Starbolts And Sunshine

Once upon a time, someone asked Robin a question.

He was standing on the roof of Titans Tower on a clear afternoon, watching Starfire fly loops above the bay, and a journalist who had somehow gotten past security wanted to know: what is it like to have a teammate with powers like hers?

Robin thought about it.

"I don't think I can fully explain it," he said finally. "But I'll try."

He thought about the first day Koriand'r had arrived — the smoking crater in the parking lot, the way she had looked around at the city with those wide, wondering eyes full of the same kind of curiosity that made her dangerous in a fight and wonderful at a dinner table. He thought about the afternoon Cyborg had persuaded her to let him run some measurements on her starbolt output, and the careful, patient way she had fired blasts at a target wall in the garage while Cyborg adjusted his instruments.

The data had surprised even Cyborg, who was not easily surprised.

Tamaraneans absorb solar energy. That is their gift and their foundation — they take in sunlight through their skin and convert it into power, and then they can release it as concentrated bursts of force called starbolts. It is a remarkable ability under any star, and Earth's yellow sun was particularly generous. Koriand'r was effectively always charging, always fueled, her cells drinking in the light of a star she had never known growing up, and finding it good.

But that was only part of the story. The Citadel's experiments, which had been intended to reduce her to nothing, had instead multiplied everything. Her starbolts could stagger armored vehicles. Her flight was faster than any aircraft the Titans had access to — Jump City to New York in under a minute on a straight line. In space, where no air existed, she was perfectly comfortable, as natural in vacuum as a seabird in wind.

What surprised Cyborg most, though, was not any of those numbers.

It was the numbers he got when he compared starbolt output to emotional state.

The correlation was unmistakable. When Koriand'r was happy — genuinely, deeply happy, the way she was when she was flying above the bay or when Beast Boy had made her laugh by turning into an unusually small giraffe — her starbolt output was nearly twice what it was at baseline. When she was with her team, when she felt that particular warm certainty of being with people she trusted and loved, the blazing green fire in her hands came from a deeper place and burned twice as bright.

Robin had tried to explain this to a visiting hero once. The hero had nodded politely and said, "So what you're saying is she's more powerful when she's happy."

"No," Robin had said. "What I'm saying is that her love is her power. They're not separate things."

He watched her now, arcing above the bay, trailing green light across the blue sky, laughing at something Beast Boy had said over the comm. The laughter was bright and real and it carried all the way down to the rooftop.

The journalist scribbled something in their notebook.

"The other thing," Robin said quietly, "is how she aims."

Because this was important, too. Starfire never fired at a person when she could fire at their weapon. Never at a wall when the engine was the better target. She was always thinking one step past the fight — thinking about the city that would exist after it, thinking about the people who would walk those streets, thinking about whether her actions today would make tomorrow safer or harder. She thought past the conflict to the world on the other side of it.

Robin had trained with Batman, who was the most precise person he had ever met. Batman could tell you the exact angle of a batarang throw to the nearest degree. But Starfire's precision was different. It was not calculation. It was care. Deep, structural, unshakeable care for every living thing in her vicinity.

"She came here from across the galaxy," Robin said finally. "She could have gone anywhere. She could have kept flying. But she chose this city. She chose us." He looked at the journalist. "That's what her powers feel like from the inside, I think. Like being chosen."

Above the bay, Koriand'r turned in a slow, golden arc and flew back toward the Tower, the setting sun catching her hair. She waved when she saw Robin on the roof.

He waved back.

Close your eyes. Somewhere above the city, green light moves through the sky, warm and steady, keeping watch over everyone below.

The sun is always there. And so is Starfire.

Sleep well.