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When he started this thing with Jason, when he realized it was serious, Slade took himself to therapy.
He’d already messed up with Joey, and Rose…and with Grant. But after a lifetime assuming that he would always mess up, that it’d be better to not try, Slade found Jason. The kid was all anger, and heart; seething, righteous fury, and gentle hands leading children to safety from the shadows of alleyways. And something changed. Slade found he wasn’t willing to mess things up again. Jason, calculating and jaded and sensitive, had somehow decided that Slade was worth keeping around. So… off to therapy he went, ignoring Billy’s raised eyebrow the whole way.
It helped, is the thing. Slade spoke to his kids again, and they actually spoke back.
(Sometimes. Rose was always going to be a little prickly, though. She got that from Slade.)
And then, Slade started staying over at Jason’s apartment, when he stayed in Gotham. And he saw the nightmares. The Lazarus green glow in Jason’s eyes, that lit up the room when the kid woke up fighting just to survive again. And Slade thinks, maybe the therapy was really worth it.
— — — —
Jason both loves and hates sparring with Slade. On one hand, he always wants to be better. He can’t save anyone if he slips up; who better to learn from, than the best? On the other hand, especially on days after his nightmares, he hates to lose.
(Back in his Robin days, sometimes Nightwing would come back to Gotham, and teach Jason some cool, new trick. Jason had always been determined to get it right, and hated the sweet, lofty laugh that came from his older brother Nightwing when Jason would get it wrong. On good days, Jason remembers those times as brotherly bonding. On bad days, when the rain seeps through his bones and laughter seems to echo in every alley, he wonders if Nightwing had always meant to set him up to fall; if Nightwing was just showing him all the things that he would never be.)
Slade doesn’t warn him before he moves. There’s no lecture, or stance check, or any of Bruce’s old sayings about centering himself. Slade steps in and strikes, and Jason is forced to move or get taken out. He moves, of course. He always does. His body snaps into motion before he can finish thinking about it; duck, pivot, elbow up to guard his ribs. Slade’s foot skims past his knee, close enough that Jason feels the air move.
There’s no remark, no check-in, Slade moves again, and Jason is blocking high, countering low, letting the momentum carry him forward. The training room smells crisp, like the ridiculously overpriced cleaning solution that Slade buys, but-
-suddenly he smells the damp cave stone, and old leather.
“Keep your elbows in, Jason.” Bruce’s voice is precise, sharp, tinged with annoyance. Jason adjusts automatically, tightening his guard, shifting his weight the way Bruce has taught him.
It’s hard, is what Jason wants to say. He’s working with more body mass than he’s ever had before, especially in the last few years, and he’s trying his best. But instead, he adjusts. He tightens in, makes himself smaller, and-
“Is there a reason you’re shrinking down right now?” Slade’s voice cuts through, and Jason stumbles slightly as Slade kicks out at him.
“Is there a reason you’re psychoanalyzing me during a fight?”
“Yeah. You’re projecting. Get out of your head, kid.” Slade throws a few more punches that Jason only just dodges, and then sweeps Jason’s legs out from under him. Jason jumps, too late-
-and hits dirt; cold, packed earth slamming into him as he’s thrown down in the cave behind the waterfall. The water rushes next to his head, roaring all the way, dawn light barely pushing through.
“Get up,” his instructor snarls, face cold as stone. “Pain is a lesson. Learn it quickly, before the League loses its use for you.”
Jason rolls, and comes up swinging, wild and vicious -
And Slade blocks, feeling the impact of Jason’s hit come ringing up his arm. Jason doesn’t stop, precise jabs aimed at muscles, and one last one aimed at Slade’s throat.
Slade intercepts him, forearm slamming into Jason’s chest, stopping Jason in his tracks. The momentum turns them, and Slade pulls Jason against him, back to chest, one strong arm pinning him back. Jason looks up -
-and see Ra’s looking back at him, face cold and impassive, unimpressed with his hesitation. You survive, but you do not learn. Jason roars, wrenching himself free, feels his shoulder pop as he spins and strikes with everything he’s got, but -
-Slade meets him head-on. Real, solid impact slams into Jason, and he goes down hard. Slade goes down with him, straddling Jason’s hips, impossible strength pinning Jason’s hands above his head.
Jason’s heart is pounding in his ears, but Slade just waits, watches calmly as Jason comes back to himself. It’s another difference, Jason knows. Where Bruce would correct him, and the League would punish, Slade just waits.
