THE LAST TIME SHE HAD HEADED OVER TO NICKY'S APARTMENT, SHE HAD BEEN WITH PETER. The thought made her feel sick to her stomach and she spent the entire train ride blasting music in her earbuds, skipping all the songs that she had once listened with the boy. She and Peter had listened to a lot of music during their time together, meaning that Diana was basically reduced to listening to Adele and Taylor Swift; it was very fitting.

She walked towards the apartment by herself, hands in her pockets. She pressed the button for Nicky who buzzed her in immediately. She sighed and opened the door, making her way up to his apartment.

She was surprised to find him already waiting for her and tried to give him a smile, only succeeding in pursing her upturned lips. He gave her a similar smile, motioning for her to step into the room.

"I have an office, but considering your circumstances, I think you'd benefit from being here. These sessions aren't conventional anyways," Nicky said, leading her towards a room towards the side which had a few small couches.

"You're not a normal psychologist," she stated, sitting down, "You're like that one guy in the movie with the screens who makes all the gadgets and just supplies everything."

Nicky smiled. "The guy in the chair? I guess. I like to call myself a hero of heroes, if you remember that."

She nodded. "Yeah, I do. That sounds nice, you're not a sidekick, you're almost like a higher up." Nicky had so many connections that he was almost a convenient plot device in a movie.

He shrugged. "Without me, my roommate would probably be dead. Same thing with you and Peter."

She shook her head. "Probably not, let's be real, I just kept him from infections and having to treat his cuts himself."

He splayed out his palms. "What did I just say?"

She sighed and crossed her arms. "Flash said that you helped him out, but you didn't work for the family so he had to drop you. What does that mean?"

Nicky's smile dropped and he pursed his lips. "I'm not allowed to say, that's confidential."

She groaned. "When did he stop seeing you? Can you just tell me that?"

He worried on his bottom lip, frowning at her. Finally, he relented, "After his dad got out on parole and started visiting the family." He shook his head and groaned. "Why am I like this, I'm legally not allowed to tell you."

She snorted. "Like you care about legalities."

He lifted his head from his hands, surprisingly serious. "I take my profession seriously. It's the one thing I have that's separate. You need to have that in your life if you want to do this, Diana."

She frowned. "Who says I want to keep helping him?"

Nicky sat up, surprised. "Me. Because you're a good person who isn't going to let him down just because you broke up. My roommate and I have fights all the time, but I care about him and won't let him die just because I'm pissed. Even if you don't care about him, you don't let people get hurt on your watch, not if you can help it."

She scowled, but said nothing. She just crossed her arms and leaned back on the couch, waiting for him to say something to her. If this were another psychologist she would be completely different, but she'd been talking with Nicky for so long and she knew so much about him that she no longer cared.

"How was your day?" he asked, leaning back as well.

"Horrible," she replied simply.

He bit back a smile, shaking his head. "Okay...why?"

She huffed. "Flash wants to kill Peter and he and Harrison got into a fight. Aunt Rosie doesn't like me talking because of my accent and Jesse just..." she trailed off, groaning, "I wasn't told that she didn't like me talking, but I can tell."

"Okay," he said, nodding, "Let's start at the beginning. Why does Flash want to kill Peter? I know he's not his biggest fan. Believe me, he struggled to be civil with him. But he doesn't hate the kid, not that much at least."

"How do you think he reacted when I walked out of my room with completely red and rubbed raw eyes?" She moved so she was lying down the way people did in therapist offices in movies.

Nicky gave her a sympathetic look. "I'm sorry. You told him what happened?"

She nodded, thinking back to what had happened that morning.

She had walked out of her room for lunch, her eyes hurting from how much she had cried. She had figured that Flash wouldn't talk to her considering he was more than a little upset at her the day before. However, he had practically dragged her back into his room to interrogate her.

"What happened?" he had demanded.

She had tried to brush it off and leave, but he blocked the door, unrelenting, waiting until she told him what happened. She finally told him, surprised to find that instead of crying she just moved to lie down on his bed, too tired to stand. She was too tired.

