Chapter Text
~Dick: Age 10~
Dick Grayson had been training with Slade Wilson for two years before it was time to make his first kill. Two years of agonizing physical and mental puniishment leading to this moment; Dick would finally kill the man responsible for his parents’ deaths. Tony Zucco. Tony. Zucco. It didn’t sound like the name of a monster and the man tied to the chair in front of him didn’t look like the shadows that haunted his nightmares, but Dick knew better than to be deceived by appearances. Afterall, Dick himself could be mistaken for a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed 10-year-old kid if you were to just see him walking down the street with Slade, but the word kid was a poor descriptor of who Dick was and belied none of the truth of what he was about to do.
"Kid. Stop stalling.”
Dick shot a quick glare to his side at his master. “Not a kid,” he insisted as he picked up a handgun from the table of tools in front of him. It could almost have been a prop table for a live-action game of Clue. There had been a gun, a fireplace poker, rope, a curved sword, a few smaller knives, and what looked like a vial of green liquid poison or acid of some type.
Slade nodded at the gun in Dick’s hand possibly pleased with the boy’s selection, but his approval didn’t matter tonight. Tonight was Dick’s night. Tonight was the night that made the last two years of near-torture worth it. Every stretch of sleep deprivation, every bleeding wound, every broken bone, every burn, everything would be worth it.
Dick’s hands shook for only a moment as he leveled the gun at Tony Zucco.
The middle-aged Italian “fixer” had been quiet for most of the night (after he had been gagged). He had watched soundlessly as Slade had set up the table with the different weapons and only made a single grunt of confusion as a child was led into the room. Zucco half-heartedly tried to break the ropes binding him to the chair at first, but they were too well-tied. He made a few other weak attempts to struggle, but he seemed to accept quickly he wasn’t going to get out of this. If Deathstroke the Terminator wanted you dead, there wasn’t a damned thing he could do about it.
Dick was still lining up his shot when he felt Slade’s hand on his shoulder to gently correct his posture. Dick rolled his shoulder and reset his stance. “I’ve got this,” he hissed in irritation.
Deathstroke rolled his one eye and stepped back with his hands up in surrender.
Tony was now looking directly at the kid. Black hair that curled at the tips, tanned skin, lips pulled in a tight line of determination, and bright blue eyes fixed on him in anger. He tried to push the word why out from around his gag, but as soon as he started to make a noise, the first bullet hit his chest. Then the second. He wasn’t conscious for the rest.
Dick unloaded the clip of the gun into the man in front of him. After he’d squeezed the trigger the first time, an acrid, oily smell laced the air, only to get stronger with each subsequent bullet. He’d aimed for the target’s center with his first two shots, but the remaining were less focused. Two of the bullets missed entirely and lodged into the side of the warehouse wall behind the bound man. Dick kept pulling the trigger until Slade reached over and plucked the gun from his hand. Dick had thought his hands had started shaking again, but in fact his whole body was shaking.
“He’s gone.”
Dick couldn’t stop the trembling and even though he was staring at the red-spattered remains of his parents’ killer, he didn’t feel relief. He didn’t feel like he could breathe. It was almost the same feeling he’d felt the night his parents died. It was like his insides were made of shards of broken glass and with each breath, they cut deeper and deeper.
Dick’s breaths came in short, strangled gasps and he reached out to clutch onto his master. Slade had said that he’d feel better once it was done. He’d promised that this would help. He’d sworn that the fear and the anguish and the hurt would lessen, but it wasn’t true. This felt so much worse.
Slade was in his face now, gripping his shoulders and instructing him to breathe. His voice was even and calm, but there was an undercurrent of irritation that made Dick tense up.
“You wanted this, remember?”
I wanted this? Right. Right—I wanted this. Dick’s breath started to slow as he focused on Slade’s black and orange mask.
“Feeling better?” Slade asked while pulling back away. “First time is tough, but you did good, kid.”
