oh honey

“No, no, that was for another… job I had” still had technically, though now she didn’t do as much for the League since she rejoined as she used to before she had left a few years ago. “Yeah, it’s also more trouble than it’s worth sometimes” Sara replied, thinking sometimes that maybe Nyssa would have been better off if they hadn’t gotten together. “It works… ninety percent of the time.”

“I see,” Sarah said, getting the sense that even if she asked, she wouldn’t be getting answers about this other ‘job.’ She laughed lightly. “I suppose that’s true,” she agreed. “Hearts are so easily broken. It’s always a gamble whether it’s worth it or not,” she admitted. “And the other ten percent?”

“Everything needs to have a point,” Tony replied. “There has to be a logic to it, or else you’re just acting on impulse.” That was what he did for years before he became Iron Man, and while he claimed to have fun doing it, it never actually felt good. There was always something holding him back, something like his father’s voice in the back of his head saying he was wasting his life, even if Howard indulged in many of the same vices. Sarah continued to speak, and Tony shifted to cross his arms against his chest. “I see your point,” he conceded, “but I think you’d have a hard task convincing Dad, even if you brought physics into it. He was old fashioned, you know? Men should be men, have backbones of steel, and Stark men especially were made of iron. That used to be one of his favorite sayings, actually.”

She asked a lot of questions. That was something of a prerequisite when it came to therapists, at least in Tony’s rather vast experience, but Sarah didn’t ask the ones that he came to expect. Do you have fatalistic thoughts? Do you often think about your place in the world? Do you trust the people around you? Do you trust yourself? They were always questions that were painfully obvious as digging for information so they could tick a few boxes and refer him onto someone else, but Sarah was personalising it.

“Progress is a pretty strong term,” Tony replied. “It implies forward movement is expected. If we’re going to turn it back around, I’d ask what you do if you’re sitting in front of a client who can’t change, even if he wanted to.” Tony was all for hope, optimism, futurism – but there had to be some fundamental principles within him that remained steadfast throughout his life, good or bad, to make him Tony. “I find something I can control,” he said. “I manipulate the variables. Every situation can be a machine if you push it into that space hard enough.”

It’s been a long time since you loved yourself. Tony’s arms dropped from his chest at that. He shifted in his chair, suddenly wondering whether he could make a bolt for it – his eyes went to the clock. They were over time, but Sarah wasn’t shuffling him on. She wasn’t perturbed. “Pretty sure narcissism is one of my defining personality traits, doc. I could give you a list of references if you want examples of when I’ve displayed it.” And now – now she was digging, but only after she’d proven herself, only after Tony was interested. Was he that easy to read, or was she just really good at what she did? “Both,” he said, agreeing when she spoke. “I … I’ve hurt a lot of people. Anything I got back, I deserved.” He looked down at his hands, picking at the corner of his thumb. “It’s not okay,” he whispered. “None of it … none of what I did is okay.” He glanced up, meeting her eyes. “You know what I used to do, right? Why should I … why should I get a family when I ruined so many? How is that fair?”

“That depends on your definition of ‘a point,’“ Sarah pointed out. “I imagine yours and mine are very different, and that’s okay.” She tilted her head. “Acting on impulse isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It means your emotions are acting without you understanding why just yet.” Sometimes, being a therapist was a little like teaching a kindergartner about colors, and really that wasn’t much of a surprise. People spent their time learning facts, drilling them over and over, but how much attention did they pay to their own emotions? It wasn’t like putting together a robotic suit or solving a mathematical equation. The answers weren’t so straightforward. The man in front of her was probably the smartest man in the entire universe, but did he understand what he was feeling, why he was feeling, or how to handle it? Had anyone taught him that? “I’m not trying to convince him,” she pointed out. “I’m trying to figure out why you think you need to.” She smiled softly. “That’s almost the textbook definition of toxic masculinity. Steel that can’t bend will break, I imagine it’s the same with iron.” 

