Verisimilitude

First Day Back

"Come on." Barbara told him, tossing him a pair of sunglasses which he easily caught. "We have to tell the League."

He opened his mouth to ask what exactly they were going to tell them, when she held up her left hand that held the engagement ring he had given her. It had a golden band with a dark red gemstone. He had recruited Stephanie for advice on it, and she had easily known what the ginger girl wanted.

At the sight of the ring and Barbara's smile, his face turned into a similar smile and he wrapped an arm around the woman and gave her a peck on the cheek. She grinned took the sunglasses from his hand and placed them on his face.

"C'mon." She urged him, nearly dragging him to the zeta beam.

"Someone's excited." he remarked, and she gave him a fake scowl.

"You can hardly talk. You were so impatient that you purposed to me on patrol."

"I'm never going to hear the end of that, am I?"

She simply gave him a look in response before typing in coordinates.

"Recognized: Nightwing, B01. Oracle, C01."

In a quick moment both out of costume heroes scanned the room. Red Robin was there talking to Rocket about something. Troia and Aquagirl were playing with Lian a little way away, with Tempest and Arsenal watching them.

"You called them here, didn't you?" He murmured as Zatanna came into the room, Redbird following. Oracle gave him an amused look, "Then why are Jay and Tim here? They already know."

"They wanted to see the looks on their faces." She said back quietly before walking forward, "Nightwing and I have something to tell you all." She announced, a smile on her face and he came up next to her.

The confusion on the Leaguer's faces turned to surprise as Nightwing gently grabbed her left hand and held it up for all to see.

"We're getting married."

"Stop it." He growled to himself, sliding the phone into his pocket. He grabbed the backpack that was sitting by the foot of his bed and slipped it on easily.

He left the room, silently shutting the door behind him and silently making his way down to the front door. Both Bruce and Alfred had offered to drive him, despite the former having to go to work, but he rejected the requests. He would walk. He wasn't sure he would have the strength to leave the car if he was driven, and the last thing he wanted to do was take the bus.

He almost slipped past Alfred - Bruce had already left - but he made himself call out, "Bye Alfred." Before he left the manor.

The exterior of the manor had hardly changed. The only differences was the older looking driveway (they had recently repaved it in the simulation, which had resulted in a chalk drawing contest following that Damian had won) and the neater cut bushes (they were still trimmed, but it had not been on par with Alfred's skill).

He kept his head down as he walked, a hood carefully placed over his neatly gelled hair so that he would not be too recognizable. Gotham itself had not changed too much in it's entirety, a building here, a parking lot there. The signs seemed wrong as well - he would glance at a building and see an advertisement for a company that had died out years ago.

Think of it as a mission. He told himself as he cast a glance at Gotham Park and tried to shake away the unwanted memories. You've time travelled back into the past. It's a mission. You'll go home tomorrow.