Canary always expected this day would come. It was a part of the job after all—both hers and theirs. The risk of death, and the reality of needing to vent their feelings about it. Even if this death didn't quite… stick.

The grief would be reduced as a result, but the shock was no less powerful because of it. And the feelings of disarray and confusion, of hopelessness in the face of arcane and unknowable plans. The medicine for this was, regrettably enough, faith. Faith in a better future, faith that things would get better even if they seemed bleak now.

Superboy, as always, sat quietly, contemplative, wrestling with a tidal wave of emotions which he hadn't been given the tools to understand or handle. Canary would be his stone in this storm.

"You've logged almost a hundred hours in the Mission Room last week, in training," Canary said, shifting the topic to something stable, something he was able to talk about. "You've made good improvements on your martial arts."

"It didn't matter," Superboy immediately said.

"I'm curious," Canary continued, "What motivated you to work so hard?"

Superboy thought for a moment, and then grimaced. He didn't like the answer. Still, he made a heroic effort to articulate himself. "I need to get stronger. So I can be a better hero."

Canary looked at Superboy's shirt for a moment. "So you can be worthy of the S shield?" Canary suggested.

"I'm nothing compared to Superman," he ranted, "I barely even have half his powers, and I'm so weak that you can put me down no problem." Canary tried not to crack a grin at the inadvertent diss. She knew what it meant to have normal human strength in the League. Even her coworkers sometimes suffered from this casual arrogance. Even you could have taken on this menace, was something she would hear from time to time, but she never took it very personally. "But I know I'm smart. I have knowledge. I can learn quickly. And if I don't use that, if I don't push myself, I'll never be a good hero."

"Has anyone told you this?" Canary asked. Much of this felt… external. She read the guilt in his words clearly.

"I don't want to talk about him," Superboy said. Right. Satoru Gojo. Quite the hot topic in these sessions, almost no matter who she spoke with. Superboy grimaced, wrestling with himself before continuing talking, "It's not because he told me! It's because I can't stand that he was right!" Canary waited patiently for him to continue. He did. "He told me I didn't care about being a hero like he did, because if so, then I'd work as hard as he did every night. He logs a hundred hours a week like it's nothing, and still finds time to talk to everybody. And I can do the same. I don't need to sleep as much as humans do. I don't even need food that much."

"How does all this training make you feel?" Canary asked.

"Like…" he paused for a moment, "Like I'm not accomplishing anything. Like all this trying is just going to fail me. Like I should just stop… all of it." Then he frowned intently. "I won't, though. I can go on. I'm not tired, or stressed or anything like that. I'm just…"

"Angry," Canary completed. "At what?"

"At myself for not… being… stronger," he carefully moderated his words, "For being a biological freakshow who nobody wants. At Gojo for proving conclusively that nothing matters and you will just die whenever, because the universe says so."

"Was that really his fault?"

Tenderness softened his features and he shook his head. "I wish… that hadn't happened to him. He didn't deserve that. He… I didn't expect that from him."

"Expect what?"

"He lost his power," Superboy said, "Klarion took it. And he promised he'd return it if Gojo turned on us. But he didn't. I can't tell if that's a big deal or not, but it feels significant, somehow. I just didn't expect it is all."

"What did you expect?"

"That he'd… shut down? That he'd turn into a coward? Turn on us? Or just panic and scream constantly? He wears armor over his skin all day every day—that's not something someone brave does. But when it was gone, he… died on his feet. Fighting the enemy."

Canary waited for him to go on.

"I don't like him," Superboy concluded. "Maybe I never will. But I respect him. I just…" he sighed, looking down on the ground between his legs as he leaned forward. "Just wish he'd respect me is all. Everyone, really."

"Everyone?" Canary asked.

"The team thinks I'm a hothead after I messed up in the Ivo mission. And I couldn't stop STAR labs from getting destroyed. People died that day," Superboy snarled, clenching his eyes shut. "Sometimes, I don't even know why I'm in this team. I'm the most inexperienced person here, I don't keep my cool under pressure, and I don't even have the strength to back that inexperience up. And if Superman respected me, then he'd actually make an effort to meet me!" He shouted, then he glared at Canary, "Don't you talk to Gojo about this. Don't tell him to cut me some slack—I won't forgive you or trust you if you do. And I don't care what that guy thinks anyway, so it doesn't matter, okay?"

