Nightwing; A Series of Doubts – Give and Take –
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Chapter 26: Cliff Divers – Sworn to Me For an Eternity
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This one will be gritty, warning of manipulation! And gutting with a sai. On with it!
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She left his body lying there on her bed, her space. Right between, weeping was heard which made Catalina head to the roof of her borough flat. An old brick statement that poverty would never die, and that Dick would need to be supported before he could heal.
He was in shock, was she supposed to hug him? Coo to him like a baby? He was a man, and it had worked. He was calmer…no, he was…
Too still, and that ate at her.
She knew he was hiding his past, his world. He used to come into the precinct with bruises on his arms.
He used to flinch until they began to…relate.
She was from the roughest parts of Blud in a Latino – Spanish speaking neighborhood, while he was a city boy with a rich daddy. He was a sad kid, hurt a lot ad she wanted to one day ask why.
"Wind's picking up, fast."
She turned and gasped at the bulk that had spoken by the ledge. Casually with arms behind his back, she didn't have her suit, just a gun if this got to be a hassle.
"Listen, "muchacho." She huffed at the figure as it circled her, preparing to attack.
"This is a bad neighborhood. I don't want any witnesses."
"You won't get any, my dear." The man launched with his sai, two sharp tongs to split her down the center as Tarantula tumbled away, Slade in a crouch with his mask firmly in place to startle the hazardous spider.
"Hold still. I have a body to recover."
"Won't be here, amigo! –
"No friend of mine…" Slade snarled and knocked the wind out of her with a kick to the face aas she failed in the surprise category.
"Has the right, you are a coward, girl." Slade let his arm pull her up by the collar of her top, body hanging limp as he did with hi Sai as so many other scum.
Right to the rib.
She bit back a cry and choked, knowing that was a clear hit to avoid any organs.
"I never miss…" He smirked. "You'll be out of this city, out of HIS life, or you'll have an uplesent drop…while being dead upon arrival."
"Not….mi……amore….stay a –
"And maybe…" Slade twisted the blade as her sweating brow looked the part of his very image – an image of how Tarantula should suffer.
"You're not a criminal, yourself? He was begging you to stop….well? Did you?"
"H- how…..do…y- y- you know t- -t that?" She begged to ask, hoarsely with a crusted cough.
"I know a bit about you, about how much of a reckless thing you are to this city. That they'd be glad to see you, simply… vanish." He hissed, gleeful for the outcome fate had provided.
"W –
"Annh!!"
The blade burned, yet the wind was getting stronger as Slad dragged her to the end of the roof.
"Ten flights, how many stories can mend broken bones…Why don't we just, find out!"
She shrieked, knowing the pain meds had Dick sleeping like a babe in the cradle of her heart.
No, this wasn't fate…it was –
She blacked out, never seeing the first red blur as it took over her vision.
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Slade dusted his hands and found the right floor, the right room.
And a tired bird in a night top with his body curled into a ball.
On HER mattress.
His senses rioted.
"Dick."
Slade looked to the bedside table.
Medicine, the hard stuff. That brat knew her drugs to numb, but could he see in his sleep what was about to happen?
Slade didn't care. He'd gotten in, so now, it was time to leave and burn everything up in smoke.
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Her ribs were on fire, and though her foggy vision was slowly, seeing red…
Hood.
She yelped as he tried to get her to lie still.
" Yo! Stop moving or you'll pull it! Ugh…whoa….you are that girl I always saw with Nightwing –
"You…got me, who are you…" She coughed.
Red clicking his tongue. "Here to help. Now, where is he, T?"
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HOW Jason had decided to "stalk" Slade's protégé in both identities. Or how after the beat down, Jay became even more determined to put that madman back through the fifth dimension's gate?
He had, and he did as Tarantula was no longer what he saw, but Catalina Flores. Dick's first real Blud born ally who….why was she crying?
"You have –
The blast and spark was too high as Red threw himself over the broken vigilante's form and they flew off down the street.
"My….mi amore! No !" She wailed and it was over, yet Slade had not won. She had not died, as Todd took out a pair of cuffs and booked the woman. "I'm taking you to a hospital, kay?"
She whimpered and threw her hands out to pray that he had not perished. All in Español, she was a product of this city's neglect and Dick had been there for her…well, until the part he did translate as –
"Our love was never meant to be."
