Bruce's POV

It had been two months since his son was taken away from him. Two months that Richard remained helpless in the hands of DeathStroke, forced to be obedient to his Masters every order. Two months that Catalina was able to do God knows what to him. And Bruce was sinking. For years, his greatest regret was the night his parents died, despite only being a child he felt that their deaths fell on him and him alone. If only he hadn't requested to accompany them to the theatre that night. If only he hadn't been frightened by the performance, and begged to leave the show early. If only he hadn't made such a fuss about the paparazzi, compelling them to take the back entrance. If only he had been better, then his parents would be alive. As he grew older his regrets multiplied. He regretted abandoning Alfred for all those years and training with the League of Assassins. He regretted not being able to save the Graysons as they fell to their death. Regretted not knowing about Damian for the first few years of his life. But still, the night of his parent's death had trumped all.

That was until Deathstroke had stolen Richards Will away from him, and taken him under his control. He knew that even if, when, he got his son back, Dick would be damaged by the incident. And he was to blame. Bruce had known what the future held, and he still let it unfold.

The league had tried to convince him differently, but he knew the truth, he was to blame about his son's predicament, he and Deathstroke. And he would do everything in his power to save him. Over the last two months, Bruce had been watching for some kind of sign of the masked mercenary. They had no clue where Dick had gone when he left the WatchTower, but he tried to track him down anyway. They searched all of DeathStroke's old stomping grounds again and visited the place in Jump he had taken Nightwing in the future. Wilson was not stupid and was not at any of these places, but Bruce had hoped that he would be able to find something, anything, that would give him a clue as to where they were now. Instead, all he had found was the decaying body of what appeared to be the present day Slade Wilson, and nothing else.

The Dark Knight was not the only one feeling The Boy Wonders absence. His other two sons and the Team also felt responsible for the missing teen. Damian had closed in on himself, feeling as though he should have known that something was amiss in the hospital wing. His usual sneer was replaced with a blank look, and he shut down into a numb mask of despair. Tim was the opposite and appeared to be taking Bruce's lead of throwing himself in finding his brother, most of his days were spent typing away at the Batcomputer, trying to find any hint to where Dick may be.

The Team was just plain distraught, heavy on the dis. The Mountain, a place that had once been filled with laughing and Joy was silent and heavy. When the team didn't go on the few missions assigned to them since their teammate's demise, they would keep to themselves, only communicating when necessary, and only "hanging out" to spar. Training harder than ever, to be ready to face Slade and win their Little Bird back.

Bruce saw all the teens fall into disarray and felt nothing but hatred for himself and Slade. He would kill the mercenary when he found him, that much was clear. He would not allow this to occur again, not to Dick or anyone.

Clicking methodically on the screen in front of him, he shook his head to clear his musings and return back to the task at hand. Taking a break from looking for his son, he was instead looking at a string of hacks into the Wayne enterprise mainframe Fox at asked him to look at. It looked as though someone was testing the security of the network, Lucius was worried someone would try to break into the building. Frankly, Bruce didn't give a damn about the office space, and wished to continue searching for Dick, but knew that he had to try for appearance sake.

As he scrolled through another jumble of code and computer text that made his eyes water, the screen turned a shade of bright red and started flashing. Straightening his spine, he began typing furiously and found that there was another security breach in the system, though this one appeared to be coming from the office. Standing up he turned to his costume behind him and pulled on his cowl and cape. It would appear that whoever the culprit was, was at Wayne Enterprise now. Bruce got swiftly into his car, and pulling out of the cave he began driving towards downtown Gotham. He would take care of whoever was breaking in as quickly as possible, and once he was done he would continue looking for Dick. He just hoped he would find him soon.

BREAKBREAKBREAKBREAKBREAKBREAKBREAKBREAKBREAKBREAK

Dick was exhausted.

Whoever said being mind controlled was easy, had never been mind controlled by Slade Wilson. Though now that he thought about it, he very much doubted anyone ever said being mind controlled was easy. But he digresses.

Either way, DIck was exhausted.

Slade had taken his role of Master in stride and the two had quickly set up a routine between them. And that routine was solely centered around one thing, training. Slade sought to mold him into an apprentice he could be proud of, and though Dicks mind was not his own, he still knew how to use his body. The training was difficult and strenuous, but to Slade's joy entirely successful. The drug that had been administered now two months ago, had altered his brain so that he needed to please his Master, and not only that, he wanted to. A small part of Dicks' brain knew this was wrong, knew he should fight, but he couldn't. And so he did as his Master said.

