Note: Sorry guys, I know this chapter doesn't really deal any more with Clint's issues but please bear with me. There were a few more things I just wanted to get out there between Darcy and Clint, in part to give Clint some understanding of where Darcy was coming from and in part to give him more reason to trust her. And believe me, trust is a big part of working through these kinds of issues.

Please note, I'm writing this based on my own experience having conversations about abuse, so if the conversation doesn't seem right, I'm sorry. It'll seem like Darcy is sharing a lot in this, but in my experience once you start talking about it, it's easier to just keep going. And then you sleep and it becomes hard to talk about again. Again, this is all based on personal experience. Sorry if this seems off to anyone.

Darcy was already in the gym when Clint arrived ten minutes later. Standing in the doorway, he took a moment to just watch her move as she stretched out her muscles. Even though he'd spent some time with her, he'd never paid much attention to what she looked like, including the other night in the gym. Their conversations always put him so far on edge, he never had the time. Which, in hind sight, was a shame because she really was pretty. Even with her hair tied up, clad in S.H.I.E.L.D. sweatpants that had seen better days and a tank in about the same condition, she was pretty.

"You ready to spar?" called Darcy from the mat, body relaxed. Her feet were bare, which wasn't a surprise to Clint. It was easier to move and you were less likely to do serious harm to your partner. That was only ideal in the field, when serious harm was required.

"You know it," confirmed Clint, removing his own shoes and moving easily onto the mat. He took a moment to stretch out as well, eyes still pinned on the woman in front of him. "What kind of martial arts do you use?"

Darcy shrugged. "I don't really know. Phil usually just called it 'hurting someone without killing them'. I've always assumed it was a mix meant to give the person attacked a chance to get away."

Clint nodded slowly, rolling his shoulders and neck. "I think I remember Phil using something like that. Not sure if it's S.H.I.E.L.D standard or not, but it's effective."

"Trust me, I know," assured Darcy as she moved to take a stance on the mat and started going through several warm-up exercises. "I've seen the video from the gas station, too."

"He was a pretty scary man," agreed Clint quietly. Finishing his stretches, he turned to Darcy. "Ready to start?"

Giving the air one last kick, she turned towards Clint and nodded. "Don't be too nice. I promise, I don't break easily."

"Never assumed you did," assured Clint, shrugging slightly. "I figure anyone who can tase a god can take care of themselves."

Darcy grinned. "That I can."

Smiling, Clint took up a stance across from Darcy. "Ready?"

"Let's do this," replied Darcy, dropping into her own stance.

For a minute, neither one of them moved. They just stood there, examining each other. Knowing her methods were defensive, Clint started it with a simple punch.

Even knowing Darcy could probably kick most people's ass, he was all too aware that he wasn't most people and hurting her was the last thing he wanted to do. He's surprised she was even willing to spar with him. Even Natasha exhibited caution when it came to that since the Loki incident. But here was Darcy, jumping right into a sparring match with him without any fear for her safety.

Darcy easily caught his punch, guiding it away from her body and throwing her own at him in retaliation. He ducked the strike, using his momentum to roll behind her. Which she countered by using her own momentum to spin so she was facing him again in a ready stance by the time he came up.

"Not bad," commented Clint, eying her stance. She'd fallen back into a perfectly balanced stance, meaning it was probably second nature. He'd guessed she'd been training for years when he was watching her in the gym the other night, but being able to beat up a punching dummy and being able to actually execute the moves in a fight were two very different things. "How long?"

"Several years," replied Darcy, suddenly executing a round-house kick aimed at his right knee.

He blocked the move effortlessly, catching her leg and attempting to pull her off-balance. She shifted her weight suddenly, dropping to the ground in a way that forced him to release her unless he wanted to get pulled down as well. Once on the ground, she rolled to the side and managed to kick the back of his knee. The move caused his knee to buckle and sent him to the ground with her.

"It shows," informed Clint, rolling away from her grasp.

She rolled easily to her feet, making sure he couldn't knock her off-balance in the process. "Phil always wanted to make sure I could defend myself if I needed to."

Clint nodded and threw another punch at her, which she dodged and returned. "Good move."

For several moments, they continued to trade blows and kicks. The only sounds in the gym were their grunts and breathing. Clint had to admit, she was good. Like, probationary agent good. He guessed she'd probably never used her skills in an actual fight, though he might be very wrong about that.

Their sparring ended rather suddenly when Darcy threw a punch which Clint caught and used to flip her onto the mats. Coughing slightly, she blinked up at him in surprise for a moment before offing him a smile. He smiled back, really smiled for what felt like the first time in ages, and held his hand out in offering. Her own grasped his, hoisting herself up.

