Series: Redwing Universe
Title: Hurt Me In Your Hands
Author: Yami no Kaiba
Fandom: Animated Teen Titans
Rating: R
Pairing: Redwing [AU Nightwing]/Slade

Summary: Redwing reminisces on days past.
Warnings: Do not read if you are easily squicked by Arkham inmates like the Joker.
Disclaimers: Katarik owns Redwing; DC Comics owns the original characters.
Notes: Based on Katarik's AU drabble where heroes become villains, and villains become heroes.

*---*---*---*---*

The blood is everywhere. Redwing likes it that way, just as much as he likes this time of night. Red streaking on the walls, the floor, the furniture. There are even splatters of it on the ceiling, and he can't stop himself from giggling as he lies sprawled on the floor of the unlighted apartment, staring up at it. That streak looks like the morning sunrise, and that mess there resembles the crumpled form of a bat.

"I love him, you know," he whispers fondly, stroking the lock of hair he'd cut from his latest kill. It's clean, like all the other locks he takes off his targets. "I love him so much... I killed that lady of his for free, the one that he loved. The one that shot out his eye. Did it ages ago, but I still remember how she screamed... And the devastated look he had when he saw me over her body."

"He beat me senseless, that day." Laughs and raises his empty hand into the air, spreading his palm wide. Looks through the spaces of his spread fingers. The bat looks more like an arrow now. "But I don't mind. It had to be done. He had to know. Had to realize that *I'm* the only one he should look at like that. That I'm the only one for him."

"You know what that's like... Only reason I'm telling you. Only reason I took that contract to kill you. You shouldn't have killed that prostitute, dear Senator, when you found her with your husband." Smiles and turns his head to contemplate the eviscerated carcass of the woman lying curled on the sofa. "I wouldn't have taken the contract otherwise. But you did, and I knew I just *had* to meet a person so like myself."

Laughs again, as the patter of viscous drops splatter on his cheek. Turns his head back to stare at the ceiling. "Then he took that job with that little social club of his. He wasn't around as often anymore. Up in his little castle on the moon, that beautiful silent place that he deserves to rule. Leaving me *behind*," he snarls, eyes flashing behind his mask. Detaches one of his knives from his wrist sheath, and hurls it with a snap of his arm in the direction of the corpse. The wet 'shluk' sound he receives barely calms him down.

"He rose in the ranks, and tried to leave *me* behind. Became the leader of that stupid kiddy League of his. He just decided there were greater concerns to take up his time than little old me, one of the many lowly serial killers of Gotham City." Rubs the lock of hair *hard*, to the point that he has to pause to straighten the little trophy. Scrubbed, nimble fingers tug the strands back to the right height, sliding the auburn filaments under the string tying the bundle together.

"But then I figured: if Slade's only going to respond to the big, world-crisis events, why don't I *become* the person that causes such events? It took me three years to track down martial art and assassin masters, to play the innocent boy driven by revenge. Three years of not seeing him, but it was worth it to see the surprise on his face when we next met."

Purrs in the back of his throat, eyes shuddering closed at the remembered scene. Slade's grey eye wide in shock, while Redwing crouched on the catwalk above him, grinning in absolute joy and near-orgasmic at the sight of his beloved vigilante. That lovely color painted all over, Redwing clutching the leather-wrapped grips of his daggers, which had been still dripping that color onto the floor beneath him. Locks of hair already stuffed into the pouches on his belt, and the multiple carcasses of the assassinated Qurac diplomatic contingent laid every-which-way on the catwalks and the floor below.

"I wasn't always like this, you know," he whispers, and notes that if you look at the sunrise splatter from the side, it's like a shattering mirror. "I had a good childhood. I was a perfect little angel, my momma's little Robin. Her budding hope. But hope didn't stop momma and poppa from being murdered... They had their strings cut, literally."

