Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

THE DAILY PLANET @tdpofficial

WHERE’S TERRA?: AN INTERVIEW WITH THE TEEN TITANS

On June 13, 2015, the Teen Titans apprehended the alleged supervillain Slade Joseph Wilson, known to the public as “Deathstroke the Terminator.” The upcoming litigation, one of only seventeen trials of metahumans in recorded history, is sure to set many interesting precedents. My colleague, Clark Kent, will be covering the legal details and you can find his summary of the timeline so far (here), but as the Planet’s official Metahuman, Extraterrestrial, and Magician Correspondent, I went looking for the more personal side of the story.

In advance, I managed to secure an exclusive interview with the individuals everyone’s most eager to hear from: the Teen Titans themselves. 

I’ve had more than my fair share of interviews with superheroes over the years, including with several of the Teen Titans themselves. In 2012, I sat down with the Tamarean Princess Kori’ander, known more commonly as Starfire, to discuss her thoughts on proposed legislation surrounding extraterrestrial immigration, and Nightwing, formerly known as Robin and ex-sidekick to Gotham’s Batman and leader of the Teen Titans, is far from a stranger to the media in general and myself in particular thanks to his involvement in the groundbreaking “Joker” v the People of the State of New Jersey case in 2010. However, much of the team is a stranger.

Robin introduces me to the team in the lobby of the building that serves as their headquarters, known to the residents of Philadelphia as the “Teen Titans’s Tower” or just the “T Tower” for short, and I am struck by their diversity. Starfire, as previously mentioned, is Tamarean and has made her experiences with Earth public knowledge over the years, but the rest of the team isn’t entirely human. Wonder Girl is one of a handful of Amazons who has graced what they are prone to describing as “Man’s World” with her presence. Despite her similarities to the Justice League’s Wonder Woman, which includes Themysciran heritage, Wonder Girl is relatively well adjusted to this time, which she attributes to being a more recent immigrant. Raven’s background is unknown and is widely believed to have no civilian identity. She appears to be a young Indian woman in her early twenties or late teens, however, many speculate that she is not entirely human due to the gemstone located in her forehead and her aptitude for shadowy magic. Despite his green skin, Changeling, formerly known as Beast Boy, has repeatedly assured the world he grew up like “any other teenaged boy.” Victor Stone, also known as Cyborg, and Kid Flash have both told their stories elsewhere, so I won’t dwell, but needless to say, Cyborg’s appearance is quite unique, and Kid Flash’s propensity for accelerated fidgeting are quite notable. Nightwing is by far the most seemingly normal member of the team, though I know from personal experience that his personality and athletic skills more than make up for his physical appearance.

I am also struck by one notable absence. Terra, a metahuman with powerful geokinetic abilities, joined the team in mid 2014. The team is still patching up their wounds from the confrontation that ended with Slade Wilson in custody. No fatalities had been reported at the time. The team has generally been keeping it quiet, so I hadn’t noticed her absence. Starfire and Wonder Girl have been responded to most crisis on their own recently.

“Where’s Terra?” I ask, concerned. The team notably darkens in response to my question, with Nightwing in particular looking perturbed. He shifts his stance awkwardly.

“No comment,” Raven says, tone difficult to read. “This is about the trial.”

“So she’s alive? There’s been rumors—“

“No comment,” Raven repeats, and I feel the weight of what many who have fought her describe as “the specter of death.” I’m unsure if it’s a meta ability or simply her demeanor, however, it was enough to get me to change track to a more practical discussion, ie, who would be interviewed and in what order. Terra was off limits— understood. The interview was to be about the trial, and, by extension, the alleged crimes of Deathstroke.

Who is Deathstroke?

The basic facts of the matter are public record. He is 5’11”, born in 1958 and a former member of the United States military, although everyone involved in an official capacity has been cagey about the details and his family has refused requests to comment. Despite being 57, he appears to be in his mid thirties, likely related to his metahuman abilities which, depending on who you believe, either emerged or were induced artificially at that time. As for what those abilities are, the exact details are unknown. However, the Titans were happy to share their thoughts.

“Definitely not human strength,” Changeling says. “He’s thrown pretty much all of us through more walls than we can count. Which is so unfair.”

