My Sunshine

Ma had left the living room and Willa really wished she hadn't, finding herself sitting uneasily on the very edge of the couch cushions, staring at the strange old man who seemed to watch her every move, all without seemingly moving at all, save for the occasional blink of an eye or the turn of his head. He had dismissed Willa's mother from the room as if he owned the house and though May had looked ready to argue, had opened her mouth to bristle, one cutting glance had made May grimace and uneasily shuffle her weight from one foot to the next, before moving to Willa. She had grasped her by the shoulders and given her a tight smile, leaning down to press a kiss to the top of her head, whispering to her that she would be right inside the kitchen. Then...she had left the room, shutting the door behind her at the old man's cool stare, leaving Willa alone.

Willa licked her lips nervously, hands gripping her bare knees, just waiting for the man to say something, anything. He continued to peer at her like a shark...or as if she was the fish in the fish tank, waiting for him to chuck in a piece of bait to grab her. Most people when they came by to see her Ma would sit down, have a cup of tea, ask her the typical questions that grownups usually ask kids, like 'How's school?' or 'Did you learn anything fun today?' But this guy just seemed to watch, unnerving her, until Willa couldn't stomach it anymore.

"Are you a friend of Ma's?" she asked in a curiously shy voice, not at all like her.

"I have never met your mother before today," the man said, voice clipped but clear, his accent sounding American. He sounded odd when he said the word 'Mother,' too, almost making it sound foreign. He finally moved, then, but it was to only step closer to her, looming over her. She could only look up at him, craning her neck slightly...he was tall, for an old man, "There was an incident at your school last week. What happened?"

Willa felt a brief rush of panic...was this man with the police? Was he a doctor? Was he here to cart her away for her magic trick? Had Mr Hughes gone to the government or something and reported her?

"Am I...in trouble?" she asked quietly, barely above a whisper, her grip on her knees growing nearly so tight that her short fingernails were nearly digging into her flesh.

"Speak up, girl," the man, Sir Hargreeves, or whatever, told her with a hint of sharpness in his voice, a hint of impatience, a flicker of cold annoyance crossing his features, "If you are to ask questions, do so with conviction".

Willa sucked in a shallow breath and pressed her lips together, slightly shocked that this...man, stranger, was telling her what to do in her own home. He wasn't family, he wasn't her Ma, he wasn't her teacher, surely he wasn't allowed to speak to her like that? She half expected Ma to come through the door and tell him off for his rudeness, but she didn't. The man simply regarded her with apathy, waiting. She frowned slightly at him.

"My name is Willa," she said, deciding that she didn't like being called 'Girl' like that. It made her feel as if she wasn't even human in his eyes.

"You had a question, girl. Ask it".

This guy was...whoa, he was something else. Willa felt as if she had been transported to another planet, lips parting in slight disbelief, but the man simply gave a slightly irritated sigh, eyes narrowing on her tightly. She closed her mouth and some of the narrowing in his eyes lessoned, though barely. Okay, then.

"I asked if I was in trouble?"

He regarded her silently for a beat, expression unchanged, "No," he replied, finally, not allowing her the chance to speak again, before he was continuing with, "The incident that occurred at your school, what happened?"

Willa knew she had to lie, Ma had told her that she had to keep it a secret, but...something told her that this man already knew everything. She felt as if she was in class being singled out by the teacher because they thought she hadn't been listening, trying to catch her out, see if she would slip up. But how did she respond? If he already knew, lying seemed like a really bad idea, given how rude and abrupt this strange man was, and if he was okay with acting like this without worrying about Ma kicking him out, then it didn't seem that strange to imagine he might get angry if she lied to him and he knew it. She didn't know this man, but he seemed like a scary angry person. Then again, if she did lie and he didn't know, maybe he'd leave. She barely had ten seconds to try and weigh up her options, before the man was glaring at her impatiently.

"I will not ask again, girl. Tell me of the incident".

