Work Text:
Slade, as a rule, never took on kidnapping jobs.
Back in the Army, his CO once called him soft on kids. Slade calls it what the hell did the kids ever do to anyone.
So in an ideal world, he wouldn’t have even finished reading the request once he knew what it was about. But unfortunately, he’s getting restless without a job; his favorite distraction left Slade with an I’ll see you when I see you three months ago; and said favorite distraction had politely asked Slade to refrain from killing anyone, and Slade, post-nut and stupid, had agreed, so now here he is. Honor-bound and contemplating kidnapping.
Though this one isn’t so objectionable, all things considered. It doesn’t even involve an actual kid.
A Wayne brat wants his oldest brother out of the way for the week of the annual shareholder meeting. Slade wasn’t to even breathe too close to him unless absolutely necessary—that was emphasized at least three times, after which Slade stopped counting. So no real bad blood, just that the kid doesn’t trust his brother’s business skills.
Slade pulls up a few videos of Richie Wayne and sees why. He’s a carbon copy of his father, down to their shared omega nature—a pretty face for a campaign, but not someone you’d actually want in the meeting room with you if you valued your sanity.
Slade leans back on the couch and considers it. It’s decent money. He’d be doing something of a good deed—the younger Wayne specifically mentioned he’d sought out Deathstroke because he couldn’t trust that a less reputable mercenary would return his brother safe and unharmed, and Slade agreed with his reasoning. An omega with Richie Wayne’s looks and pedigree could be in a lot of trouble if he ended up in the wrong hands. So it’s really safekeeping more than kidnapping—practically heroic.
And also not a bad way of pulling a certain hero’s attention away from whatever it is keeping him occupied. Nightwing may not live in Gotham anymore, but surely he still has a soft spot for the local celebrities. And he’s much more likely to be able to find Slade than the Bat.
It’s that thought that has Slade finally telling Wintergreen to accept the job.
It should be an easy week—and if not, he’s looking forward to getting caught.
For a rich omegan heir, Richie Wayne has probably the worst personal security Slade’s ever seen. Maybe it’s got something to do with how he’s actually a Grayson, not a Wayne, according to his paperwork—but the Wayne patriarch seems to happily parade him around at family functions, so who even knows what the pack dynamics are.
Slade just thinks it should’ve been harder than it was. The younger brother had given Slade a time (three in the afternoon) and place (an intersection in downtown Gotham), and Slade had just shown up with a sedative and nabbed Grayson, easy as that.
He pulls up to his safehouse—a nice, secluded cabin in Connecticut—then opens up the trunk, prepared to lug a hundred eighty pounds of dead weight into the cabin.
Then he stops and stares, because Grayson—who should be out like a light for at least a few more hours, with the dose Slade had given him—is wide awake and staring back.
Slade sighs internally. He could just lug Grayson in like this, but then he’d have to deal with all the useless kicking and flailing that comes with it. Better to just sedate him again—and measure the dose correctly this time.
Grayson clears his throat. Slade hadn’t bothered gagging him, figuring he’d be out of it anyway, either from the sedative or from fear. But Grayson says, sounding oddly unafraid and oddly unidiotic, “Uh, just so we’re clear here. What exactly is going on right now?”
Slade stares at him a little longer, then figures what the hell. “I was hired to keep you out of Gotham for the week. You don’t do anything stupid, this’ll be a nice and easy time for the both of us.”
Grayson looks confused. “What? Why?”
“You really can’t think of a reason?” Seems like a waste of money to kidnap Grayson if he can’t even remember when the important meetings are. It would’ve been a lot cheaper just to break his cell phone and get his assistant a trip to Vegas.
Grayson is frowning, seemingly exhausting his limited brain cells thinking about it. “Well, I guess it could be… But he wouldn’t hire—” Grayson’s expression shutters abruptly, turning serious in an oddly chilling way.
Slade shakes it off. “Looks like you figured it out. You can start plotting your revenge after we get inside. Can you walk yourself without making trouble, or am I going to have to carry you?”
“Carry me,” Grayson says immediately in response to the obviously rhetorical question.
Slade stares at him.
“These are thousand-dollar shoes.” Grayson gestures to the offensively nondescript white sneakers he’s wearing. “And who knows what there is to step in out here. Wherever we are.”
Rich kids really are something else.
“You’re walking,” Slade says flatly, and hauls him out of the trunk. Grayson looks around while Slade cuts the tape around his ankles.
“You sure you’d rather do that than carry me?” Grayson says while studying a tree. “What if I’m really good at kicking people in the face?”
