Chapter Text
Dick opened the door to his apartment to find Slade, unmasked, lounging on his couch, one arm draped over the back and the other holding a glass of whiskey (he must have brought it himself, Slade never bothered with the cheap stuff Dick kept. Glancing around the room he spotted an open bottle on the kitchen counter he didn’t recognize. Figures). With a put-upon sigh, Dick carelessly tossed off his mask and moved straight to the kitchen.
He should be on guard or afraid to find The Terminator in his home, but they were too far past that.
Over the years, the kidnappings (with their accompanying psychological torment/attempts at brainwashing and borderline torture Slade called ‘training’), their shared losses and traumas, the team-ups, the mutual understandings, and shared moments of vulnerability, all grew into some sort of undefinable trust. Some chaotic mixture of respect, understanding, self-loathing, (and maybe a touch of Stockholm/Lima syndrome) made their relationship oddly intimate. They had each seen each other’s deepest secrets and regrets—they understood each other. On a deeper level, and on the mundane level that came from the times they’d lived together. Dick knew Slade kept small photos of his kids, and his wife too, tucked in a secret compartment of the weapons case and that the mercenary still folded his clothes following military standards. The Terminator likewise knew an unusual amount about him as well—often surprising Dick himself with the facts and (correct) assumptions he’d pull out of seemingly nowhere.
Slade had even compromised jobs to save Dick’s life on more than one occasion.
Now when they met on the job if it was just the two of them, Dick felt some level of ease rather than just apprehension—he might leave with some broken bones, some serious blood loss, or scars but he was confident he’d wake up alive (somewhere).
Still, he had no illusions that Deathstroke had gone soft. Slade was a professional, who valued his profession and pride over all else. But right now, the unmasked man on his couch was Slade. He wasn’t here on a job. This was something off the clock.
“I assume there’s a reason for your visit?” Dick asked, a touch impatiently while stripping out of his suit where he stood in the living room and looking around for where he left his Superman sweats. He’d been helping cover patrols in Gotham for weeks now, and the commute back to Blüdhaven made the night even longer than usual. Dick just needed to eat and pass out.
“I had an interesting encounter today.” Slade hummed, swirling the whiskey in his glass. “Pants are on the kitchen chair.”
Dick was surprised there was no backhanded comment about the mess—when Slade deigned to invade his home, it usually always included at least one passive comment about how he trained Dick how to clean his damn room. But Dick wasn’t his apprentice, so he didn’t need to be making his bed military-style, or folding his clothes or anything else. The only one who could lecture Dick about the mess of his apartment was Alfred. “Well, that’s great for you and all, but I had a long patrol so if we could make this quick—”
“Take-out is in the microwave.”
“Stay as long as you want.” Dick amended, nearly tripping as he stepped into his sweats while making a beeline for the microwave.
“Who’s the Red Hood?”
Dick shrugged, then opened the microwave to find a familiar container from his favorite curry shop down the road. Taking a bite of the curry he found in the microwave, he deemed it warm enough. “Dunno. Popped up in the East End out of nowhere, and seemed to know a concerning amount about us and how we do things. B has been on a tear about him since he showed up a month or so ago.” He couldn’t help the resentful grumble that followed, “Been a real secretive ass about it too.”—something about conversations with Slade always dragged these kinds of truthful complaints out of him. “I haven’t actually run into him yet.”
Slade raised an eyebrow. “No personal relation?”
“No.” Dick carried his curry back to the living room, dropping down onto the couch beside the mercenary and kicking up his feet. “Why?”
“I have two thoughts.”
“The first?” Dick asked, game for whatever Slade intended to share (better than the stone wall of secrecy he was getting from Bruce).
Or at least he thought he was game until he saw the amused look on Slade’s face. “Any new boyfriends?”
“No?!” Dick flushed in embarrassment. “Where is this coming from?
“A Red Hood could count as a redhead,” Slade smirked down into his glass and Dick groaned.
