Fitting In

[Joao Rodrigues]

Staring at the ground, Joao watched himself put one foot in front of the other. His mind raced with everything that had happened that day. True to his word, he had been giving the hero thing an honest try, and it had started conflicts within him. What he was doing was no different than what he did back home. He broke into a place, fought whoever was there, sometimes took some stuff, then left before reinforcements could arrive. But doing it as a hero, or even a poor substitute for one, with the students at the school was different. They took a certain joy in what they were doing, helping others, stopping bad people, and sending criminals to jail. It was infectious in a way, and Joao was having fun. He had to remind himself that heroes were the enemy often enough that he started to doubt his convictions.

No one would blame him for hating heroes if they knew what had happened. When he was back home, with the Cats, he never dealt with heroes. The Cats lived outside the reconstruction zone, the ghetto of the cities where there were parts that made King's Row look wealthy, and no one cared what happened out there. At least until the Cats started claiming turf on the inside, where their kind wasn't wanted. Still, all they dealt with was cops, until things went too far. Joao was still unclear on the details, but he knew it had to do with human trafficking. He had confessed to leading the ring, and took all responsibility, hiding the fact that he didn't even really know what the term meant. But before that, the heroes had come to put an end to the Cats. Joao remembered this clearly, as it was the first time he encountered a hero. He was hanging out at the haunt, where the Cats lived, talking with Sparrow, one of his closest friends. Out of nowhere, he heard a whistling noise, and Sparrow flinched, then collapsed on the ground. He bent down to see what was wrong to find blood pooling on the ground from a through and through bullet wound that went from one temple to the other. Then, there were cops, heroes, and federal agents everywhere. Everything was chaos.

But heroes here, especially his fellow students, were different. They seemed to care more about the consequences of their actions, and often hid from cameras and reporters. He found that he felt good about doing heroic deeds with the students... no, with his friends at the school. Then, he went and sat on a rock, looking out at the ocean to gather his thoughts. He was joined there by several students, and he found himself sharing for the first time what had happened, and how he was feeling about heroing. Without realizing it, he had let it slip that he was a mutant.

He didn't know what to expect when he caught himself too late with that admission, but it wasn't the reaction he got. His friends seemed proud of him that he was finally admitting what he was, until he told them why it was so bad. Back home, the Cats always talked about killing mutants as soon as they found out about them. If he was a mutant, he could never go home.

The students were surprised that he wanted to go back, especially since the whole incident with Jimmy. But that was where his family had been, and that was the closest thing to a home, to an identity he had left. He realized he had been clinging to it as the only source of stability he had, refusing to let go of being nothing more than a banger. He told them his parents had been killed in the war, and that he wandered for weeks after he woke up alone. He told them that it was Jimmy that found him and took him in. They wouldn't accept that. Instead, they offered something more important than anything to Joao. They offered to be his new family.

Staring at the ground, Joao watched himself put one foot in front of the other. His mind raced with everything that had happened that day. To belong. To trust. These things battled inside him. He saw drops falling on the pavement as he walked along. He looked up to see if it was raining. It was only then that he realized he had been crying.