My take on Clint and Barney's canon back-story, before arrows ever came into the picture.

I DIDN'T LIKE HAWKS AT FIRST.

My name is Clinton Francis Barton, you can call me Clint, you may not fucking call me Francis. I was born in Waverly, Bremer County, Iowa, United States, to Harold and Edith Barton. They owned and operated a butcher-shop, there. I grew up with an older full-brother named Charles Bernard Barton. I called him Barney, everyone did. Our father wasn't a particular nice motherfucker, and our mother seemed perpetually lost midst it all—I've never held her in any measure of resentment, and I never will. To be completely honest with you, I've forgotten her face, but never her shivering. Our childhood was standard fare: Pops drank, a lot, boo-fucking-hoo, didn't tolerate what he perceived as back-talk, ended in a car-crash, Mom was unfortunate enough to be caught victim riding shotgun with him at the time it happened. Barney and I weren't there, we were at home, awaiting their return from a routine beer-run. Pops liked to drag Mom along wherever he went. I think it just gave him a twisted thrill to see the crushed disappointment in her eyes when she realized that, once again, she wouldn't be allowed a peaceful moment alone.

Barney and I were orphaned, that day. Took a long time for the authorities to get to our house, it took even longer before Barney and me got over our shared fear of people-in-charge and actually answered the door. They were beginning to discuss busting the front door down, or finding another way in, I remember. I was horrified by the loss of Mom, the fragile, pretty lady who had done her best to hold us when Pops wasn't paying attention. I didn't exactly know what to feel for Dad. Barney did, he laughed tears of joy. Then, he cried for Mom, too, but not enough, not hard enough, I was mad at him for days. He was older, and he'd learned to distance himself from her...I still hate him a little, for that.

We had relatives, but no way of contacting them. The social-workers drove themselves insane. Weeks and weeks turned into nearly two months of false numbers, bogus addresses, and general ridiculous goose-chasing. They gave up and began soaping us up for induction into the foster-care system. C.P.S. really did care for our safety and well-being, don't believe the cynical teenage crap Hollywood feeds the masses, yes, they are rushed and busy, and yes, sometimes they do nod a bit too dismissively, and sometimes, they do leave the room too quickly. But is there is always at least one individual who stops in their tracks and makes time for the lonely boys sitting in plastic chairs in the waiting-room, that fact I will never be dumb enough to downplay.

Barney was. Barney is. I don't think he has ever understood the concept of being simply fucking grateful of other people like I have. He'd say the same about me, I'm sure...we've always had differing ideas of what to be grateful for, and what not to be.

I was firmly under the impression that this was how things were going to be from then on, why should I have expected otherwise? I was a kid. Can't recall precise age; less than thirteen, more than twelve. Shut up, it makes perfect sense. Barney was fourteen-fifteen, or so. The children's home we were in was a temporary residence until a new, capable family was found for us, a new school district, a new life, a new future...well, okay, then, I shrugged. I still missed Mom, and Pops was a huge mind-blanking subject, but the pediatric mind only remains traumatized for so long until it becomes distracted and discovers new patterns based on previous damage inflicted.

I can be a fucking poet if I want. I don't.

Barney started gettin' some goddamn idiotic ideas into his head.

He watched too many films. You see, he seriously believed that he had taught me how to fight. That was bullshit. Real life is not written by novelists, abused kids do not miraculously learn how to defend themselves in hostile environments, they just learn how to scream bloody murder in the face of a grown man whose hands are balled up into fists in order to get their baby-brother out of another senseless beating. Didn't always work, Pops wasn't a scholar, but he wasn't fuckin' blind. He viewed everyone we interacted with as superficial, bland, and insincere, and he wanted out.

"'Out'?"

"Are you fuckin' deaf? Out!"

I didn't get it. He made me get it.

"Just copy what I do, I'll hold the window open for ya..."

A few hours later, I asked, blindly following the lead of my brother, "Um...aren't we gonna go back? I'm tired of this, Barn'." The breezes were getting chillier, the sky was growing darker, and our aimless wandering, from what I saw and increasingly felt, was getting sillier.

I'll never get the expression he gave me outta my mind, "Are you a fucking moron?"

I did not see that coming. Maybe I hadn't listened, before, but his abrasiveness was a sudden change to me, and it was the first instance I can remember wondering if I really had any idea who my brother was on the inside. It was a pretty mature thought for a thirteen-year-old boy, and it was knocked clear out of the ballpark when Barney frowned intensely, guilty, grabbed me by the shoulders, and hugged me. I flinched, instinctively remembering the surprise painful head-butts our father had oodles of fun doling out.

I spotted a hawk. It didn't mean much to me, it was just a huge cool-looking bird. "Hey, look! It's a hawk!"

"Who the hell cares?!"

I can't remember what we did next, we found an empty space to sleep in where Barney thought no pesky grown-ups would pester us. He was right, I dunno how. Through some stroke of (un?)luck, no kind-hearted man or woman came up to us in the dead of night, "Oh, my God, are you two okay out here?" No creeps, either.

Shit went downhill from there.

"I'm hungry."

"Well so am I! You're just gonna hafta wait. I'll find ya somethin'."

It went on.

"What'd you throw away that blanket for?!"

"It had cat-piss all o'er it!"

And on.

I wish I had known that it was only the start of the shitty situations my brother would get us roped up in. Fuck. I hate circuses.