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You and Slade are similar. He did not trust you and you did not trust us.
Dick grit his teeth as the man came at him again, swiping him off his feet and then kicking him viciously. He heaved and stayed down, curled protectively around his aching stomach.
“Disappointing performance, Robin,” Slade said, standing over him. “What do you have to say for yourself?”
Slowly, Dick pushed himself up until he was standing in front of the man. He was shaking and still bent forward. Vaguely, the boy was scared he was about to be sick again.
“Sorry, sir,” he muttered, eyes dropping to the floor to avoid eye contact. It was humiliating enough to be made to act all contrite when all he wanted was to hiss and spit, but it would have been worse if he’d had to look up and see the smug satisfaction in the man’s eyes.
“Mmh,” Slade made and Dick fought the urge to close his eyes in defeat. He wasn’t defeated. He wasn’t.
He’d find a way out of this.
Or maybe Bruce would come or the Titans.
If they even wanted to rescue him.
You and Slade are similar. He did not trust you and you did not trust us.
He had been out as a thief countless times since Slade had ‘taken him in’ and at first, they had demanded answers, but eventually they just started fighting.
Bruce too had caught him once or twice. ‘Come back to me, Robin,’ he’d said as if he believed Dick had a choice.
Sometimes Dick wished Bruce hadn’t taught him this well. Maybe then he would have already been arrested and this would have been solved.
“Again,” Slade commanded and Dick obediently leapt at him, evading his incoming fist and landing a rather satisfying hit on the man’s ribs. Of course, the small victory was short-lived and a few moments later, Dick was groaning on the ground again, holding his wrist and desperately hoping it wasn’t broken again.
“Again,” Slade said and Dick obediently pushed himself to his feet and obediently moved and obediently started fighting again.
He did a lot of things obediently these days.
Ever since the close first call where Slade had shown him just what his device could do to the titans if he didn’t obey, he’d fought back every single time he’d met his friends.
He obediently stole everything he was told.
He obediently showed up to training.
He obediently stayed still when Slade-
“Again.”
Dick was shaking by now, barely able to stand upright. His stomach was most definitely bruised, his wrist was at the very least sprained and his head was pounding.
Still, he moved.
“Good boy,” Slade said and Dick fought the bile crawling up his throat, stilling when the man put a hand on his shoulder. “Training is over now. You did excellently. Let me help you with that.”
Dick let himself be pulled towards the small infirmary Slade had set up in the warehouse that served as their newest hideout.
The man gently prodded at his wrist. “Just a sprain,” he assured Dick kindly and the boy couldn’t quite help the pathetic relief, both at his wrist not being broken and Slade’s kindness.
“Slade?” he asked and the man tightened his grip on his wrist.
Dick hissed, tears springing to his eyes.
“Master,” Slade corrected simply.
Right. That was new. After his failed little rebellion, as Slade liked to call it, he had decided that he wanted his apprentice to show the proper respect.
“Master,” Dick corrected himself, teeth gritted and voice tight. “May I have something against nausea?”
“Of course, birdie,” the man replied pleasantly, letting go of his wrist. The switch up made Dick shudder. “Open up.” Dick shuddered again, but let the man put the pill on his tongue, eagerly accepting the water bottle he was handed.
“I need you to go to Gotham soon. I know your old mentor lives there, but the theft should be far away from him. You should easily be able to avoid him.”
Dick ducked his head into a nod.
A few weeks ago he might have felt giddy to be sent to Gotham, but now he just felt sick.
Come back to me, Robin.
You and Slade are similar. He did not trust you and you did not trust us.
Dick swallowed around the lump in his chest. “May I go to sleep?” he asked politely, staring blankly down at the unblemished white of his new bandage.
“Sure,” the man agreed.
“Thank you, master,” Dick whispered, swallowing ash and shuffling over to the cot in the corner that was his, curling up under the thick blanket Slade had graciously given him.
Hot tears dripped on the pillow.
~•~
Batman hadn’t been supposed to be here, but he was.
It didn’t surprise Dick, the man had always been good at being where he wasn’t wanted.
“Perfect test,” Slade crooned in his ear and Dick knew that his father saw the flicker of his eyes when the com came to life. “Now we can see how you do against your old mentor. Go. Attack.”
So Dick did.
It wasn’t like he thought he had a chance in a heads-on fight, but Slade’s order gave him plausible deniability.
Bruce slammed him into the wall and Dick bit back a desperate whine as it aggravated his stomach. The man let go as if he had burned himself.
Dick stared at him for a moment and then took the chance to slip away and back towards the object he was supposed to be stealing, an unassuming disk on a desk.
“I told you, to fight him,” Slade said in his ear and Dick felt his displeasure when his head briefly crackled with a current.
“Sorry,” he gasped. “Sorry, master.” The electricity stopped and when he blinked, Batman was in front of him again.
Dick moved.
Their fight was like a dance, but now that Slade had been teaching him new things, through rather more brutal methods than Bruce, Dick had improved in leaps and bounds.
You and Slade are similar. He did not trust you and you did not trust us.
They weren’t evenly matched, not by far, but he held himself well enough to evade the man, mostly.
You and Slade are similar. He did not trust you and you did not trust us.
He was nothing like Slade.
Dick tapped his left elbow, the place where the pad went over into the armour plate.
In the next move, his father grabbed his elbow and used it to turn him, slamming him into the wall.
Dick made a wounded noise again, deliberately loud enough that the coms would catch it.
