Here we go! Chapter 3! Again, sorry for the wait. Now that it's summer, I have more time to write, so hopefully, that means new updates!

In this chapter, I introduce SpeedyxAqualad established relationship and Robin goes to them for advice. I think Robin is one who, even though he sees the importance of teamwork, takes on a lot of his personal burdens alone, at least, that's the impression I got from the TV show. He believes villains could redeem themselves, but Red X seems to confuse him and he doesn't know what to think of him in the show, which is what gave me the idea for this fic. A guy who's a thief but saves his life and helps him beat the bad guy, even if it's just to get more xenothium for the suit? Oh-em-gee, is he as bad as he thought?

The whole "fire" to Robin's "ice" attitude (as described on Wikipedia) gave me the idea for this pairing. The fact that he's not destroying the world and is just looking out for himself by stealing and his cool ability (not to mention his easy flirty ways, as he attempted with Starfire before she blasted him) make me think he's awesome.

Also, since his identity was never revealed nor really hinted at (some have thought him to be Jason Todd, a villain for Batman, though that's never been proven), I figured I would make him an OC. I'd appreciate any thoughts on this.

BTW, I suck at chapter titles, so yeah. Also, IF I MADE ANY MISTAKES IN THE SPANISH SENTENCES, PLEASE TELL ME. I haven't taken Spanish in over three years, so I'm kinda rusty. Anyways, enjoy!

Chapter 3: Enquiries and Gifts

"Friends! Let us feast on the great pancake extravaganza that Beast Boy and Cyborg have prepared for us!" Starfire happily declared with her arms wide open.

The Titans ambled over to the dining room, the breakfast smell eliciting their senses from any sleepy haze left.

"Y'all ready for Cy's super blueberry butter supreme?" Cyborg said happily, producing a whole plate full of pancakes.

"Dude! I made double strawberry syrup!" Beast Boy shoved Cyborg aside, bringing up his own stack on a plate.

"Aw, man! Nobody wants to eat your lousy cooking!"

"What was that, Tin Man!?"

Robin sat subdued on his chair, ignoring the two bickering friends. Starfire was busy pouring four glasses of orange juice and Raven was sitting next to him.

"Everything okay?" she asked.

Robin started and turned to her. "Fine! Fine!" he said a bit too cheerfully to be believable, "Everything is fine."

Raven raised an eyebrow at him. Robin sighed and hung his head. "OK, everything's not fine." He bit his lip, and Raven knew he was debating whether to talk about it. She waited patiently, not saying a word.

After a minute of internal conflict, Robin asked uncertainly, "Raven… Do you think that… that people who commit crimes are not all that bad?"

"What do you mean?" Raven asked.

"Well, I…" Robin picked at his pancake for a bit, seemingly lost for words. He set his fork down, setting his jaw firmly. "Can criminals love, you think? They're greedy, ruthless, selfish, but can they feel love?"

Raven didn't speak for a moment. She looked down at her plate, picked a bit of pancake and put it in her mouth. Robin grew impatient, but knew better than to rush the sorceress.

"Criminals are human… Well, most of them," she added with a wry smile, "They can feel positive emotions, just as superheroes can feel negative ones. Look at Terra. Look at Jinx. Hasn't she proven that even villains can be inclined to do good to a certain amount?" Raven look at him with her most serious face, which – as it was Raven – was very intimidating. "Love leaves no one out of its spell," she said, "No one. It's an emotion that can come to anybody. Whether that emotion will have positive or negative effects is impossible to say at times."

Robin nodded. What she said made sense; he would have to modify his black-and-white view on good and evil. He remembered that quick dialog he had had with Red X right after he had saved him from Professor Chang's evil ray.

"I thought you didn't like to play the hero."

"Doesn't mean I don't know how."

"Robin… Why are you asking this?"

"Uh…" Great, he was flustered again. "I… I'm just confused, Raven. About a lot of things."

Raven stared at him. Robin wondered fleetingly if she could read his mind and tried to keep it blank. He couldn't, however, control his erratic heartbeat.

"I know you are," she said at last, "You've been acting strange lately. Just remember that whatever it is, you can talk to me about it." She gave a rare little smile, which he gratefully returned. Raven truly was the wisest of them all.

Now, Robin had a little trip to make, which required him to go alone.

After breakfast, the Titans went shopping, as chores were to be done. That tower didn't run itself, after all. Starfire went grocery shopping with Raven, who had to make sure she bought the right ingredients and didn't mistake detergent for milk again. Beast Boy went with Cyborg to buy new parts needed to fix or upgrade various items or weapons (and also to splurge on new video games), which left Robin with nothing else to do but mutter something about buying new material for his costume.

