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The route from Bludhaven to Gotham is about two hours, or inching closer to three if driving a car outfitted with enough trackers to satisfy the world’s most paranoid man and forced to drive five miles under the speed limit.
If he thought Bruce was overprotective with his children, it’s absolutely nothing compared to how zealous he’s become with his first grandchild on the way. Dick finally gave in to Bruce’s pleading for him to return to the Manor for the last month of his pregnancy, or, more accurately, gave in to the increasingly frequent demands from his pack to come home.
He knew it was serious when Jason showed up to ask Dick to come back. He said please. Dick’s half-convinced he hallucinated the incident.
The weather’s also getting worse the later they get in the year. Nightwing’s been off the streets for quite some time and Dick finally took maternity leave from the gym, leaving him with little to do in dreary, cold Bludhaven. The Manor is a better place to have a newborn than his small apartment, with no shortage of doting aunts and uncles to hold a crying infant. And since he’s pretty sure that his loving pack would show up to kidnap him if he continued to hold out, Dick acceded more or less gracefully.
If you don’t count the screaming fits, the escrima stick he threw at Batman’s head, or the fact that he’s leaving a whole day ahead of schedule, alone, because he isn’t an invalid, goddammit.
Dick ignores his phone as it pings with another text. Bruce can hold onto his pants until Dick gets home. Unfortunately, it’s less easy to ignore the weight of a full bladder, especially when the little bean jams a foot right against it.
“Seriously?” he says to his stomach. “It’s been an hour, chickadee. You can’t wait till we get home?”
Another insistent kick. Goddamn is she active. Dick’s half-convinced she’ll come out with a domino mask already on.
“Alright, alright,” Dick grumbles, switching lanes to turn into the next exit. “Can’t you save the activity for after you’re born? You can give Grandpa all the white hairs you like.”
His fingers tighten on the steering wheel for an instant before he forcibly pushes the thought of white hair out of his mind. He isn’t thinking about it. He’s successfully avoided the topic for months. Dick turns the radio higher, focusing on finding a likely place to stop and use the restroom.
The town is a sleepy little place, a popular camping destination judging by the number of shops selling gear, and Dick turns into the parking lot of a diner. He can already imagine the plate of hot waffles and melted butter and mentally apologizes to Alfred in advance, though the way Dick’s appetite is running nowadays, he’ll still be ready to eat dinner when he reaches the Manor.
The diner is nearly empty and the waitress perks up when Dick walks in. “Hey, hon,” she smiles at him, all omega warmth. “Is it just you or are we waiting on someone else?”
“Just me,” Dick smiles back. “I’d like the waffles, please.”
“With an extra side of syrup?” she grins conspiratorially.
“I shouldn’t,” Dick hedges.
“Oh, pssh,” she waves him off. “You’re eating for two, aren’t you? How far are you along?”
“Eight months,” Dick replies, and answers the other small talk questions—it’s a girl, he’s already picked out the name, he’s heading back home to his pack. When she asks him about the alpha, Dick can’t help but tense. The waitress takes the hint and bustles off to relay his order, leaving Dick off-kilter as he heads to the bathroom.
He’s brushed off the question every time he’s been asked. Even from Bruce—all he’s told his pack alpha is that it was consensual, he’s keeping the baby, and the alpha isn’t in the picture. None of it is a lie. None of it comes close to explaining the way his chest seizes every time he thinks about it.
Dick lives in a family full of detectives, he’s under no impression that they haven’t all figured it out, but they’ve followed his unspoken dictate to not talk about it. The closest anyone comes to acknowledging it is the coordinates Babs routinely sends him, a string of numbers with all the meaning hiding in context.
He didn’t ask her to send them. He didn’t tell her about the falling out, about the way his heart gripped in terror when he saw the lines on the pregnancy test, about how he ended things, cold and vicious to hide how scared he was. And he’s never asked her to stop sending them.
It soothes him, to read the numbers and see how far away the location is. When Dick stopped patrolling, they told the hero community that he was going on a long-term space mission. He knows the information has circulated to their affiliates as well, and with Black Bat taking point in Bludhaven, the transfer went mostly unremarked.
The last set of coordinates, sent yesterday, were in New York City. Dick woke up this morning and abruptly couldn’t bear to stay in Bludhaven another night—alone, undefended, merely human against an alpha with enhanced strength and skill and—
Dick breathes in deeply and exhales slowly. He is not thinking about it.
The phone pings again, this time with the ringtone of an incoming call, and Dick rolls his eyes as he retakes his seat. “Hello, Bruce,” he says. “Lovely day, isn’t it?”
“Where are you,” Bruce asks. The lack of a question mark is telling.
“In a little town called Delton,” Dick replies, knowing perfectly well that his tracker should tell Bruce exactly where he is.
“Why are you in Delton?” Bruce grinds out.
