"Alexander, do you ever think about when we were children living in Venezuela?", Mockingbird said while taking a break from sipping his soup. It was too hot and needed to cool down a bit for his taste.

It had been a long-held tradition for Mockingbird to spend lunchtime dining with the Solicitor since the beginning of him taking over at AoE.

"Not really. Why ask?"

"Don't you think it was strange the way we were brought up learning German first and speaking it at home only to have our parents speak Spanish outside the home?"

"No, its perfectly normal for immigrants to do that."

"Do you recall why we left Venezuela? I just know that they never really integrated with the people there, but that's not the reason they left, right?"

"You are way too young to remember, but mom wanted us to have a better life and applied for visas to the US. Eventually, they got approved and they left Venezuela. Anyways, why are you bringing all this up now?"

"I realized all I do is work."

Alexander laughed.

"I'm being serious.", Mockingbird remarked.

"It's amazing. I've been telling you do this for decades and now you notice it?"

"It's not very funny."

"What are your hobbies?"

"Reading."

"See, no wonder you're lonely, reading is not a group activity unless you're in a book club which I wager you're not."

"What do you suggest?"

"Meeting new people like what about the Mental Health support group run by Dr. Looney? He's a psychiatrist that joined AoE recently. Several AoE villains have found it extremely helpful to talk about their problems and support each other, myself included."

"I'm not crazy...I don't need therapy."

"Not everyone who goes to a therapist is crazy. In fact, most are not. We just acknowledge we need to take care of ourselves and not work ourselves to death!"

"I would think that criminals would hate anything related to mental health."

"Well, I've been trying to get people from AoE interested because I think it is a truly important subject that many people don't press attention to. If you don't take care of yourself at least for a few minutes daily, then how can you take care of others?"

"The reason you say this is because of your daughter having bipolar disorder."

"She's on medication now and being treated. She is a stable member of society and one of the best warriors that AoE has."

"You don't have to defend her to me. She is an adult and can defend herself, remember?"

"This why you need friends. You need someone to test out your humor on and not sound so stiff all the time."

"It's hard to make friends. Ever since I was a kid, I've been introverted."

"You do the meetings and you seem fine."

"That's just acting. I wear a false sense of confidence and pretend no one is staring at me or judging that they could do better under my circumstances."

"And you don't think everybody else does that? We all have an existential crisis that goes on that we try to cover up with a slab of confidence so that no one can tell what we really feel inside. It's how the world runs and it's why I like to go the Mental Health support group-to be honest with myself for a few minutes and talk with others facing similar struggles."

Mockingbird sighed, "The thing is those people listen to you...for what...maybe a few minutes? Afterwards, you head on home and there's no one to greet you or ask if you had a good day. It's deafening silence. You're my brother and all, but you can't understand as you have a family and a lot of friends you can turn to including the 'support group' when you have a bad day and want to vent to someone."

"You have me!", Alexander postulated.

"I have no one except you, Alexander.", Mockingbird confessed.

"Hmm. I see the problem then. So you want to me hook you up?"

"What?"

"You know? Get you a date. It's been a long time since you have a friend of the female variety if you know what I mean."

"Stop moving your eyebrows like that. I'm not going on a date."

"Come on! I know it's been hard since Aila..."

Mockingbird glared at him.

"Since your wife died, but it's time to move on and try your hand at love again."

"I loved her though."

"Really? She used you and lied to you while working for her family and you still pine after that ****? It's been 20 years."

"Would you ever get over Lauren?"

"That's different. She didn't use me like a bag of potatoes for her own means."

"What about the times she's cheated on you with other men?"

"She did that for work. It's not like I'm a saint either."

Aila was never like that, Mockingbird thought to himself. She was too innocent and pure for this world.

"I'm not going on a date and that's final.", Mockingbird stated.

"Wait...I know a female coworker at work who's tired on going on dates and having the men think they're entitled to sex after dinner. She's a hardworking, confident woman who wants an intelligent man she can converse with about the state of the world."

"How do you know all this? She told you?"

"As a matter of fact, she did...after a few drinks at the Washington State Bar Alumni Party last week."

"No. I am not looking for a girlfriend right now."

"You said you wanted company, right? Fine then, what about your son?"

"What about him?"

"Are you never going to introduce yourself to him?"

"He has an adoptive family. I wouldn't...can't mess up his life for my sake.", Mockingbird lied.

His son had actually died quite some time ago, but it was better to pretend he was still alive.

It made it less painful to think about.

"Alright then, Mr. Scrooge. It seems like you're going to end up alone on your deathbed after all."

"Why you?", Mockingbird grabbed his head and rubbed it hard against the Solicitor's protests.

"Hey! I'm the oldest here! Only I can do that!"

A phone rang, and Alexander picked it up, raised his hand to Mockingbird and then proceeded to pick up his suit jacket.

After Alexander hanged up, Mockingbird inquired, "Well?"

"I gotta go. The judge on my most recent case called an urgent meeting in his chambers on the prosecutor's insistence, so I need to leave right now to beat traffic and make it on time."

"Be safe.", Mockingbird called out as Alexander left the restaurant.

As it was approaching the end of lunch hour, he headed off to the office. Once he got himself situated, Ms. Martinez, his secretary called, saying,

"Mockingbird, there's someone waiting to talk to you."

"Let them in.", Mockingbird answered.

Lo and behold, the supernatural tracker came in through the door and with his bush country mannerisms informed him that he had found the individual known as Kronos.

The Alaskan native showed him a picture and Tomas nearly laughed.

Kronos had been under his nose the whole time and he had never known it.

How ironic.

"Mr. Smith, how would you feel about a team-up?"

There was already a man tracking that individual as of right now and combining forces made the most sense. Blackheart would just have to deal with having a partner join him in retrieving Marcus.

Now, instead of being a simple nuisance, his nephew was going to be of some usefulness after all.

It was killing two birds with one stone like the phrase went.

Taken from a logical point of view, everything that had gone wrong to Tomas including the undue loneliness he constantly felt was due to his wife dying; if he could prevent that catastrophe from happening, then he could be with her again and not have to be eternally trapped in the role of Evil Hand forever.

He would have his wife back.

No matter the price.