(A/N) It's Sunday, so it's time for an ITEYAK update! This time, I'm very happy to return you to the hands of the amazing DeadWoman, as we get to see what's been going on with Clint Barton and the Careers following the other Hawkeye's chapter, as they adapt to their second day in the arena. Will it be as violent as the first? You'll just have to read on!

Shout out to musicalocelot and CrissKenobie-the-Numenorean for their reviews! You guys are awesome, and it means a lot that you think we're awesome too – obviously! We don't seem to have let you down yet, but I really hope we keep you guys hooked.

Enjoy!


Chapter Forty-Nine – Like Tears in Rain

Day Two

Clint Barton of District Two

Written by DeadWoman


"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time...like tears in rain..."

– Roy Batty, Bladerunner


The glowing blue hurt his eyes. Everyone was tense, waiting with bated breath as the countdown continued.


Clint cleaned his arrows, perched on the highest point he could find near the Career camp – an oak tree. The cloth purloined from one of the many backpacks the Careers managed to get was off-white and smelt of alcohol but it was a good arrow cleaner. He assumed it was some medical thing – the alcohol-soaked cloth – but he wasn't sure. He wouldn't give it up now, not that they would ask him to. His killing of one tribute and injuring of another was enough to gain him a meagre amount of respect with these bloodthirsty tributes. His strange relationship with Natasha had lowered the respect he might have had.

Romance was not welcome amongst these Careers. He had seen romance happen before in the arena, but it always ended badly.


The klaxon sounded and he was off, running, determined to get the bow and arrows he had his eyes on before someone else did. He knew that he would be almost worthless if he couldn't get them. There were enough fighters in the Career pack, they needed a long-distance shooter. A cold, deadly assassin, he thought. His hands closed round the bow and he was already pulling out an arrow as he turned round.


"Barton!" someone yelled. He looked through the branches and saw Elektra stood at the foot of the tree, a knife shining in her hands. "We're going on a hunt!"


The arrow sunk into a girl's chest. He loaded another one and looked around him. The chaos of battle was everywhere. He hadn't thought the Games would be like this.


Clint didn't bother replying to Elektra as he climbed steadily down the tree. Occasionally branches scratched him but he ignored the fleeting pain. The hunt yesterday was unsuccessful and it showed in the others' moods. Clint was irritated but he wasn't as clearly furious as the others. Most noticeably, Natasha. She had been almost vibrating with anger that they were wasting time before they had complied with the hunt idea, but after, she was even angrier.


Natasha ran towards someone but for once, he wasn't paying attention to her. Kate was fighting with Sin. She would be easily overpowered. He let his loaded arrow fly towards Sin but it just hit her shoulder. She yelled out in pain and moved out of his range of arrows, away from Kate. Kate met his eyes and he offered her a small smile. Then someone headed his way and he had to move. He avoided the onslaught of fists, knives and varying weapons thrown his way as he got under cover, scooping up backpacks and more weapons just in case things didn't go to plan. Then the fighting was over. People were running, cannons were being fired and he felt limp and lifeless.


Clint landed on the ground lightly and walked past Elektra to the camp they had set up. The others glanced up at him then looked back to whatever they were doing. Wade was still injured; evidently whatever Loki had done to attempt to heal him hadn't worked. Clint still didn't trust Loki. No, that was a stupid statement. He didn't trust anybody.

"What've you got there?" Thor boomed. Clint jumped as he felt a hand pull the backpacks off his arms. He didn't do anything to stop the older and stronger boy but he grasped his bow and sheath of arrows tightly. Perhaps due to Clint's desperate expression but most likely because of his talent in shooting arrows, Thor didn't try to prise them from his hands. Thor had self-elected himself as leader of the Careers and Clint didn't dare try to question his actions.

"Who's going on this hunt?" Clint asked, realising that his throat was dry. He reached for the water on his waist and took a long gulp. He didn't know when they would next be able to fill up their water if they were going hunting, but he needed something cool. The water was tepid but it was drinkable.

"Me," Thor said, standing up from his position beside Wade. Of course, Clint inwardly sighed. "Romanoff." Natasha stood up too, knives hanging from her belt and a smattering of fresh bruises on her arm. He was about to ask where she had gotten them from, but then she put on her jacket, covering them up. An obvious signal not to talk about the bruises. "And Elektra."

