---
It was a featureless hallway, like so many of the Tower's were. Designed by Cyborg, who was partially machine and thus very familiar with Murphy's Law, there were dozens, almost hundreds, of redundant hallways. This particular one, which Robin had just recently found and was now patrolling for possible dangers/blind spots (okay, exploring), was gray, full of reflections, and very cold, unheated in any way.
Cyborg hadn't gone over it since he'd designed the Tower.
It was hard to remember that a part of Titans Tower had once been Starfire's ship, though that explained how (along with certain powers of flight) Starfire was able to move as quickly as Raven, sometimes, to parts of the Tower far away from her then-current location. Starfire could simply navigate the parts of the ship that she once knew well, having used it on the long journey from Tamaran to Earth.
Yes, Robin, - he'd somehow managed to bury that knowledge of Starfire being an alien and focus on her purely being a naive girl who knew nothnig of Earth's customs.
Yes, Robin was multitasking - exploring and thinking, at the same time. He worked out, true, and he went over case files, evidence, and logs enough, overnight, that Raven frequently had to visit him and tell him to go to sleep because his emotions, jittery from lack of sleep, were waking her up. He rarely had time to actually think - he needed relative peace and quiet for that, and the Tower or Jump always had - presences, the knowledge that someone could wake up and look to him for help. So he needed time to think, and since deep thoughts actually needed something to occupy the hindbrain, he went exploring. Luckily for him, the Tower was a good place to explore - only Cyborg actually knew which hallway went where.
The reason why he didn't think inside his room or in the evidence room, even when every one else in the Tower was supposedly asleep?
Well, you never knew when Raven might be awake and grumpy, and he did not need to deal with Raven when he was considering certain aspects of...relationships...
Plus, it didn't help that he muttered to himself while thinking, which tended to echo around the strange acoustics in the Tower, and a lot of his thoughts seemed to revolve about Starfire and what she meant to him...
A rumble and crash sent him instinctively into a leap, landing on his left shoulder and rolling to his feet, right hand already grasping a birdarang. Sending it open with a flick of his wrist, Robin waited, scanning the area.
A steady stream of what sounded like Tamaranian curses relaxed him, and he rose from his crouch, slipping his birdarang, closed once more, back into his pocket.
This - this would allow him to get her back. She'd been sneaking up on him lately, when he was least expecting her and focusing hard on his work. She'd jump on his back, startling him, (once or twice, he'd almost sent her across the room - and once, he thought his punch even connected, not that it'd shaken her off) shaking his shoulders frantically, then giggling maniacally before escaping out of the room again. After those encounters, he could rarely start his work again. Her giggles...her hands...and her clinging on to him... He swallowed and backtracked.
As a result of her doing so every few weeks, he was now behind on his schedule. Which annoyed him to no end, but he could never really bring himself to scold her - but that was then, this was now - and there was no one around to chastise him for scaring a poor, innocent, naive girl from another planet (Raven...).
Noiselessly slipping back down the corridor, he noticed a light switch, flicking it on. With delight, he observed that the light behind him came on, casting shadows from outreaching objects, which would help him in sneaking closer without her seeing him. Better yet, the light behind him would make him a dark figure which would suddenly leap out at her with a shark-toothed grin (but better not start laughing yet...actually, do.)
Starfire rubbed her ankle from where she had fallen down a flight of stairs, looking up with innocent green eyes at her old supply corridor, where she had often gone down towards the kitchen to make the food that she remembered from her home planet. It tasted similar, when she made it here on Earth, but not the same - but she'd do anything to remember the memories from her home planet.
That was then, and this was now, and now she had a family, more than Komand'r and even Ryand'r; she had Raven and Cyborg and Beast Boy, but most of all, she had Robin. And that was better than any memory that she could retain from Tamaran.
He had seemed displeased when she threw herself at him, as what Beast Boy had recommended. Was that not the meaning of 'Jump him and shake his bones?'
Robin drew a breath, opened his mouth and...
Starfire jumped as a menacing laugh echoed down the hallway. She backed up against the staircase she had fallen down, starbolt lighting in her hand. She saw no one appear, the echoes of the laugh bouncing off the walls.
