Chapter Text
Dick ended up staying at Slade’s all weekend. He didn’t really want to go home anyway, but avoiding the apartment became imperative once Dick found out that the press had figured out where he lived. He had to bribe Wally into sneaking him some clothes and his toothbrush, but it was worth it.
Fortunately, Slade didn’t seem to mind that Dick was reluctant to go home. He had found plenty for the two of them to do in the bedroom. And the kitchen. And the living room.
When Slade’s alarm started going off at 5am on Monday morning, however, Dick knew his break from reality was finally coming to an end. No matter how much he was dreading it, he had to get dressed and go into WE to hear his fate. Slade showered first, and then he too at last dragged himself out of Slade’s ridiculous California king bed and quickly showered.
When he was dressed, Dick tracked Slade down in his kitchen. He leaned up against the doorway and watched as Slade poured himself a cup of coffee.
Slade wasn’t dressed yet. He was only wearing a pair of black boxer briefs, and Dick took advantage of his inattention, stealing the moment to admire Slade’s broad muscular back.
“Coffee?” Slade asked without turning, apparently not oblivious to Dick’s presence.
“Leave enough room for an appropriate amount of sugar this time,” Dick said, trying to remember which train station was closest to here. Slade’s apartment was on the other end of Gotham from WE. The commute was going to take forever.
Slade poured Dick a cup and Dick ignored the judgmental stare as he mixed sugar and milk to make the perfect “sugar with a dash of coffee” as Slade had called it yesterday. They stood in the kitchen, drinking silently.
For the first time all weekend, Dick wasn’t really sure what to say to him. “Thanks for a good time”? “See you around”?
“Are you coming to WE today?” Dick asked instead.
Slade finished the rest of his coffee and set his mug in the sink.
“No. My business with WE has concluded,” Slade said.
Dick raised his eyebrows and said, “It has?”
“I found what your boss wanted me to find, so I’m moving onto other contracts,” Slade said, shrugging.
Dick felt weirdly disappointed about this. Slade’s work with WE was done, so that meant he wouldn’t be seeing Slade around the building anymore.
Of course, there was still the possibility that Dick wasn’t going to get Alfred’s job, and would have to accept Slade’s offer.
As if he could tell what Dick was thinking about, Slade approached him and asked, “I’ll hear from you tonight?”
Dick nodded.
Slade moved without seeming to move, suddenly crowding Dick’s space. For a moment, Dick thought Slade was going to kiss him.
He didn’t. Slade went past him and left the kitchen instead. Dick was disappointed, but mostly relieved. Kissing Slade was distracting. If Slade kissed him, there was a pretty good chance Dick would forget about WE altogether and never be seen or heard from again.
Dick finished his coffee and left without saying goodbye.
* * *
The other interns were subdued that morning. Except for Stephanie and Cass, who kept whispering to each other over on their side of the room, nobody was really talking.
Dick could understand why. Today they would find out who Mr. Wayne was making his new personal assistant. No matter how mature they all were, there were bound to be some hurt feelings and disappointed hopes. Dick refreshed his email over and over again, waiting for something, anything, from Mr. Wayne.
At 11:23, Dick’s phone finally rang. He looked up and saw that it was Mr. Wayne’s extension that was calling. Hope sparked and fizzled in his chest.
He picked up at once and said, “This is Dick.”
“Hello, Dick. Could you and Cassandra come speak to me in my office for a moment?” Mr. Wayne said.
Dick’s spark of hope went out at once. If Mr. Wayne needed to see both of them, then this couldn’t be about the job. Dick glanced over his shoulder at Cass, seeing that she was focused on her computer screen, typing furiously.
“Sure,” Dick said. “Now?”
“If you’re both free,” Mr. Wayne said.
“Now should be fine. I’ll tell her.”
Mr. Wayne said thank you and hung up. Dick put the phone back on the receiver.
Then he turned to Cass again and said, “Hey, Cass? That was Mr. Wayne. He said he needs us for something.”
Cass looked up at him and nodded, getting up to follow Dick down the hall and over to Mr. Wayne’s office.
Mr. Wayne was seated at his desk when they arrived. He looked up at them when they came in and said, “Ah, good. Please, have a seat.”
He gestured to the chairs in front of his desk. Dick stepped aside and let Cass take the one on the right, and then he sat down in the one on the left.
