A/N: been awhile, hasn't it? let me say this: i HATE school!!!!!!!! with a passionate passion!! but on with the show! and btw, for all you people who are like, "where's warm bubbly Starfire?" uh...really sorry with this chappie. i have too much fun delving into the depths of characters, and this chapter's certainly no exception. hope it's worth the wait!
How Long Is Never?
Chapter 8
"Everything's so blurry
And everyone's so fake
And everybody's empty
And everything is so messed up."
--"Blurry", Puddle of Mudd
"Hey, Star! Isn't it a…a glorious morning?"
Starfire blinked, halfway through stepping through the sliding doors, as Beast Boy hailed her from the squashy, crescent couch. She could not for the life of her figure out why he had greeted her in such a way for a long moment; then, though, she recalled that it had been her own salutation. How times had changed, she mused, too tired to be disgusted.
"Yeah, Beast Boy…I suppose it is," she offered with a weak smile, taking a quick survey of the common room before she moved into the kitchen, relieved that Nightwing was nowhere to be found. If he weren't around, then she couldn't run into him, and perhaps all would pass in relative peace. Well, at least breakfast would pass in relative peace.
She had only just dropped two slices of bread in the toaster when Beast Boy scampered over, bobbing about like some over-eager, adoring fan. She adjusted her black skirt and cocked a small eyebrow at him. "You want something?"
The changeling's expression fell considerably, his arms hanging limply at his sides. "Come on, Star. What's happened to you? You leave for London, and when you finally, finally, finally come back, you're all…argh!! And…raahh!!!" He paired the yells with ferocious expressions and truly evil-looking hand gestures. "What did the Europeans do to you?!"
She couldn't quite contain a laugh at that last outrageous statement. "The Europeans did nothing to me," she assured him, laying a hand lightly on his shoulder for a brief instant. Her attention was soon distracted, however, by the toaster regurgitating the now-toasted bread. She scooped the pieces up, wrinkling her nose upon discovering they were rather burnt. Oh well. She tossed them on a plate regardless and after grabbing strawberry jam from the cabinet, took her food over to the table. Beast Boy followed her like a faithful hound (which he very well could have transformed into). "Actually, they were all very polite and nice. You should go there sometime."
Beast Boy's eyes lit up, but then he apparently remembered his objective, and he sobered. "So…then why are you so…un-Starfire-ish? You just got up and left that day, without a word to anyone but Raven (and God knows that she's not one for lots of conversation!), and disappear for five years! What…why…why did you go, Star?" He was looking at her pleadingly now, green eyes wide.
She sighed, her exhale disturbing her bangs and sending a few auburn hairs upwards. She did not want to discuss this with Beast Boy; nothing against him personally, but she didn't want to discuss this with anybody, period. So she dodged the question, careful not to look him in the face. "I don't know, BB," she said quietly, hoping the use of his nickname would dissuade him. Show him that a little bit of the old Starfire still remained, buried somewhere, waiting to be found again.
"You're not getting out of this one," Beast Boy said firmly, shaking his head and demonstrating unforeseen maturity and restraint. "Star…we're worried about you. Me and Cy and even Raven, though you could never tell with her. Is…" he paused, chewing on his lower lip, one of his fangs exposed. He heaved a sigh, fingers drumming momentarily on the table, stilling them before he looked at her as squarely as he could manage with her avoiding his gaze. "Was…" he corrected the tense and continued, "was it because of…Robin?"
The piece of toast was scorched beyond recognition as Starfire accidentally loosed a starbolt while bringing the bread to her mouth. Beast Boy leapt back in alarm, but she merely set her jaw and lowered the blackened crisp to her plate. She hadn't been very hungry anyway. She made to rise but the changeling grabbed onto her forearm, arresting her flight.
"No, Star," he said very seriously, his fingers tight and his expression resolute. "We're not gonna let you run off and hide. You're a part of this team again, and that means we watch out for each other. And what better way to watch out for one another than in a delightful game of Stankball?" he concluded with a grin, wiggling his eyebrows for added comic relief.
