Nightwing: A Series of Doubts – Give and Take –

by Inkblot24

Dick Grayson leaves the Titans at seventeen going on eighteen to the city of Bludhaven to make something of himself. He has only his few allies, no reputation and no new costume to strike fear into the hearts of Haven's very worst mobsters. That is, until he meets a mercenary who turns his whole outlook onto its head. Dick then has to make a choice; save the city or save himself?

5. Abdicator of my Soul

Nightwing; A Series of Doubts – Give and Take –

/

Chapter 5: Abdicator of my Soul

/

Dick felt filthy, and also guilty for keeping it all from his partner; what had gone on as she called him that next day, groggy and aware of none of his trembling words since they too were easily stoic. Masked as any actor could show of their time being abused in secret.

That night when he'd dropped into his bed; since it was thankfully back due to Wally and Babs's kind sentiments, he'd found that this person, this Deathstroke both terrified and intrigued him. Trying to mask his timbre on the phone as he sat without cable or a tv just yet, he stayed glued to the sofa with bags around his eyes, cell to his ear as he watched pigeons flying to roost before his terrace setting.

"Morning."

~ Good morning to you. Dick? Did you forget what tonight is by the way? ~

His skin turned deathly white by the thought of that.

"No, had totally forgotten." He feigned a nervous chuckle, wanting to cry as if his birthday were a branding in hot iron.

Hot, sweaty…. painfully bruising him in too many places. He gasped and found that his hand had moved too close to his crotch out of –

Dick turned red; fury withdrawn as he tried to keep from going to a dark place.

Instead, he took a long inhale, before telling Babs that he had left the toaster on.

/

He stumbled into the bathroom, panting and feeling less than sane. "It's not the city's fault…I – I'm always a target to any, bad guys…" He told himself as he paced the room, his damn ass wasn't the issue here.

He turned on the shower, stripped, and starting forcing those hands to clean every inch of him until he started to hyperventilate. Feeling dizzy as the cold water made him even paler. He scrubbed until his skin was raw and sore, drying out and dimples forming from the continuous friction from…

He coughed as his eyes shot wide open with a gasp. A lean into the tile wall to steady himself, hands over his face, he breathed and let the cold water numb every inch.

He wouldn't let it happen again. He was a hero, now until his line of duty bull was up – along with his entire life among the living.

He shivered yet ignored the pain. Letting it take over made THAT vanish as he stepped out, drying off lightly shakily while making sure not an inch of the old "him" from earlier, remained.

/

He had school work to accomplish and his inbox…

Dick just shut the device and pulled out a book for his semester instead.

Too many happy eighteenth emails in said inbox, to turn his back on.

/

~ This just in; the mayor of Blud was last seen being taken to his office and cuffed up – the officers of Blud's finest have noted this as a terror attack on mayoral grounds, the man in question who has the official in his grasp, stating his demands that he wants to see "the hero of this city." He's demanded it be the currently new hero who stopped a crook only a few days ago from breaking into the National History Museum, and Todd? The man said; that if his request is denied, he will kill the mayor and have the city to answer to his brand of chaos as a result. What hero can save Blud's freedoms? More coming to you live, as we broadcast the events to you – keeping you in the know. I'm Simone Eckles, here on your channel four news break in the morning. ~

/

Slade was sure that his plan would pull that pitiful boy wonder from his slump and into the light. He'd reveal it all, if only the kid took the initiative to keep his invite…

/

Dick got up and saw tat his cell was buzzing again, this time it was not the perp. No.

It was Babs, and her texts wouldn't stop and he swung over the side of the sofa's arm to drag it to his eyes.

~ Breaking news! ~

~ Mayor is in danger, abduction! ~

~ The terrorist is asking….~

Dick squinted at the last part.

~ For you. ~

~ He wanted THAT hero; you have to show or the mayor –

Donning the mask and cape quickly, Dick slipped out onto the terrace and made his way up towards the next rooftop.

~ Tell that creep that I'm on my way. ~ He said back to Babs through his reconnected comm.

/

Babs nodded

And got to work. She got to hacking the police to leave a message on their pager device or whatever cops used now a – days.

~ Anyone copy? This is the hero's partner and he's letting you know he's on his way. Don't fire anything until he's in your sights and getting the mayor to safety, over. ~

The cop scratched their heads as the news figure in back caught wind with an open jaw. "You heard it here, folks! Our boys and women Blue Blud just got word that Blud's savior is headed for the office where that terrorist is holding the mayor at gunpoint. We'll have you updated as soon as we know more. I'm Simone Eckles. Be safe, Havenites! Help is on the way!"

/

Dick landed feet from the steps as the officer's chief came to speak to him, her eyes as wild as this case was getting to be. "Chief Valentine." She told the kid, his hand shaking hers quickly as they briefed on the situation at large.

