Archive of Our Own

Oh ashes, ashes, dust to dust
The devil's after both of us
Oh, lay my curses out to rest
Make a mercy out of me

Dick’s head is screaming.

That isn’t a new feeling—he’s pretty sure he does something to give himself a raging headache at least once a week. What is new is the fact that he’s being moved, an arm under his shoulder half-dragging him out of a seat while his head spins and shrieks, and he would very much like everything to stop happening.

“Stop,” he tries to say, and immediately winces at the way the volume of his voice makes his head pound in rhythm with the hail beating against the metal over his head. He thinks his ears are ringing, though it’s hard to tell over the storm. Why is everything so loud? And why can’t he get his eyes to open?

Familiar graceful musician’s fingers intertwine with his, squeezing briefly before curling against his palm and sweeping the little finger in the letter J.

“Joey.” Right—they’d been infiltrating the H.I.V.E. base together, and then they’d gotten caught. Or, Dick had gotten caught. Dick squeezes Joey’s hand, as if to reassure himself he’s still there, still alive.

He can’t have another death hanging over his head.

He tries harder to open his eyes. Needles of light stab through his skull, and he slams them shut again with a gasp. “Joe, are you okay?”

Joey’s fingers are moving against his hand, and Dick concentrates enough to understand that he’s finger-spelling S-A-F-E.

Dick relaxes a little, but not completely. They aren’t in the T-jet; the hail is too loud, too close, the metal too thin. Joey could have taken a car, somehow, but where could they have gone? They don’t have a safe house in the area, because they were meant to be out before the storm hit. It’s sounding too late for that. “Where are we?”

H-O-U-S-E, Joey spells slowly against his palm.

“Whose?”

Joey’s hand is still against Dick’s for long enough that Dick knows he won’t like the answer. Then, slowly, his fingers form the letters D-A-D.

Dick’s head pounds harder. “Deathstroke?”

“Got it in one,” a low, dry voice says over the hail, and Dick’s heart leaps into his throat at the unexpected sound. “Hurry up and get him inside.”

“Could’ve mentioned he was here.” Dick clenches his throat against the rising bile. The rapid beat-beat of his heart is making him nauseous.

Safe, Joey spells again.

Are they, though? The more he worries about it, the more nauseous he feels.

He trusts Joey, but he doesn’t trust Deathstroke. And Joey loves his father, for reasons that Dick doesn’t understand but can’t really judge him for, and Deathstroke would obviously try to take advantage of that.

And Dick’s head is spinning, badly.

He’s dry-heaving on the ground when he comes to. His suit has a thick thermal layer, but he can still feel the chill of the ice against his palms, his legs. Oddly, no hail pounding against his head, even though he isn’t wearing a hood. In fact, there, he’s a bit warmer. Someone’s leaning over him.

There’s a conversation happening above him, silence interspersed with Deathstroke’s low rumble—he’s speaking quietly enough that Dick can’t quite make out his words over the wind. Then, in a louder voice, Deathstroke says, “I’m picking you up.”

Dick’s being lifted with one arm under his legs and another behind his back before he can even consider protesting, but he thinks he wouldn’t anyway. Getting out of the storm is the biggest priority; he can overlook the how of it. And Deathstroke is surprisingly careful. He gets them into the house without jostling Dick too much, which is for the best, because Dick’s pretty sure he’s a bad bump away from hurling all over them both.

He’s lowered onto a cushioned surface, and one arm falls into a corner of it—he’s on a couch. The door closes, and instantly the sound of the storm recedes into something less painful. Something almost too quiet.

He relaxes into it for a moment, the pressure on his skull abating and his heartbeat settling into something less panicked.

“Bedroom at the end of the hall,” Deathstroke says in response to a question that Dick can’t see. “Whatever fits.”

Joey’s footsteps hurry away from them, the soles of his boots squeaking with wetness against the wooden flooring. Outside, the storm picks up—the windows creak with the howling of the wind, and sleet slaps against double-paned glass.

It’ll be a day or two before it dies down enough for them to leave safely. The T-jet had supplies for them to wait it out in the scenario the storm hit early, but they won’t be able to make it to the T-jet now, not with the storm this bad. Not with Dick in this condition.

They’re trapped here, and it’s all his fault.

The couch cushion sinks, a lot, by Dick’s ribs. Warmth radiates like a furnace. Dick prays to whatever god is listening that Deathstroke isn’t sitting right next to him.

“Take off your mask,” Deathstroke says from way too close, dashing Dick’s only immediate desire in life.

“Too loud,” Dick groans, falling back on Batman’s tried and true technique of using grumpiness to mask all else—in this case, extreme awareness that he’s completely defenseless, and that Deathstroke the Terminator is right there and Dick has no idea what he’s up to.

Dick takes a fortifying breath and forces his eyes open. He’s prepared for the assault of light and the return of nausea, and so is surprised when neither hits. The room is mostly dark: there isn’t a single light on, and there are blackout curtains pulled shut over the windows. A bit of white light overflows from the curtain to the wall over the window, but that’s it. In his periphery, he can see Deathstroke looming over him. He’s in his armor, but his mask is off. There’s a plain black eyepatch over his right eye.

Joey isn’t back yet.

Dick swallows. “What do you want?”

“To make sure you don’t have a concussion.” Deathstroke’s voice is quieter, which incidentally also makes him sound more threatening, even if the words themselves are innocent. “Take off your mask.”

“I’m fine.” For better or for worse, Dick knows the signs of a concussion by now. He might be feeling like he was run over by the Batmobile a time or five, but he’ll be fine. “They got me with a sedative.”

“And you might’ve hit your head after. I’m doing this for Joe’s sake, and so should you.” Deathstroke’s tone is audibly impatient. Dick could’ve guessed he’d have a terrible bedside manner. “Now are you going to take off your mask, or should I do it for you?”

Dick grits his teeth, head throbbing for a different reason now. The chances of Deathstroke recognizing him are about fifty-fifty. Dick’s been mostly out of Gotham for the last few years, and he doesn’t carry the Wayne name, so the tabloids don’t really follow him around; besides, even if they did, he’s sure Deathstroke isn’t checking out Page Six in his free time. But if Deathstroke had ever directly looked into Bruce for whatever reason—and Bruce has enough enemies to make that very likely—then he almost certainly would have followed the trail to Dick.

Deathstroke’s sigh is exponentially more impatient than before. “Listen, kid. I won’t hurt you, or use the information against you or anyone you know. You have my word.”

His word does mean something, but Dick still can’t get his hands to move. “Could I get that signed and notarized?” he says. “Not that I don’t trust you, but, you know. You did try to murder me and all my friends a few years ago.”

“Kidnapped,” Deathstroke corrects. “I was paid for delivery. Not my business if you all got out of it.”

“And if we hadn’t?”

“Sounds like a personal problem. You’ll remember I didn’t try to stop you. If my goal was to kill you all, you’d be dead.”

“That’s not actually reassuring to hear.”

“Look, unless you’re Oliver Queen under there—”

Dick chokes.

“—chances are, I won’t know you from Adam anyway, and I don’t care enough to find out.”

“You might care later,” Dick points out. “If someone hires you to attack me again in the future, then—”

“If we meet on the field, then that’s just business. Your personal life is out of bounds from here on out, and I won’t get to anyone else through you, either. Fair?”

“And you won’t share the information with anyone else to use against us.”

Deathstroke rolls his eye. “Fine. We can draw up a full contract later if that’ll make you feel better. Now take off the damn mask.”

Dick fishes the solvent out of the compartment in his gauntlet. He might have to move that somewhere else, now that Deathstroke knows where he keeps it. “Do you really think I’m old enough to be Oliver Queen?” he says as he applies it to the edges of his mask.

Deathstroke scoffs. “Don’t be stupid. Everyone in the Pacific Northwest knows Oliver Queen is Green Arrow.”

Dick covers up his laugh with a cough that makes his head pound. Bruce always was complaining that Oliver was too identifiable. He came up constantly as a bad example in Bruce’s regular attempts to get Dick to put on something more concealing than a domino mask. They argued about things like that—how Dick should wear a full-face mask, how Dick’s costume should have more armor, how Dick’s costume should at least have pants—and also about bigger things, like whether or not Robin should exist at all, and whether or not Bruce had the right to force Dick out of a role that Dick himself had created and performed for over a decade.

