Edit: I'm going back and adding author's notes and stuff. So if it's suddenly different, don't freak out. This is the first multichapter fic I'm uploading to the site, so if you guys- yes you, behind the screen- could leave reviews and let me know what you liked or what you didn't like, review or PM me or whatever catches your fancy. Enjoy.

Disclaimer: Teen Titans belongs to DC Comics and the cartoon belongs to Warner Brothers.

The sky over Jump City was as dreary and grey as it could get. The forecast called for rain, but the clouds held the water in stubbornly, even after days of hanging low in the sky, filled to burst with moisture.

"You already know that in meditation, inner peace is the most important part. I can sense that your inner peace has been disturbed." Raven arched a thin eyebrow at her friend.

"It is true," the princess of Tamaran admitted with a nod.

The two girls were sitting on the roof of Titans' tower. Starfire and Raven got along well when Raven wasn't in a bad mood and Starfire was feeling a bit calmer than usual.

Starfire had asked Raven to help her in meditation. Tamaraneans harnessed the sun's power and used it for flight, superhuman strength, and in Starfire's case, generating starbolts. This depressing weather was taking its toll on the bubbly alien girl. She thought meditating with Raven would help her to tap into her power better until she could recharge when the sun finally came out.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Raven wasn't into dramatics, but for some reason she liked hearing about Starfire's troubles. Starfire was almost her polar opposite. For Raven to use her powers, she had to keep her emotions hidden, pushing them away like they were wrong. Starfire had to embrace her emotions and she used them to guide her every action. Sometimes, when Raven talked to Starfire, she could feel the excess emotion emanating from her. It was a welcome relief from the swirling of her own dampened emotions.

Starfire smiled gratefully at her friend. "I thank you for your concern and interest. It is just that… well, I suppose it is…"

Raven sighed. "It's the Boy Wonder, isn't it."

Starfire flushed a little, but nodded. It wasn't like she hadn't talked to Raven about this before. "It is just that one minute he is so sweet and nice to me, and the next he is so focused on other things that it is like I am not even there. It is very confusing."

"Robin… doesn't express his feelings very well. He puts his guard up most of the time. He thinks that unless he's doing something related to stopping villains, he's wasting his time," Raven explained sagely.

"You mean… he thinks that I am a waste of time?" Starfire asked sadly.

Raven sighed again. "No. Starfire, he was raised by Batman. I don't know how familiar you are with other heroes, but Batman is so serious that he makes Robin on a bad day look like kid in a candy store. Robin tries to emulate that. It's not you."

Starfire nodded. "I see. How am I to know what he thinks of me, then?"

Oh no. This was going farther than Raven thought it would. She wasn't qualified to actually give advice that she knew Starfire would try her best to act upon. "You could always just-" Raven muttered before snapping her mouth shut. Ask him, she meant to say at the end of that sentence. But then Robin would probably just deny anything, and then Starfire would be upset, and Raven didn't want to relive the relentless moping and depressed sighing and annoying apathy that followed for a few days after Robin left to train with the True Master.

Starfire was looking at her friend expectantly.

"You could always just- just, um, wait it out." That was terrible advice. But Raven was not going to be responsible for any bickering or tension between the two of them. Actually, even if it did work out, Raven wasn't sure she wanted to be responsible for any kind of dating relationship between them, either. The thought made her feel a little sick.

The Tamaranean nodded. "I thank you for the advice."

"Don't mention it," Raven said quickly. "Now, on to meditation."

"Yes. My inner peace has been restored." Starfire rested her wrists on her knees and closed her eyes.

"Find that part of yourself that is calm. …however small that might be," Raven muttered under her breath.

"I am picturing the great rivers, which flowed slowly in the underground caverns of Okaara," she said.

"Uh, good. You know, you don't really need to tell me what-"

Raven was cut off by the alarm. "I guess there's trouble." She stood up and brushed off her cloak. "Sorry, Starfire. We'll have to pick it up again when we get back."

Starfire stood, towering over her friend. Her brows were furrowed with worry. "Oh, but my starbolts are not at full power…"

"That's okay, Star, you can just talk 'im to death!" Beast Boy joked as he emerged on the roof, followed by Robin and Cyborg.

"That's not funny. That's offensive," Raven said, narrowing her eyes.

Beast Boy rolled his eyes. "I was just joking. Joh-king. I believe you're familiar with the term?"

Raven opened her mouth to answer, but Starfire interrupted her. "What is the trouble?"

"It's Red X," Robin answered gruffly, narrowing his eyes.

"Red X? But he has been-"

"I know. He's been quiet lately. HE's striking now, at the wharfs." Robin said with all the command of a good leader.

"Why?" Starfire demanded. "What is there at the wharf?"

"I should've been expecting this. A shipment of xynothium is coming in. He must be running low." Robin nodded at Starfire. "Let's go."

She hovered above him, grabbing onto his wrists as he curled his fingers loosely around hers. Beast Boy, in the form of a pterodactyl, picked up Cyborg, and Raven flew off ahead of them all.

After a few minutes, they all landed. The sky was slowly getting darker and darker, like ink was bleeding over it. With the clouds, it was hard to see well, and it would continue getting darker.

"He should be around here somewhere."

Cyborg held up his hand. "I got this, dude." He tapped on the screen built into his arm before looking up and explaining, "Since the last time we went at it with this guy, I put in a xynothium scanner. It should work like radar." He held his arm out and a red light flashed. He swept his arm around in a circle and the flashing increased as he pointed his arm to the west. He led the group over to a dock.

The flashing came so quickly the beam of light was almost constant. The group was huddled together on the pier, looking down at an armored box that had been deposited.

Cyborg whistled. "For them to just leave it lying on the ground like this… I don't know, man. X must'a been here already."

Robin shook his head. "He wouldn't have been. Why would he leave it like this?"

Starfire shrieked as a hand grabbed at her foot from underneath the wooden boards. She let a starbolt loose, smashing a hole through the boards beneath her feet, but Red X used this as an opportunity. He swung expertly through it, landing opposite the crater from Starfire, He waved at her. "Thanks, Princess. I've been waiting for you guys to show up."

Robin threw an angry punch that Red X dodged without looking. Robin extended his bo-staff and used it to swing his body around, connecting with Red X's forearm. He blocked the kick.

Red X had the upper hand, now. He grabbed the staff from Robin and they wrestled over it, kicking and punching at each other. Red X flipped Robin's cape over his eyes and threw the staff across the hole. He balanced there as Robin hopped on after him. Red X hopped forward extending a leg, which Robin caught and spun roughly, twisting him. He would have fallen under the pier, but he grabbed the staff and swung himself back up.

"Not bad, Chuckles," he complimented Robin, sounding impressed. "Just not good enough."

Robin, not in the mood for banter, struck out at Red X. His hand was blocked three times before he got a good hit in, and then Red X struck at his stomach. Robin doubled over and slipped off the staff. He hung on by his fingers, preparing to swing around, but Red X knocked his fingers aside with his foot. Robin fell into the water with a splash.

"Robin!" Starfire shouted, peering into the hole as Cyborg shot a blast from his sonic cannon at the criminal over the concerned alien girl's head.

"I'm fine! Get him!" Robin shouted after resurfacing

Red X threw an x-shaped device at Cyborg, which stuck to his canon. Cyborg narrowed his eyes and blasted a shot at him, which caused the device to explode. Sticky red gunk flew everywhere, including on his other teammates. Red X avoided the spray by spinning Robin's bo-staff in a circle. Raven threw her cloak over herself, and while it was coated with the gross red stuff, she was fine.

In the distraction, Red X grabbed the box of xynothium and started to make his escape.

"Cyborg!" You are undamaged?" Starfire asked while she melted the red substance off of her feet with a starbolt.

Cyborg's arm was dripping with red gunk. "Man, it's all up in my circuits! It'll take hours to clean this stuff out! I can't shoot my cannon out of this arm and I don't have my other one equipped," he explained. "You okay, BB?"

"Nice going, ya big trash can! I'm stuck! AGAIN!" Beast Boy shouted in frustration. He changed into a dinosaur in an attempt to pull himself away from the goo, but he only succeeded in making himself more stuck and he changed back to his human form.

"Let's go, Starfire!" Raven shouted as she took to the air. "He's got the box!"

Starfire lifted herself into the air, a trail of half-melted goo sticking from her foot to the ground, arresting her flight before she got more than a few feet off the ground. She shot a starbolt at it and the problem disappeared.

Raven was in the process of throwing a tree to the ground with black energy. Red X flipped neatly over it. Raven grabbed the box away from him with a quick chant of her mantras. Red X skidded to a halt and turned back in here.

"I've got just what you need," he announced as he let another x-shaped mechanism fly through the air. It fastened itself around her mouth.

Raven let out a muffled noise. Red X slid past her, lunging for the box. Once he had it in his arms again, He took off. Raven pulled in vain at the covering over her mouth. Starfire landed in front of her. "Raven, can I-?"

Raven waved her off toward Red X.

Starfire took off, angry. The last time they met, he didn't have anything to stop her eyebeams. He might now, but she wasn't counting on it. She didn't have that ability when Robin made the suit. She would show him for taking them all down so easily.

