Deathstroke's line of work required more than the cold, soldier-like precision of killing. Of course, his own skill was important. Monumentally so, as mercenary, but it wasn't the only he needed.

He needed tactical gear.

Lots of tactical gear.

You name it: smoke grenades, ear pieces, stun grenades, proximity bombs, scopes, guns, bullets, all until his pockets were full, and even then, by the end of a mission in Asia or the Middle East or Europe, he needed restocked all over again.

Those damn pockets were never full enough, were they?

In the military, it had been easy. Supplies had been thrust into his hands faster than he could use them, good old Uncle Sam spared no expense for his special ops boys overseas. It hadn't been a worry for him, where his next machine gun was coming from. It just got thrust into his hand.

But in his new line of work, the merc-for-hire kind, he needed to find a new source of hardware himself. A discrete kind of source and, ideally, as cost-effective as Slade could get.

He heard about you through whispers, murmured conversations in back alleys and in the shadowy part of bars. A genius inventor, albeit a little eccentric, but a builder of just the kinds of things he needed; rivaling the military's own, with just the discretion Deathstroke always counted on.

Slade ducked through the doorway of your lab, as cluttered as your damn brain always seemed to be. He wondered, sometimes, how you managed to live in such filth all the time. His good eye scanned relentlessly until finally it landed on you, bent over your workshop like a dropping flower stowed away from a window.

"There you are." He slammed his staff on your table, knocking aside whatever else you had tinkered with. You were like a squirrel, almost. Always fidgeting with something, surrounded by your nuts and bolts. "I need a repair, Squirrel. It's jammed." He was past any formalities between the two of you. He'd make it worth your while, he always did, and he knew you knew it. "Looks like a bomb went off in here," he noted dully, leaning back on the heels of his boots.