They’d fought, and they’d compromised, and they’d fought again, and in the end they both made their own choices about Robin.

Choices that Jason inherited—though maybe he shouldn’t have.

Dick keeps his face expressionless as he peels off the mask and sets it on his stomach, keenly aware of Deathstroke’s eye scanning over his features. If Deathstroke recognizes him at all, he doesn’t show it; he just holds up an ungloved hand.

“Follow my finger,” Deathstroke says, and the experience of being given a concussion screening by Deathstroke the Terminator is surreal enough that Dick finds himself answering questions and reciting numbers backward from memory on autopilot. It helps that Deathstroke administers it with a brisk military precision that borders on rude. Dick, used to a similar brand of no-nonsense from Bruce, finds it oddly calming the longer it goes on.

After the memory and recall tests are finished, Deathstroke holds up a small flashlight. “This’ll be over quick.”

It sounds more like a threat than a reassurance, but Dick is beginning to suspect that’s just how he talks.

He tries not to wince as Deathstroke shines the light at each of his eyes in turn, checking his pupil response, but he gives a quiet sigh in relief when the light clicks off and the pounding in his head abates a bit.

Deathstroke holds out his hand. “Squeeze.”

Dick reaches out slowly, half-expecting it to be a trick of some kind for no real reason except for the fact that it’s Deathstroke. Deathstroke’s hand is large and dry. Dick wraps his fingers around his callus-rough palm and squeezes.

“Harder,” Deathstroke says, and Dick huffs and squeezes harder. “Good.”

Dick drops his hand like it’s covered in venom. Praise of any kind gets into his head too quickly. He hates it.

Deathstroke is already standing up, turning away—to Joey, who must have returned at some point. He’s standing a few feet away in sweatpants and a sweater with an army logo. His usually-curly hair hangs limp with wetness from the storm.

“No concussion,” Deathstroke says, facing Joey. “He’s just coming off the sedative. Get him changed and let him rest.”

Deathstroke strides down the hall, and Joey approaches Dick.

“Sorry, Joe.” Dick pitches his voice low, but he suspects Deathstroke can hear him anyway.

Joey shakes his head as he crouches by the couch. You saved me, he signs. Thank you.

“You shouldn’t even have been there.” What would he have done, if Joey had gotten hurt? If Joey had died? He doesn’t think he’d be able to take it.

Not your fault, Joey signs. I wanted to come. He places a hand against Dick’s arm in comfort. It’s okay.

“And now we’re stuck here.” With your father, Dick doesn’t say, because it’s obvious enough. Joey’s relationship with Deathstroke is—complicated, to understate it significantly. “It’ll be at least a day, maybe two. Were you able to check in with the Titans?”

Joey nods. Earlier. Comms are out now. Then he hesitates for a few seconds, looking ashamed. I didn’t tell them about Dad.

“That’s okay,” Dick murmurs. At least the team won’t worry, then—especially Donna, who hadn’t thought it was a good idea for Dick to go in the first place. Hopefully Joey’s right, and there isn’t anything they need to worry about. “Do you know what he’s doing here?”

H-I-V-E, Joey spells. Same as us. He pauses again. I didn’t know if you got the intel.

Dick did, and he expects the drive should still be sitting securely in his gauntlet. They may be able to use it as a bargaining chip, if needed.

“I’ll see what he wants,” Dick says. Deathstroke’s help doesn’t come free.

Tomorrow, Joey signs. Can you walk? You should sleep in a bed.

Dick’s head has cleared some, laying still in the relative quiet and darkness of the house, but the thought of moving makes him wince. “I’m fine here.”

The disapproval and concern are clear on Joey’s face. It’s wet. Your suit is, too. You’ll get sick.

Dick only gets sick when he has time to get sick, and he definitely does not have time right now—but he’s reluctant to argue about it with Joey while they’re both soaked through and tired. He sighs and picks up his mask. “All right, all right. But if I hurl, it’s on you. Literally.”

Joey smiles and helps ease him upright and off the couch. Dick’s legs take half his weight with minimal wobbling—Joey taking the other half with his shoulder under Dick’s arm—and it’s less painful than he thought it would be to make his way down the hall to a bedroom. They pass by the bathroom on the way, and a shut door that Dick presumes Deathstroke is hiding behind.

That’s fine. Dick needs a night’s rest before dealing with him again.

There’s a towel and a pile of clothes sitting on the bed that Joe leads him to. Dick inspects them after he sits down. A plain gray sweater and sweatpants, both a bit large for him.

My clothes would be too small, Joey signs, properly interpreting whatever expression it is that Dick’s wearing.

Dick scrubs a hand over his face. Needs must. “He keeps clothes for you here?”

Joey shakes his head. He had a bag. He didn’t explain.

So either Deathstroke was expecting to find Joey here—which would be surprising, since even Dick didn’t know Joey would be coming along until he saw him standing beside the T-jet, waiting—or Deathstroke just carried around a change of clothes for Joey wherever he went, just in case. Dick doesn’t know which option is more concerning.

“Don’t worry about it,” Dick says. “Do you have somewhere to sleep?”

Bedroom, Joey signs, and points to the wall beside the door, indicating the adjoining room with the closed door.

Dick frowns and lifts his hands. He doesn’t like the idea of Deathstroke and Joey sharing a room. You should stay here.

He won’t be there, Joey signs, which Dick tries to wrap his mind around. Joey isn’t one to lie, but does that mean Deathstroke is going to cram himself on that small, damp couch? Dick can’t picture it.

Joey touches his hand to get his attention, and smiles gently. I’ll be okay.

Dick exhales and tries to return the smile. A problem for tomorrow. For now, he’ll have to trust his teammate. “Okay then. Good night, Joe.”

Good night, Joey signs, and leaves, shutting the door gently behind him.

It takes Dick an embarrassingly long time to peel himself out of the suit, but he manages. He leaves it in a crumpled pile beside the bed and carefully towels himself off. Part of him wishes he had the time, energy, and hot water for a shower. The other part is ready to collapse. The other other part is yelling at him to be much more on guard than he is.

But the house is quiet, other than the sounds of the storm, and even the most paranoid part of him has to admit that it doesn’t make much sense for Deathstroke to spend all that effort getting them here only to kill them in their sleep.

So he pulls on the sweats, gets under the covers, and closes his eyes, adamantly not thinking about whose clothes he’s wearing or whose bed he’s in.

Thankfully, exhaustion takes him quickly.

Dick wakes to the smell of gunpowder.

It’s startling, familiar and unfamiliar all at once, and he sits up on the bed, looking around for the source until he realizes that it’s coming from him—or, more specifically, from the oversized charcoal cable-knit sweater he’s wearing.

He grimaces. He doesn’t have anything against gunpowder in particular, not the same way Bruce does, but he could do without the reminder that he has to spend the next day huddled in Deathstroke’s clothing.

At least his head is clearer now, no trace of a lingering headache from whatever sedative H.I.V.E used on him. He’s lucky that was the worst of it. He slips noiselessly off the bed and picks up his Nightwing suit at the shoulders, holding it out in front of him. It might be a good idea to change—knit sweaters aren’t exactly bulletproof. But, theoretically, he isn’t in danger of getting shot.

Deathstroke hasn’t actively gone after any of the Titans ever since Joey joined the team. In fact, he’s mostly kept to himself on the other side of the world, doing whatever it is that mercenaries do when they’re not misguidedly attempting to avenge their dead son by kidnapping a bunch of teen heroes—who were, by the way, only defending themselves from an attack by said son and who hadn’t actually killed said son, no matter what certain mercenaries thought.

Is Dick bitter? Maybe a little.

But they’re going to be trapped here together at least through to tomorrow; a show of trust is likely his best option.

Besides, he’s already been forced to trust Deathstroke anyway, he thinks as he folds up the suit and traces his fingers along the edges of his mask. Deathstroke may not have shown any signs of recognizing him, but Dick knows better than to assume that means he didn’t.

He picks up the mask and presses it briefly against his face to check the HUD, since he’d left his phone back at the Tower. It’s late morning now; he must have slept in. There’s no signal, like Joey said—not even satellite. They won’t be able to contact anyone until the worst of the storm is over.

