Rea: Updating with a newer version. Flames are enjoyable, welcomed, and loved.

Disclaimer: I do not own the Teen Titans. Nope. I really don't. Really.

Dedicated to Ali, who keeps my bones from
breaking even when I fall down.

Glass Bones

I was walking down the street, silently listening to the cool sound of the waves upon the sand. I easily blended into the weekend boardwalk crowd. They were your typical tourists, in big hats, flashy T-shirts, and 'practical' shoes. I never understood the tourists. I mean, why would you want to come here? It's just a big city. Lots of buildings, lots of steel, lots of lights. Course, I guess the Teen Titans are a big attraction, but we'll move on to them later.

So, I blended into the crowd easily; probably because I'm only 4'11" because of my osteogenesis imperfecte. That blank stare of yours means that I've forgotten something…oh! OI—osteogenesis imperfecte, that is—that's a bone disease, also called "glass bones" because the bones of the patient break so easily. I was lucky and only got a mild form of OI, but I'm still short. I guess I should be thankful that I'm not permanently in a wheelchair, or that my teeth are still able to chop up my food into little tiny bits. There's a lot I should be thankful for, but you wouldn't think that having OI would be one of them.

But it is. Because if I never had OI, I never would have met him. Them. The ones that made me think that life might actually be worth it, the ones that saved the nine-year-old me from contemplating suicide by rolling my wheelchair down the stairwell. The ones that made a difference.

While I was staring out at the lapping water and the crying seagulls pooping on unsuspecting pedestrians in Hawaiian T-shirts, I felt someone creep up behind me. Actually, I saw their shadow. But it felt like they were going to mug me or jump me or something—and I can tell you, that would be one fun trip to the hospital. Not. Hearing my mom screaming and the paramedics whispering about how she's overreacting but her not hearing a single word. Yeah, I didn't want to take that particular trip. Again.

So, I turned to face this mysterious person who might possibly want to kill me, and lo and behold, there he was. The one who ruined them. I gave him the coldest glare I could, which probably lowered the temperature between us about twenty degrees. He returned my gaze, though it was not nearly as intense. I guess he didn't know why I was mad at him. Or maybe he just didn't care. Don't ask me to analyze a psychopath.

"What's up, A.J.?" he asked nicely. I scowled at him and his fake chivalry. I am not so easily fooled as that. I knew what he was really like: controlling, pushy, hateful, bossy, etc. Not one of my favorite people. And he was gaining flirty stares from blonde teenage girls passing by. Great. Now they must think I've got some sort of 'older guy' fetish. Disgusting.

"Don't call me 'A.J.' Only my friends call me that, and you're not my friend," I said bitterly. Alright, maybe I had a few issues to work out and I don't exactly have a level head, but I am only 15. Give me a break.

He grinned slightly. "Aww, you still mad at me, little Anne?" My scowl deepened. I wished he would sink through the earth down to Hell, which he probably—no, definitely—deserved.

"I'm not little," contradicting my own description of myself. "And I'm not mad at you."

"Good," he smiled. Well, as much of a smile as a piece of crap like him could muster.

"I'm furious."

He frowned now. A look more suited to his personality. "Oh, come on, now, Anne! That was years ago! Can't you let bygones be bygones and all that kind of shit? I mean, really it doesn't ma—"

"Don't you dare say it doesn't matter!" I screamed, successfully gaining the attention of the passing tourists eating ice cream in their too-big sunglasses. "Of course it matters! You ruined the only people who ever cared about me—who treated me like a real person!"

He sighed and rolled his eyes. I took this as permission to get my anger out of my system.

"You made them weaker! ALL OF THEM!" I shrieked. "Sun became human, Bird became weak from arguing with you, Gar…Gar doesn't even talk to me anymore! He never responds to any letters, not for the past three years! And Rob—he's weak too! You've ruined them! You've ruined my friends!"

By now, everyone in the boardwalk near the beach was staring at me and him. He sighed and stepped closer. I backed against the bar behind me, partly to keep me from running away from fear and/or rage and partly because it was just plain uncomfortable how close he was getting.

"You listen to me, Anne," he said in as quiet of a voice as he could. "I did none of those things to them. They—"

"You did nothing? Nothing?" I spat. "You did everything. You hated Bird more than anything, you used Sun, you looked down on Rob and Gar! How could that be nothing?"

"You don't understand."

"No, I don't. And I don't ever want to. I never want to understand how a loser like you managed to ruin the strongest people I've ever known, how a piece of shit like you controlled them without them knowing. I never want to know. I never want to understand.

"You are scum, bubblegum in the street, a forgotten balloon in an alleyway. You don't compare to them at all. All of them are ten thousand times better than you, and they always will be, no matter what stupid, manipulative things you do to them. Now, do you understand? Do you fucking understand me? I hate you! I hate you, hate you, hate you!"

He stared at me with a weird look in his eyes. I don't think anyone had ever been that blunt to him. I had my best friend Alison to thank for that one. Bluntest person I know. Must rub off on some people.

Then he smirked and walked off. I glared at his back, slightly stunned that he would do something like that to someone—anyone, before I remembered that I was only fifteen years old, and he was probably twice my age. He must have thought that he was allowed to do that. Turn his back on what's right, just because he's the leader of the team, just because he has power. Just because he's Nightwing.

Just because he's Nightwing, he thinks that he can control Starfire, Raven, Changeling, and Cyborg, because they aren't quite as strong as him in some areas, areas that he happens to know how to manipulate. Just because he's a pain in the ass.

He thought that he could turn his back on justice and what's right, but I bet you he thought about my little speech for a while after he walked away. For a few moments, I was back in the hospital at nine years old, contemplating what would be the best way to die. I decided that breaking my neck while rolling down stairs would suffice.

That was when Gar found me. He treated me like I was a human, like I was worth something. He humored me, telling me that he was green because he never ate his vegetables. I believed him, stupid as it might sound.

Then I met Raven. Bird, as I called her. She was wearing her cloak, and I thought that she was cold so I offered to give her my blanket. I could have sworn that she almost smiled at me. She seemed to know how I felt, almost like she knew it even better than I did.

Then Sun, more commonly known as Starfire, came out to greet me. She was so strong, in body and mind. She was the ultimate girl, and I wanted to grow up to be like her. She never seemed to get hurt, or at least she never showed her pain, and she had an everlasting smile on her face.

Then Rob—short for Robot—showed up. He was Cyborg to the rest of the population. I thought the doctors were trying to punish him for eating too many popsicles by putting casts all around his body. He laughed and told me that he was half robot, a cyborg.

We sat around and talked for a while, before a machine in the room closest to us started a steady beep, which is never a good thing by any standard. They all rushed into the room, besides Gar. He smiled at me, told me the guy in there would be just fine, and took me back to my room, pushing me as fast as he could down the corridors and riding the back of the wheelchair. It was the funnest night of my life.

Six years later, I finally met him, Nightwing, face to face for only the second time. I hate him with a passion I didn't know I had for what he did to my friends. He'll never be able to pay enough for it, for the loss of soul that was given up on his account.

But in respect to my friends, I'll remember them at their best, their strongest. I'll forget about him, and remember the true Titans: Starfire, Raven, Cyborg, and, of course, Changeling.

But I guess we all have our own glass bones, huh?

.oOo.

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