Author's Note: Not enough stories on Cyborg, I think, so I'm writing my second to cover him. Here's the Love, Cy.

Disclaimer: I don't own the Teen Titans, because even if I did, I don't have superpowers (yet) and I wouldn't be able to tell them what to do anyway.

I am sorry to say that there is too much point to the wisecrack that life is extinct on other planets because their scientists were more advanced than ours.

-John F. Kennedy-

The street was quiet for a city of Jump's size, even for two in the morning. The night air was still warm from the summer sun as the dull yellow light of the streetlamps cast downward shadows in every direction on the unmoving road. It was a more affluent section of town, full of sports cars and expensive sedans, all parked in front of high-rise condos and expensive penthouses. The air was warm, but at a standstill, with no ocean breeze this far east into the city. It was a peaceful, safe neighborhood, that is until the sounds of a running battle quickly filled it.

Cyborg charged his sonic cannon and let fly with a blast at the group of four robbers. The beam of blue energy exploded at their feet as they were leaping away, one wasn't fast enough, and got caught in its blast radius. He tumbled through the air and crashed onto the roof of a car parked on the street.

"Ok, he's out for the count." Cyborg said to himself as he ran by the heavily damaged sedan in pursuit of the other three. "One down." He radioed to the team, who were all a dozen yards ahead of him in the chase. The criminals had broken into a high-tech firm back up the street 30 blocks. The research teams there were experimenting with using super-high quality diamonds as information storage devices. Whether or not the research was going anywhere didn't matter, it was using diamonds, and diamonds, in Cyborg's experience, were a very strong motivating factor for anyone who chose to disregard the law.

When the Titans arrived at the firm the bandits already had three bags of the precious stones and were making for their getaway vehicle. With a well aimed starbolt, Starfire had knocked the van's engine out of commission, and being the determined baddies that they were, the men had decided to make a run for it along Jump's streets. They were fast and agile, a true high class sort of thief, and so far, they'd managed to keep the Titans at bay while they ran for it.

They always tried to run. Cyborg hated it when they ran. His displeasure was mollified when he knocked one of them out, but the other three were still up and running, and now that they were down one man, they knew they needed to change tactics.

Raven had flown ahead of the robbers a block, but when she looked back, ready to halt their advance, she saw they had used their high-powered rifles to blast open a sealed manhole and were dropping into it. She cursed her luck and darted towards the opening.

Cyborg got to the hole just as Beast Boy turned into a bat and dived into the darkness. Normally, he would never have fit through the manhole, but by either luck or a lack of foresight, the criminals had blasted away a large section of asphalt along with the steel cover that he was able to drop through.

The chase had not left him behind it seemed, as directly to his left he could see Starfire's glowing palms in the darkness, only a few yards away. He took off in that direction, switching his mechanical eye to the infrared setting and saw that his friends were in a long, spaced-out line, chasing the thieves northward down the large maintenance tunnel. Now sure of his direction and surroundings, he picked up the pace and after a few moments was pacing Raven, who stayed in back to make sure none of their quarry had turned off into one of the many side tunnels.

"Just another day on the job, huh?" He laughed.

"I'm just thankful this isn't a sewer." She quipped.

At the front of the chase Robin was breathing hard, but still felt strong enough to chase these guys all day. Beast Boy was running beside him as a cheetah, but even with Starfire a few feet ahead providing enough light to chase the quicker-than-usual criminals he couldn't see well enough to go full speed. Robin however, did see that the tunnel was dividing up ahead; those years in Gotham with Batman had forced him to see well in the dark. As he guessed, the men they were pursuing split into the tunnels. Starfire darted just above their heads and threw several starbolts in their direction, each of which was expertly avoided as the three criminals all took a different fork of the tunnel.

"They're splitting up!" Robin called out to his team as he barreled forward down the middle road after the man he was sure was the leader. Starfire followed him as Beast Boy broke left, transforming back into a bat to find his way in the darkness.