The cabin is brighter when he slips out into the hall, sunlight diffusing through the clouds, even if the storm is still pounding relentlessly against the walls and windows. Deathstroke is sitting at the kitchen table, typing on a laptop and looking much less threatening than usual in his wine-colored turtleneck and the same simple black eyepatch from the night before. A plate of crumbs and a mug sit beside him. He looks up at Dick’s approach, eye fixing on his face.

“Deathstroke,” Dick greets. It seemed safer than ‘good morning’ for some reason, but he feels the awkwardness of the name settle between them. It’s a name for confrontations a hair’s breadth from violence, not mornings in sweats with a cup of instant coffee between them.

“You know my name,” Deathstroke says. “Feel free to use it.”

Dick hesitates. Awkward as it is, the name Deathstroke is also something of a shield. Deathstroke is a known entity: an enemy at times, a vague ally at others, but altogether a distant figure. Slade Wilson is Adeline’s ex-husband, Joey’s father, and—despite all his abilities—just a man.

It’s always harder, dealing with people who are just men.

“Wilson,” Dick says, finally.

“Grayson,” Wilson returns, and Dick feels as cold and wind-whipped as he would if he’d been tossed out into the storm.

He’d suspected, sure, but hearing the reality of it strikes harder. Bruce is going to kill him when he finds out what Dick revealed—how Dick had endangered them. Dick doesn’t even know how he’s going to explain it. He can only be grateful, in some twisted way, that this can’t endanger Jason—that Jason is past the point of being endangered by Dick’s mistakes.

Because Dick seems to just keep making more.

Wilson turns the laptop toward him. “Your contract. You can change whatever you want before we sign.”

Dick’s fingers are numb as he drags the laptop toward himself and skims the document on autopilot. The words are a blur at first, but he focuses more once the meanings begin to register. It’s all clearly been carefully thought through, and Dick thinks if he had space in his brain for any emotion other than panic at the moment, he would be surprised and mildly impressed by the fact that Wilson had actually put this together.

It’s only two pages long and written in straightforward language, but it does a good job of accounting for all the loopholes that Dick would be worried about—it’s obviously written by someone who both knows how to write contracts, and how to get around the written word of them. Dick will have to review it again when his mind isn’t fuzzed at the edges. At the end are two lines for signatures, with names printed below them: Slade Joseph Wilson and Richard John Grayson.

He stares at his own name, glaring at him in black and white. He rarely sees it in full, and is certainly never called by it—and now here’s Deathstroke, showing Dick he’s looked into him, into Bruce, enough to remember the name and recognize him on sight.

“I didn’t realize Joey was named after you,” Dick says, just to have something to say while his brain processes it all.

“Named after my godfather, technically,” Wilson says. “A good man, unlike my actual father. It’s a name Joe can be proud of.”

He’d revealed a lot of information in those few sentences. If Dick were feeling generous, he’d say it was an offering to put them on more equal footing, since it’s clear Wilson knows a lot about him. Dick isn’t sure he’s feeling generous; mostly, he’s feeling like the headache and nausea are coming back on after all.

He turns the laptop back toward Wilson. “Where is Joey, anyway? Still asleep?”

The change of subject is transparent, but Wilson doesn’t comment on it. “He’s got a cold. Sniffles, cough, fever, the works. You can check on him if you want, but don’t stay in that room long. You’re on your own if you come down with something.”

“Worried you’ll get sick?” Dick says lightly, to cover his concern. If it was serious, Wilson would be more worried, right?

Wilson looks at him flatly. “I don’t get sick.”

Dick’s never thought deeply about all the limitations of Wilson’s abilities, but yeah, a guy who can recover from normally fatal injuries in a matter of minutes probably doesn’t get sick.

“Well, don’t worry,” Dick says. “I won’t get sick, either.”

“That part of your powers?”

Dick looks at him, bemused. He’d presumed that between all of Wilson’s knowledge of Nightwing and Richard Grayson, he would have figured out at some point that Dick doesn’t actually have any meta abilities. But then again, a good number of Gothamites still think the Bats are supernatural entities of some kind, and they’ve been around for over a decade.

“That’s a lot of thinking for a simple question, kid.”

“Just surprised you’d try to gather information so obviously,” Dick snipes back. “Thought the ‘world’s greatest mercenary’ would be better at that.”

“Who said I was trying to be subtle?”

It’s only because Dick has extensive experience reading Batman-level microexpressions that he sees the little smirking curl of Wilson’s lips. He’s messing with Dick. Dick wants to stab him, just a little bit. It’s not like it’ll stick.

Instead, he turns away, because he’s willing to be the bigger person here, even if he really wants to be able to say he stabbed Deathstroke with his own fork. “I’m going to check on Joey.”

He pretends not to hear Wilson laughing at him as he marches down the hall.

He knocks softly on the closed bedroom door. “Joe?”

Usually, Joey knocks back—one for ‘not now’, two for ‘come in’. Now, there’s no response at all. Dick knocks again. After another few seconds of waiting, he pushes the door open and slips inside.

This room is dark, the blackout curtains drawn shut. Joey’s asleep on the bed, a light sheen of sweat on his brow and his breathing quicker than normal. He’s half kicked off his comforter, and Dick can see he’s still wearing the same sweats as he was last night.

His gut clenches with guilt. Joey had only been out in the storm that long because of him. “I’m sorry, Joe,” he murmurs, putting his hand against Joey’s arm. Joey’s skin is so warm.

Frowning, Dick reaches out and touches his forehead with the back of his hand.

Not alarming—but not good, either.

He peels the comforter the rest of the way off, careful not to jostle Joey into waking, and dumps it in the armchair by the window.

Then he goes to find Wilson. “Do you have a washcloth?”

“Does this look like a hotel to you?” Wilson says, more perplexed than annoyed.

Dick barrels on. “What about a lighter blanket? Or other clothes that’ll fit Joey?”

Wilson stalks over to the couch and picks up a rough cotton throw blanket, which he tosses at Dick. “Nothing his size, but that doesn’t mean he won’t fit. Why?”

“His fever’s pretty high. He’ll feel better in something lighter, until it comes down.” Dick squints at him. “You have no idea how to take care of someone with a cold, do you.”

Wilson crosses his arms. “It’s been a while. I don’t usually run hero day care. That’s more your arena.”

“Ha ha.” Dick rearranges his blanket bundle into something he can carry without dragging it all over the floor. “Get something he can change into after he wakes up. Has he eaten yet?”

“He wasn’t hungry.”

Dick nods. “He should rest as much as possible, but he needs his energy, too. You said he was coughing? I’m guessing his throat’ll be sore. Any chance you have canned soup laying around?”

Wilson stares at him, arms still crossed, looking mildly overwhelmed for the first time since Dick’s met him.

“Soup,” Dick repeats.

“I have bones,” Wilson says slowly. “I went hunting earlier. Expected the storm to hit.”

Dick really doubts that he has a license for that, but he chooses to be grateful that they’re not going to starve to death rather than raising the point. “You can make bone broth?”

Wilson seems to snap back to himself at that, giving Dick a withering look. “Don’t insult me, Grayson.”

Don’t ever question Deathstroke’s abilities, including in the kitchen. Right. Dick rolls his eyes. “I was just checking, geez.”

He goes and drapes the new blanket over Joey. Then he goes back to his room, takes the pillowcase off his pillow, folds it up, and shoves it under the faucet in the bathroom sink until it’s soaked through with cold water. He wrings it out until it’s damp instead of dripping, and then lays it over Joey’s forehead as a makeshift cold compress. He’ll have to change it out fairly often, but it’s the least he can do after getting Joey into this situation in the first place. But it’s okay—Joey will be okay.

He has to be.

Wilson is standing in front of the counter when Dick emerges, bones on the counter and a giant butcher’s knife in hand. He looks at Dick over his shoulder. “Jesus, Grayson, it’s a cold, not the plague. Stop fretting like a housewife.”

Dick, who’d been about to say that he wasn’t fretting, instead says, “That’s offensive to housewives, and to me. I bet I fret way more than an average housewife. And you should see how Batman frets. Really, you should say ‘stop fretting like a Bat’.”

“Stop fretting, period.” Wilson turns more fully to face him. The butcher’s knife he has clutched in his hand is threatening, but the apron he has on over his clothes manages to reduce the intimidation factor by a lot, even if it is a little blood-stained.

