First of the extra updates. I hope you enjoy!

Questions are only offensive to those who have something to hide.

Gary Hopkins

"I'll do it."

Kingsley gave her a bemused stare. "You'll do what, Miss Weasley?"

"I'll become a liaison between this world and theirs," she stated bluntly. "It'll take time, though. I'm going to need to bring myself back up to par both physically and magically and I'm going to have get to know them. But after that, then the way's clear and then we can decide if a liaison is all we need."

Kingsley stared at her silently for a moment. "In all honesty, Miss Weasley, I wasn't expecting you to come through, but I'm glad that you have done. I don't think that there's anyone else who's better suited to this type of job."

Ginny paused and tilted her head. "I surprised myself as well, sir, but something happened yesterday that made me aware… of how much I can still offer both this world and their world and I want to be a part of that."

Kingsley peered at her interestedly. "May I ask what happened that made you come to this decision?"

Ginny didn't even hesitate in her reply. "A little girl thanked me. A little girl came up to me yesterday and thanked me for saving her brother. You know, after the war, I was so caught up in the things that had gone wrong, the things that I myself had done, that I forgot about the things that had gone right and it just made me realise…" Ginny took a deep breath and stared at Kingsley unwaveringly, "that I have so much more to give."

It was only hours after they had all arrived back at the facility that Ginny stalked into the gym furiously, gym bag over her shoulder, scowl on her face, and her hair tied up in a messy knot on the top of her head. She completely ignored the stares that she was attracting from various corners of the large gym and just kept marching towards her goal: the punching bags. She had discovered them just the other day when she had been investigating the gym, before that disastrous party. Technically, she hadn't really been looking for them, but they had found her anyway. And now she was damn glad that she had.

She dropped her gym bag carelessly on the ground near the large mat and sat down next to it, grabbing her tape and her iPod from the depths of it – the iPod had been a gift from Andrews for her birthday. She made quick work of her hands before placing the buds of her earphones in her ears, starting one of her more vicious playlists and getting up to stomp over to the punching bag. She breathed in deeply and pulled a fist back to her face, her eyes glued on the gently swaying bright red sack, already envisioning just how exactly she was going to hit it.

"You know how to punch that thing?"

Ginny flicked her eyes over to the intruder in slight annoyance. "I'm here, aren't I?"

"Yeah, you are," he admitted slowly. "But do you know how to punch?" Clint looked at her seriously and she sighed to herself internally, lowering her fists to her sides and turning off her music as she stared at the archer. Although Ginny was beginning to interact just that little bit more with each of the Avengers, she was surprised to realise that out of all of them, Clint was the one that she had interacted with the least, a fact that only made her feel a little bit guilty. She vowed to talk to him more. He seemed nice.

"I know how to punch. I was taught."

"By your brothers?"
Ginny raised an eyebrow, wondering how he had found out about that before reluctantly remembering that she had told Pietro a couple of weeks ago and she suddenly wondered what else Pietro had told the rest of the Avengers… If he had told them about her mother and her friends as well, then there was no way that he was going to ever drag his sorry ass back up from heel. "I suppose," she said somewhat distractedly, "although I have to say that it was more of a mixture of people who taught me. Mainly though, it was myself, a couple of friends, and then another friend."

Clint was silent for a moment and Ginny hoped that he wouldn't say anything on her deliberate and very obvious evasiveness. Besides, she didn't want to talk about her past friends anyway. Not after that stupid, disgusting letter that had just arrived from a git named Ronald Weasley. She was convinced that he would come round. Eventually. Maybe in several years, but one day, it would happen, so for now, but not much longer, she would endure his immature temper tantrums.

"Well, all right," Clint conceded finally, stepping back coolly and gesturing to the bag. "Show me what you got. Pick any sequence that you choose."

Ginny looked back towards the bag and, feeling incredibly self-conscious, raised her fists once again. She focused her thoughts, her breath, and shut her eyes briefly, recalling the reasons that had brought her to the gym in the first place. And with that in mind, she punched the bag with everything that she had. But she didn't stop after one. No, instead, she kept going, spinning and treading lightly on the balls of her feet as she kicked and struck the bag with the power and elegance of a dancer. It seemed, that despite her lack of practice, Andrews' own training had held firm.

Slowly, the dim colours of the gym faded into heavyset stonewalls and the bag turned into the vague shape of a Death Eater, and she found herself fighting for her life. She felt adrenaline pump and raw magic through her veins as she fought for her life under the cloudy sky of the Great Hall. A howling wind, bringing with it the distinct, metallic scent of blood, raked through the Hall and she felt an extreme feeling of desperation and desolation as the gale rushed through the corridors of her beloved school and she vaguely wondered what the death count now was. One hundred? More? She swallowed hard at the sickening thought and forced her mind to concentrate on the situation at hand, determined to win. In fact, to put it more bluntly, she had to win. She had to win if she wanted to live. She ducked a fist. She had never really been taught much self-defence, except for what she had learnt through the DA, and although she had been originally sceptical that a wizard or witch would ever require the skills of hand to hand combat, she had never been more grateful for those few lessons in her life. She made a mental note to thank the fifth year later. If she was still alive and in that moment, she wasn't sure whether she was referring to herself or the fifth year.

Clint watched as the slight redhead leapt at the bag, not expecting the ferocity with which she attacked the worn plastic. He watched her carefully, analysing and assessing the movements of the young secretary. Her technique wasn't nearly as refined or as polished as many of the recruits at the facility, but she clearly knew what she was doing if the fierce vicious punches and kicks were anything to go by. For a moment, Clint was tempted to stop her as her attacks became even more ferocious than before, but she had come in here for a reason and he was going to wait to talk to her until after she was done. He smiled ruefully to himself at the thought. When Natasha had still been a new, treacherous recruit at the academy and her habits and nature had not yet been fully known, Clint had – extremely foolishly – gone up to her once while she was in the middle of an extremely brutal workout with one of the punching bags. He had swaggered up to her, tapped her arrogantly on the shoulder and had opened his mouth to say something only for him to get a rather savage fist in the face. It was safe to say that he had learned from that experience and would definitely not be repeating anything of the sort with Ginny Prewett.

He looked at Ginny again, this time only concentrating on her face. Tight, wild brown eyes that spoke of hidden danger and well kept secrets, a determined yet fearful scowl on her lips, and the distressed creasing of pale orange eyebrows. It didn't take a genius to see that she was working through some serious shit and Clint couldn't help but wonder what it was, because it was very much true that he and the others barely knew a thing about her. After all, her file – which Stark had investigated with extreme thoroughness – told only of a normal, loving family, more than a few brothers, a standard education, and a couple of miscellaneous jobs. Her reports cards had been perfectly average, the lives of her brothers had been just as average, except for the few that had entered the British army, and even her parents had standard lives, with her mother being the owner of a small bakery and her father working in an antique shop. There hadn't even been a single death in her family; her grandparents on both her mother's and her father's side were still alive. But that was the first mistake, the first reveal that she wasn't who her file said she was, because they all knew that at least one of brothers had died in some war that they knew nothing about it. That was, after all, the reason why she had so spontaneously gone back to England, he suspected and Clint's eyes narrowed at the thought.

It wasn't the false details in the file that were bothering him, though, more like the person behind them. In her file, she was perfect. He entire life was perfect, all but filled with shit eating rainbows and glittering sparkles, but when he looked at her now, he saw a troubled, desperate young woman that was hitting a punching bag as though she were in a fight for her life. A normal girl, the girl that her file described, didn't do that. Vaguely, Clint wondered if Ginny was a threat before determining that he was stupid if he didn't consider her to be one. Besides, in their own way, every single person on the whole fucking planet was a threat. The only different was, was that some were more dangerous than others. Ginny, he decided, was perhaps more dangerous than most, starting with the discrepancies with her actions and the words in her file. But, at the same time, she had had months to do something and she had done nothing.

"Why are you here?" he found himself asking suddenly.

His question seemed to bring Ginny out of whatever dark place her mind had taken her and she froze, spinning around to look at him, her eyes strangely and oddly bright.

"What?"

Clint cleared his throat and stepped cautiously forward. "Why are you here?" he asked again.

She snorted bitterly. "I'm here because I was recommended by Ms Potts to work under the Avengers Initiative."

Clint nodded slowly. Her answer had been expected. The truth, yes. But the right one? That was debatable. "That's true, but why are you here?"

"I just told you."

"No, you didn't."

Ginny sighed and fiddled with her taped hands that were now chafed and red. "I'm here because I had nowhere else to go," she said finally, her eyes connecting with Clint's. She shrugged lightly. "Things weren't really working out in England, so I decided to give somewhere else a try. I enquired to a couple of places and left. So here I am."

Her answer, while obviously still not the whole truth, was one of the most honest answers that he had received from the girl so Clint decided to let it go. For now.

"So," he motioned to the still swinging punching bag, "bad day?"

Ginny chuckled severely and switched her attention back to the red plastic. "You could say that, but I won't bore you with the details."

