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softstarfire · 4 years

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Secret Apprentice: Chapter 5

The Star and the X

Chapter 4 - Chapter 6 (AO3) (FF.NET)

Summary: Starfire has a fun date with her new friend. She gets to feel "normal", “human”. Her happiness doesn't last long. As time flies by, her problems get worse. The rain won’t wash her doubts off and in the Tower her best friends are waiting for her with questions that she won’t want to answer. Will a strawberry dress make things better?

Chapter 5: The Star and the X

Red X and Starfire landed on the entrance of the mall. He had put on his mask and immediately clocked himself so no one would see him. “I haven’t been to this mall, but it was the most close one”, she turned around and couldn’t see him. “X… I am sorry, Jason?”, he took a minute before letting her know she was by her side. He had never imagined he would hear her call him by his real name. Could this become a regular thing for her? For them?

“Did I let him fall?”, she was walking around by his side with a worried look on her face. “I am here, but I don’t think I should enter like this”, she heard his voice and ran to him with her arms stretched out trying to feel his body and she did. She wrapped her arms around his body. “Jason! I am glad that you are well, I thought I lost you”. He held his breath in, why was she so happy for him? He exhaled. Everything about her was so different and new to him, he couldn’t understand her but somehow it made him feel warm inside. She stepped back and took his hand and flew him up. This time she only took him a hundred meters above the mall. With her free hand she took off his mask. “We are out of Jump City. We shall not be recognized”, he turned around to see Jump City miles away from where they were. He could still see the back of the Teen Titans tower. “You said it was the closest”, she avoided answering and flew down again.

Without letting go of his hand, she pulled him into the mall. It was a small one, it wasn’t too crowded and there were just a couple of security guards. Nobody seemed to care when they entered.

They walked into the first store they found. “We shall get you a new glorious fit of the out”, Starfire stated as she walked through the aisles. She stopped at the man’s side of the store. “What style do you prefer?”, she asked looking back at him finally. “I think I can do this by myself”, Starfire looked around. “There is one thing I haven’t planned”. She got closer to him. “I do not carry the money”, she whispered. He chuckled and took some out of a pocket behind his belt. “Slade payed me just yesterday, we may as well enjoy it”, he gave her the money and she looked at it amazed. “This is too much of the money!”, she tried to keep her voice down. “Stealing from the Teen Titans pays well”, he answered. She gasped. “I do not think I should use this money if it is-“, Jason put his hand back in his pocket and took out a black card.

“Here. My mh... I guess you could say, my dad? he gave me that card. He said I could use it in case of emergencies, and I think this qualifies as one”, he shrugged his shoulders. “Oh, you have a father”, her eyes opened up in surprise, “Well, he’s not actually my... It’s complicated. Just take it, the code is 1608”, she came closer to him. “Why is it 1608?”, he sighed at her question. “It’s my birthday”, he answered softly. “Oh! That is so kind from you father”, he didn’t answer. “Get some clothes and I’ll meet you at the ice cream shop, okay?”.

She took the card. It had Jason’s name on it. When he was about to leave, she hugged him. “I shall thank you for this plastic version of the money”, she gave him a kiss on his cheek and walked away. Jason froze on the spot. Lucky for him, she walked off without looking back at him.

After an hour Red X was ready. He walked to the Ice Cream shop. He was wearing black skinny jeans, black combat boots, a black t-shirt, a brownish leather jacket and a black backpack to keep his uniform in. He stopped himself a couple of stores before the ice cream shop. He looked at his reflection in a jewelry store. Would she like how he looked? Why did he care about it? He really wanted to look good, at least for her. He tried to fix his hair to make it look more casual. He ended up making it look a little like Robin’s, but like an I just woke up version of Robin’s spikey hair.

When he got to the ice cream shop, he looked around for Starfire but she wasn’t there, so he sat in one of the tables that were near the glass door and he waited. He looked at his brand new watch. Ten minutes went by and no one came in. 30 minutes. 40 minutes. 1 hour. Nothing.

Jason was half worried for her and half worried for the card he gave her. He got up and went out to look for her. He looked in every store of the first floor, but he couldn’t find her. He went to the second floor and repeated the same process. He walked around for another hour maybe, he looked at his watch again. 2pm already. They didn’t have much time to get to the museum, it closed at 5pm if it was like the one he used to visit when he was a kid in Gotham.

