Teen Titans
Fragile Dreams

A/N - I'd just like to quickly thank all my reviewers. Anything you tell me will only improve the story so keep the reviews coming.

Disclaimer - Think about it. If I owned the Teen Titans, I wouldn't need to be rewriting the show, now would I?

Fragile Dreams Chapter 2 - Solidarity
Raven looked at her cloak in complete disgust. Wow, was Jynx going to get it for this. The empath relaxed, letting her emotions drift back into place, and her cloak slowly shifted back to it's usual blue. Absolutely sick to her stomach, she went to regroup with the others.

The sewers. After the Titan Tower, needing to regroup in the sewers was a snap back to reality for the Titans. Robin screaming at them didn't hurt either. "What was THAT? That was worse than the damn BANK JOB!" Robin was pacing back and forth in front of the other titans, who stood silently. Cyborg looked kind of pissed at Robin's condescension, BB and Star looked ashamed, and Raven just leaned against the wall unconcernedly. She ALWAYS looked so damn uncaring. "Star, that feint was one of the most elementary tactics possible!"

"I am the ashamed, friend Robi-"

"And YOU, Cy and BB... YOU LET ONE LITTLE KID CHASE YOU BOTH AROUND!"

"Dude... chill," Beast Boy said, trying to stay calm. "He had all these gadgets an-"

"Did you even THINK to split up so he could only chase one of you! Maybe if you bothered to work together..."

Raven might not have socialized much with the rest of the team, but she had observed them carefully. She knew that this last comment would push Cy too far, and if he blew up at Robin and they started an argument like they'd had in the last few weeks nothing was going to get done. So, Raven beat Cy to the punch. "Recriminations can wait. More importantly, how are we taking our tower back?"

Robin turned to Raven, prepared to scream his head off. We lost it, he was going to yell, and we're not going to get it back. He was about to blame her for allowing herself to fall into Jynx's trap. He was about to tell her off for interrupting him. He met her deep lavender, and promptly forgot everything he was about to say. Her face always looked so tranquil, as it did now, but her eyes burned with determination.

Robin couldn't look away. Her eyes were the most expressive he'd ever seen, shining with all the emotion her features didn't. Robin stared into her eyes for a good thirty seconds, but to him it felt much longer. Robin finally broke his eyes away, and shook his head to clear it. He let out a sigh, and all his frustration and anger left with it. Finally, he looked up, and gave a little smile. "We're going to have to learn about teamwork first."

Two days later, the H.I.V.E. graduates were just hanging around in their new tower. Jynx was wearing one of Robin's utility belts and one of Raven's robes. She was sitting on the couch, playing Gizmo in some game on the Titan's huge TV while Mammoth raided the fridge, pulling out several blue and fuzzy hamburgers. "I wouldn't eat those if I were you..." Jynx warned, but he paid her no mind, then he shoved a second burger in whole. Shuddering, Jynx turned back to the game.

It took three words for this calm scene to degenerate into complete chaos. "Azarath Metrion Zinthos!" The entire fridge went black as Raven projected her soul-self on it, and food items went flying at the three villains. The other Titans burst through the door as Raven rose up from below. Robin and Starfire went for Mammoth together, and Cyborg and Beast Boy went for Gizmo, leaving Jynx and Raven alone... just the way Rae wanted it.

The fight quickly trashed the living room all over again, Robin noticed with a wry grin. 'At least BB and Cy aren't getting humiliated by Gizmo this time,' Robin thought. The kid was spending a good bit of his time dodging blasts from Cyborg's sonic cannon and blows from whatever animal BB was using at the moment. Time to teach these interlopers not to mess with the Teen Titans. We have some tactics of our own this time. Robin quickly threw blows at Mammoth, rocking him back on his heels just in time for him to catch a bolt from Star. Mammoth backed off to clear his head, and this time it was Robin who was free for a second.

