Disclaimer: I own nothing. Author's note: Sorry, uploaded the wrong version first time round. I apologise for the wait, the first draft got rejected in a pretty crushing way, and I got a bit nervous. Also I've been working on something pretty big to do with this, which I hope to tell you about in a few chapter's time. A massive thank you to my beta's, especially a-really-angry-sorceress, go read her stories.


'This is it,' Dick had told himself. 'I'm putting them in danger; I can't go back to that coffee shop.'

And he had truly believed himself, had found his caffeine fuel at other locations night after night after night, until he came home from his day job and found Liz's phone on his kitchen table with a post it note stuck to it.

- Please return this for me, I can't face those people again. -

Dick sighed at his brother's communication skills, but added finding Liz's address to his mental to-do list so he could mail it back to her.

But when he pulled the note off the phone, he saw what was written on the other side.

- And I mean in person, Dick, those people are pretty damn loyal to you, don't do anything B would. -

Dick felt a little exasperated at first; considering Jason had taken a job in Europe over Christmas just to avoid his family; he didn't get to tell anyone else they were being too distant. But a few hours later, Dick was making himself a bowl of cereal, and glanced the note out of the corner of his eye. He grudgingly admitted that his brother may have been right, and conceded that he should at least hand Liz her phone back personally, and say goodbye properly. Didn't want to wind up creating supervillains for himself, after all.


"Yay! Thank you!" Liz shouted, the instant Dick had fished her phone out of his pocket. She cradled it whilst rushing to her bag, grabbing a charger, and ripping a lamp out of the nearest plug socket so she could plug it in. It reminded Dick strongly of a reunion between a distressed mother and her baby that he had rescued from a fire a few weeks previously.

"You should thank Red Hood, he's not normally bothered about collateral damage."

"My phone's not broken though, he was just stealing it. And it's not like he left me his contact details, how am I supposed to thank him; can I just send smoke signals from here, or do I have to stand on a roof in Gotham and shout?"

Dick merely shook his head with a smile, and went to collect his coffee from Shaun.

"Where's Rebecca?" Dick asked, having noticed her absence for the first time.

"She went to file a police report," Shaun told him, almost cordially. "She said she's noticed a guy loitering around; staring at the shop."

"What guy?" Nightwing asked, growing more concerned.

"She said he was just some creepy old grey haired bloke. She's probably just being paranoid again," Shaun told him dismissively.

"How come you don't have a cape?" College Kid asked from across the room, abruptly changing the topic. "Nearly all heroes do."

"No they don't," Nightwing replied after an involuntary flinch. "Look at the Flashes and the Arrow Clan."

"But the Arrow Clan can't because they need to be able to draw their bows without interference, and it would cause the Flashes too many problems with air resistance," Karen called from her corner of the room. She appeared to be busy fashioning a lopsided top hat from a pile of napkins, and her sweatband was slipping down over her eyes, but her reasoning was completely sound.

"Yeah, and, like, everyone else in the Bat-family has a cape, so why don't you?" Liz badgered Nightwing.

"I outgrew it," Dick told her with a deadly straight face.

Liz grabbed a table cloth from the booth beside her, and tied it around Nightwing's neck. He let her do it, with the tired resignation that comes with having three younger brothers. "You can still pull it off," Liz told him benevolently.

"How about I rip it off instead?" a smooth voice threatened, seemingly from everywhere in the room at once. It came from the shadows, the back room, the coffee cups and the wilting plant in the hideous novelty plant pot stuffed in one corner, a velvet purr that dripped with lethal promise.

The civilians in the room all jumped, and looked around nervously for the source of the voice. Dick sighed and downed his drink, wishing for something stronger, whilst trying to activate his distress signal as discreetly as possible.

"I thought I made my thoughts on capes quite clear," the shadows purred.

"It's not even-" Dick tried to protest, but had to stop when he found himself dangling three feet off the floor by his improvised cape. It tightened around his neck, greatly restricting his air supply in a manner that gave him flashbacks of the bad old times.

"I'd hate for you to get back into bad habits," Deathstroke threatened, forced to step into the light in order to reach Nightwing. "It took long enough to train you out of that one in particular."

Dick fiddled with Liz's knot until he was released and dropped to the floor in a catlike crouch. He rolled away from his adversary, trying to keep himself between his friends and the mercenary, as the man stepped back into the shadows. 'Just like old times,' Dick thought grimly.

"Why are you here, Slade?" he barked.

"You were trained by the world's greatest detective; try and think why a man might be in a coffee shop."

"Oh of course, the world renowned assassin wanted a latte," Dick scoffed, slotting wingdings between the fingers of both his hands, ready to throw at the slightest provocation.

"Contrary to your earliest theory, I don't strengthen myself with human blood. I actually prefer espressos."

"You still- what are you wearing?" Dick asked incredulously.

"Clothes, Robin; did you think I lived in my uniform?" Slade mocked him.

"It's Nightwing," Dick snapped back, feeling a little foolish that Deathstroke's guess was pretty close to the mark. In all their time as enemies, Dick had never seen Slade out of his black and orange uniform -it was wrong footing him, and the assassin knew it.

"Yes, I heard you wanted a change after you and Batman fell out. I was actually planning on-"

"Why is Rebecca tied up in the back room?" Shaun interrupted, in the tone of a parent who knows exactly what their child has done, but wants to hear it from them before they get angry.