“How are you both doing this morning?” Mr. Wayne asked.
“Great,” Cass said, shrugging. She was sitting up very straight, her hands clasped on her knees and not leaning on the back of the chair. Dick wasn’t either, he realized, and forced himself to take a deep breath and calm down. This couldn’t be about the job, he reminded himself. Mr. Wayne would never turn him down in front of another employee.
“I have some good news for the two of you,” Mr. Wayne said, smiling at them both again. “You got the job.”
This announcement was met with a moment of silence. Dick and Cass looked over at each other. He felt as confused as Cass looked.
“Uh,” Dick said, brilliantly. “I’m sorry?”
Mr. Wayne’s smile got a little wider, and he said, “You’re both hired.”
Dick’s flare of hope sparked back up again. But he still didn’t understand, and the hope and the confusion were warring in his head.
“Alfred and I had a long talk after he announced his retirement,” Mr. Wayne said. “After we discussed all of his duties, it occurred to me that he did quite a bit more than I reasonably should have expected out of one employee. So I have decided to replace him with two personal assistants instead of one. I trust that the two of you will not have any difficulty working together?”
Cass and Dick exchanged another look. As one, they turned back to Mr. Wayne, shrugging and frowning.
“No, of course not,” Dick said, and Cass nodded her agreement.
“Good,” Mr. Wayne said.
The unreality of it all was getting to Dick, but slowly it was sinking in: he got the job. Cass got it too, but that was fine. It was a lot of responsibility, and Dick liked Cass. He knew that they would work well together.
“Mr. Wayne,” Dick said. “Thank you.”
Cass didn’t say anything, but when Dick glanced back over at her he saw that she was beaming.
“You’re welcome. I feel very fortunate to have the two of you on staff,” Mr. Wayne said.
“When do we start?” Cass asked.
“Is tomorrow too soon?” Mr. Wayne asked.
They shook their heads.
“Of course, Alfred’s workspace will need to be reorganized so that there is room for both of you,” Mr. Wayne said. “Just be patient and we’ll get everything settled.”
It was really happening. He didn’t have to take Slade’s mysterious job offer. He could get his own place at last, move out of his apartment with his five roommates. Mr. Wayne didn’t care about all of the crap going down because of Mr. March. It was a miracle. He almost couldn’t believe it.
Then Dick remembered the others, and guilt coiled uneasily in Dick’s stomach.
Jason. Harper. Duke. Stephanie. The four of them needed the job as much as Dick did and were not going to be happy.
“For the rest of the day you can go ahead with your regular intern duties,” Mr. Wayne said, moving on. “I still need to contact the other applicants and inform them of my decision, so keep it between the two of you for now.”
Cass nodded and Dick said, “We can do that.”
“Good. Thank you,” Mr. Wayne said, and got up.
Dick and Cass got the message, and let Mr. Wayne escort them out.
He and Cass headed back to the interns’ corner, and Dick was so lost in conflicting thoughts and feelings about this that it didn’t occur to him that he and Cass might need to come up with some kind of excuse for why Mr. Wayne would want to talk to them.
Sure enough, as soon as they walked around the corner, Jason, Stephanie, Harper, and Duke all looked up at them.
“What did Mr. Wayne want?” Duke asked.
Dick looked at Cass. She looked at him.
“He asked us if we’d be willing to work some gala thing coming up over the summer,” Dick said, waving a hand.
The four of them looked from Dick over at Cass, and Cass nodded again.
He thought he sounded convincing, but Dick could tell from the way they were all exchanging silent looks and examining both him and Cass that they didn’t buy it.
No one questioned them further, however. Dick went back to his desk and Cass went back to hers, and Dick resigned himself to the fact that by the end of the day, a few of the people in the room might resent him.
* * *
Harper got a call and headed over to Mr. Wayne’s office just before lunch. Dick didn’t want to have to wait around to look at Harper’s disappointed face after Mr. Wayne broke the news, so he decided to leave for lunch early.
Weirdly, Harper didn’t appear to be all that upset when he got back. In fact, she seemed downright chipper, as did Duke, who had apparently been called into Mr. Wayne’s office while Dick was gone.
Then Jason was called into Mr. Wayne’s office, and Dick braced himself, but Jason came back from his office with his hands in his pockets, and spent thirty minutes badly whistling “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” by Whitney Houston until Tim finally begged him to shut up.
