Author's Nota Bene : Hello there everyone. You probably jumped a few feet to see my name in your alert (for those who forgot to delete me from it, unless you were actually hoping I'd come back; in that case I'm flattered, albeit a bit surprised). For the others, I'll pretend I'm new. Those who know me know I've only written Romy so far, but I decided to try something new this time. I haven't written in a while; with finishing college, getting married, being a teacher in high school and having a little baby, you'll understand I haven't had much time. Maternity leave is starting to give me a lot of free time (happens when baby starts to play by himself), though, and since I pretty much lost interest in what I was writing before I disappeared, I'm starting this.

Long NB. Sorry. Go read.

Enjoy!


Wings

Chapter 1

Little did I know everything was going to end the way it did, but what can I say. People make mistakes, and they learn from them. Some of the little mistakes can help your life be better in the long run; you learn from the consequences of your actions, and try your best not to do it again.

Some bigger mistakes can make your life miserable, but optimists will tell me that there's a silver lining in all skies, whether they're the brightest blue, or the darkest grey. I know the sky like the palm of my own hand, and I've seen skies where no silver lining could be seen.

I say you always have a choice. Those who say that sometimes you don't are simply afraid of consequences, or realize the consequences are too much to pay for doing something. But you do have the choice.

Some mistakes take your life away. Perhaps in that case is it still possible to say you don't have a choice… or do you?

I've made mistakes in my life. Oh, so many of them, too. And now, I realize them. I always have, I think, only it is now that I pay for them.

Perhaps I should start from the very beginning.

My name is Warren Worthington the third. I got my name from my father, who himself had it from my grandfather. Some might think it isn't the most original way to name children, but to me, and to the rest of the family, it was an honor. My grandfather started his business out of almost nothing, making it successful. My father worked hard as well to make it bigger, more important; adding, each year, another domain to Worthington Industries. By the time I was born, a silver spoon in my mouth, the family business had offices all over the world and controlled the worlds of transportation, science and medicine, to name only a few.

I was raised in such a world; born as boy billionaire, and a handsome kid in a world of business sharks. I was taught everything, every single detail in the company management, knowing that some day it would come to me to lead the successful Industries. From my mother I learned to read all about a person; guess their thoughts, simply by the way they looked at you, or looked away; their words, the tone of their voice. It isn't a flawless technique, I realized that over the years. I am nothing close to a telepath, no. Oh, how that would have made everything so much easier. From my father I got stubbornness, and the ability to have everything my way in the most diplomatic way possible.

And from them both, or perhaps from their behavior as parents – or the absence of it – I learned how to fend for myself and make my own decisions.

I spent my life in New York, from birth to death. My first life, that is. From the moment everything I knew, everything I was used to was washed away to leave place to a complete fiasco, my life ended. I "died", and started a new life as someone completely different. Starting anew isn't always a good thing. For most people it is a choice, not an obligation, but not everyone is so lucky. I wasn't given a choice. My first life was short, too; I was only 15 when everything around me went to hell.

I was sent to a boys' school for my high school years. Uniforms and squeaky shoes, dangerously verbally violent teachers, for the most part, and a school packed with nothing but snobs, myself included (I won't start this with modesty; it's one of the things my parents never showed me, and certainly not something you learn by yourself). I was the perfect golden son. Perfect grades, an impressive athlete, more friends than I needed; I had everything on my side. Then…

Then, I was 15 when it started.

Like all boys my age, my height exploded from a shy 5'4" to a little more than average 6' in the matter of a school year, making my mother's eyes widen considerably at Thanksgiving and the Spring break. I lost weight, a lot of it, and enough to worry my doctor. I remember laughing at him. I ate like a 15 yr old (which is about as much as three normal adults), and still the scale went down each time I stepped on it until it reached a clean 115 lbs. I'll let you imagine what I looked like, and dare anyone to call themselves a "scrawny" kid. I was scary. It scared my mother. I bothered my father. And it was starting to scare me, as well. My arms were too long. My legs were too long. And I was starting to have trouble on days where the wind was strong, I swear.

I ate, god, I ate like each meal was my last one. I heard somewhere that muscles weighted more than fat, and since the second was apparently impossible to get, I started some training. It worked. In fact, it felt like it was the only thing my body was waiting for. My shoulders widened, my arms and legs got bigger, filling with lean, strong muscles, and I got a chest I was pretty proud of by the time I celebrated my 16th birthday.

And what a birthday it was.

I met Cameron on our first day at school that, obviously. I had been there before, it was his first time at this school after moving from Virginia. We met at our dorm room door, both of us with a suitcase in hand, and he arched a dark eyebrow at me. "Looks like we're together?"

I smirked, letting him reach for his own key and open the door. "Apparently." I followed him in, frowning slightly when he picked the far bed, close to the window. I dropped my suitcase next to the other on the other side of the room, turning to look around. "I'm Warren," I said, glancing at him as he plopped down on his mattress. "Warren Worthington III."

"Cameron Hodge," he let out, looking up at me, and smirked. "The third?"

I snorted softly, sitting down as well, and nodded. "There's nothing after Junior, and that's my father, so they went with that for me."

He chuckled. "Original."

I shrugged slightly, smiling up at him. "I don't mind, I like it. Makes it sound like a name you have to be worthy of."

Flopping on his back, he laughed up at the ceiling. "Aren't you a humble soul."

We could have been enemies then, but we became friends quickly.

"He can ram it up for all I care, I'm not doing it." George let out a sigh as we all chuckled. "We already have four assignments to hand in for his class! What is he trying to do? Make us do homework 'till death ensues?"

"No, I think he's aiming for death by boredom," Cameron mumbled, leaning back against the tree.

"What if he's just trying to help us? You know, by making us work harder?" We all glared up at Jonas, who raised his hands in defense. He even took a step back. "It'll make Mr. Fitzpatrick's class look easier next year?" he tried again to save himself. "My brother was a senior two years ago, he told me it was even worse than Mr. Thompson's."

"Nice try, Johnny," I breathed, turning to look at the street. It was lunchtime, and we were standing outside in front of the school. It was only the beginning of March, and barely, but the weather was the same as late April, the sun shinning down hard, and coats discarded inside the school. The sweater we were all wearing were enough already, and everyone was outside, eating, chatting, and for some, getting in trouble. We weren't, though. Simply thinking of what my father would do with my skin if he got a single negative call from the principal was enough to keep me from even trying to be a second late in class.

It was a private school for boys, but someone had thought it a good idea to build a private school for girls two blocks away. It took the whole point of making it "private", in my opinion, especially considering girls ventured closer often enough. Three of them were heading in our direction, too, green and yellow plaid skirts flowing around their thighs, and grinned at us as they stepped closer. "Hey boys," a blonde said. A red head, a brunette and a black haired girl. It was almost cliché, but all of us stood a bit straighter like the teenage males we were.

"Hi, Warren."

All eyes narrowed at me. I smirked back at the guys, and turned to the brunette. "Hi Candy."

The blonde's grin widened and she opened her mouth to speak, and Candy smiled at me and Cameron, tilting her head to the side in a "wanna escape?" way. We were more than eager to get away from what seemed like girly blabbering, and followed her.

We were always together, at least when she could get out of her school, or didn't have to go to her parents' house in Michigan. Candy, Cameron and I became a trio. She was a year younger than us boys, but her loud mouth and reckless attitude caught up with us, and made us "accept" her with us. People thought of a love triangle, but with Cameron and I at 15, and her at 14, we didn't agree. Of course, that would change with time, but I haven't gotten there yet.

I was going to turn 16 two days later. It was Friday but there was no school that day or the next Monday, and Cameron had gone to visit his family for the long weekend.

Thank God for small mercies.

It started as a tingling, like a bug crawling up my back at any moment of the day. It lasted for a few weeks, annoying me to no end, but I didn't think much of it, making Cameron roll on his bed with laughter each time I would try to reach the impossible spots in my itching back.

Then it started to hurt.

I compare it to those dreadful calf or foot cramps people tend to get while they sleep. Night was, in fact, when it would hit me, most of the time. I would wake up, shivers running up and down my spine as my back arched against the mattress, my shoulders feeling as it they were being pulled apart and cramps all over my back. It would always fade, and I would fall asleep again without waking a curious Cameron on the other side of the room; but as the event became more frequent, and more painful, I grew worried that something serious might be wrong. As long as it only happened during the night, though, I didn't do anything.

Not that I did much when it got worse.

I was in the shower after a football game, one day, when it caught me during the day for the first time. Of course it had to be with all the other boys, and I winced in pain, my whole body tensing, fingers gripping my hair as I hid my face from the others. It was worse than all the other times, probably because I was standing. At least it was what I thought, until there was a startled exclamation from whoever was next to me. "Warren!" he let out, making me glance at him. He was staring at my back, though. "Jeez, man, how did you get hurt like that? You're bleeding all over the place!"

I froze, before glancing down at the tiled floor where, obviously, blood was dripping from my back and down my legs, mixing with the soapy water and twirling around the drains. My stomach lurched, threatening to send my lunch back up my throat, and I let out a small gasp as I backed up against the wall. It hurt even more, though, and I let out a soft groan before escaping the shower and grabbing a towel, ignoring the other boys' questions.

I hid in my room all day, my back shuddering in pain, and blood pouring from it. I had looked in the mirror to see my back torn in two places, between the shoulder blade and the spine. When I finally gathered the guts to reach back and touch the torn skin, I all but threw up when I touched… something coming out of it. My stomach didn't take much more, though, and pulling back a bloody hand in front of my face was the final straw. I spent an hour in the bathroom throwing up everything I might had eaten in the last three days, before crawling back to my bed.

The cramps didn't fade. In fact, they were growing worse. I was somewhere between consciousness and sleep as I reached back then and again, tears welling to my eyes each time I would find the things coming out of my back bigger each time. They were growing. It felt as if they were being pushed out after being inside for too long, bony things that kept growing longer.

Someone said that your body has enough sense to make you pass out from the worst pains. It would have been preferable, but I didn't have that luck. The pain kept me awake, and fear kept me from going to anyone. Blood soaked my bed sheets before long, and I hid my face in my pillow to muffle screams when it got so painful it brought me to the edge of unconsciousness. I wished for it, begged for it, but another cramp would always bring me back, and the whole time it lasted, I was awake, trembling, sweating, bleeding like a pig, and feeling like a red hot knife was cutting through my flesh.

I leave the rest of the night to your imagination.

At some point I must have fallen asleep, because I woke up in the morning, my face in my pillow. My back was sore, and the room reeked with the smell of blood, making my stomach twist painfully again. I was weak. Not very surprising, taking into consideration I had apparently lost half the blood my body could contain. I crawled out of bed and towards the bathroom, and managed to pull myself up to my feet to look at the mirror.

It took everything I had left not to faint again. Dots danced in front of my eyes, and my fingers tightened on the rim of the sink as I stared at my reflection.

I was covered in blood.

My pants were obviously ruined, and dried blood was sticking to my bare chest. My blonde hair was matted with it as well, wide, scared pale blue eyes staring back at me. But what I was looking at, my heart sinking to the bottom of my chest at phenomenal speeds, were the two long, bony limbs coming out of my back. I could see them, folded about two feet over my shoulders, and the tips reaching down at knee height, at least seven ft long, each of them. I reached a trembling hand to touch one, sinking down to my feet on the cold tiled floor

Imagine the surprise. You reach out to touch something completely alien, something that wasn't part of your body hours ago, and you feel the touch. I could feel it, plain as day, as if I simply was touching my arm. I was shaking now, my whole body was as I ran a finger on the soft, pink skin, and gasped softly when it flinched. God, it was ticklish. It felt weird, too. The skin was soft, but there was something else, and as I looked closer, I saw white, small, soft growths coming through the skin. I touched it, and my mind lightened with understanding. Don't get me wrong, I didn't understand why; but I could recognize bird down when I saw it. The limbs were covered with it, tiny feathers that I could only guess would grow into large ones. Wings.

There were wings, gigantic wings, protruding out of my back.

And I was turning into a monster.

I promise updates soon, if y'all like it.

Disclaimer (because I think I have to) : Fanfiction (n.) From "fan" (one who admires; one who esteems or loves greatly) and "fiction" (that which is feigned, invented, or imagined; especially, a feigned or invented story, whether oral or written). This story is merely an alternate version of the Marvel-verse. Events in this story are sometimes based on the "true" facts (true in a very large sense, since they are pure fiction themselves) of Warren Worthington's life, sometimes completely made up by the author's mind (and muse). There is no use in commenting that something didn't "really happen like that at all" or that I got something wrong. That being said, anything related to the X-men (X-men, villains, any known name, plot or character) belongs to Marvel. Everything that doesn't come from the Marvel-verse belongs, pretty obviously, to me. Marvel makes (a lot of) money with their stories. I (really) don't make money with fanfiction (unless they install a button somewhere at some point, but I doubt it'll happen, and then Marvel could sue me). Any feeling of déjà-vu can be blamed on the large number (I'm only guessing, I haven't read much really) of fanfiction stories already written on the subject; I am not a thief, I have enough imagination to write a story by myself without stealing others' ideas. That was a long-a disclaimer, but I will not repeat it in each chapter, because it's as annoying to write as it is to read, and I think everyone has enough sense to start reading the story with the first chapter (-- insert "duh"--). If you even read so far, you're good.