If Grant ever thought out possible scenarios for reuniting with his little brother, finding him half-dead and covered in blood in an alley full of body parts would not have made the list. It wouldn't exist on the same planet as that list. If Grant was the kind of person who made lists—which he very much was not—the scene before him would be enough to strap any and all lists to a rocket and launch it into the sun.

Of course, thinking about where he could commandeer enough rocket fuel for that sort of thing did nothing to change the fact that Grant was standing in a blood-soaked alley, holding his blood-soaked baby brother, surrounded by blood-soaked body parts that Grant was pretty sure were a group of slimy thugs just a minute ago. Which also meant Grant would eventually have to deal with the fact that, with the absence of any other signs of life, Joey was probably responsible for it.

Joey, the kid who carried bugs outside instead of squashing them and cried at sad puppy commercials.

What's the appropriate amount of freaked out for this?

Bundling Joey into one arm (and very much not thinking about how he shouldn't be able to do that), Grant raised the other and fired his grappling hook, pulling himself and his brother out of the alleyway and back into the night.


The Herald was clearing a less-blood-covered hallway with Starfire when Raven's voice came over the comms.

"Everybody out of the building! NOW!"

Wasting no time, Herald opened a portal, grabbed Starfire's arm, and pulled them through to the streets above. Almost immediately, the base exploded beneath them. Herald flipped back once, then twice, before he managed to land in a crouch with one leg bent and braced in front of him, arms crossed over his face as a shield against the stream of hot air and debris. In his periphery, he saw the red of Starfire's hair whipping back as she braced herself against a building.

Neither hero noticed the armored figure running easily from the flames and off into the dark.

The usual noise of the city was replaced with an awful ringing as smoke filled the air. A crater stretched from the street into a neighboring park from where the subterranean base had collapsed in on itself.

Once Herald could move, he rushed toward the smoldering wreckage.

"Jericho!" He slid down the side of the crater and dug gloved hands into the nearest pile of rubble. "Titans!...Anyone?"

Starfire flew down to join him. She grabbed a massive concrete slab and tossed it lightly to the side.

"Friends," she called, "Are you okay?"

A large pile of debris at the epicenter of the explosion shifted to reveal the solid black sphere of Raven's force field. It flickered out of existence to reveal Robin and Cyborg, who each took one of Raven's arms to support her as she collapsed. Letting out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding, the Herald opened a portal to join the Titans below while Starfire flew over the wreckage.

"What happened?" Herald asked as his portal closed behind him. "Did you find out where they're keeping Jericho?"

Robin hissed through gritted teeth, shifting Raven to rest against Cyborg. "Slade happened. And Jericho isn't here."

"Then what are we waiting for?" Herald spun his horn in his hand. "We gotta do a sweep of the city, see if any of these computers survived-"

"No." Robin cut him off sharply.

"Robin?" Starfire hovered closer to Robin, brows furrowed. The Titans had seen their leader like this before.

The Herald clenched and unclenched his fists. "What do you mean, 'no?' We can't just stop looking for him!"

"He's Slade's son! How can we know if he's even on our side?" Herald shook his head slightly at Robin's statement and stepped forward to tower over him.

"Uh, because he's our friend!?" Herald was nearly shouting now, so close to Robin they were almost touching, but the Boy Wonder wasn't backing down. "Because he's a person, not some monster?"

"Please, friends," Starfire said, eyes darting between the two boys. "It is not the time to fight each other…" Robin ignored her in favor of glaring up at the Herald.

"Don't tell me you knew!"

"'course not," Herald scoffed. "Jericho never talked about his family. It's not hard to guess his home life sucked, though, is it? You don't run away to be a hero and isolate yourself on a mountain for fun."

"That is ENOUGH!" Starfire's eyes glowed a menacing green as she shouted loud enough to send a spray of dust and small debris in the bickering boys' direction. They jumped and turned to face the alien's wrath with wide eyes. "Thank you. Maybe, if you were not so busy fighting, you would have noticed we are missing our friend Beast Boy?"

A grating chirp sounded from a nearby pile of debris. As the Titans watched, a bright green cockroach scurried up to the top of the pile before screeching again. The teen heroes cringed at the horrible sound. Beast Boy then returned to his usual form.

"Oh no, I'm sure Beast Boy's fine," Beast Boy grumbled, hopping over the debris to join them. "Not like he had to turn into a cockroach and hide behind a wall while everything exploded. Thank you, Starfire, for your concern, and thank you for the heads-up!"

