Red X is being weird. But his being weird will prove to be a key turning point in some HAPPINESS, so no being angry about stupid Red X!
Disclaimer; Same as always.
Chapter 8
Perhaps one of the reasons he trained so much was because it was relaxing, it deprived him of the priveledge of free thought, meaning that he didn't have to think about what was going on in his world now. He was starting to understand why Robin had chosen the road that he did.In fact, he was started to understand a lot of what Robin did. After all, he had taken Robin's place as leader. And the training helped to relieve the stress. Even if it didn't help his position any.
His breathing was ragged as he repetitively hit the punching bag. Left...right...right...left... His mind wasn't on the workout, though, it was occupied with other things.
He couldn't escape the fact that the blame lay on his shoulders, or at least some of it did. He wasn't the one who had pushed the kid over the edge, but he had sure driven him up to the top of the precipice. He knew that because of his taunts, the poor kid had been placed in a very uncomfortable situation with both girls thinking they were his. If he could have kept his mouth shut...
Left...right...left...right...right...The punching bag did not exist in his mind's eye. He was instead picturing Light. If that idiot of a villain hadn't managed to steal the xinothium from him in the first place, then maybe he wouldn't have been in this position. Life would have gone on, and two people wouldn't be lying in the hospital rooms while their best friend tore himself apart with grief.
Right...left...right...left...left...His arms were sore. He'd been at this for four hours straight now. His entire being ached, cried out for him to stop this torture, but he would not allow himself. How could he take a break when three people...three innocent victims...were gone? Sure, one was still alive, if you could call that lifestyle living, but the true Robin was dead, replaced by an unfeeling, helpless shell.
Left...right...left...right...right. His feet moved from side to side, keeping time with his steady blows as, in the back of his mind, he quietly berated himself for his part. But he refused to talk to anyone about what he was feeling. He knew that it was what had brought Robin down, but he couldn't help but try to ignore what he was thinking. He had an outlet for his emotions, after all, if a very destructive outlet.
Right...left...right... He had to stop to catch his breath. His knees buckled beneath him as he grasped his sides. His breathing was irregular as his body tried to take in as much oxygen as possible in huge gasps of breath. But he wouldn't stop and rest; he wouldn't give himself the satisfaction. He didn't deserve to have a break, he thought. Did the others get a break? No, they didn't. Shaking, he pushed himself back up to his feet, deciding to move on to the treadmill to at least ease his screaming arms.
Right...left...right...left. The thud of each footstep urged him forwards. He knew that he could only push himself so far, but he kept the treadmill at it's higher rate, and his aching legs cried out for him to stop, but he did not.
Step by step. Right foot, left foot. He put all of his concentration into each step, not only because he was so tired, but also because it was his way of distracting himself. And thus far, he was actually doing a pretty good job with it. Left foot, right foot. Breathe in, breathe out.
His ears were ringing, and he was soaked in sweat. His vision was blurred, and he could slowly feel himself slipping away, and yet he pressed on. Right foot, left foot. Each step took so much energy that he had to force himself to take the next one. Step by step. Inch by inch.
He had to give in; he turned the speed down, and this relieved his sore muscles, if only for the moment. He leaned heavily on the machinery, holding his feet above the moving equipment as he tried to catch his breath. But the pressure he was putting on his lungs was slowly winning him over, and he turned the machine off. He jogged over to the bench, where a water bottle sat, almost completely empty.
He sighed. This would mean that he would have to leave the gym and fill it up. For a moment, he considered just leaving it empty, and continuing his workout, but his thirst overcame his want for privacy and desire for an absence of physical contact with the outside world.
"Shoot. I guess I've got to refill this," he sighed as he rolled up the bottom part of his mask, revealing lips parched with thirst. He drained what little liquid was in the bottle, then took off at a moderate jog to go and do this chore.
He overheard their whispers in the living room. He wasn't trying to eavesdrop, but he heard anyway. He was just too dang quiet, he guessed. At first he had tried to block out what they were saying as he quieted his breathing, but when his name came up, he couldn't help but listen.
