Chapter Text
Leaves from the vine
Falling so slow
Like fragile, tiny shells
Drifting in the foam
Little soldier boy
Come marching home
Brave soldier boy
Comes marching home
--Leaves from the Vine, Uncle Iroh
A month after Grant’s death, Dick visited his friend’s grave to properly mourn him. Could Dick call him his friend? Do acquaintanceship blossom into friendship after death’s glorified embrace? Did Dick look back at their interactions with a rose-tinted view?
As per his training, Dick had smashed the lightbulb from the lamp that hovered seven feet from Grant’s fresh tombstone. Under the canopy of darkness, Dick made out the gothic design of the graveyard’s entrance down the slant hill in the distance, the city lights illuminated behind it.
He’d been surprised to discover that Grant had been buried in New York. Grant had told Dick that he moved to the city a little over two years ago. Dick thought Grant’s body would’ve been delivered home where he’d grown up, or where his family resided.
Or where Deathstroke resided.
Slade Wilson and Deathstroke were one and the same. Dick couldn’t combine the stories Grant told Dick about his father to the soldier-for-hire mercenary. Then again, it was like trying to compare Brucie Wayne to Batman. It didn’t mean they weren’t the same person.
Dick slipped the strap of his backpack from his shoulder and set the bag on the ground, the bottle clinked against the shot glasses within. He slumped to his knees and read the engraved words on his friend’s tomb:
Grant Wilson
December 3, 1994-May 23rd, 2017
A life measured by a name and a date. A name and a date that will have people in a few decades walk by and wonder how the poor unfortunate soul died young, someone barely in their twenties, who underneath the rash anger was someone who still held hope.
“Sorry I’m late,” Dick said.
He tried to picture Grant leaning against the tombstone, eye-rolling to the heavens. Dick imagined Grant’s response: “You always told me I would be late to my own funeral, chatterbox. Never thought you would be late to mine.”
No excuse, no response worth given could explain Dick’s inner turmoil, the guilt clawing at his heart, the desperation to turn back time and help his friend when he realized that he made the connection that Grant was the Ravager too late.
He failed Grant.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered again, this time for everything.
It wasn’t the first time Dick knelt in front of a grave with a need for absolution. Nine years prior he had knelt in front of his parents’ tombs, apologizing for continuing to fly, while his parents fell.
He didn’t know why Grant’s death affected him, kept him up some nights. He lost civilians on the job before, but this...
This hits differently.
More apologies clawed up his throat, sliding up his tongue, but he swallowed them back. If he released them, emotions he didn’t want to feel, to confront would surface, and he didn’t want to lose his composure. He unzipped his backpack.
“Mrs. Abadi postponed our concert date to next month. She asked me last week if I wanted to continue to perform our duet...” He paused, trying to talk past the lump in his throat. “I don’t know, I think the Devil Went Down to Georgia wouldn’t sound good if I played it alone, especially...”
Grant shoved Dick’s shoulder lightly. “Oh, you want me to play the part of the devil?” He snorted. “What are you trying to say, brat?”
Dick winked. “That I’m better than you.”
“You little shithead.”
He grabbed the neck of the whiskey bottle, and pulled out the round bodied container. St Brendans Irish Cream. The only drink Grant would get after their practices.
“I don’t know if it was my father’s favorite or not, but I saw him drinking it constantly when we were little, before...” Grant’s eyes stared faraway, into a distant memory. “You know, before the divorce, and all that boring crap that came afterwards.”
“Your favorite, I presume,” Dick said. “You’ve never told me otherwise, but, thought I’ll share a drink. For old time’s sake. You’ll be proud. Broke the law just for you.”
With his other hand, Dick grabbed the two shot glasses. He placed one on top of the tombstone, and the other he held onto.
“Anyway, I thought I would perform a new song. Or I dunno, I don’t think I can practice a new one to perform well enough in a month’s time. I don’t...” He shrugged. He didn’t know what to do. He had to give Mrs. Abadi his decision tomorrow.
“Who are you?” a voice cut through the darkness.
Dick tightened his grip on the bottle and glass as he spun around.
A tall man, with white hair that tied back in a ponytail, dressed in a fine suit approached Dick, his single eye glazed with a menacing threat. The moonlight glistened upon his black eye-patch. Slade Wilson. Deathstroke.
Dick stood in civilian clothes, without weapons, without backup, alone, against a mercenary. It took everything within him not to shift into a defensive pose, to remain aloof. His mind rushed through the various roles to perform, to ensure Deathstroke didn’t figure out who he was, that he was a harmless moronic civilian.
His mind settled on the civilian role he played with Grant: nervous, heart-on-his-sleeve John.
Dick licked his lips. “I’m, uh, am, Grant’s, was, uh, Grant’s friend.” Smooth, Dick. You can chatter a bad guy’s ears off, but you freeze here?
“Grant doesn’t have friends,” Slade said.
“Yeah, he’s an angry prick with rough edges, but he rubs on you.” Dick winced. He talked about Grant in present tense. His heart clenched at the reminder. He tapped the bottle against his thigh. “Er, was.”