"You're the bat's kid, so you gotta know the procedure for this better'n my guys."

"I'll take it from here." Dick nodded and parted to walk through spinning doors towards a possible pitfall.

The words of another for sure dragged him down the hallway, a large one leading to where he had to be. Security guards were disposed of, as the trail of blood made Dick grimace and walk faster.

~ How can you save a city when you can't save yourself? ~

~ You've gotten sloppy while I was away. ~

Forgetting to stay calm, his fists balled to his sides until the door was in sight, as that stupidly stubborn teen kicked it in.

"Let. Him. Go." Dick's eyes never mirrored the bat's bbut now they had to try.

It was impossible, he stifled a gasp.

Because the one holding gun to the mayor's head was none other than Deathstroke…

"You said that we fought before, and I know. I know who you really are." Dick pointed with all of his green gloved intent.

"Slade…. drop your weapon! I'm here to have you brought in for your crimes. And for what you did it me!"

/

It was just himself, the mercenary he supposed, and of course the trembling and sweaty mayor with a gun pointed at his skull.

"Still as diligent as they claim. What did Bruce say about my, gift?"

"He doesn't need to be involved." Dick got out his birdarangs. "It's just you and me."

"On the contrary, child."

Slade dropped the man or attempted before using the butt end of his gun to knock out the mayor. His forhead now bruised, too much to stay conscious.

"No! What are you after! I'm not afraid of –

"Really?" Slade's tone rose as he dusted off his arm. Filth, like this city's officials.

The gun cocked now at Robin, a dear in metaphorical headlights. "Sit. We have much to discuss since your departure as a Titan."

"I have nothing to say –

"SIT." Slade's tone deepened in warning, all mirth all but vanished in tormenting his prey from earlier.

Dick ridgedly found a seat by the desk a Slade moved slowly away from it to stand feet from his enemy.

"Your losing yourself and I might have the answer. The Robin I fought would never have gotten this sloppy."

"You rap –

"Were already losing yourself before you arrived, going solo is hard work." Snorted the villain. "I found that time piece to have the ability to see into a future that the barer or anyone it has come into contact with…Boy Wonder? I saw your future, and you'd be dead before sunrise in this city…"

"What are you ta…." Dick's voice trailed off. "You…that thief was you! –

"Not quite, close however." Slade smirked. "It was a robot designed with physical features similar to my own – as you recall as Red X?"

"How could I not." Dick grumbled bitterly. "You made things difficult for me, made me lose myself in trying to stop you."

"Flattering won't get you very far. But you do lact control. I've seen it in your attack style." Slade hissed, gun still pointed at its next victim.

"Are you going to kill me, right after you raped me?" Dick snarled. "I'm going to see you behind bars; the police are outside, waiting for you to come out."

"I don't have to." Slade cocked his head playfully to the side.

"Why, Deathstroke?" Dick bothered to sit and ask his captor. "Never heard of the guy –

"The League's files were forbidden to you and your friends, weren't they?" Slade aaked back. "My code name, an alias, as I have many masks. Many faces. Just like your mentor, only I kill under a code he'd never find as "just."

"A mercenary. Batma –

"Yep." The man chuckled, voice dipping back into a more rural, rockier one. "You beat him to it, kid. Here I am, so?"

" So, what are your demands, Deathstroke." Dick spat out the title, venomously.

"I'm glad you could ask…" The man's voice swapped again. Slade was a man with many faces after all, Dick swallowed.

"Still think I want you dead, boy wonder?"

"Don't know." Dick tried not to show his emotions. People were counting on him after all…Babs…Wally and…Bruce, too.

" Well, that would be messy for me. So here is what I propose we do; you will take to my terms since I've gotten your attention by other means…"

"Stop." Dick's voice was gravely as the terror in his timbre found its way back. "I'm never going to –

"That was to get you here, and it worked, didn't it? How else would you have been so frustrated to pay close attention to detail. Which is why I want to mentor the new you, until you figure out what it means to be a true HERO."

Dick blinked, his eyes wide as…did Slade…want to make him Better at SAVING Blud??

"No way! I'm not going to be your apprentice –

"Then, how about we keep it simple." Slade clicked the gun as Dick's back straightened back up a little.

"You go about your business in this city. Get a full time job, see about having your first crime boss knockeed out and left on the BCPD's doorstep. Have them raise you to be a cop when it's time to finish with the academy."

"How did –

"I know that you had a plan but are falling short, Dick."

The boy's eyes fell. "You knew. That's why the burner went to me. You sent it, didn't you."

"As I said," the man continued, ignoring the distressed hero's questioning face.

"You are lacking tact, structure and the balance you were gifted as an athlete is slowly dwindling. Soon, you'll be hitting bars and telling everyone what you never were. Hopeful, and what do you think your partner would do if you ended up homeless?"

