Chapter Text
Clay is six the first time he learns the lesson that the world is shit.
Red and blue flashing lights were surrounding the large house he sat outside of, a weighted blanket wrapped over his shoulders as he stared blankly at nothing. Dull eyes caught on a commotion to his right, his mother screaming hysterically and having to be restrained by three police officers, his family's blood still stuck to her skin and clothes.
Apparently, she'd murdered his father in the kitchen hallway before she'd gone after them . He hadn't seen that part, but the occupied gurney with a tarp over it currently being wheeled out attested to that. He only remembered his sister's shrill, terrified scream waking him up right before he watched his mother plunge a kitchen knife into her chest, again and again, even after Drista had gone limp. His limbs were locked, keeping him from moving as terror wrapped around his mind, thick as fog. Like the horror movie he'd watched without his parent's knowledge, his mother had gone deathly still, before her head slowly swiveled in his direction, glowing red eyes piercing through him.
Clay didn't know what happened after that, only that one moment his mother was staring at him like prey, and the next he was outside, wrapped in unfamiliar arms and a hushed voice pressed into the crown of his head. It was as if his ears were stuffed with cotton, and he couldn't make out the other's words, but the tone was soothing and he couldn't help but grip the loose fabric of the person holding him. The arms around him tightened reassuringly in response, something soft coming up to brush his sides and back, and maybe if he was normal he would have cried then, but he wasn't so he didn't. Numbness saturated his every pore, and he couldn't even find it in himself to be sad.
(It was true then, but months later in the relative safety of an abandoned treehouse deep in the woods, he would break down and cry himself hoarse, cry until he passed out in his little sanctuary, wishing he'd just died with them.)
Now though, now he sat passively on the curb beside his house in district 20 with a weighted blanket over his shoulders, his mother's screams breaching the confines of the police car, and at least three sets of eyes watching him. The hero that had rescued him was talking with another policeman just out of ear shot, if Clay had even bothered to eavesdrop. Somewhere beneath the fog of his shiny new trauma, he noticed the hero's pitch black feathered wings with a smattering of white ones tucked in between like stars and the green striped bucket hat that sat upon blonde hair, and registered them as the main features of the popular hero Zephyrus.
The same one who saved him. The same one who was too late to save his younger sister.
Clay knew his family wasn't perfect. His father and mother fighting with each other was a daily occurrence, and he and Drista learned when to keep still and quiet to avoid notice and when to take the chance to run and hide to avoid getting caught in the crossfire. He practically started raising his sister himself, even though she'd only just turned four and he soon to be seven. He taught her words and was there for her first one ( "c'ay" she had said while alone in their room, not able to articulate the L sound just yet and he'd melted), he had begun teaching her numbers and manners. He was the older one, so it had been his job to protect her.
But she's dead now and he isn't.
He couldn't help the resentment that swelled up through the mind fog towards the hero. Logically, Clay knew it wasn't the hero's fault for not saving his sister in time, but he wasn't thinking logically. He remembered watching the hero on TV, wings spread as he saved people and fought villains, and thinking, When I get my ability, I wanna be just like him. He remembered how good the Zephyrus was at saving people. So why couldn't the hero have been a little faster? Why was it, the authorities —the heroes (the word was tinged with bitterness now)— hadn't believed him when he reported the troubling signs his parents showed until it was convenient for them?
Why was he the only one left to suffer in the aftermath?
Zephyrus glanced back at him once, before spreading his wings to their full wingspan and taking off into the night sky.
Clay didn't think the man was his favorite hero anymore.
:]
Clay is only a few weeks past seven when he's reminded of his first lesson.
It'd been pouring rain all day, starting before the sun was up and continuing into the afternoon. Clay sat in the front windowsill of the group home located in district 32 he'd been moved to a few days prior, loud laughter and playing noises in the background worse than normal due to all six kids being stuck inside all day. It wasn't so bad here, but this was the first time he'd been moved from the orphanage so he didn't really have much to compare it to. He hadn't really talked to any of the other kids, most being younger than him, but he'd swapped a few pleasant sentences with an older boy named George who liked to nap anywhere and everywhere, evident in the way he'd fallen asleep thirty seconds into their most recent conversation.
He was actually starting to like it here a little. Sure the people were loud and it was crowded, but the Matron was nice and there was never enough silence to let his thoughts take over.
Clay pressed his cheek a little harder against the chilled window, watching as the rain created rivulets down the glass and George slept soundly in the chair beside him. He was looking outside, which ended up being the only reason he saw it.
Something glinted unnaturally from across the street, catching his eye and causing him to glance over at it. His blood froze at the set of eight red eyes that stared straight at him from across the street. Those eyes coupled with the towering figure could only belong to the powerful new villain on tv, Eightfold, who was said to be a spider hybrid and known for targeting and torturing kids.
A villain that was here .
Clay barely had time to stand and yank George awake before the front wall imploded on top of him.
Kids screamed and the Matron of the house began yelling frantically through his ringing ears. His hand was still wrapped around a warm wrist and he used it to ground himself, trying to blink spots out of his eyes and settle the nauseating churn of his brain. He wasn't sure what a concussion felt like, but he figured it probably felt something like this.
The villain laughed, much closer than he was before and oh-so reminiscent of that night. Terror stalled his movement and he forced his breathing to still over the panic cloying his mind. The tink of the eight mechanical legs sounded from behind him, slowly making their way even closer. Clay and George were trapped completely beneath rubble, rain seeping through the cracks and soaking their clothes, and he could only pray that neither of them had anything visible beneath the rubble that covered them. Eightfold couldn't find them, otherwise they'd be as good as dead. Or worse.
Eightfold giggled in an unnerving way as he passed, and Clay idly realized he wasn't breathing, but made no move to do so. George was out cold, breathing shallow and soft, and Clay couldn't let his heavy breathing, cottoned by fear as he was, give them away.
"Oh come out come out wherever you are," the villain practically sang out, a string of unhinged giggles spilling out afterwards. There were no noises from the other four kids or Matron, and Clay could only hope they'd gotten out alive.
But then there was something. A small hiccup further in the house, and his stomach plumited.
No—
"Oh ho ho? What do we have here?" The villain moved further in.
No—
The crying was now audible if only barely, and when no one tried to shush them, Clay realized someone else, someone younger had been left behind.
No—
"No need to cry, little one. I've got you now." The crying picked up speed.
No—
"You're so perfect I could carve you up all day," the villain cooed. Clay's throat tightened painfully.
NO—
Clay was forced to listen for another half hour as the villain hummed and hawed, cooed and giggled, tore and shredded into the child, said child finally going silent halfway through.
He didn’t know it then, but the slick squelches and the crunch of bones would haunt him for years afterwards.
At some point he desperately wanted to pass out by holding his breath to avoid hearing the terrified wails and cries of the child, but he couldn't risk being found out while both he and George were unconscious, so he let out a breath as slow as possible, dissolving the black spots dancing in his vision and hunkering down to listen to the villains sick play.
No help came.
No bystanders.
No police.
No heroes.
Hours later, when the villain had been gone for a while, Clay finally let himself shutter out a breath full of pure terror that he'd been holding in. No tears came, but he gripped the wrist in his hold with bruising force. George . He had to get up. He had to help George.
There wasn't much weight above Clay, thank goodness, so when he pushed himself up on shaking arms, the debris gave way easily. George was a little harder to get out since a piece of concrete had landed across his legs, but that piece had been somewhat propped up so with a little wiggling he managed to get George out without severe injury.
Even though George was a few years older, Clay was taller and stronger, so he hefted the older boy into his arms, forearms propped beneath George's backside with his head hung over his shoulder and the boy’s arms around his neck. It was a bit of a struggle with trembling arms and wavering vision, but Clay made do as he began to walk. There was no destination besides "not here" and "no authorities" .
He resolutely didn't look back at the mutilated child corpse he knew remained.
Something twisted, both ugly and determined, settled in Clay's gut, and he vowed that he'd become strong enough to never need a hero again, even if he never gained his ability. He r efused to be helpless like that ever again. And if he could help it, no one else would have to feel like that either.
That was the first, and final time, Clay had to be reminded of his lesson. He'd never forget it, regardless of the number of reminders he'd receive within his lifetime.