When Tarin had explained to Lee ages ago that he had been claustrophobic as a kid, he hadn’t shared the whole story. She hadn’t really asked, and he hadn’t really wanted to get into it beyond the fact that his brothers had shut him in a feed bin once when he’d been aggravating them.

He hadn’t shared that they’d thought he could get out, but when they’d flipped the lid shut and sat on it to keep him inside the latch had broken and trapped him. The boys had tried for longer than they should have to get the lid open on their own, but had realized they were out of their depth and gone to get help.

What they hadn’t realized was that the bin was airtight.

It had also been metal and in the heat of the Texas summer, if the same pressure that had bent the latch hadn’t also created a tiny sliver of daylight around the front of the bin, Tarin would absolutely have not survived the prank.

Tarin would never forget the moment that the lid had finally popped open and his father had pulled him out; filthy, sweating, and sick.

From that moment, Tarin had hated tight or closed spaces.

It had gotten worse when he’d made it to New York and made the monumental mistake of admitting his phobia to the leadership in the group.

Their methods of exposure training had been utterly brutal, but effective, and for years Tarin had been able to tolerate small spaces without panic attacks. It had always stayed uncomfortable, but tolerable.

Until Central Park.

Nothing like that had ever happened to Tarin and it was like the whole experience had broken something inside of him…letting the old fears and insecurities resurface

It had maybe gotten a little better over time. Especially if Lee had been with Tarin, he’d been coping for a while.

Then the building collapse had happened and Tarin had been trapped in that little hole for what had seemed like an eternity while Lee tried to dig him out. That’s when the merge had started, and when he’d managed to fight it off. That hadn’t happened again, but now the elevator was almost an impossibility and even being inside the lower levels of the Mansion had been difficult the other night.

Lee was going out of her way to try and help him, but Tarin hated the extra burden it placed on her when she’d already done, and was doing, so much for him. It wasn’t sustainable.

When they’d been at the Mansion, an idea had occurred to Tarin and while it had taken him a few days to work up the gumption to do it, Tarin had waited for a quiet moment at the shop and had called the number Shin had given him to ask the other man for a favor. A big favor that Tarin had half expected to have rejected.

Shin had agreed though and all Shin had wanted was to grab a cup of coffee first. Tarin knew that probably meant that he was going to have to talk about why he wanted to use the one-of-a-kind holographic training room thing and give some explanations. That was going to be awful. But it was only fair.

So there they sat with coffee that Tarin was only sort of drinking because he’d never been able to get used to the taste on this side of the rift.

”Thanks for doing this…” he said awkwardly, looking down at the cup in his hand.

One thing the mansion loves to do is help better people. Help them overcome weaknesses. Those weaknesses can be of any sort. Powers, school-related, other. This was firmly in the other camp, and Shin was glad to help.

He had meant to take Tarin out to eat, to discuss whatever. So he had arranged a brief meetup over coffee, so they could go over things better. Phone talks really do not allow for as much “good talk” vibes. Can’t even see a face.

It was a good coffee place. Well-maintained, good service, privacy. People could work on laptops in the corner and have silence, while they drank their coffee. And the place served more than just coffee. They served tea and muffins. If you had tea and muffins. They were at the mansion kitchens. The service was Shin. The server was Shin. And he made a good cup of Joe.

They could go to the danger room after this. It wasn’t so far away. Literally in the same building. But for the moment, shin had asked what Tarin would like, then went and got it. Then he had brought their drinks back to the table. He had wanted to take the man out for drinks, and, well, these were far less alcoholic. But no less delicious.

Shin sat down, and gave the man his drink.

Tarin thanked him for doing this.

Shin nodded. ”Sure, Sure. No problem.” He said. ”You need sugar? Creamer? Or do you prefer it black, like your soul? Ahem bad joke. Anyways. Can you give me the description of your problem again? Where it started might be useful. We need to brainstorm the best way to help you, and Throwing you into a situation might not always be the best.”

Some people responded poorly to being tossed into the deep end.

