I was laying on my bed on my stomach. It'd been three days since I was taken to the mall to get some stuff. I still hurt but it'd grown less and less noticeable, and I was growing more and more capable of sitting without feeling pain.
Steel was keeping an annoyingly close eye on me since I'd been grounded for a week. So far I've been doing what I'd been told. When the week was over I'd leave back to my home. I don't need rules. Maybe I'd go have some fun with those idiots. Or maybe I could go to an arcade! I love arcades!
"Kevin!" Steel opened the door to the room and looked at me. I looked up at him, not answering. "Lunch is ready. I went out and bought some fast food." He turned and left. I measured my options and decided to get up.
I walked into the dining room and sat down. I was given a kids' meal and Steel sat and so did Jeff and another cop. I glared at them before turning my glare onto Steel. "These are my friends Jeff and Rhodes. They've agreed to watch you while I go out on my shift."
"What? You don't trust me?"
"No. I don't. You've not given me any reason to trust you. All you've done while you've been here is act like a brat." I rolled my eyes at him before beginning to eat my food. They also started into their food. "I won't be home until late tonight and while Jeff and Rhodes are watching you I expect you to behave yourself." I spat my tongue out at him. Steel grew angry, Jeff laughed, and Rhodes was surprised.
"Almost a week with the kid and he still has no respect, Steel." Jeff joked.
"I would have thought he'd have a little respect by now." Rhodes said, looking at Steel. I smirked. I was making him look bad in front of his friends. "Gonna take long time to tame that horse." He gave me a smile.
"Kevin, do you want a time out?"
"What am I? Five?"
"You sure act like it sometimes." I glared harder at him.
"You're lucky I'm not!" I retorted. He gave me some look before dropping the subject. I looked away from him and soon we finished our lunch. I stood up and headed back to my room. A few minutes later Steel came back to the room.
"I'm headed out. Be on your best behavior or I'll lengthen your grounding."
"Puh." I looked away from him.
"I'm getting tired of your disrespect Kevin." He warned sternly. "I won't be back until ten at night. You should be asleep by then."
"Whatever Steel." I replied. I yelped when I felt a swat to my rear.
"That was a warning swat, Kevin." He told me in a hard tone. I watched him leave the room before going back to sulking. After a while I was surprised when Jeff came into my room. He cleared his throat after a few minutes and I flipped my head to look at him.
"Hey kid. Don't be so down in the dumps. I know Steel can be hard at times but he really does mean well and if you could hear the things he says about you, you'd be surprised. He cares about you and he wants you to have a good life. Now I came in here to ask you if you wanted to watch a movie. We'll let you choose the movie if you want." I perked up at that. A movie?
"Any movie you said?" I asked. He smiled delightfully, clearly happy to have gotten a reaction out of me that he wanted.
"Yeah. Any movie that doesn't have gore, blood, or anything else a child your age shouldn't be seeing."
"What about Spider-Man?" I asked. He nodded.
"That's a great choice." I rolled off the bed, landing on my feet as I followed him to the living room where Rhodes, seeing me, beamed and turned on the TV. We watched both Spider-Man movies one and two and we moved onto Batman movies. Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, and we ate dinner while we watched The Batman Superman Movie: World's Finest. I was told I was allowed to pick one more movie and then I'd have to go take a bath and get ready for bed because it was eight and Steel was getting back at ten. So I had two hours left.
"Ultimate Avengers!" I shouted. I was actually beginning to like these men… mostly because they were letting me do what I wanted but they also seemed to like the things that I liked. In fact they were happy to watch these movies.
Rhodes put on the Ultimate Avengers and when it was over they sent me to take a bath. I happily brushed my teeth and took a bath before getting dressed for bed. I had thirty minutes before ten and now I had ten minutes to fall asleep.
I ran to my bed and jumped in, crawling under the covers and turning around to lay my head on the pillows. I closed my eyes and Jeff and Rhodes came in and wished me good night and a good dreams as the front door opened and Steel entered the house.
They went to welcome Steel home and when the door opened and the light turned on I was tempted to open my eyes but I kept them closed, urging myself to look the part. They spent their time 'spoiling' me I'm not going to let it go to waste.
Steel sighed in relief and turned off the light before closing the door. That night I went to bed with a smile on my face. It had been one of the best days since I got here. Not that that said much. I'm actually quite miserable here, living with rules as if I could even get by one day pretending I can't just do whatever I please.