DVD Meme: Twist in the Tail (DC Comics, NC-17)

[browngirl]

Requested by my dear katarik. "Twist In the Tail", DC Comics, Deathstroke/Nightwing (Slade Wilson/Dick Grayson), NC-17.

I prefaced this with "I wanted to post this before OYL in Nightwing began. I'm rather going to miss this pairing. " As it turns out, I miss the pre-Infinite Crisis era, but my last DVD meme was kind of bitterly nostalgic, let me not flavor this one so as well.

Summary: Hell hath no fury like a supervillain scorned.

Still one of my best summaries. I didn't intend to write a trilogy when I first wrote "To Conciliate a Tiger", but I really liked how the sequence unfolded, interleaved with canon.

Soaring above Bludhaven on a cloudy night, Dick flips through the wet dirty air and relishes every stinky breath of it. He hasn't raced across the rooftops in what feels like forever, hasn't been his own man since even longer ago than that. But he's out from undercover now; he's set everything up and covered all the angles. There'll always be some level of trouble in the 'Haven, but the city's no longer rotting from the inside and he's keeping the major players out. Even from itself, to an extent, Bludhaven is safe.

I often thought of my comics stories in very cinematic terms, as if viewed in Smell-o-vision. I wanted to capture the immediacy of art&words, panel by panel, but only had text, so I turned to sensory details.

As if it knows, the 'Haven sets out to welcome him back. In a busy hour he stops three muggings, a hold-up, a break-in, and a car chase between gang-bangers. Dick takes one carful down so easily it almost isn't fun, using his feints to steer them away from civilians into a fence; as he dodges through their gunfire the idiot with the biggest automatic complains, "Hero Boy's fucking grinning! This can't hit shi--igh!"

"The fault's not in your guns, but in yourselves." Dick zip-strips the thug to the fencepost, and laughs at the reply, eloquently profane even through two busted lips. Bludhaven's Finest already have the other car safely stopped and its occupants on the ground, so Dick swings away and does several flips in midair for the joy of it. He's got his life back, and he's helped make a difference in Bludhaven. He may possibly have accomplished something, and after he heads to New York tomorrow to see Donna and Kory off, he might even be able to go home---

Bwee, happy Dick. Depicting him like that was fun.

Dick realizes before he hits the next building that he isn't alone. He twists away from his planned landing into a handspring that takes him off the roof entirely. As he touches down on the next roof, several stories below, he glances back over his shoulder, but there's no explosion, no projectiles, just Deathstroke silhouetted against the dark gray sky.

His spider-sense was tingling!

Not precisely a surprise. He could probably evade the man, but... "Nightwing!" Slade's voice booms across the space between them. Dick holsters his grapple and leans back against the wide brick chimney; folding his arms, he glances down at the familiar blue stripes, thinks about the suit he's wearing and the sticks on his back, and smiles.

Dick is in a place of strength, and feels he can enforce the break-up.

Deathstroke leaps down to meet him with leonine nonchalance. Dick has to remind himself not to be impressed. It's always a risk, going undercover, to end up going too deep; but he's back, he's Nightwing, and he lifts his chin and grins like he's not afraid. "Evening." As if his blood, already pumping from his night, isn't heating up. "Weren't you staying out of my town?"

Slade pauses, arms crossed, just outside Dick's arms' reach, just inside his own. That doesn't matter; he's well within range of a kick. "You know, Nightwing, every time I've stopped by this town recently, it's been because of you?"

Dick spreads his hands in a shrug. "Don't trouble yourself on my account." If anything, he needs to tone his grin down. "If you're here for the suit, it's--" a pile of ash-- "in the mail. So if we're done here--"

One of the hardest and most rewarding parts of writing Slade/Dick was their particularly edged banter. I don't think I've written as much about anyone while not ever writing from their POV as I have about Slade; I think in some ways, in my wee head he particularly exists not just as Slade but as Slade-as-viewed-by-Dick.

