Thank you so much for waiting for this chapter! I apologize to those who were a little thrown or not in agreement with the last chapter, but hopefully eh, well eventually things will sort themselves out. Thank you for the reviews, which are always, always appreciated.

Teen titans is not mine, blahrgh.

Winner Takes All

Chapter Eight: here, and gone again

Cold, gloved hands grabbed his wrists as though vices and pulled him up bodily, dropping X as soon as he was a gruesome couple of inches on the right side of the ledge.

"Come on," Robin ordered and did not offer to help X but left the door to the tower open behind him as he stormed to the med room.

X followed.

"You believe me," X said, incredulous in spite of himself.

"I have to," Robin replied seamlessly. X cast a glance at him that would not be ignored and Robin repressed two strong urges—one, to sigh and rub his temples; two, to render X unconscious for the good remainder of the rescue mission formulating in his well-exercised brain. So resisting, he continued: "I lost the feeling of my bond with Raven an hour ago. What you tell me is all I have to go on, so even if it is a trap," and he paused here to eye X levelly to tell him exactly what would happen if it was, "All I can do is follow your word." If only by the tightening of the corner of the left side of his mouth, one could tell that the admission of said truth was nothing short of nauseating for the leader of the titans.

"Never thought I'd see the day," X could not help his default behavior, so engrained in his system: to taunt and get under the skin of his company, competition, or whatever.

"You might not yet," Robin growled and X maintained the quiet that ensued as the two entered the med lab and Robin tossed some gauze and disinfectant his way.

"Thanks," X offered what he figured would be his only show of gratitude to the bird boy ever.

"Not welcome," Robin was quick to say and then, "I'm going to get the titans up to speed. Move from this lab and I'll find another way to find Raven." His tone was cold and foreboding, insinuating that although his previous words inferred that X's aid would be helpful, it was by no means necessary if push came to shove.

X began to sterilize and bandage the slash in his side, and told himself to make it a point to make sure that push didn't come to shove.

None of them could afford it at this point.

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"Slade!" She had been calling out for the evil man for what was probably hours and still, nothing. Having woken up to a cheap and dirty room filled with boxes of broken bots and various clippings of titans, she did not have to guess as to where she was or who had taken her. Her only question left was: "Why?"

"You have something I want, dear child," Slade's voice intruded into her rhetorical state of mind and Raven scowled.

"Everyone has something you want, even the overlord of evil," she retorted to the hidden cameras she knew must be hidden in every nook of the room, every wayward corner of a box.

"You see, the problem with Robin," Slade went on as if he had not heard her, "Was that he could not be properly broken." A pause. "I think I've found a remedy for that little fissure in my plans." Another pause. "You see Raven, a King may operate without his Queen, but the Queen is the most powerful piece on the board. Without her, he may be easily captured...and then broken." Slade did not laugh, but Raven almost wished he would. His laugh would have given the moment that odd, almost cliché point of focus that would have made his threat and insinuated game play more idle, would have given Raven a frame of thought to pull back some clever and dark response.

But she had none.

Closing her eyes against the world, Raven did what she always did—whether she admitted it to herself or not—when she felt hopeless: she felt for her bond with Robin. The boy wonder was, among other things, the very beacon of hope the citizens of Jump and other such places looked to, why not her? She felt for it as if tracing the satin edges of an old blanket with stitches thrown in here and there to keep it from tearing apart at the center, felt for it like a blind woman seeking a safe place to set her foot on her daily trek to the supermarket, felt for it like a girl in love.

Which she was.

And when, having searched, Raven Roth could not locate nary an inkling that her bond with her leader even existed, she slowly opened her eyes and tilted them where she might see sky if there were not a ceiling in her way. She longed for flight, away from this dusty storage room, up into the endless black and blue of night and her soul-self, and she wondered.

She wondered if X had gotten away in one piece—she hoped he had—, she wondered if Robin was looking for her yet, if any of the titans were—she hadn't treated them very well lately but she did not doubt their steadfast compassion—, she wondered if there was any truth in what Slade had said.

Raven wondered and all the while, pondered an escape of any manageable sort.

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"Dude no!"

"Yes, friend Robin, is not this Red X an enemy of ours?"

"I gotta go with BB and Star, Robin. You have to explain the deal to us or we can't let you walk out of here with that guy while he's not in cuffs!"

Beast Boy, Starfire and Cyborg all voiced their objections and Robin shook his head at all of them.

"We have no choice," he bit out. Did they think he enjoyed admitting this any more than they did? Did they think he wouldn't do it without the damnable Red X if he thought he really could? Regardless of his susceptibly idle threat from before, finding Raven would take considerably longer without the thief's assistance and time was not something Robin ever felt he had enough of, especially where Slade was concerned. "Just grit your teeth and we'll get through this. We must find Rae—" he almost stopped there but caught himself just in time, "—ven. X is necessary, much as I hate it. And I know you do too."

"Filled them in have you?"

Speak of the devil.

X still had a swagger to his walk, newly bandaged sore aside, and his tone did nothing to assuage the stress and tension laying in foot-thick layers throughout the room.

"Don't get cocky, X-man. I've got my eyes on you," Cyborg glowered with his human and mechanical orbs. Starfire said nothing but took a step back, eyes glowing.

"If this is a trap..." Beast Boy could not finish, so angry as he was. X shrugged all threats off like rainwater on a tin roof.

"Whether or not you believe me is not my problem, kiddos. Your 'leader' believes me however, and maybe that will set your noses straight," X shot back, arrogant and impatient to be off. "If you're coming, then come. If not, I don't care. I came here for Robin's help, not yours."

That statement was a bafflement in itself. It was incredibly not Red X to say such a thing, for he had—however inadvertently—just conceded that he could not do this alone, that of all people he needed Robin. But if the other titans wondered at this, they said not a word as they followed the agile form of Red X across rooftops and through alleys they were certain didn't exist before this night and through extremely busy avenues where somehow, the teen superheroes were able to blend right in.

How that worked out, they didn't bother to ask.

They were only grateful.

Raven...Robin's thoughts focused so centrally on her that he hoped to reach beyond the break of their bond, hoped to find her, feel her life force, hear her voice in his mind to soothe the sharpness of everything that was real lately, real and no longer a game he cared to take part in, but by necessity knew he must win.

For him, for the titans, for Raven.

Always for Raven, whether she liked it or not.

"You're an idiot," X's voice interrupted his thoughts as they nearly glided through the metropolitan night and Robin's eyes narrowed behind his mask.

"And you're a jerk, so?" he retorted coldly.

"So stop being an idiot," was all X said in reply and sprinted ahead. Robin bit his tongue to keep from the multitude of not-so-nice things he dearly wished to say to the inadvertent fruit of his labors.

"You're full of it," Robin jeered as they dropped an easy hundred feet from the top of one of the buildings into a darker than dark alley. X held out a hand.

"I think it might be near here," he whispered, the strange distortion making his voice even more abnormal than usual.

"Titans, split up," Robin ordered in the same hushed tones and they nodded before each disappeared in a separate direction. X folded his arms.

"This would be the perfect time for me to spring a trap on you, you know," he pointed out. Robin shrugged and arched a cynical brow at the thief.

"You're not working with Slade, you're working with me. Now, which way?" He was nothing if not blunt.

"Come on boy blunder," X fired one last barb before heading off at a pace that forced Robin to focus so as not to be too loud as they all but ran through an ever encroaching darkness. The water at the edges of the alley's buildings was murky but the lights hit it in a way that made it look like the odd pair was walking on it and the almost nonexistent lap of it at their booted heels was like the sound of isolated rain. "Here," and he pointed to a door Robin hated to know he would have passed twice before seeing, so almost perfectly meshed into the side of the decrepit structure.

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A cold white light opened onto Raven and she shielded her eyes instinctively only to have her wrist grabbed in a strange and familiarly unyielding way. She opened her eyes and while she was not surprised by who she saw, she would have been a fool to deny the seeping edges of fear that clouded her mind and made her chest feel heavy.

"Slade," she greeted with a less than hospitable glower and was proud of how emotionless she was able to remain.

"Raven," he returned and his voice was as though he was an appraiser of fine goods. Here he circled her, wrenching her wrist in such a painful way she thought it might break, but he released it before the sickening pop of a bone or joint could sound and she bit down the gasp of pained relief. "It will forever amaze me, the weakness of young minds," he said and when it looked as though Raven might interrupt, he came around full circle and held her chin harshly in his right hand, forcing her to keep her lips pressed firmly shut. "I am not so old as to not see what appeals to our dear Robin, but I am old enough to know how big a mistake it is of him to allow himself to these...appeals," Slade's inflection was that unnerving whisper that sent shivers down her spine and made her feel undeniably weak, even if she was obstinate not to show it.

