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Dick straightened his bowtie, but Bruce batted his hands away and straightened Dick’s tie himself. The two were the spitting image of each other; Dick in his fitted Italian suit and blue bowtie tilted his head to look up at Bruce, whose British suit and black tie betrayed his athletic build just enough for the look to push a line Bruce generally preferred not to cross at Wayne Foundation galas.
“I’m sure you’ve heard this from me before,” Dick offered as Bruce pat Dick’s shoulder and turned away to adjust his own cufflinks. Dick was wearing a matching pair. They weren’t really cufflinks, not in any practical sense. “But I think you may be paranoid.”
Bruce grunted and Jason laughed from where he perched on a nearby chaise.
“What clued you in, Dickiebird?” Jason asked. Bruce shot Jason a warning look.
“Put on your tie, Jay. And button your shirt properly.”
Jason rolled his eyes, but he fixed his shirt and suit jacket before clipping on the red tie Bruce had offered him. Unlike Dick or Bruce, Jason wore a loose-fitting suit that hid the guns strapped to his sides and enunciated his bulk. Unlike Dick or Bruce, Jason was playing bodyguard for the evening.
“Bruce, seriously. It’s a gala. The mafia is always filtering in and out of Gotham high society events. If there’s something different about tonight, you need to tell us,” Dick insisted, not for the first time. When Bruce first announced the gala and Dick decided that he would attend as Dick Grayson, Bruce had bristled and forbid him from coming at all. After an argument, and the combined ire of Alfred and Damian, Bruce conceded to Dick attending, but only under peculiar circumstances. Such as Jason tagging along as Dick’s bodyguard, and Oracle monitoring the interior of the party.
Then Bruce had insisted that Dick wear his Nightwing earpiece and Dick became irritable.
“You don’t have to come,” Bruce shot back, also not for the first time. “Stay in the Manor. Go back to Bludhaven. Spend the night in Manhattan. I don’t understand your insistence on deliberately disobeying me by attending tonight.”
Jason leaned forward in anticipation as Dick’s blood pressure almost visibly spiked. Ace, who had been sitting obediently by Bruce’s feet, slunk over to Jason as Dick stalked forward and forced himself into Bruce’s space. Jason absently scratched behind Ace’s ear.
“Your dad’s about to make a big mess of his relationships again, isn’t he, Ace?” Jason cooed. “No worries. At least he has you and Alfred.”
Ace barked.
“Yeah, Selina too,” Jason conceded.
“I’m an adult, Bruce. I can choose to attend the events for a Foundation I have shares in, and it’s arrogant of you to think you can cage me this far in,” Dick growled, standing on his toes to meet Bruce’s eyes. Bruce’s jaw twitched.
“Why do you want to come?” Bruce asked, voice impressively even for the way his nose flared. “What is possessing you to turn this into an ordeal?”
Jason sucked his teeth. “See that, Ace? That’s now how we make friends.”
Bruce’s glare slid to Jason briefly before his attention returned to Dick. Dick who, ever the animated fighter, was waving his arms emphatically.
“It’s not about attending the party, anymore, Bruce! It’s about exercising agency! I wanted to attend because I like parties. I enjoy these events. And then you had to be all,” Dick splayed out his hands to frame Bruce, “you! And you want an explanation without even offering one yourself which is just so,” Dick growled and dropped his hands, “just so like you. It’s callous, and unreasonable, Bruce.”
“No shit, Sherlock,” Jason scoffed. Ace perked his ears. “Sorry, buddy,” Jason told Ace, scratching his head with more fervor to further apologize. “Didn’t mean to offend your delicate sensibilities.” Ace cocked his head at Jason. “Don’t give me that look, if you fought crime in dirty alleys while dressed in panties and pixie boots as a child, you’d end up with a dirty mouth too.”
Bruce took three, slow, deep breaths. “Jason. Ace had a difficult youth. Spare him,” Bruce murmured without breaking eye contact with Dick. “Dick, when was the last time you attended one of these events?” Bruce asked, voice earnest and cool enough that Dick took a step back with a frown.
