Okay, I know I said in the plot summary or whatever that there were no f-bombs in this story, but there is ONE in this chapter. So be prepared.

Disclaimer: I do not own the Teen Titans or anything even remotely related to the Teen Titans.

XXXXX

"What happened wasn't your fault, Raven."

Raven looked up from her seat on the couch in the living room, meeting Robin's stern, yet sympathetic gaze. She saw that Starfire and Cyborg were giving her about the same look as well. She wasn't comfortable with them staring at her like that; she wasn't really comfortable with anyone staring at her at all, in fact. "How do you know that?" Raven challenged. "If you're so sure, then how come I don't feel like it's true?"

Robin looked at her carefully, and Raven knew that he wasn't completely sure of his words, either. She hated being treated this way. She'd rather they throw the book at her than act like it was all just a simple misunderstanding and pat her on the head. This wasn't just some overeager head-butt in group training; she could've seriously injured Beast Boy.

This time Cyborg tried. "You can't beat yourself up about this, Raven. So, he knew your name? Big whoop. We're the Teen Titans, everyone knows who we are," he said, pride emanating from his words with ease.

Without much thought, he placed one his large, strong hands on her petite shoulder, albeit somewhat awkwardly. They were all still getting used to the fact that Raven wasn't much for physical contact, but Raven could tell from the beginning that the Titans were pretty much the opposite: the hugs, the high fives, the secret handshakes, the noogies and the wet willies, etc. She shook her head up at Cyborg, still not convinced that her and Beast Boy's meeting with Red-X was just coincidence. "He talked about me as if he knew me, Cyborg. He said things to me like we'd met before."

"Maybe he was just bluffing," Cyborg countered. "The way you described him, he sounds like he'd be perfectly capable of that sort of thing."

Raven's felt her cheeks heating and prayed nobody noticed. She hadn't quite gone into the deeper details of her and Red X's briefly exchanged words, nor had she divulged about her and Beast Boy's hundred-thousandth argument. She wasn't sure what was more embarrassing, what Red-X had said and the way he'd leered at her, or her rough evening with Beast Boy and their seemingly unquenched thirst for badly-timed squabbles. Thankfully, in her current state of mental distress, her teammates hadn't prodded as much as she knew they wanted to. "It didn't seem like he was bluffing," she said quietly, without wanting to say much more.

Starfire had been silent for most of the conversation, and at this point she appeared to be mulling some things over. Her two almost raspberry-colored brows were drawn together in concern as she finally spoke up. "What exactly did he say to you, Raven, that gives you such cause for worry? Perhaps if we knew, we could help more and it would ease your troubled mind."

At that, three expectant pairs of eyes landed on Raven at once. She felt herself flushing again. "He said a lot of things." She wasn't trying to be evasive, she just really didn't know where to start or what to specifically leave out. She decided to start with one very important detail she'd somehow managed to overlook in her earlier recounting of the incident. "I remember when Red-X was leaving, he did mention something about thanking Robin for the suit he was wearing," she admitted, casting a questioning glance at their leader. "Care to elaborate?"

All the attention suddenly shifted to Robin, who sat frozen in his seat. Despite the circumstances, Raven was relieved for the focus to off her for a change. Strangely enough, however, Robin didn't seem at all bewildered by her subtle accusation. In fact, he was paler than she'd seen him in a very long time, which made her wonder if Robin actually did know what Red-X was referring to.

Cyborg and Starfire, on the other hand, looked as though they felt about the same way. Rather than the color draining from their faces, however, they seemed to be filling with all kinds of shades of red. Furiously hot, outraged red. When they looked as though they were about to finally burst, Raven was tempted to crawl behind the couch and take cover from the impending fallout. "What did you say his name was, Raven?" Starfire ground out in a scarily controlled tone.

Raven glanced back at Robin and suddenly felt like she had betrayed him in some way by bringing the whole matter up. The expression on his face told her as much anyway. "Umm, Red-X?"

She really wished she had ducked behind the couch then, because everything after that felt like a single volcano of disbelief and rage boiling over and erupting all over the immediate living vicinity. "ARE YOU SERIOUS?" Cyborg suddenly thundered. "This again?! You promised us that that damn suit was somewhere safe—!"

