If it was possible, getting hold of the Red X suit had even increased Xing Fu Lee's self-confidence. The pretty boy ballet dancer and master thief was already quite full of himself. Gaining the Red X suit and becoming a super thief capable of going toe to toe with heroes and villains didn't make him shy or insecure. Quite the opposite.

He had another month of dancing ballet with the Kirov to go and threw himself into it with all he had. For a little while after any heist, the urge to pull off a robbery went away, like a hunger temporarily sated. In such times, he could be insanely committed to other things. The russian audiences swooned at the incredible dancing of the american guest soloist with his amazing leaps, fantastic flexibility and great acting ability, able to portray characters good or bad with total commitment.

And while he was finishing his stint with the Kirov, to critical acclaim and audience adoration, section chief Carreker and agent Keller dropped by his dressing room some more, still occasionally asking questions about doing a job in a glass tower and also trying to get him to break into the homes of certain russian oligarchs. As before, X passed. Those places were too well defended he told them again. Keller still gave him the evil eye and X still made fun of him. He couldn't resist. Why should the guy be so uptight about seeing him in his tights?

Then after a couple heist free weeks, he started feeling the now usual itch. He had found the perfect hiding place for the suit and he now retrieved it pulled it on and used it to rob the rich russian in the mansion on Lake Ladoga that Carreker had previously mentioned to him. He got away with two handfuls of diamonds, another beautiful Levitan landscape painting and some thick stacks, wrapped in celophane, of 100 dollar bills. He also found a sheaf of documents relating to Lukoil and Rosneft, russian energy companies, that he thought Carreker would find interesting. He made copies using the tiny camera on the Red X mask.

The robbery was all over the russian papers, the majority of which seemed to think that the prime suspect was the Mafiya, that this particular rich guy was someone they had something against. Carreker thought otherwise. Too clean he told X the next time he and Keller approached X, in the usual way, immediately after a performance. One of the ballerinas, one of the few X hadn't fucked yet, was pressed against his side as the two men approached. She'd actually rebuffed him the first time he made a pass at her. But, word of mouth was powerful. Just that morning he'd seen her talking to a ballerina X had slept with and either that other ballerina was gesturing with her hands to show how big a fish she'd caught or word of mouth was, indeed, very powerful. She was very interested now.

"See you at Sergey's party, X?"

X nodded with a wolfish smile and blew her a kiss.

Carreker shoved his autograph book in X's face as the ballerina sauntered off. "Sorry to disappoint you, Keller," said X while he personalized the signature. "But I'll be with her tonight. You'll have to keep dreaming."

Keller only grunted an expletive. X spun a circle on the toes of one foot in front of him as another fan passed by and X waved to him. Carreker herded the three of them into X's private dressing room and X immediatlely went to a small cabinet and got out the document copies. He handed them to Carreker who seemed first surprised and then nodded as though he had completely expected it.

"I figured it was you, X. Didn't I, Keller?"

Keller grunted agreement.

"I said 'Our pretty boy X is the only one who could do that job'. Mafiya? A job that clean? Bullshit. But you said it was no go, didn't you, X? You said it was too tough. What happened?"

"I guess I'm getting better," said X.

"Better? That place looked tougher to get into than Fort fucking Knox. How'd you do it?"

X just smiled and started undressing.

Carreker and Keller kept asking him to explain but he wouldn't. They pressed him some more for details but he wasn't obliging. They went off pleased for his help but clearly annoyed that they didn't know how he'd done it. X thought about it, even in bed right after screwing that ballerina that night, looking over the top of her hair bun where her head lay on his chest.

They wouldn't let the issue drop. It was tempting to keep playing with them, especially to tweak Keller for secretly desiring him. But they're gonna figure it out, he decided. Eventually they're gonna figure it out. Somebody'll get a security camera shot of Red X or a heat detection shot of Red X. And they'll find out. They'll match Red X jobs to where I was. Old man Guttman was right. They're gonna know. Gotta take steps now. Gotta make a couple moves on the chess board before they do something.

