A deafening scream in an ocean of silence.

Clint Barton didn't have marks when he was born but it was not the unusual in his generation or in his family, Barney, his brother didn't have any either. At school they learned that people with marks in there time were mostly only family bond from parents for genetics reason no one could explain. But it certainly explain why they didn't have any, bond marks were supposed to be physical proofs of love, and Clint was starting to think that his broken nose, his few cracked ribs, the bruises he was showing sometimes were proof enough of his parents love.

The nice lady from social services, that came to take Barney and him from the precinct after his drunk father had managed to beat their mother to death and then killed himself, didn't seem to understand why the boys were thanking her or why they were happy to be placed in an orphanage with no parents.

The couple that were taking care of the kids at the orphanage were not nice and didn't have an ounce of parental bone in their bodies but the boys had each other and they were happy with it. One time as they were eavesdropping using the vent again and were probably going to be punished again, they heard a couple saying that they were interested in adopting Clint because he was still young but Barney was too old and too damaged they didn't want to take care of a broken teenager, the night after that the bothers disappeared.

They lived on the street for a while crossing to the next state to be sure no one would be looking for them. They bathed in the river when they were in the country and if he cleaned up nice enough Clint could charmed every old ladies in the small town they were passing by to give him some food he would share with his brother. When they were coming across bigger cities Barney always managed to find money sometimes just enough for food sometimes enough for a room or a theater movie to get away from the rain. When the first winter came they found themselves in a little town that seemed to have been almost deserted but they found a circus who was staying there until the snow was going away and they were going to practice and learn new shows in the meantime. They offered the boys a place in the show.

It was a good life, Barney was good with knives and people while Clint was a good acrobat and had learned how to use a bow and arrow to perfection.

After a few years, the circus was like a family to them. One time though Clint went into town after a show and was faced with an entire gang of city people that apparently got ripped off, their money stolen and a few house visited while the all town had been at the show. Clint assured them that he knew nothing about that, that his people were not that kind of person that they would never do that. But they got on him and he was beat up so badly that he lost his sense of hearing, not all of it but 85% he could only hear if people were speaking really loudly into his ears. The doctor had told him that hearing aids would help him get almost all of it back but he was just a carnie boy and those were really expensive.

He stayed a week in the next town hospital after that and only Barney had come to visit him. Although he said nothing to the cops who tried to question him acting like he didn't know how to read or write and Barney not denying that, he asked Barney about the theft and Barney got mad at him telling him (writing him) that he was ungrateful and asking him how he could think so badly about the people who had adopted them.

Clint went back to the circus after that, working twice as hard because without his hearing he was losing some of his balance too, but not being able to hear the cheers from the town folks or the praise from his friends after a job well done was taking something out of him. And he stopped talking to people all together after the hospital and Barney telling him that he was shouting for everyone to listen when all he could hear coming from himself was the ghost of a whisper.

He didn't do it on purpose but he started noticing that he knew the circus troupe so well he could read their lips and know what they were saying. He spied on them, for practice he told himself but it was really because what he was caughting up on made him think that the people who had him beat up had been right all along.

He went to Barney, after gathering some proofs, to tell him that they had to go, they would find another circus with honest people to work with, but Barney started yelling at him, he didn't catch it all but he got easily that it had partially been Barney's idea that he had been doing it since the orphanage and that if he didn't like the way it was he was free to go for a price.

That's how he ended up in the Emergency room with his right hand fingers all broken. Since he had nowhere to go and was still a minor, from what he had told them, the people at the hospital kept him there, putting him in the empty prison ward after the third time he tried to escape, he would never trust anyone who said it was for his own good ever again.

Some of the nurses at the hospital knew sign language and since he was there for at least 3 months they started teaching him. It wasn't easy between a reluctant student and the fact that one of his hand couldn't be used but they managed and he got at of there with enough to be able to survive.

