While his date with Paige went off without a hitch, the next week came with a new issue he had not been aware of. An issue that both directly and indirectly involved Scorpion.

It directly involved the group because they were the best people to deal with the issue.

It indirectly involved them because the one who either found out or caused the issue was a former member of Scorpion.

The second Adrian caught the genuine panic and shock at hearing the name "Mark Collins" in his brother, he knew something big was up.

Walter did not project emotions that clearly unless something was openly bothering him.

With that in mind, Adrian subtly sent a 'ping' of magic to let him know he was there. The immediate response of Walter was to send three 'pings' of magic back to him.

That meant he wanted Adrian to stay close.

"I think I'll join you guys. I've been meaning to get more involved with the company anyway."

"I just need Walter," said Cabe.

"You clearly didn't hear me. I'm joining you, whether knowingly or not. Besides, I have higher clearance than you do," deadpanned Adrian.

"How the hell..." started Cabe.

"I can explain it in the car where Walter can have an appropriate amount of panicking done away from the others. Now let's go!" said Adrian.

Adrian had sufficiently distracted Walter from the potential meeting with Collins. He had evaded the discussion of why the idiots in Britain feared him so much they locked him in a hospital for almost two months, and he never gave a straight answer, to Walter's annoyance.

So when he finally told Walter what really happened, his feelings towards seeing Collins again was immediately diverted towards his overprotective side towards Adrian.

Walter was not happy finding out after the fact that Adrian had died long enough that he literally saw limbo and had to chose whether to come back or not.

"You died and didn't think it was important?!"

"Walter, by the time I came back you were already in America hiding with Megan. And the president was more than happy to give me whatever clearance I wanted if it meant that I would at least give a two-weeks notice in the event I was planning to take over the country. They pretty much gave me diplomatic immunity just to keep the peace."

Actually it was more in line with keeping the most powerful wizard alive happy and not in the mood to cause havoc. So long as he was living quietly with Walter and not causing the same amount of damage as Voldemort, they could care less if he went skinny dipping a local pond.

Walter was still pretty pissed though.

"Is there any reason I can't ruin the people who allowed you to die for them and locked you in a place that would drive you insane?"

"Tell them that the current head of the Potter and Black families is an Empath that they knowingly left in a hospital without bothering to find out what was causing me to go insane. I'll give you a list."

"What's so special about an empath?" asked Cabe.

"Long story short magical empaths require 'handlers' in order to function normally. I kept quiet about what I was because I didn't want them to try and assign some idiot girl to act as a 'shield' from the rest of the fools, and because Walter was already registered. We're pretty much considered royalty because we can sway how votes go and know when we're being lied to."

Any family that had an empath on their side would have enormous power in the Wizangamot, because an empath could help them determine how to sway votes in their favor. They were also very sought after in the Auror force and as part of the Wizangamot judicial process because they could determine if someone was lying without the use of potions.

It was one thing to practice a lie so well you could pretend you weren't lying. It was another to trick your emotions. A false story would stick out like a sore thumb to a properly trained empath.

Something "Harry" had known going in shortly after registering his brother Walter as his 'handler/shield'. If the senile wizard known as Dumbledore knew about it, he would have used that ability to cause more damage than he already had with his misconceptions about the greater good.

Adrian was pissed off enough that Dumbledore thought trying to force him to live with the Dursleys was "for the greater good". And if he had been furious, it was nothing compared to how Petunia had felt.

"So what's the deal with Collins, and why did you suddenly have a distinctive feel of panic about you?" asked Adrian changing the subject.

Walter winced, and didn't bother to lie.

"Mark used to be part of Scorpion...until I had him committed."

That got Cabe and Adrian's attention.

"What."

"Mark is like me, only he didn't have the instinctive buffer that you gave me before you went missing. Having him around only made it that much easier for me to fall down the rabbit hole, and last time it took Happy two days before I came out of it. Considering the amount of positive feedback from the team after I had him committed, I concluded I made the correct decision in removing him to a safer area where he could get help."

"Which means I'll have to perform a read on him before you get too close," concluded Adrian.

"What's a rabbit hole?" asked Cabe.

"It's the dark side of high intelligence. Where they get so caught up in work that they don't remember to take care of themselves such as food, water, hygiene and most importantly, sleep. It can get pretty unpleasant," explained Adrian.

"It only happened once, and removing Mark from the equation put an end to that. Besides, I did remember hygiene spells during that period so it wasn't too bad..." said Walter. He shut up at the flat look Adrian shot him.


Adrian wasn't even ten feet from the room when he stumbled on nothing. Walter paused and looked at his brother.

"You alright?"

"Chaos. Absolute chaos. I don't think that man is entirely sane Walter, and I wouldn't be surprised if he set this up because he found out you were active on a public level and succeeding."

"So he's..."

"A lost cause," said Adrian firmly. Then he shuddered. "I haven't felt someone like that since I first met Dumbledore, and even then I had to focus my attention on other people just to deal with being around him."

That had been the most unpleasant part of his first meeting with the ancient wizard. After that he had learned to prepare for the god-awful feeling of being even in the same room with the bastard.

It had been the main reason Adrian hadn't brought his status as an empath out into the open. Anyone who felt like that couldn't be trusted, and he realized his gut instinct to avoid the man had been correct after the first year alone.

Walter, armed with this information, took a deep breath to find his emotional center. The second he went into the room and saw Collins, he knew something was up.

Behind the emotional wall Adrian had created by joining him, Walter saw quite a few subtle queues something wasn't right. The fact Adrian point blank refused to be in the same room as him meant that something definitely wasn't right.

