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There’s something thrilling about fighting Deathstroke, even if someone’s life is on the line, even if nothing about it should be fun. But measuring your own skills against someone so much stronger and just plain better than any regular human he’s ever faced; Dick has no idea how anyone can not get a rush from it.
In his defense, the enjoyment he gets out of this never makes him forget what’s on the line here. That losing doesn’t just mean being at Slade’s mercy—which might be pretty merciful some days, and land him with broken bones on others, and there’s no way to tell which way it’ll go until it’s too late.
Losing also means letting Slade take a shot at someone, at a person, and it’s a shot Slade won’t miss.
So Dick keeps fighting, past exhaustion, past the aches in his muscles and the ones spreading across his skin. He knows every rooftop around here, and uses every shred of what little upper hand that gives him to lead Slade around on a chase that, if he’s lucky, will last long enough to let Slade’s target escape. All he has to do is delay Deathstroke long enough, though doing that is much harder than it sounds.
By the time he starts slipping, he’s managed to keep Slade occupied long enough and then some, and it feels like a victory. Dick is floating on the feeling of accomplishment even as he goes down.
“Too late,” Dick says, breathless with exhaustion and elation both. “You missed your window.” And maybe reminding Deathstroke he just successfully messed up his contract isn’t the best path to take here, maybe he’s tempting fate, but he won. He’s never been very good at being humble about his wins. Usually he can rein himself in as much as politeness requires. But when has he ever bothered being polite to Slade?
And then he’s on the ground, rooftop gravel digging into the side of his face and Slade’s weight keeping him down. Slade pulls him up enough to get him in a headlock, and growls his words in a way that makes Dick think he’s just a little bit winded as well.
“That’s not what my contract is about.” Slade sounds out of breath, but not angry. If anything, he sounds smug. Dick’s thoughts screech to an unexpected halt. The arm around his neck tightens, making him lightheaded.
And for the first time since Dick found out Deathstroke had taken a contract in his city, Dick feels real panic, like white noise spreading through his veins. He’s too worn out by the fight to react fast enough or to do anything at all to get out of the hold. There’s a sting right above the collar of his costume, and Dick spends the last ten seconds before the tranquilizer knocks him out drowning in waves of fresh fear.
Dick wakes up. That’s about the only good thing.
The less good parts are, he wakes up hanging from the ceiling of what looks like a large shed. The tips of his toes barely reach the floor and his hands are cuffed. He probably hasn’t been hanging here very long, since the strain of holding his entire weight isn’t too bad on his wrists, not yet.
A second look around tells him he’s definitely no longer in the city. The shed or cabin, or whatever it is, is at best in someone’s backyard in the suburbs. At worst in the middle of nowhere woods. Going by the hard to miss lack of sounds from the outside, despite the walls definitely not being soundproofed, it’s looking more like the latter.
So yeah, things aren’t great. But Dick did wake up, so there’s something Slade wants from him other than to just take him out.
Despite what the dusty room in the middle of nowhere with a table covered in tools makes it look like, what Slade wants must not be information. He would know better than to expect anything he could do to Dick to get him anything useful. Really, he would have just asked, if that was it. Or very likely kidnapped someone and then asked for the information as ransom, because he sucks at asking for help.
Dick might be the one getting ransomed this time. But that can’t be it either, since that whole song and dance would only work between Dick and Slade. If Slade tried it with Batman, he’d get absolutely nothing. Plus Dick really doesn’t want to answer the questions it would raise, so he hopes Slade isn’t about to try blackmailing Batman.
While Dick runs through the options in his mind, Slade finishes whatever he was doing with the pile of tools and turns his attention to Dick. He must have known Dick was awake the second he came to, so there’s no point in playing dead. Dick doesn’t even try.
“So, nice weather we’re having? I can’t say I was planning to hang out with you today, but you know, plans change, people get abducted. Things happen.”
If he had expected Slade to tell him what the hell all this is about, he would have been very disappointed just about now. Slade says nothing, and steps right up into Dick’s space. A flash of a blade—Dick inhales too fast, mind still muddled and working through the dregs of his interrupted panic—and the Nightwing suit gives.
“Has anyone ever told you you’re terrible at small talk?” Dick mutters after he takes a second to make sure Slade’s only cut the suit and hasn’t stabbed him or anything.
