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It’s a rainy night, memories pressing a little too hard, so Dick doesn’t go out. He’s hunting through his refrigerator when he hears his window slide up. Without looking, he grabs the escrima stick mounted under the counter and listens as barely-there footsteps move through his apartment.
Heart pounding, he hears footsteps come into his kitchen, and whirls as there’s a whisper through the air.
His escrima blocks a sword because fucking Deathstroke is in his civilian apartment.
“Well,” Dick says, and makes an effort to steady his voice. It’s already been a bad night. “I wasn’t expecting this.” He smoothly dodges around Deathstroke, getting the small table between them. “Usually you call first.”
“Sometimes, I like the surprise,” Deathstroke replies, and reaches up to take off his mask. His blue eye rakes Dick like a brand, and Dick can’t suppress a shudder.
Deathstroke is here for a fight, and Dick’s normally willing to give him one, but tonight—
When Deathstroke starts to circle the table, Dick matches his movements, hand clenched painfully tight on his solitary weapon. They pause, staring at each other, Deathroke tipping his head as if to say, “Get on with it, boy,” but Dick has never wanted to start a fight less.
Instead, he slips to the side and out into his living room, where there’s more room to maneuver, mind racing. If Slade had called ahead, Dick would have told him to stay away, it’s not a good night, and made up an excuse. Dick is raw, mind teetering on the edge of another rainy night, but—
When Slade is done, he’s always gentle. He cleans Dick up, brings him something to eat and drink, wraps him in something soft, brushes his hair off his forehead. Dick—Dick would like that. He wishes, for a moment, he could just ask, but that’s not who Slade is. He knows how to scene properly, but he’s not a loving boyfriend, not someone who cares about Dick other than taking care of someone who meets his needs. Slade knows if he mistreats Dick, these nights go away, and who else is going to let a mercenary of dubious morality pin them down and fuck them until they cry?
It’s not going to take much to make Dick cry tonight.
He swallows as Deathstroke stalks out of the kitchen. “Running away, little bird?”
A shudder runs through Dick again, and he knows the smart thing to do would be to end it. Slade would never ignore a safeword, but there’s a part of him aching for gentleness. He’s survived so much abuse, what’s one more night?
He tries to pull himself together as Deathstroke approaches him, somehow feeling taller than usual, looming over Dick with that sword glinting in the dim light. He has to—he has to give Deathstroke a fight, make him feel like he’s won, so he can—and then Dick can get what he wants, too.
Dick swings his escrima out, but he’s so frazzled he’s judged badly and Deathstroke simply catches the other end in his hand. Suddenly frantic, he flips the switch to electrify it, but fuck, Deathstroke’s gloves don’t let the current reach him.
They stand there, Dick’s chest heaving for no obvious reason, the stick humming between them, and then Deathstroke wrenches it away from him, snapping it in two.
Normally Dick would give Slade shit about paying for it, like he doesn’t have extra laying around, like either of them are struggling for money, but his heart is beating rapidly in his chest, dread weighing him down, throat too tight to speak.
Deathstroke levels the sword at him and speaks coldly, precisely. “That was pathetic, boy.”
Dick flinches, because it was, fuck, it really was, but it’s like he can feel the rain on his face, and shivers are crawling over his skin. Is Slade angry he didn’t get the fight he wanted? Is Deathstroke going to make Dick pay for letting him down? Dick was sure he could survive a normal scene, but if Deathstroke gets creative, makes Dick pay for being an absolute waste of space and time—
The sword points directly at Dick, and he can’t look away.
“Get on your knees, boy,” Deathstroke says. “And make it up to me.”
Frozen, Dick stares at the gleaming sword, and he suddenly can’t remember if it’s really a threat or not.
“W—wait,” he says.
“Now,” Deathstroke snaps, and Dick flinches and folds to his knees, trembling.
Under his knees is rooftop gravel, no, it’s carpet, he’s at home, he’s outside with rain running down his face, a gentle voice he doesn’t want to hear, he’s back in the apartment, staring up at a pissed-off Deathstroke who is going to hurt him for being so useless.
The sword moves closer, the point pressing into Dick’s throat, and he goes deathly still in front of a predator he can’t hope to defeat. A bit of pressure has him lifting his chin up, giving into the wordless threat, looking up into that merciless eye, and a tear slides down his cheek.