“Kick me in the face,” Slade says, rising to his full height—a good six inches over Grayson. “I dare you.”
Grayson blinks up at him from under long eyelashes. “It was hypothetical. I’m not good at anything, really.”
“Well, I suggest you get better at shutting up if you don’t want my finger to slip.”
“If you were hired by who I think you were—”
“Accidents happen.”
Grayson’s lips purse in the vaguely familiar expression of someone who has something to say but is holding himself back. He’s awfully mouthy and not nearly scared enough for a kidnapped omega.
Slade will have to do something about that.
He slams the trunk shut and gestures toward the cabin. “After you.”
Grayson turns to the cabin and starts walking, but Slade hears him muttering, “This is such a cliché.”
“Be thankful,” Slade says. “The fact that no one’s around to hear you scream is the only reason I haven’t taped your mouth shut yet.”
“You would be bored out of your mind without me talking,” Grayson says with the kind of conceited self-confidence only a rich pretty boy who probably has people fawning over him at all times could have.
“Keep believing that.”
Slade opens the door and gestures Grayson in. He locks it from the inside, then turns around and drags Grayson by his wrists over to the couch, where he shoves him down and slaps a cuff around one ankle. The other end is attached to an anchor on the ground.
“This will get you to that table,” Slade says, gesturing to the coffee table halfway between the couch and the front door, “and to the bathroom,” he says, gesturing to the room behind the couch. “Everything you need should be in there. There are scent blockers and enough changes of clothes for a week. You eat when I eat.”
He grabs Grayson by the hair. Grayson’s breath hitches and he freezes, showing the most awareness of his situation Slade’s seen from him yet, but all Slade does is hold him in place and lock a collar around his throat. “That’ll shock you if you get too far away, so I don’t suggest running. Or doing anything stupid. An easy job for me will be a better time for you.”
Grayson’s frowning, finger tracing the collar around his throat. Slade waits for some smart—or stupid—remark, but all Grayson says is, “So what’s it like kidnapping people for money?”
“Annoying.” With that, Slade leaves him to his fate.
Time to see if a certain bird will take the bait.
The first two days are quiet, if Slade discounts the bored whining from Grayson. The kid probably has so many sycophants that he isn’t used to being ignored. Slade finds it hard to take pity.
Grayson shuts up when threatened with sedation, but it’s never long before he starts yapping again. Slade ends up just tolerating it for as long as he can, which is until the kid starts giving him the play-by-play on The Real Housewives of Gotham. At that point, Slade double-checks the collar and the exit to make sure Grayson can’t run off anytime soon, and then gives himself scheduled time to be outside so he doesn’t end up doing something he shouldn’t.
The third day, Slade returns from his morning escape to find Grayson has buried himself in a pile of blankets and clothing on the couch. That isn’t so strange. Nesting can be a stress behavior for omegas in unfamiliar environments.
What is strange is that Slade’s pretty sure one of those blankets is from his bedroom—his bedroom that Grayson shouldn’t have access to.
He peels back the blanket. Grayson kicks and whines and wrangles it back, but it’s enough to see that his ankle is still cuffed, and when Slade checks, the other end is still attached to the ground.
“How do you have my blanket?” Slade demands.
Grayson sticks his head out from his makeshift nest and gives Slade an annoyed look. “That’s what you care about right now?”
“Is there something else?”
Grayson reaches up and yanks the scent blocker off his neck; it makes a tearing sound as the adhesive comes off his skin, but Grayson doesn’t even flinch. The sweet scent of flowers and spiced cider fills the room, along with the distinctive smell of preheat.
Slade rears back. “Christ,” he says, not bothering to hide his annoyance. He did not sign up for this. “Aren’t you rich kids supposed to be able to afford the good suppressants?”
“I get shots,” Grayson says, burying his face in the pillow. Slade hadn’t given him a pillow. It’s Slade’s pillow. “I was due for my appointment.”
Slade takes the pillow away from him. “You miss one shot and you go straight into heat?”
“I might have been due for a few months.” Grayson stares longingly at the pillow. “I have a proposal.”
Slade’s hair stands on end for no good reason. “What.”
“I can stop my heat at the preheat stage if you knot me and then lie on me for an hour or so,” Grayson says, absurdly clinically. “It offsets the stress hormones that trigger heat. It doesn’t work for everyone, but it works really well for me.”
“I am not doing that.” Slade can’t tell if Grayson is extremely idiotic or just plain insane; either way, he’s finding he really doesn’t like the way the kid thinks. He’s got no self-preservation instincts at all.
