Work Text:
Slade stands in front of Grant's grave, staring down at the headstone.
He's already said his piece, already told his son that he avenged him. That the Titans might not (all) be dead but they paid for their role in taking Grant's life, and they'll never be the same. He's already said that he loves him, that he'll miss him, that Joey might never forgive him for what he did but it was worth it to avenge Grant's death.
Before all this, Slade never would've said all of this. What would've been the point? Grant was dead and buried—he couldn't hear anything anymore, couldn't feel anything, couldn't give less of a shit about Slade avenging him because he was dead and that was it.
But that was before.
Now, he stands and speaks and wonders if Grant can hear his words the way Slade's shadow can.
The boy behind him doesn't say a word. Slade can't even see him right now, but he can feel him. Feel the prickling on the back of his neck that means he's being watched, feel the chill in the air that is just one shade too cold and too localized to be natural. Slade's becoming abhorrently used to that sensation, now.
It's been six days since Slade ran his sword through Nightwing's gut and watched his blood paint the ground around him. Six days since the leader of the Teen Titans was killed by the mercenary hunting them. Six days since Slade smiled, satisfied, as cries of anguish rose around him. Six days since a teenager was felled by his blade.
Six days since the boy left the land of the living and instead came back as something—other.
Slade thought it was a trick, at first. When he woke up to find a familiar kid crouched in the corner of his room, arms wrapped around his knees and eyes nearly glowing as he glared hatefully at Slade from his position. He thought that Nightwing had actually survived, somehow, despite Slade hearing his heart stop and stay that way. He thought maybe the kid had been hiding some meta abilities after all, despite his outward appearance as baseline human.
So he threw a knife, aimed straight for Grayson's heart. Hell, if the kid decided to come back for more, Slade was happy to oblige him. But Grayson didn't flinch, didn't try to avoid the hit, just sat hunched over and glaring at Slade with too-bright blue eyes, making no attempt to save himself.
And then the knife passed right through him and embedded itself in the wall behind him.
The form of the kid—flickered, for a moment, rippled like a pond after having a rock tossed into it. Slade stood, staring, and then decided his third theory was this was some form of illusion sent by one of the Titans—Raven, most probably—as some strange sort of "punishment" for killing their leader.
But then the illusion said, "One blade through me wasn't enough?" and Slade didn't know everything about Raven's abilities but Terra communicated enough for Slade to be reasonably sure she couldn't make apparitions actually communicate, especially without being in eyesight, which she certainly wasn't.
He didn't come to the conclusion of "ghost" immediately, because the idea was fucking absurd. But the facts were that there was a dead boy following him around, one who stares at him with burning hatred in eyes that are not quite human and a body that doesn't quite move like something living, and the real kicker of it is that not a single other soul seemed to be able to see him.
For a short while, Slade thought that maybe he was simply going insane. That killing a boy younger than his son had been, regardless of the crimes Nightwing committed, was one step too far for his psyche and he...lost it, now haunted by the image of the boy he killed.
Honestly, he dismissed that very quickly. He's not insane. He does not feel guilty. This is not madness—it's magic.
So his next step was finding out who made this happen, and putting a permanent end to them. In this, it seemed, he and his tag-along were in complete agreement—Slade didn't want a dead hero following him around, and it didn't seem like the dead hero was all that thrilled about the situation, either.
When Slade asked him why he didn't just go find one of his little hero friends if he was that annoyed about the situation, he received a snarled, "Don't you think I would've done that if I could?" which came off far more afraid than he thinks the kid meant it to. But whatever was happening to Slade, it apparently kept the dead Nightwing unable to leave him no matter how much the boy wanted to go.
He tracked down every lead he could think of, every magic user he knew, and they all told him the same thing—there's no spell on him, no mind magic, no sign of any outside influence. They all told him he has "an unusual aura" and there is "something spiritual around" him but could provide no explanation as to why, or how to fix it, no matter how much Slade threatened them.
A month of frustration went by before Slade had to accept the truth of the matter—Dick Grayson's spirit decided to hang around on Earth after his death, and somehow got itself tied to Slade. Slade doesn't know how it happened. Grayson doesn't know how it happened. Neither of them are fucking happy about it.