“…It’s been a few years,” Dick murmured, shoving his hands in his pockets while thinking back. “Not since I moved to Bludhaven. Prior to Spyral. It’s been a couple of years. Why?”
“What happened the last time you did?” Bruce asked, crossing his arms. His shoulders were straight but relaxed, expression neutral, and Jason sensed that Bruce was preening himself on winning the argument before Dick even realized it was over.
“Well. It was interrupted. By Lady Shiva and a small group from the League of Assassins… who took me hostage. Okay. Was that your point?” Dick was grumbling by the end of the sentence, and glancing at the bookshelf behind Bruce rather than at Bruce.
“What about the time before that?” Bruce pushed, lips twitching.
“… Poison Ivy. Taken hostage. Whammied,” Dick grimaced.
“Keep going,” Bruce insisted, a smirk pushing at the corners of his lips.
“Scarecrow. Hostage. Time before that, it was the Riddler. And before that, Two-Face. Joker. I’m pretty sure Red Hood, at one point or another,” Dick said, shooting a glare over at Jason. Jason raised his hands up, palms out.
“I can’t be held accountable for bad parenting and Lazarus Pits,” Jason said, face the picture of innocence.
“The point is, Dick, you are a target for criminals, and in your civilian identity, you’re not equipped enough to defend yourself,” Bruce said, eyebrows knitted together, reaching out to place a hand on Dick’s shoulder. Dick almost jerked away to be petty, but Bruce looked too worried and too sincere and so instead Dick sighed and relaxed into the gesture.
Dick cracked a smile that he hoped was reassuring. “I’m always going to be a target. I’m the son of the Prince of Gotham. But you can’t keep me in a cage, and I really do enjoy these parties. Besides, Little Wing’s here. He’ll protect me.”
Bruce and Dick glanced over to Jason, who was wrestling his clip-on tie from Ace’s jaws. “Let go, you sanctimonious mutt,” Jason growled as he tried to dig his fingers past Ace’s bared teeth.
“It’s fine,” Bruce said, thinking out loud. “I have safeguards.”
It was not fine, and Bruce safeguards did not account for Deathstroke the Terminator.
Amid the shattered glass and screams of guests as they scattered like insects, Bruce closed his eyes and counted from ten. When he opened them, Huntress had been thrown clear of the ballroom and Black Canary was coughing after being choked just enough to roughen up her Canary Cry. Had Dick scrambled away while Jason engaged Deathstroke in a fire fight, Bruce’s broader goal for the evening (Keep Dick from Historically Assured Abduction) might have been salvaged. But, instead, Dick had thrown himself at Deathstroke only to be caught by the wrist.
Worse yet, Jason didn’t share Slade’s enhanced reflexes, and he’d pulled the trigger before his eyes could widen in horror. Slade adjusted his grip on Dick so that the bullet grazed his size, destroying the suit and leaving a red slash, but otherwise not penetrating Dick’s skin. Still, both Dick and Bruce cried out while Jason dropped his gun, mouth gaping.
Bruce ran towards Dick, as did Jason once Jason shook off his momentary terror, but across the room a line of police shouted, “Gotham PD!” They raised guns towards Deathstroke, who rapidly thrust a syringe needle into Dick’s neck and pushed the plunger until the syringe needle was empty. He tossed the spent syringe to the ground and tossed Dick over his shoulder.
The sounds of a gun cocking broke through the noise in Bruce’s head. He swiveled and shouted, “Don’t shoot, that’s my son!”
Jim Gordon pushed his way to the front of the police line, but Bruce whipped back to Dick and Deathstroke just in time for Deathstroke to murmur, “My employer will be waiting on your ransom offer.” Deathstroke tossed a flip phone at Bruce, who caught it easily. Then, like that, Deathstroke shot a grappling line and disappeared.
“Motherfucker!” Jason shouted, kicking his abandoned gun. “I fucking miss the All-Blades, I need to dig those pieces of shit up.”
“Those only affect magic,” Bruce muttered. “From what you’ve told me, they wouldn’t have hurt Deathstroke.”
“No,” Jason said quietly, kneeling to pick up the syringe. “But they wouldn’t have hurt Dick either.”
