He really just needed some space, and pop tarts. Leo browsed through the isles of the deli searching for different types of junk food and contemplating life, ya know, as you do. As he mindlessly browsed shelves of Twinkies and Cheetos, he thought ruefully about the events of earlier today.

Wedged between the engine and the hull Leo could still hear Piper and Jason being disgustingly couplely. He crawled deeper into the tiny crevasse and pulled open a service panel to fix the syncopator.

After finally fixing it, Leo steeled himself to face his friends then wiggled out of the crawl space.

Piper was curled up in Jason's lap and running her hands through his hair, laughing at something he said. Leo cleared his throat and they both looked up,

"Hey Leo!" said Jason, "You finished?"

"Yep, you guys want to hang out? Maybe sneak out of camp and grab some burgers?"

Piper stood up and looked sheepish, "Sorry Leo, Jason and I have plans. Maybe next time."

Leo felt his spirits fall, "Yeah, sure guys, you have fun." He watched as his two best friends walked off holding hands to do something without him. As always.

He couldn't deal with this now, he spent the last 13 hours working on the syncopator with Piper and Jason coming in periodically with food and moral support.

Now he just needed some time with friends. Not like he was going to get it. Instead he settled for the next best thing, junk food.

Leo finally came across what he needed most in this moment, Blue Raspberry Pop-tarts. He grinned as he pulled several boxes of the square shaped pieces of heaven off the shelf.

Finally things were looking up for Leo as he searched the rest of the isles for whipped cream.

Leo was too busy daydreaming about pop-tarts with whipped cream, to notice several hulking humanoids enter the store, until he heard a loud crash and poked his head around the shelf to see several cyclopses with bats knock over the cash register.

Shit, he thought as one of the cyclopses leveled his spiked bat at the cashier and demand in a raspy voice, "Where's the demigod?"

Leo slid back behind the shelf and started to think of a plan. The cyclopses were there for him, probably to eat him as a tasty snack. He couldn't let the hurt the mortals, or his pop-tarts. His slipped the box of deliciousness into his tool belt and started to build.

He fumbled around in his tool belt for a few seconds before pulling out a small pneumatic nail gun, several hand sized container of pressurized air, tubing and some duct tape. He quickly slapped together a connector for all the pressurized air, cause one tank would only allow a few shots. He also deactivated the safety on the nail gun, then leaned around the shelves and aimed at the lead cyclops.

He shot the cyclops right in the back of the neck. It roared in pain then whirled around to face its new assailant.

As soon as the huge monster turned to face Leo, he aimed again and shot it right in the eye. It wailed in pain and stumbled around blind.

Leo was just congratulating himself when the other cyclops charged at him and smacked him into the frozen food aisle. That all would have been fine if it hadn't startled Leo so much. His hand holding the pressurized air tubes caught fire and burned through the tubing.

The pressurized air caught fire and exploded, blasting Leo back.

His ears were ringing and his side ached. Leo sat up and rubbed his head.

The deli was on fire. The cyclopses were no where to be seen.

Leo stumbled out of the burning deli and onto the street. He was just about to check on his pop-tarts when he realized that the deli was surrounded by cop cars.

Shit. He backed away and one of the cops came forward. This one was in normal clothes, probably a detective. She was wearing a black leather jacket and black jeans. Her curly black hair hung around her face which was fixed in a permanent scowl. She scared him, a lot.

She stepped towards Leo, "Kid, put your hand in the air!"

Leo did as he was told and one of the cops came over and snapped cuffs on his wrist.

Really? I just wanted pop-tarts!

Rosa Diaz sat down at her desk after getting a cup of coffee and sized up the kid who she had brought in today for blowing up a deli. He was a scrawny boy with curly black hair and an impish grin. Like he was about to stick a firecracker down someones shirt.

The boy was wearing a white collared shirt and jeans which were both covered in grease and machine oil stains. He had a tool belt, but it had been confiscated.

At the moment he was tilting his chair back on two legs and fiddling with the handcuffs which bound his wrists to the arm of his chair.

Her assessment of the teenager was cut short as Terry tapped her on the shoulder, "Briefing room now."

Jake put his legs up on the table and leaned back, "If this is about the squirrels in my desk there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for that."

Holt sat forward, "No this is about the ... Wait you have squirrels living in your desk?"

"What? No. Who told you that?" Jake responded with a nervous laugh.

Holt moved on after a brief pause, "No, Peralta, we are here to discuss the teenager Diaz brought in."

Rosa sat forward, "This kid supposedly set fire to a deli."

Charles stopped her, "Wait, What deli? Please tell me its not Harry's Deli!"

Rosa rolled her eyes, "No it was Aaron's. But that's not the point. The problem with this case is that camera's show that three men entered the deli and started to rob it. The kid shot at them with a nail gun that came out of no where, then disappeared, and then he blew up the pressurized air containers without any accelerant. After that the three men just disappeared without a trace. The only thing recovered from the scene was several piles of strange dust."

"That's weird" remarked Jake.

"Exactly." responded Terry, "And that's not only it. We ran his prints and this kid has a history."

"So we need to take this very seriously. The boy could be dangerous" said Holt, "Detective Santiago and Peralta, you go to the crime scene and search for evidence. Diaz and Sergeant Jeffords will spearhead the interrogation. Boyle, you check on the CSI's and see if there has been any developments with the dust."

Terry scrolled through the boy's file and the more he read the more concerned he got.

Diaz came up behind him, "I put the boy in the interrogation room. What have you got Serg?"

Terry read the beginning of the file to Rosa, "Leo Valdez. Age 16. Born in Houston, Texas. Mother, Esperanza Valdez, died at when he was eight. No record of a father. He ran away from six different foster homes. He disappeared from the wilderness school three months ago and hasn't been seen since."