“Your granddaughter delights in kicking me in the bladder,” Dick says dryly. He lowers the phone to smile and thank the waitress when she brings out the waffles, it smells mouthwatering. “Why did you call, Bruce?”
“You’re supposed to be leaving Bludhaven tomorrow,” Bruce says flatly.
“You’ve been demanding I come home for the last few months, and now you’re upset I’m coming home?” Dick raises an eyebrow and digs into the waffle. He has to suppress a moan. It’s decadently sweet.
“Dick,” Bruce growls.
“Bruce,” Dick mimics.
“There was a reason we planned for tomorrow,” Bruce says tersely. “There was a chance of a storm today, and it’s hit Gotham. It’s going to reach whiteout conditions in an hour.”
Oh. Dick remembers something about the weather in one of Bruce’s unending list of arguments, but he honestly forgot about it. “So I should head back to Bludhaven?” Dick sighs. At least the waffle is something good out of this waste of a trip.
“No. The storm’s heading up the coast. Staying inland is a better idea.” There’s some background noise and then Bruce’s voice kicks back in. “Stay where you are. I’ll send the jet.”
“You’ll what?” Dick hisses, because he knows by ‘jet’, Bruce means the goddamn Batplane. “No. Absolutely not. I’m an hour away from Gotham, and that’s both unnecessary and indiscreet.” All it takes is one guy with a radar and suddenly everyone’s wondering why the Bats came to a town in the middle of nowhere. “Not to mention, my car and my stuff’s here.”
“If you think I’m leaving you in the middle of nowhere in a snowstorm—”
“I’ll get a motel for a night or two, until they clear the roads,” Dick says, rolling his eyes. “I’ll be fine.” It’s the first snow of the year, it’s not going to be that bad. “Nothing is going to happen.”
“If there’s an emergency,” Bruce tries to argue, but Dick cuts him off again.
“If there’s an emergency,” Dick says sharply, “then I’ll call you. I’m an adult, and I can take care of myself.” Dick can almost hear Bruce grinding his teeth. “You need to cut it with the helicopter parenting, B, it wasn’t cute when I was eighteen, and it definitely isn’t cute now.”
He lets a bit of his growing annoyance into his voice, enough to make Bruce back off, because Dick has never dealt well with the threat of chains, and he will definitely break something if his pack insists on treating him like glass.
“Fine,” Bruce says, and it sounds like it’s giving him physical pain. “You will call me immediately if anything happens.”
“Yes, alpha,” Dick rolls his eyes. “Bye, alpha.” He ends the call and dives back into his waffle.
The little bean gives another sharp kick to his spine, almost like she disagrees with his choice to stay put.
There is a motel in town, a decently clean one despite the way the waitress’ mouth twists when she suggests it. She actually offers to put Dick up at her place for the storm, but Dick wheedles out of the invitation. He’s Nightwing, even if it’s been months since he’s last patrolled, he has escrima sticks in his car, and he’s perfectly capable of defending himself against small town thugs even if his stomach precedes him into every room.
“Hello, single room please,” Dick smiles at the receptionist, who doesn’t waver from his steadfast scowl. There’s a conference room of sorts next to them with a group of men sitting and playing cards. Dick can’t help but overhear their hushed conversation.
“—storm’ll delay the shipment—”
“—telling you not to trust them—”
“—giving me bad vibes—”
“—brought our insurance, stop fretting, you’re worse than an omega—”
“Here,” the receptionist rudely thrusts the key at Dick, loud enough to break off the whispered conversation. Dick has to pass them on his way out, and his quick scan is enough to spot four visible guns and two more hidden ones.
“Where’s your alpha, sweetheart?” one of them calls out loudly as Dick heads for the door. “Did he leave you all alone?”
Dick refuses to engage. There’s a part of him that can’t help imagining the catcaller’s reaction if he ever does come face-to-face with the father of Dick’s baby, and Dick has to turn away to hide the smile.
“Aww, what’s the matter, you shy?” the alpha calls out in a saccharine voice, to the laughter of his friends, but Dick ignores them and opens the door. “It’s okay, sweetheart, we don’t bite!”
The door shuts behind him, the air crisp with the oncoming frost. The little bean kicks again and Dick winces.
“I know, chickadee,” he murmurs, checking at the gray skies above him to make sure it hasn’t already started snowing. “But if I break all their fingers, I’ll definitely have to tell Bruce, and your grandpa is a paranoid worrywart.” The kicking stops, and Dick rubs a hand over his belly to soothe the ache. “Just like your father,” he mutters, and something goes sharp with pain inside him.
Dick shakes it off and heads for his car. The trunk’s full of his stuff—he has no illusions about his ability to escape the Manor once Bruce has him in his grasp—but if he’s going to be stuck here overnight, he needs provisions. There’s a general store in town where he can pick up some snacks and some frozen meals to tide him over until the snowstorm passes.
