Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

The correct headstone isn’t hard to find, given that it’s significantly newer than all the ones surrounding it. The edges are still sharp and defined, and time and weather haven’t yet had a chance to fade or discolor the clean surface. There are a few stray leaves stacked up against the windward side of the stone, blown into place after they’d fallen from the nearby line of stately oak trees that mark the edge of the churchyard, but not nearly as many as some of the other graves. It’s clearly been well-maintained, probably visited more recently than most of the other sites.

When Dick first walks up to the headstone, his hands are stuffed deep into his coat pockets against the chilly winds. As he approaches, though, he falls into a crouch so that he can reach out and absently brush some of the loose leaves and twigs away from the base. The stone is freezing against his bare fingers, but he hadn’t wanted to wear gloves for this. He’d been expecting snow, like they’d had back in Gotham for a week now, but apparently this particular stretch of farmland in Iowa tended toward dryer winters, at least through late November. There’d been a few scattered clouds on the road, earlier, but now the sky is clear and bright and blue.

“Hey, Frat Boy,” Dick says softly, fingers trailing briefly across the name carved into the stone. “It’s me. Shades.”

After a moment, Dick stands up from his crouch and puts his hands back into the pockets of his long, heavy coat. He’s got a bit of a routine for this, after so many trips to graveyards scattered all over the country—the ones he could find, anyway—but it doesn’t get any easier to say the words, despite all the trial runs. He’d done most of them one or two at a time, on weekends to avoid missing school, but he’d saved his six handpicked teammates for one long road-trip during the Thanksgiving holiday break. For the most part, he’s followed the dictates of geography, but he’s organized his route to make sure his final stop is right here. It feels more appropriate that way, for reasons that he doesn’t stop to question.

“Sorry it took me so long to come see you,” Dick says. He glances around at the empty graveyard, like he’s assessing the sightlines. “Nice place. Your mom and brother did a good job, picking out the stone and everything. It suits you.” He smiles then, a bit sideways, and leans in like he’s going to tell the monument a secret. “More than mine did, anyway. You should have seen it. Big, gaudy thing. Overdone. Yours is much simpler.”

The coffin underneath is just as empty, though. Custody of the lab site had transferred over to the local authorities the moment that the League confirmed no survivors to rescue, which of course had given Luthor’s people a chance to swoop in and secure the area. As Dick had expected from the start, none of the bodies had been released back to their families. The explosion had provided the perfect cover story for why so many of the lab’s employees had suddenly died, and also for why none of the bodies were intact enough to send home. (Slade Wilson and Lex Luthor are very different men, in most respects, but they share a distaste for loose ends.) It would be decidedly inconvenient if any suspicious next-of-kin insisted on an autopsy that would show clear combat or execution-style wounds, instead.

At least the families had been informed about the “accident,” so that they could have some closure instead of waiting forever for a loved one who had simply disappeared. Slade’s consulting company had even set up life insurance payments for them, probably as a way to deflect any suspicion of wrongdoing. Bruce had immediately double and triple checked all the paperwork to be sure the money was getting to the right people, but as far as they could tell, it was all above board. Where he could disguise it, Bruce had still supplemented the payments, sometimes dramatically.

Dick hadn’t even had to ask; Bruce had just done it, because no matter what their shortcomings, these people had accepted Dick as one of their own. They’d laughed at his jokes, used his nicknames, listened to his advice, and shared innocuous details of their private lives with him. It had provided Dick with some much needed perspective and human contact, especially when he felt buried under the suffocating pressure of Slade’s hyper-focus. Some of them, like Gramps, had consistently made it a point to check on him or include him in things. A few, like Magnum, had openly tried to help him, even if it risked Slade’s disapproval. In the end, at least three of them had died trying to protect him.

A lot of them had outstanding warrants or open investigations. Some had been wanted for serious crimes, either domestic or military (or both): murder, treason, theft, drugs, and various flavors of assault, some severe. Others had been flagged or discharged for serious behavioral issues, ranging from anti-social tendencies to anger management problems to borderline psychosis. Others had made single costly mistakes or bad judgment calls, earning powerful enemies they were trying to outrun. Most of them hadn’t been very good people, at least not as those things are generally measured. They wouldn’t have ended up working for Slade in the first place, if they had been.

That doesn’t change the fact that Dick had genuinely liked most of them, just the same. (It’s not as though he has any moral high ground, in terms of past violent crimes.)

“I’m sorry,” Dick says quietly. He has to clear his throat once, trying to push down the tightness that wants to develop. “I know that doesn’t mean anything, now, but—well, I am. For a lot of things.”

There’s no answer, of course, unless Dick counts the rustling of the fallen leaves blowing by or the distant skittering of small forest animals furtively darting in and out of their burrows on the graveyard’s periphery. Talking to a stone monument is a pointless thing to do, and he knows that. He doesn’t really believe there’s anyone left to hear him, not here and not anywhere else—and even if there is, surely there’s better things to do with an afterlife than hang around listening to half-assed apologies from the dumb teenager who got you killed.

Dick feels like he needs to do it, anyway. For his own peace of mind, if nothing else.

“I want to say that I should have been more honest with everyone.” Dick shakes his head. “But I couldn’t. I had a job to do, and that’s more important.”

He catches himself scuffing the toe of one boot back and forth against the ground. He probably shouldn’t risk damaging the turf and incurring the wrath of the local groundskeepers, but he needs something to anchor him. The rhythmic swish-swish sound of rubber on well-trimmed grass does the trick, and it’s better than reaching for weapons he isn’t carrying.

“Both of them taught me to always put the mission first,” Dick says. “I guess it’s easier to justify, at least, when the mission is saving people instead of killing them, but—” He shrugs, a bit deprecatingly. His smile turns crooked. “At least you got to meet him,” he adds, even quieter. “The others never knew why, but you saw him. You’re the one who got him out.”

Dick hesitates, but eventually he leans over, reaching out to lay his palm on the top of the headstone. The cold is almost painful on his bare skin, but he presses his hand into the smooth surface anyway, like he’s trying to reach through it.

“You made sure the others didn’t die for nothing,” Dick says. He swallows, trying to budge the lump in his throat, but it won’t move. “You made it all worth it, in the end. You saved him, and—and you saved me.”

Dick sniffs once, standing back upright and wiping crisply at his nose with the back of one hand. (Stupid cold wind, making his nose run.) After a steadying breath, he reaches up with both hands and takes off his sunglasses, blinking as his vision rapidly adjusts to the bright midday sun. He folds the hinged arms carefully down and then holds the glasses between his hands for a moment, inspecting them.

They’re not the same ones, of course. Dick had been forced to activate the explosives built into his real ones—and hadn’t that been a fun part of his debrief, when he’d explained that Slade had forced him to walk around with a literal bomb on his face every time he left the bunker; Dick had never thought about it quite like that, or even stopped to wonder if Slade had kept a detonator tucked in his pocket, which is actually kind of disturbing in hindsight—and Magnum’s decoy pair are probably still buried somewhere in the bunker, under all the rubble. These are new, bought from a gas station’s convenience store a few miles down the road, but they’re as similar to his namesake shades as Dick could find with the limited selection on offer.

“You hold onto these for me,” Dick says, voice a little hoarse, as he sets them down on the corner of the headstone. “I don’t need them, these days.”

When Dick is sure the sunglasses will stay in place despite the wind, he steps back to the foot of the grave and puts his hands back in his coat pockets. He takes a deep breath, and then he quickly repeats his perimeter check, out of habit. Even though he’s satisfied that there’s no one anywhere nearby, and no surveillance equipment to record his words, he still leans forward and drops his voice into a whisper, just in case.

“I used to be Robin,” he tells Carmichael’s gravestone. “I was once Deathstroke’s Apprentice, and then I was his Renegade.” He clenches his hands into fists in his pockets, so that they won’t tremble. “It was a little easier being Shades, instead,” he admits. “But I’m not going to hide behind that anymore.” He licks his lips once. “My name—my name is Dick Grayson.”

He waits for a moment, letting that statement settle into the air around him.

“You helped give that back to me,” Dick says, letting himself smile, more genuinely this time. “I hope you know that. All of you did, one way or another.” He drops his head to look at his own feet. “I’m just sorry that the price was so high,” he adds softly. “Thank you for paying it, regardless.”

Dick stands there in the quiet graveyard for a long moment, letting himself breathe. The early winter’s chill starts to creep through his heavy coat, but he doesn’t mind. This cold is the clarifying kind, the cleansing kind, stark and crisp and invigorating. The wind blows through him and leaves him feeling refreshed and alert, at least until it leeches away his body heat and he starts to shiver, instead.

That’s when Dick knows it’s time to leave. “Goodbye, Frat Boy,” he says, because that’s the name Dick gave him, after all. There’s a kind of power in that, when it isn’t used to deliberately strip away someone’s real identity, a sense of familiarity and camaraderie and belonging. Dick owes his dead at least that much. “Rest in peace, I guess. If you can.”

Dick turns and walks back up the small path to the gate and the parking lot beyond, where the car he’d rented—or rather, the car that his fake identity, who is twenty-one and has both a driver’s license and auto insurance, had rented—is waiting. It’s a small sedan, inconspicuous and easy to handle. It’s the kind of car that gets desirable gas mileage on the highway, with an engine designed for efficiency and reliability rather than sheer power.

Dick makes sure to fasten his seatbelt before he turns the ignition. He carefully checks his mirrors before he shifts the transmission into reverse. When he backs out of the parking spot, he does it smooth and slow and under control. He’s got six hundred miles to drive, first south into Missouri and then west for a while, so there’s no real point in being in a hurry. The drive is going to take the rest of the day and part of the evening, and he’ll have to stop at least once for gas.

