Looks in wallet Hmmm….I have about fourty dollars…but no ownership of the Teen Titans.

X-Marks the Spot

Chapter 1: Holding onto the Secrets of a Criminal

It was a plain day at the Titans Tower. Nothing unusual, Beast Boy had tried to chug fifteen gallons of processed tofu, Cyborg had blown up half the garage again working on the plasma cannon, and Starfire had once again discovered the joys of playing with the blender. But Raven and Robin were on the balls of their feet for anything unusual. It had been a mere week since Raven's father had almost destroyed the world and no one except Robin and her were smart enough to know that something worse was yet to come. They just didn't know what it would be. Then the alarm sounded bringing the both of them to dash for the T-Car.

"Relax y'all," Cyborg told them. "It's just a robbery report. Let's leave this one to the police and keep chillin' out here."

"Easy for you to say," Robin responded. "I'm going no mater what it is."

"I'm coming with you," Raven said following him to his cycle.

"You sure?" Robin asked handing her his spare helmet.

"I need to get out," she lied. What she really needed was reassurance that everything was alright.

When they arrived at the sight of the robbery, a plasma production lab, they saw a man running towards them.

"Thank God you guys are here," he said. "I thought I would go mad waiting here for help."

"What seems to be the problem?" Robin asked.

"I've been robbed three times now. The first two times, the guy who did it played Mr. Clean and didn't leave a trace of anything. But this time, he left something behind," he told them leading them into the building. Raven was interested in what the man had seen, but was even more interested in why a person would rob this factory when plasma was so easy to concoct, it was like a club drug. All you needed was household appliances and there you have it.

"Here's what I found," the man said tearing Raven from here train of thought.

Raven almost gasped when she saw what he was pointing to. It was an X engraved in a safe door.

"What was in this safe?" Robin asked quickly thinking what Raven was.

"Zinothium," the man replied and this time Raven did gasp, her fears reassured.

Robin and Raven were back at the T-Tower in about fifteen minutes. Before Raven could walk through the front door, Robin cut her off.

"You know what this means right?" he asked.

"Red-X, he's back," she responded.

"I want you not to tell the others," Robin told her.

"Why?" she asked confused.

"Red-X put that there on the third robbery to get our attention, I want as little of us as possible to know about this in order to keep cover. It's for all of our safety."

"Hell Robin, you act like he's killed. He's a thief, not a killer. He's not my dad."

"He's a criminal and that's all that matters to me. Now, I need to know if you have seen him in the past year."

This question caught Raven off-guard. "No, that last time I saw him was the last time you saw him."

"I'll be inside," he told her, "I have research to do."

Raven breathed. She had lied to Robin and that hard because, well it was Robin. He was a hardass that wouldn't quit until he got the truth. She also knew she had feelings for him boiling inside of her. But she had to control her emotions at all costs.

The truth was she had actually seen Red-X half a year ago. He had saved her life from a burning building. She had been hit with a piece of the ceiling that had been caving in. Knocked out she didn't quite know what had happened to her, but someone had carried her to a nearby abandoned warehouse. That someone was of course, Red-X. Red-X, the most ruthless thief she had ever seen had actually saved her. She remembered how calm he had been with her while he took care of her in that warehouse. She remembered everything that had happened that day….