“I…” Dick hesitated, unsure of whether to tell the truth. “I don’t feel better… I just feel,” Dick struggled again, grasping for words, “like something broke?”
Slade seemed to be evaluating Dick for a moment, but after a stretch of silence Slade continued, “That’s fine, kid. Broken is something I can work with.” Under the mask Slade smiled.
~13 years later~
Dick tried to take pride in his work, he really did. He’d show up on-time (mostly), paste a smile on his face, and very rarely, if ever, threaten anyone anymore. Sure, he sometimes wanted to stab people, but what person who worked in food service didn’t occasionally want to maim someone. Back when he was a mercenary, stabbing and maiming was a part of his actual job description, but those skills were unfortunately not transferrable to most workplaces. And Dick was a normal person now, with a normal shitty job, and a normal life. If he murdered someone now, he'd lose everything he’d worked so hard to build with his brothers. Besides, Jason and Tim made a bet about whether Dick would get fired from this job within six months, and Dick wasn’t going to give Jason the satisfaction of winning.
“Can I answer any questions about the menu, sir?” Dick smiled through gritted teeth. It was a diner. They had diner food. The menu was a single page front and back. This man had come in 20 minutes before closing and spent the last 10 minutes hemming and hawing over his choices. Dick could feel the glares of the two remaining kitchen staff at his back as if it was his fault the manager seated the guy and insisted they just stay a little longer to make one more customer’s day. Dick wasn’t sure if he wanted to stab the man or the manager, Paul, more. Maybe both. Probably both. Definitely both.
Finally, the man sighed and smiled over his menu at Dick to order some panini something. Of course, they’d already wiped down and put away the panini press because who ordered a fucking panini at midnight, but he could hear the shuffling in the kitchen as it was pulled down again. Dick got the man some water and went back into the kitchen to hide where the cook, Trey, and the busser, Wendy, shot him a nasty look. They wouldn’t be able to do final clean-up or lock-down until the man left, so Dick was just as stuck as they were.
“This isn’t my fault,” Dick finally spat.
Wendy scoffed, “It always happens when you close. It’s like you’re fricken cursed, Rob.”
Trey nodded, “Cursed. Or else you got some bad karma, my friend.”
Dick, known as Robert to his co-workers, groaned and dropped his head back just as the door leading from the kitchen to the back alleyway opened and his younger brother, Jason, walked in. Jason was half a head taller and a good deal broader than Dick was, a brown leather jacket hugging his muscle-bound arms and a permanent scowl set on his face. He immediately clocked that food was still being cooked and he grimaced.
“You gotta be fucking kidding me. Again, dickhead?” Jason groaned.
“See! Even your brother knows you’re cursed,” Wendy gestured in triumph.
Jason sighed and made his way over to a small pile of takeout containers wrapped in plastic and ready to go. He didn’t even bother to look at what Dick had set aside for him, just grabbing his stash, and heading back out the door.
“You’re welcome,” Dick snapped.
Jason managed to flip him off before the door fully closed.
Okay, Dick’s list of people to stab tonight now included Jason. It wouldn’t be the first time he stabbed Jason, and Jason had certainly returned the favor, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise at least.
An hour later, Dick finally locked the front door and began his way home. Of course, the late-night customer hadn’t tipped, and of course Paul lectured them all about treating ‘every customer like family’ no matter what time they came in the door. The only reason Dick didn’t quit tonight was because the stupid bet Jason made with Tim.
Dick was trying so hard to show his siblings that they could live a normal life—he’d spent the last three years getting them into a position where they could make it work. Even though Dick sometimes had a hard time keeping his jobs, they made enough money to rent a decrepit fixer-upper townhouse where they could live together. Tim was a junior in high-school and, if Dick could keep his shit together, actually had a chance of graduating at this same school. Damian was having a hard time adjusting to being a “normal” kid after being raised in an assassin cult, but had recently seemed to take an interest in his middle-school art projects, which was a much better outlet of creativity than torture/murder/mayhem. Jason…. well, Jay was an adult. He could make his own choices about what living a ‘normal’ life looked like (as long as he didn’t involve Tim and Dami, Dick really didn’t care that Jason’s life still involved a healthy dose of crime.)
