Angelos.

Do you remember playing on the swings as a kid? How you kicked up your feet, closed you eyes, and swung as far and high as you could? That's how flying feels. Blood rushing to your head, heart in your throat, falling, falling, falling, then shooting into the sky, high above the other kids.

My wings are stiff like a plane's, and for a minute I hang in the air, sailing in the breeze. It's more instinct than practice. You'd think it would take weeks, months even, to fly, but it comes naturally, like crawling. My wings form the right movements and I coast without thinking about plummeting to my death.

Sure, it's a little rough, my wings are still sore and sensitive, but compared to the thrill of flight, I don't care. Nothing can hurt me up here. I'm free. No psychotic parents or vengeful brother. No unstable, possibly abusive ex-supervillain who I have conflicting feelings about. No dungeons or padlocked rooms or people calling me an 'it.'

It's such a great feeling, I'm even smiling. And I have to admit, I feel pretty guilty about that, with how bad everyone around me seems to feel.

Heaven isn't coping well, and I'm already mad at myself for snapping at her. I remember us as kids, flopped lazily in the park, pointing at the clouds and arguing about their shape.

All these years I've watched her grow more antisocial and mean, lashing out at me, bossing Gats around, trying to "protect" us. So she wasn't just getting "edgier." She was balancing two identities and trying to save Starlight all at once.

Gosh, 'Galaxy' has existed for about three years now. I can't believe Heaven fought crime as a thirteen-year-old, I mean, we were still trading Pokemon cards and doing yo-yo tricks! I can just imagine how it feels for people to think you're the savior of humanity when you're really just a kid who wants to do the right thing. For Hev, It must've been awful. I just wish she, you know, told me.

Maybe I could've made her feel less alone. Maybe I wouldn't have gotten so mad when she didn't finish her part of the stupid tri-fold project thing. Maybe I would've stuck up for her when kids bullied her in school.

My mind wanders back to the dance, as it usually does, and I try to put myself in her position. Dozens of girls dressed like her alter-ego, wanted to be her, when they hated her all the same, whispering nasty things behind her back, tripping her in the halls, shooting her awful looks and studying her the one night she was supposed to have fun.

I suddenly wish I paid more attention to her instead of Jaylin. Protected her, even. After everything's she sacrificed for me, I should've done more for her.

I draw in a long breath. It's chilly up here and I better get home before my guardians worry.

I close my eyes and snap my wings in, letting myself tumble into the abyss. I'm sniffling now. Before I hit the ground, I extend my wings and zoom back into the sky.

I look down. Cars rush up and down the city roads, so tiny it's like I could carry one in the palm of my hand. Zip. Zip. Watching them buzz by relaxes me. I should scream and panic and search for a patch of empty street to land on, but I'm not afraid of falling anymore. It's too beautiful up here for me to be scared of anything.

Is this how Heaven feels when she's superheroing? I'm invincible, gliding over Starlight like a particularly clumsy bird. Or, hey, an actual angel.

I grin. "He's The Angel," I say in my announcer voice. Sure, it's stupid. I can never be a superhero, and calling myself 'The Angel' is about as secretive as 'Look! It's Bruce-Wayne-Man!' but it's fun to dream. "Saving Starlight one flight at a time. Stopping robberies, rescuing kids from strangers in white vans, and wooing the ladies. He—"

A scream tears through the night. My ears ring, and for a second I'm frozen, hovering high in the air. Underneath me, traffic speeds by as usual. No police sirens. No sea of pedestrians running to the screamer's aid. I guess people think Galaxy will handle it. I wonder what would happen if they knew she was a kid who barely made it to my chest height-wise. I shrug, try to focus my hearing, and dive through the jungle of skyscrapers.

Sobs. Over the honking of cars and the rush of traffic, I hear a woman cry.  It doesn't take me too long to pinpoint her, super-hearing and all. I keep getting more and more superpowers, and I have to ask Heaven what I can and can't do, lest I try to stop a runaway bus and go splat.

