Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Look at what you’ve done.”

Sheila lay cradled in his arms, the ground about them dark with her blood. She was so pale, like a lily in a pond, and yet, despite everything, she was smiling.

“This is all your fault.”

Sheila’s hand shook as she raised it, her fingers brushing against his cheek. They were already going cold.

“You can’t save her.”

“I love you,” she whispered up to him. “I will always love you.”

“You can’t even save yourself.”

“Don’t be afraid,” she said, stroking his cheek with her thumb. “It’s a gift. Don’t let him—... Don’t let him take it from you.”

“I should’ve done this years ago.”

“Don’t let him change you.” Sheila’s eyes were beginning to close, and he held his hand over the wound. He tried to fix it, tried so hard, but he didn’t know how, couldn’t figure it out. It was too complicated, too much, and she was slipping away.

“You were always the perfect one, but now—”

“Freeze!”

Joel opened his sleep encrusted eyes as he looked up at the ceiling. The alarm hadn’t gone off yet, but the red numbers were a steady presence in his periphery. He didn’t know what they said, he just looked at the ceiling. The plain white ceiling.

It was more of a cream actually, or maybe egg shell. He couldn’t quite tell in this light. The curtains swayed from the breeze through the open window and the colour shifted again to ivory, and he sighed, pushing himself out of bed to let in the light.

Egg shell white, definitely.

The alarm went off.

Another day of work.

He made the bed, glancing only briefly at the empty side before heading out to the kitchen, collecting his book along the way. Bread in the toaster, fruit sliced and added to his bowl, he flicked through to the page he dog eared as the radio muttered various news stories in the background.

“ ... as Tech-No managed to deactivate the bomb on… ”

He’d read this book at least three times now, but he reread it every year or so. Learning about how the nervous system connected each part of the body to the brain and in what way was a little dry, at least in comparison to decorating or having a good toaster — he should get those actually — but Sheila had bought it for him.

“ ... civilians were seriously harmed. In other news an earthquake just outside of… ”

He turned the page and turned it upside down on the counter to hold his place as he spread jelly over his toast. He looked back towards his bedroom, half expecting to see someone standing there, but it had been over a year now since Abby had left for College.

Stupid dreams.

“ ... sunshine with some cloud cover and highs of ninety-six in the city… ”

Joel finished eating his breakfast and bookmarked his page, then got ready for work.

Presentation was everything. He might not have been selling houses anymore, but he knew that appearances were important. It was like a uniform, a second skin, a way of showing the world who you were.

As far as the world was concerned, he was Roy Eastman Kodak, researcher and desk jockey at the Heroics Headquarters. He didn’t know who Joel Hammond was, or why you would ask him if he knew who that was. That’s the way it had to be.

The drive was as busy as usual, and he checked his messages while waiting for traffic to move. Looked like Abby had gone out with some friends the night before and posted some photos. He chuckled at some of the antics she’d gotten up to. She’d messaged him when she got back to her dorm too, in response to his own wishes of sweet dreams.

He sent off his customary ‘Morning sweetheart’ just as the car in front began to move, and he dropped his phone in the passenger seat. The rest of the way to work was the usual stopping and starting, but soon enough he pulled into the parking lot. He’d turned on the radio again to boost his energy, singing along as he pulled up to his regular spot, and he drummed his hands against the steering wheel until the end of the chorus.

A familiar laugh outside his door made Joel smile, and he turned off the engine to find Marcus waiting for him.

“Tina Turner?” Marcus asked as Joel stepped out, holding one of the coffee cups out to him.

“ You’re simply the best! ” Joel sang in response, accepting the cup and winding his arm around his friend’s shoulders. “ Better than all the rest! ”

“Roy!” Marcus complained, his embarrassment making his cheeks glow.

“ Better than anyone, ” Joel continued, pulling Marcus towards the tram, where some of their colleagues were watching with obvious mirth. “ Anyone I’ve ever met! ”

“Stop, please!”

“ I’m stuck on your heart, ” Joel sang, only to find he had a partner, Candice from the Operations department, and he pointed at her with the hand holding the cup, giving Marcus an out as he released him to get his pass. “ I hang on every word you say. ”

Marcus took the chance to slip into the tram, so Joel took Candice’s hand as he stepped inside in an impromptu dance.

“ Don't tear us apart, no, no, no, Baby, I would rather be dead. ” Joel braced himself as the tram began to move, and Candice caught herself on one of the poles, but now everyone was clapping or singing along. He moved closer to Candice again, spinning her as he took care of his coffee, moving to the beat his colleagues supplied. “ Oh, you're the best, You're better than all the rest! Better than anyone, Anyone I've ever met. Ooh, you're the best! ”

A cheer filled the car, and Joel bowed to his dance partner before heading over to sit next to Marcus.

“You’re crazy,” Marcus said, though he was definitely smiling now. It was a good look for him.

“Had to thank you for the coffee somehow,” Joel replied, sipping at his perfect brew.

“I make you coffee every day!”

“You’re right,” Joel said with a serious nod. “I should start doing this more often.”

“Please don’t,” Marcus said, giving him those puppy dog eyes he knew were Joel’s weak spot.

How was anyone supposed to be able to resist those?

“... Alright, fine,” Joel said with a roll of his eyes. “I’m cooking you dinner then next time I visit though!”