Cyborg's tirade got louder and louder until Raven felt like she could literally see Robin's frame shrinking before her very eyes. Their leader's face betrayed nothing, said nothing as Cyborg continued to bear down on him, and for some reason Raven suddenly felt like she was witnessing a volatile dispute between an old married couple.

Meanwhile, Starfire was brooding silently by herself, and, if anything, Raven was more terrified for her reaction than Cyborg's. Was she imagining things, or was there now steam coming out of the Tamaranean's ears? Starfire usually held no qualms in expressing her feelings, especially her anger, but with Robin it was different. While it was true that she tended to save her most dangerous emotions for him, most of the time she cared too much to actually let them loose on him, so she ended up settling for a less turbulent emotion such as disappointment in order to not scare Robin away. Raven wasn't so sure Starfire would be able to keep her rage in this time, however. Apparently, Robin had really fucked up this time.

Cyborg's rage eventually wore down and Robin was able to sequester himself into a more secluded section of the couch. When Cyborg seemed to be finished, Raven glanced at Starfire, waiting for her to now have a go at their leader. Robin and Cyborg seemed to be waiting for the same thing. But Starfire didn't shout or scream or curse. She just sat there, her sharp green eyes cutting past Robin's moon-pale epidermis and seeing right through to the other side of him. Raven figured Starfire could see the contents of their refrigerator by now and was probably even wondering what she should eat for dinner. Starfire was certainly irritated with Robin, that much was clear; she also looked tired though, and that struck Raven more than anything else for some reason. After a long, tense silence, Starfire's gaze fell sadly to the carpet beneath them, and the air in the room thinned out a little. Robin exhaled at the sight of her reaction, though in relief or dread Raven couldn't tell. Seeing Starfire so defeated and Cyborg so worn out by his own outburst, Raven felt like maybe it was safe enough to talk again. "Does someone want to fill me in on what's going on?"

For a long time, Robin merely pursed his lips, calculating in his fortress of a mind the proper way to go about this. Finally, "This isn't exactly something I'm proud of, Raven, so bear with me—"

"Oh just get on with it," Cyborg interjected. His voice was still coated with disdain, but he looked more like a pouting toddler now. Robin frowned, but continued on with his story. "Look, almost a year ago, before you'd come to Jump City and before all that very brief apprenticeship stuff with—" he halted there, and Raven was left to assume that he was referring to Slade and his creepy dalliance with the both of them, the deranged conviction that either of them would be happy to serve him, no questions asked. The very memory of it all still made Raven shiver.

Robin cleared his throat and wiped his palms on his uniform. He was just as anxious as she was thinking about it. "Anyway, before all that, there was a time when I needed, and I mean absolutely needed, to get to Slade. I mean, I was pretty obsessed with him," he continued. It almost sounded like he was trying to rationalize it more to himself than them, and Raven wondered how much emotional baggage Robin was still carrying from whatever he was about to tell her.

Cyborg snorted indelicately. "Was?"

This time Robin glared at him. "Okay, okay, fair enough. But back then it had been different. Slade was still a pretty new villain for us, and everything we did just seemed to blow up in our faces. Slade was always one step ahead of us. It was infuriating. I was desperate. At the time I'd thought what I was doing was necessary, but I was wrong and stupid and Slade saw right through me."

"What is it that you ended up doing?" Raven asked gently. She was almost afraid to find out at this point. One look at Starfire told her how raw this still was for all of them.

Robin swallowed. He studied his hands for a while before meeting her gaze. "I designed a new suit and created an identity and weapons to go with it. When I put on that suit, I was a criminal known as Red-X."

Oh.

"I thought I could get close to Slade and figure out what he wanted if I pretended to be someone he could be interested in aligning with," Robin went on slowly, as if he was still going over every detail in his head like it was yesterday and still trying to figure out what had gone wrong in his plan. "But in order to do so, I ended up lying to the team about everything. I'd thought if they knew it was me they'd go easy on me and Slade would see right through everything." Robin paused then, and nobody dared to speak. There was a lot of bitterness in Robin's voice when he finally spoke again. And a lot of regret too. "It didn't matter, of course. Slade knew it was me all along. And I nearly lost everything because of it."

