"MY THREE O'CLOCK CANCELLED, SO I HAVE THE AFTERNOON FREE, YOU WANNA DO SOMETHING?"

Rhett looked up from where he was sprawled out in his desk chair, waiting for the bell to signal the end of recess for his second grade students. "I'd love to, Nicky, but I have a meeting."

The man sighed and nodded, moving to sit in the too small chair closest to him. "Fun. What's the meeting about?"

Rhett sighed, tracing the lip of his coffee mug. "Oh, who knows. Budget cuts. Interesting news. Some of them are still sure that I was sent as a spy from the government, what with basically having no record of myself until nine years ago and having taken the job of one of their favorite co-workers who's vanished without a trace."

Nicky winced at the last part, but forced himself to hide it. Rhett was almost positive that he had moved on, he didn't need the man finding out that he wasn't as okay as he should probably be.

Rhett, however, was more observant that Nicky sometimes gave him credit for. "Sorry, I didn't mean to make that joke about Terran, that wasn't fair."

Nicky swallowed, forcing himself to smile. "Don't apologize, he probably would've laughed."

Rhett gave him a smile that clearly screamed, 'I know you're upset, but I won't say anything to make it worse,' before suggesting, "Why don't you go hang out at Central Park for a bit, go under the sun. For someone who recommends it to all of his patients, you sure love to avoid it."

Nicky scoffed, standing up and walking towards him. "Don't call me out like that." He reached over and hugged him, wishing that he didn't want to hold on as much as he did; Rhett wasn't his to keep, not anymore.

Smiling, he left the classroom, nearly bumping into a small child who was trying to get to her backpack. He apologized, nearly tripping over his own feet, and the girl merely laughed, scurrying away a moment later. Unfazed, he continued to walk, figuring that once he was done seeing the rest of his patients he could just hop on a train and get off somewhere near Central Park. It would be nice to walk, clear his head.

But until then, he had work to do.

º º º

"—so, basically, I land here and she's just like 'yeah, I don't love you anymore,' which is...great. You know, you could have told me before I moved all the way out here to be with you. And so here I am, I've been living here for about a year now and I've been doing alright, I have a steady job, I've made friends...and the worst part is, I'm still great friends with her parents. We see each other every weekend at church, it's...kind of awkward."

Nicky tried not to act too shocked, but he was sure that his open mouth and wide eyes gave him away. He blinked, taking in the pause that the man in front of him had given, looking at him expectantly. The psychologist cleared his throat, shaking his head ever so slightly, shocking him back into reality.

"That...that sucks, man," Nicky sighed, running a hand through his hair, "That-that is awful."

The man—Richard, his name was—just shrugged and nodded. "It is what it is. I'm mostly over it now, but...I mean, she wanted me to move in with her, but then I had to find my own place because she just decided she didn't love me while I was on the plane."

Nicky caught a shift in his expression, ever so slightly, on the last part of his sentence. He sat up in his seat. "Do you really believe that she just decided she didn't love you during your flight here?"

There was a long pause, Richard glancing towards the ceiling and biting his lip, Nicky just watching him patiently, scribbling an abridged version of the man's unfortunate tale into his notepad while he waited. Finally, the man spoke, "I don't think so. But it's easier to think that than think she was trying to force herself to love me for longer than just two hours."

Nicky pursed his lips into a sympathetic smile. "Have you talked to her about it?"

"We did right away," Richard said, rubbing his forehead, "I told her that it was really selfish of her to ask me to come here only to tell me that she didn't love me anymore, but I didn't want her to take me back or something, because I don't want to be in a relationship where I'm the only one who feels anything. I can't do that to myself."

Nicky was impressed with this man. With his ability to put himself first and his being okay with people leaving him, two things that he himself often forgot but tried to encourage his patients to partake in constantly. He was impressed, but that didn't mean he was going to defer him away.

"What made you come here?" he asked, repeating the same question he had asked when he first came in.

"What do you mean?" Richard asked, and Nicky knew it wasn't because he didn't understand the question, but because he wanted to know what Nicky was, for lack of a better term, wanting him to say; Nicky didn't want anyone to say anything other than what they thought, and he trusted that people would do exactly that.

"Well, I know some other guys whose patients show up because they're depressed, they have anxiety, something along those lines, you know? Those guys sometimes just get people who want to talk. I tend to deal with people who are holding onto a lot of guilt and pent-up emotions, that's kind of the, uh, pattern with my patients," he explained, "I didn't choose them, but it's all about being open to it."

