The Kid That Doesn't Miss

by wildpeace

He was born on a grey Tuesday... How a baby born in Iowa becomes the world's greatest marksman (and everything in between).

He was born on a grey Tuesday, thin as a corn stalk and bellowing, his face scrunched up in a frown as though most unimpressed by his entrance into the world. His mama, exhausted, had watched with hope as they'd hauled him off to clean. The spark in her eyes had lasted not even 'til they handed him over to rest on her chest; the message 'it's a boy' piercing like an arrow through her. Another boy- another man of the house. More scraped knees, dump truck toys, and another hungry mouth to feed who wouldn't be expected to help in return.

Husband waiting in the hallway, whiskey-scented clothes and their first limp child sleeping rough on a row of plastic chairs, Susan Barton sighs. The baby - nuzzling around for a breast, already greedy, taking without asking - opens his eyes. It's Iowa; guileless blue gazes are a dime a dozen on tow-headed farm boys, her husband and her preschool son share the same pair that are as bright and clear and empty as the wide prairie sky above them. When the baby looks at her, his eyes ain't clear. They tend towards the grey, like clouds before a twister or a storm waiting to settle.

He frowns at her, apparently already unhappy with his lot.

She kisses his head, and the empathy burns.

xxx

At three, he sits outside the little house tossing stones at a tin can. His feet are bare, his hands smudged with dirt, but he listens hard for the little 'ping ping ping' of his rocks hitting their mark.

He ain't good at much. Can't read - Barney's in second grade and can already read - and when he tries writing his name he can't quite get the letters come in the right places. He ain't good at keeping clean or keeping quiet, even when he tries. His daddy gets home from work and yells at his mama for the mess all over the floor, even though he tries to tell him that it weren't her fault, he just forgot to wash his feet in the pail is all, before he came in the house. But one of the neighbour dogs got loose, Daddy. Not the nice ones that he feeds scraps to when he's got scraps to spare and ain't chewing on cheeks full of grass like his daddy's tobacco, but one of the big black ones that's meant to stay in the yard and behind the chain-link fence.

At three, he's pretty sure his name is 'damn retard' - he hears it more than Clint. From his daddy, from Barney, from the neighbours who find him scrumping in their apple trees, his lips stained with juice and his pockets crammed full.

His Mama bakes the best apple pie in Bremer County. She has a blue ribbon for it and everything. When Daddy's working, she sits him up on the counter and turns the radio on, and they listen to guitars pickin' and sad voices crooning about lost loves and last chances. She lets him eat slices of apple dipped in sugar, and he measures the flour out best he can; some of it gets on his hands and on the floor, but on cooking days, Mama doesn't seem to mind the mess. They chop vegetables and Clint stands on a backwards chair to stir gravy at the stove, pushing his hair back from his forehead with an arm. It's getting too long again, Daddy says, and dammit, Susan, do you want him to look like a girl? Clint doesn't mind so much though. He likes when Mama runs her fingers through his golden hair, in the afternoons when the music's still on low and the house smells like baking apples and cinnamon. She sings along sometimes, her voice sweet but husky from the cigarettes she sneaks out the screen door when she thinks no one's looking, and he falls asleep watching the patterns of sunlight dance on the dusty floor.

When Daddy ain't working, there's no more music and Mama never sings. He ain't allowed no more cooking lessons either. You want him to be a pansy, is that it? Daddy's voice is loud and angry- Clint can hear it from outside, even over the 'ping ping ping' of his rocks, the barking of the dogs behind the chain-link, and the hum of next door's generator. He hums himself, trying to get his voice to match the pitch of the electric whine, to block out the sounds of all the curses being thrown back and forth.

The yell of his name shocks him like a battery, and his stone skitters off course, landing in the dirt. His hands tremble as he walks inside, the slamming of the screen door like the crack of a bullet behind him.

Mama lifts him up onto the counter then, and he thinks for a brief moment that Daddy's changed his mind. But Mama's eyes are wet and sad, and Daddy has the kitchen scissors in his hands and beer on his breath. Clint's teeth bite into his cheek and his mouth tastes of hot copper and salt as he watches the chunks of golden hair fall onto the stovetop.

When he's sent up to bed his face is a mixture of tears and snot, and his head is patchy with tufts of hair and blood from cuts too close to the scalp. In the other twin bed, Barney peeks out from under the blankets, a flashlight held in his teeth to light up the pages of his Captain America comic. He is milk skin and freckles, and hair tending towards the red, and as he takes in the sight of his little brother, the flashlight falls from his lips. Clint climbs into his own bed, grasps the thin blanket and begins to cry. He doesn't even notice Barney at his side until he feels the hand on his shoulder. Peeling wet eyelashes apart, he stares up at his big brother, who has seen so much more of the world.

Barney puts a finger against his lips. "Don't be a sissy," he says in a whisper. "It'll only make him hate you more."

xxxx

In kindergarten, he gets in trouble for not bringing something to the canned food drive.

All the rest of the class remembered, Clint Barton, you're the only one who forgot. How selfish, letting the class down like that. With all those starving children out there.

What he doesn't tell them is that his mama would probably be at the front of the line when the food bank opened, save her own pride and the lash of his daddy's belt.

xxxx

He doesn't mean to take it. Not really. But he ain't got more than a nickel in his pocket and his bagged lunch hadn't been on the counter when he left home this morning. He's not sure Mama can make a bagged lunch with one arm busted up and two teeth missing anyhow. He'd tried to make his own, but when he opened the fridge all he'd found were beer and mayonnaise. Hungry as all get out, he'd eaten three spoonfuls of the stuff before it made him feel sick, and he knew he ain't allowed to drink beer at school.

Sitting in the lunchroom, he blends in amongst his classmates and no one notices that none of the sandwiches, chips or cookies belong to him. He's got good at disappearing in plain sight.

He's not a thief - they didn't even want it. So what if he took it?

He's sitting near the end of the bench, next to the garbage can, and it's a third grader who throws it away. He hears the heavy thunk of a not-quite-empty paper bag hitting the surface of refuse, and as he glances over, the bright, shiny lid of the unopened fruit cup stares back at him.

His hand shoots out so fast he knows no one sees. Into the garbage and then snapped back, his prize shoved roughly up his shirt. Pushing himself back from the table, he walks - walking gains less attention than running - to the bathroom, before locking himself in a stall. Sitting down on the closed toilet seat, he peels back the lid of the cup, the tang of peach assaulting his senses and making him salivate so hard he has to swallow a couple times before he can make his next move. Dipping his fingers into the cup, he drags up one curved sliver of fruit, shoving it between his lips. The fruit is sweet and tart and silky, and soft against his baby teeth. Juice trickles down his wrist and he drags his tongue against his skin, not wanting to lose a single drop.

When he's finished the fruit he feels almost drunk. He blames that as the reason he doesn't hear their footsteps outside the door, and when he hears his teacher call his name, he doesn't even have time to hide the evidence. Syrup stains his stripy sweater and the plastic cup won't flush.

It turns out one of his tablemates had turned him in. Seen him stealing food from the garbage, and told the lunch lady about his contraband. Lunch lady told his teacher. Teacher followed the scent of sticky peach and shame.

