A/N: so I'm not quite sure where this came from. Inspired after I read Atlas by prone2dementia (if you haven't read it, go read it. It's really good)

Anyways, enjoy.

Disclaimer: none of it belongs to me.

***

You know of Rider. Everyone does, even if they have never spoken two words to him. He's the social outcast of your school. The universal punching bag, as it were. Or he would be if he didn't have a tendency to hit back harder than you would have thought possible. You know everyone is scared of him and this translates to snide comments, undeserved mockery. For anyone else, you would step in, stand up for them, say it isn't fair. But this is Rider. He's infamous in your school, a sort of notorious celebrity, a legend. And everyone knows that legends aren't really human. He's... something else. He's different from you. From the entire school.

The younger years avoid him like the plague, terrified. Just his presence can clear a corridor of them in seconds. But the older years turn on him. He can hold his own. He's not just going to let you walk all over him, you know, but none of it ever seems to affect him. No matter what is said or done, his face remains expressionless. Inhuman.

You think you've heard all the rumours, though there are so many it's hard to be sure. Someone's brother was convinced they saw him in an underground fight. Someone else thinks they caught a glimpse of him on the news. Many people say they saw him running from suited men, although the date always seems to change. Others say that no, he didn't run from them, he fought them. Six figures, no twelve – all dressed in black.

A girl in your class says that her sister's friend saw him get shot on Liverpool Street. You're pretty sure that that's just hearsay. If he'd been shot he would be dead, right?

Occasionally, people catch glimpses of him with grown men with fierce expressions and muscles like a wrestler. Some say they're soldiers, others his criminal friends.

It's a fact that he takes drugs, even though no one has proof. It's a fact that he's been in trouble with the police. It's a fact that he's mixed up in some sort of gang.

His parents are dead, his uncle is dead. His guardian died about a month ago. His only friend was in hospital right now, having been in a car crash.

It's a fact that Alex Rider is dangerous to be around.

You avoid him.

You never expected to find him hear.

You never expected, but it is unmistakably him, crouched down in the dirt beneath the trees, moonlight glinting of the tears that streak across his face. He gazes unseeingly into the dark and it shocks you. He is usually so aware of his surroundings, but now he doesn't even seem to realise that the damp of the earth is slowly seeping into his trousers. It seems almost too dark to be just that small amount of water, but there is no other explanation.

His face is pale and he looks broken. He is infamous, a storybook villain out of a million rumours taken as fact and yet you suddenly realise the truth.

He's no villain. He's no hero, either. Half those things aren't true and the other half probably only have the barest grounding in facts, taken out of context to start with.

He's not someone who can be pushed into the background as just part of Brooklands. Not just the social outcast.

In that instant, you see him as he really is: human.

Quietly, you slip away, vowing to yourself that next time, whether it's tomorrow, or the day after, or next year, next time you'll step in. Next time you'll stop them taunting him.

The vow is forgotten before you leave the trees. After all, it's just Rider.