Tony's Promise

"My remote-controlled car's battery broke, but there's a race at school tomorrow. I was worried that if I bought one at the last minute, there wouldn't be enough time to adjust the voltage, so I went out alone at night."

The boy, around ten years old, lowered his head to look at the off-road RC car in his arms and hugged it even tighter, as though it were precious.

"But didn't you consider that you might get robbed on the way to the store? Come this way. It's closer." As Tony spoke, he followed JARVIS's directions through his Bluetooth earpiece and led the boy down a shortcut toward the nearest store.

"I didn't know. I thought those punks wouldn't bully kids. Doesn't our country take especially good care of children? I thought they wouldn't do something like that."

The boy sounded somewhat dejected. Clearly, he had gotten a real taste of society's ugliness. The world was far less beautiful than he had imagined.

"Okay." Tony raised an eyebrow and placed a large hand atop the boy's head, comforting him. "This evil society doesn't deserve your innocence, kid. This isn't your fault."

"Mm."

The boy nodded vigorously.

Meeting Tony today had greatly comforted his wounded Mind Stone. There were still good people in the world, people like this uncle, the boy thought.

"Where are your parents? Why didn't they come out to buy batteries with you? Having an adult around would at least be much safer than being alone. How could they be okay with you going out by yourself at night? Or did you sneak out?"

Tony asked speculatively.

"My mom works at 7-11, but she works the night shift, so she wasn't home. Before I left, I was the only one in the house."

The boy briefly explained his