"I don't know how I do it," Willa said quickly, almost flinching at his tone, his glare, those grey eyes that looked so much like a shark that she half expected to see rows and rows of teeth in his mouth. She shifted uneasily, causing the old springs in the threadbare couch to squeak, fingernails biting into the flesh of her knobby knees. She licked her lips, heart pounding, feeling a rush of heat rising in her cheeks, "I...I've always been able to do it, my magic trick. And my friend, Meg, needed help and I wanted to help her, so I told her I could use my trick to find her maths test and correct it for her, before her dad found out she'd failed it," she knew that she was speaking to quickly, almost in a frantic, breathless rush to try and escape the pressure of this man's eyes, but he didn't make any move to interrupt her, seemingly listening intently as he was watching her, "I did my trick to make myself invisible and snuck inside Meg's classroom, then I sort of...I dunno how to explain it, but I can kind of move through objects when I'm like that, so that's what I did. I was leaning inside the teacher's desk when Mr Hughes came in, and I...well, I guess I was trying so hard to find Meg's test, that I somehow made myself visible..."

"Invisible?" his bushy grey eyebrows arched, peering at her with barely any reaction but that, no hint of anything else, "Invisible, but able to slip through objects? Explain to me exactly what occurs when this happens".

She frowned slightly, face screwing up slightly, "I...I kind of...step out of my body," she said slowly, struggling to describe it, "I kind of become like a ghost, I guess. I get all see-through and usually, no one can see me, but I can see everyone else. I can move through walls and doors and stuff, but I can't touch anything, unless I was holding it when I did it".

Finally, a flicker of something vaguely hopeful shifted over his features, something that didn't make him seem like a totally scary, part-shark old man. Curiosity. Interest. And something vaguely like approval, though it was all shut away nearly as swiftly as it had crossed his face, leaving him peering at her closely. He reached into the pocket of his fancy suit, into his breast pocket, and slipped a small leather-bound notepad from within his pocket, followed by a pencil. He stepped back from her, his back facing the wall as he scribbled something on the notepad. He finished whatever it was that he was writing and slipped the pencil back inside his pocket, but he kept the notepad out, held almost guardedly against his chest, grey eyes rising to fix on her, stern and commanding.

"You are going to prove your claim, girl," he said, voice again clipped and expectant, "You will perform this power and attempt to read what I have written on this notepad. Once you have read it, you will return to your physical form and tell me what I have written".

Willa hesitated, eyeing him nervously, "Ma says that I'm not allowed to show people my trick," she said apprehensively, still recalling how upset Ma had been last week, how she had gotten so angry that she'd shouted.

He pinned her with a sharp scowl, "Your mother is of no concern in this matter," he responded stiffly, again making the word 'Mother' sound odd, "Do as instructed, girl".

She strongly disagreed with that, personally, but she also really didn't like how this man was speaking to her or looking at her, and she just wanted him to go away. If she did what he said, perhaps he would finally leave them be. It seemed like such a little thing to show him her power and then he'd leave, if that was all he was interested in, which it seemed like it. He had said that she wasn't in any trouble, sure didn't feel like she wasn't, but whatever. She closed her eyes, concentrating.

It was almost like she could feel a tether deep inside of her, connecting her to her physical body and to another, something that was bigger and so much greater than herself, and when she opened her eyes, she was still looking at Hargreeves, but it was different. He was very slightly blurred around the edges, almost as if she was looking at him through a dirty window, clear and detailed, but the edges of him were slightly fluffy and rippling, just slightly. Everything else had a similar sort of texture to it, but she was used to that now, it didn't bother her anymore. She rose up and up from her body, leaving it behind, glancing back to find her physical form now slumped backwards against the couch behind her, eyes close and head lolled to the side. She glanced back to the old man to see him peering closely at her physical body, eyebrows slightly arched, a flicker of interest lingering around his eyes.

His notepad, she had to read his message. She stepped over to him and carefully edged around his form, the idea of walking through this man unsettling her. He wasn't a silly nine-year-old girl who had teased her, he was...something else, she didn't know what, but saying that he was a scary grownup didn't fit, either. He just seemed different. She didn't want to get to close out of fear of accidently touching him, so she moved around to peer over his arm, looking at the thick page of the notepad, a series of very neatly written numbers scrawled across the page in tiny, fine print. It would be impossible for someone to see the print from across a room or in a reflection, only someone up close could see it, she realised. Another aspect of the testing. She threw the man's back a curious glance...who the hell was this bloke? She carefully walked back around him and back over to the couch, moving to sit back inside her body. And just like that, it was as if the tether snapped back into place and she blinked her eyes back open, again in her physical form. She felt a warm trickle on her upper lip and she reached up to touch it, withdrawing her hand to find blood smearing it. That part always sucked.