He spent a few months living on the street stealing only what he needed to eat, an apple at a fruits stand, a pie cooling of, corn in a field, he learned to be hungry, learn how to fish, how to make his own bow and arrows to hunt. Eventually he ended up in New York City some people got interested in his talent when they saw him fight in a back street in Brooklyn and he showed them that he could do better than that took his bow and arrow and shot a bird right of the sky.

People found him jobs to do. The marks were not Birds anymore but the bow got better, he was paid a lot of money and only chose the jobs if he decided the marks deserved what was coming for them. He wasn't stupid he knew that some of the info people gave him were full of bullshit but then he'll just go and ask the mark a better price to kill who ever hired him in the first place if that was the case. Even did a few jobs for free playing vigilante when the criminals were stupid enough to beat a kid in front of him or rape a woman outside of his nest.

He lived in a world of bad money, red blood, and ever growing silence. He couldn't even use the money, donated most of it to orphanage or hospitals or whatever charities he was finding in his way, kept only enough to eat until the next job. Hoping and dreading the day someone would hire him to kill Barney or any of the people from the circus.

One night, he found himself in an abandoned building the temperature had dropped dramatically due to a windy weather and he needed the protection, he was so tired he didn't even checked to see if he was alone in building, found the first flat surface and felt asleep on it. Anyway his last marks had left him with bruises and ribs that barely allowed him to walk and breathe at the same time so sleep was his only option at that point.

He was startled awake by the scream of a young girl and he was so surprised that it took him a second too long to see the man in front of him who was ready to crush his hand with his foot. He didn't even screamed at that punch the guy with his other hand found his quiver took an arrow and planted it into the man heart. It took him a while to get his own heart to slow down and his head to get straight again, everything in him hurt but he needed to find the girl, he hadn't heard anything in years, he wasn't sure he would ever forget that terrified screamed. He looked on every floor of the building, no one else was there no other men, and no girl.

He tried and cleared his throat, it had to be the only muscle he hadn't use in years.

"If there is someone else in there it is safe, I am not going to hurt you" he said hoping that it was loud enough to be heard. He tried again "I am not going to hurt you but I can't hear you if you want something I'll be on the first floor."

Well that had to be enough, he couldn't do better anyway.

As he started to walk to the stairs he heard it again. Not a scream this time but a beautiful crystal voice talking smoothly.

"I really like your voice" she told him.

He turned around but no one was there and anyway he shouldn't have been able to hear her.

"Where are you?" he asked hoping she would show herself

"Oh sorry, Hi! I am Darcy! I've been trying to talk to you for a while don't know why it worked this time! Hey, maybe it's because you were sleeping, or maybe it was because you were in immediate danger! I really don't know how all of this work!" she took a pause long enough to breath but not long enough for him to find anything to say. "Oh! Not that I judge of your day job at all but did you killed the bad man or do I need to monitor you again to be sure he doesn't try to kill you again?"

"No, he's dead." he said without thinking. "Wait! What?" he thought and the girl didn't answer. "Did I scare you off?" he asked out loud this time.

"No! Why?" she seemed genuinely surprised that he could think that.

"I asked what you were talking about?" he repeated.

"Did you ask it or did you think it? Because FYI I can't read your thoughts; not like with the other one" she started giggling and it was the most wonderful sound he ever heard.

"But you're in my head!" he stated

"Are you deaf?" she sighed "sorry that's rude but I've been wondering for years. Even learned how to sign in case I actually got a chance to meet you."

"I'm deaf. And while we are being rude and all, who the hell are you?"

"First language please I'm only 15." even she couldn't repressed the laugh that went with that. "Second I am Darcy, already told you and you're Clint. Like the name by the way"

He stayed silent waiting to know if she would go on on her own, she sure seemed to have a lot to tell him for someone he never met.

"So you want the short version or the long one?"

