Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Looking down at the little thing in her arms, everything seemed to fade out around her. Nothing else but the sleeping child in her arms made sense to her. That, and the redheaded little boy trying to crawl up into her hospital bed, curiosity vibrating off him. There was nothing wrong, right in that instant. Nothing at all. Remembering all the pain and fear she had held on her shoulders up until now, remembering all the moments of doubt, it all washed away as the little boy in her arms shifted in his sleep.

Nothing mattered.

Right up until she heard the door to the hospital room open wide. Looking up from the child, expecting another nurse who wanted to make some tests or tell her that she was doing good after the lengthy labor, came the one man she didn't exactly want to see right now. Hair as red as the little boy standing next to her, he was the face of her every nightmare, but also the face of her every dream.

He looked exhausted, dark shadows under his eyes revealing that he hadn't slept a single second that night. He had been nowhere to be seen when she needed him most, he had been nowhere to be seen when her now oldest son had asked to see her, walking into the hospital on his own, from the top of his 5 years.

“How are you?” he managed to hiccup, as he crossed the short distance between the door and his wife. When he got close, Edith noticed that he didn't reek of alcohol, and that his eyes looked gentle. She remembered the gentle boy she had fallen in love with, the one who had stolen her heart, and she smiled as she pulled one of the blankets off the newborn in her arms, to show him to Harold.

“We're fine,” she beamed at him.

His eyes were clear, not veiled as they usually were, and he looked so proud. He had been out to celebrate last night, it was the reason why he hadn't been there. And who were to blame him, another healthy son? After her beloved Barney, they now had a second little boy to watch grow up strong and kind. She would love the little boy as much as his older brother.

“Barney, show your dad how good you are at holding him,” she said, as she pushed herself upright with a free hand, handing the bundle of blankets to his brother, letting her now free hands wonder over Harold's own trembling hands.

“Look at them,” she whispered, as he sat down on the hospital bed, watching his eldest craddle the younger boy gently. Neither of them worried about the boy dropping the newborn, he had some of the steadiest hands she had ever seen: he would help her with some stitching, sometimes even with the cooking. His fingers were nimble and fragile, but his arms were already strong, for a five year old.

“He looks just like you,” she added, as Harold took her hand and kissed it. She remembered the taste of his lips and the fiery passion which had stolen her away from her home, and brought here, to Iowa. She had fallen in love with Harold Barton and forgotten everything else.

“Mama, 'ere,” Barney suddenly gave out as she saw the blankets move as the little one started to shift, and as she reached out to take her son back, Harold took him instead. He secured the little boy against his strong arms, and looked down at the baby. As the child frowned, getting ready to use his new lungs, Edith saw her husband's eyes wetten, as tears velled up in his eyes, clouding his blue eyes.

“He's beautiful”, his rough voice spoke out, as the little boy gave out a shriek, and he handed him to her, as gentle as she remembered him. The smile glued on her face made it hard for her to remember the times where she would be afraid of him, and she could only feel his warmth and love radiate her completely, making her forget the times where his anger would lash out at her.

They had agreed to have a second child. He'd promised that he would sober up for the second child, and she believed him firmly. Two kids in a house meant that he had a reason to fight the darkness in him, and that he would change. It was the best decision. The pregnancy had arrived earlier than they had imagined, but all in all... Now with the small child in her arms, she felt as if nothing could hurt her. Barney sitting down in one of the guest chairs, looking up at his father and his mother, smiling although not completely understanding. Harold looking at her like she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen, his smile transcending everything. And her little beautiful son, there in her arms, reaching out for her, even though he couldn't see her yet. She knew he was reaching out for her because he could recognize her scent, her voice, her everything.

And right in that moment, having someone that depended entirely on her, having someone who would love her no matter her choices, having someone who would look up to her and look for her every single second, meant everything to her.

She knew that it was all an act that they were playing the moment Harold had his first relapse. He had managed to go sober for three months, which was more than she had ever seen him. But with the soberness came the moods, came the anger and the irritation, but she wasn't sure if she liked him better sober or drunk.

At least, she thought to herself, when he was drunk, he didn't really mean all the things he said.

At least, when he was drunk, it wasn't really him talking.

At least, when he was drunk, she could always go to bed, or take the boys into town, waiting for him to fall asleep and pass out before creeping back into the house.

She had been feeding little Clint when she'd heard Harold yell something at Barney, who was playing out on the porch. His words had been slurred, and it hadn't made any sense, but when she heard Barney's footsteps run across the hall, coming her way to the kitchen, with his eyes wide with fear, she knew.

“Barney,” she called, as she pulled Clint off her breast, interrupting the little one, who immediately began to croak in protest, trying to get her eldest son's attention. “Barney, listen to me,” she repeated, as the boy's eyes focused on her. Harold's footsteps on the stairs up to the house became louder in her head, as Barney's eyes unfocused on her.

“Barney, listen. Take Clint up to your room and stay there until I come and get you, alright?” She took Clint from her arm and handed him to Barney, who immediately secured his arms in a tight lock around his little brother, and she saw him run up the stairs as fast as he could without tripping, just as she lifted up her shirt again, Harold's footsteps growing louder even now that he was crossing the hall, following his gut as to where he would find them.

Standing up, she clenched her fist, trying to find it in her to face this man again, this man who had promised he would stay sober, that he would fight it for her. And yet, here he was, his eyes wild, his breath reeking of alcohol. She could see the stains of alcohol on his shirt, he hadn't even been able to control his hands long enough to chug it all down. Disappointment built up in her chest as a heavy weight.

“Whe's'he?” he called at her, lifting his finger to point at her, accusing her of hiding someone. Probably Barney, who had run away at the sight of his father. “Whe's'the'bast'rd?” he muttered, his voice a growl, violence bubbling up under his face, his hand shaking.

Edith pursed her lips, and putting her hands on her hips to seem unbeatable and unmovable, she stood her ground as she replied. “He's not here, Harold.” Not raising her voice. Not accepting his challenge. She watched him as her reply moved around inside his foggy brain, and she saw realization of something dawn upon him.

“You're in wit'im too aintcha?” He clenched his fist as a reply and took a step closer to her, shoving off her coffee mug off the table, which fell to the floor and broke into a million pieces. “Get'im, or Imma beat you in'tead,” he threatened, getting closer to her still. But Edith refused to move. She didn't want to. Normally, she would have bolted at the same moment as Barney, but she couldn't let Harold relapse like this. She had to show him. She would not accept it.

So when he stepped closer even, so close she could almost taste the alcohol on his lips, she didn't flinch. Breathing steadily, she looked him straight in the eyes.

“You're not going to beat Charles, or Clinton, or me, Harold.” She spoke quietly. Firmly, but quietly.

As Harold swayed, she thought that he was going to grab the chair she had been sitting on, and give up the fight. But as he swayed, he built up momentum, and before she could compute what had happened, she could taste blood in her mouth. Where her teeth had closed on her tongue, as his fist had hit her cheek.

The pain exploded through her head, and she had to take a step back to regain her balance, as Harold yelled something inaudible. Her ears rang, and the pain shooting through her mouth managed to raise the fear in her heart again.

“Ge't'im, or I'll hit the other on',” he spat at her, as he turned around to look at her better, assessing the damage he had done.

What Barney had done wrong, she didn't know. It was probably a fantasmagoria that Harold had made up in his drunken state, but she would not allow him to lay his hand – or his belt – onto the back of her oldest son. That had happened one time too many already.

As the ringing in her ears disappeared, she shook her head. “Get out of here, Harold. Get out of the house,” she said, sharp as ice, as she raised her head, proud, unbending at him. She would not let him terrify her again. Not when she had two kids to look after now. Both of them reacted when a loud heartwrenching cry sounded from upstairs, and Harold's eyes opened wide.

“Upstairs, hmm?” he asked, as he turned around and ran towards the stairs, climbing them two by two. A cry escaped Edith's lips as she followed him closely behind, trying to catch his legs, his shirt, anything to keep him from reaching the children's room, but he simply turned around and hit her agains the cheek again, making her stop for ten seconds in the stairway, to breathe.

Ten seconds of him being free to walk straight up to the boys' room. Ten seconds for him to break it open with a kick at the handle. Ten seconds for him to find Barney standing straight in front of Clint's crib. Ten seconds for him to raise his hand on Barney, to reach the crib and to spit down at it, yelling at the baby to shut the fuck up.

Snapping out of the pain when she heard the ringing of the buckle through the cries of little Clint, Edith ran up the remaining stairs, across the hall, into the room, to find Harold wielding his belt at a crying Barney. He looked as scared as he looked angry. So much passion for a five year old, she then thought. So much will power. More than she ever had. She heard her son yell something back at his father, as she went to the crib, to check on her youngest.

As she turned her back on Barney, Harold lashed out at Barney with his belt, and at the cry of pain, Edith understood now, that Harold would probably never change.

“It's alright,” was but a whisper, as she pulled Barney into the shower. The aftermath of Harold's drunken anger was everywhere on his body, and she wouldn't be surprised if he would have a large black eye next morning.

“It's okay honey, here, I'll take care of you,” Edith said, trying to smile the pain away, trying to shine bright for her eldest. She helped him into the shower, and slowly, gently, stripped him of his clothes. Pulling of his shirt, it revealed the marks on his stomach and his back of his father's belt, and she could see the redness of his eyes. It was a heartbreaking sight, and she knew that she needed to get out. Take him, take Clint, get out. But she couldn't. As she helped him ease out of the ripped pants without hurting his knee, she thought about packing a bag.

Packing a bag and putting all the things she needed for a longer journey with Clint – diapers, clothes, some blankets – and just go. Take a bus, go to one of the big cities, tell them about the situation. As Barney let his head hang low, his chin resting on his chest, she felt the pain swell up inside of her. She had to leave. But she couldn't. She didn't have a job, she didn't have an income, how would she be able to support her family? She couldn't take 5 year old Barney out of his home. And what about Clint? What about the little one?

As she asked Barney to turn around, as she opened the water, she suppressed the tears welling up in her eyes. Her cheeks hurt also, and she would wear the bruises for a couple of days too. Wait for it to disappear so they could try all over again. She needed to check if she had some more make up, to cover the bluest part of it up.

For once, Barney would be able to play it off as just having fallen on his face.

“Ow, it hurts momma,” he told her as she rubbed his back, as she tried to get the bruise to feel better.

“I know, Charles, I know,” she whispered, quietly. She would take care of him now. She had to. As the silence fell around them, only broken by the steaming water, she felt his shoulders tense.

“Momma, I can't hit him back,” came out of his mouth. Edith stopped rubbing circles on his shoulder plates as she stared at his bare back in shock. What?

“What did you say?”

“I can't hit him back.” It wasn't quiet or uncertain this time. Barney had spoken in a sure tone, as if he knew exactly what he was talking about. He turned his head slightly to look at her. She felt his gaze on the cut on her cheek, and as he turned his head back to look at the white tiles of the shower wall, she heard him speak again. “If I hit him back, then he won't hit you or Clinton.”

She saw his fists clench, saw them go white, and then, “If I hit him hard enough, then he won't ever hit anybody again.”

Taking his wrist, she forced him to turn around and look at her. His wet hair sticking to his forehead made his look even younger than what he was. The freckles on his face were the same color as those on Harold's strained face. She could see the same fire in him. Barney was exactly like Harold. Fire and passion.

“Don't you ever talk about your dad like that,” she said, firm. She held his wrist, and forced his eyes up to her own face. “Don't talk about him. It's not him. It's the drinking. He's kind, and strong, and he loves you, just like he loves me. You'll understand when you're older,” she stated, stroking his untouched cheek, before pushing his fringe back. “Now, let's get you cleaned up and ready for bed, okay?” she stated, turning him back again, ending the conversation there.

Barney was but a little boy, but he already understood too many things. If he was already thinking about hitting his father back... He shouldn't. Harold had promised. He had promised that this was going to be a good home, a healthy home. It was just one little setback, Edith thought as she rubbed Barney's back clean. When she turned him around, she could see the tears on his cheeks, as he cried silently.

She rubbed his chest, his arms, and when the warm water ran out and he started clicking his teeth together, she pulled him out of the shower. Dressed him silently, as she hummed a song she knew he liked. Easing him into his night shirt, she kissed him on the forehead. Making silent promises of protection. She was his mother. She could do this. If she kissed the black eye, it would be better soon, she told him. And he believed her.

Edith Barton could see it in his eyes. He knew that she would protect her. But she also saw some other fierceness in his eyes, one that she was afraid of. Resolution. It was a feeling she could sense holding him in her arms, as she put him into bed, and tucked him under the covers, asking him to stay quiet, so he wouldn't wake his little brother.

“Tomorrow, we'll go into town and get some nice things. We'll go see daddy in his shop, and he'll show you all the things he does, and then maybe we can go say hi to old Lily. D'you think she'll give you some of those candies you like?” she murmured, as she sat on his bed, beside him, waiting for him to fall asleep. His eyes were closed, and she could feel his breathing slow down as he slowly entered the dream world.

“I don't want candy,” he let out, in a huff, as he turned onto his side, frowning as he felt his new bruises hurt from his weight. His hair fell in front of his eyes, and she gently stroked it aside to look at his kind face.

What he meant by that, however, she wouldn't know, for Barney had slowly, but surely fallen asleep, one hand gripping her shirt tight. As if he were afraid she would vanish. As if he were afraid that maybe, if he let her go, she would break. As if he were afraid, that somehow, she wouldn't be there the next morning when he woke up.

She kept a quiet watch over him, for a long time. She could hear the clock ticking on the wall, every single sound it made a drum on the back of her mind. Barney's breathing helped her calm herself. Edith collected her thoughts, quietly, silently, in her boys' room, before she finally unlocked his fingers from her shirt, and stood up.

Checking Clint's crib, she smiled at his innocent smile. The purple onesie he was wearing made him look fierce, and she knew that they would make it out alright. They were Bartons. Bartons didn't break easily.

The reflection in the mirror was a broken one. Not because the mirror itself was broken, but because her face was purple. A gash across her cheek the mute author of what had transpired. Standing in complete silence in the bathroom, she watched her eyes dance on her reflection. She could feel the weight of her sleepless nights take a hold on her body, as she noticed she looked years older already. Three months since she had brought another boy into this world. Three months since Harold had last been drunk.

She could hear his snoring in the bedroom he had gone to after having lashed out at Barney. She turned on the tap, letting the water stream over her cold fingers. She washed her nails, then moved up her wrists, her arms. Cleansing herself from the violence she had witnessed earlier. Whenever she frowned, she could feel the bruise on her cheek hurt, but she tried to ignore it. Where she had bit her tongue, she could feel the blood, taste it even. Holding some water in the palm of her hands, she bent over the sink and splashed the cool water onto her bruised cheeks. The cold made her feel better almost immediately, and she repeated the gesture twice, before finding some cotton pads to remove the remnants of her makeup.

She wouldn't cry. She had to be strong. For Harold. For Barney. For little Clint. She had to make it through this. If she could just take out the bottles, even the full ones, then maybe Harold wouldn't go buy some others with the money he made at the butcher's shop. If she could just talk to him, then maybe things would get better.

Edith looked at the reflection in the mirror, and saw herself looking tired and unable to cope. She tried to smile. If she could convince herself that things were alright, then, maybe she could convince the world that everything was alright.

She knew that people were already talking about her. About Harold. About what happened behind closed doors and about little Barney. And she knew that now, they would be talking about Clint, too. If she hadn't been able to protect Barney from Harold, then why did she agree to have a second child? Why did she keep it? Why didn't she leave, when she still could? Before birth?

She tried to smile all the thoughts away, but all she could see were the wrinkles on her face. The unchangeable marks of time and hardship, carved onto her skin, just like the cut on her left cheek.

A loud snore made her snap out of it, and she looked over her shoulder.

Harold was lying on the bed, spread wide. He hadn't bothered to take off his clothes, even though his pants hung lower than usual, his belt missing around his hips. He looked serene, like this. Asleep. Quiet. Peaceful, almost. She could still feel the pain on her face, and in her heart, when he had lashed out at her.

As she left the bathroom, turning off the lights as quietly as she could, and walked downstairs to clean up the mess Harold had left around, she thought about what she could do. She needed to talk to him. Barney needed someone to look up to. Maybe if she tasked him with looking after his little brother, he wouldn't think so much about his father. Yes, that would help, she thought. She went down to the kitchen, and saw the broken mug, along with the turned over table Harold had flipped as he looked for a glass he had imagined standing there before going to bed.

She looked over the damage, before going out onto the porch. Maybe she would finally see what Barney had done to irritate him like this. As far as she knew, little Barney hadn't done anything he wasn't supposed to. The porch outside was covered in darkness. She couldn't see anything, other than a wooden horse, which she knew Harold had given Barney when he was 3 years old. Could it have been this?

Kneeling over it, she picked it up, and let her fingers gently stroke the toy, as if it would talk to her and tell her what had happened. She gazed at the toy, hoping to find an answer. When it didn't come, she stood up again, and went back inside the house. She would need to clean up the kitchen before going to bed.

So, Edith put away the toy on the top of the fridge, for it to look over her, as if it could find some sort of positive energy to help her out erase the traces of the violence that had transpired here a couple of hours earlier. She hoped it would help her. She hoped that it would be a good way for her to find a compromise between Harold's relapse and the children. She had to make him realize that the children couldn't see him like this. Maybe tell him to only be like this when the children weren't there, or when they were playing outside.

Maybe, if she told him that he could get drunk when Clint was old enough to be outside with Barney alone, Harold would understand? Maybe if she could just talk to him about it. The ticking of the clock and the sounds of the mechanisms inside agitating made her look up. Two in the morning. Harold would be getting up soon, if he had remembered to put on his alarm. He probably hadn't. He usually remembered it, but every now and then, she would wake up before him and, going downstairs, she would brew some coffee to wake him up with.

