"None of This Makes Sense."
Suddenly these words came flooding back from a time Clint had only thought he had long forgotten about.
These simple words were now echoing in Clint's mind as if he had shouted them into the mouth of a hollow cave so large that it stretched the width of the earth. As if there was no back wall for the words he shrieked to recache off. No low hanging stalactites or jagged corners to interrupt their persistent hurling into the black abyss and exit the cavern once more. Nothing seemed to be able to end their pursuit to burrow into the very recesses of his mind, overwhelm his senses, and drive Clint mad.
In an instant he was able to recall that these were the words he spoke to Wanda nearly three years ago. A relatively short time ago that now felt centuries away. Words that he had spoken to the kid who was afraid of her potential and of what the world might think of her. These were the words he spoke to comfort her mere minutes before her brother died in battle. The boy had died quick and bloody while watching archer's back. While protecting civilians that didn't ask for their city to become a war zone. While doing what was right, yet Wanda forgave Clint anyway.
These were the words he spoke before he found himself fighting colleagues and friends over a governmental dispute. One that would determine if he would be allowed to continue in his line of work. When he was mostly having fun. Shooting, for once, to neutralize instead of to maim. When he was fighting alongside Rogers and trading just as many blows as inside jokes with Nat. That was just before he was locked up in a high security federal prison in the middle of a goddamn ocean next to the cell of a guy he had met just hours prior as he bused the stranger across state lines to assist the super soldier in his fight for ultimate justice.
These words were spoken so many, many months ago. During a time, which Clint was now thinking back on and, even to himself, he seemed almost careless in his actions and naïve in his thoughts.
These were the words Clint spoke before he watched his wife who was enjoying an afternoon outside turn to face their oldest son and scream absolute bloody murder. Before he dropped the axe that he had been swinging in an arc repeatedly to chop wood which only narrowly missed his toes and laid forgotten in the grass. Before he broke into a dead sprint across the yard and up to the porch of his secluded farm house that he once believed was safe. Before he arrived at the steps of the porch to see that his child was no longer sitting on them by the time he arrived.
Before he witnessed his supportive wife, beautiful daughter, and the toddler who sat between them crumble into dust and fade into the air like the lead from a pencil being smeared across a blank sheet of paper.
These words were spoken blindly before Clint collapsed onto the steps and dragged himself to the place on the wooden landing where his family members' ashes landed in uneven piles before a gust of wind came by to sweep a portion of them away.
They were the words that sent Clint barreling to the woodshed and ripping up plie wood with his bare hands to uncover the bow he had hid there just weeks earlier when he had promised his wife that he was ready to put that life behind him. They were the words that forced Clint out of his retirement and sent him on yet another mission halfway across the world. A mission driven by fierce anger and hate for a force he had never encountered and didn't plan to meet alive, but instead planned to send one of his advanced bolts into one of its vital organs instead.
And suddenly, everything made sense.
Author's Notes: For those curious as to where Clint was during Infinity War. It should be mentioned that I have yet to see Antman and the Wasp. This is just a short one shot I wrote up after going to see Infinity War for the second time and reading up on a few different theories online. This is just one of the theories I personally subscribe to believing and think may lead Clint to join us in the final movie. It's an idea that I couldn't stop thinking about until I wrote down.
"Fix Infinity War" you say? I'm afraid I don't have that power my friends. Only the events of Pt. 2 can save us now.
Like what you read or didn't need this particular brand of heartache this soon after the movie? Let me know in the form of a comment!