Hurt
It hurt. It hurt when ever some small child cowered away from him as he attempted to get them out of a dangerous situation. It hurt when adults, and even those he considered comrades, friends even, shuddered a bit in his presence. They did it discreetly, if they even realized they did it at all, but when all five of your sense are super-charged it's hard not to notice.
Brin Londo, Timber Wolf, had these thoughts often, now was one such time. The hurt, the feeling of betrayal, would never go away, but that was the price he paid for his 'gift'. 'There are those who don't though.' he thought, cheering up a bit at the thought of his few close friends. Saturn Girl, Superman, Lightning Lad, Cham, Bouncing Boy, Brainy, and Phantom Girl had never done any of those things. They teased him, annoyed him, got annoyed by him, but they had never truly feared him. Sure, he had scared them at first when he kidnapped Saturn Girl, but even them they feared for Imra, they weren't scared of how he looked, or the monster he was then.
It felt good to know that he would always be accepted by them, even when the rest of the world didn't. 'Sometimes the rest of the world doesn't fear me, though.' he considered this thought, thinking about just a few days ago, when he had pulled a small baby from a crumbling building. The child's mother had accepted the baby from him, looking up at him, not with terror filled eyes and hands quickly snatching the crying baby from him, but calmly accepting the babe, her eyes brimming with gratitude.
It had felt so good then, and it still did. The knowledge that his curse had granted someone else a life. Thinking on it he realized something: if the man he only grudgingly called 'father' hadn't messed with his DNA that baby, and hundreds of other people, would have died. He actually owed quite a bit to that horrible man, something he would never admit.
Through this revelation came another:
'I wouldn't give this up. Even if I could.'
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