More than one person has the same idea, the store is very crowded, and Dick snatches up snacks before they’re all gone. It’s starting to snow outside, little flurries drifting down, and Dick casts anxious glances at the window as he heads for the counter. It was a stupid idea to leave by himself, and Dick can finally admit it. His pride has gotten him into trouble more than once—Dick places a hand on his stomach—and he can’t let it hurt the little bean too.
Dick bounces impatiently in place, and is craning his head to see the front of the line where it snakes to the single register when he hears it.
“—everything you need?”
“Yes.”
One word. One word in a Kentucky drawl, and suddenly Dick’s knees feel like they’re made of water.
“Looks like it’s going to be a nasty storm. Drive safe, and get indoors!”
“Will do, thank you.”
Dick has to clutch the nearest shelf to avoid crumpling. The woman in front of him gives him a concerned look, turning to fuss over him. “Are you okay?” she says—too loud, something inside Dick shrieks, ducking his head to conceal himself from anyone walking from the register to the front door.
It’s not him. It can’t be him. There’s no way—the coordinates in New York, scant hours away—it could be him. Lots of people have southern accents, lots of people are from Kentucky, lots of people speak in deep voices.
“I’m fine,” Dick says quickly, before the woman makes a bigger fuss. “My leg’s still a little numb from the drive, that’s all.” He smiles at her, and doesn’t crane his head to see out the window.
It’s not him.
His racing heart is unconvinced.
He gets his food and steps out of the store warily, like he’s expecting a six-foot-five mercenary to be standing right outside the door, waiting to ambush him. There’s no one there. There’s no one in the parking lot that looks remotely like Slade Wilson, no sign of the heavy-duty trucks Deathstroke prefers, no prickling feeling of a single eye watching him from a distance.
Dick lets out a shaky breath and it puffs out white in the freezing air. His stomach is almost cramping from the tension and he massages it out as he heads for his car.
He’s being silly. The odds of Slade stumbling upon him in a small town an hour from Gotham is incredibly slim. The very idea is ridiculous.
Dick drives with a white-knuckled grip all the way back to the motel.
Dick spends an hour responding to various group chats—the general pack consensus is that Dick is an idiot for leaving a day early and heading straight into a snowstorm, which smarts, but since he’s stuck in a motel room, he can’t argue much in his defense. The Bats are clearly having a busy night trying to make sure everyone in Gotham is safe in the whiteout, and once Dick gets the message that Mr. Freeze has broken out, he leaves them be. At least Bruce will be too busy to nag him.
Most of the hero community believes he’s off-world, so Dick’s been out of contact with a lot of his old Titans’ friends. It stings, but he’s not willing to risk his baby. Now Dick understands why Bruce was so paranoid about their identities at the start, before he got so many friends and family that he essentially gave up. It’s terrifying to imagine someone going after the little bean to hurt him, and she hasn’t even been born yet.
Dick has woken from countless nightmares of a little girl with Rose’s eyepatch and Joey’s scar.
Eventually, boredom sets in—the room is too small to do anything but pace, Dick didn’t pack any books to read, and his phone is trying valiantly to recharge while hooked up to a questionably usable outlet. The combination of yesterday’s jolt of adrenaline and today’s sudden shock make Dick too antsy and restless to sit still. The idea that Slade is nearby, is close enough to force the confrontation Dick’s avoided for months—it’s enough to make his heart twist up in knots, and the little bean’s kicking has gotten worse.
“It’s okay, chickadee,” he hums, rocking on his feet, feeling the stone pit sink deeper in his lungs. “Everything’s going to be okay.”
Slade is never going to find out. Dick will reach the Manor tomorrow. His baby will be born surrounded by her pack, warm and safe and loved.
“It’s going to be just fine.”
Dick is staring out the window at the increasingly white world outside when there’s a distant thud and the room goes silent. It takes Dick a moment to register the lack of humming and realize that the power’s gone out, and it takes him several more to conclude that there is no back-up generator.
“You have got,” Dick exhales, “to be fricking kidding me.”
Without a heater, this room will turn into an ice cell. Dick’s starting to regret not taking up that waitress on her invitation, but he gathers up his coat and gloves in the vain hope that this motel has a fireplace somewhere.
He snags his escrima sticks before he leaves the room. If he has to spend the next several hours surrounded by knothead alphas, he’s going to be prepared.
The wind outside is raging hard, an inch of snow already on the ground, and the storm looks like it’s only getting worse. Dick steps carefully on the unsalted path, wincing as his spine jolts from the awkward shuffle he does to get to the main building. There’s no one outside, the world muffled by the howling wind, but Dick does notice that there are more cars in the parking lot than when he arrived.
It takes him two tries to open the door against the wind, and Dick stumbles inside quickly, not wanting the heat to escape. The room is dark and the front desk is empty. “Hello?” Dick calls out, voice dying quickly in the oppressive silence. “Hello, is anyone there?”
The place appears to be deserted. Dick steps further into the room, a chill snaking down his spine. Dread is sinking into his stomach, and he isn’t sure why.
“Hello?” he calls out again, louder.
Nothing. Even the little bean is still, like she can sense something Dick can’t.
Maybe they’re already trying to fix the generator. Maybe the power will be back soon. Maybe his goosebumps are just because of the cold.
“Hello?” he calls again, futilely, halfway to giving up. It looks like he’ll need to call in that pickup after all. Dick pats his pockets—first absently, and then with more purpose—and exhales loudly when he realizes his phone is still plugged in his room.
Dick pokes his head into the conference room in a last-ditch attempt to find anyone. “Hello!” he calls out again, and this time he hears something. It’s coming from the other side of the conference room and Dick lets one of his escrima slide out of his sleeve as he crosses the room.
There’s a hallway on the other side, a narrow corridor that appears to be an emergency exit for the pub next to the motel. “Hello?” Dick calls out, grip tight on his escrima, inching towards the back door. “Is anyone there?”
The kitchen door of the pub swings open to the sharp sound of a silenced gunshot. Someone staggers through, limping and bloody, and stares at Dick with abject shock.
Dick moves first. The escrima stick is arching through the air before the man can raise his gun, and Dick runs before he hears it connect with a sharp thwack.
The world outside is pure white.
Snow swirls into his face, stinging at his eyes, and Dick tries to stay close to cover as he sprints away from the exit doors. He’s out of practice and he’s carrying precious cargo, there is absolutely no way Dick is getting into a fight right now. He needs to find his way back to his room and send out an immediate distress call.
Dick should’ve listened to his gut. He has no idea what he walked into the middle of, but he’s guessing a gang deal gone south. He doesn’t have the space to wonder what happened, not when he needs to run.
Gunfire sounds out as Dick reaches the far corner of the building, and he ducks and veers the opposite direction as bullets chip the brick wall. He nearly loses his balance on the sharp turn, the path slippery underneath him, but recovers and cuts across the parking lot, heading for the patch of woods on the other side.
“Get him,” he thinks he hears someone scream, but the wind is too loud and the snow too thick. Dick stays low to the ground as he scrambles up the small ridge and stumbles through the snow until he finds a tree wide enough to hide against.
The little bean is kicking up a storm, sensing his panic and responding accordingly, there are cramps spreading through his stomach. “It’s okay,” Dick murmurs, cradling a protective arm around his stomach and trying to remember how to breathe. “It’s going to be okay.” His mouth is dry when he tries to swallow and the biting cold isn’t helping. “Everything’s going to be okay, chickadee.”
Gunfire again in the distance, and Dick ducks automatically. It’s answered by another bang-bang-bang and the wind is making everything echo loudly. He doesn’t know where they are, or how many of them there are, or what the fuck happened. He doesn’t have his phone. He doesn’t even know what direction to start running in—the snowstorm has gone from swirling to an all-out fury, a blizzard the likes of which they don’t often see in New Jersey. Dick can’t see twenty feet in front of him.
Remaining escrima in his hand, arm curled around his stomach, Dick dares to leave the safety of his tree. He needs to get out of the storm and he needs to find a phone to call Bruce. Heading away from the motel would be better, and Dick takes a last look to make sure no one is sneaking up on him before turning and going the opposite direction.
He stays low to the ground, crouching as much as he’s able with his stomach in his way. His coat is white and he fastens the hood to cover as much as he can. Get to a building, call for help. That’s all he needs to do. Get to a building, call for help.
Get to a building. Call for—
Dick freezes. He’s being watched. He turns in a slow circle, squinting against the snowflakes, but he can’t see a thing. His own tracks are being covered by the shifting snow.
Get to a building. Call for help.
Dick turns back forward and continues onward. He hasn’t taken four steps when the sound of gunfire, far too close, nearly gives him a heart attack.
Nothing hits him, and Dick doesn’t bother trying to figure out where the shooters are or what they’re aiming at—there are shouts and screams echoing all around him and Dick heads for the thickest patch of trees he can find, scrabbling against the snow.
Twice he sees the outline of a body but one staggers to a drop after a sharp bang, and the other disappears into the snow. Dick encounters a ridge that he has to struggle up and once he makes it to the top, he’s forced to stop and breathe, pants fogging up the air.
There’s a stitch in his side, his lungs are burning from the cold air, and his vision is blurry from the wind. He’s half collapsed against a tree, fingers starting to burn from the chill, his grip on the escrima getting weaker. He has absolutely no idea where he is or how to get to safety.
Even his tears freeze on his face.
Dick jolts at another distant bang, and stills when he feels eyes on him again. He peers around the tree. This time, he can make out an outline of a hulking figure about fifteen feet away, staring straight at him.
Dick runs.
He hears boots crunching behind him, gaining easily as Dick struggles through the snow. His escrima stick is at the ready and Dick swings out when the sounds are close enough to reach, but his pursuer dodges the strike easily, disarming his numb fingers easily, and Dick ends up slammed back against a tree hard enough to dislodge a shower of snow.
