A/N: Hello! Hello! Sorry this one took so long!

Thanks for all the wonderful reviews in the mean time! Hope ya enjoy this chapter!

Chapter 37

Time

For the second time that night, Robin hovered in a doorway.

Freshly showered and stripped from all armor, the boy felt bare as he gazed into the window of his past. His toes scrunched against the plush carpet as he dug them into the short, brown tufts.

Neither Bruce nor Alfred had changed a thing.

The boy turned, looking down the long hallway to the door that led to the bathroom Slade was currently using. He could faintly discern the rush of the water from the shower as he debated how long the man would take. Even though he had already clarified to Slade that under no circumstance should he set foot into the Batcave, Robin felt responsible for keeping a hawk-eyed watch on the man for as long as he was in the manor. Alfred had assured him multiple times that Bruce had the best security system in all of Gotham and that it would be impossible for Slade to hack his way into the system.

But Robin knew better.

The only thing keeping the man from disappearing into the cave was Robin's own watchful eyes. Bruce's security system didn't stand much of a chance against the unmasked man.

He sighed as he looked around, gazing at everything but the open doorway to his room. The ceilings towered above him, dwarfing him in a shadowy reach. He had hated the design of the manor when he had been a kid, and he hated it now.

After their awkward introduction, Alfred had sent them both up the stairs and shown Slade to his room. When Robin had started to launch into an explanation for the entire situation, the man had simply held up his hand.

"My knowing tonight or tomorrow won't change the situation. But you running yourself into exhaustion could have far greater consequences, Master Dick."

Alfred had simply shaken his head and fixed him with an age-old withered look when Robin had tried to protest. The boy sighed as he went over the words a few more times in his mind. There wasn't a lot you could do to change Alfred's mind after the man had made a decision.

So, after following the man's detailed orders – which included showering, changing, and eating something that signified a meal – Robin now stood face to face with the last requirement on the list.

Sleeping.

His mind spun as he stared. Too many memories touched his mind. Too many worries haunted his steps, and as tired as Robin felt, no amount of exhaustion could force the boy to step forward.

He reached forward, grabbing the cold doorknob and tugging the door closed. He pressed his back against it and slid down as his head clunked against the wood. The boy closed his eyes, listening to the distant rush of water echo down the long hallway, and for once, he simply let his mind drift, empty and void of all thoughts.

A force jerked him out of the darkness around him. The boy threw up his hands, swinging his body to the side as he scrambled to grasp his surroundings. The adrenaline coursing through his veins dimmed, however, when his eyes focused on an uncomfortably familiar form. With a sigh his body deflated as he realized the shocking force had simply been a hand...

…gently tapping his shoulder.

"Someone's jumpy."

Robin rubbed his eyes as he rose to his feet, muttering incoherently. He remembered leaning against the door…and then…

"Geeze, Slade. Can you not do that when I'm sleeping?"

His tone was a bit more scathing than he had intended it to be, but at this point, Robin couldn't find the energy within himself to retract the statement and rephrase it. The light streaming in through the windows was much brighter than Robin had remembered, leaving him to question just how long he was asleep for and – more importantly – just how long of showers did Slade take?

"An odd place to sleep," the man responded.

Robin pressed his hands into his eyes with a groan as he straightened up. His back couldn't argue with that statement. At the silence, the man frowned.

"May I inquire why…"

The boy took in the man's freshly showered form and damp hair. A long, dripping towel hung over the man's black t-shirt and sweats.

"I was just waiting and then – " Robin vaguely gestured around him in a desperate attempt to prevent the rising heat he felt in his cheeks. The boy growled, throwing his hands in the air in exasperation.

"I don't know! I just fell asleep okay!"

Slade held up his hands.

"Alright, alright. It's fine, Richard."

The boy flinched at the name and took a hesitating step backwards. A cool breath slid through his lips as his body deflated against the closed door. He couldn't help the reaction. The name seemed to steam roll his already defeated body. His head was spinning from both lack of sleep and stress, and the frequent reminders of his past life only compounded everything.

Robin.

Renegade.

Richard.

The layers were starting to blend together and as the boy leaned up against the door, he couldn't quite understand who was who anymore.

Slade stepped forward, but Robin held up his hand, halting the opposing hand that reached out and erecting both a physical and invisible barrier around himself.

"It's fine, Slade. I just – It's been awhile…I'm not used to people using it."