He was grumpy when he woke up without coffee. So, she always made sure he had a cup to sip from when he woke up. She would kiss his lips, and kiss his eyes, to try and shoo away the dream merchant. She would help him out of bed, and come down to the kitchen to prepare breakfast as Barney and Clint slept quietly on. Harold was a grumpy boy when he woke up, he always had been. Especially when they woke up in the straw of the barn his parents used to keep, which was just standing empty in their backyard now. The straw would tangle in the strands of his hair, and she would laugh as she pulled them out.

Then, he would take her long blonde hair, and gently, affectionately, braid it into one of those beautiful side braids. She didn't know the name, and neither did he, but he had promised her he had seen it on some lady in town, and just thought that it would look so amazing and beautiful on her.

That was the man she loved. And, as she knelt to pick up the broken pieces of her mug, she thought about how fierce and chivalrous he had been when they met. She thought about the young man she had fallen in love with, and how he was still in there somewhere.

If only Barney could see that...

If only she could make him understand that his father wasn't a monster.

Then, maybe, things would get better.

When the sun crept over the hills and its light hit the dirty windows, making shadows dance on the walls, Edith was lying still in Barney's bed, holding his hand. He had moved during the night, his head resting on her belly, dreaming gently. She hadn't had the heart to move Harold in their bed. She could hear the birds chirping and tweeting outside, and as she twisted her neck to see the clock above Clint's bed, she knew that Harold would soon have to wake up to make it to the shop early.

The trucks with the meat would soon arrive, and he would have to get to work as soon as they did, to get the best pieces off the animals. Maybe, since it was Sunday, the would sell some nice meat to the elder couples. Maybe, Harold would come home with a little more than he usually did on weekdays. Maybe he wouldn't feel the hammering inside his head too much, as the hangover would probably take a toll on his body.

She drummed her fingers on her arm, gently counting the seconds that passed. Outside, the sun climbed higher and higher. Edith saw the bigger arrow on the clock hit 5, but heard no alarm clock to wake Harold up. As she inhaled deeply, she took Barney by the shoulders, and carefully pushed him back onto his bed and his pillow, as she walked out of their room, into the one across the hall. She stood there for a couple of minutes, hoping to see Harold move on his own.

Picking up the belt from the floor, she laid it out next to him, as she went downstairs again. Her eyes were red and sore from the crying, but she couldn't let that stop her. So, she went down to the kitchen and started brewing the coffee. She knew the moves perfectly, and she would probably be able to make them with her eyes closed.

Harold had always been so fond of coffee. She loved the taste of it on his lips as he left for work. She loved the way it made him more alert and helped him get ready for the work as a butcher in Waverly. She loved the way his shirt would smell of it after he finished his cup.

However, as she heard the floor creak behind her, she knew that today, Harold would skip the coffee. She waited for him to pass the kitchen before looking over her shoulder. She saw his shadow on the floor, as he pulled on his shoes. She heard the clinging of his belt as he slipped it through his pants. She heard him pull on his jacket, and before she had even moved from the boiling water, she heard the door open and slam shut as he left, without a word.

She turned off the stove. Left the boiling water to cool down on its own. She heard Clint cry out at the sudden noise the door had made when Harold slammed it shut. And, as she slipped down onto the floor, feeling every single thread of hope in her being fail her, she hoped that somehow, things would be okay.

Somehow, things would turn out alright. Please, God, make things right. What did I do to deserve this? Make Harold the young and beautiful man he once was. Make Barney strong and fierce. Make Clint kind and loving. Make them the men I need. Please.

Chapter Text

They couldn't understand. They were too young, they wouldn't be able to understand what was happening between him and Edith. It was something that kids weren't supposed to understand, but sometimes, he just hoped that Barney would get the fuck out or that Clint would shut the fuck up.

Clint was two years old, now. He would run around the grounds, pulling at the high grass with small nimble fingers, and he would pull up some of the weeds to bring back at his mother who would put it behind her ear, pretending it was the most beautiful flower she had ever seen. And Harold loved that. He loved to see her happy, with her two beautiful boys running around, playing. Barney would help Clint run around when his balance would fail him, and he would always make big booming noises when Clint fell. Badaboom! With a bright smile on his face, so Clint wouldn't be afraid to fall again. If he hit his head, Barney would clap and smile and make some funny noises.

Harold would help out too. He would take Clint on his shoulders, and he would make him swing around, as he ran up to the old barn his father used to keep horses in, he would set down Clint in one of the horse stalls, and then he would run out to hide in another stall. Counting the seconds until the little blonde boy would peek through the open door. And then, Harold would go catch the little boy and carry him like a sack of potatoes over his shoulders, all the way back to the house, and lie him down on the couch to tickle him.

Those were the goods days.

When he could take it.

But there were some days...

Some days he couldn't bear the masquerade anymore. Some days, he would wake up to his beautiful wife, and he would go to the butcher's shop he owned, and when he would come back home, he couldn't stand the children's endless babble, he couldn't stand Edith's need for physical contact, he couldn't stand having to stay in the living room and pretend to be a model father.

Today had been one of those days. A customer had brought back some meat and thrown it at his face, hoping to make him understand that this should never happen again. There had been too many tendons, and they hadn't been able to impress that one fancy man from the big city. And it was Harold's fault. Harold took it like he could, he apologized, and promised them to give them some for a lesser price next time they decided to purchase here.

But when they told him that they were done here, he could only watch them walk out of his shop, as he had to keep on smiling and serving the other customers as if nothing had happened. Behind closed doors, however, he pulled out a small flask. He kept it hidden, and he'd promised Edith he would get rid of it. But she didn't understand. How could she understand? She didn't have a demon in her, asking her to drink, she didn't have the voices in her head who told her that she was worth nothing. She could go on with her day as if nothing happened, when he had to go down to the shop and pretend everything was okay, when in fact, everything was crumbling inside his head.

He could tell her, he thought, as he chugged down some of the alcohol, quietly, in the back of his shop. He could tell her, that he needed a break. That they should take some of the money he'd earned and go on a holiday. The circus was in town, maybe they could go see them perform. It would take her mind off things, it would take his mind off things, and the boy would be thrilled to see the artists and carnies do their thing.

Yes, he would do that. But first, just another one. Just another chug, and then he would count the money, and then he would go home. Back to tell Edith that they should go to the circus. Back to tell the kids that he was going to take them to the circus, and that they would be allowed some cotton candy. That would be nice.

However, one drink after the other, his ideas got blurred, and, as he stumbled into his car, too drunk to really know how dangerous it was, he took five minutes to let the road settle in front of him. As he drove home, swaying dangerously from one side to another of the road, he thought about why it should be him to tell Edith something was wrong.

He thought about how it was supposed to be him, and not her, to notice that things were wrong. She was just staying the entire day at home while he worked away at the butcher's shop, and she had nothing else to do than raise the kids. She could see. She should see. As he pulled up into the driveway, he slammed the door of the car harder than he intended, and he walked up to the front door, noticing how the porch was slippery. The temperature would go below freezing point soon, which meant that they would need to chop wood. More work. Always more work, no time to relax. As he pushed the door open to the house, he heard Clint's crystal clear laughter come from the living room, before Edith's head popped out of the doorway to greet him with a smile.

However, when he saw that she had noticed the glossiness of his eyes, he couldn't help but lash out at her. “What? Not what you 'xpected?” he yelled, and immediately Clint's laugh died out, and Edith's head disappeared as she moved back into the living room, ignoring his yelling. Ah, so she wanted to do it this way, he thought. Fine. She would have it this way.

“ You're angry at me?” he yelled, as he moved into the living room, to see Barney and Clint had laid out some of their toys to play with, and that Clint was running around the couch. Up until Clint saw him. He saw his son's eyes widen as the little child understood that something was wrong with him. Frowning, feeling the anger bubble up in his chest, threatening to boil over, Harold pointed at Edith. Better lash out at her than the kid, he thought. “I was going to take you to the circus, but you're angry at me,” he said, loud enough to wake the dead, as he saw Barney move over to Clint and take his hand, as discreetly as he could.

But no, he wouldn't miss this. Not this time. “No, you two stay here. You stay right here, and you do as I tell you,” he muttered, as Edith walked up to place herself between him and the boys. Then, his eyes moved to the table and he saw they had apparently had dinner without him, and that set him right off. They hadn't even waited for him? How dared they! He paid for their food, he paid for their shelter, and they didn't even wait for him?! He felt control run out through his fingers as he smacked Edith across the face, with all the force he could muster up.

“ You didn't even wai- YOU DIDN'T WAIT FOR ME?” he barked at her, as she put her hand up where he had hit her. “Oh no, you don't-” but he was interrupted by Clint's sudden wail, and his furious eyes darted over to the smaller kid. So he wanted to play it like that?

“ No, Harold, no, don't, not Clinton-” she cried as he pushed her aside, with all his own body weight, throwing her off to the side. “DON'T HIT HI-” she yelled, as he smacked Barney across the head with his clenched fist. Clint stood there, still, completely still, as Harold knelt in front of him.

“ Shut up, kid,” he growled at him, as Clint's bottom lip wobbled, uncertain. He saw the tear leave Clint's eye and start drizzling down his cheek in a quiet lament. Harold lifted his hand and slapped Clint's cheek. “Man up, you whiny baby. Man up. MAN THE FUCK UP,” he then screamed at the kid who now stopped caring and started sobbing, as he held his own cheek, searching with his eyes for his mother, who was trying to push Harold aside.

“ Let go of me,” Harold grunted, as he ripped his arm out of her grip, and stood up, allowing Barney to reach Clint's hand and pull him away. “Let go of me you bitch!” he screamed at her, sensing his heart rate elevate, before something completely new happened.

He felt a strong blow to the back of his knee, which forced him down as he cried out. Edith's eyes were wide in fear, he could see now, and as he fiddled around to try and see what had happened, the pain spreading to his knee and his lower leg, he saw a flash of red hair and what he figured was a broom.

“You fucking-” he tried, but Edith had scooped Clint up into her arms, and Barney was hiding behind her like the fucking kid he was. “Yeah, hide behind your momma, one day she won't be there to protect you, and then I'll break your fingers,” he crowed, as the pain erupted into his entire leg. Fucking kid hit him with the fucking broom. He bit his tongue, bit his lip, and gripped his thigh to help dull the pain, and when he looked up they were gone.

“ COME BACK YOU FUCKING BASTARDS!” he howled, but his mind was too foggy to understand what was going on. When silence replied to him, he let himself fall down onto his butt, and stared around the room. He couldn't understand.

What had he done?

He had wanted to take them to the circus.

He'd hit Clint.

Little two year old Clint.

He let go of everything, suddenly letting the pain in his leg overwhelm him. He felt the tension drain from his shoulders, as if someone had suddenly shown him what he had done, and through the dizziness of the alcohol in his blood, he could feel his heart break in a million pieces.

"I'm sorry, Edith," he whispered, quietly as he pulled at his hair.

Tears appeared on the edge of his eyes, and as he battled to keep them at bay he thought of Edith, of Barney and of Clint.

He'd just wanted to bring them to the circus.

Why had everything gone the way it had?

Like every time, it took two days before things were more or less back to normal. Edith would wear make up to cover the redness on her cheek, and Barney would pretend his shoulder didn't hurt. Clint still didn't fully understood what had happened, but it didn't matter.

Two days after the events, Harold had managed to get rid of his bottle. He'd given it to Edith when he'd sobered up, and she'd thrown it out to the trash immediately. She'd acknowledged it, and kissed his coffee stained lips as he begged her forgiveness.

They'd agreed, with Edith, to blindfold their kids as they drove town to the city where a travelling circus had set up their tent. Harold had bought the tickets, as Barney and Clint were trying to figure out what that strange smell was. Edith was smiling blissfully, as she watched the caged animals with awe. Maybe, just maybe, little Clint would enjoy the sight of the acrobats, and Barney would be happy enough to laugh at the clown.

“ Okay, boys,” Harold started as he came back to the three other Bartons with the tickets in hand. “You can take off the blindfold now,” he said, as he gave the tickets to Edith, allowing him to help Clint take his own blindfold off, as Barney just ripped it off his eyes.

When both Barney and Clint saw the majestic tent in front of them, their eyes shone up like Christmas night, and Harold took Edith's hand, intertwining their fingers, like old times when they were still young.

“We're at the circus?!” Barney called out as Clint just clenched his fists and jumped up and down on the spot, pointing at the tent, babbling something incomprehensible in his usual boo-boo-baba-boos. Smiling, Harold nodded.

“ Yes, and we're even going to have candy and then we'll go pet the animals after the show,” Harold stated, as he started walking up to the entrance of the tent, Barney falling into a rhythm behind them, holding Clint's hand who was still talking very thoughtfully about what he thought of the circus (“Dadada-du-da? Boo-bah, baboo!”), making gestures with his free hand.

“ Thank you for bringing them here, Harry,” Edith whispered, as she kissed him in the crook of his neck, as he handed the checker the tickets. She put her arm through his, and watched Barney run in front of them, pulling Clint behind him. With a nod of his head, Harold indicated Barney which way they should head to get to their seats, and, it wasn't before long, Clint had found a spot he decided was his and wouldn't move from.

Sitting down behind them, so they would be left alone by the two boys who already looked expectantly around, Harold took Edith's hand, and gently kissed her knuckles, one by one, as he watched her eyes light up with the same glimmering hope he had seen on her face the first time he'd ever laid eyes on her.

He watched Barney put his hand across Clint's little shoulders and show him the ringmaster as he announced the beginning of the show. He saw the lights change, and he saw Clint throw his head back to see the athletes on the trapezium. He heard Barney's and Clint's loud laughs among the rest of the crowd when the clown got pushed into a wooden basket by his dog, and he heard Edith's crystal laugh at the sea lion's juggling.

Watching the kids enjoy themselves, feeling Edith let her weight rest against his arm, and soon resting her head on his shoulder, he could pretend that everything was okay. That everything was alright, just for one night.

When a red-nosed clown came around in the audience to ask for a volunteer to help him trick the magician, Barney stood up on the bench and jumped excitedly up and down. 7 years old, and already a little energy ball. Harold smiled as the clown chose little Barney to help him pretend he could do magic, and as they planned out the tricking of the magician, Harold noticed that Barney didn't let the clown touch him. Every time the clown tried to put his hand on Barney's shoulder to show him something, Barney would move a step back or just slightly to the side to rid himself of the unwanted touching.

Edith didn't notice. Clint surely didn't notice because he'd followed Barney all the way to the circus ring, resting his small hands on the red wood, almost trying to climb over. Edith pointed at him as she giggled at Clint's fumbling, and when the clown's assistant clown (a young woman, it would seem under her makeup), came over to help 2 year old Clint over the railing, Harold forgot about Barney's shoulder.

Helping the little boy over the sand, the clown took his hand, and in complete trust of her, Clint ran towards Barney who was standing with his back to him. Harold heard everyone in the circus go 'awh' and 'owh' every time Clint would stumble on the sand, and when he grabbed Barney from the back, before walking straight up to the other clown and his boo-boo-babble getting caught in the microphone, Harold felt a slight blush creep up on his cheeks.

“ D'you think they'll figure out that Clint and Barney work as a team?” Edith asked, as she nudged slightly as his elbow. Frowning, not understanding, Harold shook his head.

“ What do you mean?”

“ Look at them,” she replied as she cocked her head towards the ring. And, right she was, while Clint was babbling away at the assistant clown, Barney had turned into a mischievous older brother, and they were both keeping the first clown from doing his job, much at his own dismay.

“ They're keeping him from completing his act,” Harold mused, as he saw the magician come through the curtain as the music cued him to, and when the flannel-wearing clown turned around a little frustrated and saw him, he immediately shook his head in a very non-professional way, and Clint started laughing out loud as he pointed at the magician with his hands, extending them out from his body, before putting them down on his hips, and shrugging, very seriously.

“Bloo-bloo-bah,” came through the clown's microphone, and the sudden dramatic pose Clint gave the crowd made everybody laugh as Barney greeted the other magician coming up, who suddenly made a rabbit appear out of an empty cage, taking the attention off the brothers.

The assistant clown took their hands, and Harold's hand emptied when Edith got up to go get the boys from the edge of the ring, thanking the clown for her help with them. Clint was struggling to look over his shoulder at what was happening in the ring, practically hanging off her hand, not caring where he put his feet, and Barney was telling the story of what they had done to the first clown and how he'd managed to understand the magic trick before the clown had told him the secret.

Carrying a sleeping Clint over his shoulder, Edith holding Barney's hand as they walked out of the tent, Harold noticed that the night was beautiful. The stars were shining bright enough for them to see all the way to the car, and as he opened the backseat and eased Clint into his child seat, securing him with the seat belt, he thought that maybe, just maybe, things would get better.

Then, he remembered Barney standing there in the ring, trying to avoid having the clown touch his shoulder, and he felt a wave of guilt hit him in the gut. This was his fault. He didn't mean to hit Barney whenever he did. He didn't mean to hit Edith. He hadn't wanted to hit Clint when he hadn't wanted to stop crying two days ago. It had just happened. A switch had flickered inside his mind. Edith helped Barney sit down in the backseat, and when she closed the door gently, not to wake sleeping Clint, she smiled at him.

Her smile erased all of Harold's thoughts. He forgot all about the troubles, he could only see her beaming brightly, as beautiful as he remembered her. Then, he knew that at least, for a little while, they would be able to go on as if nothing had happened.

He got into the car, waited for her to take her seat, and then he bent over to her, to kiss and taste her candyfloss tasting lips, before stroking his hand through her hair, inhaling her sweet scent. This was the woman he loved. This was the life he had dreamed of, when he had been a little boy. Driving home in the middle of the night with two healthy sleeping boys in the backseat and a beautiful wife sitting next to him, humming along to Pink Floyd's 'Money' playing on the radio. This was the moment he understood that he could do this.

