A.N. IMPORTANT!
Quote, the last line in "Blessings:"
"They then slowly drifted off to sleep, entwined in each other, knowing, that with blessings or without, they would always, always, be together."
Everyone here has read Wynja's "Delightful Drabbles" and she dedicated chapter 56 "Blessings" to me! :bows in honor: The final line of the story struck me with a particular idea (dark and much unlike the tone of "Blessings"). And now I have taken that and expanded it into a drabble of my own, so very big declaimer here: The universe in which this takes place does not belong to me! The fabulous Wynja created the wedding, the ring, and whatever other similarities you find! However, I did come up with the plot myself so that is mine.
Do not expect my work to be anything like Wynja's! Our styles are exceedingly different.
Have fun reading and be sure to review!
Epitaph Injection
By: The Villian's Vindication
Dedicated to: Wynja
_____________________
The man long since called Deathstroke the Terminator trudged up a small knoll, surrendered under a downpour. His visage was mostly disguised by a long trench coat, but the diminished presence he held was not so easily shadowed.
Stone that once stood proud and pristine white, now crumbled and gray, sprouted from the ground before him. He lingered long moments before the monolith, gazing upon the one mark that lay carved in its face:
The image of a bird in flight.
Carefully kneeling among the cold raindrops, he placed a single red rose upon the monument. A gold ring decorating his smallest finger flickered as if in recognition.
He shrugged his coat up higher on his shoulders, caught suddenly by the chill in the storm about him. With one last look, he turned silently towards the decaying remains of a city that stood before him. A highly advanced space craft hovered there awaiting his return.
Climbing in, his determined gray gaze looked to the stars and he launched off to return home.
Robin gasped sitting up suddenly from the damp bed sheets. He panted for a moment, glanced over to his partner he had most likely woken with his startled movements. The pair of them had nightmares often enough that they had agreed not to confront one another over them. Slade would pretend to still be sleeping and would likely drift off again soon enough.
Richard would not find it so easy.
He looked down at the engraved ring that had been his source of calmness and stability for this past while. Now he clutched the hand baring it close to his chest and curled around it in fear.
always, always, always…
The simple word meant such different things to himself and his husband. Richard's life had been so filled with chaos and adventure and romance lately that he hadn't, for a long time, taken a moment to just contemplate things, the way he used to do for hours on end in Titan's Tower.
It seemed his subconscious finally caught up with him, forcing him to think upon those thoughts locked deepest in his mind, those fears.
always…
Had that vision been simply a dream? A nightmare? Or most frightening, a prophesy? Once more his eyes fell to the heavily muscled back and mess of colorless hair that defined the man who was his everything.
Deathstroke, the Terminator, Slade Wilson, was, for all intensive purposes, immoral and… Richard trembled with the knowledge that…
he was not.
Of coarse he had always known this, but in his seemingly endless youth, worries of his own death were few and far between. With his brash, head-first approach to his and Slade's "business" he had always just taken it for granted that his death would come swift and early. So, why worry about it?
But, what if fate had other plans?
Was he to grow old and frail in the arms of his godlike lover? Was he really going to leave Slade alone to face eternity?
always…
His eyes narrowed as he tightened his hold on the symbol on his finger and on the resolve in his heart.
No.
He refused to allow it.
With a third and final glance along his Love's form, Richard slipped out of bed and out the door. He turned, making it seem as though he went to get a splash of hard drink to help him get back to sleep, but instead he backtracked silently and sprinted to the computer lab. There was research to be done.
And with that Dick's quest for his own immortality began. It was to consume him body and soul in the way all of his obsessions seemed to. He would see to it that he and Slade would rule for all of infinity.
He traveled from the jungles of South America to the markets of India, always incognito. He hid his tracks from everyone, even Slade. The man surly wouldn't understand this desire; he probably wouldn't allow Richard to even try.
With each ancient protection talisman he unearthed and every forbidden text he read, Richard felt more frustration than anything. What was the secret? How could he make this work?
always...
In the Ensuing Months
_________________
Slade wasn't certain how or why, but he seemed to be losing Robin.
Each day, week, month, his bird longer locked himself alone or slipped out, mysteriously disappearing for indeterminate amounts of time. He had thought after the marriage that their bond would be stronger than ever, but instead he found it crumbling.
And this did not please him.
As much as he cherished their romantic relationship and as much as he fought himself not to regress back to the master/apprentice farce they had shared previously, there were few other avenues remaining to hold onto what was his. And Richard was his, whether the boy wished it or not. Slade was not about to relinquish his hold, and violence the only method he knew. So violence he would use.
For long he had respected Richard's right to privacy, but that time had now passed. He glared at the black steel door attempting, in vain, to reign in the shadowed anger that frothed hot in his chest.
He was finished being slighted.
Slade punched in the security code to open the door and felt the final levies holding him in check burst as he was denied entrance. In his own home. Adrenaline scorched trough his veins as he smashed in the key panel and ripped the door open with his bare hand. Richard sit on the other side in front of the large screen he deemed more worthy of his attentions than his husband these past months.
No longer.
"You will tell me now, do you think me a fool, Robin? I am not blind to the treachery you seek under my own roof."
Dick faced him with narrowed eyes rimmed with red... with guilt, "what do you think you're doing, Slade! I've done nothing but work myself to the bone for you! For years now! And you cannot give me the time to follow my own goals? This has nothing to do with you!"