Once he’s out on the empty country roads, though, if he guns it up to what might be considered a reckless speed on some of the lonely straightaways—well. There’s no one here to judge him for it, and it’s hardly the stupidest thing Dick has ever done. It’s certainly not the most dangerous.

A few hours in, when dark and chilly rain clouds begin to bubble up on the horizon ahead of him, he finds himself starting to grin as he opens up the throttle.

~~~

Dick makes it all the way to Smallville, Kansas in one piece, despite the rain that had started to freeze on the roadway after the first hour. The Kent family farm isn’t the easiest place to find in the dark, but he manages with only one small bit of backtracking needed. The moment his headlights pour over the main house and in through the parted curtains, the front door opens to reveal Martha “Call me Ma, dear; everyone else does” Kent, waving him inside and offering him ten different kinds of food despite Dick’s continued insistence that he’s already eaten.

“Just let her get you something,” Connor says from the stairs as he comes down, only to immediately grab Dick’s small duffel bag and turn around to take it back up to the guest bedroom. “Easier that way,” he adds over his shoulder as he goes up the stairs again. “Trust me.”

Dick considers Alfred’s disappointed face when he isn’t allowed to make a guest the proper cup of tea, and quickly acquiesces to homemade banana bread and a glass of milk. Once he’s at the small kitchen table, with his heavy coat draped over the back of the solid wooden chair, he asks, “How’s he settling in?”

Dick doesn’t bother trying to lower his voice. If Connor was paying attention, he would hear a whisper from half a mile into the cornfields, let alone upstairs.

“He’s all set to start school in January,” Martha says as she cuts a slice of the soft, sweet bread. “We got to meet most of his teachers last week.”

The plate that she pulls out of the nearby cabinet is obviously from an old set, with paint that’s long since faded from too many washes and a few chips scattered along the outside edge. It’s about as far from Bruce’s expensive, pristine china as it’s possible to be, but Dick handles it with the utmost care when she places it in front of him, just the same.

“He’s excited, I think,” Martha continues as she turns around to fetch him a fork (with one tong bent slightly and a small dent in the handle) and then a glass. “Nervous, too, of course. But that’s normal.”

Dick takes a bite, detours the conversation long enough to make the appropriate compliments, and then asks, “Did you have any trouble with the paperwork?”

Martha smiles and pats him on the shoulder as she drops his milk in front of him and then goes to one of the kitchen drawers by the entryway. “You forget, this isn’t the first time we’ve done this,” she teases as she rummages for something. “Although it was a bit easier back then, before everything went digital.”

When she comes back to the table, she hands Dick a small folder before going to sit down in the chair across from him.

Dick sets his plate to the side and flips open the folder. Inside are a set of identification documents and legal paperwork: a birth certificate, social security card, foster system records, and a petition for adoption that’s still pending final court approval, among other odds and ends. The thing that immediately jumps out at Dick, upon first glance, is that Clark’s name doesn’t seem to be present on any of them. Martha is the one listed everywhere, simply as “guardian” without any other details.

Dick glances up, and sees Martha giving him a knowing look. “We settled on cousins,” she explains. “Clark talked to Lois about it, and—well, maybe someday. But they’re not ready, right now.”

Dick feels a bitter rush of unfiltered rage, which thankfully fades almost immediately. He reminds himself that none of this is Clark’s fault. After all, not everyone has the personality, means, or desire—or the faithful butler babysitter—to take in a child with almost no notice.

“Well,” Dick says, “I guess you’re the obvious choice for raising a Kryptonian teenager.”

“Half-Kryptonian teenager,” Connor corrects as he bounds back down the stairs. He looks different in flannel and denim, more at home here. The last time Dick saw him, several weeks ago, he’d still been wearing exclusively gym shorts and thin t-shirts, struggling to adjust to the feel of clothing against his skin. He’s even wearing sneakers tonight, which is the first time Dick has ever seen him in shoes of any kind. “We haven’t figured out all the differences, yet, but my development is definitely altered compared to Clark’s. We’re experimenting.”

Dick raises his eyebrows. “That’s certainly safer on a Kansas farm than it would be in a Metropolis apartment,” he admits.

Connor smiles, wide and bright, as he claims a third chair at the table. (He had picked up a few of Dick’s expressions, here and there, but Dick still finds it a little startling to see this one reflected back at him, even if it’s not exactly Robin’s infamous grin. Less mischief, maybe, but the same reckless confidence fueling it.) “One of the old tractors can’t be fixed anymore,” he explains, “so I get to tear it apart.” He doesn’t even try not to sound excited about it. “We’ll sell the scrap next week to the junkyard.”

Dick glances at Martha, who’s clearly hiding her smile behind her coffee mug.

“Is Ma showing you all my paperwork?” Connor asks, nodding to the folder. “We got me registered for school last week.”

“Yeah, that’s what Ma was just telling me,” Dick says. He looks back down at the documents, making a bit of a show of flipping through them again. “They’re in good shape,” he reassures Connor kindly. “I mean, if there’s anybody who knows how to legitimize a child who appeared out of nowhere, it’s—” He pauses.

Connor immediately goes still. “What?” he asks. “What’s wrong? Did we miss something?”

Dick blinks. He checks a second time, to be sure his eyes aren’t mixing things up. Then he cross-checks the birth certificate with the adoption paperwork and the school registration form. They all match—and they all read Conner Kent, with an “e.”

“I just—It’s your name,” Dick says haltingly, confused. “Your first name. It’s spelled differently than I was expecting.”

Connor—no, Conner—turns immediately to Martha with wide eyes. “Can we fix it?” he asks.

“No, don’t change it,” Dick says quickly. “This is fine. I like it better, actually.”

“Why?” Conner asks.

Dick does his best not to flush. “Well, the way I was spelling it is kind of a reference, or an inside joke,” he says. “See, I was trying to rescue you from a Terminator, at the time, and—well, that was all I could think of.”

Martha laughs, putting her mug down this time so that they can see her smile. “As in Sarah Connor?” she asks. When Dick nods, she shakes her head fondly. “Pa took me to see that movie in the theater, back in ’84.” She turns immediately to Conner, like she knows what he’s about to ask. “We have it on tape around here somewhere. We’ll dig it out one day.”

Conner still looks distraught. “I don’t want my name to be wrong,” he insists.

“It’s not wrong,” Dick says. “I gave you a nickname, and then Ma turned it into something real, instead. Something that belongs only to you.”

Conner thinks about this for a moment. “It’s said the exact same way?” he asks. “Both spellings?”

“Yes,” Martha says.

Now Conner frowns. “But that’s confusing,” he complains. “Why does it sound the same if it’s spelled with different letters?”

Dick laughs as he flips the folder closed and swaps it with his plate of half-eaten banana bread. “Tell me about it,” he says, giving Conner a fond look as he stabs a new bite. “Welcome to hating the English language, because it’s the worst.”

~~~

One of the perks of being half-Kryptonian is apparently not needing to sleep as much as a normal human teenager—and one of the “perks” of a vigilante lifestyle is a permanent night-owl sleep schedule, even when skipping a patrol—so midnight finds Dick and Conner awake and sitting in the loft of the farm’s old barn. Dick is huddled up in a sleeping bag draped with two thick, handmade blankets, plus there’s a battery-operated space heater placed next to him. Conner is sprawled carelessly on the chilly wooden slats, seemingly heedless of the winter’s bite in just his flannel and a light windbreaker.

“The stars are really something, out this far,” Dick says, after they’ve been sitting in silence for a while.

Conner points up through the barn’s opened bay windows. “Clark showed me where Krypton’s is,” he says. “I couldn’t tell exactly which one he was pointing at, but it’s—that way, somewhere. I think.” He hesitates for a moment. “Do you know? Which one it is, exactly?”

Dick shakes his head. “Sorry, I don’t,” he says.

“Okay,” Conner says as he lets his hand drop.

They fall back into silence, again. It’s not awkward, but Dick had been hoping Conner might pick up the conversational baton and run with it. He’s not nearly as imprinted onto Dick as he used to be—he’d transferred some of that immediately to Clark, and then to Martha in turn, and some of it had naturally faded as he started to develop his own personality—but Conner still very much follows Dick’s lead, whenever he can. He has a tendency to expect Dick to have all the answers, and he’s hesitant to offer his own thoughts or opinions unless prompted directly.

It still makes Dick a little bit uncomfortable, given that he’s not sure he should be an influence on anybody, let alone someone as potentially powerful as Conner’s going to grow up to be. It’s one of the reasons Dick had started to pull back a little, and talk to Conner less and less as the weeks went by. It’s been nearly two months since Dick has seen him, this time, and he thinks maybe it will be next summer before he drops back by. Dick is a little over one semester away from graduating, after all, close to being legally considered an adult. He should probably try to focus on his last six months of high school, while he still can.

“How are things with Clark?” Dick prompts eventually, hoping this gets him more than a few short phrases or a question in response. “Do you see him, much?”

“Yeah, he flies over every couple of days to check on us,” Conner says. “Or, on me, I guess.”

There’s another long silence, but this one does feel awkward in a way the last few haven’t. Dick can’t put his finger on why, exactly, but it has something to do with Conner’s body language. He seems closed off, suddenly, in a way he hasn’t been the rest of the night.

Dick’s not sure if he should push. He has his own opinions on Clark’s reluctance to step up and be Conner’s father, regardless of how fair that may or may not be, and he doesn’t want to accidentally poison that relationship with his own baggage. On the other hand, Dick is the one who introduced them that way, so part of the responsibility for how they get along—or don’t—lies with him. There are a lot of ways he could subtly try to nudge them in what he sees as the right direction, but he’s trying hard these days not to treat other people like chess pieces.

