Hello! Yes, I only update fast because I've already written a few chapters...

But try not to get your hopes up for the rest of the fic, ne?

;D

Haha, well, yes.

Thanks for reading!

-K

The voices were annoying beyond belief. Here I was, trying to sleep, and they kept on butting in and battering against my head and through and around it until I couldn't sleep or make sense of anything. The voices seemed to mesh and whirl until I couldn't even tell if there were just several or several hundred. The pounding in my skull didn't help any though. I winced inwardly as another voice shot through my sub-conscious.

"–obin. You know who she is. She's one of them – one of the H.I.V.E–"

"No! Not anymore! She's changed, Raven. You know it– "

"Kid. I understand that people change. But to change for good? That's something that's impossible. We are who we are. Sometimes we cannot change that."

This voice, the female, sounded emotionless, but to my H.I.V.E Academy-trained ear, I could detect the barest hint of… sorrow? Regret?

I grumbled something and felt my body squirm. The voices immediately stopped. I was still, and they started again, but hushed this time. A new, calmer voice began.

"Raven, you know better than any of us that we can fight who we are destined to be – or who we used to be. And I'm still hurt over what Terra did to us too… but we can't let her affect how we treat other people. Jinx is a new person. I think that she deserves our trust. Remember the bank robbery on 5th Street?"

A reluctant, "Yes."

"Well, it's final then. Jinx stays here – or at least until she heals. Then it's her choice as to what she wants to do."

"Right." A door whooshed open, then closed.

A moment of silence, then, "Don't worry, Kid. Raven's not so bad. It's just what Terra did, I mean it was so long ago, but still. She was the one that really got Raven to open up and then–"

"I understand. Raven isn't too bad. She healed Jinx after all."

"Don't worry about her. We all know that Jinx hasn't been with the H.I.V.E these past couple of years."

Someone sighed, relieved. "I thought that after what I did, she'd go back to those morons."

"She didn't. We'd get occasional calls, tipping us off on a H.I.V.E robbery, and when we'd get there, we'd find them half worn out and the room pretty mangled. It was almost as if someone had been there before us, keeping the five of them from getting away. Those had been easy wins.

"But just last month, we got called in for a bank robbery on 5th Street. We got there and the robbers were unconscious and beaten up pretty badly.

"Raven sensed minute traces of hex magic sparking through the area, so Cyborg analyzed the scene and found evidence of sped up entropy on one of the guns. It was melted and broken into bits. He also found a hair that had been dyed brown, but was pink at the root.

"I got curious and read some of the statements that the police got. One of the robbers said that when he pulled out his gun, the girl behind him in line threw something at him, and he saw pink before losing consciousness. The police thought that he was delirious or under the influence of some drug because he also reported that her eyes were glowing pink."

"Robin! It was her! She stayed good all this time. Even after what I did… I was so afraid for her… And now I feel like an idiot because I didn't trust her to stay good. I feel awful."

"Resolve things with her. The sooner the better."

"Yeah, I know… But it's not exactly going to be fun."

Cloth rustled. "I'm going back to the living room. Are you going to stay here?"

"Yeah."

"Are you gunna be ok alone?"

"I'm not alone. Jinx is still here."

A laugh echoed through the hushed room. "I know. Good luck if she wakes up."

"Hah…Thanks." The voice was dry and sarcastic.

The door whooshed twice, and then silence crept back in.

I couldn't make sense of anything. The conversation swirled in the emptiness of my mind. Nothing clicked. I could feel my heart beating in my head. Blood pulsed with every painful beat. I tried to open my eyes, but the weights were too heavy. Two tons, or maybe three? I frowned and tried again. Light flashed through the opened slit, blinding me. For a moment, I was tempted to squeeze them shut again.

I gathered my strength and forced them open. I blinked. The weight was gone. But the room was fuzzy. I tried to lift my hand up to wipe away whatever was obscuring my vision. My arm wouldn't move.

My vision cleared in my panic. Was I paralyzed? Had the H.I.V.E Five damaged my spine? Metal flashed off of pale skin. I was a prisoner then?

I tried tugging at the band of metal bolting my wrists to the bed. They stayed put. For a moment, I questioned where I was. Had the H.I.V.E Five captured me?

No… I remembered somebody defeating them and rescuing me… What–

Oh no. My eyes widened as I remembered. Kid Flash.

I tugged at the wristbands frantically. I tried to summon my powers, but found that I couldn't. Power inhibitors must have been built into the metal.

A sudden breeze washed over me. A red and yellow form blocked the light. In a strange mixture of horror and rage, I slowly looked up at his face. He was grinning.

"Hey, Jinx! You're up!"

I couldn't stop the stricken look of horror that passed over my features. Two years of regret, maybes, torturous memories, and anger flooded over me. My eyes narrowed.

He simply smiled. "C'mon! Is that any way to thank your savio–?"

"If I'm a prisoner here, just say so," I said coldly. All the weakness that I had encountered the day before, all the thankfulness that I had felt, washed away all too easily. My mind was finally able to grasp the conversation from earlier, but if Robin was so encouraging, what was with the restraints?

"Oh, right. Sorry." Kid Flash dashed over to a keypad on the wall. He grinned sheepishly. "Raven wanted them to keep you from tossing around too much in your sleep and reopening your wounds."

"And the power inhibitors?"

"Just happened to be built in."

His answer was too quick, too ready. The explanation had been waiting on the tip of his tongue, anticipating its use. He was lying. I knew it. Two years hadn't changed anything between us. He still lied to me. And I still saw right through it.

I watched him as he quickly punched in a 4-digit code. The wrist bands snapped open and disappeared into the bed. I rubbed my chaffed wrists.

Kid Flash sped back to my bedside. "Look, Jinx. We need to talk."

"Yes." I threw my hand out and grinned wickedly. My eyes glowed pink. "Let's talk."

…..

The living room was across the Tower and several floors up from the medical bay. The Titans could still hear the shouts and sounds as things shattered. Robin reached for the TV remote and turned up the volume.

Beast Boy winced as another enraged scream echoed through the room. He looked fearfully at Cyborg. "Shouldn't we go stop them?"

Cyborg's hands flew up defensively. "No way, man. I'm not interrupting something like that."

Starfire floated up from her seat next to Robin and asked, "Should we not go and make sure that Friend Jinx is not in the way of harm?"

"It's harm's way, Star." Robin said and simply clicked up the volume another notch to try and drown out the chaos. "And I don't think Jinx is the one who's in trouble."

The Titans tensed at a sudden interval of silence, but relaxed as something else shattered, breaking the quiet. Raven glanced up from her book. A dark aura surrounded Beast Boy's fearful kitten form and tossed him out from under her cloak. She buried her head in her book again and restrained a reflex to shudder as an explosion rocked the Tower.

She muttered, "If I were Jinx and Kid Flash had done that to me, I would be doing the exact same thing right now."

Every single Titan nodded in agreement.