"The bleeding..." the man said with a calculating, piecing stare on her, "It always occurs when you use your abilities?"

"Yeah," Willa nodded, and sniffed slightly, trying to uselessly use her fingers to stem the flow of blood before it dropped onto her school dress, not needing to ruin another when she only had another spare left.

The man seemed to mentally file that information away, before giving her a pointed, expectant, flat glare, "The notepad, what did it say, girl?" he questioned, seemingly utterly unconcerned by the fact that she was bleeding in front of him, struggling to clean herself up.

She wanted to glare at him, but his whole presence just made her to nervous, "It...it said Pi," she answered, voice slightly muffled and nasally now through her fingers pressing her nose high up on the bridge, just like Ma had told her to do. She still managed to glance up at him, finding him silently watching her, seemingly not satisfied yet. She almost huffed, "The mathematical Pi, we learnt about it in school. Um..." she squinted her eyes slightly, flashes of numbers imprinted on her mind, "Three point one, four...er...one...I think there was a five..."

A white handkerchief dropping into her lap almost startled her off the couch, Willa sucking in a sharp breath as the white cloth fluttered onto her lap with a light gust of wind. She grabbed it, smearing it already with blood as she blinked blankly up at Hargreeves. The man gave her a long, steady look, already returning his hand to be clutched in the other behind his back, notepad returned seemingly to his pocket. He looked no less stern or shark-like then he did before, but there was a slight glimmer in his eyes now that hadn't been there before, only hinted at. He looked intrigued now, definitely curious, but also satisfied.

"Astral projection," he said lightly, if thoughtfully, regarding her with open calculation now, "That, I can work with. And, seemingly, a mind for academics, another point of potential. Good," he didn't look pleased, still, Willa couldn't imagine him even smiling, but he seemed as close to it as he seemed capable of being. He then narrowed his eyes on her slightly, "Clean yourself up, girl. We will need to resolve this bleeding matter at a later point".

Willa hastily brought the handkerchief up to her nose and pressed it firmly against her face, peering slightly wide eyed and bemused at the old man. There was some embroidery on the corner of the handkerchief, a black umbrella enclosed within a circle, with the initials R.H above it. God, this bloke was really rich, wasn't he? And old.

"I don't understand," Willa said, muffled against the fabric, neck craned back slightly to stare up at him, frowning warily, blankly, utterly and truly beyond confused by what the actual hell was happening, "Who are you?"

"I have a school, Miss Scott," he informed her, and Willa was even more startled by the fact that he had used her last name for the first time, that she blinked slightly at him, no doubt looking incredibly dim-witted. If he noticed, he made little comment, "An Academy that teaches a select few children with great potential how to harness and control their unique abilities, abilities that you, Miss Scott, share in common with them," he seemed to narrow his eyes slightly critically, then, regarding her almost down his long, straight nose with a vaguely derisive arch to his brows, "No doubt it will be a significant adjustment, a decade of being allowed to run undisciplined and poorly shepherded will have led to all manner of undesirable behaviours and thinking, but you will learn".

Willa found herself lost again, slowly lowering the handkerchief from beneath her nose, which seemed to have stopped dripping blood, at last. He spoke as if everything was absolute and there was no question, like he was the highest authority on everything and everyone, and with the belief that no one could ever dare question him. It made her feel a burst of anger burn inside her chest, because who the hell did he think he was? Coming into her home, ordering her Ma around, ordering her around, it wasn't fair. She didn't care about his stupid school, but he made it sound as if she was going and there was no doubt, no question, about the matter. At any other time, she might have paused on the fact that there were other kids out there like her, but she had always kind of figured there must be, she couldn't be the only one with a magic trick, but even that curiosity was dulled in light of his general attitude.

"I'm not going to your school," she told him, frowning as she clutched the bloody handkerchief in blood-stained fingers, blood lining the edges of her nail beds, "I already have a school".

He gave her a cold look, "The subject is not a matter of debate, nor of your concern," he said with a distinctive iciness, full of dismissiveness and almost scorn, as if her questioning him was truly so below him, it was barely worth blinking at in irritation.

"But...it's my school..."

"Enough," he didn't raise his voice, he didn't really need to, his tone was so level and calm, but terrifyingly controlled, it instantly made the fine hairs on the back of Willa's neck stand on end and her heart jump in her chest, tongue turning to stone in her mouth as she stared at him, suddenly more afraid of him and what he might do next, and yet...he had only said a single word. He held her gaze for a long few seconds, unblinking but yet frighteningly controlled, and Willa realised with some shock that he was completely in control of everything here, even in her own home, her safe place, he held the true power here, not Ma, him. And he had never even stepped beneath their roof before now. It simply rolled off him, forcing you to either cower away or accept it and grit your teeth. He blinked, then, slowly, and some of the warmth seeped back inside the room, "I would advise that you pack a small bag of keepsakes that you intend to...cling to, while I finish my conversation with Miss May Scott".

Willa opened her mouth to argue, to refuse...but she was only a nine-year-old kid, one who had grown up sheltered and kept safely protected in the tiny Welsh village of Oakdale, and beneath the terrifying weight of Sir Reginald Hargreeves's utterly commanding and perfectly controlled authority, she felt utterly powerless to say anything. All she could do was watch silently as the man turned and walked away from her in his fancy suit and shiny black shoes, dismissing her without another glance in her direction. She had zero power in any of this, she was helpless.

...

May might as well have been a child herself, pacing anxiously the kitchen that she had grown up in, hands wringing together, the edges of her nails picked until they bleed and stung, hair pulled free from the once tight ponytail she had worn it to work in, before having been suddenly called to her managers office. She had been confused, at first, expecting to hear that Willa was sick and needed to be picked up, she hadn't imagined for a second that Sir Reginald Hargreeves would be standing there, looking at her with impatience and a expectant scowl, as if she was nothing more than a bothersome, necessary evil that he was forced to have to deal with, someone who wasn't worthy of his time. May had almost thrown up at the sight of him, because she knew all of her fears had finally come to hatch.

It was a blur after that, her boss had stood back and watched silently with a pale, uncomfortable frown, avoiding making eye contact with any of them, while May had found herself trailing after the American Billionaire outside to where a black, shinny Rolls Royce sat waiting, even though May's house was only a little way down the road. Before she knew it, she was letting Hargreeves into her kitchen and living room, listening to him talk about his Umbrella Academy for children with the same gifts that Willa seemed to possess, all having been born on the exact same day and at the exact same time, before apparently being adopted by Hargreeves. He had managed to track down a number of the kids, but most parents had turned him down, but some had accepted and turned over their own babies to him, seven of them, to be exact.

And now he had come to try and take Willa.

May didn't understand why he would want Willa when he had seven children with gifts already, children that, by the sounds of it, who he had been raised and already received ten years of training from the man, but the fact that he had made his way across the world to be in her living room, glaring at her as if she was a insect, seemed proof enough that he was, at the very least, intrigued by Willa. And somehow, May couldn't seem to get rid of him. Perhaps it was the shock, perhaps it was because she had been waiting for this for a decade now, perhaps it was just because she was so tired of stressing and looking over her shoulder for this man, but May found herself agreeing, reluctantly and uncomfortably, to let him speak to Willa, to meet her for himself.

A little part of herself hated herself for it. She really, really did, but perhaps if he met Willa for himself, he would decide to leave them be and that would be it. But May also recognised how special her daughter was, not only for her magic trick, but because Willa was just so, so special. Kind and loyal to a fault, clever and brave, and always just ready to deal with anything, May knew that Willa would make an impression. Maybe, a tiny, tiny part of herself wanted Willa to, perhaps subconsciously she hoped for it, but that wasn't something she was ready to admit to herself, because that meant losing Willa.

The kitchen door opened and Sir Reginald entered the kitchen, instantly causing May to freeze on the spot, lips burning from her teeth pulling at her own flesh, eyes shining with unshed tears as she struggled not to cry, staring in terror at the man who perfectly calmly stepped across to stand by the small dining table, fixing grey, cold eyes upon May. He didn't take a seat, he had sneered at her offer, seemingly disgusted by the idea of sitting down on any of her old and tattered furniture, simply standing there and regarding her silently, hands clasped behind his back. He looked like a stature.