“Is that good, or bad?” Dick wonders. “When he flies over to check on you.”

Conner shrugs, but he won’t meet Dick’s eyes. “I don’t know,” he says. “I mean, it’s fine, or whatever.”

Despite his worry, Dick catches himself smiling. Conner sure picked up on how to act like a typical sullen teenager pretty quickly. It’s probably a good sign, even if it was easier to talk to him when he was all wide-eyed excitement and naive innocence, hanging onto every word that came out of Dick’s mouth.

Ducklings are supposed to grow up, though, even if they’re never quite as cute as they used to be.

“It sounds like maybe it’s not fine,” Dick points out. He wraps his blankets tighter around his shoulders and hunches down closer to the space heater. “You don’t have to talk about it, if you don’t want to,” he’s quick to add. “But if there’s something you feel like you can’t say to Ma, since she’s—”

“He’s afraid,” Conner blurts out. “He tries to hide it, but I can tell.”

Dick pauses. “Clark’s afraid?” he clarifies. When Conner gives him a jerky nod, Dick frowns. “Of what?”

Conner gives him an exasperated look this time, but there’s something deeply vulnerable underneath it. “Of me,” he explains. “He was here constantly for the first few weeks, but it was only because he didn’t trust me alone with Ma.” He starts to pick absently at a knot in the woodgrain of the planks by his knee, but gently enough that he doesn’t dent the wood with his super-strength. “Every time he comes back, he’s tense. He’s afraid I’m going to hurt her.”

Dick flashes back to the lab’s records, the ones he’d skimmed through that had led him to the secret basement and the holding tank. There had been at least one fatality, among the project team, and Dick has always assumed it was a mishap with Conner’s control over his powers. Maybe he got startled, or just wasn’t paying attention and made a careless motion. Or maybe Conner lost his temper and deliberately lashed out. Either way, Dick doesn’t blame him for it. He’d been hoping that Conner didn’t understand what had happened, or simply that he didn’t remember, but now Dick wonders if that was just wishful thinking.

Dick deleted all those records, though. Clark can’t know about that, unless Conner told him.

Dick makes sure his voice stays deliberately calm, on the verge of boredom. “Are you?” he asks. “Going to hurt her, or someone else?”

Conner keeps his eyes on the wooden planks. “I don’t know,” he says quietly. “I don’t want to, but—” He breaks off and scratches furiously at the knot next to him. Small wood shavings begin to collect around his fingernail.

Dick waits a moment. When it becomes clear that Conner can’t get the words out without a little help, he prompts, “But what?”

“What if I can’t help it?” Conner asks, very quietly.

Dick blinks, a bit taken aback. He’s not privy to Conner’s therapy notes, of course, but from all accounts he’s been adjusting well to the idea that he’s a person, rather than a weapon. Given that, it seems strange that he would still be displaying some hangups about autonomy and self-determination.

“You mean, like an accident?” Dick asks, because that’s all he can think of.

“No,” Conner says. He abandons his little pile of wood shavings to cross his arms over his chest, instead. “Half of me is Clark, right?” he asks. “Or, Superman, rather. And that’s awesome, but—but that’s just half of me.”

Dick has a sinking feeling that he knows where this is headed, now.

“The rest of me,” Conner says, and then he pauses like he has to gather his courage. “The rest of me is Lex Luthor, and he’s a villain. What if that part of me, the bad part, is stronger?”

Dick closes his eyes for a moment, focusing very carefully on his breathing. “Hurting someone is a choice you make,” he says firmly. Those words sting, like always, but he’s learning to own them. (For the most part, the therapy mandated by his amnesty agreement is going—well, a little better than his first attempt, anyway. Not that that’s a very high bar to clear.) “Sometimes it’s the easiest choice, or all the other choices have worse consequences, but it’s always still a choice. You never have to do it, if you don’t want to.”

Conner glances over at him, eyes narrowed skeptically. “But, there’s this part of me that’s—”

“No,” Dick says immediately, voice stern. “No buts.” He has to pause to breathe again, because he’s not doing a great job of staying calm. “You aren’t Superman, and you aren’t Lex Luthor, either. You are you.” He grips the edges of one blanket tighter, forcing his hands to remain steady. “You get to decide who that is. Don’t you ever let anybody tell you otherwise.”

Conner swallows, looking nervous, now. “Okay,” he says in a low voice, almost inaudible. “What time is your flight, tomorrow?”

It’s a defensive tactic that Dick immediately recognizes, from his own frequent use: first appease, and then attempt to either disengage or redirect. It’s the most reliable way to get out of a bad situation safely, even if it requires agreeing with something absurd or unpleasant in the process. The fact that Conner is instinctively using it at all, let alone with him, makes Dick’s stomach wrench unpleasantly.

Great job, Grayson, Dick thinks sarcastically. Way to trigger the traumatized teenager.

(He feels so old, some days, for seventeen.)

“I’m sorry,” Dick says after a moment, but it still comes out clipped and cold. He takes another long, slow breath and tries again. “I’m sorry, Conner,” he repeats, softer and more genuine this time. “This is actually kind of a big issue for me, too.”

Conner looks confused for a moment, but then the light comes on behind his eyes. “Oh,” he says. “Half of you is from Batman, but the rest is Deathstroke.”

Dick laughs, because that’s all he can do. “At least you get the benefit of your good half being the one hero everybody unconditionally trusts,” he says, a little bitterly. “There are people who think Batman is halfway to being a villain himself, on a bad day.”

Slade had even alluded to it, there at the end. One of Dick’s greatest talents—and by far the easiest for him to abuse, if he ever loses his tenuous grip on what’s left of his moral compass—is his ability to manipulate people. He hadn’t learned that from Deathstroke. He hadn’t needed to. Dick had already been well-trained in that, long before Slade Wilson came along.

“Then what do we do about it?” Conner asks, in a small sort of voice. “How do we keep people from being afraid of us?”

Dick sighs. “We can’t,” he admits flatly. “There are some things we can’t change, no matter how much we might want to.” He shakes his head once. “Our genetics, our history, the people who have shaped us—those things are immutable, set it stone.”

Conner pulls his knees up to his chest and wraps his arms around them, suddenly looking much younger than the estimate of his physical age they’d gotten from the doctors. “So there’s nothing we can do?” he asks, glum.

“To change other people’s perceptions?” Dick clarifies. “No, not really. But that’s on them, not you.” He leans forward, ducking his head until he can make eye contact, drawing Conner’s gaze back up. “All those things we can’t change? They don’t have to define us, if we don’t let them.”

Conner frowns. “But, if the bad parts of us are always there, and—”

“No,” Dick says again, but more gently this time so that it doesn’t come across as a threat. “That’s the wrong way to think about it, okay?” He sighs, wanting to scrub his hands through his hair, but not wanting to show that much vulnerability. Conner needs him to be the voice of authority, about this. “Look, Conner, with maybe a very small number of exceptions, people aren’t just good or bad, like we’re all required to pick teams one day and then that’s that, forever.”

This time Conner gives him an unimpressed look. “Isn’t that literally how it works, though? People pick between being a hero or a villain?”

“Not even close,” Dick tells him immediately. “For one thing, most people will never be either one, and that’s okay, too. For another, the people we call heroes do some pretty questionable stuff, all the time.” Like refusing to raise their surprise children, Dick thinks. He doesn’t say it, though, because no good will come of dragging his issues with fatherhood into this. “And even villains aren’t completely bad.”

Dick thinks again of Slade’s entire security department, and how they’d all just been people, despite their past mistakes or crimes. Some of them had done unforgivable things, just as bad as anything listed in Slade’s official file, but they’d also cared about Dick. They’d thrown him a party to welcome him home, after he got hurt. They’d tried to help him, when the truth of his situation became clear. They might have been bad people, but that hadn’t kept them from also being good teammates—even friends. That didn’t prevent them from doing the right thing, when it counted.

“They’re not?” Conner asks, obviously still skeptical.

“Some of them have their reasons for what they do,” Dick says, a little uncomfortable. “A lot of them are sympathetic, even if that can’t ever justify their actions.” He shrugs once. “And even the worst of them still have people they care about, or at least one person that they—” He breaks off before he says the last word. He’s not sure he wants to open that particular can of worms, right now. “Everyone cares about something,” he ends up saying, and leaves it at that. “Even Lex Luthor, okay?”

Conner goes still. “Does he care about me?” he asks quietly.

“I don’t know,” Dick tells him, truthfully. He wants to say No, because Luthor locked him underground and treated him more like a weapon than a person, but Dick understands—more than he wants to—that those things aren’t actually as mutually exclusive as they ought to be. “Maybe one day you can face him, and find out.”

Conner shakes his head. “I’m not sure I want to,” he says.

“That’s fine, too,” Dick replies immediately, voice gentle and reassuring. “You don’t owe him anything.” He shifts his weight on the hard wooden planks, beginning to feel the chill creep up through his thighs and hips despite the squishy layer of the sleeping bag he’s sitting on. “Just remember that it’s rarely as simple as black and white, or good and evil,” he tells Conner. “Most of us just have to live somewhere in the messy middle, doing the best we can, one choice at a time.”

Conner thinks about this for a moment, clearly taking it seriously. “That sounds hard,” he concludes.

Dick laughs again. “You have no idea,” he says.

“What happens if we mess up?” Conner asks. “Make the bad choice?”

“We fix it, if we can,” Dick says immediately. “We find a way to make up for it somehow, if we can’t. Either way, we learn from it, so that we do better next time.” He shrugs again, a little helplessly. “But we can’t ever take back a bad choice we’ve already made,” he says. “We just have to find a way to live with it, forever.”

