So, I'm going to start posting just one time a week, probably on Wednesdays. My schedule is just really busy so I don't have as much time to write as I did last year, and it's been really hard to catch up. There's only like another year and a half of Mallory's time to write, so I'm hoping that with more time to spend on the chapters I'll be able to focus on moving forward and not writing so many fluff chapters. Anyway, hope you like it, please review!

Mallory showed up to Conner's house the next day right after work, Moe in tow. When Artemis let her in, she handed her pet over, tilting her head. "What are you doing here?" she asked.

The archer shrugged, rubbing the little fox's head absently. "Same as you, I guess. I brought V'lana over, I was hoping Dick would be here to settle where she's going to stay long term."

"He's not here?" Mallory asked as they walked into the living room.

"Nope. We haven't heard from him since he left here yesterday, unless he's answered for you."

"He hasn't answered my calls either," Mallory replied. "Great timing to drop off the grid." They rounded the corner and saw V'lana talking with Megan, and Conner sitting on the floor with Wolf, working on the legs of the coffee table that now had a handprint burned into it. "What happened here?" she asked, brushing the handprint pointedly.

Conner glared at the spot. "Our houseguest got a little frustrated with the demands we were making last night," he explained.

"Really? What did you make him do?"

"I mean, looking back, they were completely unreasonable," the clone replied sarcastically. "We told him to stay in the backyard if he went outside and to try not to use his powers in the house if he could avoid it."

"And for that he decided the table had to die?" the pyrokinetic asked dryly.

Conner snorted. "No, but that led to talking about what he could do, and he didn't like Megan's suggestions of bettering himself and studying. Of course, he wouldn't have liked my suggestions, either."

Artemis chuckled. "Probably not, but at least it would have gotten him to open up a little. Does he do anything other than look at the Markovian news on his phone and snap at everyone he's around?"

"Not often," Megan replied, looking up from her conversation.

V'lana looked around. "Where is Brion?" she asked. "He should have joined us by now, should he not?"

Conner sighed heavily, righting the table and testing the strength of the new leg. "He should. But then, so should Nightwing, and look who's not here."

Just then, they saw the door to the shed open. "Well, speak of the devil," Artemis said, already walking to the door. When she swung it open, though, it was Peter, not Dick, who was standing on the front porch. He looked past her and stalked into the house, his eyes fixed on Mallory.

"Where have you been?" he asked irritably.

She glanced down the hall to the bedrooms, hoping Brion wouldn't decide to make his appearance now. "What, today? I just got off work," she replied innocently.

Her brother just glared at her. "No, you know what I mean. You mode the Markovian coronation and then just disappear for two days?"

Artemis narrowed her eyes. "What are you talking about?" she asked.

The younger boy shook his head. "Just stop. Perdita told me what happened, it wasn't hard to figure out the rest. You kidnapped a prince! What is wrong with you people?"

"Hey, we didn't kidnap anyone, he's in exile," Mallory corrected.

Her brother snorted, rolling his eyes. "Yeah, sure, that makes a difference."

There was a yell from outside, and they all jumped to their feet, hurrying to the backdoor. Brion was slowly sinking into the ground, struggling to stay above the lava that he was creating. Artemis groaned, stopping a few feet away. When Malory stopped next to her, she raised an eyebrow at her. "Well, you gonna go help him or what?" the archer asked.

"Oh, right," she said, walking over to the last bit of solid ground. "Brion, calm down and give me your hand," she told the teenager.

He glared at her, his chest heaving as he struggled. "You think I'm trying to do this?!" he screamed.

She sighed, looking at her clothes, but she pulled off her shoes and jacket and slid into the lava, sacrificing her outfit to help the boy. She grabbed his arm and held it firmly. "I have you, you're not going to sink," she told him calmly. "Just take a breath, think about what you need to do to get yourself out of this."

He looked around, his eyes wild at first, but as he began to collect his thoughts, his face turned to concentration, until he held out a hand and Mallory felt something solid on her feet, then they were raised out of the pit and back to the grass, the lava hardening to rock as they left. Brion's body was covered in rock as well, and Mallory's clothes had burned off to reveal her fire-proof training clothes, shorts and a sports bra.

She knelt down with the prince, smiling a little. "There, see? You don't need anyone, all you need to do is take a breath and think for a minute."

"Yes, but if you had not held me up, then I would not have been able to concentrate," he said irritably.

She shook her head, the smile still on her face. "I didn't do anything," she told him. "All I did was tell you that I was holding you up. You didn't sink because of whatever you did to stop it."