The lash of the cane against his palm is swift and shocking, and leaves his skin searing.

It's not the first scar he ever gets. It's not the last.

xxxx

He's not a pretty kid. Grey eyes and a square jaw, and a nose too flat for his face. Hair that used to be gold growing in like sun-parched corn stalks, withered and tinged with brown. He's all bony elbows under squat, broad shoulders, and a face that's never quite clean, set with permanent curiosity that reads as a frown.

He does smile. When his mama takes him into town and there's a dog tied up outside the grocery store, the ruffle of fur and the lick of a hand always makes him grin. The dogs never dismiss him. They lean into his touch for affection that he is more than willing to give. He tangles small fingers in their fur and scratches behind their ears, squatting on the sun-dry sidewalk like a gnome. Usually his mama leaves him there to entertain himself; easier than dragging him around the aisles chasing illusive bargains or making him watch as they have to put items back on the shelves after another card got rejected.

"I'm gonna have my own dog one day," he tells his Mama when she drags him from a scruffy stray retriever, his grubby palm pressed against hers as they lace their fingers together. The grocery sack she carries is small and he wonders if she got him a treat.

"You worry about feeding your own self before you worry about a damn dog," she tells him sharply, but when he looks up at her, his eyes wide, she sighs and cups his chin. Her voice softens. "You're a good boy," she tells him, her fingers bony but her touch soft. "You know what, you keep caring about those dogs. It's there but for the grace of God that we ain't all strays, you understand?"

"Yes Mama," he answers, even though he doesn't.

Licking her finger, she rubs a smear of dirt from his cheek. "There but for the grace of God."

xxxx

The milk is turned. He can smell the sour, pungent odour as his mama sets the glass down in front of him, and he stares resolutely at his lima beans. He's tried hiding as may as he can under his mashed potato, but now it's turning a mottled shade of green so he knows that's not going to last for long. A forkful to his mouth takes an age and he chews, chews, swallows slowly and tries to keep the frown from his face.

He knows he should be thankful. Daddy's working down at the factory a few days a week and that means food on the table. It means heating the trailer that they moved into when Daddy decided the house was just too damn big and too damn expensive.

They sit around the dining table that flips over and doubles as Barney's bed. Mama and Daddy have the bedroom and Clint - 'cause he's the smallest - has a cot mattress on the floor under the window. It's been a pretty cold winter and he's spent more than one night lying there watching the snow hit the plastic pane, watching the cold water eek between the seal and drip down the wall. He's got pretty good at tucking plastic grocery bags around his arm so he doesn't get wet.

He's finished his last forkful of lima beans when he asks to be excused. There's a tree out at the back of the lot that's higher than their old house, and he's still trying to make his way to the top. Sure, the frost is proving a challenge, but he's only fallen once, and didn't get any worse than a cut lip and a bang to the head.

"Finish your milk," his Mama says, cutting up her chicken.

Wrinkling his nose, he pushes the glass away with the tips of his fingers. "It's spoiled, Mama."

His Daddy, beer in hand, points his fork in Clint's direction and frowns hard. "Mind you mother."

Barney sips his glass of water. He's tall and lanky and Mama don't insist on him drinking milk every meal.

His mama leans over to look at his glass. "He doesn't have to drink it if it's off," she starts, reaching for the cup to check Clint's words, but his daddy grabs her wrist, holding it firm against the plastic tablecloth.

"It's fine," he insists. "He's just fussin'. I've been out working all day for you to buy groceries - he can drink a damn glass of milk."

Clint can see the chunks floating when he moves his glass. His stomach clenches. "Daddy, it's gone bad. Please, I don't want to drink it."

"It'll make him sick, Joe."

"Yeah, Daddy, it'll make me sick."

His father's palm slaps the table like a crack of thunder. His knife goes skittering across the table, ends up resting on the worn vinyl next to Barney's thigh. His jaw is clenched and working, and his breath hoppy and close as he grabs Clint by the neck. "Drink the damn milk."

His hand wraps around the glass and presses it against Clint's lips. The smell is sour and rancid and Clint tries to move his face away but his daddy's grip is too strong. He opens his mouth to plead, but it proves a bad move; Daddy tips the glass and the cold, chunky liquid washes against his tongue. He coughs and splutters but his throat works of its own accord and starts swallowing it down.

He can hear his mother's pleads and feel his brother's eyes on him, but his daddy's grip is strong and unrelenting. Soon the glass is empty and he's sitting, crying sour hiccupping sobs. It doesn't even take ten seconds before his stomach churns and he vomits spoiled milk and lima beans down his front and into his lap. It mingles with bile and tears on his face and Clint feels worse than he thinks he's ever felt.

His Mama moves to come to him, but his father once again grabs her hand, pinning her wrist to the table. "Leave him," he says, picking up his beer and taking a long sip, as though nothing out of the ordinary were going on. "He should learn to mind his mother."

They finish their dinner with the sound of Clint's vomit drip, drip, dripping onto the floor.

xxxx

The floor of the pickup is icy cold and the mats are thin rubber that have seen better days. He doesn't even have his coat. He considers going and trying the front door again, begging for them to unlock it, but he knows it'd do no good. He'd banged and pleaded for a good hour when he'd first been thrown out.

It'd been Barney's idea to look. Clint knew it'd been a bad idea but his big brother had grinned, nudged him in the ribs with his elbow and wheedled, like they were two pals on a great adventure.

Daddy sleeping in the easy chair is easy enough to get past. He snores like a log saw and the pattern of creaky floorboards is burned into Clint's memory. Their sock feet glide across the nylon carpet, Barney hitching his too-big pants as they go, and he pushes Clint slightly aside as they reach the bedroom door. His fingers press against his lips and Clint nods his head, mimicking the action.

The bedroom is rumpled sheets and dusty photos and Mama's blue ribbon for apple pies. It's pairs of shoes piled up that Clint knows he's never seen Mama wear, all heels and fancy straps, and dresses in the closet that shimmer and swish. He runs his finger along some purple silky fabric as Barney crawls under the bed.

"He keeps it here for robbers," he says, his voice muffled into the rug and darkness. Pulling himself out, he holds a square wooden box in his hands. "'pparently he brought it back from the war."

They sneak it out back and take pot shots at cans set up on the edge of the property. Barney hits one more by luck than aim, and crows at his little brother to beat him. Clint furrows his brow and bites his lip and hits three in a row, sending them spiralling across the ground. Barney takes the gun and backhands him into the dust, and goes to wake their father.

Clint stole your gun, Daddy. I told him not to but he wouldn't listen.

The belt lashes burn against his back and he's not sure if his ribs are just bruised or broken but it hurts every time he takes a breath. Snowflakes are trickling outside and he pulls his arms inside his sleeves - even though it pains enough to make him sob - and tucks them around his chest, hands in armpits, body shivering.