“Wait,” he begs softly, desperately. “Stop.” Deathstroke isn’t going to listen, but Dick has to try. He doesn’t—he can’t do this, he thought he could, he thought it was worth it, but Slade’s going to push him down and take what he wants, and Dick won’t be able to do anything, won’t be able to stop him, and he can’t, he can’t—
Deathstroke laughs above him, the point pressing enough to cut his skin, and it stings. He’s not—he’s not stopping, and part of Dick’s mind is screaming at him to get away, to escape, and another part is telling him to submit and it will all be over soon, and then he can be left alone, like before, and figure out how to put himself back together, only a little shakier than he was before—before.
But there’s a smaller, quieter, deeper part of his brain, the most insistent of all, clamoring at him, a word echoing up from somewhere deep inside, a word he’s never needed to use before, a word he mostly forgets because it’s more fun that way, but he’s not having fun, he’s not, and he needs, it needs to stop, he needs—
“April,” he whispers, and the sword point drops away from his throat like it was never there and he hears a deep voice saying, “Shit,” before Deathstroke is crouching next to him. The sword has vanished, somehow, and Deathstroke is carefully not touching him, but—but Dick needs—he turns his face to Slade, cheeks wet with tears he can’t stop, and opens his mouth to—he’s not sure what, but all that comes out is a desperate plea.
“Please,” he begs, not knowing what he needs, shoulders starting to shake with sobs that are crawling their way up through a crack in his chest that’s opened him up for everyone to see where he’s failed, how he doesn’t deserve anything, how he’s worthless. “Please.”
“Kid, can I touch you?”
Dick buries his face in his hands, sobs tearing out of him, and he can’t answer. Doesn’t know what to answer. He doesn’t want Deathstroke to touch him, doesn’t want to consent to be fucked, he wants Slade, he wants comfort, he wants all the things he doesn’t deserve since he stepped aside and watched a man die. And he thought maybe he’d paid enough, afterwards on the roof, but he knows he can never pay enough to make it up.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” Slade says in the gentle voice he only ever uses after and Dick nods, then makes himself say, “Y-yes,” and if he sounds broken before anything has happened, no one is there to hear but the two of them.
And Slade, Slade has killed a lot of people, more people than Dick ever likes to think about, so he wouldn’t hold Dick’s solitary kill against him, and his hands are gentle and Dick thinks he’ll get a hug, or a rub down his back, and Deathstroke—Slade will leave, and they’ll try again another day. But he’s being picked up, carried against unforgiving armor, and he doesn’t understand.
Bed, one part of his mind registers as Dick is set down against something soft. No, screams the other part of him, the part that remembered the word, the part that—Slade is supposed to stop—he can’t—he doesn’t—
But Deathstroke is taking off his armor, shucking each piece with cold efficiency and Dick feels dread curl in his stomach. Deathstroke is—the word means stop—but it wouldn’t be the first time someone ignored him.
“You want this, querido.”
He must want it. He’s allowed the world’s deadliest mercenary into his bed and he—he should’ve known this is what he gets. Deathstroke ties him down and makes him scream and Dick thought that, what? Because he set a safeword and Slade held him afterwards that it’s okay, that Dick can trust him, that Slade isn’t going to look at his no and disregard it?
But he didn’t completely disregard it. He stopped with the sword, and he picked Dick up and—and he’s being gentle, for once, so maybe this won’t be that bad, maybe Dick can tolerate it, maybe he’ll get the touch he craves, something, anything to wipe away the feeling of hands against a rain-slick costume, the smell of gunpowder, the blood dripping through his fingers.
Slade isn’t going to mind a little blood.
The man joins him on the bed and Dick curls towards him—it’s always half about the fight, about the challenge and the punishment, but he doesn’t want to be punished right now, and he’ll do whatever Slade wants if it means he’ll be gentle.
Strong arms wrap around his shoulders and tug him into Slade’s lap, and Dick prepares to loosen his jaw—
And is mildly surprised when his head sinks down against a pillow instead of a cock.
Dick twists, enough to see that yes, he’s half curled on a pillow, resting on top of Slade’s outstretched legs and—and the mercenary isn’t naked, he’s wearing a shirt and sweatpants that are too big to be anyone’s but Bruce’s or Jason’s, and he’s drawing a blanket on top of Dick and tucking it in.
