Earth- April 1, 2011

His head hangs low as he walks through the cemetery. He doesn't have to look up, he knows the way by heart now. The weather reflects his mood; gloomy and dreary. It should be like that on this day, he thinks as the rain drips down his face. There should be nothing even remotely cheerful. Dick can't stand being around anyone today, the team included. They were too happy, too carefree. He couldn't fake it today. Not on this day.

I met her in a club down in old Soho

Where you drink champagne and it tastes just like cherry-cola

These were his mom's favorites. He only listens to them when he starts thinking about them. It makes him feel kind of closer to his...his parents. His mom would sing them while she was cooking or cleaning or flipping through the air. She said that music was one of the things she loved when she came to the states, it was so diverse.

He always listens to their songs when he comes on the day of their...the day they...he just listens to them when he visits them. Just as the song changes, he comes to the two headstones that he knows too well.

John Grayson, Loving Husband and Father

1971- 2005

Mary Grayson, Loving Wife and Mother

1974- 2005

"Hey, mom. Hey, dad." He says softly.

If you need me, call me

No matter where you are, No matter how far

Just call my name, I'll be there in a hurry,

You don't have to worry-

He wish he could just call his parents and they would come right away, he doesn't know how many times he has wished that over the years. Life wasn't that giving though.

He pulls out the flowers from his bag that were rested atop his Algebra II homework. He gently pulls them out and zips his bag back up, slinging it back onto his back. He sets the white roses in between the two headstones, standing for a minute staring down as them become water-sodden. He sinks down to the muddy grass, pulling his legs toward his chest. The water begins to soak his clothing, but he ignores it.

"I know if you were alive, you would chastise me for sulking on my birthday." He sighs, resting his chin on his knees. "I probably should celebrate, but I don't think I'm ready. I don't think I'll ever be ready. It's-It's just...I just...I just miss you guys. More than words can say." His voice breaks.

Hey Jude, don't make it bad

Take a sad song and make it better

Tears start streaming down his face, this song was her favorite. "I don't know why I talk to your grave, maybe because it's the last place you're at. I don't know even if you can hear me. If you can, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I should have done something, anything. Sometimes I wish it was me instead of you. Sometimes I can't take it. I-I-" He grips the grass trying to gain some semblance of control. "I love you both. You didn't deserve to die, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." He accidentally rips the grass out of the ground and despondently lets it fall through his fingers. He clutches onto his legs again, staring at the headstones with a gaze of complete desolation. The tears continue to trickled down his face, mixing in with the still pouring rain.

Caught up in his own grief, he doesn't notice that the team is close by, standing by a tree. Wally wanted to follow Robin, he knows how bad this day is and wanted to be there for his best friend. This, of course, sparked the rest of the teams curiosity on where Robin was and they insisted they go with Wally. Now, they wish they hadn't came.

"He looks so devastated. Who are they?" M'gann asked softly over the mind link.

"They're, uh, his parents."

M'gann gasps, stifling a sob. Conner wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close so she could cry into his chest. His eyes remain on Robin's form, a forlorn expression donning his face. Artemis and Kaldur

"His parents! His parents died on his birthday." Zatanna said appalled.

Wally nods sadly, still keeping an eye on Robin.

"How...how did they pass?" Kaldur asks, worried for their youngest teammate.

Wally hesitates, not sure if it's his place. He eventually decides that Robin probably won't be able to tell and since they already know that they died, he'll do it for Robin. "Murder...He saw it happen. It's why he became Robin, to take down their killer."

The team process this for a moment, the mood quickly becoming mournful. They all knew why they became heroes, but none of them did it because of that reason. Robin was just a kid…

"Should we go over there and comfort him?" M'gann asks, an itch to give him a hug creeping up her spine.

"I don't know. He usually likes to be by himself today..." Wally trails off.

"I think it would be wise to comfort him. Show him he is not alone on this most horrible day." Kaldur says.

The rest of the team nods towards one another and take a step forward towards him, despite the continuous warnings from Wally. As soon as they take a step forward, a blue light blasts down upon Robin's form. A ship is revealed to be the source of the light as it hovers over Robin. He begins to be pulled into the ship by the light, struggling against apparent confinement.

"Robin!" Wally screams, running forward with the team. He slips in the mud onto his face and struggles to stand up.

Robin turns towards them at the sound of his name. His eyes widen at their appearance and he calls out desperately, "Guys!"

Just as the team reaches the beam, Robin is pulled into a hatch at the bottom of the ship, still screaming their names. The ship blasts through the air towards the sky, leaving them standing in the rain.

"M'gann call the ship." Kaldur orders, slightly shaken at what just occurred. "I will contact the league to tell them what happened."