Conner scrunches his face up in disgust, clearly disliking that idea.

“But, think about it this way,” Dick adds, a bit quieter, talking to himself as much as he’s talking to Conner. “That also means that no bad choice we make can ever erase all the good we’ve done, either.” He smiles, tilting his head a little to the side like he’s making fun of himself. “I try really hard to remember that, some days.”

Conner sighs. “I wish things made more sense,” he says. “I didn’t know having a real life was going to be so confusing.”

“You can figure it out for yourself, you know,” Dick says gently. “That’s part of being human, I think.” He cocks his head, considering that idea for a moment. “That might be what makes us human, actually.”

“I’m not, though,” Conner reminds him. “Only half.”

“Still counts,” Dick insists. His rear end is starting to go numb, partially from the chill and partially from the pressure of his weight on the loft’s unforgiving flooring, which means he’s definitely been out here for too long. “I should try to get some sleep,” he says, almost apologetically. “I do have to hit the road early, to make my flight.”

Conner nods at him. “Okay,” he says again.

Dick waits another moment before he moves, to remind himself that Conner’s reflexive agreement isn’t the same thing as being given permission. Dick doesn’t need permission to leave. He’s supposed to deliberately tell himself that every time, even if it’s starting to feel a little bit weird to stop and do it whenever he sits down or walks out of a room. The fact that it feels silly, now, instead of difficult to remember, is probably the whole point of doing it so often.

“I’ll see you at breakfast,” Dick says as he rocks up to his feet, dragging the sleeping bag and both blankets with him in a puffy cocoon. “Night, Conner.”

Conner gives him a little wave goodbye, still looking thoughtful. Then he hesitates for a moment, before saying, “Wait, Dick?”

Dick pauses halfway to the ladder. “Yeah?” he asks, preoccupied with figuring out how he can climb down to the main level without having to unwrap any of the warm blankets.

“I was thinking,” Conner says. He sounds a little nervous, but there’s an eagerness in his bearing, too. “About the other thing you said, last time, and then Clark told me this story a few days ago.” He scratches idly at the side of his nose, like he’s trying to play it off as unimportant. “It was, I don’t know, an old Kryptonian myth or something. There’s a creature who lived in the shadows, and it was trapped and then it died, and—” He breaks off, shaking his head. “Anyway, it kept being reborn, over and over, and I guess it just made me think of you, a little.”

Dick shrugs under his blankets. To be honest, he’s been putting this part off, and he’s rapidly running out of time to pick something. Telling Conner about his half-baked plans had been done on a whim, but he’s not above taking some advice, if it’s worthwhile.

It’s not a story Dick has heard before, but it’s a neat idea. It seems like a kind of reverse phoenix, reborn out of shadow instead of in flames. (Dick has always had a soft spot for birds.)

