up at five in the morning and get ready before the guards came by to unlock his cell, head to the mess hall for breakfast, report to the laundry room for the first shift, work until eleven and then head back to the mess hall for lunch. Then it was back to the laundry room for second shift, and when the other inmates were released from the afternoon head count for dinner, the guards escorted Dick and the rest of the squad to the Clubhouse where Flag was waiting for them. Then two hours of targeted training followed by dinner. Every minute away from Slade was hell, but dinner with his squad was…
Growing up, meals had always been a communal activity, with the entire troupe packed into one giant tent, performers and roustabouts and stage hands wandering in and out. It was chaotic and loud and sometimes messy and even after Dick figured out how to make Bruce laugh, meals at the manor just weren’t the same. And meals with his master were even quieter; Slade expected silence from him unless he was answering a direct question.
Dick never spoke during meals, but the squad more than filled the silence for him. It was loud and there were almost always arguments that escalated dangerously close to fights, but there was also laughter and bad jokes and complaints about the food and the equipment and betting pools on everything and everyone. Sometimes, if he closed his eyes and pushed everything else away, it felt like being back at the circus.
When Flag dismissed them, they were allowed free time to do what they wanted. Dick almost always headed back to the equipment and resumed his normal training regimen. Slade would be back for him someday, and Dick was doing everything in his power to make sure his master wouldn’t be disappointed with what he found. But also… most of the other members of the squad lingered too. Deadshot always grabbed a pair of earmuffs and headed straight for the range, Killer Croc went for the weights, meanwhile Boomerang and Killer Frost usually kept their latest argument going for at least another hour. Harley had somehow managed to convince Flag to put a bookcase in, and (to Dick’s surprise, given all his memories of the harlequin as the Joker’s manic partner in crimes and chaos) she spent her evenings pouring over thick textbooks and adding in commentary to keep the arguments going whenever they started calming down. Dick ignored them while he pushed himself through his routines, but it shocked him how much easier it was to focus on his workout with the hum of other people as background noise instead of the cold silence of his master’s lair.
Eventually though, they all trickled out until it was just him and Harley and the guards that were always present.
“What are you reading?” Dick asked quietly one night after he’d finished Slade’s workout. Flag had cut their training short, which meant they’d been dismissed early which meant Dick had even more time to sit alone in his cell if he couldn’t find an excuse to stay in the Clubhouse longer.
Harley scooted over and patted the seat on the bench next to her.
“It’s a psych textbook. Psychology,” she clarified when Dick looked confused. For a second, his stomach tightened and all he could think about was her voice on the other end of the walkie-talkie during his breakdown when she’d known exactly the right words to say to draw the pain out of him. “Assuming I don’t eat it, I got nine, maybe ten more missions for Waller and I’m a free agent. I lost my license after I went clam-pots up for Mista J, so I figure I might try to recertify when I get out.”
Dick stared down at the page and the words swam at him. He frowned.
“What does it say?”
“The book?”
Dick didn’t answer, but he also didn’t move and Harley took that as enough of an answer to clear her throat and start reading.
“In their meta-theoretical study of the results of a range of research studies into the efficacy of trauma debriefing, Rose and Bisson established that the grounds for the continued use of CISD and other forms of debriefing were rather shaky. Of the six reasonably controlled studies of treatment that they were able to identify and review, there was evidence of minor improvement…” Harley said aloud [1]. Dick didn’t understand a single word of it.
“Quinn, what are you still doing here?” Flag demanded, and Harley hissed, “SHHHHHH!”
Flag stopped dead in his tracks. Harley was sitting at the table, a thick textbook spread out in front of her. That wasn’t what stopped him.
Renegade was slumped over on the bench with his head pillowed on Harley’s shoulder. He was fast asleep and dead to the world and looked so innocent and harmless that Flag physically couldn’t reconcile him with the deadly mercenary who could cut down a wall of nightmarish creatures from hell without so much as losing his breath. For the first time, Flag could actually believe that he was only nineteen.
“He fell asleep on you?!” Flag hissed, absolutely fucking dumbstruck.
“Read him a few pages of Kaminer and he was out like a light,” Harley whispered back.
"He fell asleep on you," Flag repeated, trying to wrap his head around it. That had to be progress, right? The day Task Force X had shipped out, Renegade had nearly cut Flag's hand off for entering his personal space. Even now, the kid was such a brick wall it seemed impossible that anything Harley tried was getting through to him. But it had been a while since the kid's eyes glazed over and his movements went from effortlessly deadly to practically robotic, so that was progress in and of itself.
“Shh!” Harley hissed again, her voice barely above a whisper, “He'll flip out if he wakes up like this. That fucker programmed him not to touch anyone, he’s already in enough knots about just opening his mouth.”
Shit. That was a real concern.
"Look, I got it under control," Harley assured him, and for some ungodly reason, Flag actually believed the psychopath was telling the truth. Even when she shot him a disgustingly smug grin and added, "Told ya those textbooks would come in handy."
"You did," Flag admitted quietly.
"Just let us stay here 'til he starts wakin' up. I'll handle it."
Flag considered it, mentally running through the logistics the decision would require. If this went wrong, if it was some kind of trap and the two of them were in league to try and discover a way to circumvent Waller's bombs, it would be on his head. But on the other hand, Flag had seen the kind of fitful tossing and turning the kid did in his cell every night and bone-deep exhaustion was practically one of the kid's personality traits. Right now, with his head on Quinn's shoulder and just about all of his weight resting on her, Renegade was actually sleeping.
"Alright," Flag finally agreed, "But I'm sending a new shift in to watch you. If anything happens, Quinn, I swear—"
"It won't," Harley cut him off. She was staring at the kid with a very sad look on her face, "It won't."
By the time the squad returned from their third mission, the calls with Harley had become part of his nightly routine. Nearly four months after his arrival at Belle Reve, Harley was recounting the events of the Great Gatsby remake that had come out a little before her arrest.
“Eh, I’m sure the book was better, it always is. Hey, are they still making you twerps read it in high school?” Harley asked. He could hear her twirling her hair around her fingers, oblivious to the way Dick stiffened in his own cell.
“I never finished middle school,” Dick admitted after a long pause.
“Oh. Hey, well you could!”
“What.” he asked flatly, confused at the sudden change in direction.
“Yeah, all prisons are required by law to offer continuing education to the inmates. Or in some cases, completed education. Talk to Flag tomorrow, I’m sure he’ll get you set up.”
Flag, it turned out, was not only willing to get Dick set up, but somehow rearranged his daily schedule so that instead of 8AM laundry duty, Dick now spent his mornings sitting in a classroom with half a dozen other inmates who’d never made it to high school either. The single guard who escorted him informed the teacher (standing at a blackboard behind a wall of bars for his own protection) that his name was John and he didn’t speak much, and not a single person in the room so much as blinked at him.
Dick sat at his new desk and picked up a pencil with the intent to use it as a writing instrument and not an improvised weapon for the first time in half a decade. It felt clumsy and unfamiliar in his hand and he burned with embarrassment that he’d lost skills as basic as writing and reading words longer than five letters.
By the end of the first week, he’d learned the names of his classmates (Bauer, Jordan, Daveed, Carter, Temi, and Emil), the pencil in his hand stopped feeling like a foreign object, and parts of his brain that he simply hadn’t needed in years had slowly begun to wake up. The teacher, who insisted they call him Reagan instead of allowing any formalities in his classroom, was endlessly patient and encouraged them all to work at their own pace, and whenever any of them got frustrated, had repeated his mantra of, “Even slow progress is progress.”
In his classroom, surrounded by people struggling through the same tasks, rewarded with a, “Nice work, John,” or “Yes, that’s correct,” for the simplest of answers, Dick didn’t feel like an outsider. He didn’t feel like he was out of place or that he had to fit himself into someone else’s standards. Dick didn’t even feel like Renegade, not really.
He wasn’t sure what his master would think; Slade was a thorough teacher and Dick obediently learned everything his master set in front of him. But it had happened more than once that his master gave him something to read that was far too complicated and Slade was always dangerously annoyed when Dick admitted it. But he wasn’t sure if it had ever occurred to his master how far Dick’s most basic skills had fallen.
He didn’t know who he felt like, but for three hours a day, he sat in a quiet room as just John and learned at a slow but steady pace. It wasn’t enough to fix any part of the horror of his existence. It didn’t fix the fact that Dick was separated from his master, that Slade thought he was dead, that there was bomb in his neck, that he was Waller’s captive, and that every day the void in his chest grew bigger and emptier because Dick was so lonely and isolated and desperate for his master’s touch. But it was something.
“Ugh!” Killer Frost spat, pushing her tray away, “Just when I thought the food couldn’t get any worse, now they’re trying to poison us.”
“It’s like a kangaroo’s trying to drown me in wallaby shit,” Boomerang bemoaned as he stared down miserably at the pile of sludge.
“Y’know what I think?” Harley asked suddenly, gesturing with her fork and spraying the glop over Diablo, who grimaced and flicked it off his shirt, “I think you’re not really an Aussie, I think you’re just faking it ‘cause you don’t want everyone to think you’re from like Detroit or something.”
“Oi, you bloody cunt, take that back!” Boomerang snapped, slamming his fist on the table and jumping to his feet in outrage.
“Cut it out!” the guard snapped. The whole table turned to stare at him with unimpressed looks on their faces.
“Cut what out?” Lawton asked calmly.
“Yeah, we’re just havin’ fun. Nothing but good times here in the Clubhouse!” Harley grinned.
The guard scowled at them and Boomerang shot him a cheeky wink accompanied by the click of his tongue. The Electrocutioner let out a snort and Dick felt the ghost of a smirk pulling across his own face. There was a constant rotation of the guards (just to make sure that none of them got too chummy with Waller’s squad of psychos) but this one was clearly new and jumpier than most.
But the squad was done tormenting him for now and their attention turned back to the problem at hand. And that problem was the pile of foul-smelling glop they’d been served as “lunch.”
Killer Croc took a bite and recoiled, snarling as he tried to spit the taste out of his mouth. Dick looked down at his own tray and reached for his fork. The pile of brown sludge didn’t look good, and it didn’t smell good, and he already knew from the rest of his squad that it probably tasted even worse than that, but he needed to eat and Slade had beaten the lesson into him too many times for him to even try to skip a meal.
He put a small forkful of it into his mouth and ate it. The first second wasn’t bad, just a bit lukewarm. Then it took every single ounce of self-control he had not to react as a flavor like burning rubber hit, along with the grainy texture scraping along his teeth, and when he’d managed to swallow it down, his mouth was left with a sour, acrid taste in it. Dick could feel the entire table’s gaze on him as he gently set his fork down.
Not even Slade would try to feed him that. He wanted his apprentice in one piece, more or less, not vomiting all over the floor. Dick had eaten poisons that tasted better.
“See?! Not even Ren is eating it and he’ll eat anything!” Killer Frost said.
“Fuck it, I’m not eating this,” the Electrocutioner said, pushing his plate back. Dick wished he could remember the man’s name so that he didn’t have to keep thinking of him as The Electrocutioner. “They’re sending us out to our deaths three times a month, least they can do is get us a couple of decent meals.”
Flag, with his uncanny ability to arrive at precisely the worst moment, entered the training room with two of the squad’s usual guards tailing him.
“What’s going on here?” the man asked.
“It’s a sit in,” the Electrocutioner said.
“For Christ’s sake, Buchinsky. Either eat your fucking food or skip it so we can get this done,” Flag snapped.
Buchinsky! Lester Buchinsky, that was it.
Dick stood up, preferring hunger over his other options, but the rest of the squad stayed where they were.
“Don’t be a scab!” Buchinsky scowled at him, while Harley pouted, “Awww, c’mon Renny, don’t settle for that.”
Dick ignored them to go stand by Flag on the training mats. None of the others made any effort to move. Flag let out a long exhale.
“Brainwashed assassin excluded, you’re all just going to sit there and bitch?”
“Try one single bite,” Harley shot back, “I dare ya.”
“It can’t be that bad,” Flag said.
“BAD,” Killer Croc scowled.
“It’s worse than shit. Ren wouldn’t even touch it,” Lawton raised an eyebrow. Dick shot him a furious glare; it was already too late to avoid whatever punishment was coming, but he was trying to show Flag that he had nothing to do with their disobedience. Bomb in his neck or not, if Lawton got him blamed for this mess, Dick would make him regret it.
A glaring match went down between Flag and the sniper, but finally, Flag let out a sigh. He crossed the room to warily sniff the plate Lawton held out for him and his face twisted in disgust before he turned away and gagged.
“Fuck.” he said emphatically. A cheer went up among the squad, “Alright, I admit it. That shit is disgusting.”
