The Collector

Chapter Seventeen

'What the fuck!' Grant stormed up to his father and shoved a sheet of paper against his chest, hard. Slade took the paper and look down at the bounty sheet.

'Nothing to do with me,' he said bluntly. 'Sports Master seems to be very concerned about Dick revealing secrets.'

'But Dick doesn't know anything. Nothing important anyway,' Grant said in disbelief.

'I did try to tell him,' Slade sat heavily on the couch, his face emotionless.

'Well, why aren't you doing anything about it? This is Dick! Or do you not care if the kid, whom you have practically fathered the last few years, gets a bullet in his head?' Slade's emotionless expression was adding fuel to the fire burning in Grant's chest.

'It doesn't matter,' Slade said.

'Doesn't matter? What did he do to get thrown to the side?' Grant said dramatically. 'Please let me know, because I'd love to be able to warn Joey and Rose, so we don't make the same mistake.'

'He's dead.' Grant froze at Slade's words.

'What?'

'Dick is dead.' He sat forward and put his chin in his hands. 'I went away for a few days, came back and he was missing. I managed to track down the last place he was seen. I was told he'd been given a bad batch of Sleeper. Becoming more common apparently.' He paused to take a deep breath. 'I've looked everywhere, the streets, the hospitals. He's gone.'

'But if you haven't found a body, how do you know he is dead?' Grant asked calmly, taking a seat next to his father.

'The drug he was on is being formulated by Joker and Scarecrow. It's literally designed to kill. Without help, his body would have flooded with adrenaline and put too much strain on his organs.' He paused, not sure if Grant wanted the full details of how Dick would have died. He'd looked up stories about how other people were succumbing to the new drug. It wasn't pleasant.

'Why would he...I don't understand?'

'He hasn't been doing well recently,' Slade explained. 'He'd become more secretive and careless. I shouldn't have brought him back here.' He watched as a full range of emotions crossed over his son's face. The information working its way through his thought process. 'Are you okay?'

'Yeh,' Grant said after a while. 'Are you?'

'I always knew this was a possibility when I took him in. In hindsight, he probably needed more than we could give him.' He signed and rose from the couch. 'You better go, I'm going out.' He picked up the bounty sheet and stared down at the picture of his apprentice. It brought a strange emotion with it, that he couldn't quite place. There was sadness there, he had after all grown attached to the irritating but brilliant young man. But there was something else. Relief. He had spent three years with the knowledge that Dick's habit was likely going to kill him. Now that it was over...well, it was one less worry on his list.

'Can you deal with that?' Grant asked quietly. 'I don't like the idea of his face being out there. Not like that.'

'I'll talk to Lawrence. You better go.' He walked his eldest to the door. 'Can you tell Joey?'

'Yeh of course.' They said their goodbyes and Slade closed the door. The base was silent. It was strange how much noise a single teenager could make by just existing. The silence was a void of absence. He glanced at the door to Dick's room. He knew he should probably clear up the base and move on. But not tonight, he couldn't do it tonight.