And, so he did. X got up early, only screwed that ballerina once in the morning and made contact with a top defense lawyer in each of a half dozen different cities, St. Petersburg, Moscow, Paris, London, Gotham City, Jump City, Chicago. Not just any lawyers but the nastiest badass advocate in each city. He set himself up as a client of each with a generous initial retainer that easily overcame their objections to him saying that there wasn't anything he wanted them to do. Then he started making copies of discs of all the NSA files he could. And he got Carreker and Keller into conversations in his dressing room, recorded conversations, in which they talked about the things they'd asked X to do, the people they'd wanted him to rob. X sent a copy of everything to each of the lawyers.

Then he robbed Putin's place in St. Petersburg. It was only one of several homes the scumbag had. There were probably army bases with fewer uniformed flunkeys marching around. It was thought to be an absolutely untouchable place. Of course, this designation didn't consider a thief who could leap as high and far as Red X and do it while being invisible to any onlooking guards. The only disappointment was that Putin had such terrible taste in art. The stuff X took had probably been strong armed away from the previous owners and it was all shit. The guy really was a despot without a soul, wasn't he? X arranged for all of the money stolen from Putin's St. Petersburg place to be shot up into the air and come wafting down on shoppers in the middle of the city. A gift from your glorious dictator. The reason was that he suspected it had all been marked, the serial numbers noted. There were faint markings next to most fo the serial numbers. This would be helpful in locating the thief if they started turning up in one location or following one person's movements. X gave them to every shopper in St. Petersburg. There was nothing Putin or his flunkeys could do. Was he going to arrest everyone in St. Petersburg? Well, okay. He might. He probably considered it. But he didn't.

Carreker and Keller were really tweaking now. They visited after his next to last performance with the Kirov. He was still sweaty in his gold velvet top and white tights. He brushed aside their questions. Putin?! Me? Ahahahaha! But they weren't buying it. He didn't care. He had what he needed to keep them off of him. It was just a matter of time before they realized what had happened. But he was ready now.

Maybe it was his years as a ballet dancer always making carefully choreographed movements. But the idea of waiting for Carreker, Keller and the National Security Agency to suddenly come after him in whatever chaotic fashion seemed dumb. Why not set things up to go the way I want, to happen on my terms?

That night, he pulled on the Red X suit and broke into Keller's hotel room. He knew that Keller was up at 6:30 on the dot every morning from the surveillance cameras he'd placed there. At 6 o'clock, he turned on Keller's laptop, logged in to the NSA site as he'd done as Keller dozens of times already, and sent a request to be removed from the case to Carreker and his boss. It was written as the rambling confession of a man unhinged by the realization of his true sexuality. "I can't serve my country on a case involving this gorgeous ballet dancer with his incredible face, warm carmel brown eyes luscious body and especially his sweet, sweet ass" confessed faux Keller. He asked to be given other duties. X smirked at Keller down the hall in the bedroom, still sleeping, then logged off and shut off the laptop.

He couldn't wait for the scene this would make but it took a day. He was just down the street from the Kirov's building the day after that when a gritted teeth Keller in an overcoat stomped angrily at him where X sat beside a beautiful blond Finnish girl in a sidewalk cafe. He looked frantic, unhinged, like he might pull out a gun and shoot X at any moment. X remained calm.

"Katariina, this is Mr. Keller. He's a huge ballet fan. Keller. This is Katariina."

"Oh. One of those men who loves to watch an 18 year old boy in white tights?" muttered Katariina in her delicious little accent.

X nodded and Keller looked as though he might grit his teeth hard enough to snap his own jaw bone.

She waved at him and gave her usual chirpy little 'hi!'. X smiled. She was so cute, in her beautiful, perky girl way. The model agencies had picked a winner with her. And if the modeling thing ever fell through, X felt certain she could do porn, at least based on her performance the night before. Even now all bundled up in an overcoat, she seemed to hint at what a great fuck she was. Something about the utterly open way she looked at you.

Keller only grunted a 'hi' back at her.

"What's up, Mr. Keller? I got those roses you sent me-"

"Roses?" sniffed Katariina before muttering "I think I have competition."

"Let's talk, X! In private!" snapped Keller and he led X down the street past another sidewalk cafe to an alley. X followed, smirking all the way.

"I know you fucking did it, you pretty boy asshole!"

"Did what, agent Keller?" smiled X as over the top innocent as possible.