"You've had your chance to meet Willa," May found herself saying, voice breathless and strained, shaking, "I told you I would let you meet her, once, and only to confirm that she's...she's got powers, like you said. It's time for you to leave now".

He merely gave her a level, flat glare, "And what of my offer, Miss Scott?"

She swallowed, thickly, "You can't have her," she gritted out tightly, jaw briefly clenching so hard, her teeth almost cracked. She felt tempted to lunge for her knife block, just to make her point even more clear, but she resisted, somehow, "She's my daughter. I have raised her, I have nursed her, I have comforted her every nightmare and cut, taught her how to tie her shoelaces, braid her hair, watched over her when she's been sick with chickenpox. Every Christmas, Easter, birthday, I've been there for every single one of them. Almost ten years of memories, and you think I'm just going to give her up to you, like she's...she's an old coat I've grown tired of cluttering up my wardrobe?"

"So you would see her follow the same path as yourself, then?" he arched a bushy grey brow at her, his tone perfectly calm, if a little disgusted, peering at her with a look of scorn, "To continue the same cycle of poverty and wasted potential, as you?"

"How dare you! I might not be able to give Willa everything she deserves, but I will not have you disrespecting me and all that I've done through hard, honest work..."

"And what of what you might have done if fate had been different, Miss Scott?"

May paused, cheeks flushed and hot with anger, a hand poised still from where she had stabbed a furious finger in his direction, though she hadn't stepped closer to him. Her fist by her side shook with the effort not to raise it, his words hitting closer to home then she would wish to admit, and she hated how he knew it, how he knew that she recognised it, too. They were hardly living in poverty, they had a good house over their heads, food on the table, clean clothing and sheets, but...well, it was true that it was tough. Willa needed new shoes and May had no clue how she was going to afford them, she also needed a new winter coat before much longer, but again, buying one meant going without something else, like turning down the heating or paying back the many debts that May had inherited from her father's gambling habits, even ten years on. It was rough and hard, and May was so stressed that she barely could eat or sleep most nights, but...they would survive. The fact that Hargreeves had thrown it in her face, however, made her insides squirm.

"I don't believe in fate," she told him warily, her hand falling back down to her side, eyeing him apprehensively.

He simply looked at silently for a moment, "You had potential," he said lightly, "Not anywhere near the same scope as the girl, naturally, but potential, nevertheless..." May licked her lips and almost flinched at the sting it caused, but she couldn't look away from him, "At thirteen you won the British National Science Award for your physic project, and again, at fourteen you accomplished an international award for science excellence in physics, and so on. Your achievements rewarded you with a scholarship to Oxford University, but you were forced to give up on such pursuits at the birth of the child, were you not?"

She took a shaky breath and squeezed her hands tightly, fingernails biting into her flesh, "I gave it up willingly, for Willa," she said quietly, "I couldn't just...leave her to my parents to raise".

"So, you sacrificed the potential of becoming a pioneering scientist, all for the sake of a child you never desired or expected to birth, out of obligation..."

"Out of love," she corrected immediately, glaring at him fiercely.

"You claim love, Miss Scott," he said coldly, pinning her with a stern glare, "I would argue differently. I would call it selfish".

May inhaled sharply and took a small step back from him, startled, horrified, shocked by his words. She gaped at him; she couldn't have been more stunned then if he had slapped her.

"Selfish?" she gasped in disbelief.

"Indeed," Hargreeves nodded, just once, a small jerk of his head in acknowledgment, unwavering glare sitting rigidly on his otherwise cold, wrinkled features, "Selfish for the fact that in doing so, you condemned the child that you claim to love to a life of poverty and a wasteland of lost opportunity, never mind the utter waste of possibility that her ability carries. You, Miss Scott, have allowed the girl to become nothing more than a shadow of yourself, dressed in tattered shoes and subjected to the subpar teaching of those so called 'Professional educators' at that school you send her to, the very same school that you attended, in the same house that you were raised in," he took a step towards her, somehow towering over her, even though he was decades older then herself, "And now you would see her become exactly as you are now, tired and stuck in a constant struggle to merely survive each day, when I offer quite the opposite".

