So, I might have a lot...i mean, A LOT ... of Hawkeye stories out there, but they are only a fraction of the tries and fails of stories i have waiting in my "Orphan" folder. So, I decided to put those poor souls up for a little while to help you get a little Hawkeye fix from me.

These are those Orphans. The unfinished, under-explored, plot thickening builder-uppers that never were. Maybe one day I'll write the rest of them. For now, enjoy the emotional turmoil.

Each Chapter will start out with an explination as to where in the series it belongs, and will end with what could have happened next. Enjoy these little orphans!


Part 1

Meeting Clint Barton

(In my story I write that "every one of them had their own Clint Barton story" and I was just sitting here wondering,.. What was mine? When did that little Hawkeye find and latch onto me, never to let go? Well, here is my story (based on some reality)

It was early May. I decided to go out for the night in the same fashion I did almost every evening I wanted to be by myself. First a movie, then dinner, and a long drive home with my favorite music blasting and me singing like a royal idiot. No one to judge the movie I watched, no one to look disappointingly across the table when I finished a massive desert all by myself, and no one slapping my hand off the radio dials from my occasional binge of country music or Miley Cyrus. That night I went out to see an incredibly popular movie (we all know it was Avengers) and I left the movie theater with an absolute fire in my belly for that peculiar star who had so few lines, but such an imaginative, mysterious, background.

As I sat to my meal I thought about that archer. We had so many things in common, I considered. I loved archery, and so did he. That seemed like enough to develop a friendship in my book. Pretty soon I started something that I was rather guilty for in restaurants. I ordered my meal, hunted down a pen in my purse, and dug out an old receipt. Putting pen to paper, I began to right out a few notes that, unfortunately, usually sent up a red flag to my waiter. I can't tell you how many times I've been mistaken for a food critic. My food hit the table and I glanced up to see him... The man who consumed my fascination.

He had a vaguely disoriented look, as if he couldn't decide how exactly he ended up at my table in the corner of an Applebee's in Nowhere, New Hampshire. I had to admit, I felt the same. His eyes, clouded blue like a spring morning, glanced around the room once or twice before settling on me. I pushed my food aside to better consider him.

I saw pain there. A deep hurt, a concern, and confusion. He'd just won a battle against an alien race, and yet there was still so much he didn't understand. What happened to those friends he had lost? Where was he going to end up? Was he a monster? So many questions scrolled across his face like a neon billboard in a convenience store window. He might have saved the world, but that didn't mean he wasn't still a man.

I leaned forward, stacking my chin on top of my fist to keep my voice just between the two of us. "I feel like there's a story hiding in you," I said to him.

"I'm not sure where to start," he replied.

I glanced down at my sorry excuse for a proper writing implement. Like a newspaper reporter caught without her notebook. "I guess I would say to start at the beginning. After all, it's not like I know you."

Those cerulean clouds dashed across the table and locked onto my dismal hazel ones. "That might take a while."

I shrugged. "I'm not working on anything else."

"Can I trust you?" He asked. Some part of him hopeful, another caught in his own skepticism.

I edged my strawberry kiwi lemonade across the table to rest between his hands. "What have you got to lose? Besides... This could be fun."


And that's how it all began...