I do not own Lab Rats or "I'm Nobody! Who Are You?" by Emily Dickinson.

* * * Walls * * *

Adam Davenport shouldered his backpack, waved goodbye to his siblings, and headed off to class. He took his time meandering through the halls, admiring the bright posters that littered the walls of the school. There were advertisements for clubs, campaign posters for the upcoming school election, and awareness posters for various causes, everything from healthy eating to bullying.

Right, like those bullying posters do anyone any good, Adam thought dejectedly. No one actually pays attention to them.

The sixteen year old walked into his English class and plopped down in his assigned seat towards the back of the room. Mr. Kramer was very strict about where they were supposed to sit, and getting on his bad side was not a good idea.

The bell rang and everyone settled down. A few late stragglers hurried in and attempted to go undetected by Mr. Kramer's stern gaze. The door was shut and the class became quiet.

As soon as Mr. Kramer started talking, Adam began to zone out. He had only been going to school for a few months now, but already he was slipping into a habit of not listening to his teachers. Perhaps it wasn't the best thing, but Adam didn't know what else to do. Nothing the teachers said ever made sense to him. Nothing anyone said ever seemed to make sense to him.

It wasn't that Adam didn't try; he applied himself as hard as anyone. He just wasn't good with numbers. Or words. Or occasionally pictures. Or anything, really. At least, not anything he could tell anyone about.

"For your next assignment, you will be analyzing a poem," Mr. Kramer said loudly. Adam snapped out of his mind-wandering state, wondering how long he had been daydreaming. A quick glance at the clock told him most of class. Wow, he was getting good. "I will be passing them out to you now. You need to write a short essay on what you think the author was trying to say and how well they said it. It is due two weeks from today. Feel free to use these last few minutes of class to read your poem over."

Mr. Kramer walked around the room, handing a sheet of paper to each student. He got to Adam and slipped the teenager the paper, not even giving him a sideways glance. Adam took the paper and immediately began to play with the corners. Mr. Kramer returned to the front of the room and sat at his desk.

Adam glanced down at his paper and began to study it. At the top was the title in bold letters, with the author's name in smaller print underneath it. The poem was only eight lines long. Adam silently thanked Mr. Kramer for giving him a shorter one. After a quick skim, Adam determined that there were hardly any big words. He began to read silently, his mouth moving along with the words.

I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody too?

Yes, Adam thought sadly.

Then there's a pair of us – don't tell!
They'd banish us, you know.

How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!

Adam tapped his pencil on his lip. It sounded almost like imaginary friends to him. They aren't really anybody, and grownups don't like them. Somehow, though, he didn't think that was what the author was talking about.

All of a sudden something hit Adam in the back. He reached down on his seat and found a small, triangle-shaped piece of paper. He sighed and put it in front of him. A couple seconds later, it happened again. This time the small piece of paper fell to the ground. Once more it happened, only now it went down Adam's shirt. The teenager wiggled uncomfortably. He pretended like he had an itch and pulled the paper out.

Adam began to tap his foot on the ground quickly. That was his warning sign. Several foot taps meant he was annoyed. Bree and Chase knew what it meant. Unfortunately, the kids at school didn't.

More small papers hit him in the back of the neck. How does Mr. Kramer not see this? Adam thought exasperatedly.

A couple of quiet snickers reached Adam's ears. He closed his eyes and groaned internally. Joey – the kid who sat directly behind Adam – and his friends had to be the most annoying people on the planet. But more than just annoying; they could be downright cruel.

"Oh, I'm sorry, am I distracting you?" Joey hissed, just quiet enough so Mr. Kramer couldn't hear him.

"Don't be silly, Joey!" another boy – Cameron – said. "You can't distract someone who never focuses in the first place."

Another jab at his attention span. Of course. Couldn't these guys come up with anything original?

"I wonder what he thinks about when he daydreams," said another male voice that Adam recognized as belonging to a kid named Matthew. "I mean, from the look on his face you'd think he's on Jupiter!"

"Pluto!" Cameron quickly corrected.

"Come on, Adam," Joey said, flicking another piece of paper at Adam's back. "Just tell us what you think about. Giant chocolate bunnies full of marshmallows and baby chicks?"

Man, you make one joke on Easter!

"Singing mice?"

"Yodeling cows?"

They were throwing his own random comments back at him. Only now they just sounded . . . dumb. Did they always sound dumb? Adam had genuinely wondered what a yodeling cow would sound like. But maybe not everyone else thought that way.

Adam gripped the edge of his desk and stared blankly at the sheet of paper in front of him. He stared so hard that for a few seconds he was afraid his heat vision would glitch and cause the poem to burst into flames. In fact, the bionic was so worried about his heat vision that he forgot all about his strength.

