Clint PoV

Fury threw of the headset, they watched through the cameras as the boy looked around confused, the hologram project had worked well, but they hadn't got any information.

"Barton get out there, Romanov, you're on the stairs right? Well get up here now. Barton, you are to detain the operative at all costs, you hear me?"

Clint nodded and ran out of Hill's office. His arm shot out as the boy came running round the corner but the boy hooked a fist around Barton's arm, pulling it behind Clint's back. Clint stamped on the boy's toe, hearing the bone break as the boy cried out. His arm felt close to snapping but he managed to push the boy off.

The boy jumped at him again and pushed him to the ground where he straddled his chest. The boy punched him right in the face, causing a cut above his eye. Clint felt his head start to spin, he hadn't been hit that hard since Manilla, and that had been a wrecking ball. Fuck me he's fast. Was all Clint had time to think.

He hit back, pummelling the boy in the kidneys which caused him to roll off of his chest but Clint soon felt pressure around his neck as he felt the boy's legs lock around his throat, cutting of his air.

Any moment now Natasha. Seconds later the stairs door was ripped open. Black was tinting the corners of his vision now as the boy squeezed his throat closed with powerful muscles taut across his legs, but he felt his eyes flick up into the bright green eyes, which had just seen Nat running into the corridor.

Clint was not ready for what he saw run through those eyes. Fear was the first word that Clint thought but then he realised that that wasn't enough, it was more than fear it was terror, something so powerful that it was almost psychotic.

He immediately felt the pressure on his wind pipe release as the boy froze. Clint took the opportunity fast, twisting with lighting speed he knocked the boy's head against the wall. Hard, making him slump to the floor.

Clint stood up, massaging his neck, taking deep breaths. That kid had been strong, like freaky strong, and with skills that would make Nat proud.

Thinking of Nat, he looked across the corridor and saw her. Nat had slumped back against the wall and curled up. Clint has never seen her like this before. He felt pain and fear radiate off of her. This was not Agent Romanov before him, this was a scared girl, Clint had never seen her quite like this. The closest had been after she was first broken when he saved her and even then she had retained some of her signature coldness.

With a start Clint realised that tears were streaking down the her face. Nat never cried. Her eyes looked up at him and Clint saw shame in them

"Tasha... Nat, what's going on?" She looked up but only shook her head.

"Get him down to lockup, now!" Fury's voice echoed down the corridor, "find out everything you can."

Clint picked up the boy and slung him over his shoulder, he weighed nothing.

The boy was strapped down to a gurney in a concrete cell in the basement of shield HQ. A doctor was stitching his head, which had cracked open against the wall. Clint and Natasha watched through a one way mirror as the doctor worked.

Natasha finally turned to Clint after nearly an hour of silence.

"You know my history Clint, you know the bad I've done. The hospital fire, Sao Paulo, what I did to my father. You know that I can never get rid of the red in my ledger, but him, that boy in there. He will be why my ledger is dripping blood... Forever." The tears started again.

"Tasha" Clint spoke quietly into her ear, "it's ok, just tell me, you promised that you had told me everything, we both know that's the only way you can make it better in the end, what can be that bad that even you can't admit to it." Clint was scared for her, was scared of what she was about to reveal.

She turned on him, tears in her eyes. "God. I must have been only 14, maybe 15, about 4 years before you found me. I was still there, at the Red Room, everyday would be some kind of new test but I could tell that that day would be different. There was a man at a cell door, he told me to go inside. He said that phase 1 was beginning."

Clint watched the tears grow thicker as she recounts her tale.

"Inside was a boy, he must have been 4 years old. Then the order came through, they told me to make the boy tell them what they want. I..." Her voice catches and then breaks, "I can barely think of what i did to him, I tortured him for over 6 hours, I would scream at him, tell them what they want, Just tell them what they want, but those green eyes would always scream back, he didn't know, didn't know anything, but they knew that. It was a test for me, to see if I would do anything asked, and I did exactly what they wanted. I pushed that tiny child to madness." Her sobbing became uncontrolled now.

Clint pushed forward, wrapping an arm around her, "it's not your fault Nat, you were brainwashed, we agreed, nothing you did was your fault." He waited a long moment, "I've got to go talk to him, I'll get Fury down here, you need to tell him everything, Nat he needs to know why this boy is what he is. Just stay here ok."

Clint was walking out the door when Nat caught his arm. "Clint his name is Ethan." After she said it she let go and went back to looking through the window. Clint walked out the door and round the corner to the cell. He opened the concrete door and stepped inside.

The boy woke up quickly, his emerald eyes scanning the room quickly. He was in a cell. Agent Barton was standing in the corner. He was able to sit up on his bed, he was surprised that he wasn't strapped down. His head throbbed painfully, though when he felt the cut, it had been stitched closed.

