Blanket Disclaimer: Poison Tonic LX does not own the Teen Titans or any characters therein. Don't sue her, please, because if you do I won't have a home anymore…-Ralph, the muse
"Hey Red."
He turned automatically towards the voice, but inwardly blanched as soon as he realized what he'd done. Had he already been found out?
"Red?" He inquired as he waited for the Metal Man to catch up with him.
"Don't play stupid." The Metal Man rolled his eyes. "I sure ain't going to."
"Fine. You're right." He inwardly sighed. He had already been found out. How very incredibly disappointing. "Do the others know, too?"
"Raven probably does, and I think Robin might suspect it."
"Hmm." He scowled, then blinked and gave the Metal Man a surprised look as he realized something. "But…why did you stand up for me, if you know…?"
"Rae seems to think you're an okay guy. If there's one thing I've learned with the Titans, it's that you can always trust Rae to tell you how it is. She doesn't exaggerate or belittle anything…well, except maybe Beast Boy, but that's another matter entirely, and sometimes I wonder if she's not being completely truthful about him, too…" The Metal Man trailed off and shook his head.
He couldn't help but chuckle at that.
"Anyhow, Rob's got good instincts, too, but no one's better than Rae at intuition. If Rae thinks you're okay, I'll go with her." The Metal Man paused. "I guess I'm a little curious, too."
"Curious?"
"Yeah. You've always said you're not much for playing superhero, and yet here you are, trying to join the Titans." The Metal Man looked at him out of the corner of his mechanical eye. "Is it really for the rush?"
He pursed his lips. "Mostly…" He said. Somehow, he felt like he could trust this guy. After all, if he hadn't wanted him around, he'd have told the Kid who he really was…right? Then again, wasn't there some old adage about keeping your friends close but your enemies closer? But on the other hand, this guy didn't exude that sort of aura (he couldn't actually read auras like the Sorceress was able to, of course, but he was fairly talented at reading faces). "I really won't…y'know, betray you guys or anything."
"Oh, really?" He wondered why the Metal Man sounded so amused. "You've never struck me as the sort to explain yourself to anyone, much less someone like me—y'know, a superhero. I won't complain, though. And I believe you, by the way. You don't seem the type to do the whole 'infiltrate the enemy's defenses' thing, either. I think you kind of enjoy not knowing our deepest darkest secrets. It makes us more of a challenge…more of a rush." He smirked.
"Hmm."
To tell the truth, he had never thought of it like that. But now that the idea had been presented, he supposed it was true. Before this fiasco he had never even considered trying to masquerade as one of the Titans, though obviously it wasn't the most difficult thing on Earth and probably would have been quite a handy thing to do.
Feeling suddenly uncomfortable with the conversation, he cleared his throat and changed it. "I thought you were going to play a video game with Beast Boy?"
"I was, but he ticked Rae off and she knocked him out. Besides, Rob asked me to show you your room, and I thought this would be a good opportunity to threaten the life out of you if you ever do anything to the rest of the Titans. Especially Starfire." The Metal Man was obviously pulling off their past experience when he had hit on the Dolt so much.
"Ah. Well, trust me when I say I'm not at all interested in her." He said, only vaguely wondering why he had chosen to divulge that particular piece of information.
"But you…"
"It's fun to get a rise out of the Kid…err, Robin." He said, inwardly cursing himself for slipping.
The Metal Man chuckled. "You don't like him much, do you?"
"He's a disgrace to the thieving name. And way too…'holier than thou' for my tastes."
"Well, they say too much similarity clashes."
He snorted. "I have good reason to be arrogant. I've worked hard to become the best at what I do and have been the best for quite some time. He just…is."
The Metal Man gave him a surprised look. "Huh?"
"You think I just woke up one morning and was suddenly able to break through your security system? That thing was hard as heck to crack even for me, and yes that was a compliment. If I'd been anyone else it would've fried me. It's taken years of hard work and rigorous training for me to get where I am. Just because I stole that suit to make it easier for myself doesn't mean I couldn't do it without the thing. It just saves time and trouble. I wouldn't have stolen it if I actually needed it. I prefer to work until I'm the best at something rather than depending on outside help. And I am the best. I only use the teleporting feature when I feel like ticking you guys off or I get bored, whichever comes first. The only time there hasn't been another way out was at Chang's lab, and that time I ended up not using it anyhow."
The Metal Man continued to stare at him as he continued to rant angrily.
"You superhero-types think you're the only ones who have to do any work—you never stop to think that maybe we have to work at what we do, too! We train and we make mistakes and we start over again just like anyone else!" Finally he realized he was almost yelling, and snapped his jaw shut, mentally smacking himself for letting go like that.
