Warren Worthington III (takes place after issue 35):
Closing the door to Bobby Drake's bedroom, Warren leaned back against the wall, his eyes closed as he listened to the sounds of Bobby crying.
Immediately after picking Bobby up from Chinatown, the teenager had resorted to hiding in his bedroom. However, just listening to Bobby in a state of tears brought an ache to Warren's chest.
Of all people, Bobby doesn't deserve this. He doesn't deserve to have his family treat him like this, especially in regards to him having powers that he cannot get rid of. I know that if Bobby had the option to have his mutation come and go as he pleased; he would take that opportunity in a heartbeat. He would do anything to have his parents talk to him and treat him with respect.
I should know, because I had been in his position, too. My own parents had pushed me out of their lives, too. Except I wasn't as lucky as Bobby had been. I hadn't had anywhere to run. Bobby's fortunate that he does have somewhere to go.
Stepping away from the wall, he saw Scott exiting his bedroom.
"How is he?" Scott asked.
"He's miserable," Warren said. "He's devastated. But what would you expect? His parents are practically throwing him away and are making him feel worthless."
Scott nodded as Warren stepped away from Bobby's door to go to his own bedroom. He closed his eyes, the sounds of Bobby's sobs sounding throughout the hallways of X-Corporation. Warren had never once heard Bobby cry that hard before, ever.
Growing up, I was raised in an environment where everything was handed to you on a diamond-encrusted, solid gold platter. The Worthington family is a bloodline of the richest billionaires, so of course, my father was proud to have a son to carry out his name. He and my mother gave me every tool to succeed in life, but it didn't mean they weren't guilty of over-indulging me. Anything I asked for or wanted, I received.
I remember how I'd asked for the newest PlayStation gaming system, and my father had already had the PlayStation company on call to get me the gaming system in twenty-four hours. I grew up going to various vacation spots on private jets, given my parents have multiple vacation houses, in states from Colorado, California – particularly in Napa Valley, and even Hawaii. I grew up traveling for the best activities these places could buy. Surfing, hiking through vineyards, and skiing and snowboarding were common for when my parents and I would go away on vacation. By the time I was of age to attend middle school, I was attending the most expensive prep schools that money could buy. I was put through endless hours with various tutors who gave me extensive preparation with homework and studying for exams.
Now, I will thoroughly admit that I was an overly-indulged brat, who took everything for granted. I was in fact nearly blinded to all else that was around me. I wouldn't say that I was per say stuck up in anyway, because growing up, my family had been friends with the Southerns for years. When I was five, the Southerns had lost their company and they were in the process of starting all over.
Warren turned his head in the direction of a photograph of him and Candy Southern together. Her raven-colored hair . . . her dazzling blue eyes . . . her smile. In the photo, he and Candy had their arms wrapped around each other, staring deeply into one another's eyes.
I believe in a sense that my parents had every intention to make sure Candy and I grew up together. When learning that their best friends Thomas and Stephanie Southern were to have a baby girl, I think they made sure that Candy was destined to eventually become my wife. Candy and I were friends by the time we were babies. I remember having seen photographs of us swimming around the kiddie pool in diapers. When we were five, and her family was falling on hard times due to the loss of their business, she and her parents were living in our guest rooms at Worthington Manor. By the time we were six, we played house together in my playroom. Who would have thought that Candy and I growing up with each other would eventually translate to me developing a huge crush on her in high school?
I guess in an odd way, my parents' plans to ensure an arranged marriage between Candy and I worked, because I'd wanted to marry that woman.
However, that took time for me to develop any romantic feelings for the girl whom I considered to have been my best friend. By the time we hit middle school, we were inseparable from each other and spent every minute together. If we weren't in class, we were talking on the phone. We'd never spent twenty-four hours a day with one another. However, one day, when I was in the seventh grade, a new addition to the two of us came into our lives.
It was when I had been in the boys' locker room getting changed for gym, when I saw a group of football players harassing a newer kid who was in my math, history, and English classes. I remember having seen him being pushed and humiliated, being spat on and thrown into a garbage can that was in the room.
