Disclaimer: The characters used herein are owned by DC and WB, not me, and I am using them for entertainment purposes only, not profit.

A/N: I promised I'd be back. This is a chapter I've had lying in wait for a few weeks now. I've gradually gone over and over it, little revisions here and there. I like the way it came out. It's my first time writing about Red X, so I hope you like it.


A Price On Your Head, Chapter 1

"Sir, we have just received word that the latest shipment was intercepted and all the men at the docks were arrested."

A well built man in his late forties, wearing a charcoal suit, sat in a leather chair behind a solid wood desk. He leaned forward, hands clenched and shaking with anger on top of some papers, and growled at his employee, "That's the third time in a row. Who busted my delivery this time?"

The hired muscle hesitated when faced with the question. Impatiently, his boss tilted his head to prompt him on. Finally, he answered, "The Teen Titans, Mr Dimagio."

Nicola Dimagio, head of the largest crime syndicate in California, slammed his meaty fist on his desk. He did not fail to notice the slight jump of his employee, whose name he would never bother to remember. With the appearance of calmness, Dimagio stood from his chair, buttoned the dark jacket of his suit slowly, and looked thoughtfully out the window of his office to the nightlife on the preppy uptown streets of Jump City.

He never regretted that he based his organization, his family, in Jump until a certain group of bratty do-gooders came to town, but now he did quite often. Despite his doubts, he would never leave this City. Three generations of his family had ruled this entire West coast's underworld from here, and he wouldn't stop that for anything, even Batman's prodigy and his super-powered lackeys. They couldn't drive him out, oh no. This city belonged to him.

"I want the Teen Titans dead," he declared.

"Excuse me, sir?" the other man asked.

Dimagio sighed in impatience at the incompetence. "I want the Titans dead. Spread the word. A million dollars to anyone who can bring me the dead body of a Titan. Ten to anyone who brings all five."

That ought to settle that. Even a group of superheroes can't survive forever when a whole city is trying to kill them. Especially if they're caught by surprise. Dimagio smiled smugly to himself. This pain in his side would be gone by the end of the week, and then he would have free reign to rule his streets once more.

He wondered why he hadn't thought of this before.


Red X jumped out of an open hatch and landed smoothly on the roof of the museum. There was no other way he ever landed, really. Sometimes his own skill amazed him, and he just felt in his gut he was born to be a master thief.

Checking the pocket that held the most important item from the night's heist, he found the necklace safe and secure. That one priceless antique would make him enough money to lay low for a while.

What a laugh. As if he would stop. He stole for the fun of foiling the police, the satisfaction of antagonizing the Titans, and the rush of triumph; he had no notions of relenting on his assault on typical hero-villain boundaries.

A relatively brief run across some rooftops and a stealthy, lithe climb down a rusty old fire escape, and he reached the meeting point. Two painfully suspicious-looking men in gray trench coats, one wiry with a hood covering his head, the other stockier and with more defined muscles, awaited him. When he discreetly drew their attention to his position in the shadows, they strolled with a casual, unconcerned gait in his direction. Without stopping as they passed each other, the two inconspicuous parties traded, a necklace for a stuffed Manila envelope.

Once he had a hand on the envelope, he turned to face his buyers. He didn't know who they were exactly, but figured they, like most of his buyers, would go on to resell the jewel in the Black Market. Red X provided the goods for the middlemen, but had no interest in personally getting involved in the Market. Too many police raids for his comfort.

Looking down quickly, he ascertained that the envelope contained his whole fee. Satisfied, he made a sarcastic tipping-the-hat motion, and made to walk out of sight.

He was stopped by something that had never happened on the night of an exchange: the buyer started talking.

"Have you heard about the hit out on the Teen Titans?" the hooded man asked quietly, just audible across the distance, over the sound of leaking from gutters and the occasional rat. Down town Jump City is not exactly a tourist attraction.

Red X slowly and deliberately turned on his heel to face the men. His masked face tilted in what the two Black Market dealers assumed was curiosity.

