TEACHING STAR TO READ

VigilanteCharlie317

Chapter One

It was a surprisingly slow day in Jump City, for the Teen Titans, that is. The five heroes were quite unaccustomed to having this unusual 'day off', and no one knew quite what to do with it. Altogether, no one was too keen on getting out of the house, on the off chance of jinxing their luck and running into a villain… So each Titan leisured in their own personal way; Raven was tucked away in the dark and dreary of her room, invested in an ancient book. Beast Boy slumped on the couch in the Operations Center, allowing his brain to further decompose while his green eyes glazed over the mind-numbing all-day television marathons. Cyborg was down in the garage of the Tower, fiddling with new installments on the T-Car.

Unlike the other, preoccupied Titans, Robin was aimlessly roaming around the Tower. He was not exactly in search of something to do, but it wasn't his nature to laze around all day, like that of Beast Boy.

It was truly no wonder Robin could not easily occupy himself the way his fellow teammates could. He didn't have many hobbies, or rather, he never really gave himself the time to develop any other than training, doing paperwork, and keeping a tight leash on all of the criminals in his city. And none of those activities really met the "hobby" description. He continued to wander through the bleak, grey hallways, pondering what he could possibly be doing right now if he actually had any normal pastime-activities. But he came up with nothing.

Dragging his feet through the halls, Robin walked by the bathroom, when something caught the attention of his peripheral vision. He turned to find his fellow teammate, Starfire, in said bathroom with the door open, sitting on the floor slathering something on her skin. She caught his eye contact and turned to wave, "Oh, greetings Robin! I did not see you in the hallway! Where might you be off to?" she asked,

"Nowhere in particular Star, I can't seem to find anything to do with myself, what with the lack of… activity going on today" Robin replied, not taking his eyes off of the strange goop that covered his friend. What on Earth is she doing? he thought, well whatever it is, she at least found something to do.

"I see. I myself have been having the same problem up until now. I take it you are 'the bored' today as well?" she asked, and Robin took a closer look at what covered her with great curiosity.

"Yeah, I guess you could say that. Um, Star? What are you doing?" he asked her, motioning towards the white substance plastered to her arms as she poured more into her hands.

"I am doing the exfoliating of the skin, as I have seen from the television. I found a bottle that resembled the one the program mentioned in here, and I desired to experiment! Do you wish to join me?" she asked happily. Robin stepped forward and picked up the white bottle she had squeezed dry and read the label.

"Ahm… Star?"

"Yes Robin?"

"Star, this is shampoo." Robin stated blankly.

She took the bottle back from him and stared at the label, trying to hide her confusion from him. He noticed that as she stared at the bottle, she didn't appear to actually be reading it. Her eyes didn't skitter from left to right in the analization of each letter, but instead she tried to look at the letters up and down, right to left, even flipping the bottle from side to side and even -for a brief moment- upside down, trying to get an idea of what the label read. She paused, unsure of what to do or say, realizing that Robin was watching her as she did this.

Starfire then put on a fake expression of sudden epiphany, and turned her head back to Robin, saying "Oh, of course it is the shampoo! I have made the error of selecting the wrong bottle!" and she reached for another bottle that was perched on the sink, looking back at the Boy Wonder for his approval, but instead his expression only grew more puzzled.

"Star… That's.. toothpaste." Robin said, growing concerned. What was wrong with Starfire? He understood from time to time she would misunderstand little Earth culture things, like how mustard is only a condiment, or how to play board games, but nothing like this. This was out of Starfire's ordinary.

Robin had a troubling feeling he knew what the problem was, as she could not mislead the great detective that he was, and so he asked her gently, "Star…. Can you read English? Did you ever learn how?"

She sighed, looking down at the tile floor of the bathroom. The dismal alien avoided eye contact, and blushed profusely. She was caught. Starfire had been hiding this truth from her teammates, afraid they would think she was too stupid to know how to read or write their native language. Starfire truly believed they would laugh at her and think a foreign idiot had no place on the team.

The last thing she wanted was for Robin to see her this way; unable to do something he could with ease. Not taking her eyes away from the floor she spoke quietly, "No Robin, I cannot read the English language. Tamaranian abilities only compensate one to learn the language by word of mouth. Concerning the English language, I am an illiterate clorbag."

Robin absolutely hated to see her in this state. He hated himself for basically being the one to make her feel so badly about herself. He walked over to her and knelt down to meet her gaze. Her green eyes peeked up to meet his and she blushed harder, in a soft voice he said "Hey, it's alright Star. I don't care If you can't read English. It doesn't make me think any different of the Starfire I know."

"Truly?" she asked him

"Truly." he replied grinning at her, as he rose from the shampoo covered floor to grab a towel to clean up the mess. When the floor was (mostly) shampoo-free, he took another towel and handed it to her to clean herself off. The Boy Wonder took her hand and pulled the girl to her feet.

"You know, I wouldn't mind teaching you how to read, Star," he blurted out, finding a boyish grin on his face.

"Robin, surely you do not mean that, I-" she started, but he cut her off and took her hands in his.

"Starfire, to teach you anything I can about Earth would be my greatest pleasure. And you said it yourself, I am really bored." He said, raising an eyebrow. She was sold. "C'mon," he said and they left the bathroom together. Robin led her through the halls, heading for his room.

"Really, It's nothing to be ashamed of at all," Robin said, "I can't say I blame you. I've lived on this planet all my life and I can't tell you I even know how to speak half of the languages around the world, let alone read or write them." He was trying to comfort her. He knew it couldn't be easy to try and live in a place where you barely know the language. But what he said made Starfire wonder about who Robin was. She realized there was so little she actually knew about the Boy Wonder, and so she asked, "How many of Earth's languages do you know, Robin?"

"Just English," he said, but the words "and a bit of Romanian." quickly slipped out of his mouth in a murmur that surprised him.

"What?"

"Nothing Star." he retreated, "I only really know English, as pathetic as that sounds" Robin said, smiling sheepishly. Why even bring that up, he thought miserably. It's not something she should even know right now, It's not something anyone should know…. for awhile. Or maybe not? Maybe she has the right by now, she is my best friend after-

"Robin?"

"Yeah?" he asked, snapping out of his daze, responding to the only name she knew him by.

"It is nothing. You were merely… 'staring off into the outer space' as they say, and we have been standing outside of your room for minutes now." she said, intrigued as to why Robin had "spaced out" so suddenly. Robin blinked, fully returning to the world from his thoughts.

"You're right, sorry. Um, come inside, and I can look for what I have." he said awkwardly, opening the door and showing her into his room.

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*A/N: Now, I know that Star CAN absorb both spoken and written languages, but please, I assure you that if you continue to read on all will be revealed!

Truth be told this IS actually a completed fic. I'm going to post the chapters a few at a time because there are some I still need to edit out a little bit.

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