"BB…" she couldn't quite keep a mirroring grin from twitching at the corners of her lips. "I really don't think Stankball will—"
"Stankball can fix anything!" Beast Boy declared confidently, surging to his feet and pulling her along after him, toothy smile plastered onto his green face. "Cy!! Raven! We have a fourth player! Let's get this game going!" he called to their teammates, who were lounging on the couch and hovering in a corner, respectively.
"Oh, goody," Raven deadpanned, regaining her feet and lifting her hood into place. "A childish game played with a ball of repulsive socks. How could that not fix anything?"
"C'mon, this is a game, y'all!" Cyborg said, sending the angriest glare he dared in Raven's direction. "It's supposed to be fun. We're supposed to be happy and laughing and running around like a bunch of idiots! And while we all know BB does that anyway, let's—"
"Hey!! That hurts, dude!" Beast Boy whined, stamping his foot down in a very childish manner indeed.
"Let's go before anyone else gets insulted," Starfire commented glibly, rewarded with a trio of broad smiles for her display of humor, however sarcastic it might have been. Raven's smile vanished quicker than thought, but Cyborg and Beast Boy's remained firmly in place as the four Titans wandered out of the Tower and onto the open area of the island normally used for training.
"So how does one play this game?" Starfire inquired, squinting in the sunlight.
"Easy enough," Beast Boy replied, lifting the sick-smelling sphere like it was some sort of trophy. "The playing area is divided in half, like so—"he drew an invisible line across the center of the flat area "—and one pair is on that side, and the other on this. You'll be on my team, Star," he added with an obnoxiously obvious wink. "And, basically, the only object of the game is to somehow—I stress the 'somehow'—get the Stankball from one side to the other, short of carrying it over. So kicking or throwing or…whatever."
The Tamaranian frowned slightly. "But how do we amass points?"
Beast Boy chuckled. "Star, there are no points!"
"Of course there are. Otherwise you could not complain of losing so often," she retorted with a bit of a smug smile.
Raven choked on her laugh, turning it into a relatively innocent cough.
Cyborg stepped in. "There're no points, but you can lose. Whoever destroys the Stankball loses. Easy as pie. Speaking of pie, I'm hungry. What say we take a break and—"
"No, Cy, we're gonna play," Beast Boy said in an almost reproachful tone, hefting the ball in the air. "So let the games begin!"
Raven and Cyborg hurried to their half of the area, and Starfire took her position next to Beast Boy, settling into a crouch. The changeling smacked the ball like he was serving a volleyball and it instantly fell apart, scattering socks everywhere.
"Oh, BB, you lose!" Cyborg crowed from the other side, placing his hands akimbo and chortling deeply.
"Well, this is pointless," Raven observed.
Starfire lifted a particularly nasty sock from her shoulder and tossed it aside. "It would seem that the game is over."
"No, no, it's not!" Beast Boy protested, and he searched the area wildly for an appropriate substitute. His quick eyes settled upon a real volleyball, and he had snatched it up and returned before Raven could even walk halfway back to the Tower. "Rae, get back here! We'll play with this instead!"
"That's hardly a Stankball," Cyborg said critically.
"Nobody cares," Beast Boy snapped and heaved the volleyball in the air as before. "Fore!" he yelled as he struck it, clearly confusing this bizarre game with golf.
Cyborg apparently had no real issues with a non-stinky ball, and he dived on his metallic stomach, hitting the ball up before it even struck the ground. The volleyball whizzed far to one side, but Starfire was there, twisting in midair and giving the ball an almighty kick. It plowed back into the other side, bouncing up before Raven sent a whip of black energy to catch and chuck it directly at Beast Boy's head. The changeling ducked sharply, realized his error, and turned into a cheetah, chasing the ball down and pouncing on it. He morphed back to his human form and jogged into place, grinning widely, his fangs showing fully.
"Didn't I tell you this was fun?"