Any chance Walter would bring Mark into this dropped to zero. If Adrian couldn't stand to be it the room with a genius, then clearly something was very, very wrong about them.

Adrian felt the most comfortable around geniuses.

Walter listened to the ramblings of Collins, then when he left the room and was firmly out of earshot, he turned to Adrian.

"You're right. Something's up with him and I don't feel comfortable having him fifty feet from you," said Walter.


"Walt, who's house is this?" asked Happy.

"Collins. Before any of you ask, he's not coming with us to deal with the issue," said Walter firmly.

"Who is Collins?" asked Paige.

"Collins is another genius who used to work for Scorpion. He went missing a few years ago and Walter won't talk about it," said Sylvester nervously.

Seeing the look on Happy's face, Walter gave her something she could believe, since Mark Collins had a way of getting into his head.

"Adrian refused to be in the same room with him, and I'm not letting anyone who sets him off fifty feet near the team," said Walter.

Happy looked him in the eye and believed him. Walter was many things, but he was not lax when it came to protecting his family. And he was close to Adrian.

Anyone that made Adrian wary of being around was enough to make Walter keep his distance.

"So what exactly is going on?" asked Paige.

"The reactor hasn't had a SCADA update in some time, and the fuse was loose so it hasn't be regulating the temperature correctly. We're going to update and hopefully prevent a meltdown," explained Walter.

"And Collins?"

"First we figure out if he did anything to the reactor that might make it harder to fix the problem, then we'll determine if he needs to permanently be put under watch. Considering what I felt back there it's safer to keep him in a facility than out in the public," said Adrian flatly.

"What did he do to set you off?" asked Toby.

"It's not what he did, it's his mental state. I get a baseline off off people because I can sense emotions, and the only one who's come close to Collins was a senile old man who was willing to accept several atrocities, some against innocent children for some self-styled version of the greater good theory. He had some serious issues that were never resolved," shuddered Adrian.

That seemed to reassure the other genii. Above all, Walter took Adrian's concerns seriously.

It was when they got to the reactor that they found a problem that could have caused some issues if they hadn't caught it.

Suddenly the idea of Mark just happening to stumble on the reactor issue was called into question. Especially when Sylvester recognized the code as one of his.

"Mark did this. He wanted to make sure the reactor failed because Happy would have run a diagnostic against orders just because she doesn't trust him," said Walter.

"...Exactly how bad was this rabbit hole bender you were on?" asked Adrian slowly.

"Ten days. I had to force feed him just to get him back to normal," said Happy.

"Walter," said Adrian in warning.

"It was spectacularly bad timing involving another notice of Megan's condition combined with another failed attempt to locate you," said Walter in his defense.

"Walter, if you ever fall that deep again I swear I'll hex you until you come back into your right mind," said Adrian in a tone that brooked no argument from his brother.

Seeing Walter wince, the others wisely did not ask.

They didn't need to know that the last time Adrian had threatened to hex Walter for doing something stupid, he had been stuck in the infirmary for a week before they undid all the spellwork Adrian had hit him with.

"Will you drop it if I give you a hint on the form?"

Seeing his brother perk up, Walter scribbled something on his hand. Adrian started to snicker, before it went into full-on chortling.

"Why am I not surprised that a genius with low EQ would end up something like that. I knew all those movie marathons when we were kids would bite us in the ass someday," said Adrian. Then his eyes gleamed.

"No, I'm not going to show them the form. Not unless Cabe really, really gets on my nerves."


Which took about...three days.

Adrian heard the noise upstairs, and barely hid his snickering. Though he did grab the video camera and start taping from all sorts of angles for maximum amusement.

He made sure they were on tri-pods or securely anchored, so they wouldn't jostle. Including the one he was using.

Cabe was impatiently waiting for Walter to come down, mostly because they were already running a few minutes behind. Considering the fact he had a gun, Adrian threw up some silence wards and hit Walter with a spell to stop bullets from hitting him. It wouldn't repel them, but it would stop them an inch from his hide.

It started with the tap-tap-tap of something hard.

Then came the slow appearance of something leathery from upstairs. It took the collective genii (as well as Paige and Cabe) a few moments to realize what they were looking at.

By the time they registered they were looking at a freaking Velociraptor, the panic had already started.

The thing leaped from the stairs onto Walter's desk, and by that time Cabe had the presence of mind to shoot at the thing.

The bullets didn't even faze the raptor, as it promptly used it's superior jumping ability to pounce on Cabe.

It took them a full minute to realize that it wasn't mauling him...but it was shaking as if laughing it's ass off.

Finally Adrian couldn't take it any more. He burst out laughing and fell on his side, cackling like an idiot.

"Please tell me Cabe wet himself," said Adrian to the thing.

That was when they realized they'd been had.

The 'raptor' got off Cabe and held up two claws in the universal sign of "victory", and Adrian only laughed harder.

"Is that...Walter?" asked Paige slowly.

"Yup."

The raptor's form flowed smoothly into a familiar face...and he was grinning like an idiot.

"Absolutely worth keeping my magic a secret just to see the look on your faces at seeing a living raptor," said Walter, smug.

"Laugh it up, Walter... I got a wrench in my tool box with your name on it if you scare us like that again," said Happy.

"That...was... so cool!" said Sylvester. Now that he knew it was only Walter playing a minor prank on them, he could admire the animal for what it was.

"That was hilarious. Need a few minutes to change your pants Cabe?" asked Adrian innocently, holding up the camera in his hands.

Cabe scowled at him...but would admit to himself it was a good prank.