Broken Lullaby ▷ Tony Stark | ✓

37 - ARE YOU MY HERO

REMY WAS TRYING TO SMOTHER HIMSELF INTO BUDDY'S STOMACH. The robot had one arm wrapped around him lovingly, and the other hand patting his head, trying to provide as much comfort as he could. For a robot, he had as much emotion as any person, as Remy has noticed for the months that he'd had BUDDY with him.

"Why are you crying, Remy?" BUDDY asked, in that same Australian accent that always made Remy's feel better just by the sound of it.

The boy sniffed, wiping at his eyes. "I don't wanna do these projects, there's too many of them," he whined, burying his face deeper into the strange material of the robot's stomach, "I don't wanna do anything."

BUDDY barely needed a moment to process all the information. "But you have a lot of time to do the projects. But are you feeling sad or unmotivated? Have you lost interest in things you usually love to do?"

Remy blew air out of his cheeks, rolling his eyes. "I'm stressed, not depressed. I think. Am I depressed, I don't know."

"You should talk to someone about all of this," BUDDY suggested, and Remy sighed heavily, shaking his head.

"No, I'm okay," he hummed, sliding off BUDDY's stomach and moving back to the floor where his homework was looking back up at him. His History, English, and Science classes had just been based around the big project they had at the end of the year, and he finished all his math with Peter, so now all he had to do was stare at his reports he had to do.

"Maybe you should focus on the family tree," BUDDY suggested, watching as Remy sighed and whined at the other report he had to do.

"No..." he whined, "'Cause we have to make it look like an actual tree, and it's just too much work..."

"Why is this hero project so hard for you?" BUDDY asked, reaching out and picking up the paper, his processors trying to compute the words in front of him.

The Hero Report was what the teachers all told them to get started on, since the DNA test was more about focusing on how cool science and technology was, and the family tree was part art project and part family research project, so the report was the easiest in comparison to everything else.

Yet Remy didn't want to do anything.

"I don't know who I would write about," the boy whined, and BUDDY immediately fell into listening mode, "I mean, we can write about people just in our lives in general, so I can write about Uncle Brad or Aunt Jayne or something, but I don't know."

After a few moments, BUDDY suggested, "Why don't you go talk to every person you could write about and see which one you think is your hero, someone you could write about?"

Remy took a deep breath, tilting his head back. "I don't want to...but it's a good idea, so yeah, why not."

BUDDY made a noise that was almost like a laugh. "Things aren't ever easy for you, are they, Remy."

The boy fell asleep before he could disagree, though even if he had been awake, he probably wouldn't have.

º º º

Remy's school got out early the next day, so he decided to go see Peter first. It wasn't as if he thought of even using Peter as his hero—he really did like him, and he appreciated that he really worked to help Remy understand his work and wasn't condescending about it, though he wasn't the biggest fan of his girlfriend—but he just wanted to make sure that he wasn't going to regret not using him as an option.

So he decided to go to the high school, an endeavor that no one wanted him to make. The high schoolers didn't want it, no adult wanted it, no other kid his age wanted it, he didn't even want it, but it was a necessary evil, as there was someone else that he wanted to see, just because he wanted to.