Chapter Text
Slade Wilson is not a man, Bruce has come to realize. Slade Wilson is a force of nature, a human wrecking ball. No matter how many times Bruce asked him to give some kind of notice, Slade continued to simply show up without warning. One minute Bruce is at a charity ball, sipping champagne and rubbing noses with Gotham’s upper crust.
The next he spots Slade across the room, schmoozing like he owns the place.
It’s happened more than once.
Which is why it feels so out of place when he gets a message--sent through back channels as always--letting him know that Slade’s going to be in town.
Bruce’s heart says this can’t be good. Then he tries to set aside all anxieties he has about Slade to the side and think about things rationally.
This can’t be good, says Bruce’s brain.
But he does what he’s supposed to anyway. He calls Lucius to have him make sure that the Gotham Knight’s suit is ready to go. He lets Alfred know so he can stock the pantry and fridge. And then he sets about calling the rest of the family.
Dick passes--he’s in the middle of training a new protege he’s not supposed to have--but sends his best. Tim and Barbara promise to stop by.
Jason, of course, shows up less than an hour later, emerging from the cave entrance likes he owns the place.
Bruce supposes that he does. The cave’s as much Jason’s as it is Bruce’s, even if he has moved out of the manor itself.
“Master Jason!” Alfred says, immediately taking Jason’s bag. “Will you be staying long?”
“However long Slade’s here,” Jason says, making no secret of his intentions.
Bruce has to admit the house has been quiet lately. With just him and Alfred, he’s been struggling to find ways to fill the time.
It’s good to have someone else there, even if it’s only temporary.
“Keeping busy?” Jason asks him.
“Not as much as I’d like,” Bruce admits. “It’s strange being able to sleep the night through.”
“He’s adapted,” Alfred says. “I taught him to feed himself. He’s taken up golf. And I believe that Mister Fox is pleased by Master Bruce’s increased presence as of late.”
Bruce wants to go back.
He doesn’t want to admit it, but he wants to go back. He wants to take up the cowl, but it’s Jason’s now. He can’t take it away from him.
Being batman was such a huge part of his life that he’s not entirely sure what he’s supposed to do without it.
He’s saved from the awkward conversation by the sound of the door, and Jason darts past him, heading for the door.
It’s Tim and Barbara, and the house gets that much less quiet with their presence.
Alfred’s already making dinner as they settle in, and he can tell Jason’s anxious for Slade to show up. His foot bounces impatiently, and his fingers flex, tightening into a fist before being released in a rhythmic manner.
“So,” Tim says. “What’s everyone guessing he’s got to say?”
“I haven’t any idea what you mean,” Alfred says, and Bruce knows enough of his tone to know that Alfred’s playing dumb.
“Oh come on,” Tim says. “He never calls. Ever. The only time he ever shows up on a schedule is when we insist.”
“He calls,” Jason protests.
“He calls you,” Barbara says. “Which also means you’re the only one likely to know what the deal is.”
Bruce looks at Jason. He doesn’t think he’s hiding anything, but Jason’s gotten far too good at hiding things from him as of late.
Maybe not even as of late. Maybe he’s always been like that. But Bruce has always relief on Jason’s tendency to wear his heart on his sleeve to figure out what’s going on, and now that Jason’s gotten himself a bit more under control, he’s in the dark.
“So?” Bruce prompts, hoping Jason will be forthcoming.
“No idea,” Jason says. “Considering what he was doing, I didn’t think he’d be back for another few months.”
“Which is?” Bruce asks, raising an eyebrow. He has no idea what Slade was supposed to be doing. Slade’s always cryptic about the jobs he’s taking, citing professional courtesy, so hearing that the job was big enough to keep him away for almost six months comes as a surprise.
Jason hmmms.
“You’d have to ask him,” Jason says, and refuses to speak of it again.
Slade shows up almost an hour after dinner (even if Alfred has set some aside from him). Mercifully, he’s not in his Deathstroke armor. He’s in street clothes, with a large duffel bag slung over each shoulder. They’re both big and bulky, but Slade’s strong enough that he doesn’t seem at all bothered by the clear weight.
When Jason tries to take one of the bags, Slade turns, stopping him from grabbing it.
“Oh no,” he says. “I’ve got microexplosives in one of these, they’re staying with me.”
“I believe,” Alfred says, “that we agreed to limit any explosives to the cave itself.”
“Yeah,” Tim says with mock seriousness, “no explosives in the house, Slade.”
Slade rolls his eye.
“Fine,” he says. “Keep the food warm, I’ll be back.”
It says something about the situation that Slade simply lets himself into the batcave without any sort of further conversation. He knows all the (or at least almost all) of the access points in the house, and he vanishes down the steps while everyone returns to the kitchen.
Bruce is trying not to feel anxious. Slade hasn’t--not for years, anyway--done anything to harm any of them. He’s been friendly, even. He’s a good influence (if a bit too quick to resort to violence).
He has absolutely no reason to expect anything bad, but he feels a twist in his stomach anyway.
Slade emerges from the cave with a duffel bag still over his shoulder, which raises, if not a red flag, than at least a yellow flag in Bruce’s brain.
