Holy crap! The amount of feedback I got from everyone was amazing! I'm so glad that everyone likes this! Thank you all for reviewing, following or favorite-ing! It means so much!
For those who care, Baby Clint is doing great. Right now he's sitting at my feet demanding attention. Even when his father grabs him, he cries for me. It's because of him that I can't individually thank everyone. LOL. And now he's eating paper so let me go deal with that. _
Age: 17
"I was 17 when I got my first hit. I had just escaped a hospital-" Clint began explained. Bruce frowned. He wondered if maybe this was one of the reasons why Clint hated hospitals. Clint was about to continue on, but Bruce stopped him.
"A hospital?" Bruce asked. Clint shrugged before wincing. Bruce regretted asking but it wanted to make sure to keep Clint on track as much as possible. And considering this was the first time the archer had ever willingly opened up about his past, Bruce wanted to get as many details as possible. Who know how long this could last.
"Got into a bit a trouble. But anyways, I stole some clothes from the lost and found and took to the streets..."
Clint sighed deeply as he stared through the window of the restaurant. A family of four was sitting at the table nearest the window and had ordered more food then it looked like their bodies could eat. To the starving teen, it seemed like each member of the family had ordered three meals. But they were doing a decent job of plowing through the lot. The father was already working on cleaning up a third plate. His wife, beside him was steadily clearing her second plate and the two kids... Both girls, who looked slightly overweight for their ages were mixed between their first and third plates. Clint hadn't eaten for almost three days now. Heck, looking down at the baggy clothes he wore, he tried to determine if he lost weight. He assumed he had seeing as all he had been basically doing is walking around trying to figure out what to do.
It was only a week ago that he had been beaten nearly to death by guys he had once called friends. Guys who had helped him fake his ID into the Army and trained alongside him. It wasn't news to any of them that he was too young to be with them. But he, and his special ops training for sniper school, climbed the ranks faster than the older men. One of them couldn't stand it... He began complaining to the others. And it didn't take long for them to agree. The Colonel found the group beating Clint to near death. When they explained why, he told them to continue. Before being called to medical, the Colonel asked Clint if he understood that this was what he had signed up for. After two days in the hospital to recover, Clint got his official discharge papers. He would still keep his rank of Captain, but he wasn't ever going to be allowed back to the Army.
There was a sudden pounding on the window before him. Clint jerked to attention to see a very angry man in uniform looking like he was screaming at him. Looking behind him to the family, the mother was hiding her two children behind her and the father stood before them, looking rather aggravated that Clint had to ruin their meal by watching. Glancing down at the table, Clint was despaired to see that the table had been cleared of the original meal and was now being replaced with wonderful looking dessert. Sighing, Clint flipped off the man in uniform before heading off. He knew where he was going to get food tonight.
Clint returned around eleven that night. Some of the lights were still on and one or two people milled about inside. He frowned. Maybe he had timed this whole thing wrong. Waiting a few minutes, Clint watched as the people cleaned tables, the floors, counters and other such random places. One of them went over to one of the few registers around, typed in a code (that Clint could just about see) and began pulling out money from the cash drawer. Clint frowned. Was he that good? Could this be more than just a food heist? Could he possibly get money from this place too?
"You didn't!" Bruce interrupted when Clint went silent for a few seconds. Clint jerked in response before nodding. Frowning, Bruce leaned forward and noticed that Clint was going out again. Sighing deeply, he backed away. "So, did you get the money?"
"No."
Clint waited for over thirty minutes before all the lights fully turned off. He stared intently at the alley way to the back door. Once two people left the alley, he made his move. Thinking back on the situation later on, Clint would wish he had counted each person who had stayed in the restaurant after hours to clean. Maybe then he would have been fine. Strolling as casually as he dared, Clint crossed the street and aimed right for the alley. It took until he figured he was hidden by the shadows before he rushed toward the back.
Without looking too deeply at the rest of the alley, Clint began working on picking the door open. He thanked whatever god out there that his brother had taught him such skill before he left him. A sudden noise behind him, made Clint whirl around. Standing just past the light was another person. Shocked, Clint went to run away but the person caught him. When the person pulled the teen back into the light, Clint was stunned. It was the employee from earlier that day. He had a really pleased look to his face right now and that scared Clint more than being caught.
"I knew you'd return!" the person snapped at Clint. Terrified, Clint struggled against the other man's grip. But he was too weak from lack of food. Clint fought for another minute or so before giving up and sagging like a rag doll in the man's hand. If anything he could act like dead weight for where ever the man wanted to take him. And if the man wanted to beat him, it would be easier for Clint to curl up into a ball to protect himself in this position. The man laughed. "Given' up?"
"What are you going to do with me?" Clint whispered so softly that the man had a hard time hearing him. The man smiled and leaned down to Clint's level. Clint twitched away when the man's awful breath blew up his nose. For a moment, Clint wondered how people could stand him in the restaurant. He looked nasty and he smelled just as bad.
"I know someone that you'd be of great use too," he cooed dangerously. Clint shuddered before the man began dragging him along behind him.
"Clint?" Bruce called after a minute of silence. Clint jumped at the sound of his name. Bruce frowned, before leaning forward to check on the archer. He felt cool to the touch and his eyes looked like they were seriously dilated. The doc was shocked when Clint suddenly looked away from him as if he wasn't even there. Stopping himself from reaching out and slapping Clint, Bruce called out. "Hey!"
"What?" Clint cried, jerking into a more upright position. Immediately he groaned and slowly sank back into his relaxed position. Bruce winced when the archer moved but really didn't like that Clint didn't cry out in pain. Shifting even closer to Clint, Bruce lightly touched the archer's injured leg. Clint made no noise or even tried to move away. He pushed a little harder. Still, nothing. It wasn't until Bruce drew fresh blood that Clint distractedly looked down. "That's bad."
"Why don't you tell me where that man brought you and I'll worry about this?" Bruce suggested before working on ripping off some of his remaining pants (something Tony had been working on for a while and was still being perfected, but he had at least gotten it that Bruce wouldn't be completely nude). Clint briefly watched the doc work before reaching for his pants pockets. Bruce grabbed his wrist in an effort to stop him. "What are you doing?"
"I have bandages in my pants," Clint stated. There was a pause as both men processed what he said. Clint then grimaced. "That sounded so much better in my head. I meant, I get injured a lot and have to do field medical so I have some items in my pants pockets."
"Ah," Bruce responded before reached for the same pocket that Clint had been going for moments before. Opening it, the doc found bandages, meds, alcohol wipes, and other assortment of things one might find in a first aid kit. Bruce raised his eyebrow at the variety. Clint shrugged.
"I get injured a lot," he answered. Bruce sighed before getting back to work. After a few minutes of silence, Bruce looked up at Clint. The archer was watching him in morbid curiosity. Frowning, Bruce lightly slapped an uninjured part of Clint's body. Clint quickly looked at the doc.
"Talk."
Clint ended up being taken to a warehouse downtown. One that was three buildings away from where Clint had made his current home. That surprised Clint more than anything else. How could he have been so close and not even notice? Then again, at this time in his life, Clint wasn't as well versed in paying attention to his surroundings. He would have been too concerned with trying to survive rather than seeing the danger that was around him. Hence why he had so easily gotten captured.
The man dragged Clint all the way inside and once past the guards at the front door, Clint was tossed to the floor in the middle of the large warehouse. Glancing around, but not lifting his head, Clint noticed numerous amounts of kids from his age and younger all tied up to the walls. They were all either crying, sobbing, hanging there in silence, or looking mostly dead. Clint was terrified at that. He didn't want to die just cause he had been hungry and the man who brought him here had gotten pissed off.
"What the fuck is this?" a new voice demanded. Clint glanced up to see a man, who could stand to lose a few hundred pounds, sitting in an overly grand seat surrounded by young, thin, naked, starving teenage girls. The girls were sobbing but whenever the man touched them, they would grab some bits of food from plates in front of them and feed them up to him. Clint's stomach growled as he stared at the platters before the fattened man. The new man smiled when he heard it. It was then that Clint knew that this man enjoyed the pain and suffering of all those around him. And it was going to be here that Clint died.
"New kid. Hanging round my restaurant," the man who had taken Clint replied. The new man frowned and looked down at Clint. If Clint didn't know any better, the new man looked as if he could be looking over a menu for his next meal for all the interest he was showing. The man that had dragged the teen here didn't notice.