Raven watched as Robin and Starfire locked eyes with each other. They seemed to be having some sort of silent conversation between them, and she almost felt weird being in the same room with them, let alone interrupting the moment. "So," Raven nearly coughed. "My question is, why is there another Red-X running around out there now?"

"I think that's something we'd all like to know," Cyborg chimed in pointedly. "How in the hell exactly did this guy get your suit? I thought you said you had that thing locked up for good."

"I did!" Robin answered defensively. It was strange seeing him so cut-down, like he was a child talking back to his mother or something. He was usually so self-assured and commanding.

"Then why does this other guy have it?"

"I don't know how he got it!" Robin said, getting flustered. "But I figure he's only had it for about a week, so if we can just focus on taking him down—"

"Wait, hold knew for a week and you didn't say anything?" Cyborg was getting riled up again. In vain, Raven searched for some pillows to build a stronghold with.

Robin ground his teeth. It was apparent he hadn't meant to let that little piece of information slip out. He exhaled. "Yes, I did. I knew. And I didn't say anything because I thought I could get the suit back before it became a big deal."

"But why, Robin?" Starfire suddenly piped up. There was a noticeable amount of hurt in her wide eyes. Raven suspected this was exactly the type of look Robin had been trying to avoid.

Under Starfire's gaze, Robin's expression softened. "Because, Star, I didn't want to disappoint all of you again. I know you're all still angry with me over what happened the first time—excluding Raven, of course—unless you're angry with me now that you know…?"

Raven wasn't sure how she felt so she just kind of sat there and shrugged noncommittally. She felt more overwhelmed, if anything. This was a lot to take in in one sitting. Meanwhile, Cyborg and Starfire were sharing a meaningful glance. "What you did the last time," Starfire began carefully. "Of course it hurt. It hurt because there were the obvious implications of you feeling unable to trust us, Robin. And now this time you find us upset again for just the same reasons. You did not trust us to help you get your suit back. And you did not trust us to still care about you even when you made a mistake."

Robin was stunned into silence. Raven was stunned too, as well as a little uncomfortable, since she was the only one in the room who had actually not been part of the team when this had all taken place. "So the question now is this, Robin: do you trust us to help you stop the Red-X?" Starfire concluded patiently. Nobody said anything for a while, then Cyborg stood and clapped a hand onto Robin's back, smiling.

"Star's right. All this trust stuff is messing with us as a team. So let's stop Red-X together and be done with it. For good. Let bygones be bygones," he said, offering his other hand to Robin as a sign of good faith. Without hesitation, Robin took it, and it was like a huge weight had been lifted from the room. Starfire laughed and gleefully gathered the two boys into a group hug, and a while later they insisted Raven join in, who was mildly horrified at the prospect.

As the three of them jokingly teased her about it, the lightheartedness of the moment was cut short when an alarm suddenly sounded. Robin pounced on the computer and Raven, Cyborg, and Starfire waited with an intense calm like warriors before a battle. When the image finally pulled up on the large screen above them, Cyborg let out a satisfied whistle. "Speak of the devil."

—

"Are you sure it was this way?" Cyborg asked for what seemed like the hundredth time.

"Yes, I'm sure," Robin answered a little impatiently.

It was raining, which made everything harder to see in the already impossibly dark night. They'd left Beast Boy back at the Tower to rest up, though he probably didn't even know they were gone. They were all in agreement that he was in no condition to fight because of the night before, so they'd just decided to let him sleep and hoped he'd stay that way until they got back.

Once they'd reached the spot Robin had picked out back at the Tower, Robin turned and nodded to Raven, and as silently as she could manage, she uttered her mantra and used her powers to create a portal that would allow them access to the inside of the building. Against the worn brick of the building, Raven's portal simply looked like a large black circle, like in the old Wile E Coyote and Road Runner cartoons. The magic faded from her fingertips, and one by one the Titans stepped through the portal to the other side.

It was dark inside the facility, and a little musty too. Goddamned rainy weather. Judging by the sheer architectural finesse of the building's exterior, Raven had initially thought that they were heading towards a museum. In a way, she was kind of right. The building was currently housing one of the greatest collections of military weapons blueprints on the west coast, but only a select few were actually allowed to see them, and absolutely no one was allowed to remove them from the building without proper and strict government authorization.

