Over the next week, Wyatt carefully followed Slade around the clocktower and learned all of his mannerisms, his moods, his routines. For all his anger and intelligence, Slade tended to remind Wyatt of his late grandfather: an extremely sharp old man who liked to think on his feet, puttering around his house muttering to himself and seldom bothering-- or even remembering-- to pick up after himself. Wyatt was kept busy picking up towels, arranging papers, and cleaning up after oil spills and broken (and often smashed) pieces of electronics.
Rather than lose respect for Slade, in that first week Wyatt became extremely fond of Slade in a way that a nurse would become fond of a patient. He enjoyed sitting on top of the catwalk above Slade's bank of monitors and watching him interact with Cinderblock and Plasmus, or the Teen Titans. It was here that Slade really shone, using his great talent with words to herd his allies and enemies where he needed them, making sure that his perfectly crafted plans worked just the way they were meant to.
The Teen Titans...
Wyatt sat down under the rail of the catwalk and swung his legs over the edge, looking down at the monitor below him. One of the monitors was displaying a small image of the Titans while they thwarted a bank robbery; the rest were replaying old footage of Robin in action. Slade stood with his arms folded, staring up at the images. Wyatt sighed. Although in his line of business he was often on what people called the "wrong" side of the law, he usually didn't choose sides. The way he saw it, everyone was just doing their job: his clients stole for a living, the police stopped them for a living. Even walking freudian nightmares like the Batman did the things they did out of a sense of duty, or sometimes out of boredom. Wyatt knew there was no such thing as Good or Evil, or even, in most cases, right and wrong. Those were just words people made up to try and make sense of the world, make themselves feel better for doing the kinds of things they couldn't help doing.
Humans were predatory animals, after all.
But there was something about the Teen Titans-- Robin in particular-- that didn't sit well with Wyatt. He'd known Robin before, when he was still running about with the Batman, and then, things had seemed all right. He'd been a little surprised to find the acrobatic fashion victim here as well. What really bothered him was that he seemed to have a... fixation on Slade.
What worried him more was that the feeling seemed to be mutual.
Wyatt stood up and brushed himself off, then went off to make sure Slade's lair was presentable, as it seemed the Titans might be dropping in soon. What Slade did was his own business, of course, but this "apprentice" business worried him. It wasn't that he was jealous of all the attention Slade was dedicating to Robin; after all, half of Wyatt's job was to not get paid attention to. And he certainly didn't want to become apprentice instead of Robin-- Wyatt had no desire to run around in armor punching things.
He brooded over it over the next few days as Slade made cryptic preparations in a far corner of the clocktower. Wyatt didn't bother to find out what he was up to beyond noticing that Slade was wearing pencils down to nubs four times a day. Once in awhile he'd wander to the tiny refridgerator and make a mess, then go back to his work, muttering.
Wyatt ran back and forth between the stove and Slade's desk, trying to make sure there were new pencils and a mug of tea waiting for him when he needed it. Slade was a man who was capable of going days without sleep, and did in the days leading up to the climax of his plan. By the third sleepless night, however, Wyatt was having trouble matching Slade's manic energy. He often caught himself dozing off leaning against a wall, and whenever he walked past his meager bed he longed to just lie down and catch a few hours of sleep.
But no matter how tired he was, Wyatt knew that this was the time when Slade needed him most, and didn't allow himself any rest. Finally, one morning while Wyatt was standing listlessly on the catwalk trying to stay awake, Slade left the clocktower. Heaving a sigh of relief, Wyatt dragged himself to his bed and slumped down upon it, falling asleep almost instantly.