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Slade was staking out a mobster's hideout when he heard the almost-imperceptible landing of feet on the roof. He rolled away and to his feet, bracing.
Bird's head tilted curiously. Slade had never flinched away from him before, but Slade also hadn't recognized the second set of near-silent footsteps.
It was the girl. Cass. Orphan, she was going by, now.
Bird was smiling, easy. His shoulders were low, and his escrima were away. This was a social call, or as close as Bats ever came to it when Slade was in their godforsaken city.
Slade dropped his shoulders, shifted back to lean on the wall, crossing his arms over his chest. "Bird," he said dryly.
Bird grinned, flashing his teeth. "Deathstroke," he greeted in return. "You know Orphan?"
Slade sawed a hand, looking at the little slip of a creature. She'd filled out, under Wayne's roof, no longer a gaunt, though she would always be small. "Cowl's better than the faceless mask," he said.
Her eyes crinkled at the corners.
"You need me for something?" he asked. "Or particularly interested in the movements of the Russian mob?"
"Looking for you," Bird said easily. "Two questions. One for Orphan, one for B."
Slade sighed deeply and put away the binoculars. Tonight was a bust, and he'd come back for Mironov tomorrow, when hopefully all Bat nonsense had been resolved. He tipped his head, and Bird gestured for him to lead the way.
Slade settled them on the roof of his hotel, not particularly wanting to take them inside, and figuring it was private enough unless other Bats were eavesdropping, which wasn't his problem.
Depending on what the questions were, at any rate.
Look, it was far away from the mob, that was all Slade cared about.
He hopped up and sat on the air conditioner compressor. "All right, ask your questions."
Orphan squared her shoulders. "David Cain," she said.
"Wasn't me," Slade said immediately.
"So he is dead," Bird said.
Slade considered what they could possibly know, or what they were fishing for. Then he figured, if anyone in the world had a right to know what had gone down, it was Cassandra. "He is," he agreed. He looked between the two heroes. "You really want to know this?" he asked. "It's. Messy," he finally decided was the best adjective for what "it" had been.
Orphan nodded decisively.
Slade sighed. "All right. Then you may as well sit," he said, pointing at the air vent she and Bird were nearest. He peeled up his mask, figuring it was fair to let her read his face.
Orphan hopped up, her feet dangling. Bird leaned his hip on the vent beside her, tucking her under his arm and letting her lean into his solidity.
Slade was glad Bird had come on this venture. "Somebody told Shiva what he was doing to you," he told Orphan, looking her in the eye.
"Someone," Bird repeated.
"You," Orphan said quietly. It wasn't a question.
Slade didn't answer it, because it wasn't a question. "She wasn't best pleased, so she went looking for him, to ask for some answers." He shrugged his shoulders. "Nobody's talking much, but the very quiet story among the other mercenaries at our level is that she didn't much like his answers, so she removed one more problem from the world."
"Shiva killed Cain," Bird repeated, as if he wasn't sure he'd heard correctly.
Slade considered telling them she'd fed him his cock first, but didn't figure either of them would appreciate it, so he kept that tidbit to himself. He nodded in answer to Bird.
"For me," Orphan said quietly. Her eyes were tense, upset, fixed on the rooftop and miles away.
Slade tipped his head sideways to get her to look at him. He couldn't actually put his head in her eye-line, far apart as they were, but his motion made her look at him anyway. "For you," he agreed, "And because he was talking about trying again."
Bird exhaled a sharp snarl.
Orphan struggled for a moment, and then signed sharply, "Didn't need to kill him."
Slade sighed. Bats and their damn morals. "You and I are going to disagree on that," he said.
Her eyes narrowed.
Slade held up a hand. "Look, you believe in the sanctity of life, and how all people have value, and how everyone has a chance to change. That's really nice, and really lovely for you."
She blinked, surprised.
"You and Bats, you can stand on your rooftop, looking down at the little people, and you can say, 'I will not kill.' And you can hold to that, because you can win every fight you get in."
Bird opened his mouth, and then shut it again with a curious expression on his face.
"But when you stand on your rooftop and say 'No one else can kill either, ever,' that's too much," Slade said. "That's ignoring the people who never win their fights, that's ignoring the people who fight every day, and they win today, but everyone knows they're going to slip someday." He looked between the two vigilantes, and then looked out over the city. "Somewhere in this city, right now, there's a little girl losing a fight she never had a chance to win, and man taking from her tonight just like he's done every night. Somewhere in this city, there's a scrappy kid outnumbered and outclassed who just wants to live to see tomorrow."
Bird flinched, and Slade knew he was thinking about a very specific scrappy kid, ten years in the past, stealing tires to eat.
"And you're going to tell me that giving them a gun's the wrong answer, that there are other options," Slade said quietly. "But those options haven't saved those kids yet, and gun, today, would."
"That's not our way," Orphan whispered.
"No," Slade said. "And mostly, I admire that about all you Bats, that you hold to your morals so strongly. But make your moral stand as you will, but you don't have the right to judge the people who bloody their hands to save people you don't bother to."
Bird started to say something, paused, and then lifted his chin. "Who gets to decide?" he asked. "When it's murder and when it's justified?"