“Fast too,” Kid Flash adds. “Not like me, obviously, but he could Usain Bolt a run for his money, if you know what I mean? Not like we ever really saw him in an all out sprint. He’s a guy that likes to stride places. If I ever saw him running from something, I’d be running too. They call him the Terminator for a reason. Really freaky too, that guy has something seriously wrong with him.” When I ask him what that is, he’s straightforward. “He likes hurting people, man! It’s”

“Creepy,” Raven agrees, which is quite a statement coming from her. I tell her as much, and she laughs wryly. “You think so?”

Nightwing is strictly professional. “Versatile. Proficient with most guns, explosives, bladed weaponry, as well as hand to hand. He never goes into any fight without several backup plans, and if you think you have the upper hand on him, you don’t. Fast learner, faster than most people I know, except maybe Kory and some of the League. Fond of psychological warfare.” His tone changes for that last sentence, but he doesn’t follow up on it.

“Yeah, I would call him manipulative,” Cyborg says. “As much as I hate to say anything nice about him, he’s good at reading people. Figuring out how to get under their skin, turning people against each other.”

“He does not act entirely without honor,” Starfire elaborates. “He is a soldier, and he follows the rules that he is given. However, the sort of individuals that would hire a man like him are not the type to provide many restraints. In the battle that led us to finally defeat him, he had come after at us when we were most vulnerable. It is despicable and cowardly. He claims to be a professional, and yet, is unafraid to be deeply personal in his assaults. It is what made him so dangerous, but it was also his downfall.”

How it started.
Of course I was curious about what she meant by that, but I had to start at the beginning.

“It’s actually kind of stupid,” Nightwing admits. “So, technically, this is the second Teen Titans team, though most people don’t know about the first one. It didn’t really work out and we needed a bit of a break from each other. That was… uh, me, obviously, Batgirl— the blonde one, not the ginger one or the current one — Kid Flash, Aqualad, Wonder Girl, Golden Eagle, Bumblebee… Oh, can’t forget Wonder Girl, who’s obviously still on the team, and Speedy. Again, that’s the original Speedy, also Red Arrow… man, we really need to stop changing our names like this.”

This led to a discussion about names and the origins of Nightwing, which, although delightful, was somewhat off topic. I had to steer him back to the question of what happened to the original run.

“Honestly?” Nightwing says with a shrug. “We kind of just grew apart. Aqualad had to go back to his people due to some politics, and at that point, Batgirl was tired of commuting… Speedy slash Red Arrow had some personal stuff to deal with. It was one thing after another. Wonder Girl, Kid Flash, and I stayed in Philly, obviously, but we divided up the city and worked solo for the most part. Things were pretty quiet, and a few of the others stayed nearbyish enough that whenever things got too hot to handle, we could team up. But that was pretty rare, at least until the Trigon stuff came up.”

I ask who that is. 

“Complicated. I’d say ask Raven, but… probably best not to. It’s a touchy subject.” Later on, while talking to Raven, I tried bringing up the subject, and she pretended like I didn’t say anything. “Raven found all of us. She’s kind of a precog? Her powers are emotion based, so they tend to shift from day to day, and back then, she saw the future or enough of it to know she needed help. So did Starfire, actually.”

The exact details of intergalactic politics are lost on me. Starfire has done her best to explain it before (LINK), but I’ve always gotten the impression she’s left out details. Whether that’s for her own comfort or because she thinks us humans aren’t ready for the details, I’m not sure. It’s frustrating to admit as the unofficial alien expert at the Daily Planet office, but as Superman and I have talked about time and time again, there’s a massive difference between growing up on Earth knowing you’re from a different planet and growing up on that planet before either being forced to leave or choosing to immigrate. The facts of the matter are that in November 2011, she crash landed on Earth in a desperate escape from a group of Psions.

How it ended.
Tragically, my questions about how they were able to bring him went mostly answered.

I tell them that I heard his former wife and son were involved in his defeat.

“Yes,” Starfire confirms. “Although that is not my story to tell. I believe they intend to testify.”

Nightwing’s reaction to that is by far the strangest— he seems to blush?


The trial?

