A lot of people back home were surprised when I was chosen, not the least of all myself. I assumed every town had to give someone or other, and relative weaklings, or, in my case, actual ones, would return home after a term, or a semester, or a year. I'd survive, just like I always do. But I went to orientiation; I pooled my soda shop money and begged and pleaded for money from everyone. I did all I could; I wasn't disappointing Mr. Fury, though I was disappointing a lot of jocks. I kept away from their cliques after that, not that any one of them missed me. We took a two-hour trip to some army base, one that the big, buff jocks would only ever dream of working at, if their empty oaths were for anyone but their bleached-blonde girlfriends and their projecting fathers. I was blind-folded (not that I ever had a good sense of direction anyways), and taken onto the plane.
It was a very nice ride. The turbulence usually makes me a little queasy, but somehow I made it. No chewing gum, I guess, a fact one joking genius was none too pleased about. He was rather proud of knowing such a fact, really. Another boy was whining... apparently he had wanted to drive his mech suit. I briefly considered why Iron Man's ego would allow a replacement, but then I remembered about the whole Civil War thing. That had to have sucked. I got again to wondering why I was there- I wasn't quite as scrawny as Captain America had been, I supposed. But that stuff was perfected. Why make a super soldier out of me when a guy who already has the muscles could be doubled?
We arrived, and the blindfolds were quickly removed. The waves roared and I realized that it was a pretty obvious choice to build the school on an island. A few aquatic peers seemed rather excited themselves. But I walked in, and the briefing began in the main hall.
Basic rules, really. No cell phones, to everyone's groaning. I always thought letters were better anyways. Powers weren't allowed during acuity tests, and they COULD be monitored. I was somewhat relieved, although I soon realized that the hell of gym class could increase by however much more Gorilla Boy can bench than me. It was over before I knew it, and we were instructed to go to our dormitories to turn in.
One boy, the mech-suit engineer, had a very nice suite. The egghead who liked his gum facts had bookcases filled to the brim. The aquatic kid had some sort of treadmill to swim in his sleep... guess he was some kind of shark-boy hybrid. He was the only one whose quarters didn't make mine feel inadequate. Inadequate they were, by most people's standards. A military bed (which I only knew from the jocks circle-jerking on Instagram) in the corner, boring books on a single bookshelf, and a desk. I fell asleep quietly, to the garbled noise of an underwater motor, the turning of book pages, and general flight in the hallways.
The next morning, our first acuity test appeared on my desk. I completed it long after almost everyone else, although one kid... he seemed a little hyper, really, was almost immediately disqualified for using super speed. The day passed. I felt like I was failing gym, despite the curve I was assured there existed. I went to the dining hall that night, feeling very down, and I was, dare I say it, very pleasantly surprised. Everyone hated. No workshop, no warlord, no damsels, no distress, no sea, no sky... I realized something. And I realized that I belonged here just as much as anybody else.