Okay, last one! Thanks for reviewing. You guys are great. And even if you didn't, and you're more of a slink in the shadows and appreciate from afar types, that's cool, too. Don't be afraid to drop my by profile and shoot me a PM or something, though. I want to know what you guys think! Right. On with the story!
Nightwing stalked through the Tower in his civvies. Since he and Babs split up a week ago, he'd been feeling restless. He missed the distraction she provided. He winced at his own thoughts. That wasn't fair to her at all. Maybe that was why she'd broken up with him.
It wasn't like their relationship didn't mean anything to him. They didn't see each other entirely often, anyway, what with her being stationed in Gotham and him in Jump. They both tried to get the other to move to their own city, but they were both stubborn. She didn't want to leave the Birds of Prey; he didn't want to leave the Titans.
That's what they were, now. The Titans. The 'Teen' had been dropped lately. Most of them were at least twenty-one- Changeling was nineteen, almost twenty, but even he'd changed his name from Beast Boy to Changeling.
They were busy as ever. The H.I.V.E Five had graduated to the Fearsome Five, whose members fluctuated but were always a hassle to dispatch. Kid Flash had taken his mentor's place as Flash, and he had duties with the JLA to take care of, plus his own apprentice, which was odd enough. He had his hands full without bothering with Titan stuff.
Speedy had gone on to be Arsenal, and he'd become something of a problem. After falling out with Green Arrow, he left the Titans to become a mercenary. Nightwing never looked forward to any confrontations with him.
Changeling was hitting a button on the controller to the Gamestation repeatedly while Cyborg watched grimly. "I know you don't think you can beat my high score," Cyborg was grumbling, tense as he watched his friend play through the game.
Raven was watching her boyfriend play the game, which appeared to be Halo or Call of Duty- Nightwing didn't play either very often and had a hard time differentiating- and she looked slightly disinterested. She'd switched back to her white uniform about a year ago, maybe a little more. However long she and Changeling had been dating; Nightwing couldn't remember at the moment.
He tried to grab the keys to his bike off the counter quietly, but there was no getting past Raven's empathic powers. She turned to face him. "Where are you off to?"
"St. Martinique," he answered, not bothering to come up with a lie.
She rolled her eyes. "Are you coming back tonight?"
"Don't know," he answered.
He used to sneak off whenever his friends were busy, or when he just needed a break. Sometimes he'd lie and say he was going back to Gotham, or to New York to visit Donna, or say he was going to train with the True Master for a few days. But they found out where he was going eventually. It wasn't long after they found out where he was going that they found out why he was going, and they were pretty angry with him for keeping it to himself.
That didn't stop him from going. And it especially didn't stop him from going on his own. The rest of his team stopped asking him to take them with him after a while. Raven and Changeling went a few months ago and used his beach house, a little one bedroom hut on the water. He didn't even want them to go, because it's hard for people not to notice a guy with green skin, but Raven told him he owed them and he didn't argue with her. He didn't rent the house in his own name, anyway. He got it under the pseudonym John Gray. So it wasn't thee cleverest of fake names. It did its purpose.
"Any shows coming up?" Raven asked, determined to talk to him at least a little before he left.
"Um, I think so. Maybe. I didn't check yet. I just need a break," he answered truthfully.
"Fine." Raven turned back to the television. "Go. We'll let you know if anything happens."
Now that he had permission, Nightwing walked leisurely to the garage. Even though he'd be going across the country and halfway across the Atlantic Ocean, all he needed was his bike, thanks to Cyborg's unspeakably awesome updates. The thing was not only a really cool looking bike- the new colors made it look really sleek- but it was practically a jet. It hovered and could go pretty fast, but he couldn't fly very high because of the changes in the atmosphere. Nightwing shook his hair out. He'd decided to stop spiking it and was considering growing it out, but he wasn't ready to take the plunge just yet. The only downside to not spiking it was that now it got in his eyes occasionally.
He slipped his helmet over his slanted domino mask and revved the engine on the blue, black, and gold bike before engaging the thrusters and jetting off the island. He didn't need to take anything- his hut had a week's worth of civilian clothes and a safe with enough money to buy a new Batmobile, if he chose. Unfortunately, he usually used it for much less interesting chores, like grocery shopping or getting more clothes.
And, not to forget, bribery. When he was in St. Martinique, Nightwing was used to constantly dropping names and money. He couldn't think of many things that were more satisfying than when the three syllables of his name could get him into a club or preferred seat at a show. Sometimes a different two-syllable name was needed, and while that wasn't as satisfying, it was usually effective. If he coupled the name with a small wad of cash, he could almost do anything he wanted. It was the same feeling he got when he was on patrol duty in Jump. Something of a power trip, but with the knowledge that he was using the power to help other people. Well, in St. Martinique, he usually used it to help himself, but he would give bartenders and waitresses and bouncers pretty generous tips. So that was something.