“It’d also work if you got me a knotting dildo and then lay on me, but I don’t think you have one and we’re too far in the woods for you to find one,” Grayson says, as though Slade would be any more likely to agree to that. “C’mon, please. My full heats are really bad.”
“Then stay on your suppressant schedule like you’re supposed to,” Slade snaps.
Grayson pouts. “My friends love lying on me,” he says, and Slade doesn’t doubt it. “It’ll take a full week once it starts. Imagine giving me back in heat.”
Slade flashes back to MINIMAL PHYSICAL CONTACT underlined, bolded, italicized, and in triplicate.
“At least then they’d know I didn’t touch you.”
“I wouldn’t tell them,” Grayson says, and he looks and smells so sweet and pitiful that Slade almost caves.
But then Slade remembers a certain vigilante—a certain vigilante who is late in saving Slade from this—and gets a hold of himself.
Grayson’s scent manipulation is very good, Slade thinks grudgingly, and he’s nowhere near as brainless as he acts. No wonder he has Gotham eating out of his hands—and no wonder the younger Wayne had wanted him out of the picture, but safe. Hard not to be jealous when you’re in the shadow of someone like this.
In his presence, it’s hard to resist the urge to swaddle him up and give him everything he wants. For all his annoyance, Slade’s reluctant to actually hurt him at all.
It’s extremely dangerous.
“The answer’s no,” Slade says, but he gives Grayson the pillow back. It must be hard to go through heat without any familiar scents nearby; Grayson’s clinging to every inch of softness he can get his hands on. Slade can at least give him that. “I’ll bring you a hot water bottle for your cramps,” he says.
Then he tries his best to ignore Grayson’s sad, rejected whines.
It’s easy to tell when the heat actually hits him, the day after.
The spiced cider scent gets overpowering, Grayson no longer bothering with the scent patches or creams Slade had left for him—whether he’s still trying to entice Slade or he’s just heatsick enough to want comfort from his own scent, Slade doesn’t know.
But Grayson’s definitely still trying to entice Slade, even while cramping and sweaty. He pumps his scent invitingly all through the cabin, and he makes inappropriate crooning noises when Slade’s around, and gives him mournful eyes from across the room when they take their meals. Grayson had dragged the coffee table closer to his couch so that he could eat while still half-cocooned in the blanket arms of his nest.
Slade is itching to comfort him—not with sex, necessarily, but something to make him put those sad eyes away. He isn’t generally bothered by random omegas in distress, but there’s something about Grayson that’s getting under his skin.
And there’s still half the week to go.
On the fifth day, Grayson escalates from wordless pleas to begging, scent dripping with a pathetic, cloying sweetness. “Can’t we just cuddle for five minutes? Please. I’m going to die.”
“You’re not going to die,” Slade says, but he eyes Grayson with some concern. He’s flushed and shivering and making sad, pained noises at practically all hours now, even though he’s wrapped up in all the blankets in the cabin—Slade’s bed had been mysteriously and thoroughly ransacked; now Grayson has it all, and Slade sleeps with nothing.
“I don’t know why I ever trusted you,” Grayson says miserably, and Slade could’ve told him that was a bad idea. Then he follows it up with, “Do you not like me like this?”
Slade doesn’t even know how to respond to that. He doesn’t have much of an opinion on Grayson, in-heat or otherwise.
“You’re just a job,” he says eventually, and gets back to his woodcarving.
Grayson buries himself in his blankets for a few minutes before speaking again. “Can I pay you? You know I have money.”
“Pay for what?”
“Five minutes,” Grayson says, and shifts some blankets aside to make space. “In here.”
He’s manipulating his scent again, curling it tantalizingly around Slade, and even though Slade knows exactly what he’s doing, he can’t stop himself from feeling tempted anyway.
He can stop himself from acting on it, though. Even with Slade’s personal reasons aside, the younger Wayne had chosen Slade for a reason, and that reason was that Slade was a professional who wouldn’t take advantage of an omega in his care. He has his reputation and his pride. “The answer’s still no.”
Grayson whines again, even more plaintively than before. “Slade, please.”
“No.” Then Slade frowns, putting down his knife and turning to Grayson. “What did you say?”
Grayson pauses mid-reburying himself to look at Slade with furrowed brows. “Um. I’ll pay you?”
“After that,” Slade snaps. “What did you call me?”
Grayson’s brow furrows even more. “Slade?”
Slade waits a few seconds, but it’s clear Grayson doesn’t see anything wrong with calling Slade by a name that he shouldn’t know.
“I never told you that name,” Slade says dangerously.
It’s apparently a danger Grayson is oblivious to, because all he says is, “Yes you did.”
“No,” Slade says, “I didn’t.”
“It’s not my fault you’re a senile asshole.” With that, Grayson buries himself back under the blankets. “My hot pack’s not hot anymore,” he says, muffled.
Slade’s been ignoring the mysterious way Grayson’s been stealing from his room when Slade wasn’t looking—it doesn’t really matter if he has some kind of meta gene as long as he’s staying where he should—but knowing Slade’s name isn’t something he can overlook as easily.
He looms over the couch until Grayson’s paying attention to him again. “When did I tell you that name?”
Grayson’s expression twists in annoyance. “Why are you being weird about this?”
“Answer the question and I’ll reheat your pack.”
Grayson makes a face. “You’re so mean,” he complains. “I can’t believe I ever forgot that.”
“Do you want your hot pack or not?”
Grayson makes a pathetic noise, but he hands over the hot pack and furrows his brows as he thinks. Finally, he says, “Fine, maybe you didn’t tell me. I think it was Adeline.”
“Adeline,” Slade repeats. “Adeline?”
“Gave me your name and life story and everything.” Grayson collapses back into the blankets. “You promised me a hot pack.”
Slade goes and reheats the pack to give himself time to think. There’s no reason for Adeline to go talking about him to random rich boys—in fact, she probably tries to avoid talking about him at all, unless she has to.
But a notable time she’d gone blabbing about his life to someone around Grayson’s age was when she’d told it to Nightwing.
Grayson would fit the profile, Slade thinks, and it would explain why he’s yet to hear a peep from his bird. He’d long suspected some kind of face-altering technology on the mask, and a voice modulator built into the collar to augment whatever manual voice adjustments Nightwing does to keep his identity hidden. Grayson’s been hiding his body under loose clothing and blankets, and keeping his movements minimal. It’s no wonder Slade didn’t recognize him—but he still thinks maybe he should have.
He drops the hot pack into the nest, tentative guilt beginning to eat at him. “Nightwing.”
“What,” Grayson says, curling around the hot pack.
“You’re Nightwing,” Slade clarifies.
“And you’re Deathstroke,” Grayson says. “Are we just stating the obvious now?” He must really be out of it to not even notice or care about the revelation Slade’s just had.
Slade watches him, conflicted. Grayson wouldn’t be in this situation if he’d just told Slade from the start, but he’d always been tighter-lipped about his identity than most, for reasons Slade can understand now. Bruce Wayne’s omega heir, a vigilante?
Not to mention the questions that would raise about Wayne himself—and the rest of his family.
But despite not trusting Slade with his identity, Grayson does trust Slade still, enough to want Slade’s blankets and laundry around him and Slade himself in his nest—a request Slade’s rejected enough times by now that he might have permanently rewired Grayson’s instincts that Slade’s someone he can rely on to take care of him at his most vulnerable.
That’s what all of Grayson’s complaining was about—how Slade didn’t like him when he wasn’t Nightwing, how mean Slade was. It was Slade’s potential as a mate getting flushed down the toilet.
“Kid,” Slade says. “I changed my mind. I’ll come into your nest.”
“I don’t want you anymore,” Grayson says without looking at him. “I’m going to suffer, and then you’re going to give me back, and then I’m going to tell everyone what a complete asshole you are.”
Once he’s clear-minded again, Grayson would probably sooner die than tell anyone he got upset that Deathstroke wouldn’t knot and cuddle him in his heat.
But that being said, Grayson’s only got two days left with Slade and—if he was telling the truth—five days left of heat. If Slade can’t sort things out before then, he might be in for a bad time—especially if the other Waynes are who he thinks they are.
“I wasn’t paying enough attention earlier,” Slade tries. “I’m here now. You’re all about second chances, aren’t you?”
Grayson glares at him. “I’ve given you at least fifty chances a day. That’s been—” He thinks about it. “—at least a hundred fifty chances.”
“You’ve got a lot of days of heat left,” Slade says. “You don’t want help breaking it earlier?”
“I asked and you said no. It’s too late now. It won’t break early, no matter what you do.” Grayson pulls the blankets tighter around himself. “I just want to go home.”
Slade stares at him for a minute longer. Then he exhales through his nose, and goes to get his computer.
