Work Text:
Just before they go in, Dick stops Jason.
"Just in and out, Jay," he warns. He's said it before, back during the tactical briefing when they were bent over blueprints to figure out the best way to do this. But considering Jason's penchant for going off-plan, it bears repeating. "We grab Damian and we go. No dallying."
"Yeah, yeah, I heard you the first time." Jason already has his helmet on, but Dick can practically hear the way he rolls his eyes at Dick's repeated cautioning. "Don't get your leggings in a twist, Dickiebird. We'll be out of there faster than you can say 'Operation Bat Brat Rescue'. Not like either of us wants to stay there for longer than we have to."
Dick gives him a smile that feels a little tight at the edges. "Right. Just so we're clear."
Famous last words, he'll think later, painfully aware that Jason will never let him hear the end of it.
*
It's the smoothest rescue mission Dick has ever been part of – and he's been part of a whole damn lot of rescue missions during the course of his career as a vigilante.
Maybe that should have been his first clue.
If there's one thing he's learned over the years, it's that no mission that starts this well ever ends well. There's always a hitch somewhere, usually when you least expect it. He was still a kid when Bruce hammered home that lesson. If something seems too good to be true, watch your step. Look for the trap. Don't let yourself get sloppy. Whatever you do, stay alert. Don't let your emotions get in the way.
Dick has always been bad at that last one.
*
It takes them twelve minutes to locate where in the building Damian is held. It's a massive hall, a broad nave with a long string of prison cells on each side.
There's something horrifying about the layout, something smothering despite the overwhelming vastness of it – or rather because of that vastness and what it implies. There are at least four dozen cubicles, all of them with transparent fronts and solid walls on the backs and sides, like they were made for some kind of— menagerie. Dick doesn't know what the end goal is here, if this is the groundwork for a human trafficking operation or if someone's building themselves some sick kind of private collection, but either way it's not good.
Next to him, Jason is tense, his hands clenched into fists, and Dick knows he's thinking the same thing. They're going to have to deal with this, figure out who's involved, take them down fast and hard before all these cells are occupied. But that's for later. Right now, the most pressing matter is to get to Damian.
They don't have to look for long. He's in one of the first cubicles, a slumped form on the floor. On his cheek, a dark bruise blooms purple, red aberrations on his wrists. And he isn't moving. Terror grips Dick like a cold, iron fist squeezing his heart. It only eases a fraction when he notices the regular rise and fall of Damien's chest.
Alive. Just unconscious. He's gonna be fine, Dick tells himself resolutely, not allowing the niggling worry to turn into claws of doubt.
All they have to do is get him out.
Jason has already stepped closer to the door that separates them from their brother, checking the room for an alarm circuit.
"I got this," he says quietly, without turning back to Dick. "Watch the doors. Would be a damn shame if those bastards interrupted the party and I'd have to put a round of bullets into them." His tone makes it clear how much he'd welcome the chance to take some bloody revenge.
Dick gets it, but this isn't the time. "Hood. We're not here for that."
He feels taut like a wire, and turning away from Damian's still form to keep an eye on the exits is almost physically painful. Damian looks so small, and the stark white neon light makes the bruises on his skin stand out so much. It's hard to shake off the mental image even when Dick is facing away.
Luckily, Jason works quickly.
It only takes him 46 seconds to manipulate the lock, but it's the longest 46 seconds of Dick's life. He's tempted to immediately rush towards Damian, but Jason is already there, stepping inside the cell and picking him up. He doesn't stir even when he's jostled against the Kevlar of Jason's armor, and Dick has to turn away because if he doesn't, he's going to pull Damian out of Jason's arms and never let him go again.
He's going to be fine, becomes a silent mantra that he keeps repeating in his mind as he stares down the hall, looking at cell after cell after cell. Suddenly the idea that there are more people in there crashes down on him like a brick wall, and it's unbearable.
He can't— He's seen what these people did to Damian. He can't leave anyone here. That isn't who he is, or who he ever wants to be.
"I'll check the other cells," he tells Jason.
He suspects that the lack of protest and the grunt of easy agreement he gets in response is largely due to Jason being distracted checking Damian over for injuries.
*
The cell next to Damian's is empty.
So is the next one, and the one after, and Dick almost stops looking. Maybe Damian really was their only prisoner. But then there's a noise from the other end of the room, a quiet shuffle that doesn't sound mechanical, and Dick can't just ignore it.
