Disclaimer: I don't own anyone.
A/N:
To Lia and everyone on tumblr asking me about Northern Star vs this fic: Well, in my head this is a separate timeline just to help me write it, but you can certainly think of this fic as an AU of an AU if you want to. The only problematic thing is the JLA, which will not be featured in this fic, so I do encourage you to think of this fic in an entirely new context.
EDIT ON FIRST CHAPTER: apologies, I had some factual errors in the first chapter, if anyone noticed, and I fixed them.
Chapter 2: Recuperating
-DG-
Safehouse
Bruges, Belgium
Dick could not fall asleep. He laid on his back on the unfamiliar bed in the unfamiliar bedroom, staring at the apartment ceiling. There were people still awake upstairs. He heard them shuffling around, their muffled voices speaking in rapid Flemish.
Violent memories tumbled in his mind, preventing him from falling asleep. What was the point? So long as he was awake he could control the memories. If he fell asleep he wouldn't be able to stop himself from screaming.
Dick got up heavily and stared into the darkness, his eyelids pregnant with weariness. After a moment he got up and went to the bathroom. He flicked on the bathroom light and looked into the bathroom mirror. He hadn't looked well in five years. His slightly sunken appearance wasn't due to the abuse or lack of sleep, but sheer mental exhaustion.
He filled a glass with water and drank, but his stomach still rebelled. Dick leaned over and vomited into the toilet. It was as though he wanted to purge his body from everything awful that had happened in the past forty-eight hours. Sweat plastered his hair to his forehead and his arms trembled. He flushed the toilet and wiped away the sick from face with the back of his shaking hand.
"Dick?" The bathroom door swung open. "You okay?"
Dick had gotten used to Slade invading his personal space, but that didn't mean that he would ever get used to it completely. Something lurched in his stomach, and he leaned over the toilet to vomit again. The mercenary caught him and held him as he vomited, rubbing his back in soothing circles as if he were a sick child. "It's okay. I got you."
Dick vomited until he began dry heaving. When he spoke, it was with great heaving gasps that left him winded. "Go away."
"I heard you. I was in the living room. Couldn't sleep. Not like I could with you vomiting next door." Slade moved away to fill up his glass with water. "Here. Drink this and go back to bed."
It didn't take a genius to realize that Slade had been up drinking the entire time Dick was trying to sleep. Slade wasn't dressed in his pajamas and he reeked of alcohol.
"Why do you bother with me?" Dick asked, his voice shaking. "I'm more trouble than I'm worth."
Even when Dick tried, he knew that he was not the apprentice that Slade had expected him to be. He had hoped to demonstrate that he wasn't the best choice for the job, but his every failure seemed to encourage Slade to train him harder.
"In the end you always follow my orders. And truthfully, that's all that matters." The mercenary patted his shoulder reassuringly. "You'll be fine. Get some sleep."
Dick twisted his way out of Slade's grip. "Get the hell away from me."
He stormed out of the bathroom and back into the living room. Slade stomped after him, his voice rising angrily. "Why are you acting like this?"
"You can make me kill people all you want, but once a child dies then that's it. I'm through."
"Keep your voice down. You'll wake Frannie and the neighbors."
They looked up. The neighbors upstairs had stopped talking. Slade and Dick fell silent, as though waiting for the other to shout something stupid.
"We're not going to talk about this right now," Slade said.
"Then when are we?"
Slade bristled. "When this mess blows over."
"And when will it blow over, Slade? When will someone ever not want you dead?"
"Look, I'm just trying to help."
"Whatever." Dick made his way back to his room. "You're not my friend and you never will be. Get used to it." Dick slammed the door in Slade's face.
He rubbed his eyes furiously, trying to hold back his tears. Killing people who deserved it—fine. Dick could deal with that now. But let a child's death fly by him—that he couldn't allow. He had allowed so many deaths to stroll by him, but now he wanted to stop. For the first time in years he felt the urge to stop Slade again. Everything Slade made him do hurt someone else, and though he knew that Slade hadn't wanted the child hurt, he had allowed it to happen.
