Cyborg always thought it must be difficult for Raven, being friends with Starfire. Not because Star had any negative personality quirks; unerring optimism aside, she was everything a person wanted in a friend. He watched the relationship between the two morph, from one-sided admiration and mild annoyance to mutual understanding and respect to a loving bond between sisters. They loved one another in a way that only two girls could, two beings of estrogen in a testosterone-dominated world. But it was more than that; they understood what it was like to live in a world so completely different from your upbringing. Raven hid it well (and certainly had more experience with Earthly culture) but the truth was she had barely spent anymore time on this planet than Star had. The boys, varied pasts aside, had all been born and raised on Earth and could never relate to either girl on that level.

The two could often be heard conversing in foreign languages or discussing one cultural peculiarity or another. Raven explained many of Earth's more baffling phenomenon, though she herself couldn't fathom the reasons behind some ("But I still don't understand why it is acceptable to wear such revealing clothing at the beach but not in other venues." "That one's still lost on me too.") and Starfire was able to keep Raven fluent in all her languages, as well as add new ones to the growing list (how Star was able to attain all those languages, however, was something Cyborg would not dwell upon). They each drew comfort in the other's mutual alien status and from this grew a strong bond of friendship that went beyond simple understanding.

Still, all this aside, Cyborg still sometimes felt a pang of pity for his dark-haired pseudo-sister. Because he couldn't imagine it was too fun to be constantly in Starfire's shadow. The public loved Starfire; she had fanclubs and admirers. Every time the team left the tower she was approached by one young man or another (and some not-so-young men that needed pulled aside by himself) and little girls who wanted to be her and older girls who wanted to look like her. She was admired both for her heroism and good-nature as well as her beauty. Cyborg could never see her as more than his sweet, slightly eccentric little sister, but he openly admitted that she was gorgeous. And a very obvious type of gorgeous as well. She was tallish, thin-but-athletic, tan, and with all that hair and a pretty face she had all the makings of a model.

If high school had taught him anything, it was that girls mercilessly compared themselves to one another, and he doubted that Raven was any exception. He didn't believe she was jealous of Starfire; she was too mature and good-natured (albeit begrudgingly so) for any sort of envy to taint her relationship with the princess. But as the only other female member of the team she was constantly compared and contrasted (mostly the latter) to the other girl, and the majority of the time she ended up in Star's shadow, quietly basking in the girl's glow. It wasn't that Raven was unattractive (far from it, if the sideways glances of a fellow teammate were any indication), but her beauty was less obvious than Star's. Her fair skin and unique coloring, not to mention her softer, more fragile form (though she certainly could never be called fragile) would have been the pinnacle of beauty...a century or two ago. She also downplayed many of her more feminine characteristics, most likely as to not appear 'weak' or 'fragile.' He remembered the first time he saw her without her cloak and hood, legs drawn up to her chest and eyes wide as she asked him about various equipment in the medical bay. They'd just gotten back from a run-in with the H.I.V.E. Five and Mammoth had left her cloak in tatters and her wrist sprained. She'd healed it herself, but he'd insisted he look it over himself to be safe. She sat on one of the infirmary beds after he finished and questioned him about some of the more advanced technology, and when she tilted her head and tucked her hair behind her ear he was struck by how pretty she really was.

He'd considered telling her, throwing her a compliment he doubted she had ever received, but he didn't think she'd appreciated it so soon into their friendship. Besides, not thirty seconds later Robin had walked in for an update and she'd immediately sobered her expression and adjusted herself to a more dignified posture, effectively replacing the tiny, pretty songbird with her stoic namesake once more.

Still, she deserved more attention than she got from the media and public. She was never one to put much stock in the opinions of others, especially those who only knew her based off the 5o'clock news, but Cyborg thought she still might like a little (keyword: little) attention now and then.

It was for this reason that when Cyborg noticed the paparazzi covertly taking pictures of the team as they hung out at the beach, he didn't say anything. And the next day, when the cover of the local gossip magazine featured his dark-haired teammate in her blue bikini and sunglasses with the caption "The Hottest Beach Bodies" he may have broken one of the unspoken rules of the tower and brought home a copy and threw it on the coffee table.

[Disclamer: I own nothing anybody would want. ]