"May we never doubt you again," Raven muttered, waiting impassively, never moving as the ball was launched at her. Another whip of energy took care of it, and the volleyball rocketed back and forth with insane speed, the Titans all scrambling madly about the area to retrieve the ball. Some confusion ensued when both Beast Boy and Starfire went for the ball, and they crashed into each other as the ball rolled innocently to away. Beast Boy gallantly helped her up, both of them laughing uncontrollably as they dusted themselves off. They managed to send the ball back, though, where more hilarity occurred as Cyborg unscrewed one arm and used it as a baseball bat.
"Home run!" he yelled triumphantly, raising his arm in the air, the other firmly clutched in that hand, and Beast Boy fell to his knees, mock-worshipping the android for his creativity. Starfire turned to fetch the ball, but she stopped in her tracks when she saw Nightwing holding it.
Beast Boy rose hesitantly to his feet, glancing at the other Titans before he cleared his throat and forced a cheerful, "Hey, NW! How about throwing that back here and joining the game, huh?"
The de facto leader shook his head once, palming the ball in one hand. "It's noon, team. Time for patrols." And with that, he turned on heel and headed back into the Tower.
Beast Boy pouted. "He ruins all our fun," he complained, casting a quick look at Starfire. She was standing as she had been, all the laughter fading from her face, replaced by the pensive expression that had become the usual. "But I guess that's that."
Cyborg ran a hand over his bald head. "BB, take the south side. Raven, east side. I'll take the downtown, and Star, you can take the north. Okay?"
She started, as if broken from a trance, and managed a nod. "Sure, Cy," she responded shortly, taking to the skies. Flying without boundless amounts of happiness was a great deal more difficult, but she had found it not to be impossible. It just required total focus, and she had found that she could only sustain it for relatively short distances. Once she crossed the bay, then, she landed in the north side of Jump City and began her patrol, monitoring her communicator for alerts and checking the usual trouble spots, which Raven had detailed to her the day before.
But nothing really was happening; there had been a mugger in an alley, but one starbolt had seen fit that he wouldn't be robbing anyone in the near future. She had just dropped him off at the police station and returned to complete her patrol. She strolled through the northern outskirts of the city, glancing up at the new office building as she walked past it. Right before she loosed an explosive sneeze, she felt her nose twitch in a familiar way. But since her sneeze had nearly razed a patch of grass out of existence, she forgot to wonder about the familiarity. Another sneeze tore out of her, and she hurried along; the apparent allergy ceased afflicting her soon enough, and she lowered her hand from her face.
She had begun moving south on the bayside of the city when a sharp crack rent the air. It sounded almost like thunder, but it was too short and concentrated…she threw herself to the side, her bewildered eyes catching something burrowing into the pavement where she had been standing only moments before. That sound was familiar, more familiar than whatever caused her sneezing.
Gunfire. Her sniper had returned.
Starfire scrambled to her feet, head spinning in all directions to try to locate the sniper, hair whipping in her vision. And then another shot rang out, and another. She dodged blindly, the bullets impacting the concrete harmlessly, and yelled at the cowering passersby, "Get inside! All of you get inside! Move!"
The people needed no more pushing, fleeing into the nearest building and leaving the Titan alone in the street. She pivoted on the spot, glancing around frantically. Calm down, she ordered herself, forcing her mind to regain order. Now able to think more clearly, she glanced around surreptitiously before kneeling down to examine the bullet holes in the sidewalk. She had moved down the street as she had dodged, and the bullets had somewhat skimmed the concrete, leaving long furrows, which occurred at steeper and steeper angles…meaning that her attacker was somewhere back before the first hole. Starfire soared into the air, crossing the street and scanning the tops of the buildings. There. Climbing down the roof-access ladder.