Slade’s anonymous internet calling setup has worked for him in general, but he’s never really wanted to test it against Oracle’s capabilities. He resigns himself to the fact he’ll have to burn the device, number, and safehouse before dialing the number the younger Wayne had provided in case of emergencies. He’s pretty sure this qualifies, and also that the actual reason Slade has Grayson has nothing to do with a jealous younger brother who wouldn’t care that Grayson’s suffering.
“Yes, what?” Timothy Drake-Wayne says when he picks up the phone.
“Your brother’s in heat,” Slade says without preamble.
“He’s what?” There are frantic scrambling noises over the phone. “He wasn’t due for— Are you sure?” he says, which is probably the most insulting question anyone could ask.
“Of course I’m sure,” Slade snaps. “He’s heatsick and homesick and keeps crying about how he’s going to die. What do you want me to do about it?”
“Bring him back,” Drake-Wayne says immediately. “Now. I’ll still honor our contract and pay you for the full week, assuming you’ve honored your end of it.”
MINIMAL PHYSICAL CONTACT. Yeah, Slade remembers.
“Don’t worry,” he says. “You’ll get him back just fine.”
Slade gets the car all packed and ready to go before he approaches Grayson again. It’s not ideal to disrupt the nest an omega’s built for their heat, but he’d have to do it at some point anyway.
“We’re leaving,” he says, unlocking the cuff around Grayson’s ankle. “It’s a four-hour drive. Take what you want to bring in the car.”
Grayson eyes him distrustfully. “Where are we going?”
“Gotham.” Slade reaches over and takes off the collar. Grayson doesn’t even flinch. “You’ve got permission to go home.”
Grayson stares at him. “Really? You called Tim?”
“Yes.”
Grayson doesn’t thank him, but the way his expression lights up is enough. It dims, though, once he examines the nest around him—probably considering how to take it to the car.
“I could sedate you,” Slade offers.
“I’ll spend the rest of my heat throwing up if you do that,” Grayson says absentmindedly as he picks out two blankets. He sounds experienced in a way Slade doesn’t like. “Can I have a sweater?”
“Should be some in the bathroom.”
“Can I have one of your sweaters?” Grayson clarifies.
Slade tries not to preen too much as he fishes one out of his sack of worn clothes, for fear Grayson will change his mind if he catches him at it. Grayson might just be at a point where any familiar scent is better than nothing, even if Slade’s still in the doghouse.
Grayson puts the sweater on, and in the car he puts one blanket over his lap and the other around his shoulders, bunched up on the side by the window to act as a pillow. Slade offered him the backseat, but he refused it.
Then they’re headed back to Gotham. The car’s silent enough that Slade can hear Grayson taking deep breaths through his nose, the thread of a whine underneath each breath as he half curls up in the car seat. He hadn’t brought the hot pack—not that it would’ve lasted the four-hour drive anyway, but maybe it would’ve helped a little.
“Anything I can do?” Slade says.
“Don’t know.” Grayson’s not bothering to hide the tiredness in his voice. “Haven’t had a full heat since…” He trails off to think, then obviously loses the train of thought because he doesn’t finish.
“How do you handle them in Gotham?”
“Usually I don’t have full ones,” he says with an annoyed look at Slade. Slade got the message the first few times. “I have a permanent nest at home. That helps. Whoever has time comes and keeps me company and we look at cold case files together.”
“You what,” Slade says.
Grayson’s look gets even more annoyed. “It’s relaxing. Unless it’s from GCPD. Then it just makes me mad. But they don’t give me those anymore.”
Slade doesn’t even know how to respond to that, but it does remind him that there’s something else he needs to take care of before they get to Gotham. “Listen, kid. I don’t really want to bring this up now, but we have to get the story straight before we get there. I don’t know you.”
“Yes you do,” Grayson says.
“I know Nightwing,” Slade says. “I don’t know you, Richard Grayson.”
Grayson sits up from his pillow blanket, brows furrowed. He stares at the side of Slade’s face, then out the windshield for a long minute. When his distress hits, it hits so hard that Slade has to open the window before the stench suffocates them both.
“You okay?” Slade says.
“No.” Grayson is alarmingly pale, heat scent almost completely buried under curdled milk. “Oh god. Why did I—”
“You were having a stressful heat and the person you were asking for help from kept rejecting you,” Slade says. “It’s no surprise you got mixed up.”
“That’s not an excuse,” Grayson says. His distress is somehow getting worse. “I’ve trained for this.”
Slade can’t imagine what kind of training someone could do for this. “Your instincts knew to trust me, and you were right. I’m not going to tell anyone. Calm down.”