He could do this every night to come. He would try to. No, Harold. Not try. He had to succeed. To make Clint laugh like he had done under the dome, and to make Barney smile like he had done after tricking the clown into messing up his act. To make Edith kiss his lips the way she did whenever she was truly happy.

Yes. He had to try. For their sake.

Chapter Text

Being 10 years old wasn't exactly the easiest thing in the world. Sure, some of the other kids in his class wouldn't complain about their lives, but they didn't exactly know what was going on behind closed doors.

For Barney, things were quite simple. His father wasn't a good father – not like the ones he saw come pick up his friends at school. Not like those who would come on time, and be the happiest fathers he had ever seen. In his chest, jealousy ached with every single beat of his heart. He wanted a father who wasn't such a jerk. He wanted a father who didn't hurt his mom, and he wanted a father who didn't yell at his little brother so often.

But most of all, he wanted a real father.

He could still remember the first time he'd hit his father with the broom. He'd only snapped because his father had hit Clint. His little baby brother, he'd hit him across the face. And even though Barney was terrified of the belt he'd tasted enough in his life, he had taken the broom and hit his father back. It was at that moment that he had understood that his father wasn't going to disappear if he hit him. His father would get angry, sure, but he wouldn't disappear or break.

So, for the past three years, whenever his father would drink that stinking alcohol and get drunk again, Barney would find something to hit him back with. Everything counted. A fork. A knife. A shoe. Sometimes even one of Clint's toys. He knew he wasn't big enough to protect his mom and his brother, but he sure as hell would try to. It was his duty. Nobody had ever said it to him, nobody had ever told him that he had to protect them. He just had to. He had to be the one to go between his father and his mom whenever she fell, or whenever she'd been hit so hard she couldn't protect them any more.

Sure, it meant that he would get him harder. Clint would always get away easily, with just some bruises and maybe two, three, hits with the belt. His mom, she'd get hit too. But she would hide it behind that make up of hers. One time, he'd asked her.

“Why do you hide the bruise dad gave you?” the question came out. He was standing in the doorway to the bathroom, his father lying down on the couch where he'd fallen asleep after hitting him and his mother again. Clint had hid underneath the bed and Harold hadn't been able to get to him.

“Because, people don't need to see it,” she replied. Frowning, Barney shook his head and crossed his arms across his chest, not understanding.

“Why?”

“Because... What your father does when he's been drinking isn't something that people need to know,” she tried, as she looked down at his face through his reflection in the mirror. Barney shook his head again, as he played with a thread on his shirt. His face hurt again, and he knew that his eye would swell until it was black.

“Why?”

“He tries his best, you know,” her answer came. Lifting an eyebrow, ignoring the pain in his eye and sinuses, Barney looked up at her unimpressed.

“No, he doesn't. If he did, you wouldn't have to put on the makeup.” Barney's reply made her put down her hands, resting them on the sink. He noticed they were shaking, but instead of telling her it was going to be okay, he stayed there, confronting her about it. He'd asked around at school, some of his friends. Some of Clint's smaller friends, even. If their dads would drink, and if they sometimes got out of hand. No, they had replied. No, they didn't, because fathers don't hit moms and children. Why are you asking, Barney?

“Don't talk like that,” his mom had replied. Barney wanted to ask more, but he heard the wooden floor creak, and turning around he saw a red-eyed Clint come into the room, tip-toeing so as to not make any noise.

“Is daddy asleep?” Clint asked. Barney nodded, feeling all his anger towards his mother's attitude disappear, as he saw the fear animating his little brother.

“He's out like a light downstairs,” he replied. Coming closer, Clint looked at Edith who was applying some powder on her eye, before looking at his older brother. Raising his hand to try and see if the bruise on Barney's eye was real or not, he frowned, and stopped breathing for a couple of seconds.

“Does it hurt?” Clint asked. He looked so worried, so scared, so fragile, that Barney shook his head. In reality, it did hurt. It stung and he wanted to rub it because it itched too, but he wouldn't. He would pretend it didn't hurt, because if his father couldn't hurt him, then Clint would probably understand that he couldn't hurt him either.

“No, it doesn't. Didn't use the belt this time,” he replied, nonchalantly, a smile creeping onto his lips. The animosity he had begun to feel towards his mother had developped into a more protective feeling towards his brother. Clint was so small and tiny, the last time his father had hit him across the head, Clint had crawled into Barney's bed asking if it was normal that the house was so quiet. Asking if it was normal he couldn't hear Harold's snoring and Edith's crying in the kitchen.

At the time, Barney had said yes. He'd understood that something was wrong, and he'd hoped that it would go away. And it had. The next day, Clint could hear everything again, and he would complain about the snoring, like he always did, before falling asleep next to his brother.

Edith looked down from the mirror onto Barney and Clint, with a smile, before turning around, shooing them off.

“Go to bed, boys. You've got school tomorrow,” she stated plainly, as she took Barney by the shoulders and guided him out of the room, little Clint following close behind. Barney hated it. He hated the fact that she acted like getting hit didn't mean anything. He hated that she let Harold hit Clint. That she never told the neighbors or that she lied whenever someone asked. He hated how her voice would climb a pitch as she lied through her smile about her clumsiness. He hated how she asked him to tell the teacher that he had just been playing with Clint. Or that he'd just fallen over a rock. Or that he'd been helping in his father's shop and he'd fallen down the stool... He hated it. Every single second of it.

The next time all hell broke loose at home, was the time that things broke for real. It was about a year and a half later.

For as long as he could remember, Barney had always lived in the fear of seeing his father come home drunk, he had always feared seeing him kill his mom or set fire to the house.

It had almost happened a couple of times, of course. This time, however, was the one time that people started asking questions. Because, this time, Harold had done something that wouldn't heal over time. It was a cut which would grow back together and leave a scar, like Barney had so many of on his back. It wasn't a bruise which would go from black to purple to yellow to brown and disappear.

This time, their father had gone too far, and Barney would never forgive himself for not stopping it.

He was on his way home from school, walking up the gravel road, up to the house, when he heard the screaming. He hadn't gone home early like he usually did, because one of the teachers had wanted to talk to him about the homework he hadn't done, and ask if things were okay. Barney had lied. He'd just forgotten about it. (In reality, he hadn't been able to do it, since he'd spent the previous night helping Clint with his own homework).

When he reached home, the first thing he saw was his father's car parked in a wrong angle, and he could already tell that Harold was drunk. When he wasn't, the car was always perfectly parked up next to the apple tree. Not completely sideways, with the marks in the gravel that always came after he braked too hard.

Pulling his backpack back up on his shoulders, Barney broke into a run as he crossed the remaining metres between him and the house. He jumped the four stairs up to the porch two by two, and he pushed the main door open, the yelling suddenly encompassing every noise around him.

“ARE YOU INSA-”

“WHAT DID YOU DO, HAROLD?”

“DON'T YOU DARE INTERRUPT ME AGAIN, WOMAN!”

A loud bang Barney recognized as Harold's fist colliding with the wooden table put a stopper to the screaming. He felt a nagging in the back of his head as his gut realized something was wrong. Letting the backpack fall onto the floor as he walked into the hall, following the sound of voices, and Edith's muttering, he walked into the living room.

If he didn't know any better, he thought a tornado had hit the house from the inside. The table was the only piece of furniture still standing the way it had when he'd left for school that morning. The couch was pushed to the side, there were broken glasses and plates on the floor. Some of the tools for the fireplace were embedded in the wall, where Barney deduced Harold had thrown them.

His father was sitting down on one of the chairs, at the table, his eyes red from the alcohol and from – was it tears? While his mother was standing in the corner, her face wet from the tears and a large gash across her forehead, her arm bruised and blood on her hands and her apron.

The silence was deafening. “Mom?” he tried, and her head turned to him at the same time as his father's, and Barney's brow furrowing worried.

“Mom, where is Clint?”

Clenching his fists, Barney looked at his father. He had blood on his hands too, smudged on his face as well. Something was wrong. Where was Clint? Assessing the damage, Barney looked around, trying to find a proof that Clint was there somewhere.

“Where. Is. Clint?” he asked again, and this time, Edith closed her eyes as a sob escaped her lips. She lifted her hand and pointed towards the turned over couch. It didn't take Barney longer than half a second to leap towards it, and as he did so, Harold had pushed himself off the chair. As Barney moved the couch with all the weight his 12 year old self could find, Harold left the house.

All his life, Barney would remember what he saw. All his life, he would remember the sight of his baby brother, sitting in the corner, his hands holding his ears, blood all over his shirt, the white in his eyes blazing like an injured animal. His little brother was shaking, and as his eyes focused on him, Barney felt his heart break. Little Clint.

“Clint?” he tried, as he took a step forward, but Clint just pushed with his legs, to move back from him. He could hear Clint's noiseless whimper as he tried to scrawl back, and he stopped walking. “Clint, it's me, it's Barney.” But Clint's head just shook aimlessly as he refused to calm down. No. This wasn't supposed to happen. What was going on?

“Clint?” Barney turned around to look at his mother, who just seemed to be petrified, staring straight ahead of her. She wasn't there. “Mom?” he called one time. No answer. “MOM?!” he called a second time, and he saw her face shift, her eyes settle on him. “Mom, what the hell did dad do?” he yelled, pointing at Clint who still shook his head, refusing to let go of his ears. His shirt was stained with blood.

“He- he... He hit Clint,” came the quiet reply. Too quiet. She lowered her eyes to look at the floor. “He just hit Clint,” she repeated, as she let go of the wall she had been leaning on, and went to start pick up the pieces of broken porcelain plates. His eyes now wide with anger, Barney glared at her.

“He just hit Clint?” he yelled at her, but she seemed to work on autopilot. She picked up the pieces of broken cutlery and put them in her apron to carry them out to the kitchen. To the garbage. “He never hits Clint harder than me!” Barney screamed at her, refusing to walk, refusing to leave his little brother alone. “What did he do?!” he asked, so loud that he felt his voice would give out if he screamed louder.

“He hit Clint,” came the reply from the kitchen, and with an exasperated sigh, Barney turned around to kneel in front of Clint, whose eyes finally seemed to focus on him.

“Clint, look at me. What happened?” Barney asked again. Clint shook his head, blinking away rapidly growing tears in his eyes. Crawling closer quietly, Barney put out his hands in a submissive gesture, to show Clint that he wouldn't do anything.

“I can't- I can't-” Clint repeated, his voice broken. Barney's heart broke again, because Clint only spoke with such a broken voice after he'd screamed too high or too long. He would always speak like that whenever they went on a ride at the fair, or whenever he would make him scream by tickling him. If he was croaking like a toad now, it meant that Clint had screamed. And Clint rarely screamed when his father would beat him.

“What? What is it you can't do?” Barney asked, crawling on all fours in front of his brother, who closed his eyes, blinking away the tears.

“I can't hear anything, Barn',” was the reply. It felt like Barney had just been kicked in the head, and he stopped crawling, pushing himself to sit on his folded legs, arms resting on his thighs.

“What?”

“I can't hear anything, Barney,” Clint replied, as he slowly, as slowly as he could, let go of his ears. The blood on his hands was dry, as was the one which had flowed from his left ear. “I can't hear anything anymore, dad hit me on the head and- and- and then all sound stopped and- I'm so- I can't- Barney I'm so scared,” Clint finally broke, and Barney moved closer to his little brother, embracing him in his protective arms.

He was too young for this. He heard their mother drop something in the living room, and looking up from Clint's dirty blonde hair to glare at her. Why hadn't she protected her son?

“Why didn't you stop him?” he growled at her, and she shook her head, apologetic. “Why did you let him hit Clint? You promised!” he barked, this time, holding onto his little brother who was now sobbing into his shirt.

“I couldn't- I couldn't stop him. He took one of the clogs, and- he- he-” She paused as she inhaled as deep a breath as she could to calm herself, wiping tears from her face, smudging dried blood on her skin. “I thought he was going to hit me,” she replied, sighing. “Clint came out from under the couch and leapt at him, and bit his hand,” she continued, as Clint's hands locked on Barney's shirt, refusing to let go, his grasp growing stronger and stronger. Barney could smell the salty taste of blood in the air now, he could smell the sweat and the tears, and the quiet whimpering Clint was letting out broke his heart even more.

“Harold swung his hand the other way, and he hit Clint in the head with the clog,” she went on, Barney glaring at her, whispering words of consolation to Clint, lying to him, saying it was going to be alright. “Then he started- he started to- he started bleeding and screaming, and he- Harold asked him to shut up,” Edith continued, pausing only to take a deep breath, looking down at the blood on her hands. “But he wouldn't. Why didn't he just shut up? Then, he hit him again, and Clint tried to crawl under the couch, and Harold- he- he pulled the couch up and-”

“Stop it,” Barney commanded, gripping tighter on Clint's back, his protective embrace encompassing Clint's shaking body. “Shut up, mom,” he said, stronger this time, as if an authoritative voice would help him stop Clint's hurting. “This is your fault.” Pause. “This is your fucking fault, you should've left when he came home drunk out of his ass!” he screamed, using the swear words as best as he could, before Clint finally looked up.

“Barn- Barney- no, not mom, not her-”

“Yes, it's her,” Barney replied, “It was her fault,” he then lowered his voice. “I shouldabeen here, Clint, I shouldabeen here, I shoulda run home from school, I knew it, I could feel it,” and suddenly, he was just whispering to Clint, their foreheads touching, as Clint's eyes looked into his own.

“I should've taught you,” he started, but Clint put his finger on his lip, to quiet him.

“No, no,” were the only words that came out of Clint's mouth.

“Clint, I'm so sorry,” Barney whispered, as Clint pulled him into a hug. All Barney could see was the blood on the floor. The blood that had flowed from Clint's ear. The blood on his clothes. The stains. Clint started sobbing again, and he felt like everything was going to crumble. Everything he had worked on. Everything he'd tried to do. Take the beatings for Clint, he'd told himself. If I can show Clint how to hit dad back, then he won't get hurt.

But it was his fault. Clint had bit Harold. He'd leaped up to protect his mom. Like Barney would have done. He was trying to be him. Clint had tried to protect his mom. But that was Barney's job. Not Clint's. And now, they were past the point of no return.

He had to give it to their parents, they knew how to act proper and civilized every now and then. Especially at the doctor's.

Three days after he'd come home to a bloody Clint, they had taken an appointment at the doctor. But only because Clint couldn't hear properly anymore. Only because there was something wrong with his ears, and only because it was troublesome for them. Because at school, they were noticing that he never reacted at his name anymore.

The doctor had conducted some tests. He'd put Clint in a room where he sat on a chair while some noises came from the left, and from the right, and he'd had to press on a remote control whenever he could hear something. For the entire duration of the test, Barney's eyes had been fixed on Clint's hands. Unfortunately, he had barely ever pressed the buttons. He couldn't hear. He couldn't hear anything.

Sitting down in the chair between his mom and dad, Barney tried to look as responsible as he could in his striped shirt. His father was sitting with his legs crossed, talking to the doctor. Clint was sitting on the examination table behind them. He knew that Clint was probably trying to process what was going on. He was trying to understand what was going on, but Barney had written it on a piece of paper for him when the doctor had been talking to their parents. You're deaf, he scribbled, quickly. Clint had looked up at him, and he'd almost started crying, but then he had shaken his head. A quiet resolve had appeared in his eyes, and Barney had nodded.

“There's no one hundred percent guarantee that his hearing will come back,” the doctor said, as he wrote down something on a piece of paper. Edith was looking down at her heels, as if it would make the news easier to process. “The fall damaged the inner and middle ear, but that doesn't mean it might not grow back on their own.”

“Isn't there anything you can do, doc'?” Harold asked, continuing, “to make him hear again?”

Barney sat in silence, listening to Clint's quiet breathing behind him.

“There is always the possibility of a surgery, but I don't think- I don't think you could afford it-”

“But how are we supposed to deal with him when he's like this?” Harold asked, and Barney's head jerked to the side, to glare at his father. When he's like this. He should have said when I made him like this. They had lied to the doctor. They'd said that Clint had fallen off a branch in the apple tree and hit his head in the fall, and that now he couldn't hear. If the doctor suspected otherwise, Barney had to give it to him, he didn't let it show.

“You can always learn sign language, Mr. Barton,” the doctor said in a tone of all finality. He then handed the paper he had been writing on to Barney, and cocked his head in Clint's direction, instructing Barney in a quiet conversation to give it to Clint.

As he got up from his chair, Barney looked down at the paper. “Your inner and middle ear were damaged. Because of the injury, you have been deafened partially and I hope temporarily. With care and love,” was what the doctor had scribbled. Barney walked up to Clint, whose head was hanging low, and handed him the paper.

Clint didn't put out his hand to take it. He just lifted his eyes to look at Barney, a quiet anger and resolve burning in his heart, boring right through Barney. Gone was little innocent Clint who would accept the beatings or hide under the bed. Gone was little quiet Clint who would always be the first to laugh whenever something happened. Gone. He was gone.

The next couple of days were more than difficult for all of them. For Harold, who still had to go to the shop every day and pretend things weren't shitty at home. For Edith, who had to take care of Clint, whom the doctor had forbidden to go back to school until he wasn't at least a little better after the 'fall'. Clint who had trouble keeping his balance because his inner ear had been damaged, and who would wobble down the stairs. For Barney, because he seemed to be the only one who actually had listened to what the doctor had said.

He'd gone to the library and found some books on sign language. It didn't seem to hard to figure out, he'd thought at first. When he had asked the librarian to lend that specific book, he had gotten a strange look.

“Why d'you wanna learn sign language, son?” the librarian asked.