"You fucking bastard! I spent all yesterday and all morning today explaining that I haven't fallen for you and your sweet . .-"

X burst out laughing and Keller lunged at him. X jumped and sidestepped him and gave Keller a hard elbow as he went by opening a cut over his eye. But this wasn't enough and Keller charged him again. This time, X stepped forward and gave Keller two short punches, one uppercut to the jaw and then a hook to the side of his face. Keller crumpled to the dirty alley, groaning. He was still conscious but no threat. X sighed at the bother and dragged him over and sat him upright against one building.

"You took it, didn't you X?" demanded Keller, wiping blood off his face.

X gave him more over the top innocence.

"You found out about the laundry, didn't you? And you stole it? Didn't you? You did the place on Lake Ladoga. You did Putin's. And you used the laundry to do it."

"Keller. I'm going to go back to Katriina. Are you guys tossing my place even as we speak?"

"Haha. How do you like your place bein' broken into, pretty boy? Huh? And if they find it, I bet they set you up to take the fall for the Putin thing."

"Woooooo, I'm really scared Keller," chuckled X, waving his hands. And as he walked away, he reveled in the guy's sort of befuddled look, as if he was wondering, what the hell did we get ourselves into with this kid.

Of course they didn't find the Red X suit. X's apartment in St. Petersburg looked like a tornado had gone through it but they didn't find anything. He knew they wouldn't. The next night, Carreker and Keller were there at his dressing room after all the cheers and standing ovations had ended, after Xing Fu Lee had bowed holding the hands of just about every dancer in the company, a salute to his time with them. X was taking a swig from a bottle of champagne bottle when they approached him in the hall.

"Hey guys," said X, casually, first autographing a photo of him and then inviting them in.

"That wasn't very nice what you did to my partner, here," said Carreker.

"Did?" responded X starting to pull off his costume and striking the best note of actual innocence he could manage. "But I didn't do him. Can he . . can he not tell his sexual fantasies from reality any more?"

"Very funny, Lee," continued Carreker. "But the really interesting thing is not what you did but what it means that you did it. You don't care if we know that you've been into our files. Now, why would that be?"

X finished undressing and turned on the shower. "Very . . to the point, Carreker. Also quite logical. I like that, as long as creative flourishes aren't ruled out."

"I think I know why you did it, Lee. You have the laundry and you realize we'll figure it out eventually. So, you didn't worry about letting us know."

"And you're a little wiseass pretty boy, prick!" snorted Keller.

"With a sweeeet ass," pointed out X as he stepped under the spray of the shower. "Not that, um, my prick is little. As you can both see, I've probably got better equipment than either of you, right?"

After a silence of a few seconds, X burst out laughing and continued soaping himself up.

"You think you've got something, don't you?" said Carreker. "Something on us."

X continued leisurely soaping up. "Well," he said over the spray and then casually soaped up some more for a minute before slowly rinsing off. "Yeah," he finally added then rinsed some more, making them go by whatever pace he chose. Finally, he turned off the water and swept his collar length black hair out of his face and tied a towel around his waist.

"See guys. I've got alllll these files, all these classified NSA files which is not only bad for the NSA, but bad for you guys in particular. I mean, how will the other guys at spook central feel about you two when the guy you were supposed to be watching, um . . me, dowloads hundreds and hundreds of files, email messages, confidential documents, you name it, and gives copies of it to six different prominent lawyers around the world. I mean, that's gotta make you look pretty bad if it ever comes out, doesn't it?"

"And . . why . . would . . that information ever come out?"said Carreker, speaking cautiously, as though defusing a bomb.

"Well, those files and copies of the recordings I made, don't forget those," suggested X who then paused to remove a micro recorder from a small cabinet and press play. A series of statements played, him identifying the other speaker as Carreker or Keller and then one of them, usually Carreker urging him to rob this or that russian billionaire. "Doesn't sound good for you guys," continued X as Keller grunted out an expletive.

"Why would this stuff come out? Well . . . if anything . . happens to me. If I'm oh . . . arrested. If I'm somehow in an accident. If I die. Or even if my room just gets tossed again. Information gets released. Do you understand?"

Carreker, ever the big picture guy of the two, sighed angrily but then quickly nodded. Keller shook his head in disgust vigorously and pawed at the wallpaper. " . . . can't believe we're in this position . . how hard can it be to control some sex addict in tights? Remember that, Paul?! Remember that?! So, some kid whose job is to show off his ass to rich women's robbed a few of 'em. We'll handle this fruit, no problems, boss. Remember that?! "

"Aww, shut the fuck up, Nolan. We are where we are at this point."

"That's right," said a smiling X drying himself off then tossing the towel aside and pulling on a pair of boxers. "Sorry, Keller. But as a courtesy to Carreker I'm gonna put something on," and turning back to Carreker, he continued. "And where you are right now is . . you're my bitches! You two are . . . my bitches. But, hey, I'm not totally without sympathy. I'll help you guys out . . . here and there . . if I feel like it. Better to have me still, officially, a friendly party than an enemy, right? Because if I get categorized as an enemy then a lot of hard questions might get asked like, where's that Red X suit? And if I get categorized as an enemy, then you guys might feel like you have to move against me. But if you do, all those files and recordings get opened up by 6 of the nastiest lawyers on the planet. So, yeah, we are where we are," continued X and then moving over to stand between Carreker and Keller then slapping an arm down over the shoulders of both of them. "We're gonna remain pals like always, aren't we?"

Keller stepped angrily away from X, still only wearing his boxer shorts. Carreker glanced warily toward X.

"What might here and there mean, Lee?"

"I'm going to dance with the Royal Ballet in London, for six months, Section chief. After that, I think I'm going back to Jump City," said X now leading them both to the dressing room door. "Contact me in London or Jump. But don't expect me to do any jobs blind and don't lie to me. If I like the job I might do it. If you try and set me up, I'll fuck you guys over even harder than Keller dreams of fucking me."

Keller grumbled an expletive as he and Carreker slipped out.

X had a great time in London. It was nice to be absolutely fluent in the language for a change and it was great that the staff at the Royal Ballet didn't make any particular new demands on him. They didn't try to change his style of dancing or demand that he dance a certain way. And he immediately became the top dancer in the company. X would never have said it but he thought the british boys were wimps. At least, their ballet dancers were wimps. It took X about 30 minutes in class of showing his superior, honed technique, of leaping much higher than them, of showing that, despite his slenderness, he was stronger than all of them and could more easily carry their ballerinas for him to establish himself as unmistakably the alpha male of the Royal Ballet.

What also surprised and greatly pleased X was that his fame seemed to have endured long enough that there was a new dynamic to his various conquests. The girls he met in London clubs, at London fashion shows and on the streets now seemed to categorized him as a famous person, a famous person of the sort who could only be looking for a one night stand. It was fantastic. He barely had to allude to that particular night not being the beginning of a long lasting relationship. The girls completely expected him to leave the next morning. X loved it!

And in between robbing the poshest estates, from Clarence House to a half dozen outside Londin in Oxshott, Radlett and Kingswood, X had his first dealings with villains. He sold a Turner landscape to Professor Chang. Actually, he sold a copy of that painting to Professor Chang. He sold the real one to Slade. The psycho cyclops was freaked out at another Red X showing up at his meet with Andre Leblanc. He made X turn around. "You're not him," he finally pronounced.

"No shit," X answered. "I'm a lot taller and better looking."

It was more than a little creepy the way Slade looked at him, dirty old man creepy.

"How did you get that suit?"

"I stole it from the little bat."

Slade stared and stared at him, seeming to take forever to decide what to do before finally agreeing to buy the painting. He was a pretty freaky, scary character, one of those obsessed nut cakes and powerful enough to fight the whole Titans team and at least get a draw. So X sold him legit stuff the first several times. Then, back in Jump City, the first time he had it set up to sell him a fake, Jinx and the Hive 5 just haaaaad to be there and she pointed out how it was a fake. How frustrating that a girl so hot, would cause trouble. He had to admit, it made her even more interesting. Brains and the whole cat eyed bad girl thing! If only she hadn't brought the whole junior chamber of losers with her! Mammoth? Billy Numerous? Come on.

Back in Jump, X thought he was running a little low on the xenothium that powered the suit and worked out a heist to steal some from Professor Chang. But the little bat was there and expediency required that he team up with the little dork against Chang. When it was over, the little bat swiped his belt. Probably thought he had really accomplished something. But X had already had two backups made. And the little bat apparently didn't see him stow three full large size tubes of xenothium under the cape of his suit. The whole thing was a victory for X. He pulled on a fresh belt when he got back to his penthouse condo and needed just one of the large tubes to fill the storage cylinders in the belt. Silly little bat.

But X almost found himself feeling sympathy for the little bat at times. It was pretty impressive that he could keep up with all the others despite being a midget with no powers. He didn't have anything against heroes, per se. Some people were gonna go into that whole mind set. Fine. What. Ever. It wasn't X's thing. Even if did do some things that people thought were extremely generous.

Fine. Signing on with the Jump City Ballet at a salary of $1 probably seemed generous. And working to bring the assistant director of the Kirov to Jump to run their company probably seemed nice, too. And nobody knew that he made the company pay the other dancers nearly twice what they'd normally get as a condition of him signing on for that 3 year contract. They probably would have thought that was freaking philanthropy or something.

But X would have pointed out that he didn't need the money. Hello! Thirty million dollars, the proceeds of a couple dozen high profile robberies salted away in secret Swiss bank accounts. And, hello! Millions of dollars a year in endorsements in South Korea where Xing Fu Lee, the half korean ballet star and guy who'd humiliated Kobe Bryant endorsed practically everything. His personal favorite was the one where he appeared, in full ballet costume, after a clip of him rejecting Kobe Bryant played and endorsed the local version of the Big Mac. A hot korean girl to one side of him leaned around to look at his backside, staring openly at his rear in white tights and said, in korean,"Amazing buns!".

X smiled straight into the camera, holding up the sandwich the whole time and flawless korean said, "Sesame seed buns."

The other hot korean girl gawked openly at the hemispheric bulge at the front of his tights exclaiming,"It's so big!"

X gave a little extra smile at the camera and said, "Of course. It's Korean. Ours are the biggest. 25% bigger than the american . . . Big Mac."

So, it wasn't just him being a nice guy. He'd have absolutely denied that. He was having a lot of fun.

Some people would've gotten caught up on all his appearances at schools throughout the metro Jump City area. Xing Fu Lee visited half the schools in the region promoting ballet. He'd bring a ballerina with him and dance a solo and do a pas de deux. And inevitably the discussion afterward would turn to how he'd humiliated Kobe Bryant. X would be modest about it with the little kids. At the high schools, there would often be some kid who said it was fake. This is why X began telling high schools to set up for the performance to be given in the school gym. X would ask for the best basketball player in the school to come down and try to score on him. If the kid was nice, X would just block his shot. If he snickered at X wearing white tights, X would block the ball into his face, literally back into the kid's face. Then X would put a silver dollar on top of the backboard and jump and pull it right back off followed by some more lifts with whichever ballerina he'd brought.

Enrollment at Jump City area ballet schools skyrocketed. There were more girls of course, all dreaming of partnering with the fantastically handsome Xing Fu Lee, but now there were even some boys along with them. One of the company executives gushed about how wonderful it was that X was giving back to the art. X scoffed at that. Hello! I'm building an audience to pay my salary in the future. Me a goody two shoes?! Ha!

Few of the 8 girls he slept with in the next week would have said that. Sure, X treated them well but none of them were under any illusions that he was anything but a great time for them. The knew that he wasn't committed to them just like they weren't committed to him. Still, it rankled him a little bit when he saw first one model, then another that he'd dated, out enjoying the night life with the same red haired pretty boy. It happened in Star City, too. This Roy Harper dude was going after the same creme de la creme of cover models as he was. But, finally, X realized that those models and ballerinas would have to be with someone when he was elsewhere. This carrot topped dude'll have to do as a substitute.

The idea of him being a goody two shoes was also laughable to X because he was becoming more and more enmeshed in the upper echelon of crime and villains. He picked his spots very carefully. Before approaching any villain he did a lot of recon centering first on their henchmen. Invariably these lackeys talked too much about their gig. Almost invariably they were underpaid by their villain bosses. It was easy for Red X to follow these guys, get some dirt on them, some info and hideout locations and upcoming heists and then use that.

He was very careful. But not all the time. When news spread all around Jump that there was some kind of young heroes get together going to take place at Titans Tower, some sort of celebration of Kid Flash becoming a Titan, he couldn't resist going just to tweak Robin.