“Like I said,” Buchinsky crossed his arms over his chest, “We’re on strike until we get some real food.”
“Fine. Lopez, Benny, head down to the supply depot and grab some ration kits,” Flag turned to the armed guards that had followed him in.
“Not good enough,” Killer Frost hissed, her voice as cold as ice.
“You tried to poison us,” El Diablo snarled and wrath curled around the words like smoke, “We want pizza.”
“With MEAT!” Killer Croc slammed his hands down on the table. The rest of the squad was quick to add their toppings of choice, but the word resonated in Dick’s brain. Pizza. He hadn’t even thought about pizza in years, let alone eaten it.
“You’re a bloody reptile, can you even eat cheese?” Boomerang asked, his expression a cross between curiosity and fear, like he was a little afraid of the answer but he needed to know anyways.
“So that’s our offer; you get us pizza and we forget about this whole thing,” Lawton said on the squad’s behalf.
“We’ll be on our best behavior!” Harley chimed, holding up her fingers in a Vulcan hand salute (Dick had no idea what the faintly-familiar sign was the first time she’d done it, but halfway through the clown’s explanation of Star Trek and the entire sci-fi genre, an entire trove of forgotten memories had unlocked themselves and Dick had thrown up the entire contents of his stomach. Bruce loved the original Star Trek TV show; one of the very first things he and Dick had done together outside of vigilante work was to watch the entire series in order. And while Cyborg had been amused by the campy effects, the Titans didn’t have much interest in old shows. But Kid Flash had LOVED it, and sometimes he’d run all the way out to Titan’s Tower for a movie night with Dick and it wasn’t until that memory unlocked itself that Dick realized he’d completely forgotten about one of his closest friends in the entire world and not even Harley had been able to pull him out of that breakdown), “Scout’s honor!”
“Should I even bother reminding you that you’re all mass murderers and psychopaths who’ve been put in prison to rot for your crimes against humanity?” Flag asked with the long-suffering look on his face.
“Mate, you can remind us of whatever you like so long as it comes with pizza,” Boomerang grinned.
“We used to get pizza. Me and my friends,” Dick said quietly, lost in a sudden flash of memory that he couldn’t understand how he’d forgotten. The Pizza Corner always had a table on the balcony reserved for when the Titans stopped by after a triumphant mission. Or just… decided they had to have pizza. He could almost feel the warm sunlight on his face except for the domino mask he always wore, could smell the cheese and salt and tomatoes and grease filling the air from the pizza oven, could hear Raven’s dry humor and Beast Boy’s howling laugh and then Cyborg’s triumphant “BOOYAH” when their pizza finally came. But mostly, he remembered, “Kory always put so much mustard on hers.”
The memory pulled a smile onto his face that even the grief and longing and self-hatred couldn’t drown out. Because as much as he’d loved Starfire, that had been one thing he could never get past. She’d grab every one of the yellow bottles on the balcony and squeeze them all at the same time, showering her slice in so much mustard that none of them had been sure there was still pizza under it.
“It was disgusting,” the last word came out more brightly than he knew he was capable of, but he was still stuck on the pure bliss on Starfire’s face and the sheer horror on Cyborg’s and Raven’s and the way that Beast Boy’s face turned even greener and not even the pain could drown out the emotion that memory carried.
Then he realized the squad was staring at him in open-mouthed shock.
“Did you just laugh????” Harley demanded.
“Don’t. Fucking. Tell. Waller.” Flag hissed as he set down three boxes of pizza.
An hour earlier than he was expecting, the walkie-talkie crackled to life.
“Hey Ren?” Harley’s voice was gentle and Dick pulled himself gracefully to his feet, not minding the interruption from his nightly stretching routine in the slightest. Being locked in his cell every night was a far cry from being trapped in solitary for months on end, but it was still claustrophobic and lonely and most nights, all Dick could think about were the first few months as Slade’s apprentice.
He’d been so alone. He had fought his captor every step of the way, violently rejecting any and every offer of comfort out of sheer disgust, not realizing that he was just digging himself deeper and deeper into the isolation. And Slade had let him; his master had watched in amusement, waiting patiently for the deprivation of all contact to drive Dick to the brink, never pushing on that no matter how hard Dick fought him. For nearly two months, by his own refusal to let Slade in, the only human contact Dick had was when Slade hurt him.
And then, during a particularly grueling sparring drill, Slade had gotten a hand around Dick’s neck and the desperate sound that came out of Dick’s mouth stopped his master cold in his tracks before he’d continued the beating like nothing happened. But that night, Slade did something different.
“Come here,” Slade ordered. Dick obeyed, his limbs trembling with exhaustion and fear building in his stomach. This was different, and nothing good ever came from Slade changing their routine. Dick had no idea what was coming but he tried to tell himself that it would be fine. He’d been on his best behavior after his last punishment (he’d tried to ambush Slade from the laundry room and Slade had hung him with a bedsheet, waiting until the last few seconds when the darkness was taking over his vision and the veins of his neck were swollen with all the blood that couldn’t reach his brain and his legs had stopped struggling and kicking, no energy left to even flutter, before cutting him down) and Slade didn’t hurt him so long as he tried to behave.
“Kneel.”
Dick dropped to his knees and Slade hummed approvingly. Something loosened in Dick’s stomach and he tried in vain to ignore the relief coursing through him; he didn’t care if Slade was happy with him. He didn’t. Slade was a psychopath and Dick had been alone with him for months and he didn’t care what the man thought of him, he didn’t want to impress him or please him, he was just playing along so he could build up his strength for his next escape attempt.
Slade laughed, almost like he could hear what Dick was thinking.
“Don’t move,” Slade ordered and Dick could feel his muscles tightening, almost an involuntary reflex. Anticipation built in his stomach and his body was trembling, but it wasn’t until Slade’s hand landed in his hair that he bucked wildly, his hands flying up to push Slade off him. The hand in his hair tightened, yanking hard and pulling Dick’s head to the side with enough force to tear a cry out of his mouth. Dick, the terror intensifying at the threat of impending violence, forced his hands down. Forced himself to stay limp in Slade’s grip. Forced himself to breathe as the grip in his hair turned gentle and the hand guided his head back to an upright position.
Dick didn’t move.
But Slade’s hand started to, his fingers combing through Dick’s hair and gently scratching against his scalp. Dick trembled, too terrified to do anything but squeeze his eyes shut because he couldn’t bear to stare at the couch in front of him, or Slade’s legs, and he knew that if he looked up, he’d see Slade grinning down at him with that horrible, victorious, smug smile that made Dick feel so, so, so small.
“Good boy,” Slade praised in a voice that glowed with warmth and Dick told himself that the burst of joy in his chest was only because it meant that Slade wasn’t going to punish him.
Slade didn’t stop. He forced Dick to stay there, kneeling obediently at his feet while he rubbed circles into his hair, and Dick wanted to hate him for it. He wanted to hate him so badly but he was so desperate and the things inside him were so broken and Slade was being gentle and it had been so long since he’d had anything like this and he just…
“That’s it, just relax,” Slade’s voice was soft and encouraging and he sounded so happy with Dick, and Dick didn’t let himself think. Because if he did, then he’d realize what he was doing and he’d try to stop himself and then Slade would hurt him and he would ruin this one moment of gentleness, so he didn’t think. He just kept his eyes closed and leaned into Slade’s touch, letting himself slouch forward until his face was pressed against Slade’s legs. “Good boy.”
There was a click and the tv turned on behind him, but Dick didn’t even think about moving. They stayed there for hours, Dick kneeling at Slade’s side, ignoring the discomfort and stiffness as his folded legs fell asleep under him, Slade keeping one hand in his hair and stroking his head the entire time.
It hadn’t been until the dehydration hit him the next day that Dick realized he’d cried the entire time.
“Who’s Kory?” Harley asked.
Dick didn't even have to think about the answer.
“She’s sunlight."
Even hearing her name made the cell seem a little brighter. His chest felt a little warmer. He didn't know when thinking about his friends had stopped being an exercise in terror but now he was thinking about Starfire and it was all good. Her bright smile. The glowing warmth of her green eyes. Her bubbling laugh. Her boundless curiosity. The way her hair smelled when she pulled him in for a rib-cracking hug.
"Like when there’s nothing but storm clouds and wind and you know it’s going to pour, but then clouds open and there’s blue sky over your head. She’s like… you know when you’re being drowned and right at the last second before it’s too late, your head gets pulled out of the water and you can breathe again? She’s that moment when the air comes back into your lungs.”
“When was the last time you saw her?” Harley’s voice was soft but there was an ocean of barely restrained emotion underneath it. Dick flinched.
“Three years ago,” he answered, his hands tightening into fists with his bedsheets clenched tightly within them, “He made me… I had to… I hurt her.”
“Shit, Renny,” Harley breathed.
“She didn’t know who I was. She didn’t have any idea, none of them did.”
Dick had looked at Starfire and seen his best friend who would’ve been the woman of his dreams if he’d still been allowed to have dreams or a future that wasn’t written in stone by someone else. Slade ordered him to attack and Dick had to obey even though all he felt was grief and guilt and longing and he couldn’t give any more than his most pathetic effort. But Starfire, she was a fearsome warrior who’d learned all her lessons about weakness and loss the hard way, and all she saw was an unknown enemy standing by the side of a man she detested and she hadn’t held back. Not for a single second.
Dick’s hand rose to his stomach. The starbolt had been powered by the full power of all the righteous anger she possessed. It had made Dick laugh, while he was in a hospital bed with his master sitting at his side, waiting for the serum and the surgeons to unfuse his melted organs and graft over the charred sections of his chest that had once been skin. Starfire’s rage at Slade stemmed from Dick’s death; even though his master had somehow convinced the world he’d had nothing to do with Robin’s murder, Starfire had never believed it. Not really. And then her unbridled fury over Slade’s role in the death of the boy she loved had been the power behind a blow that nearly struck him down for good.
Not a day went by without Dick wishing she had. Dying by Kory’s hand, well… to be set free by an act of love, what could he possibly want more than that?
Dick set down the shirt he was folding, placing the fabric gently on top of the neatly folded pile on his table. He turned around and quietly headed for the doorway, slipping out of the laundry room without anyone noticing. Instead of taking the right back up to the main cell block, he went left and headed down the lesser-used hallway. The sounds were getting louder now, but it wasn’t until he opened the door to the supply room that the noise was loud enough to be heard by non-enhanced ears.
He could hear a heartbeat immediately behind the door, elevated and coursing with adrenaline. There were two other heartbeats in the room, one also elevated and the other flailing with panic. Close enough to hear their heartbeats, Dick could easily make out every single word, every breath, every time skin made contact with skin.
Dick shoved the door open, the lock giving way under the force of his shoulder, the man standing behind it slammed roughly to the ground. Dick strode into the room as the man scrambled to his feet, but Dick kicked him in the stomach before he could get far.
The two men in the corner looked up; one with hostility and the other with terror.
“Get out,” the larger one said, holding the still-struggling man motionless beneath him. He hadn’t gotten far enough to do anything about it, but his throbbing erection was straining against his pants. “Can’t you see we’re busy?”
Dick had him by the throat before he could say anything else, wrenching him off the smaller man and shoving him up against the wall.
“He said no,” Dick hissed, blood running hot through his veins. He could hear his own heartbeat pounding in his ears, could feel every beat in his whole body. Underneath his fingers, the man’s heartbeat was rising in terror, the man thrashing and kicking and clawing at Dick’s hand to free himself. Dick squeezed, intensely aware of how little of his strength it would take to crush the rapist’s esophagus under his palm.
His lackey was climbing to his feet, broom in his hand as he charged Dick. Dick caught the makeshift weapon with his free hand, yanked him closer and struck the hollow of his throat with his elbow. The man went down, clutching at his neck as all the air was brutally knocked out of his lungs.
Dick turned his attention back to the man under his hand, whose face was bright red from lack of oxygen. Dick narrowed his eyes, feeling a thrill in his chest as the man’s heartbeat spiked again in fear.
“Do you want to die?” Dick asked him in a perfectly steady voice.
“No!” the man rasped out, terror in his eyes, “No, please!”
Dick leaned in, flooded with memories of Slade’s weight on top of him, hands roaming over his body that took whatever they wanted while Dick had forced all the treacherous thoughts out of his head, reminded himself with everything he had that he belonged to his master, that he needed to take whatever his master would give him.
“The next time you ignore a no…” Dick squeezed even tighter, cutting the man’s oxygen supply off completely, “So do I.”
He released his grip, dropping the man roughly to the floor. Dick turned to the third man, who was hugging his knees into his chest and trembling. His pants were still down around his ankles, but he didn’t seem to be able to move.