“Seriously?” Grayson says. “Calm down?” He turns paler. “I’m going to throw up.”
Slade pulls the car over onto the side of the road and lets Grayson hurl. He tosses a water bottle at him once he’s finished and watches as he rinses his mouth.
“Feeling better?” Slade says once Grayson’s climbed back into the car.
“Not really,” Grayson says, getting back into his curled position with his arms around his middle. The sour scent is still there, but tempered by his usual heat scent.
“You gonna make it back to Gotham?”
“Don’t really have a choice, do we?” Grayson says. “They’ll hunt us both down if we don’t show up.”
Slade starts the car and sets off. He occasionally checks in on Grayson to make sure he doesn’t look like he’s going to hurl again, but Grayson mostly appears to be attempting to take a nap or mentally escape or both.
Three miles down, the stench of sour-sick distress fills the car again and Grayson sits up, eyes shooting open. “Oh my god. I am covered in your scent.”
“That’s why I had to remind you before you went blabbing things you shouldn’t back in Gotham,” Slade says. “Wouldn’t have said anything otherwise.”
Grayson looks at Slade somberly. “I hate being in heat.”
“Then remember to do your damn shots next time,” Slade snaps.
He opens the windows again to clear the air. He’s going fast enough now that the wind whipping through makes it impossible to have a conversation, so he doesn’t try until Grayson seems to have calmed down a bit again and he feels safe rolling the windows back up.
“It’s not that bad,” Slade says. “We stop by your place on the way, you can shower most of it off. You can handle half an hour without a nest.”
Grayson grimaces. “I’m living at the Manor right now. My place kind of… blew up.”
“Again?”
“Don’t make it sound like it’s my fault,” Grayson says, burrowing into his blanket. Slade wonders if all this has anything to do with why Drake-Wayne had gotten Slade to take him. “Anyway, they’d find it if we stopped anywhere. Oracle has a lot of eyes.”
Slade sighs. “Fine. Then we just need a good story.”
“That’s the problem,” Grayson says, voice even more tired than before. He’s slumped over against the window again. “I don’t like having people I don’t trust around while I’m in heat. I don’t even like to smell them. If someone’s been outside, they shower and change before coming into my nest.”
“You could say I forced you.”
“To wear your sweater?” Grayson says dubiously.
“To be scented,” Slade says. “You can take that off when we get there. You can even take it off now. That’d probably help the scent fade.”
“Why would you force me to be scented by you?” Grayson says, completely ignoring Slade’s suggestion. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Because I’m an asshole?”
Grayson hesitates. “Sorry I said that,” he says, looking genuinely apologetic. “I really thought you were just… letting me suffer for no reason.”
“I wouldn’t do that,” Slade says, annoyed.
“I didn’t think you would either,” Grayson says. “That’s why I was so upset.”
Slade can’t help his little burst of smugness at that, but he turns back to business before Grayson can pick up on it too much. “So I made you take my scent because I’m an asshole.”
“That still doesn’t make any sense,” Grayson says. “Scenting me wouldn’t do anything to me except annoy me.”
“Heat imprinting?” Slade suggests. Sometimes extremely stressed omegas with no pack around can form a quasi-bond with someone else, just due to proximity.
“I hate people I don’t trust,” Grayson reminds him. “I’d die before I’d imprint.”
“Stockholm syndrome.”
“Not real.”
“Give me something to work with.”
“Do you know how I ended up with Bruce?” Grayson says.
Slade shrugs. “He asked?” That’s the way it generally works for people with money.
“He was really young then,” Grayson says. He’s not looking at Slade, forehead pressed against the passenger window and his hands toying with the blanket on his lap. “They didn’t trust him to take in a kid. Then I presented out of stress. Nine years old, no pack. They tried everything they could, but the only one I ever let get near me was Bruce, because he was the one who’d held me all night after my parents died. They couldn’t say no after that.”
“Sounds like that could’ve been one hell of a con to pull.”
“Yeah, probably.” Grayson smiles a little, which makes Slade relax a little. “Unfortunately, I really am just that sensitive. They’ll probably even find it suspicious that I’m not more stressed than I am right now.”
Slade exhales. “All right. Say I saved you once before and you got a whiff of my scent then, so you recognized it as safe. I let you have my things, but I have no idea who you are, so I just think you’re a freak.”
“You totally thought I was a freak,” Grayson says, still smiling. “Admit it.”
“‘Course I did,” Slade snaps. “You were asking your goddamn kidnapper to knot you.”
