"Maneater, make you work hard, make you spend hard
Make you want all of her love
She's a maneater, make you buy cars, make you cut cards
Make you fall real hard in lov"

-Maneater. Nelly Furtado

XxX

Frank, by nature, had always been a black hat.

Gun-ho, shoot-first-ask-questions later type of guy and it served him well in the environment he'd been raised in. Gotham was dog-eat-dog no matter where one was or spoon type of spoon one was born with, if one couldn't stand up for themselves they wouldn't live long enough to enjoy their supper. His father saw it in him when he was born, that was why he'd chosen that name him. Frank was the name of the main antagonist of an old spaghetti-western he used to watch, it was Fonda's first time playing the villain and it had taken the world by storm when it was first released onto the silver screen.

Frank didn't know if Gather House saw that same monster in him or if it was the close relation to the world's second greatest assassin that prompted them to commit experiments on him and, pardon the pun, he frankly didn't care. Not when there was an assassin dressed in a sinfully short kimono and a creepy grinning catmask to deal with.

Thanks to those experiments he was an excellent marksman, training made him good strategist, and a decent fighter. He was lethal at any range if he could just keep his head, which in his current state was an impossibility. Black Mask had driven him to the absolute edge, the assassin in accomplishing her mission had tipped him off into what the scientist that had worked on him referred to as the "New Moon phase." He wasn't particularly sure what it meant but he had a pretty good idea that it had something to do with his... temper.

The why, eluded him, but the over all effect was that it made him a sloppy brawler, which was great against untrained groups but horrible against a highly trained individuals. He wouldn't have cared if she were his only opponent for the night, but he had plans of taking care of Sionis before he could harm someone else he cared about. Improbable, but one always needed to maintain some semblance of hope.

Words to live by… even if they were just words that Mother Patrick would tell parents as they sold their children to the devil in white. He didn't care there was truth in that monster's lies.

None the less, he fought himself for some semblance of control.

The grinning assassin was crouched over the upper balcony where Frank had moments ago thrown Black Mask's enforcer from. Was he ticked that she had killed Sweeney? Honesty? No. Frank was going to let fate decide if he was going to bleed out on the clubs dance floor, but that was only after he'd given him Black Mask's location… which was an impossibility now that he had a bolt wedged between his eyes.

Sweeney had been his only lead, the other's had taken to ground once their boss interned himself at Arkham and Penguin had set his sights on the last bastion of the Roman's territory. Frank hadn't been in Gotham for that… his parents had moved out days before the event that would be known as the Zero Year took place. With Black Mask still in play, the skull faced monster was free to attack Cullen. Harper, and even finish off Joe if he so felt like it.

Now, that was a reason to get angry about.

It was something real.

Something the scientist Gather House could never replicate or influence. His rage may not have been his to control but his anger, his instinct, his heart were his. With that in mind, he shot up into the air fully intent on taking out his anger on the assassin. "I'm really digging the no cape look." She said in rather conversational tone.

Bystanders stood stark still watching with wrapped attention as Frank moved like a shadow through the air. They were either in shock of the brutal end to an infamous killer or were hoping that they would be the first to capture the images of Gotham's newest Mask. Frank observed as the muscles in her legs coiled, readying them to move at the last possible second

"What? No foreplay? No wonder they say chivalry is dead. " She mocked as she easily dodged his charge with a jump. It was as he had expected, needles to say he was prepared for when it happened. Seamlessly he drew his arms back, forcing the X shaped stars to materialize in both hands. Three in each, and as he stumbled onto the corpses of the Sweeny's guards he threw one hand at the still descending killer.

Frank estimated that two of they would dig into her right leg and the third would graze her hip. It wouldn't have been lethal, but it would hurt which, for the moment, was all that mattered. It would be impossible for her to dodge, unless she had a-

Before his very eyes Frank watched her fade away until she was just a green specter and then nothing. He was unprepared for when those powerful, bare legs suddenly wrapped themselves around his neck or the sudden shift in gravity when she used them to fling him out the very same hole he had just jumped through. He had barely passed the shattered mirrors when he realized that the assassin could teleport. "I come and go very strangely ."

Half as second later he threw anther handful of throwing stars at her knowing full well the act wouldn't do any damage but it would distract her from his other hand as it drifted to wards the x on his belt.

He teleported behind her and used the momentum of his fall to strike at her head. instead he managed to knock the grinning mask right off her face. It was then and there that Frank noticed a shift in her demeanor, it wasn't angry nor was it wild, it was as if she were finally taking him seriously. "Oh, you just might get that second date."