Focusing sharply on flying, the Tamaranian increased her speed, eyes glowing green as she zipped past the ladder and wrenched the sniper from it with one deft motion. He let out a cry of surprise, and she landed on the rooftop, throwing him down heavily. His rifle skidded away, and she landed on it, breaking it in two with a defiant stamp of her boot. He cringed upon witnessing such a display of strength and tried to crawl away, but to no avail. She was at his side in a second and grabbing his shirtfront with both hands and hauling him into the air. This was the man who had shot her five years ago; this was the man who had indirectly set the following events into motion. If he had never shot her, Starfire would have never opened her mouth, and Robin could never have rejected her. She would be happier; and this man…this man…something within her snapped then, something that had been experiencing far too much pressure.
"Why are you doing this? Huh? Why?" she demanded, giving him a violent shake.
He clawed at her hands, clearly trying to break her grip, but he failed at that too and only got shaken again. "God, stop! I don't know! I don't know! It was just a job!"
"A job? You're an assassin? Then who hired you?" Starfire ordered, shaking him so hard that his teeth literally rattled. His reticence only got him thrown back onto the roof, hitting the concrete hard. She charged up a starbolt and aimed it directly at his face, close enough so that he could feel the intense heat.
"X'Hal damn it, who hired you?" she repeated, eyebrows rammed together and eyes blazing.
But the assassin remained silent, though whether in defiance or fear was unclear.
"Damn it, answer me!" she yelled, visibly shaking, tears of rage forming at the corners of her eyes.
Just then a falcon dove from the sky, transforming into Beast Boy seconds before it struck the roof. The Titan ducked into a roll and sprang to his feet, eyes darting between his teammate and the sniper. "Star, what the hell—what the hell are you doing?" He ran over to her, jerking her arms behind her back, which was no mean feat. "This isn't like you, threatening anyone like this, even a criminal! What's going on?"
"Why are you here?" she spat, still angry and twisting in his grasp. She wasn't nearly as enraged as before, though, or she would have simply thrown him aside as well.
"I got a call, something about a sniper on Maxwell," he explained curtly. "But even if this is the guy who's been after you, Star…you…you don't act like this," he repeated, unable to move beyond that.
Starfire felt her emotions go from shouting, violent rage to wracking sobs in the time it took for Beast Boy to finish his sentence. Her knees buckled, and she half-stood, half-hung from his grip as the tears poured unchecked down her cheeks. "Oh, X'Hal…I don't know…" she paused, choking for breath and repeated even quieter, "I don't know…"
Beast Boy caught her up, glancing worriedly over her head at Cyborg and Raven, who had arrived on the scene, alerted as well. Raven had imprisoned the assassin in black energy, and Cyborg's sonic cannon was in the process of returning to a hand. They both stared blankly at Starfire and sent questioning looks to Beast Boy. But the changeling could only shake his head in ignorance as one of his best friends broke down in his arms.
TTTTT
The Titans arrived back at the Tower, and Raven climbed out of the T-Car first, removing the assassin from the roof, where she had been holding him with her magic. Cyborg departed next after being reassured by Beast Boy that his help wasn't required. The changeling, though, stayed back with Starfire; while she had finally stopped crying, something of a weakness hung about her.
"I'm okay," she told her teammate, closing the car door resolutely as if that would sufficiently demonstrate her strength.
"Hardly," Beast Boy remarked, sliding his arm about her shoulders—he had grown quite a bit taller in her absence—and guiding her from the garage. True to his word, she leaned against him, walking with certain listlessness. Beast Boy could not imagine a time when he ever would have thought of Starfire as small, but now, like this, she seemed so incredibly vulnerable. Tamaranians were an emotional race, and to be under such emotional duress for so long had to be unbearable. He shook his head to himself and tightened his grip on her. If this really were all Nightwing's fault, he would rip that man limb from limb, leader or not, for willfully destroying one of his best friends.
As they entered the common room, Beast Boy glanced about, but there was no sign of the other Titans. They must be readying the sniper for questioning. He swallowed and chanced a glance at Starfire's face and was taken aback. He had never seen her eyes look both so full and so hollow. "You can go to your room if you want, ya know," he offered gently. "You certainly don't have to go witness the questioning. If you don't think—"
"I can handle it," she said quietly, emphatically. "Trust me, BB," she added, looking up at him briefly and smiling the smallest of smiles.
