A/N: Hello again! This one is a bit of an interlude chapter before the action picks up.

Enjoy!

Chapter 38

Fault Lines

Specs of chalk fluttered off his hands and rained down on the ground.

The boy inhaled a deep breath and wrapped his dusty hands around the worn handles. His fingertips traced over the holes in the torn cloth where bare patches of metal leached through from years and years of use. He preferred it this way. When the equipment was in a gentle state of disarray, the boy felt like he was back at the cirrus again. It was well-worn, yet well-loved.

His hands tightened, and he inhaled a deep breath, tensing his muscles in preparation. With a grunt, he lifted himself into the air, his hands tightly locked around the two rings. Pulling his arms towards himself, he continued to lift his body, bracing against the slight shake that rattled through his muscles.

He propelled himself forward, swinging his momentum up and around for a few flips before releasing, dismounting, and landing with his feet planted firmly on the matt. He had only been on the rings for a few minutes and already sweat had begun to bead and pool around his forehead.

The boy sighed.

He was out of practice, and the rings were as brutal as ever.

It was odd being in the same gym after all the time that had passed. When he had moved in all those years ago, Bruce had gotten him a mini-stockpile of equipment. Besides the rings, there was a balance beam, floor mat, and even a smaller trapeze in the corner. As he had gotten older, he had used the trapeze less and less, but he still appreciated Bruce taking the time to install it anyway. Every time Robin had used it, he had felt just a bit more at home. It had been a strange source of therapy for him with memories – both good and bad – surfacing through his mind every time he swung through the air.

Robin bent down, stretching out the tension in his thighs. There were a few redeeming qualities to the massive bemouth of a home – and the gym was one of them. The gym had everything he needed to keep up with his gymnast skills. While the Tower had a similar set-up, it wasn't nearly as extensive as this layout.

After a few moments of rest, the boy got back on the rings, ramping up his movements. He moved fluidly, lifting his legs and remaining motionless for several moments before swinging around again.

After his third dismount, a familiar voice echoed across the distance of the space.

"Training?"

Robin pressed his face into the towel, wiping off the layers of sweat that had accumulated. He turned, tugging the towel off and slinging it around his neck. He had wondered when the man would make an appearance. At the far end of the room, Slade's form leaned up against the wall, and Robin silently cursed himself. How long had the man been standing there? Even in his own home, Slade still managed to maintain his mercenary prowess.

A flush of heat rose to the boy's cheeks. Unlike his parents who had thrived with performances, he hated it when people stood around and watched him run through his routine. The people at the circus had called him shy, and Mr. Haley had told his parents he would eventually grow out of it.

Richard Grayson never did – but Robin certainly had.

"Kind of," Robin mumbled in response as he dusted off his hands. A cloud of chalk erupted into the air as he approached the man. His shirt clung to his body, dripping in layers of sweat.

"How long have you been up?" he asked, although already knowing the answer. Robin had checked the security footage when he had gotten up and had watched as Slade had wandered the mansion in the morning. A spike of fear had drilled into Robin's heart when he saw the man stalk into Bruce's study and stop just in front of the grandfather clock…

But then Alfred had showed up.

"Awhile."

And after a brief conversation, Slade had wandered off to the library and stayed there the rest of the morning…

"How'd you sleep?"

…which then had allowed Robin to work out in peace.

"Fine. You?"

The boy grunted. He wished he could have said the same. "Could have been better."

Slade took a few more steps into the room, invading the space Robin coveted.

Had Slade recognized the entrance to the Batcave and had Alfred stopped the man, or had Alfred simply stumbled upon the man's listless exploration and distracted Slade from inspecting the clock further?

The boy studied the man's form closely. He hadn't been able to access the audio from the odd conversation between Alfred and Slade which only increased his curiosity. That meant one of the two of the men had deleted it – which meant that one of them didn't want Robin to know what they had talked about. Which one though – well that was up for debate. Robin had no doubt Slade could easily crack his way into Bruce's security system.

