A/N: Thank you to those who read/faved/followed/reviewed, I really appreciate your support! I'm sorry if this story feels a little slow, I didn't want to rush into things unexplained, leading to a lot of this backstory and setting up, but I promise it's for a reason! Anyway, on with the next chapter!

Disclaimer: I do not own the Teen Titans. Teen Titans belong to DC (which totally stands for disappointing comics) and Warner Bros.

Location: Wayne Manor, Gotham

Time: 09:39am

"Master Dick, your breakfast is already cold, please do not make me forcefully remove you from the bed."

Dick whines and covers his head with his pillow, smiling into it under his blankets. He missed this. He missed Alfred's sighs and attempts to get his out of bed. Back at the Tower, he was also the first to be up…but here, he need not worry about the city getting blown into a million pieces. Here he can sleep peacefully.

Alfred sighs and shakes his head. Honestly, the boy was nineteen and yet he stills acts like the child Master Bruce took in eleven years ago. He reaches for the blankets and yanks them off in one smooth, practiced motion. Dick hisses and curls up into a fetus position. "Master Dick." Alfred says, a small smile evident on his face. Dick gives up and assures Alfred that he'll be down in ten.

Tim watches them interact from the doorway. It was weird seeing Robin of the Teen Titans acting so much like a child…he was also the voice of reason, and refused to drop seriousness. He concludes that it's nice seeing the leader of the Teen Titans smile once in a while. He retreats to his room when Alfred makes his way out Dick's room, and closes the door behind him with a soft sigh.

A picture on his wall shifts.

Tim turns his head to see a an old picture of the RedX. He smirks remembering that he once tried to solve who the RedX was, but came up with no real solutions. He picks up the picture and shoves it in his pocket, perhaps he could conjure a conversation with the acrobat later, given that he didn't really know what to say to him.

And then he hears raised voices.

"Bruce, you can't keep him in the dark forever!"

"I'm not letting you take him on a walk on rooftops. Dick, you haven't even seen him on the field!"

"So now's his chance!"

"If you want to bond, thats fine. Keep it in the cave, I want you to train him but not like this." Bruce says, massaging his temples out of habit. Dick huffs and puts his empty plate into the sink.

"He has to fly out of your nest one day, Bruce."

Alfred wasn't kidding when he said Dick and Bruce weren't on friendly terms. If only they told him why he left-

A knock on his door caused his trial of thought to cease, he opens the door to see a sheepish Dick Grayson. "Sorry about that shouting," he says, "it's too early in the morning for that."

Tim smiled politely and mumbled a "it's okay"

Dick seem to have caught his nervous demeanour, the older boy reached his hand out to him "Dick Grayson" he says, a proud smile on his face. Tim swore that the room brightened and the sun shined a little brighter.

"Tim Drake." he replies, taking Dick's hand.

"Hey, how's about messing on the Bat Computer in the cave?" said the Titans with a slight smirk and playful eyebrow raised. Tim nodded and followed Dick down. Halfway there, his picture of the RedX slowly makes it's way out of Tim's pocket, as if screaming for attention. Dick catches the picture sticking out Tim's pocket.

"You a fan of X?" he asks.

Tim's eyes widened and immediantly reaches to place the picture back in his pocket. Damn this jacket and it's overly small pockets. Must be how women feel about jeans…

"No it's okay, I'm not judging." Dick says with a laugh, "sure, I've fought hand to hand with the guy, but he's not exactly much trouble."

"When you and the Titans fought X, I wanted to help." Tim confesses, "Of course, I wasn't as good as the rest of you, and I had just started training…but that didn't mean I couldn't help from the sidelines. I'm good with computers, technology and that stuff. I solved a couple cases with Bruce when I first came…It was a way to clear my mind."

Dick's eyebrow raises, clearly impressed with the kid.

