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Gotham was Slade’s least favorite city, by far. Yes, there was always business to be had and people to kill. But it also had a couple of clinically insane citizens who were set on making everyone’s lives difficult. Namely the Bat, and of course the number of insane superpowered villains and petty crime bosses.
What he hadn’t expected, though, was for his most recent job to be interrupted by Gotham’s oldest fairytale. A Talon.
“John Harris. The Court of Owls has sentenced you to die.” A kid, no older than 14 or 15 stood in front of Slade and the man he was sent to kill. The boy’s voice was hoarse with disuse, but his face was blank. His eyes were hidden behind tinted goggles, and he wore a black suit with countless knives strapped to it.
Slade had just been about to shoot Harris through the head when the voice interrupted them. He hadn’t even heard the kid walk up to them. And now he was standing there with a dagger in his hand.
Harris made a whining noise from the floor where he was kneeling. “Wh- what?”
“The Court of Owls, huh? So who are you, the Talon?” Slade mused, not moving his gun away from the whimpering man’s head.
But the kid didn’t answer, instead his head moved the tiniest bit, as if he was looking between Slade and Harris. Then he turned to Slade.
The Talon raised his dagger.
Slade raised his eyebrows.
Then Talon lunged. Slade was surprised at his speed, he barely had time to twist his body away from the dagger. Using the momentum Slade pushed his elbow into the kid’s back with all the force he could muster. The kid only stumbled.
Before he could recover Slade pressed his gun against the back of the boy’s head, intending to scare the kid into surrendering. But he didn’t even flinch and whipped around to slice at Slade with his dagger.
Slade blocked the blade with the metal of the gun. A sharp clang sounded through the room. That seemed to jolt Harris from his panic as he started scrambling to get away from the fight.
Slade knew he couldn’t let the man get away, but he was fully caught off guard by the Talon’s strength.
Recovering quickly, Slade kicked the boy in the sternum, aiming to wind him, but the kid didn’t even wince.
Before he could blink, he felt a sharp pain in his shoulder. A knife stuck out between the plates of his armor, sunk right into his flesh. Slade dodged another out of sheer reflex. He had to go on the offensive, this kid was too quick.
Unsheathing a knife from his own belt with his left hand, Slade brought it down on the kid. Clang. Blocked. Clang. Now Slade blocked one. Clang. Another. Clang. Slade saw an opening.
Bang.
He shot the kid in the stomach. Shit. He hadn’t meant to kill him. Not yet, he wanted some answers.
The boy stumbled back from the blow, and dark blood oozed from the wound. The shot was point blank, it’d torn right through the kid.
The blood dripped onto the marble floor. It almost looked… black.
The boy straightened, and he lunged again.
Slade, having lowered his guard, fell backwards with the boy on top of him. Before he could slice his throat, Slade rolled over and knocked the boy away.
Deathstroke jumped up and held his knife to the kid’s throat. His eyes flickered to the bullet wound. It was already almost closed. Healed.
The boy looked ready to attack Slade again despite his looming death. But if his healing factor was so strong, was death even an option for the kid? Was Slade even capable of winning this fight?
Slade hesitated with the knife. Then he let the Talon go.
Despite the still blank look on his face, the kid looked shocked. He didn’t move.
Slade took two steps backwards. The kid unfroze and jumped up, but didn’t attack him. His head snapped between Slade and Harris again.
Slade looked at the man he’d been sent to kill as well, and frowned. Somehow, during their fight, the Talon had managed to throw a knife through the man’s hand. Pinning him to the floor. Without Slade noticing.
Harris was crying, tugging at the knife with his other hand. He noticed the silence and looked up at the two assassins.
“Wait- Wait, we can- we can talk about this.”
Slade looked back at the Talon, who was now pointedly staring at him. Slade raised his hands slowly, in surrender. Then he nodded to the pleading man.
“He’s all yours.”
The kid didn’t hesitate and threw another dagger that landed right in his throat, slicing the carotid artery and killing the man. Harris fell to the ground with a thud.
They stood in silence. Slade yanked the dagger from his shoulder, uncaring of the bleeding. It would heal itself long before he could bleed out. Slade offered the dagger hilt first to the boy. It was a fine blade, adorned with an owl on the handguard. Very subtle.
The kid didn’t move to take it, and after a moment Slade dropped it to the floor.
