#sladejason

Jason had never fought Slade before. That was more Dick’s shtick. But desperate times called for desperate measures, and the scale of the problem had meant that it was all hands on deck. So Jason found himself face to face with Deathstroke, Nightwing a blue blur at his side. The fight had been brutal and Jason had lost both his jacket and his gloves at some point, even the thick Kevlar of his armour had taken a battering. Slade had lost his helmet, and Jason was honestly a little surprised that he’d never seen Slade’s face before.

It had completely blind-sided him. His bare knuckles had grazed the skin of Slade’s jaw and it had felt like a bolt of lightning straight down his spine. Pain lanced through his body, sharp and intense enough that it brought him to his knees. By the time it had fizzled into something more manageable - localised like a fire in the delicate skin of his wrist - Dick was in front of him. He’d positioned himself between Jason and the also kneeling Slade, casting a worried glance back at Jason over his shoulder.

“You okay Hood? What happened?” His voice was almost desperate, the tight line of his back belaying the tension he felt. Jason couldn’t say anything for a long moment, his eyes stuck on Slade, his own surprise and horror mirrored on the older man’s face.

Dick turned further towards him, and his gaze fell to the exposed skin of his wrist, surprise smoothing out the lines around his mouth. Jason looked down, catching the dark lines of a forming soulmark before he snatched his sleeve down to cover it.

“Oh my god,” Dick breathed, his form going slack - no longer defensive.

Slade staggered to his feet and if Jason hadn’t already been reeling in shock, seeing the mercenary so unsteady would have surprised him.

“Slade,” Dick started. Jason had no idea what he was going to say, but he didn’t get the chance. Slade turned and started running. They didn’t chase after him.

Jason was sure he was going into some sort of shock. He didn’t realise that Dick was talking to him until he’d already levered him to his feet. His ears were ringing, his brain repeating the same thing over and over like a stuck record.

Slade is my soulmate. Slade is my soulmate. Slade is my soulmate.

The next thing he knew he was being lowered into a squishy couch in a safe house that Dick shouldn’t know about, a cool glass of water being pressed into his hand.

“You okay Jay?” Dick asked, his voice uncomfortably soft.

“I’m fine,” Jason croaked, sounding decidedly not fine.

Dick sat next to him, reaching for his wrist, and Jason snatched his arm away, clutching it to his chest protectively. Dick held his hands up in a I mean no harm motion, and for some reason that annoyed Jason even more. He wasn’t some child to be babied and Dick didn’t need to be acting like he was. He honestly couldn’t even say why he didn’t want Dick to look at the soul mark. He already knew what had happened, already knew exactly who Jason’s soulmate was. God, his soulmate. Slade.

Nausea swelled in his stomach, pressing insistently at the base of his throat, and he had to take a deep breath, swallowing against the sudden urge to vomit. A gentle press of fingers against his wrist startled him into opening his eyes. Dick guided his arm down into his lap and Jason didn’t have the energy anymore to stop him. He couldn’t look as Dick slid his sleeve up and away from the mark, he didn’t want to see the evidence of his failure painted across his skin.

“It’s beautiful Jay,” Dick breathed reverently. Jason scoffed - Dick had always been sappy about soulmarks - but curiosity drew his gaze down.

It was the ugliest soulmark Jason had ever seen. Most soulmarks were small, intricate patterns reminiscent of twisted rope. People liked to compare it to the so-called strings of fate, twined together. Jason thought it was stupid. Still, a small part of him had always slightly admired the delicate marks. Dick’s own was beautiful - a complicated twist of filigree thin, almost iridescent lines that twisted across his palm. Jason’s was… well a blob. A big dark blob on the inside of his wrist. The lines were so thick and so tangled that he could barely make them out, and the whole thing blended together so that from a distance it just looked like a big ink stain.

“Are you fucking blind Dickie?” he croaked, making Dick look up at him in surprise. “It’s hideous.”

“What? No it’s not!” Dick sounded offended, like it was his soulmark that Jason was ragging on. Jason pulled his wrist away and covered the mark with his hand. He didn’t want to look at it anymore.

