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Dick slammed the metal door of the handicap restroom shut behind him and locked it. Relief made him wilt against the sink for five blissful seconds, before the urgency of his situation reasserted itself. 

Swiftly, he unfolded the baby-changing station to use as a makeshift table. From his backpack, he pulled out several fresh towelettes, which he wet in the sink. Then he gritted his teeth and stripped off first his gray hoodie, then the long-sleeved shirt underneath that. 

The welts running diagonally down his back in eight perfect, crisscrossing lines have, over the past three hours, bled through two solid layers of bandages. Dick had applied them only that morning, so it really shouldn’t look this bad. Not unless the cuts were deep enough to need stitches. 

Shit. 

He carefully removed the sodden strips of fabric, being careful to stuff all the bloody material into the plastic CVS bag he’d gotten last week when Slade had let him buy his monthly allotment of meds. As he was splashing disinfect over his shoulder awkwardly, trying to make sure the liquid went to all the right places, his eye snagged on something. 

There was a sign affixed to the inside of the bathroom door. 

GET HELP

If you are a victim of human trafficking, call this number

1-888-3737-888

Text Help to 233733 (BeFree)

www.TraffickingResourceCenter.org

Under this was a picture of a faceless man counting cash out of a wallet, while behind him, curled up on the ground with her face against her knees, was a woman in posture of despair. Below it, the message was repeated in three more languages. 

Had there been an uptick in human trafficking lately? 

The sign looked solid and official. Firm, thick plastic, seamlessly fastened to the back of the restroom door. Difficult to tamper with or remove. Easy to mass-produce. Made to last a long time. 

These things were probably everywhere. But Dick couldn’t help but feel oddly like it was targeted at him nonetheless.

Why had he never encountered one before? As he began looping a fresh roll of white bandages around his torso, he walked himself through the thinking behind it. Obviously, this message was intended for the victims. The best way to minimize the chances that a trafficker would spot it would be to put it up inside places where only the victims were likely to go. Like the women’s restrooms, perhaps. Which would explain why Dick had never seen one until now. Some bright soul in Harry Reid International Airport, though, must have had the brilliant idea of affixing it to the inside of this handicap washroom as well, because why not? 

Dick washed his bloody fingers in the sink as he pondered the phone number. What would even happen if someone called it? Would armed guards descend on the victim in question? Or would they merely direct the caller to an information desk? Did the anti-trafficking bureau have an outpost here in Nevada? 

How would he call the number, if he were inclined to? 

Out of idle curiosity, and with the same clinical detachment he would apply to one of Slade’s hypothetical strategy questions, (“How would you assassinate the CEO of this company?”, “How would you infiltrate this terrorist organization?”), Dick mentally sketched out the logistics. 

The first hurdle: he didn’t have a smartphone (he’d lost that privilege two months ago for some infraction he didn’t even remember anymore) but he did have an old Nokia for emergencies. Second hurdle: the SIM card on it was tied to Slade’s account, so he’d know if Dick called any strange numbers. Luckily, they were in an airport, so Dick could potentially obtain a secret, second SIM if he wanted to. Except the third hurdle was that he had no money on him, and his credit card was tied to one of Slade’s offshore accounts. The minute Dick bought anything, Slade would know. The only way for him to make the call was to either use a payphone, or steal some random kid’s phone, pick the SIM off it, and then transfer it to his phone — all without the kid or Slade noticing. 

Doable, of course. 

But his thoughts stalled out there. 

Dick couldn’t really imagine what would happen after that. Once he got a sympathetic ear on the phone, then what? What could anyone possibly do for him? The very idea was laughable. Pitting a government employee against a professional of Slade’s calibre probably constituted some kind of crime, all by itself. And it went without saying that no armed guard in this entire airport was a match for him. Security would never catch him, and even if they did, no cell would hold him. All it would do was piss Slade off.

Dick played out eight potential ways the phone call could go, adjusting for various levels of competence on the listener’s part, before he dismissed the thought exercise as just that — a thought exercise. 

There was a heavy rap on the door. All of Dick’s core muscles tensed. He exhaled carefully and sped up his movements. 

“Five minutes,” he said quietly, knowing Slade could hear him. 

“You get two, and then I’m coming in,” came the reply.

Dick hurriedly finished looping the roll of bandages around his torso and then he ripped the end free with his teeth and tied it off in a small, neat knot. At least one of the cuts on his back was bad enough that Dick was certain he should’ve gotten stitches for it three hours ago, but he wasn’t in the mood to beg Slade for that favor right now. Slade was excellent at first-aid, but the amount of grovelling Dick would need to do to get him to stitch him up would take more time than he had right now. Their flight was in two hours. And Slade was already in a bad mood. 

Dick quickly stuffed the bloodied, discarded bandages into the same plastic bag as the sodden towels, tied the looped handles into a knot, and pushed the whole thing back into his backpack. Then he cleaned himself up. Splashed some water on his face. Finger-combed his hair back into a semblance of neatness. 

His hair was finally long enough to style into a low ponytail, with a couple of shorter, chin-length pieces to frame his face, which he liked. But any day now, Slade was going to make him hack it all off again, so Dick would have to enjoy it while it lasted. 

He flushed the toilet twice, let the sink run until there wasn’t a speck of pink left, and then wiped hand sanitizer from the wall dispenser over the baby-changing station for good measure, erasing all signs of his presence. Then he grabbed his backpack, took a deep breath and opened the door. 

Outside, Slade was waiting with his arms crossed. He stopped the door from swinging shut as Dick ducked under his arm, and glanced inside to check that nothing incriminating had been left behind. His gaze was cold. 

“Took you long enough.” His gaze flicked over Dick’s long hair with customary irritation. “That’s the last toilet break you’re getting in this airport.”