"As for X, I scanned a lot of security cameras, compared a lot of data and stuff to find people with fighting styles similar to X." Tim continues, "Hacked into a lot of files, though some were unsuccessful, Bruce said it was good for training anyway. I know I've got to excel on fighting, but I just get the hang of technology…heh…I'm rambling aren't I?"

Dick has that same proud smile on his face and shakes his head. "Not at all," he says, patting Tim on the shoulder, "I'd actually like to see some of your research. Maybe I've been looking at this case from the wrong angle. A new perspective never hurts!"

Tim sighs in relief, and enthusiastically turns on the computer, logs into his data and pulls up all his research on the thief clad in red, black and white. Dick rests his arm on top of the chair that looked twice as big now that a small thirteen year old sat in it.

Tim clicks on the first file - a video of one of RedX's heists before the Titans got involved. Before playing it, Tim says "I promise I'm not crazy." which causes Dick to knit his eyebrows together and tilt his head slightly to the side.

Tim plays the video. A simple white room, no doubt with traps linked up to everything, was on the screen, X teleports to the entrance of the concealed room. A light starts flashing, and X rolls his shoulders and without missing a beat, he jumps and ducks the lasers shooting at him. The high-tech motion sensor cam picks it up and follow's X's every move. At the same time, a metal wall rises behind the lasers, X's shoulders sag. Thanks to his gadgets that Dick (regrettably) supplied him with, he throws a xenothium composed knife and takes out the laser guns. He then gracefully flips a 180º over the wall, his knees tucked behind him and landing on his two feet. Dick can tell he's smirking as he gives a two finger salute to the camera.

"He does that in twelve seconds flat." Tim comments.

X takes what he's there for - some nano technology Dick assumes - and takes out the grappling gun, using the vents to escape.

"You know who else can do all that in twelve seconds flat?" Tim asks, looking up at Dick. Dick simply shrugs, a little amazed that X was that good. He knew X was skilled in thievery and combat, it's just been too long since X pulled a serious heist.

A video of the late Jason Todd comes onto the screen. Dick's heart clenches as Tim plays the video. The dynamic duo were taking down Two-Face, and then bullets start shooting. Dick noticed that the layout was similar to the video before. RedX and Jay were both on one side, lasers in the middle back, a prize at the very back (however, this time it was Two-Face) and a wall rising form the ground. Batman swiftly shoots his grappling gun to the air and the man in black disappears from the scene. Jason rolls his shoulders before taking out a handful of birdarangs and throwing them at the henchmen, similar to what X did before. Once the men were down, Jason speeds through the line of fallen men and flips over the wall, kick's Dent in the chest and lands beside him.

Tim stops the video. "Twelve seconds and twenty six milliseconds." he declares, "but thats not all." He says. He rewinds to when RedX and Jason flip over the wall and plays them side by side simultaneously. Dick's eyes widen. "It's exactly the same pace, posture and technique, except at different heights." Tim says, "I bet that's because the RedX suit is heavier or because Jason put on some weight."

"Wait, wait, wait," Dick says, "how did you even link X with Jason?"

Tim shrugged, "I had to go through a lot of footage of Robins fighting on the field." he says, "Plus, I was attempting to figure out the identities of Batman and Robin at the time…RedX's fighting style seemed familiar. Though, that's not a very believable argument, so I ran a lot of scans on Jason and RedX as well as try to find other possible candidates such as Grant Wilson, who I was almost convinced to be RedX, but he soon became the Ravager so…he's off the list. I also researched a lot of females of X's body type and style, just incase it was someone trying to throw people off by hiding behind a different gender. At one point I even thought RedX could be the Ghost Fox Killer…but as far as X as been active, the RedX hasn't killed anyone, whereas GFK has. Plus, she operates in Hong Kong…so that's a no."

"What makes you so sure that X is actually…Jay?"

"I know it sounds a little insane-"

"A lot insane."

"But I have legitimate proof." A lot more data opened up on the screen. "Before Jason Todd passed away, these were his last checked in vitals, height, weight and so on 2 days before his death. I designed a program to estimate physical human development…at first it was to figure out who you are, but I redesigned it and updated it with the latest tech and applied it on Jason.

