((Rob/Star))
Keep Your Head Up
No, Starfire, Robin said for the hundreth time. Keep your head up when you shoot, keep your eyes forward. I don't want you to get hurt in a battle. It's important that you always pay attention to yourself first, your team second, no matter how much they need you. Never get yourself hurt. Only the team leader should worry about the team. Promise me, Starfire.
Starfire nodded, her red hair flying around her head in the wind, her green eyes warm with the joy of being outside on the training course with Robin that chilly October day, warm from the instruction and the safe feeling that came from being with Robin. She was actually happy, at home here. The safety of life and love could be heard in the whispering wind. She was safe as a small child at home, and just as well-loved by her friends.
A safe feeling, though, is one that is never meant to last.
Starfire thought back to that moment, thought to the laughs, the smiles, the warm jokes, his hands pulling hers up, his yells of "Keep your head up!" All of it was long gone and far away, and she could do nothing but shift in the hard metal chair, alone in Jump City Hospital's waiting room, her foot catching on the metal legs as she tucked it up under her, casting her eyes around anxiously, hating being alone. Alone because her friends were fallen. Alone because she had followed Robin's advice: Her head had been up, but the others had tried to save her. Their heads had been down, and their eyes had been blind to the tragady, their thoughts only of her. Only of HELPING her.
A sob came back to her, and the tears began their rythem of falling again. The desk clerk looked over at Starfire for the hunderth time that night: How had one Teen Titan escaped when the others were so close to death? And was this girl the type that would be able to go on without her friends? She walked over and handed Starfire a box of tissues, then returned to her post behind the desk in the otherwise-empty room. You didn't see too many cases when you worked late: Let alone cases like this one. The Teen Titans were well-known: She had been denying fans access all night, saying family only, even though she knew that this girl was the only one who would ever come to see them. They had stopped coming, leaving only the sounding tears.
Her head was down now, and her hair was matted. She tried to shut her eyes so she wouldn't have to see the blood covering her: Her uniform, once so neat, soaked in the blood of Robin from when she picked him up off the ground. The hospital had taken everyone else, but she herself had carried Robin until he had been pried from her arms. She had been hoping, wishing so hard that he would open his eyes, would speak to her, would magicly become Robin again.
It had been no one's fault, just a typical battle... Until Starfire had been cornered. Raven was the first to see, the first to react... She had come in, thinking fast, tried to hold Jynx back so that Starfire could run... And had been thrown aside. No one was even aware that she was bleeding: Everyone had thought she would be able to stand up again. Raven always got back up again, like a bird with broken wings that healed and learned to fly again. Raven, however, hadn't gotten back up.
She might never get up now...
Her breath is shallow. Very shallow. And something happened to her spine in the fall. She's lucky she's not already dead. The young intern had lifted Raven, putting her into the ambulence, apparently hoping his diognois was wrong. Starfire had heard someone whisper later that he was an enormous fan of the Teen Titans.
Starfire buried her head in her hands, tissues forgotten, Raven's face in her head, the last words Raven had spoken, "Azarath Metrion Zinthos!" ringing throughout it, bouncing off her skull. They sounded so laced with panic, so desperate to pull Starfire out of harm's way. Why does Robin wish for us not to protect one another? Why did Raven not listen to Robin?
Cyborg had seen Raven, seen her crash. Starfire had seen it in his face, the urge to run to her, but then he had seen Starfire and set his will power to keep moving. Jynx was having a few more problems with Cyborg than she let on, and Starfire had managed to dodge out of her corner, managed to free herself just as Gizmo went behind Cyborg, threw him into the wall, turned to her with a horrible grin. His hand fell over Raven's pale one, the human side of his face allowing it's own blood to mingle with hers, their hands touching, hidden from their friends by the rubble. Hidden from the breath of life by the rubble.
The robotic part of his body has been damaged beyond repair. We probably won't be able to do anything. Starfire heard that voice again of the doctor who had stood over Raven and Cyborg, talking to the young intern. Cyborg...
She couldn't do anything short of keeping her head down. The receptionist looked over at her. I wonder if anyone checked to see if she's in shock, she thought to herself. She's a team member too, after all. Even though she may be the only one to live...
Beast Boy had seen Gizmo and Jynx teaming up on Starfire, who was fighting back but losing terribly. Beast Boy left Robin to fighting Mammoth and ran over to Starfire. Jynx rounded on him, Gizmo continued to attack Starfire, determined to take her down. Beast Boy was fighting back and winning. "Not so brave without your gadgets, huh?" Beast Boy shot at him.
