Why Heroes Can't Sip Champagne and Apples are a Girl's Best Friend –
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Chapter 18: Far Away Starlight
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Based on the song Starlight by Muse. God, they are amazing!!
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She'd been AWOL in both Jump and from her office; the damned signs were everywhere. God, Dick…. was…was…
Useless.
He flopped on to the sofa besides Haley and dazedly looked out the window at the fire escape. How could she choose to be alone? He was fighting all the time, what did Blackfire do? They kept knocking him out of the ring, and like a true hero he took the punches. One by one, Dick got back up to get hit.
One.
Two….
"What was I to her? Just a shield after all? Did she really think we couldn't be together? She was all for it, did Dami…" Dick muttered as he thought in his miserable dumped stupor of how he could try to talk….to get a hold of himself…
Dick bit his lip.
Dami was a brilliant and stupid kid, but no. He was no crooked hacker. Not one who'd ruin a perfectly good -
Dick shot up at the tap of glass, the person on his end looking beaten down by the gusts up this high on the rise. The fire escape? This time of night, he mused all alone no more.
"You got a key, kid?"
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How he'd even decided to let a crook here, into his apartment…Into their nest, well.
It was downright not all of him talking, as Grayson went to dig for another beer in the fridge. A few to his left on the coffee table were already bone dry as Dick just put on his boldest expression to deter the conversation from "going to therapy."
"So, you took some time off." The person didn't take the offering and merely sat, a leg crossed as he frowned and lowered his head to see what he had to work with tonight.
"You can stay, or I can drink by myself." Dick snipped and shut the fridge with a slam, his body language feeling the threat as Midnighter was somewhat attentive to his pain a little too much – knowing Nightwing through his last alter ego, and even facing a force known as Spiral together right before Kori had pulled out of the spotlight for good.
"I came to shake you outta your head." The masked anti – hero offered, a hand out and extended only to Grayson alone in the apartment setting.
"You can't be bothered to ask your boyfriend if you're just playing games with the good guys? If he's ok with you cheating on him? How low do you expect me to feel, M?" Dick groaned and held his skull, a pounding few lights later and he'd be throwing up in the bathroom until his face was a robin's egg blue.
It was a few nights after…them, and Dick had bawled himself silly like with Slade during a stand off with wily M. They'd kissed, and this time Dick couldn't stop himself or his tears from showing how desperately he needed to forget. M had already been in a same sex relation with a teammate Apollo, yet had he even done to Dick what he'd not yet claimed to have come clean over to poor Andy?
"No." Dick threw up the bird, not close to his last swig as he opened a new can, M coming over to drag his hand over the canister – right over to the sink as Dick launched himself at the anti – hero.
"You…. fucking –
"You need someone with you tonight, wing." M set his lips by the bird brain's reddened ears. Drunk and stupid as all hell, Andy would say it was therapy. They'd talked, but not to Dick. He needed to get over the break up.
"I…would rather drink joker venom…." Dick spat in a sloppy slur to the man offering his body for the night. He however, didn't care if Dick protested like a baby. They'd already spooned, done a little extra before Dick had retreated to his lonely cell of the heart he'd lost.
"Come to bed, Dick. I'll stay. You don't have to feel like this…. I'll be right here, for now."
Dick sniffled and knew he was without a doubt starting to cry. Getting those tears wiped mad him shudder as M took the lone hero and hugged him, hair petted and the sniveling had then, begun. The healing, could finally start the day after tomorrow.
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Dick later went to Bruce, demanded to find out if Kori had kept Mari. If they were safe under his mentor's private protection.
"She's noted that you're to let her live without having any involvement in this child's life."
It sounded like a lie as they battled it out with words, words that no son should ever have to hear.
"She was better off a citizen unnamed with the general public than as a figure head, Dick. She was never safe and you didn't see it! I'm not going to tell you again; there is the door." Wayne sat at his desk, the younger's eyes realizing that Dami was innocent – but his father? His father had ended their happy end.
His own family had wanted Kori to simply, disappear.
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Dick slept in beds that made less sense, he stayed out of danger up until a bothersome night with some hitmen had him pulling back to cease a gasp.
Anxiety attack. He wasn't resisting as the fog covered his vision over until some rather thick boots moved into view. A fading orange flicker there to light his way as Dick whimpered to the spectre.
"Kori…."
As we told you then, he slept and not in his own bed when he was the one being carted here nor there.
A few crackles of a radio on and the sound of knives being sharpened.
Sitting up, Dick thought he'd been caught; that the assassin at the wheel tonight would try to skin him alive, if he dared.
"You're worse than the last time, blue bird."
Dick sat up even more, cuffs over his wrists to keep him on the safe house sofa for a few hours. "They almost pumped you full of holes. Red Hood got out, but you?"
Slade turned to him with just the patch. They'd met fairly soon for this….Dick struggled to get a better position on the man's sofa. He never saw his own mattress with just him in it these days.
"You're not sleeping much."
Dick gawked. "Did you –
"I ran into your pity party, kid." Slade flung his gaze back to the hero on his couch.
"He was babbling that you sleep around, that you needed another body to fill the void. No wedding, I take it?"
"I…it was canceled."
