"NAT!" Clint crashed through the small meeting she, Fury, Tony, and Steve were having. He breathe rasped as he stumbled to the table. "They want t-to... They found out Fury. Th-they wa-wanna." The fourteen year old collasped on the floor, he couldn't breath. He felt like he was drowning. He couldn't- "I can't..."
Natasha was by his side, proping him up. She grabbed his hand and layed it against her chest, telling him to match her heart beat and her breathing.
"Come on Clint, breath, slowly, breath. In and out, that's it, malen'kiy yastreb." Clint could here the other's voice ask what was wrong with him, though Natasha's was the one he focused on. The one that made him calm down. And once he did she pulled him into her tight. "What's wrong, Little Hawk?"
"T-they found out Phil's gone, they wanna take me away. They wanna take me back." Clint sobbed. "I can't..."
"What's happening?" Tony asked, looking around the room, but mainly at Fury.
"Clint's fourteen, he became a SHIELD Agent when he was ten, because he was made into a hiredhand when he was eight, during his time as a carney. But before then he and his brother ran away from orphanages and fosterhomes." Fury said, casting a glance at Clint, who shook in Natasha's grasp. "The CPD were still looking for Clint and Barney. So when we found the hitman Hawkeye, and brought him back with us, Coulson thought it was a good idea to formally adopt Clint. Of course SHIELD couldn't be on the signature of those kind of papers, so Phil signed them."
"So now that Phil is dead, the CPD want to take Clint back into foster care." Steve said, understanding were this story was going. "But why did you allow a ten year old to become a SHEILD agent?"
"Sir, he passed out." Natasha said, placing Clint onto the couch in the corner. Tony raised an eye at the furniture. They were scattered everywhere around the agency buildings, even the Hellicarrier. Though he never really got their purpose.
"Because he was trained to be a stealth killer, that's how he became on our radar. You don't just wake up one day and have us knocking down your door unless you did something real stupid." Fury explained. "And becoming one of the world's best assassin is one of those things."
"At age ten?" Tony raised an eyebrow.
"At age eight." Fury corrected.
"Coulson, I want you on this." Fury slid the manilla folder to his top agent. "Codename Hawkeye, he has been taking out Druglords, Slavetrafficers and underground mobs for about two years now. I want him in SHIELD."
"Does anyone know who he is, what he looks like... The folder is thin." Coulson frayed his brow.
"That's why I want him. He's an asset. We know nothing about this man. All but he is male, kills people, and uses a bow and arrow. And he's a private contracter." Fury was almost giddy as he picked up the practically empty folder and waved it around. "And asset."
"How ever you became Director, I will never know." Phil rolled his eyes at his friend's enthusaism. Only he would think an unknown killer would be a good thing. But Coulson took up the case anyways and began to get ready.
As said before the file was a small one.
Codename: Hawkeye
Age: unknown
Gender: Male
Hair Color: unknown
Eye Color: unknown
Height: Aproxinantly 5'3''
Specialties: Archery, Stealth, Assassinations, LDSK.
Last Known Sighting: Italy
Notes: Is extremely dangrous, proceed with caution, Favorite Color appears to be Purple.
"Wait..wait, wait." Tony interupted the story. "You're telling me that you know Clint's favorite color, before you even knew his age?"
"Purple arrows. No one paints their arrows purple without a reason." Natasha snorted.
"May I continue now?" Fury raised his eyebrow. "So Coulson took the job. And it took about six months to track down Hawkeye. It would have taken longer, but we found a little Carney worker who knew almost everything about the guy."
"What's your name?" Coulson asked as he and a mistery man sat in a booth of a popular cafe. It was crowded, so both were safe in that aspect. And for Coulson to say man was a little pushing it. The kid was eighteen tops, but he was asumed to have the know on Hawkeye.
"Barney Barton. And I know who you are looking for."
"Barney... Barton?"
"Didn't you just interupt for a stupid ass reason, shut the fuck up." Fury glared at Stark. "Yes, Barton, now if you will let me continue?"
"What about the CPD?" Natasha asked real quick, seeing it will annoy Tony to no end if there was just a bit of a cliff hanger for a few seconds.
"We'll get to that tomorrow, Agent."
"His name is Clinton Barton, my brother. I really don't know what happened to him. You could blame it on our parents, they would never win any Parenting of the Year awards. Or the Orphanages and Foster Homes. But I blame his behavior on the Circus, carnival actually. The guy was obsessed with them, so one day we ran and joined one."
"You and your brother joined a circus?" Coulson muttered. "Go on."
"Well, yeah. We were kids back then, and it was better than what we were being dished out too from the CPD. So we joined the Carson's Carnival of Travelling Wonders. We started off as the grunt workers, doing the jobs no one else wanted to do. But Clint, he's got a big mouth, gets him in trouble alot. He made a bet with the knife thrower, that anyone could do what he did. So Clint was given a knife and he made a perfect shot." Barney said motioning with his hands a straight line and clicking his tounge to signify that the 'knife' stuck.