Shrugging as if it was the most normal thing to want, Barney avoided eye contact. “I dunno, it sounds like it's fun and it would be cool to know,” he tried defending himself, but the librarian shook his head.

“Barney, I know about your little brother.” A pause. Barney stopped drumming on the edge of the table and he gripped it tight instead. “The doc' came down and asked if we had any books on sign language.”

Barney felt his jaw lock, and he felt an intense rip of rage burn up through his chest. “'kay, thanks, can I just borrow this book?” he stated, unphased by the librarian's words, as he handed the library card to him.

The librarian pursed his lips, as he took the card. “If you ever need help,” he added, but Barney just plainly avoided eye contact now. He didn't want anyone to know about Clint. Clint was okay. He wasn't broken. His little brother hadn't lost anything, he had just been injured a little bit. People didn't act like this whenever someone broke a leg or a wrist, then why did they act like this when Clint's eardrum had broken? It wasn't important. It would heal. Until then, Clint just had to use crutches, just like the guy who had a plast around his leg. He wouldn't have to use it to walk, but to talk. How the hell was that any different than the other injuries?

The librarian handed him the card back, as well as the book, and Barney aggressively snatched both of them back. Walking away, his head low, avoiding any eye contact with the other customers of the library, he walked all the way home, hoping that Clint would be ready to learn from him. If his mom and dad wouldn't learn, Barney would. It wouldn't matter to him, if Clint couldn't talk, then what good was he? Clint had always been the one to state all kinds of things – look how green the grass is, or look at that bird, why is the car red, why does it smell funny when mom makes food – but lately, he had barely been talking. Barney knew why. It was because he couldn't hear himself.

It took a little longer than he expected, but eventually, Clint allowed himself to learn the sign language. Barney would help him. Barney would be the one to try and figure out grammar and how to construct sentences, and then he would try and tone it down to make it simpler for Clint. But, when Clint started remembering signs better than him and correcting him on them, Barney knew that Clint would be alright.

When they would sit at the dinner table and Clint would sign for someone to give him the salt or just ask about something that had happened at school, Barney would expectantly look up at their parents who would just shake their heads annd look back at him, expecting him to translate. What baffled Barney was the fact that neither of them had taken the time to learn sign language. Or at least give it a try. None of them had wanted to put in an effort. They had just plainly abandonned any communication with Clint when it had requested more effort than previously. And, secretly, Barney hated them for it.

However, when their father had another episode a couple of days later, Barney got enough. He got enough of watching Clint trying to find a hiding place, and disappearing outside to the fields, no matter the time of day or night, and only coming back hours later, looking scared and cold.

When their father lost it again and Barney smashed a bottle on the wall behind him, which got him another beating as their mother left the house leaving them to their fate, Barney got enough.

A couple of nights later, he sneaked Clint out in the middle of the night. It was summer, so they didn't need any warm clothes in the hot air of Iowa. They could smell the fields and see the mosquitoes roaming around the lights. They could hear the buzzing of the insects even in the darkness. Well. At least Barney could. Clint's hearing was getting a little better, he'd noticed, because he had begun reacting to high noises that he usually wouldn't react to.

Barney had also noticed that Clint would try humming to himself in the dead of night, as if to test if his voice still worked, and when Clint made a satisfied noise before letting himself fall asleep, Barney knew that Clint would regain his hearing at some point. When, however, remained a mystery.

He brought Clint out to the family barn. Along with one of Harold's bottles. Just to try. Just to feel the burn in his mouth and in his throat. Trying to understand how that thing could turn his father into a monster.

C-L-I-N-T, he signed, before going on, getting his little brother's attention. I'm going to teach you how to hit people, he went on, as he took a sip of the strong alcohol. He felt it burn him on the tongue and in the throat and had to cough it away.

Why? came Clint's reply, and Barney frowned.

Because, you're not going to be able to hide behind curtains or under beds all your life. You have to learn how to throw a punch.

O-K. The fact that Clint would accept his explanation so easily threw Barney a little off, but he didn't mind. At least, it meant that Clint wasn't afraid of getting hit. Not that way, at least. So they started. They started, and Barney told Clint to show him the best punches he could throw. He told him to start the punch all the way from the elbow, to get even more momentum as the punch would connect with the target.

And Clint hit him as hard as he could. In the stomach, in the side. Until Barney stopped him.

Can I show you?, he signed, and Clint nodded. So, Barney threw a punch. Into Clint's side, and he felt his little brother huff out the air in his lungs as he fell back, falling falt on his ass as he gripped his side, trying to keep a straight face, trying to ignore the pain. He saw darkness in his eyes as Clint blinked away the pain.

Clint? Are you okay?, Barney asked. Letting his hands hang low, feeling bad, suddenly. He'd hit his brother, even if it was alright. Clint looked hurt. He had that darned puppy face all over his head, and Barney wanted to yell at him to wipe it off and man up. But then he remembered the first time Clint had been hit by their father. And he was sure Clint remembered it too. Barney remembered the first time his father had hit him perfectly clearly.

Looking down, Clint signed the word dad. Deciding to ignore the guilt he felt at hitting his brother, Barney took another gulp at the bottle. “What about that son of a bitch?” he asked, verbally, forcing his brother to look up at him, at his lips, instead of hiding with a low hanging face.

Clint signed the word want , before pointing at the bottle Barney held in his hand. Barney wasn't too sure what Clint meant. Did he want to try and taste it? He shook his head. You'll spit it out , he signed, as he put out his hand. Clint was now squatting on the floor, looking miserable.

“If you want something, you have to get up, Clint,” Barney said, refusing to sign, keeping the bottle in his other hand. Little Clint just shook his head, as he signed back.

No, I feel- was the reply. What the hell was that supposed to mean ? Then, as Clint pulled his legs up against his chest, hiding his face behind his knees, putting his arms around them, Barney heard a faint “I can't,” and that was the only thing that set him right off. He could feel the fire within him, and he suddenly felt like he was allowed to do something he would never have thought of – he hit Clint in the chin with a flying foot, hitting his little brother as hard as he could, as he yelled “Get up!” at his little brother.

Seeing his brother lie flat on his stomach, blood starting to drip from his nose, Barney let go of the bottle, and watched expectantly as he saw something happen in Clint's eyes. Pushing himself upright, Clint lept to his feet and threw Barney a right hook, which connected with Barney's jaw perfectly. He felt the pain ripple through his skull as he fell back, having been throw off balance, and as he landed on the hay behind them, Barney had a flash of anger and every single fiber of his being yelled at him to hit back, he yelled at his brother.

“Like that, Clint, you have to hit him like that!” but as he realized Clint wasn't listening (by driving another fist into his eye socket), Barney had to try and catch Clint's face, to frame it, and force him to look at him. “Look at me! Make everything something to hit with! AND THEN HIT THEM UNTIL THEY STOP!” That threw Clint off, who withdrew and closed his eyes, moving back from Barney, letting him breathe.

The pain in his head was throbbing and he could feel every single heartbeat as it hammered against his skull, but Barney didn't care. He saw Clint let his shoulders fall in defeat, as he signed at him. Dad's tall. I can't stop him .

Pushing himself to sit upright, rubbing his cheek, Barney suddenly felt very determined. And he knew exactly what to say to Clint. “Then we outlast him. You understand?” And he saw Clint's face explode in the surprise of the statement. He knew that Clint had read his lips. He knew that Clint had understood the simple words he'd yelled at him.

Barney moved up, and pushed himself up to stand, picking up the bottle at the same time. Clint looked at him, before signing a question. Are we going to practice more? , was what Clint asked, but Barney shook his head.

No, you know how to hit people. I don't need to teach you anything , Barney replied, as he walked up to the large wooden door of the barn, looking above his shoulder to see Clint standing defeated in the middle of the barn. Are you coming back in ?, he asked, wondering what was keeping his little brother behind. Why would he stay there?

“I don't want to hit people”, Clint said, loud and clear enough for Barney to hear it. Shaking his head, Barney looked down at his feet. Clint stood completely still, barely leaning back and forth as he waited for a reply. When Clint's eyes fell to the floor, Barney signed.

“It's not about wanting to, baby brother. It's about having to,” Barney replied, knowing fully well that Clint could neither read his lips nor hear him speak, as he was walking towards him, head hanging low, chin resting on his chest.

Barney could feel Clint's pain. He could understand why Clint didn't want to hit people. Clint had always been the kind one. He had always been the favored one, the one their father would be least likely to hit. Telling him he had to hit people back was like telling him that he had to be mean. Clint wasn't mean. He had never been. He was the sweetest kid Barney had ever known, and he loved to watch all the mothers at school woo and try to make Clint smile, because the dimples that appeared on his cheeks when he smiled completely and fully were beautiful. The way his little brother's eyes would light up whenever something made him so happy he couldn't contain it.

He could understand Clint. But right now, right in this situation, they had to outlast their father. They had to grow up and grow bigger, stronger than him, so that they could defend themselves. It had cost Clint his hearing, not hitting back, not being big enough. They had to become strong, they had to become big enough to protect themselves. Barney couldn't understand why their mother didn't protect them like she did when they were little anymore.

It was a betrayal, in a way. When their mother wouldn't stand in Harold's way anymore, it meant that she deemed them big enough to be able to survive the hits. Barney understood that now, as he watched Clint leave the barn, and walk up to the house. Outside, it smelled of crops and of nature, and Barney could hear some crickets somewhere behind the barn. Clint would walk up to the house in complete silence, with nothing but his thoughts.

If their mother considered them big enough to protect themselves, and if she ran out the house whenever Harold was in the mood, then why didn't she just leave all together ? Maybe it was up to them, to Barney and Clint. Maybe they should leave.

As he followed behind Clint, Barney thought about it. Maybe they could leave. He was 12 years old, Clint was 7. He could lift heavy stuff and his little brother could help with the cooking and the kitchen things. Maybe they could leave and find a job somewhere ? They were going to have to do something eventually. But who would listen to a couple of 12 and 7 year olds ? Nobody, that's why. It was so frustrating for Barney, because they had been lying about the situation for so long that nobody in town ever wondered about it anymore.

He only noticed he'd stopped walking when Clint's head popped up in his peripheral vision. You coming ?, he was signing, and Barney nodded quietly as he crossed the distance between him and his brother, still rubbing his jaw. Damn Clint knew how to throw a punch.

Chapter Text

Things were getting harder. Harold could feel his sons slipping through his fingers. He couldn't come up to them and ask them if they wanted to help him with the farm work, or help him fix some railings. He couldn't ask Barney to help him with the car anymore, without being afraid of them lashing out at him.

And he knew that there was a reason for it. He knew that there was a very specific reason for it, but like any elephant in the room, nobody ever mentioned it. He knew that he was the very reason why everybody acted like they walked on eggshells around him. After all, he had been the one who had hit Clint in the head so hard that the kid had gone deaf. There was nothing more to it.

He'd hit his kid so hard that he'd disabled him. And he knew that he shouldn't use it as an excuse to drink even more, but he did. Oh boy, had he found an even bigger reason to drink now that he couldn't even communicate with one of the kids anymore.

It had gotten harder. To keep a straight face. To come home. Before, they could hide the bruises, and even Edith would pretend nothing had happened by kissing him and asking him if he had changed his shirt or not because he smelled like a wild beast. But now, every single time he came home, even when he was sober, he would never hear Clint's voice. It was always Edith and Barney, and Clint would sit there, quietly communicating with Barney through that finger sign of theirs.

How it even made sense was above his head. He couldn't figure anything out. Barney had tried to learn him to sign Clint's name, but Harold's finger had shaken too much and he couldn't remember the five signs for the five letters in Clint's name. Edith hadn't tried at all. Harold hoped that he would at least win some points with the boys by having given it a try, but the two kids were just silent and ignoring now.

And it didn't help.

It sure as hell didn't help when he went down to his shop one day, and one of the teachers of the school came in, looking to buy some meat. When his eyes locked with the new customer, his brain froze. Harold looked at the man in front of him, and he felt like the air in his lungs had been sucked out by some alien machinery.

The man in front of him had the exact same hair and eyes that Clint had.

Everything inside his head began to spin too fast, and he didn't hear what the teacher told him.

“Excuse me, what?” He tried a smile as he shook it off by waving absently at an unexistent fly, and the teacher smile.

“Sorry, my bad, I just asked if you had any filling?”

It took Harold half a second to understand what was being asked of him, and when it computed for him what the customer was asking for, he was showing him the two different fillings he could offer.

“This one's beef only, and that one's half calf and half pork,” he stated, pointing to them respectively. He couldn't help but stare at the teacher who had now frowned, wondering which of the fillings he should take.

“I don't know, my wife asked me to get her some meat and since Edith's been talking about your meat I thought I should give it a try, but then, two different kinds of meat... What's best for meatballs?”

But Harold's attention was only focused on the mention of Edith's name. This teacher knew his wife's name. What was with that?

“You okay?”

“Uh, sorry.” He noticed that his fist had gone white as he'd clenched it, and smiled innocently at the teacher. He couldn't remember the name. But staring at that face was almost like staring at Clint, and it made no sense. Clint had Edith's cheeks and her kind sense of love, and he was their kid... But that teacher. “You should take the half and half, beef won't blend well with the taste,” he replied thoughtfully, as he pulled out the dish with the meat.

“Alright, I'll take that then. About 500 grams?” the teacher said, with a bright smile on his face. Harold could almost smell the happiness off him, and he innerly thought that it was some form of gloating. A sort of 'Look at me, I'm happy. How about you?' gloating. And, as he took some meat with a spoon up onto one of the plastic containers, before weighing it off and announcing the price.

After the exchange of cash and the little bell rang announcing the teacher had left, Harold sat down on the stool behind the register. He looked at the meat, but soon found himself lost in thought.

Edith. And that teacher? Could it be? Maybe Clint wasn't his? He tried to pull up the mental picture of Barney and Clint side by side, and there was absolutely no doubt that Barney was his with that flamery red hair of his, but Clint... Lovely blonde Clint with his beautiful blue eyes. No. They were the teacher's eyes. It had to be.

Had she done that? Had she been unfaithful? Was Clint a bastard? Maybe that would explain the whining. The crying. Explain why he had been so damn fragile and broken after a single hit to the head. Harold shook his head. No, keep your cool. Just because the teacher looks like Clint doesn't mean it. But at the same time, yes it does. He used to be Barney's teacher, didn't he? Edith used to talk with him for a long time whenever Barney would cause trouble. Or hit another kid. Like Harold had told him to whenever he got bullied.

For the next two hours, no customers came. It was a quiet night – Wednesdays always were – but even for Harold, waiting there, in the shop, it meant that he couldn't ask Edith. He couldn't come home until he closed the shop, he couldn't come home until he was done here and until he'd put everything away. So, an hour before closing time, he began to put away the unsold meat, on autopilot for most of it. He put it all away, before going to the drawer under the cash register. He looked at it, his heart screaming at him not to do this, but his head saying go for it.

He opened it. There, right there, was a little bottle. It wasn't much, but it was the only one he still had. He picked it up with shaking hands, and before he knew it, what it had held inside was gone down his throat. The familiar tickle of the alcohol against his throat didn't unnerve him, and the only regret he had was that he didn't have more at the shop.

So, Harold emptied the cash register. He put the money in his back pocket and closed down the shop half an hour earlier, and went to the store.

“Something you wanna tell me?” were the words Harold chose to break the ice as he got home and put down the new bottles of booze on the table in the living room.

Edith was in the kitchen, the children were upstairs playing something or perfecting their sign language. He had no idea, actually. He didn't care, right now, anyway. All he cared about was Edith and how she wanted to defend herself.

“About what, Harry?” she replied, and Harold walk up to the kitchen door. He'd managed to suppress the itch for the alcohol until now, and he hadn't drunk anymore than what had been in his flask, but nevertheless he could feel the alcohol clouding his judgement.

“About Clint.”

He saw Edith put down the dishes she was cleaning, and turn her head towards him. The frown on her face showed him that she truly didn't know. Or maybe she was just very good at pretending. Maybe she was just very, very good at pretending she had no idea where this conversation was headed. That was probably it. Because Harold was absolutely sure that she knew. She had to.

“You know what I'm talking about,” he dared, tip toeing on the edge of a knife as Edith shook her head. So she wanted to play it that way, Harold thought to himself as he felt the turmoil of rage and jealousy claw their way from his heart all the way out to his fingers, which started trembling. “The teacher.”

But still, she kept her face questioning, not leaving one peep of the truth through. Was she that good of an actress? Or did it simply mean that she had perfected her lying all through the past 7 years? Because Clint was 7 now. He was 7 years old, and that meant that she had been lying to his face for 7 years. That a bastard boy had been eating his food and getting his love and spending his money and- Harold felt it all merge together in a black tornado and he exploded, by hitting the doorway with his fist.

“Goddammit, Edith, THE TEACHER!” he screamed at her, and she took a step backwards. Of course she would do that.

“I don't know what you're talking about Harold!” she defended, as she shook her head, her brow furrowed. Harold shook his head too, out of rage as he felt himself loose control over himself. He pushed himself up to her, to stand right in her face, their foreheads almost touching.

“Don't you dare tell me you don't know, when his bastard kid has been living off my sweat and hard work!” he barked, breaking the first hit of the day, by slapping her across the cheek. It was almost as if he'd stroked her compared to what he would usually do, but he hadn't been able to help himself. “CLINT ISN'T MINE, IS HE?” he screamed again, as she took a step back, rubbing her cheek where his hand had collided with it, and still shaking her head.

God he hated it when she shook her head like that, it made him want to hit her even harder. How dared she act like that?! The teacher had been the carbon copy of Clint, there was no doubt! She took a deep breath as she pulled herself together. Then, just as she was about to speak, he saw her eyes move to the door behind him and as he turned around, he saw both Barney and Clint standing there, their eyes determined with something fierce.