There were days when Slade didn’t mind his backtalk — and days when he enjoyed the way Dick could spar with him verbally — but today wasn’t one of those days. Dick could already tell by the impatient slant of his mouth, the tight set of his shoulders, the irritated flicker in his eye. 

Dick kept his eyes lowered deferentially. “Just making sure it’s not infected.”

Slade folded a heavy hand over the nape of his neck. “Walk,” he growled.

The pressure hurt just enough to feel grounding. Dick allowed himself to be steered over to the Qatar Airways counter, where they checked in under the names of Shane Parry and David Blair. While Slade answered the attendant’s questions, Dick put in his earbuds, slouched against the adjacent counter, and acted as nineteen as he could. Projecting the typical bored teenager was the only way he could hide the fact that the counter was the only thing keeping him upright right now. The pain was hugely distracting. He would almost have preferred it if Slade had broken one of his fingers instead. 

“Are either of you carrying any of these items today, Mr. Parry?” the attendant asked, pointing to the laminated chart with a series of pictures on it, showing handguns, scissors, and knives. 

Slade didn’t even look at it. “No.”

“I have the two of you in adjoining Qsuites. Is that all right with you?”

“That’s what I paid for.”

“You’re all set, then. Enjoy your flight, Mr. Parry.” She passed their fake passports back. 

“Thank you,” said Slade, already moving away. Dick followed half a step behind him, refusing to wince as his back pulsed in agony. This flight was going to be thirteen hours long, but he was damned if he was going to ask for stitches. If Slade wanted him to bleed, Dick was going to fucking make him watch him bleed. 

The security lineup when they got to it snaked in long, looping lines that was so densely-packed, it just looked like one solid mass of people. For the first time in his life, Dick was grateful for how slowly it moved. Despite Slade’s unsubtle glaring, Dick continued to lean against the metal railings every couple of minutes.

“Stop slouching,” Slade growled. The way he said ‘slouching’ implied a very different word. 

“I can’t help it.”

“You’re already taking painkillers.”

Dick’s hand closed around the metal railing so hard he could feel it biting into his palm. Having a secondary source of pain he could control gave him something else to focus on, at least for a few precious seconds at a time. “They don’t work as well as you think they do.” 

Slade’s countenance darkened further. “Then why even ask for them?”

“Because it’s better than nothing.”

The real answer was, because every now and then I need some actual indication that you still want to keep me alive, especially when you’ve just beaten the shit out of me. Dick’s normal pain tolerance was off-the-charts high, but asking Slade for pills he didn’t immediately need was a fairly good litmus test for whether the man still cared, once the storm of his fury had passed. 

The line moved by another three feet, and Dick shuffled forward without actually taking his hand off the metal support. Slade gave him the look that said they’d have words if they weren’t in public; Dick did not have the same problem. 

“I can lean on you instead if you’re jealous of the railing,” said Dick in a low voice. He’d scanned their surroundings already: the elderly party in front of them was hard of hearing, the trio to his right were completely absorbed in their own conversation, the family to his left didn’t speak English, and the young mother behind him was too busy dealing with her fussy toddler to attend to anything else. No one in their immediate vicinity was paying attention to them.

“Don’t be a brat,” said Slade, not looking at him. There was a warning in his tone that made Dick’s skin prickle. It made him think of ugly bruises and blood-soaked rope and gruelling tests of his endurance. But Slade was unlikely to do anything to him right now, and that emboldened him. 

“I have twenty-five pounds of shit in my backpack right now. If you don’t want me staggering, you could give me a hand.”

Slade snorted. “Keep whining and see if I bring you on another commercial flight.”

When the line doubled back on itself, Dick seized the chance to sag against the column at the bend with a soft, involuntary groan. His back felt like a thousand fiery needles were stabbing into it. The friction of the moisture-wicking panel on his backpack was making things worse instead of better. 

The makeup of the crowd around them changed. Dick glanced at Slade, who was focused on the contents of his phone, no doubt scrolling through a list of new potential contracts. The darkweb sites they used to sell Deathstroke and Renegade’s services were masked with several layers of encryption, and each marketplace had its own private lingo — an entire lexicon of merc jargon that would read as completely innocuous to the average civilian, even if one of them were tall enough to read over Slade’s shoulder. 

“Thought the client requested me specifically, this time,” said Dick. 

“You’re only on point for part A. I’m handling parts B, C, and D.”

They moved forward another five steps. Dick stumbled. Caught himself on a stanchion. Squeezed his eyes shut and watched the floating plasma shadows against his eyelids make ripples, like tiny explosions. Ow.

He opened his eyes in time to see Slade roll his eyes at him. Or rather, just the one eye — the glass eye stayed still while the real one moved. That always unnerved him. 

“Cut me a fucking break,” Dick said under his breath. Sweat was popping out along the back of his neck and running down towards his bandages uncomfortably. “I need more than five hours to bounce back from this.”

“You don’t need your back muscles to read the brief. Make better use of your time.” 

Slade’s freakish healing factor meant he had little patience or understanding for Dick’s injuries, including a shredded back. Dick exhaled carefully through his teeth. Sometimes — if he caught him at the right moment and said exactly what he wanted to hear — whether that happened to be a lighthearted joke, or a serious apology, or a plea for mercy — he could smooth things over without setting him off. Over the past two years, he’d learned a variety of tricks to sway the man’s moods in his own favor. But today wasn’t going to be one of those days.

Exactly sixty-eight minutes after they started lining up, they finally made it to the front of the line. 

Slade went first, pulling out two plastic trays from under the conveyor belt. With almost mechanical efficiency, he started depositing his things. His duffle bag went into one tray. His hat, jacket, belt, shoes, and wallet all went into another. Dick had to swallow and look away when Slade removed his belt. The sight of it sliding through those loops was inextricably linked to several…unpleasant…outcomes in his head, which filled his mind images and sensations he did not want, even when it was happening outside its usual context. 

