Just to clarify some things: this story will follow a somewhat nonlinear narrative. The chapters will switch between present and past events, to shed some light on all the drama and tension going on with Jason, Star, and the mystery surrounding Dick. Hopefully the style doesn't get too confusing. If you do find it hard to follow though, please don't hesitate to tell me. Feel free to pm me and ask.
To miss geek, I hope this update answers your question. So far, all of the Teen Titans stories I plan to publish are multi-chaptered fics. No immediate plans to write a Red X/Starfire oneshot, but I do have a few stories lined up.
To P.P, thank you so much for the lovely review! I couldn't stop smiling when I got it! While I agree with everything you said about Jason, I think his feelings of inadequacy when compared to Dick (he probably feels the same with Tim and Damian too, but I digress) are a part of his character. But it's one thing to have Jason feel this way, and another to portray him in a way that makes the audience and other characters view him that way. It's the latter that I really hate, because it leads the comics and some fans to treat him like a poor man's version of Dick. JayBabs is a symptom of that, but I think JayKori won't be if it was written well. I just wish more people shipped it honestly.
Thank you to everyone who read the first chapter! And special thanks to those who reviewed — I really appreciate that you took the time to tell me what you thought of the story. Thank you so much!
Then
Starfire had been on solo patrol when it happened. The both of them had been so stunned that they had spent several seconds simply staring at the other, pausing mid-motion to regard each other in disbelief. She hadn't expected to see him again after so long — and, it seemed, neither had Red X.
In hindsight, the Titans should have known the thief was bound to reappear and wreak havoc sooner or later. As Starfire flew through the labyrinthine corridors of the xenothium factory, she couldn't help but wish she and her friends had been more prepared. Although, in their defense, it had been years since the last time they had seen or heard from Red X. Even Robin had believed their dealings with him, wherever the thief had gone, was over and done for good.
Starfire had no way of informing the others of just how wrong they had been. Her communicator had been lost early in the scuffle, and it was unlikely the Titans could track her whereabouts without it.
Just as unlikely as it was for Starfire to be able to apprehend Red X without her friends. While she didn't doubt her skill, she didn't doubt Red X's either. How could she capture him alone when even the Titans, as a team, had never been able to before?
But perhaps. . . .
Starfire threw another starbolt at the thief. Predictably, it missed its mark, but Red X dodged it by using his grapnel to hook a metal beam in the ceiling, pulling himself out of range. It wouldn't have been unusual, had he not made a similar escape earlier in the fight. Not once had Red X dodged by teleporting away, as he used to do before.
He is running out of xenothium, Starfire realized. The thief had been relying more on his skill than on the suit's special abilities. He had even stopped throwing his shurikens at her, and had only done so to distract her when they had first caught sight of each other.
The realization made Starfire fly higher, adrenaline pumping as they continued the chase at ceiling level. Perhaps she had a chance to catch him after all.
"Gotta say, sweetheart," Red X said as he jumped to another beam, not pausing in his pace as he ran. "This wasn't the welcome party I had in mind. Thought there'd be more of a challenge."
Starfire felt her temper flare. "I am not your sweetheart," she snapped.
"That explains the sour look on your face," Red X retorted, and her anger heightened as he managed to evade her starbolt yet again.
This was the first time Starfire had ever faced him on her own. Usually it was Robin that Red X drew out, that he taunted and goaded as the thrill of the chase broke them away from the rest of the team. Without Robin here, without the rest of the Titans, Starfire had no choice but to be on the receiving end of all of Red X's barbs. Flirting, Raven had once labeled it.
Whatever it was called, it was terribly annoying. His comments on her appearance Starfire could ignore well enough, but those about Robin and her . . . association with him were harder to brush off. They rendered her flustered and speechless in a way that his suggestive remarks couldn't. More than once, his jibes made her falter midair. It wasn't enough to ground her completely, but the thought had been planted, niggling and demanding to be seen.
The security guards, who had been trailing after them since their chase began, were drawing near. Starfire could hear their footsteps, faint but close. Close enough that they would be gaining in on Red X soon.
Red X must have noticed it as well, because he was trying to move faster, throwing sticky X's as he dodged her eyebeams. He was using what little gadgets he had left to get Starfire to move back. But there was only so much a human body could do without fuel, and Red X was fast running out of his.