Elektra grinned.

"Try not to fuck this one up like you did last time," she said. Her tone was casual, but her words were anything but. Clint knew that he would have to watch out for her. She would be trouble if allowed to get too involved in the pack's actions. At least Thor was strategic and he had a weakness – Loki. Elektra just wanted to win, and he didn't doubt that they were just a stepping stone to victory to her.

They had gone hunting, due to Natasha's demands. Clint privately agreed. What use was having allies when you couldn't go hunt out the weaker tributes? He knew that the Careers were frustrated that they hadn't had a high kill rate but he was pleased. He had killed and injured. That should have been enough to keep in the good books for a while.

"We need to split up," Thor instructed after a ten minute walk away from camp. "Those ruins over there look like good hiding places. There's probably a tribute or two in there. Look for smoke."

"I'll go with Natasha," Clint volunteered instantly. It was in his best interests to stick with his district partner and anyway, he had a feeling that Thor and Elektra wouldn't hesitate to let him be killed. At least with Natasha he had some hope that she would save him or at least attempt to save him. Hope in the arena, however, was a finite thing and he was running out of his supply.

The other pair walked off, quietly sidestepping rubble and stones. As he was about to ask in which direction they should go, Natasha walked away, her steps light and her eyes searching for their prey. Hesitant, he followed her, pulling an arrow out of his sheath. He felt the buzz of his hearing aid against his ear and sighed. The Capitol had provided him with an improved one. He had to press the small button on it every twelve hours and so far, he had avoided the others seeing his weakness but he had to tell Natasha now if he didn't want to get left behind.

"Natasha!" He called. She paused only for a second then carried on walking.

"Romanoff!" he tried.

This time, she turned round long enough for him to see the murderous expression on her face. "Do you want them to think we're weaklings?" she hissed. "Shut up, or you'll tell the whole arena where we are!"

"I need to-" Clint began but she was already walking away. There was no point concealing it now. "I have to re-set my hearing aid!" he yelled. Then she stopped. The overwhelming silence made him feel empty. His heart thumped against his chest as he hurriedly took the hearing aid out and pressed in the button. He inserted back into his ear and the three beeps signalled that it was once again working. "Thanks," he muttered.

"We carry on now. Don't stop until we find someone and kill them," she replied, ignoring all that had just happened. "We take no prisoners."

"No prisoners," he agreed but inside, he was secretly hoping that they didn't find her. Watching Natasha brutally murder any tribute would make him shaken but he especially didn't want to see her murder that kid with the bow and arrows. The kid reminded him of himself when he was younger. When he was more innocent, less tired and ragged with the constant fighting and training and pressure to win. If he couldn't win the Games and his partner couldn't win the Games, he sure as Hell hoped that Kate Bishop would.


Exhausted, covered in cuts from trees growing out of the ruins, and starving, an hour later, Clint and Natasha met back up with Elektra and Thor. They looked fine, despite their news of not encountering any tributes. "They're hiding well this year," Elektra commented. "But they can't hide for long, right? I'm gonna smoke them out sooner or later." From the look on her face, Clint didn't think she was joking about the smoke bit and decided not to let her near any matches. It would be just like the crazy bitch to set the arena on fire.

"We should stick together from now on," Natasha said.

"Scared that you'll get too attached to Arrow Boy when you two are alone together?"

She ignored Elektra's comment, a smile still pasted on her face. "There's one direction we haven't gone yet. West. So I suggest that we head that way and look for the tributes so we can get the body count up and ensure my chances of winning."

"Your chances of winning?" Thor chuckled mirthlessly. "You're but a small girl. I know some fine female warriors, but you aren't as ruthless as they are, Romanoff. You're just a girl from District Two with no chance of winning these Games. You shouldn't have volunteered."

Natasha ignored him as well but Clint saw her jaw tighten as she started walking ahead. She stopped a few metres away, her foot resting on a fallen tree. Then she looked over her shoulder, cold eyes piercing them. "Are you coming or not?"