He knows he's lucky the truck was left open at all. If he tries to sleep in the yard, or even in by the front door, frostbite might get him and he could lose his toes. Not that they feel much better right now. The tops of his tennis shoes are peeling away from the soles, and he can stick his thumb clear through one of the holes. His jeans are thick but the cold bites through them anyway and his knees knock as he tries to press them together. He curls his body into as small a ball as he can, pressed underneath the passenger dash.

Clint thinks he must be almost asleep - or unconscious, whichever was coming for him - when the door to the truck's pulled open with a creak. A new blast of icy air hits him, and it's all he can do not to cry out.

Flashlight in the mouth, milk-white face and freckles. Barney. "What are you doing on the floor you retard? You're gonna freeze to death like that."

The cold has made Clint slow and stupid, and it takes him a minute to sit up. "Barney?" he murmurs, the words heavy as marbles in his mouth. "What you doing here?"

His brother's face flashes with something akin to guilt. "I'm helping you out, dummy. Get up."

"You letting me in?" Clint's body moves quicker now, and he scoots along the floor of the truck, his eyes lighting on the door to the trailer. He can just imagine the soft buzzing and burned dust smell of the electric heater. He begins to slip out of the truck.

A hand on his arm stops him, and Barney's sharing his head. "Can't. Dad'll know and then we'll both be out here."

Clint's stomach drops. "Then what - "

He doesn't get to finish asking before Barney's picking up his haul from the floor. "Look, it was meant to be a joke, okay? I didn't mean it like this. Here."

The truck door shuts and Barney's gone before Clint even gets a chance to process the bundle in his arms. After blinking heavily a few times, he recognises his winter coat, hat, scarf and gloves, wrapped up in the thickest wool blanket from the bottom of Mama's closet. It's scratchy and Mama says made by Indians, and Clint wraps it around his body as he pulls on the rest of his gear. It's not much, but he snuggles into the new warmth, dragging his body up onto the bench seat and stretching out. The blanket around him like a burrito, hat pulled down to his brows, scarf over his mouth and nose, he lays there and breathes in his own recycled air.

Through the windshield, he can see the snowflakes falling, and the dim light of Barney's flashlight through the trailer window. It doesn't go out for a long time.

Closing his eyes, Clint finally gives in to sleep.

xxx

He's so high up, he's pretty sure he can see for miles. Maybe into another state, maybe even all the way to the ocean if he looks hard enough. He's never seen the ocean before.

Bark is firm and rough under his palms. Branches sturdily bear his weight, leaves swaying lightly in the breeze. He wonders if he can see Mama and Daddy from here, drove into town for the doctors.

He knows his Mama's sick. He watched her throw up, right in the kitchen sink after pouring him some juice. He doesn't drink milk anymore. He doesn't understand why Daddy started yelling, dammit Susan, don't I have enough to put up with? and stormed off to his easy chair with a beer, his breakfast left untouched.

Clint watched as Barney snatched the bacon from his daddy's plate, shoving it between his lips so fast he looked like a squirrel hoarding nuts. The boys don't get bacon. They can have it when they pay the bills. They get toast and jelly when times are good and store brand cereal when they're not. When times are really bad they get a pat on the head and a large glass of water with maybe a spoon full of sugar for flavour.

Daddy had drunk four beers before Mama finally managed to calm him down. You never know, Joe, she told him, one hand hovering over his meaty forearm, the other lingering at the curve of her waist. Maybe a girl this time, someone to help with the cooking and cleaning and all?

His daddy countered back with, one more mouth to feed, but hauled himself up anyways.

Shouldn't we wait, maybe a while? Mama's voice had been soft but hesitant, and Daddy had scoffed. You'd've waited to tell me 'til the damned thing dropped right out of you. Let's go.

That had been hours ago. Clint had spent the morning washing the dishes and scrubbing the kitchen 'til it was as clean as he could get it. He thought maybe it would make his Mama happy when she came home from the doctors; if the baby in her belly wasn't a girl, he could still help her out. Could still be a good son. So he'd cleaned, and he'd waited. He'd tried to do his math homework but couldn't find any paper and so gave up on that; his teacher didn't like it when his sums were scrawled on the back of the weekly news.

It had been heading for evening when he'd started up the tree. Sneakers and hands used branches like a ladder, and orange-red hues painted the fields of corn 'til everything looked like melting gold, like his own little El Dorado. Sitting at the top, a cool breeze buffeted his face.

He's not sure how long he's up there. Yawns wrack his body, and he can hear the nightly spring sounds of buzzing cicadas and libidinous bullfrogs, the lazy whistling sway of the cornstalks.

Eventually Barney calls him down. They sit together at the fold-away table, bowls of cereal substituting a real meal because they know they're not allowed to use the stove. Even though Clint knows the recipe to his mama's blue ribbon apple pie off by heart. He sprinkles sugar in his bowl and stares down as the milk turns murky.

"Is Mama really sick?" he asks, turning the spoon in his fingers, watching the reflections ebb and bend.

"I guess," Barney nods, methodically shovelling cornflakes between his lips. "Maybe they have to keep her there, like the time you stepped on the nail in the yard."

The phone hasn't worked for months, so they're not expecting a call. They finish their meal, put away the dishes, and change into their pyjamas. Clint dawdles for a while, plucking at his pillows, until Barney makes a huff, holding up his covers in invitation. Clint doesn't hesitate. He slides his body in next to his big brother, and lets him tuck the blankets around them.

They're woken up in the morning by a knock. Neither one of them remembers falling asleep. Clint looks at Barney, unsure of what to do; for a moment they both lay stock still.

"Police," the voice rings through the door. "Open up."

Clint's off the bed in a shot, and Barney's reaching for him but Clint gets to the door quicker. A pair of men in uniform seems to crowd their little trailer.

He doesn't remember their faces. He doesn't think to ask their names. He does remember the grip on his shoulder, warm palm burning through the cotton of his pyjamas. He focuses on that, on the feeling of strange hands touching him as they tell him about the truck, and how maybe Daddy fell asleep at the wheel from all his hard work at the factory (he hasn't worked there for a month, but Clint doesn't tell them that), and how his Daddy and his Mama never even made it to the doctor to see if that baby in her belly was a girl who could help with the cooking. How the doctors did what they could but there wasn't much doing, and how they need to be brave boys now.

They're given some time to gather their things. Clint can only find one glove and doesn't know which jeans to take because one pair is too short but Mama was supposed to put a patch on the other from where he fell at recess. After packing as much of his clothes that'll fit in his duffel, Clint creeps into Mama and Daddy's bedroom. Its rumpled blankets and dusty photos are still the same, but he doesn't reach for these - even the one of them and him and Barney at the county fair, with matching shirts and hungry smiles - instead, he tugs a rosette from the dresser mirror.

"Best apple pie in Bremer County."

He slips it in his pocket, and is just leaving the room when Barney wanders in, his own duffel over his shoulder. Reaching under the bed, he pulls out the familiar square wooden box, and shoves it down deep within his bag, edged between his clothes.

His fingers press against his lips.

Slowly, Clint lifts his hand and mimics the action.

xxxx

The orphanage is crowded and rowdy and he and Barney share a bunk bed. He's never had a bunk bed before. They sleep in a dorm with eight other boys and within a week he's lost his blanket - the thick woollen one that the Indians made – both pillows, and his down body warmer. He sleeps on his folded arms under the thin top sheet and tries to muffle his crying against his skin.

