Chapter Text
On the third day, Damian becomes aware that somewhere along the way, he made a mistake. Not in this mission, it was going fine, to Damian's utter satisfaction.
He has to move constantly, knowing that Wilson would likely be right behind him in an hours time if he paused intermittently, for prolonged periods. He's only one person, and he's aware of his own body enough to stretch his energy reserves.
He moves erratically, on-foot and then through the trees, marking landmarks to create a map. He counts steps in the back of his mind, aware of every hour that passes, bringing him closer, but never too close, to the end.
There's a cool stream carved into the ground that Damian stops at, trees bowed toward it, roots peeking out from dirt and rocks into the rushing water.
In moments like this, Damian misses his pets dearly. He's been separated from them and from family before, for long stretches. But not like this, indefinite for the foreseeable future.
Damian had made a choice that night beneath the Teen Titans base, standing equal ground with the man he took prisoner. He's made many choices much less considered than this one before, but he still struggles uselessly with it.
Bitterness. Shame. Regret. Shame, shame, shame.
Wilson leaves the space between his legs a dull ache more often than not. Those first few times had actually been easier, when Damian had bled and struggled to sit for the following days. He'd torn a tad, unused to the size, the intrusion that left his body confused. The pain was… grounding. Proof that Damian was taking something on his own.
There's barely a throb now, body used to the trespass. It's not so strange anymore, and it hardly was back then, on the cusp of Damian's fourteenth birthday. Damian already had Wilson inside him once, years ago, tapped into his spine and moving his limbs as if they were his own. It'd been terrifying and disgusting, but now Damian looks back on it as a sort of prerequisite to his current conditions.
Damian would like to think it's only a method to set himself on equal grounds with Wilson. But Damian is not so insane as to try to flaunt his body like carnal desire is what he holds over the man; he's not an idiot. The sex is more about the power than the sex. Wilson's eyes don't shine with mirth over the freed expanse of Damian's skin, ass or small cock, it's the obedience of falling to his knees when commanded; when joining mouths; when being forced into.
It is all not so horrible, is the worst part. It feels good. Occasionally Damian will get hard from having his blood pumping, awareness sharp as he gets knocked into the ground and struck over and over again. He doesn't have to flush and pray it goes down, unless he can access the showers as soon as possible, he just has to make a noise in his throat and Wilson is winding an arm around him to jack him off under his clothes.
Damian is hardly ever rewarded with sex, and hardly ever punished with it. It occurs sporadically, whenever Wilson feels like it, and whenever Damian's body decides to overreact. There are some times where Damian can't decide whether Wilson is attracted to him or not, like when he stops the car to frown and pull Damian into his lap, groping his waist and ass while depriving all of his oxygen.
Wilson is… disgustingly fascinating. Damian's time is full entirely of being surrounded by the man, so he can hardly be blamed for having conflicting feelings, but the guilt festers regardless. Wilson is as dangerous and competent as he's always been, and handles Damian like he's a brittle dagger in his hand.
It is a guilty relief for the times he appreciates the man for not balking at Damian's harder edges. Damian grew up having them sharpened enough to slice men's heads clean off— One blade, cutting like butter through flesh and thick muscle, straight through the hard knot of a vertebrae.
He still remembers using the whole weight of his body the first time he took a man's head, to tear it from the spine, how the sound had made Damian's appetite dwindle and twist in his stomach. It hadn't been the gore that done it, but the reality of learning later he was the father to three little girls, Damian's own age. He'd thought about if he were ever ordered to murder his own mother, one day.
It is a relief, because Damian already knows how to kill, and how it feels to do so, and after three years in Gotham his fight against that instinct— like a wooden beam, hacked into and marked by a blade— has come to a head.
Some nights Damian dreams of leaping into Dick's arms, which he knew would never open for him again, and Titus' tongue on his cheek, and awakes with a longing thick as sap clinging to his throat.
What was he even here for? He was irrational and emotional, from losing Dick and having his father lose vital faith in him— Damian can never escape Bruce's infiltration in his head, low timbre of his voice raised to a bark— he ran to the most convenient older man to cling to like a child.
Damian would like to say he left Gotham because he decided he couldn't adhere to the strict moral guidelines required, after witnessing criminals of heinous crimes escape and start havoc time and time again. But really, the reason Damian left Gotham was because he was—is— lonely.
Wilson doesn't flinch from Damian's harsh words, even when he brings up the man's poor handling of his own children's fates in the past, or Damian's own worst shames. Wilson still has expectations of him, of course, but the 'training' isn't really training that Damian needs. Its effort to mold Damian into someone specifically to stand by Wilson's side, one day as an equal.
Damian isn't punished for being too aggressive or violent and he also isn't punished for being too kind, or soft. The man may gripe but he regards Damian's reluctance to give up mercy as a quality, not an obstacle. He'd like for Damian to give up and kill just as he does, but he recognizes that Damian is stubborn. That part of Damian is one he enjoys.
Hence, the challenges. He likes to see how far Damian can actually go, he thinks. The longest he can last. The farthest path he's willing to take to accomplish a task that Wilson gives.