Robin let the others leave first, and hurried into the Titans' spaceship, detaching himself from the main ship into a separate pod and flying out into the sky. He sped off to the other coast, going somewhere far different from what his teammates believed.

Soon, the tall building of the Titans East headquarters appeared. He landed the ship on top of the building and quickly climbed out. He hoped they weren't out at the moment.

Robin entered the building, easily gaining access to the door's security codes. The Titans each had access to the others' tower for emergency and convenience reasons. As Robin emerged from the elevator to the main floor of the tower, he saw two white blurs for the briefest moment before he felt his legs being tackled and he fell to the ground with an 'Oof!'.

"Señor Robin!" two voices happily said in unison.

Robin looked down at the white-clad twins of speed, each clinging on to one of his legs.

"Más and Menos!" he said, chuckling, "Good to see you guys!"

They released him and he stood up, dusting himself off. "Are Speedy and Aqualad here?" he asked.

"Si! Si! Están en el salón!" they replied.

"Uh… Where?" Robin scratched his head. Más and Menos each took one of his hands and eagerly dragged him off. They slipped through one of the many automatic sliding doors and entered the living room.

Robin found the two Titans he was looking for sitting on the sofa. Or rather, Speedy was sitting on the sofa, his legs crossed and propped on the table in front of him and Aqualad was sitting on his lap. Más and Menos left him to go back to whatever they had been doing before his arrival. The Boy Wonder walked up to the two who were currently munching on corn chips and watching a movie on the giant plasma screen in front of them.

"Hey guys," he said, waving.

"Robin, what's up?" Speedy greeted him. "Coming to visit your comrades-in-arms?"

"Long time no see," Aqualad said with a smile.

"Where's Bumblebee?" Robin asked, looking around.

"In her room, doing leader stuff," Speedy waved a hand nonchalantly, using the other to stuff his mouth with corn chips. "Or sending an e-mail to Cyborg, but totally denying that she's got a cru-ush."

"So, any particular reason why you're here?" Aqualad asked, unconsciously brushing crumbs off Speedy's shirt. He was a natural neat freak.

Robin smirked. It had been a bit of a surprise for everybody when Speedy and Aqualad had officially become a couple. They seemed to be very happy together.

"I just wanted to ask you guys something personal, so… I understand if you'd rather not."

The two looked at each other, and then looked back at him expectantly. "What is it?"

Robin took a deep breath, deciding to take the plunge. "How did you two – I mean, how did you know you loved each other?"

The couple stared at him blankly. "What do you want to know?" Speedy asked, "The part where your stomach gets butterflies whenever you're near them, your heart beats so loud, you can't get them out of your head, you feel weak, you think they're totally hot, you want to kiss them, you – " he was silenced by Aqualad's hand over his mouth.

"Get all that, Robin?" he said, smirking.

Robbin nodded slowly. "Yeah… That's not exactly what I was… Uh…"

"You just know," Aqualad said, "You know when you finally admit it to yourself, regardless of what anyone else says or thinks and when you can pinpoint your feelings to that one person. I can't really give you a step-by-step explanation. It's different for everyone."

"Why do you ask?" Speedy grinned cheekily, "Is it about Starfire?"

Robin's face became red. Oh, his little crush on Starfire had been completely forgotten under Red X's attentions.

"No, actually. The reason I came to you is because… it's just – there's this guy who says he likes me."

Speedy gaped. "You mean 'like' as in 'LIKE like' you?" then he added hurriedly, "Is he hot?"

Aqualad thwacked his boyfriend over the head before turning back to Robin. "Do you like him back?"

"No!" Robin exclaimed vehemently. He composed himself, not wanting to freak out, and said in a calmer, but no less flustered tone, "No, I… I don't know whether I hate him or I… just don't know what to think."

"Why would you hate him?" Aqualad asked.

Robin turned away, cheeks still warm. "Just… please keep this a secret, OK?" He gave a little sigh. "Let's just say he's not on the better side of justice."

"HOLY COW! Is he a SUPERVILLAIN? Is he a part of the Hive Academy!?" Speedy earned himself another thwack over the head from his boyfriend.

"No, he isn't. He's not a supervillain; he's just a very skilled thief."

"I see. And he says he likes you?" Aqualad frowned. "How do you know he's not setting you up?"

"That's what I thought! I mean, I have no reason to trust him! But then he's saved my life twice and he helped me win Ding Dong Daddy's motorcycle race. I don't know whether he's just setting a trap, or…"

Speedy arched an eyebrow. "Sounds to me like Bird Boy's got unresolved feelings," he whispered in Aqualad's ear.

"Please don't tell anyone," Robin said, "I've only asked for your help because I know you won't rat me out to my team, and I think you two are the ones who'll understand better than anyone else what's happening. I haven't told them because this is a matter between me and this other guy. I need to find out for myself what he's up to."

Robin had learned that keeping things from his team led to disastrous results. But when it came to Red X, Robin still felt burning shame at his reasons for creating that alter ego and betraying his friends. He believed that if he involved his friends in this new matter, another disaster may occur, and he preferred to face this demon alone.

"Don't worry, our lips are sealed," Aqualad said, snapping him out of his thoughts.

"Thanks," Robin said, relieved. He then asked another question burning in his mind, "How did the rest of the team react to your becoming a couple?"

Speedy shrugged. "Más and Menos were surprised because they never thought of two boys falling in love before, but they seem to be fine with it. And Bumblebee doesn't care as long as it doesn't interfere with missions."

"I see..." Robin drifted off for a bit before turning around. "Thanks for your help, guys. I need to get going. And remember, this is a secret."

"If he's hot, you should totally get with him!" he heard Speedy say as he left the room, followed by an "OW!".

The nervousness that tingled in his belly slowed considerably as Robin returned to Jump City. Speedy and Aqualad had a loving relationship and everyone seemed to accept them. Then again, they were both superheroes, working on the side of good. Red X was not exactly walking the straight and narrow, so that complicated things. Robin wondered how his team would react if he told them about his criminal male admirer. Would they get angry? Suspicious? How would they react if they actually got together? Not that it would ever happen of course, only theoretically wondering –

"MAAAIIIIL!" Beast Boy's voice echoed loudly in the hallway. Robin walked to the living room where the others were assembled around a stack of envelopes and packages.

"Aw, man! Superheroes shouldn't have to pay this!" Cyborg moaned over the electricity bills, which were definitely not cheap considering the amount of energy it took to run the tower. Thank goodness for Robin's trust fund, courtesy of Bruce Wayne.

Beast Boy was cheerfully diving into a pile of fan mal. "Dude! Check out the cool hat this girl made me!" he placed a rather ugly green hat with fuzz trimming on his head. "It's comfy!"

"And a rather bold fashion statement," Raven muttered.

Amidst the pile of letters lay a small white box left unnoticed by all but Robin, who couldn't ignore the bright red cross on it; a logo he knew all too well and made him break into a sweat. He dove for the box, clamping it down and crashing into the sofa in the process.

"Robin!"

"Are you OK?"

Robin swiveled around, his hands behind his back, clutching the box. "Yeah, I uh, slipped!"

"Whatcha hiding behind your back?" Beast Boy grinned maliciously.

"Is it a present from a secret admirer?" Cyborg chimed in.

Robin saw Starfire's eyes blaze luminous green with jealousy and feared she might blow something up. "No," he said hurriedly, "Uh, it's something from Br – I mean Batman. Something personal."

He zoomed to his room before the others could stop him. Robin cursed to himself, throwing the box on his bed. The thief was causing him a lot of trouble, and he wanted to punch him for it. He hated hiding things from his team; they had gone through enough when he had been Red X. He should just throw the box away and never think of it again. It would be for the best.

Robin slowly lifted the lid off the box and peered inside. A folded note which he took out had been hiding underneath a small keychain of a red robin with its little wings folded. Robin was a bit surprised at the gift; it didn't seem to resemble the thief. He unfolded the note and read it.

You like to spew out clichés so I thought this would be appropriate.

Robin groaned.

Yeah, I stole it, but the sales guy left his stand to eat, so he had it coming.

This was Red X's version of being romantic. Robin couldn't believe it; he had received a love token. He should just throw it away. Throw it away and never think of it again. That would be the best thing.

"Robin?"

Panicking, Robin threw the keychain and the box under the covers of his bed and folded the note in his pocket. "What is it?"

Starfire came in, her face creased with worry. "Is everything alright?"

"Fine! Why?" Robin rubbed the back of his neck, trying to look calm.

"I am getting worried about you," she said, "You say that everything is alright, but I know that it is not."

"Star…" Robin began.

"I do not want you to hide things from me again!" she said, looking at him with wide eyes, "You might get hurt or worse! Robin, are you chasing after Slade by yourself again?"

"It's not about Slade this time!" Robin said heatedly.

"I do not want you to hurt yourself, Robin!" she approached him, looking very concerned, and encircled him in her arms. Robin simply held her, unable to form any words of comfort.

Hope this chapter is good! Give me your opinions and suggestions! Thank you for reading!

MademoiselleSilver