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The summer air hung sticky over Gotham, but the heat didn’t stop Dick Grayson from jogging up the concrete steps two at a time. His jacket was thrown casually over his shoulder, dark hair still damp from the shower, and that familiar grin tugging at his lips. He looked every bit like he’d practiced this—nineteen, effortless, the kind of guy who could make walking into a room feel like a performance.
Trailing behind him, or rather floating in the sort of way that felt more like poetry than physics, Koriand’r was impossible not to notice. She didn’t just *enter* a space; she seemed to change its atmosphere. Her presence was a quiet explosion of warmth: sun-kissed skin, hair like burning copper that spilled over her shoulders with its own glow, and eyes of molten green that surveyed the world as if every crack in the sidewalk or bird overhead was new and fascinating. A goddess in human clothes who didn’t seem to quite understand that she looked like one.
Jason Todd was already at the top of the steps, skulking with his hands shoved into his jeans pockets. Twelve years old, lean and wiry, that attitude of Gotham’s streets stamped in his scowl. His black hoodie was ripped at the cuffs, his sneakers older than Dick’s entire relationship. The kid stood like he had knives hidden in every pocket of his clothes, like the world was waiting to take a swing at him and he was always ready to swing back.
“Yo, Jaybird.” Dick held out a hand like they were equals, like there wasn’t seven years and a world of difference between them.
Jason squinted. “You sayin’ that like it’s supposed to be cute or somethin’.”
Typical Jason. Demolish whatever softness tried to creep his way. He didn’t shake the hand, just crossed his arms like a barricade.
But then—
“Jason.”
Her voice.
The girl—*no, woman*—behind Dick leaned forward, and the sunlight seemed to catch in her hair, turning it into a living flame. She smiled warmly, tilting her head like she truly meant his name as though it were a gift to say it aloud.
“I am so very pleased to meet you,” Koriand’r said, her voice lyrical, foreign yet smooth. The kind of cadence that didn’t belong to Gotham’s cracked sidewalks and filth.
Jason’s mouth opened—and absolutely no words came out.
The muscles in his throat seized. A weird, heavy feeling bloomed in his stomach, the kind of sensation you couldn’t run from, couldn’t weaponize. He’d seen women before. He went to school, didn’t he? Girls sat next to him in class, chewed gum loudly, asked to borrow pencils. Some wore lip gloss, some lingered around the edges of the playground gossiping about boy bands he couldn’t stand.
But none of them looked like *this.* None of them smiled like the sun *chose* to rest on them. None of them leaned ever so slightly forward when talking to you, as if your existence was the singular most important event of the day.
Holy *shit.*
Jason blinked, but the image didn’t go away. The thought slammed into him like a Batarang swung backwards: girls could be—oh God—*hot.* Not just annoying, not just classmates, not just people he shoved past when the school bell rang. Actual *hot*. He felt his ears burn.
“You’re… you’re the girlfriend,” Jason stammered before his brain gave him any chance to reconsider. His voice cracked halfway through the word *‘girlfriend,’* and the humiliation nearly doubled him over internally. He wanted to shove the word back into his mouth and swallow it whole.
“She is,” Dick said proudly, oblivious to Jason’s growing internal crisis. His hand slid around Kori’s waist in that easy, casual way—like it was the most natural, obvious move in the world. Jason noticed the way her hand brushed over his forearm in return, delicate, affectionate, and he wanted to gag. *Affection.*
Kori’s expression softened. “That is correct. I am… how you would say it? His beloved.” She beamed, nodding solemnly, as if declaring herself with ritual.
Jason panicked harder. His entire body screamed *Look away before you combust,* but his eyes betrayed him and stayed locked on her. His brain scrambled for control, running in frantic circles:
*She’s an alien. She’s not even human. Stop it, Jason. Stop it right now.*
*But—good lord—goddess. She’s… she’s glowing. She literally glows.*
*Don’t stare. Stop staring. She’s Dick’s.*
*Dick’s girlfriend. Dick’s girlfriend. Dick’s—god, oh no, she just smiled at me again—*
“You okay there, kid?” Dick asked, snapping him out of his spiral.
Jason nearly levitated out of his sneakers. He shot back the only ammo he had: attitude. “Yeah, I’m fine. Don’t get all weird. Just—” He shoved his hands deeper into his hoodie pockets, scowling at the ground like he could burn holes in the sidewalk. “Just didn’t expect the whole… glowing-space-princess thing. That’s all.”
Kori tilted her head again, curiosity lighting her features. She crouched slightly, so her eyes—so bright Jason actually twitched—came level with his. “Do you not approve?” she asked, genuinely interested.
Jason’s brain temporarily bluescreened. Approve? Approve of her? *As if that was even an option?* Not approve of *her?* What was he supposed to say? “Sorry, you look like an actual goddess and my twelve-year-old brain short-circuited the second I saw you”?
What came out instead was: “…Yeah, sure. Whatever.” And then, more quietly to himself, “Not like it’s any of my business.”
Dick chuckled, reaching out to ruffle his hair. Jason flinched away, of course, but the grin was still on Dick’s face. That older brother smugness that said he could read Jason like a comic strip.
“Don’t worry,” Dick murmured. “You’ll figure girls out later.”
Jason’s face went fire-engine red. *Figure girls out? FIGURE GIRLS OUT?* He wanted to launch himself into the Gotham River right then and there. If Batman himself had appeared out of the shadows with a case file, Jason would’ve begged for a mission just to escape this mortification.
Kori, blissfully unaware of the hormonal nuclear meltdown unraveling beside her, leaned closer still and said warmly, “Do you know, Jason, Dick has told me many good things about you. I am most pleased that I will be seeing much of you now. Perhaps we could share a meal together, yes?”
For a moment, Jason thought his soul might actually fling itself out of his body. Dinner? With her? Sitting at the same table? Breathing the same air?
He shoved the thought down savagely, his voice coming out in a muttered snarl: “Fine.”
But when Kori touched his shoulder gently as she passed, warmth lingering there like sunlight, Jason Todd realized in horrible, gut-dropping clarity that his life—his entire understanding of existence—had just shifted.
Because Dick might’ve been cool, and Batman might’ve been terrifying.
But Starfire?
Starfire was something else entirely.
And Jason Todd, age twelve, had officially learned the meaning of *oh no.*