Climbing up the long, sturdy body of a tree, he looks out over the forest dotting the far side of the mountain. His legs might be sore from constant use— he's mostly just tired.
He digs the tracker out from his pocket, observes it contemplatively. Black, sleek, round. Then he retrieves his makeshift slingshot, and loads the tracker into it. He pulls as much power as he dares, and flings it as far as he can into the distance, to the right. It's bound to get damaged, passing through branches and crashing into dirt and rock.
Damian imagines it for a moment, the chime of the notification alerting Wilson of his last known location, tracker destroyed. Imagines the irritation and amusement on the man's face, thinking Damian had given up the game.
He allows himself to smile, while he climbs down the tree to set the trap.
Damian counts his steps, one, two, three, from the moment he catches sight of him through the trees. Four, five, six.
Wilson moves rather clumsily through the forest, on his way towards him. He doesn't look particularly sluggish, besides being faintly miffed, by body posture. Seven, eight, nine, ten. He's dressed in his full Deathstroke regalia, mask in place. Damian checks weaponry off in his head, one by one, firearms, katanas, taser, dagger. His explosives are missing, though Damian suspects that in this case that it would do little for Wilson if Damian ended up caught in the blast range and killed.
Eleven, twelve. In the setting sun, the orange and blacks of his suit blend in with the gilded trees and ground. He's distracted, not thinking Damian would stick around, knowing he was coming. He already suspected Wilson would calculate the area Damian chucked the tracker from, and approach it first before finding Damian's next trail. He was banking on it, in fact.
Wilson is tripping through invis-wires on his twenty-sixth step. They have to do with perception, and Damian's had them for a while. They can be useful for hunting.
Damian hasn't had much of a chance to use them.
Wilson goes down hard. Damian is sure the look on his face is a heady declaration, rising up in his chest. His thumb depresses the button.
He drops down, thirty feet away, while Wilson is flopping uselessly onto his back with an offended grunt.
"I have wondered if there was anything that truly scared you about me," Damian muses as he approaches.
Wilson goes alarmingly still, listening to him. Damian extends his arms in a brief huff, smacking his empty hands against his thighs. "It's certainly not anything that has to do with me being dangerous. Not like with everyone else."
Wilson's head lolls back, toward him. Mask unreadable.
Damian stops, staring down at the massive heap. Sneers. "Because you're special, just like how I'm special, yes?"
He crouches down and pulls the mask off the man's head. White hair spills across the dirt. His eye meets Damian's, profoundly unbothered.
"What is this?" Wilson asks, voice edged with a warning. Damian ignores it.
"This is why I intrigue you, right? Why you like me," Damian says. He feels light-footed, his tongue flowing before his brain can catch up. "I surpass expectations. Circumvent them. I am exactly what everyone needs me to be."
The wire traps the man's arms in an uncomfortable position, stretched away from himself. It leaves one of his holstered weapons up for grabs. Damian relieves it from Wilson's arsenal, fingers wrapped a tad awkwardly around the grip. Consideringly, he flicks off the safety.
"Kid," Wilson tries again, voice deeper.
Damian hoists a leg over his side, and straddles his hips. He levels the muzzle to the man's chest, approximately where his heart lies. "This isn't about me. It's about you. You, needing me."
"What are you blabbering about," Wilson inquires tonelessly, jaw twitching.
Damian smiles. "It's not so fun when I don't play along with your game, is it? I could leave you here and find your supplies, camped somewhere up north." There's a chill in the air, running down his neck. He raises the muzzle to drag up the man's throat, settling under his jaw. He sees the short swallow, the thready pulse. "You could figure out how to escape this with time, but as it is, it would kill you if you made the wrong move. I could kill you."
"I'd like that," Wilson admits, raising a brow.
"You would," Damian agrees. Instead, he slides a hand down to the belt, undoing with an ease that comes only from practice. The thighs underneath him tense, and then untense as the wires cut into muscle. He could escape the net with enough time, but not like this, with Damian atop him like a flag upon the summit.
As Damian takes a soft cock in hand, Wilson breaks the narrative by slumping back and gritting out, "Damian."
"Do you like being tied up, Slade?" Damian asks, running his thumb over the slit. "Do you enjoy being at the mercy of the boy you fuck?"
"I'll let you know when I'm at your mercy," Wilson replies.
"If not me, then who?" Damian lowers his hand, tight down to his balls. "Do you think of Grayson? I do, sometimes."
"You don't want to know that."
Pumping the man to full hardness, he ignores the grunt when he scoots down and bends to lap his tongue over salty pre. Wilson opens his mouth to speak, and Damian scrapes his teeth threateningly over his flesh. That gets more of a reaction than the firearm flush to his ribs.
"Hey now," Wilson grits out. Damian slurps a few inches further, tongue curling underneath. The man's hips try to flinch forward into his throat, but the wires tense around his form and leave him slumping instead.
Damian shoves his hand to the layers of his bottoms to shove them down to his knees, shuffling in the dirt on either side of Wilson's legs, shivering at the cool nature air rushing between his thighs. Really, what is more appropriate to do in a forest than fucking like animals?