Thunk. Dick knows it's coming before Slade pins him, but that doesn't make it any easier to stand still for it while his entire body twitches towards a dodge; honestly, he's not entirely sure why he's letting Slade press his elbows to the wall. That's over with the rest of the old deal, and it's not going to be part of the new one. Maybe he's not moving because of the particular lopsided smirk he knows is under that mask, or the perfect fit of those big hands around his arms. Maybe it's because he's free to go, so he doesn't have to.

Oh, Dick. Some wise person said to me (Gloss? Betty? Petra? Sage?) that when Dick's reasons are as viceral as his attraction to Slade, he just can't fight it. Even if he thinks he can.

"Kid," Slade says, in that low warm rumble that reverberates down Dick's spine, the one that he wishes he'd never heard the sound of, "I was planning on peeling it off you." He doesn't step back when he lets Dick go, and when he pushes his mask off there's the smirk exactly the way Dick pictured it. "That exit was very dramatic, Grayson. Rose was very impressed. But, really, heading back to the hero business? There isn't even any pay in it."

Dick folds his arms again, surreptitiously rubbing his elbows. "You know what side I'm on, and it's not yours. I'm busy tonight; do you really feel like being arrested?"

Slade barks a laugh, lifting his bandolier off over his head. His smile could be a little less fond. "I also know your taste for adrenaline. You did this dance without a net, kid; your people are looking for you, out in the dark."

Dick squeezes his eyes shut behind his lenses, to keep them from going wide. He hadn't thought anyone would come after him; who's coordinating the search? Babs? Tim? Hopefully they haven't followed him anywhere dangerous; is that why he ran into Roy?

He needs to open his eyes already. "Where did you hear that?"

Oh, man, the timing of this segment, and the diction. Every time I described Slade as being nice to Dick I put in a negative adjective. Then I took out a few, to hopefully avoid overkill.

"I have ears." Slade's expression in the dimness is if anything annoyingly warmer. "Why do you think they're hunting their lost bird? You really think the Bat'll take you back?"

Dick hopes so, so hard his guts ache. "There's no 'taking back' necessary. I've always been with the good guys, just like Rose kept accusing me."

"You're wasted there." Slade reaches for Dick's face with a big, bare hand, too slowly for a blow; Dick stares up at the man's craggy face and thinks about ways to dodge, and is still thinking when one scarred knuckle lightly brushes his cheek. "Come back with me. I made my little girl into someone who can take on Superman. Imagine what I can make of you."

"Join me and the Dark Side, hot sex and good pay!"

Dick doesn't need Slade to make him anything; he was guided by a far better mentor. And he knows that's what Slade expects as a response, so what he says instead is, "What will you do when Rose comes down with Kryptonite poisoning?" That makes Slade's face harden satisfyingly. "Is that in your plans?" Now if Dick's stomach weren't twisting into a knot of prudent terror everything would be dangerous and dandy.

Slade glares at him from way too close for way too long, but it's more comfortable than when the man smiles again. "She'll be fine. She won't get sick any more than I would. But if you're so worried come keep an eye on her."

Dick twists his head away from the next caress. It's a lot more difficult than it should be. "If you really want her to be safe you'll let her go. She's way too young for this life."

"I don't think so, Grayson. I don't think you do, either, or you wouldn't've led the Titans, or helped train all those Robins and that pretty little Batgirl." This time Dick doesn't manage to make himself dodge, and Slade slides two knuckles the length of his cheekbone. "Come back and teach her. Up her chances. She'll love to have you back. I'll even leave your little Miss Tevis alone if you do."

I never did get to write as much about Sophia as I wanted to; fortunately, being a creation of Devin Grayson, she was not just a McGuffin and didn't need fleshing out quite as much as some characters might.

Dick opens his mouth and isn't sure he can trust the right words to come out of it. Everything was straight, everything was set, but it's hard to remember that as he looks Slade in one shadowed eye and something low in his belly twists in coils of dark heat. Even when he tries to clear his mind, even when he swallows hard. "Why are we talking, Wilson? I was spying on you."

Slade's grin is hard and feral as he cups Dick's face in his rough wide palm. Dick's neck has learned to tilt back at that touch, his head has learned to press into it, and he has to fight those new reflexes just to keep still. "Why should I let my pretty bird fly away? Besides, I like spies."