The unmasked mercenary held his gaze steadily, and something within the man's dark iris told the boy that the man knew the clock was more than just a timekeeper. Slade wasn't dumb, and Robin had anticipated the man finding the entrance eventually – just not as quickly as he had. Why hadn't Slade taken the opportunity when he had it? The boy sighed – both relieved and confused.

"Can you show me again?"

A frowned creased the boy's face as he was wrenched out of his thoughts. "What?"

Slade gestured to the equipment.

"What you just did."

The boy looked back up at the rings and paused. It was an odd request from the man. He hadn't expected Slade to take such an interest in his gymnast abilities. Bruce had hardly given them a second glance, and the Titans had understood his need for privacy.

"I'm a bit tired…"

Slade nodded, yet Robin could hear the thin trace of disappointment in his voice.

"Another time then."

The boy hesitated, glancing back over at the rings. He had sworn to try and keep the man out of his life, but that had been before…

And this was now.

He shrugged – abet uneasily.

"I can do a shortened routine."

He tossed the towel to Slade and moved back over to the rings, not bothering to catch the man's response. He was extremely conscious of the gray eye that hovered over his moves, and as he gripped the handles again, he regretted even offering the option.

He flowed through his routine, flushing at the way his muscles strained against gravity. He did a few flips, running through the well-practiced movements, then quickly dismounted. As he landed, he spun around, caught the towel that was thrown his way, and recognized a thoughtful and calculating gaze in the gray eye.

"I didn't know you trained in the more traditional side of gymnastics."

Again, Robin shrugged. "I did when I was younger. I like to keep up with it when I can."

"If I had known – "

Robin immediately snapped up as a cold tone washed into his voice. The fear came hurdling back into his head.

"There's a reason you didn't"

Slade paused, and a slight frown creased the corners of his lips. The man stepped onto the matt. His bare feet left soft imprints in the blue, plush, material, and Robin warily traced them with his eyes as the man stepped closer.

"What do you mean?"

"I – " the boy hesitated. He hadn't meant for the truth to spill from his mouth like that. Slade and he were on good terms, and he didn't suddenly want to ruin it by dragging the past back into the equation.

"Nothing. Never mind."

The cushioning sunk as the man took another step forward.

"Explain."

The command wasn't threatening, but it still set the boy on edge. He raked a hand through his hair.

"Not sure if you'll appreciate the explanation…"

"Well we can't know for sure unless you explain."

A sigh rushed passed the boy's lips as he turned his back on the man. The trapeze caught his eye as he traced the outline of the long ropes and imagined himself swinging through the air.

"When I was your apprentice, I tried to hide my gymnastic abilities as much as possible. If you look at my fighting style, I had adjusted it to include as few as flips and acrobatics as possible – which was nearly impossible – but I still tried anyway. I knew you understood I had a background in acrobatics, but I didn't want you to know the extent of it…"

"Why?"

"Because I didn't want you to use my gymnast skills as training exercises..."

A heavy pause filtered into the air.

"Why?"

The boy shrugged.

"It's personal…"

If the man detected the lingering traces of pain in the boy's words, Slade didn't show it. Instead, he stepped forward, encroaching closer on Robin's space.

"Your acrobatic skills hardly needed any work. I trained you in other areas – my focus was on improving your hand-to-hand combat," Slade continued.

"You never even asked me though." Robin's voice was quiet, rising from deep within himself.

"Asked you what?"

The man behind him sounded genuinely confused, causing a shred of Robin's annoyance to wash away.

"Anything," the boy shrugged again as the words spilled from his mouth. "What my martial arts background was, what style of combat I preferred, how I preferred to train, how I learned best…"

He saw himself flipping through the air, both hands firmly attached around the handle of the trapeze.

"That's why I never told you, because you would have extorted it…like you did to everything else in my life…"

He saw himself, flipping, spinning, twirling, and landing unscathed on the podium amidst a round of applause.

He saw his parents.

He saw the Titans.

Robin gestured around him, his hands falling limply to his side.

"I do this because I enjoy it. It was all I could do to protect this one piece of my life."

A heavy silence ticked by as a bead of sweat wormed its way down Robin's face. He wondered what the man thought. Did Slade feel any regret for what he did to him? The man had apologized, but in moments like these, Robin wondered if Slade still felt any twinges of pain for the havoc he had wrecked in the lives of the Titans.