He takes a cautious few steps towards the final cubicle in the row of cells and freezes.
The light on the ceiling keeps flickering on and off, casting strange shadows, but there's no mistaking the man perched on a cot at the cell's back wall, watching Dick's approach with a single keen blue eye. It appraises Dick with a familiar ferocity that feels like a punch.
"Nightwing. Long time."
Not long enough, Dick thinks.
He's been riding high on adrenaline ever since they first breached the perimeter, same as every other time he puts on the black and blue, but the way his heart has started beating fast and hard like it wants to jump out of his chest is new. That's just for Slade.
The last time they met, Dick promised Slade he'd make him pay for Blüdhaven. Another promise he never got to make good on. It's almost like Deathstroke has been avoiding him since then. Or maybe they've been avoiding each other, putting the inevitable confrontation off because they both know how ugly it was going to get and that they might not both walk away from it.
And now here they are, in a secret containment facility halfway across the country from where they started, as if fate got tired of all their attempts to steer clear of one another.
"Slade." Dick almost manages to keep the bitterness and the resentment out of his voice, but he lets the satisfaction bleed through when he takes in Slade's confinement. "So there is a cell that can hold you, after all."
Slade shrugs. "For now."
He doesn't sound perturbed, like he's convinced that his imprisonment is only a temporary set-back. Knowing his history and his skills, he's probably right. But having Deathstroke temporarily taken out of commission is still better than nothing. Every day Slade is locked up here is a day when he doesn't take innocent lives.
"Good," Dick says, with feeling.
Metal creaks as Slade pushes himself up, and Dick has to fight the urge not to take a step backwards when Slade approaches the transparent wall separating them. If the prison has kept him locked up until now, he won't get through just like that, Dick reminds himself. And yet, his instincts are screaming at him not to let Slade get too close.
He wrestles those instincts down and holds his ground by sheer force of will, even as Slade steps so close that his breath fogs up the pane when he speaks.
"Careful, kid. Piss me off, and I might decide that I want to call the guards on your little break-out. Just one little press of a button, and you and your brothers would find yourselves locked in the cell next to mine. Wouldn't that be nice? Give us time to catch up properly."
His tone is casual, one might even call it pleasant, but just because the threat is dressed up as a friendly warning doesn't take the menace from his words.
Dick swallows down the impulse to antagonize Slade further. They're here for Damian. He has to remember that. Just because he struggles to resist poking at Slade until he snaps, Dick can't risk Damian's freedom, or Jason's. For their sake, he needs to keep a level head about this, regardless of his and Slade's history.
"You really think that's gonna win you any favors with these people?"
There's nothing soft or kind about Slade's smile, just a show of teeth. "No. But maybe getting you in trouble is worth it."
The malicious self-satisfaction makes Dick's hackles rise. "Listen, Slade—" he starts, hotly, but he doesn't get any further.
"Wing!"
Jason's voice carries over from the far end of the room, low but insistent. Dick startles, unable to suppress the little flinch that he's sure won't be lost on Slade. Slade always has this way of making Dick fixate entirely on him and forget everything around them. All those months of absence haven't changed that, it seems.
"Are you coming?" Jason hisses. "What the fuck is taking so long?"
What, indeed?
There's nothing he can gain here. Goading Slade isn't going to give him any kind of satisfaction or closure, and it might just ruin their escape. And reasoning with Slade is usually an exercise in futility. At the end of the day, Slade's only ever going to do whatever the fuck Slade wants to do, and Dick's sole option is to brace himself for the fallout, nuclear or otherwise.
He straightens his shoulders until his spine hurts. "Do your worst, Slade. I can't stop you. Not like I ever could."
Something ripples across Slade's face. It does nothing to soften his expression, but the smugness melts away. Anyone else, Dick would say it's regret, but he's done fooling himself that Slade is capable of such a sentiment.
"You did stop me a few times," Slade reminds him.
He's not wrong. But does it really matter? What good has Dick really done? How many of the lives that he saved by stopping Deathstroke from carrying out a contract now and then have ultimately been lost when Chemo dropped on Blüdhaven, along with a hundred thousand others? How many of those people who died wouldn't have died if Dick hadn't grossly underestimated how much Slade wanted to make him pay?
"Sure I did. Just not when it counted." He shakes his head, forcing down the memories. It's no good thinking about this. Not here, not now, not when he needs to get Damian to safety. "Goodbye, Slade."
