New York Please Go Easy On Me

Stolen Lives and Broken Spirits

Warnings: child abuse, self hate

"Can you tell me a little about you?" Peter asked, Wade wasn't blind, he could see that his Baby Boy was distressed. He wanted a distraction from reliving his brutally alarming past. "You've never really talked about yours either." Peter whispered softly.

Wade bit his bottom lip. He owed Peter his own story, or at least the part he avoided. Peter knew about the whole "Hero Program". How he'd desperately tried to save his own skin and turned into a pretty shitty person... well shittier.

"Well, I-

Wade had always been confused by his wings. He couldn't understand their meaning, nor their purpose. He had always had big wings for a kid his age. When I was little, no older than first grade, when no one cared what the colors of your wings meant, he'd liked to parade his wings proudly about on the playground. He liked to show off how much stronger his were against anyone else's. He only had one place where he was allowed to show his wings and he did so, looking for the attention he wasn't getting at home, away from the warm smiles of other kids and the general drama of who like who. At home he'd never dare show his wings. Ever. He was strictly commanded to keep himself as out of the way as possible. His father hated him the moment Wade was born. He hated him the second his eyes landed on the small wings attached the infant's back.

Wade had never understood this. Never realized what he had done wrong and always, always tried his most to please his father specifically. He wanted only some sort of recognition, paise, just an acknowledgment.

It was always an accident. He'd never meant for one of his feathers to fall from his hidden wings. He wished he'd have noticed it fall to the floor to be forgotten. Of course that never stopped from his old man form taking out his life frustrations on his son. He let Wade know what sort of disgrace he was, What his wings meant, what they made Wade.

Despite being a socially confident child, adults noticed that he was frigidity and flighty. He was afraid of raised hands, belts. When a teacher raised their voice to the class it wasn't uncommon that little Wilson would have to be quietly pulled out of the room to regroup himself. He was afraid and as he grew up around these teachers they knew why. They knew exactly what was going on. No one needed to tell them why Wade stopped showing his wings, they didn't question it when he was never seen in public outside of school or at school events. They knew and yet did nothing.

When Wade was older he changed. He wasn't an innocent child, not exposed to the elements of the world. He was forced to become a defensive, questionable kid who hated his family and did whatever he could to try and stay away as long as he could at the end of the day. He was someone forced to hate the world because he had been convinced it hated him.

The first time his mother came to his defense since he was in elementry his dad had no qualms about using her as a beating object instead. Wade never asked why his mother had done that and never spoke about it any time afterwards. He'd never felt loved by his mother, but he never felt hated. She trained him around like he was an annoyance, but he was her annoyance and no matter how long he was left alone or lost in the store or city, she eventually always came back for him. It wasn't much, but it was something. He hated it that no one cared when she started walking around with noticeable injuries. He hated that they knew where they came from but didn't have any thoughts to help. He wished he hadn't been such an ass when he was an older kid. He'd started treating her how she had always treated him. He knew it hurt her, and he didn't care at the time. He didn't understand why she was like that to him but he couldn't be like that to her without feeling like he was the abuser.

He finally understood why her attitudes changed and the pained expression she hid when he shot back what she gave when he was watching her casket pass by. It happened so fast, the cancer was dormant for a time... and then one day he woke up and found her on the living room floor. He'd never imagined that he'd ever want to so badly take back what he'd said and how he'd acted.  He'd always loved his mother, he Loved his mother in the end.... he just wished it could have all gone differently.

It was common sense by that time in Wade's life that the death was automatically somehow his fault. He was older but he wasn't strong, not yet. He couldn't fight against the forceful restraints keeping him kneeling down with his dark wings spread open behind him as the leather lashed against his back and wings. He was whipped for every year he'd been alive and every year his parents had been together, almost a roman execution from the sheer number of lashes.

He never went back after that. Couldn't stand to go back and have to look at his father. Without his mom there was nothing holding the man back from killing the kid. Wade jammed his door to his bedroom and only climbed in through the window to change clothes and risk sleeping a few hours before leaving at dawn before his dad could wake. He stole food when he was willing to risk getting a beating to stop the gnawing pains in his stomach. He was always afraid. Never stopped being afraid, not even as he finally did grow stronger then his father. He'd never lost that hope for acceptance.

The last time Wade had seen his father was when he was out with a group of friends. Well they weren't his friends, they were just people that willingly let him stick around. I fit in almost with the group of kids in high school with the criminal records. They didn't care about his wings, though his black wings were pretty bad ass because it automatically made him dangerous. Wade didn't like their reasons but he was wanted and that's what kept him around.

Wade was no stranger to alcohol when his group brought it out that night. He himself had never been really tempted by it. He was aware of how it changed people. And besides, he didn't want to get punished if he wa caught and brought back to his Father... He still couldn't bring himself to say no when he was offered. He wanted to fit in and be cool. It was a very stupid idea. He wishes he could change his decision just walked away. But he didn't.

He wasn't sure how his dad found him that night. Would never understand why he would go out of his way and waste time looking for him. His father was drunk when he finally found his damned offspring.

He wasn't supposed to die. Wade never meant for it to happen but didn't exactly object to it in the aftermath. He wasn't the one who pulled out the gun not was he the one that pulled the trigger. His Father's blood wasn't on his hands and that's all that mattered. 

He dropped out a few weeks after that, happily leaving what was left of his childhood and memories behind. His wings only came out for identification pictures when he entered the army before being hidden away from the world. No one needed to know the color of his wings. He wasn't a crow and that's all that mattered.

Vanessa was never allowed to see his wings when fate finally brought them together. He kept then tucked safely away, and she loved him. He had learned how to conceal his wings in such a way from training in the military and the technique was a second habit for his everyday life from that moment on. That way he was able to hide the worst part of him that people could see.

That worse thing was the only thing he left weapon X with that was still the same as he came, other than his voice and eyes. He could only protect the thing he hated most, And he killed them for that. He killed all of them.

"I survived the Dead pool"