Nightwing landed outside his little hut a few hours later. He couldn't help but smile a little. The trip was shorter than a trip to New York on his old bike. Technology was great.
He could see the allure of St. Martinique. Although the annoying language the locals spoke wasn't quite French, and sometimes it took him a moment or so to understand what people were saying to him, it was picturesque. Tropical. Language wouldn't have been a problem for her, anyway.
He grabbed his laptop and propped it against his knees as he lay back on his bed. He typed her name on the keyboard without really having to think about it. His fingers were on auto pilot. Kori Anders, the pride of St. Martinique. The supermodel that popped up out of nowhere after a few shoots with Golden Girls jeans. The girl whose raw talent and beauty could bring any man with eyes and a libido to his knees. They said she floated down the runways. They said her eyes glowed in the light. They said her complexion never faded, even in winter. They said she had the grace of a cat and the fierceness of a warrior. Everyone wanted her- runways, designers, endorsements… She never took high end deals, though. She stayed with small shows, even though fashion week designers begged her to come to Paris, and the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show was ready to offer her the last run on the catwalk. It was like she was trying to keep a low profile.
Nightwing smiled at that. The futility of it was absurd. No model that looked like her or did what she did as well as she did it could possibly keep a low profile. Sure, her outright refusal to take any job that brought her to America or put her in American magazines or on American TV did a lot to keep her from getting as famous as she could be. But surely she had to know that he'd be able to find her.
Her digital footprint was surprisingly small for a model. Usually girls like that wanted to have a page on a website with contact information. But it looked like she chose what jobs she did and when she did them. But there were still ways.
She had amassed a group fans who gathered together on sites like tumblr and twitter. They'd post about what show she was rumored to have booked. They'd post addresses that they thought were hers, snapped pictures of her on their phones, helped each other try to find her. Nightwing had a special affection for these people. They made his job so easy. He could find her whenever he wished, just by doing a few searches on tumblr and sorting through posts that speculated about her diet or hair color or assets and whether or not they were real to find the helpful ones. They were so mundane looking, and they often would be of no help to anyone else trying to find her.
For instance: once he was having a particularly bad day and someone had snapped a picture of her in Denmark an hour before a show she was supposed to be in. It took some convincing, but he got Raven to teleport him there before she actually went on. She always went back to St. Martinique, and until a few months ago, he wasn't sure exactly here in St. Martinique she lived.
Then he found her.
It was a complete and total accident. He'd been out a little later than usual and he'd been drinking. He wasn't even sure what the drinking age was in St. Martinique. He'd been talking to a girl- one of the nameless, faceless distractions between Babs and Starfire- and maybe she was bringing him home or to another bar- he couldn't quite remember- but he saw her. He saw her and his breath was knocked out of him and sobriety was knocked into him.
It wasn't the sight of her that did it. He considered himself an expert when it came to looking at her. He looked at her on the computer, in foreign magazines, and at her shows when he could make it. Not to mention old pictures from years ago when they were younger. What made him so shaken was how approachable she was. She was maybe a hundred yards away, just her. She must have escaped whatever company she was keeping nowadays. She was wearing a bikini and a sheer skirt that tied in a knot at her hip.
He would have gone over there and spoken to her if he wasn't with that girl that he couldn't remember now, and he was glad that he didn't. Someone called her name and she turned to face them with a soft smile. A man around Nightwing's age with shoulder length gingery hair and green eyes and he knew it wasn't Roy Harper. A second man, a little younger than the first, with black hair and blue eyes and a slightly sulky expression came up behind them. The girl pulled Nightwing away before he could get a good look, though. He was able to squirm away from the girl after a few minutes and find Starfire again. The two men were walking away and she watched them before sitting on the sand and letting the water pushed onto the shore lap at her bare toes before receding.
9She went home after a few minutes, which was a really pretty but small hut type of house that was built over the water. It had a section of the floor made out of glass so that she could see the water beneath it, he'd discovered upon closer investigation. Not that he'd ever been in it himself. Really, that had to change this trip, and soon. Last time he came here, he'd had to leave before he could snoop around much, as the Titans were having issues capturing Dr. Light again.
Shortly after seeing her again he went back to Gotham and started dating Babs for the… second or third time, he couldn't remember. That made him feel like an ass. He picked his hand up to run it through his hair, forgetting that it wasn't spiked anymore.
From the look of things, and the flurry of excitement in her little group of ultra-devoted fans, she had a show tonight in St. Martinique. It wasn't that much of a coincidence, really. He thought she might. There was a show in St. Martinique this weekend and she usually appeared there. It was set to start at around seven.
