When we were younger, when it was like Fang was just a third wheel, and Max and I were the best friends the world had ever seen, that's when everything was right with the world. That's when everything was right in my world.
The pain was meaningless. I saw Max and she saw me, and the pain faded. We would talk, maybe laugh a little, and the pain all but disappeared.
It was puppy love, really. A small crush that meant the world to us. Fang was too dark and cold, neither of us were extremely close to him.
Then Nudge rolled around, a bouncy two year old when we first met. She met Fang, and became determined to make him smile, make him laugh. Every time she succeeded, the rare times it did happen, she would clap and giggle.
Max and I were still best friends. Nudge liked to believe Fang was her best friend. Who knows what went on in Fang's head.
Max was very pretty to me, a little 5 year old. She had the prettiest blond hair, and the prettiest brown eyes. She told me I was pretty, too. Then, it seemed like the best compliment I could ever receive. Now, I realize how odd that sounds. I was pretty.
Then, when I was 7, they introduced us to a very small kid, Gasman. He couldn't stay with us in our cages just yet, he was still too small. But he would at some point.
When I was 7. I hate the number 7, you know. I hate it dearly.
At 7 years of age, I lost my sight. I would never see Nudge's famous victory smile again, or Fang's blank stares, or that small baby that I hardly knew. I would never see my beautiful Max again.
After I lost my sight, they kept me away from my family, because that's what I truly believed they were. My family. They taught me how to get around without my sight, how to function mostly normally.
I was gone for too long. A few months maybe. What happened during those months couldn't be undone for me.
Once I returned, there was something I wanted more than anything else. I wanted to hear Max's voice again, to hear her laugh, so I could envision her smile. I had pictured her everyday.
I had missed my beautiful Maximum.
She had missed me, but not enough. She hadn't missed me enough to be watching for me with open arms, to want me back more than anything else.
While I had been gone, something had happened.
I returned to find Max laughing, which immediately caught my attention. Then I heard the dark whispers I had heard only few times before.
Max and Fang were best friends now, I had been away far too long. Max didn't even notice me at first. The only thing that caught her attention, was a small voice, around 3 years old, that yelled 'Iggy!'
Nudge remembered me, recognized me, noticed me. Max did not. I felt betrayed.
After that, Max stayed attached to Fang. She would still talk to me, but less often with less happiness or enthusiasm.
Nudge had felt betrayed by her own 'best friend'. Fang didn't smile at Nudges antics anymore. He only smiled at Max.
I guess that's why Nudge and I hit it off. Mutual betrayal. So Nudge became my best friend, really, we were connected.
When I was 9, and Max was still attached to Fang, and Nudge and I smiled and laughed more than we ever had with our other 'best friends', the whitecoats brought in a one year old and a three year old.
Suddenly, I felt pangs go through me. I wished I knew what they looked like. I wished I could see their smiles, become introduced to their faces.
That was one of the first times I wished I wasn't blind. Sure, there had been others, but this time had seemed to hurt me.
Nudge and I befriended these tiny strangers. Gasman, the former tiny baby, and his sister, christened Angel by Nudge.
Max and Fang never really noticed, but the rest of us formed almost our own separate group. Max's commands held power, but to us four, mine were impenetrable.
In truth, Nudge's commands held power to us as well. I'm not sure why Max never noticed this, never noticed how Gazzy and Angel looked up to me like a father, not Fang. Why Nudge saw me as her older brother, not Fang.
Once we got out, some part of me hoped I would have Max again, my beautiful Max. But that was in vain. She stuck with Fang, so I stuck with my own little group.
Max and I took turns reading bedtime stories to Angel, Nudge, and Gasman, one night she'd read to Angel and Nudge, I'd read to Gazzy. The next night we'd flip. Of course, I didn't read the books. I made up stories about whatever the kids wanted, trying to spin intricate plots that would span a ten minute time period. It didn't always work, and sometimes Max would ask me why I was in their room for 30 minutes.
One night, when Angel was 3 and a half-ish, just a few months after she'd learned how to read minds, after a story about the School exploding, she told me something before she fell asleep.
"Max thinks I'm her little girl. But I'm not, Iggy, I'm your little girl, right?" She seemed unsure of this statement, like I secretly hated her.