A month in he steals a butter knife from dinner and tucks it into his jeans, and when the bigger boys come for him he brandishes it as a threat. The oldest one laughs and punches him in the stomach, and the knife goes skittering across the floor. This time they take his sneakers, ripped from his feet, and he has to limp back to bed across the cold linoleum.

When he arrives at breakfast the next day the nuns are not impressed. It's a rule to wear shoes in the dining hall, and his feet are bare. When they ask where his shoes are, he wants to tell them, but somehow the words get stuck in his throat, and all he can do is shrug.

As punishment, the soles of his feet are struck with a cane repeatedly, before being plunged into a bucket of ice.

You knew the rules, the nuns tell him, chiding, and he can't disagree. He did know the rules.

That night the oldest boy wakes up with the barrel of a gun pressed against his throat and a threat hissed against his ear. In the morning, all of Clint's things are returned, and he sits atop the Indian wool blanket as he eases his sneakers onto bleeding feet. No one steals from him again.

xxxx

When the circus comes to town he's twelve. He sees the poster - festooned with bright colours and promises of amazing acrobats and fire juggling - and is enraptured. He knows he doesn't have the money to go, but he's got pretty good at sneaking into places he isn't supposed to be. He'd been in the girls' dorms, after all, practicing kissing with Mary Ellen when he should've been on potato peeling duty and no one had ever known.

The first night he sneaks in alone - mingling with the crowds, everyone assuming he's someone else's kid - and sits at the fold out bleachers near the top, hiding in the shadows and not far from an exit in case he needs a quick escape. But turns out, no one gives him a second thought once he's in. Everyone's staring at the small circle in the centre when the Ring Master comes out- top hat, tailcoat, waxed moustache taking over his face. It's just like Clint imagined it. He bites his nails as the trapeze artists swing from the top of the rickety tent, cheers loudly as the female acrobats in their skimpy sequined leotards balance on one hand on the back of a galloping horse's saddle, and holds his throat in sympathy at the sight of the sword swallower.

When he sneaks back into the dorm that night - way after curfew - he can't wait to wake Barney and tell him all about it. Barney - fifteen and a jealous guard of his sleep - swats him away with a curse, but Clint keeps talking until his brother murmuringly promises to follow him there.

The next day the smell of stale popcorn and musky horses greets Clint like an old friend. He and Barney have no trouble slipping in, sitting amongst a large group of children.

The lights dim and they watch the show. Clint loves the acrobats, their grace and the way they can throw their bodies across the ground and through the air without the slightest sign of effort.

His brother likes the swordsman.

The act is traditional. A woman - scantily clad enough to make Clint blush, just a little - tied to a board and spun around. The man - a handful of knives and a killer aim. They hit the board - bang, bang, bang - around her body, and the audience screams. When the swordsman stills the board, the woman is unharmed, and the audience breaks into applause, relieved and amazed.

Clint and Barney leave the striped big tent with matching grins. "I could do that," Barney boasts.

"Me too," Clint agrees, though he isn't really sure which part he's agreeing to.

Barney slings an arm round his shoulder and squeezes, tight.

They leave the orphanage that night.

xxxx

Clint likes the circus. He likes the freedom of being in one place one day, and gone the next. He likes the buzz - there's always something to do, something to mend, someone to help, and he likes helping. He spends the first two years fetching and carrying and making friends with everyone - from Luca, the Romanian horse tender, to Madam Clarice, the fortune teller. Andre the fire juggler teaches him - with a lewd smile and a wink - which trailers to spy on, and he learns about sex watching the Chinese contortionist and one of the trapeze girls do things he'd never considered physically possible. He masturbates so furiously outside of the trailer he's surprised they don't hear him when he comes.

The clowns teach him poker and tell him he's got a great face for a bluff, and the Strong Man teaches him curses in Russian. The acrobats are mostly young women and mostly Soviets, and think he's sweet. When they press kisses to his cheeks they smell like powder and flowers and he likes spending time in their tents, even if they do sometimes paint lashes and lipstick on him like a girl. He likes the way it makes them giggle, falling into softly scented piles of tangled limbs and finger-curled hair.

He loses his virginity at fifteen to Amina the tightrope walker under the bleachers of the big top. It's warm and musty and they lay in a pile of hay and old popcorn, sweaty limbs tangled around each other and his breath coming in desperate pants. She traces his shoulders - broader now, more defined from years of carrying horse feed and climbing to rig the big striped tent - and laughs as he shudders. Her accent is broad and husky and when he asks, she says she is from the small town of Tsovak, near the shore of Lake Sevan. He doesn't have any idea where in the world that is, but just the exotic sound of it, coupled with her deep brown eyes and warm, curved breasts are enough to make him press another kiss to her lips. She tosses her dark curtain of hair with a laugh.

On the really cold nights, he sleeps in with the horses. He presses himself against their warm bodies and listens as they snort against the intrusion, shuffling around the trailer. Apples stolen to curry their favour go a long way to making his presence more accepted, until enough of the winter passes that they're used to his company. In the day, he rides around with the acrobats and clears the hooves of even the most stubborn of mares. At night, he beds down in the hay and dreams of sliced apples, dipped in sugar.

xxxx

Clint learns to juggle and tumble, unicycle, and walk on his hands. Barney learns to turn the games so they're practically impossible to win, how to smooth talk the customers out of their money, but Clint can always find the ball under the cup and his tossed hoop always finds its target.

One night, the Swordsman is behind him as he plays. "Good aim," he comments. "Ever tried something harder?"

Clint can't see Barney's jealousy, but he can feel it burning against his back as he walks across the pressed-grass ground of their campsite. In the backstage area he's handed knives, taught how to feel for their balance, how to throw them for precision. Seems he has a gift for it, because after a couple tries he hits the target every time. "Damn," the Swordsman laughs, dark with years of tobacco and whiskey. "You'll put me out of a job."

The Swordsman - Duquesne - claims Clint as his assistant, and day by day he learns more, adding more tricks to their little two-man show. He can juggle the knives, throw behind him at still targets, and hit moving targets in a pinch. Duquesne's spinning board holds no challenge for him.

xxxx

In the end it comes down to a poker game, and a bottle of whiskey. Duquesne - drunk as a skunk - with a pair of sixes and a face made for bluffing, versus a man named Chisholm; new to the circus and with his cards held close to his chest. Clint, sharpening knives, chokes down a laugh when he finds out Chisholm's act.

"Archery?" he guffaws with a raised eyebrow. "Like Robin Hood?"

Chisholm raises the stakes with a slow push, one shoulder raised in a semblance of a shrug, though Clint don't see a measure of embarrassment in him. "Pin the wings of a fly from 200 feet," he drawls, picking up his glass and draining it. "None of this pretty girl on a wheel bullshit. Real targets. Real skill."

Duquesne curses him, calling the hand, and then crows as his pair of sixes beats Chisholm's fours. "You in this deal Clint?"