He closed his laptop and leaned back against the mattress. He pulled out his Titans communicator and flipped it around his fingers for a minute. He made Cyborg turn off communications to his old one that was apparently missing after his… whatever it was with Starfire in Donna's apartment four years ago. But he went back and added the old communicator to a special frequency that could only be reached from his new communicator. He didn't know why he did it. She might not have kept it. The old communicator didn't show up on any of the trackers, so presumably it was broken.
But something made him waste two days setting up the special, closed off frequency. He guessed that he hoped that it wasn't broken and that she'd just disabled the tracking mechanism. She was surprisingly apt when it came to anything technologic. And he hoped that she would be able to find a way to charge it. If she wanted to charge it badly enough, it shouldn't have been a problem.
He switched to her frequency and pressed the talk button. "Hey, Star. I don't know where you are right now. I miss you." Well, he didn't know exactly where she was right now. He started out all his one-sided talks with her like that. Once he actually found out where she was, he couldn't just change it. "I told you that Babs broke up with me on Sunday. I know I told you that I wasn't as upset as I probably should be. But it's been kind of a rough week."
He paused. Sometimes it felt good to talk to her like this, even though there was a really big chance that she wasn't listening. He'd never done this while he was actually in St. Martinique before. He certainly wasn't about to mention that to her. He decided to keep it vague. "So I'm laying here in my civvies…"
It was 5:30, Atlantic Standard Time. Starfire was propped in a tall chair, her eyes closed gently as a makeup artist bent over her and brushed powder over her lids.
Around her, so many people were speaking so many languages that she was having trouble keeping track of who was speaking what and what she should answer with. French, Antillean Creole, and English floated around her as easily as water, and she understood every word. Although she was speaking more French lately than English, English was still her default.
"Miss?" Her makeup artist called, pulling away.
"Quoi? What?" she asked, using both languages, opening her eyes to look at the makeup artist.
"I think your phone is going off…" the slender man said in French, looking a little annoyed as he held a fluffy brush in one hand and a glass container full of white powder in the other.
"Je suis desolée…" she murmured, reaching into her pocket. It wasn't her phone. She stuck tiny headphones into the jack on the old communicator and Robin's voice filled her head like in her dreams. She closed her eyes again and the makeup artist eyed the wires, but didn't complain about it.
"…but it's been a rough week." There was a pause. "So I'm laying here in my civs and I'm wondering what you're doing. Honestly, I don't think about you as often as I used to, Star, and I haven't in a while. But I wish you were with me now. I could really use someone to talk to. Raven tries, but sometimes I get the feeling that she only knows what to say to be comforting and she doesn't really understand. And I know that you would."
She felt cool cream line her eyes and flare out a little.
"I feel like I'm slipping. Bruce is back, now, and Tim and Damian and I are close, but somehow I feel separated. Maybe it's because I left Gotham. I feel like I can't really relate to them. Which is nuts, because we were literally raised by the same guy. If I can't relate to them, then who can I relate to you? But, I don't know. The team is still together, but I think it's slipping. Raven and Beast Boy are really serious, and I think they might get married. Which is great, but who wants to be married and do what we do? Cyborg and Sarah, too. Sarah's great, she's really sweet, and she's supportive of Cyborg. But she worries about him. And he worries about her worrying about him. I guess the point is, we're splitting into three groups. And they all have someone else. But me…"
He sighed. "Not that I can talk. You're an alien. Seven billion people in the world and only a handful know the truth."
She was about to yank the headphones out of her ears when he added, "I hope you're okay. I hope you don't feel alone. I know it's been… God, years… but I'm always gonna be here for you."
She pulled the headphones away. He hadn't gotten sentimental with her in a while. She couldn't listen to this right now. Her makeup artist had been dusting her face with powder and he pulled away.
"Miss, if you would please open your eyes. It is time for the mascara."
She slipped the communicator in her pocket. She looked up as she went through the all too familiar routine. She was whisked away from her makeup artist and put in another chair in front of a mirror and her hair was pulled and twisted and flattened. The stylist went with waves that fell down her back freely, which was nice because she preferred to leave her hair down.
Then came the clothes. The designer thrust two outfits into one of his assistants' hands and spoke to her hurriedly. "Okay, Cherie," the designer crooned in a thick Parisian accent. "I have two outfits for you today. The first is gold with blue and black accents, like the sky in the morning. Okay? And the second one is black with deep blue and purple tones that shimmer as you walk. Like night. Okay?"
"Okay," she answered, trying to keep the mocking tone out of her voice.
He didn't seem to notice. "You have a makeup change between the outfits, okay, but the hair stays the same. Okay?"
"Okay," she answered, not bothering to hide her tone.
He still didn't seem to notice. "You will be perfect. I am the lucky one, eh? You are exquisite, Cherie. Okay?"
"Merci," she answered mostly to be polite and not because she was sincere.
He rushed off to consult another model.
Starfire unceremoniously changed into the first outfit. When she began modeling, she used to be shy about where she changed. That lost its charm quickly and by now she could probably drop her top in the middle of a mall if she had to. Okay, that was an exaggeration. But not by as much as one would think.
The first piece was kind of shapeless, but her curves gave it shape. The color against her skin had a nice effect, although she wasn't crazy about the piece. The shoulder pads made her feel like she was from the eighties, although when she slipped on the white heels and glanced in a mirror it looked pretty all right. It wasn't her favorite piece, but there were much worse.
She was lined up with other girls. Her position was near the front, which she supposed made sense if this first outfit was morning and the other was night. At seven o'clock, the designer walked out on the runway and introduced the show. Music with a strangely electric tone and a nice bass thrummed out and the first girl took off.
Starfire didn't feel nervous. She sometimes did feel nervous before a show, but this was a pretty small affair and she was mostly doing it because one of the designers she modeled for in larger shows knew this designer and recommended her.
Her turn came and she stepped out into the music and lights. One would think that it would be hot on the catwalk, with all those lights and the sheer number of people packed into the stadium. But the air backstage was so stuffy that out in the open the air was almost cool. As she walked, she kept her chin tilted up and she let the corners of her mouth pull up into a soft ghost of a smile. Normally, models smiled only rarely on the catwalk, but she decided to leave the edgier tricks for the second outfit.
She kept her footing light and dainty and she trained her eyes on a spot that was a little above what was comfortable eye level, in an effort to keep her chin slightly raised.
She got to the end of the runway and paused, turning to show the side of the dress and turning again to show the other side. She spun gracefully and made her way back to the other side of the runway. She could see the next girl coming toward her and she let out a small breath, knowing that the attention was probably on the newer outfit.
As she was going back, something caught her eye. It was a man. She quickly trained her eyes back in front of her. The room was filled with men. One shouldn't catch her attention like that. It was sloppy modeling to look into the crowd, anyway.
She passed above him and she could see him in her peripheral vision. His gaze didn't flicker to the other girl on the runway at all. His eyes were fixed on her. He had black hair. Noticing that made her heart flutter and her pulse jump. Even after years of separation, one guy has one thing in common with him and she gets all excited. She jerked her chin up and exited the runway.
When she finally stopped walking she was out of breath, which was odd. She felt herself blushing as she realized that just the sight of that strange man had done that to her. The assistant from before rushed over to her and thrust the second dress at her.
Starfire grabbed it and inspected it. This one was shorter, with a high neckline. With her body type, Starfire was used to modeling lower cut dresses with a slightly longer hem, but she was nothing if not versatile. She changed into it, liking the way the slinky material felt against her skin. It really did shimmer in the light- dark blue and purple sequins were clustered at the hem of the dress and continued up, becoming more and more sparse until they stopped appearing at all around the bust. She swapped her heels for ankle boots. The whole ensemble was very edgy.
She was taken back to the makeup artist, who dabbed on darker lipstick and a black and purple smoky eye. She was put back in line and found herself wishing she had the communicator on her to occupy her time while she waited, even though it was highly improbable that he would talk into the communicator twice in one day. He generally only did it once every two weeks or so, although it was hardly a regular thing. This week he'd reached out twice, although that was only because his girlfriend had broken up with him. She couldn't say she was sad about it.
Once she'd woken up at five in the morning to his voice flooding out through the circular device. He just spoke to her whenever the idea struck him.
That and her carefully stashed pictures were the only contact she allowed herself with her former friends. Truthfully, she was getting tired of doing this. She felt fulfilled, and she no longer felt like Robin was her only reason for being on Earth, which was the whole point of leaving in the first place. Now it was a matter of deciding when to go back. She couldn't just waltz back into the Tower and pretend everything was the way it used to be.
Besides, she was kind of hanging out with Jason Todd and Roy Harper now. Not that she really put much stock into their friendship. They found each other because they needed the company. They would probably understand if she left. Jason would, anyway.
A girl behind her pushed her forward. Starfire blinked and realized that she was up next.
She let her mouth tug into a determined frown and she let her eyes blaze a little, although, of course, not literally.