Talking to Shin was a little bit like talking to Rachel, Tarin realized. Every time the other man spoke, so many words came out that it took a moment to parse exactly what was being said. It wasn’t a bad thing, and the thoughts weren’t judgmental, it just sort of was.

”No, I think I’m good.” Tarin said to the offer of add-ins for the coffee. He wasn’t planning to drink it all anyway, caffeine jitters added on top of what he was planning wouldn’t be helpful.

Shin had cut right to the point too, and this was where it got hard. Tarin couldn’t share all of the details of why he was having issues, but he had to give enough information to make his request make sense.

Glancing over at Shin, Tarin shrugged a little.

”I’ve been pretty badly claustrophobic since I was a kid. I had some training when I was a teenager that helped for a long time…but a couple weeks back Lee and I were helping out at that build site that collapsed and I got buried for a while. It’s been really bad since then.”

Tarin paused for a minute, ”The training I had…when things got easier to manage…involved just being in tight spaces a lot until I could manage.” The thought was not comforting, in fact it made Tarin vaguely nauseous to think about what he was planning to do, ”I’d do it on my own but….” Tarin paused and sighed a little, ”Lee said you knew the other Tarin? His powers? The scary ones?”

Black coffee, check.

Shin settled in to listen to Tarin speak about his past. He left some things out. The Asian had a feeling that was a choice. If it became relevant, he might dig. But there was a thing as being too inquisitive.

The man had been claustrophobic, and had undergone … “training.” Not therapy, training. Interesting.

Recent events had dredged up the claustrophobia, exacerbated it. He was not as “in-control” as he once had been. Because he got buried.

That would do it…

The training he had undergone, it seemed like it had involved tight quarters. Being in tight quarters… until he could manage. Shin supposed that might help some people, sometimes. Tarin could do it on his own, but— he didn’t wanna. Okay.

>>> ”Lee said you knew the other Tarin? His powers? The scary ones?” Tarin asked.

Shin nodded.

”Yeah. I was there when Lee died, and things… happened. Did it see every detail, but… I shielded Tarin afterwards, and helped protect him.”

That was one way to put it. Tarin had lost his clothes. Shin had protected… his decency.

”It was very intense. Why do you ask?”

Tarin had to admit that listening to someone else referencing the time that Lee had died was incredibly strange. It also drove the point home, once again, that it had really happened and it was literally some sort of miracle that Lee was here at all.

Thinking about Lee sent a pang of guilt through Tarin as he sat turning the coffee cup in his hands and continuing to not really drink any. Tarin had absolutely not told Lee he was doing this. In fact, Tarin kind of gone out of his way to make sure that she didn’t ask about it or catch wind of what he was doing at all. Tarin didn’t know what Lee would have thought about the whole thing but he did know that she’d have wanted to be here. That was the problem. This silly childhood phobia had already disrupted things enough, Lee didn’t need to coddle him through this too.

Maybe Tarin didn’t want her to see him like this.

Still. Shin knew what Tarin meant and it made the explaining a lot easier. ”I don’t know for sure because it’s never happened, but from what Lee explained it looks like the tight places can be a trigger for that. I was in a bad way by the time they got me out and if anyone had touched me….” Tarin let the words trail off before he looked back up.

”I need to make sure that doesn’t ever happen just because I end up somewhere tight.” hopefully that made sense.

Ah. A trigger. That made sense. That was a dangerous thing to trigger. One really did need control over something like that. He knew all about having to exercise extreme control, having lived with a power that could shred him, or anything around him, if he was not careful.

Shin nodded.

”I get it. My power can be dangerous to myself and others. I’ve trained to use it in ways that avoid that… but if I slip… that danger never really goes away.”

He thought of Sam, being rapidly lifted into the air in improperly-formed armor made of shards. He found he was frowning. The terse smile he had worn describing his powers had slipped into that bitter sad frown. He shook his head, and forced it into a look of neutrality. Then he sipped his coffee.

