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The doors swung shut behind him like the jaws of a wolf. Dick swallowed, and his steps faltered in the dark hallway, but he didn’t have anywhere else to go. Leaving behind the little line of daylight sneaking past the threshold, he hunched his shoulders and slunk over to the elevator where he punched in the code and waited for the car to arrive.
When it did, Dick slipped inside before the doors fully opened, as if afraid the elevator would speed off without him and leave him trapped there in the dark. He gripped the railing along the back wall as he watched second set of doors in the last few minutes close, boxing him in. It again called up the image of being rendered, consumed. Ripped apart until there was nothing left.
He tilted his head back towards the blank, fluorescent bulb in the ceiling and counted his own shaky breaths, in and out. Reminded himself again that he had no friends, no allies, no options. The still-smarting bruise on his cheek proved that, the accusations echoing in his ears. Of course he hadn’t understood, that infuriating, uncompromising, monolith of a man; of course he gave no quarter to circumstances or nuance or--
A jolt, and the elevator slid to a stop. Dick forced his hands to let go of the railing, his feet to move past the elevator’s rubber floor and onto the cool tiles of the penthouse.
Slade actually looked surprised to see him. After all this time, Dick had only ever managed to surprise him the once, and he relished the short flare of pride before it burnt out into the quiet dread hanging over him ever since he’d arrived at this god-awful, last resort decision.
In the living room, framed by the plate-glass windows that Dick knew were bulletproof, Slade stood in unassuming jeans and a white t-shirt, civilian clothes that at least meant he wasn’t looking for a fight. His head snapped up as Dick entered and his left eye widened, the other hidden behind the ever-present eye patch, and his coffee cup paused halfway to his mouth. Then, Slade smirked, recovering from his surprise and landing as nimbly as a cat. He set the mug down on the table and walked over.
With effort, Dick kept his body still. Slade took his time, slow measured strides that took eons to bring him to the entryway. A foot away from Dick, he stopped. Looked him over, up and down, like a weapon he was deciding whether to use for a particular mission. Nothing Dick hadn’t seen directed at him before, more often than he could count.
“I take it it didn’t go well,” Slade said, brushing his knuckles against Dick’s cheek, right beneath the bruise.
Hours spent gearing up for this, and Dick still flinched. He cursed himself privately and made his body relax again on the exhale.
“He doesn’t associate with murderers,” Dick replied, unable to look at Slade as he spoke, so he looked off towards the kitchen instead.
At the table where they’d shared meals, where Slade had slammed Dick’s head in the early days of what Slade called their ‘arrangement’ and Dick called ‘kidnapping’ and ‘blackmail’, and where, more recently, Dick had taken a kitchen knife and plunged it into Slade’s chest.
The knuckles pressing into Dick’s cheek trailed down to his jaw instead, holding his head up. “Is that what you are now?” Slade asked.
“I’ve killed people,” Dick said simply. “He doesn’t care that--”
That Dick had been stolen, torn away from his friends and his life and forced to wear Slade’s uniform and kneel down and grovel and obey. That Slade had given him an impossible choice, between the tiny, secret bombs in his friends’ bodies and the life of a crying man in front of him. That the first time, Slade’s hand had curled around Dick’s and forced his finger down on the trigger, and after that, it just got easier and easier. That Dick hadn’t wanted this, had never had a choice.
Bruce, his eyes cold and unforgiving, had backhanded Dick across the face and sent him sprawling with the full weight of his gauntlet and all his years of training. He’d drawn close, and loomed over him, and growled the threat right in his face.
“Get out of here,” Bruce had hissed between his teeth. “The next time I see you, I’m turning you in myself.”
Because Dick had fired a gun and taken a life, and that was the one thing Bruce could never forgive. So, Dick ran. Back to the man he’d just escaped because he’d been careful and clever and had finally wormed his way past all of Slade’s machinations, had freed his friends and himself. He’d been flying, he’d been free, and then the Titans had looked at him with wary distrust and barred the doors to the Tower, and then Bruce had torn out his wings and thrown him back down to earth.
It was here, or it was sleeping in a ditch. Sleeping in a ditch might be more righteous, but Dick had clung to his righteousness with all the strength he had, and it had gotten him absolutely nowhere.
