Avengers/X-Men One Shots - The Blood/White Phoenix Saga

ONE-SHOT XXXII: Therapy: Week Two

Set a week or so after previous one-shot

Adelaide Lehnsherr

Truth be told, I was feeling miserable. I felt horrible for what had happened the past couple days. I wanted to feel better. I couldn't give up, though. I just couldn't. Surrender wasn't in my nature. There were some nights when I would cry my heart out in the bathroom, rocking back and forth, curled up in the fetal position, my heart and soul dying for just some measure of peace. I had contemplated ending it all with one of the many guns that sat in my closet (worst case scenario, I assured myself), but I was never one to lay myself down and die.

I didn't want to die.

I couldn't.

I had to keep myself together.

If I wasn't going to do it for Steve and Nat, I would do it for myself.

Bite the bullet and fight my demons with all that I had.

My therapist had finally found where I was most at home: my apartment, with Steve by my side. She soon found that Steve couldn't leave, not if there was going to be a tough session with me practically bubbling all over her with tears and guilt over the monster that I was with HYDRA - the monster I was still fighting to keep at bay. Fortunately, with every session with Mandy, my relapses were few and far between. I had her support and Steve's, and that was enough.

About a week after my first post-traumatic episode, Mandy came over to mine and Steve's apartment with an armful of files. When she knocked, I answered the door.

'Hey, Mandy. Come on in.' I let her in. Music was playing on my phone, just echoing through the apartment. I heard the sound of food sizzling on the pan in the kitchen. I remembered Steve was cooking. 'Steve!'

'What?' I heard him yell back.

'Mandy's here!' And I swear, my large friend/on-and-off boyfriend practically sprinted into the living room. For a moment, he blushed bright red, nearly forgetting his manners as he engulfed her in a trademark Steve Rogers hug. She giggled and I laughed out loud. 'Steve, don't strangle her, for God's sake. You're supposed to be professional, not looking like a lovesick teenage boy,' I scolded him. He let go, backing off, looking like a kicked puppy. Then, he darted back into the kitchen and promptly, finished making lunch. The mood was quiet. 'You need to date him, Mandy.'

'Have you noticed I've been trying to play matchmaker with you two?' I smirked and lowered my head, shaking it slowly as I arranged some books laying around on the coffee table. I gently fingered the top one, labelled The Odyssey by Homer. Apparently, Steve liked light - ahem! reading.

'We're not that compatible, Mandy. He's way more attracted to you.'

'You're that bad of a person.' I shook my head harder.

'It's mostly all just me. I push people away - and the people that I do let in, they end up getting hurt.'

'And like I said, you're not that bad of a person.' I sat down.

'It doesn't work that way. You can't just put two people together and expect them to hit it off.'

'Some love stories start like that.'

'I don't have a luxury of a fairy-tale, Mandy. I just don't. The person that I was. The person that I am now. Adelaide in the 60's... she had a better chance of getting a man to love her than this girl does now. He really is more attracted to you.'