In retrospect, it’s quite amusing how far their relationship has come for him to be sitting here, in the Batcave, without a single inhibitor collar or cuff on his body.
Right now, Slade just feels bored.
It’s been more than a few hours since Bruce had forcibly driven him to the cave in a blind panic, and another since Pennyworth had numbed and stapled his mutilated chest shut.
The butler was on break now, left to check on the slow cooker upstairs as Red Robin takes over manning the comms and babysitting him. Slade misses the bustle from earlier. Bruce’s new shampoo had been surprisingly detectable (and delectable) over the undercurrent of blood, at least once he’d pulled off his cowl; but now—even with how saturated the cave is with all of Bruce’s things—whatever medication they have him on is dampening his senses down a few notches.
Not enough, though.
From this position, sat-up on the recovery bed, he can watch the edges of Drake’s profile as it glows in front of the blue light. Drake finishes relaying a coordinate into the mic and takes his finger off the button. The keyboard clacking pauses, and he looks over with a perturbed expression.
“I can feel you staring.”
Slade’s remaining eye narrows. “Are you aware that you’re pregnant?”
Drake blinks back. “What?” His gaze snaps down to his stomach, as if there would be something there that he’d missed. “No. I didn’t—you can… hear it?”
“Smell. You’re definitely not far enough along for that.”
“Huh.” Drake swivels the ominously large chair back towards the Batcomputer’s screens, and pulls up the Batcalendar, unchecking all the other boxes until only the red tabs highlighting his schedule remain. “My implant must’ve expired while I was in that time-warpy pocket dimension a few months ago. I forgot to replace it. Hey—Oracle? Yeah. Can you take over for a—thanks.” He minimises it along with the rest of the open windows and logs out, before sliding off the seat.
Drake passes him, heading to the back of the medical bay, and Slade calls over his shoulder, “Do I need to off someone?” With his blindside in the way, he can’t see the boy in his peripheral vision, but the sound of drawers opening and snapping shut signal his position easily.
“Kid?”
“Hm? Oh, no, it’s fine. This wasn’t their fault.”
Slade clicks his tongue. “If you say so,” he mutters.
(Oh if only Bruce could see him now.)
It’s another minute of clattering later, when Drake speaks again. “Ah, dammit we’re out of stock.” He walks back past Slade’s cot and turns towards the garage bay. “I’ll have to go to Leslie’s. Stay put, Alfred will be back anytime now.”
Hn, well he has nothing better to do… “I’m driving you.”
The kid pauses, crosses his arms, and pops out a hip. “B said not to let you out of the cave.”
“He said not to let me into the manor, that’s different.”
“Huh,” Drake intones. “Can you even drive like this?”
“Maybe you don’t realise this yet—since you’re not old enough to get your learners—but people don’t typically steer with their sternum.”
Drake rolls his eyes and relaxes his posture, before pressing a button on the control panel. Slade can’t see the large circular platform from here. He’s too far from the ledge, and the gap between the levels of the Batcave’s infrastructure is far. The sound of conveyor belt cogs turning and tyres rolling echoes around them, ricocheting like bullets against the hard walls of the cave. Slowly, Slade slides off the sheets, gingerly adjusting his bandages before the kid can turn to see them.
The wheezing hiss of air fires out all at once, as the pistons deep below them begin their ascent. Drake’s hands leave the controls, and he walks up to the edge as the rooftops of various vehicles come into view.
The current Batmobile isn’t in the cave, obviously, but a few of the older designs ring the platform incase of emergency. That isn’t what Slade expects to be driving, however.
In the centre of the circle is a plain, boring Honda Civic. A little dusty. Perfect for blending in with the traffic of Gotham no matter the time of night.
Drake walks over to it and yanks open the closest backseat door. He pulls out a puffer jacket and wrestles it over his arms, then pulls out a coat, and marches back to throw it onto Slade.
“If you can’t get this on yourself, you’re not driving.”
Slade gets it on.
*
The radio plays a soft, classical tune through the car speakers, slowly rising and falling in volume as the kid plays with the dial. There’s a bit of congestion on the wet roads. The Bats are fighting over in another district to the east; not too close for comfort, but enough that the increase of civilians being pushed into detouring onto their street is noticeable.
“I’m surprised you haven’t asked who they are yet,” Drake mutters under his breath.
Slade scoffs. “I’m not your father, kid.” If the kid says it’s fine, he has no reason to care outside of keeping Bruce happy.
“Yet.”
“Yeah, not on your life.”
The traffic lights turn green, and Slade steps on the gas.
Besides Drake himself, the car doesn’t smell like much. Maybe a little like Pennyworth’s signature cologne—Slade suspects this must be one of his errand cars—and Bruce’s son’s deodorant. There’s a sticker from the Gotham Zoo next to one of the air conditioning vents on the dashboard. Hm.
“How close do you want to get to it?”
“Anywhere should be fine.”
“So I can stop now?” He slows down in the middle of the road.
“You know what I mean, asshole.” Drake smacks the console—but not Slade’s arm, because Drake is a smart boy—and slouches in his seat.
Slade snorts, speeding up and changing lanes. After weaving past a few slow overnight freight trucks, they make it there, and he parks next to the side entrance of the clinic.
“Want me to come in with you?”
“If Oracle spots you we’re totally busted. I won’t be long,” Drake says. He yanks the hood of his sweatshirt out from under the collar of his puffer, before pulling it over his head as he hops out. A puddle splashes out of view.
Slade can see the darkened hems of his sweatpants when he steps back. “If you’re sure.”
The door shuts, and the kid dashes through the rain and up the concrete stairs. Slade is left alone. With a quiet sigh, he leans the seat back, muting the radio, and turns on the police scanner just in time to hear Bruce’s Batman-voice growling at the officer in charge.
What a long night this has been.
*
It’s a while later, before he hears the door jingle, and then the running splatter of Drake’s shoes as he heads back towards the car. Slade leans over and pops open the door before he can reach it.
“Thanks.”
In his hands is a nondescript box, likely with fresh new supplies for the cave, and Slade moves away to let him strap back in. As Drake deals with his safety belt, small fingers red from the chill, Slade presses down on the volume dial, unmuting the radio again. He huffs in annoyance when an advertisement plays instead. Drake opens the glove compartment and procures a hefty looking CD binder, and Slade stares at it incredulously as he begins to flip through it.
“...Why do you have that?”
“It helps make the car look more civilian if someone were to break into it.”
“There’s no electrocuting door handles on this thing?”
The kid looks up and smirks. “Now that wouldn’t be very stealthy of us, would it?” He picks out a disc; it’s too dark in his lap for Slade to read the words, but he can smell the old sharpie. The drugs must be wearing off. “That’s his excuse at least. These are really just leftovers from when Dick was around.”
Slade tilts his head in acknowledgment before turning towards the windshield. The engine is still running and the windscreen wipers haven’t stopped moving; so after squeezing out of their parking spot, it doesn’t take much time to get back on the road again.
“I don’t actually know who it is,” Drake pipes up, after the car passes the third block and the CD starts on its seventh song.
“Get around a lot?” Slade glances at him through the mirror, raising an eyebrow. He doesn’t particularly care what the kid is doing (or who he’s doing) in his private life, but it’d be no fun not to tease.
“Not by vigilante standards,” the kid grumbles, then quiets, forehead wrinkling. “I think it was Midnighter.”
Slade almost runs a red light. “What.”
“Woah—he’s not that bad. We’re not even together. You of all people can’t say anything. You don’t even kill people for heroic reasons,” Drake says hotly.
“He’s an earless bat-clone.”
“So? Why does that—oh,” Drake gasps. “Oh. Ew. Slade—”
“It was years ago. And only once.” Which reminds him, how hadn’t Midnighter seen this coming? Given his specific… enhancement. Slade has some interrogation to do. Just in case.
“Ugh,” the kid knocks his forehead against the window, smearing the condensation. “Still gross.”
“But not as much as the first part?” He flicks on his blinkers and turns the wheel.
Drake scrunches his nose. “We all have our vices.”
“I’m starting to think all you birds have the same vice. Didn’t Grayson—”
“I know, don’t remind me,” the kid groans, before continuing on petulantly, “well, you can blame your boyfriend for that.”
“Hm.”
It’s not until they’ve paused at the next intersection that Drake speaks again as he stares out of the side window. “...You won’t tell him, right?”
“No.” Slade isn’t sure which part he’s agreeing to.
“Great, that’s—that’s good,” Drake yawns.
He takes a different route this time, making sure to watch out for anyone who might be tailing them. There’s none, of course, and they make it back to the cave with plenty of time to spare, before the rest return to base.
Slade slows down as they reach the platform, parking in the middle and shutting off the engine. He hands the keys over to the kid, who pockets them without a word. After climbing out, they take off their outerwear to toss into the back of the Honda. Drake starts up the conveyor system to move the car back into storage, making way for the Batmobile’s arrival later.
“Can you climb the ladder?”
“Fine.”
He follows behind the kid, feeling his bandages stretch uncomfortably as his arms stretch out.
Lifting himself over the ledge, he arrives just in time to see the butler turning around. The elderly man’s eyes squint at the box, but he turns away just a second later, back towards the screens, before Slade can think of some way to excuse the kid. Drake turns to him and shrugs. Together, they walk back to the medbay, and Slade gets on the recovery bed once more, listening as Drake refills the drawers and cabinets behind him.
There’s a glass of water and a bowl of beef stew on the table next to him, right next to the note in Pennyworth’s writing, reading: NOW IT’S COLD, YOU FOOL.
Ah, well.
He pulls the burner phone from his waistband, the one he’d snagged from under the car seat while Drake had been gone, and snaps a photo to text to Billy. There’s no hope of getting his old one back, and this one is definitely bugged, but he doesn’t think Bruce would appreciate him ordering his spare gear to be sent straight to that fancy front door.
“I’m going up to sleep, will you wake me for the next pill?” Drake whispers in his blindspot.
Slade sighs. “Alright.”
He knows a few ways of convincing Bruce to let him up into the manor.