COCHISE

"How could you tell me that I'm great

When they chew me up, spit me out, pissed on me?

Why would you tell me that it's fate

When they laughed at me, every day, in my face?

If you're gone, then I need you

If you're gone, then how is any of this real?

When I'm on, I believe you

When I'm not, my knees don't even seem to feel"

- How, The Neighbourhood

Fortunately for the Titans, Raven chose an abandoned building to teleport them to. They landed right into the top floor of the structure, their butts crashing down to the floor. It took them awhile to realize what had just occurred, but when they did, they saw that the building that they were in was old and worn out. It looked like it was ready for demolition already, with the thick layers of dust and sudden pops of electricity that were going around them.

"Gee Raven, you couldn't have picked a better place to drop us in?" Beastboy asked sarcastically as his butt was unceremoniously dropped on the floor.

"Oh I'm sorry. You should be thankful that I didn't leave us in the enemy headquarters." Raven snapped back, feeling a bit drained from transporting the group.

"No actually this is the perfect place. This is the building right above my secret lab. We can get to it from here." The older Cyborg said, as he slowly got up from the floor. "If we hurry there now, we can leave the city before Nightwing's forces track us down."

"Hold on." Robin said, once more in that authoritative voice, "we're not going anywhere until you tell us what's going on."

"Robin's right." Raven added, standing side-by-side with her leader. "I thought you said we were going into a dystopian society. But why does it seem to be the opposite?"

"And who was that man who attacked us awhile ago? Was he really Nightwing, like the name that you mentioned earlier?" Starfire asked, clearly with something on her mind.

The older Cyborg was caught unprepared by the barrage of questions from the younger Titans. He should have known that they wouldn't follow him blindly into the future without asking questions of their own.

"Wait Starfire, are you telling me you know who Nightwing is?" He asked, suddenly realizing what she meant by her question.

"Yes. I have met him before. Though he might have shorter hair and a different costume, I can recognize his face and voice anywhere." Starfire replied, with determination in her voice.

"You can't mean that Nightwing is-" Robin began, but was cut off by the older Cyborg's sudden realization.

"It was when you went into the future! You met him then, didn't you? But that was a different man from what you saw! This Nightwing was ruthless and without mercy. He isn't the man that you know. He isn't-"

"Wait! Can someone tell me what is going on?" Beastboy shouted out, while pulling his hair out. "You guys seem to have everything figured out while we don't know half of what it is you're saying!"

They finally looked toward the two other Titans, who seemed to be more confused than ever. They finally let out a breath to release the tension that they were feeling. Finally, it was Raven who cleared everything up for them.

"What they're arguing about, is that they know who Nightwing is. And you guys might be shocked with who it is."

"Well who is it?" Cyborg asked impatiently.

Robin let out a sigh before he finally replied, "Nightwing is me."

Cyborg and Beastboy gasped in shock at what they heard, while the others could only bow their heads down at the irony of the truth.

"Yes it is true. Remember when I shot forward in time after chasing after Warp? I remember meeting Nightwing then. But he was a crime fighter in that future, and had long hair and a blue emblem on his chest instead of the red one that we saw. But his face, his mask, his voice.. they were all the same as the man that I saw." Starfire explained.

"But how did that happen?" Beastboy asked in disbelief.

"Yes, that is actually what I want to know from Mr. Stone here." Robin added, turning toward the cybernetic man.

The other Titans looked at him expectantly as well, waiting on his explanation.

"Alright, alright. I'll tell you what you need to know." He said, with his arms raised in defeat. "It all started right in the time from where I got you guys. You see, in a few weeks time, Robin is going to be abducted by Slade. And he'll disappear for 2 years. I bet Slade has been threatening you already huh, Robin?"

The other Titans had shocked expressions on their faces as they looked toward their leader, who couldn't even meet their gazes. "He was going to hurt you all." He said, barely above a whisper.

"Yeah well that ain't exactly what happened." Cyborg suddenly said in such a bitter tone that the Titans snapped their heads toward his direction.

