Chapter Text
Slade watched through a groggy eye as he came to, instantly recognizing the inhibitor collar around his neck. He kept his snarl deep inside, waiting to see who he was going to kill, who had dared to fuck with him this time.
"Sl...Deathstroke..."
He blinked harder, lifting his head to peer through the hair in his eye. 20 feet away from him, similarly restrained with arms above his head, Dick--no, Nightwing, hung from the ceiling in chains. Like Slade, his shirt and gloves had been removed, but someone had also removed his pants and boots, leaving him only in his briefs and domino mask. Of course, all his weapons were gone, too.
Dick stood balanced carefully on the tips of his toes in the stress position, his breathing restricted from ribs pushed out and shoulders yanked tight, head pressed between his arms as he tried to keep it up. His body glistened with sweat, and blood trickled down his neck and chest. His signature grin had blood tracing his teeth.
"Hey, there."
Slade grunted and tested the restraints, pulling half-heartedly. His weapons sat a tauntingly close distance away on a steel table. The floor was dirty stone and grime. Classic. Only one door sat on the wall between him and Dick.
"Status," he muttered.
"'m okay," Dick said. "Just wondering if there's ever gonna come a time when they undress you first and not me."
"That's not funny. Where are you injured?"
Dick grinned again and opened his mouth, but a sudden light filled the room before he could answer. They both blinked hard and before Dick could adjust, the door opened quietly and two large men entered. Stereotypically nondescript in black clothes and merc equipment, they didn't acknowledge the two of them.
"Y'know," Dick said. Slade rolled his eye. "Normally, I like to get an invite to a party and make up my own mind before attending. Could have worn better clothes."
The men ignored him, and Slade studied them. As much as he hated it, this had become their normal. Dick prattled on and distracted while he observed. Except, any villain with half his salt who knew anything about them already expected this.
Dick was in the middle of his line about "dinner first" now--god, Slade hated that one--when another man entered the room. In a suit. The man of the hour who called the shots. He took one of his hands from his black coat and walked right up to Dick. He slammed a fist into Dick's exposed stomach and, when Dick curled up the two inches he could manage, coughing, the man grabbed his face, grasping his jaw tight and squishing his cheeks.
"I have no interest in your clothes," he said.
"O'bvi'sly." Dick held his head still and tried to balance on his toes again. Only Slade recognized hidden signs of the pain he was in. He would enjoy ripping this man's spine out and watching his face. No one touched his little bird like that and lived.
While he was holding Dick's face, the man pulled out a syringe and injected its contents directly into Dick's neck. Dick's eyes widened and he jerked his chin out of the man's grasp. He coughed and gasped and tried to look at the empty syringe being wagged in front of his face.
"What did you just give him?" Slade growled.
The man tossed the syringe to the floor and crossed his hands behind his back, ignoring Slade entirely. He tilted his head and watched Dick as the hero slowly began to struggle. Dick's breathing, already strained from the stress position, became more labored.
"Nightwing..."
Dick's face lifted slightly and the eyes of his mask blinked widely. He shifted, his bare feet buckling as he fell again and again on the chains. He groaned and shook his head again, his biceps straining.
"Amazing, isn't it?" the man said, tilting his head the other way. "No matter how fit the specimen, they fall just the same. It's a paralytic neurotoxin. Specifically designed for you metas."
Horror flooded Slade's mind. "He's not meta!" he snarled.
"No?" The man turned to him for the first time. He seemed genuinely disappointed. Behind him, Dick groaned.
“Oh. Well, we'll see how long he lasts. I thought perhaps the lack of inhibitor collar was part of the deception. More and more metas are passing now, you know."
"What do you want?" Slade gripped the chains harder, knowing he couldn't get out of them. Hating that he couldn't get out of them.
"You two are a big ticket item. A hero and a mercenary, operating together. Quite closely together. Mind you, I can see the attraction on your part. But it's quite a picture. We wanted to see what this one is all about."
"He's a hero from Gotham," Slade spat. "Nothing more. He's one of the Bats."
"Mmm, he's much more than that, isn't he."
Dick groaned and jerked again. Blood dripped down his wrists from his full weight pulling on the manacles. His chest was heaving, muscles glistening in more and more sweat. He let out a particularly painful whimper and shuddered.
“Don’t bother fighting it.”
The men came forward, and one yanked Dick's head up by his hair. Dick gasped and tried to move, but could only jerk in spastic motions now. He groaned loudly, trying and failing to speak. The man peered up at him.
"Not so quippy now, are you, pretty boy?"
They let Dick's head drop and then, to Slade's further horror, began beating him. The thugs punched him in the torso with brass knuckles. Over and over. Slade heard ribs cracking almost immediately. Dick shifted as the chains swung from the movement, but aside from small gasps, couldn't respond or cry out. Couldn't tense his muscles to protect himself.