“Can you stand?” Dick asked quietly, his voice gentle, the words familiar in his mouth. Somewhere in the back of his head, swirling around with the forgotten memories he forbade himself from going near, he knew he’d done this before. Many times.
Somehow, he got the man back to his feet, but he was shaking and tears poured down his face and his mouth moved up and down silently.
"It's alright," Dick said calmly as he effortlessly supported the man's weight, "You're safe now, it's over."
The man started shaking his head from side to side and he made an aborted motion with his arms like he was trying to pull free from Dick's grip. He was terrified and far too panicked to even begin to think.
"What's your name?" Dick asked. Give him an easy question as a lifeline to pull himself out of his panic attack. That was how Harley got through to him most times.
"A...Aaron," the man whimpered out, his chest rising and falling in rapid, shallow motions, "Who... who are you?"
Dick froze. Because Renegade may have been the one to step in, but Renegade wasn't the one who'd saved countless people from this fate.
“I'm…John,” Dick answered instead of saying the truth (and what an impossible truth it was. Robin had been dead for six years, his master had made sure of it), "Let's get you out of here."
Dick’s face was a blank mask. He kept one hand clasped over the other behind his back, his weight resting evenly between both feet. Waller didn’t say anything. Dick didn’t either. He just calmly met her gaze as she frowned at him.
“You can leave,” she said. The guards that brought Dick into her office paused, and behind his back, Dick could practically taste their hesitation at leaving their boss alone with an unstable maniac like him. But Waller didn’t like to repeat herself and it barely took one scathing glare before they departed, leaving Dick alone in Waller’s office.
“I believed that Flag made my expectations more than clear to you,” the warden began. Dick didn’t answer.
“This is my prison. I know everything that happens inside these walls.”
Even if Dick hadn’t been staring her right in the eyes, the fire in her voice would have been impossible to miss. She knew exactly what Dick had done, and she probably had him figured out well enough by now to understand why he’d done it. She wasn’t mad. If Dick had just used the man as an excuse to lash out, she would be. But he was staring her down without an ounce of remorse for what he’d done and they both knew there would be no punishment for it. Waller was making a show, because in a prison like Belle Reve, weakness was not an option.
They stayed there for a long moment, both watching each other in calm silence; Waller sizing him up and Dick keeping his body language as open as he could to let her. Slade would have killed him for it, but this was none of his master’s business. Acting out inside Belle Reve would get him thrown into solitary at worst. He was too valuable to Waller for her to kill him over a disagreement between inmates.
He was expecting her to dismiss him when she opened her mouth, so he was surprised by, “I have a job for you.”
Dick blinked. After a pause, he opened his mouth to ask a question and she beat him to the punch.
“Not for the squad. I have a situation that needs a delicate hand, and I know that you can get it done for me. Obviously, the same rules will apply. Attempt an escape and I blow your head off.”
Dick watched her. He reconsidered the manilla folder on her desk, the one he’d naively assumed held the incident report for his scuffle in the laundry supply closet. It all made sense now. Especially why she’d sent the guards out.
He didn’t grin, but it was close.
“You need my help,” he said. The stern expression on Waller’s face tightened just the tiniest little bit, and Dick could read the tell loud and clear. Her heartbeat was elevated. Whatever the situation was, she needed it fixed quickly and quietly. Dick recognized it intimately; on the very, very rare occasions when Slade had a problem that he couldn’t fix, not even with Dick’s help, whoever he hired or tapped for a favor was discreet, got the job done fast, and ended up very dead when Slade needed the loose end gone before it could unravel his reputation. He wondered if Waller would kill him when the deed was done, just to make sure he didn’t go spilling her secrets.
“As loath as I am to admit it, I do.”
Dick should say no. The mission would almost certainly be dangerous and there was a real risk she’d get rid of him after it was done, and then he’d never be able to get back to Slade. His master would want him to turn the mission down and allow himself to be taken back into solitary, letting Waller pretend that the point of this meeting was to punish him for stepping out of line.
He took a deep breath.
This was a bad idea. Such a bad idea that he couldn’t even begin to put into words how bad of an idea it was.
“I want something.”
Waller watched him as sharply as a hawk.
“What?”
“The Post.”
“Excuse me.”
“A subscription to the Gotham Post.”
“The trash magazine?” Waller repeated, too suspicious at the request to doubt whether she’d heard him correctly.
He could hear the gears turning in Waller’s brain as she tried to figure out why, out of everything in the world he could ask for, he wanted that. The warden knew exactly how big of a risk she was taking here, just like she knew that Dick knew how valuable of a favor he would be doing for her. She knew that to him, the Post was truly worth something. Would she ask him why?
For a second, Dick imagined that she had.
He imagined telling her why Post was the thing he wanted more than anything else in the world (other than being reunited with his master).
Every single issue of the magazine was chock full of Gotham’s favorite celebrity playboy. He wanted to see Bruce, and the glimpses into the man’s life that he allowed the gossip rags to print, to see that even after all these years his father was still alive and in one piece and living a life even if Dick wasn’t a part of it anymore. He desperately wanted the occasional pictures of Alfred and Barbara that a lucky paparazzo caught as they left the manor. And maybe even see…
Bruce had taken in another Robin, after him. Slade had told him all about Jason Todd, how Bruce had been so quick to replace Dick with a better, newer model, how Bruce had adopted him so quickly even though he’d never even considered making Dick anything more than his ward. How ruined Batman had been by the second Robin’s death, how much the death of his first real son had torn him apart.
But eventually, Bruce had moved on from that too. Dick knew Slade had only told him any of this because he knew how much it hurt, but that didn’t make it hurt any less. Slade told him all about the new new Robin, the replacement for the replacement and all the ones after. There was Tim Drake, and Cluemaster’s daughter Stephanie Brown, and the terrifying cross between David Cain and Lady Shiva that called herself Cassandra.
In another world, they would have been Dick’s family. Sometimes, late at night when Dick’s heart was bleeding too much to sleep even with Slade’s arm pinning him tight against his chest, Dick imagined what it would have been like. He could have been a big brother. He could have shown Jason how to fly, taught Tim the ins and outs of solving crimes, helped Stephanie in her quest to right her father’s wrongs, maybe even learned a thing or two from Cassandra while she learned how to leave her past behind. He could have grown up enough to make peace with Bruce instead of running to the other side of the country, he could have been there for all the pains and joys his family went through instead of leaving them behind to die at Slade’s hands.
In that other world, he would have already seen their faces.
Now, in this world, his best chance to know what his family looked like was to get a glimpse from a trashy magazine.
"Alright," Waller agreed, "You handle this job, and you've got a deal."
Notes:
Thank you so much for reading! Please leave me a comment to let me know if you enjoyed it slash if you need to scream about the absolute emotional wringer Dick is going through. There's only one chapter left, plus a short epilogue and y'all are going to hate me for what happens then :D
Can't wait!
Works Cited:
1. Kaminer, Debra, and Gillian Eagle. “TRAUMA INTERVENTIONS FOR INDIVIDUALS, GROUPS AND COMMUNITIES.” Traumatic Stress in South Africa, Wits University Press, 2010, pp. 80–121.
Chapter 6: Death in the Family
Notes:
Warning: "Death in the Family" is not just a catchy title, you've been warned. (And before you think, "Oh, they wouldn't kill off anyone important" guess again because Chekhov's gun has been on the wall and it is Smoking)
I will only promise that Harley survives to the end because I've got a lot more angst planned for her.
With that, I hope you enjoy the last chapter of Bonfire.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Dick stared at his target. He was a predator in his element that had locked onto his prey and was reveling in the fact that the man had been backed into a corner without ever realizing the danger he was in.
He could have taken the man out already. He’d been following him for nearly three hours, and maybe someone would believe that he was waiting for the perfect moment to strike, but the truth was that he wasn’t ready.
Dick’s deal with Waller had been clear; take out the target, ensure the data he’d stolen was retrieved (and contain the leak, if necessary), then turn himself back into the custody of his handler. There was no room for error.
Dick knew that.
But he still waited. For two full hours.
Dick was wearing a jacket, a t-shirt and jeans, armed with only one handgun and two knives (the larger one in the sole of his boot and the throwing knife hidden at his waist). He was sitting in a café, nursing a coffee that he’d only managed to take a few sips of before he’d been overwhelmed by the rush of caffeine. The blueberry muffin had been the most incredible thing he’d ever eaten and he’d been so, so tempted to go back to the counter and get another one, but while buying food as a cover was acceptable, anything past that was not. Besides, his body wasn’t used to things like sugar and real butter after so many years without them and the last thing he wanted was to make himself sick.
Pushing away the ridiculous notion of buying another muffin, he turned his attention back to his target.
The man wasn’t stupid; well obviously, he was a bit stupid if he’d thought it would ever be worth it to steal from Waller. But the fact that he’d managed to get this far meant that Dick shouldn’t underestimate him.
Dick had been a bit surprised by Waller’s instructions, but he understood immediately why she’d sent him. The man had been a guard at Belle Reve for two years, he’d come in with recommendations from the state senator and had worked his way up through a combination of his connections and high turnover rates that left senior positions open for him to fill. Three days ago, he’d managed to phish a password from one of the prison administrators and gotten his card access restored, then he’d simply walked in the door, made casual conversation with his old buddies while ransacking the prison’s records, and walked out with six folders of highly classified information.
It was an impressive and exceptionally well-executed theft. Particularly because he’d stolen records that Waller would do anything to keep out of the public eye, things that would be so damming that she was willing to risk letting Dick off his leash on the chance that he could handle it for her.
The man knew all of Waller’s people, including the rotations of servicemen that Flag usually drew the squad’s backup from, so he would recognize anyone Waller sent and execute his backup plan before they could stop him.
But Dick… Dick was another story entirely.
Waller’s secrecy had paid off. Even if the man had seen John Doe’s files, there were no pictures of him anywhere in them. Renegade had never been seen without his mask. All that— and the fact that Dick Grayson was long-since dead— meant he could walk around in broad daylight and not be recognized by a single soul.
Waller stuck him in plainclothes and given him a mirror and Dick hadn’t even recognized himself. He’d spent a little too long staring but he couldn’t help it. It still wasn’t him looking back, but it wasn’t quite the ruined shell of a person he was used to, either. He thought he could get used to being somewhere in between.
The backpack at the target’s side contained the stolen files; Dick had knocked into a waitress and she’d stumbled into the target and in the confusion, the off-white color of Waller’s personal files poked out the top. Dick counted all six before he’d hurried stuffed them away. Now, the man was typing on his phone, clearly waiting for his contact to arrive. He didn’t seem bothered by the delay, although the conversation had gotten tense. Dick would’ve bet two more blueberry muffins and a raspberry scone that the target was trying to get more money out of his buyers.
Dick should have lured the man into the nearby alleyway and disposed of him. He could have stolen the phone and posed as the target to get all the intel Waller wanted about the buyer. Hell, he could’ve just grabbed the backpack and ran, killing the target the instant he tried to pursue him.
But the sun was shining and there was a soft breeze filling the air and a busker was playing the guitar just around the corner and it was a peaceful, quiet day out in the real world without any monsters or aliens or world-ending threats crashing down around him. He was coming up on six months to the day since he’d been arrested and before that it had been months since the last time Slade had taken him outside during the day. But even that time with his master was nothing like this. Dick couldn’t remember the last time he’d gotten to just pretend to be a real person like this.
He’d gotten to flirt with the hostess and made the barista giggle as he flashed her a pearly-white smile, and the napkin wrapped around his coffee had a phone number scribbled on it. Dick’s first thought was that it was a coded message (from his handler, from Waller, and for one heart-stopping moment he’d thought it was from Slade) before he realized the handwriting matched the name the barista had written on his cup. He’d actually chatted with the person in line behind him when she asked if he had the time, and it had been as enjoyable to wear a mask like that as it was satisfying to realize he still remembered how. Slade hadn’t used Dick for undercover work in years, but he’d drilled the skills into him just in case.
Dick knew how to blend in. How to not draw attention. How to present the small details that would make him invisible. That buying another pastry would be the tactically sound decision if he was going to continue sitting outside the café without a phone or a laptop for any more time.
The target looked up suddenly, a look of triumph flashing in his eyes. Dick took another sip of his coffee and didn’t let either the target or his buyer notice he was watching. From this close, Dick could hear every sound they made and squashed down the stirrings of regret that he wouldn’t have time for the extra muffin after all.
They were closing the deal and Dick took his cue.
Waller didn’t say a word as Dick handed her the backpack and a napkin with a list of names written on it. She also didn’t comment on the sticky red stains covering the napkin.
