SESSIONS

"So."

"So."

"How are you feeling? How's the recovery?"

"Fine." Pietro's gaze lingered where his walking cane rested against the arm of his chair. "I mean- slow, but, a little better every day."

"Well," the doctor leaned back in his own chair with a small smile, "I won't say you look terrific, but I'm glad to see you're up and about so soon. It hasn't been very long has it, since…?"

Since Genosha. The battle against Exodus whose psionic attack almost killed Pietro. The bloodfeud that began with his daughter's abduction that nearly culminated in her death, too. Because of his father. Because of him.

"A little over a week." Pietro had taken to idly turning the head of his cane around in circles. Comfort in motion. "So they tell me, anyway. I lost a couple of days in there between travel and… well, unconsciousness."

Very sober, the doctor asked, "How is little Luna?"

Pietro had been bracing for that question. Still, his pre-formulated response cinched into a knot mid-throat, hard to breathe through the chokehold of guilt. "Nightmares. Panic attacks. Physically unharmed, thank God, but she is… not herself. We do not leave her sight, she becomes too afraid. Crystal is with her now. She even sleeps between us." He flinched. One of his objectives was to keep this session from becoming about The Marriage. This was about being cleared for active Avengers duty. Nothing more. Nothing selfish.

Sampson looked up from his notepad. "So things are back on track with you and Crystal then, or how is that going?"

"It is… complicated." Pietro shifted in his chair – too squishy, it made his beaten body ache to keep from sinking in, from relaxing. "Our focus is with Luna right now. She needs us. We are united for her sake, but… that's just it, I suppose. There has simply not been time for much else."

"Not a bad thing, maybe? One step at a time."

"Yes." Pietro breathed a little easier in the absence of further questioning on that topic, and took the opportunity to change the subject. "So, Cap is worried about me? Captain America. I presume he sent for you."

"A session like this, even several of them, would be standard protocol after the sort of ordeal you and your family have been through."

"I know the Avengers' procedures, doctor. That was not my question."

Sampson tapped his pen a few times and then spread both hands palm up. "Everyone is worried, Pietro. Your friends watched you murdered and resuscitated and see you suffering every day since. I'm worried and I wasn't even there. Are you okay?"

"Yes. Not physically, obviously." He set the cane out of reach. Easy access to something to fiddle with would become a giveaway; it was his weakness in Poker as well. "I just need time to heal, and to be here for my daughter, and to salvage my marriage if that's possible. Also, I plan to request active Avengers status once more – after I am fit again, of course."

"Sounds like a good plan. If you want my opinion, I think this is the best place for you right now. Anything I can do to help?"

"Well…" Pietro regarded the doctor closely, careful not to betray any suspicion – the last thing he needed was a diagnosis of paranoia at a time like this, "I would not turn down a clean bill of mental health."

"Ha-ha. Sure, if you like. Although that's not why I'm here."

Liaryesitis-paaaaaatience. "Why are you here, doctor?"

"Just to check in, really, see how you are. Is that all right?"

So be it. Pietro summoned all his strength of will to tune into the world around him, to heed and react to every slow and small and stupid detail as anyone else would, and with exhaustive effort he drew in and let go of a long steady breath, forcing himself to recline further into the cushions as though soothed, comfortable. As though soft in any way. He tried very hard, in other words, to look normal.

"Yes, quite all right. Even better, in fact. I think we are of like mind that those patent evaluations are less insightful anyway compared to natural discourse."

"Agreed." Sampson spoke with tempered humor, "That being said, I could go down the tired old list -your favorite color, your relationship with your mother, that sort of thing- or...?"

Pietro considered a half-joking suggestion as good as any other. 'Daddy issues' it is. "Well, as much as I would rather not talk about Magneto, since I unfortunately don't remember my mother we-"

"You don't?"

"What?"

"You don't remember your mother?"

Damn it. Resolved though he may be to 'open up' and 'share something' as quickly and as convincingly as possible to get this session over with already, Pietro had not intended to walk into that particular web. Yet, there were stickier snares in darker corners of the little closet of horrors that stored his past. (Right?)

"No, actually. Neither of them." Pietro hoped a pause would help paint an emotional picture, help conceal his own indifference. "That is to say, my birth mother died shortly after we were born. The story goes that she fled wearing only her nightdress into a winter storm to perish."

Sampson looked up from his scribbling, clearly shocked. "That's terrible. I'm sorry."

