Honorary Titan Fan Week 2021 Prompt 6: Everyday Life/Out of Uniform Summary: He's dressed in a school uniform and goes by his real name now. Jinx finds an old friend in the crowd of onlookers after defeating Control Freak. Tags: Post-Canon, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Confrontations, Bitterness, Resentment, Memory Related, Starting Over, Old Friends

No Debts Owed

Jinx spotted him immediately. Out of his costume, his locs fell to his jawline. He wore a school uniform, a simple white button-up with a pair of dark blue dress pants. They looked freshly ironed with only a few creases by the knees. Dark green spectacles sat on the bridge of his nose, the rims much smaller than she expected, considering his poor eyesight had required him to wear that foolish helmet.

But there he stood in the cheering crowd. His lips pressed in a neutral line, his expression unreadable. Unlike the rest who snapped photographs of the villain she defeated - one oafish Control Freak sprawled out in the middle of the street - he remained in the background.

She recognized him, and he remembered her, but neither of them spoke. He didn't approach her, and she made no moves toward him. While people thanked Jinx for rescuing them, he took the opportunity to leave without looking back, keeping his head straight even when they both knew she observed him.

Jinx parted through the people she saved. She stomped on Control Freak's stomach for good measure just as the local security force arrived to arrest him. She stormed after him, calling his name with an edge in her voice, one that made her grimace when he flinched, his hands curling into fists.

"See-More," she announced.

"I go by my real name now," Seymour replied, pushing up his glasses.

She rolled her eyes. "Fine. You can't even tell when I say it. What are you doing here?"

"A guy's gotta get an education, doesn't he? I was on my way to school when you started busting his head," Seymour remarked, keeping his attention on the sidewalk, "and I'm going to be late for first period, but it's cool." He peered down at her, his dark eyes searching her expression. "At least I got to see why you enjoy the hero business after what you did."

Jinx scowled. She hardly felt a twinge of guilt for freezing her former allies. She wouldn't call them friends or even associates now that she allied with the Teen Titans. Those buffoons had what was coming to them for siding with the losing Brotherhood.

But Seymour was different. She had never questioned his loyalty. He even assisted her dismal attempts in capturing Kid Flash to impress Madame Rouge, expecting nothing for himself.

"Are you feeling resentment?" she demanded, her fingernails scraping her palms.

"Nope. I'm just trying to get to class," he admitted. "Also, you're kind of killing my civilian vibe. A hero marching after a student doesn't look good for both of us."

She threw a glance over her shoulder. Onlookers continued gazing at them, murmuring to each other. Some still held their phones, and she knew something nasty about her would be in tomorrow's tabloid.

Checking his wristwatch, Seymour quickened his pace. "Look, I gotta go. It was nice seeing you."

"Well, it wasn't for me," she snapped, and his sneaker squeaked on the pavement.

He hesitated, facing her with an expression that made her heart sink. It was like she had slapped him across the face. The same look he wore when he watched their HIVE cohorts become nothing but ice sculptures befell him, and just as she had done before, Jinx refused to explain herself.

"Seymour?"

Jinx snapped her head to the sound of the voice. She hadn't realized they had walked to the entrance of the local high school. By the metal gates stood a young girl with long, blonde hair wearing a similar uniform. She clutched books to her chest, brushing her hair out of her eyes, an air of cool indifference surrounding her.

"Hey, dude. I guess we're both late again," she said, settling her gaze on Jinx. Her piercing, icy blue eyes stared through her. "Is she bothering you? Because it sounded like she was bothering you."

"No, Tara. She was just leaving, right?" Seymour questioned, stepping over to his friend. "'Sides, we went our separate ways a long time ago. Just happened to run into each other down the street."

They locked eyes. Jinx remembered how he stared at her with such anguish behind his lens, and she had done him one favor. She had allowed him to escape the fate of the others. He must have run straight into the ocean and swam to the nearest shore before resurfacing in her life.

And she did not incline to apologize to him. She did what she needed to do at that moment to make a better life for himself. Their paths should have been eternally parallel, but fate made them converge, and they loathed the other for the bitter memories that followed them.

