Welcome to the story! This is my first Max Ride fiction, but I've been a huge fan like everyone should be for a while now. This is an Iggy fic, as you can see. I hope you enjoy it, and take the time to review, because that would be great. I'll leave an Author's note at the bottom. Thanks!

Disclaimer: I do not, and will never, own the Maximum Ride Series, or Iggy.

IGGY

I don't open my eyes when I wake up. It doesn't come naturally to me. Most of the time I have my eyes closed, anyway. Most of the time people won't notice, either. It makes me stealthy. Like a ninja. Or a pirate. Arr. But it doesn't really change anything when you're blind.

"Hey, Ig."

"Hey." I replied quietly, bending my knee up to my chest in a sitting position. Dark. Always dark. What else was dark like my world? Oh! A TV when it was off. But even then it kind of reflected stuff off of it. I remember the screens of the monitors in the School. My eyes didn't reflect anything, though. I bet there's this whole big explanation about what parts of my eyes don't work and why I only see black and blah blah blah. I couldn't care less. Gazzy once tried to see what it was like to be me, and closed his eyes. He walked around and bumped into things, and finally snapped open his eyes in frustration.

"Iggy, I don't know how you do it! Everything is in the way, and the sun hurts! It just makes everything all red. You gotta hate that all the time."

Truth was, I didn't see the sun. No red glow penetrated my eyes. I would kill to be able to see the red that came when the light hit your closed eyelids. Ever since then, all I wanted was to be able to see the sun. If anything, just the sun. They say staring at the sun makes you blind. Well, maybe staring at the sun would make me see.

"Iggy?" Angel asked in her sweet little voice.

"Hmm?"

"You're doing it again."

"What?"

"Staring at the sun. That hurts. Don't hurt yourself, Iggy."

I smiled slightly. Silly kid. "It doesn't hurt, Angel. Feels good."

Angel's little hand crept on top of mine. I felt her head leaning on my arm. "I wish you could see, Iggy." She whispered. "Then you could see me, and Max, and the sun. You could see how pretty you are."

My heart swelled. I corrected my statement. If anything, if anything at all, I wanted to see my Flock. Just once. When I last saw Max we had been little. Itty-bitty, like Angel was. Heck, I didn't even know what Angel and my little partner in crime looked like. Total rip-off. I wished I could see Max, and Fang, and Nudge…and myself. I smiled as I turned and picked Angel up, landing my back on the hard concrete. I held my favorite little girl above me, and she giggled. "I'm not pretty." I teased, avoiding the sight comment and tickling her nose with mine. "Girls are pretty. I'm devilishly handsome."

"Keep thinking that, buddy." Fang murmured, and my smile faded, just a little. I put Angel down, and you could feel her happiness deflate a bit. Fang should never try to joke around. It always hurt. It was like he was a humor vacuum. I mean, the joke was directed at me, and even Angel seemed offended.

"Save that for comedy hour." I stuck my tongue out at him. "The ladies will love it."

"Up and at 'em, guys!" I heard our 'Fearless Leader' call. It's another day! Time to get out of this place!"

We had just gotten our files from the Institute. We had set all of those kids free. That alone made me proud of us and made me feel like we could actually achieve something as the wandering freaks we were. Max had killed Ari. That alone made me horribly scared of her. Either way, our job was done here in the Big Apple. It was time to move forward, maybe find a place to settle down. If it weren't for the whole, ahem, parents situation. I really wanted a mom, but I didn't think I was so ready to actually go out and find one yet. I could tell the rest of the Flock wasn't, either. There was this unspoken veil of the feeling we just wanted to get the heck out of New York and run away as fast as we could from this situation screaming.

"Can we go to Florida?" Nudge asked excitedly. "Florida's so warm and awesome and beautiful!"

"I want to go to Pennsylvania!" Gazzy piped up. "They have a town named after chocolate!"

"I think we should go to Maine." I mumbled grumpily, so no one but Angel heard me. "It's quiet in Maine. Nothing ever happens in Maine."

"We'll find out after we leave." Max said firmly. "We should get out of New York first. The School is still after us. And plus, we should go find your parents."

Note: she said your parents. Listening is everything, young grasshoppers.

"Can we take a vacation first?" Gazzy asked. "Like you said, the School is still after us. We could go to Hershey Park and then find Ange's and my parents."

See what I mean? No one wanted to find their parents. I could tell Fang wanted to the least of us all. He wasn't exactly a homebody in the first place, and his mom was like twice his age. Let's say it together! Awkward.

"Yeah, yeah." I moaned, jumping to my feet. "Let's just go. I'm sick of city."

No one seemed to understand that I hated the city. It was so loud, and all the people didn't care that there was a blind guy walking around that relied on his ears. No one cared. And that kind of sucked. If I could have my way we'd be stuck in the library or the park every night. I hated that we had to leave the park. Well now we were leaving New York City. Good freaking riddance.

"Let's get a bite to eat first." Max said, and I heard her haul Nudge up. "Who wants Cinnabon?"

"Yummy!" the kids laughed. I smiled, even though I was bummed that we weren't leaving right away. But what could I say? It was Cinnabon! 1200 calories of pure sugar and happiness! Angel grabbed my hand (more like two of my fingers, it was cute) and tried to lead me out of the alleyway.

"Nudge, can you hold Total?" Angel asked. Oh, yeah. The new family dog. That was going to take some getting used to. Especially since the little, um, stunt he did. I didn't see the mutant dog jump sixteen feet in the air (ah! Get it? Blind joke!), because I was with the Nudge Channel and the Gasman. Re-read that last sentence. Do it. Number one: I need some new friends. Number two: I have a pretty dang screwed up life.

"Angel, he's your dog." Nudge whined, but I could tell she had already given in. Total barked from Nudge's arms, and she made one of those girlish "eiww" noises. Hmpf. Weinie.

"I'll take him." Gazzy grumbled, but Nudge protested.

"No! He matches my dress! I look like a model!"

And this was the most important thing to Nudge at ten in the morning.

"And plus, I'm helping Iggy." Angel told Nudge, her grip on my pointer and middle finger tightening.

"Angel, honey, you can't lead Iggy around." Max told her. "You don't know where we're going."

"Yes, I do." Angel whined. My jaw clenched. I didn't need to be led around at all, but I was humoring the kid. She was cute, and acting particularly six-year-oldish today. What? I like little kids. Sue me.

"If she wants to, she can." I growled. "Let her help me. I'm helpless, anyway."

"Iggy, that's not—"

"Save it." I cut Max off. I wasn't in the mood. The silence that followed was like me winning an Olympic medal. Only, the medal was for Max-pwning. It still felt good either way.

"Um, can we have ten large Cinnabuns, and six extra large Mountain Dews?" Max asked the street vendor dude when we reached the stand. He looked surprised (who didn't?) but put in our order. Let me tell you, Cinnabuns take forever to make. I'm serious, we were standing there like idiots sipping our Mountain Dews for a good twenty minutes. And this was supposed to be fast food. Yeah, right. I blame the economy.

We finally sat down and munched on our humungous Cinnabuns (delicious gooey substances equal heaven in my tummy). Of course, the six-pound things half the size of Total were gone in what, sixteen seconds? Maybe twenty. Gazzy and Nudge were perpetually arguing about Hershey park versus Epcot while Fang and Max muttered about who-knows-what. Again, I was left out. Angel was never left out, because she could just read their minds. I was just as old as Fang and Max, but was still treated like I was Gazzy's age. Hi! I'm Iggy! Feel free to ignore me!

"All right, guys." Max announced, standing up. "Let's take to the skies."

Flying was awesome. Just down right awesome. Just sayin', you know, if you ever want to go and get yourself genetically altered. Which, by the way, is not a smart choice. I've had too many black eyes to think it may have been a good thing. We entered Central Park calmly and then launched from the trees, following Max up and out. Of course, as soon as we crossed the friggin' New York border…

"Florida!"

"Pennsylvania!"

"How 'bout that Pine Tree State?" I spoke up.

"Florida!"

"Pennsylvania!"

"Fabulousness!"

"Chocolate!"

"Theme parks and food!"

"They have guys dressed up as chocolate!"

"Just go to Orlando!" I shrieked, annoyed. I could feel Gazzy's disbelieving glare on me. "Those people have so much plastic surgery we'll blend in like bricks on a building! And we can go for a few days, have a good time, then come back up to Pennsylvania and go to Canada. I hear Canada has a good health care plan for bird kids." I spat sarcastically. The truth was, those Hershey guys really creeped me out.

"That's…that's a good idea, Ig." Max stuttered. Of course, Iggy can come up with ideas by himself. Who would have guessed? Ooh! Pick me! NOT MAX. "Who wants to go on a vacation?"

The kids cheered, and then we proceeded to spend hours flying. Hours and hours of flying. B-O-R-I-N-G. And fairly tiring, since I didn't really have anything to do. Max yelled at me when I took out some bomb supplies, saying something like "You'll kill someone if you drop it". Yeah, yeah. I was bored. Gazzy had started farting his friggin' ABC's, for crying out loud. And every other hour I would carry Angel in my arms and Total in my backpack, because she got tired. She was only six, so I consented. Like I said, she was being nice and adorable today. Most of the time she got Fang to do stuff like this. It was sort of nice, being relied on.

Every time we crossed a state border, Gazzy would scream the name of the state we were in. And every time he would scream the name of the state, I would cuff him on the back of the head. Currently? We were flying over Georgia, according to Gazzy, and it was nightfall and around eight, according to Nudge. My own little clock. It was like I had servants!

"Is your Voice bothering you?" Fang whispered to Max. Aw, sweet mutant love. It made me nauseous.

"Not now. Hopefully not for a while. The kids deserve a break."

"Yeah." Fang stuffed his hands in his pockets while flying. I could hear the little rustle your pockets make when you do that. Smooth, Fang. And if you don't believe me, stick your hands in your pockets now. I swear to God it makes a noise.

"We should land. They look like they're going to drop dead. Especially Iggy. Look at him." Max told Fang. Personally, I didn't care if I looked like hell. That was a Nudge thing to worry about.

"Landing, guys. Forest below, three o-clock." Fang called out. I didn't really hear him. For an hour or so I had been fading, and I was about conked out at the moment. I hadn't been carrying Angel for some time, but I had just let her fly again twenty minutes or so ago. I was just so dang tired, so I thought I could take a few minutes to get some Z's. Flying and sleeping, I was smoother than butter. No one really could tell if I was awake or asleep because I always had my eyes closed when I flew. Well, most of the time, anyway. It freaked Nudge out, so I kept it to a minimum. But I had barely even heard Max's and Fang's conversation. I was trying to get my energy back up again so we could land and eat some tasty cupcakes I snagged from a street vendor. We had been flying for more than seven hours, minimal breaks.

"Iggy!"

I felt a hand on the back of my shirt, and my eyelids drifted half open, not that it mattered. What? Damn it, did the dog eat the cupcakes?

"Iggy! Iggy, wake up!"

"Whassat?" I garbled. I was going to strangle that dog.

"Fang, help him land!" I heard Max shout.

"Come on, Iggy…" I felt hands on my back and my stomach. We were declining, and my feet caught leaves on trees. I giggled, and someone flicked the side of my head. I had a burning feeling that Total had eaten the cupcakes. I had to have a talk with Angel…

"Fang…" I murmured. I couldn't tell where I was. I thought I was on my back now. Hello, ground. Nice to meet your comfy-ness. I, dear sir, am Iggy. I would like to sleep on you now. I could feel leaves and twigs and moss in my hair, but I considered that as normal. Max would just pay me another ten bucks to take a shower. I was slowly building a fortune.

"God, Iggy." I heard someone snap. "What was that? You just sort of fell!"

"I dunno." I slurred. What? Fell? I was tired. Cupcakes. I was sleeping. Kill dog. I couldn't even tell what was happening. Where was I?

"You could have listened to Max!"

"Did you lose control?"

"Fang had to catch you, Iggy, you scared us so much!"

"Guys, lay off." I heard Angel yell. "He's exhausted. Look at him!"

Silence. Bliss. "She's right, guys. Let's catch some shut-eye. We all need it. Iggy was carrying Angel and Total half the way. He deserves to be tired." Max said softly.

Damn right.

"Night, Iggy." Gazzy told me, laying down a few feet away.

"Night, Gaz."

"Orlando tomorrow, guys." Max told us. "A few days of vacation."

"Yay." I muttered before falling asleep. We bird kids didn't have very pleasant dreams. And we were going to Orlando, home of Disney. If I woke up to an empty backpack, Total's days were numbered. I swore Gazzy's appendix on it (What? He doesn't need it).

So we were going to the super duper magical world of Disney. But you know what? I didn't want my dreams to come true.

So. What do you think? This is a first, trying to attempt writing in Iggy's POV, or any birdkid's POV, for that matter. If Iggy's thoughts appear a bit...um, scatterbrained in the beginning of the story, trust me, there is a plot. I swear.

I'd like to thank everyone who reads and reviews in advance, as well as the people who come over from the Hunger Games fandom to read this. You guys are awesome. Also a shout-out to everyone out there who loves Iggy! So drop a review by and I'll try to update soon!