Back at the Tower, the facility's security had warned the Titans of a potential criminal sighting outside the premises, and of course, their greatest suspect as of right now was Red X. Being that the facility's collection was so vast however, they had absolutely no idea what he could be looking for or where to start their search for that matter. "We should split up," Robin suggested.

Starfire nodded. "I agree."

Robin grinned back at her. "Since this facility's so big, we're going to need to split up individually and take different sectors of the building. We'll rendezvous in about half an hour, but keep your communicators live in case one of us finds something before then. He's not going to go down easy."

The rest of them nodded their head in agreement. Cyborg headed off to the East sector, with Robin taking off in the direction of the West. Raven was about to take the South sector when she felt Starfire's grip on her arm; Raven resisted the urge to pull away. "What is it, Starfire?"

Starfire wasn't necessarily shaking in her boots, but Raven didn't doubt that even without her particular powers one could easily feel the Tamaranean's nervous energy cascading off of her. "I just wanted to be sure you are okay, Raven, before we do the splitting up. This Red X, while he is certainly no Slade—" and Starfire's grip tightened considerably here, so much so that Raven nearly yelped. "—he is very good at reading people. At reading us. I know you are very strong, but please be careful, friend. Do not try to stop him by yourself."

She let go of Raven's arm then, and Raven felt her gaze softening for her teammate. Robin really was the thickest man alive for not opening his heart up to Starfire. "Thanks, Starfire. I'll be careful. But you be careful too. Don't mess him up too much before we get there."

Starfire blinked. "Did you—did Raven just make—a joke?"

Raven frowned. "It happens occasionally," she muttered.

— — —

Why anyone would store a massive library of weapons blueprints all in one place was beyond Raven's comprehension. Think about it: if anyone wanted their pick of the litter, so to speak, all they would have to do is break into this one single building, and instantly they've got access to all of the nation's greatest and most dangerous weapons schemes. Sure, it was probably more convenient for the nation's cataloging to keep them all in one place, but it seemed more likely an excuse for bad writing if you asked Raven. Too bad nobody had.

As she combed the South sector of the facility, Raven's thoughts reluctantly drifted back to Beast Boy and his (hopefully) still-sleeping state back at the Tower. If he really knew where they were and what they were doing he'd probably be furious, and she no doubt expected the same reaction when they briefed him later. She just hoped they had something positive to brief him with in order to soften the blow at least. She didn't want to admit it, but she hated their last interaction. It drove her nuts that he got under her skin like that, especially when he did next to nothing to earn her ire. Most of the time, anyway.

Even more so, she hated that she'd gone out to that club the other night, when all this mess had seemingly first gotten started in the first place. She should've just stayed home and drank a bottle of wine like a normal person (if we're defining "normal" in very loose terms). Why did she have to be such a damned basket-case?

One thing was for sure, though: no matter what the outcome was tonight, Beast Boy was going to be pissed with Raven when they got back, and deservedly so. She deserved it for being such an asshole to him the night before. What the hell was wrong with her lately? This wasn't who she was. Sure, Raven was known to spout a few sarcastic retorts every now and then, especially when it came to Beast Boy, but never had she ever made it her mission to publicly emasculate or humiliate him. Beast Boy was right, Raven wasn't treating him like a teammate at all, and the end result was enough to set her teeth on edge. It certainly wasn't her favorite thing to do, but once they got back to the Tower, she was going to properly apologize to him once and for all, and hopefully make things right.

In the midst of her musings, minutes were flying by, and the South sector was a silent as any given mausoleum. Raven wished she knew more specifically what she was looking for. The only thing she really had going for her at the moment was the fact that the facility was about as blandly set up as any other government warehouse, so if anything looked out of the ordinary it would stick out right away. She desperately wished she had some kind of clue as to what Red X was looking for though; that would certainly make the search a lot easier. The facility was divided into the sectors that each Titan had taken search of, and within each sector weapons were individually categorized and compartmentalized by utility and cost expenses. For all she knew, Red X was after the next great zeppelin, and right now she was nowhere near that kind of department. There were too many unknown factors in this mission.

So did that mean Red X was a mercenary-type, or was he more of a mastermind like Slade? He didn't seem like the mastermind type, though now that Raven thought about it, Robin hadn't really given her any intel on this guy at all, annoyingly enough. Based on her own experiences with Red X, she knew he was quick and agile—a lot like Robin, actually—and that he was pretty quick to lay on the arrogance—also a bit like Robin too. As a matter of fact, Robin and Red X seemed to have a lot more in common than she'd initially noticed; she didn't know whether to laugh or cringe at this revelation, so she sort of half-smiled.

"My, but you are a cutie, Raven."

Raven whirled on the familiar voice, finding Red X lounging lazily atop an imposing set of file cabinets as if he didn't have a care in the world. "Looking for me?" he drawled.

Raven felt her fists clench automatically. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't send your ass to the dimension of my choice right this second."

If Red X was at all daunted by this idea, he did an impressive job of hiding it. Instead, he stood up and pretended to walk across the tops of the file cabinets as if they were a balance beam and he was competing for the coveted gold medal. "We both know you're not going to do that, Rave."

Despite her best efforts, Raven scowled at the unwelcome usage of her nickname, and Red X took pleasure in noticing. "Oops. Didn't realize I had to unlock level four to use that name," he jeered. "Or is it because that's what the green kid calls you when you're tasting his cucumber? Tell me, is he really an animal in the sack?—Get it?"

Raven felt her face heat with indignation, and deep down she could feel Rage gearing up for a brawl. She did her best to placate her emotions for the time being, but if this guy kept it up she wouldn't be able to reign them in for long. Remembering Starfire's words of caution, she pawed around for the communicator on her belt as subtly as she could. "I don't know what's more moronic," she said dryly. "The fact that you're trying to get a rise out of me or the fact that you actually bothered to stick around to have your ass kicked. I'm thinking it's a tie. Congratulations. Both are as equally moronic as the other."

Red X grinned down at her before launching into a back flip off the cabinets and landing a few feet in front of her gracefully like a cat. "I wouldn't do that if I were you," he warned, pointing to her hand on her belt. "This building's much too valuable to be lost over a simple misunderstanding between two kindred souls."

"There are so many things wrong with that statement I don't even know where to begin," Raven growled.

"How about with the explosives I've rigged to detonate all throughout this building?" Red X suggested haughtily, taking a step closer to her. "Never pull a job without a backup plan, you see."

Raven narrowed her eyes at him. "You're bluffing."

"Wanna find out?"

Raven paused, weighing her options carefully. Since she really couldn't be sure if he was bluffing or not without risking the lives of her teammates, her only chance was to distract him until she could alert them to his presence with her communicator. "So what are you even here for anyway?" she asked coolly. "Don't have enough toys to play with already?"

Red X seemed to take the bait. "Oh, I assure you, Rave, my toys are far superior to anyone else's you'll ever encounter. In fact, I was just about to let you play with my favorite one until you got spooked at that club that night."

Raven's heart raced as she recalled everything that had happened, and the fact that it had happened with him. She was still so furious with herself she wanted to scream. "You're even more delusional than I thought if you seriously think I have any interest in doing any more with you other than putting your ass in prison," she snorted.

"Didn't seem that way that night," he sneered. "I know you don't wanna admit it, Rave, because you probably like to think you're different from other girls, but I was there, and I saw how much you were enjoying yourself even before I decided to add myself into the mix."

"I was drunk," Raven insisted, her emotions starting to get the better of her.

"Yes, you were," Red X agreed, smirking from under his mask. "But I think you're a lot more like me than you're willing to admit to yourself. Fact of the matter is, drunk or not, you enjoyed letting go of your inhibitions for once. And you definitely got a dangerous thrill being out on that dance floor."

Raven felt her resolve crumbling, and she itched to take him out while he was busy running his mouth. Steadily, she lowered her hand once more toward her belt…

"Face it, Rave, all that pent up energy, all that repressed emotion—a girl like you can only pretend to be good for so long," Red X continued simply. "Who knows, a couple drinks more and you may have been begging for what I've got to offer a girl."

"Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos!" Raven thundered menacingly as she sent out a wave of dark energy in his direction, hoping to slam him into the wall behind him. Red X narrowly avoided her attack, however, and was quick to send out his own. As he held up one of his palms, a large crimson X was released, and Raven wasn't fast enough to avoid it landing square on her mouth. As she teetered backwards with the impact, she could feel the panic rising in her body. She had acted impulsively yet again, and this was her purgatory. She should've activated the communicator first, then attacked. Once again she felt her hand rushing to her belt, but now Red X was in full attack mode, and he had a complete awareness of all her movements.

But instead of setting off any of the charges he'd threatened before, Red X dove for her, effectively knocking the communicator out of her hand and sending it skittering across the facility's marble floor. Raven's confusion hindered her long enough for him to land a good punch across her jaw, but once she'd registered that he had in fact been bluffing about the charges, she used her strong legs to launch his body off of hers. With the brief respite, she tugged and tugged at the damned X covering her mouth, but soon found that it was no use; until she got this thing off she was forced to rely on her physicality a little more rather than her powers. With newfound resolve, Raven's eyes landed on her communicator laying helplessly at the end of the aisle of file cabinets, and she took off toward it.

Red X soon realized her train of thought and was up and running as well, hurling more crimson X's at her every chance he got, but Raven was on her guard this time. One by one, she barely dodged each X successfully, jumping, rolling, and diving in nearly every direction, occasionally colliding with a heavy file cabinet and vaguely bruising some part of her that she didn't have time to care about. When she was a few mere inches away from the lone communicator she took her chances and used what power she could to hurl a cabinet at Red X. Though he ended up dodging it, it was just the window she needed to do what she should have done in the first place. With a bit of self-satisfaction, Raven swooped up the communicator in her hands and kept up her sprint in the direction away from Red X. "Not so fast, Rave!"

Suddenly Raven felt her legs being knocked out from under her by something clumsy and sticky, and in the blink of an eye she was crashing roughly onto the floor and unable to get up. Communicator still in hand, she turned and saw that he had launched yet another X at her, only this one was somewhat gooey and had the effect of a very strong wad of gum. To put it mildly, she was stuck. "No, no, please, don't stand up on my account," Red X teased nonchalantly.

Despite his amusement, despite her inability to speak, it still pleased Raven to see that he was a little winded by their whole exchange. When she looked at Red X, who was casually making his way over to her as if his victory was indisputable, she found it within herself to offer up one of her own smirks, as if to say, I'm not finished yet!, before holding up her communicator and jamming her thumb into the distress button with as much force as she could muster. Within seconds, a light on the communicator began to beep and blink.

"Shit," Red X muttered. He seemed disappointed that their charged interaction was coming to an end so soon. Raven narrowed her eyes up at him indignantly. Briefly, she considered offering up a different means of communication, one involving a certain finger, but decided not to give him the satisfaction of it. "I'm not too keen on reunions," Red X said, giving Raven one last arrogant glance. When she rolled her eyes at him with disdainful flair, he took a step closer and gripped her chin with his lithe, gloved fingers. His touch was surprisingly gentle. "I meant what I said before. Call me the next time you feel like loosening the reigns a bit. Or a lot."

Raven jerked away roughly, wishing she could somehow spit on him and his arrogant charm. She settled on chucking a stray box at him with some of her errant power, which he avoided deftly before grinning down at her again. "Think about it," he offered, backing away slowly.

"Freeze, Red X!"

Startled, Raven turned just in time to see her teammates charging down the row of cabinets toward her and Red X. Admittedly, Raven hadn't even realized they were close by at all. Was it possible that they'd heard anything? "Gotta run, Rave," Red X mock-saluted her, just as he'd done the last time they'd seen each other, before he took off swiftly into the darkness of the facility.

Her eyes followed his quickly disappearing form, but for some reason her teammates were hesitant to do the same, as if in deference to her and her current state of helplessness. If Raven had been able to talk, she would've barked at them to follow him and stop him before he got away. As it was, all she could do was point in his direction emphatically like a mime until they got the message. As per her ridiculously made request, the Titans took off in hot pursuit of the criminal, and soon it was just Raven by herself again. And she kind of really needed to pee.

XXXXX