legionworld | They call her "Quantum Queen" for a reason

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They call her "Quantum Queen" for a reason

Who| Kid Quantum and your in-need-of-therapy butt
What| Legion Leader says "mandatory means you"
Where| Around Legion World
When| One week after Silent Horizon
Warnings/Notes| TBA

Kid Quantum had given them a week to reel and recover and make an appointment for their mandatory session as she'd instructed them to do during the post-mission debriefing. This morning, she'd gotten a list from Dr. Ryk'rr of those who had yet to do so. It's a longer list than she'd hoped.

She approaches each of them when they're on duty -- she's not going to disrupt their scheduled downtime, this isn't an emergency -- but while they're 'on the clock', their time is hers to do with as she will. She's also not going to do this in front of an audience. This situation may call for tough love, but never anything like public embarrassment.

"Legionnaire," she says, crooking a finger. "With me."

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Roland raises his eyebrows, but follows without complaining. It's an odd feeling, being led by someone who doesn't even wonder whether they have the authority to make him follow. It's an odd feeling, knowing she doesn't wonder it because she doesn't have to.

If she stops to look at him he'll look back with mild curiosity, but he won't press her for answers. Whatever this is about, she'll get to it when she gets to it. That comes part and parcel with the authority to make him follow; the authority to tell him as much or as little as she decides to. He'll follow a while, and wait a while, within reason.

She doesn't take him far, just to one of the smaller conference rooms where they can talk in private without going to her office. Legion World is a space station the size of a moon, there are any number of convenient, out of the way places to talk. She sits down in one of the chairs, hooking her ankle around another to kick it out for him to sit in.

"How are you holding up?" she asks.

Even if Roland hadn't been warned not to piss her off that still would have made him frown and think of trick questions. But that's no reason not to sit. After a moment his straight back and stiff shoulders even round out and he leans forward, setting his elbows on his knees.

"Badly," he says, voice dry. He is aware of the bags under his eyes, of the drawn look to him. Even if he were not, though, his tone would have been the same. The answer would have been just as obvious. Anyone coming out of that nightmare realm doing well would have to be, Roland assumes, both deeply malicious and unreachably mad.

"I'll be able to keep on-form for a few more weeks. So long as the effects fade in that time, I should be able to stay that way. My reaction time's the same as it ever was; my judgement should be fine in a week or so. I shouldn't be any risk to a mission, given a little time."

Kid Quantum tips her head toward him in a nod.

"I appreciate the honesty of your self-assessment," she says. "I'm not planning on sending you on any missions in that time period, but even with precogs on the team I can't make any promises."

She leans back in her chair, looking Roland in the eye. "I've been informed that you haven't made an appointment to speak with Dr. Ryk'rr yet. May I ask why?"

"Doctor- Ah." Memories are sometimes mislaid in Roland's mind - the lower priority ones especially so - but even those are seldom completely lost. It doesn't take him too long to dig up the name, especially in this context.

He straightens up as she does and, once he's got her question, he thinks on it. A few reasons spring neatly to mind and are just as neatly categorized as excuses. "Even in my time doctors of the mind, in my universe, were a vanishingly rare thing," Roland begins, and realizes one of those excuses has just begun to leave his lips.

He shakes his head, raises his eyebrows. His voice goes dry again. "Guess I decided it wasn't as important an order as all that. Especially when it asks me to trust a stranger's ideas over my own judgement."

"I can understand that," Kid Quantum answers, inclining her head in his direction. "But it's important to me that the members of this team are as healthy as they can be, and that includes mentally. Do you trust doctors when it comes to the rest of your body?"

He understands the point she's trying to make and, with luck, all he'll have to do to help her understand is to answer.

"What I'd call a doctor you might call a... a surgeon, I guess. Any man or woman who saw one was in no state to trust anyone with anything. When they were around I was never in such dire straits that I needed one, and afterward there were times my body was in the care of another, but it was seldom my choice."

"And that's only the body. If someone'd gone around claiming to see to the minds and hearts of men he didn't even love, he would've been laughed out of town. At best."

"I know I'm not back there. But you asked." He shrugs. "Is that how it's done here? You trust your whole selves to a single man- a single person, a doctor, so coldly?"

Hey you're catching her during one of her unofficial smoke breaks, helmet balanced on a ledge while South carefully stubs the ash off her cigarette and tucks it up behind her ear. She hops down from her perch and grabs her helmet, tucking it under her arm, the entire time looking unimpressed and bored.