"You know," Red X started, sounding as nonchalant as ever, "you've really got to wonder what sort of people makes and sells these things." He threw another X in her direction, making it clear exactly what he was referring to.
"Who they are does not change anything," Starfire snarled. "I will take you into custody regardless."
"As tempting as rotting in a jail cell sounds, I'd rather you take me out instead —"
Another starbolt, this time hitting his right leg and driving him back and off balance. It didn't stop Red X from running, but now he did so — and Starfire noticed this with no small amount of satisfaction — by favoring one side.
"Not that kind of taking out!" he called, taking his grapnel again to launch onto another beam. Getting hit, it seemed, did not stop his mouth from running either. "Really though, you've never wondered? Not even a little?"
Starfire had wondered before, but she didn't deign to answer. The thief didn't need to know it, and neither did he need to know that she had dismissed such worries as another Earth matter that wasn't hers to meddle with.
"If you knew even half of the things I do about this damn place, you'd think twice about helping them. Might as well save yourself the trouble and let me take care of my business. Chuckles doesn't have to know —"
Starfire cut him off with her eyebeams, only narrowly missing his shoulder as he ducked to avoid it.
"Whatever they have done," she spat, "the xenothium is safer in their hands than in yours."
At that moment, the guards had finally caught up to them. Despite Starfire's initial relief, it soon became clear that the men filtering into the room were not regular security guards. They were garbed in high-tech armor and were carrying rifles that did not at all look like standard weapons.
"You sure about that?" Red X snarked.
Before Starfire could respond, the men began firing. Red X had run out of gadgets, but his speed and his suit allowed him to blend in the shadows. Both he and Starfire were so high up that the guards were shooting blindly, and at first she thought the bullets that came her way were simply due to misfires and bad aim. It didn't take long for Starfire to realize this wasn't the case — the armed men weren't just aiming at Red X, they were firing at her as well.
Changing tactics, Starfire stopped abruptly and swiveled, turning her starbolts toward the guns below. Red X was quick to notice, and he wasted no time in leaping to her direction. He moved behind her until he was close enough to use her as a shield, but not enough that she could grab him without alerting his attention.
"What did I tell you, kid?" he said, and she could hear the smirk in his voice. "Can't trust these guys."
Starfire gritted her teeth as she aimed another starbolt. It was hard enough to disarm the guards with their numbers — a bullet had already grazed her shoulder, and two more had scraped against her leg — and she didn't need Red X's comments to distract her.
"They are following orders," she bit out.
"Oh I bet," he said sardonically.
And then several things happened at once.
"Watch out!" she heard Red X yell. Heard the sound of a grapnel gun being fired. Felt him grabbing her shoulders, using his momentum to move her away from her position.
It seemed that in between her attempts to disarm the guards and to keep an eye on Red X, Starfire had missed the red dot of a sniper's scope, aimed directly at her chest. Just as this realization dawned on her, she heard another sound — the echoes of an explosion, steadily drowning out the gunshots below.
Without thinking about it, without even planning it, Starfire had used her flight to stop them mid-swing, turning so that she was now facing Red X. She caught only a glimpse of his surprise, the whites of his mask widening, before she had landed them on the ground, flipping their positions so that he was crouched in front of her, her back shielding him from the blast.
There was searing pain, fire dancing along her skin, reds and yellows and oranges clouding her vision, and then —
And then there was nothing.
When Starfire came to, she knew immediately that something was wrong. She knew that it was not her ceiling that she was staring up at, that the hard concrete she laid against was not her bedroom floor, that she was not in her room or the infirmary or any other room in the Tower.
For a frightening moment she couldn't feel or remember anything, and then her memories flooded back, all of them at once. . . .
Panic rose within her, making her bolt upright. At least she tried to. Her limbs were heavier than she remembered, and her sudden movement sent a wave of pain rushing to her head. Vaguely, she registered the black cloth wrapped around her shoulder and leg, the hands easing her gently back against a wall, her vision blurring —
"Easy there, Sleeping Beauty."
