The Last Talon

Chapter Twenty

'I'm what?' said Dick. 'I'm 38 years old you can't ground me!'

Annie glared at him again and he knew he'd made a mistake playing that card. The woman took a deep breath and walked back over to her desk, she picked up a pile of papers, a pair of scissors and a cardboard box, bringing them back over and placing them on the coffee table.

'I am going to be in a meeting for most of this morning. You are going to stay here and cut out all of these name tags and put them in the badge holders for next week's conference.'

'But there are hundreds of them.' Dick complained.

'736.'

'Don't you have a machine that can do this?' he said, turning in his seat so he could face her while she went to the door.

'Yep.' She smiled that evil smile at him again and then she was gone.

Dick sighed before standing up and walking around the office. He had thought spending the day with Annie at work was going to be boring but spending the day by himself in Annie's office was even duller. But he had to wonder what the woman was planning. Jason had spent the entire weekend making sure Dick was not alone for long periods of time. Dick wasn't sure what Jason thought he was going to do, he had already gone through the self-harm phase while he was with the owls. Other than finding a way to chop off his own head, he was pretty much indestructible and the thought of beheading himself was not a comforting one.

But whatever Dick would or wouldn't do, Jason was worried and hadn't let Dick out of his sight for long. And now here was Annie, leaving him alone in her office for the entire morning. He was about to consider this some more when he realised the wall in which the door was set, was completely made out of glass. And on the other side of that glass was Karly's desk. Annie's assistant eyed him suspiciously and Dick regretted his earlier comment, this woman wasn't going to take her eyes off him.

Deciding he had nothing better to do, he went back to the couch and started working on the name badges. It was going to be a long day.

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

Annie stretched her arms above her head and groaned. It had been a very long meeting, as usual, fighting passive aggressively with Powers. Bruce had warned her what Powers would propose and had told Annie to slam the motion down. Which she had. She had never had the chance to meet Derek Powers, the original head of Powers Industries. He had disappeared before her appointment here. But his son was an absolute arse.

She was currently alone in the large boardroom, she knew she needed to get back upstairs to Dick. She had been a little harsh on him, it must be very confusing to be living on the brink of two separate lives. But he was infuriating when he failed to see that what they were doing was for his best interest. She chuckled to herself, she had never wanted kids. Being in the service had taken up all of her time and energy, even when she had moved to the US to look after Alfred her thoughts on the matter hadn't changed. Now she was too busy helping to run not only a company and a household but the background work for vigilantes. And yet here she was, mothering over a 17...18-year-old boy.

'I need a holiday.' She said quietly to herself.

It was then that the door opened, and Karly stood in the doorway looking very pale, tears rolling down her eyes. Annie's first thought went to Dick and his wellbeing, but then Karly walked into the room, a gun pressed to her back and three men followed all holding weapons.

'I'm sorry.' Karly cried.

'What's going on?' said Annie, slowly getting out of her seat.

'You Anastasia Pennyworth?' said one of the men.