A/N: Takes place before the Christmas scene in chappie six. Summer Gleason writes an article about Freddy Loyd and Bruce Wayne.

Special thanks to Erin for the quick beta! As always, you rock. With thoughts of Kim, who also rocks!

“Return to Normalcy”

“Why can’t we?”

“The heat is still on,” Bruce advised, taking a sip of his lemonade. “We need to be cautious, patient.”

Dick shook his head and crossed his arms, looking as dark and depressed as if he stood on a rooftop in Gotham at midnight in the pouring rain on Thanksgiving, not on a beach in Bermuda with the sunlight radiating overhead. “Luthor’s dead. We don’t even have to get leverage anymore. We can just—”

“That doesn’t matter. Some of our enemies will attack us even for the rumor of being Batman and Nightwing. We need to give it time. Regroup. Give people an air of uncertainty.”

“People are still going to talk, and by the way you’re talking, it might be years before—”

“Normalcy is lost, Dick,” Bruce declared with less than a twitch of a shoulder. “Even if we are able to convince the majority of our enemies that Bruce Wayne is not Batman, our shroud of mystery has been lifted. Don’t be rash. When the time comes, we will pick up the pieces where they fell.”

“But—”

Bruce narrowed his eyes. “Why are you pushing this?”

Dick froze and averted his eyes. “Oh, I dunno. Maybe I’m getting tired of being cooped up in a house on a private island. I thought you said you had identities we could slip into in case of—”

“I do,” Bruce answered while unfolding the newspaper Superman had brought but he hadn’t been able to read yet, “but for now, it’s best we keep a low profile. Nothing too extreme. Someone could still recognize us.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Dick.” Bruce looked up at the boy standing before him and attempted to glare pass the poorly constructed façade. “What’s wrong?”

The boy threw up his hands. “Nothing. Never mind. I’m going to the satellite, maybe workout before the meeting.”

Bruce slowly sat up as Dick took off in a fury of movement, only moving to the side to allow Selina out onto the patio.

“Whoa, where’s he going to in a hurry?” she asked, wrapping her arms about Bruce’s shoulders.

“He’s upset about…something.”

She laughed dryly and sat down on the opposite side of the sunning chair, so they were facing at each other. “Well, I should hope so. If Summer had come up with that much filth about me, I’d have my claws through her neck.”

His steel eyes snapped toward her bright emerald. “What?”

Selina simply took his Daily Planet and pointed to the headline.

*^*^*

The punching bag had no mercy. Dick pounded it, kicked it, went “Batman” on its ass. There was no doubt that if the bag would have been Summer Gleason, she would have been beaten worse than the Joker, but no matter how much sweat equity went into releasing his frustration, his shoulders still shook, his eyes still narrowed, and he began his routine all over again.

“Whoa. What did that bag ever do to you?”

Stopping the bag from swinging and huffing doggedly, Dick wiped his saturated face in his tank top’s front but never turned to see the newcomer.

“Leave me alone, Roy. I’m really not in the mood for any jokes about this situation.”

“Oh, come on. You don’t have to put on here, Dick. I mean, your name coupled with those short pants? We all knew you were—”

“Roy.”

“I just didn’t know it was with him, but now, well, with all the fights, it’s pretty—guk!”

Dick’s leg flung out so fast, Roy didn’t have a chance a duck, but he managed to roll with the momentum, much to Dick’s dismay. Dick continued his assault with a punch to Roy’s nose and an uppercut to his chin, but by the time he aimed for the solar plexus, Roy managed to regroup and kicked, forcing Dick back.

“Yeah, that’s right. Get out some sexual frus—”

The punching bag thumped into Roy’s body, and Dick leapt from its chain, bringing his foot down Roy’s shoulder. As Roy crashed to the floor, he grabbed Dick’s leg to bring him down, too, and only muttered, “I knew you always had a thing for me.”

The door slid open, but Dick didn’t pause as he grabbed Roy’s neck and brought back his wrapped fist, the once white tape tainted crimson, but before he could deliver another blow, a hand fisted in his tank top and with one quick yank, yanked him off Roy.

“Enough,” Batman ordered as a green straight jacket held back Roy from reengaging.

“No!” Dick yelled.

Batman put a hand on the boy’s chest and glared in the enraged blue orbs. “Yes, it is.”

Dick slapped off the hold. “Don’t tell me what to do. I’m no longer twelve.”

A hand immediately tugged him back by the wrist. “And you will not act like you are.”

Pivoting on his heel, Dick yelled, “Have you seen it? Huh? You must have seen it by now, right? The article? The TV? It’s all over!”

“What’s all over?” Wonder Woman demanded, crossing her arms.

Dick looked at the JLA members present, tears glistening in his eyes, before glaring away. “It made front page of The Daily Planet. You couldn’t have done anything to keep it off?”

Superman floated down to put a hand on Dick’s shoulder. “I couldn’t even get an article about Kara off the front page. I tried. Believe me.”