“Slade?” Dick asks, confused, because Slade’s being gentle but they didn’t—they haven’t—
“It’s okay, little bird,” Slade says softly but he doesn’t—he’s never that soft with Dick, not unless he’s broken him into a sobbing, shuddering mess first.
Slade is—Slade is being really weird—and it’s nice, it’s so nice, it’s everything Dick wants, and he just wants to sink back down against the pillow and—
Slade usually calls first. Slade would stop at a safeword, but he certainly wouldn’t stay. Dick cannot imagine a universe where Slade would let him curl against him just because he’s having a bad night.
Every part of his body goes cold in sudden, singing tension.
No, something shrieks inside his head, because remembering the churning feeling of hands running down his suit as rain dripped on his face still brings shivers of happiness curdling as his girlfriend’s face twisted and shivered and changed to a wicked smirk.
Dick shoves away from not-Slade, ignoring the surprised sound, and tries to scramble off the bed. It doesn’t quite work, he’s trembling violently enough that he can’t manage to get upright, and he ends up falling off, landing hard on the ground.
He needs to—he has to—he needs to get away but his back hits the wall and there’s nowhere to go. Nothing to do but curl up, head against his knees and arms around his shins because he doesn’t want to watch Slade’s face change to that mocking smile, he has enough nightmares without knowing viscerally what it looks like when someone impersonates his lover.
At least this time he stopped before the actual sex, though that isn’t because he figured it out.
“Little bird?”
And it sounds like Slade and Dick just—can’t. “Go away, Mirage,” he tries, because she claims to be a hero, because she isn’t—because maybe if he makes it obvious enough that he doesn’t want this, she’ll stop.
Just please leave me alone.
There’s a quiet sound near him, like someone sat down next to the bed. “Who’s Mirage?” Slade’s voice asks.
“I—you—please, I’m not in the mood for games, I—I don’t care whatever future you’re from, just go away.”
“Kid,” says the voice, measured and even, “It’s Slade. Deathstroke. I’m not from the future.”
“I—you’re not—you can’t be—stop pretending—”
“I don’t know who you’re seeing, Dick, but I’m Slade. I’ve watched you scarf down strawberries like they’re the last food on earth, and turn your nose up at papaya. I know you turn into a cat whenever someone runs a hand through your hair. I can cut myself to show you the healing factor. I can tell you a hundred other things about you that no one knows but me. Look at me, little bird, please.”
There’s something in his tone, something not calm for all that the words are even, and Dick slowly drags his head up.
Slade is sitting across from him, leaning against the bed, a good four feet between them. He’s watching Dick carefully, eye narrowed but expression not calculating. He—he’s not trying to get closer.
“Healing factor,” Dick croaks out, because the other things aren’t secrets, but an illusion can’t fake Slade’s superserum powers.
Slade casually snaps his pinky finger, before setting it back into place. A couple of seconds later, he flexes his hand to show the healed finger.
“Slade,” Dick says quietly.
“Yes, little bird.”
Dick—Dick presses the heels of his hands against the floor. Wood, not gravel. He’s not drenched. He isn’t—how would Mirage even know about Deathstroke and why—she doesn’t care about Dick, not anymore, he hasn’t seen or thought of her in years.
Dick presses down harder and tries to sort out his jumbled thoughts. He—Slade decided to stay? They weren’t—he isn’t—did he just accuse Deathstroke of being a shapeshifter because he stopped when Dick told him to?
Dick buries his face in his hands. It’s always nice to know that he can ruin any relationship he touches, even if it’s rough sex with a mercenary.
“Dick?” Slade actually sounds worried. God, how badly did Dick freak him out, that he actually stayed instead of leaving the moment it was clear he wasn’t going to get what he came for? “Do you want me to leave?”
Dick wants to break down alone, to cry without being worried about anyone else, but the thought of Slade leaving is enough to sink a pit through his stomach.
If he leaves, he’s never coming back.
“I’m sorry,” Dick says quietly.
“Sorry for what, kid?”
Everything, Dick wants to scream. Sorry for not realizing that Mirage had kidnapped Kori, sorry for stepping aside and watching Tarantula squeeze the trigger, sorry for turning into a weepy mess just because it’s raining, because of something that happened years ago, because of something that’s his own fault.
Instead, Dick just shakes his head.
“Okay,” Slade says, voice still soft, “You don’t have to talk about it. What do you need?”
Dick can’t answer that question. What he needs is too fucking much.
“Do you want me to hold you?”
