I'm proud to announce that this is my best (and longest) chapter. Thank you all so much for the reviews last chapter! It was definitely gratifying to hear what parts about it that you liked.
I'm also proud to announce that I was proofreading this with my girlfriend and I happened to get her, without intending, to ship Birdflash. Without ever having watched Young Justice. And through a fanfiction (this fanfiction) that isn't even slash (this can be taken either way, as is with 99% of my writing).
But, without further ado, enjoy chapter 2!
Perched on a rooftop in Starling City, Dick felt like there was nothing that could bring him down but the small corner of his heart that sagged in soaked depression. An itching feeling, that depression was. He could breath in however deeply that he liked, he could hum with the thrill of adrenaline, but every time that he did he felt that if he just let go (even though he didn't know if he was holding onto something to begin with) then he might become overwhelmed with the one percent of his soul that throbbed.
The wind whipped through Dick's hair, blowing it back as he felt a second of euphoria when he moved and finally sprang onto a lower roof. He kept running, his legs stretching out and barely touching the ground itself, pushing and pushing and forever propelling him forward. Dick's heart thrummed. The chip was grasped firmly in the palm of his hand.
A spotlight highlighted Dick's running frame from above and he wanted to scowl at the burst of light. But he couldn't. He was too excited, too alive, and far too dead.
Police cars lined the streets below, and Dick would almost wonder what the big deal for a little chip was if he didn't know better. Of course the chip was a big deal if it had been held under such security and yearned for by Slade himself. And, if Dick bothered to remember, he'd remark that he had snapped one security guard's neck who had been a second away from pulling the alarm. But Dick wasn't supposed to think about any of that. He was Slade's apprentice - not his partner. Who was he to know about his mentor's dealings?
A shot bounced off of the pavement behind his leg, and Dick was mildly surprised to note that the helicopters had begun shooting at him. How odd. They must have dropped their lenient no-kill policy somewhere after Dick's nth victim and nth steal.
He felt something hit his thigh. Good thing that part of Renegade's uniform was plated.
"Where are you?" a voice rasped in his ear. Dick wanted to groan in exasperation.
"Turn on the news," Dick grumbled back, beginning to feel breathless.
"You have ten minutes to return." The communicator crackled off. Dick cursed.
And jumped off the edge of the building.
Dick already had his grappling hook out and the line was swung around an arched light pole. He swung over the police cars, shots ringing around him and some impacting the metal plates of his uniform. Thankfully, the overall weight of himself and his uniform prevented the bullets from swinging him off balance and thus, off course. Dick successfully crashed into the window of an office building across the street from the building he had been on top of and the spotlight stopped at the street as he rolled underneath a wooden desk to absorb his landing.
Dick didn't let himself stop to catch his breath. Blood pumping, he sprang out from underneath the desk, thankful that the lights in the room were off to provide him a comfort cover, and dashed through the door.
In the light of everything that had happened that night, Dick found it amusing that he had opened the door like any normal civilian. It certainly felt out of place.
Refusing to pause, Dick shot every security camera that he could spot (which was all of them - his training didn't allow for anything less), and began putting on more clothes.
The building was empty, and if it wasn't then he'd be gone before anyone could peer into the hallway after him. He had added an extra pouch in the back of his black utility belt, something that Slade had yet to know about and he would take off before he saw the man again. Unbuckling the pouch, Dick pulled out a loose shirt and jacket and slipped on the loose articles of clothing as he continued to run. Then he took out a long pair of sweatpants and stopped for the smallest of a second, shoving it up his legs. Dick began to run again as he simultaneously ripped off his mask and belt. He shoved his mask into the belt, folded the belt, and buckled it again over his shirt and under his jacket high on his waist.
Dick found a door to the stairs. Halting, panting, and deliberately beginning to slow his heartbeat, he casually opened the door and began trotting down the stair well as if he had all the time in the world, zipping up his jacket as he did so to hide his belt. Within minutes, Dick arrived at a door at the bottom of the stairwell. He ignored it, turned, and continued walking down the hall until he got to a metal door with a push bar across the middle. Trusting his logic, he pushed it open.
Lo and behold, it was a parking lot. Shoving his hands in the pockets of his sweats and slouching his back and shoulders, he walked, blinking as his eyes accustomed to being unmasked. Spotlights flickered above him, but not on him, instead trained on the roof of the building where they likely expected Renegade to emerge.
