Nikita lay alone in the dark of her bedroom. Since this whole thing started with Steve she had had precious little time alone. Sam was right, she needed the solitude. Much as she didn't want to admit it, Sam was probably right about a lot of things.

She sat in a chair across from Sam. They were alone in the living room of his apartment. She hadn't spoken much more than one word answers for the last half hour. She was here because she had promised Steve that she would give this a chance, but she had no desire to open up to some Dominant. Or anyone, really.

"You know, this works better if you actually talk," Sam remarked. Nikita just stared back at him. "I know you don't trust me. Hell, I know you don't trust anyone. That's not what's important right now." At this Nikita raised a single, expressive, eyebrow. "The important question is whether or not you trust yourself."

Nikita was confused.

"I think you are missing something fundamental about the nature of trust," Sam continued. "Part of it is trusting someone else, but the most important part is trusting yourself. Trusting in your own ability to handle what might happen. Out of curiosity, what would you do if I tried to Dominate you, put my hands on you?"

Nikita narrowed her eyes at him, "I would stop you, violently."

Sam smiled at her, "We've already established that you don't trust me. And yet you're here, alone in the room with me. You're here because you trust yourself to handle anything I might try. Steve needs to work to earn your trust, but it's even more important that you learn to trust yourself. I want you to think about your fears and then form contingency plans to handle them."

Nikita started thinking about this new life and her relationship with Steve, about what she feared. She was afraid of being hurt, physically and sexually. But she had lived through pain and rape before. She knew that if that happened she would do what she had done before - survive, exact revenge, escape. In a way it would almost be a relief. Abuse and pain were familiar ground, she knew how to react.

What she truly feared was the bond. At first it had been muted, dulled by her numbed emotional state and pain killers. But as the drugs left her system and her emotions began to resurface, she felt the pull of the bond more and more strongly. It made her want things that she had never wanted before. She wanted Steve to touch her, she wanted to submit to him, she wanted, and that terrified her. If she were being honest, Nikita was afraid of losing herself.

Thinking about the bond and Steve led her to long buried memories of her parents. Her parents had been bonded and very much in love. Her father Ivan had cherished her mother and Katya had proudly worn his collar. Nikita remembered her father as being tall, broad, strong, and Dominant. She had never felt more safe than held in her father's arms or perched upon his shoulders, and she had never felt safe again after he died. Suddenly Nikita found herself trapped in memory.

Nikita's eight year old self stared transfixed at her father lying dead. Blood trickled from the bullet hole in the center of his forehead and his blue eyes, the same eyes she saw everyday in the mirror, stared lifelessly back at her. A cry drew Nikita's gaze to where her mother knelt, naked, next to the fireplace with her hands bound behind her back, the metal of the cuffs cutting cruelly into her skin. Her father's boss (his killer) had already removed the collar from her mother's neck. Nikita watched, frozen with fear, as the strange Dominant held a knife blade over the flames until the metal glowed hot then held the blade to her mother's throat. She heard her mother scream as the hot metal burned a line across her skin. The Dominant repeated the process, burning lines into her mother's skin over and over until Katya's neck was circled with a collar of burns. When the Dominant pushed her mother down onto the floor and unfastened his pants, Nikita screamed.

Nikita's eyes flew open. She was in a cold sweat and couldn't breathe. She was still trapped in the memory, not really aware of her surroundings. Acting on instinct, she staggered out of bed and toward the door of her apartment. Following the pull of the bond, the only part of her mind not spiraling into the pain of the past.

Steve woke with a wave of panic and pain coming through the bond. He was on his feet and heading towards his front door before he even processed what had woken him. Throwing open the door of his apartment, Steve was shocked to see Nikita stumble through the door of her own apartment down the hall. He rushed over to her and picked her up, carrying her back through his door. He sat down on his couch, cradling her in his lap and tried to figure out what was wrong. Looking at her face Steve saw her eyes were glassy and unfocused, her breaths coming in short, harsh gasps. Clearly Nikita was not present in the here and now, she was locked somewhere inside her mind. Steve could feel through the bond The pain, fear, and panic that had her trapped.

He had no idea what exactly he was supposed to do, but he knew that he needed to get her out of her head. The only way he knew to do that was to drop her into subspace. Steve placed his hand on the back of her neck, firmly squeezing her nape. This was a classic Dominant hold, one designed to play to a submissive's instincts. Steve felt Nikita's body immediately go pliant, all resistance leaving her body, though her mind was still whirling.

"Nikita," Steve addressed her in a firm but calm tone, letting his Alpha Dominance thread through his voice. Her breath hitched and her eyes briefly flickered across his face, then glassed over again. "Nikita, down." He commanded as he applied firm pressure with the hand on her neck, the other steadying her body, guiding her to kneel on the floor in front of him. Nikita's body instinctively complying with his orders.

The demands of her Dom, his presence both physically and through the bond gave her mind something to head towards, an exit out of the spiral. Steve kept one hand on the nape of her neck, still applying that firm pressure. With his other hand he carded his fingers through her hair, guiding her head to rest against his thigh. They remained like that as Nikita's heart rate and breathing slowed, eventually settling into the deep, slow rhythm of subspace. Steve focused intently on the bond between them. He extended his will, sending reassurance and safety through the bond. He could feel Nikita's mind slowly stop whirling, sensing when she had fully dropped into subspace.

Steve's thoughts ran back to a conversation he had with Sam earlier that day about the nature and responsibility of being Dominant. Sam's words now rang in his ears as he desperately prayed that he had done the right thing.

"The very society that taught you that it is good and right and natural to share your life with another person, never bothered to teach you how you are supposed to do that. These days we all take health classes in school. We learn about dynamics in school as well as from our parents. But you never got that did you? No one ever taught you how to be a good Dominant, and no one ever taught you what to do when things went wrong. If you think about it, no one even taught you how to define what 'wrong' was. Our society is willing to to turn you loose with someone else's life, but at no time did you ever receive any systematic education about what to expect in a relationship or how to behave in one."

Sam had promised to help, and JARVIS had provided him with a prioritized reading list.

Once Steve was confident that Nikita was fully under, he let go of her nape and pulled her up into his lap. She nuzzled into the crook of his shoulder, while he ran a broad hand soothingly up and down her spine. Steve picked his StarkPad up off the coffee table, reading from JARVIS' list as he held his sub safe in his arms.