He was stuck. The underground entrance to the shop that he and his mom visited regularly to get everything from laundry soap to chicken was now going to be where he died. The world was chaos around him as people screamed and ran into the strange lifeboat/planes, not one of them stopped to help him. His city was flying and crumbling at the same time all around him and no one was going to save him.
In the distance he could hear his mother scream out about him being trapped but nothing happened and no one came to help him. The air was getting to thin to get a good breath and the panic that was building inside of him was making him feel faint. His grip on the railing for the entrance was failing. The stairs had been turned into rubble; if he fell he wasn't coming back up.
Then like some kind of guardian angel a man wearing an odd sort of uniform that exposed his arms. It wasn't like anything that he had seen from the soldiers that sometimes drove thru the city. The quiver of arrows was even odder than the uniform because what kind of soldier uses arrows instead of bullets.
But the man, no matter how odd he seemed, was the one to kneel down and pull him to safety. The man lifted him into his arms as exhaustion made it hard for him to stand, all he could think of was that he was going to see his mom again.
The sound of bullets ruined that assurance. Over the man's shoulder he could see a ship speeding towards them leaving yet more destruction in it's wake as it attacked the street below.
The man turned around and he couldn't see the ship and more though he could feel the man tense as it got closer to them. Quickly they both lowered to the ground and the man leaned over him to attempt protecting him.
As they the sound of bullets was on top of them a rush of wind came and the bullets left. The weight on top of him from the man who had saved him grew heavier.
"No!" A different man yelled and the weight was released as the man was rolled off of him. "Damn it, no!"
A different pair of arms, just as strong as the ones from before, pulled him up and set him down near so he was leaning on an overturned car that was close by. But when he saw the man who had saved him he knew that close wasn't enough.
The man was lying on the ground with his arms spread out around him, his quiver made his body lay at an awkward angle. But the blood that spread around him was what was caught his eye. A single bullet had made it past the uniforms durable material. The man was still alive, but barely so.
He lifted a hand in almost slow motion. "Wasn't your fault."
His hand fell.
Michal sat up with a start. His standard issue pajama shirt was soaked with sweat and he cursed at the sticky feeling that came from his bad dream. The man was someone he had dreamed about before, and it was never pleasant. It had been barely over ten years and he still couldn't stop feeling the dead weight of a dying man on top of him.
It made it worse that Michal didn't know the man's name. He had done all the research he could on the archer and found only the name Hawkeye, for by the time he had started his research on him someone had taken any mention of his existence from the S.H.I.E.L.D. file dump offline. Most likely to give him privacy in his death. So that left him only with what public record of the name Hawkeye, which besides the name was nothing other than his involvement in the Battle of New York- something he was to young to remember- and his subsequent death. Hawkeye was a true Avenger, and to so was he.
After Michal had found out about his saviors Avengers status he became obsessed with joining the New Avengers. He constantly trained with the crappy bow and arrow, a tribute to his savior, until he had aim as near perfect as he could get. He applied to the New Avengers on his eighteenth birthday and nearly fainted when he got his acceptance letter. The next two years of training and constant fear of being turned down from full Avenger status hung over him the entire time, but he made it. Today he graduated one in a class of what used to be four hundred and was now four.
Michal checked the clock on the side of his bed; 2:45 am blinked red on the clock face.
"Damn it." He cursed under his breath dropping back on his pillow. There was nearly twelve hours until his graduation ceremony and he was on edge about it. A nervous energy ran through him that meant that he couldn't sit still any longer. So after a quick shower he was on his way to the training room.
Walking down the halls early in the morning was not something that Michal hadn't done before, but it felt different this morning. It felt like he truly belonged where he was. He was so content that he didn't hear the rush of wind behind him until one of his trainers, Pietro Maximoff, stopped next to him. Michal had barely gotten over the shock of seeing one of the men who saved him everyday, he didn't think he ever would.
"Michal what are you doing wandering the halls this early?" Pietro asked.
Taken off guard Michal thought quickly. "I could ask you the same thing sir." He immediately regretted the sarcasm, but his trainer just laughed.