“I’m just worried, all right?” Dick doesn’t like how it comes out defensively; there’s nothing he has to be defensive about. It’s perfectly reasonable for him to be worried. In fact, he shouldn’t be the only one. “Aren’t you? He’s your son.”

Wilson actually growls. “I know that. I also know that he’s eighteen, not eight, and a little fever isn’t going to kill him. Stop worrying before you start pissing me off.”

With that, Wilson turns back to the counter and chops a bone in half with an angry slam of the knife, and Dick has the sudden realization that, even if he refuses to say it outright, Wilson is actually worried out of his mind—he wouldn’t be here immediately making soup on Dick’s say-so otherwise.

That knowledge makes Dick relax slightly. Wilson wouldn’t lift a finger to help Dick, he’s sure, but it seems like he does sincerely care for Joey, and that’ll be enough to get them through this.

Dick steps up to the counter just as the knife comes down again. He doesn’t flinch. “How can I help?”

It’s only after Dick’s changed the pillowcase-compress two more times and the bone broth is simmering on the stove that his stomach grumbles, too loud in the relative silence of the kitchen, and he realizes he hasn’t eaten since yesterday.

He hasn’t even washed up.

“I’ve been wondering what that smell was,” Wilson says, and kicks him out of the kitchen and into the bathroom.

Dick’s been informed by trusted friends (Donna) that his sweaty gym self smells great (“you don’t make me want to gag” were her exact words), so he can only assume Wilson was being an ass for no reason again. Still, Dick isn’t going to pass up the opportunity for a shower, so he lets himself be kicked.

There’s no water heater, but Dick’s had his fair share of cold showers, and he’s grateful enough that there’s even running water here. After the first few seconds, the shock of the temperature fades and he’s left with the feeling of relief as dirt and salt slide off his skin. There’s a single bar of soap sitting directly on the shelf that Dick guesses acts as body wash, face wash, shampoo, conditioner, and a shaving bar all at once. It takes a full minute to pry it off the tile from where it’s been glued by dried soap. Must be nice to have super strength.

After he’s clean and dressed, he inspects his reflection in the mirror. There are dark lines under his eyes, and the skin where his mask sticks is slightly reddened at spots due to irritation by a mix of solvent and leftover adhesive that he hadn’t washed off last night. He looks tired but alive, which is really the best he could hope for.

He brushes his teeth with his finger and toothpaste from the travel tube sitting on the sink, gives his face another quick splash with water, pats everything dry, and heads back out.

“Eat first.” Wilson says, gesturing to the bowl of soup sitting on the table. He’s washing dishes at the sink. It’s uncomfortably domestic. “Joe isn’t up yet. You can finish reviewing the contract.”

Dick does, more carefully this time, reading word by word as he sips at the soup. He doesn’t find anything missing, but he does modify some wording to make it very explicit that every hero Dick is connected to in his civilian life is also protected under the same terms by proxy, regardless of how Wilson comes to learn their identities—it would be too easy for Wilson to lie about it, if he wanted to, so better to impose a blanket ban.

Not that it matters much, if Wilson decides the contract is just meaningless words. There’s nothing legally binding about it, after all; it’s a gentlemen’s agreement, through and through.

“I want to talk about terms,” Dick says, “for breach of contract.”

Wilson turns to him, pale eye narrowed. “Go on.”

Part of Dick isn’t sure he should be reminding Wilson of this, but he’d be surprised if Wilson hadn’t already thought of it himself and was just hoping Dick would overlook it. “It seems like there are a lot of ways this could go to shit for me, without any real consequences to you other than pissing me off.”

“So what are you suggesting?”

“You tell me. This could destroy the lives of my friends, my family—everyone I know. Meanwhile, I don’t have any kind of leverage over you. No one does.”

“You’re the only ones who do,” Wilson corrects. “You have Joe.”

Dick recoils at the thought of it. “What? I would never hurt Joey.”

Wilson hums. His eye stays narrowed, considering Dick. “I plan to keep my word, with or without incentive. But you have until we leave to decide if you want to add terms. I’ll agree to them, whatever they are.”

It’s Dick’s turn to narrow his eyes. “What if you think they’re unreasonable?”

“From what I’ve seen,” Wilson says, turning back to the sink, “I doubt you could come up with anything like that.”

Dick spends the rest of his meal trying to decide if that was a compliment to his character or an insult to his imagination, and doesn’t come to a conclusion either way before his bowl is empty and Wilson is standing in front of him with another.

Wilson puts it on the table. “Bring this to Joe.”

“You don’t want to do it yourself?” Dick says, but he’s already standing. He isn’t sure he wants to subject Joey to time alone with Wilson, anyway. It hasn’t really been beneficial to his own health.

Wilson smirks his annoying ghost of a smirk. “Wouldn’t want to get in the way of your fretting.”

“I know you know that wasn’t an answer.”

“He’s waking up.”

Dick narrows his eyes. He knows Wilson has enhanced hearing; he also wouldn’t put it past Wilson to lie. “How good is your hearing, anyway?”

Wilson’s smirk becomes a fraction more pronounced. “Who’s lacking subtlety now?”

Right. This conversation is going nowhere fast.

“You’re impossible,” Dick informs him, and snatches up the bowl and marches off before Wilson can reply.

Joey is, in fact, awake, knocking back twice in response to Dick’s request for entry. He still looks tired, and a bit pink with fever, but he’s alert and smiles and waves at Dick when he walks in.

“Hey, Joe.” Dick raises the bowl. “Brought lunch. Or breakfast, maybe. It’s already past three, though.”

Joey’s eyes widen and he turns to the window, still darkened by the curtain. Dick leaves the bowl on the nightstand and pulls the curtain aside so that they can both watch the snow swirling past.

Sorry, Joey signs when Dick turns back to him. Didn’t mean to sleep so late.

Dick shakes his head. “Don’t worry. Not like we can get anywhere in this weather, anyway. If anything, I should be sorry for making you stay out in the cold for so long yesterday. How are you holding up?”

Not your fault, Joey signs. I’ve always gotten sick easily. But I’m okay. Still tired.

“Do you feel like washing up?”

Joey hesitates for a second, then nods. I’ll try.

Dick searches around for a towel, and finds one folded on top of a dresser with a stack of fresh clothes on it—the lighter clothes that he’d asked Wilson for. He helps Joey out of bed and hands him the bundle. “Need help?”

Joey shakes his head with a small smile and takes the bundle with him to the bathroom.

In the meantime, Dick takes the comforter off the armchair and stuffs it into the closet, then drags the chair by the bed so that he has somewhere to sit as he waits. Joey left the bedroom door open, and Dick can hear him moving around in the bathroom across the hall. From the kitchen, there’s an occasional clatter of metal against ceramic—Wilson eating, probably.

Outside, the storm doesn’t seem to be getting any worse, which hopefully means it’ll begin to die down overnight. Then Dick will have to get to the T-jet and bring it here so that Joey won’t have to make the trek for… however far it is. Their surroundings are all snow and dead trees; Dick has no idea how far they are from anything. At least he’s mostly sure Wilson won’t hurt them—that would be a much more stressful thought otherwise.

Instead, he just needs to worry about how to make sure Wilson won’t come after him and everyone he knows in their personal lives later, because he was stupid enough to hand over his identity on a platter. Easy.

Dick sighs and rubs his forehead. He may not be intending to use Joey as a shield, but Joey’s very presence here is a buffer between Dick and Deathstroke. Wilson actually does care for Joey to some extent, which means he won’t risk upsetting Joey by doing anything to Dick while they’re all stuck here together. Back in the outside world is a different story; there are plenty of ways for someone in Dick’s line of work to have an “accident”, and he doubts a vague sense of honor will hold Deathstroke back if he gets it in his mind to hurt Dick, for whatever reason.

He isn’t any closer to figuring out what could possibly hold Deathstroke back when Joey comes back, looking much more alert.

Dick stands. “Do you want to eat outside? I can heat this up again.”

Joey hesitates, looking at the wall as if he could see through it to the kitchen beyond. Finally, he nods.

They step out of the bedroom in time to see the bathroom door closing. Dick narrows his eyes at Wilson’s disappearing figure. His avoidance of Joey wasn’t subtle earlier, but this is just embarrassing.

“C’mon.” Dick waves Joey over to the table. “Take a seat.”

The large pot on the stove still has soup steaming in it. He pours out a new bowl for Joey and places it on the table before sitting down across from him.

