(Roughly four months from when we left off)

What the hell am I even doing in prison? Piper thought to herself I didn't do anything.

Yet, here she was, wearing an obnoxious orange jumpsuit and staring at the gruel that was supposed to be her lunch in Bedrock.

Bedrock was the first of many new prisons specifically designed to house mutants. This place was all over the news a few weeks ago. Senator Octavian had called out for mutant registration, dubbing them monsters. Unfortunately, Senator Octavian was a powerful public speaker and he'd gotten his way. Thanks to over-funding from the government and never-ending support from the public it had been build in only three months, even with several sabotage attacks on construction. Some terrorist group the press had dubbed 'The Brotherhood' had done anything they could to stall construction. But the news stations used them as an example of why the Bedrock needed to be completed, which led to more funding and more support. In the long run, the Brotherhood had probably done more harm then good. When Piper had been arrested, Senator Octavian was announcing a plan for more prisons, and it seemed to go over well with the public.

Senator Octavian had even created a new faction for the military. The Mutant Response Division, or MRD it was called. They were in charge of all things mutant. They were judge, jury, and executioner, unlimited power as far as it concerned mutants. It'd been the MRD that'd showed up in Piper's apartment in the middle of the night, forced her to the ground, cuffed her, slapped a collar on her neck, and shoved her ass in here. They also patrolled the prison as guards, they wore what looked like SWAT team uniforms with tinted helmets so you could never tell one from another. The only difference was a white ID number on their backs.

As Piper walked in the lunchroom a group of boys started whooping at her.

"Damn, look at you."

"Don't you look foxy today, sweetheart."

"You ought to smile, someone's complimenting you!"

She ignored them. Ugh, getting cat-called in a fucking prison, could her life suck any more right now? She sat down at an empty table, rested her head in her forearms, and tried to ignore the world.

But apparently the world didn't want to be ignored because just then she heard someone sit down at her table and start talking to her.

"Look, I'll make this short cause I know you don't wanna hear it. But if you go along with them they'll probably leave you alone."

Piper raised her head. She recognized the skinny Latino guy sitting across from her. He'd been sitting at the table of cat-callers, but he was the only one who ignored her and kept his eyes on his food, like he was ashamed to be seen with those idiots. His name was Leo something-or-other he hung around with some huge muscle-bound dudes. Even though they could probably use his as a toothpick, they seemed to keep him around because he cracked jokes all the time. It defiantly wasn't because he looked intimidating. With maybe four pounds of muscle on him, an impish grin, pointy, elfish ears, and a general face that could've been sixteen (complete with poorly-grown stubble) the most intimidating thing about Leo was how much energy he had. The dude couldn't keep still even if you paid him to.

Maybe that's why Piper felt free enough to speak her mind "Why the fuck would I want to pretend I enjoy being sexually harassed?"

"Because it's better to be harassed then assaulted." Leo shot back quickly "Look, Zeethos just said he was thinking about raping you if you couldn't learn to take a compliment. And trust me, Beauty Queen, he can absolutely do that to you. The guards don't give a flying fuck what we do to each other . So long as at the end of the day we're in our cages."

Piper felt taken aback. Yesterday she wouldn't've thought it was possible for Leo to sound so dead serious

"Look, I can make them back off if I need to. I'm a mutant after all."

Leo smiled like wow you're an idiot "What do you think these collars around our necks are for? New fashion trend? Did I miss an issue of 'Vogue'?"

"You don't have to be rude."

"Then make me stop. Like how you'd make them stop. Use your powers, see if I'm wrong."

Piper didn't want to get agitated. She knew she was playing into this guys hands. But she just wanted to be left alone and she snapped "Leave me-Argh!" a painful electric shock traveled down her body. It was so bad she almost passed out.

"Prisoner number 401372. That is your first warning. Do not attempt to use your mutation again or we will be forced to use excessive force." A monotonous voice boomed over the loudspeaker

"What was that? A slap on the wrist?" She muttered as the spots in her eyes died down

"In here, yeah. Didn't you hear? We're mutants. Technically we're not humans so the guards don't have to treat us like humans." Leo said "The collars measure our vital signs and biochemical activity and stuff like that. It alerts the guards if anyone's using their powers. Step out of line and ZAP! You get a couple volts down your neck."