“Missy’ll probably appreciate that,” Marcus said, and Joel had to laugh, thinking of Marcus’s young teenaged daughter.

Ever since the world had been ‘invaded’ by aliens a few years before, Missy and her friends had started their training to become real Heroes. They were sent out on missions every so often, small ones with lower risks, but the other superheroes (in many cases, the young team’s parents) were still helping with the larger, more perilous dangers.

Marcus, however, had taken more of a backseat, only going out on the occasional mission when there was no one else left.

Joel hadn’t been working for the Heroics Team back then, though he had been in training, and so he’d missed all the excitement, but he’d witnessed some of the aftermath. Missy Moreno spent half as much time at the Headquarters as her father did, and it was partially because of her that Joel ended up where he had. Or at least how he’d met Marcus.

Which did eventually lead to Joel working with him, so what the hell, Missy could be the catalyst.

It turned out that saving the world once didn’t mean that she didn’t feel the pressure any less, and Joel had found her hiding in a corner when he was trying to get away from his own thoughts. He could still remember how she’d held onto him as she’d cried, which is just when Marcus had arrived.

They’d been friends ever since.

“You’re not that bad a cook,” Joel said, knocking into Marcus.

“No, but she’s been talking about that dip sandwich you make for weeks.”

The way Marcus looked at him told Joel she wasn’t the only one longing for that sandwich.

“You get the ingredients, I’ll make the sandwiches,” Joel said, and he found himself melting at the smile Marcus gave him.

He would have said he was screwed, but he’d been pining after his best friend for months now. Screwed didn’t cut it. He’d spoken to Abby about it, his daughter having known Marcus for a year or two before she’d moved away, and she’d been encouraging, pushing him to make a move, but he wasn’t sure he could allow himself to open up like that again, not after Sheila.

The tram came to a stop at its regular stop and they headed through security together.

“How is Missy?” Joel asked as Marcus waited for him on the other side. “She enjoying school?”

“As much as she can,” Marcus replied. “Getting ready for high school on top of everything else is a lot.”

Joel hummed in agreement. “I remember when Amy went through the same thing.”

“She’s enjoying College though?”

“Yeah,” Joel agreed, going to pull his phone from his pocket only to realise he didn’t have it. “Mother—! I left my phone in the car.”

“Wanna go back for it?”

“Nah,” Joel waved him off. “Too much effort. We just got through security!”

Marcus snorted but nodded. “But she’s enjoying College?”

“What? Oh, yeah, she went out with some friends last night,” Joel said, waving goodbye to the guards as they headed into the main building. “Looked like she had fun.”

“I hope I’ll be as close to Missy as you are with Amy when she’s her age,” Marcus said.

Joel made sure his smile didn’t fall, though he was sorely tempted to tell him the cost for such a wish. “Ah, you probably will. You Heroes got to stick together, right?”

“Yeah,” Marcus agreed with a sigh. “I won’t be a Hero forever though.”

“You’ll always be her hero, Marcus,” Joel said, pulling him aside when they stepped into the control room. “You’re her dad, and a good one at that. Respect’s the cornerstone of trust and a lasting relationship!”

Those words felt like ashes in his mouth, but Marcus’s smile was worth it.

“Thank you… Joel.”

Well, at least he wasn’t keeping that part of himself a secret.

“Gentlemen.”

Ms Granada stood to their side, impatient but somewhat amused, a staple for her general expression. Not that Joel could blame her; she was in charge of the entire division, which meant she had eyes on every disaster, threat and crime that happened on the continent that was of high enough priority to send someone to help. He was surprised she always looked so perfect.

But then, she was an alien.

“To your stations,” she said. “The world’s been busy while you were away, we’ll need all hands on deck.”

“Yes ma’am,” they both replied, smiling at each other in a quick farewell before heading off to opposite sides of the room.

Joel settled in front of his usual screen, taking one more chug of his coffee before retrieving his headset as the life around him settled into his bones.

“Okay people,” Ms Granada said, tapping on her pad to bring up images of their tasks. “There was a small tremor at the San Jose fault line early this morning. There was structural damage and people have been trapped in the rubble.” The next picture. “Tech-No managed to defuse a bomb but he’s currently chasing up the lead to find the one who created it.” That image was replaced with almost a dozen others. “Our Heroics Team has been spread thin to deal with all these situations, from runaway trains to scientists whose experiments have gone too far. It’ll be up to us to make sure everything runs smoothly and that as many people as possible are able to come home, understood?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Good. Let’s save some lives.”

The next few hours became a blur of activity. Organising relief for those caught in the earthquake while also directing Shark Boy and Lava Girl to the right spots to help stabilise the precariously positioned rubble and still collapsing buildings to prevent further damage and fatalities was hard work, but Joel had gotten good at his job over the years. He’d learned how to look at a map well enough to know which routes were the quickest or safest, how to direct people, how to use his charm to comfort and calm civilians when necessary.

It had been a hell of a learning curve, but the results spoke for themselves, and it certainly helped him sleep at night.

It was approaching midday, however, when a new problem arose.

“There’s a hostage situation that requires a Hero,” one of the other workers — Valerie, Joel recalled — shouted from a station nearby.