Clint considers things for a long moment. Picking up the pack of cards he taps the deck against his palm, right over the scar from his fruit cup caning. "Okay, I'll play," he agrees. "One condition."

Chisholm raises his eyebrows in curiosity.

"If I win, you'll teach me."

The clowns always said he had a face for a bluff.

xxxx

The week he first holds a bow is the same week he first sees the ocean, and it's like both of them open a whole new world to him. The bow, in some ways, feels like he's always known it, like a familiar weight in his hand and strain on his arm. The ocean, however, is the best kind of foreign, and the girls laugh at him as he throws himself bodily into the water, despite its Atlantic chill.

He could go anywhere, he thinks, from here. The world is open to him. The circus is full of foreigners; people come to America from the rest of the world. Why couldn't he do the opposite? Travel the world and see all the places they used to call home? Find himself a piece of land and carve his name upon it.

xxxx

With a bow, Clint can split the strap of a woman's dress, pin a flipped quarter from across the camp ground, and hit a horse clean through the eye socket. The first, for fun, the second, a challenge, and the third because Luca couldn't bear to shoot the poor lame thing. It's the first thing that Clint ever kills and he feels it like a punch to the gut.

When he performs his show to the audience, they scream and holler with excitement. Targets get smaller, further away. Still he hits them. Sometimes Amina tosses things from her place high on the tightrope - he hits them every time. "I can't miss,"he tells her one night when she's once again taken him to her bed. She rotates around the young men of the circus as the mood takes her, an arrangement that works for them all. No jealousy and a warm body every so often.

Sometimes he dreams he'll marry Amina, but when he tells her, she just laughs and kisses his cheeks, lips pouty and painted deep rouge. "What need do I have for a man who can shoot an apple off my head?" she asks him. "I need a man with money. One day, I'll have my own restaurant, cook all the food from my home for fat Americans."

"I could help," he replies, tugging her against his body so their damp skin is pressed together.

"How could you help me?" she asks, wriggling her hips against his with a grin. "Will you give me money?"

Taking her hand, he presses a kiss to her palm. "No," he tells her. "But I can make the best apple pie in Bremer County."

xxxx

By the time he is eighteen, Amina's run off with the Strong Man, so much money's been skimmed from the circus that people have started asking questions, and Clint's killed a man.

It wasn't exactly his fault; money isn't like a fruit cup. When he caught Duquesne with hand in the kitty... he'd had to confront him. Duquesne had been the first one to take him on, to teach him, but the circus has been his home long before that. He couldn't turn his back on that.

Clint had gone to his trailer, asked him to put it back, to come clean, but Duquesne wouldn't listen. Pulling back his fist, he'd cracked Clint in the jaw, hitting his target more by luck than judgement, soaked with the scent of whiskey and beer. It had been reflex to hit back.

He hadn't expected the old man to fall like he had. Probably should've, given the ratio of alcohol to blood in his system, but he hadn't be thinking at the time. He'd just watched as Duquesne had fallen, his head hitting the table in the middle of his trailer with a sickening crack. Clint hadn't had to look twice at the angle of his neck to know he wasn't getting up again.

He calls Barney, of course he does, because despite everything Barney's his big brother and he'll know what to do.

Barney hands him his duffel and their father's gun and tells him to run away and not stop.

So he does.

He leaves the only home he's ever felt safe in and runs. Gun shoved deep in his bag and cap pulled low over his eyes, he hitchhikes north. He avoids families - mainly relying on the sympathy of truck drivers - but helps one little old lady change her tire outside of a run-down diner in Kentucky, and she'd been so damn grateful she'd driven him halfway to Nebraska for his troubles.

He's in the middle of nowhere, Wyoming, with his hands wrapped around a steaming cup of coffee, trying to figure out how many days it'll take him to get to the Canadian border and whether he has enough money to sleep in a flea-bitten motel tonight or whether a doorstep'll have to do. His shirt sticks to his body, because washing up in a McDonald's restroom ain't the same as proper bathing, and he scratches at the back of his neck. His hair is getting too long again, wispy round his nape, and he tugs at it as he thinks.

Evening falls fast, and he huddles into his jacket, bag high on his shoulder. He's just looking for a deep doorway, somewhere to block out the wind, when a poster on a window catches his eye.

US Army Recruitment Office.

When the open the office door the next morning, he's already waiting outside.

xxxx

He lies on his recruitment form. Lies about his hometown, lies about High School, lies about doctors' names and vaccinations and everything he can think of. Still, he's pretty sure he remembers reading once in History about how Captain America lied on his forms to get into the Army, and they'd made movies about him, so Clint figures it can't be too much of a sin.

There's a lot about the army he likes. He has a bed that's his, no one takes his stuff, and the bluff that worked on the clowns works on the enlisted just as well. He gets three hot meals a day, seconds if he asks real nice, and a safe place to run all his energy off. His uniform fits, and if his boots wear out he can just requisition new ones.

He can shoot a target without even thinking about it. Years of practice make it simple, despite the change of weapon. Instead, he does focus - he makes sure he's always off by enough that he doesn't raise suspicion. Here, his safety is in his anonymity. He doesn't need to be the best.

After basic training he gets quickly deployed, and sees the world from a canvass of camo and beige.

xxx

In Somalia, he spends his days watching as food trucks rumble across the hard-bitten earth, all the while palming the barrel of his appointed gun (not his daddy's gun, which sits secured away in his footlocker, one of few treasures to his name). Hungry faces half-hide behind buildings, flinching away from cars backfiring and heavy footsteps like the devil's at their door. Wide, dark eyes from drawn faces watch him from beneath scarves and too-shaggy hair. Dry tongues lick parchment lips.

He tries smiling at these people – these people whose land he stands on and on whose roads he walks – but it's a stranger on his face and his face is stranger still. So he juggles with pebbles while he waits for action, and if he sees a laugh on a small girl's face then he studiously ignores it, but throws the rocks a little higher because he can.

It's been three months when he hands one of the smallest boys an apple saved from his lunch. The kid snatches the fruit from his fingers like he's going to change his mind, and Clint earns a cuffing on the ear from one of the officers.

"Isn't our job to feed 'em Barton. Leave that to the UN. Our job is to keep those trucks rolling and make sure no one's picking 'em clean the minute they're parked up."

Clint reaches up, rubs at the back of his neck. It's sweaty and sunburned and hot to the touch. "It was an apple."

The officer snorts and adjusts his sunglasses. Rays of light bounce off the lenses and mirror his expression from the world. Clint has no idea if he's amused, angry or exasperated. All he can see is his own reflection, bouncing back.

"It's like a dog, see? Feed 'em off the table once and they'll always come begging for scraps. Never have a peaceful meal again."

Clint remembers it's there but for the grace of God that we ain't all strays, but nods his head anyway, and goes back to guarding the convoy.

Two weeks later one of the trucks explodes at the roadside, and the officer dies where he stands. Clint uses his body to shield one of the young UN aid workers who's halfway through a panic attack, blood dripping into his eyes, and manages to haul the man the half-mile to safety before going back to check the damage.

