Note: I do not own any of the characters included. Teen Titans does.
In the Raeterra discord ( /EE89RWDHBF), it's Raeterra week! This is actually the fourth day of it, but I really only have time to do a couple of the days, anyway. Because of this, I'll only be doing Day 4 (Secret/Teamwork) and Day 5 (No capes/Habits), but I hope you enjoy them.
Anyway, I'm kind of doing both of today's prompts, because this oneshot surrounds around Terra's secret that she's working for Slade AND there's some teamwork near the end. But the idea of this is basically just an AU where Terra tries to back out of betraying her friends at the last second, despite the fact that Slade has already taught her to control her powers, and runs away when it starts to become too real. Enjoy!
Terra ran. Her legs brushed past each other, and it hurt as the skin slapped against each other, but she just kept running. She felt hot tears cover her cheeks, and the saltiness burned, but she just kept running. One leg after the other, until she was back at Titans tower.
"Dear girl, stop right there." Terra heard a man's voice strictly demanding. Her legs wobbled for a moment, a rush of fear cascading through her. It seemed impossible that he had really caught up to her with the speeds she was running, but he had. He always did.
As Terra slowed down, she felt a rush of memories fly through her brain. Police, and even sometimes normal citizens, chasing her like this, their firm footsteps smacking the ground. Everytime, they wanted something -sometimes even her life- to make up for what she'd done. Luckily for her, she was a pretty good runner. Quickly, she shook her legs back from being wobbly, and made sure that they just kept running, as fast as they could.
"Dear girl, we had a deal." The man reminded her, sounding only a little over 10 feet behind her. This made her want to freeze, the fear taking over her. But she ignored this, continuing to run, like she had all those other times when people were chasing her. And so far, it had always been the thing that saved her from the chasers, whoever they may be.
Unlike most times, though, Terra was sure she had done nothing wrong… right? He had been the one that wanted her to kill her friends, to betray the only people -other than himself- who had ever shown her kindness. At the same time, though, she had made a deal. Even if then she had felt upset and betrayed by her friends in the instance, even if she hadn't been in her right mind, she had made the deal. And he had already gone through with his part, so shouldn't she go through with hers?
Even as she thought about this, though, her legs just kept moving. The idea of killing her friends -particularly Raven- was just too much. She pushed herself forward, even using her powers to create an Earth path when water got in her way, increasing her speed by the second, until she saw something familiar.
"Titan Tower…!" She called out in relief. Her breath was heavy, causing her to make loud, visible, sighs as she finally allowed herself to slide to a stop. She slowly turned around, figuring that by then, Slade surely must have given up. But to her dismay, the man stood right behind her. Her eyes stared up at him, panic filling her expression.
"Dear girl, what were you doing…?" Slade questioned suspiciously. "You know, there's really no reason to run…." His voice was soft, but somehow sharp at the same time. Terra's eyes were still locked in a glare, too terra-fied to even blink. As if that could somehow calm her nerves, he brushed his hand through her hair, making her wince.
"I…." Terra stuttered, panic overwhelming her ability to speak. She took one big breath, before slowly letting out the truth. "I… couldn't… do it." She was almost frozen, her eyes not moving a centimeter, even as her mouth moved to speak. Slade narrowed his one eye at her, an obvious sign of his dissatisfaction.
"Little girl… Sweet little girl…." He slowly shook his head as he cooed, as if about to teach her some kind of life lesson. He gently put his gloved hand onto her head, patting it to remind her of how small -and helpless- she really was. After being open for far too long, she let her eyes finally close as he messed up her hair with his pats. It felt almost like she was closing them in some kind of pain, a pain that was more complex than the kind that you get when someone hits you. Even though she should be running or getting her friends, the pain was too strong to let her move from her spot.
From not far away, two violet eyes were peering over. Raven had just so happened to look out the window of her room, quickly spotting the two of them. Seeing that Terra needed help, she sprung from her seat and ran outside, hurrying towards where the two were standing.
"Leave. Her. Alone!" Raven called as she made her way there. She looked towards them, quickly noticing that neither had even heard her calls, the words being blown away by the island air. For a second, she listened to what they were talking about, quickly deciding that there might be a benefit to them not knowing she was there. She stopped in her tracks, making herself completely silent as she spied.
"We made a deal, Terra. You do realize that it doesn't matter whether or not you can or want to kill them, you have to at the very least try." Slade spoke to her slowly, ignoring the fact that she was a teenager, not a toddler. The words seemed to seep into Terra's brain so deeply, forcing her to pay attention to him as if he would quiz her later.