Slade doesn’t even pause. He’s probably heard that one a lot, since he’s so awful at small talk.
He cuts through the reinforced material like it’s regular cloth. And then keeps cutting it, taking the whole costume apart. Dick tries to twist away as much as his precarious position allows, but all that gets him is Slade pulling him close, his back to Slade’s chest, and holding him there with one arm around Dick’s waist. And continuing to cut up Dick’s costume with sure, unhurried slashes.
It doesn’t stop Dick from trying to fight it, the opposite really, since bracing himself against Slade’s body helps him get more leverage. But all he gets for the effort is a few shallow nicks where Slade cuts right through all the layers and the cool blade skims Dick’s skin.
“That only makes me enjoy this more, kid,” Slade says, when Dick tries another futile twist that doesn’t quite manage to get him away from the knife. For a moment Dick freezes, thinks about the position they’re in—bodies pressed together, one of Slade’s arms around him, and maybe he’s more than just holding Dick in place. Maybe he’s more feeling him up than restraining him every time Dick’s struggling gives Slade the excuse to reposition his hand.
And that’s— Dick should be worried about it, but he’s approximately a hundred times more concerned about what Deathstroke’s real contract is than with the fact Slade might cop a feel while he cuts all the trackers and panic buttons out of the suit.
He isn’t worried about the possible groping. He isn’t. But between one second and the next his body feels flushed, his blood rushing like he’s in freefall, adrenaline making everything feel crystal clear and too loud at the same time.
And he keeps struggling, but now he can’t stop noticing.
The way Slade’s hips are lined up just so against Dick’s ass. The way Slade’s hand really does slide lower than would make sense for just holding him still. The way Slade takes his time, like he’s enjoying the task. And how by the time he’s done, Dick’s costume is hanging down in shreds around his waist, which is a lot more damage than was necessary just to get the trackers.
Hell, there’s no way Slade brought him to his sketchy murder cabin in the woods without first disabling all the trackers on him, so no amount of cutting up the suit shouldn’t have been necessary at all.
For a moment after Slade puts away the knife, he stays right there, both hands on Dick’s hips, just holding him there. He’s so close that Dick can feel the heat of his breaths against the back of his head. Can feel the way the Deathstroke armor digs into his back and how Slade’s grip on his hips tightens until it starts to ache, until Slade’s fingers must be pressing bruises into Dick’s skin.
“Stay right there, kid. You’ll be free to go soon enough,” Slade says, and his voice is so low it’s almost a whisper. And then he lets go, and steps away from Dick, and for a moment it feels more like a disappointment than relief.
Then he’s too busy running through the options, through all the people that might have hired someone as high profile as Deathstroke just to keep Nightwing out of the way, and out of the way of what. Slade boots up an extremely well reinforced laptop that Dick somehow missed and does… something. And Dick does consider just waiting for the end of whatever this is. It’s not like he’ll get back in time to stop whatever he’s being kept away from, if he really is as far away from the city as he suspects.
He could just wait it out.
Hell, that’s a lie. He’s absolutely terrible at following orders when those orders are ‘stay’.
He gets out of the cuffs in a couple of minutes, and that’s because he wastes time debating if he should. Slade doesn’t look surprised when Dick drops down on the floor, hands free of the cuffs.
He looks up from the screen, not even a little concerned about his hostage getting free. But there’s something. Some kind of tension in his body despite not gearing up for a fight.
“Like I said, you can try to run, it’ll just make it more fun for me. You really think you want to test how carried away I’ll get, if you make me hunt you down?”
Dick watches him warily as he rubs the soreness out of his wrists. Slade doesn’t even try to pretend he’s saying anything other than what they both know he is—he leers at Dick’s bare chest openly. A very different type of threat than any of the ones Slade has ever made against him before. And Slade doesn’t really make empty threats.
Dick is startled by how very grateful he suddenly is that Slade left the lower part of the suit mostly intact. It would be far too revealing standing here otherwise, with the way his body is reacting to everything that’s happened. To what Slade is threatening to do to him. To the decision before him that Dick suddenly really doesn’t think he should be allowed to make.
He’d laugh and try to deflect, treat it all like another joke, like he thinks Slade isn’t serious, but neither of them would believe it. And he has a suspicion that if he starts to laugh now, he won’t be able to stop, and he’ll give all kinds of things away with how hysterical he’ll probably sound.
