Thanks for the reviews, guys! Here's the next chapter for ya. Also, WONDER GIRL! Not Cassie Sadsmark. The other, more awesome one (no offense, Cassie).
Robin was holed up in the investigation room. Again. His teammates were getting increasingly worried about him. He'd spent about a week moping around, interspersed with bursts of anger and occasionally kicking Cyborg and Beast Boy off the Gamestation so that he could play a gory video game and kill everything.
Then he threw himself into research. He'd stopped looking into Terra after Beast Boy finally admitted that he went to her high school and talked to her and she seemed safe and happy. He'd been looking into that white shape shifting creature, but only halfheartedly. He started out searching for Slade, but more recently his efforts shifted from Slade to finding exactly where Starfire was.
She must have been trying really hard to keep a low profile, and Robin was really disappointed in his ability to track down an orange girl whose eyes glowed green whenever she got too angry. She'd been going east, but that didn't necessarily mean that she kept going that way. She could be anywhere, from Washington to Florida. He started out scouring for any hint of her in Florida or Georgia or South or North Carolina, thinking she would want a similar climate to Jump but wanted to be as far away as possible. He couldn't find anything. He'd south, from Arizona to Alabama, but he couldn't find any trace of her there, either.
Just as he was beginning to think that she left the country, he got the biggest tip off he could have wanted. Well, Raven found it, and she had no idea that showing him would make him even more determined to find her. Starfire was in a magazine ad. He never, in a million years, would have thought of that.
It was an advertisement for jeans, which he only remembered because she wasn't wearing much of anything else.
He asked Raven for the rest of the magazine, but she seemed to realize her mistake and she wouldn't tell him. She snatched the page away from him and wouldn't let him near her room for the rest of the day. She regretted that later, because Robin immediately ordered subscriptions of every girly magazine he could think of. But he couldn't find the ad again.
A month later, he found it. To be precise, he found it in seven magazines. It was a different shot, but it was definitely her. Annoyingly, the magazine didn't credit the photographers. He'd called the jeans company and they told him that they didn't give out the names of their models or photographers to people over the phone. Then they blocked him from calling again. But he discovered that at the very back of the magazine, there were columns of specificities- what dress whoever on the cover was wearing, how much it costs, what company it was from. It also credited freelance photographers.
He couldn't believe his luck. Donna Troy. Wonder Girl. His friend of a few years. That was about a month ago. Since then, he'd been itching to go to New York, which is where Donna was stationed since she left the Amazon and stepped out from under Wonder Woman's shadow. He'd contacted her about the Titans, but she told him she was taking things slowly.
He'd been itching to go, but he was also really nervous. He'd decided to give it a month. Then it would be six months since she left exactly, and that was reason enough to find her.
Now it was time to act. He stood in the garage next to the T-ship and his friends were lined up in front of them.
"Listen, Robin… Dude. Don't be too upset if she doesn't wanna come back. Okay?" Beast Boy asked with a weak a smile.
"She'll come back," Robin answered moodily.
Raven narrowed her eyes at him. "Maybe one of us should go with you. I can teleport you there."
"This is something I have to do on my own."
Raven's gaze didn't waver. "Don't be an idiot."
He didn't know if she meant right now or when he got there. But it didn't matter. Sometimes Raven thought things were stupid when really they were just steeped in emotion. It was a trait they shared. But Robin was never stupid. Sure, he was impulsive sometimes. Sure, sometimes he did things that later, he wishes he didn't. But he felt like he could defend everything he did with simple logic.
"Never," he answered, forcing a tight smile onto his face. Not that he could fool Raven with a facial expression when she could read his emotions as clearly as if he told her outright.
"Don't crash the pod, dude. Without your unit, it's just four fifths of a ship. And we're already down one pilot, so… Just bring 'er back, okay?"
Robin nodded. All of the Titans cared, really. Raven seemed to accept that Starfire was on some kind of journey, but Robin knew that she worried about her sometimes. Beast Boy just joked about everything, which got sort of annoying after a while, but it was how he coped. Cyborg was struggling because he wanted to be supportive of Starfire, but she was like a sister to him and he was desperate to know that she was alright. With a nod at his friends, Robin flipped up into his pod on the T-Ship and took off on his own.
