Clint and Wanda stood alone together in one of the bedrooms, the door shut. He was facing her and could read the trepidation clear as day on her face. He gave her a reassuring smile. One that did not at all mirror the tense knot in his stomach.

"Are...you sure about this?" she asked.

No.

"Yes. You can do this, Wanda. You have control of your powers."

She nodded and raised her hands, holding them about an inch away from either side of his head. Red tendrils of energy seeped from her fingers and wrapped around him...

He was on a rooftop, looking out over New York, shooting arrows as the Chitauri poured out from the portal overhead.

Now he was on the scaffolding, bow raised, watching as Thor approached the hammer, waiting for Coulson to give the order...

Go deeper, he thought. He could feel a presence somewhere in the back of his head acknowledge his order and dive down.

"Daddy!" Lila was running towards him from the barn. He caught her in his arms as she reached the porch, turning to Laura with a grin on his face.

No, not this, this was private, this was secret, this was never supposed to be known. He'd even kept this from Loki. No! No! No! Get out! Get out!

He was suddenly back in the safe house bedroom, Wanda backing away from him quickly.

"I'm sorry!" She said, "I didn't mean- I'm sorry."

He blinked at her, his mind reeling for a moment, then he shook his head. "No, that's...that's all right. It was an automatic reaction on my part." He could still feel his heartbeat racing and the panic throbbing. Laura and the kids, keeping them secret, that was essential. His brain was demanding to know how long had he actually known Wanda? How far could he actually trust her? But he shoved that thought away. "There are people who if they knew about my family...would kill them. I said I trusted you Wanda...and I am trusting you with them, with the knowledge that they are out there. With the knowledge that they exist."

She nodded. "I will not let you down. The secret remains between me and you. Not even Pietro will hear it from me." He looked at her and suspected this was probably the very first secret she'd ever kept from her brother. It probably hurt her to do. But the very fact of that enabled him to accept and believe her promise.

He nodded. "Then let's go again."

Bruce glanced up from the book he was reading as the glass door to the roof slid open and Thor stepped inside. He was holding a phone, which he now set down on a side table. He looked gloomier than Bruce had seen him since everyone had moved back into the tower.

"Is everything okay with Jane?" Bruce asked.

Thor nodded. "Oh yes. She is well. I look forward to seeing her next week."

"Good…so are you okay then?"

"I am fine." Thor started to walk across the room and then stopped, thought a moment, and turned back to Bruce. "Actually that was a lie. And Jane has told me it is important to be honest about my feelings. The truth is today is…a difficult day for me."

"Why?"

"Today would be Loki's birthday."

"Oooh." Tony, Nat, now Thor. Bruce wondered idly why he was the one being stuck with all these heart to hearts. With a wry humor, he considered that he had probably never missed Clint more.

"I do not expect you to sympathize," said Thor quickly, "I understand that you knew my brother only as the man who attacked your world and took lives. And perhaps that is how I should see him as well. But I do not. And I grieve for him."

Bruce softened. He might be tired from the emotional strain of the past weeks, but he couldn't honestly begrudge Thor his sympathy. Not the kind, big hearted, and deeply honorably man he had grown to know. "No. Thor, I get it. He was family."

Thor sighed. "Yes. That is what Jane says. It is hard though…there is no one left who…feels as I do. If my mother were still alive, I would return to Asgard, and we could grieve together. But as it is, there would be no one. My father…" He shook his head. "My own relationship with him is difficult at the moment, having rejected the throne, and I do not know for a fact if he would mourn Loki as I do. Loki pushed him very far. And yet the fact that I find myself doubting my father's grief, in turn tells me that there was some truth in Loki's resentments. As for our friends, Sif and the Warriors Three, I see now they never were truly his friends. They would be glad to see me but they would not understand how I feel, after everything he had done. I would find it impossible to explain. And yet I know how I feel. And Jane understands. Better than I do sometimes. For there are times I remember he tried to kill me. And yet I grieve."

Bruce fiddled with the edge of his book, bending and unbending the corner of the page, before shutting it and setting it aside. "There's a well known Earth poet named Shakespeare. And one of the most famous lines he wrote was: 'Love is not love which alters it when alteration finds'. You loved your brother. That doesn't fade away lightly." If it did, he thought, we'd probably have all handled Clint's betrayal a great deal more philosophically.

"No. I suppose not. And neither does the guilt."

"The guilt?"

"I've been wondering, if I'd been a little less self-centered in the past, if I'd seen my brother as he truly was, his pain, if I might have prevented his loss as well as the damage that occurred on this world and on my own."

"Thor," said Bruce, leaning forward, "you can't blame yourself for what Loki decided to do."

"But I can blame myself for what I did not do."

Bruce stared at him, feeling at an utter loss to know what to say.

"I'm sorry," said Thor, "I don't mean to burden you."

"No. Not it's good to talk about these things. And it's good to know there's one Avenger who doesn't keep it all bottled up. Between Nat, Steve, and Tony, this tower sometimes feels like it's about to explode under all the pressure of internalized silence. Look, Thor, this is grief. When we lose people we love we want to blame something. Them sometimes, the world, God, and sometimes ourselves. Maybe you made mistakes in your relationship with your brother, but he made them too, your parents made them, heck it sounds like even your friends made them. You can go mad with regret and trying to figure out what could have been done differently. At the end of the day, you can't change the past. And Loki sacrificed himself to save your life. He also loved you, despite whatever was between you."