The other man continued, "The mob got tired of all their drug shipments gettin' stopped by those brats. Word started spreading last night. Anyone who brings Dimagio the body of a Titan gets a million. Bring in all five of 'em, he'll give ya ten million." The man nodded, his average features displaying how very much the trite information he relayed impressed him.

Behind his mask, Red X narrowed his eyes in contempt. He could spot an ignorant thug a mile away, and he could tell that this patron of his services, though apparently able to navigate the Black Market, had most likely never personally encountered the Titans, or any criminal or crime-fighter of even slight importance. This, Red X noted with distaste for the sloppiness of it all, was a man who could not hope to stay alive long in the criminal underworld. And X did not give a single damn about the man's inevitable demise in the poorly chosen profession. Rather than voice his scathing judgements of the man, he whistled. "That's quite a lot of money," he said with false enthusiasm.

The first man, who had a look of slightly more intelligence in his shadowed face, gained Red X's equal contempt when he said, "We just thought you might want in on it, since you've beaten them before. Everyone in town is gonna be pumping lead into those brats within a day. Good luck."

Without another word, the two distasteful men skulked away, quickly disappearing into the dark alleys of Jump's ugliest area. Red X teleported away.

Back in his own small apartment, the famous thief took off his mask and shook out his matted-down black hair. He collapsed on his coach and threw his commission on his coffee table.

A hit on the Teen Titans, eh? Well it was only a matter of time, after they busted all those drug shipments, before the mob would take extreme measures to get them out of their hair. The Titans had a habit of making themselves unpleasant to a lot of unsavory people.

Of course the idiots who requested his services would think he'd be interested. He was the only person that consistently beat the Titans and got away. Except Slade, but he's crazy, and no one likes to work with crazy people. Red X's track record meant that he could charge whatever he wanted and someone would pay it. He held the title of best thief on the West Coast. It would be all of America, if it weren't for a certain cat-themed burglar out in Gotham City- though he knew a certain bat-themed hero still tried relentlessly to reform her, with occasional results.

Regardless, Red X did not want the Titans to die. What fun would stealing be if the only things between him and the inside of a vault were a metal door and some incompetent cops? You can't get a thrill if there is no chance of getting caught. Criminology 101.

Other crooks did not have such misgivings, however, and would go straight for a chance to land such serious money. Which meant that the Titans were walking, talking, crime-busting bullet magnets. And if a bullet actually made good, where would he get his kicks?

Red X wouldn't lie to himself; he held another certain interest when it came down to it. He could relate to Catwoman's inconstancy as a villain, when certain factors were at play. There was, he would once have been ashamed to admit, a particular Titan who had caught his attention a few months ago when they battled during a simple heist of his. He was just trying to lift a highly guarded Baroque painting from a paranoid collector's vault. They had caught up to him on the collector's huge lawn when he had been making his escape.

The battle with the other four was as simple as always. He never even had to change strategies. They hardly ever learned, and their lack of adaptation was their downfall. The green one he stuck on the ground with goo; an electrically charged X brought down the robot; the red-head, though he considered flirting to piss off Bird Boy, got neatly and efficiently covered in X-shaped bindings and was reduced to rolling on the floor, struggling comically against them. The Boy Blunder he fought hand-to-hand, and he was on his way to pummeling the kid into the ground, until a black spark burned his wrist and interrupted their fight. Red X's hastily thrown binding hit its mark on Bird Boy a half-second later, as well as a net he tossed for extra security. Then the burglar turned to face the sorceress that he had never actually seen up close.

The girl had left her hood down for once, allowing him to see her face for the first time. X's face muscles relaxed in a jaw drop that almost had him drooling over her like a cartoon. Not that he hadn't seen prettier women in his life... but the superhero in front of him held an aura about her that seemed to form fit his own. To his reckless impulsiveness, she was all dignified thoughtfulness. To his addiction to adrenaline, she had graceful poise. He was playful and she was cunning. They weren't opposites, per se, but complimentary to each other. Red X could be called persistent to a fault, and he knew he would have to be to pursue her. And, god help him, he was going to pursue her, his mind forming strategies before even considering the futility of it.