Red X was ahead of her and running fast, but she could fly faster than a person could run. She strained herself, jetting ahead of him and landing easily in front of him.

"I command you to stop!" she shouted angrily.

"Aw. You're mad," he said with a smirk. "It's nothing I can't make up to you later. In fact, I'm free later tonigh-"

He stopped talking when Starfire shot a jet of green at him from her eyes. He turned, absorbing the impact with his back. He hit the ground and rolled in a way that had to hurt his sore back. "Listen, Princess, I know that you're not stupid. In fact, you're almost as smart as you are hot. So I'm gonna say this once, and I'm not gonna repeat myself: no shooting at Red X when he's carrying xynothium. Understand?"

Starfire shot at him again. He tucked the box behind him and braced himself, taking most of the shot in his forearm. Starfire was frustrated. He would have been taken care of already if her starbolts weren't so weak.

"Somebody's been a real bad girl," he muttered. He threw another contraption at her, which she was expecting and was able to dodge. However, dodging didn't prove to do much good for her. The device exploded red smoke on impact with the ground. She coughed and lit a starbolt, which reflected off the hazy red fog and blinded her. Starfire shook her head, tears welling in her eyes as the gas stung at her, and flew up.

She had to go up almost thirty feet to get completely clear of the gas. She was able to spot Red X, box in his arms, running into the slummy section of the city.

Starfire had never been here alone, and this was the kind of place that she could remember in her earliest memories being warned not to go to into. Of course, her father was saying that to her as a little girl and princess, and she was neither anymore.

She took off after him. He glanced over his shoulder at her and headed into an alley. It was dark, the already grey sky darkening with the first hints of night, and she felt uncomfortable. Why would he duck into an alley? Did he think she couldn't see him? Was it a set up?

Either way, she would have to go after him. He was standing on a dumpster, his face level with a window on the second floor, thrusting his hand through an open window, too narrow for him to fit through but with enough room for the box. Starfire yanked him away. "What do you think you are doing?" she demanded angrily.

He smiled at her. "I was wondering when you would catch up."

Starfire frowned. She held his jumpsuit at the throat, his hand over hers to keep some leverage. He should be intimidated. "Catch up? Is your goal not to escape with the xynothium?"

"Escape?" he echoed, confused. His expression seemed to fall, although it was hard to tell with the mask. "Oh, come on."

"Stop that," she snapped, irritated.

"You must know that it's me," he said, taking his hand off hers.

"I do not-"

"Starfire," Red X began, the tone sounding so familiar to her that she stopped and looked at him closely. "It's me."

Starfire let him go and backed up so that her shoulders were against the opposite wall. "R-Robin?"

"I knew that you would know," he said triumphantly, grinning at her.

"I do not know what you are-"

"Go ahead," he said urgently, nodding his head urgently, closing the space between them in a few steps. He put his hands on the wall next to her hips. "Take the mask off."

Starfire silently raised her arm and plucked the mask off his head. She could feel his hair slipping through the material under her fingers and she made sure she didn't pull it.

It was true. The pointed, white-eyed domino mask sat over his eyes and his spiked hair assumed its trained position when the mask was fully off.

Anger surged through her. "Why have you done this?" Starfire demanded. She threw the mask on the floor. "Why have you lied to us, your friends? You promised that you would stop being the Red X!"

"Starfire, please," Robin begged, losing the cocky attitude quickly. "I can explain it. If you just listen-"

"I am not prepared to listen to you. I only feel anger and disappointment!" Tears welled in the alien princess's eyes.

"You're taking it personally," Robin observed.

Starfire charged starbolts in her hands. She wasn't going to throw them, of course, but it felt good to let the fury out at least a little. Robin didn't back away from her. "Of course I am! You lied to me! You don't trust me!"

"I do trust you, Starfire. I trust you more than anyone else." He caught her chin between his thumb and forefinger. "I told you now, didn't I?"

She blinked and tears fell down her cheeks. She felt so betrayed. She was already unsure of him, of what he thought of her, or if he thought of her at all. This was taking that problem to a whole new level. "Why have you kept this secret? Why are you doing this?"

Robin released her chin after a moment. He turned away, the tattered cape blowing in the wind behind him. "It's hard to explain."

Starfire wiped at her eyes, angry with herself for crying. "You must explain it to me, Robin. And then you must explain it to our friends."

He wheeled back to face her, his features a hardened mask of fury. Starfire gaped at him, but even without seeming to move, he looked calm again, if a little sad. "You can't tell them."

"You will not," she said coldly. "And someone must."

"You have to give me time," Robin said, leaning on the wall next to her and putting his foot flat against it.

"The longer you wait, the angrier our friends will be when they find out that you have been the Red X this whole time," Starfire pointed out.