Wally stands behind the group, finally up from the mud. He dejectedly stands there, blankly staring at the limp white roses where Robin last stood.

/Time Skip/

Knowhere, the Milano- 2022

Dick opens his eyes to a faceful of blonde hair and the feeling of an arm around his waist. He's confused for a moment before the events of last night dawn upon smirks slightly as he pushes the girl's- Gara? Gail? It started with a G...Gaina!- hair off of his face and slides out from under her arm. He silently slips some pants on, not bothering with a shirt. He softly pads out into the kitchen, seeing Peter pouring himself some coffee.

"I'll take some of that."

Peter jumps up and lets out a small scream, "Jesus, Dick. Don't do that!"

"Sorry. I don't mean to, you know."

"I know you don't, but it still doesn't make up for the thousand other times I've asked you not to."

"We never learn."

"One of our issues." Peter laughs, handing Dick a mug with ducks smoking cigars on them. Dick snorts at the sight, but takes a sip. He remembers getting this cup. He picked it up off a trader about a year after he joined up with Peter.

Before he got with Peter, it was horrible. Well, not great at the least. After Yondu picked up Dick (still had no clue why), he was forced to become a Ravager. He hated the idea of stealing at first, it was what he fought against in his other life. It was his own stupid fault though. Dick had taken down all of Yondu's men before that stupid arrow floated right in front of his throat. Yondu saw that he was an amazing fighter and decided to keep him. So, begrudgingly, he became a Ravager.

To Dick's surprise, he actually found he didn't hate stealing, enjoyed it even. It was like a game and he had to figure out new ways to win. He thought he would loathe it, that he would despise himself every time he did it. He didn't though, that surprised him the most. He had started stealing to survive, but it turned into more though. It was exhilarating and he grew up fighting thieves and burglars, but he never knew why the people stole. Now, he knew.

He started pick pocketing things for fun, though he didn't take anything important. It was always fun to see people's faces when they saw their stuff was taken. He couldn't help but cackle before he slipped away.

He hated (and still hates somewhat) Yondu with a burning passion. He took his life away on Terra and Dick would never be able to go back. This Terra was closed off from the rest of the galaxy and his Terra, well. His Terra was in a different dimension. He literally had no way to get back because the way Yondu went was a one time deal.

Dick missed being Robin while he was a Ravager, though that feeling faded as the years went on. Once in a while, he would see a burning building or a mugging and help out, feeling like his old self a bit, but those times were rare. If he had to steal something that could hurt people, he would send it to Nova Corp and lie to Yondu, taking the consequence.

Around his sixteenth birthday, Dick realized that he was settling into his life as a Ravager. It scared the shit out of him, but he finally accepted that he could never go back to his life from before and should just move on.

A little after his sixteenth birthday, he met Peter Quill while being forced to clean the ship after he 'failed' a mission. Dick had been scrubbing the floor when Peter had stepped aboard the ship, his shoes mud crusted. Dick had tilted his head up to bitch him out about it when he paused mid sentence. He looked human. Peter looked at him surprised, asking him where he was from. Dick told him and Peter. Was. Pissed. While Peter was going full rage on Yondu, Dick learned that he was from this dimension's Terra and Yondu had taken him when he was a kid too. Afterwards he walked right up to Dick, still fuming a bit. "Hey, kid, you wanna get out of here?"

Dick had thrown his scrubber over his shoulder and said, "Hell, yeah!" without even processing that he didn't even know Peter. He grabbed his stuff (including his last items of Terra) and followed Peter to his ship. It was the best decision of his life.

Peter and Dick had found out that they had a lot in common as time went on. They both lost their parent(s) at the same age, they had both been taken from Terra by Yondu for no fucking reason, their mom's actually liked some of the same music, and their personality's were similar. Peter was more cocky and let loose more than Dick did, but it didn't matter. Dick liked him all the same. He especially liked that Peter's code name was after something his mom called him, like he used to have with 'Robin'.

A little after the sorta rescue, Dick had to pick a code name for himself as requested by Peter. He didn't want to use Robin, that part of his life was done and just made him sad on the things he missed. He had decided on 'Nightwing'.

Dick has had to bail or break Peter out of prison a couple times, which got them even closer. They became best friends even though Peter was like 16 years old than him. A fact Dick made so much fun of. It's okay though, Peter has gotten him with a lot of dick jokes.

Then after a mission to Morag, everything changed. The orb that they had stolen sent a certain green assassin after them.

It would have been easier to get away from her if a talking raccoon and a humanoid plant hadn't also been trying to capture them for ransom money sent out by Yondu. The prick.

Now, this resulted in a fight and then the capture of him, Peter, and their newfound kinda-sorta-maybe allies. He was going to get let go because of his helpfulness to Nova, but he punched a guard in the face. He didn't want to get separated from Peter.

