Nightwing; A Series of Doubts – Give and Take –
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Chapter 23: Lights and Sounds
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Inspired Song fic Yellowcard; noted, this is a jump three months later. Enjoy! Slowly getting to the other "present."
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~ He never got out. ~
"I'm sorry, B…."
"As much as I wanted see Goldie grow a set…. never, like this…"
"We'll be ok, won't we? We can still protect Blud without…what about the one faker we saw? The face…it looked like –
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For three months, Dick's superior indoctrination was never interrupted from the inside.
Or out.
Upon the day the kid had to leave the academy, he seemed less skittish, more assured of his role, as Slade in human skin met the lad at those iron gates.
"Ready to go back to Blud?"
"Yeah." Guessing he was masking his true avarice for the mad man, Slade tried to coax his prince to his carriage, giving him time to readjust. Not touching, no teasing or groping.
And, that frustrated the hero.
Why was Slade being so…well – behaved? To have him crawling for forgiveness??
The time the door shut behind them, a set of keys was placed into Dick's hands.
Dick looked at the man; incredulously, Slade thought it fitting for what he was about to say.
"One part of your training to become a hero was completed. Though, you'll be resuming your work as Nightwing in a few days, I'll be sure to check up on you. Consider this safe house payment for the one that was destroyed."
Silently, Dick realized this method as having a reverse effect on his co – dependant nature.
"You'll still stay in Blud –
"On and off for a time, just to see if your exams taught you anything about being an officer part time during the day."
"I'll just be doing paperwork in the meantime." Dick shrugged, his fight off somewhere, resting not so peacefully.
"Then don't get a paper cut before your first drug bust, kid." Slade waved his pupil off as Dick stood dumb in the middle of the floor there.
All of that, and Slade wasn't one to become domesticated.
Dick clenched the set of keys and the special key card as a plus in his hands.
"Yeah, see you."
He turned down the hall and decided to rinse off the work out it had been to hold himself together, before running to his room –
Only to find that his cell had been replaced in his pack, and his laptop…
With a password he didn't recognize.
A sticky note graced the case it was in.
~ A little detective work after your long vacation. Have it completed and the code cracked before I return on –
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Dick let the shower water blast, pouring over his back and shoulders as he looked numbly down at the tiles at his feet.
He was alone, and Slade was still watching his every move.
Like he was owned and protected? Was he still a serial stalker? He had to be! Dick could play his case out and find…
He recalled what December would bring and hugged his arms to his chest.
He wanted Richard to submit. Well before he was of any age or consent to let Slade back into his life.
Or his bed.
Dick shook his head and shivered, the water droplets pelting him scalp one last time before he downed the spray to a trickle.
A fluffy set of towels were there where he could reach, as Dick never worried before about going nude in the manor –
Oh, no wait, he never had done that…
A strange excitement had him hop up to grab an oversized towel from the shelf in the outside closet, his toes still not his traitor mentor fake's height.
Getting down again, Dick hummed to himself and for once, he was as before; he was on his own, no rules and he got right down without a pout to cracking the password on HIS own laptop.
An animated bit of fanfare went off as the test was taken and passed.
That big grin got a whole lot wider as Dick got himself up to look for some sleepwear in his drawer.
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The one thing Slade did so permit for a few minutes since it would not lead to any acts of treason, was a television with only preprogramed channels to keep the kid from losing his grip on reality.
Why though? The news was important, sure. And nature documentaries and the like were as easily a snore fest as the next documentary about the president of the United States - which was also VERY important, though why give Dick the right to see any of –
He dropped the remote and stood agape in front of the plasma screen.
To taunt…
Dick brought his head into his hands as the screen showed the billionaire of Gotham moving on and looking so despondent that ever before.
And Dick had no way with his new skills or gear, to ever have that chance to call home…Slade had forbid, it, even if it wasn't to be…
Dick rubbed his eyes and saw the time.
Ten pm. He needed to get some rest for tomorrow. He'd be making his first impression at the precinct as an intern for a bit, a cadet still and not yet until he was a few…
Dick ran into his own room and shut the damn door, letting the sobs come.
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Slade would let the boy sulk. Just as he'd given into the temptation of having power as cop one day, then that day Slade would tear his treasured find limb from limb. No bars, no stalling any longer.
Slade took to the back streets and got ready to relocate to another warehouse – where below that, his base was sure to take off.
Slade's game was that Constantine would dig yet never find the other softie of himself that this Slade had deliberately chucked into another time, just to have his fair share of plaguing that boy's miserable days.
He'd savor it, up until Dick decided to come at him and demand another explanation.
The bat would get his chance when hell froze over to intervene, Slade let the doors open.
"You have a shit ton on bots on the prowl, pig."
