Chapter Text
It’s like a set of puzzle pieces that don’t fit together. The parts refuse to cohere into a whole.
Jason is dead. Jason is in front of him.
Jason is his little brother, is a hero. The Red Hood is a crime lord, one who named himself after the Joker.
Dick has to keep his secret. Jason can smell him. He knows.
The brick is rough underneath his fingers. Damp. The light is dim, the streetlights barely reaching this alley, the moon behind a cloud. It’s quiet. He can hear his own breathing, harsh and just slightly too fast, matched by the person in front of him.
He can see Jason’s face.
His eyes are bright, green, wide and alight in an eerie and unnatural way. There’s a shock of white at the front of his hair. His face is heavier, no longer that of a fifteen year old, older and more worn, lines that weren’t there before etched deep around his eyes.
His scent is the same.
Somewhere, back at the cave, there’s a protocol for this. A set of things Dick is supposed to do, when confronted with the unexplained return of a dead hero or loved one. There are check questions. Blood tests. Other heroes to contact, to screen for magic and all the other ways this could go shatteringly wrong.
His scent is the same.
“Jason,” he whispers.
Jason flinches. He glances away for only a moment. Then his eyes snap back, fixed on Dick’s face. His scent is roiling, still, with fading surprise and with rage.
Dick’s comm crackles. “N, what’s going on?” he hears Barbara ask urgently.
He doesn’t answer. Can’t imagine how he would even begin to answer. He can’t stop staring. Something like shock has settled over him, and he’s suddenly numb when he had been desperate and panicked only seconds before.
“Why are you even – what are you –” Jason starts, almost... frantic? Frustrated? He heaves a sigh and runs a hand through his hair, tugging on the white shock before letting it fall away. “Who f*cking did this?”
Dick can’t feel his limbs. Nothing feels real. It takes him a second to even comprehend the question. His lips part, almost not of his own accord, and form soundlessly around an answer he doesn’t give. He shakes his head, which makes his vision blur dangerously. Looks away.
Jason is alive, he tests the thought. It’s like a fever dream. He even feels flushed and achy, like he’s actually running a fever. He wants to reach out, to clutch and paw at him, to see if he feels warm and whole and alive. Dick’s fingers twitch towards him, but his arms are too heavy.
Jason steps forward. The meager light from the streetlamp reflects off the red helmet in his hands. “Dick, answer me,” he says, voice low and beseeching. “Tell me who did this to you.”
“Did what,” he croaks, inanely, as though they can’t both smell his scent in the air.
Jason’s eyes flash a brighter green. He growls, a deep alpha rumble of anger. Dick recoils, instinctive, but he’s already against the alley wall and he can’t back up any further. Jason shudders and his eyes squeeze shut, and the growl cuts off.
“You – last time I checked, you were an alpha, Dickiebird,” Jason snaps. He sounds almost like he’s choking. “And I can f*cking put two and two together, okay? And – and you can’t have t-told B, ‘cos even he –”
Jason cuts himself off. He takes another deep breath, and opens his eyes. There’s – there’s a shine of tears in them, which doesn’t make sense, doesn’t fit anywhere into the picture Dick’s rapidly losing grasp of.
He starts again. “Cos even he wouldn’t have let you out on patrol like this. Which means he doesn’t know. So – so someone hurt you, they f*cking – they made you – ”
He stops again. Dick realises he’s avoiding the word.
“... Made you an omega,” Jason finishes, finally. “And you didn’t tell anyone.”
The silence draws out long and thin between them, disturbed only by Dick’s thundering heartbeat, and by both their breathing. Dick’s, still hoarse and ragged, and Jason’s, wet and choked with fury.
“... Nightwing?” comes Tim’s voice over the comm, tremulous, unsure. Dick winces.
He can’t – he can’t find the words. He needs to answer. Has to tell Jason – tell Tim and Bruce and Barbara – that Jason’s wrong, that it’s okay, that it’s nothing so terrible as they’re imagining. The words don’t come. He opens and closes his mouth uselessly.
