Endless Legacy Ch. 32 (DC Comics) (Patreon)

A/N: More shit hits the fan.

-x-X-x-

The tension in the air is so thick you could cut it with a knife. Both Starfire and Raven look like they’re a heartbeat away from doing or saying something to the other that can’t easily be taken back. Meanwhile, Blackfire seems to want nothing more than to flee the situation, growing antsier by the moment. It’s like she doesn’t know whether to be more upset about Raven’s general antagonism or Starfire’s lack of it.

And then there’s Lucien, stuck in the middle of everything and not sure what he can do to solve it. Intervening at this point feels like a bad idea, but staying quiet also feels like a bad idea. Really, what’s he supposed to-

“I’m working for Slade! I’ve been spying on the Titans for him for months now!”

Wait what? Lucien’s eyes slide across the room, away from the standoff between Blackfire, Starfire, and Raven. Maybe taking his eyes off of the three powerful young women wasn’t the best idea, but at the same time, all of their eyes slide off of each other as well. Everyone looks to Terra, the blonde geokinetic standing there staring at them with wide blue eyes, as if only belatedly realizing what she’d just blurted out.

Slowly, the naked young woman sinks to her knees, wrapping her arms over her chest and hugging herself.

“I-I’m sorry… I’m sorry…”

Slade… Lucien tries to put a face to the name. Is she talking about Slade Wilson, aka Deathstroke? He sort of knew who that was, mostly from his previous life. He’d heard of Deathstroke in the news a few times, and also knew that his father had hired the mercenary for a few missions. Maybe Slade was one of the Titans’ enemies?

But… why? Why would a mercenary have Terra spying on the Titans? And why would she agree in the first place?

Her ire fully turned away from the two alien princesses lying in bed with him, Raven floats over to Terra, hands curled into fists at her sides as she asks the exact same question currently plaguing Lucien.

“… Why? Why would you side with HIM?”

Shaking, Terra whimpers and clings to herself all the harder.

“I-I had to… my powers… I’ve never been able to c-control them. And you guys… I didn’t want you to kick me out! If you knew I was dangerous, you would never have let me stay as a Titan! H-He cornered me… I tried to fight him back, but he beat me easily… and then he offered to t-train me. To help me c-control my powers…”

Terra almost seems energized the more she speaks. As Raven stares down at her in silence, the naked blonde looks up, hopefully.

“It’s worked, too! I haven’t had an accident in months! His training has helped me become the heroine I always wanted to be!”

Raven’s face might as well have been etched in stone as she responds to that in a clipped tone.

“And what did it cost you? What did it cost us?”

Terra flinches and apparently that’s all Raven needs to see because she suddenly sneers, her hands glowing with black energy. But while Lucien is concerned for a moment that the half-demon will outright attack her treacherous teammate, that doesn’t happen. Instead…

“Get out! Get out of this tower! Get out of my sight, traitor! Go back to your Master before I decide to do something permanent!”

Terra looks like a deer caught in headlights, but she also looks like she’s ready to scramble up and do as she’s told… maybe even without getting dressed first. Lucien purses his lips together, feeling like maybe he should stay quiet even now. And yet… he can’t. Not just because he slept with Terra just last night, not just because he knows her as Tara Markov now, not just Terra of the Titans… but because Raven isn’t being smart about this. She’s letting her emotions run rampant and get in the way.

“I don’t think that’s the right call, Raven.”

The infuriated half-demon whips around and narrows her eyes at him, while Terra looks at him hopefully. But Lucien just stares Raven down, keeping his tone level and calm.

“At the very least, I don’t think it’s a call you can make on your own. Robin and Beast Boy deserve to know and be allowed to weigh in.”

Snarling, Raven grits her teeth.

“And who are you to tell me what I can and cannot do? You’re not even a Titan!”

That was true. He might have been hanging out with them a lot in recent times, but even as Remedy, Lucien hadn’t officially joined up or anything. And even now he had no plans to do so. Not like it would have helped anyways. Even if he had officially joined up, Raven would have just said that he hadn’t been a Titan ‘long enough’ or something. Fortunately, Lucien doesn’t have to respond. Starfire does it for him, pushing off the bed and floating up into the air as well.