“I was a little desperate,” Grayson admits. “And I thought you might go for it.”
“Why would I go for it with a random rich kid when we’re—” Slade cuts the thought off, too late.
Grayson sits up a little, eyes lighting up. “Slade—”
“Shut up.”
“Are we exclusive?” Grayson says, delighted. “Am I your one and only?”
“Are you sleeping around?”
“With what time?”
Fair enough. Even Slade barely gets to see him.
“You should’ve told me all this back at the cabin,” Grayson says, settling into his makeshift nest a bit more happily. “Would’ve saved us a lot of trouble.”
“You should’ve told me who you were from the start,” Slade snaps. “Or at least before you asked me to knot you.”
“So we’ve both made mistakes,” Grayson says magnanimously.
“How exactly is not fucking you when I didn’t know who you were considered a mistake?”
“I mean,” Grayson says, shrugging under blanket-covered shoulders, “you did kidnap me.”
“Your brother paid me to,” Slade says. “And, again, I didn’t know who you were.”
“Being the kind of guy who gets paid to kidnap people he doesn’t know is kind of a life mistake.”
“And we’re just ignoring your brother’s role in all this?”
“Yep.”
“Great.” Slade gets why didn’t you knot me and stop kidnapping people, and the little Wayne who started it all gets off scot-free.
“Since when do you kidnap people, anyway?” Grayson says.
“Since I’m apparently not allowed to shoot people.”
It isn’t until after Slade notices Grayson’s been staring at the side of his head for at least a full five seconds that he realizes that the comment was a lot more revealing than he’d intended it to be.
“Shut up.”
“I wasn’t going to say anything.” Grayson’s turned toward the window, hiding his face, but the spiced cider scent of his heat turns tinged with arousal as the last of his distress leaks out.
Slade shifts to ease the discomfort in his pants. “Stop that.”
“Stop what?”
“Getting horny.”
There’s a beat of silence. “Did you just tell an omega in heat to stop getting horny?”
“You’re stinking up the car.” And Slade’s going fast enough he doesn’t want to deal with having the windows open for too long.
“Did you just tell an omega in heat that he stinks?”
“It’s going to be an uncomfortable ride if you’re smelling like that the whole time.”
Grayson’s gaze darts to the tent in Slade’s pants. “You could pull over.”
“You said it wouldn’t help anything.”
“It won’t help stop my heat early,” Grayson says, “but it’ll help make it more comfortable.”
Slade looks at Grayson out of the corner of his eye. He’s still a little pale and a little hunched over, arm curled around his stomach, but otherwise he seems in a better state than before. He doesn’t really need Slade’s help, no matter how sweet and pitiful his scent is now.
He’s just trying to get under Slade’s skin, as usual.
“I’m under contract not to touch you.”
Grayson looks at him sidelong. “You’re really going to drive three hours with a raging hard-on next to a willing omega in heat just to be petty?”
“My word is my bond.”
Grayson huffs. “Okay. Have it your way.”
He turns up the pheromones until Slade’s practically drowning in his heat scent. It’s impossible to ignore him.
Slade stubbornly keeps driving anyway.
They make it all the way across the New Jersey border before Slade exits the highway, pulls the car over to a secluded corner of the state park, and fucks Grayson in the passenger seat.
“Shut up,” he says as they get back on the road.
“Wasn’t going to say anything,” Grayson says cheerfully.
He seems happier now with his cramps temporarily eased by the relaxing hormones he’s bathed in, but he’s also practically reeking of smugness as he snuggles into the seat. At least he’s done weaponizing his scent.
Slade grunts. “Now you can tell them I forced you.”
Grayson frowns at him. “That wasn’t why you did it, is it?”
“I did it because you’re annoying.”
Grayson seems pleased by that. “I’m not going to just blame it on you. Also, that’d make Tim pretty upset.”
Of course it’s about the brother. “Maybe he needs to learn not to hire mercs to kidnap his family,” Slade says. “Why the hell did he even do that, anyway?”
“Probably wanted to get you out of Gotham with a hard alibi because of this case we’re working,” Grayson says. “And also make me take a break at the same time. He does love efficiency.”
He sounds extremely fond for someone talking about the guy who arranged his kidnapping. Slade tells him that.
Grayson raises an eyebrow at him. “Are you jealous?”
“No.”
Grayson hums. “In any case, unless you’re going to really piss me off in the next hour, I’m nowhere near miserable enough for you to have forced me into anything. So we’re just going to have to go with the story that I jumped you and you think I’m the freakiest rich kid you’ve ever met.”