They were only in The Kylnn for two days, but it wasn't that bad. If you take out that the guards shocked both him and Peter, that Peter almost angered a huge guy named Drax trying to make sure he didn't kill the green chick, having to give up 30,000 units for something they didn't need, and the actual escape. Never mind, it was actually pretty bad.

After the escape, they went Knowhere to try and sell the orb. The 'they' being him, Peter, the green assassin named Gamora, a talking Raccoon named Rocket, a humanoid plant named Groot (and he made sure you knew his name), and the guy who tried to kill Gamora, Drax. It was a pretty fragile alliance between the misfits.

After finding out the the Orb was an Infinity Stone, which sounded bad as soon as he heard it, they had a battle with Ronan, the guy who wanted the Orb in the first place. Then, to make matters worse, Peter and Gamora ended up getting captured by the Ravagers. After convincing Yondu that he needed to help us stop Ronan, and almost dying in the process, they went after Ronan with Peter's 12% of a plan. Which is just awful and he could have done better if he didn't have a mild concussion from the fight.

Of course, things went terribly wrong, which shouldn't have been surprising. Things were always stacked against them. Ronan's ship crashed onto Xandar, Groot was temporarily killed, a dance off had occurred between Peter and Ronan (God, he was never going to let Peter live that down) and the Star Idiot grabbed the Infinity Stone with his bare-goddamn-hands. Everyone had clutched onto Peter and each other to try to direct some of it's power off of Peter. It worked and they destroyed Ronan. He has had to kill before, so he didn't let the fact that they killed him affect him too much.

Afterwards, Nova Prime was so grateful that she had their criminal records expunged. He was pretty excited, no wait that's not a good enough word. He was ecstatic! He could finally have his somewhat forced Ravagerness (is that a word? Fuck it, it's a word.) not weigh him down from helping people again. He didn't know if he'd ever be a "hero" again, but he didn't care if he was. They would help people their own way and if they had to do things other people thought were wrong, then so be it.

While they were at Xandar though, Nova Prime told Peter and him that they were only half Terran and that was why they could stand the Stone's energy for so long. Their mothers were Terran, but not their fathers. Their father's were a different species. Dick had a different father than Peter, but they couldn't figure out what race each were. He wondered why his mother never told him, but he really didn't care that his biological father wasn't John. He had been raised by John Grayson and he was his real dad, so Dick really didn't care.

That was all seven years ago. Now, he is living a great life with the Guardians. They're his family and nothing's going to change that. He couldn't be happier, he thinks as Gamora walks in and kisses Peter on the cheek.

She turns towards Dick, a small smile gracing her lips. "Hello, Dick. How'd you sleep?"

The night plays in his head and he hides a smirk, "Pretty good." He takes a casual sip of his coffee as Gaina walks into the kitchen, wearing Dick's shirt and only Dick's shirt.

"I hope you don't mind that I borrowed your shirt, mine was ruined." She doesn't seem too embarrassed by the fact, smirking slyly.

"Not at all. You can keep it." He says politely.

"Thanks, Nightwing. I had fun last night." She smiles sassily.

"I did, too. A lot of fun." He wiggles his eyebrows, having fun in this game.

She giggles, "Call me whenever you're in town." before she winks and sashays out of the ship.

Dick stares after her retreating form before turning back to his coffee. Gamora raises her eyebrows at the scene, "When did she get here?"

"Oh, after you guys went to bed at 10:00. Sidenote: seriously? You're getting old. Anyways, I went out because I couldn't sleep. Ended up at a bar, ended up talking to a Xandarian, ended up back here." He says simply, like it was nothing. It was something.

"Nice!" Peter says enthusiastically, raising his hand for a high five that was met while Gamora rolls her eyes.

"So, what's the agenda for today?" A voice floats through the door, revealing itself to belong to Rocket.

"I am Groot." 'I want to know as well.'

"We have to go to Xandar. I got a transmission this morning saying that it was important, but they didn't say why." Peter says confused.

"That is most strange." Drax says, being the last one to come in. "Why could they not say? Was there something wrong with their mouths?"

"No, Drax. Their mouths are fine. They did not specify what was important." Dick explains.

"What do you think is so important that they did not discuss it?" Drax asks after he understands.

"Well, no use in discussing what it is when we can just go see what it is." Peter says, already on his way to the cockpit.

While the rest of them got prepared for takeoff, Dick sat in the cockpit with Peter listening to his mom's 'Awesome Mix Vol. 1'. Dick was a tad curious on what the super-big-important-mystery-that-you-must-come-right-now thing was, but pushed it out of his mind for now. Besides, they were going to Xandar, he would find out soon enough.