Chapter Text
Raven and Starfire were very good friends. Absolute gal pals. Total besties. They went to the mall together. And to the movies. And to restaurants (both the cheerful bistros and the depressing cafes). Starfire liked to grab Raven’s hand whenever she wanted to show the darker girl something, and Raven found the habit was catching. Sometimes Raven sensed that her friend was frustrated. She suspected that Starfire wished they hung out more.
Starfire and Raven were the very best of friends, and Starfire was frustrated…. frustrated Raven couldn’t take a damn hint.
“How can someone so smart be as oblivious as an edderkop med en lille fødselsdags hat?!?” she fumed.
Cyborg tried to hide his grin, by popping open the hood of the T-Car and peering inside.
“I have done the ‘taking her out’ to movies and to dinner,” Star continued, “I have held her hand and told her she looks beautiful, and even pulled ‘the move’ with the arm around the shoulders that earth films think so highly of, but this morning, I heard her tell Bee we were friends!”
Cyborg had been present for that video call; it had occurred on his arm.
What had actually happened was that Bee had called Cyborg to share the latest idiotic exploits of her team (mostly Speedy), had seen Raven in the background, and had commented how nice it must be to have a female friend on the team with her, to which Raven had noncommittally said ‘mm.’
Cyborg reached into the hood and started loosening and re-tightening the caps of various fluid tanks in the engine.
There was nothing wrong with the T-Car, it just gave him something to do when his friends needed to vent or wanted advice.
“Have you considered,” he began thoughtfully, as he pulled out the oil stick and checked the level, “that Raven doesn’t know you're putting the moves on her because, as far as she knows, you’re always that friendly to people?”
“But she is an empath! She should sense my love!”
“I don’t know, maybe she does sense it, and thinks you just love life.”
Starfire made an angry noise—definitely not the sound of someone who was currently loving life—and Cyborg hurried to come up with some useful advice before any stray starbolts went flying. Then he’d have to fix the T-Car for real.
“Look, why don’t you try just talking to her? Do something different, go somewhere you’d never go with ‘just a friend’ and say “Raven, I love you, will you go out with me?” or something.”
Starfire’s head, upside down, appeared under the hood and looked at him beseechingly.
“But what if she says no?”
“If she says no, I will personally take you to my favorite sad spot to get consolation milkshakes,” said Cyborg. “But trust me; she’s not gonna say no.”
It was kinda stupid, how much Starfire wanted to kiss Raven again. Kissing had never been this important to her on Tamaran. There, it had been a utilitarian gesture, something you did when you needed to learn something.
… Well, no, it hadn’t been strictly utilitarian… There had been a children’s game of some sort. Starfire didn’t know all the rules. As a heavily guarded princess in wartime, she hadn’t been allowed to partake. Blackfire had been better at sneaking away from the palace. Once, after she had snuck out, she came back with a new language on her tongue and gave it to Starfire. It had been their secret language for a time, one the guards and their parents didn’t possess.
(It had turned out to be Gordanian.)
Starfire didn’t want to learn another language from Raven, per se. Though she was glad Raven knew many more; it meant there was a chance, however slim, that Raven would need to kiss her again.
Starfire found herself dreaming about gibberish-speaking villains. Raven would pull her away—into an alley, or sometimes, into the folds of her cloak— and their lips would touch…. and then someone, (usually Gizmo) would appear with a snot munching grin and an explosive, and send them flying apart
Starfire sighed, and flipped through more pages of a local travel guidebook Robin had given her for Christmas one year.
It wasn’t enough to continue this haphazard relationship with Raven. It wasn’t enough to keep waiting around, hoping for an occasional kiss. Starfire was going to be intentional, and brave, and direct. She was going to ask Raven on a date, and then she was going to ask to be her girlfriend. Her fingers stopped on a glossy page with a breathtaking photo on it.
And now she knew the perfect place.
Raven agreed to the daycation readily enough
They left late in the afternoon, and flew directly east. By the time they crossed the mountains, the sun was low at their backs, casting a warm golden glow over the landscape.
Raven stopped in mid air, and turned to watch as the sun seemed to rest upon the ridgetop. Starfire took her hand.
“It is a beautiful sunset,” Star said.
Raven hummed in agreement. They watched the sun sink for a few more moments before Raven said, “This time of day always reminds me of Azarath. The twin suns never rise or set there; they circle, always just below the horizon.”
Starfire tugged on her hand, and gestured for her to look south. A large canyon branched out below, a maze of flat-topped red rock and sheer cliffs, dotted with occasional weathered trees and patches of wildflowers. Raven knew what Starfire was trying to show her before she even said anything.