“Sounds interesting,” Dick admits, intrigued. “What was it called?”

~~~

Dick debuts his new identity on a carefully selected Friday night in mid-December, in that lazy stretch of days once school is out for the semester break but before the various holiday festivities really get going. Maybe he should have waited until the season was over, once he’d waded through the chaos and stress of charity galas and concerts and parties, but honestly this is probably better. It feels more deliberate, less like a coincidence.

“Are you sure you’re ready?” Bruce asks him, for the fifth or sixth time.

“Promise me that you’ll be careful, Master Dick,” Alfred begs, quiet and serious.

“Can we please just go already?” Jason demands, scowling underneath his green domino mask. “The sun’s been down for ages!”

“I’m sure,” Dick says, and, “I will,” and, “Calm down, Robin; I’m coming,” because Jason is about ready to jump out of his skin with impatience. He’s only recently been cleared for patrol again, after being benched for eight weeks with a broken arm, and the fresh excitement hasn’t worn off, yet. Dick remembers all too well what that felt like, at thirteen, when all the adults around him weren’t moving fast enough to keep up with his quicksilver attention span.

“Actually,” Dick amends, “why don’t you two go ahead? I want to take my bike out, anyway.”

Jason immediately gives a whoop of excitement and runs for where the Batmobile is parked and waiting, but Bruce hesitates.

Dick smiles at him. “I’m okay, B,” he insists, not for the first time. “It’s just a trial run. I’ll radio Batgirl for backup if I find anything interesting.”

Bruce waits another moment, clearly weighing his words. “Check in every twenty minutes,” he finally says. His voice is stern and gruff, but Dick can hear the concern underneath, and it makes something warm and steady flare to life in his chest.

Dick gives him a lazy salute, in response. “Go, before Jay steals the car,” he teases. “I’m right behind you.”

Bruce nods at him, waits another moment like he still wants to say something, but then just nods a second time and whirls around to head for the garage. His cape swishes dramatically in a wide arc behind him, and Dick just barely manages not to giggle. The older he gets, the more ridiculous Bruce’s theatrical streak seems, although the circus performer in him will always appreciate the artistry behind it, of course.

Alfred coughs politely, just once, to draw Dick’s attention before he steps up to stand at his side. “You will radio Miss Gordon for assistance, should you need it?” he asks. “The new suit hasn’t properly been field tested, yet, and I’m not certain how the wiring will hold up, on—”

“Alfred,” Dick says quietly. He reaches out to lay one gloved hand on the old butler’s elbow. “The suit’s perfect. I’ll be fine.”

Alfred just raises an eyebrow at him.

Dick sighs. “And I promise to call Babs before I jump into any fights,” he concedes.

Alfred nods at him, exactly like Bruce had done. (That’s probably where Bruce had picked it up from, come to think of it.) “Very good, then,” Alfred says, and pads silently over toward the computer to take his designated place monitoring the radio.

Over at the main exit ramp, the Batmobile roars up to full speed as it launches itself out of the Cave. Without any further delay, Dick goes over to his patrol bike—recently repainted, to match his new look—and turns the ignition. As the engine rumbles to life, he checks his domino mask one more time, activating his lenses. Then he swings his leg over the seat, kicks the bike into gear, and heads out into the cold night.

Gotham in December can be a miserable experience, even when it isn’t currently snowing. The wind coming in off the bay is usually wet and heavy, emphasizing the chill in the air, and the persistent dirty sludge of last week’s snow and ice on the sides of roads and the edges of roofs has a way of seeping through even the most cleverly sealed combat boots. Still, Dick tends to prefer that over summer’s oppressive heat and humidity, which always seems to make the sewage and dumpster smells even riper than usual. At least in the wintertime, the cold slows down the rot of all the garbage stacked high in every back alley.

(Gotham is such a shit-hole. Dick is seriously considering picking a different city to settle in, after graduation. Something close by, of course—so that he can provide backup quickly, if needed—but also just far enough away to let him be an independent adult, in a way that Bruce is too overbearing to ever really allow, if Dick lives at the Manor for the rest of his life.)

Dick parks his bike in one of his old standby hiding spots, activating the automated defenses that will ensure no one can tamper with it until he comes back to reclaim it. (They’d added a few additional security measures, after Jason’s tire-snatching shenanigans.) Dick free-runs up the closest apartment building, avoiding his grapple for now in order to warm up his muscles from the exertion. Once he’s up at the roof line, he starts a lazy circuit around the neighborhood, absently listening for shouts or screams or sirens nearby. He’s careful to go in the opposite direction of Bruce and Jason’s planned patrol route, although he does maintain the twenty-minute check-in schedule. He keeps his movements easy and fluid, not bothering to dart from shadow to shadow.

He’s not trying to hide, after all.

About an hour in, Gordon lights up the Bat-signal against the persistent low cloud-cover. Dick’s first instinct is to sprint back for his bike, already mapping out the quickest route to the precinct, but he manages to shake it off. That’s not his responsibility, anymore. Bruce and Jason will already be on it. He even calls to confirm that they’re on their way—and much closer than he is, too—before switching channels to see if Barbara plans to join them. She’s all the way over in the Bowery, chasing a lead on some counterfeit gold coins (normal ones, so it’s probably not Two-Face acting up again, at least). She tells him that she’s content with her current cases unless it’s a serious emergency.

“Are you going to respond?” she asks from his earpiece, sounding a little worried. “I thought the plan was for you to take it slow, tonight.”

“I’m fine, Batgirl,” Dick says into his microphone, smiling absently.

He’s glad that everyone cares enough to fret over him—really, he is—but it’s getting a little ridiculous. Dick has survived much worse, and he has all the scars to prove it.

(That’s what scars are for, in the end. They’re a constant reminder of just how much someone can live through and manage to come out the other side—changed, perhaps, but still moving forward.)

“No unnecessary heroics for me, today,” Dick promises. “Just a nice, easy test drive.”

“Okay,” she says. “Keep me posted, though, if you change your mind.”

“You just worry about your small-time counterfeiters,” Dick says, and then he laughs at Barbara’s resulting good-natured name-calling.

He pauses, then. He cocks his head a little to the side as he listens. After a moment, he smiles. He lets his body fall into a loose, casual stance, ready to move quickly while still looking relaxed and unconcerned. He reaches up with one finger and turns off his radio entirely, disabling both incoming and outgoing signals.

“I was starting to think you weren’t going to show,” Dick calls out loudly.

There’s a beat of silent anticipation, and then one of the nearby shadows starts to shift and elongate. Eventually, it resolves into recognizable blue and orange armor, as Deathstroke the Terminator steps out into the open.

The building where Dick had paused to make his radio calls happens to be a standard low-rise office block, brutalist in its design. Accordingly, the roof is large and flat and featureless, without much cover or any environmental obstacles. It’s relatively neutral ground, all things considered: wide enough to afford Dick some room to maneuver, but empty enough to give Slade plenty of uninterrupted sightlines. Dick’s familiarity with Gotham’s geography gives him the home-field advantage, which might offset some of the other places Slade has a natural edge, leaving them on more equal footing, here and now, than perhaps they’ve ever been.

Slade walks forward until he’s close enough to talk without shouting, but he stays far enough away to be out of easy reach. He’s fully armed and armored, of course—including his two-tone helmet—but his sword remains sheathed over his shoulder and his gloved hands are currently empty at his sides. His stride is firm and deliberate, but it somehow manages to avoid the typical predatory stalk that almost always accompanies the iconic armor.

Dick’s fingers immediately twitch, but he doesn’t reach for his weapons. He still feels the expected rush of adrenaline and the old, instinctive terror swell up within him, but he breathes carefully through both. When he releases his breath, the tidal wave of fear goes with it, seeping back out into the cold night. The reflex to kneel hits him hard and fast, but passes just as quickly, leaving him calm and balanced and steady on his feet.

Slade is watching him closely. “I wasn’t sure if I should come,” he says eventually, once it’s clear Dick isn’t going to have a noticeable reaction to his sudden presence.

“Really?” Dick asks, cocking his head further to the side in disbelief. “Even after I literally sent you an invitation?”

It had been hand-delivered, of course—he hadn’t wanted Bruce to be able to track it, somehow—left unobtrusively on the stoop of the civilian-style apartment they’d once stayed in for just a couple of days, two and a half years ago. Dick had made the long trip down the east coast on a weekend, using one of his memorial visits as a cover, just as soon as he confirmed that the name on the rent paperwork was still one of Slade’s old aliases. He didn’t think Slade ever stayed there, anymore, but he was too meticulous and organized not to get an alert of some kind if unusual mail showed up out of the blue.

The letter had been short and to the point, and even weeks later Dick still remembers it verbatim. He’d agonized over the three paragraphs for days until he was finally satisfied with the somewhat coded message.

              You said once that all you wanted was to see what I’d become.

              If you meant that, my first mission is soon. That’s your chance to come and find out.

              You will not get a second one.

Dick hadn’t signed it. He’d known he wouldn’t need to.

(Bruce had been a little suspicious anyway, when Dick had suddenly become insistent on the exact date of his first patrol with the new suit. If Bruce has managed to put the pieces together, though, recognizing the third anniversary of Dick’s first Apprentice kill, he’s at least had the courtesy not to openly question it.)

“The invitation is what worried me,” Slade admits, voice on the verge of wry.

Dick blinks, startled. “You thought it was a trap,” he realizes.

Slade just stares at him for a moment. “The thought had occurred to me,” he says eventually, even dryer than before.

Dick feels his mouth try to twitch up into a smile, which he quickly fights to suppress. “Deathstroke the Terminator, afraid of the Bat?” he teases. Then he pauses, considering. “Is that for you?” he asks, flicking a thumb toward the signal shining in the distance.

Slade shrugs, finally taking another step closer. He’s still out of reach, but one quick lunge could remedy that, now. “Call it a precaution,” he says slowly.

Dick feels a flicker of unease crawl down his spine. “Should I be concerned?” he asks.

“False alarm,” Slade reassures him. “Just something to keep him out of my way, for a while.”

Dick knows he should insist on more details—Deathstroke wouldn’t blink once, let alone twice, at putting Batman and Robin in real danger, if he thought it might be beneficial—but for the first time in five months Dick is face to face with Slade again, and he can’t figure out how to tear his focus away to worry about anyone else, right now. Bruce and Jason can take care of themselves.

“It’s not a trap,” Dick admits quietly.

Slade shakes his head. “You can’t blame me for wondering,” he says.

Dick feels his mouth go strangely dry. “You really thought that I might be setting you up,” he says. There’s something fluttering wildly, deep inside his chest, but he tries not to let it distract him. “But you came anyway.”

Slade tilts his helmet down, like he’s conceding the point.

That makes it easier than it probably should be for Dick to repeat, “There’s no trap, Slade.” He swallows once, noticing in a distant sort of way that his heartbeat has ratcheted up. “I’m alone.”

Slade huffs once, and it could signal bemusement or disbelief or even dismissal. Dick doesn’t have enough context to tell, not the way he once could have. After five months of separation, with Slade in full armor, Dick can’t read him clearly. It’s both chilling and endlessly frustrating.

