1 | Almost Happy ▷ Sam Wilson | ✓

2 - A HEART MADE TO BE BROKEN

NICKY WAS ALWAYS SMILING. He wasn't always like that, but no one who was currently in his life was aware, Rhett barely even remembering the time when Nicky's smile only showed on very particular occasions. Nowadays, the man was always seen with a smile, a serious expression seeming alien on his face.

"You're just not made to frown," some people would tell him when he revealed that he was capable of feeling emotions other than happiness, and he would just laugh it off, forcing himself not to internalize it too much.

But regardless of how he felt and what other people thought, he was always smiling. If he wasn't, there was always the ghost of one just beneath the surface, threatening to appear at even the slightest of disturbances.

It was why he couldn't help but smile when he found the mess of flour that covered his entire kitchen.

"We can explain," Rhett said, looking like a deer in the headlights, one of his glasses lenses covered with the flour, his shirt and hands ruined, Diana and Peter giggling next to him, their current state no better than his own.

Nicky yawned as he ran a hand through his hair, checking the time. "Just clean up when you're done, we have guests coming tonight."

That day had been one with no patients at all, meaning that he was able to work all through the night and sleep until the afternoon, something that Rhett always chastised him for, despite being glad that he was actually sleeping now; there had been a time, back in the fall, when sleep had evaded him for weeks, rendering him practically immobile, at least emotionally.

"Thank God," Rhett groaned, as if his words had been punched out of him, "I miss Steve, it's been four days."

Diana snorted, patting the man's head as he leaned over the counter, grinning over her boyfriend who was leaned against the fridge, watching the scene with a fairly terrified smile.

Peter Parker was another of Nicky's patients, a newly acquired one just a few months prior, and they still had yet to truly breach his incredibly repressed feelings about the passing of both his parents and his uncle, as well as his current status as Spider-Man, but he would open up with time, as he had already told Nicky some back during the fall.

"Do you ever go to your own home?" Nicky asked, moving to sit on a barstool and poke Diana's arm, "Because I'm pretty sure I shouldn't be allowing you to be around so much."

Diana just smiled and shrugged, already so close to him as to know that he would never drive her away, he was too nice. Nicky wouldn't have wanted to her to leave regardless, he was too attached to her, too fond.

"So..." Peter drawled, catching the attention of everyone in the room, "Does Sam know that I'm here and that I'm...ya know...Spider-Man?"

Nicky glanced towards Rhett, who glanced towards Diana, who glanced back towards him. After a shared look, they all turned back to the teenage boy, shrugging. "It wasn't relevant."

The boy sighed and slid down against the fridge, onto the floor. "That's-that's a good thing, right? That he doesn't know? 'Cause there way too many people who know my identity right now, and that's not really safe for me."

"You tell him if you want, but if you don't, we'll try not to say anything," Nicky said, nudging Diana, "Right?"

She raised her hands up in defense. "It was Captain America, how could I not tell get him to meet Peter? What kind of girlfriend am I?"

"One that won't go to the Winter Formal with me," Peter grumbled.

"You were the one who said you didn't want to go!" she cried, crossing her arms and frowning, "If you want to go, I'll be happy to, but you said that you didn't want to."