The truck's been cleaned out. Not a glint of grain or a bag of flour left. The officer lays dead – one arm missing and half his chest burned clean off – in the dry, red dust.

Clint reaches down to close his eyes with a gentle touch. Before standing, he picks up the other man's sunglasses and slides them onto his own face. Behind the lenses, his stormy eyes hide, and when he returns to camp, no one dares ask him what he's seen.

Xxx

He falls in love in Haiti. Not with a woman – though there are women, and plenty at that – but with the country as a whole. The Caribbean air is sweet and spicy and if he weren't there to deal with a bloody, violent coup he thinks this could almost be like his first real vacation.

They speak French almost the same way as the fortune-teller, Madame Clarice, used to, in a way that makes him think of beaded throws and heavy incense. The memories mean he picks it up fair quick and soon becomes the unit's go-to for translation work with the locals. He sets up dates for his buddies with the girls at the bars and haggles at the market, and eavesdrops on the old men cursing at the newspaper stand. Where is Jean-Bertrande? they ask each other in heavy accents.

Hiding in the world.

And where is Cédras?

With the Americans who made him what he is.

Clint quickly learns the leader of the coup was trained in the same way he was, and by the same US Army, and understands when passers-by scowl at his face. Even with a tan he is glaringly white, glaringly different; an obvious supplant. His people, his army, are here to quash a man that they taught to rise up. He watches as the Haitian people are shot by hands his army taught to shoot.

Clint wonders if Raoul Cédras lied on his recruitment form too.

He sleeps with Marie every Friday he's in town. He likes the scarves she wraps around her hair and the smoothness of her skin, and she feeds him - hands as broad as spades – something that he's fairly certain is goat. Men on foreign soil eat what they get given, and her hands are as talented in the bedroom as they are in the kitchen.

On Tuesdays, out near the base he rendezvous with Célestine. Her lips taste like rum, and she steals his sunglasses, laughing as she perches them on the bridge of her own nose, and stares deep into his eyes. She asks about the scar on his palm and laughs at the story because teachers whip here too.

Violine – every second Wednesday and sometimes on a Sunday - tells him about her Vodou religion and moves her hips in ways that would make him pray to any god she asked.

The women speak of the coup like an irritation in their lives. There is still food to cook, books to read, friends to speak to. There is still music that makes them dance. Men still break their hearts. Nieces and nephews still appear with grazed knees and sticky cheeks and outstretched hands, begging for treats, or hugs and kisses. American soldiers are both an inconvenience and an easy way to pass the time.

When he leaves Haiti, Clint doesn't say goodbye. He is transient, imaginary, lacking in consequence. He knows by the time he is in the air they will be back to their lives and he will be barely a memory of someone who might have been.

Xxx

"We're being watched."

It's not the words he wants to say, not on this mission where they're technically not meant to be there at all. They're supposed to be shadows, wisps, echoes that can never be pinned down. Two years in Special Ops – because everyone says he's fearless, because he'll go wherever he's asked – means this realization is not a good one.

The other men stop, frozen. Bosnian wind buffers their backs as they press themselves on the ground, knees hitting winter-firm dirt with a muted thud. "Fuck. Where?"

"There, building by the blue truck."

"Where?"

"Down there. There. The twitching curtains. Green. Striped pattern. Fourth floor, second window from the left."

His buddies stare at him like he's gone crazy, but search through their binoculars down the hill to find the pane of glass he's pointing at. He knows he isn't wrong. Black greasepaint smears their cheeks and watch caps are pulled down over ears, blending their faces in with the night.

"Damn Barton, you're seeing ghosts, I swear."

"I'm not, he's just being still. Watch for a minute."

Their bodies flat, dew seeping into thick canvass pants from the grass on the hill, they lie and wait. One minute passes, two, and he can tell the others are about to get seriously pissed when…

"I got him. Fuck. How'd you even see that?"

"Good eyes, I guess," Clint responds with a shrug, hauling his rifle up to his side, carefully watching through the scope.

Cresslin, who's been on ops with him more often that not since his move to Special, nudges him with an elbow. "Eagle eyes," he jokes, chewing on the piece of straw in his mouth, holding place 'til he can get his lips round a Marlboro. His dark eyes are lost in the shadow of his face and the night, his smirking teeth little slabs of white that give up his position.

"From up here? More like hawk eyes," their CO mutters, shaking his head. "Look, we're meant to be rendezvousing in twenty minutes, I haven't got time to play hide and go seek with the fucking Serbs. Can you take care of it?"

With a nod, Clint flattens himself against the grass, propped on his elbow. One eye peering through the scope, he breathes deeply, squeezes the trigger. Down the hill, across the wide town square, there is only a soft thump, and the sound of glass tinkling across the pavement, as gentle as somebody dropping a vase. Clint sees the body fall to the floor and exhales.

Getting to his feet, he picks up his weapon and wipes his hands on his shirt to clean off the imagined blood.

"Let's go," he says simply.

Cresslin hauls himself to his feet next to Clint, and pats the smaller man on the shoulder. "Nice shooting, Hawk."

Xxx

Tirana is a shit show.

The people are broke. They've been screwed and then some, and Clint understands what it's like to wake up with not enough money for bread. He thinks he would've been rioting in the streets too, that hungry, if he had known at the time that he'd had that kind of option.

The problem isn't that people are broke. It's that they're broke, and angry, and armed. Armed and rioting at the doors of the embassy, which has somehow ended up being his bastion to guard.

The constant clatter clatter clatter of propellers beat the air above him. He's on the roof; they're close. Groups huddle in the compound, marked with concrete bollards and wire. Nervous American voices jabber to one another as they wait for evacuation, watching as the helicopter descends, surrounded by Marines. A jarhead he's not, but in this instance he's happy to be amongst them. They work hard on the ground and he's already seen two men take a bullet intended for one of the evacuees. One's dead, the other – he knows from experience because Tirana isn't the only shit show he's been a part of – is going to go through one hell of a time in PT.

He's got used to the stillness. Below him, people ebb and scatter like crashing waves, but his position is one of unwavering solidity.

Cresslin teases him, "You're a gargoyle up there," but the other man has no patience for inaction. He likes to be moving; busy, making things happen and then disappearing as fast as he arrives. Clint is happy with the waiting.

It's dark when the next chopper descends. The non-combatants mill around, all tense murmurs and grasping hands, hair whipping against the wind. They don't notice the man – the local, angry man – scaling the walls; their eyes are fixed on the lowering helicopter, their supposed transport to safety.

The man looks barely older than a teen; he holds the gun as though a foreign grip in his hand.

Clint's first shot blows the light bulb near the young man's head. The shock is enough to cause him panic, arms bitten by barbed wire as he scrambles for his footing. The next shot hits his ear. Blood explodes across his cheek and his cry of pain is drowned beneath the spinning propeller. Eyes wide, he fumbles with his weapon, body barely balanced half over the wall, and desperately flicks his gaze back and forth in search of his assailant.

There is hesitation. He looks back at the ground he has climbed from, but goes to cock the hammer, finger tracing the trigger in his hand. Another bullet whispers against his cheek as a last warning. The young man drops the gun, disappears back over the fence, a ghost.