Canary gave a solemn nod, "Nothing leaves this room, Superboy." She had told him this numerous times before, and would continue to say it as needed. "But I have some questions. How will what happened affect your training schedule?" She could tell that this was a sensitive topic for him, so rather than outright tell him to take things easy, she would focus on damage control. "And do you think that perhaps you should get a medical evaluation just in case your training might have ill effects on your brain?"

"I'll keep at it," Superboy said, "Even if it doesn't help, even if I'm doing it for nothing. At least then, when I'm about to die, I can say that I pulled out all the stops. And… sure. I'll get a medical."

Canary frowned, "Do you expect to die in the line of duty?"

"Everybody dies," he said dismissively, "I expect you to die in the line of duty someday too. It's the job, isn't it?"

Canary regretted that she couldn't deny that fact. At least she could help him cope with it.

"Perhaps you should ask Gojo what he thought in his last moments," Canary said, "When he… almost died. Do you think he regretted not training harder, even though no amount of training could have bridged that gap?"

Superboy shrugged, "I think he probably had other regrets, but that's life, too. I don't regret anything that I can control anyway, so what does it matter?"

And the things he couldn't control were his relations. "Tell me about death, Superboy. What are your thoughts on it?"

000

"—but in the end, it turned out, there was nothing to fix. I'm a cursed energy user. And cursed energy is a manifestation of negativity. So really, all that stuff is good for me. And I keep it bottled up nice and tight at all times so it won't hurt anyone I don't want to hurt, so what does it matter? I mean, I'll own that it was my idea to go in there in the first place, and of course it wasn't Megan's fault that we didn't get anything practical out of it. Except clarity, maybe? Just how it goes, I guess."

There was a lot to unpack from his words, but Canary made sure to be careful not to lose track of her priorities. It was better to start with the smaller, more concrete and more actionable things than to dive head-first into childhood trauma. While she was tempted to ask him if he had accidentally hurt someone in the past, or if he truly was clear on what his mind contained, she still wanted to address other concerns—namely how he had withdrawn from these sessions. How he had refused to address what had become abundantly clear was a growing dissatisfaction with the team, and perhaps his place in it.

"Thank you for sharing this, Gojo. And you're right—it is a very complex subject with no clear way out. What I'd like for us to do is start small. Why don't we start with the last two weeks?" Canary asked Gojo.

He raised an eyebrow at that. "You mean… before Klarion?"

"Yes," Canary said.

"Didn't we have talks those weeks?" He asked.

"We did," Canary said.

"Then what's more to go over?"

"The fact that you've been very stingy about your true feelings," Canary said, "About most things, really."

"You're saying I lied to you?" He asked her, clearly irritated. "Listen, I got my heart ripped out yesterday, maybe that should take center-stage?"

"You're irritated," Canary said, "Withdrawn. Something beyond just the displacement and your disciplinary run-ins with Batman."

He sighed and shrugged, looking up in the air. "Alright then, I'll tell you. And I'll tell you why I didn't tell you at the start, either—because there is no answer, except bottling it up. Training's getting annoying. The Titans are fine doing whatever. I get sent on missions with them and am forced to hold back so the others can get things done. It feels pointless and boring, and I'm restless and annoyed. But it doesn't matter, because I still hang out, and still trudge on. And your job isn't to sift around the muck looking for golden nuggets of traumatic events that will unravel all my worst personality traits—it's to get me to the point where I can keep trudging on."

"Besides that," Canary said, "There's also value in providing you with relief from constant daily aches like this irritation which you've withheld from me. And answers to be gained about yourself—"

"I don't need answers," Gojo replied hotly, scowling, "I need time. That's all I need. Time to get stronger. I know that's not what you or the League think, but… I can do better, be better. And none of that has to involve touching any of that trash from my childhood. And no, don't call me scared, don't try to manipulate me into wanting to do it. Because I don't. And if you push me, Canary, I'll just shut you out. The only power you have over me is what I allow you to have, by continuing to talk. And I could just as easily stop whenever I want."

"That's not what I want from this," Canary said.

"Oh, because you mean well and have my best interest at heart?" he grinned, "That's true. I don't care. Now what?"

"What do you want to talk about?" Canary asked, hoping she hadn't pushed too far. This was more aggression than he had ever shown her before, and she hoped dearly that it hadn't tarnished their relationship of trust.