"Huh. Rough life." remarked Rosa. Terry sighed, "That's not half of it. His mom died in a machine shop fire, and he was the prime suspect."

Rosa stared at the photo in the file. The young boy's face smiled sheepishly up from the computer screen. He didn't look like an arsonist or terrorist, but you never know.

Leo knew that detectives were watching him through the two way mirror but he didn't care, he was just angry at himself. He couldn't even get a snack with out screwing something up.

No wonder Jason and Piper didn't want me with them, I'm a walking accident.

The degrading thoughts weren't the worst thing about being arrested, the cops had taken his tool belt. Leo felt empty without it. He had nothing to fiddle with and he was on edge.

After what felt like years of waiting but was probably five minutes, Leo put his head in his hands and took a short nap. Blowing up a deli really drained him.

Of course sleeping meant dreams.

Leo was standing outside his mother's machine shop, waiting for her to get her keys. He had this dream before almost nightly, but this time, Leo wasn't going to do nothing, this time, he was going to help.

He dashed to the doors and wedged it open with his foot as they tried to slam shut. He tugged off his shoe and left it holding the doors open, then bolted deeper into the darkened interior of the machine shop.

He finally reached his mothers work station and cautiously approached.

"Mama?"

A woman emerged from the shadows, but it wasn't his mother, it was Gaea.

Leo turned and fled, but when he made it back to the doors, they were locked.

Two people stood outside the machine shop, Piper and Jason.

"Guys! You gotta help me! Dirt Face is coming!"

But they just turned and walked away.

"No! Don't leave me!"

The sound of a door slamming jerked him out of his stupor. The scary dark haired detective walked in followed by an enormous black guy with a bald head and muscles the size of bridge cables wearing a blue stripes shirt and tie with suspenders and a gun and badge clipped to his belt.

They took seats opposite Leo and pulled out a thick file.

"Leo Valdez, I'm Detective Diaz and this is Sergeant Jeffords."

"Ya know, most of my friends call me Bad boy Supreme or Supreme lord and Commander of ... "

"Listen matchstick" she cut him off leaning across the table, "You set fire to a deli before I could get my morning cup of coffee. I would appreciate it if you cooperated."

Sergeant Jeffords put a hand on her shoulder and pulled her back into her seat, "Cool it Rosa, I got this. Mr. Valdez, why were you in the deli at the time?"

"I was getting pop-tarts." Leo countered

"But there was not money found in your pockets or on the scene. Were you planning on stealing the pop-tarts?"

Leo sighed, the downside of a magic tool belt. He thought quickly, "The money was in my hand and probably burnt up in the fire."

The Sergeant sat up a little straighter, "That brings me to my next question. How did you set the fire? No matches or accelerant was found on the scene."

"I didn't! The air canisters just exploded in my hands!"

"How are you alive?" asked the one called Rosa.

Before Leo could BS an answer, the door to the interrogation room opened and some one poked their head in, "Terry, Rosa. Jake, Amy and Boyle just got back. You guys might want to hear what they found"

"Really guys?" asked Terry as he stormed into the briefing room, "We were just getting in his head."

"No we weren't" responded Rosa in a deadpan voice, "That was going no where. Jake, Amy, what did you guys get?"

Jake stood up and proudly proclaimed, "The crime scene was a dead end! But ... we were able to pull the security tapes from the book store across the street and we got this."

He pulled up the tapes on the screen. It showed the deli, then the windows erupted in flames. Two huge men stumbled out. When one of them looked directly at the camera, Jake paused the footage.

Rosa sat up confused. The man had one eye, in the center of his forehead.

"Holy shit!" she whispered softly

Holt leaned forward, "What does this mean?"

Amy jumped in, "We're not sure, sir. But we will being these guys in."

"I think I found something that can help." Boyle stood up holding an evidence bag full of golden powder, "This was found at the crime scene. The CSI's couldn't identify it, but ... "

"You can smoke it?" asked Rosa.

"What? No! Of course not! Well I didn't try." stuttered Boyle, "Anyways, the powder is slowly dissolving. There's a lot less then when we started out. I think it could be a new untraceable accelerant!"

Rosa stood up, "Cool, I'll take another crack at the kid."

Holt nodded, "Good. While she does that Terry and Boyle will continue working the powder."

Rosa pushed open the door to the interrogation room and dropped into the chair in front of the boy. He was so jittery that his tapping fingers were practically making the table vibrate.

Leo smiled at her, "Hey! How's it going? Is it almost lunch time? Could I get a sub? Or maybe some pop-tarts?"

"Shut up! Do you recognize this?" She set the bag of powder in front of him.

"I thought I was supposed to shut up."

She fixed the kid with her trademark evil glare.

He gave out a nervous laugh then glanced at the bag.

"No idea."

"Listen Valdez, we have proof of you on the scene, you have a history of arson and footage of you blowing up the oxygen tanks. I just want to know what this is."

"I genuinely don't know."

Leo smiled up at the terrifying detective.

He just had to play it cool. Sure he was arrested for blowing up a deli, but he could probably escape soon enough.

The detective leaned closer and was about say something when there was a loud crash in the bullpen. Diaz whirled around and poked her head out the door, then she headed out the door before turning back and pointing at him.

"Don't move."

Once she left the room, Leo figured that this was the best chance he was going to get. He held onto the locking mechanism of the cuffs and concentrated, slowly manipulating to pins open. He pulled off the cuffs then opened the door to the interrogation room.

Leo snuck down the hallway before passing the bullpen then crouched behind the water fountain.

He had walked right int o a standoff.