Goosebumps broke out over his legs. The underside of his tongue went damp.

Something heavy bumped into the back of his knees suddenly, jarring him from his thoughts. It was the small child belonging to the mother behind him. He’d toddled over and was now examining Dick’s jeans with rapt attention.

“Leave the nice man alone,” the mother ordered. The toddler — who looked about two years old — ignored her. The mother gave Dick a frazzled, half-apologetic smile. “He’s rambunctious,” she said, tucking a blond curl self-consciously behind one ear.

“That’s all right, I know how kids are,” Dick reassured her. He glanced up to check the line and saw that no new openings for trays had opened up yet. Slade was already moving towards the milimeter wave scanners. Since he was looking away, Dick felt safe enough to put down his backpack and discreetly check his bandages. The toddler transferred his attention to the backpack by poking it with one chubby hand. Dick couldn’t help himself — he found himself smiling helplessly as the boy began tugging at one of the zippers. 

“We don’t touch other people’s luggage,” the mother said sternly. “Come sit in your stroller.”

Again, the toddler ignored her. 

Up ahead, Slade was ushered through the full-body scanner.

A new space opened up on the conveyor belt, and Dick gently extracted his backpack from the little boy’s grasping hands. “Sorry, buddy.” 

He stepped up and grabbed a tray. 

It had been awhile since Dick had last flown a commercial flight (they usually travelled via private jet), but Dick still remembered how the process went. The familiarity felt good — a tiny slice of normality for him to savor. This trip was one he’d earned. Six straight months of good behavior, with Slade’s promise at the end that he’d get to take a contract of his own choosing, at the location of his own choosing. Dick had picked Doha. 

In private, his relationship with Slade might fluctuate, but when they advertised their services on the darkweb, Dick always got equal billing. In public, at least, Renegade wasn’t Deathstroke student, or his subordinate, or his sidekick; he was Deathstroke’s partner. The distinction was important to Dick. It had been his one condition for staying; so it was the one demand Slade has always consistently honored.  

As he was waiting his turn for the scanner, Dick’s backpack disappeared into the belly of the machine. Behind it, his second tray of personal effects — wallet, phone, shoes, earphones, earring — stood at attention. 

“Passport?” The security agent held out his hand impatiently. Dick passed it to him. The man, who looked bored out of his mind even though it was still early in the morning, checked the boarding pass sandwiched inside. “Your flight is in less than forty minutes.”

“That’s kind of why I’m in a hurry,” said Dick, giving him a sheepish smile.

“This yours?” He pointed to the tray that Dick had been using.

“Yeah?”

The agent frowned. He reached in and pulled something out — a bottle of sunscreen. “You can’t have this. It’s 200ml. Over the limit.”

Dick blinked. Backtracked mentally. When had that appeared in his tray? “That’s not mine.”

“You sure? Because I’m going to have to confiscate it.”

“Someone else must have tossed it in by accident.” Dick swivelled and winced as the motion pulled at the cuts on his back. Within his line of sight were two holiday-goers in matching couple sweaters. A family dressed for somewhere tropical, like Hawaii. Big bald executive with a Rolex watch and two laptops in his tray. The young mother behind him was loading her stroller into a different machine. Her toddler was nowhere to be seen.

The baggage scanner suddenly made a beeping noise. Dick turned just in time to see a panel of red lights start flashing on the other side of the clear plastic divider. 

“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to come with me,” the security agent said, fully alert now. He grabbed Dick by the arm. 

Dick almost put him on the ground then and there. Every muscle in him twitched to do it. It took two deep breaths and a convulsive swallow before he could answer normally.

“Uh, sure. But why?” he asked as he let the man pull him aside. He darted a quick glance at the partition again, where he could just make out Slade’s distinctive white hair on the other side. 

Fuck. Slade was going to kill him when they missed their flight. 

At some unspoken signal, two more security guards approached them. One of them flanked Dick, while another brought up the rear. Okay, this was serious now. No sudden moves, he told himself sternly, repeating it on a loop as they frog-marched him past the mildly curious looks of rubbernecking onlookers. 

“Wait,” said Dick, remembering. “My backpack is still—”

“Your backpack is the problem,” the guard behind him said. Two more security personnel appeared, both carrying firearms. Now Dick was alarmed. What had they found? 

Dick carried no liquids with him, nothing sharp, no external batteries, nothing that could be dangerous. At most, they would find the bloody bandages in the plastic bag, but there was nothing illegal about carrying your own blood around. Was there? 

Shit. 

He was going to catch hell for this.

Ten minutes later, Dick found himself in an exceedingly plain, windowless room. Beige walls. Slightly darker beige linoleum floor. White interrogation table. Two unmarked doors. Two oak-panelled chairs. It looked like the room hadn’t been remodelled since the 80’s.  

Dick sat down and propped his chin in his hands. His heart-rate was picking up. There was no telling how much time this was going to take, and he wasn’t sure he had enough charm to talk himself out of a legal snafu right now. Then the door opposite him opened, and all his ruminations vanished in a thunderclap. 

Dick was on his feet before he had time to register it. The person who came in was so unexpected that it took his scrambled brain several seconds to come up with her name. 

“Talia?” 

“Sit.” She waved an imperious hand. “Let’s not stand on ceremony.” 

She was almost unrecognizable in her current getup. Dick had never seen her before with such minimal makeup, or with her hair pulled back into such a severe bun. For once, she didn’t have any fine jewellery on her. And to top it off, she was wearing — of all things — an airport staff uniform. It looked preposterous on her, like she’d decided to cosplay a TV character.

Seeing her outside the context of Gotham gave Dick a panicky feeling of dislocation. He felt as if two worlds were colliding in his head. 

“You are looking quite the worse for wear, Richard. Your back must be in a terrible state.” She sat down in the opposite chair and tossed something onto the table between them.

