Talk about It
"Beating yourself up is never a fair fight."
-Andrea Gibson

Steve was not altogether comfortable in the familiar office.

It wasn't the room. The physical structure was cozy enough, he supposed. The furniture was nicely worn-in, as if someone had lived with it and enjoyed it ...maybe taken naps there. All of the wood-the end table, bookshelves, and desk -were tones of mahogany that felt warm and welcoming. Even the couple pictures on the walls were perfectly harmless where they hung, one next to multiple degrees ...most notably, a doctorate degree in Counseling Psychology.

The room was not like the rest of the Triskelion, with it's straight lines and sleek, modern decor. That bit Steve appreciated because it was nice, which was surely the very purpose of the room's scheme. However, it was more of what the room meant, what it really was, that unbalanced him.

He came there once a week to meet with Dr. Helena Pullman -PhD, not M.D. She had studied psychology, which put him off. He wasn't crazy or hysterical.

Then again ...life is a little crazy.

So he understood why S.H.I.E.L.D wanted him to talk to her, but he didn't have to like it just because it was reasonable. Often, he was tight-lipped. He sometimes felt bad, for Dr. Pullman was kind and he would have very much liked to give her what she wanted ...but it was too personal. It was too much.

"Captain Rogers, I hear you took a trip to New York," she began after he entered and just sat for several minutes because he had nothing to talk about.

He sighed.

The Hub there in D.C was a large place spanning multiple, vast floors of varying degrees of secrecy. Yet, somehow, his life could not remain personal- he was gossip fodder.

"Yes," he answered anyway because it was factual. "I stayed a few days at Stark Tower."

"With Tony Stark?"

"Mmhmm ...I have an open invitation," he reported.

"You don't sound too thrilled with your visit," Dr. Pullman tilted her head curiously.

Steve just stared back at her a moment, blinking. He took her in, from her crisp blazer to her thin, angled face surrounded by short gray curls. She was kind and relaxing ...if only he wanted to talk to her.

He did try - she usually told him that was enough.

"It was nice to get away," he shrugged, non-committed, as he rubbed his hands together. "Tony's just ...a contradiction," he tried to be fair.

"I don't suppose he shares many of your sensibilities," Dr. Pullman suppressed a smile, as the exploits of the eccentric billionaire had always been well-publicized.

"Not generally, no," Steve scoffed.

"So if you don't always like his company, how did you spend your time while away?"

"Apart from him ...I saw the city-I did a lot of walking," he shared.

"...that sounds lonely," the older woman observed softly.

Steve blinked. Regardless of her gentle tone, her words somehow felt like a sharp barb. Unsettled, he crossed his arms tightly over his chest as a barrier for himself.

"Not any lonelier than anywhere else"

His words popped out spitefully, as if seeking prove her wrong. It was only after he had spoken them that he realized what an admission it was, what a vulnerable thing he'd just spat out.

He blinked again.

"Well ...what was that like to say?" the doctor clearly read the surprise on his face.

"I would rather I hadn't," he confessed.

"But you have - it's out there in the world now. Maybe we can do something with that..." she encouraged him.

He thought maybe he pouted then. His eyes focused on the floor, boring holes into the tan carpet with his crystal eyes.

Not for the first time, he reminded himself that numerous S.H.I.E.L.D agents had sat on that couch with the same doctor doing the same kind of thing. It was okay to talk there. Dr. Pullman was safe ...she kept his confidences.

Though she did give summaries to S.H.I.E.L.D...

It was okay to talk here.

"Like what?" he ground out.

"Well, you've said you often feel lonely; that's a pretty heavy thing to carry around."

"Is it so surprising?" Steve challenged defensively. "How could I not be?"

"No; it's not surprising," she agreed. "You've lost a lot, and now you are forever out of the time that you've known. Over 70 years passed in the blink of an eye for you; that's a lot to grieve."

Steve shifted his weight left and right, arms still tucked tightly into each other across his chest. Loneliness, grieving ...he had not planned on having this sort of session with her today. He'd walked into this ...