An awkward silence stood between them and Robin sighed again. If he called Slade by the man's first name, why couldn't Slade do the same?

"I can – "

"No, it's fine," Robin said as he allowed just a sliver of a smile on his face. "Really it is. There's no need to dance around it. It's all around me anyway."

The light was growing brighter in the window. He needed to be sleeping, but somehow the boy couldn't find the willpower to enter his own room. Perhaps he could go downstairs and sleep on the couch in the library. If he left the door open to the massive space, he would surely hear if Slade decided to start exploring. The boy gradually looked up towards the gray eye.

That was the reason he was standing here, wasn't it? To make sure Slade didn't go anywhere he wasn't supposed to. As much as the boy wanted to believe the lie, he knew he couldn't. He was standing here because he didn't want to deal with the broken pieces of his own past.

"The past…"

Robin looked up and found Slade's eye focused on the door behind his body.

"…is as painful as it is comforting sometimes."

The words caught the boy in the stomach. Slade had nailed the sentiment right on the head.

"Yeah…"

The boy's voice was a whisper as he looked down at his bare feet. The cushion of the carpet did little to provide any sense of normalcy or comfort. Everything felt foreign yet familiar. Quite the paradox the boy was stuck in.

"Slade…"

A breath of air left Robin's lungs as he stared down at his feet.

Get out while you still can.

"Who were they?"

The man leaned against the door frame. Robin felt the vibrations from the soft impact travel through his back.

"Who was what?"

The boy rubbed his eyes, conscious of the lack of space separating himself and a potentially volatile reaction to his question. The world was starting to spin a bit as he blinked.

"The one who went insane and the one who disappeared…"

The gray eye furrowed in confusion as the man processed the odd words. Then like icy water rushing down heated skin, Slade's countenance grew very still. His body stiffened, constricting into itself. A breathless moment passed wherein Robin regretted ever asking the question and wished he had put a few more feet in between them.

Robin closed his eyes as he waited, dimly aware he could be slammed into the wall at any moment. He was too tired to fight against Slade's anger. He simply wanted answers. The words had been haunting his steps ever since he had left the dingy, run-down, criminal hideout. Perhaps it was the lack of sleep that had worn down any remaining sense of self-preservation, or perhaps he had simply stopped caring about the consequences for his actions.

"I suppose it wasn't such a great idea to leave you alone with associates who know of my past…"

The words were soft – almost as if the man was speaking to himself more than he was to Robin.

Robin opened his eyes as a ghost of a smile slid over his lips.

"The past is as painful as it is comforting sometimes."

The man snorted, pushing himself off against the wall. The echoes of a chuckle touched Slade's lips, and Robin couldn't help the smile that twitched at the corners of his cheeks.

"And of late, it appears my past won't stay dead."

Light danced off Slade's form as he approached the window sill. He rested his palms on the ancient wood as he looked out into the dismal morning. The light that streamed into the window was scattered and broken. There was another storm coming, but Robin wasn't surprised.

It always rained in Gotham.

"I can relate to the sentiment."

Robin's feet treaded against the carpet as he crossed the divide, entering the world of Slade Wilson once more. He leaned up against the window sill, cognizant of the fact that Slade hardly heard the words he had spoken. The man was lost within some memory. Robin recognized the look on his face. He had seen a similar expression in the mirror many times before.

Robin leaned his head back against the window pane, feeling the warmth tickle the back of his head. For once, he was content to wait the man out. His eyelids drooped, but he forced them to remain open. He had stayed up for longer periods of time before with no problems and that was without the allure of his arch enemy's past being revealed. He could manage to stay awake for a few more minutes.

"You should sleep."

Robin simply shrugged.

"You sound like Alfred."

"Someone has to watch out for you."

"And that's not you."

This time Robin did close his eyes as he shifted against the window pane, but if the boy had kept his eyes open, he would have seen the bitter smile that crossed the man's face.

"I suppose I don't have the best track records at watching out for my apprentices."

Robin's head rolled over until the side of his temple was pressing up against the warm glass. He was surprised that the mild reference to his apprenticeship didn't cause the usual instinctive repulsion and anger towards the man. Instead, the boy simply felt a wary curiosity and dregs of humor. He trusted Slade enough to know there were many layers of explanation to the story which was precisely the reason that he was still sitting here beside the man.

"What happened?"

"I messed up. Many times."

"And…" the boy prompted.

"People died."

Slade's hands curled into fists.

