Nightwing; A Series of Doubts – Give and Take –
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Chapter 14: Calling in the Fowl
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Bruce knows something went on in Blud after Dick stopped Sionas from making illegal drugs and causing massive holes in the ozone layer, but Slade is on to them, he has to be. Will Bruce pick up the scent thanks to the bot? What will Dick's new job be when Slade's ready to drop the "bomb" at his eager partner's doorstep? Has Dick caught on to why his mouth always tastes like metal after waking up? WARNING of CORPORATE ESPIONAGE, FLIRTING HEAVILY, FLASHBACKS AND PTSD PANIC ATTACKS AND DOMESTIC OR STOCKHOLM MENTIONED ABUSE AS WELL AS MENTIONED POST….rape. Anyway, it ha to get worse before it can get better. Hang in there, Bat Clan!
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Bruce did have Alfred drag Babs before this great king of the city's most secure fortress, but he wasn't the only one brought to council before the Bat clan.
"What's she doing here?" Jason sniffed and pointed rudely at a dark haired, tanned, femme fatale.
"Selina worked with Batgirl and you know one another; the Birds have to come back." Bruce explained as he walked towards his group in the den. "I am going to need back up in Blud to see into the factory connected to Dick's disappearance."
"And his recent comeback was…so…strange." Tim flustered a bit as Babs looked the youngest teen of the group in the eye. "Robin…Dick was –
"It's on the news; a new crime kingpin called our Goldie out to play, and he even gave the showdown a thumbs up." Jason grinned at how that bird boy was flying solo right down the –
"What's the situation with your eldest?" Selina Kyle clawed her way regally over to the billionaire's arm. "I know the Birds and I are still on hiatus after –
"Bring a few back, including Batgirl and Harley." Bruce smiled, knowing Harley was still locked up for a time or going solo in Gotham's underground under a new logo.
"Y- you mean?" Babs gasped and put a hand over her mouth, near ecstatic but…
"What about my dad, the commissioner?"
"We've got that covered, Barbara." Tim gave a thumbs up. "I called in some old friends to keep him busy."
She gawked with everyone else.
"No…you didn't!"
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"Slade?" Dick picked up the paper and showed his practically clingy roomy the news with a wave in front of his lazy one eye. "Look at this. Did you pull some strings while I was out of it?"
"I had no other choice." Slade sat up on the sofa and stretched. "The people of Blud were becoming restless and while hunting for your, resources…I came across a rather tough bulldozer for you to stand up to."
"He's…" Seething, Dick took a minute to remain in complete control. Not only was this Slade extremely sneaky, he was in fact…if you had him as a spouse, you'd get your tongue tied in knots every time he spoke. THAT was a problem in itself as Dick stomped over to the window and bit his finger, the nail bent as his stress was not the greatest since that shoulder massage he'd gotten after getting better from his stomach bug.
Mysterious as it was, he'd still managed to finish his course for a bit before vacation, and then some wonderful hands had tapped those keys to sign and pay for him ANOTHER subject that he'd since put to the side.
Slade knew his past, his history. And it was starting to worry Dick that he was in a bad way, a bit of a stalker compared to as a Titan when they'd fought.
That Slade and Deathstroke were in fact NOT the same person, and that he was still –
"Richard?"
Dick turned red and ran past the man into the bathroom to wash his face.
Instead, he sat onto the toilet seat and put his head in his hands. On top of that fiasco, his finances had been cut. Slade was paying for everything, like he owned his little prize-winning prodigy!
Dick hugged his knees to his chest and stayed, hoping to calm down before he had to face the nightmare that was waiting to drag him back into his…. his home, when it wasn't even his either…
"I'm losing to you, creep…. why…. why me…?"
Dick rocked himself and moments later, he heard not a peep as his head poked out the doorway to see that there was a post it in the hall as his feet neared the living area.