“It’s done,” was all he said.
Waller didn’t speak, but Dick knew if she had, it would have been to ask, “Did you enjoy yourself?”
He didn’t need to answer. The remains of the raspberry scone he’d gone back for was evidence enough.
The men weren’t dead. The thief and his contact had been more than happy to talk once Dick had shown his willingness to be lenient, and he’d turned both of them over to Waller’s man with only minor stab wounds. Waller could decide what to do with them, but Dick had done his part.
“…still think I can get him to dare me to nick Katana’s mask,” Digger was saying as he and Dick walked down the long hallway to the Clubhouse.
“John? Hey, John?” A voice called from behind them, hesitantly at first, and then a little more confidently. Dick stopped, turning to see Aaron glancing around nervously at the cameras and the guards.
“Friend of yours?” Digger asked, but there was something knowing in his eyes. The prison was a small place and gossip traveled quickly; even if none of his squad mates had brought it up, Dick knew they’d all heard about last week’s incident.
“Can you get us a few minutes?” Dick murmured to his squad mate. He knew that if it had been anyone else asking, the man would’ve put on his trademark leer, waggled his eyebrows, and started poking fun at them. But instead, Digger shrugged offhandedly, reaching his arm up to visibly scratch his back. He stepped up to one of the guards waiting by the Clubhouse door, calling out, “Oi, can one of you lot tell me if this looks infected?”
With the guards distracted, Dick turned to face Aaron. He waited for the man to speak and it took him a few tries before he could get anything out.
“Nobody’s tried anything since…” Aaron shivered, “Thank you. I don’t have any way to make it up to you but if there’s anything I can do for you—”
“You don’t need to,” Dick cut him off. Aaron shook his head and the look on his face was so determined that it made Dick stop.
“I know. And I know it’s not much but they moved me to work in the library, if there’s any books you want just let me know and I can give you first dibs.”
“Alright,” Dick answered. There was a warm feeling in his chest that only got stronger when he said, “I’ll take that.”
There were two new members waiting in the go-room, still immobilized in the rigs Waller used to hold her prisoners before she implanted bombs in their neck. Dick gave Bloodsport a sharp nod—the other mercenary had made a point to avoid any contracts his master might go near and Slade had always considered him a potential ally—before turning his attention to the other man.
Arthur Light looked different without his ridiculous helmet, and the glare he leveled at Waller could melt steel.
“Fresh meat?” Killer Croc grumbled.
“We’ll see,” Electrocutioner crossed his arms over his chest.
Waller wasn’t there to give the briefing this time, but Flag and one of his soldiers explained the mission. It was a group of rogue insurgents trying to destabilize a newly-established neutral zone and the basis of half a dozen treaties depended on the agreement holding through the weekend. When Flag finished explaining, the whole squad looked relieved. After half a dozen missions into the heart of enemy territory with world-ending stakes, this would practically be a vacation.
Harley and Boomerang were joking about a day at the beach after they finished the mission, and Killer Frost’s sharp laughter echoed down the hallway. Diablo joined in and Dick closed his eyes for a brief second, just listening to the casual conversation and easy humor and just held onto the moment until someone cleared their throat.
Dick opened his eyes and turned to follow the rest of his squad to the waiting plane, but Flag held out a hand to stop him.
“Here, Ren. From the warden,” Flag said as he passed Dick something. Dick’s brain rebooted in the span of an instant, and it took all his self-control not to snatch the item from Flag’s grip. Flag still looked a little bit alarmed by the intensity of Dick’s reaction and Dick absolutely could not have cared less.
Because Flag had just given him a copy of the Gotham Post.
Dick held it in his hands like a rare gemstone or a fragile and ancient document that someone had paid his master millions to procure for them, because in that moment there was nothing else in the entire world. He stared at the front cover, his eyes tracking across the glossy paper with the desperation of a man dying of thirst who’d finally reached an oasis.
On the cover was a man, beaming at something out of frame, dressed in a casual suit that must have cost thousands of dollars for how perfectly tailored it was. He still had two eyes, both ears, all ten of his fingers, and he hadn’t lost any of his major features.
He looked older than Dick remembered, but how could he blame the man for that, after all he’d lost two sons in the time they’d been apart. But he looked happy, really and truly happy, and he was alive and the void in Dick’s chest wasn’t just bleeding it was screaming and Dick couldn’t move.
Bruce was alive.
Flag was staring at him like he wished he could reach inside Dick’s head and just pull the answers out.
“Are you going to be okay on this one?” Flag asked. Dick’s eyebrows furrowed as he stared back.
It was a ridiculous question. It had never mattered if any of them were ready, Waller was sending them into hell regardless. And Dick had never been okay, not for a single second that he’d been kept from his master.
Except now, it was a hysterical question.
Bruce was alive. He was alive, this issue had come out three days ago and Dick could make out the faded bullet scar from the Penguin’s umbrella curling around Bruce’s chin that meant he hadn’t had a chance to intercept the picture and photoshop it out. For the first time since he’d fought Batman in the field four years ago, Dick had real proof that his dad was alive.
And now Flag was asking if he was okay when he was the best he’d been since his arrival in Belle Reve.
“Is that the freaking Post?” Lawton asked, craning his head to try and see what Dick was reading, “Where the hell did you get that?”
“Flag gave it to me,” Dick answered, knowing the truth would distract his squad mates from the reason behind it. Lawton turned and Dick almost smiled at the befuddled expression on his face. Not quite, but there was real amusement rising in his chest. Flag only shrugged in response.
“Anything good?” Lawton took the seat on the bench next to him.
“Ooh, is this the one with the pics from Catty’s swimsuit issue?” Harley grinned, shooting across the cabin of the plane to settle herself across Lawton’s lap.
“Catwoman did a bikini shoot?” Digger demanded, suddenly craning to see the magazine. Dick turned it away from him, instinctively trying to protect Selina’s honor. Even if the thought of the cat thief modeling the latest in partial nudity wasn’t exactly an unpleasant one.
Killer Frost scoffed and rolled her eyes.
The promise of an easy mission died nearly the second they arrived at the base. But the trouble didn’t come from the enemy insurgents.
“You imbeciles actually believe this story?” Doctor Light hissed. Bloodsport looked around at the rest of the squad, having clearly taken in the fact that eight of the world’s most dangerous and hardened criminals had fallen obediently in line.
“Waller doesn’t bluff,” Lawton warned them, crossing his arms over his chest. Doctor Light scoffed, readjusting the straps on his arm gauntlets.
Doctor Light turned to look at where Flag was talking to the base leader, listening carefully as the soldier explained the situation and where the latest attacks had been. Flag was already in mission-mode, determining the most likely site for the next attack and where the squad would be most useful to deploy. The group of soldiers that had accompanied them were clustered half around Flag and half around the squad, but over the last several missions they’d gotten used to the idea that the supervillains and psychopaths were on their side.
Nobody was paying much attention to them. Not even Katana who was the last, most suspicious holdout.
The base was littered with vehicles and the entrances were open to allow the approaching convoy to pass through into the main yard. With a little bit of surprise, it would be an easy escape.
“Careful,” El Diablo warned. Killer Frost snorted.
“He might have a point, Chato,” she said icily, “Every word that bitch says is a lie.”
“You’ve all allowed yourselves to be neutered,” Doctor Light spat, “I won’t be so pathetic.”
“Man’s got a point,” Boomerang said, flipping his boomerang over in his hand, “Tell ya what mate, you go left, I’ll go right. They can’t take us both.”
Doctor Light grinned a nasty grin and Dick’s stomach twisted itself into knots. They were baiting him, trying to see once and for all if Waller was telling the truth. They’d all been ready to make a break for it that first mission, and it had only been Dick’s word that kept them from trying. If Light made it and Dick had spent six months away from his master for nothing, he’d… he would…
Doctor Light stepped forward and raised his gun.
Dick froze, feeling Harley’s hand sneak around to grab his. She squeezed his hand tightly and the two of them watched with baited breath as Doctor Light blasted Flag’s team back.
He caught them off guard, taking out five men and knocking Flag and the base leader off their feet. The darkness turned to daylight as Doctor Light held nothing back, blasting and laughing and wreaking havoc as soldiers shouted and shots rang out.
Dick saw Flag grab for something while Katana used her body and her sword to shield him. There was a device in his hand and the look on Flag’s face was grim determination. Doctor Light raised his weapon, aiming straight at Flag with a maniacal grin on his face.
And then his head exploded.
Boomerang let out a choked sound while Harley’s hand squeezed his so hard that she nearly snapped his finger in half. Dick’s heart pounded in his chest as the headless corpse toppled to the ground, blood spilling out of the twisted remains of the man’s shoulders.
“In case any of you were having ideas about me getting soft… consider this your one warning,” Waller said over the comms in their ears.
Bloodsport’s hand was on his neck right over the new injection site, and the rest of the Suicide Squad looked like they’d collectively turned to stone.
“Let’s get moving,” Flag ordered. His voice was strong, showing no signs of weakness to the group of wildly dangerous psychopaths that he’d just reminded he could kill with the push of a button. Dick felt his respect for the man grow. “After that light show, we’ve given away our position.”
Aside from the headless corpse of Doctor Light that Flag’s remaining men had unceremoniously dumped into a body bag, the they all made it back to Belle Reve in one piece. When Flag finally left the Clubhouse after a very terse debrief, he took all the noise and sound with him. The squad was standing around in a loose circle, no one willing to be the first to break the silence.
“She wasn’t bluffing,” El Diablo finally said. The image of Light’s head exploding in a shower of blood, brains and gore replayed itself in Dick’s head and he shuddered. His neck itched and he resisted the urge to rub the old injection site.
“Does that make it better?” Deadshot asked quietly.
“Sure as hell doesn’t make it worse,” Harley bit out.
“We could’ve been here this whole time for nothing,” Frost agreed. She didn’t look any better than the rest of them.
“Least you’ll get out someday,” Boomerang sniped bitterly, “Some of us’ve got three consecutive life sentences.”
The shock didn’t last forever. Time went on and the squad went on more missions, and Dick split the rest of his time between training, taking classes and working in the laundry room. After a while, the horrifying reminder of the bombs faded into the familiarity of his routine. Nothing changed, aside from the fact that he’d been put in charge of the laundry supply storage and new set of guards had joined the ever-changing roster.
“So that new guard’s pretty hot,” Harley voice chimed over the walkie-talkie one night, almost as soon as the guards shut the door to Dick’s cell.
“Which one?” Dick asked, even though he knew exactly who she was talking about. It didn’t even matter what she was talking about, all he wanted was to hear her. Because as long as he could hear her voice, he wasn’t alone.
“Well?”
“Well what?” Dick said as he realized he’d missed her entire answer.
“Whaddaya mean, well what?! Do you think he’s hot?”
Dick blinked. The new guard was tall, with carefully sculpted muscles that came from a lot of focused time spent at the gym, and features that would definitely be described as handsome. But as far as Harley’s question went…
“Um.”
“C’monnnnn, I won’t tell anyone!”
“I’m not…” Dick trailed off, his throat tightening. He’d never told anyone this before. Especially not Slade. He couldn’t keep going and the silence dragged on. Dick wished that Harley would interrupt him, that she’d just pick up and keep prattling on, but she didn’t. He could hear static over the line that meant she still had her finger on the button, was making a point to tell him she was listening. Whenever he was ready.
Dick took a deep breath.
“I’m not… attracted to men,” he finally whispered.
“Oh!” Harley said, sounding very puzzled, “Renny, that’s my bad, I’m sorry. I just thought… I mean I know rumors are rumors but I thought you and… Rumor has it you and your boss are… a little more than that.”
Dick swallowed. His thoughts were screaming at him and there were a million things he needed to say. Slade was everything to him. Dick had nothing but Slade, by his master’s design. His master had trained him to be everything he needed. Everything he wanted. Dick was his master’s property, he had no right to disagree with Slade’s wishes. What Dick thought didn’t matter. What he wanted didn’t matter.
“We are,” Dick breathed, quietly enough that there was no chance of it being heard over the radio.
“Oh, Renny. Christ.”
Dick’s chest hurt suddenly and he didn’t know why he felt so dizzy. Harley’s words were laced with poison, the horror in her voice tearing into the wounds he’d never realized were there. His fingers itched for the power button on the radio but he’d never been able to turn it off before and this time was no different.
“I saw the way you were looking at the Post,” Harley said softly after enough time had passed that Dick almost thought she’d given up for the night. Dick stiffened, terror flooding through him suddenly.
What had she seen?! Did she know—she couldn’t! She couldn’t know. Right???