"Heard. All over Metropolis for a month. Not cold feet, she ran off to save her planet, then?"
"Not this time." Dick pursed his lips and tried to forget so much…but Slade, he had brought Dick to speak up. To get Kori to…no, no he had done that for himself. Slade had never –
"The wedding bells didn't chime. I'm curious." Slade was as he brought up a long device into Dick's current blind spot. "You don't have to hold back, we spoke about you two having exchnged words but…tell me, hero."
Slade gripped round his arm, and before Dick could budge, the needle pierced his neck. Right at the collarbone, Richard thought he was seeing colors for the very first time.
"Truth serum, a real one." Slade put the syringe down, his arms splayed over the back of a chair he'd conveniently moved in front of a disoriented Nightwing.
"It was political; the marriage." Slade started as Dick involuntarily nodded, biting his lip and squirming in his seat to get a grip.
"Strong stuff, can make you regret staying scarce…. however, another question. Was the Bat involved in any plans surrounding your big day?"
"Y…yes…." Dick felt his body swaying as Slade leaned him back into his seat, hoping to get all of what he was searching for.
"Did you have a fight. With Wayne, or the princess?"
"Bruce, he wanted her….to…." Dick shook his head, the serum making a migraine form.
"Get it out while the thought is fresh, kid." Slade told the kid, chiding him a bit. "If you don't let her go, then none of your efforts will have ever been worth it in the end. You need to –
"Who?" Dick shuddered through the spell; his lips no longer sealed as tightly as he'd kept them for weeks after the break up.
"Who sent you to have this, intervention?? Was it –
"I'm not the one under orders TO disclose a thing." Slade huffed, moving his lips to ask more, more of Dick's very soul to dwell on the topic. To relive the events that Star would have…
Had Blackfire tried a thing to kill another life so cruelly…
"And for the last question I have…was the princess recently, with child."
"Y…yes…"
"Last question; was it yours."
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Dick sat with his head in his hands, Slade letting the serum run its course as he sat on the chair, he'd "interrogated" the boy wonder on for his own business.
"I got the rest, plenty." Slade sighed. "Bruce wanted her out of the picture to preserve the peace agreement between Earth and the alien's home world. Very odd that Blackfire was set free from her chains at the exact time, days before you both were to exchange I dos."
Dick blinked. "You…. did –
"Not my style. I think she had help." Slade looked at the clock on the wall. "It's late." He mumbled to the bat's eldest. "You're welcome to stay the night, but leave by the morning; and don't bother trying to scope me out once you are up." Slade warned. "This place won't be here by the time you do try to snoop through my things to find any clues, young detective…. oh, and breakfast will be premade in the fridge." Slade paused a moment to think. "That's all I'll offer for now." Slade got up and looked in the hall closet for a sheet, an extra pillow and a tee from his stash. "You can always sleep in bloodstains, or I can make you sleep outside."
"Bathtub isn't an option." Dick scoffed.
"But of course. If you'd rather be an even bigger nuisance and sleep in the shower stall."
"Only one average, bath hating, mercenary would hate a god soak." Dick chuckled, head still bleeding something awful from the serum's after – effects.
"Soldiers are quick." Slade stuffily replied. "You bathe and it could be your last, simple pleasure." Snipped the mad man back, acting more so hyper - vigilant as Deathstroke, instead of as the Titan leader's nemesis at age fifteen and up.
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No tub came to be, so Dick slept in a borrowed black tee and boxers that were washed and dried while he showered instead. The water cascaded down his back as Slade left him a towel, an extra tooth brush….it felt odd that he trusted his enemy, even when he was used to this as Wing plenty of times.
Without Kori, without Bruce…it felt, off somehow.
By the new day, light peaked in to wake the sleeping bird. He yawned, stretched and looked to see a note on the chair that Slade had vacated that very morning. He'd slept in until nine, a very lazy way to start the day, though this felt better from not sobbing into hi –
"Haley…shoot." Dick dug around for his comm, sending a message for the nearest bat to go to his apartment. That the case ran late and he had to stay at a motel out of town. Questioning if Jason would bite or Oracle, Dick got up and did a few small aerobic spots before heading for the fridge for his only meal before he was kicked out.
Today, was going to be a time to run over the reasons he'd come to trust his life to another enemy. But, was that a western omelet? Dick went with plate and fork in hand to open and read the precariously placed letter. His eyes raised by how clingy it sounded.
~ Left your suit out, patched what I could. You need to reinforce the material. Nothing worse than roasted bird on the sidewalk. Take care and get some help soon. Hate seeing you sobbing all over the place, ruins your dark and brooding image for the rest of the super – villain community. Will keep in touch.~
Shutting the envelope and the very disturbing mom letter tucked inside it, he shifted back to his American fare with a grin. Sometimes, having a good cook around wasn't such a bad change of pace. He should really have a mental break down more often, this was some good eats!
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Thought that most of my stories have gotten too dark, so this is a Slade being humane to Dick to get him to act like a hero again. Midnighter does stay the night, but should we tell you? Maybe, and what about M'ari?? How long is forever isn't done yet! We almost left out the WORST thing Slade's ever done. Next chapter, the Renegade Scramble – Some Roses Do Have Thorns.
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