Robin'd forgotten about her starbolts. They'd hurt if they hit, depending on how dangerous she thought he was, but as he wasn't looking directly at her he doubted she'd see him. He let his laugh die and began to whisper in fairly bad Mandarin.
A sibilant whispering started; she could barely understand it from the languages given to her by Robin, the Mandarin tones rising from pure death to anger, annoyance and back, and Starfire clenched her fists, green spheres sparking into life.
"Who's there?" Starfire called down the corridor. "Show yourself!" She hated how her voice quivered - her parents had trained her better than this! More importantly, Robin would not be proud, and she hated to disappoint him.
Robin giggled slightly, himself. It was good to know he'd shocked her at least that much.
"At least name yourself, so I can know what name to send back to your family after I am done with you!" Yes, that sounded firmer; Robin would have been full of praise.
Well, didn't she sound furious. Robin changed languages, to French. "I am your nightmare." To Spanish. "Your worst enemy." To German. "Your arch-nemesis." Back to English; with each phrase he had slunk from shadow to shadow, until he was close enough to simply reach out and touch her - in the leg, yes, but still. "AND I HAVE YOU!"
A shadow formed from the pits of darknesses congealing around the familiar knee-height bump sticking out from an old storeroom, launching its way at Starfire, who squealed and flew up, lancing her starbolts at it. Somehow the shadow had anticipated that, twisting in mid-air away from her blasts.
Robin flew through the air, changing objective midway through the leap. He hit the blast door activation switch on the side of the staircase, causing a quarantine door to lower itself over the staircase. There was no way out for Starfire.
A "Come now darling, we both know you want me," sent shivers down Starfire's spine. No one called her darling and got away with it! ...Except maybe Robin, who would never do such a thing. Fists clenched tightly, Starfire sent a blast towards the light switch - her starbolts would illuminate the room perfectly well.
As the light suddenly went out, Robin grinned smugly. He could fight perfectly well in the dark, and Starfire's starbolts were only making her a target.
He slowed. When did his objective go from scaring Starfire back in revenge to fighting and testing Starfire? Did he really only concentrate on his work and training all the time?
Starfire peered into the darkness towards the now-blocked staircase, cursing herself. How stupid had she been? If her opponent was capable of fighting in the dark, she had unwittingly doomed herself. Yet, she had not thought her action through. Robin would not have been happy.
Robin, after a period of long consideration (during which Starfire waited, quivering in anticipation and terror) took off his gloves, dropping them to the floor.
The sound of a form of clothing dropping to the floor stirred Starfire down roads that she never wanted to take, starring Robin in the midst of most of them. Shaking them out of her head, she lit her starbolts again.
Robin snuck around behind the glow that illuminated most of Starfire's body, and ran a hand across her exposed back. A part of him despised what he was doing, dismissing it as childish, but mostly he enjoyed it, perhaps a little too much.
Starfire spun around as a cold finger ran its way horizontally across the small of her back. "Show yourself!" she cried, her voice echoing down the well-remembered hallway. She sent a starbolt in the general direction, the starbolt illuminating a small figure crawling towards her on the ground. Immediately, Starfire peppered the figure with starbolts.
The sudden barrage took Robin momentarily off guard before he sprung back, dodging the trajectories of about a dozen starbolts hitting the same spot on the ground. He sprang directly at her, mouth wide in a mischievous snarl, ungloved hands twisted into claws.
Starfire saw the snarl as pure evil, not recognising the familiar pattern on his clothes. Reeling back in fear, she ignited a twin pair of giant starbolts, letting them loose directly into his chest.
The shock of the hits sent Robin down the hallway, slamming him into the end of the corridor that turned into an unused kitchen. He'd not expected these hits, but they were certainly complimentary of Starfire, to have caught him so off-guard. Of course, it could have had something to do with the fact that he couldn't feel his hands from all the tingling where he had brushed her -
A startled "Oof," from the darkness at the end of the hall calmed Starfire. She advanced, arms raised, starbolts rippling and mingling with the air.
One step closer.
Robin decided not to say anything, deciding to play on the guilt aspect to get him closer to his true objective.
