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

"You wanted to talk to me?" He asked, sitting on the T-car's hood and looking at Cyborg, who was now the only other person in the garage with him.

"I want to talk to you about your past. Caleb Dawson…Tandi and Kylan Summers…Epsilon Methuss…all of it." Cyborg said. "But first hand me that wrench—we're going to work on the new car while we talk."

"New car?"

"There's seven of us now, and you and Rob won't always ride your bikes, and the others won't always fly or whatever, so we need a bigger one. And don't try to change the subject. Spill."

"Spill what? I already told you everything."

"You gave them the watered down version so they wouldn't find out about you being Red X and so Star and BB wouldn't freak too bad. I ain't buyin', Red."

"What do you want from me? I'm not the 'spill your guts' type, okay? It's all in the past! It's over and done with! Leave it be!"

"If it's over and done with, why do you react so strongly when anyone mentions it? I might be made out of metal, but I still have a heart and I can still tell when someone's hurting."

"I'm not hurting! I hardly knew Tandi and Kylan, what would it matter to me if they died or not? Sure I feel guilty, and sure it was a shock at the time, but anyone would feel like that if someone got shot in front of them like that!"

"Who said I was just talking about them? You've got some real issues concerning those two, regardless of how long you knew them. So spill your guts to Big Brother Cyborg." The Metal Man adopted a singsong prompting voice. "You'll feel better, I promise."

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "I told you the gist of it. Methuss tried to force me to become the donor for some sort of super clone army, and I got away by biting his thumb off and beating off his thugs. I was eight, but living on the streets doesn't raise wimps."

"Okay. Screwdriver."

He handed the tool to him. "I ran for a long time and hid down an alley behind a dumpster, tried to wash out my mouth and threw up—that puddle of water was kind of like Starfire's pudding, but more watery." Cyborg made a face. "Tandi found me and brought me inside, let me take a shower and borrow some of her brother's clothes, made me cocoa and let me watch TV."

"Sounds like a nice woman."

He smiled a little, bitterly. "Yeah. Yeah, she was. No one ever…no one's ever treated me like she did. I mean, I'll be the first to admit I don't deserve kindness by any means, but still…"

"No one really deserves kindness." Cyborg said, nodding sagely. "Ratchet."

"Anyhow…I think if she hadn't died, and if she'd let me stay there with her…I wouldn't have turned out like I have. I'd be…normal. Maybe I'd have even been a good guy the whole time, instead of becoming Red X and all, but…" He trailed off. "Anyhow, after a while her little brother, Kylan, came home, and we talked for a little bit, but it wasn't too long after he arrived that Methuss showed up. Kylan and I hid in his room. Tandi thought he was there for rent or something, but even when he told her what he wanted she stayed quiet."

"You said she defended you like you were family."

He gulped. "Yeah…" His voice was hoarse, for some reason, as he clenched his hands into fists and ground his teeth together. "Like family."

Cyborg pulled himself out from under the car and looked at him. "Go on." He said as he grabbed some tool or another and disappeared back under the car.

"Right." He wiped his eyes, wondering when he'd teared up. "He pulled a gun, I came out and told him to leave them alone—"

"I knew you weren't all bad."

"I guess." He shrugged, and continued when Cyborg waved a hand at him to signal he should do so. "She stepped in front of me and he shot her in the stomach, and again in her chest when she was on the ground. Kylan tried to go to her and got shot in the head. I attacked him, got the gun away from him, and shot his leg. He left, of course, and Tandi told me to run from Bludhaven, but not to run forever, and to make friends that could help keep me safe if and when he found me again." He shook his head. "I didn't want to drag anyone else into it, but she kept insisting…I didn't actually promise until after she'd died."

"And you ran for eight years." Cyborg finished for him.

"Yeah." He buried his face in his hands. "I didn't want her to die, Cyborg. She was such a good person…so unlike me…and Kylan was the same way. God I wish she hadn't died. I would die a thousand times if she…if they could come back. I know that doesn't sound like me at all, but I would. They shouldn't have died." His voice dropped. "They shouldn't have died."

"Most people who die shouldn't have." Cyborg said. "My mom shouldn't have died, either."

He looked over at the metallic half-man. "Your mom?"

"She died in the accident that made me like this." Cyborg gestured at himself. "My dad couldn't save her, but he saved me…if you can call this saving me."

"At least you're alive." He said. "You're better off than most."

"Maybe it would've been better if I'd died, though."

"No. No, it wouldn't. At the risk of sounding clichéd and sappy…I kinda like having you around. Without you, the Titans all would've died by now from food poisoning."

Cyborg laughed. "Very true, very true. You're kinda nice to have around, too, for an ex-con."

"I'm not an ex-con." He said, and smirked when Cyborg gave him a surprised look. "I've never been convicted, y'know."

Cyborg's mechanical eyebrows rose. "You haven't?"

"You guys never caught me, did you?" Cyborg shook his head. "Well, you came far closer than anyone else ever has."

"Oh really?"

"Yeah. Most people never even know I've been around 'til long after I'm gone."

"Hmm…that's strange…how come?"

"How come what?"

"How come we're the only ones to ever know you're here?"

He paused. "I've actually wondered about that myself."

"And…?"

He sighed. "I'm not sure. Maybe…part of me was trying to keep my promise to Tandi, and I guess you guys are just about the best I could find."

"Oh, thanks a lot…"

He blushed. "Sorry, I didn't mean to sound so harsh. You guys are pretty okay, for a bunch of self-righteous do-gooders."

Cyborg laughed loudly. "We're self-righteous? That's pretty rich coming from you!"

He joined in the other teenager's laughter. "Anyhow, I s'pose some part of me wanted to get caught. And only by you guys. You provide me with quite a bit of entertainment, too, not to mention the Kid's pretty fun to tick off."

"I'm not sure if I should feel insulted or honored."

"Feel both, then."

Cyborg snorted. "You're quite the arrogant little thief, aren't you?"

"But of course." He smirked haughtily. "And with good reason."

Cyborg rolled his human eye. "I guess you don't do anything halfway, do you?"

"Not usually. Sometimes I do…if I feel like it." He replied with a shrug.

"So what happened after you ran from Bludhaven?"

"Not much interesting…I stowed away on a boat and went to Europe, where I continued my small time stealing until I was about twelve. That's when I started going into big time stuff. No one trusted me, at first, since I was so young and, to add insult to injury, small for my age, but…I made them respect me by being the best. I used my stature to my advantage. I mean, as soon as I'd stolen whatever it was all I had to do was blend with whatever crowd was nearest—who would suspect some poor little kid as a master thief, eh?"

Cyborg chuckled. "Yeah."

"I kept up with that, using my profits to travel all over—Russia, Asia, Africa, Canada, South America, and finally back to the States when I was fifteen. That's when I ended up back in Jump City, stole Robin's costume and became Red X. I sort of made Jump my home base after that—I owned a little shack outside of town that's my base of operations, but still traveled all over wherever the job took me. I really was in Mexico before I joined up here."

"Doing what?"

"One of the few more honest jobs I get every once in a while. This older couple I've done a job or two for had something else for me. They collect art—legitimately, as far as I know, and I've never stolen a piece for them so I'm fairly certain it's true—and allowed a museum to use a few of their more valuable and rare pieces. When they went to get their stuff back, the museum said it didn't know what they were talking about, and that the pieces were theirs. Supposedly they'd put a clause in the contract they wrote up that said the couple was signing over the pieces to them."

"Yikes."

"Yeah. So they called me up and explained everything to me, offering a pretty hefty sum for me to retrieve the pieces for them. I did, of course. That couple had always been nice to me and all, and I don't turn down money if I can help it. I went in and stole the pieces, then snuck into the office where the contract was kept. It turned out the couple really hadn't signed a contract saying the pieces would go to the museum, but the curator had used their signatures on the real contract to sign a phony one. I dressed myself up as a fake lawyer and went with the couple to the police. The curator was arrested and the couple paid me double what they'd been paying me before."

"So Mr. I-Don't-Play-Hero did?" Cyborg snickered.

He rolled his eyes. "Haha, very funny. I do pull off a few good deeds here and there, and like I said: they doubled my paycheck, so I didn't do it for nothing."

"You thought you were." Cyborg pointed out with a smirk.

He scowled. "Yeah, I guess I did. I can be a nice guy when the mood takes me."

Cyborg laughed loudly, the sound echoing out from beneath the car. "I tell ya, Red, you don't like to admit it but you're really a big softy when it comes right down to it."

"Whatever helps you sleep at night, metal man." He said, and they both laughed, falling into a companionable silence only broken by Cyborg's occasional requests for a tool.

(THE RUSH)