~ Nuestro amor nunca estuvo destinado a ser. ~
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Slade slipped over to the window and undid the outside latch while a swaying Grayson did make him nervous.
He was successful , and in moments he was brewing something hot to take the chill off of his pet's pale bones.
"She had her way, didn't she…" Slade brushed the bangs from Dick's face as he was laid on his bed. "Sleep, we'll talk when you can…"Within moments, he had changed the teen now a man, into his sleepwear. Tucking him in as time had shown they could be, far closer outside the covers.
He shut off the lights quietly, and headed to check the news. To be sure that the Bat had no idea what was in his path.
~You locked me away…~
The voice, though, was getting louder.
This Slade looked into his cup of tea, dropping it as the face of a startling fellow had him pulling hairs.
"You… You should have stayed, I was the one that got out! Get out of my dimension!"
~Yours?? It belongs to no one. You've tempted fate, the balance and I want it back –
"Out!" The crazier copy shouted.
"OUT!"
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Bruce could be trusted later, first it was up to Barbie and John. He'd gotten closer thanks to hints from afar.
The voice that sounded like a better, not for worse, Deathstroke.
"You heard him, as in…like –
"I did, so it was nearly time to have another go. Wass' this all about, anyhow?"
"John, wait." Babs cleared her throat and had the device put on speaker.
~ Yeah, it said this is fated or something only to THIS Slade, and we have to stop him by the thirty – first before we lose them both. How does the real Slade even have a way to send messages?? Also, Catalina confessed. She took Dick after she killed Blockbuster and he went into shock. She said she needed to show him her heart…I don't know. Crazy, but we have to find –
"Hades has already found his Persephone." John sighed and put his hands into his pockets.
"You might have to wait again, mate."
~We can't!! This is like a bad to worse – scenario, where the hero falls to the dark side… we can't even decide if he freed Blockbuster –
"Regardless, Jason." Babs stopped the eighteen year old. "We can't on looking for dead leads. And not…on a whim. You have to keep on top of your intel. I'll make sure to get as much as I can while you do. John opened a small channel when he and Zee visited, so it may be what the other Slade is looking for. A way back, to his own face and body."
~You…you think so? ~
"I don't want to promise until Nightwing shows." She nodded.
"Then, I'm spent. I'll be out on the drive. Taking a drag. Fine by you?"
"In this weather?" Barbara cocked her head at the brit. "I'd advise NOT catching your death in it."
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John was not spitting fumes, yet summoning his extra eyes in this city. A faint aura and a see through addition of Deathstroke arose from the asphalt.
"Coast is clear, mate." He whispered to the spectral face of his ally's nemesis.
~ Figures Todd would be suspicious enough to keep on talking. ~ Grumbled the merc
"Come on, Chap. Chin up. We have is nearly ready for you. I'd say about –
~ That will be a temporary vessel. I'm not dead, Constantine. Just trapped in – between dimensions while a false Slade is ruining my reputation as a familiar member of the League of Shadows… ~
"Pout all you wish, pal. We've got work to do. You'll have to get into Todd's nogin sometime again. Are you scaring the fake you, witless?"
~ Very. ~ Slade nodded. ~ It won't undo the damage he did to Grayson, yet I can always gut the stranger and send him back in pieces like he did me – a nut house is no place for a real soldier. ~
"Right you are…" John lit up a cig with a curt wave. "Time's up. Your body will be ready to have that fad of yours, terminated."
~Promise me, John.~ Limbo Slade raised his one eye to the magi. ~ Promise me that no one else will have the honor of making that crappy copy, pay for branding me a rapist. I'll see him hung in ten dimensions before he EVER breaks my code. ~
"Got it, boss." John let the sands of time drown out that face, that voice of a man who'd never wanted this outcome. He was only in it for himself. Dick was his own man, or soon he could be if they fixed the time that the fucker – fake had ruined.
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Dick's eyes were crusted over upon waking.
However, this as he felt the matreess below, wasn't his
He cried out and bolted, before Slade came to clamp a warm ungloved hand over his pupil's startled reaction.
Tears prickled past his cloudy, blue sights, sparkling with cursed dread as Slade shushed the hero, his body pulled into the man's with the force of ten.
"Mmnn!!"
"You are safe, little bird…I've got you. She's not coming –
The boy shook his head as he panted, Slade noticing the way Dick slowed himself to come up with a few "what fors" for the mercenary.
Slade slowly let his hand pull away from the cop junior's lips. Still wet with tears and his own scared expression, pulling and tugging Slade to listen close.
