A/N: Grad school is hard. Ivy Leagues are hard. Racism is hard. I own nothing. A longer chapter will be posted after the 11th.

The cold expanse enveloped him as the tumultuous gales soared. The clean white and sporadic crystal blue filled his vision. The only thing breaking the scheme was his blue clothing, black eyebrows, and peach skin. His eyes radiated a frigid blue, focused for the first time in such a long time.

It hurt.

It hurt so much.

Who knew that her secrets would hurt them more than the truth?

Slade apparently…and her father.

And as the Titans went back to the Tower to lick their wounds, Raven was hit more and more with the realization that the Team had taken nothing but loss after loss for a long while. Starfire was still struggling with the appearance of Val-Yor, Cyborg with his limitations, Best Boy with his self-esteem and importance, and Robin with his inability to control the situations around them.

Their individual struggles were tearing them apart. And she knew better than most that it was only their emotional bonds in the end that could save them all. She was never good at expressing herself except in Rage, having been taught in Azarath to suppress her emotions. So, Raven was eternally grateful for Cyborg to be the one to try to bring them all together this time with an enticingly fruity pie he said he had bought from some street vendor.

Standing around the kitchen island together, digging into their belly-warming pie, felt so strange. It had been so long. Tense silence and the sharp aroma settled around them until a lethargic Beast Boy completely missed his mouth and accidentally face planted into his piece. Startled awake, Beast Boy jumped up. The sight of the usually green face covered in red pie filling broke them out of the quiet. Cyborg started chuckling at his friend's souring face. Starfire's melodic giggles arose and grew to snorts after B. B. threw a fistful of pie into Cyborg's face.

The food fight that ensued guaranteed the destruction of the kitchen, ending in the complete disarray of the cold, immaculate space. The return to normalcy made Raven smirk. She watched her friends, especially the taciturn Robin who, while looking at Starfire, grew a fond smile.

Maybe, she thought. Maybe it'll be alright.

It had already been two months since Christmas, near the beginning of March. And the world was reeling from the explosion at Vladimir Master's facility in Kentucky. It was revealed by the press that the Justice League had been investigating Masters. The disappearance of Illinois teen Daniel Fenton was the latest of twenty years of dubious business practices and vaguely illegal actions. Along with Daniel's abduction, more than a thousand total cases of fraud, theft, human trafficking, tax evasion, possession of weapons of mass destruction, and murder had been pinned on Masters.

All businesses were shut down and assets, financial and experimental, were seized. A warrant was out for his arrest and a near trillion-dollar bounty was put on his head by some powerful people swept into his mess but to no avail. Since the explosion, no one had heard a peep of him. His body was not found in the wreckage but other than that there was no evidence of his being alive.

The cleanups for the hazardous materials in his labs were left to the supervision of Dr.s Jack and Maddie Fenton as they were still the most knowledgeable authority—read as the only authority left—in ectoplasmic affairs. So, their attention was pulled away from finding their son. Instead, the duty was left to the supers who thought they could handle it and the four young adults in Amity Park.

"And in this…strange turn of events, Jump City's own Teen Titans have been running around in children's clothes while being herded by a…witch they call Mother?" The utterly confused newscaster reported. "There's currently no comment from the Justice League on this but as soon as there is—"

Shutting off the TV in distaste, Sam turned to Tucker who was monitoring one of his multiple devices.

"Any word on anything abnormal?" She asked for what must have been the fiftieth time in the last hour if Tucker's growing annoyance was any indication.

"No, Sam," he sighed, "it's the same as it has been for weeks. No signs of ghosts. No signs of anything other than Justice League shit. And no fucking sign of Danny!"

Indignant, Sam yelled back, "Well maybe if you were looking hard enough we would have found him by now. Or if you were as much of a genius as you claim to be, we would have found Danny a hell of a lot sooner than we did!"

"Oh, like you're so useful?" Tucker raged. "All you can do is bitch me out while I do everything I can to find him! All your money and you can't do shit!"

The slamming of the front door interrupted them.