"I suppose," he did not deny, eyes still on the carpet.

"Have you been letting yourself process all of that?"

"Sometimes," Steve frowned at the offending carpet.

Maybe ...maybe he processed bits and pieces here and there. He would let himself think deeply a while on someone from his past or something that had happened in his old life ...but how could he process everything that had happened? He'd woken there in 2012 without ever even having had the chance to slow down and digest what had gone on in World War II...

And he had to keep moving ...keep working. He couldn't just stop.

Maybe Dr. Pullman was out of her depth. How could she ever have experience helping someone deal with this much...

'Selfish,' some voice in the back of his mind whispered to him.

He was not the only soldier who had seen a harsh war. He was not the only person to experience loss. He, alone, did not have a monopoly on pain...or regret ...or heartbreak. Why should he assume that he deserved a pity party?

"Ugh," he groaned and leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees and dig his palms into his eyes.

He didn't know what to think.

"It's overwhelming," Dr. Pullman spoke softly after giving him time to quietly sit in his thoughts.

"To put it mildly," Steve heaved himself up to lean back on the couch and not be so closed-in on himself. "So what's the plan?"

He did well with plans, with orders.

Dr. Pullman had said when this began that she was not there to tell him what to do or how to live. She said she wouldn't talk him out of his feelings or dictate the course of a session ...but he needed some direction now.

"Well ...maybe we could focus on this loss and lingering sense of isolation. We can talk about ways to work on processing grief when it wells up and how to work on making the life you want here in this time," she suggested with a kindly smile. "You can't have had plans for this turn in your life ...maybe you can start to think about what it would be like to make some."

Okay, so she wasn't going to just give him the mission or make a plan for him. She'd help him making his own...

Maybe that was just as well, so, slowly, he nodded.

He could work with that.

Meanwhile, in Manhattan, Katie was asleep on the job.

Literally.

She'd been working diligently in her office room all morning like the dedicated Stark employee she had grown to be. While letting a program load, she had leaned back in her chair and kicked her feet up to enjoy her music a while. It had been an innocent enough move on her part, all intentions were good...and then she'd drifted to sleep amidst the slight clutter of her room.

She was not quite on Tony Stark's level of organized-chaos, but her desk had many notes laid about. Post-It notes were stuck along the edge of her various computer monitors, and she had a couple whiteboards of scribbles and a cork-board with tacked-up pictures and ideas. To her credit, she went through her things on a fairly regular basis to rid her space of moot papers...she tried to be more organized, but this was what she had for now.

Surrounded by yellow, white, and blue notes while splayed back in her chair ...that was how Tony Stark and Ms. Virginia 'Pepper' Potts found her.

"This is what I pay her for," Tony sighed with exaggerated melodrama.

"You work her too hard..."

"It's my fault?"

"She logs a lot of hours ...we'll stop back after lunch," she suggested.

Tony rolled his eyes high, as her solution to the moment had no potential of fun ...not even a suggestion of it. So, ignoring her completely, he strolled into the office.

It was spacious with a large glass desk holding multiple computer monitors -there was even a monitor inlaid in the surface of the desk. It was situated against the right wall so that her whiteboards and cork-board were in sight when she sat at it in her leather desk chair. There was a tall, half-full bookshelf with a couple pictures atop it on the far wall, and there was even a slim, black couch along the right wall. His young computer whiz could have just laid there ...maybe he would have even left her alone there.

But she was splayed out, head fallen back, and a deep crease in her brow while her eyes darted back and forth under thin lids.

"Doesn't even use the couch we furnished," Tony muttered at Pepper, waving an arm widely.

"Tony," she hissed.

He shrugged her off. It was a nice office- a workspace he had provided upon her arrival. He could do as he pleased within it.

"Not even happy when you sleep?" he scoffed loudly, standing over her.