Speaking of the trial…

Technically, it’s a court martial. Deathstroke wasn’t active military when he committed the vast majority of the crimes, however, the US military prosecutes war crimes committed by American citizens due to the government’s refusal to ratify relevant sections of the Geneva Convention, a fact which apparently initially shocked Changeling and Kid Flash of the Titans, while Nightwing said he was aware from the beginning. He hopes that the publicity of the case will raise awareness surrounding this issue.

It’s been three months since the arrest, and there’s still quite some time to go before the hearings start— the earliest anyone dares to say is spring 2016, but I personally believe that to be a bit optimistic. These things tend to go slowly, much to the frustration of everyone involved.

“Yeah, we’re all going to testify,” Wonder Girl says, uncomfortable. “It’s not our first rodeo, but most of the others times have been pretty small. Mostly just, you were here, you saw this guy doing this thing? Nightwing’s got the most experience, since he grew up watching Batman do it. Still, I don’t know if any of us are really ready. The officials have said they’re going to redact the transcripts pretty heavily before they release it to the public, but no matter what, some shit’s coming out, even if it’s just to each other.” She pauses and thinks about it. “Though it’s not like we’re going to be that big of a part of it… he did a lot over the years.”

No, but really, what about Terra?
Although most of the Titans stubbornly refused to comment on Terra’s status around each other, I managed to get a few details out in the individual interviews, mostly in discussions about the trial itself.

“Oh, yeah, she’ll be there,” Changeling says dismissively, waving a hand. When I ask why, he laughs uncomfortably for far too long. He seems unconvinced that I’m not already filled in on the details, repeating “You don’t know?” more than a few times. I’m exasperated, which is apparently not unusual for conversations with him. I’ve been told he’s significantly easier to be around now than in his days under the name Beast Boy, mostly courtesy of a team that’s “willing to call him on his bullshit.” I remain unconvinced.

I try to conceal my annoyance as I ask what I don’t know. He refuses to elaborate in any coherent way, though he makes a series of crude hand gestures that I presume were meant to convey what I, in fact, did not know. In response to my follow up questions, he just shook his head until I changed the subject. Earlier on in the conversation, he had passingly referred to her as “that bitch,” despite all last reports suggesting the two of them were in a happy relationship, so take that as you will.

When I inquire with the other Titans as to the meaning of his cryptic words and gestures, Kid Flash snorts.

“Of course,” he says as I explain, then once again refuses to elaborate. “Look, I’m not getting into shit with the girls and Nightwing about this.”

Raven darkens upon hearing about Changeling’s reaction and even further at Kid Flash’s. “I would have hoped them more mature than this.” From her tone, I can tell her hope was faint. “It is a personal matter, between friends as well as between colleagues. I would like to have an easy explanation for you and your readers, one that puts everyone at ease. However…”

I tell her I understand. She tells me I don’t, and I accept that as best I can.

What does an ideal outcome look like?

“On Tamaran, he would not have been captured alive,” Starfire states. She repeats the claim without any clarification when pressed as to whether this means she hopes for a death sentence.

Nightwing’s answer is a simple and exhausted, “I just want to be able to stop worrying about him.” Cyborg’s response is similar, while Raven refuses to comment.

Where to go from here
One thing every Titan reiterated at various points throughout the interview was that this wasn’t the end of their friendship or the team. Deathstroke might’ve been there from the start, but he was a persistent annoyance, not their reason for existing. Some went as far as to say they might be expanding the roster, though they were quick to say they didn’t plan on replacing Terra.

The full transcript of the interviews are available here.

TEEN TITANS OFFICIAL @teentitans
Stop asking us about Terra.

TEEN TITANS OFFICIAL @teentitans
She’s alive. That’s all you need to know.

Nightwing @robin1 - Private Messages
First interview came out today

was the reporter hot?

It was Lois Lane.

superman’s girlfriend???

