After Everything1

Chapter One: Half-Human Shield

Being a teen superhero meant not always doing the right thing.

Being a teen superhero who used to be a teen super villain meant making a lot of bad decisions.

Being the teammate of a teen superhero who used to be a teen super villain meant having to deal with a lot of remnant bad habits.

And being Raven, the teammate of Jinx, the teen superhero who used to be a teen super villain, meant that any incident mimicking old behavior was grounds for immediate and permanent elimination. Usually Cyborg could calm Raven's rage at Teen Titan Jinx after a battle. But combining Jinx's antics, a menstruating half-demoness, and one Dr. Light made the circumstance completely out of his capable hands. He decided to take a back seat and let Jinx and Raven's mutual dislike of each other explode in the abandoned warehouse where they had cornered their villain. If their powers destroyed anything, it wouldn't be a piece of his precious Tower… that was really all he could ask for.

"Does the word team mean anything to you?" Raven shouted at the other half-demon Titan fighter. Raven's hands were balled up in fisticuffs, her hood was drawn down to show that anger was running through her entire body and not just in her eyes.

"Of course it does. Hive Five, Teen Titans; it seems I just can't do the solo thing. I'm a natural team player." Jinx responded, focusing her attention on her impeccable appearance. She pouted before brushing a bit of dust from her long sleeve.

"You just tried to use me as a human shield!" Raven yelled back.

Beast Boy slunk in between the moon-pale Titan witches, mischief clearly intended in his green eyes. He dropped his arm onto Raven's shoulder cheekily. "Technically, she tried to use you as half-human shield. Hahahahaha"

Jinx laughed. "Nice one, BB."

It would be Starfire who systematically collected the scattered pieces of Beast Boy and sewed him back together.

Robin chose then to interfere before Raven turned her powers onto the newest member of the Teen Titan squad. From where he had been fighting, it had seemed to the Titans' leader that the mission had gone off without a hitch. The fact that it apparently hadn't just spoke to the fact that nothing ever went smoothly when Jinx and Raven were in the same… universe.

"Raven, calm down. You two are supposed to be partners." Robin said, making appeasing gestures. Raven had promised the day after she had defeated Trigon to never use her powers for violence against him, but he was always cautious none the less.

Raven snorted before crossing her arms over her chest and turning her head to the side.

"'Supposed to' is the operative word, dear leader." Jinx responded. "Raven doesn't appear to be a team player."

Robin raised a hand and effectively calmed Raven's rage. "Jinx, give it a rest. I know whatever happened here, you weren't totally innocent. We'll discuss this when we get back to the tower. Jinx, go ride in the T-car," Robin took a firm grip on Raven's upper arm. Before she could protest, Robin gave her an order. "Raven, come with me."

Jinx followed Robin's order, walking behind Cyborg and Starfire who were double checking to make sure they collected all the fragments of Beast Boy that Raven's retaliation to his 'joke' had created. Beast Boy was the only one who didn't think that Cyborg's suggestion of replacing any missing pieces of BB with hotdogs was funny.

The T-car was loaded and directed to a route back to the tower before Robin released Raven's arm and gave her his total attention. "You wanna tell me what this is about?" He asked.

"You know what this is about, Robin! It's been about the same thing for the last three months! I don't want Jinx to be my partner, I don't want Jinx on our team and I definitely don't want Jinx to be my partner on our team!"

"Raven, we've been over this. Jinx is a part of our team now, a valuable part. Ever since we were nearly defeated by the Brotherhood of Evil, all of us Titans realized that we needed a stronger Titans' network to protect ourselves from such attacks again."

"But the Brotherhood of Evil is destroyed. We don't need to worry about them anymore."

"The Brotherhood may be gone, but while there are superheroes, there will always be super villains, just like Dr. Light."

"Dr. Light hardly constitutes…"

"Raven." Robin cut his teammate off. "We all agreed that we needed to create a buddy system to protect each other: I have Starfire, Beast Boy has Cyborg, and you have Jinx."

"I understand the system, what I don't understand is why I have to be punished by it. You get a partner you're used to and can trust. So do Beast Boy and Cyborg. Couldn't I have gotten Kid Flash or Jericho or even Speedy?"

"Kid Flash was assigned to Titans East so that we wouldn't break up existing teams. Kid Flash compliments Speedy's abilities; that's why he's in Steel City with them. Jinx's powers compliment yours; that's why she's here in our tower."

Raven shook her head angrily. She hadn't been convinced the first time Robin had said those words to her. Three months of repeating them after every fight the half-demonesses had didn't provide Raven with any clarity or reduction of hostilities towards her 'partner'.