Eventually, the roaring in Jason’s ears goes away, the room around him stops spinning into others, and Slade’s grip relaxes, letting Jason’s hands go.
“Careful, kid. I don’t train ghosts.” Slade’s eye is assessing, concerned, and Jason feels his cheeks heat up with shame. Slade leans down, and softly, so softly, presses a kiss to Jason’s forehead. “Stay with me, baby. Head in the game, okay?”
Jason lets out a shaky breath, and nods. “Okay.” Another minute, a lifetime of matching his breathing to Slade’s steady rhythm, Slade’s solid warmth against him, and he nods again. “I’m good.”
And as if Jason ever needed another reason to fall for Slade; the older man doesn’t question him, just stands, and extends a hand out to help Jason up.
Jason rolls his shoulders, eyes on Slade as they circle, and this time, he’s ready when Slade strikes. Blow after blow gets blocked by each of them, circling and striking in an unbalanced cadence, fast then slow, and then fast again. In the end, Jason slips past Slade’s guard, and lands a clean hit, bringing the spar to a close.
Slade looks at him, and Jason can’t help but see yet more differences from now compared to then. Bruce’s annoyance, the league’s disgust, Ra’s disappointment - and now, Slade looking at him with pride.
“So,” Jason starts, pulling Slade closer by the hem of his shirt. “Wanna go get cleaned up with me?”
— — — —
Slade gets in late, after wrapping up a mission overseas. He could’ve stayed an extra night, come home well rested, but he wanted to see Jason. So sue him. He stays soft through the apartment, pausing at the doorway of the bedroom, to see Jason asleep.
He frowns, noticing the way Jason is hunched into himself, not sprawled across the whole mattress the way he is when Slade is there. His chest barely moves as he breathes - no. He’s not breathing at all, but Slade can hear his heart pounding, and as Slade steps forward to wake him up, Jason jerks awake with a gasp, breathing the air in as though it’s the first breath he’s taken all day.
And then there’s a gun aimed at him. Jason’s hand is steady around the weapon, even as he rubs his eyes with his other, and gun or no gun, Slade can’t help but think it’s downright adorable. He just raises an eyebrow as Jason looks over, and then drops the gun sheepishly, clocking who exactly had just come in.
“Hey.” Jason’s voice is raspy. “You’re back early.”
“I finished up faster than expected. Don’t change the subject.”
“We had a subject?”
“Jay, baby,” Slade says slowly, looking Jason over in concern, “You weren’t breathing when I came in.”
“Oh. That. Just a bad dream.”
“The same one?”
“Isn’t it always?” Jason’s voice is bitter, and Slade’s heart breaks, just a little. He keeps his face neutral, though. If Jason mistakes his grief for pity, it’ll only be worse. A moment passes, silence pushing and pulling, as they each try to see if the other will back down. Jason sighs.
“It’s not even the dying part, really. That part’s over.”
“Is it?”
“I’m alive, aren’t I?”
“Yes.” Slade keeps his voice level, knows that he has to be the calm one here. The fact that Jason is having this discussion with him at all is what his therapist would call a huge step in the recovery process, and Slade knows if he reacts with more energy than what Jason is giving, then he’ll scare Jason off. Jason’s always been a little like that, like a feral, injured animal that shouldn’t be frightened away. “But that doesn’t mean it ended.”
Jason opens his mouth to argue, but stops, and Slade keeps his gaze level. Jason’s death never really got resolved; it got buried under rage and momentum, and the Pit’s chemical fury fueling his own. He came back swinging and snarling, and nobody ever asked what he left behind. Slade isn’t sure Jason himself knows the answer, anymore. Just feels the gaps where pieces of him are missing and has to guess what was there.
“It’s not your business.”
“Sure it is, when you go to sleep and wake up like you’re trying to dig out of a coffin that isn’t there anymore.”
“You don’t know-”
“I do know. You tense up, like you’re bracing to hit wood. I just…worry. I wish you would talk to me.”
“Fine,” Jason’s eyes flash that awful green, and Slade knows he’s about to hate whatever Jason says. “He was laughing. Kept asking which way hurt more, like the questions were the only thing keeping him entertained. Sometimes I still feel that stupid, fucking crowbar. And the bruises are gone, the scars are buried under other scars. I still feel the damn thing, so deep it hurts to breathe, and you can’t see a sign of it. And it just….kept going. I tried to get up. I really did.”
