Hopelessly Heroic (Rewritten)

eleven

"When did you do that?"

Willow turned away from the family photos on the wall to look at Crystal, then followed her gaze down to her hands, freshly burned. "Like, an hour ago. Accidentally lit my couch on fire, too, which is why I had to leave for a bit."

Wordlessly, Crystal reached out. Willow instinctively flinched away, but quickly relaxed and allowed Crystal to try to heal her. It helped around the edges, where the skin hadn't been burned before, but her palms were as good as dead. Most of the nerve endings had been burned too badly to ever feel the heat again. Really, to ever feel anything again.

She could move her hands and pick things up and know when she was touching something, but only if she could see it. She couldn't feel the texture or temperature of anything, but she could sense the pressure. When she tried to describe it to Crystal once before, she used the example of waking up after you've slept on your arm, and you can't feel it moving and it just flops around when you try to control it. It was like that, but concentrated on her palms. Her fingertips still had a little feeling, but she knew it wouldn't last much longer if she kept using her power.

There were burns all over her body, but since they hadn't been burned over and over again, they healed relatively quickly and retained their feeling, but her hands never had the chance to heal. Crystal helped speed up the process, but she couldn't get rid of the scars. She couldn't reverse the damage that had already been done.

"How did it happen?" Crystal asked, smoothing her hands over Willow's arms, changing the raw, bubbling skin into pink scar tissue.

"I tried to paint my nails," Willow said, eyes flickering down to her fingers. The left hand was painted fine, but she had messed up on the right one. Crystal nodded, seemingly understanding the entire situation from that one line. She didn't need to hear more of the story, but suddenly Willow wanted to tell it. "I couldn't tell how tight I was holding the brush, and it slipped and got all over my finger, and I got frustrated at myself for ruining my ability to do mundane tasks like painting my nails, and then suddenly I was on fire."

Crystal stepped away, looking over everything she had tried to heal. "Nail polish is flammable."

They made eye contact and Willow laughed, somehow reassured that everything would be okay. It must have been a part of Crystal's power.

*

Crystal had gone to bed hours ago, and Willow stayed wide awake, staring at the ceiling. She couldn't stop thinking about all the pictures Crystal had of her family. For some reason, she had this idea that villains were born from bad relationships with their family, but Crystal clearly valued and loved her parents and brother a lot.

She could have chalked it up to the fact that Crystal wasn't really a villain, but instead she decided to think about what it meant for her. For her whole life, she could pin the blame on her parents for not supporting her when they found out she had a power. She thought she became bad because they expected her to, because the whole world expected her to, but she didn't know about any of the other villain's families. What if she was the only one to be kicked out of her house? What if everybody else had parents who welcomed them home every night with a hug and a how was your day?

Not for the first time, Willow thought about what her parents were doing, and if they were thinking about her, too.

She leaned over the side of the couch she was on and grabbed her phone, clicking on the Facebook icon. She typed in her mother's name, knowing from previous experience that her father didn't have a profile.

Madeline Coleman was the type of woman who only posted pictures, and posted them frequently. She had no status updates, and she never replied to comments. It seemed as though she thought Facebook was meant only for sharing photos.

When Willow was younger, there had been many pictures of her shared on her mom's Facebook, but once she moved out, most of them had been removed. All that was left of her were three pictures. No captions or comments. The first one was a picture from the day Willow was born. Her mom was laying in the hospital bed, still sweaty from giving birth, leaning into Willow's dad, who was holding their newborn baby in his arms.

The next one, which you had to scroll up quite a bit to see, was of Willow alone, mid-swing, hair flying behind her. She must have been around eight or nine, and as she stared at the picture, she looked at the parts of her skin that were now tarnished, but had once been youthful and innocent. Her fire had ruined so many aspects of her life, but in that picture, everything was perfect.

The last picture was taken on her eleventh birthday, mere months before she discovered her fire for the first time. She was sat at their dining room table, birthday cake in front of her, poised to blow out the candles. Her mom was standing next to her, clapping, and her dad had been behind the camera, teasing her for not blowing them all out on the first try.

She exited out of the photo album and looked at the most recent picture. It was posted the day before, and it was her parent's awkward attempt at a selfie. Her dad was holding the phone way too close to their faces, and they both looked like they were taken off guard by the photo, even though it was clearly planned. They looked good, though, and a part of Willow that she wished didn't exist anymore yearned for them.

Her phone vibrated, and a new message appeared at the top of her screen. It was from one of the other villains, Eric, and he was requesting back up. He left an address and a brief description of what was happening, and Willow sighed when she read it. She grabbed her bag off the floor and went into the bathroom to change, trying her hardest to be quiet so Crystal wouldn't wake up.

The message didn't seem particularly urgent. Eric just said a couple villains attempted to ambush some heroes but then more heroes turned up out of nowhere and now they needed help. Willow was the best person to call when you needed help in a fight, because once you start throwing fire around, people are quick to back down.

She shoved her phone in her pocket and left, hurrying to the address Eric had sent her. By the time she made it to the street, she was so focused on figuring out how to help that she didn't even feel her phone slide out and hit the ground.