The room was small, a metal toilet sat lonely in the corner and the one way mirror started down imposingly from one wall.

"Where am I?" The boy's voice sounded cracked and raw, He sounded thirsty and tired but Barton wouldn't let up yet.

"In a cell, where else" Barton stated plainly, still starring at him.

Clint watched the boy try to read the his face but it was blank. He hoped none of the pity he felt for the boy right now showed through. Hearing Nat's story had been one of the hardest things he had ever done and he had faced down hundreds of men with guns. Standing opposite the small boy, facing the prospect of having to do it again didn't bring much joy.

"How old are you?" Barton's voice was quiet and controlled. He readied himself incase the boy thought that he could fight his way out. The kid stayed passive on the bed, not moving but not dropping eye contact from Clint. After twenty seconds Clint dropped his stare and reached for a metal chair next to him and dropped onto it. He felt conflicted inside, four agents were dead. One had been his good friend and the person who killed them was opposite him.

But he was so small. The boy could only be five foot four and weighed less than the tension on his biggest bow. Clint knew his history but the kid had been tortured and forced into training, how could he hold his actions against him?

"How's your head? It must hurt." Clint said trying to sound calm, even kind. He needed the kid to open up if he was going to help him, to even find out if he could be helped. He was still sitting on the bed passively though. "Come on kid, work with me here." This is going nowhere.

"I'm no traitor." The boy whispered. Clint did a double take, he hadn't expected the kid to talk.

Clint leaned forward. "So what are you then Ethan." He saw Ethan tense. The boy was on edge.

"That's not my name." He said aggressively. Clint was tense now, ready for a fight. "I don't have a name. A name is for people. I'm not a person."

"You really believe that don't you. Listen I met someone a long time ago. She was just like you but I helped her. She is one of the best people I know now. Let me do the same for you."

"She's a monster. She hurt me and she enjoyed it. " Ethan said in a quiet voice, pain coursing through it. A few seconds later he said "I'm no traitor." Clint felt crushed inside, Ethan had Ben turned to pure malice and pain.

"Fine, you're no traitor but you haven't killed me yet. Why not? I'm Clint Barton, SHIELD's second top agent. Why am I not at the top of some kill list? We're alone in here, you could probably do it before anyone came running." A plan was formulating in Clint's mind. It was risky and stupid and would end up with either his death or his best friend hating him forever.

"You weren't the target. I don't want to kill you." Ethan said simply. Maybe there was some hope here

Clint stood up and opened the door before backing away from it. "Good, then go. Finish your mission." The kid looked shocked but quickly recovered, springing from the bed and running into the corridor. Clint stood motionless until Ethan had left but then followed him into the corridor.

His plan had worked, at least the first step. Ethan was standing in the corridor. Clint could see him quivering, shaking like a leaf in a storm with his eyes darting around frantically. Five meters down the corridor Nat stood motionless. Clint saw fear on her eyes, fear and pain.

Years ago, when Barton had first recruited Nat they had sat down in a bar in Russia and talked. Nat had told him everything, or at least almost everything that she had done. Clint hadn't seen the pain in her eyes since then. The pain of her past was coming back again.

"Ethan. I'm... Im so sorry. I though you were dead. After I left I looked for you but I couldn't find you. But you were never gone. Your face, that little four year old boy haunts me everytime I sleep. What I did. I'm so sorry." Tears rolled down her cheeks, filled with grief and pain.

Ethan still stood motionless, except now his eyes were focused on Nat.

"What are you doing here." Ethan said. He sounded confused which took Clint by surprise. He expected anger or fear. It sounded wrong. It sounded like he was insane but Clint couldn't let himself believe that. He wasn't going to give up that easily.

"I got out." Nat said simply.

Ethan sprang forward gripping her by the collar. Clint moved forward but stopped when Nat held up her hand. "That's not true. You can't get out. She said you were the best. A killer that I could never be. She said I was soft. You hurt me and it made you her closest weapon. That's what she said, that you were the most loyal but how can you be her if you're hers. She would kill you for leaving" Ethan yelled, but he still sounding confused and scared. Like his whole world was crashing and burning around him.

"She can't hurt you anymore Ethan. Your safe now." Clint watched the boy get agitated. He could see him tense, his hands turning white as he held Nat harder and Clint felt behind him for a weapon stashed in his back pocket. Pulling it out he primed the small device that fit in his hand.

"You're lying. She would kill me for even talking to you. You're lying." Ethan launched his hands up, closing around Nat's throat but Clint moved with lightning speed and raised the tiny dart gun in his hand which he fired. It hit Ethan in the neck and he dropped to the ground instantly.