Authors: Lovely White Violets and Snaptdragon
Title: A Series of Unfortunate Events
Genre: Humor/Romance
Pairings: Starfire/Robin, Raven/Beast Boy, Cyborg/Jinx
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Starfire and Raven fall into a trap. With their luck changing from bad to worse, will the girls ever get out? Raven and Starfire friendship fanfic. Starfire/Robin. Raven/Beast Boy. Cyborg/Jinx.
Disclaimer:
Snaptdragon – "Do we own Teen Titans yet?"
Lovely White Violets – "No. We don't even own a car."
Snaptdragon – "So the whole World Domination thing hasn't really taken off yet, has it?"
Lovely White Violets – "... no."
Author Notes: Thanks for the reviews! Or, at least, the constructive/encouraging ones.
A Series of Unfortunate Events
Session 4: No Such Luck
If ever there was a day to recite the poem of Luck-Finding, it was today. Unfortunately, Starfire couldn't even find the poem in order to recite it. She was flinging things about her room in a frustrated attempt to find the scroll when Robin found her.
"Starfire, are you okay?" Robin asked, dodging an assortment of alien paraphernalia as he entered the room.
"How am I to find any sort of luck if I cannot even find the Luck-Finding poem?" Starfire wailed, still hurling things through the air.
"Why do you need any luck? What happened? You seemed fine when I left." Robin sat down on Starfire's bed and pulled her down to sit next to him. "Calm down. I shouldn't have left you alone, after what happened..."
Starfire shook her head, hoping to reassure Robin that what ailed her had nothing to do with him. Even though blacking out after touching the cake had been scary, it had been worth it to wake up to Robin's concerned face staring down at her.
"I am not harmed, Robin. I am simply frustrated."
"I've only been gone an hour... how much could go wrong in an hour?"
Starfire looked at him blankly. In the past hour, she had broken her favorite Tamaranian sculpture, lost her favorite pair of boots, spilled mustard on herself twice, twisted her ankle, and collected an assortment of bruises from running into doors, tables, and walls. And now, she could not even find her scrolls of Tamaranian poetry. She gave up attempting to relate all of these small disasters and was content to just stare miserably at Robin.
When Starfire didn't respond, Robin decided that it was definitely time to cheer her up. He racked his brain for a minute trying to think of anything that could make her feel better. "Hey, Star," he said, suddenly inspired. "Have you ever had ice cream?"
Three hours later, Robin was comforting the alien girl while she muttered incoherently over a bowl of "creamed ice." Between the laundry disaster and the battle with HIVE, this was the first chance he had gotten to talk to Starfire alone. While she had held her own in the battle, it was clear (to Robin, at least) that she was deeply bothered by everything that had happened.
Of course, as usual, Starfire didn't complain about anything. Her usual cheerful nature asserted itself and she pushed her own troubles to the back of her mind, to brood over and worry about. Robin had spent hours, sometimes even whole days, trying to get Starfire to talk about something that troubled her. Apparently, he thought, all it took was two cartons of chocolate ice cream.
"What is wrong with my uniform?" Starfire murmured to her ice cream, so quietly that Robin had to strain to hear her. "It is a lovely shade of lilac. It is easy to move in. It is easy to fight in. Not like a cape that can tangle one's face and hands and feet and..."
"There's nothing wrong with your uniform," Robin interrupted.
"Raven does not think so. She said it was 'repulsive.'"
"She just meant that it looked repulsive on her." It looks very nice on you, Robin added mentally.
"So you agree that it is repulsive?" Starfire asked slowly, jabbing her spoon into a scoop of chocolate ice cream.
Robin finely tuned battle senses immediately sensed a trap. "No, it's beautiful," he said quickly.
"So you think Raven is beautiful?"
Robin wondered if there was any answer that wouldn't get him into further trouble. "No, I think that your uniform doesn't exactly fit Raven," he said diplomatically.
Starfire frowned thoughtfully. "It is true that we are not exactly the same size, but I believe my uniform was able to fit her."