Stephanie was the only one who did not look happy. She and Cass had both been on their phones a lot, and Dick had a feeling that Cass had already told Stephanie that she and Dick got Alfred’s job.
But that didn’t explain why Jason, Harper, and Duke were so happy.
At last, at 2:48, Stephanie was summoned to Mr. Wayne’s office. Cass was silent and still the whole time she was gone, leaning droopily in her seat like a wilting flower.
In the meantime, Jason started bullying Tim.
“There’s a high school three blocks from here that does the GED tests every Saturday.”
Tim ignored this, not even bothering to look up from his computer screen.
“You said that money isn’t a concern. The tests aren’t that expensive and you don’t have to take them all in one day,” Jason said.
“I can pay for the tests,” Tim said.
“So why don’t you? You could go a couple of weekends from now, get it over with.”
Tim didn’t say anything.
Jason, undeterred, went on.
“If you think you’re not going to pass the tests, Gotham Public Library offers GED classes for free.”
“I don’t think I would need to study that much,” Tim said.
“Ok, so what is it exactly that’s preventing you from taking the tests?” Jason asked.
Tim shrugged unhelpfully, but didn’t answer the question.
Dick found it mysterious that Jason was actually helping Tim. Or trying to, anyway. Tim didn’t really seem interested in the assistance.
“Well?” Jason said.
Tim shot Jason an annoyed look, then turned back to his computer and kept working.
Dick was about to tell Jason to leave Tim alone, but then Stephanie appeared in the entryway to their corner. She was triumphant with her hands on her hips, smiling widely.
“Congratulate me, you guys,” she said, and they all looked over at her.
Duke looked up at her and said, “For…?”
“I’m moving up!” Stephanie said.
“You got Alfred’s job?” Harper guessed.
Stephanie shook her head.
“Well, no, I didn’t get Alfred’s job. But I did get a job! I’m not going to be an intern anymore!”
Feeling weirdly relieved, Dick smiled up at her and said, “Congrats. What job?”
Stephanie came around the boys’ desk and went around to her own, saying, “Mr. Wayne’s moving me to PR. I’m going to be the new administrative assistant in the department.”
Dick frowned, thinking about Alice Smythe, the previous administrative assistant. He’d just seen her last week. She hadn’t mentioned anything about leaving.
“What about Alice? Did she quit?” Dick asked Stephanie.
“Oh no,” Stephanie said, waving a hand. “I don’t really know what happened, but Jervis Tetch got fired. Mr. Wayne put Alice in charge of the department in his stead so her position needed to be filled, so I’m filling it.”
Dick’s mouth opened in shock, but he didn’t say anything. He could put two and two together. Slade had said that he was investigating something in the PR department. Now Jervis was fired and Alice promoted. That couldn’t be a coincidence.
Before Dick could ask anything else, however, Duke asked, “So if you didn’t get Alfred’s job...then who did get it?”
Dick looked over his shoulder at Cassandra. She was already looking at him.
Jason snorted and said, “I knew it.”
“Wait. Both of you?” Harper asked them.
Dick shrugged and said, “Mr. Wayne said he needed two to replace Alfred, so he picked me and Cass.”
“Well, I guess that makes sense,” Barbara said.
Dick looked around at Harper, Duke, Stephanie, and Jason. None of them seemed upset. Of course, he understood why Stephanie wasn’t upset, but he still didn’t understand why the others weren’t more moody.
“So...that’s it, then,” DIck said. “Whoever bet on me and Cass won the bet.”
Jason shrugged and said, “Well, you only won the bet in the sense that you got Alfred’s job. We didn’t prepare for all outcomes, though.”
“What are you talking about?” Dick asked.
“I’m moving to HR. They want me to answer phones and process drug tests and shit, I don’t know,” Jason said, shrugging.
“I’m going to R&D,” Harper said. “Mr. Wayne said that a bunch of departments were leaning on Alfred too, so he made a position for me working under Mr. Fox.”
“I’m going to be Ms. Kyle’s personal assistant,” Duke said.
Dick gazed around at them, stunned.
“I’m excited about working for Ms. Kyle,” Duke went on. “She’s nice.”
