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“You’re Lawful Evil,” Dick declared, while draped over Slade’s body. They were still naked, still lounging in crumpled, cooling sheets. Their post-coitus routine trended this way—Dick would ensure that every inch of available skin was touching every inch of available skin and Slade would doze while listening to Dick murmur about his day. Slade would never say it, but he enjoyed the routine. It was a personal failing.
“What?” Slade mumbled, opening his eye to glance at Dick. Dick who pushed himself up by pressing his hands down on Slade’s chest. Dick who met Slade’s narrowed eye with a wide, toothy grin. Slade lifted a hand and squeezed Dick’s backside, prompting him to yelp and slip from his hands to his elbows. The dig of bone in Slade’s skin was worth the impish pout that graced Dick’s features.
Dick didn’t seem keen on talking after that, so Slade slid an arm around Dick’s waist and flipped them so that he was leaning down, knees on either side of Dick’s hips. Dick blinked up at him, mouth parted.
“What was that?” Slade asked again, propping himself on his left hand, petting Dick’s side with his right. Dick’s surprise melted back into a grin, more modest than the first.
“I don’t forget you have enhanced speed, but it still catches me off guard when you use it casually like that,” Dick offered, wiggling under Slade. Slade couldn’t lay his entire body weight on Dick like Dick could him, and yet Dick was still wrapping his arms around Slade’s neck and tugging down as if the loss of skin-on-skin contact was tragic enough to risk being squished. Slade didn’t yield, but he did run his hand through Dick’s hair, prompting Dick to close his eyes and sigh.
“You don’t act so surprised when I use my enhancements to press you against a wall,” Slade returned, running his hand through Dick’s hair and down his neck, where he massaged his fingers into the muscle there. Dick hummed.
“’S hard to find people big enough to lift me as easily as you do. Kori could do it too,” he murmured, eyes still closed. “Gotta lotta muscle weight.”
“Maybe. You’re lean, pretty bird.” Somehow, through the warm haze blurring the edges of Slade’s reasoning, he remembered to ask, “What did you say earlier? Lawful evil?”
Dick’s eyes lit up and he shifted underneath Slade. It took a moment before Slade realized it was just a wiggle of excitement, a release of the energy that Grayson kept pent up unless on patrol or a mission.
“Yeah,” Dick said. “Like the moral alignment chart for tabletop games.” Slade still didn’t follow. He must have looked like it, because Dick continued. “You know, role playing games. They’re a tool to make up a character. You’re Lawful Evil because well, you’re a villain, but you have a code.”
Slade’s eyebrow popped up in incredulity. “Kid, there is no good, no evil. You’ve heard me before.” Consciously or not, Slade’s hand roamed from Dick’s neck, down his chest, to perch on his waist, possessively.
“Mmhm, and I don’t agree. You’ve heard me before,” Dick mocked. “Call Wintergreen and ask, I bet he’d agree with me,” Dick smirked. Slade rolled his eye, tightened his hold on Dick’s waist.
“You and him role playing without me?” Slade drawled, relishing Dick’s resulting frown.
“No. But he’s a good conversationalist. And he knows you better than anyone, and I bet he’s heard of D&D,” Dick retorted. Dick wasn’t able to move much from his position under Slade, but he shifted to reach for the blanket, pushed far at the end of the bed. Petulantly, Slade dropped down on his elbow and pulled Dick flush against him, to distract him from the prospect of covering himself with anything other than Slade’s body. It worked, Dick burrowed into Slade’s neck happily.
“Say I’m Lawful Evil,” Slade conceded, the bass of his voice prompting Dick to nuzzle his neck. “What does that make you, bluebird?”
Dick hummed more a moment. “Neutral Good. I want to do good, it’s a core piece of me. But I’m not individualistic or rebellious enough to be Chaotic Good, and I can’t be B. B is Lawful Good. He’s all order, regimented rules, strict dichotomy. I can’t do all of that.” Dick stroked his fingers back and forth across Slade’s back as he spoke.
“No, you can’t,” Slade agreed. “You’re too busy doing villains to do anything as uninteresting as that.”
Dick swatted him and Slade wondered what it meant that the gesture was endearing instead of irritating.
“That’s not what I meant! And it’s not like B hasn’t tangled with villains before, he doesn’t have the high ground,” Dick retorted.
“Catwoman hardly counts,” Slade scoffed.
“Talia?” Dick smirked; Slade could feel Dick’s lips quirk against his skin and if the conversation weren’t so unappealing, he’d have felt it pool in his lower belly.
“She counts,” Slade said, rolling over on his back and tugging Dick on top of him, so that they were back in their original arrangement, before talk of moral alignment and Dick’s father. “Have you taken up tabletop games?”
Dick shook his head before pressing his ear against Slade’s chest, over Slade’s apical pulse. Slade willed the soft feeling that, that invoked to tamper down.
“No,” Dick murmured without moving his head. “Robin and Superboy have started playing together. A couple of the others too. I like it, I think it’s healthy,” Dick said. “Gives them an outlet, teaches decision making. Etc., etc. I watched them play the other day, it got me thinking.”
“Your life isn’t as simple as a game, Grayson,” Slade warned. “People don’t fit into manicured boxes of ‘right’ or ‘wrong.’ Don’t let child’s play confuse you.”
Dick sighed; not a displeased sigh. “You’re only saying that because you want me to keep sleeping with you,” he murmured, without any bite.
Slade chuckled, which seemed to delight Dick as Dick’s own pulse jumped and he squeezed Slade’s side. “You’d sleep with me regardless,” Slade boasted. “Your belief that you’re rebelling against a rigid morality by sleeping with your moral opposite is what keeps you coming back to my bed.”
Dick pinched Slade and Slade bit back a growl. “Is not. Shut up.”
Slade would have liked to let the silence be, to doze off again, but the little bird's pulse was still beating erratically and Slade couldn’t fall asleep to the sound of Dick’s unrest. He wouldn’t scrutinize why.
“Pretty bird,” Slade murmured, voice low and rumbling, like he knew Dick liked. “Pretty bird, relax.”
“I sleep with you because I want to,” Dick murmured, pettishly.
“I believe you,” Slade offered, tracing Dick’s spine. Some of the tension eased from Dick’s shoulders.
“And because I like you and trust you. Even when you’re being an ass.”
“I’m sure you do,” Slade said, closing his eye.
“And because you like me too, whether you want to admit it or not,” Dick added.
Slade hummed noncommittally. “Whatever you wish, little bird.”
Dick snorted, lifting his head. “And what if I told you I love you?” His voice was antagonistic, challenging, but his blue eyes swam with sincerity.
“Of course, you do,” Slade said, opening his eye. “It’s in your nature. You act in either anger or love and everything else is a variation of one or the other. There hasn't been anyone who you've crossed paths with on a greater than semi-frequent basis that you haven't softened over. I’ve known this about you since you were Robin. I've studied you for years, now, Dick. Compromising you has always been a labor of love.”
Dick snorted again, but laid back down against Slade. He was silent for a time, and his breathing and pulse had evened to the point where Slade could almost mistake him for sleeping. But then—
“Coulda just said ‘love you too,’ y’know.”
Slade feigned sleep.