Clint nodded, taking note of the subtle warning that lay behind Ginny's words. Honestly, he still didn't understand why Natasha didn't like her when they were all but related. Red hair, ice personalities, trust issues. God, they were practically sisters. "Fair enough. But do you want a couple of tips on your technique?"

Ginny shrugged. "Sure."

Clint stepped onto the mat. "A while ago, you told Nat that you had never studied self-defence before."

"Well, technically," she admitted, "I haven't. Not formally anyway. So it wasn't really a lie." She looked at him suddenly and Clint was surprised to see the underlying determination and resolve that hid there. "But I want to learn now."

He smirked at her, telling her to raise her arms in her start position, and decided to ignore her sudden craving to learn to fight. "You sure about that?"

She grinned at him, the first genuine smile that he had ever seen from her, and said simply, "Bring it."

Clint worked with Ginny for the next few hours who was, unsurprisingly, a very astute student. It was clear that she had had some experience with fighting before – the brutal punches that she dealt was proof enough – but her style was crude, basic, and rushed and even though she had good reflexes, they were wasted due to her sloppy and messy skill and so he gave her all of the pointers that he was able. It was different, he realized, to be on the other side of the mat as he told her, once again, to raise her elbows. Normally, it was him that was getting his ass handed to him by Natasha or in the past, Coulson, and while he had done some training with new recruits, he had mainly stayed away from them. As such, this new point of view was a surprisingly enjoyable one and was something that he hadn't originally thought that he would like; only a selected few on the planet were cut out to be a teacher after all. He snickered to himself. Laura would find it hilariously funny when he told her about it, especially seeing as he had ranted to her a couple of years ago that he was the last person in the world who would ever want to be a teacher.

"Hey Ginny!"

The familiar voice made Ginny and Clint look up and then glare when they realized who it was that had disturbed them. Pietro, however, who was sauntering over to the punching bags, seemed oblivious to their sudden hostility and he grinned superiorly at Clint as he approached.

"I didn't know you were giving out lessons, old man," he teased. "You should have told me. I would have come along."

Clint simply raised an eyebrow and bit down on the amusement that rose in him. "It was spontaneous. And you already receive training. Something, if I'm not mistaken," Clint said, with a surreptitious glance at his watch, "you should be doing right now, seeing as you have a date with the simulation room."

"That's where I was heading." He turned his attention to Ginny. "You want to watch?"

Clint wasn't surprised when she shook her head, although he was sure that she had hesitated ever so slightly in her reply.

"I have somewhere to be," she said, her voice clipped and tight once again.

Pietro shrugged, but Clint didn't miss the cautious – and disappointed? – glance that he gave the redhead. Wait, what? Clint looked at the Sokovian again. Disappointment? Pietro? Surely there was no way that he…

Clint smirked in sudden glee, watching as Pietro glared briefly and unnecessarily at the ground. Oh, he did! Pietro Maximoff, one of the most sought after men in the nation due to his heroism and 'good looks', had a crush on the stubborn, prickly Ginny Prewett! Oh, this was just too good. No wonder he had been so sullen when Ginny had upped and left to England without informing anybody except Wanda. And that was why he had visited her every single day in the hospital room when she had been ill. At first, Clint had thought that Pietro had just felt guilty and had only gone there to try and make himself feel better, but it seemed, if his current reaction was anything to go by, that there was something more than that in this entire mess.

"Are you sure, Prewett?" Clint asked Ginny slyly. "I mean, some of the simulations are pretty interesting and as the secretary to this sorry group, it might be a good thing to actually see the things that we train with." Clint shrugged underhandedly. "I'm sure that what you have planned can wait."

Ginny properly hesitated this time. "Oh fine," she muttered finally. "I'll go and watch."

And Clint smirked at Pietro, who simply gave him a rude glower. This was going to be good to watch.

"Clint!"

Clint whipped around and raised an unexpected eyebrow at the soldier who was jogging towards him. "What's up, Cap? I thought that you were on mission."

"It was cancelled at last minute, but I wasn't going to talk to you about that." And he nodded towards the retreating back of Ginny Prewett. "How's she doing? She's got a mean punch and kick combination."

Clint snickered. "I didn't think that she had it in her, to be honest, but it makes me wonder if Nat has been right about her this entire time."

Steve shrugged. "Maybe she has been, but if she really were here to hurt us, then I think that she would have done it a long time ago, don't you think?"

Clint nodded slowly. "Yeah… I can see your point. What's Sam think about her?"