No one notices the fired communiqué. Clint stays in place 'til the sun rises, low, and promising of a beautiful day. When his name is called he slides down, following orders for his removal, and climbs into one of the approaching helicopters with the last of their protectorate.

Beneath him Tirana disappears.

Xxx

He's running in the park when he first sees the man. There's nothing particularly noticeable about him, which is probably exactly the reason that Clint notices him. Also, the fact that it's 90 degrees and the man is in a suit.

He sits on a bench, paper in his hands. His fingers are clean and white and seem to repel the ink of the page, as though it wouldn't dare mar his hands. Even resting the paper on his knee leaves no marks; his well-pressed trousers remain pristine. The man watches Clint run with a vague, indifferent sort of attention, and nods as he passes him.

Clint pushes his sunglasses up his nose, nods back, carries on.

He doesn't think of it as particularly strange until he's showered and changed and sat in a diner, remnants of bacon and eggs in front of him (he never can leave food on his plate, remembers too clearly the aches and pangs of a hungry belly), and sees the same man sat at a booth in the corner. The back of his neck tingles, and his mouth floods with the bitter taste of adrenalin. The man is working his way methodically through a stack of blueberry pancakes, his focus on his plate, on the smooth glide of his knife and fork cutting perfect bite-sized pieces, but despite this, Clint knows he's being watched.

Walking home, he turns up the collar of his jacket, the worn leather soft against his neck, and feels in his pocket for the crumpled pack of Camels that nestle next to his keys. Cigarette balanced on his bottom lip, he is feeling for his lighter when a soft swish and flick sounds beside him, and then a flame dances next to his cheek. The man in the suit holds a plain silver Zippo, his face calm and his demeanour unhurried.

"Need a light?"

It's Clint's first instinct to fight, to lash out and hit this guy before he knows what's coming and leave him lying on the littered sidewalk, but Clint reins in his impulse. Leaning forward, he accepts the flame with a long drag between his lips, and blows the train of smoke directly into the man's face. The man in the suit coughs, lightly, at the back of his throat, but says nothing.

They stand, staring at one another for a beat, before Clint's irritation (agitation, curiosity, fear) gets the better of him. "Look, I don't know what your game is man, but if you're trying to hit on me, I gotta tell you, you're not my type."

It's the first time the man in the suit breaks a smile. It's small, but wry, quirking the corner of his lips. "I'm married."

Snorting, Clint takes a long drag. "Good for you. So you wanna fuck off out of my shadow before I put your ass in the ground?"

He doesn't wait for a response. Turning, his booted feet echo hard against the sidewalk and his free hand fists in his pocket. He waits for the telltale sound of footsteps behind, but hears nothing. For a moment he thinks he's safe, but then catches his reflection in a storefront window; the man is a careful two metres behind him. Tossing his cigarette aside – embers glowing a brilliant orange as they scatter across the ground – Clint turns, hands out of his pockets and ready for action.

"Look, I don't know who you think you are but - "

"Your name is Sergeant Clinton Francis Barton, Special Ops. You were born in Waverly, Iowa, mother Susan, father Joseph, deceased. You have one older brother, Barney. You spent most of your formative years between an orphanage and a circus, and joined the army at nineteen on forged papers after an altercation over stolen funds left one man dead at your hand."

Clint can feel himself paling, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. He's never told anyone about Duquesne, save Barney. His heart skitters in his chest.

"Who the fuck do you think you are?" Clint grates out from between gritted teeth as he considers his options. There are two alleyways within spitting distance, quiet backstreets, but it's the middle of the day and the sun is up and he's weaponless unless you count his hands, which his training does but…

The man in the suit stands still, nonchalantly motionless. "Your colleagues call you Hawkeye. You shoot right handed even though you're left handed so as not to draw attention to the fact that you never miss. Your commission finished three months ago. Any idea what you want to do next?"

His mind is racing. Words spit from between Clint's lips before his has time to really think. "Yeah, I got a gig in Vegas. Gonna be the next fucking Sammy Davis."

The corner of the man's lips quirk again, an approximation of amusement that Clint can tell has nothing to do with the man's real emotions. Finally, bizarrely, he holds out his hand. "My name is Agent Phil Coulson. I'm with the Strategic Homeland Intervention Enforcement and Logistics Division."

Clint ignores his hand. Raising an eyebrow he snorts, "They make you practice saying that?"

"Sergeant Barton - "

"Look," Clint hisses, eyeing the people that trickle past them with a suspicious air, because this day is just getting weirder and weirder. "I don't know who the fuck you think I am, but you've got the wrong guy." Again, he begins to set off down the sidewalk, but this time the man – Agent Coulson – doesn't even hide the fact he is walking two steps behind. He carries on speaking.

"Your first girlfriend was named Amina Hazarian, an illegal immigrant from Armenia. She and her husband own and run a restaurant in Portland. Great byorek."

Clint doesn't realise he has his fingers around the other man's throat until he's dragged them round a corner and backed the man in the suit against the brick wall of a small convenience store. The scent of lemongrass incense and Tamil conversation flow out from the building, and his fingers flex against Coulson's trachea.

"Don't you dare," he spits against Coulson's cheek, his words bitter and hard. "I don't know why you're following me but don't you dare…" his words trail off and he stares intently at Coulson, who looks largely unconcerned by the fact his larynx is one good squeeze away from real danger. Clint's fingers slacken, just a fraction. "What do you want from me?"

Letting his guard down was a mistake. Before he has the chance to think, Coulson has spun out of his grasp, kicked his legs out from under him, and has him sprawled on the ground, one knee pinning his sternum to the floor. Being prone beneath him, gravel digging into the back of his scalp, Clint can clearly see the man's weapon holstered at his side. The bland suit seems misleading.

"I'm here to offer you a job. We identified you as a person of interest some time ago. You have a skill-set we think could be valuable."

Lying beneath a deceptively strong body, Clint can only raise an eyebrow. "Shooting people is a valued skill-set now?"

"Doing what we can to keep the world a safer place is."

There's a pause, and then Coulson is off of him, holding out his hand. Clint accepts it, and is pulled to his feet. He brushes off his jeans, trying not to think about how his ass just got handed to him by a man probably ten years his senior.

Coulson straightens his tie before reaching into his pocket. For a beat Clint panics – he'd seen the weapon beneath the jacket and is beginning to get the impression that things are not exactly as they seem with Agent Coulson – but calms when all he is presented with is a thin rectangle of white card. Studying it, he finds a logo of what he thinks is a bird printed in thick black lines, and a single phone number.

"If you decide you're interested," Coulson explains – or doesn't – his impassive mask back in place as he buttons his jacket with one hand. Then, before Clint has time to think, a black car pulls up alongside them, and Coulson slips inside. It disappears quickly into traffic leaving Clint standing, alone and confused on the sidewalk.

Xxx

SHIELD is not what he expects. In truth, he's not really sure what he expects.

