A/N: Thanks again to dysprositos for being a wonderful beta reader. This one was a tough one to wrangle. Note: while I don't proclaim this true 'magical realist' fiction, it does have one element of it. The fire is both metaphorical (for us) and real (for Clint). This is a prequel to my fic titled "Fireproof," but it's not necessary to have read It (prequel ). Comments are welcome, concrit is helpful.
Warnings: Child and spousal abuse, canon-typical violence, and eventual (very, very light) pre-slash of the Clint/Coulson variety. I promise you'll really have to squint for that bit.
"How blunt are all the arrows of thy quiver in comparison with those of guilt." – Robert Blair
"Fear is the tax that conscience pays to guilt." – George Sewell
Prologue
The fire started when Clint was seven and a half, if he was being brutally honest about his memories. On days when he couldn't handle that much distance, he would say it started when he was about seventeen.
The fire licks his heels when he walks. It's there. It burns. It sets him on edge and forces him to keep his distance from other people. No one else can see the fire, but Clint long ago stopped thinking he was crazy just because he could see it and feel it. The seer woman in the circus could see it, too, and she assured him he wasn't nuts.
Later, he would read about psychosomatic pain and attribute it to that, although he didn't really believe that was the case. (And it didn't mean he was crazy.)
After all, there were rules to the fire that brushed Clint's feet every day.
It was fire and it hurt.
It could be diminished with action, but not extinguished entirely.
It flared in the right conditions.
It never went away.
When Clint met Agent Phil Coulson, those rules changed.
I.
He was seven and a half when his parents died in an explosive car crash just down the street from their small house in Waverly, Iowa.
Earlier that evening, Clint's father, a six foot tall man with a grizzled face and dirty blond hair, had lunged for Clint, growling, "You're a mouthy son of a bitch," after Clint cussed him out for hitting his mother. Clint tried to run, but his dad caught him roughly by his shirt collar and his heavy, calloused hands clenched Clint's shoulders. He wrapped one arm around Clint's waist as he picked the screwdriver up from the green Formica covered kitchen table. He said, "Your mother deserves what I give her. She's a bitch, and she babies you. You deserve this, too, you little shit,", and he hit Clint hard against the cheekbone with the screwdriver handle.
Clint yelped as the yellow screwdriver handle connected with his cheek and his mother cried behind them. His father dropped him heavily on the kitchen floor and grabbed his mother's hand. "We're gettin' outta here for a while. Let the punk rethink gettin' involved in our business. Come on," he snarled, and dragged her out to the car, leaving his half-empty bottle of whisky sitting open on the kitchen table and Clint cowering in the corner.
Clint watched as they left, wondering where his dad would take her, feeling bad that she got dragged away with him when Clint was just trying to stand up for her. He picked himself up off the tile floor and stood on his tiptoes to pour the whiskey down the sink (guaranteeing another beating later, but Clint didn't care), and he dug in the freezer for a handful to pack into the tattered dish towel he'd pulled from a scuffed drawer. He wrapped the ice in the towel and then made his way to the living room couch and collapsed, holding the ice to his cheek. It was already swelling and was burning as the bruise came on.
"What'd you do this time, Clint?" Barney asked disinterestedly. He was twelve and sitting in a chair with his legs sprawled out looking at a comic book.
"Just told him to leave mom alone, that's all," Clint replied, his voice muffled by the towel full of ice.
"You're an idiot," Barney sighed. "It won't help, and you know it just makes him angrier when you get involved."
"Yeah, but he stopped hitting mom for a minute," Clint countered, giving Barney a cold stare. It might have been pointless, but he wasn't going to stop trying to help his mom.
They sat in silence for a while, and when the ice had thoroughly numbed Clint's face he sighed and got up again. He threw the remaining ice in the sink and hung the towel up on the stove before heading for the coat closet and grabbing his blue nylon jacket and baseball hat. He shrugged it on and called, "I'm going down to the playground," before heading out.
The playground was safe and had lots of high places he could climb to. Climbing always made him feel better. It was like he was getting away, and he was doing it under his own control. It calmed him down.
It was just as he reached the end of the street that he saw his father's beat up green Pinto come screeching around a corner, heading for their house. They must have just run down to the corner store for more booze or something, but his dad had probably already started in on it as he drove home.
The car fishtailed as it rounded the corner, and Clint stopped and stared, realizing his father was completely out of control of the car. He was going way too fast for a drive down their street. A hundred yards from where Clint was standing, the car spun out on the pavement and careened into an old oak tree in front of a neighbor's house.
It exploded on impact. Later, the cops would tell him and Barney that the car must have been doing at least sixty to explode like that. Clint didn't doubt it. The fire was bright and the world went silent as Clint could feel the heat from the explosion where he stood. After the shock of the scene wore off a bit, he heard muffled voices of neighbors and he wandered closer to the wreck.
The car was already unrecognizable, a twisted mess of blackened, burning metal. Clint felt his chest grow cold the closer he got to the fire, but he wasn't going to stop. He was walking toward the car with a purpose: he wanted to find his mother. She would make him warm again. She would fix this. When his father wasn't home, Clint's mother doted on him and made sure he felt safe and warm. He needed that now, even as part of him realized that his world had just ended with a bang.
The part of him that knew his mother was already dead was silent as Clint approached the tree.
Heat radiated from the crash and the cold fear in Clint's chest melted a little as he got closer to his mother, but suddenly a neighbor hollered something and grabbed him by his arm and yanked him backward. He stumbled back and the neighbor dragged him to the curb and pulled him down into his lap. It was Mr. Keener from a few doors down. "Wait, Clint. Wait. The fire department and police are coming." His voice sounded like it was coming down a tunnel.
Clint wasn't listening, though. He was staring at his own feet. They were on fire. The soles of his blue canvas tennis shoes had tiny orange wisps of flame curling around them. Clint's feet were hot, too, and he was afraid. He squirmed in Mr. Keener's arms – Mr. Keener who drank with Clint's father when he could and undoubtedly knew where the bruise on Clint's cheek had come from – and stomped his feet on the pavement to smother the flames.
"What the hell, Clint?" Mr. Keener asked, his deep voice rumbling. Clint had always found that voice frightening; right now was no exception. Clint wriggled away, sliding to the street on his butt, stomping his feet and yelling. His feet were burning. People were just watching him, though. No one moved to help, and it wasn't until Barney ran up that Clint realized no one else even knew what he was yelling about.
"Clint!" Barney shouted, and Clint stopped stomping.
He looked up at Barney and then down at his smoldering feet. "My feet are on fire, Barney," he cried. "It hurts."
Barney stared down at his feet and then back up at Clint, and then he took a cautious step closer to his little brother. "No, Clint, they're not on fire. They're fine." He paused and looked behind Clint at the tree and car. After a beat he said, "Mom and Dad are dead, Clint. They're the ones on fire."
Clint turned and looked at the wreck again, and then looked down at his feet. Despite what Barney said, they still burned, and he could still see the flames. But Clint realized his shoes were undamaged. He lifted his right foot and waved his hands through the flames. They were cool. But when he set his foot back down on the ground his feet felt like they were burning and it hurt.
Clint looked up at Barney and tears started streaming down his face. His mother was dead, and it was his fault. The fire burned his feet, but he clenched his teeth and tried to ignore it. No one else could see it; they didn't think it was real, so no one would help him.
Barney's green eyes were stormy, but no tears tracked down his cheeks. Clint knew he was being tough and that he should be, too, so Clint wiped his face roughly with his sleeve and moved to stand next to his big brother, trying to ignore the burn of his shoes and the roaring in his ears.
Police and fire trucks arrived on the scene and more neighbors gathered around. Later, after the police determined that Clint and Barney didn't have any relatives or friends that could take them in and the boys had been sent to a shelter for the night, Clint pulled his shoes and socks off and lifted his feet off the ground.
The flames subsided as Clint went to sleep on a cot next to Barney, but he woke up with a huge dark bruise on his cheek, his parents dead because he drove them out of the house, and when he put his shoes back on and stood up, the fire was back, licking his feet and scorching his soles. He and Barney were alone, and after they buried their parents with the help of the state, they were told to gather enough belongings for a suitcase and were sent to a foster home.
Clint's ears felt better after a few days; though he could tell they were different. Sometimes people had to raise their voice to get Clint's attention, and he was lousy at hearing soft conversations. He learned to ignore the dampener on the sounds of the world, but he had a harder time ignoring the fire that burned him every day.
Sometimes it was too much to bear. The foster homes were fine at first, but Clint had a knack for making grown men angry, and found himself getting hit again, just like at home. Barney was better at placating adults; his four year age difference and more of his mother's temperament earned him fewer beatings than Clint. Every time Clint messed up, the fire flared. He would trip over a rule and the flames would rise even before the foster parent's fist.
Clint hated foster care. The flames on his feet were nothing compared to getting shuffled to a new home every few months, trying and failing to learn new rules of a house. Getting hit, kept from food, and cussed at regularly. While he wasn't new to any of those things, coming from strangers it was harder than before.
One night, after a man shoved Clint down a flight of stairs, Barney found him huddled, bleeding from a cut on his forehead and trembling all over in the closet near the stairs.
"You're gonna get yourself killed, Clint," Barney said with a frustrated sigh as he dragged Clint out of the closet and straight out the front door of the house. "Come on," he shouted over his shoulder as he jogged down the street, "I've got our stuff stashed." Clint felt the fire on his shoes flaring even hotter than when they'd gotten thrown into the foster system, but he ignored it and followed his big brother down the street. Barney wasn't lying; he'd packed up Clint's suitcase for him and hid it under a big pine tree at the nearby playground.
They pulled the suitcases out and began walking, Clint grimacing with each step. "Where are we going, Barney?" he asked as they stopped so Clint could dig out his jacket and pull it on.
"The circus," Barney replied. "At least we won't get shuffled around there."
Clint grinned. Barney was so smart.
They did go join the circus, too – Barney talked the owner into it, citing Clint's cleverness (Clint didn't know about that) and his own growing strength (Barney was on the verge of being a teenager and had begun to fill out) as good assets for the circus. The owner just shrugged, spit into the dirt at their feet and said the boys who'd been hauling the animal shit had ditched at the last town and Clint and Barney looked smart enough to at least do that.
They did it, and they learned quickly how to fit into the circus world: work hard, don't complain, and stay out of the way.
Two years later, Clint found the best way to dampen the fire that plagued him.
"Get your ass down outta those rafters, you useless little shit!" the swordsman hollered.
Clint knew better than to ignore the swordsman when he had that tone in his voice. The beatings Clint had taken from his own father were nothing compared to getting handled by the swordsman. He'd swear the guy broke his cheekbone once. So he scrambled down the ropes to the floor of the tent and dusted himself off.
"Trick Shot wants to see you. Thinks one of you punks might be useful for his act. Get over to his practice range, now."
The fire at Clint's feet flared as he trekked across the grass around the tents to the field behind the set-up. On days he could stay hidden and just get his chores done without notice, the fire was low and not nearly as hot. Getting called out in front of one of the main attractions of the circus, though, smelled of danger, so the flames burned. Clint's jaw was clenched and he was almost limping by the time he got to the field.
"About damned time, Barton," Trick muttered. The four other boys lined up near him, including Barney, smirked at him. He took his place next to Barney and kept his mouth shut.
"I need some spice in my act, according to old man Carson," Trick Shot sneered. He was a tall, lean man with jet black hair cut loose, but not long. He was handsome, with green eyes and a sharp nose, and he could charm the hell out of an audience on any given night. His voice was dark velvet, even when it was filled with scorn. His act was pretty much what his name suggested, and he could hit any target with any weapon. He could use throwing knives, a shotgun, and even a bow and arrows. Clint would stand behind the bleachers as often as he could to watch Trick's act. It still took his breath away, even two years in.
Clint didn't even follow where Trick was going with the conversation until he pulled out a beat-up recurve bow. "One of you punks is gonna get a shot in my act next week. One of you is gonna spice up the show. Carson thinks if a kid can pull off some tricks, it'll draw in a younger crowd."
