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And

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Super Sappy Collab 2k22
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Watching Wraith reform was not pretty. It was a body skinning itself in reverse, and even just keeping his gaze on the man’s face was nauseating. In truth, if it wasn’t for years of seeing some ‘fucked up shit’, Grim very well might have lost his dinner right over top of him.

It was still a close thing when Wraith looked up at him, trying to speak with a face of exposed muscle and not even any eyelids. Still, Grim just shook his head.

“Don’t try to talk.”

As the skin finally reformed, the shadowmancer slowly reached out, hesitating - and then the fabric of the suit that allegedly caused this was spilling over newly created skin, causing further pause. Still, as Wraith stumbled in his attempt to stand, Grim’s arm shot out to catch him at the chest, almost stumbling with him.

And how could a hero ignore a plead for help?

Rather than respond, Grim just nodded to the request to leave. His own masked face left Joel’s bare one to look around and take in where to go - despite the sirens and his own spotlight drones, the dark of night left plenty of options. In a moment, they both sunk slowly into the ground of their own shadows, icy cold like an arctic breeze, and disappeared from the view of others. The two emerged from the dark wall of a warehouse barely within eyesight of the sirens. Grim kept Wraith braced, hands made of shadow hovering to help as necessary even as he urged the other man to walk back in as he picked out a new shadow to teleport to.

“Come on, I need to see where we’re going - it’s going to be a few trips.” The low, rumbling voice of the dog emblemed hero urged him forward until they were out of sight and sound of the sirens, finally stopping only when the smell of salt water drifted from the nearby shore. Here Grim stopped, glancing down. “Where do you live? Is there… anyone you can stay with tonight? I’ll take you there.”

Joel had never teleported before, and he didn't really have any desire to do so again. He assumed that was what Grim was doing, in a round about kind of way. Joel stumbled, still shaky, to a nearby bench and collapsed backwards into it. The cool, fresh air blowing in off of Lake Michigan helped stave off the urge to fall apart. He pressed his hands to his face and dragged them down. 

"This is fine," He said at last, "I just...needed to get away from all that. Too much at once. Thanks." He didn't have it in him to admit that he had absolutely no one left to turn to. His family was gone, save for his father, who he hadn't spoken to since elementary school. There was only one person he truly longed to see, but she was gone and he couldn't change that. The world was cruel that way. 

Maybe it was the shared trauma they had just endured; or maybe he was just desperate to let long bottled up feelings out after a near brush with death. Joel opened his mouth, and the words just started pouring out. 

"My therapist told me to try and think back to the day all this shit started, but I couldn't. That was…the [i]worst[/i] day of my life. The last day I felt okay. The last day I [i]slept[/i]. I know my head's not right, but I at least thought I knew why. Turns out, I didn't know shit." 

He paused to look over at Grim. There was always a certain moroseness in his eyes; a pain of a different sort. Now, it seemed that his own words were inflicting agony. He didn't want to revisit those memories, but he couldn't stop. 

"Do you remember a superhero who went by Nova?" Of course he did. [I]Everyone[/i] knew about Nova. She had been one of the most nationally beloved heroes of their time. She had a monument built in her honor in Lincoln Park. The day she had died had been a national tragedy, a televised funeral service attended by thousands. Her famous purple and gold costume was on display at the Smithsonian. She had won a Nobel Prize for her hand in helping create a renewable and unlimited power source based on her own unique energy signature. She had been far more than the world deserved, and certainly more than Joel ever did. Three years ago, her bright light and warmth had been snuffed out.

“Is that a rhetorical question?” The humor Grim tried to inject into his question fell flat, likely not just because of his mask. One hand raised to rub at the back of his neck awkwardly, glancing around before finally seeming to make a decision. The shadowmancer moved to sit beside Wraith on the bench, crossing one leg over the other and folding his hands in his lap - wincing minutely at the press of burns on his palm. He would summon a drone later to treat it. “That is to say, yes. I remember Nova.”

Grim was not a therapist. Therapists didn’t put on masks and make stylized dog emblems to go beat the shit out of people who should likely be their patients. Still, despite the fact that he was not expecting Wraith to suddenly open up to him, he supposed that being burned alive had a way of shaking you up.

Maybe he just stayed since Grim couldn’t get the image of his face melting in reverse out of his mind.

"Her name was Aurora Hale, and she hated being called by her full name," A small, sad smile tugged at his lips as he remembered all the times he had done it just to antagonize her. "She went by Rory. Our first meeting was…unconventional to say the least. My family had a history of gang affiliation. My father got life in prison for it, my brother was killed by it, my mom poisoned herself with it. For me, I guess it seemed like the only logical next step. I started young; just a teenager. I was never given any serious shit to do. Mostly, I translated when I needed to, or did the occasional drug run. I got into these prize fights that got me enough to pay the bills." 

Joel paused to consider the next part. "That changed when I was rounded up with a few other guys to help pick up a shipment. I assumed it was the usual: drugs, guns, whatever. But the truck we opened had [i]people[/i] inside. Young girls. I don't know why I didn't think that shit went on behind the scenes. I guess they never trusted me with it before. They were right not to. I knew where they were taking those girls, and I went to find the nearest suit and mask I could. I couldn't talk to the cops without incriminating myself, but I figured maybe a vigilante would be a little more forgiving. I found Nova."

"I took her to the drop off spot and she did her thing. When all was said and done, she came back to talk to me. By this time I had eight whole years of petty crime and street life to my name; I had no interest in talking to a superhero. But she didn't see a thug when she looked at me; she saw potential. She was probably the first person that had given me that."

Joel paused to wipe his eyes on his gloves and take a shaky breath. He couldn't stop now, so he powered through. 

"Rory wanted me to turn my life around. I agreed to be an informant. I knew the ins and outs of half the organized crime in the city by then. I didn't have any fancy powers or a suit to heal me, I had [i]her[/i]. With her on the frontline and me behind the scenes, we had the gangs in all the major cities in the States on the ropes. Nobody ever reported on the guy in the hoodie, hidden in the background while she spoke to the media after saving the day. I liked it better that way; never was one for the spotlight. But her? She glowed in it."
 
Joel stopped again, focusing very hard on the mask he was wringing in his hands. 

"We married a couple years into our little operation. We kept it private; neither of us had much in the way of family anyways. The media never knew about it, and that was how we wanted it. It wasn't a perfect marriage; none of them ever are. We had our spats, I don't even remember what about. Probably stupid shit like the grocery list and dirty dishes." He paused again to chuckle, "It's funny how things like that don't matter now. I don't remember the bumps in the road. I remember her rule that we couldn't go to bed angry at each other, the way she belted out whatever the song of the week was in the car, the way she made me feel [i]safe[/i]." 

This time he stopped to glance at Grim. It occurred to him that he had no proof to back this story up. No one had known that Nova was married, much less to some guy raised in the projects. Her identity had been kept from the public after her death, out of respect. Joel's reputation probably made this entire monolog sound like the insane claims of a lunatic. Again. 

Thankfully, though the glowing mask hid most of Grim’s expression, he didn’t seem inclined to fight the story of events. In truth it was a hard story to believe, especially from who it came from. With how beloved and public a figure Nova was it’s hard to say some media wouldn’t go digging and not find something like that for so long - even something as simple as forgetting to take a wedding band off one time. Even if her private life [i]was[/i] kept under tight wrap.

Briefly, Grim’s mind flittered to stories of coma patients waking up having dreamed up a whole life for themselves, and falling into depression upon realizing it wasn’t real. It wasn’t a hard idea to lay over Wraith, considering his … [i]odd[/i] mannerisms, as one would say to be polite.

Delusions or not though, fighting him on it would do absolutely nothing in this moment.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Grim’s voice rumbled through the mask, injecting as much sincerity as he could through the faintly robotic tinny. “Losing a loved one is … one of the hardest things to experience in life. Even young. [i]Especially[/i] young.” He lifted a hand to clap onto Wraith’s shoulder.

“It sounds like you loved each other a lot.”

"Yeah," He said softly, "We were married for eight years. It would be ten if she was still around... I don't remember the exact details of that night, but I know enough. We were back in Chicago again after a stint in L.A. I got word that a major crime lord was gonna' show his face at an important trade with some overseas syndicate. I went with her to blend in and keep her updated; we'd done it a hundred times before. But this time, it was a setup. The info was bait to get us there, and we got ambushed by a firefight that neither of us were prepared for. They got me first, and she had to stop fighting to protect me," His breath hitched in his throat; tears glistened in his eyes, "I told her to get the hell out of there, but she was stubborn as always. She wouldn't leave me. They shot and beat her to hell until there was almost nothing left, and then they shot me in the head and left us both to die." 

Joel stopped, his eyes growing wide. He had been shot. He didn't remember being shot. He didn't remember going home that night. There was a sizable gap in his memory. When had he moved back into the building he grew up in? When did he sign up for that experimental treatment? Unless...[i]he didn't[/i].

His mind raced to that folder left sitting on his kitchen table, the name that Mindraker had dropped. "I think I might know what's going on," He said in a soft voice, barely above a whisper.

“Hm.” The hum was more to acknowledge Wraith’s words, and to cover up Grim’s own confusion. After all, to the shadowmancer Wraith was a mutant with an [i]incredibly[/i] powerful healing factor. Though, the fact that his suit regenerated as well from being burnt to a crisp was … another level of complexity added to it. Either way, without the knowledge of Joel’s personal life, the jump from trauma to revelation didn’t click in. Grim probably should’ve looked up more about the people he was working with.

But reliving your trauma was an important step. Zoey had the idea that Wraith had never talked to anyone about this - not even his therapist, if she was reading his earlier words right. After the night they had she felt it right to let him pour everything out, to be there as he pulled himself back together. For that reason Grim didn’t remove his hand from Joel’s shoulder, instead just leaning forward a bit to look into the other man’s face - wide eyed, shocked. Something about telling the story shuffled things into place for him. So Grim squeezed the man’s shoulder to ground him, keep him in the moment.

“What’s that?” Though his voice was artificially made to sound deep and rumbling, in this moment Grim’s voice was soft, an attempt at sounding comforting as he coaxed Joel to continue. Besides, with everything that happened tonight, if Joel’s tale was true being burnt alive could’ve been a [i]very[/i] personal retaliation for being [i]burnt[/i] by an informant in the past.

"I didn't survive that gunshot wound." He turned to Grim, eyes wide with realization. "Someone got me to the hospital and they kept me on a vent, but I didn't make it. [I]I died.[/i] Somebody…[i]Pet Sematary'd[/i] me back to life, and this is what came of it!" He gestured to himself, presumably referring to his general mess of a life. "And I think I know who. I need to get back to my apartment. My therapist pulled my medical files; she tried to tell me but I didn't believe her." He ran a hand down his face in frustration. "That's what Mindraker was saying; that's why he shoved me in that fucking furnace. To reset my brain or whatever." 

Joel stood, seeming to have regained some strength. He paused and patted the chest of his suit. "I need to pick up a change of clothes too. This thing isn't very comfortable to go commando in."