Caroline's father was a scientist, a very smart one in fact. He had been in the running for the Nobel Prize and stuff of the like. Both Caroline and her mother idolized him so when he came home one night, grinning about a new idea but needed a test subject - no one saw the problem with Caroline's involvement.

It was a painful process. It started with blood and tissue samples. Then came the injections. There were a few, she remembered them from their bright colors.

"I was so docile about it. I realize now how fucked up it was. But neither my mother or I made a move to stop it. He was our god."

One day when Caroline was in her father's lab, she was restrained.

"What's this for daddy?"

"Just a precaution sweetheart."

He didn't sugarcoat it. Didn't say it was only going to sting. When he injected her, it's like there was liquid fire pumping through her veins. She couldn't help but scream and scream until her father gagged her.

"Mustn't annoy the neighbors."

Caroline paused in her story a moment, eyes watering and focused on something Clint couldn't see.

"I passed out sometime in the procedure and woke up the next morning in my bed with a sore back and pounding headache. I got up to go to the bathroom but couldn't make it through the door, something was holding me back. I pulled hard and felt a sharp pain in my back. I turned around and there they were. Wings."

Clint stared at her, wondering how she must've felt.

"I thought I was drugged up. Acid trip or something. I shoved my way into the bathroom and took a razor from my drawer, reaching toward them and slicing one as an experiment." She paused again. "Hurt like a bitch."

"My parents came in shortly after hearing my struggles and were just as surprised as I was. It didn't matter that my father had done it, they were disgusted.

They made me homeschooled, didn't want anyone to see what a freak I was, even after I was able to control them. When I turned eighteen I turned tail and ran. Haven't been back there since."

Clint placed a hand on her shoulder. "I can't even imagine how much that must've hurt you."

Caroline swallowed heavily and nodded a bit. Neither of them noticed an early returned Steve's quiet fury from the shadows.