Playing Dirty
Slade kills people. I'm just selfish. – Red X
-t-h-i-e-f-
Crack!
"AHH! Where'd you get your medical degree? Boot camp?" screamed the patient.
Leaping away from the 'examination table' he bounded up the side of several large wooden crates like a startled cat and perched atop the uppermost box, mimicking said animal in such replication his companion experienced the sudden desire to laugh, though she vouched to merely glare instead. About twenty feet up from the dusty floor and five crates up, Red X crouched and glared menacingly down at his unwanted caretaker. His unharmed left hand massaged the wrist of his throbbing right, causing the silver chain about his wrists to jangle in audible reminder of…
…how much reality sucked right now.
Little devils of pain danced across his fingers, stomping little golf-cleat clad feet all up his arm and into his shoulder (which had already undergone the thrilling experience of dislocation) where they promptly raced up his spinal cord to his brain and made havoc with his pain processors. Not as mind-blindingly horrible as a dislocated shoulder, but X didn't like to subjugate himself to pain when given the choice and he liked it even less when people imposed pain on him.
…especially without warning and under the pretense of being helpful.
"Wow…that was really macho," drawled his substitute nurse, gliding up to float lazily along side the top-most box.
Raven smiled ever so thinly at her disgruntled companion, shapely arms folded comfortably over her breast. Her dark, impenetrable eyes shimmered beneath the shadows of her hood as she drifted carelessly, enjoying his discomfort with a happy kind of sadism. Her pale skin, ashen enough to be rainy-day gray seemed to glow with unnatural light in the untouched mustiness, lending her flesh (when not shrouded by her cloak) a pale nimbus.
"Define 'macho'," he replied sourly.
"Hmm… too many comebacks…couldn't decide," Raven droned, sounding particularly vampire-ish as she did.
The thief glanced at his tormentor and briefly envisioned her in dominatrix leathers. Yep, yep. Skintight cat-suit, whip and spiked collar would defiantly suit her black-as-hell personality, though he prayed to the Lord above that she couldn't hear him think that. X estimated the time around one AM. Roughly half an hour since the thief allowed Raven to slap cold silver-cuffs around his wrists in exchange for housing at Titan Tower.
Or rather the basement…
X snorted, and rotated his wrists, grimacing as a sharp stab of pain ground warningly up his arm again. The golf-demons of agony scowled and discussed amongst themselves what to do with this idiot who didn't seem to acknowledge pain.
"Stop being childish. You still have a dislocated finger," she said thinly, ignoring his muttered protests about fixing it himself.
The gothic Titan glided closer and extended a thin hand of slender, artist hands, clever and supple. X eyed her upturned palm with mild interest, forgetting that her outstretched limb implied some kind of meaning behind it. Raven arched a brow, thin crescent tracking toward her hairline as he peered at her hand.
"You know…" X said, rocking back on his heels. Raven blinked at the larcenist. He grinned through the skeletal mask. "You have a pick-pocket's hands."
"And you have a broken one. Let me see it," the girl replied impatiently, gesturing he move closer.
Red X sighed in irritation and slowly unfurled his arm, extending his darkly gloved limb toward her and letting the enchantress take his hand, the links connecting the twin hoops about his wrists. She gingerly laid it palm up in her own fingers and moved to feel the breakage. X leaned in a bit to watch her ministrations, wary, should she attempt to ram the bone back in place without warning.
"You know...I could do this myself..." X said. "If you took the cuffs off."
"Yeah. Not gonna happen," she said, dragging out the 'ye' part in 'yeah' and artfully ennuciating the vowels of 'gonna' and 'happen'.
Raven examined the slight dimple beneath the glove where his knuckle usually took residence. She frowned and ran a slim finger down the length of his injured digit, her pale skin bright against the black cloth of his glove. X twitched imperceptibly at the oddly personal gesture. Whether a result of extended isolation or slight dementia; the thief couldn't quite stop the sudden stream of shivers trickling down from the sensitive pad of his finger up to his elbow.