His backpack. The zipper was half-open and a scrap of bloody bandage was just visible between the gap. Dick sucked in a slow, furious breath. The idea of Talia pawing through his personal things was such a violation that his vision tunnelled. He wanted to reach across the table and strangle her. 

“What the fuck is this. What are you doing here.”

“If there had been another way for me to get you alone, I would’ve done so. But unfortunately, you seem to be under rather constant supervision.” Her eyes narrowed. “Your master keeps you on a very short leash.” 

Three people took up positions behind him, blocking the exit. Without turning around, Dick catalogued the rasp of leather boots on linoleum. The clink of knives sharp enough to split an insect’s wing mid-flight. The shush of heavy robes. These were not airport security personnel; these were Talia’s personal assassins. 

Dick rapidly reassessed the situation. He’d never gone toe-to-toe with Talia before, but given what he knew of her, his chances were not actually very good. In hand-to-hand combat, Talia ranked among the best, and she did not faff around with non-lethal blows and non-debilitating injuries. Of course, neither did Dick these days, but at the moment, he was very far from being in peak condition. Not only was he injured and outnumbered 4-to-1, but he also had none of his weapons or armor with him — hell, he didn’t even have his shoes right now. 

Fuck. Where the hell was Slade when he needed him?

Talia rolled her eyes. “There’s no need for dramatics. We’re not going to brawl in this ridiculously small room. It would be an absurd fight, and you’d be at too much of a disadvantage.”

“So what do you want from me?”

“Sit down and let’s talk.” 

Warily, he did as she asked. It wasn’t as if he had a better option. 

“This is a pretty elaborate setup if you just wanted to talk,” Dick pointed out. To impersonate airport security, commandeer luggage scanners, and get access to a room like this? That wasn’t something that could be done on a whim, not even if you were the daughter of Ra’s al Ghul. Talia must want something very badly from him. 

For the entire time he’d known her, Talia had never paid him more than a cursory amount of attention. He couldn’t remember a time when she had ever treated him like anything except a minor annoyance — a necessary obstacle to sidestep in pursuit of her ultimate goal. To have her looking directly at him like this, instead of right through him, was extremely unsettling. 

One of the guards moved and Dick tensed, but all they did was set a sealed bottle of water in front of him. 

Dick gave it an incredulous look. “I’m not drinking that.”

“I promise you it’s untampered with, but I can drink it first if you like.”

“I’m not touching anything you give me.” Did she think he was stupid? Talia was no doubt immune to plenty of exotic poisons that would be fatal to anyone else; mithridatism was a standard practice in the League. 

She shrugged. “As you like. Despite what you may think, Richard, I’m not here to hurt you, and I’m certainly not here to kill you. It is not even my intention to hold you hostage.”

Dick made a show of looking around the sealed room, discreetly checking for cameras or recording devices. “Could’ve fooled me.” Thankfully, the walls seemed to be devoid of electronics. 

“You may have noticed I haven’t put you in restraints.”

Dick spread his hands open and smiled his most charming smile. “So I’m free to go?”

She leaned forward and steepled her fingers, suddenly serious. “I’m here about Renegade.”

The name made Dick go still. 

Everyone in the dark, seedy underworld of world-class mercenaries was aware that Deathstroke had a partner. But Renegade’s true identity was always meant to stay a closely-guarded secret. Slade had spent a year training him to be scrupulously careful in how he carried himself, how he spoke in public, and how he moved in combat, because it was paramount that Dick keep a low profile. Everything Dick had done since then had been in service of this goal. It was why he wore a suit that covered him from head to toe. Why he used a voice modulator. Why his signature weapons were two scimitars and a semiautomatic. And why he never, ever, ever went near any of the caped set. 

Nobody from his old life was ever supposed to figure it out. 

But he had not accounted for Talia ah Ghul. 

She held up a hand to forestall his next words. “Whatever you’re doing, it has to stop. In the interest of saving time, I will tell you that around three months ago, I finally took note of what Deathstroke has been up to, and I have been closely watching him ever since. That’s how I learned about you.”

“Doing?” Dick echoed. Slade had always been careful not to take contracts that would put them at odds with the League of Shadows. It was, in his words, more trouble than it was worth. “What are you talking about?” 

She fished out a tablet and turned the screen towards him. The video showed an infrared heat signature rushing down a dark alley towards a group of men. “Are you saying this isn’t you?” 

Dick’s eyes flicked down and then up again. “That’s an orange blob running into a bunch of other orange blobs.” There weren’t even visible weapons in the camera frame, let alone distinguishing characteristics. It had been too dark for that. 

“Do you take me for a fool?”

“Talia. That could be anyone.”

“Deathstroke acquires a fully-formed apprentice ex nihilo and you did not think it would arouse my suspicions? One look at Renegade’s fighting style and I knew it was you.”

They stared at each other across the table. The silence stretched like taffy. Dick felt like he was being backed into a corner. Slade was going to hate the position she’d forced him into.

“Okay,” said Dick flatly. “You caught me.” He vividly remembered chasing down that particular target in the rain-slicked streets. Slitting the man’s throat with his own knife. Drenching his own boots with blood. “But what do you care about one Albanian mobster?” He jerked his chin at her tablet. 

“Nothing whatsoever.”

“Then what’s the problem? After all, aren’t we all in the same line of work here?” He swirled his finger in a lazy circle to encompass everyone in this room. 

Talia’s lips compressed with displeasure. “But you didn’t used to be. There was a time when you considered life precious. Sacred, even. What on earth has Deathstroke been doing to you?” She looked him up and down with a strange expression on her face. “Two years with him, and he’s turned you into this? This brittle, slavishly obedient, pitifully diminished semblance of your former self?”

“Oh, is this the part where we insult each other? I thought we were skipping it in the interest of saving time.” 