With a shrug, "I never knew her." Wrong answer, too cold. "Thank you." Pietro tried to sigh - a difficult reflex to imitate. Wait. Wait for those certain muscles on Sampson's face to shift just so. There. "But I was referring to the woman who fostered us. Raised us as her own, to be clear."

"May I ask her name?"

"Marya."

"That's pretty."

"Thank you."

"What can you remember of Marya besides her name?"

"Very little. Just glimpses." He could see the doctor waited for more, and Pietro would not lie – this was, after all, his mother that they spoke of now, rest her soul. "She was kind, warm-hearted, but sad also. Preoccupied. I remember this certain uneasiness about her. Before we were adopted, she bore children of her own who died. I think she could never... get passed that." Oh god. Oh god. Images flashing by, fire and smoke and screaming. How close he came to losing Luna, captive in the clutches of maniac after maniac, how rough they handled her, how callous, heedless to her cries, her terror. And Crystal, Crystal would never have forgiven, never been the same, never loved him ever again, she still might not.

"I said are you all right?"

"Fine, I'm fine. Sorry, I was-"

"What are you doing there?"

"Nothing. I just- I thought we were going to talk about Magneto, is all."

"You said you'd rather not. Pietro…" Sampson sat forward now elbows on knees, and pointed across the space between their chairs to the object of his questioning – where another's voice would grow more insistent, his only softened, "What are you doing?"

The doctor pointed to where Pietro's hands joined at his center, left clasped over right, thumb to palm, rubbing mindlessly. Ah - his hated 'tell', snuck out unnoticed like a child cheating bedtime. He made a loose fist palm-down with the scarred hand, and gestured casually with the other as he said, "I got distracted thinking about Luna, about Genosha. Never mind."

"Would you like to take a break?"

"No. Thank you."

"All right. So you were telling me about Marya."

"That's really all I remember of her. Just glimpses, like I said."

"That's a shame, I'm sorry. Do you remember how she died?" At the lengthening silence, he explained, "You referred once to you and your sister as orphans - that's how I knew she must have passed on."

Four. Five. Six more breaths. Was it still an act? Because it was getting easier.

"Yes, I know how she died." He could hear his own heartbeat inside of his skull, like someone pounding on a door in the distance. He ignored it, getting louder. "There was an altercation, and a fire broke out. No- no. There was a premeditated attack against our entire familia and she was deliberately trapped inside of our home as it was set ablaze. We were very young, my sister and I – twelve I think. I tried to get mother out, Marya -I think I did- but I was not strong enough to break in, I think the doorknob seared my hand too -see this scar?- I can almost picture the engraved metal sometimes, and I remember the smell like a bad hide we had to burn once -frying skin and hair and wood- and I have never seen a fire grow so fast, like it was possessed, I swear to God I think it sped up the harder I tried to save her, but when those men turned their attention to Wanda nearby, I- we... putthoseawayIamnotcrying."

The doctor silently returned a box of tissues to the endtable beside his own chair.

Pietro lost count of his breaths and started over from one. Cleared his throat suddenly parched. Wiped a droplet of sweat from his cheek (odd). Concentrated on the task at hand: the fastest way out of this room and back to Luna, to Crystal – back to work. Calm, calm, calming down, he watched on, waiting for some queue from the other man to materialize and give direction, where to go from here. Torture in stillness. Shame in exposure. Appalled to have lost his hardest earned and most prized possession: control.

At first the doctor seemed just to stare into space, brow furrowed with whatever feelings he felt, frozen in time to Pietro's perception, now with his senses torqued by the cursed emotions that he had failed to rein in. Finally he said, "I'm sorry, Pietro, I didn't catch all of that. You were- I couldn't make out your words. I'm sorry."

Pietro sank further into his chair and could have wept for relief – if he wept ever. He said lightly, tried for laughingly even, "Not at all, I beg your pardon. I was just saying how worried I am for Luna – I promised I would not be gone long, and it must be getting close to her bedtime by now. Would you mind if we picked this up another day?"

"Well… are you sure?"

"Positive. I confess I'm feeling rather worn out, for my part – you would be doing me a favor."

"Well-"

"Thank you for coming, doctor. I truly appreciate your concern. Do stay in touch, by all means. Now I trust you can find your own way out? I would offer to walk you to the door, but, well," he gestured to the cane, "I'm afraid you would more accurately be walking me." Pietro conjured his most disarming smile that never fooled Wanda.

Alone once the doctor had taken his reluctant leave, Pietro turned off the lamp and remained there in the quiet room. After every other eternity or so, the clock on the wall ticked again.

~fin~