He opened his mouth to argue with her, but she stood and grabbed her jacket and shoes, zipping the jacket up a little despite the warm day. She never had liked training or patrolling with a crop top. It made her feel too exposed.

Brion finally picked himself up, seeming to be feeling a little more in control. "I…think I know what I did. I apologize for the hole, I do not think it will happen again," he said, looking at Conner and Megan.

The Martian sighed, looking at the ugly, gaping hole in the lawn. "Well…it's fine. I'm just glad you learned something from it," she said.

Peter had his eyes narrowed, looking at everyone in disbelief. "Really? That's all you're gonna say?" he asked with far more anger than the situation warranted.

Mallory tilted her head. "Peter…" she started to warn, but he shook his head firmly, taking a few steps closer to her and Brion.

"No, this is stupid," he snapped. "What, you think just because he can figure things out when you hold his hand that now he's stable or something? He's not. Just look at him, he's a loose cannon."

"Peter, you need to calm down," Artemis said, her tone low.

The younger boy just raised an eyebrow. "Why? You don't want someone telling you something you already know? He's dangerous, and you want to just ignore that because he's a stray you want to take into your collection. I can't believe you guys."

"Hey, I am right here," Brion yelled.

Peter turned so that the prince could see him roll his eyes. "Thanks, I wouldn't have known that the huge rock monster was the same person I was talking about if you hadn't announced yourself."

"Peter, what is your problem today?" Mallory snapped.

"Me? What's your problem? You broke international law, almost got people killed, kidnapped an exiled prince, and now you're pretending like everything's just fine when it's not."

Brion stormed over to Peter. "You have a lot of opinions," he said, steam literally coming off his body. "Perhaps you would like to address them to me."

Peter scoffed, looking the young prince up and down with disgust. "Nah, I'll stick to talking to your handlers, thanks."

He turned his back on the boy, and Mallory saw the fury on Brion's face and sensed the heat rising from the ground. She dove at the prince, pushing him just enough so that when the stream of lava came from his hand, his aim was off, giving Peter a chance to flip over the stream. Conner grabbed him out of the air before he landed on the hot ground, throwing the younger boy a few feet away towards the house.

Everything happened in the span of two seconds, and Mallory and Brion landed hard on the ground, everyone was panting and shocked. Conner recovered quickly and grabbed Peter by the shoulder, shoving him towards the house, and Mallory held onto Brion until the two of them disappeared inside.

"Let go of me!" Brion ordered, trying to break out of her grip. She did, sitting up in the grass and catching her breath. V'lana was already using the water from the small pond to cool the lava, forming a line of rock across the yard, and Megan and Artemis tentatively walked towards the prince.

"What happened?" Artemis asked angrily, though she did try to curb the rage for his sake.

"I do not know!" he snapped, then he took a breath and continued through clenched teeth, "I have never done well with taunting."

"Well get it together," the archer growled. "You think that's the worst you'll hear in the next few months? You're a controversial public figure, Brion, whether you want to acknowledge it or not. Everyone's going to have an opinion on your situation. You can't try to kill everyone that doesn't agree with you."

"I know," he said, his jaw so tight it barely moved with the words. "I just get so angry–"

"Yeah, well, you don't have that luxury anymore," Mallory interrupted. "You gave that right up when you decided to break the law and become a meta. This, what happened here, this can't happen again. I don't care what you have to do, take a walk, count, jump in the pond, but when you feel yourself getting angry, you remove yourself and calm down. Do you understand?"

The boy pushed himself to his feet, obviously still furious. "Fine," he said, spitting the word out like poison. "Now, if you'll excuse me…" He brushed past them, going to the house.

Artemis took a step to stop him, but Mallory held out her hand. "Let him go," she said tiredly.

The archer shot a glare at her. "Mallory, he tried to fry your brother. This is getting ridiculous, you have to do something about it."

Mallory narrowed her eyes. "Peter provoked him," she pointed out, though the argument was hollow since they all knew it was beside the point. "Look, I'm not a teacher," she said, "and I don't have the time to start him from scratch." She strode to the house without another word feeling her friends' eyes on her back. She paused next to V'lana and offered the girl a strained smile. "Thank you for putting out the fire," she said. "You did good."

The girl nodded, but her eyes darted between Mallory and Artemis and Megan, so the pyrokinetic just kept walking, pushing the back door open and walking to the living room. Conner had sat Peter down and was standing across from him, but it didn't look like he'd gotten anywhere with the boy. Peter was slumped on the sofa, Moe curled up beside him, his arms crossed, glaring at the coffee table.

