Truce

I stared down at her, demanding an explanation. Despite her best efforts, she had lost our fight, though it seemed she had had one last trick up her sleeve.

"Mmmmph!" She glared at me from her position on the floor. Ah, yes, the X over her mouth. I pursed my lips as I weighed my options. Allowing her to talk meant allowing her to rattle off one of her little spells, and frankly I wasn't in the mood to fight. Especially not with my ankle swollen to the grapefruit-sized proportions it was currently at.

"You know what? I don't care. I have the information I came for, and now I'll be on my way." I grinned at her as she threw daggers at me and struggled with futility against her restraints. The things were designed for elephants; as far as I knew, Raven's greatest exhibit of physical strength was a few moments ago when she kicked me in the crotch. That still hurt too.

"It's been fun," I sneered at her, pressing the red X on the middle of my belt to transport me the hell out of here. Something was wrong. I thought I had pressed it, but here I was, still standing here over my Titanic conquest.

I pressed it again. And again. And again. Though I had figured out that it wasn't working after the second try, I kept jamming my finger against the button, hoping that it would magically start to work. I had no such luck.

I looked down at Raven to see her rolling her eyes at my desperate, futile pushing. Finally, I threw my hands up in defeat.

"What did you do?" I spat as I took an explosive out of my belt and chucked it at the door. It was just a test, as I was fairly confident of what the results would be, but I had to at least make the effort. As predicted, it left a nice scorch mark on the door but not a dent in the metal. I was trapped.

My attention once again turned to my little captive, who had ceased her squirming and looked at me with a smug expression. I knelt down and grabbed her jaw between my thumb and fingers.

"Listen," I hissed, "I'm going to take this thing off your mouth and you're going to tell me exactly what's going on here. And that's all you're going to tell me." I squeezed her jaw tighter, letting her know I was serious. In a swift movement I tore the gag from her face with a painful ripping sound.

She clenched her jaw, but didn't say a word. It must have hurt like a bitch, but with a swollen crotch and a broken ankle, I didn't really give a shit about what kind of pain she was in.

"Talk. Now."

"It's no use trying to escape," she rushed to inform me. "I've initiated quarantine protocol, nothing gets in or out for twenty four hours." Even bound to the floor, she had a gleam of success in her eyes.

I stared at her in disbelief. "Let me get this straight. The Titans created a lockdown for twenty four hours where they can't even get out of their own tower?" She nodded. I was silent for a second. "Are you fucking insane?! Why the hell would you do that?" I was irate now, suspicions confirmed that I would be stuck in here for a day with Little Miss Sunshine until her team showed up to arrest me.

"To contain ourselves if the need arises," she spat out. "Our powers are dangerous if they get out of control." She paused, a smirk playing on her lips. "Though it's rather useful in a time like this."

I wanted to smack the smirk off of her face, though even I had better manners than that. The thought was tempting nonetheless.

"Well thank you Raven, for officially beating out Robin as the biggest pain in my ass." I reached for the X to secure over her mouth again in case she got any ideas that involved the words Azarath, Metrion, or Zinthos.

"Stop," she commanded as I held it over her lips. I paused, slightly interested in what she had to say. "That's unnecessary, I don't have my powers," she admitted. I narrowed my eyes as I studied her.

"Liar." The X came closer to her mouth.

"It's true," she spit out. "The protocol neutralizes our powers. You can't teleport, I can't do magic." I rocked back on my heels, incredulous once again.

"I repeat: why the hell would you idiots do that?"

She sighed. "The last time we initiated it, it wasn't long before we found a way around it. Cyborg enhanced it so that it neutralizes any special abilities and is impossible to break out of."

I rolled my eyes, even though she couldn't see it. "Great," I muttered. I stood up unsteadily and hobbled towards the stairs, hoping to find some ice down below in the kitchen. Before I made it I stumbled forward, left foot darting forward instinctively. The pain when most of my weight landed on my bad ankle was almost as bad as it was when it broke.

I fell flat on my face, trying to keep from yelling in pain. Raven definitely saw that. Bitch was probably laughing.

I rolled onto my back and cradled the appendage to my chest. From the looks of it, it wasn't just broken, it was shattered, and I had just made things worse.

"X?" I heard her voice say the syllable softly, without a trace of the mockery I was expecting.

"What?" I groaned.

"I... I can help you, if you untie me," she offered. I snorted.

"Yeah, help me. What are you going to do? Finish me off? Put me out of my misery?" I winced as the throbbing in my ankle intensified.

"Look, I'm not going to hurt you," she said, offended I could possibly think such a thing. "Well, not anymore at least," she added quietly. "We're stuck here for the next twenty four hours, so we might as well make an attempt at civility until that time elapses."

"You mean until your friends come to arrest me."

"Exactly." I looked over to find a soft smirk on her face.

My head was telling me no fucking way. What do I gain from releasing her? Some ankle TLC from Nurse Raven? I had been through worse, I could manage without her help. But for some odd reason, my gut told me that she was okay. Maybe it was her dark, stony exterior that made her seem a little less goodie-two-shoes or the fact that she, unlike myself, was committed and sworn to displaying some kind of ethics and decency.

"Fine," I sighed, rolling over and crawling back to her, wincing all the way. I took a small knife out of my pocket and began sawing away at her ankle restraints, moving up to get her arms when I was done.

