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I lied. No, really, I did. I wrote Ultimately – a random RobinSlade slash drabble – and then said I wouldn’t ever write another RobinSlade slashy thing ever. That resolution didn’t even last a week. It’s just too fun… Seriously, I never used to go in for the whole RobinxSlade thing; it never bothered me, I just sort of steered clear of it. But if you watch the show, you can see where these assumptions of Robin and Slade having a mutual “attraction” for one another come from. I mean, obviously the cartoon isn’t actually implying it (they’re too busy trying to shove StarfirexRobin “Keep-in-with-the-80s-Marv-Wolfman-KoryxDick-storyline” down our throats) because it is, for the most part, a cartoon for kids. But then you get these darker episodes – the ones aimed at perhaps an older audience, such as our age group – such as Haunted (my very favorite TT episode ever) and Apprentice Pt II (and The End, but don’t get me started on the wonders of those three episodes - AmazinginsyncRobinandSladefightscene…). So, in all fairness, I have to say that I pretty much support StarxRobin on the show, although I like to write RobinxRaven because you can get a deeper relationship between them.
But RobinxSlade is inspired; I believe that. Some of Slade’s lines are just begging to be misinterpreted; e.g. “It’s always been about you” can be translated as “I never paid very much attention to your team mates because I was always too busy checking out your ass”. And Haunted? Robin strapped down with Slade looming over him? Uh, hello? Children’s cartoon?…
Anyway… I have been inspired by many sources (one by one readers click Back as they get the wrong impression…) and figured, “Hey! So many other people have fucked up Apprentice by reading too much into it! Why not me too?”… So here I am – stalling while I wait for people to review Asylum – and here you are, and, well… here my one-shot is…
I shall stall you no more.
Small Print
“…No way would I ever work for-”
“If you swear to serve me; if you do everything I ask of you; if you never speak to your friends again… I will allow them to live. But, if you disobey even the smallest request… I will annihilate them, Robin. And I will make you watch… So; do we have a deal?…”
The room was tiny. Like a box. A cage, even. Reinforced metal walls, all too close. It was too small, the ceiling was too low. He could stand up straight, obviously, and he could not touch both walls with his hands if he stood in the middle of the room.
It was big enough.
But small all the same.
And locked.
His knuckles ached from where he had already pounded for all he was worth on the steel door. The muscles in his legs hurt from where he had kicked it. Still it stood strong. Not a dent in it.
Slade had dragged him here, thrown him in, quite literally kicking and screaming in protest, and locked him up tight. Let him hammer against it from the inside, shrieking, stifling his sobs.
Left him.
When you buy a pet, you buy a cage for it, too. Preferably beforehand, so that when you acquire it, you have somewhere to put it without it wriggling from your grasp and escaping. This room had been prepared beforehand. Because Slade had known he would acquire what he wanted. His precious new apprentice. He had blackmailed him, knowing he wouldn’t refuse.
Not when he held their lives in his hand.
It was so dark now the teenaged boy could barely see anything. There was a tiny window that let in a little moonlight; it had bars across it. He was curled up on the floor, just sitting in the middle of the room, his head on his knees.
Clothed in his new attire. Wearing Slade’s symbol, his brand. Like a tattoo. Bearing it to show to whom he belonged.
Not a bat.
There was no bed, just a few blankets on the floor. There was nothing to eat, nothing to drink. All of the weapons in his belt had been removed to stop him from blowing his way out.
He was stuck until Slade let him out again.
Until his training began.
Or until he escaped.
He lay back on the cold floor and closed his eyes, contemplating how to get that control. Once he had it, Slade would be powerless against him. He would have nothing to threaten him with.
Nothing to taunt him with.
hrank from himcast in the . st him. ontemplating how to get that control. ing from your grasp and escaping. 1111111There came a sound from beyond the heavy door. Robin sat up quickly, tensing as he heard the multiple bolts becoming unlocked. The door swung back and Slade’s powerful silhouette was cast in the doorway. Robin shrank from him as he swept into the tiny room, nearly all of him obscured by shadow.
His grey eye glittered with a malicious delight.
“Get up, boy,” he ordered softly.
Determined to show that he was not afraid, Robin got to his feet, clenching his fists.
Shaking inside.
“We’re starting the training already?” He asked carefully. “At this time of night?”
Slade snorted in contempt.
“Something like that,” he murmured.
He grasped Robin’s thin wrist and hauled him forwards, dragging him from the room, pulling him down the corridor. Another door opened and Slade threw Robin into the main room of his lair.
Gears turned in the darkness that stretched above. In the middle of the room, half-shadowed in the narrows shafts of light present in the room, Slade’s throne-like chair sat.
Getting to his feet again, Robin turned to Slade.
“I’m ready for anything you throw at me,” he spat.
Slade smirked beneath his mask.
“I certainly hope so,” he replied smoothly.
The tone of his voice sent a shudder down Robin’s spine and he backed up, moving away from Slade.
Ignoring him, Slade sailed past him, making for his chair. He settled into and leaned back, closing his solitary eye. Watching him, Robin’s entire form tightened, aching muscles pulling as he lowered into an almost-imperceptible battle stance.
Waiting for Slade to inevitably attack him.
“Come here, boy.”
Slade did not open his eye as he gave the order, but seemed to realise that Robin hesitated and remedied it by casually holding up the hand with the trigger in it.
Robin obediently went to him, standing in front of the single step leading up to Slade’s “throne”.
“Kneel.”
“Never,” Robin hissed.
Slade held up the trigger again, his thumb millimetres from the button.
“Unless you wish for your arrogance and insolence to be the cause of their demise, I suggest you do what is asked of you, young man,” he replied, his tone soft and mocking.
“You didn’t ask me,” Robin said through gritted teeth.
Slade’s eye opened again.
“You contradict me, impudent child?” He laughed softly, running his thumb lightly over the button. “You must really desire for me to kill them…”
“No!” Robin half-reached for it and Slade withdrew it right away from him. “Please don’t…”
“Then kneel.”
Robin sank to his knees before Slade’s chair, looking at the floor, burning.
“There’s my boy.”
“I’m not your boy.”
Slade laughed again, his eye settling on the “S” on the chest of Robin’s new black and bronze uniform.
“Aren’t you? Your attire begs to differ.”
Robin shivered for a few seconds, then looked up at Slade.
“What do you want?”
“To teach you by my way, of course. I have chosen you above all others for that purpose.”
“Tonight.” Robin’s eyes narrowed. “What do you want from me now?”
Slade sighed.
“Now, that is a tricky question… one which I doubt you will like the answer to.”
“Try me.”
Slade leaned down into him.
“I think you already know what I want from you, Robin.”
“Afraid not,” Robin replied coldly.
“Oh.” Slade looked up at the dark, cog-adorned ceiling. “Well. That’s a pity… that’s a pity indeed…”
Robin’s knees were beginning to ache. He was tired. He was hungry. And he was still broken inside, still seething, still bruised by that blackmail.
“Just tell me what you want,” he said dejectedly.
Slade leaned back again lazily.
“I want what you have, dear apprentice. What you are. I want your body… I want you, Robin…”
Robin was on his feet in seconds, backing away.
“Never! I would never… how could you even think that I would… that I would…!”
“You protest a little too much, if you don’t mind me saying,” Slade murmured in reply.
“You never… you never said that… that you…”
Robin could feel tears coming to his eyes in his horror. He turned, searching for the door, and Slade suddenly leapt from his seat and grabbed the boy’s wrist. Whipping back around, Robin began to struggle in his grip. He squirmed and clawed and kicked as Slade easily lifted him and threw him into the chair. He banged his head against the back and slumped in it, fighting to maintain consciousness.
Slade pinned his wrists to the arms of the chair, one knee on the base of the chair between Robin’s thighs. His masked face was practically touching Robin’s, and the boy started as he lifted his head and his eyes met with Slade’s single one.
He immediately began to struggle again, his fingers hooking, scrabbling at the arms of the chair, trying to pull away. But he was trapped between Slade and Slade’s chair, both of them far too robust to be beaten through.
“Have you changed your mind yet?” Slade whispered.
“No!” Robin wailed, still fighting. “I won’t, I won’t!” He calmed a little, looking defiantly at Slade. “You can’t make me!”
Slade’s eye glittered.
“I can, actually.” He smirked beneath his mask. “But I won’t need to.” Releasing one of the boy’s wrists, he held the trigger up again, centimetres from the tip of Robin’s nose. “…Not when I have this.”
Robin’s wide, frightened masked eyes looked from the trigger to Slade and then back again several times over.
“You can’t…”
“I can, I will, and you know it.”
Robin looked him right in the eye.
“Fuck you,” he whispered insolently, turning away.
“Fuck you?” Slade repeated softly, his accentuation different. He smiled at his apprentice, although the boy could not see it through his mask. “Rest assured that I will.”
Again Robin began to struggle fruitlessly and Slade pulled him from the chair and threw him to the floor some way away.
“This wasn’t part of the deal,” Robin said desperately as Slade advanced upon him. “You never said that you wanted this from me…”
“Were you in any position to refuse even if I had?”
“No, but…”
He gasped and lay back, rigid with fright, as Slade leaned over him. Straddling him, his knees on either side of his slim hips, Slade carefully unbuckled Robin’s belt.
“Please, Slade,” Robin begged, frightened out of his mind as Slade began to draw down the zip of his pants. “It wasn’t part of the deal…”
“That damn small print, huh?” Slade sounded amused with his own quip. “Nobody ever reads it… until it’s too late.”
Robin whimpered and began to writhe beneath Slade once again, trying to struggle loose…
Slade held the trigger above him and Robin froze.
“Lie still, don’t struggle, or your friends will not live to see the sun rise,” he hissed. He ran his finger down the side of his apprentice’s pale face. “Poor Robin. You agreed to do this to save your friends, but by swearing to serve me, you did not realise what you were agreeing to…”
Robin closed his eyes, fighting the tears.
“And Robin…”
The cold smooth metal of Slade’s mask touched Robin’s nose and he dared to open his eyes a little.
“…From now on, I’d like you to call me “Master”…”
And… now it is 02:14am. Guess there’s not very much to say… I think this one is better than Ultimately, which is really crummy, I have to say. It’s like, 10 lines long… which might be a mercy, I suppose… hope all the RobinSlade-slashy-people liked it ok, as well as the regular TT fans (I am not sure what to class myself anymore… ho hum…) and those of you just passing through.
My playlist is now playing Elvis Presley. Is anyone else lonesome tonight, or is it just the King?…
To Quinn and his Quill (yes, I know you’re reading this, you little author-alert-stalker!); shocked yet? -
And to AutumnDynasty (also reading this, I guarantee…); reckon it’s working?…
02:21am… guess I should go to bed…
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