Developing Pieces

In the dimly lit attic studio of one of the Wayne Outreach Shelters, cerulean eyes were lit up by the glow of the screen of a Wayne XOver.

Dick had been keeping an eye on all incoming and outgoing messages of the Owl's intimidation operations - luckily their main servers in the financial district were pretty easily tapped (why even were they using Windows Vista?) - when something caught his attention.

"Prevent Flynn Hawthorne from testifying. Physical intimidation requested. Hospitalisation preferred." Dick tilted his head in contemplation. "Huh."

-.-.-.-

Flynn Hawthorne lived in a one bedroom apartment on the third floor of a building a couple blocks away from the financial district. He worked for Gotham Central reviewing investment packages and giving advice on retirement funds. The apartment had likely been chosen because of its proximity to his place of work. He did not have much of a social life outside of a book club that met once a month. Most of his family lived up north in Canada. He spent most evenings watching movies he rented from the Blockbuster down the street.

Most of this information had come from his contact who gave him the job but Gideon had spent a couple days tailing him just to verify. Most of the information didn't matter. What mattered was that if he didn't have work the next day no one would immediately notice that something was wrong if he didn't show up anywhere. Not that he would be offing him or anything like that. Not for this job at least. This time it was just good old fashioned intimidation. Scare the guy well enough that he'll think better of going to the courthouse in a few days. He supposedly would have already been warmed up a bit through a few messages to the same effect. Gideon was just the icing on the cake.

Gideon had decided to get into the apartment through the fire escape around midnight. He should be finishing up his movie around then. Gideon would sneak up behind him, grab him, make it very clear he and his friends knew where he lived, and ask him, nicely, not to go anywhere near the courthouse for the next few weeks. Oh, and he could forget all about the phone conversation he had overheard his boss having. Everyone would be happy then.

Unfortunately, as he finished his climb up the fire escape, he discovered he was not the first person to get there.

"You should be more careful." The hooded figure said as he unfolded from his crouch. "You never know who might be lurking in these shadows."

And that was the last thing Gideon heard (or saw) before waking up on a train in Mexico. And by that point, he had resolved to go underground for a long, long time.

Gideon had always been a suspicious sort, and if being a suspicious sort was going to save his life? The Owls could keep their money. He had no intention of being found.

No intention of encountering a Talon after his head.

-.-.-.-

Flynn collapsed back upon the wall of his flat, breathing heavily as the dark clothed man reappeared out of nowhere.

"Gah!" He started. "Do you always do that?"

Flynn got the distinct impression that the figure was asking him, 'really now?' despite the fact he couldn't make out anything of his features.

"So, what now?"

The voice that replied was smooth and velvety, almost too cultured and, oddly enough, slightly British sounding. "You get safe. Your testimony is important to the case, yes? Mr Dent asked you if you'd like some security and you turned it down… Why?"

Flynn sighed. "Who'd come after me? I'm no one. I'm just an accountant."

"An accountant that happened to find something important enough for Dent to offer protection to."

"I… might not have considered that."

"Maybe you should?"

Flynn ruffled the hair at the back of his head, "I think I have Sergeant Riordan's address here somewhere.

"Good, pack your bags. You're headed there."

"But," Flynn looked at his mysterious protector "What if there are more?"

"I didn't say you'll be alone."

-.-.-.-

Despite all the improvements the Waynes had worked into Gotham, Gotham was still Gotham. And Gotham in general is not exactly a friendly place that you could go wandering about willy-nilly at night.

As Flynn hurried through the streets to the Riordan residence he glanced every now and then up into the shadows above the streetlights. There was something reassuring about having a guardian angel watching out for you.

Knocking at the Riordans' door, he stumbled as it opened suddenly to a flame haired woman. "Mr Hawthorne."

"Sergeant. You were right. I didn't..."

"No worries. We've had too many witnesses suddenly disappear or disavow themselves to question someone who'd prefer to come to us."

"I don't think I would be here if it wasn't for that guardian angel."

"Guardian angel eh?" Kate Riordan mused as she dismissed the thought that someone out there might actually be looking out for Gotham now. But if there was someone out there looking out for Gotham…

Kate wished them the best of luck whoever they were. She tried to fight back against the crime that seemed to be a constant occurrence in the city as a police officer but it was an uphill battle for her family. The number of corrupt officials in both the police and the city government made it worse and it seemed like they needed all the help they could get. If this guardian angel was helping people...

Maybe it would be a good idea to team up.

-.-.-.-

It took a couple of days for the trial to wrap up. It wasn't considered big news anywhere outside of the business community but thanks to the testimony of Flynn Hawthorne, his boss and three other company managers were found guilty for insider trading on the stock market. The overheard phone call had implied that there were others involved in the scheme; Harvey Dent from the district attorney's office promised that they would do everything they could to find out who was involved.

Dick had read the news in the Gotham Gazette during his break. As he worked on some particularly troublesome grease, he smiled to himself. Flynn was alright and the Owls hadn't been able to get away with their crime. And this was just the beginning.

