Avengers (2012): "Waking Up (1/6)" (Gen, Pre-Clint/Natasha)
Title: Waking Up (1/6)
Author/Artist: Koren M. (cybermathwitch)
Disclaimer: Not mine. If they were, there'd already be a Black Widow/Hawkeye movie.
Pairing: Gen (pre-Clint/Natasha)
Rating: R
Warnings: adult themes, violence, language, mentions (non-graphic) of harm to children and child abuse, mentions of attempted sexual abuse
Spoilers: none
Type: Completed
Word Count: 1,320
Summary: Everyone starts somewhere. Everyone has a beginning. Everyone is made up of their experiences. Everyone wakes up. Part of "The Weight of Us": the moments leading up to "Shot in the Dark".
Author's Notes:
Many many thanks to kadollan for the beta on the final version of this thing, and thanks to lar_laughs, SidheRa, and anuna_81 for looking over earlier versions of this material.
This is complete, I'm posting two chapters a day.
RE: WARNINGS - PLEASE READ: These are moments from Clint and Natasha's past, the early memories (or lack there-of) that lead up to Shot in the Dark. As you can imagine, bad things happened. Nothing is terribly graphic (no more graphic than things that happened in Shot in the Dark, anyway, I don't think) - but please use your best judgement when reading. If you have any questions about the warnings, please leave me a comment or shoot me an email (I'm cybermathwitch(at)gmail(dot)com) and I'll do my best to answer them.
Warnings are specific to the chapter they're listed on, and while each chapter is a piece of the puzzle, there's not a linear narrative, so each chapter makes sense on it's own if you feel you need or want to skip one.
Early June, 1979 ~ Omaha, Nebraska, USA
Clint could only remember a few times from before they ran away. A couple of Christmases (one good, one bad), a day at the park when he got to swing, and a night where he huddled with Barney under their bunk bed while glass shattered and his mother screamed from the other room. He didn’t remember the car ride or the crash, but he remembered the smell of burning fuel, of metal and blood, and the feel of Barney’s shirt as he clung on to what he could reach as someone tried to pull him out of the car.
Then there were the foster homes, four in just a little over five months. Barney was angry, and sometimes he was mean, never to Clint but often to the people trying to take care of them. There wasn’t enough food and more than enough fists and belts to go around. Then Barney came home one afternoon from school and said he’d overheard the social worker talking about splitting them up, and they needed leave, right then, that night.
It was one time that was etched into his brain he didn't actually mind. They’d grabbed the trash bags they always used to carry the handful of things they were allowed to carry with them and had scooted out the bedroom window once their foster family had gone to bed. Then they’d wandered down the road, enjoying being outside under the bright stars. Because it was an adventure. They’d seen the lights from the ferris wheel first, then they’d gotten closer and started to hear bells and laughter and metal clanging. Barney had bounced on his toes with excitement and grabbed Clint by the shirt to hurry him up, half dragging him the last half mile to their destination: The Carson Carnival of Traveling Wonders.
They'd snuck under the fence, and after wandering around the main drag for awhile, slipped inside the main tent. There was a man on stage throwing knives at another man, and a woman in a pretty blue dress swung easily from one trapeze to another. Clint had been fascinated by the sights and the sounds, but sooner rather than later the show had ended and people had been ushered back outside. He'd gotten sleepy, and he didn't remember most of the next part very well, but Barney had talked to the man who threw the swords and had bragged about how he knew how to juggle and how Clint could throw rocks at anything and never missed.
The Swordsman (which is how Clint would forever think of him, because no one ever used his real name) and the man who told them to call him Trickshot, who’s bow and arrow act they’d missed, had scoffed at Barney’s claims, particularly the ones about what Clint could do. He’d been awake enough at that point, and had scooped up a handful of small pebbles and proceeded to launch them in quick succession at the two carnies’ heads. One had gotten Swordsman right in the eye, but luckily hadn’t had much force behind it. At six he was accurate, but not terribly strong.
Intrigued, they’d agreed to let them come aboard, on the condition that they did what they were told, when they were told. And that had started some of the best and worst years of Clint’s life. On that first night, the Carnival had seemed wonderful, colorful, and exciting. The idea of running away with the circus was a little kid’s dream, and they'd both been too young and naive to imagine how very wrong they could be.
*****
The first lesson Clint learned was if you didn’t miss, you didn’t get beaten. If you didn’t miss, you got to eat. Equally important (to Clint’s mind) was that Barney got to eat. While he learned about targets and arrows, Barney learned the various odd jobs that made up the life of a carnie.
The Carnival wasn’t so exciting in the bare light of day. It was old, and run down, just like most of it’s denizens. The original Jack Carson had started the show back in the fifties, and most of the acts and workers had been immigrants who’d fled Europe during the second world war. Old Jack had died sometime in the sixties, and his nephew had taken over. He hadn’t added much, had mostly run the show into the ground, but the old timers had stayed on because they had nowhere else to go.
