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Slade didn’t want to think about how he got here, standing next to Nightwing and glaring at the building that collapsed just now.
Hopefully this would be the last one. The entire block was demolished, rubble and glass was strewn all over the streets and dust irritated his nose beneath his bicolored mask. His suit was damaged and dirtied. He chanced a glance at Nightwing—looking away from the destruction—and watched the little bird fuss over the kids he had just rescued, calming them down with gentle words. Nightwing looked even worse than Slade did, despite how often Slade had to shield the kid from the danger he put himself in. Goes to show that Nightwing was finicky and didn’t care for his own wellbeing.
It was infuriating. He could see how Nightwing was refusing to put too much weight on his left leg. Slade had to pull him out of the rubble, but the kid didn’t stop trying to save everyone despite his injuries.
Slade looked back at the destruction.
It was still up in the air as to what caused this entire catastrophe.
“Thank you, mister.”
Nightwing nudged his leg and Slade turned his attention towards the kid that was staring up at him instead of the hero. What. Why was this child addressing him?
He didn’t say anything. Nightwing sighed and gave the kid a smile. “Let’s find you guys’ parents. They must be worried sick.”
The dust and destruction around them didn’t allow for much visibility but Slade could hear the panicked voices of citizens and noises of emergency services nearby. The children had been split off from their parents when the building split in two.
Nightwing held his hands out for the kids to take and smiled gently as they were grasped. The kid that had addressed Slade held up their other hand too. Slade stared at it, his expression blank behind his mask.
He turned away and started leading them out of the dusty ruins. Nightwing chuckled awkwardly behind him.
“Do you know what your parents’s names are?”, The little bird asked the kids and Slade chose to tune out the conversation happening behind him, it didn’t concern him.
He stopped when he could make out the red lights of the emergency services and their personnel talking with distraught victims of the destruction.
Nightwing passed by him, leveling Slade with a look before quickening his step, guiding the kids towards the ambulance.
Slade stayed back, watching as helicopters passed by overhead to get a look at the damage.
And there was a lot of damage, buildings now pieces of rubble on the streets of Blüdhaven. Nightwing sought him out a few moments later, finding Slade in an alley, having watched the little bird do his little spiel of ensuring everything was taken care of from afar.
“Thanks for the help earlier.”, The kid huffed, shifting to relieve his injured leg. “Even though I’m questioning why.”
Slade grunted. “I’m not letting some building collapsing be the end of you, little bird.”
Grayson shot him a look. “What, so you can be my end instead?”
Slade smirked. “Do you want me to be?”
Nightwing wrinkled his nose and scoffed. “Is that why you stuck around? To bother me with your presence some more?”
“I stuck around because I knew you would seek me out anyway.”
Grayson grumbled. “You’re the worst. You don’t happen to be here in Blüdhaven because of what just occurred…right?”
The way the little bird’s mind worked was intriguing.
“No.”
He got a sigh in response. “Well that’s reassuring, but this was weird, right?”
“It was.”
“Multiple buildings don’t just crumble like that, especially like this without any premonitions. Like there was only an earthquake concentrated in this street.”, Grayson mused to himself.
Slade crossed his arms over his chest. “So there’s definitely something amiss.”
Grayson grinned at him. “Oh? And here I was thinking you’d be taking your leave by now.”
Right. Usually Slade would be on his way already, not bothering to stick around for Grayson’s heroic pondering. Nightwing would look into what caused this destruction. Slade would not. This wasn’t something he’d concern himself with.
So why was he still here, hearing Grayson out about his musings?
He scoffed and turned around to walk away, hearing Grayson chuckle at his retreating back.
It had been a weapon that created earthquakes, of course, that destroyed the block in Blüdhaven.
Dick sighed as he got briefed by Batman on what their family had gathered on the buildings in Blüdhaven—amongst other various locations facing the same fate—crumbling.
Blueprints had popped up about the supposed weapon. Events were lining up.
Dick bounced his leg under the table. It had been a few days of them gathering this information and they were currently piling it all together to narrow down the culprits for the creation of said weapon and why it was used.
Bruce came to a stop, rubbing at his temples.
“I need to have a word with you Dick, the others are dismissed.”, Bruce stated and Dick raised an eyebrow at him.
What had he done wrong now?
His siblings shot him a look as they left the cave, so that the original dynamic duo could talk.
“What do you want, B?”, Dick asked as Bruce pulled up the footage of the destruction in Blüdhaven. The older man leveled a look at him.
He zoomed in on the footage. Dick squinted at it.
Oh.
He could just barely make out the Deathstroke armor, the dust and huge amounts of rubble making it hard to tell it was the mercenary.