It was Cameron Hodge.
Even back then, I couldn't stand injustices around me. Oftentimes, I hated that the classmates in my prep school somehow thought that they were above others. Even though I was a spoiled brat at the time, that did not mean I liked it when I saw other people around me being pushed around and bullied. I'd seen Candy's family live through a time with no money due to the loss of their company. It was that day that I'd garnered a new friend when I stood up for Cameron against those guys. Plus, those guys knew better than to disrespect me. They knew who my father was. They knew if they touched me, they would more than likely get sued.
From that day forward, Cameron and I had become friends when I took him under my wing, and I offered him a place in my friendship with Candy Southern. At the time, Cameron's father and mother were on the verge of losing their business, and barely had any money. In fact, Cameron had been at my school on scholarship, strictly. By the time we reached my freshman year of high school, Cam's mother and father managed to get their company back. However, that was also the year where Cameron and I's popularity escalated. Our stupid, boyhood behavior became even stupider as we began going to parties.
At these parties, underage drinking was something that was pretty common. And Cameron, Candy and I may or may not have gotten piss-faced on more than one occasion. Ninety percent of the time at those parties, it consisted of me, Cameron, and Candy sitting around on couches getting piss-faced on hard liquor and beer.
However, it was my sophomore year that brought forth more changes than I could ever expect to.
When one enters high school, they think the worst thing about puberty is growing pubic hair or even worse, having an awkward boner at the worst possible time. I can attest as a man that this has happened on more than one occasion. Nonetheless, I hadn't expected something else to come with puberty. It was an addition that I didn't think I would end up having.
It all started in the last week of August, right before my second year of high school began. I'd woken up one day with this odd pain that was in my spine, as if my spinal cord was splitting apart. As I'd gotten up from bed, I remember the intense pain growing worse, along my spine and my neck, as if I were having a vulture's neck. I was confused. I didn't do anything that would cause something like that, ever. The pain was so bad that I couldn't roll my shoulders back to realign my spine. My parents ended up walking in on me with my back hunched over in pain, and they'd ended up scheduling me a trip to the doctor's office.
The doctor had surmised that it was simply back problems, and recommend I see a back specialist. It was in that first appointment that I'd ended up in an intense physical therapy session of being stretched in every way possible. But it did nothing to relieve the pain that my back was in. Nonetheless, I had to resume school. So, I'd ended up entering my sophomore year of high school with severe back pains, and a note excusing me from gym class participation.
However, it wasn't until one day that I caught sight of something in the mirror as I'd been dressing into my school uniform. I'd noticed something growing out of my spine . . . something bone-like. I felt nothing but panicked especially as I'd noticed white, fluffy feathers sprouting from my back.
Warren closed his eyes, tightening his jaw slightly. The sounds of Bobby's cries had reduced to sniffles across the hall. Rising from his bed, he proceeded to head to Bobby's bedroom, to see the teenager was dozing off at his desk with headphones in his ears. His face was tear-stained, and his eyes were swollen, but at least he wasn't sobbing and shaking like he had been earlier. Ever so gently, Warren walked over to the teenager and pulled the headphones out of his ears, before bending down and lifting Bobby up and into his arms to carry him to his bed. Laying Bobby down on the mattress, he reached for a blanket and wrapped it over Bobby. He pushed some of the blonde hair off Bobby's forehead and ran a hand down the younger boy's back, before getting up and leaving the room. Walking back to his bedroom, he opened his window and walked to the balcony.
Pressing down on his image inducer, he allowed his uniform to be fully exposed, before giving his wings a flap. Jumping out of the window, he allowed his wings to flap and take him to a high altitude.
Feeling the cool air hitting his face brought him a true sensation of peace and serenity. He felt relaxed, and allowed a smile to spread across his face as he breathed deeply.