“Can’t the police deal with it?” Ms Granada asked, and Joel held his breath, hoping the answer wouldn’t be;

“Negative,” Valerie said. “Some of the hostages are police officers. Hostage-taker believed to have a power but our source was unable to identify it. So far almost twenty civilians and officers have been taken.”

“Moreno,” Ms Granada said, thought Marcus was already shucking his jacket off his shoulders.

“Just give me the coordinates and I’ll be on my way,” he said, sending Joel a look of farewell before running out the room.

“Kodak!”

Joel jerked, finding himself on the other end of Ms Granada’s cold stare, only for her gaze to soften. “Make sure Moreno has everything before he goes.”

“Yes, thank you, uh, ma’am” he said, scrambling from his seat, almost forgetting to leave his headset behind before running after his friend.

Marcus had already reached the room Joel fondly called the Locker Room, since it was where Marcus would go to change into his costume. Tactical outfit. Whatever it was called. He was half undressed and reaching for his padded vest by the time Joel arrived, so Joel rushed to gather everything else, making sure his earpiece was charged as he pressed it into Marcus’s hand.

“Be careful,” Joel said, making sure Marcus was looking at him when he did. “You’ve got my sandwich to come back for, remember? Oh, and I guess you’ve got a daughter too.”

Marcus chuckled and pulled him into a quick hug. “I won’t be long.”

Joel clung to his back, trying to shake the feeling that this was different, that something bad was going to happen, but he didn’t want to jinx things by saying it out loud. Even keeping it to himself though, the feeling wouldn’t go away.

“Be careful,” he said again, only pulling away when Marcus nodded against his cheek.

“I will,” the Hero said, giving Joel a reassuring smile.

And then he was gone, striding off to save the day. Hopefully.

Joel watched after him as he went, and when Marcus slipped from view Joel shivered, and then shook his entire body, from his toes to his fingers, in an attempt to rid himself of the sinking feeling in his gut.

It didn’t work.

Chalking it up to a lost cause, he headed back to the control room.

The chaos hadn’t dulled down at all in his absence, Marcus’s space now taken over by someone else, but Joel didn’t pay much attention to who it was as he shimmied his way through everyone to get back to his station. Despite his trepidation, he still had a job to do.

Except no, he didn’t. Joel’s space had been taken over in his absence, one of the smaller catastrophes having been carefully and successfully averted or fixed in whatever way they could, so now Genine was in his spot, talking the two Heroes through their rescue efforts. She was usually Joel’s second in command, so it didn’t surprise him that she'd stepped up, but now she was there he couldn’t just take over again; he’d lost the flow, he’d fallen behind, and he couldn’t risk interrupting.

Instead he headed back to the centre of the room where Ms Granada was tapping at her pad, looking at the wall to wall screen every few moments.

“Mister Kodak,” she said when he approached, never ceasing her work. “You can assist Ms Bardeen and her team in preparing Moreno for his encounter with this kidnapper.”

“Yes ma’am,” Joel said in relief, quickly looking around the room before finding the right spot.

Valerie was already hard at work, her assistants talking with the men on the ground to gain any information from the local law enforcement, news feeds and social media stories. There wasn’t much there to work with yet, just that people had started disappearing into an old, abandoned museum that had fallen on hard times after some serious water damage from a flood, for seemingly no reason.

Joel was given the task of reading through the social media feed, freeing up Carlos from pulling double duty with it and the news feeds. Most of what he was reading were merely rumours and hearsay, but even those small tidbits were building up a picture that felt more like a nightmare than reality.

A nightmare he’d woken from only just that morning.

There were images, videos, but none of them in focus enough to see the perpetrator clearly. Not at first. There were a few comments that had mentioned seeing a figure head there almost a week before late at night, and Joel followed those leads to CCTV cameras, triangulating the locations and times until…

“It can’t be.”

He’d found an image, grainy and angled though it may have been, but he’d caught sight of a person he’d hoped to never see again.

“Roy?”

Joel blunked at the screen a few more times before turning it to Valerie, who had come to see his findings. “This is our guy.”

He wished it wasn’t, more than anything in the world, but the cops had only scared him away, not caught him. Joel doubted even that would have stopped him for long, but either way he’d had to uproot his life, his daughter’s, had to change their names and move hundreds of miles in the hopes they would be able to get away.

But it wasn’t to be.

“I’ll put the image in—”

“His name is Willard Stenk,” Joel said, still staring at the image, at the face looking at him through the screen. “He’s known as the Puppet Master.”

“I… How do you—?” Valerie started to ask, but Joel was already scrambling for a headset.

“Are we connected yet?”

“He should be arriving shortly,” Valerie said, typing on her keyboard for a few moments, and suddenly he was watching a live feed from Marcus’s suit, the wind in Joel’s ear from the microphone.

“Marcus?” he said. “Marcus, can you hear me?”

“Roy?” Marcus replied as he flew over a building block. “They put you on my case?”

“Listen, the hostage taker is a man named Willard Stenk,” Joel explained. “He’s known as the Puppet Master for his ability to control people’s bodies with his powers. He’s very dangerous, Marc. He’s killed people just because it amused him.”

Marcus was quiet on the other end of the line for a few moments, but when he did speak it was all business. “Weaknesses?”

