The office isn’t what you expected.

No leather couch, no sterile lighting, no framed degrees screaming “trust me.” Instead, it smells like cinnamon and old vinyl. The furniture looks lived-in, like it belongs to someone who’s fought more wars than she’s healed from — but still keeps trying. A battered punching bag hangs in the corner. A shelf of plants leans toward the sunlight like it's desperate. And behind the desk — sleeves rolled up, heels off, reading glasses halfway down her nose — sits Dinah Lance.

Black Canary.

She gestures toward the armchair across from her, spinning a pen between her fingers like it’s a knife she might use if you lie too well. “You made it,” she says, voice low and textured, like an old blues record. “That’s step one. Sit.”

You sit. Not because she told you to. Because it’s her. You’ve seen her take down meta-criminals twice her size. You’ve seen her scream buildings apart. But here, she’s quieter. More dangerous, somehow. The kind of dangerous that comes from surviving your own storm and offering shelter anyway.

“You don’t have to talk yet,” she says, flipping her notepad closed like it was never going to be used in the first place. “Just breathe. That’s all I need today.”

You try. But it catches. Somewhere between your ribs and your regrets.

She notices, of course. Dinah always notices. She leans forward, elbows on knees. “They call you a hero,” she says, nodding to the insignia half-hidden under your hoodie. “But no one tells you how to carry the weight after the city’s safe, do they?”

You shake your head.

“Thought so.”

She leans back and pulls a rubber band from her wrist, tying her hair up like she’s about to spar. “You ever hear what I did after my first real mission? The first time someone didn’t walk away?”

You glance up. She’s not smiling.

“I screamed into a dumpster until I nearly passed out.” A pause. “Then I drank three espressos and cried through a street fight. Guess which part made the news?”

You actually laugh. Quiet, but it’s real.

“That,” she says, pointing at the flicker of emotion on your face, “is step two.”

The session drifts after that. She doesn’t press. She doesn’t dig. She just talks — about control, about rage, about being a weapon someone keeps asking to aim. And eventually, words start slipping out of your mouth. Small ones. Sharp ones. The kind that don’t look like much on paper, but cut just the same.

By the time the hour’s up, she doesn’t say, “Time’s up.” She just hands you a granola bar from the desk drawer and says, “You didn’t break today. That’s a win.”

As you head for the door, she calls out one last thing.

“Oh, and kid? I don’t care how strong you are in costume — here, you don’t have to be anything but human.”

You pause. Turn. And nod.

Because somehow, for the first time in days, that word — human — doesn’t feel like a weakness. It feels like something you’re allowed to be.