The clone turned to her when she came in, and she tilted her head slightly, asking him to leave. He gave her brother one more glance, then went past her to the door, giving her the room she needed to try to figure out what was going on. She just stood there for a moment, coming up with her approach, then she sighed and sat down across from him.

"What was that about?" she asked calmly, trying to set a good tone for the conversation.

He glared to the side. "He's just–"

"No," Mallory interrupted gently. "That wasn't about Brion. Not really. What are you so mad about that you feel like you have to lash out at us?" He clamped his mouth shut, not answering, and Mallory leaned back, studying her brother for a moment. "So you talked to Perdita?" she asked.

He tilted his head. "I mean, yeah. She called me on her way back to Vlativa, told me that one of my friends had saved her life." He finally met her eyes as he added, "thanks for looking out for her."

Mallory nodded, but her thoughts were already past that. "What about Gar? Did she call him, too? Megan didn't say anything about him calling."

Her brother crossed his arms and looked away, but she noticed the clenched fists he was hiding, and the slight narrowing of his eyes. "How should I know?" he asked.

She nodded slowly, finally understanding why he was in such a bad mood lately. "He hasn't been hanging out with you, has he?"

Peter didn't even try to pretend that he didn't know who she was talking about. "He hasn't even texted since he started the promo tour," he said glumly. "Perdita said I should be more understanding and whatever, that his agents are probably screening all his calls and filling all his time, but still…"

"Why don't you go see him? I mean, he might not have the time to come see us, but you have access to the zeta tubes, you go to at least three states a day. Just go over there and see him."

"I've tried, but he's always busy. The only time he's not doing interviews or working on the show or in meetings or doing promotions is when he's escorted back to his hotel. I even asked Dad if I could travel with him for the rest of the tour, but he said no."

She nodded. "Yeah, I mean, you had to know he wouldn't be on board. Always go to Mom first," Mallory said.

He cracked a smile. "Yeah, I mean, that was my bad. Never was my thing, though."

She huffed. "Yeah, well, wasn't mine either," she said softly. She looked at her brother, leaning forward. "Peter, you know you can't just take this out on everyone, right? Brion could have killed you, or at the very least seriously hurt you or someone else. There was no reason to give him such a hard time."

He nodded. "Yeah, I know, and I'm sorry. But, to be fair, it shouldn't be that easy to set him off."

"That's not the point," Mallory said.

"I mean, maybe not the point of this conversation, but it is a pretty important point. He just got his powers, what, a few days ago? Who's even training him?"

She shrugged. "I mean, technically no one right now," she said, trying to brush past it. When he gave her a look, she added, "no, I mean, today was just a bad day, he's fine."

Her brother raised an eyebrow at her. "Uh, no, he's not, and you know that. Mallory, he almost killed me for hurting his feelings. I mean, sure, it wasn't very nice of me, but it's also not something that he should be freaking out over."

"Yeah, well, Dick ditched us after we ran his little mission with him, so we don't exactly have anyone on that right now." Peter opened his mouth to keep arguing the point, but she shook her head. "We're getting off topic. Look, if you want, I'll talk to Mom and Dad and see if they'll let you move in with Gar once he's settled in LA, and I'll talk to Karen and Mal and see if they can be your den-parents, and if not them, I'll talk to Tornado and see if he wants to relocate. Ok?"

His face lit up. "Really?"

She smiled. "Yeah, I mean, if you're going to be so irritating until you get to see him, I don't really have any other choice, do I?"

He grinned. "Thanks, Mal."

She nodded, then glanced behind her. "And, I mean, this goes without saying, but don't say anything about any of this to anyone, ok? It's complicated right now, with Brion's status and our little outside squad. We don't need anyone coming around asking questions or trying to shut us down."

He shrugged. "Sure, obviously."

She nodded. "And when you tell Gar, make him promise not to tell, too."

Peter chuckled. "Yeah, sure, obviously. So, if you're gonna go to the house, you should probably head out. There's an hour time difference in Central."

She chuckled, holding out her arms for Moe to jump to her. "Yeah, yeah, I know. You're so pushy sometimes."

He grinned, giving her a push towards the door. "Just go already," he said. "I'll go find Brion and apologize."

"Be careful," she warned.

He nodded. "Yeah, I know. Maybe you should think about that yourself though."

She ignored the comment and slipped out the door, heading to the zeta tube to go to her parents' house in Central City.