Hey guys:)

If you're a newcomer, please go and check out Hidden Secrets in the Captain America category. You'll be able to follow along for a few chapters but may be confused when I reference characters from H.S.

If you came here from Hidden Secrets, here is what has been promised to you;)

Please leave any comments, questions and suggestions in the review section. I promise I will reply in the next author's note.

Disclaimer: No Marvel for me.


"And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain thrilled me—filled me with fantastic terror

never felt before; So that now, to still the beating of my heart-"

"Hey, Roy!" Jackson called from behind me. I sighed- that was the closest I've gotten to memorizing the whole poem. I set the tape down on the ladder I was currently balancing on.

"Hey Jackson, what are you doing here? Everyone else left an hour ago." I said, turning around so I could see him. My voice echoed through the gym, making the school sound abandoned. A group of seniors, including me, had been chosen to help decorate for the last day of school and set up for graduation and when we weren't done by 9:00 I was the one who stayed behind and finished up.

"Well, I just got done with baseball practice and I wanted to ask you something." He said, setting down his practice bag. I was pretty much done with the decorating so I climbed down from the ladder.

"And that would be?" I asked, grabbing the tape and streamers.

"I was wondering if you wanted to go out sometime?" He asked hesitantly. 'Of course he'd ask that. Why'd I even give him the chance.'

"Jackson, for the last 10 years of school you made fun of me for my weight. Now that I lose it you think you can act like none of that happened? My answer's no, please go somewhere that isn't here." I said. I tried to be as polite as possible, but damn, that task was hard. He seemed pretty disappointed to say the least.

"I thought you used to have a crush on me." He said approaching me. His voice had a faint sound of mock behind it.

"You mean in second grade? Yeah, you're right, I do remember that. I also remember you finding out and telling everybody so they could pick on me for the rest of the year. Let's just say my infatuation with you diminished immensely after that." I said bluntly. I closed the ladder and began to tote it back to the storage room when I felt a hand on my wrist pulling me back.

"Why don't you stop playing hard to get, bitch." Jackson said with fire in his voice. I dropped everything in my hands out of the shock, but quickly pushed against him with my free arm. He sneered when I began to hit him and punched me in the throat with quite a bit of force. I stopped hitting him and wrapped my hand around my neck, coughing uncontrollably. He threw me back and slapped me in the same breath, giving me no time to react and making me fall to the ground. I could barely breathe as is, so screaming was pretty impossible. Any sound I made came out like a whisper, and he smirked at my helplessness. He pulled out a small pocket knife and got me in a choke hold, pushing my head to the floor.

"Don't try anything, or this-" gesturing to the knife, "will end up here." he said, pressing the blade into my throat. Small tears rolled down the side of my face and I shook my head. I was terrified. I've always hated the thought of being helpless, useless, and I was all kinds of it now- and in the worst situation. He lightened his hold on my throat just enough so I could breath and made use of his knife by cutting through my shirt. I couldn't focus on one thought, so many were racing through my head. I shut my eyes hard enough that I saw spots and wished that I was just anywhere but here. He leaned forward and gave me a rough kiss, forcing his tongue into my mouth. I tried to shake my head and he stopped only to press the knife to my neck again.

"What did I say about that?" He asked viciously. The knife cut into my skin just enough to leave a scar, but not kill me. No, he wasn't done yet. I could feel his hands roam my chest and work their way down to my pants. I blocked it out as much as I could and tried to think of anything, so I thought of a plan. I just had to wait for my chance, but up until that point would be sickening torture, but it was that or death. When I felt his hand go lower and lower I tried desperately not to throw up. My heart was going so fast I thought I was going to faint, but I had to focus, or at least enough to be aware. After what felt like hours of grueling agony, he lifted his hands to release his belt. As soon as he let go of my neck, I squeezed my legs out from under him and ran as quickly as I could. It didn't make much a difference though, because he tackled me back down easily, the knife leaving a deep, long gash down the back of my thigh. I screamed to a volume that would've been heard a mile away, but it only came out as a pathetic squeak, if that. My leg twitched and I could feel the muscles rip apart. As soon as I hit the ground, I felt something inside me snap. Jackson turned me over with a vicious scowl and my hand just barely brushed his chest, but there was an explosion at the contact. For me, it felt like it happened in slow motion. My fingers landed on him, and his chest practically dissolved at the touch by how much pressure was in the explosion. It flung him back into a wall 50 feet away, his head breaking against it and leaving blood splattered on it. There was burn marks on his shirt, but nothing on me. I stared in stunned silence, my mind completely blank. Once I realized what happened, it was all too much. I tried to push myself up with extremely shaky arms, and proceeded to only get sick. Tears were flowing freely down my face and were obscuring my vision, but I pressed on- I just needed to do something. I slowly pulled out my phone, calling 911.