"Right, sweetheart." I told hastily. She smiled and drifted off to sleep.
"You're a good dad to her, Iggy." Nudge whispered sleepily, and I'm sure there was a huge smile on my face.
Though, when Jeb left and we were all broken, the four year old Angel reached out more, reached out towards Max. Max was her sort of Mom, and I might as well have been her blood father. If I was older than 12, if I was closer to 18, and she was still 4, we could've pulled off her being my kid.
I had my two kids, my younger sister of sorts, my dark acquaintance, and the girl who used to be my best friend. And I was twelve years old.
Tell me there's not something wrong with those statements.
In the following two years, as we grew up, Max made her own assumptions on who we were to her. Nudge was her little sister, Fang was her best friend, Gasman and Angel were her babies, and I was nothing more than the quirky third-in-command.
Even though Nudge saw Max as only a role model of sorts, Gassy as an older sister, Angel as somewhere between Aunt and Mom, and I saw her as the girl who I was entirely unsure of.
I don't know, maybe she saw more than her own views. But I don't think so.
When Angel was taken, it was obvious she was torn up about it. But how do you think I felt? Angel herself claimed I should have been her real father, that that would have made her happy. Angel herself had claimed that Max meant a lot to her, but I meant just a little more.
Then, when Max didn't let me go with them, I was furious. I wasn't strong enough, right? I was too weak, too blind? What Max didn't know is I would have torn apart buildings to get Angel back.
When Gasman and I left, there was happiness in the air around us. We could hardly care about the things that were lost to us now, we would find Angel.
When we got her back, she was different. I never really found out how, but she was always a little off. She still loved me though, and I still loved her. She still loved Nudge, Gasman, Max, and Fang, too.
So many other things happened. So many things that began to define me. After we reunited, Max and Fang were inseparable, yet again. I myself mostly reunited with Nudge and Angel, my girls.
More years passed. We ran a lot for the first two. But when us three, the oldest, were 16, Max had had enough.
We stormed the school, and that last battle was messy. Our only loss was Total, and Angel, 9, wept for days.
It got better then. The good country of America was grateful, so grateful, they built us a house.
It was large, they told me, with a few acres to call our own. Of course, we mostly filled those acres with a swimming pool, a swing set, and big trees, because that's just what we like.
Max was officially Fang's. I couldn't stop that. I didn't want to. If you saw them, really looked at them, I don't know if you'd want to stop it either.
So, we grew up. Plain and simple.
Nudge got to go through all her 'girly phases', boy bands and make-up and glitter. Gasman got to finally see what the world was like. Angel got to be that adorable little girl, innocent and radiant, that had been hiding.
Max and Fang got to be together.
Me? I got to read, I suppose. I didn't get much other than Braille. I suppose that sounds depressing.
Though when Max, Fang, I were 19, Nudge 16, Gasman 13, Angel 11, II something more.
Angel and Gazzy still looked up to me, which is one of the best things. But better yet, my second in command became something much more.
Nudge.
Nudge is beautiful to me. More beautiful than Max ever was.
I told her so.
"Nudge, you are beautiful." I told her one day. I heard her laugh.
"You can't even see me Iggy." She responded through giggles.
"That's not true." I told hers seriously. "I can see your soul. And it's the most beautiful soul I have ever seen."
That's when it started. When I began my relationship with Nudge.
Of course, that's when I was 19, 10 years ago.
And in 10 years, a lot happened. We're all grown up.
Max and Fang each have jobs at a national park, they do tours. They also have a little girl, Bellatrix, who is currently 4 years old.
Seeing their life, and seeing mine, makes me happy.
I have a beautiful wife, who is currently carrying my child. We're happy, and I have begun to see the world through her eyes. She'll explain what anything looks like.
Gasman is single and happy, running a fireworks company, that I run with him.
Angel, a dancer, is dating a guy who doesn't know our secret.
We're all glad with how things turned out for us.
Peer into the future. None of us have expiration dates, and we live to good old ages, surrounded by winged kids and then grandkids.
So, we're happy.
And everything turned out okay.
All because I didn't get what I wanted.
But even that's okay. Because she got what she wanted.
This doesn't seem like the greatest ending, but I've never been good at endings.
So, I guess, just fly on.