Everything was completely and utterly wrong. This wasn't how it was supposed to end. The Titans were supposed to keep attempting to reach out to him, not give up and label him an enemy. They were supposed to find out about the nano-bots in their blood streams and tell him that it was okay. Friendship was more important and all that shit. He was supposed to finally defeat Slade in one of those fights and walk out as Robin once more and not as Slade's apprentice. He was supposed to have his friends and his costume and he should have been saving lives and protecting the people of Jump City. Instead he was sitting outside of the headmaster's office inside H.I.V.E. Academy while Slade enrolled him, effective immediately.
Slade had told him it was so that he could learn as much as he could with the help of other professional villains while living in a more…cruel environment. So that after a while, Robin could adopt the attitude and goals of the other students at H.I.V.E. Academy. But Robin isn't stupid. He knew exactly why Slade was forcing him to study and live here. Slade wanted to flaunt him. He wanted to parade him around the school like a trophy in attempts to humiliate him around criminals his age. It was high school, only everyone was a bully, and Robin didn't go to school.
Robin stopped going to school right before leaving Batman for Jump City. He had just finished the second semester of his freshman year as Dick Grayson in a private school that was heavily funded by Bruce Wayne. Private didn't mean safe. Robin was already rather odd when he started school. Until the death of his parents, he had been homeschooled. The new criteria with structured and organized learning had been all new to him, but he had quickly adapted and even joined the mathletes. That's when kids started calling him a geek and a loser. And who could forget the way wealthy kids would look down at him as if he was gum on their five hundred dollar shoes? He was a circus freak, too strange and too poor to be going to private school. It didn't matter that Alfred picked him up in a fine car every day after school or that Bruce always kept him up with the latest trends. As he walked down the hall, kids would hiss and spit at him names like gypsy or trailer trash. And that was only in middle school.
Freshman year was his breaking point. The year when sexuality and relationships were the big thing and if you picked the wrong person to date, your social life was over. Robin didn't date anybody. Nobody wanted to date a dirty gypsy. Robin hadn't minded the girls blowing him off so much, and he found himself growing more interested in boys as the school year went on. He knew it was wrong, of course. Boys weren't supposed to like other boys, that's just not how it goes, yet, he couldn't resist sneaking glances. He wasn't sure how anyone found out, but when they did, it was the talk of the school for a good three weeks. Homophobic slurs were scratched or written onto his locker and everywhere he went, words like faggot and queer were thrown around. Suddenly, nobody wanted to even be around him anymore. Even his gymnastics coach started calling him the Flying Gayson.
The fact of the matter was, Robin was not meant to go to a school of any kind. Slade had known that. He wasn't sure how, but the man had and he had used it as part of his scheme to crush Robin down until he was nothing more than a pile of dust.
The door opened and Robin was torn from his memories as he looked up. Slade nodded to him and closed the door. "Get up, Robin. It's time to go to your dorm."
Robin nodded and stood, wincing as he straightened out. A bruise on his ribs made itself known and he breathed carefully as he followed the man out of the administration wing and down a long hall to the wing that contained dorms where all the students lived. At the end of the hall, the wing separated into three different sections. On the right, there was the hallway for the boys' dorms and on the left, was the girls'. The staff dorms were placed between the two so that if any student tried to sneak from the boys to the girls or vice versa, they would have to risk sneaking past the teachers. Much to Robin's relief, these hallways were silent other than the echoing of his and Slade's footsteps. Robin expected to be let down the right hall, but to his surprise, Slade gave him a small shove forward into the teachers' section. He led him to the very end of the hall and opened the very last door. Robin slowly stepped in and surveyed the room. It was larger than he'd expect for a dorm room, and a queen size bed was pushed against the back wall. A computer and several screens were positioned against the wall by the door and to the east wall there was a dresser and a closet. He also took note of the bathroom on the other side of the room across from the closet.
"This is my room, Robin. I will be staying with you to make sure you stay out of trouble." Slade told him.
"Really? You're going to sit around and babysit me?" Robin grumbled.
