Author's Note: these are not my characters, DC or Warner or someone besides me owns everything.
This is a "what if" story. What if Slade had found Robin in Return of the Joker, not Batman? I've had a couple of ideas bouncing around in my head for awhile now. This is the one that stuck.
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Very few people have his number. And of those who do, very few call. Slade was abruptly interrupted from delicate mechanical work when the phone started to vibrate.
He recognized the number.
"Greyson" he says, identifying his caller without any greeting.
"Slade" the voice on the other end said. Slade always remembers the voice as it was, it is a small surprise every time he hears a man's voice when he was expecting a boys. "I need your help"
"I'm listening" Slade replies. There was a time when he would have moved heaven and earth for this boy. That was years ago, now he will make no promises.
"Robin has been taken" Slade always thought of the kid as the other Robin. Dick could change costumes; he would always be a little bird to Slade.
"And you want my help?" he asks, silence on the other is all the confirmation he needs, "what's in this for me?"
"If you can find him" Nightwing begins, there is a choke in his voice that he had been trying to hide, "Anything"
Anything. Some big promises for the kid.
……
Finding Robin, the other Robin, was harder then Slade had anticipated. Normally one needs help, facilities, tools, to keep a Robin. Slade has experience in these matters. It should have been merely an issue of finding the suppliers, find the kidnapper. If someone had him, they were either fully prepared professionals, or they were improvising. Personally Slade is pretty sure that if someone had him, he would have found them. Disposing of Robin's body would have been considerably easier then hiding a live Robin for this long. He never followed the other Robin's career, but he knows Batman would not have let him on the street unless he was reasonably talented at all the basic escape arts.
He takes a step back from the puzzle and focuses on the boy. He was different then the first Robin. He brought more joy and wonder to the name then Dick ever had, he also brought a quality of darkness that Dick had never known. Dick had lost his parents tragically, but he had never known cold or hunger like this kid had, Dick had never had the lean years.
Focusing on the boy, Slade studies files on the kids past capers. Looking for reasons the boy might leave the Batfamily, places he might turn to. The kid really had no one but them. Still, he runs all the possible cross checks for persons matching his general description at points of travel. The kid was well trained in how to blend in. After several hours Slade exhausted all his possibilities and resources in that area. If the kid bailed, he went on foot and he packed light. Unlikely, not impossible, files show a record of petty sordid crime before he was taken in by Batman. This is a kid who could survive on the streets of any city with nothing but the clothes on his back. But he couldn't hide in Gotham and he left no record of traveling elsewhere.
Frustrated, Slade heads to Gotham, incognito, he's sure that there is some clue that the Batfamily over looked.
………….
He figures it out by chance; he should call it in to Dick. He doesn't. He knows who he's dealing with, Batman would only botch this up, just like he always does when dealing with the Joker. He stalks up the hill to Arkham on silent feet. His instincts confirm what he had suspected. He's not alone here.
There had been a robbery of a local hardware store. Batman did not investigate it, he was occupied. Surveillance videos show masked men swiping specific items from a shopping list. The only thing significant about the robbery was its geographic proximity to Arkham. It was a hunch at best, he listens to his instincts.
The goons left to guard die silently; the hyenas only slightly less so. The blonde isn't there, it's only him and the Clown, and the boy; the boy watches through wide eyes, silent. Dick would yell and scream at Slade and the Joker; Dick would struggle against his restraints and would fight to be free. Dick was never here for two weeks.
The Joker isn't laughing. All he says before he can't say anything at all is "You're not Batman", Slade is pretty sure he killed the punch line just by showing up. Not according to the boy though, the Joker's last line elicits a small laughter. Well it starts out like a small laughter, pretty soon it's a roaring thunderous laugh, frightening in its intensity. He was prepared for this as well; he administers the antidote he had packed for just this occasion. It was based off his knowledge of previous Joker toxins, it might not have worked on this formula, but it does. When the boy quiets down, he remains alert. When Slade removes the restraints he just lies there. "Get up" he tells the boy harshly, and he gets up, and he collapses. When Slade puts his hands on him, to help him, the boy jerks, but says nothing. "Are you injured?" The kid only shakes his head no. Slade wonders if the Joker damaged his tongue in anyway.