"I didn't know you were funny." He chuckled through his thick accent, something that Michal had lost after moving to America after his home town had crumbled around him. "You haven't said much these past few years. No one seems to know anything about you."
Michal shrugged. He didn't tell anyone about his encounter with the Avengers ten years ago for the plain reason of not wanting their sympathy. Not one part of him wanted the original team to look at him and see the kid that Hawkeye had saved and have given him an easy ride.
"So where are you headed to at three in the morning. I thought all you new recruits were out doing a bar crawl, or whatever you kids do these days."
"I'm not big on the bar scene." Michal explained. "Besides I'm to nervous to relax. I was headed to the training room."
Pietro smiled a looked not a little surprised. "Relaxing and beating things up isn't often two things normal people associate." He shrugged slightly and his smile turned mischievous. "Good thing that there no one normal within a five mile radius of this building. So what do you say, you wanna test out that aim you've been working so hard on?"
Michal looked at him stunned. In his two years he had never sparred against Pietro, or any of the other Avengers. This was the opportunity he had been looking for.
"Let's do it!"
Near four hours later they were both panting and dripping was their last match and they were tied, again. Michal stood in the middle of the room with a non-lethal arrow pointed at Pietro who gave him a cocky smile before running around Michal in a whirlwind that his eyes could barely keep up with.
Throwing back his non-lethal arrow Michal pulled out a special one that had been commissioned for moments just like this. Without a moment's hesitation he let the arrow loose and sticky putty covered the floor right in front of his trainer. Pietro never had the chance to stop before he was captured in the gooey substance. Instead he fell on the ground and looked up at Michal shocked.
"What, you didn't see that coming?" Michal asked with a large smile on his face; he was extremely proud.
Pietro froze, his eyes widened. For a moment he seemed to forget he was stuck in putty and diverted all attention on to the person in front of him.
"Holy shit," he whispered, "you're the kid."
Michal stiffened and tried to put on his best confused expression. "What kid?"
Kicking his way out of the putty Pietro stood up and studied Michal. "I never realized that you look exactly the same, you losing your accent didn't help that much. Why didn't you say that you were the kid that Clint saved."
Michal's breath got caught in his throat. "Clint? His name was Clint?" Part of the weight that had been resting on him for so long seemed to lift away. He had a name, part of one at least. But after only knowing a code name for so long a first name was like a trophy.
"You didn't know?"
"His file was somehow removed from the internet, and I don't have access to the archives here yet so I couldn't find out. I wanted to ask someone, but I didn't want anyone treating me special for being Hawkeye's rescued kid. I didn't want anyone to feel like by letting me stay they were repaying him for some old debts."
Pietro nodded his understanding, and was silent for a long time. Much about the kid in front of him seemed so painfully clear now. The reason that he chose a bow and arrow as a weapon. Why he was so adamant about having a perfect aim. He was trying to thank a man he would never know.
"His name was Clint Barton," he started keeping his eyes on the floor. "The first time I met him I was working for the wrong people and tried to kill him. I nearly did as well, but Clint was very reliant."
Michal's eyes were already brimming in tears as he had gone so many years without knowing who the man who saved him was, and now he finally got answered. But he could see the pain in Pietro's eyes as he recounted the archer. Suddenly he remembered that Pietro had been the one who tried to save Clint Barton from a hail of bullets, but was a second too late. Something that must have been hell from the fastest man alive.
"You don't have to tell me this."
The Avenger shook his head. "It's been ten years, and I haven't talked to anyone about it what happened on that day. Trust me I need this as much as you do."
There was an understanding between the two scarred men whose losses that day were vastly different. But at the same time both of them understood the importance that Clint Barton had on them. He had essentially saved both of their lives, and both of them had a debt they would never be able to pay.
Michal sat in the middle of the gym floor and motioned for the trainer to follow in his example. After the man made himself comfortable Michal spoke the question he had been thinking about Clint Barton, the man who had saved his life ten years ago but only just received a name. "Who was he?"