It had been a long few weeks, and not in the sense that he'd been busy; it had been long because sitting in a hospital doing nothing but healing was just about the most boring thing you Saph could imagine. Needless to say, he was glad to be home.

They'd told him to take it easy on the way out; Andrea's little healing boost took care of most of the damage, but he'd still been shot. Was he paying any heed to that advice? Nope. First day back, first security shift open. As he walked down the halls of the school on the way to his shift, he found himself eyeing the walls, dark areas, and corners of the room for bugs.

Part of him hated that... That someone could affect how he felt when he entered a room. God he had to kill that son of a #$%^#.

He took a deep breath as he rounded the corner to a locker he kept in the hall across from the security office. They were there for the students, but he liked to have easy access to his equipment nearby, so he didn't have to carry stuff all the way across the mansion.

The Masochist stopped in front of his locker, and rubbed his sore ribs with one hand as he opened up the little door with the other.

The gruff looking mutant stared at the contents of the little box for a moment, blinking once before flushing just a bit, and reaching to grab and remove a small slip of paper from the inside. He stared at the note, which exclaimed I Know Your Secret! boldly to him.

"@#%$..." He muttered under his breath.

There was only one great secret that he had, and it wasn't one he wanted anyone to know. Hence it being a secret.

He clutched the note to his chest, and looked around urgently to see if anyone was watching. Nothing. He crumpled the note up, and shoved it in his coat. Who ever put this here made... A HUGE... Mistake.

This whole building was under surveillance.

The X-Man spent the next two hours watching footage on fast forward to see who he was abot to have a nice looooong chat with.

> "@#%$..."

"I knew it!"

Leo was watching the live feed on his phone. A lonely looking button sat on top of the lockers. A button that was actually a bluetooth camera purchased in order to live stream some of his detention duties around the Mansion, specifically when he'd been asked to open the X-men's fan mail.

The revenue generated from the ViewTube ad hits on that one had just barely covered the cost of the button camera which made it ENTIRELY WORTH IT.

"I'll have to bleep that out." But the reaction was about as good as he'd been hoping.

Saph was clearly a man with a secret life. He was also up against a kid who'd thought this through at least as far as the security footage went.

He'd had to get permission to both shoot footage and gather security footage in the school for his documentary. Those pesky Birdwatchers, no matter how many times they posted on Audubon X that they were CREEPING on CHILDREN, still sometimes camped outside like paparazzi. But he'd wanted to get a copy of the moment when the crazy lady had thrown the Mansion gate at them. That meant he got permission to mess with the digital files. Aaaand it was just convenient to delete an hour of interior footage around Saph's not-so secret locker. No harm done. Plenty of people in and out. He figured he was good.

He did not, however, think to go back and erase the part where he went to fetch his button.

A secret life confirmed! He couldn't share until he'd confirmed it, but it was pretty well cemented in Leo's opinion.

Saphirus the "Masochist" was also TankTop Tiger, the goofy villain who could take punches all day. 100% confirmed as soon as he'd said a bad word!

Leo would have to leave another note. Maybe in 3T's shoe. Or his breakfast. And of course, there'd have to be a good spot for his little button camera.

Saphirus' eyes were red, and itchy from lack of sleep. He'd been watching the security backlog. For. Hours.

One thing was certain. Someone had managed to delete an hour of security footage from the records. This had never happened before, as far as he was concerned. He'd actually missed it the first time, but his perseverance paid off when he'd been rewinding it, and there was a sudden jump in the image. The time stamp confirmed it.

Who the hell had done that?

He wasn't exactly a computer guru himself, but he knew the security program they used, and it had a list of people authorized to access it. Provided their expensive security system hadn't been hacked, it had to have been done by someone on that list.

He recognized a few of the logged people easily; fellow mansion security workers... There were a few names he didn't recognize, though.

Those were his leads.

For now, he needed to turn in. He'd been feeling easily winded since getting back from the hospital. Even sitting in the control room stressing about this stuff was making him short of breath...

He wrote down his short list of names, and then stood to head to bed.

* * *

The next morning, when he opened the door to his room, and stepped out to start his day, he felt a crinkle of paper beneath his feet. The well built mutant reached down slowly while rubbing his sleepy eyes.

After a beat, he cursed loudly, and spun, tearing up the little piece of paper, and throwing it into his room, slamming the door behind him.

He was going to find this @#$% out NOW. There had to be footage of someone placing this note!

Leo hummed some Beyonce to himself as he went to visit the button he'd left to record in front of TankTop Tiger's doorway.