But sometimes, when Dick was off a long shift of trying hard not to murder people to be normal, he ached for the sense of purpose he had when he was with Slade. There were missions, there were objectives, there were plans, and there was a point. Even though Dick knew that a lot of the jobs he did with Slade benefited bad people, Dick missed the rush he’d get from completing a contract. Of course, he had to think of the jobs as contracts and not murders, or he’d go spiraling again—but still. They’d left Slade in order to have a chance at normalcy, but Dick couldn’t deny that normalcy chaffed. Maybe it was too late for Dick, like it seemed to be too late for Jason, but he owed it to Tim and Dami to try and succeed outside of mercenary life. He promised they could make a life together without death—and it was a promise he intended to keep.
But… if he needed to go hit a few people, he could always stop by Crime Alley on his way home. There was always a good chance he’d run into some shitbag wannabe predator who could benefit from a light stabbing. One could hope.
~~~
Tim’s head popped up from his laptop when Jason came in with the diner’s leftovers. Jason, as usual, ignored him and dropped the food into the fridge before heading right back out the door. As the door was closing, Jason shouted back, “Go to BED Timmy.” But, because Jason was gone before Tim could reply, Tim figured he really didn’t mean it.
Tim slipped into the kitchen and poked through the takeout containers—food that would probably be better for breakfast tomorrow, but Tim stole a few cold fries to tide him over. When he turned around, he jumped when he noticed Damian perched on the couch looking intently at the laptop.
“Don’t touch anything!” Tim choked around the fries, rushing to shoo his little brother away from his laptop.
Damian growled but moved away. “I have no interest in your browsing history, Drake. I simply came out to welcome Richard home.”
Tim swallowed, “It was just Jay. He dropped off the leftovers.”
Damian’s irritation bristled under a thin veneer of neutrality. “I thought Richard’s shift ended.”
Tim sighed, “Yeah, but his boss is having him close, so it will take a bit longer. Go back to bed.”
Damian didn’t move, his glare fixed on Tim. Tim shifted—he hated being the one to babysit the demon brat. He could glare for six hours straight without getting tired. Tim has timed it. In fact, the six-hour record was only interrupted by a literal explosion, so it’s possible that there was no end to Damian’s glare.
Tim shifted uncomfortably and grasped for some kind of distraction. “Do you… do you want to help me stalk Jay?”
Damian squinted, “Why would we stalk Todd?”
Tim shrugged, “Because I’m pretty sure he’s gearing up to do something that’s going to piss Dick off.”
Damian tilted his head, “Other than existing?”
Tim nodded, “Yeah, he’s been having me help him catalogue the big gangs in the area and profiling their ‘upper management.’ I think he’s planning something big.”
Damian thought about it for a moment and looked to Tim’s laptop. “And by stalking him, you mean following his movements via the various surveillance systems throughout the city?”
Tim smiled, “Yup! Some of my best work.” Tim had access to nearly every security monitor and traffic camera in the city. It would have taken ages to set up his own system, but fortunately, someone else had already done the work of linking them all together. All Tim had to do was find a way to tap into the system already in-place and observe. As long as he didn’t mess around with it too much, he was fairly confident the original system creator would never know he was observing. Of course, Tim would love to meet the genius behind the original program someday.
Across the city, Oracle hoped that she’d meet the hacker sneaking into her system sometime soon as well. He did some good work. However, she had no idea why his interest seemed focused on following a random guy in a leather jacket in the Narrows. She’d keep an eye on this, but Spoiler started asking for some backup in the comms. Dropping the feed into the background, Oracle went back to work coordinating the bat-team.