William Kapalm, known to most as Billy, never fit in. No matter how hard he tried. His foster parents wold often be conserned at the fact that no matter what he did he didn't seem to have any friends. Billy didn't want them to worry, after all they had given him a home. Billy had never known who his birth parents were and often found himself wandering if they were to blame for his strangeness. But as Billy grew older he realized that it really had nothing to do with his parents. Billy's wierdness had to do with him and no one else. So he tried that much harder to try and not be diffrent,...but it never changed. Billy was always going to be the one picked on. By the age of 10 he had fitted himself into a daily routine of getting picked on, and of course there were special days where the bullies were even brave enough to beat on him. Billy, however, found a sanctuary. The old Avengers headquarters. Billy loved the thought of superheroes joining together to fight villians and protect the innocent. It gave him hope that there just might be people out there strange as him. This continued until at the age 12 when after another school day, one cool autum after noon, Billy returned to his sactum, tears staining his eyes as the blood from his mouth stained the side of his face. The normal insults had been expected for the day, but on this paticular day several comments stuck in his mind,"Hey kapalm you're so wierd your own mother didn't even want you. Gave you up didn't she. She couldn't stand you!" Billy hadn't stoped crying since.
So wierd your own mother didn't want you. Gave you up. Couldn't stand you.
"It wasn't true." thought Billy but the words seemed hollow compared to the others.
So wierd your own mother didn't want you.
Was it true? Had that been the reason his mother had given him up? Because he wasn't normal? Because he was "wierd"
"Are you ok?"
The new voice startled Billy as he sat on the steps of the Avengers H.Q. An older woman, beautiful in a way that wasn't supermodel, but an elegance all in it's own. The dark hair woman stared at him with a strange look on her face. Billy realized he could've lied to her and said he was perfectly fine, but the tears in his eyes betrayed him. The strange woman with auburn hair came and sat down next to him. She pulled out a cloth from her purse and started to wipe away both the blood and tears from his face.
"Rough day at school?" she asked, and Billy heard actual concern in her voice.
Billy nodded, before he knew it, he had told this new woman everything, all the lonlieness and pain from being wierd and diffrent. And the woman listned she truly listned to what he had to say. When he was done. She looked at him and smiled,
"Have you tried standing up to these bullies?" she asked
Billy shook his head.
"Billy, I have been in your shoes, and if there's one thing I've learned, it's that we are who we are and we can't be anyone else. So next time these kids pick on you, stand up for yourself and for all the other people who are wierd like us."
Billy smiled, "What would you know about being wierd."
The woman laughed, "I've had my fair share of wierdness."
Before Billy could say anything else, the woman stood up and with a second, her civilian clothes had changed and she stood in full costume, the strange pedestrian had transformed into the Scarlet Witch. Billy sat there not being able to say anything to his favorite Avenger. Before Scarlet Witch flew off she turned back to Billy and said,
"Embrace being Diffrent!"
And then she was gone.
