"YOUR MOM SAID THAT YOUR OTHER PSYCHOLOGIST HAD TO TAKE A LEAVE OF ABSENCE?"

Nicky smiled at the teenage girl sitting in front of him, wondering if she, like all the other teenagers he had seen before, was going to send him on a very interesting adventure. Or, maybe, she would be the first teenager who just needed some guidance of the more garden-variety.

It was Wednesday and he was finding it much easier to revert back to his regular routine of only having to care for himself, not needing to make the trek to Harlem at the same time every day, though he gladly would if Sam needed the help.

Though he had been preparing himself for this particular session—or, rather, consultation—as the woman on the phone had seemed very distraught and desperate for her daughter to see someone again.

"Yeah..." the girl sighed, and she gave him a smile and shrugged her shoulders, though he had caught the slight lilt in her voice and the strain, "There had been a lot going on before winter break and he was going through stuff and I went on vacation and I kept trying to schedule an appointment, but stuff kept coming up, and now he's just sick and I don't know if he's okay or anything so..."

Nicky frowned apologetically, tilting his head. "I'm really sorry. Are you upset that he's not seeing  you anymore or that he's hurt...?"

"Both," she said, frowning almost defensively, "He was the only therapist I liked, and he wasn't even a therapist, he was a psychologist, and I kept trying to see other therapists, but they didn't work out."

Nicky nodded, his hand furiously scribbling over his notepad, his eyes never leaving her face, only glancing down once, making sure she knew he was listening.

By the time the session was finished—a whole forty five minutes over, and he was so glad that this was scheduled at the end of the day, on an already slow day—he had come to the conclusion that, coupled with the test he had her do before she actually came into the session, this girl was definitely severely depressed and while her anxiety had lessened, as she had told him, it was still rather rampant. But she was interesting girl who tended to run off on various tangents—a point he wanted to focus on later—and so she stayed.

"You're one of my only regulars," he said, writing her an appointment for the next week, "A lot of my patients have scattered appointments and schedules."

She frowned. "Then how do they get any help?"

He shrugged, walking her towards the waiting room where her mother was. "Some people have multiple therapists, other people just need someone to talk to, others aren't always readily available. It's all different and it's all valid."

She nodded. "Oh. Well, uh, thank you. I'll see you next week."

He smiled and waved towards her mother who waved as well, the two walking out of the building, though he did catch the way the daughter pulled away from her mother who tried to place a hand on her shoulder.

Making his way back to his office, ready to gather his things and head back home to get finished on his patient files.

Her talking had wore him out, actually, she had been laughing one minute, then crying the next, then back to laughing, upset and angry, then elated and joyful, it was a rollercoaster that left him weak and disoriented once he stepped off, and he felt the sudden craving for a slushie and overpriced hot dogs.

Grabbing his phone from its perch on his desk, he raised his eyebrow at a few missed calls, confused by the phone number until he realized why it was familiar, but not in his contact; it was Reed's phone number.

Reed never called his regular phone.

Sliding the notification and pressing the phone against his ear, he gathered his papers and threw them in his satchel, heading out of the building, feeling the growing sensation that something wasn't quite right.

"Green," Reed breathed into the phone, picking up after the third ring, "You gotta get over here, Sue is away right now and Ben and I have no idea what to do, it's being going on for almost a week now and I don't know if I can take it anymore."

Nicky slowed his quickening pace, furrowing his brow. "What exactly is the problem?"

º º º

"Thanks for coming so quickly," Reed sighed as the soon as the elevator doors opened, looking more disheveled and tired than usual.

"No problem," Nicky said, following him towards the long hallway, "This is my colleague Sam Wilson, after what you told me, I figured he might be of some use."

"It's good to meet you, thank you for coming," Reed said, shaking Sam's hand, the younger man nodded easily, pulling his hand away and going back to gawking at the expansive building.

"Does he know?" Reed asked softly, bending down to whisper right into Nicky's ear, and the younger man shook his head quickly.

"No, so if he asks, Tony Stark had suggested my services to you for Johnny," he replied in a hurried voice, breathing the words in fear that Sam would overhear, though the man seemed to be caught up in staring at everything around me.

