Teen Titans Fan Fiction ❯ Ten Guidelines for Dating Earth Boys ❯ Chapter 3 ( Chapter 3 )

Ten Guidelines for Dating Earth Boys

Chapter Three

By Jacque Nicole

Guideline #2 - Try as you might, it is impossible to stay angry at an Earth boy.

She pouted.

And she pouted.

And she pouted some more.

She hugged her legs to her chest and rested her chin on her knees as she pouted on the couch in the Main Room. She heard a door open behind her, and immediately withdrew herself even more.

“Go away!” she shouted to whoever it was that was coming toward her. “I do not wish to speak with you!”

“I know,” replied the person. “That's why I came out here.”

Hearing his voice flared Starfire's anger tenfold. “Robin,” she grounded out. “I especially do not wish to speak with you. Please depart.”

The Boy Wonder knew he probably should just leave her alone to calm down, but there was a little something inside him that kept pushing him closer and closer to his girlfriend. If he would have asked any girl, she would have told him that “little something” inside him was called stupidity, and that he should not listen to it because it would only cause more problems. She would have been right.

Robin sat on the couch close to the Tameranian teen, but not as close as they had sat the night before. The young man's eyes widened. `The night before...? Maybe that could explain what's going on,' he thought, but that stupid little something pushed down those ideas. Starfire wasn't the type to hold grudges... was she?

“Star, if you don't tell me what is bothering you, I certainly can't help you feel better.”

Starfire turned her head to look at him, a blank look on her face. “Are you seriously that dense?”

Ouch. That hurt. “Believe it or not,” he said, “I can't read minds to find out what's wrong with you.”

Uh oh. She got that look in her eye. That look that said `I cannot believe that you just said that, you stupid, stupid, stupid man.' Robin gulped. “Why does something have to be wrong with me?” she asked incredulously. “It is something that is wrong with you that makes me feel this way!”

“Well then, by all means, tell me so that we can be okay again.”

She took a long and hard look at him before turning her head and scooting further away from him on the large couch. “Hmph!”

Robin scooted after her. “C'mon, Star. I know that it's your time of the month, but that doesn't mean - ”

Starfire's eyes lit up like fire. “Why is it,” she said, directing her attention back to her boyfriend, “that every time a female shows any type of emotion, a male just thinks that it is a `mood swing'!” She began scooting closer to Robin. He began scooting away. “Well, I will have you know that I am not having `mood swings'. A Tameranian female's cycle is very complex, and, believe me, you will know when I am having mine.” She got up from the couch in a huff, walking toward the exit. “I am leaving now. You will not follow.”

Robin got up quickly and caught up to her before she could escape him, taking her by the arm. “No.”

Starfire looked at Robin, then down to her arm, and then up at Robin again, surprise written all over her face. “What?” It came to a shock that Robin would do such a thing. No one had ever truly challenged her word before, especially since she was a princess. She was not used to being dominated. Deep down, she admitted to herself that she liked it just a little.

“I said no. You are not running away from this argument again - not until I know why you are being like this.” She tried snatching her arm out of his grasp, but he held on tight, to the point where it reminded her of the time that he grabbed her like he was now, angry that she was not able to catch Slade, even if she couldn't see him.

She wriggled her arm around, and his grip tightened. The words came out of her mouth before she could stop them. “Robin, you are hurting me.” Abruptly, she was released.

“I - Oh, Star, I - ” he said, at a loss for words. “I didn't mean to - ”

“I know,” she said. She looked at him, really looked at him for the first time today. He was handsome, as always, but there was some sort of aura of distress that radiated from him. She hoped that she wasn't that cause of it even though she knew that, truthfully, she was.

“Look,” he said, finally. “Is this about last night?” Her eyes snapped to his. Maybe he was catching on... “Because it wasn't really my fault, you know.” ...or maybe not.

“Not your fault?”

“Well, yeah,” he said, as if it were an obvious fact.

“Oh, really?” She had felt genuinely sorry for how she was treating him for a second. She would not let herself do it again. She quickly turned away from him, flipping her hair in his direction insultingly. She left the room with one last resounding “Hmph!”

Robin stared at the door incredulously. He rolled his eyes to the heavens. “Oh, you have got to be kidding me!”

XOXOXOXOX

Raven sat alone in her room, perfectly contented by just hovering in a meditated state to cleanse her mind of everything that had been happening around the tower. It felt good to not have to deal with a distressed girlfriend or a whiny boyfriend for a little while.

Knock, knock, knock

She spoke too soon.

The teenage sorceress lowered herself down slowly and walked over to her door. She slid it open and looked through the crack, letting out a sigh when she saw who it is.

“Robin,” she greeted.

“Raven, can we talk?” he said. Raven could hear an underlying tone of desperation. She opened the door wider for him to come in. “Thanks,” he said gratefully.

She slid it shut. “Since when am I everyone's personal therapist?” she mumbled to herself.

“What did you say?”

“Nothing,” she sighed. Assuming the same position she was in when Starfire came to speak with her—although it didn't have the same effect with Robin because the bright sun lit up the entire room much better than the moonlight did—she asked, “So, what do you want?”

Robin sat on the empath's bed, the same spot where Starfire sat the night before. Raven couldn't see how the two of them weren't together sooner. The Boy Wonder combed his fingers through his hair, not knowing where to start. “Well, I came to you because - you know - you're a girl, and you would know about this kind of stuff...”

Raven raised a brow. “...And?”

Robin decided to start over. “Well, last night - ”

“Save it,” Raven inserted. “I already heard the story from your girlfriend.”

The news did not surprise him. “Well then, you know that she's thinking of breaking up with me.”

Raven rolled her eyes. “Don't be stupid.”