Ah, so the little bastard wanted in on it too. Or maybe they knew? Yes, she had probably told them and then they'd lied to him behind his back and to his face all this time. Sure. He wasn't an idiot, he saw right through their plan.

“Oh, so the little bastard wants in on the game, does he?” he said as he pivoted on his feet, waltzing straight up to the kids. Barney moved up in front of Clint, but Clint moved past Barney's extended hand and stood straight up, facing his father. Harold didn't care about whether or not Clint's hearing had come back, and frankly, he decided that moment that he would never care again: why would he, the kid wasn't even his.

“Harold, leave them alone,” Edith's voice then broke, and he turned around, feeling his head spin at the movement.

“Fuck you, Edith,” he growled, through his gritted teeth, as he shoved Clint and Barney to the side, heading straight for the bag he'd put down on the table with the bottles of alcohol he'd bought at the store. He pulled one out of the paper bag, and unlocked it with a shaking hand as his eyes fell on the three pairs of eyes looking at him.

“Can't even take five minutes to hear me out?” Edith said as she walked in to the living room, following him close behind. “Because, oh, yeah, you're an expert on genetics and how things work, right? Because, sure, Clint is blond and he's not a redhead like you or Barney it has to mean that he's not yours? You're a fucking asshole, Harold, that's what you are.” She paused as he put down the bottle, his hands shaking more and more as he could feel control seeping out of his body.

How dared she? How dared she call him an asshole when she had been the one lying to him all this time?! “You call me an asshole? Fine, then you're the cheating liar bitch,” was the reply he came up with, but Edith didn't take the bait and continued.

“Oh, spare me the name calling. I swear to God that if you don't put down that bottle, I'm going to call the cops.” Another pause and Harold gritted his teeth. Better drink it down, that way he could handle it. So he brought the bottle back to his lips and felt the alcohol rip through his throat as the satisfaction rippled through him. Ignore her. She's a lying filthy bitch and you don't need to hear her lies.

“Shut up, Edith. I saw the teacher, he had Clint's eyes and his hair, and, you wanna swear to God, then I'm going to swear to His name too,” he slurred as he barely pulled the bottle away from his lips, “I swear to God in heaven that if you don't fucking shut the fuck up, I am going to kill you and I'm going to throw the boy out to the trash after I smash his head in, do you understand me?” he growled.

He was so focused on Edith that he almost missed the sudden movement behind her, and he ducked right at the moment where a knife got flung at him, and as it embedded itself in the wall some feet behind him, he saw Clint take one of the knives Barney held in his hand. Damn, that kid knew how to aim. It didn't take more than half a second for Clint to have pulled the knife up again, and as Harold let go of the bottle and moved a step to the side, the knife had already broken the glass container and alcohol as well as shards fell all over the floor.

Then, as he tried to gain some composure, he heard a thud, and then sudden pain in his shoulder, and as he turned around and put the opposite hand on the area of contact, he felt the warmth of blood and the sharp bite of something in his flesh. He was now angry, more than angry, he was furious. Screaming, as if nothing held him back, he ripped out the projectile which turned out to be a kitchen knife, not hearing what Edith was screaming at the kids, and he leapt towards them.

He couldn't remember. He couldn't remember what had happened, other than he had just woken up in a hospital room, and he felt like hell.

He couldn't remember. Harold felt all the emotions come tumbling inside his skull as he came back to his senses: fear, anger, sadness, remorse, jealousy, and then, as he saw something move beside him, he realized that something cold was coming into his veins somewhere on his right arm, and as the coolness spread through his arm, he felt himself go under again.

“- not sure how the story you've told us holds up, we're going to have to see how he reacts when we tell-”

The female voice stopped as he opened his eyes, his fingers suddenly jumping back to action, and he gasped for air. He felt as if he'd just been pulled up from being underwater for too long and he needed air in his lungs, he needed to feel alive, and as he tried pushing himself upright, he felt strong hands pushing him back. He barked something at him, to leave him alone, but he soon realized that it would only help if he let them do their thing.

“Mister Barton?” the female voice came again, and he nodded to acknowledge that he was listening, though he could only see through a haze. Damn the pain in his shoulder felt sharp. “Mister Barton, you're at the Health Center. Blink one time if you understand where you are.” He obliged.

“Sir, I'm going to run through what happened when you were admitted here, alright?” He nodded, blinking one time too, as he felt a sharp pain ripple through his shoulder.

“Last night, the ER got a call from your wife, Edith, who told us that you'd tripped on a chair while you were having dinner, and subsequently, you dropped the plate you were carrying out to the kitchen, as well as the knife and fork lying on it. According to your wife, you fell onto the knife on accident. However, you had a high blood alcohol percentage, so we're going to have to hear your side of the story as soon as you feel alright to do so.”

Harold took a few seconds to take in the news he had just gotten from the nurse. He could see her more clearly now, as she read up from her file, and as he tried counting his breaths, he frowned. “Edith?”

The name came out on its own, and when he saw the nurse light up, although her face still looked like it was veiled by doubt, he understood. Edith had covered for him. Like she always did. Like she had learnt to. When the nurse moved aside, and Edith stood up from the chair she had been sitting on in the back of the room, he saw her for the first time in a long, long age. He could see her face so clearly, and he realized now that deep within his heart, he still loved her.

Edith had the most beautiful blonde hair he had ever seen, and it reflected the sun in a thousand different shades, that no picture or no painter would ever be able to capture. Her hair fell on her shoulders now, and as she came closer, he could see the dark bags under her eyes. “Edith,” he said again, and reaching out for her hand, when he felt her cool touch, his heart calmed down immediately.

“I'm here, Harry,” her voice broke through, and he smiled as he felt the pain in his shoulder again. He felt strangely good, but he blamed the painkillers.

“What happened?” he asked, frowning, and his eyes focused entirely on her face. He could read her eyes, knew that she was letting him in on her secret, their shared secrecy about the situation at home having developped a secret language.

“You can't remember, can you? You came home, and you had been out partying at the bar because Barney had gotten a good grade in school, and then when I told you to go to bed, you got up from the table and then you tripped. Remember now?”

Nodding, Harold's eyes searched for the nurse, who was still listening intently. “Oh, yeah,” he stated, as he moved his free hand to rub the edge of his nose. “I remember now... Clint was playing on the couch, and Barney had just showed me the test,” he added, constructing the lie that Edith had just let him in on.

“I'll come back later, when you've talked a little bit,” the nurse announced with a smile as she looked onto the couple. Harold couldn't see if she was trying to see through their lie or if she had eaten it raw, but he frankly couldn't give two more shits. Edith was here. Edith loved him, just as much as he loved her. Through hell and through heaven, they had been together, and she was here now.

He couldn't remember what he'd said, he couldn't remember what had happened after one of the boys had thrown the knife at him. All he remembered was waking up without her by his side and knowing that it felt wrong. All he wanted right now was to tell Edith how much he loved her, and how much he regretted the past day.

As they exchanged words, he could feel her love pour into him, and he realized that maybe, the day before had been too much. Maybe, he should trust her. He had trusted her to cover up his demons, he had trusted her to raise their kids to cover up his demons, and he had almost broken that faith and that trust over one doubt he'd gotten.

Clint was his. Edith told him, looking him straight into the eyes, and even though she suggested to do some sort of test to prove it, Harold just shook his head. He didn't need any further proof. She loved him so much that she had lied to the hospital and to the police about how his injury had happened. Not just this time, but all the previous times too. How could he ever have doubted her?

Harold took her hand and pulled it to his lips, where he kissed her knuckles gently. “I love you,” he said, lazily, his tongue feeling thick and useless in his mouth, and Edith moved a little bit closer, bending towards him. When he felt her lips on his mouth, he could taste all the sadness, all the worry and all the tiredness that he could see in her eyes, and as he kissed her back, he vowed that he would take it off her shoulders. They had made it this far. They would be able to make it a little further, if they just held each other's hand as they did now.

Then, came a knock from the door. Both of them turned their heads towards it, and two heads popped through, Clint and Barney's faces appearing there. Harold felt his heart jump in his chest as he had a sudden flash of Clint throwing the knife at him, but as the kid looked up at him now, he knew that it had been a spur of the moment thing. Clint would never be able to kill a fly, no matter how hard he try. He would never be a killer, he didn't have what it took to take a life. He had only done so to protect his mother...

And frankly, that was all Harold needed right now. He invited the kids to sit on his hospital bed by tapping on it, and as he closed his eyes, he imagined a future where they would finally be able to put all this blood and thunder behind them.

Chapter Text

If there was one thing that Edith Barton knew, was when things were starting to get complicated. She could taste it miles away, and ever since Harold had hit Clint in the head... Well, things had been getting complicated.

Sure, her beloved little Clint had gotten most part of his hearing back, Harold had been having more and more trouble accepting the growth of the children. She could see it – now they weren't just bluntly taking the hits anymore. Barney had started those years ago, by hitting Harold with a broom, and ever since, even little Clint had taken up the habit of fighting back.

But if they could just understand – it wasn't their father. Not really. It was just when he was drunk. If they just left him alone, if they just took the beatings... Maybe things would get better soon. Maybe things would get easier. It sure as hell didn't help when they would throw things back. Like Clint had done, the last time. He'd thrown a knife at Harold, aiming for the head, but Harold had turned around at the last minute and the knife had embedded itself in his shoulder.

Little innocent Clint had tried to bury a knife in his father's face, and Edith didn't know how much more of that she could hold. Barney had been trying so hard – he had learnt sign language with Clint, he had taught him, he had helped him. Barney, it seemed to Edith, was the only one who made some sort of sense anymore. And she couldn't blame him. He was starting to see the cracks in their relationship. In their family. In their home. There was something broken and rotten, and Barney was starting to smell it, and soon he would pass it on to Clint.

And then, they would leave. They would either wait a couple of years more – until they were both 16, maybe – and then they would leave. And she would loose both kids and then all she ever fought for would be gone.

All she had ever wanted in life was to have a loving and kind family. She had wanted that the moment she had met Harold, when they were young and innocent. She had wanted that when he had taken her for the first time, lying in the hay in his father's barn. She had wanted that when her belly had started to swell up and when Barney had come along. She had wanted it from the very beginning.

And seeing it all fall to pieces was like watching herself crack, piece by piece, and she could do nothing to put them back together. Absolutely nothing.

One day, Clint came into the kitchen to help her out with some potatoes. He had grown a little bit, he was almost 8 years old now. But he had suddenly grown a few inches, and he looked so tall. He could peer over the stove now, and look at what she was doing. He wasn't a little boy anymore. He would run around, following Barney everywhere they went, and it was hard to separate the two of them anymore.

But that day, he had come in, and sat down helping her peel the potatoes in silence. She sat down next to him, cutting them into pieces, as she arranged them in a dish to put into the oven. She noticed him peeling them very thoroughly, more than he would usually do. And then, as he put down the fourth one, his head peaked up from his hands and looked straight at her.

“Barney wants to leave.”

He might as well have punched her in the belly, it would have had the same effect. Frowning, shaking her head, she couldn't help the “What?” that escaped her lips, as she put down the knife. Clint frowned in response.

“He talked about it this morning.”

Little Clint didn't seem to know the implications of what Barney had said. Edith took a couple of seconds to think it through. Barney wanted to leave. How so? “What did he mean? All of us, leave your father's farm behind and go to the ci-”

“No, he wants to leave. He doesn't want to be with you and dad anymore,” Clint cut her off, as he pulled up another potato and started peeling it. She could see that he was swinging his legs under the table, like he always did, because he was still too short to touch the floor. And, at the tone he had used, Edith didn't think that he understood. He probably just thought that it was a game Barney was playing, and he was simply playing along. It had to be. She had to force a smile onto her face. Keep him talking like it's no big deal, she thought to herself.

“Just for a while, though, right? Clint?” She saw his shoulders raise as he gave her the most adequate reply: he didn't know. Barney hadn't given him details, then. It wasn't exactly the best thing to tell Clint things like that, because he would follow Barney. No questions asked. He had been the one to do as Barney had done when he had started fighting their father back. Clint had begun throwing things and biting and hitting back because Barney had done it.

Anything Barney did, Clint did as well.

“Why were you talking about it?” she then threw out, casually, as she took the potato he was handing her and started cutting it into the square pieces.

“I don't know, we were just talking,” Clint replied dryly. He shrugged again, as he went on with his business, peeling the potatoes until they were so clean that they would almost jump out of his hands, being too slippery.

Edith lowered her gaze. Barney wanted to leave. He had just turned 13 years old, three days before, and he wanted to leave. Could he be clever enough to go to the authorities and ask for something? Could he go? Or would he wait until he was 16? Her thoughts begun to spill together in a maelstrom that she couldn't control, and when Clint's “Mom?” broke through to her, she noticed that she had stopped cutting the potato in her hand and had cut herself. Without noticing.

Blood drops had begun to fall down into the dish and as she reacted, letting the knife fall down onto the table, she felt her brain go dead. No. Barney couldn't leave. Neither could Clint. All these years, she had spent them trying to defend them. Raising them. She had wanted a family, she wanted them to grow into beautiful boys who would make the girls swoon. Into boys who would help their father plow the fields when he got into shape again, and who would help in the barn, maybe the could get some animals, a horse. She had even begun thinking about a little sister. A girl. That would have been so beautiful. Three lovely kids. And maybe a girl would be the glue that would keep the family together.

“Mom, are you okay?” she heard Clint ask again, and as she looked up at him, she saw him move from his spot, and come over. He pulled an apron from one of the cupboards and she let him put it around her hand, as he tried to stop her from bleeding all over the dish and the potatoes. “Mom, you've gotta do something,” he added, as she just sat there, watching him get about it. But she couldn't. She couldn't move.

Barney wanted to leave. If Barney left, then Clint would leave too.

“Mom, you have to get up and we have to get to the bathroom so you can clean it,” Clint's voice rung again, almost pleading. Her eyes closed as she felt her mind break, into a million pieces. Clint was still trying to help her. Through all of his fights, all of his beatings and his hearing loss, he was still trying. How could he? How could he still find the strength to battle the life that she had given him? All she wanted was for him to be happy. But she couldn't even do that anymore.

“Mom, please!” he then begged, as he pulled at her shirt. “Before Barn' or dad comes home!”

And that suddenly made her jolt upright, as she took Clint's hand in her uninjured one, and together, they climbed the stairs two by two. If Barney wanted to leave, she had to keep Clint here. He would be strong enough. He would be able to cope with her and his father, wouldn't he? Look at him, she thought, as she sat down on the edge of the bathtub. He was going through some of the drawers, looking for some disinfectant. She watched him go. Barely 8 years old, and so strong.

Yes, Clint would be alright in the world. But she had to keep him here as long as she could. He would help her. He would help her get better, and if Barney decided to leave, then maybe he would. He could. Maybe. Clint would stay. Clint would never let her go, would he? He had almost tried to kill his father to protect her. He had thrown a steak knife at his father's face to protect her from him. He would never leave her.

Or maybe he would?

He'd follow Barney down the rabbit hole.

She had to try and keep them here. Or else, she would die of heartbreak.

Some weeks after the argument and the incident, as she was cleaning in the bedroom, Edith heard the boys talking. Harold had been drunk the night before, but he had passed out in the barn before he had made it back inside, and thus, there had been no incident. She was cleaning in their bedroom, going through some old boxes as she hoped seeing some of Clint's baby pictures, some of Barney's baby pictures, would somehow mend the bond that had broken between them. Barney had grown more distanced. She couldn't get him to do things anymore, and it was only Clint now, who would serve as a translator or a link between the both of them. Harold had been drinking more, and more, and more, and she could see him loose the weight he forgot to eat whenever he got drunk.

As she took one of the boxes with pictures out of the cupboard, she heard Clint and Barney arguing over something. Quietly, as quietly as Edith could, she walked out of the bedroom and stood in the hall. The door to the boys' room was slightly open, and she could hear everything that was happening.

“I already told you, you can't just leave mom like tha-”

“I don't care, Clint, dad's not the same, he hasn't been normal for days now, and last night when he got home after you were asleep, he hit mom again and-”

“I know, I heard it! But we can't leave mom, she has to come with us!”

“She can't! If she comes with us, then dad is going to follow her and he'll still find us.”

Edith bit her lower lip as she realized what Barney and Clint were arguing over. She had hoped that it was just a one day thing. That Barney would drop it when he would chill again, but apparently, he hadn't. She knew that he was probably right – if she came with them, then their father would find her. Probably because she had never been able to say no to Harold. But still, hearing her own flesh and blood say it out loud... It hurt her. Deep within her chest, her heart started bleeding.

“Clint, we already talked about it, when the circus comes to town again, we'll go with them, that way mom and dad will never find us, and the cops won't either.”

Pause. She heard the wooden floor creak, and she rushed to put down the box on the floor and start humming again, as she spread the pictures all over the floor, pretending to be picking them up when Clint's face peeked through the door.

“Hi mom. What are you doing on the floor?” his voice questionned, and she lifted her head and smiled at him. The brightest smile she could figure out right now.

“Oh, I'm just clumsy, I dropped all these pictures as I was getting downstairs,” she replied, and Clint opened the door wide, to come join her. Barney stood behind him, and came out at the same time. Clint knelt down next to her, and started putting some pictures together.

“What are the pictures from?” he asked, as he sat his bottom down on the floor, looking at the pictures instead of simply putting them back in the box. Some were pictures of him on his own, some of Barney in the bath, some of them together. He passed them all, as Barney joined the two of them on the floor and started looking at the pictures as well.

“This is from when Clint was born, right mom?” Barney asked, as he took one of the pictures up from the floor and observed it, before turning it around. Sure, it showed Barney holding a little, tiny bundle of blankets in his arms, looking as proud as he had ever been. Edith couldn't remember who had taken it, but she nodded.