"Now that you got me in the mood, yeah! I do wanna talk about how I felt the others were just lazy layabouts who didn't care enough to be heroes to put in the work," he said, "I do wanna talk about how nice and easy it is to be the strongest, to have everything resting on your shoulder because you, for some idiotic reason, simply have to take care of things. Instead of not caring. And believe me, I don't care enough to be a good hero. But I know that if I don't do it, someone else will do a worse job at it. Or no one at all. And then I'll only have myself to blame when bad things happen. But you wanna know what really grinded my gears? How innocent and cute those kids were. Until now at least. And here's the really good part—I'm glad this happened to them. I bet that'll light a fire under their asses—get the weak ones to quit and the strong ones to work harder. And if they're all strong, then that's good, too. Hell, I should have gone the extra mile and just died and maybe they'd all have felt a crumb of what it means to be me afterwards."

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Canary nodded. He was indignant about not being given the due respect of being the strongest. That his monumental feat born from hard work was being disrespected in a way that only he had perceived up until now. And, of course, the classical deflection, the misanthrope defence, which was a lie that Gojo thought he had perfected, but really hadn't.

Before she could ask a follow-up question, he continued.

"And whenever I try to have an honest discussion about power, they think I'm bragging or being an asshole, or emo or whatever the hell. When I give criticism, they think I'm being a jerk. So what, I'm supposed to just sit there and be fine with it? I'm doing the group project singlehandedly! Me! No one else works as hard as me, or can do nearly as much as me. And when I ask for a hand, I get booed out of the room. I'm tired of that. I don't care anymore. I really, really don't. I could do this whole thing on my own. I could probably beat half your league with my eyes closed. The ones that don't use magic at least. Even the magic users, I could handle, at this point at least," he chuckled, "I might really be the strongest, you know? Now that Klarion gave me his disgusting handout," he grimaced. "Not that… not that any of it matters. Because apparently, a Lord of Chaos could just pop up at any moment and toy with you."

"Zatara has assured the league that Klarion's actions were specifically what led him to get banished," Canary assured, "By stacking the deck in his favor, he ran afoul of some magical laws. But really, his threat level was not normal. And not sustainable."

"Doesn't matter anyways," he shrugged, "He clearly wanted to be banished. He might even come back at some point too. There's no ending him. There's no winning."

Canary watched him for a moment, debating between several different avenues of—

"I'm over it," he then said, voice flat. "I guess I just had to speak it out loud to get it out of my chest. Not interested in what you have to say about it, though. Let's move on."

Canary suppressed a grin, "You can't just unsay what you have said."

He furrowed his eyebrows, "What, I don't get an undo button? You're a horrible word processor."

"You care about people," Canary said, "This isn't a statement of faith. It's a statement of fact. And it should be a point of pride. You care. You're a good kid."

"With bad tendencies," he said, "Unless you think crippling villains is a good kid thing to do, in which case, finally someone with common sense in the League."

Canary furrowed her eyebrows, "Focusing on your tension with the Titans for a moment—I was always under the impression that you were never too shy to share your feelings, Gojo. I bet that if you shared the rationale behind your thoughts, maybe your friends would understand your point of view?"

"They wouldn't," Gojo groused.

"Why wouldn't they?"

Gojo shrugged. "Just doesn't seem like a thing they'd do."

"But what if you did it?"

"I'd start fights. People don't like being told what to do. Or that they're not good enough."

"You need to show the team that your advice comes from a place of love, Gojo," Canary smiled, "Not arrogance. Not unkindness. But an actual desire to see everyone you know flourish."

"Too sappy," Gojo scoffed.

"That's the way."

Gojo shuddered, then frowned at her, "Gah! Fine, I'll… I don't know. Fine, I'll do it. I'll talk to them."

"Remember to be kind, Gojo," Canary said, suppressing a grin, "They'll understand you better that way."

000

After all seven sessions were done and over with, Canary looked at her notes and saw a variety of reactions. No two subjects broached were truly the same. Wally West had turned his session into a nice chat about where to get the best burritos in Gotham. Canary had indulged it, just to see how much of his calmness was an act. Until the last five minutes at least, in which he unloaded a heartfelt rant about how terrifying hero work was—in double time at that, drawing on his speed to get it all out at once.

In that singular aspect, he and Artemis were of the same mind as well. She hadn't been shy about sharing her misgivings about this line of work. Not just the danger of it, but what the purpose of all that risk served.

That conversation… stuck with her. Far more so than the ones she had with the others. It touched a deeply personal part of her, an old dissatisfaction about her line of work.