Christ, there were like 30 of them there, a ton of hot chicks and a dude or two who interested him. Okay, Aqualad. Fine. He wasn't embarassed to admit that the occasional guy did it for him. But he'd lost sight of the atlantean in the crowd of dancing heroes. Surprisingly for such a bunch of stiff do-gooders a lot of them could really dance. Across the room, not dancing of course, he saw Robin. X turned the Red X suit cloaking off and then back on again, letting Captain Uptight get all flustered about it. Then he left the great room and went downstairs. He was going to break into Robin's room and dust all Robin's pants with a newer, totally unbearable Atomic Balm when he caught just a glimpse of red and yellow then, BANG.

Collision.

He fell to the ground only mumbling "Stupid Kid Flash" to himself before losing consciousness.

As he started coming out of it, he didn't know how much later, he heard voices. He kept his eyes closed and face expressionless to not let his captors know he was listening. As the fog continued to clear, he realized that he was lying on his back. And he was naked. Someone had gotten the Red X suit off him. Damn. And as the fog continued to clear, he started hearing two voices more and more clearly. He opened his eyes so slightly that no one could notice.

"He's . . extremely handsome, isn't he?" muttered the dark haired one, who was, in fact, X thought, gorgeous himself.

"Is that why you're practically tent poling your suit?"

"I am not. Not significantly anyway. Was there alcohol in that punch?"

"Duh. Did you really think there wouldn't be?"

"But, Robin said there wouldn't be!"

"The little bat's a bit out of touch, fishstick. But so what?"

"I told you. It-it makes me feel so . . sexual."

"Hahaha. You want me to bring Kid Flash in here?"

"No! Please! He doesn't know. But . . . Speedy . . . ?

"Yeah?"

"I-I've seen this fellow before. I-I know I have. I know him. That derriere! I just . . can't remember where I've seen him."

They were both staring at him, for minutes it seemed. The dark haired one, Aqualad, was so hot. X stared back through his eyelashes. He didn't feel this way often, just Jeremy, Nikolai and now Aqualad. And he didn't try to deny it when he did. Finally he said screw it and just opened his eyes.

"Not so dangerous without that," said a smirking Speedy pointing to his Red X suit tossed over the chair behind the archer.

"There are a lot of different ways to be dangerous," smirked X rising to a crouch and then stepping off the bed to stand nose to nose with the atlantean, who looked flustered. He pulled the raven haired dude's gloves off while he sputtered and Speedy snickered behind him. Then he kissed him all the while pulling off the guy's sleek blue unitard.

The atlantean might have hit him or dodged him or resisted. He only kissed back, first hesitantly then enthusiastically while in the background, he first heard the archer sputtering then his bow, quivver and utility belt falling to the floor. X looked right into the dark, purple eyes of the stunning atlantean. He was smitten. From that point on, everything was a frenetic, ecstatic blur. There was no starting point, no stopping point just three boys and hours of hot sex. Somewhere in that time he got the archer's mask off and it immediately registered. Roy Harper. Speedy was that other player sex addict, Roy Harper. Ahahaha!

Having this arrow in his quivver, as it were, made him comfortable falling asleep in sort of enemy territory. When he woke, sandwiched between Speedy and Aqualad, he could somehow tell that Speedy, in front of him, was sound asleep but that the gorgeous atlantean was wide awake.

"I know who you are," he whispered, lips touching the super thief's ear lobe.

Wanting to ferret out a bluff, X demanded, "Who?" softly over his shoulder.

He heard the atlantean sigh. "You're Xing Fu Lee. You're a wonderful ballet dancer."

X took a long slow breath. "Yeah? So?"

The atlanatean seemed flustered, thought X. He was not the type to play hardball even with the bad guys. "Do I have to spell it all out?"

"Maybe not," said X, still not moving from where he lay between them. "Because I know who he is."

There was a long pause and then the atlantean, also trying to ferret out a bluff demanded, "Who?"

"Roy Harper. He's been after some of the same models as me."

He could almost hear the dark beauty's frown. "When was this?"

"Mostly a couple months ago."

The atlantean sighed. Somehow X just knew that the archer had been cheating on the amazing atlantean.

"You see girls, too?" he finally asked, sounding as if almost absent mindedly changing the subject away from the cheating.

"Mostly. I've only been with a couple guys. What about you?"

"Me? This is . . this is just a phase I'm going through."

X's chuckle almost woke up the archer in front of him.

"Seriously?"

The atlantean's whisper had a tone of indignation. "It's the norm for atlanteans to have a phase of . . experimentation."

"Okay. But does everyone understand that?"

