Several Months Ago…

Hawkeye (Clint Barton) wakes up after in Central Park after the House of M reality warp had ended.[1] He heads to Avengers Mansion to see it is abandoned and in ruins. Searching the property he finds a newspaper clipping that announced his recent death.[2] He decides to leave his calling card by pinning this newspaper clipping and his old costume to the wall with arrows for anyone who might find it.

Clint then heads down to the Sanctum Sanctorum in Greenwich Village to seek an audience with Doctor (Stephen) Strange. Both Strange and Wong (his servant) are shocked to see Hawkeye is alive and well. Clint is rushed inside when he asks if he can talk. Stephen gives Clint a full medical examination and finds him in perfect health. Clint has been catching up on what has happened since his death and knows how Wanda altered reality so there would be no more mutants.[3] When Clint asks where Wanda is now, Stephen explains that all methods of tracking her down — both magically and due to her mutant nature[4] — don’t work because she has seemingly depowered herself as well. Stephen fears that she may even have killed herself. Clint refuses to believe this and also declines an offer to contact the Avengers as he is not ready to reveal to them that he is still alive. This is because Barton needs to track Wanda down and find out why she brought him back to life to get some closure on everything that has happened to him. He is going to start with the last place he saw her, Genosha.

The trail eventually leads him to the city of Transia, the place that Wanda calls home.[5] There he stops a pick pocket who steals a woman’s purse. When he hands it back to the woman it belongs to he is shocked to discover that she looks identical to Wanda. The sudden shock causes Clint to black out. When he wakes up he finds himself in the home owned by the woman he helped. She tells him that the doctor is out of town and tells him to keep it down because her Aunt Agatha is asleep.[6] When asking the woman about what she knows about mutants and the Avengers, he discovers that if this is indeed Wanda, she has no memory of her past life. This causes Clint to cry and without explaining the details, he tells the woman that he came for closure and knows that he won’t find it anymore.

She comforts Clint and the two eventually give in to the attraction they have for one another. When Clint wakes up the next morning, he decides to go and check to see if the woman’s Aunt is real. However, as he reaches the bedroom door he remembers something Strange warned him about before he went looking for Wanda: That he won’t find the closure he needs and entering her life like this could make matters worse. This makes Clint stop what he is doing and he realizes that he has to go. While the woman he thinks is Wanda sleeps, he quickly gets dressed and sneaks out the door in the early morning light.

Recurring Characters

Hawkeye, Doctor Strange, Wong, Scarlet Witch, SHIELD

Continuity Notes

1. Hawkeye was infamously killed when the Scarlet Witch went crazy and attacked the Avengers in Avengers #500-503. Later, when Wanda changed all reality Clint was resurrected as seen in House of M #1-6. This story confirms what was hinted at the end of that series: Hawkeye was back from the dead.

2. The photo used in this newspaper story is of when Hawkeye first joined the Avengers back in Avengers #16.

3. This happened at the conclusion of the House of M storyline. Later in Decimation: The House of M - The Day After #1, we learned that she depowered all but a small number of mutants and eliminated the x-gene from nature. This will remain the status quo until Avengers vs. X-Men #12.

4. Everyone has believed that Wanda was a mutant since X-Men #4. However, it will later be revealed that she was not. In reality, she was experimented upon by the High Evolutionary when she was a baby. In order to cover up his work, he made it so she would always register as a mutant if anyone tested her DNA. See Uncanny Avengers (vol. 2) #4-5.

5. Wanda grew up in the nation of Transia and considers it home, as per Avengers #31. Per Avengers #181-187 she was raised there by her uncle Django Maximoff after the High Evolutionary was done with her.

6. This woman is confirmed to be Wanda in Avengers: The Children’s Crusade #1. The woman she refers to Aunt Agatha is hinted at being her mentor Agatha Harkness. Harkness was killed in Avengers #503. However, this woman is not her, as she will appear as a ghost in Scarlet Witch (vol. 2) #1 and be resurrected in issue #14 of that series.