Hears the dripping of more blood off to the side, and smiles. "Oh, don't cry for me, dear Senator. I got the people responsible. An eye-for-an-eye, a life-for-a-life. Nine years old, parents dead and crumpled on the packed dirt of the circus ring's floor. I'm sure you can understand how that can make a kid a trifle angry..."

"I had heard the people responsible threatening the circus manager earlier that night. I'd *seen* them, and I didn't wait around for some adult to find them and let them go. I pocketed the trick knives of the sword-swallower, and I hunted them down. I jumped them, a knife in each hand, and I flipped and I dodged around their confused and angry blows, slashing and cutting them *good*. When they were tired, I pushed them down and shoved a knife through their throats until the metal tips scraped the concrete under them."

"But see, momma and poppa, they always said killing was wrong. That hurting others was a bad thing. Yet here I'd just killed my parent's killers, and I didn't feel anything but joy."

Hums and closes his eyes, sighing at the black soothing darkness it brings. "It confused me so much... The blood was so, so pretty, and I was happy, but momma and poppa always told me people who did things like that were hurt--punished by God."

"He found me there. Crouched against the alley wall, clutching my knees and rocking back and forth, caught in the whirlwind of my dilemma. Two bodies bleeding out not four steps away, the knives still lodged in their corpses, and that lovely color splashed all over my skin and clothes."

"I was still in shock at the time. Without saying anything, he picked me up and carried me off. It was so *warm*, where I was pressed against his chest and side. So comforting..." Sighs blissfully at the remembered heat, the feeling of *safety* he'd briefly had. Of being taken away from his problems, being flown instead of doing the flying.

"But the warmth... It was so brief. When he landed, he pushed me into the hands of others, and I was cold once more, *lost* once more. They tried to take me away, but I resisted. Screamed, kicked, clawed. I think I even bit the arm of one of those blue-uniformed men." Without the hyphen, it reads like the men are blue and happen to be wearing a uniform, rather than the men are wearing a uniform that is blue.

"For the briefest moment, their hold on me slackened, and I twisted free. I ran for all I was worth, away from those cold people. I killed my momma and poppa's murderers. I was a bad person, and momma said bad people run and hide, so I did. Or at least, I tried to. But he was there, right in front of me, his shadow swallowing me, and I thought maybe, maybe he had come back to take me away from it all once again." He fingers the lock of auburn hair again.

"He slapped me. A harsh, jarring, open-palmed blow to my right cheek," he whispers, and brings the lock up to rub against the long-ago abused area. "And that's when I knew. If he wasn't God, then he was at least God's chosen advocate. The one fated to punish me, like momma and poppa said would happen. Because he hit me, unlike those cold people who hadn't."

"He's the only one who has the *right* to hit me, now that momma and poppa are dead. Because he's the closest thing to God, and I need to be punished."

Moves his hand to eye the lock of hair he's holding, checking to make sure there's no splatter of his favorite color on it. "I’d stared at him, holding my bruising cheek. Blue eyes wide as I came to the realization of just *who* he was. He raised his hand again, and I steeled myself for another jarring hit, ready to accept God's punishment..."

"But he stroked that gloved hand of his through my short black hair instead. He... He really was God's advocate. He had punished me, and yet still showed me that God loved me, like he loves all his lost children."

"And that," Redwing whispered into the dark room, as he tucked the lock of hair into a pouch in his belt, "is why I love him."

--Fin.

*---* Epilogue *---*

He doesn't want to open the manila envelope. He already knows what it contains, even if he's not, entirely, sure how many are in there.

There is no return address. There never is. But the stylized cursive of the address to his home, done in red ink, is all Slade needs to know.

As much as he doesn't want to open it, Slade lets the contents spill out on the coffee table. Sixteen bundles of different shades of hair silently drop onto the wood.

Something clenches in his chest, and he sighs, leaning wearily back into his sofa, as he opens the attached envelope to read the letter inside.

//My latest presents for you. Be sure to add it to the number of hits when next we meet. I'll be waiting.

~~Redwing.//