The kid is worse then Slade had ever seen a Robin before. He's pale and sallow, his breathing is shallow and he may be in some degree of shock. Slade knows its taboo to remove their masks, but he needs to see the boy's pupils to know how bad it is. When he grasps the edges of the mask, the boy's hands raise feebly without strength to defend himself. When the mask is gone, Robin shuts his eyes tightly as though to protect himself. "Robin" Slade says to get the boy to look at him, "Tim" it's a command, the boy slowly opens them. They would have been a breathtaking blue under other circumstances. One pupil had dilated more then another, if that's from brain damage or chemicals, Slade can not be certain. The kid tries to say something but his voice box doesn't seem to work right, his eyes roll a little and he can't seem to focus them well on any object, he licks lips, which are oddly flushed red, at contrast with his pale complexion and tries again. "You're not Batman" he finally croaks, and then he laughs again, but it's a dry and rasping laugh that never quite gets started before it ends. His limbs don't move right, but he arranges them in the position to stand, then with great effort he is vertical.
"Now what?" his voice is harsh whisper, the quality of his voice alone tells Slade the story about the screaming that must have echoed through this room.
"Now we leave" Slade directs him to the door. He will come back later to hide the bodies, torch the building.
As they move towards the door a car pulls up. Slade quickly hides in the shadows, pulling the boy roughly with him. The blonde steps through the door, and shouts "Pudding! I'm home" in her sugary sing song voice. Slade's knife is ready, and he's going to pounce when the boys hand on his own stops him. He's not reaching for Slade, but for Slade's knife. Slade looks deep into his blue eyes; they are focusing now, focusing on her, focusing on the knife. Interesting. Slade lets him take it. Robin's limbs still don't move right, he wouldn't have been able to take her at all if surprise wasn't on his side. She's not prepared for Robins who bite and stab. Slade steps in after only a moment, he finishes her. Robin doesn't say anything, he cleans the blood off the knife as best he can on the coat she was wearing, and hands it back, hilt first. The kid had been fantasizing about her death, Slade sees that now, he wonder's if it lived up to the kids expectations.
"Now we leave" Slade says again. Slade left his car almost a mile away, the kid can't walk that far now. They take hers instead. Ditch it, take another.
"Robin" he says to the kid in the passenger seat.
"I'm not sure that I'm Robin anymore"
"Then who are you?"
"I guess Tim, for now" the harsh rasp of his voice can't hide the emotion that's overwhelming him. But the kid doesn't cry.
"I'm going to call Dick now" Slade tells him, as he fishes out his phone, eyes on the road.
"If it's all the same to you, I'd rather you didn't" the words are flat and dry, the meaning behind them isn't.
"He's worried about you, he deserves to know you're OK, and you can't stay with me"
"The kid he's looking for wouldn't have killed her"
"You didn't kill her, I did"
"Not for lack of trying"
Dick answers on the second ring.
"I have him" Slade says. The words of joy that come from the other end run together until he can't make sense of them.
When Dick finally calms down they agree to meet in 20 minutes at an intersection close to Slade's current location. Slade hasn't even ended the phone call when the kid opens the door and rolls out.
"Shit" he shouts as he slams on the breaks, dodging the other traffic to pull over. When he's finally out of the car and after him, the kid had a good start. He was weak; he shouldn't have been able to pull a maneuver like this. Slade is mildly impressed, and more pissed off. He can hear Dick backing of their deal now, payment on delivery only.
When he finally catches up to the kid, they are a surprising distance from the car. The kid is running on pure adrenaline, but his body couldn't take any more. When he knew the chase was doomed, he hid behind a dumpster in a last ditch effort to evade Slade. "I'm not the bad guy this time" Slade tells him as he hauls him up by his shirt. The spark that had faded was back, even if the kid's strength wasn't. Two feet planted on Slade's chest, jump kicking as hard as he could to escape. If his energy hadn't already been depleted from the run, he might have made it. Blue fire races through eyes that have finally focused correctly. Slade rotates him with difficulty, pins him. He had been prepared for this, the needle finds its home, and the sedative takes effect immediately.
He has to carry the kid back to the car. He's lighter then he should be.
When he arrives at the drop point, Dick is waiting, he's not alone; he had lied. The girl is with him, the redhead.
She gasps when she sees Tim. "His mask!" she exclaims, and she runs to the boy, pulls him in her arms.
"I'll be seeing you" Slade says to Dick before he gets in the car and drives away. He ditches the car, he doubles back, and he takes false turns. When he's certain he's lost the Bat, he rents a car and leaves town. He meant to go back to Arkham, clean the scene, but the Bat is already on the case, too late now.
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Author's note.
What did you guys think? Give me some reviews. If there's a call for it, I'll write some more. I have a half conceived idea of Tim ditching the persona of Robin, and maybe even his persona as Tim, tracking down Slade and becoming Renegade, entirely of his own volition.
If you can't tell, I'm obsessed with Robin, and it's impossible to be a fan of the cartoons, and obsessed with Robin, without also obsessing over Return of the Joker.