(Author's Note, Disclaimer, and other assorted nonsense: I do not own the Teen Titans or anything affiliated with DC comics or any other various things that are guarded by lawyers and vicious dogs. I do, however, hold the rights to Wyatt Blank. Let it be known that Wyatt's character is based on a character (who is seldom seen) in Breath of Fire IV. Unless you've played the game at least twice you probably won't know who he is, so it doesn't matter anyway. Though I am an advocate of Slash, Yaoi, BDSM, and twinks, none of these will be featured in this fic. It is safe for all audiences.)
The only thing that separated the small, nondescript boy from thousands of other small nondescript boys was the reference.
He'd shown up in the clocktower exactly a day behind his letter-- to the minute-- and at least knew enough not to bother to knock. He was dressed in a longsleeve pullover and a tee shirt bearing the name of an indeterminate heavy metal band, tattered sneakers with laces forever coming untied, hems of his dirty jeans frayed. All he carried was a plain messenger bag that, for all the mysterious lumps in the fabric revealed, could be full of clothing or explosives or both. Someone might see him, but they would never remember him. In most places he moved without being really seen at all-- just another kid, on his way somewhere, heading home, one of thousands.
Slade would have missed him completely if he hadn't nearly run into him.
It took his mind the better part of a second to straighten out a jumble of confused thoughts and reactions and file them neatly in a row, as he was used to. With a clearer mind he remembered the letter of reccomendation he'd recieved the day before in the form of a badly smudged and travel-worn note that had been typed on a machine that apparently was not only running out of ink but missing several keys. It read, simply:
It was signed with an illegible scrawl, and there was no return address on the battered envelope, but one didn't survive long in Slade's business without knowing things. He knew who the letter was from, and what the boy was here for. He also knew-- though he didn't consider it important-- that the boy had travelled a long way to be here standing in the middle of Slade's clocktower this morning.
On some unspoken cue, the boy silently handed Slade a scrap of paper, neatly folded in half. Slade tucked it away without looking at it. "I don't know if I can use you," he said, turning away to look up at the monitors displaying various parts of the city, all quiet and dark at this hour of the morning. "I do my own work."
The boy said nothing. He stood waiting, face impassive, looking for all the world as if he were standing at a bus stop. Slade glanced at him, part of his mind weighing the advantages and disadvantanges of hiring someone like this boy. The other part, as always, was thinking of Robin.
"Your previous... Employer sent you here?"
"Yes." Even the boy's voice was forgettable. Monotone and serious, it seemed to come from the air around him rather than directly from his lips.
"And where is he now?"
There was a tiny flicker in the boy's eyes, almost too slight to see. "Atascadero Institute for the Criminally Insane."
"I see."
The boy elevated one eyebrow slightly. "They take good care of him. He supposed he'd have no need for my services in a place like that."
"So he sent you to me. Did he say why?"
"It's not my business to know why."
Slade turned back to the monitors. "Exactly. In that case, I don't want to see you or hear you. You are not to talk to me. You will find your own lodgings. You will be paid weekly, in an amount determined by your performance. It is not negotiable." He paused to fix the boy in the one-eyed stare that had frozen the hearts of so many men. "I need not say that if you open your mouth outside of this building you will cease to exist. Do you understand?"
The boy was already gone, vanished into the darkness.
"Excellent," Slade said into the silence.