Title: Vignettes

Genre: General

Pairings: None

Rating: PG-13

Summary: A series of one-shot photographs of relationships between the Teen Titans. Jinx and Raven have a heart-to-heart…or something.

Disclaimer: Don't own the Teen Titans.

Author's Notes: Just randomness. With all the spotlight seeming to turn to Bumblebee as Cyborg's love interest, I always kind of wondered…what happened to Jinx? Rated for language. Incomplete and unrevised. But, in general, all my vignettes will be.

Part 2

Cling and Clatter

There was an ominous thud a few seconds after the doors crashed closed, and the light that had come between the crack of the two doors flickered and died, blanketing the two girls in darkness. Both girls stopped their antics, and Raven took the moment to leap away from her opponent onto free space she sensed in the darkness.

She sensed Jinx do the same.

"Shit." Raven heard the other girl say. The Titan heard footsteps frantically run the length of the space, pacing back and forth twice before falling silent. "We can't be…"

"We're trapped." Raven let her head roll against the metallic wall she was leaning against and closed her eyes, 'searching' the confines of the space while remaining wary of what the other inhabitant of the room was doing.

Allowing Jinx only a minute part of her attention, Raven sensed the only exit to the room they were in was the one that had just closed. Since they were trapped in an area reserved by the military only for testing or destroying radioactive weapons, Raven assumed the doors would be more sturdy than usual, maybe even too much of a challenge for two super-hero teenagers to handle.

Raven's attention snapped to Jinx when she felt magic well-up from the girl's direction, and all at once she sat tense, waiting for some sign of attack.

Instead, there was just noise.

CLINK. THUMP. THUMP. THUMP. CLANG.

Raven hard the sound of something akin to a pipe being hurled from someone's hands.

"Shit!"

Raven lifted her head after a full minute of profanity from the other girl and snapped, "That's a wonderful idea. Since we're trapped, we may as well make racket while we're at it."

There was a pause, and Raven sensed annoyance well up from somewhere to her right.

"I'm trying to find a way out. Or at least, trying to get someone to hear me."

"Well, it doesn't seem to be working, does it?"

"Unless you really enjoy being here with me, I don't see you doing anything."

"I'm thinking, which is more than I can say for you."

"Tell me, Raven, are you always this bad-tempered?"

"…yes."

Reluctant amusement wafted from Jinx's direction, and in an effort to hide it, Jinx retorted, "For all your thinking, I'm not hearing any bright ideas. Aren't you able to move it or something?"

Raven paused, then admitted, "That would take a little more power than I have at the moment."

More amusement. This time, laced with haughtiness. "Tired already? Not enough energy left to open a door?"

"Not enough energy." Raven replied patiently, responding more to Jinx's projected emotions than her taunt. "But, at least, I'm not powerless enough that I've resorted to using a pipe to knock over a door reinforced several times with steel."

Jinx didn't say anything.

"We're powerless inside a room meant to keep power to itself." Raven mused.

"Do you have an idea?"

"Sit here and braid each other's hair?"

"And, I thought you were smart."

Raven shrugged, though she knew the sorceress wouldn't see it. "It's not worth it to me to break out. I'm infinitely patient—" (she could almost see Beast Boy's smirk at this statement) "—and this room manages to hold you captive without any effort on my part. Once my teammates search for me, they'll be enough of us to overpower you, and we can send you off to jail."

"What if my teammates defeat yours?"

"And, when was the last time that happened?"

Jinx blushed. "What if I try to kill you in the meantime?"

"With a pipe?" Raven asked, amused. "I can 'see' you in the darkness. I don't think you have the same luxury with me."

Pink light flickered and promptly died somewhere to her left. Jinx let out a small chuckle, and then there was silence between them.

"Your last attack did surprise me." Jinx replied, by way of excuse for her lack of power.

"Thanks."

"That wasn't a compliment."

"I decided to take it was one." Raven paused and, feeling she should say something added, "You're getting better."

"Thanks."

They sat in silence for a half hour. Raven was accustomed to both darkness and quiet, but the sudden lapse in banter between them did not pass well for the empath.

It was probably a combination of the darkness and lack of battle action, but Jinx's thoughts had, inevitably, turned inward, and Jinx was radiating emotions Raven had never detected from her before. Feelings of affection and caring mixed heavily with betrayal and hesitation.

Inundated with such feeling, Raven felt strangely relieved when the silence was suddenly broken.

"I don't want to see him." Jinx said with some difficulty.

Raven already knew of whom she was talking. "He'll probably be one of the ones to open the door."

There was a pregnant pause, and then, a meek, "He always talked about you at…the academy."

"He certainly wasn't supposed to." Raven snapped.

Jinx, of course, rushed to defend him. "I didn't put two and two together at the time. Later, though…. It was obvious. I should have known."

"You weren't supposed to have known."

"He told me he had four really wonderful friends. One was really headstrong but confident and reliable. One was really goofy but honest and heartfelt. One was very absentminded but earnest and optimistic." She paused.

"And?"

"He said that one of his friends was just short and grumpy."

"Good. My reputation is saved."

"But more caring than she'd admit."

"Damn."

"He missed you. Even when he was with us." Jinx stopped, more uncertain. Raven imagined she felt vulnerable, and for a moment, Raven reneged on the years of enmity with the HIVE graduate and felt bad for the girl.

It was a horrible thing to first be betrayed by someone you were certain of, someone you cared about and second, to be guaranteed never to see them again to work things over. Raven hated sensing the feeling as much as she hated the emotions themselves.

Almost painfully, Jinx asked the question, "Does he…does he remember me?"

Raven remembered the Titans asking Cyborg about Jinx later on, when they had confiscated his school books from HIVE academy and saw loose pictures of him and Jinx dancing (among others of him spending time with the sorceress, Gizmo and Mammoth).

The mechanical man had shrugged it off at the time. Said Jinx and he had become friends, somewhat. Almost friends. Could have been. Except for the fact that the principal of her school had wanted to destroy Jump City. Except for that.

Almost friends, but enemies, he had said. And, Raven was the only Titan who heard the imperceptible wistfulness in his voice and who saw him hide the picture carefully somewhere on his person.

"He pretends not to." Raven replied, not even attempting to explain more than that. She was trying her best to tell Jinx what she craved to hear without betraying one of her best friends by telling their enemy what she had read in between the lines.

Jinx wasn't satisfied with that, but couldn't bring herself to ask or say anything more.

They had a fragile trust, borne of the darkness and of the restlessness that came with waiting to be rescued (or jailed, in Jinx's case), and since Jinx knew they were enemies when it really mattered, Jinx could only ask so much.

There was the groan of metallic parts, then the doors opened carefully and painfully. Raven's rescuing wasn't dramatic or theatric, just slow. As soon as the doors had opened to the maximum, Raven viewed the events outside.

Both HIVE and the Titans were still battling, and the pair who had come to Raven and Jinx's rescue was a combination of Gizmo and Robin, who were fighting around the control panel, and had managed to open the doors completely by accident.

Raven sighed, and turned to Jinx.

They gave each other a last look, and without a word, rejoined the fray.