A/N: Thanks to the following for reviewing:

Solo, nomanslandvicki, jordanals, raerobgal, 718darkstar, ari dark princess, Kashira Hibana, debbiegirl, Nikki-4, Princess Pantry, Phantom Senryu, Seaz, and ttraven4ever.

And now for Chapter 13. I hope you guys enjoy.

Previous chapter:

"Thank you father, you've been of great help." The priest looked away. He felt helpless. This young man was haunted and he could do nothing about it. He looked back.

But the young hero was gone.

Chapter Thirteen: Time is Running Out

Not allowing himself the time to go back to the room they had escaped to - to retrieve their belongings - he shot his grappling hook from the roof top of the church and swung onto the building across, too far off to jump roof top to roof top.

'Damn it! Why didn't catch it earlier? Raven could be safe right now and-'

He paused. His gloved hand fisted at his side. He had to think. He couldn't allow his emotions get the best of him. Otherwise, he wouldn't be able to find her. Or Gordon and his troops. Or Eric. He knew he was running out of time. The Reaper didn't seem to be the kind of ….creature who was very patient.

Robin pulled back his glove to reveal a digital watch. The red numbers glared back at him. One in the morning. His jaw tightened. This didn't leave him a large window of opportunity. The city continued on their normal routine, as if nothing was the matter. And it wouldn't be. They lived normal lives, unlike them, the heroes. He shook his head. He was getting off track. He had to focus.

"If I had kidnapped a large Police force unit, and needed to transport them from the hotel-" he dived off of the edge and shot his grappling hook again, "-Undetected. What would I have used?" He landed a roof top away from the hotel. It was several levels smaller than the hotel, but Robin was pretty sure the hotel's rooftop was secured with Eric's goons. Human or otherwise.

His gaze snapped towards the sound of large engine-d truck, its cargo box managing to scrape the ceiling of the smaller opening of the hotel's parking lot building. He allowed a condescending smirk to appear on his face.

"That's how." He was pretty sure what was inside those trucks. His gaze continued up the street and saw two large SUV vehicles curb from two different streets into the main one, three streets up ahead of the cargo truck. Robin sent the hotel's roof top a quick gaze before he dove off of the nearing building and twirled in mid air. He landed noiselessly in a crouch. He quickly leaned to the shadows of the building's side. Another cargo box veered around the tight squeeze of the parking lot and followed the precedent vehicle. "I need a ride," he mumbled to himself. No way was he retrieving the 'shot up' vehicle he and Raven had ridden to the hotel.

He'd just have to borrow one.

The burly white bearded biker chuckled out of the convenient store. Man, his tab was sure getting big in this store. He allowed himself another chuckle. Not that he was planning on paying for it. He placed in his leather vest's pocket his pack of cigarettes and made his way around the side of the store towards his bike.

He stopped short.

His motorcycle wasn't there. He raced to the parking spot and stood in it, hopping to see it somehow. He looked around.

"Who the fuck took my damn bike?!" Suddenly, a piece of paper slapped into his face, carried by the wind. He growled and ripped off the paper. But before he could toss it angrily, his plastered gaze caught sight of the emblem on the paper. He unwrinkled the paper and squinted to read the print.

Borrowed your vehicle.

Figured you wouldn't need it much,

Where you're going.

- R

Out of the blue, a squat car drove into the drive way of the convenient store and the biker heard the jingle of said convenient store's door opening. Immediately the store's clerk - who could mistake the woman's bitchy tone of voice? - began to shout and point at him. The officer stepped out and gave the biker a look.

Grumbling, the rider raised his hands.

Damn superheroes borrowing without asking.

Robin wove in and out of traffic. He allowed the vehicles to get ahead at least a half hour, as not to raise suspicion. Not that he didn't already, with his speed, and cape billowing out from behind him. Robin caught sight of the repeating lights lamp posts, hovering above the high way track to illuminate, reflecting on the surface of the 'borrowed bike'.

A sudden sense of déjà vu overcame him. A couple of days ago, he was racing towards the tower, towards Raven. Because of Eric.

Now he found himself doing the same thing.

Shaking it off, he raised the front tire into the air and brought it down swiftly, gaining speed. He zoomed into the high way and checked the ramp's direction. His eyes suddenly widened.

They were headed for Gotham City.

His fingers unclenched at the handle bars in surprise but gripped them even tighter as realization hit him hard. Eric wanted him back where it all started. Where his parents had died. Where he had caught up to Eric years later. Where Eric had lost his life.

Well, he wasn't going to back down now. He feared no confrontation. Not when Raven's life was in the balance. Not when Gordon and his men's life did too. He was ready. He was ready to face him.

He swerved around a car and increased his speed.

Raven woke with a jerk. Nausea caused her to recoil into her own horizontally-prone body and she begged the sensation to leave her. She squeezed her eyes shut and slowly opened them.

"You're awake." Immediately, her gaze snapped to the owner of the voice. But he wasn't there.

"Show yourself," she demanded, bringing her arms to comply to push her up from the floor.

Suddenly, cold hands seized the back of her neck. She paused.

"For a moment, dear one, I was worried I had gotten too rough with your soul and you would not awaken."

"How tragic for you," she snapped, jerking her neck from his cold grasp. She turned and winced, shutting her eyes. Slowly, her hand slipped towards the base of her neck. She pulled it back. Little sprinkles of dark brown substances came back on her palm. Dried blood. Half Demon blood. Robin was going to have a fit.

"Precisely-"

"Then again, that would have made your job a little easier, now wouldn't it?" She felt his smile before she looked back up at him. His face was the same as she had seen him with when Robin and herself had seen him for the first time back at the club. But now, his eyebrows seemed to be gone and his skin was inhumanly unblemished. His black eyes seemed more sunken into the crevice of his skull.

"Not precisely, my dear." He rose, now erect, and causally folded his arm behind his back. "Since I was not with the original intention of bringing your soul to Hell with me, I will have to strike a deal with you."

"A deal?" she prolonged, allowing her sense of orientation to settle itself fully. Of course, she knew what he was talking about.

"A deal. Surely you and your detective teammate figured it out?" He paused and chuckled, "Of course. How could you? You hardly spoke to each other before I intervened in your little love nest back there." She ignored the jab he took on her and Robin's last encounter.

"Back there?" There. She felt a simmering sensation of her soul self inside her. She could do it. Now all she needed to do was concentrate. "You mean, we're not in Trinity?"

"No," he took a step back, turning his back on her, "But you already knew that didn't you? I couldn't necessarily keep you in the same city in which I have kidnapped you. That would make it easier on your lover." Another jab.

"Once again, he and I are not lo-"

"Right. Right, so you have preached," he waved her off without looking back at her. Raven allowed her soul self to begin to manifest but paused. Her Soul Self might not be enough. A brief flicker of a telepathic signal vibrated through the base of her cranium but it was gone in a flash. No. Her Soul Self would not be enough.

In the dark, her eyes began to glow red.

Robin's bike swerved as a chilling sensation of loathing simmered down his spine. His eyes widened and he searched around himself, which proved pointless. She wasn't there.

'Raven,' he urged the common two-wheeled vehicle to go faster, 'Hang on. I'm coming.'

Her face became incased in shadow and slowly, symmetrical eyes appeared above her own pair of eyes. The glowing red eyes blinked in sync and she felt her demon come forth, sharpening her teeth and stretching her restrains of control.

'Control. I need to be in control.' The Reaper turned and froze, his eyes fixated on her sitting form on the dark room. Her head tilted to the side.

"Yes," he whispered to himself, even though she could clearly hear him. "Yes, there it is. That dark, delicious soul of which I've searched." He took a step forward, his eyes wide with fascination. "The dimensions of its gloom is spellbinding." Repulsed, her Demon made Raven crawl a bit back, matching his advances with her own movements. She moved not in fear, but apprehension. She might have read up on Reapers and their legends but had never encountered one in real life.

"Spellbinding?"

"Yes." He paused and realized he was fawning. He seemed to compose himself, but his eyes remained intrigued. "You do not realize the true potential of your powerful soul, do you child?"

"Believe me," whenever her Demon came forth, her voice did fall an octave lower, an enticing tone of voice that she was born with for malevolent purposes, "My father made it quite clear of my purpose. Or my, potential." Suddenly, she pushed on her arms and stood up, unwavering.

"Yes," he whispered to himself again. Unconsciously, both made a move towards each other and began to circle, still facing one another.

"Why have you resurfaced?" she asked him. A sinful smile was frozen on his features, making his new 'face' appear that much more inhuman.

"You mean to ask why have I resuscitated the man that tortured Robin before he became your Robin?"

'Not mine.' Raven willed her subconscious to stay out. She didn't need this right now. She raised her head, acknowledging his question.

"Simply because the opportunity presented itself. In gaining the man another opportunity to redeem himself, it would reward me as well."

"How so?" she asked.

"He kills Robin. I get your soul."

Although she had understood his intention before, it still chilled her to hear him speak the words.

"Not happening-"

"Of course, you shall be rewarded as well." She froze. 'What does he mean? Rewarded? Rewarded how?'

"Thank but no thanks," she snapped coldly.

Suddenly, the room went vertigo. A high pitched ringing rang out, making Raven cringe. The suddenness of its appearance made her loose control and a piece of furniture - not visible enough for her to know what it was because of the room's abnormal darkness - flew into the air, crashing against what sounded like a wall.

"Such power you posses. Why hide it?"

"Silence," she growled. Her black aura enveloped her person and tendrils of the aura reached out to him. This time, the darkness of the room seemed to move with him, and avoid her all together. Almost growling in her throat, she aimed for him again. "Stop moving, you coward!" her demon yelled. She allowed herself a second to compose herself.

"Yes! Revel in the darkness you were spawned from! Feel that evil you were born to harness and use to rule others!"

"Shut up!"

And for a second, she lost control.

"So, Cy, why do you think that Tall, Dark, and Creepy gave us Robin's and Raven's files?" Terra looked up, typing in the key safe code into the motion censored private filed room. She wrapped her arms around herself and neared the half robotic man.

"It is to keep their identities a secret, yes?" Starfire looked up from a thick volume - part sixteen of an Earth Encyclopedia - on her lap.

"It seems so, though I dunno how he got 'em.." he replied, not looking up from a computer screen. Beast Boy blew a raspberry, finishing off a plate of tofu and some weird concoction he had found from Starfire's side of the fridge. This time, the substance was actually digestible.

"He's Batman, duh! He can like, get the president's private phone number in the blink of an eye." He sluggishly dumped his plate into the sink.

"Beast Boy-"

"What, he can!" He swore. Starfire hid a giggle at the changeling's banter between his girlfriend and himself. Biting her lip, she closed the book and looked out into the bay view of their tower. Neither Raven or Robin had called them. Sure, the team had managed to make due without them. No big threat had managed to surface for the time being, in their beloved city.

But it still was not the same.

She hugged the book to her t-shirt clad chest.

Somehow, she couldn't fight off the sense of dread that something was really wrong. Really wrong.

"Glezienskem be with them…" she whispered, staring into the dawn emerging.

"...Christ, Robin!...you're scaring me,"

"No….we might not get a chance again…."

"Don't talk like that - !"

Robin shook the memory away. It left a small ache in his chest. He could still feel her lips on his. He swallowed.

'Pull yourself together. It doesn't do you any good thinking about that,' he sighed and lowered down a ramp to take a different intersection, the same path - though now the opposite direction - that Raven and himself had taken to go to Trinity. The scenery looking drastically different now that it was the early hours of the morning. Daylight threatened to appear soon. 'Anyways….she rejected you. Bad.' He chuckled ruefully and revved the engine. 'Not that you really had a chance. Face it, Richard. You'll only be a friend to her.'

Shamefully, he again remembered that he had been biased and wanted her in the mission. Maybe then, some part of him had wanted…more.

'You don't have it so bad, though,' he continued, suppressing a small yawn as his body made him aware of the soreness it felt at being in the same position hours on end. 'Raven hardly lets anyone in. You know so much about her,' a small smile appeared on his masked face, 'More than anyone else, actually. So…' his smile faltered but did not disappear, 'Even if it can't be, you'll at least be special to her.'

The sunlight reflecting off of the bike's surface and lights off of the bike- deeming in the rays of light - broke him from his distracting thoughts.

"You won't be so special to her if she's gone. You need to find her. And Gordon and the others. You'll deal with the kiss afterwards."

Eric glanced at the side view mirror. His skin crawled. He had detached from the Reaper for a few hours now. And he had started feeling sick to his stomach.

'Better not go back on your deal, Reaper,' he cursed the abnormal entity that had given him a second chance at fulfilling his revenge on poor Robin. He wasn't sure what distance away from the Reaper could cause him, if anything at all. His stomach gave a small lurch, seeming to tell him wrong.

"Mom?" he had begun to tiptoe towards their tent as soon as he had heard the stranger's voice in there. He grasped the flap that served them as the door and seemed to forget the busy and frantic performers making noise and speeding behind him.

There, hovering hostilely near his mother, was a stranger with graying hair.

"Mom?" he called again. Both his mother and the man turned towards the opening of their tent. Her mother froze, hugging her robe closer to her body.

"Dick!"

"You!" the man stood in front of her mother, as if to protect her from him. Robin let go of the flap and entered swiftly.

"Who are you?" he asked loudly, assuming the technique every small child did when he or she want to appear older and stronger than they actually were: talking loudly. Not seeming to acknowledge his loud voice, the stranger took a step towards him.

"Leave him alone!" his mother screamed, grasping his upper arm. The stranger stopped and glanced back at her.

"How could you!? You had a son with that man!"

"I love John!" she beseeched.

"Liar!"

"Mom?" Richard made his presence known again, coming closer and around to near his mother. Again, the stranger blocked him. "Hey! Leave my mom alone!"

"Your mom? No, you're incorrect, you brat! She's mine, not your father's or yours."

"Eric! Leave us-"

"What's going on here? Mary, we're about to come on-" The tent flap opened and closed, letting in Richard's father. Mary let out a little sob. "You!" The one called Eric stuffed his hand into his pocket and suddenly, protruded a gun. Mary made a run for the gun but he pushed her back. John made his lunge at it and the two men fought. Richard ran to his mother's side, tears threatening to spill. He coached himself not to cry, that his mother didn't need this. But a few stray tears managed to escape. He reached her and pushed away her pretty light brown hair.

"Oh…Richard," she moaned, looking up at him with apologetic eyes.

"Mom…"

"Mary!" John yelled, breaking the small bubble Richard seemed to have mentally created to shelter him from the hostile stranger. Mary awoke too and rose, wincing at her sore back. John gave Eric a surprise right hook and the stranger fell down hard to the ground. John, out of breath, tossed the gun away from himself and his family and walked over to his wife and son. "Are you alright?"

"Yes, I believe so.."

"Richard? Dick, son?" Richard looked up, wiping away his tears. "You okay?"

"Yea, dad…I'm fine-"

"JOHN! WATCH OUT!" the sound of a firing gun filled the tent and screams consequently followed, both inside and out. He spun and saw as his mother fall back down, his father yelling her name. Richard felt cold. His small cobalt blue eyes spun to watch the still smoking gun of the one named Eric, that remained in his hand. Eric's head began to slowly shake to mean 'no'.

"…Mary!"

"Mary! Sweetie!"

"Mom!" Richard came back to reality and stared in horror at the small puddle of blood beginning to seep through the vest of her mom's costume.

"No! Mary no!" Suddenly, men entered the tent and the Hercules of the Circus along with a few others, stole the gun from the horror stricken Eric and ushered him away from the tent. "No! Mary! I'm sorry! Mary!"

"Take him away!" His father yelled, supporting his mom's head. Richard stood his ground at his mother's feet, too scared to move. A man with a white coat came in a few minutes later. He said something to Dick's dad but he himself didn't catch the words. He just concentrated in keeping his eyes on the steady rise and fall of his mother's chest. As if, if he looked away, her chest wouldn't rise again.

Raven looked up, a little out of breath. She closed her eyes. Another memory. Another memory from Robin's subconscious. Now, now she understood his rage. Eric was over obsessive. And it scarred the man when he shot Robin's mother, bringing his obsession over her to a whole other level of psychosis. She raised her hands to wipe at the cold sweat that had perpetrated on her forehead from the nightmare.

'This bond is getting too strong. Soon, we won't be able to distinguish whose memories are whos-'

Her hands were stuck. She snapped her eyes open.

The first thing she saw were her thighs, and the floor. She was sitting on her feet. Then she felt the tugging of the ropes around herself as she tried to flex her arms.

"What the-?"

Cold hands suddenly wrapped around her head, their fingers touching her forehead from behind. A small gasp escaped her.

Robin revved his engine louder as he reached Gotham City limits. Clenching his jaw tightly shut, he rode through the eerily familiar slums that made up Gotham's underground network.

"Ah, ah, ah. I would suggest that you do not continue with your struggles to escape me." The cold fingers dug deeper into her forehead. She raised her chin in defiance.

"I thought you were a smart…whatever you are, Reaper. Mere ropes cannot withheld me hostage to you." He chuckled deeply and his mouth hovered near her ear. A cold shiver sped down her spine as the hair began to stand on end.

He needed a snitch. Someone from Eric's former human-only posse who could give him a tip on where Eric would normally hold hostages. And not just any hostages. The ones that would give him the highest profit. He glared up at the sky as he parked the borrowed bike against the wall of an abandoned dumpster. Only an hour of so until daylight.

He felt both time and his patience, running out.

"I appreciate the complement about my intellect, dear Raven, but I am aware that mere ropes cannot withheld you to me." He placed more pressure on her temples as he leaned onto her for support to sit up on his knees. She growled and leaned forward, to release herself. But the inhuman hands held in place. She couldn't teleport. Why couldn't she teleport?

"Don't. Touch. Me." His warmly uncomfortable breath hovered near her ear and she could feel the muscles of his mouth move against her earlobe. The pressure of his fingers on her temples increased. They were freezing cold. So cold. A small groan escaped her lips before she could stop herself. She could feel the coldness, the evil of his presence, seep into her skull. She paused, as his palms settled more comfortably onto her head. No. The coldness WAS in her head. No! NO!

She raised her head as he dug into her mind.

Robin suddenly fell forward on the rooftop of an old nursery, the worst possible pain streaking through his head. His gloved hands snapped to his cranium as he bared his teeth, trying with all his might to keep his scream from coming out.

"Shit," he cursed under his breath. God, the pain. It pulsated through his head, through the base of the back of his head, through his core. His knees rose by reflex as his body curled upon itself to plead the pain to go away. His eyes watered behind his mask.

The Reaper allowed a smile to appear upon his face as the half demon girl withered underneath his palms. Tears managed to leak through her dark eyes and add to the moisture on her face. His elongated nails dug more harshly into her ashen skin, blood managing through surface through.

"What was that?" A man of about forty and of Hispanic ethnicity looked up from their game of poker. His buddy, Snakes, looked up as well.

"It sounded like …like someone just lost five times in a row!" he shouted, pushing down his cards and reach over the table to reach his side of the poker chips. He stopped when Punos - 'Punches' in English - didn't chide at him for cheating.

"No…I'ma go check it out," Punos pulled out his .45 and readied to stand up.

"Man, it's probably Joe on duty up there." The still working Port-a-Potty flushed besides them and Joe came out, zipping up his pants. "Shit…"

"Let's go. Someone's on the roof."

A/N: So sorry it's over due. Reeeeeaaally bad writer's block. My bad. Well, here it is. Hope you all enjoyed.

PS - I FINALLY wrote my first Raven/Robin Citrus oneshot! I and Jinnx combined our brains together and made a story. Second chapter's moi's. And it's my first citrus! So I'd appreciate some feedback on this story's reviews! Please!?

Here's the link:

http: // www. fanfiction. net /s / 4798507/ 1/

Just remove the spaces. Please give a comment about it. Ta Ta till next chapter!