“At Catty’s shoot,” Harley clarified and Dick nearly fell over from the all-consuming rush of relief and crushing disappointment. Of course she didn’t know. No one knew. No one would ever know.
“You never got to pick someone for yourself, did you?”
Dick didn’t know how the clown managed to always press on exactly the spot that hurt the worst and it hit him like a sucker punch.
“No,” he whispered hoarsely, surprising even himself. He hadn’t meant to answer.
“Tell you what, Renny,” Harley promised, “Someday, when this is all over and we’re both on the outside, I’ll introduce you to her.”
That would never happen. There would be no someday, not for him. In the impossible future where his master never came back for him, there were only so many ways Dick’s life could go and the options were to get himself killed on a mission or rot in prison. Boomerang wasn’t the only one serving multiple life-sentences.
But he could pretend.
“…I’d like that.”
“Trade for your sandwich?” Temi asked, and Dick passed it to him, accepting the plate of cold noodles without hesitation. He understood on some level why all the other prisoners complained about the food, but so long as it was calories that wouldn’t make him vomit, Dick was happy to eat it. Carter looked longingly at the sandwich Dick had just traded away and Dick gave Temi a look.
“John, come on, man,” Temi whined, but Dick didn’t budge and Temi sighed. He broke the sandwich in half and passed it to Carter. Then it was the other man’s turn to get Dick’s expectant stare until he turned to Temi and said, in an exaggerated voice, “Thank you very much.”
Carter turned back to Dick and asked, “Happy?”
Dick grinned.
“You and your freaking manners, man,” Bauer teased.
“Look at this, it’s all the illiterate fucks in one place,” an unfamiliar voice rang out, dripping with condescension. Dick tensed, his instincts screaming that he’d missed the signs of trouble and now it was too late.
The man in question was another prisoner, a thick inhibitor collar displayed around his neck. Dick vaguely recognized him and the other five men surrounding their table from the few times he’d gone out into the yard during his free time. Belle Reve may have been unique for its metahuman population, but it was still a prison and the prisoners who weren’t being blackmailed into serving on a Suicide Squad had plenty of free time to join one of its many gangs.
Bauer’s face was pale and Dick could tell that if it wasn’t for his inhibitor collar, he’d have turned invisible on the spot.
“Fuck off,” Daveed snarled at the men, baring his impressively sharp fangs. But they all just laughed.
“What’s the matter?” the one on the left noticed Dick staring silently at them, “The hell are you looking at?!”
When Dick didn’t answer, the first man shoved him. Dick took a deep breath, bringing his gaze down to stare at the plate of noodles as rage exploded in his chest.
“You even know how to talk, dumbass?” the asshole taunted, blindly unaware of the danger he was in. Because Dick’s shoulder burned where the man had pushed him and his instincts were screaming at him to snap the man’s neck in revenge to the point that it was physically painful to hold himself back.
Nobody touched him.
But he was just. John. right now. If he let even an ounce of his control slip then he wouldn’t be anymore. He’d be Renegade, the deadly mercenary, Deathstroke’s weapon who nobody else was allowed to touch.
If he just let the men tire themselves out, they would get bored and go.
Leave him alone!” Temi snapped.
Dick’s hand grabbed the edge of the table, squeezing as tightly as he could to anchor himself and stop the fury that was bubbling over. The men were dead. All six. It would take barely ten seconds and he would make it hurt.
Don’t kill anyone.
Flag had ordered him not to kill anyone.
But they touched him. They were already dead and his master had just ordered him to make it stick.
Just John. Just be John.
Snap his neck. Break his arm, twist off a finger, bury the fork in his eye.
Breathe.
“We got a problem here?” Lawton asked, suddenly standing at Dick’s back. Killer Croc loomed behind him, casting a massive shadow as he bared his teeth. The men froze in terror as Dick finally remembered how to breathe. His squad was here.
“No, we’re all good here,” the asshole in front raised his hands, stepping away from the table. His confidence wavered in the face of two deadly killers but it wasn’t gone. Not until Lawton smirked.
“I thought so,” Lawton nodded, clearly talking to Dick when he said, “See you tonight.”
He turned and walked away with the confidence of a man who managed to stand out in an industry of people who killed for money. Killer Croc crossed his arms over his chest and stared down the entire mess hall before snorting once and turning away to follow Lawton.
The look on the asshole’s face was pure, dumb, shock. For a second, he and his friends could only gape at Dick. The one who’d been shoving him turned green and Dick suddenly remembered that the entire prison knew that John Doe in the Warden’s Club had been arrested for almost three hundred counts of manslaughter and had gotten less than two days in solitary for violently assaulting another prisoner. Nobody moved. Then all six of them practically fell over each other to beat it out of the mess hall.
The whole table was staring at him with wide eyes when Dick finally turned back to them.
“You’re that John?!” Daveed demanded, his eyes wide with horror. Dick’s stomach tightened.
“The one in the warden’s club?” Temi hissed.
“Is that a problem?” Dick asked quietly. His classmates looked at each other in surprise.
“No! It’s just…” Carter started to say but he trailed off without finishing.
“You’re in the warden’s club, man,” Temi said when it was clear Carter wasn’t going to finish. He shook his head back and forth like he couldn’t even wrap his head around what he was saying, “What the hell are you doing here with us?”
From the looks on their faces, it was clear the other three were thinking the same thing. Dick frowned, looking down at the cold plate of noodles that was only getting colder and less appetizing. There were a lot of ways to respond. He could say nothing and let them wonder or he could tell them the truth that if he started a fight he’d be sent back to solitary and it wasn’t worth it.
Instead, in a very, very quiet voice that betrayed how dangerously vulnerable the words were, he said, “I like you guys.”
Dick tried to ignore it, but he could feel the other mercenary’s eyes on him as he emptied another clip into the targets. Finally, when his skin was practically crawling, he yanked the magazine out, slammed it down on the table, made a big show for the guards of putting the unloaded weapon down, then whirled around and sent Deadshot the darkest glare he could manage.
“What?!” he snapped.
“You’re tense,” Deadshot answered. His arms were crossed over his chest as he leaned back against one of the booths, and it was almost like the way that Slade stood, except Lawton didn’t have any of his master’s intimidating presence. “You’re a damn good shot, but you’re holding the thing like you think it’s going to bite you.”
Dick looked around at the guards watching them, letting his eyes track over all the camera and hidden microphones that they’d spotted, and then let out a breath.
“I don’t like guns,” he said quietly, “I don’t have to, as long as I’m good enough.”
“I know plenty of people that feel the same way,” Lawton agreed, “But you’re good enough that a small adjustment will make a big difference, if you want me to show you.”
Dick froze. He still hated Deadshot; his master’s enemies were his enemies, and he’d never betray his master like that. But there was Deadshot the mercenary that competed with his master for lucrative contracts, and then there was Lawton the inmate, a prisoner who’d been implanted with a bomb and forced into service on Waller’s task force.
Lawton couldn’t do any harm to his master’s empire from inside Belle Reve, and the bleeding void in Dick’s chest felt a strange kinship with the other members of the squad that he couldn’t understand.
“Show me.”
Lawton slowly walked towards him.
“When you’re tense, you have to compensate for it. Try and breathe it out,” Lawton instructed, gently pressing down on Dick’s shoulder to show him where the extra tension was. Dick took a deep breath before exhaling and letting the stiffness drain away. “That’s better. Alright, now try this…”
Dick was nine days from the one-year anniversary of his arrival in Belle Reve when the latest issue of the Gotham Post nearly made him break his record of four months without a panic attack.
“Hey, Ren. Renny,” Harley snapped her fingers in his face, jarring him back to the present before the numbness could set in, “What’s wrong?”
“That… he’s… who is that?” Dick pointed as he tried to pull air into his lungs. Harley gingerly pried the magazine out of his hands before squinting at the magazine to see who was talking about.
“Huh. Damian Wayne?” Harley read aloud, her eyes scanning across the page.
Dick just stared.
“Looks like the kiddo showed up a little while ago. Apparently one of the floozies Brucie got busy with kept it and now Gotham’s got a new little prince,” Harley hummed, “I’m surprised it doesn’t happen more. There was that one girl a couple years ago, Cissie somethin’ or other.”
Harley kept going but Dick wasn’t listening anymore. He wasn’t even breathing. Because Damian Wayne…
…was Damian al-Ghul.
Dick knew him. He’d trained him when Slade had them stationed at DEMON’s headquarters for a few months. Damian al-Ghul was Bruce’s son. Bruce and Talia al Ghul’s son. Did Slade know? He had to, the thought of his master not knowing something was unimaginable.
“You are beneath me! You are a mere servant while I am Damian al Ghul, the future ruler of the League,” Damian had snarled at him in one of their earliest sessions with fury no eight-year-old should have possessed, “Why I am being forced to tolerate your presence, I do not understand. But do not mistake my compliance with my mother’s orders for anything other than my obligation to her.”
“You disrespect me,” Dick breathed, focusing on the weight of his swords in each hand to remind himself that he was forbidden from doing any lasting damage to the insolent boy in front of him.
“Tt,” the little prince snorted derisively, “Why would I respect an ant beneath my heel?”
Dick felt rage well up beneath his chest and breathed it out.
“I am my master’s weapon,” Dick warned him, his heartbeat speeding up with every breath, “To disrespect me is to disrespect him and I will not allow that.”
Damian had spat at him in answer and Dick had shown no mercy in teaching him why that was a mistake.
“Shit, not again,” someone cursed, their voice echoing with a hollow ring.
In the League of Assassins, strength was power. Respect was earned through combat. Only the strong survived. After that first lesson, Damian never forgot who was stronger. But by the end of their months together, Damian had earned Dick’s respect too.
“What happened?” that was Deadshot now, moving closer and closer into his space.
He’d watched Damian’s impassive mask as Ra’s paid Deathstroke for his services and dismissed them for the final time, and it had been like staring into a mirror. Damian was just as devastated that Dick was leaving as Dick was to leave him.
“He was looking at the Post,” Harley answered. Her hand was on his arm, squeezing gently and Dick leaned into the soft, grounding pressure, “That new Wayne kid set him off.”
Dick didn’t have any family but Slade. His master had carved that lesson into his very soul, trying to replace the love he had with scars that would never heal.
“Fuck.”
But Damian, Damian was different. It had been Renegade’s job to train him, to find the gaps in the boy’s teachings and close them, to mentor him so he could be the weapon and heir Ra’s al Ghul needed.
“Ren,” someone snapped their fingers in his ear and it sounded so far away even as the echo rattled around inside his head.
Damian was his. Even with the amount of money Ra’s had offered, Deathstroke hadn’t stooped so low as to train the boy himself. Renegade was perfectly capable of bringing the boy to his master’s standards and Slade had been far too busy to give up that much of his time. So Dick had spent the nights by his master’s side and devoted every other second to Damian’s training. The months in the League’s base were as grueling for Dick as they were for Damian.
“What’s going on?” the new voice was unfamiliar and it took a long moment before the back of his head connected the dots to Bloodsport.
But that meant Dick had Damian all to himself. He’d taught the boy everything he knew and Damian eagerly rose to the challenges Dick set before him. He was as sharp and tenacious and vicious as he was intelligent and thoughtful and desperate for Dick’s approval. Something deep inside Dick had ached at the knowledge of what this boy was being molded into.
“Panic attack,” Waylon’s voice was even rougher than usual.
“He hasn’t had one this bad in months,” Lawton sounded worried.
The day that the boy had shyly presented him with his sketchbook, Dick’s world had stopped. Damian may have been a seasoned killer at age eight, but his soul was gentle and Dick knew—the kind of knowledge that only came from personal experience—that this life was killing him.
He nearly grabbed the boy and ran on the spot.
“Ren, deep breaths, okay? You’re okay, you’re safe here,” Harley said soothingly. Instinct forced him to inhale and Harley nodded encouragingly, “Good job, Ren. That’s good. Keep going.”
In that moment, he knew that he would abandon his master for this boy. To give Damian a chance at a life beyond the blade, beyond the crushing rule of his grandfather’s thumb. The only thing that had stopped him was the knowledge that Slade would never stop hunting him. And that when his master caught them, Damian would be the one forced to pay the price for Dick’s sin.
“Ren, close your hand if you can hear me,” Harley’s voice was sharper and Dick didn’t react. The grip on his shoulder tightened, “Come on, Renny, you can do it. I know you can do it, it’s time to come back.”
But Damian al Ghul was Damian Wayne.
He was in Gotham.
He was with Bruce.
Damian was safe.
Dick closed his eyes and took a shuddering breath, years of tension and fear and grief draining away. He was on the ground, probably had been for a few minutes. Digger was behind him, supporting Dick’s useless weight, and Harley was crouched right in front of him, one hand on his arm and the other squeezing tightly around the pressure points on his wrist.