"So, uh, Invisible Woman isn't here, huh?" Sam inquired, more of a statement than anything else, and Reed's eyes darkened at the tone behind his question.

"Even if she was, she wouldn't even let you think about it," he said, and Nicky refrained from snickering at the way Reed took in Sam's physique, looking positively intimidated.

Sam raised his hands. "I wouldn't try anything, man," he said, though he wasn't completely believable, "Congrats on your engagement, by the way."

Reed wasn't perfectly placated, but it was enough, and he relaxed enough to thank Sam before pausing in front of Johnny's room, staring at it with the kind of caution one would expect from the man in battle, not here.

"He's just a teenage boy," Sam pointed out, "I don't get why we're acting like he's gonna blow up the building."

"He can turn into a flame," Nicky pointed out, though he did know that Reed had outfitted the building with material to withstand the heat of Johnny's flame, "But he's also a superhero, so we have to make sure that he's mentally and emotionally fit to be fighting and protecting civilians."

Sam raised an eyebrow. "So this is an evaluation?"

Nicky snorted. "Of course not, that's not my jurisdiction. But I wanna make sure he's okay, so we're just gonna talk."

"Then why am I here?" Sam asked, still confused as to why Nicky had called him when he was on his run, breathlessly asking him to help with a situation.

"Because you can connect with the youth better than I can," Nicky reasoned, "I honestly can't understand his mindset because he went from having lots of friends to none, I never had friends."

"Johnny didn't have many friends," Reed interjected, already starting to back away, his outstretched hand still staying in position, "After what had happened, he hadn't had many true friends, he was only in middle school, after all. Now, just please go inside."

With that, the man unceremoniously unlocked the door with his spare key in his stretched out hand, and shoved the two men inside, closing it behind them, his retreating footsteps unable to be heard through the door as he had already been halfway down the hall when they went inside.

Nicky had clung to Sam for balance when they were first shoved in, still clinging onto him as he righted himself and looked around the incredibly large room—four times the size of his room in the loft—covered with posters, model cars, and stylish furniture, a king sized bed pushed up in the middle towards the far wall, a boy sitting up and staring at them.

"Reed!" he bellowed, "You said the key was only for emergencies!"

"He thinks this is an emergency," Nicky said, trying not to jump when the boy glared at him with a fire he didn't think he was capable of.

"What do you want?" Johnny grumbled, turning on his side and pulling his blankets up towards his neck, burrowing under the covers.

Nicky frowned when he saw him shiver, walking towards the side of the bed and reached out, pressing the back of his hand to Johnny's neck, the boy jerking back and glaring at him, touching the spot he had.

"Are you sick?" Nicky asked, backing up and holding his hands out in front of him, trying to tell if he had felt the boy be overly cold or overly hot.

"Yeah. Sick of this."

Johnny jumped out of bed, starting towards his bathroom, only to be blocked by Sam who moved in front of him, blocking the boy's path every time he tried to get around him.

"Who're you, his bodyguard?" the boy scoffed, shoving past him, only for Sam to grab him by the arm, not hard enough to hurt, but firm enough to keep him in place.

Johnny ripped out of his grip and glared. "Why are you here?"

"Reed's worried about you," Nicky said, sitting down at the foot of the bed and patting the seat next to him, giving Johnny the most sympathetic smile he could muster.

Still glowering, the boy relented and took a seat on the opposite side of the bed, watching as Sam pulled up a chair and sat across from him, leaning forward with his hands together.

"What's been going on?" Nicky asked, glancing over towards Sam for help, but the man just kept his eyes trained on Johnny, clearly thinking.

"Nothing," the boy sighed, looking away and crossing his arms.

Nicky worried on his bottom lip; this was the part he never truly excelled at. He had been told that his job was very investigative and he always knew that he just wasn't the type to try and force something out of a person, and, because his patients paid him a fair amount of money and were mostly adults, he didn't have to work too hard to get the truth out of them; or, at least, a lie that would lead him to the truth eventually.

Sam, on the other hand, worked as a counselor for war veterans, he knew how to take a step back, but he knew how to read people. He knew how to coax out responses wen needed without triggering an outburst, and while he retreated much faster than Nicky did, he knew how to press.