It was over, Harris was dead, so Slade decided to go. Before he could fully turn away, though, the kid spoke.
“Why?”
Deathstroke blinked. Why what? He wanted to say, but he knew what the kid meant. Why give up his kill? Why did he stop? Well, Slade wasn’t looking to die, that’s one thing. And he was (regrettably) sure that he wasn’t going to win a fight with the kid. Besides, his job was to make sure that the target was dead. And if he wasn’t the one who killed him, well, his client didn’t have to know.
But one look at the boy made the words die in his throat. His partially covered face betrayed no emotion, but his stance told Slade that he was confused, curious, but somehow also scared of the answer. Slade felt the Talon’s eyes bore into his own from behind the goggles, as if he was searching for something in Slade.
“Because killing isn’t always the answer.”
And yes, he was aware of how ironic those words were, coming from Deathstroke the Terminator. But Slade knew them to be true.
Killing was what he had to do to survive. This world is kill or be killed. But… killing is also what destroyed his family. It ruined his life and- It lost him his own kid.
The boy in front of him didn’t react. His shoulders didn’t relax or tense, they were unnaturally still. It was like he wasn’t even breathing. Why wasn’t the kid running away? Why wasn’t he resuming his attempt on Slade’s life?
Deciding he didn’t want to take his chances with the zombie killing machine, Slade left.
He climbed back through the window from which he came and walked up the fire escape to the roof. From there he traversed the rooftops of Gotham, jumping from one to the other. As always, keeping an eye out for the Bat.
But there was no looming shadow in sight, and it wasn’t long until he reached the safehouse. Slade retreated inside, and sat down on a foldout chair to begin cleaning his weapons.
This safehouse was one of many in Gotham alone, but it wasn’t luxurious by any means. It consisted of a single basement room, with a single bare lightbulb hanging from the ceiling. It’s dim light barely illuminated the crates and chests scattered around the room. They were filled with weapons and gear, enough to take down an entire city block. Besides the crate there was a metal table, the foldout chair he was currently sitting on and a cot to sleep on.
As he looked around the room, his eye stopped on a figure in the shadowed corner. The light barely reached it, and only revealed a vague shape and a glint of a reflection in glass.
Slade froze.
“How did you get here?” he spoke.
It took a second for the shadow to respond.
“It follows.”
Slade raised an eyebrow. “What follows?”
The shadow raised a hand to gesture at itself. “It. Talon.”
Slade hummed, but he didn’t say anything else. Instead, he waited for the Talon’s next move. The room soaked in silence for a while, he wasn’t sure how long it was before the shadow finally moved.
Slowly, it took a step into the light, to reveal the same boy as before. His face was as stoic as before, but again his posture revealed some tension.
Then he spoke. “What is… the answer?”
Slade looked him up and down, but he couldn’t find any signs of trickery of deception. Something told him the kid wasn’t going to attack him again… for now.
So Slade replied with a sigh, “Damn, kid. I don’t know. It depends, I guess?”
“On what?” The Talon pressed. Slade had the urge to run a hand through his hair, but he didn’t want to take his mask off with a stranger there. He counted himself lucky he hadn’t taken it off before he realized he wasn’t alone.
“It depends on the situation. Sometimes killing is your only option, or just the easiest. But there are times when the only solution is something else.”
“Something else?” The boy took a small step forward. It looked almost unconscious.
“Something like talking, or paying, or running away.” The boy twitched when Slade said the last words. “Or listening.”
He didn’t reply, or press further. It looked like he was thinking, still confused. Maybe even conflicted.
Slade resumed with cleaning his pistol. Taking it apart and laying out the parts carefully in order, just like he was taught to do. He took a rag and oil and started rubbing the parts.
“Talon-“ Slade looked up as the boy spoke. He hesitated, but then set his jaw and continued: “Talon will listen.”
Well. That was unexpected. Did that mean he’d decided to not kill Slade? Did the kid want to listen to him? Did he want to learn from him?
Slade thought for a moment, weighing his options. But he’d already made up his mind.
Slade nodded and stood up from his chair. The Talon didn’t flinch. Slade gestured to the chair, “Sit down.”
The kid didn’t hesitate. When he was sitting, back straight as a pole, Slade continued.
“You know how to clean a gun?”
“Yes, Master.”
“Show me.”
Master, huh? Slade thought as the kid’s hands flew to the pistol and expertly cleaned the metal. Maybe he liked the sound of that.