What was the point of it all? The Titans, Batman, everyone he had known before would have never wanted this for him. Dick didn't even want this life for himself. No point feeling sorry about himself, though. That wouldn't do anyone any good.
-SW-
Safehouse
Bruges, Belgium
Slade woke up with one hell of a hangover. His head throbbed painfully as he dragged his feet towards the small kitchen, where Frannie was already waiting with breakfast.
"Good morning," Frannie said. "Catch up on your sleep?"
"No."
"Seems like neither of you did. I heard a lot of shouting last night."
"It's nothing new."
Slade poured himself a cup of coffee and shoveled some eggs onto his plate. "Where's the boy?"
"Asleep. He's still upset. Probably will be for the next week. You've got that boy on too tight of a leash, Slade," Frannie said. "He's going to bite back, if he hasn't already."
"Oh, believe me, he has."
Slade stabbed his eggs. Finding new ways to annoy Slade was one of Dick's favorite pastimes. Every time Slade forbade something Dick turned around found something else to mock. While Slade accepted that this was part of the deal, he knew that he had to curb the boy's dark sarcasm and his temper.
"You need to give him some space," Frannie said.
"Tell me something I don't know."
Slade started eating. Being subjected to this conversation while suffering through a pounding headache wasn't his idea of fun, but Frannie was insistent.
"How many times has he fallen apart?" Frannie asked. "He seems a bit…unhinged."
"Really? In what way?"
"Well, I don't know him well, but anyone can tell that he's troubled. He's not taking this contract well."
"Why do you care?"
"You expect me to treat this boy as I treat you: like an old friend. I cannot do that if you continue to treat him like absolute shit."
"I don't treat him like shit."
The look Frannie gave him could have given him cancer. "He's twenty-one, for God's sake, and you treat him like he's eight. It's only a matter of time before he snaps and gets rid of you for good. Eventually he may fear for his life and sanity enough to do something stupid, with or without the Titans to hold him back."
"Come on, Fran, you know me better than that. I don't mistreat him."
Frannie raised an inquisitive eyebrow.
"Then start treating him like an equal." Frannie scowled. "You can start by fixing that clusterfuck of a contract."
Yes, even the great Slade Wilson made mistakes. He didn't know how he had missed the child during his research. This kind of carelessness would not happen again.
"You don't think I'm trying to help him? You sound like Will."
"It seems like you're running away to Bruges and drinking away your problem."
"I don't kill children. That's against my moral code. If I had known there was a kid I would have done things differently."
"Do you know who the child was?"
"A bystander. She wasn't related to our target."
"A victim?"
"I don't know. I don't want to know."
"How did she die?"
"An accident. Dick tried to save her, but…" Slade shook his head.
"Let him grieve, Slade."
"We don't have time to grieve." He looked at his watch. "Damn. He's not up yet."
Frannie put a hand on his arm. "See what I mean? You're controlling every minute of his schedule."
"He'll destroy everything I've worked for if I don't."
"That's no way to build trust."
"Old habits are hard to break."
"Still as stubborn as ever, I see."
Why was she looking at him like that? Slade didn't like it. He thought that Frannie would be the least judgmental out of all of his small group of friends, but maybe he was wrong about her.
"Why don't I wake him? He's been very polite to me, Slade. He won't be mad at me. And I must say that I'm impressed." Frannie sipped her coffee. "He's not a bad kid. You could have done worse."
"Yeah, I guess I could have."
-DG-
The next morning he picked at his breakfast. Frannie had the radio tuned to a German news station, as she could not understand Flemish. Dick only understood bits and pieces of it, as he had not yet mastered the German language.
"Eat," Slade said, nudging his plate.
"Not hungry."
Nothing seemed appetizing. Slade had already gotten up and eaten before him, and now the two adults were watching him closely, as though they expected him to blow up at any moment. Whatever for?
"You haven't eaten anything in the past twenty-four hours."
"I'm not hungry."
Dick pushed his plate away and set his head down on his folded arms.
"What do you want to do today?" Slade asked.
"It doesn't matter."
