A/N: just a quick short story about good 'ol Deathstroke, meant to be a teaser for a future project.
Disclaimer; I don't own anything
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Deathstroke: A View to a Kill
On a cloudy night in Moscow, early 1980's...
A limousine pulls up to a tall apartment building. It is a rich neighbourhood, but even still it is dangerous to be out alone. The driver gets out, he is dressed in a smart, all black suit, the only spark of colour his tie; a rich gold.
Walking around to the back door, he opens it, and out steps an old, wide man. He too is all in black, except for his tie, which is golden with red accents looking almost like hieroglyphs. The man brings out a briefcase and sniffs the air.
Snorting he nods to the other, who returns to the driver's seat and drives off.
The old man watches the car leave before entering the building. One of the lobby attendants opens the door for the man, but doesn't say a word. They were all paid enough to keep quiet.
Ignoring the no smoking sign, the man pulls a long, hand rolled cigarette from his pocket as he walks, and clenches it between his lips with a kind of relief. He reaches the elevator and presses the call button.
With a ding the doors open, and the old man enters, retrieving a lighter from his pocket. With the ease of a lifetime smoker he lights and draws deep.
Shortly after this the elevator dings again; the penthouse. The man steps out and draws again from the cigarette, before heading down the corridor.
He passes through an ornately decorated living room, deep red carpets strewn about and gold lamps. At his fifth draw the cigarette is gone; he drops it in a gold ashtray as he passes the central coffee table.
Ancient Egyptian ornaments gaze down upon him as he passes, some replicas, some authentic. He is beginning to relax now, the calm quiet of home easing the tension in his head.
The door to the man's office opens easily, and he is greeted with the smell of more cigarettes and brandy. Not bothering to turn on the light, he goes straight to his liquor cabinet, and pours a glass straight.
With a sigh he places the briefcase on the table and lights another cigarette, this one American made, very rare in Moscow at the time.
"Those will kill you eventually, you know,"
The voice made the man jump, and his brandy glass tipped off the edge of the desk and crashed to pieces on the carpet.
On the opposite end of the room, beside a window looking down to the lobby entrance, a lamp flickered on. A man sat beneath, sandy blond hair beginning to whiten. He wore a black tactical turtleneck, and military cargo pants, also black.
"Oh, it's you," the old man nodded, and picked up his cigarette from the table where it smouldered. In only slightly accented English he spoke, "I take it you received the payment?"
The other looked at the man silently for a moment, before replying, "Yes, it was satisfactory."
Silence hung between them, and eventually the old man interrupted it, "Well, what do you want then?"
The old man's hand fidgeted in his lap, a pistol only a gesture's reach, holstered under the desk's top.
The other just watched him, maddeningly calm and collected.
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The air was still, broken only by the steady ticking of a metronome.
It was cold, his breath wisped in front of his face; but he breathed shallow, and the fog dissipated before it clouded his vision.
Slade Wilson lay prone on these cold, ancient wooden boards, hard as concrete, making the floor. Old stucco walls from a period of half-assed community growth boxed him in, and a long busted window was before him.
It was an abandoned spot, long condemned, but the local government hadn't gotten around to carrying out its sentence. So here he was, staring out of the cracked plaster down onto a barren street, in the ruin of an apartment building, in the middle of winter, in Siberia of all places. The job took him to some depressing places.
Not that he got depressed. Former sergeant Slade Wilson didn't feel while on the job, he just carried it out. The endless churning of his mind could not be reigned in though, and he observed and thought all these things without losing focus on the task at hand.
Some kind of politician, he'd read, the details weren't clear. They never were. He'd be making rounds to all the shelters in the area, from village to village, making a name for himself with the local villages.
He'd made a name with someone alright.
Once this kind of thing would have bothered him; lying for hours before dawn with a sniper rifle cocked, waiting for some man to waltz into his sights.
It was a long time since it had bothered him.
Slade focussed on the metronome to keep his thoughts directed, it was why he'd brought it. His was a mind that never ceased working, and it did him good, but could be distracting at times. The little aluminum and plastic box sat at his elbow, and blissfully swung away, left and right, left and right.
Adeline's face drifted past his mind's eye, and he twitched. Patience, he told himself, you'll see her soon.