"You're welcome," Raven rasped, still leaning on Cyborg.

Herald sighed. "We're glad you're alright," he said, "But can we please get back to finding Jericho?"

"I'm with Robin on this one," Beast Boy replied. "If Slade's actually involved, we can't trust anyone."

Herald's eye twitched. "Are you kidding me!?"

"Nope, nuh-uh, not doin' that." Cyborg finally joined the conversation. "You two have gotta stop losing it whenever Slade's involved. We came out here to help Jericho, and that's what we're gonna do. You keep letting Slade mess with your head and he's gonna beat us to him."

Raven gently pushed herself away from Cyborg's support, regaining her balance before leveling a glare at her fellow Titans.

"Jericho had plenty of chances to betray us. Why fight alongside us," Raven stared pointedly at Beast Boy, who looked away uncomfortably, "Turn down an offer to join our team," she shifted her glare to Robin, who refused to flinch, "And be held and tortured for a month just to lure us into a trap? If there is a twisted plot behind all of this, Jericho isn't in on it. So go ahead, Robin. Take Beast Boy and anyone else who has a problem with everything Jericho has done for us and go hunting for Slade. I'm going after Jericho because he's our friend, and he's out there right now, hurting and terrified and alone. Because we're supposed to be here to protect people, even from themselves. When you remember that, you know how to find me."

Raven turned and headed off down an alleyway without looking back, Herald immediately following. Cyborg was next, his arm beeping softly as he sorted through files. Starfire hovered, bright eyes looking down at Robin with an almost pained expression before she, too, turned to fly after Raven. After glancing between Robin and the backs of their teammates several times, Beast Boy groaned and turned into a firefly. A green light blinked in the darkness as he flew after the others.

Robin sighed, slumping as he finally unclenched his fists. He ran to catch up to the others, hating himself for the small voice at the back of his head that hoped finding Jericho would mean finding Slade, too.


Joseph…

Leave me alone.

Joseph.

Don't call me that.

You won't win this, boy. Stop resisting. Join me, and together we will bring this horrid world to its knees.

No! I'm nothing like you. All these things you want… they're wrong. I won't help you hurt anyone.

Oh, really? And what about all the people you've hurt already?

I didn't mean to! I didn't—

Just give in, you poor, sweet child. You're a monster now. And what more is there in this world for monsters?


Grant slipped into the hotel through the back entrance, smuggling Joey up the stairs.

They made it to his suite unnoticed. After settling his brother on the bed, Grant turned to the wardrobe. He doubted he'd find anything close to fitting him, but anything was better than coated in blood, ripped up, and five sizes too big.

Over on the bed, Joey became restless, like he was having a nightmare.

Which would be totally understandable, except everything else in the room started shaking, too.

"Uh… Joey?" Grant moved toward him slowly, as his brother tossed and turned. "Can you maybe stop doing whatever the fuck that is?"

Still unconscious, Joey continued trembling. Across the room, a mirror cracked down the center. Grant rushed to Joey's side, grabbing his slim shoulders and shaking him.

"Joey, it's just a dream! Wake up!"

NO! Joey's cry echoed through the room with a flash of light as he sat up, eyes flying open. His sclerae were still blacked out. Across the room, the mirror completely shattered, along with the glass over the hotel's wall art and the lightbulb in the lamp next to the bed.

Grant wrapped his arms around his brother, pulling the smaller boy into a firm hug.

"It's okay, kid. You're safe now. It's just me."

Grant, Joey's voice echoed in Grant's head again (and, okay, that was definitely going to take some getting used to). You're really here. I got you out before anyone noticed, but I couldn't stay and check if you were, well, you.

"Yeah. I, um, got some holes in my memory," Grant replied, scratching his head. "Not sure what's been going on with me. Or you. What the hell happened back there?"

I… Joey started. His eyes widened as he took in the state of the room. He scrambled to look Grant over. Are you okay? Did I hurt you?

"What? Joey I'm fine." He pushed Joey's hands away. "Why wouldn't I be?"

Maybe you're… protected? I don't know. It knocked Dad out cold, but it's been killing everybody else.

"Shit, Dad's around?"

Yeah.

"Knew he wasn't dead."

I think he was? For a little while, anyway. At least pretending to be. But he's back now, and he was… angry.

"When isn't he," Grant scoffed.

Not like this. Joey huddled in on himself, bringing his knees up to curl into a ball. I met our grandfather. I think it's his fault I'm all messed up. Someone did something to me to bring him back.

"Well fuck," Grant said, sitting back and trying to process. "Okay. You can tell me all about it while we get cleaned up, and then we should get out of here before someone comes to check on your little explosion."

I'm sorry.

"Hey, don't worry about it. I needed to ditch this place anyway. I'm not exactly here on my own credit card."

Grant! Joey shoved his older brother's shoulder.

"What?" Grant smirked. "It's not like I could just tap into Wilson family funds. I'm missing two years and everyone's been playing dead." He turned to the bathroom. "C'mon. You look like you could use a hot shower."


Joey stood under the warm spray of the shower while Grant cleaned himself up in the sink. He'd stuffed his bloody clothes into a garbage bag and passed it around the curtain. While scrubbing off a month's worth of blood and grime, he did his best to fill his older brother in on what he could remember.

Grant, dressed in yellow and black and apparently suffering from amnesia, had attacked Joey on his mountain along with some weird guy with a spider for a head. He was working with a group of villains calling themselves the Brotherhood of Evil. Most of them were currently ice cubes in a base under Paris.

Joey had possessed Grant in the lead-up to the final battle and found a glowing red mental block in his head that someone else had placed there. Some sort of mind control, maybe?

The aftermath of the battle was hectic, and Joey managed to sneak Grant out with unwilling assistance from a living puppet he'd picked up in the fight. He did his best to burn out the mind block, but he wasn't Raven. He wasn't used to fixing people's heads, just borrowing them. In the end, he was forced to leave Grant in a field and hope for the best, returning before the other Titans noticed his absence.

The kidnapping and imprisonment were harder to talk about. A lot of it was muddled by drugs and pain and lack of consciousness. He told Grant about trying to get help, and how the Titans tried to dig around in his mind instead. He recounted as much as he could stand about their father showing up and the bloodbath that followed.

He didn't mention the unsettling new voice in his nightmares.

When the soap and water finally ran clear instead of black and brown, Grant left Joey alone with a pile of clean clothes. Taking a deep breath, Joey pulled back the curtain and caught sight of his reflection in the mirror.

He hadn't taken a good look at himself in… a long time. Months before even the Brotherhood nonsense, if he was being honest. His hair was longer, messier, his eyes blacked out and huge on his thin, pointed face. The gnarled white stripe of the scar stood out on his throat. Bruises marred his arms and torso. He could count every rib.

He knew he wasn't doing great before a month of captivity, but this…

He forced himself to turn away from the mirror before he accidentally destroyed it.


Grant was leaning against the wardrobe when he got out, a black duffel bag at his feet. He had changed into a new uniform, still black and lightly armored, but no longer bloodstained. Joey, meanwhile, had tied the strings of his borrowed black sweatpants as tightly as possible, the sleeves of a blue hoodie pooling around his wrists. The socks and spare pair of combat boots fit better than the last set, though they were still a bit too big.

Grant straightened and met his eyes as he stepped out of the bathroom.

"I know you don't want to talk to them, but I think we should go see the Titans."

Absolutely not.

"From what I've heard, they're probably your best shot at getting some control over this thing. I mean, they've got that freaky demon chick—"

Raven's not a freak! Joey protested.

"Okay, okay, not a freak." Grant held his hands up in mock surrender. "But she could still help figure out what's going on with you."

Or I could accidentally kill all of my friends.

"Do you have any better ideas? This shit isn't in my wheelhouse, Joey. I have no clue how to fix this other than getting you to the people who can actually help, not just lock you away."

They might just lock me away. It's what they did to the Brotherhood. Some of them were younger than me, and most of them haven't killed anyone. Plus, they probably know about Slade by now. He's a touchy subject for them.

"Well they're the best chance we've got."

Joey shook his head and turned away, but found himself swaying on his feet. Grant caught his arm and guided him to sit on the edge of the bed.

"Look, none of this is ideal, but you need actual medical attention. What would you rather do, hit up Titans Tower, or risk going to normal, non-superpowered doctors?"

Joey frowned, glaring at the floor. He couldn't argue with that.

"Yeah, that's what I thought. Look, why don't we just stop by and get you checked out in their med bay? If they try something or give you trouble, we'll leave. Surely you trust some of them to look out for you?"

Joey immediately thought of the Herald, of how worried he'd been and how fiercely he searched for him. He was probably still looking for him, Joey realized. His gut clenched.

He nodded.

"Good," Grant said, "We should get moving then."

He slung the duffel bag over his shoulder and walked out without looking back. With a sigh, Joey followed.