Long Live the King – Deathstroke's Forced Descent into Villainy

/

Chapter 24: I Am the Robot Commander, and I Command You to Fight in My Wars

/

Little joke "I am the dance commander and I command you to dance." More Pop titled, Gaga nonsense. On with the story!

/

A box of bolts and wiring sat across from the eye twitching elder man. One other had pushed a few buttons too many as his threat was made clear. A wrench tightened the las –

"No!" The man across from that contraption steamed as well as the tea by the end of his seat, threatening to topple if his pot boiled over.

"No. Never, why?" The man whined, bemoaning as the one tinkering with his shiny tools, shrugged. "Why not. You fascinate me, so I had to."

"Slade…" The other male; William Wiintergreen slumped into his chair with a groan. Plopping into it with lifelessness showing in his veins. "We…can NOT do THAT!" He pointed at his replacement. A replicated drone with Will's suit and tie on. Slade was blackmailing no one; he'd come here to ask and had gotten his –

"You, thought I'd think actually agree to selling my soul again to your machinations?? Are you out – looney? Are you? –

"Ambitious, but they won't see me as a perfect price tag without a lackey."

"The audacity!" Will did relent even so, "I'm no one stooge for you to tell to bugger off and make you a cup, I'm a human being man…and so are you! Inflated egotistic…wait. What did the Legion say? That I had to swear m –

"No. The HIVE headmistress took over after she was reinstated... Blood just, vanished, so it would be yourself, X and one more."

"Dear god…Slade. You never said anything about –

"I did ask, but why should I need to get your attention." Slade stood and walked over to Will, lowering over the Brit as if he could light the man aflame with one glare.

"When I already know you'll say yes."

"Like I have a bloody choice in the matter." Will huffed as Slade pat the man's shoulder appreciatively.

"You're a true friend, Billy."

"Call me Roger next time and we can finish what we started in '1985." The butler snorted, exasperated by their strong wills continuing to clash. Slade had saved his hide so now, he was indebt to the man. This was nothing like Terra or Robin's cases. He was being told to join a new organization or hang for it with his companion. Slade would live, but Will? Will wasn't immortal. He could only perish as Slade might wallow for weeks in his aching despondence. A life without anyone to look out for. While even his children had called him so many names…he had no one.

And Will was an idiot for going along with this plan from the start. He knew. The brain however, was loaded; had connections to set Slade's empire up for a good long while. Now maybe then. Will could catch up on the news in another reality…Slade wouldn't need him to run his enterprises. He'd be freed of having to be a servant. And for once, they could be, friends like before.

/

Slade had the robot shoved in the safe house for now, his garage could be searched while he looked for a new base in Paris. He knew a person. Immortal as sin. However, impossible to hack to pieces.

Frannie, also in Germany.

He tipped his hat to Wintergreen and set off to get cozy on a long mission; months, the Titans would be close so Slade decided to check up on one other stop. Austria. Why not? He was supposed to be looking for hired help.

A school there for the gifted. He thought back to the day she'd finalized the paperwork.

Very, gifted. And secure as shit.

/

Frannie had a shotgun in her hand at the door, regarding a six-foot five thundercloud staring straight up at her from the end of the barrel.

Slade took to keeping a low profile. He suit was fitted well beneath a large grey wool, trench. She knit - picked him and told the man to step inside, the scent of potpourri as painful as the meal she'd just prepared. A lot of meat. And he was ravenous.

"Soldier? Why are you looking so tense? Did one gun really cut it? Is the mighty Deathstroke not so mighty! Hah!" She joked, the old widow had no qualms against the motto to protect and serve.

However, Slade led double lives as a comrade and an adversary to some capes in America.

Around the world, actually.

"Heard that a big fight broke out in Moscow. The locals there on T.V were once soldiers of the cold war and had done experiments. As a result, things were a mess. Are you going to sit, already?" She batted his coat until he gave it to her to stuff in the closet on a hook, neatly angled if he needed to bolt. She knew. Slade had trouble sitting still for a meal between even enemies. Especially, his ex…

"Did you patch things up with William?" She asked, bringing out some coffee from the kitchen. " Zuper! I mean, you had all the time to brave any storm, even when Wintergreen is there carrying your tarps and umbrella until the day you finally drown in your own debt."

He grunted and thanked her for the cup, letting it go down smooth.

She sat and brought in something sweet to go alongside the coffee, bitter as it was kept. "I hope you have an appetite, Will arranged for your stay here to be something…not what I was ex –

"Wait?" Slade sat and blinked at her, lowering his cup. "I'm not boarding with you if you can't stand listening to my conditions. Also; why did you speak to –

"I did it to save you the time." The old bag snapped and snatched up Slade's desert with a fast-acting hand. He pouted. "Hey…"

" Humph, good gentle – men have the right to pilfer my cookie jar. You? I'm surprised by your attention span, Slade Wilson." She chided him and took his coffee up, placing no actually, physical anything or food in his lap. "You can eat at the table or you'll suffer my chastising of your manners while we wait for someone else to join us."