“And here I thought I was the comedian. I don’t see what my past dating history and the hair color some of them happened to have has to do—”
“I ran into the Red Hood this afternoon. And he seems quite invested in your love life and my potential role in it.”
Dick choked on his curry—yikes, the spice burned and his eyes watered. “What?!” He managed to gasp. Slade handed him the glass of whiskey, and he gratefully took a drink—a different kind of burn settling down his throat. “No, I’ve never even met him.”
“Don’t underestimate your ability to attract unstable admirers, kid.”
Dick winced. Point taken.
The mercenary suddenly changed topics again. “Where are your brothers?”
Dick’s stomach turned at the plural. He didn’t have living brothers. Only one. Singular. “Tim’s at the Tower.” He answered hollowly, focusing instead on the lingering burn in his throat.
“And the Second Robin? The snappy one, with the death threats?”
“Jason.” Dick bit out his name, unable to listen to the other man talk about him as if he were nameless. Hands clenched and trembling, it took every ounce of self-control for Dick to maintain some semblance of composure. “His name was Jason. And you know.” Slade knew. When Dick found out about his little brother’s death, he went back to Slade. He’d seriously considered taking up his offers of apprenticeship. To do something. Anything. His baby brother had died afraid and alone and Dick hadn’t been there. His baby brother had been buried Bruce hadn’t even told him. Dick had to do something.
And running to Slade was all too easy. He was always waiting. Ready to listen to all of Dick’s grievances, hold him as he cried, direct his anger into training, and pour out poisonously comforting words (dangerous double-edged things, perfectly calculated to soothe and to isolate— to draw Dick away from his family, friends, and their heroic work and into Deathstroke’s orbit).
Eventually, Dick came to his senses and left. He couldn’t just run away from it all, Jason would be disappointed in him. Even after everything he’d suffered in life, his little brother had dedicated his everything to protecting others—even the birth mother who had betrayed him. Dick would be disgracing his memory if he allowed himself to run away—Dick had to keep fighting to protect others, it was the only thing he could do to preserve what Jason had stood for.
At least until he killed the Joker. Although Bruce resuscitated the mad clown, it didn’t take long for Dick to find himself back at Slade’s doorstep (metaphorically. His current safehouse didn’t have conventional doors) to run through the same cycle.
Both times though, Slade knew why Dick was there. He knew Dick’s baby brother had been murdered. He knew Dick had failed him. Jason was remembered in the same way Joey and Grant were. Although not addressed by name, their deaths loomed over them both.
Slade knew his brother was dead.
“I know the kid died. I’m asking where he is.”
Dick furrowed his brow in confusion. Maybe he’d never explicitly told Slade that Jason was buried in the Wayne cemetery, but still, that should have been obvious.
Before Slade could clarify the meaning of his question, the front door flew off its hinges. A hulking mass in a leather jacket and shiny red helmet was suddenly looming in Dick’s doorway.
“WHAT THE FUCK?!” The Red Hood cursed, the automation of the helmet hid the crime lord’s intonation but still projected the underlying intensity of the volume.
Curry left forgotten on the coffee table, Dick fluidly grabbed one of the spare escrima sticks he knew was under the couch (if anyone asked, he’d stay they were stored there for emergencies, but actually they had rolled under the couch after patrol last week and he’d just decided to leave them), and leaped over the furniture to repel the coming attack.
But he wasn’t met with an attack. The Red Hood barely acknowledged him, and instead rushed straight at Slade who still sat unfazed on the couch. Although he knew Slade could handle it, Dick didn't intend to stand by while he was attacked in his home. He inserted himself between the Red Hood and his target, swinging with an escrima. The crime lord took the first blow without any attempt to counter and used the opportunity to catch one of Dick’s arms. Dick prepared to break the hold, but to his surprise he found himself pulled behind the crime lord. The Red Hood had placed himself between Dick and Slade. Not an advantageous position if he intended to fight them both. And then, as if it couldn’t get weirder, the crime lord pulled off his leather jacket and threw it in Dick’s face. “Put on a FUCKING shirt.”
