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Dick has never before in his life felt as uncomfortable as he does in this moment.
He doesn't even know what to do with himself, staring at his feet on the ground and fighting against the strong urge to bounce his leg. His hands are folded in his lap, and he finds himself picking at his cuticles every ten seconds or so, before catching the action with a curse and making himself stop. It's such an obvious sign of weakness, of guilt, and he hates himself for it.
Honestly, he hates himself for a lot of things, a sensation that has been his nearly constant companion the last couple months. Shame and guilt have been his bedfellows, and unfortunately for him, he's the only one whose bed they're sharing—Slade has certainly never shown a lick of regret over what he's been doing, despite the fact that if anyone should be feeling shitty over their actions, it's the man in question.
But no, Slade has been blunt and undaunted by the crimes he was committing, though Dick doesn't know why that unsettles him, why he expects anything different from the man he's come to know. Slade Wilson is the furthest thing from an apologetic source, nowhere close to someone who doubts himself or vacillates over his choices. No, when Slade approached Dick in that bar he did it with the full, perfect knowledge of what he was doing, and he did it without losing a wink of sleep over it.
(In contrast, Dick has lost quite a few winks, ever since he learned the truth. But he also didn't call the relationship off, so really, does he have the right to even claim regret when his guilt didn't stop him from continuing on?)
"He's cute," the woman leaning against the wall says in an offhand tone. "If you like young and perky, I suppose."
Dick chokes on air, and his eyes stay fixed resolutely on his mud-splattered, blue converse. He stares at the floor between them and wishes it would just rise up and swallow him whole.
Never would he have imagined having Adeline Kane Wilson, his lover's wife, stand across from him and call him cute.
"Adeline," is Slade's only response. His tone is far too bored for the situation at hand, and Dick wants to fucking strangle him. He wants to rip Slade's head from his shoulders. Wants to kick him in the nuts. Cut off his penis, maybe, and then burn it.
But, well. He had his chance to be indignant and hurt over this whole situation. He had his chance to shout at Slade, and call him a bastard. Had his chance to slap the man and storm out, pride cloaked around him, carrying the knowledge that he was in the right and Slade was so, so very wrong.
And he did do all those things.
He just...also came back.
And that monumentally horrible choice is why he's now sitting here perfectly quiet, not putting up a word of protest as a married couple discusses him and his sex life like he's not even present. Or worse—like he's the gum beneath their shoes.
"A gymnastics instructor, right?" Adeline continues. Dick can feel her eyes boring into his head, but he knows she's not actually addressing him. He learned that lesson the hard way, when he first tried to respond to one of her questions back at the start of this delightful conversation. "When you go for a mid-life crisis you really go for it, don't you, Slade?"
"It has its perks," Slade agrees, tone still so fucking casual. Dick's cheeks burn.
Adeline makes a sound, somewhere between acknowledging and amused and maybe even curious, and shit if Dick wasn't already bright as a tomato he sure as fuck is now. He wants to die. He wants the building to just blow up right here and now, save him from this suffering. He deserves it; not the mercy part, but the death part. Fuck, he can't believe he did this.
For four months, Dick dated a married man. For two of those months, he knew he was married. And if that doesn't make him the scum of the earth he doesn't know what does.
(Slade is fucking scum too, of course, being the actual cheater in this equation, but Dick lost the moral high ground months ago, and Slade never let him forget it. There's no way for him to pretend to be an innocent hurt party here, not when he had his chance to walk away and instead decided to let Slade fuck him over every available surface of this apartment.)
"How old even is he?" Adeline asks, something like disdain and maybe even incredulity in her voice now. Dick kind of wants to see the look on her face, see if she looks disgusted or just curious, but it feels physically impossible to lift his head. He keeps his gaze right where it is. "Can he even drink? And I mean legally, not you plying him with alcohol."
Maybe Dick would be offended, if he had any room in his brain for emotions like that right now. Maybe he'll feel it later.
"He's twenty-four," Slade says, "which you know, if you know his profession. How much research did you do before staging this little confrontation, Addie?"
"You don't get to talk to me like that," Adeline snaps, the first hint of fire from her since she first arrived and looked at the pair of them in Slade's bed with cold, icy eyes and a clipped demand for them to get dressed. "You don't get to act all high and mighty when I just caught you fucking someone less than half your age. Who isn't, by the way, your wife."
"Addie—"
"And you don't get to call me that like everything is okay!"
Her voice cracks halfway through the sentence, and it draws Dick's gaze up, his chest clenching as he looks at her—actually looks at her—for the first time since he sat down in the living room.
Adeline Kane Wilson is a rather beautiful woman, even—maybe especially—well into her fifties. She has a strong build that she never shook from the army, and it makes her seem powerful, strengthening her rounder features to make her beauty look a touch otherworldly, in certain lights. Her eyes are jade green, her hair brown with streaks of gray, and honestly she is the definition of aging like a fine wine because she is stunning.
This is not a woman you cheat on. This is a woman that if you are stupid enough to cheat on, you beg for forgiveness on your hands and knees and pray that she takes you back, because she's just that spectacular.
But Slade isn't groveling. Slade isn't guilty, or ashamed. Slade didn't even fucking blink when his wife walked in while he was buried balls deep in his mistress—mister? Is 'mistress' a gender-neutral term, in this context? Have there not been enough male mistresses for it to really—get your shit together, Grayson, fuck.
"None of this is okay," Adeline hisses, lips curling. "None of it. How can you act like it is?"
Slade seems to actually consider the question, and it makes Adeline's eyes narrow hatefully. Dick wouldn't be surprised if she pulled out a gun and shot him. Hell, Dick wouldn't even blame her. Certainly wouldn't turn her in.
What a bonding activity that would be, helping to cover up Slade Wilson's murder. Dick would say Yes, Ma'am to whatever cover story she gave him, no questions asked. And then he would do his best to grovel for her forgiveness in a way that Slade is utterly failing to do.
...Okay, maybe Dick has too much of a thing for authority figures. But, like, he's been hooking up with Slade, so is that really a surprise? Adeline was Slade's superior officer when they were in the army, and carries with her all the commanding presence you'd expect from someone like that. No fucking wonder Slade fell for her—probably everyone under her command did. And anyone under both of them...Well, he has no idea how anyone survived that, honestly. Just being in the same room as the pair of them going toe to toe has him feeling a bit like a puddle of goo.
"I can't tell which part you're more upset about," Slade says eventually. "The cheating, or the fact that I cheated with a twenty-four-year-old gymnast."
Dick's eyes nearly bug out of his head. Fuck, he knew Slade was an asshole, but fucking hell.
Adeline's jaw ticks with irritation. "If you wanted a new toy," she says, her tone clearly showing that the words are supposed to be cutting, "you could've bought a vibrator."
Yeah, yeah Dick thinks he will be offended about being compared to a toy, when his brain starts working later. Not that he can really say she's all that far off the mark, considering how often Slade has simply used him (with his complete and utter enjoyment, of course, even if he was occasionally humiliated by it all).
"I want a new toy," Slade says, blasé, and now there's a glimmer in his eyes that Dick is all too familiar with, that has his heart speeding up on instinct despite how much he hates himself for it. "And oh look—we've got a nice one right here."
Adeline's brows shoot up. Dick blinks.
Slade's lips twitch in a small smirk, and he pushes up out of his armchair. Dick watches, utterly stunned, as Slade strides across the room to where his wife is leaning against the wall, and wraps a broad palm around the back of her neck to yank her forward into a kiss, a move Dick is intimately familiar with.
And it's—well, it's just—it's—it's hot as fuck, honestly. There's nothing gentle or slow about the kiss, nothing patient or loving. Slade and Adeline kiss like they want to consume each other, like they want to destroy each other, all tongue and teeth and deep growls like animals as hands begin to wander and grope. Dick is barely breathing, couldn't look away if he tried, absolutely frozen to the spot as two sexy ex-army officers go at it right in front of him.
Yeah, yeah he's a little hard. Fucking sue him, just—look at them. Two people should not be allowed to look as hot as they do together. They look like they could decimate continents. Like they could decimate him. And he, fuck, he'd say thank you. He'd let them do absolutely anything they wanted to him—he's already bent to Slade's will a million times before, and he can't say he'd say 'no' if Adeline wanted him on his knees instead. They both have the same gravitas that is impossible for him to resist.
Slade's confidence and powerful nature is the whole reason Dick is in this situation in the first place.
(And, of course, his own weak as fuck will when it comes to a damn good fuck.)
(Adeline looks like she'd be a really damn good fuck.)
The pair break for air eventually, and then pant against each others' lips, bodies pressed together so tight Dick imagines it must be a little bit hard to breathe. Their eyes are like fire, and it stokes the growing heat in Dick's belly, his hands clenched together so tight to avoid doing something stupid like touch himself.
"Seems like it's your turn with him," Slade says eventually, the words breathed against Adeline's mouth. "How do you want to use him, dear?"
Suddenly Dick is frozen in place for an entirely different reason, because now those eyes are on him, full of fire and lust and a certain level of calculation that, Dick can admit, has always been something that got him going.
There's a heavy, tense pause, where Adeline just stares at him, and Dick feels like he can't even breathe, afraid of breaking the whatever is happening here.
Then Adeline chuckles, eyes dark and hooded, a sharp smirk creeping over her red lips. "I think I have a few ideas."