AN: Wow, sorry about the delay on this. First I got caught up in other creative projects and school, then I finished the chapter and was too lazy to post it for like a week, ahaha. Anyway, thank you for the feedback so far, I hope you enjoy this next bit of the story.

Chapter One: Movie Marathons and Money Laundering


The setting sun shown through the large windows of the main room of Titans Tower, casting long shadows over the lone figure perched on the edge of the room's couch. He stretched, as he'd been sitting hunched over for a few hours now, then looked up and smiled at the view, before looked back down and frowned at the device in front of him.

Robin signed, running a gloved hand down his face and staring at the computer screen. He knew he was pointlessly torturing himself, but he couldn't help it. He had several tabs open, all of them stories about the recent rash of robberies committed by Red X. Several wondering why the Titans had yet to catch him.

The most recent had been when he was on the other side of town, stopping that mugging. The night had been relatively quiet, so it had only been him and Starfire out patrolling. Beast Boy was still a bit off his game anyway. He didn't regret being there to stop the mugging, rather than being there to catch Red X, he'd potentially saved a person's life, but it was frustrating all the same.

"Man, how about they try and catch him and see if they do a better job." Cyborg said, leaning over the couch and peering over Robin's shoulder at the laptop's screen. Robin jumped a little, then laughed, shaking his head and closing the computer.

"I know, I know, I shouldn't be obsessing."

"You wouldn't be you if you didn't obsess a little. Having focus isn't bad." Cyborg made his way around the couch and sat down beside him, giving him as gentle a pat on the shoulder as his large metal hands could. "Just don't beat yourself up over it. We're awesome, we'll catch him soon. We probably would've already if it weren't for all the other issues cropping up."

Robin shook his head. "Yeah, it's just aggravating. It's like getting my old mistakes shoved in my face over and over again."

"Hey, like I said, don't beat yourself up. We all know what you were trying to do, the whole thing's water under the bridge. It ain't your fault some jerk went and stole the suit." Cyborg leaned forward, grabbing the remote off the round coffee table and flicking the TV on. "Now come on, there's a marathon of dumb action movies and we're all gonna turn our brains off and watch it."

Starfire and Raven joined them presently, Starfire floating down to sit on the other side of Robin, Raven curling up at the end of the couch with a cup of tea. Eventually, much to an increasingly agitated Cyborg's relief, Beast Boy wandered in as well.

As Cyborg pulled their youngest member onto the couch next to him, Robin realized this wasn't just for his benefit. Cyborg teased him for almost being late, and Beast Boy snapped back at him good-naturedly, but his smile still didn't quite reach his eyes. It had only been a week or so since he'd had to say goodbye to Terra once again, and the team hadn't seen a whole lot of him in that time. Robin wasn't the only one getting old wounds reopened.

"Hey, Beast Boy, how are you doing?" He asked, leaning forward to see around Cyborg better. Raven and Starfire followed up with similar queries. Beast Boy paused in faint surprise, as though he wasn't quite prepared for the question. After a moment, he smiled, a little more genuinely than before.

"I'm all right guys, thanks." He said, giving Robin an appreciative fist bump. "It's hard not to be when I'm about to watch some quality cinema," He shot Raven a look as he said this, as if daring her to contest his claims. She didn't, smiling into her tea cup and saying nothing, "With my best friends." He finished.

Robin smiled and turned towards the TV along with the rest of them, the opening credits of the first movie of the marathon already rolling. There were definitely some emotional talks in their future, but for now they were content to just sit and enjoy each other's company.


Red X crept along a dark hallway, lit only by cracks of light seeping from under doors here and there, glinting off the tiled floor. Thankfully, his mask came equipped with night vision. Unfortunately, being able to see didn't help him not having any clue where he was going. It had taken him all day (and the day before that, and the few weeks before that), along with a lot of bribery, favors and networking to find this place, and now that he was here, he had no idea what he was doing.

The passage opened up into another room, like several he'd already passed, only much larger. There were some dim lights hanging far above, reflecting dully on screens lining one of the walls, as well as clicking gears and pipes running through the room. They barely made a difference in the oppressive darkness.

The thief paused halfway through the room, glancing around at all the machinery and wondering what it was for. He gave an involuntary shiver. The place was too empty, almost desolate. He shook his head and hurried on, entering another dim hallway at the end of the room.

He got about halfway down it before sudden light filled the hall, hurting his eyes. Red X hissed under his breath, reaching up to his mask and turning off the night vision. "Maybe I just should have knocked." He muttered, looking around uneasily.

"Maybe you should have."

The thief stiffened, whirling around to see one of the doors he had passed now open, the owner of the facility leaning against the frame and glaring down at him. Red X frowned beneath his mask. He was used to appearing suddenly and surprising people, not the other way around. God, this was embarrassing. He straightened up, swishing his cape behind him.

"You don't really seem like the kind of person who'd just casually let a well-known thief in to visit, Slade." He said, crossing his arms. 'Yeah, I just called you by name, I'm confident.'

"You'd be right, Red X, so in how many pieces would you prefer I throw you out?"

Red X resisted the urge to challenge the threat. He wanted a favor, best not to antagonize. He lifted his hands in a gesture of peace, "Look, I'm not here to fight, or steal anything from you, okay? I wanted to talk."

Slade looked unimpressed. He moved from the doorframe and took a couple threatening steps forward. "You're making the assumption that I'm interested in what you have to say."

Red X skipped backward in response. "Just hear me out, okay? You've got the resources I need and, this could even be mutually beneficial!"

Slade stared at him levelly for a moment, still looking unimpressed, but he didn't continue advancing. Red X almost sighed in relief when he finally said, "What is it that you want?"

"I need help, actually, to launder money. About fifty million. I can give you a cut of it if you want, whatever, I just need someone with the resources to pull that off."

Slade seemed to study him for a moment, before walking forward again. Red X stiffened, but the older man simply walked past him and gestured for him to follow.

'Pull yourself together, christ.'

Slade led him down a series of sparse hallways, and Red X was thankful that he wasn't still stuck wandering around. He doubted half of this place was even in use, and there wasn't a whole lot of indicators of what was behind the many doors they passed. Eventually they came to a stop in front of one of them.

Inside was what looked like a fairly normal personal office. In contrast to to the coldness of the hallways, the room actually had a certain warmth to it. A few cushioned chairs were placed around, it was carpeted, the walls were lined with wooden shelves full of files and books, and a desk was located at the far end of the room, upon which sat a laptop and a lamp.

Slade made his way over to the desk, sitting down behind it and booting up the laptop. As he clicked away at something, Red X stood awkwardly at the threshold of the room. After a moment, the man looked up at him.

"You can sit down."

"Oh, right."

The teen did, and Slade went back to whatever he was doing on the laptop, ignoring him for the moment. He began to grow indignant, before being struck by the surrealness of the situation. Here he was, with a famous criminal, both of them fully concealed in masks and protective uniforms, just, sitting. In a cushy office.

'This is weird. He might kill me. Before he was basically talking about killing me. No, it's okay now. Probably. This was a terrible idea.'

The sound of the laptop snapping shut brought Red X back to reality. Slade pushed the computer to the side of the desk and folded his hands in front of him.

"Ten million."

Red X straightened up in his seat. "What?"

"You'll give me ten million out of the fifty." He repeated, patronizingly slow.

"No, I mean, what?" The thief balled his hands into fists. "Isn't that a bit much, I mean, you already have plenty right-"

"It's twenty percent. I'm being generous to even extend my help to you, so I'd say that's more than fair." There was a hard edge to Slade's voice that made the younger man uneasy.

Red X put a hand to his mask, looking down at his feet. 'Okay, okay, that's still forty million. That is still a lot of money. I can still do everything I need to do with that much. God dammit, the extra ten would be great though.'

He looked back up at Slade, who was staring at him expectantly. "Fine, whatever, you can have the ten mil. Do we have a deal?"

"Mm, not quite yet."

'Are you fucking serious.' He thought, but didn't voice, because he wasn't stupid. Instead, he went with a belligerent, "What else do you want?"

"I want you to do something for me. It should be fairly simple. I'll deal with laundering your money once you've completed what I ask."

Red X grimaced beneath his mask, then sighed. "Uh, okay, I guess. No promises until I know what it is, though. Is it stealing? Because, like, I'm pretty good at that."

Slade actually chuckled, before leaning forward conspiratorially. "Not quite, but close."