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Dick had never been good at choosing which battles to pick; if he saw an injustice, he’d move heaven and hell to right it. It cost him a bruise or another more than once, but he never regretted it.
Even at nine years old, he stood up to boys in juvenile detention who thought they could extort Dick’s playmate because they were older and stronger than him. Dick was left with a black eye and split lip, and had cried into his pillow the entirety of the night, but his friend had been unharmed and sat up with him until morning, patting his hair awkwardly.
If Robin jumped into a fight with an entire gang of bikers to save the girls they were harassing, he’d hold out and take the punches until Batman swooped in and chased them off. He had been grounded until his tibia fracture healed, but the girls had gotten home safe, and that was all that mattered.
When Bruce tried to take Robin away, Dick fought, kicking and screaming, for the right to his own name. Yelling and arguing and slamming doors only got him so far, and he should have learned long ago that Bruce was not someone who changed his mind. However, Robin was his, and it wasn’t fair that Bruce thought he could just strip Dick off it. So they fought, and Dick left for Jump City (Robin suit included), and took that as having the last word.
There was no choosing which hill to die on; Dick would survive them all and claim their peaks for himself.
It was a lesson he intended to teach Deathstroke the Terminator as well.
Every step of the way, he fought the man. Slade wanted Dick to call him Sir? The word had to be drawn from his bloodied lips. He ordered Dick to steal from Wayne Enterprises? Only after an explicit threat to the Titans’ lives was made did Dick agree to go.
He didn’t give in, didn’t drop the battle. Slade demanded blind obedience; he wanted Dick to choose to follow his orders, so his Apprentice could one day keep his legacy alive. Why else would Slade draw endless parallels between them and manipulate Dick with empty platitudes about enjoying the thrill of stealing from his own father?
Slade desired for Dick to pick him over the Titans and Batman. And while Dick inevitably caved to his demands (he wasn’t so arrogant as not to realize that letting himself be beaten unconscious again and again was not a great escape strategy), he still saw it as a win that it was the pain he yielded to in the end, not the threat of it.
This, though? This was something he could not allow himself to submit to.
The gun was heavy in his hand, cold and dangerous, and Dick had trouble looking at it. His breath stuttered in his chest, and he swallowed heavily, fingers clenching. He knew how to use guns; Bruce had shown him how to disable and disarm them, while Alfred had taught him how to shoot.
It wasn’t the gun itself that was the problem. One of the first things Slade forced him to learn was how to hit the target with every shot, the different kinds of firearms that existed, and what to use in which situation. Even as a hero, it was important knowledge, and Dick had reluctantly found that it was actually somewhat interesting.
Sweat dripped down the side of his face, leaving an itchy trail of moisture behind. He should not be this hot. Slade’s haunt was deep underground, and Dick had complained about the chill in the air on more than one occasion. He tried to swallow past his dry throat.
Slade stood behind him, uncomfortably close. The room was bare, except for pipes running along the walls, a drain in the floor, and a single, empty metal shelf off to one side. A lonely light bulb swung desolately from the ceiling, stretching and shifting the shadows until they seemed almost life-like.
Dick and Slade had stopped right past the door, and the gun had been handed to him without a comment. Breath hitching, Dick squared his shoulders. In front of him, cowering on the floor with zip-ties around their wrists and ankles, was a man and a woman, staring up at them with tearful eyes.
The analytical part of Dick’s brain spat rapid-fire facts: middle-aged man, brown hair with streaks of grey, unclean skin, wedding ring. Turned away from the woman, wide, terrified gaze fixed on Slade.
The woman was younger, mid-twenties, same square nose and strong chin he noticed in the man. Related, father and daughter most likely. She had a fading red mark on her cheek and pressed herself into the far corner, distancing herself from Slade and Dick, as well as her father. It didn’t take a great detective to come to a less-than-stellar conclusion about their relationship.
The gun burned in Dick’s grip. He had known this was coming, of course he did – Slade was a mercenary, a killer for hire, and he wanted Dick to take up the Deathstroke mantle one day, so logically he would expect Dick to…
“This is Luca Briar,” Slade said, startling Dick so bad he almost dropped the gun. “His wife has made multiple claims of domestic abuse, only to take them back a day or two later. So has his daughter, Maria.” He indicated the woman, who flinched back and lowered her head. “Briar seems to have no difficulty convincing the cops that his wife and daughter are attention-seeking liars.”
Briar went red in the face. “I have never laid a fucking hand on them! Discipline is hardly abuse.”
Slade squeezed Dick’s shoulder, and this time it was he who flinched. Slade had made similar claims in the weeks he’s been here. He wrapped a hand around Dick’s arm, slowly raising the gun to point at the tied-up man. “Shoot him.”