It took a few hours, but Robin landed his pod at the Titan's West Tower. He stayed for about an hour to talk, which he did only because it was polite. Annoyingly, Speedy had found the ad Starfire was in and Robin had to listen to his opinion on that without punching him in the face.
Steel City was about half an hour away from New York. Robin brought the R-cycle with him, and he rode it into the city. He hadn't been to Donna's in a while, but he could still remember the way.
Starfire landed on the balcony of the New York apartment she shared with Donna Troy. "Donna?" she called. She pushed the glass doors open and entered the living room. "Donna?" she called again. She put the bags she'd been carrying on the ground by the coffee table.
"I'm in here, Kori," a voice called from a closed door.
Starfire sighed and flopped back on the white couch in the living room. That's the dark room. She wasn't supposed to go in there without Donna's permission. Starfire flipped through channels disinterestedly. She stopped when the Jersey shore flipped on.
She sighed wistfully. On the TV, the sun was shining and the people wore bathing suits and shorts. Just because she was able to wear a skirt and sports bra in the snow didn't mean she didn't feel the cold. And it was very cold now.
Snow covered the railing on the balcony. Starfire had to run out to get the special clothes she was supposed to wear for her next photo shoot.
She was a model now. It was an easy job, and she didn't mind wearing the fun outfits, but it was tiring being around so many people that wanted to know just where she was from and if her hair was a natural color and if tallness ran in her family…
When she first arrived in New York, she didn't know where to go. She was planning on going to Titans East, but she was afraid that they would tell her friends where she was and they would convince her to go back. She knew that it wouldn't be hard for someone to convince her to go back, but she just wasn't ready yet.
So she came to New York City. She slept in the bus station her on her first night. That alone was almost enough to make her go crawling back to the Tower. The second day, though, she met Wonder Girl. Starfire had been perusing what appeared to be a more rundown section of the city by air, trying to see if she could possibly find refuge in an abandoned warehouse. She did not want to go back to the bus station.
In one of the warehouses was a woman dressed in a red dress and wide metal gauntlets that were currently being used to deflect bullets. Starfire dove down to aid her, feeling comfortably at home in a crime fighting atmosphere.
After the girls wrapped up their case- which was just shutting down a drug cartel- and the woman introduced herself as Wonder Girl. They arranged for Starfire to live with her in her apartment. To help with rent, Starfire started helping Donna in her budding career as a freelance photographer. At one of the shoots- a deal with Golden Girl Jeans- the owner of the company insisted on having Starfire as his model. Since then, she'd been asked by a few other clothing companies to model for them.
She liked modeling, and it was even better with Donna as her photographer.
"Hello? Earth to Starfire!"
Starfire snapped out of her daydream. "Greetings!"
Donna crossed her arms over her chest. Her black hair was pulled into a long ponytail and it was hanging over her shoulder. She was dressed in civvies- jeans and a cardigan- and she had her camera strung over her neck. "Ready for the next shoot, Kori?" Donna asked with a smile.
Starfire- who had recently started going by the pseudonym Kori Anders- nodded with a smile. "I have retrieved the clothing. They wanted to get shots of me in my home to accompany an interview," she explained, pointing to the bags by the coffee table.
"Hm…" Donna muttered. "Well, my studio technically is your home… but I think they want something homey. So we could dress up the couch there and make it look nice and have you lay on it all sexy," Donna suggested with a smile. "Or something."
"Whatever you wish. Which dress do you think is best?" Starfire nudged the bags at her feet.
"I love being roommates with a model. I get to steal all your awesome clothes," Donna quipped as she bent down to look at the dresses.
Starfire grinned. "They are not actually mine, friend. They belong to the magazine."
"Uh huh. Whatever. Same thing. If you want my professional opinion as s photographer… the couch is white. So while you look tan and orange in a way that somehow looks more Mediterranean goddess than oompah-loompah when you wear white, I think we should go for black. Black'll bring out your eyes and make you look more like an alien sex kitty." Donna curved her fingers in to claws and pretended to growl. "Plus, if I put the red pillows on the couch, it'll look very French."
Starfire nodded, not following very well but liking the enthusiasm in her friend's voice.
"Why don't you put… this on," Donna suggested, holding up a black dress. It had a corset top and a skirt that would hit at her mid-thigh with a layer of tulle peeking out. It was plain, but Starfire had a feeling that that was what Donna was going for. She continued ruffling through the bags and brought out a pair of shoes. Starfire gaped at them. They were at least four inches tall.
"Oh, come on. I know you don't wear heels that often, since you're like ten feet tall anyway, but it's not like you're gonna be walking around. You're gonna be lying down. Like a sex kitty, remember?" Donna made her hand into claws again and Starfire laughed, which was probably the point. "Relax," she soothed as she inspected Starfire's hair and brushed it out of the way so that it parted at the side. She smiled approvingly at her own handiwork. "Models don't shoot well when they're nervous. You change, I'm gonna go grab some stuff for the couch."
Starfire sighed and slipped on the dress. It always made her nervous to put on the clothes she was modeling, especially when they were things like this dress that cost thousands of dollars because of some designer's name on it. She strapped on the shoes, which clasped around her ankle, and then observed her foot. On Tamaran, it was custom to go barefoot unless one was dressed in armor or was going to be doing a lot of walking. No footwear as restrictive as this could be found anywhere on her entire planet. Well, she was definitely experiencing Earth now.
She lay back on the couch, the tulle scratching her a little bit. Just as she was getting comfortable, the buzzer sounded on the wall next to the door. Someone was trying to get in. "Donna?" Starfire called unsurely. She could get it, but she never had any visitors since none of her friends knew where she was right now, and she didn't want to greet one of Donna's friends dressed like this.
"I'll get it, Kori, it's all right."
Starfire leaned back on the couch and looked back at the television, wishing she could be on the beach instead of wearing strange clothes in a strange city with one friend in the whole world. She felt foolish, because she'd done this to herself, but she knew she made the right decision.
The building was okay looking. Robin thought that most apartments all looked the same, whether they were in New York or Gotham or Jump or Steel. He found the buzzer with the last name Troy printed next to it and he buzzed it. He waited a few seconds and just as he was starting to wonder if she was home, her voice came through the speaker.
"Hello?"
"Donna. It's Robin."
She gasped in surprise. "Dick?"
"Um, yeah. Robin," he corrected uncomfortably.
"Hera, sorry, you're probably in uniform and I shouldn't use your real… Never mind, come on up."
The door buzzed and he let himself in. He could have gotten in, anyway. All it took to get into apartments nowadays was to demagnetize the locks on the door, which could be done by either draining the power or-
He sighed. He was nervous and distracting himself. He'd chit chat for a little while… obligatory questions about Wonder Woman and answers about Batman… and then he'd have to ask her about Starfire. There was no way she could forget shooting Star. He might be a little biased, but Starfire wasn't the kind of person that slipped through peoples' memories. She'd be able to tell him what agency she worked for. She might even know where she lived.
He climbed the stairs to the fourth floor, where Donna's apartment was. Her door pulled open a little. He pushed it open all the way. "Donna?" he called softly.
She appeared from around the corner and pulled him into a hug. "Dick! Hera, it's been a while. How is everything? You're still doing that Teen Titans thing, right?"
"Yep. Everything's fine. Actually, about the team, I was wondering if-"
"Dick, as much as I would love to catch up with you, you should know that one of my friends is here," she said quickly before he could divulge any information he might want kept quiet. "Well, actually, I picked up a roommate. You might want to meet her, actually. I think you'll find that she's pretty interesting!" Donna offered.
Robin sighed, slightly annoyed that this was probably going to take longer than he'd thought. "Isn't my being here gonna blow your whole Wonder Girl cover?"
"Nah, it's okay. She knows. Go in the living room, my roommate's in there. I just have to grab a few things; I'm setting up for a shoot," Donna explained, gesturing to the camera hanging around her neck.
"Yeah, okay. But then I need to talk to you."
"Sure, whatever you want." She gave him a little push toward the living room.
Robin rolled his eyes as he approached the living room and he could hear the annoying sounds of someone watching Jersey Shore. Then he stopped dead. He let his mouth fall open.
"Donna, I do not think that these shoes are-" Starfire stopped talking as she turned around and saw Robin in the door way. "X'hal. Robin."
He stood, frozen. He never in a million years would have expected that. Robin thought that generally he was pretty good at expecting the unexpected. Apparently, he wasn't good at that when it concerned Starfire.
He didn't remember moving, but suddenly he was in front of her. "What are you doing here?" he demanded, completely shocked.
She just stared at him, looking equally if not more shocked. "What am I doing here? This is where I have made my residence! What are you doing here?"
"Looking for you. And I must be better than I thought, because… well, there you are."
"You should not have done that," she reprimanded softly.
"What are you wearing?" he asked, gesturing to her dress.
She blushed a little. "I have… become a model."
"Of course you have," Robin muttered. "What else is a beautiful girl like you going to do in New York?"
"Stop that, Robin," Starfire ordered in a warning tone.
"Starfire, come back to Jump with me," he pleaded.
"No, Robin. I live here," she reminded him firmly.
"I came all the way out here to come get you. Doesn't that mean anything to you?" he asked, his voice pleading instead of accusing.
Starfire shut her eyes. He was getting to her. "I came all the way out here to leave you. Doesn't that mean anything to you?"
He stared down at her. "Why are you trying so hard to hurt me?" As he said it, a weird, cold pain seemed to spread out from his chest until it enveloped his body. Breathing hurt. Blinking hurt. Moving hurt. Everything hurt but looking at her.
She shook her head, blinking rapidly. "Robin…"
The way she said his name made a trickle of warmth pierce through the coldness. He needed that. He needed more of it now and he would need it tomorrow and the day after and the day after that.
She struggled to her feet. "I cannot… I must go…" She moved to take a step forward and her ankle bent beneath her. She cried out in pain and frustration and Robin kneeled to catch her. He was afraid that she would fight him like she did the day she left, but she didn't. She sunk into his arms and buried her head against his neck.
He pulled her closer to him. The warmth of her solar powered body made the cold pain evaporate. Her breath against his neck was driving out whatever rational thought he had left. He brushed his fingers through her silky hair a few times and she raised her head to look him. He wondered if he would ever think that the color of her eyes was ordinary. Even after knowing her for over a year and- until six months ago- seeing her every day, he was still surprised by just how green her eyes were.
Then they were kissing. His thoughts bunched together messily. He didn't know whether he started it or she did, but her lips were on his and her hands were around his neck and his fingers were in her hair and he hated that he wore gloves because he wanted trail his fingers over her collar bone because it was always covered and now it wasn't and-
"Athena's eyes! Dick!"
He also hated Donna right now.
Starfire jerked away from him and hovered above the ground next to Donna.
"What do you think you're doing?" she demanded.
"It's not like I just- I mean we're- we were-" he stammered, glaring at Donna and blushing at the same time.
"And what about you, Kori?" the Amazonian demanded, planting her hands on her hips.
Starfire just shook her head.
"Hera. When I said that my friend is interesting, Dick, I meant because she had superpowers!"
Robin narrowed his eyes at her and, realizing that he was still in the rather undignified position of kneeling on the floor, he stood and brushed himself off calmly. "I know that. She didn't tell you that she used to be on my team?" Robin looked at Starfire accusingly.
Donna turned to her. "No. She didn't. Why didn't you mention that to me?"
"I mentioned that I was not from around here…" Starfire mumbled guiltily.
"I thought you meant that because you were from, like, outer space." Donna crossed her arms over chest. She sighed. "I had her hair just the way I wanted it." She tilted her head thoughtfully. "But I guess this is kind of sexy. If you did anything to the dress…"
Robin stared at her. She was making him really uncomfortable. "Did anything to-? I'm not some kind of… of…" he stammered.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever," she said dismissively.
"Friend?" Starfire asked timidly as Donna inspected the dress she was wearing and fluffed the tulle at the skirt a little. "Might we perhaps move the taking of the pictures to a later-"
"Oh, no. I realize that I'm caught in the middle of something, but if you want to leave you're gonna do it after I get my pictures." Donna pulled Starfire back down to the ground and ran her fingers through her hair to tease it out a little in certain places.
"Leave? I never said that I was going to-"
Donna raised an eyebrow at her friend. "Okay, I guess I'm on the outside looking in and maybe I have this all wrong, but from what I can tell, you ran away from your past or your team or from him. And you've been found. You're either going back with him or you're bolting."