Dick gathers his courage and takes a step forward of his own, putting himself well inside Slade’s reach. “Take that thing off,” he says, almost harsh, gesturing to Slade’s two-tone helmet. “You don’t need it, with me.” When he tilts his head back, just slightly, it’s not because he’s baring his throat; it’s so that he can look Slade in the eye. Dick is careful to stick his chin out in the same motion, defiant, which keeps his overall posture aggressive rather than inviting. “I want to see your face.”

Slade waits for a long moment, like he’s weighing something, or trying to figure something out. Eventually, with slow motions, he reaches up to unclasp the helmet and draw it away from his head. As he clips it to the waiting hook on his belt, he runs his other hand through his mussed hair, gloved fingers shaking out the strands. Dick gets the impression that he’s trying to undo or at least mitigate the damage caused by sweat and compression.

The last time Dick had seen him, his face had been half-covered in blood. This should be an improvement, but somehow it’s not. (The blood had suited him.)

“That sounds almost promising,” Slade says with a small, sideways smile. “Did you miss me, kid?”

Dick immediately moves, fluid and lightning-strike quick. Slade is caught off guard, enough so that even his enhanced reflexes are too slow to react as Dick draws one of his new weapons from the crossed holsters that make a large X between his shoulder blades. Before Slade has time to do more than blink in surprise, the tip of one heavy escrima stick—custom built, eighteen inches in length without accounting for the six-inch grip, made from a one-inch diameter titanium rod wrapped in a thick layer of hardened rubber, with an armored thermoplastic cap on either end and internal circuitry throughout—is pressed firmly underneath Slade’s chin.

With a flick of his thumb, Dick activates the warning shock, sending a bright arc of electric blue sparks dancing along the outside surface an inch down from the tip. The sharp smell of ionized air particles fills the roof, like a miniature lightning storm brewing in the space between them. With one tiny motion of his finger, Dick could complete the rest of the circuit, turning his stick into something like a stun gun. Nonlethal, of course, but extremely unpleasant—especially against a tender spot like the hollow of a throat.

“What was the last thing I said to you?” Dick asks, slow and cold. “Right before I walked away?”

Gingerly, Slade raises his hands in a surrendering gesture. “Old habit,” he says, almost apologetically. His smile widens as he glances down to the electricity sparking just under his chin. “I see my shock bracelets left an impression on you.”

“Maybe,” Dick says, pushing forward slightly, leaning up and bending his elbow. He lifts the tip of his escrima stick, tilting Slade’s chin up to what must be an uncomfortable angle. “Maybe you shouldn’t be surprised when—”

Dick falls instantly silent, forgetting everything he was about to say as his eyes lock onto Slade’s throat, a little to the side of where Dick’s stick is pressed to his skin. At the base, where the carotid artery rests just above the collar of his Deathstroke armor, there’s a jagged ridge of paler scar tissue.

Instinctively, without pausing to second-guess himself, Dick steps in even closer, until there’s very little space remaining between them. He lifts his free hand and presses one gloved finger to Slade’s raised scar. After a moment he carefully traces along its length, from outside to center.

Slade stands still and lets him do it.

“I marked you,” Dick says, and it comes out in a reverent whisper. His hand is visibly shaking as he pulls it back, bringing the same finger up to his own throat to touch the small crescent of scar tissue resting there, in almost exactly the same spot.

Slade grins at him, deliberately dropping his chin and forcing Dick’s escrima stick down slightly. “Do you like it?” he asks, in a low rumble.

A jolt goes through Dick, something hot and dark and quivering. He wants to press his finger into the scar again, harder this time, until it leaves a bruise. He wants to wrap his hand around Slade’s throat and squeeze. He wants to lean up and sink his teeth into the mark, hard enough to draw blood again. Mine, he thinks, vicious and vengeful, so strongly that it startles him. He finds himself picturing every well-known inch of Slade’s skin, dotted with preexisting scars from his days in the military but smooth and blank ever since, thanks to the accelerated healing that melts away most injuries before they get a chance to linger. Dick wonders exactly how badly he’d have to hurt Slade, to leave other marks in those unmarred places, deep and blatant and undeniably his. He wonders if Slade would let him.

(Of course he would, as long as Dick earned it, first.)

That thought sends Dick’s stomach swooping, fierce and dizzying. He doesn’t have a specific desire in mind; he just wants, until he shakes with it. He has to clench his hands tight, and for one tenuous moment, he considers it. It wouldn’t take much. All he would need to do is drop his weapon, reach for Slade, and pull him down. Dick knows Slade would allow it—he’d take any inch Dick gave him, eager and delighted, and then the next ten miles besides—and before Dick knew it, he would find himself sinking under the dark water until the riptide pulled him out to sea, leaving him drowning under all the things he desperately craves but knows he shouldn’t.

Dick’s not sure he would ever get free, given the strength of that current. He’s not sure he would want to.

Then, for just a second, there’s a burning sensation on Dick’s upper back between his shoulder blades, where his new tattoo rests. Despite being in place for a few months, it still catches Dick’s eye in the mirror every time he gets out of the shower. It had taken a long consultation with an extremely discreet artist, but they’d eventually figured out a way to disguise Slade’s coarse knife-work. They’d drawn over it with a brightly-colored banner, winding around an empty trapeze bar. It read The Flying Graysons, and it turned the messy, angular lines of Slade’s symbol into something sweeping and elegant and graceful.

Slade’s original mark is still there, underneath, but only someone who already knew what to look for would be able to pick it out. Dick had found a way to bury Slade’s claim on him under an older, stronger one, because Dick had told Conner the truth in that barn loft, weeks ago. He gets to choose what matters the most, from his past.

Dick can’t change any of the things that have already happened to him, good or bad. None of it can ever be erased or ignored or denied. No matter what he does, Slade’s influence on him will never entirely disappear—and it might be all that some people are ever able to see in him, regardless—but it doesn’t have to define him, if Dick doesn’t let it.

Dick takes a slow, deep breath. Deliberately, he lowers his escrima stick, deactivating the warning shock, and takes one full step backward.

Slade frowns, just slightly, like he’s momentarily thrown.

Dick waits until his shaking has stabilized, before slipping his stick over his shoulder and into one of the crossed holsters on his back. “No, I don’t like it,” he answers eventually. His voice comes out strong and even, with no trace of doubt.

Slade’s single eye narrows. Then he raises the eyebrow over his patch, as if to say, Oh really?

Dick has an instinct to flush, like always when Slade calls him on his bullshit, but he pushes it down. “I’m choosing not to,” he corrects. He shakes his head. “I don’t want to like hurting people,” he adds, a bit quieter. “Not even you, Slade.”

There’s a brief flicker of disappointment on Slade’s face, that familiar look that means Dick has let him down, somehow. (Dick immediately tenses, nerves suddenly jangling in alarm, bracing himself to dodge the blow that usually follows a look like that.) Then, slowly, the negative emotion eases, leaving Slade looking more resigned than anything else.

“That’s a shame,” Slade tells him.

Dick is startled into a quick laugh, breaking through his reflexive tension. Of course Slade would prefer if Dick enjoyed hurting him. Dick had first drawn Slade’s interest by fighting back, even though he was hopelessly outmatched. Slade had thoroughly trained Dick to obey without question, but he’d always seemed intrigued when Dick challenged him, anyway. He’d always taken a particular kind of pleasure in Dick’s fear, especially if he’d been the source of it, but he’d always liked it best when Dick acted fearless anyway, refusing to let his terror stop him. Slade had pushed Dick to his limits, sometimes past them, always encouraging him—sometimes explicitly, sometimes by implication—to get back on his feet, stronger than before. He’d been shockingly pleased when Dick had beaten and nearly killed him, even though he’d been lethally furious just seconds before.

(Dick suddenly remembers that, according to the scattered records he’s been able to track down, Slade’s wife had been his training officer, first. That actually makes so much sense, when he thinks about it.)

“You’re a little bit insane,” Dick tells him, fighting the urge to swallow on a dry throat. “You know that, right?”

Slade shrugs again, but he’s smiling this time. “Occupational hazard, for a villain,” he says with a lazy, self-deprecating drawl. He takes one small step forward, negating all the space that Dick had just placed between them. “You should know. The best of us always are.”

Dick rolls his eyes to distract himself from the fact that Slade is right back in his face, again. “Which ‘us’ would that be?” he asks, and he hates that his voice comes out a little strained with the sheer effort it takes not to back away. “I guess you’re not included on the League’s monthly newsletter, but I’m officially rehabilitated. More or less.”

(As long as he continues to keep all his therapy appointments. As long as he reports every significant move he makes to “the proper authorities,” which usually just means Bruce or occasionally Clark. As long as no one else turns up dead on Dick’s watch—or in his general vicinity, ever, because he’s pretty sure he’s already used up all the benefit of the doubt he’s likely to get, in this lifetime.

All told, it’s not a bad deal, in exchange for sealing his juvenile arrest record and securing full amnesty for literally every single thing he’d ever done at Slade’s side.)

“You can tell all your little hero friends whatever story you want,” Slade says, like he thinks he’s being magnanimous. “But I know the truth.”

Dick licks his lips. “Yeah?” he asks, challenging. “And what’s that?”

Slade shakes his head, like Dick is being ridiculous. “Are you really going to pretend that it was all bad, kid?”

Dick glowers at him, because getting angry at Slade’s insistent use of that stupid nickname is easier than confronting the rest of that question. “Slade, I swear to God—”

Slade quickly lifts his hands again in that same surrender gesture. It feels a little less apologetic this time, when he says, “You know I don’t mean it as an insult.”

“That’s not the point,” Dick hisses. “It’s not—” He bites off the rest of his words, partially because there’s no way to win this argument, and partially because he knows Slade wouldn’t care even if he could explain it coherently. “Do you even know my name?” he asks, a bit helplessly.

Slade blinks, clearly confused. He starts to open his mouth.

“Not in the field,” Dick snaps quickly. Then he does flush, finally, because he’s been breaking that cardinal rule himself, ever since Slade showed up. “It was rhetorical,” he mutters, embarrassed.

Slade’s smile tilts, just a little crooked. “So was mine,” he says. He reaches out, slow and careful, until he can lightly run his fingers through Dick’s hair. “I already know that it wasn’t all an act.”

Dick closes his eyes, standing rigidly upright in an effort not to arch into Slade’s touch, like an affectionate cat. (He can almost hear the reprimand, echoing in the back of his skull: You need a haircut, kid. It renews his spiteful determination to grow his hair out as long as he can stand it, like if he ends up with an unruly mullet, that might somehow prove something to Slade.) “No,” Dick admits, voice strained to the point of breathlessness, now. “It wasn’t.”

Slade hums, clearly pleased. “We had some good moments, didn’t we?” he asks, lowering his voice. He leans closer, or maybe steps further in, pressing his fingers more firmly into Dick’s scalp as he does. “A part of you likes being mine.”

Dick is shaking. He opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. He keeps his eyes stubbornly closed, because it’s safer that way. Marginally.

