ATTENTION: Before reading this story, please read the short story, "Innocence Lost." ( www (dot) fanfiction (dot) net / s / 7690068 / 1 / Innocence_Lost ) The tale below takes place seven years afterwards.

Normally, Tim Drake was early for school. Being punctual meant having a half-hour of peace and quiet to drink his coffee and read his newspaper before the first bell rang. However, the traffic in New York City had other plans that morning.

Lots of plans.

Two miles of construction and a four-car pileup on highway 495 later, Tim was finally heading up the stairs to Kane High School, nearly fifteen minutes late. He breezed past the office so fast, the secretary at the front desk barely had time to catch his attention.

"Ah! Tim! There you are! Hold up a min!"

He slowed a little and turned just enough to look back, though he never stopped walking entirely. "Sorry Grace. Can't stop to chat—"

She snagged a folder off her desk. "You have a new student in homeroom today."

That made him stop completely. As she hurried over to Tim, her heels clicking loudly on the tile floor of the empty hallway he took a moment to adjust his eye glasses. She handed him the folder. "Great," he murmured with a sigh. "Late on a day a new student arrives. THAT will leave a nice first impression on the kid."

Grace gave him a sympathetic look. "Ms. Simone took him down to your room a few minutes ago."

"Damn it," Tim groused. It was a well known fact at the school that the principal was not fond of late instructors. A massive increase of paperwork always came their way soon afterwards. He tucked the folder under his arm and gave a wave to Grace. "Thanks for the heads up. Now I REALLY have to get to class. Catch you later."

It took less than three minutes to make his way up the stairs to his classroom situated on the second floor of the school. Tim got to the door just as the silver-haired, sixty-two year old, four-foot-eight principal came walking out.

"There you are, Mr. Drake! Where have you been?"

Tim froze. Despite the woman's tiny stature, she gave off an authoritative aura that reminded him too much of Alfred and at least three professors he had over in Cambridge. "There was a massive pile-up on the 495," he said apologetically. "It was still being cleared up when I finally got through past it."

She glared daggers at him over the rim of her wireframe bifocals. "For your sake, you'd better hope there's reports of this 'accident' online, otherwise you'll be spending the next month taking over after-school detention duty. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, ma'am."

She pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose. "Now. About your new student…"

Tim nodded as he edged towards the door. "I know. Grace told me all about him."

Ms. Simone gave him a curious look. "Everything about him?"

"Well, she gave me his folder. I'll take a look at it as soon as I can." Blindly, Tim felt behind him with his free hand for the doorknob.

The corner of the old woman's lip twitched before reassembling itself into perfect composure. "You know what, Timothy? I've changed my mind. I think I'll take you on your word about the accident that delayed your arrival."

Tim stiffened. "You will?" In the back of his mind, confusion reigned. Simone never let late instructors off the hook that easy, and she NEVER called her employees by their first names unless she certain she was going to bring the hammer down on them. Then she did something that set off a whole slew of warning bells.

Ms. Simone smiled.

"Of course, Timothy," she said. "You've always been a model teacher here. Extremely punctual. Since this is your first offense of this sort since you've been here, I don't see any reason for not being lenient with you." She made a shooing motion at him with her hand towards his classroom. "Besides, you have a new student waiting for you. Best not to keep him waiting any longer than he already has."

Slowly, Tim turned the doorknob. "Ah… Thank you, Ms. Simone. I appreciate it?"

The smile remained. "You'd better, Mr. Drake. I'll see you in a few hours." Then she turned on the balls of her feet and calmly made her way down the hallway.

Once she was out of sight, Tim paused to recompose himself, feeling for all the world like he'd just dodged a bullet. It sure wasn't like avoiding an actual bullet like back when he was a kid, but this encounter with the woman affectionately referred to as "The Warden" behind her back by the student body set him on edge. A moment later, the feeling passed and he was able to enter his classroom as if nothing had happened.