“Unknown,” Joel replied. “As far as we know he’s human, and the last image of him we have he wasn’t wearing any body armour—” He checked the list of those captured. “— though he may have taken some off the cops who’ve gone in to investigate. He’s evaded capture several times, even when surrounded.”

“There’s nothing I can use?”

“He likes to monologue. Likes the attention when he has it, will milk it for anything it’s worth. It’ll give you time, might distract him.” Joel paused, remembering how shocked he’d been when the police had arrived when he’d seen Bill last. Valerie had pulled up the sparse file on the Puppet Master and set it up on a second screen, and he read through it quickly to glean some answers he didn’t already have, but there was nothing new there. “He’s been in hiding in years, Marc. We don’t know what he’s been doing, but the information we have could be seriously out of date.”

“It’s better than nothing.”

Or it could be a trap in the making.

“He’s been involved in multiple hostage situations, sometimes in a group but mostly on his own,” Joel said. “There are always casualties. We might not know how his powers work exactly, but they involve controlling others physically, hence the name. He’s been caught by surprise before, so sneaking up on him should work.”

“Roger,” Marcus said, beginning his descent to the police and crowds gathered at the perimeter of the building Joel recognised as the museum. “Orders?”

“Save those hostages, Moreno,” Ms Granada said in Joel’s ear, the woman having joined their feed without him noticing. “By any means.”

“Understood,” Marcus said, and Joel’s heart broke at the thought that Marcus might have to do something terrible. “I’ll head in once I’ve had a look at the building’s design.”

“Sending plans now,” Valerie said, and the camera showed Marcus’s hand coming up to see the incoming message on the device he had in the back of his glove.

Joel took the chance to look through all the information a second time, to check they’d given Marcus everything they had, to make sure he would be able to give Marcus all the support he could while he was still miles away.

The museum seemed to follow regular art deco architecture, lots of straight lines and open spaces, though a fair amount of the marble that had been put into it that wasn’t structurally important had been removed and reused elsewhere, leaving crumbling plaster, bricks and concrete behind. It was due for demolition two days ago, but the situation had put a clear halt on that. Some of the first hostages taken had been the workers who’d gone in to set controlled charges.

Which meant Bill had access to explosives.

This was already going to hell, and they hadn’t even started yet.

He passed on the information, though it seemed Marcus was already beginning to realise this would be a larger job than expected as he looked over the large map and spoke with the people who had taken charge of the situation outside. His own abilities would help to some extent but Tech-No would be the better Hero for this, but he was on the other side of the country, and they couldn’t leave those hostages to suffer. Who knew what kind of tortures Bill could have been putting them through.

“Be safe,” Joel said again as Marcus approached the border, the snipers who had arrived confirming that there had been no movement from within for some time.

“I will,” Marcus replied before switching his mic off.

It was standard practice, something that would keep the Hero from getting distracted during the mission itself, but it still felt like a death knell. The first bell of midnight, and there was nothing Joel could do now to stop the countdown.

He watched the screen as Marcus entered the building, knowing that this was a trap, but not seeing how it could be, where the trigger lay. There were no cameras, no trip wires, no sign of the explosives or hostages, just large, empty hallways with severely crumbled walls and floors from the water damage.

Joel couldn’t hear anything, and Marcus wouldn’t be able to hear anything either unless Joel pressed the override button, but even with the chatter from the other teams, the silence was deafening.

It was too quiet, and he was sure that the silence of the coms only reflected what Marcus could hear.

However, it seemed he was wrong, as Marcus spun quickly to the left, looking down another section of the museum before he started to follow whatever it was he’d heard. Valerie and her team tracked his progress through a map she’d set up for them, and Joel could see Marcus had turned down what had once been the Greek section, some more modern pillars that had been built into the ground and once held statues sticking up from the ground, but still there was no sign of the hostages.

He didn’t like it.

“Are there any thermal cameras on the building?” Joel asked, searching every crevasse for some sign, some proof of the trap Marcus was walking into, but the walls held their secrets.

“Not yet,” Carlos replied. “They’re being set up now. I’m not sure they’ll be able to penetrate the concrete though.”

“Probably not,” Joel agreed, but he needed something.

Marcus paused again, maybe reacting to another sound, and then his swords came into view. With help from the map, Joel could see that Marcus was coming up to the storage rooms, where they’d keep the art not on display, be it from damage, lack of space, or just because they weren’t showing that particular collection. From the plans, the place had no windows, but there was a light source coming out from the crack under the door.

Even as Marcus was reaching for the handle Joel was shaking his head. He didn’t want to see what was on the other side, he knew what he’d see, dreaded it, and he pressed the override button.

“Don’t do it,” he said, bringing Marcus to a halt. “Please, you can’t go in there.”

“Kodak, what are you doing?” Mr Granada demanded, striding over on her heels. “He needs to go in that room.”

“This isn’t a rescue mission anymore,” Joel said, still staring at the screen.

“You don’t know that,” she said, pressing the button on her own headset. “Moreno, I order you to go in that room.”

“Ms Granada—” Joel began, but she tore his own microphone from him.

“Moreno, you get your ass in that room,” she commanded. “Your objective hasn’t changed. Save the hostages.”

“No!” Joel cried, but it was too late.

The door opened at Marcus’s touch, swinging open with what must have been rusted hinges. The sound probably alerted Bill of his arrival, if he hadn’t known already, but the sight beyond was straight from Joel’s nightmares.