Briar choked on his defensive babbling, shifting his attention to Dick. Suddenly, Dick was glad for the mask covering his face. He jerked uselessly against the iron grip around his elbow, biting back pathetic whimpers. He shook his head. An invisible weight constricted his chest, and his heart felt like it was about to beat out of his throat.
Slade tightened his grip. Dick let out a shuddering breath and, with a sinking feeling in his stomach, let the gun drop. Wincing at the dull sound as it hit the ground, Dick braced for Slade’s reaction. Moves and countermoves, that’s what their relationship boiled down to.
With a disappointed sigh, Slade stepped back. Dick straightened his back, staring stubbornly against the opposite wall.
“Look, man, I don’t know what you want from me, but I’ll stop, okay? I won’t hit ‘em again or nothing, I promise. Just let me go, I’m beggin’ ya.” Briar looked pathetic, Dick decided, kneeling on the ground, begging for his life. Unwillingly, his gaze slowly drifted to Maria.
She was also looking at him, but not with the same desperation and beseeching expression her father was wearing. Instead, she observed his tense shoulders, his tight breathing and shaking fingers, how he leaned away from Slade and always diverted some of his attention to him. She looked at Dick like she understood, like they had a common understanding of powerful men and their cruelty.
She gifted him a shaking quirk of her lips. If he squinted, he could almost call it a smile.
“Pick up the gun, Apprentice,” Slade said. Nothing in his voice gave away anger, irritation, or danger just yet, but Dick knew it was waiting right below the surface. Dick shook his head again and curled his hands into fists. “No. I won’t kill for you.”
He couldn’t. Once he crossed that line, there would be no turning back. The stealing, fighting his friends, all of that, he could neatly compartmentalize into a box labelled ‘keeping your friends alive’. It would take time to come back from hurting the Titans, but no one had been irreparably damaged yet. Once the truth came out, the Titans would forgive him, because they were his best friends, and Bruce would be disappointed (if he cared enough to feel anything, really. There was no way he didn’t notice Dick breaking into WE, so where was he?), but killing, breaking that golden rule that dictated so much of their lives?
There would be no coming back from that. It would be the death of Robin, and the true birth of Deathstroke’s Apprentice.
Dick wouldn’t allow that to happen.
Squaring his shoulders, he turned to face Slade. “You can beat me, and threaten me, and threaten my friends, but I will never become your tool for murder. If I have to choose between my life and someone else’s, I will gladly eat a bullet. And my friends-“ he choked on the words, but forced them past bloodless lips anyway, “they would choose another’s life over their own, too.” That’s what it meant to be a hero. To put your life on the line for the people of your city, to protect them from villains like Slade. Dick refused to become someone innocents had to be protected from.
He has bent his morals and allowed Slade’s humiliation to keep his friends safe. He let himself be beaten and blackmailed and dressed in Slade’s colors, but he would never betray his friends by killing for them. They would never forgive him the insult.
Chasing all feelings of fear and uncertainty from his face, he met Slade’s immovable gaze and refused to yield. He was calling Slade’s bluff. The Titans’ lives were the only leverage Deathstroke had on Dick. Slade must have expected Robin to refuse him, knowing the man and the values he had been raised by. There was a reason the mercenary resorted to good old beatings to enforce most of the rules and tasks, and get Dick to bend to his will. If Slade pressed that button, he’d lose his Apprentice as well.
Dick couldn’t see Slade’s face past the mask, but he was sure the man was smirking. He closed in on Dick, and it took a herculean effort not to flinch back.
“There are two outcomes here,” Slade said, grasping Dick’s chin tightly. Dick swallowed, forcing his breathing to stay even. He was sure Slade could hear his heartbeat racing, but Dick clung to any dignity he could scrape up.
Slade turned Dick’s head, directing his attention to Briar, who was still snivelling on his knees. At least he’s had the mind to shut his mouth. “One, you kill him, and Maria gets to live. I will let her go back to her mother, and the two of them can live the rest of their lives without this man’s shadow looming over them.”
Briar whimpered pathetically. “Please,” he begged, scrambling forward, “please don’t do this. I have money, do you want money? Jewellery? I’ll give you whatever you want, just please let me live.” When his pleading met only cold silence, he grew more frantic, scooting over the ground until he was kneeling at Dick’s feet, bound hands desperately grasping his pant legs.
“You can- I’ll…” he gasped, fumbling for words as he stared up at Dick. His head whipped around, looking for something that could possibly convince Dick not to shoot him. Dick wanted to step away, shrug off this man who didn’t think twice about hurting the women under his protection. Slade held him in place with the painful grip he had on his chin. Dick’s gaze found Maria’s again, and Briar followed the turn of his head, zeroing in on his daughter.
“Maria, I’ll give you Maria,” Briar finally offered. “She’s young, she’s pretty, you can have her if you let me go.”
Swallowing down bile, Dick closed his eyes. What kind of man, what kind of father, bargained away his own daughter for the chance at survival? Maria started sobbing.
