I've been asked a few times to write a Jason is Red X story. Since it is my birthday, I felt generous, and wrote this as a prologue.

Plus... I wanted to get my own theory out there.

I do not own Teen Titans.

Time travel is a tricky thing.

Actually doing it is a lot more complicated then movies and TV shows make it seem to be. Sure, if you have the time machine for yourself, then you can just jump back into your car or TARDIS or whatever after some adventure then go back to whenever you want, but it is rarely taken into consideration if the method of traveling through time was more a forced action then a choice.

Like, say, battling some weird guy in a futuristic-looking costume with some weird ray gun on patrol one night, and him managing to get a shot at you. Instead of falling backwards into the dirty Gotham snow like you're expecting, you are then sent backward in time.

Back a good ten years by the newspaper you managed to snag from some booth, and not even in Gotham anymore. No, you're suddenly in Jump Freaking City.

To say the least, I was not particularly happy when this happened to me.

Being the flexible guy that I am, though, it didn't take long for me to figure out a plan of action. Getting an apartment is obviously the first step, since I'll need somewhere to live until I figure a way back to the normal day and age. Once I found some cheap place that didn't ask questions, I would have to keep my costume there, or my helmet at least, since I did not currently have any other clothes on me. I can't exactly go out in a city populated with teen heroes (including the Golden Boy) as a vigilante that doesn't even exist yet.

Those steps were easy. After that, though, things got a bit... tougher.

I would have to get a job, since I only had a minuscule amount of money on me went I got sent back, and I already spent that getting an apartment. If I wanted to keep the damn thing, I would have to work a bit.

Any jobs that weren't for psycho villains, though, asked questions that I couldn't exactly answer.

I had to do something, obviously, so I dug a bit into the talents of my past (or future, technically...). Vigilantism... Doesn't exactly pay the bills. Pissing Bats and my so called 'siblings' off... I don't think the Demon Brat was even born yet, the Replacement is a little kid, and it'd be best to stay away from Bats...

And annoying Golden Boy didn't have any profit.

I couldn't quite drop the idea, though. It wasn't long before I remembered a story Grayson had told me about his Titan years. About a guy who stole a dangerous suit and used it to steal money and such, and how they never figured out who it was.

The costume name was 'Red X'. Oddly similar to my usual identity. Added on to the fact that I used to be a pretty good thief in my youth... Well, it was a bit eerie.

They never knew who the X dude was... So why couldn't it have been me?

Dickie Bird's passwords are always so predictable (barbara? Really, Grayson? Do you want to be stolen from?), so it wasn't hard to get the costume.

It wasn't long before I was Red X, the cunning thief and resident pain in the ass of the Teen Titans.

Of course, nothing is ever that easy for me... Something just had to go wrong...

Oh, did I forget to tell you all who I am?

The name's Jason Todd. And I am Red X.