A/N: So, been looking over my story outline. Since the content of the last chapter was honestly supposed to be a very short intro to the main happenings of what is now this chapter, until X just showed up, and then it got all exciting and over-extended… as of right now this story is planned out in 17 chapters total. Not too bad, I think. It'll be the longest story I've written thus far (except for Fully Alive, which I have not forgotten in case any of y'all were wondering)… Anyway, just thought I'd give you a heads up. I promise, I'm out to finish this thing.

On to the chapter…


Stilettos Chapter 7

A thief needed a few key traits to guarantee success. A thief needed to be calm under pressure. A thief needed to be clever, able to think on her- nimble- feet. A thief needed to be patient.

One could call patience the most important of all a thief's virtues. After all, one could find an opening in any security if one simply waits and watches.

A thief could walk right into the base of operations of the largest superhero team on the West Coast if she just waits for the right moment.

And there was the moment.

As the windows of Titans Tower started flashing red as the muffled alarm began sounding, Talon, leaning over the ledge of the roof, saw the Titans scramble to assess the situation and head to the scene quickly. She descended from the roof, and hid in the shadows outside the hidden garage door at the base of the tower. As soon as the large garage door ascended, the sound and smell of screeching rubber hit Talon, and the T-car sped past her, followed almost instantly by Robin on his R-cycle, and the other two Titans flying.

It was as simple as slipping unnoticed through the door. Besides being discretely hidden, the door was largely unprotected, and she entered without incident as the Titans crossed the Bay on a moving platform of Cyborg's invention.

Entering the now dark room, the scent of oil and grease brought her back to days with Cyborg, repairing the T-car, as well as other vehicles. After she had lost her powers, Cyborg had broached the topic of building her a car or motorcycle in order to give her back some freedom of movement. It had been a kind thought, but nothing would ever replace flight for her. She wanted it back so badly it shocked her. Her abilities had always been a blessing and a curse- giving her power, but reminding her of her father and her own guilt for simply existing. But now she desperately wanted her powers back. Which was why she was breaking into her former home. She needed her things.

Spell books, meditation instruments, her mirror, components to perform spells, she had left it all behind when she ran. And if she was going to figure out what was wrong with her, she needed it back.

Sure, she had searched her books when she lost her powers originally, but if she was honest with herself, she had put next to no effort into it. She had been depressed, confused, and resigned. A small part of her, albeit a very small part of her, had been relieved to be normal for once, but mostly she just hadn't had enough hope that she could ever regain her powers to do thorough research. She would fix that now. So she didn't have time to reminisce.

She swiftly moved through the tower, only going through doors that were not mechanized to reach her goal. Not many, even among those who had been in Titans Tower before, knew that the Tower did in fact have stairs all the way up, in addition to the elevator that was almost always used. Additionally, in line with safety regulations, the doors to the staircase were all manual, so in the event of a power outage or fire, people who couldn't fly wouldn't be trapped. Raven chose this longer method because she knew if doors began opening in the Tower with all the Titans out, Cyborg would be alerted. When she came to her former bedroom door, rather than put all the effort to waste by opening the door, she jumped up to a ventilation shaft on the ceiling and climbed in. Reaching her old room was a simple affair, and within ten minutes of entering the Tower, she dropped into the center of the dark room she used to call home.

Her room looked untouched. Some pieces of clothing she had left on the floor in her scurry to pack laid where she had left them. She saw her reflection in her meditation mirror, which lay against the wall in a corner where she had thrown it in anger and grief. To even her surprise, it had proved unbreakable.

Had the Titans left the room untouched, as they had left Terra's? Why? It was a widely different situation from the geokinetic's. Terra had died saving them, trying to redeem herself, whereas she had totally abandoned them, without apology or warning. For all they knew, she could be dead now. Obviously they could see from her room that she had packed, but still, she had sent no word in months, and she had no powers to protect herself with. At least, that's how they probably saw it. She had seen news reports when she had first left, showing the Titans frantic to find her. She hoped they had given up by now. She had disguised herself when she left the city to avoid a trail of witnesses they could follow, and it had apparently worked, as no Titans had shown up in Gotham looking for her.

She felt guilty for putting them through that. But she would have thought they would hold it against her, blame her for abandoning them with no regard for their feelings. But if they had left her room like this… maybe they weren't angry. Maybe they didn't hate her for what she did.

That just made her feel guiltier.

Remembering her task, she shook off the unpleasant thoughts, pulled out a large canvas bag, and turned to her bookshelf. Choosing carefully, as she knew she could only carry back so much and she could not risk coming here more than once, she chose half a dozen books she thought would be most helpful. From a drawer she drew out a box of ingredients for casting enchantments- which required no magical ability, merely the proper spell. Finally she picked up her mirror.

To her shock, touching it burned her hand like a brand, and she dropped it with a gasp.

She looked at the mirror like it was a viper. This had never happened before. She could only imagine it had something to do with her volatile powers. She wondered if it was a bad sign that it had burned her, or a good sign that there was still power in the mirror that linked her to her mind. Picking up a nearby discarded shirt, she carefully wrapped the mirror in it, and put it in the nearly full bag.

She searched the room, wondering if anything else was necessary. She eyed a few candles that were specially made for certain types of meditation, but reasoned that she could find the like at any good Wicca shop. Taking one last look around, her eyes found a picture frame on the bedside table. It held a photo of the five Titans at a carnival in the city. It was only a couple of years old, but they looked so young and innocent back then. Or maybe she was projecting that feeling because she had gone from hero to criminal since the picture had been taken.

