AUTHOR'S NOTES: This is a Valentine's Day fic of the Young Justice variety. If you happen to be one of the few people to have read my YJ Romances, you know you can expect Robin/Secret as well as Impulse/Arrowette. I explained before in one of my other fanfics that I'm unable to write Superboy/Wondergirl. I don't know why. Perhaps because the couple is already looking official. Thusly, I won't have a chapter for those two. I apologize.
*
Unrequited love is perhaps the most common form of love. At least you don't have to go through the dumping thing.
*
"You make a card from your heart and give it to the person you care the most about," Wondergirl declared wisely and Impulse wrinkled his nose, scratching his head.
Glue was stuck to the floor and walls, spread hither and thither (as well as yon) from the efforts of the speedster and the other super-teens.
Empress neatly pressed a colorful flower against a red piece of cardboard, colorful decorations sprinkled about the deceased centerpiece.
"Why the hell would ya make somethin' fer someone else?" Lobo grumbled from his position in the shadows, red eyes glowing eerily.
" 'Cause it's romantic," Empress tossed back, narrowly avoiding a glue-ball Superboy flicked in her direction. "Cut it off, Kon."
"I can't get it to stiiiiiiiiiiick!!!" Impulse whined and he, frustrated, tried to throw a fake flower away from him. It remained stuck to his fingers. Shaking his fingers at a mind-numbing speed, he growled angrily.
The flower remained stuck to his fingers, even if the felt petals had been shredded by the intense winds.
"Why don't you just vibrate?" Secret suggested softly, her voice quiet and vaporous, not surprising considering her structure.
He blinked.
"Oh."
Shrugging, the childlike boy's outline hummed and seemed to shiver at a hyperactive rate. The plastic stem fell to the floor with a dull clacking sound.
He grinned widely.
"Who're you making the valentine for?" Robin asked, pretty sure he knew the answer.
"Cissie."
Mass blinking encircled the cave.
"What about Carol?" Wondergirl offered.
Impulse shrugged and grinned. "Preston already gave her a valentine."
Empress paused her delicate artwork and looked thoughtful. "Aren't the girls at Cissie's school allowed to have guys at their school on Valentine's Day?"
"Yup! Handy, ain't it?"
"Isn't, Bart, ISN'T," Robin corrected.
"Whatever." With that said, the speedster vanished, leaving a sparking trail of electricity in his wake.
"I feel...so proud," Superboy said to nobody in particular. "The little man's all grown up and wooing the girls...it's the kind of thing that just tears me up..."
Li'l Lobo rolled his eyes as Wondergirl grabbed the clone's arm and dragged him out of the room.
"I sense a plot...," Empress wondered aloud before quickly folding her valentine in half and teleporting into the shadows where the Czarnian stood defiantly, arms crossed.
"Come on, Lobo," she chirped, hauling him away.
Secret stopped her construction of a paper heart to stare at the now empty door.
"Did they just engage in physical contact?" Robin finally asked.
Secret, feeling her mist cheeks redden slightly, made a point to avoid looking at the leader of the group.
An uncomfortable silence descended on the room, the only sounds being Robin's nervous whistling and Secret's scissors cutting through paper swiftly.
"Sooooo, uh..."
"Did Spoiler give you a card?"
He mentally slapped himself.
"Um...yeah?"
She sighed, shoulders falling limply.
After a few more minutes of silence, Robin sighed angrily at himself.
"Look, Suzee, I'm sorry! Okay? I like you. I really do..."
She looked up, smiling and she tossed the card at him.
"Happy Valentine's Day."
She disappeared into a crack in the floor, leaving behind a startled Robin.
*
When someone gives their heart freely to you, even without their own knowledge, count yourself as lucky. Then go pray it'll last.
*
"Miss Cissie Jones, you have a visitor," the secretary informed the lounging teenager in a droll, snottily bored tone of voice.
She glanced up from the game of poker she was teaching Traya how to play and grinned widely, albeit weakly.
The two girls hastily scrambled their cards about to make it seem as if they weren't engaging in an illegal card game.
The secretary rolled her eyes and stamped out of the common room, muttering darkly beneath her breath.
"Hey, Cissieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!"
Bartholomew 'Bart' Allen beamed from the doorway, his short stature looking taller due to his slender, big-footed body frame.
"Bart?" Cissie asked, startled.
"Bart?" Traya echoed, eyes sparkling with a hidden understanding.
