Disclaimer: I do not own any part of Teen Titans.

w/ Dinah

"Babs!" she shouted as she entered the front door. "It's me. Are you home?" she called out again.

Her soft minute steps trailed up the stairs that led to her friend's bedroom. As she approached the door, which was conveniently left ajar, she heard a quick-paced conversation taking place. It wasn't like her to eavesdrop, nor was it like Babs to be speaking so covertly either. But soon, another voice was heard and she immediately recognized it to be Helena's. Right away, she knew barging in was out of the question though she remained by the door and listened attentively.

"…I can't do this. I can't, it's not right." she heard Babs say.

"You're going to ruin everything if you don't. Do you want him back or not?"

"Yes but I…I…"

"But nothing, darling. That tramp isn't worth Dick's effort. All she cares is about making a leading name for herself. We'd be saving him from an excruciating amount of humiliation when he realizes what a jezebel she really is for using him for her own personal gain."

"I just don't know if…" but was silenced when Helena interrupted.

"Ah!" she brought up her palm to stop her. "Besides, that tart will pay for calling me a whore."

A wide-eyed Dinah stood carefully at the door unable to fathom her current situation. What is going on…what are you two planning? She maneuvered her body the best she could, enough to get a clearer view inside. Helena moved closer to Babs and whispered something inaudible. After a swift nod from the redhead, Helena moved over to the dresser to grab at the cordless phone from its base.

"Then you know what you have to do." she informed handing Babs the phone. After what felt like an eon of wait, she finally began dialing a series of buttons.

"Hello, Ryan?"

w/ Dick

"Kory? You awake?" he whispered innocently, using a simple arm to embrace her comfortably. The refreshing breeze swept the fallen leaves around them sending Dick to wrap the throw more snuggly around their collective bodies.

She stirred softly as her weary head moved lightly on his chest, only a gentle hum escaping her lips. In the unbroken silence, he stroked her lush crimson locks thoughtfully. He placed a muted kiss onto her forehead making her sleeping eyes smile with ardor.

Not much needed to be said for they were both in a collaboration of feelings…complete happiness, immense fulfillment but the strangest thing of all, a cosmic love. He knew it, she knew it but none dared to speak the truth.

"Can you hear me?" he asked as he held on tighter under the throw blanket. A faint smile appeared on her lips but faded quickly once she became relaxed again. Her exhaustion wasn't her fault, Dick drained a lot out of her just previously.

"Kory, I need to know what's going to happen…between us?" he inquired though his lips were still pinned against her forehead. But unfortunately, she remained silent due to the welcoming sleep that had now taken over her.

"Are you awake?" he waited but no sound came. "Kory, I've been thinking about this for awhile and…I mean, I know…" but something nervy and internal prevented him, he just couldn't bring himself to reveal it. So there he was, open-mouthed and left stumbling…

"Never mind." he retreated solemnly.

If he could have read her mind at that exact moment, he would have known of the morbid frown gesturing inside. She wasn't fully asleep yet…she was awaiting his pressing words. She had come to terms with the emotions that had transpired within the few days she'd been with him. All she was dying to know now was if they were mutual. But before he spoke another word, her disastrous phone played away.

"You're phone…it's ringing." he kissed her as a means of waking her.

"Hmm…what?" she said tilting her face away from him to stare at her pants, which were a few feet away from her.

"Your phone." he re-positioned himself so that now he was hovering over her as she laid underneath him.

"Oh, let it ring." She smiled up at him and enveloped her arms around his neck when he lowered himself onto her.

"I don't…think…it's going…to stop." he informed in between the gentle butterfly kisses he placed on her shoulders. And he was correct. It continued to ring causing her to drape herself with the extra throw and crawl over to retrieve the phone from her pant's back pocket.

"Yes?" she asked while playfully making a goofy face over to Dick. He laughed carelessly then reached for his clothes and proceeded to change into them. "Mom." he heard her say unexpectedly. "Hi." her eyes danced nervously over to him.