“Clearly you’re not a match yet,” Slade growled and Dick shivered. “Extraction,” he ordered.
“Yes, master,” Dick replied quietly, but evidently not quietly enough because Batman twitched.
The boy didn’t wait long, slipping through Batman’s wide stance and down a corridor, before jumping out of the second story window and landing in a roll. He ran.
“Adequate,” Slade said when he accepted the disk. “It’s a shame that you couldn’t do a little bit better against Batman, but I suppose that just means we have to work a bit harder, right, birdie?”
“Right, master,” Dick replied bitterly.
Slade’s eyes flashed in amusement at the small bit of defiance, before pulling him over to the infirmary again. He supposed that the fact that the man grabbed the injured wrist was his punishment for the backtalk.
“Are you hurt?”
“He aggravated my stomach injury, sir,” Dick reported obediently.
“Alright, let me look at it.”
The boy tasted ash again, but he lifted his shirt. Slade hummed, before he spread some salve on his bruises and then wrapped it too.
Dick stared at the ceiling and willed his mind to be anywhere else.
“All done. You may take your suit off. Dinner will be in 15.”
“Yes, sir.”
Slade smiled fondly, reaching out to trail his finger along Dick’s jaw. The boy went very, very still. “I’m proud of you,” the man whispered.
Dick swallowed. He knew that he was supposed to answer, but he couldn’t bring himself to speak, gladly moving away when Slade shooed him to go change.
Piece after piece came off. He left his elbow for last. When he pulled the piece off, he saw the blinking lights, perfectly placed where Dick knew was the hardest to see when he was wearing the armour. He angled it so it was hidden from view when one walked past the pile of armour.
Hope drummed in his ribcage like a Robin beating its wings.
A tracker.
~•~
Slade backhanded him, hard, and Dick stumbled a few steps back.
“I told you to-” The man was blasted back by green.
Dick knew this shade of green. He froze, not daring to look for a second, but once he did, he found his friends standing there, determined. Starfire was floating, eyes green.
Behind them was Batman, glare fixed on Dick.
He exhaled.
“Robin, don’t just stand there,” Slade said and the boy twitched into action immediately, instinctively.
“We know what he did,” Cyborg called out when Robin came hurtling towards them. “Our blood has been cleaned.”
“They’re lying, Robin.” If Slade had yelled too, maybe Dick wouldn’t have hesitated, but he said it with quiet conviction. Dick had learned that Slade was usually right about things.
A weight slammed into him from the side and then he was pinned down by his father. “They’re not compromised,” the man said quietly. He wasn’t using Batman’s voice. This was all Bruce and Dick swallowed tears. “When have I ever lied to you?”
He hadn’t.
Dick went slack in the man’s grip.
Somewhere to his side, Slade cursed angrily and Dick, well used to the man’s angers and its consequences, tensed again in anticipation of a current or a hit. He hadn’t realised that his eyes had screwed shit in anticipation until Bruce pressed his hands down a bit harder on his shoulders.
“He won’t hurt you again, Robin,” his father murmured.
Dick wondered why Batman seemed perfectly content letting the team handle Slade.
(It wasn’t until years later when Bruce was talked down from killing the Joker by Superman of all people that he realised that Bruce was scared he would have killed the man.)
(Selfishly, sometimes he wished Bruce had.)
“Don’t,” Dick gasped out, trying to move away from the weight pinning him down. It was suddenly too much. “Don’t touch me.”
Batman immediately backed off, letting him scramble backwards.
“Open your eyes,” he prompted. “Robin, open your eyes. You’re safe.”
You and Slade are similar. He did not trust you and you did not trust us.
Come back to me, Robin.
When have I ever lied to you?
Dick opened his eyes.
Slade was handcuffed, held between Cyborg and Raven. With his mask off and a defeated posture, he looked like…a man.
Just a man.
“Such a disappointment, Robin,” the man spat and Dick instinctively tried to move away.
Just a man.
Cyborg shook him. “That’s enough.”
Batman said something, too lowly for Dick to get and a moment later, police officers were streaming in, starting to collect evidence and taking away Slade. Some more people, dressed like ambulance drivers came in too but stayed back when Batman gestured.
The man held out a hand for Dick to take.
For a long moment, the boy just stared at it, his father’s form overlapping with a figure and their halved mask, but eventually, he took it.
Batman hauled him to his feet. Very slowly, he reached out and when Dick didn’t pull away, he clasped his hand on his shoulder. “Good work, son,” he said quietly.
Just like that, Dick was crying, sobbing really.
He would have fallen if Starfire and Beast Boy didn’t barrel into him almost simultaneously.
A moment later, Cyborg’s arms were enveloping him too and he heard Raven sigh, which Dick guessed meant she was here too.
Strangely enough, their hug didn’t feel like anything but love and safety.
“I’m sorry,” he sobbed.
“You’re sorry?” Beast Boy screeched. “We’re sorry, dude.”
“Sorry it took so long,” Raven added neutrally.
“I wasn’t sure you’d…” Dick started to admit, before another sob made him trail off into a miserably little noise instead.
“We never stopped looking,” Cyborg promised.
“We weren’t sure what you were doing, but as soon as we found those things in our blood, we knew you were protecting us,” Beast Boy rambled.
Dick thought there was probably more to that, but he didn’t say anything.
Their arms tightened.
“We will always come for you, Robin,” Starfire promised above him, fierce and determined, in a bright voice of steel.
Dick let himself believe her.