"I know," Terra responded, pausing for a moment before she said her next line, "But… the Titans… they just….." She rubbed at her eyes, wiping away the tears that were still strolling down her cheeks.
"They what, dear girl?" Slade asked, not even waiting for her to finish her sentence, "Whatever you're saying better not be anything relating to betraying me. We're working together to kill the Titans, Terra. I'm on your side… And honestly, I don't think you want it any other way… especially with someone as powerful as me." He narrowed his eyes again, critically staring into her until he got his response. But to his surprise, the only response he got was from somewhere else entirely.
"You're working with Slade?!" Raven exclaimed angrily. She stared at Terra accusingly. "I knew I shouldn't have trusted you. I sensed something like this was going to happen! But I still let you fooled me… how could I have been so stupid? How could I have let myself care for someone like you?" Her powers began to leak, coming towards the already-frightened Terra in front of her. Realizing this, Raven quickly began mumbling meditation chants until she had it under control again.
"Raven…" Terra stuttered, feeling the need to call the girl's name once again. "Raven, I'm sorry… I was just about to try to back out of it, already, but…" Her parsing was weird, making the entire process of saying words take much longer than it should.
"How am I supposed to even believe you?!" Raven snapped, "How am I supposed to know this isn't another trap? This entire thing could easily be a complex trap by the two of you! Anything could be a trap…!" She squeezed her eyes shut, pulling at her own hair in frustration.
"Please! I know I seem untrustworthy, but you've gotta believe me!" Terra yelled desperately. Raven, her eyes still squeezed shut, was attempting to hold back the tears that wanted to roll down her cheeks. Despite this, she opened her eyes and just stared at Terra, searching for something that would prove what she was saying was right.
"If you really do love me, Terra, help me defeat Slade." She stated, trying to make it sound like some kind of challenge, "Beat him up hard, with me, and maybe, just maybe, I'll believe you." Raven looked back at Terra, hoping so hard that she would listen. Terra nodded, about to throw a rock at Slade, when Slade's words made her hesitate.
"Dear girl, you know this is wrong." He reminded her, as if by fighting him, he was just as much of a victim as Raven. "We had a deal. I took care of you, even when the Titans didn't. Like when that stupid Beast boy kid told your secret…." Terra looked up at him, taking in and considering her options. She looked back and forth from him and Raven, desperately hoping that she'd just suddenly know what to do.
Raven looked at her heartbrokenly, "Terra, you've already done stuff wrong. Just do the right thing now." She attempted to persuade her. After realizing the more stark statements weren't working, she sighed, knowing that even if she did feel betrayed, it was about time she admitted her feelings. "Please, Terra… I… I love you."
Terra looked back at her, a smile growing on her face, "Raven, I love you, too… and you're right, that's more important than anything Slade has ever done for me." She scowled at Slade, showing him she had made her decision. "It's about time someone put you in your place." Terra threw a rock at him to prove she was serious.
Raven quickly ran over to join Terra in her rock throwing, and the two couldn't help but laugh as Slade fell unconscious from all the rocks being thrown in his face. Once he was on the ground, without a chance of defeating them, they paused what they were doing to high-five.
"Geez, one of those rocks you threw at him was huge!" Terra commented, snickering.
"Yeah," Raven snickered with her, but slowly stopped to start a more serious mood. "Terra, about what I said earlier… I, um, actually didn't mean I just loved you as friends…." She looked down to the floor nervously, wondering how Terra would react.
"I know," Terra responded, bringing back the smiley mood, "And I said I loved you too, didn't I?" She laughed, attempting to ease up how tense Raven was. Raven smiled back at her.
"You… you meant it that way, too?" She clarified hopefully. Terra nodded, making Raven stutter for a second, unsure what to do, or how much to celebrate. Seeing this, Terra made the initiative herself to pull Raven into a small hug, careful to let Raven pull away if she didn't want to. After a second, though, Raven even hugged back a little.
"With how close you got to betraying me, we have some trust to re-earn, and that might take a while." Raven reminded Terra pessimistically. She shook her head for a second, but then brought her smile right back on, "But that doesn't mean it'll take forever."
Terra smiled even bigger and nodded. The two sat down, leaning on each other's shoulders. As the moon filled the sky, the two just watched, side-by-side, waiting for the next day of opportunity to come.
Sorry if it felt a little rushed, I just quickly wrote this last night. Anyway, please read and review!