“Okay, still lost here, boys,” Black Canary interjected. “What’s going on?”

Green Lantern’s jaw was set. “Summer Gleason wrote an article about Freddy Loyd, Dick’s alias. Apparently, Freddy had been living at Wayne Manor as Bruce Wayne’s, ahem, ‘domestic partner’.”

“She accosted Tim and me a few months ago, and I threatened her with a suit back then,” Dick admitted, beginning to unwrap his fingers. “I guess she just thought now she could get away with the story because we’ve gone into hiding.”

A hand fell onto his chin and lifted it until he was forced to meet Batman’s unforgiving eyes. His father’s voice was more abrasive than usual. “This is why you wanted to go back. So I could slap her with a libel suit.”

“To be honest, I really didn’t want you to know. I would have had Selina swipe your paper if I didn’t know you would ask about it.” He collapsed to one of the benches and ruffled the back of his hair. “It…It seems to pervert what we worked so hard to retain. She said I was ‘a pretty young thing,’ like I was one of those pieces of meat you used to bring home. And yes, I did realize they were about my age before you started again with Selina.”

“I didn’t realize it bothered you,” Batman said, pulling back his cowl to show his face.

Dick shrugged. “It never really did until Summer called me one of them, and then to read it in print for millions of people to—”

“People forget.”

“That’s not true!” Dick snarled and shot off the bench. “Do you have any idea how many times I had to field questions and snide comments about why billionaire Bruce Wayne, confirmed bachelor, took in a young boy? Do you? And now this is going to drudge that all up again. They just about stopped when you adopted me, and now—”

“I do not understand how this is a problem,” Wonder Woman interrupted. “You cannot be seen as ‘Dick Grayson’ now, so even if you went back to being ‘Freddy Loyd’—”

“You apparently didn’t read the full article, Diana,” Superman supplied. “Summer made insinuations that ‘Freddy’ might have had something to do with Dick’s disappearance.”

Roy snickered and wiped the blood from his nose. “If you ask me, this whole thing is ridiculous.”

“Sure, it is,” Dick rejoined. “Let’s see how you like it as Roy Harper, lover to Oliver Queen.”
“Hey, Ollie could only be so lucky...uh, no offense, Dinah.”

Dinah put a hand up and screwed her eyes shut. “Don’t go there, Harper.”

“Look, I don’t care if people think I’m gay,” Dick explained, dropping his tape into the garbage. “I mean, after Kory, I can’t tell you how many magazines paired me with whomever I happened to be walking next to at the time. I think Roy and I even went for a while according to one of tabloids.”

“Oh, yeah. Didn’t you find ‘comfort in the presence of a childhood friend’?”

“Please, if there was anyone I was going to find comfort in from my childhood, it would be—” Dick glanced at Wonder Woman and cringed. “Uh, never mind.”

“It will be fine,” Batman intercepted before Wonder Woman could remonstrate. He put a hand on his son’s shoulder. “Other than your pride—”

“—and reputation,” Dick grumbled.

“—nothing is hurt. And if anyone’s reputation is harmed, it’s mine. When this is over, no one will remember ‘Freddy Loyd’ as nothing more than a fling of Bruce Wayne. You’ll simply go back to being ‘Dick Grayson.’ No one will ever know.”

“Well…” Roy began.

Dick sent him the patented Bat Glare. “I think you’ve done enough, don’t you?”

“Hey, I was just—”

“You weren’t just anything!” Dick snapped, held back only by his father’s hand upon his shoulder.

“Come on now,” Green Lantern started, but Roy immediately cut him off.

“Hey, I was trying to help!”

“Help? That’s your type of help?”

Roy stared at him for a moment before finishing cleaning off his face. “Uh, yeah. Where have you been for the last how many years? And you feel better, too, don’t you?”

Dick’s mouth stayed open before it snapped shut, and he shook his head. “You’re insane. Freakin’ insane!”

“Well, then, I say my job is done.” Roy smirked.

Dick growled lowly and cast a dark glower upon Batman. “How can you be so calm about this, Dad?”

“I could do worse.”

Deadpanned. The voice, so void of emotion and feeling, brought a smirk to Dick’s lips, and he slapped a hand over his eyes. “Oh, God. You’ve made a joke. I should be worried.”

Bruce was silent for a long moment before asking, “Would you excuse us for a moment?”

Dinah blinked. “After all we just talked about, now you want privacy? What could you possibly have to talk about that you’d need to speak alone?”

Hearing the snapping of one of Bruce’s compartments on his belt, Dick slowly brought down his hand to see Bruce extract a black velvet box and open it.

Dick’s eyes instantly widened. “Oh. My. God.” He stared transfixed upon the glimmering ice rink-sized diamond before slowly looking up at his father. “For the love of God, that better be for Selina.”

That, of course, gained Dick a slap up the back of his head, and he realized as he smirked back at Bruce and saw the unsaid question lingering in his father’s eyes, that Bruce was right.

There would never be a return to normalcy—for better or for worse.