“Yes, you wanted to carry Clint from the moment you came into my room,” she smiled, as she took another picture, showing Barney wearing a Captain America shirt, while Clint was sitting at his feet, crying his heart out.

“Remember when you wanted to dress up as that soldier? Where did he even come from, I can't remember?” she asked, showing the picture to Clint who pointed at himself as he began to laugh.

“Captain America, he was on the collection cards we found in granddad's things up in the attic,” Barney replied, smiling at Clint's reaction. “Yeah, you were so scared of that t-shirt for some reason, you wouldn't stop crying until I took it off.”

Edith smiled at the two of them. They were going through the pictures, Barney telling stories, Clint looking at himself. On some of the pictures, from birthdays and such, Harold would be there too, looking normal. Looking exactly like the man she had fallen in love with, and Edith couldn't help but wonder what had gone wrong.

“Remember that time when we went to the circus, Clint?” Barney then asked, as he pulled a picture of Harold holding Clint in his arms, as the little boy tried to pet a zebra. “You were what, two? Three?”

“He was two and a half,” Edith helped.

“Yeah, you were two years old, and we really destroyed that clown's act. It was awesome,” Barney went on, and on, and on... Until there were no more pictures left.

And, as they were putting the box away, Clint and Barney laughing about some of them, Edith saw the headlights of the car through the window at the end of the hall. She looked at the clock on the wall, and realized she had forgotten all about dinner.

“Shit,” she muttered to herself as she pushed herself up again, and she hurried down the stairs, putting the box with pictures on the table in the kitchen, as quickly as she could. She found a pot, poured some water into it, and turned on the stove. She had no idea what she was supposed to cook for dinner, and as she heard the car door slam outside, her heart started racing. How was Harold today? Would he be sober? Would he be drunk? Happy or angry? Hungry? Oh no, no, no, god no, please be sober- she internally pleaded, as she tapped her foot on the floor, thinking about food.

Why did they have to eat three meals a day? Why couldn't it just be a one thing a day thing?!

As the front door opened, and closed, in silence, she took a deep breath. This had to be okay. It had to be okay, he had to be okay. When he walked into the hall, and stopped at the kitchen door, looking at her, she could see that he had been in a fight by the way he held himself. She could see that he had trouble keeping an eye open, and that he had been bleeding from his nose.

“Harry!” she called, as she moved closer to him, but he just moved back from her, avoiding contact. “Harry, what happened?”

“'ts'jus'a fight,” he slurred, as he moved his head back, to keep his nosebleed from starting again, she guessed. Frowning, she shook her head.

“A fight with who?”

At the absence of answer and the sounds of footsteps coming from the top of the stairs, Edith turned her head to see Clint and Barney peeking down. They were probably wondering about whether Harold was sober or drunk, and by their reactions, they deemed it safe enough to come down. Harold turned his head, as he rubbed the back of his neck. Embarrassed. He was embarrassed about something. What? What was he embarrassed about?

“Dad?” Clint's voice called, as Barney stayed in the back, trying to assess the situation. There was something off. Even Barney could see it, she thought. Harold would never act embarrassed like this. He was the type to head into an argument and drill himself all the way to the ground even if he was wrong. He would never admit it. Unless he had done something... Something that even he would be ashamed off.

“Dad, what happened?” Clint asked again, and Harold had a faint smile.

“Nothing. Just some asshole who wanted to steal money from the register,” he replied, and a heavy, heavy weight fell from Edith's shoulders. This wasn't the first time it had happened, but now that she knew there wasn't any murder or other violence to be afraid off, she felt relieved.

“Did you call the cops on him?” she asked, as she cleaned her hands in an apron hanging on the wall, and he shrugged as a reply.

“Yeah, whatever. I'm going to bed.” And with that, he was off, climbing the stairs.

“Maybe shower first?” Edith called from the bottom of the stairs, and he smiled down at her. That's when she knew that tonight would be okay. It would be a quiet night, if he was sleeping. Then things would be okay. She remembered the laughs that she and the kids had just had about the old pictures...

And, two hours later, as the boys were playing and talking in the living room, she went upstairs with the box with pictures, and peeked into the living room to see Harold lying on the bed, with his PJ's on, eyes open and staring at the ceiling.

“We found some old pictures,” she whispered, and as he acknowledged her presence with a smile, he invited her onto the bed. “Here, look,” she said, as she sat down, and opened the box. Putting a hand on her back, like he would when he wanted to tell her he loved her, he kissed her on the temple.

“What was that for?” Edith asked, frowning, surprised.

“Oh, nothing. You're just the most beautiful wife I could ever dream of having.”

When she woke up the next day, Edith knew that something was going to end terribly wrong. She couldn't possibly find a way to describe that nagging feeling in her head, but something was off. There was something terribly wrong, and she didn't know what to do about it.

For the most part, she just got up and out of bed, pretending that it was going to be okay, but there was a cloud hanging on her head. In her mind. She could feel its wet grip on her mind, crashing it from every side, and she wanted it to let go of her.

She got the boys to school, and as she was down in town, she went to Harold's butchery. When she came to the corner of the street, she saw that there were glass shards on the ground in front of the butchery. As she picked up the pace of her walking and came closer, she saw that someone had completely trashed the display window, and, as she pushed open the broken glass door and came into the butchery, she saw that everything had been destroyed. Harold was nowhere to be seen, but she could hear him in the back of the shop.

“Harry?” she called, as a feeling of dread started to bloom in her chest. She moved back behind the counter, and moved into the back room, and her eyes fell on the shape of her husband, lumped down, back towards a wall, crying quietly. “Harry, what's going on?”

Moving his head up to watch her through tear veiled eyes, Harold shook quietly, as a sob escaped his lips. As she crossed the distance between her and him, Edith moved to her knees and put her hand on his shoulder. “Harold, who did this?” she questioned, as she looked around. The cold room behind was empty. Harold hadn't gotten any new meat in this morning, why? Something was going on.

She remembered the feeling she had gotten when she had woken up and she felt it move through her veins, all the way to the tip of her fingers, and Harold shook his head.

“It's too hard, Edith,” was the reply he came with, and she felt her heart break. A black eye as well as some bruises on his cheek showed the damage done the day before, and Edith moved closer to kiss his forehead.

She could smell the booze on his shirt, she could taste the booze on his lips when she kissed him, but he didn't seem violent. He seemed like he was broken and battered, bruised and dead inside. She had to help him out. Edith put out her hand, pushing herself up, and she waited for him to take the invitation. “Let's get you home,” she stated, plainly, but he shook his head.

“'have to go to the cops, put up wood on the display, close up shop...” he started reciting, and Edith shook her head.

“No, we can ask Paul, the baker next door to keep an eye on the place, you need to get home. Now.” And, with a hand on her hips, Edith pulled him up against his will. He swayed once or twice against her, but she helped him out from the back room, out through the entrance door, and as he closed his eyes, defeated by the sight of his shop, he moved with her.

“Where did you park the car?” she asked him, and pointing towards the end of the street, Harold shook his head again.

“'Can't do this, Eddie,” he whispered, as she guided him down the street, ignoring the looks of the baffled people around them.

“Yes you can. You're going to do this. You're going to go home and sleep, and then tomorrow we'll take care of the shop and talk to the cops, okay?”

He nodded, accepting of the facts. Edith half pushed, half held, half pulled him all the way to the car. When she moved him to the passenger's side, he refused to move further.

“Harry, you can't drive like this,” she pleaded, as he scrambled to get back to the driver's seat. Shaking his head, a firm resolve on his face, Edith had to give in and let him install himself behind the wheel. She could remember the feeling that morning. She could remember it plainly, and as she saw him there, she wondered if she should get into the car or not. Maybe she should stay here, then he would wait. Wait for him to sober a little, and then they could go home.

But, when Harold started the engine, apparently having decide to go somewhere, with or without her, she decided that no, she should be with him. The kids were in school, they wouldn't be worrying about where she was just yet.

So, she opened the passenger's door and slipped in beside him. Harold put his hand on the gear handle, and gave her one of the most beautiful looks he had given her in a long time. She replied by putting her hand on top of his, before reaching over and kissing him on the cheek.

“Let's go home,” she whispered in his ear, before moving back, and putting on the seatbelt, like she always did.

Soon, they were on the road, and though it was only a five minute drive – nothing she couldn't walk whenever she went down to town – it felt like an eternity. Drive out the town centre, to the left, past the bookshop, the library, passing in front of the school, where all the kids were out now, playing in the yard. Harold kept a strong hold on the wheel, and she didn't feel like his driving was anywhere near some of his previous driving.

So she forgot about the nagging feeling in her head. She looked out of the window as she saw the fields, golden and ready, the wind bending the crops but never breaking them. She saw a bird, way up high in the sky. From the shape of its wings, she saw that it was a hawk, flying low enough to keep an eye for any game in the fields. A beautiful hawk it was.

And, as she moved her head to look at Harold, who was driving carefully enough, she felt in love. She felt young, and she felt alive. Nothing could go wrong. They would get home, and then Harold would go to bed.

“Charles Barton?” the officer's voice asked, as he came through the school yard. One of the teachers outside pointed to a classroom with the number 8 on it, and he walked towards it. As he knocked on the door, looking down at the notes he had gotten in his hand, he wondered how he should break it to him. Charles Bernard Barton had a little brother, Clinton Francis Barton. They were 13 and 7 years old. Clint would turn 8 in a month and a half.

As the teacher opened the door and a classroom full of expectant young folks turned their attention to him, he looked for the only kid with the fiery hair. When he locked eye contact with Charles Barton, he knew that the kid knew.

“Did he finally kill her?” was the question that came through the lips of the kid. Not exactly what the officer expected. But, then he thought about it, and maybe it made sense. Harold Barton had been the one driving. He had to give it to him, Charles was a fast thinker. Shaking his head, the officer looked at the teacher.

“I'm going to borrow Charles for the rest of the day,” and as the teacher, a young lady, nodded, understanding dawning on her face, Charles Bernard Barton moved close to the door, his bag in one hand.

When the kid had moved out of the classroom, the officer felt the silence fall, heavy as a dead weight between them.

“Clint's in room 3,” Charles stated. Clint. Not Clinton.

When they knocked on the door, it was laughs and cries of joy they interrupted, as the kids had apparently been singing a song. It wasn't difficult to see Clint's face between the others, since the sight of his brother at the door had made him stand up. As the kid took his things, Charles turned around. “How did it happen?” was the question he gave him, feeling as passive and dry as he could.

“Car accident,” he replied. The kid was an orphan, he deserved to know. “They drove into a tree,” he announced, as Clint came up to them.

“What's going on officer?” the little boy asked. Before he could answer, Charles had stolen the reply from him.

“Mom and dad are dead.”

Chapter Text

The hardest thing was not realizing that their parents weren't there anymore. The hardest thing was not suddenly having to deal with paperwork, and decisions, and adults who dressed in fancy clothes telling them that everything was going to be okay. The hardest thing was not having one of the neighbor ladies coming over every day to make sure they were okay in their home.

None of it came close to the funeral.

Nothing would ever beat that dreaded day. At first, Clint had been behaving. He had been acting nice, polite, and even too quiet for Barney's taste. He had greeted all the people who came up to him and told him they were sorry and that things were going to be okay, and that if him and his brother ever needed something, they could just ask. Clint had been staying strong. But Clint was only 7 years old.

Barney was heartbroken. He could hear Clint cry himself to sleep every night, asking for his momma to come back. Where was she? he would ask. He then would proceed to ask God why He took away his momma, and why He needed her more? Why hadn't He left her here? Clint loved her. He wouldn't let her go. And, even though Barney would crawl into Clint's bed to make him realize he wasn't alone, that would just make Clint cry silently.

During the funeral, Clint had been sitting on the front row, next to him, his head hanging low. He had been swinging his legs back and forth as he waited for the old people to say things. He had been quiet. Barney had wondered why, and when the pastor went up to say some things about Edith and Harold Barton, Clint quietly got up from his chair.

Nobody said anything. They all watched as he climbed the three steps up to where the open coffins were lying for everyone to see Harold and Edith Barton lying at peace. Barney couldn't believe they looked so real. If it hadn't been for the ice pale skin, they would look like they were asleep. Clint climbed up the stairs, and Barney saw an elderly woman cover her mouth. He saw the pastor turn his head to noticed the little boy scrambling up to the bodies.

“Momma?” Clint's voice came. He interrupted the pastor, who paused for a couple of seconds as Clint's shaking breath broke the silence. “Mo- momma? Daddy?” his little brother's voice broke, and soon, his breathing started getting more and more raggedy. The pastor tried going on, but when Clint's breathing stopped completely, and Barney saw his small figure shake as a quiet sob escaped his lips, he got up too. Nobody wanted to help Clint? Nobody wanted to go and tell the damn kid that things were going to be okay?

“Come on, Clint, we gotta go-”

“No!” Clint moved away from Barney's hand, pushed him away, as he moved to the side and pulled Edith's cold dead hand from her side, pulling her fingers up to his face and putting his cheek against the palm of her hand. “Momma, wa- wake up!” he started crying, and Barney followed him to the side, but Clint kept his mother's hand in his own, and then he turned his head to Barney and looked him dead in the eye, tears swelling up. “Barn', you got- you gotta wake 'em up! Why won't they wake up?” he cried out, and Barney felt his heart fall, deep, deep down into his chest, and he took Clint's free hand, as he tried to pull him away from his mother's hand.

“We gotta go back, Clin-”

“No, I don't wanna! I wanna stay here, Momma's gotta- she's gotta wake up!”

People were moving in the three rows of attendants, and Barney could feel their stare. The pastor moved closer, and Barney saw him take Clint's hand, try to pry him free of his mother's hand, but Clint's legs just gave in, and he fell down, knees first into the wooden floor. If they were going to take him away from his mother's body, they would have to carry him away screaming and crying, Barney realized.

“Daddy! Wake up!” Hearing his little brother's voice break like that made Barney's eyes water too, and when the pastor finally pried Edith's hand free of Clint's, who cried out so loud that Barney heard some gasps, Barney couldn't take it anymore. He felt the tears trickle down his cheeks, and even though he had tried to keep a straight face for Clint, he couldn't anymore. That was his mother in that coffin. That was his father.

They were dead. Stone cold. But Clint crying, sitting on the pastor's arm, trying to somehow crawl down from him and get back at the coffins... And then Barney saw his little brother, and his little brother saw him, and Clint stopped trying to crawl out of the arms of the pastor, and just reached out for him. Barney saw Clint's small hands open and close, as he asked for his presence there, and Barney jumped down the stairs and all the way to the pastor, who handed Clint to him.

Barney was only 13, but he would hold his little brother now. And then... “No, don't cry, Barney!” and he felt his frame shake. Clint held his shoulders as hard as he could as Barney secured him in his arms, and soon, the two of them would cry into each other's shoulder.

Barney stopped paying attention to the people around him. He could just feel Clint's shaking arms and head in his arms. He could smell his little brother's tears, he could smell Clint's hair, he could feel the fabric of his clothes. Everything in that moment converged on his little brother, and nothing else made any sense. Clint was heartbroken, and so was he. But he still had a responsibility, as the bigger brother. He had to take care of his little brother. He had to. Clint wouldn't make it on his own. He had to make sure that they stayed together.

When Clint had calmed down a little bit, and when only quiet shaking sobs came from him, Barney went back to sit on the folding chair he had been sitting on. Clint sat on his lap for the rest of the ceremony, quietly sobbing into Barney's shirt, holding it tight, as if he were afraid that his brother would disappear like his mother, too. Like his father.

In his heart, Barney felt anger and hatred towards his father. When he had talked to the police officers and learnt that it hadn't even necessarily been the booze in his father that had killed them, but them trying to avoid a deer on the road, which had made them sway off and into a tree – he wasn't even sure if he was angry at them, or at his father, or at fate. It had been a stupid deer which had killed them. Not his father's drinking, not his father's hits, not his father's anger. A. Fucking. Deer.

And that made him more angry than sad. And, with a quiet resolve, as he stroked Clint's inconsolable arm, he promised himself that he would never leave Clint. Absolutely never. Not until he could fend for himself. Not until he could be strong for himself. Not until Barney knew that if he left, Clint wouldn't need him. Because God knew that right now, Barney was the only thing Clint had to hang on to.

When they asked him if he knew of any close family, and he shook his head, Barney knew. They were looking for someone to inherit the farm and the house. They were looking for someone to look after them, but as far as Barney knew, his mother had nobody to fall back on, and his father... Well, his father had been what he had been, and he doubted anybody wanted to do with Harold's shitty kids.

When they asked him if he knew what a Children's Home was, he didn't shake his head. He knew exactly what kind of place that was – a place where they put children with no parents to take care of them. A place where they would have to fight for their food and where they would have to fight for sleep. A place where there would be older kids, stronger kids, who would make fun of him and Clint. A place where they would be exposed.

When they took them out of their home, asking them to pack a suitcase with their things, Barney knew that things wouldn't be easy anymore. They wouldn't be able to just go to their room. He would have to fight off the other kids, he would have to help Clint learn how to fight and grow stronger, he would have to take care of his little brother now more than ever.

He wasn't angry at Clint. When Clint had been born, Barney had felt the pride of an older brother. And he still felt that pride. He just wished that things would have been easier for him. Raising Clint wasn't what he had signed up for – playing, teaching him sign language, talking with him and protecting him, that he could do. But actually raising him? Or at least, taking up a big part of it? That was not what he had signed up for. So when they dropped the two of them at the children's home of the state of Iowa and a young lady wearing a green dress showed them around, he felt more tired than anything.