Old Madge, a woman in her seventies, took them into her trailer and became their defacto grandmother. They learned Romany from her because her English was so poor. They learned German from the Gertse brothers who had started their career as strong men but now maintained the equipment. Barney didn’t care so much, but Clint had a knack for languages. By the time he was eleven he’d even gotten Mr. Patrushev to teach him Russian.
He also learned that the higher up he went, the safer he was.
He hadn’t realized at the time that Barney was trying to buy their way into the circus, essentially offering them up as indentured servants, and inadvertently offering himself up for… other things. Things Clint wouldn’t realize had been going on until one night years later, after Barney had been arrested with some other guys for B&E, when the Swordsman had decided he would do instead and had him pinned to the floor and he was flailing around for something - anything - he could hit him with to make him stop.
The knife had been blessedly close by, and there’d been blood everywhere before the old man had been able to get his pants off. That was the night he learned important lessons about never, ever going anywhere without a weapon, and more importantly, that he should make himself the weapon, so he wouldn’t have to rely on something that could be lost or out of reach.
******
He didn’t think that he’d actually killed the Swordsman (and he hadn’t) but he’d gone running to Old Madge’s place in stark terror. Madge had frowned at the blood and his refusal to explain what had happened, but in retrospect, she'd known. Known about all of it, actually, not that there was much she could've done - at eighty, she'd owed her survival to the Swordsman just a surely as he and Barney did, after all.
The Swordsman had given him a wide berth after that. Clint had wanted to run away, but he was just fourteen, and with Barney in jail, he hadn't had any idea where to go or what else he could do. So he'd waited it out for four more years, then he'd packed up his belongings, the little bit of money he'd saved, and gone to the army recruiter to enlist.
They’d been impressed that he could speak four languages fluently, and knew enough to get by in two more. Then he’d taken the standardized tests and they’d started talking about things like Officers training and Special Forces, and Clint had been pleased. For a kid who'd barely scraped by in school (usually by correspondence at that), it was to feel like he was doing something right. He’d broken most of the short and long range shooting records by the end of Basic training, and when the non-descript suit had shown up at the barracks after AIT to talk to him about some ‘special opportunities’ he’d jumped at the chance. They’d fast-tracked him into sniping and then Black Ops, and he disappeared, at least as far as the rest of the military and the civilian population was concerned.
He had no problem with the killing - they usually sent him after people who needed to be killed, and he knew first hand there were plenty of people the world was better off without.
Author/Artist: Koren M. (cybermathwitch)
Disclaimer: Not mine. If they were, there'd already be a Black Widow/Hawkeye movie.
Pairing: Gen (pre-Clint/Natasha)
Rating: R
Warnings: adult themes, violence, language, mentions (non-graphic) of harm to children and child abuse, mentions of attempted sexual abuse
Spoilers: none
Type: Completed
Word Count: 1,320
Summary: Everyone starts somewhere. Everyone has a beginning. Everyone is made up of their experiences. Everyone wakes up. Part of "The Weight of Us": the moments leading up to "Shot in the Dark".
Author's Notes:
Many many thanks to kadollan for the beta on the final version of this thing, and thanks to lar_laughs, SidheRa, and anuna_81 for looking over earlier versions of this material.
This is complete, I'm posting two chapters a day.
RE: WARNINGS - PLEASE READ: These are moments from Clint and Natasha's past, the early memories (or lack there-of) that lead up to Shot in the Dark. As you can imagine, bad things happened. Nothing is terribly graphic (no more graphic than things that happened in Shot in the Dark, anyway, I don't think) - but please use your best judgement when reading. If you have any questions about the warnings, please leave me a comment or shoot me an email (I'm cybermathwitch(at)gmail(dot)com) and I'll do my best to answer them.
Warnings are specific to the chapter they're listed on, and while each chapter is a piece of the puzzle, there's not a linear narrative, so each chapter makes sense on it's own if you feel you need or want to skip one.
Early June, 1979 ~ Omaha, Nebraska, USA
Clint could only remember a few times from before they ran away. A couple of Christmases (one good, one bad), a day at the park when he got to swing, and a night where he huddled with Barney under their bunk bed while glass shattered and his mother screamed from the other room. He didn’t remember the car ride or the crash, but he remembered the smell of burning fuel, of metal and blood, and the feel of Barney’s shirt as he clung on to what he could reach as someone tried to pull him out of the car.
Then there were the foster homes, four in just a little over five months. Barney was angry, and sometimes he was mean, never to Clint but often to the people trying to take care of them. There wasn’t enough food and more than enough fists and belts to go around. Then Barney came home one afternoon from school and said he’d overheard the social worker talking about splitting them up, and they needed leave, right then, that night.
It was one time that was etched into his brain he didn't actually mind. They’d grabbed the trash bags they always used to carry the handful of things they were allowed to carry with them and had scooted out the bedroom window once their foster family had gone to bed. Then they’d wandered down the road, enjoying being outside under the bright stars. Because it was an adventure. They’d seen the lights from the ferris wheel first, then they’d gotten closer and started to hear bells and laughter and metal clanging. Barney had bounced on his toes with excitement and grabbed Clint by the shirt to hurry him up, half dragging him the last half mile to their destination: The Carson Carnival of Traveling Wonders.
They'd snuck under the fence, and after wandering around the main drag for awhile, slipped inside the main tent. There was a man on stage throwing knives at another man, and a woman in a pretty blue dress swung easily from one trapeze to another. Clint had been fascinated by the sights and the sounds, but sooner rather than later the show had ended and people had been ushered back outside. He'd gotten sleepy, and he didn't remember most of the next part very well, but Barney had talked to the man who threw the swords and had bragged about how he knew how to juggle and how Clint could throw rocks at anything and never missed.
The Swordsman (which is how Clint would forever think of him, because no one ever used his real name) and the man who told them to call him Trickshot, who’s bow and arrow act they’d missed, had scoffed at Barney’s claims, particularly the ones about what Clint could do. He’d been awake enough at that point, and had scooped up a handful of small pebbles and proceeded to launch them in quick succession at the two carnies’ heads. One had gotten Swordsman right in the eye, but luckily hadn’t had much force behind it. At six he was accurate, but not terribly strong.
Intrigued, they’d agreed to let them come aboard, on the condition that they did what they were told, when they were told. And that had started some of the best and worst years of Clint’s life. On that first night, the Carnival had seemed wonderful, colorful, and exciting. The idea of running away with the circus was a little kid’s dream, and they'd both been too young and naive to imagine how very wrong they could be.
*****
The first lesson Clint learned was if you didn’t miss, you didn’t get beaten. If you didn’t miss, you got to eat. Equally important (to Clint’s mind) was that Barney got to eat. While he learned about targets and arrows, Barney learned the various odd jobs that made up the life of a carnie.
The Carnival wasn’t so exciting in the bare light of day. It was old, and run down, just like most of it’s denizens. The original Jack Carson had started the show back in the fifties, and most of the acts and workers had been immigrants who’d fled Europe during the second world war. Old Jack had died sometime in the sixties, and his nephew had taken over. He hadn’t added much, had mostly run the show into the ground, but the old timers had stayed on because they had nowhere else to go.
Old Madge, a woman in her seventies, took them into her trailer and became their defacto grandmother. They learned Romany from her because her English was so poor. They learned German from the Gertse brothers who had started their career as strong men but now maintained the equipment. Barney didn’t care so much, but Clint had a knack for languages. By the time he was eleven he’d even gotten Mr. Patrushev to teach him Russian.
He also learned that the higher up he went, the safer he was.
He hadn’t realized at the time that Barney was trying to buy their way into the circus, essentially offering them up as indentured servants, and inadvertently offering himself up for… other things. Things Clint wouldn’t realize had been going on until one night years later, after Barney had been arrested with some other guys for B&E, when the Swordsman had decided he would do instead and had him pinned to the floor and he was flailing around for something - anything - he could hit him with to make him stop.
The knife had been blessedly close by, and there’d been blood everywhere before the old man had been able to get his pants off. That was the night he learned important lessons about never, ever going anywhere without a weapon, and more importantly, that he should make himself the weapon, so he wouldn’t have to rely on something that could be lost or out of reach.
******
He didn’t think that he’d actually killed the Swordsman (and he hadn’t) but he’d gone running to Old Madge’s place in stark terror. Madge had frowned at the blood and his refusal to explain what had happened, but in retrospect, she'd known. Known about all of it, actually, not that there was much she could've done - at eighty, she'd owed her survival to the Swordsman just a surely as he and Barney did, after all.
The Swordsman had given him a wide berth after that. Clint had wanted to run away, but he was just fourteen, and with Barney in jail, he hadn't had any idea where to go or what else he could do. So he'd waited it out for four more years, then he'd packed up his belongings, the little bit of money he'd saved, and gone to the army recruiter to enlist.
They’d been impressed that he could speak four languages fluently, and knew enough to get by in two more. Then he’d taken the standardized tests and they’d started talking about things like Officers training and Special Forces, and Clint had been pleased. For a kid who'd barely scraped by in school (usually by correspondence at that), it was to feel like he was doing something right. He’d broken most of the short and long range shooting records by the end of Basic training, and when the non-descript suit had shown up at the barracks after AIT to talk to him about some ‘special opportunities’ he’d jumped at the chance. They’d fast-tracked him into sniping and then Black Ops, and he disappeared, at least as far as the rest of the military and the civilian population was concerned.
He had no problem with the killing - they usually sent him after people who needed to be killed, and he knew first hand there were plenty of people the world was better off without.