"But I thought you were going to be gone for two weeks…what happened?" she asked as she rushed over to regain her clothes that lay sprawled over the place. "Oh…no everything's fine. No, really. Really!" she stressed impatiently.

"I swear I haven't done anything crazy." she rolled her eyes negatively at the guff she was receiving.

"So I'll see you in a couple of days?" she asked as she franticly tried to maneuver her clothes on with her only available hand.

"Ok, ok…I get it Mom. I love you too, bye." She shut her phone quickly letting it fall softly to the ground. "Can you believe what I have to live with? Constantly…it's been like this ever since that day at the circus."

Dick, who was now fully dressed, began putting up their belongings. "You can't really blame them. They almost lost you that day, Kory."

"Sometimes, I wish they'd…go away more often." After hearing herself speak, she remembered about Dick's deeply tragic past surrounding his parents and swiftly regretted her selfishness.

"Oh God, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean it…"

"It's alright. I'm over it." But that didn't dissuade her from continuing, especially from the agonizing look on his face, both child-like and dark. Despite his best fronting of indifference, she knew better and his despondency downright pained her.

"Hey…hey, come here." she said consolingly. She approached him just as she finally put her acrylic sweater back on.

"I know your parents aren't with you now but that shouldn't stop you from believing that they aren't with you where it counts." she announced placing a delicate hand over his heart. "Dick, you still have so many people who care about you right here, right now."

"Kory…I don't have anyone." he said grimly.

"You have Bruce, Alfred, your friends, Babs…me." she spoke softly on the latter.

"You?"

"Dick, maybe there was a reason, farther than anything we know on why you found me again." There has to be…

Her spine-tingling voice was only a distant affirmation, one of the many he perceived, that he had purely fallen so hard for this girl. But when he felt her lips invade his with a mighty force and such a gallant feeling, he knew he had descended so far so deep that he feared there was no seeing the light of day anymore.

Perhaps it was her vivacious demeanor, however outwardly different to his own or her unstoppable tonic kisses or maybe some other form of crucial element that kept him greedily wanting more. With every fresh uncertain feeling that he encountered, there was one thing he was absolutely sure about…your physical beauty keeps my senses fully but the movement in my heart gets the initial prize.

w/ Terra

"Your father? What are you talking about?" Terra's shock-filled words rang out.

Instantly, Joey began jotting down his answer. JOSEPH WILSON

"I don't know a Joseph Wilson. What is all this about?"

With a harsh sigh, he fluctuated his eyes from the blonde to his notepad until he finally completed his writing. I THINK HE MAY BE AFTER YOU

"Me?…why?" Before long, he was again writing frantically onto his frequently used notepad.

BECAUSE HE IS A DANGEROUS PEDOPHILE AND HE WANTS YOU Joey looked on as he followed Terra's ocean blues navigate through his paper. Her broadened eyes were his indication that she had read his uncomfortable words about his own father, though he didn't expect her orbs to form disgruntled, glaring slits.

"You are sick, do you know that! First you follow me around like some crazy person who fell way off his rocker, now you have the gall to tell me that your father is after me because he's some kind of degenerate child molester!" she accused threateningly. Upon hearing her hostile words, he shook his head sadly, truly not expecting her to behave this way.

She traveled to her sofa where she had last left her cordless phone and boldly began pressing the dials.

"I'm calling the police." she warned as she listened for someone to answer. Joey traveled to Terra and forcefully grabbed the phone away from her.

"Are you crazy!" she scolded.

He wrote down his significant words and strongly waved the notepad in front of her face.

I'M TELLING THE TRUTH. PLEASE WAIT

"No…you wait. I don't know who you are…", she pointed irately at the silent boy, "and frankly, I don't care. But if you think you can come here and try to scare me, you're going to have to do a lot better than that buddy!"

Joey surveyed the blonde, sorrow filling his senses at her refusal to listen to his warnings. He began writing again into his notebook.

"No…no…no more writing. You…get out, before I call the cops." Before he could do anything else, she grabbed at his small notepad and tore off any unfinished words he had scribbled before shoving them back into his chest.

"Here take your pad and your pencil and don't ever come back here again." she seethed. Joey tried to reason with the fuming girl the best he could but only backtracked to the front door with the help of Terra pushing him along.

"Please." he tried to voice only to come out indistinctly. Without his struggling, he was easily shoved out the door with a greater force than he had anticipated could come from the pretty girl.

His jade-pearl eyes, filled with anxiety, were the only thing she focused on as she slammed the door on him. She crossed her arms defiantly, proud that she stood up for herself with this weirdo. She felt the crumpled paper in her hands and took a quick glance…

JOEY WILSON

563-994-5766

"…freak." she muttered hotly under her breath and uncaringly shoved the note into her back pocket.

w/ Xavier

He took a swig of his beer letting his wandering eyes take in his surroundings in the dimly lit billiards bar. He heard Ryan call to him as it was now his turn to shoot. Expertly sinking a solid ball into the corner pocket, he advanced himself an additional turn which set off some anger into his nearby opponent.

"Lucky shot, you bastard." Matthew, Xavier's fellow boxing teammate, accused from clear across the pool table. Known to his friends simply as Mammoth, he and X became good friends after he was replaced by the then-rookie as J.C. University's golden glove boxer once he joined the team.

"Luck? I don't need no stinkin' luck." he mocked in his best Mexican accent before he stooped low enough to take another shot at the next ball. Ryan looked on in amazement at this best friend. He was always so collected and self-contained that one would never suspect X had such a difficult life growing up. And he knew that his childhood was something Xavier didn't like bringing up, well to anyone who didn't know him at least.

It's a rather funny story on how he and Ryan became the best of friends. It was the third grade and Xavier even then, being the over-confident, beguiling charmer he was, gained the attention of Selinda Ashcraft.The only problem was that she also liked the resident redhead of the class, Ryan Anders. Xavier would not succumb to being anyone's second, so he began bullying Ryan as a means of ridding the opposition. For the next few months, Ryan dreaded going to school every morning until one day Selindahad set her sights on another, thus ending their juvenile feud. Loosely heartbroken, Ryan's efforts to make Xavier realize the girl wasn't worth his sadness were not in vain. The two boys began hanging together and formed a bond which even today would not be tarnished. Since that incident they had vowed that no other girl would ever come between their friendship, much to X's detriment. But how was he to have known that Ryan's little sister, Kory, would be the one to change his world entirely.

Before long, the sound of Ryan's cell phone played causing Xavier to miss his shot miserably. With his pool stick in hand, he posed in an annoyed manner at the slight interruption.

"Oh, suck it up will you X?" he joked nastily at his friend before answering his phone. "Hello?" At the sound of the greeting he rolled his eyes elaborately. "How did you get my number?…Yeah he's here, what do you want…he's busy."

After a brief second, Ryan laughed bitterly. "Tell me, do kiss Xavier with that potty mouth of yours?" X walked up to Ryan and grabbed his phone from him, followed by a glowering stare.

"I've been waiting ages to do that, bro." he snickered as she nudged X's shoulder. He quickly joined Mammoth and left X to speak on the phone.

"Yeah?" he asked mildly but quickly tensed when he heard Bab's answer back. "Oh, hey Babs." He wasn't exactly sure where to take this conversation as his avoidance on their recent breakup was easily felt.

"Xavier? I…wanted to apologize for the other day. All those things I said to you, I had no right and it wasn't fair of me." The sound of her apologetic disposition caused him to blink back in astonishment.

"Hey, you said what you felt you had to say. There's no harm in that, maybe I deserved it a little. Shit, it wasn't my intention to hurt you…but I'm sure you could've seen where things were heading for us, right?"

"No, I understand and you were right about us but…" she sighed tiredly. "Look, my apology wasn't the only reason I called." she stuttered hesitantly and it went noted by Xavier who raised a puzzling brow.

"Alright, what is it?" Waiting for a response, he grew impatient when she said nothing, only a quiet slur of words.

"Out with it, Babs. What's wrong?"

"It's about Dick and Kory."

"What about them?" His abrasiveness shocked even himself but the thought of those two together infested about a hundred of prickly stings to his conscious.

