Shift In Reality Chapter 1: The Event, an avengers fanfic

Summary:

The multiverse is an infinite realm, a universe of endless possibilities. There is no end, no limit to the number of realities of which it can create. Some of these universes vary greatly from one to the next, others may be the same in every way but one. These universes can branch for nearly any reason, big or small. In one perhaps the world is run by anthropomorphic animals and everything appears as though it's stepped straight out of a children's cartoon, in another you may have simply decided to have a bagel for breakfast rather than cereal.

This universe broke away from the Sacred Timeline on March 18, 2002.

Chapter 1: The Event

In simpler terms the multiverse is an ever growing mass of worlds all steaming from one Sacred Timeline held together by a single being like some form of cosmic duct tape. And it only takes one single event for a new timeline to form.

This is how Earth 667 came to be.

March 18, 2002

Clint Barton was not having a good day. He knew it wasn't going to be a good day the moment he woke up and found his brother had drunk the last of their coffee. He was particularly annoyed about this because he'd specifically hidden the last of the coffee grounds in the fridge, inside a plastic baggie, in the jug of milk. Not the new milk either! The expired milk that neither of them had bothered to throw out in the last week. He went to a lot of work in order to make sure he got at least one cup of coffee, yet somehow his brother had it and not even bothered to save any for him.

When Clint decided to voice his thoughts on the matter all he got in return was an exasperated look and the reply of, "Clint, you're eleven, you don't need to be drinking this stuff anyways, it'll stunt your growth."

Which was completely unfair as Clint had been drinking coffee since he was five and was absolutely fine thank you very much. But Barney couldn't be swayed and so Clint went about his day without his morning caffeine just knowing that something was going to go wrong.

And go wrong it did.

While training with Jacques he was tired and that made him slow, the expert swordsman nicked him not just once or twice but four consecutive times. As punishment for his poor performance he had to muck out the animals pens. Then he had archery training with Buck, which also went horribly. He dropped his arrows, somehow managed to smack himself in the face with his own bow, and then he fell off the horse. As punishment Buck made him shoot targets until his fingers bled.

And the icing on his shit cake of a day turned out to be walking back into the small caravan he shared with Barney to find his brother, Jacques, and Buck standing over what looked to be some very intricate plans

Of course they saw him, Jacques threatened him, Buck cursed and paced, Barney tried to reason with him, Clint pretended that he understood. Barney swore to the other two occupants in the room that he could be trusted. The other two didn't look as convinced, but seemed to trust Barney's judgment on the matter. They told him everything, from embezzling from the circus to the heists they'd pulled while traveling. Barney was under the impression that Clint was old enough now to understand and that he could even help them. Clint wasn't as convinced as he led his brother to believe.

He played along until Jacques and Buck had returned to their own caravan and it was just him and Barney getting ready for bed. The two of them climbed into their respective bunk beds and Clint waited until he heard his brother's breath even out and then waited another five minutes for good measure before he snuck out of his own bunk, put his shoes on as quietly as he could manage and slipped out the door.

His plan was to go to Mr. Carson and tell him everything, he was an adult and he would know what to do better than Clint ever would. That was the plan, until someone grabbed him from behind, clamped a hand over his mouth and dragged him in the opposite direction. He couldn't see who it was that had grabbed him but by the size of the hand and the overpowering smell of sweat and ax body spray he was pretty sure it was Jacques.

That is how he found himself tied to a chair in the middle of Jacques and Bucks caravan as his brother paced a groove in the floor at 11:34 pm on a Monday. Of course it was a Monday, everything bad always happened on a Monday.

The three were muttering amongst themselves, they were talking quietly enough that Clint couldn't quite hear them, but being mostly deaf for a majority of his life he was pretty decent at lip reading, at least he could make out a few words.

"…blindfold him and drop him off somewhere…"

"…never work…"

"…let me…"

"…you can't do…"

"…take care of him…"

"…stubborn brat…"

"…he'll just come back…"

"…what's good for him…"

With the three of them all talking at once Clint couldn't really manage to make out the whole conversation but he could piece things together. Barney and Buck wanted to load him in a van drive in a random direction and drop him off in the middle of nowhere and hope he never found his way back. Jacques wanted to kill him.

The three of them turned to him as one and Clint felt the pressure in the room change. Barney approached him and knelt down. He put a hand on each of Clint's shoulders and took a deep breath.

"Alright Clint here's what's gonna happen…"

And so Clint remained tied up, this time in the back of a truck with a piece of fabric tied over his eyes. Barney was sitting next to him with a hand resting on his shoulder, Jacques was behind the wheel, Buck stayed behind.

The car ride felt as though it went on for hours, and realistically it probably did. The roads were bumpy and Jacques was never the best driver so there was a lot of skidding around and honking and yelling coming from the driver's seat.

