A/N: Hello again! This is a reload, turns out I uploaded the wrong version. So there was a bunch of mistakes. Thanks for understanding3

Disclaimer: I DON'T OWN SUPER 8! (Oh my god if I did...) I also don't own the song or the music video Titanium.

Warning: Language and homophobia

Lick. Lick.

Cary can't stop licking his teeth. No metal or crooks, not since Saturday, when he got the fucking things removed. He can't stop, even when the rest of the gang gives him weird looks…Not that they are much of a gang anymore. It's not that they don't hang out, because they did, but not at school. Never at school. Charles has his football buddies, Joe has Alice, Preston has the math nerds, Martin has track, and Cary…well he doesn't have any group specifically, but that's fine. He still has his explosives, which, surprisingly enough, translates into chemistry. He's good at chemistry.

"Mr. Adams, if you could tell us…Mr. Adams! Pay attention!" Cary winces as he gets ripped out of his thoughts by the goddamn whiny voice of his English teacher, the bitchiest woman at Lillian High School, maybe all of Ohio. She looks down at him. "Thank you for joining us, Mr. Adams. I assume whatever you were thinking was enjoyable?"

Cary stiffens then retorts back, as he always does. He might have lost his braces, but that doesn't mean he's lost his mouth. "Oh yes, Mrs. Patton, much more enjoyable than your half-assed teaching. Do you even try?" Everyone is quiet, looking at him in his back-of-the-class seat with open mouths and wide eyes. He just rolls his. Just as Mrs. Patton opens her mouth to bring justice to her classroom-

BBBRRRRRRIIIIIINNNNGGGG!

Cary's out of his seat and into the hallway before she can say "Detention!" (Which is pretty damn fast.) Grinning at himself for once again outsmarting his English teacher, he walks through the end-of-the-day hallways, towards the front door. Before he can vanquish any real distance, he hears them: the people who stand in his way and try to break his barriers, also known as the bench-warming third stringers. "Hey faggot! Running away?" The main idiot, Brett Evans, is standing there smirking with his cronies, his tiny brain running sluggishly behind flat eyes.

Cary sighs, before turning around. He has ignored them once, only once, and went home with his eyes so swollen shut he couldn't go to school the next day. "What, do you want this time, you pussies? Do you not know the meaning of fuck off?" He'd get out his lighter, if it wouldn't get him expelled. Cary swallows, but he hides his fear, as they get closer backing him against a locker. He curses God for making him this way, a whole foot shorter than Brett, and built like a girl, even with his coat on. This makes him easy to pick on, which makes life a lot fucking harder than it has to be. If only they knew what he can do…

Cary is once again yanked from his thoughts, this time by a voice he dreads for an entirely different reason. "That's funny coming from you, queer. Seeing as you are the pussy and I am the real man."

Cary can't help it. He snorts. "Oh, yes. Some man you are. My father was a better 'man' than you, and that wife-beater fucking left. Plus, you can't catch a pass to save your balls."

Brett glares at him, and he glares back, chin up. He likes to say it was in defiance... but mainly it was because he wouldn't be able to see his accuser if he didn't. "It's no mystery your father left; he didn't want some queer for a son." Cary grinds his teeth, but doesn't say anything. If he does, all hell breaks lose, and he can't get another detention. He can't. Brett scowls, noticing the lack of reaction, and keeps talking. "Or maybe it was because your mom's a whore, and you can't help but notice your little sister looks nothing like you." Cary looks away…because it's true. Hayley looks nothing like him, and a lot like the next door neighbor's daughter. Not that it matters, because Hayley is his sister and he loves her. He would die for her. Cary notices Brett is still talking, but this time, it's not about him, his dad, or his mom; he's talking bad about Hayley. "...probably going to end up a filthy whore like her mom, not that I'd mind." He smirks at his cronies, before turning back to Cary. "I bet she'll be just as pretty as her older brother." Cary looks at him, not believing he went that far, but he did and now Cary is mind-numbingly furious.

His blood is boiling and all he can see is red; all he wants to see is Brett lying on the ground, broken. So this image was what he attempts. Cary launches himself at the other boy: punching, kicking, scratching, biting, giving all he has and a lot that he doesn't. Because Hayley is six years old, she can't protect herself; which is why he will, why he has too. He won't forgive himself if he doesn't. But Brett is bigger and stronger than he is. He picks Cary up and throws him, his head hitting glass and cracking it. Cary slumps to the ground, head spinning and pounding much more than should be possible. He looks up to see Brett and his buddies walking towards him, people crowding around to watch the smart-mouthed kid who nobody liked that much get the shit beat out of him by Brett. No one cares that he might've helped save Lillian all of three years ago because nobody knew. (He still has nightmares about the government coming for him because he let slip what he knew.) He can hear whispers of the chant, "Fight! Fight! Fight!" through the pounding in his head. He can see his friends, faces worried, not stepping up when Brett smirks down at him and kicks him. Repeatedly.

Cary can't breathe; Brett won't let him. His foot keeps kicking Cary in his stomach. He remembers Preston once telling him that if the beating goes on for too long he could end up spitting up blood. He can feel it coming up. Cary knows he needs to change positions, knows that this isn't going to end well if he doesn't, but he just can't move. All he can hear now is the jeering of the students as he spits up blood, staining his new smile. Brett stops and Cary reacts, putting his hands behind his head and curling into a ball. He knows it's dangerous, that it will hurt people, but right now he doesn't care; he's in too much pain to care…plus, if anyone asks him, Brett deserves it.

Cary can feel the…whatever it is - he doesn't actually have a name for it - rise up. Growing stronger off the pain and anger and fear that he is feeling and pushing it into a ball behind his chest. The pulsing is unnerving, the deep-set shaking he can feel in his very soul, and it's growing stronger as Brett grins at him down at him. He can see his own blood smeared across the floor and he can hear someone crying, most likely Alice, for Brett to stop. Brett won't, of course; he never does. Brett nudges Cary with his foot, making him look up. He smiles, a horrible smile that chills Cary to his bones. Cary sees him raise his foot and ducks his head back down. His friends cry out "CARY! NO!" His last thought is I'm sorry…