Slade tries his best to pretend he's not even there, going about his life. He goes to speak to Grant, and he checks in on Joey from a distance, and he starts taking jobs again, and he does his best to pretend that there isn't a specter of a teenager following him everywhere he goes.
A hateful teenager at that, not that Slade can really blame the kid in that regard. He's being forced to follow around the guy who murdered him and hunted his friends. Not exactly a stellar existence. Not that Slade actually gives a fuck about that—it's just hard to not consider that, when he can see Grayson's loathsome sneer out of the corner of his eye.
Weeks go by with complete quiet from his follower, Grayson apparently deciding on the silent treatment as he glowers in the background with his glowing eyes and shimmering figure. He gets more translucent the angrier he is, Slade finds. Whenever Slade's completing an assassination contract, there the righteous little shit is, fuming in his peripheral, body flickering like the force of his rage is enough to shake even his presence on this world.
Slade wonders if he were to hunt down and kill the rest of the Titans, if that would make Grayson furious enough to lose his tether to this place entirely. He'd be tempted to give that a shot, if not for Joey's continued presence on the team. It's just unsettling as fuck to have a constant passenger as he goes through life, as he does literally anything.
The weeks of silent treatment unfortunately end, and then the kid won't fucking shut up. He has an opinion about everything. Slade's current contract, some contract he's taken before, his current life choices, his past life choices, his relationship with Joey, his relationship with Adeline, his skills or lack thereof, his armor, his plainclothes, his haircut, his fucking everything. The vitriol never fucking stops.
And there's not a damn thing Slade can do about it. He can't touch Grayson, can't throttle him like he wants to. He can't beat him into the ground for being such a mouthy, annoying little shit. He can't tie him up and lock him in a closet to have five fucking minutes of peace. Grayson is completely incorporeal, and never more so than when Slade gives it his best shot to hurt him.
And that fucking smirk the kid gives him, that angry little smirk with burning eyes he gives when Slade tries—and fails—to cause him some pain, well that makes Slade want to hurt him even more.
The mouthy period lasts far, far longer than the silence did. Long enough that Slade figures he must've found his way into Hell, that he's burning in fucking Hell and his punishment is to have the loudest, most annoying little hero commenting on every single moment of his life. Adeline would laugh herself fucking sick to see him experiencing this damnation. She'd applaud whatever higher power there is for giving it to him.
But eventually, the comments start to die off. In miniscule amounts, almost completely imperceptible at the start. But the kid's voice takes on an edge, something—tired, in his words. Something nearing exhaustion. And he finally stops speaking every minute of every day, stops snapping at every fucking move Slade makes. Stops making Slade's existence an absolute living hell.
What follows, at first, seems infinitely better, a sort of equilibrium between the silence and the chatter. A normal amount of speaking, which Slade can definitely deal with. Not fun, but then, Slade doesn't find interacting with anyone to be a pleasant activity, and he'll certainly take this over the motormouth.
But the longer it goes on, the worse it gets. It's been nearly half a year, now, since the day Slade killed the kid, and when Slade turns around in his kitchen he doesn't find the very familiar form of an eighteen-year-old Dick Grayson hanging out behind him, instead he sees—Robin. Robin, in short pants and traffic light colors, looking no older than ten.
The contract Slade just completed involved the death of a kid about that age. Slade doesn't relish jobs like that, but he doesn't mourn them, either, even if they've become harder to accomplish when he has a little hero dogging his every step and turning those judgy eyes on him. But now, this. Now, a young Dick Grayson is sitting on his countertop, yellow cape pulled around himself like a blanket, staring at Slade with too wide eyes and cheeks still round with youth and Slade's chest—tightens, for a moment.
"How the fuck did you do that?" Slade snaps, irritated, pushing aside the annoying feeling that rose in him moments before. He finds his eye stuck on the kid and purposefully stops looking, continuing on with the task he'd been heading to complete before this shit appeared.
