Chapter 10: Bound by Repentance

Raven's heart felt like it lurched at the sight of him, with Red X looking downright pitiful in his current state. His clothes were torn and tattered, his cloak had been ripped apart in order to make a sling for his injured arm, which he cradled to his chest as though he was in constant pain. The oxygen mask he wore was filthy, with Raven having a little difficulty seeing his face from beyond the pane of dirtied plastic. She couldn't imagine the air to be all that healthy either… even if it did come from an oxygen generator, the air was still being filtered through a system that was never cleaned in Azar knows how long.

Red X's injured form was made all the more pronounced by the slightly sagging portions of his uniform, with parts of the advanced fabric crinkling and places where the fabric seemed unable to cling onto him like a second skin. It was slight, but the reduced muscle mass was noticeable to her. When had he last eaten?

She took one disbelieving step towards him, a hand reaching out to touch his shoulder. The action had X tensing, an arm lashing out to swing the x-blade haphazardly in her direction. "I said get away!"

Raven flinched at the pure terror in his voice, the tremor in his throat clear to her despite the garbled noise emanating from the damaged voice modulator. The mixture of relief and guilt in her chest had her clenching her fists at her sides, the action hidden by the confines of her cloak.

Red X was alive… alive! Her grave sin suddenly seemed much lesser; her crime of murder now replaced with mere assault. A terrible assault that left him severely injured and left to die in an underground cavern, granted, but it was leagues better than him killed by her hand.

It was clear X had suffered though. Severely. The pain he was experiencing was obvious, and it didn't take an expert to guess that at least some of his wounds were infected. It made her heart ache, her hands coming out raised in a peaceful gesture while she forced her mouth to speak. She even attempted a smile. "I'm here to help. Promise."

X's shoulders hunched at her words, his form frozen as if he didn't believe she would actually deign to speak to him. But she could feel his skepticism, and he pressed himself closer to the wall as he held his weapon in front of him. "Like I'd believe that bullshit. You're here to finish what you started."

Raven mulled over her words, her tone coming out as calm as she could make it. "If that was true, I'd have finished you off by now. It wouldn't take much for me to disarm you, and you aren't in much of a position to defend yourself."

Looking back on it, she was sure her smile seemed menacing or even mocking. Even if the attempt resulted in nothing more than a quirk on the corner of her lips.

X stiffened where he sat and raised his blade, his modulator making odd noises as let out a few coughs. Was he ill? "I wouldn't put it past you to play with your food. But I won't make easy for you. I refuse." He spat the last part out with conviction, practically hissing the words out into the world.

He made a slight readjustment to his weapon, the crisscrossed blade lowering a small fraction as he leaned against the wall. If it wasn't for his prior words, she would have believed that he was relaxing. But now the blade seemed especially angled to make a quick slice at himself, the blade now seeming to be in the prime position to cut through his neck…

She had no idea if he would actually do that to himself, but the mere idea of it had her smile dropping, her voice came out with a tinge of desperation. "I swear I'm not here to hurt you!"

She imagined him sneering beneath his mask, his hand putting increased pressure on his weapon. Her eyes quickly honed in on the flex of his muscles as he drew the blade back towards himself. Was he trying to gather strength to stab her or himself?

She moved before she could stop herself.

In a movement that seemed all too predatory, she restrained him in the blink of an eye, his hand firmly encased in an iron grip. She had his arm pressed uncomfortably against the wall, and Red X seemed absolutely frantic at the fact.

His breaths came out through the mask as a series of crackles and pops, and she could practically taste his fear. As pressed up against him as she was, his fluttering heart sounded like a fast-paced drum, and she could feel his wrist muscles coiling beneath the confines of his glove.

Did he think she was going to break his other arm? That she was going to make a move for his neck again?

She'd be lying if she said she wasn't capable. Every time she entered his presence, she was forcefully made aware of how delicately human he was. It would be so easy to tear into him, the resistant fibers of his suit seemed like a flimsy defense in her presence.