"Short" he stuttered

"Right yeah sleeping, I woke you up and all. So I am weird. Got born without any marks but all those connections to people just keep happening to me, there is the girl, although she must be a woman by now, who keeps getting hurt and somehow all her injuries end up on my body, but they don't hurt just bleed sometimes so no worries there, , the soldier he is fun I can see images from his brain and he can see images from mine, he's not a soldier anymore does a lot of paperwork, although I think he does that on purpose to bore me more than my classes, and you, I got deaf for a week when I was little woke up hearing voices of people that were not there, after sometimes of being called Clint I figured the voices were around you but you couldn't hear them." She finished and took a deep breath.

"You sure that was the shorter version? How can you even talk for that long without breathing?" he asked calmer now that he had been since the social worker lady. Darcy's voice was soothing.

"Well I never actually get to talk about this to anyone so I got over exited, you can't blame a girl. Plus as I was saying I've been trying for years to talk to you every way I could think off and it had never work I don't know if this will last long."

"Darcy?" he whispered falling slowly asleep lulled by her voice.

"Yeah?" she answered cheerfully.

"Please! Still be there when I wake up" it was the last he said that night she kept talking to him for few minutes before hearing light snores on the back ground.

When he woke up his back against the stairs walls he yawned and immediately was shot with the loud memory of the night before.

"Clint!" Darcy yelled at him

"Wow girl would you mind turning the volume down you're the only thing I have heard for years remember" he yawned again getting downstairs to retrieve is stuff and his arrows and maybe find if there was a coffee place in town.

"Sorry I am over caffeinated" she said in a smaller voice

"You're 15!" he protested.

"So?" she asked but didn't wait for him to answer. "How would you like to meet the soldier? And would you be okay telling me where you are it would be so much easier"

"I am not so sure I want to spend the rest of my life in jail so I am going to pass on both" His hand hurt so much he grunted.

"You're hurt again!" she reprimanded him as if it was not the first time she was telling him. "And you wouldn't go to jail. I am the only who knows and I will not tell him what you did"

He hissed he hadn't thought about that. "What do you mean you know?"

"Screams, gun shot, someone called Trick..." he didn't let her finish that thought

"And you don't care?" he asked surprised.

"Well first the bond tells me you don't really enjoy it, I heard people you told they were target thanking you; I suppose they were good people, and whatever you do I think that Woman on the third bond has it rougher than that so I don't judge. Even the soldier is not a saint."

"So if I say yes how does it work?" Clint asked out of curiosity and because she made him realize how lonely this last few years had been.

"That's where the coffee comes in. I can only send mental pictures to the soldier so i made a board with stuff I know about you, you know legal stuff like the bow the circus, the sign language I try to send it to him and hope he knows people who can help with the finding you part."

"So you're not even sure it will work." He sounded sad even to his own ears.

"No, he's been trying to hide something from me and doesn't let me send him things as easily as I use to." she made a sob sound and stayed silent for a while.

"Clint, Please let me try I don't want you to be hurt anymore." well, how could he resist that.

"I'll be in this town for 2 days just the time for my ribs to heal enough after that I have to move again. So I guess you have 2 days."

After that she got silent for hours while he moved all of his stuff to a higher level, bandaged his ribs, made a makeshift splint for his fingers by braking one of his blood soaked arrow and tried to sleep again, somehow knowing that Darcy was listening in made him feel safer even though all of this still made no sense to him what so ever.

By the time Darcy woke him up it was dark out she told him that the message was passed on but she didn't know how long it would take for anyone to come in. He didn't tell her that he wasn't thinking anyone would come in anyway. He ate the stash of food the dead guy had hide while listening to the longer version of her life story and falling asleep again.

When he woke up in the morning Darcy was calmly whispering like a mantra, "don't shoot him, don't shoot him, don't shoot him" he understood when he saw a man in a suit trying to sign without letting his gun down, he was wondering which one of them Darcy was praying wouldn't kill the other, up until the man shot him in the leg to get him to agree to medical.

After Clint had signed the Shield's papers he was wondering how much Darcy had just learned about her soldier by listening in on everything happening around him. He sure was not letting any of them know someone was listening in. And if he was smiling from time to time that was just between him and all the things Darcy were whispering in his ear as if anyone else would be able to hear her anyway.