"So you disappeared for two years right? But you blamed us for not finding you in time, for not saving you from Slade. So two years after, you come back right? And you start attacking us all and making our lives hell cause of some strange vendetta you have against us. We even ran off to Steel City just to escape you. But then, you sent your villain henchmen to attack us, 'cause apparently you're the head of this evil corporation. You even attacked us in the Titans East tower. Finally, we had enough and we had a last standoff in the Titans West tower. But when we got there, you sent your lackeys to defeat us, and you made us choose if we were going to give up Raven for our freedom, or become your prisoners. We chose to be your prisoners but you tricked us anyway, and we barely escaped, but we had to leave Raven behind. It was one of the worst things that we had to do. But we had no choice. (1) It was your fault that we lost Raven!" He suddenly became infuriated, pointing an accusing finger at Robin. "You! It was your fault why I lost my little sister! She went with you! You made her evil! It's all your fault! You-"

"Hold on, hold on. Why are you blaming me? I haven't done any of those things yet! And now that you've told me all the evil things that I'll do, then I'll stop it! I won't work for Slade and do all those things you said I'd do." Robin defended himself, as he slapped Cyborg's accusing finger away from him.

"And that's exactly the kind of damage I was talking about!" Raven suddenly shouted out, bringing everyone's attention to her. "Now that you've told Robin that, he'll change his decisions and alter the future. What if someone more sinister will take his place? Now the future might even become more chaotic than ever before!"

"Oh believe me, nothing is worse than the damage that he has wrought." Cyborg defended.

"Why? Because he stole me? And why would you say that? How ever could he have done that?"

Just as Raven finished her sarcastic comment, the building started shaking around them. They were already being attacked by a horde of robots, easily breaking down the concrete barriers around them. Before anyone understood what was going on, a black tendril of power suddenly appeared out of nowhere and landed right beside Raven, revealing the mysterious Nightwing to be at her side.

"I'm taking her with me." He suddenly said, wrapping an arm around her and leaving with the empath in another burst of dark energy.

"RAVEN!" The Boy Wonder shouted out, knowing it was too late as they both disappeared into the unknown.

This left the Titans surrounded by the robots, caught unprepared to fight. But they still put their arms up in a defensive stance, ready to strike at any time. Finally the robots raised their electric bo-staffs, and the onslaught finally began.

Surprisingly, the Titans were easily defeating the robots. Though they were coming in at a steady pace, they were able to bring them down continuously. Starfire's eyeblasts and both of the Cyborg's sonic cannons could take down so many robots at a time. Beastboy morphed into a tyrannosaurs Rex and was able to attack the robots easily. Robin was suddenly burning with determination to find Raven at all costs, which made him slice his way through the horde of robots just to get out and be free. But even if he could break away from them, how would he know where had Nightwing taken her?

Just then, he felt his bond with Raven spark to life. He could suddenly feel her with an intensity like never before. As if he was connected to her very heart and soul. And that made him discover exactly where she was.

"Guys cover me! I'm going to save Raven." Robin exclaimed, throwing off a bunch of robots and running right for the exit, leaving the other Titans confused with what happened, and with a horde of angry robots to deal with.

Raven was surprised, because she had no idea why she was here. She could tell that she was still in the same abandoned building. But she had no idea why Nightwing had taken her in the first place.

She spun around harshly, demanding an explanation from the dark tyrant beside her.

"Why did you take me? What do you want from me?!" She had both her hands up, glowing with her power.

"That's a strange thing to ask me, my dear Raven." Nightwing replied with a chilling voice. "How old are you?"

"Eighteen." She replied sharply, finding it strange that he was asking that.

"Hmm, so Cyborg planned this out well. He took you at the time right before-"

"Before Slade took you and you became evil." She cut him off, with a blast of her powers. But he wasn't even fazed in the least with her attack. He simply blocked it with his hand and absorbed the energy, taking it in for himself.

"Evil is a relative term." (2) He replied, flexing his fingers around.

Raven could only stare wide-eyed at him, unable to comprehend how he could do such a thing. "How did you do that?!" She demanded.

Nightwing had a devilish smirk on his face, something very close to Robin's own expression, but much, much darker.

"I can show you." He said solemnly, stepping closer to her. "I can reveal everything you need to know about the future." He paused then, standing right in front of the distraught girl. "But only if you want me to."

He stood before her then, watching her intently, waiting for the slightest indication of an answer. Raven, on the other hand, was more confused at this point. She could feel like she was making a deal with the devil if she agreed to what he was offering her. But she also knew that there was a lot of things that the older Cyborg was not telling them, and there were so many things that she needed to know. Especially since most of them were about her.

With her warring emotions in her heart, she made the slightest dip of her head, and it was all the answer that Nightwing needed from her. Before she was even aware of what was happening, he drew closer to her, and placed a soft kiss on the ajna chakra on her forehead. Instantly, Raven collapsed in his arms, unconscious with whatever he did to her. His lips turned into a wide smile of delight, as he carried the girl he loved close to the emblem on his chest. He simply stayed in that position, savoring of the feel of her body against his, reminding him of his younger years with the dark empath.