"Didn't do it on purpose," Grayson says, and Christ even his voice is young, high and soft and lilting. Slade never met him at this age, didn't encounter Robin face to face until the kid was seventeen and standing over the downed form of Ravager, and sure he was young then but he wasn't—this. How did any villain face this? How did any villain look at a fucking child dressed like a circus performer and manage to be anything other than baffled? How did they fucking fight this thing?
"Well make it stop," Slade grunts.
He sees the kid shrug out of the corner of his eye, all natural Dick Grayson grace but the edges of something—gangly, to the movement, like there's an upcoming growth spurt.
Except there isn't, because this isn't real, and the kid's dead besides.
"Dunno how," Grayson says. He cocks his head, and then he smiles. It's a bitter, wry little thing, but then, so is Grayson. "What, can't face the kind of killer you are?"
Slade's jaw clenches. He turns and pointedly looks at the kid head on, meeting his gaze challengingly. The fact that he's "challenging" the ghost of a ten-year-old is not lost on him.
Grayson snorts and shakes his head. "Why would I expect you to give a shit that you murdered a child? You've done it before."
"You were eighteen," Slade tells him, no remorse.
The sound Grayson makes is maybe a laugh, but it's jagged and rough, and the way his eyes glow in the dim light matches the sound perfectly. "Does that really make a difference to you? Grant was nineteen when he died—did you consider him a fully grown adult who didn't need you anymore?"
Slade snarls and takes a threatening step forward. Grayson doesn't flinch, doesn't waver, and why should he? Slade can't do a damn thing to him.
(Slade has already done everything to him.)
The shape-changing doesn't end there. Whatever spirit shit made it start apparently isn't done, and Slade is graced with countless kinds of Dick Grayson following after him.
He wakes up in the middle of the night to see a bloodied and bruised version sitting on the windowsill, bleeding heavily from a giant gash across his gut, a killing blow. He's on a stealth mission and suddenly has a mid-teens kid decked out in all black beside him, gaze laser focused on the information Slade is scanning through. He takes a bit of downtime and is accompanied by a plainclothes Dick Grayson so young it genuinely takes Slade's breath away, staring at him where the kid sits in front of the TV watching the screen avidly.
Slade remembers Joey and Grant at that age, similarly obsessed with the TV. Slade used to drag them outside when he was home, refusing to put up with their complaints, determined to make them do something useful instead of rotting their brains.
It's on the tip of his tongue, so close to being let out that his lips actually part. That'll rot your brain, he barely catches the words before they escape, but this isn't a real child let alone his and Dick Grayson is dead so what does it matter if he's appearing four years old and captivated by the show on? It doesn't fucking matter.
Nearing the one year anniversary of Nightwing's death, Slade finds himself on a contract in New York. The kid's chattier than usual the entire time they're in the city, talking about his favorite places, pointing out the best rooftops to swing from or get a good vantage point, and Slade listens to it all absently, replying from time to time.
They're...used to each other, by now. Spending every waking moment together will do that, he supposes. The hatred and rage and irritation Slade used to constantly feel runs on the backburner now, because honestly nobody can spend a fucking year around a person and cling to all-consuming hate. Not even, apparently, Dick Grayson, whose person in question is the one who killed him.
They're not friends, not even fucking close. They don't like each other. Slade still wants his specter gone, Dick still wishes Slade would die on a contract. But they have—equilibrium, maybe. They're stuck with each other.
They pass by the water, Titans Tower in clear view. Slade glances over at it briefly, just to see if he can spot Joey, and when he turns away unsuccessful it's to find a fourteen-year-old Robin next to him, staring at the Tower with such blatant longing that it nearly hurts to see.
For a moment, Slade is tempted to break in. Let the kid walk the halls he lived in, the halls he built from the ground up at too young an age. Let him see it once more, after having it all stripped from him.
But the moment passes, and Slade turns away, heading back into the city and forcing Dick to follow. He pretends he can't hear the sniffles, the stifled cries—it wouldn't be the first time.
Honestly, what good would it do? The Titans still want Slade dead, and without Nightwing at the helm Slade's pretty sure that "No Killing" rule has become more of a guideline. The Tamaranean in particular would love to incinerate Slade to ash if she got the chance. They've all sure been hunting him for long enough to make that clear.