Dick had no words as this man, he pushed every button back…like on the roof as Dick's lip trembled from that flashback.

"I can be firm in my beliefs as well, and you deserve so much better than this, Dick Grayson…"

"Don't call me that."

"Do you have a new identity, yet? No?" The man mocked him with that one eye, a cat's grin possibly behind it. The flitting song bird having lost its voice.

"No."

"Well, I have the answer. Or, Superman will. Given the time it takes for you to embrace who you WILL become."

"Slade…" Dick took one look at the man, his eyes shimmering back desperately for some explanation to how – how in the hell it could have led to his world falling around the boy wonder…was he even that anymore??

"Why are you doing this? What do you care if I lose everything to a bad dream? You can't care. You kill others to get what you want…" He took in a breath, determined to know. "Why do you want to help me to be a better hero?"

/

"Because, it is necessary to have that role in my world, boy."

Dick blinked back and sat forward. "Why?" He gulped. "You'd rather see me dead, right? My team –

"I still respect you terribly, child. I don't think an early grave is very fitting for a martial artist of your magnitude. You've hit a slump is all." The man lowered the gun just a bit. "I want to break you free from any bad habits that have been holding you back, so that when you are old enough to understand my intentions, you will in fact be very grateful that I spared your young life today."

"Not to recognize you as a teacher.:" Dick lowered his eyes, his gaze wary of what Slade was adding into this bargain.

"You can be the sacrificial lamb to have this city thrive again. If you trust in my plan to mold you into a better ally of the people, you may just see things in a different way than they currently are."

"Brainwash me? Make me trust you? Do you think I'm an idiot –

"Watch your tone with me, kid." Deathstroke's drawl returned and Dick cringed back into his seat.

"I'm doing this because I like your spunk. All you'd have to do is report to a session and meet my demands, learn and get better at being this place's savior instead of always trying to "fix" yourself. It's pointless." Deathstroke told him, his attitude harsher than Slade's by far. Gruffer.

"What would that plan indicate I do to "please" his majesty?" Dick cockily asked the man.

"For starters, your manners are terrble. No hero is going to like to endorse a delinquint. Look at your brother! He's an outcast and eats scraps to stay a hero at all. Or even Roy? That Archer who you still think is your rival? Soon, neither of you will be thinking about anything other than getting high in a back lot and bitching about your mentors abandoning you brats."

"What can I do, then? Fight back? What were you going to say this is; a boot camp to retrain my everything else?"

"Possibly." As Slade slipped back into his own dialogue, Dick was noticing how easily this serpent shed its skin.

"With the r…rape…" He mustered. "It's not going to lead to anything. No training me to be your faithful lap dog. And NO hurting my team or partners."

"Why should I subject myself to your demands while mine refuse to be met." Slade cocked the gun at the mayor's head as he'd been lain on his side. Blood now at the wound site, in need of stitches.

Dick's face lost its color. "You…want me to give myself up, for this city. To you…it's no better than your last attempt to blackmail my team –

"Not that you dared to disobey it once we made the rest clear to them…you were still young, and I forgive you for that."

"I don't." Dick huffed. "If being your protégé again –

"Once again, NOT an apprentice." Slade rolled his eyes back. "You'd be doing what you do now, but I'd be giving you the push to get you far away from falling too far, too hard if you try it…to pick yourself up and clip your own wings in the process. You'll report to me at 0500 hours and…I believe that's just after you've turned eighteen. Dick."

Gawking, the boy stood, Slade knowing he wouldn't attack. Too mentally beaten to lift that toy up.

"But yes, I knew you were still not there. Even the websites that are dedicated to Robin can be very misleading. You should contact the staff in charge…but for now, this arrangement will only end when your hero status has changed. When you can face the foes of this city and not come home with any broken bones."

"And what do you get out of all this…" Dick fearlessly bothered to ask; his eyes narrowed at his accomplice.

He was doing far worse by trusting a rapist with his future.

"In the future, I've seen a great change in us both, Robin." Slade lowered his arm and was sure to sweep one over to the mayor's body.

"Go. I'll have a few feeds tampered with to show you managing this on your own. As the hero that saved this man's very life –

"That's not –

"You want them to trust you, boy?" Slade's words felt like a rule being broken and Dick, couldn't break them... Not one more as he sighed and hung his head. "Thanks, 0500…" He murmured as Slade nodded, off into the shadows he went as the sputtering Mayor, awoke. Dick rushed to untie the man and pull him out off the floor, swinging one arm over the official's shoulder –

Until he felt a fist hit him in the ribs, a smack to the face, and his knee ripped as he was thrown. Dick looked wildly as the echoing droll of that man's evil voice took over the room. Getting to his feet, that was intentional, making him hug his arms to his chest to bit his lip.