He should be horrified. And afraid probably, he’s distantly aware. But mostly Dick just feels horrified by the intensity of the arousal that slaps him in the face when, despite his best efforts to not think about it, his mind goes to what would happen if (when, it’s really, really a when) Slade caught him.
He’d blame, hell, anything. Drugs or some type of Ivy’s pollen for his own reaction. Except he’s not feeling even a little bit mindless. He’s at least as afraid as he is turned on, and he’s pretty sure he wouldn’t feel the fear, if he was drugged.
This isn’t—this is new, and maybe Slade’s been interested, who the hell knows what he thinks, but he’s never… This has never been an option, and this almost but not quite a choice he is offering is more than Dick knows what to do with. Because just like being told to stay, it’s not really a choice, and Slade must know it.
“How much of a headstart do I get?” Dick asks as he carefully edges backwards, in the direction of a window.
A raised eyebrow makes Slade almost look surprised, but then he just smirks and keeps typing on the laptop like he isn’t tracking Dick’s every move. “Does it matter? It won’t help you.”
The moment he looks down at the screen, Dick bolts out the window, and yeah, outside is completely green. Forest in every direction, and no indication which way will give him the best chance of escaping.
Dick picks a direction and runs. The soft, uneven ground makes him feel slow, too used to hard concrete.
Nothing happens at first. Slade doesn’t follow him, at least not immediately. So the further Dick runs, the more he thinks he might actually get away. Maybe everything Slade said, all of it was just to scare him. Maybe the contract’s already over anyway, and this was just a way to get Dick to leave now that he was no longer needed.
Thinking about that is a good way to distract himself from thoughts about what he’ll do if Slade wasn’t bluffing. If his threats were very real.
They probably weren’t. Were they?
Dick keeps running.
And then he hears a sound. Quiet, but it feels deafening in the absence of all the background noise he’s used to. A second after that all he can hear is the rushing of his own blood.
The panic makes his skin feel too tight, somehow both numb and burning at the same time. He tries to listen, to figure out which way to go, but everything is silent again. So he chooses a direction away from the cabin and keeps running.
The second time a sound makes him freeze up in fear, he feels like a rabbit hiding from a wolf. Worse, since a rabbit would probably have a better chance at escaping than Dick does.
And it keeps happening—the flashes of panic that make Dick’s heart skip a beat, and he is still so impossibly turned on. He now knows without a shadow of doubt that it is really fucking uncomfortable, running while he’s half hard. And with how long he’s already been running, it doesn’t seem like his body is about to calm down. His cock apparently thinks fear adrenaline is just as good as any other.
Dick blames Slade for putting the thought in his head. Slade, who’s most likely just going to have some fun scaring him and then will just knock him out. Or kill him. It’s not like Dick ever forgets that’s a likely option when dealing with Deathstroke. But that’s not the thing that makes Dick’s heart speed up at every unexpected sound.
He never actually sees Slade until he’s already down on the ground, after Slade tackles him and Dick can’t even shout his surprise because his lungs are burning from running for so long.
And then he’s caught.
For a long moment his mind is completely blank, void of anything but the way Slade’s hands feel on his wrists, on his body as Slade manhandles him onto his front. Until he’s face down on the ground again, a much softer surface than the rooftop gravel this time. He feels Slade’s weight on top of him, the hard armor digging into his skin where his costume no longer covers it. Slade holds both of his wrists down with a single hand and with the other one pulls the rest of Dick’s clothes off.
It isn’t until he’s completely naked, that the reality of where this is going hits him.
That’s when he finally starts to struggle against Slade’s hold. Despite knowing from the start, despite Slade’s extremely unsubtle threats, despite images of something just like this flashing through his mind the entire time he was running, it didn’t—it wasn’t real. And now it feels very real, and Dick feels—
“I did warn you,” Slade says, growls, so heavy and inescapable above him, and then bites the back of Dick’s neck, giving him a spot of pain to focus on.
He’s drowning in panic and so hard he’s aching.
“Look at you.” Slades free hand roams across Dick’s skin, all of it bare for him to touch. “You make such nice prey. You’ve been dying to have someone hunt you down and take you apart, haven’t you?” Slade keeps talking, and Dick wants to argue, wants to cut Slade with his words, to make it clear how very wrong Slade is about him. But when he opens his mouth all that spills out are harsh, heaving breaths.