~Think you need some time to flex those wings. I have a gift for you, even if you don't want it waiting outside on the street. Have some fun and come back with a new perspective. ~
Dick crumpled the piece of paper and shoved it into the nearest waste basket as he got out his keys and went down to see what Slade was pulling this time.
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"You came here, Deathstroke." Blockbuster sat at the seat by the lounge; a VIP in his club that was exclusive only to his meanest members.
"I was getting tired of hoping that bird might fly to you, so I gave in and got it all set." He smiled below the metal mask, making the call girls all blush as Desmond sneered at his accomplice. "You got the bird to walk into my territory? Where at is it gonna be." Desmond took up a drink in hand and sipped it.
"Thirsty?" He offered the merc a bit from the tap, not to be impolite.
"No, thank you. Not on one of my runs." Slade politely declined being shit faced when there was no need. Immortals didn't know how to bleed their poison. Desmond knew that quite well, being a super enhanced goliath like he was, staring Slade in the eye.
"Suit yourself." The man shrugged and held to one of his little kittens, her fake tail swishing while he played with her soft costumed ears.
"Ever known me to make a mess of some kid vigilate, Death? I would rough him up a bit good for ya, for a few extra –
"I'd like to let him kick you to stay down, but play dead if you need to. Then, maybe it would be for the best." Slade leaned back in his seat across from the goliath mind's. Desmond squeezed the meat of the girl who was riding his clothed crotch.
"You want me to take a fall, will you break me out to compensate my loss?"
"Even better." Slade smiled. "I can get a new replacement to TAKE your place." A shadow stepped out of the bar's back rooms, its appearance morphing just like Robin's dopple. "I came across a new interdimensional form of technology. Fully tested but not on everyone." The merc interlaced his hands and waited to see the goofy giant croak in astonishment.
The robot made it; its face was his, and it was near impossible to find an off switch. This Slade, had Nightwing's very enemy in the future, in his hand.
"Ah! Damn that is good, did you say another world? How long ya been off this one?"
"It was before I coaxed the boy wonder to have him as my student." He lied. That could be any time frame, even Robin as a Titan. Desmond was no mook, yet his IQ was only matched by his greed and rage.
He could be tamed, just as that little song bird had to have found his new swing set while in his cage.
"You got a deal. And for the record…"
The man listened as Desmond chuckled his comment, quite wittily.
"I always wanted a bird when I was a kid, but mama never let us. Too expensive." He grinned. "This is gonna make my childhood, and I'll be sure to keep him in mint condition for ya afterwards…"
"Deal, and do keep up the good work." Slade shook the kingpin's hand.
"Who knows? I might end up your eventual partner in the near future!" Desmond joked, knowing he was an idiot for trusting an international murderer.
"Likewise." Slade said with a smirk below his armored façade. "To many years in your service, as you have been in mine…"
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"There is always a catch with you, Kitty – cat." Jason let his hood return to the scene as he and Selina as Catwoman were on a hunt for one more bird of prey. A rather scientific icon and eco – terrorist. Slade wouldn't see her coming in from the sky light as Todd knocked on the cell of Gotham's own.
Poison Ivy.
"Miss Isley?" Pamela? Got a few visitors for ya here." The guard let the few in to find a cell made for a super villainess.
She looked through super secure measures of metal and glass and gosh damn!
Catwoman took over with a saunter and a hand to her hip.
"They keeping you a powerless pussy cat, Pam? How disturbing this place has gotten…" Mewed the black cat as she crossed across the room to see an old ally from the criminal underworld. Gotham's crew of bad bitches had been well overplayed for some time. It was time –
"Uh, so asking you for the sake of…an old pal…" Jay finally got the courage to start, knowing that stink eye he was giving the green skinned red head…she would gut him with her vines and drag him in the dirt if Batman's name accidentally popped out.
"What is he trying to ask? Why are you with this hoodlum, Cat face? Here to gloat that you swapped alliances?"
"Never. I don't take sides." Purred the thief. "You know I take the money and run no matter what role I like to play. But, right now…we can reduce your sentence awhile if you decide that helping us is better than not getting to see the sun. And darling, there is only one "son" in mind I'm willing to help an ally of ours get his talons on if it works to fulfil both our needs."