He's aiming for pointed, one last gloating parting shot before he goes, but the moment of righteous satisfaction he felt when he saw Slade locked up in his cell has already burned itself out. This isn't a victory, not even a hollow one.
Maybe Slade has noticed that Dick's lost his taste for viciousness, because his tone is almost fond when he says, "Goodbye, kid. Good luck."
If Dick didn't know better, he'd actually think Slade was sincere.
Seconds tick by, and even though time's pressing, Dick struggles to make himself leave.
He doesn't know why he's lingering. He holds Slade's gaze, steady and unblinking. A moment suspended in time. There's nothing else to be said, but it feels like gravity is holding him there, his feet glued to the floor in front of Slade's cell.
But gravity never managed to keep him grounded for long.
It's another sharp admonition from Jason that makes Dick tear himself free. He blinks, and the moment shatters.
He turns his back on Slade without another word, unwilling to risk a backward glance as he rushes towards the doorway where Jason is waiting for him, Damian resting motionlessly against his shoulder. The nervous beat of Jason's fingers drumming against his thigh, barely an inch from his gun holster, betrays his impatience even before he puts it into words.
"What the hell, Dickwing? What happened to 'no dallying', huh?"
Dick shakes his head. "Something I had to take care of."
He's aware that it sounds vague, at best. It has the weight of a lie too, because he doesn't feel like he's taken care of anything at all. If Bruce were here with him, he'd ruthlessly zero in on Dick's dismay and call him out. Damian would, too, if he was conscious. But Jason just shrugs and accepts Dick's words at face value, and Dick feels an almost overwhelming rush of gratitude towards his brother.
"Great. Can we go, then, before we have company? Not that I wouldn't enjoy putting these assholes down."
Jason looks like he expects Dick to argue about the potential use of lethal force, but Dick's too distracted to focus on eventualities.
He picks up Damian and shifts him into a secure hold that leaves his right arm free to fight if their little prison break is discovered. And then they're off.
*
The maze of corridors was a challenge to navigate on their way in, but now it feels ten times as long. Every corner they turn, Dick is expecting the alarm to go off. Slade has had ample time to call the guards on them by now, and very little reason not to do so. Not when Dick basically gloated over leaving him there to rot.
He knows he did the right thing.
It doesn't matter that the need to save everyone is ingrained in his DNA. Slade is beyond saving, and if Dick had realized that sooner, if he'd been a little less forgiving, a little less inclined to believe that Slade had some kind of code, then maybe the casualty count in Blüdhaven wouldn't have been a six-figure number.
Slade deserves to be locked away. Perhaps he should be in a secure Justice League facility rather than part of some creep's off-shore menagerie, but either way, Slade deserves it. He does.
It's comeuppance, Dick tells himself. Bruce would call it justice.
But no matter how many times he goes over it in his mind while they make their way to the ground floor window they used to slip into the room, his brain keeps coming back to that final stand-off with Slade just now. There was something about the way Slade looked at him before Dick turned to go. That little moment of almost-remorse, the fragile tendrils of affection infused in Slade's goodbye, and the sense of nostalgia almost swallows Dick whole.
Things used to be so much easier back when every clash between them was just a series of quick blows and quicker banter, fights that felt more like dancing, barely concealed flirtation in each quip and taunt they threw at one another. Sometimes, flushed and out of breath, adrenaline pumping in his veins, he used to look at Slade and think, Maybe. Imagined letting Slade catch him and press a different kind of bruise into Dick's skin. Fantasized about pulling off that ominous orange-and-black mask and kissing him until Slade couldn't remember the details of his contract.
Before everything got so bitter and grim, before the stakes got too high to brush aside with a cocky smile and a flirty little wisecrack. And fuck, Dick misses it.
He isn't naive enough to think that there's a way back. Not after Blüdhaven. But there's so much history between them, and he can't just pretend it's not there, or that it was all bad.
*
They're one long corridor from the exit when he falters.
"What's wrong?" Through Red Hood's helmet, Jason's voice sounds tinny, distorted, and his expression remains concealed behind the impassive crimson metal, but Dick can hear the concern in his tone.
Damian feels small in his arms, still and pale and bruised. Dick doesn't doubt that he'd be ready to fight if he regained consciousness now, but the idea leaves a sour sting in his mouth. He doesn't want Dami to wake up while they're still here, wants the first thing he sees to be something familiar and safe, and the best way to make that happen is to get out as fast as they can. He can't risk that. Not for Slade, not for anyone.