For a moment, she seemed to hesitate — an uncharacteristic move for her.  “They told me Renegade was a phantasm; an untouchable shadow; an assassin without equal,” she said finally. “But I didn’t believe the rumours until I watched you kill a man in Tirana.”

“You seem weirdly upset about that. It was just a job, Talia.”

“Which I presume you took at Deathstroke’s behest. What could he possibly have offered you, to make you willing to tear yourself down and rebuilt yourself completely, for his sake? A shelter and a home? The promise of an enduring partnership? The glory of professional success? The comforts of his bed?”

That last one irked, mostly because it implied at least three different things about him, only one of which was true. “That’s between me and him, and none of your business, actually.” 

Dick leaned back in his seat gingerly and studied her. This conversation was growing more and more baffling. He and Talia had never made their dislike of each other a secret. In fact, he’d taken it for granted that their mutual animosity would continue on forever, in perpetuity. But something was off about this whole interaction, and it was making him question his long-held assumptions. Talia looked almost grumpy about this, as if Dick’s choices were an affront to her. 

“I refuse to believe you have so little conviction, Richard. You are not someone whose morals are so flimsy that they can be casually set aside. If you were not seduced into this lifestyle, then you must have been coerced. Tell me: how did he force you into this travesty of a partnership? What hold does Wilson have over you, that you’d be so willing to comply with his demands?”

Dick wanted to laugh, but the expression on her face held him in check. “You know, of all the people who might lecture me for this, you were the last one on my list. Did you think he was blackmailing me? What if I told you I went to him of my own free will?”

The truth was that Slade had given him a standing offer once, a long time ago. Not out of obligation, or charity, or worst of all, pity — but simply because he’d wanted Dick by his side. And Dick had, well. In a moment of madness, he’d succumbed to desperation.

“Very well. Let's suppose you went to him of your own volition. My next question is this: why did you stay?" She raised a single eyebrow. "I know that he uses you. Abuses you. He’s cut you off from everyone you once knew and loved. Turned you into a plaything for his own amusement. What are you even getting out of this?”

Dick gave her a crooked smile. “Oh, come on. Let’s not pretend you give a damn about me, Talia. You never have before, and it would be supremely out of character for you to start now.” He rocked idly back on the hind legs of his chair. This put him five inches closer to his target — the knife hanging from the waist of the assassin behind him. If he could just get close enough — “Whatever he’s done, you’ve done worse.”

She didn’t bother denying it. “But I would never have done them to you.” 

Anger itched between his shoulder blades. Her hypocrisy was absolutely breathtaking. 

It wasn’t like he was blind to who Slade was. But when Bruce had ripped the Robin suit from his hands and kicked him out, Dick had lost the anchor to his entire universe, and all his purpose and drive and fire had gone with it. It had been worse than losing the sun on his face — until Slade Wilson came along with the pull of his inexorable gravity. Slade had been his lifeline — a rope to cling to in the directionless dark. And if that rope now sometimes felt like a noose, one that pulled tighter and cut deeper with every half-hearted struggle, well. Dick had made his bed. And now he’d have to lie in it. 

“I remember a time," she said, "when murder was anathema to you. You were raised by a man with a different code. Or have you already forgotten everything he’s taught you?”

They had arrived at the topic at last — the one he’d been dreading with every fiber in his being. Dick hadn’t even let himself think about him in so long that just the reminder was a jolt to his system, like touching a live-wire that he’d thought was dead. 

“He’s no longer in my life. Hasn’t been for two years now.” He kept his face carefully blank, as he always did when his past came up. 

“I may not agree with my Beloved’s priorities, but I have always respected his dedication. A man is defined by what he stands for, and an admirable man holds firm to his principles despite all opposition. I had assumed you would take after him in this respect, Richard. You once believed in his ideals. You upheld his principles as your own. Which is why I don’t understand why you have thrown them all away now.” 

“He threw me away first,” Dick muttered under his breath.

“Bruce Wayne would never —”

“Don’t.” Dick closed his eyes. Opened them again after an interval too long to be a blink. “Don’t say his name to me.”

A crease appeared between her eyebrows. “From all available evidence, Wilson’s appreciation of you doesn’t extend very far. Why endure it when you could return to someone who actually cares about you?”

This was so funny that Dick almost aspirated on his own saliva. 

Talia’s frown deepened. “Do you doubt his welcome?”

“Bruce—” the word felt foreign in his mouth; his lips hadn’t shaped the name in two years,“— has no use for me anymore. Or haven’t you heard? The first thing he did was replace me with some — some kid.” He spat the word out with a venom that surprised even him. The day he’d found out about Jason Todd, Dick had gone out and gotten blind drunk in a dive bar at three in the afternoon. The subsequent hangover had made him so sloppy on the job that he’d almost managed to lose his left hand to a skilled assailant. Slade had been furious. 

“That was a decision he made out of loneliness," she said calmly, "not malice. He thought that dressing another child in your colors would magically replace your presence in his life. That it would make him miss you less. But it never works out that way, and I told him as much."

Dick was so startled that he momentarily forgot all about trying to palm the knife off the guy behind him. “You still keep in touch? I thought you guys broke up, like. Three years ago.”

“I may have forsworn his love and a future with him, but I still have my reasons for keeping our lines of communication open.” 

Dick raised a skeptical eyebrow. Talia was almost certainly trying to manipulate him into something, but try as he might, he couldn’t fathom what her endgame was here. 

The door behind him opened. A sudden shout of, “Mama!” made his head whip around in surprise. 

Behind him was the young, blond woman who had been standing behind him in the security lineup, carrying the same little boy from before. 

“Thank you for your help, Kosola,” said Talia.

The woman put down the toddler, who promptly veered around the legs of the three guards and made a beeline for Talia. Dick made the most of the distraction by reaching backwards and slipping the tactical knife from the thigh holster of the guard standing to his right. Fortunately, in the commotion, nobody was looking at him. By the time he had the knife securely in hand, Talia had pushed her chair away from the table so she could bend down and scoop up the boy with one arm. 

