When Batman met Superman (TMoL one shot contest)

The Misfortunes of Lolita One Shot

When Batman met Superman

Robin didn't know when it had started. Or why it had started - was a better question. He just remembered staring at the freckles that trespassed onto the bridge of her nose, and smiling. He had known her practically all his teenage life and there had never not been a day where her austere features and ethereal freckles didn't bewitch him.

She was so ... So. Too so. As the years went on, he started to notice strange things. It seemed that day by day, Lana Ulster was sinking deeper and deeper and deeper into a pit of callousness and disdain for the world around her.

It burned Robin's insides. All he wanted was to pull her out. To save Lana from her own, pathetic destruction.

He tried, he really had. He laughed at her snide remarks, and acted like he actually cared for her constant bitching. He made jokes, attempting to steal her heart but, instead, facing her ignorance.

She had always been like that and Robin was the ignorant one to think that she was anything but.

The first time he had ever spoken to her didn't seem as magic as it should have been. It should have been something memorable. Something that Robin could look back on and smile like a fool about.

Well, he sure did feel like a fool every time he remembered the encounter.

It was freshman year, he was lanky and goofy and had teeth too big for his face. He worked hard erasing the taunting nickname of 'Big Buck Bunny'. And at the time, Lana was Lana.

Hourglass body and her striking blue eyes. Robin just winced at the thought of him speaking to a girl like her. To a goddess like her.

"Batman and Superman." He had said simply as they sat beside each other in history.

"Excuse me?" Lana's eyebrows raised, dampening Robin's confidence like a huge, wet sponge.

He shrugged. "Y'know. My name's Robin, like from Batman. And you're Lana from Superman."

It took a while for her to get it. When she did, Robin swore that her dismal frown disappeared for a split second and was replaced with a coy grin.

"Dork." She had muttered, hiding behind her straight, shoulder length hair.

Her words drilled holes in his heart but he learnt to get over it. He learnt that Lana Ulster was an impenetrable enigma and he learnt that she had a fragmented soul and that made Robin feel as useless as a pritt stick.

All wanted to do was to fix her.

Years after freshman year, Robin had established one thing. Lana was a beautiful, wild mess. That was so unfair because Robin Reynolds was neither of those things.

They were soulmates, he once believed. They were the scarred villains of a tragic romance despite their superhero related names. They were the underestimated lovers.

Robin, only ever seen as Batman's sidekick and never actually acknowledged in any good way. And Lana, poor Lana, hardly anybody knew who she was. The comics only ever focused on Lois fucking Lane.

He believed that he was saving her, he was pulling her out of this horrid pit of misery and he was so intent on doing so that he hadn't even realized that it was him who was falling deeper in.