Barney said they were going to drop him off somewhere, somewhere far far away from the circus. Jacques said if he knew what was good for him he wouldn't come back. Clint had realized a long time ago that he should've just kept his mouth shut. He really hoped that Barney wasn't going to leave him, not by himself.

The car stopped and his nerves spiked. Barney pulled him to his feet but the blind fold remained. He heard the vans back door open and a pair of large hands were suddenly around his shoulders and lifting him up. His feet hit the ground and the blindfold was removed. They were on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere, the road wound around them in every direction so he couldn't tell which way they'd come from. Clint stood facing Barney and Jacques with his back to a drainage ditch.

Barney knelt down next to him and once again placed his hands on his shoulders, and then pulled him in for a hug, and began to speak with Clint still held tightly against his chest, "you're going to stand right here and turn your back to the road. You'll count to one hundred and only after you've reached that number will you turn around and start walking down that road," he pointed in one of the directions the crossroads branched off in, "until you make it to town. After that you're on your own."

Clint felt like he was already on his own, and he didn't like it.

Barney pulled out of the hug and stood up to go meet Jacques and get back in what Clint now recognized to be Mr. Carson's emergency transport van. But Clint didn't want to be left here alone, he didn't want to lose the only family he had left. He acted quickly and grabbed ahold of the sleeve of Barney's shirt.

"Don't leave," Barney shook him off but Clint just grabbed ahold of his arm instead, "Barney please! Don't leave me here!"

He was crying now, tears streaming down his face that he couldn't stop, "PLEASE! You can't leave me here! Barney!"

His brother struggled to get his hand off of his arm while Clint continued to cry and beg him not to leave. Jacques became irate and grabbed Clint by the back of his shirt and yanked, successfully dislodging his grip on his brother, then he threw him on the ground at the edge of the ditch and pointed a knife at him.

"Listen ya little shit," Jacques growled, "you're gonna stay here and keep your mouth shut or I'm gonna slit your throat and do it for ya."

Jacques was terrifying, a wall of muscle with a mustache and a deep gravelly voice that one could only acquire after smoking cigars for the last twenty years.

Clint, who had once seen the man hopping around in pain in nothing but his underwear due to a stubbed toe, didn't care. He was either going to die quickly by Jacques knife, or he'd die slowly of exposure when they abandoned him. Or, the little treacherously hopeful part of his brain thought, if he apologized and promised that he'd keep his mouth shut for real, they'd take him back with them and they could all forget this ever happened.

So when Jacques turned his back he tried one more time, pulling himself back up to his feet, "Barney!" His brother turned slightly towards him, "Barney please, don't leave me, please. I won't say anything! I promise I won't! I just wanna go home!"

His brother didn't move so Clint reached out and grabbed ahold of his wrist, "please."

Before Barney could say anything Jacques was back, grabbing the neck of his shirt and yanking backwards. The unpleasant yet now familiar feeling of his shirt collar choking him was back. Along with the new sensation of a knife being pressed uncomfortably close into his side.

"What did I just say boy?"

The knife pressed harder into his side but he couldn't take his eyes off Barney. His brother moved away from the van door and put himself between the two of them. He took hold of Jacques wrist but wasn't strong enough to move it away from Clint's side.

"Let him go Jacques," he growled, "he gets the point, let's go!"

Jacques didn't move, neither did Barney, Clint didn't have a choice but to stay. Then they were fighting. Jacques turned the knife on Barney while still keeping hold of Clint. It was a fight Clint wanted to have no part in but evidently he had no choice. The is until Jacques decided to release him grip on Clint in order to make a swipe at Barney.

He could have run, he should have run, instead he jumped in and kicked Jacques in the leg. It didn't do much damage but it distracted him enough that he lost his death grip on the knife and Barney was able to wrestle it from his hand. After that things moved very fast and the events became rather fuzzy. Jacques was angry, angrier than Clint had ever seen him. Barney was in a state of panic, Clint could tell even if he was trying to keep a straight face. Clint was just ready for it all to be over. Jacques yelled and charged at the two of them like an angry bull.

A lot of different things happened after that but Clint was only sure of one specific event. The knife that had been in Barney's hand one second, was lodged firmly in Clint's side the next. Clint wasn't sure how it happened and based on the look of shock his brother wore neither did he.

"Barney?"

And then there were hands on his shoulders and he was pushed backwards into the ditch. Even with his shitty hearing he could make out the cursing and the rapidly retreating footsteps. He could hear the engine of the shitty circus van roaring to life and the screeching of tires as it quickly sped away.

Then nothing.

Clint had known it was going to be a bad day, but he hadn't known it was going to end up like this. On his back, in a ditch, with a knife sticking out his side, all alone. He couldn't help but think this wouldn't have happened if he'd gotten his morning coffee.

Link to AO3 version: /works/58043728/chapters/147773095