"Dude…" The Metal Man blinked. "I guess I never did think of it like that. Even when I was at the Academy…jeez…"
"The Academy?"
"H.I.V.E. I worked undercover there for a while, trying to bring down Brother Bludd.
"He's the mind control guy, right?"
The Metal Man nodded. "That's him alright. Of course, some of them aren't under mind control, but most of them are."
"I never liked that guy. Using others to do his dirty work…" He shook his head.
The Metal Man gave him another surprised look. "Y'know, Red, maybe I was wrong about you."
He paled. "Hey, you said you weren't going to give me up! I didn't even do anything!" He protested, waving his hands in front of himself defensively.
"No, no. I meant you aren't really such a bad guy after all. If you were like that about fighting crime instead of committing crimes…" The Metal Man trailed off.
He relaxed, shrugging. "Yeah, well, so far fighting crime doesn't seem all that great. Not very profitable, either. You gotta get by in the world."
"We get paid for what we do around here. We all have bank accounts, and our other operatives get paychecks from wherever they're working—or from the government if their city can't afford to pay." The Metal Man shrugged. "It ain't half bad."
"There's no rush."
The Metal Man laughed loudly. "Surely stealing doesn't always have a rush?"
He grimaced. "Well…not always…"
"Same thing, then. Sometimes you'll get a rush, sometimes you won't. I've found there's more of the former than the latter. That was just the H.I.V.E anyhow. They never give us much of a problem anymore. At first, sure, but now…" He trailed off and shrugged again. "We'll go up against people that'll get your blood pumping, I promise. Besides, fighting with a team is much different from fighting by yourself. You have to know when to back off because someone else is ready to attack and give you a break, and you gotta be able to perform attacks in synch with other people, too, without getting in the way or anything. I think you're being a bit of a hypocrite there—we didn't get this way by sitting around all the time either, y'know? We work at it, too."
He nodded thoughtfully.
"I think you'll fit in fine once you get the hang of things."
He nodded again and silence fell over them for a moment before they stopped in front of a door with his name (Rush, that is) on a plaque beside it
"Here's your room. You can program the code, as long as you tell me what it is just in case."
"Alright." He typed in the code he used for everything, which would have seemed a stream of nonsensical letters and numbers to anyone else but meant very much to him (this story will not disclose what this code was, nor what it meant), and the doors slid open.
"That's a weird combination." The Metal Man commented.
"It's personal." He said.
"A'ight, I get it. Rae's on your right down the hall, and I'm on your left. BB and Star are on the level below us, and Rob's above us."
"This floor's a bit crowded, then."
The Metal Man shrugged. "Rob's paranoid. Doesn't want you on the same floor as him, since he's beside the evidence room. Plus, Rae can tell if you're getting into something you shouldn't be, and if she needs any help I'm just down the hall. But you won't be getting yourself into any trouble around here, will you?"
Though he'd defeated the Metal Man in combat plenty of times, the tone in the cybernetic teen's voice made him shake his head vigorously, feeling rather like a small child being scolded ahead of time for some mischief he was thinking about doing.
The Metal Man nodded approvingly and turned to go.
"Hey."
The half-robot looked back at him.
"How'd you figure it out?"
The Metal Man chuckled at the question. "You're the only guy I've ever met who can get a rise out of Rob so quick. You guys just rub each other the wrong way no matter what side you're on, I guess. Plus, you called him 'Kid', which is something only you have ever done—even Slade called him Robin. I'm surprised he hasn't noticed it yet, but sometimes he gets so angry and paranoid he actually misses the very thing he's looking for. You'd better start calling him Robin, though, or he will catch on. He didn't become our leader for nothing."
He nodded. "Thanks."
"No prob."
He shook his head. "No, really. Thanks. You…you're not so bad, for a superhero."
The Metal Man chuckled again. "Hey, you aren't so bad for an ex-criminal, Red."
He allowed a corner of his mouth to curl upwards into a tiny half-smile and offered the Metal Man a hand. "Rush."
"Cyborg." The metallic human agreed, shaking the proffered hand.
"Nice to meet you." He said.
"You too, Red." Cyborg replied.
"I thought I told you—"
Cyborg snickered. "Hey, all of the Titans get a nickname from Big Brother Cyborg, and you're no exception other than the fact that your name doesn't shorten well. That your natural color?"
He automatically reached up to his hair. "Yes. But—"
"Thought so. See ya 'round, Red."
He sighed. It would seem he wasn't going to be able to escape from 'Big Brother Cyborg's' nicknaming ritual.
Then again…it felt kind of nice to be accepted.
(THE RUSH)