Flash had gone on a tirade when he found out. He had shouted various death threats and nearly broke his desk in his fit of rage. She was so afraid that she ran out of the room and locked herself in her own, heart pounding. She couldn't even think of Peter's name without hurting, but she wasn't about to let Flash hurt him, not again.

"You're right," she sighed, "I wouldn't let him get hurt. But that doesn't mean I want to help him."

"That makes sense," he replied, "You two just broke up, the wounds are still fresh."

She nodded. "Yeah. I just-I don't know what to do. What if he doesn't come by my window because of this, what then?"

Nicky pursed his lips. "I will talk to him. It's important that he knows he can go to your place, but only if you're comfortable with it."

"If he got hurt because he didn't think I'd help him, I would hate myself for the rest of my life."

She said it with such intensity, with such finality, that one would think she was back in her first month of helping him, of constantly worrying if he was okay, that he wouldn't drop by. Back when everything was starting to get better.

Nicky smiled sadly. "I had a feeling. You know, Diana, with all that's going on, I think you should try to find yourself something to do. Something that will take your mind off the problems at home, as well as trying to deal with your feelings about Peter."

She raised an eyebrow. "You're not gonna tell me that I'll just get over it?"

He scoffed. "I find that that pushes away patients most of the time, especially younger ones. A good number of you feel emotions deeply and to have something you really cared about ripped away isn't easy and you might not think you can get over it. You can, but it'll take time and me brushing it off will probably just piss you off."

She nodded. "You would be right. But what am I supposed to do? I don't-I don't really want to see my friends right now, I just want to sleep and do nothing." She hadn't had that feeling in such a long time, but now it was back with a vengeance.

"Well," Nicky began, "What would make you happy right now? Just in this moment, what do you want to do?"

Her arms jerked as her mind flashed to her birthday. She bit her lip, face contorting in pain. "I don't know."

"What's wrong?" he asked, leaning forward.

She turned away from him, facing the back of the couch. "Peter asked me that."

He sighed softly. "Shoot. I'm sorry. Listen, if I ever say anything that you don't like, just tell me and I'll try not to say them in front of you, okay?"

She nodded, pulling her arms up to pillow her head, still turned away. "I don't know what I want to do, I don't know what would make me happy."

"What did you like doing before everything with Spider-Man and your biological family?" he asked,

She shook her head. "I always did things with Flash or Harry or Gwen. You see my problem? If I'm alone, I usually just watch movies and sleep, I don't do things without other people."

Nicky licked his lips. "Well, you need to do something over the summer."

She turned back around to face him. "Well, what do you do? You have to do other stuff besides helping your roommate and being a psychologist."

Nicky shrugged. "Well, you see, I don't help him the way you help Peter, my roommate isn't a hero, he doesn't go out and fight crime, so my helping him is me just looking at tracker screens and making equipment to prepare."

"You make stuff?" she asked, tilting her head.

He nodded. "Yeah. You see, I enjoy making things so preparation almost isn't me helping."

"That's cool," she mumbled, "But there's nothing I can do for that."

"Well..." he drawled, "I make a lot of stuff. And, I mean, I don't have a test subject for most of them."

She scoffed. "You want me to be a test dummy?"

"I prefer the term 'volunteer' or 'scientific martyr.'"

She laughed slightly-not a big laugh, but prominent enough to be acceptable-and shrugged. "Okay. Yeah, sure, who needs guaranteed safety?"

He grinned. "You get cookies and ice cream if you're successful."

She nodded eagerly. "Okay, I'm in, let's go!"

º º º º º

The two didn't actually get to start their side-project until after Diana's session was over. Which meant that she was given the opportunity to cry while Nicky watched, frowning the entire time.

"Come on, champ," he said once the session was over, "Let's get you some juice and crackers."

"Do you have any other patients?" she asked, following him out.