Thank you, Joey signs. You made this?

“No, uh, it was mostly—” ‘Deathstroke’ feels inappropriate for this situation, ‘Wilson’ a bit awkward considering who Dick’s talking to, and ‘Slade’ way too intimate. “Your dad,” is what he finally settles on.

Joey stares blankly for a second as though he doesn’t understand, but then he smiles, small but undeniably pleased as he takes a few slow sips.

He cooked a lot, before, Joey signs with the hand not holding the spoon. Whenever he was home.

Dick glances in the direction of the bathroom. The shower is on, but Dick isn’t going to risk pissing Wilson off by audibly discussing his private life just rooms away. How often was that? Dick signs.

Joey thinks about it, then shrugs a little. He was home more than he was gone, but he’s been Deathstroke since before I was born. He uses his name-sign for Deathstroke—the letter D that turns with a twirl of his wrist into the sign for sword. He used to come to all my exhibits, and all my piano recitals. Then— He touches his fingers to the scar on his throat, an entire story in one gesture: how Wilson’s pride had led to the injury that left Joey mute; how Adeline had shot Wilson’s eye out in anger before disappearing with their sons. After that, I never saw him again. Until you.

Deathstroke had picked up Grant’s contract with H.I.V.E—for revenge, Dick thought, though Adeline also suggested it was partially Wilson’s twisted sense of honor that refused to let him leave his son’s job unfinished, even if it meant working with the people truly responsible for Grant’s death.

But whatever Wilson thought about H.I.V.E, he’d still set traps for them all at Titans Tower. Dick only narrowly escaped because Wilson had underestimated him—a common mistake, but not one anyone ever made twice. Adeline, who had been tracking her ex-husband out of concern that he’d do something stupid after Grant’s death, helped Dick track him all the way to the H.I.V.E base where he’d taken the Titans. Joey joined Dick in infiltrating the base to get the Titans out, and then joined the Titans himself.

That was almost three years ago. As far as Dick knows, Wilson hasn’t been in the States much since then—not for any obvious jobs, and not even to see Joey. He’d passed along a few lines of intel to the team as a sort of strange peace offering, since they’d taken in Joey, but that was it.

I shouldn’t miss him, Joey signs, but I do.

“You’re a good kid, Joe,” Dick says softly. Too good to hold a grudge, even against a father who was supposed to protect him but instead had nearly been responsible for his death as a child. Dick doubts Deathstroke’s ever mentioned it, much less apologized for it. He’s your father, Dick signs. It’s okay to miss him.

Even if he’s as terrible as everyone says? Joey signs with raised eyebrows and a wry smile.

Slowly, Dick signs, Do you think that?

After a few seconds of deliberation, Joey shakes his head. I don’t think he’s right. I also don’t think he’s bad.

Dick wants to disagree on principle, but he isn’t going to argue with Joey about it.

He cares for you, Dick signs. He thinks he can say that honestly enough.

Joey doesn’t look very happy to hear it, though. We’ve never had a conversation, he signs, pressing his palms one on top of another against his heart before shaking them in the sign for ‘conversation’ to indicate what exactly he means.

That’s not surprising: Wilson doesn’t seem like a heart-to-heart kind of guy. Still, he could stand to make an effort for his own son—especially now, with Joey sick and them stuck in this cabin together for at least the next day.

Though maybe that’s unfair. Wilson did save them from H.I.V.E in the first place, and he has been taking care of Joey, now that Dick’s helped him figure out how to do it. So he is making an effort. He just can’t hold a conversation—is actively avoiding having to hold a conversation, even.

And that, Dick is unfortunately very familiar with.

I sent letters for him, through Uncle Wintergreen, Joey signs. He never replied.

Dick considers his response carefully. He might not know what to say.

Joey’s answering smile is sad. I just wish he would say something.

You’re both here now, Dick signs. There’s time.

Joey nods, acknowledging the point, but he doesn’t look particularly hopeful.

Dick files that away as he gently turns the conversation to other topics. Joey isn’t one for confrontations, and Wilson is obviously avoiding the opportunity for one, anyway, which means that if anything’s going to happen here, then it has to be Dick who starts it.

And normally—normally he wouldn’t get involved. This isn’t his family, and this isn’t his business.

But thinking about his own family, and the distance between them now, and all the things that they’ve said that they shouldn’t have, and all the things that they should have said, but hadn’t, and will never get to again—

The Wilsons, at least, have another chance.

And Dick would never forgive himself if he didn’t at least try to help them take it.

Dick keeps Joey company until Joey starts feeling tired again, some hours later. Wilson does leave the bathroom at some point, only to immediately make some excuses about clearing the roof and then walk out straight through eight inches of snow.

It’s strange and oddly endearing to realize that Batman and Deathstroke are the same in that way: menacing and intimidating on the outside, emotionally constipated on the inside.

Wilson doesn’t come back until Joey’s sound asleep again and Dick has finished a bodyweight fitness routine and spent twenty minutes cooling down. He steps inside, closes the door, and stares at Dick, who’s cramming himself onto the couch under a blanket that he found in the closet of the room he’s been staying in.

“What are you doing?” Wilson says.

“Resting.” Dick turns onto his side and wiggles until he’s comfortable. “Not much else to do right now.”

“You have a bed.”

“Take it. I’m fine here.”

“Grayson.”

“Wilson.” Dick looks over his shoulder. Wilson actually looks annoyed. Dick sighs. “As the person who actually fits on the couch, I’m choosing to sleep on the couch.”

“My house, my rules.” Wilson snatches the blanket away. “Off.”

Dick stares at him in disbelief. This is probably the most direct conflict they’ve had since coming here, and it’s about sleeping arrangements. “Are you seriously arguing with me over this?”

“You’re arguing,” Wilson says. “I’m telling you how it is.”

“I can’t believe you’re being an asshole over me trying to save your creaky back.”

“And I can’t believe you’re this annoying to people who are trying to be nice to you.”

Dick throws up his hands in defeat and rises off the couch. No use in pointing out that he’s the one who’s trying to be nice, and Wilson is being an asshole for no reason. Again.

He steals the blanket back and tosses it on the cushions. “At least use that. Joey’s still using your other one.”

Wilson’s face turns stony at Joey’s name. “Fine,” he says, and starts to move past him to the hall.

Dick steps right into his path, forcing Wilson to take a half-step back so that they don’t collide. “You can’t avoid him forever, you know.”

Wilson studies his face for a beat. “I don’t see how this has anything to do with you.”

“It does if I’m stuck here playing go-between.”

“I didn’t think you’d have a problem with that,” Wilson says. “Unless you’re getting tired of him already? Can’t say I blame you.”

“You—” Dick’s lecture in defense of Joey dies on the tip of his tongue when he catches the calculating glint in Wilson’s eye. He hadn’t meant the words—this is some kind of test. Dick scowls. “What is wrong with you?”

“A lot of things.” Wilson crosses his arms. “Which makes me wonder why you’re so eager to get me to spend time with Joe. Aren’t you usually more protective of your junior Justice League?”

Dick bristles at that—the Titans don’t have anything to do with the Justice League, which Wilson knows, so he’s obviously just needling at Dick again, trying to get a rise out of him so he’ll let the topic go. He forces himself to relax. “Joey’s your son.”

Wilson’s expression doesn’t change. “So?”

“So?” Dick repeats. “So shouldn’t you spend time with him?”

Wilson shrugs, something too stiff about the movement to be completely casual. “I haven’t seen him since he was a kid.”

“So?”

Wilson looks at Dick like he knows exactly what Dick’s doing and isn’t amused by it. “So we don’t have anything to discuss.”

“Sounds to me like you have at least ten years to discuss,” Dick says. “He loves you. He wants to talk to you. He wouldn’t have kept sending you letters otherwise. And you want to talk to him, too.”

“Do I.”

Dick looks at him steadily. “You wouldn’t have learned ASL otherwise.”

Wilson stares back for a second. Then he barks out a laugh, short and unamused. “Think you’ve got me all figured out, don’t you?”

“No, I don’t. But I do know emotionally constipated when I see it.”

“You know,” Wilson says slowly, “I’ve always wondered if the Bat was your father.”

Dick grimaces, the shared knowledge of his identity hanging over their heads. “He’s not.”

