Mission Twenty-One: Flashback

"So, do you actually like living up on the roof, or is that you leaning into the bird puns like whatever's going on with the sunflower seeds?"

Clint looked up to see that Steve had decided to join him up on the roof. Not that he was terribly surprised. Steve got along with everyone there—even if he sometimes clashed with Tony—but he didn't know Clint outside of what had happened in New York, and Clint hadn't bothered to try to integrate with the team.

And it wasn't like Clint was going out of his way to try to avoid Steve, either. He wasn't. But he hadn't felt connected to the Avengers to start with, and now, he wanted to see how the team gelled and how the fall of SHIELD affected their dynamics before he was willing to fall into anything like trust with these people.

If he thought about it too long, it was almost like a joke. His partner was the Black Widow, but he was the one having a hard time trusting people.

But he knew he should make an effort, so, without turning to look at Steve, he shrugged and leaned back on his elbows, so that he was looking up at the sky rather than down at the city when Steve came to join him. "I like to know what's going on around me," he explained. "And, to tell you the truth, it's quieter up here than anywhere else in this tower. Gives me the ability to hear myself think."

"Yeah, I get that," Steve said as he settled in on his own elbows, pointing himself in the direction Clint was looking.

Clint sighed and sat up straighter so he could face Steve. "So," he said heavily. "You came up here for a reason, Cap. What can I do for you?"

"I can't check up on my teammate?"

"I'm fine, Cap. You're the one spending your time with Nat and Sam trying to track down your best friend," Clint said. His tone was careless and easy, but he could see how Steve immediately straightened up and knew he'd put him on the defensive. "I'm fine, Cap. You just tell me when you've found the bad guys, and I'll get 'em for you."

"And I appreciate that." Steve took a deep breath and let it out again. "You know she was worried about you the entire time, right?"

Clint knew that Steve was baiting him, and yet, he couldn't help but straighten up. "Yeah, I mean, I was worried about her too," he said, trying to sound casual and absolutely failing at it. "We were both worried. Obviously. Who wouldn't be worried about their partner in the middle of something like that, right? No one saw it coming, and, I mean, my favorite SHIELD agent—besides Coulson, obviously—turned against me and tried to turn me over to Hydra. So, yeah, nothing was—I mean, we couldn't take each other's safety for granted, right? But that's just, you know, part of the job when you work for SHIELD. Even more when you work for a SHIELD infested with Hydra, I guess." Clint gestured with both hands and then covered his face with those hands, knowing Natasha would have given him such a look for utterly screwing up any high ground he might have had in this interrogation.

Steve was quiet as he let Clint dig himself into a hole, and then, he rearranged himself so he was sitting up better. "I'm digging into everything I can find about Hydra infiltrating SHIELD," he said, finally getting serious, as Clint had expected.

"Yeah, I don't blame you. Nat's still mad about it too."

Steve pressed his mouth into a thin line. "And you?" he asked.

Clint shrugged easily. "The people I cared about made it out. The ones I cared about that turned out to be backstabbers didn't. The rest… they're not worth losing sleep over."

"That how you felt when you left the Circus of Crime?"

Clint dropped all trace of his usual, easygoing demeanor, and he sat up fully, turning to face Steve with a finger pointed at him. "Where did you hear that name?"

"I've been digging into everything I can find about Hydra infiltrating SHIELD," Steve said, his expression impassive as he watched Clint.

Clint narrowed his eyes and then looked away from Steve. "I didn't know they were Hydra until Coulson told me," he said. "After I joined SHIELD."

"When you were still a teenager," Steve said, nodding, though he hadn't taken his gaze off of Clint, and his tone hadn't changed at all.

Clint nodded his confirmation. "Look, if you're fishing, I'll tell you whatever you want to know. But you can ask Coulson if you want to know how involved Hydra was with the Circus of Crime. The fact that I didn't see anything green while I was there just means they weren't being obvious about it. I didn't see the signs in SHIELD, either, so I'm not exactly the best litmus test," he said dryly.

Steve smirked at that, but only for a moment. "I'm not accusing you of anything. I'm just looking for inroads, here," he explained.

"I don't keep in touch with anyone from back then," Clint said. "I haven't even talked to my big brother since I joined SHIELD. He knows how to contact me, and if he does, I'm sure it'll be interesting. You could sell tickets."

