For the Silver Challenge on Caesar's Palace

Comrade

It could've been him.

It's the only fully formed thought floating in his head these days, and it bounces back and forth through the slew of pain, of confusion, of trying to hold it together for the rest of them. He puts on a brave face and keeps his cool, like he's always done, and pushes the team back into their regular training sessions.

It could've been him.

The rhythmic clanking of the machines in the training room is calming. It drowns out everything inside of him that won't keep quiet. It stops him from thinking how much she must have hurt, what he must have done to her, what he couldashouldawoulda done differently to help her, to protect her. To stop him.

Maybe if he hadn't had the team, it would have been him. Or if he didn't have the same background, if he couldn't control his own mind, if he hadn't been instilled with discipline from day one. Maybe if he was a lonely traveler who hadn't had a place to call home in years and just wanted someone to care. Slade said he could be like a father to him. He wonders if he promised her the same thing.

It could've been him.

Yeah, it could've, but it wasn't, and he's not sure that makes him feel any better. If he'd taken out Slade the first time, it never would've happened, and she would still be here. If he'd reached out sooner, offered better guidance, been more careful with his words, been a better leader, been better, she would still be here.

His staff cuts off the head of a dummy, and he promises himself that he'll never let his friends down again.

Cyborg doesn't have a family, but Victor Stone did.

It's past tense, of course. Everything about that life is. His friends all think he's dead, and his parents are, and the house he lived in and the high school he went to and the team he used to play for aren't really his anymore. Victor is just a memory.

So Cyborg has no relatives anymore, but he does have the Titans, and he thinks they're about as good as a dysfunctional family can get. They keep each other sane in their own ways. Robin's determination, Starfire's optimism, Beast Boy's humor, Raven's apathy, they were all an important part of the dynamic. Sometimes it sort of feels like there's a gap, like something is out of place or missing and he just can't put his finger on it. But it works, in its own weird way, and they're happy with it.

And then she comes, full of sass and spunk and laughter, and her enthusiasm throws a wrench into how they operate, but it's joyful and fun and it feels right. At the same time something else is off, like she's the missing puzzle piece but she was put in backwards and now the picture doesn't look quite right. But she's lost and needs a home and they're not quite a family but they want to be and she's as much of a misfit as the rest of them so it's only natural that they gravitate towards each other.

It's a rocky start but suddenly she's on the team and her presence is no longer a surprise but a standard. She's not perfect but she learns quickly, improving in practice every day and before long she's taking down villains just as well as the rest of them. She's worked into maneuvers and formations and before long it feels like she's not a new member but just a member.

She's part of the team but more importantly she's part of the family. She's there for all their dinners, from the fights over pizza toppings to the rare nights out where they get to relax and enjoy themselves. She's there for the video games, sitting next to him with a controller of her own, confident and loud as she teases him whenever she wins. She's there for the movie nights, passing the popcorn bowl around with the rest of them, her shoulder surreptitiously pressed against Beast Boy's and her cheeks faintly pink.

She's a little scared, though, a little lost. The nervousness is there, he can see it, though she hides it with laughter and corny jokes. He gets it, really. He knows what it's like to be an outsider, to feel like you don't belong. With a bit of time, he knows she'll warm up, and maybe he'd be able to make her realize that she doesn't have to feel alone. He's sure he can help.

But he couldn't.

He's at his computer, working on a stronger security system that would be better prepared for another breach, but he keeps bringing up another browser. He ran out of search terms weeks ago – there was only so many variations of petrifaction he can try and none of them have gotten him anywhere. But he keeps looking, accessing restricted databases he definitely should not be accessing, holding on to the hope that his little sister who isn't really his sister might be able to come back to his family that was a family now more than ever.

Losing his limbs hurt less than this.

There were several kinds of funerals on Tamaran. Different ceremonies meant different things about the deceased. Grand feasts and hearty celebrations of life were reserved for fearsome warriors that passed in battle, with songs sung of their great accomplishments. Solemn but moving send offs were for respected enemies who too fought valiantly and died honorably. There were quiet, intimate affairs for loved ones that only their closest friends attended. And the unceremonious burial trenches were for the nameless foes of their planet that fought without honor and failed to defeat them.

Sometimes she's not too sure which one Terra deserves.

Relationships on Earth are different than on Tamaran, she understands that. And maybe her culture is violent and unrefined and as terrifying as everyone on Earth seems to think it is, but while the rest of the team is sad, she is angry. She is furious that someone who she trusted, who was her teammate, who was her friend that she had loved so dearly could take advantage of them so easily. It seems, like always, she is the opposite of the rest of the Titans.

It comes slowly, the burning in her chest rising every time she thought about it. They were supposed to be friends, they were supposed to trust each other, and even if she did end up helping them she wouldn't have had to if she hadn't betrayed them in the first place. She has no one to vent to because everyone else was so sad about it, moping or furiously researching cures and all she wants to do is just complain about how she was a traitor, how she had never even been their true friend.