“This place reminds me of Tamaran,” Star said.
“From a distance, our homelands are pretty similar, huh?”
They chose a hazy purple patch to land in, and settled in amongst the wildflowers. Then they unpacked the picnic basket, and for the next hour, they sat and ate and talked and laughed while the light slowly faded from the sky.
Eventually, they flopped back in the tall grass and turned off the lantern.
The canyon air was clean, away from the pollution and emotional miasma of hundreds of thousands of people. Raven breathed deep, letting the quiet night fill her lungs.
Even the pleasant, lush scent of night-blooming moon flowers had nothing on the sky though.
When the last of the sunlight finally vanished, the stars came out. The milky way arched overhead, as glittery as a city skyline, but with an opalescent sheen of subtle purples and pinks and oranges.
Raven turned her head in the grass, about to ask if this was what the stars looked like from space, but the question died on her lips when she saw the intense way Starfire was looking at her. Starfire was glowing with emotions, a complex swirling whirlwind of feelings that reminded Raven of the night they first met.
Starfire reached over, and brushed a lock of hair out of Raven’s face.
“May I kiss you?” She asked.
Raven tensed. “Do you… need to learn a language?”
“No, I am asking for non-linguistic reasons.”
Raven kept pressing. “Do you enjoy kissing?”
“I enjoy kissing you.”
“Oh.”
“Raven,” Starfire huffed, part exasperated, part amused, part terrified . “I am asking for romantic reasons.”
“Oh. ”
They stared at each other.
“... Yeah you can kiss me.”
Starfire beamed at her, her windblown hair haloed by the rising moon. She shuffled over in the grass, closing the distance between them. Then, very gently, Starfire cupped Raven’s cheek in her hand, and gave her a look so full of adoration that Raven couldn’t bear it.
Raven closed her eyes.
Their lips met.
Raven was suddenly hit with a rush of elation, that might have been hers and might have been Starfire’s and was probably both and that shone through her like sunlight on a cold autumn day.
Starfire’s lips were warm and soft and gentle against her own; she threaded her fingers through Starfire’s hair, and Starfire’s arms wrapped around her, holding her close, until it felt like Starfire was the whole world, so entirely was Raven enveloped in her presence.
A warm huff of air brushed past her cheekbones, which meant at least one of them had remembered to breathe.
When Raven finally pulled away, she was startled to find they were floating in midair.
Starfire giggled. Raven couldn’t stop the reciprocal laugh that huffed out of her throat.
“You remember what I told you was the source of Tameranian flight?” Starfire whispered, already leaning in for another kiss.
“Unbridled -mmphf!”
“¿Puedo besarte?”
Starfire asked, in the backseat of the T-Car at night, a far cry away from fields of wildflowers or the twinkle of starlight.
Raven’s arm throbbed. Brother Blood’s sonic blast had knocked her out of the air and sent her sliding across the street, and now her joints felt wrong, and she could tell even without peeling back her sleeve that her forearm was raw and bloodied.
“It doesn’t make sense, why would Brother Blood announce his presence alone like this?” said Cyborg from the driver’s seat. It wasn’t really clear whether Cyborg was looking for an answer or debating with himself,.
“He always had a flair for the dramatic,” came Robin’s reply, crackly over the radio.
“Trust me, I remember his monologues, Rob, but I’m telling you, it doesn’t feel right. The Blood I knew always had his pawns in place before he made a move.”
They came to a stoplight, and the R-cycle pulled up beside them.
“You think he’s lying about not starting up HIVE academy again?”
She just wanted to go home, change into something sleeveless, and tend to her wounds.
“HIVE or no HIVE, I think he’s found followers somewhere, and he’s choosing not to reveal them yet,” Cyborg said grimly.
Raven winced.
“Hey, look at me,” Starfire said softly. “[It is going to be okay. Blood is too late to accomplish his goals.]” She alone among the Titans knew the role that Sebastian Blood had played in her conception.
Raven didn't answer, just cradled her arm closer to her chest after a pothole jostled the T-car.
Starfire tenderly grasped her injured wrist, brought it up to her mouth, and pressed a gentle kiss to her scraped knuckles
“[What are you doing?]"
“[It is an earth custom called the] boo-boo kiss. [This time, I will make you feel better.]"
“[That’s silly.]”
“[Is not it working?”] She brushed the grit and gravel from Raven’s hand, and pressed a kiss to her palm.
“[... yeah, maybe it’s working.]
“Utinam ego te basia?”