”We can try your method. We can experiment, if it doesn’t work. I’ll do whatever I can to help you, Tarin. Shin said. He glanced at the untouched coffee. ”We can start now, if you’re not feeling coffee. I can take mine on the road.”

Shin nodded and Tarin got the feeling that the other man understood. Outside of Lee, that was a wildly rare experience for Tarin, especially when discussing this particular aspect of his powers.

The other man didn’t seem scared or apprehensive.

Just understanding. Maybe even a bit grim, Tarin thought as he watched the play of emotions across Shin’s face as he worked his way back around to something resembling neutral.

The important thing here was that Shin was willing to move forward. They could try his way. Tarin didn’t know what experimenting would look like and he couldn’t help the involuntary tinge of fear despite the fact that he knew this was a safe place. Still. This was something he could do, something that might just work after a while.

As for the coffee, ” Yeah…sorry. I never really managed to get used to the taste over here… Should have just said so.”

”What does coffee taste like on the other side of the now defunct rift?” Shin queried.

Was it fruitier? More full-bodied? Herbaceous? Like a tea? More alcoholic, more sweet? Like that coffee gathered from animals? Maybe they just needed to introduce Tarin to the most debauched coffee places in New York? Some other time, though. That was a whole other set of experiments, and far less important.

Whatever Tarin’s reply, Shin’s reply was ”Wow! That’s amazing!”

He took the man to the danger room.

He got in the god room, above it all, and started inputting information, turning dials, flipping switches, drawing on a touch pad, erasing and drawing again. None of which Tarin saw.

Shin came on the microphone to ask over the speakers, if Tarin was ready. They were going to try a small box room first. Tarin could walk into the thing. It would shrink slowly, a few centimeters every minute or so, and it didn’t have windows, just a door that locked. He could hear whatever the man said within the box, and monitor it via cameras.

The box appeared. It was hot pink. The interior temperature would sort of reflect the coloration, actually. Little bit hot inside the box. That happens when you trap air.

They began.

Things progressed very quickly from there. Tarin didn’t know what he had really expected, but it seemed like almost immediately he and Shin were on their way back to that elevator that had led down to the infirmary. It was a force of will to get inside and Tarin’s hands hurt from the fists they’d clenched into by the time the doors opened and he and Shin made their way into the underground hallways that were somehow almost as bad.

The Danger Room though (What a damn name…) it was somehow big though, and Shin was up in some kind of control room and Tarin was suddenly wildly overwhelmed.

Shin asked if he was ready though, and Tarin took a deep breath, digging deep and trying to pull himself together with slightly more than marginal success. How was all of this even possible?

A pink cube manifested itself in the middle of the room and Tarin walked forward, reaching out to touch the surface, mildly surprised that it was solid in spite of everything he knew. There was a door, and for some reason that helped a little bit, at least for the moment.

”Ready.” Tarin said, opening the door and forcing his legs to carry him inside.

The door clicked shut and Tarin immediately turned back to it, finding nothing but a solid wall in the place of the light and freedom that had just been behind him. It was stuffy in there, and Tarin immediately started to sweat. Stuffy meant poor ventilation, poor ventilation meant limited air.

The box was also shrinking. Tarin didn’t know how soon it would shrink again, time was so hard to track when he was in situations like this and as he stood there, he could feel his hands starting to shake. Every now and then Tarin reached out, relieved when his hands found nothing…until that didn’t happen…until his hands touched the wall.

Immediately, Tarin’s heart jumped into his throat and when he felt the top of the box brush the top of his head….he was done. He couldn’t breathe, with the box this small, surely he was starting to run out of air.

”Stop!” he called out, and almost immediately the box was gone, the bright lights of the danger room making Tarin squint as he dropped down to sit on the floor.

It took him a minute to calm down, but as soon as he’d pulled himself together, Tarin was frustrated with himself, ”This isn’t going to work if I can just tap out as soon as it gets rough.” he called up. ”Maybe a timer?” Maybe Shin had ideas.