The guilt follows later, and she is ashamed of herself for turning on Terra's memory so easily. She knows Slade's power, knows his ability to turn people against their loved ones, knows it's not really her fault (but that doesn't stop her from really believing it is sometimes).

She goes to Terra's grave by herself one day and places a string of beads around the statue, a little unsure. They're not part of a funeral ceremony at all but a friendship one, meant to keep the rekmas away and ensure they'll be friends forever.

She watches the necklace carefully. She's still angry, she's still seething, but she's also ready to forgive, maybe if only for her own sake. There's only so much anger she can hold for someone she loved so dearly. She leaves the cave quickly afterwards, without saying any of the Tameranean rites. She worries later that Terra won't be able to rest without them, but the thought subsides.

It isn't really a funeral, anyway.

It's simple. Terra was their friend, and then she wasn't. And then she was. And then she was gone.

People come and they go. It happens all the time. Some are meant to stay longer than others, but it's inevitable. No one is forever. Not even the Titans.

She lets the thoughts drift through her head as she meditates. Eventually all of this would come to an end. She's known it from the start, since before the team was even a team. There was no forever here, there couldn't be. The end of this entire world was already in sight, though the others didn't know. There's no visible stopping point for the rest of them, so they weren't prepared for the loss of someone who was supposed to be a part of their forever. It hurts them immensely, she can feel it. The air is drenched in pain.

It throws her off a little bit, but she was ready for this. Maybe not quite in this way, but she's been planning for the loss of her friends before she even had friends. So she breathes deeply and doubles down on her meditation, sorting through her emotions and focusing on regaining control of her powers. Sometimes the sadness in the tower clings to her like a leech, and she's not sure why. She's been blocking other's emotions out since she first started learning to control her powers, and there's no reason why this constant ache keeps creeping back through her. She can't even figure out where it could be coming from; there's no external source that she can locate, but it's ever present and dragging her down and it messes her up and forces her to redirect the energy and push it back down and start all over. It's exhausting and frustrating but she does it without complaint. She considers herself lucky, really. She's been ready for this from day one, and the head start dulls the blow. Her emotions are in check. She is fine.

It takes weeks for her powers to work right.

No one knows what to say, so they don't say anything.

It's the pity that's the worst. He can't stand it, can't stand the looks or the meant-to-be supportive words or the trepidation in their actions like he's going to fall apart at any time. He goes to his room and stays there, emerging to eat only when he knew the others wouldn't be around. Sometimes Starfire or Cyborg will try to reach out, but he shuts them down quickly.

Robin gives him a week before he insists that they get back into the regular training schedule. He leaves his room grudgingly, sullen and unapproachable no matter how hard he tries to be a good teammate. He completes his exercises in silence, retreating back to the safety of his bunk bed before anyone tries to get him to join them at dinner.

He holds it in during the day, when everyone is awake and aware of his movements, but at night he cannot choke back the wracking sobs that consume him. It becomes too much and eventually he learns to transform before they start, to muffle the shuddering cries as an animal instead. It's always helped. Dog emotions are easier to handle, anyway.

Robin mentions something poetic about time healing all wounds, and he rolls his eyes but secretly hopes he's right, that the gaping hole in his chest would begin to seal. But time keeps passing and it never seems really to go away, never seems to go back to normal. The pain dulls but nothing is ever quite right. Her absence is a broken leg that healed wrong, an ever present pain that leads to a limp, and maybe he can learn to walk on it but he's not sure he'll ever be able to run again and it hurts too much to even try. Eventually he begins to rejoin the team in the day, eating at meals and cracking bad jokes and moving on – whatever that meant – and soon he can deal with the sadness as a human.

The alarm goes off one day, and he hears Robin yell for them. It's an easy one, just a bank robbery, but the police lost the suspects. The last place they were seen was an abandoned amusement park – and as soon as Robin says it his heart starts beating wildly and his breath catches and everyone turns to stare at him and he squeezes his eyes shut but he just knows that they're giving him that look, the mixture of pity and sadness and trepidation and he cannot stand it. He blinks and they're all watching him and he can tell they'll let him stay behind if he asks for it (because they don't know how to handle him when he's like that and they'd rather not deal with it anyway) and finally he's fed up with the look and the sadness and all of it. He clenches his fist and tilts up his jaw and stares determinedly at Robin. "Well, what are we waiting for?"

There's a long pause, then he nods. "Alright. Titans, go!"

He doesn't hesitate when he runs out the door.

Author's Note

Back from a long, long hiatus with the rustiest writing skills in the world. Instead of studying for my finals I binged watch all of Teen Titans and remembered how much I love Terra so here's me venting my feelings and trying to get back in the swing of things in a style I'm not very practiced at. Criticism is much appreciated!

Thanks for reading!