"Morning class," he said as he set his briefcase down, though retained the folder. The idle chatter that had been going on in the classroom full of juniors and seniors quieted. "Sorry I'm late, and we'll get to work in just a minute. However, it's come to my attention that we have a new student." Tim finally opened the folder and glanced over its contents. "His name is…"

Tim paused. He looked over the top of his glasses at the name on the file. "No. It can't be," he thought to himself.

The pause lasted only a moment, not long enough for his students to realize that anything was wrong. He adjusted his glasses and turned his blue eyes to scan the teenagers in front of him. "…Alvin Draper?"

A hand raised from near the rear of the class. Connected to that hand was a smirking disguised Damian Wayne.

It was a blessing that Alvin chose to sit in the rear of the class. It made ignoring him for the time they were trapped together easier for Tim. After initial introductions were made, it was a simple matter of focusing on the coursework.

Numbers made sense.

Equations, postulates, and theorems made sense (no matter how much his students would argue against that sentiment).

The fact that Damian Wayne was there in disguise using one of Tim's old aliases DID NOT make sense.

So until the bell rang, signaling the end of class, Tim pointedly ignored his estranged younger brother.

"Mr. Draper. May I have a word with you?" Tim asked as his students were in the process of gathering their things to head off to their next class.

"I don't really have the time, Mister Drake," the currently auburn haired teenager said with a negligent shrug. "I shouldn't be late for my next class."

Tim paused to look over one of the papers he'd gathered from a student's desk. "This won't take long."

The teenage boy shrugged and lounged at his desk as the last of the students filed out of the room. Soon as the last one was out, Tim went over, closed the door, and locked it. Only then did he finally face his younger brother.

"What's going on, Damian?"

Damian raised an eyebrow at him.

Tim narrowed his gaze. "Let me rephrase that," he said calmly. "Why the hell are you using one of my old aliases to insinuate yourself into my school?" A trace of irritation couldn't help but tinge his words, but he kept his tone low. The last thing he wanted was to create a scene at work with a student he wasn't supposed to be related to.

The younger man sighed and regarded his older brother with a milder version of the disdain Tim remembered. At least it seemed milder. This was the first time he'd been face to face with his younger brother for the better part of seven years. The boy had grown up a lot in that time. Though Damian didn't have his father's sheer bulk, he was clearly approaching him in height. "This wasn't my idea, Drake," he said.

"Then who's? Dick? Alfred?"

"Father."

At this revelation, Tim's eyes widened behind his glasses. "Bruce sent you here?" Then he frowned. "Why?"

"To check up on you and your place of employment," he said with a shrug. "Make sure things are safe here."

"Safe?" Tim said incredulously. "Safe? Are you kidding me? What the hell could be going here that's got his attention? I've been working here two years, and the most threatening thing this school has going for it is that tiny little principal, and that's only if your unfortunate enough to get on her radar."

Damian shrugged. "You'll have to ask him about that yourself."

"Excuse me?"

"Father sent me a message for you. He wants you to come home for a visit. There's something he wants to talk to you about."

Tim's jaw tightened. "No."

"What?"

"You heard what I said," Tim snapped. "If he wants to talk face to face, he knows where I live. And if he doesn't know the way, Alfred and Dick do. But I am not setting one foot back in Gotham."

Damian rose to his feet. "Father is very busy—"

"And I'm not?" Tim interrupted. He forced himself to pause, took a deep breath, and released it slowly before continuing. "If what he has to say is important, he will make the time to come to New York. If he makes the time for me, I'll make the time for him."

The young man tilted his head to one side. "And if he doesn't come?"

Tim shrugged. "Then it must not be that important." He unlocked the door and opened it to Damian. "You'd better head to class. You don't want to be late."

Damian gave Tim a look before gathering his bag and hoisting it over one shoulder. For a moment it looked as if he wanted to say something more to him. Make a statement. Ask him a question. At the last moment, though, he seemed to think better of it and chose to simply leave his brother's classroom without saying a word.

Shutting the door once more after Damian was out of sight, Tim was immensely glad that this was his conference period. He'd need the next hour to recompose himself enough to face third period.