"I can't help but worry about Red X," Raven was saying to Cyborg.
"Yeah, he seems a little...distant. Even more so than usual," Cyborg replied.
"He's been locking himself in the gym for hours on end, and when he comes out, he goes straight to bed. The only time he's not training is when he goes to find more of Cyborg's parts," Jinx supplied, nodding her agreement.
"It's Robin all over again," Raven sighed. "I heard him right after Starfire left him. I've never heard him so...broken before." She sighed, and her eyes drifted towards the hallway that led to the hospital room. "Now I know why."
"If I had a hand, I'd put it on your shoulder, Rae. I'm sorry all this had to happen, but it did. Right now we should just focus on one problem at a time," Cyborg offered.
"How are we supposed to do that? All these problems keep popping up all at once!" Jinx cried out, exasperated.
"And it's not like the X situation is helping, either. He's just making things worse," Kid Flash added angrily.
Cyborg's eyes widened. "Whoa man, what's got your goat?" he asked. "I've never seen you this mad before. Hey, I've never seen you mad at all!"
Kid Flash sighed. "It's Red X. He's been moody lately, and it's enough to get on my last nerve. Normally I can keep my head and my smile, but that attitude of his just...grr," he finished, his eyes narrowed.
"Give him a break, guys. We can't possibly imagine the guilt that he's going through," Raven sighed.
As he turned the faucet on, he purposefully slammed the ice box shut to get their attention. Immediately, everything went quiet as they stared up at him. He knew they couldn't see his eyes, but right now they were blazing with anger. If looks could kill...
"Oh, hey Red X. We didn't see..." Jinx trailed off, trying to find the right words.
He glowered down at them, forcefully closing the cap of the bottle as he turned the water off and stalked out of the room. He was about to close the door behind him, but a hand of black energy held it open, and Raven phased up through the floor in front of him. "X, please don't be mad at whatever you may have overheard. We're all tired, and we were just blowing off steam. Please..."
"Just leave me alone," he snapped.
Tears appeared in her eyes, and she bit her lip, looking away for a moment before looking him straight in the face once more, tears and all. "I wish you could hear yourself right now. You sound so much like him..." Her voice was barely a whisper, but it ferocity pierced him like a sword.
He sighed, unable to keep eye contact with her. "Stop telling me that. I just want to be alone," he pleaded.
"That's just it, Red X. You're not alone. We're here to help. If you think you're going through a lot, then why don't you try looking at it from my point of view? I'm the one that pushed him off a tower, aren't I? And yet here I am, helping to try and put this team back together. Now, I know we won't ever be a true team again, but the least we can do is try, alright?" she chided gently.
"I don't need your advice," he growled. Couldn't they just leave him alone until he had enacted his revenge on himself? He didn't care that the empath played a part; she was normally devoid of emotion anyway, it wasn't like she could understand how hard it was for him.
As he stalked away, he heard her faint whisper, "You may not think so, but it's all I have left to give."
He slammed the door behind him, those words still ringing in his ears. He quickly quenched his thirst, then immediately returned to his work. That is, beating Doctor Light's face in in his mind's eye.
Left...right...left...right. The pounding beat of blows put his mind at ease for a moment, but only a moment. Right...right...left sidestep... In the back of his mind, those tear-filled violet eyes rose up, filling his heart with remorse. He shouldn't have just left her standing there without trying to offer her some sort of explanation. But how could she understand?
Right...left...right...left. He'd given his body a rest, so why was he feeling so weak? He growled in annoyance at his own incompetence, and he continued pounding the punching bag. As long as he kept going, his mind wouldn't have the chance to bother him so much.
Left...left...left...right...right...right. His feet danced beneath him as his breathing quickened its pace to try to keep up with his mind. He was going to keep going. He had to. This was his only outlet.
Left...left..right...left...right. They thought he was being selfish. They thought he was being rude. He wasn't. He was actually trying to keep himself locked away so that he wouldn't end up hurting them. He knew he was on the brink of insanity, as they kept so kindly reminding him. It was safer this way.
Right...right...
He couldn't find the strength to continue on. Despite his inward cries to keep going, to keep pushing himself, his body wasn't listening to him. His knees buckled, and he fell to the ground with a slight groan. His word was spinning.
"Get up. Get up," he told himself, trying to force his unwilling arms to lift his body up, but they weren't responding. Finally, he could hold out no longer, and he let himself fall to the ground. The world was spinning, and the ringing was still in his ears, and now his mind couldn't be kept from coming out.
"You may not think so, but it's all I have left to give," said Raven's voice in his mind. He winced a bit as he realized the hidden truth in that statement. The girl felt that she could never love, never feel again, and who could blame her? And yet here he was, worried about his own feelings.
"Just leave me alone!" said Robin's voice, and he felt a twinge of guilt as he realized that he really had sounded exactly like the kid. And yet he was the one who had pushed the kid too far. His warnings had come too late, and now he was paying the consequences.
He groaned. Why was this happening? Everything was happening so quickly that he could hardly think straight. Everything had been thrust on him at once...and now he was starting to understand why the kid had gone off the edge. He tried once more to rise, but his arms weren't cooperating.
The door burst open, and a feminine scream erupted in his ears. He tried to rise, tried to tell them that he'd be fine, that he just needed to get some rest and he'd be right back up on his feet, but he couldn't. He couldn't even tell who had screamed, since he had never heard Jinx or Raven scream before...
"Kid Flash! Jinx! Get in here!" Okay, so it was definitely Raven. Wonderful. Now she could rub it in his face that he had pushed himself so far. He tried to get up once more, and this time succeeded in emitting a feeble moan. Which was worse, in his opinion. Now he looked weak.
As could be expected, it took all of half a second for more voices to join Raven's. After all Kid Flash was faster than any other, so why shouldn't he get there quickly? But this only made it all the worse for X, and he wanted nothing more than to growl at them and tell them to go away.
"What happened?" Jinx asked, and he was not only surprised, but also filled with guilt, at the concern that filled the girl's voice. Were they really that worried about him?
"I think he pushed himself too far. He's completely drenched in sweat. What are we going to do?" Raven asked, concern evident in her voice as well. It continued to surprise him how emotional the girl had become ever since her miraculous return. Sooner or later, after he had righted all his wrongs and tried his best to find a cure for the others, he would have to ask her about it.
"I don't think he wants us to take him to the hospital," Kid Flash remarked as Red X tried to push himself up again.
Got that right, he thought sarcastically, though he couldn't say that at the moment, for lack of both air and strength. His breathing was slowing down, though, and he could finally make out shapes. There was a big pink blob, a yellow and red blob, and a dark blue blob, and all three were hovering above him.
"Do you think we should anyway?" Jinx asked.
His eyes widened, and he tried to shake his head. He was feeling better already; he could now distinguish faces. He opened his mouth, but all that came out was a cracking sound as his voice failed him.
"Of course we should! I'm not going to let him go to pieces like Robin did!" Raven said, and the bitterness in her voice was obvious.
He felt several hands beneath his back and shoulders, and his desperately told his voice to come back to him. His legs seemed to respond, and he was able to, with their unwitting assistance, stand up and stare around at them. "Leave...me...alone!" he gasped, his voice raspy, but finally there. Darn it, he really was starting to sound like Robin.
"Red X, you're not in a position to demand anything. We're taking you to the medical ward, now," Raven said, her voice firm and unwavering.
"I...don't...need..." He couldn't finish the sentence. Weeks and weeks of endless physical torture that he had inflicted upon himself finally got the best of him, and his eyesight blurred once more, this time not to return. His knees buckled and he fell to the ground as his world turned to darkness.
The last thing he heard before he lost consciousness was Raven's voice saying, "I had hoped that you wouldn't be like him, you know. I had hoped that you wouldn't torture yourself like he's doing. I guess I was wrong. It's not the first time."