Work Text:
There’s a small moment Stephen never talks about. It comes right after, when the dust settles and the world exhales, Earth’s mightiest blinking in the sunlight at the end of a long, hard-fought war. The dawn of a new beginning. Tony Stark died during a sunset—some attempt at allegory by the universe, the way this is one of the recurring variables within the timelines where he had died. They had kneeled and watched as he died with the sun.
And there is this feeling—a split second where he feels the universe sliding into place around him with a finality, the story clicking shut, neat and brutal and complete. This is the final end to end all endings, the one he had orchestrated. And few had survived out of it unscathed, if at all. For better or for worse, he had survived out of it. He hadn’t, in a handful of those timelines, and he would trade that over the death of anyone else, but the one timeline where the universe survives is the one where he does, too.
He doesn’t call it survivor’s guilt. That would imply passivity, as if survival simply happened to him, despite all odds. As if he hadn’t chosen it, engineered it, carved it out of inevitability. He survived because he decided who wouldn’t. There is a juxtaposition to be made here—in the grand scheme of things, this is the best possible outcome. Those who had survived outweighed those who hadn’t, and this scale is what is counted as victory in their book. It is what he chooses to tell himself, anyway, and what he tries to convince others of through their own blinding grief.
For the greater good, he had put it. As if he had any right to decide what that meant for them all.
“No, this is definitely textbook down to the T,” Vivian tells him when he speaks about some of this, one session. “You feel guilty.”
“Who wouldn’t?”
“That is survivor’s guilt, believe it or not.”
Stephen just leans back in his seat and watches the view outside the window. It’s a lovely office, scarcely but stylishly decorated, and the view outside isn’t bad, either. Calming, which he supposes is expected from a therapist’s office.
“Tell me about how you’ve been sleeping.”
“You mean about the nightmares?”
The nightmares are to be expected, naturally. He wouldn’t be the only one, after having survived what they had. Most nights he spends in his astral form, usually reading or meditating—his body does well enough with the physical rest, but the problem is his mind. A handful of times Wong reprimands him to get some actual sleep, dragging his astral form back to his body by force.
It’s not as though he’s actively avoiding sleep, either—sleep eludes him, most nights, and astral projecting is a convenient way to rest his body. Insomnia is an inescapable, chronic condition; he had medicated in the past, but discovered that, if anything, they amplified the night terrors. There is no easy way to go about this.
The truth is, trouble sleeping isn’t new to him. He’s had trouble sleeping for longer than he can remember—the real problem is waking up. Waking in the morning is the most difficult thing of all.
When he wakes up with a gasp, tasting iron on his tongue, visions of lifeless faces floating behind his eyes, the word that he thinks of is inevitable. He would sit at the side of his bed, elbows on his knees, hanging his head. He would watch as his hands shake, and he would not wait until they stopped trembling, because they never do.
Inevitable. This is how things are meant to end.
“It’s manageable.”
“Manageable,” Vivian repeats, flipping to a new page on her notebook and doodling. She doesn’t take notes, Stephen discovers—she doodles aimlessly throughout the session, most times to avoid direct eye contact. He’s not sure what that says about him, if it says anything at all.
Stephen turns to watch her for a moment, considering. “Aren’t you supposed to help me talk, or something? Isn’t that how these things go?”
“You’ve been talking.”
“Yes, and you’ve been sitting there mostly in silence, with the occasional monosyllable and, if I'm lucky, a full sentence or question.”
“I get paid whether I sit here in silence or not, whether you talk to me or not. But silence is preferable to being bullshitted, if I had to pick how to spend an hour.”
Stephen just keeps looking at her. There’s been this consistent coil of anger in him, this irritability he doesn’t quite know the source of. “Fuck you,” he says.
Vivian finally looks up and meets his eyes. They watch each other for a moment, Stephen challengingly and her… mildly. It almost reminds him of Wong. “I think,” she says, “the real trouble isn’t sleeping. The real trouble is being awake.”
“What would you know about that?”
“I think every second you are awake is agony to you. I think every moment you spend conscious, you are reminded of what you’ve done. You are back in a reality you have destined the world to live in. You are consumed by guilt because you think what has happened is something you have done, like you have condemned these people to their fates. But you forget, underneath all that guilt, is your own grief. I think the real guilt is that you are grieving, even if you think you don’t deserve to be. And that,” Vivian turns back to her pad, “That’s textbook survivor’s guilt.”
“Hm,” Stephen hums after a moment of surprise, lip twitching in a not-quite smile. He turns back to the window, a little impressed. “Not bad,” he says through the sudden dryness in his throat.
Vivian is Wong’s idea—he had just pulled Stephen aside one day, and his face had been stern, but there was something else there. “You’re self-flagellating,” he had said. Stephen had been in the middle of layering new wards over the current ones placed over the Sanctum—unnecessary, but one can never be too cautious. He had realised he had been essentially running around and finding things to distract himself with.