It was six o'clock, and Tim was in the kitchen of the four-story brownstone he called home, in a quiet neighborhood just a few blocks away from Central Park. Half a glass of red wine rested in his hand as he overlooked four place settings at the table in his dining room. He wasn't certain a meal would be shared that night, but if Alfred taught him anything, it was to be prepared if guests were expected. Food was being kept warm in the oven, and though Grandfather would scold him for opening the wine early, Tim felt that under the circumstances he would understand.

The doorbell chimed elegantly. Tim was mildly surprised. He was halfway expecting visitors through the window, not the front door. Still, the fact that he was being polite about the visit didn't make the impending visit any less ominous. He drained the last of the wine from his glass in one long drought and set it down before heading for the door.

Behind the open door, much to Tim's relief, the first person he came in contact with was Alfred.

"Good evening, Timothy," the kindly old man said with a smile.

With a smile of his own and without any hesitation, Tim moved to give his grandfather a welcoming hug. "It's so good to see you, Grandfather," he said warmly. Then, he looked over Alfred's shoulder and caught sight of two other figures walking up the steps. One was clearly the teenager he'd seen far too much of earlier in the day. The other was a man he hadn't seen face to face for the better part of seven years. He calmly pulled away from Alfred to look at him with stoic regard.

"Hello Bruce."

Dinner happened pleasantly enough. The food was good and the conversation safe. Mostly talk consisted of Tim and Alfred catching up since their last visit about two months prior. Bruce didn't say much, and Damian said nothing at all. If Tim noticed, he didn't make any outward sign of it. He didn't mind keeping the peace for as long as possible.

Tim knew that it couldn't last.

When the meal was over, and Alfred insisted on helping Tim with the dishes, that left Bruce and Damian free to their own devices for a few minutes.

"Go ahead and take a look around if you want," Tim said as he followed Alfred into the kitchen with a stack of dishes. "All I ask is that you stay on this floor please."

Aside from the dining room and kitchen, the second floor of the brownstone also contained a spacious living room as well as a study that served as Tim's home office. While Damian relegated himself to the sofa on the living room, his homework actually in hand, Bruce migrated to the study.

He stood there in the middle of the room, taking in all that he saw and processing the area as methodically as a crime scene. While it felt a little strange at first, everything he saw made Bruce realize exactly how much his estranged son had changed over the last several years and how little he really knew about him.

On the walls were his framed degrees and honors from the University of Cambridge in England, including the doctorate he'd received in mathematics. With Tim's hard work and obsessive dedication, he'd completed the work necessary to get it in just five years. Next to the degrees were photos from his graduation. Alfred was there, of course, standing next to him in his cap and gown, as well as Dick, Stephanie, Cass (Cain), and Tam.

However, to Bruce's trained eye, there were distinct absences among the variety of candid shots not just on the wall, but scattered around the office. Aside from only the closest of his family, there were no photographs of anyone he knew from the Justice League or Titans before he left for England.

There were also no photographs of Bruce.

While walking by Tim's desk, Bruce's pant leg caught on a number of unfolded letters and unopened envelopes that had been crowded on a small corner that hadn't been consumed by lesson plans, graded papers, and textbooks on calculus, trig, and geometry. The papers tumbled to the floor. Reflexively, Bruce knelt down to pick them up, though he paused as he got a look at the addresses and letterheads.

MIT… NASA… Star Labs… FBI… CIA… Interpol… LexCorp… even WayneTech… It was a collection of invitations and requests from assortment of research groups, think tanks, and various national security agencies from the United States and Europe. Bruce had always known Tim was brilliant and had done well enough in university to garner some attention for his skills in higher level mathematics and computer sciences, skills that could be used wide range of fields. However, he hadn't realized how many high profile organizations were attempting to court him.

And yet, Tim was content to be a simple high school math teacher.

"When did he start calling you Grandfather?" Bruce asked Alfred as he set the letters back on Tim's desk. The old man had slipped into the office and had been watching Bruce for about a minute, though he held no illusion that he'd managed to sneak up on the trained vigilante.

"When I first visited him in Cambridge," Alfred said. "He introduced me to several of his associates and professors as his grandfather, and it seemed to stick." Clearly, Alfred didn't mind this association in the least. He'd always thought of Tim like a grandson, regardless.

