Three days earlier
"Move it Em" Heather shouted from the base of the stairs as she impatiently waited for her sister Emily to make an appearance.
"I'm coming, hold on" Emily shouted back annoyed before finally appearing at the top of the stairs.
She hurried down the stairs as best she could then took her backpack from her sister
"Really, heels?" Heather criticized as she opened the door and the two of them left the house
"Hey at least I'm not the one wearing dirt covered, year old sneakers on the first day of school" Emily teased her sister who only rolled her eyes and muttered "whatever" in response.
Today was the first day of freshman year for the Stoppable girls and as usual one was more excited than the other. Emily couldn't wait to start high school, she had been going on and on for weeks about how she was going to be a cheerleader just like her mom had, how she was going to do this and that, and the usual how she couldn't wait to see her friends.
Heather on the other hand was more nervous than excited. First off she didn't have any friends to look forward to seeing. Ever since kindergarten she had stuck to Emily's side and claimed that she liked Emily's friends, who more often than not she hated. But with school came fear, fear of her powers. She could hardly control the fire which generated from her hands, particularly when she was angry. Her mom had wanted to home school her from the start but her dad insisted that she go to public school, he believed that if they hid her from the world it would only hurt her. So Heather went and she tried her best to control her temper, if she controlled her temper than she kept the fire at bay.
"Remember no matter what happens don't get angry" Emily reminded Heather, interrupting her thoughts as if she were able to read them.
"Yes mom" Heather sarcastically responded.
The two continued walking to their bus stop all the while Heather was thinking about the last nine years of her life, and how she was so sick of living in fear of herself.
I don't know how, but this year is going to be different. She thought to herself, if only she knew how right she was.
"Oh no don't tell me" Mr. Barkin complained out loud when the two Stoppable girls walked into his homeroom that morning.
"Hi Mr. Barkin" Emily greeted in a friendly yet close to smug voice, even she couldn't help but be amused by her teacher's reaction to seeing her and her sister.
"Now you i like, you on the other hand missy are too much like your father" Barkin scolded pointing to Heather who couldn't help but grin slightly
"Thank you" she replied in as innocent a voice as possible
"That wasn't a compliment young lady! In case you've forgotten I've seen every single one of your report cards since you attended preschool. I know you're a slacker but you are not going to remain that way, i will make sure of it" Barkin threatened. Working with Ron Stoppable at Smarty Mart all these years had been more of a headache than anything else for Barkin but it did give him one advantage, he knew the habits of his children.
Now fully embarrassed Heather took an empty seat as far in the back as possible, Emily had already selected a seat in the second row. Looking around Heather didn't know anyone aside from her sister and one of her sister's friends. There was still two more minutes until the homeroom period officially began so while looking around Heather noticed the boy next her was reading a fearless ferret comic book.
"You know the guy who played the fearless ferret in the TV show thought that it was real?" She asked wondering where on earth she had gotten the courage to actually open her mouth.
The boy briefly put down his book and smiled at her
"Yes i did, did you know that they were thinking about making a revival movie ten years ago but cancelled it?" He asked her, it sounded like a question to just make conversation but Heather understood that it was so much more.
This guy was testing her, testing to see if this girl sitting at the desk next to him was just a friendly girl or if she was like him, he was testing to see if she was in any way a comic geek.
"Actually it was never officially scrapped, just put on hold until they could come up with a decent script but since it's been ten years yes it's most likely cancelled, but you never know" Heather quickly babbled, thinking that she may have actually made a friend.
The boy smiled at Heather's reaction and held out a hand
"I'm Cameron" he introduced as Heather shook his hand
"Heather"
During lunch Heather fallowed Emily in looking for a table but then something caught her ear
"Heather!" A voice called
Heather turned scanning the cafeteria for the owner of the voice, while thinking that the person probably wasn't calling to her. But she was wrong and waving at her from a table was Cameron. Heather turned to Emily, as if to ask permission to go and sit with her new friend.
"Just be careful" Emily warned, a little uneasy about Heather leaving her.
"Will do" Heather responded breaking out in a wide grin before she hurried over to the table of three boys.
"Hey" Heather greeted Cameron who introduced her to the other two boys sitting there, Mark and Tony.
The three boys had apparently been in the midst of a discussion over the latest Raiders movie that had come out over the summer. The Raiders was a movie series about five outcasts with superpowers, to put it simply, so of course Heather had seen it and was able to join right into the conversation.
"You know i can see Cam being that guy who just sits underground on his supercomputer and builds all the weapons" Mark joked causing the others all to laugh
"Hey at least we would all have superpowers" Cam joked
"Yeah, you should see it. Cam wrote a whole paper last year on how it's possible for humans to acquire superpowers" Tony explained to Heather who eyed Cam with a look of intrigue.
"Really? So you believe that superpowers are possible?" She asked but Cam blushed in embarrassment
"Well yeah, we all do. Humans only use ten percent of their brains so we think that even just something like twelve percent could give a person superpowers" Cam explained
"Cool" Heather said causally but on the inside she was cheering. These guys didn't know about her powers and yet they believed that such a thing was possible. For the first time Heather felt normal and she began to consider that maybe, just maybe, she could trust these friends with her secret someday.
After school however, the good day began to go downhill. It was during dinner and the Stoppable family was having meatloaf, or rather most of them were having meatloaf while three year old Lindsey made a mess of her peanut butter and jelly.
"Heather you're actually eating. Usually on the first day of school you just pick at your food" Ron said, pleased that for once his oldest daughter seemed to have had a successful first day.
Heather blushed and put down her fork in embarrassment
"Uh yeah… well… hey i like meatloaf" She stuttered awkwardly, annoyed that her father had picked up on her tendency to not eat when she had had a bad day, which up until now the first day of school always was.
"I was impressed, Heather actually made a friend of her own today" Emily said which only made Heather blush more, she hated how big a deal her family made it when she talked to someone on her own, like she was still a little girl.
"Anyone we'd know?" Kim asked, Middleton is a relatively small town so she was curious if this new friend of Heather's was the child of any of her and Ron's old high school friends.
"I don't think so, just some guy" Heather answered as she finally picked up her fork again.
"Ooo Heather's got a boyfriend" Zach, Heather's eight year old, only brother mocked.
"Shut it Zach" Heather deadpanned but Zach, being the obnoxious child he is, just found another angle from which to bug his sister.
"Mom Heather told me to shut up" He whined
"I did not say shut up, i said shut IT" Heather argued before her mother could scold her
"Same thing!" Zach argued nearly forgetting that he was trying to get Heather into trouble
Heather opened her mouth to say something but was cut off by her mom
"Heather calm down!" Kim yelled, Heather glanced down to see that each of her hands were incased with a green flame, it happened every time she became angry.
She tried to calm down but Zach was giggling with pleasure at the proof that he had gotten a rise out of his sister.
With a frustrated growl through gritted teeth Heather went upstairs to the room which she and Emily share. Slamming the door she marched angrily to her bed and from underneath it she pulled out a sheet of metal. She began throwing fire at the metal, furiously sending blast after blast down until the center of the sheet was scorched and she was out of anger. By the time she finished hot tears were already spilling from her eyes and so she began to sob. Wrapping her arms around herself she stumbled backwards until she hit her bed. She sat double over on the edge of her bed, cries of misery escaping her mouth in loud, agonizing screams. She hated it. Her stupid powers were impossible to control and she had no one to help her. She began to think of Cam, he would probably think that her powers were cool no matter how much control she lacked
"I don't care what he would say…I want them gone" she cried.
No one ever went upstairs after Heather but she was used to that by now. She had figured out a long time ago that no matter how much she wanted it nobody would ever attempt to comfort her. So after almost two hours Heather decided to go back downstairs. Upon leaving her room she heard Emily's voice coming from the bathroom along with the sound of Lindsey's giggles which meant that Emily was giving Lindsey her bath. Knowing that Zach always played video games in his room after dinner Heather realized that the TV would be free so she continued with her intentions of going downstairs. However on her way to the living room she heard her parents talking in the kitchen and stopped to listen.
"We've got to do something about those two" Heather heard her mom groan
"KP we have four kids you're going to have to be a little more specific" Ron said, causing Heather to roll her eyes. Like he can't figure that out based on dinner she thought to herself.
"Heather and Zach" Kim said sounding just as annoyed as Heather was
"Oh yeah, I'll talk to Zach" Ron said sheepishly but Kim shook her head
"What about Heather? She's fourteen and she can still barely control her powers, and her temper doesn't help" Kim reminded her husband who sighed
"The problem is that she's just like her mother; anger prone" Ron said, unaware that his adopted daughter was standing behind the wall, listening.
Heather felt her heart stop. No she thought to herself No that, that's impossible. They never met them, they told me they never met my birth parents. She stayed where she was, waiting for one of them to say something that would tell her she was misunderstanding, but that isn't what she heard.
"Tell me about it, sometimes i wonder how her parents did it with five super powered kids" Kim commented which only confirmed to Heather that her adoptive parents had been lying to her all these years.
She didn't stay to hear any more, she couldn't take it. Feeling the tears quickly returning to her face Heather went barreling up the stairs and back into her room
"Hey what happened?" Emily asked when her sister burst into their room, tears streaking down her face but no fire in her hands, not yet anyway.
Heather stood against the closed door almost doubled over
"They…They..kn..they know" she choked out as Emily stared from her bed
"Mom and da..dad…. they… know where i. i.. i ca.. came fro. from!" Heather continued to choke on her sobs while Emily just continued to look confused.
She stood up and crossed the room, moving closer to her sister
"What are you talking about?" Emily asked trying to make sense of Heather's words.
What does she mean by 'they know where i came from?' Emily wondered to herself. Heather had been adopted three months before Emily was born in a closed adoption but from what Emily knew their family did have some information on Heather's past. For instance, she knew that Heather had been adopted very soon after birth, she wasn't sure how soon but she thought it was less than a week. Maybe Heather was just now finding out that their parents knew something about her ethnic background or where in the country she had come from?
All while Emily was thinking this Heather was trying desperately to calm herself down and that was when a knock came from the other side of the door
"Heather!" Kim's voice urgently called, obviously she and Ron had heard their oldest rushing to get herself upstairs.
Heather's eyes narrowed, she clenched her hands into fists which both began to glow a bright green, Emily took a step back.
"Leave me alone!" Heather demanded through what was left of her tears.
Aside from Heather's cries there was silence. After a second Emily made her way to the door and Heather instantly stepped out of her sister's way, but when Emily opened the door to leave Heather saw that her mom also had left, and somehow that hurt even more.