It did however provide Robin with more headaches. As the leader of the Titans, Robin had his share of catastrophic entities to deal with: there was Slade, there was always Slade, there was the Elemental, and then there was, of course, the monsters at home.

The fights between Jinx and Raven were indeed a broken record. He knew all of their ingredients the way Starfire knew the ingredients of her Deep Fried Glorka Worm Pupua Casserole with Muck Beetle Gut Jelly Sauce… both of them created disastrous effects around the Tower and in his lower intestine.

"Doesn't compatibility count for anything? I mean, Argent's powers compliment mine. She could have been my partner." Raven responded.

"Argent wasn't willing to leave her sector and besides, she and Bushido make a surprisingly effective team. Raven, I understand that this is going to take some getting used to, but you need to get passed your old feelings about Jinx and accept that she is a Titan and she is a part of this team and she is your partner."

"You're so lucky that I don't have superpowers, otherwise you'd be in a million little pieces right now." Raven gritted angrily.

Robin raised a hidden eyebrow. "Uh, Raven, you do have superpowers." He stated helpfully.

Raven pulled her hood over her head. "Then I guess you're just lucky."

Raven turned her back to her leader and let the movement close her cloak around her body. "I'll see you back at the tower." She said, before letting her demonic heritage take its true form. The Raven's cry pushed Robin's hair and cape back. She disappeared above him.

Robin exhaled deeply from his nose. The moving air voiced his displeasure just as much as his slow head shake.

Robin knew it would be sometime before Raven returned to the tower. She was probably going out to her hidden spot in the Pacific Ocean to meditate or destroy something. She thought no one knew about it, but Robin knew and had explicitly forbade anyone from exercising curiosity and exploring Raven's sanctuary. That meant threatening Beast Boy and Starfire with a ban on tofu and banning celebrations of friendship, respectively. So far it had worked to let Raven keep her sanctuary, what it hadn't done was appease Raven's anxieties.

He knew that this was more than just about Jinx. It was about Jinx and Terra (whom the other Titans confirmed as the former Titan four months ago) and Raven's powers slowly becoming stronger than she could handle. Robin knew that the purpose of Raven's sanctuary was the place Raven went to expunge the explosive element of her powers. It was where she unlocked all the dark parts of her mind: the parts the controlled hate, fear, and memory.

Robin knew that Raven was capable and he knew that his team could be counted on to support her. He just didn't know what to prepare for.

Robin climbed onto the R-cycle. He pulled his helmet on firmly and kick started his personalized ride. The engine roared cleanly. When Robin lifted his leg, the R-cycle peeled down the road back towards the tower. As the lights and trash of Jump City were left behind him, Robin found he couldn't outrace his thoughts.

Nothing that comes with Raven is easily or simple. She never suffers single incidences, her problems are always compounded. A mental problem is always a spiritual problem tangled in a biological problem. Now… the mental part is trust, the spiritual part is her powers and the biological part is her cycle.

Robin had made, maybe nine months ago, the error of enquiring with Starfire why Raven appeared to be in a particularly foul mood, even for her, to which Starfire responded "Raven is suffering from the cycle". When he hadn't understood immediately, something he still berates himself about to this day, Starfire took it upon herself to explain to him in a depth of detail that still gave the Boy Wonder nightmares, just what a woman's cycle was and the complications - hormonal, dispositional, and Boronal (which Robin assumed was Tameranian for clothing) – that arose from their biological obligations. Starfire was embarrassingly thorough in removing Robin's ignorance of the subject and helpfully, took to marking the calendars with red pen whenever Raven was on her cycle.

Robin shook his head as he continued to steer his R-cycle home. This only led Beast Boy to start marking everyday of the calendar in red pen once he found out what the code was… When Raven learned what the code was and about Beast Boy's subtle critique of her behavior… we still haven't found the last shreds of his comic book collection… or his back left molars.

Robin spun his wheel sharply and slid his R-cycle assigned to Tuesdays between his R-cycle assigned to Monday and his R-cycle assigned to Wednesday, with a level of cool befitting him. He pulled off his helmet and made his assent into the tower.

No one knew how to throw a fit like Raven. He had never met a person more entitled to them. For all of her shortcomings, Raven's episodes of rage were always prodded by someone: usually a villain, but more and more recently they had been coming from inside the tower.

He knew where he had to go and really wasn't looking forward to it. Jinx and Raven lived on the same floor with Beast Boy, which turned out to just be a really poor arrangement on Cyborg's part. Each room had been explicitly designed to suit the Titans' personalities, but Cyborg hadn't thought far enough to consider tranquility in his layout. Robin had been privy to a great deal of fights between Raven and Jinx on the way to the stairs leading to the floor that he shared with Starfire and Cyborg. He remembered explicitly their first fight and his first attempt to promote unity between the moon-pale witches.

