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oxsugarxcoatedxo · 5 months ago

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RobStar Week 2024, Day 2 - Power Swap/Role Reversal

(So I have a whole lore dump/backstory for this but the tl:dr is basically that Starfire escaped the Gordanians and crash-landed on Earth the same night Robin's parents were killed leading to a bit of a switcheroo where Batman left the circus early to attend to the crash/invasion and found and took in Starfire and the Gordanians, desperate for something they could bring back, snatched up lil' baby Robin instead and he got liberated by a Tamaranian rescue sortie led by Galfore, who later adopted him. There's a whole big political negotiation that happens between Tamaran and Earth and the The Citadel, facilitated by the Justice League blah blah blah anyway it leads to the kids getting to be placed on a team together eventually.

With all that out of the way, onward!)

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"Will you please take this seriously?" Starfire complained, exasperated.

Grinning, her human boy companion rolled out of his nonchalant handstand and flipped back off the top of the air conditioning unit to the rooftop.

"Where's the fun in that, Princess?" he teased.

She rolled her eyes and sighed long-sufferingly. She couldn't begrudge Robin, really, he had been raised by her people, his happiness was infectious and reminded her of herself, in her own childhood. Before the mask. Before... everything.

Still, she reached over and tweaked his ear, earning a yawp from him.

"May I remind you we are not here for 'the fun'?" she said, then grimaced at her own idiosyncratic slip. All of Alfred's grammar lessons and her head still couldn't quite untangle English. "This Slade is very dangerous."

"So they say," sniffed Robin, but he sobered up enough for her to get a good reading on her T-communicator without distractions. The boy watched over her shoulder as she held up the device to the abandoned warehouse.

Her scanner beeped. Satisfied, Starfire opened the channel to their other teammates. "There is no sign of the chronoton detonator here, Cyborg."

"Not here either. I've checked the whole east side of the docks. Starting to think Slade might be sending us on a wild goose chase."

Starfire frowned. "We should keep looking. I do not wish to call his bluff before we have solid proof."

"Raven and I are almost finished with the wharfs," reported Beast Boy. "We'll keep our eyes peeled."

The line clicked off. Silence reigned for a moment, uncomfortable and oppressive.

Starfire bit her lip, staring off vacantly into the distance, trying to think the problem through.

A soft hand met her shoulder, and she blinked out of it and looked over at Robin.

His bright blue eyes were comforting. "Hey," he told her sincerely, "we'll stop him. Whatever he's planning to do."

She sighed. "That is just it, though. What is he planning to do? Why announce his plans for the chronoton detonator at all? Why not just simply set it off?"

Robin dropped his hand and shrugged, adjusting his utility belt and checking the contents—small Tamaranian throwing knives, colorful poppers, a traditional warrior Tag'rok stave that he had somehow modified to be collapsable. "Some villains like the thrill, like watching their enemies scramble. Like feeling clever, like they've outsmarted their opponent."

She accepted his logic, giving a small nod. The thing that was bothering her the most was that her nose was completely fine, not a single itch or sniffle. The main component of a chronoton detonator was a metallic chromium core, which she as a Tamaranian was allergic to. (Bruce had found that out the hard way, when he tried a new alloy for her wrist bracers, trying to find something that wouldn't melt under the heat of her starbolts.) If the detonator was anywhere in the docks, she should be able to track it. It would be miserable, but entirely doable.

She explained that to Robin, thinking out loud.

"But then if Slade is sending us on the wild chase for the goose," she mused anxiously, "what is his real plan?"

"Now that would be telling."

The new voice, low and dark, put them immediately on alert, both their heart-rates spiking as they scrambled to see where it had come from. Robin gripped her wrist with one hand, a fistful of throwing knives in the other, and Starfire pulled out her own staff—a simple steel bo—holding it out warily in front of her.

Slade stood there on the rooftop ledge, having somehow materialized there when they weren't looking. His single eye was staring straight at her, with an eerie gleam she found... uncomfortable.

"I'm impressed," he said, stepping down from the ledge. The two teens each took a reflexive step back. "You figured out the ruse much sooner than I expected." His gaze was raking her over, appraising, approving, like that of a proud parent. "But then you were trained by the world's greatest detective."

She bristled at the witheringly sarcastic tone Slade had used for her adopted father's title. Mouth dry, nerves fluttering with little tingles of fear across her arms, she hefted her bo into both hands.

"What do you want?" she demanded quietly.

He was still staring her down, and her stomach fluttered with discomfort.

"I've been watching you for some time now. Testing you." His words were as ominous as his looming form. "I'd heard the Bat had taken on an apprentice—an alien princess no less—and wanted to see for myself what he saw in you."

"Did I disappoint your expectations?" Starfire shot, brows narrowing angrily, gripping her staff tighter.

That creepy, proud, almost parental look again. "Exceeded them," Slade breathed. "The way you fight, my dear... it's magnificent."

Her eyes widened with fear and surprise and that was when Robin stepped between them, letting go of her wrist, that arm out to shield her.

"I think you should back off now," he growled, protectively.

Slade paid him a brief disdainful glance. "I'm not here for you, boy," he dismissed. "So don't get in my way."

Robin's eyes flicked back to Starfire, questioningly. She firmed her features and gave a tiny nod.

The boy whipped his head forward again, throwing his handful of knives.

Slade put up his arms to block, the metal nicking and bouncing off his plate armor, but a moment later caught an unexpected popper in his diaphragm, knocking him back.

"Ungh!" he grunted. He raised his guard just in time to catch Robin's fist in his chin, snapping his head aside.