His biggest amount of solace that he had was up in the skies, breathing in the clean air as he rose to higher altitudes. It amazed him how just being up in the air could bring so much quietude and allow his mind to clear. Everyone had their sources of comfort. Scott's was music and working out. Bobby's were joking, video games, and playing sports. Jean's was running around Central Park for an hour every morning. Ororo's were gardening and flying. Hank's were being philosophical and constantly distracting himself with work. For Warren, his key to peace was flying. To think years ago he'd thought his mutation to be such a sin, he couldn't believe how much he hated his mutation at first.
It dawned on me that day what I was. It dawned on me that I was a mutant. My parents had told me explicitly about mutation . . . how mutants were the cause of all the world's problems . . . how being a mutant was a disease. Never in my life had I ever felt such fear course through my body. It got to a point where I'd started getting ill over it, and my parents had kept me home one day because I'd been burning up with a fever and I was too weak to get out of bed. However, it was that day I'd escaped to my bathroom, and I reached for a razor blade to try and cut my wings off.
But the wings kept growing out of my back, despite my efforts. I just remember a lot of blood, and a mess of white feathers falling over my bathroom floor as I tried to cut my wings off. It was my first experience of self-harming, and it got to a point where I grew addicted to it. Unfortunately, one day in September, my parents walked in on me cutting myself with a steak knife. I remember the looks upon their faces as I stood there before them with my shirt off, tears pouring down my face as I stared down at the ground in nothing but shame.
I was disgusted with myself.
Even my parents seemed to be ashamed by my very presence.
I believe that was the moment that sparked them to want to create their mutant cure, for me. However, one day, Candy had ended up visiting me at home. When she saw my wings for the first time, I just remember how awe-struck she looked.
I could handle a lot. But I could never handle the thought of Candy looking at me in disgust. She was my best friend since we were babies. I couldn't look her in the eye. I was afraid to see the rejection there. However, she surprised me when she'd gone up to me, and gave me the most precious gift I ever could have been given.
She'd ended up planting the sweetest kiss to my lips, her arms around my neck as she embraced me in every emotional way possible.
Warren could feel his eyes starting to fill with tears as he remembered that night. Candy had made him feel so accepted . . . he still remembered the words she'd said to him after their first kiss.
"Please, Warren. Do not change this," she'd said to him as she touched the white, fluffy feathers of his wings. "They're – They're beautiful. Please, please, do not get rid of this. You have a gift."
"And you don't care?" Warren had asked her at the time.
"Of course, not," Candy had said, smiling at him heavenly before kissing him again. "You're my best friend, Warren. I don't care if you have wings or no wings. You're still you."
Warren's tears streamed down his face as he remembered those words Candy had said.
The fact that Candy didn't care made me feel relief. She made me feel as though I was no longer suffocating. In a way, she saved me that day. And after she'd said those words, I'd decided to put my powers to the test. I'd grabbed her by the hand, and opened the windows to my bedroom balcony. I'd picked her up in my arms, and I jumped out the window, allowing my wings to flap as I flew us over the night skies of my hometown.
I just remember how liberating it felt, with Candy and I both cheering as I flew across the sky, taking us to higher and higher altitudes. She and I were just laughing hysterically, her arms around my neck proudly as she looked at me with nothing but acceptance and love. She loved me for me.
It was then that I knew that that girl was going to be my wife.
However, when I'd told my parents my change of heart about the mutant cure, I remember the looks of disappointment on their faces. Not only were they there, but Candy's parents were there, and so were Cameron and his parents. I remember how disgusted Cameron looked, and how he was glaring at me and Candy with such contempt.
It was clear to me back then that Cameron had made his choice.
But I always sensed that it was much more than me being a mutant that ruined the friendship between Cameron and I. In hindsight, I remember the looks he used to give her when we were in school together. He would stare at her for hours on end. It was clear to me that Cameron had feelings for Candy, but Candy hadn't felt anything beyond sibling love for him at the time. It just compounded after I refused to take the mutant cure to be "normal". Being shunned by my family hurt. Being shunned by the guy who was my best friend, that hurt just as much.