Her eyes snapped open. Starfire felt the hands withdraw, heard the rustle of movement. She tried to sit up and turn her head to the side, but her limbs were not working properly, as though they were made of wax, and the movement took more effort than she expected.
"How long was I —" she began. Then stopped.
Starfire felt her mind go blank as she stared at the pale face, at the dark hair, at the high cheekbones and the strong jaw, at the lips curled into a sneer.
"A while," Red X said — because it was him, it could be no one else but him. His hand covered a wound at his temple, and dried blood ran down his jawline. "Long enough for me to try and find you a way out of here. Emphasis on the word try."
His mask was gone.
Though she tried, Starfire couldn't bring herself to look away. She didn't know what she had pictured Red X to look like, but she hadn't imagined he would be so . . . so striking. He was handsome, she couldn't deny it, but it wasn't his good looks that made her stare.
He was young, for a start, no older than she and her friends were. His hair, unruly and jet-black, had a strange white streak at the front, curled over his forehead. Scars, faint enough that the human eye would not notice them, covered his face, but the most prominent was the letter J branded on his left cheek.
But that wasn't what struck Starfire the most. It was his eyes, a bright green that seemed to almost glow in the dark. There was something not quite human about them — not in the way that Starfire's eyes were inhuman, but something stranger, as though they weren't quite real. Something eerie she could not explain.
"And did you —" Starfire tried, voice breaking. "Are — are we —"
"Trapped," Red X finished. He dropped his hand and the balled-up cloth — his mask, she realized belatedly — pressed against his wound, wincing as he did. "At least until your friends figure out where you ran off to. Wouldn't count on it happening anytime soon though."
"Why not? Surely they would have noticed the explosion."
Red X tilted his head slightly, so that the scar on his cheek was hidden in shadow. "They wouldn't. The explosion was too contained. No one on the outside would have noticed a thing."
"Then the people here would have reported to the authorities —"
"Doubtful," he said. "Considering what's been happening to places like this, I bet the guys running the joint are all too eager to sweep everything under the rug. Call it an honest mistake, dismiss the whole thing as an accident. Better that than the alternative."
The implication of his words quickly sank in, and the revelation almost shocked Starfire out of her daze. "You knew," she said. "You knew there would be an explosion. But how did you —"
"Because I planted the bomb."
"Why would you —"
"Didn't anyone ever teach you it's rude to stare?" he snapped suddenly.
To her absolute horror, Starfire could feel the beginnings of a blush spread across her cheeks. "I apologize. I did not mean to —" she broke off and tried to avert her gaze. "You are hurt."
Red X scoffed. "Nice save, but you're still staring."
She was, but she had forced her eyes to move away from his face and down the rest of his body, scanning for any sign of injury. "Are you damaged elsewhere?"
"You took most of the blast, cutie. I just got grazed by a bullet."
It wasn't entirely true. Starfire remembered she had hit him with some of her starbolts during the chase, and she could recall hearing him grunt in pain at least once when she had been shielding him from the guards. "Does it hurt?"
"It's bearable. Lucky for me, the guy's aim was worse than a stormtrooper's."
Starfire frowned. "I . . . do not understand. The men did not appear to be police officers and . . . please, what is their connection to a storm? I was not aware there was one."
"Er — it's a reference. To Star Wars." At her blank look, he hurried to add, "It's a movie. Well, movies plural. I can't believe you haven't heard of them — they're a classic."
"A series of moving pictures? What is it about?"
"Space battles, princesses, laser swords, some galaxy-ending family drama. . . . You should get Bird Brain to watch it with you. Make a fun date night out of it."
She stiffened. "The prospect does not sound appealing."
"Which part? The movie or the date night?"
"Your entire suggestion," Starfire snapped, glaring at him.
"Touchy, touchy," Red X said, eyebrows raised. "Going through a rough patch, are we?"
"That is none of your concern."
"Is your little lovers' quarrel why you're out here on your own?"
"I am here because I was — am on solo patrol. And the only quarrel here is between you and I —"
"Why, princess, I didn't know you felt that way. If you wanted to move to the next level, you could've just said."
It took her a moment to realize what he meant. "That is not — I — you —" she sputtered, her ire growing at the sight of his widening smirk. "You — you — you clorbag! You are worse than a clorbag, you — you —"
"Me, me, me," he said, with the same infuriating air. "Not everything is about me, cutie. Shocking, I know."