He smirked and took out the sunglasses that he kept in his sweats. Dick slipped them on and began scanning the parking lot. Right at the entrance of the parking lot, eyes fixated on the commotion above and in front of the building, was a boy on a bicycle. He was just sitting there, loitering slightly off to the side of the completely deserted sidewalk.
Perfect. A bit stupid for the boy, but perfect for Dick. Chip still in one hand, he absently thumbed its rough surface in his pocket as he began casually walking up to the boy. Dick's hand curled into a fist, ready to drag the other into the bushes, knock him out, and take his bicycle.
"Hey," Dick called as he approached the teenager. The teenager didn't seem to hear him until Dick stood right beside him.
"What? Oh, sorry, hi," the teenager answered. He turned to face Dick.
And Dick's breath caught.
"Wally?" Dick said before he could stop himself, and mentally swore at his own clumsiness. Not that it was much of a deal. He already knew that the teenager wouldn't be calling him out for his presence, if the other day had been any indication.
Wally looked alarmed that a person he had never met before knew his name. He frowned, gripping the handlebars of his bicycle cautiously as he scrutinised Dick. "Who are you?" he demanded. "And why are you wearing sunglasses?" Wally propped his foot on the pedal, body tense and ready to spring into action.
Right. Normal people didn't wear tinted sunglasses late at night. It was habitual, though. Dick couldn't remember the last time he hadn't worn a mask in front of someone. He felt vulnerable just having it off for the few seconds that it took to wash the grit out of his eyes in the morning. Instead of answering, Dick darted his hand out for the handlebar. He gripped the rubber and stared Wally in the eye, though for what, he didn't know. It was his chance to drag the kid off the bike and knock him out. What was he waiting for?
Why was he waiting for Wally to recognise him?
Maybe the silence was the final indication. Having experienced what Wally considered as conversation, Dick figured that he must not know very many silent people. Wally's eyes widened and he sat up straighter. "Re-Ren-" his eyes darted towards the building, where a SWAT team had unloaded onto the roof.
"Give me the bike," Dick demanded.
Wally got off so quickly that he tripped and fell into the water puddle at the edge of the street.
"W-wait!" Wally called as Dick swung one leg onto the seat. "What are you doing in Starling? I-I'm here visiting a friend, and-"
What the hell was wrong with the kid? Pure bewilderment was the only thing that kept Dick rooted in his place.
"Why do you need the chip?" Wally asked instead. He noticed Dick turn his attention back to the sidewalk in front of him and lunged to grab Dick's leg. "No! Wait! I mean, uh… what are you doing this for?"
Dick promptly kicked him in the face. Yelping, Wally fell back and clutched his nose. "Keep away, kid," Dick scowled. "Chasing after me is going to get you killed. I'm not your friend."
"No! You're not!" Wally yelled in frustration. He planted his palms on the street for emphasis, uncovering his nose that was streaming blood into his mouth and coating his front teeth. "You're a murderer, a thief!"
"Then why-" Dick started to ask, frustrated enough himself.
"Because you're not crazy!" Wally screamed. "You're doing this for some reason, but not on your own free will!"
Of course it was on his own will. Slade said so. If it wasn't on his own will, then Dick would simply refuse to do any of the missions. It didn't matter if he was threatened or hurt, he did it, so it was on his own free will.
Sick of listening, Dick kicked off the pavement and headed away from commotion before the police discovered that he wasn't in the building anymore. Once he was well enough away from the area, he would toss his clothes off somewhere in the dirt and call his motorcycle.
"God dammit! Stop listening to Deathstroke! Or Luthor, or whoever it is!" Wally cried out from behind him. Dick didn't even want to know why Wally had gone and searched up Renegade's possible associates. He just wanted to leave, so he did, abandoning the bleeding and near crying boy in the middle of the street.
But Wally would not leave his mind.
So one day, when Slade had no mission assigned for him yet, the day before Christmas Eve, when all of the holiday's assignments would be thrown at the mercenary and his apprentice left and right, Dick found himself in Central City.
It was still light out - in fact, it was a good few hours before evening even started to fall. It was unusual for Renegade to be out at that time, in such a cheerful city as Central no less, but Renegade worked at night. The only 'free time' he had was during the day. So the day it was.
There was no one in Wally's house, and the clock was discovered to tell the time as fifteen minutes to three. It was likely that his parents were still at work and he himself was still at school. How annoying. Instead of turning back, though, Dick only opened every door in his house and began scanning the bedrooms.