Steve still hadn't taken his thoughtful gaze off of Ginny. "He knows that something's up. He told me the other day that she has a look in her eyes, a look that he sees in the eyes of the soldiers that come back from a tour and to be honest, I can't disagree with him, because it's the same look that the soldiers back in the war had. I don't know how I didn't see it before, but now… It seems so obvious. I know that Nat wants to force her, but in the end, I think that she'll come to us. It's only a matter of time, I think, before something happens."

Clint nodded slowly. "I think that I have to agree there. I think that I have to agree."

The simulation room didn't look anything like it had done all of those months ago. Back then, there had been tape, plaster, flapping taupes, and all types of other building materials stacked all over the place. Simply put, it had been an ugly, haphazard mess. But now? Well, it looked very different, Ginny recognised dully, as she walked cautiously into a room that looked over the main studio.

"Pietro," Natasha said brusquely, turning around "nice of you to show up." Natasha paused before she nodded stiffly to Ginny. "Prewett."

Ginny nodded back at Natasha, who was sitting on a hard looking seat in front of a large, glass control panel with her regulation uniform on. Ginny still had no idea how the women in this place could stand wearing something like that. It just looked so… uncomfortable. And revealing. Ginny didn't know if she'd ever have the guts to wear something like that.

"This is the control room," Pietro commented lightly, looking back at Ginny. "I can adjust the settings to the simulation with this here," and he gestured to a large screen. "We all have our own personalised training sessions, but we can adjust the difficulty. We can come in here whenever we want, but there should always be another person watching, ready to adjust the simulation if it gets to difficult or is too easy. That's why Natasha is here."

Ginny walked slowly towards the panel, beginning to feel just the slightest bit interested in what was about to occur and sat down in the seat next to Natasha.

"There are cameras in the simulation room that show footage on these computers here," Pietro said, pointing to several TV screens that lined one of the walls. "They're so that we can look back later and analyse our technique. It's how we improve."

"Cool," Ginny murmured, her eyes running over the high tech gear that covered every inch of the room. "And can anyone use this place? Or is it just designed for the people who are actually on the team?"

Natasha raised an eyebrow at her. "Thinking of having a go, Prewett?" she asked, not bothering to disguise an underlying tone of threat in her voice.

"Me?" Ginny snorted. "God no. I'd end up as a shrivelled mess on the floor."

And just like that, at Natasha's comment and her own vehement response, the realisation struck Ginny like a lightning bolt and she didn't know how she could have missed it before. She could use this, this simulation room, for getting back in shape. She could adjust it to her own settings, erase the data from her sessions, and ease herself back into using magic. No one would find out and she would get the training that she needed.

It was perfect. Absolutely perfect.

"Well in that case," Natasha said, breaking Ginny out of her thoughts, " then yes, anyone can use this, as long as they have the correct passcode and as long as it's free at the time." She paused and glared over at Pietro, who was looking for too pleased with himself as he snapped a band around his wrist. "So, Pietro, are you getting in or do I have to drag you in there?"

"I'm going, I'm going," he protested and he zipped into the area in front of the control room. It was large, all of the walls covered with large silver panels which, Ginny assumed, would be used in creating the actual simulation. In each of the corners on both the floor and the ceiling, there was a small camera.

"What was the band for?" Ginny wanted to know, deciding to forgo any animosity that she had with the spy.

"Vitals," Natasha replied grudgingly, tapping something on the screen. "I saw you in the gym. I thought that you said that you didn't know self-defence."

"I don't. I just punch and jab and see where it gets me."

"Well, your technique needs work. If you meet me tomorrow morning, I'll show you where you can improve."

Ginny leant back in her chair and eyes Natasha suspiciously. "What's the catch?"

Natasha shrugged simply. "No catch. It's just come to my attention how little I actually know about you."

Ginny didn't miss the jab in Natasha's voice.

"But you hate me," Ginny said bluntly.

"I don't hate you. I just don't trust you. There's a difference. And I'm not being nice. I'm simply offering you a hand so that one day, if you ever find yourself in a dark alley, you won't die."

"Well, in that case," Ginny muttered, "thanks."

Natasha smiled a devil's grin. "Don't mention it. And by the way, don't think that we haven't noticed the discrepancies in your story. According to your file, you're perfect, but according to what you've said… Well, that's something else entirely. So, I would watch what you say in the future, if you want to keep your job."

Ginny sat back up again. "Are you threatening me?"

Natasha turned to Ginny, her blue eyes piercing into Ginny's. "I'm warning you." Her eyes flicked back to the screen and she tapped something again. "You ready, Maximoff?" she asked into a microphone off to the side. Pietro nodded from inside and Natasha nodded to herself, before pressing something else on the display. "I know that you're hiding something. We all know."

"And what? You aren't?" Ginny challenged.