Yes. Dick takes a stuttering breath. “I don’t want to have sex,” he says carefully.
“Trust me, kid, we are absolutely not having sex right now. Do you want someone to hold you? It doesn’t have to be me, I can call your dad or one of your brothers.”
“Please don’t leave,” Dick says quietly. He doesn’t—he can’t force Slade to stay, can’t force them to continue their hookups, can’t keep the extremely satisfying sex and the soft vulnerability afterwards, and it hurts.
A deep, measured breath. “Kid, please look at me.” Dick manages to scrub at his face and blink at Slade through wet lashes. The man stares at him, intent. “I need you to use your words. What do you need?”
It isn’t an order, but it’s the level tone Slade uses when he wants to be obeyed, and Dick squeezes his eyes shut and quickly calculates that he’s got nothing more to lose. “Want you to hold me,” he admits quietly.
“Okay,” Slade replies, and reaches up to grab the blanket off the bed, “I can do that.” He half-raises the blanket in a wordless invitation. Dick stares at him—he can’t be serious—but can’t stop himself from crawling over.
He’s wrapped in the blanket and tugged into Slade’s lap, curling against the older man’s chest, and Slade’s arms wrap tightly around him. Slade doesn’t mention the tears dripping against his shoulder.
“We didn’t have sex,” Dick says, because he’s still confused.
“I’m aware.”
“I—why are you doing this?”
“What, holding you?” Dick nods. “Because you asked me to.”
“But you only hold me after sex.”
“Kid, you safeworded out of a scene. It doesn’t matter that we didn’t have sex, it’s still my responsibility to make sure you’re okay.”
Oh. Dick doesn’t—he just—he didn’t realize that Slade cares. The lump swells in his throat, choking him, and he feels even worse.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers, “I didn’t—I ruined your night—” forced Slade to stay here and look after him without even giving him the gratification he’d come looking for—
“I’m not mad.”
“You came all the way here—”
“Without calling. And even if I had called, I still wouldn’t be upset at you for stopping a scene you weren’t comfortable with. The only time I’ll get mad is if you don’t stop a scene you’re not comfortable with because you think you owe it to me or something.”
Like, for example, continuing even after he concluded that he didn’t want it, just to manipulate Slade into giving him the comfort he craved?
“I didn’t want it,” Dick says, voice wavering.
“I know—”
“I didn’t want it, but I was going to let you do it,” Dick spills out, frantic and rushed, “Because—because I wanted you to be gentle afterwards and—and I wasn’t going to tell you to stop but—but it was too much. I’m sorry,” he tacks on, fresh tears burning at his eyes, because he’s going to get shoved off Slade’s lap, because he was willing to use the man to get what he wanted and Slade is going to break whatever they had and leave in disgust.
But Slade doesn’t shove him away. Don’t loosen his grip. Instead, a hand drifts up to comb through his hair. “Oh, little bird,” he murmurs, and his voice is heavy with emotions Dick can’t name.
“I’m sorry,” Dick repeats, futile tears still leaking out, “Are you—are you going to leave now?” Does he want Dick to get off of him? Does he want him to stop crying?
“No.”
Right. His responsibility. Dick can’t stop the tears, can’t even absolve him of that simple task.
“Tomorrow?” Dick asks quietly.
“No, tomorrow we’re going to have a talk,” Slade hums, still running his fingers through Dick’s hair.
“A talk?” On one hand, it sounds promising—it means that Slade isn’t breaking it off, it means that Dick isn’t going to lose the one place he can trust himself to break apart to pleasure. On the other hand, Dick is painfully aware that negotiating around ‘I was willing to have sex just to get cuddled’ might mean that Slade stops staying for more than the perfunctory clean-up.
“A talk, because I need to trust that you’ll stop when you need to,” Slade says firmly, “And because I don’t want to see you so desperate to be held that you’re willing to get hurt to get it.”
Dick squeezes his eyes shut, because he wasn’t—he didn’t—“Tomorrow,” Dick says hollowly, because that conversation isn’t going to be exceedingly pleasant.
“Tomorrow, little bird,” Slade says, and shifts, hauling Dick up as he straightens. He sits back down on the bed, and lets go of Dick long enough to settle him on a pillow and slip back down to curl against him, “Right now, you need sleep.” The fingers come back to card through his hair, and Dick sinks into the pillow. “I’m not going anywhere.”