There was one place where he hadn’t looked: the hair salon. He slowly made his way to the place. The big glass windows let him see who was inside of the shop. He didn’t see Starfire in any seat, nor in the counter or in the back. Still, this was his last chance, so he entered.

The woman at the reception greeted him and asked if he wanted to get a haircut. He shook his head and kept looking around. A blonde woman saw him and approached him laughing. “Now you must be the boyfriend”, he looked at her confused. “I am looking for a girl mh... she has green eyes and-“, the woman cut him off and put an arm around his shoulders as she pulled him to the back of the salon where there was a white closed door. “Your girl is right here”, as the woman said that, the door opened.

Starfire came out of the backroom. She was wearing a short pink dress with strawberries all over it, white combat boots, her fully green eyes looked human, but they were still green. Her red hair was dark pink now and she had curled it just a little bit, so it fell gracefully past her shoulders. He was more than surprised, he was speechless, he was blushing for sure and his heart was beating faster again. “Fuck”, he thought as his feelings took over his whole body. “Oh! Jason, you were wrong when you said that I could change anything I wanted instantly. It took much longer”, she complained. Starfire walked out of the bathroom and went back to the seat where her other things were. She had changed her backpack for a pink one in which she kept all her secrets and now her purple uniform.

The hairdressers laughed at Jason’s surprised expression. He turned around to look at Starfire, but he didn’t move from the spot where the woman left him. “Go, kid or you’ll lose her”, he heard from another hairdresser. Starfire took her things and she walked to the counter. Jason finally moved; he almost ran to her.

After paying, the two teenagers walked out of the place. “You look... What is the world that Beast Boy uses?”, she asked putting her backpack on. “Oh yes! You look cool”, she smiled at him. He hadn’t said a word still and there were a lot of words that he wanted to say, but he couldn’t. “I like your jacket; it looks glorious on you. Do you like my dress?”, he cursed in his mind. Yes, he liked her dress but that wasn’t the only thing that he liked. “You do not like my dress?”, she asked. Her shoulders relaxed and she pouted again. Why was she being like this? Why was she acting like this? What did she want from him? “I like it, I... You look beautiful, Starfire”, that last sentence came out so softly that only she could hear it since she was just next to him. “Oh, thank you, friend!”, she hugged him, stopping them in the middle of the hall. When she let go of him, he felt his cheeks burning. He cleared his throat. “I wish to show this dress to Robin”, as she said that he felt a familiar feeling: jealousy. He had felt this for a while know, especially because of Dick. “We have to hurry, or we won’t get there in time”. He changed the conversation. Starfire pulled him to a hall that conducted to the emergency stairs. There was no one there. She took off her backpack and opened it. He waited, looking at her, taking in every detail of her face. He wanted to remember this moment with her alone even if it wasn’t special to her.

She showed him the button she took from Red S’s belt. He took it. Their eyes met as she extended her right hand and he held it on his right one. He stepped forward, closing the distance between them. She smiled once again and lifted him from the ground, making her way out through a window. He pushed the button making them invisible to those around them. Jason didn’t see her either, he could only feel her warm skin through his hand. And the wind. He could hear her giggling here and there. That was enough for him to imagine her smile, her hair and her face full of joy.

When they landed on a side of the museum, he pushed the button again. There she was. Her hair covered her face and she was laughing as she tried to push it away. He put the button in his pocket and helped her uncover her face. It was her hair. He thought it was a wig, but it was in fact her soft hair. “So, you will have pink hair from now on?”, he asked when he could see her eyes again. She shook her head. “It is not permanent. I can wash it off. Do you like it better?”, she asked tilting her head. Another one of those things Starfire did that had an effect on him that he couldn’t put into words. “I like it, but red is your color”, she giggled and now that sound also had that effect on him. “Now, how does this work?”, she looked at the big building beside them. “Haven’t you been on a date or something to the museum?”, she shook her head. “I haven’t been on a- Oh yes! I was in Robin’s date with that Kitten girl. It was a dance that was a date and I did not enjoy it first”, she pouted again. This time Jason took her hand and pulled her to the main entrance.