Thor tilted his head to one side. "Like your poet says."

"Yeah. Come to think of it. I guess that quote works both ways. You've lost…so much Thor. And I'm really sorry if we haven't recognized how hard this time has to be for you. But if there's one thing loss can give us if we choose to take it, it's an appreciation of those still in our lives."

"And I do appreciate it." Thor smiled a little sadly. "I know it's not easy for the others, and I know not everyone was entirely eager to do so, but…I am glad we are all under one roof again."

"Me too. Me too."

"Mr. Barton…you have a chance to be a part of something bigger here. Something important. You have a chance to make the world a better place. A safer place. You, you can make the sacrifices so that other people live in safety. You can be a hero."

"What do I have to do?"

"Join Hydra. Help us."

Deeper.

He was standing, looking out across the common room, at the Avengers, at Fury. He could see Nat, fighting so desperately to reject what Fury had just shown her, fighting to keep her faith in him…

He was at the bar of the common room, pouring himself a drink, raising the glass… "Hail Hydra." The words were ash in his mouth. He saw Nat flinch. He couldn't look the others in the eye. He couldn't bear to face what he'd done. He could feel all the walls he'd built around each fragment of his life, splitting...giving way…

Deeper. Anywhere else but this. Anywhere else had to be better than this.

And he was at the bunker. The Tesseract going haywire. Loki grabbing his wrist, the point of the scepter touching his chest…

No, not this again. He couldn't lose control. He couldn't let Loki retake him.

He felt the peace, the certainty, the knowledge of what had to be done that had washed over him as the scepter's influence took control.

And suddenly, he wasn't relieving it anymore. He was across the room. Watching it happen. Watching his mind be taken and broken and twisted…

Then it stopped being a memory and became something else. The other him turned and looked straight towards him, as Loki let go and stepped back, then faded away in oblivion.

Bright blue eyes met his, staring him down. And then the other Clint was speaking. "This is who you are. You hide behind Loki and the scepter, but deep down, each thing he had you do, you would have done for Hydra. This is who you really are. This is why you hate these memories so much, because you cannot bare to look at yourself for what you are. Who you always have been and what you always will be. And Loki had not part in it. In this memories you cannot hide from yourself."

Flashes of memory, his first kill for Hydra, and so many kills after that, torture, breaking, Nat staring at him in the common room, betrayal and hurt washing over her as he admitted the truth, the attack on the helicarrier, so many lives taken, sitting in his kitchen trying to explain to Cooper and Lila what he had done, seeing their trust in him crumble away…

The other Clint was coming towards him now, blue eyes vivid and unwavering, and he drew away from himself, stumbling backwards, desperate to get away, to look away, for this to just be over-

There was a swirl of red and he was back in the bedroom. He stumbled backwards, away from Wanda, his back hitting the wall.

Wanda lowered her hands, and started at them, not meeting his eye.

Of course, why should she, after what she had seen?

He took several deep, shaking breathes. He clinched his fist and forced his voice to hold steady though he couldn't quite keep the bitterness out. "Now you've seen who I really am."

"No," said Wanda, her voice soft. She looked up at him and held his gaze. "I've seen how you see yourself." She hesitated. "I want to try once more."

"I…" He closed his eyes. Hating to admit defeat but finding he was weaker than he thought. "I can't. Not right now. I need a break."

"Once more," she said insistently, and held his gaze. "Trust me."

Reluctantly, wearily, he nodded, and she came towards him and once more raised her hands.

Red refilled his vision.

Memories flickered past, he could feel her this time, more prominent, more forceful, searching through, discarding, seeking out what she sought, until suddenly, he was back there once more in the bunker.

Once more he felt Loki grab his wrist, once more he felt himself lose control to the scepter. Once more he was left standing, staring at himself, those unnatural, vivid blue eyes meeting his.

"She knows you now," the other Clint said, coming towards him. "She knows who you are. And you've let her down too. Like you let down the Avengers. Like you let down Nat. Like you let down Laura, Lila, Cooper. Like you will let down everyone and everything until someone finally has the guts to kill you like you deserve."

Clint tried to look away but the other reached out and grabbed him, pulling his head back towards him, those blue eyes boring into him. "Look at who you are! Look at what you are. What will your children grow up to be, with an example like you before them?"

"No." It was a voice in the back of his head that wasn't his. A calm, clear presence, forceful and confident. "This is not you. You can stand up and stop this. Isn't that what you told us? At the end of the day, it's your choice? Your choice of who you are."

He froze.

"You are not this man."

Suddenly he pushed, shoving the other Clint back. And suddenly he was that blue eyed man again, there was the peace and certainty and the plan the scepter had given him, but he knew it was false, he knew, all he had to do, was make a choice.

Clint turned and looking at Loki, grinned. Loki snarled and raised the scepter, reaching out for him again, but Clint grabbed it.

"I've wanted to this," he said, "for a very long time."

He twisted it out of Loki's grasp, and then slamming it across his face, sent him sprawling to the floor. Turning, he then brought the scepter down, hard to the ground, shattering it to a million pieces.

Once again, Clint saw red, and the world around him faded back to the safe house room.

Wanda was smiling at him. "And that," she said, "is how I see you."