A/N: Hey guys, sorry this was late! Life catches up with you once the holiday season opens up and there was no time to ...well, I'll shut up now while you get comfy! This one's a doosy with a lot of things popping up so I'm warning you now: be prepared and open-minded. That's all. Enjoy! ;)

Oh! And there's one more cameo! ;D

(The closer I get to waking up)

-!-

The city was dark with nightfall but many of the tall buildings still had their lights on inside. Above the people and busy evening car traffic, a young man was swinging between buildings and skyscrapers on the unbreakable line of a high-tech grappling hook.

He felt little fear with the ground far below him, his hair whipping in the hard breeze slightly in its gelled state. When he got close to a building ledge he let the hook go and dropped onto the roof. Just as he did, a black portal of energy opened beside him and Raven* floated through. In a good-looking, long-sleeved black leotard, blue boots and cloak, she pointed off in the distance.

"He's getting away!" she yelled over the wind. Richard took a step forward, wearing green tight spandex, matching long gloves, black steel-toed shoes and cape, over a red uniform shirt with an 'R' stitched over his heart. He clenched his teeth and glared through his domino mask.

"I've got him! Meet me at the rendezvous, and be careful Raven!" he barked before breaking into a sprint. When he got near to the criminal they were pursuing, the older man pulled out a gun and shot at him precariously. Richard performed a handspring before tightly front-flipping behind an electric generator. As the man went to chase him out from behind it, still shooting, Richard tossed a tiny, sharp-steel boomerang he had at his yellow utility belt, aiming at the gunman's wrist. With deadly accuracy, it knocked the gun out of his hand and was sent off the end of the building.

When the criminal looked back at Richard, he had already jumped out from behind the generator and was executing a spinning kick directly into the gunman's face. The man was knocked off his feet but when he recovered, both men went into hand-to-hand combat. The gunman used drunken-boxing and crane-style kung fu while Richard used a combination of aikido, tae-kwon do, and ninjitsu. Richard knew many forms of martial arts and they came naturally. But tonight, he was bested once and had his arm twisted and his ankle broken. But just when the gunman was about to get away, just when Richard thought he had let Raven down, a long rope glowing with black energy surrounded the criminal and tied him up.

When Richard turned, Raven materialised through the roof's floor with a look of concern on her face under her hood. He instantly grinned softly.

"Great timing, Rae!"

She put a hand on his shoulder briefly before flying over to kneel before the gunman. She glared.

"Where is Starfire?" she hissed, but all he did was laugh. Raven's eyes glowed white. "You think this is a joke? Do I look like I'm laughing?"

The gunman smiled sadistically. "Your attempts amuse me, young ones. But the truth will never be revealed. You will both fail."

Not wanting to hear any more, Raven grabbed for his face but it pulled away like a mask and nothing but a black hole was staring her. With a grimace she watched as it laughed back at her before his entire body materialised away in the wind.

Raven sighed after silence settled in, and walked back over to Richard, who was still sitting on the ground in pain. "We'll never find her this way," she said, "Or the others."

But Richard shook her head. "Yes we will, Rae," he tried to reassure her. "We know there's at least one person behind all this and he has a lot of power, even if he's hard to point out."

She sighed again as she bent over his leg and placed a blue, glowing hand over his broken ankle. Richard felt the pain instantly fade.

"But if he has so much power, why then does he carry gun? And vanish into thin air like that? Did we ...have to make him so ...easy?"

Richard rolled his eyes at her monotone.

"Hey, I just suggested how he might look like," he interjected, "we don't have to create him like this." But she shook her head and smiled slightly.

"No, I'm being picky. I ...like having to share Jump City with ...someone other than myself. ...Thanks, Robin." At the new identity, he smiled.

-!-

"I like the idea of a healing ability" she added as they sat on her bed. He smiled in the dark as their shoulders touched.

"You helped me since the day I ran into you. I ...thought it suited you to have it," he whispered back.

Rachel scrunched her eyebrows. "Are you sure you don't want any superhuman powers in the Jump world?" she asked quietly curious but he shook his head.

"No, I just want to be the plain human being I am. Only help I need are my martial arts, knowledge of weapons, tech, and tactics."

Rachel smiled understandingly. She finally told him how she was him in her imagination. He was a strong, agile, mysterious superhero she called 'Robin' since ...Christmas. He had no powers like he requested but Raven made sure he was covered in everything else. Robin was smart, inventive, resourceful and absolutely brave – the way she always saw Richard when he was determined about finding the truth.

And he was an acrobat, to his liking. Together, they were partners fighting to protect Jump City, their haven of mental security and freedom, and whoever had placed them in Arkham was threatening to destroy it. The gunman. But they changed his image every night.

So as they pretended to merely be acquaintances during the day, showing staff and other patients good behaviour and mental improvement, they snuck around at night looking for clues and tried to chase down their mysterious villain in Rachel's room. As Richard shared and saw it with Rachel, they had two lives but one common enemy.

And to him, it wasn't weird anymore because, like the mask he wore to cover the scar above his eyelid, being Robin empowered him, made him stronger in both worlds and gave him that sense of justice he always wanted.

x

It was April 14th, weeks since their outing, and two weeks since Richard or Rachel had stepped into Dr. Slade's office, and Richard was sitting with Rachel in the cafeteria for lunch. They had arrived earlier than all rest of the patients because quite frankly, they were the only two since late March to be appear healthy and so had the privilege of receiving warmer meals and larger portions as an advantage without the distress of rowdy criminals in their presence. Well, technically he was set to leave soon in May and as a treat, he invited Rachel to join him. The nurses agreed because their progress as of late together was so well ...not to mention the underlying obvious relationship blooming that the female demographic of the staff picked up on. It seemed wrong but, everyone kept it on the down low.

As they ate in comfortable silence, sometimes mumbling softly to one another about their day's activities (there was nothing else that they could talk about in public still), Richard watched as Raven tense in her seat.

"A-are you cold?" he asked like the first day he spoke to her. Raven, though filling out due to proper eating habits and teenage hormones, was still skinny for her age and he saw he visibly shiver under her gown. He took off his pocketless hospital sweater but she refused.

"She's here ...again," the purple-eyed teen whispered when her nurse took her tray and got up to throw it out. Richard lifted his spoon to his lips and pretended to lick it hungrily. When it was spotless, he glared his blue eyes into its upside down reflection. A head a blonde hair was reflected in it.

"Damn it," he muttered and dropped the spoon into his dish, crossing his arms in the process. "I thought if I brought you to the special shift, we'd be away from her for a couple of minutes."

Rachel shook her head and brought her gaze to him. "I know you tried," she began, "But now I know what you've been talking about..."

For weeks, Richard had got an eerie feeling from the long-blonde teenaged nurse he'd met twice since his stay at Arkham. He thought nothing of their coincidences since after the Kory-Crane fight out and when she spit insults at him on wash day. But ever since Dr. Slade suggested that Richard was eligible to have 'friend time' with Rachel, his "most wayward and difficult case", Nurse Tara seemed to appear everywhere more frequently.

He tried to joke with himself that maybe she was just a jealous nurse like Karen and the rest, because he was the only good-looking eighteen-yr old left in the hospital. When he warned Raven about his personal stalker, she didn't believe him.

"Her shift is always the same as our meal times. Are you sure you're not just being paranoid?"

But then he thought about all the heads of long blonde hair that kept appearing near their scheduled places to meet, that one time when he escorted Rachel to the bathroom when her nurse was running late, seeing her on the third floor when he was alone exploring ...not to mention the times he hadn't told Rachel yet when he snuck out of her room that night they almost got caught and swore blonde hair was fleeting around the corner of the hallway to the stairs...

"I told you," he hissed with a calm face so as to not attract curious faces. "I wasn't just paranoid. It was-"

"But what does she want?" Rachel asked, not caring if she interrupted his rant. She was trying to come up with any idea other than the terrible one she was avoiding.

"Maybe ...since we're both Slade's patients, she's just coming to check on us?"

"But that doesn't make sense. She's only a staff nurse, not an assistant one. Why would she have anything to do with the doctor in the first place?"

"I don't know, Rachel. I don't know," he sighed, "...I-Is there any way we could just drop this and talk about something else? I'm sorry I even brought it up. I'm so tired of being suspicious about everything."

Rachel lifted her head. She heard the exhaustion in his tone and smiled a little, the way she always did now. It was becoming more natural for her to more she was with him. "Sure, Richard." But as she tucked a long strand of black hair behind her ear and threw a glance at Nurse Tara one more time, the nurse was already walking away in a hurry.

With her gone, Rachel relaxed into her seat.

"So ...what else do you want to talk about? How's ...Mr. Wayne?" she tilted her head at the thought of the mysterious, rich older man who she'd seen many times over the years. Richard told her how they were family friends and it somewhat melted her previous icy impression of him.

Richard smiled in appreciation. "Fine, I guess. I'll tell you this joke he told me but the rest, I'll save for tonight. What time should I come by?" Sometimes Richard changed his sneak out times for assurance. But Rachel rubbed a cold arm and gave him a guilty look.

"Actually, Richard ...I was wondering if we could lay off tonight. Is that okay? It's just that I think I'm getting sick and I feel under the weather today so I'd rather just sleep early and through the whole night. Are you mad?"

Richard chuckled and shook his head. Then he reached over the table and poked her nose with his finger just as Rachel's nurse came back with her dessert. "Sure, no problem. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Mister Richard, please! Just because you help Miss Rachel doesn't mean you can her overstep personal, physical boundaries!"

And despite herself, Rachel giggled hoarsely for the first time ever, in anyone's presence.

x

Around 3'o'clock, Richard was near Dr. Slade's office on his way back to his room after having a harmless game of chess with a recovering schizo-teen from the second floor. She made weird noises with her teeth the entire time and twitched in her seat when the sounds of the people around them made noise. But she was nice, and mature like he was, and knew how to make wise-cracks at his comments. When she left with her nurse, Richard never got her name, but she left him with the distinct feeling like she was as skittish as a bumblebee.*

As he approached the psychiatrist's office, he heard voices. Dr. Slade's door was slightly open, again for the second time Richard noticed since he arrived. Except before, Richard couldn't stop to listen – he had a nurse and was never alone.

With a quick look around of the hallway and reassuring himself that no one was around, Richard tiptoed to the edge of Dr. Slade's opened door and strained to hear the conversation curiously.

"...she's improving so much, wouldn't you agree?" came the doctor's emotionless tone. He was obviously talking to someone else, "So much, so well. From all these reports you keep giving me ...I cannot wait to show her to ...she's only a few more weeks in, give or take a month. I can tell. I just know it."

Richard felt himself shiver. Who was Dr. Slade talking about? Show her to who, the court? Gotham? He felt his insides squirm irritably.

"I never liked her. The sooner she's out, the better," came a woman with a cold voice. "And what about the Grayson patient?" There was a shuffle in the room as Richard pulled back a bit. Two things – the first: that woman was Tara! He knew without a doubt that the stone-cold bitch in there. And the second: they were now talking about him! And something told him that they weren't having a normal conversation staff-to-doctor. Something felt ...intimate.

Dr. Slade spoke again. "No, not yet. Just Rachel for now. He's the focus, but Tara ...she's the priority." He chuckled darkly, something Richard never thought he was capable of. "Who do you think they'll pay more for?"

Richard's felt his insides frost over.

"Lover boy is plaings the front card and scraping up all the attention of this hellish hospital ...you see, no one takes even a double glance at her. Heh, because they all think, 'It won't last. The minute he's gone, she'll snap.' ...And who am I to make them think any different?"

Richard felt himself slump slowly down the wall but wasn't in the mind to stop it.

"So let the boy steal all the eyes away from her because when I'm ready, I can finally take her, it'll be so easy now to cover up."

"How so?" Tara said quite uninterestedly.

"Everyone thinks she on her way to a speedy recovery with that boy's help, Tara. But they also know she's basically just ...damaged goods. If eight years of therapy can't break her out of her psyche, what makes you think he can? But I'm a psychiatrist, I see things most don't. But I must be honest with myself. Even I didn't remember affection to be such a ...wild card. Heh, perhaps if I had shown her some in the past, she might have developed sooner."

"So, you make Richard leave ...then she reportedly 'breaks down' and relocates to Gotham state penitentiary for further treatment?"

"She'll leave sooner than he ...my clients are getting more testy with every passing year. But yes, that's it. I will leave whatever affection I should have given her in the hands of her buyers."

Richard's heart pounded. Something was horrifically wrong here, but he was too panicked to put it together in his head. Affection? Break down? Relocate? Clients? Sellers? All for ...Rachel?

Then Tara chortled. "Think they'll be gentle? I mean, she's not as young as they wanted so she'll probably handle more than an eight-yr old would but-"

"It's not my concern, Tara," Dr. Slade said smugly, "I'm just doing this society a favour, giving it what it wants. And Rachel ...well, she'll thank me. I'm giving her the chance to do something those Roths never could have given her. ...She is a special case."

And just like that, Richard bolted down the hallway, until he reached an empty closet. He yanked it open and shut himself inside it, and after heaving heavy breaths for a couple seconds, he punched the opposite wall in rage. Then with a sigh, he fell to his knees and grabbed his hair.

"Raven..." he whispered desperately. He was still too shaken to make sense of the whole conversation but he knew one thing and that was almost enough to throw him back into 'madness'. She was in danger.

"...and it's all my fault."

(The faster it chases me)

A/N: Okay so... you've made it this far. But before you go flying off your handle and trying to deduce like the detective readers I knew you are trying to be with my lame excuse for an angst/mystery fic, I just wanna say before you get any ideas, I do not support pedophilia! If that was where you're heading was going, I just wanted to point that out now! Mkay? Good! Now, I'm not telling anything about what Dr. Slade's plan is with Rachel but it is dark and will get darker, so if you can't stomach that this is starting to seem to border on M-rating themes, then you are in no way obliged or obligated to continue reading. But I hope you liked up to this point! And now going away from that for a moment...

WHAT IS GOING ON HERE? :O Richard's Robin, Rachel's in danger, Tara's in on it and Slade? Yes! It's all winding down! From here on out, there are only about two or three more chapters left so be ready! & Thanks for reading! Stay gold.

Whew! Wow, okay so le Mailbox:

crazynerd: Thanks so much ...Iris! :D Feels good to use real names (which btw, I'm so grateful to you for sharing with me! Be un-anon and join FF darn it! :D), lmao but yes, thank you! :) I've done the accidental skipping of chapters of past in myself too –lol and I always get frustrated afterwards because I find out something ahead of time and it ruins the previous chapter for me- but I'm glad it was easy to understand... and haha, those damn nurses! They're so shallow, thinking Richard's all perfect now when they wanted nothing to do with him at first! ;D Oh and I must say that yes ...in this story, Dr. Slade is completely in the dark about the patients' conspiracy – I thought it would be nice to give them that saving grace. Muah!

RxRFannnnn: Yeaaah! Thanks so much, my darling! I'm not a mushy let's-get-straight-to-smooching writer either. I'm more about the building passion and behind-the-scene emotional romantic developing and I'm glad you like that too. Love is too strong a word here ...especially when you think everyone is out to get you! ;) And thanks for enjoying my story so far – sorry I didn't update sooner for you!

SladeRavenFan: Merry Christmas too! ;) I'll toast to you opening holiday season with some hot chocolate for me and some ...other not-hated drink for you. Haha, and lol I seriously considered throwing more about the nurses being shocked or paranoid amongst themselves but then I thought – no comedy! Only pain. Lol, I guess just satisfy yourself with your own painting of them. Thanks for you review!