"Yeah, yeah, we're coming," Elektra rolled her eyes and ran on ahead of Natasha. Elektra's knife shone in the sun and Clint sighed. If his partner wasn't careful, that knife would end up in her back. He knew she would rather die than be viewed as weak but he didn't want that. To be honest, and honesty was never welcomed in his experience, he didn't want anyone to die. The Games were sick and twisted and the tributes went along with that. He volunteered for his chance to be free and freedom might come hand in hand with his death but that didn't matter. All that mattered was that he had changed in the meagre time he had been in the arena.

He would kill. He could kill. He had killed.

Sometimes it was easy to forget that, and that was the painful bit.

"Are you coming, Barton?" Thor asked and he realised that he had been staring into space.

"Yeah," he replied. The two walked together amicably until Thor broke the silence.

"What do you expect for us to find on this hunt?" The taller boy's voice seemed loud in the hushed silence of the arena. Not even birds sung in this section.

"I don't know. I didn't issue the hunt," he pointed out. The towering buildings that surrounded them seemed even more menacing in the eerie quietness. They could be hiding all sorts of tributes. Maybe some other tributes had formed an alliance and were hunting them right now. He wished he could scale one of these towers and get a bird's eye view of the whole arena. He was pretty sure that the sides – where the Games mixed with reality – would be heavily enforced. Maybe an unclimbable wall or a force field of some kind.

"Do you regret volunteering, Barton?" Thor asked with his voice probably as gentle as he could manage. Clint didn't reply. He knew that was a test and even though he didn't feel like it, he was on live television right now. The President and the Gamemakers – especially the Director – were watching his every move, monitoring his every word. The only relief was that they couldn't read his thoughts yet.

"I don't. I want to win these Games," he said. He must have been louder than he thought because the girls turned round. Elektra was smirking again and Natasha had an unreadable expression her face. "Sorry," he muttered. He had probably further flattened their chances of killing some tributes.

"There's something up ahead." Natasha gestured to a structure that Clint hadn't noticed before. It was a pile of metal and stone, obviously made out of materials from the city debris. It had a hole on one of the sides but it was impossible to see what was inside. It was dark in there and dust floated around from the rubble.

"Should we go in? It looks…unsafe." He didn't say dangerous. If something even hinted danger, the other Careers would all be lurching in there before they could do the necessary safety checks.

"He's got a good point," Natasha frowned. "I wouldn't want to die in such a ridiculous way."

"And someone's been here recently," he supplied his other argument. The others turned to look at him and he elaborated. "Fresh footprints in the mud over there, scattered burnt branches which means someone lit a fire then tried to cover up their tracks, this would be a good hiding place, among the broken buildings, but no-one is here. They've obviously been scared away by the other tribute. Could mean he's a formidable tribute, someone with good skills, maybe. Maybe it's a trap and they're waiting for us to fall for it. The other tributes don't dare distract us from it by hiding round here because they've seen it and they it would be good to get four Careers out the game so early."

"So, you're saying this is a trap?" Elektra asked. Clint nodded and Elektra barely hesitated before running towards him, kicking rocks out of the way as she went. Natasha let out a low growl of frustration.

"We should go after her," he said and Thor nodded, already withdrawing his weapon from his bag. Clint selected an arrow from his quiver and readied it on the bow. Drawing a weapon before he could see the threat was second nature to him now. He used to pause, analyse the threat, and see if it looked dangerous or not. Now, anyone would be dangerous. It could be some kid and he would have to shoot them. They were all just some kids. They approached the trap, wary as Elektra started poking around with her knife.

"No-one here, Barton," she called out in a sing-song voice. "This isn't a fucking trap. Probably some tribute's old den before they got killed for such bad hiding skills. See?" She kicked it and a sheet of metal fell off, but she dodged it. "The biggest threat is metal falling out at us."

"Right," Natasha sighed. "So there are no tributes here? No traps? Barton, are you deliberately leading us astray? Trying to distract us from that little archery girlfriend of yours?" She turned to him, a strange look on her face. He would have classed it as jealousy but this was Natasha Romanoff. She didn't really seem to do jealousy.