When she showed them their room, Barney secretly thanked some God up there that they hadn't been split up. That would have been a fight he couldn't muster right that day, and imagining Clint sleeping in a cold bed, with kids he didn't know, probably crying out for his mother in his sleep like he had used to the past couple of nights... It wasn't anything he wanted. Not for the first day. Not now. So he thanked some God above that they were going to be in the same room. He didn't know for how long, but the lady left them to unpack, and he sat down on the bed, tired. Clint sat down on the floor and looked at the suitcase which had been laid out in front of his bed.

The two boys looked at each other, and Barney tried to smile at Clint. “We'll be fine here,” he said, but it was a lie. Clint saw it, as the smile didn't spread to Barney's eyes, but he decided to play into the lie.

“Yeah, Barn. I'm sure we will.”

But most of all, Barney knew that Clint wouldn't be fine here. Not yet. Not this fast.

“So you're the new boys, aintcha?” one of the girls asked, as her and her three friends looked up from their game. Watching them, apprehending them, Barney didn't know. He squinted his eyes as Clint peeked out from behind him, and smiled at the girls. He had no idea how this was going to go, but he sure as hell wasn't going to let any of the kids make fun of Clint. Or him.

“Yeah, we got here yesterday,” he replied, as Clint moved from behind and walked closer to the girls' table, watching what they were doing.

“How'd it happen?” a blonde girl asked as a redhead shoved a piece of paper in front of Clint, handing him a pencil at the same time.

“Car accident,” Barney said, looking for some older kids, only seeing some of Clint's age. He then saw the redhead smirk.

“If you're looking for the guys, they're outside, climbing in the trees, even though miss Parker says they shouldn't,” came the explanation and Barney nodded, before walking to the window. Clint pulled a chair out and started drawing on the paper with the pencil, trying to mimic the drawing of the redhead. Barney looked out the window, saw some older boys, probably his age, trying to get up one of the trees by helping each other. Clint would beat them in tree climbing any day, he thought, and so would he.

He opened the window calmly, quietly, and as his head popped out on the other side, one of the boys outside turned his attention to him. “Barney, right?” was what the boy called, and Barney nodded. “You're the butcher's kid, right?” Barney nodded again, and the four boys shared a knowing look, before waving at him to come out.

Climbing out of it, leaving Clint with the girls (they wouldn't harm him, would they?), he joined the boys outside. As he came up to the tree, he saw them trying to fetch something that looked a lot like a boomerang, and he frowned. “Did you guys throw it up there?” he asked, and the boys nodded in unison. “Can I try and go get it?” he tried, and they gestured yes, by moving to the side.

Thrusting himself forward, trusting his shoes and his muscle memory to not fail him, he managed to push himself further up by kicking the trunk of the tree, and his hand closed around one of the branches. Hanging there, as he breathed heavily, feeling his weight in his wrist and his fingers, he moved further in towards the trunk, pulling himself slightly to the side. As soon as his foot came within length of the trunk, he put it down and pushed, up and up, pulling himself up across the branch.

As he hung there, trying to regain his breath, Barney heard the boys move around, and as he heard a laugh, he saw them throwing something at him. Something incredibly hard hit him on the temple, and he cried out at it – what? “Hey!” he called, as he tried to get a better grip at the branch, and then another rock hit his shoulder, some others hitting the branches next to his head.

“You can't play with us!” one of the boys down yelled at him as he laughed, as if Barney coming towards them and trusting them was the funniest thing he had ever seen in his life, and Barney cried out when a rock found its way to his brow. He moved to the side, trying to ignore the projectiles, and pulled himself up to the branch, standing up and balancing with his hands, as he moved towards the trunk.

As he stayed there, quietly brooding a revenge (maybe he should throw the boomerang at them? Or maybe he should jump down on them and break their legs?), he heard one of the girls begin laughing, and then his eyes focused on the window he'd crawled out from.

He saw Clint's figure crawl out, and as the girls followed him (giggling, apparently, as if the boys throwing rocks at people was an everyday event that they thought was funny), he saw his little brother pick up some rocks (which the girls began doing too), and then, Barney saw his little brother throw the rock at one of the boys at the bottom of the tree.

If he hadn't seen it with his own eyes (or at least eye, as there was some blood flowing from where the rock had hit his brow), he wouldn't have believed it if the girls had told him. Clint was what, 65 feet from the boys? And yet, he managed to throw the rock with enough strength and enough precision to hit the furthest of the boys right in the back of the head. The thud that the rock made on contact interrupted everybody, and one of the girls cheered. Barney just locked eye contact with Clint.

And then, just like that, as Clint threw another rock, he flung himself off the tree, and landed right on one of the bigger boys, falling flat on him. He felt an elbow in his stomach, and the air huff out of him, but he didn't care, because he hit that fucking kid right in the jaw with his fist, as strong as he could, before he felt something grip his shoulder, and he turned around, and a hit to his temple knocked him to the side.

Then, he heard some yelling, some screaming, as he tried to hit the other boys, then he saw a flash of blonde and saw that Clint had joined in as well, and then, suddenly the hits stopped, and he heard Clint cry out in pain. Barney's head jerked up, ready to put his fist through the attacker's face, but his momentum stopped on the spot when he saw that it was the lady who had showed them around the day before, holding Clint's ear up to keep him from hitting anybody else. She was also holding one of the boys' ears, and they were both crying out, Clint more than the other (he was always so sensible about his ears, and Barney could only understand why).

“Charles Bernard Barton and Clinton Francis Barton, you two boys come with me. Ethan, Jack and Robert, I'll talk to you afterwards. As for you girls, Britanny, Janet and Pamela, I'm very disappointed in you for not coming to me before.”

Silence fell as she let go of Ethan's ear, looking at Barney expectantly. She let go of Clint's ear as soon as Barney got to his feet, and he came up to her. Clint was holding his ear, and Barney felt anger rise in his chest. Didn't she know that he had been deaf?! Shouldn't she know those kind of things?! But before he could say anything, she smacked him across the cheek as hard as she could, before putting her hands on her hips.

“Hitting and biting, and rock throwing, is not allowed here. We'll talk inside, come,” she said, ice cold, as she turned around, and the brothers followed her quietly. Clint came close to Barney, looking for Barney's hand to hold, and he let him. With his free hand he smudged the blood dripping from his brow away, and hoped for the best.

But at least, he knew that the boys would think twice before attacking him or his brother again. They both knew how to throw a punch, and that rock throwing that Clint had just showed him? That had been amazing.

All in all, when he thought back at it, their first day at the Children's home could have gone much worse. By having been attacked/tackled by the boys there, Barney and Clint had been able to show their abilities and that they wouldn't sit quietly as the other boys bullied them.

And, of course, the girls were now all over Clint, hoping that he would find a new mom and a new dad to go home to because he was the cutest thing they had ever seen, and Barney would sit there, watching them.

During the evening meals, when they had to be fast and eat fast or they wouldn't have anything to eat, it was always the fight of their life. Some nights, Barney wouldn't eat because he would give the piece of bread or whatever food he had managed to grab to Clint. Clint would want to share, of course, but Barney would never eat it. He would keep it, and three hours later when Clint would come nudge at him in their bedroom telling him he was hungry, he would give him the rest of the bread.

One night, as they both went to bed hungry because they hadn't been sitting at the table when the food had been brought out (big mistake), Clint came over to Barney's bed and moved under the covers. Barney's hand moved over Clint's hip to move him closer, and he heard Clint exhale slowly.

“How long are we going to stay here, Barn'?” his little brother asked him, and Barney blinked a couple of times before answering.

“I don't know.” Pause. “Maybe a year, or two... I don't know if anybody is going to want us,” he continued, as he started rubbing Clint's shoulder plate with his other hand. “And if we get tired, we can always run away from here,” he suggested. Clint moved his back before turning around to look up at him.

“Like you said we would before mom and dad died?”

Nodding, he smiled at Clint. “Just like that. Tell you what,” he said as he pushed himself to lie more comfortably and make more room for Clint in the bed, “as soon as I see the posters for a circus in town, we'll get out here.”

He saw Clint's frown, as the little boy seemed to calculate things, and then, he nodded a shy smile making its way onto his face. “Alright. Next time the circus is in town, we'll go with them.”

And that seemed to settle it. Watching his little brother make himself more comfortable against him, Barney thought about it. Maybe Clint was too little to run away, but he would probably be able to fend for himself if they did. He knew he would. They'd made their way in the world until now, who was to say they wouldn't if they joined a circus?  

Clint's 8 ^th birthday passed relatively unnoticed at the Children's home. He got one or two presents from the girls, but none of the adults took the time to celebrate it, and it was up to the kids to make it a special day.

But still, no sign of the circus. Barney would go down into town as often as he could to get some things for the lady, Miss Parker, like flour and eggs, and whatnot from the farmer's market. Every single time, he would look at the poles where the ads for the circus had been up last time the carnival had been in town, but for there were none to be seen.

Three months passed, and still no circus ads.

Five months, and his 14 ^th birthday, and still no circus ads.

And then, the first day of February, an ad had appeared throughout the night. As he went down to fetch some things for the children's home, he noticed it. As he came back towards the edge of time, he stopped in front of it. In big red letters, it said 'Carson's Carnival of Travelling Wonders' and it had a picture of a man in a top hat and bright colors, along with an elephant and a zebra, a lion and a sea-lion, and a clown, and a man dressed in a fancy suit with a mustache. At the bottom it read 'In town for 7 days, show everyday at 5 pm, entrance: 10$.'

And, without a second thought, Barney put down the bag with the groceries and proceeded to pull down the ad, rolling it together and putting it under his arm. Now was the time that him and Clint had to leave. It was now that they had to go, they had to go down to the circus today, or at least the next day, to allow them to think about it. If they showed up on the last day, it was sure as hell that they wouldn't get taken along...

But given enough time to think and time to prove themselves, then...

Then they had a chance.

When he came home, he put away the groceries in the kitchen and went up to his and Clint's room. Clint was playing by himself with some of the toys they had managed to salvage before moving out of their farm, some Captain America toys, along with the other figures of the Howling Commandos (mind you, Clint never player with the Bucky Barnes one, for some reason), that they had found in their grandfather's things when they were still very small.

“Look!” Barney beamed, as he unrolled the poster, and he saw Clint's eyes light up with all the excitement of a small child. He dropped the toys and scrambled to his feet, as he pointed to it excitedly.

“The circus! It's in town! Are we going to go?” he started saying as he then moved to his bed, and bent down, before lying down, flat on his stomach, pulling out a bag he had apparently been keeping things in.

“Woah, easy Clint!” Barney stated, as he put the ad on his own bed and helped Clint pull out the bag. “We're gonna go down there and see who they are and what they do and then we'll go talk to them,” he said, before he got up again, and moved to his own bed, pulling the mattress up, revealing some money he had been keeping there.

Clint let go of the bag and looked up at him, his head hanging slightly to the side. “We're going to the circus, then? To see the lions and the elephants and the clowns?” he asked, and as Barney nodded, the young boy moved back up to his feet and threw himself at Barney, entwining him in his small arms.

Holding him against him as hard as he could, Barney bent the knee to be at level with his little brother and smiled at him. “We've got to go down there before dinner, so we'll be hungry when we get home. Okay with you?”

Clint apparently didn't mind skipping dinner, because he was nodding fiercely with his head, and if Barney had let him, he would probably have put on his clothes for outside immediately. But instead, Barney helped him put the toys away neatly in the box they had lived in until now, and waited for the time where they could sneak out and down to the circus. 

Chapter Text

“We've had less visitors today than yesterda-”

Francine was interrupted by Bryan who came into the van, shuffling on himself. He was still dressed in his clown's costume, though he had removed the colorful makeup. Rubbing the bridge of his nose, Carson sighed heavily.

“What is it?” he asked, as Francine moved to the side. She had changed out of the big cat tamer costume she usually wore, and was wearing something more casual, something more discreet. She had, on the other hand, not removed her ring make up yet.

“Uh, the're two kids, say they wanna talk to th'manager,” Bryan mumbled, and Carson threw his head back, shaking it.

“Tell 'em I don't wanna see 'em. We're busy,” he replied, as Francine watched from one man to the other, and eyebrow arched.

“Let them in, Bryan,” she interjected, and Carson shot her a murderous glande. “What?” she paused as she shrugged. “Not like we can't at least see what good they are. Maybe they just wanna talk or see how a trailer is inside,” she stated, as Bryan went back outside, and came back in, shoving two boys into the trailer. One of them looked like a scrawny little boy, with dirty blonde hair, and the other one looked like the kind of boy who would get broad shoulders and grow strong if he hit the gym or did hard work. They looked awkwardly around the trailer, before the two pair of eyes settled on Carson.

“So, boys, lemme know, whaddya want?” he asked, putting his hands down on the desk-like plank he had installed in his trailer. The younger one looked down at his feet as the older one pursed his lips. He was probably repeating a speech inside his head, but nothing came out of his lips. Carson saw Francine roll her eyes.

“Spit it out, kid, we got work to do,” she barked, gently. That made the older red headed kid nod before he spoke.

“We wanna join the circus, sir. And, uh, m'am.” He paused, as the younger one looked up at him and nodded.

“We don't have no parents, sir, and we ain't doing any good at the Children's home.” Another pause. Carson lifted an eyebrow and exchanged a glance with Francine, as Bryan just looked at them all.

“What's your name, kid?” Carson asked, as he bended forward to get a better look at them in the crappy light in the trailer.

“Name's Barney, sir. This is my little brother, Clint,” he replied almost immediately, putting a hand on Clint's shoulder, who looked up and beamed, a bright smile on his face. If anything, the little one seemed to at least be enjoying that. How old was he? Nine? Ten? No idea, Carson thought. The bigger one, though...

“What can you do, Barney?” he shot at him, Francine crossing her arms across her chest, as she watched on. Clint was side eyeing one of the knives that Carson had hanging on one of the 'walls' of the trailer.

“I can move stuff, sir. I'm strong. And I'm good with my hands, carpentry, and stuff. Father was a butcher, so I know my way around heavy things.” Carson arched an eyebrow, unimpressed, before the kid went on. “Also good with animals, sir, we can help out with the animals you got. I ain't scared of the lions and tigers either,” he added, watching Francine carefully.

If he hadn't paid attention to his hands, Carson would have missed their shaking. Bryan just shrugged as he rubbed his forehead. “I don't know, we need some nightriders, the last ones ditched us, but I don't know 'bout the lil' one,” he started, and Carson just shot him a look that said 'shut up'. However, as he inhaled to speak up, the little one, no, Clint was it?, spoke up, looking him dead in the eyes. If he wasn't sure that it was just a kid standing right there in front of him, Carson would have thought those eyes looked like an adult.

“Mister Carson, me and Barney don't go anywhere if we don't go together. Barney can lift things, and I can help with Miss lion-tamer or mister Clown here,” he stated, and then Carson saw Barney's eyes light up as he remembered something.

“Oh, and sir, Clint can throw things.”

Of all the things he had expected, that wasn't it. Any idiot could throw things. Especially small kids? Why was this relevant to the conversation again? He shook his head, his lips in a thin line.

“I'm sorry, kid, but I don't nee-”

“No, you don't understand. He can throw things and hit a bullseye from any distance with anything. I swear to God,” the older kid said, as his eyes lit up. Looking down at Clint's face, Carson saw something between a blushing and an 'I don't care' expression.

“Is that so?” was the only question that came out, and as Francine moved closer, he had to admit that his curiosity had been awakened. “Better than our Swordsman DuQuesne?” he asked, eyebrow cocked, proud and daunting.

“Better than your Swordsman, sir.”

That reply was all it took for Carson to push himself to his feet, and he ushed the kids outside. Francine took one of the knives off the wall, even though he disagreed with it – there was no way that he was going to let a ten year old handle a sharp knife like that, not yet anyway.

When they were standing outside the trailer, the streetlights more or less the only light, Carson looked around, before the little one – Clint – finally managed to grab their attention as he picked up a rock and pointed to one of the metal stakes sticking up from the ground holding the circus tent up and in place.

“I'm gonna hit that,” he stated, absolutely no doubt in his voice. Raising his eyebrow, unimpressed, Carson shook his head.

“I'll believe it when I see it,” he muttered, as he crossed his arms, Bryan watching Barney who was watching Clint. The kid looked at the rock slightly, before he tossed it in his hand, up and down, and then he looked at the direction of the stake, assessing the distance. How far away? 50 feet? Something like that? And then, he clenched his hand around the rock, and he threw it.

If there hadn't been a loud 'DONG!' as the rock hit the stake (and the “Ooooowh!” from an impressed Bryan), Carson wouldn't have believed it. The rock had been what, the size of the kid's fist? And the surface of the stake wasn't that big either. Or maybe it had just been a lucky throw?

“Do it again,” he said, before bending forward an picking another rock, slightly smaller than the previous one. The little blonde kid skipped towards him, before taking the rock from his hand. He studied it, tossed it up and down again, before looking back at the stake, and then he threw it again. The 'DONG!' wasn't as strong, but he hit it nevertheless.

Exchanging a look with Francine, Carson took a deep breath. “What else can you throw, kiddo?” he asked, and Clint simply shrugged as he scratched the back of his head.

“Anything I can lift and toss far enough, sir?” he tried, frowning, not too sure. “It all depends on how much it weighs and how far, and then if I have to throw outside I have to make sure the wind doesn't hit the rock or the paper or the branch too much, and if it's a ball or something round, make it spin when I throw it and-”

“Alright, alright, alright kid, take it easy.” Carson hushed him with a hand movement, before turning his head to the right, looking at the trailer Jacques lived in. He then turned his gaze to meet Francine's, who nodded. “Think Jacques is gonna be up for a little assistant?”

As she shrugged, Barney and Clint exchanged looks, frowning. Something had happened that they didn't expect. Clint went up to Barney and moved behind him. Carson frowned as well. “Something wrong, boys?”

Barney bit his lower lip again, and he readjusted his shirt as he looked at Francine, avoiding Carson's gaze. “It's just we didn't think you'd say yes the first night, sir,” he replied, frankly. “We didn't pack anything, we just came down to ask.”

