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“Slade, please,” Dick begs, footsteps stuttering backwards. “I didn’t—she—”
“I’ve seen you out with her,” Slade says, advancing inexorably. “Seen the way you flirt with her.”
“It wasn’t flirting,” Dick protests, near tears.
“And now you smell of her,” Slade says, taking another step. “Her, and heat.”
Dick blinks a moment, because his heat isn’t due—but the stress, and then—
No wonder he feels so vulnerable.
“You wanted her so badly, you went into heat for her.”
“No,” Dick says, wrapping his arms around his abdomen. It's hard to fight back like that, but he doesn’t want to fight Slade. Can’t fight Slade. He doesn’t even have any weapons.
“And omegas in heat are good for one thing, I guess.”
“Slade,” Dick says, and his back bumps up against the wall. “It wasn’t like that.”
“No?” Slade asks, stepping right in front of Dick. It’s a long way for Dick to look up at him.
“N—no,” Dick stammers. “I didn’t mean—” The words die in his throat when Slade wraps a hand gently around his throat.
“You’re mine,” Slade hisses at him. “You let her touch what is mine.”
And Dick—Dick did, but he didn’t, it wasn’t like that—
“I’m going to make you remember that you’re mine,” Slade says.
Dick shivers under Slade’s hand.
“Don’t,” Dick whispers. “Please.”
“You’re in heat,” Slade tells him scornfully. “You’re in my home. What else would I do?”
“I can—go,” Dick says quietly, pulse beating against Slade’s broad fingers. The metahuman tightens his grasp, and Dick swallows against the pressure.
“Go to her, you mean?”
Dick’s eyes go wide.
“No, Slade, I wouldn’t—”
“Because you don’t have anywhere to go,” Slade says to him. “Your apartment blew up. You smell like blood and smoke and gunpowder and sex.” The last word is a growl.
Dick would shake his head, but he’s pinned in place by Slade’s furious eye and unmoving hand.
“I just—I just wanted to shower,” he whispers. “And change.”
“You came into my den smelling like a whore,” Slade says.
“I can shower,” Dick offers quietly, hopelessly. He wanted to wash Catalina off his skin, wanted to wash the past week off him, wanted to stop seeing the bodies—
“No,” Slade says simply, and slowly tightens his hand until Dick is scrabbling at Slade’s wrist, trying to gasp for air.
When Slade does finally loosen his grasp, Dick slumps, palms pressing on the wall for balance, for stability, and Slade’s hand is still holding his neck.
“I want to shower,” Dick tries to spit out, but it comes out as a broken plea.
“Maybe when I’m done with you,” Slade tells him, and none too carefully pulls Dick by his neck towards the bedroom.
“No,” Dick gasps, trying to dig his heels in, feeling Catalina’s touch making his skin crawl, but it’s not her, it’s not, it’s not but as soon as Dick resists, Slade tightens his grasp until Dick can’t resist. “Please,” Dick manages to get out, moving with Slade obediently, without another choice.
“You’re in heat,” Slade tells him. “You’ll enjoy it.”
A tear slips down Dick’s face, and he closes his eyes. Slade takes that moment to drop his hand, and shove Dick forward. With none of his infamous balance, Dick stumbles forward, eyes snapping open as he catches himself on the edge of Slade’s bed.
“Can you get the suit off yourself, or do I need to help?” Slade asks, with mock patience.
Dick takes this suit on and off all the time, sometimes in his sleep. Right now, his hands are shaking so badly he’s not sure if he can take it off, but he knows he doesn’t want the kind of help the alpha is offering.
Now that Slade has pointed out that Dick is in heat, Dick can feel it pressing on him more with every passing moment. He wants to curl up and be held, he wants to feel clean and safe, wants to not see dead bodies when he closes his eyes.
But he doesn’t get what he wants. If he went home to Gotham—it’s not like Bruce would welcome home a murderer. None of his friends would recognize him after what he’s done.
And Slade won’t let him leave. Won’t let him ride it out alone, only Slade isn’t trying to help Dick, but punish him for something—
“I killed him,” Dick says through numb lips. “I killed him.”
“You? Killed someone?” Slade’s voice is doubtful.
Dick feels like he can’t breathe, the gunshot in his ears, the heat in his core, the weight of guilt in his chest. Whatever Slade wants to do, Dick deserves it, doesn’t he?
Dick let Catalina—and then he let her—
“I let her,” Dick says, blinking rapidly. “I killed him. I let her kill him. I could have stopped her.”
“Who?” Slade asks.