Before Richard could even think to blink, Deathstroke had him by the front of his shirt, slammed up onto the cold metal wall. "You are really trying to lie to me after all this time?! Haven't you learned by now that you can never, ever slip a lie past me? I may not know what you have been killing yourself over these days, but I can easily see how little regard you have for me!"
"My every regard is for you!!" Richard shrieked as he gasped for breath in the unrelenting grasp, "everything is always for you! I think of nothing else!" He moved his ringed hand in front of Slade's eye, "this means we are equals, Slade! You can't treat me like this!"
Deathstroke growled and flung the boy harshly to the ground, "you have, and always will, belong to me. I may treat you however I wish!"
"Slade! Stop!"
Richard was left crying out into the night as Slade took him right there on the floor. Tearing the colors off him in rage in place of excitement, forcing into him after so long being apart, letting the leaking blood ease the way of his rough thrusting, the lovemaking of their wedding night seemed now but a sick parody.
Richard was left gouging lines in Slade's chest and arms with his nails, sobbing, but able to do nothing. Unrelentingly, Deathstroke drove his anger... his sadness... into the small body beneath him until his cum seared Richard's inner walls, poisoning him.
But deep in his mind, Robin knew that there was often much loss necessary to gain a decisive victory.
___________________________________________________________________
On Computer Screen: Trails on serum code R32R083 have yielded successful results.
One Week Later
____________
"always, always, always, always..."
Truly, Slade thought, he ought to have seen it coming. Of all the ideas of what was keeping Richard distant from him, for what ever clandestine reason, this had never once crossed his mind.
But now as he gazed on, mouth gaping in horror, as his little bird drove a wicked looking needle deep into his chest, into his heart, and injected a metallic orange liquid clearly never meant to enter the human body...
Clearly, he should have seen it coming.
Mind blanking out with fear, he streaked over to Richard's side, scooped him up from the floor, and pulled out the syringe. Using his voice activation robots, he had them prepare the emergency room as he ran towards it. He scarcely allowed himself to wonder if it was too late.
Of all the dumb, stupid, idiotic, Robin-esk things to do... Tears stung stubbornly in his eye, his little circus fool. He placed Richard on a gurney and worked in coordination with at least five of his robots to get Dick hooked up to life support, the i.v., and everything else possible to keep him alive.
He tried and failed to block out the image of Richard smiling up at him, obscene streams of blood flowing from each corner of his mouth. The boy's body began convulsing right as his eyes rolled up into his head, and Slade thanked whatever higher power had granted this small bit of mercy.
Slade himself had been fully conscious during his entire procedure.
Taking a deep breath, Slade asked the computer to pull up the last files Richard had been using, hoping to find the exact formula the boy had employed. He finally allowed his emotions to topple him over in exhaustion.
He looked over at Richard, fighting back the need to vomit at the sight. His seizing limbs had been strapped down and, really, there was nothing else to be done. Nothing but to wait and to hope as never before that Robin was more like himself than he had ever dreamed. The boy had to pull through this, he had too...
...but the odds weren't good considering Slade was the only man, man not boy, out of hundreds that had survived the trial...
Slade buried his head in his hands, helpless and hopeless. After his loss of control a week before, he had stormed out, locked Richard in the computer lab, and left him there. He had frankly been appalled at his own behavior and sought to contain Richard until he could figure out how to deal with him properly.
How could he have ever thought that mere bolts and steel were enough to cage his bird? Obviously the boy found a way out and found, in his months of recluse, a drug that wasn't supposed to exist.
Slade knew why Richard had kept this "mission" of his secret. If he had known, he would never have allowed it. He would have fought and argued and not let the boy out of his sight. He would not wish this existence on anyone, even if it meant having to watch his Love grow and die. And now, he may not even have that.
Screams the like of which he had never heard tore from Richard's throat, a song that would last for hours to come. Slade tried focusing on breathing... and on his revenge.
The military had gifted him with this power, this curse, mostly against his will but he had been a soldier. It was his duty to the country, they said. But this was beyond what he could have imagined. Even as advanced as Richard's mind was, there was no way he could have concocted the serum himself. Which means he had stolen it. Which means, even after the public "termination" of all super-soldier programs in the government, the bastards had continued with their works. They even had the vials in stock.
Slade slammed his fists down on to the arms of his chair, heavily denting the metal. This batch, if Robin's files were to be believed, was not the same as his had been. Modified and changed, Slade had no idea what the effects might be.
If Richard survived, that is.
Richard faded in and out of consciousness for two unbearable days. His stats were all over the place, even off the charts, and he never managed anything more than indecipherable slurs when trying to speak.
His heart stopped three times.
Finally, finally, on the morning of the third day his eyes had opened... blank as slate. Deathstroke broke down in tears then, for the first time he could clearly remember.
This cousin of the serum that had driven him a bit mad, had apparently totally decimated Richard's mind. It was so wiped completely clean that the boy could scarcely even talk. He was now an empty shell.
The perfect super-soldier.
As he cradled the empty doll's head, Slade looked into the glassy blue eyes and drooling mouth and swore to himself that he would get his Robin back. He would reteach the boy from scratch, all of their memories, all of his training, everything. He clutched Richard's limp body close. No matter how long it took, he would get his bird back.
They did now, after all, have all the time in the world.
always...
___
End?
A.N. Don't kill me please! ;)
The "always's" in quotation marks in the beginning of the last section were whispered by Robin as he injected himself. 0.o
The code for the serum: R32R083 that he used spells out "red rose" if you really squint at it. -.-
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