Try as he might not to, Dick settled into this relationship. I always think of Dick as pliable, and this is something he shaped himself around, which he even found to fit and support him.

... did I just compare Slade to a 'foundation garment'?

Dick shudders so hard he probably made staying still completely pointless. But he has to try. "And you trust me with Rose?"

"Of course not." Slade's fingers move in a raspy little stroke, over Dick's cheek and the edges of his mask. He should push Slade's hand away. "If you ever try to get between us again I will kill you, and little Sophia." He really shouldn't watch Slade's expression ease, just that unbelievable little bit. "But I want you teaching her. She's already improving."

Dick grits his teeth. "Threatening an innocent's life hardly makes me want to listen to you."

The look Slade gives him is unfazed, dubious, and deeply amused. "Yeah, she's so innocent you sent her to do her daddy's job."

Well, someone needed to call him on it.

Dick scowls over a lurch of real fear. "What do you want, Slade?"

"Open your ears, kid, they're not just for biting." Slade leans in close enough to have to bend, close enough that his chest brushes the backs of Dick's arms, close enough for Dick to feel his heat through both their armored suits. "I want you."

Dick's cheeks burn. It's always nice to be wanted. He tries to think it sarcastically, but his head's tipping back even though he knows better. "To teach your daughter."

"Among other reasons." Slade's smirking, craggy face fills his field of vision.

If Dick can make it so only his life's at stake... "Leave Sophia Tevis out of this, and we'll talk."

"If that's what you want to call it." Slade's other hand closes around Dick's shoulder, sending heat radiating down his arm. "Fine."

There's enough relief in the surge of exhilaration for plausible deniability. "Well, this explains something," Dick murmurs, knowing Slade can feel his breath across his mouth. "That story Joey told about the nanny---"

Dick is not actually a masochist, but he is an adrenaline junkie. This is his hit.

Dick manages to make the air knocked out of him into a breathless laugh when Slade slams him up against the wall, pushing Dick so high with one knee his feet completely leave the ground, clamping a fist round his throat; Dick thinks gratefully towards his steel-reinforced collar and grins up into Slade's glare. "I told you, Grayson," Slade snarls, "don't." He squeezes hard enough to lightly dent the collar and painfully dent the flesh above it, and Dick tries to ignore the arousal mixed in with the adrenaline rush. "I can hurt you."

"You could." Dick grins, squeezing Slade's wrist with both hands in mostly symbolic defiance. "But you won't."

That fight, during the arc where Slade's been hired to kill Amy, was always one of my favorites. I really love the way Devin Grayson writes comics, I suspect for all the reasons so many fanboys hate her.

Slade eyes Dick intently for the length of a threatened breath. Then he smiles again. "Kid, you'll never learn, will you?" He kisses Dick hard, and deep, and then moves his hand off Dick's throat, pressing across his collarbone hard enough to trace it through his suit, roughly squeezing his arm.

Kissing Slade is crazy, a leap without a jumpline; Dick grabs the man's shoulders and pushes as hard as he can against Slade's heat and bulk and solidity, against the bruising pressure and the shove of Slade's tongue into his mouth. He's pinned off his feet from shoulder to groin, so tightly he's barely sitting on Slade's knee, so hotly his hips are already grinding in a circle. His head tilts back, and brick rasps his hair, and Slade's teeth rake his bottom lip.

When in doubt, go for sensory detail!

Dick gropes for a hold and his hand closes around the hilt of Slade's sword, hard and cool and oversized like everything else about the man. He shouldn't be here, up against a brick wall, kissing the same man he defied a few hours ago, the same ruthless mercenary who sent his daughter to attack Superman, who impersonated Batman to free a madman and to play mind games. What the hell is he doing? But it's already more difficult to ask himself, to think as his mind clouds over, as Slade cups his cheek gently enough to make him shudder and kisses him hard enough to crush the air out of him.