"Oh, Fran –

" MARCH." She pointed to the dining room table. Not a sound as Slade felt like she'd pull his earlobe next.

/

The woman was, a blast from his past as the man tried to avoid lifting his fork in the wrong position. Let alone eating her schnitzel or cabbage dish. He was hungry, dammnit! He had a really, really fast metabolism. He needed to chow down or somehow, starve. Like anyone else could agree, he'd go full cannibal without a bite. Damn it….

"This is Lt Colonel Slade Wilson. Slade? Meet my niece, Gertrude."

"Call me, Gerty." She picked up her napkin and smiled at the… man, trying to be nice. She had long straight brown hair and curtain bangs with freckled cheeks as young as Rose's might…What was she? Somewhere in her twenties?? She wore black, as if an undercover attire.

"Call me Mr. Wilson, my dear. Respecting your elders is what your aunt's taught you –

"She's an agent like I was, only she knows how to draw fine blood. Not at the table, Slade!" Slade was grumbling, thinking out loud enough for Fran to hear. "Gerty here is interested in your work, though I told her you're a bit laid back than you usually are these days."

"I'm looking to rebuild something that the Titans took from me." Slade stabbed his meat with a bit of the red showing past his spud mountain. That and the rest of the spuds he'd tried not to mar with the beef's juice had been unfortunately painted, rust colored and bloody.

So much for a nice, family, sit – down and some… supper.

"Slade." Fran shot him "the look."

"I understand that you aspire to encompass the whole of your identity in this lifetime as the powerful Deathstroke." The youth grinned, very well spoken. Slade nodded feeling as if her ruse was a pain to fight. He'd watch things work out and Fran had to know a spy when she saw one. She WAS one.

Once upon a few nights in Rome, ago.

"What just is your purpose?" She leaned in to her palms, dazzled by the ideas floating around in her own noggin. "I heard that you've gotten farther off…. the Titans in Jump California are however, interesting. They work together to solve their own dilemmas. Respectful, I think. Do you not too, also think the same?"

"I… respect how their leader has handled a bunch of meta humans, aliens and demons – aside from completely raising hell, yet avoiding a full-on World war in their city... So, yes." As Slade chewed his steak in deep thought, that could just about cover everything that there was to know about the masked assassin.

"Slade had himself to "disengage" with the heroes many times on and off, he's resting. Aren't you?"

"Enough about me, Fran. Why is your family member so interested in my work?"

Slade now sat eyeing the witch and her sweetest underling. "My aunt told me you wanted to contact a few sources; a way to have those on your side to impress the Brotherhood."

"You work for them." Slade gaped. His spud fell back onto the plate, not a clatter.

"That, I do. And a simple learned fact; I don't want to, but it is in my heritage. My mother's mother was a proud member, while I took after her and not my Aunt Frannie."

"Why would I waste my life and sanity paying tribute to a brain inside a jar?" Frannie chuckled. "It is preposterous, my sister must have been swayed somehow. I pitied the girl and know that she's trying to leave the pack. Thought you'd be –

"She could be lying, Fran!" Slade stood with his hands to the table. Cloth roughed between his palms. "If she can fight, I won't have her leaking any secrets from this room. Alive."

"If I am..." The girl nodded. "Then I can be severed from them, however you see fit." She slipped something from her pocket. A destroyed unit. "I mean to do no harm. The Brain is vile, and I want to work beside a real soldier to do…. good."

"Good??" Slade scoffed and shook his head, a rumble of laughter soon dead in his throat. " Good?? I almost helped a demon rise to power to get my bones and flesh back. I almost harmed children half your age, and I also DO NOT do charity work."

Fran looked at him, lips pursed. "She'll help you to get your side business done faster." The woman frowned, turning to Gertrude. "I gave the word so if you won't help us, we won't help you."

/

Slade ran a set of fingers through his white hair. He had a partner. A young one. He was CURSED with helping… teenagers!

Slade scowled and dropped his head into the guest bed pillows of Fran's pent-up abode. He was going to help a recruit of the Brotherhood of Evil, to escape and become a spy of the good guys.

"Fuck."

Slade looked at his watch. It was a new day tomorrow, and he really had wanted one of Fran's famous linzer tarts before he went off on his next side trip.

To Austria, hours away.

Life was just not fair sometimes.

Schibe! Next stop, memory lane.

/