"This is the best plan you all can come up with?" Clint stares at the blueprints in disbelief, during his time he'd seen Coulson draw out better plans on his cup of coffee.

"No one asked you, you little shit." Jaques spits, defensive as he's the one who had come up with the plans. "Just stay quiet and do as we tell you."

"So let me get this straight, you don't want me to fire the gun, or even show it off unless i'm provoked?"

"What part of keep quiet, don't you understand." Barney hisses at his brother.

"I'm just trying to clarify." Clint says putting his hands up defensively. "Now give me that gun."

Barney passes Clint a gun, expecting to have to show him how to load it. He's more then surprised when Clint loads the gun and sticks in in a gun holster. Out of everyone, Clint looks the part of burglar the most, his SHIELD issued black recon and takeout uniform works nicely for the job. He grabs his provided ski mask off the table then follows the others out of the room and into the unmarked cars.

Ten minutes later, they're at the bank and inside. Due to the horrible plan, Clint assumes, an issue has come up and sirens are outside. Clint's part in the plan was the guard the door, and he does while the others frantically stuff the bags. Four officers rush inside, Clint looks them over. Their guns are drawn and pointed at his chest. Instinctively from his SHIELD training, he shoots the guns out of three of the officer's hands. Before he can shoot the fourth, the officer fires. Clint ducks behind a counter, then shoots the gun out of the officer's hand.

"Are you fucking crazy?" Barney hisses, pulling Clint up off the floor as the other run by toward the back door. "You just shot four cops."

"I didn't shoot them, just their guns." Clint says knowing his words to be true. The officers may be a little shaken but they're unharmed.

"Just move." Barney yells, pushing Clint toward the door. But Clint veers off the path.

"Where are you going?" Barney yells as Clint climbs the stairs toward the roof. When Clint doesn't answer and Barney follows, the rest of the crew reluctantly follows suit.

"They're guarding the back door." Clint informs the others when the burst onto the roof behind him. The others watch as Clint snaps open his bow which had been discreetly strapped to his back. "You'll all zip-line over to that other roof. It has a fire escape you can use to reach the ground. No one will be looking for you a block and a half over." He wraps a thick cable onto his arrow then fires, the arrow fires true and hits and locks onto the other roof. Clint who had a feeling something might go wrong, passes out cables for the others to use to travel the zip-line. Barney, is the first to leave. When Barney doesn't plummet to his death the others quickly follow. Clint is the last to go, when he lands he cuts the line. The others had decided to let Clint take the lead and had waited for him. He leads the way down the fire escape and onto the streets. He searches the cars for a Ford and finds one half a block down. He works quickly and has soon commandeered the vehicle. The team wordlessly climbs in, while Clint reluctantly takes the wheel. Once they're in the car, the silence breaks.

"How the hell did you learn to do all that?" Barney asks his brother, awe audible in his voice.

"I told you, I worked for the Government as an agent/assassin. You learn a few things to stay alive. Like always having a backup plan." While the others try to prompt Clint for more information, he falls silent. He refuses to speak until they're roughly five miles from the carnival's current location. Not one to drive the getaway car to the safe area, he pulls into a gas station and instructs everyone to get out of the car. "You'll have to walk the rest of the way. It's about five miles. I'm going to double back then ditch the car so no one will be able to connect the car theft to the carnival." The moment everyone is out of the car, Clint guns the engine and drives as fast as he can back the way they had just came.

"Sir, we've got a hit on the name Barton." Agent Kate reports to Coulson, who had just gotten off the phone with Fury giving him a progress update. It's been nearly three months since Agent Barton has disappeared and Fury's patience is wearing thin.

"I highly doubt Clint isn't using an alias." Coulson says, tired of false trails. So far, they'd had little luck tracing down Barton, and while they assumed he wasn't operating under any known alias they'd kept tabs on all of Barton's and had had several false alarms.