But she was no longer the equivalent of a starving beast. She had no urge to maul or sink her teeth into whoever she came across… not desperately, anyway. Her thumb traced over his pulse, her skin taking in the smooth texture of his grey gloves as she tried to gain a new understanding of her strength. She wasn't pressing her fingers into him with an unnatural force, she noticed, her previous experience with the Slade double making her worry she was incapable of gently holding things.

His wrist wasn't broken, nor did it appear to be majorly damaged. Did she bruise his skin? It was definitely possible. She came to her senses when Red X bit out a curse, and she suddenly realized that he had been struggling the entire time, his legs make awkward movements as he tried to gain enough momentum to push her off.

"Just get it over with, damnit!", he roared.

"I said I'm not here to hurt you!", Raven reiterated, sounding altogether desperate.

"Bullshit!"

She grit her teeth as he increased his efforts, the action tearing open a wound in some place she couldn't see. The smell of blood immediately reached her nose, and partly in fear of what a harsher grip would do to him, she brought her powers down to bear. Red X was encased in a black aura, the restraint so total that he couldn't even get another word out.

Her voice came out firmer: "I said I'm here to help."

Her hands wandered to his injured arm, the soft glow of her healing ability seeming like a beacon in the dark room. For a while, Red X could only hear the sound of broken machinery and creaking metal, his compelled stillness allowing him to focus on something other than the mounting terror in his body.

His pain was dispelled quickly but surely, his throbbing arm reduced to a dull ache as Raven continued her work. When she determined he was no longer struggling, she released her etheric grip over his head, the black aura dissolving before his eyes as his neck tested the newfound freedom.

There was something in him telling him to run or struggle, the petite teen in front of him invoking a primal sort of fear in the back of his head now that he knew just how dangerous she could be. It was almost like being in close contact with a panther or some other big cat, the creature so capable of mauling or killing him that he couldn't help but feel an immense sense of unease.

Raven's free hand was roaming over his chest, her fingers trying to delicately probe and prod at any place she suspected was injured. He obstinately tried to keep himself as motionless as possible, refusing to move even when Raven touched upon a cracked rib.

She seemed to realize she hit an injured spot anyway. Apparently, his body gave her some sort of sign regardless of his attempts to conceal it. What did she hear from his body, he wondered? And was she somehow able to feel the damaged tissue hiding just behind his bruised skin?

Her eyes gave an unnatural red glow, her irises thinned into tiny slits as she put everything she had into detecting his injuries. It seemed she was enthralled with observing his body, her eyes and ears taking note of every breath and natural flex he made, no matter how subtle.

His life was very much in her hands, despite his conviction, and the realization had his head rolling back to make a slight thunk on the wall.

When one was clamped in the jaws of a panther, why bother resisting?

"You're still scared.", she noted, her voice lacking its former sense of desperation.

"Did you expect otherwise?", he tiredly replied. The sudden rush of energy he felt when he heard her fighting in the cavern had since depleted. The sound of the droids being destroyed had invoked images of a rampaging monster, the shrill sound of metal torn apart awakening him from his injured slumber.

He honestly thought it was a fever dream when he was dragged away, the half-ruined face of Slade hovering over him as the oxygen mask was placed over his face. The static-filled eye dominated his memory, and for those first few hours of consciousness, he honestly thought he was in some sort of bad oxygen-deprived nightmare.

But the injuries proved to be real enough when he touched them, and flashes of memories came back unbidden. Pain, fangs, the feeling of helplessness — he hated it.

"What do you want from me?"

Raven's response came out quietly, the words accompanied by the complete release of her powers. He felt a sudden sense of weightlessness as her powers faded from his body, and Raven's hands hovered over his person as if she was afraid of damaging him. "As I said, I want to help you."

Her words hung heavily in the room, and for the first time since he saw her, he saw Raven's shoulders shake. "I want… I want to make this right."

The statement almost had him laughing. To think, this monster actually felt remorseful? As if the severity of her actions could be smoothed over so easily, "Well, fat chance of me forgiving you."

Raven slumped her shoulders, his words having an unprecedented effect on the pale empath. It was like watching a tiger crouch down and do its approximation of a whimper and it had him readjusting his shoulders as he mustered the courage to look at her in the face.