Snap.

The whole class looked up and it took a few seconds for Adam to register that he was the one who had caused the sound. Mr. Kramer was glaring at him. Within seconds Adam was aware of the pain shooting through his right hand. He slowly turned his eyes to look at it. The edge of the desk had snapped and splintered. The sharp pieces of wood were now digging into Adam's skin. With a wince, he moved his hand away.

"Mr. Davenport, what happened?" Mr. Kramer asked with an icy cold tone.

"Budget cuts?" Adam said weakly.

Mr. Kramer raised an eyebrow, but, since he was on staff at Mission Creek High School, probably bought it.

"Can I go to the nurse's office?"

Being a bionic superhuman, Adam had taken much worse than a couple of splinters. Still, those things could hurt! It wasn't really that bad; a pair of tweezers and couple of brightly colored band-aids made it all better.

The real reason Adam had asked to go to the nurse's office was to get away from Joey and the gang. Their comments could seem like trivial and playful teasing, but they cut Adam to his core.

He tried to learn. He tried to be smart. He tried to pay attention. But he couldn't. He didn't know why, and neither did anyone else.

Adam was fiercely protective of his siblings. He wouldn't let anyone hurt his baby brother (now brothers) and sister. Most people knew that if you messed with the youngest of the family, you also messed with Adam Davenport.

Nonetheless, Adam had a hard time standing up for himself. He could insult Trent on Leo's behalf, but when it came to saying something to Joey, he never could. Perhaps it was because the first couple of times he had tried, he had gotten in trouble. The teachers praised Joey as a 'good kid,' so when they saw Adam chewing him out, they tended to think the dark-haired boy started it.

It was the little things; the little, irritating things. Soft whispers, things being thrown at him, light yet painful insults about his intelligence. So he had a D average. Big deal!

Okay, maybe it was a big deal. But again, Adam was trying! Those kids didn't make it any better.

What made it worse was the fact that he had one in every class. In English it was the worst since there were all three, but if Joey wasn't in one class then Cameron was, and if Cameron wasn't then Matthew was. Every class. Well, every class except gym, which happened to be the one class Adam was good at.

Adam walked to his locker and started to pull out a few things. He heard his name being called and turned to see Bree standing there. He greeted her curtly and turned back to his locker.

"Whoa, looks like someone woke up on the wrong side of the capsule," Bree muttered under her breath. "What's the matter? Yikes, Adam, what happened to your hand?"

"I accidently broke a desk with my super-strength. I'm fine, really."

"Accidently? Did you glitch?"

"Um, not really."

"Adam," Bree said slowly, using her 'tell-me-what's-going-on-now ' voice.

"Budget cuts," Adam said, using the same excuse he had used with his teacher. "You know what Perry's like."

Bree nodded in understanding. Adam cringed at the thought of having to lie to his sister, but he didn't want her to know. She had enough problems to worry about; Bree had been trying hard to fit in since they day they first came to school.

Just then, Chase and Leo walked up, discussing something that sounded way too scientific for Adam to even begin to comprehend. He felt a bit angry at himself for not understanding the things they talked about.

"Hey, Chase," Adam said, gaining his younger brother's attention. "What does 'dreary' mean?"

"Dreary: causing sadness or gloom. Boring or dull," Chase rattled off without hesitation.

"And 'livelong'?"

"Of time: whole or entire, especially when tediously long. Why?"

"School project," Adam explained with a shrug. "Thanks." One of the best things about Chase was that he was like a personal little dictionary. Perhaps that was dehumanizing, but it was true.

"Can we trust you to remember that?" Leo said with a teasing smile. "Maybe we should write it down."

"Don't be silly, Leo; Adam doesn't read!" Chase said quickly.

Don't be silly. The same thing Cameron had said earlier that morning. The seriousness with which Chase made his statement struck a nerve in Adam.

"I can read!" Adam said – or shouted, rather. He didn't mean to raise his voice at his brother, but the pent-up anger was suddenly freed. "For your information, I read a whole poem earlier! And I'm a good enough reader to remember words like 'dreary' or 'livelong'! And I'm dedicated enough to this assignment to ask you what those words mean so I can finish it! I'm not some slacker who can't do anything! I'm trying!"

Adam turned on his heel and stalked away, not wanting to face his siblings. The shocked looks on their faces were all he needed. He didn't mean to yell, honestly. They didn't deserve it. Sure, they teased him about his intelligence, but it was only teasing. Adam teased Chase about his height and 'weakness' (in comparison to Adam's strength) in return. It worked.

The anger meant for Joey and his friends somehow wound up directed at Adam's siblings. He was truly sorry. He would apologize to them later. But for now he was too full of rage.

Adam stormed through the halls, blinded by frustration. He hoped that somehow he would manage to wind up in the boy's locker room so he could get ready for gym class.

Thud.

The sound of Adam's fist hitting the punching bag was almost therapeutic for him.

Thud.

His linen-wrapped hands made contact with the bag again . . . and again and again. Adam's punching bag was specially designed by Mr. Davenport to withstand his super-strength.

Adam bounced around lightly on his toes, enjoying the elation the training brought him. His baggy grey tank top felt comforting. Here he could be himself, bionics and all.

The eldest bionic teen had the house all to himself that afternoon. Mr. Davenport and Tasha were both at work. Bree was over at a friend's house. Leo had made Principal Perry mad that day and thus had received detention. Chase was at his debate club meeting. Adam was alone in the lab.

"Stupid Joey," Adam grumbled. "Why can't he just leave me alone?"

Jocks like Trent picked on nerds like Chase and Leo. Popular kids like Joey picked on dumb kids like Adam.

It wasn't even just Joey; a lot of people picked on Adam because of his low IQ. People called him names and made fun of him. They said he was stupid and didn't ever seem to take him seriously. Sometimes Adam felt like he was being constantly judged by his peers.

How dreary to be somebody. The words flashed through Adam's mind as he hit the punching bag again. "So if dreary is sadness," Adam said, not minding that he was talking to himself, "then it's sad to be somebody? That sounds about right."

Adam could remember much simpler times – times not that long ago – when he was nobody. Adam was not in any record system or database anywhere. He knew a total of three human beings and he was fine with that. He was only a somebody to his siblings, and that was much better.

How Adam wished he could be nobody in school! Then no one would tease him about his intelligence – or rather lack thereof. Sometimes Adam thought it might be better if they didn't pay any attention to him at all.

The sixteen-year-old hated it when people talked to him like he was a five year old. Chase did it a lot, but Adam could tolerate it with him because, well, Chase was his brother. But when other, meaner kids said it in a not-really-joking tone, that crossed a line.

It made Adam feel better to know that he wasn't supposed to be the smart one. As a kid, anytime he felt a bit . . . well, dumb, he just remembered that it wasn't his place to be smart. It was Chase's job to find the logic and to use it. It was Adam's job to be strong.

The kids at school didn't know that, however.

Adam was supposed to be strong. He was the one who held his siblings up. He was the one who constantly supported them. He carried the weight and, boy, was there a lot of it. It was his job to make sure the team didn't break. To do that, Adam had to make sure that he didn't break. That was easier said than done.

Pain shot through his right hand as Adam hit the bag again, but he ignored it. Work through the pain. It was the way he had been taught, and the way he worked best. Working through pain – whether physical or emotional.

"I'm sorry I can't pay attention in class."

Thud.

"I'm sorry I can't be as smart as Chase."

Thud.

"I'm sorry for saying dumb things that no one understands."

Thud.

"I'm sorry for being . . . for being stupid!"

Thud. Only this time, the satisfying thud was followed immediately by a ripping sound.

Adam's chest was heaving as he studied the busted punching bag in front of him. In the end, Mr. Davenport's best design hadn't withstood the test of an angry bionic superhuman.

The breath came out Adam's nostrils fast and hard. He wasn't winded; not by a long shot. But it felt so good to be mad. There was nothing else he could do. Adam couldn't 'teach Joey a lesson'; that would only get him in more trouble. He couldn't say anything; no one would take him seriously.

Maybe it wasn't that bad. Joey's comments weren't that hurtful, right?

Wrong.

Perhaps someone who heard them wouldn't think anything of them. But to Adam they were personal. They wounded him deep on the inside, and there was nothing he could to fix it. All he could do was wall himself up and hope no one noticed.

Adam dragged the punching bag back to the supply closet and buried it in the back. He didn't want anyone asking how he had managed to destroy a bag so easily. He didn't feel like answering those kinds of questions.

The bionic teen sat on a stool in the lab and began to rip the hand wraps off. As he did so, the elevator door opened and his siblings walked in. Chase and Leo were complaining to each other about Trent. Bree just looked annoyed.

"How are you doing, Adam?" she asked in a slightly stressed voice, moving away from Chase and Leo as fast as she possibly could.

"Good," Adam lied.

And so Adam Davenport laid another brick on his wall. It was growing steadily, surrounding his fragile heart. It was made of heavy stones that helped to block out the hurtful words and demeaning comments. They grew higher and higher, coming close to walling him off completely.

The only question the remained was, when the walls were piled up as high as they could go, would his siblings be inside, or would they be shut out too?