Blood stained almost every surface, splattered across the walls, staining the lights, puddling in the cracks and divots in the floor. A man wearing overalls lay there, his eyes faded and his skin pale, and next to him was an officer. Further inside was another body, then another, and another, and Joel knew that none of those who had entered were still living.

None except the one who had caused it all.

“Only two heat signatures in the building,” Carlos said, though he looked very green. They all did.

Joel snatched his headset back from Ms Granada’s now lax fingers and pulled it on. “Get out! Marc, you need to get out, right now!”

The camera jolted, Marcus had probably been staring at the scene with as much horror as everyone else, but he turned, heading back the way he’d come. Joel almost sighed in relief, but then the camera froze. No, it didn’t freeze, Marcus stopped.

“Marc? Marcus?” Joel called down the line. “Marcus, can you hear me? Oh God, Marcus, if he has you, I’m going to get you. Do you hear me? I’ll come for you!”

“Oh yes, please do Joey.”

Joel shivered, his eyes growing wide. “Bill.”

“Oh, you remembered me!” Willard said, coming into view with a grin, Marcus’s earpiece and mic in his hand, his eyes flicking across Marcus until they finally landed on the camera. “Ah, there you are.”

Willard Stenk was still wearing the long coat and dark clothes he had before from the CCTV footage, but Joel could see some stains, though the image wasn’t clear enough to show all the details. Beneath his coat there was the vest Joel had expected him to have as well, along with a gun at his belt. He had a few more wrinkles than the last time Joel had seen him, and his nose seemed different, but he was mostly unchanged.

“Do you remember the last time we played this game?” Bill asked. “We were so rudely interrupted before we could reach the finale.”

“Don’t you touch him,” Joel all but spat, his fingers curling on the desk in his rage. “Don’t you hurt him.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Bill said, his hand disappearing from view to touch Marcus’s face or neck. “I won’t do anything to hurt your new happily ever after. But don’t keep me waiting too long! You know how bored I get.”

Bill grinned at the camera before he covered it and the image cut off, the earpiece following a moment later with an ear piercing shriek, leaving them with nothing but the heat cameras to see what was going on.

Joel pushed himself from the seat without a thought, throwing the headset down and reaching for his phone, only to curse as he remembered, once again, that it was in his car. “Someone tell Missy her dad’s gonna be late home tonight,” he said, pushing past Ms Granada. “And someone call my daughter; tell her she needs to get to safety, like we planned, and I’ll call her when it’s over.”

He started heading towards the exit, but then something wrapped around his wrist pulling him to a stop.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Ms Granada asked, one of the tentacles she usually kept tucked away stretched out between them.

“I’m going to save Marcus,” Joel replied, tugging on the tentacle, but she didn’t release him.

“If you go in there it’ll just be another body to bury.”

“He wants me!” Joel snapped, ignoring how most of the other operatives in the room had stopped working at their confrontation. “Marcus will die if I don’t go!”

“You don’t know—”

“He’s done it before!” he cried, blinking back tears. “He killed my wife! She died in my arms because he wanted to get to me!”

Ms Granada stared at him, but there was no real surprise in her eyes. She knew his story, but not all the pieces had been there for her to see. Now they were painted on the wall with flashing lights and a disco ball. Now everyone knew.

“I’m done with running,” he said, her grip coming loose when he pulled this time, and he turned away.

“Why you?” she asked. “How does he know you? Why does he want to get to you?”

Joel paused in the door as he fought down a laugh of hysteria. “Because he’s my cousin.”

He fled the room then, having just caught himself before his voice decided to rise an octave or two, but when he reached the crossroads of corridors he paused. Where was he supposed to go? What was he supposed to do? He knew where he was going but he didn’t have a plan, nothing beyond ‘go to the museum and save Marcus’ anyway. He could go in the car, but that would take longer than Bill’s patience would last, but he didn’t know how the mini-helis worked or how to program them.

This was why he sat behind a screen; his impulsivity got him into the worst messes, this one the worst of them all. How was he supposed to rescue Marcus when he couldn’t even make it past the first choice?

“Hey.”

Joel jumped, his arms flailing about as he spun on the spot, his eyes wide as he struck a — frankly ridiculous — pose that was somewhere between trying to hide and attack.

It was Genine, his second, and she was holding her hands up and looking at him like he was a scared animal backed into a corner. He couldn’t deny that he certainly felt like he was, and he was incredibly grateful for the serious look in her eyes rather than laughter, or fear.

“Oh,” Joel said, his voice cracking as he lowered his arms and stood straight again. “Have you been sent to stop me?”

“No,” she replied, and held out a box to him. “I’m here to help you.”

Hesitant to trust this, Joel took the box, looking past Genine to make sure others weren’t following, and opened it.

“Genine…” he said, pulling the ear piece out.

“You know him, right?” she said, taking him by the arm and pulling him towards the Locker Room. “You know the Puppet Master more than any of us. You know what he can do… but you’re still going after him. You know you could die, that you both could. I should be stopping you, but I won’t.”

“Why?” Joel asked, baffled. “Why are you doing this for me?”

“Because Marcus doesn’t deserve this,” Genine replied. “ You don’t deserve this, but you’re our best chance.”

Joel snorted, stumbling a bit when she shoved one of the armoured vests at him. “We must be out of options if I’m the best bet.”