They were greeted by a security guard. The first thing that caught Starfire’s attention was the big T-rex skeleton in the middle. She was about to fly to it, but Jason pulled her closer to him. “No flying, Starfire”, he whispered. “But Beast Boy-“, she pleated pouting once more. “That’s not him, it’s a skeleton from a real dinosaur”, her eyes grew bigger and she ran to it. She walked in circles around it and only stopped when she saw a screen with a text about the history of that skeleton. She read it. While she read the text to Jason, he looked around. He counted the guards, the cameras and the workers. He even counted the public, there were a lot of kids since it was a Sunday. “They do not exist anymore? They did not mention that Beast Boy can turn into different types of dinosaurs”, she complained poking the screen trying to correct it. “Let’s move”. Jason pulled her away once more.

They spent hours walking around, she read everything she could, even the emergency signs. Meanwhile, he kept looking for the cameras, keeping track of every detail that could be useful to Slade.

On the basement of the museum, there was an exhibition about aliens. They detailed how the most famous ones came to earth and there was a miniature replica of the ship that brought Starfire to Earth. The Gordanian’s ship. Her eyes lit up and she held her right hand up with a starbolt ready to blow the replica. “Hey! Calm down, it’s not real. It’s like a toy”, he grabbed her hand. She hid the starbolt so he wouldn’t get hurt when he touched her. “They used me like a toy. They experimented on me and they hurt my people”, her eyes went back to normal and he could see tears starting to fill those emeralds up. She had probably burned the contacts, he figured.

Jason slowly put down her hand, still holding it in his. He sighed and looked at her, not knowing what he could say to make her feel better, what she had just told him was horrible and there was no possible way that he could compete against the pain they caused her. Her tears started falling down her cheeks and she just let her head down. He hugged her, putting his arms around her waist and she wrapped her arms around his neck. She sobbed in his chest for a while until she felt like the pain had washed off, at least for now. Then, she looked at him again, stepping away to see his face. “Thank you, X... Apologies, Jason. I feel better now, and I must thank you for being a good friend to me”, Jason just smiled. He didn’t know what to say to that too, but he couldn’t think about it for much longer because she leaned in and put a soft kiss on his right cheek. He immediately froze again. Those same new feelings came back. It felt like he had something going on in his stomach, but it wasn’t painful, it wasn’t

uncomfortable either. And his heart was beating faster. Also, his cheeks were probably red, at least a brighter tone than his regular pale color. He wanted to do something. He wanted to kiss her back but not on the cheek. What if he just leaned in and did it? It wouldn’t be a bad thing? Would it? She smiled at him and turned away. He was so focused on her that he missed the man that came in to announce that they would closing in 10 minutes. She nodded and went back to tell him. “We must get back to the lodge. Are we done with the checking of the security system?”, she asked. “Yes”, he walked to the door and she followed him. The two went back to the entrance. He looked around once more just in case he missed something. She was looking around too and when they got out of the museum she sighed. “I had so much fun, that I did not get to do the checking as well as I wished to do”, she confessed, her shoulders fell back down, and she pouted. Once again, he wanted to kiss her. “Robin always says that to remain focused is a great ability. I must say that sadly I lack that ability”, she giggled. There he was, Robin. There was no way that Jason could have Starfire. There was no way that he could kiss Starfire. She could only think of Robin. Robin this, Robin that. It felt like a harsh reminder that he needed to get back to his side of this game.

“You should get back to the lodge, I will get home on my own”, she looked shocked at his statement, maybe a bit sad? “Are you sure?”, she asked. Did she want him to stay? No, there was no way. “Yes, don’t let me keep you away from your Robin”, Jason handed her the button from Red S’s suit. She looked confused now. Maybe a bit angry? “Are you okay?”, she asked as she saved the button in her backpack. Now he was confused. If she was angry, why would she worry about him? He ignored her. “Jason, please, did I say something wrong? Is it Robin?”. Touché. “No, Starfire, it’s your Robin”, he turned around and ran away from her, she didn’t follow him this time. He was right, it was her Robin. That’s why he had to do it, he had to become the new one if he wanted a chance on a new life.

Starfire sat on a bench in the park until it got dark. Something about looking ‘normal’ made her feel different. Nobody recognized her, she didn’t have to fight crime or be with a masked Robin. She wanted to have a day like this one but with him, no masks, no powers. Just Dick and Koriand’r or maybe Kory with the human eyes.

She walked through the park until it started raining. She quickly tried to run for cover but there was nowhere to go where she was standing, so she stayed there. The water started washing the pink dye off her hair. She looked at it as she returned to her red-haired self. The dress got wet and she could almost feel her uniform back on her skin. She clocked the backpack, it was time to go home.

