Our Time in Reverse - What it Takes
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Chapter 66: Working off My Ass
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Dick tapped his foot as Slade bit into his slice, finally acting human enough to see through; almost, seeing as Wally West was in disguise right behind them.
Did Slade know? Could he tell why Dick was doing Morse code with his drink? Every slurp was a reason to plan. To fight the man and save himself.
But, did it seem…right?
Wally or whoever was in their view, walked off as if he had garbage throw out. His fingers twitched and Dick caught it.
~ C – A – M – E . T – O . C – I – T – Y . W - O – R – R – I – E – D. B – A – T – S . C - A- L – L – E – D . T – I – T – A – N – S.~
Dick nearly choked on air as Slade went a hand across the table to pluck the cup out of Dick's hand. "You're going to choke. We have time today. Are you troubled by something –
"No! No, sir…I'm feeling a bit…well…" Dick fidgeted with the empty plastic container.
Slade drifted his hand over to put the cup to the side by his plate and frowned. "You're homesick, dear boy?"
"In a way, a part of me….kind of….may be…"
"It will pass, as it should." Slade returned to his food as he chewed and spoke with pensive reasoning behind each word. Always, he knew how to grip onto your ego and shake it between sharp teeth.
To tatters.
Wally was over talking to the waitress as he hit on her, not forgetting the deed the Batman and Titans were both in on.
Slade had better keep chewing, Dick swallowed. "Sir, bathroom? I think I drank too much."
Dick held an empty hand to his stomach as Slade breathed in his nose briefly. He couldn't be buying this…
"You don't have to ask, though glad you trusted my word before to ask anyway. Go." Slade motioned his neck to the exit. "Be back up here shortly, kid."
Dick nodded, his eyes sharply on the door as he'd not noticed Wally being away from the roof.
The speedster was in motion.
/
Already a few steps ahead. One thing Dick left behind in the trash, was his sunglasses with the audio communication unit. He didn't want Slade to come between his real plan to get back to his ….
Were they even?
Dick ran away to give them time. To save them, and…at the same time, not to hurt the man that had his…
Time, at heart. Batman had lost that. How had he even thought –
"Lost yourself there, champ?"
Dick saw the jock and he near fumbled. "Did he send you, Bruce?"
"You bet, and your team is really worried. Was this your plan all along? Take him down from the inside?"
"Um, well…it wasn't earlier until things made sense –
"That you were being used. Trapped by Deathstroke's manipulation tactics?"
Dick nodded. "S- sure…how, how are they?"
"Ah." Wally was told by Cyborg not to speak of the "other" Robin. How Dick was still unstable and his abilities were, untested.
"AAH….Did you know that….Slade is…kinda rigged looking? I mean, he always had a mask on when you fought. Right…?"
"I have to go back. Tell, tell Bruce that I'm-
A click of the door turned out to be the bathroom stall as a younger teen was there with his body shoved up and standing over the door. "Like…do you guys know the Titans, man?"
/
The blazed out California bum was sadly, a nuisance as Wally worked his magic, while Dick retrieved his location where…
He gasped and ran to see the can he'd put it into.
The sunglasses. Gone.
Dick paled and looked to see Slade down the hall, halfway to the steps with a crooked finger at the kid.
"No more guessing. You're not just washing your face today, Grayson. Come."
It was an order as they headed out to the front. To leave, to be far away from Wally as he saw from the balcony wall the former bat brat trying to keep his cool.
He didn't think it would fly by Wilson that the kid was walking off to talk to strangers.
"That kid behind you seat was staring, intently. On and off. Did you know that boy, Richard?"
As they left to find the car, Dick stopped in his tracks.
"Hum, so you remembered some time apart wasn't too long. Robin might be why he even cares. Did he know your alias, maybe? Or…"
"I saved him. He and his football game. At his school. There was an attack by Johnny Rancid." Dick swallowed thickly on his own aftertaste of salt, fat and olive oil.
"Funny. No reports back mentioned, that the Titans fought such a criminal. Rancid? Rabid?"
Slade snorted. "If you were going for a better cover, find out what I Don't know. We're going back."
"Yes, sir."
Slade moved and, in that anger, right below the belly, he send his backhand into the boy's face. Dick stood the test, his pain minimized by the serum.
"I'm sorry –
His arm was wrenched forwards as thankfully, the lot was empty for lunch. "Let's go back, and maybe then you can see if that ability can protect anyone else you've tried to hide from me." That snarl was dangerous as Dick put his head down.
Feet away, Jason's spying cameras from the Bat's storage shed saw a few things that made Cy clench his fists to the dash. "They're moving, team. Should we go after?"