“I'm not,” he argued. “She's never been this mad at me before.”

“You've never acted so stupid before either, but I don't think you came here to hear me call you names,” she replied. “What do you want?”

“Advice,” he answered shortly. “Answers. What did I do?”

“You thought with the wrong head.”

Robin choked, shocked at Raven's bluntness. “What?!”

“You heard me, and you know what I'm talking about.”

“Well, I - ”

“But Starfire doesn't understand that. She's more innocent than you think. She thinks it was her fault that you left her.”

Robin looked at her blankly. “Well... it was.”

“You know what I mean. You ruined movie night and you never said sorry to her. That's why she's mad. All she wants is an apology.”

“That's all? She just wants me to say sorry?” Robin slapped himself in the forehead at the realization. “Of course! How could I not have seen - ”

“You are male. That's what you do.” Raven moved from her spot in the corner and sat on the floor, her body beginning to float as she mediated. She cracked open an eye. “You still haven't left yet?”

Robin cracked a smile at his friend's sarcasm and got up to leave. “Thanks for your help Rave. It means a lot.”

“I'm sure it does,” she replied as the door closed behind him.

XOXOXOXOX

...Later...

“Starfire! Get down!”

The Tameranian teenager was barely able to duck in time before a large boulder whizzed over her head. She had been distracted all morning since her little confrontation with Robin. She was shocked that he still hadn't realized what he had done, and when he told her that it wasn't his fault, it made her feel emotions that she rarely ever felt. She knew the term people used on Earth to describe her feelings-

Pissed off.

Starfire stood up from her position, her face nearly completely covered in mud and her hair so tangled that it would take hours for her to get the knots out. Her eyes took on the signature green glow that said, `I mean business.'

In a blind fury, she flew high into the sky and rained a barrage of starbolts down onto her attacker. To her, it seemed like hours had past before she relented. She could almost see the incredulous looks on her friends' faces when the smoke began to clear.

A small crater now replaced where her attacker once was. Starfire could barely make out the dots that were her teammates slowly crowding around the hole.

Slowly, the Tameranian began to drift to the ground, her hands behind her back, ashamed of what she had just done. At first, there was no reaction to her actions. The four other Titans just looked at the crater then back at their petite teammate and back again repeatedly.

Starfire breached the quiet first. “Umm...” she began tentatively. “Opps?”

With the tense silence finally broken, chaos ensued.

“Dammit, Star!” Cyborg exploded. “That was the last training droid we had in stock. How the hell are we gonna practice kicking ass now?!”

Beast Boy snapped his jaw shut. “Dude, you just, like, totally vaporized it,” he said in awe. “I knew you packed a punch but... wow!”

“No! No! Not `wow'. That was our last one! She just screwed us over until the next shipment comes in!” Cyborg ranted.

“Chill, man. You'd better lay off my girlfriend, okay?” Robin said. “It's no big deal.”

This made Starfire upset. “Do not defend me like you care about me, Robin!” she yelled, leaving the training ground.

Robin tried to chase after her, but since he couldn't just fly over all the rubble like she could, he was having a tougher time. “Oh, c'mon Star! Now you're being irrational,” he said, stumbling over the rocky landscape. “You know how I - shit!” he exclaimed, slipping and smashing hard into the ground.

Starfire slowed her flight pace to see what had happened. After all, she still cared about him, despite the way she was acting. Once she saw that he was able to pick himself up and brush himself off, she continued on her way, much to his displeasure.

“Starfire, stop.” It was such a simple command. She could have easily ignored him and just kept on flying around the small island until he got tired of chasing her, but there was something in his tone that said that he was serious.

She stopped flying completely, slowly lowering herself to the ground right under her. She found herself standing in the middle of the flower garden that she saw out her widow that morning.

Robin caught up to her shortly, his breathing slightly harbored and his mask askew. “Why the hell did you run away from me like that for?” He held up a hand when she opened her mouth to retort. “Don't answer that.” He let gravity pull his tired body down to lie in the beautiful garden. “Sit with me?” She looked hesitant. “Please?”

She didn't know why, but she let herself be coerced into sitting with the boy she was supposed to be mad at. “I know why you are angry with me,” said the Boy Wonder.

`Well, that's new,' thought Starfire, internally rolling her eyes.

“-And,” he continued, oblivious to his girlfriend's mannerisms, “I wanted to apologize.” He held a finger to his lips when she opened her mouth again. “Shh, let me finish. You know I would never want to hurt you, so you can just imagine how I felt when I finally realized what I'd done. I'm sorry I didn't apologize sooner. I should have realized that you were upset about last night.”

She was floored. It was just so... so... sweet of him to say that. It made her heart shrink in her chest in shame. How could she have ever treated him the way she had?

“-Even though it was all really your fault.”

She remembered now.

“-But that's still no excuse. I should have considered the feelings of the person that is most important to me.”

She forgot again. She wanted to run away from him and hide in a hole. She realized that she had been, as Beast Boy had once called himself, a `total klorbag.'

Robin was getting restless as he watched Starfire stare back at him, her face devoid of any readable emotions. Was she still mad? Did she want to clobber him? Or worse - did she want to break up? He cleared his throat. “So.. uhh... We're cool?”

Starfire snapped out of whatever trance she was in at the sound his voice. She smiled softly. “Yes, we are `cool.'”

He sighed in relief. “Great.” He stood up from the flowerbed and brushed himself off before extending a hand to his girlfriend. “Wanna go out for lunch? Maybe we can take a walk in the park afterward.”

She smiled up at him as he hoisted her up. “That sounds wonderful.”

...End Chapter Three...

Number of Words: 2,354

Posted: January 12. 2006

Last Edited: August 20, 2006