Natasha tapped something else. "But I'm not talking about myself, am I? No, I'm talking about you and I'm warning you. You're on a fine line, Prewett, so if I were you, I'd watch it."

"Well, what if I don't want to watch it? What if I do whatever the hell I want to?"

"Then," Natasha said softly, "I suppose that we'll be seeing each other on the opposite sides of a piece of glass."

Ginny scoffed. "You're just going to assume that I'm a threat?"

"Miss Prewett, in this world, everyone is a threat. It just depends where they fall on the danger scale."

Ginny sat in silence for the rest of the session, ignoring Natasha's self satisfied smirk and barely focusing on the silvery movements of Pietro as he ran around the simulation room, carrying people to safety as virtual buildings collapsed around him.

"So, what did you think?" Pietro grinned at Ginny superiorly as they walked out of the gym.

"It was… interesting," Ginny concluded. "I think that it's incredible how the simulation works. It all looks so real." A reason why, she added privately to herself, it was going to be such good practice for her. After all, the more real that it was, the better it was going to be in the long run.

Pietro snorted. "It feels real, as well. I swear," he complained, "I have gotten so many bruises from that thing."

Ginny rolled her eyes to heaven. "Poor you."

Pietro chuckled. "So, what were you doing with Clint? And have you forgiven me yet?"

"He was giving me a couple of pointers. And no. I mean, you can't just expect that an apology will make everything all right again after you burst into my room unannounced and then acted like a complete and utter asshole."

"You know, I am sorry about that," Pietro said softly, his voice ringing with sincerity.

"If I could take it back, I would. I was just-"

"Distraught? Yeah, yeah, I get it, but, Pietro, it's not an excuse. So, until you can prove to me that you can actually be level headed, then I won't forgive you. It's that simple."

Pietro fell silent. "I understand," he said finally. "And I respect your decision. Really, I do."

"Thank you. I'm glad that we understand each other."

"So, what are you doing tonight?"

"Sleeping," Ginny said dead panned. "And you?"

"I'm going to meet up with some of the other agents. Do you want to come? I mean, I know that your schedule is already busy; sleep is hard to come by after all," he smirked. "But do you think that you could fit something else into that busy calendar of yours?"

"I'm afraid not, because besides sleeping, I actually have work to do; there's another press conference that I have to organise for you lot. And a whole bunch of emails that I have to send to all of the people that hosted you all in Britain. So, unfortunately, no. I don't have time in my calendar to fit you in."

"Oh well then," Pietro sighed theatrically. "Another time perhaps."

Ginny smiled and small smile and nodded. "Another time perhaps."

"And how are you doing?"

Ginny was taken aback at the unexpected question and she shot him a quizzical look, hoping that he didn't mean what she thought that he meant. "What do you mean, 'how am I doing'?"

"I think that you already know what I mean," Pietro said, his electric blue eyes unexpectedly demure and serious. Although, Gunny supposed, she shouldn't have been surprised that Pietro Maximoff could actually be serious. London had shown that all too well. "I want to know how you are doing after being in England. It mustn't have been easy… facing your family again."

"I…" Ginny didn't know what to say. "I guess that you could say that." Her voice sounded slightly strangled even to her own ears.

"You know, when you are ready to tell the truth, I will listen."

Ginny nearly groaned. What was it with all of the people who were suddenly demanding that she be honest? "Who said that I'm not telling the truth?"

Pietro shrugged. "I don't know. But it is obvious, especially now that I know that all of the details in your file are a lie. Some of the people here think that you are a threat, but I don't think so. If you were, you would have done something a long time ago."

Ginny had to admit that a part of her was incredibly pleased with the faith that Pietro had in her.

Hey everyone! I hope that you enjoyed this chapter and there shall be more coming later this week! I just decided, seeing as I won't be updating when I do my finals which are in less than four weeks, that I should make up for that in these holidays, seeings as I have a little bit of extra time.

Thanks to all of the new follows, reviews, and favourites! I can't believe how many I've gotten and when I see the notifications crop up in my inbox, I always grin like a maniac.
To Luna Lestrange: It makes me happy that you enjoyed the family stuff from the previous chapter! And as for your other question, well I guess (hopefully) that it was answered in this chapter! Thank you again for your support :)
To Katrina: Thanks for the lovely review! I'm really glad that you're enjoying the story!
To CasseyRose: I grinned when I read your review. Honestly, you flatter me. Anyway, thank you for the review and it's awesome that you're liking the story!

I hope that you all had a lovely Easter and I shall update again at some point during the week with at least one (maybe two) extra chapters!

You're all awesome!

HauntedCinders