He didn’t realise what capture meant for his friend. For his never-smiling, always-glaring friend. His friend hid the fear so well. Hid it with sarcasm and long, trailing curses until their captor threatened to gag them.
When his friend spat in their captor’s face and was dragged away, he called out: “You can’t hurt them.”
And he believed it. They were iron-forged.
His friend didn’t come back for hours. Sometimes he could hear screams. Staccato, broken off screams, like they’d been cut off with a sharp blow.
When his friend was dropped to the cell floor—crimson hand-shaped smears left behind— the world snapped beneath his feet.
His friend couldn’t be—
That couldn’t be his friend.
Shoulders shaking as they sobbed? Their glare replaced with terror? No. No no nono—
Their captor came back for his friend. This time, he lunged against the chains. “Don’t fucking touch them!”
The screams came faster this time, dragging on and on and on.
He thought, if he could, he’d rip his ears off. If only to stop the screaming.
The bleeding screams. Open-mouthed horror. Why were the walls so thin?
His friend was kicked into the cell and they collapsed almost instantly. They didn’t move.
It was a long, quiet night.
In the morning, their captor laughed as they grabbed the bleeding shape that was their friend.
He spat the words out. “Coward! Take me instead!”
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Dick walks down the long hall of the temple, past the lit braziers and litany of offerings. The temple has proven a popular one in the last few days.
Of course it has. They're preparing for war.
Dick has prayed at several temples over the fortnight. Wisdom, to find a path out of this mess. The Earth Mother, to ask for his family's safe return. The Protector, the sun god himself, to safeguard Dick's home. He has left rich offerings and offered vast riches. He has promised everything he has to give.
And all he has received is silence.
The gods do not heed his prayers. Tim is gone, lost on a quest from the deceitful Shadow King to find Bruce and return him to the land of the living. Jason is likewise away, too busy being a vengeful avatar of Death to care about Gotham. Gotham's defenses consist of Dick, the precocious ten-year-old halfblood Talia dropped off without so much as a by-your-leave, and Alfred.
The fight will be a slaughter. Too few generals, too few fighting men. The only thing that can help them is the intercession of the gods and there is only one god left to try.
Dick takes a deep breath and kneels at the altar. The knife he draws isn't his flashiest or his oldest. But its hilt matches the color of his eyes.
Dick knows this, because that was what the god whispered when he curled Dick's fingers around it.
The slice of his skin is the barest line of fire. The blood drips onto the altar. One. Two. Three.
"I pray to the God of War. Heed my call."
The silence continues, only broken by the soft plink of blood meeting steel. Dick stays on his knees and doesn't fidget. He has all night.
War begins on the morrow.
"I pray to the God of War. Heed my call."
~#~
He doesn’t know if it’s the hundredth or the thousandth time he says it when he finally gets a response.
"Hello, little bird."
A large part of Dick relaxes at the slow drawl. Everything else tenses.
"My lord," Dick says formally, drawing his hand back and clenching it to halt further bleeding. Deathstroke steps out from his altar, smirk already in place as he beholds Dick. "I pray for your assistance."
"I'm listening." Deathstroke steps around Dick, heavy boots treading on marble, circling Dick like wounded prey.
"There is an army at Gotham's borders. Tomorrow we ride to war."
"I'm aware." Deathstroke smiles, a bloodthirsty, wicked thing.
"I--I beseech you, my lord, to favor Gotham on the battlefield. I know we are the weaker side--we have less men, and the terrain, and the supplies--we will never last a siege--"
Deathstroke cuts off his babbling with a frown. For all the time Dick spent entreating the gods, he hasn't thought much about what to say when one finally listens.
Dick waits as Deathstroke completes his turn and stands before him once more. In the shadow of the altar, he looks like nothing more than a man--dressed for combat, broadsword strapped to his back, dark eyepatch hiding the damage even a god couldn't heal. The other icy blue eye stares down at Dick with the searing intensity of a thousand suns.
In the shadow of his altar, he looks like a god.
"Why?" Deathstroke asks curiously. "Why should I favor you?"
There is a hint of poison in the tone. Dick refused Deathstroke's offer to be his champion once, when Dick was still a child, and gods do not forget. Gods do not forgive.
"I will give you anything," Dick says, painfully honest now that he has everything to lose. "Anything that is mine to give."
Deathstroke's eye flashes. "A tempting offer, little bird," he rumbles.
"It is yours. Entirely yours, so long as you help."
Deathstroke reaches out and Dick stays where he is. Lets the god trace the lines of his face with fingers that feel molten. Hardly dares to breathe.
"Very well, little bird. We have a deal."
The clasp of hands feels like shackles around Dick's wrists. He breathes in and out and keeps the god's stare.
He doesn't let himself think about what he agreed to. Tomorrow is war. The consequences come after.
~#~
"Where have you been?" Damian accosts him the moment he enters the manor. "We practically tore the walls apart looking for you--"
"I was praying," Dick says, heading straight for his room and his armor. "For victory in today's battle."
Damian puffs up. It's almost adorable, if Dick wasn't focused on buckling everything in place. "You are very nearly late for that same battle--"
"I am here now," Dick says shortly, strapping on his sword. "Enough. Are you prepared?"
"I still insist I am better utilized with you, in the vanguard--"
"No." In the case that Bruce does return, Dick will not be the one to tell him that he got his ten-year-old killed. "You will stay and defend the manor in case of an incursion." It is a way to keep the kid out of the fighting and he knows it. "Do you understand?"
Damian makes a face. "Yes," he grumbles.
Dick does not trust him, but he doesn't have the time. Dawn's first light is breaking and the battle will begin soon. He has no way to know what shape or form Deathstroke's assistance will take. He will not sit around and wait for it.
He has begged long enough. The time has come to fight.
Gotham's forces array out, facing those of neighboring Metropolis. Someone is whispering in Luthor's ear, someone enticed him to attack. Someone is keeping the other gods at bay. The deck is already stacked against Dick.
The first charge begins. Dick motions for his forces to stay steady and let the archers answer. A hail of arrows arc over the battlefield.
A wind blows strong enough to sweep them all aside.
Interference. Dick wants to close his eyes and weep. Unfortunately, he does not have that luxury.
He grimly motions for the attack.
The clash of two armies is a terrible thing. The noise of a hundred blades striking each other, the squelch of blood spraying free, the cries and shouts and screams of killers and the killed. Dick hates it and yet he rides to it. There is no other way.
Right before the armies meet, there is an unfurling in the middle, a man straightening like he was always there. And maybe he was.
Deathstroke turns unerringly towards Dick, meeting his gaze despite the lengths that separate them, and unsheathes his sword to point it straight at Dick in salute.
He's smiling. It is a terrifying thing.
And then he turns and attacks.
The armies meet as the God of War scythes his way through Dick's enemies, blood splattering and steel ringing, and sunlight flashing off that enormous sword that Deathstroke wields one-handed like it weighs as much as a feather.
Dick cannot look away.
There is nothing in the world more alluring than the sight of a god in their element.
Nothing more dangerous either.
~#~
In the end, it doesn't matter who whispers in Luthor's ear or snatches arrows from the sky. Nothing in the world, mortal or not, is strong enough to defeat the God of War on a battlefield.
Gotham wins handily. People cheer on the streets, soldiers clutch each other and weep, and the injured outnumber the dead. An occasion to celebrate.
Dick finishes the letter he is writing and carefully presses it shut. Ties it and leaves it on his desk. They will find it easily enough when they search for him. He has kept it vague, only commanding them not to look for him. He is not lost.
Dick made this choice willingly. Now he has to pay the price.
He slips from the manor, ducking past festive crowds and out of the way of laughter and celebration. He clings to the memory of the relief on Damian's face when Dick returned. Alfred's quiet joy.
The determination on Tim's face when he left. The burning green fire in Jason's, utterly alien but at least alive. The implacable strength of Bruce, a mountain Dick has never been able to match.
Dick hoped that whatever Deathstroke asked for, he could stand to lose. Something minor, a quest perhaps, nothing that would steal him from his family. At the very worst, the binding Dick refused once. Being War's champion would severely curtail Dick's freedom, but he would still be able to visit home.
But Deathstroke didn't bless their swords to strike true or their arrows to hit their targets. He didn't shift battlefield currents to their favor or tilt luck on their side. He showed up to fight and slaughtered his way through a good portion of the enemy.
For that much destruction, there can be only one price.
The temple is empty, though offerings fill it from end to end. Dick steps past them all, to the very end of the hall and the altar looming above him. The last offering.
His arm trembles as he stretches it out. But the blade slices cleanly, carving a line up his forearm, blood spilling far faster than before. He switches the grip, the blade jerky in his bleeding hand, and manages a shaky slice up the other forearm. The knife goes clattering against the altar. Dick breathes raggedly and squeezes his eyes against the tears.
It's the pain, that's all. Nothing more.
When he opens them, Deathstroke is right in front of him. Dick doesn't flinch, even when Deathstroke grabs his bleeding arms.
"What is this?" the god hisses, one eye burning furiously. It feels curiously distant though. Possibly because the world is blurring out.
"The price," Dick reminds him with a tongue that feels too big. "You helped. I have to pay."
He can almost feel Jason's shock, can see his little brother turning towards him from far, far away. He wonders if Jay can visit him in the Underworld.
"Foolish little bird," he hears Deathstroke sigh somewhere above him. The burning in his arms changes to burning, sharp, fiery pain racing along the cut and making him scream. "Only life can pay for death."
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