#slerra

Baby and her guard dog/father figure/absolutely-not-toxic-grooming-situationship-crush-thingie 👍

you can find it on facebook marketplace!

ref under cut

Felt like drawing some more Slade/Terra art.

*NOTE* In my headcanon, I age her up. So she is an adult who simply looks younger than she is. (She's just short.) They're both consenting adults here. So don't come for me.

Added another image as well, since it tied into the other ones.

the hero to her princess

“So are Robin and Starfire a couple, or what?” ... While undercover for Slade, Terra’s job is to learn everything about the Teen Titans. It isn’t that hard so far – but one team dynamic is still confusing her.

Read on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/67173265

Read on FFN: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14491198/1/the-hero-to-her-princess

The voice hits him as the door opens. A right hook to the nose. Against his will, he's pausing in the doorway. Metaphorically bleeding from the face. Dripping onto the hardwood. While the guy who did it watches.

"Hey," he says, because what else is he supposed to say?

Slade surveys him coolly from the living room chair, head turned and ice glass eye sweeping head to toe. Tara doesn't look. Brow furrowed, she's arguing in tight tones, anger staring down the barrel and vibrating her hands. Jarring her aim. After a moment, Slade returns his attention to their conversation.

The grocery bags bite into Dick's wrists. The refrigerator hum fills his head, a colony of wasps, flies, as he opens the door and kneels to put it all away. The breakfast bar hides him from view of the living room, that feels important. Tara's doing most of the talking. Deep low words undercut her wild-aimed bullets.

Deep breaths, one, two, three. Pulse pounding in his neck. Done with the fridge, on to the cupboard, still that roar in his ears, where's it coming from, oh the heater in the ceiling. It's still cold. Fingers numb. But he just came in from outside.

What are they talking about? Plans. Battle plans, contract plans, plans of attack, weapons, war, that time He... Violence. Fluent in violence, words like knives rolling oil slick off their tongues.

Dick's hands are covered in blood. Glistening under the kitchen light as he crouches in front of the cupboard and he's done but he can't stand. Hypnotized, locked joints, ducking in a trench there is fire above his head. If he rises, he will lose his head.

Shuffle, socks on linoleum, Dick jerks his head up, Tara looks down through her hair. Expression rearranging itself into a question.

Dick rises and smiles. His lips fumble around something friendly and normal and unafraid to say. He says something. It's lighthearted. Twelve year old Robin. The concern doesn't leave Tara's eyes. She slides a glass out of the cupboard, pretext, sideways glance, I came here for you.

I know. Thanks. I'm fine.

...Right.

It's filthy, disgusting, the games they have to play, vomit in Dick's mouth. Offering Slade a glass of water like he's a guest. But if Tara didn't, Dick would. He would have to.

Socks treading back into the living room. Back into the line of fire.

The coward hides in the kitchen.

~~~

Hush, the heater again, the noise penetrating to the center of Dick's ears, gripping the organ of hearing buried in his skull and shaking.

Cold sweat across his arms and lower back. The doorknob silent, hairs on the back of his neck pricking, don't look back, he escapes into the bedroom.

Relief, temporary and false, the roar cutting out under the sound of the latch clicking shut behind him.

Silence. Black shifting to gray. The room fading into view. The comforter is pulled up past her shoulders and she lies on her side facing the door.

Five minutes between when Tara brushed her teeth and Dick doing the same. Stilted performance. Three hundred seconds, ticking past one. by. one as a man past six feet tall in a black dress shirt gazed idly out the window. As Dick's broken-skinned knuckles gripped the kitchen counter and he answered in one word sentences.

(Is He lying on their couch? Still filling up the chair? Popping open the gin in the cupboard?)

Dick thinks her eyes are closed. He rounds the end of the bed and climbs onto his side from there, muscles aching from the effort and control of being quiet. Tara doesn't move. She's not asleep.

Dick lies on his side and faces her. Her hair tucked behind her ear, and beyond, the door. Saliva pools in his throat, tasting horribly, suspiciously like guilt. Dick faces the wall.

Not between her and the door. Dick has the side of the bed he always does but he's not between her and the door this time and He's closer, nearer than He ever was in the basement, the apartment is tiny there's nowhere else He could be but on the other side of the wall and Dick's not between her and the door.

He could have been. He should have asked her to move over, could have done it with a smile and a joke and it would have been normal and innocuous (liar liar li) and then he would've been between her and the door.

Fingers digging into the pillow so hard his bones bite into each other. Starving dogs.

Doesn't dare look. She doesn't either. It's stupid (both of them), because if they didn't sleep here (both of them), then where? The couch is for their guest. The questions would have been worse, anyway. "Do you take turns? Flip a coin? Or is one of you just plain unlucky?" A smile gleaming from beneath white bristles. And there's no point in lying. But Dick can't, somehow... It's different here. The door could always open any second, but here it could really open any second. It would be just like Him to...

Inhales. Exhales. The mattress springs and the rough circle in front of Dick's nose where someone punched the wall and someone plastered it over and someone painted over that.

...Is she still awake?

The creak of the mattress and Dick is already throwing his shoulder rolling over a ballet a musical cue and then she's right there.

"Hey," whispered. Warm minty breath on his mouth. Forehead to his.

"Hey." Her midnight eyes not quite visible at midnight. Her hair tickling his cheekbones. Calculations build pyramids in his head. With the heater fan, they should be able to talk at this decibel without Him knowing. Or hearing. Any louder...

Does the door have a lock? Something Dick never thought to check, how loud is it, would Slade hear, would that make Him... Idiot. He could just pick the lock. Would pick the lock.

Fifty percent chance He could slide in and do- do something and Dick wouldn't wake up, would be none the wiser, she wouldn't wake him up and-

Look, there was nothing Dick could do there, and there's nothing he could do here, this is all a desperate attempt to soothe the boiling rampant his chest when he knows damn full well what his options are and there are-

...Tara's eyes have closed. Her breathing is already starting to even out.

Dick rests his arm around her waist. He would kiss her temple, if that didn't mean pulling away and maybe waking her when she'd almost escaped into sleep. It was going to be hours for him. Maybe he wouldn't go. But he wouldn't stop her.

Lying like this, if he turns his head a little, he can look past her and watch the door. There's nothing he can do if it opens. But he can watch the door. Ears burning, straining for any hint of movement on the other side. Tensing at creaks, thumps from kitchen cabinets, tensing when it's been quiet too long. It's been quiet too long.

But he can watch the door.