Thanks for the fav.

Moving Mountains: Thanks for the review :). The story is getting a little emotional.

Everyone else: Enjoy :)!

AN: Dick's and one more other character's past stories won't be about their time away from the team, because ….you will see later on.

See you space Cowboy!

The Past (2/7): Nigthwing

One month since the Titan Reform

He took a sip from the bottle before letting it fall back on the floor. Rolling on his back, he glanced around the room to see what woke him.

The curtains made a soft, whispering noise as the breeze from the outside came in. Getting up, he moved to close the window.

"Next time you come by, do me a favor: close the window." He turned to see his ex standing in his new, half-renovated apartment.

"Is that an open invitation to come again?" She moved from the shadows, and the moonlight revealed her face.

"It depends." He leant against the wall. "Did you bring a housewarming gift?"

"I think, I have something warm." She smirked. "Or maybe something hot."

He smirked back. "Show me what you got."

She closed the space in-between them. Her eyes twinkled; their lips met. One of his hands pushed into her red hair, deepening the kiss. Soon, the two found themselves in the bed that he just left with nothing but sweat in between them.

...

Once again, he was awakened by an external force. Untangling his limbs from his ex's, he grabbed his phone.

"Hello," he answered.

"Where are you?" Starfire questioned. "We are in trouble and need help." He moved his phone from his ear and saw it was indeed the Titans app that caused his phone to ring. He made a mental note to change the ringtone.

"Sorry, Star. I was busy; see you soon."

"Hurry up, boyfriend." He smiled. Four-years later and a marriage, she still was able to hold on to her playful nature.

"Coming soon, girlfriend." The line disconnected, and he barely dodged the pillow that was aimed for his head.

"You're such an asshole, Dick." He moved off the bed and stared at the naked, red beauty with green eyes. They were right; He did have a type. Another pillow sailed through the air, and he allowed it to hit him this time.

"You're staying or leaving?" He started to get dress while Barbara fumed from the bed.

"You could at least pretend like you are ashamed. You just casually talked to your girlfriend as if you didn't just sleep with me. "

He chuckled, putting a leg in his suit. "That's rich coming from you since you and Bruce were hooking up behind my back."

He heard noises from behind him. There was no doubt in his mind that she was getting dress to leave as well.

"I thought," she said, "we moved passed that. And it was only a one-time thing when we weren't dating."

"Oh, I moved passed it already; hence, that's why I have a new girlfriend." He ducked once more. The sound of glass braking could be heard, but he didn't look to see what it was. He simply put his mask on his face before turning toward her.

As he predicted, she was getting dress. "So, you are leaving."

"You thought that I would stay here like some side chick." He shrugged; her anger grew. "What is this, Dick? Are you finally getting everything off your chest: your anger and frustration?"

"I would have to care in order to be angry and frustrated. The only thing I am right now is tired." He moved toward the window. "Thanks for the housewarming gift. And don't forget to close the window."

It was wide open when he returned.

Four months since the Titan reform

"You're late again." His partner yelled from across the room, causing the other officers to look at him.

Gosh, he hated Matt Bruesome.

"Thanks for letting me know." He yelled back, taking a seat at his desk. He could vaguely hear him mentioning that he was a lazy, spoil, rich kid. He didn't let the comment bother him, because he could care less what anyone thought about him.

He reached for a file on his desk and opened it. He stared at it for minutes before he could properly read any of the words on the paper.

Quickly, he started putting the data into the system before the words became unrecognizable again. He was half way through the report when he heard his name being called.

"Grayson," Commissioner Payne called again.

"Yes, sir," He answered, standing up.

"Come to my office." He felt eyes on him as he crossed the room to the commissioner's office.

"How are you adjusting, son?" He asked after the younger cop sat down in front of his desk.

"I would say fine, but I doubt you would have called me into your office if that was true."

"Since you are being straight forward, I'll be straightforward too. Your work is good, son. You will have no complaints from me there; however, you seem off. You're nothing like your recommendations said you were. You're not the most cooperative officer, and you're almost always combative when dealing with suspects as well as your colleagues. Maybe it was too soon for you to start back working. I heard that many officers from Blüdhaven-"

"With all due respect, sir, I'm fine. If it is just my behavior that you are worried about, I will try to be nicer." He stood up. "If that's all, I would like to go back to work."