"And the glasses? Are they part of a disguise or…"

Alfred shook his head. "Timothy started developing myopia while at university. Too much studying in poorly lit coffee shops and pubs." Then his face sobered. "Are you ready to speak to him?"

Bruce sighed. "He won't take this well."

"Most likely not," Alfred agreed. "But remember who this needs to be done for."

The two older men stepped back into the living room to find an unusual sight. Tim was hovering over Damian, leaning over the back of the sofa while helping him with his homework.

"Good grief! Did you pay any attention at all to the lesson today?"

"Tt," Damian muttered sullenly as he erased a large patch from the notebook he was working on.

Tim shook his head, took Damian's pencil, and made a few notes on the equation he was struggling with. "My classes aren't just ordinary high school or AP math classes, you know. They're dual-credit, full blown semesters of college-level Calculus, and you're starting off two weeks behind everyone else in the class."

"I can handle it." The teenager looked over what Tim had written, wide-eyed comprehension slowly dawning, though his scowl returned with a vengeance when he remembered suddenly that his brother had had to correct his work. He snatched his pencil back and figured out the rest of the equation furiously.

"When?" Tim frowned. "I know what kind of hours you keep at night. My class is first period. When do you plan to study or do your homework? What about the rest of your classes for that matter? Your schedule is completely loaded with dual-credit and AP courses."

"Like it matters? I'm not even using my real identity. It won't be on my official transcripts."

Tim rolled his eyes skyward behind his glasses. "Oh please. Ms. Simone had you made the moment you walked into the school. If you fail my class, or any other, it WILL end up on Damian Wayne's permanent school record one way or another."

The tip of Damian's pencil broke. He turned to glare at Tim in surprise. "What?"

Tim smirked a little. "The. Principal. Knows. Who. You. Are." he said with slow, careful enunciation. "That's why she let me off easy for being late. She figured dealing with you all semester would be more punishment than she'd be able to dole out herself."

"How'd she figure out who I was?" the teenager demanded in a flabbergasted tone.

"She knows who I am and who my family consists of," Tim explained with a shrug. "She must know what to look for."

Damian looked at him expectantly, as if waiting for further, more detailed explanations. However, when Tim didn't elaborate, he frowned and went back into his homework, muttering under his breath in Arabic.

Alfred cleared his throat a little, drawing the attention of both Tim and Damian.

Tim's expression became guarded as he shifted his gaze from his grandfather to his estranged father. Damian took that as his signal to vacate the living room for the study, leaving the three older men together to talk. Unlike his brother, he knew exactly why their father wanted to speak to him, and as much as he enjoyed seeing Drake discomforted, in this particular situation he did not want to be in the same room as them when the shit hit the fan.

"Have you heard any news from either the Justice League or Titans?"

"Why would I?" Tim frowned deeply at his father as he sat across from him in the sofa opposite Bruce. "You know better than anyone that I don't have anything to do with either of them. They're not a part of my life anymore."

"There's been trouble in Themyscira."

Tim felt a tightening in his chest. "What's happened?"

Bruce gave him a serious look. "Ares has taken an interest in Donna and… her daughter."

The younger man felt the blood drain from his face. "What's going on?" Tim managed to choke out.

"For reasons no one's certain of right now, Ares is trying to take possession Donna's daughter. The situation has gotten serious enough that the Titans and Justice League have stepped in to help extract the two of them and move them to various safe homes."

Tim closed his eyes as he thought of the last time he saw Donna and her daughter. He drew in a deep breath and released it slowly. "Alright… Everything's going to be alright then. The two of them will be under either the Titan or League protection. They'll be fine." Then his mind ran back over Bruce's words and his features became puzzled. "Wait. You said homes… as in plural?"

"Tim," Bruce interjected solemnly. "There's a mole among either the Titans or the League. Someone keeps giving away Donna's location and Ares has nearly gotten the child several times. I've stepped in to place the two of them with someone I know they will be safe with."

