Rating: T

Genre: Angst

Warning: Emotional and physical abuse. Stockholm Syndrome. Slade is an absolute monster.

Summary: "Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats." Dick Grayson was raised by Slade Wilson AU.

Author's Notes: This story is ongoing and is being posted roughly concurrently at the YJ Anon Meme. It's the second in a series of AU fics about Dick Grayson being raised by supervillains instead of Batman.

Hoist High the Black Flag

~Chapter Six~

"Slade has Wally!"

Wayne's arms tense around him. The older man pulls back. Blue eyes meet blue eyes.

"What do you mean, Slade has Wally?" Wayne asks.

His eyes were so soft before. Now they're sharp. There's something about Wayne. He changes like quicksilver. Renegade doesn't understand. It scares him, a little.

"Where is Wally?" Wayne asks again, voice smooth and insistent.

"He's at the lair," Renegade stutters out. "Wally. I kidnapped him. I was going to—

His stomach does a flip of protest.

Renegade was going to torture Wally to death. That had been his plan. The thought makes him sick.

Wayne, fortunately, is too distracted by Wally's predicament to care about the kind of monster Renegade is. In an instant, Wayne is up, sharp eyes alert. He presses a finger to his ear—apparently he has a communicator of some sort—and begins to speak. "Flash, come in..." Wayne's voice is sure. Commanding. Comforting and terrifying all at once. "I need you to meet me at BC-1 immediately… I'll tell you when you get here."

Then he presses his hand to his ear again. "Diana, Kal… BC-1. I'll need neutral arbitrators."

Before Renegade can fully process the fact that Wayne is on a first name basis with Wonder Woman and Superman, Wayne is handing him a box of tissues and pulling him up. And then Wayne's picked up Renegade's sword and pulled his knife out of the desk, and Wayne's hand is on Renegade's shoulder, steady, firm, forceful, steering him to the wall. Wayne pulls off the head of a copper bust on the bookshelf and the bookshelf slides away to reveal a hidden room.

This wasn't in the blueprints.

Wayne types something on a panel and a woman calls out "Access Granted, A-005, Richard Grayson."

Then there's a flash of bright light and suddenly, Rengade isn't looking at a secret room in Wayne's office. They're in a cave. He thinks. When he was six, his parents took him on a trip to Carlsbad Caverns. He remembers being afraid. This place is like that. And maybe he already knows where he is. Maybe that's why he feels so sick. Sicker than he did just moments ago when he realized what Deathstroke had done, what Wayne could have done. Sicker than when he remembered what he'd done to Wally, what he'd planned to do to Wally.

He feels faint. The world is almost spinning around him and his stomach finally can't take it anymore. He doubles over and in an instant his lunch is all over Wayne's $700 loafers. There's no trace of annoyance or disgust from Wayne. He simply puts his hand on Renegade's shoulder to steady the boy.

"What the hell is going on?" a voice calls out. From the frantic tone and too-fast pace, Renegade knows it's the Flash.

"Calm you—

"You summon me here at a moment's notice, and you call in Supes and Wondy, and you bring a supervillain into the Batcave? I just got off the phone with Mary. She thought Wally was with me.

"I don't know where my nephew is, but I have a very bad feeling about it, so until I find out where he is, I'm not going to fucking calm myself!"

Wonder Woman is there too. So is Superman. If Batman were here, they'd have the Trinity. Renegade wonders idly why Wayne didn't invite Batman.

She puts a hand on the Flash's shoulder and suddenly the man seems to slow down, even if he hasn't really been moving. "Bruce. What happened?" she asks, voice regal. "Wally is currently in Deathstroke's custody," Wayne explains. The Flash blurs. Renegade imagines that's what trembling looks like at super speed.

In the blink of an eye, Wayne is on the ground, Flash vibrating angrily above him. "You motherfucking bastard!"

In another blink Superman is standing between the Flash and Wayne. "Getting angry won't help anything," Superman explains calmly.

"Superman is right," Wonder Woman agrees.

"I knew this mission was too dangerous!"

"Wally knew the risks," Superman says.

"Wally is a hot-headed teenager who knew that if he didn't give Batman something he wanted I was going to get out kicked out of the Justice League, and Batman is a manipulative bastard. I knew this mission was too dangerous, and for what? For a psychopathic brat?"

"For a friend Flash," Wayne counters, getting up. "Wally took the mission because he considered Richard a friend and wanted to save him. And that is a good and noble thing to do. And now we have a good and noble thing to do, which is to save our young friend."

"Agreed," Wonder Woman nods. "We have to save Kid Flash. Arguing amongst ourselves will get us nowhere."

"Richard." Wayne keeps calling him Richard. No one has called him Richard in so long. He hasn't had a name, other than Renegade or Apprentice or Jolly Roger in years, and now, tonight, when his hideousness has been revealed, Wayne has given him his name back and called him Dick and Richard and Robin, and all of those names are wrong because the little boy whose mother called him that could never have tried to kill an innocent man in cold blood, or kidnapped and tortured and planned to murder the only person to have shown him kindness in years. "We need to find Wally and get him back from Deathstroke before Deathstroke hurts him further. We need your help with that."

Renegade swallows. He nods. He's not sure where his voice has gone. He swallows again. Finally, his voice is back. "I… I took him to one of the Mas—Slade's lairs. It's located in Bludhaven. The-Slade expects me to return there after I've finished the job with Way—with you, Mr. Wayne."

"The four of us together shouldn't have a problem," Superman starts, but Renegade cuts him off with a sharp shake of his head. The surveillance on the warehouse is too good. There's no way anyone could get in or out without the Master noticing, and if he saw the League was approaching."

"So what do you suggest?" Wayne asks.

"I could go back—

"No." Wayne's tone bears no arguing. "It's too dangerous."

"What?" Flash bellows. "It's not too dangerous for Wally, but it's too dangerous for the brat? What about helping friends and good and noble things?"

"Wally has not been subject to the emotional and physical abuse of a manipulative monster like Deathstroke for the last four years."

"All the more reason to think Richard can take care of himself."

"I am not sending a child with Stockholm Syndrome back to his kidnapper!"

"Bullshit! When it's a kid you care about, the rules are different."

"Bruce. Flash. This is not the time to argue." "Agreed. I'm pulling rank. Richard stays here. I'll go to Bludhaven. Selina owes me a favor, and if anyone can get into Wilson's HQ without being noticed, she can."

"It's too risky," Superman says. "Selina is brilliant, but not perfect, and we've seen how sophisticated Wilson is. He's eluded the League for four years. It's possible not even Selina would be able to get you in, not with the schedule we're working on, and we can't afford even the slightest chance that Wilson will see you coming.

"Bruce. I know how much Richard means to you. How much it means to you that we've finally got him back. But Wally needs to be saved, and right now, Richard is in the best position to do that."

Wayne starts to shake his head, but Wonder Woman places a gentle hand on his arm. "Bruce. We've got him back. We'll get him back again."

"This is my fault. Let me fix it," Renegade pleads. Begs.

And finally Wayne crumples. He closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and nods. "Alright then."

He turns around and starts to walk away. Renegade doesn't understand at first, but the superheroes all follow him, so he does too. The cave is enormous, and it's filled with strange and wonderful things. A massive playing card. A dinosaur. Weapons, masks, knicks and knacks. And there's an enormous computer. Renegade has never seen something so beautiful. Under better circumstances he might even be impressed.

Wayne presses a button on the computer and the image of a man ironing flickers onto the massive screen. "Alfred, please tell me you haven't roasted that pig you bought yet."

"No, Master Bruce, I haven't."

"Could you please bring it down to the Cave?"

"Right away Master Bruce."

"Wait here," Wayne says and disappears for a few moments. He reappears holding a bag of red liquid. Renegade realizes it's blood. "Superman, I'm going to need to ask Clark Kent a favor. Vicky Vale too."

"What favor?"

"I need rumors of my death to be greatly exaggerated. Tell Mr. Kent and Ms. Vale I'm sorry for the damage this is going to do to their reputations."

"It's Perry White you should be apologizing to," Superman answers, almost lightly. Renegade misses the joke, if there is one. Then Superman nods. "I'll get right on it." Then he's gone.

The old man, Alfred, shows up a few minutes later with a whole pig. It's only once he sees the dead animal that Renegade understands what Wayne is planning. The man takes the carcass from Alfred and sits it up in a chair. Without a moment's hesitation he undoes his tie and takes off his jacket and shirt. His skin is riddled with scars of all shapes and sizes. Like Renegade's is.

Wayne puts the bag of blood on the pig's chest and closes the shirt around the pig. Renegade doesn't need to be told what to do. He unsheathes his sword and plunges it into the dead animal. The bag bursts leaving his hands covered in Batman's blood. It's red and cold and sticky. He leaves the sword in for a moment while he vomits again. Wayne's pulled up the Daily Planet and Gotham Post websites. His smiling face is plastered on both their homepages. Billionaire Playboy, Bruce Wayne, Found Murdered reads one headline. New Wayne Murder reads the other.

Wayne smiles grimly. "Good old Clark.

"Now," he asks, "what's the plan?"

Author's Notes: This was one of the harder chapters to write, and I'm not quite fond of how it came out. There are too many characters doing too many things, and I use the word and too many times. It's hard to hit the balance of interests between Dick and Wally, and to get across why Batman and Flash are at odds, and why each, under the circumstances is being reasonable. I'm not overly familiar with the character of Barry, though he tends to get portrayed as a saint most of the time. I'm slightly afraid I might be overly harsh in this interpretation. It's hard to balance Barry being a good guy and Barry being terrified because Wally is with Slade. On the other hand, Bruce deciding to pull rank is also a dick move. Basically, I have no idea if this is terrible.

And the other reason I have no idea if this is terrible is because of the Bruce=Batman connection. There's a single subtle line that indicates that Dick finally gets what the deal is with Batman. I'm not confident at all that this is how it should work.

Thoughts as always would be appreciated.