Wally's mother was flamboyant. She had nothing on her walls, but they were painted a light maroon. Her bedsheets had sewn swirling patterns of silver on them over the red background, and the duvet was white and practically bursting with feathers. A peek into her closet revealed sequin covered wine red and grape purple dresses, her mirror desk was stained with make up, and she had boxes of heavy and sparkling jewelry. Black eyeliner and various shades of purple eyeshadow were still open.
His father was angry. Dick assumed that when he discovered that the bedroom, which had clothes that could only belong to a man, was small and separate from the mother's. There were suits in his closet, but those were crammed to the very back and looked very much untouched. All the clothes that should have been on the hangars were on the ground of the closet, likely knocked over, and there was no mirror. One drawer had been flung out and lie broken in the corner and his blue bedsheets were on the floor. There were stains of curious liquid on the carpet.
Wally himself was...moralful. Happy.
There were comic books scattered about on his pillow, which sported a bright and cheerful yellow colour. Dirty clothes were scattered on the ground and crammed under the bed, and multiple belts lay abandoned at the foot of his bed. There were posters of significant political figures on the wall and a bobble head of Martin Luther King Jr. at his bedside. Sticky notes scattered the surface of his drawers, reminding him to turn in something in Chemistry or invite some girl to the dance or drop cookies by on his way to his aunt's house. A quick glance to the corner of the room revealed a mostly empty bookcase stacked with action movies, graphic novels, thesauruses, and a few journals. One of the journals which, Dick discovered, was filled with scribbles of thoughts, feelings, and comical cartoons.
He seriously had nothing to hide. Not by what Dick could see from his room. If the journal was under his bed, that would be different. It might show shame or secrecy. Maybe if his sheets were blue or the posters on his wall had pictures of girls and cars instead of presidents and a few funny prints of the English Prime Minister, then Dick could conclude that Wally was somewhat shallow and lonely. But no. Wally really hid nothing. Nothing past what a normal person would hide, at least - and maybe a bit less. His room was sincere. Genuine.
The front door opened. There was the creak of carpeted floorboards as Dick peered down the stairs to see a teenaged redhead sporting a heavy backpack walking away from him, towards the couch in the living room. Dick stepped out of Wally's room, onto the staircase, and watched as Wally swung the backpack onto the couch arm. The redhead slumped in relief at the lifted weight and picked up the remote.
Dick slid soundlessly down the stair railing and walked to the back of the couch. Wally paused, hand half raised with the remote, a suspicious sense likely catching the watchful presence of another person. Dick smirked victoriously as Wally slowly turned to face him.
Wally's face turned red, likely due to increased heartbeat and random shots of adrenaline, and backed up until his knees hit the table.
"If you're so afraid of me," Dick asked, "then why do you bother looking at me as someone other than a cold-hearted monster?" Wally's breath came in short rasps and Dick didn't bother pressing him for an answer as the boy worked to calm himself down from the silent scare that the assassin had given him. That didn't go to say that there wasn't sweat collecting on his brow and over his shaking palms, though.
"Never said you weren't a cold-hearted monster," Wally croaked. "Just not crazy. Or free."
Free. Dick thought that he was pretty free. More free than most people out there, being able to swing past buildings, cutting through the chill air and never getting caught. Running and dancing and jumping however he pleased. Yeah, Dick figured that he was pretty free. "I do the job assigned and get rewarded for it. That's how an assassin's life is," Dick stated matter-of-factly.
Wally looked like he had already anticipated that answer, though. Dick figured that he must have. After all, meeting an assassin was not an everyday thing, and it was likely that Renegade had been the only thing on Wally's mind for days. Dick was almost honoured. "What's your reward?" Wally demanded. "Money? Fame?"
"Whatever I want," Dick said, eyes behind his mask narrowed.
"Whatever you want, or whatever Deathstroke wants?" Wally spat.
Dick tensed. "What makes you say that I work for Deathstroke?" he said cautiously, quietly, but not at all warmly.
"Come on, it's not that hard to connect the pieces," Wally exclaimed, exasperated. Dick decided that Wally was too worked up to register who, exactly, he was talking to again. "My uncle works for the police, my dad's been caught by the police, I can walk into the station whenever I want and Deathstroke always somehow gets the things that you steal. Deathstroke's enemies are always after you, too. You work for Deathstroke."