Tarin said stop. And all of a sudden, a dozen robotics arms with saw blades, or rocket launchers, or tentacles, or hammers, materialized in an attack pattern, aiming to take him down… just kidding. That was just one permutation of the danger room, and not one that materialized in any way, shape or form today. Though for the moment, the mental image did flicker in the back of Shin’s mind. Probably because he could sometimes be sort of an asshole. Inwardly, of course. Stupid intrusive thoughts. The danger room simulation stopped. Tarin’s hotbox became a gone box. The man was beat… box.

Grrr, stop being ridiculous, brain….

Shin gave Tarin a minute to calm down. He didn’t chime in with an “are you okay?” Or an “can I help with anything?” Tarin needed to master himself. Shin could not help him master himself.

Tarin had a few thoughts on the simulation. Oh how it wouldn’t work, if he could just throw in the hat the second things got tough.

”We can do a timer. Or give you something. Like a strikes system. Say strike 3 times, and you get let out? Might be easier and less tempting for you if we do your timer method though. At least, to start. We can start with an arbitrary amount, then build from there. A short time? Like, maybe 30 seconds?”

He arched a questioning eyebrow, realized his face was not visible. He was talking on the speakers. Tarin was all alone in the danger room.

He could brainstorm other ideas while Tarin did his trial. Shin made some tweaks to the system, and another box appeared. This one was not pink. It was made of material shadows. It would also be dark in the room, so Tarin could not see the walls closing in. But if he stuck out an arm, he could feel it happening.

Shin was unsure if that were cruel or not. But, then, they were here to conquer fears. Was the fear of the unknown bigger than the sight of the room getting smaller? Was it a different fear target?

”This one is dark inside, but I made it less stuffy. You shouldn’t have to worry about air in either situation, but I don’t know if that’s one of your triggers or not, so maybe I shouldn’t have told you that part. forget it, if it makes you feel better….” Shin paused.

”Same shrinking room, but this one’s a shadow box. You’re shadow-boxing, Tarin. Ready when you are. The timer target will be 30 seconds, but if you say ‘more’, it can be extended another 30.”

There, they could tweak this until they got it right. They’d get through this, together.

”It's better if I know I can’t get out on my own. Start with 30 seconds once it’s small enough that I can’t stand anymore.” he said, ”I was under the building way longer. Don’t stop until the timer goes off though, no matter what I say.” That was the closest he was going to get to what they’d done before. The only thing missing was the element of surprise and the knowledge that if things got too bad they simply wouldn’t let him out.

Shin seemed willing to do this for real though, and Tarin wanted to make sure that he got as much out of the scenario as he could. Setting his lips in a thin line, Tarin nodded and the cube appeared.

This time the box was dark, and even if it was less stuffy, Tarin’s brain didn’t want to accept the fact that there was air flowing, he also couldn’t see the walls shrinking or closing in on him and he had no idea what the timing was on that happening. Standing in the middle of the dark, silent cube, Tarin could feel the familiar panic creeping in, the vice closing in his chest as his breathing got heavier.

It took forever and at the same time no time for the walls to get close enough that Tarin could reach out and touch them. Then they got closer.

Soon enough, Tarin had to drop down into a seated position, not unlike the one he’d been in under all the rubble, maybe even tighter. Tarin had his knees pulled up and was unable to move much in any direction. The timer had started when he sat right? Surely it had already been 30 seconds.

What if Shin had decided that 30 seconds wasn’t really long enough…? 30 seconds really didn’t seem like that much time. In the grand scheme of things it wasn’t all that long.

Worse, what if something had gone wrong with the machine? This wasn’t the sort of thing that they usually did in here, was it? What if something had gone wrong with the programming and now Tarin was stuck, in there? The ventilation was working when they started, but had something gone wrong with it now that they were at this point?

Right about the point he was about to call out, to ask if something was wrong, the pressure was gone, the walls opened up, and the lights blazed in even brighter than before.

Gulping a few huge, deep breaths and dropping his head onto his knees for a moment until he could properly breathe again, Tarin lifted his head to the control room and then gave a thumbs up. That had been more real.

”A minute next time?” he said, not knowing how many times he’d be able to do it as he climbed to his feet.