"Nice move," commented Darcy, leaning forward a little to catch her breath.

Clint shrugged. "I should say the same to you. You're good."

"Like I said, Phil taught me well." Her words were a bit shaky, but Clint couldn't tell if that was from being winded or an emotional reaction to her own memories. Straightening, she stretched her back carefully. "Feel like talking a little?"

"What do you mean?" asked Clint wearily, smile falling. Of course, he knew what she meant; the only reason she'd ask is if she wanted to discuss what happened to him. Which was a surprise, given how much of her own history had been laid on the table maybe half an hour before. Then again, it could be a coping tactic too: focus on his problems so she wouldn't have to face her own at the moment.

The look she gave him clearly said that she knew he knew what she was talking about. He wasn't in the least bit surprised she didn't fall for the bullshit either. "Quid pour quo, remember? You've heard my quid, so I was wondering if you'd mind giving up some quo."

He shrugged slightly, stretching out his own muscles to keep them from cooling down. "I'm not gonna lie, after hearing your story earlier, mine feels a little...I don't know, a little petty I guess."

'Petty' wasn't the right word, and he knew it, but he couldn't think of a better word to explain it. She'd been abused for at least two years, probably longer based on his personal experience with the subject, then brain washed by some guy at the age of ten and was responsible for killing her own parents. Yeah, he'd done a lot of stuff he hadn't wanted to and killed a lot of people under Loki, but he was also a trained operative. Blood wasn't new to him. And he'd definitely never directly killed anyone like his own parents. The closest he'd come was 'Tasha and she'd managed to kick his ass, as always. What he'd been through sucked and he felt like he couldn't trust himself, but he wasn't a ten year old kid either. And he definitely hadn't been manipulated mentally by Loki like she would have been by her own captor. He'd seen the effects of that kind of brain washing on Natasha and he couldn't image having to untangle those knots at the age of ten.

"How do you mean?" asked Darcy, brow furrowing. "What happened to me isn't anywhere near as bad as what happened to you."

Clint sighed heavily, one hand rubbing at the back of his neck. "I guess...I guess after hearing what you said earlier, I realized what happened to me was less ambiguous than I thought. I mean, I know I did what I did because of Loki's phallic and over-compensating mind control stick. None of it was anything I wanted to do."

"That's good to hear," congratulated Darcy. "Now all you need to do is believe it. Because once you believe that, then you can start actually facing what happened."

"Huh?" asked Clint. Wasn't that what she was supposed to be doing? Helping him face everything he'd done? Hell, wasn't that what he'd been doing this whole time? "I don't understanding."

Sighing, Darcy retook her stance and motioned for him to do the same. "There's two parts to all of this: coming to terms with what happened and understanding where you stand with everything that happened. But you can't come to terms with anything until you stop blaming yourself."

Dropping into his own stance again, Clint groaned. "So basically, all I've done is said 'this isn't my fault'."

"Pretty much," confirmed Darcy. "Next step is actually believing it."

"I said it though, doesn't that kind of imply I believe it?" argued Clint as he began to slowly circle the mat.

Darcy matched his steps, breaking stance to shake one of her hands in a 'kind of' motion. "Just because you can admit something sometimes, doesn't mean you always believe it. You might say 'none of this was my fault', but the what-if's are still there. There's still part of your brain saying you should have fought harder or that you should have realized what was happening sooner. That's still blaming yourself for what happened."

Clint nodded slowly, carefully eying Darcy for some sign of her mood. "Did you go through that? The 'I should have's and 'what if's, I mean."

"Big time," admitted Darcy, throwing a kick aimed at his side rather suddenly. He blocked it easily with his left arm. "Don't compare our situations though, mine isn't as clear as yours was."

One of Clint's eyebrows rose as he threw a punch that she blocked. "What do you mean?"

Darcy blew a bit of loose hair out of her eyes and tried to kick him again. "I'm still not sure to this day if some of what I did was actually my idea or my controller's. At least you know that what you did under Loki wasn't of your own volition."

"I can't say that," argued Clint, blocking her kick and aiming a punch at her left shoulder. She knocked his hand aside before it could reach it's target, nearly sending him off balance. "Loki asked me questions; he gave me objectives. And I completed them without his guidance. Without his prompting. I came up with strategies for him just like I would have for S.H.I.E.L.D. And in my world, that's being cooperative."

"Yeah, but you didn't want to do that," pointed out Darcy, throwing her own punch towards his stomach. He caught her wrist and twisted her into an arm lock. "You never wanted to kill innocent people or attack S.H.I.E.L.D. I wanted to kill my parents some days. Hell, most days if I'm being honest."