The commissioner stared at him before nodding, more to himself than to the officer in front of him. "Go home, Grayson. You are on leave until you are clear with a therapist."

Almost a month later, he was still seeing his therapist, but not how Payne would have wanted him to. And most certainly, not how his girlfriend would have. In fact, he was seeing a lot of females that his girlfriend would have probably liked if he wasn't sleeping with them.

The perk of secret identities: everything was a secret.

Now, his current life consisted of three things: good sex, great alcohol, and amazing crime fighting. He never mixed the last two, when he was Nightwing, but tonight he would. He needed something to occupy his mind.

Twisting off the top of the bottle, he bought the gin to his lips. The liquid burnt his throat. It was a lovely feeling.

He took the bottle to the computer, and watch as all the screens showed no sign of trouble in the city. He took another sip before he heard a boom coming from inside the Tower.

"What the-" Another boom was heard. He took off to find the source.

It was his luck that a villain would attack when he was drinking and all the other Titans were gone. Cyborg was speaking at a tech convention in DC, Starfire was modeling in Tokyo, Changeling was on a safari in Tanzania, and Raven-

He stopped in front of her door. He overrode her code, and the door opened to reveal her room covered in her dark power like Christmas lights. He was hesitant to step in. He didn't want to end up like some of the items that had exploded and were scattered on the floor.

"Help! Let me out!"

The panic in her voice over rode his fear, and he went to her. She was laying on the floor with several books surrounding her both on the floor and in the air.

"Let me go!" She cried in a painful voice, thrashing on the floor. "Let me go!"

"Raven, what's wrong?" He grabbed her by her shoulders, trying to shake her awake.

"Please, let me go," she begged him.

"Raven, wake up!" He began to panic as tears streamed down her eyes. "Tell me, what's wrong!" As if to answer him, white lights from her eyes shot to his. And now, he saw what she was seeing. It played like a movie but in small clips.

In the first clip, he was chained to the wall. He was fighting to be released from his restraints. He tried to fight against them, but he was exhausted. He felt sore and was bruised. He knew that his throat was sore from screaming.

He heard them talking about him. They were talking about the next experiment that they wanted to try. The others had failed; they weren't even sure that the new one would work. Soon, they got in a heated argument. The woman wondered why Slade had bought him here. However, he passed out before he could hear the answer.

I must hurry before he finds me. He chanted that over in his head in the second clip. Somewhere in his subconscious, he knew that 'he' was Slade.

Nightwing tried to move faster, but once again, he was too weak. He was losing blood faster than he could heal himself. But he wasn't worried. He wasn't going to die here. He knew that once he reached the city limit that everything would be okay. But first he needed to rest for a moment.

In the third clip, Blüdhaven was gone. He felt sick, because Nightwing was sick. It was too late for him and for Nightwing. There was nothing that he could do to save him. He was gone for good. He was crying tears of blood when someone grabbed him. He was out again.

The white light left him.

Blinking his eyes, he saw that Raven was sleeping in his arms. Carefully, he picked his friend up and carried her to her bed. Gently, he tucked her in. He was about to leave when a hand grabbed him.

"Please, don't go." Raven said sadly. Her eyes still filled with white light. "I am afraid." Suddenly, the white light shot from her eyes again, this time, surrounding his body. He felt Raven's emotions. His instincts were at an all-time high at the deep sense of fear that she felt.

"I'm here; I'm not going nowhere." At his statement, the white light returned to Raven once more, and she was out, trembling in her sleep. Nevertheless, her hand remained in his. As silently as he could, he crawled into the bed with her. His face faced hers, and the only thing that touch were their hands, which laid in between them. Throughout the night, he hummed her lullabies, told funny stories, and rubbed her head when her fear spiked.

All the while, the different images, which she projected inside of his head, disturbed him. It caused him to sober up as he tried progress what he saw.

