I just wanted to thank everyone for the interest in the story and for the lovely reviews as well. I will make sure to include your ideas in the story at some point :)

File ID: 90453 - May 28, 2012

Name: Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow

Date of birth: November 22, 1984

Place of birth: Soviet Union

Citizenship: Soviet, Russian, American

Occupation: Spy

Family status: Single (I advised patient to let me know when it changes because she keeps snickering at the question)

Natasha arrives with a bottle of nail polish and she starts painting her nails as soon as she sits down without as much as a glance in my direction. The colour is the most intimidating shade of scarlet I have ever seen. I wait patiently for five minutes before I speak.

"I suppose you still don't have anything you want to share with me."

She shrugs. "I wasn't even sure I would show up."

I can't help the smile that creeps on my lips. "I feel honoured then. Why did you?"

"I needed a place to paint my nails in peace," she responds coolly. I sigh. I thought I had already had the worst with Fury last week, but now Natasha decides to shut me out.

"Alright, I see you don't want to talk to me. I understand. You are here to do your job and you are not interested in any therapy. But-"

"But this is your job and you need my help," she says. "I've heard it all, Miss Moon. You keep saying the same thing to everyone over and over."

"And yet nobody listens to me," I reply.

She raises her eyebrow at me but turns back to her hand and starts painting the second layer. "Because this was a bad idea. Hopefully the Council realises it soon. Not that they realise anything in time."

"In time? So in the end you guys might end up feeling better than now?"

Natasha looks at me sharply. "We are fine," she whispers, but even her soft tone is somehow threatening.

I look back at her innocently. "Right. Why don't you tell me more about that then?"

"About what?"

"The normal things you do. That could show me how fine you are exactly." I probably push her too hard, but I've been here for a little over two weeks and I did not make any progress. With any of them. And then, Natasha was a tough woman. The Black Widow herself. Perhaps she would appreciate a direct approach.

"I paint my nails."

While on therapy, I want to point out, but I only nod. "What else?" She stays silent.

"Do you have hobbies? Something you can relax with?"

She frowns in concentration. "Hot baths."

I almost sigh in relief. She actually talks to me. I have to proceed carefully. "Great. What else? What do you do when you are not at work? Do you go out?"

"I like climbing. Both mountains and walls." That might even be something I can work with.

"Alone?" She probably recognises my attempt to dig deeper in her personal relationships, but this is finally a topic she is genuinely interested in, so she answers my question.

"Sometimes. We sometimes organise competitions with the guys. Or we used to, at least. In Team Delta. We usually beat them all."

"Team Delta?" I ask back, not quite believing my luck. She said too much. She knows it already. "You mean the STRIKE team you were part of?"

She nods. "It was the two of us, Clint and I."

"Did you climb together?"

"We still do," she answers. I raise my eyebrow.

"So do you spend time together outside work? Voluntarily?"

She titles her head to the side. "That is correct."

"Would you say you're friends then?"

She starts shaking her hands so the paint will dry more easily. "Miss Moon," she says. I already know this tone. I was impatient and potentially ruined the whole session. "I don't see the point in all this labelling. He already told you we are friends, didn't he?"

Honestly I am not surprised in the slightest that she heard about the session with Hawkeye. In this place there were no secrets. Natasha probably knew about everything I discussed with the other Avengers too. I wouldn't be surprised to discover she reads my emails as well.

"Perhaps. But this session is not about what agent Barton told me. It's about you and your feelings."

"I do not have feelings, Miss Moon."

"Don't you?" I ask. "I am not sure about that, Natasha."

Before I could continue, she cuts me off. "This is why I am telling you. Do you want me to cooperate? Here is my cooperation. Listen carefully because I don't want to repeat it." She takes a deep breath. I wait for her to speak with my notepad ready in my lap.

"As I said, I was thirteen years old when I first killed someone. I don't even know who it was. In the Red Room, where I started, they threw me at a target and I eliminated it. Do you think I would have been such a good asset for them or for the KGB or for SHIELD if I had feelings at all? I was made to destroy. That's what I do. This is who I am."

What she says does not scare me as much as how she says it. She's nonchalant, realistic, her tone is neutral. I believed I was prepared for this job, but I can almost hear my heart break as she carefully observes her painted nails.

"Natasha, this is not true. You get to choose who you want to be." I don't expect her to laugh at that, but she does. She laughs coldly and sarcastically.

"Did you get that from a motivational poster?" she asks when she calms down. "Look, I don't need you to save me from my life. I don't need anyone to protect me. This is the hand I'm dealt and damn sure I'm going to play it." She leans forward and looks into my eyes. "Moreover, I'm gonna win the game."

"I am certain of that," I reply with a faint smile. "But what I am trying to say is that feelings don't always equal weakness. Some even makes us stronger."

She shrugs. "Other people's feelings certainly makes me more effective."

"In what?"

"Convincing them. Killing them." This is it. She plays with me once again. Provoking me and shocking me. Perhaps even challenging me. A challenge I have to turn down.

"Thank you for your sincerity," I answer. "I think we are slowly making progress." This is an exaggeration, but I have to be satisfied with what I achieved today. She talked about herself. I am almost sure at least half of it was true.

She leaves the bottle of nail polish on the coffee table when she leaves. I call after her to get it. She turns around and smiles at me. "It's not that much. Use it up." I pick up the bottle and smile. Natasha Romanoff, the heartless assassin just gave me her nail polish.