Nothing. Let's carry on. The words are on the tip of his tongue, but they won't come out, like there's a gag in his mouth that's holding them in.
How can he explain to Jason what he doesn't really understand himself?
He shakes his head. "Take Damian and go. Don't look back. Don't wait for me."
Jason visibly stiffens. "What? No. What are you— ?"
He instinctively holds out his arms, though, letting Dick carefully place their little brother into his hold before Dick turns and runs back the way he came.
"Nightwing! Shit. You fucking dickhead, you can't just dump the gremlin on me and run off." Dick hears Jason's voice calling after him, cursing up a storm, his shouts getting quieter the more distance Dick puts between them.
They're gonna be okay. Jason's got this. They were almost out. Jason can manage the last few dozen feet on his own.
All Dick's risking is himself.
*
"Forgot something?"
Slade observes Dick's return impassively, and the sardonic taunt grates on Dick's frayed nerves.
He's not up for another round of pointed banter right now, too high-strung, already half-regretting coming back.
"Shut up, Slade." He grinds out the words between clenched teeth, and slams the taser end of his escrima against the cell's electronic lock, no time for the finesse Jason took with it when he was freeing Damian.
The buzz of electricity echoes through the silence like a hive of angry bees. Sparks fly. The lock hisses in defeat, faint smoke rising up. Dick only has a split second to enjoy the look of surprise that passes over Slade's features. His good eye subtly widens and he frowns at Dick, but he doesn't have a chance to comment on Dick's swift and unforeseen change of heart.
The metallic click of the door when it falls open feels loud. But only a moment later Dick has to re-evaluate that assessment as a deafening alarm blares through the building and the room is tinted in red.
Dick instinctively flinches, even though he expected it.
It's fine, he reminds himself. Jason and Damian are already gone. They're safe; that's the important part. Maybe it's even an advantage. If all the guards are busy containing Slade and him, no one is going to be following his brothers.
Slade steps out of the cell. Suddenly there's no secure door between them anymore, nothing to stop Slade from attacking Dick if he wanted, and there's enough ominous menace in his voice that Dick just believes he might.
"Did you think this through, little bird?"
The term of endearment makes Dick's hackles rise. He grins his teeth until his jaw hurts. "Probably not, but I guess it's too late to lock you back up now and leave," he suggests, faking levity he doesn't feel.
Coming back for Slade was a mistake. He should have—
No. It doesn't matter. He made the choice that he's made, and now he has to live with it. For how long, time will tell, but either way it's too late for regrets.
He taxes Slade with an appraising look. "Can you fight?"
Slade smiles, self-satisfied and sharp, like a wolf about to sink its teeth into his prey after toying with it. "Have you ever known me to be unable to fight?"
He doesn't have his armor or any weapon, but his time in captivity doesn't appear to have had any adverse effect. He seems in prime shape, every bit as dangerous and keen as he ever was. Not the worst person to have at your side in battle. As long as you're prepared to be stabbed in the back when you least expect it, Dick thinks with a surprising amount of bitterness.
He raises his escrimas and hopes that he won't have to use them to defend himself against Slade.
*
Bullets come flying at them before they make it out of the room. There's barely anything that provides cover, not unless they want to hide in one of the cells.
Whatever material those transparent walls are made of, the bullets bounce off it like rubber balls. They'd be safe in there. Unfortunately, they'd also be in a cell, when the whole point of Dick coming back was to get Slade out of one.
The one advantage they have out in the open is that there's a lot of room to maneuver, which means a lot of ways to evade their attackers. The sheer width of the aisle and the high ceiling give Dick the chance to employ some of his more showy moves that he doesn't usually get to use in Gotham's narrow back alleys or on rooftops, and it gives Slade the chance to surprise the guards with a speed and agility they clearly didn't expect from a man of his bulk and size.
Frustrated by their inability to lock their targets down, one of the guards makes the mistake of getting too close and doesn't anticipate Dick's back-flip that lands him right at the sweet spot where he can jam his escrima into the back of the guy's neck.
The guard spasms. Collapses in a heap.
One down, a good dozen to go.
Dick has to keep on moving. He can't afford to stay still for too long, a sitting duck waiting for a bullet to find him, but before he twists away, he catches Slade swiping the guard's gun.
His stomach clenches.
The idea of Slade with a gun— He hates it, even when he knows it evens the playing field, even when he knows it might be the one thing standing between them and certain death.
If it were Jason, Dick would ask him to shoot to incapacitate rather than shoot to kill. And he isn't naive: he knows it wouldn't necessarily pan out like that. Avoiding fatalities entirely might not work when they're fighting for their lives, but Jason would at least have tried, for Dick's sake.
Slade isn't Jason, though. People don't call him The Terminator for nothing, and he's rarely been susceptible to Dick's appeals to his better nature.
And— It does make it easier. Dick can't deny that, can't shake off the giddy rush of guilty relief when Slade takes out four guards in quick succession with precise head shots, before any of them even notice what's happening. As ever, Slade's deadly efficiency is as impressive as it's horrific.
Dick feigns left and ducks right, dancing out of the way of one attacker and right into the way of another, who never saw the roundhouse kick to his chest coming.
A bullet meant for the guard who just went down zips past Dick's side, dangerously close. Too damn close. He grinds his teeth. Friendly fire is not the way he'd choose to go out, if he had a say in it, for whatever measure of 'friendly' applies to Slade.
"Fucking hell, Slade, watch your aim," he calls over his shoulder. "How about you try not to shoot me?"
"Move faster, then," comes Slade's voice from behind him, unruffled and entirely unapologetic, like Dick would only have himself to blame if Slade put a bullet into him.
The worst thing is, it would indeed be his own fault. He could be out of here now, with his brothers, already miles away, not fighting for his life because he chose to free a man who couldn't care less if Dick lives or dies.
"Sorry I didn't anticipate—" a guard lunges at him, "—being shot at—" the escrima hits his assailant in the throat at the same time as Dick's knee collides with his groin, "—by the guy I'm risking my life to free." One less attacker left, one more person who's out for the count rather than dead. "I guess that was an unfortunate oversight."
Slade makes a sound that could be a grunt or a snort, halfway between amusement and annoyance. "No need to lie, kid. We both know you've been expecting me to turn on you from the moment you broke down the lock."
There's something about the matter-of-fact acceptance of Dick's mistrust that makes Dick instinctively want to object, even though Slade isn't wrong. He spins around towards Slade. "No offense, but you have a long history of not meeting my expecta—"
He freezes when Slade raises his gun, pointing it right at him. Time slows down, milliseconds stretching like tar, viscous and ominous. Dick's heartbeat feels like it's slowed to a crawl, and each thump thunders in his ears. He stares into the smoking muzzle of the weapon, and he knows he needs to move – to duck, to run, to attack; there's still time – but he's rooted to the spot.
A shot goes off with a bang that ruptures Dick's trance. The frozen moment explodes into motion. Dick flinches. Something collides with his back, heavy, almost toppling him over.
Dick is still waiting for the pain to set in when he realizes that there's a dead guard lying half on top of him, bleeding all over his suit. Seconds pass until he fully grasps that Slade never aimed at him to begin with. That he was so caught up in their banter that he missed the guard sneaking towards him from behind.
"You're getting sloppy, Grayson," Slade chides.
"Whose fault is that?" Dick counters, but the comeback lacks his usual cockiness, and he feels uncomfortably rattled.
*
Dick barely stops Slade from putting a round of bullets into the unconscious guards' bodies.
"We don't have time for this," he argues. "And it'd be a waste of ammunition. By the time they're back on their feet, we'll be long gone."
Slade sends him a withering look that says he sees right through Dick's flimsy reasoning. "Their lives aren't worth saving."
Every life is worth saving, Dick doesn't say. It's a familiar old argument that they've had before, countless times, when Slade's job was a hit on some mobster or drug lord or general scumbag and Dick was trying his best to stop him.
But Slade's finger stays off the trigger, and when he crouches down next to the sprawling bodies, he only picks up their weapons.
He puts three pistols into his waistband, then checks the magazine of a fourth one before he offers it to Dick. It's a P226. Dick knows what the weight of it would feel like in his hand; he knows he could easily hit a moving target at 80 yards, maybe further. He could aim for the legs or the shoulders, and the guards would stand a better chance than if he let Slade take them on. He's almost tempted.
It's Slade's raised eyebrow and the derisive curve of his smile that makes Dick clamp down hard on the thought. He won't give Slade the satisfaction.
"Really? I thought you knew me better than that."
Slade keeps holding out the weapon for a moment longer, the handle turned in Dick's direction, unwavering. Offer's still open, it says. You know you want to.
Dick straightens his back and lets his gaze turn hard and grim until Slade pulls the gun away.
"Suit yourself. But don't expect me to cover your ass the whole time. It's a damn nice ass, but you're on your own out there."
Dick's heard all kinds of lewd and suggestive remarks about his physique in general and his ass in particular. There's absolutely no reason why Slade's casual, back-handed compliment should make him blush. He turns away to hide the flush that's rising to his cheeks.
"Don't worry, I can take care of myself," he says. And then, because he's never been good at resisting a good opening, "No need to feel responsible for my ass, or any other parts of me."
And if it sounds a little less like a putdown and more like flirting, well.
It's just the adrenaline talking.
*
Dick wasn't lying. Of course he can take care of himself. He's been taking care of himself – flying head-first into danger and getting in and out of hopeless situations – since he was a boy dressed in bright colors and scaly briefs, relying on a combination of skill, charm, blind faith, and stupid luck.
The thing about luck is: it eventually runs out.
*
In one of the corridors, a guard tackles him from the side. It's not a big deal. A close-quarter fight where Dick knocks the guy's gun away and lands more hits than he has to parry.
Slade is ahead of him, taking cover in a doorway, shooting at something before ducking around the corner. The sound of gunfire echoes from the walls, but Dick doesn't have time to let himself be distracted because another guard bursts through the door at his back.
The corridor is too narrow to use the wall for a flip, so Dick goes for a low slide kick instead. The guard's ankle gives way with a satisfying crunch and he falters, just long enough for Dick to electrocute him with his escrima, watching him twitch and jerk and finally go limp.
It's when he thinks he's in the clear, when he's already pulled himself up and checked the hallway at his back for any further imminent attacks, that he fucks up.
He passes that first guard on his way and misses that he's not as unconscious as Dick thought. It's sloppy and careless. Always make sure that your enemies are down for good was one of the first lessons Bruce taught him when he was Robin and finally allowed to join Batman on patrol. If Dick had properly secured the guard, then the man wouldn't have a chance to grab Dick's ankle when Dick runs past him, or to lash out with a knife when Dick stumbles.
Dick kicks back his heel right into the man's face. The grip on his foot goes slack, but it's already too late. The first thing Dick feels is the warm trickle of blood running down his leg. The pain hits him full-force a moment after, delayed by adrenaline. He grunts and balls his hands into fists, willing himself to push through the agony, but it's— It's overwhelming, brutally ripping the air out of his lungs.
"What's taking so long, Grayson? Come on."
Dick rests back on his elbows and turns, looking up to where Slade is hovering in the doorway, massive and hulking like some medieval warrior. There's a bloodstain on his cheek and his torso and arms are splattered with crimson, but either whatever injuries he's suffered have already healed or the blood isn't his.
The impatience in his voice is reflected in his stance, and Dick agrees: they need to get out of here fast, before the next wave of guards shows up. He clenches his jaw and tries to push himself up, biting down against the pain. It's bearable – until he puts a fraction of his weight on the bad leg.
Agony tears though him like a bullet, white-hot, blurring the edges of his vision. It's too much. Static bristles in his ears, and the ground rises up to meet him as a blood-curling scream echoes from the walls.
It's only when he's down, sprawled across the floor, frantically trying to remember how to breathe, that he realizes that the inhuman cry he heard must have been his own. Fuck. It hurts so bad; just imagining getting back up on his feet is terrifying. But he knows he has to try again because there's no other option.
"Give me a moment," he says, voice raw.
If he's lucky, Slade will stick around long enough to cover him until he gets on his feet.
Slade approaches him, taxing him with cool calculation like Dick is a lame horse that he’s contemplating shooting on the spot. When he crouches down next to Dick and reaches for his leg, it takes all of Dick's restraint not to jerk away from his touch, instinctively associating Deathstroke with pain and violence. It's already excruciating – he doesn't think he can take any more.
But Slade's touch is clinical and careful, deliberately designed to avoid further discomfort as he raises Dick's foot a little and shifts the torn fabric of the Nightwing suit away from the wound to examine the extent of the damage.
He brushes a finger over the skin next to the torn flesh, and it almost feels like a caress.
"He got you good," he finally asserts. Dick can't read the tone at all; Slade sounds unusually neutral, matter-of-fact, neither particularly impressed nor sympathetic. "Tendon's severed."
Shit.
That's gonna be a bitch to heal, is the first thing Dick thinks.
