Renegade fic
They have a contract in gotham, it was meant to be a quick go in, go out. Despite dick having been loyaly renegade for quite a few years now, slade still doesn't like brining him to gotham.
It was only inevitable that they would eventually run into batman and robin. Batman raises a brow, questioning this kid that is with deathstroke. Bruce clearly doesn't recognise dick as he starts to fight deathstroke and dick takes on jaybin. As the fight goes on, renegade quickly manages to knock robin out, standing over his crumpled form, the darkness making it difficult to see the rise and fall of his chest. Of course batman rages charging at renegade when deathstroke quickly jumps indicates for him to go back to the sniper and take out the target as he holds batman back.
Renegade is halfway back to the sniper rifle when he stops. For whatever reason he can't take his eyes off the crumpled form of robin, his robin had died by the hands of deathstroke and how this one would be too. Dick is slade's but looking at bruce, looking at his fury as he fights to defend his knocked out son. He looks at the rifle and he can't help but think about being back with bruce. There was a time where dick hadn't had blood on his hands, a time where he wouldn't ever kill... but his master ordered it.
He looks between batman, robin, deathstroke and the rifle, and back over them again many times to where he doesn't realise that batman had slipped past his master and has swiped up the gun as well as robin and has dissapeared into the night.
Deathstroke is fueled by anger at renegade's disobedience, he hadn't broken orders in a very, very long time. He falls to his knees, sputtering apologies when deathstroke kicks him in the head and then grabs him by the throat, lifting him at least a foot off the ground and blocking his airways.
Unbeknownst to the two, batman has been lurking on a nearby rooftop, and he sees deathroke suffocating his apprentice. Even taken by his rage, a small part in his mind was screaming at him that this kid wasn't there by will, he was brainwashed and indoctrinated into this by deathstroke. Yes this kid terrified him, thinking he lost his second son after the first was killed by renegade's own mentor but this kid was in danger. Even if he hadn't hesitated to pull the trigger, if he had killed the contract, no one deserved to be under the hand of that man.
Dick starts to see black at the edge of his vision. He doesn't want to die, he's not even sure if his master will actually do it, but even if he does, dick deserves it for taking the lives of many people, of abandonning his father's moral code. When suddenly slade's body is knocked away and renegade falls to the ground, gasping for breath. Batman fights off slade, renegade's head is spinning and he can't keep track of the fight, but the next thing he knows is that he is being lifted from between the grooves that form the armour at the back of his neck as he passes out.
Renegade awakens in the watchtower, batman standing above him surrounded by the rest of the league. He kneels down to him, gently asking him some questions, what is his name? How long was he with deathstroke? How old is he? Renegade stares in awe into the whites of batman's cowl, bruce's cowl. Something is choking the words back, as if someone was taking him by the throat, he can't speak, he doesn't remember how to speak, he doesn't even know if he can go back, it seems like a dream to even be this close to the man he considered his father.
They stare into the whites of each other's masks, as if making contact eith eachother's very soul, communicating telepathically. Something draws bruce to lift the faceplate mask from renegade's face, lifting it away reverently to see the piercing blue, watering eyes of his dead son, staring up at him, mouth slightly parted is shock. Bruce chokes on a surprised sob, ripping off his cowl and for the first time in years, holding dick by the cheeks and making real eye contact with him. Its only a second later when bruce pulls him to his chest, both heartily sobbing and dick pawing desperately at his chest.