"Here is a full body scan of Jason Todd, two days before the incident. When I insert the data into the program, it estimates what he'll look like in the future. It's not all that accurate, but it's accurate enough." Tim says, he then clicks on a file of the latest footage of the RedX. "This is X a month ago, when he came by Gotham." Tim let the computer analyse the two bodies as Dick watched, amazed at everything the kid has found out about X. Sure, his claims were a little hard to believe, but this was a lot more in depth than what Dick had been doing. He'd been trying to figure out where X will strike next or where his hideouts were in order to slim down the list of people that could be him. Of course he ran thousands, even millions of analysis on body similarities, but it as more or less a dead end.

The computer beeped cuing the end of the analysis.

98.9%

"That's a very high percentage for a program a thirteen year old developed." Dick praised.

"Thanks." Tim said, nearly emotionless as he was absorbed in his findings. "If he didn't die and continued the workout routines, his muscles would have built up like this. See here, how the shoulders just widened instead of changing? I mean, sure it could've just been the uniforms, but that highly doubtable considering both suits are skin tight." Tim glanced at Dick for confirmation, Dick nodded. "And then here, his arms, the bone structure are more or less the same, just that they grew a little longer."

Dick couldn't believe that his new adoptive brother was successfully persuading him that the RedX was actually his late adoptive brother.

"Oh, and I've analysed how X and Jason both handle fights." Tim said, "When I was younger, I did a lot of digging before concluding that Bruce Wayne was Batman, and Jason Todd was Robin - well the new Robin. But I found that whenever Jason was annoyed, his left hand would clench, and yes, it is common for hand clenching to occur, but then I noticed the same thing in X. Whenever the Teen Titans caught him or tried to hand him over to the police, his left hand would clench. So I calculated the average time it takes Jason to clench his fists and it's exactly 4.8 seconds, which is also the amount of time it takes X to do so."

Dick's eyes widen in disbelief. He'd lived with Jason, seen him do that hand clenching thing when he pissed him off countless times, and had done the same thing with X.

"I realise this isn't a very strong argument, but look at how their heads tilt." Tim said, pulling up multiple footages of X and Jason with a side view. "It's essentially the same angle of head tilting! Which I found, was different for everyone and exceptionally rare for the two different people, even if they were identical twins, to cock their heads at the same angle."

Dick closed his eyes and let everything sink in.

"So, you're saying that…Jason…came back to life?" Dick said, his head dropped, sadness glazed in his eyes.

Tim's hands left the keyboard immediantly, he slowly put his hands together on his lap. "Its…a possibility." he starts, "I mean…how many heroes actually die and stay dead? There's always something that keeps them from dying entirely…there's always a backup plan, a fake death or some scheme villains came up with…right?"

"What sucks is…it only applies to the heroes…" Tim said, Dick noticed that he curled himself on the chair, his head propped on his knees. "It's only a small…a small possibility."

Dick knew Tim was thirteen, but all he could see was an eight year old boy looking up the Gotham's heroes of the night. He's proud that both he and Jason could leave a legacy for kids to look up to.

"Have you told Bruce?"

Tim sniffs, rubs his eyes and shakes his head.

"I think he'd like your findings. Bring us once step closer to finding who the RedX is."

Tim cranes his neck to look up at the nineteen year old once more, a smile slowly forming on his face.

Dick knows that Tim would become an even better Robin than he could ever be.

—

Location: Titans Tower, Jump City

"Man, I hate going through all these damned papers." Victor complains as he closes up a binder. Garfield has just given up at this point, the changeling fell asleep with his face planted on the table, no doubt that he was drooling. Victor sighed, and stood up for a stretch.

The doors slid open, revealing their local empath. She had a coffee in her hand which caused Victor to raise his human eyebrow.

"It's paperwork," Raven says, "when it comes to paperwork, tea isn't going to cut it."