"No," said that atlantean with a long slow sigh and X felt him grip him more tightly. He was incredibly strong for his size. They probably could have worn each other's clothes with only the smallest alterations but the atlantean must have been at least twice as strong as he was. Easily.

"Even some of my . . colleagues don't extend any sympathy to me. They become unhinged with discomfort at even such innocent things as my appreciation of your artistry," said the atlantean. He let out a very heavy sigh onto the back of X's neck.

"Well I couldn't give a shit less what you do on your own time. But other people might care."

The atlantean's breath caught.

"If anything any of you do makes use of my identity, then his," X nodded slightly toward Speedy, "gets out and the two of you get outted. Is that understood?"

There was a long pause before the softest possible "yes".

"The three of us go on just like before, Red X, Speedy and Aqualad. Just like nobody learned anything. Agreed?"

"Mmm hmm."

X ever so delicately got up from between the two of them, his grace so perfect that Speedy didn't notice. He pulled on his dance belt and all the parts of the Red X suit except for the skull face mask. He went over and gave wide awake Aqualad a slight push to be up against Speedy. The atlantean, obviously in a pensive frame of mind, gave him an interesting circumspect look.

"You are going to just leave and not rummage through the Tower?"

X nodded. "Right after this," he said bending over to give the amazing atlantean a huge kiss. Aqualad was gasping for breath as Red X put on his face mask and left.

There were a couple more years of Red X memories for Kid Flash to sift through. There were more heists and there was exhibitionist Xing Fu Lee becoming more and more the biggest star in the world of ballet. And there was a parade of ballerinas and cover models and, ecchhh, another dude. Finally, Kid Flash, now just a disembodied voice in his own body while Red X controlled his super speedster form, reached the present.

He'd mentally sifted through all of Red X's memories or at least a series of them that were linked by associatiion in the 10,000 seconds that Red X was in control. At last, he felt that much more pleasurable sensation of almost reverse parachuting, of almost jumping into the cockpit of a moving plane. He was in control of his own body again.

He was back in his and Jinx's room at the Tower and immediately he picked up his communicator and pressed *BB. Gar picked up.

"It's me again. I'm in control of myself again. Any progress?"

The green teen first checked the time and nodded. Yup. Just a bit more than 10,000 seconds since the last switch. It's Wally again.

"Any progress, Gar?"

The shape shifter sighed. "I don't think I can figure it out, Wally. I'm sorry, dude. But that fricking transporter runs on like quantum mechanics and martian science or something." He saw the speedster's irritation and quickly added. "But I know someone who can figure it out."

"Who?"

"Duh. Cyborg."

"But he's at that World Robotics Expo thing. He won't be back till tomorrow!" complained the speedster.

"I'm sorry, Wally, but I don't know what else to do. You want me to send an emergency alert to Cy and get him back here now?"

Kid Flash sighed. These robotics things were incredibly important to Cyborg. It was what he was, for god's sake, at least a large part of what he was. It was good that Gar was going to own up to his mistake. But he felt guilty about the prospect of dragging Cy away from something that was so important to him.

"No. He was talking about that Robotics thing for a week before this. I've sort of got it under control. I just hope he can split Red X out of me."

"Cy knows that transporter inside out already, dude. If anyone can, it's him."

Wally nodded. "KF out."

"BB out."

Kid Flash sighed. Ugh. Have to share my own body till tomorrow.

He flopped down on his back on his and Jinx's bed.

Oh quit whining, carrot top. I notice you've gone through my memories.

Kid Flash sighed again. Another feature of the transporter having spliced Red X's mind into his body. He could hear the guy's voice clear as a bell in his thoughts.

"I-I wanted to see what you were like, what made you tick," said the speedster softly to the empty room.

And?

There was a tone of cocky expectation to the super thief's voice in his head.

"Don't you . . don't you want to be with someone?"

Ahahaha! That hasn't been much of a problem for me.

"You know what I mean! You can access my thoughts just like I can access yours."

Yeah, but I don't always want to bother. You're such a nerd.

"Maybe I haven't been with a hundred fifty different girls . . . and some guys too! God!"

Oh calm down. If you going through my memories works like when I go through yours in this shared head, then you felt exactly what I felt. You enjoyed it! Hahahahaha!