She walked through the park, then she ran and then she flew. The cold normally affected her powers, so she flew slowly until she reached the tower. She landed on the main entrance. She felt tired, she felt sad and because of that, she felt weak. Starfire entered the code on the panel at the door. There she saw her teammates; they were looking at her with confused stares.

Starfire entered into the first floor. She stopped just two steps away from the door. “Star, we have to talk”, Robin started. He had his mask on and his voice sounded sad? No, that wasn’t it. Angry? Not at all. What was it? What could he be feeling? Why was it so difficult to know his feelings? Oh right. She knew what he was feeling, at least what it sounded like. He sounded disappointed.

“Where were you, Star?”, Cyborg’s voice sounded disappointed too. “I...”, there was no way she could tell them she went to the lodge, that Slade was there, that Red X was there and then she had a date with the last one in a museum. Was it a date? That’s what it looked like. Like those movies she was always watching that Beast Boy passionately hated. Why couldn’t she have a date with the one she wanted to? “Where?”, Beast Boy sounded disappointed. “I was mh...”, could she tell them about the pink hair? What about the lenses? And the dress? She looked down. Her dress was all wet. “Tell us, Starfire”, Raven sounded disappointed. “I went shopping”, she tried fixing her wet dress. She wanted Robin to see her in that dress so badly and now he had seen her, but he didn’t say anything. Was it so bad?

“Look, Starfire...”, Robin walked up to her. The way he said her name sounded like how her mom used to call her before telling her to go to her room because she had done something bad. And in this case, she really had done something bad. “We saw you flying off today, you didn’t just fly away from the tower, you disappeared...”, he paused. He was really struggling to say what he wanted to say, but she already knew. And she was struggling too but she had too much pain inside to let it out. Robin looked away from her. Why couldn’t he look at her? “You hate me”, her shoulders fell, she looked down and sighed. “No, Starfire. We just want to know how you did that because...”, he paused again. Did she break Robin again? “Because you looked like Red X”, Beast Boy pointed out from behind Robin. “And after the weird encounter we had with him we wanted to know if you, mh...”, Cyborg paused too. Raven walked up to her. “Starfire is there any chance that you are working with Red X on something?”, the Tamaranean stepped back and they all looked at her like she had just confessed. “I am not”, she immediately responded, looking back up at them. Her eyes lit up for a second, but her feelings were too confusing for her to be just as angry as she needed to light them up for good. “Then why did you disappear just like he does?”, Robin asked. He came close to her once more.

She sighed. Why? The reality was that she did work with him and it got worse because he also was working with Slade. She couldn’t tell them about Slade, she had to protect her planet, and this was the best way. But Red X. Jason was different. He somehow had helped Robin once. Maybe she could make them see him as she did. As her friend. “Robin, you know he is not just a bad person. He helped us once. And when I needed it, he helped me too”, she explained tearing up. Maybe it looked like she was crying because of what she was about to tell them. Maybe they figured she was going through something. But the fact was that she was crying because she was about to lie to her best friends.

“When we fought him at the building he told me that he wanted to mess with us, with you Robin and with me that night that he stole the T-ship apart from taking it. But when he did not see me, he tried once again at the building. But he noticed that I was not myself and he asked why I wasn’t there the other night. I- I just told him the truth and he did not know how to react. He just listened so I continued talking. I was so sad at that moment that I told him that I wanted to disappear. That is when he touched my face, which Beast Boy saw from the window. But he didn’t just touch my face, he gave me something else. He gave me a button like the one in his belt and he told me to use it in case I felt like that again. That is why I used it today and it felt well... I did disappear. I felt better. I felt free”. At least she wasn’t totally lying. When she looked back at her teammates they all looked shocked.

“Star... I am so sorry you felt like that”, Cyborg was the first one to talk. “Me too, I didn’t know, or I would have been there for you”, Beast Boy joined in. “Starfire, we all would have been there for you. I am so sorry. I should have felt something. I should have helped you”, Raven came closer. Her three teammates hugged her and when they moved away Robin stood still in front of the alien princess. He walked up to her, he put his right hand on her cheek, caressing it with his thumb. “Starfire, you should have never felt that way. You brought us together. You are the heart of the Teen Titans. You can’t leave us. You can’t leave me”. Beast Boy hugged Raven’s right arm. “I am gonna cry”, he whispered. “Kiss her already”, Cyborg yelled. “We are not looking”, Beast Boy covered Raven’s eyes and she tried to push him away.