When he blinks his gaze clear, he finds himself staring up the barrel of a gun.
Dick has just enough time to register the jolt of the alarm—no, please no, not like this, not her—before he follows the line of the gun up to a very familiar face.
Fuck.
One icy blue eye widens, reflecting his surprise back at him, before it rapidly narrows into a frown. The gun doesn’t twitch away, and it’s far from the first time that Dick’s been held at gunpoint by the mercenary, but he feels rooted to the spot, emotions surging between fear and confusion and despair.
Deathstroke’s gaze flicks down to his stomach, and his expression hardens further. Dick opens his mouth—but he has no idea what to say. He planned their last confrontation meticulously, but he never expected Slade to seek him out after Dick told him he was sick of sleeping with a murderer-for-hire while constantly wondering about the price on his own head.
He flinches at another series of bangs, too close for comfort. Deathstroke doesn’t twitch, but he does lower the gun so it’s no longer pointing at him.
“Slade,” Dick manages, and then nothing else. The little bean is extremely active, like she can tell her father’s here, and Dick hunches over at a particularly strong burst of pain.
He doesn’t cry out, but Deathstroke takes a step back, gaze crawling over him like he’s searching for an answer to a question he didn’t know to ask. Dick should—Dick needs to distract him, to draw his attention away, because Deathstroke the Terminator is not a stupid man, and anyone would be perfectly capable of adding two and two.
But this is a dance he hasn’t played in months, the music long since cut out. He doesn’t know where to start.
“Slade,” he says again, this time interrupted by another bang that sends snow skittering off a nearby tree. Dick instinctively moves to shield himself, and only realizes he’s stepped behind Deathstroke’s bulk when the man turns and shoots in the direction of gun.
There’s a strangled yelp, then silence.
“Come on,” Slade jerks his head deeper into the woods. “We need to get out of this mess.”
“Where are we going?” Dick asks, struggling through the snow by Slade’s side. The mercenary loses patience at his slow gait and grabs his arm to haul him along.
It’s like his entire body is going numb, stomach twisting and heart clenching and head aching. Slade’s hand on his arm is a searing grip, and he swears he can smell gunmetal even though his nose is blistered.
“There are cabins in the woods,” Deathstroke says grimly, tucking Dick close as he covers their path. There are no more gunshots, but the wind howls louder, scything across Dick’s face like steel wool.
Dick has just enough time to truly comprehend the fuck-up he’s landed himself in when they stumble upon a cabin. Literally stumble upon—all Dick could see was white, and then suddenly he’s tripping over a buried porch, falling into Slade’s grasp.
He hates how a part of him leans further into Slade, into the offer of protection, trusting the alpha to keep him safe. Unfortunately, even his rational mind agrees that between Deathstroke and random thugs, he’ll be safer with the mercenary. Slade wastes no time getting them both inside and slams the door shut.
“Take off your boots and your wet clothes,” Slade orders, no room for argument. “I’ll start a fire.”
The cabin is dark and Slade shuts the blinds too, dimming it further. Dick takes his time in unwrapping his coat and gloves—he lost the other escrima wherever Slade tossed it, and his hands feel bare. Seven months of suppressed emotions are rising to the surface and Dick can’t control it.
“What are you doing here?”
The words come out like an accusation and Slade turns away slowly from the beginnings of a fire.
“What am I doing here?” he repeats, voice low and dark. One part of Dick wants to move closer, to curl against Slade’s warmth like he’s done so many times before. The other part is blaring shrieking alarms. “What are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be off-planet?”
“I had no idea that you kept such a close track of my whereabouts,” Dick says stiffly.
“It is funny,” Slade says, voice still dangerously smooth, “how an uncharacteristic change in behavior, a sudden confrontation, and disappearing from public view might lead to the faintest amount of curiosity for what the fuck you were on—”
“How is it an uncharacteristic change in behavior to tell you that we have clearly incompatible worldviews and sleeping together was a mistake—”
“And I suppose your pregnancy had nothing to do with that.”
Dick presses his lips together. It’s a gauntlet thrown down and both of them know it. There’s a blizzard raging outside, there are people with guns combing through the woods, and he’s trapped in a cabin with a mercenary demanding a truth Dick doesn’t want to give.
“You’re a murderer for hire, Slade,” Dick says quietly, words as cutting as he can make them, “and I put people like you behind bars.” The little bean is getting more agitated and Dick shifts in place. “If you thought we were going to end in any way except a crash-and-burn, you’re deluded. My pregnancy had nothing to do with it.”
Slade’s expression is shadowed. “Look me in the eye and say that again,” he says, voice inscrutable.
Dick meets his gaze. “She’s not yours,” he lies, straight-faced, heart rate completely even. He will protect his baby from everyone who could hurt her, even her own father.
Slade makes an expression that looks like a smile but is severely unamused. “Then why did you end things, little bird?”