“I believe you, baby.” Slade’s voice is soft, and Jason softens when he hears it, just a bit of tension bleeding out.
“I didn’t actually think I was going to die, though. Not until the bomb. That was when it clicked, that there wasn’t a version of the story where I got to walk out. I just remember thinking, this is it. This is how I die.”
Slade walks over slowly, sits on the bed next to Jason. He doesn’t touch, though. After some nightmares, Jason will cling to him as though he thinks Slade is the only thing still keeping him alive. After others, he flinches away, as though Slade’s touch would kill him. Both responses break Slade’s heart a little more each time, crack after crack etching themselves where he’ll never stop feeling it.
(There was a time, once, when that first crack in his heart would have scared Slade. He would have reacted with anger, and pushed back to stop it from happening again. In these moments now, with Jason, Slade thinks it has been worth it, to do all the emotional work that he put off for so long. He can’t imagine hurting Jason worse than this. Actually, he can. A bit. It’s an awful thing to imagine.)
“The next thing I remember is the coffin. And you know what the worst part is? Laying there, in the dark, I didn’t know how much time had passed. I thought he was still there. I thought, for a minute, that he buried me alive to see how long I could last.”
Slade stills, keeping silent as Jason reaches over and takes his hand. A touching day, then. Slade squeezes Jason’s hand, determined to make sure Jason can feel him there.
“And then I realized. And I screamed, and fought, and clawed. I can still feel the wood splinters under my nails, and taste the dirt from where it came pouring in when I finally broke through the wood. And I was alone.”
“Batman looked for you,” Slade says slowly, carefully. “When you were taken.”
“Yeah.” Jason lets out a laugh, sharp and bitter. “Too late.”
“Jason, you need to hear this. Listen to me.”
“I listened. Then. Look where that got me.”
“Baby, you were fifteen years old, and you were tortured and murdered by a sadist. That is not a failure of belief or strength or faith. It was a crime.”
The green in Jason’s eyes burns to look at directly, but Slade refuses to look away. His boy has suffered enough, he refuses to flinch away or make him feel more like a monster just to relieve momentary discomfort. “He should have been there.”
“Yes. He should have. But his failing,” Slade continues, “does not mean that you were wrong to trust him.”
“It feels like it.”
“I know.”
They’re quiet a while, and Slade pulls Jason tight to his chest. Jason lets him, sagging with exhaustion. How many nights have been nightmare kind of nights, lately?
“Do you remember thinking anything before you died?”
“I was mad. Not just scared. But mad.”
“At him?”
“At everyone. At Bruce. At myself. I just remember thinking, when I realized what was happening. At least if I die here, Bruce will know. It’ll hurt, but he’ll know.”
Slade’s mouth tightens. “That’s a heavy thing to put on yourself.”
Jason shrugged weakly. “Guess I was already messed up.”
“I disagree. I think you were desperate to be seen.”
(Grant, dying. Joey, with his throat cut. Rose, down an eye. And at the end of it all, if Slade can understand something these days, it’s a kid who needed their dad.)
“And then I was.” Jason’s voice is soft, and Slade thinks back to Red Hood’s re-entry to Gotham. All drama and ruthlessness, and beautiful, spectacular violence. Calculated deaths, and sparingly earned mercies.
“And then you were. But not the way you deserved.”
Jason’s weight leans further into him, skin cool even through his clothes, and Slade holds him tight. He’s tempted to never let go again. They stay that way, quiet, and Slade almost thinks Jason has fallen back asleep when he speaks up again, voice soft.
“I never really let myself get angry about the coffin before. Or the autopsy.”
“Hmm. Why not?”
“Of all the things to be mad about, that kinda felt like that was the part that Bruce couldn’t really control. And I figured if I let myself get mad, I wouldn’t stop.”
“Sometimes it feels like it lasts forever. But you won’t heal without confronting it.”
Jason turns his head up, looks at Slade intently.
“You’re not going to leave, are you?” he asks suddenly, and Slade raises an eyebrow.
“Is that what this is about?”
Jason shrugs. “Everyone else does. Eventually.”
“If you want me gone, you can just say so.”
“That’s not-”
“- the question you asked,” Slade finishes for him. “No. I’m not leaving.”
“Good.” Jason closes his eyes again, still sitting against Slade. ”I’m not either.”