My parents had told me their ultimatum. Take the cure, or get out of their house.
Looking over at Candy, who had been standing there crying at the time, I'd told them that I couldn't take the cure. I couldn't take away the very thing that Candy loved and accepted the most about me.
Cameron had left my house without even saying goodbye. But I remember as I'd packed my bag how Candy begged me not to leave her. I remember her to have been sobbing hysterically as she watched me pack. Saying goodbye to her was the hardest as I'd hugged her that night. We'd both been crying especially as my parents arrived to my room to get me to the car, where they were going to drive me off to a hotel with enough money to last me two nights. I remember how Candy had cried out to me, begging for five more minutes to say goodbye. From my understanding, Candy had stopped talking to Cameron and our initial group of friends that we all hung out with. Her argument was if they didn't accept me, she couldn't associate with them. She jeopardized her own popularity and reputation to stay loyal to me.
I don't think I've ever thanked her enough for sticking by my side.
I'd ended up in that hotel for approximately two days, until I finally ran out of money to stay there. That was what led to me being out on the streets of Manhattan, with only a trench coat covering my back. I'd slept in alleyways and abandoned apartments. I'd dumpster-dived for food. I'd tried going into a homeless shelter, but when they saw my wings, they turned me away.
Nobody wanted a freak living amongst them.
I'd probably been living on the streets for about a month when I had a run-in with the group of mutants known as the Morlocks.
Almost immediately, I'd found a group of people who offered me shelter. And by shelter, I mean the New York City sewage system. But it was all I had. It was down there in the sewers I'd ended up meeting someone, who became my closest friend down there. Eventually, she had ended up leaving for reasons that to this day I still am not aware of. But the reason why I'd ended up leaving the Morlocks was because I'd heard that they had plans to attack Worthington Manor.
The Morlocks despise anybody at the top. The fact that I was the son of a billionaire, and that I had fallen from grace I think intrigued them, especially Callisto.
After I'd left the Morlocks, I somehow ended up finding my closest friend from there, once again. I'd had to depend on her constantly, and she had to constantly depend on me. We had to rely on one another for pure survival. We'd managed to last with just each other, until one day, our mutations were exposed when a group of street thugs began to attack us and beat us up.
I remember how my wings had been exposed, and my cover had been blown. I remember how those men had beaten me . . . how they'd kicked, spat on, and punched me over and over, to the point where it felt like my body was broken. I remember having told my friend to run. I'd told her to flee. Though she hadn't wanted to. I still remember how terrified she looked for me as she ran.
Warren shuddered as tears flowed down from his eyes, and he proceeded to soar through the sky. Once he'd hit his desired altitude, he proceeded to dive through the sky, face-down, arms spread as his eyes closed. The cool wind hit his face as his wings flapped. He turned his body around to twist through the air.
I don't remember how long those thugs spent beating the crap out of me. But it ended when two people ended up running in to try and help me. I remember those two people yelling, telling the thugs to back off and to get off of me. They'd ended up calling an ambulance to get me to a hospital. Being the stubborn idiot that I was at the time thinking I could handle everything myself, I'd told them that I had no medical coverage. However, those two people ended up paying the expenses for any treatment that I needed.
Luckily, my injuries weren't as bad as I'd thought them to have been at the time. I was told that I was to stay at the hospital overnight. It was during that overnight stay, that Tony Stark and Charles Xavier approached me. The professor offering to take me in as his ward meant that I was finally going to be taken care of and looked after, after having been forced to live out on the streets homeless.
Being homeless taught me a thing or two about survival. But it also taught me how to accept help from others who genuinely wanted to help. So, when the professor had offered to help me, I accepted it willingly. I knew that I'd had no other choice. One of the first things he'd asked of me was whether or not I wanted him to call anyone for me.
I remember having just told him, "Candy Southern".
After I'd ended up leaving the hospital to be taken to X-Corporation Tower, Candy had been right there waiting outside. I remember how when she saw me, she flung her arms around me and burst into a fit of tears. I couldn't help but hug her back, and from there on after, we began dating.