A hand appeared on his shoulder again, warm and strong. The boy couldn't help but lean into the touch as he turned.

"Must have been stressful."

There was an odd note of truth in the words that mirrored the glimmer of pain Robin saw in Slade's eye. Suddenly the man's presence didn't feel as suffocating. Suddenly, his presence felt like a welcome addition to the space. Suddenly, everything almost felt…normal.

Robin smirked as he shook his head, the tension dissipating from his body.

"You're telling me, Slade," he whispered as the words and the pain washed away from his chest.

The hand dropped from his shoulder as Slade jerked his head to the entrance to the gym.

"Alfred sent me to fetch you for breakfast."

Robin sighed as his eyes looked at the clock on the far wall.

"Might as well just call it lunch at this point."

The boy pushed his fork across his plate, aware of the pair of eyes that followed his movement. Even though he had wiped the plate clean, Alfred was still upset with him, and Robin really couldn't blame him.

In the distance, across the long stretch of the garden, Slade was talking to Wintergreen on his cell phone. The man was entirely absorbed in the conversation and didn't notice the cursory glances the boy sent his way. After the last glance, Robin sighed, scraping the edge of his plate with his fork, dimly wondering what Slade was telling Wintergreen. The rise and fall of the man's voice was a reassuring hum in the background of the boy's current conversation. Hopefully, Wintergreen was taking the news of their location better than Alfred was taking the news of their current situation.

"They don't know?"

Robin flinched as he leaned back in the patio chair, pushing his plate out from him. The pristine porcelain screeched on the metal table, a coarse, grating noise in the heavy silence.

"Yeah…" the boy trailed off lamely as the sun raked over his arms. The warmth was oddly comforting against the cold look he received from Alfred. Again, the boy couldn't really blame him; if he were Alfred, he probably would be mad too.

"Are you going to tell them?"

Again, the question pushed up against Robin. The boy swallowed, finding his throat closing. His eyes fluttered around the large patio area that was sandwiched right outside the edge of the manor. There had been many brunch parties Robin had been forced to endure as a kid here. Bruce had always coerced him to attend despite the boy's pleas otherwise. His pouting act had always managed to guilt other unsuspecting party go-errs into sneaking him a cupcake. So even when he wasn't necessarily mad, the boy had learned – much to Bruce's chagrin – to pretend to be.

That felt like a lifetime ago.

Robin's eyes settled onto the wrinkled face in front of him.

It was a lifetime ago.

"I – "

The words dried up on his lips as Robin grasped at just what to say next. Alfred was always patient with answers – well more patient than Bruce ever was. His eyes flickered around as he felt Alfred's gentle eyes pry ever so slightly behind he walls he had built and perfected throughout his life. In the distance, Slade finally looked up from his phone call. The man raised his eyebrows in a questioning glance, but Robin briefly shook his head. There was nothing wrong. He was just trying to avoid finishing the conversation in front of him.

The boy was surprised. So far, Alfred had taken the news in stride – even the almost dying part.

Of all the parts of the story though, Robin hadn't anticipated the man taking issue with this detail.

The butler cleared his throat.

"Um…" Robin's eyes drifted back to the figure sitting across from him. "No…"

"Why?"

There was barely a second between his response and Alfred's question. The man placed his silverware on his own plate as he leaned back in his chair. A stray leaf puttering on the table was the only movement between the pair.

"I don't think they'd take it well…" The words, while spoken from a source of honesty, seemed weak when voiced into reality. Robin sighed. He was afraid – plain and simple. Alfred's eyes softened, and the boy shifted under the man's heavy gaze. The older man had an uncanny ability to read between the words and drive home the real source of the problem.

"So, what do you plan to do?" Alfred asked. His tone wasn't unkind; the man was simply persistent.

Robin shrugged.

"Rescue Batman and be back before they know it."

"Richard…"

There was the all-too familiar warning tone in the man's voice. Robin sighed as he pressed his fingertips into his temples. It took Alfred sitting in front of him to realized just how messed up that sentence was.