"One of them who shouldn't have."

There was pain in his words. It rang through the halls of Wayne manor, leeching into the walls and filling the space with even more decay. The pain evaporated, raining down on their lonely forms and shadowing them within the claws of the past. Robin had felt the feeling a million times when he had stood within the hallway as a kid, looked down to the far end, and watched his parents' death skip, loop, and replay over and over again in his mind.

"It was Grant, wasn't it?"

A drop hit the window and slid down. Robin's eyes traced it as it fell; the silence was enough of an answer for him.

"You should sleep."

The words had a subtle frost to them this time around. Robin stared at the frozen figure, wondering at the memory that danced behind his eyes. There were some that stuck with you – as clear and as vivid as the day it happened – no matter how hard you tried to expunge it from your mind.

"You can't save everyone, Slade."

Robin's words were soft and light, but despite their warmth, they did little to thaw the cold around him.

"I didn't try to save him. I didn't try to save any of them."

A cold chill rushed down Robin's spine. Another drop of rain hit the window sill; the shadow splashed across Slade's face and dragged along his smooth skin like melting ice.

Get out while you still can.

"Why not?"

The light grew darker as the clouds grew closer.

"I ask myself that question every day," the man said as he glanced up. His cold, gray eye flickered in the dim lighting, "If you find the answer to it, let me know."

"You're only torturing yourself," Robin responded as he leaned forward toward the frozen man, "Trust me, I know."

Slade shook his head.

"Unlike you, Richard, I was the perpetrator, not the victim."

"You can't have wanted your son to die, Slade," Robin hissed as he pushed himself off the place he was sitting. His words slapped through the air but did little to break through to the figure in front of him.

"She disagreed."

The two words caused the boy to freeze in his tracks.

"Your wife?"

The man shrugged.

"How else do you think I ended up with one eye?"

For a few heartbeats, Robin couldn't think of a single word to spit out of his mouth. Slade's wife had – had –

"The outcome of my incompetence and our marital disagreement. An underwhelming story, isn't it?" the man continued with a bitter laugh licking at his lips. His pain was practically palpable through the air.

For a few moments, Robin forgot how to breathe.

"Underwhelming? Underwhelming?" the boy stumbled through his words as he dragged the pieces of Slade's past together. "Your wife stabbed – "

"Shot – "

"– shot your eye out."

"For good reason."

Finally, the man pushed himself away from the window sill and turned to face the boy directly. Robin involuntarily leaned back as Slade suddenly rose to his full height. The man's body was tense and taught as the pain radiated up through him and swirled within his gray eye.

"I'm the reason our eldest is dead, our second son is mute, and our daughter has disappeared."

The words were flat – and his tone was so detached, Robin believed the man could have simply been making a casual remark about the weather.

Robin simply stared at the figure before him as the oxygen in the room slowly drained around him. Multiple revelations spun through his mind at the confession, and for a few moments, Robin struggled to piece together a coherent thought. Finally, he leaned back as a drip of sarcasm rose into his voice.

"Real father of the year, Slade."

The man's mouth twitched as he gestured to his eye patch.

"Hence, the eye."

They stood there for a few moments as Robin regarded the man with his blue, crystal eyes. The witty remark died on his lips as he considered what to say to the man next. Slade wasn't one to accept anything resembling empathy as he always masked it over as pity.

Robin shook his head with a sigh as he remembered the long nights he had stayed up, staring at the ceiling of his room and blaming himself for his parents' deaths. He couldn't understand how Slade felt, but the boy could grasp just a tendril of the pain the man probably felt – and for Robin, that was enough.

"Life is cruel, Slade," the boy whispered as his eyes drifted down to the end of the hallway, "You might be a part of the reason, but you can't be the only reason."

When silence was the only answer to his statement, Robin sighed, turned, and walked back to his room. Slade wasn't one to accept comfort, so the boy took some solace in the fact that at least the man hadn't been outright repulsed by the statement. The man had just laid bare some of the most painful memories of his past – Robin couldn't expect much more to be said. The boy placed his hand against his door, feeling stuck.

Slade destroyed his family.

The thought made the boy sigh as darkness washed over his eyes. Imagining the man with a kid – let alone three – was hard enough. And when you piled on everything the man had just said, Robin wasn't quite sure what to make of him anymore.

A few moments passed in a heavy silence, and as the Boy Wonder stared at the door to his old bedroom, the boy supposed he wasn't the only one who struggled to sleep at night.

