Our Time in Reverse- What it Takes

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Chapter 69: What Makes a Traitor

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This one is made so Raven is succumbing in this - to Trigon earlier, not knowing it like in "Fear Itself" and with her inner red raven of course from "Nevermore." Dick however, does want out but questions what that will lead to due to his new abilities as a meta healer. Also, Raven wasn't acting like herself but trigon. He has to be careful that Slade doesn't know about the bond becoming stronger with the two birds. Starfire is sick of dancing around what could happen and is on the sidelines while Batman sends out the best to take charge. Jason. Will this make a rift in Richard's pride when he should just reevaluate what's meant to be if he sticks to the plan? What about Trigon and Slade? Find out, now!

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Traitors. There is no better word.

Turn coat.

Black guard.

Renegade.

Dick looked at the attacker. Jonny, as he was carted off by Raven and Jason.

Why did Slade send him out there if they were bound to win? He slinked away to an alley below and found a way to his master's new hideout there underground. Or the door to another entrance to the manor outside the city. It was a walk, then a climb, and lastly a bit cane with a car to find him at the end if the caverns.

They went out into what looked like a red sky before nightfall. He was there all day, four hours away after lunch. Time was ticking as the bots flanked the boy to return up to the gates and through them to meet his master.

Slade was in front of the fireplace, it's light had dimmed without need to set a mood. He stared at an old portrait of himself after a time in Kenya – when game hunting wasn't so restricted for his class of bad guy. Now, he cut corners and hunted people it looked like.

"Sir." Will was at the doorway as the dutiful treasonous boy walked beside him. Waiting to be led through, Slade turned his head never once as he continued to ponder the portrait on the wall's message. "You cane back so soon. Leave him, Wintergreen."

Will flinched a bit, barely. Great. The boy had left Slade into one if his bad moods. The man tried not to have the instance of throwing shade to the kid as he left. His time was in front of the tele in the kitchen or his room. He had no time to set a squabble right. Grant was easier. This rat of s child had already lost his real loyalties which were royally mucking up the moment meant to debrief.

"Yes, see to it that you are not at all subtle. I'll be off, then." He didn't bother to wag h the child as Richard dipped his neck. His only defense against that cold take by the butler, the man that hated him far more than anything else.

"Stay, don't go until our time is up."

Dick lifted his head as the order made his body stiffen. As if Slade would slap him across the face. He would, he could have. They both had every right

Because they knew. They knew what Raven was after before he had even said a sound through those speakers.

"The empath is aware of her father. Took no time to see that coming."

Dick nodded, both his eyes watered as he rubbed them. The mam was too busy stoking a fire in the hearth. "Right now, Jason is at your post. They didn't tell him no, and he didn't say when you'd be coming back. If he'd even allow you to take it back. You're assuming he would." Slade let his eyeliner as hos head never turned, closing the fireplace grates as his little episode was as Will had said.

SUBTLE.

"And if a meta Robin ever did exist would they feel safe? With Raven changing right under their blind noses, you WOULD be able to, connect."

"She hates what I am-

"Stop." Slade snipped at the teen. "You left my side and I know your loyalty is split down the center. I raised you out of the confusion, Dick. I took charge in who you are now becoming."

"Then think about what's better for us!"

Slade dropped the poker as that time in his kind brought a flashback to stir.

~ You think I want my husband doing what you did?? Joey is ruined because of you! Our entire family is done. Slade…~

~ Addie –

"Slade, I'm sorry."

The man looked to his arm to see the clinging kid he' trapped into his deal. Bloodshot blue eyes and a smile that had withered because of two very selfish people. A tug of war that was still happening, but for what?

Power?

Control?

Ego?

What was to blame, as the boy said. Was it their relationship as mastermind and servant?

"You could still be him. My father. I wouldn't have to do anything else. Deathstroke has enough money, we can do smaller private contracts…then, then I don't have to hurt them. Slade…Raven might destroy the world, but it doesn't have to be either of us that makes her change. She'll do that on her own. Please…I don't want to be your enemy. I'm just afraid, that you've already changed."

Slade didn't move as the kid shook at his side, his wet and tear streaked back from the boy at his shirt was starting to feel right to his spine. His back to the child, heart to the hearth, the man groaned under his breath mentally.

"I've never been any different, Grayson. I have no idea what you're even talking about."

