Wanda lay on her back, stretched out on her bed, staring up at the ceiling.

"What are you thinking about?" Pietro was standing in the doorway, watching her.

She shrugged. "I was just thinking."

There was a long pause. "It upset you. What Strucker did to him."

She sat up. "Didn't it upset you?" She watched him closely as she asked that question.

"We've seen a lot since coming here." It wasn't exactly answer. "We'd seen a lot before that." He wasn't looking at her.

Wanda thought about it. She raised a hand and red energy jumped from finger to finger, twinning around wrist.

Life…had grown complex.

She supposed it was Pietro's talking about their parents' death. But images of their childhood kept playing through her head.

So complex. There'd been simplicity once. Was this merely the way life was? With age came complexity of grays? Or was it truly as simple as it ever been? And they had just chosen to turn a blind eye to that for the sake of their own ends?

"He's an Avenger," said Pietro. Was he reassuring her or himself?

"I know."

"Then you know what he is."

"He said he was Hydra."

Pietro shrugged. "If he was, he would tell Strucker what he wanted to know."

"But it's complicated."

"Does it matter?"

"Hmm."

"What?" He looked up at her.

"I just…don't like the chair."

There seemed to be nothing more to say. The two looked at each other.

Clint sat in the corner of the cell and thought of Wanda and Pietro. He knew he should be planning some way to reach them, some way to use the story they had told him to manipulate them, give him a chance of escape. But he felt too raw.

They were just kids. And it reminded him of himself. He'd just been a kid when Hydra approached him. Nineteen, so certain he knew all the answers and at the same time so completely lost and desperate. Hydra had prayed on that.

No one had been around to save him. Whatever happened to himself, right now in this moment, he hoped Wanda and Pietro would find a different path.

He thought of the story he'd been told. It was tragic. Tony would be the first to mourn it. Tony would be the last to defend it. How to explain that to the pair? How to explain that Tony woke up every day determined to right the past with a new future?

Clint imagined himself at nineteen. What would he have listened to? Could he have listened? Was the path he'd taken inevitable?

He clinched his fist.

He couldn't save his nineteen year old self. He couldn't save himself from the years between then and now. He might not even be able to save himself in the present. Deep down, he felt himself to already be well past lost.

But if he could, he would, save those two. He would do everything he could to stop them from making the mistakes of his past.

Nat let herself into the safe house. She peeled off her clothes and went to the bathroom. There were a series of bruises along one side of her rib cage, snaking down to her stomach, and a cut on her upper left arm. She examined the cut, and then pulled out a first aid kit to clean and bandage it, before taking a shower.

She twisted the water temperature up to high, and closed her eyes, the steam wrapping round her, letting herself drift for a moment as she tried to will the ache and exhaustion to seep from her muscles and into the water.

Coming out of the bathroom twenty minutes later, she pulled out a clean set of clothes from her go bag, dressed, and then pulled a flash drive from the pocket of the pants she'd left on the floor.

Taking a seat in one of the armchairs, she plugged the drive into her laptop, pulled out her burner phone to call Fury.

"Yes?"

"I got the files. I'm sending them to you now," she said, typing quickly on the keyboard.

"Good work. Any trouble?"

"Nothing I couldn't handle."

"Good."

"I'll be ready for another assignment tomorrow."

There was just an infinitesimal pause. "I'll have something for you next week."

"I am mission ready now."

"Romanoff, you have not had a real break since before Hydra got taken down."

"I am mission ready."

"Romanoff, you will take a rest and that is an order."

"You can't order my free time," she snapped.

There was a lengthy pause. If Fury had been there in person, they would have stared each other down. Natasha wasn't entirely certainly she could have won it just now. She was just a little too aware of how dreadfully tired she really was.

But over the phone, it was another matter. And she had something else on her side. The fact that he truly could not stop her. If he didn't give her a mission, she'd go out and find one for herself.

"Very well," said Fury, shortly. "I'll send you over the details tomorrow."

"Good." She hung up and tossed the phone onto the bed, then leaned back in the armchair and closed her eyes, pressing her finger tips into the corners of her eyelids.

She knew she was wearing thin. She knew she was exhausted and bruised. But she also knew she just had to keep pushing. Keep focused on the job. It was the only bloody thing left. It'd had made sense once. She had to hold onto it until it made sense again. Memories, unbidden, off her conversation with Loki flittered through her mind…

"I owe him a debt."

"Your ledger is dripping, it's gushing red."

"…saving a man no more virtuous than yourself…"

"You lie and kill in the service of liars and killers. You pretend to be separate, to have your own code. Something that makes up for the horrors. But they are a part of you, and they will never go away!"

And then a memory, somehow more painful than that…

"Come on Nat. You need a break." Clint was smiling at her.

She looked up from the papers she was pouring over. "I have work to do."

"So do I. I'm still heading home for the week and the work will be there when I get back."

She smiled. "You have a family. You've got to head home."

"And you're Aunt Nat and you've got to head there with me. Come on. Laura would love to have you and the kids have been asking about you."

Nat rolled her eyes. "They have not."

"What? You think I'd use my kids to lie?" He pulled out his phone. "I will call them right now on speaker phone if you don't believe me."

"Clint." He started to dial. She reached out and grabbed his phone. "Okay, I believe you."

"So you'll come back with me?"

She hesitated and looked down at the mission reports. "I did tell Fury I'd deal with this."

"Come on. You can fight the bad guys another time. They'll still be here in a week. And you'll be in better shape to deal with them. Don't make me call the kids to guilt you."

She laughed. "I'll expect pancakes."

"Blueberry. No one makes 'em like Laura."

Nat reached out a foot and kicked the coffee table over with one, sharp vicious thrust and then stood to her feet.

If Clint was going to be Hydra, he should have recruited her too. Anything else was cruel. He'd been her lifeline to a world of sanity and redemption and then he disappeared leaving her in the uncharted territories of doubt she thought he'd navigated her out of.

"Dripping, it's gushing red."

"You pretend to be separate."

"They are a part of you, and they will never go away."

It wasn't midnight yet. She would train for a couple of hours.

Clint closed his eyes briefly as he heard the guards enter the cellblock and there was noise of the cell door being opened. He tried to mentally prepare himself for what he now knew was coming: for Strucker, for the chair…

There was the familiar sound of Pietro's speed, and Clint felt himself pulled to his feet and the handcuffs once again clicked into place. Clint opened his eyes to meet Pietro's.

"Do you have any idea what Hydra really is?" he said quietly. "Is this really you?"

There was a flash of anger in Pietro's eyes, and then he pushed Clint towards the guards.