"Yes," he replied, "But I don't always see them every week, scheduling is up to them. My patients are people with busy schedules. I don't charge a lot, but considering people talk, I've accumulated a particular demographic of patients. It helps, considering I do a lot besides this."

"Do you also supply other people with...things?" she asked, taking the proffered snacks, sitting on the part of the counter that he patted.

He nodded. "Yup. I help out the X-Men every once in a while. Those guys are so cool. Most of them, at least."

Her jaw dropped. "You work with the X-Men? That's insane, how do you do that?"

He pulled out a tupperware container out of the fridge. "You work with the Spider-Man? That's insane, how do you do that?"

She rolled her eyes and kicked her legs lightly, taking a bite of the crackers. "I don't know how I do it. YouTube, mostly."

Nicky laughed and leaned against the counter next to her, opening the container to reveal cantaloupes. The two ate in silence, minds drifting off to other things, jobs that needed to be done.

"I think I was just fired from my night job," she said at one point and Nicky choked on his cantaloupe as he pulled out his phone to set a reminder to tell Peter not to skip out on her because of their fight.

"Well, you have a new job. Come on, I'll show you something I've been working on," he said, motioning for her to bring her food to his room.

She grabbed the full box of crackers and entire carton of juice, balancing them in her arms as she followed Nicky who mumbled something about her being a freeloader, to which she responded by walking towards the living room table and pushing a stack of papers to the floor.

"My roommate is going to kill you," Nicky said, motioning for her to walk inside, "He's a elementary school teacher. Those were his lesson plans and homework assignments."

Diana promptly hid behind his bed. She stared at his room with wide eyes, taking in the desk filled with computer screens and the bed with flannel sheets covered with wires and various tools, some of which she didn't recognize.

"Wow," she whispered softly, "You have a lot here."

"Yup," he said, motioning towards the object he had in the middle of his bed, "It's kind of my life. Here, this is what I'm working on right now."

Nicky spent the better part of an hour showing Diana his modified gun that would be used by police officers, stating that the most lethal of options is one that would stun the victim, but not enough harm to kill them, though there were exceptions in terms of heart conditions and other things, but that wouldn't but a product of the gun. There was a setting that made it out to seem as though the officer could set it off of that and make it work like a normal gun, but in reality all it would do is stay on the same, non-lethal setting and record the exact time and place in which the officer tried to change it, as well as begin recording the scene for evidence should foul play be involved.

"Gwen's dad would love that," she breathed, eyes wide.

"It's still in its first stages, but I really want this to work," he said, eyes twinkling with passion and pure joy, "This could save so many lives, protect so many people."

Diana was taken aback by just how much energy was behind those words. Nicky was truly someone who wanted to help people. He might not go out and fight like the Avengers, but he was doing all he could to aid them in his own way. The man behind the scenes, the hero of heroes, a hero himself.

"That's awesome," she said, finding that she herself could smile. It was contagious.

"I've got some other ideas and I would need a test subject for them. If they work, you and I would be responsible for helping to set the course towards a world of peace. Where we can eliminate the collateral damage of the wars and the battles. You in?"

Diana didn't have to think twice. She wouldn't make much of a difference, but the idea of being able to help and even prevent a tragedy like what happened to her parents was too good to pass up. She wanted to help people, this would be a great start.

"I'm in."

AUTHOR'S NOTE

( 07.18.17 )

Okay, this entire chapter was not planned. None of it. Legitimately none of it. I did not mean for her to get access to weapons/things that could potentially make her a superhero depending on how she uses them, that was an accident. I mean, she was going to, but not in excess? We'll see how it plays out, though she will not be fighting crime, that I can guarantee. But I guess she's now aiding a sidekick? Who knows.

I'm really excited to write the actual therapy scenes because Nicky's style is sort of-not-really based on my psychologist because is is so not what you imagine when you think of a psychologist that it's almost funny (also because this is good practice for I FINALLY start my story Anger Management)

That's really all I have to say for now (this chapter is odd, but I like that it sets up more Nicky and Diana scenes as those will become important) so...thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed!