Hey guys, sorry for the slight delay! The beginning of a new semester is always a bit hectic. Hope you enjoy.

Raven stared at the unconscious criminal splayed across her bed, his shallow breathing and the iron-tinged smell of blood filling the air. The thought passed through her mind that Robin would want her to call him here, to hand over to him the elusive thief he had been trying to unmask for months.

But she wouldn't. She wasn't underhanded. She had brought X here with the intention of ensuring he lived to taunt another day.

Raven looked down at her hands. Perhaps that made her weak, having principles.

A faint, dry cough yanked the sorceress back from her mind, into the present.

Focus, she told herself firmly. There's a person in front of you who needs medical attention.

The empath pushed the contemplations out of her mind and set about examining the thief's wounds.

The most immediately noticeable was a very large gash that stretched across his abdomen, still weeping blood from the fight with H.I.V.E. That would have to be taken care of soon, to prevent the onset of infection. Then there was his face, which was sure to be a bruised and bloody mess underneath the shards of remaining mask.

Shaking her head to herself, Raven walked toward the side of the bed and tested X's left leg, using the medical training she had learned from the monks on Azarath to detect any broken bones. The leg seemed unharmed, so the sorceress moved around and checked the other, which she found to be sprained.

That only left his chest to be checked. Raven laid her hands as lightly as she could on him, but he still moaned in his sleep, trying to move away. Concentrating, she examined his chest for broken ribs, and much to her disappointment, found them.

Those are going to take days to heal, she thought resignedly.

With only so much magic at her disposal, the dark titan began to prioritize what would be healed first. She decided the ribs were the most pressing injury present, as they hindered Red-X's ability to breathe and were the cause of much of his pain. The leg would have to wait for now— but first, Raven realized, the cuts on his face and stomach needed to be cleaned and bandaged.

Casting one last glance at her sleeping patient, Raven opened the bedroom door and stepped outside as quietly as possible, desiring to not attract any unwelcome questions from her teammates. She floated soundlessly down the hall, towards the infirmary where the first aid kit was kept, keeping her ears pricked for the sound of any approaching footsteps. Once in the infirmary, it took her a brief minute to locate the kit before she could hurry back to her room.

Safe behind the click of her closed door, the dark titan released a small exhale of relief. She walked over to Red-X and set the first-aid kid down on the sheets next to him. Reaching toward his stomach, she peeled the sticky edges of the torn suit away from the gash, exposing the raw flesh to its full extent. She grimaced at the blood that oozed out, mingling with dirt and sweat. Raven picked up a cotton pad and began applying a generous amount of disinfectant, steeling herself for the inevitable reaction.
The second the pad touched his wound, Red-X shot up, hollering in anguish.

Raven slapped her hand over his mouth, alarmed that the others would hear and come running. She looked at X half exasperatedly, half apologetically.

"I know, I know, it stings," she spoke in a low voice. "But you have to keep quiet or else everyone will hear."

"You're going to kill me," Red-X groaned, letting his head fall back heavily.

"Can you keep quiet if I try cleaning it again?"

"Are you joking?" he muttered back incredulously. "Try sticking a white-hot poker against your insides."

Raven sat a moment thinking, then sighed.

"We're going to have to do this the old-fashioned way," she said.

She stood up and went to her dresser, rummaging around before pulling out an old, black t-shirt. She ripped it in half and balled it up, holding it up to show X.

"This'll be stuffed in your mouth so that your yelling doesn't alert everyone in a fifty mile radius," she explained, her tone tinged with mockery.

Red-X studied the primitive wad of fabric for a second, then seemed to accept it.

"Can you at least soak it in booze?" he asked.

Raven looked at him strangely. "What?"

The thief tried to chuckle, but it came out a choking gasp.

"It's what sailors used to use to deal with the pain during operations, before they had proper anesthetics," he told her.

Raven bit her lip. "Well Robin doesn't allow us to keep alcohol in the tower… but I know where Cyborg has some hidden," she finished.

"Guess it's my lucky day," X rasped; he was finding it increasingly difficult to fill his lungs with air.

"I'll be right back. Don't move," the dark titan warned before disappearing out of the room.

"Not like I could if I wanted to, Princess," X muttered to himself.

xxxx

Raven reappeared a few minutes later, holding a bottle of whiskey. She pressed the cloth ball against spout and tipped the bottle, letting it soak into the fabric before screwing the lid back on.

"Alright," she said, stepping over to him. Red-X obediently opened his mouth and Raven stuffed the material in, effectively muffling him. She then picked the cotton pad and disinfectant back up and resumed cleaning his stomach wound, this time with more satisfactory results.

After finishing the abdomen, she moved on to cleaning up his face. Now mostly numb to the stinging of the disinfectant, X drifted in and out of sleep, allowing Raven to work quickly and unobserved— the way she preferred.

She started by carefully removing the pieces of mask that still clung to his face, taking care to avoid the jagged edges.

Once they had been cleared away, Raven tried to not look directly at him. She felt as if it were an intrusion upon the most intimate aspect of his life, to have his greatest secret exposed while he lay in a vulnerable state. Despite having already seen his face from their encounter in the teashop, this was different.

This was foe meeting foe, with a mutual understanding that the bruised mess lying before her was at her mercy, should she choose to reveal him.

It was difficult to clean and bandage cuts without looking at his face, but the empath had managed fairly well until Red-X stirred from sleep, opening his eyes slowly. When he saw her leaning over him, wiping blood off his swollen jaw, he smiled grimly.

"It must be pretty bad if you can't even look at it," he said teasingly.

Raven remained silent, continuing with the task at hand. She didn't want to explain to him why she wouldn't look at his unmasked face, why her complicated sense of principles prevented her from taking advantage of his vulnerability. She didn't want him to laugh at her foolishness.

When she had finished, Raven sat back and admired her handiwork. It certainly wasn't pretty, but it at least would prevent infection and festering.

With the first part over, the sorceress prepared herself for the healing of his fractured ribs.

She rested her palms gently on his chest, and closing her eyes, began chanting an incantation. Her hands glowed black, and X's body went rigid before slowly relaxing underneath the warm power that coursed out from her and into him, speeding up the mending process as cells began regrowth and bones began realigning.

Raven stayed in that position, sitting on the side of the bed for a half hour, her concentration never breaking as she channeled magic into his internal system.

Finally, straightening up, she released the connection and the energy seized flowing between them. Wiping sweat away from her brow, Raven faced Red-X.

"That's as much as I can manage for today," she spoke in her monotone. "I'll work on it some more tomorrow."

The thief offered a grateful half-smile. "Thanks, Doc. I already feel much better."

Raven moved her gaze from his ebony hair down to his warm grey eyes.

"You helped me, so I'll help you," she told him flatly. "That's it."

X raised his eyebrows, his mouth quirking as he tried to hide a smirk. "Yeah, Sunshine? If you say so."

The empath kept her face blank, refusing to allow the insufferable thief to provoke her. He only wanted the satisfaction of getting a rise out of her, and she would not give it to him.

Unfazed by her stoic expression, Red-X tried stretching his aching muscles, wincing at the sore spots that protested. Raven heard an unmistakable growling noise, and she chuckled softly.

"I forgot about food," she said. "I'll go scrounge something up to eat,"

"Sounds good to me, Bluebird."

"Can it, X," Raven muttered back only half-heartedly, stepping out.

X

X

The next chapter will be a continuation of this one. I felt that together they were way too long, so I split them. Expect an update soon!