“You’re mine now,” Slade says with something like finality. The way his hand is palming at Dick’s thigh feels just as possessive as the words. Dick shivers and says nothing.
Slade bites his shoulder, and then the weight on Dick’s back disappears, and a moment later he’s being flipped over. Dick doesn’t get a good look at Slade’s face at first because Slade is biting a bruise into Dick’s neck. Then he does see him, and Slade looks—satisfied and excited. Like he’s barely holding himself back for how much he’s anticipating what comes next.
With Dick on his back, there’s no longer any chance either of them can miss how hard he is. Slade doesn’t even mention it, doesn’t bother making fun of him for it, like he expected nothing else. Which doesn’t make sense, because Dick sure didn't expect this, didn't know he would feel this way until it was already happening.
Slade pushes Dick’s thighs apart, leans down and—Dick arches up, mouth open on a silent scream, when Slade bites the inside of his thigh so hard he breaks the skin.
Dick tries to pull his hands down, now that Slade is no longer holding him by the wrists, but something still won’t let him. He has no idea when Slade even did it, when he had the time to tie Dick’s hands up, or what they’re tied to.
And then Slade is pulling his own clothes out of the way, pulling his cock out and Dick feels another spike of panic. The feeling of Slade, a hard, hot line against his ass makes him struggle harder, to twist his hands against the bonds and try to kick Slade. All Slade does is push Dick’s legs to the sides and chuckle, amused at Dick’s attempts.
“Oh, no?” he asks, too amused to be expecting any kind of answer from Dick. “Don’t think you get a vote, kid.” He wraps his hand around Dick’s cock, an extremely effective way to put a stop to his struggles. And with the other hand lines himself up, the tip of his cock pressing against Dick’s hole.
That almost makes Dick speak up, to ask him to stop for real, though he’s paralyzed for a long moment by indecision, when he realizes that’ll mean finding out if Slade would stop or not. And then Slade is stroking him fast enough to make bursts of white explode behind his eyelids. And by the time he gets used to feel of Slade’s rough, calloused hand on him enough that he can focus a little bit more, Dick realizes that he’s still okay, that Slade isn’t actually about to fuck him dry.
Probably isn’t about to. Everything still feels a moment away from going wrong, and Dick can almost taste his own fear at the back of his throat, but—
But every time Slade makes the pressure of his cock feel on the edge of real danger, presses forward only almost hard enough to force his way in, Dick’s cock jerks and goes impossibly harder. Knowing Slade could make this go from good to very very bad any moment makes it better. And if the way Slade is looking at him with rapt attention, hungry for every flash of fear, keeping Dick on that edge of uncertainty is exactly what he wants.
He keeps almost fucking Dick, and just like when he was running, every time Dick feels another jolt of panic, despite expecting it. Because every time could still be the one where Slade decides to keep going. And every time he doesn’t, Dick gets more and more dizzy from the rush of it until he almost thinks he wants it—wants to know what it would feel like if Slade didn’t stop.
His gasps and almost-whines sound far too loud in the silence all around them. Dick tries to stay quiet, to swallow his moans, but there’s nothing to muffle himself against in reach so he only half succeeds. Slade jerks him off fast and hard, and all of it together makes Dick balance on the edge of unconsciousness when he comes.
When Dick blinks the sweat out of his lashes and looks at Slade, Slade is wiping his come covered hand on his cock, slicking himself up. Dick’s mind is full of static, so he just stares and tries to commit the image to his memory. Fuck.
“See, I can be nice,” Slade says, probably about the fact he made Dick come, but Dick would take just the sight of Slade between his thighs, spreading shiny come on his own cock.
“So how about you be nice in return and take it?” By the time Dick’s sluggish mind follows the words to what they mean in that specific order, Slade is already pressing in, so so slowly.
The come isn’t nearly enough, not with no real lube and no prep, and Dick is both very afraid and very hard again, far too soon. Slade is definitely big enough that it hurts, but he goes so slow it’s also good. And Dick expects him to get faster, but Slade doesn’t speed up. Not when he’s finally, finally all the way in. Not even when he has Dick so worked up he tries to push back into the too slow thrusts.
He could still go much faster and make it really hurt, and knowing that keeps Dick on a different kind of edge. But Slade is right there, above him and inside him, and looking down at him like Dick is the only thing worth looking at in the world. And Dick—
Arches up off the ground and comes again.
He feels hazy longer the second time, and comes back to the feeling of Slade’s thrusts going uneven as Slade finishes inside Dick.
“I could keep you just like this,” Slade whispers against the side of his neck roughly. “Full all the time, until you forget you were ever anything other than mine.” His voice sounds like it might break if it was any louder than the harsh whisper it is. For a moment Dick wants to wrap his hands around Slade, keep him close. But his hands are still tied, and the moment slips away when Slade recovers just a little more.
He braces himself above Dick and rolls his hips, still hard, and apparently very willing to go again, and determined to pretend he didn’t just whisper what Dick is pretty sure almost amounts to a confession coming from him.
“Want to bet I can make you beg for it?” Slade asks with a smile sharp enough to cut. Dick shudders, oversensitive, and wraps his legs around Slade’s waist anyway even as he’s shaking his head. “No? How about a bet that I can fuck you long enough you’ll beg me to stop?”
He does fuck Dick again, faster this time. And again, and there’s only so many times Dick can get it up. Unlike Slade, it seems, who keeps going long past when Dick feels absolutely spent and exhausted. Dick stays most of the way conscious until Slade comes a final time with a sound so viscerally satisfied it almost makes Dick wish they could go just one more time.
He’s most of the way unconscious for the rest of it—for Slade redressing him in what remains of his costume, and delivering him back not just to Bludhaven, but to his real apartment.
Dick wakes up alone, sore and a complete mess.
Apparently cleaning him up wasn’t part of the service when getting abducted by Deathstroke. Peeling the ruined suit off himself is beyond uncomfortable, and Dick has to take the longest shower afterwards. It’s like Slade left every single mark of what he did to Dick painted on his skin. It could be an attempt at humiliation, but. But Dick thinks Slade knows him too well to think he’d suddenly get ashamed of what they did after the fact.
And Dick remembers how having Slade growl ‘mine’ felt like in the heat of the moment, and thinks he knows what leaving every drop of evidence streaked across Dick’s skin was about.
A week passes. Dick can’t stop mentally keeping track of how much time it’s been, exactly, since he woke up so used and sore he still gets hard every time he thinks about it.
And it’s difficult not to, with the healing bite mark constantly reminding him. Slade left a perfect imprint of his teeth on the soft skin on the inside of Dick’s thigh. And every time Dick presses his thighs together or walks, or just moves, he brushes against it and is reminded how he got that bite. Who left it there.
He starts keeping lube in the bathroom because every time he takes a shower, every time he washes that thigh, he ends up pressing on the mark until it hurts. Which always ends up with him fingering himself and getting off to the memory of Slade fucking him.
One of these days he’s going to slip and brain himself against the shower wall, but until then, it’s the perfect jerk-off fantasy. He’s pulled it up every night since it happened, and tonight isn’t an exception.
When he’s done, he carefully dries off the bite and feels vaguely disappointed at how well it’s healing. It’s a near constant distraction, positioned as inconveniently as possible, but Dick still kind of wishes the dark bruising would linger a little longer.
He dresses for sleep, walks out of the bathroom and two seconds later he ends up face first against the wall, a heavy form pressing him into it. He’s not sure what exactly gives it away, but he doesn’t even start to struggle, certain from the start that he knows who it is.
If Slade expects more fear, he’s going to be disappointed. Maybe Slade could recreate the narrow set of circumstances where Dick might be afraid of him again, but not here and now.
“Slade. I don’t get a head start this time?”
“Why bother,” Slade drawls and drags his teeth up the side of Dick’s mostly bruise-free neck, “when I can just take what’s mine right here?”
Dick doesn’t really have an answer to that, so he arches his back and presses his hips back, more firmly against Slade’s. They both know what Slade is here for and— Fuck, Dick hopes he knows what Slade is here for.
His sweatpants slide down his hips easily, and Slade doesn’t waste time. He pushes two gloved fingers into Dick, making Dick arch even more into him. When Slade pauses there, Dick does his best to twist just enough that he can slide deeper onto those fingers. If Slade wants him to do all the work, he can. He’s pretty sure he can make it look good enough that Slade won’t last long before he does something.
