Chapter Text
Dick was only eight years old when he was married to Slade. It wasn’t improper; the marriage was purely that of convenience. Bruce, Dick’s fresh-faced father, needed to buy peace with marauders. Marrying Dick to Slade Wilson provided Bruce and his city-state with a level of sanctuary, and it provided Slade and his ilk with security of place, steady income, and some political power in the region.
The wedding itself was bare bones and even terse. As far as Dick could remember, Slade was young for a mercenary of his renown, blond haired, stern, and otherwise uninteresting. Dick fidgeted his way through the entire ordeal, uncaring for the ceremony. There were games to play and trouble to be found, and each moment he wasted listening to a priest drone while Bruce scowled in the background was better spent finding the highest tree to climb.
Near the end of the vows, Slade subtly gripped Dick’s wrist in his hand and shot Dick a sharp glance with piercing blue eyes. The grip was tight, not quite painful, but nevertheless Dick stilled for the remainder of the ritual.
Dick didn’t see much of Slade after that, and he didn’t care to. He grew up in his city with Bruce by his side, while Slade left to do whatever Slade did when he wasn’t’ haunting Gotham. As Dick aged, Bruce taught him first to fight, and then to fight for just causes. Dick took to masking himself and touring the city at night, stepping in where he could, and reporting back to Bruce where he couldn’t. Bruce never mentioned Slade and neither did Dick, and eventually, Dick all but forgot Slade’s piercing blue eyes and sharp frown.
Over time, Dick also collected siblings. First there was spitfire, angry Jason, who died quick and came back with a mean gloss over his earnestness. Dick grew protective after Jason, and he coddled Tim, and then Damian.
He was with Damian in the library, posing for one of Damian’s sketches, when Tim burst in without preamble.
“You’re married?!” Tim blurting, waving about what appeared to be a letter. Damian paused, charcoal hovering above the parchment.
“What nonsense are you on about now, Drake?” Damian hissed. Dick cocked his head from where he lounged. “We would recall if there were a marriage.”
“No,” Dick said, sitting up and stretching despite Damian’s huff. “Tim’s right, I’m married.”
Damian dropped his charcoal. It hit the parchment and smudged the silhouette of Dick’s face. Tim’s face paled and took on a rather green hue.
“That’s—That’s not possible, we would have known,” Damian began. Dick shook his head.
“It happened shortly after Bruce claimed me his son. It was before Jason arrived, Damian, you weren’t even born yet.”
“He married you off as a child?” Tim squeaked, gripping the letter in his hand so tightly that it crunched.
Dick shrugged. “It was a political arrangement, it’s not as if I even saw my husband after the fact. Tim, what is that in your hand and why do you ask?”
“It’s a letter,” Tim mumbled, looking off somewhere past Dick.
Dick snorted. “I assumed as much. Hand it over before it becomes dust in your hand.”
Tim stood and offered the crumpled paper to Dick. Dick carefully unraveled it and smoothed out what he could of the wrinkles before he skimmed the words. And then he stopped, read them again, and frowned.
“Has Bruce seen this?” Dick asked. Tim shook his head.
“It was delivered moments before I came to see you. I haven’t had the chance to show him.”
Dick nodded. “Oh. Okay.”
Distantly, Dick felt it when Damian pried the letter from his hands. He heard Damian’s shouts of indignation as if through water. Tim’s softer voice blurred that of Damian’s, but eventually both fell away into white noise. A distinct ringing thrummed in Dick’s skull, interrupted only when Jason inserted his face directly in Dick’s like of vision and shouted, “Get it together, Goldie.”
Dick blinked. “What?” He asked, dazed and slow on the uptake. Jason slapped him while Damian squawked indignantly.
“I said, ‘get it together.’ He’s arriving soon and we should meet with Bruce prior to that. You hear me through that thick skull of yours?”
Dick nodded. “Meet with Bruce, right.”
It took shouting and a fist fight, but Jason convinced Tim and Damian to stay behind. He practically dragged Dick by Dick’s scruff to Bruce’s chambers, where Bruce was, unsurprisingly, packing.
“Were you intending to leave us without a goodbye?” Jason growled, abandoning Dick’s side to stride forward and thrust the letter in Bruce’s face. “Without warning us? Warning Dick?”
Bruce’s brows furrowed as he scanned the letter. When he finished, his frown deepened. “Yes, well. I was preparing to call Dick here anyhow.” Bruce turned to address Dick, who still clung to the threshold. “I will be leaving for several weeks, Dick,” Bruce said slowly, having noted Dick’s glassy gaze. “As Crown Prince, you are to maintain the throne in my absence. It was Slade’s right as your husband and my son-in-law to know. I didn’t expect him to return, but as he has decided he will, he will be by your side as well.”
“Like hell he will,” Jason growled. “No one here knows him. We won’t stand by this, Bruce.”