She looked worried. They all did.
“You back with us?” Lawton asked when he saw Dick’s eyes were finally focused. Dick nodded, using the steady—if elevated— thud of Harley’s heartbeat to ground himself.
“I’m okay,” Dick told them. For the first time in… more than six years, it was actually true.
“Flag is down!” Bloodsport shouted into their comms.
“I’m getting hammered over here!” Captain Boomerang yelled back.
“What we do?” Killer Croc growled.
“They’re not burning!” Diablo shouted in a voice that was ruined from exhaustion, and from his vantage point Dick could see the constant blasts of flame getting weaker and weaker.
“Hold your positions!” Katana snapped furiously. But even she was getting tired.
Dick’s blades were moving so fast that he could barely make out the outline in the darkness, all he could do was track the flashes of silver in the dim moonlight.
“Shit!” Frost screamed, ice blasting out of her hands as the creatures overwhelmed them. Killer Croc let out a sound of pure agony, ripping at his body as the things buried deeper. Dick’s blades swept out in an arc, neatly cutting down a row of the crawly nightmares. Behind him, the giant beast crumpled to his knees in a growing pool of blood as the creatures exploded out of the wound.
“What do we do?!” Harley shouted. Dick’s heart pounded at the fear in her voice; he’d never heard Harley scared before.
All around Dick was chaos. Croc was down, bleeding out on the ground and Killer Frost was frantically blasting away at the creatures circling them. Deadshot was pinned, gunning down as many of the things as he could but he’d be out of ammo soon and they would be on him the instant he stopped to reload. Bloodsport was doing his best to shield Flag, but Harley couldn’t swing fast enough to hold them off.
The squad was losing and outnumbered and floundering without Flag’s lead. They didn’t know what to do.
But Dick did.
“Freeze him!” he shouted at Killer Frost, slashing through the enemies separating them until he could give her enough room to take her eyes off the fight.
“What?!”
“He’s cold-blooded, freeze him and you’ll slow his heart. Buys us time to get him help before he bleeds out,” Dick’s voice was sharp and short with almost all his focus on keeping the wave of attackers at bay. He didn’t realize until Frost moved without hesitation that he’d just given an order. Dick tamped down the surge of panic, because there wasn’t time and right now the only thing that mattered was staying alive, “Boomerang, Electrocutioner, get to Flag. Katana, give Deadshot a thirty second window, he’s dead if he can’t reload.”
“On it.”
“What about us?” Harley asked.
“Regroup on Flag. We’re boxed in on all sides, we need to clear some room. Harley, Diablo, get us something solid we can put our backs to.”
Twenty minutes was an eternity on the battlefield, but somehow, they’d all survived long enough to make it to higher ground. Dick looked around, taking a head count. Flag was still out cold and Killer Croc was frozen in a block of ice, but they were both far enough from the epicenter they’d both be okay. So long as the squad could complete the objective.
The rest of Flag’s team consisted of nine men, a far cry from the troop of thirty they’d started with.
“We need air support,” Dick said, looking through the binoculars. The signal controlling the creatures was coming from a tall building in the center of the city, and it felt so similar to the first mission the squad had ever been on that the déjà vu made him dizzy. But there wasn’t time for that. Besides, that had been magic. This was a rogue laboratory that had released bioengineered robots piloted by nanotech that consumed and destroyed everything in their path.
“I can get you one chopper,” Waller’s answer was immediate, the warden not even pausing to question Dick taking command of her squad, “Everything else is tied up for evacs.”
“What are you thinking?” Lawton asked, crossing his arms over his chest.
“We clear a path and go straight in.”
“What?!” Frost snapped, “Are you crazy?!”
“Look,” Dick handed her the binoculars, “They’re expecting us to try and sneak in from the sides; we try it and there’ll be an army on top of us before we can blink. We have enough people for the Stallion formation, Deadshot and I will keep the path clear from above. Once we’re inside, we’re going straight to the top; the control center is operating from the penthouse on the nineteenth-floor. We get up there and we put them down.”
“You heard the man,” Waller ordered and the soldiers fell in, giving Dick a row of salutes.
Dick’s heart pounded, but his head felt clear and his chest felt light. For the first time in years, longer than he could really remember, Dick felt like himself.
It wasn’t enough of a comfort that Dick had been right; the enemy hadn’t been expecting them to charge in head-on. Because all of a sudden, the robotic nightmares were moving twice as fast as before and swarmed the squad’s tight formation. Dick tightened his grip on his rifle and eliminated as many threats as he could with extreme prejudice. The chopper Waller had gotten them was ringing out machine gun fire but there was only so much they could do to thin the crowd of horrific sludge and spike-filled creatures. Dick shuddered; biorobotics was his new least favorite kind of science.
“Don’t stop!” Lawton shouted over the roar of the oncoming swarm when the squad hesitated. Dick couldn’t take his eyes off his targets; his squad was counting on him to keep the path clear and he wasn’t going to fail.
“Get inside!” Dick shouted.
“Almost there!” Diablo yelled over the comms, and Boomerang covered his ears as the explosive boomerang rocked the whole street. The heavily barricaded door refused to give way.
“Fuck!”
“Keep it together!” Dick called to them, refusing to panic as the crowd of robotic monsters closed in on his team, “Frost, cover as much ground as you can. Buchinsky, once they’re wet you’ll be able to fry them.”
“Got it!” The Electrocutioner shouted back, his hands sparking with electricity.
“They need you down there!” Deadshot’s words were punctuated by the deafening gunfire as he picked off the first wave of robots. Dick’s grip on his rifle faltered.
“I’m not leaving you.”
“We’re not going to make it inside without air support and one chopper isn’t gonna cut it,” Lawton answered firmly, “Get your ass down there. They can’t do this without you.”
Horror crept up his chest. Lawton was right. But Dick couldn’t make that call, he didn’t have it in him to—
“Hey, kid. You saved me, now it’s my turn,” Lawton’s voice was strong and steady and there was absolutely no doubt in it, “Get them through this. If anyone can do it, it’s you.”
“Lawton…”
“Go!”
Dick hesitated. He grabbed Lawton’s hand and squeezed it once, a million words contained in the gesture that Dick knew he would never be able to say. For one second, Lawton’s eyes locked onto Dick’s.
“Thank you,” Dick said.
Then he turned and threw himself off the balcony, flipping over in midair and firing his handguns as he sprung off the side of a building and sprinted across a low wall. It didn’t take long for him to reach the rest of the squad, especially with Deadshot covering his descent.
“Heads up, Ren!” Buchinsky shouted and Dick leapt into the air as the entire world seemed to crackle with electricity. Half the block was suddenly electrified and the robots caught in the blast shuddered and melted into a hundred different piles of goo.
Katana and two of Flag’s men parted to allow Dick through and he was already pulling out his swords before jamming them into the section of the wall right between the barricaded door and the control panel. He pushed with all his strength while Boomerang set off another explosion and Diablo’s flames melted through the reinforced steel and with a tremendous bang, the door caved in.
“We’re in! Move it!” Dick shouted and the squad obeyed instantly as the next wave of robots closed in on them. The steady crack of gunfire from up above and Dick’s remaining sword kept them away until Bloodsport made it inside after Harley, but all of a sudden, the gunfire stopped.
Dick’s head snapped up to Deadshot’s lookout post.
He was too far away to do anything but watch as the creatures swarmed.
“NO!” Dick shouted, horror pulling the words out of his throat, “LAWTON!”
Deadshot went down, blood spraying out from the wound so intensely that Dick knew the man was dead before he hit the ground. The sight ripped a hole in his chest, anguish flooding in from places he’d thought were long since dead to loss.
He was dead.
He was dead.
He was dead.
But his squad still had a chance.
Dick couldn’t fall apart now.
Or else Lawton’s death would be for nothing.
When they finally destroyed the control and released the nanosludge robots, Dick took no small amount of pleasure watching Katana ram her sword all the way through the scientist responsible.
“He was one of us,” El Diablo said quietly, his voice reverent, “We didn’t choose to be here and we don’t get to choose what happens next, but no matter what comes, estamos una familia.”
“A bloody fucked up family,” Boomerang snorted. But he didn’t argue.
“Fucked up as they come,” Harley agreed, a watery smile on her face.
“To Deadshot,” Dick held up the plastic cup, filled with the shitty moonshine Flag had smuggled in for them. For once, he didn’t care that Slade would be furious at him for caring about the man; Dick had fought by Lawton’s side, trained next to him, eaten meals, shared the complaints the other man didn’t hesitate to voice, and shared his company for too long not to respect him. For too long not to care that the man was dead, and that it had been Dick’s orders that had gotten him killed.
“To Deadshot,” his squad echoed.
The liquor burned all the way down and Dick closed his eyes to savor it. It felt good. It felt so, so, so unspeakably good to be able to suffer without being punished for it, to grieve and to mourn and to have it be shared by the people with him instead of taken advantage of. Instead of having his weakness exploited and crushed out of him.
Losing Deadshot hurt. And for the first time in a very long time, Dick was allowed to let it.
After the makeshift funeral was over, the squad slowly filed out, heading for the locker rooms in the back of the Clubhouse. It was somber and lonely. Dick couldn’t make himself move.
New footsteps entered the room.
“You cared about him,” Waller said. Dick stiffened.
“No, I didn’t,” he snapped. “I hated him. He was my master’s enemy and that made him my enemy.”
“And that’s why you’re devastated he’s gone,” Waller commented dryly. Something dripped down his face and Dick reached his fingers up to check for blood. When he pulled them away, they were wet with tears. He stared at his glistening fingertips, suddenly paralyzed with emotions he couldn’t understand.
Sadness was a raging torrent, the emotion ripped out of him in violent waves, and at its quietest it was always a thing of shame. That’s how it had always been since his master had broken him. But these tears were… gentle.
“They all would’ve died if you didn’t step up. You’re a natural,” Waller said, crossing her arms over her chest, “You’ve led a team before.”
It wasn’t a question.
Dick stared at her. What kind of secrets did the warden hold? What kind of patterns could she find from the information that only she knew?
“This isn’t my first time being dead,” he answered quietly. He almost stopped there, but anything to sway Waller’s opinion of him was worth the cost of the admission, “I like it better this time.”
Waller watched him carefully.
“Let’s take a walk,” the warden said.
“Here are some things I know,” Waller told him as they walked down the empty hallways that led to her office, “You died about seven years ago, you’re twenty now and you have been since March, you’re from Gotham, and the thing you want most in the world is to know that the people you left behind are safe. Am I wrong?”
Dick trembled. It was cold in this part of the building; that must have been why his arms were erupting with goosebumps. But it wasn’t until they were safely inside the privacy and soundproofing of Waller’s office that she continued talking.
“Now, maybe that wouldn’t be enough for most people. I, however, am not most people. You were careful, so don’t blame yourself. But it was some of the things you said that fit the last pieces together. You see, I’ve met Kory Anders.”
The trembling in his legs stopped as Dick froze solid.
“I happen to know that she has something of an unpleasant history with Deathstroke the Terminator. She,” Waller turned to look Dick straight in the eye, “And her friends.”
Dick was physically incapable of dying from a heart attack. His master had tested that very thoroughly.
That still didn’t mean it was a pleasant feeling when his heart literally stopped beating.
“It was clean. No loose ends, the case was open and shut, every question had a neat answer. It was exactly how I would’ve done it,” Waller said before she shattered the last vestiges of any illusions Dick had, “With Robin dead, nobody would have any reason to go looking for him.”
“For a long time, I wasn’t sure. But once I knew what to look for… you haven’t changed at all, kid. Not in the ways that matter.”
“How can you say that?” Dick whispered, horror leaking through his voice, “I’m… I’m not—"
“He ripped you apart and put you back together in his image. But not even he could change what the pieces were made from." It was a long time before Waller spoke again. But not long enough for Dick to have a chance to brace himself.
“I want to make this clear to you. This isn’t about who you were. This is about who you are, right here and right now.”
Dick took a ragged breath, his chest rising and falling unsteadily, the motion getting faster and faster as his control slipped away from him.
“What are you saying?” he asked Waller desperately.
“It was too much of a risk to let you have your one phone call before. But things have changed,” Waller said calmly, “If you give me his number, I will tell him that you’re here and release you into his care when he comes.”
Shock crashed through him as if he’d been impaled again. Because Waller was NOT talking about Slade.
His hand rose to his neck.
“And the…”
“Yes,” Waller agreed and Dick just stared at her because she meant it, she would release him from prison and get rid of the bomb in his neck that ensured he didn’t think about stepping out of line.