Starfire rushed forward then, sweeping her staff in a wide underhand blow that knocked the man a-kilter. He stumbled back several paces on the rooftop, surprised by the joint attack.

"Sorry, we're a matched set," said Robin, all serious, flexing his wrists in preparation. "You deal with both of us."

He shot them a glare that was cold and chilling.

"Have it your way," he declared.

He straightened up and charged.

Starfire met his attack head on with a series of thrusts from her staff, then drew back, letting Robin get in close to throw a few blows. His Okaaran martial form was unpolished, but decent enough, Slade was held briefly at bay by the attack. Starfire moved in again, taking Robin's place, aiming for weak spots in Slade's armor.

Back and forth they tested each other's defenses. Slade was very strong, powerful blows whooshing through the air, quicker than he seemed for his size and weight.

He caught her unexpectedly in the face and her vision whited out, head flashing with pain.

She let out a muffled grunt and fell back, skidding on the rooftop, losing her staff. She hit the ground. Her head rang for several painful minutes; she could hear Robin's furious shout of, "Leave her alone!" and struggled to blink, to move.

She had to get... back up...

Robin gave a cry of pain. Blinking furiously to clear her head, Starfire raised herself up from the ground, hands flat as she pushed up.

She saw Robin's wrist clutched in Slade's grip, looking small and human and breakable. She watched him twist it around and down viciously behind Robin's back, almost bending the boy over. Robin's face was screwed with bald pain, he was gasping from it. Slade's other hand had him by the throat, black-gloved fingers gripped around a fragile neck and squeezing.

Righteous fury bubbled up inside her, hot and searing. Bruce had always told her to hold back her Tamaranian powers, keep them in reserve to catch her opponents off guard, but they shoved to the forefront now, all of his lessons and admonitions disappearing into a haze of pure Tamaranian wrath.

She held onto enough of her training to direct the blazing energy through her body. Focusing it. Sharpening it.

It splintered up her spine and into her head instead of down her hands, which surprised her, but she narrowed her glare at Slade, pinning him with a hateful look.

The heat grew behind her eyes, whiter and whiter until—

"Hrraaaaauggh!"

She screamed wretchedly as her eyes lit up bright green and burst forth twin beams of flaming starbolt energy, streaking straight across the distance, pinning Slade in his collar right above where he held Robin pinned.

He was thrown back from the force, releasing Robin at once, pushed all the way to the edge of the roof and Starfire kept pushing pushing, pouring on the energy streaming from her eyes.

Slade disappeared over the edge, her starbolts having pushed him clean off.

The eyebeams faded and Starfire was left panting, head reeling, shocked by what had happened. For several long moments she sat there dazed.

Reaching up to feel the singed edges of her mask, she groaned softly. Batman was going to read her the riot act for this, she thought.

She stumbled to her feet, scrambling up, falling, tripping her way to Robin, who had collapsed to his knees after being let go.

"Are you okay?" she asked waveringly.

"What..." he asked in a daze, "...was that? Your starbolts come out of your eyes now?" His blue ones glimmered with awe at her.

Grimacing, Starfire peeled off her ruined mask, taking a closer look at the burn damage. "My eyes have been itching whenever I summon my starbolts, since my Transformation," she confessed. She shook her head. "But I did not know this was going to happen."

Robin glanced anxiously towards the edge of the rooftop. "Slade. Is he—?"

He left the question unfinished as they both scrambled up to gain the ledge and look down, peering into the dark alley below.

"I do not see him," Starfire said. She didn't know whether to be afraid or relieved about that. The villain would not have been the first one she had accidentally injured with her powers but Bruce would have never let her live it down, he had always cautioned her to hold back more, trying to keep her from shattering spines and skulls with her superstrength.

"Blast!" Robin cursed. He stepped back from the ledge. "Well whoever he is, he's gone for now. Think he's still got that chronoton detonator somewhere?" he asked.

Starfire narrowed her eyes soberly. "No," she determined. She pulled to her feet and took out her communicator. "Cyborg, Raven, Beast Boy, call off the search. Slade was testing us; he does not have an actual active device."

"Greeeeeat," Beast Boy groaned over the line. "Another false lead. How many times is this guy going to yank our chains?"

Starfire didn't answer, standing numbly for a moment and watching the shadows in the alleyway.

The encounter had... unnerved her. Slade seemed to be intimately acquainted with her career and impressed with her abilities. It almost felt like he was... scouting her? Was that the word?

She shuddered. "Be safe. He escaped before we could apprehend him," she cautioned the rest of the team. "Starfire out."

She flipped the screen closed, her emotions roiling. For a moment her self-control and training didn't exist and she was hopelessly vulnerable, needing to express her fears freely without inhibition, according to her natural Tamaranian nature.

She whirled and flung arms around Robin, breath shaking.

If he was startled by her move he didn't show it, gripping her back fiercely even as he grimaced from her hard grip.

"Hey, hey," he called. "We're okay. I know that was scary but we're all right." If anyone on the team understood her, it was him, and he hugged her back just like she wanted—needed—right now.

Regaining her composure, Starfire inhaled and withdrew, arms still trembling slightly. She let herself recover for a heartbeat or two.

"I should report this to him."

"Your k'norfka?"

She smiled at his accented pronunciation of the Tamaranian word. She nodded. "He would want to know," she said.

Robin nodded too, then began checking through his belt. "And I apparently need to train a lot more," he quipped. "Galfore would be so disappointed I let that clorbag get the drop on me."

A giggle escaped her, that she quickly stifled.

"I would be only too happy to help you," she promised.

Reaching for his hand, she let a joyful thought lift her feet, floating them over the rooftops and starting the journey home.

#robstar #robin #starfire #teen titans

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