Twisting her arm suddenly, she managed to break the hold and bring a punch around in the tight space to connect with his side before moving away. Mild pain radiated from the point but nothing more, revealing that she was definitely pulling her punches. He'd suspected she would, especially given how much the training dummy had been shaking when she was using it a few nights before.

"No one can blame you for that though," objected Clint as he straightened up, rubbing his side a little. "You were being threatened, abused. That's not something someone goes though without wanting to see the person hurting them dead."

Darcy shook her head slowly, dropping her stance. "I talked to other kids like me, back when I was still trying to sort everything out. They-" she paused for a second, taking a shaky breath that was definitely rooted in emotion and not exercise this time. Gulping slightly, her eyes moved to the clock on the gym's back wall. "I couldn't figure out if it was my idea or his to kill my parents; couldn't even remember why I'd done it or what had happened. It was just a blank. And I thought: 'hey, why not talk to some other kids who've been through this and see what they were thinking; maybe I'll be able to figure things out then'. It didn't help though because, even after all that, I still didn't know who's idea it was. Didn't know if I was some kind of murderous psychopath or if it had been the guy controlling me all along."

Taking a deep breath, she returned her gaze to him. Her eyes were open and a touch scared. Haunted. It made him shiver a little. Her eyes reminded him a bit of Natasha's when she'd had a nightmare. The difference here was that Darcy was actually talking about what was bothering her rather than emptying twenty clips of ammo into paper targets on the range.

"You know who you are, Clint," explained Darcy quietly. "You know where you stood in all of this. Nothing that you did was because you wanted to do it, and giving a guy who's using magic to control you strategies isn't willing participation. Hell, when the others wanted to go kick Loki's ass, you were one of the first people ready to board that shuttle. You knew what he'd done to you was wrong, that he'd forced you to do things you didn't want to, and you wanted to see him taken out for it. You wanted to kill him." Again she paused, biting her lip this time but not looking away. "I didn't want to see the man who'd been manipulating me die. After the fact, I was apathetic about the whole thing. Completely numb. Didn't know what to make of the situation I was in. I'd never fought my controller, never even seen what he was doing as manipulation. His own twisted form of abuse.

"But for you, Loki took control of your body and forced you to use your mind for his purposes. You knew where his influence ended and you wanted to see him pay. I'd bet you fought him every step of the way and you need to remember that when your conscience tries to tell you otherwise; when the voices of doubt in the back of your mind try to eat away at your sanity." She paused again, taking a deep breath. "You didn't want any of those people dead and you know it. That's knowledge you need to hold on to and remind yourself of when your head tries to say otherwise. It'll help keep everything in perspective."

Clint nodded slowly, staring at the woman in front of him in awe. How she'd managed to cut through the bullshit and tease out the truth, he wasn't sure he wanted to know. Hell, he hadn't been able to piece that much together and it was his head she was shrinking. "Is that how you made it through?"

"Something like that," confirmed Darcy, one hand reaching up to scratch at the back of her head roughly. It was a frustrated gesture Clint recognized as one of Phil's few twitches, one he'd never seen outside of the privacy of his deceased friend's office. "You need something, a grounding thought or notion of some kind, before you can really start to consider what happened to you. Once you start delving into events and memories, everything can become jumbled, including your understanding of what was happening at the time. So knowing where you stand now and understanding what was wrong with the situation before you start helps."

"So, you think there's some hope my head might be fixable?" asked Clint, trying to joke a little in an attempt to break the heavy feel of the room. It wasn't easy, given how little he'd joked with anyone since Natasha had literally knocked his head back in order on the Helicarrier.

A touch of a smirk pulled at the corner of Darcy's lips, showing he'd at least had a little success. "From what Loki did, sure. Everything else is permanent damage though, sorry."

"Damn," replied Clint, snapping his fingers. "And here I was hoping there was some chance 'Tasha would stop trying to commit me."

One of Darcy's eyebrows rose. "To a relationship?"

"Nope, mental asylum," corrected Clint. "Something about having no sense of self-preservation."

"Well, that's probably because you seem to think shooting nerf darts at her is a good idea," pointed out Darcy. "And yes, I've seen the security footage. Phil used to bring it home and we'd watch the ridiculousness that is you messing with other agents."

Both of Clint's eyebrows rose in surprise. "Seriously?"

"Yep," confirmed Darcy, her smile turning sad from the memories. "He kept them a lot for nights when I had bad nightmares because they always made me laugh."

"Sweet, I win!" exclaimed Clint suddenly, grin curling across his face.