“It’s okay, Jay,” Bruce said, striding over to place a hand on Jason’s back, even as the police rushed closer. “I saw what happened. It’s not your fault, and the bullet barely grazed him. Besides. I have safe guards.”
When Dick woke, he was curled in jersey knit sheets, a thick, down comforter draped over him, pulled to his chin. He hummed happily. Wally’s bed in the Tower had jersey knit sheets, but this bed didn’t smell like Wally. It smelled neutral and clean, like in a hotel. Dick didn’t remember checking into a hotel. He tried pushing himself up to investigate, but burning pain licked up his side and he fell back down on his stomach with an ooph.
Then, memories from the gala crashed into him with the icy shock of a Pacific Ocean wave and he whimpered.
“Slade,” He muttered into the pillow. “Slade, you’re the worst.”
Dick heard the clatter of dishes and felt a weight settle on the mattress beside him.
“Why?” Slade asked. “You been talking to my kids lately?”
Dick craned his neck to look up at Slade. Although still dressed in his Ikon suit, Slade had abandoned his mask. He cradled a tray of food that looked suspiciously like breakfast food. Dick narrowed his eyes.
“What time is it?” Dick asked. How long did you keep me down for, was the implied question, but Slade didn’t bother looking ashamed. Only bored.
“After 8 am. Now sit up and eat. You’ll need it as the drug flushes out of your system.”
Laboriously, and with Slade’s help, Dick sat up in bed. Slade placed the tray in his lap and when Dick didn’t immediately touch it, Slade picked up a piece of toast and prodded Dick’s closed lips with it.
“You’re going to vomit,” Slade offered. “Eat the damn toast.”
Dick opened his mouth to retort, but Slade shoved the bread in, so Dick settled on glaring while he chewed. Once he’d swallowed, Dick opened his mouth again to snap, “You had to prove Bruce right, didn’t you?”
Slade quirked an eyebrow. “I took a contract to hold you still while my employer wrings Wayne’s bank account. I don’t have a stake in your family squabbles. Although I would, for a price.”
Dick picked up a fork on the tray and speared his eggs, taking a bite before answering. “That price is too high. We’ve played that game before. Where did you put my suit?”
Sladed humph’d, but gestured to a nearby chair, over which Dick’s sports coat draped. Satisfied, Dick continued eating in relative silence. Slade seemed to lose interest, and migrated to the window, looking out of it with the focus of a sentry.
Which, Dick conceded, Slade was, for all intents and purposes.
When Dick finished eating, Slade took away the tray and placed it near the door, to be left out for room service, Dick presumed. Dick cursed himself for not having his grappling hook. If he had his grapple, he could break out the window. Slade hadn’t made any effort to restrain Dick. The only thing limiting him was his lack of equipment and the wound on his side. Maybe he could slip by Slade and out the door, into the hall. Where he could scream until he was noticed by staff or a friendly enough passerby. Act like a bonafide civilian hostage.
“You’re not in a hotel,” Slade said, absently. “You’re in an abandoned girls’ academy. This room and a spare few others have been furnished and made comfortable, but it’s otherwise decrepit and difficult to navigate. We’re also not in Gotham. We’re not in America, and it is very cold outside. You’re injured. Escape isn’t in your best interest.” Slade spoke in that same bored tone he’d had since Dick woke up. Clearly this was not his preferred flavor of work, whoever was ransoming Dick must have been paying generously.
“Bruce said this would happen,” Dick said, if only to make conversation. “He says I always get taken hostage as a civilian.”
Slade was looking out of the window again, but he cracked a small smile. “As Robin, too. Boy Hostage, is what you were called in the circuit.”
Dick scowled. “Tim and Damian didn’t have to put up with this.”
Slade glanced over at Dick. “You’ve just got one of those faces, Grayson. And the Bat values you too much. That’s the burden of the eldest. Always the favorite.” Slade returned his gaze to the window. Dick wanted to see what was so interesting outside. He gritted his teeth and forced himself out of bed, hobbling over to stand beside Slade. Snow. It was snow, and… mountain peaks. Not ideal.
“Do I need to tie you down?” Slade asked, glancing down at Dick.