She made the first move- not in a fun way, unfortunately- and telekinetically lifted a nearby streetlamp, trying to wrap it around him like a snake. He swiftly and predictably avoided it, teleporting behind her back just as the streetlamp tightened in a vice.

Gently binding her unsuspecting wrists together with a sticky X, he said suggestively, "Why don't you just wrap your arms around me, instead?"

She whirled, hands stuck behind her back, but nevertheless perfectly balanced. Swiftly, evident of training by a Bat, she jumped straight up and slipped her arms under her, knees bent and tucked up to her stomach for just a moment in midair, to bring her hands to her front. "Excuse me?" she asked incredulously, angrily, an unacknowledged blush tinting her clear, pale skin.

X smirked congenially, saying, "Aw, don't be like that, cutie."

"Cutie?" Raven repeated furiously, blush replaced with a flush of energy and indignation. With a black spark of her anger, the red restraint around her wrists broke and she took a basic fighting stance, managing very well to appear intimidating despite her petite stature. "I'm sorry, I think you're mistaking me for someone who would welcome your crude attentions. Azarath metrion-"

A large red X covered her mouth. Her hands went up to pull at it, and another X trapped her wrists together again. The villain approached her despite her baneful glare and intense struggles against his restraints. He took one of her trapped hands in his and kissed it with feigned gallantry, watching her flustered, indigo eyes, and parted, "Till next time, babe." By the movement of his mask she thought he winked.

As he flipped and dodged a birdarang a safe distance to teleport away, X glanced back and saw Bird Boy, finally free from his restraints, checking on her as her powers removed the Xes on her wrist and mouth- which she was able to do without speaking now that she could concentrate. X snarled at the boy as he pressed the central button on his belt.

The girl- woman, he corrected himself- fascinated him. Over and over he replayed the images of her blush at his flirtations, her flustered face at his kiss. It took almost no time after that for X's fascination to become a full blown, health-hazardous obsession. At first he just saved her for last in fights and exchanged some witty banter, incorrigibly flirting and trying to pull her out of her shell and into his courting game. He made her mad a lot. Sometimes she blushed at his flattery. Once, he would have sworn she smiled. He got a kick out of drawing out her emotions, even if she only showed him fury; he could tell, way deep down, she was intrigued by him as well.

That amusement was enough for a while. Then he began feeling a pull, like he really needed to see her, which highly disturbed him; he'd never felt anything like that before. Afraid it was a trap and she was in his head or something, he ignored the feeling for over a week. But after a few weeks and a lull in jobs, giving him no opportunity to see her at work, he caved.

Titan Tower's security was, he would admit, very impressive, the best modern technology could do. But nothing he couldn't get through. He teleported onto the roof, shut down the outdoor sensors. Then he teleported back to the ground, hidden in shadows, and looked at the rooms with their lights still on at midnight. The bright room in the center of the T was the living room, he figured. And only one other room was still lit. With a smirk, he grappled up to that window, ready to see his dark bird still awake but alone in her room at night. He grabbed onto the ledge of the window and peeked into the room.

"Shit," he whispered as he nearly fell off the building. "Wrong bird, wrong bird, wrong bird," he chanted as he climbed by the fingertips over and away from Robin's window. Stupid Bird Boy, up pacing, researching him at this late hour. He breathed a deep sigh of relief as he pulled himself up onto a ledge a window over from Robin's, glad to be at least out of sight of his obsessive nemesis. But where was Raven?

Lazily, X lolled his head to the side and aimlessly peered in the window on whose ledge he stood. With a start he realized that it was her window. What inexplicable luck, he smirked and looked at her. Though he had thought she would still be awake at this time, she was fast asleep, a book open beside her, several candles which had lit the room burnt or burning themselves out. X stood on the windowsill for half an hour watching her sleep. It crossed his mind that his actions were stalkerish, and his desire for this Titan was totally forbidden. But that night, he didn't care. He just watched her steady breathing, wondered what book shared her bed, mused on the nature of hero-villain relationships.

When he returned home that night, he decided he would never do anything so creepy again. But a week later he returned to her window. And every week after that.

