Tin Can boy || Peter Parker

five

Tate didn't like being on his own. He had been on his own a lot during his life and he had gotten used to it but he never really liked it. He was a social spirit at heart and always found it brighter when with a friend. Yet he stopped complaining to his mother when she was too busy with her work to take him to the park after school, or to play with him on weekends. She loved him, was a great mother even with her workaholic tendencies and the fact that she sometimes forgot his parent-teacher days. They had only had each other and he was used to being a lonely child. Though it had hurt when his friends in school had begun to drift away. It had hurt when she began to spend long hours in her lab, occasionally forgetting to make his lunches so he went to school with nothing but whatever snack he had remembered to grab himself.  His mother was smart, beautiful and she loved him even when she forgot lunches. He had loved her so much. It was just them against the world some days. 

Then she had died and he had spent a few months completely alone in foster care. The children there were wary of newcomers and they didn't say much to him. It was an unfamiliar environment with children completely different from him. He hadn't known how to talk to them and the adults are loud and scary. Then his scars from the explosion that had killed his mother and destroyed his house were fresh and the burns itched. He had been both glad and scared to leave. On the one hand, the foster house was scary but he was ignored a lot there. He knew how to entertain himself. 

Then he was placed with Tony and Pepper and he grew to love them too. Tony tried his best but it was obvious that he didn't know how to deal with a child, and Pepper was sweet but not around as much as Tony. They took him as their own. But that didn't change the fact that both were busy people and he found days by himself with only FRIDAY for company. (Not that the A.I was bad company, he just preferred someone physical. He also might have been touched starved as a kid, which explained why his friendship group was so comfortable with skinship). Now he had his friends and Peter, so he didn't need to be alone if he didn't want to. It was nice and he loved it.

But this cell was silent and cold and he was by himself. Here, in the chill and the silence, the reality of the situation began to seep into his chest. He had been kidnapped and he was alone. The emptiness allowed for fear to swell up. He could be in the middle of nowhere and not have a clue. The guard's lack of presence made the panic well in his chest and clog in his throat. No matte how many times this happened, it never really got easier. There was nothing he could think of that would explain why he was here. Tony hadn't gotten any bad threats recently. There wasn't any warning, which somehow made this worse than before. Also, how had they found him? How did they know who he was? 

He pulled his cuffed ankles up and grimaced at the chain. At least the chair was comfortable, that calmed him a bit. They wouldn't give him a expensive looking leather chair if they were planning on hurting him. Well, hurting him too much. The men who attacked him weren't terribly gentle. He was sore from fingerprint bruises that he could feel blooming. They would paint his arms and shoulders, some probably appearing on his waist and ribs. (There was also a bruise he could feel forming on his cheek but he couldn't remember where that came from).

The door creaked and his head moved so fast that his hair flopped in his eyes. He ran a hand through it as he tucked his knees to his chest. A man stepped inside the room. He was smaller than the guard Tate had woken up too, that man followed the first one inside like a shadow and stood just behind him in the corner of the room. This new man was slimmer and lean but older too. He had long dark hair tied back in a bun and was dressed simply. Black slacks and a navy blue shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Despite his smaller size his exposed arms were visibly muscular. Tate guessed the man to be about late thirties or early forties. He seems to be someone you'd find on a fashion magazine or in a tv show aimed at housewives. One defining feature was the thin white scar cutting through his left eyebrow, narrowly missing his eye and standing out on his golden tanned skin. Dark eyes looked Tate up and down with interest. Tate watched him back. This man seemed familiar somehow.