Uh...yeah it's been an eternity since I put up a chapter for this. I'm sorry, and I've been working on filling out the details so hopefully it'll run more smoothly... Anyway...on with the show.

-

Mina crept as silently as possible down the hallway from her room, formally Terra's. The floor had so many creaking spots that she half-wondered if the Titans had designed it that way, as a security measure. No one was likely to be awake enough to hear a floor creak though...excepting the person she was looking for.

The closed and unforgiving door jarred Mina's courage the second she laid eyes on it, and more than half of her was ready to turn around and march right back to her room. The idea of being in Robin's room this late at night had her stomach in knots, not to mention the fact that he was in no mood to entertain at the moment. What right did she have anyway? It wasn't any of her business what Robin did or didn't do. She wasn't even a real member of the team...

Stop it! This is about Robin, not you, she thought, shaking her head to dislodge the pesky doubts. Before she coudl change her mind again, Mina knocked quietly on Robin's door.

She was beginning to think about knocking again when a muffled voice reached her ears.

"Go away, Beast Boy."

An eyebrow shot up. Apparently she wasn't the first to visit him tonight. "Robin? It's Mina." The whisper sounded a lot less confident than she would have liked.

All five seconds later, the door slid open. When Robin failed to appear, a nervous jolt shot through Mina. He wanted her to come in.

Awkwardly, she stepped inside the dark room, eyes adjusting from the fluorescent hallway lights. Before they had finished, the small "click" of a lamp brought light into the room. The door closed behind her.

Robin sat, back to the wall, eerie white eyes fixed on her. "What do you want?"

The words were harsh, but his voice was not the angry one that came through the door. If anything, he sounded sick.

Mina's tongue was slow and stupid, though her mind was running at a hundred miles per hour. In the end, she countered his questions with a question. "What happened back there, Robin?"

His face hardened in the lamplight, body tensed as though it had been forced to remember some buried pain. "I don't want to talk about it," he droned, a note of finality in his words.

The nervousness and fear she had felt seemed to have left Mina now, replaced by a shade of indignance. She had never felt this way towards Robin before...like slapping some sense into him. It gave her new found courage. "Was it about Raven?"

A glint flashed in the white's of his mask as his eyes narrowed ever so slightly. His lips sealed in a tight line.

Ignoring these unmistakable warning signs, Mina pressed on. "Do you have any idea where she is?"

The silence was palpable, as though Mina could have reached out and touched it. Had she done so, she had no doubt that it would have bitten her. Though it was beginning to look more like stupidity than bravery, Mina pushed harder, her voice barely above a whisper. "Have you looked?"

He looked shocked for a split second, and Mina instantly regretted the words, but the look vanished, to be replaced by one of near fury. "Is there something you need?" It was halfywa between a growl and a hiss.

That was generally enough to make most people turn tail and run like the wind, but Mina couldn't find any fear of Robin within herself. He wasn't a criminal, he was someone resisting their path. She had been him, once. She was no more afraid of Robin than she was of herslf. All that was left was an overwhelming need to help him. "I'm not the one that needs you, Robin."

In the blink of an eye Robin was off the floor and in her personal space. Mina had to work hard not to take a surprised step back. "What would you know about it?" he breathed, warm air brushing past her cheek as he glared from behind the mask. "What do you care, anyway? It's not your fight. You have no reason to be here."

Mina blinked, stunned as the words burrowed to her core. Why was she here? Why had she dragged that stranger in out of the cold? Why had she struggled to find him when he'd been taken? Why had she taken the risk of killing someone to spare his life? There was one straight answer. She could not have done anything else.

Taking a shuddering breath and fighting off the burning in her eyes, Mina looked straight into the ivory depths, numbly surprised to find them barely inches from her own. Every exhale mingled her breath with his, and the space between them sparked and writhed with energy until it felt alive. Why was she here? As her hands trembled with the overwhelming ache inside her, the answer was simple, really. She was here for Robin.

No doubt confused by her silence, his mouth opened to growl something else at her, leaning forward threateningly. Her body responded to the movement before her mind could catch up, and before she could come to hersenses, her lips touched his. A numb jolt of disbelief spread through her limbs, followed by an unbearable heat that undoubtedly lit her cheeks on fire. It seemed to take hours before her body let her mind drag it away from the horrendous crime it had just committed, but she prayed it had only been a second or two.

As her eyes opened once again, and she saw the look of shock on his face, she found herself floating in the midst of some kind of horror induced calm. The words rolled off her tongue smoothly, though for all her brain knew, they were someone else's. "I'm here because I know I can help. Raven needs us, she needs you, I can feel it. I won't let you give up while she's still out there. If we work together, I know we can save her, and at the very least, we'll be able to say we did everything in our power." Holding his gaze with more confidence than she felt, Mina gave her speech a powerful conclusion. "Are you with me, or not?"