Just then, Robin came storming in, with a birdarang in his hand. "Let. Raven. Go." He demanded in a low and menacing voice.

"Ah, I forgot the bond connects to you too. I'd have to remember to block that part." Nightwing mumbled absentmindedly.

"What do you mean, what did you do to her?!" The younger Robin shouted out, infuriated by what was happening.

"Nothing you would understand." He replied dismissively. "You are a reminder of who I once was. Of how weak I was back when I was younger."

"How can you say that?! You're evil! You attacked your friends and made them suffer. You're the evil dictator that stole the freedom of the people!"

"Again, a relative term. Do you honestly believe everything that Cyborg says? Look around you. Do you see any signs of tyranny? All I see is a progressive city , building itself up after years of chaos and turmoil, brought about by villains barraging the city everyday, and its heroes unable to stop them. But of course, you didn't know that, didn't you?"

He took Robin's awed look as a yes.

"Just as I thought" He paused for a moment, and drew closer to his younger self.." Don't believe everything that the future Cyborg says. I know that you know that he's hiding so much from you. He has a way of twisting his words, of molding the truth to things that he can accept, instead of what they really are."

"But that still doesn't change the fact that you turned on your team! That you are the head of an evil organization! That you took over the world!" Robin's voice echoed through the abandoned building, showing how much the truth of the future affected him. The truth of what he turned out to be.

"Why did you do it?" Robin whispered in a defeated tone. "Why did you turn into the one thing we spent our whole life fighting against?"

Nightwing let out a soft chuckle at what the Boy Wonder said. "You wouldn't understand. Not yet, at least. To truly understand what I became, you'd have to experience what I went through, to feel the pain and desperation that I felt. To embrace the darkness instead of fighting it."

He paused as he started taking steps toward his younger self, but with each step he took, Robin took a step back. "You have said yourself that we have spent a lifetime fighting against crime, and though we may defeat one villain now, they always find a way out of the prison that we put them in. They come back with vengeance, even more powerful than before, with a vendetta against us. And we have to find the strength within us to fight them again, and the city gets caught up in the crossfire. Why do we have to put ourselves through all that trouble? Why risk the lives of innocent people when there could be another way."

He paused at that very moment, as he had Robin backed up to the wall with no escape.

"Control, Robin. All we needed was control. it was not easy to obtain that control, that dominion over all of them, but I did it. Now the villains are working for me, instead of against me. Now, peace can be felt all over the country. And all that because I was powerful enough to enslave the darkness and evil of this world, rather than fighting it."

He outstretched his hands towards Robin, seemingly offering Raven to him. "But if there is one thing I'd like to teach you before you get back to your own time, it's this."

Carefully, he placed Raven into Robin's arms, careful not to drop her and keep her safe. "Evil is relative. What you may think of as evil may not be all that bad. It all depends on you and your beliefs. That is why you should never let anyone tell you what to believe in. Stand up for your own ideals, even if the world may oppose you. Work toward a dream that only you have. And you might just become powerful enough to overcome them all."

Just then, Cyborg's sonic cannon blasted through the door, allowing the Titans to enter the room.

"Robin! You have Raven already! What are you doing just standing there?! We have to go NOW!" The older Cyborg shouted out.

The Boy Wonder tried to find Nightwing in the room, but he had already vanished. He simply shook his head and ran toward the exit with the others, with the words of his future self playing in his mind.

Soon enough, Nightwing's robots found them and started chasing them through the floor. The Titans raced toward the end, where an elevator was waiting for them. Finally, they reached the elevator doors, opened them and stepped inside before the robots could reach them. As one final attack, the older Cyborg fired his sonic cannon toward them as the doors closed, effectively sealing them from their robotic enemies.

"Why did you have to go after Raven?" The older Cyborg said, scolding Robin for his actions. "We barely escaped from those robots! If you had been there, then we wouldn't be in that mess!"

"Well I had to! He could've hurt her or held her hostage!" the Boy Wonder replied in his defense.

"Of course he wouldn't do that!" the older Cyborg answered back, still in an angry tone, "He's Nightwing for crying out loud."

"What does that mean? How can you be so sure that he wouldn't hurt her?"

