"What were you thinking?" Star's mother-like tone made Marco wince. He didn't understand why Star - princess or not - had to be that adult figure. "Hold out your hand." She said, sternly, motioning for Marco's bruised and bloody hand. Marco refused. "I don't need you to take care of me. I'm not a little kid." He fired back with a nasty attitude.

Star, being the mature princess she was, didn't accept that as an answer. She took Marco's hand, even if he did complain and say, "ow" and wrapped it in bandages. Star looked Marco up and down as she did so. He had a bruise on his right cheek and a black eye for a left eye. "Marco, why must you get yourself into such quarrels with your peers?"

Marco rolled his eyes at Star's vocabulary and answered back with his famous, bad-boy attitude. "They were asking for it! It's not my fault that they like to trash talk and say dirt about-" Marco stopped himself before he could say it. Star's eyes locked with his and he knew she was asking "About what?" in her head.

As if to answer her inner question, Marco said, "Look, they were saying some pretty mean things about you and..." Marco 's eyes dropped and Star stopped patching up his bleeding knuckles. Then, she finished Marco's unsaid sentence.

"You were just sticking up for me, weren't you?" Marco nodded, keeping his eyes on the tiles of the kitchen.

"Yeah."

Star couldn't work against the smile that was creeping on her face. She knew Marco was just trying to keep the bullies off her back, yet she wished that he didn't solve his problems by starting a fistfight. Star hadn't kept her eyes off of the boy infront of her. His cheeks had enhanced themselves into a pink color. Star took her hand and gently lifted Marco's chin so his eyes were on her's. Marco hated how Star could be so caring and soft. Even her eyes on his own were too holy.

"I can see right through you, Bad Boy." Star mumbled.

"Uhhh..." Marco began, but didn't know what to say.

"Everyday, you come home with bruises and swollen eyes and frankily..." Star sighed, giving up on her last sentence to start a new one. "I hate to see you like this, Marco. This isn't you."

Marco huffed. "What do you mean?"

"I mean... this isn't the Marco I see inside."

Marco tried his best to hold back a grunt of frustration. Sometimes, Star's lectures were annoying, especially this one.

Star saw Marco already getting flustered and fed up with her. But, she kept going. She stared at him for a cold, hard minute and took in Marco's appearance. Besides the beaten and defeated boy, she looked at his clothes. He wore a faded red beanie, a black, slick leather jacket and a single, grey earring on his ear.

"You're not as bad as everyone says you are. You have a sensitive, caring side."

"You just don't get it. It's just the way you have to practically survive on Earth. It's all about how you present yourself and how others see you. But, you wouldn't get it. You're from Mewni."

Though Star didn't know much about Earth, she finally found a similarity between her home dimension, Mewni, and Earth - judgement. She found Marco's words to be alienated. She couldn't relate to Marco's lifestyle, but she understood how he felt.

"No," She said. "I do. I completely understand how you feel!" Marco raised an eyebrow, so Star went on. "It's just like that on Mewni, too! You know, being a princess doesn't always mean living in a gigantic castle and having so much power. I have to present myself to my kingdom and am constantly judged. I have to make something of myself that I am not to become Queen."

"Really?" Marco said with an accidental chuckle that slipped out of his throat.

"Yes, of course! And I know that feeling! It's exhausting, correct?" Marco nodded with all the weight being lifted off his chest.

Finally, there was someone else that understood.

Before Marco knew it, Star was stripping him away, taking off his beanie and pulling off his heavy leather jacket. "Hey," Marco exclaimed. "What are you-?"

Star went over and took out his earring and set it on the table, next to his jacket and beanie. Then, she messed up his neatly, combed-back hair. At last, she took the mirror hanging from the wall and handed it to Marco. In response, Marco made a face.

"Now, look." Star said with a sweet, easy smile.

Marco held up the mirror to himself and looked at someone he had never seen before. Looking past his cuts and bruises, he saw someone else. A new Marco was born and the boy in the mirror grinned.

"This is the Marco I see." Star said.

(Bad Boy Marco and Princess Star Butterfly AU)