Hot flashes over to cold, and Dick can't stop shaking; the air is chill like rain, and he can't feel the beard he knows is scouring his chin. Submerged in the kiss, drowning in unease, he flounders in confusion for a moment till he recognizes the blurring reality of a flashback coming on. Rooftops, right. Something else he thought he'd lost, that he's not losing. Dick fights for a deeper breath and makes himself still, makes himself concentrate on breathing evenly, and Slade's deep growl isn't like anyone else's and is perfectly what he needs to drag him back into the moment. Even if it's a moment he shouldn't be in.

Remember Catalina? I do. Also, I'm not entirely sure why, but I like writing Slade pulling Dick out of flashbacks and otherwise out of the depths of his head, pulling him entirely into his body and the particular moment.

Dick twists his head away far enough to break the kiss, earning a light bite to his jaw; breath hot on his eyelids tells him his lenses have been toggled. "I don't--" Slade laughs, hand tightening on Dick's arm, but doesn't otherwise interrupt. "I don't want to do this here."

He shouldn't want it anywhere. He's hot again, sticky damp inside his suit, and it isn't that much of an improvement on being cold when this is why, especially when he has to open his eyes and Slade's grin is possessively triumphant. "Then come back with me."

Dick's still hanging onto the swordhilt. He peels his fingers off it, twisting his arm in Slade's grip. "No, Wilson."

"Really, kid? Tell me you don't want this." Slade takes his hand off Dick's cheek, lets go of Dick's arm, pulls his knee from between Dick's legs. Dick drops onto his feet, and Slade's not touching him anywhere. "Tell me."

Slade can let go because he knows Dick can't.

Dick swallows. He knows what he ought to say. He can see the dark rooftops of Bludhaven beyond Slade looming over him. "Just between us."

Slade's eyebrows lift a little. "Hmm?"

"This is. Just between us. No one else's involved." He could be swinging across those rooftops right now, through the heavy wet air. Yeah, he could run. Just as soon as his mouth stops watering. Just as soon as he takes that first step away from Slade, who smirks and nods, whose neck his arms are wrapping around.

And Dick has to give up and admit it.

"Sure, kid, sure," Slade murmurs, lifting him with big hands on his waist. "C'mere." Dick is just going to have to live with the fact that he's tilting his chin up for the kiss, his gauntleted hand sunk in Slade's crisp hair, the eyepatch strap across his palm. He can hate himself for it later, when he's not riding a titanic adrenaline surge and a big hard thigh. The rush as Slade slams him up against the wall again and kisses him till his lips are sore is like the rush as steel and glass flow vertically by, the rush as one twisting spin takes out three or five guys. The rush Dick gets whenever he gambles with his life, and now it's only his life, everyone else is safe. He can growl too, and he does, and bites Slade's lip.

Slade rumbles deep in his throat, pulling his mouth from Dick's to bite Dick's jaw, and Dick clenches his teeth on a whimper as his heart beats that much faster. "That's right, kid," Slade murmurs, hitching Dick higher. "We both know you're wasted on the goody-goody business." Dick opens his mouth to protest, but Slade pulls him in tight, big hands palming his ass, grinding his crotch between his own weight and that hard thigh till he's too busy choking off his yelp into a gasp. "Didn't you wonder when I'd send you out on a hit?"

I did. Honestly, I'm still... not sure why neither canon Slade nor my Slade didn't send Dick to kill anyone.

Only in his nightmares. "Too busy teaching." That was more breathless than Dick would've liked, but less than he already feels.

Slade chuckles into his skin. "I was waiting for the right one." He thrusts harder, and Dick wraps his swinging legs around Slade's thigh and thrusts back. "Send you through someone's window to end 'em gently in the middle of a sweet dream." Dick squeezes his eyes shut tightly, but can't shut his ears to Slade's deep, rich, amused voice, any more than he can fail to feel how achingly hard he is at being mashed against an unyielding wall by an equally unyielding man. "Or maybe I'd have you wake them up, so they'd think they're having a sweet dream, eh?"

Dick needs to say something, not just gasp indignantly. He can say something. He gulps and shudders and insists, "I wouldn't."