"On the contrary. While you are here, you may be learning from other teachers during the day, but that does not mean I will no longer be training you." Slade told him. His arms shot out and he roughly gripped Robin's jaw, forcing the boy to look him in the eye. "Believe me when I say that nothing is going to change, boy. I will treat you the way I always have, no matter who may be watching. And if I have to punish you," He said, his grip tightening, "I will do as I see fit, no matter who might see."
Robin glared at him from behind his mask and was tempted to spit in the man's face. If only he wasn't wearing the damn face plate.
"Come." Slade ordered, closing the door once Robin was out of the room. He led Robin back through the hallway to the right where the boys' dorms were. He opened one of the dorm rooms with a key that Robin was guessing he had received from the headmaster. He opened the door and allowed Robin to walk in on his own. To his immense disappointment, there were four beds in the room in opposite corners. There was only one that appeared to be unused and next to it sat a dresser for his belongings. Slade walked in and dropped the duffel bag containing Robin's uniforms and gear on the empty bed. "You have exactly one hour to unpack. At that time, you will report to the dining hall and if you are late or try to run away, then I will not be afraid to give you your first lesson of the day. Am I clear?" Slade asked him.
Robin scowled at his shoes and nodded, waiting until Slade was gone to survey the room. Much to his utter distaste, the room was very messy with clothes, random metal scraps and parts, and food wrappers covering the floor. If Batman had seen it, he would have had kittens. "Holy hurricane, Batman." He muttered to himself as he turned back to the duffel bag and pulled out the orange and black uniforms that Slade had forced on him. Those went in the middle drawer. He put his underwear and masks in the top drawer, and stored extra armor and weapons in the bottom. He put his gel and hair brush on top of the dresser, but hesitated to put his hygiene things in the bathroom. He was almost sure that somebody would eventually stick his tooth brush in the toilet. He kept the rest of his things packed for now and stored it under his bed. He checked the time and sighed when he saw it had only been twenty minutes. Did Slade really think he was that slow to require an entire hour to put away what very little he had? He sat down on the bed and looked around again. His training under Batman was starting to kick in and he fought the urge to clean the entire room. It wasn't his stuff. It wasn't his to clean or touch or move. He repeated that to himself until he found an apple core on the floor and nearly gagged at the sight of the rotting thing. That tore it. Robin got up off of the bed and grabbed the trashcan from the bathroom, which also made him want to dry heave in its state. He'd take care of that next. "Just the food. Don't want bugs." Robin said to himself as he gingerly picked up the apple core by the stem and dropped it in. He searched the entire room, picking up candy wrappers, potato chip bags, soda cans, even a few pizza boxes with molding crusts inside. He checked under each bed and discovered a bag of what he guessed may have once been a sandwich, but now looked like Starfire's cooking. The process took about ten minutes.
Once that was done, Robin was glad he could at least stop worrying about bugs. He glanced over to the bathroom again and cringed at the thought of it. It was disgusting. Dead hair was all over the floor and stuck to the sides of the bathtub. Mysterious dried substances were caked on the mirrors and in the sink and the toilet looked like it hadn't been cleaned in years. Robin was grateful that he was wearing shoes and was pretty certain that using the shower would make him even filthier than before he'd gone in. That would definitely not do.
"Thanks, Slade. You just had to put me with the animals." Robin grumbled as he left the room and went searching for a supply closet. Luckily, there was one stocked at the end of the boys' section, though it didn't look like it was ever used other than for pranks. He filled his arms up with paper towels, sponges, a mop, soap, disinfectant wipes, and drain cleaner. On a last thought, he also grabbed gloves and a surgical mask. He managed to carry everything back to the room without dropping anything and once there, set everything on his bed. The first thing he decided to tackle was the shower, since that was the thing he'd have to touch with his bare skin. He turned on the shower and washed away all of the disgusting hair that coated the tub and the shower wall. It was like a truck stop or something. Once every trace of hair and anything else gross was gone, he scrubbed away at the tub until it was as clean as the day it was installed. Once that was done, he tackled the sink. The sink was just as bad as the tub, if not worse and he nearly threw up when he pulled a large clump of hair out of the drain. If this was Slade's way of torturing him, he was doing a pretty good job. It took him less than twenty minutes to clean the toilet and mop the floor. Finally, he wiped the mirrors down and stepped back to appreciate his work. The bathroom was sparkling and completely disinfected. Now it was useable. Robin stepped out of the bathroom and glanced at the clock, horrified when he saw that it was twelve o'seven. Shit.
Robin gathered everything in his arms and returned it to the supply closet, practically throwing them in before running out of the wing and down the long hall that they had come from. He tried to remember where exactly the headmaster had said the dining hall was during the tour and at the end of the hall Robin took a left, hoping it was the right way. For once, the stars were in his favor because he immediately caught sight of the dining hall, as well as all of the students in it. "Holy trolls and goblins, Batman." He muttered to himself as he started to walk down the hall. While he was obviously tired and pretty sure he couldn't defend himself against an entire school of villains, he refused to show weakness. He lifted his head and brought his shoulders back in a strong posture before entering the dining hall. To his slight surprise, there was no evil going on anywhere. Not that he could see. It was just a room full of teenagers chattering away about stuff that he didn't care about. It was just like any other high school. He spotted Slade near the administration table. He was standing up beside his seat, obviously waiting for Robin.
"Why are you late, Robin?" Slade asked with a hint of irritation in his usually calm voice.
Robin looked up at him, fighting back a blush as the room went silent. He didn't look, but he could tell that everybody's eyes were on him. Murmuring arose and he heard his name several times. "I was-."
SMACK!
Robin's head was forced to the side and he brought his hand up to where Slade had hit him. More murmurs arose and Robin's face burned with shame. There was no way he was going to let Slade treat him like a dog. He swung his fist, punching Slade in the jaw with a satisfying crack. A round of gasps filled the dining hall and Robin glared at Slade. "I'm not your pet." He snapped. He refused to be pushed around by the man in front of everyone.
Slade turned back to Robin and cracked his jaw before bringing his foot up and catching it behind Robin's neck, forcing the boy onto his knees with his forehead almost touching the floor. "That's better." Slade nodded. He refused to let Robin up until the boy had stopped resisting completely. "And Robin, you'll be whatever I tell you to be." He finally let the boy up and once he was back on his feet, Robin refused to make eye contact with anybody. His fists tightened and his teeth clenched.
Slade pushed him over to the table and made him sit down. "Eat." He ordered. "Normally you will be sitting with the rest of the students, but today, you will sit with me as my apprentice."
Robin's eyes narrowed and he wished everybody would go back to their lunches. They watched his every move and some of the insecure nervousness that Robin had experienced as a freshman was beginning to come back. He looked down at his plate and started to pick at the food to make sure there was nothing wrong with it. Slade had piled the food with greens, fruits, and white chicken that almost reminded him of the stuff that Batman used to prepare for him on late nights after Alfred had gone to bed. He started to eat, but made sure he didn't fill up. He didn't want to be sluggish if anyone decided to attack him. Robin took the bottle of water that Slade had also provided and took a sip before looking around. While most kids were strangers to his memory, Robin did recognize a few people. Worst of all, he managed to spot the Hive 5 sitting at a table on the other side of the cafeteria. Not only did he see the original three, but Seemore and Kyd Wykkyd were sitting next to Gizmo and a girl that Robin recognized as Angel. And of course, there were at least five or six Billy Numerous clones sitting at a single table with Private H.I.V.E. His eyes moved a few tables down and his attention was suddenly grabbed by one of the students sitting there.
He was tall and lean, but obviously muscular with shoulder length silver hair and long bangs that fell into his eyes. His eyes were dark and mysterious with long eyelashes and a perfectly slanted nose. He wasn't smiling, but Robin was sure that his teeth were just as perfect as the lips that hid them, all painted on flawless pale skin. He wore all black, possibly tights with a silver belt resting on his hips and a black cloak that cascaded gracefully from his shoulders. Robin dropped his fork and completely forgot about his food, choosing to stare at the boy instead until Slade jerked him out of his daydream.
"What is distracting you so much?" Slade hissed, his eyes following Robin's line of sight. He glanced from the boy, to the girls sitting around him. "Do try to keep your hormones under control Robin. For now."
Robin blushed and looked away, praying that Slade hadn't guessed anything. He stood up as Slade did and disposed of his food before following him out of the room with one last glance over at the boy. His eyes widened when they made eye contact and the boy smirked at him, making the hero turned pink and quickly turn around as he hurried out of the room.