"So why'd you have me do it?" Piper snapped

"Because your an idiot. This is your first time in the slammer, isn't it?"

"Yeah. You know what? It is. Cause I didn't do anything fucking wrong. The MRD just showed up in my apartment one night and decided I had done something. They said something about using my power to influence my clients or some bull like that. I didn't even know I was a mutant before they showed up!" Piper's voice had gotten louder as she talked and she just realized that people were staring. She turned her attention back to her food.

Leo picked up his bread and bit into it "So what do you do?"

"I just told you, nothing."

"No, not what did you do. What do you do? What's your power?"

Piper sighed, she turned her spoon in her soup slowly "I'm still not really sure. I think hyper-suasion. You know, where I can basically talk you into anything. But there's something else, I'm not entirely sure what it is. It's like, sometimes, I can tell what people are feeling. And I don't just mean if they're happy or sad or anything like that but like a full spectrum analysis of what's wrong with them."

Leo stopped chewing. His eyes got a little wide and Piper didn't need her powers to know she'd freaked him.

"It's crazy inconsistent, though." she assured him "I've got no idea what makes it happen when it does."

Leo was quiet for a minute, then he just said "Can I have your mozzarella sticks?"

"Go ahead." She gave them to him "What about you? Your super-annoying?"

Leo's smile was a combination of devil, mischievous, and painfully sad "Nah, I'm a little more . . . flamboyant then that let's say."

Not exactly what Piper's been hoping for, but she could tell talking about his powers was painful for Leo, (Was her other power working again?) so she changed the subject "And you mentioned this being my first time in the slammer. Like, this wasn't yours. What's the story behind that?"

Leo shrugged "I was fresh out of the system. Needed some fast cash for rent. So I fell in with what you might call 'the wrong crowd' and started dealing. It wasn't anything crazy. I mean, I wasn't using or anything. But we got caught, I served eighteen months and I learned the ropes. Right now, that screw-up is gonna help me survive in here." he explained, then added "I could help you, if you'd like."

Piper thought it over "What do you want?" she asked

"What? Nothing."

"Oh, come on." she replied "I know how deals like this work, no one actually ever just helps someone out of the goodness of their heart. They're after publicity, or a better conscience, usually it's because they want you to owe them. That was you can make 'em do stuff for you. What do you want?"

Leo held up his hands like 'Whoa, chill' "I . . . honestly just thought you were an idiot who could use some help. Look, I've been living amongst low-life's since I was eight. I know how to survive them. I crack jokes, make them like me. Even the worse gangsters will keep a clown around for laughs." he explained "But you, Beauty Queen? You've got your looks. And trust me, you can make them work for you."

"And how exactly do I do that without letting someone, i.e. you, pimp me out?"

"Ah, now we get to playing the system. Whaddaya say, we got a deal?"

"Deal." She shook his hand "My name's Piper, by the way, Piper McLean."

"Leo Valdez. Nice to meet you." he smiled "So, class is in session. First things first, do you smoke?"

"Um, no."

"Good then you won't be tempted." he handed her a pack "Hang on to those. In here, cigarettes are the currency. You'd be surprised what people will give you for a fix. Lots of addicts take up smoking cigarette to try and fill the hole when the state cuts off their supply. They're about as good as real cash in here. Oh, and by the way, this is a one-time-only loan. If you can, write to whoever's waiting for you on the outside and ask them to send you some."

Piper tried to imagine her dad's reaction of she wrote asking for a shipment of cigarettes. But it made her too sad to think about her dad so she pushed it away "Do you smoke?"

"God no. That crap'll mess you up." Leo said "I won those in a poker game the other night. Which reminds me, point numero dos: if cigarettes are the currency, poker games are the shopping center. No one has any real money so we bid whatever we got. One time I saw a girl bid a box of Motrin for blueberry muffins. It was awesome. Do you know how to play?"

Piper cracked a smile "Oh yeah, I can play."

"Well then, there's something you can use." Leo said between bites of his sandwich, he held up three fingers "And numero tres: pick you battles."

He pointed his chin towards the table he'd been sitting at before, which was now having a belching contest.

"See that big guy with the chipped tooth sitting next to Zeethos? That's his brother Cal." Leo continued "The guys dumb as a stack of bricks but he'll do whatever his brother tells him to. Back when they were on the outside Zeethos used Cal as his personal muscle to beat money out of people. I think they were in the mafia but I'm not sure. And that girl over there? Clarisse?" he pointed to another end of the room "She's got bulletproof skin and a nasty temper. Some people say she's got super strength too, but no one knows if it's mutation or she's just on steroids. Some of the people in here could beat your ass seven ways to Sunday without batting an eye."

"They're usually the ones the MRD got right. You weren't the only one falsely imprisoned, trust me. And then we've got no structure to the prisons yet. Senator Octavian needed to prove his point so the MRD just filled in Bed Rock with as many 'criminals' " he made air quotes with his fingers "As they could find. You've got petty thieves mixed with murderers. But the point is, the ones that can hurt you, they're the ones at the top of the food chain. The ones to keep happy. The ones to bribe."

"Bribery?" Piper asked "Is that right?"

Leo threw his head back and laughed like she'd said something hilarious "Look around you, Piper. How much of this is right?I'm looking to survive, not start a church." He had a point. She was sitting in a fucking prison for essentially the crime of talking getting tips on how to avoid getting raped and beaten. Maybe now wasn't the time to act self-righteous.

"Alright, so not right, but smart." She said

"No you're getting it." Leo smiled

Just then the bell rang and the gaurds who'd been standing around the perimeter of the room the whole time started to coral everyone to their cells or wherever they were going.

"Guess we'll pick up tomorrow. I hope you were taking notes." Leo said turning to leave

"Oh, wait." Piper grabbed his arm before he could walk away "Before you go I gotta ask. What did you do? To get locked up I mean."

Leo's face hardened, his jaw set, and he clenched his fists. Maybe it was going out on a limb, but Piper was going to guess she's struck a nerve.

"They said I killed someone." he said evenly

"Did you?

This time it was subtler, if Piper hadn't been who she was she might've missed it. But she saw (well, more felt then saw, really) Leo fill with so much sadness and pain. She saw a little energetic kid that got ripped from his innocence way to younger and shoved into the harshness of reality without so much as a second thought. She saw someone who'd faced one heartbreak, one painful loss after another and grown almost accustomed to how much it hurt, but never would. She saw his loneliness, his bitterness, and his fear. He'd always been given the short end of things in life but it didn't matter because he'd walked on and survived.

Leo shook his head and said, so softly she might've missed it in the commotion, "No."

And Piper believed him. But she also knew he wasn't telling the whole truth.

Ugh, sometimes she hated her powers. Actually, it wasn't even sometimes, she hated her powers. She hated being a mutant. Period.

That's it. Spill." Reyna said plainly

"What?" Jason said as he slid his contacts off and pit on his gold-rimmed glasses

"What's been going on with you lately? You've seemed . . . distant." Reyna had let her hair out of it's usual braid and let if fall down to her waist. She wore sweats and a T-shirt.

"What makes you say that?"

"Do you honestly think I can't tell when something's eating at you, Sparkles?"

"Why did I ever allow you to start calling me 'Sparkles' in the first place? Is there any way we can not have that be a thing?"

"Aw, isn't that cute. He thinks he's getting out of this." Reyna said like she was talking about a kitten "Talk, Grace."

Jason didn't say anything for a bit, so Reyna added "Look, we both know I have less fun ways of making you tell me. I'll let you chose."

Jason sighted "How long have I know you now Reyna? Six years right?"

"Almost seven."

"Right. And in all that time, how many times have you heard me talk about my family." he sat down on the couch

"Twice." Reyna tried to keep a straight face.

Jason didn't look at her, his blue eyes were somewhere else "Well see there's good reason for that."

Finnally! Reyna thought to herself Now we're getting somewhere with this piece of foof. She'd been curious about Jason's origins since the first. But out of respect to his privacy she'd never prodded him about it. She knew from experience how painful some childhoods could be and the want not to talk about them. Still, she'd always felt a little separated from him because of this. The fact that he was finally opening up to her about his childhood made her feel closer to him. Like they'd finally crossed some unseen bridge. She went to sit down next to him.