Katie released a sharp yelp, flailed haphazardly, and fell through her chair before she processed that it was Tony she saw above her. He gave up a sharp bark of laugher at her expense even as she scrambled desperately to her feet and looked around.

"Shouldn't sleep on my clock," Tony teased.

"Uh-huh," Katie agreed, but she was still looking around and patted herself to ensure her safety.

"...you alright, kid?" Tony did frown slightly, then, when he started to think this was an extended period of panic.

"Yup ...yeah, hey. Hi, Pepper," she waved past Tony.

"I tried to stop him"

"No hard feelings," Katie grinned, pleased that her voice was steady.

"...you're a very strange computer nerd sometimes," Tony shook his head.

"To what do I owe the visit," she rolled her eyes.

"Oh, um, I just run the place," reminded Tony, puffing out his blue-tinted chest to clearly tell her he needed no reasons.

"Actually, that would be me," Pepper cut in because, in all fairness, she handled most of the logistics.

Tony exhaled as if irritated and then elected not to have that debate.

"Well, I own it ..." he declared, undisputed. "JARVIS reported to me that you were asleep..."

"You have him spy on me?!"

Tony grinned because he liked when other people got it and let JARVIS be a "him" instead of an "It."

"We were stopping by on our way to lunch," Pepper tiredly offered the real story. "We heard from Hanky today," she added.

"And how's my favorite Senator?" Katie smiled.

"Busy, but he's going to be in the city next week and wanted to go get dinner. He asked that we be sure to extend the invitation," Pepper informed her kindly, leaning her shoulder in the doorway.

"The invitation is contingent on you doing work and not sleeping," Tony decided, otherwise checked-out of the conversation as he strolled over to peruse the notes Katie had on her boards.

"Not true," Pepper was shaking her head. "Do you think you'll come?"

Katie considered as she dropped to sit in her desk chair. Flexing her foot back and forth, she swayed her chair and watched Tony unabashedly look through her things.

"Sure," she decided.

She had been keeping the school and many she knows there at an arms length lately- it was easier that way- but Hank McCoy had been good to her. When he had gotten wind she was finding somewhere to stay away from the school a while, he'd told her she would be a good fit with Stark Industries, given her proclivities with electronics. He had gotten to know Tony, and then Pepper, during Tony's many hearings after he declared to the world he was Iron Man. Senator McCoy had been an adamant supporter of Tony and, having taken a liking to the well-spoken doctor, Tony now donated generously to McCoy's campaign to oppose the Mutant Registration Act.

"Okay, then I'll tell him you'll come and we'll set a date," Pepper smiled.

"Sure, let me know when and where," Katie nodded agreeably and sank back into her desk chair.

It was soft but wide and steady, allowing her a secure place to calm down. Never mind her less-than-graceful exit from it moments before.

"Gotta lighten up, Kitty-Kat"

"Ugh, I don't go by 'Kitty' anymore- I haven't in years," she brunette spouted.

"Then you can't let McCoy use old nicknames in front of me," Tony blamed her, flicking a stray staple at her.

"I try," Katie promised.

It wasn't her fault she was still "Kitty Pryde" to the senator. He was kindly and she liked him very much- they've had several talks about science, evolution, technology ... but he was also someone who didn't seem to let her grow up all she has wanted. He still saw her as his student, which was heartwarming and tiring in equal measure.

"Try harder," Tony shrugged simply and pivoted on his heel to join Pepper. "We're off to lunch if you want to continue your nap."

"Maybe I will," Katie sniffed just for the sake of being obstinate.

"Would you like to come to lunch?" Pepper extended, ignoring the bickering.

Katherine Marie Pryde was a Stark employee, true, but she was also more than the average hired help. She was part of an organization not wholly unlike the Avengers and, more importantly, she was a friend of their friend. They could be genuine with her rather than strictly professional.

"Uh, I thought this was a you-and-me-only date," Tony interrupted.

"Lunch doesn't count as a date," Pepper sweetly informed him.

"True," Katie sided.

Tony snapped his eyes to her, then back to Pepper.