Worse than nowhere.
In Slade’s penthouse, with Slade’s hand on his face and the room blurring as--oh no, Dick thought, but he couldn’t hold it in. He stepped back, and Slade let him, and Dick’s soft sobs filled the empty air of the penthouse as the past weeks and months and more than a year caught up to him and overflowed. Somewhere beneath it all, Dick was screaming and cursing and furious at his stupid body’s reaction, crying in front of Slade like he swore he’d never do.
Then again, there was a whole list of things he’d sworn he’d never do, and Slade had forced him to cross off most of it.
“It’s ok. You’re here now,” Slade said, the second part completely contradicting the first. He pulled Dick close, arm around his back and hand behind his head, and Dick’s tears soaked through the thin material of Slade’s t-shirt.
Dick shook his head. “I--” he tried to say, but a sob hiccuped out. Have nowhere else to go, but Slade knew that already.
“Shh.” Slade lifted Dick’s face up, cradling it between his hands and wiping the tears from under his eyes. “That man is a fool and a hypocrite, and he never valued you like he should. None of them did.”
The same lie Slade had been trying to feed him this whole time, but--Dick felt his face twist and more tears slip out. Everyone had turned on him so easily, his friends, his family. How could he deny it now?
“I know your worth, Dick. That’s why I wanted you,” Slade said, his voice dripping sweet poison. “And all you’ve done is prove me right.” His thumbs brushed over Dick’s cheekbones again. “You’ve made me very proud.”
A laugh broke out of him, a hysterical wheeze. “I tried to kill you,” Dick said.
“You know about my healing factor. If you were trying to kill me, I have a feeling I’d be dead.” Slade’s hands dropped from his face to his shoulders. “You bested me. There’s not many who can say that.”
After the Titans, after Bruce, after nothing but suspicion and rejection since his escape, Dick couldn’t help himself. He turned to the praise like a plant to the sun, like a drug he could get addicted to.
“So, what?” Dick asked. “That’s it? We just go back to the way it was before?”
Slade hmmed, considering. “Not exactly. You bested me, after all,” he said. “That means I have nothing left to teach you.”
“If I’m not your apprentice anymore...” Dick began, trailing off uncertain. Not that long ago, it was the only thing he wanted. Now, though, it just left him even more adrift.
“Partners,” Slade said, smiling down at him. “You did ask for that once, Red X.”
And Dick smiled too, at the mask and the memory, the time he’d tried to infiltrate Slade’s operation and how spectacularly he failed. “Do I have to be Red X?”
“You can be whoever you like,” Slade said. “As long as you’re with me.”
He ran a gentle hand through Dick’s hair as he said it, finished with a kiss to his forehead, long and slightly open-mouthed, slightly damp. There was something there--Dick had felt it before. Sometimes, Slade’s touch would linger in their sparring sessions, or he would touch Dick when he didn’t need to, a hand to his shoulder or the small of his back when he passed, even when there was plenty of room. Or, Dick would catch Slade watching him like an ambush predator, a smoldering look in his single eye that made Dick’s stomach flip with anxiety.
Dick wasn’t stupid; he knew what grooming was. Becoming Robin to Bruce’s Batman at the age of nine had shown him the very worst of people, and had shown him early. What he didn’t know, what left him off-balance and waiting for the inevitable catch, was that Slade hadn’t pushed Dick into it the way he’d pushed everything else. He seemed to be waiting--for Dick to get a little older, maybe, or for Dick to give in on his own.
The latter option Dick wanted to dismiss as ridiculous or repulsive or impossible, but no amount of attention or touch could make Dick sneak glances at Slade when he took his shirt off, or make a small, guilty part of him like it when they fought and Slade pinned him down. He was terrified of that, terrified of where it might be taking them.
At the moment, though, Dick was too tired and wrung-out to care. He drifted back against Slade, winding his arms around Slade’s waist and resting his head on his chest, desperate for touch and nearly sighing as Slade held him back. Dick gave in then, let the trap close and the door shut and the wolf have its way. It didn’t matter; none of it mattered.
Slade’s arms were around him, and he was home.
***