He knew why Slade was being nice to him: he didn't want to deal with another breakdown. After five years of mental conditioning, Slade was finally getting the hang of it. Dick suspected that the past five years were a trial-and-error period for Slade as well as him. He spent most of the early years bullying Dick, although as time went by Slade realized that he had to step back for a few hours—or days—to let Dick recuperate. Today seemed to be such a day.
"You're in Bruges and you don't want to do anything. How boring."
"I don't feel like doing anything."
"Why not?"
"Why are we still here?" Dick asked. "A child died, Slade."
"What do you want me to do?" Slade demanded. "Apologize? She's dead. Accept that."
"Accept it? Like I've accepted every single shitty thing you've made me do?"
"Watch your language. You've always had a choice."
"Don't pretend that you gave me a choice." Dick shook slightly as he sat there, his hands clenching into fists. "Stop pretending. Please."
Slade could live in his fantasy-land as long as he wanted to, but Dick was going to have none of that. Not anymore. If he was going to live this life, then he'd rather have the harsh reality. But Slade? He was a whole different story. Why did Slade keep accepting contracts? He seemed just as unhappy as Dick felt, sometimes. Neither of them had won, it seemed, in the end.
"You think I'm pretending?" Slade laughed. "I've been real about this from the beginning."
"I know you have, but you wrap everything up with lies. I can't pretend anymore." Dick's voice rose. "You let that little girl die—"
"Boys," Frannie said, rising her voice. "This is not the time or the place."
Hearing someone other than Wintergreen say that made them both shut up. Slade sighed and gestured for Dick to follow him.
"Where are we going?" Dick asked.
"Out." Slade threw him his coat. "Come on."
Sighing heavily, Dick pushed away his plate of food and followed Slade.
"I'll see you both tonight," Frannie said.
Slade grunted. Something about Frannie's tone made Dick pause in the doorway, and he briefly acknowledged her with a small wave.
The younger man followed Slade out of the apartment and onto the street, his pace slow enough to annoy the mercenary, but quick enough to keep up with him. He stuck his hands deep in his coat pockets, his expression blank, as usual.
"We're not training today or working on a contract," Slade said. "If you were curious."
Dick shrugged. "Doesn't matter to me."
They walked through the cobblestone streets, and as time passed Dick realized that they were sightseeing. Slade hardly ever went sightseeing. He was always too busy to do that sort of thing, but sometimes he tried. There was too much on Dick's mind for him to fully appreciate their surroundings. Everything seemed dull and uninteresting, especially in light of their recent contract.
Bruce always talked about taking him to Europe. As they passed a newsstands Dick scanned the headlines. Not that he understood Flemish—because he didn't—but sometimes the European papers talked about Bruce Wayne's charitable pursuits. Lately he hadn't seen anything about Bruce Wayne. Oh well. Maybe he would find something once they got back to the States. He didn't know why he tortured himself like that, but it got him something to look forward to.
"I thought it would be a good idea to take a walk around the city," Slade said as they stopped on a bridge. "I promise that we're not here on business."
"You always say that, but then we end up going somewhere on business."
"Even I need a break sometimes. Come on, it'll be fun."
"You say that about everything," Dick muttered.
Most of the morning was a blur for him, to be perfectly honest. He tried to block out all memories of his time with Slade whenever he could. No one passing by them knew just how messed up everything was, and Dick's blank expression did not betray the tumult inside him. Every waking moment, it seemed, was dedicated to reliving that awful contract. Every little girl that passed by them with her parents made Dick feel worse with each passing moment, and though he tried to block the memories, they eventually flooded through him.
Their contract was in some little city in France. Dick had already forgotten the name of the city because the detail, at the moment, was not important. What was important was that he get this contract done quickly. International contracts made Slade extra antsy.
"He should be on your floor," Slade said through the communicator's in Dick's ear. "Once he's dead then we'll clean up and leave the country. I'd like to be done in a couple hours. Is that clear?"
"Yes, Sir."