Starfire asked Raven to kiss her many, many times. On a stormy night by the ocean, in the candlelit sanctuary of Raven’s room, surrounded by sunshine and wildflowers, caked in dust and blood and tears, Starfire asked Raven to kiss her.
And Raven almost always said yes.
“Poți să mă săruți de noapte bună?” Starfire whispered in her ear one night, when Raven was already halfway into dreamland. It took a moment for her tired brain to make sense of the words: Can I have a good night kiss?
Raven rolled over and blearily groped around until her hand found Starfire’s cheek.
“Starfire.” She kissed her on the mouth. “ Stella Ignis. ” Another kiss, this time on the forehead. “ Meine liebe .” Kiss. “ सुश्रोणी .” Kiss. “Go the fuck to sleep.”
“Ĉu mi rajtas kisi vin?”
They weren’t doing anything in particular. Just chilling on the couch, entwined, basking in the late afternoon sun and each other’s company. But suddenly it was a momentous occasion:
Because Raven had never asked Starfire before.
Starfire wiggled around until she could actually see Raven; it took quite a bit of maneuvering, since the shorter girl had been laying in her arms, half on top of her.
There was a twinkle in Raven’s eye, as if she were amused by Star’s reaction; she clearly knew how big of a deal this was, despite her casual tone.
“Jes,” Star said in Azarathian. “Milfoje feliĉe, jes.”
“Må jeg kysse dig?” Starfire asked her beloved for the thousandth or so time.
It was very early in the morning. Raven didn’t move. Her eyes remained closed, and her head didn’t leave the valley of the pillow.
Starfire kept playing with the silken purple hair sprawled in curlicues between them. Maybe it was too early in the morning for Tamaranean, she thought. After all, her beloved did not have her innate ability to swallow new languages and make them her own. Then Raven twitched.
A low creaking sound like a stone being rolled away from a tomb rumbled through the mattress, and her favorite half-demon stretched. Her limbs (the flesh and bone ones as well as half a dozen tendrils of shadowy soul-self) extended lazily in all directions before settling around Starfire.
“Mmm, you may,” she replied in English.
Starfire smiled, and dipped her head down.
The kiss was long and languid; Starfire shivered in the delectable chill of the magic wrapped around her and the contrasting warmth of her kærestes embrace. Even just a few short months ago, Star knew, Raven would never have relaxed like this or allowed any trace of her demonic heritage to be so freely visible. It was only recently, when Star had admitted she also sometimes felt the pressure to assimilate , blend in, that the two of them had promised to be more open about their respective inhuman quirks with each other.
It was all so unlikely--that the two of them had become lovers, that they had met, that they had even survived their respective ordeals to do so. Starfire felt like the luckiest being in the entire universe to be tucked up in bed on a kind blue planet with her beloved.
“I speak every language you do now,” Star said one day, apropos of nothing, while the Titans were enjoying a beach day.
The tide was coming in, and Cyborg and Robin were having a competition to see who could bear to wade deeper into the cold Pacific water; only Starfire and BB (in whale form) could truly stand to swim. Raven preferred to watch the waves dash against the rocks from a safe distance.
Raven considered Starfire’s statement as she peered into a tide pool.
“Almost,” She conceded. “I don’t actually ‘speak’ Ancient Sumerian, so you can’t learn it from me.”
The way Starfire’s face fell was almost comical. She pouted at a starfish growing on a nearby rock, and sullenly wrung out her wet hair.
“I can still ask you to kiss me in Sumerian,” Raven teased. She crouched down, and plucked a feather from the edge of the tide pool. (It was a nice feather; maybe she would save it and turn it into a quill.)
In the wet sand, she carefully inscribed:
𒉈𒃶 𒋢𒌒
Starfire beamed at her, and they kissed in Ancient Sumerian—briefly.
Raven recoiled. “You’re cold!” she exclaimed, in a tone of betrayal.
Starfire opened her arms. “Warm me?”
“No!” She took off flying down the beach, pursued by her cold, wet girlfriend.
Aqualad and Robin were making out in front of the coffee pot again.
“Really dudes? Right in front of my salad?” Beast Boy exclaimed. The two lover boys took no notice.
“You’re eating fruit loops,” Raven pointed out.
“It’s a- nevermind.” Beast Boy spun around in his seat so he was facing away and irritably chomped down on a spoonful of fruity loops. “They’re so gross. I don’t see you guys smacking lips in every room in the tower.”
Starfire smiled mischievously. “Indeed; you never see us.”
Beast Boy gaped for a moment. Then he slammed down his bowl, covered his ears and fled the room, repeating “la la la, I’m not listening!” as he went.
Starfire laughed, and Raven touched their smiles together.
The End