“Oracle and I were combing through footage to see if we could pinpoint where the destruction started and compare it to our data. Seeing Slade Wilson was certainly a surprise. Why was he there, Dick?”
Bruce knew that Dick had been aware of Slade’s presence. If it came to Slade, Dick was the one the Bats would consult with.
Dick and Slade had history after all. Lots of it.
“He has nothing to do with the weapon if you’re asking that.”, Dick replied.
“So you spoke with him?”
Well, Slade more or less saved him from becoming a pinned bird, not that Bruce needed to know that.
“I did and I confirmed that he wasn’t in Blüdhaven for that.”, Slade had been just as surprised as Dick. If Dick could say that about him jumping in to help him out. Definitely spoke in his favor.
He had even stuck around longer than usual to talk with Dick. That had been nice.
…Not that Bruce needed to know that.
He stood up, feeling his leg twinge a bit, but thankfully it wasn’t as bad as yesterday. “Now was that all?”
Bruce frowned.
Dick smiled. “Great. I will see you tomorrow then.”
He didn’t need Bruce to question him more on Slade Wilson. It would just upset Dick if Bruce told him to stay away or say whatever the old man was thinking in that brooding mind of his. Dick was very well aware that Slade was a mercenary and more often than not an adversary—
But there was something more to it. Dick opened his eyes to that fact sometime last month. Gradually things had started changing and aligning between him and Slade. It was noticable with how the tension between them that was once charged with anger had shifted into something else.
Dick liked it. Liked that Slade stuck around longer, sought him out more, that their banter was less cutting and more teasing the more they interacted. It was like getting a cat to trust him, Dick chuckled to himself.
Slade helping him out was a big indicator that Dick wasn’t making it up.
Slade helping Nightwing out happened more and more. Caring less about being spotted helping him even since the destruction in Blüdhaven happened. It wasn’t a big deal.
Others started to take notice.
Okay. Maybe it was. It was even more worrisome that his inner monologue had taken a certain Grayson cheeky tone to it nowadays.
Anyway.
Slade himself noticed it too. He wasn’t daft. He wasn’t denying anything.
He didn’t need Joey and Rose questioning him about it.
They asked for his intentions, what he was playing at by helping Nightwing. Slade could only stare at his children. His kids never stopped pestering him about it despite his short responses.
It felt like Grayson had bewitched Slade into being more selfless, more heroic. It made the mercenary almost queasy, but that feeling eased whenever he sought out Grayson and was met by that playful expression.
Slade started taking less assassination contracts. He stuck around longer in Blüdhaven.
The little bird made him join his patrols, teasing and taunting him into helping. Slade wasn’t opposed to it.
And that’s what made it so difficult.
They kissed—once, twice, when Slade noticed Grayson went missing one night and tracked him down to find him caught by some guys connected to the case the kid was working, the one that involved the destroyed buildings.
Nightwing had told him more about it because the Bat had spotted Deathstroke in the footage. It could have been the catalyst as to why Slade let himself be seen next to Nightwing more often.
The guys got away by using the weapon in their disposal, making the warehouse they had held Nightwing in crumble, pieces of metal and brick falling onto the ground, intending to crush them. Slade shielded Grayson from the worst of it.
“What’s their deal even?”, Slade huffed as he bandaged the kid’s wounds once Slade got Grayson to one of his safe houses. It was too bad that Grayson didn’t have a healing factor like Slade did.
It made what Nightwing did on the regular even more impressive.
“Chaos.”, Grayson quipped, hissing when Slade disinfected a wound near his thigh. Grayson’s lower half could never catch a break. “But from what I managed to get out of them they’re after some sort of revenge against a company that owned those blocks of buildings. Which makes sense with what Bruce found out.”
“So they built a weapon that causes earthquakes to fuck with that company?”
“They actually stole blueprints to create that weapon. Which made pinning down who was responsible for it harder than it needs to be.”, Grayson complained.
He leaned against Slade, blowing air against the strands of white hair that hung in front of Slade’s face. Slade shot him a look.
Grayson snickered. “You came for me.”, The kid smiled. “Way before anyone else noticed I was gone.”
Slade looked away. “I’m spending way too much time with you. To notice that.”
It made the little bird laugh and scoot even closer. “Joey and Rose asked me about that, you know…”
Slade grunted.
“Don’t worry, you’re still an asshole mercenary. The big bad that haunts my dreams.”, Grayson teased him before leaning up to kiss Slade.
Slade made sure to leave Grayson breathless for that little quip. So what if he stuck around longer?
Nightwing’s presence was making Slade’s world brighter. He could admit to that. Even if it took him a some time to accept it.