He’s shaking, he realises. Adrenaline crash. They know now. They know.
Even he wouldn’t have let you out on patrol like this. What does that – that means something. He was off tonight. Aching, feverish, emotions and instincts heightened. He’s sore, from the fight, but there’s a tight, gnawing pain in his abdomen that doesn’t feel like a bruise.
Oh. He’s starting to cramp. Which means – his first heat is coming on. Soon, maybe even in less than a day.
That’s – there’s – he’ll feel someway about that, once he can get out of the feverish fog of shock and disorientation. His vision is still fuzzy. The ringing in his ears never stopped.
His tongue is dry and heavy in his mouth. Jason is still staring at him, expression intense and furious and sad and – f*ck, Jason is alive –
“Dick!” Jason snarls, and curses when Dick flinches back so hard he knocks his head against the brick. “f*ck – just,” and his voice suddenly drops, fills with intent, a command, “Dick, listen to me. Give me a name. Tell me who did this.”
Dick feels it wash over him, shuddering as it settles. Tell me who did this. A command, expected to be obeyed. Give me a name. And – Jason is pack, and he’s an alpha, and not two minutes ago he had Dick pressed against the wall of the alley, defenseless and beaten and helpless.
It’s instinctive, the obedience. His mouth moves without him meaning it to.
“Deathstroke,” he rasps.
There’s a moment’s pause. A gasp, a low wounded noise, over the comms. Then –
“f*ck! f*cking – Jesus f*ck!” Jason yells, turning away. Dick jumps.
Jason pulls his fist back, like he’s about to punch the wall, but stops himself. He takes a few more steps away. His arms – his whole body is visibly trembling. He leans up against the wall, arm braced by his head, turns his face into his shoulder and lets out a muffled yell or scream. f*ck, he sounds devastated.
The only thing Dick can smell in his scent, under the boiling mass of pure, terrible fury, is grief.
The words won’t come. Dick needs to tell them they’re wrong. His mouth is full of cotton wool and the words won’t come.
Jason looks back to him. Dick tries, desperately, to just f*cking say something, because Jason’s expression is terrible, deathly still, eyes shining and so, so angry.
“I’m going to kill him.” His voice is utterly flat. He looks down at the helmet, still held in his hands, then back to Dick. Something in his expression cracks as their eyes meet. Jason turns away.
He puts the helmet on.
A noise – some kind of protest – startles its way out of Dick’s throat. Jason doesn’t turn around.
“The Bat will be here soon. I know he’s in town. “ The mechanised voice is back. Jason is walking away. Dick can’t help but keen, high and desperate, and Jason shudders but keeps going.
His brother – his little brother who is not dead – is walking away from him. Dick tries to get to his feet, to go after him, but his limbs are shaking too hard to hold his weight and he collapses back where he was.
“Just sit tight,” Jason says. His voice is tightly controlled, sounding just like Bruce on one of his worst days. “It won’t be long. Your pack will be here soon.”
The sting of that – of the wall Jason deliberately puts up between himself and Dick’s pack – hits a deep hurt that has Dick choking down a howl.
Jason pauses at the alley entrance, taking one last glance back. Then he’s turning the corner, out of sight, steps growing distant.
“I’ve got a mercenary to put in the ground.”
Getting on his bike is blur of green and self-loathing and rage.
He doesn’t know where he’s driving to. He knows he sent off a series of demands to every minor drug ring and gang the Red Hood has subsumed, to every informant he’s got, for any information on Deathstroke’s whereabouts. He doesn’t know what he’s going to do when he gets it, how he’s going to kill a near unkillable super soldier, but he’s sure he can get creative.
Jason replays the fight in the alley in his mind, over and over.