“Only if you use those soft Japanese ropes. Like the kind Arsenal got so good at. You know. As a mindfulness exercise.”
Slade smirked. “I’m sure. Get back in bed. You brushed up against a bullet not twelve hours ago. You need to heal.”
Dick scowled. “If I needed to heal, you’d leave me with Alfred and Bruce. This isn’t restful, this is antagonizing. I’m going to get bored in here, and when I get bored I practice my flips off furniture,” Dick threatened. “You can ask Bruce.”
“Or,” Slade murmured, scooping Dick up and throwing him over his shoulder. Dick cried out in pain. “Or, I could keep you drugged until Daddy Dearest finishes negotiating your safe return.” He dropped Dick on the bed, and Dick wiggled to try and get comfortable after having his wound aggravated.
“Bruce doesn’t pay ransoms. You know that,” Dick hissed. “Besides,” he murmured, changing tactics, “thought we had a thing. Mutual respect, and all.” Dick stretched, baring his neck and pulling his arms up enough for his untucked shirt to ride up, revealing a sliver of skin. Slade seemed to respond; he leaned down at least, held himself over Dick by planting a hand on the other side of his head.
“We do, Kid,” Slade murmured, lips so close they practically brushed Dick’s skin. “A fundamental disagreement about the nature of my work.”
Slade pulled back and turned away. Dick huffed.
“I’ll die of boredom,” Dick muttered.
“I’ll send the family my condolences,” Slade responded.
“He’s not going to pay a ransom,” Dick insisted again. “And you can’t keep me here forever.”
“No, I can’t,” Slade conceded. “I have instructions to kill you if Wayne refuses to cooperate.”
“And are you going to?” Dick asked, sitting up with a fair amount of struggle so that he could prop his chin on Slade’s shoulder. Slide a hand to rest on Slade’s hip. Splay the other against Slade’s back.
Slade’s shoulders began to shake. It took Dick a moment to recognize it as laughter.
“You think I need a sword or a gun to keep down an injured bird?” Slade asked, standing from the bed abruptly so that Dick dropped to the bed. Dick caught himself on his hands and glared up at Slade. “Armory’s not on me, it’s not in this room either. You’re shit out of luck, kid.”
Ignoring the tear in his side, Dick swiveled on the bed and swiped out at Slade with a kick. Slade caught his ankle and yanked him forward so that Dick fell on his back. Then, slowly, Slade pushed Dick’s ankle back farther and farther back. Dick tried to bend his knee, to ease the straight, but Slade used his other hand to keep the knee locked into place. Slade’s own knee held down Dick’s other leg.
“What’s your goal here, Slade?” Dick grit out as Slade pushed Dick’s leg back against him so that it was near flat against Dick’s torso. Dick was flexible, but the angle was awkward and he bit back a wince.
“I’ve always thought the Bat slipped something in your food. All of you. You’re all just a bit too resilient, a bit too agile. That’s the fatal flaw of the Boy Hostage’s assailants. They trap you as if you’re one of them. But you’re not.”
Slade shifted, the hand that had held Dick’s knee reached behind Dick and opened a drawer in nightstand there. Presumably, Dick heard a wooden drawer slide open. And then rustling. Dick craned his neck to peek and nearly choked.
“Jesus fuck, Slade is that rope? Sherwood. Seriously, Sherwood.” Dick tried to wriggle underneath Slade’s grip, but Slade’s grips on his ankle and prone leg were still sturdy and pain ignited in his adductor muscles, where his thigh and hip connected.
“Relax, kid,” Slade said. “I’m a professional, this isn’t a scene and there’s no need for a safe word. Even injured, you’re groping for weapons. So, I’m tying you down until you learn to behave or until Daddy comes through. I don’t care which, I’m not hourly.” As he spoke, Slade eased his weight from Dick so that he could maneuver Dick as he wrapped him in the rope. If Dick tried to sit up or struggle, Slade was quick to contain him.