"I mean, it doesn't fit her personality," Robin clarified, hoping that he had dodged any potential questions of whether he thought Raven was thinner or had a better figure.
"That is true." Starfire took another bite of this "creamed ice" that had gotten her into so much trouble earlier. "But she did not need to be so unhappy. I tried to launder her clothing... how was I to know that her uniform was so flammable?"
"Don't worry about Raven," Robin said. "She's just having a bad day."
Starfire shot Robin a look that, due to a remarkable amount of restraint on her part, didn't include lasers. "Raven is having a bad day," Starfire repeated dryly before shoveling a huge spoonful of creamed ice into her mouth.
"Er... you're having a bad day too," he added quickly. "I just meant that you shouldn't worry that she's a little upset."
Starfire stood up abruptly, suddenly decisive now that her creamed ice was gone. "I must do what I can to end this 'bad day'. And to do that, I must find the poem of Luck-Finding."
"Wait," Robin stalled. If Starfire went back to throwing things around her room, she'd only end up even more frustrated than she already was. "On Earth, we have our own ceremonies for Luck-Finding."
"Truly? What must I do?" Starfire asked eagerly.
"Well, there are these green little plants that grow in patches outside. Usually they have three leaves, but every now and then, you'll find one with four leaves..."
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"Robin! I have located the 'four-leaf clover'!"
"Um, Starfire, that's poison ivy." Robin took the plant away with a gloved hand before Starfire could do herself any more damage. "And there are only three leaves."
Starfire glared at the plant accusingly, and sure enough, now there were only three leaves. Anger swelled up in her, and before she was aware of what was happening, her eyes spat out a shot of green light that reduced the plant to ashes.
Robin quickly dropped the remains. "Uh, where did you find it?"
"I fell into a patch of the ivy back there," Stafire related, pointing vaguely. "Why do you call it 'poison'?"
Starfire didn't have to wonder for long.
Robin had hoped that Tamaranians might not be susceptible to poison ivy. Judging by the red blotches that covered Starfire's skin, Tamaranians were very susceptible.
Once Starfire was covered with a sufficient amount of calamine lotion, Robin helped settle her into a comfortable position on the couch so she could watch a movie.
To Starfire's dismay, the rest of the Teen Titans decided to join her.
"Woah, Star, what happened?" Cyborg asked when he saw her.
"I was searching for the clover of four leaves and I--" Starfire paused as the itching became unbearable. She struggled to scratch her left arm through a heavy layer of lotion.
A black orb caught her hand before she could reach the itchy spot.
"Scratching makes it worse," Raven warned her archly.
Starfire pouted. "But it is very itchy."
Raven shook her head. "Now are you wishing you had a uniform that covered a little more of your skin?"
Starfire fumed and looked back at her hand, which was still held firm by Raven's powers. "You may release my hand now."
Raven frowned for a moment, the gestured at the orb while chanting her usual meditation chant. Still nothing happened.
Starfire shook her hand impatiently, and after another minute, the orb crackled and fizzed out of existence. With a sigh, Starfire leaned back against one of the couch cusions. And felt something attach itself to her hair.
With a shriek, Starfire jumped up, taking one of the couch cushions with her.
"Why is this cushion attached to my head?" Starfire asked unhappily.
Beast Boy looked sheepish. "Uh-oh."
"Uh-oh?" Raven inquired, looking slightly cheerful for the first time that day.
"Well, I was chewing some bubblegum earlier..."
Closer examination revealed that, indeed, a large wad of bubblegum was stuck to Starfire's hair.
"You know what gets bubblegum out," Cyborg said thoughtfully. "Sea water."
Five minutes later, as the Teen Titans stood beside the ocean (well, Starfire stood with her head in the ocean), Cyborg said, "Or maybe it was peanut butter."
Twenty minutes later, as the Teen Titans stood inside a grocery store, and as Robin applied a liberal spread of peanut butter to Starfire's hair, Cyborg said, "Or maybe it was tap water."
Fifteen minutes later, Starfire's head was in a public drinking fountain and Cyborg was staring thoughtfully at a lake.