Wilson hums. “Makes sense. You’d have to be cold-blooded to let your ten-year-old kid run around playing decoy for you.”

“I wasn’t a decoy.” Dick says, feeling vaguely nauseous. He doesn’t want to think about Robin. He doesn’t want to think about how young he was—how young Jason was.

“You ran around dressed like a traffic light while Batman hid in the shadows,” Wilson says. “Sounds like asking for trouble to me.”

“Stop.” Dick swallows back the rising panic. Wilson doesn’t know what he’s talking about. “Stop trying to change the subject. It’s not working.”

Wilson’s lip curls unpleasantly, that dark, calculating thing still in his expression as he decides how to attack Dick next. What he doesn’t know is Dick would prefer anything to this. “You don’t have the right to talk about Joe.”

“He’s my friend.”

“And my son, as you’ve reminded me.” Wilson takes a step closer, and now Dick has to take a half-step back. “My son, who you almost killed. Don’t forget that the only reason you’re here enjoying my hospitality is because I was rescuing Joe from a botched mission you put him on. If it wasn’t for me, you’d both be dead, and I think it’s pretty clear whose fault it would be this time.” His voice is a low, threatening growl. “Remember that the next time you want to lecture me about him.”

Dick balls his hands into fists. He hadn’t asked Joe to come; he knew the mission was dangerous, and that’s why he’d planned it as a solo mission in the first place. He’s done asking people to put themselves at risk when he could just as well do it himself. But Wilson wouldn’t listen, wouldn’t understand that anyway.

“I’m not saying I don’t make mistakes,” Dick says. “I do, more than you know, and I remember every single one of them. And I won’t let this happen to Joey again.”

Wilson scoffs. “Don’t think you can say that for sure. That’s now both my sons who’ve had their lives in your hands, and both my sons who you’ve failed.”

This again. “I couldn’t have done anything about Grant and you know it.” It comes out more harshly than Dick would have liked, but he doesn’t care—Wilson’s the one intentionally fraying all his edges anyway.

“You and your Titans—”

“Were there and that’s it. You said yourself that it was H.I.V.E’s serum that killed him, not us. Hate me all you want, but it’s never going to change the fact that, between the two of us, we both know who’s responsible for Grant’s death. Who’s responsible for the fact that Joey can’t speak. You keep talking about my mistakes. Are you ever going to learn from yours?”

Silence hangs between them, brittle with an edge of violence. They’re still standing practically toe to toe; it would be nothing for Dick to sweep low and kick Wilson’s legs out from under him, for Wilson to slide a knife in Dick’s gut.

Neither of them move.

“You don’t know half of what you’re talking about.” Wilson’s voice is as sharp and dangerous as his sword.

Dick crosses his arms, refusing to be intimidated. “I know that serum Grant took would have stopped his heart eventually, no matter what any of us did. I know he took it because he wanted to be the next Deathstroke, whether he knew it was you or not. I know he took it without talking to anyone, because he didn’t have anyone to talk to. And I know you blame yourself for all of it.”

“You know that, do you?” Wilson growls.

“I know!” Dick tries not to shout in frustration. “I get it, all right? You don’t want to think it’s your fault. So you try to ignore it, try to find other people to blame, try to convince yourself that you didn’t start it and there wasn’t anything you could’ve done to stop it, so how could it be your fault at all?

“But in the end, you’re still going to stand in front of the mirror every night and know that, no matter how much you try to avoid it, it still all comes back down to you. That the only reason he died, the only reason he was there to be hurt in the first place, was because you made him want to be Robin.”

Wilson’s gaze sharpens, and Dick realizes suddenly what he’s said.

He takes a stumbling step back.

“Grayson—”

Dick is already gone.

He’s had dreams of Jason, since—

Since.

He always appears as Robin—how he was when Dick first met him, how he was when he died. They usually talk, though Dick usually doesn’t remember everything they talk about after he wakes up.

Jason doesn’t blame him, in the dreams—doesn’t attack him or accuse him of anything.

He does ask questions, though.

Why did you become Robin?

To help people. To make sure they didn’t go through what Dick went through.

Whose idea was it?

Maybe Dick’s; maybe Bruce’s. Maybe both.

Why aren’t you Robin anymore?

Mistakes. Tears. Arguments. Too many to count. Too many to fix.

Whose fault was it?

Maybe Bruce started it; maybe Dick finished it. Maybe it always came down to them both.

What about me?

What about you, Jason?

Why did I become Robin?

Whose idea was it?

Why aren’t I Robin anymore?

Whose fault was it?

Whose fault was it, Dick?

Do you think I’d still be alive, if I’d never been Robin?

It’s only the fact that the snow has stopped falling that gets Dick out of bed the next morning.

The storm is over, which means they’re getting out of here, today.

He puts his suit on under his clothes and checks his mask. The T-jet is still where they left it—about a two-hour hike from the cabin—and hasn’t reported any alarms. He sends a quick message to the Titans checking in without giving much detail, then puts the mask away and ducks into Joey’s room.

Joey isn’t there.

Dick finds him sitting at the kitchen table with Wilson, drawing on a piece of paper with pen. Next to him, sitting at the end of the table, Wilson is doing a Sudoku puzzle, also with pen.

Dick is starting to feel a little insane.

“Oatmeal’s on the stove,” Wilson says without looking up.

Joey does look up, and smiles brightly at Dick. Good morning.

“Good morning,” Dick says on reflex. “Glad you’re feeling better, Joe.” He looks pointedly between Wilson and Joe and raises his eyebrows.

Talked, is all Joey signs, and Dick knows better than to ask more questions while Wilson is sitting right there.

He goes to the stove, pours himself a bowl of oatmeal, and adds the freeze-dried strawberries and honey sitting on the counter, all the while feeling like he’s been transported to some alternate dimension.

He slowly makes his way back to the table. It’s easier to talk to Joey if he sits across from him rather than next to him, but that would mean sitting next to Wilson. It should be fine; he doubts Wilson will start anything with Joey right there.

He steels himself and sits down.

Wilson continues to ignore him throughout his breakfast, single-mindedly completing his puzzle. Joey looks over at Dick, a few times, checking in on him, but every time Dick waves him off to finish his drawing in peace. It’s a strangely domestic scene. It makes his skin itch.

Wilson is confusing as hell, and their argument hadn’t helped. He’s a hitman for hire, but it’s clear he has some kind of personal moral compass in which apparently assassination is fine, but letting preteens be vigilantes is not. He attacked the Titans. He saved Dick. He preyed on his insecurities. He loves his sons. He’s terrible at showing it. After they leave, he’ll probably go kill a man.

And here he is, doing a number puzzle on what must be a days-old newspaper.

It’s enough to drive Dick mad.

“Wilson,” Dick says once he finishes the bowl. Both Wilsons look up, Joey with a little confused crease in his brow. “Mr. Wilson.”

Joey’s confused crease deepens.

“Slade is fine,” Wilson says, obviously amused.

Dick scowls. Calling him by name feels like crossing a line he can't come back from. Imagine if Wilson called him ‘Dick’.

“Do you have snowshoes here?” Dick says. “I need to get to the T-jet. We can’t drive in the snow, and you shouldn’t walk out in it, either,” he says to Joey. “I can fly it closer to here to pick you up.”

Joey frowns. Alone?

“It’s just to the ship. It should only be a few hours.”

What if H.I.V.E found it?

“I checked the perimeter alarms. No one’s gotten close.”

Joey still looks uncertain. He glances over at Wilson. Dad should go with you.

“I’ll be fine. Don’t worry.”

Joey shakes his head. No one will get past the security here, he signs quickly. It makes more sense for Dad to go with you. He bodily turns toward Wilson. What do you think?

Wilson studies Dick’s face. Dick glares at him, attempting to communicate don’t you fucking dare with his eyebrows.

“I have snowshoes,” Wilson says. He turns to Joey. “You should be safe here, but I’m assuming you have panic buttons in case anything goes wrong.”

Joey nods. I’ll be okay.

Dick looks at him, betrayed.

Wilson stands, kitchen chair skidding across the floor. “I’ll get the gear.”

Joey frowns, looking between Dick’s face and Wilson’s retreating figure. You don’t want to go with him? Joey signs. He won’t hurt you. He likes you.

“I know he won’t—what?” Dick says as the last part of Joey’s statement registers.

Joey raises his eyebrows and tilts his head in question.

