Title: Masks and Men

Chapter Title: Question

Rating: T for swearing and mild violence and mature themes

Disclaimer: I don't own this… I think that's why there's Teen Titans Go and no season 6.

Author Notes: Hi ya'll. I'm finally free from high school! YAAAAY! …now onto college. Going into high school, I was, you know, a little scared; going into college…I'm terrified. Anyway, expect more stories because I need to finish these fics while I still have time, so you can expect a Pacific Rim AU for Teen Titans in the future.

Anyway, this story is set during Season 4 with some minor alterations. I always thought it would be interesting to explore Slade's character a bit more and play around with the theme of darkness vs. light. This is partially inspired by vampirecheetah's Radiance and my friend's prompt: What if Slade and Raven had their minds melded together? Add a Slade and Raven friendship and this thing was born.

Expect updates every other day. Ah... The joys of having no homework.

Please enjoy!

"No amount of darkness can hide a spark of light."

Proverb

Like love and hate, light and shadow were inherently inseparable. One could never exist without the other. And yet, light cannot exist without a shadow, but the darkness lingers even without the light. It doesn't need shadows or the light to consume everything in its path.

The darkness always wins. Or at least that's what should happen.

(But sometimes, the light is so bright that the darkness can be driven away.)

Slade never had that light. He has been corrupted beyond saving, and he knows it. Whatever spark of light he ever had was gone by the time he stepped foot into Jump City. He has embraced the darkness with open arms. In the shadows, he has found his home.

Contrary to popular belief, Slade wasn't colored in the lines of black and white. He was the kind of man who wouldn't color in between the lines of a coloring book, the kind of man that kept his cards close and his enemies closer, the kind of man that would tell lie after lie until he didn't know the truth.

When did the guise end and the man begin?

Deathstroke was the mask, Slade Wilson, the man. Deathstroke had only been a guise until it wasn't.

When had the mask become the man?

Now, even Slade doesn't know where the real him begins. He is too soft, too weak to be Deathstroke, too brutal, too cold to be Slade Wilson.

Slade is a…compromise… If anything, the shred of Slade Wilson still inside of him prevents him from careering over the edge and crossing the point of no return. If anything, he is Deathstroke in all but name and occupation.

Slade Wilson had always been the master of his Fate, and Slade has every intention of doing the same. Criminal masterminds are beholden to no one, not even themselves.

And yet, he still can't forget. He came to Jump City to do so, but even now, it still hurts. The memories are still fresh and raw, festering wounds that only make him remember of what he had to leave behind.

He is free for the first time in years. (But why is he bound in so many chains?) Slade Wilson remains, thankfully, silent, and Deathstroke isn't about to get cold feet.

He pretends that the man he once was never existed.

But he doesn't change his name.

(In spite of everything, Slade could never let go of the past.)

And when he dies, he dies in burning lava, hoist by his own petard and his own foolishness and pride. When he dies, he thinks that maybe Slade Wilson, all those years ago, had been right, but then he thinks better of it.

(It's much easier to be consumed by the darkness.)

Slade finds himself being dragged from the pits of hell, away from blazing hellfire, and back to the world of the living. Trigon returns him to his tired old bones, but holds off on the flesh. "Make a deal with the Devil, Slade," Trigon croons. "Serve me and I shall grant you your flesh and blood."

Trigon offers a hand and Slade takes it without a second thought. He might be a pawn, but even pawns can become the most powerful playing pieces—if they last long enough.

He becomes nothing more than a re-animated skeleton being dangled from invisible strings to the command of the puppeteer. (It still beats being dead.)

In exchange for life (and his flesh and blood), Slade would be Trigon's messenger boy. If that means terrifying his daughter, his plain Jane daughter into obedience, so be it.

He hunts her down like the good old days. Slade relishes the look of fear, the look of abject horror crossing her face the moment she sees him lunge for her.

Drink it in, Raven. Behold to world you are destined to create.

She squirms underneath his fiery touch. Her cries of pain are music to his ears, her sorrow, his joy, her suffering, his ecstasy. His very touch begins to burn her father's marks into her skin, and she seems so very small, so very fragile, in his careful hands.

"You can't fight Destiny, Raven," he coos in her ear. He can feel everything. Her hammering heart. The sobs heaving from her chest.

And the way he can make her burn, burn, burn.

Slade watches her resistance crumble with a sick sort of glee.

Or part of him does.

Deathstroke was all too gleeful breaking her.

Slade Wilson wasn't.

(What kind of a man is he to do this to a poor, unsuspecting girl?)

Slade Wilson stirs for the first time in years. That question, that infernal question, keeps burning in the back of his mind. Terra had come to him willingly, but Raven… He had done that for the fun of it. All of it.

(What kind of a man is he to do this to a poor, unsuspecting girl?)

He doesn't want to answer that question.

The entire affair leaves an acrid taste in his mouth.

—

The darkness begins to drown him.

Thank you for reading!

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