A/N Hellooooo everyone! K so I have no idea where this came from, I was originally writing a what-if piece about you know when Robin asks Star if she's alright during the beginning of Trouble in Tokyo? I mean come on people she was hit by two exploding ninja stars with VERY SHARP BLADES! that hit her dead on! well what if she lied and wasn't actually okay? But suddenly I saw a picture of Terra and I'm like, woah! Plot bunny. So yeah, that's how this was born :) Have fun reading!
Blank. That's what the world felt like to him…blank. Blank like those cerulean eyes that had once shown him emotion. So many emotions…hope inspiration, sadness, anger, laughter, pride and once, once oh so long ago, once they had shown him love. No! Nononononono! They had never shown him love! She didn't know how to love. Merely playing him like a marionette, pulling at the strings laughing at his antics and his jokes just to lull him into the sense of false security. Make him love her. Just to go and pull the trigger and shoot him in the heart. Love. He scoffed at the word. Such a thing didn't exist. Not after he had given her his heart and she eagerly accepted it and he watched her smile as she so unmercifully crushed it. Crushed by taking down his fearless leader. Smashed it sending his best friend into the flames of glass and concrete. Broke it by breaking apart his all-loving sister, playing on her heart. Ripped it into shreds when you dropped that rock on his confidante. Congratulations, really. You were the only person he let in real close ever since his friends. After the Doom Patrol abandoned him and his parents died, he never let anyone see past the jokes and the laughter, never let anyone see him for who he was. Now he knows never to let anyone in ever again. Not after what you did. Not after you broke my heart. Blank. Everything was blank, it had no colour. Why was everything so blank why was everything just falling apart? Why did she have to go and do that? Why did she have to go and betray him? Betray them? Terra.
Beastboy sat on the roof of Titans Tower not even noticing the setting of the sun as the clouds wept goodbye and the water burned where it touched. Yellow and orange melting into blue caused an ethereal effect on the whole scene giving it an out of this world beauty that was rarely seen. But Beastboy was oblivious to it all. How could he notice the beauty when his beauty was gone? Sometimes he wondered if it would be better if she were dead. That way he could know that she really was gone. That way, she would have died a hero. Would have died being his crush, the coolest and mysterious Terra of the Unknown. Instead, she left to return a villain, their enemy, an enemy that wanted nothing less than their destruction. Ironic now that she wanted him and all of his friends dead. Beastboy knew he shouldn't want her dead, that somewhere the goodness in him, the forgiveness should say no, no it's better that she's alive. But he can't really bring himself to think that. So he wallows in his misery and just sits there, like he has been for the past few days just staring. Staring at the nothingness of beauty with the same question haunting his mind. Why? Why? Why? Why? WHY?
And that's when the tears came. When the dry sobs turned into a tidal wave of tears and rocked himself back and forth, arms clutching at his sides riding up the purple fabric of his suit as the tears drip down. Ploploploploplop onto the concrete and his eyes turn pink and his ears go flat and he rocks and rocks and tries to make the pain go away. Make her face and that sneer and those blank blank eyes go away from his mind and he just wants to jump. Jump and make everything go away. But he can't. Because he doesn't want to die and when he tries really hard, Beastboy can drag himself out of the murkiness and remember for one or two seconds why this life really was worth living. A sniff of some abnormal Tamaraenean food, the ear-splitting creak of the repairs of the T-Car, an old crumpled bottle of gel in the bathroom, an old and evil looking mirror that reminded him of Nevermore and somewhere in the recesses of his mind he heard the laughter and the smiles and saw those twinkling eyes and playing videogames and bringing up Silkie and he remembered. But those few seconds evaporate quickly and he's brought back gasping into the murkiness of depression and Terra. Funny how those two quickly became friends. Odd really. So very very odd.
Crying softly now, almost didn't feel the slight displacement of the wind and the faint scent of kiwi and stars. Beastboy knew stars shouldn't be a smell, but whenever she walked by, that unknown scent just became known as the smell of stars. The name stuck and ever since he'd used it to tell who was floating up beside him. "Beastboy." Her tone was sad, too sad for her cheery disposition.
There was a sigh in her voice and the light crack at the end hinted at her tears. Oh Starfire. Beastboy didn't move, didn't make a sound, he just continued to rock back and forth and let the tears drip silently down his face. Sitting next to him, the Tamareanean beauty brought her slender legs up to her chest and hugged them to her. "Beastboy, do not attempt to be Robin." Her voice like music was quiet yet very powerful in the silence that resounded with night that has just fallen.
Frozen. Beastboy didn't even pretend not to know what she was talking about. Robin always hid himself away and never spoke of it to anyone when he was hurting. Most of the time, it was his hurting that hurt the rest of the team and caused the anger and frustration that rarely hit the tower, but now he supposed, it was the other way around. "I'm not hiding; everyone knows where to find to me." Evading the question.
Glancing at him for only a second Starfire leaned back on her hands and continued to stare, lost at the night. "Yes we do, but we do not know your emotions." She frowned a little then.
And for some reason, for some strange, strange reason, that frown made him angry. Launching to his feet, his eyes narrowed into foresty slits and his ears hissed back in fury. "Of course you don't! No one knows what I'm feeling because none of you have ever been betrayed like I did! You have no idea what I'm going through right now! No idea! No one you loved ever killed you like Terra did to me. She said she loved me! She said she wanted me! She said she was a Titan! She laid Starfire! She lied! And she took my heart with her and she crushed it. She betrayed me." Beastboy shuddered before falling to his knees bawling and sobbing and screaming and cursing, bring his fist down on the concrete of the roof over and over again, screaming all the while.