And Candy stuck by my side, loyal as ever. It was a testament to how much she truly loved me.
Candy and I continued to grow strong as a couple after we officially got together. I remember how I gave myself to her after our fifth date. I still remember just how ardent and magnificent it felt, to have the girl that I loved in my arms. But what further helped me gain a sense of awareness and a stronger self-esteem was when Carol Danvers and Logan Howlett entered the picture.
Carol and Logan had been brought in by the professor to act as my personal trainers. It was Carol and Logan's training and physical therapy that helped me grow not just physically stronger, but also mentally stronger. For a while, it had been just me, Hank, and Forge living here, with Tony mapping out all the ways we would help expand the company. Our future was in the hands of Tony and Professor Xavier.
It wasn't until Scott, Jean, and Bobby came into the picture that I realized there were those who were suffering, and have suffered, a lot more than I ever had.
Sure, my parents disowned me. And yes, I had lived on the streets. But I hadn't gone through half of what Scott, Jean, and Bobby had gone through. Scott had arrived at the company heavily bruised and malnourished after years of having been homeless and being fostered by a foster dad who made him feel as though he'd never amount to anything. Jean had come fresh from having spent nearly ten years of her life locked away in a mental hospital, being forced to absorb the thoughts and emotions of the mentally ill. Bobby was struggling with being closeted, and his parents were essentially turning him over to the care of the professor.
I still remember the day Scott and Jean had arrived. In hindsight when I entered the plane, I saw them huddled in the back holding each other's hands. The professor had gone through telling them that they were to be examined by Moira, and I could see how terrified they both were. I still remember seeing their bodies shaking in fear at the thought of needing to be examined by a doctor. Not that I could blame them, though; Jean's experience with doctors was electric shock therapy and being heavily sedated to keep her telekinesis at bay. The first night they'd settled into their new environment, in hindsight I heard them screaming in their sleep, and I'd ended up running to their rooms to wake them up. Overtime, fortunately, they adjusted, and they began to heal. I know they have lingering scars, but I also know that they have gotten better.
Unfortunately, it was after Scott, Jean and Bobby got recruited that things began unraveling, for me. It was when I saw the news coverage that Cameron Hodge had every intention to work with my father to push the mutant cure forward. And when I'd learned from my dear old dad that Cameron had taken the mutant cure and kidnapped mutant children to take them to Genosha, I was pissed.
'Damn you, Cam! Damn you to hell,' Warren thought as his eyes filled with more tears as he finally reached his balcony. Even though it had been months ago, he still couldn't get over Cameron's betrayal.
And my anger only grew worse when I learned what Cameron had done.
It had been when I heard Candy's muffled screams.
Cameron had kidnapped her, and when I arrived with Jean to try and rescue her, I'd seen what had been done. Seeing Candy beaten and bloody, topless with Cameron having the barrel of a gun shoved down her mouth, all I'd felt was rage. His words to this day still make me feel enraged every time I think about it. The fact that he tried to blame Candy being kidnapped on me continues to make me sick. When Cameron had shot Candy in the stomach, I'd thought I was going to kill him. I'd been strangling him when I was hit with the realization that my girlfriend was dying, and that she needed me.
Hours later, Candy's death had been announced, and it was probably the biggest amount of grief I'd ever felt in my life. As if Cameron torturing Candy over a cellphone call wasn't horrible enough. Now, my girlfriend was dead, and I hadn't even had the chance to ask her to marry me.
I think the only positive thing that came from it all was that my parents and I finally began speaking again, and our relationship has gotten a lot better than it ever had. But I do know that there is one thing that will never change.
I have the X-men in my life.
When you're with the X-men, you're never alone.
And I know that I can take comfort in that I won't ever have to worry about being alone. After years of suffering, I have a family that I will protect until the very end.
Up next: Anna-Marie D'Ancanto
Merry Christmas, everyone! Today, I decided to post Warren's reflections for Christmas Eve. This is a Christmas present from me, to you!