Dick caught the warm brown leather easily but didn’t jump to put it on. A rising crime lord had just kicked down his door, then demanded he gets dressed? In his own home?
He cast a confused glance towards Slade, the mercenary at least had met Red Hood earlier, was this normal for him? Dick had heard the crime lord had already established a firm reputation as a protector of street workers and children, maybe he gave his jacket to people regularly? He was building a reputation as a defender of the weak and a fatal punisher of the wicked—more a deadly avenger than the traditional selfish crime boss. So maybe he hadn’t come to Dick’s apartment for a fight?
Slade just smirked back, dryly amused. Whatever was happening was definitely feeding into whatever his theory was about the Red Hood’s identity. Dick glared back—Slade wasn’t going to be any help here.
The Red Hood was clearly dissatisfied with the hesitation (and Dick’s silent conversation with Slade) side stepping in to cut off their line of sight, blocking their view of each other with his body and snatching the jacket back. He shook the leather out and then held it up impatiently like a parent trying to dress their child. “Hurry up.” He snapped, and Dick decided he was just going to accept whatever the hell was happening (if he could figure out who the Hood was before Bruce, this would definitely be worth it) and allowed the crime lord to wrap him up in the leather, going so far as to zip it all the way up.
Hood lingered a moment longer, fingers still on the zipper, and Dick got the sense the man was… contemplating him? Slowly the crime lord moved his hands to the shoulders of the jacket, pinching where the material sagged. The whole thing hung loosely around Dick—the Hood was both taller and broader than him, more Bruce’s size than his own, yet the Hood almost seems surprised by how poorly it fit.
“He’s smaller than you remember, isn’t he Hood?”
Dick and the Red Hood both jumped at the sound of Slade's voice—somehow for just that brief moment, it seemed they’d both forgotten the other hulking menace in Dick’s apartment.
“What?” The Hood’s mechanical intonation hid all emotion but based on the tension visibly radiating off of the man (shoulders tense, fingers twitching towards weapons) he was disturbed by the question.
And frankly, Dick didn’t appreciate it either. He’d dealt with more than his share of Slade's mind games. The mercenary knew who the Hood was—or at least thought he did—and now he would taunt the man with his pointed questions, without ever explicitly saying what he knew until the Hood either announced his own identity or cracked. This was just some of his cat-and-mouse taunting; Slade wasn’t actually going to say anything useful.
And Dick wasn’t going to sit back and watch him bully this strange semi-well-intentioned(?) jacket-sharing crime lord. “Look Slade, thanks for dinner—” Red Hood’s head snapped back to Dick, his hands clenched tightly. Dick hesitated for a moment at the sudden intensity radiating off of the man. Was? Was this actually something about Dick’s relationship with Slade? “—but I don’t have time for your mind games. Either say what you think is so funny, or take your new friend and get out.”
“You heard him fucker, get out.” Red Hood seemed quite pleased by the way that declaration had ended if the more cocky posture said anything, fists relaxing as he moved to cross his arms.
“And I included you in that statement.” Dick clarified, gesturing toward his now unhinged doorway.
“What I heard,” Slade drawled calmly, staring down the Hood but making no indication he intended to move from his spot on Dick’s couch, “Were two options. I could leave, or I could share. Are you going to tell him, or should I?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” The Red Hood bit out, and Slade honestly seemed pleased with this answer.
“My boys were never particularly close. Not model brothers either. Of course, siblings argue, but they really never seemed to care too deeply for each other.”
