Yes the title is a reference to Dear Even Hansen, before you ask. I felt it was needed. If you don't know what that is, go live your life, look it up.

The night was darker than I remembered.

Not the sky per say, though that as well, but even though as the cold seeped though my jacket like it was a fishing net I found myself hesitating and obsessively pulling apart the smallest details. Like being outside for the first time in years and not being sure if the entire world was going to attack.

The information that Thalia had given was extremely vague, but I would find no use in knowing or asking, she obviously didn't want to talk about it over a cellular device where you never knew who could be watching. Now, I was regretting that decision, because she had told me to come armed and I wasn't sure if someone was after me. The thought process of looking for danger was more complicated when you didn't know what that danger was. Having thoughts like 'Was that an actual baby in the stroller, or a high powered machine gun' was not helping in the least.

So, doing the smart thing for once, I climbed a building and watched the streets for a speck of black hair in the night walking across the entrance to the bridge. I vaguely remembered a quote on how frequently said bridge was blown up, but ignoring the statistic seemed like the best course of action for a bad case of inherited paranoia. Sitting still and waiting seemed like the best course of action, though a very vapid one.

"Leo, what's the time." I asked, curling my knees into my chest. Watching the hordes of people with calculating eyes. None of them looked up, but I guess they learned not to in Gotham.

"It is 8:53 sir, an aproxímate 6 minuets 26 milliseconds from the time set." The AI chimed. I sighed.

"We've got to work on your definition of aproxímate, buddy." I folded my hands under the folds of my jacket, trying to keep whatever remaining warmth I had.

"Negative, sir. I have access to all dictionaries. Approximate's meaning is close to the actual, but not completely accurate or exact. I didn't include centiseconds, making the calculation significantly more vague." If an AI could argue, it would have been this one.

"Whatever you say." I drawled. I was getting distracted, loosing my focus on the crowd.

Leo didn't respond, thankfully, and I tried to mentally prepare myself for human interaction. If I didn't, then I would most likely come off as more of a constipated orangutan than a cool rebellious semi-functional superhero. Well, in retrospect, the monkey would have been more preferable.

I tried to pull my knees closer to my chest in vain, it was cold and my face was beginning to burn from the wind, to the point where I could no longer feel my nose as I wiped it. Leo confirmed that it was past nine and I was about to call it quits but a figure walking down the side of the bridge stopped me.

Someone limping, black hoodie, holding their side. Someone obviously in pain, with a spike of hair peaking out of the front that shined off the street light.

I looked behind me, a block from the main road was an abandoned house that had been condemned as architecturally unstable due to age and the family had been evicted. The city hadn't torn it down yet. It was perfect for secretly meeting up for shady things, which is why I set up a hide away in the basement.

I jumped to my feet, relishing in excuse to get moving and loosing out the joints that had felt like they were frozen solid. The top floors fire escape was only seven or so feet from the roof, flying down it and jumping quietly towards the asphalt seemed like the most mundane thing today, that caused a severe revaluation of my life that would no doubt be pushed off till in third period tomorrow.

Now was game time.

"C'mon Leo, lets make like my self esteem and go invisible." Low blow to myself, to bad no one was there to here myself get burned.

Like a proper I.A. Leo did as he was told and sent out the compressed suit technology that began to travel like water up my arm and encompassing me in a hole of black that began to fade like you were looking at normal air. If I subconsciously strutted out of the alley with the confidence of a paper thin model eating a salad, well, no one could exactly judge. You know, invisibility.

I took off in a sprint towards her slightly hunched figure attempting to look normal walking down the sidewalk. I pursed my lips watching her, the way she was tensed, she was in heavy pain. I caught up and began to walk beside her, attempting to get a look at her face, it was motionless, as if she was a wall of bricks that you were waiting to slam into.

I tapped her on the shoulder after hesitating for a few moments, she wanted to talk, we were going to talk. She wiped her head around, looking for the culprit that I already knew wasn't going to be there. Because the culprit was me, and I was invisible.

Looking at her now, I could see her more clearly, her eyes were sunk, soulless, hollow. There was a bruise that was swollen a popping out on her cheekbone and a split lip that was still bleeding. Her asking me to come armed made more sense now.

I grabbed her wrist and tugged her to the side, into an empty alleyway, a shortcut to the place. She was startled to say the least, angry and frustrated to say the most, but deep tiredness was visibly clear. She did not want to get into another fight tonight.

"Follow." Was all I said.

Her head whipped around to where I stood, realization setting into her features, she parted her lips as if to speak but I pulled her hand deeper into the alleyway, walking though. She took a breath and let herself be led wordlessly. No sarcastic response, no rants about her dark unraveled plan. She really must be tired.

I walked through the path of back ways that I had memorized in my dreams, some of the nicer ways of Robinsville, less dangerous than other places in Gotham. Soon, alleys turned into housing districts and I was pulling her though the back door of the abandoned house, shutting all the blinds and activating a minimal distance electromagnetic pulse that would take out any bugs inside the place that may have found their way in. All deactivating my suit, which pulled back faster than it had came out back into the ring.