Until now. The Titans would have no way of knowing about the new threat presented by the high price on their heads. And they would charge blindly into a fight with killers out for their blood, because they never seemed to care about their own lives as much as those of citizens.

For the sake of his amusement, and his interest in their Dark Bird, the Titans couldn't get killed.

He had to warn them. So help him, for the sake of selfishness, he had to do something that appeared good. He'd done work for the side of good a few times recently: helped the Titans defeat Chang, helped Bird Boy get his case back from Ding Dong Daddy. It was occurring too often and he got nothing back, especially since he lost his belt the first time- that little bit of satisfaction didn't count as a reward. So what if he still had a conscience?

What could he get out of this situation to make it really worth the possible sacrifice of his villain status, and the risk of compromising his identity?

Lightbulb. Red X smiled, a smirk full of mischief and suggestion. Oh, this would totally be worth it.


In her never-ending quest to uncover the deepest facets of Earth culture, Starfire announced that the team would be going to a fireworks display that evening. She didn't ask, but declared, and Robin, leader of their band of misfits, was completely on board with the idea. The city's annual Founder's Day celebrations always ended with fireworks. Robin saw it as their obligation to attend to support the city that had yet to issue warrants for their arrests.

That was enough cause to thank a city, as most vigilantes would know.

"Consider it a night off to celebrate our third major drug bust this month," Robin said to the team's reluctant empath.

Raven countered cuttingly, "If it's a night off, then why can't I spend it doing what I want?"

Her leader rolled his eyes as Starfire sweetly asked, "Please accompany us, Raven? We do not want to leave you out of such friendly activities."

Raven's sarcastic response got cut off by Robin, who said, "The whole team is required to go, and that's an order."

Much to the credit of Robin's gumption, and his extensive time working under Batman, he did not shrink at his second-in-command's glare and scowl. So, no matter how little she wanted to go, yet again Raven was roped into a 'team bonding activity.'

The heroes arrived at five in the afternoon at the park in order to find a good spot. Cyborg wanted to barbecue, Beast Boy wanted to find some girls to flirt with, and Starfire and Robin wanted to spend some time together. Raven wanted to leave. She found it quite unfair that only she did not get what she wanted.

Raven spent the last couple of hours of sunlight reading a book. Heavy and leather-bound, it looked like a creepy old spell book, but it was really a classic love novel. She was a romantic just like any other young girl. Sue her.

As the sun set, the team grouped at their table to eat Cyborg's feast. They all ignored Beast Boy's protests that they were eating his brothers and sisters. When they finished eating, Raven swept up the remains into a nearby garbage, and they sat together to watch the show.

"What's the time?" Robin asked.

"It's eight. Show should be starting any second now," Cyborg informed him.

True to his prediction, they heard loud shots seconds later. Bright lights exploded in the night sky, amusing everyone, especially Starfire, who cooed in innocent wonder. Raven's face broke into a very small smile of indulgence at seeing her friend so intrigued by explosives. Did she not notice that Robin used the same materials in battle every day? She shook her head like a mother when her children did something funny.

About ten feet away, leaning unnoticed against a tree, Red X split his attention between the Titans and the surrounding crowd. He didn't spare the fireworks a glance.

The moment he saw a brutish man, out of place in the crowd of families, sitting alone at a picnic table, pull out a gun and aim it at the unsuspecting group of teen heroes, he threw a fist-sized rock at the man's head. He didn't want any evidence that he had been there, so he refrained from using any of his suit's weaponry. The stone hit the would-be assassin's head dead on, knocking him out. But Red X knew that there had to be more goons in the crowd. The chance was too perfect to pass up: the Titans had been sitting ducks here for hours, and now they were unsuspecting targets, in the dark, in the middle of a crowd of innocent bystanders, with fireworks covering the sounds of gunfire. Anyone with half a brain, a gun, and a desire to kill the Titans would be here.

As soon as the rock left his hand, Red X sprinted towards the heroes. Raven sat farthest back from the group, conveniently closest to him. He silently rushed to the empath, and covered her mouth with his hand as he knelt behind her.