"Thanks," she muttered under her breath, thankfully oblivious to his jittery reaction.
X said nothing.
Raven's elegant fingers slid beneath his broken one and delicately took it between her thumb and index finger. She glanced up at him, meeting his gaze. X took the chance to say something to aid his own wellbeing.
"This time warn me befor-,"
Crack!
"AH! DAMN IT!"
X yanked his throbbing hand out of Raven's grip and darted a couple crates lower.
She didn't quite smile, preferring to seat herself comfortably atop the highest box and look down at the cursing cat-burglar. He lurched to his feet and shook his wrist out – chains clinking merrily as he did – a dark little niche in his heart harboring secret lust to break the gothic-heroine's neck. Though…now that she'd finished he felt much better; except for the hairline fracture he could feel running through his index finger the pain had already faded to a dull thrum.
A soft whisper of cloth and motion alerted the thief to his companion's action behind him. He half turned to face the dark Teen Titan who landed gently on the crate next to him; far enough away to radiate her distaste for him but close enough to touch. The girl lifted her slender hand to grasp her hood and pull it back from her face, tossing it back over her shoulders with a quiet 'poof'.
"The bone is still broken," she said tonelessly.
Raven didn't even bother to ask this time. She marched across the crate, violet tresses swinging violently as she stomped across the wood toward him, obviously expecting resistance. X, unnerved by the freakish determination in her face, backed up nervously and after voicing a pointless protest –something along the lines of 'Get the heck away from me you sadist!'– tried to make a break for it.
Raven, however, came prepared for his antics and lifted her arms, readily, hands glowing. She flicked her wrist and instantly a swathe of black energy painted itself over the silver links fastening the cuffs about his wrists and an instant later the cat-burglar found himself whipped hard into the crate behind him.
Thud!
His head banged the wood uncomfortably and he hissed in surprise.
"Ow! What is it with you and hurting people?" he snarled.
Looking up, he saw the blackened links of his handcuffs pinned high against the crate behind him, trapping his hands over his head. Raven ignored him fabulously and merely hopped into the air to examine his hands. The thief complained audibly under his breath, knowing full-well the stiff-necked Raven could hear every word. After calling her a couple names along the lines of 'paranoid, sadistic vulture woman', he squirmed a bit against his bonds, knowing full well that picking the lock right beneath Raven's nose wouldn't do him much good.
As if to reply, but not actually bother to speak, the young woman delicately pinched the cloth at the tip of his middle finger and drew it off his hand.
X instantly clamped his hand shut and yanked himself up from the ground, pulling his entire body up using the handcuffs as his handhold. He coiled his entire body up and lashed out a hard, liquid quick kick with his leg, hoping to drive the Titan away from his exposed hand. A pang of sudden realization caused X to break into a cold sweat. If she managed to pin him long enough she could walk away with his fingerprint and for all intents and purposes –
- his identity.
Raven, however, proved too clever not to expect such a reaction from him and veered carelessly out of reach. Foiled, X fell back against the crate behind him with a bang, his heels hitting the wood with a reverberating sound as he tensed for conflict. The girl, naked face pale and coldly amused, flicked her wrist and black energy coiled his ankles, pinning them to the box as well and leaving him hanging by his wrists.
Oh great, X thought unpleasantly, she knows that I know that she knows she has the upper hand and she's playing it up. My dignity – along with my ribs – has taken a severe beating tonight, that's for sure.
"You know," she remarked slowly, her drab voice velvety and mordant in his ears. "I could take off your mask riiight here and that would be the end of it."
X narrowed his eyes up at her, lowered his head to more effectively leer at his tormentor. Her demure and emotionless features matched his own inexpressive skull face, actually lowering herself to his level in order to meet his gaze. He laughed shortly, the faltering distortion in his voice-waves making the noise sound almost primal.