To capture the group that had the earthquake weapon in their possession Dick decided to call in some help. They couldn’t let any of the guys escape arrest yet again—which still annoyed Dick by the way, he had been so close before they decided they wanted the warehouse to become his coffin—so they needed the numbers.
Batman agreed with his decision, though his expression soured when during their mission to capture the guys Slade showed up.
Dick of course was delighted to see him. Hell, he was proud of Slade wanting to help without much prompting needed from Dick. He always was. It had been fickle getting Slade to admit to it, but they were making good progress in getting Slade to admit to his feelings. He had to be firm though with Slade about not harming anyone too brutally. Slade agreed only with slight hesitation and a promise of a hushed reward. It always made Dick giddy to see that Slade would do what he asked of him, even if he had to entice the mercenary.
They split into two teams, Dick made sure Slade stayed near him.
They lured a part of the group into a location they had decided would act in their favor, making sure it was evacuated without drawing attention before striking. The same action was repeated with the rest of the guys, making sure they were all accounted for.
Fighting against guys that could shift the ground was tiring. Dick was definitely dubbing them the destruction crew of bad decisions.
They used the weapon to make them stumble, to create rifts in the ground. Dick needed to confiscate that weapon promptly. Too bad it was camouflaged to look like any of the other guns these guys had on them.
He squinted at them, eyes widening as one of the guns turned to point at him, then at the ground below him.
His leg gave out as the ground beneath him shifted and he just barely caught himself from falling too far down. Well that solved it.
“Nightwing!”, His team shouted in horror.
An arm reached down to him, pulling him up. Dick breathed a sigh of relief seeing the bicolored mask stare back at him.
They weren’t making much progress and the amount of destruction they were causing made Dick furious.
He glanced at the rest of his team. The destruction crew of bad decisions was focused on them.
“Throw me.”, He hissed at Slade. “At the guy positioned at the back. Now.”
Slade didn’t hesitate for a second, picking Dick up and throwing him at their opponents. Dick narrowed his eyes, reaching out—
He grasped the weapon, throwing it towards Batman immediately as he landed, tackling the guy he had just disarmed.
And just like that the fight was over. His team apprehended their opponents, communicating with the other half if they needed backup on their end. Law enforcement took them away, making starry eyed or grim expressions as they talked with Batman and the rest of the team.
Dick exhaled, standing a few feet away from the rest of his team as they finished getting the last of the guys arrested and transported away. He glanced up as he was approached by Slade, his mask in his hand as his eye looked Dick up and down, assessing him for injuries.
Dick’s heartbeat stuttered.
Dick immediately started climbing this man, clinging to him with a big grin on his face. Slade steadied him by putting a hand on his waist, it was a warm comforting gesture that practically melted Dick.
Slade huffed, looking at the sappy expression Dick wore on his face.
“Stop.”
“Aww, am I embarrassing you?”, Dick chuckled, leaning further into Slade, his leg still hiked around the mercenary’s hip.
The could hear murmurs behind him and his smile turned into a grimace. Oh. Yeah. Damn. He and Slade weren’t exactly alone. Unlike when Dick managed to convince Slade to follow him while he patrolled.
Dick slowly pulled away, putting his leg back on the ground. He faced the group of heroes behind him, shoulders slightly drawn up with tension.
Each of them wore a different expression. Batman was glaring at Slade. Tim was looking between them with a calculating look. Damian was scowling. Steph was snickering into her hand.
“Nightwing.”, She grinned, glancing between the two of them with mirth in her eyes. “You’re like the most ‘I can fix him’ person I know and that’s saying something.”
Dick squawked. “Hey!”
Tim cleared his throat. “I mean, it’s kinda true? From what I put together Deathstroke has been more…tame? Statistically speaking.”
Steph coughed, nudging Tim with a pointed look at Batman. Damian huffed but with a nudge from Steph he gave a curt nod. Batman’s grim expression worsened.
Well Dick couldn’t say anything to that. Tim knew his statistics. He shot a look at Slade.
Slade shrugged, a slight smirk tugging at his lips. “I would have minded that statement half a year ago, even if the word your little brother is using pretty insulting.”
Dick’s heart was going crazy in his chest, though with the way Batman was glaring at them he was debating whenever he should kiss Slade.
“Yeah, if your past self from like a week ago could hear you now even. He’d take extra contracts just to refute that statement.”, He quipped, smiling at Slade.
Slade snorted.
Aww to hell with it, Dick leaned up to press his lips to Slade’s mouth. Positive reinforcements coming from Dick always worked wonders on this man and this was very well earned.