His wife, actually. 
They’re married as civilians.

wait fr
i was joking
it’s a meme
do you know who he is under the mask

He hasn’t stopped by?

he has
we’ve been playing card games
lots of go fish
it’s weird
but if i ask questions then he asks questions back
so i mostly don’t say anything lol
anyway what did you guys say about me
did you tell them how sexy and cool i am

We tried to deflect.

awww you liiiiike me

Gar was being shitty, though.
 I would have asked her to not include that part but… well, it’s her job. She can be harsh, but she’s usually fair. I trust he comes out looking worse for it then you did.

y’all give way more of a shit about what the general public thinks about me than i do lol

Maybe.

srsly don’t sweat it i’m not even going to read it

Hope you’re doing okay.

why

Because I care about you.

i repeat myself
why the fuck
like you really should hate me

It’s the way I am, I guess.

boooo lame

Sorry.
I tried hating you for a bit there. Almost managed to, when I thought I’d managed to get out of the heroing forever and then you-know-who was there, in my civilian life. I wanted someone to blame for it.
And now with the trial, I’m going to have to dredge all that shit back up— I really almost managed to when I realized you hadn’t killed him.

buuuuuut?
don’t keep a girl waiting

I really don’t know, T.

fuck you

Yeah, well.
Fuck you too?

!
<3

Chapter Text

The nation has been following any and all news related to the trial of alleged war criminal Slade “Deathstroke” Joseph Wilson and long time nemesis of the Philadelphia based hero team, the Teen Titans, with bated breath. It’s been seven months since he was apprehended (this June) and the closest to a date for the preliminary hearing that anyone involved can muster up is Spring 2016. There’s a number of complications pushing the date back, from Deathstroke’s metahuman capacities and alleged involvement with various different sovereign nations over the years, which mg colleague Clark Kent has gone into in detail (here) and (here.) There’s one question that’s loomed heavily over everyone involved with the case, however, that seems to have nothing to do with matters of security or jurisdiction:

Where’s Terra?

The sixteen year old geokinetic was first spotted with the team last November as part of regular patrol routes, revealing her incredible power only a week later to stop the minor supervillain known as Gizmo from robbing the office of a tech startup by pinning him with a pillar of stone through his left shoulder. Several people on the scene reported they believed she intended to leave him permanently incapacitated. It was only through the intervention of her team and the magician Raven that no permanent damage was done. In an interview later that day, the shapeshifter Changeling described her as “borderline feral, for real.” It should be noted he has a pattern of describing his teammates, particularly his female teammates, with hyperbolic language. Terra herself was unavailable for comment at the time.

In appearances following this controversial and widely believed to be excessive use of force, she shifted gears from using her power as a weapon directly, preferring to shape the landscape to put her and her teammates into advantageous positions. However, there were still numerous instances where she appeared to lash out at her teammates, civilians, and criminals alike, although these dropped in frequency and severity over the months she spent with the Titans. Contrary to what appearances would suggest, she was quite amicable in the few interviews that various reporters, myself included, managed to secure with her, though most of us when faced with this demeanor found it somewhat insincere. I found it hard to blame her at the time— she described herself as an orphan and a street rat, much like Nightwing, then known as Robin. The feral descriptor seemed not entirely inaccurate, not in a derogatory sense but in the context of someone that clearly grew up with minimal socialization or was otherwise severely deprived.

Conflicting reports have come out about her in the wake of Deathstroke’s capture, with some eyewitnesses claiming she fought alongside him in the final battle and others saying it was her assaults that allowed him to be captured. The Titans themselves have been tight-lipped on the subject, only willing to confirm that she is alive. Following the conflict, they have mostly returned to business as usual, patrolling the city with a new teammate, the quiet Jericho, but without Terra.

After some investigation and calling in a few favors, I managed to arrange an interview with her on the Justice League Watchtower, more than 250 miles above the Earth. This is far from my first time aboard the space station, see here for my piece on its opening. Initially intended as just a secure meeting location for the League, it’s purposes have since expanded, from first line of defense against potential space based invasion to, apparently, a prison. At least according to Terra.

“It totally fucking sucks up here,” she tells me as we sit down on black couches in the unofficial living room. She puts her feet up on the coffee table in front of us, and Batman, who’s watching from across the room, I assume as security, coughs knowingly. She flips him off but takes her feet off anyway. He seems a natural fit with the well polished but mechanical aesthetic of the Watchtower, what with his heavy black cloak made of synthetic fabrics stronger than Kevlar and body armor thick enough to stop a bullet. She doesn’t. She wears a heavy tan army jacket that’s clearly been through the wringer, scarred with bullet holes and torn up from what I assume were knives. The domino mask is the same style as her previous costume, but it’s too fresh. I suspect they got a new one for the purpose of this interview. She wears a black t shirt that looks too big for her and yellow sweat pants. I recognize the jacket from her costume, but everything else is new to me. “Wait, am I allowed to swear in this?”

I tell her my editor will handle it, as well as expunging any information that might put her identity at risk, and she relaxes, still clearly on edge.

“I wish I had a fucking cigarette,” she adds. “Best I get are these shitty nicotine patches. Apparently I’ve got an addiction or whatever… well, that and no smoking on a space station. You’d think they’d have invented a space station you could smoke on instead of wasting time with all this fancy crap… I don’t care about preventing muscular decay or bone damage or whatever. Most of the people here are stupid invincible anyway, uhhh… yeah, it sucks.”

I let her go on like that for a bit, before I finally get around to asking her what she’s doing here.

“Oh shit they didn’t tell you?” She laughs, long enough to make me uncomfortable. She’s unrecognizable, and I have no idea whether this is the real Terra and the awkward girl holding back at the previous interviews was just a mask or if she’s changed that much since we last spoke. “…Yeah, yeah. Okay. Really? Like… not at all? Damn.”

I inform her about the conflicting reports about the final battle and the few pieces of information the Titans have been willing to share with the public, though of those relate to Deathstroke more generally and the newest member of the team. She grows increasingly uncomfortable as I explain, drawing more into herself.

“Okay… so… yeah. All that happened. I’m under house arrest, except, because I don’t have a house, I’m here. It’s not like they’re going to put me back in his old cell for me, L-M-A-O. They’re above that.” She pauses, detecting my confusion but assuming . “I know, right! Can you believe these guys? They stick me up here in space, put a tracker on me, and that’s it. I basically have free roam of the place. It’s fucking massive…. The tracker’s not even rigged to blow… and even though everyone’s got to be super pissed at me, they haven’t hit me even once. Not even dark, brooding, and handsome over there.”

I look over at Batman, slightly perturbed. The allegations against Deathstroke are numerous, far too numerous to get into here, but I start to draw connections with a handful that stood out to me. Kidnapping. False imprisonment. Grooming. Terra’s tone is incredibly casual.

“I’m kind of insulted, actually.” I raise an eyebrow and ask why. “They keep looking at me like I’m some sort of abused kid. I mean, they say that. The League, my lawyers. I’m underage. A minor. A baby.” She sounds disgusted at the idea. “I’m not stupid. I knew what I was getting into. I hated the Titans, you know? I still do. I hate all of them. Always did.” I’m more than a little unconvinced, especially considering that I didn’t bring them up. I try to steer the conversation back towards her current situation, and she elaborates. “Right. Right. They say it’s for my protection as much as anyone else’s, since my testimony is like… the lynchpin of the whole case or something?“

I ask why that is.

“Oh, that! I was working for Slade. Have been for as long I can remember.”

—

She’s overstating it, just a little. Throughout the interview, she makes the occasional reference to a life before him, but she’s dismissive when I ask about it, saying that it’s not worth remembering. I don’t push, though I suspect not all of the story she told the public about having been homeless and needing to fight for scraps was a lie. She does says she met Deathstroke when she was “about fourteen.” I do the math— this would have been three years into his rivalry with the Titans. When I point this out, she’s defensive. “He saved me. He was the only one, okay? It wasn’t about the Titans. It couldn’t have been.”

She doesn’t specify what he saved her from, only that it involved him killing someone in front of her. She doesn’t emote as she talks about the killing either, describing technical details, such as seeing a sword slice from someone’s back all the way out through their stomach, with mechanical detail. I’m good at hiding my expressions, but she can tell I’m unsettled. “I was scared. He made the scary shit go away. It was simple at the time. I wanted to know how to do that.”

And? I ask.

“He said no half measures. If I was in, I was in. I don’t know what he would’ve done if I’d changed my mind.” She takes a moment to look me up and down, searching for something in my face, before continuing. “Probably wouldn’t have needed to do shit. I was starving. Not many ways for an outta control metahuman to make her money, you know. I do have to hand it to him. If it weren’t for Slade, I’d be dead in a ditch.”