For a long moment, a heavy silence settled on the room as Tim stared at Bruce in confusion. Then understanding dawned on his expression, followed close afterward by a tangled mix of alarm and anger. "No," he said, his voice barely rising above a whisper. When he repeated the sentiment, though, his words were clearly a fair bit louder than that as he rose to his feet. "No! You cannot be serious! Bruce, what the hell are you thinking?"

"Timothy," Alfred said placating. "Please calm down…"

"No! No, I won't calm down!" Tim growled. Then he pointed at Bruce. "This is bullshit! I'm not a Titan! I'm not Justice League! I'm not a Robin! I'm not a Bat! You cannot order me to do this! I REFUSE!"

Tim suddenly felt as if he were suffocating. It was as if there was suddenly not enough air in the spacious living room, which was now starting to spin. His balance must have been visibly compromised because Bruce reached out to try and steady him. Reflexively, Tim lashed out, backhanding the suddenly offensive limb away. "Don't touch me!" he hissed through clenched teeth as slowly, carefully, he backed himself up until the reached the sofa he'd risen from and settled back down into it. Once he was seated, Tim removed his glasses, rested his elbows on his knees, and leaned forward with his head bowed and eyes closed. He knew he was on the verge of a full blown panic attack, and he needed to calm himself down before he got any worse. He tensed briefly when he felt a warm hand settle on his back, but relaxed as he realized it was Alfred, not Bruce, attempting to help him.

It took about ten minutes for the panic attack to subside to manageable levels. Tim slowly sipped from the cup of tea that Damian (surprisingly) had made for him while Alfred was calming him down. Bruce, thankfully, kept his distance, watching quietly from his new vantage point on the far side of the living room next to the windows. Though he wished to be closer, to be right by his estranged son's side, he knew that approaching him at that moment would do more harm than good.

"Why me, Bruce?" Tim finally asked in a hoarse voice, eyes focused downward into the remaining liquid in his mug. "Is there really no one else you can trust them with?"

Bruce sighed. "I wouldn't put you through this if it wasn't a last resort, son," he said somberly. "But we don't know who the mole is, except that he or she has to be among the new recruits both groups have gotten in the last few years."

Tim stared deep into his mug. "Recruits who don't know who I am." A sardonic smile played bitterly on his lips. "Have I really been forgotten by the Titans and the League?"

"Don't be stupid," Damian chimed in curtly, drawing a glare from both his father and Alfred, though Tim just looked up at him blankly. The teenager was leaning against the frame of the door to the study, arms crossed over his chest, attempting to look bored and irritated, though failing as his concern (and perhaps a trace of jealousy?) bled through his facade.

"Your friends respect you too much to forget you. However, when you made it clear you wanted to return to civilian life, they went to great pains to erase all traces of your real identity from every database they possess. Every mention of the third Robin and Red Robin has been otherwise buried so deep it would take a hacker of Oracle's skill to find the files. They don't mention you in public. They don't visit you because many of them are too high profile now to have secret identities. They stay away to protect you."

Tim nodded and turned his head away, his eyes closing as his gaze turned inward. He heard the sound of someone moving to kneel in front of him and felt a pair of careworn warm hands fall over his own.

"This is something none of us wants to ask of you," Alfred said gently. And you do have the right to refuse. We will make other arrangements if we need to. However, we all believe that the two of them would be safest in your care. You have the skills and training to protect them… To hide them. And no one aside from the people in this room and Richard are going to known where they are."

Tim wished that he could deny their logic. He really, really wished he could. He wished he could just refuse, like his grandfather had offered. "I don't want to do this, Bruce" Tim said in a deflated, defeated voice. "I don't want to see her. I can't… I don't know… But…"

"I'm sorry, but they need your help. You're the only one we can trust with this."

Tim sighed. It was the closest thing Bruce would get to him accepting the situation aloud. "When?"

"Dick is heading to where they're at now. They should arrive in New York by week's end."

It was 3am in New Orleans.

While the greater part of the Crescent City slept, a deadly hunt was taking place in the side streets and alleyways of the shadier reaches of the French Quarter.