"I don't work for him."
"Yeah, you do. And what reward do you get out of it? What does he give you?" The taller teenager's face was beginning to darken in frustration - again.
Nothing. "I get left alone," Dick growled, and he cursed himself in and out, down and back from Hell. What was he doing, playing the kid's game?
"So you're his prisoner?" accused Wally.
"I'm his apprentice," spat Dick.
There. Something that Wally wasn't expecting. The teenager blinked in surprise, straightening ever so slightly. His panting breaths rang out in the suddenly silent air. "Apprentice? Like, you...let him mentor you?"
"He teaches me," Dick explained. "Just as any mentor does to an apprentice. I learn his trade."
"You…want to? Want to learn his trade?"
"I learn his trade," repeated the apprentice.
They stood parallel to each other, Dick leaning against the back of the couch and Wally standing rimrod straight in front of the coffee table. Slowly, Wally crossed his arms over his chest. "Is he your dad?"
"What?" Dick exclaimed in horror, standing up in shock.
"There's no way you want to do what you do. If you liked it, I'd be dead," Wally said. Dick clenched his fists.
"You're so convinced, aren't you? Do you want me to kill you?"
"Do you want to kill me?" Wally countered.
"No," Dick shouted, and just like that, it felt as if all the anger had left him. Left him a limp mannequin. He closed his eyes, though that wasn't visible from the mask restricting strangers from seeing his eyes.
"What are you, twelve?" said Wally, but he whispered, as if the silence was more precious than the silence before. He didn't sound condescending. No, he was well aware of what Dick could do. He couldn't possibly be judging Dick by his age. But he did sound like something else. He sounded pitying.
Dick didn't need pity. Wally was the one who needed pity for his weak, mundane life.
"My personal information is none of your business," Dick snapped back. What did it matter if he was younger or shorter than Wally was? Since when did that determine his skill?
Wally daringly stepped forward, but before he could do anything else, he found himself on the ground. His head was throbbing and there was a foot over his throat, choking him, with a white eskrima stick right in front of his eye. He gulped.
"I do what I have to. I kill because I get told to. I steal because I get assigned to. If I do, I get rewarded"-if he didn't, he got punished-"and in the end, it's both beneficial to me and to the man who hires my services."
"'Man who hires your services'?" echoed the redhead, gasping for air as Dick's foot pressed slightly harder. "So what, you," he paused to struggle for more breath, "just get rid of the guys that people don't like? Instead of throwing them in jail? Wash the streets with blood?" Wally's voice was barely coming out by that point as he realised that talking quieter put less resistance against the foot over his neck. Dick waited a few seconds before releasing him. Wally bent over and gasped.
"It's easier for everyone," Dick stated. That was the end of it. He didn't intend to hear any more. Why did he visit Wally, anyway? All the boy did was lecture him. Try and drag him out of the 'dark side'. Well, for his information, Dick was on no one's side at all. Dick was on Dick's side and there wasn't anyone who could tell him what to do.
Except Slade.
And that one thought prevented him from moving anywhere at all.
"Well," Wally muttered harshly, looking up into Renegade's mask. "Well, maybe you think killing makes things easier. But it doesn't. It just makes people dead."
"Dead people can't complain," Dick growled. He flashed his eskrima sticks, sticking them back into his belt, and left.
Maybe dead people couldn't complain, but living people could. That was what Dick figured out as he stood in the middle of one of Slade's haunts, an abandoned chemical compound factory off the outskirts of Central's city limits. Shadows hugged the corners, slithered around the edges of his vision, and Dick was seemingly alone. But years of living with Slade taught him better. It was only Slade's, albeit slightly overused and a bit cliche, trademark.
"I have the chip," Dick spoke confidently into the large, quiet, empty space. There was no response at first, then:
"Good."
The area lit up suddenly, sharp lights casting themselves on the ground at the far back of the factory and drawing long shadows from the abandoned machinery. Slade stood there, spine straight and posture poised, one arm resting on his lower back and the other curled in front for the chip. Dick obediently walked, his shoes making just the most silent clicks against the smooth floor, until he stood parallel to Slade. He unceremoniously plopped the chip into the man's outstretched palm.
Slade held it up to the light to examine it, though Dick supposed that was more for show than anything else. He turned it over and over again and must have found something satisfactory, for he carefully slipped it into a hidden pouch of his uniform.
Then there was a foot in Dick's face, and Dick was on the ground.
He gasped, struggling to regain the air knocked out of him for the slightest of a millisecond before grabbing the foot as balance, bracing his own foot against the floor, and kicked up with his other. His toe collided with Slade's lower back and the man tilted just the most minuscule amount forward, enabling Dick to grab his arm and pull him down.
Slade didn't go down. Instead, he used the momentum in his favour and regained his footing just above Dick's head. He kicked hard into his apprentice's shoulder as the boy tried to get up, sending Dick back to the ground on his knees.
"Don't expect to beat me just yet," Slade drawled monotonously. "You haven't learned enough. But your reaction time has improved since the last time."
Dick scowled at the ground, clutching his shoulder. The toe of Slade's boot had collided with the bridge between Dick's neck and shoulder and he felt the area bruising almost instantaneously. He cleared his throat, attempting to get rid of the shut feeling that the hit had given it.
"Up."
Dick stumbled to his feet. A foot crashed into his chest, and Dick felt the back of his head hit a wall. He frowned.
When Slade fought with him, the movements were still so simple. He only beat Dick by brute force when it got down to fighting strategy. If any other man on the street were using the moves that Slade was using at that moment to compete with his apprentice, they would have been down in seconds.
So, why was it that every time Dick stood in front of Slade, he felt like nothing but the small boy who had been plucked from the circus life and into the never ending cycle of being a mercenary?
Dick hadn't been that boy in five years.
It was Christmas night when Dick was outside again, away from the suffocating atmosphere of the haunt and the sweaty confines of the training room. It was every stereotypical Hollywood movie that Dick could think of: trees along the street were outlined in golden lights, store fronts were glowing, Santa suits were ringing bells, cars were honking, and lots of classic light pollution. There was no snow yet that year, and instead Dick's hair clung to his cheeks as the rain soaked it through. He was, as always, on a roof.
It wasn't a particularly high roof. For once, the tallest vantage point wouldn't be in his favour. Across the street from him was a bright five star hotel, below him being the front doors where the valet was being instructed, and directly at eye level was a row of windows that Dick had had his eyes trained on for hours. However, the very last window in that row, the one farthest to the right, was where Dick's true attention was kept.
He blinked, carefully aligning his eye to the lense between him and the window.
The man was off to the side of the window, just barely out of reach for a perfect bulls-eye. His shoulder was blocked by the curtain, and he kept rocking forward to pick up various objects from his bedside desk so that he could set them on the low table between his bed and the door. The table was also in front of the window, but there was a woman sitting on the couch behind it, and the way that the man kept shifting nervously back and forth prevented Dick from taking any risks.
Arnold Joy, businessman of the rising tech company JoyForTech. In fact, the company had been rising so fast that Dick had received an anonymous tip (though, not so anonymous for Slade) that it wasn't very much liked. It was a shame that Joy had gotten himself into the wrong business with the wrong men, but there wasn't very well anything that Dick could do about it. He was there to do his job and get out.
The man was young, though. A clean shaven, lanky ginger. Young and fresh and nervous and excitable. Happy. He more than lived up to his name. The files in his hands that he kept darting in front of the woman's nose were accompanied with a large smile and bright eyes. His suit was wrinkled and his tie had long since been loosened. The young Asian woman to his shoulder seemed to find the entire ordeal only amusing, though, as she pointed to something on the page with her nail and made a sarcastic remark, which Dick could tell from the raise of her eyebrows and the cock of her chin.
Dick adjusted the angle of his lense ever so slightly.
There.
Arnold made the mistake that Dick had been waiting for ever since he had walked into that room with the woman on his arm. The man had walked to the window, and Dick might have taken the shot right at that moment if he hadn't realised that Arnold was making Dick's job even easier by leaning forward. If Dick's bullet didn't kill him instantly, a fall to the street below surely would.
Dick applied pressure to the trigger. Arnold leaned out further as the woman stood from the couch. He was pointing to something below, across the street.
More pressure.
Then, Dick's eyes widened and his breath stuttered. So close, he was so close to pressing the trigger all the way and all of the sudden, Dick could have sworn that the man looked exactly like Wally.
That wasn't possible, though, a fact proven when Dick blinked rapidly to clear his sight. It wasn't Wally.
But it might as well have been.
They were both people, weren't they? Citizens. Only innocent civilians.
Dick thought later that had he been given just a second longer, he would have shot Arnold anyway. Deep down, though, he knew that there would never be an answer to what he would have done. Equal parts of him quarreled - to shoot or not to shoot. He didn't know.
But he didn't have to, because that was the moment that the woman remained simply a foot away from joining the businessman's side. Her eyes lifted and she saw Dick.
Her mouth opened, and she screamed.
Startled, Arnold flung himself backwards and crashed into the desk. Dick's target was lost. The woman pointed, Joy's face turned pasty white, and there was a mad scramble from the both of them to get out of there as fast as possible. Honestly, Dick still could have been able to kill his target. He could have at least severely injured him and grappled across the street to finish the job before any help could be called.
But Dick was frozen. He could only watch the scene as if he were simply in a movie theatre, only in a movie theatre. He wasn't involved. He played no part in it. He was sitting and eating popcorn somewhere in the back, behind the mother with the pre-teen that whined too much. Dick could no longer even feel the cold chill caused by the wind whipping against his wet hair.
He half expected the crackly voice of Slade, as it always was, to mutter into his ear. But it didn't, and Dick remembered that Slade was off on his own assignment. It was Christmas. Busy, busy Christmas. Slade wouldn't know that Arnold Joy had escaped from Dick until later, possibly morning.
He wouldn't know that Dick had let him.
Dick should have followed Joy. Finished him off.
He didn't.
Instead, he shakily set the shotgun on the surface of the roof. His nimble fingers quickly packed up the equipment and he dragged his grappling hook out from his belt, shooting it off into the distance and swinging away before he could be found.
It was a few streets of swinging, a few instances of slipping through open windows, a couple of alleyway stairs climbed down before the bag with the shotgun clattered to the ground and Dick fell with it.
The acrobat put his face in his hands and cried like he hadn't in five years.
He returned to Wally's house as morning was peering over the horizon, silhouetting the quiet houses of Sunset Rd. with golden edges. It wasn't hard for Dick to remember where Wally's room was judging from the outside, and he cracked open the window of the teenager's bedroom in order to sneak in.
As expected, Wally was asleep. But he wasn't in his bed. If Dick had been in a better mood, he might have found the teenager sprawled on the carpet with a bag of chips and a game console in his hands to be amusing. Instead, it made his mood plummet even deeper, seeing the scene of what could have been and never was.
What if Dick had been accepted into a foster home? Some people always preached about how terrible that system was, but Dick figured... Dick figured it was better than being in the system that he was in.
He silently sat down at the foot of the bed, looking at the television screen flashing GAME OVER across the surface. Dick glanced at the consol, but couldn't for the life of him guess what button went with what control and scanned briefly for the remote instead. He shut the television off and leaned back against the bed's wooden panel.
It was peaceful and quiet. Wally's breaths rang hard and true throughout the space, so loud probably because they were forced through the fabric of the pillow that his face had smashed into. It wasn't long before golden light fell into his lap from the window, warming Dick ironically despite the winter cold of outside and the remorseful cold of inside.
Dick knew that he should have attempted to shut the blinds before the light travelled and woke up Wally. He couldn't bring himself to move, though. Really, he couldn't bring himself to do much of anything. Wally's breaths were steady and lulling and they paced Dick's own breaths, paced them until Dick himself was steady and being lulled.
He was waking up before he knew it.
His shoulder had been shaken by a hand, but when Dick's eyes snapped open, far too used to being on constant alert to risk grogginess, the only other person in the room had already run to the other end as if Dick were a bomb ready to detonate.
He kind of was, really. Nonetheless, Dick snapped to his feet within seconds and spread his legs apart into a fighting stance, hands already curled around the heads of the eskrima sticks stuck through his belt.
Wally stared back at him shakily, holding a deadly plate of eggs and bacon.
It took a bit longer for Dick to recognise that the most dangerous thing in front of him was the possibility of burnt toast. It took even longer for him to even attempt to relax his posture, settling for hanging his arms by his side and standing up straight. Wally's eyes were wide.
"Uh-uuuh-uhm," he stammered. "I-I didn't- you- I found you earlier- I was eating breakfast- here." Before Dick could begin to decipher what the teenager was trying to say, Wally had thrust the tray of food into the empty air between them. His arms were stiff and he shuffled his legs anxiously as he waited for Dick's reaction.
There was a tense, awkward silence before Dick slowly moved to take the tray with the plate, a fork, and orange juice from Wally. He stared down at it.
"I told my aunt that I just wanted more and she gave me all this- ahaha she- I mean I eat a lot, but I figured you'd want something- yeah, she totally doesn't know you're here, bytheway-" Dick only nodded, causing Wally to trail off clumsily and clear his throat. The redhead's eyes darted around the room for something to focus on. "So, uhhh, what'cha doin' here?"
What was Dick doing there?
It didn't take long for him to remember, and he found that he had suddenly lost his appetite. He carefully set the tray down on Wally's bed and Wally seemed to get the gist as Dick sat against the wall under the window.
"You- you can sit on the bed," Wally stammered nervously. He wiped his palms on his thighs and, still searching for something to fill the silence, grabbed the remote to the television that Dick had turned off earlier. Dick didn't move.
Dick didn't really know how it felt, to have someone considered deadly and dangerous casually in the same room as him. Mostly because Dick was the one considered deadly and dangerous, but he did know that normal civilians would be taking it far worse than Wally was. Honestly, Dick had to respect how well that Wally was dealing with the presence of Renegade, infamous assassin, sitting in his bedroom. Maybe the teenager really was convinced that Dick wasn't all that bad.
That didn't excuse the fact that Dick was a murderer, though. Once upon a time, Renegade and Dick had been two different people. Two different IDs. Two different entities.
But the hands that the blood soaked were one and the same.
The screen clicked on, and the room was promptly blasted with blaring sound. Wally quickly began turning it down, but no amount of turning down the reporter's voices would block their words from Dick's mind.
"-ntral City! I hope no one else spent the beginning of the holidays as horribly as Arnold Joy, founder of JoyForTech, did last night."
"Agreed, Jack. As Mr. Joy tells us, he was only spending some time with Miranda White, co-founder of JoyForTech, in their hotel room on Christmas night. When they went up to the window, though, Miss. White screamed, saying that she saw Renegade, international assassin, with a shotgun pointed straight at them from the opposite rooftop. He wasn't even trying to hide! Looks like his confidence has really grown, hasn't it?"
"I'll agree - confidence grown. But not wrongly. He hasn't missed a shot before, right?"
"Right. Until now. Because, miraculously, Mr. Joy is still with us. Looks like Christmas really does hold some magic, after all. The two quickly ran out of the room and found the police, but they didn't sustain a single scratch."
"I think they're the first to have a run-in with Renegade and live."
"I-"
"Oh," Wally gulped. "That's why."
Dick glowered at the television, itching to yank the remote from Wally's fingers and turn it off. He didn't need a reminder of his failures. Most of all, though, he didn't need the extra pressure of being so aware that Slade obviously knew exactly what had happened by then. The most stressful part about it was that Slade wasn't standing in Wally's bedroom with him.
Wally turned to him. Dick thought that the teenager was going to give a lecture, a declaration that Wally finally realised that he was standing in the same room as Renegade himself and wanted nothing more to do with the assassin. But he got none of that. Wally only gripped the remote tighter as the corners of his mouth hesitantly curled up.
Dick stared incredulously.
"You chose to let him live, didn't you?" Wally whispered with just barely contained excitement. Dick couldn't fathom how a teenager as crazy as Wally existed. When Dick gave no answer, Wally absolutely beamed and opened his mouth, looking as if he wanted to give some sort of praise, but there didn't seem to be anything that Wally could say to describe himself.
Dick knew a word to describe himself, though. Dead seemed appropriate.
How many lashes? Dick's back burned in pain along his earlier scars as if fighting to remind him of how he had earned them. How many kicks? Punches? Fights? Drills? How many more people would Dick have to kill in order to compensate, to prove himself again?
But what, exactly, did Dick have to prove? Dick proved what he had wanted to prove by not killing Joy - whatever it was. The one thing that stood out to Dick, though, was the missing part of his soul.
The replacement of the sadness that normally leaked into his soul was the most noticeable fact that entire morning. Instead of it, there was another feeling there, one that Dick couldn't place, as he looked to the screen and found Arnold Joy's mugshot planted there.
It wasn't happiness. Dick was too fearful for that, too dreading for what was to come. He almost thought that it was accomplishment. But Dick didn't accomplish anything, right? His assignment had been a failure. There was no accomplishment in that.
Wally plopped heavily down onto his bed, rattling the glass of orange juice. He didn't seem the least bit concerned about spilling the food, though, as he practically radiated happiness. He turned his attention to Dick, who was staring at the wall.