That fact used to make Slade smug—the shining Teen Titans, wading through the mud and seeking his death. How low he brought them with one little kill. Grant avenged in their ruin.
Now, he's just...tired. It's really hard to hate a group of kids when a dead one follows you day and night looking young and miserable and innocent.
None of them are innocent. They chose this business, they knew the risks. Nightwing knew the risks, and he chose to fight anyway. They aren't blameless. None of them are fucking blameless.
Slade is starting to wonder if that matters. They're only teenagers.
Grant was nineteen.
They leave New York without another word to each other.
Time continues to move on. Dick's nineteenth birthday came and went some time ago, and his twentieth passes by with much the same lack of fanfare. Slade only knows about it because both times the kid reverts down to an eight-year-old version of himself in a leotard with chalk on his hands and sits as far away from Slade as his tether will let him, body small and curled in on itself and radiating a need to be held, even if there's no one able to give that to him anymore. He never looks more alone.
...At least, Slade makes the assumption that it's his birthday. What other yearly date would hit a dead boy so hard?
Slade starts talking to the kid more, or rather, starts talking back more when Dick speaks. Kid's intelligent for sure, and has an amusing sense of humor, enough of a bite to it for Slade to appreciate. He's also far more jaded than Slade might've expected from the shining leader of the Teen Titans—Slade doesn't know if the kid was always like that, or if it's a byproduct of being killed. Either way, Slade likes it more than he would've some happy-go-lucky caricature. Certainly less annoying to be around. He might even go so far as to say he's come to like the kid.
He's extremely aware of just how weird and fucked up that is. It wouldn't be the first time Slade's thought something like that about himself, but he has to admit that growing to like the kid he murdered because the kid's stuck following him around in death is particularly strange. Especially because there is more than one occasion where Slade looks at Dick and finds that bloodied, beaten form of Nightwing staring back at him, the large wound Slade tore through his gut an obvious reminder of what Dick still thinks of him.
It's best not to dwell on it. It is what it is. It's not like Dick's brought it up in ages, anyway—they've both accepted their new reality.
But then the second Robin dies, and Dick won't stop screaming.
His shape flickers between a million different forms, so many Dick Graysons cycling through in rapid succession. The grief and rage are consistent on every version of his face, and the scream he lets out hurts Slade's eardrums in ways normal human sounds can never do. It's enough to make Slade take a step back from the kid, then another. He's never seen him like this. He doesn't think he ever wanted to see him like this.
Dick calms down eventually, at least enough that Slade is no longer worried about the kid going full poltergeist. He crumples to the floor in a version of himself wearing civilian clothes and maybe a year younger than he was when he died, trembling and crying with tears that will never truly hit the floor.
"Kid," Slade says softly, because what the fuck else is he supposed to say here? Sorry for your loss? Sorry that someone killed Robin? Even Slade knows what poor taste that would be—who is he, a Robin-killer, to provide sympathy over the death of the second? He's not so much of an ass to do that. He's at a loss for what to do.
"I want to go to Gotham," Dick says, voice trembling. When he looks up at Slade, his blue eyes are glowing so bright Slade nearly expects them to start shooting lasers like Superman.
"And do what?" Slade asks, still achingly soft. Softer than he's been with anyone in a long, long time. "You can't help him, kid." Batman can't even see you, Slade resists adding, just decent enough to not pour salt in the wound.
"I want to go to Gotham," Dick repeats, harder this time. He straightens himself bit by bit until he's standing again. There's blood at the corner of his mouth, a bruise on his temple. Slade wonders where he got them, what battle he was in wearing civilian attire. Wonders what significance it has to this moment. "Will you take me?"
Slade looks at him levelly. Dick's firm expression cracks. His body shimmers, uncertain. He looks so painfully young. "Please?"
Dick was only eighteen when he was killed.
Seems the second Robin only made it to fifteen.
Slade lets out a slow breath, nods, and starts packing up his shit to take them to Gotham.