"It's not a hit on Clint Barton, Sir." Kate says taking a seat across from Coulson, she shows him her laptop screen. "What we've been trying hasn't worked. So I decided to dig into your old files on Clint, you'd jotted down the name Barney Barton, but had no data on him other then he is Clint's only kin and his brother. I thought it was worth a shot to look up something about Barney."

"I'd thought about that, but Clint and Barney had an estranged relationship when I first met Clint. I highly doubt Clint went to Barney for any help."

"Which is why I searched for something about Barney. Clint knew it was the most logical place for him to go and also the least likely you'd look for him. Anyway sir, Barney Barton works for the Carson's Traveling Carnival."

"How'd you find that out, I searched for almost a year for any information no Clint's time with the circus."

"Barney isn't mentioned often, he's a stage hand but a few years back he made a newspaper article. It was after Clint had left them, which is why you're search engine probably disregarded it. Anyway, the carnival is nearby. Just a little over an hours drive. If nothing else, maybe Barney can give us some insight on where Clint might have decided to go."

"It's worth a shot. Get Lola ready, we leave in five minutes."

"What the hell Clint?" Barney pulls his brother out of his bunk where Clint had previously been dead to the world. Normally Barney would have let Clint sleep but he'd just made a disturbing discovery.

Clint glares at his brother from the floor, and while he knows Barney is yelling at him he can't understand what's being said since his hearing aids are on the table across the room. Finally Barney realizing why Clint is being a smart ass or trying to defend himself, throws the offending object at Clint. It's a needle, an empty morphine bottle is thrown along with it.

"So what if i'm taking it?" Clint manages to clammer through his drug addled mind. He'd taken maybe a bit too much on his last dose.

"That's it." Barney yells not caring if Clint can understand him. "You're drying out." He picks Clint up off the floor and supports him. He then half drags, half carries Clint to the nearest car where he lays him in the back seat. Two months ago if Clint had become a drug addict, Barney wouldn't have cared. He might have even sold him some of the drugs. But over the last few months Clint had not only grown on him but also saved his ass more then once, so he wasn't about to let him die over something as stupid as a drug overdose. Barney puts the car in drive and tears down the road. He doesn't have long before he'll have to be back at the big tent. While Clint had originally signed on as a stage hand, due to his exceptional skills in other areas Carson profited from, he was no longer required to preform any of his duties to buy his safe house and the carnival's silence. If he'd wanted money that would have been another thing, but as Clint didn't care about such things it would be no problem if he disappeared for a few days to dry out. He drives to a hotel not too far away from the carnival and checks into a room. He then flops Clint onto the only bed. He doesn't have time to do much more, but he does make sure Clint has a water bottle by his bed for when he wakes up. He then pockets the room keys and leaves headed back for the carnival. He'll come back in a few hours to check on Clint, but right now he'll let the kid sleep it off.

Coulson and Kate park Lola, Coulson's car, in the carnival's parking lot. Coulson then very reluctantly leaves her behind to investigate the carnival. He pays for both of them to get inside, once he's paid he decides to ask the young lady taking tickets about Barney.

"Excuse me miss." He says, catching the young lady's eye. "I was wondering if you could tell me where to find Barney Barton?"

"I could, but he doesn't like strangers." She says dismissively.

"Then it's a good thing my friend and I aren't strangers. I'm an old friend of Barney's father." Phil lies.

Unfortunately it seems the girl knows something about Barney's past. "Then he definitely doesn't want to see you buddy."

"And who are you to decide that?" Kate asks speaking for the first time, a pure ball of sass complete with hands on her hips.

"I'm his girlfriend, if it's anything too you." The girl says sizing up Kate. "And I don't appreciate girls asking to see my boyfriend."

"Whose looking for me?" A gruff voice asks from behind Coulson. Coulson turns to see a man who very much resembles Clint, if Clint had about a hundred more pounds on his body and six inches.