“What the hell do you mean?”
“When was the last time you ate?”
“I—” He frowned. Time slipped easily from him these days, and his memory wasn’t as reliable as it had been.
“Stephen,” Wong had said to him in a particular voice, “If you wouldn’t talk to me, then talk to Vivian, at least.”
“Who’s Vivian?”
And that’s how he ended up here, in Vivian’s simple little office. He had seen her once or twice, on Kamar Taj grounds—had interacted with her, even, but only ever rudimentarily. He had also seen the way she fought; she is a skilled combatant, he can tell, using her own size to her advantage. Her moves are sharp and quick and calculated, gliding and dodging with ease. Her hits are fast and brutal, quicksilver smooth and carrying more strength than you’d expect—you’d never see it coming. The few sparring sessions he had seen her perform in, her opponent tended to underestimate her. It made sense; she’s small, she’s a woman, she’s black. But the moment she readies her fighting stance and makes her first move, you’re over.
Apparently she's a practicing therapist, too, which came as a surprise to him. He had known, of course, that sorcerers have lives outside of their mystical duties—he himself still keeps ties with some of his older connections, helping them with the occasional input for their research and the like. It’s not like the Mystic Arts is all he has to live for.
“Tell me what to do about it,” Stephen says in the present.
“About what?”
“The guilt. Tell me what to do about it.”
Vivian looks at him again, and she has this look in her eyes sometimes where it’s almost as though she can see right through him, like she can read all the emotions showing—and not showing—on his face.
Oh, you think you see through me, do you? Well, you don't. But I see through you!
“How are things with you and Peter?”
“He drops by sometimes. We chat.”
“How is he?”
“Grieving,” Stephen answers honestly, “But he’s not saying he is.”
Vivian nods. “And you’ve been there for him?”
Stephen stays silent. Vivian watches him some more, then flicks her eyes back to her doodling, hand tracing idle circles along her notes.
“You ask me what to do about the guilt,” she says, “What you mean to ask is, how can I compensate for it? What can I do to feel less guilty? How am I meant to fix this?” she continues to doodle as she speaks, and Stephen follows the movement of her hand. Aimless circles. “That boy’s been through what you’ve been through, Stephen. Be there for him. After this session,” she says, then rephrases, “I have an assignment for you.”
“I get homework out of therapy now?”
“Some patients do.”
“I’m a special kind of patient, then. A special kind of fucked up.”
“Your assignment,” she says, “if you choose to accept it, is to get Peter to talk to you. To tell him you’re there if he needs you, and to answer his questions, if he has any.”
“He needs his space to grieve,” Stephen reasons.
“Some people do, maybe,” she allows, “But I think, in this case, it would help him as much as it would help you to have someone in the same boat to help each other along. To patch each other’s holes to stop the sinking.”
He thinks about that for a moment. He doesn’t know if he can—sometimes, he can’t bear just looking at the boy. At what he’s done to him. But he remains silent, and nods acquiescingly.
—
When he finally talks to Peter, they do it haltingly, hesitatingly. Stephen tries his best to seem open, to offer a space to talk. Vivian is right, it’s the least he could do.
“I… I do have a question, if that’s okay, sir?” Peter says.
“Doctor,” Stephen corrects, “And yes, of course.”
“Doctor, yeah, sorry,” he says. “I was just— I was just wondering, you know, I feel like… We kind of went through all that, right, and then suddenly we’re back right here like nothing happened. I feel like—” Peter swallows. “It’s not like I’m not grateful that we survived. I just— everyone expects me to act like everything’s back to normal. But it’s not. And you— I don’t even know half the things you’ve probably seen and been through, how do you…” He pauses for a moment, mouth half open, “How do you do it?”
“How do I do it?”
“Yes. How do you just move on, like that? How are you meant to… to carry on, even after it all?”
“I don’t,” Stephen answers honestly, “I can’t. None of us can.”
Peter doesn’t seem to have expected this answer. “You don’t?”
“No,” he says, “Peter,” he lowers his voice. “These things… You can’t move on from them. They stick with you, for as long as you’ll live. You have to learn to carry them with you, to continue living on with and around it. You ask me how to carry on, and the truth is, I don’t know. I’m as lost as you are. But life goes on, and you have so many years ahead of you, so live them to the best of your ability.”
Stephen lets out a small oomph, completely unprepared for the sudden tackle. After a while, he returns the hug, smoothing a hand down the boy’s back. Peter is so young.
When Peter pulls back, there’s a subtle sheen to his eyes. “Okay,” he says shakily, “I’ll… I’ll try. Thank you, sir.” And then he catches himself. “Doctor, I meant doctor!”
Stephen laughs, shaking his head. “That’s alright, Peter.” He smiles, and Peter smiles back at him. Maybe there is some truth to his words—maybe there is a way to carry on forward, after all.