“You know him,” she said, helping him step into the harness for the mini-helis while he pulled on the vest. “Both of them. You know how their powers work, you know the situation, you know more than anyone else does. You can do this, Roy.”

“It’s Joel,” he said. “Roy’s my… my fake name.”

She nodded, strapping a holster to his hip and collecting a gun from the locker. “Nice to meet you, Joel. Now go save your man.”

Joel looked at the gun she offered him and took it with some trepidation. He’d never killed a man before, but today…

Well, he wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth; he nodded, putting the pistol in the holster and jogged off to the take off area, grabbing a set of goggles along the way to make sure he wasn’t weeping by the time he landed from the cold. When the mini-helis attached to his harness he braced himself, but he still yelped when he finally took off, flailing a little when the ground was taken out from under his feet, but he took some steadying breaths and focused.

It took him longer than he’d liked to find the balance point between flying straight and not getting a wedgie, but that hadn’t slowed his speed, only his comfort. When he did finally find it, he turned on his mic and tried not to think about how high up he was.

“Hello?”

“You’re there, good,” Genine said through the earpiece. “Carlos still has eyes on those heat signatures; they haven’t moved yet, but we suspect the Puppet Master is planning something.”

“Of course he is,” Joel replied. “He wants his revenge; he’ll want to make it spectacular.”

“Revenge for what?”

Joel almost shrugged, but the movement made his balance shift and he wobbled in the air for a moment before finding it again. “A old, stupid grudge. He was always jealous of me; I was the perfect son, the popular kid, the one who did everything right. His parents always compared him to me. And then we… He got his powers, and they were terrifying. He was terrifying.”

He could remember how scared he’d been, how he’d done everything he could to keep up his regular appearance, but that shadow had hung over him like a cloud. What Bill could do, what Joel could do…

“And eventually he came after your family,” Genine finished.

“It took him years,” Joel said. “Long enough for me to get comfortable, to think I was safe.”

“R— Joel, I’m so sorry,” she said, but he shook his head.

“It’s going to end today. One way or the other.”

Over the next hour there wasn’t much else for him to do beyond wait to reach the museum and talk with Genine and the team, staying updated on what was happening. Bill moved himself and Marcus from just outside the storage room to one of the larger galleries, right in the centre but still out of sight of the snipers.

At Joel’s request, he was also talked through the list of the dead, given the numbers, and he had to swallow back bile when he realised how many there were. He remembered Valerie mentioning twenty, but knowing the actual figure made it feel more real.

Twenty-three. Twenty-three lives that his cousin had taken already in the last few days alone. Joel was not going to let him make it twenty-four.

He landed at almost the exact same spot Marcus had a little over an hour before, the cops turning to him in surprise when he almost fell flat on his face during the landing, but he simply brushed himself off and checked the holster at his hip to make sure the pistol was still there.

“They sent another Hero?” one of the officers said, looking him over. “Don’t think I’ve ever seen you before.”

“I work behind the scenes,” Joel said by way of explanation. “Any change in the situation?”

The officer narrowed her eyes at him, glancing at the gun on his belt, but shook her head. “Not since your friend went in.”

“All right then,” Joel said, taking a deep breath.

“You can do this, Joel,” Genine said in his ear. “You’ve just got to believe in yourself.”

He nodded and stepped forwards, trying to present some sort of calm, brave exterior while trying not to shit his pants. Sending these people into a panic was the last thing he wanted to do. He still hesitated though, first at the border, and then at the door, but he only had to remind himself why he was doing this to find the course to push on.

Somehow, Joel had almost expected the museum to have changed since he’d last seen it, but it was still the large, empty building with crumbling plaster and broken floors. He could see the mould now that he wasn’t looking at it on a screen, and he could smell the damp and dust in the air.

He pulled the gun from the holster, looking it over to find the safety. It took him a while to find it, but he switched it off before holding it in his hands. He had no experience with these things, no idea how to use them, and he wondered why Genine had given it to him when it just felt like a particularly heavy toy in his hands, albeit one that was as dangerous as the situation he was in.

“Follow the route Marcus took, then take an additional right then left once you reach the storage room,” Genine instructed, leading him through the quietness of the building.

Joel’s boots crunched against some of the loose fragments of plaster and tile that were left on the ground and he winced. Stealth was never his strong point, and with the state of the building he knew there was no chance he was going to be able to sneak up on his cousin.

Maybe, however, he would be able to do something else.

Following in Marcus’s footsteps, Joel approached the storage room door, ignoring the bloody path that led the way towards the main gallery, and looked inside. As he’d expected, the bodies were gone, the Puppet Master living up to his name, even with the dead, but their blood still stained everything.

“Joel?” Genine asked as he crouched down before the bigger of the puddles. “What are you doing?”

“Gaining an advantage,” he replied, dipping his finger in the puddle and looking at the red stain on his fingertip.

There was no life in it anymore, no warmth, and the smell of it was akin to smelling fumes, but he knew what made it up, the cells, the plasma, platelets, even the viruses. He could feel them, all of them, on his fingers and in the room before him.

He’d almost slipped before, and he wouldn’t have been surprised if Genine had guessed it already, but it was not just Willard Stenk who’s powers had awoken in their youth.