"Is this about your boyfriend?" he asked, motioning towards the cracked picture frame of Harry who was shyly grinning with his scarf partly pulled up, standing by a few trees.

Johnny frowned and glanced behind him, shaking his head furiously when he caught sight of what Sam was pointing to. "No! No, no, no, that was an accident, Harry and I are fine, we-we're good."

Sam raised an eyebrow. "But it's got something to do with that cracked frame. How'd it break?"

Johnny sighed and looked towards Nicky who was paying careful attention to his movements, catching the tension in his shoulders and the clench of his fist, nails digging into his palms as his teeth sunk into his bottom lip.

"Ben was being stupid," he muttered, glancing towards his window.

"What?" Nicky asked, glancing towards Sam.

Ben Grimm, the fourth member of the Fantastic Four, was another one of the members he still had yet to meet, though from what he had heard, they two had a playfully antagonist relationship, nothing more than playground roughhousing and badmouthing. Nicky never thought that it would actually affect the boy so badly.

"He broke it?" Sam asked, and Johnny shook his head.

"I broke it," he sighed, running a hand through his hair, crawling over towards the head of the bed and picking up the picture, resting against his pillows, not looking at it, just holding it.

"He's always making fun of me because of Harry," the boy sighed, and Nicky couldn't help but glance over at Sam because, in that moment, he had never sounded more young, "He's always making fun of me 'cause he's always around and shit, and he's always laughing at me 'cause I always go out to see him and he makes fun of my clothes and my cars and it's—"

He bunched up his blankets in frustration, stretching every which way in an effort to get whatever feeling he was having out, flopping down onto his back and staring at the ceiling.. "He can make fun of my cars, but he can't make fun of Harry."

"He just being an asshole or is he being, you know, homophobic about it?" Sam asked in a monotonous tone, and Johnny paused.

"He was fine with all my other boyfriends—hell, he was fine with the aliens—but he just won't let up about Harry. I'm usually fine, but it just—" the boy stopped abruptly, lifting his head, as if to check to see if the two men were there, "Nevermind."

"Keep going," Nicky said, nodding encouragingly, "It's okay, you can tell us."

"I don't wanna," the boy mumbled, moving back onto his side and pulling the blankets around himself, pushing Harry's picture towards the side.

Nicky looked towards Sam helpless and the man stood with a soft sigh, making his way around Nicky towards the left side of the bed, where Johnny was turned away from. Kicking off his shoes and settling onto the pillows, he started to speak.

"I get not wanting to talk about it," he said, glancing towards the boy's turned back, "I get that you feel stupid 'cause you don't want to let everyone know that words hurt, because it was a joke, you don't wanna be the guy that brings everyone down, but why would you let something you care about be turned into a joke?"

He let his question hang in the air, just sitting in silence. He met Nicky's eye and pressed a finger to his lips, forcing them into a tense silence, and Nicky couldn't help the slow grin rising to his face; he wasn't particularly happy for any reason, but silence made people fidgety, and that was how he had to cope.

Finally, Johnny spoke, "Ben's always saying that he's just like his dad, but he's not, he's a nice guy and he thinks I'm smart, and no one else thinks I'm smart but him, not even Sue anymore."

That was when Nicky took over, because whereas Sam tried to coax out responses and thoughts, Nicky forced them in, rationalizing ideas to the point where the person had no choice but to accept it; it had worked for Peter, it could work for Johnny.

"What makes you think Sue doesn't think you're smart?" he asked, moving slightly up the bed, but staying in the lower half.

Johnny shrugged, sighing. "God, is this one of your stupid therapist things, like, I'm homeschooled and she's just given up on trying to help me with the work and doesn't even bother trying to see if I do well anymore."

"Maybe that's because she thinks you're smart, so she doesn't feel the need to hold your hand through it," he offered, glancing towards Sam who nodded in agreement.

Johnny scoffed. "Yeah. Okay. Do you even know Sue?"

Nicky bit his lip, choosing his words carefully. "No, I don't, but you do. But you're also extremely hard on yourself."