Her approach had always been unconventional. Sometimes, her professors said she was more storyteller than therapist, but Sarah found that people responded to stories. Whether they had never been to therapy before, or whether they were old veterans like Tony, they rarely found comfort or understanding in clinical terms. A diagnosis could be helpful, could put a name to what they were feeling, but the stories -- that helped them process it. 

“I’ve never had a client like that,” she said simply. “I don’t think I ever will. Some people resist change more than others, some even fight against it -- but the only ones who will never change are the people who don’t want to. If you want to find a way forward, then we’ll find a way forward.” It was another unconventional move -- a promise as bold as that. But Sarah stood by everything she said. If she didn’t, then how could her clients trust her? 

She nodded. “That’s an interesting perspective, though not an altogether uncommon coping mechanism,” she noted. “Does it help? And let me clarify what I mean by that,” she added, holding up a hand. “Does it help you feel better about the situation?” 

Body language was always so telling. Tony’s defenses dropped the second he realized he had been pierced so close to the chest. She hadn’t wounded him -- she had pointed out that he was already wounded, and that she could see the bleeding. His eyes darted towards the clock, his legs shifted. He wanted to run from this. That was his instinct. But he didn’t, and that was his strength. “Narcissists are almost always insecure, and on average, tend to display self-loathing far more than others,” she pointed out. A simple fact, one that would terrify him, but also give him something to hold onto. 

Therapy was strange and not altogether easy for Nadia. Probably the hardest part about it was how right this woman sounded. Nadia didn’t like the idea of someone being able to read her or know her that well. It made her feel vulnerable, like this woman could take advantage of her weaknesses at any time. “Have I suffered?” she repeated. She tried to think about it. When she was with the Red Room, there were plenty of things that had been done to her, but at the time, she didn’t think much of it. Getting beaten for her mistakes just seemed like a normal thing to happen, and most things that other people would consider suffering, she didn’t. But then she thought about what Scott had told her. Darren Cross. An assault.

“I- There was-” Hope didn’t want to talk about this, but there was a split in her mind, each with different memories. Hope was the only one between them who could remember what she felt was their greatest suffering. She’d been strong during the physical torture, but there was so much panic that came with what happened with Darren. “No, just stop. I don’t want to talk about that.”

Nadia shrugged, unaware of the transition that had occurred. “I don’t think I’ve suffered very significantly. Most of what’s happened was just part of the job. I don’t think much of it.” She frowned. “I … I don’t know. I can imagine that he’d pretend to be happy for my sake, but I don’t think he actually would be until he got the person he loved back completely.”

Sarah didn’t say anything. Her questions were hard, the first cut of many they would take. Old wounds would be opened and new ones made, but hopefully, it would help those scars to actually heal instead of just scabbing over. But therapy was never quite how people pictured it would be, and unique to every person. It was frightening. It was painful. It was hard. 

So she didn’t balk when Nadia said stop. She didn’t sound like the woman who had been speaking before -- her voice changed, her entire body language was drastically different. She seemed... almost like she was forcing the words out. “Who are you asking to stop?” she asked, tilting her head. “We don’t have to talk about ‘that,’ right now,” she continued, keeping her voice steady and calm, the same as she had in contrast to Nadia’s sudden shift. It was her job to be an anchor in moments like this, a tie connecting them. “But someday, we should. When you’re ready.” 

A second later, it seemed as though Nadia didn’t even notice the change. She was sitting up straight again, her voice no longer emotional. “It’s interesting you feel that way. You should be aware that might change, as we move forward,” she said carefully. “Part of therapy is starting to see things in a new light, changing our perspective,” she explained. “Sometimes, I’ll ask you to think about the things you haven’t thought much about before. Sometimes you won’t want to, and I can’t force you, I wouldn’t want to force you. You need to feel safe enough to explore those things, in your own time.”

“Gosh, I hope so.” Kara said on a breath. It was good to hear, after spending most days having Snapper go on about adverbs and ‘just say what you need to say, Ponytail.’ The praise still felt out of place, however, like her words were hardly enough to cover the city that swallowed the both of them. She’d rather put it on canvas than in words. It had always been easier to paint how something felt, something like a city or a planet or losing a planet, than it had been to just say it. Journalism had less to do with her mastery of words and more to do with fighting ignorance, and doing one of the things on Earth about which she could still learn.

