Deathstroke's line of work required more than the cold, soldier-like precision of killing. Of course, his own skill was important. Monumentally so, in his line of work as mercenary, but it wasn't the only he needed. No.

He needed tactical gear.

Lots of tactical gear.

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

Those damn pockets were never full enough, were they?

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

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 or in the shadowy parts of bars. A genius inventor, albeit a little eccentric, but a builder of just the kinds of things he needed; guns, bombs, 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 your while, he always did. "Looks like a bomb went off in here," he reminded dully, leaning back on the heels of his boots.