"Hello, you have dialed 911, what is your emergency?" I hesitated, thinking on how I should say it.

"A man, he-he's dead." I mumbled out.

"And what is the location of your emergency?"

"4-481 Elmhurst Road."

"Who is this calling?"

"Roy- uh, Ripley. R-Ripley Williams."

"Did you witness the incident?"

"Y-yes."

"Did you see the assailant? Can you give a description?" I choked out a sob.

"It- it was me." I whispered, almost to myself. I dropped the phone down and walked to the wall, slowly sliding down the wall. The hardwood floor of the gym gave off reflections like a mirror, and when I looked at mine, my veins seemed to be glowing orange all around my body. I held up a trembling arm, sticking out my hand in front of me. I gave myself a mental push of sorts, and a few feet ahead of my hand formed a glowing ball of fire. It wasn't just fire though, there was flames circling all around it, like a miniaturized RPG explosion that was frozen in time. I always wanted a superpower- invisibility, flight, speed- but not this; not something so destructive. I raised my gaze across the floor and looked at Jackson, slumped on the ground, lifeless. The nauseating feeling returned with more strength this time, but I could only gag. I scooted into a corner, bringing my knees into my chest, tears silently falling down my face.

When the police arrived at the school, I was crumpled in the same position. They put handcuffs on me, which I didn't resist, and hopped to the cop car with the support of a policeman holding me up gently. No one spoke a word to me, if they did then it never reached me fully. My eyes were drooping quickly from the blood loss and they took me to the hospital first, seeing as I was injured heavily. I remember arriving at the hospital, but I was pretty out of it. My parents and sister, who was visiting from college, was there, their eyes red and puffy from tears, but they didn't approach me. I realize now that my sister had a look of sorrow mainly, but I could see disappointment, no disgust, written slightly on her face. Her expression made my stomach drop; my own family was disgusted with me. A few tears fell down my face before the blackness finally engulfed me and I prayed this was just a terrible nightmare.


The faint sound of beeping woke me up from my dreamless sleep. I quickly realized that I wasn't in my room and knew that it had been real, I had killed Jackson. I went to move, but a sharp, stinging pain in my leg, and a lesser, but still intense, pain on my neck that made me gasp and stop suddenly. I threw the sheets off of me and lifted the hospital down, revealing thick gauze wrapped all up and down my left thigh. There was an IV in my arm, probably pumping some sort of pain med cocktail into it, and a heart monitor on my finger. I put my gown back down and covered up with the sheets and checked out the room. The clock above the TV read 9:15, and it was light out through the windows, so I assumed whatever drug that was currently working its way out of my system knocked me out for a night. My parents and sibling wasn't in the room, and the chairs hadn't been touched. I didn't want to cry anymore. I didn't want to feel. So I brushed it off, pushed it out of my mind; ignorance is truly bliss.

I laid my head back down on the pillow for a few moments, slowly beginning to fall asleep again when I heard multiple car doors opening and shutting. This was a small town, in Indiana no less, and our hospital was wide and long, but only two stories high. The doors didn't bother me, but the lack of voices and the familiar clicks of some sort of machinery. I gritted my teeth and- moving my left leg as little as I could- scooted out of the bed and hopped the three foot gap to the window. Looking down I saw three black SUVs, and several soldiers of the same color all carrying guns- except one in a long trench coat. There was a symbol of a bird on the side of all the SUVs and I knew they weren't FBI, CIA or anything close. They were all entering the building and my heart started thumping wildly. I didn't know who they were or what they wanted, but I could guess- and it wasn't good. I had a limited amount of time before they reached my door, and the only solution I could think of was run. Then again I didn't know how I would pull that off. I couldn't think of anything helping; running down the stairs would get me caught, practically leaving the room would screw me over. My love for the iron man suits finally came in handy as a though, that was pretty ridiculous, pooped into my head. I hated now having to depend on this curse of sorts, but I made a small explosion again, letting it hover in the air. I used my other hand and tried touching it, seeing if I would get burnt, but nothing happened. It was like touching a pocket full of thick steam, but it wasn't painful. I wanted to see if I could just make the blasts with just my mind, so I put my hands to the side and focused, getting me another explosion; albeit more unstable, but it would do. I looked up through the small window in the door and saw a row of soldiers at the end of the hall, moving this way. The last experiment would have be tested on the job, so I put my hands up against the window to my freedom, both of them at opposite corners, and gave it a small burst, shattering the glass, but cutting my hands deeply in the process. I hissed, but pushed the pain into the back of my mind. I knocked a few shards of glass of the bottom of sill and, with a pained cry, sat on it and swung my legs over the edge. I heard the doorknob jiggling behind me, so I sucked in a breath, closed my eyes tightly, and scooted off the edge, falling down quickly. Right as I felt my body completely leave the window sill I aimed explosions at both of my feet and hands and felt myself slow down. I peeked out one of my eyes and looked down; my plan worked. I had basically turned myself into a rocket, My hands and feet were engulfed in flames, hovering me a few feet above the and I gave it more force, sending me upwards. I zoomed past my window, gunfire coming from it, but they were all too slow. And even though my life was quickly turning into a pile of shit, I smirked at my wit and success.