"That's a pity, kid." Slade lifts his head, brushing the tip of Dick's nose with his as he looks at him greedily, as Dick tries to shove his breathing into some kind of control. "Who wouldn't want to wake up to something as gorgeous as you?"

Dick flinches away, remembering Babs' face as she held his clothes out to him. "Lots of people."

"They don't know what they're missing." Slade breathes against Dick's hair, his beard prickling Dick's cheekbone. "They don't know you like I do."

"Know me?" Good, that's something he can laugh at. "You don't know--" So Slade bites his ear, and Dick chokes on a wail he won't release, groaning in his throat when Slade presses his teeth in.

"Don't I, kid?" Slade murmurs low, and his hand is big and raspy and down Dick's tights, deftly unfastening his jock. Dick can't help a deep sobbing breath of relief, or how it becomes a groan as Slade's hand curls around his freed cock. "After all we've been through together?" He brushes his lips over Dick's temple. "I know how you think." His other hand roves up Dick's back, clutching and squeezing. "I know what makes you tick." Dick can feel bruises blooming hot behind his ribs, over his shoulder blade. "I know how to make you come like you're still in green panties."

"Oh, no." If Slade drags out that stolen voice, Dick swears to himself, he'll twist free and kick him in the spine as he jumps. Dick grabs Slade's shoulders and shoves till Slade looks at him, and at least he's gratifyingly mussed. "You don't, and I'm not."

Slade snorts and kisses Dick back up against the wall, squeezing lightly with both hands, just hard enough to stop Dick's breath. He starts stroking, a longer stroke than should be possible in the restricted space, and Dick manages to swallow his moan, but he's pretty sure Slade heard it anyway. He's certain when Slade chuckles as he bites along the other side of Dick's jaw. "I know your scars, kid, nearly as well as I know mine." His voice is low and warm and intimate. "I know the ones I gave you, and how you got the ones I didn't." He bites beneath Dick's ear and rubs the pad of his thumb over Dick's cockhead, and all Dick can hang onto is broad flexing muscle beneath slick armor, and all he can do is grit his teeth and shake. "I know what you're made of, Grayson. I know you can be something much more interesting than just another cape."

"Ngh, don't think so." Which is not something Dick ever thought he'd say to someone kissing his forehead and jerking him off, but Slade Wilson's always brought in a different set of rules. "Maybe more interesting. Not better." Dick presses his fingers in tightly enough to dent the flesh beneath, and Slade growls and bangs his head off the wall so hard he sees lights flash, kisses him so hard he can taste a hint of blood; he finds himself wondering which of theirs it is, and wanting to suck on the man's tongue instead of wrenching his head away. "Nothing I'd rather be than a hero. If you knew me, you'd know that."

When Slade kisses him again Dick tries to think it's because that retort was unanswerable, for as long as he can before Slade flattens a moan out of him, for as long as he can think at all under the devouring kiss. Slade strokes him relentlessly, perfectly too hard, infuriatingly sure of exactly how to touch Dick, the right buttons to push. Not that Dick's exactly proving him wrong, twisting between Slade and the wall, pressing into Slade's groping hand along his throat and shoulder and side. Not that he's resisting as Slade bites him till he nearly sobs and drags his release out of him stroke by stroke, till he cries out and Slade breathes a low laugh into his ear. "Really, kid. Then how do I know your accent changes from East Coast preppy to Florida drawl when you're gonna come?"

So this last bit, about the accent? blythely had a wonderful discussion about accents and what they say about us. This was directly inspired by that.

Adrenaline and apprehension and the maddening rhythm of Slade's hand. "Ah--" Dick gasps, and he can hear the flattened vowel, feel Slade's deep rough breath and his own heart slamming against his ribs. Dick's "Agh--" is nothing like a word, and everything after it is just noise as he rocks his head back into the wall and thrusts into Slade's fist and comes groaning, his mind blanking, light flaring behind his eyes.