“Oh, you have–” Kara started, and stopped, and worked around a response that wasn’t more questions. New York City was a big place to look for only a small handful of people, if not one person. And finding family often felt like a toss-up. Sometimes it was better left alone, and other times it could end up being one of the best decisions. And why were they separated? Was she adopted, too? Was it one of those 23andMe things humans were so fond of? Was she excited, was she– Kara stopped her spinning and settled on a soft smile, because whatever the answers were, it was exciting. “That’s wonderful. I really hope you meet them, and they’re everything you hope will be.”

There was something uniquely beautiful about witnessing true talent, and in the same breath watching someone doubt whether it was talent at all. A little bit of doubt could be a wonderful thing, it kept a person humble, kept them striving to do better. But too much and they stopped trying altogether. Too little, and they forgot the effort it took to achieve. Kara seemed to be walking right on the line, Sarah had a feeling she had been finding her voice for a while. “What’s your next piece going to be about?” she asked. “If you don’t mind giving me a little sneak preview, that is.” 

She was kind too. Sarah had always suspected it from the articles themselves, but in person, it came through in waves. “Thank you,” she said sincerely, voice warm. “I hope so too. Hope can be very fragile, but sometimes it’s all we have, right?” She gazed out along the street in front of them. “All these buildings... once upon a time, this whole city was just a hope, a dream for people looking for something more out of life. I feel a little like them,” she said, laughing at herself. “I don’t know the whole story, but I have a brother I’ve never known. He’s... a great man, an important one. But all I really hope is that he’s as good as he seems to be.” 

It wasn’t as rare as most people would believe to have visitors at all hours of the day. Sister Maggie mustn’t sleep, because every time Matt woke up with a start from a nightmare, he could hear her whispering softly to patrons a few floors above him, her voice lulling him back into a fitful sleep. Tonight, though, he could tell she was curled up in her bed, so he took it upon himself to walk up and see who came in instead. It was the least he could do, he rationalised – and maybe he wouldn’t mind being alone when yet again, he felt like he should’ve woken up covered with a thick coating of rubble.

“I’ve been told I’m unexpected,” Matt quipped, a small smile coming onto his face. She sounded kind, though that might’ve been the night. People always spoke more softly when it was dark outside – people apart from Matt, who saw the darkness at all times, so it lost its power. He moved down the aisle. Having left his stick down in the basement, he navigated instead by touching the pews as he walked past them. “I’m staying here, for a while,” he explained, after a long beat. “Sister Maggie keeps telling me to go under Mary’s gaze for a while, get some insight. Kind of hard when you can’t see where her statue is.” He gestured to his eyes, suddenly feeling naked without his shades on. “I’m not much of a conversationalist,” he replied, “but I don’t mind listening.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Sarah noted, taking another step towards him. “Or like you’re used to hearing it that way,” she added, pausing for a second. She hadn’t noticed at first -- the casual way he touched the pews seemed just that, until she saw his fingers searching them out. He was blind, but clearly familiar with his surroundings. His footsteps sure even when his fingertips barely brushed the pews. 

“I could show you where it is,” she offered, glancing over at the Holy Mother. “I’ve always been a fan of Mary. Her unique affliction,” she explained. “A virgin mother. To us, it’s a blessing. Back then... it must’ve felt very different.” The history was murky, unclear, but Sarah could only imagine the ramifications of being a young woman suddenly pregnant in those days. Trying to convince people of the truth she carried within her.

Sarah offered Jane a small smile. “I encouraged you to come in. And I for one, am not sad to see you took my advice,” she said, careful to keep her voice light. She knew how hard therapy could be for a client, particularly one who had never been before. “I guess there is a certain irony at play. You’re the one who’s used to helping people, not receiving that help yourself, right?” she asked. “Let’s start with why you think your life is sad and funny.” 

“Road rage can be a significant problem for a lot of drives,” Sarah agreed. “Is that why you’ve come to see me today? To help you find better ways to manage that feeling? Maybe it’ll make speech to texting a little easier for you too.” 

Sarah laughed, and shook her head slowly. “You know, shame is actually an important part of the psyche,” she pointed out, glancing over at him. “It can teach us a lot about ourselves, how we the world. Our own sense of morality.” She paused for a moment, just smiling at him. “Mom was the same way though. She was never ashamed of the choices she made.” Sarah sipped her coffee slowly, more for the warmth than the taste, a way to hide how her hands were shaking a little. “Even the wrong ones.” 

“I’ve noticed,” Sarah said, smiling gently. She opened up the file in front of her, and perused it for a second. “By children, you mean the other members of your team, or just the younger ones?” she asked, tilting her head. “You must feel responsible for them. That’s not surprising. You’re older, you provided for them, their base was in your home,” she pointed out. “In a lot of ways, you did take on a fatherly role when it came to your team.” 

“My job? I’m just a bartender” Sara shrugged, she was a bartender so that part wasn’t a lie, she just left out the part about also being an assassin and time traveler. “It was basically just learning how to ignore anything that was close to feelings, which I guess is ironic since I fell in love with the person who taught me how to do that” she replied. “For the most part” she nodded, she didn’t particularly want to elaborate on it.

“Bartending usually comes with extensive emotional training?” Sarah asked. “You learn something new about New York everyday, I guess.” She was no stranger to bullshit. A good chunk of her job was figuring out when someone was holding something back, or even outright lying. She wasn’t sure which was happening here. “Well, love is like that sometimes,” she said, smiling softly. “I usually like something with a little better track record than ‘for the most part.’”

(✉️ ➡️ dont answer ): why hthe fuck was i your emergency contakct? m (✉️ ➡️ dont answer ): am i stcill on there? (✉️ ➡️ dont answer ): it’s been what f– cten years? (✉️ ➡️ dont answer ): do you still tfrust me after jeverything?

Sarah was a model patient. She took her medication as prescribed, she didn’t fuss or fume when the nurses came for a check-in (even if it was the fifth time that morning). She had been in and out of hospitals since birth, she understood the drill. “Sometimes I miss the balloons they gave you on the children’s ward,” she joked with the nurse who was finishing up her examination. That’s when her eyes caught the person at the door. 

Scott. 

Robbie Reyes was not a typical client. She was getting more and more of those in New York -- between her pro-bono work at Xavier’s, her own private practice that was advertised as ‘powered-friendly,’ and her work at SHIELD, that was to be expected. Still, she had never seen a file quite like the one in front of her.

When he arrived at her office, he didn’t look happy about it. She couldn’t blame him. To most people, therapy meant there was a problem, like it was a symbol of weakness, even an evaluation like this. Of course, that wasn’t how she saw it, and it wasn’t how most of her patients saw it by the end, but that would take time.

“Please,” she said, standing up and gesturing to the couches. “Come on in, sit wherever you’re comfortable. You prefer ‘Robbie,’ right?” she asked, gathering up her clipboard. “This is just a standard check-in. You’re not an official SHIELD agent, but you work closely enough with their agents, so they want to dot the i’s, cross the t’s, that sort of thing.” There was also, the multiversal-mishap that just happened -- and given where he had been, there was no telling what state of mind he might’ve returned in. “I’m Dr. Callaway, but you can call me Sarah. Takes some of the formality out of it,” she said, smiling gently. 

After an episode, Sarah always liked to go to church. No matter what time it was. Luckily, there was at least one church left in Hell’s Kitchen that subscribed to the idea that no church should ever lock its doors. She wondered if people took advantage of that in more sinister ways than she was. 

Sarah was lighting the candles around the alter, just to scare off some of the chill of the November night. She was just finishing the last one when she heard the doors open behind her. “I hope it’s all right,” she called out. “I promise to take care of them when I’m --” But when she turned, it wasn’t a priest or a nun who stood there. Just an ordinary person, like herself. “Oh,” she said softly, smiling to herself. “Sorry, I was expecting -- doesn’t matter,” she said, tossing the spent match into the receptacle. She walked towards him, down the long aisle. “Were you hoping for a quiet prayer, or is a little conversation all right?” 

