Disclaimer: Characters do not belong to me.
Author's Notes: My apologies for the delay. I hope ya'll enjoy, and thank you so much for all the kind reviews;)
Flying Home
by Kristen Elizabeth
"This is Princess Starfire requesting permission to land."
A man's voice replied to her request through her headset. "Permission granted. Welcome home, Princess."
Home. With numb fingers, Starfire prepped the shuttle for landing. It had only taken Cyborg a week to refit one of the five parts of the T-ship to take her across the galaxies, but during that week, she'd thought a lot about homes. What made a home? Was it where you were born, where your people lived? Or was it like Earth books and movies said, where the heart was?
Or what if both were true? Then, she supposed, she might have two homes.
But either way, Tamaran had been her home long before Earth was, and it was to Tamaran's comforting arms that she returned, older, less innocent, and nursing a wounded spirit.
She made a smooth landing, thanks to Cyborg's excellent mechanical skills. Starfire blinked back tears upon thinking of her friend. If she started, she'd never stop. Although she missed them already, she had to do this. She had to get better, get stronger, get over him. Only then could she ever return to her second home. To her dear friends.
"Robin," Starfire whispered, allowing herself one final thought of him before she steeled herself and stepped foot on her beloved planet.
A small welcoming party had gathered on the palace's wide landing strip to greet her, but she only made eye contact with one of them.
Galfore reached her before she even took two steps forward. Instead of yelling or tickling or any of their usual greetings, the Grand Ruler of Tamaran gathered her slender little body against his massive bulk.
"What has happened?" he asked, his voice rumbling.
Starfire let herself break down into tears, knowing that here, in the arms of her beloved "nanny," she didn't have to be strong.
"I had to get away from him," she sobbed. "He hurt my heart."
"Did we do the right thing?"
Hearing that, especially in such a genuinely confused manner, from Raven boggled Beast Boy's mind. He quickly recovered when she turned away from the window and looked at him. "Should we have let her go?" she asked.
After pausing his game, he replied, "Yeah. I think so. It's what she wanted. Or needed. Whatever." He let out a sigh. "I miss her already."
Raven didn't need to echo the sentiment; he already knew she felt the same. The way she'd been drifting around the Tower like a misplaced ghost ever since Starfire's departure was evidence enough that the girl who tried so hard to be emotionless was grieving the loss of her friend.
"Raven," Beast Boy started, tentatively. "You know…my shoulder's pretty good to cry on. Many a girl has shed a tear here." He raised it in offering. "If you need to…"
She cut him off. "I don't cry."
He lowered his shoulder. A frown darkened his brow. "Yeah, well…maybe you should!" Getting a reaction out of her, although it was just her eyebrows arching in slight surprise, fueled him on. "I know you think you've got to be little Miss Goth to keep your powers in check, but would it kill you to have a human reaction once in awhile? You're strong, Raven, you're really, really strong! I think you could handle it better than you think you could!"
"Since when did I ask you to do my thinking for me?" she shot back. "You have no idea how much I struggle every single day to keep from blasting us all into oblivion!"
"What are you fighting so hard against?" Beast Boy demanded. He crossed his arms over his chest. "Well? C'mon? I'm waiting! Tell me what around here could possibly work your emotions up to that point? Is it me and Cyborg fighting? Is it Aqualad tracking water up and down the hallways? Is it…"
"You!" Raven shouted. The floor shook a bit, but when she opened her eyes again, she could see that nothing had exploded. He was staring at her, his laughing eyes wide and shocked. Shocked into silence. She should have tried this years ago. Taking a breath, Raven added a quiet, "It's you."
"Me?" he squeaked. After coughing, his voice dropped back down to its proper pitch. "What did I do?"
"It's nothing you've done. It's just you." Inside, a little voice screamed at her to stop, but she ignored it. "I…care about you. I try not to, but I can't make myself stop." He opened his mouth; she cut him off once more. "Don't ask me for anything beyond that right now. I need more time."
Beast Boy blinked rapidly as he collected the scattered pieces of the reality where Raven hated him and he'd never even be able to make her smile. Knowing that she cared about him, perhaps even deeply, was unexpected. To say the least.
Finally, he nodded. "Okay. Sure. I mean…" Scratching the back of his head, he tried to chuckle. "I'm not going anywhere."
"Promise?"
His arm lowered and he nodded again, this time much more solemnly. "I promise."
With one final look, Raven left the room, her cape brushing the floor and giving her the appearance of floating. As soon as she was gone, Beast Boy fell back onto the couch with a huge grin.
"I knew she wanted me!!"
"It's about time you decided to wake up."
Bruce's face was blurry, but still recognizable. Robin closed his eyes and opened them again, hoping to clear his vision. "What's going on?" he asked. Was that his voice? It was so dry, like he hadn't spoken in a long time. "Where am I?"