Bruce will bench him for weeks. Months, if Dick's unlucky. He might be able to avoid surgery, but the physical therapy will be a pain in the ass.
— and then he remembers, a moment late, that there's still at least a dozen corridors between him and the exit and he's not going to be able to make it out of here. He could try crawling, but it's only a matter of time before the guards find him, and his ability to fight is severely limited if he can't use his leg, or stand, or walk.
"Slade—" He can't bring himself to ask Slade to help him. It's taken him years to accept that when someone tells you who they are, you should believe them rather than holding on to the foolish hope that they're better than that. Slade made sure Dick knows who he is when he dropped Chemo on Blüdhaven, hammering home that Dick's steadfast belief that Slade had some kind of code was a pipe dream Slade enjoyed crushing.
Dick's not going to go down that rabbit hole again only to have Slade shoot him down. He closes his eyes. "You have to go. Just leave me a gun. I'll try to keep them distracted for a while."
Slade watches him, appraising. His gaze remains shuttered, and Dick can't help wondering if he regrets not having been the one who got to Dick in the end. After all, Slade never made a secret of his desire to clip this bird's wings. It must be frustrating, to see Dick broken like this and knowing that it wasn't by Slade's hand.
His eye twitches. Something flashes across his features. Frustration. Impatience. Irritation.
"Don't be an idiot, Grayson."
This time, when Slade reaches for him, Dick does flinch. The way Slade's looking at him doesn't promise anything good.
Slade slides an arm beneath Dick's knees, the other behind Dick's back. His grip has lost its earlier gentleness, and Dick is too focused on the roughness of it, too out of it from the pain and the desperation, to understand what Slade is doing until he finds himself lifted off the ground, hoisted up and into Slade's arms.
Slade shifts his hold so that Dick's weight falls against Slade's torso, effortlessly, like moving him is as easy as carrying an injured kitten.
It leaves Slade's gun hand mostly free. As he turns to go, he fires four shots in rapid succession into the unconscious bodies on the ground.
Dick doesn't have the energy to berate him for it. Slumped against Slade as he's being carried down the corridor, he feels boneless, at once exhausted and floaty. He hides his face against Slade's neck, hot tears prickling in his eyes that he tells himself are only born from pain.
"You said I'd be on my own," he says quietly, once he swallowed down the lump in his throat. He doesn't turn his head away from Slade's shoulder, almost hoping that the words will become so muffled in the blood-stained cotton of his shirt that they're inaudible.
Slade doesn't reply for a long moment, but his hand tightens against Dick's ribcage like he's trying to make a fist and punch something.
"And you said you were going to leave me in that cell. Sounds like we both lied."
His voice is deceptively aloof, but Dick has known Slade for a while now. He can hear the strain in it that Slade is usually so good at masking.
He forces himself to look up. "I didn't do it so you'd owe me."
Slade huffs. "Good, because I don't give a fuck about paying off debts or making amends or whatever the hell you think this is about. I told you before, I'm not that honorable."
He brushes the idea off with contempt, like his actions aren't contradicting his words.
"Why not leave me behind, then?" Dick doesn't get what the hell Slade is doing. He has no reason to save Dick, and too many reasons not to. Either way Dick turns it, it makes no sense. Not unless Slade— Unless he—
From his angle, Dick can't catch a good look at Slade's face, but he's close enough to hear the way his jaw crunches.
He doesn't say anything, and Dick knows he should let it rest. But he can't. He can't.
"Slade. Why would you—"
Slade doesn't let him finish the question. "Come on, kid. You're smarter than that. Don't make me spell it out for you."
There's a part of Dick that's tempted, both because he wants to hear the words, but also because he wants to push Slade until he folds. But there's a warmth beneath the gruffness of Slade's tone that Dick's rarely heard from him before, and he's holding him securely against his body as he navigates the maze of corridors to the exit, and Dick figures that maybe he doesn't need verbal confirmation after all.
He smiles faintly and buries his face in the crook of Slade's neck again. "For someone who's pretty much indestructible, you sure act like it would kill you to admit that you actually give a shit."
"You never know," Slade says, and Dick can hear the smile in his tone. "It just might."
*
It's Dick's fourth pass through those exact same corridors, and it's like they grow longer and more intricate each time. Slade doesn't bother trying to slip quietly through the window towards their freedom, bursting through the glass like an explosion, shielding Dick's body with his own.
