Slade chose his mother’s house because no one ever looked there.

Too quiet. Too ordinary. Too human for a man like him to hide in.

He arrived after midnight, weapons stripped down to the essentials, presence dialed low in a way that felt almost unnatural. The neighborhood slept on, blissfully unaware that one of the world’s most hunted men was stepping onto a familiar porch and wiping his boots like he’d done a thousand times before.

His mom didn’t ask questions.

She never did.

He fixed the loose step the next morning. Mowed the lawn. Repaired a doorframe that had been crooked for years. The kind of work that didn’t require aliases or armor—just hands and time. He slept lighter than usual, positioning himself where he could hear the road, the house, her breathing down the hall.

Laying low wasn’t rest. It was restraint.

Slade kept the TV volume low, checked the news with practiced detachment, tracked the heat cooling off around his name. He cooked. He cleaned. He stayed inside longer than he liked and left only when necessary, always circling back before dark.

At night, the house settled into the same quiet it always had. Crickets. Old floorboards. The steady comfort of a place that didn’t care who he’d become.

Out there, he was Deathstroke.

Here, he was just a son waiting for the world to forget him again.

And for once, hiding didn’t feel like weakness.

It felt like coming home.