May didn't know what to say, how to deny it, but God, did she want to. A tiny voice in her mind said that he had studied her and Willa very, very closely, he hadn't just turned up because of Willa's incident at school, he'd been watching, learning about them, he knew too much for him to have just known about Willa for a week. He was good, too, at talking, getting inside a person's head and twisting them inside out, stuffing them with his own voice and thoughts. But...he also wasn't wrong, there was a lot that he said that was right, even if May was horrified to realise it now. She had made Willa into herself, raising her in the same house as herself, the same school; the same furniture...The main difference was that May, at least, had the hope of getting out, back then. Her dad might have been a gambler and racked up debts that still haunted May today, but he had a steady, decent job and her mother had worked a couple of hours, twice a week, as a cashier. It had given May the ability to travel to her science fairs, but Willa wouldn't even get that chance. They didn't have the luxury of being able to travel like that, didn't even have a car. Willa had all the promising intelligence that May had, but not even close to the same support or financial backing that May had in her youth.

"I haven't even spoken of the girl's powers," the man continued, barely even seeming to notice May's silence, regarding her with the same tight glare, "The possibility for her ability is utterly unknown still, but without the proper and correct training, any chance will be wasted. She may become a threat to herself, to others; already there are clear signs that her lack of comprehension over her own powers is placing her at risk of physical harm..."

May's eyes widened and her mouth went completely dry at that, stomach rolling and her legs growing slightly weak. She gaped at him, the tiny niggling fear that had lingered in the back of her head this entire time hitting her like a truck.

"The nose bleeds?" she asked in a frightened whisper, reaching up to grip the front of her shirt, needing something to try and ground herself. She twisted the fabric tightly in her fisted hand, "She's...she's had them since she was two, that's when I knew something was different, wrong. Are you saying that her powers are hurting her?"

Hargreeves gave her a slightly bland look, "Quite possibly," he said without hesitating or thinking, "And without the proper discipline and training, there is no telling what she might do".

"But you can train her?"

"There is no one better for the task".

"So...what? I just give her up to you, let you take her away to a different country, sign away all rights to my own child, forever?"

"Not forever," he shook his head lightly, though his flat scowl didn't change, "Only until she becomes legal age, naturally".

She stared at him in disbelief, "That's another eight years," but he said nothing, simply looking at her, until she blinked and looked away, shakily reaching up to run a hand over her face, scrubbing at her eyes, cheeks damp from tears she hadn't even realised she had shed during the whole conversation. She swallowed thickly, feeling sick, "Hypothetically...if I did agree to this...and only, only for the sake of Willa's health, what do you get out of it? I can't imagine you'd adopt eight children out of the goodness of your heart".

She couldn't believe she had even asked the question, rather than simply throwing him out of her house, finally, but instead the words had tumbled out of her mouth in a shaky, slightly breathless rush. But if he was right and Willa was in danger of getting hurt by her powers, which May had always feared could be the truth, then she was willing to do whatever it took to make sure that her daughter lived and was healthy. That was all a parent could wish for, after all, sure, getting Willa a good education was also another great temptation to her, but Willa's health was worth more to her then whether or not she got into a good school or not, and if Hargreeves could help Willa learn to control her abilities so that these nose bleeds and whatever else those might mean for her internally, then...she would be willing to wait eight long years before she got Willa back.

Call her a horrible mother if you wish, tell her that she was a failure and not worthy of having such a special child like Willa, if you want, May would freely admit to it as being guilty. However, if it meant that Willa would be okay and have a life, healthy and free and perhaps even afforded every possibility that the money and statues that Sir Reginald Hargreeves was able to provide for a child, May considered that to be only logical thing to do. She only wanted what was best for Willa, and if Hargreeves was willing and able to give that to her, May would sacrifice her own selfish desire to keep Willa with her in this tiny village for the next eight years, living in second hand clothing and tattered shoes, for the hope that Willa would one day grow up to become a scientist or a doctor.

"The purpose of my Academy is to harness the children's abilities," Hargreeves told her, peering at her, once she had lowered her hands from her face to look at him directly, his grey eyes cool and measured, calculating and carefully assessing May, "To aid them in fully exploring and embracing their full potential, so that they may help the world with the abilities they hold".