Training with Slade was both similar and completely different from training with Bruce. Both men had to work without superpowers, and so they had similar ways to work around their human disadvantage. The biggest difference stemmed from the fact that despite being under his control, Slade did not pull his punches. Dick's body was covered in bruises from the assassin, as Slade felt the only way Dick would learn to get out of the way was to get hurt. The worse was the weapons training. Dick knew Slade would never kill him, but he had stabbed, sliced, and even shot him. His Master believed in negative reinforcement, and the worst part was that Dick could feel his improvement. HIs reflexes we're faster, his body was stronger, he was better and it was in part due to Slade. He was eternally grateful that his Master had yet to send him on a mission to test his new skills because though Dick was now skilled in using both Katana's and various guns, he did not want to use them on anyone. He knew if Slade told him to kill someone he would not be able to fight it, and he was dreading the day Slade realized that too.

Despite all this, Dick felt relatively safe in his Master's care. Now that he was obedient Slade didn't have a reason to get angry, and he was only punished when he failed in combat. He had come to know what to expect with Slade, and he had even found solace in the training, as the physical labor took his mind off the fact that he had literally no free will.

No, his fear no longer came from the man who goes by DeathStroke. His fear was solely centered on Catalina.

Per their agreement, whenever Slade had no use for Dick Catalina was allowed to take him. Slade may be a villain, but Tarantula was a monster. The woman had at first maintained an air of puppy love around Dick, stuck in a sort of honeymoon phase, where she was pleased to simply make out with him. But she soon grew bored with that and began making him do other things. And because he was under their control, not only could he not stop her, he was at her mercy. If she told him to enjoy something, then he had to enjoy it, if she told him to love her then he did.

He thought that the moment in the classroom at Gotham Academy was awful, pressed against her, and wanting her, even though he didn't. But it just got worse, he wanted to stop, to scream no, and to pull away but he couldn't and he didn't want to, because she told him differently. The war between his true self and his controlled self had been going on since the WatchTower. But before he was fighting over control of his body, now he was just fighting to keep a part of his mind his own. But with each day that passed, each order given, each kiss stolen, he felt himself slip farther and farther away and he feared the day he would slip away completely.

Strangely his Master often stepped in before it got too far before Catalina had the chance to take everything from him. When things would escalate Slade would call from the other room saying that they needed to start a training session, or Dick needed to eat or rest, and Dick would untangle himself from Catalina's web, leaving her disappointed and him feeling relieved. He didn't know why Slade offered him this small salvation, but at any rate, he wouldn't and couldn't question it. His Master held more power over him then Catalina and as long as he did, he was safe.

It was one such moment that Dick found himself in currently. Apologizing quietly to Catalina as he moved out of her room and towards his Master who had called him from the training room. Entering the now familiar gym, he saw his Master standing next to an unopened crate. With a nod, he beckoned Dick over to him.

"You called for me Master?" Slade smirked slightly as he always did, hearing the title fall so easily from Dicks' lips.

"Yes, I had something to give to you." Flicking open the lid of the crate Dick saw a various assortment of weapons and things but felt his heart sink when Slade pulled out a bundle of gray and black fabric. "You have done well in our training Richard, better then I had expected, and I have high expectations. I felt it was time, we put your training to the test." Outwardly Dick smiled at the praise directed towards him, always happy to please his Master. Inwardly he was frightened.

"I am honored to have pleased you Master, I am happy to do any test you require." With a nod, Slade gave him the outfit and signaled him to change. Quickly he began to shed his training gear and put on his costume. It was relatively simple, similar to his Robin costume, though without a cape, and gray replacing the reds and yellow, mixing with the black. Strangely there still remained an R etched above his heart, the font more jagged then his usual emblem. Running his fingers over it, he looked up at Slade who was watching him intently.

"I thought Renegade would be your new name, fitting don't you think?" Inside Dick was boiling at the name, he was not a traitor, despite now working under Slade, this was not his choice. But he simply nodded in acceptance. "Good, now for your mission, there's something I'm going to need you to steal." With a flick of his wrist, he brought up a holograph which showed a small metal cylinder spinning in mid-air. "You don't need to know what it is, simply that I want it, understand?"

"Yes Master, I will retrieve the object for you. Where is it located?" With another flick of his wrist, the screen changed showing a large skyscraper with a W perched on top of it.

"Wayne Enterprises, I take it you're familiar with the floorplan?" Slade was smirking again, and the only thing stopping Dick from punching him across the face was the control his Master still had over him.

"Yes, I'm familiar."