He summoned a fragment of his usual bravado, his next statement coming out with a thin veneer of fake condescension. "But I imagine you're the type to help anyway, right?"

She mutely nodded; her eyes now looked like smooth pools of despondent amethyst.

"Then take me back up to the surface. Discretely.", he intoned. "Try to aim for the east side. By the old stadium."

The shadows that enveloped him then felt cold, the darkness embracing him closely as they were whisked away. It seemed like only a minute passed before he was out, the night sky the first thing he saw upon being released from the dark cavern.

It had him ripping off the oxygen mask in an instant, the crisp night air rejuvenating his body even as his suit provided an adequate barrier to the cold. But his Red X mask still had a bit of dust in it and prohibited him from filling his lungs the way he wanted, and he suddenly found himself removing the unwanted garment out of impulse. Feeling like he was breathing for the first time in ages, there was a sense of awe shooting through him as he basked in the feeling of wind touching his bare face. His skin tingled as the wind brushing against it, eager to bask in natural stimuli now that it was no longer constrained by layers of restrictive clothing.

He had no idea how long he had been down in that dark place for, but it was far too long. The darkness and cramped space had assaulted his senses until it felt smothering and all-encompassing, stealing the air from him even as his body continued the motions to sustain life. It was only much later, after he heard the droids skittering around like unseen ghosts for hours on end, that the lights came back on. Or one light, anyway, the lone lightbulb chasing away a crushing darkness that had him desperately reaching out with his working hand. Before then, everything he touched was an unknowable horror.

He had never felt so hopeless or terrified...

Thus, the star-speckled sky was a pleasant sight that he was eager to greet, the sudden feeling of open air making him gain a newfound appreciation for the city. He relished the cold feeling on his skin, his eyes closing just to take in the sensation better as his black hair swayed in the gentle breeze.

He was so engrossed in the experience that he didn't realize Raven openly staring at his bare face in shock. When he did, he quickly made a move to place his mask back on, the existence of the skull caricature putting a swift end to his experience on cloud nine. He couldn't believe he just showed her his face! He ended up catching himself before he could place it on his head though, his mind finally catching up the fact that such a move would be useless at this point. It wasn't like putting on the mask would erase her memory. Besides, he didn't quite feel like restraining his breathing just yet. Even if, logically, he knew the mask was still capable of giving him the air he needed.

Christ, he really was out of it, wasn't he? With the realization of the mask came the realization that he was still with the being that injured him in the first place, and his body tensed. Out of a sense of fear his throat tried to imitate his usual Red X cadence, his brain apparently thinking it would be best to imitate his usual strength rather than reveal the pathetic state he was really in.

"Don't tell anyone what you just saw!" He hated how a tinge of desperation still made its way into his voice. And wasn't she an empath? She's had to have seen through his brave act the moment he put it into action.

But the Titan before him didn't appear eager to point out his faulty presentation, instead wringing her hands as she tried to reassure him.

"I won't.", she promised, desperate to ease his fear, "I swear I won't."

She said the last words in haste, the gravity of her little promise not really dawning on her until a second passed. Red X was giving her a heavy stare, his dark eyes closely looking at her face before his gaze returned to the night sky in thought. Not only was she not attacking him, she actually seemed eager to do anything he asked…

His newfound interest had Raven surveying her surroundings, taking in the expanse of dirt and dry grass before her gaze wandered into the neighboring bleachers. Were the plastic seat cushions always that brown and torn up?

The only times she ever came to this stadium was when a villain was using it, the empty space often used by Billy Numerous any time he decided to dismantle everything he could find. Otherwise, the stadium's most notable temporary inhabitant was Atlas, the remains of the hulking robot's trophy containers still littering the gate area.

'Now that I think about it… when was the last time I went outside?'

She had remained in the tower ever since she returned from England, and she abstained from even looking at the outside unless she absolutely had to. But even she felt slightly giddy now that she was reexperiencing the outdoors.