“I like Mr. Fox. If I can’t work for Mr. Wayne then I’m happy to work for Mr. Fox. His daughter Tam works for R&D too and she’s awesome,” Harper said.
“Well,” Barbara said, sounding smug. “It looks like everything worked out for everybody.”
Dick glanced over at Tim. Tim didn’t seem to be paying attention to the conversation, and seemed to be writing some kind of computer code that Dick couldn’t at all decipher. He felt the sudden unusual compulsion to pick up where Jason left off and pester Tim about the GED tests.
“For the most part,” Jason said, cocking an eyebrow as he stared pointedly over at Tim.
Tim got up and said, “I’ll be right back.”
He left, disappearing around the corner.
As soon as he was gone, Duke turned to Jason and said, “I thought you hated him.”
Jason shrugged one shoulder.
Dick thought this was the only answer they were going to get, but then Jason rolled his eyes and sighed.
“We see the same therapist, ok? A couple of weeks ago when I blew up at Oliver Queen, Bruce sent me to see her and I ran into Tim in the building. He might be an annoying little hacking jackass, but that doesn’t mean I actively want him to suffer,” Jason said.
Dick stared at Jason for a long moment, until Jason finally looked over at him and snapped, “What?”
Dick shrugged.
“I think we should all go out to celebrate,” Dick said, finally looking away from Jason. “Tonight at 7? The Outlaw? I’ll make sure Tim gets the invitation.”
Duke smiled at Dick and said, “That sounds great.”
“Can I bring somebody with me?” Barbara asked behind him.
Dick turned and looked over at her and said, “Sure. Bring whoever you want.”
“I’ll be there!” Stephanie said, and Harper said, “Me too!”
After that, everybody went back to normal, chatting excitedly about their gathering that night and their new jobs.
Dick didn’t participate in the conversation. Instead he pulled out his phone and unlocked the screen. There were still a couple of loose ends he needed to be taken care of.
* * *
Dick walked with Jason and Duke to The Outlaw, showing them Cass’s secret tunnel exit from WE. They arrived at the bar in good time and claimed a table for their group.
Fortunately, the bar wasn’t too crowded on a Monday evening, so there was enough room for all of them to fit around the same table when Barbara showed up with her mystery Italian woman.
The woman’s name turned out to be Helena. She was a teacher and just as beautiful as Duke had claimed she was. Barbara explained that they’d met at some kind of education conference.
Stephanie and Cass showed up next, hand in hand. They got drinks before they joined the rest of the group, and sat so close to each other that they were almost on top of each other.
Tim had been evasive when Dick invited him to come hang out with them at The Outlaw, so he was a little shocked when Tim actually showed up.
Tim wasn’t alone either.
He came over to the table with his two guests and waved at them all.
“Hey everyone,” Tim said, and gestured to the tall dark-haired guy at his left. “This is Conner.” He gestured to the redhead on his other side. “And this is Bart.”
Dick said hello to the newcomers with everybody else, but exchanged a surreptitious glance with Stephanie. If what Stephanie had claimed was correct, Tim was cheating on one or both of them.
“I’m going to get a drink. Babe, do you want anything?” Conner asked Tim.
Tim shook his head.
“Ok. Bart?” Conner asked, looking over Tim’s head at the redhead, who was somehow even shorter than Tim.
“Nachos,” Bart said.
“Bart, for real? I only have like thirty bucks right now,” Conner said.
“What if I promise not to drink anything?” Bart asked him.
Conner rolled his eyes as he turned to leave, saying, “Fine. But I’m going to hold you to that.”
“Love you!” Bart said, blowing him a kiss.
Watching this, Dick frowned.
Everyone scootched in as much as they could to make room for Tim, Bart, and Conner. When Tim and Bart were seated, waiting for Conner to return, Duke looked over at Tim.
“So,” Duke said casually, gesturing at Tim and Bart and Conner over at the bar. “How did you all meet?”
“We went to the same summer camp when we were kids,” Bart said, shrugging, already fiddling with a napkin and twisting it in his hands. “We’ve been inseparable pretty much ever since, but we didn’t all start dating until sometime last year."
There was a smacking noise, and Dick looked over to see that Stephanie had slapped her own forehead.
“Oh my god. Polyamory. I’m so dumb. I forgot about polyamory,” she said.
Bart and Tim exchanged a bemused look.