The girl in front of her turned to come back and Starfire took a step forward, going for a determined prowl instead of the dainty walk she chose before. She caught sight of that man again. She looked to the side and tried to cover up her glance it him by sweeping her eyes across the runway and tossing her hair back. She turned and arched her back slightly, careful not to lean too far back and slip. She turned again and flipped her hair over her shoulder before turning again. Her eyes met that same man's and she felt goosebumps crawl up her arms. She looked up and tried not to rush as she made her way off the runway.
She needed to go. Now. It usually took a while to leave, what with returning dresses and shoes and accessories, but Starfire found that one assistant. "I believe I am going to be sick," she said, holding her stomach for effect.
"Oh, God," the woman muttered, alarmed. "Um, do you need a bathroom?"
"I would rather change out of the dress first," Starfire suggested weakly.
"Of course. Here, I'll help you." The woman unhooked a clasp at the neck and pulled down a zipper. Starfire wriggled out of the dress and slipped on her own blue peasant shirt and dark wash jeans. She slid on her pale blue flip flops and returned the clothes to the assistant.
"Thank you," Starfire murmured before rushing off toward the bathrooms. She stopped in there even though she wasn't really feeling sick. She tried to wipe the eye makeup off, but it was a futile effort. She would need makeup remover.
She exited the building hurriedly, wanting to leave before she got caught up in the pedestrian traffic. She grabbed her purse and reached in it for her house keys. The main reason she got a house away from Jason and Roy was because hers was within easy walking distance to the studio. Of course, she could fly over all of St. Martinique in a few minutes, but that wasn't the point.
She unlocked her front door and stepped into her modest hose. Before the door even swung shut, she sensed something wrong. She narrowed her eyes and flipped on the light before putting her keys on the counter noisily. "Hello?"
Of course, there was no answer. She shrugged off her strange feeling and dug around in her purse for her old communicator. She closed her fingers around it and took it out of her bag. She studied it contritely. She felt guilty for not listening to everything that Robin said before. Not like she could really blame herself. In the four years that she'd been gone, she had to have missed some of his calls. If they could be called that.
She kicked off her flip flops and stretched, suddenly feeling tired. She went up on her tiptoes and arched her back, stretching her arms above her head, lacing her fingers together and pressing them out, closely resembling a cat stretching out after a nap. She held the communicator in her thumb, being careful not to drop it.
She froze in that position, muscles tensing. She definitely heard something. She narrowed her eyes and allowed light to flood in them, dropping her stretching. "Hello?" she called again.
The light from her charged starbolts turned the hallway green and made the part that her light couldn't reach seem 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.
There was someone there. She could see the outline of a man jumping out of the way. She didn't have to wonder about it for too long, because he flipped in front of her after dodging and grabbed her wrist tightly.
She backed away, wrenching her wrist out of his grasp. She was reluctant to throw another starbolt until she could determine exactly how strong her enemy was and how resilient he would be to her power. Plus, she didn't want to wreck the inside of her house. She squeezed the communicator in her hand and hurled it at the man, and he snatched it out of the air and held it in front of him.
"That's enough, Princess." Her eyes widened. That voice…
The lights immediately flicked off in her eyes and hands and her knees gave out from under her. A strong hand caught her by the small of her back as it held her wrist firmly in place. This was too familiar… She couldn't breathe. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to get herself under control. She sucked in a breath and stammered, "R-Robin…"
He smirked at her. "Actually, it's Nightwing now." She recognized the costume from her memories.
She shook her head. "Release me," she commanded weakly.
"But, Star-"
"Release me," she repeated.
Nightwing shrugged and dropped her wrist. She fell backward onto the floor and scrambled away from him. He raised an eyebrow at her. "I'm not going to hurt you."
She sat and pulled her knees up to her chest. There were a million things she wanted to say and she couldn't pick one thought out from the hundreds whizzing around her head. "You are here to ask me to come back?" she managed after a moment of floundering. That wasn't what she wanted to say. She wanted to yell at him for breaking into her house. What the hell?
He didn't answer right away. He clenched his jaw shut and sighed. "No. I'm not."
She raised an eyebrow at him suspiciously. "Then why are you here?"
He scratched the back of his neck, a gesture that was so familiar to her it made her a little weak. It was like he'd walked out of her memories into her life. "To see you."
She hovered in the air and landed on her feet. She meant to ask why he was in her house, not why he was in St. Martinique, but she was too shocked to correct him. "To see me?" she repeated.
"Yeah. In your… thing." He jerked his head vaguely in the direction of the studio.
"You were there?" she asked softly. Then, in a harsher, she added, "How did you find me?"
"It wasn't hard." He crossed his arms over his chest. "You should know me. I can dig up anything on anybody."
"I have been so careful…"
"Sorry, Star," he offered apologetically. "To escape from me, you'd have to swear off credit cards and internet. And, um, interacting with people who have internet."