Dick took a deep breath, counting to ten slowly, and turned his attention back to his curry. Fine. Let Slade monologue. Dick couldn’t deal with fighting Slade and the Red Hood in his apartment right now, so he’d just suck it up, listen to whatever they were rambling about, and eat his dinner. You had to learn to appreciate the small things when you lived the life of a vigilante. He attempted to step around the Red Hood to get back to his curry on the coffee table, but the hulking man refused to let him even a step closer to Slade. Dick gestured a tired hand at his dinner, and at least the crime lord seemed to understand that. Reaching over the couch, Red Hood picked up the curry with one hand and flipped Slade off with the other, then handed Dick back his dinner.
Good enough.
All the while, Slade continued. “They had a considerable age difference: seven years. You and Jason?”
“Five.” Dick supplied, looking down into his curry.
Slade nodded with a hum. “And not even blood-related, but you loved each other so much.”
“What the fuck are you going on about old man?” Red Hood hissed. The crime lord looked ready to leap over the couch and throttle Slade.
Slade chuckled. “How old was he when the kid tried to kill me while concussed to ‘protect’ you?”
“Thirteen,” Dick whispered despite himself. He had been so tiny then—Jason had been so proud to be a teen when he reached his thirteenth birthday, but he was still small enough for Dick to scoop him up easily. (Had he been looking Dick would have noticed Slade turn his eyes towards the Red Hood. He also would have noticed the tremors running through the Red Hood’s form)
“It’s been what? Three? Four years? He’d be seventeen now, right?”
The Red Hood picked up a glass sitting out on the counter and hurled it at the wall. “I didn’t come here to talk about the fucking failed Robin—“
Dick had the larger man pinned to the wall in a second, his curry dropped on the floor. “Watch your mouth.”
“What? The kid died on the job. A shitty teen who couldn’t even keep up with what Robin 1.0 was doing at 9 years old in spandex. You got a newer shinier edition right after. Obviously, he was the failed model—”
All the tentative acceptance he'd had for the crime lord evaporated instantaneously and Dick didn’t hesitate to put the red helmet straight through his drywall (good thing the neighboring unit was empty.) “He was a hero. He was the bravest, smartest, and strongest kid I’d ever met.” Dick spat, but just as quickly as his rage had spiked, it turned to grief. “He was so much—If he were still here—” He choked on his own words, squeezing his eyes shut to stop tears from falling. His Little Wing had been so brilliant, he was excelling in school and he’d be graduating this year if—
“What?” That awful mechanical voice chimed as the massive man extracted himself from the indent in the wall. “Don’t act like you care—"
Dick didn’t hesitate to put him right back through it. “I don’t care what you said to Batman that convinced him you know something about us—you don’t know SHIT if you think I don’t care about my—"
This time the Red Hood surged out of the wall, grabbing the leather jacket and lifting Dick straight off the ground. “If you CARED, HIS MURDERER WOULDN’T STILL BE FUCKING BREATHING—”
Slade barked a harsh laugh, breaking the tension of the moment. “Not for lack of trying.”
Dick instantly slipped out of the jacket, letting his body contort easily to drop to the ground and draw away from the Red Hood, stomach-churning at the memories. “Slade, don’t—“
“We’ve been over this kid; you didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Slade—“
“World would be better off if the clown was still dead.”
It didn’t matter how many times Slade said it (or how true the fact the world would be better off without the Joker was), it didn’t change the guilt Dick felt for killing him. The unnamable fear that he was capable of that: of beating the life out of another human with nothing but his fists and pure rage. It haunted him. The vindictive satisfaction he felt murdering the man. How right it had felt. It scared him.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Red Hood's mechanical voice broke his downward spiral.
Before Dick could think of a response, Slade cut right to the chase.
“Kid killed the Joker, Bat brought him back so he wouldn’t be a ‘killer.’” Familiar disdain dripped from Slade's pronunciation of ‘killer.’ As irritated by Dick’s moral qualms as ever.
That mechanized voice again. “You killed him?”
“Beat him to death.” Slade provided.