“He may not be, but I am. And he’s right, Friend Raven. The others deserve to be involved. They deserve to hear what Terra has admitted to from her own lips.”

Raven bristles, clearly having not forgotten her and Starfire’s little tiff from mere minutes ago. But then, all of the sudden, she deflates. Looking at them and then at Terra, the half-demon huffs.

“… Fine.”

She scowls when Terra brightens up a little bit though.

“Don’t think this is good for you, bitch. You might have wished you ran away when I gave you the chance.”

The blonde spy shivers at that, averting her gaze as Raven glares her down, until finally the grey-skinned heroine just whips around and leaves the room. But not before calling back over her shoulder to all of them.

“Get dressed. Meet in the Common Room, fifteen minutes.”

… Needless to say, this was NOT how Lucien expected this morning to go. Not one bit.

-x-X-x-

Silence fills the Common Room about thirty minutes later, once the male members of the Titans have been filled in on everything by a still agitated Raven. Lucien finds himself sitting on one side of Blackfire, with Starfire on her sister’s other side and practically hovering like an overprotective mama bear. Robin looks like he wants to say a million things about Blackfire’s returned memories, but the Titans Team Leader seems to be biting his tongue at the moment out of recognition of Starfire’s mood.

Besides, so long as Blackfire isn’t presenting an immediate threat to all of them… the Titans really do have bigger fish to fry right now.

“Tara…”

Beast Boy sounds particularly broken as he stares at the blonde heroine. The use of her proper first name instead of her hero name is obvious in the way he pronounces it with an ‘a’ instead of an ‘e’. In response, the geokinetic flinches, eyes on her hands which are resting in her lap, unable to muster up any sort of response.

At hearing Beast Boy, Robin pulls his attention off of Blackfire and Starfire and looks to Terra, his eyes narrowing into slits behind his mask.

“So Slade co-opted you to spy on us, is that it?”

“… Y-Yes.”

“And is that all he had you doing? No sabotage? No other scheming? Just reporting on us?”

Looking up, blue eyes wide, Terra shakes her head.

“N-No! Nothing else! I would have… I would have s-said no! All he did was have me inform o-on what was going on with you guys… most of it was public information anyways!”

Beast Boy makes a noise in the back of his throat akin to the sound of an animal dying. He’s clearly heartbroken. Robin, meanwhile, seems unconvinced.

“So you’re going to sit here and tell me that you didn’t have any part in Cyborg’s departure? Didn’t do anything to drive him away from the Titans, weakening us as a whole so that Slade would have an easier handling us the next time he attacked?”

Lucien raises an eyebrow at that, while Terra rears back like she was struck in the face. Even the other Titans are looking at Robin a little queerly.

“W-What?! No! I didn’t… Cyborg and I barely exchanged two words before he left! And Slade didn’t tell me to do anything to drive him away either! I swear it!”

Robin doesn’t look like she believes her. But Beast Boy…

“Robin, you drove Cyborg away. Tara might be a traitor and a spy who wormed her way into our lives, but you can’t lay that at her feet. Cyborg left because the two of you butted heads one too many times. Full stop.”

Now it’s Robin’s turn to flinch a little at his fellow hero’s blunt assessment. Even if Terra looks positively heartbroken by the way Beast Boy is now talking to her.

“Garfield…”

The green-skinned shapeshifter shoots a withering glare in Terra’s direction at her use of his name. Clearly, he’s gone from hurt to angry by this point. With Robin stewing for a moment, it’s Beast Boy who takes up the interrogation.

“What did Slade want to know anyways? Was this him attempting to lure Robin away to try and make him his apprentice again? Or was it just plain old revenge? What the fuck would motherfucking Deathstroke want with us otherwise, really?”

Terra’s mouth opens and closes for a moment as she tries to find the words. But no one interrupts while she does. No one has anything else to say as they all wait for her to speak. Finally…

“A-Actually… he didn’t seem to care about Robin that much. Not you or Starfire either. He… he wanted to know about everyone, but he asked the most questions about… about Raven.”

The half-demon in question stiffens at that, even as everyone else in the Common Room looks to her. Scowling at suddenly being the center of attention, Raven glares Terra down.