Cock slipping from his lips, it rests against his cheek while he wets his digits with his spit, glancing up at Wilson's chest heaving, criss-crossed by shining cord. Damian's ribs constrict, hard to breathe suddenly, face flaming. He crawls back to his lap and sits up, "I like it like this. Like our first time all over again."
He probes two fingers at his rim, clenching his jaw at the unceremonious dry stretch when he plunges inside. It's still uncomfortable, finding his grip on the base of Wilson's cock easier as he lines him up. There's no audible protest, not that Damian would heed it.
Mouth opening in a ragged gasp as he sinks the first few inches, his thighs twitch in a valiant instinct to wince away. Eyes opening blearily to meet the lidded look of the man below him, violently calm where Damian struggles to take.
"You really need this, don't you?" Wilson says quietly, a rumble over Damian's panting. Damian shakes his head, squeezing his eyes shut again. He feels like he's being cleaved open from the inside, and he's never felt more alive. When he's fully seated, his helpless clenching makes Wilson's cock throb in his depths.
"Instead of going through with any of your half-assed plans," Wilson begins. "You're still here. With me. And you're saying you don't need me?"
Damian never said anything about that. He can't correct him though, his back working up a sweat while he moves to raise off his cock and fall back down, short "Hah's," punched out of him with every uneven bounce. The gun is loose in his grasp, hard-pressed to the man's thick abdomen. It hurts. It hurts. It feels good.
"Let me out of this, kid," Wilson croons, a relentless tiger, rough from the stimulation. "What do you want to hear, hm? You're right. I do need you. Aren't you gonna let me prove it? I won't run away. Just like how you won't ever run from me."
A sob breaks the moan in his throat, god, he feels so stupid. Like a child asking for a hug. His cock is leaking all over his thigh, driving himself down on the monster laid out before him. Damian quits bracing for a moment in order to fumble for the controls, other hand still fisted around the grip of the gun, finger off the trigger.
The trap hisses with relief, springing apart into loose wires. As soon as he's free, a hand shoots up and wraps around Damian's throat— Damian has a split second of regret— the world spinning before he's being swiveled into the ground. His pants get yanked down, trapped around his boots and legs shoved to the side. Damian is ridiculously limp, blubbering like a fool.
"Are you going to sing for me, little Thrush?" Wilson asks, yanking him onto his cock. Damian cries out. "Sing my name?"
He shakes his head, growling through tears. A hand descends to squish his cheeks with thumb and fingers, directing his face back upwards. The thumb presses between his lips, and Damian bites down on it. "You do remind me of Grayson, sometimes," Wilson admits.
Damian's cock jumps between his thighs. The ridges of Wilson's uniform dig into his skin with each thrust, smacking roughly against his ass. The loose soil under him disturbed by the rapid movement, secondary to the pleasure of his prostate hit with the grace of a battering ram.
He can't stop crying. He's sure his heart is obnoxiously loud in Wilson's enhanced hearing, matching the disgusting, harsh sounds from his mouth echoing between the trees. It sounds a little like someone is killing him. His voice is stuffy and muffled from the grip on his face. "Sl— agh, Slade!"
"Christ," Wilson says, tugging him into the next thrust.
It's the tremble of disgust in his voice that hurtles him over the edge. Wet spurts over the stomach of his tunic, body seizing against the hard ground. His hair undoubtedly has all sorts of debris in it now. The persistent pounding doesn't quit, in fact increases as Damian's hole clutches up mid-orgasm around Wilson's cock, and the over-stimulation makes him spasm.
"Stop," Damian pants.
Slade doesn't stop. A swell of panic makes Damian thrash. "Wilson, stop!"
"Make me stop," He says, grappling with Damian's legs for a hold.
Mindlessly, Damian raises the forgotten pistol from the earth and fires it off right against his ribs.
The Kevlar can withstand a lot, but even that can't take a bullet at such close range without repercussion. Slade crumples to the side with a shout. "Shit!"
Laying there with the shot still ringing in his ears, he stares at Slade's hunched form, hands removed to clutch at his side. He curses, having to dig his fingers inside to fish the bullet out. It drops with a quiet thud. The blood sticks to his palm as he drags it away from his side, and he looks back at Damian with a rough chuckle. "Really testing me today, aren't you?"
Damian breathes slowly, wants to put his head between his knees until his feelings are gone, completely. Instead, he curls inwardly to hike his pants up his legs, a dull throb as it passes over his ass. Slade watches him, wound mending itself back together. His cock half-hard against the thigh muscle of a thigh. Damian doesn't care.
Hobbling to his feet, Damian teeters by the bank of the stream, all sorts of numb spreading across his body. He flexes his hands, fingers wide, then into fists. "Don't do that again."
Slade doesn't respond. He tucks himself back in his suit, half-heartedly adjusting his belt. He stands, blotting out the dim sun. "Already making demands, after this stunt?"
Damian's mouth dries. He hadn't really known his own intentions until just then. That he had no chance of ever leaving this behind, even if he wanted to. He was going to return to the cabin with Slade and take whatever punishment he decided on. He would need it. Need him. "I…"
"When we get back," Slade sighs. "When we get back."