Spoilers; it's all a cover for now well she is not taking any of this.

"Yeah, sure. Whatcyou want?"

"To kick Chronoblivion in the teeth, but Brainy can only pull miracles out of his ass so quickly," Kid Quantum answers, leading South to one of the smaller conference rooms where they can talk in relative privacy. South definitely doesn't seem like the type who'd handle in invitation to the boss' office well, even when she's not recently traumatized. Kid Quantum hooks a chair out for South with her ankle, then takes another one herself.

"And to chat a bit."

South hovers at the edge of the door, looking down at the offered chair with no small sense of hesitation. Regular psychiatric evaluations were mandatory within Project Freelancer, but their counselor was part of the manipulative experiments that they were all unwitting subjects. She still doesn't understand how deep and subtly invasive the project was, but there's a definite distaste for therapy in all its forms.

"Y'know, auhhm, I think I'm good. Actually."

Kid Quantum is aware of the nass Project Freelancer put its people through. Agents York and Washington had been sitting in her office the first time she'd had to assign them a mandatory session with Dr. Ryk'rr, she'd had a front row seat for the fallout. So she is slightly more sympathetic in South's case than she might otherwise be.

Which doesn't mean that South is getting out of it.

"Then it'll be a short chat," she says, gesturing at the other chair. "Sit."

She hesitates for another moment, then enters the room. She turns the chair around so she can straddle it and rest her arms over the back; trying to feign casual, unconcerned, and block as much as she can on a psychological and unconscious level. Really, she's intentionally being belligerent.

"Fine; shoot."

'Belligerent' is acceptable as long as South isn't attempting to flee the room. It isn't anything Kid Quantum hasn't thrown at sentients in authority herself at one point or another in her life. She waits until South has settled in before speaking again.

"I'm aware that the mental health professional at Project Freelancer abused the sentients under his care," she says evenly. "I want to assure you that that is not the case here. If I didn't trust that Dr. Ryk'rr had our best interests at heart, she wouldn't be here."

She pauses to see how South reacts to that information.

She tenses, glancing away, flipping her hair like she doesn't give a fuck but in reality she's unsettled; she's just starting to learn just how much the project had fucked them over, and the idea that some perfect stranger had that information isn't at all comforting. She scowls back at Kid Quantum through a curtain of shaggy blonde hair.

"Yeah so forgive me if I'm not that receptive. Once bitten, twice shy, y'know? I mean, I've - heard that speil before. 'Best interest for your mental health blah-blah-blah and apparently I'm nothing more than their fucking guniea pig."

Kid Quantum runs a hand over her hair. This is still going about as well as expected.

"I'm sorry you went through that," she says. "We're willing to help you find alternatives if you don't feel comfortable with speaking with Dr. Ryk'rr for whatever reason, including that she's the Legion's designated mental health professional and you've been 'bitten' before."

"Yeah, I'll take an alternative."

It's an immediate response, almost spat out because she's far more eager for that than speaking to anyone one on one. She was never very well stocked of trust but now it's running particularly thin.

"I can get you a list of resources," Kid Quantum says. "Do you want someone to help you navigate through them as well? Because I'm going to need you to have made an appointment by the end of next week."

"Nah, nah. I got it."

She's interpreting this as another week of procrastination and putting this shit off, hayoo. She's had enough of people poking around her head.

Kid Quantum raises an eyebrow.

"Keep in mind that if I don't have the information on my desk by the end of next week, I'm going to have to put you on leave," she says calmly.

"Ugh, yeah, fine, I got it."

Mentally making plans to wait until the last minute anyway, take the first available appointment, and bullshit her way through. Sorry, Kid Quantum, you really don't deserve this.

Kid Quantum purses her lips, then sighs and waves a hand in dismissal. She can tell that South isn't taking this as seriously as she'd like her to, but there's only so much she can do right now.

"Resource list will be on your omnicom in a few minutes," she says. "I'll leave you to it."

Connie had been meaning to follow through with the mandatory therapy session but one way or another she's been putting it off. Probably a healthy mix of unintentionally yet intentionally putting it off, really. It's a lot easier to try to listen and help other peoples' problems and traumas than to open up about her own.

As Kid Q singles her out as she's watching the monitors she stands to follow after a quick glance to her shift partner. They'll make do without her. And from Kid Q's tone, Connie has a feeling she knows what this call might be about.

Kid Quantum leads her to one of the smaller conference rooms nearby, where she takes a chair and kicks another one out for Connie.

