The appointment came quicker than she had expected and sooner than she hoped, but the woman entered with a kind smile and no clipboard.
"Good morning! How's your day been so far?"
"We can skip the small talk," Natasha said with a hard expression. "I know you're just here to force me to talk and write a label for the files."
"I think you'll find that I'm not really that kind of therapist. As long as we're being honest, I know about your last therapist and I believe you. I don't much like her either." A small smile hinted at Nat's cheeks. "Besides, I'm not here to force you to talk about anything. I have a feeling you are pretty good at awkward silences and don't mind leaving questions unanswered and staring at me for 50 minutes to run out the clock."
"Okay, so why are you here?"
"Well, eventually I want to build our trust so that you can talk to me about that tough stuff. Or so I can facilitate you talking to other people about the hard stuff."
"I'm not going to trust you. I don't trust anyone."
"I don't think that's true. You must trust your team to have your back in battles, otherwise you'd be a pretty bad teammate."
"I guess."
"But you don't trust me yet. That makes sense to me! From what I know, I bet it will take awhile for me to earn your trust."
"Yep."
"So I'm not going to push that. You can open up whenever you feel comfortable. Until then, I just want to get to know a little bit about you."
"Bruce said we have to set goals so that I can leave."
"Wanna know a secret?"
"Sure?"
"I'm in charge of Bruce around here. If I tell him you're good to go home tomorrow, you get to go home tomorrow. There's nothing we HAVE to do today except talk."
"I could go home tomorrow? And stop talking to a therapist? No offense."
"None taken, but also no. You will not be getting rid of me that quickly unless you decide I'm not a good fit as your therapist, then someone else will take over. But if you want to continue with me, I will visit every day for an hour-long session at the compound. You'll stay there with Bruce overseeing medical care and you'll see a nutritionist once a week for meal planning and weight monitoring."
"What kind of medical care am I going to need?"
"Preventing infection of your cuts, prescription medications, evaluations for any internal damage if anything were to happen, that sort of thing. JARVIS will be enabled for vital monitoring when you're released."
Natasha says nothing in response, overwhelmed by the apparent restrictions underlying these measures.
"Now, these can all be re-evaluated as your treatment progresses and we can talk about how they make you feel, if you want." She pulls a face. "Right, no feelings. Any other questions for me? Or in general? If not, we'll get started."
"We're you serious that I could go home tomorrow?"
"Maybe. Let's talk about what going home would look like for you."
"Okay," Nat responds in a flat tone, but a sliver of hope makes its way to her eyes and shines brightly at Nicole, eliciting a smile as her first-ever patient began to see the trades she was willing to make.
"Let's say your problems are all gone. You don't have any memories or intrusive thoughts about self-harm or skipping meals." Nicole was careful to avoid the term eating disorder, as she knew Natasha would refute it. "What would your ideal day look like when you go home?"
"Um," she considered this carefully, as she hasn't given much thought to it before. If she didn't need to take breaks to cut, find ways to hide her cuts, come up with more excuses to cut and miss meals, be out of the tower for meals... "Assuming we don't have to go on a mission? I think I might wake up a little later and go down for some training."
"And what would training, without thoughts or memories from the Red Room, look like to you?"
"What do you mean?"
"Remember we are thinking about what a day at home would be without the memories from that place. So what would training look like if you didn't have memories of training in the Red Room?"
"I'm not sure," she said puzzled. "Maybe how Steve trains?"
"I think that's a good place to start. What does he do for training?"
"Well, some combat training. Usually sparring or breaking punching bags with his bare hands."
"Okay, so let's stick with the former," Nicole laughs a bit as she says it. "What else?"
"Some cardio. He likes to run outside to get lost in the scenery."
"Do you like running?"
"Not really, but it's necessary."
"Why?"
"To stay in good shape?"
"There are other types of cardio you could do."
"Well yes, but-"
"You don't like running, so you don't have to run. What do you like to do?"
"I think I like ballet."
"You think?"
"It's hard to tell what I like and what's just less awful than the other things I did in the Red Room. If I had a ballet recital, they couldn't hurt me as mu..." she trailed off and Nicole looked at her patiently.
"How did you do that?"
"Do what?"
"I don't tell people things like that."
"You just told me."
"I know, that's the problem," she sighs.
"What did it hurt to tell me? I'm not going to tell anyone because I'm bound to confidentiality. It didn't appear to distress you much."
"They're going to kill me. We can't talk about the Red Room."
"How will they know, Natasha?"
She refused to respond, stating intently at an indeterminate spot on the wall behind Nicole.
"You are safe here. No one can hurt you." Liar, she thought bitterly. I can hurt myself, just like they programmed me. "I think that's plenty for today, I'll see you tomorrow, Nat."
"Wait," she called out from behind where Nicole had reached for the door.
"Yes?"
"Do I get to go home?"
"I'll tell Bruce to prep his monitoring equipment and we'll see how long it takes him."