"Plan the B is not enough?" Kori turned to the eldest Titan. Batman was on a separate line as his voice was gravely as Robin's was when in another place entirely. His mind was full, too full of wanting to know if he still had a chance to find his home again.
Slade's side to things was never a lie, not until there when the heroes had revealed his actual purpose. Slade was going to use Dick. Make him into a soldier, and for what?
To never escape? To always stand at attention?
Jason was there in the room and he watched the abuse, thinking back to his own when he was practically on the bottom rung of Crime Alley's finest. The Narrows was no place for a child to grow up, just like that kid becoming a killer shouldn't be accepted as a possibility. Dick wanted to stay safe, and now…
He needed them to find his peace.
/
Slade dragged Dick from the car, to the estate doorways as Wintergreen stood barely noticing that this had happened in only fourth minutes. "How was your trip –
"We'll need space, Will. Set out a plate by tonight for me. The boy, gets nothing until tomorrow afternoon."
"Not a scrap. More then, for the hens out back." Will huffed at Richard who knew hate where it stood walking back towards the kitchen.
Slade didn't let the boy gawk as he was shoved towards the stairs to an enclosed basement and a gym.
"Go. You, first." Slade pushed the kid to grip the railing as Dick did as he was told. Sweat made it slick as the metal didn't exactly feel cooler to the touch against his panicked fingertips.
They made it to the open space and Dick cringed upon getting a glimpse. He had to get out of here. It wasn't safe.
Need out. Needed out!
Dick was pushed as he caught himself and twisted round to speak to Slade this wasn't his sort if M.O.
Deathstroke, didn't torture, children!
"Up on the mat. I should have never listened to you about your wants." Dick saw the weapons on the wall, then the man went to fetch two bo staves.
"Get it out of your head that I'd let you defect at this very moment, apprentice. You swore an oath! To me!"
Slade struck as Dick parried the blow, shoes shuffling against the corner of the mat, a hand to the wall as Slade lashed out at that to pin it to the metal lined foam barrier.
Dick crinkled his nose as a striking ache and then the tingle started. The real pain before the man twisted the tip of his staff into the fire hand of the boy's wrist.
"Look at me, Dick. I'm not letting you hide again. You swore it, and I proved to you one thing that you somehow forgot. Again." Slade's eye darkened as Dick shoved his leg back to wrench the arm out of the man's hold, his torso twisted as Slade was too soon, unable to just forget he was right there. The boy threw himself to the side and again had to evade the blow. He ducked his neck and shimmer before Slade had the kid get a distance away.
"Had I been any enemy of yours in the future, they wouldn't have let go." Slade dropped the staff to his the mat without much pressure. "The bat didn't keep it, Richard. We did."
"He was right though, about everything you wanted out of me." Dick finally couldn't say nothing. He had to get his voice out, worry about getting out of the beat down as fast as his legs might carry him to a safe place to hide.
For all he was good for, was being a rotten, sneaky child. He was good, once. He was…
Useless, to some.
Dick wasn't willing to not go back, but now? He was a killer if he tried to be anyone else. Collared and trained, while Slade claimed to want an equal. A son. Was Bruce going to deny it the same way? That Dick was, just in the way again?
"You're overwhelming your original position, child. I didn't leave you to Wayne because I knew you had the potential to be great. Yet you deny all of that, and for what? One fling in a role that I gave to you? That I secured with my time and effort to have you…
Stay, put?? You failed that course by backing out too early. They didn't change you yet, Richard. They also can save what I've done for you – what push you needed to realize what I was risking –
"I'M A RISK." Dick shot back.
"A burden. A project? Am I never going to BE Richard Wilson?? You never told me, you used the carrot and I went all in for it –
"You'relying to yourself that you could ever find happiness as a Wayne. Neither can your brother, since he took your spot with those so called teenaged backstabbers."
Dick flashed a snarled at the man. "He's not my enemy!"
"Then, tell me." Slade pulled something out off his person. A pistol. Black sleek. Loaded, possibly.
"I won't die, but it will hurt. It would hurt Wayne too. It almost had."
"I never meant t –
Slade brought the thing to the ground, pushing it with his staff. "Here. If you can shoot any oath of me, I might reconsider your treatment here as my apprentice. If you were to actually get a shot…you won't be too reckless? That would mean that I trained you poorly. You deserve so much better."
Slade's smile crept in as the man tilted his head. And there, Dick seeped in a breath at the man's eye. It was, soft. Even so, pitying.
Sickly, as Dick looked at the gun, then at his own mentor. "I won't touch it." He said with a rough throated tone. "I'm not a killer. I can't do what you say. I…"
"That bat made you think for a second, that you're even a Robin at this point. Would you like to see the news report? See me in the right for once?"
/
Slade had wheeled in a smaller TV on a table. Something he must have had in the basement when this place was livelier than to old farts going on about the economy.
Slade turned it on, the cable still hooked up as the thing he saw, was Titans tower. The inside of it.
"Your handiwork was masterful at best. In the vents, the cameras remained undetected. Well d –
"I want to see, what this us you're showing me."
He heard, it was…
The heroes had gathered in the common room and were not only themselves, yet connected to lines of others. Slade squinted at the one line as a woman showed up on it with a grey line of hair and piercingly stern green eyes.
Another was if the Batman. And the last…
West. In the wrong uniform from before.
Slade eyed the boy as Dick glared at the screen. ~ We should begin. You've added someone new to your team, Titans?~
~Adeline Kane.~ Batman spoke to her as the few intercepted every word for word. The Titans were standing by, plus one more as Dick nearly sputtered a protest. Slade shushed the teen as his lip trembled.
Damn it…he said he was done! Why? Why take the name, too?
~ He was being tugged down an alley to a dark suv. Black. Plates were unspecified.~
~That man is looking for a warrior, not a replacement. ~ The grey hatred older woman sighed. ~ I didn't put a lock on our memories, yet he's made a mess of trying to prove nothing. Joseph stayed a Titan, yet he's home with me. You're all better off guarding what you can. My ex-husband knows how to hunt, and how to retrace his targets back to the source of their problems before they can protest a thing to the courts. He also has Interpol and his buddies in another few nations to keep him out of doing time. Long overdue. ~
~ Adeline. You infiltrated the HIVE to save your son. Joseph said he's sure that Slade made a deal with one of the staff to have you removed from your post as Headmistress.~
~ When the heroes lost against him in this city, he was not glad to have me calling him out in his attacks on minors that I had used….that was never the reason why this all had to happen. Sebastian Blood is still a top priority to stop. He's not so easy to squash, even in multiple pieces.~ Addie huffed.
Cyborg turned his eye to the deceptive brat in red and green.
~ Jason, you know the whole story. You know how this went down. If you become our Robin, it might get us closer in finding your brother. Will you stay here, take the job?~
~ Bruce wanted me to, and I'd gladly accept –
Slade turned off the tv; he'd not said how this wasn't the whole clip. That he'd cut out the best parts close to an hour ago after Wally had flown back over on fast feet to the tower. In his time, thirty minutes.
" So, can you forgive them now? Or me, instead?"
"You, won't throw me away…I mean…"
Dick crumpled as Slade dropped the staff to embrace the brat. If only he could say Dick could be his equal.
Somewhat.
But, alas. The rules were as golden as that young boy's faded smile across the Gotham Herald's front page. A relic of yesteryear.
"No, I kept you because you deserved to be cared about, Dick. Why would you need to earn anything? If you know now, then do your ….guardian the honors. Hm?"
He tilted up the kid's chin and saw the tears flowing. Slade palette his scalp as soothingly as he remembered. Joey was quite a little rat fir mommy dearest. Yet two could play that game.
"I'll teach you to shoot it. I'll even show you how to weaken the boy that lied to his own brother-
"He's not my family, sir."
Slade blinked as Dick shook his hand away. "You are. I'm just afraid of someone else trying to change me."
"It's for your own protection. I told you if not a dozen times in this time we've had, dear child. I said. That I'd make you strong enough to face the real enemy. Wayne and his little red breasted bird." He purred menacingly. Dick let the man keep him close enough to hear a heart beating.
"I'd like that. Slade…"
/
Raven dragged herself to the mirror in the bathroom and collapsed into the wall aside if it. She bit down on her lip as she tore at her clothing to scratch the stigmata like brands. Set to scar, in the ink of red blood to her race.
"Azar….Oh, to Azar…!...He's… coming!"
She fell faint to the bathroom floor; Beastboy collected her minutes later as Starfire pulled back the door and carried Raven for Bruce to see it.
A shaken bundle of nerves, the cambion's eyes were squeezed shut in pain. Her skin marred in the language of Scath and his cult of followers. It may have been why the Church of Blood was spared; the church on the side that Brother Blood ran to collect and capture meta teens to do as he needed. A fate that befall Arellano or Angela Roth was far too soon. Raven would not succumb to the same fate.
~ We're running out of time. Find them, and bring both to justice before Trigon sets foot onto our planet.~