Work Text:
Dick sits down on the edge of his bed with a loud groan. He tears off his gloves and throws them to the side, uncaring of where they will land. He can always get more gloves. He struggles for a little while to get his boots off, but once they are off he treats them just as the gloves. The sun was beginning to rise, some of the light peeking through his cracked open jet-black curtains, hitting his back in a dull yellow hue. He’s hunching over, staring at his own shadow on the floor.
“Difficult day, Robin?”
Dick can hear Slade’s voice from behind him. That typical lazy rumble, so accurate to the real Slade, sometimes he really does believe it’s real. It has become a constant in his life. He could turn on his lamp. Drive away the hallucination with a simple flip of a switch, and yet, for whatever reason, he doesn’t.
“Always.” Dick chuckles in some half-hearted attempt at humor.
Hallucination-Slade hasn’t been… violent towards Robin like he was on that first night the dust infected him. Now Slade acts more like a devil on his shoulder. If it's dark enough, Dick can hear and see Slade as if he were really there, always pushing him to do more. Cross that final line. Hurt the people close to him. Dick usually just ignores him.
The effects of the dust never went away. While Cyborg is confident that Robin was treated, it doesn’t make sense that Dick still sees Slade. Maybe now that he knows it's not real Slade has taken on a more… reclusive personality.
Although Dick can’t see it, he knows that Slade is sitting down on the opposite side of the bed. There was no dark, looming shadow where it should be. The bed didn’t creak under Slade’s weight. But he knew Slade was there.
Both of their backs to each other. It's definitely not a position Dick would ever put himself in with the real Slade. The real Slade felt like a tiger, a wild and unpredictable animal. But this Slade is just a figment of Dick’s imagination, as predictable to Dick as Dick is to himself.
“Tell me what happened.” Slade’s made it clear it’s an order, steady and calm with that undertone of a threat. It's so painfully on brand. So disgustingly Slade.
“Nothing…” Dick hesitates, “nothing happened.”
“Don’t lie to me, my boy.” Slade purrs. “I didn’t teach you to be a liar.”
It’s not like it matters if he tells Slade or not. There’s no sensitive information that will leave this room. He’s not even really stuck with Slade. All it takes is a little light. But Dick doesn’t want Slade to leave. At least for now, he'd like the older man to stay.
“Today’s my birthday.” Dick says with a deep sigh. “I… It’s been two years since I’ve last spoken to Bruce. I was hoping that maybe he would try to contact me… he didn’t. You probably think it's stupid.” I don’t even know why I’m telling you.
“I don’t think that,” Slade hums softly. “I never forgot your birthday.”
Dick almost wanted to chuckle at that. Yeah, Slade didn’t forget Dick’s birthday. Not that Dick knew how Slade knew, at that point Dick was really believing that Slade was psychic. It was Dick’s 15th birthday, last year to the day, when Slade had sent a horde of robots to cause trouble in the city. It was so uncharacteristically bold of the man, but at the time Dick just thought Slade was evil incarnate.
Maybe it was to test how easily it would be to separate Robin from his team for Slade’s future plans, but when Dick was separated from the team, angrily beating down every robot in sight, the last one he destroyed had Slade personally say happy birthday through a cracked screen inside its face.
Dick remembers slamming his staff through the screen until it cracked through the concrete below the robot.
At the time, Robin was infuriated for a number of reasons. What kind of psychopath attacks a city to celebrate a birthday? The Joker, definitely. Now he looks back at that memory somewhat fondly- not that he would admit that to the other Titans. He doesn't know why exactly.
Dick fidgets with his hands on his lap, his jaw is tight, face set in a deep frown. He’s crazy, isn't he? Talking to himself on his bed, imagining his greatest nemesis- the man who tortured him and his friends- acting like some kind of therapist.
He knows it’s just his sub-conscious talking back to him. Everything Slade is- everything he does is just what Robin thinks. He knows it's wrong that he's craving the comfort and praises of his former-kidnapper-mentor from beyond the grave. And somewhere deep in his chest, he can’t bring himself to care.
