Project Shikon

Chapter 17

Tim had managed to redirect Bruce's attention for a few hours, long enough for Shion to fall asleep. He knew he wouldn't be able to distract him forever, but he felt he could give Dick enough time to do what he needs to do. He had an uneasy feeling that things may get tense and he didn't want Shion to witness it. All of the family could tell that the young girl is still very wary of Bruce yet and if she saw him go into one of his tangents he had a feeling that Shion would avoid Bruce even more than she already does. It's clear that the girl has, maybe not fear, but a healthy distrust towards adults. He also doesn't know how the small girl would react to them fighting with each other if it came down to it.

Oddly enough Damian was helping him run interference. Barbara was too, but that wasn't too unexpected. Damian on the other hand actively helping him was a bit bizarre. He was going under the assumption that he was only helping because it would also help Dick. But Damian was keeping Bruce's attention away from the vehicles so he wouldn't go storming off. Barbara took Shion from him and started humming her to sleep. It worked quite brilliantly as Shion fell asleep much faster than the night before.

Shortly after Shion fell asleep Bruce very visibly reached his limit of patience, "Turn on their commlinks. Now." He growled out. It was too late to follow them, it would take too long to catch up to them at this point. He can still listen to what they're talking about. He was worried about the connection between the international mercenary and his son is. No options he could think of would be a good one. By all means, there shouldn't be a connection between the two. If there is a connection between the two, why didn't he know about it? He keeps a very close eye on his family, probably too close of an eye for some people. Jason regularly calls him a stalker, but he could care less. If keeping on top of his kid's lives kept them alive then a little bit of privacy could be compromised.

Tim frowned in discomfort, "We agreed that we'd only tune into comms whenever expressly necessary. Privacy is still an important issue here Bruce." Tuning in on each other's comm signals was unanimously agreed on for when one of them was missing or it was a life or death situation. This was neither of those scenarios.

"And Slade is a very dangerous person. I need to know his connection to Dick so I can help him. Turn. On. The. Comms."

"Who is Slade?" Damian asked with a scowl. The name sounds a bit familiar, like a nagging feeling in the back of his mind, but he couldn't grasp it. It is rather annoying.

"Explanations later, comms now," Bruce growled.

Tim, Damian, and Barbara shared a look. Tim sighed in defeat before turning to the computer. He knew he was in a losing battle. He hesitated for a moment before tuning into Dick's and Jason's comm signals. Regret pooled in his stomach immediately, he'd hate it if any of them did this to him. God, this is a total breach of privacy and him actively breaking a promise. If either of them finds out they eavesdropped on them they will be so mad at them.

They tuned in as Dick let out an aggravated sigh and they all immediately knew something was wrong. It takes a lot for Dick to show his negative emotions.

"Please just drop it." Dick pleaded quietly.

"Yeah, no. How in the hell do you know Deathstroke? I mean you apparently know him well enough to call him by his real name. What gives?"

"Deathstroke? This Slade guy is Deathstroke?" Tim blurted out in shock.

A weary sounding sigh came from Dick, "It was during the first year of the Titans forming. Slade started showing up out of nowhere. He introduced himself as Slade, it was years later that we realized he is also known as Deathstroke. To us he was always just Slade, we thought it was his moniker, not his actual name. He decided that he wanted me as his apprentice, still don't know why. I obviously said no, multipule times, something he took offense to. He forced me to train under him by implanting nanobots in the rest of the team that would have killed them if they stayed activated for too long. We eventually beat him, and he left us alone for the most part. There were separate incidents throughout the years, and he still comes to bug the Titans when he's bored. Long story short, it sucked okay. Just leave it alone."