He knew something was up from the start, but he ignored it. Dick’s situational awareness has never been so bad as to let someone get the drop on him who wasn’t even really trying, not unless he’s sick or injured. And his fighting was muted, not just slower and clumsier but tamer. None of Nightwing’s acrobatic tricks, no snide remarks. He was on the back foot the whole time.
Because he was going into heat soon. And out on patrol anyway. So Dick’s self preservation clearly hasn’t improved at all while Jason was off being dead.
He doesn’t think he’s ever been this furious. Not even fresh out of the pit, when he’d seen a replacement in his suit and his murderer languishing in a cell rather than buried in the ground.
Deathstroke raped and bitched his brother and Jason is going to end him.
He doesn’t think he’s ever going to get the smell of Dick’s terror out of his nose.
He’d pinned him to a wall, torn his blockers off – Dick had been begging him – Jason feels sick. He hurriedly pulls his bike over in a side street, yanks his helmet off and bends over double as he dry-heaves.
f*ck. He grimaces, tries to force the rising tide of self-loathing down. And he’d just left him there, alone in an alley, freshly re-traumatised and without even a scent blocker to protect him. He glares at the helmet in his hands, something that started as another way to get under Batman’s skin and somehow started building towards a symbol of protection for Crime Alley.
Some protector he is.
He’s never thought of Nightwing as someone who needs protecting.
Jason picks himself back up. He doesn’t put the helmet back on, stashing it on the back of his motorcycle. Batman will find Nightwing in no time, his suit no doubt laden with trackers. Dick will be fine.
He didn’t find you, something whispers. Jason steadfastedly ignores it.
He waits there for a moment, leaning on his bike, struggling to make his hands stop shaking and get his breathing under control.
His phone chimes – a response to his information demands from a group in the Upper East Side the Red Hood’s been putting out feelers with. That was fast.
He looks at the message, and in an instant everything is green.
It’s a struggle to even surface from it. It’s utterly overwhelming, the depths of fury that swallow him seemingly bottomless, a choleric wash of pure wrath. He’s moving without thinking – he knows he’s back on the bike, driving somewhere – but all he can see is green green green.
Deathstroke is in Gotham. He’s been spotted in the Upper East Side, a brief glimpse of orange and black noticed by a rookie dealer having a smoke on a rooftop. He’s here.
It takes a few minutes before he becomes faintly aware of the wind whipping past him, the roar of his bike, the stench of his own wrathful scent. With tremendous effort, he pulls himself back up to coherency, to let himself think.
He needs to make a plan. He can’t just rush in, not against an opponent as strong and skilled as Deathstroke is. He’ll just get himself killed, again. He needs a plan.
It’s so hard to think against all the green.
For Deathstroke to have even been spotted, he must have been here for a while. He isn’t usually stationary for very long. Does he have a contract here? Or – did he follow Dick back from Blüdhaven?
The realisation almost pulls him under again, and he snarls, biting his lip to fight it off. It creeps around the edges of his vision, tinting everything he looks at, lapping at the edges of his mind. He can’t think past it. He’s not sure he wants to.
Jason’s already in the Upper East Side. The address he has for the rooftop the mercenary was spotted on isn’t far. A few minutes at most with his bike.
Time to make Deathstroke pay.
Tim is definitely freaking out. He can spot the signs. The problem is he can’t right now, because Bruce is also freaking out, which is a much bigger deal, and also confirmation of just how absolutely terribly the second half of this patrol has gone.
And it’s Tim’s job to help Bruce – well, it’s Robin’s job to help Batman – so Tim is keeping a lid on it, and only crying a little bit. He really wants to sob and cling to Bruce like a kid, but Dick is s-still alone, so he can’t.
Because Dick is hurt, has been hurt, so profoundly and devastatingly and Tim should’ve spotted it, and he did see some of it, but couldn’t put the pieces together –
Nope! Tim is not spiralling! He cannot afford to spiral right now. The situation could not be less about him. With herculean effort, he turns his focus deliberately away from everything going on and narrows it down onto what they are doing.
Batman and Robin are speeding across the rooftops, heading right for the Bowery as they have been ever since “The Red Hood” came over the comms. It’s an easy, well practiced rhythm, leaping between adjacent buildings and grappling to cross streets. Almost normal, except for how quickly they are moving.
And except for Bruce’s expression, what Tim can see of it under the cowl. He maintained the stoic Batman facade through the whole fight – cracking horribly when Dick said Jason’s name – then finally splitting wide open into absolute devastation as they heard what had happened to him.
He hasn’t got it back under control since. Tim’s not sure he’s even tried.
“Nightwing,” Bruce is saying. His voice is ragged in a way Tim hasn’t heard since his early days as Robin, when a flash of green and red in his peripheral vision was enough to set him off into a spiral of grief and anger. “Nightwing, has the Red Hood left?”
For a few moments, there’s no response, the only sound the clunk of their grappling hooks lodging on to the next rooftop and the rush of wind as they swing.
“... yeah,” Dick says at last. It’s concerningly hollow. “He left. B – B, it’s him. It’s Jason.”
Bruce’s face pulls tight. “We can’t know that until we check,” he says.
“It’s him. His scent is the same,” Dick says, frustration creeping into his voice, which is at least better than – than – Tim is actually trying really hard not to think of how Dick sounded, when he admitted that Deathstroke was the one who hurt him.
“Okay,” Bruce says, his voice still raw but deliberately softer now. “It’ll be okay, Nightwing, we’ll find him again, and we can make sure.”
Quiet, for a moment, just the ambient sounds of the city and Tim’s feet scraping as he runs across the rooftop. Batman’s stride is controlled and silent beside him.
Then, they hear the scuff of shoes against cobble through the comm, hasty and ungainly as though Dick’s getting to his feet in a hurry. Tim feels a spike of alarm, but there’s no sound of anyone else. Only Dick’s footsteps as he starts walking.
Bruce jumps to respond immediately. “Nightwing, stay where you are. We’ve reached Coventry, we’re almost to you.”
“I can’t. He’s going after Deathstroke. I – I have to stop him,” Dick says. He’s heading quickly towards something, rapid footsteps echoing over the comm line.
There’s some clattering, then the sound of glass shattering, and a thump that sounds distinctly like a car door.
“You don’t know where he’s going. We don’t have any intel on where Deathstroke could be. N, we need to regroup,” Barbara says. She doesn’t sound like Oracle, now, her upset and desperation taking over from her usual unflappable demeanour. “Are you – are you hotwiring a car?”
Bruce starts to say something, too, but Tim doesn’t hear him as he’s hit with a sudden realisation.
Dick’s acting as though this is urgent. Like he knows Jason will be able to find Deathstroke soon. Like – like maybe he’s nearby.
And abruptly, he remembers the note Dick had before patrol, and feels cold all over.
“Nightwing,” he cuts in desperately, not caring for once that he’s talking over Bruce. “Is Deathstroke in Gotham?”
There’s a pause. A few more grunts and sparks come over the comm, and then the sound of an engine roaring to life.
“Look – I promise, I promise I’ll explain it all when we’re back at the cave,” Dick says, which is not at all an answer to Tim’s question, except for how it is, and Tim has a very bad feeling about all of this.
“You need to head there now, Nightwing, and let Agent A check your injuries,” Bruce implores.
“I’m okay. He didn’t – I’m not that injured,” Dick says, like they didn't all hear the fight go down, didn't hear the shot. “So I just – I just need to find Jason, and then it’ll all be okay.”
“N,” Barbara begins. “Please, you can’t go after Deathstroke on your own.”
“O, it’s – it’s okay. Deathstroke didn’t hurt me, not really, and – and I asked for it,” Dick says, like he’s pleading with them. Tim sucks in a breath so harshly it carries over the comms, and Dick swears. “sh*t. That sounded – I didn’t mean it like that. I meant – f*ck. I don’t think I can explain it over comms.”
“That’s okay,” Bruce says, and his voice is still scraped raw. “Please, just stay where you are. We’ll be there soon, and you can tell us then. But just stay there, please.”
“I can’t,” says Dick miserably, and beside Tim, Bruce’s pace stutters for a moment. “He’s going to get himself hurt, and I can’t leave him, B, I can’t.”
“Nightwing –” Bruce starts, but Dick interupts him.
“I’m sorry. I’m gonna – I’ll let you know when I get there,” he says, and then Tim and Bruce’s comms both let out a quiet chime.
Dick has dropped off the line.
Tim feels a surge of dread. “Oracle –”
“I’m on it, I’m tracking him,” Barbara says. Her voice shakes only a little. “He’s taken off towards the Upper East Side. Sending you an updated route. I’ll let you know if he changes direction.”
“Thank you,” Bruce says. He looks haunted.
“Just - please find him. Please,” she replies. “Find them both.”
“We’ll find them,” Tim promises.
He’s not sure if he believes it. And he doesn’t know what state they’ll be in, if they do.
Dick pulls his stolen car into a hastily executed park outside the address Slade gave him. He scrambles out, heart in his throat, and glances around. There’s no one watching on street level, but – there. Up on a rooftop two buildings over.
Slade is standing on the edge of the roof, beckoning him. Probably clocked Dick the moment he arrived, but then it’s not like he was driving with any kind of stealth. Slade’s in full Deathstroke armour, mask and all, and when Dick gives him a nod, he leans down to –
To say something to the person splayed out beneath him, flat on his back with Slade’s boot pressed into his chest, thrashing out wildly but not getting anywhere.
Jason. Dick’s stomach flips.
Dick touches his earpiece to turn his comm back on as he hurriedly scans the building for a way up, spotting the fire escape as he turns the corner into a laneway. He begins shimmying up it, ignoring the ache that flares in his joints as he climbs.
The line crackles to life immediately. “Nightwing!” Barbara says. Dick feels a pang of guilt at the sheer relief in her voice.
“Hey, O,” he says, swinging up a set of stairs. “Sorry about earlier. I’ve found Red Hood, but he’s found Sl- um, Deathstroke, and it doesn’t look like it’s going well, so I’m going in.”
“I’ve sent Batman and Robin your new position,” Barbara says, after only a brief pause. She doesn’t bother trying to persuade him to hold back, and maybe it’s only because she knows it won’t work, but Dick feels a burst of affection for it anyway. “They’re not far from you now. Just – just get yourselves out. I’ll point you in their direction after.”
Dick’s nearly at the top of the fire escape now. “You’re not patching B in?”
“Do you want me to?”
No. He doesn’t know what kind of mood Slade’s going to be in, but it can’t be a good one. And Bruce still thinks – well. Whatever’s going to happen, it’s better for him not to hear it. At least not until he listens back to it after patrol, the way he always does, but by then Dick will have been able to finally explain everything.
“No,” he replies. “... Thanks, O.”
“Anything for you, Boy Wonder,” she says. It could be a joke, except for how watery her voice sounds.
Dick pulls himself up off the fire escape and onto the roof. The smell of alpha is thick in the air, Slade’s coppery scent mixing with Jason’s earthy one, the stink of aggression-anger-challenge coming off both of them. Jason’s is soured with defeat, and Dick’s stomach twists.
Jason’s on his front, now, and his hands are bound behind his back, attached to another rope that’s tied around a roof fitting. Not something he’d have difficulty getting out of, but it’ll take time, and Slade’s knee is pressed into his back. He’s been disarmed, and he’s gagged. His red helmet isn’t anywhere to be seen.
This – could be really bad. Slade hates being messed with, hates being interrupted, and he’s never passed up a chance to screw with Nightwing when he’s angry. And it’s always felt dangerous, of course, it’s Deathstroke, but he’s never had Dick’s little brother pinned to ground to threaten him with.
Their last meeting is still something that, weeks later, Dick just doesn’t know how to feel about. Dick has seen firsthand now how Slade feels about him. Remembers the possessive lust that filled his scent, remembers the pain of the violent fight and sex that followed, even though Dick had been the one who initiated the whole thing. And the strange tenderness that came after that.
He abruptly feels desperately, achingly alone without his pack at his back. “Actually,” he murmurs over the comm, “Could you put them on? I just – I just need to know they’re there. But don’t let them hear if – if things go bad.”
“Of course,” Barbara says softly, and there’s a click as she connects Batman and Robin’s comms.
Dick takes a deep breath and walks forward. Slade looks up as he approaches.
“Let him go, Slade,” Dick says evenly, and draws his escrima sticks.
“I don’t think you’re in a position to be making threats.” Slade pulls Jason’s head up by the hair, and Jason snarls something unitelligible around the gag. His eyes flash green.
Dick grips his weapons firmly and tries not to let the fear show on his face or leak out into his scent. He feels the chill from the windswept rooftop down to his bones.
“You know,” Slade continues conversationally, ignoring Jason’s snarls and struggles, “I almost shot him right away when he stormed up here, all righteous fury and alpha posturing. But then he said something interesting.”
“What’s that?” Dick asks warily.
Slade’s eye narrows. “He mentioned you, little bird. Said he was going to kill me for what I did to you. And I think I remember telling you that I don’t want to be dealing with vengeful bats.” His tone turns deadly.
Dick freezes.
“So, little bird,” Slade says, “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t crush his ribcage right now and be done with it.”
Jason lets out a pained wheeze as Slade leans down and presses his knee in between his shoulder blades, grinding him into the ground. Hard.
“No!” Dick bursts out, taking another step forward. “Don’t, please. Don't hurt him. I'll - I’ll do anything.”
At that, Slade stills. He stands up and turns to face Dick fully, leaving his back to Jason, who immediately starts working at the bounds on his wrists, eyes never leaving the two of them.
Slade steps toward Dick. He’s close enough to touch. “Anything?” he says softly. The voice modulator only enhances the dangerous tone in his voice.
Dick sets his jaw. “Anything,” he says.
“You know what I want, little bird,” Slade says. He steps even closer, bare inches away, and pulls his mask off. Jason growls and redoubles his struggles behind him.
He has a pretty good guess. After all, his own scent is also thick in the air – acrid and stressed, yes, but there’s an undertone of sweetness to it, forewarning of his upcoming heat. And there’s also the matter of the note that arrived this morning, like Slade somehow knew this was coming.
But he’s not going to give him the satisfaction of being the one to say it, of anticipating what Slade is after.
Swallowing, Dick meets his gaze. “And what’s that?”
Slade’s face is smooth as stone, impossible to read, but his scent is thick with copper and the edge of something else. He licks his lips, and Dick almost takes an involuntary step back.
“Right now,” Slade says slowly, “I want you to put those fancy glow sticks of yours away. And then I want to see you get on your knees.”
There’s an explosion of noise in his ear and he winces as Barbara, Bruce, and Tim all start talking at once.
“Nightwing, Batman and Robin are minutes away from your position –”
“Don’t listen to him, Nightwing -”
“Do not put yourself in danger, that’s an order -”
Dick glances behind Slade to where Jason is lying, still working on getting his wrists unbound. Jason’s expression looks utterly wrecked. He raises his head to face Dick, looks him right in the eyes, his own still glowing an angry green. Jason firmly shakes his head.
Slade doesn’t even look as he levels his gun at him.
“Or I could shoot him now, and then make you anyway,” Slade comments idly. “Doesn’t matter to me.”
A surge of fury and terror seizes through him and Dick doesn’t sink so much as stumble to his knees.