"Okay," he agreed, though he remained doubtful. He didn't think he had ever seen anyone go from total rage to total sorrow as quickly as she had, and he didn't think anyone who had done so should do anything but eat chocolate and watch comedies, but if she felt otherwise…well, she was Starfire, and he wouldn't be able to persuade her otherwise. So he led her to the elevator, and they ascended to Nightwing's crime lab, where the sniper was being questioned. The door slid open with a sharp hiss, and the assembled Titans turned to see who had come. Cyborg started to his feet upon seeing Starfire.
"Star, whaddaya doin' here? You don't need to—"
"Stop worrying, Cy," she dismissed; even though the tone she used hardly held any authority, the half-android still silently obeyed, taking the seat across from the sniper again.
Beast Boy protectively managed to keep her half in the shadows, a good distance from the prisoner. The only light was the glare of Nightwing's desk lamp, and Nightwing himself was standing beside the table, his hands propped upon it.
"Tell us who you were working for," Nightwing apparently continued, "and we'll tell the police to soften your sentence a little."
Beast Boy blinked. Yeah, right. Nightwing looked like he was about to kill the sniper bare-handed, not lessen his punishment.
"No! I can't!" the sniper insisted, glancing between Nightwing and Cyborg's hard, set faces frantically. "They promised I wouldn't get hurt; that if I did this, I would be spared! I can't rat them out—they'll kill me!"
"Trust me, you're safe here," Cyborg said, clearly anticipating some remark to the contrary from Nightwing, who did indeed look rather menacing.
The assassin shook his head again, obviously not trusting them in the slightest. Beast Boy felt Starfire tense against him, and he rubbed her arm comfortingly, praying that she would be able to keep herself together.
"We can take you to the police right now for attempted murder and endangering innocent people by shooting off a gun in public! Do you really want us to do that?" Nightwing said, his voice rising in volume.
The assassin quailed at the Titan's fierce tone, glancing between the leader and the half-robot again nervously. "If—if you keep them away from me…"
"We'll do our best," Cyborg stated, slanting Nightwing a warning glance.
The sniper nodded, took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. "Fine, then. They said they were from a place called…TestCom. That's all I know."
"Were you instructed to only attack Starfire?" Nightwing demanded, more anger creeping into his voice.
Beast Boy felt more than saw her look up at that, but he still caught a glimpse of her expression: surprised that she was mentioned, gratified, even.
The assassin stiffened, apparently anticipating the questioning over. He didn't look at the Tamaranian; his eyes were fixed on the floor. "Yes," he allowed.
"Why?" Nightwing ground out, a line appearing between his eyebrows, his jaw tightening.
"I don't know," he protested. "It was just what I was told, alright? Kill her; you others didn't matter. You weren't part of my contract."
"Just Starfire?" Nightwing pressed, fingers nearly digging into the metal table.
He nodded once. "Just her."
Nightwing straightened and made a sharp gesture to Cyborg. "Get him outta here and to the police. He's no more use to us."
The android nodded and with Raven's help escorted the sniper from the room. Beast Boy held his ground, Starfire watching the man go, and turned his attention to Nightwing. The leader of the Titans stood there, simply looking at the pair of them before he finally brushed by them, his face unreadable. It sounded like Starfire let out a breath she'd been holding, and Beast Boy tentatively steered her from the crime lab. "Let's go back to the common room, okay? I'll try to make you some hot chocolate, and all of us could watch a funny movie or something."
"Beast Boy…" she began, but he interrupted her.
"I won't take no for an answer," he said resolutely and with a ridiculously determined expression.
She sighed softly but nodded. "Alright. Although I'd prefer tea, really."
Beast Boy rolled his eyes. "First Raven, now you! Must be a girl thing."
Starfire nearly laughed at that, and Beast Boy smiled triumphantly as he led her away.