Robin kissed Starfire’s forehead, then he kissed her nose and when he was about to kiss her lips, he stopped. “I love your dress, Star”, she blushed. Her eyes closed as soon his lips were on hers.

The rest of the team cheered for them. Well, Cyborg and Beast Boy did. Raven was still trying to get BB’s hand out of her face and when she did, she smiled at the sight of the couple in front of them. “I’ll get the kids out of here”, she took the shape shifter’s hand and dragged him to the elevator, pushing Cyborg in the way.

When Robin’s lips left Starfire’s, she opened her eyes. “Is it too late to ask you and your dress out on a dinner night?”, Dick asked softly. Her teammates were already gone so the silence that surrounded them made his voice echo a little bit in the big entrance of the tower. “Robin, would you please give me some time to do the fixing of myself?”. She tilted her head. He smiled at the sight of her cuteness. “I’ll wait, Star”, she smiled back. “And Robin, could I get a date with Dick Grayson?”, she tilted her head to the other side. He chuckled. “Anything else?”, he asked jokingly, and she just shook her head. “Then Koriand’r and Dick are going on a date”, she clapped in excitement lifting herself just a bit from the ground. She held his hand and took him to his room as fast as she could. When she let go of him, she flew in small circles. He had never seen her this excited, he thought. And she got excited easily. “Go get ready, Star, or we will be dinning at midnight”, she nodded with her eyes closed. “I must get ready for our date”, she said that last bit slowly and then she flew away to her room. He stayed there for a bit just thinking about her. He was happy that she felt better, but he was sad that she felt so bad in the first place. When he was about to enter the room, he stepped on something watery. It was a tag from the store were Starfire had bought the dress. It said that it was a limited collection from the mall outside Jump City. It was not the mall were Starfire regularly went. There was something about it that made him wanna check it out, but he had a date to get to, so he rushed into his room and put it away with other paperwork he had from his investigations.

Back in Starfire’s room, she was trying her best to dry her dress. She had put the backpack in her closet, and she wasn’t paying attention to it. She was trying her best to get her outfit to look as good as it did in the afternoon. Then she looked at herself in the mirror. She looked almost like she did back in the mall. She turned to the door and when she was about to leave, she heard it. A beeping interrupted her happy thoughts. It was Slade. She ran to it and opened it. Slade appeared on the main screen. “Children...”, Red X was in the call too. “Plan A has failed. I am entering Plan B but I need one thing more. I need some things from the Titan’s tower that will help me contain your sister and I need the Tower to be empty in case she decides to attack you”. “I have to tell my friends”, Starfire answered worried. “No, we need to keep your friends out of this, so take them away from the Tower. Your sister has decided to come with me to Earth and I will try to debilitate her with Plan B, so she doesn’t put Earth in danger. But I need you to obey me or else the plan will fail too and then she will invade the Earth with no mercy. Leave the Tower and turn the security system off. We will get to Earth at midnight, be prepared”.

A/N: Chapter 5 is up! This chapter is so soft. I guess you can tell more about Jason in this chapter. I loved writing his struggle with what Starfire makes him want to be, because he also wants it but ugh. I really loved writing StarX. But my favorite part is when she opens up to the Titans about her depression. I loved how united the team was in the animated series, so I wrote it thinking about their unity and how much they cared for each other. Raven doesn’t like when her friends are in pain, so I think she would be so sad to know that Star felt like that and that she didn’t sense it. Also, Cyborh the OG RobStar shipper.

Chapter 6 spoiler: “I won’t hurt you”, he would never hurt her if he knew who she was.

#teen titans #robstar #starfire #robin #dickkory #redx #beast boy #cyborg #raven #secretapprentice #robstar fanfic #fanfiction #og teen titans #koriand'r #dick grayson

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softstarfire · 4 years

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Secret Apprentice: Chapter 2

Hide and Seek

Chapter 1 / Chapter 3 - (AO3) (FFNET)

Synopsis: Starfire is having trouble hiding things from her friends. As she tries her best to act as normal as she can, she starts to let some things slide and they all notice how weird she is acting. Things get worse after she gets a call from Slade in which he assigns her a mysterious mission. She flies to meet him, leaving her communicator back home. The Titans are confused when they find out she has left it and Robin is filled with guilt because he thinks it's his fault. When Starfire arrives to meet the masked villain she finds out she won't be going solo for this mission. Starfire and her partner are going to do something that she never ever imagined she'd do.