"What good is he?"
"Almost picked the locks on my door." The new man hummed in amusement before pointing to some children on the right side of him.
"They can pick locks. What good is he?"
"Just met him. Don't know. Saw him, he pissed me off, figured you might need him," the original man stated as if he could care less if this new man killed Clint. Actually no, he made it sound like he'd enjoy it if the new guy killed Clint. Clint almost whimpered at that thought. Looking around at the other kids, he could see that they have all seen this new man kill.
"Kid," the new man demanded while staring at Clint. Clint snapped to attention. "Tell me something that you can do really good that you doubt I already have in someone else here. If you don't, I'll kill you. No special skill, I kill you. Already have, I kill you. So, you better answer."
Clint didn't respond. He just looked at the wide assortment of kids in the warehouse and wondered. Could any of them hot wire a car? How about analyze people and guess what they are going to do next? What about hide really well? Or climb things that should be really hard or near impossible to climb? Suddenly, the first man kicked Clint in the side and sent him flying across the floor. The new man laughed loudly while the kids cried out in mix of horror and fear. Clint didn't make a sound.
"Answer him damn-it!" he shouted at Clint. Clint winced but still didn't answer. The new man rolled his eyes, now bored with the show.
"You brought me a mute. Nice. Well, kill them," he ordered. From a back area, covered in shadows, a door opened and three burly men stepped into the warehouse. Right away kids began crying out in fear or sobbing miserably. Clint inched away from them but they went for the first man straight away. When he noticed, he backed up, raising his hands to defend himself. His eyes had gone from so pleased to terrified. Clint could smell a new pungent smell. Glancing to the man, he noticed he had pissed his pants.
"Hey, wait! I brought you a kid! I've brought you many kids! You can't do this!" he cried. The new man shrugged as if this whole thing was just another day for him. Which, it technically was, but it shouldn't be so normal to just kill people.
"You may have brought me kids. But they aren't very useful," he stated before the burly men caught the restaurant owner. It happened so quick. One second, one of the men was behind him, grabbing his head from the chin and the top and the next there was a crack and the owner dropped to the floor, his head twisted at a weird angle. Clint gasped at the dead eyes that stared at him in horror. That was when the burly men came toward him. He inched his way across the floor away from them but their long strides quickly caught up to him. One of them grabbed him in the same style as the man that kidnapped him but before he twisted, Clint cried out.
"I can shoot almost anything into whatever target you direct me too!" he screamed. The burly man paused and looked to his boss who was slowly getting to his feet. Once on his feet, he stepped over the girls, crunching on one of their legs, making her scream. He hummed in interest at Clint, ignoring the girl he had stepped on. Clint focused on her in stunned silence. She silently sobbed, grabbing at her injured limb as the other girl just stared in mute horror. It was like the other knew that it easily could have been her.
"What?" That one word made Clint look back to the man. Gulping, he tried to remember what he said. It had happened so fast and he wasn't really thinking right. For all he knew he could have screamed that he knew the Devil personally.
"I can shoot almost anything into whatever target you want. I've hit peas, beer cans, dimes, through wedding rings, targets, apples and more," Clint answered, knowing that the brute holding him hadn't loosened his grip at all. "Just give me a day or less to learn a new weapon and then I can hit any target, no matter how hard the shot is."
"Have you killed someone?" Clint hesitated here. He had no idea what would be the right answer. Of course he had never taken a shot at a person. But he had hit a few animals in his day. Mostly squirrels, raccoons, mice, rats and one bird. He hadn't wanted to hit the bird. It just happened to fly into his arrow after he fired and it hit. Slowly, Clint shook his head no. "Would you be willing to?"
"Will you feed me?" Clint countered. The man frowned, confused. Clint gave him the most relaxed smile he could manage while knowing that the thug holding him could easily snap his neck. It wanted to pull off a look that told the man that Clint didn't care what happened in the next few seconds. But in his blue eyes, Clint still showed fear. "I need energy to pull back the string."
"String?" Clint nodded, finally feeling the brute relax when the boss waved his hand. He could tell now that he had the man interested. That was good. He could work with interested.