And then Slade does everything at once, presses Dick into the wall some more, pulls his hand up behind his back until it really hurts and his shoulder starts to protest. Bites Dick’s neck too hard and fucks his fingers roughly, angrily into Dick again and again.
“Who else do you let fuck you?” It’s so much a growl that it takes Dick a while to understand what Slade is asking.
“What?” he asks, too confused, but another even rougher thrust of Slade’s fingers makes him understand, and then he’s laughing, breathless and unable to stop. Slade is jealous.
Dick only stops laughing when Slade bites him again, too hard, so hard it hurts—and that’s going to leave a nice mark, Dick thinks, even though he has to bite his lip to stop himself from crying out and alarming his neighbors.
“No one, there’s no one else,” Dick breathes, and— Fuck, he didn’t mean to admit that. That’s not something he wants Slade to— Shame burns his lungs and Dick considers fighting for real, getting the hell away from Slade. Making him leave.
Slade bites the back of his neck, softer this time, and asks, “So you’re all ready because you were waiting for me?”
“No, I, fuck—I just got off before you got here,” Dick admits. You possessive asshole, he doesn’t say, because there’s only so much his makeup can hide, and the weather’s too hot for turtlenecks.
“Oh? Who were you thinking about when you were—” Slade changes the angle and presses his fingers right against Dick’s prostate, “—fucking yourself?”
Dick’s knees buckle and he doesn’t bother doing anything about it. Slade can keep him upright easily.
When the bursts of white clear away from his vision, Dick processes the question and the fact that Slade sounds like he’s waiting for an answer. It’s an answer that Dick really doesn’t want to give. Doesn’t want to admit that Slade’s the only one that gets to do this not just here, but in Dick’s fantasies as well.
But what does he have to lose here? He already has Slade pressed against his back, fucking him with his fingers and being stupidly jealous like he has some kind of right. It’s not like Dick will be the only one admitting something.
“You. It was you, okay, is that what you want to hear?”
It makes Slade let go of Dick’s arm, let him ease it out of the painful position and use it to brace himself against the wall better.
“Like this?” Slade asks. Pulls out his fingers and replaces them with his cock, and slides all the way in in one long thrust. Real lube and working up to it make it very different from what it felt like last time. But Slade is still big, and Dick still gets to enjoy that sweet burn of taking more than he should.
For a while there’s no words, only their uneven breaths and the slick sounds of Slade’s cock sinking into Dick’s ass. Slade grips Dick’s hip, uses his other hand to hold on to one of Dick’s wrists, fingers pressing new bruises on top of the pale yellow shadows left over from last time.
“Is this how you imagined it?” Slade breathes against Dick’s hair, almost sweetly, and it clashes so badly with his rough thrusts forcing his cock inside Dick again and again.
“Are you—are you saying—” Dick’s voice wavers, and then he has to pause, an especially well-angled press of Slade’s cock distracting him for a long moment. “—that I’d get a refund if I said I imagined you being nice to me?”
“Did you?” Slade slows down, like he might be considering it. Dick could—he could say—
“...no.”
Slade doesn’t slow down again until Dick’s legs give out completely, and then he just picks him up, moves them to the sofa and keeps going. Dick’s hands aren’t tied this time, so he holds on to Slade’s shoulders, hard enough to leave some finger-shaped bruises of his own, however short they might last.
After two orgasms in the same night already he’s mostly just along for the ride, enjoying the soreness of overstimulation. He still feels swept away by the time Slade comes, apparently not planning to go for a marathon this time—and Dick should really not feel any disappointment about that.
Slade is heavy and still uncomfortably half-dressed, and Dick tightens his arms around Slade’s back, and his thighs around his waist to keep him there longer. To enjoy Slade’s weight above him a little longer.
“Want to know a secret?” Dick asks, voice so wrecked he should probably worry if the neighbors have called the cops.
Slade hums a vaguely interested sound against the side of Dick’s neck. Dick should… not be talking right now, probably, but he can’t remember why. So he keeps going. “I imagined you being nice to me, too.”
Slade huffs, and presses his mouth against Dick’s skin. Dick is interested in where that might be going, but the next time he blinks, his eyelids are too heavy, and then he’s floating away, already asleep.
Dick doesn’t wake up alone.