Mr Stark Is Not Selfish

Lost And Found

 May 7th, 2016

Forrest Hills, Queens, New York

---

Peter emitted a sound somewhere between an annoyed groan and an angered yell as he slammed his hands against the keyboard in frustration. He had been spending the past two hours since he had arrived home from Germany on his old, somewhat perfectly functioning, desktop computer hacking into the RAFT, a prison made to hold the strongest people out there within its walls. Perfect to imprison the captured Rogue Avengers until their punishments were to be officially decided by the court.

During his time in Western Grand Berlin Hotel, Germany, Peter had overheard Mr Happy (more like eavesdropped on the man's conversation, but the details are unimportant) discussing a certain billionaire's whereabouts on the phone to who Peter presumed to be Secretary Ross. Or, more specifically, how the location of the hero was currently unknown.

---

May 6th, 2016

The Western Grand Berlin Hotel, Germany

-

Peter groaned into the silk, pearly-white pillows that covered his temporary bed. Two days had passed since the fight at the airport and Peter was positively bored. Mr Stark had come in once to check on the kid, but that was ages ago.

The conversation mainly consisted of Peter rambling nervously and the billionaire playing on his phone in the doorway entrance, anyway. Now that he thinks about it, it was hardly a conversation at all. Mr Stark had left without so much as a glance in the teenager's direction, and the only words Peter's idol had spoken was a nonchalant; 'How you holding up, kid?'; and a bored; 'That's nice, but I'll be going now. Superhero things to do and all that'.

If it were anyone else, Peter would have been at least a little offended by the disrespectful and dismissive behaviour, but it wasn't anyone else. It was the Tony freakin' Stark! Most people Peter's age don't even get to see him in person unless he's saving New York in his Iron Man suit, so that little acknowledgement Spider-Man had received was practically a dream come true!

Now if only he could tell people about it.

His vigilante alter-ego was a secret, therefore so were the activities Spider-Man experienced and the places he'd been, as long as the information wasn't already public. It was all a secret from everyone but himself, Mr Happy (although he didn't like being called that, but, then again, Mr Happy didn't like a lot of things), Mr Stark and Colonel Rhodes. Well, the last one Peter wasn't certain about, but he had heard the billionaire's friend asking about Spidey's identity over a private comm line when Peter first made himself known prior to the fight. Super-hearing can be so useful sometimes. The teenager was pretty sure Mr Stark ignored the query anyway, but who knows, maybe Colonel Rhodes had received an answer sometime after.

But back to the point.

Peter was bored.

So extremely so that even taking apart and reassembling the awesome, technological devices in this room (such as that Stark TV over there) wasn't enough to please him. Anymore. Mr Happy had moved himself and Peter to two, new, separate rooms with soundproofed walls about three hours ago, and although Peter's enhanced senses were advanced enough to still hear clearly through them, the same couldn't be said about the chauffeur/bodyguard's. After he told the man an unnecessarily long and overly detailed recount of the battle which Peter had participated in during the drive here, as well as loudly repeated it for his video while they were in their previous rooms, Mr Happy had done everything in his power to avoid having to hear it again. Hence the avoidance. And the room change. And, well, although that did hurt a little, Peter got over it quickly. He was used to being constantly ignored by his peers in school unless they were picking on him, so this wasn't much different.

Yeah. Sure.

Just as he thought he was bordering on the edge of insanity a voice, sharp and serious snapped him out of his trance. "- o you mean 'he's gone'? People don't just disappear, especially not Tony fucking Stark!"

Mr Happy.

The familiarity of the sound forced the kid to concentrate in order to catch every word. Sure, his hearing was phenomenal and far more enhanced than any normal human's, but, usually, it was as much of a disadvantage as a benefit. Every moment of the day, Peter's senses forced him to hear a whole bunch of things he probably would have rather not, like those two women three blocks away as they very clearly argued over whether one slept with the other's boyfriend recently or not. It made it unnecessarily difficult to focus on a single conversation at once, and the fact that the loudly beating hearts of everyone within a mile radius of him echoed in his head at the same time was of no assistance whatsoever.

Anyway, back to the issue. With a worried and cautious curiosity, Peter listened as Mr Happy shouted in a panicked voice at the person on the phone with him. Every word Peter remembered perfectly and stored in his mind for future reference, which his hyperthymesia actually helped a lot with. But some particular comments uttered by Secretary Ross terrified Peter into action significantly more than others.