"You've lost your mind Slade. I don't know what you're talking about," Raven bit out sharply. She knew she had to at least begin the persuasion that she meant nothing to the titans' leader, had to distract Slade from his original intent...somehow.

"And you have lost the game," he replied coldly and she felt that same shock from the say they first ran into him again, that same current that was not quite electrical but charged, not normal but excruciating and very much like fire. Her lips opened to let out a scream but she had been robbed of air, it seemed and it came out a choked gasp. "You have lost the game for your noble king," Slade dropped his voice lower, only a whisper into her right ear and her body was not beyond the unsuppressed shudder he caused.

"We...don't..."Raven struggled to speak, trying to grip onto her anger, her rage, if nothing else, to move through the inexplicably awful pain Slade caused as his grip increased and the strange shocks rolling through her intensified.

"Don't, that sounds about right," Slade murmured in false niceness he was well known for. "Don't bother, Raven. Robin would not bend before me. So he will be broken and once more you are just a tool, isn't that interesting?" And it was maybe this that helped pique her vexed upset.

"We...don't..." she gasped as one of Slade's hands left one of her wrists and wrapped around her throat; she didn't need a mirror to see that there would be burns the shape of his clenched fingers around her neck. "...we...don't...lose!" And she managed to rip herself away from him, and without his hands on her was able to use her power, heaving him unkindly against the adjacent wall. Then, careful not to tenderly assess the damage of her throat with her hand, knowing full well it would only aggravate it, she dragged herself up off the floor where she too had fallen. Her eyes took in the situation and noticed immediately that the door was open. She ran for it even as she heard Slade's footfalls catching up with her at an alarming speed.

"Nowhere to fly, pretty bird," his voice laughed after her and she ran all the faster but her vision was doing strange things and the burning sensation around her throat had not left and her heart was beating in unusual ways, too fast, too hard, too much.

Still, she was Raven, and she thought she might make it.

Metal gloved hands clasped her shoulders.

"Now, now. That wasn't very nice," Slade said and his voice was not a warning but a menacing hush.

"I'm not nice," she replied, her voice still thin from his previous attacks and she struggled to get away, wincing when his fingers dug into her skin like fangs. She waited for the hollow and wit-driven reply, the retort of cynical darkness, but instead she heard an oddly familiar voice, and it wasn't Slade's.

"RAVEN, GET DOWN!"

She refrained from telling the new voice that she couldn't and tried anyway, well in tune enough to feel what might be coming next.

The discs just missed her and nearly grazed Slade, but not quite. Still, it was enough. She was free again.

"RAVEN, GET OUT OF HERE!" that voice again...and then she knew.

"Robin?" She turned to face a strange sight. X and Robin stood side by side, each in his own defensive stance as Slade stood between them and her, seemingly assessing the situation. "X?"

"This is interesting, very interesting," Slade intoned and Raven's heart fell into her stomach. "I never thought you would deign to work with an enemy, Robin. I thought our little apprenticeship game had cleared that up at least, and him of all people?" Slade sneered in the quiet, deadly way a snake might. "I suppose you are too noble to be bothered by their involvement, am I right?"

"Whatever you're getting at Slade, it's not going to work," Robin glared, dark and not in the mood for these mind games. 'Involvement'?

"Ten kisses short as one, one long as twenty./ A summer's day will seem an hour but short/ Being wasted in such time-beguiling sport," Slade quipped Shakespeare, clearly enjoying himself and ignoring Robin's claim all at once.

"Get over yourself, buddy," X growled and launched himself at Slade who dodged as easily as he might have dodged a turtle.

"Maybe it is you who needs to get over a certain dark-eyed sorceress," Slade replied airily and Robin could not repress the questioning look that swept from the thief to his fellow teammate. She returned the gaze with a pleading one of her own, one that said: not now, please. Slade grunted as X delivered a strong kick to his chest, dropping to one knee, but used the leverage to flip the thief in the other direction against the adjacent wall. "And Robin, it seems you know nothing of the situation at all." Amusement was clear in the villain's voice now.

"Whatever you have to say Slade, it's of no interest to me," Robin said coldly and made a come-and-get-it gesture. Slade shrugged nonchalantly.

"Precious Robin, really, your stubbornness is no less than I'd expect. However, it is of great interest to me that you would allow a fellow titan to become the lover of one of the most renowned thieves in the city," Slade remarked blithely and Robin's blood went cold.

"What?"

"Interested now, are you?" Slade taunted and Robin lunged at him. Slade chuckled.

"Start making some sense!" Robin swung at him with his bo-staff. Slade ducked and the weave he worked through Robin's slew of attacks was the kind of graceful that was infuriating.

"Don't listen to him Robin!" X warned, knowing full-well where Slade was going with his catty remarks, pulling himself up off the ground with some difficulty.

"But I'm nothing if not honest," Slade all but cooed in that singularly sinister way that made Raven's heart freeze. "And what makes you think he'd listen to you sooner than me?" Slade had a point here and when Robin looked like he might ask what X categorized as another stupid question, the thief intervened and sent a spinning kick to Slade's right side, sending him careening away.

"Well, for starters, I'm better looking," X said tartly to the floored villain as Slade regained his footing to square off with the skull-masked foe. "Get her away, kid," X all but ordered Robin, who went rigid at the tone.

"I thought you didn't like playing the big hero." He used words he had used before through sheer stubbornness and knowledge of what X said to do was what had to be done, and Hell if he was going to trust X be the one to get Raven away safely—after all, this could still be a trap. His paranoia was constant, if nothing else it seemed. X, give him credit, tossed a cocky and old response back as Robin through his arm around Raven to support her and turned to go.

"That doesn't mean I don't know how," X grinned behind his mask and just barely dodged a swift kick in the ribs from Slade who was growing more and more agitated with every turn. "Get out of here kid. You bother me!" X hollered after the fleeing pair as he continued to do his best to stall his previous co-worker. He wasn't a stupid thief after all. He knew his strengths and that hand to hand was not one of them really, knew all he could really do was in fact, stall.

That didn't mean he wasn't going to do what he could, trying.

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"Raven?" Robin felt her weight collapse slightly. Her breathing was shallow at best and the burns on her skin were worrying him.

"I'm fine, just...need a second," she had a hard time with words, throat still feeling terribly constricted.

"This way," Robin urged her on. "Just a bit more, here," he pulled her into the shadows of a hall, not quite out of the lair yet. "What did he do to you?" His voice was sad, and to Raven's confusion, angry. Angry? "I'm sorry I couldn't stop him." Ah.

"No one could," it seemed a day for old words. She tried to smile at him.

"Is what he said true?" So he hadn't forgotten after all. Raven sighed and pressed her eyes shut.

"Yes and no. We are not lovers, but I was with X when Slade..."she trailed off, not needing to finish. Robin was smart after all. He could put pieces together. He was known for it in fact.

"Why Rae?" He asked. It was not an angry question though, or a bitter one. It was a perplexed one, tinged with melancholy.

"I've told you Robin; I've nothing to offer you, even if we were together, what good could come of it? It would only hurt Star and it's not like it would last anyway," Raven paused and said, "This is not the time for this." Robin took her hands in his, firmly but not unkindly.

"Then when Raven? Over another friendly game of chess? I want to finish this game and if when we're running our legs off to get you away from a crazed, murdering, psychotic arch nemesis is the only chance I've got to get through to you without you running away from me, I'm not letting it slip by me!" His grip had become closer now and his masked face was no more than an inch from hers. "It's your move Rae. It's been your move. What are you going to do? There's no backtracking allowed. You've been breaking all sorts of rules. I just want to know who's left standing when this is all over, understand?" He had not spoken so much like this, without the witty banter, without the easy laughter to build walls or keep bridges between them, without allowing her all the space she claimed to need. And it touched her. It broke her heart to think of telling him no again.

She didn't have time to answer though. A blast sounded, followed by X's body soaring past the opening in which the two birds hid, and they heard his body land with a hollow thud, the sickening kind that a limp body made. Squaring her shoulders, Raven hurried to get between Slade and X. Robin followed quickly.

"Thought I told you two to scram," X joked, relentless with his silliness even though one could tell he was in no state for joking, his body riddled with gashes and a few burns.

"I don't take orders," Raven muttered under her breath and realizing that without Slade's contact she could use her powers, she threw up a protective wall just as Slade lunged at the trio. "Thank you, X. You can go...and... I'm sorry," she didn't say why but he knew. It was evident in the quiet way Robin had laid his hand on Raven's shoulder as she thrust the shielding barrier up, the way his taller frame slightly angled to cradle her own, lest she collapse from her own injuries. It was clear. And it wasn't like he hadn't known it anyway.

