Chapter Text
“Get moving, whore!”
A cruel yank on his leash jerks Jason awake, and the agonizing soreness throughout his bruised and naked body flares up with a vengeance. He’d been passed around a dozen men before passing out, and the short bit of sleep he was rewarded with did little to help him recover.
But he accepted the reality a few months ago: there is no true recovery, no escape from this hell.
He’d tried very hard not to give in. He fought back, tried to escape, and refused to submit — but eventually they broke him down anyway.
Who would have thought that the fearless, defiant Red Hood would be reduced to nothing but a sex slave, a toy to please his owners?
Obediently Jason keeps his mouth open wide as his handlers replace his ball gag with a ring gag. They always use the ring gag when showing him off at business meetings, whether he’s sucking off Ferrante as a part of the man’s display of power, or if he’s lent out as a favor to Ferrante’s business associates.
Jason wonders if any of the clients are aware that they’re being entertained by a former American crime lord, or if all they see is a pretty sex slave. He’s not sure if he cares anymore. Everything he was, everything he’s built — that’s all gone now, and instead he’s been carved out and filled up with nothing but pain.
He doesn’t always know what his owner is discussing with his clients. Sometimes they speak in Italian, the way they do to him, but most of their conversations are in the Palermitano dialect of Sicilian, and he’s given up on trying to piece together what they’re saying. It takes up all his energy just to survive, and besides, it doesn’t really matter anyway.
He’s never getting out of here.
Several months prior, Jason was convinced that rescue was on its way: from the Outlaws, or Deathstroke, or even the few of the Bats that actually cared about him.
But nobody ever came, and he was forced to accept that they were never going to.
They were probably relieved to have finally gotten rid of Jason, the black sheep, the eternal fuck up, the scarred, walking corpse of a once beloved child.
(He’d thought that Slade was different though. He’d truly thought that he and Slade shared something genuine, something undefinable but so beautiful. It was why he’d never told the Bats about their relationship — because he wanted to keep this special, wonderful thing just to himself. But Jason supposes that he must not have been anything more than a convenient fuck for Slade, and he was fooling himself into thinking Slade cared about him.
Sex is, after all, the only thing he’s good for. That’s been made pretty damn clear.)
After securing the ring gag, fastening the straps behind Jason’s head, his handlers inspect and tighten his other restraints, releasing them from the locks attaching him to the wall of sleeping cell and instead connecting the manacles at his wrists, upper arms, thighs, and knees to the shackles at his ankles. The chains force him to stay bent on his hands and knees, only able to crawl forward like a dog.
One of his handlers, a particularly cruel man who takes great pleasure in whipping Jason for the slightest infractions, disconnects the heavy chain keeping his metal collar attached to a ring on the floor and instead fastens a leather leash. He winds the end of the leash around his hand, pulling Jason forward as it tightens. A whimpered plea escapes Jason, inarticulate through the ring gag.
“Time to move, slut,” the handler says in Italian, a leering grin on his face. “Don’t worry, sweet thing. You’ll still get my attention later tonight.”
He leads Jason away, and Jason is forced to crawl quickly to avoid being choked. The chains rattle with the movement. Another one of the handlers swats at Jason’s naked ass, aiming right for a particularly fresh bruise, and Jason flinches away.
As they make their way through the hallways, Jason can make out the sound of voices conversing in English, which gives him pause. Not once since his time here began has he heard Ferrante use English. So this is a different client than usual.
And then Jason hears a voice that chills him right to the bone.
“It’ll have to be a better price than that, for what my services are worth,” says Slade fucking Wilson. “I didn’t come here to be insulted.”
The sound of that voice floods Jason’s thoughts with memories: countless moments of murmured sweet words and soft praises exchanged between heated kisses; charged banter during fighting filled with so much spark between them; content snuggles on the couch on a lazy morning sharing coffee and pastries. So many moments of care and kindness and warmth and all these things Jason can no longer have.
“I’ve got you, pretty bat,” Slade had told him.
And now Slade was here?
Jason didn’t understand. Slade was from his world before. He didn’t fit into this new world of nothing but pain and cruelty and humiliation.
His hesitation cost him, and he choked, struggling for breath, as his handlers pulled the leash taught and dragged him forward a several feet, until he scrambled to get back on his hands and knees and crawl forward again.