Rose would be three months old about tomorrow, he remembered, and little Joseph would be 3 in a month more. The family was starting to grow, and here he was, still taking these jobs. Well, you don't get a title like "Deathstroke the Terminator" by taking paternity leave.
A bird sounded outside, a lone bird. It was impressively loud, whether simply for its volume or the silence it shattered, and Slade glanced about for it.
His sharp eyes caught it, perched on the window sill across the street. It was a muddy brown and white, small, but its chest bore a brilliant red plume that made it stand out it the grey of winter dawn. It sang sharply, with some tune of its own making, and it watched the street below, like him.
Another sound, distant, his ears could just pick it up. An engine, old and guttural; a car was on its way.
Minutes passed, he settled again, pressing back all thought and focussing on the ticking metronome. Across the way the bird sat, also watching, waiting for some call of a fellow too stubborn to leave this harsh environment.
Then he saw the smoke of the vehicle, and minutes later the car itself crested the short horizon and he saw his target. The car kept coming, at maybe 40 mph, in no kind of rush.
It was an old Jeep from the height of the cold war, an ironic statement to be sure. It was a bland green/grey, and its tires had large teeth to aid in snowy driving. A man in a brown coat was driving, a black furred cap on his head and aviator shades on his face. At his side was another man in a muddy brown coat, a uniform. He wore no cap but had an Ak-47 on his lap.
In the back was the target, a tall and wide man. He was balding, but made no attempt to cover it up, and he had a smile on his face, not smug, but genuine contentedness. Slade watched with anticipation through his scope, ready to pull the trigger and book it.
But the man was not alone, he saw. Beside him was a woman, gracefully aged, his wife, as the ring would indicate. She wore a descent full body coat, by no means expensive, but adequate. Her hair had begun to grey, and she too made no attempt to hide this fact. This did not surprise him, the dossier said he had a wife, and he had no qualms over killing in front of a woman. That's how he'd gotten engaged after all.
What gave him pause were the children in between these two. A girl of maybe 4 sat there, smiling at her father, and in her lap was another, a little boy of no more than year old. They were talking and laughing, and the parents watched them, and occasionally looked up to each other, and smiled.
The car came closer, rumbling along, and more sounds followed. Below, in the street, people were beginning to emerge, most poor and hungry looking. They churned up the snow, revealing dirt beneath, and they watched as the vehicle approached.
Right, left, right, left. Slade watched as the car came into his sights, and he felt his jaw tighten, teeth clenched. This wasn't how these went, he was calm, collected; he did what he had to do and got out. No questions, no hesitations.
The vehicle pulled to a stop, and the two men in brown got out. They opened the doors for the passengers, and they too stepped out. People began approaching; he would lose his shot soon.
Slade felt a bead of sweat drip down his face, and he grimaced. Focus, the metronome, right, left, right, left.
The man held his daughter's hand and he stepped forward, right, left, right, left.
The bird in the window looked on as they walked, right, left, right, left.
Right, left, right, left, bang.
The shot, though silenced, was still deafening, sending echoes throughout the street. The sun peered over the horizon as the trigger was pulled, and the bullet left the chamber, spinning in its deadly race.
To Slade, time slowed, and he saw the dark dot fly, straight out, and saw it touch the balding man. It pressed with unstoppable force between his nose and cheek bone, under his eye. It disappeared, leaving only a tiny red hole behind. In an instant, a shower of red came out from behind, and the man flinched, the bullet leaving his head lighter than before.
The man was knocked backward, clear onto his back, and his wife wore his remains. She screamed, the children, turning, didn't know what to do. The crowd shouted, crowded, the armed men tried to hold them off. More shots were fired, not from Slade's rifle but they were his bullets, nonetheless.
With a shriek the bird across from him took off, and stared down as it fled, recognizing the muddy brown and white churning, and the bright red plumes blossoming.
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"His wife and children were with him," the man under the lamp said, his voice betraying none of his emotion.
"Is that all?" the old man grunted, exasperated, "For 5 million you were supposed to be the best, and you come back to me because he made you feel it?"
His hand had barely left his lap for the gun when one appeared in the other man's hand. It was silenced and deadly looking, and he held it with no fear or hesitation, clearly in his element.
"Careful," the man whispered, and the old man placed both hands flat on the desk top.
"Well then Deathstroke, what do you want from me? Another 5 million... it's yours."