Dick swallowed.
“And what… what about my squad?”
Waller’s expression didn’t change.
“Obviously, I would need a guarantee that you will remain discreet.”
Dick shivered.
She was offering him his freedom. All it would cost him was Batman’s identity and Dick’s word that he wouldn’t interfere with the squad, not even when he had the Justice League at his beck and call.
He’d been offered worse deals.
A year ago, he would’ve clawed Waller’s throat out for daring to suggest that Dick would betray his master like that.
But now?
He could go home. He could see Bruce, Barbara, Alfred. He could meet the rest of his family for the first time. He could see Damian. His master still thought he was dead, it had been over a year and even Slade would get tired of jumping at shadows even if he hadn’t long-since abandoned the possibility of Dick being alive. It would still be a betrayal, but hadn’t his master betrayed him first by leaving him here for so long? Waller was careful and Bruce was careful and if Dick was very, very careful, Slade would never know.
But if he did… he would be abandoning his squad.
“Take as long as you like to decide,” Waller said and it wasn’t soft or kind but it was the closest he’d ever heard her get to either of those.
Two weeks later, Dick was still mulling the warden’s offer over. He hadn’t made any progress and part of that was because he hadn’t said a word about it to anyone. Harley could help him decide; Dick knew that if he told her, she’d talk him into it without hesitation. That might have been why he hadn’t said anything. Telling Harley would be as good as making his own mind up.
So he was still thinking, trying to wrap his head around the idea and weighing all the sides and letting himself imagine a world where his master never found out he was alive, where he never came back for him, where Dick could go back to Bruce and meet the family he could’ve had and try to be something that wasn’t just Deathstroke’s weapon.
It was terrifying.
Everyone—his squad, his classmates, his friends from the laundry room, even Aaron—could tell he was distracted. But nobody had tried to ask him, it seemed like everyone had decided to give him space to just think and Dick almost wished someone would confront him. It had been such a long time since he’d been able to make a decision for himself, his instincts might have been able to help him if he just had a little bit of pressure.
“I remember you said you wanted to read some classics so I’ve got ‘A Tree Grows in Brooklyn’, ‘The Giver’, and ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ and you said you’ve never read Lord of the Rings so you’re taking these too.”
Dick accepted the pile of books from Aaron, putting them down on the table in front of him. Bloodsport reached over to grab one off the pile and started to flip through it.
“I’m taking this one,” he told him, but didn’t move until Dick nodded. He still wasn’t used to the fact that his squad mates asked him for things instead of just taking what they wanted from him, but he liked it.
“Oh, hang on a second,” Aaron frowned, looking across the yard before waving at someone, “Jaime! Jaime, c’mere!”
Jaime turned out to be a young Latino with deeply tanned skin and hair that was no less unruly for how short it was. Even without the bright orange jumpsuit, the tan would be a dead giveaway that he was new. The thick black collar around his neck that glowed with red light revealed that he was a metahuman and Dick immediately put him in the third category.
In the months he’d been here, he’d learned that there were a few different types of prisoners. There were the metahumans whose crimes had rightfully landed them their place in Belle Reve, the kinds of scary monsters that society wanted to lock away and pretend didn’t exist. Then there were the dangerous psychopaths whose lack of powers hadn’t stopped them from becoming too dangerous for a place like Blackgate or Metropolis Pen. Diablo, Frost and Croc were all the first category, Harley and Bloodsport firmly in the second. Dick wasn’t completely sure which applied to him; technically, he wasn’t a metahuman. He wondered, not for the first time, if Waller knew the inhibitor collars didn’t work properly against the serum. In the year after he’d gotten it, Slade had trained him to fight against the collars. Dick had been familiar enough with his body before and after the serum that he’d somehow recognized where the block was, and whether it was mental fortitude or overloading the electronics with sensory inputs, Dick had learned to nullify the device long enough to crush it in his hand.
Slade had been so proud of him in a way Dick rarely ever earned.
It occurred to him suddenly that maybe… that hadn’t been the point. That maybe Slade had been using the collar as a punishment the first time and Dick had managed to shock both of them by beating it.
“Uh, John?”
“Still here,” he answered, cataloguing that Jaime had made it across the yard to stand nervously next to Aaron. Right. Category three.
The third category was the loosest to define. There were plenty of metahumans out there who didn’t know how to control their powers, or who’d gotten wrapped up in something they shouldn’t and ended up making bad choices. Unfortunately for them, Belle Reve was the prison specially designed to hold them and they got thrown in with the wolves.
The good news for them was that once their relatively short sentences were up, they’d be released. Assuming they survived that long.
“This is Jaime, he just got in a few days ago,” Aaron leaned in, trying to whisper without looking suspicious. It was an adorable effort. “He’s been having a bit of a rough start and I thought—”
“That I could chase them off for you?” Dick’s voice was flat and unimpressed. DuBois raised his eyes off the borrowed book to glance over at them, then decided the situation didn’t warrant his attention.
“I didn’t mean it like that!” Aaron shook his head vigorously, “I just thought he’d feel better if he met a couple people who aren’t assholes.”
DuBois snorted.
“Well luckily you’ve come to asshole central,” he commented as he kept his attention on the book, “Real good choice, kid.”
Aaron rolled his eyes and the corner of Bloodsport’s mouth twitched up into a smile as Aaron sat down across from Dick. He’d try to strangle Dick if he ever told anyone, but he liked Aaron. Mostly out of bemusement that anyone in prison for accidentally blacking out an entire Seaboard could still be that earnest.
“You want to sit?” Dick prompted when Jaime didn’t move.
“Oh. Uh, I mean, yeah. Thanks.”
Jaime sat down next to Aaron. He shifted nervously under the attention but Dick wasn’t paying him very much notice at all. Because now that Jaime was right in front of him, Dick could see that underneath the orange fabric of the jumpsuit, something was bulging out of his back and all of his instincts told him it was dangerous.
“What’s on your back?” Dick asked. Jaime stiffened, his fingernails digging into his palms.
“It’s, uh… long story.”
“We’ve got time,” DuBois reminded him, lazily flicking to the next page of his borrowed book. Jaime swallowed. Aaron nodded at him encouragingly and he took a deep breath.
“It’s alien tech,” Jaime admitted, “It was a freak accident, complete wrong place, wrong time. I was just going home from school one night and all of a sudden there was an explosion at this lab I was passing, the next thing I know this thing is clamping down on my back. I tried everything I could to get it off but the thing is bonded to my spine now and it’s got a life of its own.”
“Nasty,” DuBois commented but he was only half paying attention. Dick was a little more interested. He’d never heard of any alien technology that took over its host but he could imagine plenty of people who’d love to get their hands on something like that. Jaime was clearly in over his head, and even if he made it through his time in Belle Reve, he was only going to be in more danger. If he was smart, he’d look for someone who’d at least pay him to make use of his new tech enhancements.
“I’m getting better at controlling it though—” Jaime cut off, looking around the prison like he’d just remembered where he was, “Well, I thought I was.”
He let his head drop, turning his face away. Dick was suddenly even more interested. Everything the kid had said was true…
Except that last part.
Jaime—or whoever he was—forgot to keep his story straight. Maybe it would have fooled most people, but Dick wasn’t most people.
“People got hurt and now I’m here. There’s not much more to tell.”
Aaron nodded along as Jaime finished his story, but DuBois hadn’t even looked up from his book and Dick kept his expression (and his curiosity) carefully under control. Jaime twitched, his face twisting down in a frown and he opened his mouth like he was about to say something, but he cut himself off at the last second.
Suddenly, Dick didn’t see a new inmate. All he saw was a rookie on their first undercover assignment, barely remembering that they weren’t supposed to let anyone know they were on comms. Maybe that wasn’t fair; the kid wasn’t wearing an earpiece and he wasn’t holding himself the way people did when they were wired up, and he was impressively calm for the fact that he was surrounded by deadly psychopaths and dangerous metahumans. But there was no doubt about it now that he knew what to look for.
Honestly, even Slade would be impressed with him. It had barely taken him three minutes with Jaime to figure out the kid was undercover. But Dick’s impassive observation turned colder with the kid’s next question.
“So what’s in there?” Jaime pointed down the hallway leading away from the cellblock, “They just told us it was restricted access.”
“That’s the Clubhouse,” DuBois answered, “Members only.”
“Uh…” Jaime started to ask, but cut himself off as Aaron shook his head at him. It didn’t stop him for long. “Are you guys members?”
Bloodsport looked up, his grip on the book tightening when he noticed Dick’s expression turn icy. Dick was grateful for the backup; in the other mercenary’s hands, the book was as deadly as any firearm or blade.
“No,” Dick lied, his voice flattening to a deadly edge. It was a warning and if Jaime was smart, he’d take the hint. Aaron frowned, figuring out that something wasn’t right. Jaime faltered but he didn’t stop there.
“Was Deadshot?”
Bloodsport stiffened and Aaron’s jaw dropped open at Jaime’s boldness. Dick felt cold fury wash over him; whoever this kid was, whatever he was really doing in Waller’s prison, enough was enough. Dick leaned forward, clenching his fists into the table to stop himself from doing something he would regret.
“You want advice?” Dick’s voice was a tightly coiled hiss, his heart pounding in his chest as he forced himself not to strike. Jaime jerked backwards, fear spreading across his face.
“Ask. Fewer. Questions.”
Dick stormed away, making sure to head the opposite direction from the Clubhouse. DuBois followed him, leaving the books behind. Not that he cared about them right now, but no one would be stupid enough to take them.
The laundry room was empty; one of the perks of being in charge of the facilities was being entrusted with the keys.
“He’s a plant,” Dick told his squad mate, his voice almost inaudible.
“For who?”
“Not sure. But whatever’s on his back was real.”
DuBois frowned, his eyebrows furrowing and his hand raising up to tap against his chin.
“You think someone caught wind of what Waller’s up to?”
Dick shrugged, but the words sent a shiver through him that had nothing to do with the laundry room’s perpetual chill. If someone knew about Waller’s squad, that could mean any number of things. It didn’t necessarily mean…
But if anyone started looking too closely at Lawton’s death, that was exactly the kind of thing that would catch his attention.
Dick was loyal to Slade. He was. And he always would be. So it wasn’t that he didn’t want his master to find him, but… Dick had been here for a year and then some. Prison wasn’t fun, and the missions Waller sent them on ranged from insane to a straight up miracle that any of them made it back alive, but… Dick had his squad. He had the privileges Waller gave them, he had Harley and a two-way radio that guaranteed he had company whenever he wanted it, he was in charge of the laundry system for the whole prison—which was a position he coveted despite having no idea why he did—and he was on track to get his GED. And Waller’s words from their conversation were burning a hole in his chest, all he had to do was give her the number and she would call.
Someday… Dick could be… he could be free.
But all of that hinged on Slade never knowing… it wasn’t really a betrayal if his master thought he was dead, the only way Dick could ever even think about the warden’s offer without falling apart was if he could hold onto the idea that his master had given him up by accepting the fact that Dick was long-since dead and gone.
“Are you going to tip her off?” Bloodsport asked, an edge of steel in his voice, “He could be Waller’s way of making sure we’re not up to anything behind her back, but if he’s not… this could be our best shot of getting out of this shithole.”
Dick’s fingernails dug into his palms hard enough to break the skin and he tried to focus on the stinging pain even as the serum effortlessly knit him back together. DuBois sighed, his shoulders dropping, exhaustion weighing down every line on his face. Dick was transfixed at the sight of a man as deadly and dangerous and threatening as Bloodsport looking so…
…weak.
DuBois knew how dangerous it was to show vulnerability to an opponent, to show any kind of weakness at all. But here he was. Letting Dick see him with his guard down. Trusting Dick enough to deliberately let his guard down around him. It… he shouldn’t…
There was something solid in Dick’s chest, right where the bleeding void usually sat. But for once it didn’t hurt. It felt steady. It felt strong. DuBois trusted him even though he knew what Dick was. And somehow Dick knew he’d earned that trust, all on his own.
“Look, Ren. I know you don’t want to go back to him and I don’t blame you. But if the others find out that someone out there was trying to shut her down and you got in the way… it won’t just be Waller’s head they’re out for.”
Dick took a breath in and let it out slowly.
He could tip off Waller, let her know that someone had gotten themselves into her prison and have her shut the whole program down. It would buy him time, maybe even enough time for him to make a decision about the offer burning a hole in his soul. Or Dick could keep his mouth shut. Let Jaime and whoever was backing him do their digging, uncover whatever secrets Waller was hiding, and wait for the chips to fall.
Did he ruin his squad’s only real chance at escape to keep himself out of Slade’s reach, or did he sacrifice his own future as a real person in the hopes of saving his squad?
