"Is this a prank, Leonhart?" I asked, after hearing the story that pathetic kid hero, Leonhart, had told me by the phone.

"No... please... I need help" Leonhart was blubbering. He was cold, hungry and desperate. I knew that feeling oh too well... I'm not exactly the kind of guy who went into villainy out of psychopathy after all.

"Why me?" I asked. "You have a league, right?"

"They... their base is on space, the pods only go up and down by day, I just need a place to stay tonight and then I'll go away..." Leonhart says.

"Why me?" I ask again. But it's for another reason. "I torture your friends and league partners with mind rape on a weekly basis just because they get in my way. Why would you ever trust me?"

"I don't know... ever since we met, I felt like... you looked like a grandpa. I miss mine. He was a good man. After he died, I was left with them. And now they kicked me out"

Ouch. I became a mafia boss, but I was unusually nice, I only did lesser crimes and made sure to only harm the guilty. It was after I lost my wife and my infant son that I grew colder and into the terrain of supervillainy, with genetic experiments and illegal mutations on the guys on my payroll. I had the wish everyone has of being a parent and then a grandparent taken away from me by some rival mafia, and now this hero kid who should hate my guts confesses that he's calling me after his world crumbled around him because he sees me as grandpa material. I grip my phone and mutter.

"I'm geolocalizing you. A black car will arrive soon after. You'll stay with me, but you have to leave the League" I say. The kid goes silent. "Relax, I won't force you to dabble into my illegal businesses. You'll just quit being a superhero and turn into a regular kid that just happens to have powers"

"Why?" The kid asked.

"How do you expect to save a world that won't even give you the time of day?" I ask, knowing damn too well that this was the question I gave myself when I lost Dalia and Ken.

"Because that way I'll make a world that welcomes everyone with open arms" The kid says.

Damn. That almost makes me not want to pick him up.

Almost.

Perhaps I'm just a bit raw because of the "grandpa" comment.