"Can the both of you just shut up for one fucking second?" Jazz screamed. "The entire fucking town can hear you assholes outside! It's both of your faults—all of our faults—and you two going at it isn't helping anybody! Take all this misplaced aggression and shove it at your work in finding Danny!"

She ended in tears, frustrated beyond belief in losing her brother and being unable to do anything about it. Jazz shoved her coat and gloves off, shaking the snow from her hat, the odd weather outside dichotomous to the hot anger in her chest.

"Tucker," she directed, taking her own advice, "the ecto-scanners aren't picking up anything and nothing in the Ghost Zone near us wants to interact since V—has wanted to interact for almost a year now. We know Danny's erratic and that might reflect in his powers and their output. Are you sure that this weather is normal and not caused by Danny's ice core?"

It was an idea that they had since they first woke up after the botched rescue attempt. The first time Danny awoke his ice powers, he almost froze over their city. And he did, saving Amity Park from Undergrowth.

But now, globally, the average temperature was down 2°C, the lowest in recorded human history since the eruptions of Mount Pinatubo. It was freaking out proclaimers of the Apocalypse of multiple religions and climate scientists alike. Even the Justice League was investigating possible supernatural and extraterrestrial tampering. And no one had an answer for it. The backlash could decimate entire countries if they didn't solve the problem soon.

"No, Jazz," Tucker sighed. "I can't find any evidence that Danny's the reason behind the cold front. And the only info I haven't gotten is from the Justice League."

Jazz made her way into the kitchen to make her something warm and threw over her shoulder, "But I thought you got something from Batman?"

Sam moaned and Tucker's face twisted.

"It was basically a runaround," Sam answered. "He didn't give us anything other than that they were looking into it and we had other things to worry about…whatever that meant."

Left to sulk, Tucker went through his reports again. Sam flipped through her phone to fill Valerie in and ran through the files on the coffee table. And Jazz rifled through the cabinets looking for her father's double strength hot chocolate fudge mix.

H e knew he should feel cold, hungry, thirsty, tired. He also knew that his powers kept him from dying.

But for how long? He wondered.

Because he knew he should have sustenance, he ate the snow to drink and ate whatever was brought to him. Bella brought him fish most of the time and sometimes berries.

Oh, yes, Bella. The hallucination that fath—Vlad, always just Vlad—forced on him had followed him there…wherever he was. Except, instead of the normal coloration, she had turned into a glacier blue, hard and solid only when touching him or another object, and wispy and intangible when not.

She only did what Danny bid, thought, or needed her to do. So, she probably wasn't actually Vlad's deer. Danny knew that too.

He knew a lot of things now. He thought about a lot of things now that he was free.

Free.

And alone.

The icy tundra our five heroes searched through proved more treacherous than usual. Watchtower found that the anomalous decrease in global temperature most likely began at the Arctic. There were record low temperatures, exceedingly high-volume storms of record-breaking strength, and ice replenishing rates not seen in human written history. Not even five miles from Superman's Fortress of Solitude was a massive spike in radioactive energy, thought to be the cause of the sudden weather shift. The Justice League set out to investigate, and, if need be, destroy, the source but was pulled away by another interplanetary crisis. So, the duty was left to the Teen Titans.

The most capable, mature, efficient team around.

"I swear if you throw one more snowball at me, monkey brains!" An infuriated Cyborg yelled after Beast Boy who bounded away in a mass of green fur.

…Or not.

"What're you gonna do about it, tin can?" The oddly colored polar bear quipped, bored and restless.

A bundled-up orange alien worried about, shivering in the cold that usually would not affect her. "Friends, should we not be focusing on the task at hand?" Her spirits were as dreary as the weather, and her walking proved just that. But someone had to be the voice of reason in their group if Robin and Raven continued to fight.

Starfire turned around to watch the two heatedly whispering at each other. The former's eyes were so narrow under his full-face mask, she wondered how he could see through it. And the latter's magic lashed out sharply at the cold around her, visibly acknowledging the rage inside of her. Star couldn't catch much but accusations and the name of their most notorious enemy and knew that the longer they argued, the quicker the group dynamic would dissolve again.