"Where is she, Mockingbird?" a woman with with short red hair and an Australian accent demanded into an earpiece as she reached a four-way intersection. "I've lost visual of the target."

A small robotic bird zoomed over her head, gaining altitude quickly before coming to a stop and hovering over the area. Small cameras in its eyes scanned the area thoroughly.

"TAKE A RIGHT, SHIMMER, AND KEEP MOVING FORWARD," a heavily synthesized voice ordered into her ear. "WOLF… GO NORTH AT THE NEXT INTERSECTION….MAMMOTH… GO SOUTH… YOU'LL FORCE HER STRAIGHT INTO A DEAD END."

Obediently, three menacing individuals closed in on their target. At the dead end, a brown haired Brazilian woman whirled around on her pursuers. Her eyes widened as she zeroed in on the mechanically armed gunman.

"So you would betray me too, Wolf?"

"Nothing personal, Wanderer," the silver haired hunter growled as he aimed his six guns at her. "It's just business." His face darkened. "Isn't that what you said when you last tried to kill me?"

Wanderer's eyes darted from one person to the other, finally settling on Shimmer as she dashed for freedom. She reached out to try catch the red-haired woman with her bare hands as she dodged Wolf's bullets.

"HER TOUCH IS POISONOUS! WATCH THE SKIN!"

"I haven't forgotten, mate!" Shimmer said the metahuman transmuted her skin into a silvery metallic substance. Wanderer's touch did absolutely nothing, and the Aussie smiled at her viciously before connecting her fist against the other's jaw.

Struggling for a moment to regain her composure, Wanderer propped herself up on her elbows and stared up at her pursuers, anger warring with fear as she slowly began to realize how hopeless her situation had become. "You're the ones, aren't you?" she demanded to know. "The ones who've been taking down assassination guilds?"

Shimmer smirked as she looked to her brother. "Oy, Mammoth. Looks like our reputation is preceding us." The behemoth of a man chuckled darkly. Three more figures, two women and another man, stepped out of the shadows of the nearby street. The robotic bird flew down and settled on a nearby lamp post, its eyes focused squarely on Wanderer.

"REPORT. THE REST OF THE SPIDERS?"

"They've been taken care of," the man known as Deadshot said simply. Cheshire, at his left, holstered her sais. At the sharpshooter's right, Black Alice regarded Wanderer coldly.

"How should we deal with their leader?" she asked into her own headset. "What do we do with her, Mockingbird?"

There was no hesitation. "END HER."

One bullet from one of Wolf's gun was all it took to wipe the last of the Council of Spiders from the face of the Earth.

Nearly two thousand miles away, in a secret command center tucked away deep beneath his brownstone home, Tim Drake closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and leaned back in his chair as the sound of the gunshot echoed in his headset. Then he leaned forward to type some commands on his computer console.

"Good work, Six," he said through the mic that would digitally modify his voice.

Through the eyes of his robotic bird, he watched as the six members of his covert mercenary team began their usual process of scattering to the winds before making their way back north to their base of operations in a mansion tucked away in the forests of rural Vermont.

"So what's next for us now that the Spiders are done, Mockingbird?" Cheshire asked as she got on her hidden motorcycle. The question was posed on an open channel, so the five other members of the Six could listen in as well.

Tim finished typing, then set his elbows on his console and teepeed his fingers together in front of him. "What's next?" he echoed. "What's next is holiday."

"Holiday?" Deadshot queried, confusion clear in his tone.

"Yes," Tim clarified. "As in vacation, for at least a month, along with a bonus to each of your paychecks for this job. Your accounts are already updated if you'd like to check it out."

There was a moment of silence as Tim was certain they were using their smartphones to check their private bank accounts.

"Woah," Shimmer was the first to gasp. "That is a lot of zeroes. Where…?"

"Remnants of the Spiders' off-shore accounts," Tim said. "Don't spend it all in one place."

"Heh," Cheshire chuckled. "I don't know about you guys, but I really like this 'Mockingbird' way better than the other ones I've had to deal with in the past, don't you?"

"The pay is definitely better," Deadshot agreed. There were murmurs of agreement from Black Alice as well.

Tim noticed that Shimmer was motioning to the robot bird from her seat in the pick up truck she was sharing with her brother. He couldn't help a small smile. It amused him that the woman enjoyed treating the machine like a real one. He commanded the bird to land on her hand.

"Y'know, M," she spoke to the bird. "Giving us big bonuses and nice vacations. It almost sounds as if you're buttering us up for one hell of a next mission."

"I won't lie to you," Tim said seriously. "The next target will make the Scarabs, Spiders, and everyone in between seem like child's play. So enjoy your vacations. Rest up, play hard, don't get arrested, and we'll see you at the House of Secrets in thirty days." He sent the command for the robot bird to fly from Shimmer's hand, turn on its cloaking device, and return to home. "Mockingbird out."

Tim cut the comm links, removed his headset, and pushed himself away from the console, leaning back in his chair and looking around himself, as if expecting someone… anyone… to come out of the shadows with a disapproving expression. When no one did, he ran through all the security feeds from in and around his home. There was no one there. Finally, he breathed a sigh of relief.

They didn't know.

His secret was still safe.

He opened up a chat window and sent out an invite.

—

$$$PIDER: I take it the mission went well tonight?

FAKING_FEATHERS: The Council of Spiders has been eliminated.

$$$PIDER: Congrats. It took a year, but they're finally off the playing field.

FAKING_FEATHERS: Couldn't have done it without your help, Lonnie.

$$$PIDER: What's next?

FAKING_FEATHERS: A month off, then the hunt starts for the League of Assassins.

$$$PIDER: You think the Six are ready for them?

FAKING_FEATHERS: I think so.

$$$PIDER: So why a month off?

FAKING_FEATHERS: Bats forced me into a situation, and now I'm on their radar. Need to mothball operations till this blows over.

$$$PIDER: Gotcha. What do you need of me?

FAKING_FEATHERS: Monitor all chatter on the League. Gather intel. Let me know if any of their members come within 250 miles of NYC. If anyone gets within that radius, I need to know immediately.

$$$PIDER: Understood.

FAKING_FEATHERS: Also let me know if any of the Six get into hot water within the next 30 days. I told them to stay out of trouble, but still…

$$$PIDER: No problem.

FAKING_FEATHERS: If anything else comes up, you know how to reach me. Catch you later, Lonnie.

$$$PIDER: Good luck, Tim.

—

Tim emerged from the secret stairwell that had been tucked behind the bookcase in his study. It closed with barely a whisper behind him as he made a beeline for the kitchen. Once there, he poured himself a glass of wine, the last of the bottle he'd opened earlier. As he tried to relax on the sofa and nursed the glass in his hand, Tim lost himself in thought.

It had taken years to disconnect himself nearly completely from his former life and build a solid civilian persona for himself that no one would question.

It had taken years to secretly organize his own incarnation of the Secret Six, usurping the moniker of "Mockingbird" for himself. In the last two years, they'd managed to eliminate a variety of murder-for-hire individuals and organizations. The largest names they'd removed from the board included the Scarabs and now the Council of Spiders.

He was so close to being able to work towards his ultimate goal…

A world without the League of Assassins.

"Patience," Tim thought to himself. "Just a little delay. Then you can get back to work. Just… a short break."

As Tim drank his wine, he focused his attention solely on the delay to his personal mission, purposely drowning out all thoughts of the reason why this delay was necessary in the first place.

Author's Notes:

And so closes the first chapter of another new fanfiction series I'm working on entitled "Mockingbirds and Butterflies." This is a storyline that sprang to mind after I finished the earlier flash fiction short story "Innocence Lost". This story takes place seven years after that story and will be exploring what happens when, due to unforseen circumstances, Tim is forced into a reunion with the daughter that had been born from his rape and given up to family friend Donna Troy to raise as her own.

I am not sure how often I'll be updating this story. But it will be something I am actively working on, in addition to everything else I'm writing.

Please, feel free to leave comments and critiques. I love getting them all.

~C.