Jean was well used to people rolling with the punches, but they tended to be restricted to those who also considered Xavier’s to be their home. Outside of that, she found that people were a lot more … she wasn’t inclined to say touchy, but they were definitely sensitive. Sarah was one of the few people who challenged that distinction, and Jean figured it would be a lot easier to encourage the students to believe in humans if more of them were like the woman in front of her. “There’s a lot worse that could happen,” Jean quipped back, equally as cavalier.

There was a certain freedom to knowing your time was short. Jean never lived as authentically as she did when she was resurrected (for the second time), knowing that each moment could be her last. Death gave everything a perspective that was otherwise lacking. “You’re right,” Jean said, because Sarah had a habit of doing that. “Broken plates can be beautiful. But what if …” Jean swallowed thickly. “What if my friend wasn’t the one to make the plate in the first place? What if … what if sticking it back together again isn’t something she knows how to do?” Talking to Rogue about the pieces that were missing just felt like admitting nothing would be the same – and Jean was a fan of that, usually. But it was the solutions afterwards that had her pausing, because she couldn’t think of a single one.

“Always is,” Sarah replied. This was a pattern they had fallen into over the years. Jean, and all the mutants, carried a lot of baggage -- it was hard for them to accept an outsider, when the outside had rarely been kind to them. Sarah didn’t let that frustrate her, or even upset her. She saw it not as an obstacle, but an opportunity to prove herself. All challenges were opportunities.

When someone had a superhero name and a reputation a mile long, it was often easy to forget that they’d had a whole life before heroism was a part of it. Sam knew that many people saw him as the Falcon and nothing else. At best, he was Captain America’s quirky sidekick. At worst, he was the criminal who’d walked backwards out of the Raft flipping every person he saw the bird. He was never just Sam, never the man he’d been before DC… at least, not to most people.

To some people, though, that man still existed. And seeing them was always a good thing.

Hearing from Sarah had come as a surprise, but it had been a good surprise. As far as he could tell, their relationship here was similar to the one they’d had back on his world. Email pen pals who started out discussing mental health issues surrounding the aftermath of war and ended up simply friends who told one another about their days. He’d lost touch with her not long after DC, and it seemed things here ended similarly. But that wasn’t the final end, and Sam was glad for that.

He grinned when he saw her, waving her towards him. “Sarah,” he replied, matching her tone in warmth. “I’ve always got time for my friends. So, hey, you’re in the city long term now?”

“Big shot superhero, calling me a friend,” Sarah teased gently. Sam was the kind of person who could take it -- and dish it, too. Their emails had been professional in the beginning, but if she went back, she was sure she’d find that he made the first joke. That was who he was, and Sarah appreciated it more than she could possibly say. 

She motioned for him to sit down with her, and nodded at his question. “Hopefully for a while,” she said, though she was careful never to think too far ahead in her uncertain future. “Moved my practice, got a side gig set up... met my long-lost brother, the works,” she said, smiling casually. “Life’s been a little crazy for both of us these past few years, huh?”

Trish watched as Sarah took a seat closer to her. It was probably supposed to invite some kind of comfort or alleviate any tension in the air. Trish didn’t know who she was without this tension anymore. The anxiety eating at her now was also what kept her alive. She wanted to think that the other woman was right – that if Hell was real then so was Heaven. Maybe Heaven was just getting some peace and rest. That would be the exact opposite of the Hell she’d experienced.

Tilting her head, she studied Sarah, wondering how much she could risk revealing. “I’m sure you’ve heard the news. The gossip mags couldn’t get enough with all of the conspiracy running around. So, what do you think? Did I die, go to rehab, or just want a reason to make my name relevant again? Or are you one of those that subscribes to the lizard people theory?”

Trish had always been one of those patients who could say so much even when she didn’t speak at all. She was also the type of person who had been raised on conflict, who convinced herself she needed it. So her mind manufactured it when she couldn’t find it, zeroing in on perceived flaws -- with the world or herself. Sometimes both. 

But this was something new altogether.