It takes three days for him to call the number on the card. Three days of pacing around his mostly empty apartment – he's never really learned not to live out of a duffel, and it stays packed most of the time. He's never sure when he might have to run. He wanders down to the liquor store, and with a beer in his hand (nothing harder – he smells too much like his father otherwise) he slides into a phone booth. He props the stiff, white card on the top, fingers making patterns on the numbers.

He ghosts the number twice before digging into his pocket for a quarter, and then holds it for a beat before sliding it into the metal slot. The clink, clunk, chunk of its fall seems louder than a bomb blast.

There is ringing, then silence. A faint click.

A chirpy, unsettling voice: "Thank you for calling. Are you interested in changing your long distance provider?"

Thrown, he mouths into the silence for a moment. Stares at the card. He's not exactly a math whiz but he knows he dialled the number correctly. "Uh…"

"Sir?" the voice speaks, honeyed but hollow. "Are you interested in changing your long distance provider?"

He's been in the military long enough to recognise a countersign, and curses Coulson for not scribbling a hint for him. He has no idea what to say, and can only speculate on what might happen if he guesses the wrong thing. Swearing into the phone, he slams the receiver down, rubbing at his forehead with calloused fingers. Picking up the remains of his six-pack, he gulps his open beer, drinking as he walks back to his apartment in the evening streets.

Turns out he needn't have worried. After four beers, he falls asleep on the couch, fuzz of a badly-tuned television his only company. Alone as he is, he launches off the cushions like a cat sprayed with water when a hand is laid on his shoulder. No one's managed to creep up on him since he was a kid.

He lashes out first with a punch, but his arm is quickly grabbed, twisted behind his back. "Nice to see you again, Sergeant Barton." Coulson's voice is just as calm and unruffled as before, and despite it being the middle of the night, he is still wearing his suit and a perfectly knotted tie. "I heard you called."

Pulling away from the older man – who has come alone, which seems foolish, though Clint's pretty sure backup would be overkill at this point – Clint runs his hand through his hair. His growing-out crew cut tickles his palm.

"It's not like I have anywhere else to go," he finally admits with a shrug.

The first glimmer of something like emotion crosses Coulson's face then, or at least Clint thinks it does. It passes so fast it could have been his imagination, or a trick of the light.

"Grab your gear."

Clint goes for his duffel, tucking in the corner of the worn Indian blanket before pulling the drawstring closed. "My landlord - "

"It'll all be dealt with."

Hefting the bag onto his shoulder, Clint shrugs. "He's kind of a dick."

Leading down the corridor, Coulson pushes the front door of the building open, and that little wry smile is on his lips again. "I don't think he'll be a problem."

The waiting car is black, smooth and unobtrusive. The same bird that was printed on the card is faintly echoed on the door panel.

He slides in, pulling his bag with him. Coulson shuts the door and it locks with an audible click. One of Clint's hands trails the material of his duffel, to feel the outline of his father's gun, shoved between shirts and socks. His careful fingers can trace the barrel, and it makes him feel a touch calmer. Coulson slides in the other side of the car and nods to the driver.

Clint knows he's a stray, but wonders what the hell he just got himself into.

Xxx

The lab makes his skin itch. He peels off his jacket and shirt and they run him through tests with a perfunctory, no-nonsense manner that makes him feel more like a specimen than a person. His blood pressure is taken, he's weighed and measured, and has to whistle the theme from 'The Great Escape' before he can produce enough pee to fill up the cup they'd handed to him.

They tut at his x-rays and talk as though he's not in the room. Phrases like 'stunted growth' and 'nutritional deprivation' are bandied around, and one of the technicians deigns to throw him a glance as she states "He might have been over six foot, given the chance. Shame."

Clint stares back at her with a bland sort of intensity – a look he has cultivated over the years to fool teachers and nuns and commanding officers into discomfit – and it seems to work. She turns back to her results with a heavy swallow and a paling of her cheeks.

Coulson collects him again after the rigmarole, before he has even had the chance to finish buttoning his shirt. The older man spares a passing glance at the scars that lance across his skin – belt lashes and cigarette burns from his father, one bullet-marked shoulder and a stab to the stomach that never quite healed right – but says nothing. Clint appreciates the discretion.

Their next stop is the weapons lockup, and it's enough to make Clint's heart stutter in his chest. Every weapon he's ever imagined, heard of, or seen in pictures seems to have a home here, and he wanders through the shelves for a moment, trailing his fingers across cold metal and dusty wood. Coulson watches him with something akin to amusement, and points to a particular cabinet. "Think you might be interested in what's inside."

The recurve bow is a thing of beauty, and Clint handles it with the care he would normally reserve for women in moments of intimacy. The metal is smooth and light and as he lifts it into position, it feels like it was made for his grip alone.

"When can I try it out?" he asks, almost distracted, and his fingers pluck at the taught string, testing out its tension.

"Later," Coulson replies, looking at his watch. "Right now you have a meeting."

xxxx

"How did he - " Clint trails off, waving his hand in the direction of his face, clearly indicating the other man's eye-patch; it's not ever day a person meets a six foot two bald man with one eye after all.

Coulson's face is serious. "We don't talk about it."

Xxx

He meets Coulson's wife in a briefing, not that he realizes that's who she is at the time. A handful of SHIELD agents sit around the room, taking notes, nodding at Maria Hill – the agent who's running the meeting – and the images on the screen.

(Hill's something, he thinks. Recruited from the Navy, trained pilot, Ivy-league smarts and built like a whippet, and younger than him, if the intel is right. It's not like he'll ask. Already making tracks in Shield – level six when he's come in at a paltry level three – up through Communications and on to Planning and Oversight. Can give a glare that'll stop a man cold, all the while strutting around looking like a swimsuit model. He's learned over the years not to underestimate certain people, and she is definitely top of his list right now.)

This op actually has nothing to do with him, but as low man on the totem pole, Clint's realizing he has to sit in on a lot of meetings that seem to have no particular purpose other than to bore him to tears. Maybe that's the challenge. Coulson'll let him have a proper role when he stops falling asleep in back.

So the revelation is saved until after, when everyone files out, and no one bothers to wake him from his half-doze. The room is completely empty when the slamming door startles him upright, and then he's collecting up files and muttering to himself and wishing they would all stop using words like expediency and collateral because he's an ex-carny who never graduated High School. Or never really went to High School, either way.

The hall is empty, and he's just wondering whether he has time to hit the gym before his next round of pointless meetings when he comes across them. Dark corners are a cliché, but for a reason; shadows hide all manner of things, and this one is no exception. Coulson – always upright, proper, well-pressed Coulson – has his fingers tangled in the woman's straight, dark hair, his other hand holding her against his body. From what he was listening to of the meeting, Clint knows she is the Specialist being sent in on the mission. That she is the one who can get it done, despite their limited intel and patchy extraction plan.

"Be careful," Clint can hear the murmured words, even though they are said into the woman's skin, lips brushing first her cheek, then her lips, touch feather-light.

She seems small and fragile, tucked against him (this, despite the things Clint knows from her file, projected up on a large screen in the meeting – a reminder than looks can be deceiving). When she reaches up and cups Coulson's face, her stance is assured. "I always am."

They don't see Clint. No one ever does.

Xxx