"I haven't seen Kate since the start of the Games, Romanoff," he replied. "It's not my fault that we haven't found any tributes. Maybe if you kept your mouth shut instead of yelling at people all the time…"

"If I kept my mouth shut?" She laughed coldly. "You haven't stopped talking since we got reaped."

"Since we volunteered."

"What? You regretting volunteering? Wishing you'd stood at the side-lines and not rescued that boy? We've all seen the footage, Barton. People view you as a hero for rescuing a stranger, and not expecting anything in return, but I know you. Your every move is some tactic to get close to me and break down my defences – isn't it?" Natasha snarled. Clint didn't reply; to be honest, he was too shell-shocked at her outburst. The arena seemed to be tearing down her calm demeanour and revealing the monster inside of her.

Natasha looked at him then stalked off to search the trap with the other two. Clint reluctantly followed, wondering how long it would be until he would have to go off to be on his own. He didn't want to be around Natasha or Loki any longer than was absolutely necessary. Screw alliances. He could steal some supplies and run off in the middle of the night. He was about to start re-thinking his game plan for the Games when he heard a creak. "What was that?" Thor said, tensing up. Clint frowned and then looked up.

"Oh shit," he exclaimed before the metal collapsed on them.


Clint opened his eyes, blinking away the spots in his vision. He was trapped under a pile of material but he was alive. Luckily he hadn't taken a blow to the head which surely would have killed him straight away. "Guys?" he groaned, kicking off the debris. Someone made a noise that resembled some sort of word so he assumed at least one another person was alive.

Clint stood up and looked around. Elektra was pulling herself out of the wreckage, looking relatively unharmed. Shame, he thought. Thor too was sat up, pulling splinters out of his hands and looking annoyed. "Natasha?" He said loudly. Elektra smirked but he ignored her, searching for his district partner. "Natasha!"

"Shut up, Barton," she said. He spotted movement and grabbed the exposed hand. Plastic fell off her as she stood up, glaring at the trap. "So I guess it was a trap."

"You can all apologise later," Clint said. "I don't like this. Who set up that trap and where are they? They could kill us from long distance while we're weakened." In fact, he was half expecting an arrow to pierce someone's shoelace. He was waiting for a laugh as a certain female archer jumped through the trees, demanding that Clint play dares. But Kate wouldn't be so stupid. He didn't know what she was doing but hopefully she was far away from the chaos of the Careers.

Then, from the distance, they heard a very distinct, "fuck!" and the rustling of trees. Clint chuckled. That wasn't her, he could relax. Whoever it was, kudos for originality, he thought with a smile. "Come on," he said to the others. "Let's go-" he stopped. He was about to say home. Damn. "Let's go back to camp. I have a feeling that Loki will be pretty fed up of nurse duty by now."


Once back in camp, Clint sat down on a log, letting Thor relate the failure of today's hunt and the story of the faked track and the trap to the others, his mind buzzing with thoughts. Wade's shoulder was getting worse, giving off an awful stench that made everyone reluctant to go near him. Elektra had reluctantly volunteered because she hadn't sat with Wade yet and the others had. Clint wanted nothing more than to climb a tree and polish his arrows but he made himself sit around the fire, pretending to be listening.

Eventually, he got fed up and walked off to sit on the piled up vehicles at the edge of camp. The sky was a vibrant blue, a nice blue. The kind he would have dismissed back home but here, he appreciated the beauty. He loved the beauty. The sky was limitless, endless, it never died. Death. Something he was all too familiar with lately.

He had protected Kate.

Of course he had. He had to protect Kate. She was the only one he actually liked in this arena.

But he had hurt someone. Sin.

He had killed someone. An actual person. Rogue.

Someone who might have a family, a boyfriend or girlfriend, friends, back home. Someone who would have felt just as guilty about killing Clint. No…this wasn't guilt, this was sadness. He was sad about someone who he had never met dying. Some people often were sad about people dying but Clint used to be built against it. He had never even grieved for his mother. He didn't have time. But now he had time. He had all the time in the world. He had until his death to mourn.

So, under that beautiful, brilliant, sky, weapons on his lap, allies behind him, blood on his hands, he wept for all the lost moments and all the memories those that had died and were going to die would never be able to make.

And suddenly, inexplicably – for there wasn't a cloud in the sky – it began to rain.