It's still dark out, only searchlights illuminating the ground, cones of deadly brightness frantically zipping through the blackness that surrounds them. Slade tries his best to evade them, but Dick can hear the sound of voices shouting and dogs barking around them and he holds onto Slade tighter. His heart hammers against his throat, and the helplessness of not being able to move on his own chokes him.
A car cuts off their path, coming to a halt in front of them with screeching tyres.
Slade has already raised his gun, ready to take out the driver when Jason leans out of the window.
"Get in," he yells, pushing open the backdoor.
To his credit, Slade doesn't hesitate. It probably just means that he'd rather take his chances with Jason than with the guards, but Dick can't help feeling grateful that Slade doesn't just drop him into the car and disappear into the night. Instead, he folds his massive body into the narrow backseat with surprising grace, never letting go, not even when Jason accelerates and the bumps in the ground jolt Dick against Slade's chest.
*
"I told you to leave," Dick tells Jason, once they've made it onto the road.
The noise of sirens is muted now by the distance, but Dick can still hear them echoing in his ears, and his heartbeat hasn't settled yet. It's probably going to take a while until it will.
"Yeah, well, Dickhead, you also told me that we were just going to grab Damian and go, but you sure forgot about that real quick in there." He sounds pissed off, which— Fair enough. Dick would be pissed off too, if Jason had changed their plan to go off on a suicide mission.
He doesn't have a good excuse to give Jason. "Jay, look, I had to ma—"
"What's wrong with your leg, Richard?"
Dick startles and stops his poor attempt at a justification at the sound of Damian's voice. A pair of dark eyes watches him from the passenger seat. Dick thought he was still out. He looks so fragile and bruised that Dick's heart clenches, but Damian's gaze is sharp and alert, no doubt cataloguing Dick's injuries.
He aims for a soft, reassuring smile. "Don't worry, Dami, I'm fine. Are you okay?"
"Of course I am," Damian says, dismissively. "My captors were just second-rate criminals with no skill in interrogation. They didn't have what it would have taken to break me." He draws on the haughty attitude written into his genes like a shield, but Dick can see the way he's folded into himself, and his heart aches for him.
Above him, Slade scoffs. "You bats are a hoot. You'd get your head cut off and you'd still insist that you're abso-fucking-lutely fine, just a flesh wound, nothing to see."
The car swerves as Jason turns to glare at Slade.
"Shut the fuck up, Wilson, or I'm going to turn around and hand you back over to them myself."
His vitriol makes Dick wince. "Jay," he implores quietly.
"No, really, Dick, what the fuck?! Deathstroke? Really? That's who you went back for?"
But he's already turned back to the front, like he doesn't expect an answer. Dick keeps silent, treating it like a rhetorical question rather than one that needs answering. When Jason is upset, it's best to let him vent his frustration. He'll get over it. Maybe, probably, once they're back home in Gotham, they'll need to talk about it. If Dick's very lucky, perhaps he can find some kind of way to escape that conversation, but he isn't counting on it.
"I can't believe you almost got yourself killed for a worthless bastard like him," Jason complains, pointedly loud.
Slade's voice, in contrast, is so quiet that Dick almost believes he imagined it. "Yeah, neither can I."
But Dick does hear the muttered words, even if he's the only one. Just like he feels the brush of Slade's lips against his clammy forehead, fleeting but warm, Slade's beard rasping against Dick's hair.
There's nothing Dick can think of to say in response, but his hand seeks out Slade's arm and gives it a brief squeeze. It's meant to be reassuring, but he can't deny that he too finds comfort in the touch. He can't muster up the physical or mental strength to rouse himself, more at ease than he knows he should be leaning against a man who once nuked a whole city just to get back at Dick.
He's going to pull himself together soon, and then he's going to deal with the painful process of getting his injuries fixed, and perhaps then he'll remember all the reasons why he hates Slade.
In a little while.
But right now, with Jason and Damian bickering in the front of the car and Slade's arms around him, Dick feels safe and warm and relaxed, and the pain is bearable. They got Damian out. He got Slade out too, and maybe that's not a good thing in the grand scheme of things, but Dick's too tired to consider the grand scheme of things and too elated to shake off the relief and pretend he doesn't care.
For the first time since Blüdhaven fell, he feels like the weight on his chest has eased a little. He falls asleep to the pleasant sensation of Slade's fingers carding through his hair, drawing comforting little circles on his scalp.
End.