Slade Wilson leaned forward, so that his face was in shadow again. "No, but offer me power instead."
The old man clenched his fists, and smiled, "Fine then, power it is, anything you want."
"Anything I want," Slade repeated, his voice almost a whisper.
"Sure, but if we're going to have this conversation I will need some brandy. I've had a long day,"
Slade glanced to the man's briefcase, knowing the contents were full of all sorts of illegal activity. In that instance the old man stood up, and stepped over the liquor. He pulled two glasses from the cabinet, and a small concealable pistol.
With a smirk he turned around, "But not so long as to let a two bit hit man try to squeeze a few extra dollars out of me."
Slade leaned back in his chair, again in the shadow; his eyes caught the light though, and the watched him intently.
A click sounded, and the man blinked, surprised, looking at his gun.
"A two bit hit man who knows where you keep your guns,"
The old man stood up straighter, tossing the gun to the ground. "You won't get away with this, I have powerful friends,"
A soft pew sounded, and a small coil of smoke, and the old man fell backwards, spilling his precious brandy all over himself.
"I know, I look forward to meeting them,"
The mercenary stood up and slid the pistol back into its holster under his arm. He pulled a mask from his pocket and pulled it over his face. The black balaclava restricted his breathing somewhat, but the payoff was a concealed identity.
He stepped over the body and retrieved the briefcase from the desk. With a final nod to the quickly cooling corpse, Deathstroke exited the room.
A slide down the elevator shaft and some vent climbing, and Slade was outside, in the dank, poorly lit alleyway. Sinking into the shadows, Deathstroke passed like a phantom and came upon his ride, a beat up old van parked in a beat up old neighbourhood.
Sidling into the back, the man locked the doors and pulled the mask from his face. The back of the van had no windows and only one small light on the roof. One wall was a gun rack, rifles and pistols and knives hanging in immaculate condition. The other sported a wall of computer and tech, state of the art surveillance systems and a couple rolls of duct tape.
Slade pulled a collapsible table from the floor and placed the briefcase on it. With little effort the lock of the case came off, and Slade began sifting through the contents. There was information on his target, apparently a humanitarian involved in orphanages and homeless charities. There was a folder with pictures of Egyptian artefacts, prominently one amulet featuring a Jackal's head. There was a list of cities, some with checks beside them.
One city's name was slightly smudged, like someone had underlined it with a finger. Slade looked back at the file of the humanitarian projects, and the relics, and sure enough the name appeared in both. Gotham city, Slade processed, something was going down in Gotham.
Should he get involved? No, it was shady business, probably human trafficking, not his problem, he'd been paid.
But then he'd gone and killed his employer, so he did care, at least for the indignity of killing a civilian. A politician, not a civilian, he knew what he was getting into...
The image of the two children looking back as their father's head exploded filled his vision, followed by Adeline, holding little Rose in her arms, and Joseph giggling and poking his little sister.
Whatever was going on, he had to know. Damn his conscience, Waller would not approve. The thought of the stern black ops director brought a frown to his face; the wretched overweight woman had a presence that never left you.
A single picture was at the bottom of the brief case, a napkin actually. It was dirty and wrinkled, but as he turned it over he found a strange symbol. Drawn with care and red ink was what looked like a stylized 'S', and written next to it in fine handwriting the word Scath.
"Onward to Gotham then," Slade muttered, dropping the napkin into the briefcase. As he pressed through to the driver's seat, the red symbol just lay there, innocent and malevolent.
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A/N: and there it is. I watched Casino Royal a while back and it occurred to me that it was something Slade would probably have done, back in the day. Also, I started a story a, wow, couple of years ago and it kind of went into limbo. I am going to be resurrecting it shortly, Batman: Reigning Blood. If you want to read the old version I would suggest doing it quickly, as I'll be taking it down as soon as I have a few chapters to start again.
Reigning Blood will feature Slade at a turning point in his life, Batman fresh on the scene and making a name for himself, and a young Brother Blood, as well as an original(ish) villain. It is set a good 15 years or so before the Titans get together, and will be set in the Batman Animated Series Universe. Its not really a cross over, since the Titans haven't even been formed yet, so it'll be under the Batman TAS category.
Thanks for reading and feel free to leave any kind of comment, I appreciate anything and everything anyone responds with. Feel free to read some of my other stuff if your interested! Until next time, farewell.