“Blockbuster,” Dick tells him, starting to unpeel his suit with shaky fingers. “He—he found out my identity. He kept—killing.”
“He blew up your apartment building?” Slade asks.
Dick nods jerkily.
“She save you?” Slade asks, voice twisting in a way Dick can’t identity.
“She was working with him,” Dick says, still trying to process it. “She was working with him, and then she—wanted to help me.”
His suit is mostly off, and he studies his trembling fingers. There’s dried blood, soot, dirt, all smeared together by sweat and rain. He looks up and meets Slade’s unflinching gaze.
“I took it off,” he tells Slade, because Dick deserves this, deserves whatever Slade wants to do, because Dick stepped aside and now a man is dead.
It can’t be taken back.
“Who killed Roland Desmond?” Slade asks him, gaze fixed on his face.
Dick can feel how wide his eyes are, as he relives the moment over and over over—
“I did,” Dick tells Slade.
“Who fired the gun?” Slade asks, more quietly, stepping closer to Dick.
Dick should flinch back, shy away, beg again—the gunshot is so loud.
“Dick,” Slade says, and cups a hand on Dick’s cheek. When did Slade get that close? “Who shot him?”
“I—I stepped aside and—”
“Did you fire the gun?”
Dick can only shake his head partway, because it’s not—it doesn’t absolve him—there were so many other choices, and he—he let her—
“So she shot Desmond,” Slade says, and Dick isn’t seeing him or the apartment, he’s hearing the gun go off again and again, the blood spraying—
“He was never going to stop,” Dick whispers, shivering. He can’t help but press into the warm hand Slade has on his face. It feels so good.
“Why did you have sex with her?” Slade asks.
“She told me to be quiet,” Dick tells Slade, wishing the alpha would step even closer. Dick just needs—“She told me it was okay.”
“How long have you been in heat?” Slade asks him.
“It’s not due,” Dick says blankly. “I’ve been wearing my blockers for days.”
“She took them off?”
Dick nods, and then pauses—”Maybe?” he says. “I can’t—remember.”
He remembers the gunshot, the fire, the rain, the bodies—
His eyes fill with tears, and he steps closer to Slade, huddling in the strength and scent of an alpha.
“I don’t care what you do,” Dick whispers. “I deserve it. Just—don’t leave me alone, please. I can’t be alone. I can’t.”
When Slade wraps warm arms around Dick, it feels like comfort he doesn’t deserve, but he can’t make himself pull away. And Slade isn’t going to comfort him, anyways. Slade is going to use him, which is all Dick deserves.
Slade moves, and Dick moves with him, unwilling to resist, unwilling to lose contact. He’s trying to lose his head in Slade’s scent, but he can still hear the gun shot.
The warm water on his skin is a shock. Dick flinches, blinks, sees they are in the shower.
“Slade—what—”
Dick doesn’t know when he started shivering, and the warm water beats on his skin, starting to rinse away—everything.
It can’t bring the dead back to life.
“He’s dead,” Dick says blankly. He looks at his hands, can still see the blood, vivid and hot and—
Slade’s touching Dick, but it’s no more than he deserves, no more—
Slade is washing him. Washing away the blood. And smoke. And gunpowder.
And sex.
When Slade’s hands start to gently massage shampoo into his hair, Dick says, “I don’t deserve this.”
“I decide what you deserve,” Slade says in a low, alpha voice.
“I killed him. I betrayed Bruce. I betrayed you.” Dick tries to yank his head out of Slade’s gentle hold, but the alpha doesn’t yield to him.
Slade never yields to anyone.
The warm water washes Dick clean, but he isn’t clean, can never be clean, and doesn’t know if it’s tears or water rolling down his face. He turns up to the spray, unwilling to find out which it is.
The shot—he wasn’t going to stop—the bodies—he wasn’t going to stop—
A towel is rubbing over his skin, and Dick doesn’t remember getting out of the shower. Another blink, another gunshot, and he’s in Slade’s bed.
Finally. Time to be punished.
But Slade is drawing the sheets up, pulling up a warm blanket, wrapping Dick in comforting arms and protective alpha scent.
“No,” Dick says blankly. This isn’t what he deserves. This isn’t what he deserves.
“You’re clean,” Slade says softly. “And safe.”
Dick isn’t safe—he’ll never be safe—he—the gun shot—
Slade’s embrace is warm, familiar. Dick can drown in his scent. Better than drowning in gunshots, in blood, in bodies.
Dick turns his face into Slade’s chest, and he simply doesn't think anymore.