The door to the kitchen opened and Dick schooled his expression into something more neutral as Tobias walked in.

"You doing alright with those, Rick?"

"Yes sir."

"That's good." he sighed. "You know, I think I saw some sun peaking through the usual Gotham cloud cover this morning. That's a rare sight for Gotham. I wish we got to see it more."

Dick smiled a private smile. "Maybe it's a sign?"

Tobias' oddly expressionless face returned the smile from the only place he seemed to know how to smile any longer, his eyes.

"Maybe."

-.-.-.-

"An outrage! A complete outrage!"

"I am aware."

"How could this have slipped through our fingers? We paid that man good money!"

"I was there when it happened."

"A random thug can't just make off with parliament money! An example needs to be made out of that piece of-"

"Are you just going to keep ranting all evening or are we going to solve this problem?"

The Owl who had been ranting and pacing around stopped in his tracks. They were in one of the Parliament's smaller meeting rooms so there were only a few Owls in attendance. Just the ones who had been given the job of solving this minor problem. A minor problem with some worrying implications.

"So everyone is aware of the facts of the situation," the Owl at the head of the table said. "Now does anyone have practical solutions instead of complaining?"

"I think the answer is obvious," A woman who had pushed her mask to the side just enough that she could continue drinking her very large cup of coffee. "We need to stop relying on these unreliable thugs."

"A fair point but that does not help us with the problem of this particular one." The head Owl threaded her fingers together. "It would be best to somehow make an example of him."

"That's what I was saying-"

"Sit. Down."

The ranting Owl sat down, grumbling.

"That much was obvious." A large sip of coffee. "But this problem is part of a larger trend. Whenever we contract out to get something done it goes wrong."

"There have been plenty of successful operations."

"Yes, but they are counterbalanced by some colossal failures. Remind me, how many of our attempts to get our hands on the Wayne boy have been successful?"

"This isn't a meeting about the Wayne problem."

"It is part of the same trend. We cannot keep relying on outside help." Sip. "There is only one way to make sure our jobs go right."

"And what is that supposed to be?" grumbled the ranting Owl.

"The Talon."

"Wait! Talons are real?!"

The other two Owls exchanged a look. The air of silent "who on earth thought it was a good idea to recruit this guy" judgement filled the room.

"Of course the Talons are real. They have just been...lacking in recent years."

"Then why haven't we been using them?"

"Because," the Owl at the head of the table grumbled. "Talons are for big operations and there is no need to use them for every little thing. Especially things we don't want directly associated with us."

"Using the Talon would at least lessen our reliance on these common thugs and the less we bother with them the better."

"This is irrelevant. We're going to make an example of the man who screwed up this time. Suggestions for future operations should be put forward at the appropriate time."

"I would but no one listens to me in those meetings. They're too big."

"Do either of you have any suggestions for the current topic of our meeting?"

"We should kill him!" The ranting Owl slammed his fist into the table.

"Okay. How and by who? I don't think finances would look very kindly on hiring someone for that."

"It needs to look like an accident." The Owl with the coffee set her cup down.

"But that goes against our goal of trying to make an example of him," The ranting Owl growled.

The head Owl frowned behind her mask. "This trial has already brought too much negative publicity on our members, and legal consequences. The lawyers are already working on minimizing those but we can't risk anything too obvious at this point in time."

"Then how are we going to-"

"It just needs to look enough like an accident that the GCPD can write it off. Car accident maybe. Or fell from a great height."

"Car accidents can be easy to arrange." The coffee Owl picked up her cup for another large gulp. "Just mess up the breaks."

"That's a good idea. Hiring someone to disable some breaks shouldn't cost as much as hiring someone to kill a guy. That'll make finances happy."

"We're going to need to track him down first."

"There are only so many places in Gotham someone can hide and we have eyes in most of them, he'll turn up."

"Now that we have decided what is to be done can we move on to my proposal? About the Talon?"

The Owl seated at the head of the table tapped her fingers against the table, the lacquer of her manicure resonating sharply against the wood.

"The trouble is, all our current Talons are only good for assassinations. And our newest one currently in training is in no way ready to become a fully fledged Talon. The Gray Son will be a totally new breed of Talon - one we all will be glad to look to as our supreme leader. Creating a new world, where we watch and we reign. And. Are worshiped, as we should be." She looked sharply at the ranting Owl.

"The Gray Son is still not ready. However… we can see how far he has come along." She stood. "This meeting is adjourned." she said as she strode away, the click-clack of her stilettos echoing through the chamber as she busily tapped away on the screen of her iPhone.

The dial-tone abruptly ended as the line connected.

"Wintergreen speaking."

AN: As you can tell, Dick is making a nuisance of himself (to the Owls at least)! And they have started to get an inkling that something is up.

Thank you for following along so far and feel free to let us know what you think! If you'd like to contact us via tumblr, my handle is eastoniablogs!