The night reinvigorated her in a way it simply couldn't with Red X, the nebulous expanse hosting a new array of purples and blues in what would otherwise be total darkness between the stars. She could smell grass, grease, dew, and earth; the result of an urban environment retaken by nature. The buzzing of flies and the skittering of small animals in the bleachers were poignant signifiers that this was no derelict cavern. Even in this area, the city was brimming with life. Active, varied, and moving life.

Red X's words drew her out of her reverie, the young man's voice suddenly hosting hints of authority and eagerness. "We should head to the locker rooms. The Hive Five usually leaves extra clothes and supplies in there."

Raven found herself taken aback at his sudden tinge of excitement, the injured thief walking across the dirt field with a new sense of bubbling enthusiasm, like he was suddenly determined to reach his destination. It was only when she focused on him that she realized why.

He was hungry. Fear had been covering it before, but it appeared his brief time on the surface had brought baser needs to his immediate awareness. It suddenly gave her an idea of what he hoped to find in terms of 'supplies' and she ended up running after him to enter a room that smelled like rotten eggs and dying rats, the stench doing nothing to Red X as he eyed the well-kept locks attached to a series of ruined lockers.

The combination locks stood out like a sore thumb, the clean metal easily contrasting with the lockers that otherwise looked like they hadn't been touched in a decade. Red X gestured towards them. "Bust those. I can't pick anything with this broken arm."

The locks snapped under the brunt of her powers, and X wasted no time in opening the one closest to him, his previous apprehension around her seemingly forgotten as he rummaged through the locker. He brought out a gigantic T-Shirt over 4 times his size and tossed it aside, an arm going in and shoving additional contents on the floor. It was mostly plus sized clothing, the excessive cloth being so large she could only assume it belonged to Mammoth.

He didn't stop his rummaging until he came out with a bag of trail mix, with Red X sneering at it as though it offended him. "A guy this big and he doesn't have a large bag of jerky or something!"

He slammed the door shut as he tried to open the bag with his teeth, the action painfully reminding Raven that he probably hadn't eaten in days. Her thought was reinforced when he slumped down to the floor, his head tilting upwards as he poured the trail mix into his mouth. He audibly groaned as he ate, the taste of salty peanuts and sweet raisins probably tasting divine to him.

He gestured towards the other lockers. "Search the rest and give me any food you find. Try to find some fitting clothes for me too."

She pulled the next locker open and saw a series of white jump suits, most of which were neatly hanging on a few coat hangers. Red X continued watching from the corner of his eye as she continued searching, the young empath refusing to throw items aside like he did. There was a small unease at the back of his head even though she was doing everything he said, and it refused to relent no matter what assurances he told himself.

His mind couldn't help but envision that moment when she would turn on him. She'd have her head in a locker, turn around, and be up on him before he even knew what was up. It wouldn't be that hard for her. But of course, Raven never did such a thing. She just continued searching through the locker, gently pushing aside the clothing to find a handful of water bottles sitting on a shelf.

Red X's eyes practically bulged when she brought it out, his thirst becoming all the more apparent as his dry lips felt all the more pronounced. The trail mix fell into his lap as he extended a hand towards it. "Hand it over."

She handed it to him without a word with a solemn look, with Red X snatching it as though she was liable to take it away.

Raven swallowed thickly. "You know I would have given you the water anyway, right?"

He didn't bother to give her with a response until he emptied the entire bottle, his neck showing more movement than she'd ever seen as he drank as much as humanly possible. He looked at her with mild suspicion as he cast the bottle aside, his hand going back to the trail mix to bring up another handful of peanuts. "I don't, actually. One moment you're willing to kill me and the next time I see you, you're desperately trying to help me… or so you claim. I don't know what the hell happened to you that night, but it is clear that you are nothing like the rest of your do-gooder friends."

The words stung with their accuracy, and Raven visibly flinched as she made her way to the next locker, this one hosting casual clothes that likely belonged to either Billy of Kyd. Some chargers and an extension cord were located back there, a few empty soda cans sitting on the side while a rotting sandwich in a plastic bag sat on top of them. Teen boys were never known for their cleanliness.