Slade’s single eye narrowed. Still didn’t trust Dick.
“I met him last year, in September. Bloomingdale’s School of Music. You heard of it?” Before Slade could answer, Dick continued. “Mrs. Abadi holds a violin class on every Sunday morning. I picked it up because it was something my friends dared me to do.”
Wally and Donna had sat Dick down and forced him to take up a hobby, lesson, anything to help relieve stress. After getting Roy into rehab, Donna and Wally decided to focus more on the mental health of the team, to make sure that everyone took care of themselves, especially Dick, the leader who took on most of the others' burdens.
They suggested that he do something that wasn’t related to crime fighting, to acrobatics. Wally asked him, before he became a crime fighter, what was something he wanted to learn as a kid. Dick remembered in the circus, a few months before his parents’ death, watching the fiddlers play, their hands and bows quick on the strings, feet hopping and dancing as they delivered the notes. Dick watched enraptured. They played music like they were flying, and Dick wondered what it would be like to fly still on the ground.
Dick decided he wanted to learn the violin to connect to his Roma culture, his youth. He tried to find Roma music to play, but nobody in the city knew of any Roma composers or music. He wondered if it were the same as Romani language, that it was only spoken within the family and home, and not outside of it.
Slade didn’t care, or needed Dick’s backstory.
“Grant told me he wanted to learn to spite his musical prodigy little brother.” Dick leaned and conspiratorially whispered: “I think Grant secretly was a musical nerd.” At another memory, Dick stared thoughtfully at Slade. “I think he wanted to connect with you. He mentioned you like violins, and you used to play.” Dick watched the grass sway against the gentle breeze.
He needed to keep chatting, keep Slade distracted, keep him focused on Grant, on his grief, instead of connecting any pieces between him and Nightwing.
He gasped when Slade took the bottle from his grip.
“I used to drink this when they were young. Cheap, and the only cream whiskey I could get my hands on in Qurac,” Slade said. “I don’t drink much now. Not since...”
Dick knew the mercenary had enhanced senses, given a serum by the Army that altered his body. Did Slade burn through alcohol too quick to feel its buzzing effects?
“I don’t drink much either,” Dick said.
“You’re underage,” Slade chided.
“I’m in college, it’s what we do,” Dick argued. He dropped out after a semester, but he was the age of most college students. He never drank more than two shots anyway. His experience with fear toxins and whatever concoction that Poison Ivy would come up with left Dick wanting to keep his mental compacities sharp and intact.
“You look like you’ve barely grown out of puberty.”
Dick tried not to stifle at that. With his youthful and symmetrical features, 5’5 stature, he often gotten mistaken for being one of the youngest of the Teen Titans. He snorted. “At least I don’t look like a mobster with that eye-patch and fancy suit of yours. Are you grave-robbing or disposing a body?”
Slade didn’t respond, but with the aid of the moonlight, Dick caught him restraining the corner of his mouth from turning upward.
Dick caught Grant’s tombstone, and grimaced at his poor attempt of a joke. He ran his thumb around the edge of his shot glass. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
“You assumed immediately that I’m his father.”
Shit. Dick kept his composure. “How many other people in Grant’s life has one eye?” Grant never told Dick about that, but what Slade didn’t know didn’t hurt him.
Slade threw him a glare before he turned to the tombstone.
Dick read the engraved name and date once again.
A month.
Grant had been gone for a month.
The memory of Grant dying in Deathstroke’s arms, the panic lining Deathstroke’s normally composed voice, that crack at the end when Deathstroke begged his son to stop fighting, to let go.
Icarus flew too close to the sun, and burned his wings.
“We, uh, we were going to play a duet next month, on the 27th.” Why are you telling him? Like it matters. He’s not going to attend. His son is dead! “I don’t know if I want to perform now. Without him.” He wiped his nose. “We fought so much when Mrs. Abadi paired us together. I almost quit.”
“Oh, shut up, for a brat, you talk like an old man. You don’t know better than me. I’m older, so I’m the wise one, you shit, you have to listen to me.”
Slade continued to stare at the tombstone, in silence. Dick didn’t know if he were listening.
“One of our homework was to see a musical, one with an orchestra pit to see how a violin is played, how music can invoke and emit emotions...” Dick trailed off. Slade didn’t need to know the whole details. “Grant made me buy the tickets, to any show. He wasn’t going to pay attention, so he didn’t care. I half-expected him not to show.” Dick grinned. “I picked Urinetown.”
Slade’s brows furrowed. Finally, an emotion!
People tended to forget that Dick can be a little shit if he wanted to be. With him losing Robin and his partnership with Bruce, it felt good to take the reins and piss someone else off for a change.
“Yeah. The name says it all. Satire musical about public toilets owned by a megacorporation and the whole uprising that goes with it. Grant was livid, almost walked out before the show began.” Dick chuckled. “The usher would not let him leave his seat.” Scowled by a scrawny old woman, with a hunch back. Seeing Grant allow himself to be cowed by a woman old enough to be his grandma made Dick realized that Grant had somewhat of a heart underneath all that. “We actually found ourselves enjoying the play. We got into a huge discussion afterwards, arguing and debating about the corruption of corporations and capitalism, the legal systems, and social issues.”