Darcy blinked at him blankly. "You won what?"

"My bet with 'Tasha," explained Clint, still grinning. "She bet me once that no one enjoyed my pranks and I told her at least one other person had to. This proves it."

Groaning, Darcy shook her head. "God, you really are a dork!" Still, there was a genuine smile on her face and that stirred something inside Clint. Knowing that his antics had helped another person through their problems, or at least taken their mind off their issues, helped make the punishment he'd sustained due to his many, many pranks worth while. "So what was this bet for? Is there head-shaving involved?"

"No head-shaving," replied Clint. "'Tasha likes her hair too much for that. We were betting for bragging rights."

"Not even money? I'm disappointed," teased Darcy. "I would have at least expected something like you having to wear women's underwear for a week or something interesting."

Clint blanched a little. "No, I'm never doing that again."

"The Czech mission didn't look that bad," dismissed Darcy. At Clint's raised eyebrow, she elaborated. "It's one of those mission reports I mentioned Phil bringing home."

"And you remember that specific one because..." started Clint, looking at her expectantly.

Darcy smirked. "Because it involved you imitating a female prostitute. By the way, you make an ugly woman."

"Hey! I thought I looked pretty good in that dress!" exclaimed Clint, voice a touch offended. "Especially given it wasn't much better than a potato sack."

"Excuse me, that was my dress," growled Darcy, eyes narrowing in a way that made Clint very nervous.

Gulping slightly, he backed up quickly. Darcy had already made it onto his 'don't mess with too badly' list. Offending her choice in clothing wasn't something he wanted to do, ever. "Er, what I meant to say is that on me it looked like a potato sack. I'm sure on you it'd be perfectly fine. Um, at least I'd image?"

The hard look Darcy was giving him broke as a smile cut across her face along with a series of giggles. Clint relaxed at the sound, scowling slightly at her. "That wasn't actually your dress, was it?"

Darcy snorted a little, shaking her head. "No, it kind of was. Phil got it for me as a present for my birthday except he got the wrong size. And it wasn't particularly attractive in the first place. When I told him all this, he just held it up and shrugged saying 'I'll just save it for a mission then. I'm sure Barton will look fine it in'."

"Of course he would," groaned Clint. He could see his former boss saving a too-big and ugly dress originally intended for his daughter for the sole purpose of torturing others. "And he'd never make 'Tasha wear it because she'd refuse."

"That's because Agent Romanov is smart," pointed out Darcy with a smile. Stretching her arms above her head, she yawned slightly and looked at the clock. It's almost eleven."

"It's also a Friday night," reminded Clint, eyes going to the clock as well. "Bars are probably open, wanna grab a drink?"

For a moment, he thought she might say no. The way her lips pursed in consideration and her head tilted slightly seemed to imply she was thinking about just going to bed. Then she shrugged and offered him a smile. "Sure, why not? We've both had a rough night. Where were you thinking?"

"Ever been to the pub on 3rd between E. 93rd and E. 94th?" asked Clint as he began to stretch out his muscles to keep any stiffness from setting in.

"Kinsale Tavern? I think Phil took me there when I turned 21," admitted Darcy. "The bar tender was giving him dirty looks until I called him 'Dad'."

"Probably Old Murry," replied Clint. "He sees far too many dirty old men trying to pick up girls young enough to be their granddaughters and daughters."

Darcy nodded, moving through her own stretches carefully. "That makes sense. I remember Phil got up to use the bathroom and some old guy came over and started flirting with me. The glare Phil gave him when he returned could have crumbled stone."

"Hey, it's a father's job to be protective of his kid," pointed out Clint soothingly. "Even if the kid is only his by adoption, any good father will try their hardest to protect and love their child."

"Yeah, I figured that part out," stated Darcy with a sad smile and sniffle. Standing up straight again, she started towards the doors to the gym, hiding her face. Her voice was a little wobbly as she spoke, but Clint couldn't tell if she was crying or not. "Meet in the lobby in fifteen minutes?"

"Yep, sounds good," agreed Clint, watching her walk out the doors of the gym.

He'd never deny that he'd found Darcy curious before, but now he was just down right intrigued. And also feeling somewhat murderous towards the people who'd hurt her. Mentally, he made a note to sneak into the record's room the next chance he got and see what he could find on the man who'd brain washed her. Her parents were dead, but if the man who'd possibly convinced her to kill them was still alive, than maybe he'd have a chance to deal with one scum bag from her life. And he had to admit, punching someone who'd caused her so much pain was very, very appealing.

End Note: No, I've never been to Kinsale Tavern. I just looked up pubs in New York on Google.