"Zolwarg tubeck plixing zarbmarker —"
"No need for that kind of language," he said lightly. "Are you that nice to all your rescuers?"
"You did not —" she stopped. It was true, she realized suddenly as she stared at her makeshift bandages. Bandages Red X had made out of his own cape. She bit her lip, uncertainty stalling her, and looked away. "I am — I . . . I am most grateful for your assistance. It was not my intention to appear otherwise, nor to repay your kindness with hurtful words. I am sorry."
A ringing sort of silence followed this, skimming over for several seconds before Starfire chanced another glance at Red X. He had turned his head away, his strange eyes cast downwards. "Don't mention it," he said tightly. "You did the same for me. Consider it a debt repaid."
"Very well."
The quiet stretched on. As Starfire kept her gaze pointedly away from Red X, her thoughts drifted to her friends. She wondered how long it would take before they arrived. Were they on their way? Had they even noticed her absence? Surely they must have by now.
Starfire didn't doubt her friends would find her eventually. It was fortunate she wasn't in any immediate danger from her injuries — and neither was Red X, from what she could see — but she didn't want to be stuck here any longer than she needed to. Not so much because of where she was, but because of who she was with.
Because here was Red X, unmasked. After all these years of chasing after him, of the enduring mystery surrounding his identity. Red X was clearly, understandably uncomfortable with it all, but Starfire didn't know what to make of it, what it would mean for them once the Titans arrive. Seeing his face, what he looked like under the mask, wasn't as satisfying as she thought it would be, and her mind burned with more questions than answers.
"What I don't get though," Red X said after a while, breaking the silence, "is why you needed bandaging up in the first place. Aren't you supposed to be, like, invulnerable or something?"
"Or something," she mumbled.
"I figured you would have been bulletproof, at least. I've seen you walk off more lethal stuff than this."
"It is . . . difficult to explain."
"Try me." Starfire looked up at him, and Red X stared back at her before he sat back, lifted one shoulder and let it fall. "We're trapped here with no way out and nothing to do," he said. "Might as well pass the time by catching up on you Brady Bunch. Unless you've got any better ideas?"
Starfire shook her head. Whatever she had expected from him, small talk wasn't it. "My abilities are tied to my emotions. What I feel can enhance my powers."
"And weaken it to, I bet," he said, sounding pensive. She tried not to shift uncomfortably, stunned by his perceptiveness. "Bit inconvenient though, isn't it? You could be having one bad day because — I don't know, maybe the pizza delivery guy got your order wrong or something. Then suddenly — poof — you're as powerless as the rest of us mere mortal folk."
"It is not as simple as that," she disagreed. "At times, yes, it is inconvenient, but I see it as no different from a human's, as you say, bad day."
"How so?" Red X sounded interested, his features set in a look of frank curiosity.
Starfire thought it over for a moment. "Imagine you had just discovered something most distressing. Perhaps it is the death of a loved one or perhaps — perhaps you have just learned that something you long believed to be true . . . was nothing more than a lie." Her throat tightened slightly, and she tried to ignore the wave of sadness that suddenly washed over her. "Imagine you had uncovered such unpleasant news only mere minutes before our battle. Would it not, in some way, affect how you fought? Can you say that you would have been as formidable in combat given those distractions?"
"Huh," he said, appearing to mull it over, but the effect was ruined when he went on, "So you think I'm formidable in combat? You're making me blush."
Starfire could feel her temper starting to boil again. "I did not say anything of the sort. You are doing the — the — the putting of letters in my mouth."
"Words. It's putting words in your mouth."
She scolded herself mentally, fighting to keep the heat rising in her cheeks at bay. "Yes. That."
"No need to be embarrassed," he said. Had he been anyone else, she would have thought he sounded kind. "I've mangled up the Spanish language a couple of times myself. I'm surprised you've picked up English as quickly as you have, all things considered."
Starfire wasn't sure if it was a compliment or not, but she took note of the piece of information — that he spoke Spanish, apparently, and with some amount of difficulty — he had shared. "I did not learn your language by . . . conventional means. Not through the way humans learn."