"Maybe not, snotmuncher," Gizmo shot slyly, "But here's a new toy I got." A rocket hit the now T-Rex boy directly in his chest. He flew off in the other direction, his body unready for the shock of the rocket. He landed on the ground, nine stories down, becoming a green and red mark on the black below them.
He's in serious trouble. Nine stories is no normal fall. He needs to be in the critical ward. I doubt he'll make it. Most of his skin is gone. It came off in slabs, practicly. They had hooked Beast Boy up to some sort of machine, leaving him in another ambulence, his head down, his eyes shut. Perminatly.
Her thoughts were of her friends, of her battle, the story, the horror of it all, replaying in her head, keeping the tears coming, hot and fast, tears she had never had a reason to cry. I have reason now, she thought, but the memories were not quite through tormenting her. She remembered the cruel, unjust end, saw the Boy Wonder in her head...
Robin and Starfire were backed together, their hands touching each other. "Keep your head up," he whispered to her, and then they were gone from each other, fighting the battle. Robin was intently winning when he noticed Starfire laying on the ground, the other two HIVE members standing over her. Robin lept toward her, followed by Mammoth, and pushed her out of the way. In doing so, however, he permitted Mammoth to get him pinned to the ground, punching every inch of Robin he could reach.
"Robin!" She had pelted Mammoth. Gizmo said something, Jynx had quietly hissed something back, and they had gone, all of them, leaving the all but defeated team in their wake. Starfire had gone directly to his side and flown with him. He slipped in and out of the real world, muttered words that made no sense, limp against her frail form, weak in her terrified arms.
How did he get like this? Are there any others? I can't belive... All of them? Except you? The nurse had stared at Robin, at Robin's limp, bloody form, and then taken him, prying him from Starfire's unwilling hands, screaming for an ambulence to follow Starfire's direction to her other friends.
"Your friends are asking for you, dear," a kind voice said. A white clad nurse looked down at her. "This way, if you don't mind," she continued to croon. Starfire finally managed to find her legs and followed the nurse down the hallway, the empty feeling inside her growing more profound with each doctor that ran past, each word she heard them exchange, all of them headed the same way she was. She gulped as one of the doctors stopped her.
"Listen, don't say anything to upset your friends. They just woke up and all of them, "his gentle voice dropped even further, "Are in pretty bad shape. Particuarly Robin. And Raven. The girl suffered complete brusing to her backbone and severe blood loss. Robin's body is bleeding internally. All are questionable. Come on, and remember, don't cry or anything. Just keep your head up. Stay strong." Suddenly she was in the room, among four beds, each bed baring her friends, hooked up to many different machines. Starfire wrestled there with her own emotions in the doorway. Remain strong. Remain strong. She chanted to herself, but a voice interupted.
"Star? You okay?" The voice asked from one of the beds. Cyborg's voice, the strong humor gone from it now. His dark skin looked so pale to her...
"I am fine, friend Cyborg. And you yourself?" Just keep smiling.
"My head feels like it's been pounded in, and my systems are shutting down, but it's nice just to be able to see you. Take care of yourself, you hear me?" He relaxed his head, quit straining to see her, his head limp to the pillow, the life all but gone from his eyes.
"I have heard you. And you must take care also," she said. Quickly, she turned away, her eyes full of tears, but they quickly had to be brushed away. Starfire turned away, but her alternate chosen direction was no better. Beast Boy lay there, the sight of him litterly tramatizing, the green gone, a mangled body in it's place, a bloody pulp. "Starfire?" The stranger croaked, but the voice was still that which should have come from Beast Boy's mouth.
"Beast Boy." She made herself move forward, taking his hand, the IV tangling one of her hands, as if enraged that she too was not hanging from the thread of life above the pit of death. "How are you feeling, friend?"
"About the same as Cyborg, only it's my whole body. Starfire, if I don't make it, keep being yourself. You've kept me modivated even when the whole team was having problems. Be perky for whoever you happen to find to be happy with." Beast Boy stared into her eyes. "Always keep smiling. I know everyone wants you to be happy."
"Nothing will happen, Beast Boy," she said, ignorning the doctor's words in her head. "And I will, do not worry."