Thankfully, she didn't have to intervene when Robin commenting on Raven looking red in the eyes shocked the Dark Titan out of her hostility. Robin's face twitched guiltily but he didn't have the time to apologize when Cyborg's radar started to blink.

"Ayo! We got a live one!"

Pulled from their quarrels, the Titans refocused on trudging through the frozen and stormy expanse. Raven chanted her mantra to reign in her emotions, quelling the tide, and spread her senses to see if she could pinpoint the energy source.

The feeling she got was overwhelming. The strength and wildness attacked her senses until she brought her magic back close to her. The backlash numbed her senses as much as the cold numbed her body and she was grateful for Cyborg's scanner since she wouldn't have to use her powers so much.

They followed the highest concentration of the energy, walking for another half hour until a sudden spike in his readings brought their attention.

"Wha-? Stupid thing!" Cy complained as the scanner on his arm started to static.

"Um…guys?" Beast Boy pointed at the eyes in the distance, glowing an icy blue near indistinguishable from the plane around them.

The Teen Titans froze in formation, wary of the new player but not trying to provoke it. The standoff didn't last long though as the eyes got closer and, with it, a figure arose from the monochromatic landscape.

"Oh, X'hal! Why did you not tell me there where g'narma on this planet?" Starfire cooed, immediately in love with the ice deer in front of them.

"Because we don't, Star," Robin interjected, gripping his belt. "What are…those anyway?"

She walked towards the animal cautiously, reaching out to pet it between its ears. "They are creatures of cold and light, similar to your woodland beasts like Bambi! And so friendly!"

It allowed her to pet it, leaning into her hand. Star tutted at it in Tamaranean while the others drew closer.

"I don't know what you have back home, Starfire, but that ain't it." Cyborg tapped the screen on his arm again and pointed it in the direction of the deer. "My system's going haywire because of it…you think that's what's causing the world to go all Ice Age?"

The rest of them doubted it since it was humoring Starfire and not attacking her, but they had faced duplicitous foes before. Beast Boy, not one to miss out on the fun, quickly transformed into a deer. A green deer albeit. He bounded towards the other, trying to get a reaction, and was delighted when it turned away from Starfire and started to play with him. They circled each other and ran around the Titans, Star giggling all the time. Robin smiled and consulted Cyborg whose scanner pointed out their new friend as the energy source. Raven satiated her annoyance at the situation with the fun her friends were having.

If only their lives could stay this way.

…alone…

She whipped her head around, looking for the source of the voice. Raven had heard something. She was sure of it. A small, quiet plea. She didn't notice that the deer perked up as well.

…alone…

"Again?"

The deer took off into the white void, streaking past her in the direction of the voice. The Team was shocked out of the calm as Raven took off behind it.

"Rae!" "Raven!" "Wait!"

But she had to get to it.

…pain…

She wiped her face to stop the tear from freezing on her.

…why…

Star had caught up to her, sneaking a glance at the tears that filled her team mate's eyes. Shock ripped through her as she kept up with Raven. Beast Boy was not far behind, once again a polar bear with Robin riding on his back. Cyborg's enhanced legs allowed him to bring up the rear.

…so alone…

The rest caught up to them, gearing up for a fight but not knowing what startled the deer and Raven nor being able to ask her. The deer had run away unnaturally fast and purposefully towards whatever Raven had sensed. And that was enough for them to completely trust her.

…Bella?

Thankfully their questions were quickly answered even as Cyborg's scanner once again went haywire. They ran and flew at breakneck speed through the storm and burst through into the calm.

Into the eye of the storm.

The sharp contrast in the wind and noise was disorienting, enough so that they only saw the deer at first. Until it moved closer to the middle.

Until it moved closer to another icy-blue eyed being.

Until Daniel Fenton blinked absently at them.

A/N: Pretty short; so you can call this the Interlude. Next chapter will be the beginning of "Part 2". It'll be a bit longer and posted after the 11th. Responses to Reviews will be in that as well.