Slade is still the person who killed Nightwing, which makes Gotham a very dangerous place for him to visit. He normally avoids the city entirely, or at least does his best to stay out of the areas he would be likely to run into a furious Bat, but unfortunately that is counter to the entire point of this visit. Dick needs to get up close—and since he can't go anywhere of his own volition, it means Slade has to get up close.
He disguises himself best he can and tries to abide by what the kid wishes, but he crosses the line at actually going to Wayne Manor. That's a can of worms they do not need to open, Slade sure as hell not putting himself in that level of danger just for a dead boy to visit home, but he does acquiesce to the request to attend the funeral. He just...doesn't have the heart to deprive the kid of that. Not after seeing his world-bending grief firsthand.
Slade sits in the back and idly watches the exits as Dick moves as far forward as he can with the tether holding him back, shape flickering between ages faster than Slade can blink. He sits cross-legged in the aisle and listens to the speeches, stares at the guests, keeps one eye forever on the stiff, perfectly still form of his father.
Slade knows what it is to lose a son, knows what Wayne must've gone through when he killed Dick. But losing a second son as well...
Slade doesn't know what he'd become, if he lost Joey on top of Grant. He doesn't know what kind of monster he'd become if both his sons were killed.
He wonders what kind of monster Batman will turn into with two dead boys and no one left to hold him back.
Dick doesn't budge from his spot through the whole service, nor after it as guests begin to slowly file out. He sits, looking eight years old and wearing a black suit, eyes fixed on his father sitting a few rows ahead of him with the desperation of a drowning man.
As stealthily as he can, all his movements masked by the murmur of guests making their way out, Slade stands and moves forward a few rows, half-hiding behind a pillar to help himself stay unnoticed by Batman, not taking any chances.
Dick must feel it immediately, because he doesn't hesitate to scramble to his feet, popping up and rushing forward to sit a seat away from his father. The expression on that young, tiny face is such intense grief and pain and longing that Slade can't look at it for more than a few moments, instead scanning the emptying church around them.
"Slade," Dick calls loudly, and Slade sends him a quick, sharp look before glancing around but, of course, no one else can hear Dick. He hasn't been outed. So he just raises an eyebrow at the kid. "Please, can you—I need to tell him—"
His voice breaks off, but Slade knows what he's asking. He glares at Dick, incredulous and chastising, but Dick doesn't falter. God, he's so small like this. So young. Imagining him flying across rooftops and hitting bad guys like this is nearly impossible.
"Please, Slade," Dick says. He looks like he's crying. It makes Slade clench his jaw. "He's not gonna attack you here, not with people around, not how—" He cuts off, but the way he looks at Wayne makes the rest of his sentence obvious: not how he is right now. "You're the only person who can hear me, Slade. Please, please tell him something for me."
Slade closes his eye, but all he can see in the darkness is that bloody eighteen-year-old, staring up at him with so much pain and fear as he realized what was happening, and how the only thing Slade felt in response was smug satisfaction. The way that kid died at his hand and has now been stuck with him for years, and will be for more years to come.
With a slow exhale, Slade opens his eye and walks forward, making his way towards the front row where Bruce Wayne still sits, motionless, staring at the coffin holding his fifteen-year-old son.
Wayne doesn't glance at Slade until Slade is standing right next to him, though he must've heard the approach. He looks over with dead eyes, eyes that then widen when he recognizes who exactly is beside him. He gets to his feet, his hands curling into some approximation of fists. Some of the emptiness breaks away to reveal rage, which Slade can more than understand—hell, when he came face to face with the person he blamed for his son's death, he killed him.
And now here they are.
"What are you doing here?" Wayne hisses. His voice is slightly hoarse, though from screaming or crying or injury, Slade doesn't know. "You don't think you did enough? You decided to come here?"
”Wasn’t my choice," Slade says gruffly. He flicks his gaze to Dick, now standing at Wayne's side, but Wayne doesn't do anything as amateur as following his gaze, keeping his eyes very much on the threat.
"Tell him I remember that day at the park, with the carousel, with the elephant and the chipped paint, so he knows it's me," Dick says, so small, voice so soft. He's breathing quickly, obviously desperate. He's never gotten this close to anyone he loves before. Slade's never let him get this close.