"Does this mean you're out from Deathstroke's control?" Wally asked. Dick frowned. Did Wally somehow gain the impression that Dick was being mind controlled?
Or did he mean if Dick's actions were no longer being directed by Slade? Dick decided to go with that.
"No," he deadpanned. He had already given up on restricting information from the strange teenager. What could Wally possibly do to hurt him at that point?
Wally's happiness dropped so fast that Dick was left wondering if it had ever been there to begin with. "Oh," he muttered, before tensing. "Oh. Then... Deathstroke doesn't know you're here?"
"He knows."
"Oh." The kid looked drop dead terrified. Wally cleared his throat. "That means he's letting you stay, then, right? You can stay in here - i-if you want, I mean. My aunt never comes up or anything so you're totally fine, heh. Uh... Is there anything you need? Want? Need or want? Need and want?"
Dick had quickly begun to block out Wally's voice. His mind was preoccupied by the possibility of what Slade's mind was preoccupied by. Was the mercenary waiting for Dick to return on his own? Was he waiting for Dick to make a run for it? Did he want to kill Dick or confront him? There was only one outcome that Dick knew, for once, that he wanted.
He wanted to be free.
That's what Wally spoke of, wasn't it? Dick was apparently Slade's prisoner, and Dick might not have believed it if he didn't know, in the corner of his mind, that he remembered smiling before Slade found him.
Wally must have thought that Dick was crazy as the assassin curled the corner of his lips, giving a lopsided smile at the wall. It felt too stiff. Too stretched. He dropped it. How did it feel like to smile, genuinely smile, naturally? Was it a conscious decision, or did happiness make a person smile? He couldn't remember his nine year old self well enough to conclude if he had ever thought about smiling, or if it had just happened.
"Are you...?" Wally trailed off cautiously, frowning at Dick's attempts of expression. Was Wally asking if Dick was okay? That really shouldn't have been a question.
"I'm a mask," Dick muttered. Wally turned the volume of the television down even lower to hear. "Masks are never not okay and they're never okay. They're right in between, just as an object or idea should be."
Wally didn't look like he knew how to react to that. He shuffled a bit on his covers and juggled the remote between his hands. "Well," he started shakily. Given his personality, he probably wasn't used to talking about anything serious out loud. "You're just wearing a mask, aren't you? The person underneath the mask can be ok and can not be okay."
Dick stared at the palms of his hands. "It isn't that easy."
"It kind of is," Wally replied bluntly, before catching himself. "I mean, just take it off and don't be Renegade anymore. Don't be a murderer."
"I'm a murderer, with or without the mask," insisted the assassin.
"Yeah," Wally agreed. "But without the mask, no one else knows it."
"Isn't that just putting on another mask?"
"No, because you'll be you, and your past defines you. You won't be hiding anything the way you hide your face. Just because someone puts something behind them doesn't mean they're hiding from it," the redhead continued, determined, his lips set into a fine line at the television screen.
Dick didn't know if he could adopt Wally's philosophy so easily. He felt as if his very flesh and bones were just melting into the wall and the floor. He was magneted there, chained, roped down, and he didn't think he could move. By doing nothing, though, he was easily able to notice the volume of the television once again rise.
"Oh, uh, we're getting a call- oh my god, switching to Main Street, Central City, with Iris West as our-"
"You won't believe what's going on over here! No- no, turn the camera around, Mark, don't focus on me! Yeah, just like that. See that? If I didn't know better, I'd say it's Deathstroke!"
"Sh-shouldn't we be moving away?" a male voice filtered through from right beside the mic.
"No, zoom in! He's just standing there. What do you think he's there for?"
"Iris, I don't think he likes being broadcasted… He's staring at us…"
"This is Iris West, reporting live from Main Street, Central City, as we look at Deathstroke himself, just standing in the middle of Keystone Park. Mark, hold still. He doesn't seem to be doing anything. He isn't even trying to attack us."
"He's staring," the nervous cameraman stressed.
"Seems to me like a lot of assassins have been doing that lately here in Central."
The screen switched back to the sitting news reporters, their cross bewildered and worried expressions permeating the area. "Hey, Iris, he's staring into the camera, not you guys," the blonde woman to the left said. "Do you think he's waiting for someone?"
When Wally looked around his room, panicked, he found that Renegade had already gone.