Starfire glanced at Robin nervously befre giving Donna a helpless look. "I would prefer it if he wasn't…"
"Fine," Robin grumbled moodily.
He stalked off into the apartment. From the front where Donna met him at the door, there was a hall to the left that led to the living room, a hall in front of him the led to a kitchenette and a door that was probably a closet or bathroom, and a hall to the right. He took that and it led him to the bathroom and two bedrooms.
He stepped into one and immediately identified it as Donna's. She had a pretty nondescript room, with a pale blue rug and a plaid bedspread and red curtains. Pictures of Wonder Woman and Queen Hippolyta were posted around the room. There was a framed picture of Robin, Kid Flash, Speedy, Aqualad, and Donna as Wonder Girl on the table next to her bed. The picture made him smile. There was even a picture of Starfire and Donna dressed in civilian clothes with their arms around each other's shoulders.
A look out Donna's window revealed the sun winking out behind the horizon. It got dark so early in winter.
He left the room and looked uncertainly into Starfire's. He glanced guiltily down the hall and ducked into the room. The walls and carpet where white and beige respectively, but the duet on the bed was white with bright pink polka dots and the pillows were bright pink, which confirmed that it was indeed Starfire's room. He had trouble imagining Starfire here. Living an ordinary life, doing ordinary things, eating ordinary food. Sleeping in a square bed instead of a round one. It seemed wrong for someone as extraordinary as her.
There were no pictures anywhere in her room, except for a framed one of Silkie on the dresser across from her bed. That stung a little, actually. She kept a picture of a mutant larva, but not of her friends? He would have been angry, but there was something about the room that made him calm. Maybe it was that it was so imbued with her. A pink laptop was resting on the dresser next to the picture of Silkie. He really wanted to hack into it and see what she'd been doing. Maybe get her IP address and track it back home. He resisted the urge.
He walked over to her closet. There were a few uniforms folded and stacked on the floor in the corner and a few of her purple boots were next to them, and he caught the sight of her headpiece she was wearing when she first landed on Earth on the shelf close to the ceiling. She had a bunch of different shirts, and Robin tried imagining her in them. She'd never worn anything but her uniform the entire time her knew her, except for that one time she'd one a pink prom dress, or when she wore that Tamaranean wedding dress, or that one time he'd come back from training with the True Master and he found all of his friends in his uniform… but she'd never worn normal clothes. He wondered if the shirts she had rested too high on her stomach like his uniform shirt did.
Feeling a little weird about rummaging through her closet, he stepped back and shut the door. He flopped onto her bed and inhaled the raspberry scent of her shampoo that lingered on her pillows. He heard a rustling noise as his head made contact with her pillow.
He stuck his hand underneath it and closed his fingers around the edge of a picture. It was of the five of them, and it had to be some kind of promotional picture. They were all ready for action- Raven's eyes were glowing white, Cyborg's cannon was engaged, Starfire had starbolts charged in her hands and her eyes were glowing, Robin was holding in his staff in an offense stance, and Beast Boy was crouched at Cyborg's feet, looking ready to pounce. It was a little crumpled from being under her pillow, and he wondered why he kept it there.
He leaned back against her pillow to observe it, the way she must have been doing before she went to sleep at night. He wondered if she thought of him. He wondered if she wondered if he thought about her. Did she really think he didn't? Did she think he would just let her go?
Robin leaned his head back against the pillow. He heard another rustling sound. He lifted the pillow and saw a small square right under the place where his head was. He took it and unfolded it carefully. It was a picture of the two of them. He remembered when they'd taken the picture. It was a long time ago. They'd been at the carnival and some guy was taking overpriced pictures and he didn't even want to get his picture taken. But Starfire had pulled him into a hug- not a tight one where he felt like his organs were being squished together inside his chest. It was a happy little hug, with her arms around his neck and he eyes squeezed shut and her mouth curved into a contented smile and her head tilted against his temple so she could face the camera. He wasn't even smiling. His mouth was open and he was very clearly blushing and the only reason he'd put his hand on her back between her shoulder blades was so that she didn't accidentally knock him over. He didn't even know she'd gone to get the picture after it was taken.
It was creased very deeply from being folded and unfolded often. He slid it and the other picture back under her pillow, rolling away so that he was lying horizontally on her bed. He was laying supine, and he pillowed his head in his arms.