Either way, Slade would be pissed at him. Because even if he said nothing, it wouldn’t be for his master’s benefit. Slade had spent years trying to train the hero out of him, but faced with the first real chance to be selfish, there was no question in Dick’s mind.
And a part of him, a stupid, selfish part of him, thought that just maybe… this could be his answer. If someone went looking, maybe they would find the truth and figure out a way to shut Task Force X down for good. Dick’s squad would be out of danger, they’d all be alive, and maybe then, Dick would be able to take Waller up on her offer. Maybe he could have everything and his master would never, ever know.
“I won’t,” Dick thought about the terror on Harley’s face as Light’s head exploded, the blood spraying out of Lawton’s chest as he crumbled, the anxiety breaking through the façade as Digger yelled, “You can’t do this! We had a deal!” before Waller dragged them all off to solitary. About DuBois trusting him enough to even ask, “It is his best chance to find me but… I don’t want to watch any more of you die. Nobody deserves this.”
“Hey, Ren. John. Whatever you call yourself underneath all this,” DuBois’ hand settled on his chest, just above his heart. Dick flinched, so starved for touch that he couldn’t even begin to care that nobody was supposed to put a hand on him. He was so sick of Slade’s rules, so exhausted from forcing himself to follow them when all he wanted was to share the same easy camaraderie and casual touches the rest of his squad had settled into. “You don’t deserve any of this either.”
“Do we tell them?” Dick asked instead of answering. But the words hit.
“The fewer people that know, the better.”
Notes:
If you want to pretend things get better from here, don't read the epilogue :) :) :) :) :)
Also, don't mind me screaming at myself because this started as a oneshot and I had no intentions of letting it get longer and the current wordcount for Bonfire is over 40K. Which means I literally wrote a novel by accident. SIGH. How does this keep happening.
Thank you for reading and please be sure to comment so I can find out which section of this chapter hurt you guys the most! Or if you just need to scream about all the shit Dick has been through :D :D :D
Chapter 7: Epilogue: Reclamation
Notes:
Warning: character death, graphic violence. Warning part two: I will be laughing very evilly the entire time you're reading this. I've written some messed up stuff *cough* my entire whumptober series *cough* but this epilogue is just plain Mean. Because the answer to "hasn't Dick suffered enough???" is just "No." You want Dick to get a happy ending, check out Body, Mind and Soul because this is... not that.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“You’re clear,” Dick reported over his radio, staring through his scope as he confirmed the area was free of hostiles.
“On my mark,” Flag said, holding one hand up. The squad shifted, Killer Frost and El Diablo raising their hands as their powers flared to life, while electricity crackled off the Electrocutioner standing just behind them.
The back of Dick’s neck prickled and he tensed with the sudden knowledge that he wasn’t alone.
“Wait!” Dick barked suddenly, “Something’s wrong.”
“What is it?” Flag asked as he immediately signaled for the squad to hold.
That was the last thing Dick saw before he turned around. Flag, with one fist raised, while the rest of the squad followed his lead.
Dick dropped his rifle.
“Renegade? Do you copy?” Flag’s voice was urgent in his ear, but Dick couldn’t answer. He was paralyzed. His entire body went numb as if someone had dumped a bucket of freezing water on him.
“Oh shit!” someone shouted in his ear.
“What’s happening?” Killer Frost asked, sounding confused, “Are we going in or not?”
Terror flooded his body, every muscle stiffening as if he’d turned to stone.
He stepped forward. Dick’s feet were frozen to the ground.
No.
Another step forward.
No.
One more step brought him into Dick’s space. Close enough to touch. Close enough to burn. Close enough that there was only fire in his chest; a red-hot blaze of pure terror.
NO.
A firm hand wrapped around Dick’s neck, fingers pressing in against the soft flesh.
NO!
Slade was silent, but Dick heard the command to stay still as clear as day. He held himself motionless as Slade’s fingers probed the skin—as if he could have moved even if he wanted to— but he couldn’t stop himself from trembling when the fingers found something that refused to give; tiny, firm and buried deep under the skin.
Slade drew his hand away from Dick’s neck and he let out an involuntary whine, desperate for the contact after so long without it. Slade let out a soft, almost imperceptible huff that was something between amusement, affection and apology before he cupped the underside of Dick’s chin and stroked along the side of his cheek.
“You’re forgiven,” Slade said like a promise, and instantly all of Dick’s terror evaporated into sheer relief. Then Slade moved. Dick hadn’t been given permission to do anything else, so he forced himself to stay still. He heard Harley scream and the other members of the squad let out horrified shouts; honestly, in the swell of emotions at Slade’s return, he’d forgotten they existed.
The knife was sharp. That meant it didn’t hurt nearly as much as it could’ve for his throat to be slashed open. Dick let out a choked gurgle as the blade cut him apart, the pain hitting him hard even though he’d had time to brace for it. Blood gushed out of the wound and even though all his instincts screamed at him to grab his neck and apply pressure, he forced himself not to. Slade’s hands were on his neck, probing the wound and prying for something and Dick didn’t have the breath left to scream even though he was being ripped apart.
The world spun and he lost his grip; Slade caught him as he crumbled to the ground and held him up even though he was complete dead weight. Literally. He could feel his brain shutting down from the lack of oxygen and the massive amount of blood he’d lost, and the serum might have given him a few more seconds but Slade had cut deep. If he had the ability, he would’ve laughed.
After everything he’d survived to make it back to Slade, he was dying at his master’s hands. Because Slade would rather his apprentice was dead than work for anyone else.
There were words, people screaming and explosions flashing and a bang that rocked through what little consciousness Dick had left.
“Tell Waller she’s next.”
His master’s voice was a deep rumble that Dick could feel in his bones with how tightly he was pressed against him. The world had become very small. His ears rumbled with the pounding of his master’s heartbeat. The smell of gunpowder cut through the tang of blood that filled his mouth. Up above, the black and orange of his master’s mask swam in and out. And everything else was just pain.
There were worse ways to go than dying in Slade’s arms, cradled against Slade’s chest and forgiven for his many, many mistakes. It wasn’t painless, but it was quick and precise and done with care. But despite that, Dick couldn’t get himself to accept his fate, or to close his eyes and embrace eternity.
It hurt. It hurt so badly. Even with everything that Dick had been through, being impaled and shot and bitten and burned and blown up, this was a unique kind of agony. His throat was an inferno of pain and every heartbeat sent more and more blood gushing out of the of the open gash that had once been skin. There was so much blood; it filled his throat and dripped down into his lungs and poured down his chest and stomach and arms and legs and knees and toes and Dick couldn’t understand how there was still more coming out of him. The world was blurry and everything swirled like it was underwater. But it was dark and it only got darker with every passing second.
“I’m sorry, kid. She never should have gotten you,” Slade’s voice was a gentle rumble meant only for Dick. Somehow, with the last bit of strength he didn’t know he had, Dick managed to squeeze his master’s hand. Slade exhaled and Dick could almost picture the expression on his face; something fond and soft and so devastatingly sad that it filled Dick’s chest with terror strong enough to almost drive out the pain. He flinched, his body twitching weakly as his master raised his hand, two fingers pressing gently on Dick’s eyelids. “Shh, you’re done. You’ve done enough. Just rest.”
If he’d had any air left in his lungs or any strength left in his body, he would’ve cried out and begged his master to let him choose how to spend his final moments. Instead, a watery, panicked croak escaped his lips as Slade closed Dick’s eyes for the final time.
Somewhere, in the very dark recesses of his dying mind, Dick thought it was fitting (even if it was so very, very cruel) that after everything, Slade had even stolen his last words from him.
Renegade noticed the trouble before anyone else, just like he always did. Flag trusted the man’s instincts and stopped his team short before they could walk into a trap, waiting for the mercenary to report back on what he’d seen. But there was nothing. Only radio silence.
“Renegade?” Flag barked into his comm. There was still no answer. At his right side, Harley shifted uncomfortably, her grip twisting around her ridiculously oversized mallet.
“There’s someone with—oh SHIT!” Bloodsport cut off mid-word and Flag grabbed the binoculars from his hand.
Even through the distorted lens of the binoculars, Deathstroke the Terminator cut a terrifying figure. And worse, he had one hand on Renegade’s chin.
“Get out of there, Ren!” Flag shouted into the radio, horror filling his chest because he knew it was already too late. Renegade had turned into a living statue as Deathstroke stroked his cheek in a parody of a loving caress. Deathstroke’s mask made it impossible for Flag to tell that the man was speaking, but Renegade’s radio picked up the very faintest trace of sound.
Whatever the mercenary said made Renegade practically melt with relief as the tension and hostility that Renegade had carried for the entirety of his stay in Belle Reve evaporated like it had never been there. Flag could only stare as Renegade’s posture slumped and he relaxed so completely that it looked like only Deathstroke’s grip on his chin was holding him up.
Flag never even saw Deathstroke move. One second, Renegade was staring at the mercenary with nothing short of adoration, and the next…
There was a blur of silver. And then blood, so much blood, and even from this far away Flag could see how shockingly deep the blade had cut. He’d seen a slashed throat before, too many times to even count. He knew what it looked like when a killing blow was struck and that single instant between life and death.
“NO!!!!!” Harley’s voice was a guttural shriek, an explosion of horror and rage and just pure shock. “RENNY!!!!”
Flag could only stare as Renegade’s body dropped and Deathstroke caught his corpse before it could hit the ground. The bastard had the fucking audacity to… to… to pretend to fucking care, to cradle the damn body of the man he’d just heartlessly murdered, to close the kid’s eyes as if there was anything peaceful to be found in the bloody end. Renegade had been a brainwashed puppet when he’d gotten to prison and he’d spent the last year clawing his way back to himself only to be cut down in a single instant.
It seemed impossible. After everything he’d seen the kid survive, after surviving an explosion that had literally torn him to shreds, a simple slash to the throat had done him in. Flag wanted to believe there was a way Renegade could survive; if he could get him a blood transfusion to replace everything that had spilled out of him, if they could get air into his lungs, if they could get him away from Deathstroke… but there wasn’t.
John was already dead.
There was movement at his side and suddenly Katana was no longer standing next to him. In a fit of rage, she burst into motion and launched herself up a wall in three moves, sprinting along the lip of a low building before launching herself up to the rooftop. Her fearsome blade lashed out, a deadly arc of steel poised to take off Deathstroke’s head in one smooth motion.
A gunshot rang out and Katana’s body hit the ground. The sound shocked Harley out of her horrified stupor and Flag barely managed to grab her in time to stop the woman from joining Katana in death. Deathstroke looked down at the corpse before yanking the commlink out of her ear and holding it up to his mask.
“Tell Waller she’s next,” Deathstroke growled.
With the squad watching in horror, he gathered up Renegade’s corpse. His head hung lifelessly from his nearly severed neck, crimson blood soaking into Deathstroke’s armor. Then, they were both gone.
The first thing Dick noticed when he came to was the smell. Slade’s scent was all around him, enveloping him in the smell of gunpowder and aftershave and a hint of sweat.
As soon as Dick opened his eyes, Slade’s mouth was on his, a hand tangling in his hair and the other hand on his face. Dick kissed back, hungry and possessive and desperate for Slade to claim him.
Because with Slade on top of him, one massive hand pinning his wrist to the mattress and the other hand yanking his head back, it was easy to give in and remember that his place was here, with his master.
It was possible to pretend that he felt anything other than despair.
Notes:
And with that, Bonfire has officially ended. Thank you all so much for reading and for your awesome comments! Don't worry, just because Dick's time on the Suicide Squad is over doesn't mean this series is. After all, Dick has finally been reunited with his master and the bomb has been painstakingly removed from his neck. Meanwhile the Justice League is deeply suspicious of Waller's activities and the members of Task Force X have just seen their best hope for long-term survival have his throat carved open in front of them, so they're willing to take a risk on a more... proactive approach.
Make sure you're subscribed to the series if you want to see how Dick and Slade deal with the adjustment period (Spoiler alert, it doesn't go great. But luckily, Slade has a plan and the up-and-coming crime lord calling himself the Red Hood will serve his purposes very nicely)
For now, I'll be taking a bit of a break to refocus on my longfic Die a Hero which is an apprentice AU set in the Young Justice verse. It's a fun story that asks the question "what if Dick was secretly training with Slade for the entirety of the first season" that rapidly becomes an angst and adrenaline-filled mess. But don't worry, I'm in love with this series and I will be back very soon to continue torturing Dick (and Harley and Bruce and Jason and pretty much everyone else too).
Thank you so much for reading and I'll be back with the next fic soon :)
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