We argued last night, Dick signs. It was bad.

Joey frowns, in thought this time. Slowly, he signs, We talked about you. He didn’t seem upset.

“Oh my god,” Dick mutters. “I didn’t tell you to talk so you could talk about me.”

Joey smiles sheepishly and circles his fist over his chest—sorry. Talked about other things, too.

Dick rubs his forehead. “What did he even say?”

“I’ll tell you on the way,” Wilson says, appearing beside the table with a bag slung over his shoulder. He doesn’t look like Deathstroke the Terminator in his black winter coat and thick woolen scarf, but he doesn’t look any less dangerous. He tosses a blue puffer coat at Dick. “Put that on. Come here, Joe. I want to show you something about the security system.”

A few minutes later, the puffer coat is on, Joe is briefed on the security system, and Dick and Wilson are stomping out of the cabin in their snowshoes.

“We’ll be back soon,” Dick promises.

Joey nods. Be safe.

Wilson doesn’t say anything after the door closes behind them, and Dick doesn’t, either; just walks past him in the direction of the T-jet. They’re going to have to trudge along next to each other for a little over two hours, and Dick would like to spend as little of that time talking as possible.

It’s maybe thirty minutes later—thirty minutes of blessed nothingness except for the snow crunching beneath their feet—that Dick feels the shift in the air from chilly silence to conversation.

“No,” he says.

Wilson’s steady steps falter for a beat, and Dick is certain he’d caught Wilson off guard. Ha, Dick thinks, and stomps on.

Wilson catches up to him easily. “Grayson.”

“Not interested.”

“I thought you liked talking.”

“Not with you.”

“You had a lot to say yesterday.”

“That was yesterday.”

“Grayson.”

God, Dick is so close to snapping. He stops walking, takes a steadying breath, then turns to Wilson, who’s watching him from a few steps away. “We are not friends. You’re here because Joey wanted you to come. So you have thirty seconds to say whatever it is you want to say, and that’s it for the rest of this trip. Starting now.”

Wilson steps closer, his expression serious and his pale eye fixed on Dick’s face. “It wasn’t your fault.”

Dick stares back at him, bewildered. Is this some kind of apology? “What wasn’t? Grant?”

“Robin.”

A cold blankness washes over Dick. He turns away. “We’re done.”

“Grayson.” Wilson grabs his upper arm, but Dick slips out of his grip as soon as he feels the fingers land.

“Don’t touch me,” he snaps, glaring at Wilson from just out of arm’s distance.

“Thirty seconds,” Wilson says, but he doesn’t reach for Dick again.

Dick sets his jaw and stares stubbornly over Wilson’s shoulder at a pile of snow on a tree branch.

“I heard about it, when Robin went missing.” Wilson’s voice is low, like he’s talking to a skittish deer. Dick hates him a little bit for it. “I also know you and your Titans weren’t around. The way Joe tells it, you’ve all been on another damn planet for months. There wasn’t a single thing you could’ve done.”

“If he hadn’t been Robin—”

“Then he would’ve been someone else,” Wilson says. “And maybe that someone else wouldn’t have died, or maybe he would’ve died an even worse death. You’ll never know.”

Dick glares harder at the tree and wills himself not to cry. He hadn’t even cried in front of Bruce—though to be fair, they’d both been too worked up to do anything except yell, both accusing the other of blaming them, when, in reality, they were the ones blaming themselves.

“I know what happened to him in this life,” Dick says steadily. “And I had my doubts, but I gave him my blessing for it. I gifted him the costume he died in.”

“Still doesn’t make it your fault.”

“Maybe it’s not,” Dick says. “I want to believe it’s not. But no matter how much I try to reason through it, there’s always some part of me that’s going to wonder if it is.” He slides his gaze back over to Wilson. “You understand.”

For once, Wilson doesn’t argue. “I do.”

Dick takes a shaky breath in the silence. “Is that all you wanted to talk about?”

Wilson inclines his head in a nod.

Dick nods back, and crosses his arms against the cold. It doesn’t help.

He keeps walking.

“H.I.V.E. asked me first,” Wilson says, a bit over an hour into their walk. Dick doesn’t look at him, but he slows his steps slightly to show he’s listening. “I turned them down. They targeted Grant to get to me.”

Dick inhales through his teeth. “I’m sorry.”

“The last thing I want is for the same thing that happened to Grant to happen to Joe,” Wilson says quietly. “I don’t want him to be anything like me, or to even want to be anything like me. If that means keeping him away from me, in the company of people who hate me and who might use him against me, then that’s the price I’ll pay.”

Dick stops at that, turning to Wilson with a frown. “We would never use Joe like that, or make him choose. He’s our friend.”

“I know that now.” Wilson brushes past him. “You’re a soft-hearted fool.”

Dick stares at his back. “Was that an insult?”

“A warning.” Wilson stops walking and watches over his shoulder as Dick steps toward him. “One day you’re going to put your faith in the wrong person, and it’ll be a mistake you won’t be able to come back from.”

Dick stops an arm’s length away, acutely aware of how Wilson’s words could be interpreted as a threat. “And are you the wrong person?”

Wilson meets his gaze steadily, and Dick is overly conscious of his own heartbeat, and the way it speeds up slightly as it beats once, twice, thrice.

“Not if I can help it,” Wilson says finally, and starts walking again.

Dick keeps pace with him. “Because of Joey?”

“Because there aren’t enough good men out there.”

Dick stares at him, uncomprehending.

“Think what you want about what I do, but most people aren’t worth the air they breathe. The world is better off without the people I take out of it.”

Dick can’t help his scoff. “Right.” He raises a pointed brow when Wilson glances at him.

“You seem pretty alive to me, kid,” Wilson says, looking him up and down.

Dick rolls his eyes. “I know you’ve taken hits from Ra’s al Ghul.”

“And Batman’s trained under him. Even fanatics can have good ideas every once in a while.”

Dick very much doubts they’re on the same page about what classifies as a good idea. “It still doesn’t give anyone the right to play judge, jury, and executioner.”

“Because what you do is so much better, turning them all over to the state to get used by the system in god knows what way. At least I know how my targets’ stories end.”

“I’m not sure you should be bragging about ending people’s lives.”

Wilson scoffs. “Right. Much better for them to slave away in a private prison or, better yet, get sucked into Waller’s secret hit squad. Get off your moral high horse, kid. You know my background. You ever wonder why I became a free agent? It’s so I can tell them to fuck off when they ask me to do something that I don’t believe in. The worst things I’ve ever done have been under orders from the people you trust to do what’s right.”

Dick works his jaw. He’s never going to agree with Wilson’s point of view, but this is one thing he doesn’t have a good argument against. He’s thought similarly, before, and he knows Bruce has done his best to improve the systems in Gotham, but it’s still not without its problems. It may never be without its problems.

“You’re still never going to be able to convince me that anyone deserves to die,” Dick says. “I’ve had more than enough of death.”

“Not trying to,” Wilson says. “But don’t pretend that what you get up to is the pinnacle of morality, either.”

“I’ve never said that. You think I haven’t questioned myself and my decisions before? You think I haven’t done things I’m not proud of as a means to an end? I’m not trying to be the best person in the world. I’m trying to help people. That’s the only thing that this has been about. And, from my perspective, you’re hurting them.”

“Sometimes you need to hurt a man to help a thousand others.” There’s a glint in Wilson’s eye and a hard set to his jaw—he believes what he’s saying completely. “But like I said, I’m not trying to convince you. I doubt I could, even if I wanted to. Soft-hearted fool, through and through.”

“Yes, you’ve made your opinion of my heart pretty clear,” Dick says tiredly.

“Don’t get me wrong.” Wilson looks at Dick then, with an intensity in his expression that makes Dick’s mouth run dry. “I respect it. But it’s not an approach that can fix everything. That’s why people like me exist. To go to hell so that you don’t have to.”

Dick can’t think of a single thing to say to that.

The T-jet sits undisturbed in the clearing where they’d left it. Dick puts on his mask before they approach, then bypasses the alarms and waves Wilson onboard.

“I need to run a full systems check and defrost some of the components,” Dick says, already keying in the commands at the terminal in the cockpit. “Should take about fifteen minutes, then we’ll be good to go, assuming everything comes back green.” He looks beside him to Wilson, who’s studying the systems diagram. Dick doesn’t want to spend more time with him, but the thought isn’t as awful as it was this morning, and it would only be polite to ask. “Can we drop you off somewhere?”