Almost a week had passed since Slade’s and Starfire’s agreement. She hadn’t heard from him and at this point she was getting really nervous. An idea popped into her mind as her team fought an alien invasion of tofu like people: she would go back home and deal with her sister herself if she didn’t hear from him until Saturday, the day that marked a week since they spoke. Since today was Friday, she had to tell him about this no-plan plan she had just come up with asap.

That evening she went home with her friends while her mind tried to find a way to contact him without raising any suspicion from her best friends. Lucky for her, the alien invasion had left a lot of homeless cows in the tower as the Titans called every place they could think of that would take them.

In the main area, her friends were busy calling every farm they could find in their data base. Beast Boy was trying his best to feed the cows and keep the space clean. Starfire stood there, in the back, just a couple of meters away from the main hall that took them to the dorms. She cleared her throat before speaking. “I shall call from my bed. I am most tired”, nobody answered. She stepped back and the automatic doors opened to let her in.

She flew back to her room. When she entered, she sat on her bed. The communicator was under her puff seat. She stared at the device for a while. She sighed, defeated. She had to tell him. So, she bent down and tried to get her hand under the seat. Suddenly her door opened. She fell to the floor, on her knees, pushing the puff seat. The seat fell too, covering the communicator but the photo stayed on the ground. Raven stepped in. “Are you okay?”, the empath asked. Starfire quickly took the photo and hid it inside her hand, turning it into a fist. “Yes, friend, I am well”. Raven nodded at her answer. “Robin said that we both should fly the cows to their new home”, Starfire looked through her window. “One cow at a time?”, she asked. Raven shook her head. “Cyborg has made a platform with chains so we can carry the whole thing with as many cows as we can fit in it. Are you in a hurry?”. Starfire knew that lying to Raven was not a good idea. Her powers allowed her to feel other people in a deeper way, she could notice that Starfire wasn’t telling her the truth. She could even get into her mind and find out about Slade. “Yes, I am. Robin has arranged a new course of training for me to do at sunrise. We have to hurry so I can get the most needed rest”. Raven started walking to the door. “I’ll wait for you at the rooftop”, the half demon walked out of Star’s room. The doors closed and the darkness filled the room again.

Suddenly, something vibrated and made a strange sound. She sat on the floor and picked up the communicator from under the puff. It was ringing. She heard Cyborg calling Robin and Beast Boy for help with the cows on the corridor. It got pretty noisy outside in a second as her team got the cows to the roof. She opened the communicator; there she saw Slade. “Starfire, the preparations are almost done. I need your help for something else. I will meet you tomorrow. I’ll send you the coordinates when the time comes for us to meet. Be ready”. She didn’t even have time to respond. The call ended and she quickly closed the device. Starfire hid it back where it was with the photo. As she walked to her door it opened again. It was Robin this time. “Star, we are ready for you to take the cows to a new farm”, she nodded and was about to past him when Robin quickly grabbed her hand. “Everything okay?”, the question came purely out of curiosity, but for the first time Starfire didn’t want to talk. So, she nodded once more and flew to the rooftop still holding his hand. “Star!”, was the last thing she heard. “Hey, Star! I can get there myself”, the boy wonder laughed a little bit.

She only let him go when they got to the top of the building. “What was that?”, he asked again as their friends secured the last details of the delivery. “Nothing”, she answered. “Sometimes I get lonely when I am flying by myself”, she smiled at him before hugging him. Her arms were around his shoulders. He put his around her waist. “I am always there with you”, he took a step back to point to the communicator that was attached to the belt on her skirt. The one marked with the T. “See?”, she stared at it blankly. “Star?”, Robin didn’t understand why all of a sudden Starfire looked so lost.

“We are ready!”, Beast Boy shouted. Starfire flew to one side of the platform without saying anything else to Robin. Cyborg had made a platform made of metal strong enough to hold 20 cows. Starfire took one chain and Raven the other. The chains were attached to both sides of the platform. They both lifted the whole thing and Beast Boy cheered. “Cy, you made it!”, the shape shifter yelled as the girls flew away. Robin looked at Starfire, she was acting weird. She didn’t make a comment on the cows, nor Cyborg’s last-minute creation. It wasn’t like her to just fly off on a mission without saying goodbye to her friends. Why was she acting like this?