When it was over, Dick’s neck was tied to the base of the ornamental iron headboard with a band of rope around his neck that was loose enough for him to breath, but thick enough to limit any sort of head gesture. One ankle was tied to the foot of the bed. The other ankle was strapped to his thigh with enough rope to completely sheath his shin and thigh. Dick’s forearms were wrapped together and tied to the top of the headboard, suspended high enough that Dick could peek through the space between his upper arms, but only just barely given his collar. Along the way, Slade had been forced to destroy Dick’s suit so that Dick was in nothing but his undergarments. Slade brushed the loose fabric to the floor and then covered Dick with a nearby throw blanket to protect his modesty.
“You know,” Dick hissed, trembling from the strain of having his body pulled so taught, “this is really going to affect our civilian relationship.”
“It won’t. You’re used to being tied up,” Slade said, settling on a chair and picking up a book.
“Not like this,” Dick hissed, “I was Boy Hostage, not Boy Bondage.”
“Yes, well,” Slade said, turning a page. “You’re also used to slipping more standard restraints. My contract requires me to keep you still. You’re still. Contract fulfilled.”
“You think I can’t slip this?” Dick huffed. With how tightly his forearms were tied, he couldn’t so much as tug at the rope. Dick craned his neck to try and snap at the rope connecting him to the headboard with his teeth. He didn’t have the range, so he pulled at his forearms in an attempt to wiggle back, for a better angle. But then the rope around his ankle tugged and Dick dropped himself with a frustrated growl.
“I'm near positive you can't slip that,” Slade said, once Dick settled back down. “Would you like me to read out loud? I would hate for you to get bored.”
“What if I asphyxiate? Go into shock? A dead hostage isn’t worth shit,” Dick snapped.
Slade sighed, the long-suffering sigh of a fatigued parent. “I can hear your pulse. I would know before you bit the dust. I’m reading the Martian Chronicles. I thought you might enjoy some of the stories.”
“Wait!” Dick said, shifting to the point of instigating his muscle strain further. “Before, before you do that. You never answered my question earlier.” Dick couldn’t quite see Slade well enough to catch Slade’s gaze. But he felt it.
“No, Grayson. I would not. If Wayne does not cooperate, I will find an excuse which would protect my reputation, and you will find somewhere safe to alight.”
“Why?” Dick blurted. But Slade seemed uninterested in answering. He had lifted the book in front of his face and was reading in a gentle, deep timber that could lull Dick to sleep, if Dick weren’t so uncomfortably arranged.
“’It all sounds quite lovely, Spender,’” Slade murmured, clearly picking up in the middle of a story. “’But you won’t stay?’ ‘No. Thanks, anyway.’ ‘And you certainly won’t let me stay without trouble. I’ll have to kill you all.’ ‘You’re optimistic.’ ‘I have something to fight for and live for; that makes me a better killer. I’ve got what amounts to a religion now’….”
Slade read for a long while, long enough that the pain in Dick’s limbs numbed enough so that he actually did begin to doze. And then he must have fallen asleep, because the next thing he remembered was blearily opening his eyes to Slade’s hands massaging his bruised forearms.
“’S over?” Dick asked, shifting his legs, and finding them wonderfully (painfully) free from their bonds. He’d need to stretch, and then he’d need buckets of Biofreeze.
Slade nodded, curtly. “Red Hood dispatched my employer. The Bat isn’t pleased.”
Dick scowled. There would be a storm to soothe when he returned home. To Slade, he quirked his lips and asked, “Didja at least get paid for my trouble?”
Slade smirked. “I require a retainer from most of my clients. And Red was kind enough to fulfill my employer’s end of the contract by wiring me a substantial amount from the deceased’s offshore account. You’ve been ransomed, Little Bird.”
“Good,” Dick said, standing and stretching. He gasped out in a mixture of relief and pain as his joints popped and his muscles sang. “Let’s not do this again anytime soon.”
“But won’t you stay?” Slade asked, the rueful grin betraying his self-awareness. “I’m momentarily unemployed.”
Outside the window, the thrumming of a helicopter announced Bruce and Jason’s arrival. They’d known where he was the entire time, after all. Lucius Fox’s cuff link trackers were in beta, but they were a nifty as they were stylish.
Dick laughed, a soft, pretty sound which would have been drowned out if not for Slade's enhanced hearing. “No. Thanks, anyway.”