She had pretty eyes, Frank noted at first glance but upon further inspection, he noticed that she was a rather beautiful. Frank saw beauty in some of the worlds most dangerous predators, as such he was not disarmed by it. She struck with the speed and precision of a Talon but that didn't matter when he knew where she was going to strike.

He caught her wrist and squeezed forcing her to release the sai she was holding in her right hand. She followed through by slamming into his chest, knocking him off balance, and swiping his feet from under him with one solid kick. Before he hit the floor he teleported away.

He appeared in the other private room, where Catwoman had taken that low level gangster from, which meant that there was an escape route, if things didn't pan out. With an exit strategy in place, Frank ducked just in time to dodge a swipe aimed the junction between the miniscule space between where his helmet connected to the main chassis.

"You're fast." He commented striking at her guard. There wasn't much space to maneuver around which made things easier to engage the assassin.

"So are you." She purred, drawing her face closer. "but do you have stamina to keep up?" The very next thing he knew, Frank was being kicked down the steps leading down to the common area. The suit worked as buffer against the blows of the steps. By the time he reached the bottom he was scrambling away from a rapidly descending assassin, who in the span of a few seconds had ditched her sai in favor of a medium length sword.

Where had she kept it? Frank didn't know. He was sure she wasn't carrying anything of the size when they were fighting. There want much he could do against the sword, he couldn't risk it being sharp enough to actually damage the suit, and if it was he didn't want to risk being poisoned by the toxins that undoubtedly coated in.

With little else to do but evade and wait for an opportunity to strike, the on lookers were treated to a fascinating game of cat and mouse. The speakers were blasting a remixed version of Foxglove's original album. If Frank wasn't mistaken the song used to be Donna's Dream, the gentle melodies of Foxglove's signature acoustic guitar were replaced with random synthetic noises… his mother used to love that song. In fact every time she'd play it she used to talk about this guy she'd met at a party in New York a few years before she'd met his dad, and apperantly saved his life. It was Foxglove's first concert and she had died her hair a vibrant red… and it was the first time she had ever told her life story to someone else... something she never got to do with Frank.

Joe would tell him after getting custody back.

It was the reason that reason that his mother used to wear elbow length gloves all the time. Frank had assumed that she was hiding chemical burns but the truth was much more horrific. He didn't care though. She was his mother and no matter what had happened to her or whatever stories he heard, she would always be the strongest woman in the world to him.

…He could still hear her voice singing along those morbid yet beautiful words...

"Wonder what you're doing tonight,

in my cold place underneath the world

I don't breath or sleep

I cant even spit or weep

But I still love you girl."

Frank was so absorbed with the memory that he failed to notice that he had fallen into a pattern. Duck to the right, shift weight with the movement to keep the assassin's guard up, dodge to the left, while taking a step back. The killer in green noticed this and played along until she was sure that he had lulled himself into a false sense of security and then she struck.

When he made to duck to the right she spun around and slashed horizontally instead of vertically. He reacted quicker than the expected but instead fleeing Frank mode in closer with angry red beams of energy emanating from his hands.

The beams shot out faster than she could teleport away. Frank watched the assassin spasm violently and after the energy dissipated she collapsed.

He didn't bother to check if she was alive. She was either dead or unconscious and in pain, which pretty much meant she was no longer his problem. That being said he did pick up her sword. He didn't know how to use it but chances were he could learn a thing or two about how she kept it hidden in such a… revealing outfit.

People were cheering, too stupid to realize that he hadn't even sparred a thought about them during the entire fight. Frank walked over to sweeney's corpse and began rummaging through his pockets for any clues towards Black Mask's location.

What he got three thick stacks of cash about a hundred bills each, a cheap burner anyone could buy at a corner store, and a Wayne tech series four smart phone, older model better security.

Panic had the resources to recover the smartphone's GPS data, and if she were feeling charitable she would do it for free… Violet, or Panic as she preferred to be called, rarely did anything for free and even if she did it would take days for her unencrypt it. It was time he honestly didn't have, but he would make the most of it.

He sighed heavily, an action which the voice changer made sound more like a scoff. His hand drifted towards toward his belt, but before he could press the button and teleport away he was tackled. It lacked the force to knock him over but it was enough that Frank realized someone had jumped on him. Powerful legs wrapped themselves around his torso, and hands around his helmet.

For a second he froze. He had killed other subjects like this. A quick twist of the neck, painless and merciful. He wasn't sure if the suit had counter measures for that or if those were going to be the last few precious seconds on earth. He closes his eyes readying himself for the words of Gather house to ring out but instead of hearing Mother Patrick's voice Frank heard his mother singing along that beautifully morbid song.

"I wrote you a letter girl,

On the day I checked out

Said I hurt you cos' I loved you.

Was I wrong?

And the seasons turn and the year go by

But the dark continues on.

Close your eyes and I'll kiss you,

In the morning I'll be gone

And I wonder what your doing tonight."

Frank opens his eyes to find himself on the roof of a building two miles away from the Moffat building with a heavy rain pelting his face.

His face…

His face…

Rain was hitting his face.

"Now were even." The assassin purred in a husky voice from right across from him. Frank opened his eyes just as she threw his helmet back at him. She was grinning like a mad woman and stood as if he'd never hit her with the beams. "So, who are you?"

"Red X." The name came out before he could stop himself. It was unoriginal, stupid, and- why was he getting flustered? It was just a name, it wasn't like it would catch on.

"Catchy." She replied as she walked to the edge of the building. "You owe me a second date, Red, maybe if you impress me again I might just keep you." Frank was placed his helmet back in place, but before he could respond the assassin was already fading away. "And like the Cheshire Cat I disappear."

"I'm not sure how I feel about that." He muttered to to an empty roof, his voice was drowned out by howling winds and the roar of rain. There weren't any police blimps in the sky which spoke volumes of the severity of the storm… Harper was going to kill him and if she didn't Cullen would sure as hell take a swing at it. Frank pulled out the phone he'd lifted off Sweeney's corpse and studied the casing,

He needed to get back before the storm got any worse.

XxX

Cullen Row quickly into the hot shower in the Lawton's apartment eager to wash off the last two days. It wasn't enough that those bastards had broken into his home, beat, and humiliated him, they just had to go after Harper too. They were lucky that Batman had swooped in and put some fear into them because he shuddered to think what they would do to them with those knives.

His bruises stung like hell under the scolding water, but he kept himself under showerhead. Harper had always been the stronger of the twins. She would always defend him, even against their father when he came home after a night of drinking. She was braver too, rising to whatever challenge Gotham threw at them, but there lay the problem:

Harper wasn't Frank.

People were scared of Frank.

Row didn't carry any weight compared to the name Lawton. Lawton's had helped build the city through their stonework, the first police commissioner in Gotham was a Lawton, not to mention that one of the world's deadliest assassins was a Lawton himself. There was a reputation behind the name, one that often time he'd backed up with his fists.

That was another thing, Frank never threw the first punch but he always threw the last... Frank didn't hesitate to engage and often times Harper tried to emulate that.

One day she was going to meet someone who wouldn't back down… and what would he do then? He froze when they beat him, he froze when they went after Harper who had come back from reinforcing the Grid. The only reason they cut through the alley was because his Journalism Club was being visited by Vicky Vale, a reporter for the Gotham Gazette. He froze but Harper acted with no thought for her own safety.

Tazer in hand, she had threatened his bullies and defended while all Cullen had done was try to dissuade her from her actions. But they wouldn't have tried anything if Frank had been there.

…

…

"He saved me." Cullen realized, and he hadn't even had the chance to thank him…

wouldn't have the chance to thank him if it hadn't been for Batman. He didn't remember much from the immediate aftermath of the assault but he swore that for a minute Frank had a skull for a face, to which he attributed to the pain but as the day had passed the image had become clearer and the memory had not changed. He remembered being lifted into hard arms and looking up through half swollen eyes to see the white skull with a red x on his forehead.

There was a part of him that couldn't really believe that Frank was moonlighting as a superhero… it wasn't like him at all. Not that Cullen was calling Frank a bad person, it was just that it seemed like something brash, and if one knew Frank they knew he wasn't brash. Then there was Joe, if he knew Frank was hero, he would worry and Frank didn't like to see his brother worry.

Cullen stood in the shower silently in the shower trying to distinguish pain induced hallucination and reality. He lost track of time but was prompted out of the shower when his wounds stopped stinging and started hurting. He grabbed an orange towel that he'd brought up from his own apartment.

Frank hated anything orange.

Never mentioned why.

Cullen quickly dried off an got dressed in a t-shirt and some running shorts, he was about to close the curtain when he heard the distinct sound of a window opening in one of the adjacent rooms. Now the fact that there wasn't a scream accompanied after the thud of a window opening meant that whoever it was that come in through it was familiar with Harper's brand of security, which narrowed the list people into two and of the two of them Joe would never use the window.