May frowned slightly, regarding him thoughtfully...somehow; she felt as if he was glossing over a lot, that he had very carefully chosen his words. But...she could also see the logic in it, after all, if there was kids out there with super powers, eventually they would grow up to be adults with superpowers, it seemed only natural that those powers might be used to help others, like the police or the government, and while May didn't exactly like the idea for her own daughter, she did want Willa to learn who she was. Her powers, whatever they might be, were a part of her and perhaps May had been wrong to try and force her to hide them all these years, perhaps it would be best for her to learn how to use them and perhaps even discover how they might be able to help her, maybe even help other people, if Willa decided to take that path. She didn't want Willa to grow up to become some sort of superhero, but one day Willa wouldn't be her baby girl who still cried when she cut her knee, she'd be a grown woman with her own thoughts and opinions, one who would be strong enough to make that choice for herself if she wanted to use her powers to help others.

And if Hargreeves was willing to teach these special kids how to do that, to give them the tools to become heroes with the powers they already possess...then maybe he really did have these kids' best interests at heart. It was a naive, hopeful notion, and one that May eventually would come to be furious at herself for believing in, but in that moment, she did believe it.

Reality and hindsight really was such a bitch.

She took a deep, steadying breath, "And Willa...she'll be looked after?" she asked, staring at him, hard and demanding, needing to hear him give his word, clinging still to the desperate idea that the man before her was truly a good man, "She'll go to school and be taught how to control her powers, she'll...she'll have other kids her own age around her? She'll have friends?"

"She will have all that she requires for her development, Miss Scott. She will be feed a proper and nutrient rich diet that will best benefit her training, she will attend studies in languages, history, classical literature, and all areas of science and she will be allowed to determine specific areas of academic interests that she may wish to pursue. She will be provided with her own room and clothing. And, upon her graduation from the Academy, I will ensure that if she so wishes to pursue further academic studies, she may do so. There may also be the opportunity for her to travel. Does that satisfy you, Miss Scott?"

May held his gaze and felt her shoulders relax, slowly, hesitantly.

...

Ma's hands shook as they held Willa's own hands so tightly, it almost hurt, big brown eyes full of unshed tears that threatened to brim over with every blink, still red from the tears that had escaped earlier, cheeks pale and her lips chapped and pink from being bitten. Willa stared into her face, her bottom lip wobbling as she struggled to process everything...only an hour and a half ago, she had been leaving school and arriving home, now she was standing on the doorstep of the only home she had ever known, her school bag slung over her back, heavy with the few things that she prized most in the world outside of her mother, while her mother knelt before her, barely holding back tears and the ever watchful, shark-like stare of Sir Reginald Hargreeves boring into Willa's neck from where he stood a few paces away in the evening light of the back garden, impatiently waiting.

He had told them they had two minutes to say their goodbyes. There wasn't enough time in the world.

"I don't want to go, Ma," Willa whispered, feeling utterly heartbroken and shocked, stuck trying to figure out what she had done wrong for this to happen, "Why do I have to go?"

"You're going to learn how to use your abilities, Will," Ma told her softly, gently, gazing into her face with a hungry, desperate look, as if she was trying to memorise every single tiny detail about her face, from the dark eyelashes that framed her honey brown almond eyes to the rounded full cheeks, the narrow bridge of her nose, her full, shapely lips, her circular face...She squeezed her tiny hands in her own, "You're going to learn so much and you'll never be bored again with school, and there'll be plenty of other kids around that are the same age of you..."

"But I already have Meg! I don't need any new friends!"

"Sunshine," she murmured soothingly, her features briefly constricting with misery and guilt, "My only sunshine, it's going to be a great, wild adventure, just like out of one of your books, yeah? You're going to have so many stories to tell me and I expect you to keep track of every single thing that happens, because I'm going to want to hear all about it. You're going to learn whatever you want and you'll get to use your magic trick, and the other kids are going to be just like you, Will. You won't be alone..."

"But why do I have to go? Did...did I do something bad?"