“Not really a lie,” Slade mutters.
“What was that?”
Slade raises his voice to a normal volume. “If that’s what you’re telling them, then I’m leaving you on the driveway.”
“Probably for the best,” Grayson says, but he’s getting that sad air around him again.
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“I’m not getting into the same nest as the goddamn Batman.”
“I wasn’t going to suggest that,” Grayson says. “But now that you mention it—”
“No.”
“It’s not like he’d attack you while I’m there.”
“Not the point,” Slade says. “And the story is I think you’re a freak, remember?”
“Hm,” Grayson says, in that tone that means he’s plotting something insane again.
“You wouldn’t even be thinking about us in the same room if you weren’t heat-brained,” Slade reminds him. “So stop getting ideas. You’ll survive just fine without me.”
“Yeah,” Grayson says, oddly subdued. “Guess you’re right.”
Slade eyes him uneasily; it’s not like Grayson to give in without a fight, but Slade doesn’t really know what he’s like in heat. Maybe he needs more comfort than Slade can give him.
They both knew from the start that Slade wasn’t and wouldn’t ever be the kind of guy Grayson—or Nightwing, for that matter—would take home to meet his parents. They never even plan anything between themselves beyond the present moment.
So Slade won’t pretend they’re something they’re not, and it wouldn’t do any good for Grayson to, either, no matter what his heat-fried brain is telling him.
They exist in separate worlds, and that’s just the way it is.
“You could fuck me again,” Grayson suggests when they’re on the bridge to Gotham.
He’d started feeling sick again about ten minutes ago and has been increasingly miserable, to the point where he now has both blankets wrapped tightly around his shoulders.
Slade’s beginning to think maybe fucking Grayson the first time made it worse, by giving him a rush of physical contact and happy hormones and then depriving him of it. But since he did, fucking him a second time would probably help.
Only problem is, they’re basically in Gotham already.
“We’re almost there,” Slade says.
“Not mutually exclusive.”
“They are if I don’t want to be constantly looking over my shoulder.”
“It’s not like they won’t be able to tell we already did it.”
“Doing it over an hour ago and a hundred miles away is a lot different from doing it down the street.”
“Not really,” Grayson says, which doesn’t bode well for Slade’s future sanity. Then he goes back to quietly smelling sweet and sad, the same way he did when he’d enticed Slade to fuck him the first time.
Slade resists the temptation—for about fifteen minutes. Then he’s finding an alley to squeeze his car into and fucking Grayson with his hand until the kid’s scent goes honeyed and Slade’s soaked down to his wrist.
He rubs it against Grayson’s neck, marking him with Slade’s scent and Grayson’s own slick, and Grayson nuzzles against him, sweet in his exhaustion.
Slade gets a towel, a water bottle, and a fresh—if slightly oversized—change of clothes from the trunk and cleans Grayson up best he can.
He’s a little more presentable by the time Slade’s done, but considering he’s still acting fucked-out by the time Slade’s pulling up to Wayne Manor, it probably doesn’t really matter how presentable he smells or not.
“You gonna make it?” Slade says, eyeing the uphill stretch of driveway past the gate.
“I’ll be fine.” Grayson opens his door, then looks over at Slade. “Thanks, for…” He makes a vague gesture.
Slade grunts. “Tell your brother I expect the other half of his payment in my account by tomorrow.”
“Or else what?” Grayson says. “You’ll come collect?”
Slade narrows his eye. “Don’t get any ideas.”
Grayson grins. “Who, me?”
Slade doesn’t know who Grayson thinks he’s fooling, but it isn’t Slade. “Get outta here. And leave the blanket,” he adds, when Grayson starts climbing out with one still draped over his shoulders.
Grayson looks down like he hadn’t even realized he still had it. “Right.” He pulls it off and puts it on the side of the seat. Then he leans over and kisses Slade, brief but firm. “Bye.”
“See you when I see you.”
Grayson’s smile widens, bright and pure as sunlight reflecting off clear waters.
It’s the kind of smile that reminds Slade exactly what—who—he’s polluting.
Grayson shuts the door and walks the twenty feet or so over to the intercom, since Slade hadn’t wanted to park in front of the camera. He punches in a code, and the gate swings open. He glances over at Slade, just for a second, then turns and begins his trek up the driveway.
Slade presses the button to recirculate the air in the car, keeping the lingering scents sealed in. Then he pulls away from the curb, and away from the manor.
He doesn’t look back.