She looked down at the ground. She didn't know if she should feel upset. How long had he known?
He cleared his throat and she looked back up at him. He was observing the communicator that she'd foolishly thrown at him. "Really? Someone breaks into your house and you throw a one pound piece of rounded metal at them?"
She blushed. "I suppose I am out of practice when it comes to combat."
"You kept this, huh?" He flipped the device in the air and caught it again.
"You already knew that I did."
He shook his head. "Nope. I didn't."
She narrowed her eyes at him. Slowly, like he was approaching a frightened animal, he walked over to her and kneeled in from of her so that they were eye level with each other. "I hoped that you did. I had to. Because the only other option was letting you go, and I wasn't about to do that."
She shrank back a little, putting her palms behind her and shifting her weight onto them. She looked at him, surprised and fighting back bubbly waves of joy, because she had too focus and when he said things like that it made it so hard to do anything except give herself to him. That hadn't changed in the four years she'd been gone. She narrowed her eyes at him. "You broke into my home."
"Yeah. Whoops. My bad. I thought it would take you longer than this to get home."
She frowned at him. "Why? Have you absconded with anything?"
A wide smile pulled at his mouth and she glared at him. "Uh. Sorry. I just love the way you talk. No, I didn't take anything."
"Then why?" she demanded.
He blew air out from cheeks. He was stalling. He reached up and scratched at the back of his neck. A blush crept onto his cheeks. It made her heart flutter to see him like that. She had to force herself to focus on the fact that he had broken into her house. Committed a crime against her. She could call the cops on him if she wanted. Not that it would do any good, because even if they apprehended him- which was unlikely, to say the least- he was a master escape artist. But still.
"Well?" she demanded, injecting extra force into the word. She raised an eyebrow at him expectantly.
"Because. I wanted to see if you still preferred your bedroom in pink. Or if you still hoarded those weird alien berries that gave Silkie mutant larva powers that one time. Or if you still put mustard on everything…"
She interrupted him, because as he continued it became harder and harder to remind herself that she was angry at him. "And you thought that the best way to do this was to break into my house?"
"Well…" He shrugged. "Yeah."
"'Yeah?'" she mimicked. "Truly?"
"Well, every time I try to talk to you, you run away," he pointed out. "So where are you gonna go next? Portugal? Romania? You can already speak Romanian, so why not, right?"
"Stop that," she murmured weakly.
"What about Prague? That's a city, not a country, but it's a beautiful place. Lots of people don't go there because of the language barrier, but that's not a problem for you. That must be really liberating, being able to go anywhere you want-"
"Stop it," she ordered more forcefully.
"-without having to worry about communication. Maybe you should try Paris, you could be in all the big Fashion Shows and you already speak French anyway-"
"Robin!" she shouted desperately. It was the wrong name, but she didn't care.
He stopped and lowered his gaze to look at the floor.
"You are doing the teasing of me."
He looked up at her. "What the hell do you want me to do, Starfire? Do you want me to beg you not to go anywhere else? Do you want me to pour my heart out so that you can reject me again? Do you want me to beg you to come back with me? Because damn it, if I thought it would make any difference, I would. But I know better than that."
She swallowed past a lump in her throat. "You said you did not come here to ask me to come back with you," she reminded him.
"I didn't. I've accepted now that you won't, but that doesn't mean I don't want you to."
There was a small silence between them. She couldn't say anything to that. So instead, she changed the subject. "I should call law enforcement on you."
He smiled and actually let out a quick, sharp laugh. "Go ahead." Then his smile faded. "Do you want me to leave? I will. If you want. You never have to see me again."
She didn't miss the phrasing. She never has to see him again. He didn't say 'I won't come here anymore' or 'I'll leave you alone'. Just that she wouldn't see him again. Somehow, she knew for certain that if she said yes, she never would. The thought made her stomach twist into a knot and sink slowly and the lump in her throat swell.
"Okay…" he muttered when she didn't answer. "I guess I'll take that as a no…"
She nodded at him. "You may stay. If you wish."
"Okay." He paused. "You know, I've replayed that day in my head hundreds of times."
"What day?" she asked, tilting her head. She'd replayed so many different days with the Titans in her head.
"You know. The day. The one where I yelled at you." He looked at the floor, unable to hold her gaze.
"You did not yell at me. You called me naïve," she corrected softly.
He winced. "Yeah."
She closed her eyes as though they were shutters that would keep her emotions in. She wanted to talk to him about this and she didn't want to sound like she was accusing him of anything. "I was naïve then. I was not angry at you for saying it. I was angry that you tried to use that against me. I was angry that you were angry at me for it. Because I thought you understood. I suppose that I was not angry as much as I felt alone. I felt as though I suddenly realized the person I thought understood me the best didn't really understand me at all."