"Maybe so, Richard. Maybe so."

The words were a soft whisper, and the boy turned, facing the rapidly falling darkness and the one man who stood, perfectly silhouetted in the window.

There was a storm just beyond the horizon.

And Slade was right in the middle of it.

Robin cleared his throat, breaking the silence that had risen between them again.

"Alfred said he had changed the sheets and everything in your room…so…"

The boy dragged the syllable out as he glanced to said door, just a few feet away from his own.

"…see you in the morning?"

The boy offered a tentative smile, unsure of how to bridge the mountain of unspoken words and questions between them. He felt dizzy, but this time the boy wasn't so sure it was from his lack of sleep.

"It's already morning," the man responded with a light smirk. With the response, it almost seemed as if the air around the man had cleared and the claws of the past had retreated.

Robin shrugged as he responded, "Well then, in the later morning."

Slade nodded as an odd look filtered into his gray eye. Robin held his breath as he waited for the man's next action. The gray eye was fixed on him, staring within the depths of Robin's blue irises. It was a strange sensation – almost as if the man was looking at him without seeing him. Oddly enough, the look simply passed over the man's face, and he moved off toward the entrance to his own room. It was here Slade paused again as he fixed the boy under his steady gaze.

The boy paused as he pushed open his door and stared at the inside of his room. He felt the gray eye on him again, waiting, but he didn't feel rushed.

Slade understood. The boy knew he did after their conversation.

The past was a hard thing to face.

After a few wordless moments, with a sigh Robin turned, nodding at the man. There were a thousand of questions he wanted to ask him. There were a thousand things he wanted to say. Instead, two, seamless words slipped from the boy's mouth.

"Goodnight, Slade."

He stepped forward immediately after he said those words, resisting the tidal wave of emotions that flooded over him. He couldn't see the man, but his words followed him inside of his room.

"Goodnight, Richard."

He heard Slade's door slide shut, and after a few soundless seconds, the boy soon followed with his own.

It had taken Slade fifty-four minutes to find the entrance to the Batcave.

Not his best record, but not his worst.

The man peered at the massive grandfather clock as he looked at its large hands that ticked in a consistent rhythm. There was something oddly soothing about the noise. It reminded Slade of the gears that drummed in his own hideout. It was this reminder that had eventually drawn the man back to the ancient, furniture piece.

After sleeping for a few, restless hours, the man had risen, rested, recharged and ready to explore the massive manor. He had a feeling that this would be his one and only chance to see the inner workings of the Wayne mansion, and Slade was not about to pass it up. After checking to ensure Richard was fully asleep and with no sign of the butler, Slade had begun exploring the behemoth of a house. He hadn't exactly been searching for the entrance to the Batcave although it consistently lingered in the back of his brain. While he had promised Robin he wouldn't go in, the man hadn't promised that he still wouldn't find it.

Despite the storm outside being in full swing, the manor itself was relatively quiet. Slade's thoughts, however, were as loud as ever. What little sleep the man had gotten was plagued with a lucid dream of his children and Adeline. He rubbed his eye patch, remembering being jarred awake by the fatal gunshot and waking up in a cold sweat. And unlike some of his other nightmares, whenever the man woke up from this one, he was still stuck within it. This was his life. He had done this to himself.

And he had just unearthed all those atrocities to a boy. He sighed with an odd mixture of regret and worry. If the boy hadn't seen him as a monster before, he surely did now. He caught the hazy reflection of his face in the glass covering the grandfather clock's time piece.

Why should it bother him what Richard thought?

He was a monster – created and trained to kill. Those were the facts of his life.

The man sighed, wanting to lay to rest his thoughts and push the image of those scathing, blue eyes out of his mind. As painful as they were, more questions would come – they always did with Richard – and when they did, Slade wasn't sure if he wanted to taint the boy's mind with his foul deeds anymore than he already had.

He clicked the latch at the side of the clock and pulled open the glass piece. During the long fifty-four minutes he had passed it three times and on the third pass, he had finally decided to stop and inspect the beautiful piece of furniture. It was similar to the one found in the dining room, but this clock was larger, more imposing and sandwiched between walls of books in the room that Slade had assumed was Wayne's private study. It was upon closer inspection of the clock that the man then realized he had found it.

Slade couldn't say why – he just knew. Wayne had a sentimental streak to him. Slade supposed every person did, and a grandfather clock embedded with the initials of some relative seemed to be the perfect hiding place for the entrance to the man's lair.