She picked up the photo and looked down at it for a minute. And that minute was the biggest mistake she had made since becoming a thief. Because she could have been long gone in that minute. But instead, she was standing in the preserved bedroom of Raven the Teen Titan, when the door slid open and Robin walked in.

Time stood still as they stared at each other. But Talon was quick to think on her feet. And lying came as quick as breathing.

"Hello again, Robin," she greeted with all the attitude befitting a thief. She smirked, her red lips stretching to reveal her white teeth. For all the world she looked as if his intrusion was expected and welcome.

Before Robin had even started thinking clearly again, she threw the picture frame in her hand at him. Reflexively, he caught it, and it shook him into awareness as she spoke again. "Nice little group you had there, huh? It looks to me like you kids were keeping this room special for the witch. Raven, was it?"

"What are you doing here?" Robin demanded. The anger she had hoped to hear in his voice was too mingled with confusion to allay her fears. She didn't want him to connect who she was and why she was here.

"Were you hoping she'd come back? Well, if she does, send her my apologies, but I just couldn't resist." She adjusted the strap of her bag holding the spell books and other items, both to draw his attention to it, and to ready it for her upcoming departure. She kept her hand low, near her belt. "She just had such nice stuff. Rare books like those will sell for a fortune to weirdoes into occult shit like that."

Robin's mask narrowed minutely, but Talon didn't know if it was in anger or suspicion. Without her empathy it was hard to know what he thought behind his mask. Whichever emotion he was feeling, she took that as her cue to go. With a swift flick of her wrist, she grabbed a small bomb from her belt and threw it against the floor-to-ceiling window of the room. The small detonation hurled shards of glass around the room, and Robin pulled his cap around his arms and face for protection, while Raven, covered from head to toe, except for her lower face which she covered with a hand, jumped out the window while smoke from the bomb was still blowing around. "See you around Robbie!" she called behind her.

Coughing in the smoky room, Robin watched the thief swing from the tower halfway across the bay before hooking onto a building on the shore and disappearing into the city. He did not give chase. Frankly, he could spot a lost cause, and following her through the city at night was one. But as he lost sight of her figure amongst the buildings of the city, he heard himself whisper a single word, without even thinking about it. "Raven?" he asked into the now silent, destroyed room of his missing teammate.


Talon didn't stop swinging until she was halfway through the city, and then when she finally dropped to the ground, she ran silently through a few blocks of dark, deserted alleyways and streets. Finally, when she was surrounded by nothing but old apartment buildings, most of which were falling into disrepair, she allowed herself to slow to a walk.

"Stupid, stupid, stupid," she growled at herself. "You just had to linger, didn't you? You just had to fucking look at the stupid picture? You couldn't just get the stuff and leave? Idiot! Incompetent!" Her self-reprimands quieted into angry growls as she walked passed windows with full window boxes of flowers on a building that desperately needed a paint. She turned a corner to get out of the street, and leaned against the old brick building.

She was in the middle of considering the merit of just sinking down to sit on the ground when a voice shocked her into a standing, fighting position.

"This isn't really a good area to target, you know. No one around here has any money to steal," the familiar mechanical voice said.

She looked up to find Red X hunched down and looking at her from the roof of the three-story building next to the one she had been leaning against. Staying standing, but lowering her arms from her fighting stance, she looked up at him and said, "I'm not here to steal anything. I already hit my mark tonight."

"Oh?" He tilted his head, and didn't ask her what her mark had been. She was grateful, but also not surprised. Thieves, though competitive and territorial, understood that there are certain boundaries, and one does not simply ask another thief where they had just had a job. He did ask, "Then what are you doing here?"

She considered answering truthfully, and decided there was little harm in sharing some information. "Not much," she said. "Just taking a pause. I just had an encounter with Robin, and I kind of ended up here."

He considered that for a moment. Then she asked, in a light voice, "So why are you hanging around here?"

"Oh, I live around here." He slipped off the building, softening the fall with a quick roll the brought him a bit closer than she would have liked. He leaned his shoulder against the wall of the same building her back was to, making her turn to face him, only a foot of space between them.

"Around here?" she repeated incredulously. "Surely with your income you could stay somewhere nicer?"

He shrugged. "I like to keep a low profile. Like you said, I can afford the best, so who would expect a master thief to slum it."

She snorted at his self-description. He acted offended for a moment. Then, leaning his head towards her as if confiding in her, he says, "You know, my place is actually very nice on the inside. You should see it some time."

He leaned even closer and gently put his hand under her chin. "Like maybe right now," he suggests.

Surprised by his actions, and maybe just a little enticed by the masculine scent around him, the female thief said nothing for a moment. Trying to seem unaffected, she raised a brow, putting on her 'unimpressed' face.

The silence stretched out a few more seconds before he snorted, pushing her chin a little as he removed his hand and took a step back. His sudden movement made Talon adjust her feet for balance, and she knew Red X had noticed.

"Still underwhelmed, Chickee?" he asked with a laugh. She resisted a blush as she felt the charge in the atmosphere that came right before his teleportation.

She held her ground with her chin high as he disappeared. As soon as he was gone, she allowed herself to lean back against the wall and roll her eyes with a dramatic groan. She had had far too much of men for tonight. Maybe when she got back to her apartment she would call Selina.

Or maybe she would just go right to sleep. Yeah, sleep sounded good.


A/N: Thanks for reading, and being patient! Special thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter! Please leave me your thoughts on this one with a review!

A/N part two: Just went back and fixed some truly unfortunate sentences I had the gall to present y'all with. Yeah, sorry about that. 'swing on a swing' indeed. I'm embarrassed. Anyway, I finish my freshman year of college in a month and a half (holy crap, holy crap, holy crap) so you can probably anticipate me updating towards late May.

Love from,

Demo