Conner returned with his drink and Bart’s nachos soon enough, and Tim and Bart inhaled the food between stories about their summer camp days. Tim seemed looser, brighter in the presence of his two boyfriends in a way that he never seemed at work. He almost seemed younger, and a little part of Dick that had been tied up in knots ever since hearing about Tim’s lack of education finally loosened.
He couldn’t completely calm down, though. As the drinks kept flowing and the group got louder and spread out around the bar, Dick couldn’t seem to stop checking his phone. He’d texted Slade hours ago to tell him that he wouldn’t be taking his job offer, but Slade hadn’t replied. Dick was sure this wasn’t a good sign, but it was fine, really. It was just a weekend-long one night stand, that was all.
He was trying to listen to something Cass was telling him, Stephanie, and Duke about Hong Kong when he heard the bar’s front door open.
He looked over the crowd of heads and saw a familiar head of long red hair.
“Sorry, I’ll be right back,” Dick said, and got up from the table.
He made a beeline for Roy.
“Hey man,” Roy said when Dick reached him. “Sorry I’m late. Donna said she’d watch the baby, but then she got stuck at work. I had to wait until Garth got home.”
“It’s fine,” Dick said. “I’m glad you came.”
Roy looked around at The Outlaw appreciatively.
“Nice place,” he said. “It feels good to get out for a change.”
“I bet,” Dick said, and put his arm around Roy’s shoulders. “There’s someone I want to introduce you to.”
Dick ushered Roy over to Jason, who was standing up at the bar having an enthusiastic conversation with the bartender. When Jason turned around, his white streak gleaming in the bar’s dim light, he felt Roy’s shoulders stiffen.
Jason looked at Dick, smirking, and said, “Hey.” Then he glanced over at Roy. Something flashed in his eyes as his smirk faded into a frown, but he said nothing.
“Jason, you remember Roy, right?” Dick asked.
Jason nodded, still saying nothing.
“Cool. Roy, Jason says you never called him. Jason, Roy says he did try to call you, but the number you gave him was for an Indian restaurant. I think you two have a lot to talk about.”
Then Dick shoved Roy in Jason’s direction, and Roy must’ve been in shock or something, because he went forward with surprisingly little resistance.
“Have fun,” Dick said, grinning at them both, and headed back over to the other side of the bar, where Barbara and Helena and Harper were talking.
“What are you up to?” Barbara asked when he approached, shooting him a suspicious look.
Dick looked back across the bar, and saw that Jason and Roy were still standing together. Jason still looked a little annoyed, and Roy looked sheepish, but Roy was saying something, and Jason was listening.
He turned back to Barbara and shrugged, saying, “Nothing.”
Barbara gave him a look like she didn’t believe him, and then she turned back to Harper and Helena, who were talking about colleges or something.
Dick allowed himself to fade into the background, for the moment an observer.
Everything—or almost everything—was right with his world, and it was a difficult fact for his brain to accept. He’d thought he was doomed when Mr. March was arrested, but Mr. Wayne had hired him anyway. Rather than being bitter about being turned down, all of his friends were happy about their own new jobs. Jason and Roy were talking and Tim and his boyfriends had rejoined Cass, Duke, and Stephanie. They were all laughing about something Stephanie was saying.
Only Slade’s complete and utter indifference left Dick feeling a pang of regret.
Then he felt his phone buzz in his pocket.
Dick pulled it out and looked at the screen.
There was only a short message.
Pity. Come over to my place tonight.
Dick couldn’t help the small smile that curled on his lips as he tapped out his response.
Thank god. For a while there I thought you were going to leave me to fend off paparazzi all on my lonesome.
Haven’t you heard? You’re old news now. The CEO of HUSH Beauty was arrested for vehicular manslaughter this afternoon.
Dick raised his eyebrows. He didn’t know anything about HUSH Beauty, but it sounded like quite the scandal.
Sounds serious. Tell me more about it tonight?Dick wrote, and then tapped send.
I can if you ever deign to show up, was Slade’s response.
I’m busy right now. Be patient, Dick told him. Then, just because he knew it would make Slade roll his eyes, he added, I’m worth the wait ;)
After that Dick slipped his phone back into his pocket and turned back to listen to whatever it was Barbara and Helena and Harper were talking about. There would be plenty of time for Slade later. For now, Dick was going to enjoy this night with his friends.