Blood Ties

Chapter 16 -Soft Spot-

Ten year old Dick had asked to be trained, he wanted to do something other than sit around all day and cry. Slade had been wary, for good reason too, but he relented and started training Dick.

Training Dick, at the beginning, was hard. The young acrobat would become so worried that he would mess up that the only thing he could do WAS mess up. Then he would become so intune with the training he would start slipping into Talon moves, ultimately giving Slade a few close calls.

Dick was afraid to continue, many times he tried to back out for the sake of Slade's safety. But Slade, however much he had misgivings about training Dick at first, was adamant that he could train him out of his former drills, teaching him new things until he forgot all about what he learned in that h-e-double-hockey-sticks hole.

Slade saw what he really wanted when he trained Dick, he was focused and precise, always listening to orders with speed that was uncanny to even unannounced orders. Slade has to admit Dick was talented in the field of violence, his techniques were sound and his acrobatics melded into his fighting without a second thought. It impressed him how ready he was for new material to learn, he was always curious, but also meek and humble with his skills.

But the most important thing Slade has noticed throughout training the boy was that Dick was happy.

He had never seen Dick so happy as he was flipping around the training room, thriving off the success of a difficult move, proving not only to himself but to Slade that he could control himself. When Slade praised him Dick would drink it up like a sponge, instantly igniting like a flame finally exposed to oxygen and billowing into a giant plume of brilliant fire. It was endearing, watching someone he saw more often that not, in tears, light up like a christmas tree in the clearest snowiest night, radiating contagiously.

Slade wouldn't say he praised often, but not never, he praised when he felt it was necessary, when Dick needed that little extra support to complete whatever seemingly impossible task was in front of him.

Slade felt the need to praise the boy for every little hardship in this mission. He had watched Dick spill his hardest memories to a group of kids who had nothing but shun him for the past few days. He had dropped him in blind, raw, no instructions. Slade knew his apprentice's reasons for being upset(they were good reasons), he knew his misgivings, he knew how much it was hurting him that Slade couldn't help him. Slade was beyond proud, and might not have taken into account how much it hurt HIM to not be able to help.

Dick had such a hard life, constant ugly truths beating down on him, memories that no child should ever have repeating a nightmare in his brain. Slade was enough to pull him out of it most times, but to truly heal... Slade's single gray eye flicked down, looking at the photo between his fingers.

Slade was just as broken as Dick was, and even from where he was, he could not lift him any higher out of the pit they were in.

The photo he held (borderline cherished) slipped from his fingers and floated down gently onto the ground near the child's bare foot.

What he would give just to spend five minutes with Dick to explain everything, but he couldn't, so he let the photo drop. If Dick was smart -and he definitely was- then maybe Dick wouldn't hate him so much when all of this was over.

Slade didn't move as he silenced his thoughts. He didn't move when the child woke. He didn't move when the boy grabbed at the picture, trying to be indifferent when every fiber of his being wanted to see his son's reaction.

He did move when Sportsmaster arrived.

He knew what was going to happen, he knew he could do nothing to compromise their mission or else Dick would be the one who pays the price, so he left before his heart overruled his mind.