"These two clowns claim they know you." The girl says as the man comes to stand at her side, his arm snaking it's way around her waist.

"I've never met them before in my life." Barney says snuggling his face into his girlfriend's neck. It appears he whispers something in her ear as he bursts into giggles. Barney then looks up to see that they haven't moved. "What do you want?" Barney asks a glare on his face.

"My name is Agent Coulson. Phil Coulson. And this is my associate Agent Kate. We work for the United States Government and we were wondering if you could answer some questions to help us in a missing person case."

"I don't talk to no feds." Barney growls. It seems Barney's demeanor has drawn attention as some other carnival members have gathered behind him.

"I'm not asking you to talk to me as a federal agent, at least not completely. You see I have an invested interest in this case as the missing person happens to be one of my friends. And I'd like to find him. So either you cooperate and answer questions here in a place of your choosing. Or I drag your ass in and we do it on my terms, which I assure you won't be as pleasant." Barney waves off his friends.

"Come with me." He says. Coulson and Kate hurry to follow. His destination however is quite clear, they're headed for the big top. Barney ushers them inside and choices a seat in the bleachers. "Who you looking for?" He asks once Coulson and Kate are situated, pens, tape recorders and paper out ready to take notes. "And why do you think I know him?"

"We've been tasked by our agency to track down Clint Barton." Kate explains. "We happen to know he's your younger brother."

"Why you want to talk to me about Clint? I haven't seen him since he was ten."

"We thought he might have tried to reach out to you these last few months." Phil says cautiously.

"Like I said, I haven't seen him in years. Wouldn't even know what he looks like anymore."

"Were you and Clint ever close?"

"When we were younger." Barney offers up, knowing it will be easier to pull off his lie if he includes some truth. "Our parents died when we were young. Clint was only six. I was fourteen. Not that they were much of parents before they were dead. Anyway, that left Clint and I to face the world by ourselves. We tried foster care for a few months but it didn't go so well…" Barney trails off, not sure if he should share the exact details of what didn't go so well. "Our foster father was a sick man." He decides that the detail may make the agents queasy, but leaves some still for the imagination. "Anyway, Clint couldn't take it. So I made us a plan to run away, stole some provisions and money. We hit the road, took a train and found this Carnival. I managed to get a job for myself as a stage hand in exchange for food and a place to stay for both of us. We stayed close for a while, but then Carson took a liking to Clint. Older men tended to do that, only this time I didn't do anything to help him. I liked it here and didn't want to mess things up. If it had lasted too long I probably would have interfered but it didn't last long. Still it messed Clint up a bit. Some of the older members took pity on him, started teaching him tricks. He threw his heart into it, got good and got himself his own act. That was the final straw. Clint and I couldn't be in the same area of the carnival without coming to blows. He was always scrappy, wasn't really a fair fight. One day..." Barney lets the remorse he feels for his actions toward his younger brother slip into his voice. "he was around eight. He said something, he always was a sarcastic little shit and it really dug at me. I hit him, way harder then a should have. He dropped like a dead weight into a tent stake. Was knocked out for days. When he woke up he couldn't hear hardly at all. After that he stuck around for awhile, but I never saw him unless he was preforming. Then one day around his tenth birthday, my friend Jaques told me he'd gone and left the carnival. Haven't heard from him since. He could have died five years ago and I wouldn't have known it."

Phil speaks but his mind is still reeling trying to process Barney's story which is the most information he's ever gotten on Clint's past. "He's not dead. At least as of four months ago, he wasn't. You've been very helpful today. I have just one more question. Is there anywhere at all you think Clint might have went? Any place he has a special connection too?"

"We were born in Iowa, for some reason Clint always loved it in our home state. Nearly shit himself anytime I told him we were headed there with the carnival. I'd check around there."

"Thank you, Mr. Barton. Give us a call if you hear from Clint." Kate passes Barney a card as she rises from her seat. She shakes Barney's hand then tows Coulson out of the tent behind her.