Dick had to admit it felt good talking about those things as a civilian, without the pressure of his vigilante life and his leadership coming into play.
“He’s...” Damn it. Again. “He was smart. Aware. I don’t think he wanted people to know that he cared.”
Dick bit his lower lips. Perhaps he should leave now. Give Slade space to grieve his son. Slade’s bond with Grant was stronger than the one that Dick tried to forge.
“I’m sorry...” Dick blurted. Shut up. “It’s my fault. I...I should’ve tried harder to reach him.”
I knew he was angry with the Titans. I wish I knew why. I thought I had time to get through to him. I didn’t know what HIVE had done to him.
Slade turned toward him. “You barely knew him.”
“And you barely knew him!” Dick snapped back. “Where were you? He was lost, angry, and hurt, and all he wanted was you!”
Slade’s nostril flared, his fingers tightened around the bottle’s neck.
Dick exhaled his anger. “Sorry...I...” He grimaced. “That was uncalled for.”
“You’re angry.”
Dick rolled his eyes. “Geez, what was your first clue?”
“You’re angry...for him.”
Dick searched Slade’s gaze, trying to understand what Slade meant, and wondered what thoughts were going through his mind.
They fell into silence, which didn’t surprise Dick. Slade didn’t seem like a talkative type. He should leave. He snapped at a grieving father. Slade probably blamed himself enough at it is. Dick should leave. Now...
Damn it.
“Do you want to see a video of Grant playing?” Dick asked softly.
A hitch in Slade’s breath told Dick the answer. Dick fumbled into his jacket pocket, pulling out his civilian phone. He easily found the video. He’d watched it a few times the past month. He brushed his shoulder against the side of Slade’s arm, and he felt so small, so tiny, so exposed next to the mercenary.
He held the phone in front of them, screen tilted more toward Slade.
On the screen, Grant shook his shaggy blonde hair out of his face, flashing a conceited grin. “Let me show you how it’s done, chatterbox.” In the background, Dick barely made out the lyrics: and a band of demons joined in, and it sounded something like this. Grant drew his bow across the strings, fiddling in rhythm to the devil’s solo. His eyebrows wiggled, feet popping. You could hear Dick’s laugh behind the camera. “Keep your shoulders still, moron.” Grant stuck his tongue out and popped his shoulders up and down, bouncing around before he broke off in a laugh, lowering his bow and violin. “Okay. Okay,” Grant huffed with a smile. “Let’s do it again. From the top. Prepare to lose your soul, boy.”
There. A soft smile from Slade.
“You, um, I can send this to you...” Dick held the phone out to Slade. “If you type in a number?”
With his left hand, Slade took Dick’s phone and sent the video to his number. Instead of erasing it, or ensuring that Dick no longer had it, he handed the phone back to Dick.
Slade twisted the cap of the bottle open. He poured into the shot glass above Grant’s tombstone. He gestured to Dick’s shot glass.
Dick pocketed his phone and held out the glass. Liquid sloshed into the glass, nearly toppling over the edge.
Slade recapped the bottle and set it on the tombstone. He picked up the glass, and held it out to Dick. He clinked his against Slade’s. They both poured out a bit toward the ground before they tossed the rest toward the back of their throats.
The creamy texture weakened the usual alcoholic burn.
They stood in silence, head bows in reverence in front of Grant’s grave.
“Csárdás by Vittorio Monti,” Slade said after a few minutes.
Dick blinked. “What?”
“I played it for the boys a few times when they were younger. Grant loved that one. Joey would fall asleep easily, but Grant would watch the whole time, memorized. It’s a piece that if you can interpret it well enough, you can easily improvise to make it a beginner’s piece.”
Oh. Could Dick learn it in a month’s time? He didn’t know if he wanted that burden.
“If you needed a suggestion,” Slade said.
Slade loved Grant. This wasn’t a mercenary. This was a grieving father. The guilt clawed at him again. Dick should’ve seen, should’ve known, should’ve saved him.
“He loves you,” Dick blurted out, because it felt like something Slade needed to know, what Dick would’ve wanted to hear someone say about his parents when they died. “He loved you. He didn’t talk about you much, but when he did, it was evident.” A slight lie. Dick could tell there had been friction between them, that Grant wanted his father’s love, but one glorifies the dead when they’re gone, don’t they?
Slade gave Dick another look.
Silence stretched between them once more, and the cicadas chirped to fill the space. Dick found himself thinking of Jason, of taking time off after the concert to visit him. Grant would never get the chance to make more memories with his younger brother, with his father.
Slade poured them both another drink. They tipped a bit out in Grant’s honor before they drank it.
He handed Dick his shot glass, and left without another word.
Dick watched Slade’s retreating figure, knowing that he probably wouldn’t have this moment with his friend’s father like this again, that the next time they meet it would be as Nightwing and Deathstroke.
That Slade would try to ensure that Dick joined his son in the afterlife.