When Starfire finally came in, the sun had set completely. She had those ridiculous heels in her hand, and he lifted his head slightly to look at her. She shut the door behind her and chewed her lip. He thought that you could probably cut holes in a garbage bag and put it on Starfire and she would look great. It was very distracting to see her standing in front of him in that dress. Personally, he thought it was a little ridiculous, with the corseted top and the silly tulle skirt, but it really did things for her. Made her look curvy. And Donna was right about her hair looking sexy. It curled around the nape of her neck and fell over one shoulder, where the red locks gave way to the deep black of the corset.
He forced himself to focus when she started talking. "You must leave."
He sat up and leaned on his palms. "No."
She stared at him blankly.
"I won't leave unless you come back with me," he informed her.
"Then you will have to live in my room, because I am not going back yet," she snapped.
Robin raised an eyebrow at her. "Okay," he said evenly. He lay back down on her bed, pillowing his head in his arms again.
"You are making jokes." She sounded annoyed.
"You offered," he pointed out.
"Robin, please," she begged.
He couldn't say no to her when she used that tone of voice. He sat up again. "At least talk to me, then."
She tapped her fingers together nervously. "Very well."
He narrowed his eyes at her. She was pacing in front of her door and she wouldn't come into her room any farther. She was also not looking at him. This was no way to conduct an investigation. "Would you sit down?" he asked, letting a little bit of annoyance creep into his voice.
She shook her head.
He exhaled violently. "Fine. I'll get up." He stood and leaned against her door. "Now will you sit?"
She glanced at the bed unsurely before sitting on the edge of it, facing him.
"Why won't you come back?" he asked softly.
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "I have not finished discovering your planet," she answered slowly.
He narrowed his eyes at her again. He almost wished she would say it was because of him that she left. He knew that was why, despite what she and Raven both told him.
"Doesn't it mean anything to you that I want you to come back?"
She went rigid. He didn't exactly mean start with that, but he couldn't exactly take it back. "We do not always get what we want," she whispered. She twisted the duvet in her fingers.
Robin pushed his fingers through his hair. "Fine, okay, whatever. Starfire, I've been wondering… Why did you kiss me before you left?" He felt all the emotions he felt back then rush through him again. Anger, betrayal, hurt, confusion, loss…
She squeezed her eyes shut. "I would like to apologize for that." She paused and opened her eyes tentatively. "Raven told me that I should refrain from displays of affection. She said that it would just be worse. But I wished for you to know how I truly felt."
"What do you mean?" Robin urged gently. She was getting upset, and it was getting hard for him to stay pressed against the door.
"I wanted you to know that even though I was leaving I still… cared for you." She exhaled slowly and the breath left her throat shakily.
He squeezed his eyes shut and leaned his head back against the door. Her words soothed an old wound even as they ripped a new one into him. There was silence between them as he tried to gather himself. "Do you still?" He tried to force his voice out, but all that he could muster was a hoarse whisper.
"What?" she asked, and he wasn't sure if she was surprised or she couldn't hear him.
He jerked forward and put his hands on the mattress on either side of her legs and bent to position his mouth in front of her ear. "Do you still care for me," he whispered again.
She leaned back to put space between them. She was looking up at him, her eyes wide and full of fear and worry and something else. Something much more familiar and welcome. Reluctantly, she nodded. "Yes," she breathed. She was still leaning back.
She looked so inviting leaning back like that. That and the look of raw emotion in her eyes pulled him closer to her. He kneeled in front of her and slipped a hand around her waist and slid it to the small of her back. He hovered his lips over hers before pulling back so that he was kneeling in front of her. He let his hand drop away from her back. God, he wanted her to say that again. "Yes, what?"
She looked surprised now. She sat up a little so that she was a few inches away from him. "I do not…"
He narrowed his eyes at her. "Yes, what?" he asked impatiently.
"Robin…" she murmured. She slid her hands over his shoulders and leaned into him. She tried to press her lips against his, but he pulled back. He just wanted to hear her say it.
He could still feel her breath on his mouth when he repeated, "Yes, what?"