As was stated, X lived in moments. He knew this one, at least for him, had past, and like all the others, he would let it go because that was how he operated, much as he himself didn't like it sometimes. Of course he might have stayed, fought for the dark girl's affections, persuaded her over. It was not impossible, after all. But again, that was not his way. So, after gingerly pulling himself to his feet for what he was almost certain must have been the fiftieth time that night alone, he leaned over Raven's shoulder—the one opposite the one that had Robin's hand on it.

"No harm done, sexy," and he kissed her one last time, and it would have been a chaste thing if X was capable of chaste, but he wasn't really. It was a soft, sensual farewell, a thanks, and a take care, and everything else that wasn't in his profile description to say. It was, for Robin's sake or hers, or no one's but fate's, on the cheek, however and X padded away in a quiet haste.

Raven felt he was far too forgiving to be a criminal and might have frowned in question at that, except that her powers were greatly weakened from all the exertion before and she was beginning to feel the world heave around her in dizzying ways. She swayed; the barrier flickered; Slade had stopped after his first lunge, simply waiting as he knew she could not hold it up forever. He was a patient villain.

"Let it go Raven, the others are coming," Robin whispered and pointed subtly at the tracker he always carried with him. An almost imperceptible nod and the shield flickered away. Slade stepped forward.

"Just two then, is it?" Slade smirked and Robin glared—it was quite possibly the only expression the boy wonder was capable of having in the enemy's presence.

"Two is plenty," Raven's voice echoed Robin's feelings and they both attacked. The other titans soon joined, as Robin had promised, and star bolts flew as Slade worked to evade and attack all at once. Cyborg occasionally got a shot in but was wary because of the questionable state of the building and the closeness at which some of the titans were fighting the man. Beast Boy did his best to attack in between the moments when Robin and Raven were not—which were not many, but enough.

And then, no one was quite certain how it happened, Slade had Robin. This had been his goal, but no one ever expected him to achieve it. Still, there he was, with Robin struggling in his grasp. The titans didn't need to see behind the mask to see the smile beneath it.

"One bird for another, a fair trade I think," Slade began to back off. Raven panicked. She had not panicked in years.

Years.

But this was Slade and this was Robin. This was Slade taking Robin to God only knew where, to do only God knew what with...no. She couldn't let him.

"Release him!" She practically flew at him; she did.

"I don't think so. Robin and I have a lot to talk about," Slade mused thoughtfully.

"If you have a lot to talk about, talk to yourself!" Raven scorned and then called, "Star, the right!" And the Tameranian heard her friend, sending several well charged bolts to Slade's unprotected side, causing him to release Robin. Unfortunately one of the bolts had hit a renegade beam and the building began to shake. Robin's eyes widened behind his mask.

"Get out titans! Now!" He grabbed Raven's hand and began to run, on the heels of the other titans. They seemed to be in an upper level of the lair or warehouse or whatever it was.

"Yo Rob, got a window here. It's enough!" Cyborg alerted him before jumping out. Starfire followed, and then Beast Boy who shouted for Robin and Raven to hurry up if they could. Parts of the ceiling were coming down in chunks now.

"No!" Slade's outraged voice rushed upon the birds unasked as he hurdled into the room, on a direct course for them.

"Hurry," Raven urged this time and they had almost made it to the window and away from Slade when a beam came down and, not being able to move in time, hit Robin. "Robin!" she dove to catch him as he fell from where they had been climbing, a series of boxes to reach the window that was somewhat higher up. She hadn't been strong enough to carry them both up or teleport them, still weak from the cuts and burns, but fear for his life renewed some of what was lost and she was just able to sweep below him before he hit the ground, mere feet from the unforgiving concrete. She struggled with the dead weight of his body, even as Slade approached and the building continued to collapse.

"A pity," Slade drawled. Raven glowered.

"Go to Hell."

"Shall I wait for you?" he asked coolly and Raven flinched.

"Azarath, metrion, zinthos!" she choked out, as the falling rubble's dust got into her lungs and she summoned what she knew could be the last of her strength to teleport Robin and herself out of the quickly crumbling structure.

The last thing she heard was her name being called, but by who, she could not be sure.

Again thank you and review if you have time please, if not, I still am grateful you have taken time to read some or all of this fic thus far. It was the first of the four I have now, two in progress, so I'm rather attached to it, even if it isn't the best or anything like it...ya know. Um, yay teen titans?

Gonna go watch 'birthmark' now, because I feel like it! Whoo.

-rei