Before he was Robin's greatest enemy, he was Slade Wilson. Husband to Adeline Wilson, and father to Joseph Wilson. He was also Deathstroke, a man who had been part of a secret army experiment by the U.S. military trying to create metahuman supersoldiers. He became a mercenary sometime after when he went an saved his friend Wintergreen who had been sent on a suicide mission by a commanding officer with a grudge.

He kept this from his family however, until a criminal named Jackal took his young son hostage to get information Slade had about a client who had hired him as an assassin. He refused saying that it was against his honor code (Wait a second, a mercenary with an honor code…) then murdered the kidnappers ('cause what villain these days ever does a kidnapping alone?) One of the last criminals however, slashed Joseph's throat before Slade could stop him, destroying his vocal cords and making him mute.

After taking their son to the hospital Adeline extremely angry that her son had been endangered, tried to kill Slade by shooting him, but only managed to obliterate his right eye (Hell hath no fury people! Hell hath no fury!) He left that night and went to drown his sorrows in alchohol, it wasn't easy getting drunk as he was a metahuman, but somehow he managed it. He woke to a situation that never should have happened after seeing a gorgeous female at the bar. He left before she woke promising himself never to do that again. With nowhere to go he started traveling offering his services to anyone found in need of a mercenary. Slade never stayed in one place to long, keeping bases in different parts of the world and when he was in very desperate need of a break he stayed with his friend Wintergreen.

Ten years later Slade found the coat that he had worn the night he got drunk and went to put it on and go out for a stroll when a piece of paper fell out of a pocket. Picking it up he found the name and number of the woman he had the accident with, being excruciatingly bored he ran her name to see what she was doing. What he pulled up was a newspaper article with the story of the Grayson's couple dying in a trapeze sabotage, what really caught his eye was the portion that read 'leaving their ten-year-old son Dick Grayson orphaned.

Further searching told him the boy was currently in the care of Bruce Wayne. He arrived in Gotham city one night while Bruce was out and took a small sample of the boys blood, DNA results confirmed, Dick was his child. Staring in shock for a second he wondered how the woman pulled off passing off Dick as her and the husband's child, for when checking the marriage records he found that she married almost a month and a half after the 'incident.' Looking up the boys birth record he read that Dick was listed as premature but very healthy… He couldn't decide which person was more stupid. The doctor who said that or the 'father' who believed it…

Father, that's who Slade was to this boy. Common sense warned that revealing this to a child who was still traumatized by his 'parents' death would not help matters. So he watched from a distance as his son grew up, becoming side-kick to Batman (not something he necessarily agreed with but it was better than most heroes he could have ended up with in Slade's opinion.) He watched as now commonly known as Robin helped take down the Joker and multiple other villains many times with the caped crusader. Seriously, would not it have made more sense to annihilate them when they escaped after the first few times?

Slade smiled with some pride when he heard his son ask Batman that very question, almost right after Slade thought it to himself,. Then he groaned as he heard Bruce chastise Robin saying that it was not their place to decide that, that was the judges job, and when evaluated the judge normally placed these men and women under the category 'mentally unstable.' Did anyone ever bother to test these judges sanity? Robin, however, did not voice that question aloud, it just happened to be written all over his face…

Sometimes, Slade had to step in (not visible or traceably of course,) and save his son from encounters with death that became to close for his own comfort. The first time was probably the worst. Batman was on the other side of the building trying to take down both the Joker and the Riddler, not knowing Poison Ivy had knocked Robin unconscious and threw him into a metal barrel, sealed it's lid and tossed it into a lake. This was a problem for A: Robin's hands had been tied behind his back before being thrown in, and B: The barrel was full of holes! After about thirty seconds Slade realized Batman wasn't coming, well there went his theory on Batman having secret telepathic abilities…Maybe.

Without thought to whether or not they were taping Robin's drowning to show Batman (lucky for him they weren't) he dove under the water towards where he had seen the barrel go down. It took him a couple of minutes to actually find it as the water was quite murky. About ready to have a panic attack when he finally did find Slade ripped off the lid and pulled his son to shore, he wasn't breathing!

After frantically performing CPR and getting his child to cough up the water and start breathing it took all his self control not to take Dick to a hospital, come back, and murder the freaks that did this to his child. While Slade knew on the inside that would be a bad idea, it didn't stop him from holding Dick protectively up to his chest for awhile before leaving. That would be the one time he would admit to actually fearing for his sons life.

He observed as his son daily grew stronger and more skilled. Slade had a feeling that some of his metahuman genes passed from father to son. Then came the early teenager years… Slade thanked whatever God watched over him in that he was not the sucker that had to put up with the boys attitude. After witnessing the argument between Batman and Robin that led to Robin leaving and creating the Teen Titans, he even considered becoming religious. Too much drama…

Once

Robin became the leader of the Teen Titans, Slade decided to enter into the boys life under the guise of a man whose plan was to rule the world so to speak. His original plan had been to make Robin his apprentice and reveal himself after he had the boys full trust, Dick had too much of the hero good guy mentality implanted into his mind however, and when he went to try and kill himself with his friends Slade decided to settle for being the boys constant challenge in life.

Being killed by Terra had been an unexpected turn of events. He had known she would not destroy the Titans as she was too soft hearted towards them for that. Pushing him in iver the edge into lave? Try harsh?

The whole thing with Trigon had been a fiasco. Working under someone to destroy the universe? Not his style… The only good that came out of that had been getting his flesh and blood back into his body, and working side-by-side with his son (yes, even if it was only to save his worthless friends.

It seemed the only time he was going to have the ability to be around his son in some sort of peace, was when the world was coming close to ending. Slade would take what he could get though. Hopefully with this zombie apocalypse problem, he would now be able to have his son to stay with him.

End of chapter three!

You know what they say, hope springs eternal! R&R ! 3