"Then go ahead and do it," he laughed, challengingly, voice harsh a bitterly expectant. "If you're so damn clever, go ahead and do it, but remember: Slade kills people. I'm just selfish."
His voice came out far more venomous than X himself had even expected and he paused forebodingly, black sockets glaring up at the teenager. Raven hesitated, looking strangely put out. Something about his approach on the subject seemed to rub her the wrong way and she stared down at him for a long moment, her dark eyes gleaming like twin pools of navy ink in the darkness.
She took his bare hand and eased it open with a lick of energy, not even looking at the burglar as she did.
X heaved a sigh and relaxed, knowing that his criminal protests fell on deaf ears. Instead he closed his head and waited for her to take his print and stomp the hell out of his life in one fell swoop. Her fingers against his – he felt irritated to notice – felt cool and oddly soothing. He could almost feel the throbbing in his broken hand fading away and even the sting of broken skin across his knuckles slowly seemed to vanish, a strange kind of relaxation stealing over the thief despite his predicament.
"There," Raven said suddenly.
Her energy left the cuffs and his ankles simultaneously and as good old Issac Newton theorized, gravity did its work and dropped X on his belly. He found catching one's self is difficult when you're hands are cuffs. He growled in fury, lifting his masked features from the dusty wood crate to glare at Raven in a sinister kind of way. /However, he stopped his anger short and replaced it with admiration as he raised his hand and turn it over, inspecting the limb. The mottled blue, blacks and yellows had completely given way to pale and healthy skin, swelling receded to nothing and all pain of discomfort had fled from his bones.
A soft something landed in the dust next to his still cuffed wrists and he stared at it a moment. In the dust, lay his glove, black and flat without his sticky-fingers to fill it.
Raven, meanwhile, settled on the ground below him, looking downright murderous.
"I let you off the hook this time only because Slade is a much bigger fish than you," she said acidly. "Now why in the Nine Hells would Slade track your worthless person across Jump City?"
X massaged his wrist a moment, slipping his glove on with a business-like kind of attitude. Raven watched, amused and irritated as the thief retired against the side of the nearest crate, throwing himself in a pile against the box and yawning. Whether he moved to get away from her, or simply to stall for time she didn't bother to contemplate.
"He's a psychopath?" X said sweetly.
Raven narrowed her eyes. "Tell you what. Roll over and I'll heal the rest of those bruises if you tell me something useful." X eyed her for a moment and, sensing possible mockery, she went on to un-sugarcoat her offer. She scowled and tacked a threat to the end of her words. "Otherwise, I can tie you up and hang you off a street light somewhere for Slade to find."
"Yum…" remarked X unhappily and, to her surprise, obliged by moving back over to her and turning onto his belly. He folded his arms under his chin and patiently waited for her next ministration, looking strangely feline, lithe, black frame stretched across the length of the crate. Raven paused; pondering why the, oh so suspicious, Red X would yield to her offer – however kind or logical – and put himself in an almost subservient or vulnerable position.
She smiled thinly and leaned about to look at the thief whom lifted his gaze to hers.
"You want to know how I did that don't you?"
X made a derisive noise and presumably closed his eyes. "Not at all, though I admit, it was a pretty shway move."
"Shway?" Raven repeated the slang, voice slow to form the vowels.
X nodded, laying his featureless head on his battered arms and discouraging further talking. If she didn't hurry, the young cat-burglar would go to sleep on her. She stored the crumb of information I her head for later exploitation and after vigorously rubbing her palms together, placed her hands in the small of his back. He shivered slightly at her touch and Raven eyed him suspiciously before proceeding.
She closed her eyes, feeling a soft tide-like source of gentle power ebbing up from inside her. Parting the darkness of her energies, the healing magicks rippled teasingly down her arms, lingering at her elbows before flowing down her arms and down through her fingertips. Raven felt her heart rate dawdle, her breathing deepen and slow as the cool and soothing sensation of repairing a bruise life-force and figure radiated through her body.
X, in similar fashion, relaxed beneath her hands, every muscle and ligament uncoiling under her ginger power. The cool sedative, in combination with his exhaustion had pretty much knocked the outlaw into Dream World. The gentle rise and fall of his chest came in the slow even rhythm of sleep and Raven distantly cursed herself for allowing him to doze off.
Raven withdrew her hands suddenly, disgusted that she even considered doing this for him. Miserable, rotten pick-pocket, she thought, just some common burglar, desperate to be a desperado and thinking himself clever. Too smart for his own well-being.
But then how did X, little common criminal, bad – but not that – bad, Red X, manage to impress and/or piss off Slade so?
Raven glared down at the larcenist's sprawling figure, sleek and dark like some kind of catlike shadow (save the ripped fabric and skull-bleached face-mask) she couldn't see anything so very special about this thief. Not small time criminal, but not in the same league as Slade or even trouble-makers like Johnny Rancid who destroyed lives for the rush. Red X struck her as intelligent, arrogant and generally self-centered, but not ruthless.
Lacking conscience, but not like Slade…
-Bad but not terrible.
X liked to play games, laugh, and prank and jest at all the fun frustrations he could inflict upon authority, super heroes or otherwise. He ranked as a mere delinquent compared to Slade or some of the other criminals infesting Jump City. Raven frowned as X shifted slightly in his sleep and tapped her finger against her arm.
Why this one from all the others out there? Why would Slade hunt down X? Had he found some kind of dirt of the criminal master-mind? Walked in on Slade's territory? Interfered with a plan or become a danger? He just didn't match up. Red X didn't fit the profile of the kind of criminal Slade wanted on his side.
Raven paused, thinking on her previous thoughts.
"Slade wouldn't even hunt him as a 'good-guy'. Why does Slade want you?" Raven muttered to the burglar's still form.
He didn't answer, instead, curling up, arms pillowed his head and breathing so softly Raven mused he seemed sneaky even while unconscious. Red X muttered something under his breath and drew his arms against his chest, then going still again.
Raven hovered, cross-legged in the air a moment, a curious string tugging in the back of her mind as her thoughts mulled over the strangeness of both the thief and the events pursuing in his wake. Reflecting on a book she'd once read about sleep positions and a segment on the personality inflections represented by sleeping arrangements she compared what she recalled of the analysis to her unwelcome companion.
Recently, Raven had made a quick study of her team mates to see if the book had any basis in truth and found, though vague, the text held partial truth. Those who, like Starfire and Beast Boy, slept limp and open and sprawled everywhere, were usually cheerful, trustworthy, quick to trust and open in friendship. Others might call them naive, innocent or fallible.
Individuals like Robin, slept on their side, one arm beneath their head and easily awakened. These people often characterized themselves with decent relationships with others, suspicion, obsessive habits, competitive compulsion and paranoia.
Cyborg…slept on a table…'nuff said.
Red X, however, slept tightly curled, arms huddled to his chest with his legs drawn up. Character traits for this position: mild obsessive compulsion, extremely unsociable, neurotic, restless, adopts strangely personal ethics, habits, rituals etc, aversion to authority. Raven didn't think this personification matched X's cocky, tough as nails, charisma, though perhaps his thievery could fall under the category of obsessive habits Raven thought perhaps, this time, it could be a fluke in her method.
Or…X didn't have it all like he said he did.
Raven's communicator bleeped urgently at her hip, jolting her rudely from her thoughts and bringing her back to the dark and dusty reality that resided in the basement around her. Startled and annoyed, the dark-eyed teenager slid the round Titan radio from her cloak and flipped it open…
…except no one seemed to have called. Momentarily perplexed, the young enchantress searched her person briefly for a separate source of such a sound.
Beep-beep-boop-boo-boop-boob-boop-boop-boop! –rang out the merry Titan ring tone and Raven curse Robin a thousand fold for letting Beast Boy choose the melody programmed into the communication tech. Leave it to the changeling to pick the most infuriating jingle on the face of the planet! After a couple verses of the Teen Titan ring tone, the girl had been driven to a murderous fixation by the noise and clawed around her garments in search of the awful sound-maker.
"Oh, sorry, that's me," said a cheerful voice, yawning slightly
"What?" she snarled whirling on the now wakeful X.
He ignored her fantastically and reached back to produce none other than Beast Boy's communicator from a hidden catch in his belt (not the zynovium belt but a thief needs his tools right?) and flipping it open. Raven snatched for the device, but the nimble larcenist yanked it out of her grasping fingers and rolled lazily off the side of the crate, managing to snag the edge of the box and hang there, chameleon style.
He smiled coyly (or at least Raven thought he did) and he whipped the communicator to his ear.
"Hullo," he said in a perfectly cheerful voice. "You've reached the Teen Titans, we're not available to save and/or come to your rescue. Please hold and remember… your call matters."
And he hung up.
The thief grinned that horrible, skeleton smile through his mask and rolled the little, yellow radio across the back of his fingers; enjoying the look of stunned rage on Raven's face. The girl didn't quite sputter like a typical girl might of but managed to look elegantly pissed off, both at his thievery and his smart-ass receptionist ploy.
"That could have been a serious call, you arrogant moron! Hand it over!" Raven spat, thrusting her arm at the thief who laughed maddeningly at her gravity.
"Oh come on. Who calls on a holiday?" X chuckled, and then stopped suddenly. "Oh!" He paused as if recalling something important then, soberly, added, "…and merry Christmas, Raven."
He tossed something at her, hard. The girl cursed and slid beneath the projectile, snatching it with a swathe of translucent energy before realizing what she now held…
The handcuffs…which meant…
"X! You slime! This isn't part of the deal!" she shouted up into the rafters.
X, in the precious moment she looked away to catch the cuffs, had vanished. There came no reply and Raven cursed, pounding her fist against a crate and causing it to erupt in a detonation of metal, cloth and scraps long locked away to gather dust. For one horrifying instant, hot moisture dampened her lashes, but she blinked it away with a furious force of will. Shaking her hair from her eyes she clenched her teeth in fury…
Then smiled.
"You want to play dirty, thief?" muttered the girl. "Fine. Let's play dirty."
-t-h-i-e-f-
The call came shortly.
Ten minutes later perhaps. Red X, guilty and yet completely guiltless in the fact that he cared absolutely nothing about his sneaky deception, stood comfortably atop the glowing heights of WAYNE Labs. The giant electric letters, having been repaired multiple times glowed hot through the gentle fall of snow. The blizzard had finally subsided into a timid dusting of snow and the cat-burglar now completely functional, felt he now had the edge on Slade that he needed.
That horrible ring tone sang out from X's back pocket and with a self-satisfied little chuckle, Red-X reached into his belt compartment and flipped open the Titan communicator.
"Yeah?" he asked into the mouth piece, expecting Raven's surly demand for him to come back, or even some kind of lecture on honesty. The thief regretted not being able to use the Titans as a resource for his match against Slade, but it seemed a bit late to change his mind now. Robin made it clear he wouldn't play the game so X was on his own and probably better for it. Loners tended to work best…alone.
He amused himself with these thoughts until the answer finally drifted through the ear piece…and not only was it not Raven; the speaker said the one most horrible thing a thief could ever hear.
"Hello, Bannon…and merry Christmas."
-t-h-i-e-f-
Author's Note: Oh, you know, I know, you know I picked an eccentric name for our masked anti-hero! Get ready, because things are about to get…complicated, risk-ay and dangerous…or that's what my Muse told me. Like romance? No? Me neither. I prefer cat and mouse. Enjoy! Suggestions? Critiques? Bring 'em on!