Dick’s heart skips a beat, but offense makes the best defense. “Can you really think of no reason that I didn’t want Deathstroke the Terminator, the world’s deadliest mercenary, to know that I’m having a baby?”
Slade’s expression shutters in an instant.
“You’re doing a wonderful job on that,” he says flatly. “I suppose it’s too much to ask that your reasoning extend to not poking your nose in every remotely criminal activity you can find.”
“I was here by complete accident,” Dick snaps back. “What, did you think I went deliberately looking for trouble—”
Slade scoffs, “So I’m supposed to believe you just found your way to a random sleepy town and found the one actively planned double-cross—”
“I was driving back to Gotham and there was a snowstorm! I didn’t plan for any of this! Do I look like I’m suited up?”
“You swung an escrima stick at me—”
“Oh, sue me for having a goddamn weapon—”
“You’re alone,” Slade cuts him off. “I’ll bet no one knows you’re here, because there are no overprotective Bats jumping out of the shadows. You’re underprepared.” The accusations are like knives, they sink under his skin and prick deep. “You knew there was trouble enough to grab a weapon, but you still went poking around yourself.” Slade’s expression is cold and forbidding. “And you thought I was the greatest threat to your baby?”
Dick’s whole face is prickling and he can’t stop the burning in his eyes. “Fuck you, Slade,” he snarls, and his face flushes when his voice cracks. He has to turn away when his vision blurs because damn if he’ll give Slade the satisfaction of seeing him cry.
He’s shed more than enough tears over the alpha, but unfortunately he can’t stop them from continuing to drip down his face. He covers his face with a hand so he doesn’t sniffle and listens to Slade moving around the cabin. Dick wants to get out of here but there’s nowhere to go. He can’t outrun Deathstroke the Terminator. He was stupid to ever believe that hiding was possible.
Something cramps in his stomach but it’s heavier, more intense, it feels like something is ripping through him, and Dick instinctively curls over with a ragged cry as he feels wetness between his legs. It takes him a couple of breaths to recover, to raise his head against the dizziness and spot Slade hovering right next to him, expression inscrutable.
He’s looking down, at the spreading patch of darkness on Dick’s leggings. Dick follows his gaze, and swallows. His spine feels like someone took a hammer to it.
“I think my water just broke.”
Oh gods. Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck. Gods, this is not supposed to be happening right now, Dick is still weeks away from his due date, he isn’t at any sort of risk for a preterm birth, why is this happening?
“You’re not breathing,” Slade reminds him from he’s rummaging through the cabin’s stockpile to find any relevant supplies.
Dick sticks up his middle finger but blows out to inflate the paper bag Slade handed him and takes a deep breath in again.
There are a lot of worst case scenarios he imagined—he is still a Bat—but somehow going into labor while trapped in a cabin with the mercenary father of his child was not one of them.
There’s no signal on the phone Slade easily relinquished, the radio in the cabin is tuned to static, and it’s clear that the blizzard is far from over. No one’s making it through the storm, there’s already a half a foot of snow against the door. There’s no chance of getting out—even if they could find a car, Dick wouldn’t trust either of them to drive in whiteout conditions without ending up in a crash.
There’s a cloud of tension hanging over the room and it gets heavier and heavier with the increasing stillness.
Dick finds himself lightheaded again.
“Breathe,” Slade says, crossing the room to get more blankets out of the chest. He puts them on the bed Dick is perched on—nesting material, Dick realizes blankly. He’s supposed to make a nest, so he’ll be more comfortable.
But omegas only make nests when they feel safe, and Dick has never felt closer to a breakdown.
“Where are you going?” Dick startles himself with the query but Slade is heading towards the door and something inside of him sits up in terrified focus. He should want Deathstroke to leave, but his mind can’t quite convince the rest of him.
“Getting some snow to melt. Pipes are frozen. No water.”
No water. No plumbing. Slade started a fire and warmed up the room, but without water—
Another contraction ripples through him and Dick hunches over with a low moan.
The baby’s coming. The baby’s coming, and there’s nothing Dick can do about it. The baby’s coming, and he’s trapped in a cabin with Deathstroke the Terminator.
A burst of cold air heralds Slade coming back inside but Dick is still curled into himself. He doesn’t look up, not even when the footsteps stop right next to him.
“Dick,” Slade says, voice softer than it’s been this whole time. “It’s going to be okay. You’ll be okay.”
“You sound very confident about that,” Dick says to his knees.
“I know you. Even if the storm doesn’t clear—” and Dick finally drags himself up, unable to stand the gentleness.
“Even if the storm doesn’t clear, what? You’re going to help deliver the baby? You take a lot of midwife contracts in between the murder and torture?”
Slade doesn’t respond, the look on his face faintly patronizing, as if he’s just weathering a tantrum, and Dick’s fragile grip on his nerves snap.
“It’s not going to be fucking okay. I’m having contractions in a blizzard, far away from my family, trapped with a man that’s tried to kill me—” Slade opens his mouth but Dick raises his voice to a shout, talking over him. “This is quite possibly the worst scenario I could’ve possibly dreamt of.” He has to stop to take a massive, heaving breath. “And you have the gall to tell me it’s going to be okay?”
Slade’s expression has darkened but Dick isn’t done.
“A hundred and one things could go wrong, it’s too early, I could bleed out, there could be—she could be—my—my—” and suddenly Dick can see them all, every terrifying possibility laid out in stark clarity, all of the ones that end with his chickadee born cold and still and blue, and it steals the air from his lungs.
“Dick, you need to—”
“Shut up,” Dick croaks out, forcibly inhaling. “Just—shut up.”
Slade shuts up.
The air feels like congealed soup and for all the breaths that Dick draws, it never gets any better.
The contractions are getting closer.
Dick doesn’t say a word, but he’s sure Deathstroke is aware, is tracking the bitten groans and soft hisses. It fucking hurts but Dick is determined to not show a single wince as he paces the small, cramped interior of the cabin, his borrowed flannels itchy and tight against his overheated skin. Deathstroke is sitting in a chair, methodically sharpening a knife, and it only makes Dick more antsy as he pauses at the window and peeks behind the blinds for the nth time.
Still white. Nothing else.
His family will come for him. He knows they will—he’s likely already missed another call. But with the weather this bad and Gotham to focus on, they won’t have scrambled the Batplane. Not yet. Not with his delivery still a month away. As much as Bruce frets, he knows Dick is capable. And even he, in all his paranoia, wouldn’t have been able to foresee this.
Wouldn’t have dreamt that Dick would end up trapped in a blizzard with the father of his child, also a deadly mercenary, who Dick lied to and distanced himself from.
All for nothing, it turns out. His little bean is going to meet her father and Dick can do nothing about it.
If Dick can just hold on a little longer—until the storm clears and he can make it to a hospital, or until he can get a signal on the phone he’s still clutching, or until his family lands in the plane—if he can hold on just a little longer—
The contraction forces Dick to a standstill, fingers gripping tight on the bedpost, vision blurring out into a haze as his gut clenches and ripples in an unending knot of pain. When it finally clears, he returns to his own ragged breathing.
Deathstroke is staring straight at him.
“We need to check how far along you are,” he says simply. Dick stares at him for a stretching moment before comprehension dawns.
“No. You’re not getting anywhere near me. You’ve—” done enough, Dick bites back, keenly aware that the fiction he’s created will disappear the moment Deathstroke scents his daughter. “You’re not touching me.”
He feels the missing escrima like a lost limb but he’s pocketed a knife from the cabin’s collection of kitchenware and he’s willing to use it. He’ll shove it through Deathstroke’s remaining eye and into his skull before he lets him hurt his baby.
Deathstroke sets down the knife he’s sharpening with a deliberate movement.
“And then what?” he asks, voice even and expression inscrutable. “Your contractions are getting closer. You still haven’t built a nest. What miracle are you holding out hope for?” Dick glances at the covered window. “The storm’s not clearing up. When it does, it’ll be too late. How exactly do you think this will end?”
Dick—he’s not thinking about it. He can wait. He has to wait. She has to wait.
Deathstroke straightens out of the chair, slow but methodical. Dick stumbles back, even though he’s clear on the other side of the room.
“You hate me. But I’m the only other person here, little bird.” Don’t call me that, Dick wants to snarl, but it gets choked up in his dry throat. “Are you going to deliver your baby all by yourself?”
Yes, Dick wants to rage. He’ll do it alone. He has to do it alone. But the image flashes in his mind—cold and still and blue—and the rock-hard certainty that that is how it’ll end, possibly with Dick bleeding out after, and his family will only know when they uncover two bloody corpses under the snow.
It’s a pit in Dick’s stomach and it’s pulling him down with it.
Dick only realizes he’s falling when his knees hit the floor. He’s crying, he can feel the wetness on his cheeks and taste the salt on his lips, but the terror outweighs everything else. He’s going to die. He’s going to die. His chickadee is going to die. The happy life he imagined for them, the future he painted inside of his head, all of that will be lost. He tries to hold onto it but it slips through his fingers like smoke.
Like it was never even there.
Slade is suddenly crouching in front of him, one large hand around the back of Dick’s neck, the other grasping his hand. He pulls Dick forward until their foreheads are touching. “You need to breathe,” Slade says, voice even and quiet. Dick is trying, but there’s no goddamn air in the room. “Look at me—look at me, little bird.” Slade’s gaze is intense and Dick feels caught in place. “I won’t let anything happen to you or the baby.” Slade’s eye moves, like he’s searching Dick’s expression. “Do you trust me?”
His vision grows blurry and Dick is crying again, tears dripping off his chin and into his lap.
“Dick?” Dick nods because despite everything, he does, and the realization feels terrible and wonderful both at once.
Slade will do anything to save his children. Dick knows that. He’s witnessed it firsthand.
“She’s yours,” he confesses, and there’s no surprise on Slade’s face.
“I won’t let anything happen to you or the baby,” he promises again and Dick lets himself believe it.
The nest is as cozy as he can make it with so little material. Slade’s scent is interwoven into it, settling the deep, distant anxiety that Dick has gotten so used to he forgot it was there. With the alpha’s scent now fierce and thick around him, it’s gone, a knot loosening to unexpected relief.
There’s still enough stress to keep him tense, and Dick uses the chair as a support as he stretches out the discomfort. He’s discarded everything but his sweater, dried out by the fire and now wonderfully warm, and the constant pain has reached the point that he no longer cares that he’s mooning Slade on every squat.
“How are you feeling?”
“If you ask me that question one more time, I’m going to figure out exactly which body parts your regeneration doesn’t work on.”
Slade falls silent, but only for a second. “Your contractions—”
“I know about my contractions, I can fucking feel them! I’ll fucking tell you when I’m ready to push, unless you got a goddamn childbirth certification sometime when I wasn’t watching.”
Slade raises his hands in mock defense. Fuck him. Dick is going to rip his balls off and see how he handles it. Fucking alphas and their fucking knots had gotten him into this situation and maybe if Slade had to push a watermelon out of his ass he wouldn’t look so goddamn amused.
The warm cloth slipping off of his neck is replaced with a fresh one, snowmelt achingly cool against his overheated scent glands, and Dick pauses to drink in the rich, fresh alpha scent. It settles him, even with the absence of his pack, and when his gut twists unpleasantly, he knows what’s coming.
“Slade,” he murmurs, heart fluttering in his chest.
“I’m right here,” the alpha says, finishing scenting him before stepping behind him and grabbing Dick’s hips. He lifts them the tiniest amount, taking the weight off of his feet, and the relief is enough for Dick to marshal his strength.
He can do this. For the little bean determined to be out of him. For his chickadee. He can do this.
Dick takes a deep breath and pushes.
Dick barely registers the cleanup, floating high on the haze of the endorphins as he curls up in his nest, his baby girl slumbering peacefully in his arms. She’s perfect, even tiny and pink and scrunched up and with some blood still clinging to the thin, dark fuzz of hair.
“She’s perfect,” he says happily when his alpha’s scent deepens, a strong arm curving around him as Slade joins him in the nest.
“She is,” Slade agrees, nosing at his scent glands before pressing a soft kiss to the nape of his neck. “What’s her name?”
Dick has the name already picked out for his chickadee. “Marian,” he says. For his mother and for his favorite story, for another Robin protecting his home.
“Marian,” Slade repeats in a rumble and it feels so right in his voice. Tears prick at Dick’s eyes and he blinks them away. “The blizzard’s calming down.”
“Oh,” Dick cranes his neck at the window but the blinds are still down. He forgot all about the storm. “Did you—weren’t you here on a contract? Do you have to get back?”
There’s a long pause.
“Little bird, if you think I’m leaving your side for anything right now, you’re out of your goddamn mind.”
This time the tears make it, slipping down his cheeks as his breath hitches. The sadness feels terrible, the future in which Dick gave birth without his baby’s father, in which Slade would never know he had another daughter. Slade is right here, he caught her, he held her first and cut the cord and cleaned her up before he gave her to Dick, but Dick is held fast by the glimpse of the future he’d planned.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m sorry,” Dick sobs, tucking himself against Slade. The alpha’s scent swells, calming him down until he’s hiccupping but not crying. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, quiet and miserable. “For keeping her from you.”
Slade is silent for another long moment, but his arm is still braced around Dick’s, his fingers brushing the curve of Marian’s cheek.
“I don’t exactly have the best track record with children,” he says finally. “I understand why you did it.”
“It was wrong,” Dick says, still whispering.
“I forgive you,” Slade responds easily, pressing another kiss to Dick’s bare shoulder.
It soothes the misery, chipping away at it until contentment is what remains. The pain and soreness lurk outside of his bubble of happiness and he’s distantly aware that they exist, but they can wait. Everything can wait.
“You’re going to have to make it through the gauntlet of Bats if you want to stick around,” Dick yawns as he warns him. “You have no idea how overprotective they’ve gotten, Bruce in particular—” Dick abruptly realizes it’s been several hours since his last check-in and his family has probably tried to call him multiple times. Unfortunately, he no longer has his phone. “Is your phone working?” he asks, yawning again. “Should probably tell them.”
Slade chuckles and shifts to get up, “Of course, little bird,” but Dick stops him with a fist curled tightly into his shirt.
No getting up. Not now. Slade figures out what he wants from his wordless growl and settles back in the nest.
“Later, then.”
Later sounds like a good idea. Right now, Dick has his baby and his alpha and the world is utterly perfect.