From then on, she followed him across the world during what some New York City residents call “the quiet spring.” Following an attack on the Titans that had gone disastrously, he’d disappeared, with some news outlets going as far as to suggest he might be gone for good. The Titans did their best to counter this narrative, pointing out that he’d gone to ground for longer before, though mostly after successful jobs. Every day reports failed to come in, the civilian population celebrated and the various partisans grew more anxious. The city’s whole cape scene breathed a strange sigh of relief when he was spotted fighting for Kahndaq in the Oolong-Kahndaq conflict. During these travels, which Terra describes as their “honeymoon,” he taught her to fight. First with her hands, then onto bladed weapons, guns and even some explosives. He encouraged her to use her power, without risking her growing reliant on it.

She speaks fondly of this time, despite describing traveling through highly dangerous warzones. He would fight for whatever side paid the most, assigning her smaller missions.

...

Basically I fed him all their personal details, civilian identities and weaknesses, leaving them basically defenseless… he totally wanted the Titans dead, by the way, like, it was probably the whole reason he was into me in the first place. If he ever really was. I don’t think he was. No, I know he wasn’t.

I mean, hell, that’s why I turned on him in the end… Did you know he had a wife? And he had kids with her and everything? I guess they were as much the deciding factor as anything else. He was going around getting everyone, coming after them in their civilian identities. He’d gathered everyone except for Raven, who I KO’d all on my own and was still dragging over to the spot, and Robin, who got away, and he would’ve killed ‘em too, if it weren’t for the old hag and her son. The alive one that is, fruitier than an apple orchard. They’d teamed up with Robin. I’d seen him moping over her and these two kids before, but I guess I never really made the connection until they were right there. It shook Slade to his core, really freaked him out, and the team regrouped in Central Park. From there, well, you say you talked to the people who saw it all go down.”

I tell her I did and that they’ll be testifying at the trial. Her expression changes, suddenly unreadable, and I try to reassure her by saying that’ll probably be on different days. It doesn’t seem to help.

“Right. Right. Well. I’m more important. And he’s going to be so mad about it. I don’t even want to think about what he’d do if he got his hands on me after all this.“ She giggles. “Probably kill me, right?”

There are tears in her eyes, despite the laughter. I don’t entirely know how to react. She doesn’t seem to be taking any of this seriously, despite the heaviness of the subject. I’ve dealt with many metahumans over the years, and they’ve all got their own quirks. I’ve got a good instinct for handling these sorts of interviews, figuring out what stories they have to tell. I try to find the hope in the endless slog against the forces of evil, remind everyone there’s someone looking out for them, and maybe try to inspire my readers to find their own heroic spirit— even when it comes to the villains. Terra throws me off. Despite her bold talk and propensity for crude language, I’m struck with how much of a child she really is. Her laughter is panicked, not genuine. The eyewitnesses said that Deathstroke and some of the Titans were calling her insane and a monster at the fight, but all I see in her is a scared teenager, though she’d probably insult me for saying so.

“Do you think he’ll read this?” I shrug. I’m not privy to the exact details of his imprisonment, although I do my best to assure her that he’s not the first criminal with metahuman capacities that the US government has had to restrain.

“I’m going to have to see him at the trial. I don’t know what I’m going to do. I mean, I have to be there. I know I do. It’s part of the deal I struck… I had a hearing pretty much right after everything went down, and pretty much everyone agreed I could go free, under probation, if I told everyone about all the fucked shit we did. I did with him. He did to me. Whatever. I don’t really know what I’m going to do after I get out of here. Fuck off and die somewhere, I guess.”

Batman makes a displeased noise, and she flips him off again.

“I’m going to go live and be sexy as hell,” she corrects, and when she sees me staring, she adds, “The therapy lady says that if I stop joking about wanting to die, then maybe I’ll stop wanting it for real. I think it’s dumb as hell, personally, I didn’t survive all this just to slit my own wrists in the bathroom because my boyfriend doesn’t love me and also is a mass murderer or whatever. Honestly, I kind of wish these guys would just kick my ass or lock me in a closet for weeks or something. It’d make more sense.”

I ask her if Deathstroke ever did that to her.

