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It's not often Slade is hired to save someone. Even less that it's from a familiar contact. Part of him kind of wishes it were a stranger, an unknown. Instead he gets Billy in his ear about how it's non-negotiable that he takes Alfred Pennyworth's contract, payment or no.
There is payment. Very big payment. Slade flicks over the contract regardless, drawing out the silence as Billy bites his tongue. It's hardly a mystery he's going to take it. He always does with contracts like these. But still, terms and conditions are important.
Kidnapping. Gotham. Back in one piece, preferably, but he'll take the most important bits if it means losing a finger or two. Carmine Falcone with a bone to pick or something or other, Slade doesn't really keep up with the businesses of Gotham, but he's sure there's some imagined slight involved.
"Alright," Slade sighs. "I'll take it." He says, and hears the grumble over the line.
"Not like you've got a choice."
"No, but the illusion makes me feel better." He snorts, and promptly hangs up. He waits as long as it takes for payment to come through and then starts getting ready.
He doesn't really like these sorts of contracts. But they've become more and more frequent, recently. As if there isn't anyone better to call when you've been kidnapped by the mob. At any rate, it leaves him a hell of a lot richer, with something to do for the night besides watch terrible television and flip through IKEA magazines.
There's a lot of blood. Slade frowns under the mask. Perhaps he'd been a little too liberal with the sword. It tended to cause fountains of blood, rather than splatters. Head to toe, there was a lot of blood, and gunpowder sticking to the fibers, and brick dust from the lucky asshole who bodychecked him into a wall.
The place was, to put it nicely, cliché. A fucking warehouse, with a little managers office up top where he'd snuck in and cut the lights. Down below, crate upon crate of whatever Falcone was dealing in this time, and about two dozen men doing not much of anything. Playing poker and talking about their girlfriends, mostly.
It kinda made sense, how relaxed they all had been. Their captive was always so cooperative. Had something of a reputation for being mainly an annoyance, rather than a threat.
He was also drooling around his makeshift gag, blindfolded and strapped down to a metal chair. Slade shifts on his feet, listening to the quickened heartbeat, the sharp and short breaths. How his hands grip the chair with bone-white knuckles.
He holsters his gun, unsheathes the knife instead. "You look like you've been enjoying yourself." He murmurs, flipping the knife in his grip as he approaches. Aside from Wayne's breathing and the heavy pound of his heart, the room's silent and still, dust starting to settle.
He slips the knife between Wayne's hair and gag, holding him steady with his other hand. Slices through it like butter, Wayne spitting it out, saliva stringing from his red, raw lips.
Wayne makes a noise, somewhere between a laugh and a moan. Tilts his head into Slade's hand, his hair sweat-matted and damp. "Maybe."
"Too much fun." He adds. Repositions his knife again. "Hold still."
"Sure," he replies amicably. Wayne's fingers tap on the armrests as Slade cuts away the blindfold, tipping his head back by his jaw. "Hello, darling."
Slade grunts. "Again?"
"And yet you came." Wayne points out around a curved, wicked smile. "My hero." He drawls, warm and wet, running his tongue over the edge of his mouth.
Slade nearly rolls his eye, knowing it would be lost to Wayne under the mask. "Something like that." He tips Wayne's head back that little bit more, baring a nice ring of bruises, throat bared. "You in one piece?"
He looks it, but sometimes it's a little hard to tell. The suits hide a lot, sometimes. And well, there had been that time he'd forgotten all about his minor stab wound in favour of a double entendre.
Wayne smiles just a little. "Pat me down and find out." One perfectly styled eyebrow gets raised, and Slade releases his jaw with a huff, pocketing the knife again.
"People were worried about you." He informs him, a little annoyed. "And you've been enjoying this."
"You say that like you're surprised." Wayne replies. "They're very good with knots. Better than Maroni's boys, anyway."
"You've been kidnapped too much." Slade mutters. It's becoming something of a habit. If he didn't know better, he'd think Wayne was calling the hits on himself. He might be stupid, but he's not quite that stupid.
Or he hopes so, anyway.
Wayne smiles a little wider, white teeth streaked with pink, scarlet pooling on his gums. "Alfred called, I assume." He looks almost amused, and Slade's got half a mind to let him find his own way home, roughed up and without a cell phone. "Unless you—"
"I don't work for free." Slade reminds him. Wayne hums in agreement, well aware of the prices Slade charges. "You're getting an annoyance fee." He adds, earning himself a split-lip grin, a trickle of blood running over Wayne's clean shaven skin, pooling on Slade's glove where he holds him still.
Beneath the mask, he frowns, wiping the blood off on a ripped up lapel. Wayne grunts at that, but doesn't protest too much otherwise. "Hold still."