"Bart!" he chirped happily, streaking across the floor and hugging Cissie joyfully, a piece of red felt sticking out of the back pocket of his jeans. "Howareyoudoing, Cissie?" he added, words rushed.
"I'm fine," she laughed, rubbing the top of his head, thickly wild auburn hair ruffled by her slim hand.
Discreetly, Traya began edging out of the room.
"How're the guys?" she asked, finding herself seated on the couch, Bart staring at her from across the coffee table, facial expression childishly eager.
"Everybody's fine, but Kon's being a jerk...likealways...and Lobo's been bullying me, but Empress always gets him to shut up sooner or later...and Secret an' Robin act weird around each other--maybe they're both sick..."
'I wonder why...,' Cissie thought wryly.
"Oh! That kinda reminds me...here'savalentineImadeforyou," he ended the sentence with a rush, cheeks slightly reddening.
The paper card was crumpled and slightly wrinkled. The glitter was messily strewn across it and the drawings were surprisingly detailed and drawn with expertise, even if the lead happened to be smudged from being stuck in his pocket for who-knew-how-long...
She loved it.
"Iknowit'snotverygood, butAnitasaysitdependsontheheartyouputintoitandIthinkLoboreallyshouldlistentoher. 'Causeshe'sgotsomereallycoolideasaboutstuff."
He stopped.
See, growing up in a VR world had done nothing to further his knowledge of the affectionately dubbed subject 'the birds and the bees' and his overall thoughtfulness over the matter of girls was practically nonexistent. (A fact Kon lorded over the oblivious boy at every chance.)
And the dreamy, wide smile on Cissie's face was making him uncomfortable.
In more ways than one.
Before his inhumanly reflexes could react, she had her arms thrown around him.
"I love it!"
A goofy grin spread across his face. This was actually getting kind of fun...
*
Opposites attract. Need I say more?
*
"Don’t touch me," he growled darkly, pulling his snow-white arm away from Empress’ dark brown hand.
Rudely, she stuck her tongue out, flipping her shimmering reddish-brown hair snobbily.
"You don’t have to be such a tough guy all the time," she smiled, switching tracks quickly.
He grunted in reply. The two walked slowly down the corridor, each along a different wall.
"Do you ever feel lonely?"
He blinked his red eyes, pupil-less and white-less. Turning his head slightly to look at her standing there, a pure look of curiosity on her face, he stopped walking. "Whadda ya mean?" Lobo asked as means of a response.
She shrugged nonchalantly, an annoying voice peeping things in the back of her mind. "Don’t you ever wonder if anyone’ll ever love you?" she defined slowly.
He snorted. "Nope. Never. Nobody gives a frag about me, so why should I care?"
"But everyone needs love."
If he had had eyebrows, he would have raised one. "*I* don’t," he pointed out coldly.
She shrugged again. "Whatever you say. Still, don’t you ever wo-"
"God, what is WITH ya and this stupid love thing?!" he snarled defensively, eyes narrowed demonically.
Empress smiled slightly. "I’ve hit a nerve, haven’t I? Big bad Lobo, genocidal, destroyer of the Czarnian race, is afraid of love."
"I am NOT!" he snapped, eyes flashing and pale face contorted, hands bunched up into fists.
"Yes, you are."
Her expression was calm and set. It infuriated him beyond belief.
"Shut the fraggin’ hell up," was his closed, pinched reply.
"No."
The walls shuddered as he slammed her against one metal wall, a hand pulled back and fisted, ready to slug her in the middle of her patient, pretty face. The homicidal lust to do so was fading away at the close proximity of her face to his.
Searching his twisted face, finding something even he couldn’t amidst the frightening, mindless rage and darkness, Empress smiled again, the curve of her lips sad.
"This hurts you more than it does me." She grimaced, unable to feel the floor beneath her dangling, booted feet, his corded arm pressing hard against her throat. "And that’s saying something," she joked lightly.
"Why?" he gritted out between bared teeth.
"You need love." Somewhat caught off-guard, he uncharacteristically felt the anger storming in his blood and mind vanish swiftly.
Slowly, he let her go and she rubbed at her throat, voice raw as she spoke. "Thank-you."
Suddenly enraged at himself, confused by the foreign emotions burning his brain, he turned to storm off. She wouldn’t let him.
"Lobo, we’re here for you. Robin, Secret, Imp, SB, Wondy, and me. Me most of all. And you are *not* going to stomp away. You are staying right here for at least five seconds more."
The valentine she’d been working on earlier was thrust into one of his large hands.
With a gentle smile, she hugged him. "Happy V-Day, Czarnian."