Slade chuckles, this time. “You’re trying so hard not to give in,” he says indulgently, with a touch of smugness in his tone. “I can see the struggle written all over you.” He moves his hand down until his gloved palm rests, warm and steady and comforting, on the back of Dick’s neck. “But you don’t have to fight anymore.” His grip is gentle, but firm, as he reels Dick in. “I’ve got you, kid,” he says quietly. “Just let go.”

Dick sways on his feet, trembling from head to toe. The pull of Slade’s gravity is so strong that it feels like the roof is skewed downhill in front of him. The ground around him is fraught and unstable, like the thrumming tension is going to crack it apart under his feet and drop him headfirst into a dark abyss, one that’s so deep he’ll never claw his way back out to daylight again. He could fall forever, and that would be almost like flying, in a way. It’s terrifying and enticing all at once.

But at his core, more than anything else, Dick will always be a Flying Grayson, child of acrobats. He knows how to find and maintain his balance, even on the most precarious footing. He instinctively knows, deep down in his gut, when a jump isn’t safe to make. No matter how badly he wants it.

“Take your hand off me,” Dick says softly, eyes still closed.

Slade laughs again. “You don’t mean that,” he says, a bit dismissively. “You don’t have to lie about what you really want, not with me.” His hand squeezes in that familiar heel command, trying to make Dick submit using his old conditioning and muscle memory. “I’ll always take care of you, kid,” he says, almost a whisper. “All you have to do is let me.”

Dick just breathes. “No,” he finally says. “I mean it, Slade.” He opens his eyes and looks up, finding Slade almost, but not quite, close enough to kiss. “Take your fucking hand off me,” he orders flatly.

Slade’s face darkens. “Now you’re just being rude,” he warns.

Dick recognizes the lead up to a violent response, so without waiting for Slade to follow through, Dick wrenches himself out of Slade’s grip. He spins a full pace out of reach, and when he stops he’s in a clear combat stance, slightly crouched with his weight balanced. His hands hover, threateningly, near his shoulders and the grips of his escrima sticks. (He tries to hide the way his heart is jack-hammering out of control, wondering if Slade can hear it.)

Slade turns to keep Dick in his line of sight, but doesn’t immediately pursue him.

After a tense few moments, Dick guardedly stands up straight and lowers his arms. “Touch me again,” he says, slow and firm and determined, “and you’re going to end up in that League cell after all, trap or not.” He grins, sharp and challenging. “Am I clear?” he snaps out, in a fairly accurate recreation of Slade’s training-room voice.

Slade watches him for a moment, like he’s weighing something. When he speaks, he sounds strangely tired. “If it’s not to arrest me, and it’s not to come with me, then what?” He shakes his head. “Why am I even here, kid?”

Dick just sighs, this time. “It’s like talking to a goddamn brick wall,” he mutters, rolling his eyes. “I suppose you can’t teach an old mercenary new tricks, like basic human decency?”

Slade ignores his lousy attempt at a joke, per usual. “What’s my alternative?” he asks. He gestures, vaguely, in Dick’s general direction. “You might still be carrying twin weapons for your base combat style, but I assume you aren’t planning to use any name I gave you, going forward.”

“No,” Dick says immediately. “Of course not.”

Slade gives him an almost sidelong glance, then. “I can’t imagine you want me to call you Robin,” he says, deliberately dropping his voice on the final word, just to watch the tremor that goes through Dick at the sound.

“No,” Dick says again, even more vehemently. He takes a steadying breath. “It was time for something new.”

Slowly, Slade steps forward until they’re face to face again, but he keeps his hands to himself this time. “The suit’s decently well-armored, overall,” he allows, single eye flicking over Dick’s new gear. “I see the weak spots, though. Still awfully thin in some places.”

“Lightweight,” Dick corrects. He lifts his chin and stands his ground, refusing to let Slade’s proximity intimidate him. “It’s strong enough to protect me, without compromising my agility.”

“Mostly black, I see, but you’re missing his cape,” Slade continues, with a bit of a smirk, now. (Deathstroke’s Apprentice had mourned the loss of a cape almost more than his family’s colors.) “No helmet or cowl, either.” Slade mocks aiming a light punch toward Dick’s chin, too slow and telegraphed for Dick to even bother flinching. He stops before his gloved fingers touch Dick’s skin. “Sooner or later,” he says, letting his hand fall back to his side, “someone’s going to mess up that pretty face of yours.”

Dick smiles back, thin and sharp. “They’ll have to catch me, first.”

Slade hums. After a brief, assessing pause, he adds, almost nonchalantly, “You kept my blue.”

Dick expects the tremor this time, letting it cascade through him, warm and tingling. My blue, Slade had called it, not simply the blue. It’s awfully possessive of him, although Dick’s not even going to pretend to be surprised by that. “Seemed appropriate,” he says, with a small tilt of his head. “After all, somebody once told me it was my color.”

Slade’s smile is small and soft, this time. “Always has been,” he agrees, fond. He peers closer. “It’s a bird, isn’t it?”

Dick hesitantly traces the symbol on his chest—or it might be more accurate to call it a motif, since it stretches all the way across his torso and up to his shoulders, stylized and sweeping. It primarily invokes angled wings, spread wide in a V shape, topped in the center by a small suggestion of an avian head in profile. It’s striking in its electric blue hue, bright and bold against the matte black surrounding it. The tips of the wings taper to run down the outsides of his arms, all the way to his fingers. (Almost like a racing stripe.) There are a few blue accents on his boots and utility belt, to tie the whole look together. His twin escrima sticks have a matching blue ring, near the tips.

“It’s a Kryptonian folk hero,” Dick says quietly. “Representing shadows and rebirth.”

“What does it translate to, in English?” Slade asks.

Dick swallows, more nervous than he thinks he should be. “Nightwing,” he says.

Slade’s eye tracks up and down Dick’s whole body once more, slow and thorough. “Nightwing,” he repeats. Then he grins. “I like it,” he says. “It suits you.”

Dick ducks his head slightly, relief and pride rushing through him. “Glad you approve,” he says, aiming for snide and sarcastic. It comes out a little closer to genuine than he wants to admit. “It was a recommendation from a new friend.”

“Ah,” Slade says in realization. “The boy survived, then?”

Dicks nods. “He starts school in a few weeks,” he says. He wants to beam in obvious pride, but it’s not really his place. Conner’s achievements are his own. Dick doesn’t have a claim on them. “I suspect he’ll join the team this summer.”

Slade raises his eyebrows. “Now, that could be fun,” he says thoughtfully.

Dick pauses, feeling his stomach drop. “That wasn’t an invitation,” he says sternly.

Slade just smiles at him. “Since when do I need one of those?”

Dick’s mouth immediately makes a thin, flat line. “You come near my friends, and I swear I’ll—”

“Easy,” Slade rumbles, sounding amused. “Your little hero gang has every right to get in my way or try to stop me.” He raises both his eyebrows. “And I have every right to fight back. Exactly like I would with anyone else.”

Dick hesitates, feeling something sharp and unpleasant form in the pit of his stomach. “Exactly like anyone else?” he asks quietly, and he can’t disguise the hurt underneath the words.

Slade laughs. “You don’t expect me to go easy on you, do you?”

Dick immediately scowls.

That just makes Slade laugh harder. “You don’t get to have it both ways,” he tells Dick. “You don’t get to tell me no and then expect something from me, anyway.” Then he pauses, like he’s just thought of something. “Not without paying for it, at least,” he adds.

Dick goes cold. “What does that mean?”

Slade reaches down to one of the small pouches on his belt, holding out his other palm in a wait gesture when Dick tenses. “I’ll make you a deal,” he says, slowly drawing something out and holding it up. After a moment, he hands it to Dick.

Dick takes it, intrigued. When he lifts it up to his face to get a better view, he sees that it’s a small bundle of molded plastic. It’s about the size of his thumb from the tip to the first knuckle, with a metal frame and internal circuitry. There is one button in the center, a tiny dormant LED light in the corner, and that’s all.

Dick nearly drops it in shock. “You can’t be serious,” he says, before he thinks better of it.

Slade shrugs, nonplussed. “We meet again, under any circumstances, and it will be as enemies,” he says. Then he nods toward the small tracking beacon clutched in Dick’s fist. “Or, you can activate that.”

Dick swallows. “What happens then?” he asks.

“I’ll come for you,” Slade promises him. “No matter where you are.”

There’s not much room for Slade to step forward any further, but he does anyway, until they’re really too close for polite conversation. Dick straightens his spine and tilts his chin up, determined not to retreat.

“If you’re in trouble,” Slade tells him quietly, “I’ll get you out of it. If you’re in a fight, I’ll help. If you need something, ask, and it’s yours.”

Dick feels a tremor start in his gut, and squashes it down before he can start to visibly shake. “Why would you do that?” he asks. “After all the trouble I’ve caused?”

Slade smiles at him, slow and crooked. “Because when it’s done,” he says, “you will owe me.”

Dick can’t stop his shiver, this time. “Owe you what?” he whispers, not sure he wants to know.

“We could work it out case by case, depending on exactly what you asked me to do,” Slade points out. “But that could be time-consuming, and I suspect the situation won’t allow for that.” He shrugs. “Besides, we’ve already established a precedent.”

Dick blinks. “Precedent?” he repeats, confused.

Slade nods. “How long were you with me, this time?” he asks, almost casually.

Dick huffs once, because he doesn’t believe for a single instant that Slade doesn’t already know, right down to the exact hours and minutes. “Sixty-one days,” he says quietly.

“Then that’s our baseline,” Slade says. “You will call me, and I will do you one favor. Anything you need, with no questions asked.” His smile turns sharp and predatory. “And when it’s done, you’ll be mine. Completely. No hesitation or tedious moralizing.” The way he’s baring his teeth now can hardly be called a smile at all. “For two months.”

Dick forces himself to laugh, although it comes out a little hoarse. “That’s a shit deal,” he says. “You could drag me halfway around the world, spend weeks torturing me, make me kill for you again—or worse.” He hands the tracker back to Slade, dismissive, and doesn’t let his hand tremble on the way. “Why would I ever agree to something like that?”

Disconcertingly, Slade’s smile never falters, even as he takes the tracker and begins to roll it absently between two fingers. “You will,” he says, utterly confident.

“How could you possibly think that?” Dick asks, on the verge of angry.

“Because I know you, Nightwing,” Slade says, deliberately emphasizing the name. “You’ve got a martyr complex a mile wide. One day, your little friends will get in trouble that you can’t get them back out of alone, or the whole world will be about to end, or the Bat will need something just badly enough to drop it on your shoulders.” He holds the tracker up between them, practically in front of Dick’s nose. “And then you’ll call me,” he says. “Because there’s nothing that I could do to you, not even in sixty long days, that would be worse than the guilt of letting them down.”

For a moment, Dick can’t breathe through the sudden, overwhelming pain in his chest. “Fuck you, Slade Wilson,” he gasps, livid. “You manipulative bastard.”

Slade is still grinning. “Am I wrong?” he asks. He gestures nonchalantly with the tracker, forward and then back. “Do you really want to throw away a card you might need to play one day?” He folds his fingers up like he’s going to put the tracker back into his pocket. “I never took you for selfish, kid,” he adds, disappointment ringing through his tone. “Or a coward.”