"I think it would be best to say this in person. Could…could you…come over so we could talk?"

Unbeknownst to X, Babs was having trouble delivering her lines but with a little elbow help from Helena, she was able to finish along with the first portion of their plan.

Whenever anything had to do with Kory, Xavier was always quick to jump to conclusions. "Did he hurt her?" he asked critically as he began pacing what minimal space he had. "If he hurt her at all…" he threatened, running a nervous hand through his stubble hair not realizing he still hadn't answered her question.

"Please, just come over." she pleaded hoping he didn't need any more persuasion. Calming himself down, he felt speaking to her, in person, was the brightest idea.

"Ok. Alright, I'll be over. Just give me about thirty minutes." Without so much as a goodbye, he clicked the phone shut and threw it over to Ryan who barely caught it. Taking a fast sip of his drink, he waved farewell and proceeded to leave.

"Where are you going, bro?" Ryan hollered.

"Yeah, I can't play against Ryan…he sucks. I need some real competition." Mammoth shouted.

"Screw you, man." he shot back.

"I've got to go. I'll catch you guys later." he answered putting on his jacket.

"You've got to go? You mean you've got to get laid!" Ryan accused. "See, I knew this crap was going to happen when she called." he motioned over to Mammoth. They gazed over to the entrance door to see X's figure head out swiftly. After turning the ignition, he sped out of the parking lot and rushed over to Babs's, who waited patiently for him to blindly play his part.

Yes, not much happening here in this chapter but a clear foreshadowing on what is to come. It was a pretty short one compared to the others but hey…I'm tired and I'm stressed. And Joey's number was only after getting all the letters of his name from the keypad…so apologies to anyone if that number does actually exist.

Perhaps it was a big stretch, a little too much maybe, to turn Wilson a.k.a Slade into a pedophile but come on, didn't anyone here get that vibe from him during those 'Apprentice' episodes? (sweat drops after seeing no one raise their hands…oh just roll with it guys!)

And yes, I do realize it has taken me awhile to continue with my updates…and I am sorry. I've been dragging ass to get this finished but at least I'm trying, right?

I'd like to thank all the loyal readers who's reviews I've grown to admire, your words help more than you know…and that is something all authors will tell you. And I've received some new ones too: milkshakelvr, KichePoth, firegirl.22...thanks!

Alright my fair readers, I have a favor to ask of you. Lately I've had this trying story in my head that doesn't seem to want to go away. I know many of you, like myself, are pro Robin+Star, though I'm curious as to how many are pro Red X+Star as well…long live the triangle! But anyways, here's one that I was interested in trying out…

The covert but notorious assassin, known in the underground as Xavier Redd, returns home after taking care of yet another target for Chang, his employer. As he sets his first steps into his living room, he finds himself surrounded by a horde of Chang's armed lackeys. Quickly and for some unexplainable reason, he discovers he has been double-crossed by his longtime friend. Knowing full aware this was going to be his last breath spent, he vows his revenge against his former employer. And with that, he gets taken under a hail of gunfire.

Two months later…

Richard and Kory move to a corrupt Gotham City after he accepts a job offer as their police department's head detective. After settling into their new apartment, Kory quickly begins noticing weird occurrences while Richard is away at work. All around the apartment, she gets an odd feeling someone is watching her. As weeks progress, she begins feeling a different emotion coming from Richard, especially sexually. Until one night, she questions him after they make love on why he's been acting so unusual around her lately. Richard's only reply is…"Call me X, cutie."

So there you have it. Richard and Kory moved into X's old apartment. And Xavier is a ghost who watches over Kory protectively while she is alone fearing what happened to him will happen to her. Being the girlfriend of a detective in Gotham can be dangerous. And every time Richard arrives home, X possesses his body so he can be with her emotionally and intimately because he's in love with her.

Not sure yet but this story could easily go Richard+Kory or Xavier+Kory, that would depend on you all. Naturally, I absolutely won't begin a new story until I've completely finished my current one. And that is if my schedule would even allow me to write it. Well thanks again for reading and until next chapter…