"Make it look good, Hero. I'll see you very soon..."

Dick swallowed and recollected his hostage, the man's as they both walked down the hall in a partial limp. The man had a broken foot, Dick frowned. The mayor had gotten hurt, all because he wasn't there in time…

Dick trudged out to where the police and ambulances were all waiting, one after one in a scattered row.

That was when they'd left the building to get the mayor a far away as possible -

An explosion rocked the walls as Slade made his escape without been seen by a soul.

Ash and dust clearing, the sky light was a distraction. Slade had used it to distract his pursuers…just like the thief he'd hired to ruin the boy wonder and drag him down so low…

~Just in! Breaking news of the decade! Robin, the boy wonder from Gotham and The Titans has SAVED the mayor of Bludhaven! We are without words – how did you manage to stop the terrorist? The people need to know. ~

/

Bruce watched from his office as the scene made his body go tense.

"Dick…what's happened?"

/

"It wasn't easy." He had LIED to their faces; everyone expecting a modest speech.

/

Babs tuned in and saw it too. She and Batman, and one more…

/

Slade let the eventually performance play on a screen in the backseat of his vehicle, via stolen army satellite drone technology. He didn't have to do all of the work, sniffed the merc.

"Step one…" He shut off the device and chuckled darkly. "Completed…"

/

~I fought him off today, but this city could use a hero; so let me help in any way that I can to protect Blud. I live here now, and today, I'd like to volunteer as the city's full time crime fighter …if they'll have me…~

He scratched his cheek, thinking of how Slade could slip into tight enough skins without any noticeable gaps. Maybe he had a "multiple personality disorder." The boy wouldn't put it past the sociopath to cross that gap one day.

Richard would be doing a lot of peeling back layers, his gut felt weighed as he tossed back his face and smiled for a reporter to take his picture on candid camera.

Especially since Slade would be choosing the emperor's new clothes by tomorrow…

/

Upon ending things with the press, it grew much later by the time he'd finally made it home. His face twisted up in shame as Richard just shoved down the emotional torrent into the bowels his tortured soul.

Obligations, but now?

Not so priceless. Always a price to be paid in full…Especially to a mercenary on the spot.

His key went to the lock as he fumbled with it twice before the door creaked open.

Too quiet, what he'd wanted…right?

The soul he'd just signed away to his nemesis for fame and glory.

Tonight, he'd blow out those eighteen candles. He felt his face for any tears as soon as he'd gotten inside.

None, as the cake was already lit with a card to the side. Dick gingerly scaled the room and made it before his miniscule pyre. He plucked up the card, fresh tears now falling as his heart pounded heavily in his chest.

~ To many more years, kid. Great job in keeping the public on your side. This won't be an easy task, but I know you, boy wonder. You were meant for so much more… ~

Dick slumped onto the living room rug and let the candles flicker as he wept bitterly into the wooden coffee table. His tears, only short of the reason he'd sold himself out like that.

Because now, Blud was under Slade's thumb. If he had Dick, then he certainly held the keys to this city.

And the only one who could stop him was that brat who was too busy crying, crying over his lost innocence and to many, many more trials to come before him. Body and spirit, as the sun finally vanished into night.

Before him, in his pocket was his cell and the ugly burner as well.

He paid little mind as he let the tears wet his gloves.

~A few hours left, be sure to tell Babs you're going on patrol. ~

~Dick? Where are you? You haven't answered any of my calls for the last four hours! ~

~Happy B Day, Dickie! All of us Titans wish you an awesome eighteenth! Sorry I can't make the birthday bash. Got stuck with Uncle Barry in Brazil and Shazam goin' on a top-secret mission. Will bring you back some tropical sweets from our trip – get your good times in while you can before you get to be old and cranky like Barbie! ~

~Dick, we need to talk about your role as Robin. Call me back as soon as you get this. I'm worried you still haven't adjusted to the move. We all want you to succeed, but maybe Blud isn't the answer. Eighteen is a big number and I want you to make smart decisions, not just as my ward. Get some rest, and don't eat too many sweets or stay out too late... Exercise plenty, and we'll talk soon. ~

Love was too cruel as Dick blew out his candles, stored the cake in fridge through his crusted vison and conked out in his bed without bothering to change his uniform.

The next few hours later, the burner went off with a buzz at four forty - five am.

Dick was fast asleep as a text appeared on the screen, lit up for all to verify.

~Will be there to get you at five, sharp. Be ready. ~

Seven minutes later…

Dick groaned and rolled over onto his side, not remembering that he hadn't locked the terrace doors right before bed.

/

Slade did rape him and I'm sure that's not all he's hoping to make Dick leave at his feet. But dang…B Day messes! What a drag. How many times did a cry on mine? A lot, I fear. Read on and stay curious for chapter six.