Steve chuckled at that. "That part, I get," he said.

"So what's the part that's bothering you, Cap? Like I said, I'll answer whatever you need answered. Really. I know I was technically a spy, but I was never good at being undercover. I got busted out on my last assignment that required any real acting," Clint said, smirking with his hands out in an open gesture.

"Yeah, I'm starting to get that idea," Steve laughed.

"Nat's the actress between us."

"I figured that out pretty fast too," Steve agreed. He took a deep breath and let it out. "Believe it or not, I wasn't coming up here to accuse you of being in Hydra. I trust Natasha's judgment, and I know you didn't fake any of your injuries, either."

"I'm sensing a 'but' coming…"

Steve laughed. "But," he said, smiling, though that smile fell as he came to his real question, "I wanted to ask you about … about what it was like."

Clint raised an eyebrow, but when he saw the expression Steve was wearing—pained but almost hopeful—he let out all the breath in his body. He knew exactly what Steve was asking.

He took a deep breath, held it, and let it all out at once. "It wasn't great," he said. "I won't lie to you and say I grew up, you know, anywhere close to okay with that group. But I will tell you that it was still miles better than where I came from."

Steve let out a low whistle. "Can I ask…?"

Clint shrugged easily, but his gaze was miles away. "Foster care."

"Ah."

"Yeah." Clint let out his breath. "Barney and I were looking for anyone who could get us out of there. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of Hydra recruits feel the same way. That's what groups like that do, right? They find vulnerable people to exploit. Been doing that for forever."

"I'm sorry," Steve said.

Clint immediately waved him off, though. "Not for you to apologize for, Cap. And I'm not a big fan of pity parties."

"Not what I was going for."

"Yeah." Clint took a deep breath again and let it out. "Anyway, I wish I could give you better intel, Cap. I know you're worried about your friend. But I joined when I was ten and desperate, and from what you've told me, he didn't exactly volunteer."

"No, he didn't," Steve agreed. He paused. "But I'd still like to hear about the Circus of Crime." He quickly held up both hands. "I won't push, I promise. Frankly, you weren't involved in Hydra at a high enough level for this to be strategically important enough to push."

"But you're curious," Clint finished for him.

"More than I can say."

Clint bit his lip, but when he looked at Steve, who was practically holding his breath, he knew what his decision was before he'd even made it. Steve was desperate for any idea of what his best friend had been through for decades. And if Clint could provide that by telling him about the Circus of Crime… well, maybe he could also point Steve at some people from his past that deserved the ire of Captain America while he was at it.

So, he took a deep breath and let it out. "Coulson ever tell you how he found me?"

"He was light on details."

"Yeah. Protecting my pride, probably."

"Probably," Steve said, and when Clint looked his way, there was a light, teasing smile at the corner of his mouth.

Clint laughed and leaned back more. "Yeah, he's good like that."

…

"Are you sure you want to press your luck?"

Clint grinned easily at his big brother, his hands behind his head as they laid down in the field close to the circus tent, enjoying a rare moment of downtime in between shows—and in between training with Jacques. "What, you don't think it was funny?"

"Sending a SHIELD agent to the movies? I don't get the joke."

"Probably the first time he's ever done anything like a normal person," Clint pointed out, watching the clouds go past overhead.

"And that makes it funny?"

"I'm not explaining the joke to you, Barney. It's not funny if you have to explain it."

"Sure, Clint." Barney grinned back at him from where he was leaning against a tree, watching the sun start to rise. They were both exhausted after a long night pulling their weight for the circus and running a robbery, but they still wanted to steal moments like this, moments where they didn't have any obligations. Those were rare lately, especially as they got older and better at what Jacques had taught them to do.

They were quiet for a while, until the adrenaline of their last score started to wear off. "We should probably go back," Clint said at last.

"Yeah, probably," Barney said, though neither of them moved. They both knew that Jacques wouldn't be pleased with Clint for playing games with SHIELD. Even if SHIELD already had the circus in its sights, Jacques would find a way to blame Clint for it. "I can tell him it was my idea."

"Nah," Clint said, his tone careless, though his muscles were tight. This was part of why he hadn't fallen asleep, even if he was exhausted.

"You sure?"

"Yeah. You've already had a couple strikes against you this month. He'll be more pissed if he thinks you're screwing up too often than if he thinks I'm being a clown."

….

"I was already thinking of leaving the circus by the time Coulson even caught our scent," Clint admitted, looking out at the skyline instead of at Steve. "I wasn't ready to leave, but I daydreamed about it all the time."

"Didn't want to work for Hydra anymore?" Steve asked.

Clint let out a hollow laugh. "Nah, that gives me more credit than what's actually due," he said. "I didn't even know the circus was part of Hydra for forever."

Steve frowned. "How old…?"

"Ten." Clint was still looking out at the skyline instead of at Steve. "My brother and I joined up when we were still kids. Foster care, you know?"

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. Not like it was your fault," Clint said carelessly, then cleared his throat. "But, yeah, I didn't really understand what the Circus of Crime was for years, you know?"

"How could you?" Steve pointed out. "You were just a kid. You can't blame yourself for not being told the full extent of things."

"I still knew we were stealing stuff and hurting people."

"You were just a kid."

"Yeah, okay." Clint shook his head, knowing when Steve decided something, it was pointless to argue with him, especially when he was wearing that expression. "Anyway, it was hard to want to leave. We grew up in that circus, and I'd have stayed if I thought I could."

"So, what changed your mind?" Steve asked softly.

Clint was quiet for a long time. "I didn't mind stealing," he said. "I was really good at it. Still am, only this time it's called espionage." He gave Steve a rueful grin. "Everything I do for this team, I learned at that circus. It's not like I'm not grateful. I just…" He blew his breath out. "I didn't want to stay where people were getting hurt," he lied.

…..

"Would you just let me look at it?" Clint asked, exasperated when Barney shoved him away hard enough that he had to take a few steps back to right himself.

"I'm fine."

"But if you-"

"I'm fine." Barney shoved Clint a little harder, and Clint stumbled backward into the trailer wall, knocking one of the posters down in the process so that it fell down on top of his head just as he landed.

Clint pushed the poster out of his face and looked up at Barney, who didn't even check to see if he was okay. He just went right back to nursing the cheap beer Clint had brought him, hoping the peace offering would make up for the fact that he knew—he just knew—that Jacques had taken his frustration out on Barney for Clint's antics. Because he needed Clint for an upcoming job. Because Clint was his protégé.

Barney knew it, too. And there was nothing Clint could say or do to change it.

"I'm sorry," Clint started to say, and Barney spun around to glare at him, gripping the beer hard enough that Clint was sure he would break it.

He looked just like their dad.

Clint swallowed a few times, staring at his brother—at his anger—and then picked himself up, never taking his eyes off of Barney, feeling his way for the door with his hand behind his back until he found it and practically tumbled outside.

He couldn't do this. He couldn't watch this place turn his brother into everything they'd run away from. Barney had taught him better—had raised him better than that.

But the Barney who had taught him to stand up for himself and others, the one that had taught him how to hit hard and make it stick, that Barney was gone. And Clint had to admit to himself that he'd been watching that happen for a good, long time.

…

"So, you left?" Steve asked, drawing Clint out of his thoughts again. His tone was restrained, trying not to be eager but obviously desperate to hear something he could hold onto.

"Sorta."

"Sorta?"

"Sorta." Clint shrugged, looking down at his hands. "To tell you the truth, wanting to leave and actually leaving are different things, especially when you're still a kid."

Steve frowned at that. "How old were you when you joined SHIELD?"

"I mean, I'm not going to answer that on the grounds that you might get pissed at Coulson."

"I'm not going to get pissed at Coulson."

"You might."

"I'm not."

"Sure, sure. Let's just say I was still a kid and leave it at that, huh?"

"And you think I'll get pissed at Coulson for rescuing a kid?" Steve raised both eyebrows at him. "Seriously?"

"I wouldn't call it rescuing," Clint said, wrinkling his nose. "More like making sure my skills were put to good use—and making sure Hydra didn't come find me again."

"So… rescuing."

Once again, Clint pulled a spectacular face. "That… is not really how I remember it."

…..

Clint had picked the indoor swimming pool as a post-robbery hideout for a reason. It was October, and the pool had good heating so that the swimmers didn't freeze the second they got out of the water. It was warm and even a little humid, and that was perfect when he'd fallen into a snowdrift at the tail end of an otherwise flawless escape.

Well, it was flawless on his end, anyway.

Lately, it seemed like SHIELD was getting closer and closer to the Circus of Crime. Jacques and Maynard both had been throwing accusations out left and right about who was being sloppy and whether or not someone was feeding information to the feds. And lately, mistakes in the middle of heists were as good as admissions of guilt to the two of them—with appropriate punishment meted out according to their standards.

It was getting harder and harder for Clint to poke at the SHIELD agent he knew was following them, and he wasn't even sure why he did it. If someone had asked him to outline his thinking, he would have shrugged.

When he was older, looking back, he'd be able to articulate that he was looking for a way out. Any way out. But he didn't know how to say that.

This time around, he hadn't even been able to leave any clues behind, though. This time, it really had just been a run of bad luck that broke up their heist, and everyone had scattered to their hiding places. Tomorrow, they'd meet back up, but for the night, they were hiding, waiting for the scrutiny to die down.

And so, Clint had come to the indoor pool, drinking in the warmth and looking for a good spot to curl up and sleep.

So, of course, that was when he heard a door open on the far end of the pool facility, and he suddenly realized that there weren't that many hiding places in his chosen hiding place. He hadn't expected anyone to look in a pool. There were windows all around the place!

"…saw him come in this way," an unfamiliar voice was saying, echoing oddly in the space.

And that explained it, didn't it? If he'd been spotted coming in, he hadn't been bad at picking a hiding spot; he'd just been bad at running away.

Not that it was much comfort when he was looking for somewhere the feds wouldn't look for him. He wanted out of the Circus of Crime, sure, but he didn't want to be thrown in jail either.

He held his breath, flexing his fingers absentmindedly as he tried to figure out his next move. He was alone, and he was tired, so he didn't want a direct fight. There weren't many places to hide, though….

There.

By the time he'd made the decision, he was already scrambling up the diving board. He should have thought of this from the start; he knew from experience that people always forgot to look up when they were looking for people. And he'd been a sniper long enough to know he had the advantage, no matter the numbers, once he had height on his side.

He scrambled up the ladder and then flattened himself, slowing his breathing as much as he could so that the sound of it wouldn't echo around the pool. He waited, listening for footsteps or for the shouts that usually accompanied feds who thought they had someone cornered, and when he heard nothing, he reached for his bow, ever-so-slowly getting ready.

Clint heard the door open again, which meant there was yet another fed in the pool. But he didn't dare peek out again to see who was there. Even if he knew he did better with a visual of everyone in his path, he couldn't risk it.

The feds' shoes sounded too loud against the tile of the pool area. One agent must have been a girl, because Clint heard clacking. And someone was wearing shoes that squeaked.

He was dying of curiosity, but he also knew that sixteen-almost-seventeen was old enough to get tried as an adult for a lot of what he'd gotten himself tied up in, so he kept his mouth shut and his head down.

At least, that was his plan until he heard someone say something about security cameras.

No hiding from that, he thought and peeked over the edge of the diving platform in time to see a woman peel off from three other agents to duck into an office of some sort. From the signs on the outside, Clint figured it was probably for signing up for swimming lessons.

And, well, Clint figured that he probably had better odds with three agents than four, so while the woman was in the office, he pulled his bow up, tried to make as little sound as possible, and fired at the biggest agent.

The man let out a wet, gurgling sound when an arrow hit him in the throat, and the agent nearest him immediately rushed to his side, swearing up a blue streak. The last agent, on the other hand, took out his gun and seemed weirdly calm as he looked around the pool—his gaze higher than normal.

Oh no. Clint recognized this guy. He was the same one Clint had sent off to the movies.

"What, do you have some kind of vendetta?" Clint called out, his mouth running away with him before he could think far enough ahead to know that giving away his position early was a very bad idea.

Not that they couldn't figure out where he was based on the shot he'd just taken, but still. He was supposed to be smarter than this.

"I was going to ask you the same thing," said the weirdly calm agent.

Because of course Clint had found a weird SHIELD agent to play a prank on. Of course he had. He couldn't have picked a normal one; that would make things too easy, wouldn't it?

"I don't actually know you, so I can't have a vendetta."

"And I don't know you either."

"Great, so we can both leave, right? Nothing to see here?"

"I think we both know that's not how this is going to go, Mister Barton," the agent said. His tone was still perfectly friendly, but there was a warning to it this time.

Yeah, I'm in trouble, Clint thought, but what he said out loud was: "Please, there's no need to be so formal. Mister Barton was my rotten drunk of a father."

Clint could swear he heard the agent laughing, even though he could also hear him muttering instructions into some kind of communication device. "Yeah, I've read your file."

Oh, I'm in big trouble, Clint thought. "A file for little old me?"

"Little, sure," the agent replied, and Clint thought he heard doors opening somewhere else in the swimming complex.

Clint closed his eyes to steady himself. "I'm going to go ahead and take that as an insult."

"You shouldn't." The agent's tone was disarmingly kind, and Clint wasn't sure what to do with that. "You're only seventeen, and the file my team put on my desk when I looked into you was impressive. You've got some real potential, and I think you know as well as I do that you're not measuring up to all you're capable of under the thumb of the Circus of Crime."

Clint gripped his bow too tightly and forced himself to relax his grip, knowing that it would mess up his shot otherwise. "You're not coming after me guns blazing after I shot one of your guys, so whatever you're building up to, go ahead and ask it."

"Why don't you come down here first?"

"No."

"We can talk-"

"No."

The agent let out a long, tired sigh, dragging his hand down his face. "Mister Barton-"

"That's not my name, remember?"

"Right." The agent crossed his arms, still looking up toward Clint. "Come down, Clint."

"No."

"Then this is going to take a while," the agent said. He still hadn't broken from his amicable, easy tone, and he even went to one of the benches that parents used to watch their kids swim practices and sat down, making himself comfortable. "Why don't you tell me about yourself in the meantime?"

Clint stared at this agent. "I don't think this is how it's supposed to go."

"This is how it's going. I'm not leaving, and you'll need to come down eventually."

Clint narrowed his eyes and then pulled back so that he was better covered by the diving platform. He didn't at all trust this agent, and he needed time to think. Time to plan.

…..

"So, how'd he wear you down?" Steve asked when Clint trailed off in his retelling. By that time, they'd gotten comfortable, leaned back and looking more like two friends than two teammates. Nat had been right; Steve was surprisingly easy to get along with, even knowing his reputation.

Clint shrugged and smirked. "By being patient. That's how he is. He sat there on that bench for hours. We'd trade words, I'd threaten him, he'd try to talk me out of my life of crime, and none of the other agents seemed to know what to do with him."

"Of course not. He's one-of-a-kind."

"Don't I know it." Clint shrugged and shifted so that he was no longer sitting the same way he'd been for the past however long they'd been talking. "Anyway, like I said: I don't think you can use me as a model for how to get someone out of Hydra. Not unless your friend is a scared kid who wanted out in the first place and just needed someone to wait him out."

"Yeah. How'd he get you down from that tower anyway?" Steve asked, waving his hand. He'd apparently already dismissed the idea of getting any advice about Bucky and was now invested in the story.

Clint grinned. "Well, my stomach growled loudly enough to echo, and he offered pizza."

"Pizza? Seriously?" Steve laughed. "That's what did it?"

"Well, he wasn't shooting at me, and I was hungry. I knew I'd have to come down sooner or later, and pizza didn't sound like what they give you when they're arresting you." He held up one hand. "I was still totally arrested. But I also got pizza."

Steve laughed, shaking his head. "Yeah, I don't think that recruitment strategy would have worked with anyone else."

"Yeah, they don't make 'em as screwed up as they made me," Clint said with an easy laugh.

"I dunno. I think you're okay."

Clint chuckled dryly and brushed himself off. "Okay. So. I bet the others are wondering where we went."

Steve nodded his agreement and got to his feet. "Thanks," he said, but Clint shrugged him off.

"Hey, we're teammates now, right? And Nat likes you. That's good enough for me."

Something sparkled in Steve's expression, but he didn't put words to it. Instead, he just smiled. "Yeah, I've got to agree with you there."