"So he's natural talent?" Coulson noted.
"Clint has always had sharp eyes. Could find a needle in a haystack from fifteen feet up a tree on the other side of a field." Barton nodded. "Then came along Trickshot. He handled the Archery section of the circus acts. He and Buck, the knife thrower, thought if Clint was that good now, what would he be like was trained. So Clint got out of grunt work and became a little star. Can still here the obnoxous announcers. 'Ladies and Gentleman, Hawkeye, the World's Best Marksman'."
"World's Best? That seems a little too much." Coulson smirked.
"Oh but they were right. Ole' Clint never missed, fell eighty stories up and still hit ever arrow to the bullseye, before saving his skin with a grappling arrow. He's insane like that. Would do anything for the kicks of Archery." Barney nonchalantly picked at his fingernails. Coulson jotted down a few more notes, before motioning to Barney to continue with his tale. "That's when things got serious. Circus acts weren't the richest people, but we were well off, a comunity that helped each other out. Clint wanted more, so he Trickshot and Buck started stealing from the owner, Carson. I warned him off of it, said it would get him in big trouble, but he continued. So I did the only thing I could to save my brother. I told Carson, or I tried to."
"What do you mean?" Coulson asked, taking a small sip from his coffee. Sometimes Coulson wondered what other people thought about what was going on in their little table. Maybe a journalist getting the scoop on a storey, or an accountant talking and taking notes on one of his clients. What ever it was, it probably wasn't an Agent for a Secret, covert goverment agency talking to a brother of a deadly assassin, who is off god knows where shooting people with purple arrows.
"I mean, he stopped me, almost killed me, through me in a ditch to die, and left. Trickshot and Buck thought he went to far. They were the reason I'm alive today. But Clint, he vanished, started making a name for himself outside of the carney business. If I were you, I'd shoot on sight." Barney said.
"Do you know how to find him?" Coulson asked. Barney smirked a brought out a laptop.
"He's a private contractor, but I guessed you already knew that. He get's hired by anybody and everybody. But you need to know where to go first. Here." Barney said, stopped his typing and spun the computer to face Coulson. It was a friendly enough looking site, there was purple and black striped background and the homepage title was 'Robin Hood Reserve'. The first hundred pages were a Robin Hood's fan wet dream of anything and everything to do with the vigilanty. There was even a link to the disney movie, and a full beginners lesson on how to use a bow and arrow by a real Archer. But then Coulson got to page fifty-two (quicker than you would think) and saw it. It being a purple arrow. Coulson clicked on it, and it took him to an offsite chat room.
"Why fifty two?" Coulson asked.
"It changes every few days, and a different page for every computer, makes it hard to track." Barney stated. "He also likes getting to the point, numbers and location, then he goes to you, you give him half first along with the information on the hit. He does the hit, and you give him the rest, but he isn't cheap. And he gets booked a lot. Sometimes people buy him for months at a time without even a target, just so he won't kill them. And he doesn't care, as long as he gets paid."
'Raz - 20, Norway.' A small ding alerted Coulson to the screen to see the little chat box come up.
'HawkEye - Where Norway?'
'Raz - Handen.'
'HawkEye - when?'
'Raz - In the Week.'
Barney snapped his computer shut after that.
"I hope I helped you, Agent Coulson."
"Wait, is all of that true?" Steve asked, eyes wide. He knew that Clint had done some pretty horrific things, but that... it couldn't be true - could it?
"Maybe if you would quite stopping my story, you would know by now." Fury huffed. "So Phil goes to Norway to track down Hawkeye. It doesn't take long to find him though. A purple clad guy with a bow strapped to his back running across the roof tops at night. I don't know how anyone would have trouble finding him, though most people don't look for that kind of things."
Coulson slowly and silently climbed the fire escape to the top of the building where his target set up shop to kill his target. Phil got right up onto the guy and pressed the barrel of hi gun to the back of Hawkeye's neck, making him freeze.
"Clinton Barton, I suggest you drop the bow." Phile said, then kicked the weapon aside when the guys actually complied. "Now, slowly walk to the fire escape and ..."
"Yeah, I know the drill." Though this time Hawkeye spun around and kicked the gun out of Phil's hands, making a break for it. He was fast and about to jump onto a cloths line. Coulson thought he had lost the assassin, but all of a sudden Hawkeye went down. He started to convulse and claw at his neck like a caged animal, letting out pained screams.
Coulson ran to him, kneeling next to the body, taking off the aweful mask and ripping off the top of the costume, showing what looked like an electical collar. With a quick slash of his knife, the collar was gone and the assassin stopped convulsing, tears in his eyes.