30 once it’s small enough he couldn’t stand any more. Got it.

”Affirmative.” Shin said.

The cube test started, and shin watched and waited. He was ready to end it if Tarin begged, but he wanted to follow their agreement. He didn’t want Tarin getting hurt, and having a breakdown. But sometimes, you gotta work through the pain— so


Eh.

Shin watched and waited.

Tarin wound up on his posterior.

Shin watched and waited.

Eventually, right about when Tarin might have broken, the timer ended and the cube vanished. A harried-looking Tarin gave the thumbs up.

A minute.

”Affirmative.” Shin said.

He loaded up the exact same situation, with a minute timer. Part of him wanted to throw in the walls not shrinking, not shrinking at all. To see how Tarin responded to that. But he also felt like that was another intrusive thought. A mind game. They had trust going on, presently. They could experiment further later. But for now—

The same scenario, a second time. With longer time on the clock.

What if the walls moved in partially, then stopped, and he staggered their shrinkage to lengthen it so everything felt longer and —

The same scenario began anew.

So then went again. For longer. This time it was a minute once the cube got down to its smallest point. Tarin tried to breathe through the whole thing, but before the whole minute was up that had stopped working and he’d found himself pushing at the sides of the walls.

Man, it was bad today. Tarin knew that he’d been trapped under that rubble for much much longer than a minute. He’d help things together for a while under there, but then it had gotten really bad. It was turning out to be a bit of trial and error.

Up to a minute thirty then. Tarin got up, dusted himself off, noting that his t-shirt was starting to stick in a few places and wishing he’d thought to maybe grab a change of clothes.

”Okay, ready.” he said, then back into the cube Tarin went.

A minute and thirty seconds was the first time that Tarin said anything out loud about wanting to be done before the timer went off. Again, he’d been convinced that something had gone wrong with the simulation and that he was well and truly stuck inside the cube. This time, when the cube relented, Tarin had to pry his hands open from the fists that had clenched and winced at the little half moon cuts where his nails had dug into his palms.

This time, Tarin didn’t get up from the floor after he caught his breath.

”I think…I think I might need a break.” he said, ”Is there a water fountain or anything around here?”

They did several trials, and the time kept increasing. Shin wanted to try countless variations, but kept with the status quo. Because if they helped Tarin overcome a single situation, all the permutations and variables—

Ehhhh. He tried not to think too hard. He would hurt himself.

Finally, Tarin was desperately in need of a break. He looked like he was tired, sweaty, and in need of a change.

Shin said “Sure, one minute.” Then, he came down the stairs from the god room and handed Tarin a bottle of cold water he had snagged from the mini fridge up there.

”So, you’re improving. But I’m worried that just practicing one type of thing might only prepare you to handle one type of thing. And that might not help in the long run.” He grimaced.

How many times would Tarin be in a room that shrunk, for instance? Maybe he’d wind up in an elevator, or a taxi cab or something. But a room that shrunk? That was evil scientist lair stuff.

”Oh, also. You called it training.” Shin added, and looked at Tarin for confirmation. As if the word had weight behind it. But he didn’t delve deeper. He just looked at Tarin. He’d ask more in a minute.

Shin emerged from the control room and Tarin accepted the bottle of water gratefully. Twisting of the top and taking a big drink, he shook his head as Shin spoke.

”We’re not going to fix this in one day.” he said, ”I know that this isn’t like it would be in the field or if something crazy was going to happen…but I’m not going to be out in the field or doing anything crazy. I just want to be able to go in an elevator or ride the subway without worrying about some crazy power I didn’t even know existed for me until a couple of weeks ago.”

Looking at the water bottle and sighing, Tarin glanced up at Shin, ”I don’t want Lee to delay medical treatment because she’s looking for stairs so I don’t have to ride in an elevator.”

Tarin took another drink of the water, then put the lid on and climbed to his feet as Shin pointed out that Tarin had called what he’d done in the past training, ”I did.” he said, ”Two minutes? Two and a half?”