Victor only smirks, "you damn right, sister."

The alarms blare and Garfield yelps and falls out his chair, "WHAT'S GOING ON, YOU WANNA FIGHT? I'LL FIGHT."

"Calm down, green bean. Just the Hive Five." says Victor, "Mind if Rae and I sit this one out, Kori?"

Kori nods and orders the rest of the team to head out. Speedy yawns and grumbles something incoherent, though Garfield did catch something about not sleeping…or maybe it was weeping…or…you know what it didn't matter.

Raven glared at the piles of paper on the table.

"Yo, Rae." Victor says, Raven's eyes move to look at her fellow teammate, "I regrettably inform you that these papers won't do nothing if ya glare at 'em."

Raven sighs and begins going through the stuff. It would've been a lot easier if Robin had been here to help. A minute felt like an hour, and her eyes were beginning to droop. Only Cyborg's constant poking or sudden wet-willies kept her awake.

Before her third file, the team were back. Garfield was holding onto Kori, but she brushed him off before bowing and walking to her room. Roy limbed while Wally supported him, and the two headed to the med bay.

Garfield sighed and glanced at Victor, who got the cue and excused himself from the table. Her eyes then land on a complaint letter hidden under the monstrous piles of paperwork, she picks it up and scans through it.

At first she thought it was just some random complaint due to them 'destroying every building they come across' as told by the local newspaper, but her eyes stopped at "glowing alien". She rereads the letter only to find that Starfire must've blown up a warehouse…but she didn't recall going near one…

—-

Today was supposedly Robin's turn to patrol, but due to his absence, Raven would fill in. Roy decided that this was his most opportune moment, especially since Dick wasn't here. He trusted that no one (*cough cough* Wally West) would tell Dick of his intentions of going after his RoyBots for the moment, because is Dick found out, he would take matters into his own hands despite being in Gotham.

Roy wasn't familiar with Raven, but he could work with her if the time came. Wally offered to assist, but Roy didn't really need him, though he did promise to call if trouble was ahead. Heading out with Raven wasn't really much of an issue, but she was giving him weird looks.

"What's with the new suit?" she asked, after approximately 3 minutes of silent patrolling.

"Felt like I needed a change in style."

"If you ever meet the RedX, he's going to be pissed you stole his colour scheme." Red Arrow looked down at his suit, it was still mostly red, just like his Speedy suit, but the yellow parts were replaced with black in attempt to differentiate the two archers apart (despite being the same person). He shrugged and laid back on Raven's circle of dark energy she stood on. That earned a sigh from Raven, "You do realise that you're basically lying on my soul."

Red Arrow's eyes immediantly widened and sat back up, his back up straight and facing forward. "I'm so sorry."

Raven scoffed, "if only Beast Boy was as obedient."

Raven dropped off the archer at a port, and retreated to the East side of Jump City. Red Arrow quickly acknowledged there was a presence watching over him.

And it wasn't Raven.

Shit, he caught me.

X quickly teleported to another building close by, while cursing and questioning himself exactly why was Roy Harper here again. The head of this gang promised him some money after a couple of favours he'd done for them in the past. Oh how he remembered the way they pleaded. Those were the good times. But if they thought he was going to forget and forgive, they were in for quite a show.

He teleported to hided behind the crates close to the ship owned by the gang, and watched closely the movements being made inside. He could make out the shadows, they were most likely playing poker. Real bets were made. Faint laughter could be heard from time to time. He snuck closer and hid from the views of the gang members who were on a security sweep.

One nearly caught him.

Nearly.

He was safe for now, but what about Red Arrow? He still hadn't made him move, if he stayed there any longer, he'd miss his chance on doing whatever he was planning to do. He could see the smoke rising from a cigarette on the main deck. No, wait, make that two cigarettes.

RedX sighed. So much for wanting to sneak in.

He cast the Red Arrow one last glance before deciding to head onto the deck. The guys didn't put up much a fight, mainly because they weren't expecting him. One silent kick to the throat, a swift punch to the collar bone did the job. He tied them up with xenothium and headed to the lower decks, only to notice that he was running out of the substance.

"Guess it's just hand to hand combat from now on." X muttered to himself.

Red Arrow watched in shock. X took down the two guys in 4 seconds flat without so much as a hiss of pain! That's…almost as good as Batman! He aimed his grappling hook arrow and swung himself onto the ship, attempting to trail behind the thief. Unknown to the Red Arrow, RedX was already halfway through a fight. The archer kept his distance, and hid in the corners and shadows on the ship. While Red Arrow was hiding, poker cards were sprawled everywhere, as were the unconscious bodies of the gang members. Beer bottles were broken, and glass shards flew in every direction. Soon, before Red Arrow could even register exactly what the hell X was up to, a gunshot went off.

His breath hitched, without thinking, he charged into the room, bow raised and ready to shoot.

To his surprise, X had diverted the gang member's hand and aimed it the table next to them. Red Arrow immediantly shot the gun out of the man's hand and onto the wall.

"Glad you finally showed, Red Arrow." X said, his voice more sounded more hoarse and out of breath than last time. Even through the voice adjuster, Red Arrow could tell that X was still healing from the injuries he had received from their last little adventure together.

"What brings you here, X" Red Arrow's eyes narrowed under his domino mask.

"I could ask you the same thing." said X casually, leaning on the wall. Red Arrow raised an eyebrow, gesturing X to talk first. "They owe me money. You?"

"They have my technology."

"Oh, the bots? Let them go, they've been sold."

"Without my approval though."

The door crashed down, causing X and Red Arrow to jump at the sudden noise. They looked at one another knowingly and go to work. X commenced the fight, taking down several men by simple kicks and punches, sending the toppling on one another. Red Arrow donned his bow on his back and launched himself forward, kneeing the men propelling themselves forward.

To X's surprise, they worked well together. Well, they had teamed up once before when they first started out as proteges. It was an unlikely duo, Robin II and Speedy, but it worked at the time. X didn't hold back on his attacks, sending them one after the other, effectively sending several men bleeding on the floor.

Red Arrow was good at hand-to-hand combat, but not as skilful as X was. There were a few times were X had to use xenothium to save Red Arrow's ass, which caused Roy to wonder what had motivated X to be a good guy.

After a new wave of bruises and cuts on both sides, the duo finally got what they came for.

"Is this going to keep happening?" asked Red Arrow, zipping the duffel bag he'd brought the last time they worked together.

"I certainly hope not." replied the thief.

"Not that it's my place to ask," Red Arrow started, "but are you chummy with the League of Shadows?"

RedX's body stiffened. "They offered me a spot on their mobile assassins team. Why?"

"Cheshire dropped by. Said she was looking for you."

"She's terrifying." X said immediantly, "and I hope she knows that."

Red Arrow scoffed. He rarely was able to speak to a villain so casually. Taunting villains was one thing, but speaking to one without worrying over who would strike first when the other wasn't looking was sort of nice. Interacting with X seemed somewhat familiar, and that was what worried him.

"By any chance, are the bots explosive?"

Red Arrow's trail of thought paused, he cocked his head to the side. "Why?"

"I'd like to blow the place up. Destroy any evidence."

"You just like to blow things up, don't you?"

"I'm just keeping things simple, Harper."

Red Arrow's eyes widened and his mouth immediantly closed shut. Who the hell is this RedX? Roy wondered if Robin had the answer to that, he seemed to have the answer to most things anyway. He'd have to ask the Titans on more intel about this guy.

"By the way. Oliver Queen is said to arrive Jump tomorrow afternoon for some Queen Industries meeting. Just thought you ought to know."

Red Arrow gave a nod of respect to X, after all, X had helped him despite going after different things. X gave him a salute before teleporting away. Needless to say, both Red Arrow and RedX were confused on this new alliance, but then again, neither were complaining.