Red X shrugged, his voice coming out muffled as she spoke with a mouthful of food, "So yeah, I don't feel all that confident that you will always do what's in my best interests. You following my orders is a good start though."

Raven grimaced as she moved on to the next locker, her hand quickly coming out with a large bag of beef jerky, much to Red X's delight. He caught the bag when she tossed it to him, and Raven grabbed the baggy backpack as she began stuffing it with clothing, chargers, and whatever else she suspected he would need.

"Pass me another water bottle.", Red X demanded, and Raven found herself complying immediately. She was never the sort to blindly follow orders and yet here she was, obeying his every word without a single word being uttered.

The lockers themselves didn't hold all that much, but she was able to find a few dollars stuffed inside of the odd coat pocket here or there. Not enough to buy a full meal, but it was certainly enough to buy X something more substantial than a few bags of dried food.

Red X peered at the backpack, taking a brief look at the pair of pants and a single t-shirt. They weren't exactly his style, but they would serve. Standing up, he grabbed the pack with more force than necessary as he headed to another section of the room. "Don't move from that spot. I'm going to go change."

Raven found herself frozen in place, mulling over the sounds of moving fabric that emanated from beyond another set of dingy lockers. His advanced suit was removed first, and whatever it was made of reminded Raven of rubber as the sound of it being forcefully stretched reached her ears. It was being pried off his skin, the form-fitting material stubbornly trying to cling to him after days being exposed to sweat and blood.

There were more sounds after that, each one substantially different from the other as X removed different layers of clothing. Was that the sound of latex gloves being removed? Or was it some sort of undershirt? Her enhanced hearing was picking up on several sounds, but she had little to no means of identifying what she was listening to.

Her nose, however, was a different story. When her nose picked up something about his blood that she somehow identified as newer, her mind instantly conjured images of stained strings of cloth. Bandages, then? That would explain why it sounded like cloth was continuously being laid on the ground, with the sound of fabric on skin continuously reaching her ears as Red X haphazardly tried to remove the bandages from a part of his arm.

His suit did a lot in burning away most of the blood on his skin when he performed that last teleporting jump, but that didn't account for the new wounds he had garnered while he desperately tried to escape the darkness. One of his palms had hit something that felt like a nail, and it had him bunching his cape in his only working hand as he tried to stem the flow of blood. The minor wound continually stung as he unsuccessfully tried to create a bandage with one hand before one of the droids noticed the incident way later than it should have. It had just stared at him before, too broken to realize what was happening until it was too late. Before it had moved and grabbed him X had honestly thought it was some stationary piece of machinery.

With the makeshift bandage taking away the top layer of dried blood, a few bits of red clotting refuse stuck out on his hand as though he had dabbed himself in a sticky substance. It appears they didn't bother much with cleaning it.

He grimaced at the sight, but was satisfied with how the wound remained closed — even if it still felt tender. He probably needed to get it checked out though. The last thing he needed was to succumb to bacterial infection.

His suit was laying on the floor, the inside out sleeves the result of him trying to maneuver the fabric off and away from his injured arm. The discomfort it had caused made him cringe, knowing that Raven had doubtlessly heard him.

He put on the pants with minimal issue, even if he had to do a small jump every once in a while, to get them to go over his hips. But the shirt… he didn't feel like raising his arm again. Shirtless it is.

He instead grabbed the light jacket, the zipped open nature of the garment proving to be way easier when he tried to maneuver his injured arm out of its sling. He couldn't help the small groan of pain from leaving his throat, however, and he couldn't help but wonder just how much more painful it would have been if Raven hadn't worked her magic.

He walked back out to Raven's general vicinity as soon as he was presentable, his eyes determinedly not looking at her downtrodden face as he strode past her. "I'm going home. I don't want to be seen anywhere near a hero in uniform."

Raven instantly looked down at herself, her blue cloak looking relatively pristine despite her previous activities. She hadn't given her attire a second of thought when she left, but he was right that it would attract attention if they walked down the street. Even at this time of night. "There is bound to be more clothes in these lockers. I can change into something else if —"

"No.", Red X cut her off as he leaned against the doorway, a pained expression on his face. "You already saw my face, there's no way I'm letting you see where I live."