Kid Flash fumed. "Look. Don't you want to be in love with someone? You-you just fuck girls without even considering doing it as part of a deeper affection."

My affection can't help but go plenty deep with my equipment, speedster! I-

"You know what I mean. You're a smart guy. You treat all the times Jinx and I slept together like your personal porn collection, rummaging through my memories over and over. I can feel you doing it when I'm in control of my body and you're in the background. Don't you feel the-the love between us?"

What are you, the relationship police or something?

"No. I just-"

Do you realize what a freak you are, what a couple of freaks you and her are? You marry as teenagers and it's working out?!?

"We're lucky, I guess. Don't you . . don't you want to feel the same way?"

Red X didn't reply.

Kid Flash waited a minute and then started idly picking up this and that book and reading at random. At last a book interested him and he lost himself in it for the rest of the 10,000 seconds that he was in control of his body, the duration of the period that he and Red X alternated their minds being in control of his Kid Flash body thanks to the way the transporter had spliced them together.

But ,while Red X hadn't said anything back to Kid Flash, he fumed at what he perceived as Kid Flash's holier than thou attitude trying to tell him what he should be doing in his private life. Who the hell was he, some carrot topped nerd who got hit by lightning and covered in chemicals and came out of it with super speed. He didn't even have a girl friend before meeting Jinx! Not one! Kissed a few girls and then, boom! A wife! What. The. Fuck. What kind of road map is that for anyone else?! And sure it all looks perfect now but wait till something happens! Wait till they're really tested!

Red X fumed on and on till 10,000 seconds had elapsed since Kid Flash had retaken control of his body. X enjoyed the jumping back into the jet cockpit sensation and got up from the bed, where Kid Flash had been reading. He was hungry. Very hungry.

"You should have eaten. I feel like I could bankrupt some all you can eat place right now."

Sorry. I got engrossed in the book.

"You're such a nerd," sniffed Red X running his red gloved hands down the side of his super speedster body. The guy might be a nerd but this body was infuckingcredible, he had to admit.

He zipped to the Tower kitchen one floor up and yanked open the stainless steel door of the huge fridge. In a tenth of a second, he scarfed down some left over turkey on a platter in the front of the fridge. But he was still hungry. He bent over examining all the possibilities.

Starfire's giggle preceded her hand making contact with his butt by twenty three ten thousandths of a second. Simultaneously to normal people. Practically early by an eternity to a speedster. Kid Flash was always dodging and fending off the completely uninhibited Tamaranean's flirty sexual gestures. In that twenty three ten thousandths of a second, Red X saw an opportunity and a release for his fuming anger at the speedster's suggestion of how he should run his private life.

SLAP.

The Tamaranean giggled some more.

No! No! You can't! You can't!

Slowly. Very slowly Red X straightened up in front of the fridge, letting Starfire's hand stay where it was as he closed the door.

He turned his, formerly Kid Flash's, body around very slowly to face his Tamaranean teammate. She still had her hand there. He did nothing to remove it. He looked her in the eye.

No! Come on! Please! Don't . .

Red X, in command of Kid Flash's body, looked right at Starfire. She'd put on just a few pounds in the last couple years and could not have filled out her peculiar uniform any better. Absent the hair, the gold skin and whatever that was on her forehead, she could be a star stripper in Vegas. She was completely hot. And as he reached for her, Red X chuckled. Kid Flash wasn't able to stop him. He put his hand in the same place on her that hers was on him.

He remembered, from going through Kid Flash's recollections, Starfire telling him of a Tamaranean custom. It was called, rather innocuously, Appreciation Day. Raven had rolled her eyes. On this special day of the 843 day Tamaranean year, anyone could express their appreciation of anyone else's beauty, or so Starfire had explained it.

"You mean . . it's okay to cheat that day?" Beast Boy had asked, quickly diagnosing the real dynamic.

Starfire had nodded in her perky way.

Red X put his speedster lips to hers vibrating them ever so slightly. Starfire sighed in delight and a vibrating tongue entered her mouth. She'd barely realized that when she found herself swept off her feet. Red X, in Kid Flash's body, had picked her up.

"Remember that Appreciation Day you told us about once?" he whispered.

"Yes."

"That's what day it is today."

At first Starfire looked slightly confused. "But it is not for another four hundred earth d-"

She saw the look in his bright blue eyes. She giggled. "Oh. I get it."