Poison Ivy frowned and twisted her head to see closer, arms held back by cold metal cuffs that had her pinned like a butterfly to the wall of her proofed-up cell.
"Get me into Black gate." Ivy stated with a toss of her hair. "I'll help, because he must know what it is "I" want, soft paws…"
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Todd left the cell with Selina and felt off about this whole arrangement.
"He was in your ear, that's why you said OK to let her go there."
Jason's words had Selina turn on her slender heels. "You got all of that, hon? Very good ears, but dear old Pammy won't be getting out if they buff up the exact same security. And, your papa knows. She wants to be near a friend, that's all this was, Hoodie– brat."
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Tim was in the parlor with Babs as she went over some last second info of her file format for the Galileo Case.
"The shadow is the key here." Tim told Babs as he sat with the laptop on a coffee table, she was crossed legged beside him and trying to think back. "Jason got pushed into a closet at the gala. You lost him because he stayed in character. Bruce saw him and confronted that….evil robot until it –
"Aha!" Tim snapped his fingers. "He's not the only one!"
"What?" Babs nervously shook her red hair away. "What the heck are you talking about? That can't be –
"Think about it. Jason was in the closet! Our Dick – themed spy was in the men's room and the ducts didn't lead to the janitor's work place. It led to –
"Ah…" Babs tried to pin it down in her mind.
"See? Two shadows, only one master controlling them."
"But, if that's the same person who…" Barbara scratched her head.
"Barbie; Bruce told me something really weird, after fake – Dick exploded in the gym." Tim closed his laptop a second to speak. "Bruce told me…that the robot's actual construction from its parts left over...They weren't anything even S.T.A.R labs, Lex corp or WAYNE tech could come up with! Like, it was from the future."
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Slade watched over the catwalk as his little bird got into character. A few katas, a brief fight and spar or tumble with daddy warbucks and then?
He'd get the front page. Again, and again –
Dick let the sweat barely touch the ground as his threw into his warm up a spinning kick.
Was he just showing off, or was that a grin that this perfect pet blue bird of Slade's, was he trying to be –
Slade put his grip to the rails, wide eye while he shouted. Barking an order to the boy wonder.
" Robin ! Don't get cocky...I won't wipe you off the floor in pieces on your first real fight against this mobster…he's a monster, and you have to stay focused!"
He dreaded it, not guessing nor wishing to see his pretty flightless bird in tears or pouting, but the spoils of winning the war.
It was worth it to whip his performing chimp into shape before that boulder of a pie hit his pretty little face or knocked his teeth out.
He could use the tech of his alternate to do it, yes. Keep those chompers in order, make them sparkle.
In a year, he wouldn't be fighting the man tooth and nail. That, was for damn certain as the song bird made sure to usher a look to Slade with two masked eyes rather engaged.
"Ready, teach?"
Slade was…sure that he must be. Hs muscles had ached for this all week. Blud would be begging for an encore.
"Keep your left guarded." The man leaped down with super human grace, landing in a tiger's crouch before cracking his knuckles to have a go. "Get ready, I won't go easy on you the second round after!"
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Bruce didn't know where it was or wasn't. the robot had revealed far too much about where it had been constructed. He had pinned its birthplace on the same ground in Haven only about fifty minutes from the plant that Sionas had lost his rights to.
Both places would be investigated. He couldn't be hoodwinked by that madman in the dark who was taking advantage of his ward. Dick had to be trying to get out, trying to understand what –
~ Batman, you may wanna see about the position…got a hunch… ~
Tim was inside of the factory where they'd be able to find out just what was behind those doors.
So far, it looked to be nothing but car parts.
Tim rubbed his chin, while Babs pointed suddenly to a door unmarked by the catwalk. They made sur to get Bruce onto the ball –
"Robin!" She called to him as the room became littered, with some new, mechanical horror.
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