"No!" May gasped, horrified and shocked by the idea. She blinked, glancing at something hastily over Willa's shoulder, her expression briefly growing a touch panicked by whatever she saw, before it smoothed out again and she swallowed. She looked back into Willa's face, her expression growing tight with the effort to stay calm and reassuring, "Willa, you did nothing wrong, do you hear me? Nothing. This isn't a punishment, never, ever think that. This is...it's for your future, okay? You'll understand when you're older, but I'm doing this because I love you more than anything else and sometimes, when you love someone, you have to do things that hurt and are hard, but you do it because it's the best thing for that person," she licked her lips, looking slightly desperate now, "Willa, you are so, so loved, no matter what, remember that. This isn't anything to do with being naughty, do you understand that?"

Willa sniffled, nodding slowly, "Yes," she said quietly.

"Thirty seconds, Miss Scott," Hargreeves voice cut through the air like a knife.

May flinched, but she refused to look away from Willa, "Sunshine," she said urgently, barely keeping it together now, tears slipping down her cheeks freely, "I love you so much, more than anything else, and if you ever get scared, I want you to remember our song, okay? Just...remember our song and I'll do the same, Willa. No matter where you are in the world, day or night, I will never stop thinking about you, and when we see each other again, no matter how long or soon that might be, I will be waiting for you".

"Ma," Willa chocked on a sob.

May simply pulled her into her arms and Willa dissolved, burying her face into May's neck, smelling her rose scented shampoo and engraining it into her memory, because even though Willa didn't fully understand what was happening, she did know that it was going to be a very long time before she saw Ma again, and she needed to hold onto as much of her as she could.

"Time's up, Miss Scott," Hargreeves called, then, and May stiffened, still cradling Willa in her arms, "Release the child. It's time to go".

"No!" Willa cried, only clinging to May harder, squeezing her eyes shut, as if that would be enough to stop all of this from happening, "No, I'm not going with you! Go away!"

There was simply a slightly irritated sigh, "Miss Scott," his voice was clipped and pointed, "You signed the papers. The girl is mine. Release her, or I will have the authorities called".

May slowly pulled Willa from herself, face hot with fury and tears, throwing the man a filthy glare, "Don't remind me," she spat back at him, "For the rest of my life, until my dying breath, I'm going to regret it".

"You made a choice, Miss Scott. We must live with our choices, be them good or bad".

She scoffed darkly and looked away from him, back to Willa, who still clung desperately to May as if her life depended upon it. She swallowed, hard, and released a shaky breath that came out more like a strangled sob, reaching up to gently wipe away the tears that now coated Willa's cheeks.

"It's...it's time, Willa," she said shakily, "You have to go now".

"No! I'm not going!"

Hagreeves, seemingly quite done with the sentimental nonsense and childish wailings of Willa, simply crossed the distance between him and the pair, reaching down to grab Willa's tiny wrist in his own. He hauled her up off the ground, even though Willa gasped out in shock and automatically went to try and kick his legs...For an old man, his reflexes were excellent. He easily avoided the kicks and pushed Willa slightly ahead of himself, spinning her around so that her back was to him, his other hand grabbing her other arm and forcing it back.

"Enough," he told her stiffly, voice sharp and almost bark-like, "I will not tolerate this behaviour. You will stop or I will force you".

Willa had no clue what that meant, but his tone left her with no doubt that it would be scary for her to find out. She didn't want to stop fighting though, but one glance over her shoulder back to her mother, still kneeling on the ground, face covered with tears and eyes wide and pleading, Willa lost the fight. She almost collapsed on the garden path, if it wasn't for the tight grip holding her upright, Hagreeves half-marching, half-dragging her onwards and away from Ma. It would be the last time that Willa and May would see each other for a very, very long time.

Oh, May…She really does believe that Reggie is planning to train the kids to be possible future superheroes when they're all grown up, and, sure, she's not a fan of that, but in her mind she also figures that Willa will be old enough by then to make her own choice about it. She has no idea that Reggie actually plans to have child superheroes running around the joint. And, naturally, Reggie being the master manipulator that he is, so isn't going to correct her on that account. At the end of the day, though, May loves Willa and has spent years being secretly scared that Willa might be hurting herself with her powers, I mean, the nose bleeds totally freak her out, and if there's a chance that Willa might be able to learn how to stop that, May's willing to let her go. For Love…see what I did there :)

I hope you liked it, please comment/review :)