I dive a corner and there she is, alone. Gray hair in a messy bun, green apron slapping her legs, body shaking.

"Ma'am, are you alright?"

She whips around. Her eyes flash, her face drawn with disgust. "Look around you, supervillain!"

I jump. "I'm not a—"

She gestures wildly at the ghost town around us. And then I see.

Once, before the Golden Age superheroes and villains destroyed it, Starlight was a little place. No skyscrapers. No trillion dollar monuments and museums, just tiny, lopsided shops and a town hall. After all the battles and Starlight became the place to be, prices shot up and the whole city was rebuilt. Except Kimberly Strip, a little crooked row of shops where people go to remember their pasts. Every week Storm comes here to buy Juniper fresh sunflowers.

"Is this fun to you? Huh? Destroying people's livelihoods?" the woman says, snapping me out of my daze.

I want to tell her I had nothing to do with it, that I'm no supervillain, but I can't find anything to say.

The cute string of mom-and-pop stores are destroyed. Thousands of glass shards lie at my feet, window displays bashed in. Looted. The street drips red, like blood. I swallow hard. Every broken in door, every panel, every flimsy sign screams 'Syndicate' in thick spray paint. It dribbles into the gutter and through the sidewalk cracks.

"What happened, ma'am?" I ask, suddenly dizzy.

"Don't play dumb!" She whaps me across the face. I stumble back and grab my throbbing cheek. "Did your dad send you here? To survey damage? You have a war on your hands, what's-your-face, Poison."

"What?" My eyes water,  face still stinging. "No, no, ma'am. I'm not Poison!" I look nothing like Poison!

"Nice try." She glowers up at me, and I have to try really, really hard not to cower. "What? You dye your hair and your wings, wear some stupid patch to look cooler—"

"I-I'm actually blind in one eye, ma'am."

She stamps her foot. "Bullspat. You look like you raided a Hot Topic."

I would laugh, but it feels wrong here. I turn my head away and spot a push broom leaned against a graffitied building. No one's helping. No one came to clean up, so I tread over the glass, pick up the broom, and start sweeping.

I feel her watching me. "I used to own a bookshop, here. My daughter mans it now."

"Oh." I stare at my feet.

"She had her whole life ahead of her. She wanted to go to Chincoteague island and see the ponies swim across."

"Uh..." I'm mumbling now. "Insurance should pay for the damage, right?"

"This is what we paid Snare for! Protection, dammit! And then Galaxy came along..." She stomps up and rips the broom out of my hands, whacking the ground with hard and fast strokes. I wince. "Super insurance is murder. Two hundred, three hundred dollars a month. And your Snare charges equally as much."

"Oh." My throat's dry.

"'Don't worry, Mom,' Carlotta said. 'Galaxy will protect us,' Carlotta said." The woman's crying now, and I go rigid. "Look at it, punk! Everything I worked for, she worked for. Gone. You stupid, bloody supers! Thinking you can destroy people's lives without any damn consequences!"

"Um." I pull back, my chest aching. "W-What about the police, ma'am?"

"Police." She laughs a dry, humorless laugh. "Budgets slashed. Early retirement. 'Why should we spend so much on a police force when supers do their jobs anyway?'"

"Oh, no." This isn't what Heaven wanted. She can't be a one-woman police force, no matter how hard she tries.

My phone buzzes in my pocket. It's still slow and glitchy, but June makes me carry it with me anyways. I ignore the call.

"What?" she snaps. "You want money? I have nothing, super!"

"I'm sorry, ma'am," I whisper, my throat so tight I can hardly speak. I need a drink.

"Sorry' won't fix anything!" she shouts. "Get away from me!"

"Ma'am, I'm not—"

"I don't care! Leave me alone!"

I want to do something to comfort her, but she grips the broom like a murder weapon and I'm suddenly aware of how ready she looks to bash my skull in. I shrink back and around the corner. My phone's still buzzing and my head hurts. "What?" I snap when I answer the call.

"Angelos, come home." It's Storm. "Something happened to Gatsby."