The mission went well. Raven and Star couldn’t really talk. The cows were moving too much and they had to concentrate on getting them to their new home safely. When they came back, they were too tired to even say a word.

At sunrise, Robin waited for the Titans on their private training camp. The whole team gathered there to practice. The leader had created a new course with Cyborg’s help, and this was a very difficult one. Since Starfire asked Robin for help to get better, he started designing a new training program for the whole team. The team wasn’t complete. Starfire wasn’t there yet. She was in her room trying to hide Slade’s communicator in her regular outfit. She didn’t really know where to put it. In her belt, she carried the Titan’s communicator. She tried to disguise it there but a quick look at her and you could clearly see it. She looked at herself in a full body mirror, turning around again and again, trying to see if anyone would notice it if she clipped it to her glove, to her top, to her skirt. But anywhere she put it, everyone would see it. “Starfire?”, Robin called her name from behind the door. She let out a small gasp. Quickly she hid the communicator in the first place she could think of: inside her top. Since it was tightly closed around her neck and on her shoulders, she figured there was no way that thing could fall off. And it looked kind of weird, but she thought that no one would be brave enough to comment how it looked on her chest.

She flew to the door and received her best friend with a big smile. “Greetings, Robin! I wish you a good morning”, she hugged him for a second and flew her way out to the training site. Robin stayed there. He thought that it felt like if she was trying to act like herself, but she wasn't doing well.

The training was about to start. Beast Boy wanted to go first; he was still very excited after he saved the world from the tofu aliens. He jumped to the control center on the side, where Robin was standing behind the computers. “You go second, I think Starfire should go first!”, Robin said to the team, looking at Starfire with a playful smile on his face. The teenage alien flew to the starting point. She looked back at her teammates who cheered on her and then at Robin. “Ready, Star?”, he asked. She positioned herself on the starting line, eyes set on the finish line. Her eyes lit up as she nodded. “3, 2, 1, Go!”, Robin yelled and she flew as fast as she could.

Five rocks came from the ground and flew right her way. She immediately wrecked them apart with her green laser eye beams. Then she avoided fire balls thrown at her from both sides. Two very strong cables tried to pull her back to the start, trapping her arms and legs. She struggled for a second and then used her super strength to pop out of the one around her arms. When her hands were freed, she shot starbolts to the one around her legs. As she did that, lightning bolts started shooting at her. She avoided each and every one of them until she was just meters away from the end.

She turned around to find her teammates cheering her up from the sideline and in that same moment her chest vibrated. Slade was trying to reach her. Her eyes met with Raven’s. The half demon looked shocked. Starfire held her stare on her friend and then she moved her head down to see a small red light shining through her top. She couldn’t think about it for one second more because one lightning bolt shot her in the back and she fell to the ground on her hands and knees. Robin ran to her. “Starfire!”, everyone yelled as they went to check on her.

She lifted her head and looked at Raven again, she could tell the empath had seen something and as the fear filled her mind, she stood up. She looked at her friends for a second, backing off and then flew back to her room.

“Wow, she is not okay!”, Cyborg pointed out. “Dude! She has been acting off for a while now”, Beast Boy added. Robin listened to his team mates carefully, he noticed the same thing about Starfire: she was not acting like herself since the night that Slade got inside his head. “I‘ll talk to her”, the boy wonder walked away. “No! I will, I think I can help her”, Raven stopped him, putting her hand on the leader’s shoulder. “It’s just that we talked after what Slade did to me, so I think that maybe-”, he explained, Raven could feel how tense his body got. “Look, Starfire has been weird since then yes, but I feel like that is not the main reason why she is acting that weird. I felt it when we went to the farm, she avoided talking to me. She has used my powers before, she knows the more she says, the more I can sense when she is hiding something. And even thought she didn’t say much, I know she is”, Robin chuckled and shook his head. “You know Starfire is the most transparent person, she wouldn’t hide anything from us”, Raven just shrugged her shoulders and levitated her way to the alien’s room. Robin came after her, running as fast as he could. And when he got there, Raven was inside looking through the window. She was alone.

“Where is she?”, Robin asked. “I don’t know, Robin. I am telling you-”, Robin opened his communicator and pushed the call button. Raven’s lit up and made a sound but they both heard another communicator in the room. It sounded muted, like it was hidden. They both walked to the bed, Robin picked up one of the pillows and there it was, Starfire’s communicator. He sighed, sitting on the edge of the bed. “Why would she leave it back here?”.

The rest of the team got there. “Something wrong?”, Cyborg asked. Beast Boy walked inside the room and immediately noticed Robin’s attitude. “She left her communicator”, Robin answered. “Why?”, Beast Boy sat next to the leader of the team. “You think she is in trouble?”, Cyborg asked. “It’s my fault. When Slade poisoned my mind, I hurt her, she said that. She asked me to stop and I didn’t let go of her”, Robin’s shoulders relaxed, he looked at the communicator in his hand and he tried his best to stay calm, to keep it together. “Hey, you know Star is a strong girl. She will be okay. Maybe she just needed some time alone to think. Maybe she thought she was okay but today she felt like she wasn’t and that’s fine, she will be okay”, Raven sat on the floor in front of Robin. “Yeah, man, you know she likes to go to the mall, maybe she is there”, Cyborg added coming close to his teammates. “Or she went to get more mustard, you know she loves mustard”, Beast Boy said, trying to make Robin laugh and he succeeded. They all joked around for a while before getting back to training.

Meanwhile, Starfire flew through Jump City’s sky for a couple of minutes just in case. Then she looked at the screen on the communicator to get the coordinates. She had to go to the woods, the threes covered most of that was in the ground, so she used the coordinates to get to the right place. After a couple of minutes using her speed flying abilities, she found a lodge hidden in the middle of the woods. It looked modern and very mysterious even though the windows were almost as big as the ones on the Tower. If the coordinates were right, she was looking at Slade’s place. She flew down and stepped on the entrance. As soon as she got to the door it opened. She entered the house and the door closed after her. Slade was there in the entering hallway. “Hello, my child. I am glad you made it. You kept our secret, right?”, he asked as he guided her to the living room. She nodded and walked with him. The living room had an amazing view of the hidden paradise that surrounded the place. The furniture was elegant, everything was either black or made out of a dark wood that looked so sleek mixed with the darker color. It looked like one of those modern houses she saw on magazines.

“How was your flight? Did you find it easy to get here?”, he asked. “Yes, it is very hidden even from the top, but your message helped me get here with less difficulty”, she answered. As she talked, she could hear a door open inside the house, she heard steps approaching and then a familiar masked face appeared. “Oh, yes! I forgot to mention that you will be having a partner for this particular task”. Slade pointed out introducing her to the guy in the black uniform. “Hi, cutie! Time we had a date just for us, right?”, Red X spoke offering Star his hand. She crossed her arms around her chest as her eyes lit up.

“Calm down, child”, Slade put a hand on her left shoulder as he stood by her side. Her eyes went back to normal and she sighed. “Why must he be here? I can go to any mission you want by myself. I do not trust him”, Starfire stated firmly looking angrier than every time she fought Red X. “He knows just what he needs to know for this mission, and this is a task for two”, Slade walked away from the teenagers. He went to the living area and stopped in front of the big screen in the middle. As he touched the screen to reveal his plan to Starfire he explained: “You see, for this plan I need a distraction but a really good one. Red X has a very powerful suit that will make him almost unstoppable and the skills to trick anyone who gets in his way. While Red X is distracting the people, who will be protecting our target, you will get it out of that place. You know this place; it will be a piece of cake for you and Red X will join you for the great scape”. Red X sat on the big black L couch in front of the TV. “What place is it that you are talking about? And what is the target?”, Starfire got closer to Slade, standing beside him as she looked at the files he was opening. A couple more touches to the screen and a detailed plan with graphics appeared. In the center there was a picture of the Titans Tower. “You two are going to get the T-Ship out of the Tower”.

A/N: I loved Red X’s interaction with Star in the episode X, so I wanted to pay tribute to it by adding the word “cutie” into his dialogue. I love to play with the way he speaks, later you’ll see a lot more of him.

Let me know what you think! Hope you enjoy this episode <3

Chapter 3 spoiler: Who is Red S?

#robstar #redx #starx #starfire #robin #dickkory #robstar ff #robstar fanfic #teen titans #teen titans 2003 #fanfiction #secretapprentice #writing #dickkory week #robstar week

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