Tara touched Seymour's arm, the gesture making Jinx bristle. "We can go. You don't have to stay here," she urged.

Seymour grinned at Tara and shook his head. "Nah. She has something to say. I know she does. Whenever she wanted to say something, she always made sure everyone in a mile radius heard it."

"That's right, Seymour. I do," Jinx hissed, and she cracked her knuckles. "So, blondie, why don't you back off and-"

Seymour stepped forward and placed himself between the girls, crossing his arms. "This is between you and me. Don't drag her down to our level."

Jinx blinked. "Huh. How quickly you got your life together is almost impressive."

"Almost as impressive as how fast you replaced the HIVE Five," he chirped with a tight smile.

Their blows hardly damaged their defensives. Kindness and courtesies had already flown out the window the second they caught eyes. She knew what she had done to him and their classmates, switching sides without a care in the world. She had gotten her revenge against Madame Rouge, and she had smirked as the boys froze with horror etched in their faces, all while allowing the villain called See-More the chance to escape.

She had repaid him a favor that they both silently understood. When Kid Flash left her a vase full of roses, and she rejected his offer to steal computers, she had already split from the HIVE Five. He might not have intended to guide Jinx to her new life, but he did, and she had given him the opportunity for a clean slate during that fateful battle against the Brotherhood.

Even if he hated her, she did what she believed was right.

"Fine. Clean out your earwax, and listen up, Seymour," she said with as much conviction as she could muster. "I don't owe you anything anymore."

"I know you don't, and I don't you owe you anything, too," he replied, the school bells ringing in tune with his proclamation.

Jinx took a breath and held it. The bells pounded in her head, and she stepped onto the street, looking up to Seymour. "Good. That's good," she muttered. "We're even."

Tara snorted and elbowed his ribs. "And that's the last bell before school starts. Race you to the front office for a late pass?"

Seymour nudged her back, chuckling. "You know it," he jeered, and Tara took off through the gates into the courtyard. Leering back at Jinx, he rubbed his neck and sighed. "Bye, Jinx. I recommend you don't come around here. I don't want my classmates getting any reminders about the old me."

She didn't grace him with a response. She watched him run like a frivolous child after his new friend, as carefree as a bird in the sky. And she did not experience a shred of guilt or responsibility for him, embracing her new life with open arms, just like he did.

"See ya, cyclops," she murmured, and as she strutted away from his school, she reached into her pocket, clutching her communicator.

i took this prompt a bit differently! i decided to have see-more be the one experiencing everyday life/out of uniform now as a civilian. jinx, embracing her new superhero gig, would be more comfortable out in the open wearing her regular ensemble.

also, jinx is very harsh in this fic because she was very harsh on the hive in the past, particularly in lightspeed. she gets exasperated with them since they aren't aspired to do more than petty theft. the only one she does respect is see-more, who tried to truly help her catch kid flash and comfort in the aftermath. i do think they had a solid friendship, and yes, he does have a crush on her, but considering he also deemed the other hive boys his friends, i believe in the aftermath of titans together, he'd want to sever ties with jinx for what she helped do to their former friends. he's alone, and she now has a massive group of friends. it's such a huge switch in their relationship since while he considered the hive friends, he now has no one while jinx gained respect and friendship from their previous enemies. i also consider see-more escaping in the end because he wasn't present with the hive boys when kid flash and jinx confronted him. yes, he does have an ice sculpture, but at the same time, the hive boys have individual ice sculptures later on, so there are some continuity errors throughout the episode.

as for jinx and see-more, i think they would want to stay away from each other. they each represent an old part of their life that they can't go back to anymore. jinx is a titan, a hero. see-more had to abandon his villainous root and become a student. i do like the idea of him becoming friends with terra, someone who has a similar backstory to him (elements of being a villain who dealt with betrayal, etc). if teen titans continued, i think a dynamic between them would've been interesting to explore, especially since jinx is not like beast boy at all and wouldn't urge see-more to become a hero. she's more of a "you made your own bed now lie in it" type of character but also relieved to see him doing well, even if he detests and understands her betrayal.