RAPTOR'S BANE
"Ever since he was four, he'd noticed gaps in his memory. Unexplained holes in the passage of time. He would wake in a panic, not even sure of why he was so worked up. Nearly 20 years later, the truth starts to come to light, but it only leaves Clint Barton with more questions than before. Determined to find the answers amid changes he wasn't prepared for, Clint finds his past.
And all the demons with it."
PROLOGUE
If someone asked him what it was like to be in the Circus, he wouldn't be able to tell you much. If someone asked why he'd joined, or how old he'd been, he wouldn't be able to tell you at all. He did know this: he wasn't born into it. He'd once had a family; a father he could never remember (and never seemed to want to), a mother whose voice and face where a distant (but fond) memory and a brother who he had looked up to, as any little brother would. Truthfully, it was only his brother's name that he could recall. Barney had always been there, up until the moment he wasn't. His young mind hadn't quite understood why he wasn't there, nor did he understand fully why his parents weren't there. As he grew older, he learned to hate his brother for leaving him – but that too faded into a naught but a memory. And his brother's name? That faded with time as well.
A person is the sum of their memories. Their experiences: their pain and their joy and all the emotions in-between, when tied to a memory, these make each person who they are. A reason for the type of person they are: what they do, how they act. True, much of this comes from an upbringing as well – but that's another story.
What happens when a person can't remember certain, important things in their lives?
What then?
Clint Barton had always known about the gaps in his memory, unexplained holes in the passage of time. He would wake up to find that days had gone by, and he would never get a straight answer as to why. Oh yes, the clever and observant Hawk was well aware they were hiding things. He knew he wasn't crazy. But as time passed, he began to believe he was.
There was one time, though, that he woke differently from the other times. He didn't wake calmly, no fluttering of eyelids or some other such nonsense. He sprang up, hyperventilating, the effect of yet another memory that was very quickly fading. His panicked mind slowed as a gentle hand on his shoulder pushed him back down onto the soft mattress, the man's calm voice telling him he would be okay. He realized too late that he couldn't see and he was sore all over, and he asked what had happened. He didn't get any answers, but it wasn't because he was hiding things.
It would many years before he would ever get the long overdue answers.
A/N: Wordcount: 429
Welcome to my personal headcanon. This is very AU, though it's based around the movie-verse, and has some twisted comic back story for Clint.
Updated: 2/2/13 – Fixed some wording, re-wrote the summary.