“Stop!” Slade roared. Of course, it had no effect.
Slade clenched his hands so hard the nails split his skin and, without his healing, kept bleeding. He watched one man hold Dick still around his waist while the other slammed his fist into Dick's ribs just below his heart. With Dick's chest pulled taut and exposed by hanging from his arms, Slade watched and listened to two ribs snap entirely. A strangled keen left Dick's throat, like a wounded animal, and all Slade could do was growl low in his chest, knowing that any amount of reaction he gave would only spur these dead men on further. As if sensing his dilemma, the man glanced at him.
"It's all right," he said while the sound of Dick's body being beaten sounded over him. "You can show us how angry you are. You don't have to hide it for his sake. He can hear, see, and feel everything."
"What's the matter?" Slade snarled. "Too afraid to try that on me and see what it does to a real meta? Getting off on torturing one who can't even fight back?"
"Oh, we haven't arrived at the getting off part, yet. But we will."
Slade screamed and jerked in the chains, pulling as hard as he could. It only budged a little and cut him up more. The men had switched to steel batons, and Slade could already see the black bruises forming on Dick's stomach and chest. They brought the weapon down onto the two snapped ribs, visibly bent, and Dick's body spasmed. One pulled out a knife and slowly sliced it along Dick's stomach, then the meat of his thighs. Slade shook apart inside, watching new blood appear and run down Dick's skin, knowing each centimeter of new cut was a group of stitches that would take weeks of pain to heal. All throughout it, Dick just trembled lightly, his chin fallen on his chest.
Then they flipped Dick around in the chains, exposing the length of his back, the muscles stretched taut from his arms pulled over his head. His feet dangled loosely. Slade focused on listening to Dick's racing heartbeat and the miniscule whines he was making under his breath. A whip came out and Slade jerked even harder on the chains.
"Nightwing!"
The barbs sliced into Dick's back again and again as he was whipped. Slade could hardly see through the fury coloring his mind as more and more bleeding lines appeared. As the snap echoed in the room and the rip of the leather stripped into skin. Blood rolled down Dick's back, soaking his briefs and dripping down the backs of his thighs, pulled by gravity until it dripped off his feet and gathered on the floor. Knowing Dick felt every bit of it and was helpless to fight back in any way left Slade hardly able to breathe himself. He imagined that whip synched around those men's throats, slicing through arteries and tendons, separating muscle.
The men hardly seemed to be breathing heavily at all, and the only sound when they cut Dick loose and let him crumple onto the stone floor was Slade's heaving growls. Dick laid sprawled on his back, limbs askew and his flushed face rolled toward Slade. Tears and sweat trickled down his cheeks. His bloodied lips were parted and he was breathing small gasps, but that was the only movement he gave. No muscle twitches, nothing, despite the agony Slade knew he was in with his raw back scraped on the dirty floor. His broken ribcage, bent and pushing out farther from the angle where his torso had fallen, barely stuttered. His forehead spotted a large gash, fresh from the fall when he’d been unable to shield his head or keep it from slamming the floor. Concussion was now likely on top of everything else, especially with the head wound Slade had already spotted when they first regained consciousness.
The two men brought out a bucket of water, splashing over the sides. Dick’s eyes followed it, then clenched shut as they kicked him in his side, rolling him onto his stomach. His ruined back rose in shallow gasps. Then, without preamble, they dumped the water onto his open wounds.
Dick trembled and he let out a strangled choke. Slade gripped the chains so hard they sliced into his palms.
“Enough!” Slade shouted.
“No, not quite." The man tapped his chin, thinking. "Not enough salt, I think.”
The man snapped his fingers and the other two donned plastic gloves, kneeling down by Dick’s trembling frame.
Oh God...Please no.
But then they took out another bucket and scooped handfuls of pure salt crystal clumps, pressing them into Dick’s back and smearing it into the wounds.
“No! Stop it! STOP!!”
Slade shook and blinked through his fury, watching a process of torture so medieval few resorted to it anymore. So simple but so incredibly agonizing. Salt entering the open wounds effectively burned under the skin for hours as it “cleaned.” If Dick could move, he would be thrashing and shrieking mindlessly. Instead, his entire body just trembled and he stuttered breath after breath. The salt smeared the blood horrendously over Dick's back as it dissolved into the wounds. The hands rubbing it pressed deep, adding more and more salt as it disappeared.
“What the fuck do you want?” Slade roared. “This is pointless! You don’t even want anything with him!”
“Why, are you feeling left out? We can change that.” The man looked at the two lackeys and jerked his head toward Slade. "That's enough, gentlemen. Give Deathstroke here a taste of his lover's medicine."