Embarassment and shame burned inside her as he remained dumbstruck. He nodded mutely, gaze studying her as though she had suddenly sprouted wings and flown around the cieling.

She nodded in acceptance, her manner every ounce the professional teammate. "Get some sleep. We can formulate a plan in the morning."

Robin nodded again, the tiniest of twitches betraying his discomfort at taking orders.

When nothing more was said, Mina turned her back on him and walked calmly to the door. Her straight-backed march continued all the way down the silent corridor.

It was only when Mina reached her room that she broke down sobbing.

-

Crane had only just begun to celebrate his first small victory when the screen flickered to life behind him. "Ah, Mr. Slade," he greeted without turning. "What a pleasant surprise."

"If only I could say the same," came the cold reply.

"Is something troubling you, sir?" A thin-lipped smile lit his face, every ounce of him patronizing.

"Why yes, little scarecrow. Something is indeed troubling me."

The dangerous hiss at last got Crane's attention, and he swiveled to face a silently furious Slade. He chose to ignore the slight, though there was another pound of disrespect in his reply. "Can I be of assistance?"
Slade's gray eye narrowed. "Are you seriously implying that you have not managed to retrieve my item?"

Crane laid the tips of his fingers together. "Oh, that. I have some unfortunate news." His eerie blue eyes watched Slade's fingers tighten on the arms of his chair. "The item no longer exists. Knowing the reprocussions of Project X falling into the wrong hands, Wayne destroyed the final layout. There is no back-up copy."

Heavy silence.

"That is unfortunate, indeed. Unfortunate for you, of course." His tone was light, and he relaxed in his chair, fingers splayed on the black leather.

Crane raised a thin, black eyebrow. "Is that so? What a shame." He sighed in mock distress. "Perhaps my next information will be some solace to you?"

Slade moved not a muscle, but Crane could tell that he had his attention once again. "An unknown person or persons seems to have permanently disabled security at Arkham Asylum, allowing its contents to spill into the streets of Gotham...and seek revenge on he who put them there."

A satisfied smirk slithered across his face as he half saw, half sensed Slade's change in mood. "The Batman won't be available for a great long while; a fact that, if I'm not mistaken, is of great advantage to you."

Slade's eye narrowed as he leaned forward slightly in the leather armchair. "Indeed. Very well, Mr. Crane. You have served some purpose. Remove Batman completely, and we might just have a partnership."

"I eagerly await the day," assured Crane cheerfully. "Until then, Mr. Slade?"

Slade nodded once, terminating the link...but not before Scarecrow saw the flash of fire in his gray eye.

He chuckled in the silence, leaning back in Bruce Wayne's luxurious amr chair. "You take me for a fool, Slade." He smiled lovingly down at the unrolled blueprints. "But I'm afraid it's you who have been fooled."

-

Slade watched the darkness coldly, one hand tracing a continuous pattern on the desktop. "Pathetic, how the weak never see the demon in the shadows."

Crane had failed miserably, and Slade would be lying if he said he was only slightly urked by this wrench in his plans. A mistake this early on was a very bad omen for the future, and Slade prided himself on a plan perfectly executed from start to finish. Partnership? The idiot was eating right out of his hand. He of all people should know better--but the stupidity of mankind was hardly a shock anymore.

His footsteps echoed down silent corridors, raising small clouds of dust as his shadow flickered across the walls. Now he was faced with the hated tangent road of recalculation. Everything had to be evaluated. Everything had to be adjusted.

He entered the room civilly, resisting the urge to throw open the door and shake it's occupant. Two sets of hell-fire eyes glared back at him from the face of the girl known as Raven. She was bound to a straight-backed chair, surrounded by a customized containment field, and she looked anything but pleased about it.

"Good morning, Ms. Roth. I trust you slept well?"

She responded with an extra layer of hatred.

Slade revelled in it. "Excellent. Now, why don't we start with a few simple questions?" Slade held up the ring at eye level, turning it this way and that to catch the fluorescent lighting. "Does this trinket mean anything to you?"

For a moment, she said nothing, merely glared. Slade's patience began to slip...

But then, she looked at the ring. There was no recognition in her demon's eyes. "No," she growled, voice thick with a strange accent. "Why do you ask me this, human?"

-

Ok so...that's a chapter. I appologize for any typos or plain lack of quality, since this had to be typed up in a hurry. School is starting tomorrow...also, I'm seriously in trouble for all my late writing course assignments so...hopefully you can find it in your heart to be patient with my lack of updates. It's almost more than I can ask...but... For those of you who don't like Mina, sorry, because she's going to play a relatively large role in this, the final installment. I'm sure I'm going to be yelled at for that kiss, so I'll restate, the feelings are one-sided. The poor girl just experienced that age-old mistake of taking something she can't have, and she knows it. -Dusty