Prologue

Dick found himself staring at the ceiling of his bedroom, laying on his bed. He couldn't sleep as he had a lot on his mind. He was thinking about the events that happened to him for the past four years.

Four years ago, he was a part of a group known as the Titans, which also featured Tim, and included Donna Troy, Beastboy, Raven, Cyborg and his then girlfriend Starfire, who's alias was known as Kori'andr or Kori Anders. The group even elected him to be their leader, and things went smoothly for awhile.

Things changed within a couple of years, Cyborg left the Titans to join the Justice League and Blue Beetle replaced him not too long after the fact. Also joining the team was a girl named Terra, who was the half sister to Outsider member Geo Force as well as a young woman named Catalina Flores, who went under the alias Tarantula.

The first hurdle was Terra, who turned out to be a spy for the Titans villain Deathstroke, who was in cohorts with another villain named Brother Blood. Starfire, Beastboy, Raven, Wonder Girl, Robin and Blue Beetle were all captured by Terra and Deathstroke as Brother Blood planned to harvest their energy for his God hood. Nightwing met Jericho, the son of Deathstroke, and they joined forces to rescue the others but they would end up being captured as well, another part of Brother Blood's harvesting plan for God hood.

Seeing that his son was in danger, Deathstroke turned on Brother Blood and destroyed the machine to save the Titans before they could all be drained to death. This was the biggest battle the Titans ever had to endure which led to Terra's untimely death and the Titans believed Deathstroke and Brother Blood to be deceased as well.

Dick was convinced not to blame himself for Terra's death as it was not his fault what happened. It took some time but he was able to move past it.

Shortly after the events of the Judas Contract, Catalina played a bigger role in Dick Grayson's life. Initially Dick noticed Kori didn't approve of Catalina being in the mix as Starfire and Nightwing were in a relationship at the time.

Little did he know, Catalina was also a spy, but this time, she was working for a brute who would become Nightwing's arch enemy Blockbuster. He had a grudge against Dick for foiling one of his plots during his world travels when Dick first left Batman.

As a part of his revenge plan, Blockbuster wanted to kill anyone Dick ever got in touch with, whether it was his loved ones or a random stranger he came in contact with.

He started by targeting Starfire, and sent Tarantula to do the job. She kissed Dick in front of her, and after this battle, the relationship between Dick and Kori ended, and Catalina decided that would be the better way to make Nightwing suffer.

Getting to know Catalina better, Dick was convinced to be her mentor. He was convinced that he could do the job after some pep talk by his teammates, and it seems that things were going smoothly with him training her at first.

That was what lead to the destruction of Dick Grayson's life in Bludhaven.

Things took a downhill slide when Firefly attacked Dick's childhood circus, which the Titans was unable to save the circus as it was burned down. Not only that, Donna Troy ended up sacrificing herself to give the remaining Titans a fighting chance.

Dick realized that Blockbuster only wanted him and the others would get hurt, or would have ended up dead like Donna if they remained with him. He knew he had to take care of this himself, so he convinced Robin, Starfire, Raven, Blue Beetle and Beastboy to go to Gotham to warn Bruce, Barbara, Stephanie and Cassandra before they could meet their end as well.

Dick felt like he had to face this alone, but the thing was, how exactly was he going to do that? He caused his relationship with Starfire to end, costed the lives of Donna, Garth and Tula as the last two were killed when they tried to help him out, destroyed his circus and his home at Bludhaven, and now it was just him and Blockbuster, so he thought.

From out of nowhere, just as Nightwing was overwhelmed by the battle, Tarantula arrived and he stepped out of the way, allowing her to kill Blockbuster, shooting him point blank.

This caused Nightwing to have a mental breakdown, becoming nearly catatonic. Tarantula took advantage of his breakdown and made him get on the floor of the ceiling in the rain, took his pants off and proceeded to rape him, despite him trying to tell her to stop.

Things took a turn when Catalina asked Dick to marry her, and he was too scared to reject her offer. Before they could sign the marriage license, Batman called Dick to help him out with a mission and therefore Dick Grayson returned to Gotham.

Later on, Dick spoke a bit about Tarantula killing Blockbuster to Alfred and Batman caught on, causing him to get an earful of a lecture as Nightwing did allow Tarantula to kill his enemy when this could have been prevented.

Nightwing never spoke about the other stuff that happened to him that day. He couldn't tell anyone. Not Bruce, not Barbara, no one. If they were to find out, how exactly would they react?

The Bat Family now had allies known as the Defenders of the Earth, but he couldn't let them know about what happened to him that night either. Even though he barely knew that team, chances are, if one of them knew, they would probably go tell one of the others, especially Bruce or Barbara.

If Barbara found out, she either wouldn't believe him or would probably be disgusted with him and want nothing to do with him after this.

If Bruce found out, not only would he be disappointed with him, but he would be ashamed of him for what happened.

Dick decided that no one can know about his secret, what happened to him that dark night.

He turned to the left as he heard the radio was playing Simon & Garfunkel's "The Sounds of Silence". Dick rose up from his bed as he assumed it was morning. He looked at the clock which read 6:30 am. Yep, it was morning. He stepped out of his room and walked down the hallways to meet with the others.

Then Dick made it to the living room where the music came from. He saw Stephanie slowly dancing to the music. Cassandra, Jason, LJ and Tim were all together on the couch watching her dance while Amy and Kshin was sitting on the armchair.

"Anyone else want to dance?" Stephanie asked.

"Not sure if this is a song to dance to," Cassandra answered.

"You'd be surprised at the songs idiots dance to," Jason quipped.

"What are you trying to say?" Stephanie scoffed.

"Everyone dances to different songs, you know," Amy told Jason.

"Good morning." Barbara told the group as she wheeled over to the living room, "I trust everyone had a good sleep last night?"

"For the most part." Tim answered.

"Good morning, Babs." Dick greeted his girlfriend, "You doing okay?"

"Yeah," Barbara replied, "yourself?"

"I've seen better days." Dick sighed. That what he said was kind of true. He had seen better days, but he didn't want her to find out the recent nightmares he had been having.

"Hey!" April shouted as she approached the living room as she grabbed her Mp3 player, "Which one of you did it?! Which one of you took my Mp3 player without my permission?!"

Amy and LJ both pointed at Kshin.

"I told you a million times not to touch my Mp3 player!" April told Kshin, "You've done this before in Central City!"

Kshin leaned backwards and smirked.

"Not funny." April replied harshly.

"I guess music time is over." Stephanie quipped.

"And for the record," Cassandra stated, "I knew it was a bad idea!"

Dick took a deep breath as the song ended and the music turned off.

Author's Note: I love how this version of the start of the story turned out. There's the mention of not only Nightwing's events with Tarantula but also the mention of the story arc of the well known Teen Titans comic book arc known as "The Judas Contract" as I preferred the comic version to that train wreck that was the movie version. Enough of that.