Richard nodded solemnly. "Well, I mean, I showed up because I was sad and needed someone to talk to, someone to tell me that it was okay that even after a year, it still hurts me that she uprooted my life like this. I mean, I'm trying to forgive her, but I moved from Florida."

Nicky nodded, unable to keep from cracking a smile; it wasn't that he found the man's situation funny in any way—in fact, he found it to be incredibly sad—but he was truly incapable of reacting to a situation that wasn't entirely heartbreaking or dangerous with anything but a smile.

"On a scale from 'the ocean is flooding' to 'a female can't be president,' how stupid do I sound?" Richard asked, sighing as he tried to smile, leaning back in the couch.

Nicky blinked. "You sound like a completely logical person who is still coming to terms with a very big turning point in his life that he had no control over. You're allowed to take as long as you want to heal, and you've been doing a great job so far."

The man just nodded slowly. "Should I keep talking?"

Nicky shrugged, leaning forward. "Do whatever you want. I'm just here to listen."

Because that's what he did best.

º º º

"How was the new patient?" Rhett asked as Nicky pressed his ear against his phone, climbing out of the train station and out onto the sidewalk.

"It was intense," Nicky sighed, walking in even strides towards Central Park, "That guy has been through a lot. God, I felt so bad for him, I'm not even gonna try and hide it."

After finishing his session with Richard and sorting out the pay and scheduling another time for him to come in, Nicky left the office for the day and decided to head out. Rhett did have a point, he had been cooped up in the loft for longer than he should have. Of course, what with the close call with his step-brother and Adrian Toomes, as well as Rhett's own problem just a month before, he didn't necessarily feel safe leaving the safety of his protected loft building.

"Damn. Well, I gotta get to the meeting, so I'll talk to you later, stay safe." With that, Rhett hung up, leaving Nicky to walk in silence.

He walked into the park, immediately falling into an easy stride as he pulled out his headphones, playing music that he immediately tuned out in favor of his thoughts. He didn't need noise to think, but he had grown so accustomed to working around noise that, when it wasn't there, he became confused as to how he was supposed to react, hence the music.

His mind immediately drifted towards his patients. He couldn't help it, they were the only other people he really interacted with, other than Rhett, Steve, and the various members of the Fantastic Four and the X-Men, the latter two he only conversed with on business. So his mind went to his patients, hoping that they were okay and were having some kind of fun.

It was from those thoughts that he found himself drifting back towards Rhett and Steve. Rhett had been his best friend for nine years, Nicky having been the one to find him and take him back to the apartment complex that had mysteriously disappeared after the two had had to leave in order to keep themselves safe; point being, Rhett had been with him for ages and while his feelings for him were basically solely practical, Nicky couldn't help but feel a pang of jealousy when he thought of Rhett with Steve. Whether it was because he wanted Rhett for himself or because he wanted for himself what Rhett had, he didn't know quite yet.

He didn't know if he wanted to feel either.

So caught up in his thoughts, Nicky didn't notice that he was walking sideways and right into the path of a jogger who was paying just as much attention as he was.

Which meant that the two crashed into each other at full force.

Nicky yelped, bracing himself for the impact, not even bothering to shove his arms out to break his fall, only to find a pair of strong hands grabbing the sides of his arms, steadying him as they spun around. He let go of the breath he had been holding, relaxing into the hold that didn't yield until he was breathing again, the hands slowly slipping away.

"I am so sorry," Nicky called out, backing away quickly, nearly tripping and arms pinwheeling, just barely able to right himself, "God, I'm such a klutz."

He bent down to pick up the phone that had been dropped in the collision, keeping his eyes trained to the ground, ears burning as he inwardly cursed himself and the entire universe for forcing himself into such an awkward situation.

"No, it's my fault, I should have looked where I was going," the jogger replied, not sounding at all upset, and it was his voice that caused Nicky to snap his neck up, nearly dropping the phone.

Sam Wilson.

Nicky's mouth went dry as he took in the man before him, standing there in a gray sweater, sweatpants, and baseball cap, only slightly out of breath, as if it wasn't freezing cold outside, staring at Nicky like he was trying to place him.

It was as if Nicky looked at him and suddenly he was back in high school, sitting in one of the seats in the auditorium with sheet music in his lap, trying to sing his part while trying to listen out for Sam's solo, or in the bleachers out in the freezing cold, watching the football game and pretending like he knew anything about the sport, only watching for the star varsity quarterback. As if his entire life meant nothing and he was just back to being that insignificant teenager; he found that he couldn't care less about it, because all he could focus on was Sam Wilson.