"Go left, Rea." Cyborg called "I've got the guy on the right." They split in opposite directions and Cyborg again quickened his pace to catch up to the would-be jewel thief. He was aided by the tunnel's angle as it started to descend steeply into the heart of the city's underground. The dim, very old, and mostly broken lights spaced about every 20 yards did little to help the lighting as he ran.

He noticed that they were passing the Williams Aquifer which was the deepest any of the tunnels beneath the city go, and he still had the bad-guy in sight as the man turned a corner a few yards up. As Cyborg rounded the same corner, he saw that the criminal had stopped, he was directly next to a yellow incandescent bulb on the right wall that still worked somehow after years of neglect, 'This can't be good.' Cyborg thought just as a bright flash emitted from the man's advanced weapon. He threw himself forward into the wall on his left and the blast crashed into the concrete and array of pipes he'd be in front of only nanoseconds before.

The shock of the blast helped knock him forward as the criminal backed up a few steps to fire again, but before he could loose his deadly shot, Cyborg's already charged right arm unleashed a blast of sonic energy that slammed the man into the wall. He slumped to the floor and his weapon clattered to the ground in a dozen pieces, having taken the brunt of the attack. Cyborg got onto his hands and knees and shook off the dust and debris from the exploded wall behind him.

"You're lucky that wasn't into the aquifer." He scolded the unconscious man as he got to his feet. He walked over and turned the sitting figure around, and removed the backpack attached to his dark-clothed body. He checked the contents and discovered to his relief that the diamonds were still inside. He was glad the criminal wasn't stupid enough to have thrown them away in the hope of not being charged with the actual crime without evidence. The stuff that got tossed always got found, but Cyborg did not relish the idea of searching for it along three miles of pitch black tunnels. He quietly thanked the still unconscious man for his professional courtesy and slung him over his massive shoulder. He started walking back when he stopped to look into the large hole created by his enemy's weapon.

"Damn good that didn't hit me." He whistled as he peered into the gaping black hole. It seemed as if the blast had opened up another tunnel of some sort, only not one built by city engineers 80 year ago. He looked quickly at the edges of the hole. A half foot of concrete and then another foot of solid rock. He turned on his flashlight and raised his arm into the hole. There was a floor only a few inches below the hole. He was thinking that he'd come back and explore this later when a glint caught his attention. Thinking it over for a moment, he none-too-gently put the man he was carrying back onto the floor and crouched down to step through the hole.

There was a layer of fine dust nearly a foot thick, and he stumbled from misjudging the distance to the actual floor. He swept his flashlight across the narrow tunnel again and caught sight of the glint. It was a few feet ahead of him; he cautiously made his way to it, stooped over due to the low hanging ceiling. He crouched down further to get a good look at what had reflected his light. It seemed like a small, black disc, about the size of the other Titans' communicators with a thin silver band around the middle. It was on a small outcropping of rock just above the dust, but strangely there was a ring around it, as though it had been placed there today. He saw no tracks in the dirt, however, other than his, though the tunnel did continue forward farther than his flashlight could reach.

He gingerly picked it up, but was surprised to find it was heavy; it seemed to be made out of some polished black stone, and both it and the silver band were remarkably untarnished, despite the obvious age of the tunnel. He held it in his open palm, his flashlight glaring down at it. Suddenly it emitted with a dim blue glow. Cyborg watched amazed as strange symbols began lighting up on what he assumed was the front of the near hockey puck. He noticed the same type of symbols now emblazed in the middle of the silver trim around the side.

How long he just stood there, hunched over in a five foot tunnel, his legs buried in dust he wasn't sure, but when the communicator on his arm sounded he jumped, and banged his head against the hard stone ceiling. After exclaiming a few choice profanities he looked activated the screen on his arm as he rubbed the back of his head with the hand still holding the glowing blue rock.

"Cyborg," it was Robin's face on his arm "you alright?"

"Yeah, no worse for the ware. I got my guy, and the diamonds."

"Good, Starfire and me got ours, and Raven and Beast Boy just radioed in to say they got theirs as well. We're all meeting under Washington and 21st."

"Alright, well he led me pretty deep; it'll take me a bit to get back. But I can find it on my map of the city, no problem." He said, turning back towards the hole. Robin acknowledged him and signed off. He crawled through and stood up, appreciative of a straight spine after what appeared to be a long time hunched over. The criminal was still out cold, so Cyborg again threw the man over his shoulder.

