Disclaimer: I do not own Teen Titans. If I did, there would be so much crack no one would know what canon was anymore.

So, this is really short, but I think that's okay because it's just a prologue. I've wanted to revamp my Rob/Star/X fic for a while, and now that I've finished my Raven/Beast Boy one I think I can focus on this one. I'm excited to see how this turns out, because I'm going to tie in an element from one of my "Last Author Standing" entries.

There will be an OC, but they play more of a catalyst role than an actual character.

If you don't really understand what's going on in this...it will be explained in later chapters. Read and enjoy!

Prologue:

Wasted Words

Words spoken so softly they were like a tickle of wind. They swept across cold skin, caressing and selfish. The sun shone down, unmercifully enveloping the two in a space that should have been so warm and happy. As the rays shot through the spaces where there bodies didn't touch, infinite abysses loomed, just waiting for one of them to fall inside.

The words drifted off, unanswered, to float along the sea and land in a heap along with so many colored leaves. Silence gathered around them, unwanted but still the ever invited guest. Goosebumps rose on lackadaisical arms that had the gall to not even try to get warm. Not now. Not here. Not like that.

A step back. The abysses grew. The light seeped in between them. Neither could really see the other through it, as if a waterfall of bright downy feathers had fallen to separate them. A gloved hand tried to reach through it, but it was too thick. Too heavy. No hands could push through the barrier that had been slowly and painfully constructed.

It wasn't their fault, she promised them. It was time. It was the past. It was the future. It was everything but them. Anything but him.

The silence spells out what she could never say, even to herself. He can't accept it, she won't let him. Eyes locked in a death grip he waited for her to appease his pounding heart. She longed for her heart to tell her the truth and her mind release its painful grasp on her courage. Only soundless air was allowed to slide past her devastatingly full lips, taunting him every second he couldn't touch them. Her tongue, bitten between teeth, was red and getting redder. Almost as red as her hair as it glared in his eyes; a fiery reminder of the bridges he had burned and collapsed.

Worn and weary with eyes burning behind the transparent cloth of his mask, he turned. He walked away slowly. Still waiting. Still hoping. She could grab his cape or jump in front of him. She could whip him around and repeat the words that had died so lonely in the air. But as he put one foot in front of the other, a little part of him knew she wouldn't. She would not pull him close and laugh in his eyes and reassure his doubts. He knew she wouldn't, because he knew her. And he knew she was not a liar.

Cross your heart

Don't you lie

Look me straight in the eye

As his footsteps echoed through her skin, the words came back, a whisper that she hated for tearing apart her almost perfect world. Those syllables that should have been good instead sent a shiver up her spine. She should have been able to let them fly out through her just like he had. But she couldn't.

A single clear tear slid down a tan cheek. She wasn't crying for him, or even for her. She cried for the illusions that had so readily fled at the appearance of something real. Crumpling to her knees, she lay in a ball on this roof where they had shared so many memories of happier times. Times when innocence ran rampant and neither had to think about their futures. Maybe he could forgive her. Maybe he couldn't. The only thing she could do was disengage from the chasm growing in her and let the crystalline tears cascade from her emerald eyes.

Automatically her mind responded in the way she had taught herself. With tears still streaming from her eyes, she was carried off into a sweetly thoughtless sleep, running away from those words that came floating back to her as a sadistic trick of the wind. By the time they floated around her head, she was too submerged in the chasm of sleep that she could not hear them.

Still the wind carried their message, for any who was there to hear.

"I love you."

These wasted words

So pure and cursed

Should never have been heard

Tape ready. Rope ready. Surroundings…clear. With skilled and steady fingers he uncoiled the strong rope and approached the body lying so there quietly. His footsteps were silenced and measured, every precaution and preparation laid out painstakingly in advance. Only it was so much easier than he had hoped.

Cape fluttering gently in the night breeze, he bent down near the listless figure. His white mask stuck out in the darkness, a contrast to his dark clothes. A part of him was distantly worried that someone would see him on security cameras and instantly recognize the red stitching on his chest, but he easily laid the fears aside. His placid hands wrapped the rope around the wrists that looked so delicate in the starlight. As if it was almost taboo to touch them. Tracing a calloused finger across the soft skin, he smiled so small even he wondered if it was really there.

Deftly he slipped a tiny white pill into the open mouth. Like a lover he smoothed the sliver duct tape over the gentle mouth. Confident and calm he eased a hand beneath her legs. Shifting the other behind her back, he lifted her lithe body from where it lay. Staring up to the bright sky around him for the merest second he let his heart beat faster. This is going to work. I will make it work. The words ran in circles in his head. As he gazed into the firmament he drowned in the dreamlike haze that drifted around him.

So many days he had spent planning this, and it was finally time.

Regaining his composure with a shake of his head, he stalked to the side of the roof, so high over the turbulent water. The city skyline called to him, reassuring his buoyancy with a flashing smile.

He took one step off the roof and in an instant was gone, along with the figure in his arms.

His foot landed with a practiced step on a slanted roof, tiled and sturdy beneath him. He leaped from roof to roof, staying off the high buildings and in the shadows. Wind whistling by him, he knew he had to get back to his home before she woke up. Red hair tickled his arms as the wind blew it askew.

Ulterior motives sprang to his mind as his arms clutched her closer. He had a mission to complete. He promised himself that when she woke up he would concentrate. He would stick to the plan, because this was about more than him. It was about more than her too. It was…

Danielle.

Cursing himself for opening the bloody wound from his past, he glanced down at the sleeping girl in his arms. The sleeping drugs he had given her seemed to be staying strong at least.

He wished he could explain how it wasn't about her. Maybe make her understand. But she wouldn't and he knew that. She was a pampered beauty. How could she know what this pain was?

It wasn't about them, and he knew that. But as he ran beneath a street light, red slashes on his mask appearing bright in the glow, he couldn't help but wish it was.

Oh cross your heart

Say goodbye

Fly away and let me die