Clint felt the fire flare again and drew a sharp breath filled with fear and hope and awe. As the other boys grinned and muttered things like 'hell, yeah,' Clint just stared at the bow. There was a box of throwing knives on the ground, too, but Clint only saw the bow. It was a dark red wood with a beat up grip, and it was beautiful. He took a hesitant step forward without thinking.
"You volunteering first, little Barton?" Trick asked with a grin. "Good. You're probably too damn small to use it anyway. Let's get this over with."
Trick was right. Clint was smaller than the other boys. He was going on eleven, but he hadn't hit a growth spurt in a while. He was short. But he didn't care. He was going to shoot that bow. He stepped forward again, ignoring the pain in his feet. He pulled the bow out of Trick's hands and moved to face a target that had been set up about twenty five yards away.
"Here, let me show you. Give you half a chance," Trick Shot said, and he lifted the bow in Clint's hands so it was the right height, and he slid an arrow onto the string and showed Clint how to nock it.
The field was brown and dusty from old corn stalks and there was a slight breeze, but it was sunny and the sky was blue behind the target. Clint drew the bow and felt it wobble in his hands, so he took a deep breath to steady himself. He let the breath out and loosed the arrow, and the world faded away to just the brown of the field, the sky, and the target. His feet felt cool for the first time in years. The arrow hummed through the air and the bow string snapped Clint's arm, sending a jolt of pain across his skin, and then there was a thwack as the arrow hit the target.
The world around him faded back into view as Clint heard Trick mutter, "Well I'll be damned." Clint shook his head and looked at the target. The arrow had not hit the bull's eye, but it had hit the ring next to it. A shudder went through Clint's body and he turned to look at Trick, who was shaking his head.
"Do it again," he said sharply, thrusting another arrow into Clint's hand. "Without my help."
Clint nodded and mirrored what Trick had done a second ago to nock the arrow on the bowstring, then he lifted the bow again. As he raised the bow the same thing happened. The grumblings of the other boys faded away, the smells of the circus disappeared, and the flames at his feet vanished. He lined up the shot more carefully this time, took a deep breath, let it out, and released the arrow, again feeling the snap of the bowstring against his arm and seeing only the field, the target, and the sky.
"Holy shit!" he heard Barney yell, and once again the world faded back into view. His own jaw dropped a little when he saw that the arrow had hit the bull's eye this time. Not direct center, but still. He stood, staring at the bow in his hands, running his right hand down the shaft of the bow in wonder. It was at that moment that he realized that the fire on his feet was gone. There was no pain, no heat, not even a simmer. He looked up to see Trick Shot scowling.
"Try the knives," he snapped, opening the case at his feet and handing Clint a blade with a short brown handle and pulling the bow from Clint's hands. Clint didn't let go of the bow easily, though, suddenly afraid that he'd never get it back, and Trick had to yank. "Stupid punk. Don't matter how good you are with the bow. If you can't do the knives, you can't be in the show."
Clint looked down at the blade in his hand and felt warmth in his feet again. He shifted the knife a little, and recalled sneaking out here with Barney a few times after lifting the case from Trick's tent. He grinned to himself and turned to the target.
"You can get a little closer," Trick said, so Clint stepped up until he was about fifteen yards from the target. He turned sideways like he'd seen Trick do, took a deep breath, and threw.
"God damn it!" One of the other boys yelled, and Clint grinned outright as he looked at the knife sitting in the very center of the bull's eye. He turned to see Trick looking at him oddly, but then Trick shrugged and said, "Okay, who's next?"
Clint stepped back and the fire at his feet flared as the other boys stepped forward one by one. No one could beat what Clint had done with the bow, though, even Barney, who did manage to do just as well as Clint with the knives. Clint held his breath as Trick cleaned up the target after the last boy went. Trick turned back to them and fixed his gaze on Clint.
"I want you to stay. Everyone else, get the hell outta here," he commanded, and the other boys departed, cussing Clint out. He'd have to watch himself for a few days, it looked like.
But that didn't matter right now, and Clint stared at the bow Trick was holding like it was his salvation.
It was.
It was also his downfall.