"I let you down." His head was hanging now and his tone made her want to hold him against her until his voice could turn happy again. She bit her lip.
"It was not your fault. I feel that I would have had to do all of this anyway." She wrapped her arms around her knees and thought about leaning forward so that he would have to look at her.
"Was it really that bad, being with us at the Tower?" He was still looking down.
"No. It was nice. And I missed it so terribly when I left. But that is why I had to break all contact with you. My friends." Her voice cracked and she cleared throat. "I am not sorry that I did it. I feel much more fulfilled now. I feel like I have a…" She paused, trying to think of the correct word. "A niche."
He raised his head to look at her. "Crime fighting wasn't enough?"
She held his gaze. "It is different. You had your family. Beast Boy had the Doom Patrol and his adoptive parents. Cyborg had a normal life before his accident. I was completely shut in. Being Starfire of the Teen Titans was my only identity," she explained.
He didn't answer. He looked contemplative and sad. Starfire looked down because she couldn't bear looking at him like that.
"Perhaps Raven understood so well because she, too, left her old life behind her and embraced her role as a Teen Titan as her only life." She wound a lock of hair around her finger. She looked through it at him. "You never apologized," she whispered.
He narrowed his eyes at her. "Yes, I did."
She shook her head, still winding her hair around her finger. "No. Never."
He furrowed his brow. "I must have."
"No. You tried several forms of persuasion to get me to come out of my room- bribery, the repeated use of the word 'please', I believe perhaps a few threats, reasoning- but you never said that you were sorry."
He groaned. "Would it have made a difference if I did?"
She shrugged. "I do not know. Not initially. But perhaps I would not have been so eager to leave Donna's apartment. I kept thinking about how you were not truly sorry and how going back would be a mistake."
"Is it too late to apologize now?" he asked softly.
She stopped messing with her hair and shook her head no.
He opened his mouth to say something but closed it quickly. He shuffled forward a little and put his hand over hers. "Starfire," he murmured, "I'm so, so sorry."
She felt pulled to him like a magnet. She scooted a tiny bit closer to him. "I forgive you."
He furrowed his eyebrows and raised his hand to stroke her cheek. "I was so angry. That day at Donna's. When I woke up and you weren't there."
She didn't know what to say. She was surprised that she'd done it. She hadn't exactly planned on leaving like that. She had woken up early and he was still sleeping and she had the urge to go and she just did it.
"I tried to follow you, that first day. I wanted to go after you. But Raven stopped me," he continued. She knew that. He'd mentioned it over the communicator a few times. She didn't answer him. He trailed his fingers down to brush his thumb over her bottom lip.
"Starfire," he called, his voice low.
"Yes?"
"I'm going to kiss you." She blinked up at him, confused. "I'm going to kiss you, and if you leave after I do it, I don't think I'm going to try to find you again."
"That is fair," she whispered.
He leaned forward and pressed his lips against hers. She wound her fingers through his hair and pulled him closer into a rougher kiss. He trailed his fingers down her shoulders and over her spine until they were resting at her hips. She opened her mouth against his and he groaned and pulled back. "Wait."
She nuzzled her cheek against his neck. "Yes?" she purred.
"Star," he said seriously, "come on. I'm trying to tell you something."
She pulled back sulkily. "Yes?" she asked again.
"I want you to know. That I really… I think I…" he squirmed uncomfortably and she raised an eyebrow at him. "Starfire, I love you, okay?"
Her eyes widened. "Robin… Nightwing…" she corrected, stammering.
"No, it's okay. Call me Robin. For tonight. We'll make up for lost time."
She shivered, and it certainly wasn't because of the temperature. "Robin," she said again, enjoying the sound of it as it left her lips. "I believe that I, too, am in love with you."
He kissed her forehead. "It's okay, Star. You don't have to say it just because I did."
She narrowed her eyes at him. She pressed her torso against his chest and positioned her mouth so that it was next to his ear and her breath would tickle his neck when she talked. "One thousand, three hundred and forty-five," she whispered.
He leaned his head forward so that his hair brushed her forehead. "What?" he asked groggily, fighting the effect her proximity had on him.
"That is the exact number of days that I have gone without seeing you." She pressed a kiss against his neck and let her teeth graze the skin there.
He groaned and pushed her back so that he could trap her lips under his. He eased her down to the floor on her back and she let him press kisses against her neck. He nuzzled his cheek against her hair. "Your hair still smells like raspberries," he observed, sounding surprised.
She shrugged. "I like it."
"Me too," he agreed. He bent to kiss her before stopping without touching her lips.
She let out an exasperated sigh. "What is the problem?" she asked, pulling at his shoulders.