“I tried reaching out to him. It’s three in the morning back in Gotham, he’s probably busy. He didn’t answer.”
“How can he possibly expect you to rely on him?” Slade says in a dark sneer. “He can’t even call you on your birthday. He can’t even protect you from danger.”
“Protect me from you.”
“Yes,” Slade confirms. “And he wonders why you don’t want to see him.”
“I do want to see him.” Dick snaps. “I- I told him not to talk to me, but I wanted him to ignore that. I wanted him to prove he loves me.”
It’s wrong. He knows that his logic isn’t sound. Driven by stupid and impossible to explain emotions. He moved to his own city, he started his own team, he did some amazing things. And yet Bruce never even tried to contact him. Even when Dick was missing for months, stuck with Slade in that damned clocktower, it's like Bruce never noticed. He did so much just so Bruce can be proud and see the kind of hero Dick could have been if Bruce just allowed a little more freedom.
Instead, Dick attracted the worst kind of attention.
“I love-”
“Don’t-” Dick hurries to interrupt because the thought of Slade saying anything like that disgusts Dick straight to his core. Slade said a lot of things during his apprenticeship. He never held back his thoughts on Robin. How powerful Robin is, his potential… how talented Dick is. And Slade would always say how proud he was of Robin.
And it reminded Dick of Bruce every single time. How badly he wished those words came out of Bruce’s mouth instead of rolling off Slade’s velvet tongue with ease. Wishing that Bruce had told him how much he was loved. All so that he didn’t have to feel like such a burden on Batman.
He felt like Batman's shadow in the worst way possible. Batman never showed appreciation for Dick’s hard work. It made him feel like he was weighing Bruce down like a shackle.
In a way, a shadow was what Slade was trying to make him, wasn't it? Dressing him up in that black and orange, Slade's logo right above Dick's heart. But Slade never made Dick feel unwanted. Quite the opposite, actually.
Slade went through all those lengths just for an apprenticeship that was doomed from the start. How did Slade feel when he finally had Robin in the palm of his hand? How did he feel when Dick inevitably left?
“You just… You say what I want to hear.” Dick whispers, breaking his train of thought. It's hard not to spiral when a figment of your enemy is on your bed. “This isn’t right.”
“Most things in life aren’t, Richard.” Dick imagines Slade shifts on the bed. “He has no respect for you, he never has. You don’t have to strive to impress him. You’ve already impressed me.”
“You’re dead.” Dick finally says, lowering his head even more. “I'm talking to a dead man. You’re not real.”
It’s like Dick is finally realizing he’s actually alone in here- or rather- more willing to acknowledge it. It’s so easy to forget when his hallucination is so vivid, so real, feels and sounds just like Slade. Even the way Dick gets gooseflesh in Slade’s presence is the exact same as when he was actually alive.
He could tell the team that the hallucinogen is still affecting Robin, they would drop everything to help.
But he doesn’t want to.
Slade parrots Dicks thoughts out loud to him like a speaker. A broken record. Giving a voice to thoughts that should belong to Dick alone.
Repeating that he’s dead over and over like a mantra to a man that isn't really here won’t change that. He never told the Titans that all it took for Slade to get into Robin’s head was to simply say I'm proud of you. It's disgusting, childish, needy, and pathetic.
“I'm here for you. Always.” Slade’s voice sounds as if it had reset back to default settings. It’s like the hallucination is trying to ignore what Dick had said, it doesn’t want to acknowledge the truth. The same way Dick won’t.
It’s like how you can’t tell people in your dream that it's just a dream. And that's what this is, right? A dream that has slipped into reality. A year ago Dick would have hated himself for this, in a way he still does, but now he just feels numb to it. Why try so hard to win the attention of a man who will never care when there’s one right here for him whenever he wants.
“I know, Slade.” Dick breathes, “I know.”