“And how is my little lima bean today?” 

The boy burst into a burble of lisping Arabic. His cheeks were pink with exertion. He pushed the dinosaur hood off his head as he talked, his arms barely long enough to reach the top of his head. 

“We’re practicing our English today, remember?” Talia said in a sing-song, saccharine-sweet voice Dick had never heard her use before. “Try that again in English.”

Dick stared at her in disbelief. She sounded like she’d been possessed by Mary Poppins. 

“No,” said the little boy, petulantly. And then — “’m hungry.”

“Well you’ll get a snack now, because you did such a good job earlier. Didn’t he, Kosola?”

“Yes, he performed his duty admirably,” said Kosola, rounding the table to hand Talia a tote bag, from which Talia extracted — one-handed, without even looking — a little snack dispenser. 

“Did you put my present into the man’s backpack the way I showed you?” she asked, pointing to the backpack still sitting in the middle of the table. 

“Pack-pack!” The boy bounced up and down eagerly.

Dick started violently. “What?”

“Oh, he’s a natural at stealth.” Kosola beamed with pride. “Slipped that spoon right into the front compartment of his bag without the target even noticing.”

It took Dick several seconds to grasp that the target in question was him.

The toddler wiggled vigorously. “Poon!”

“Here you are,” Talia said, giving him a chocolate biscuit. 

Dick watched this scene unfold with a horror that did not feel appropriate to the situation. But the longer he looked, the more obvious the resemblance was. How could he have missed it earlier? Talia and the little boy had the same shade of hair, the same eyebrows, the same slightly upturned lip, the same scowl. And there was something else about the boy’s face, too. A niggling resemblance to someone else. 

“Oh, shit,” Dick whispered when the realization hit him. “You gotta be kidding me.”

Talia put the boy on the ground, spun him around, and said, “Damian, say hello to your big brother.”

The little boy (Damian, apparently?) gave Dick a suspicious once-over as he munched his biscuit. His eyebrows were ferociously furrowed. His cheeks bulged like a hamster’s. Then he spotted the knife dangling between Dick’s fingers and his eyes lit up like he’d just seen a puppy.

“Nipe!” He exclaimed, running over. 

Dick was aghast. “Absolutely not.” The words big brother echoed in his ears on a terrifying loop. 

“Be polite. Say please,” Talia instructed.

“Nipe pease!”

Dick hastily transferred the knife to the table as Damian attempted to climb his leg. For someone with such short, stubby arms, he was surprisingly strong. And persistent. To prevent him from slipping and falling, Dick was forced to reach down and grab ahold of his wriggly torso. Just like picking up a dog, he told himself firmly. He must have known how to do this once. When was the last time he’d held a two-year-old? God, he couldn’t remember. Probably back in his circus days, when he’d posed with small children after shows with his parents. It felt like two whole lifetimes ago. 

Damian scrambled up into his lap and Dick suddenly found himself with an armful of energetic toddler. 

“Let him have the knife if he wants it,” said Talia with an indulgent smile. “He knows how to use one.”

Dick boggled at her as he pointedly slid the knife further away from himself. Then he had to keep Damian from trying to clamber after it. “He’s two!”

“And three months,” she corrected.

“Like that makes a difference?”

Dick redirected Damian’s attention by spinning him around. The boy stood up on his lap, which put them almost at eye-level. Up close, the truth was even more manifest. Dick felt an impossible lump form in his throat. Bruce’s face — in the tiniest, roundest, most adorable form imaginable — peered imploringly up at him. 

“This young man is Dick, your big brother,” Talia repeated, because she was a devious woman who was not above using underhanded tactics. And Dick could tell it was a tactic because Talia had never once in her life called him by his preferred name before. “Can you say Dick?” 

“Dick!” Damian exclaimed. The word came out bright and startlingly clear. It rang in Dick’s head like a bell. Damian looked delighted with himself; this was a word he could pronounce effortlessly. 

Dick shot Talia a murderous look over Damian’s shoulder, but all she did was smirk at him. “Why don’t you give Dick a big hug, my darling? He’s in desperate need of one.”

Fuck you, Dick thought helplessly at her as Damian wrapped his arms obediently around his neck. His spiky hair tickled Dick’s nose. He smelled like cinnamon and chocolate biscuit. Two equal and opposite reflexes were at war inside Dick, and his body had gone still as it decided which one it wanted. He’d always thought he fell into the neutral zone re: babies, because he found them cute in an abstract, aesthetically-pleasing way, but he’d never had any pressing desire to get up close and personal with one. Nothing, however, could have prepared him for a child that 1) could address him by name, and 2) could look up at him with Bruce’s eyes. 

Vaguely, he got an inkling that he might be in trouble. He’d severely underestimated the depths to which Talia would sink.

While Damian grabbed a long hank of his hair in fascination and pulled it free from its elastic tie, Talia took advantage of his utterly immobilized state to say her piece.

“I know Renegade is not who you truly are, at your core. You once had plans for making a name for yourself outside of Batman’s sphere of influence. What happened to that dream?”

Jarred by the non-sequitur, Dick blinked. Two years ago, he’d drawn up the preliminary designs for a new suit and shown it to Bruce, hoping for his approval. He’d wanted to base his new identity on a Kryptonian legend, to demonstrate his complete break with Batman. But the idea had fizzled out after he lost the resources of the Cave, and he hadn't thought about it since. Nightwing would only ever exist as a drawing in his sketchbook. Why the hell would she bring it up now? Come to think of it, how did she even know about this?

“Have you been asking after me, Talia?” He kept his voice light. “Never thought you’d be this obsessed with me. Should I be flattered?”

“It offends my sensibilities to see you so beaten and broken down, you know. You used to have a certain lightness about you; a certain joy. And while your current relaxed morals do not bother me, I suspect they may be having a deleterious effect on you. Even now, you are wracked with guilt and regret over the men you’ve killed, because you simply do not possess the aptitude for this line of work. Deathstroke has forced you into a shape you were never meant to be. I see that clearly in the ghosts that haunt your every step. I would save you from further pain, if you would let me.”

“It’s a bit too late for that,” said Dick between pursed lips. Damian was squeezing his cheeks between his hands. “What was the plan here, anyway? Steal me away from Slade and then spirit me back to your own residence at Nanda Parbat? Where you can use me against Bruce? Because that’s not going to happen.”

“If I were planning to use a child against my Beloved, I certainly don’t need you for that; I have Damian.”

Dick’s next words were cut off because Damian picked that moment to try and stuff his entire fist inside his mouth. Dick caught his wrist, but all that did was make Damian giggle. He seemed to think this was some sort of game.

“I am not some unfeeling monster, no matter what you may think,” said Talia. “My Beloved has been searching fruitlessly for you for two years. And I could no longer stand by and let you suffer when I had the power to do something about it. If you don’t believe that I care about you for your own sake, can you believe that I care about you because Bruce loves you?”

Dick felt his world tilt askew. Every aspect of this conversation had come out of the left field for him. He couldn’t come to grips with what she was saying. “You mean loved. Past tense.”

Bruce had loved him when he was younger and things were simpler, but Dick had a difficult time conceiving of it still being true now. In their last year together, storm clouds had hung over their every interaction. They couldn’t get through a single conversation without it devolving into an argument. 

“He still does. I don't think he's ever stopped.” She cocked her head, shifting into a oddly focused state like she was retrieving a very specific memory. Her voice grew soft and fond with musing, “Do you know what he said to me three years ago the night I proposed to him?”

“…You…proposed?” Dick had never heard this story before. Bruce hadn’t ever mentioned it. Which must mean it hadn’t worked out.

“I was happy and in love. It happens.” Her lips quirked self-deprecatingly, like even she could not believe she had once been such a romantically-inclined person. “He said yes, with one caveat. He told me that while he was happy to marry me, he would always be your guardian first before he was a husband. He was adamant that his responsibility to you would come before his marriage.”

Dick turned this over in his head several times, feeling genuinely baffled. Why would Bruce feel the need to give such a caveat? Dick had aged out of his state-funded wardship the day he turned eighteen, which meant Bruce no longer had any obligations to him, not even in the eyes of the law. It wasn’t like he’d adopted Dick or anything. There were no legal or blood ties between them whatsoever. What the hell was he talking about? 

“It didn’t change how I felt about him, of course.” Talia sounded very matter-of-fact. “I accepted that he would have other priorities before me. I would never ask him to give up the things that mattered the most to him. It was enough for me that we loved each other.”

“…So why didn’t it work out?”

“In the end, other things separated us. Circumstances. Ethical differences. Conflicts of interest. My father.” Her expression was complicated. There were strange dimensions to it that he could not decipher. Bitterness, perhaps? Regret? “But for the entirety of our relationship, he always told me that you were the light of his life. That choosing you was the best thing he’s ever done. That nobody has ever made him prouder. Nothing I could do would ever change that. You were always the first in his heart.”

Dick startled gaze met hers. His chest constricted like someone was pressing his lungs between a vise. It sounded too much like what he’d always secretly hoped for, to be true. It felt too much like self-delusion. 

“I don’t know why you’re telling me this.” His throat felt thick. If Bruce had really cared, then why had he kicked him out?

“There is a way forward, Richard. A way home.”

Then again, he couldn’t figure out why Talia would make up a story like this either — not when it put her at such an obvious disadvantage. 

He thought about the lines he’d crossed. The things he’d done as Renegade. He’d dug himself so, so deep. And with every month he’d stayed with Slade, he’d compounded his mistake. Leaving wasn’t possible anymore; where could he even go? Who would want him with his hands so sullied? 

“I don’t belong in Gotham anymore,” he said quietly.

“If you doubt his forgiveness, I can assure you he has forgiven me of things ten times worse, with half the contrition on my part. But perhaps that’s not the real question. Have you asked yourself whether you can forgive him?”

Dick snorted. He couldn’t help himself. “That's a funny question.” 

“I do not pretend to know what caused this rupture between you, but I would not be surprised if he were more at fault than you. He can be callous and emotionally inept in ways that cut right to the bone.”

The reflexive urge to defend Bruce rose up inside him — an old, ingrained habit he thought he’d successfully broken. Talia always managed to bring out something petty and juvenile in him. Nobody insults him but me. Dick bit his tongue.

“Be honest with yourself, Richard. How long are you going to punish him for his mistakes — and yourself for yours?” 

The accusation should have made him bristle, but exhaustion had crept up on him all of a sudden. He was bone-tired. Too tired, even, to be angry. While Damian played with his blue hair-tie, sliding it up and down his arm like a bracelet, Dick concentrated on his breathing. He made sure to keep his eyes dry, despite the pressure building in his head. He’d burned all his bridges with Bruce years ago. 

“Are we done here?” he asked. 

Talia threw up her hands. “Well, I tried. The choice is yours. I will not make you do anything you don’t want to do. I am simply putting the option in front of you.” 

She stood up and rounded the table. Dick tightened his grip around Damian — a reflexive, unthinking reaction. But Damian twisted around with a happy cry of, “Mama!” which put Dick in a quandary. Talia crouched down until she was at eye-level with her son. “I suppose we’ll have to defer that visit to Gotham till you’re older, my darling.” 

“Wait.” Dick’s blood ran cold. “Does Bruce know…?” 

“No. After we went our separate ways, I decided it was better not to inform him.”

“But you… you plan to tell him eventually?”

“I had initially planned to bring you back to my Beloved in person, with Damian in tow, which may have made for a very…revealing visit. But I’m certainly in no rush. If you are not amenable, then there’s no reason for me to stop by Gotham today. I’ll simply return to Nanda Parbat instead.”

Of course Talia would raise her son in her father’s impregnable fortress. What did he expect? Dick had visited Nanda Parbat only once  in his life, but while its beauty was unsurpassed, its brutalities had horrified him. Every chamber and courtyard had been overshadowed with reminders that this domain was under the exclusive control of Ra’s al Ghul. Slade would sometimes talk about it like it was a foreign country under an oppressive dictatorship. And Bruce used to make oblique references to his training there — grim anecdotes that always left Dick furious on his behalf, for what he’d suffered — but even that did not fully capture the scope of his loathing. Privately, Dick had always felt that the placed was ontologically cursed; staying there too long would poison the soul. 

“You can’t seriously —” he exhaled harshly. “Nanda Parbat is no place for a child.” 

Talia gave him a cool look. “I didn’t realize you were such an expert in children that you’d feel comfortable telling me how to raise my own son.” 

Damian reached for his mother again, but Dick found himself suddenly reluctant to let go. Furious at being caged, Damian burst into tears. His wails sounded like a nuclear bunker siren. 

“Hand him over,” Talia ordered. 

In one expert maneuver, she extracted him from Dick’s grip. Damian’s crying continued unabated for several more minutes while his mother rocked him with slow, swaying steps. By the time he was down to the odd hiccup, his little face was streaked with tears and snot. He shot Dick a hurt, betrayed look over her shoulder, and Dick’s heart twinged in his chest. 

“He won’t have a life there, Talia. It’ll ruin him.”

She raised her eyebrows at him. Infuriatingly blasé. “So you agree, then, that there are conditions no child should grow up in?

“Of course I—”

“So you understand my concern when I look at you?”

That one took a second to land. Dick scowled. “I’m not a child.”

“Like that makes a difference?” She had the audacity to copy his tone as she threw his words back in his face. “Are you impervious to his cruelty because you’re nineteen and not nine?” 

Dick glared at her as she patted Damian’s face dry with a handkerchief that had little black bats printed all over it. Then she murmured sweet nothings into his ear. Dick swallowed the lump in his throat and felt it lodge in his gut — a live coal that burned. 

When he glanced behind him, he saw that at some point, the guards had vanished. The tactical knife he’d stolen lay unattended on the table (eight inches of Damascus steel, wickedly serrated on one side, long enough to pierce a human heart from every possible angle of entry) but Dick had lost the urge to pick it up. Talia was no threat to him right now, and there was no universe in which he would attack her while she was holding a child. 

Where was Slade? What was he doing now? The sub-bass thrum of urgency that always accompanied these questions, humming along in the background of his thoughts, had lost its usual edge. All his projections of what Slade would do when he found out, when he had Dick back, when he had him alone — they usually occupied his every waking moment. But for the past twenty minutes or so, every single one of those thoughts had gone mysteriously silent. Their sudden and complete absence felt suspect. 

Something about having a toddler in the room had upset all his usual calculations. 

“If you wish to go back to him, by all means. The door behind you is unlocked.” She tilted her chin towards it. “My men will not stop you.”

The muscles in Dick’s body grew rigid. He considered his backpack. The exit at his back did not feel like safety anymore, though he could not quite articulate why. Talia’s words circled his head like a threat — like a vulture peering down at a corpse it wanted to make a meal of. 

The thing he hadn’t dared let himself want was right in front of him. So close, so real, it didn’t feel possible.  “And if I stay?” 

“Then I take you with me. I have a plane waiting on the tarmac. There is a seat for you on it.”

She made it sound so simple, when it wasn’t. “My partner is going to tear this airport apart looking for me.”

“Let him come. Do you think Slade Wilson frightens me? Who do you think I am?” She made a dismissive sound. “The day I let Deathstroke get in my way is the day I renounce my inheritance and give up leadership of the League.” 

The weird part was, Dick completely believed her. He was used to thinking of Slade as unstoppable — a force of nature to be reckoned with. But Talia was a goddamn nightmare in her own right. Usually, the people who claimed they weren’t afraid of Deathstroke were either stupidly arrogant or completely ignorant, but Talia was neither. She might actually be one of the few people who could take Deathstroke in a fight head-on and emerge unscathed. When it came to viciousness, ruthlessness, and sheer bloody-minded determination, she could match him inch for inch. 

It was a strange thought to find comfort in. 

This day was full of strange revelations. 

For so long, Dick had been treading water, desperately alone. He’d resigned himself to the fact that no help was coming. And now, to find it being extended from the unlikeliest of places — from the last person he’d expected —

The situation was so surreal, he wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. 

“How would you like to see your father, Damian?” Talia asked her softly-sniffling son. “Do you remember the stories I told you about—” she lowered her voice to a faux-spooky whisper, “—the Batman?”

Damian perked up immediately. “Baba?” His head swivelled intently around the room, like he was already expecting to see him. “Where Baba?”

“He’s in Gotham, darling. Inside his big house, where he’s probably having breakfast with his butler at this very moment. But we’ll have to wait for Dick to decide whether we’re going or not.” 

Dick closed his eyes and listened to the quaking of his own heart. If he didn’t give them a reason to go back now, how many years would it be before Talia decided to bring her son to Bruce’s attention again? Eight years? Eighteen? Never? Underneath his own uncertainty — a clear, bright thread of resolve solidified. Bruce might not want to see him again, but he’d definitely want to see Damian. And Damian, who had never done anything wrong in his life, deserved to meet a father who would adore him. 

If he couldn’t do it for himself, he’d do it for Damian. 

“All right,” he said, conceding defeat. You win, he thought at Talia, glaring at her. “Let’s go to Gotham.”