Quite a basic contraption if he really thought about it. The man was positive all he had to do was shift the hands to the right time. Whatever time that was – well that was a different problem altogether. The man's hand slid down the wooden side of the clock, searching for a seam. Perhaps he could simply circumvent the contraption. Slade was certain that given enough time he could find a way inside.

"Mr. Wilson."

Slade froze as the words reached his ears. He exhaled as a sudden intensity drained from his body. The man lowered his hand and slowly turned as a second figure appeared within his vision.

"You weren't kidding when you said Bats had the best security system in all of Gotham," Slade said slowly. He leaned up against the wall, crossing his arms over his chest. A trickle of admiration leaked into the man. It wasn't often he was the mouse who was caught.

"No, I was not," Alfred responded. His words were cool and calm and as the man moved forward into the room, Slade had a strange feeling the butler had been watching him for some time.

Slade drummed his hand against the side of the wooden clock as he considered the situation he was in.

"Not a very secret entrance if you ask me."

Alfred shrugged lightly.

"It's discrete enough."

Slade cleared his throat as he gazed at the withered man. In a lot of ways, Alfred reminded him of Will – stalwart, collected, clever, and loyal. And in a lot of ways, Alfred was an entirely different breed of a man. Unlike Will, this Pennyworth character seemed to live and breathe according to an internalized, unbreakable moral compass, and currently Slade was at the opposite end of that compass.

"I'm not surprised that you don't trust me," Slade said at length.

"Trust is hard to earn, Mr. Wilson," Alfred continued. Now that Slade had a moment to truly focus on the older man, he picked up a faint accent at the edges of the older man's words. "But you've seemed to manage with Richard."

Slade raised an eyebrow as the ticking of the clock wound its way through the room dim. Wayne's study was practically a cave with its high walls and mountains of books stacked against one another. Slade had an even more annoying suspicion that the man had read every single one of them. The books practically screamed of Wayne's wealth and elaborate nature with some of the copies being older than the manor itself.

Perhaps, Slade dimly thought as he looked around, he needed to expand his own collection.

His eyes settled back on the man who blocked his way out of the room.

"Do you doubt my loyalty to him, Mr. Pennyworth?"

Alfred was already shaking his head.

"No. Loyalty – no."

The man paused as the wrinkles around his eyes scrunched together.

"Your intentions – yes."

He moved deeper into the room and sat in an aged, leather arm-chair. Despite the chair's tall frame, the man seemed to dominate the form, giving him a greater prominence in the room. Alfred gestured to the matching chair across from him. Slade hesitated for a moment, before he walked around Wayne's bare desk and sat down, wary of his opponent.

"And what do you think I intend to do?" Slade asked after a moment had passed.

"I don't know," Alfred said with a shrug. His tone started out light enough, but quickly descended into a deeper, more accusatory inflection. "So, why don't you tell me? You and I both know that a person with your capabilities should have found Batman by now."

Slade paused at the statement. Was that true? He knew thousands upon thousands of criminals in every crevasse of Jump and Gotham. Had he been dragging the search on simply to avoid the confrontation ahead of them – simply to avoid his own past and mistakes?

"Yet, I don't see him anywhere. What I do see, instead, is you betraying Richard's trust by entering the one place he told you not to go and Richard betraying his code of honor by masquerading as your apprentice. So, tell me, Mr. Wilson,"

The words struck like the ticking of the clock hands in the room. Alfred leaned forward ever so precariously.

"Where is he?"

The question radiated throughout every empty space in Slade's mind.

"I don't know," Slade said as he leaned back in his chair, "but I intend to find out."

"Why?"

Why indeed…

That was the question Slade had been asking himself of late. The man pressed his hands together as the words flowed from his mouth.

"Because I made Dick a promise, and I am a man of my word."

"I never doubted that."

The comment was casual enough, but Slade read through its lines. He narrowed his eye at the older man as curiosity filtered through his mind.

"How much do you know about me?" Slade asked. He had assumed Wayne had files on him somewhere – but how much the Bats actually knew was the real question Slade wanted answered.

"Enough to know you are both the most and least trustworthy ally to have," the man responded vaguely. Slade smirked at the astute observation, and surprisingly the man mirrored his smile. A few seconds in silence passed, only broken by the drumming of the clock. Slade's eye briefly glanced over towards it. A time. He still needed a time.

"What do you intend to gain when all of this is over?"

Slade briefly regarded the man.

"Nothing."

"Richard's uniform says otherwise."

Alfred shook his head when Slade remained silent on the subject.

"Do you think the boy will finally become your loyal apprentice? The boy is loyal to only one thing in his life and that's his family – which currently consists of four teenage superheroes all of whom you tried to kill."

Slade flinched as his eyes swept over the room, scanning the layers of books along the walls. Wayne was a sentimental creature – whatever time the man had chosen would be deeply personal to him.

"I don't dispute that fact."

The questions persisted, battering against the unmasked man.

"Do you really think he'd turn his back on them to join you?"

"No."

"Why help him then?"

Slade suddenly leaned forward, rounding his attention back to the man.

"He showed up on the brink of death in my haunt, Mr. Pennyworth. You tell me, would you have turned the boy away?" Slade asked with his eyebrows precariously raised.

"No."

Slade suddenly rose from his chair as he paced along the edge of the room. Losing his temper in front of the butler would do little to encourage any trust in him. He paused in front of a bookshelf and turned back around.

"Would you have sent him back out into the world, denied his plea for help, and forced him to face the nightmare from his childhood alone?"

Again, the ticking of the clock was Slade's only answer.

"I am doing the boy a favor, one that he can choose to return," Slade said as his voice mellowed in its intensity. "I have no intentions to make him my apprentice again. I have no intentions of being in his life when this situation ends. I am a mercenary, Mr. Pennyworth, and this is another job."

Slade's eye fell on the photo on Wayne's desk. He had missed the small frame when he had walked in.

"Your attitude towards the boy says otherwise, Mr. Wilson."

There was a young boy in the photo and what Slade assumed to be the child's parents standing beside him. It was odd to see a snapshot of the young Bruce Wayne who had yet to be hardened and corrupted by the cruelty of the world. There was a youthful glow within the child's familiar, dark eyes.

Slade stepped forward with a sudden urge to study the picture closer, but he stopped, repulsed by the action. His family was gone – why should he pry into the past of another?

When he looked at the picture, he recognized a similar glow within Grayson's eyes. It had yet to be extinguished. The boy had a depth of resilience to him, but given enough time, Slade was sure it too would fade…unless someone was there to ensure that never happened.

"An astute observation," Slade whispered as his mind trailed back to the clock. A time. He still needed a time…

Alfred rose from his chair, and suddenly, like Slade's own form, the man seemed very small within the expanse of the cave-like study.

"Mr. Wilson, I won't stop you from entering the Batcave. I'm not naïve enough to imagine I could even if I wanted to," the man said as he moved back toward the door. He hovered there for a moment, stuck between two worlds.

"But trust is a hard thing to earn, and even easier to lose with Richard, but that is your choice to make, not mine."

Slade examined the back of Alfred's crisp suit as the words washed over him. The man had a way of leaving words written in between his sentences.

"That's why he left, isn't it?" Slade asked after a long moment. Richard had revealed some but not all the conflict between him and the Caped Crusader. Perhaps it ran deeper than merely benching the boy because of the Bat's worry.

"Batman lost his trust?"

There was a deep sigh that carved its way into the room.

"Yes."

"What did he do?"

Alfred glanced back at him. Within the depths of the man's eyes, Slade saw years of pains, memories, and worries. A deep current of wisdom surfaced through the chaos and fixated itself on his form. It was rare that Slade ever missed the shielding embrace of his mask, but in that moment, the man wished it had been securely attached over his face.

"That's not my story to tell."

A wordless silence parted its way into the room. The butler nodded, his calm composure sliding back into place over his face and his eyes washing away back into his blank visage.

"Mr. Wilson."

Slade returned the gesture; his movements were tense and halting.

"Mr. Pennyworth."

And with a few fateful footsteps, Slade Wilson was left alone with only his thoughts, a picture, and the humming sound of a ticking clock.

A/N: Well, what did you think? I really enjoyed writing Alfred in this, and I hope you also liked his character.

Question if you want to give your input - I still refer to Robin as "Robin" even though he's not wearing his mask. 1) Is this confusing? 2) Maybe I should switch it over to Richard - but he still feels very much like "Robin" to me character-wise at this point in the story, even without the mask. If you have a thought about this, let me know.

Anyway, hope your week is going well. I'm back in the writing groove so hopefully the next update will come sooner.

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed it.