“Don’t be afraid,” Sheila had said. “It’s a gift. Don’t let him—... Don’t let him take it from you.”

“Don’t let him change you.”

But he had. Maybe not in every way — Joel was still more or less the same man he’d been before — but he’d changed his name, changed their daughter’s name, changed his job, been so scared to reach out to others, to share pieces of himself again. He’d hidden his power even more, not even using it when Abby was there anymore, even when she never saw it as something to fear.

But Joel had. Bill had taken that from him. He’d let him take it from him, and he’d failed Sheila’s final wish.

But no more.

When he left the storage room, he left with a shadow that crept across the ground like a wave across the sand.

He could have taken a different route, gone the long way around and found some way to enter the gallery where his own trap had been set for him, but he would only have been delaying what had been long overdue. Instead, he followed the path Genine had given him to whatever it was Bill had in store.

The gallery, when he entered, revealed itself to be a large room, open plan, with a mezzanine around the edges. There were stairs leading up to it on the opposite side, and the roof was made of glass, save for a few shattered panels that had left pieces scattered across the floor. It was as much a mess as any other area, but Joel could see the now reanimated bodies of the poor souls his cousin had murdered standing guard at all other exits, along with the entrance to the stairs, with some of the explosives from the demolition scatered about, as though thrown away or kicked.

And there, right in the middle of it all, stood Marcus.

He was awake, alive, his swords held tight in his hands, but his body was stiff as he tried to fight against the control Bill was holding over him, his eyes wide as he tried to communicate silently with Joel, but Joel couldn’t comply. He wasn’t going to let Bill win, not when he had Marcus under his thumb.

“Joey!”

Joel aimed and fired without a thought, though it sent him stumbling back a few steps as the gun’s recoil hit him by surprise.

“Woah!” Bill said, having jolted to the side as he was hit with shrapnel from the wall. “Careful with that thing! You could hurt yourself.”

Joel steadied himself again and took aim, but before he could pull the trigger again Bill flicked his finger, and Marcus set one of his blades to his own throat.

“Careful now, Joey,” Bill said. “We wouldn’t want this to start before it’s begun, now would we?”

“Let him go!” Joel demanded, even as he started to thread that shadow through the cracks in the walls, slowly sending it up to the  mezzanine where his cousin was cowering.

“Why don’t you put down your gun first?” Bill suggested.

Joel gritted his teeth, wishing he could just kill him and be done with it, but he had no experience with guns, he could miss, and he couldn’t risk Marcus’s life just for a chance.

The gun clattered to the floor.

“Now kick it away.”

Joel did as he was told.

“Now, remove your earpiece and destroy it.”

The earpiece crumbled beneath his heel with a whine.

“Good!” Bill praised, and with another flick of his finger the blade was removed from Marcus’s throat. “You’re a hard man to find, cuz. We never got to finish our little game! Do you remember where it was we left off?”

“You murdered my wife,” Joel accused, but Bill took it simply as a reply.

“That’s it!” Bill said with a click of his fingers. “She was a real nice girl, that Cheryll.”

“Sheila.”

“Whatever,” Bill dismissed. “Why don’t we rewind a few steps now we’ve got a new player though? Get him up to speed and all that.”

The shadow continued to trickle up…

Marcus dropped one of his swords and turned the other around on himself, plunging it deep into his own gut, pushing it so hard and deep that it must have come out the other side.

“ No! ” Joel screamed, running forward to catch the man he had grown to care for more than anyone he thought he ever would ever again.

“Joel…” Marcus murmured weakly, his eyes going hazy as Joel lowered him carefully to the floor.

“Sh, it’s okay, it’s okay,” Joel told him, holding his face. “You’re gonna be okay.”

Bill laughed from his spot above them. “It’s like a rerun! Go on, Joey, what do you say next?”

“Joel, you have to run,” Marcus told him, only to wheeze when Bill forced him to start pulling the blade out. “Run. Please!”

“I’m not leaving you!”

So close!

“You have to… have to live, Joel,” Marcus said. “You have to… get out.”

“Hold on,” Joel said. “You hold on! Don’t you dare die on me!”

Almost there…

“Oh! Off script!” Bill said in delight. “I should’ve brought popcorn. Actually, I thi—!”

Bill froze, the bodies around the room falling limp to the floor, including Marcus’s arm with a whimper as the lack of control pushed his own body weight on the blade. Joel carefully shifted Marcus’s arm so the sword would be supported, then he looked up at Bill as he stood there, frozen, eyes wide in shock as his mouth opened and closed like a fish.

Protruding from Bill’s chest were now several sharp spikes, a deep red form that melted when Joel released the blood he’d been carefully manipulating. Bill gasped, stumbling to lean against the bannister as he stared down at them.

“H-how..?”

Joel sighed. “I never wanted to do this, Bill,” he said. “But you gave me no choice.”

Bill coughed, spitting up red which dribbled down his chin as he smiled. “You… you bastard!”

Joel looked back down at Marcus, patting his cheek to rouse him from where he was beginning to drift off. “Stay with me.”

“Joel?” the Hero muttered, curling his fingers in Joel’s shirt.

“You bastard!”

Bill had pulled the gun from his belt, he was pointing it at them.

Joel didn’t hesitate.