Bruce regarded Jason coolly. “You can, and you will. Slade is a mercenary and a traveler. Trifling, sedentary work bores him. His stay won’t be long. Dick, do I have your faith?”
Dick looked up sharply upon hearing his name. “Yes. Of course,” Dick murmured, voice distant. “I will entertain our guest while he’s here, but I’ll ensure the city’s sovereignty until your return.” Dick cracked a strained smile that didn’t quite touch his eyes. “You can count on me, Bruce.”
Bruce nodded while Jason gawked. “As I thought. If you excuse me, boys, I must prepare to leave.”
He breezed by Dick and and Jason, closing the door behind him. Once they were alone, and once the sound of Bruce’s footsteps receded, Jason turned on Dick.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Jason growled. Dick furrowed his brows and glared up at the ceiling.
”Honestly? Trying to remember what my husband’s face looks like,” Dick muttered.
Dick’s endeavor was fruitless. Slade arrived well before Bruce’s departure, forcing a banquet to honor the occasion, and Slade looked nothing like Dick’s childhood memory.
From where Dick was seated next to Slade, he could take in the long silver hair, pulled back from his face neatly, and his white eyepatch. Slade’s gaze no longer read as stern or dry, but bright and intelligent and exposing. Aside from the shade of his hair, Slade looked young enough to be Bruce’s brother.
Dick took a sip of his wine as Bruce droned introductions from the head of the table. Each of the guests, all members of the broader household, looked either bored, furious, or openly concerned. Slade’s only attendant, Wintergreen, was in the kitchen with Alfred, leaving only Dick’s family to fret and shift in their restlessness.
“— and I’ll return home long before I’m missed. In the interim, defer to your crown prince and his husband, and, for the love of the gods, behave,” Bruce finished, landing heavily back into his seat. Without further preamble, Alfred brought and distributed the first course and the feast began.
Despite the decadent food and the presence of his family, tension snaked up Dick’s spine, straightening his back and clotting in his throat.
“You look well,” Dick murmured to Slade, in the hopes of finding relief.
Slade snorted. “I’ve aged, kid. Lost an eye, since we last met. You, however, have grown up prettily. Tell me, what do you do to maintain your figure?”
Dick huffed, prodding at his food. Slade was toying with him, but how and to what end, Dick wasn’t sure.
“Acrobatics,” Dick said, before taking a sip of his wine. “I fancy myself an acrobat.”
Slade snorted and ate a few bites before answering. “It’s going around, I hear. Since I last found my way here, I’ve heard tale of a masked vigilante with a taste for acrobatics. Do you, my king, think he fancies himself an acrobat too?”
Dick propped his chin in his hand. “Oh, I can’t possibly imagine how he fancies himself. If you’d like to find him and ask him yourself, I am more than happy to arrange for accommodations in a hotel elsewhere in the city, closer to where he purportedly roams.”
Slade laughed, and Dick found he quite liked the sound.
“How kind, I’ll consider the offer,” Slade mused. “For now, however, I’m more interested in your hobbies. I would like to see your acrobatics in person.”
Dick blushed. Slade couldn’t possibly have meant what Dick thought he’d meant, but nevertheless, Dick’s thoughts were terribly illustrative.
Across the room, Jason glowered.
“You’d do well to relax,” Helena mused. “You and I are both here as a courtesy, I have no doubt that Bruce will evict us if you kill Dick’s... husband, with that glare of yours.”
Jason took a deep breath and then murmured, “From what I hear, he’s sturdy. I’d rather slip a knife between his ribs.”
Slade laughed, and Dick shifted subtly in Slade’s direction, leaning towards Slade and grinning that stupid grin of his.
“He doesn’t have any more choice than the rest of us,” Helena murmured, following Jason’s gaze. “Be kind to him. This can’t be easy.”
Jason scowled at Helena before stabbing at his food aimlessly. “I just hate how he encourages a man he barely knows,” Jason hisses. “This man is a mercenary, he could intend to slit all of our throats as we sleep for all Bruce or Dick know. And yet here we sit, sharing food and libations as if Bruce hasn’t done a terrible thing. And what of Slade’s accommodations? Do we know whether or not Bruce will forced the two to share a bed?”
At that, Barbara leaned over to whisper, “They have separate beds within the same hall. Have faith, Jason. Dick can handle himself.”
Jason turned his attention back to Slade, who was staring at Dick’s lips as Dick talked.
”I’ve never been a man for faith,” Jason grumbled.
“Then it’s fortunate Dick has all of us,” Barbara said curtly. “To protect and advise him.”
“I don’t know,” Helena mused, also watching Dick and Slade. Dick now had a hand on Slade’s shoulder, and Helena had no doubt that Dick’s glass was in need of filling. “He seems content on Slade’s arm. I don’t believe he needs our guidance to do what he already does so well.”
“And what is it that he does?” Jason asked.
“People,” Helena winked. Jason threw a potato at her and Bruce rubbed his temples from across the table.