Slade saw with his one good eye the hungry angst portrayed in the masked eyes of one.
Red Hood.
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"Where is he."
"Not here." Slade moved slowly to find himself a desk by his screens –
Todd didn't approve, so he swung out his arm.
Gun loaded and let the bullet blast past plasma and glass.
"Tell me where, or I'll tear this whole place apart if you won't squeal, pig."
"The boy you knew was just around, yet he didn't want to be bothered. He's on vacation." Slade shrugged.
"Give him some time, Red."
"Not on your life!!!"
Todd lunged as Slade ran to the end where a wall could have his security enforced.
"What are you hoping to accomplish?" Slade sneered at his company, all riled up and guns akimbo.
"I know you sent out the hit! Joker doesn't fucking do that! You made my family suffer…"
Slade's eye grew to a slit.
"The clown hates he bat as much as I do, boy." Slade smirked. "What makes you so sure he's not the one?"
"He was in Arkham, but "someone" had a piece of info that YOU were found in his cell. Chatting it up."
"And?" Slade leaned into the wall, waiting to flip some nearby switch. "Was it?"
"Yeah, it was. And, you know, pig? I figured something else out." Todd aimed to fire as Slade dodged the hit.
Only because Red had let him.
"The joke's on the damn clown, because he WANTED to tell your secret. That you literally RAPED my fucking brother…that he knew about your time travel bull! Why? Why tell him –
"To see you like this." Slade chuckled and shook his head. "Your focus is dead to your team if you are too sentimental. Joker was just, lightening the –
"I'm not like you bastards!!!"
The bullets pelted the wall, Slade gripping one to find that damned hidden switch.
"Don't you want to see him, Todd? I can let you –
"Dick doesn't need your permission to do squat." Red sniffed, indignantly. "You'll let him go, or your face is mine. I'll take your other fucking eye out."
"Why? Do you intend to break my heart?" Smirked the man, thinking back to Addie's rage and unforgettable weeping.
Todd's face scrunched as both guns went up, the bullets unavoidable, had Slade been wearing less gear underneath.
He cackled as the bullets were plucked. Todd's face going ghastly white before his frustration had returned with clenched fists.
"What's so funny?? Hey!"
"You are really, just a joke…. I'm from a future where I know every time line and possibility…because this has ALREADY happened!!!"
He slammed his palm to the wall as red lights went on. His eyes fascinated in the outcome, large hidden grey doors opened from the underground lair, and of course –
Robots, that ALL looked like figures in the teen's young life.
Talia.
Batman.
Himself.
Red X.
Robin.
And…even a more obtuse version of himself that had only been one time.
Hush.
Todd nearly choked and then started to fire.
After the bullets were gone all of his knives tried to kill off the bots failed, and even when that failed….
Slade was still there, smug in his win.
"You'll never get to see him with that attitude. Wouldn't want my dear pupil to forget his place."
Red beat up the named and false faces, and they just kept rising - until hit after hit?
He went down, out cold as his world seemed empty without a reason to go on.
Slade walked off, never to return as he went underground, cursing his luck that he'd need a new haunt by the end of this week.
Question was, who would be here to pick up the brat in an empty, secluded warehouse out on the outskirts of Bludhaven?
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Bruce was afraid to see him again. What was left, knowing Slade in each universe still worked with beat downs and interrogation tactics as well as the next murdering sociopath.
He could have left it. He could have moved on, without his Robins. Without any of them.
Yet he wasn't this….he wasn't Slade; he wasn't willing to put people or beings in boxes and call them objects.
He was, one of his word to protect those without a voice.
Yet.
Yet, the Joker attacking the manor in secret like that was wilder than before…
Subliminal, yet no messages attached.
"Joker wasn't the one, then."
Bruce scratched his chin, in need of a trim as a shadow began to spread across his face. A beard was a bad idea, even if he was laying low from most of his duties until things grew quieter…
They had, hadn't they?
Leslie had talked to Jason and he'd run off, no word since that month of. The month when Dick had left.
Two months and no Red Hood, but wait…
He zoned in on a bit of footage of Joker's crime scene cell room.
~ You'd be perfect for the job. ~
"Slade."
He closed the footage and set his things to the side.
They were working TOGETHER. That –
A flashing beep went off and it was in fact a tracker he'd implanted on his son, the one who could be called a future arsonist.
He was in trouble. Heart, everything had gone too still as Bruce put back on the cowl. He still had the cave, yet the home…
He'd realized just how much of a grudge this Slade had with his attachment to the man's later security deposit.
Or, worse as the batwing fired up.
"Haven." He muttered, the screen showing the exact location of that faint signal.
Jason's only S.O.S he needed.
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Bruce is on the ball. Srry about the length of this chapter. More to come so read on!