“I can make my own way.”

“You sure? We’re fine on fuel, and I owe you for the rescue.”

Wilson glances at him. “You’ve been looking out for Joe these past few years. I wouldn’t say you owe me a thing.”

“So we have a free rescue service, as long as Joey’s with us?” Dick says, teasing. “Maybe I should let him invite himself along on all my solo missions.”

“You were planning on coming alone?”

“Ah, yeah.” Dick isn’t sure what to make of Wilson’s tone or expression, and he fixes his gaze on the screen to avoid it. 5% complete. “We didn’t know much about the base, and I’m used to solo infiltration missions, so… Joe was worried, though. Lucky for me. I probably wouldn’t have made it if you hadn’t come after him.”

“I was here for H.I.V.E., not for him,” Wilson says. “I don’t keep tabs on him that closely.”

“Ah.” The progress bar creeps up to 6%. Morbid curiosity gets the best of him. “What do you think my chances would’ve been, if you’d found me there alone?”

Wilson is silent. The progress bar makes it to 8%.

“I would’ve taken you,” Wilson says finally, and Dick thinks he might actually be telling the truth. “For Joe’s sake, even if he wasn’t there. Maybe you would’ve been less annoying.”

Dick laughs at that. “I’m always annoying. It’s part of my charm.” He turns a winning smile onto Wilson, and is startled by the expression he receives in response. It’s a smirk, but unlike Wilson’s usual smirks, there’s something unsettling about it—it’s missing the edge of cruelty.

Dick turns back to the screen to avoid it and clears his throat. “So. You and Joey seem to be getting along.”

“It’s a start. You were right. We have a lot to talk about.”

Dick resists the urge to turn his head and look at Wilson again. “You sure you don’t have a fever? You’re being suspiciously nice today.”

“I can admit when I’m wrong.”

“Can you?” Dick says dubiously.

“I had a certain impression of you,” Wilson says, “but you weren’t what I expected.”

Dick watches the progress bar tick up to 12%. “In a good way?”

“Yes.”

The simple word lights up the part of Dick’s hindbrain that immediately blossoms when given a drop of approval. Dick mentally crushes it in his fist.

In front of him, the progress bar continues to creep up—13, 14, 15, 16.

“Why is Joe worried about you?” Wilson says.

Dick blinks at him in confusion. “What?”

“You said Joe tagged along on the mission because he was worried. He also wanted me to come here with you. You seem capable enough. What’s he worried over?”

This is firmly not any of Wilson’s business, but—he’s someone Dick could tell who wouldn’t be in a position to judge him for it. He’s someone who might even understand, in some way.

“Things have been… hard, since Jay—Robin.” Dick bites his tongue in annoyance, before remembering that Wilson would be able to figure it out anyway. He rubs his forehead. He needs to finish that fucking contract.

“Haven’t had your vengeance yet?”

“Did that help you?” Dick says pointedly. “I’m sure you already know this, but my parents died when I was little. At first, I thought what I wanted was vengeance, but what I really wanted was to make sure no one else would go through what I did. That’s what drew me to Batman and this whole vigilante thing in the first place. But then Robin—he was just a kid.”

He stares hard at the monitor, concentrating on the pixels so that his tears stay where they belong.

As of now, he has one primary goal in life, and that’s to not have a breakdown in front of Deathstroke, of all people.

“Anyway,” he says, once he’s sure he has himself and his voice under control. The words on the screen are still a blur. “If I could have anything, it wouldn’t be vengeance. It would be a second chance. And, unlike vengeance, that’s a lot rarer for any of us to get.”

“You trying to turn this around on me?” Wilson’s voice is gruff as always, but it’s also quiet. Thoughtful.

Dick turns more fully to him. They’re standing close enough that Dick has to look up slightly to meet his eye. “Joey loves you,” he says, and this time Wilson doesn’t shy away from the words. “Even after everything, he’s still here, still alive, and he still loves you. I wouldn’t take that for granted if I were you.”

Wilson scans his face—looking for what, Dick’s not sure. After a beat, Wilson says, “I won’t.”

“Good.” Dick starts to turn back to the screen, but Wilson catches his arm. This time, Dick lets him take it. “What?”

“No vengeance,” Wilson says. “No second chances. So what’s your coping strategy? Suicide missions?”

“No,” Dick says reflexively. “I don’t know. I just…” He doesn’t have an answer. He wishes, for his own sake, that he did.

“Stay behind for a few days,” Wilson suggests. “Reset. Send Joe back with a ransom note for the Bat. Maybe I’ll get paid for the rescue after all.”

Dick laughs without humor. “Wouldn’t suggest trying that right now, unless you’re really angling for a fight. Batman isn’t doing too well, either. And he’s even worse at accepting help.”

Wilson considers him. “Does that mean you’re accepting?”

Dick didn’t mean it like that—or, he didn’t think he did. But the more he considers his response, the more he realizes that he was considering the idea: taking a break from the Titans, from Nightwing, and just hiding with Wilson in some pocket of the world until things start making sense again.

And the more he considers it, the more it starts to sound like not such a bad idea—which probably means it’s a terrible idea, given his current state of mind.

“What would you get out of this?” Dick says.

“Money,” Wilson says. “Obviously.”

Dick sighs. It was definitely too much to hope that Wilson would start giving him real answers.

“I have a lot of responsibilities.” There’s the team. Bludhaven. Bruce, even if he’s made it clear that he doesn’t care for Dick’s help.

Wilson just waves it off. “They can deal without you for a while. You’re not invincible, kid. Time to stop acting like it.”

The progress bar hits the quarter mark. Dick exhales loudly through his nose. “Let me think about it.”

Wilson lets go of his arm. “Open offer, Grayson. You know how to reach me, even after you take off.”

“Do I?”

“I sent you the contract draft,” Wilson says, which Dick realizes is his implicit way of indicating he’d passed his contact details along—after, presumably, getting Dick’s information from Joey. “You decide on the terms?”

“Yes.” There’s only one right answer—especially if he’s even considering taking Wilson up on his offer.

Dick opens another terminal window, accesses his inbox, and finds the encrypted message, along with a copy of Wilson’s public key to send encrypted messages back. He pulls up the contract on the touch screen and, without changing anything, signs it with his finger—that almost unrecognizable name, Richard John Grayson, in careful looping letters. He steps aside to let Wilson do the same.

Wilson raises his eyebrow in silent question.

“You said you wouldn’t betray my trust if you could help it,” Dick says. “Here’s your chance to prove it.”

Wilson steps up to the screen, but pauses in front of it. “There are a lot of things I can’t help, kid,” he says, almost regretfully.

“Then I’ll learn my lesson about trusting people, won’t I?”

Wilson studies him for a few seconds, then turns back to the screen. He scrawls in his name with quick, jagged strokes of his finger.

“Somehow,” he says, lowering his hand, “I don’t think you will.”

Joey is ready and waiting when they return to the cabin, Dick having sent a message as soon as the systems check completed and the T-jet came to life without issue.

Wilson clasps Joey’s shoulder on his way out of the jet, and Joey smiles and turns and signs something that Dick can’t see, but it makes Wilson smile—a small, but real and actually fond smile.

Bizarre.

Then Joey turns away, and heads up the ramp toward Dick.

“Last chance for a lift,” Dick calls out.

Wilson shakes his head and turns toward the cabin. “See you around, kid. Remember what we talked about.”

Joey gives Dick a look of open curiosity as they board the ship, as if to ask, What was that?

Dick waves a hand. “Nothing important. He was just… giving me some advice, I guess.”

Joey looks surprised, then contemplative. Did it help?

“Yeah,” Dick says slowly. “Yeah, I think it did.”

He still has responsibilities, no matter what Wilson thinks. He has a report to write up, and this new intel to work through. He has to help the team figure out a new leader. He has to find someone to watch over his apartment while he’s gone.

He’s not sure exactly where he’ll go, not sure exactly who he’ll be if not Batman and Robin or Nightwing and the Titans—but maybe that’s all right.

Maybe it’s time to give Richard John Grayson a chance to be himself.

Oh ashes, ashes, dust to dust
Tell me I am good enough
Oh, lay my curses out to rest
Make a mercy out of