"Your co-worker was heading to the police station. I think we can all agree that their presence is not necessary."

Dick understood the implied threat, and agreed that several police officers going up against Deathstroke was not a good idea. Even if the man wasn't in his armour, Dick knew the man would still be heavily armed. That fight would only go one way.

"What do you think you are doing?" Deathstroke asked, as Shaun pulled a large knife out of a drawer. Dick could hear him smirking.

"I'm going to take on the assassin with a bread knife," Shaun retorted in the most sarcastic tone of voice ever utilised by mankind as he crossed into the back room, returning a minute later accompanied by Rebecca, angrily pulling packing tape off herself. Karen helpfully pulled the last stray bits off her, while Shaun threw the knife in the sink. Rebecca glared at Slade, opening her mouth to say something that Dick wished she wouldn't.

"No!" College Kid screamed, causing everyone in the room to whip round to face her, in a perfectly timed distraction. "I have 32 missed calls from my mother," she explained, when she realised everyone was staring. "Euw," she squealed excitedly when she glanced back down at her phone, then pressed something with a delighted jab.

Shortly afterwards there was the muffled buzzing sound of a phone vibrating, coming from the shadows concealing Nightwing's oldest nemesis. Dick looked between Liz and Deathstroke, praying that this was just a miraculous coincidence.

"Cool," College Kid grinned. "So would you take a job to scare a boy I don't like?"

"Where did you get that number?" Deathstroke asked, with a low threatening tone.

Liz shrugged nonchalantly, oblivious to the danger. "His brother did it," she said, nodding at Nightwing. "Apparently Red Hood's too important to take my job offer."

"And you think I am not?"

"Meh," College Kid shrugged, "I just wanted to know if he'd really given me your number."

"We're leaving," Dick told the disbelieving mercenary, circling round him towards the door. Through all the years Dick had spent fighting Deathstroke he had never killed someone he wasn't paid to, or who wasn't legitimately threatening him or his mission. However, he wasn't a patient man, and Dick knew the man well enough to know that if offered the chance to remove himself from the presence of someone he deemed beneath him, he would take it.

Unless he was in a vindictive mood, and looking for someone to hurt.

"I thought we already discussed that I came here for a drink," Slade replied, steeling himself against being moved by Nightwing. Not that Dick really had a chance of moving the super soldier in the first place, but it did give him a warm feeling in his chest that the world's greatest mercenary considered him a credible threat.

Dick snagged Liz's drink -hot chocolate buried under mounds of whipped cream that gave Dick flashbacks to Babs's last Instagram spree- and handed it to the mercenary. "Sorted."

Eventually Slade gave Nightwing a withering look and walked out the door. Dick followed him, after giving a stern warning to Liz to delete Slade's number. He took to the roofs immediately, trusting Slade to follow.

A few leaps on the fire escape, and Deathstroke reached him. He took a sip of his stolen drink, and raised an eyebrow, prompting Dick to start.

"I'm never going to be your apprentice, Slade," Dick warned the man, before the conversation had chance to go in the wrong direction.

"But you're already stealing for me again," Slade said sarcastically, raising his drink. "Can't you hear the life of crime calling to you?"

"Just because I had a disagreement with Batman and moved out of Gotham doesn't mean-"

"I know."

"What?"

"You're far too stubborn for me to waste my time trying to train as an apprentice. I know that now," Slade said dismissively.

"What? Worried I'll turn you prematurely grey?" Dick joked.

"I am not above throwing you off this roof," Slade threatened. "But as I was going to say earlier, I was planning on heading to Gotham to have a few words with Batman."

"Stay away from him!" Nightwing yelled, his temper flaring instantly.

"Calm down," Slade told him, as though he was addressing a hyperactive child. "I am a mercenary, and no-one is paying me to kill him."

"But someone is paying you to have a heart to heart with him?" Dick asked scathingly.

"Whilst you were my apprentice I grew quite- fond of you Nightwing; suffice to say I do not want to see you killed because you could not rely on your usual network of support. You are too valuable to die because of a petty squabble," Slade confessed, while looking resolutely at the skyline, and not at Dick.

"Are you… trying to parent me?" Dick asked incredulously. "You can't do that. You kidnapped me and tried to kill my friends, you don't get to-"

"Robin, you're being petty; our relationship was always more complicated than that," Deathstroke told him sincerely. "Now how much longer do we have before someone responds to your distress signal? This response time is already unacceptable."

Dick ground his teeth while Deathstroke rolled his eye. "I would prefer it if you did not alert the Bat to my presence in Gotham, Robin," he told Dick quietly, before throwing a smoke bomb, and disappearing.

"It's Nightwing!" Dick called over the side of the building. He drew back quickly when a projectile was launched at him, despite it falling short of the roof. Then he noticed it was a plastic cup from the coffee shop.

"You owe me a hot chocolate!" College Kid yelled sulkily from the pavement.

"Put it on my tab!" Dick called, before taking off in what he hoped was the opposite direction to Deathstroke. He should probably warn Bruce to send someone to intercept Deathstroke; if only because the assassin telling Bruce to let Dick grow up and have his space would result in him being back at the Manor under house arrest within the hour.