Two hours later, the bubblegum was the least of Starfire's concerns about her hair. "How many substances have we tried?" she asked wearily.
"Thirteen, if you count the dish soap."
Luckily for Cyborg, when he finally said, "You know... I think it was sea water after all", Starfire only had the strength to collapse into Robin's arms.
On the way back to the Tower, Robin said, "Cyborg, if we hadn't tried all these "cures," I probably could have just made a solvent for it. Now, there's too much there to account for."
Starfire had enough strength to hear Robin's comment, and enough strength to think murderous thoughts about both of them, but she didn't have nearly enough strength to decide which was more deserving of an attack.
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"Trust me," Raven said.
Starfire fidgeted uncomfortably. "Of course I trust you, friend Raven." She nervously eyed the scissors that hovered in Raven's hand.
"We have fought in battle side by side," Starfire continued, unsure of who she was trying to convince: Raven, or herself.
The blades of the scissors seemed to gleam maliciously.
"You have saved my life on more than one occasion in such battles."
The scissors dove into Starfire's hair making swift cuts.
"I trust you with my life," Starfire squeaked, wincing her eyes shut.
"And I trusted you with my laundry," Raven muttered under her breath.
"What?"
"Oh, nothing."
A few more menacing snips.
"Okay, you can look now."
With great effort, Starfire opened her right eye.
If Raven had died her own hair a bright shade of red, then constructed a wig out of it, and placed the wig on Starfire so that the Tamaranian girl would think that Raven had just given her a haircut to match her own, then it would have been an incredibly brilliant joke. Cruel, but brilliant.
As the situation was, it was just cruel.
"I-I-I look like you," Starfire stammered.
"Well, the bubblegum was mostly in the back," Raven explained demurely.
"But this does not fit me!"
"Yes, well." Raven gestured to the lilac costume she wore. "I know the feeling."
For just the slightest moment, Starfire wondered how intentional this new haircut was. She concluded that Raven had done her best, but it still gave Starfire slight satisfaction to note that Raven's pale skin had developed a deep red sunburn from being outside.
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"It'll grow out," Robin offered, trying to be consoling.
At least he was doing better than Beast Boy and Cyborg, who were snickering a safe distance away.
Starfire sighed miserably and accepted her fate. Beast Boy and Cyborg, observing that she was calm, dared to approach the dinner table again.
"Has anyone noticed that Raven and Starfire are starting to look more and more like each other?" Cyborg asked cautiously, after dinner was over.
The other four members immediately dismissed this as ridiculous, but Cyborg insisted that Raven and Starfire line up side-by-side.
"Starfire looks pale now that she's covered in calamine lotion," Robin admitted reluctantly.
"And I guess Raven's sunburn makes her skin look more like Starfire's normal orange skin," Beast Boy allowed.
"And then there's the obvious, that I'm wearing Starfire's costume," Raven added acerbically.
"And I have Raven's cut of hair," Starfire said, with a slight glare at the goth.
The boys continued to stare at the two girls.
Raven fidgeted, not wanting to be the center of this sort of attention, particularly not when she was wearing Starfire's ridiculous clothing. "Can we get back to dinner now?"
"Dinner's over," Beast Boy reminded her with a grin.
"Then it is time for creamed ice now?" Starfire asked hopefully.
It had been a long day, and everyone was only too willing to agree.
"Creamed ice for everyone," Cyborg announced, pulling out three cartons of assorted flavors.
"Chocolate, vanilla, and... bubblegum?" Beast Boy read off. "Not strawberry? I thought we were going to have traditional banana splits!"
Cyborg shrugged. "Must've gotten the wrong flavor."
Starfire cast a resentful look at the offending flavor that had caused her so much trouble today, but Raven plucked the carton from Cyborg's grasp before Starfire could accidentally incinerate it.
"I'll take that," she said.
As the Teen Titans gathered around the dessert, Raven and Starfire both felt increasingly optimistic. Maybe tomorrow will be better. Maybe all of this bad luck has finally run out.
From a few miles away, two dark figures laughed at the innocence and absurdity of the thought, and in reply, they simultaneously thought, No such luck.