Two steps closer.
Robin made his limbs splay out in 'unnatural' positions - a gift from Batman's training, it allowed him to get into spaces through strangely shaped holes. He tilted his head back last, giving the impression that his neck was broken.
Three steps closer.
Starfire lowered her hands slightly. Perhaps the silence meant that the enemy was not conscious? She raised her hands again, suspicious, her eyes gleaming slightly with solar power. Or perhaps he was simply acting dead.
Four steps.
Robin was getting uncomfortable. Starfire didn't seem to be getting much closer, and usually he'd have slipped through the hole by now. Ah well, Batman had trained him to be patient, even through physical agony, and this was his idea, after all.
Five steps.
But so was the chimney thing. his mind reminded him, and he had to suppress a grunt.
Six steps.
Starfire heard the smallest of sounds, and her hands flared. So he was faking! She rushed forward, almost flying in her haste to reach him. ...Well, he sounded male, did he not?
Seven. Eight.
No time. The light switch couldn't be turned on, having been fried. Robin cursed, moving a hand to his belt. He flicked a birdarang at the blast door switch, making sure Starfire didn't detect it.
Nine. Ten. Eleventwelvethirteenfourteenfifteennotwalkinganymore!
The birdarang hit, letting light flood into the room.
As Starfire grew closer and closer, Robin played his trump card. A weak voice.
"Star? Is that you?"
Starfire's eyes widened, her flames sputtering. "Robin?"
"Yes, it's me. Thank goodness you're here, Star. I...I hurt."
She landed, worried. He must have in agony; Robin would not admit it unless he could not ignore it any longer.
"Robin?" The light coming through the door showed him splayed out, neck at an impossible angle, as if he had been thrown there by a very strong force. Her eyes widened and she gasped. Like two starbolts...
"Robin!" Starfire rushed to him, kneeling beside him, tears falling onto a twisted knee. "I am most sorry for hurting you, please forgive me!"
Robin gave a strained chuckle. "I will."
"You require medical help! I must get Raven!" As she rose to go, Robin looked up, apparently in some pain. "Please, don't go. Stay here with me."
How could she refuse?
As she sank down beside him, however, looking away for a moment at the door, Robin untwisted himself quickly, springing for her, hands out to tickle any exposed skin.
They rolled on the floor, Starfire giggling helplessly.
"Robin!" She held his arms down. "That was a most hurtful deceit!"
"Call it payback," he grinned from behind the mask, slipping out from her grasp and tickling her again.
"This is more than I have done to you, friend Robin, so now I must do the paying back!" She sprang on him.
They were both giggling helplessly a while later, Robin attempting to assert some control over the situation. He rolled between her legs, coming up behind her and holding her into a non-painful arm pin.
"I've got your arms!"
Starfire giggled, half-turning and sweeping his legs out from under him as he quickly re-adjusted his grip on her arms to prevent her from pain. Almost flying, Starfire trapped his legs under hers.
"I have gotten your legs!"
In trying to get up, Robin made a small mistake in judgement and his leap over her ended up in him sprawling across her.
Realizing the compromising situation they were in, Starfire blushed and Robin began to back away. As he stood awkwardly, brushing himself off, Starfire tried to stand up as well.
Not expecting her legs to be weak from the various strains she had put on them in her little meeting with Robin today, Starfire gave a small cry as her left knee buckled and she began to collapse to the floor.
Except she never got there, as strong arms swept around her, holding her up and close to a muscled, beating chest.
"Don't worry, Star, I've got you."
She melted in his arms, wrapping her own around his stomach. Two beating hearts, twined together.
"I have you also, Robin."
She looked into his mask, past it, into the unknown colour beyond, and she knew he was looking at her.
"But I have the advantage, friend Robin."
Robin looked at those mysterious green eyes, fallen from the sky.
"What advantage, Star?"
"I have gotten your stomach!"
Two laughs, twining down a hallway.
---
Dedicated to all the excessively cute RobStars of the world, even to those who I haven't seen for a month and don't know whether they're still together now! XD
Scribere jussit amor.
--KorelC--