Raven's muffled protests didn't reach her friends' ears. She looked up into the face of her assailant and saw the skull mask of Red X. Her protests doubled under his hand.

"You need to put up a shield around your friends. People are trying to kill you," he said urgently.

Raven glared at him as his head swiveled, eyes searching the crowd. Suddenly he yanked her whole body back into his and two bullets whizzed past her face, the noise from the guns indistinguishable from the sounds of fireworks. Without pause for a second thought, Raven threw up an immense wall of black soul-self around the six of them. Several bullets that would have killed her friends slammed sinisterly into her shield milliseconds after she had erected it. A fearful shudder ran down the half-demon's spine at the possibilities, had she not been warned.

As the other four Titans turned, finally alerted to Raven's distress upon the appearance of her shield around them, all they saw was their friend, with terror in her usually expressionless eyes, in the arms of their enemy, and they were ready to fight, powers and weapons brandishing.

Red X's hand left Raven's face as both his hands flew in a stop gesture. Once released from his grip, Raven picked herself up from where she had been pulled onto his chest, turned to face him, and, with venom in her voice, asked, "What's going on?"

"I'll tell you once we're not under fire, so do your teleporting thing and get us out of this park," he answered in a rush.

"We can't leave! There are men with guns shooting up a public park!" Raven protested.

"You can't fight them here, there are too many people. They're only after you five, once you leave they'll stop shooting, so let's go!" he nearly shouted.

Raven glared, but saw his logic. With a chant and a swirl of chilling blackness, Raven transported all six teenagers to the living room of Titan's Tower.

Before he could take a breath, Red X was pinned to the couch by the same black powers. Raven stood above him and demanded, "Explain, now."

Red X smirked, back to his usual personality once they escaped the immediate danger. "Ya know, usually I'm not into bondage, but for you, babe-"

"Shut up," Robin growled. He stepped up beside Raven and asked her in his best serious but not angry leader-voice, "What happened back there?"

She shook her head, "I'm not sure. He," she nodded toward Red X still trapped on the couch, "came up behind me, covered my mouth and told me to put a shield up. A couple of bullets nearly hit me, so I did what he said. You know from there."

"Alright," Robin prompted his enemy, "you should start explaining now."

X rolled his eyes under his mask. Bird Boy is no fun.

"A hit has been put out on the Titans," he stated with boredom.

The Titans silently digested the news. They stood straighter, as if it would make them prepared for this new challenge.

Looking around at her tense friends with confusion, Starfire did not want to interrupt their thoughts because of her own ignorance of the term X had used. However, seeing her face, Raven answered the unspoken question, "It means that someone is offering money to anyone who kills us, Star."

"Oh," the Tamaranean murmured, furrowing her brows in horror and worry.

The brief exchange shook their teammates out of their tense thoughts. Scratching his head as he looked at the masked thief, Beast Boy queried, "So, um, dude, what are our heads worth?"

"A million per Titan, but ten if someone gets all five of you," he answered, adding sarcastically, "You should be flattered, that's damn good money. They whole city's gonna be gunning for you."

"Why are you telling us this?" Raven demanded. X happily turned his eye back to the pretty empath.

"Well, babe-"

"Don't call me that," she interrupted monotonously.

He shrugged. "Whatever you say, sunshine." His tone challenged her, but she refused to play his game. She looked down at him with apparent callousness, but her own anger gave her away as the restraints around X's abdomen tightened. Though short of breath, the cocky villain smiled.

"Get back to why you're telling us this," Robin demanded. Seeing his enemy in his base of operations made him angrier every minute.

"You really need to lighten up, Chuckles," Red X mocked, making Robin growl fiercely. "But that's a part of your charm: how completely uptight you are. And personally, I want you guys to stick around. You may not be much of a challenge, but stealing would be no fun at all if you five weren't there trying your damnedest to stop me."

"So you want us alive to make stealing fun for you?" Cyborg asked angrily, cybernetic fists clenching like they wanted to wrap around X's throat.

"Mostly, yeah. Did you think I was just being altruistic?" Red X snorted. "Although," he added thoughtfully, looking at Raven, "I would be heartbroken if Sunshine over there got killed before I could ask her on a date." The Titans could see X smirk mischievously under his mask.

Raven scowled at the thief. So he was doing this to continue his recent infuriating hobby of flirting with her?

"Sunshine, there's no need to hide your love for me in front of your friends. They'll find out sooner or later," Red X drawled confidently. Raven extended a tendril of dark power and smacked the cocky thief upside the head. "Ow," he muttered, "that hurts, Sweetheart. That hurt me right here." He gestured at his heart as best he could with his chin, since his arms were still trapped in Raven's restraints.

Raven rolled her eyes, but realized that the moron would never shut up, so in the interest of time she chose to let him have the last word.

"While we've got him here," Robin spoke with more than a hint of satisfaction, "take off his mask."

X's eyes widened. Of course he had imagined this eventuality when he decided to give the Titans this tip off, but he had kind of thought that the Boy Blunder would have more decency than that after he warned them about the hit and saved their heroic hides- or at least that he would have the ability to book it before they had the chance to unmask him. He struggled futilely against Ravens powers as Cyborg stepped up to obey his leader's commands.

"Stop."

The commanding voice came from, of all places, Raven. Cyborg paused and looked at her in confusion as Robin asked, "What? Why wouldn't we unmask him? He's a criminal, we can't just let him go!"

"Robin, he came to us with a warning. His motives may be selfish, but that doesn't change the fact that he saved my life today, as well as Beast Boy's and yours. Had he not warned me in time, my shield would not have stopped the bullets aimed straight at your unsuspecting heads," Raven informed them seriously. Her monotone held some slight anger and persuasion in it. She shocked Red X, who had never heard her say so much all at once. She normally preferred short, digging quips. He wanted to make a comment, but knew the best he could do for his secret identity now was to keep quiet.

Beast Boy looked shocked and a little scared at how close he had come to death, but Robin stood firm, angry at the defiance of his second-in-command.

"That does not change the fact that we as crime fighters have a duty to charge him for his crimes and prevent him from committing more," the leader argued.

The cool empath raised a smug eyebrow as she dropped a bomb on him, "Technically, O Wise Leader, since we have not witnessed him committing a crime today, and since he wears a mask, making it impossible to positively identify whoever we are speaking to as the same man who stole your suit and robbed almost every bank and museum in town, you have nothing to charge him with, and you can't arrest him."

Robin almost boiled with anger. He wanted to scream at her, but he knew she was right. Slowly, he worked to calm himself. Raven sensed his efforts, and felt proud of her leader for getting the better of his more rash side.

Deciding to grace him with a truce, Raven extended a proverbial olive branch, offering, "You know, he may be able to help us, too. He has connections we don't, and if he is willing to cooperate, I'm sure we can think of a way to solve this issue quickly."

Robin nodded, accepting her suggestion as the peace offering and apology that it was. He knew that Raven did not like to question his leadership unless she felt he was in danger of getting out of control. She tried to keep him and the team balanced, which was the main reason, along with her strategic skills and intelligence, that he had made her his second-in-command.

With silent steps of his steel-toed boots Robin approached his nemesis once more. "So how about it, Red X? Will you help us take care of this quickly?" he asked.

X looked at the Titans: Cyborg angry, Beast Boy and Starfire observing and on guard, Raven cold, and Boy Blunder uptight and serious as ever. And in the middle, he still sat trapped on their couch. This still had the potential to end very badly if he did not cooperate.

"How could I refuse?" he asked, only half sarcastically.


Raven walked slowly and serenely back to her bedroom with her cup of herbal tea. Under her arm she held a book, which she had read on the couch until she decided to have her last cup of tea and retire. It was absurdly late, after the fireworks, the interrogation of X, followed by tactical planning with Robin and X, but she really wanted to relax with a quick chapter before bed. Starfire, Beast Boy and Cyborg had all gone to bed after the interrogation; Robin insisted they rest, since he and Raven generally did all the strategics anyway. Cyborg usually helped, but he needed to charge.

When she reached her bedroom door she started punching in her key code, until a voice behind her made her jump.

"Hey beautiful."

Raven dropped her book in surprise and narrowly escaped spilling her tea. Angrily, she turned to face Red X, who continued talking.

"I knew you cared, Sunshine, but who'd have guessed you'd go to such lengths to protect me?" he joked. Raven realized that he had turned off the voice distorter in his mask. His voice was smooth and sexy.

Raven sighed, all hopes of peacefully going to sleep blown out of the water. Rolling her eyes, she asked, "I thought Robin locked you in a guest room for the night?" Her leader, though he had agreed to let X help them without arresting or unmasking him, did not want X to leave the Tower, or roam the Tower unsupervised during the night. They would be putting their plan into action tomorrow, and did not want to have to hunt down the thief beforehand. They didn't trust him, not really.

X snorted at the question. "You think I don't know how to get past the robot's security? You think very little of me, Sunshine. But don't worry, Sweet Cheeks, I won't leave you." He winked, or at least it looked like it through the mask.

Raven, surprisingly not angry, sighed in a resigned, 'why must I put up with this?' sort of way, and asked, "What's with the nicknames, Red X?"

Under his mask the infamous thief smirked. "Aw, c'mon babe, I just genuinely like you," he said, with feigned innocence and open, relaxed body language.

Raven laughed softly, honestly amused. "X, I don't think you know how to genuinely anything," she quipped playfully.

X stepped up beside Raven and leaned against the edge of her doorway. Slowly, Raven mirrored him on the other edge of the doorway.

"I genuinely saved your life today," he said, more seriously than she had ever heard him.

"Which I appreciate; but you did it for personal gain," she countered matter-of-factly.

"No, Sunshine, I saved the others for personal gain. You I didn't want to see get hurt," he said quietly.

"Why is that?" she asked. What interest could she hold for this man, besides being a Titan for him to fight?

"Hey, since I saved your life today," he diverted the conversation, joking once more, all seriousness lost, "doesn't that entitle me to a kiss from the beautiful damsel?"

Red X leaned towards Raven and put a finger under her chin, tilting her face up. She shook him off and smirked a little.

"I'm not out of danger yet. There's still a price on my head, remember. Maybe once Dimagio is in jail… Maybe," she said. Red X's eyebrows nearly reached his hairline in his shock. Using his distraction, Raven punched her key code into the pad on the wall next to her and walked into her room.

Before her door slid shut, Raven heard X call, "I'm gonna hold you to that, Sunshine!"

In the peace and quiet of her dark bedroom, Raven put her head in her hands and shook it like the fool she was, wondering what in the universe had tempted her to flirt with a criminal. With a huge sigh of exhaustion she decided she was sleep deprived, and laid down on her bed to get some rest.


COMING SOON IN PART TWO OF TWO:

"Here's the deal, Dimagio," Red X's mechanical voice drawled, "I'm going to take out the other four Titans for you, and you're going to pay me the ten million. So you see, there's no need for anyone else to be going after my targets and getting in my way. So how about you call off the hit and just make it my commission?"

Dimagio lounged easily in his leather office chair. He looked at the purple-haired, bloody corpse on his mahogany desk and smiled. Standing, he said confidently to the masked man before him, "Well you obviously have the skill to do it. So what's wrong with a little competition?"

Red X's demeanor suddenly filled with fury, and an X-blade flew past Dimagio's face and lodged itself deep into the white-painted wall beside him. X growled, "Because if some stupid thug shoots a lucky bullet, I'm out more than half my money. So I suggest you take my offer. No one else has the skill to do it anyway. Me, I can give you a satisfaction guarantee."

Under his mask, X smirked at the scared eyes in Dimagio's rapidly nodding head.

All according to plan, X thought.


A/N: To Do List: 1) Epilogue of 'Enchanted Mirrors' (formerly known as Un Nouveau Conte de Fees). 2) New chapter of my poorly neglected baby,'Fully Alive.' 3) Final chapter of this.

I have free time again, so these should be coming at you soon. Keep up with me and my fics, and I promise I won't disappoint.

Review, and make my week, 'cause I just bombed AP Physics.