"She….she wasn't bad….she was –
"She took you from your home, for what?" Slade scoffed and the response. "Don't call what she did anything innocent, boy."
Dick froze.
"how….did you –
"Was that for my bots to spot, or did I already know Tarantula's motive from the start?"
Dick's mouth opened and closed.
He….
"you….you knew she would –
"I was from a future like it, yes."
Dick curled his arms over his chest. No, no way Slade was aware of…
"She took you, but she called it medicine. I call it, a way to get into your bed. But she could have been worse off from the start." The man tutted. "Used you to get the police department guessing." The man shrugged and lifted his hands from the boy, to stand away and up from the bed.
"You do cost me money, and out of my desire to help you succeed, I've looked past your ruined dwellings. Even the gift; that bike? Where is it, Dick?"
"I said...I'd pay you….where is Cat-
"She's not here." Slade's worst side was his jealous streak, for sure. Dick could see it rolling off his broad shoulders. Tempers swelling on the surface
"I TOLD you. To behave around that guttersnipe whore –
"She was a person !! I didn't have a –
"Did you feel helpless that much?" Slade craned his neck lower.. seeing the boy put up a new front.
Defending the wicked? A bit past that, poor brat.
"I didn't let her, I…."
"You, what…" Hissed the madman.
The two were quiet before Slade walked to a desk and smashed it to begin to splinter.
"Answer the question."
"I needed to get out!"
Justice was served as Slade carved a path back over to the king size; his fists clenched to his side, his nostrils flaring a bit outward while the boy's legs kicked out and Richard clawed for the headboard.
His eyes were wider than life itself, and as much as Slade wanted to see his pretty doll in such a position…
Time was being wasted, and Dick had betrayed him with the worst offence.
He'd gone without complaint to escape his contract with the merc from another line in time and space.
"You let, that dirty, mongrel FILTH kiss you?? Rip your chest open to play with that pathetic thing you call a heart, Grayson???" Shouting louder, making Dick's chest heave, it was never always an act with Slade.
"Did she have more than what she came to find??" He leered at the brat in his bed. "I'm dead serious…you belong to ME !" Slade barked, pulling the boy's legs towards the end of the bed as his protégé's kicking lead no real resistance against the mastermind.
"When that day on your calendar comes, you'll know it. Bruce will know that you won't EVER try to DEFY ME."
"Slade…this, is going too –
" No, kid…You'll be punished while I wash the filth off of whatever ELSE that bitch – vigilante dared to take from me! I want her; every part, every odorous waft – gone! You'll have no one, Dick…" Snarled the mad dog as he dragged Dick under him, his arms holding the kid down, eyes looking so pitiful…
"I'll erase it, and then? You'll go back to the precinct. Tell them it was a simple "publicity stunt" by Daddy Bats to keep you safe…to keep you alive…you'll play the part of my prop."
Slade tore the shirt from his body, tongue grazing while asking what else Catalina had taken, stolen, tasted…
Dick tried to keep his breathing easy, but the rush of endorphins wouldn't come. Only panic, as Slade bit, sucked, nipped until his cock was exposed…"
"No! Stay off of me!! Please ! –
"She's been here too??" Slade was furious as his fingers went in first, getting Dick hard against his bemoaning will.
" Did she try to use that crappy hole of hers to " fix" what never needed glue in the first place?? But, don't fret…I've got it handled…" Slade's mouth was hot as he took the whole thing down his throat, his desire to erase her stink very strong as Dick clung to the man's white hair, begging to have his ending come sooner.
It came, yet Dick was crying because he'd not felt it. Only blacking out as the stress had him on the bed, limp against the sheets of his forever enemy and covered in his own cum for his "punishment."
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Slade sat on the bed a moment and knew Dick would do the right thing. He had no choice.
"If I ever have to tell the Bat that twice, I'd be an unlucky sure shot…." He shrugged. Heroes denied all the time. Bad wasn't just, it was everything and everyone.
Dick was just "lucky" that the right investor had come along when he had.
"It'll all be worth it…" He left the room, door locking with a soft click. The kid still in his ripped tee and lowered shorts.
Just the way he was meant to be.
Willing to sacrifice for the greater good.
Even if that meant with the boy's heart and soul.
Slade licked his lips, flipping on the weather forecast.
And his body, which would be so very confused in what it wanted, come December.
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