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“What you’re saying,” began Bruce, after a silence that had dragged beyond stilted and into aggressive, “is that this is my fault.”
Slade moved his head slightly from side to side, a gently mocking gesture as he pretended to ponder his reply.
Around them in the Manor’s study, generations of Wayne portraits looked down in judgement, as though condemning Bruce for offering this man covered in innocent blood a chair and a glass of his best whiskey. As though they knew Bruce was shortly going to give Deathstroke something a lot more precious.
“Perhaps not entirely,” replied Slade. “But certainty you played your part.”
He’d drunk his own whiskey already, while Bruce’s sat untouched. There was a power to Slade’s casualness, the way he wasn’t intimated by the entirety of Bruce Wayne and the Batman glaring at him from behind a massive oak desk. As though he knew he was utterly protected by someone wasn't even in the room.
Batman and Deathstroke were a similar build and closer in age than they appeared. They both had large hands that were used to doing violent work and, unfortunately, that wasn’t the only thing they had in common.
Bruce was resisting the urge to rub his face in despair, but he’d never give Slade such an obvious sign of how much his conversation was close to his worst nightmare.
“Dick is an adult and his love life is hardly any business of mine,” ground out Bruce, and the word ‘love’ felt t on his tongue. Slade was smiling at him now, apparently sensing the discomfort that Bruce was so desperately trying to hide.
“Of course, you’re notorious for respecting his boundaries,” Slade mocked lowly, leaning back and letting his huge form uncurl like a snake ready to strike. “I’m merely pointing out - from an analytical perspective, of course - that Dick’s romantic choices in his later years could easily be seen as being informed by his earliest partnership.”
“How so?” replied Bruce. Each word was like spitting out broken glass, but he was also excruciatingly curious about this line of reasoning.
Batman and Robin had been… everything, for both himself and Dick. For a long time it had devoured their whole lives; something impossible to define and utterly perfect when it worked. A friendship, a mentorship, a joy to be part of. The ghost of it still haunted their family, in a hundred small ways.
Sometimes Bruce wondered if he’d ever truly recovered from Dick leaving Robin behind (or was it from Bruce firing him? It was so long ago now, he wasn’t sure who had said what and in what order, he didn’t know who struck the first wound or the last one).
“The alien,” said Slade, pulling Bruce back from his memory of a cackling laugh and skinny knees, “and the Gordon girl, both clearly impressive forces who were propelled to greater heights by having a loyal supporter.”
“Dick wasn’t their sidekick.”
“No,” agreed Slade, inclining his head and still looking smug, “but he was an expert at all the qualities required to help them achieve their goals. Able to factor in their greater firepower, greater detective skills, greater ambition, and adjust himself to be in their shadow. Never asking for more than he was given.”
Bruce tried not to react, but he knew Slade could hear the subtle clenching of his teeth, the extra rush of blood through his veins. Dick was brilliant at knowing what people needed better than they knew themselves, but Slade made it sound so submissive. So docile. That wasn’t who Dick was, it wasn’t who Robin had been.
“And then there’s the men,” continued Slade, and he was clearly enjoying this. Bruce reached for his whiskey and knocked it back in one gulp, because he needed to do something with his hands and it was obvious Slade wasn’t planning to stop before he made his point.
Maybe it wasn’t too late to get Clark to drop Deathstroke into space, Bruce thought.
“A few ill-fated fumblings with other young people, but always metas who were more powerful than him or others that were dangerous in their own way. He didn’t seem very interested in anything… normal. Or safe. I suppose he got too used to living on the edge all the time.”
Bruce wished he could say the other man was wrong. That Dick had been normal, in any sense of the word. But Dick was brilliant, chaotic, pure, dangerous, and had been fighting madmen since before he hit puberty.
“And then there’s me,” continued Slade, and he flashed a small grin that looked like a shark describing its favourite snack.
“I am nothing like you,” said Bruce, unable to stop himself. He resented the implication that Dick’s baffling interest in Deathstroke had any connection to Bruce.
“You have more eyes than me,” replied Slade, “but otherwise…”
He flicked his single eye between Bruce and himself, as though comparing their similar large frames, their stiffness, their choice of expensive and dark clothing.
“I’m very good at what I do,” continued Slade, and it wasn’t boastful. He was the best at what he did and even Bruce wouldn’t argue with that. “I like to be precise, to prepare for every contingency. I hold a grudge and I don’t suffer fools. Many would call me manipulative, and I would call them weak. I don’t let go of what’s mine. I live my life by a code that I never break, and that choice has hurt people who are important to me.”
The worst part was, again, that Bruce couldn’t argue. He wasn’t so deluded that he couldn’t see that he had more in common with his mass-murdering mercenary than he did with Superman. It wasn’t a wholly new revelation, but he still didn’t enjoy having it spelled out so cleanly.
“And much like you, I’m not as much fun as I could be, or so a certain bird likes to tell me,” concluded Slade, and he rubbed a large palm up and down his thigh, as though preparing to get up. “Now, are you going to give me what I came here for, Mr Wayne?”
There was a heavy silence, filled with only the judgement of the portraits and Bruce’s frown.
“I hope we have more in common than our personality flaws and physical attributes,” Bruce said eventually. His voice was calm, controlled. Quietly lethal. “I hope we also share how much we love Dick Grayson. That we only want the best for him, always, and that there is nothing we wouldn’t do to keep him safe. To keep him happy.”
Something dark flickered in Slade’s eye, and Bruce knew it was mirrored in his own.
“That sometimes it scares us, the amount we love him and what we would do if anything were to happen to him.”
It was a threat, a confession. Bruce didn’t have to wonder if Slade understood.
“Yes,” murmured Slade after a beat. He nodded slightly, agreeing that Bruce had named something which now filled the air between them now. The violent weight of what they would each do for Dick. “Yes. We have that in common too.”
Slade stood up. Bruce mirrored him.
“Do I have your permission, then?” asked Slade, and he’d quickly slipped back into sly mocking.
“You don’t need it,” replied Bruce. The whole conversation had been a farce from the beginning, one more chance for Slade to rub in Bruce’s face that Dick was apparently desperately in love with him.
“No,” agreed Slade, “but you’re his father and I’m old fashioned like that.”
“Dick can make his own decisions,” said Bruce. His thinned his lips. “You should ask him if he wants to marry you.”
“Oh, I will,” grinned Slade, triumphant and smug and looking almost cheerful. Bruce didn’t know Deathstroke could look cheerful. “Would you like to see the ring? It was my father's.”
“Get out,” snapped Bruce, finally at the end of his patience.
Slade’s chuckles echoed in the hallway as he walked away, like a gleeful giggle from so many years before.
Bruce poured himself another whiskey.