Bill stumbled back as the new cut in his neck spilled blood everywhere. He tried desperately to grasp at it, to stop the flow, but there was nothing he could do. All he could do was stumble back and fall to the floor. Joel waited a few more moments, listening for any further signs that Bill would rise again after he’d fallen out of sight, but when even the shuffling of clothes against concrete fell silent he returned his attention to the man in his arms.

“Marcus?”

“Mm?” the Hero replied, blinking slowly up at him.

“Stay with me,” Joel said. “You’re getting out of this.”

“Don’t… think so,” Marcus replied. “Tell Missy…”

“You tell her yourself!” Joel snapped as he blinked back tears. “I’m going to save you.”

“Tell… tell Missy…” Marcus said again, but Joel refused to listen.

“Do you trust me?”

Marcus frowned. “With everything.”

Joel smiled and gripped the sword. “This is gonna hurt.”

Marcus wheezed a cry when Joel removed the sword, but Joel had no time to be sorry; the wound was bleeding, and the damage severe. He had to make this right.

“Breathe,” Joel told him, moving Marcus onto the ground and pressing down on the wound. “Keep breathing, Marc. I’ve got you.”

He felt Marcus’s chest rise and fall beneath him, even as the grip on his shirt loosened, but he couldn’t think about that. He couldn’t pause, couldn’t lose focus, or any hope he had at saving Marcus would be lost.

“Keep breathing,” he said again as he closed his eyes and Reached.

Reaching for Marcus was very different from Reaching for the blood, or even the smaller creatures Joel had practised on in the last few years, figuring out how to go smaller, smaller than ever before. He knew that Bill had figured out how to control people through their bones and muscles, but Joel had spent years studying and learning so he could go deeper. Cell deep.

A living, working body was a lot different from his books though, and while Joel had managed to mend broken bones and remove viruses from a bloodstream, he hadn’t worked under conditions like this before.

But there was no time to doubt himself. It was do or die.

If he stopped the blood flow he risked causing Marcus brain damage, so he had to keep it moving, keeping any more blood loss from occurring as he searched for the veins that encased each pathway. He found the torn edges and gently guided them together again, manipulated the cells back to life, back to their completed form, slotting them in place like puzzle pieces. He moved each part back to where it should have been, the anatomy of a human being stuck in his head now after learning and relearning and revising over and over and over.

“Keep breathing,” Joel urged through gritted teeth when he felt Marcus’s lungs struggle, when he felt Marcus’s hand lose its grip and fall to the floor. “Stay with me.”

Nicks in the bone smoothed out and vanished, muscled and flesh healed, and those pathways were carefully covered again, one by one, until all that was left beneath Joel’s hand was fresh, pink skin.

When he finally pulled back, Joel found himself light headed, swaying where he knelt. He could barely keep his eyes open, the world shifting beneath him, and everything turned as he fell down, down, down into the darkness.

Someone was holding his hand. It was a soft hand, warm, familiar, small. He squeezed it.

“Dad?”

“Abby?” Joel said, struggling against exhaustion to open his eyes.

It was bright, the sun creeping through curtains and shining on ivory walls.

No, egg shell white. He was home, and so was Abby.

“Dad! You’re awake!” she exclaimed, smiling brightly at him even as her eyes shone with tears.

“How long was I out?” Joel asked, squeezing her hand again.

“Almost twelve hours,” she replied, releasing his hand to allow him the chance to push himself up. “When your friend called me I came straight home.”

“My friend?”

She smirked at him. “He’s awake!”

Joel blinked at the sudden change in volume, but then he heard some crashes and bangs coming from the other room, then heavy hurried footsteps, and then—

“Marcus.”

“Joel.”

Marcus was standing in his bedroom door, wearing pyjamas and his glasses all skewed, his hair all over the place like he’d only just woken up. From the sounds Joel had just heard, he may very well have. He’d probably broken something, but Joel couldn’t bring himself to care.

“You’re alive,” he said, almost unable to believe it.

“I’m alive,” Marcus replied.

“It worked,” Joel said. “Did it work? You’re really—?”

“I’m here,” Marcus said, coming to sit beside him opposite Abby and taking his other hand. “Thanks to you.”

“And Bill?”

“Gone,” Marcus replied. “Dead. He won’t trouble anyone ever again.”

Joel smiled, unable to hold back the joy he was feeling. He’d finally done it; he’d finally shaken himself free from his cousin’s shadow, finally pulled his family into the light of the future. He pulled at Abby’s hand until she came close enough to hug her.

“We don’t have to hide anymore.”

Abby clung to him like a limpet, but she gave him a grin that reminded him too much of her mother when Sheila had been up to mischief. “Now you can finally ask him on a date.”

Joel’s face burned like a fire, and he glanced over at Marcus in the hopes he hadn’t heard.

No such luck there.

“You wanted to ask me out?” Marcus asked, and while Joel knew this embarrassment would stay with him until the heat death of the universe, he couldn’t help but note that Marcus was smiling.

“I may have,” Joel agreed. “For maybe… a few months.”

Marcus chuckled. “Well too bad,” he said, “because I’m going to ask you out instead.”

Joel blinked at him as Abby chuckled into his chest.

“Breakfast? You, me and the girls?” Marcus asked. “I know a good place nearby.”

Joel grinned, beamed, positively shone with joy.

“Sounds perfect.”