"I know," Robin said. "But I'm going to have to risk it. Because once I tell them, I'm going to have to promise to stop. And I can't do that yet."

Starfire widened her eyes at him. "You think that I am going to let you-?"

"I need help." The intensity in his voice was startling, and she dropped the question to look at him worriedly. "And I think you can give me the help I need. Only you. Over time. Do you understand?" He took her hand gently, lacing their fingers together, never breaking eye contact.

Starfire felt herself heat up and hoped that it was too dark for him to see her blush. "You require companionship?"

"I need you to help me… figure myself out. I need to see every point of view, Star. Since I was young, my… I've been trained to fight for good. All I'm doing is trying to understand the villains. Why they do what they do. How they feel. Get inside their minds!" He punched one hand passionately into the palm of the other.

Starfire stared at him. "Surely you can do that without becoming a villain?"

The flash of anger across his features, then the seamless and instant calm. "I'm not a villain. I need you to know that. I'm experiencing it. If I experience it, I'll understand it and be able to stop it."

"I wish you had not told me. It is a burden," Starfire murmured, looking at her feet. She couldn't look at him while she said it.

Robin tentatively reached his hand out and touched her cheek. Starfire put her hand on his wrist, but she didn't push him away. "It is a burden. And I thought I could do it alone. But I need help. I need you," he said softly.

She felt torn. She wanted to be angry with him, but she found that she couldn't be. She understood what he was saying, she was just angry that he felt that he had to do this. But she couldn't be angry with him for feeling a certain way. That was insensitive. She wanted to lean against him and wrap her arms around him and talk him out of this. But she shook herself and backed away from him.

"How are you being in two places at once?" she demanded quickly.

"What?"

"How are you Robin and the Red X at the same time?" she asked angrily. She was back to feeling tricked.

"Oh." He smirked in a way that ordinarily Starfire found kind of cute, but now she just found annoying. "Technology."

"But I have done the poking and searched for projectors that could emit a hologram…"

"Advanced technology."

Starfire narrowed her eyes at him. She didn't like not knowing. Why would he tell her that he was Red X and not explain his technology? She sighed. She was just being difficult.

"Look, some of it's holograms, some of it's robotics… I can't explain every trick to you."

"Could you show me? Back at the Tower?"

He shook his head. "You can't talk to me about this at the Tower."

"What? Robin, that is not fair. You must allow me to express my-"

He gripped her fingers gently for emphasis. "You don't understand. You have to- I have to keep it separate. You're worried about me crossing sides? That's the way to do it." His voice was deep and serious and stern.

"What do you mean?" Starfire asked.

"Making me think like Red X while I'm Robin. I can't. That's what the problem was the first time. I can't do it again, Star. I almost lost you. All of you. Promise me you won't mention Red X at the Tower." His grip on her fingers was tight now.

She wanted to draw her hand back. She was almost frightened. But she had to press on. "What about those days when you keep to yourself in the room of examining and research, looking to find out who Red X is?"

He released his grip on her fingers. "That's when I make a lot of the tech. Look, I know that it's hard, but Starfire… I trusted you to trust me. I really need you right now."

Starfire bit her lip. She was feeling guilty and unsure. Robin raised his hand and ran his thumb over her lower lip, gently removing it from under her teeth. Their faces were so close. She could feel him leaning closer to her. She had been waiting for this. Their first kiss. She saw it happen in distracted daydreams and planned adventures of it in dreams in the privacy of her bed.

But it was never like this. In an alley, in the dark, hidden, feeling so… wrong. While she was still so upset and confused. Starfire ducked to the side. Robin straightened out almost imperceptibly, making it look like he was always that way.

"I know it's hard. But I just need time."

"Robin…"

"Starfire? Ya down here?" Cyborg's voice washed over them.

Robin pressed a finger to his lips, motioning for her to be quiet. He pressed a button on the silver utility belt and the Red X suit retracted into it, revealing his standard uniform. He leaped away from her silently, melding into the shadows.

"Cyborg?" Starfire called shakily. "It is I! I… require assistance."

Cyborg appeared, looking down at her from the top of the building she had been leaning against, his red eye glowing in a way that would be eerie, but was only comforting to Starfire. "What's a matter? You hurt?"

"No. I am just… badly shaken."

Well, not a bad start, right? Fun fact: I originally intended for this to be a oneshot! Have a teaser for the next chapter:

He turned to her, leaning his shoulder and his temple against the wall. And then he really did reach out and tuck her hair behind her ear like in movies, and then he looked at her, and she saw his eyes drop down to her lips, and suddenly she felt dizzy, because he was going to kiss her…

Unresolved sexual tension, a requirement for all RobStar fics.