"Another Tamaranean superpower?"
"My people learn languages through lip contact."
"Helpful," he commented. "Who was the lucky guy?" Starfire said nothing, but she didn't need to — the answer dawned on him soon enough, and he laughed as he said, "God, of course. It all makes sense now. How did that even go down?"
Her lips pursed. "I do not appreciate this line of conversation."
"Ah, c'mon. It's the kind of story you tell the grandkids. You probably tell it all the time at parties."
Starfire turned away again, determined not to meet his eyes. "I do not wish to talk about it."
"Then what do you want to talk about?"
"Nothing. I wish to wait for my friends in silence."
"You're no fun," he said, laughter in his voice. "How about we play a game?"
She scowled. "No thank you."
"C'mon, it'll be great."
"Does it require you to do the talking?"
"All the best games do."
"Then I do not wish to partake in it."
"You sure? Because I bet there are things you're just dying to know. . . ."
The statement hung meaningfully in the air between them, and it made Stafire turn to him, curious in spite of herself. Red X smirked again, and she fought the urge to wipe the smug look off his face.
"It's simple enough," he said. "Like Truth or Dare but without the dares. I ask you a question and you have to answer to get your turn. No lying or skipping questions — you have to answer everything I ask and vice versa."
"That is all?" she said, doubtful. "What sort of questions can I ask?"
"Anything you like. Within bounds, of course."
"And you are the one to decide these bounds," she guessed, unimpressed.
"Not all. Promise I won't ask anything that will get you all tetchy."
"I do the doubting of that."
"Hey, I'm a fair guy. I won't even ask you about your boyfriend. Don't think I didn't notice how prickly you get every time I mentioned Traffic Light."
She glowered. "He is not my boyfriend."
"I find that hard to believe," he scoffed. "Everyone knows what happened between you in Tokyo."
Starfire froze, feeling a block of ice settle in her stomach. She tried to hide it, tried not to let it show, but the heavy silence that followed spoke volumes.
"Oh shit," Red X said, and he looked genuinely taken aback. "You guys didn't break up, did you?"
She fixed him with her most imperious stare. "Is that your question?"
"Depends if you'll answer it," he drawled, unperturbed.
It took every ounce of willpower not to look down, but she managed to hold his gaze steady. "To do the breaking up, there must first be something to break."
"Isn't there?"
"Your turn is done," she said pointedly, glaring.
"Fair enough," he conceded, but the slight tilt of his eyebrow belied his curiosity. "Well, fire away then."
Starfire studied him for a moment, his casual air and blase manner, how he leaned against the wall and smirked as though the whole night — their chase, the shootout, their current situation — was no more than a mild, if inconvenient, amusement.
"What is your name?" she asked.
"Red X," he said, without missing a beat. "My turn."
"That is not —"
"It is," he said, still with that cool, impassive look. "You asked for my name and I gave it."
She gaped at him, irked by his mulishness. "You know that is not what I meant."
"Well, tough luck, kid. You should've just said so." Then, sounding as if he couldn't care less for the answer, he asked, "What's your favorite color?"
Her eyebrows rose. "That is what you are asking me?"
"Is that your question?" he retorted, smirking as Starfire's jaw clenched in exasperation. "It's a good question. You can't really know someone unless you know their favorite color."
"Truly, I do not wish to learn more of you."
Red X gasped dramatically, clutching at his heart as though he had been shot. "You wound me, cutie. Really."
Starfire felt her mouth twitch into a smile, but she kept it stifled. "Blue," she said. "Like the Earth sky."
She paused for a bit, thinking of what to ask him, before deciding that any question of importance — his name, anything involving his identity — would most likely go unanswered. Within bounds, Red X had said.
"And what is yours?" she asked at last. It wasn't what she wanted to know, but she supposed she could stick to Red X's rules if he did the same. If he stopped asking such uncomfortable questions about Robin.
Red X gave her a crooked grin — not quite a smile, but not a smirk either. "It's really cliché, considering the whole —" he gestured towards his suit, at the symbol on his chest "— but I've always liked red. Don't really have a reason why — I just think it suits me. . . . You said Earth sky. Don't you have blue skies where you're from?"
"It is much darker there. A deep purple with pink clouds, both in the day and in the evenings." she said, and she could hear the nostalgia and wistful longing seeping into her voice. "It was not always the case, but I suppose it is still beautiful, in its own way. Mountains that go on forever. Slopes of deep red grass. Bare plains that shine silver in the starlight."
"Cool. Always wanted to go off planet." There was something like wonder in his tone, something like fascination, and Starfire wasn't sure what to make of it. "Your turn."
"Where did you go? That is — where have you been all this time?"
"Aww, I knew you missed me." His cocky grin widened at her glare. "It would be easier to ask where I didn't go. I was out of the country for a while. Never really stayed in one place for too long, just . . . saw some of the sights then moved on. Don't look back, is what I always say."
"And yet you returned here."
"Had some unfinished business," he said curtly.
"Why did you leave?"
"It's not your turn," he pointed out. "But since you're so cute, I'll give you this one. I needed to keep my head down and get away from all the super business. Couldn't do that here. It isn't easy, with the Brotherhood on your tail —"
"The Brotherhood?" Starfire repeated, sitting up so fast that it took her a moment to register the pain. Red X was immediately at her side, but she waved his hand away. "Why would the Brotherhood of Evil —"
"Ah, ah," he cut her off, wagging a finger at her. "My turn, remember?" Starfire made a face, but allowed him to help her settle back against the wall as he asked, "If you had a time machine, where would you go and why? And don't be a spoilsport and say away from this conversation, because that's no fun."
"That is a very odd question."
"But a fun one," he countered. "I'd go to the future — see what human race will get up to in a couple of millennia. If we haven't fought each other into extinction by then, that is."
"I am certain it will not come to that."
Red X let out a short laugh. "You've got more faith in humanity than I do, princess."
"I should. There are worse planets — worse people than your own."
Starfire couldn't help but think of Tamaran then, and of the wars and misery that had engulfed her planet and her people. She tried to shake the thought away, tried to remember instead the memories that buoyed her — her father's kind smile, her mother's sweet voice, her k'norka's lullabies. She thought of her siblings most of all, even as her memories of them faded and dimmed with each year, blurring like an unfinished watercolor.
"I think I should like to go to the past," she said softly. "Not to change it but simply to . . . revisit. To remember the good."
Red X scoffed. "Sentiment."
"You say it as though it is a bad thing," she observed, her eyebrows knitting together as she frowned.
"Isn't it?" A hard little smile was dancing around the corners of his mouth. "Dwelling on the past, on nostalgia — that's seeing the world through rose-colo — it's a weakness. You're lying to yourself — distorting your memories so you could pretend the past was better than it was."
"It is not about distorting your memories," Starfire argued. "It is about — about focusing on the parts that are worth remembering. To draw strength from it." She fumbled for the words, but she found herself speaking sincerely, earnestly. "The good things do not soften the bad, but neither should the bad spoil the good. It is a weakness to dwell on the past, yes, but so is to forget it entirely. Moving forward does not mean you cannot reminisce once in a while."
His face was expressionless, and while Starfire couldn't read his eyes, she could tell he was thinking quickly about her answer. It looked like he was trying to make his mind up about something, and she couldn't help but feel as though the question had been a test of some kind. Or, if it hadn't been, then it certainly was one now, and she didn't know if her answer had passed or failed.
"It's your turn," Red X said abruptly.
"I am sorry?"
"Your question."
"Oh," she said, willing her cheeks to cool. She had been staring at him again, she realized. Longer than she should have. "Why was the Brotherhood of Evil after you?"
He shrugged, seemingly nonchalant. "They don't take too kindly to deserters."
"You were part of the Brotherhood?" she shrieked, starting once she registered what he meant.
Red X scowled, curling in on himself defensively. "They were doing a recruitment drive, all right? I got curious, that's all. They were getting people to join in their ranks without telling them why. No one had any idea what it was all about. I figured the only way I could find out was by getting in on the fun. How was I supposed to know they were planning what they did?"
"I would have thought their name alone was clue enough," she said dryly.
He snorted. "Point taken. Sarcasm suits you, cutie. Never thought you had it in you."
She scowled at him, trying to suppress a smile. "You are most infuriating."
"I've heard worse."