“Why? What could he possibly want with me?”

Terra does a half-shrug, one shoulder rising and falling as she looks down at her hands again.

“I… I don’t know? It’s not like he told me. All he did was train me so I could have the discipline and self-control to use my powers. And as payment, I had to answer any question he asked about all of you.”

Abruptly bursting into fresh tears, Terra looks around the room.

“I’m sorry! T-Truly I am! But I’m so much stronger now! I’m so much b-better with my powers! S-Surely you all see t-that! And now that you know he’s after R-Raven, we can t-take him down together! I d-don’t have to do his b-bidding anymore! Please, l-let me prove myself!”

Beast Boy scoffs.

“Yeah? Guy teaches you for months and you’re ready to drop him just like that? And we’re just supposed to believe you? Even if we do take down Slade together, how are any of us ever supposed to trust you, ever again?”

The blonde geokinetic looks stricken at Beast Boy’s words. Lucien grimaces a little himself. On the one hand, the shapeshifter isn’t wrong. On the other hand…

“You know, it might not be a bad idea to use her all the same.”

Everyone looks at him then, but Lucien was expecting it. He doesn’t shy away from having their attention.

“Terra fucked up. Sure. And maybe what she’s done is unforgivable… I can’t decide that for you. But because of her, you’re now several steps ahead of your enemy. Slade Wilson is a dangerous man. A killer. Beating him won’t be easy.”

Robin straightens up at that, frowning slightly.

“We’ve beaten him before. We can do it again.”

Lucien looks the Titans Team Leader in the eye.

“That’s great, really. But if you’ve beaten him before, you know he’s not going to make the same mistakes he made last time. A mercenary like Deathstroke doesn’t get to where he’s at with the reputation he has by refusing to learn from his failures.”

Lucien and Robin might not be particularly close… they’re not even really friends. But he can see that the logic of his words nevertheless gets to the other young man. Robin is listening if nothing else.

“Terra is offering to help make amends for her actions. Whether you see her as a friend and a teammate after this is largely irrelevant because right now, she’s a resource. She can help you stop Slade in his tracks far easier, before he can truly get whatever his latest plan is off the ground. And whether that makes up for what she’s done or not… that’s for all of you to decide. But you’d be fools to refuse her aid now and send her running into Slade’s arms.”

Some of the Titans bristle at being called fools. Some shoot Terra angry looks at the thought of her running to her ‘teacher’, making her flinch and duck her head. Of course, Raven isn’t entirely convinced.

“What if she’s a poisoned resource? How can we even begin to trust her information? Exposing herself to us might be part of Slade’s plans. She might lead us right into a trap.”

Lucien doesn’t have a response for that, truth be told. He just shrugs, having said his piece. It’s Beast Boy who speaks up all of the sudden, still sounding hurt and raw and angry.

“How did she slip past your powers in the first place, Rae? How did she manage to hide her true allegiances from us all this time when you can literally sense emotions?”

Raven stiffens, her lips thinning out as she looks between Beast Boy and Terra.

“… I sensed her guilt a long time ago.”

That gets the attention of the other Titans.

“But I also sensed affection for us. Happiness. Excitement to be part of a team. I knew she didn’t have full control over her powers. And I know you promised to keep that a secret from us, Garfield.”

Now both Beast Boy and Terra are staring at Raven with wide eyes.

“… I didn’t say anything because I thought the guilt was tied to her fear of messing up and having an accident. Of hurting people. I was wrong.”

“N-No! You weren’t, Raven! That was a lot of it! A-and…and my affection for all of you was real too! As was my happiness and excitement! I’ve loved being a Titan, I swear I have! I just… I didn’t want to mess it up. I didn’t want to disappoint or hurt a-any of you… please… you have to believe me…”

Terra sounds so broken. But as hurt as she clearly is, it’s obvious the Titans are just as hurt. Even Starfire, who hasn’t said a word and is holding her older sister’s hand tightly, is looking at Terra with hurt in her eyes.

Lucien definitely feels a little out of place here. But he’s said his piece. It’s not up to him to decide what happens next. The ball is firmly in the Titans’ court now.