But like fuck is Slade telling Batman that he has his dead son as a tag-along. He'll never be left alone ever again, heroes will be stalking him even more than they already were. If the heroing community knows that Nightwing is still around, and Slade is the way to speak to him—no, absolutely not. He's here to pass on a message, not destroy the last bit of his life.
"Grayson told me something before he died," Slade says instead, setting up the scenario and waiting for Dick to fill it in.
Dick's expression crumples, devastated by Slade's decision, and for a moment he flickers between that eight year old and the bloodied version of himself a decade older, making Slade look away from him.
But looking away from him means looking at Wayne, which means being confronted with a well of rage, grief, pain.
"How dare you?" Wayne says, the edge of Batman's growl creeping into his voice. "You come to my son's funeral to mock me about the son you killed? Can you get any lower?”
Oh, Slade can get plenty lower. Wayne has no clue what Slade holds in his hands right now, how vulnerable his eldest son still is. Slade can get so, so much worse.
Instead, he says, "Not mocking you, Wayne. Just passing on a message long overdue. You want it or not?"
Clock's ticking, Kid. Pick what you want me to say.
Wayne wars with himself visibly, and then tightly says, "What is the message?"
"I love you," Dick says, voice absolutely wrecked, and Slade can't look at him, can't look at whatever's on that child's face.
"He wanted you to know he loves you," Slade says. Wayne's entire body spasms.
"And I am so grateful that you took me in, that I got to be Robin. I don’t regret a single moment of it. Not one."
Slade echoes the words, edited for perspective. Wayne closes his eyes, breathing a little too fast, swaying faintly. Slade stays perfectly blank in return.
"Please don't get lost in grief." Dick's voice breaks on a sob. "Please let people help you. Honor us, what we would want—it would hurt so much if you lost yourself to darkness."
"He thought you might fall into darkness, but he begged for you to let people help you," Slade says. "He wanted you to honor him and what he'd want, not just...lose yourself."
"He said all of this?" Wayne asks, forced calm layering his voice. "He was dying, he was being murdered by you, and he had a speech for me while he bled out?"
"Yes," Dick and Slade say in unison.
Dick adds, "One more thing. Please, Slade."
Slade sighs. "There’s one last thing."
Wayne makes a helpless little sound, something Slade doubts anyone's ever heard from the Batman before. He gives a small shake of his head. Slade doesn’t know him enough to interpret what any of that means, but Dick clearly does, because he continues on immediately.
"You're gonna want to forget, to push this down, to linger in the pain and make it all there is. You're gonna want to lose the man and be nothing but the Bat." When Dick continues, Slade can hear his smile and his tears all in one: "But holy grief spiral, Batman—what would Dick Grayson do?"
Slade lets that linger for a moment in the air around him, taking a slow breath of his own, and then does his best to communicate Dick's sentiments to his father without giving away what's happening.
He repeats the last sentence verbatim, and is just decent enough to not comment on the agonized noise Wayne makes in return.
Slade stands and waits. He'd like to leave, to get the fuck out in fact, but he will not be coming back to Gotham for a very long time after this—he can give Dick these last few moments.
"Why did you come here?" Wayne asks, staring past Slade. He looks like he's aged a decade in just a few minutes. "You murdered Dick two years ago—why now?"
"I didn't give a shit before," Slade says bluntly, and it's close enough to the truth. "But you lost a second boy, you are alone now like Grayson said—figured you could use the kid's words. Figured maybe I owed him that, anyway."
Wayne nods slowly, not in agreement, just acknowledging. "Someday," he says, "I will find you, and I will lock you away forever in a deep dark hole where you'll never speak to another person ever again. You understand me?"
One corner of Slade's mouth quirks up with genuine amusement. Lucky for him, even if Wayne or some other hero does manage that—well, he's got the best get out of jail free card in the world, doesn't he? They just don't know it yet.
"I'll see you then, Wayne," Slade says, then turns to go. He doesn’t look at Dick, doesn't turn to see what's on the kid's face. He simply walks out, knowing Dick will follow.
It's not like he has any other choice.