"My life is over," he grumbled.

"And you love every minute of it," Pepper hummed, reaching a kiss to his chin.

Tony grunted but did not protest to this.

"Coming, Pryde?" he checked, eyes not upon her as he gave in to his lady's decided invitation.

"No, I should probably finish this while it's going," she pointed to her computer.

"Bye, then," Tony nodded, steering his CEO away before the younger woman changed her mind.

"Bye," she laughed.

Alone, she twisted back towards her computer with a long sigh. She was glad Tony woke her from her dark, morbid dreams, but not so much so that she'd panicked in front of her employers ...okay, friends.

Maybe she should have gone to lunch in order to flourish the friendship side of their relationship.

She shook her head of frivolous musings and honed back in on her computer to try to speed things up. The faster she got done, the faster she could just go ...why not take an early afternoon? She thought she would go running ...clear her head.

Plan in mind, she diligently finished the work she started once she stepped out to grab a light lunch in the buildings cafeteria.

She was satisfied with her work day by the time she left, even though it was brief. Katie left herself in a good spot to pick up the next day- she'd be set.

Momentarily, she considered going upstairs to use the gym Tony had shown her there. He had told her he understood if she wanted to keep up training even though she was no longer at Xavier's School, so she had access ...but, it was nice out -she would go to Roosevelt Park instead. The sun might feel refreshing.

After a short walk to her apartment to change, Katie was soon jogging the paths of the park. It was sunny and warm- a perfect day to be out.

As she set a pace she could easily maintain, everything else slipped away. There was herself, her music ...nothing else was her problem. Nothing.

There weren't people to worry about, only her two feet continuing to beat on pavement. No responsibilities, no work.

She sank into the music pounding in her ears and just continued to run.

Steve was relying on similar physical exertion through the evening. He did not need anything of the latest exercise equipment S.H.I.E.L.D naturally had about- the Triskelion had three basement floors devoted to training. Past one of the weight rooms was a mat room lined with padding. Sparring mats covered most of the floor, and a variety of punching bags hung on the far left.

Here, Steve released any and all tensions. Someone else had been in there when he had entered, but they'd long since finished. Steve simply carried on.

His fists beat on the bag, punishing it for unknown crimes. Occasionally, he added a kick, which swung the bag more violently still. He didn't need to plan, didn't need to think.

He was disconcerted by his afternoon with Dr. Pullman. No matter how reasonable she was, no matter how kind - how in any other scenario he may have been pulled to doting on her - Steve could not settle himself to admitting how much his life hurt. How very heavy his enhanced shoulders felt under the weight that was his life...

So he came to the gym, where he knew what to do ...where so very little could hurt him.

He did not know how to talk to Dr. Pullman about his life or his war of emotions.

In here, he didn't have to think about it. In here, things were more simple.

Thud.

Chaturi.

Thud.

Red Skull.

Thud. Thud.

Loki with the tesseract.

Thud.

Bucky strapped to a table.

Thud, thud, thud.

Aliens overrunning Manhattan.

Thud.

His soon-to-be Commandos as POWs.

Thud, thud.

Tony unconscious in his Iron suit.

Thud, thud, thud.

Peggy Carter.

Her face swam unbidden in his mind's eye, and he spun a kick straight to the bag- it went flying into the wall, snapped from it's chain.

"Egh," he groaned and dug his hands into his hair in frustration.

He knew the broken bag was no big deal, but he glared at it hotly all the same.

He had these memories in an overlapping form; they all seemed recent to him. The last 70 years were nothing ...he may as well have liberated concentration camps this very Spring or seen Peggy smile at him only months ago.

His mind forgot sometimes.

Those camps stood as museums or ruin, now. Peggy was old and unwell. The rest of the world kept moving.

...without him.

Though the last months had proven the world could still use a Captain America; for this reason, he would stay. He would figure it out ...without or without Dr. Pullman.

He frowned at the thought of her and picked up a replacement bag with a grunt.

He was not yet ready to leave.