“I’m not surprised,” Jason said morosely. “I mean my soulmate is fucking Slade Wilson.”

“So?” Dick asked. Jason turned to boggle at him.

“What do you mean so? My soulmate is a villain!”

Dick snorted. “I mean you’re not exactly squeaky clean yourself.”

And okay, that hurt. Yeah, he killed people but only those who deserved it. He helped people. He wasn’t Deathstroke the fucking Terminator. He scowled and Dick must have realised his mistake because his eyes went wide, his hands flapping around like little birds.

“That’s not what I meant Jason.”

“I know what you meant,” Jason hissed uncharitably, because damn he’d really thought he was doing better now. That he was being accepted back into their fucked up little family.

“Jay, please I’m sorry,” Dick leaned into him, the heat of his chest pressing against Jason’s shoulder. “I just meant that, well, Bruce is all ‘holier than thou’ and his soulmate is a villain.”

“You can hardly compare Catwoman and Deathstroke,” Jason shrugged him off. He wasn’t sure why this was bothering him so much. He’d never put much importance in soulmates before, had never cared about finding his. A lot of people never found their soulmates, separated by countries or class or circumstances. There were over 7 billion people on the Earth, really it was a miracle that anyone found their soulmates at all.

“Your soulmate doesn’t change who you are Jay. Having a bad soulmate doesn’t make you a bad person.”

He knew that. Jason had seen the dark side of soulmates. There were all kinds of people, and most of them were selfish, greedy scumbags. He knew people who’d cheated on their soulmates, who’d abused and hurt them. And the victims almost always stayed with them because they were soulmates and how could their relationship be bad when they were destined to be together? He’d watched his own mother, strung out and delirious, press soft kisses to the soulmark on her bicep and when Jason, in a fit of grief and rage, had told her that soulmates were stupid, she’d slapped him.

Something small and angry roared to life in Jason’s chest, because yeah Dick was technically right but then it was easy for him to say. His soulmate wasn’t Deathstroke. He didn’t have to live with the fact that he’d never have a real relationship with his soulmate.

“Maybe this is a good thing?” Dick said weakly. “Maybe your love will bring the big bad guy over to the light.”

Jason swung a punch, but it was half hearted and at an awkward angle. Dick brushed it to the side easily and then caught his fist, tugging him round to face him. “It’s not like you have to date him. Lots of soulmates are platonic.”

Jason knew that too. Dick’s soulmate was Wally West, and whilst they’d tried dating in the past they’d both agreed that they were better as friends. And Roy’s soulmate was his daughter Lian. Still, Jason wasn’t exactly going to become BFFs with Deathstroke either so it was kind of a moot point.

Suddenly he desperately wanted to be alone. His soulmark was itching and it felt almost like the inky black was spreading - poison sinking through his skin and into his veins. “You should get back out there,” he said without looking at Dick. “They could probably do with the help.”

Dick hesitated, but he didn’t argue. It had been all hands on deck after all, and he could see the worry creeping onto Dick’s face at the reminder. “You gonna be okay?” Dick asked, expression torn.

“Fuck off Dickface.”

The floorboards creaked as Dick got up and left. Jason knew he’d done it on purpose but he couldn’t even find it in himself to be annoyed. He was just relieved that finally he could freak out in peace. Of course it would be Jason who had Deathstroke as a soulmate. As if the others needed more of an excuse to see Jason as the bad guy. Just because bleeding heart Grayson thought it was fine and dandy, didn’t mean that anyone else was going to feel the same way. Bruce certainly wouldn’t. He’d agonised over his own soulmate for years before accepting it, and that was Catwoman. Besides, he already thought Jason was a failure. This would only validate that.

He should have told Dick to keep his big mouth shut. If he’d had his way nobody would know about this and he could have just pretended it never happened. By the look on Slade’s face, he wasn’t exactly thrilled about the development either - he wasn’t expecting any warm and fuzzies from the mercenary anytime soon. Would Slade seek him out? Maybe try to kill him and get rid of the problem? Not that Jason was planning on being a problem. He was going to avoid Deathstroke at all costs and carry on as if he’d never found his soulmate in the first place.

He’d find Dick tomorrow and threaten him into silence. He must have something in the blackmail bank. He was pretty sure he had a picture of Dick that one time his trousers had ripped doing a squat and he’d been going commando. But then Dick had seemed pretty unashamed at the time. He’d think of something. Right now, with the adrenaline of the fight slowly ebbing, he felt muggy with fatigue. He tipped sideways onto the sofa, into the warm patch that Dick had left behind, and tucked his legs up towards his chest.

Everything would turn out fine. He just had to wait and see.

*

Dick was being annoyingly blase about the whole thing. Jason had cornered him before patrol the next day, slamming him up against an alley wall with an arm across his collarbone, and hissed all sorts of threats into his face. Dick had pouted, but he’d promised with an easy acquiescence that had Jason’s spidey senses tingling.

“You wanna talk about it?” Dick asked after Jason let him go, still leaning back against the wall but more casually now, slouching.

“Fuck off.”

Dick shrugged, grinning. More alarm bells. He’d expected Dick to push the issue - he just loved to talk about people’s problems, as long as they weren’t his own, the hypocritical bastard.

“If you’re all done posturing then, I’ve got places to be.”

Jason eyed him suspiciously, but Nightwing just gave him an obnoxious wave and then jumped to grab a fire ladder above him, lifting himself up onto the fire escape and heading up to the roof. Jason left him to it. As long as he kept his promise, Jason wouldn’t have a problem, and anyway he had his own patrol to get to.

He was almost finished when the call came over the comms. Jason had only recently agreed to be included on the Bat channels and more often than not he stuck to the emergency channels only, so the crackle of static in his ear almost made him fall off the roof.

“Hood, I need an assist.” Nightwing, breathless and strained.

“Why are you telling me?” Jason grouched. He knew for a fact Batman was patrolling, and probably the Replacement and the little gremlin too.

“You’re the closest and it’s kind of an emergency.”

Jason’s teeth ground together hard enough that his jaw hurt a little, but he dutifully set off in the direction of Dick’s beacon. It led him to a small, ramshackle warehouse on the edge of the docks. It looked abandoned, but there was a faint orange glow lighting up the grimy windows. Jason crouched behind the door, listening carefully. No sounds of a fight, but he could just make out the quiet rumble of voices. Maybe Dick was already down? Well, Jason had the element of surprise. Holding his gun at the ready, he kicked the door open and stormed inside. Nightwing was stood in the middle of the room, arms crossed over his chest and hip cocked casually. To the left of him was Deathstroke, gun aimed straight at Jason’s head.

“What the fuck?” Jason and Slade said at the same time. Dick stepped between them, hands out. Jason was tempted to just shoot the interfering little bastard.

“Guys, come on,” Dick said. “You need to talk about this.”

“No. We. Don’t.” Jason hissed out. He couldn’t believe the audacity of it all.

“I agree with Red. There’s nothing to talk about.”

Dick flapped his hands at them. Neither Jason nor Slade had lowered their guns, and Jason’s finger itched to just pull the trigger and take care of the problem.

“You guys are soulmates!”

“So what?” Jason said, gritting his teeth together. He was getting tired of Dick’s rose-tinted view of soulmates.

“So you guys should work this out,” Dick said, exasperated. “I’ll leave you alone, and if this doesn’t get sorted then I’m going to annoy the fuck out of both of you until it does.”

Jason took a deep, calming breath. He was going to wring his fucking neck. Slade’s cheek twitched, his mouth a thin line. Dick gave Jason a long, meaningful look and then ducked out of the warehouse, leaving them both standing in the chill of the empty room, guns trained on each other.

Slade sighed heavily and lowered his gun. “Let’s just get this over with.”

He wanted to refuse, he had nothing to say to this man. But the idea of Dick being an annoying little prick for the rest of eternity was definitely worse.

“Fine,” he holstered his gun and then pulled his sleeve up to show his mark. “We’re soulmates, so fucking what?”

Slade’s eye fell immediately to the exposed mark, his expression unreadable. “Look kid, I’m not happy about this either. You think I wanted my soulmate to be some jumped up little shit young enough to be my son?”

Jason snorted. “To be honest Slade, I thought you didn’t have a soul to be worried about.”

“That’s Deathstroke to you.”

“Whatever you say Deathstroke,” Jason stretched out the name with a waggle of his eyebrows and a lewd gesture. Slade’s face did a complicated little twist but he didn’t retaliate. Instead, he pulled his own sleeve up to reveal the soul mark on his wrist. It matched Jason’s exactly and it looked just as ugly on the other man’s skin.

“So what are we going to do about this?” Slade murmured, his gaze uncomfortably heavy.

“Nothing. It doesn’t mean anything,” Jason’s stomach turned over queasily. He had the feeling it wasn’t going to be as simple as he hoped. “Let’s just pretend this never happened.”

Deathstroke lunged towards him suddenly. Jason stumbled backwards - startled - fumbling for his gun. Slade’s hand closed over his wrist, pushing up underneath his sleeve and Jason’s soulmark burned where his thumb brushed against it.

“We could try cutting it out?” Slade purred, pressing his thumb in hard enough to hurt. Jason couldn’t help the way his eyes widened, mouth dropping open in horror. He didn’t even know if cutting it out would work - more than likely it would just hide the physical evidence of the bond. And yet, the thought of cutting it out of him, of destroying it, made panic twist like a knot in his stomach. Slade gave him a knowing, smug look.

“As much as I hate to admit it, RIchard is right. Sort of. We don’t have to like it, but we’re soulmates and there’s no changing that.”

He hadn’t expected Slade to be so rational about this. It irked him that the mercenary seemed to be handling this better than he was. He snatched his wrist back and Slade let him go easily, but didn’t move away.

“So what? We hold hands and skip off into the sunset together?”

“In your dreams,” Slade snorted. “I was thinking more along the lines of…” he seemed to be pondering his words, “hanging out?”

“Hanging out.”

“You got a better idea?”

Jason rubbed his temples. It was a fucking terrible idea. The last thing Jason wanted to do was hang out with Deathstroke the Terminator. But then, maybe Dick was right, as much as the thought left a sour taste in his mouth, maybe he should give this whole soulmate thing a chance.

“No,” he gritted out. “I guess not.”

“Then it’s sorted. We can tell Richard we’ve come to an arrangement,” he made the word sound filthy, “and we can be civil when we come across each other. Perhaps, even arrange some...meetings.”

He couldn’t believe those words were coming out of the mercenary’s mouth. “What and have a tea party?” he snorted.

“This is bad enough without you being snarky,” Slade snarled, suddenly angry. Jason rolled his eyes petulantly.

“Fine, whatever, we can arrange some meetings, are we done now?”

“Yes,” Slade grit out from between clenched teeth. “We’re done.”

Jason turned - even though the idea of showing Slade his back made his skin crawl - and walked out of the warehouse. Dick was waiting just outside, concern on his face. He was probably worried that they’d killed each other in there. Jason had been tempted a few times.

“We’ve sorted it Dickface so you can leave me the fuck alone now.”

Dick’s gaze slid up over his shoulder just as Jason felt a looming presence behind him. He squashed the urge to spin around and draw his gun. That certainly wouldn’t convince Dick that they’d ‘talked it out’.

“Don’t try this shit again kid, or I’m going to be pissed,” Slade rumbled. Dick rolled his eyes, but he was smiling, tentative relief creeping across his face.

A hard grip on Jason’s shoulder almost had him flinching, but he caught himself just in time, shooting a strained smile behind at Slade. He grunted, and patted Jason awkwardly, like a little kid who was pretending to play nice whilst his mum was watching.

“See you around then kid,” he said, already stepping away. Jason waved, keeping him in his sights until he’d disappeared into the Gotham night.

“You good Jay?” Dick asked when Jason just stood there, staring into the dark until his eyes threatened to water.

“No,” he didn’t give Dick a chance to respond, and Dick didn’t follow him as he left, in the opposite direction to Slade.

He barely remembered the trip back to his safehouse. His head was swimming, thoughts swirling and clamouring. Was he really going to...hang out...with Slade Wilson? The thought was preposterous, and really, Jason thought that Slade had only suggested it to get Dick off of his back. Jason shared the sentiment. Still, he didn’t think that it was going to work out. Jason had never even seen Slade’s face before this. And Slade had always been more interested in Dick than Jason.

For some reason the thought sent a curl of jealousy sparking through his gut. It wasn’t that Jason cared if Slade liked him or not, but the thought that even his soulmate preferred Golden Boy had something sharp and bitter swelling in his chest. It wasn’t fair. He felt stupid and childish thinking it, but damn, couldn’t at least one thing in his shitty life go right? For once?

Crawling into bed, he held onto his wrist loosely, his palm hot where it pressed against his mark. His chest ached, exhaustion creeping through his bones. This whole thing was exhausting. If he could, he would go back and refuse to fight Slade, make sure he didn’t lose his gloves. He would have been happier never having found his soulmate.

That night, when he finally fell asleep, he dreamt of Slade.

*

It was a month before Jason saw Slade again. Dick pestered him the entire time, sticking his nose all up in Jason’s business. He’d lied out of his ass, making out that he and Slade were meeting up once a week to ‘talk’. He could tell that Dick didn’t really believe him, but he was backing off for now, and that was more than Jason had hoped for.

Jason was knee deep in a case when he saw Slade next. The mercenary had burst through the door and shot the mob boss that Red Hood was meeting with, straight through the head. The man had been dead before he hit the ground, blood splashing across Jason’s leather jacket.

Jason had brought his gun up instinctively, and for a tense moment they stared each other down across the barrels of their guns, before Jason lowered his with a huff. “What are you doing here Deathstroke?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” Slade let his gun drop, but he didn’t relax, his body thrumming with tension.

“Mickey here was encroaching on my territory,” he toed the body with his boot, “I was about to teach him a lesson.”

Slade seemed to regard the dead man for a moment. “Not going to give me a lecture?”

Jason laughed. “You’ve been spending too much time with Nightwing, I don’t care about you killing him, in fact you’ve done me a favour.”

Slade made an amused humming noise. “Well, that certainly is refreshing.”

Stupidly, Jason felt something warm and pleased bloom in his chest. Slade took his phone out and took a photo of the dead body, presumably as some kind of proof, and then turned to leave. He hesitated at the doorway, the broad line of his shoulders tensing, before he turned slightly to face Jason and tilted his head in invitation. Jason was moving before he even really thought about it, following silently through the hallways, stepping over more corpses, and out into the cool night.

“So does this count as hanging out?” Jason asked.

“I don’t think so,” Slade laughed, and the sound made the warm, pleased feeling spread through his ribs.

Jason chewed on his lip, considering. “I’ve got another case,” he blurted before he could second guess himself, “Do you maybe want to tag along?”

Slade was silent long enough for the warm feeling to curdle, embarrassment and anxiety taking its place. Then: “I can’t promise I won’t kill anyone.”

That was alright. Well, okay, it wasn’t ideal. Jason hadn’t been lying when he’d said Slade had done him a favour killing Mickey, or that he didn’t care if Slade killed people, but Jason himself had been trying to avoid it if he could. He was being tentatively brought back into the family, and as much as it irked him, he’d been trying to be good. Still, Jason wasn’t going to tell Slade what he could or couldn’t do. And besides, this was his soulmate. Let’s see if Dick was as enthusiastic about this whole thing when he found out about this.

“I don’t care,” Jason said instead.

“Okay then,” Slade reached into a pocket on his belt and pulled out a phone, tossing it at him. Jason caught it easily. “There’s a number on there. Send the details over.”

Jason nodded, his fingers clenching around this phone. This time when Slade left, Jason felt the first stirrings of something he hadn’t expected to feel.