When he can hear again Slade is laughing quietly in his ear. "Yeah, kid," he rumbles, releasing Dick with a final messy stroke, "I can't wait to see you outta this suit again." While Dick can only hang bonelessly from his grip on Slade's shoulders, Slade puts his suit back together into something sticky but workable. "I could fuck you right through this wall." Still oxygen-starved, Dick tries not to gasp and makes himself open his eyes, makes himself face Slade's ferocious grin. "But it's better in my bed, isn't it?" Dick can't find anything to say, even when Slade brushes two fingers, wet with his own come, across his bottom lip.

In my first synopsis, right around here Slade was busy fucking Dick up against the wall. But I realized, as I was writing the rough draft, that the shape of the story led elsewhere, and also that Slade's not that impatient.

Still a little shaken, Dick can only take that, and the bitterly tender kiss that follows. There was no euphoria in this, and now he feels a little sick. But when the dizziness recedes his head's clear again, for the first time in a long time. He pushes away and Slade laughs and lets him down, smirking triumphantly as he lets go, and Dick grins right back. "You could," Dick says, hearing his accent change inside the words, "but you won't." He flips and dodges, and Slade's grab misses by a half inch.

Dick's wee Moment of Awesome.

When he looks back Dick's sure he sees a flicker of surprise, before Slade frowns and nonchalantly wipes his hands. "Get back here." And there's the stolen voice Dick was expecting.

He does shiver. But he can back up another step, even if it's kind of stickily uncomfortable, and he can laugh. "I don't think so." Not a bad dismount off this tiger.

No one ever said I was subtle.

The glare makes Dick wonder with a dizzy throb of real fear how he'll back it up if he misses the dodge, but Slade just sighs. "Grayson." And sounds tired. "Just between us, kid, don't you miss it, not having to worry about all the rules?"

"I really do... care about you, pretty kid."

"Just between us, Slade?" Sometimes. "No."

"I know, and I'm telling myself I don't care."

"And you really care about this ugly fucking city?" Slade turns, dauntingly fast.

Dick takes another step back, to the roof's raised edge, and doesn't have to fake this smile. "Every inch of it."

Slade grits his teeth. "You know there's a bigger picture. One you could be part of."

"Infiltrate the SSoSV, let the plot happen like the author originally planned..."

Every step's easier. Dick plants his foot on the roof's edge. "You make a pretty poor imitation Batman, you know." He shoots his grapple. "Hope I don't see you around."

"Buh-bye."

When he leaps the air feels thick enough to float in, to swim in. As he heads for a hot shower and the rest of his life, Slade says behind him, "You can't go home again, Grayson." But Dick's already gone.

"Okay, then, now it is ON."

Comments

[ilyena_sylph]

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!

Okay, I love this story like burning, I have probably mentioned this once or twice (If I haven't, If I was still lurk-lurk-hide-lurk when you wrote this, Bad Me so much!) and this commentary makes me even happier than the story does.

*rolls around in it*

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

*beams* I'm really glad you enjoyed this. DVD memes are surprisingly satisfying...

[katarik.livejournal.com]

*siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh* *scribbles little HEARTS. LITTLE ARMED HEARTS*

One day, beloved, we're going to split ourselves a bottle of whatever drink we feel like, and I'm going through this trilogy with you. Line by line. Every sensory detail and all Slade's rough-edged affection and Dick's need for that.

I will *buy* you a skirt for the occasion.

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

Little armed hearts!

And oh, you don't have to buy a skirt just to see me. But you can if you want to.

[katarik.livejournal.com]

The skirt is not for me. The skirt is for *you*. Yes, even though you own several. It just would suit the mood.

[lurkslikefox.livejournal.com]

How have I not read this before? I must have missed it in all of my endless trawlings for Dick/Slade smut. And it's awesome! And hot! And awesomely hot!

The only thing better than Dick/Slade? Dick/Slade with a Batman voice. All hail the wrongness!

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

*curtseys* Thank you, and you are very welcome. :)

[petronelle.livejournal.com]

This is so much fun. I love reading over your shoulder.

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

*beams at you* These are really satisfying, somehow.

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

Hi, hi! It's great to see all these comments from you! And rereading this was fun.:)

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

Pretty much, yes.