He was ready to start walking, but he turned back to the cave and looked from it to the object he had found. He thought maybe he should put it back, but his vision swam at the idea and something quickly told him that this may be an important discovery, one that merited further study. He shook his head and stowed the black disc in a small compartment on his chest.

--

Twenty minutes later he met up with his friends at a roadside entrance to the tunnels with a door large enough to accommodate their metallic friend. They turned the men and the diamonds into the police station a few blocks away, and warned them of the large hole in the middle of the street and made their way back to the tower.

After returning in the T-Car, they were sitting at the kitchen table, enjoying pizza—it had been late by the time they made it back and no one felt like making dinner. And as it had been Starfire's night to cook, the rest of the Titans were grateful, certain they couldn't stomach her particular brand of "food" after all that running. They all thanked god for the invention of the 24 hour pizza joint and ate happily.

Cyborg's thoughts kept drifting back to the small glowing object he had stowed within him, but it hadn't yet distracted totally him from the stories each Titan was telling about how they had captured their thief.

"So Raven throws up a shield to deflect the blast, and the thing bounces of it and flies back at the guy." Beast Boy waves his hands to the side to illustrate as he enthusiastically tells their story. "Well he dodges, but not far enough, 'cause it smacks into the wall of pipes on his right and blows open a sewer line!"

"I was wondering what they god-awful smell was…" Robin said, laughing.

"It must have been high-pressure or something, because it just splatters all over him and knocks him to the ground. After about ten seconds of this, Raven takes pity on the poor guy and pulls him out of it—from about fifteen feet away. So we're standing there, he's just lying on the ground, and I say…" he paused for dramatic effect "'Looks like you really flushed your life down the toilet.'" The other Titans' laughter and groans mixed together at that.

Sitting around after a battle and telling their story had become a bit of a tradition. Each of them tried their best to work the most ridiculous pun they could think of into the end of the fight; Robin won most nights. The green Titan glanced over at Raven; he managed a small smile out of her, which was a major victory in his eyes.

"Alright, Cy, your turn." Beast Boy said, leaning back in his chair as he took another bite of pizza.

Cyborg recounted his tale of running down into the depths of the tunnels after the man, then of how he rounded the corner "and the guy nearly took my head off! So as I'm diving out of the way, I zap him and he hits the wall. I pick him up and turn around, and I see this big 'ole hole in the wall where I just was and I…I, uh" he stuttered, slightly pausing a moment before continuing. "And that's when Robin called me, and I headed out."

"Ok, well you definitely lose tonight man, you didn't even give the guy one." The changeling folded his arms as he leaned his chair back on two legs.

"Well he was already out, and there wasn't much material to work with." Cyborg countered even as he thought 'Why didn't I tell them what I found?'

"Alright, I think we all know that Robin won, I mean, 'Maybe you'd have seen me coming at you down here, if you had eaten your carats.' Oh god, that was brilliant." Beast Boy was dying with laughter again as he repeated the Boy Wonder's pun.

"Guys, I think I'm gonna go to bed. Need to recharge the batteries after tonight." He waved to the other Titans as he walked off towards his room.

His mind was turning over and over as he thought about the object—no, artifact—it was an artifact he found. And a nice one at that. 'Why didn't he say anything to his friends? It's no big deal; I'll just study it a bit tonight, and then tell them about it in the morning.' His door slid open when he punched in his pass-code, it hissed quietly closed behind him as he walked over and clicked on a single light on his steel work bench. He placed the artifact in the middle of the small illuminated circle of yellow light.

The cybernetic teen pulled up a stool that could support his weight and stared at the black disc. He switched off the light and was bathed in its cold blue glow. He checked his battery levels in the display on his arm. He reached over to an array of cables and wires hanging from the ceiling and grabbed what he needed. Hooking a cable into his back, he never took his eyes off the artifact. He placed his arms gently on the bench and simply regarded the thing he had found.

'Yeah, I'll tell them tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow.'