This must be an auditory hallucination, Jason told himself. Ferrante doesn’t hire outside hit men. There’s no reason he’d be meeting with Deathstroke. This is just his broken mind playing cruel tricks on him, like the time he’d had a dream about Batman coming for him that had felt so real he’d almost believed it was true when he awoke, until he realized he was chained to Ferrante’s bed, blood and semen dripping down his thighs.
But then his handlers lead him into Ferrante’s office, and there, sitting casually in an armchair with one combat boot crossed over the other, is Deathstroke the Terminator.
Jason inhales sharply, and it sounds as painful as it feels.
Deathstroke’s expressionless helmet turns toward him, and Jason immediately shrinks back, because he knows what Slade must be seeing when he looks Jason’s way: used and broken and irrevocably stained, a far cry from the skilled fighter who once impressed Slade.
“What is this?” Slade asks, turning back to Ferrante.
“This,” Ferrante replies in his heavy accent, his ringed fingers carding through Jason’s tangled curls, “is compensation, signuri. Something to sweeten the deal.” His grip on Jason’s hair tightens, and he adds in Italian, “Go show our esteemed guest what it is you’re good for.”
The handlers lead Jason over to Deathstroke, handing the mercenary the leash. He takes it consideringly.
Jason can’t help the way he trembles. Before— before, he would have sworn that Slade, while not exactly a good man, would still never cross that line, never force himself onto someone. But before has blurred away in Jason’s mind, lost in a year of degradation. Before, Jason was a person, worthy of respect and care. Now he’s just a couple of holes to be used, and surely Slade couldn't see him as anything else.
Slade’s gloved fingers run through Jason’s hair, petting him softly — much more gently than Ferrante did. “Look at me boy,” he says quietly, and the command is clear.
Slowly, burning with humiliation at his former— lover? Partner? Something seeing him this way, Jason raises his head and gazes up at that hauntingly familiar bicolored helmet. Deathstroke’s body language gives away nothing, but Jason waits with bated breath for the inevitable disgust — or worse, interest in seeing him brought so low.
Slade’s touch remains tender as his fingers move to trace over the long scar across Jason’s face, starting at his brow and then disappearing under the thick leather straps of the ring gag. Jason remembers Slade tracing that scar while the two of them lay in bed together, tangled in each other’s arms. Slade had called it a mark of Jason’s indomitable will and survival. If only he’d known Jason would survive everything he did only to be made into this.
“He’s a treasure,” Slade says simply, as casually as if he were remarking on the weather.
“That he is,” Ferrante agrees, “and very well trained also. You’ll have unlimited access to him for the duration of your contract, and of course we have a myriad of equipment and toys available to use on him to enhance the experience—“
“How much?” Slade cuts him off.
A flicker of anger crosses Ferrante’s face at being interrupted, and Jason can’t help but shudder, but his owner soon smooths out his expression. “With the contract, use of the slave is a bonus, on the house.”
“How much for me to buy him permanently?”
Jason reels in shock. What is Slade doing? Why would he waste his money on Jason? After what Jason’s become?
Ferrante seems just as surprised, as are the handlers, whispering amongst themselves in Sicilian. “You can’t be serious, signuri. You haven’t even tried him yet.”
“I’m afraid I’m deadly serious,” Slade responds. “You sell him to me now, and I’ll consider your insultingly low offer. Otherwise—“ At this, his hand moves from caressing Jason to fingering the hilt of his sword. “I’ll carve my way through all of you and take him as a trophy.”
Jason’s eyes are wide. Even if he weren’t gagged, he’d still be speechless beyond belief.
The guards in their rooms have drawn their guns, calculating their odds against the Terminator. Ferrante looks as stunned as if Deathstroke had struck him across the face.
After a tense moment, Ferrante sinks into his chair and waves his hand. “You may buy him then.”
“Magnanimous of you,” says Slade as he hauls Jason bodily into his lap and tries to place him as comfortably as he can with all the chains and the Ikon suit. There’s no way he can’t feel Jason shaking.
“Let us discuss business then.”
While Ferrante continues in his attempt to convince Deathstroke to work for him, Slade gently nestles Jason’s head into the crook of his neck. Softly, so low that only the two of them can hear, he whispers to Jason, “I thought you were dead, sweetheart.”