The note was gone. He'd watched Saph scoop it up when he checked his recordings from overnight. That was good because the first time he'd tried to leave a note, DJ Roomba had sucked it up. Leo unpinned his button from the hallway bulletin board and pocketed the "Did you lose a button?" note he'd scribbled to explain why it was there in the first place.

Where should he pester TankTop next? Would he let it slip when Leo confronted him? He certainly looked miffed in the footage, but annoyed was good. This was a good guy with a shady side-job, so he was still mainly good, right? Leo was counting on his goodness to counteract his love affair with violence.

Was there a way to guarantee Saph would keep his death mitts to himself?

Leo pondered the angles as he pinned the button back onto his vest. He may have archived the footage of him placing the note and button same as last time, but he certainly wasn't there to scrub his current visit to Saph's hall way for the button pick up. Just as he didn't bother to archive the footage of his pick up last time.

He'd insisted on working someone else's security shift today... He needed access to the cameras. He hadn't been sleeping well, partly because Shelby'd been away a bit more, but mostly because he was stressing over... well, this!

He reviewed the footage again. Another skip from the night before. Who ever had done this had already had a chance to get in, edit out that time clip, and get out. A slightly shaky hand reached for his coffee, pulling it to his lips, and taking a long sip. Were they going to blackmail him? Was that it? Clearly, there was a goal in mind, here, or everyone would already know he was the Judge.

So what was this person's game? He shook his head. No sense worrying about it before he pinned this @#$%er down. He watched the footage again for any hints, cursing under his breath as, once again, nothing stood out. The list of approved admins left things a bit up in the air, too, as he didn't have a quick way of narrowing things down.

He skipped back again, and then shook his head, turning to grab his coffee once more. A shaky hand accidentally knocked the cup onto the floor. With a curse he jumped up to clean it up, accidentally knocking the fast forward button as he reached for some napkins.

Once he'd fixed the mess, he got settled back in, and realized he'd fat fingered the control panel. "Aww, dammit..." Wait... Something seemed a bit odd on where he'd landed. He pressed play, tilting his head a bit as he watched a kid messing with the bulletin board. What was he doing? Grabbing something from the board? Why didn't that sit well with him?

He brought up the other video log, skipping through it a bit until he landed on that same kid near his locker... That was it... He'd thought it a bit weird he was hanging about before, but had dismissed it. He'd been grabbing something before, too.

Something small.

Saphirus stared for another few moments... Was he being crazy? Was some kid really worth looking in to?

He closed his eyes tightly, sighed, and opened them, looking at the permissions list once more, and pulling up the profiles attached to them. Well... that did it... Third down on the list was a student.

Leo De Valdenebro. His profile picture shared the same mug as the one in the security footage... Was this his would-be blackmailer?

He'd have to find out.

The X-Man smiled a bit, eyeing the clock. Classes were on. He was in, what, home ec, or something? He looked up the class lists right quick, spotted where he was, and picked up the phone, dialing that room.

A quick conversation later, and the teacher would be sending him in to report to the security office for some 'extra curricular systems training'.

While he waited, he kept himself busy finding out everything about this kid that he could.

Leo already knew how to ruin a home cooked dinner. The class was clustered around the stove in the Mansion kitchen which was a really, really lame field trip if anyone bothered to ask Leo. But no one bothered to ask Leo. So he hung back and fiddled with his smartphone on the downlow. This was New York, king of the take out world and the teachers wanted to teach them how to cook for themselves? Total waste.

The phone on the wall rang and the teacher left the kids to baby sit the stove.

"Constantly. You're not stirring constantly enough."
"Dude. Back off!"

Glueboy hawked a glu-oogey at the kid who'd challenged his stirring skills and they were still slapping at each other where the teacher couldn't see by the time the teacher was back to paying attention again.

"Leo. They need you in security for extra curricular systems training so you are excused. Why now? Only DJ Roomba knows." The teacher threw up her hands and dismissed the teen before moving in to separate the two squabbling teens.

Aw Man. They probably found the footage he'd archived or needed help putting it back into the CCTV timeline. He hadn't dared delete it for good. He didn't want to get expelled or anything. And there was the whole pestering Saph thing. He did expect to get detention for that. At least Leo knew enough to not expect any additional permissions. The training had to be for their benefit.

Did he need his button? Maybe if they tried to blackmail him...? Nah. This was the Mansion. These were the good guys.

Leo rolled the camera between the fingers of his left hand while he scrolled through Audubon X with his right— admins couldn't be caught sleeping on a mutant interest forum. And he took his time getting to the security room, knocking once before opening the door.

"What can I he-" a slight hesitation, but it was there "-lp you with, Mister Masochist?" This was definitely the moment. Leo tabbed over to hit record and slipped his phone into his pocket.