"Of that, I am certain."
Red X laughed again, but it didn't sound as mocking or disdainful as it had been earlier. Starfire marveled at it, how pleasant it sounded without the voice modulator and his usual derision. "When did you get so cheeky? Wait, no, don't answer that. That's not my question."
Instead, he asked her more about Tamaran. About her people and her culture, about the sights and the cuisine, about all the little things from her home planet she couldn't find on Earth. In turn, she found herself asking him of his travels abroad — the places he visited, the attractions he saw, the things he did.
Somehow, amid their stories and anecdotes, they had made the unspoken decision to forego the game entirely. They simply spoke of whatever came to mind — simple, harmless things that sparked her curiosity and made her forget the divide that lay between them. Books, movies, music — they spoke of everything and nothing at once. Inconsequential things that didn't matter in the battlefield or their world of heroics and crime-fighting.
It was . . . nice.
Starfire hadn't realize how much time had passed until she felt the sudden tingling along her spine, the familiar prickling along her skin — the feeling that told her the sun is rising. Somewhere beyond the rubble, above the fragile barricade that protected them from the collapsed building, the sun was making its graceful upward arc, marking the beginning of a new day.
"The alternative," Starfire said suddenly, when she noticed how drowsy Red X seemed towards the end of his latest tale.
"Hmm?" Red X said, his eyes heavy and his voice tired. "What was that, cutie?"
"You said the people who ran this factory would rather do the covering up than make your — our presence known. Why is that?"
Red X didn't say anything for a while, long enough that she wondered if he had finally given in to his weariness and slept. "They're not good people, you know," he said at last. "The guys who make xenothium — they're willing to sell this shit to the highest bidder. You've seen what it can do in the wrong hands."
"I know what it can do in theory," Starfire said quietly, "but I confess that I have not seen it in the wrong hands."
Perhaps it was an effect of all his storytelling. Perhaps she had simply been stuck with him for too long. Regardless, she knew even before the words left her mouth that she meant them. She may not know what Red X had done with the chemical besides powering his suit, but she knew enough to say that he wouldn't have done anything that was even half as terrible as what she and her friends fought on a near daily basis. Starfire knew that this thief, this boy who had helped her friends in the past, who had saved her life, who had sought to destroy a corporation he knew to be villainous, could not simply have the wrong hands.
Relatively speaking, at least.
The meaning was not lost on him, and she could have sworn a fleeting smile crossed his face at her words.
"This isn't the first xenothium factory to go up in flames," Red X continued. "The past few months, there have been . . . incidents. Some corporations have been shut down because of some anonymous tips to the police and the right journalists. If the guys here know what's good for them, they would say whatever will attract the least amount of suspicion. A robbery attempt and the involvement of a beloved superhero? That's definitely newsworthy, and not the good kind of news either."
"Some corporations," she repeated. "What about the others?"
"The others? Oh, just unfortunate second accidents. These ones, though, took the whole place down."
"I take it you were responsible for these accidents as well?"
Red X inclined his head slightly. "What makes you say that?"
"By your own admission, you planted the bomb here. This was your unfinished business here, was it not?"
"Don't you think you're giving me too much credit there, cutie? Just because I blew this one up doesn't mean I did the same with the others."
"Did you not?" she said with a meaningful look.
He smirked. "Maybe."
Before Starfire could ask what he meant, she heard a flurry of movement, echoing loudly inside their small bubble. She heard her name, heard the voices that seemed both distant and close, and then she heard him.
Robin.
Her friends were here.
"Looks like your cavalry has arrived." Red X said, voice low and mechanical. He had put on his mask again, though it was stained and wrinkled with dried blood. "I'd love to stay and chat, but something tells me they won't be as open to playing catch up as you."
"What does that —"
Starfire never got to finish her question. One moment, Red X was there, leaning against the wall as he tried to stand on his feet. The next, he was gone, blurring and fading as though he had never been there at all.
His belt, she thought, realization crawling a trail down her spine. He had the means to leave all along.
But he hadn't.
For whatever reason, Red X had stayed.
What do you think? I would really love to hear from you guys. Please review!
Or message me, if you want — I'll be more than happy to talk about comics, ships, and all things fandom.