Rushing over, Starfire leaned in close, her face inches away from Beastboy's own and connected her eyes to his. Green to green. Eyebrows slanting down in understanding Starfire shook her head. "You are wrong Beastboy, I do understand." Taking his shaking hands in hers she pulled him to his feet and wrapped her arms around him in a loving embrace.
"I have never told anyone this friend, but…but I wish to tell you now. I did not receive my star bolts from my planet; I received them through experimentation and torture. The whole story is gruesome and rather long so I shall tell you only the briefest of explanations. My sister, Blackfire tried to kill me when we were younger out of jealousy and was expelled because of it. Afterwards, as revenge she leaked information of our planet to the Gordanians who took me prisoner and who was my master none other than Blackfire. She tortured me and made me suffer physical, emotional and…sexual torture. I had killed one of my…rapists and was sentenced to death when the Psions attacked us. Capturing Blackfire and I we were experimented on and that was when we were given our powers. Backfire's people attacked their base hoping to rescue her and in the confusion I was able to escape…Even though she tried to kill me and put me under extreme pain, she was still my sister and I loved her and somewhere deep inside her I hoped she felt the same way. Using my star bolts I rescued her but in return she hurt me with her own star bolts and restrained me. However I escaped and fled here to Earth and the rest is as you say on this planet, history. So you see dearest Beastboy I do understand what it feels like to be betrayed by someone you love, I know the feeling all too well." During her monologue, Starfire had been stroking Beastboy's back but the minute she finished speaking her hand fell.
Stepping away from him, he saw the film of tears in her eyes; amplifying their vivid green and making her look a lot prettier than she normally did. Beastboy however was shocked. Actually, he was beyond shocked. Nothing in the princess's behaviour ever suggested she had been through so much emotional trauma. Starfire was the teams bright light in times where misery was drowning them all. Always having more love and happiness to share, Starfire was everyone's own personal Sailor Moon. And yet somehow, what she said made Beastboy hope. "Star…"
"It is okay Beastboy. I already know that you did not mean what you said earlier, I forgive you. But I told you that story not because I want pity but to show you that people hurt you, it is unfortunate but true. But one person in a whole universe of people is not worth your while. After Blackfire did what she did I did not think I would ever be okay. But I came to Earth and I found four marvelous people who helped to save a girl they didn't even know. Those same four people would grow to become my friends to become my family whom I love dearly. Blackfire may have been my sister by blood, but you are my brother by love. I have learned to move on from her mistakes and one day, so will you."
"It hurts Star. We trusted her, I trusted her! I loved her." his voice cracked a bit but he didn't care.
"Oh Beastboy, you will love again. Whether it is tomorrow or next week or maybe next year. But I promise you, one day you will find the one who is meant for you. Do not let Terra win this battle. If she is truly evil then what she wants is for us to be broken by her so that next time she comes she will have the power to defeat us. We cannot let her win Beastboy. We are stronger than that. You are stronger than that."
By now, they were sitting down, leaning against the door to the roof. Beastboy looked at Starfire then, saw the determination blazing in her eyes. The way her fists clenched in righteousness and her lips were drawn back into a thin line. Wind brushing up against her shoulders, lifting her hair into curls and waves. And then Beastboy saw the other Starfire, the one that greeted them each day with their own special good morning and smiled at them cheerily. The Starfire that would always seek Robin out of his angry moods in the Evidence Room and talked him out into the land of the living. He saw the Starfire who meditated with Raven and took the time to really get to know the enigmatic Azarathian. Or the one who would work on the T-Car with Cy and wouldn't mind getting grease on her cheeks. He saw her overcoming her sadness and he remembered the first week when they became the Teen Titans how on the second night there, he had seen her cry. Cry like he had been sobbing on the roof just now. She had been just like him.
She really did understand so how did he have the nerve to keep wallowing in his misery. Thinking about it, having your sister turn her back on you was a lot worse than having a girl who you honestly barely knew betray you. Of course, that didn't make the pain any less real or any less painful. But in the big picture, if Starfire could get over it, so could he. Besides, she was right, he wasn't alone and he had four friends who would always be there for him. Even if some of them claimed to not care and be heartless, he knew that all five of them were a team and that in their own dysfunctional way, were all a family. In the end, Starfire was right; he wasn't going to let Terra win. He wasn't going to sit on the roof and cry for forever. He would be fine.
"Starfire? I wanted to say-"
" There is no need to say thank you, you have helped me just as much as I have helped you…Besides, is that not what friends are for?" she asked cutely.
Shaking his head Beastboy answered, "No, that's what family is for."
So as the two of them sat on the roof, with Star's head leaning on his shoulder, a warm laugh echoing in the night and his arm wrapped around her, Beastboy wiped away the last of the tears away from his face and smiled.
A/N Yeah I'm a sucker for friendship fics so that's why this was created I guess, I just watched Forces of Nature so that's probably why this came up but after Betrayed I really really hated Terra so yeah. I'll try to update Sleepover Confessions ASAP but I'm going to have to reread it to get the inspiration back. Thanks for reading!
- Avril