Dick moved cautiously through the house. He held his gun up, ready to be fired at a moment's notice. He had gotten over his reluctance to handle guns four years ago. The more contracts he participated in the more he realized that he needed the gun to protect himself, since Slade gave him no other weapon.
"You gotta move," Slade said. "Our target is nearer you. I'm dealing with one of his henchmen right now."
Someone wept through a door. Dick opened it cautiously, and to his shock found a little girl sitting on the floor, tears falling down her face. She was too frightened to scream, though her eyes stared at the gun in Dick's hand. Dick knelt slowly and put the gun away, afraid of making her scream.
"Look at me," Dick said, shaking the child by her shoulders. "Please…"
She looked just as terrified of him as she did of the man holding her captive. But she looked at him as he tried to look at her reassuringly. There was no way he could try to smile.
"You can trust me," Dick said desperately. "I'm not going to hurt you. I want to help you."
The child screamed as gunfire rattled the building. Dick almost felt like screaming himself, but all his years of training told him that it would do nothing. Instead he allowed the child to clamp her arms around his neck.
"I told you to move!" Slade snapped through the communicators in Dick's ears. "Where the hell are you now?"
"I'm a floor below you in one of the rooms," Dick said, mentally referring to the blueprint Slade had made him memorize earlier. "There's a kid here, Slade!"
For once Slade was quiet. "What?"
"There's a kid here. In the basement. I need to get her out."
"She'll only slow you down. Leave her there until we have this sorted out."
"No, we need to get her out now."
"I gave you an order. Obey it."
Dick could not let her go. She hugged his neck tightly as he patted her hair nervously. She spoke to him in rambling French, which he couldn't understand.
"It's okay, it's okay, everything's going to be okay."
How could he possibly promise this child that everything would be okay, that he would get her out of this situation when he couldn't even help himself? She couldn't even understand him.
"DICK!"
The communicators rattled his eardrums, but Dick didn't care. "I can't do this, Slade!"
"Damn it!"
Gunfire filled the air again. Dick ducked his head as he carried the little girl away, hoping against hope that he would not lose her. He was painfully aware of the gun hanging on his hip, but he didn't want to take it out again unless he had to. He might scare her.
"Drop her."
Their target stood at the other end of the hallway, his gun pointed straight at Dick. He spoke with a slight French accent. His name was Jérémie Dupont, a Frenchman drug dealer whose international market had done splendidly. One of his competitors had hired Slade to kill him, or so Dick understood.
"Do you understand me, American?" Dupont demanded. "Drop the girl or I will shoot you both."
Dick shifted the girl to one arm as he reached for his gun. "Do you know who I am, Dupont?"
"I know that you work for Deathstroke and that you are here to kill me."
Where the hell was Slade? He should have finished the job by now. Dick raised the gun and pointed it at Dupont. In normal circumstances his hands would have shaken with fright. But now he had a purpose. If he did nothing then he would be killed. He raised his gun and aimed it at his target. "That's right. But if you step aside and let me and the kid through, then I won't kill you."
"I'm the one with the bigger gun. I will unload this entire magazine into you and the kid before you can even move."
Damn. This was turning into a giant game of chicken. Obviously the girl was of some value to the guy, because he was hesitating to shoot as well. Dick sure as hell knew that this wasn't Dupont's kid. Slade's dossiers were pretty thorough about those kinds of things. If the guy so much as bought a lottery ticket while out he was drunk one night, then Slade knew about it.
"I've fought worse than you," Dick said. "Even the plasma monster back at home isn't as big of a butthole as you."
"Is that supposed to impress me?"
"Yeah. In fact it is."
Gunfire erupted all around them as Slade brought the gunfight to their floor. Dick's eardrums hurt as the girl screamed into his ear. He fired a warning shot at Dupont, who ducked out of the way and took cover behind a wall.
"You had him a point-blank range and you didn't shoot him?" Slade snarled into the communicator. "Incredible. Watch your right."
The warning came almost a second too late. Dick twisted awkwardly as gunfire came rushing down the other hallway on his right. Someone blocked his way. He almost fired two shots into the guy before he realized that it was Slade.
"Give me the kid," Slade said, "I'll get her out of here. You finish the job."