The boy outright laughed. "Have you even heard me talk?"

"Yeah, I have," he continued, still as serious as he started out, "And I know that you're really confident, which is a good thing. It's a great thing. But if you weren't hard on yourself you wouldn't care that people thought you weren't smart or call yourself stupid every two minutes, like what you did when we first met."

Johnny shrugged. "Whatever, man."

"Hey," Sam said, raising his voice slightly, "What makes you think you can talk to him like that?"

Johnny turned around. "I didn't ask you guys to come here or do anything, okay, I don't even know who you are."

"My name is Sam Wilson and I don't care if you think that other people think you're stupid, I care that you think you're stupid, because when you finally get it through your head that you're not, you'll stop thinking that other people do."

Johnny leaned back, his jaw dropping slightly. "You're-you're the Falcon?"

"And you're the Human Torch, this is all very surprising," he drawled. Sighing, he shook his head. "Kid, look, I don't know you, but I've seen your interviews and I've seen what you do, you're both cocky and powerful, and that's the worse combination, but you've got your heart in the right place and I don't want to see you getting crushed because your teammate is making you feel bad because of someone that makes you happy."

"I don't care," Johnny tried, but Nicky interrupted him.

"Yes, you do," he pressed, finally taking the initiative, "You care because if you didn't you wouldn't be hiding up in your room with a broken picture of your boyfriend, you would just be off doing your regular thing. If you didn't care, you wouldn't be dating him at all, he wouldn't matter to you if you didn't care."

The boy sighed, kicking off his blankets and staring up at the ceiling. "Caring sucks."

Nicky smiled. "That's probably how Sue feels about you."

Johnny turned to look at him, narrowing his eyes for a moment. "I don't know how Harry put up with you, it's annoying when you're right."

Nicky shrugged. "Eh, sometimes people like being told they're wrong."

Johnny snorted. "I don't."

Sam scoffed. "So we've gathered."

"What do I have to do to get you out of my room, I wanna go get a snack," Johnny asked, grabbing the picture of Harry and placing it back onto the nightstand, moving much more than he had when they first arrived.

"Promise you're gonna stop giving Reed heart palpitations and go outside every once in a while?" Nicky asked, and Johnny laughed, finally sitting up.

"That all?" he asked, glancing towards Sam, "What about you, Bird-Man?"

Sam shrugged. "Quit being such a little shit. And don't let Ben make fun of you for liking your boyfriend, where's all the confidence I have to see whenever I turn on the news?"

Johnny laughed at that, just laughed and laughed and laughed and the two men just stared, partly grinning, partly worried, but all around content enough to say that their work was done, because then Johnny stood up and made his way outside, not fully leaving until they followed and he was sure they were out.

The minute the door closed behind them, the two men slumped onto the floor, turning and watching as Johnny walked down towards the kitchen.

"Kids are hard," Nicky whined, dropping his head onto Sam's shoulder, "I don't want any."

Sam nodded, reaching out and slopping patting his ear. "Yeah. Yeah, I think I'll be fine cutting my lineage off with me."

"Were we ever like that?" he asked, "You know...that angsty?"

There was a pregnant pause.

"No, definitely not."

"Yeah, you're right, there's no way."

The younger man sighed, pushing himself up and looking down at the other man. "Wanna go back to my place and watch a movie?"

Sam reached out and grasped his hand, letting himself be pulled up, throwing an arm over Nicky's shoulder. "Sounds like a plan."

AUTHOR'S NOTE

This chapter was a whole lotta nothing except Nicky doing his job, so I guess it established that he's a psychologist, like I've been doing, but you know, it's who he is, I'll have him weapon designing next time.

Not even gonna deny it, the gal up top who misses her old psychologist, yeah, that's literally my self-insert, my psychologist had to take a leave of absence, I'm not handling it well, figured I could use this for some closure (Lonely Hearts 2.0)

Also, Ben's just that annoying older brother who gives Johnny a hard time, but would never actually do anything to make the boy feel bad, but Johnny is a teenager and he is sensitive about how people perceive him when it comes to his intelligence (because he is smart) so I decided to show that.

That's really all I have to say so...thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed!