And she's so pretty, and she's so sure
Maybe I'm more clever than a girl like her
The summer's all in bloom
The summer is ending soon
—Vanessa Carlton, "White Houses"
A burst of merry laughter filled Lab Room 412. Rachel Korakas felt her eye twitch as she glared over her book and through her veil of dark brown hair. Red haired Étoile Colère, the new exchange student from France, was giggling…again. Despite her short time spent in Jump City, California, being from France, Étoile was already extremely popular. Her most recent accomplishment was securing a highly coveted spot on the Jump City High cheerleading squad. She'd already made a good impression with the captain and student body president, Karen Beecher—and therefore, the rest of the school. Étoile had gotten her freshly dry cleaned, pressed, red and white cheerleading uniform and due to the cheerleading rules, was to wear it every day. Today was no exception, much to the annoyance of Rachel, who just wanted Advanced Biology to hurry up and start already!
"Damn these preppy people," she muttered rather darkly to herself. She looked outside to the still sunny Californian September, wishing desperately to be anywhere but inside the prison that was known as school.
The sharp ring of the bell pulled Rachel out of her anti-YOU state and everyone else to their seats that weren't assigned…yet.
It was the second week of school. The first week was only 3 days long since the school board decided for some god forsaken reason to start school on a Wednesday. This was the first Monday of the year. Having spent the first 3 days of school on introductory syllabuses, kitschy name games and pretests, the teachers were ready to get their classes started.
The Advanced Biology teacher, Ms. Rouge, was one of these ready teachers. Today's mission: lab partners, as it was written on the whiteboard in Ms. Rouge's jagged, yet elegant, handwriting. Well, as elegant as you could get with a red whiteboard marker.
Lab partner breakdown was simple: Ms. Rouge refused to waste her precious time in assigning partners, so she cut up a print out of a list of the class and put it into a rather large, glass, ominous-looking, spherical bowl. She would then draw two names and BAM! lab partners for the year—like it or not, Ms. Rouge couldn't care less either way.
The room was silent as Ms. Rouge clicked across the linoleum floor in her too-high-for-school-but-no-one-would-dare-question heels. She made a circular—almost stirring—motion above the bowl. The class held their breath as she plucked out on piece of paper and then another. She neatly unfolded the first.
"Dick Grayson."
From his seat in the third row, Dick visibly cringed at being first one called. His long time friends from middle school and fellow in-crowd boys—Roy Harper, Wally West, Garfield Logan and Victor Stone—gave him sympathetic looks. The only other sound in the room other than the rapid tapping of Dick's foot against the hard tile floor was Ms. Rouge unfolding the other crisp piece of folded paper.
"…with Victor Stone."
Dick looked up from his arm cocoon that he'd made with his football jacket and broke into a huge grin. Victor turned to his friend in excitement and high-fived him. Ms. Rouge's eyes narrowed at the prospect of someone actually liking their lab partner, but she shook it off. The next pair, hopefully, would have more friction.
"Karen Beecher," she read of the next piece of paper, "with Garfield Logan." Karen made a face of epic displeasure when being partnered up with the biggest slacker in school. Garfield, on the other hand, looked delighted in being partnered with the biggest overachiever in school.
And so the names were called, all in a slow melodramatic manner that resulted in sighs of relief or reluctant groans. Much to Ms. Rouge's discontent, almost everyone had known each other for the entirety of high school, if not longer, meaning they were all at least acquaintances. No tension in Biology. Damn.
Oh little did she know…
After about 10 minutes, there were four people left. Wally, Rachel, Étoile and a girl who was actually a bigger outcast than Rachel, Miryosa Ventura. Miryosa had a Japanese mother and an Italian father—hence her language-hybrid name. It was believed this insane culture clash lead to some possibly mental instability in her, making her one of the unluckiest people on the planet. In their sophomore year, she rebelled hard by bleaching and dying her jet black hair various shades of pink at her choosing and buying off the counter pink cat-eye contacts. Rachel, out of the three people left for her to partner with, would've actually preferred Miryosa since she awkwardly dated Wally in middle school and was right off the bat highly opposed to Étoile.
"Wallace West and Miryosa Ventura." Miryosa looked less than overjoyed to have the student body vice-president and track team captain to be her lab partner for their senior year. Wally seemed to ignore Miryosa's death glares all together as he scooped up his belongings and plopped down next to her.
"Hey! I don't think we've officially met," he said, extending his hand for her to shake. "I'm Wally West. I'm sure you know me—very few people that don't. But anyway, I can't wait to get to know you and be lab partners!" As enthusiastic and genuine as Wally was, he could be a bit cocky.
However, with Wally paired with Miryosa, this left Rachel with…
"…Étoile Colère."
Étoile glanced over at Rachel and smiled. It was cautious, but friendly. Rachel's stony gaze did not move from Étoile's optimistic one. Rachel inwardly groaned, slumping forward into her chair in despair where her dark blue, hoodie-clad arms awaited her incoming head that she proceeded to hit upon the desk.
A/n: Okay, I know what you're thinking: why am I starting ANOTHER TT AU high school fic when I don't even have the first one done? Because I am bored. It was boring. Seriously. Instead of focusing primarily on relationships (romantic ones,) I decided I wanted to focus on friendships, particularly the Raven/Starfire friendship as an AU. Also, I'm sick of writing "Kory Anders." I know it's her cannon name, but I'm just so sick of seeing it. So I made her the hot French exchange student instead. There will be pairings, do not fear. I just want to focus on the Raven/Starfire friendship. (But didn't I already start one of those? Yup. Got bored of that too. I'm bound to get bored of this one, but it would be a shame to waste a perfectly good intro chapter.)
Name etymology:
Korakas = Raven in Greek.
Étolie = Star in French. Colère = Anger (derivation of fire) in French
Miryosa = Enchant in Japanese. Ventura= Luck in Italian.