So, he exited the bathroom intent of warning him about an overly exited Harper when he came face to face with the same skull he'd just spent trying to convince himself wasn't real just laying on the bed while Frank who was in the process of peeling of the top layer of the same suit he's seen the day before.

"Oh, shit." Frank said as soon as he caught sight of Cullen.

XxX

Joe had always been a white hat.

Selfless, generous, and often at times too trusting, it was why he gave up a promising career in medicine to take care of his brother after their parents had died. His mother had named him that in honor of the nameless protagonist of the first movie his father had taken her on a date. But it was clear from the beginning that he was no Clint Eastwood.

His mother had always adored and hated his name and he wouldn't know why until after her death. Her father, Joe and Frank's grandfather, was a monster going by the name Joseph Powers Junior. He was a depraved man that if Frank ever leaned his name he would undoubtedly spend years in Blackgate. Their great-grandfather was a different story though, he had used his remaining power to help spirit away their mother and help her build a life in New York after she had attempted to take her own. So in truth he was named after a good man

His brother used to be a very happy boy before the state had sent him to the Gather House… but then again watching your parents die at any age could potentially change his attitude as well, so he honestly couldn't blame them completely for the slightly antisocial tendencies Frank had developed under their… "care" but the change was rather marked.

The reason that Joe was at Arkham was because none of the other shifts at the hospital paid anywhere near as much as the Asylum did and they were in desperate need of orderlies. The plan was to make enough money to take Frank on a vacation and hopefully visit their parents who were still buried in Jump city.

Of course things never went as planned.

Black Mask cut of the skin off his face in an effort to 'liberate' him, which landed him in the infirmary until the storm passed and they could transfer him to Mercy. which for some reason was empty an the anesthetics were turned off which meant that sooner rather than later he was going to fowling in pain.

Look where being the white hat had gotten him, bleeding, drowsy, and unsure if this was some sort of punishment for some misdeeds.

Out of the corner of his eye a woman in a fine white dress and simply styled blonde hair stepped into view, she had a small beauty mark under the corner of her right eye that made her instantly recognizable. She was Samantha Vanaver, owner of Gotham's Grand Royal and heiress to the Vanaver family holding which owned more than half of the hospital in which he worked in.

Her companion, however he didn't have he slightest inkling towards his identity. With her was a man dressed in a black body suit and multiple daggers and golden goggles over his covered face, the glass of the goggles reminded him of an owls penetrating stare.

"Joseph Lawton." She spoke calmly, with a soft smile on her delicate lips. "I would like to present an offer that will ensure that no one will ever suffers the way you have, an offer that will purge this city of the filth like Roman Sionis. Will you help us save Gotham?"

XxX

A/N: And here goes chapter three, shorter than the rest but I felt I ended it well. Sorry for the delay. My computers Hard Drive died and I had to get a new one, I also lost a few chapters that didn't save over to my backup.

Issues made reference to in this story:

Death: the High Cost of Living –Issue 2. I used a nameless minor character from this issue. Her story was great and I felt like honoring her in this story. Also, Used Foxglove and her song Donna's Dream.

Mother Panic – Issue 8. The revelation that Gather House was working with the Court of Owls was a surprising one and sort of adds to the drama surrounding that will soon be revealed in the coming chapters.

As for a mentor for Red X, I am unsure of who I'd pick. Catwoman is great option but I would like to hear other suggestions. If you do make a suggestion please explain the why this character would be a good mentor for Red X.

Coldblue:

1) Maybe. I still haven't decided on who would be his mentor.

2) Dick Grayson and Red X do have history so he would be interested in investigating this supposedly dead villains resurgence. But Rachel Roth was never part of the original Titans lineup in the Prime Earth continuity. Arsenal was an he is currently with Red Hood and Starfire.

3) Red X in this story closely follows what happened in the Teen Titan's show. Robin created the persona to get close to Slade, he retired it and it was stolen. Yes, Frank's Parents helped create Red X's suit.

4) Harper isn't Bluebird yet, but she will eventually try to find out more about his past as they grow closer to each other.

5) Maybe.

And I want to clear up two things from your other reviews.

1) Warm Shadows.: the Old Man is not Shade. In the words of Mordo from Doctor Strange "Too many sorcerers."

2) Short change Hero: seventeen not thirteen.

Votes for the pairing so far:

Bluebird: 9

Raven: 5

Cheshire: 2

Hope you enjoyed, please leave a review and don't be shy to PM if you have any questions.

As always please check out my other works

Happy trails

Until we meet again.