Now... how was he supposed to hold the camera without being all kinds of suspicious?

There was a modest amount of information on this kid in the database. He was completely human, which was a rarity at the mansion, but didn't seem to have any trouble making friends and getting into trouble. He was a regular participant in detention. He had strong convictions as well... Why would someone like that resort to blackmail? How did he know about the Judge?

The door opened.

"What can I he-" Slight pause. Note worthy."-lp you with, Mister Masochist?"

The game was afoot. Saphirus stood and gave a welcoming smile, and held out a hand to shake. His grip would be quite firm, but not enough to hurt; it was enough to say 'I could break you, but I haven't yet.' He chuckled a bit at the super hero name usage. "you can call me Saph. Uniform ain't on, eh? Nice to meet you Leo." He motioned to a chair he had set up next to the security station.

"Here, have a seat. I wanna talk with you, if that's cool." He would sit only after Leo himself did, and his gesture was gently commanding, as if politely declining was out of the question.

He would then get to typing away at the terminals to bring up the areas in which the footage was missing. "You got an idea of what I've called you in for, kid?"

He could break Leo. Oh yes. And so could 50% of the children under this roof. He'd gotten a little too used to working around other's powers.

"Sure thing, Mr. Saph." It never hurt to be obnoxious polite. Button, button, what the heck was he supposed to do with the button? Leo jabbed it onto his shirt and jumped when it pricked through the fabric and into him. Aye. The things he did for entertainment.

Sitting. Sure. Yeah. There was totally not aaaaanything suspicious about Mr. Saph's behavior. He wasn't screaming guilty... yet, but Leo could just about smell it on him. So, yeah. He did know what this was about. He slouched in his seat to maybe accommodate the camera angle. He was getting better at anticipating where his button was pointing.

"Did you install that Yahoo! toolbar again? That crap's full of malware. I can uninstall it for you, no problemo." No problemo? Ugh. So 90's. He really should not have watched "Clueless" in the common room last night.

The kid fussed with a button he'd been carrying, jabbing himself with it a bit while putting it on his shirt. He ignored the somewhat odd behavior, for now. Who wore buttons anymore? What, was he stuck in the 90's?

"Did you install that Yahoo! toolbar again? That crap's full of malware. I can uninstall it for you, no problemo."

Oh... He was stuck in the 90's.

"Heh, no. Look, Leo, I ain't going to beat around the bush, here. Only a few people have access to the digital recordings the security cameras in the mansion take. Recently, some of that footage has gone missing from the logs. Everyone else on the permissions list checks out. You... Don't." He ran the two logs side by side, on a loop, where the footage was missing.

"You wanna tell me what's going on, here?" He watched carefully for a reaction. He was stretching the truth a bit when he said that everyone else checked out. He still hadn't looked into a couple of other leads... They were less likely to lead anywhere, though; One had been across the state on vacation, and the other was so busy they would have to be working miracles to find the time to get in and manipulate the logs. No... It had to be Leo who edited the footage. From there, it was a short leap of logic to say that he also left that note.

Saphirus was still trying to think of what he would do with the kid when he confirmed his suspicions.

Ain't. Leo's eye twitched. Mr. Saph just said "ain't" non-ironically.

"I can't be the only one who doesn't check out Mr. Saph." Leo maintained direct eye contact. If this was a mental intimidation game, it wasn't going to work. After all, Mr. Saph was on that list too and both of them knew that he had a dirty little secret.

So. Would Leo like to tell Mr. Saph what was going on? Yeah. But dramatic effect demanded that he get Saph to admit it for himself.

"I think you know exactly what's going on." Leo spared a glance for the computer screen and its split footage. After all, the thing that showed the same on both screens was that some time after the blip there was Saph receiving a little note. The timing didn't match up perfectly, it'd been some hours between the placement and the receipt, but he should know what Leo was talking about.

"Why don't you just say it and we can both move forward from there." He should be ashamed of his double life with its double standards.

He missed the eye twitch looking between the cameras and the kid. Once he realized that the boy was doing the thrice patented eye drill technique, he returned the stare in kind.

His tone changed. It was more serious. A true face behind an innocent facade? Who was this kid, really? His background seemed innocent enough, but maybe... just maybe he wasn't what he appeared to be.

Why else would a human try so hard to get into an exclusive mutant school?

He was jumping to conclusions. The tactful teen had confirmed one thing, though. He was the suspect. He knew his secret. The question was... What did they do from here?

Saph watched him for a few seconds, blank faced as he stared. He then sighed deeply.

"Yes... It means that you have been the one harassing me. Leaving notes lying around for me to find. What I want to know... is why?" Yep. Step one, play dumb. If he knew, without a shadow of a doubt, he was the Judge, why hadn't he already been blackmailed? Why hadn't that information found it's way to one of the many people who would love to get some revenge on him? People would pay a lot for that information.

"Why have you been stalking me, kid?"

His eyes landed on the button, and a shadow of suspicious was cast... Why did it make him feel uneasy? He ignored it. If he could get Leo to play his whole hand he could see what his course of action would be.

Harass- Leo internally reeled. Harassing Saph!?

"Are you-" Nope. Nope. Noooooo. Leo shut down that line of questioning. He was not going to call someone who could turn him into toothpaste any names or insult any of his lacking intelligence. So he pivoted on a whim to the exact next thing that popped into his head. "-suffering from dissociative identity disorder, Mr. Saph?"

His eyes and eyebrows asked what his lips would not. Did Saph know what that meant?

"There are many helpful resources set up for, uhm, those who were on the side of vigilante justice? Yeah?" He would give him the easy way out because Leo did NOT want to corner Saph. Cornered men did crazy things. Cornered mutants turned to murder.

Leo prayed to St Francis that he'd get something useable and not get dead. Surely the patron saint of journalists would help a guy out.

And the stalking thing? Eh. Maybe he was getting too used to hearing that. Leo let the accusation roll off of him like water. He had found his zen.

Well, the H word got a reaction. He'd done well not to openly balk, but Saph had been around enough to know when someone was emotionally affected. This kid didn't want that label attached to him. Stalker? Fine, apparently? Harasser? That was going too far. What else did you call someone who oh so kindly let you know that they knew something that could tear your life apart?

He stared blankly as the man asked him if he... had... dissociative identitive disorder? "Uh... What?" He went on to explain something he already knew; being a super hero was emotionally stressful. There were people who went out of their way to help people like him deal with that stress. It wasn't news to him.

He looked to the computer, and googled it very quickly. He was never shy about the fact that he didn't possess much in the way of book smarts. He was working on that.

"You, uh... Think I have multiple personalities." He looked back at Leo. "Is... Is that why you've been leaving me notes? What the hell would make you think that?" This now made... zero sense to him. What kind of sick rabbit hole had this kid just lured him into?

He switched back to the camera loop again, pausing as the two synced up on the moment that Leo entered the frame... To grab something. Something small... Instinctively, he reached up to freeze the frame, staring at it.

What was he grabbing?

"Ok. Look. knowing that help is out there is way, way different than—" Oh. He was... wow. Literally googling Dissociative Identity Disorder. Now Leo just felt sad for him. "—knowing you, personally, can get help. Don't look at Web MD, dude. It's just going to convince you that you have cancer."

Dr. Google was a helpful and terrifying asset.

So was Leo going to admit to leaving the notes? Ugh. Only after he got done facepalming.

"Look. I wanted to put the pressure on to see if you really are two people. Like seriously, the evidence is stacking up, man, so you can't outrun this forever. But I'm not convinced you don't just, like, need help."

Tanktop Tiger was not the nicest guy. Not that the X's were always nice, but he always had this set of ideals that the X's mostly held to. Triple T? Not so much. "I mean. Your alter ego is a bit... rough around the edges." Not that Masochist wasn't...

Leo was still talking. Saphirus registered what he was saying, barely. It was round. He could only really make it out on the bulletin board video... His eyes tracked to the pin on the boy's chest again. Yeah... That was it... But... Why would he be hiding that all over, and grabbing it after the fact?

Leo came out and mentioned his alter ego. His eyes narrowed.

Slowly, he reached over, and clicked a button on the computer. The security system began resetting. It was a weekly maintenance task. It conveniently left a five minute gap in security coverage. Eyes were off of them.

"Rough around the edges, huh?" He reached up to scratch the side if his head, and then turned back to Leo, his eyes cold and hard. "You'll have to be more specific... You see... I don't know what the #$%^ you're talking about." He looked down to the pin once more.

"I do know... That it's illegal to record people in this state without their permission. That's what you're doin, ain't it? That's what that." He reached out to place a finger on the pin. "Little guy right there is..." It wasn't a huge jump of logic, was it? Place the notes, record the reaction, grab the camera afterward... His reaction alone would make him look suspicious. He'd played right into it, too.

Damn... What was he going to do? The way he saw it... He had a couple options... None of them were good.

He could silence the kid. Through what? Intimidation? Killing him? Heaven forbid a human goes to a mutant school and winds up dead. That would go over well. He could give in... Say his goodbyes to the life he'd created here, and likely end up with multiple life sentences in the prison system.

Maybe that was for the best. Maybe he was insane. All he could think to do right this second was to find out how screwed he was, and try to discredit this little punk.