"You're the guy from the loft, right?" Sam asked, glancing around them carefully, "You know. New Year's? I don't know if you remember me."

Nicky nodded minutely, swallowing thickly. While he had been completely plastered that New Year's Eve, he was still somewhat capable of remembering certain tidbits, the most vivid being calling himself a banana twelve times to a bewildered Steve Rogers, as well as opening the door to find Sam on the other side before promptly passing out a few moments later.

"Yeah, I wasn't that drunk," Nicky coughed, shaking out his arms and sticking out his hand, "Nicky Green."

Sam smiled and glanced around again before taking his hand and shaking it, and by God if that didn't make Nicky's knees go weak at just the touch of his hand. "Sam Wilson. Though, uh, it's Sam Thomas now."

Nicky tried to smile but found that all he wanted to do was stare. "I get it. Cool. That's really cool." He could only mumble, his words barely making any sense at all.

In reality, he understood exactly what Sam was saying—a man on the run, he'd have to change his name in order to hide, as had Steve—but he couldn't for the life of him find his tongue or the right part of his brain to let the man know that he did.

Sam just kept smiling, though it was very much a confused, almost worried one and he glanced around once more before asking, "Do you need to sit down? Here, I'm gonna get you some water, just sit down on that bench over there."

"No, I'm fine," Nicky said, ripping himself away from where Sam had touched his shoulder, trying to guide him away.

Why did he pull away? He would ask himself later that night why he had chosen to pull away. After all, this was the man he had been in love with for years, one would think he'd want to be around him constantly, touching him, holding him. Yet he pulled away. Perhaps it was because he truly didn't want to be around him. But, and possibly more realistically, it was because he wanted to be around him too much.

"Uh, what brings you round here?" he found himself asking, desperately trying to salvage the conversation he had practically destroyed, "And, um, I think this is yours." He handed the man the phone back, trying not to let their hands touch.

"Thanks. And back home?" he asked, glancing around again, despite there being very few people around, "Well, after I got the okay from Tony that I could come back home, I came to catch up with Steve, then went back to check-in in D.C., but now I'm back. Steve not explain that?"

Nicky shrugged, smiling. "I'm not his boyfriend, he doesn't tell me as much."

Sam gave him a sympathetic look. "Sorry, I didn't know. You were passed out when they were catching me up, they didn't tell me anything about you."

Nicky shrugged again, smiling self-deprecatingly, a short pang knocking at his heart as he realized that Sam most likely didn't remember him. "Nothing special about me. I wasn't all that relative to matter."

Sam frowned at that. "Don't be like that, man. Steve told me that you helped him out a few times. Tell me about that."

"Seriously?" Nicky asked, trying not to gawk as he tried to discern whether the man was playing him, "You wanna know? About me?"

"Yeah," Sam said, as if Nicky had asked if breathing was a necessity, already starting to back away, "But some other time, because I actually have to get to work. I'm really sorry, but we'll catch up sometime, okay, Nate? I'll see you around."

With that, the man ran off, headphones back in his ears, hands fishing out his phone where he was no doubt calling his boss; Sam Wilson wasn't the type of guy to lie to get out of a simple conversation, he was much too charming to need to resort to that, not to mention much too kind.

Nicky just watched him go, his mind spinning so fast that it was standing still, unable to form any cohesive thoughts past 'Sam Wilson' that just seemed to echo in his mind like a record so well loved that its sound embedded into the walls and it only played the sound on loop. Then a thought rose in his mind.

"It's Nicky, actually."

AUTHOR'S NOTE

I have no idea what I wrote and I know this interaction is probably the worst interaction in the history of my writing, but it was supposed to be awkward and weird. I say this, as if that's going to make up for me writing this at 2am. But seriously, I wanted to try and make it romantic comedy-esque by having them bump into each other in Central Park, then him running off without any way of contacting him, as well as getting his name wrong. I don't know, I hope it was alright.

Also, my favorite headcanon is that Sam literally did everything in high school, he was the star quarterback and in the school's show choir, sometimes jumping into the drama productions if he got cast (which he always did). Look, I love Sam, he's literally never done anything wrong.

So, fun fact, the patient that Nicky was seeing? Yeah, his opening dialogue was a story I had overheard a guy telling some woman on a bus coming back from the airport. My dad and I were sitting in front of him and were just like O.o when we heard the story, so I figured it'd be something that would appear in a romantic comedy if the main was in this situation.

I'm sorry this wasn't the best chapter ever, but thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed!