A Darker Path AU fic: Negotiations

[sylph_fics]

This is a side-fic to Broken Pasts, Darker Futures, the Renegade/Roy fic of darkness and pain. It occurs beforehand, but is quite deliberately being posted afterwards.

Title: Negotiations
Characters: Dick, Slade, Rose
Rating: PG? for language
Summary: Surprising Slade is never wise.
Feedback: God, please.


Dick never looked away from Rose at the sound of the door slipping open, frowning as she lost the flow and tried to force her way through the basic sequence, "Rose stop. You can't power through this, it's not judo. If you don't get this right, you'll break something when you try to do the more advanced moves. Take a minute, unwind a little, and try it again. Everything builds from this, it has to be as easy as breathing."

"Take an hour, Rose. Dick, I need you." At those commands from Slade's voice, Dick was in motion, turning to look at Slade with a curious tilt of his head. "What's up?"

"Business. Time for you to start earning your keep. Rose, no practicing that without Dick here. You owe me an analysis of 'The Book of War', and I haven't seen you working on it," he reminded her.

"Da-addy!" Dick had to work to hide a smile at her whine, he remembered hating the book-work more than anything, but it was critically important, and she needed to learn it. The intricacies of tactics, strategy, and the history of conflict were even more important for someone in their profession than it had been for him.

"It and the 'Book of Five Rings'. By the end of the week." The 'for whining at me' might as well have been verbal.

"So, are we talking here, or otherwise?" Dick asked, wondering what the sheaf of papers in Slade's hand was all about with a flare of fear.

"Conference room. There's something of a rush on this, we'll need the space to plan."

Dick nodded and turned to head out the door, squelching the worry that tried to surface. He'd known this day was coming, the day Slade would test his loyalty the first time. //Don't let it be Tim. Please, not my baby brother.// He pushed the door open and held it, then followed Slade to the table, sat down--and shock ripped through his heart as Slade flipped the folder open and let the photographs slip across the table with that soft, glossy rustle.

//The Outsiders...// the thought was dizzy with shock. //My team... oh, oh gods... Focus, Dick,// the ruthless, brutal part of himself that Slade had awakened snapped into his mind, pulling his posture to perfection as he settled himself to negotiate this test.

"Our target. We're being paid a truly impressive sum to eliminate them. I think you have some useful knowledge."

"I do." //I can't, I can't// "What was the exact wording of the contract?"

"It's in the folder, kid."

Dick reached out, not letting his hand shake as it touched the photographs. He flipped through them to find the contract below, and read over it, lips pursing. "Your buyer wants the team eliminated, it says, not necessarily the mem--"

"Boy. Don't. No-one hires me to disable."

The warning in Slade's voice stopped him cold, made him drop any thought of trying to save his team--but maybe, just maybe, he could manage to save one. "I realize that. And I'll help you. Give you everything you need. The access codes, the camera placements, when they'll likely be asleep, full rundown on all of them, everything I know--but I want one thing, maybe two depending on how you look at it."

"You're not saving your girl, boy. Forget it." The flat anger in Slade's voice would have surprised him... if he didn't remember Addie Kane begging for death.

"Not Kory. I know you won't let her go." He did... but that didn't make the need to dismiss her death any more horrible. //I'm sorry, Star,// he thought, heart aching, but he didn't have the time to grieve. Not now. Probably not ever, given how Slade would view that softness.

"Roy. Let me have him." His hand rested on the photograph he'd tried so hard NOT to notice, fingers splayed across his chest. "And his daughter, Lian. Let me protect her.

He saw Slade's eye widen, and nearly smiled at surprising him--but he kept it behind his eyes. There was no sense whatsoever in antagonizing him, not when he wanted something. No, he had to handle this so carefully...

"I was planning on you asking for Kory, kid--I'm surprised. Now, why don't you tell me why I ought to let anyone I've contracted to kill live. As to the kid, I think that can be arranged."

A sudden thrill ran through him at the admission, and he could have cried for joy that he'd secured at least Lian's safety. If Slade said he'd do something, he did. He could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times he'd truly startled this man... but Slade had never been more dangerous than on those few occasions. Dick didn't swallow hard, didn't allow his body to betray his desperation or his voice to tremble as he started trying to buy his best friend's life. "For one, he could be valuable. You know Roy's past almost as well as I do--you know what he's been. He's killed, and he'd do it again, with reason. He's smart, better with a gun than I am, and practical--when it counts. He--"

"And none of that is not why you're asking. Try again."

"May I finish, first?" he asked, eyes on Slade's cheekbone, trying to hang on to his composure. The cold implacability rolling off Slade was making it hard not to just beg--but this was a test.

"If you insist."

"All of his skills aside, he'd give you the appearance of a lever on Green Arrow, his son, Green Lantern, and Black Canary, for a start. Also, protecting Roy--and Lian--will infuriate the living hell out of Cheshire, which I know you'll enjoy. Then there's Lian... she shouldn't have to grow up without her father, right?"

He worried, for a heartbeat, if that had struck to close to home for Slade, if it had reminded him of the way he'd lost the chance to raise his children, but Slade nodded--just barely--and Dick let himself breathe. "So, Kid. Keep talking. You still haven't told me the real reason."

//Damn it.// "He's my best frien--"

"Kid, you're a good liar, but not that good, and you're beginning to annoy me. You can give me all of the reasons you'd give other people later, but tell me right now why the idea of Harper dead is making you want to scream."

"Because he's mine," ripped out of his throat before he could stop it, and he took a deep breath before saying it again, softly, carefully. "He's mine. Slade, please."

He never heard the movement, but Slade was suddenly beside him, hand tangled in his hair to pull his head back, force his eyes up to meet Slade's. "Yours? Yours, how, boy?" there was dark danger in that voice, but he faced it--he had to, for his lover's sake.

"He's..." he licked his lips. He'd never said this aloud, never told anyone just exactly what Roy was to him--and there was a terrifying sense of freedom in finally telling someone. "He's my lover. My submissive. My pet. He's mine. Slade, don't make me kill him..." He knew his eyes were begging, knew how wide they were... //please, please god don't make me kill my own.//

Slade tilted his head, his single eye lit consideringly. "Yours, hmm? And Koriander isn't?"

"Kory was never mine the way Roy is, and hasn't been my girl in a long time. She... didn't understand that part of me. Roy always has. Sl--"

"Quiet. Let me think."

Dick went quiet, watching the flickers of expression as Slade thought--and every beat of his heart was a prayer, a single word, //please. please. please.// Eventually, the mercenary arched a brow. "Do you really think he'll still be yours, Renegade? After this?"

The question lanced through him like a bolt, cut to the heart of his remaining fears, but he made himself answer firmly. "He's mine. He always wil be. I can bring him around." //Roy, don't prove me wrong, love...//

"Sure of that?"

Oh, that was dangerous... "He's either mine... or he's just another hero. I won't let him go." //He'd never be just another hero, you can't mean that!// some small part of his mind screamed in denial, but Slade had to buy that, he had to sound like he meant it, like he'd rather kill his lover than lose him...

And from the slow, almost proud smile on Slade's lips, he'd sounded enough like he meant it.

"If you really think you can bring him over, I suppose I could stand for merely... acquiring... one Outsider. The contract doesn't specify the execution of all members, as you so cleverly noticed. And you're right, the boy does have quite a few useful skills--he might be good backup for Rose, she's not a shootist yet. Neither are you."

"I know, but I'm learning..." He'd learned to shoot to be a cop--but never to the level of proficiency Slade and Roy wore so easily. Bruce's hatred of guns had run too deep through him until now.

"Yes, you are... very nicely," he felt himself flush at the praise, trying to drop his eyes--and Slade's hand tightened again, pulling them back up. "Back on the topic of your pet. Let's get one thing very, very clear. I'll let you save him, but you. belong. to. me. You can play whatever games you want to with your boy, but you are mine. Are we clear?"

"Yes, Slade," he nodded as best he could with that hand tight in his hair. "We're clear. I'm yours, first and foremost."

"Good boy," Slade loosened his grip, letting his head drop out of the painfully pulled-back hold, and stroked his hair. "Oh, and kid?"

Fear lashed through his spine at those light words. "Yes, Slade?" //What ace have you just drawn?//

"If he doesn't admit to being yours, if you haven't made him yours again, within twelve hours of the Outsiders' deaths... It's your responsibility to kill him. I'm not ready for you to be exposed yet, and I won't have an angry, bitter hero trying to escape my home. I also won't clean up your mess, if he's more devoted to his ideals than he is to you."

Agony lashed through him and he could feel part of himself begin to weep at the thought, but there was only one answer he could give. "Yes, Slade. I'll handle it--but it won't come to that."

"We'll see." Slade didn't sound certain. "You've got your deal, boy. As long as the archer's yours and out of the fight, he and his daughter are part of the family. If you can't change his mind, he dies at your hand... but I think we'll keep his daughter. I wouldn't trust her mother to care for a whipped dog, after all."

Only years and years of training kept Dick from breaking into tears of pure relief. "Thank you... thank you..."

Slade stroked his hair again, down his cheek. "You can thank me properly later. Now, pull it together. We have a hit on a mainly-meta proactive strike team to plan, and it needs to go down in the next three days. One more thing... you're lead on the hit. So plan well."

Dick nodded, breathed, and sat up straight. "Who's available to tap? It would be do-able with the three of us, but I'd rather set metas on metas, honestly. Grace is a tank, and Thunder's just as bad. Jade's dangerous as hell if she has even a minute to react..." and he started planning out the death of the team Roy'd built from scratch on Batman's legacy. Fitting, somehow, that he would be the one to destroy it.