"I get that this is a covert team," Artemis had said, "And I get that there are crooks out there that needs locking up, that Batman isn't sending us out to waste our times. We do good work—I get that. It's just… my neighborhood is a shithole. Gotham is a mess. The country's going to shit, economy-wise. And I'm not saying that because I want to get paid or something. It's just—I'm supposed to be a superhero now, but at this rate… I don't think I'm ever going to make the world a better place. Just a less bad one. And that's… not enough."

Canary had noticed a shift in her demeanor at that moment, a darkening of her features, a cloak of depression covering her as she continued, "I'm… not enough."

Canary had set her notepad down, folding her hands thoughtfully as she had regarded Artemis with a steady, empathetic gaze. "It's easy to feel that way," she had begun softly, "especially when the problems we're up against are so much bigger than any one person—or even one team. But here's the thing: being a hero isn't about fixing everything. It's about doing what you can, where you can. It's about making a difference, even if it's just for one person or one neighborhood. That's still worth something, Artemis. Sometimes, it's everything."

Artemis hadn't looked up. She had sat slumped in her chair, her fingers idly twisting the corner of her sleeve. "Yeah, I've heard that speech before," she had muttered. "It's not that I don't believe it. I do. But what if it's not enough for me? What if I need more than just… patching holes in a sinking ship? What if I need to build something that lasts?"

Canary had leaned back slightly, considering her words carefully. "That's a big ambition. And it's a good one. But building something that lasts takes time—and a lot of small steps. The kind of steps you're already taking. You might not see the results now, but the work you're doing? It ripples out. It inspires people, changes lives. You might not get to see all of it, but it's there."

Artemis had let out a bitter laugh, shaking her head. "Inspires people? Sure. Until they forget, or until someone worse comes along and tears it all down. What's the point of inspiring someone if the world just beats it out of them?"

Canary had let a moment of silence hang in the air before speaking again, her tone gentle but firm. "The world can be brutal, Artemis. I won't sugarcoat that. But every person you inspire, every life you touch—it's not wasted. You might not save the world all at once, but you can help keep that spark alive in people. And sometimes, that's enough to keep the darkness at bay. Maybe not forever, but long enough for the next spark to catch."

Artemis had finally looked up, her green eyes shadowed with doubt. "Maybe," she had said quietly, her voice barely audible. "But what if it's not enough for me to just keep the spark alive? What if I need to do more than that—to actually change things?"

Canary had nodded, her expression solemn. "Then maybe it's time to think about what that looks like for you. What kind of change do you want to create? What does 'enough' mean to you? And how can you use the skills you have now to start working toward that, even in small ways?"

Artemis had stared at the floor, her jaw tight, the storm in her eyes unrelenting. "I don't know," she had admitted. "But this… this doesn't feel like it. Not yet."

Canary had let the silence stretch, respecting the weight of Artemis's words. "That's okay," she had said finally. "You don't have to have all the answers right now. But don't forget—you're not doing this alone. You've got people who believe in you, even when you don't believe in yourself. And you've got time to figure it out. Just… don't give up on yourself before you've had the chance to see what you're really capable of."

Artemis hadn't responded, but she had given a small, almost imperceptible nod. It hadn't been the breakthrough Canary had hoped for, but it had been something—a tiny shift, a seed planted in rocky soil.

As Artemis had stood to leave, her shoulders still heavy with doubt, Canary had watched her go, her chest tight with concern. She had known that this battle—the battle for Artemis's sense of purpose—hadn't been one she could win for her. It had been a fight Artemis would have to face on her own, in her own time.

Once again, Canary realized that the advice she had given in this session was one that she needed to hear herself. You could never remind yourself too many times about the bigger picture of the work—it was all too easy to forget, all too easy to fixate on the smallness of each individual step, forgetting that this wasn't a sprint, but a marathon.

And Canary was under no illusion that this was the only thing that bothered her. She was a teenager, figuring out her own place in the world, dealing with a multitude of issues, not to mention her sordid family background.

Canary had reflected once that in a perfect world, there would be no need for superheroes as young as Artemis. Had that implicit bias stopped her from giving Artemis a more explicit encouragement to not give up on the work? And was that a good thing, at the end of the day, if the young girl put down her bow and gave up on this life?

The truth was, she admired Artemis' spirit—perhaps more than anyone else in the team. Even Robin had been trained by Batman for years. Artemis had endured every manner of physical hardship being trained by her torturer of a father, a notorious serial killer with very few moral qualms about his job, if at all. And still, Artemis had chosen to use her skills for good. That was brave, and that mattered.

And that was enough, no matter what she believed.