"I shoot best with a bow and arrow. Tried throwing knifes, my brother used to be better at that. I've also done some 9 mil and a M16 semi-automatic," Clint replied. The man's frown deepened. Even he couldn't get a hold of a gun like that, so how did this kid?
"Where did you get a hold of the M16?"
"Army," Clint answered, shrugging as if it was no big deal. The man smiled, now he was really beginning to like this kid.
"Really? How old are you?"
"17 but I told the army I was 18 when I signed up last year," Clint admitted. The man nodded, pleased that Clint was becoming such a good catch. Glancing down at the dead body, the man almost felt sorry for killing the restaurant owner. For the first time, he actually brought a very useful child. This one boy made up for every failure the man had brought in the past. If only he had been more patient. But patience was never one of his virtues.
"I happen to have an employee with a bow and arrow in the back. Would you care to prove how good you are?" the man questioned. Clint paused here. He did want to live. But he had no idea what the man would make him shoot. Glancing at the kids around him, he noticed many of them nodding their heads. None of them cared if Clint was ordered to kill them. It would certainly end their misery. Hesitantly, he answered.
"Sure."
"Good," the man called, waving his hand behind him in a sign that he was ordering the bow and arrow before turning and sitting back down in his seat. One of the men who had come out before, turned and went to the back of the warehouse. It took a minute before he returned with a ratty looking bow and a quiver full of arrows. A lot of the arrows were missing their fletching and the rest had broken ones. Both objects were dropped at Clint's feet. Slowly he reached down to the quiver, picked it up and began picking through the arrows. Once he seemed to determine them as fine, Clint looked over the bow. It wasn't well treated but Clint had worked with worse in the past. Heck, the first bow he trained on had a crack down the entire center of the wood piece and broke in the middle of his first show. "Prove how good you are."
"Where do you want me to hit?" Clint asked before draping the quiver over his shoulder and readying the bow. Tensely, he tested the string to make sure it wouldn't break when he pulled on it. It made a slight whine when he pulled back, showing that it hadn't been used in a very long time but it was still good. Nodding, Clint felt pleased enough with the state of the bow that he could hit anything in the room. Looking back to the man, he waited.
The man pointed to a blond boy on the other end of the warehouse. Right away, Clint stiffened. Even from this distance, the would-be archer could see the boy's brown eyes widen in surprise. Apparently, this boy believed he was a good worker. The girl that was hanging next to him, shifted away. Her green eyes filled with fear. But the boy on the other side of him seemed to shift closer as if he wanted Clint to hit him. Clint really didn't want to kill one of the other kids. But when it came to survival, Clint has learned one thing. Only trust yourself.
"There is a small knot in the wood behind that blond boy. Hit it without hitting the boy," the man demanded. The blond boy sagged against his bonds before realizing how close the knot was to his head. He then re-tensed. On his other side, the girl, who was close to the knot as well, whined as she tried to inch further away. Clint breathed a sigh of relief at the fact that he was shooting a knot in the wood, before grabbing an arrow without looking at the fletching, knocking it and pulling the bow string back till it touched his cheek. A quick glance made Clint realize he picked an arrow with only one piece of fletching. Sighing, he sighted up the knot as best as possible and released. A few seconds later there was a sharp twang. The man looked to one of his men and nodded toward the arrow, he then rushed down to check it out.
"Boss! He got it!" the minion cried back, humor in his voice. Clint briefly noted that both the blond boy and girl had passed out from their fear of him missing. The man looked to Clint with an evil smile. Though it looked evil and menacing, Clint could see the pride. For a moment, Clint couldn't understand why the man was so proud that he made the shot until he realized the man wasn't. He was proud that Clint was such an amazing teen.
"You get to live. But now, you work for me. You follow only my orders, do what I want you too, and keep quiet about it. If not, you'll die," the man commanded. Clint nodded. At this point, he could barely hide his fear over this situation. It almost felt like he had just signed a deal with the devil. He must have looked really nervous because the man stood and walked over to Clint with a soft smile. That just made Clint feel even worse. And it didn't help when the man placed a hand on Clint's shoulder to hold the teen steady. "Don't worry. We'll get along fine. My name is Ivan Petrovich. And yours?"
"Clint Barton," Clint said, not a single bit of hesitation. There was no way he was going to mess things up with Ivan this soon. Already Clint could feel that he was on thin ice. Clint really didn't like that feeling. Ivan nodded, pleased that Clint was turning out to be a fast learner. "I used to use the stage name, Hawkeye."
"Stage name?" Ivan questioned. Not once has he ever had an employee that had a stage name. He was now beginning to fear that maybe Clint wasn't just an orphaned kid or even a run away. The boy may have someone out there looking for him. Clint nodded, not really knowing what was going through Ivan's head. Before he could speak, one of the men from before moved closer to Clint. He was getting ready to catch the teen and kill him in case he was going to be any trouble.
"I worked in a few circus and carnivals. Each one I used the name Hawkeye," Clint replied, sounding rather proud of the name. He barely took notice that the henchman had moved behind him. Clint was too pleased with himself and his stage name that he was distracted with good memories. Ivan looked to one of his men as if he was wondering if Clint was joking. The man shrugged, having never heard of the name himself.
"Could sound rather threatening boss. I mean, who can hide from the sight of a hawk?" the man joked. Clint frowned, unsure if the man was insulting his name or not. He working hard to make that name. Ivan smiled.
"Hawkeye... Hmm... I like it," he declared. Smiling larger than ever, he looked down at Clint. Clint felt a chill run down his spine when Ivan focused on him. Again, Clint got the feeling that this man was the devil and his whole life was going to change. "I'll have Boris take you to your room."
"He gets a room?" one of the other men asked. Ivan frowned before glaring at the man. Clint could quickly tell by that statement that most kids were locked up in this warehouse until they were needed. Looking around, he could see that some of them had been here for a very long time. That made him more worried than ever before. Could he have done all this to prove himself just to get locked up here?
"Yes, Boris. Hawkeye gets a room. I need him rested and well taken care of if he is to be any use to me," Ivan snarled as if the man was the stupidest person in the world. Boris nodded, really not liking that a room will be wasted on a teen, before grabbing Clint's shoulder and forcing the teen to move away from the main warehouse.
"Ivan? I thought Natasha mentioned that as her adopted father," Bruce commented when Clint paused. Clint frowned, not realizing that Natasha had already opened up to the other Avengers. It took her almost a year before she began mentioning things to him. Well, willingly that is. A lot of times he tricked her into saying something or she needed to do or say something based on her past while on a mission. Slowly, he nodded his head. It was about here that Clint began to wonder why he was telling Bruce about all this. When he shifted, Clint remembered. "She never mentioned that he knew you."
"She doesn't know. At this point, Nat was still working with the Black Widow program and the KGB. She didn't rejoin up with Ivan until she came to America. That was when she met me... Like four years later," Clint admitted, trying to remember even the most minute detail of his past. Bruce frowned. Natasha had mentioned that she had no idea how old Clint was. She admitted to being only twenty years younger than Cap, which had shocked most of the Avengers until she explained about the Black Window program. Suddenly it hit him that Natasha would kill him for telling Bruce before her. "Don't... Don't tell her."
"I won't," Bruce swore when Clint seemed to look extremely panicked. After a minute to make sure that Bruce was telling the truth, Clint relaxed. "So... What did Ivan have you do?"
It was a week before Ivan actually called on Clint. By this time the teen had had a good rest and actually even gained a few pounds of fat or muscle, no one could really tell. But Ivan had been meticulous. He made Clint train just as hard as Clint had when he was part of Carson's Carnival of Traveling Wonders. Especially since Ivan bought Clint some new, stronger bows, a new quiver and hundreds of thousands of arrows. That had been a nice surprise. One morning his room had that old bow and quiver and the next morning everything was brand new. Clint had trained nearly day and night just for the excitement of shooting once again. Ivan also made Clint practice with numerous sorts of guns, knives and even had the teen train in hand to hand combat.
The hand to hand combat was hard. Yeah, Clint had gotten a little in Army training but it was never his focus due to him being a sniper agent. It had been difficult to find someone who was willing to teach the teen. After most of the henchmen had seen Clint's skill with the other weapons, no one really wanted to mess with him. But when Ivan tells you to do something, you do it. So the next obstacle had been height and weight. Ivan really didn't want someone too much taller than Clint or even heavier than the teen in case they went too far in training. It especially didn't help that, to the others, it seemed like Clint was quickly becoming Ivan's favorite.
"Dear Hawkeye," Ivan called when he walked into Clint practicing with his newest bow, a recurve. Clint paused in his shot as he looked over to Ivan. He had a large smile on his face, one that Clint had gotten used to seeing when Ivan went to give orders to other men. It gave him the creeps, real bad. But he wasn't going to let it show. Since working with Ivan, Clint had been working extremely hard at avoiding showing his emotions. Surprisingly, many of the other men had been willing to help him with that. Glancing at Ivan again, Clint realized that Ivan had something for him. Figuring he was going to be talking for a while, Clint released the arrow without checking his aim once again. It hit dead center anyways. Ivan's smile, if possible, became even larger. "Dear, dear Hawkeye. I have a... Mission for you."
Clint nodded, having already assumed as much. He had seen Ivan giving missions to many of the other men at numerous times during the day. The worst is whenever Clint was in training, cause normally then his trainer kicked him out of the room. Ivan held his right hand over his shoulder to the man who was following behind him. A man that Clint hadn't noticed until then. Mentally the teen cursed himself. His teachers had tried to instill in him that he needed to pay attention to his surroundings.
The man handed him something which Ivan then passed to Clint. Clint glanced at it, quickly noticing it was a photo of someone he swore he had seen before. But considering he tried to forget most people he met, it was no surprise that the teen couldn't figure it out. Flipping the image around, Clint noticed a time and place written on the back. '10:30 pm, Apollo Theater.' He had never heard of that before.
"Apollo Theater? Where's that?" Clint asked, having not spent all that long in the area. Ivan smiled and jotted down the address. Clint frowned before realizing he was almost on the opposite end of New York. Glancing up at Ivan in shock, Clint was stunned to see that Ivan wanted him to get there on his own. Most of the other men, who all had licenses, could drive there. But Clint hadn't gone to get his yet and Ivan had shown no interest in getting him one. So Clint would be forced to walk. And if this address was right, it would take nearly all the time he had between then and now. Without another word, Clint spun on his heel and took off, bow and quiver still on him. Ivan's laughing echoed through the halls as Clint mentally began to prepare himself for getting to the mission site.
Clint got to the theater just as everyone was being let in for whatever showing was going on earlier that night. Ignoring the crowd, Clint looked around for some good sight lines. The best would have been across the street on the roof of what looked to be a clothing store. But that was too obvious. As was the Hotel Theresa and the taller building beside that. In the opposite direction was a building that looked like it was made of glass. It was a good distance away and it was far enough down the street that Clint could use it as an exit route and no one would even know cause he'd never have to pass the body. Smiling, Clint headed over there to get himself set up. Even though he was a few hours early, no one would even notice if he disappeared for that long. Hell, this was New York. No one paid attention to anyone.
At 10:15 pm, Clint really set himself up. His bow was ready, he had picked out the nicest looking arrow and was staring down at the theater for his target. Having used his shirt to whip off whatever fingerprints he may have previously had on the arrow, Clint then grabbed at the gloves that he had picked up off of some rich guy he had passed by earlier. The picture was even sitting against the ledge so that Clint could stare at both it and the street beyond.
Waiting the remaining fifteen minutes felt like an eternity. But finally, it hit time and right on cue, the man walked out and leaned down to do something. There was no pause. Clint confirmed that this was the man he was supposed to kill, took aim and timed it in his head. Only a second later, the man was coming back up. Clint released the arrow without a second thought as to why the man was reaching down. As the arrow flew, the man came back up and tossed a little four year old girl into the air. Clint could only watch in horror as the arrow flew true. The man would never catch her. Both the girl and the man landed on the ground at nearly the same time.
"No! What happened to the girl?" Bruce cried, stopping Clint from continuing. The archer smirked and looked over at the doctor. It had been rather obvious the way Clint had been describing the scene. But apparently that didn't matter.
"I find it interesting that you don't care that I killed a man in cold blood but you care about the man's daughter who fell because her father couldn't catch her," Clint commented, a slight tinge of sarcastic humor lingering on his voice. Bruce frowned, unsure what that meant about him at this point. In the past he may have been bothered by such news, even if he knew the outcome. But after so long, Bruce couldn't seem to care.
"Well... I guess it's cause I kind of knew about your job before and so... I knew you started somehow. But... Please, don't tell me the little girl died too," Bruce nearly begged. Giving the doctor a look that told Bruce the answer, Clint sighed. At the time, he had really wished the same thing. Hell, he had felt sick to his stomach over such a fact. But... Clint stayed silent for a few minutes before going back to his story as if Bruce never even spoke.
Even from such a huge distance away, Clint could hear the sickening thud of the little girl falling to the pavement below. The teen's Army training kicked in and stopped him from expelling his last meal. No matter how much he wanted to be sick, Clint knew he couldn't leave any evidence. It may take the cops a few days before they realize that this was where he shot from, but vomit could still be enough evidence to trace back to him. Slowly, Clint picked up his things.
He was meticulous. Grabbed everything that could be considered evidence. He packed away the picture. The bow, his quiver and extra arrows. Wiped away the small scrapping off the roof edge from where his bow lightly smacked the concrete when he released the string. Hell, he even moved around the sand on the roof to make his footprints disappear. By the time he was done, police were already at the scene. The bodies were being taken away. No one paid any attention to the teen as he calmly left the building, glanced in the direction of the scene but walked the opposite way. For who would believe that he could be a killer? No... An assassin?
"I went back to Ivan. Didn't arrive until the middle of the night. One of the guards mentioned that there was a running bet on if I ran away or not. I asked if he won anything. He said a couple hundred bucks. Ivan was so pleased that when I woke up the next day there was an extra helping of food and brand new knife. I used that knife up until the day I saved Natasha. It wasn't until two days later that I also found five hundred bucks in my quiver. Along with a note. Keep it up and we'll be rich. Five hundred dollars for killing a father and a four year-old girl," Clint moaned. Bruce said nothing. He had been praying that the girl has just hurt herself. But... Unconsciously, he knew. As much as it sucked, Bruce knew. Clint sighed, realizing he had never gone back to keep his silent promise to the little girl. He had promised at the time that he would return to her grave one day and leave some flowers.
"Did you ever figure out who you killed?"
"Some senator that was trying to rebuild the warehouse into some sort of strip mall. Would have produced hundreds of jobs and a richer community. But it was the warehouse that Ivan hid all his kids and business. Supposedly, Ivan tried to be civil about it but the senator wouldn't hear it. It had to be his warehouse. So, Ivan threatened him. Still didn't work and then... Well, I came along," Clint admitted, sounding completely guilty. Bruce looked away. He had always wondered if assassins ever felt guilty over their kills. Bruce had asked Natasha once... Her glare afterwards made him never even want to try to ask Clint. "I worked with Ivan for over a year. Killed over 180 people. Mostly all of them innocent people that had gotten in Ivan's way for whatever reason."
"Do you regret it?" Clint gave the doctor an odd look. It was like Bruce had spoken a different language. Bruce sighed before adding on. "Working for Ivan?"
"Every damned day. But if not for Ivan, I wouldn't have met Coulson... And Natasha... And all the Avengers. I... I actually probably would have died," Clint muttered, realizing now that his whole life had pretty much lead up to this moment. Bruce nodded before inching forward. Clint glanced over but didn't move away. Slowly, cautiously, Bruce began checking Clint's pulse. For a moment, Clint wondered why but then he remembered his injuries. He couldn't feel the pain anymore. And he was slightly chilled. Not wanting to tell Bruce that, he decided to crack a joke. "Am I gonna live?"
"Of course. The others are out looking for us! I'm sure they'll find us," Bruce responded, not understanding that Clint knew the truth. Clint nodded, not believing the doc for even a second. Instead he sighed again and leaned back against the wall. His body twitched when he twisted an injured limb the wrong way. Bruce assumed that Clint felt it but when the archer's face never changed, he wondered if that was true or not.
"Before the Avengers... Hell, before Coulson, I never thought anyone cared for me," Clint mumbled, moving onto another part of his life. Bruce stilled. He wasn't sure if he wanted to move off of Clint's life or not. But he was still worried about shock. Clint couldn't sleep and talking certainly seemed to be helping.
"I thought you mentioned a brother," Bruce called, wishing there was more he could do to help then just keeping the conversation going.
"Barney? Yeah, such a great brother. Left me to die..."
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