“So,” Bruce says as Slade slides onto a stool, settling in to eat with the bag still under his arm. “Jason tells me you’ve been busy.”
“Nice try,” Slade says in between mouthfuls. “But I know Jason wouldn’t have said what I was doing.”
They’ve been conspiring again. Not necessarily an awful thing, but not a good thing either. Jason’s been following the rules and acting within the law, but his tendencies to push those limits seem to directly correlate with when Slade’s around.
He still remembers what they did to Julian Day.
“Are you going to tell us though?” Tim asks. “You’re back because you’re done, right?”
Bruce snaps himself out of it and turns his attention to the matter at hand.
“I agree with Tim,” Bruce says. “You wouldn’t have come back if you were only part done with whatever you were doing, so are you going to explain?”
“I had work,” Slade says. “To start, anyway. I took a job for a client I’m not going to name that put me in charge of a small militia.”
“No way,” Jason says excitedly, clearly getting some reference that no one else at the table gets. “They’re still together?”
“The core group is,” Slade says. “They asked after you.”
Jason seems to glow with pride, but Bruce is just confused.
“Who?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Slade says with a wave of his hand. “That only took up a month.”
A month is what Bruce had expected when he’d left. The fact that he’d been gone for months was the unusual part. He wasn’t usually gone so long.
“Stop beating around the bush,” Jason says. “Just say it.”
“I was leading into it,” Slade says. “While I was overseas I caught a lead on the League of Assassins.”
“Ra’s old group...?” Bruce asks, confused. He hasn’t heard a thing from them in years. “I thought they were defunct.”
“Not defunct,” Slade says. “Just relocated. After Ra’s and Talia died they had a civil war. Half wanted Ra’s dead for good. Half wanted him back. From what I can tell they spent around a year trying to find a new source for a Lazarus pit.”
Bruce goes stiff. He doesn’t know what Slade’s going to say, but he knows he’s not going to like it. If Ra’s is dead, it means the league is almost permanently fractured. He thinks that’s probably the better option, but it’s hard to say. If Ra’s isn’t dead...
“Did they find one?” Bruce asks. The table’s gone quiet--everyone knows what sort of a threat Ra’s is.
“One,” Slade says. “But not a particularly good one. Not a pure one.”
“That would be enough for him,” Bruce says.
“It was,” Slade agrees. “They brought him back to life, as much as you can describe his state as life. He was a glorified zombie, rotting on his throne atop the pit.”
Bruce can’t miss the was.
“And you killed him,” he says, forcing himself to take a breath.
It’s not a violation of their contract. It’s not a violation of any agreement they’ve ever made. The rules were no killing in the suit, no killing in Gotham, and no working in Gotham.
Slade’s Gotham Knight suit is in storage downstairs, and wherever Ra’s was, it wasn’t Gotham.
“Good riddance,” Jason says, and Bruce frowns at him. He’s made little secret of his thoughts on the matter.
A part of Bruce worries that Jason is more than talk. That one day he’s going to find out where Jason buries his bodies.
He doesn’t want to think about it.
“What about the rest of the league?”
“Once I traced them back to their hideout, it was a simple enough matter to take them out,” Slade says, which means I killed all of them. Or maybe just all of Ra’s loyalists. “They had Talia’s corpse, you know. The plan was to bring her back once Ra’s was better, only the source wasn’t pure enough to even make an attempt. They needed all of it to keep him him from falling apart.”
Bruce feels a stab of frustration. Helplessness. He’s trying to do better at identifying his emotions rather than just bottling them up, but it’s easier said than done. His relationship with Talia was tumultuous at best. Even years on, he’s not sure how he feels about her death.
He should have done better.
“But,” Slade says, “while I was working my way through the league I did find out about a little secret of theirs.”
Slade pushes his plate aside, and Alfred collects it on pure instinct. Slade hefts the duffel bag up, dropping it onto the counter.
A weapon? That’s the first place Bruce’s head goes. Something related to bio-terrorism. Maybe something related to the infection.
Bruce clenches his fist. Wouldn’t that be appropriate? Finding out that Ra’s was behind the whole thing. That would have fit exactly in his schemes, wouldn’t it have?
No, he’s being bitter, and he shakes his head, pushing the thought away. Ra’s hated the Joker. He wouldn’t have wanted to turn Bruce into him.
He’s expecting Slade to unzip the bag and show off whatever he’s found, but instead he slides the heavy duffel bag across the counter top to Bruce.
“Consider it a birthday gift,” Slade says with a smile on his face that means nothing but trouble.
Bruce considers not opening it. The whole thing feels like one of Slade’s schemes. Even if most of them have worked out in his favor, he still doesn’t like them. They have too much of a tendency to end with people getting killed.
“Go on,” Slade says, settling back in his seat. “But you’re going to want to leave the restraints on.”
The what? Bruce feels a sudden, intense feeling of dread.
He reaches out, grabbing the zipper and opening the bag in one fluid movement.
Inside the bag isn’t a weapon. Inside the bag is a boy, bound, gagged, and blindfolded.
“What the fuck,” Tim says, speaking for literally everyone in the room.