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He can barely breathe.
The rain feels like bullets smacking into his skin, driving into his flesh. The cold, wet streams mixed with his tears, sliding down his cheeks.
Dick Grayson can still see it.
Can still hear it. The snap of the wire, the stomach plummeting drop closing in a few, rapid seconds.
His parents' bodies smacking into the ground, and the screams of the crowd. Piercing through his ears until he was sure he could hear nothing but a deafening silence. His throat, raw from his own screams.
Agony tore from the bottom of his gut, winding its way through his chest and ribs, up his neck, clawing at his throat. He keeps running. He doesn’t know what to think. He doesn’t know if he is thinking. Too many thoughts are pursuing his brain.
Too much. It’s staggering, and Dick’s lungs feel like they’re collapsing in on itself.
. . .
“Go on, my little Robin,” his mother, Mary Grayson, echoed in that loving tone, her warm hand cupping his cheek. “Show them what you can do.”
Excitement bubbled in his chest. His heart flickered with those familiar feelings of sweetness. The worries of the man had long been forced to the back of his mind.
His mother’s touch could soothe him, no matter what.
He looked at the smiling face of his father. There wasn’t anything that could ruin this moment.
. . .
Concrete stabs into his knees, scraping the skin until it’s purpled and grazed, dotting with little pearls of blood. His costume is soaked to his skin, plastered to it so tightly, it felt as though it was crushing him. Similarly, pressure was consuming him.
A weakness seized his legs.
He sobbed into the rain, screaming for his mother and father in his most cherished language. The words were choppy on his lips, strained and gasping for breath.
His chest squeezed, and his heart ached.
Dick still couldn’t breathe.
His sobs wracked each cell in his body, and the pressure was almost too pressing to ignore. His limbs shook from the sheer exertion. Guilt tore into his precious soul.
It was his fault. He had seen the man cutting the wires; he had seen him set his parents up for their death. But he hadn’t said anything. He had kept his mouth quiet. Why? Would his parents still be alive, if it weren’t for him?
. . .
It’s warm. It’s peaceful.
The familiar scent wafts through his nose, reminding him of his mother. His father’s soothing voice echoes in his ears.
He’s warm. It’s comfortable - it’s home.
It’s perfect.
. . .
Someone grabs his arm.
Dick leapt to attention, his blurry gaze darting through the rain at the iron grip clamped around his limb.
His screams become frantic and he writhes and thrashes, smacking his tiny fists into the figure crouched down beside him. He chokes on a sob and he flails for air, screaming for his mother and father once more. Screaming for them to save him. For them to come back.
His ears are fuzzy. The rain pelts harder, and Dick can sense his vision going in and out, encroached with invasive black spots that only make him panic further. He can feel fire flooding down his lungs, and then he hears a voice.
“Kid,” it’s deep and distant. Dick pinches his eyes shut. “Breathe.”
His eyes snap open, and he can see a terrifying face if he tilts his head back. Shrouded by the blackness, one half melting into the darkness of the night, and the other half featureless, revealing nothing but the intense stare from one beady, narrowed eye.
Monster, Dick briefly thinks, but then it’s overshadowed by the man at the circus, the one who cut the wires, and he’s disintegrating into harder sobs that can hardly be hidden by the rain.
Slade Wilson’s eye narrows deeply, maneuvering his grip to the boy’s shoulder to keep him still and steady. He knows his appearance wasn’t the most child friendly, but he can sense, judging by the situation, that this kid has far worse problems he needs helping down from.
He’s completely hysterical, and Slade is certain he’s going to lose consciousness if he keeps slipping under into his memories like this.
He frowns. “Listen to me. You’re safe.”
Ironic, considering he just stumbled into the hands of a mercenary.
“You need to breathe. What happened?”
He isn’t inclined to ask. He didn’t even have to help if he so wished. But he didn’t have any desire to leave a child alone at night, in the streets of Gotham, working himself up into the state he was. Dick gasps. It’s a horrid, strained noise, and Slade almost winces.
He starts to mumble things in Romani, barely able to get his words out through his sobs. He’s stopped fighting now, but he’s trembling and shaking like a leaf.
Slade keeps him grounded by placing his other hand on his shoulder. Dick can feel himself sinking into the ground, and he wants it to open up and swallow him whole. The mercenary doesn’t quite ask about his parents. He can decipher enough to understand that might cause a reaction he wasn’t looking for.
A sigh draws from his lips.
“Keep breathing, boy. That’s it.”
Dick’s coming to, slowly but surely. He starts to feel numb, but he can’t stop the tears from flooding down his cheeks. He weakly whimpers for his mother. The man, the monster, whatever he was, shifts his grip under his arms, lifting him up. Dick tenses at first, instantly defensive, but he’s nestled in a way that takes the pressure of his muscles, and he relaxes (as much as he can) against the warm chest.
Warm.
It’s warm.
Slade hums. He’s soaked, and pale, and his eyes are unfocused. He pressed a hand to his forehead, drawing away when the boy flinches.
“M…My…Ma…”
“Quiet,” he orders, voice soft, but firm. “Don’t speak. Keep on breathing.”
He trembles, but tries to do as he’s told. He can feel the man’s chest rising and falling against him, and he tries to match it. He can’t stop seeing it. The way they fell. The way they hit the ground.
Dick catches a sob and desperately throws his arms around the man’s neck, clinging onto him tightly. Slade pauses as he rises to his feet, before he slides a hand beneath his skull and gives it a firming pat.
“Dizzy?” He asks.
Dick’s head is spinning. It throbs and aches and he can’t help but nod with a small whine. Slade checks his surroundings thoroughly, holding the boy close. He could easily drop the kid off at the nearest police station and be done with the night, but he didn’t trust the incompetent inhabitants there enough not to traumatise the kid even further.
A lick of selfishness hits the back of his neck.
It’s brief, but it’s there. He lets it go for now. With the way the kid was clinging onto him, Slade figured he would have a difficult time tearing him off.
. . .
He eventually draws a name out of the boy. Tony Zucco.
He holds off on preparing a search and picking up his gun, and makes a note to ask the kid later if he’d like to be the one to take him out.