Dick clung and stilled as Slade smiled out at the flames. "If you were to back out, I'd already have guessed your plans to push me off my pedestal in this city. In your mind, you believed me to have done this all by your benefit. When did you ever stop and think that it wasn't?"

"I, did though. I always had, until it made sense…why would Bruce want me to stay away? I'm meant to be your partner, you said…I could do that. Only I could!"

He needed to get Slade's ego cooking. Make himself look loyal. Jason needed time, Raven needed him.

"You blew that when you let yourself be heard by your Titans. They were freed and you…you didn't try to run from their words. The bat? Boy. Those heroes are loyal to the same man that neglected your pain. I took care if it, all if it. And you repaid me with your defects! You're not perfect, and maybe…you never will be…"

He growled it out as Dick never out go. "I'm sorry! Let me try over, we can –

The man shrugged the boy off before grabbing the front of his top - placing Dick's body to dangle while clawing out in front if the lapping flames. "Burns will sting but never stick. I gave you a priceless gift, and you want to use it to become a target. To get that "get out of jail free card" to be accepted… however, dear child? You will NEVER." The man dragged the kid to hit the mantle in his spine, a scrape or two impossible to miss. His feet were licked by heat as the embers at his flesh turned pinker.

"Become anything less than a threat to them. You're only an equal to me, unless you'd reject a chance to prove you can BE even better than you have been. Renegade. Who are you? Who do you belong to?? Recite it!"

"S - or-

"Recite." The man coldly hissed. "It."

Slade's grip grew heavier as Dick felt his throat closing up. The pull on his top was making it hard to speak.

"Y…yu!"

Slade's grip adjusted as the kid earned a breath. The man did it again. Swallowing oxygen.

"AND?"

"r…en…..ga…d-

The kid had a new breath as his coughed his head to the side. Cough on Slade? No way…

"Good. What is your mission? Renegade."

"ST..OP….TIT….AN….S"

"AND. What do we do if you must stay and defend your master. Your role as his apprentice?..."

The grip increased as Dick claws out and shouted through the tearing pain to his lungs.

"Defea….defeat….th…them!"

"VERY, good." Slade saw the boy's gaze as he dropped the brat onto the stone right before the fire's first flicker. "Not even a scorch." Slade left a hand to the kid's scalp as he tugged his dark locks up to look at the mastermind's one slate colored eye.

"From now on, no more Sir. Master is the correct title you will address me with to repair that trust. If you fail, someone else will perish, as I've promised. You will also be punished as a result. And until you fully understand WHY my word can only be law, you are not to act out of turn. If I say "kill," you kill. If I say, "capture a target." You?"

"C…capture them…m…mas…master." Dick shivered and let his knuckles keep him upright with himself to his knees. The man saw him as subservient this way and it made him feel so exposed to the man more than ever.

It burned, he'd not needed to stay and say it before. Yet, Slade was mad with power. Angry at the boy for acting behind his back in the past. Not trusting him, needing to hear his subservient tone loud and clear.

"You understand?" The man pushed out his lip with a hum.

"Then..." He let go of Dick's scalp as the boy went numb, still on his knees by the fire. "Let's see you put that confident answer into action." He let his lazy grin say everything as his hand found the boy's cheek. No tears fell as Dick bit his tongue to not say a thing more.

"For me. And don't forget to call for your master if the bat shows."

Dick trembled as hid chin was gripped to stare into that slate eye. "If he even so much as spit a word to you, he's a dead rodent, Dick. Trust me. I don't want to repeat anymore mistakes that he hasn't already made."

Adopting Dick then might have been one of those mistakes. Slade would never have found him in the bad boy's home he was sent to due to a lack of space in the orphanage. He had been unlucky to have ever met Bruce.

Then again, Slade had seen them fall, his eyes tears up as a thumb dragged them away without consent. Slade would have hunted him down, because his being born must have been an even greater mistake as wasting his time thinking he could ever be anyone else.

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Not a slash! It's just domestic bull and a way to get to Slade so he won't see the kid coming. In the end, Dick played on how he thought Slade was changing when he was always a cold, selfish shitty adult to begin with. Bruce though to Richard had a tendency to be a workaholic and left him just as miserable, while Slade had time to spare so Dick was hoping it wasn't too late to try and change the man from doing the wrong thing. Getting Raven to let Trigon out of his dimension and prison, or the fact that Dick is stuck buttering up Slade and he can't act against even hurting the heroes to blow his cover! What happens now? Find out!