The Titans looked expectantly at their futuristic guide, and he could only stare back at them with an unreadable expression on his face, with no way of telling them what they needed to know. "Well.. because…"

Though Raven was currently unconscious in Robin's arms, her mind was very much active. She found herself slowly getting up in Nevermore, the astral plane of her mind. As she slowly gained consciousness, she wondered why she couldn't find any of her emotions there. She turned around in her place, desperately looking for any sign of her emotions. But with one swift turn, she suddenly came face-to-face with Nightwing, bumping right into his chest.

He instantly wrapped his arms around her, keeping her in place. "Whoa there, stop spinning around little bird or you're going to get dizzy." he said, with a hint of mischief in his voice.

"You!" Raven shouted out, infuriated by his presence, "What are you doing here?! You can't be here! Unless you came through my mirror! Do you have it?"

His response was only to chuckle at her, tucking a strand of violet hair behind her ear. "I do actually, but that's not how I got into your mind."

"But how-" Raven trailed off, considering all the possibilities of his presence in her mind. "The bond! But that can't be possible! For the bond to connect us together this deep, then that means that we should be bound at the most intimate level. That we-" She couldn't make her mouth form the words too bizarre for her mind to comprehend. She looked at the man before her, silently asking the truth from him, desperate to know if she was right.

Nightwing's only response was to lift his hand in front of her face, showing her the gold band on his ring finger. His lips turned into a devilish smirk as he confirmed Raven's fears."Your deduction was spot-on. You really are a woman after my own heart, Mrs. Grayson."

A/N : I feel like I've cheated you all because this revelation was already done in the epilogue of Number 1 Zero. But I don't know why, it still feels like an "Oh, shit" moment for me. Especially at the end. It's a revelation to the characters, so I guess that's where the excitement comes from. But maybe that's just me, you can bitchslap me anytime now :))

And I'm proud of Starfire in this chapter. She was pretty sharp and knew who Nightwing was. Why does Raven know? Well that's just cause she's omnipotent and all powerful. Haha.

And I know some of you missed the Raven-obsessed Robin, so just to let you know, he's still alive and kicking. (And still very much in love with Raven hihi)

But I really love Nightwing's point here, which I realized while listening to mass awhile ago. People have their own notions of good and evil. Some people think homosexuality is evil. Some may believe that sex is bad. I'm not saying those beliefs are wrong, I'm just saying that people are entitled to their own opinions. If that's what they want to believe, then thats what they'll believe. But at the end of the day, it's your own notion of right and wrong that will matter. I think what's important in life is that you find your own ideals of right and wrong, not just the ones that are dictated to you by society. If you adhere to a certain belief system, then that's alright too. But it has to be something of your choice, something you wholeheartedly agree too, something you choose to believe in. That's why Nightwing keeps on saying that "Evil is relative" because what may be evil to one person may not be evil in another. Sorry if I sounded preachy, just trying to explain some stuff, especially since I ventured into some deep shit back there.

(1) : If you read Number 1 Zero, did you notice the discrepancies in Cyborg's story? : Hihi. So maybe he isn't the goody-two shoes that he appears to be :

(2) : This was sort of lifted from the Uncanny X-Force : Dark Angel Saga. Issue 14 if I'm not mistaken.

I think I'll go for shorter chapters now, which means quicker updates so yay! :)

And your responses! :

Lord-of-Change : Thank you! I'm glad you liked the first chapter. And yes, this chapter had all sorts of grey in it. Hope it doesn't get too confusing though :|

acrobats they tumble : Thank you! I hope this chapter was still exciting for you, I hope. :))

FlawlessAngel10 : Haha thank you, don't worry! I will finish this I promise :))

TheDreamChaser : Thank you! I hope this chapter still kept the energy up even with all the dialogue. And if you're interested, I have some comics in my dropbox, if you'd like the link to them I can send it to you :)

koryandrs : Thank you! I hope this chapter didn't disappoint.

MysteryGirl2401 : I'm glad you liked the first story and excited for the second. Hihi :)

ahsokalo : Thank you! I hope this wasn't too much of a long wait :))

Destiny : Thank you so much! Your review warmed my heart. You are too kind my dear, and I hope everything is going well in your personal life as well! :)

Well I guess that's it for me! I hope you enjoyed this chapter and I promise there will be an actual revelation next chapter. :)) In the meantime, please read and review and bitchslap me if you are so inclined to. Haha.

Oh and if you have some time or money to spare, please help out those who have been affected in the Philippines. The super typhoon there has devastated so many people in our country and we need all the support, love and prayers that we can get. :( Thank you!