"Look Alfred, I can't, okay?" Robin snapped. His voice softened when he realized the person in front of him deserved none of his anger. The only person that deserved any scolding was himself.

"They would freak out…"

Alfred seemed irritatingly unconcerned by the sentiment.

"An understandable reaction," the man countered.

"But it's not just that…" Robin growled as he felt his worlds slowly colliding into one. He rose from his chair as he pressed his hands into the metal table. He felt the floral design worm its way into his hands, imprinting them with a faint, red outline. He wondered just how much Alfred knew about what had happened. How closely had Bruce been monitoring him since he left? How much did they know?

"What is it then?" The genuine concern in Alfred's voice broke through the boy's thin resolve. He could lie to Bruce – but Alfred?

"I – they – I already betrayed their trust once – if they knew – " His voice was a low whisper now. He could see their eyes – how the Titans would look at him if they knew. Distrust would slowly leech into their relationships, eroding away their friendship in a toxic rush. They wouldn't understand. They wouldn't know what to do.

"What do you mean?"

Again, Alfred had no judgement in his tone. He was simply listening, absorbing, and collecting all the information which gave Robin the room and confidence to give the information.

"I impersonated a villain to gain Slade's trust which backfired beautifully because Slade knew about it – "

" – the entire time."

A presence appeared beside him and Robin straightened up, shaking his head. It wounded the boy just a bit to hear the truth confirmed directly from the mercenary himself. His eyes settled on the omniscient presence in his life. The pair hadn't mentioned that one mishap between them yet, and Robin briefly wondered about Slade's perspective of it all. Did the mercenary think of him as foolish because of his actions? Had Slade toyed with him the entire time, or had the man bought into the act – if only for a little while?

"How's Wintergreen?"

Slade regarded him for a few moments before answering. Robin felt the wall of unspoken words rising between them again. Every time the pair crossed a hurdle, Robin felt like five more sprung up, barring the way towards their shaky reconciliation.

"Impatient as always."

Alfred cleared his voice, and Robin blinked, realizing he had found his way into an even more uncomfortable conversation.

"How did you know, Mr. Wilson?"

The question made the boy cringe, but Robin didn't stop the line of thought. It was a question that had haunted him since the day Slade had flipped the table on him.

"Know what, Mr. Pennyworth?"

Where had he messed up?

"That it was Robin in disguise?"

Where had he gone wrong?

"To Robin's credit, I didn't know at first. But given long enough, I connected the dots."

A spike of relief washed through Robin at the statement. His plan hadn't completely been a bust – at least he had managed for a while. There was a long pause, during which Robin felt the haunting, gray eye glance over at him.

"I'm still surprised at the lengths you went to try and gain my trust though," the man directed the later-half of the statement towards the boy.

"Yeah me too," Robin mumbled. He had been obsessed – his team had told him so much after the fact. Slade had wormed his way into the boy's mental psyche so much so that Robin would have kept up the charade for as long as it would have taken to oust the man.

"So," Alfred leaned forward as he pointed between them, "you're worried that your alignment with Mr. Wilson would shatter their trust completely."

Red X.

His team hadn't understood then.

Renegade.

And they wouldn't understand now.

Robin shrugged.

"Something like that."

Alfred leaned back. With the man's next inhale, Robin knew he had finally done enough listening.

"Their your team, Richard, why would they – "

"Exactly, Alfred," the boy countered, cutting off the argument before it could begin, "They're my team – I can't mess up again."

"How is this messing up?" the man questioned, sounding genuinely confused.

The sun radiated on his skin, but the warmth was starting to turn into an uncomfortable heat. The boy shifted as his eyes flicked to the figure beside him.

"I – He – Me," Robin pointed to Slade and back to himself while trying to figure out how to eloquently phrase what he wanted to say without offending the man.

Slade raised an eyebrow.

"Thanks."

"No, I didn't mean –" Robin growled, pacing away from the table and from the two impossible men. A long breath of air whipped through his lips as he stared over the serene yard.

"Robin, sometimes being a leader means making tough decisions."

Alfred's words washed over the boy, but like a heavy coat condensing the heat under the sun, he wanted to throw them off.

