Disclaimer: I do not own Sky High or its characters, settings etc, all of which belong to Disney. This story was inspired by an episode of 'Missing' called 'John Doe'.

A/N: I have FINALLY finished the story and re-posted it! I am so sorry for taking so long to write the last chapter.


Prologue: Like Father, Like Son?

Irene Peace gripped the steering wheel hard as she drove through the streets of Maxville, but she saw nothing in front of her. In fact it was amazing that she managed to get home safely. Since Principal Powers had called to tell her that her son had been in a fight – with young Stronghold, of all people – Irene had found concentration to be impossible, and eventually she gave up trying and left work early.

She let herself into the apartment that she and Warren called their home and sat down heavily at the kitchen table with a brand new box of tissues. She was going to need it.

As the tears poured, she dismally imagined history repeating itself. The worst part was that she couldn't really blame Warren. It wasn't entirely his fault. She knew exactly where he got his temper; the same person he got his powers from.

Barron Battle was basically a nice guy – a lot of the time. But when he lost his temper, it was horribly violent. As the superhero known as CrossFire, he'd had a bit of a reputation for using rather more force than necessary, but he also had such a good track record for bringing in the bad guys that he managed to get away with it.

The ones that bore the brunt of his temper were his wife and son. The abuse that followed every time Barron had had a bad day was the reason Warren developed his first power – the healing one – at the extremely young age of four. It was his only defence against the brutality, but unfortunately it also meant that Barron got away with beating the boy whenever he felt like it, without leaving any evidence. It would only be many years later that Warren would develop his father's pyrokinesis as well, ironically long after the time when he really needed it to fight back and protect his mother.

Time and again Irene would threaten to leave her abusive husband, but every time Barron would plead heartbreakingly for just one more chance. Finally, one day she decided she'd given him enough chances, and she was busy packing her and Warren's things when he came home. When she refused to stop packing they had a massive fight which was interrupted when a distress call came in for him.

Barron left to take care of the situation, but with his emotional state at that point he took out his temper on the super-villain in question even more violently than usual... along with a large number of innocent citizens who happened to get in his way. 58 people died that night and at least a hundred more were injured. Understandably, the public would not tolerate that kind of atrocity from a superhero, and Barron Battle was locked away for his crime with a maximum penalty.

Irene blew her nose and reached for another tissue. Warren would be home soon and she really didn't know how she was going to handle the situation. Never since her horrible marriage had she wished so much that her powers had more to do with calming people than with calming the weather.

The door slammed and she flinched involuntarily, but made no move from where she was sitting. She still had no idea what she was going to say or do.

Warren walked into the kitchen. When he saw his mother in tears, looking completely heartbroken, his breath caught in his throat. He could only imagine how disappointed in him she must be, how afraid she was of what – or rather, who – he was turning into.

They just looked at each other for a long, painful moment. Finally Warren spoke.

"I'm sorry," he said simply. "I know you heard that so often from Dad that it barely means anything any more, but I really am sorry."

"What happened?" she asked quietly.

"I lost my temper," he mumbled, looking down. "I just saw red. I really don't know what I was doing." He sat down opposite her and sighed. "I don't know why I reacted like that. It's not like he did anything to deserve it."

He looked up at his mother and saw the fear in her eyes. "You're afraid I'm going to turn out like him, aren't you?"

After a moment she nodded reluctantly, fresh tears running down her cheeks.

"Yeah," he answered sadly. "Me too, sometimes."


Five months later

Irene was suspicious the moment she got home from shopping one rainy Saturday morning and walked in the door to see the dishes all done and the kitchen clean. True, that was usually Warren's chore because of his tolerance to hotter wash water than she could handle, but she usually had to nag a couple of times before it got done. If he'd done his chores voluntarily, that usually meant he was trying to butter her up for something.

"Warren?" she called, and he appeared in the kitchen so fast she could have sworn he had teleportation powers. "What do you want?" she asked with a knowing smile.

He pretended to be hurt. "What, is it impossible that I did my chores just because I wanted to please you?" he teased.

"Not impossible, but extremely unlikely," she replied in a similar tone.

Warren acknowledged that with a shrug and a wry smile. "Okay, maybe I wanted to ask a favour."

Irene smiled. "And what favour were you 'maybe wanting' to ask?"

"Well, the weather really sucks today and it's Layla's birthday picnic this afternoon, so Will kinda twisted my arm to ask you to fix it."

"And with his powers I imagine he twisted quite hard," his mother observed, amused. "Why don't you all go down to the Paper Lantern or something? I thought she liked it there."

"She does, but she really had her heart set on having a picnic." Warren gave her his best approximation of puppy dog eyes. "Please, Mom. I know you're against manipulating the weather for frivolous reasons, but this is special…"

He trailed off as she pursed her lips, considering his request. She'd learnt the hard way that it was extremely irresponsible to mess around with the weather. Because her powers only involved calming the winds and storms, not creating them, she'd once come very close to causing a drought. After that she'd decided to study climatology so that she would know how and when to use her powers responsibly. Nowadays she worked as a researcher at the Maxville Climate Research Centre as her cover job, and only used her powers to reduce storms enough for other heroes to be able to rescue citizens from flooded areas.

Still, Irene couldn't bear to deny Warren his request. Even though it had been a number of months now since Will Stronghold and his gang had befriended her son, she was still so thrilled that Warren had real friends now that she was prepared to do anything for them. Apart from the way that they seemed to be drawing him out of his moody shell, for Irene it was also a sign that he was becoming less like his father.

Barron had had very few friends. Oh, he'd been extremely popular and he'd always had a number of acquaintances and groupies, but very few genuine friends, and it was by his own choice. While Warren usually kept people at a distance with his antisocial attitude, Barron kept them from getting close to him by being a social butterfly. Maybe it was just wishful thinking, but Irene gained hope from anything that made Warren different to his father.

"I'll think about it," she answered at last, which Warren immediately took as an affirmative.

"Thanks, Mom, I knew you wouldn't let us down," he said with a small grin. He kissed her on the cheek and grabbed his jacket on the way out the house.

"Hey, I only said I'd think about it!" Irene called after him, not bothering to hide her smile, and he just waved as he closed the door behind him.

Sure enough, that afternoon the clouds parted and the sun shone brightly through Layla's birthday picnic. As soon as it was over, the storm carried on its course and blew for another three days, to the confusion of most of the Climate Research Centre.

But, as far as Irene was concerned, it was worth it for Warren's friends… for his sake.