Dick falters, one hand jerking slightly like it wants to make a grab for the little piece of plastic before it disappears. That’s all it takes for Slade to start laughing again, and there’s really no point in pretending he isn’t going to take it, now. Slade knows him too well. He always knows exactly where to strike to hit the most vulnerable points, dead center. Dick knows, with a sickening certainty, that Slade is right about what Dick will do, if it comes down to something like that. When weighed against the lives of his friends, his family, or the fate of the world, there’s nothing Dick wouldn’t agree to. He’s already made that bargain, once, and as awful as it had been, he doesn’t really regret it, not when the outcome could have been so much worse. Anything you want, he’d said, and he’d meant it. He always will.

Dick dips his head in surrender as he holds up one cupped palm.

When Slade blithely drops the little tracker into it, Dick’s other hand snaps up to grab his wrist. Slade tenses, but he doesn’t pull away.

“One week,” Dick counteroffers, in the most antagonistic form of agreement he can manage. He lifts his head to meet Slade’s eye. “And you leave me and everyone I care about alone, unless I call.”

“No,” Slade says flatly. “You don’t get to negotiate. That’s not how this works.”

Dick hears the echo of their earlier conversation, what feels like a lifetime ago now, in that little rundown rest area in the middle of nowhere. “This is exactly how negotiating works,” he repeats, feeling like he’s following a carefully choreographed routine. “I know what you want.”

“You do,” Slade admits calmly, utterly shameless. “But I’m a patient man, and there’s a limit to how low I’m willing to let my rates drop.” He grins, almost lewd. “Even for you, kid.”

Dick’s hand reflexively tightens on the orange Deathstroke gauntlet. “One month,” he tries, feeling something like desperation clawing its way up his throat. “And this summer—we can go back to our old game, if you want.” He swallows. “You can set up your stupid machinations, and I'll chase you, and we can—we can fight. As often as you want.”

Slade grins at him again. “How generous of you,” he drawls, bitingly sarcastic. “But my original offer stands. Sixty days, no further conditions.” He raises his eyebrows. “Take it or leave it, kid.”

Dick licks his lips, despite knowing immediately that it’s a mistake by the way Slade’s eye darkens as he tracks the motion. “You can’t manipulate the situation,” he insists, or tries to. It comes out more like begging. “You can’t endanger my team and use that as leverage to get me to call in my favor.”

“I said it once already,” Slade warns, voice dropping into something annoyed. “If your little friends get in my way, I have every right to engage with them.” Then, shockingly, his face softens, if only slightly. “But I won’t go out of my way to involve them, unless they come after me.”

Dick thinks his heart might beat right out of his chest, sick with fear and worry and frustration. “And I’m just supposed to trust you, on that?”

Slade leans down, just enough to pin Dick in place with eye contact. “Have I ever lied to you?” he asks.

“No,” Dick admits quietly. He wants to drop his head, avoid Slade’s gaze, but he finds that he can’t. “Not directly, anyway,” he adds, a bit petulantly.

Slade smiles, then, somewhere between victorious and fond. “Do we have a deal, or not?” he asks.

Slowly, Dick drops the small, heavy tracker into one of his belt pouches. “Deal,” he says, voice bleak, as he finally releases Slade’s wrist.

It feels a bit like there’s a noose settling around Dick’s neck. It’s not tight enough to be a threat, yet, but it sits there like a tangible reminder of what awaits him, sooner or later. Inescapable, no matter how far Dick runs. Slade will always be there, just out of sight, waiting for Dick to slip up and fall right back into his lap, just as desperate as last time but even more willingly, or at least more honestly. Dick had barely scraped up the nerve to leave, twice before. He has a feeling Slade is betting on him not being able to manage it a third time.

Dick’s not sure that’s a bet he wants to take. He also has a feeling he won’t have much of a choice, one day.

Instead of retreating once his arm is free, Slade leans further in, bending down into Dick’s space. “You know I don’t like being grabbed,” he says, in a low and dangerous tone.

“Cry me a river,” Dick snaps hoarsely, feeling something tense and anxious spring up at the base of his spine. That tone of voice from Slade has never meant anything good. “That’s rich, coming from you.”

Slade just hums. “You owed me this one, regardless,” he says.

Before Dick has a chance to ask him what he means by that, Slade’s hand reappears on the back of Dick’s neck. Instead of a gentle, steady pressure like before, it’s a firm yank instead, and Dick instinctively bends to allow Slade to maneuver him. He feels his eyes widen in shock and alarm behind his lenses, but he only makes it halfway to reaching for the grips over his shoulders before Slade pulls him into a kiss, rough and demanding.

Dick yields, automatic, going pliant in Slade’s grip. He thinks about fighting back, but he has a suspicion that even if he manages to get to his weapons, Slade will just knock them out of his grip. Slade likes to fight, to the point that Dick’s not sure he wouldn’t take it as foreplay or an invitation to escalate. Dick isn’t going to tangle up sex and violence any more than they already are, in his brain.

He lets himself sink into the kiss instead, following Slade’s lead without overtly encouraging him. It’s as warm and familiar as he remembers: gunpowder and aftershave, Kevlar and beard oil and ever-present old blood. There’s something strangely comforting in that, in Slade’s ceaseless sameness, predictable and constant and reliable. Besides, there’s a kind of base, animal satisfaction to be found in simple human touch—especially for someone like Dick, who has only just begun to seek it out again, in fits and starts—so he chooses to enjoy it, instead of getting angry. The pleasant rush sweeps through him, cascading from his spine down to his fingertips. As a bonus, Slade’s body heat temporarily banishes the brutal chill in the winter air around them, which Dick honestly appreciates. (Maybe Slade has a point, about leaving his face mostly uncovered, at least this time of year.)

When Slade finally pulls back, he looks a little disappointed by Dick’s soft acceptance, and that’s how Dick knows he’d made the right choice, after all.

Dick drops his hands from where they’d been pressed against the chest plate of the Deathstroke armor. “You done?” he asks, only a little out of breath.

Slade’s smile this time is tiny, hidden in the corner of his mouth, almost rueful. “Yeah,” he says, letting his hand squeeze once on the back of Dick’s neck before he lets go. “Guess I am.”

Dick fights down his shiver, hoping Slade hasn’t noticed. “Good,” he says.

Then he rears back and throws a punch, landing it solidly on the side of Slade’s chin. It’s a terrible spot for a combat blow—the throat is right there, and much more vulnerable to a quick uppercut—but Dick’s not actually trying to start a fight, just make a point.

As Slade’s head snaps to the side from the force of the impact, Dick takes a large step backward. Hurriedly, before Slade notices, he shakes out his stinging hand.

“Leave, Deathstroke,” Dick says, in a voice low and harsh enough to be a worthy heir to the Batman-growl. “You have one hour to get out of Gotham.”

Slade slowly lifts one thumb to rub absently at his jawline, where a bruise probably won’t form before his healing factor repairs the damage. “What happens in an hour?” he asks.

Dick smiles at him. “I call Batman and tell him that he’s chasing his own tail,” he says. “I could have killed you once, all by myself. What do you think your chances are, against both of us?”

Incomprehensibly, this makes Slade grin again, wide and eager. “Is that a threat, kid?”

Dick reaches up and draws his twin escrima sticks. This time, he immediately charges both, causing them to spark and hiss in the darkness with a flickering blue glow. “If it needs to be,” he says. He lifts them into a combination guard, settling his weight evenly on his feet. “Last warning,” he adds. “We could maybe go three rounds, before he gets here.”

Slade raises his hands one final time, a mock surrender. “Maybe another day,” he offers. He tilts his head, letting his single eye trail slowly up and down Dick’s whole body, taking in his combat stance and his eerily glowing weapons.

Dick half expects Slade to start correcting his form or giving tactical advice. The most frustrating part is that it would probably be good advice, too. A part of Dick desperately wants to hear it, always eager to improve. (Always eager to prove he’s listening, to earn a pleased smile, to have someone tell him he’s done well.) The rest of him thinks he might scream, if Slade has the nerve to try it.

“It really does, you know,” Slade adds after a moment, voice fond. “Suit you.”

Dick just shakes his head. “Get the fuck out of my city,” he says tiredly.

Slade nods once. “Until next time, then,” he says. As he retreats toward the edge of the roof—walking backward, either unwilling to show Dick any vulnerable spots, or to lose sight of him until he has to—he says one final thing.

“See you around, Nightwing,” Slade calls, and it sounds like both a promise and a threat.

Just as Slade vanishes from the roof, almost too quietly for even serum-enhanced ears to make out the words, Dick whispers, “Goodbye, Slade.”

Dick holds his combative pose for several minutes after Slade disappears into the night, just in case. Eventually, when he’s convinced Slade is really gone, he stows his escrima sticks with shaky hands and promptly bends over, putting his hands on his knees in an effort to stop all the blood rushing away from his head. He stands that way and breathes for a little while, until the world decides to stop shaking around him.

When he’s calm again, more or less, he reaches up to turn his radio back on. “B?” he says, voice still slightly strained.

“We’ve been trying to reach you,” Bruce’s voice says in his ear immediately, tight with worry. “Deathstroke is in town, tonight.”

Dick smiles. “Yeah, about that,” he says, a little guiltily. “I handled it.”

There’s a pause. “You knew,” Bruce accuses. “That’s why you wanted to go out alone. And why it had to be tonight.”

“World’s Greatest Detective,” Dick teases gently. “It’s fine. I had a plan.” He frowns. “I think it worked. Mostly.”

There’s another, longer, pause. Eventually, Bruce says, “Are you okay?”

Dick laughs, low and soft and genuine. “If I had a nickel for every time someone asked me that,” he says, “I’d be richer than that Bruce Wayne guy.”

There’s a muffled Ha! over the radio that Dick knows must be from Jason, who’s listening in.

“You should call it here, for tonight,” Bruce offers. “Head back to the Cave, Nightwing. Robin and I will finish up the—”

“No,” Dick says.

The pause lasts for quite a while, this time, heavy and expectant. Dick hasn’t been in the habit of saying “no” to direct orders very often, not in years. When he does, it tends to make an impression.

“Say again,” comes the call over the radio, finally.

“No,” Dick repeats, reveling just a little bit in the sound of that word. “He’s not going to ruin this for me.” He tilts his head back, looking up at the foggy, winter-dark sky. “It’s a lovely night,” he adds, quietly. “I want to fly.”

“Alone?” Bruce asks, a little gingerly.

Dick smiles. “Just for a while,” he admits as he makes his way to the edge of the roof. Carefully, deliberately, he steps up onto the raised safety lip.

“Copy,” Bruce says, even though he doesn’t sound happy about it. “Maintain the regular check-in schedule.”

“Oh my God, he knows,” Jason interjects, clearly losing patience with the conversation. “He’s been doing this almost as long as you have!”

Bruce’s microphone picks up his sigh, just barely. “We’re going to finish the southwest circuit before we head back.”

“Sounds good,” Dick says, not bothering to disguise the smile that’s probably audible in his voice. He plucks his grapple gun off his belt, holding it between his palms for a moment. “Call me when you’re done,” he tells them. “I’ll head back to meet you.”

“Agreed,” Bruce tells him. “We’ll see you at home.”

Dick taps his microphone once to indicate that he’s heard, then flicks his radio back to passive mode. He leans out into the cold wind, looking down at the ten-story drop beneath him.

“I’m already home,” Dick Grayson whispers, and he lets himself fall.

A moment later, Nightwing fires his grapple and swings out into the dark.

~~~

Dick won’t see Slade again for months.

By then, the Deathstroke armor will be slightly but noticeably different. After this, Slade will consistently wear orange and black, instead. Dick will never get an overt explanation as to why, but it will feel like Slade’s final gift to him, something between an acknowledgment and implied permission.

It won’t be Deathstroke’s blue, anymore. He will relinquish his claim on it. It will belong to Nightwing, from now on.

(Slade was right, after all. It’s always been Dick’s color.)

~~~