The visions stunned, confused, and saddened him. But rage ignited strongly in his blood vessels more than any other emotion. He didn't know the full story, but he knew that Slade was the other leading character in it. And if he was as sure about the storyline as he thought he was, then Slade had Raven locked up somewhere in Blüdhaven and tortured her.

But what sickened him the most was that she was looking for him when she was the one who needed help.

"No, stop it!" Raven screamed. She had let go of his hand, and now her body tossed vigorously on the bed. "Stop!" She yelled constantly. "Just stop it, please!" She continued to fight an attacker that was only in her nightmare.

"Raven, calm down." He jumped on top of her, trying to restrain her while avoiding her arms and legs.

Her eyes opened and white light grabbed ahold of him. It hurt. The fear and pain that he felt coming from her hurt tremendously.

"Raven, calm down, please. You are safe."

She shook her head wildly, "No, no! Stop it!" Tears fell down her face from the pain as tears fell down his.

"You are safe. You are with me!"

"Please don't hurt me. I promised to be good. Please, stop."

"Raven, you are safe!" He yelled back. "It is me, Nightwing."

"Nightwing?" She said it so softly that he almost missed it. He was just happy that she stopped fighting him, and that her powers stopped randomly picking items to destroy.

"I don't believe you." She said, but he felt through the white light that she wanted to.

"It's me." He took her hand and brought it up to his masked face.

"Nightwing?" He nodded in her hand.

"Nightwing!" She reversed their position by the force of her hug. "Nightwing!" She said again, and her tears fell harder than they did before. "I'm happy that you are alive. I'm sorry for everything. Please forgive me."

He didn't hug her back. He was in a daze. He never felt so happy, so jubilant in his life. However, the feelings he felt coming from her felt surreal. It was a level of happiness that wasn't supposed to exist.

"Nightwing, I'm glad that you are okay." With that she fell into a peaceful and joyful slumber. He knew it because he felt it. Soon, the white light left his body once more. However, he stayed motionless underneath Raven. His arms rested around her waist and her head and hands on his chest.

They fell asleep like that. Yet, before Nightwing could truly fall asleep, he made two declarations: he would forgive Raven for whatever she did and he would make Slade's life a living hell, personally.

It was noon when he woke up. Sometime during the night, they had change positions. They were cuddled side by side instead of her on top of him. Painstakingly, he moved from out of her arms. The loss of his presence caused her to latch onto the pillow that he just left.

She looked peacefully. And that bought a small smile to his face.

Brushing her hair from her face, he was relieved to see the rumors wasn't true. Her face was without any marks or blemish. She looked perfect on the outside despite the scars on the inside.

He sighed in misery. This whole time, since his return to Jump City, he was so focus on his failure and pain that he hadn't noticed the others around him.

He ruffled the hair on his head. The weight of his action came crushing down upon him: the hurt words he said to Barbara, the risk that he put Star in by sleeping with random women, and the danger he placed his team and the police officers in by constantly consuming alcohol.

He was an idiot.

But he hated that he hadn't noticed the pain that his teammate was suffering. To be honest, he hadn't care. He ignored the things that he shouldn't had: the distance she kept from the team, the cowl that she constantly wore, the pain that she tried to hide when they first reform.

He rubbed his head aggressively. All this time he was being a dick, and she was…

Frustrated, he stood up. He needed to go before she woke up. He doubted that she would be happy with him in her room or in her bed. Just before he moved to walk out the door, he saw a medicine bottle on the nightstand. He pulled it up and read the label.

His heart squeezed just a little.

How much pain she was totally in?

Richard had been busy in the last 72 hours since he last saw Raven.

He cleared his apartment of all alcohol. He restocked his fridge with cleansing beverages, and signed himself up for AA meeting and courses, which he would start attending next week Monday.

He went to the doctor and got tested for all possibly STIs. He had to go again in three months to get retested for AID since his last fling was earlier that week, and it took three months for the body to create a testable number of antibodies. He had to think of an excuse to tell Star why he wanted to be celibate for that time period. He would never be brave enough to tell her that he had cheated on her; unless, there was a surprise baby out there.

He, also, made phone calls to his therapist and Commissioner Payne, informing them that he wanted Dr. Latu to be his new psychiatrist. Those conversations had gone better than he expected. Both wished him luck in getting help.