As Robin charged her, Jynx was delighted... she loved this kind of fighting. She back flipped out of the way and threw a hex down at Robin from mid air. Robin dodged, and attempted an off-balance counter. Jynx gleefully spun to the side of the punch, preparing a hex as she twirled. When she completed the rotation, the boy wonder was nowhere to be found and all she saw was a pair of green glowing eyes. Mammoth, too late, shouted a warning to her. This was going to hurt.

Jynx went flying backwards in a wash of green energy. 'So stupid,' she berated herself, 'how could you fall for your own damn trick?' In hindsight, the trap was clear. When she twirled around Robin's outstretched arm, it formed the perfect optical block of the back of the room. In that time, the alien and the empath switched places. Raven was now holding Mammoth off with a black disk on each arm and surprising skill at hand to hand combat while Robin hurried back, leaving Star to finish off Jynx.

"We might be in trouble, boys," she said as she landed.

"Well, you got something right, BOSS," Gizmo replied sarcastically as he just barely dodged a gorilla fist.

Jynx made a quick mental evaluation and came to the obvious solution. "We're not gunna win this. Retreat!" she yelled, leaving the same way the titans had two days before.

"Boo Yah!" Cyborg yelled as he watched Gizmo and Mammoth follow. "Get out of our tower!"

Robin looked around and sighed. 'What a mess.'

Later that day, Raven again sat on the roof. She wasn't meditating, but just thinking. 'Maybe this team has some potential after all.' she thought. Raven allowed a little bit of joy to come to the surface, and she gave a slight smile. 'That Robin certainly managed to pull it off.' The thought of the boy wonder managed to make her blush, and she had absolutely no idea why.

She indulged herself for a moment and thought more about Robin. His determination, his cockiness, his focus... Over the last two days she had seen a side of him she didn't know existed. He had gone from the impersonal and aloof taskmaster to a serious but kind leader, and sometimes tutor. The blush deepened as she thought how many of their sparring sessions ended: with Robin pinning her.

Raven heard a loud crack as dark energy blew the door to the roof right out of its frame. The emotions she had let out in the last few minutes were quickly getting out of control. 'Damn empathy,' she thought. She pulled up her hood and forced herself to focus and shoved all her emotions deep into herself so she could meditate.

"You incompetent INFIDELS! You had them in your grasp, and you let them slip away? And then they returned, didn't they? Don't answer that, fool... the truth is written all over your face. They returned, and while you had become lazy and complacent, they organized, and your pathetic band was soundly beaten." Brother Blood's rant finally began to wind down. "Now, what have you to say for yourselves?"

Jynx was the first to gather the courage to speak. "Allow us to fight them again, Headmaster, and we shall-"

Brother Blood cut her off. "You shall do no such thing. In fact, it will be a long time before you do any other graduation exam either... because you three are DEMOTED BACK TO LEVEL ONE STUDENTS!" Brother Blood screamed at Jynx, "Now get OUT OF MY SIGHT!" Jynx, Mammoth, and Gizmo practically ran out the door, thinking themselves lucky to still be alive in the face of an outburst like that.

As soon as they were gone, Brother Blood turned to the man you could just see silhouetted in the shadows. "Do you think I was to harsh on them?"

A man wearing an orange and black mask with one eye stepped forward into the light, and laughed. "Actually, that went much as expected." Slade Wilson replied. "I was afraid these 'Titans' might turn out to be something of a headache after all." He turned and headed for the door.

Blood cocked his head slightly. "What do you intend to do?"

Slade stopped, looked over his shoulder, and somehow gave the impression of a smile through that impervious mask. "Cinderblock should be able to stir things up. Let us see how they handle it."

End Chapter Two
Read and Review people.

I'm pretty sure I've decided how to represent the episodes that don't really change. I'm going to refer to events in them to let you know that they happened (because the chronology of this story is going to be quite different from the series) and I'll use flashbacks and memories to show any really relevant scene when it becomes important. If this changes at any time or if anyone has a good reason why this idea sucks, please... by all means let me know.

Next time on Teen Titans -

Raven picks her loyalties
-Slade has a new challenge for the Titans
-Cyborg quits?

Next Episode - Divide and Conquer