"Yes, I care for you!" she shouted. "I care for you so much that it hurts! I care for you so much that it scares me! I care for you so much that even though I know that I should not be speaking to you or allowing you in my room, I do not care because when I am with you I feel as though a weight has been lifted from me that has present for the last one hundred eighty-four days that I have been away from you!" Her eyes shone with tears but she blinked them back.
Robin gaped at her. He was torn between knocking her back on the mattress and kissing her like it was the last kiss he'd ever get in his life and leaving because she seemed to need him to on some level.
The decision was made for him when she grabbed his shoulders and pulled him down by leaning back until her back hit the mattress.
He barely had time to brace himself on his palms so that he didn't crush her underneath him. She wrapped her arms around his neck until her elbows crossed. He kissed her hard and she slipped her tongue into his mouth. After a few moments he broke away and pressed feathery kisses against her throat and across her collar bone. He slid his fingers from her knee up until he hit the tulle on her skirt and then back down again.
She unhooked his cape from his uniform and wasted no time in undoing the clasps at his vest. She slipped her fingers beneath the Kevlar just under his throat and he made an annoyed sound in his throat.
"That's no fair. How do I get this damn thing off?" he demanded, pulling at the fabric of her dress.
Starfire smirked and rolled under him, showing her back. She pulled her hair over one shoulder, revealing a zipper. He grabbed it and pressed kisses on her neck as he pulled it down, revealing a strapless bra. He pulled the dress down her hips and when she rolled again so that she was facing him, he kissed her on the mouth again.
She tangled her fingers in his hair and slid her hands down to his shoulders. She rolled them both over so that she was leaning over him. She pressed kisses down his throat before stopping where his shoulder met his neck. She sucked on the skin there, probably forming a bruise. She licked the spot once before moving away from him.
"Hey," he protested, grabbing for her. "Get back here."
"Robin," she said softly. "Can we not sleep?"
He frowned. She couldn't just slam on the brakes like that! She looked slightly apologetic and very timid. He sighed. "Anything you want," he murmured, reaching up and pushing her hair behind her ear. "But if you don't at least put on pants, we're gonna have a problem." He let his eyes drift over her thighs, admiring the view while he had it.
She gave him a soft smile before rolling away from the bed. She returned a minute later in pink sweatpants and a black tank top. "Will you be all right with no pajamas?"
He kicked off his shoes and threw his shirt on the floor next to her bed. "I'll be fine."
She drew back the covers and crawled under them, and he followed her. She curled against him, rubbing her cheek against his chest and placing soft kisses against it. Robin put his arm over her waist stroked her hair with his other hand.
He woke up what felt like moments later, but the sun was shedding light in the room. She was gone. He swore and threw the covers away, as if he could expect to find her under them. He rolled onto his stomach and reached under her pillow. The pictures were gone. He cradled his face in his hands and let his head flop forward onto the pillow. He slid his shirt on and clasped his belt into place. He ran a hand through his hair and tossed his feet over the side of the bed before sliding them into his shoes. He fastened his cape into place. The only thing missing was his communicator.
He tried to sneak out the door with all the stealth he'd picked up from training with Batman, but Donna was in the kitchenette having coffee. "Dick?" she called.
He wanted to slam his head against the wall. "Yeah."
"You're still here?" she asked playfully.
"Actually, I'm here instead," he answered irritably.
"What? When did she leave?" Donna asked, sounding upset.
"I don't know. Somewhere between last night and this morning."
"She snuck out on you? Batman would be horrified."
"Shut up," he snapped. He closed the door behind him. He'd have to call her and apologize later, but right now he was going to get the hell back to Jump and try to forget that any of that ever happened.
Hm. I guess that was a pretty crappy deal for Robin. He's got… certain parts of his anatomy that are now blue… and he got ditched. Five more and blam, guys! If not, see you in a week! Here's your teaser:
The light from her starbolts turned the hallway green and made the part her light couldn't reach even darker. She was absolutely certain that someone was standing in that dark part of the hallway.
She made her voice low and intimidating. "I am giving you three seconds to come toward me with your hands above your head before I aim a starbolt at you," she growled in French.
There was no response. Maybe she was wrong. "Trois… deux…" she counted. She left a long pause and leaned forward before she finished. "Un." She balled her right hand into a fist and fired a weak starbolt ahead of her.