Raven pursed her lips beneath the confines of her hood, the thief's sudden feel of defensiveness. Was he worried that she'd attack him in his sleep? That she would tell the other Titans? She could see why he was concerned.

Red X tested his arm, the sling shifting slightly as he winced in pain. "My bones have all been healed into minor fractures. Which means so long as I take it easy, I'll be all healed in a few weeks. You should head back to bird boy before he notices you're gone."

Raven shook her head, her hands wringing themselves underneath her cloak. "At most I've only been gone a few hours. I can still teleport you to the nearest clinic and —"

"I don't want your help getting home or anywhere else.", Red X hissed. "If I want to speak to you again, I'll contact you somehow. But I can handle things from here." He readjusted his grip on the backpack without further discussion, slinging it over his shoulder as he walked away from her.

Raven stood there dumbly as he walked away, not entirely sure if she should try to follow him or not.

"That said…", he called out, making Raven's eyes snap to attention, "If you really are dedicated to helping me, come here tomorrow at 11 o'clock and open this." He slammed on the door of a nearby locker. "I'll leave behind something you can use to help me. Give me what I want, and I'll consider ourselves mostly square. Can't guarantee I'll treat you like I used to, though."

He waved her off without turning back, his slightly hurried pace telling her he wanted that to be the end of the conversation before she said or did anything else. It left her standing there like a dimwit, the entire situation feeling surreal now that she was about to be left behind.

Following him from afar was an option, but it wasn't a good one. If X didn't see her, someone else would. And scaring him by demonstrating stalking behavior was definitely not something she wanted. Especially since he was apparently willing to mend bridges with her …sort of.

But X had mentioned something important she needed to address.

'Robin…' The thought of him, or any other member of the team, discovering evidence of her little escapade made her more than a bit nauseous. The cavern itself would not be too much of a surprise, the team would only give the area a brief thermal and structural scan before all known entrances would be sealed off, but their concerned leader would not hesitate to initiate a more thorough search once he saw the hole in the basement.

What if someone had fallen in? Or what if some villain became aware of the hole and tried to use it to try and sneak into the tower? And if someone discovered the bloodstains down there…

Raven returned to the tower without much preamble as she made a great motion with her cloak. The basement was just as she left it, the tipped stacks of boxes and files making a large mess that would distract most people from the otherwise small hole in the wall.

She traipsed over the imposing paper mound, her hands once again coming over to brace themselves on the cracked concrete. On the one hand, the hole to the cavern was dark enough to be overlooked by her teammates at first glance. But anyone who tried to take a closer look in an effort to repair it would inevitably find the peculiarity.

With her eyes glowing white, she called upon her powers. The orange rods groaned as she pushed them aside and broke them apart, a few shrieking against the stone as she dropped them into the abyss. Raven idly wondered if Slade had used this peculiar structure to allow droids into the tower. With no evidence of the droids having rowed across the bay, had everyone assumed they got into the tower by using the mainland tunnel that connects to the garage.

With the metal torn away, her power then made a move to encompass the earth toward the bottom of the tower, the sound of crumbling stone making a loud noise in the basement as she attempted to make the endless shaft to instead look like a naturally occurring pothole.

It still looked out of place, and Cyborg would definitely want it filled. But it wasn't something entirely out of the ordinary either. Another shift of her hand and she shifted a wall of stone to obstruct the shaft entirely, the damaged concrete now looking like it gave way to reveal the earth behind it.

After that it was a simple matter of grabbing the books she had come down for and teleporting back to her room. The broken shelf would be an easy culprit to blame if anyone discovered the mess, but that could take a while… no one ever really went down there aside from Robin, and even then it was only for a few times a year. And the closest they had for security in that room took the form of a camera located just outside its door, and she had bypassed that entirely.

Maybe she would go down and fill in the concrete hole herself in a few days. But for now, she really needed to get back to researching and preparing herself for whatever favor X wanted her to deal with tomorrow.

…she really didn't look forward to the morning.