Slade shrugged. "I mean it seems to me that you all have set yourself up as the jury of your peers," he said dryly. "So, triage however you want. But I don't think killing David Cain is the thing you want to bring Shiva in for, in the grand scheme of the world."
"Harm reduction," Bird said quietly, more to himself.
Slade didn't answer, he was looking at Orphan, staring fixedly at him. He looked back, easy and open. "The question," he told her quietly, "That you are trying not to ask yourself, is if whether, having made your moral choice to never kill no matter what, you can allow hands drenched in blood to comb your hair. Can you let someone love you who does not share your code?"
Orphan held his gaze. Then she turned to look, very deliberately, at Bird.
Slade kept his eyes on her, didn't follow the gravity-well of his Bird's warm smile.
After a moment, she looked back at him. "Thank you," she said.
Slade nodded back. "On the other end of the moral divide," he said quietly, since he figured this was worth saying while they were listening to him, "Is the people who will not change. Part of your argument for never killing is that it removes any chance at people becoming better." He finally let himself look at Bird. "I admire that dedication," he said again, "And I appreciate it, not the least because it saved Grant's life, once."
Bird smiled at him.
"But," Slade said quietly, "There are people who are never going to change. They are few and extreme," he said. "I don't believe in the inherent value of human life like you do, but I can put myself in your thoughts, and I know cases are rare, but I also know they exist. Some people can be offered all the chances in the world, and they will not take them."
"Joker," Bird whispered.
"Blockbuster," Slade agreed gently.
Bird flinched.
Orphan took his hand, gently.
"And if your unwillingness to kill continuously and recklessly gives those people continued access to do harm, I think you're culpable. I absolutely blame Batman fifty percent for every person the Joker killed between Jason Todd's death and when I finally shot him in the head." Slade shrugged. "He didn't have to kill him," he said. "I know he's not capable of it. But if he wasn't going to kill him he should either have let someone else, or done a far better job of imprisoning or incapacitating him."
Bird looked like he wanted to argue, but he had no leg to stand on.
"We're the good guys," Orphan signed. "We don't torture or treat prisoners inhumanely, either."
Slade shrugged. "As long as you accept the hypocrisy of your stance," he said. "As long as you accept your moral purity is more important to you than the people you supposedly protect."
Bird winced for his bluntness.
Slade hoped this conversation was being broadcast across Batcomms. "That's your choice," he said dryly. "I'm a gun for hire." Then he looked at Bird. "There was a second question?"
Bird sighed. "Ra's al Ghul," he said.
"You know, neither of those were actually questions," Slade said dryly.
"But that one was you," Bird said shrewdly.
Slade nodded. "While he was distracted with his play for Wayne Enterprises, after Red Squared's Birds Day Out field trip."
"Body?" Bird asked.
Slade cocked an eyebrow. "That you, Bird, or Batsy feeding you lines?"
Bird's stiff posture softened immediately into exasperation. "Me," he said, almost a groan. "I told him to butt out because you'd turn into an ass if he were involved."
"And you're right," Slade said placidly. "Body was given to my employer, as per my contract, and burned."
"And your employer?" Bird asked.
"You know better, Bird," Slade chided. "Confidentiality is part of the service."
Bird looked frustrated.
Slade looked at him. "Bird," he said quietly.
Bird looked at him, focusing on him again, instead of his case.
"He's one of the ones," Slade said. "He was never going to stop."
Bird's jaw worked.
"You don't have to like that he's dead," Slade said gently, "But there's no value to you to going after his killer. No one's sad he's dead, his death is not a loss to society or his goddamned family, there's no reason to push this, except that your dad has never met a mystery he could leave alone."
"Killer not a threat to society," Orphan added.
Slade pointed at her. "You're getting it."
"Don't agree," she said, rolling her eyes extravagantly at him. She was definitely Bird's sister, blood nothing. "But see the argument."
Slade huffed. "Yeah, she's one of you all right," he told Bird.
Bird smiled sweetly, kissing the top of her head where it was still tucked close to his shoulder. "Yeah she is," he agreed. "You sure you won't tell me?" he asked hopefully.
Slade scoffed. "Not a chance, Bird. Tell Daddy it's good for him to accept ambiguity sometimes."
Bird's eyeroll was a whole-body production, in his domino. Then he sighed. "All right," he said tiredly. "Thank you anyway."
Slade gestured magnanimously. "For you, any time, Bird."
Orphan hopped off the vent, crossed to him, and had hugged him and darted out of reach before Slade could react. "Disagree," she said. "Still good." Then she was gone.
Bird laughed at whatever expression was on Slade's face, and then he waved jauntily and cartwheeled off the roof after his sister.
Slade shook his head, and tracked their arcs across the skyline until they vanished into the night shadows. Then he said into the silence, "Were you worried?"
"No," Catwoman said, sliding out of the dark near the stairwell. "I knew you wouldn't tell."
"You probably should, though," Slade said. "He'll work it out eventually."
"It's not him I'm worried about," Catwoman said.
Slade snorted. "She's relieved," he predicted. "And she'll thank you."
Catwoman didn't answer, coming up at his shoulder and looking over Gotham beside him. "The answer is yes," she said after a moment. "By the way. Yes, they can let killers love them. They do it every day." Then she, too, vanished into the night.
Slade sighed, and when he was sure she was gone, said, "That's what I'm afraid of."