He even tried to call Barbara. She didn't answer. So, he left a lengthy message on her voicemail, apologizing for his behavior and comments.

He was currently going through a mental list of things, which he needed to correct, and people, who he needed to apologize to, when he suddenly felt a presence entering his room.

"Trouble on the West coast? Or is this a checkup visit?" He turned to face the man that raised him.

"Barbara called."

"So, this is a checkup visit. I take it that she is still mad at me."

"Angry but not heartless."

"I guess, I should be happy that she called you instead of sending a knife through my head."

"She will get over it eventually; she always does."

Like she did with you? Richard had many questions that he wanted to ask about those two, but he learned that some questions were better left unasked. Furthermore, he was honest with Barbara when he said that he was over it.

"How are you holding up?" Batman asked. He hated talking about his feeling with Batman, but he couldn't talk to his therapist about what he needed to get off his chest.

He gestured for him to sit down before he started to talk. "I'm… I wasn't doing well. The events from Blüdhaven affected me more than I thought. I can hear their screams, Bruce, everywhere I go. I see the toxic in the air when I look up at the sky, and the smell of everything foul on that day remains in my nose no matter what I do. I-" He broke down in tears.

"I left them; I survived while they are still there, buried in that city. Each day, the news report more casualties. And each day, more supers rush over there to help clean up the city. My city. All the while, I am here." He yelled in pain. "I'm here while others clean up my mess. I was supposed to save it, fix it up, and change it. Instead, I'm here. I'm here in another city trying to protect it when I had already failed the citizens of Blüdhaven. How can people look to me for help when I can barely look at myself?"

"You would have died."

"You don't know-"

"I do."

The younger man let out a humorless chuckle. "Right, you were the one who rescued me before things completely fell apart."

"No one could have stop it from happening, Dick. They chose that city for a reason."

"But you would have died trying." He countered. "You wouldn't have left and let Gotham be destroy like that."

"No, I wouldn't have. But I wouldn't have died either. As much as my old partners like to distance themselves from me, they always show up when I am near death's door."

"You never needed our help, Bruce."

"You can't prove that I wouldn't be alive today if you all didn't"

They sat silently as their eyes locked.

"Don't dwell on the past, Dick. There's nothing there. You can only learn and move forward."

"You make it sound so easy."

"It's not but you will miss the opportunity to help others if you don't."

"You're right...as always"

"Sometimes, it is nice to be wrong…. You said you weren't doing good, and now?" Batman asked after a while.

"I'm doing better." He smiled a weird smile that was a combination of happiness and sadness. "The most hopeful person in the world reminded me that I have something to protect and I'm not completely useless."

"Who?"

"Raven."

Two years before the condition

He was nervous as he waited in the parking lot for the commissioner. This would be the first time Raven would see him without his mask. This, also, would be the first time that she would know that he knew who Rachael Roth was.

After the incident at the Tower years ago, he did some digging and stalking to discover Raven's Rachael Roth. And from a distance, he watched over her encased she was ever in trouble.

Beep.

A reminder came through his phone about the date he had to cancel with Starfire. Knowing that she was upset with, he texted her another apology with a promise to meet at their spot.

He just finished when Commissioner Payne appeared.

They headed to the bar, which was a warehouse that housed the bar on the bottom and Raven's loft on top. Payne introduced him two workers at the, who he already knew on file, and to Yasmine, who he knew as Rachael only friend outside of the Titans.

And the moment that Rachael appeared, he forgot what he was prepared to say.

He froze because the last scene of his weakest moment played in his head.

"Richard," He heard her say as he placed the bottle of pills back on the night stand.

She was looking at him, eyes full of sleep.

"Richard." Her hands reached out and pulled him down. Shocked by the sudden movement and strength, he fell on top of her; her lips collided with his. Her arms snaked around his neck and her body push against his.

Instead of pulling away, he deepened the kiss and mashed their bodies closer together. When he pulled, away, he was conflicted. And a question, which would resurface in his mind a few years later, came to him.

What was he going to do about his feelings for Raven?