Dick winced, absently running one hand over the other. He could still feel bones crunching under his knuckles, smell the blood—he could still feel the vindictive satisfaction of making the clown feel even a fraction of what he did to Jason.
“You killed him?” Red Hood asked—that automated intonation still gave nothing away, but Dick could see he was shaking, his grip on the leather jacket white-knuckled. “You—Bruce—, but you don’t—“
“He killed my baby brother.” Dick bit out. He didn’t know how the Hood knew their civilian identities, but he should know that much at least. “I— I thought he’d done it again. I— I lost control. I did something horrible—“
“Kid, how many times do I have to tell you—“
“Slade, we’re not starting this conversation right now—" Dick cut the mercenary off. He and Slade could go back and forth all night and neither would ever budge, but at least being irritated at Slade's blasé attitude about murder was a distraction from his own guilt.
He needed to focus. There were two murderers in his house. Slade was here for his own amusement, and he was clearly getting his full. But he still didn’t know what the Red Hood wanted.
Turning to the crime lord, he saw the large man standing stock still—he hadn’t moved or spoken in a while now. “Look.” Dick sighed, exhausted already. “What DID you come here for?”
Instead of answering, the mechanical voice asked another question. “You cared?”
“About Jason?” Dick pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes, still struggling to keep tears back. “Of course. I-I I know I wasn’t a great big brother but—”
“What?” The quick manner that the automated voice cut in belied surprise.
“I should have been there more.” Dick didn’t hesitate to voice the thoughts that ran through his head every night. “He deserved so much better—a better big brother. I let my relationship with B get between us too often. I would argue with B in front of him too, and that wasn’t fair for him. And then when I was mad at B, I’d just leave—when I still should have been there for Jay.” Dick confessed the thoughts haunted him endlessly. “And worst of all, I wasn’t there when he really needed me. I wasn’t there when—”
“Y-you were off-planet. It was his stupid choice—”
“He was fifteen!” Dick bit back, unable to hear someone call his brilliant little brother stupid. He’d been a perfect student, and always loved to learn and read. “He—he deserved so much better and we all failed him, and it nearly destroyed us.” He ran a hand through his hair, tiredly abandoning the vestiges of pretending the Hood didn’t know their secret identities. “Honestly, the only thing that really held us together was Tim. He just showed up, and forced his way into our lives and—I couldn’t let it happen again. Jason deserved so much more, and I couldn’t let this new kid down the way I failed Jayb-bird.” He couldn’t help choking up on the familiar nickname he hadn’t spoken in years, and the tears finally started spilling. His knees finally gave out and he would have collapsed to the floor if a pair of strong arms didn’t catch him by the elbows.
The Red Hood.
He found the leather jacket wrapped around him once again as he was bundled against the crime lord’s chest. He could barely hear over the sound of his own sobs, but Dick vaguely registered strange audio feedback from the Hood’s helmet—almost as if he were crying too. “D-Dickie.”
“It can’t possibly be comfortable crying in that thing.” Slade suddenly chimed in from his spot still on the couch. “Take the damn thing off and talk to your brother.”
Dick’s heart seized.
All of Slade’s strange comments about brothers, his questions about Jason and his whereabouts, the Red Hood’s fixation on the second Robin,
“Little Wing?” Dick croaked between sobs, reaching for the mask but the Hood caught his wrists and shook his head fervently.
“I—I’m not—I’m, I’m not that kid—” the voice crackled through the strange audio feedback, and Dick’s conviction was only strengthened.
“Jaybird please,” Dick pleaded. “If it’s you, please. Let me see your face.”
The audio feedback escalated as the Red Hood’s whole body shook. Dick easily pulled his hands out of the Hood’s grip and wrapped the larger man (boy), in his arms. Dick draped his arms over his shoulders and pulled the helmeted head down into his shoulder. He reached a hand up to feel for a latch, and it was once again caught by the Hood. But this time he guided Dick’s hand to its goal, lining it up with a subtly hidden-button Dick eagerly pushed.