"Sit down," she says, nodding her head toward the chair. "This shouldn't take long."

This isn't the first time Connie's been called aside at work for a talk. Granted those talks in Project Freelancer were never so...intimate isn't the right word for it, but a talk face to face with superiors on roughly even footing? Not very common at home. Connie eyes the chair for a moment before taking a seat, using the motion to cast a glance around the room.

"What's this about?" she asks. Her tone is non confrontational, she's willing to cooperate and see how this goes but if it starts wandering down the familiar Freelancer route? Then she might get difficult.

Kid Quantum hasn't heard much about Project Freelancer, but everything she has heard makes her fists itch. Which is actually why she's careful to avoid some of the more classic hallmarks of authority in body language for this particular exchange.

"During the last mission debrief, I said that everyone who went on the rescue mission to Silent Horizon needed to make an appointment to speak with Dr. Ryk'rr," she says. "Today, I got a list from Dr. Ryk'rr of those who haven't so that I could check in."

She raises her eyebrows. Connie's smart, she can fill in the details from there.

"Ah."

In her defense she had been keeping herself very busy; having been able to walk away from the mission with pretty light injuries compared to some of her friends, and they had needed looking after. Still...well, maybe she had been putting off arranging an appointment.

"I suppose an 'oops, I forgot' won't cut it."

Kid Quantum snorts, a faint smile flickering across her face as she shakes her head.

"Not really, no, but only because I take this nass seriously," she says. "You're not in trouble, but I am going to need you to have an appointment with either Dr. Ryk'rr or an alternative resource within the week, or I'm going to have to put you on involuntary leave." Her smile turns wry. "This isn't a 'you must be at 100% mental health' situation, that would literally disqualify all of us, but I need to know that we're not going to have any nasty surprises coming from our own teammates out in the field."

The smile fades and Kid Quantum looks serious again.

"In the interests of honesty and full disclosure, I've been informed that there was a military project in your reality where the project's director and mental health professional thoroughly and abominably abused the sentients in their care." Her voice remains steady and calm, but the disgust and fury aimed at the individuals in question is evident in her eyes and the way she flexes her fingers. Technically, she doesn't know that the project in question is the same one that Connie was part of, but all things considered it's more likely than not.

"I don't have any other details beyond that. But I want to make it clear that I would never knowingly allow someone to abuse a member of my team that way, and if I didn't trust that Dr. Ryk'rr had our best interests at heart, she wouldn't be here." She blows out a sigh. "That said, we do have some alternate options for mental health care if you really don't want to talk to her."

For what it's worth, Connie listens and keeps quiet through the scolding, even if the vague mention of Project Freelancer has her paying a little more attention to Kid Q than before. Someone had been talking about it, but without knowing who Connie wouldn't want to slip anything her old teammates would rather not share. Still, she gives a quiet nod once Kid Q has spoken.

"I've heard good things about her. Honestly I had been meaning to meet her even before that last mission. She got recommended by a trusted source."

"Glad to hear it," Kid Quantum says. That's actually very reassuring, considering how violently York, Delta, and Wash had reacted to being told they needed mandatory counseling sessions. She raises her eyebrows. "Can I trust that you'll make an appointment in the next week then?"

Meep.

"I, um, I did what you wanted. I talked to Dr. Ry'kerr--"

He'd gotten the message. It had been strange, and awkward, and uncomfortable, but he'd talked to her.

"She said -- she said I didn't need to be taken off duty or anything. She wanted me to take a break, but --"

And even if she does take him off duty, he isn't going to fight it. He has no idea what he's doing with any of this, and maybe, after what happened, maybe he doesn't have what it takes to do this hero thing at all.

"You're not in trouble," Kid Quantum assures him with a smile. "I just wanted to talk to you about something. Come on." She turns on her heel and heads off, as if it were completely impossible for him not to follow.

Unlike the others, where she just needed a private space, she has a specific destination in mind for Yuuri: the Hall of Fallen Heroes.

There's been enough time to rearrange things to include their newest memorial statue, but that's not where Kid Quantum leads him. Instead, she leads him to a statue of a teenage boy in a costume that looks very similar to her own. Come to think of it, the boy's face looks pretty similar to her own as well.

"This is the first Kid Quantum, James Cullen," she says evenly. "He was the first Legionnaire to die in the line of duty." She turns to face Yuuri. "He was also my brother, but I'm sure that was obvious."

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They call her "Quantum Queen" for a reason

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