We Weren't Born To Follow, a maximum ride fanfic

Title: We Weren't Born To Follow

Category: Maximum Ride

Rating: T. Because the voices told me so.

Summary: When all is said and done, we'll always be the flock – flying solo together, belonging to nobody. Songfic to We Weren't Born To Follow by Bon Jovi.

Words: 898

Genres: Friendship/Angst

This one goes out to the man who mines for miracles,

This one goes out to the ones in need,

This one goes out to the sinner and the cynical,

This ain't about no apology,

This road was paved by the hopeless and the hungry,

This road was paved by the winds of change,

Walking beside the guilty and the innocent,

How will you raise your hand when they call your name?

We've never been superheroes. We didn't get our powers in a toxic waste accident, we aren't aliens from Thanagar, we don't dress up in colorful spandex (seriously, picture Iggy in tights. Hold in the scream. See my point?), and we don't get cool names like the Avenging Angels or the Winged Spartans. More importantly, we don't run around saving lives any more than a random hobo in the city. We're just ordinary kids.

We aren't exalted like superheroes either. Sure, we've met the president, but that was coincidence having almost nothing to do with The Wings. We're everyday, just like you. We aren't saints – far from it – and we are the homeless, the hopeless, and the hungry that the superheroes save. We are the citizens. We leave the superhero deal to other people. We're as average as we can be, and we don't want any more than that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah,

We weren't born to follow,

Come on and get up off your knees,

When life is a bitter pill to swallow,

You gotta hold on to what you believe,

Believe that the sun will shine tomorrow,

And that your saints and sinners bleed,

We weren't born to follow,

You gotta stand up for what you believe,

Let me hear you say yeah, yeah, yeah, oh yeah,

We've got power, sure, but that power isn't used for daring, selfless deeds of courage and valor. We don't belong to anyone. We will not follow a cause except to secure our safety, not even morality. Our cause is ourselves. All we want is happiness and freedom, and to live our own lives. We aren't looking to be heroes; we don't pretend to be moral and brave.

This one's about anyone who does it differently,

This one's about the one who cusses and spits,

This ain't about our livin' in a fantasy,

This ain't about givin' up or givin' in,

We're anything but ordinary in that way. We don't have those Moments when we solve the mystery, fight the battle, save the innocents, get congratulated by boring Importantmeisters, become internationally famous and adored, and live happily ever after. Cause face it, that sort of stuff simply doesn't happen in real life. Wake up and smell the reality, sweetheart. In the real world, heroes go unsung, evil goes unpunished, and superpowers don't make you a hero. In real life, people with gifts, people like us, don't dress up in spandex. Sometimes things don't work out like a Disney movie. Sometimes you have to make the best of what you get. Sometimes breaking tradition saves yourself.

Yeah, yeah, yeah,

We weren't born to follow,

Come on and get up off your knees,

When life is a bitter pill to swallow,

You gotta hold on to what you believe,

Believe that the sun will shine tomorrow,

And that your saints and sinners bleed,

We weren't born to follow,

You gotta stand up for what you believe,

Let me hear you say yeah, yeah, yeah, oh yeah,

We won't swear allegiance to any one organization, not us. Not the Justice League or the Teen Titans, not America, not China, not even Japan. Because what will they do for us? Call us selfish, but that's the way things are. Sure, the FBI might be accepted as 'Good' and 'On Our Side'. But to us, 'our side' is whatever keeps us safe and happy. The Bad Guys are the ones who put us in danger, whoever tries to separate us or take away our happiness. The Bad Guys are the FBI, the School, the government – the Bad Guys, in fact, appear to be everyone besides ourselves.

We weren't born to follow,

Come on and get up off your knees,

When life is a bitter pill to swallow,

You gotta hold on to what you believe,

Believe that the sun will shine tomorrow,

And that your saints and sinners bleed,

We weren't born to follow,

You gotta stand up for what you believe,

Let me hear you say yeah, yeah, yeah, oh yeah,

We weren't born to follow - oh yeah,

The flock breaks tradition – it's what we do. We don't just jump off the bandwagon, we cannonball off it, and sometimes do a flip just to keep things interesting. We're kids with superpowers, but we're the citizens, not the heroes. We won't ally ourselves with anyone or trust anyone but each other, even though that invariably leads to disaster in all the books and movies and shows we've seen. In books and movies, extraordinary and ordinary are clear-cut. We are the ordinary extraordinary. We're living contradictions.

We break rules and clichés like twigs. Because who says we have to follow those rules? Why should we? We won't live like that. We weren't born to follow. We weren't born for accepting fate.

And we won't live for it either.

FIN

A/N: Set after STW&OES, because dear old Jimmy P. brought all these ideas crashing down after that and joined the hordes of writers of terrible cliché romance/drama. *sigh* This is an ode to the good old days, when Maximum Ride was about the flock and not about Faxlanya (completely random pairing name for Maya/Fang/Max/Dylan), when Iggy, Nudge, and Gazzy got attention outside of something bad happening or getting a new power, when Angel wasn't evil, Fang wasn't emotional, Max wasn't Bella-with-wings – I should end this A/N before it turns into a super-long description of my views of the pros and cons of earlier MR vs. later MR. I mean, he didn't even establish a steady villain until the second to last book in the eight-book series – ENDING NOTE NOW. R.I.P. to the Maximum Ride that we loved. We'll miss you.