"Good. That's what I like to hear." He turned away from her, eyes back to the wall, moving his arms appering to be a difficult task for him as he struggled to place them back at his side. As a result, he gave up and permitted it to stay there, still gripping the air where Starfire's warm life-filled hand had been.
Raven looked over, although all that moved were her eyes, her body apparently ravaging her beyond anything, her face almost contorted against the emotions that came to her, the anger and hurt of being so obviously far gone. Raven had the look of someone who had gone down fighting, but knew that fighting with anything but her emotions and her pain in these last few minutes wouldn't be worth it. "Starfire, come here." She said softly, glowing eyes and greyish skin standing out against the white montony of the sheets, of the walls and the single painting hung over the bed. Starfire sat obediantly on the edge of Raven's bed as she would have sat on Raven's bed in Titan's Tower.
"Starfire, I know I've never been as close to you as maybe I should have... But you've still been like a sister, in my room, my stuff, and in my life, smiling even when I wouldn't... When I couldn't smile... Listen, I know you're not going to understand this, that you don't want to hear it, that shock and grief are going to keep you from really hearing me, but thank you. For everything. You've helped me as well as annoyed, and everything was worthwhile in the end. Never lose your smile..." Her words faded, escaped, and her eyes shut, pain from hardly moving, the blood pouring from the open wound again, one of the machines beeping. The doctors shoved Starfire to the side, practicly off the bed, and she longed to run from the room where Raven lay dying, Raven who, on her death bed, had showed how much she cared. A tear started to run down her face.
Stand strong, keep your head up, no crying. She heard the words, a blend of the doctor and Robin's voices, echoing around inside her skull.
Alas, she couldn't run as soon as she heard the next voice.
"Starfire?"
She turned to him, came close to him, his skin blending with the pillow, his hair soaked with sweat, his teeth set, his breathing heavy. Blood was around him, over him, and she remembered the doctors said he was internally bleeding. "Robin." She sank down next to him, touched a hand to her hair.
"Starfire, I don't know how much longer I'm going to be here..." He placed one of his arms around her shoulders, and Starfire could see the veins pulsing, fighting to deliver the blood, could see the bones through his now nearly-transparent skin. She moved her hands around him, fighting the feeling of revulsion, ignoring the eyes of the doctors on her, seeing what she might be doing, but all she felt like doing was holding onto Robin, sheltering him, sheltering her friends from death, taking it upon herself to die in their place.
They refused to break away from each other for several long minutes, and when they finally did look at each other, there was pain in both of their eyes. "Starfire, I love you. This is the only time I'll have to say it, but I do love you..."
"Robin... I am feeling the Earthly love for you also." He whispered for her to put her face closer, and she did, their lips brushing, touching, Robin kissing with the intensity that he might have had if he could stand up. Starfire kissed lightly, afraid of this moment, the final feeling it all brought.
And then the meter went dead. Robin departed her life. Raven was the one to point this out to the doctors, her weak voice trailing off. "Robin... Check on Robin, I'm fine..." She hissed at the doctors, all of whom looked over in terror at where the Boy Wonder lay. "We're going to need to run a couple scans, but I'm pretty sure he's gone."
Starfire couldn't bear those words, and her booted feet ran from the room, ran along the road, ran toward the tower. Part of her wanted her friends to be there, acting as if nothing had happened.
I know they are gone.
The funeral was townwide, although Starfire was the only one there with any real right to mourn. She was the only one who knew them, knew them not just as protectors but as friends, as people with flaws, who knew that the half-robot had loved meat. She was the only one who knew about the true, caring emotions of the gothic girl running under the surface of her mask, of the lie she lived. She was the one who had laughed so many times, who knew how funny and interesting Beast Boy could be. And she herself had been the one to hold Robin as she died, had kissed him, had held him as he died.
She turned away from the new graves, tried to keep her feelings inside until after the crowd left. Choosing the tree directly above Robin's grave, using the rope plundered from his room, she tightened the knot on her own neck.
Within two days there was a fifth grave, the Teen Titans friends and lovers even in their death. The security was gone now. The smile was gone now. Her laughter could not, as her friends had hoped, grace anyone else. It was, instead, sent to them for the eternity they all had to look at their mistakes: Having a heart had been her mistake, living and loving and learning had been her mistake. What all said is true: Sometimes, it's easier not to care than to love someone so much it hurts.
Raventhedarkgoddess: And I see part of my dark muss has returned. Good. Not as good as I expected... Sorry.