Instead of following his master's orders, Dick shook his head and tightened his grip on the kid. What was Slade trying to do, scare the kid? He was in uniform. If the girl wasn't scared before, she would be scared by Slade's freaking mask.
"What the hell makes you think I trust you with a little kid?"
"This isn't up for negotiation!"
A horrible time for an argument, really. One of Dupont's men shouted something in French. "Foutons le camp avant que les flics n'arrivent!"
"Crap," Slade said. "The cops are coming. We need to get moving."
Slade tried to take the kid away, but she screamed, trying to grab onto Dick's armor as Slade pulled her out of his arms.
"Come on, Slade, we had a deal—"
"We're not going to discuss this now."
Wham!
Dick kicked Slade's shin, which distracted him for just a moment and gave Dick enough time to take the screaming child back.
"Don't do this now, kid!" Slade snapped. "Once we get out of this I swear to God—"
A sudden explosion rocked the building and threw both of them off their feet. The girl accidentally let go of Dick and skidded down the hallway. A secondary explosion, much closer and more dangerous, lurched them even further away from each other. As Dick tried to launch himself towards the kid, Slade grabbed the back of his uniform and pulled him behind a wall as a third explosion blasted the hallway.
He knew long before the debris had settled that the girl was dead. A fire had started at the other end of the hall and was consuming the area where the girl had gone. He knew that if he stepped outside that he would see her body.
"Come on!" Slade shook his shoulders. "Dick, we have to go."
Slade started shouting at him as he refused to move. Dick wasn't even aware that he was screaming until Slade clamped a hand over his mouth.
"Get yourself killed if you want, but don't drag me into it," Slade hissed. "We're done. We're leaving, now."
"Dick?" Slade's voice broke him out of his reverie. "We're getting lunch. You haven't eaten."
Oh. He hadn't even noticed that they had wandered into a little street full of restaurants. Uneasy thoughts continued to haunt him as they sat down and had brunch next to the canal. Dick spent most of the time staring out at the water watching the gondolas float by, picking at the food Slade had ordered for him.
How could Slade brush this off so easily? He had kids once. Dick didn't know them, but if Slade loved his kids, then how could he tolerate a child's death?
Yeah. He had kids once. They probably got taken away by social services, which is how I got stuck with this lunatic.
Maybe everyone just needed to chill out. Bruges seemed the perfect place to chill out and forget about the world for a little while. Bruges was an old city with winding canals and churches filled with reverent silence. The droves of tourists had not yet arrived, so it was the quiet before the storm.
Dick looked up at the pale blue sky. It really was a beautiful spring day in Bruges. The morning chill nipped at his ears, nose, and cheeks, causing them to flush red. As he took a deep breath he smelled the city air. Maybe someday things would be okay again.
"I'm going to take off for a while," Dick said. "Is that all right with you?"
The mercenary stiffened, and for a moment Dick thought he had asked at the wrong time. Being nice was only another technique of his: no matter how nice Slade appeared to be, it was always for another end.
Aw, crap, Dick thought.
After a moment Slade smiled, which made Dick feel uneasy.
"Here's a map of the city. Be back at the apartment by six. Tomorrow we're leaving the country."
"Fine." Dick got up from his chair and set a twenty euro underneath his glass. "This is for her tip."
Slade raised an eyebrow. "All right."
Whatever. It was Dick's blood money, and Slade gave it to him to do whatever he wanted with it.
"But," Slade said.
Dick groaned and turned around. "There's something you want me to do?"
"As a matter of fact, there is. Give me your phone." Slade took his phone, unlocked it and typed something into a navigation app. "We need new guns before we leave the country. You're going to pick them up for me at 3 o'clock at this address. Do this if you want to go out alone into the city today."
There was always a catch, wasn't there? "I thought we weren't here on business."
"We're aren't. I'm just making sure we have what we need."
"Fine." Dick put his phone back into his pocket. "See you later."
Dick didn't know where he was going to go during those three hours he had to kill, but he had a whole city to explore. Best make the most of it while he could.