Slade kicked Briar away from where he still clung to Dick, scoffing condescendingly. “Option number two,” he continued, not even bothering to acknowledge a word Briar said, “I kill Maria. This snivelling piece of trash gets to live out the rest of his days in his cushy apartment, hurting his wife as he sees fit without consequences. I will dump Maria’s body where no one will ever find her, so her mother will never get closure.” Maria buried her head between her knees, crying silently.
Slade leaned closer to Dick, whispering directly in his ear. “I don’t need to threaten the Titans to force your hands, Robin. Be thankful I am giving you a choice. I could have grabbed a mother and her child and made you shoot them both. Instead, I’m offering you the chance to rid the world of one more abusive asshole to save an innocent girl’s life.”
Oh. Oh. Dick hadn’t thought Slade would outplay him that easily. The Titans were superheroes. They’d choose death every time. It was easy to say it wasn’t Dick’s choice; the Titans would have given the same answer as Dick. They’d want him to save other people’s lives first. That was the deal they all made when they first started as a team.
Maria or her father was an actual choice Slade was forcing Dick to make. It should be easy. Of course, Dick wanted Maria to survive over her father. Maybe… maybe it would have been easier to make a final decision if Slade told him to choose who Slade would kill. It would be Dick’s choice, but Deathstroke’s kill. It was a coward’s wish, and Dick would have been devoured by guilt either way, but at least he wouldn’t have…
There was no way out of this. Do nothing and condemn Maria to death. Pick up the gun and kill shoot Briar – become a murderer and turn his back on everything he stands for.
He didn’t… he couldn’t-
“Please,” he whispered, for a lack of anything else to say. “Please don’t make me do this.”
It was an impossible choice.
Slade cocked his head, and Dick could feel the man’s eye searing into his body. He swallowed, lowering his gaze deferentially. Slade liked him afraid, like it when Dick pleaded and flinched away from him.
“I’ll do whatever you say. I’ll stop fighting you, follow your command without argument. There will be no more backtalk, no smart comments, just please don’t make me do this.” Dick waited with bated breath, heart hammering against his ribcage. He was scared, he was so afraid, he could barely think straight. “Please.”
Slade hummed thoughtfully. “Cute, but you can beg better than that.”
Dick flinched. Swallow your pride, he told himself, tears pressing against his eyelids. Just do this, and maybe no one has to die today. His pride was not worth a human’s life. Slowly, limbs tingling and weak, he sank to his knees. Slade always liked him brought low.
“Please,” he repeated, staring resolutely at the back of his hands, where his palms pressed into the floor. He couldn’t feel the smooth tiles through his gloves. “Please, Sir, don’t make me do this. I’m begging you. You… you hold all the power, you already-“ he choked, squeezed his eyes shut, and pressed the words past trembling lips, “you already own me. You don’t have to make me do this.”
He waited, heart in his throat and breath trapped somewhere in his chest. Slade didn’t move, and Dick risked a glance upward. He tried to read Slade through the armour and mask, swallowing down a sob. It was not enough, it was still not enough.
He lowered his head to the floor, panic thrumming deep in his veins. He was leaving himself vulnerable, submitting himself to Slade’s mercy. There was something else Slade had demanded to be called, something Dick had laughed at and then spit in Slade’s face for, resolutely refusing to even entertain the idea. But maybe, just maybe, it’d be enough.
“Please have mercy, Master.”
There was no sharp intake of breath, no obvious tensing or movement, but when Dick raised his gaze, Slade had ever so slightly shifted his weight forward, and that one ice-blue eye was focused on Dick with terrifying intensity. He had Slade’s attention, his interest.
Dick wanted to cry.
Smoothly Slade crouched next to Dick, brushing his hand through Dick’s hair. He tensed, but the grip didn’t turn painful. Slade raised Dick’s head, turning him towards their captive audience.
“Well done, Apprentice. You won’t have to kill just yet.”
Slade allowed Dick on moment of startling relief, of tension seeping out of him like blood from an open wound, one moment of hope-
And then he shot Maria in the head.
Dick blinked, swallowed, blinked again. Maria didn’t move. What... Slade said Dick did good, why did he- there was no reason to... Why would he do that?
An agonized sound, more raw emotion than human, tore itself from Dick’s throat, and his eyes refused to stray from Maria’s prone body, blood slowly seeping from the hole in her head – like a bloody halo, he thought hysterically.
No... no, this wasn’t supposed to happen, he’d done what Slade asked, he begged, called him Master, kneeled; why wasn’t it enough, what else was he supposed to do?
His head was jerked back around, Slade’s grip tightening to five points of pain.
“You’re not a hero anymore, Apprentice. You are mine, and you will pull that trigger, because mercenary work is your only future from now on. Refuse me again, and next time it might just be two of your friends in that position.”