She sat up slowly, clutching her side with one hand and rubbing her mouth that was still red with the other.

"Thanks," she said softly, avoiding eye contact.

On a whim, I held out my hand for her to shake. "Truce?"

She looked at the hand, then at me. Though there was a mask covering my face, I could've sworn she was looking right into my eyes. She took the hand lightly and gave it two small pumps.

"Truce. For now."

I stood up shakily, though I soon gained my footing. Red X watched me warily from the ground where he sat with his ankle drawn towards him. Though I didn't feel bad for him before, I felt a little guilty looking at the swelling joint. It looked downright nasty and I could imagine what it felt like: I had been there before, though not for long thanks to my powers.

The sympathy was good. I could use it to help sell the whole truce idea. What I had told him was mostly true: I had no powers, he had no powers, and we were stuck together with nothing to do but wait for hours and hours. Fighting would be futile and pointless, not to mention painful, and we both knew it. But my newfound freedom to move around was a definite advantage, and I planned on making use of it. Eventually.

X had assumed that when our time was up, my team would be here to confront him. That was not going to be the case, as I was all by myself in the Tower to begin with. If I was lucky, Cyborg would get a signal that the protocol had been initiated, raising some red flags and ensuring the return of at least one teammate when they found I was unresponsive. I couldn't count on it though, and thus had to come up with some other way to sound the alarm to my team, all without raising X's suspicions. Because if he knew there was a chance he could walk away after this, he would tape me down again and wait until the protocol lifted to make his easy escape. The only reason he was being so cooperative now was because he thought he was busted.

I made my way over to the fridge and pulled an ice pack from the freezer. I poured a glass of water and grabbed a first aid kit hidden in one of the kitchen cabinets while I was at it, carrying all three items over to X.

"Let me see it," I commanded, intent on following through on my half of the deal.

He obliged, sticking his leg out towards me. I sat back with my legs tucked under me, cradling his ankle in my lap. I set the ice pack on it as I dug through the kit for some Aspirin.

"Here," I said, holding out three pills and the water.

"I thought I was only supposed to take one." I shot him a look to chastise him for interfering with my work.

"Do you see the size of your ankle?" I muttered, turning my eyes back to his leg. "Swallow. Now."

My eyes shot up again when I heard a barely contained snicker. "What?" I snapped, eyes narrowing.

"Nothing," he replied smoothly in that metal-y altered voice. "Nothing at all."

I shook my head as I tried as gently as I could to remove his boot. I still heard him cuss under his breath.

"Do you have anything in your vocabulary other than four letter words?" I asked with feigned politeness.

"Hmm, let me think... bitch has five letters. B-I-T-C-H, bitch. I can even use it in a sentence, as in, 'that bitch threw a couch at my leg.'"

"Asshole."

"Prude."

"Bastard."

"Cunt."

My head snapped up once more to glare at him before returning to the task at hand, though this time with even less enthusiasm. I was slightly angry at myself for my behavior; I was sinking down to his level. I rolled up the cuff of his kevlar suit to fully expose his ankle. I tried not to cringe. It was completely black and blue and swollen to the size of a softball.

"You shouldn't have kept moving around on this."

"You're right," he sighed, "I should have just let you kick my ass."

"I've still beaten you now," I pointed out, hoping I sounded completely confident in that assertion.

"Ahh, so that's why you're so eager to call a truce. What have you got to lose with four Titans on the other side of the door?" He paused. "Unless, of course, you're bluffing," he said, voice low.

My cheeks burned with heat. Was he taking a swing in the dark, or did he actually know we're all alone here?

"Rumor had it you five were supposed to be out of town, though you didn't exactly make it public knowledge. Actually, I was surprised to find you here."

I stared at him intensely. Even though I was nervous, the only thing I conveyed in my glare was confidence. "You're right," I admitted, "I'm the only one home. But don't worry, we have twenty four hours. They'll be back to arrest you before the protocol lifts." I gave him a pleasant smile at the end.

"Hmph," he grunted, but didn't say anything else. I noticed half of the water in his glass was gone as I pulled the bandage from the white plastic box.

"This will hurt," I said flatly as I began to wrap the stretchy strip of fabric around the arch of his foot, working my way up.

"Great," he muttered, then stiffened as I reached the ankle. I tried to work as quickly and neatly as possible, pulling the bandage taut against his skin. I ran out of roll a little ways up his shin and secured it with two clips.

"There," I said tersely, putting away my supplies and snapping the case shut. I rose quickly and turned on my heel, tossing the case on the kitchen counter as I strode by. I sauntered over to the couch, plopping down with a sigh and going to far as to stretch my feet up onto the table. I knew he could see me.

"What are you doing?" he asked from where I was sure he was stuck on the floor.

I picked up one of the books I had left there earlier and flipped to where I had left off. "I'm going to read. Any other questions?"

I could hear him muttering something, though I couldn't make out what and frankly didn't care. So far this truce was working just fine for me.

AN: When I started writing fan fiction I tried really hard to respond to everyone's reviews and be all responsible but I have been so terribly bad about it that I've just given up. Please know, dear friend, that from the bottom of my heart I am so very, very thankful and appreciative of your words of praise. Give yourself a hug for me (but don't get too crazy). Love you all!

XOXO Gwen