Two Teams

Disclaimer: Don't own anything.

Last chapter. Thought I should do something special about both groups.

In all honesty, I have no idea who is telling it.

Neither group are aware of the other.

They don't know about it. Through all the trials they face – from normal teen stuff to the super-hero stuff – they never have any clue that in another dimension, a similar group is doing the same.

Sure, they have different trials. The Titans don't worry about the civilians hating them all – because they don't. The X-Men don't have to run to attention every time a bank is robbed unless it's happening in front of them. And even then they might just turn away.

But effectively they go through the same thing. Apocalypse or Trigon, Slade or Magneto, Madame Rouge or Mystique – what's the distinction, really?

Who can see the difference between the Brotherhood of Bayville or the H.I.V.E. 5? Both just two trouble-making teams who the heroes have to fight once in a while.

And the actual team-mates – they have different back-stories and personalities. And yet they're so similar at times.

They all have to grow up so fast. They had to shove away their childhood and keep it hidden, forcing themselves to be older to survive.

Robin lost his childhood when his parents fell to their deaths. Cyclops lost his when he fell from a plane.

Beast Boy joined the Doomsday Patrol. Spyke joined the X-Men.

Nightcrawler spent his entire life before the X-Men scared of who he was and what would happen if he was found out. Raven was terrified of what she was destined to do.

Rogue discovered that she could never touch skin again. Cyborg lost most of his.

Starfire was captured and dragged away as a prize. Jean Grey saw her best friend killed.*

Shadowcat was unsure of anything when she began to fall through wall, scared of what she could do. Terra was petrified with fear of what would happen if she lost control.

They're different but the same.

Perhaps, though… if the teams ever met. Let's assume that their similarities made them enemies instead of friends, or that they met under circumstances believing that the other was the bad guy. And forget for a moment that with Terra gone, the X-Men outnumbered the Titans.

In a battle, who would have won?

They are both so similar and so different. They have the same darkness inside, the same thirst for justice, the same desire to fit in, the same desperation to help…

They probably would have a tie in a battle.

While on the subject of 'what if'…

If any one of them had gone differently… they may have joined another team. If they weren't born into a particular dimension…

Admittedly Raven wasn't born in the Titan's Dimension in the first place. But she went there in time to join.

But what if she had gone to another dimension – one with mutants instead of metas? What if instead of Jump City, Terra had run to Bayville? What if instead of Bayville, Rogue had hidden in Jump?

Their lives might have been very different. All the team would have changed drastically.

But they'd have still been similar.

Sorry it's short.

*Comic reference. Jean's best friend Annie got killed in a car-crash when she was eight. Jean held her body.

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