Shots rang out towards the pair. Acting fast, Phil picked up the horribly light assassin, and ran for it. He managed to avade the shooters and made it back to the Safe House with Hawkeye still intacked, though unconscious. Laying the archer down, Phil got his first good look at the man. But man was not the word for either of the Bartons. This was a boy, a ten year old boy. Electical burning around his neck from the collar, and it seemed to be used long and often. Next was the shoes, they were heeled, making the 4'8'' ten year old look 5'3''. He was malnorished (actually it looked more like he was starved) and pale. He had broken and fractored ribs, some that had healed wrong from prevous beatings. His whole body was like on open wound, expect for his hands and his eyes.
"Private Contractor my ass." Phil growled.
It didn't take long for Clint to wake up, freaked out and skiddish. He held a tooth brosh out like a shank, ready to defend himself. Coulson just kept sitting at the table (moved against the door, so the kid wouldn't make a break for it) and sipped at his coffee, re-editting his notes from what he had learned from the boy so far.
"Hello, Clint. My name is Phil Coulson, from the Stratigic Homeland Intervention Enforcement and Logistic Division."
"S-H-I-E-L-D? What do they do? Are they like FBI or something?" Clint asked, still holding up the toothbrush.
"We look for talent to help protect normal people from the bad people. If the talent is good enough we let them join, if the talent is evil and can't be turned good, we put them in a prision where there is no sunshine." Coulson said bluntly.
"So you're like a sheild... Hey that's what your name spells out too." Clint said, then looked down quickly, like he had done something bad. "So, why are you here?"
"Because we want you. The Stra - SHEILD wants you." Coulson rolled the name around in his mouth and it sort of fit, it was easier to say too.
"I don't ... I'm not allowed to pick jobs, only- only Barney and Trickshot and Buck are allowed too." Clint whimpered. "They don't like it when - when I talk to people." He started to claw at his neck where the collar was.
"It's ok, Clint." Coulson's blood boiled. "See, your brother, and the others, they have bad talent, but you Clint, you are good, you have good talent, and we want to protect you, and you can protect everyone else."
"I-Is that why the collar's gone?" Clint smiled and then leaped onto Coulson, who nodded. "Thank you."
"So you saved Clint from his insane brother. Why is he an agent?" Tony asked. Fury was so close to strangle Stark it was almost funny. "Could you have placed him with a good family or something?"
"Did I say 'The End'? No. Shut the fuck up." Fury snapped. "Coulson brings Clint to SHIELD."
"I asked you to bring in Hawkeye, not a child." Fury said, looking at the interogation room.
"And I did, but it just so happens that Hawkeye is a child." Coulson said, he had already explained to Nick the situation about three times and is refusing to turn it back on.
"We can't have a kid as an Agent." Fury sighed.
"He'll just run away from anywhere else. Nick..." Phil didn't know what to say, but he knew he couldn't let this kid become just a percentage in a sea of orphans again. "He was trained as a killer since he was six. There is no other place to protect him. SHIELD is all he has left."
"SHIELD? That's not bad." Fury smiled.
"And I need a pet project from when I'm done with everything else." Phil nudged at his friend. "Plus we could reform the kid, make him good, not a killer, a real law abidding citizen."
"JUST - just make sure he doesn't do anything bad." Fury sighed.
"So you let him in SHIELD, and he makes the accranym, but he doesn't have a job, why does he have a job now?"
"Stark I swear to god."
It takes about a month to realise that Clint will never change. That killing is drilled into the fibers of his identity. It was like a horrible version of Jason Bourne. It was when SHIELD is inflatrated by Hyrda for the first time since Clint came. And true to the boy's word, he protected himself and his new home.
"Clint, don-" Coulson was too late as the almost eleven year old releases the arrow into the Hydra agent's head. Though the kid did save Melinda May from being gunned down.
"I- she- I couldn't- a-and." Clint dropped his bow and ran into Coulson, sobbing into his waist. "I didn't want her to die. I couldn't.. and he had a gun, and he wasn't SHEILD, so he would have killed her, and I was coming back from the range and it happened so fast, and I'm sorry Phil. I- Please don't leave me."
Phil consoled the child. That's when he knew he was going to make sure that Clint used his gift for good.
"The End." Fury glared at Stark.
"I'm pretty sure you skipped a few details." Tony said.
"Confideniality." Fury laughed. "Sure there was more to it, fights, and Coulsonhad to sign adoption letters. But he's level nine, you are not."
"Ouch."
"So what are we doing about Clint?" Steve asked.
"Phil's will says that he wants Clint to go to either me or Natasha. But that would be a little diffucult." Fury said.
"How do you mean?" Natasha flared, about to go all Widow on the Director.
"PHIL!" The other avengers hadn't noticed either the boy waking up or the supposed dead agent walking into the room, too emmersed in the story.
"Because Coulson still has coustody."