“Don’t,” he croaks. “Don’t, I’ll – Leave him alone. I’ll do what you want.”
He sets hisescrima sticks down to his left. Slade tilts his head to the side, gun still pointed straight at Jason’s forehead, and Dick reluctantly gives them a push and rolls them away.
He feels utterly vulnerable without them, kneeling and weaponless with Slade towering over him. He can hear someone – Bruce, maybe, or Barbara – begging him to get out of there. They mix with Jason’s wordless protests and the ringing in his ears.
Slade leans down to card a hand through his hair and cup his chin. He shudders.
“You look so lovely like that,” Slade murmurs. “Beautiful.”
Dick nearly chokes as Slade reaches down, but he’s only going for one of his belt pockets. He only realises that it’s the one where he keeps his mask solvent when Slade pulls it out.
Slade straightens up and begins to dab solvent around the edges of the Nightwing mask. Dick doesn’t look at Jason, but knows he must have clocked that Slade didn’t have to guess which pocket it was in.
The mask is peeled off his face, and he feels bare.
“There we go,” Slade says. He tilts Dick’s head up by the chin, smoothing a gloved thumb over his cheek. “No more hiding, little bird.”
Jason has managed to get up on his knees behind him, despite his arms still held awkwardly behind his back. Slade still has his gun out, held loose at his side in one hand as he caresses Dick’s face with the other, and suddenly Dick can’t take this.
“What do you want?” he whispers, plaintive.
Slade’s face splits into a truly terrifying grin. “I want you, little bird. I thought I had made that clear.” His hand moves down, pressing over Dick’s scent gland, releasing a wave of his bitter scent into the air.
A smaller pulse of sweetness folows it, and Slade inhales it almost hungrily.
“I knew you’d smell delectable. Even better than you did as an alpha,” Slade tells him. Dick shivers. Slade pauses, as though considering something, and then his smile gets mean. “It’s only pre-heat, but why don’t we see how early a claim bite can take?”
Dick hears less than a second of the protesting shouts and frantic reassurances through his comm. The blood roaring in his ears is too loud to make out any of it anyway, and just as he’s made his declaration, Slade reaches a hand to Dick’s ear. He plucks out the comm between his index and his thumb and crushes it.
The tiny pieces slip through his fingers onto the roof. Dick watches them fall, the reassurance of having his pack at his back snuffed out in an instant. Numbness settles over him.
Slade tangles his fingers in Dick’s hair and pulls his head down and back harshly, exposing his neck. Dick’s breath stutters. He can’t get any air in. There’s something buzzing under his skin. Slade’s scent is thick in his nose and his own, already bitter with stress, is souring with fear.
Behind Slade, Jason’s protesting shouts have become shrill.
Slade bends down, sets his teeth against Dick’s neck. They scrape against the skin of his gland and he seizes in panic, just barely forcing himself to remain still as he remembers the gun that could be turned back on his brother at any moment.
Slade’s breath is heavy on his neck. Dick gasps, waiting for him to clamp down and seal the bite –
He doesn’t.
What?
After a moment, Slade pulls back, releasing his neck from his teeth, one hand still in Dick’s hair. His scent is smug, satisfied, but he hasn’t done anything.
“What?” Dick gasps out, because it doesn’t make any sense.
Slade chuckles. He leans in to murmur in his ear. “Not yet, little bird. I think my point’s been made.” It’s said low enough that Jason won’t be able to catch it from where he’s lying.
Not for the first time tonight, it feels like Dick just cannot get his brain to comprehend the situation. “What?” Dick says again, and his voice cracks.
Slade grins, and it’s smug, but also soft. He knocks their foreheads together gently. “I’ll see you soon. You’ll know how to find me,” he says.
And then his hand moves from Dick’s hair the back of his neck, firm and possessive, and squeezes at his scruff, and the hazy wave of submission crashes over him and pulls him under.
“Don’t follow me,” Slade says, from somewhere far away, and then he’s gone.