"I know you heard by now how I was abandoned when I was a kid on a playground. I was seven years old and . . . " He trailed off, he spread his hands helplessly,

Reyna put a reassuring hand on his arm "It's alright," she said softly, worried she'd spook him somehow "Go on."

Jason look at her and smiled softly. He was quiet for a bit, like he was trying to find the words, then suddenly he said "I always thought it was because of . . . well, you know, me being what I am . . . I thought I was scaring them. I never particularly blamed them, I guess. I mean, every time I got a head cold we lost power. Who wouldn't be scared?"

He was quiet for a second. They both knew they were thinning the same thing but neither one wanted to say it out loud. The monsters they killed . . . were they really so different from how Jason described his family? They were just people after all. Cruel, rash, and selfish maybe. But they were, for the most part, just acting out of fear, when it boiled down to it. Should you really blame someone for acting out of fear? Not to mention kill them for it. But if they got to talking about that, they'd be up all night.

"But there's always been something that bothered me." Jason went on "I had a sister, see. Thalia. My mom wasn't really . . . stable I guess you'd say. She was a TV actress, she was a real heavy drinker, always doing publicity stunts, she could never get enough attention. So, Thalia, who was seven years older then me, ended up taking care of me most of the time. Now, I'm gonna tell you a secret. You have to promise not to tell anyone."

"I swear." Reyna said

Jason looked down at his hands and took a deep breath "To tell you the truth, Reyna, I can't even remember my mother's face. I mean, I've seen pictures and stuff. I know what she looked like. But whenever I try to remember her face . . . I can't do it. Thalia's is the only one I can imagine."

But why now? said a voice in Reyna's head Why are you bringing this up now?

"When I was a kid, after they took me away and I came to Wolf House, I used to remember, or, well, I thought I remembered, times when Thalia would get upset and . . . and you could see arcs of electricity go up her arms, like it does with mine! As I got older, I told myself they were just my imagination. She was just a normal person. Who left me at a playground."

"Jason?" Reyna interjected "Where is this coming from?"

Jason smiled a sad sort of smile "You know how I was supposed to talk to that Annabeth girl and Luke what's-his-face the other day because they've been sabotaging the mutant prisons and it didn't go very well?"

"Yeah, what about them?"

"Well when I went to see Annabeth, she was visiting her fiancé Percy in the hospital. He's been in a coma for a few months now and anyway in the bed next to his . . . is Thalia."

"What?"

"Eventually Annabeth noticed I kept looking at her and started telling me about her. Apparently they were friends before Talia want under. And from what she told me Thalia was a real mutant activist. They would go and find young mutants who were being hurt and not leave until they were sure they'd be alright. My sister. And then Annabeth mentioned something else. I don't think I imagined that electricity. I think she was like me."

"Wow, now that's something." Reyna remarked

"Now I just don't know what to think." Jason said "I mean, why would she be scared of me? Why didn't she take me with her when she ran away? Did I do something wrong? I'm so confused! I just . . ." Jason hung his head and signed and hung his head, defeated by his own personal baggage. Reyna took his hand a squeezed it

"What do I do?" he asked aloud

Reyna smiled weakly "I wish I could tell you." she said "But what you do know has to be your decision. I'm not going to give you an easy answer." She squeezed his hand tight again "But you know whatever happens, I'm here for you, right?"

Jason smiled "Yeah I know Rey." he said "But that doesn't make this any easier."

Reyna hugged him. "It's not supposed to be easy. It's family." she said in his ear

"I guess I wouldn't know." Jason said

They broke apart and were quiet for a while, then Reyna said "Jason?"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks. For telling me, I mean."

Jason didn't say anything. He just grabbed the remote, turned on the TV, and rested his head on her shoulder as they watched in silence.

So, there yah go.

I feel like Leo's come across as more serious then he usually is, but I'll fix that when we see them again. I feel like I'm torn between trying to make Leo a more gritty version of himself and moving him crack jokes all the time. You have to remember that Leo's seen some shot in his life. It would surprise me absolutely zero to learn he'd done a few B&E's or stolen a car when he was on the run. And in TLH he mentions hanging around with gangsters.

In honesty I feel like Piper probably would've known about the collars or not have been so easily baited by Leo(or why Leo particularly wanted to bait her into getting electrocuted) but it felt like I needed a moment to illustrate the guards brutality.