“Not for weeks,” she says, tightening her fists and not breathing for a good few seconds. Then she corrects herself, talking rapidly. “Not after I joined the Titans, duh. They would’ve noticed if I went missing for that long. But I don’t want to talk about that.”

—
We talk about her day to day routine. The members of the Justice League come and go, though she says one of them is always “babysitting” her. She sits in on their weekly meetings, which she describes as “pretty boring, T-B-H.” Apparently she considers them an even more boring and stuffy version of the Teen Titans, which is, according to her, saying something. I tell her I don’t think the League is boring at all.

“That’s because you’re a boomer.” She presents this as if it’s some sort of slam dunk. When I correct her to say that I’m Generation X, she only makes fun of me more. It’s a toothless sort of mockery, though, and with every teasing comment, I notice her glancing over her shoulder at Batman as if expecting something. 

She spends her time doing homework, listening to music, going to various medical appointments with the League’s on staff doctors, and training. Her treatment is primarily psychiatric, however, she’s apparently got a number of physical health issues due to what she says the doctors describe as “years of abuse and neglect.” She rolls her eyes as she says it and makes sure to add that she wouldn’t be going to therapy if it weren’t a condition of her release.

“It’s really boring. Lots of work sheets. I don’t want to radically accept things, I want to chose violence, but then I say things like that and the therapist lady be like, well, if you did chose violence, then what would the consequences of that be? What would you gain? And then I think about it and it’s like… you’re right, that would literally just make everything worse. I hate being reasonable. It sucks.”

I ask her about training.

“They have some rocks for me to throw around, in a locked room. Mostly pebbles and dirt. Want to make sure I stay sharp with my power so I don’t accidentally start a Richter Ten earthquake when I get back to the planet. They say they’re going to make me wear a power restraining collar for the trial itself— that’s actually part of why I’m up here instead of in like, the Hall of Justice. They didn’t want to make me wear one of those for however long it takes for the lawyers to get their shit together. I hear they’re making Slade wear one full time, though, so like… Score another point for Terra?”

The homework is surprisingly exactly what it sounds like. She’s being homeschooled by the League, albeit in a rather patchwork manner. Apparently Deathstroke was not invested in keeping up with her schooling, outside of what he thought would be useful, and the Titans, although better intentioned, had similarly selective education.

She’s hyperaware of the gaps in her knowledge and more than a little on edge when I ask about them, more than willing to snap at me when she thinks I’m looking down on her. For everything she admits to not knowing, she makes sure to inform me of several other areas of expertise. It’s a surprisingly difficult subject of conversation, which confuses me at the time. She’s willing to off handedly accuse Deathstroke of some truly heinous crimes, confirming my suspicions about the rape charges, which she describes crudely as “getting fucked,” but when it comes to admitting that she’s struggling to get through Hamlet, she’s evasive and prickly. I’m forced to conclude, with restrained horror, that for the most part, she genuinely does not understand what she’s alleging he did to her was wrong.

—

To describe Terra as a wild child would be overstating the matter. She has a strong grasp of multiple languages, including a paired down version of ASL meant for use in combat situations, both conversationally and in dense legalese. When I bring up specific legal minutia, she follows without question and even points out details that I miss, only faltering when it comes time to acknowledge how they affect her personally. When I successfully draw her into conversation about specific texts, she’s passionate, even if she stumbles over metaphor and outdated language. Her proclamation that Ophelia is “a total mood” catches me off guard, and she curses me out for allegedly assuming she wouldn’t be able to understand such a “complicated girlboss” with an impressively diverse selection of insults. No, I don’t believe she’s feral.

I do believe she is someone that has been mistreated and abused, badly. Her behavior in previous interviews, almost saccharine with forced politeness, makes a lot more sense in the context of someone who doesn’t understand why she hasn’t been hit since she surrendered to League custody. I went looking for her in hopes of finding the hero we all believed her to be, but instead, I found something a lot more complicated. I found a survivor. There isn’t closure here, hundreds of miles above an earth full of people longing for it.

While working on this article I reached out to the Teen Titans. For the most part, they refused to comment on record, although one member of the team that wanted to remain anonymous wanted me to pass on their best wishes to Terra in her future endeavors. I find myself of similar mind.

The full transcript is available here.

Louis Lane
Metahuman and Extraterrestrial Correspondent
[email protected]