originally posted at AO3 -14/5/2012
He isn't quite sure when it started or when it really happened but one day he's staring at a bomb and thinking, What next?
He sometimes thinks that there is only one thing that he loves. What will he do when that one thing isn't there anymore? What will he do? He doesn't know. He's never had to think about it. Is he thinking about it now? No, he can't. There's a man about to blow up; he can save his existential crisis for later. It's not like it's going anywhere.
Wake up, do your job, go to sleep. The monotony is driving him insane. Will didn't think he would ever be able to say that. He's saved from having to blow something up just to shake things up a little by the arrival of Agent Phil Coulson, of SHIELD.
How would you like to not be bored, he asks Will, and Will doesn't even have to think before taking the job. He needs new. He needs thrill. After nearly 900 bombs, being a bomb tech doesn't wouldn't couldn't cut it anymore. He's a wild card.
There are 134 days left in D Company's rotation and Will wonders what there's left to love. There are 134 days left and each one seems like it's nearing a death sentence.
He leaves with 12 days to go, and Coulson smiles thinly at him and says, Welcome.
It feels like a joke, feels like something that Will isn't able to understand and he's never felt stupid before this, and he thinks, Yeah this is going to be fun.
His name is Clint Barton now, the world's greatest marksman. Break all the records, be the best, be better than them. Someone at the back of his head says Be all that you can be, and he laughs a little, because Clint wasn't in the military, was never an Army Ranger.
New life, new identity, new past. It's difficult at the start, remembering who is who, who he is, what has happened to him. Clint Barton is not good with bombs. Clint Barton is a little bit messed up, yeah, but he doesn't like to hold what could have killed him in his hands and think about his mortality.
It's hard, but that seems to be their motto.
At SHIELD, they don't like easy. Take the long way, take the complicated way, take the challenge, every day. New life, new way of thinking. New weapons to learn and love, and yeah, maybe he won't be able to keep his box of mementos any more, but the feel of a bow in his hand and the release of the tension building in it and him more than makes up for it. He considers retrieving the arrowheads and keeping those, but he's not Will anymore, and that was Will's thing.
He's busy. Mission, mission, mission. Train. Missions in countries Clint has never been to, missions to countries Clint has never heard of. Places that James has served in and that Barton has dreamed of.
It's good.
(Natasha comes along later, and there's something else to learn and to understand, but he'll never understand her and when he realises that he falls a little in love with her.)
He isn't quite sure when it started or when it really happened but one day he's in the Middle of Buttfuck, Nowhere holding a bow and waiting for the next target, thinking, What next?
Get up, do your job, go to bed. Watch the doctor from your nest all day, try not to fall asleep. He doesn't know what he's living for, anymore. He doesn't know what he's doing. What is next? What is next? People like you, you live for the thrill. When that is gone, what do you do? You sit. And you wait. Or you jump at the next opportunity.
He is two days away from putting an arrow through someone's eye when the Tesseract decides that it's had enough of being poked and prodded, and everyone, well, freaks out. It's amusing.
It's boring.
Then Loki comes along and Clint thinks, Here we go again.
He presses the scepter against Clint's chest, and something is supposed to happen, but something already had.
There is nothing for him at SHIELD, not anymore. It's time to take things a bit further. Maybe he'll go skydiving. Maybe he'll ride a bike into the Grand Canyon. Or maybe he'll go with the fucking crazy god who's going to destroy everything.
Loki presses the scepter against Clint's chest, and he knows what's supposed to happen because he's not stupid, and what else would someone like Loki want? So he - switches.
It's time to cut your losses and leave, don't look back, you can't look back.
There is nothing for him at SHIELD. When did that happen?
He doesn't say goodbye to Coulson who saved him and gave him a way out, because he gave him another end. Natasha will understand - she has reinvented herself before, she has looked at Clint and has seen the risk-taker, the fucker who would put other people in danger, even while trying to take care of them, just for another rush. He didn't even have to tell her about Iraq and Afghanistan.
Some people collect stamps. Some people jump off buildings. Clint goes with the crazy assholes who know that this could be it.
What is the point in living if you're bored? What is the point? Questions twist themselves up into ribbons in his head and he knows that the answer is: there is none.
The scepter is cold and blue but his heartbeat is a staccato in his ears, and this is it. After nearly four years, being a government plaything doesn't wouldn't couldn't cut it anymore. He's a wild card.