/flashback/

Robin, who read Raven's airs better than any other Titan, knew hostility when he saw it. Of course, it would take no detective skills to determine Raven was angry and at whom, when she shouted loud enough to rock the floor beneath the Titans' leader's feet.

"Get away from me!"

Robin raised an eyebrow as Jinx seemed completely impervious to the Raven-Glare™.

Jinx planted her right hand on her narrow hip, using her left hand to wave off Raven's anger, obviously bored and unimpressed. "For the last time, I'm not going to betray the Titans. I zapped you on accident. You moved into the way of my blast. If I wanted to shock you, I would have done it more cleanly than that, Raven. So get over it! I am not going to turncoat!"

"Until it suits your purpose." Raven sneered, using her powers to clean the wound on her arm from Jinx's "accident".

"Why won't you trust me?"

"Because I've experienced a lie like this before." Raven muttered before sinking through her door, leaving Jinx to frown at her exit.

"Real nice, Raven. You've got passive-aggressive down to a tee. That magical disappearing act is really something." Jinx crossed her arms over her chest and tapped her heel impatiently. She sighed deeply and turned her cat-eyes to the side of the corridor where her spectator stood. "She doesn't like me."

Robin realized his position was compromised and came out of his observational stoop. He stood side by side with the pink haired hex artist. "Yeah, you really rub her the wrong way."

"I don't want to rub her at all!" Jinx responded.

"You two just need to work on your teamwork a bit more. Just try to understand her a little. Another… Titan shook us up with the flip-flop from good to evil… It really affected Raven. Just try not to push her."

"Sure."

Jinx was no where as good at hiding her mischievousness as Beast Boy was and that was saying something, because if Beast Boy was any more transparent, he'd be glass. Robin turned to his fifth, technically sixth, subordinate. "Jinx, I mean it. Raven's already proved her mettle; you still have to prove yours. If you're serious about being a Titan, you'll act serious and be a part of this team and that means not purposely prodding Raven."

"You're no fun."

"I don't have to be fun, I'm right. Just do the super hero thing, Jinx, with no games. Meet her half-way and she'll come around."

/end flashback/

Robin remembered saying those words, but as it was, Raven wasn't coming around. She was getting worse. Robin couldn't do anything about Raven's powers or cycle, but he could help settle her trust issues. So he knocked on Jinx's door and prepared to do his part as leader, to keep his team from destroying itself.

Jinx opened her door smoothly and already had an apology on her lips before Robin raised his hand to silence her.

"I don't want your excuses. I don't want your games. I don't need your fake apologies. You made a mistake, Jinx. A big one."

"I know." Jinx replied, genuinely sorry.

"The Titans are a team, a real good one. We're only as strong as the bonds we have to each other. You had a team once; you should know how this goes."

Jinx would have raised an eyebrow if she had one. The incredulous look she had perfected was just as good. "Umm, did you meet my last team? We weren't exactly the beacons of camaraderie."

"Well, you're on this team now and I expect more from you. You have an amazing talent, Jinx. That's why you're here. But you're only as good as your effort and right now, this is no good."

"I understand." Jinx responded.

"You're a Teen Titan and we're kind of a big deal. We can't go back to infighting and just being a group of kids who would rather be together than alone."

"Old habits die hard, you know? You can't expect me and Raven to go from enemies to BFF in a few weeks. Even months is asking a bit much… but… I'll try harder."

"You'll start by apologizing when Raven gets back to the Tower."

Jinx knew better than to feign innocence or complain against Robin's order. "Where is she anyway?"

"That's not your concern." Robin had once, just once, considered telling Jinx about Raven's sanctuary, but decided that he wasn't completely suicidal. If Raven smelled anything close to Jinx in her sanctuary, the world would experience a rage like it had never seen before. Robin absolutely wanted no part of it. "When she gets back, you'll know. Whenever she gets back, you two have a training session tomorrow morning at seven."

"I know. I know. I'll be there."

Jinx shut her door and Robin wished he had pockets in his tights so he could put his hands in them as he walked away. He settled for letting them dangle at his side. He choose to ignore Starfire's invitation to ingest large amounts of unhealthy confectionaries while watching the Opera of Soaps Marathon and instead went to double check that the special locks and seals he had ordered Cyborg to install in the training room were fully operating.

From seven AM to however long it takes, somehow I'll get these girls to be partners. The Titans stand together or not at all.

End of Part