"I don't need a fucking slave!"
"I don't need a fucking owner, but here we are!"
Matt freezes. He shouldn't have said that, he knows better, but he's so fucking angry.
His anger, though, is rapidly being replaced by fear, and he hates it. He hates that he's been conditioned to be afraid of his owner, to be a good obedient slave for them, barely more than an object.
The mind controls the body, the mind controls the body...
He should be able to stop trembling, but he's not. His mind is full of the punishments he faced during training, and now his best weapon is turned against himself.
Suddenly there's a hand on his mouth, forcing him to inhale through his nose, how the hell did he not notice the man approaching? So pathetic.
"Breathe. Just breathe. Nice and slow, sync with me."
His owner's voice is weirdly grounding. He doesn't sound angry now. Matt doesn't know how he sounds, actually, he's trying to focus on obeying and breathing and calming down, but he knows that he doesn't sound like before.
"That's it. Keep breathing, slowly, perfect. Good job."
His panic recedes, he finally manages to get a hold of his traitorous body. He wants to say that he's fine—is he?—but his owner's hand is still on his mouth.
"Shit, kid. You okay now?"
Matt nods, and the hand leaves him. I'm not a kid, he thinks, but that’s not really a battle he wants to fight. Not now, anyway. "I'm sorry," he forces himself to get out. He's not sorry, but he has to pretend. He's supposed to be good at this, not losing his temper after five minutes of meeting the man he's been assigned to.
"Shit," is all the owner says. He doesn't seem angry, though—Matt is surer now.
"Please don't send me away," Matt pleads, because he knows what that would mean. He'd go back to the Institute, where the trainers would first punish him for failing so spectacularly—bring rejected by his owner on the very first day must be some kind of a record—and then retrain him anew. He can’t think of going through all that again. He can’t, not just because it'd be awful, but especially because Karen and Foggy are somewhere out there and being a slave gives him better chances to find them than being chained to his training cell would. He needs to find them and make sure they're safe, and if he has to submit to his owner for that chance, he will. No more losing his head.
The man curses again. He takes a deep breath while Matt keeps his head bowed down and waits for a blow. "What would happen to you if I did?"
Matt tells him. He's shaking again, and he hates it, but maybe it'll help in making his owner forget his previous outburst. Nothing but a pathetic slave here, definitely not a threat.
"I won't send you back," the man says after what feels like an eternity. He's not happy about it, Matt can tell, but he hardly cares.
"Thank you, thank you," he says, because he's supposed to.
The man sighs. "What was your name, again?"