"You have to tell me what happened," Clint told me softly as I stared down at the city below us.

"I said I would," I reminded him.

"But you haven't said anything."

"I went through a lot especially in the last few years," I told him.

"You need to talk about it."

"Not yet."

"Then when?" he asked me.

"When I'm ready!" I shouted at him. This grabbed the attention of his teammates and I quickly took a calming breath. "I'm not ready to talk about it, Clint. You have to accept that and let me talk when I'm ready."

"It's just that you've been gone a long time, Vik," he reminded me. "I've missed being able to talk to my baby sister."

"I'm sorry, Clint. I'm just not ready to talk about it yet." With that said, I walked away from him and back to the room they'd given me. It was a plain room, but it wasn't like I had anything to bring with me from Sakovia anyway.


A few days later, someone knocked on my door and I turned to see Natasha open it and stare at me.

"Let's go."

"Where?"

"Shopping."


I borrowed some clothes from Natasha and Pepper trying to match them the best I could. There had been no success and I sighed as I pulled the sweater's sleeve back over my shoulder.

"That's in style you know," Natasha told me and I gave her a look.

"How can clothes being too big be in style?"

"You'd have to ask teenagers." She smirked and I just gave her a look before looking back at the clothes in front of us. "You're going to have to talk to him."

"He has to let me talk when I'm ready," I told her knowing she was talking about Clint. Clint was her best friend and they seemed to also treat each other like family. It made me sad and I wished to know what happened to Laura, but I didn't want to ask and hurt Clint.

"He's your brother and he worries. He doesn't understand why you won't talk to him. He told me you used to talk to him all the time."

"That was before my world turned to hell," I pointed out grabbing a top and looking at it. I held it up to me and looked at her.

"I like it." I put it in my yes pile of clothes, grabbed a few more in different colors, then moved to the next rack. "Do you feel like you'll ever talk to him about this?"

"Probably not, and why should I?" I asked her. "The torture I went through for years changed me. And I'm not changing back. I don't even think I want to." I thought back to Pietro and Wanda and my heart ached. "The others I met. The survivors of Strucker's experiments." I just shook my head.

"You grew close to them." I nodded at her statement. "They're family. Why don't you tell Clint that?"

"Because he wouldn't understand. He's never gone through what I did. What we did," I explained not believing she'd understand any more than Clint would.

"I know the feeling," she told me and I looked at her confused. "The way I was raised wasn't exactly ideal." I stared at her before turning back to the clothes in front of me. "Tony mentioned a party?"

"I know the place to go."