Wayne does as he's told at least, Slade swapping the knife from one hand to the other. The scar on Wayne's ankle is a nice little reminder of what happens when he doesn't listen to Slade's orders.
He slips the knife between the armrests and the ropes, slicing through each quickly, and winces when Wayne moans. His fingers are trembling, a little blue at the tips, blood starting to circulate again.
"Don't move yet." He murmurs, Wayne huffing.
"Don't think I can." He replies lightly. "Those boys sure like it tight." With a grimace, he curls his fingers, barely getting halfway before they go loose again.
"Give it time." Slade says. "Won't last forever." One of these days, he'll get lasting damage. For now, he's fairly certain it'll hurt for a while, and Wayne can go back to getting himself into trouble in no time. "What was it this time?"
"Mm?"
"Why'd they kidnap you?" Slade drops to one knee, ignoring the slight shift of Wayne's thighs. He braces for whatever remark will come, but Wayne's silent instead, letting him work through the ropes at his own pace.
When he's all untied, Slade gathers the ropes and throws them a few feet away, sheathing the knife again. What men aren't dead are still unconscious, strewn across the warehouse in small groups. The poker table is still standing, a few hundreds and a watch piled in the middle.
He turns back to Wayne, finds him looking down at Slade, a ghost of a smirk to his mouth. Too much spit and blood for it to look particularly appealing, sweat-damp hair stuck to his forehead and a nasty bruise swelling on his cheek.
"What." Slade grunts. He pats Wayne's foot, leaving a smear of blood on expensive leather shoes.
"How much to get you like this all the time?" Wayne asks, and licks his lip again.
"You are incorrigible." Slade snaps back. Rises to his feet with a glare that Wayne can't see, resisting the urge to yank him from the chair and drag him home by his tie.
"You worry too much." Wayne throws back. "I wasn't worried."
"You should be." Slade waves a hand at the room. "What was the plan, if I wasn't here? I work for people who aren't you, you know."
"Probably would have the time of my life." Wayne replies, brushing off his words with a wry twist of his mouth. "Falcone's all bark, no bite." He's entirely wrong, but Slade's not about to point that out.
He shifts on his feet, dust and a little debris crunching under his boots. "Can you stand?"
"Might need a carry." Wayne flexes his fingers, the movement more pronounced now, fingertips bright red. There's friction burn along his wrists, smeared blood disappearing under the sleeves of his suit.
Slade flicks his eyes down. "I'm not carrying you."
"I'm paying you, aren't I?"
"This isn't a hospital service. If you can walk, you're walking." Slade sighs heavily. Resist the urge to peel off his mask and pinch the bridge of his nose. "I don't care if you break your ankle on the way out."
"Well, you've got terrible customer service." Wayne says, and then wriggles a little in his seat. "And I can't lift my foot, let alone stand."
He curses, takes a handful of steps away. Be done with this. Wayne in one piece. Contract complete. But, no, it had been bring him home— and Wayne looked particularly pathetic, struggling to stand from a rusted chair, suit ruffled and ripped, bruised and aching.
And Slade would be lying, if he didn't feel a tug in his ribs at the thought of leaving him here. Defenseless. Stupid. Too flirtatious for his own good. Stupid.
"Fine." He snaps. Is none too kind when he leans over Wayne, sliding his hands beneath his suit jacket, under a thigh. Lifts him carefully, Wayne's thighs around his hips, getting blood all over that nice fabric. "Not a word."
"Yes, sir." Wayne purrs, setting his chin on Slade's shoulder with a quiet sigh. Slade shifts his grip until he's sure he won't drop him, and then sets off.
"He's not going to forget this. Falcone." Slade points out. "I did just kill a dozen of his men. For you."
"How sweet." Wayne deadpans. He turns his head, puts his mouth closer to the jaw of Slade's helmet, no doubt intentional. "Sounds like you've got some contracts in your future, then."
Slade scoffs. "See if I come rescue you next time, Wayne."
"You love it." He murmurs, a little slurred, tired. "Should stay tonight. Let me give you a tip."
He rolls his eye, but doesn't say no, picking his way out of the warehouse with an armful of precious cargo.
Slade makes it halfway to the parking lot before a hand snakes up toward his jaw, fumbling with the mask. Wayne tugs it up with still trembling fingers, over the bridge of Slade's nose.
"What are you—"
It's not a nice kiss. It's wet with spit, salted with blood. There's no tongue and Wayne melts against him like a dead weight. Slade's grip tightens on his thighs anyway, frozen mid-step, and only breathes when Wayne pulls back, an exhausted grin on his face.
"Thank you." He murmurs, a little soft. Genuine, for once. When he sets his chin on Slade's shoulder again, it's with a satisfied sigh, nose pressed to the junction of his neck.
"Don't make it a habit." He replies, throat tight, and holds Wayne with one hand to tug his mask back down, mouth still a little warm.