With a mild hiss, the hood released, and Dick gently pulled it off to reveal matted, curling black locks, with a shock of white, and a face Dick could never forget, even under a domino. “Jay,” he choked out reverently, tracing his thumbs along the hardened planes of his baby brother’s face. Just two years, but he’d grown so much. “Little Wing.”
The domino peeled off easily after all of the tears, and Dick found himself staring into an unfamiliar shade of green. But the new color did nothing to change Dick’s focus on his baby brother’s distraught expression. “You got so big Little Wing.” He choked out between his tears, now of joy rather than grief. He gently wiped the tears pouring from his big little brother. “It’s gonna make carrying you to bed more of a workout.” He joked, hoping to relieve even just a fraction of Jason’s clear distress.
It seemed to escalate things however as Jason’s sobs shook his whole body. “D-did you mean it? Everything you said? Did you—”
“Of course. I love you Jaybird. I always have.” Dick assured, drawing him impossibly closer in his arms. “You were perfect. I—We, Bruce and I, we let you down. But not this time. Please, if you give me a chance—I—I’ll be better I swear.” He begged. Now that his brother was back, Dick couldn’t imagine letting him go again. He’d do anything. “Jaybird—”
“Dick—” Jason sobbed into his shoulder, holding onto Dick just as tight. “Don’t go.”
“I’m not going anywhere. I’m never leaving you behind again.”
Dick didn’t know how long they stayed like that—holding each other as they cried themselves to exhaustion.
As the waterworks slowly dried Dick softly ran a hand through Jason’s hair. Whatever this was, whatever brought Jason back, it obviously wasn’t natural. His baby brother had been so malnourished for so long that doctors had predicted his growth would be permanently stunted. At fifteen he had still been considered small for his age. Now, he towered as tall as Bruce.
And his eyes—
And most concerning of all, his criminal activities. They were going to have to talk about that eventually...
Once more, he ran his thumbs along Jason’s cheeks to dry them one last time now that their shared crying had slowed to soft sniffles.
All that could wait. All that mattered was that his Little Wing was alive.
“Well, now that this is resolved.” Slade was suddenly looming over them both—having silently crept upon them without their noticing. Before either boy could react, the mercenary gripped Jason by the back of the neck as if scruffing a small animal. “I’ll be expecting a better fight next time we meet, kid,” he growled. Then the grip instantly released in favor of a patronizing head pat before passing by and dropping a similar hair ruffle on Dick. “His form is a mess, keeps dropping his guard. Work on it. Until next time Little Bird. It’s been fun.”
Jason genuinely tried to lunge at the merc, but his big brother reacted quicker. Standing up suddenly he used Jason’s momentum to sweep the larger boy over his shoulder. “Let me go Dickface!” He half growled and half whined, but Jason didn’t truly struggle as Dick carried him to the bedroom and dumped him unceremoniously onto his messy bed.
The distant sound of the front door closing signaled Slade’s exit, though Jason continued to glare through the walls as if he could see his mortal enemy. “I’m going to kill him.” Jason grumbled, then turned his glare on Dick. “You’re not allowed to see him anymore.”
Dick couldn’t help laughing at that as he stretched out his back dramatically before collapsing on top of his brother; seriously, carrying his Jaybird was no joke now. “I appreciate your concern Jay.” That topic too could wait.
He took a moment to breathe in the reality of it all, clinging to his brother—to feel the warm, solid, breathing real Jason in his arms. “I love you Jaybird. I never said it enough.”
“You were—you... You weren’t that bad of a big brother.” Jason grumbled into Dicks’ shoulder, wrapping his arms around the elder as well.
Dick pressed a kiss to the crown of black hair, and with a feat truly worthy of his history of an acrobat, managed to flip off the light switch with his foot without having to leave his brother’s arms.
“Good night Little Wing.”
“Good night Big Bird.”