"Nothing." He pressed a quick kiss against her lips to soothe her. "It's just that I was thinking about tomorrow."
She raised an eyebrow. "Tomorrow may be spent in much the same way as tonight, if you would just-"
He laughed and took her fingers in his so that she would stop pulling at him. "No complaints from me there. But, Monday, then."
"What about Monday?" she demanded.
"Well, I have to go back to Jump by then," he told her, sweeping her hair away from her eyes.
She smiled and put her arms around his neck. "I wish for you to take me with you."
He grinned at her and traced his fingers over her collarbone. "You do?" he asked hopefully.
"Yes. I miss Raven so very much. And Cyborg and Beast Boy. And Silkie. I nearly came back for him when I was staying with Donna, but she was not allowed pets at her apartment."
"And…?" Nightwing asked playfully.
"And I suppose that I may have missed you a little as well." She held her fingers a few inches apart to indicate.
She pulled him down for a kiss but he braced his palms against the floor and wouldn't budge. "And?" he asked again, nuzzling her nose with his.
"And I wish to live out the rest of my days at your side, never to be parted for fear of heart sickness?" she tried.
"Good answer," he approved, pressing her against the floor under him as he slipped his hand under the hem of her shirt and captured her lips with his.
Yay all done! This was a long chapter. And I have even more to say, so stick around an extra couple minutes.
I broke Babs and Dick up. I know. I'm awful. They love each other. Shippers hate me… I think Babs is a perfectly fine character. I just… I don't ship Dick with anyone but Kori! Which is unfortunate for me, actually, because that man gets around.
I referenced Red Hood and the Outlaws. Oops. I didn't really mean too, it kind of just slipped into the narration. (Plugging the comic… Go read it! It starts off kind of… eh, in my opinion at least… but I love Red Hood and Arsenal and even some aspects of rebooted Starfire. But don't expect her to be like animated Star. Don't.) I kind of tried to blend all different kinds of universes, from original comicverse to New 52 reboot stuff to the future provided in the cartoon… which is also why I stationed Nightwing in Jump instead of Bludhaven. It's not an error. It's just a result of DC and their love of making things as convoluted as possible.
I think technically the island can be and is usually referred to as Martinique instead of St. Martinique, but I just picked up what Red Hood and the Outlaws was putting down.
Um. Guys. I have a confession to make. This nearly turned out to be a… a… a songfic. (thunder booms in the background) No but seriously. The song Run-Run-Run by Natasha Bedingfield. Really good. It goes, Oh I can run/ Yes I can run run run/ But I can't escape/ No I can't escape your love Which sounds a little creepy but the rest of the lyrics of that song are somehow bewitching and I always wanted to pay tribute to it somehow because it's the kind of song that can't come up on my iTunes without me wanting to play it twice. And, even though I have had this idea for a while, I was quite stumped about how to flesh it out… until another song happened. And that song… (Oh, I don't want to tell you guys, I'm going to be judged…) That song was… Nobody Compares by One Direction. I know! But it starts out You're so pretty when you cry, when you cry/ Wasn't ready to hear you say goodbye/ Now you're tearin' me apat, tearin' me apart/ You're tearin' me apart. And in the beginning stages I only had the Starfire parts planned out and that helped me have a kind of overarching idea for Robin. Ugh, judge me if you want. It doesn't make it less true.
Also, guys, this was supposed to be way angstier than it turned out to be. I originally had Robin move to Bludhaven instead of going back to Jump and didn't have him let Starfire come with him when she asked. Maybe that would have been a better ending, I don't know. It's what I planned for originally, and because I was so into, I never checked my outline and got caught up in just writing and completely forgot about that. So huh.
Last thing, I promise! I sometimes leave oneshots and stuff at loose ends. And I know this isn't a oneshot, but it was supposed to be. And it's the most open ended thing I've written in a long time. I could probably be persuaded to write a (real) oneshot as a conclusive partner to this one. I'm not sure what the rating would be… But if you guys want, I can see myself churning out a oneshot after this. I don't usually ask you guys directly about stuff like that, because I know that not everyone likes to review. But I don't want to make a companion piece for this if I'm going to be the only one who's going to read it. I have other things that I can work on. But the idea kind of intrigues me. Let me know what you guys think, and I'll see what will go down. If you review, I will let you know via PM if I'm going to make a companion for this piece, and I will probably update this super long author's note, too. So look out.
Okay. I really have to go now. Thanks for reading, you're all wonderful, even you non-reviewers. (You guys never get enough love.) Let me know what you guys think, and maybe possibly endure my self-plugging and check out my profile for more RobStar stuff. Catch you guys later. It's been real. Peace out. Shoo.