I flew to my house, hoping no one was home and having my wishes granted. I couldn't give two shits about where my family was and I honestly didn't have time. I only went to the house to pack a bag of clothes. The front door was locked, but I remembered where the spare key was and opened the door, a blast of our cinnamon apple air freshener hitting me like a wall. I closed and locked the door behind me and slowly made my way up the stairs to my room. I was expecting my room to be the usual poster-covered, un-organized piece of perfection that I loved dearly, but all the 'me' that remained in it was the red walls. A suitcase was sitting beside my bed and all my posters were gone. My heart sunk when I realized what they had done. Mutants weren't looked highly upon in this society, but I was never one to judge. My parents, on the other hand, thought they could be the end of us- saw them as a threat- and I was one of them. I assumed the doctors and police told them what happened, told them that I was 'different', and thought that I had just killed Jackson for fun or out of insanity. My fingertips sparked out of the anger running through me, but I tried to control it; I wouldn't be staying for much longer. I opened the suitcase and found that half my work was already done- all of my clothes were neatly packed. I pulled out a bra, panties, my Good Mythical Morning t-shirt and a pair of denim shorts that I changed into. I tried to be quick, but as my pain meds were wearing off, the burning sensation was starting to hit me even harder. The adrenaline that acted as my push was slowly fading as well, and my hands were bleeding too much. I grabbed two shirts and tied them around each hand, trying to stop the blood. I packed my sketchbook, and as I thought of my drawings I thought about my piano downstairs. I had gotten a beautiful black baby grand piano for my 16th birthday instead of the usual car and was much happier with it. I had no problem working for my car instead, and cried for a solid hour when I came home to a piano in the living room. There was no way I would be able to carry it to wherever I was going, and I was sad at my loss, but the skill would stick with me. I pushed it out along with all the other problems I was having and focused purely on the task at hand. I assumed I could find all my other belongings; hairbrush, makeup, toothbrush, etc. from somewhere else, grabbed all the cash I had- which was $49.00 plus a small piggy-bank full of quarters, and decided to hop back down the stairs. I looked at the small dry-erase board we used for a week planner and decided to leave my parents a parting note. I erased all the reminders and grabbed the black marker, but when I tried to write something, my mind went blank. I wanted to write something that would spite them, but as much as I despised them for abandoning me I still loved them up unto this point and I couldn't bring myself to my feelings. I stood there, wasting time, for a few moments thinking on what I should do, so I decided to write a letter to someone I still held close to me, my best friend.

I grabbed a pen and paper, and jotted down a message for Megan, probably the only friend I'll have left after the news spreads.

Megan,

There'll be a story on the news about me and if it sounds like I wouldn't do that it's because I didn't. Of course, you know me almost better than I know me so you probably already knew that. If people talk about me, don't stand up for me. You only have a few more weeks of school left and I don't want you hurt for my problem- I really don't care what they say anyway, I know what really happened. I will try to come back when and/or if it calms down, until then 'stay gold, Ponyboy.'

If you don't know who's this crappy handwriting belongs to after 15 years, I'd be surprised.

I folded the piece of printer paper in half, put it in an envelope and addressed it. Grabbing a piece of old rope my dad kept around the house, I tied the surprisingly light suitcase to my back and made sure it was secure before grabbing the letter, putting it in the mailbox, sticking the little red flag up, and shooting back off into the sky, cursing as I watched the shirts burn off my hand

I got maybe 50 feet off the ground when I realized I had no place to go and I packed no shoes. Putting my priorities first I made a plan to buy some cheap sneakers from Dollar General. Now, as for the homeless part, that was a bit tougher. I tried to think of a place I've always wanted to go to- somewhere where anybody of any status could fit in.

Well, I guess I'm headed to New York.