"But the Titans aren't just your team members, they're your friends. Not only do they deserve to know, but true friends would never abandon you in your time of need."

"I – I don't want them getting hurt," the boy responded, clenching his hands together. "I want them to stay out of it."

"Then tell them that."

"I don't think you understand the Titans, Mr. Pennyworth. It's not in their style to stay out of it," Slade interjected. The mercenary wasn't exactly taking a side in the conversation which was surprising to Robin. He had expected Slade to reject the very notion of even talking to the Titans.

"That doesn't change the fact that they deserve to know."

"I know…" Robin whispered. He had been avoiding that axiom the moment he had decided to go to Slade for help – it was about time it had caught up to them.

He turned, finding both men now standing at opposite sides of the table – at opposite ends of his life.

"Maybe…I'll give them a call."

"The Titans deserves more than a maybe," the older man said softly as he shook his head.

"I know," Robin cried as he gestured around the empty space. His hands fell to his sides. "They deserve a lot more than me, Alfred."

The words hurt, but the silence that followed hurt even more. Robin looked down at his hands; the imprint of the metal table was all but gone now.

The screech of a chair drowned out Robin's thoughts.

"Would you excuse us for a moment, Mr. Wilson."

There was a subtle pause before two pairs of footsteps walked in opposite directions – one away and one towards the boy. Robin listened as the door to the house opened and shut and as the remaining pair of footsteps paused beside himself.

For a moment, all Robin heard was the subtle breeze of the wind rustling its way through the expanse of the yard.

"There were many nights where I would come outside…"

Alfred's voice moved among the wind.

"And stand just where you are. I would look out over the yard and listen as the sirens burned across Gotham and think about you and Batman out there somewhere, doing something, fighting someone. And every night I would come inside and find you full of all sorts of bruises and cuts and injuries. But you never batted an eye at them."

The older man sighed.

"After about the hundredth stitch I put in you, I had to both admire and worry how you never stopped."

Robin snorted as he looked over at the older man. A pair of worn eyes greeted the glance.

"You always kept fighting, Richard. No matter how bad the injuries, you never stopped. Not once."

A withered hand climbed its way onto his shoulder. "But you're not the same boy who left Gotham all those years ago. So, what's stopping you now?" Alfred asked as he held the bright, blue eyes within his own searching gaze.

Robin exhaled, letting the stress of the past days burn away into the air. He remembered those days. The days when Alfred would be ready with an ice pack as he hobbled into the Bat Cave. The days when he would sit with a pile of candy besides him as the older man put him back together piece by piece and stitch by stitch. The days when Alfred would talk to him about the latest cartoons on TV to take his mind away from the nightmares of Gotham.

"Fear."

"Of what?"

The snap.

The fall.

The screams.

"Losing my family…again."

The days before the reality of life came crashing down.

Suddenly there were arms around him and there was the familiar feeling of the man's suit balled up tightly within his fists. The boy squeezed the man as he buried his hot eyes within the layers of the pressed and clean suit.

The days when there was always someone there to comfort him.

The boy inhaled, smelling the warm scent of lavender that followed the man. The arms around him tightened as if afraid he'd slip away and disappear.

"Family doesn't leave, Richard."

"I know."

Alfred stepped back, holding the boy's shoulders in his arms. His eyes twinkled in the sunlight, holding the years of memories behind them.

"If telling them the full truth is too much to bear, why don't you simply let them know that you're safe? They deserve to know at least that much."

Robin glanced down, nodding to himself more than to the man in front of him.

"Yeah…You're right, Alfred. You always are."

The hands squeezed his shoulders one last time before they dropped down to the ground.

"I know."

A cheeky grin slipped past the older man's face.

"If only you or Bruce would listen to me the first time around," he sighed, grumbling to himself.

"Now, Alfred…"

Robin matched the grin, tilting his head to the right.

"Where's the fun in that?"

A/N: Not much to say here. I'm anticipating a few more fluff-ish/interlude/angst chapters before we reach the last chunk of action in the story! Thanks for sticking with me. Let me know whatcha thought!