She collapsed on a couch, groaning and pulling her hand away from her abdomen. I watched as she pulled it away bloodied, the red staining her palms and soaking into her ripped up Death to Barbie T shirt. I wordlessly bent over under the kitchen where I had stocked one of many first aid kits.

She had the audacity to look trepidatious as a pulled out a needle and started movements toward examining her abdomen. She glanced at me like a wounded animal that was full of rage, which wasn't far from the truth, and began to pull her self upright.

"I don't need your help." She growled, wincing after she attempted to shift.

"Bull, your bleeding out on my sofa from what looks like a knife wound, looking like shit mind you, and telling me that you would rather stick a needle into your skin around 12 times based on the size that wound and not immediately pass out and let me handle your fudging injuries. Stay the fuck still and let me help you."

She blinked at me, the most coherent I had seen her, her eyes softened into something more of a calculating stare than stubborn anger.

"Jesus, you have a mouth on you. It's so weird coming from a 9 year old." I glared.

"I know graphic and offensive curses in 57 languages, fully fluent in 17 of them and yet I'm wasting my breath on explaining to you that I rarely let myself be a 9 year old." I took the antiseptic and poured it generously into the wound, she would have responded if she wasn't to busy clenching her teeth in pain. I quickly pulled on the pair of blue gloves

I took a lighter and touched the flame to the sides of the needle, sterilizing it. I stared at her quizzically, once her vision cleared and she saw me ready, she took a deep breath and nodded. When the needle pierced her skin she tensed and let her face fall into stone once again, breathing heavily through the pain.

"Relax, I know it hurts but you're too tense. Focus on your breathing." Her eyes flashed in indignation for a moment before she took the advice and leaned into the couch. I continued and pulled the wired thread gently through her skin.

I made a silent noise of frustration in examining the wound further, the black fabric getting in the way.

"I'm going to have to cut the shirt off, or would you rather try and pull it off." She winced as she tries to lift her arm, face flaming red. That could off been from exertion, embarrassment or the other thing that would remain to go unmentioned.

"I can't lift my arm." She admitted, still breathing hard. "Just cut it off."

I breathed out a sigh and grabbed the sterile metal scissors from the box. I positioned them to the bottom hem of her hoodie before hesitating and looking up.

"If it makes you feel better, I'm probably gay, and you know, nine." She huffed and glared but it seemed to help the awkwardness.

"Shut the fuck up Jackson." I rolled my eyes.

A few minuets later she was angrily clenching her fists while a inserted the needle into her skin for the final time, tying the ends together. After I slapped a giant Band-Aid on the wound, I got up, throwing the unused thread in the trash and pealing off the gloves. Thalia sunk further into the couch as I yawned loudly and stretched, eyes half lidded.

I turned toward her, head cocked to the side in question. She blinked slowly, her bright electric blue eyes not as angry as they were when they first met, but tired. I could tell it wasn't just the loss of blood, she was tired.

I could relate.

"Who did this?" She squeezed her eyes shut tight, unclenching and clenching her fists.

"My brother." Her jaw was tight.

"Oh." Shit.

"Yeah, Ares tends to be an asshole. Especially when you're trying to kill his dad. Doesn't matter if it happens to be your dad also." She huffed dryly. "Zeus follows Kronos around like a hopeless puppy, he would actually be useful to him if he could actually keep it in his pants."

"That's useful information." I shook my head to get rid of any lingering images. "Are we in danger?" She blinked again, like the words were to fast for her to process.

"We're always in danger." I glared a little and she sighed, relenting. "At the moment? No, he left me die, but not smart enough to figure out that the place he punctured was one of the few that would damage no vital organs, he thinks I'm dead..."

Her voice died off, filled with drowsy, lightheaded mumbling.

"Than sleep here, I'll stay on watch and activate the lasers. We'll talk in the morning." The words fell on deaf ears and I swallowed, feeling like I should have brought way more than a few knives.

Eventually, her breathing evened out and her eyes were no longer open. I sat on the edge of the couch and stared into the dark living room. Shooting Bruce a text that I'd be gone for the night, an emergency.

---

By the time she came around it was late in the morning. Around 11 or so, but the sun had been showing through the curtains for hours already.

I had struggled to keep my eyes open for the night, and finally stoped staring at the wall after and hour and dug out a copy of To Kill a Mockingbird from a bookshelf in the living room, but I finished reading it 7 hours ago. So I then migrated to a worn copy of Macbeth, which was better than reading War and Peace.

Thalia on the other hand, did not seem to enjoy her night of sleeping like the dead. She woke with a pained groan that had me wincing in sympathy. She had slept so heavily at one point I was worried she had slipped into a coma while I was preoccupied internally pointing out symbols and themes like a fucking nerd.