"Take it easy." His mentor kept him down with a firm hand to his chest. "You're at the Manor. You've been in a coma for over a month." Bruce paused and when he spoke again, his words seemed heavy and forced. "My doctors weren't sure you were going to get up again."
Robin remembered it all then. The mission, to stop an alien race from enacting genocide on their neighboring planet. The battle with the entire Justice League. The attack. The pain. The darkness.
The dreams. Dreams of her. There had been wonderful ones where they never left his bed, making love for hours, perhaps even days. But then there had also been horrible ones that he couldn't seem to wake up from. Dreams where she was ripped apart by his enemies, made to suffer for his actions.
"Starfire," he said out loud.
"What about her?" Bruce asked.
"My head hurts," Robin said, ignoring the question as he regained control over himself. "How bad was I hit?"
The older man gave him a look. "I repeat. You've been in a coma for a month." He straightened up, still staring down at his partner. "What on earth possessed you to go off like you did? Without back-up? You could have been killed! You practically were; you just got very lucky. What if you hadn't been? Did you think about any of this before you rushed off to play the hero?" Bruce's eyes narrowed. "Did you think about her?"
"Can you just leave me alone?" He rubbed his aching forehead. Upon finding bandages there, he delicately explored them with the tips of his fingers. "I'm grateful for everything, but you're not my father, Bruce."
"No. But I am your partner. And I am responsible for your safety. If you don't want to answer to anyone for your actions, you should work alone." Bruce snorted. "What am I saying? You'd never last a day on your own. You'd charge into something headfirst and get killed on your first night."
Robin was too tired to argue. "Whatever, man." Closing his eyes, he turned his head away.
Bruce knew enough to know a dismissal when he saw it, although it was entirely foreign to him to be on the receiving end of one. Mystified, he backed out of Robin's room and straight into Diana as she was entering.
Catching sight of his befuddled look, so adorable on a man who never lost his cool, she closed the door and pulled him further down the hallway. "He's awake?! Did he say anything?"
"I'm not sure."
"What do you mean?" she prodded him.
"Just that. We didn't really say anything important. I told him what happened to him and he…"
"Oh Bruce." Her sapphire eyes looked up at him with disappointment. "You didn't scold him, did you?"
"Scold? Is it scolding to point out that his dangerous and thoughtless actions are what landed him in a coma for…"
She gave his arm what might have been a light punch to her. He winced in pain. "Great going. The idea was to get him to open up, not alienate him by jumping on his case the moment he opened his eyes!"
He scowled. "I've known that kid most of his life; if anyone has the right to jump on his case, it's me. He needs to learn that he can't do everything on his own."
"Because it's a lesson you've certainly taken to heart!"
Bruce stared at her. "When did this become an argument?"
"When you decided to be a stubborn ass of a man!" Diana turned on her heel and stalked back to Robin's door.
"What are you doing? He needs rest."
She paused with her hand on the doorknob. "No, Bruce. What he needs is someone to listen to him, and to really hear him. He needs someone to help him figure his life out, because although he's not a kid anymore, he still needs a little guidance. What he doesn't need is a lecture about everything he did wrong. I'm sure once he looks under his bandages, he'll feel properly chastised."
Bruce was behind her in a second, flattening his hand over hers on the brass knob. His entire body surrounded her, weakening her temporary flare of anger. This was what interacting with men got you, she could almost hear her mother saying. Letting one into your bed, fine. Letting one into your heart, though, only lead to trouble.
"You might be right," he murmured into the inky depths of her hair.
"Might be?"
"He doesn't need a babysitter."
"So." Her eyes closed as his lips found the sensitive nape of her neck. "What are you going to say to him?"
"I'm not." Seizing her shoulders, Bruce turned her around. "We are."
"We?" He'd wedged his knee between her legs, slowly stroking her passion from a spark into a forest fire. "What's this 'we' you speak of? Did we become a 'we' when I wasn't looking?"
Bruce locked stares with her as he pressed more of his body into her curves. "We've been a 'we' for much longer than I'd like to admit, Diana." His mouth moved to her ear. "We'll talk to him. Get him straightened out."
"Now?" Her fingers dug into his muscled arms. "This isn't exactly putting me in the right frame of mind to talk to Robin."
"Well, he is resting." He wrapped one arm around her waist and lifted her up. "We probably shouldn't disturb him."
Diana grasped his face between her hands, burning him with her heat. "No. We'll disturb him…later."
But Robin was already disturbed. When he tried to sleep, all he could see was Starfire's smile, all he could hear was his name on her sweet lips. He woke up again to the darkness of night, and lay in his bed, sweating and panting for breath.
"Starfire."
He had to see her again. He had to tell her everything.
He'd almost died without letting himself really live. And it was time to make a change.
To Be Continued