His answer made Carson laugh, and he smiled genuinely at the boys. “Well, don't worry kid, we'll be in town a couple of days more. Grab your things when you're good to go, and I'll talk to the Swordsman in the mean time. I'm sure he can use a lil' one like your Clint there. And, I'll find you a place to be too, redhead,” he called, as he turned his back to them.

He heard Bryan starting talking to them as Francine joined him, walking at his pace as they went back into the trailer.

“You sure this is a good idea, Carson?” She paused as he climbed into the trailer. “Last boys we got ran away with some money, and the ones before that got the cops down on us,” she warned. But Carson just sat down at his table and smiled.

“They don't look like troublemakers, Francine. I'm sure Jacques'll be more than happy to get some kid to work with him, his act has needed something new for a while, everybody's growing bored of the knife throwing,” he started, as he shuffled at some bills on the table. “And the big guy can help us set up the posters and help out with the tent, he'll probably grow strong if he gets enough work done, and we could always use a kid like him.” He then paused, as he counted some bills, his lips wording the numbers as they shuffled.

“If we can't get the one without the other, so be it. They're not gonna cost us much, just a place to sleep and some food, but they can work for that.”

Francine sat down, put the knife back on the wall where she had taken it, and nodded. “I'll ask Solveig if she wants new boys in her trailer.” That made Carson giggle.

“If she does say yes, remember to be there when they see her for the first time.” Francine joined in with a light giggle.

“I will. I absolutely will.”

Two days later, Francine came laughing into his trailer sometime in the beginning of the afternoon.

“Carson, you should've seen their faces when Solveig opened the door for them,” she paused as he got out of the bed he had been napping in, pulling on some pants at the same time.

“I really thought the little one was going to start crying,” she stated, as she waited for him to go back to the trailer, “but then, instead he just said “Hi lady, I love your beard!” with the straightest face I have ever seen someone say that to a woman, and he went inside the trailer without any sort of invitation,” she rambled on, as Carson followed her across the grounds. The other carnies were starting to get ready for the evening's show, and were looking at each other with understanding expressions.

News travelled fast across a circus, and it had taken approximately one hour for Bryan to spill everything that had happened two days ago to the trapezists, and then they had talked to the handworkers, who had spoken to the cook and, well, it had traveled fast that they would get two new boys in their ranks soon.

“The big one, though, I really thought that he was going to take his things and run back to that home he's been living in,” Francine joked as they reached the trailer. Solveig was sitting outside, running a hand through her beard. Carson smiled at her. He was used to her now, she had come to the circus from a freak show a couple of years before, and her kindness towards younger kids had gotten her the regular job of taking in the new courageous folk who thought that life in a circus was easy.

“Hi Carson,” she said in her high voice, smiling through her teeth, as she let go of the beard and started separating it into three threads to braid it.

“Hi Solveig,” Carson greeted back before nodding at the trailer. “Boys in there?” As she nodded, Carson smiled.

Francine went over to Solveig's side and started talking about something, and Carson went up to the open door to the trailer and popped his head through. He saw the two boys putting things away, the bigger one (Barney?) doing it a bit more neatly than the younger one who was just putting his things in drawers as he pulled them out of the bag.

“Hi boys,” he greeted, and the two of them immediately lifted their heads to greet him back. “I talked to the Swordsman, Jacques, and he wants to see you, Clint,” Carson added, and Clint nodded.

“Can I just finish putting my clothes away?” the boy asked, and Carson nodded at him, before stepping down again and turning to see Solveig and Francine laughing together at something. Then, from the corner of his eye, he saw Jacques' figure coming up towards the trailer, and he put on a smile. The Frenchman was a good performer, but he had a rough personality. He knew what he wanted, and when he wanted something, he would usually get it.

“Jacques,” he greeted, but the other man just nodded as he looked Solveig over, with that same look of both disdain and fascination he always had on his face.

“Where is the kid?” he asked in that French accent of his, an unimpressed eyebrow raised. Just as he finished his question, Clint's head popped out of the trailer and he jumped down the three stairs and went up to Carson, looking at Jacques, shyly. “You Clint Barton?” Jacques asked, and Clint nodded.

“Go ahead, kid, he's not going to bite you,” Carson tried, and as Jacques turned around, Clint followed in his footsteps. As they walked away, Carson heard Barney coming out of the trailer. Looking over his shoulder, he tried a smile at the redhead. “Your brother's going to be fine, Barney,” he stated, matter of factly.

“Oh, I'm not worried about Clint,” was the reply he got, and he had to admit, that made him smile. He had to give it to the kids, they knew how to deal with adults. He had even asked Bryan to go ask around in the town, see if they could figure out why the boys were in the orphanage, and when they'd learnt that their father had driven into a tree with his wife in the passenger's seat, the question of what kind of family they came from was answered.

“Good. Now, let's find you some work,” Carson said as he motioned to Barney to walk with him towards some of the stalls with the animals. “How do you feel about mucking out the hay burner's stalls?”

Chapter Text

“Here, kid.”

The boy looked up from where he was sitting on the ground and frowned. Handing him a knife might not have been the most obvious choice, but it was the one Jacques had gone with.

“Take the fucking knife,” he growled again, as he pulled two more out of their shafts. He had a swordplay act at the circus, and he had agreed to take in a new assistant only because it meant that more money would come his way. If he could improve his act, if he could make it more enjoyable than that new archery idiot who had showed up, then it meant that his pay would rise.

More chances to double it or triple it in the gambling room with the other carnies, when the tent was closed down and the show was over.

The kid pushed himself up to his feet. Putain, what was it his name was again? Something starting with C. The little one took the knife handed to him, grabbing it by the blade, and immediately Jacques pulled it back in a violent gesture, making sure to cut the kid's hand enough to make it bleed. The kid yelped, like an injured pup.

“Non, you don't take the knife by the blade,” he sneered, as he demonstrated – holding the shaft of the knife gently, between two relaxed fingers. “It doesn't matter the size of the knife, never the blade,” he said, adding emphasis by pulling out the sword hanging in the belt at his hips.

The little one, Caleb?, Carter?, whatever, pulled his bleeding hand away. It wasn't bleeding much, just enough to pull a little blood and make him realize the danger with sharp edges, but he looked at Jacques like he had just betrayed his trust. Snorting, “Take the knife,” he muttered again, as he offered it to the boy, who took a step back and watched the blade intently. Maybe this was a bad idea. But he'd seen the kid throw the rocks, and his aim was almost perfect. If he could only get him to work with him in his act!

Then, the kid took at step forward and took the knife right above Jacques' fingers and turned it around in one swift finger movement, brandishing it at Jacques, waiting for further instructions. That kid wasn't very talkative, Jacques had found out. Good. At least that meant that he wouldn't ask stupid questions all the time.

“Now, you see, you throw with the wrist,” he explained, as he showed the movement, his own wrist breaking as he mimicked throwing the knife. The kid nodded. “Okay, on three,” he started, as he placed himself, slightly to the side, and he pointed at the target about 30 feet away.

“One,” He looked down at the kid who was mirroring his position, throwing with his left hand rather than the right hand. Interesting. He had never seen someone use the left hand rather than the right, but if he liked the left hand better or was better at it, it would be easier for Jacques to teach him to throw with the right one – make the kid ambidextrous from the beginning. That would be the wisest move.

“Two,” Jacques watched the arch his shoulders as he lifted and lowered the knife two or three times, assessing the weight and length of it. He saw the kid move his fingers up and down the shaft. That made him arch an eyebrow, and he almost forgot to count to three.

“And three,” he yelled, as he swung his own knife towards the target, seeing it embed itself right beside the 10 point mark in the yellow target. It was most definitely a 9 point hit. But then, right as he wondered why there was only one knife in the target, he heard the kid next to him shuffle one step forward and fling the knife as hard as he could at the target. And, if the target had been any further, he would have been wondering if what he saw was true or not, but the kid had managed to throw the knife within the 10 points circle.

Granted, it wasn't in the smack middle, across the little cross that marked it, but it was a better hit than his own.

“Hah!” he exclaimed, as he turned around and smacked the kid on the head, a sign of affection. “You're good, kid,” he said as he nodded to himself. Then, he took the two knives he had pulled out of their shaft earlier and handed them both to the little one. Dammit, what was his name? Chris?

“My name is Clint,” the kid mumbled as he took a knife in each hand. Jacques shrugged.

“Your name doesn't make a difference when you're tossing knives and blades, kid,” he replied, as he pointed towards the target again. “Show me if you can hit the same but with both hands at the same time.”

Jacques then observed another version of concentration on Clint's face, as the kid first weighed each knife in his hands, proceeding to find the center of gravity of the weapon, and just as he was about to ask him to just toss it, the kid placed himself like he had the previous time, and he launched himself forward, throwing the knifes as hard as he could towards the target. If anything, Jacques was going to have to teach the kid that strength wasn't the only secret to accuracy – if he could throw something gently and discreetly without lunging all the way forward, it would help greatly.

The two knives embedded themselves into the target, and Jacques nodded. Sure, they weren't in the yellow center targets, but they were close. The one that Clint had thrown with his left hand closer to the yellow edge than the other one, but they were about the same height on the target. “Not bad, hein,” he said to himself, before he turned around and looked at Clint who was frowning.

“Why did it go wrong?” Jacques asked, and the Clint shrugged before putting his bleeding hand up.

“It hurts,” he replied, and then he frowned. “And I can't throw with both hands at the same time,” he said, shaking his head. “Only with the left hand.”

“Well, that's what we're going to be working on, aren't we, Clint?” Jacques completed, walking up past the line they'd traced on the ground, up to the target to fetch the four knives. “We're going to train you up and make you a good assistant, aren't we?” he said, as he handed the knives to Clint who took them all by the shafts.

Yes, this kid was going to be a fast learner. He already had a good aim, all he needed was someone to help him perfect it.

Chisholm was drunk. He was drunk like he always was, and Jacques was happy, as he always was, whenever he managed to win some dollars off the archer. However, this time, Chisholm refused to give him the money – mostly because he didn't actually have it.

They'd been playing together, Jacques, Buck, Bryan, and Jacques had won the last game, blowing Chisholm's defenses out by slamming a straight flush down on the table.

“Can't pay you, Jack,” the archer defended himself by showing the table. “Ain't got enough coins for'ya,” he added, and Jacques shrugged.

“Not my problem, Buck,” he replied, as he pulled out one of his knives.

“You gotta give me the money or you don't get out of here in one piece,” he threatened, his French accent pushing its way through. Chisholm shook his head, as he huffed slightly, pushing himself back of the table. Bryan the clown was just watching them. It was a usual thing, Jacques would get all caught up in the gambling addiction, Chisholm the new guy would get drunk and they would fight.

Nothing new. Not even to Jacques.

“Gotta give me a chance, Jack,” the other man pleaded, as he felt the knife come closer to his face. Jacques hated it when they said his name wrong, but these people were American, and hell they would say it wrong if they could. He didn't care at all. Not right now anyway.

“Let's compromise,” he then said, as he slammed down the knife on the table, blade first into the wood. Bryan jerked back as he watched them intently.

He watched Chisholm's mouth shut in a tight line, and then he saw his eyes go down to the knife. Oh, he was probably thinking something like a fencing competition, but that was old fashioned. Jacques thought about the hard work he'd been doing with the little kid, and he had realized that Clint needed some muscle training. And, after having watching Buck Chisholm's act several times (and his warming up), he'd realized that maybe, just maybe, compromising with the enemy was the right thing to do. So when he put his hands flat out on the table to show he didn't have anything to offer, Jacques smiled.

“You teach the kid to do archery, I teach him to throw knives, we both use him in our acts.” Pause. For emphasis, or drama, or whatever the hell he wanted. “Give it some fresh blood, kids will love it, non?” he smirked, as Bryan's eyebrows rose all the way to his hairline surprised.

“But he's only 10 years old!” the archer then defended himself, as he shook his head. “Can't teach a 10 year old to shoot a bow and arrow,” he started mumbling and Jacques rolled his eyes as Chisholm continued, “when he's gonna let go of the string he's going to fly away with the arrow,” he commented, and, Jacques had to admit that it made him laugh.

“He's stronger than he looks,” he added, as he ripped the knife from the table and put it back in its sheath. Buck eyed it a couple of seconds before realizing what he was being given.

“I teach the kid archery, you forget the debt?” was the question that came, and Jacques nodded, intently.

“Bryan the clown here can serve as a witness to our deal: you teach the kid archery, we share him in our acts, and I forget your gambling debt. Fair trade, right?” he stated, as he felt the smug smile on his face come along. Ah, yes, Buck was going to teach the kid archery but also make him stronger, and that meant that he would gain some aim.

He'd already been working with Clint for over a year, and the kid was getting consistent (much less beatings and cuts on the hands to teach him precision meant he was getting better, right?), but he still lacked muscle mass and some sort of stretchiness that circus artists always had.

“Deal,” Buck nodded as he extended his hand towards the Frenchman, and they shook hands as Bryan nodded thoughtfully to himself. Yeah, this was going to be good for him. Clint had already begun helping him in his act, and some people were talking about him, but he'd missed the target in one of their last gigs and almost hit someone in the audience. Concentration. Focus. That's what he lacked. Archery was a precision sport, and it was something that would teach him that.

He'd tried, of course, getting Clint to stand on one leg for hours at a time and he'd tried to get him to focus on a knife, and he'd tried to get him to throw, and throw, and throw until his arms were sore, but the kid still had an attention span of a 10 year old. Which made sense, but it annoyed Jacques to no end.

So, he'd had to compromise. And Buck Chisholm, Trick Shot, aka the one act that was actually potentially threatening to his own, was one way to do it. Because as Clint was already helping Jacques, he would be slowing Buck down... Tactics. Ah, yes, Jacques missed those and the warfare he'd known in his younger age.

“How're things going?” Carson asked him, and Jacques shrugged. Clint was off training archery with Chisholm, and he was just sitting in his trailer, sharpening his knives again, and again. Carson had come into the trailer a couple of seconds before, probably to hand him the pay of the past day's gig, and Jacques had just greeted him with a curt nod.

“Good, kid's getting good. He's off training with Buck,” he added, as he raised his eyes from the knife he had in his hands to the face of the circus master. He looked bland. No expression, particularly. Jacques knew that Carson didn't really care what was going on within his own circus as long as it meant no cops and no investigations, so he didn't care if they shared the boy in their acts.

“No trouble with the bigger brother?” was the question that came afterwards, to what he frowned. Why would there be trouble with Barney? That kid was always out during the nights to set up posters in their next towns, he helped take the tent up and down, and he was usually too tired to do anything else than sleep when he wasn't working.

Well, that, and discovering adult life with the daughter of the horsemaster. (Everybody had noticed, but everybody pretended that they hadn't).

“Non, pourquoi?” he asked, putting down the knife on the table, as he eyed the roll of bills in Carson's hand. He didn't care about Barney. The older brother hadn't been any trouble, and he suspected it was because Clint was doing good and getting better. But then again, Jacques kind of suspected that things would go South from the moment Clint started getting more attention than him.

“He's been... talking.” Carson paused as he looked Jacques into the eyes. “Gambling, drinking, injuries on the kid...”

“Ah.”

Carson pursed his lips as he pulled a stool out and sat down, the money still in his hand. “I know you're teaching Clint to be a good aim and all, but it doesn't help if you're chopping at his fingers or correcting his posture by hitting him in the ribs,” Carson started, and Jacques rolled his eyes.

This was his way of teaching, and he thought they had all mutually agreed on the terms when Carson had asked him to take the duckling under his wing?

“Nothing serious, just a few bruises,” Jacques defended himself, a motion of the hand to wave it off, dismissing it. Carson shook his head and looked down at his hands, frowning.

“Barney told us about an injury Clint had when he was a kid,” he started talking, as he purposedly avoided Jacques eyes. “Don't hit him in the head is all?” he then asked, as Jacques was starting to sigh. Ah. That was interesting? Why not the head?

“Why?”

“Because he's been partially deaf, and if there's one thing I don't want, it's a deaf kid running around and getting investigations started around the circus,” Carson bit back, ice cold as he stood up from the stool. “Are we clear?” he said, as he handed the money to Jacques.

Standing up, nodding, Jacques went to grab the money but Carson pulled it back in one swift movement.

“Are we clear, Jacques?” he asked again, forcing the Swordsman to look up at his face.

“Yes, very clear, Carson. Won't smack him in the head anymore,” he replied, and he took the money as soon as Carson allowed him to take it.

A couple of days later when he came back from the gambling room, having ripped off Buck again, Jacques found Barney standing his back to his trailer, arms crossed, looking somber. He should have expected the kid to come and make sure that Jacques understood the issues his little brother had, but then again, he was more annoyed that they wouldn't just trust him.

And, besides. If Clint was so easily damageable, why hadn't Barney just given up on him yet? He didn't care about the wellbeing of the kid, just as long as he made his act more interesting.

“DuQuesne,” the boy greeted and Jacques rolled his eyes, obliging in a reply.

“Barton,” he said, in a nonchalant voice as he opened the door to the trailer, more or less ignoring the 15 year old standing outside. He knew the teen was going to follow him inside anyway, so why stand outside in the cold?

“Carson talked to you about Clint,” the boy started, and Jacques couldn't help but sigh as he hung the knives on the wall of the trailer. “About his ears and his head,” he continued. Jacques turned around and looked at the redhead. He was getting bigger, broader, large shoulders, good to move heavy things. He would probably be good in a fist fight. Strong. Clint was still scrawny, but then again, he was only 10 years old. If he was anything like his older brother, Clint was going to get big fast too, as soon as he started to become a man.

“Yes, he told me,” Jacques replied, as he sat down on the little chair in the trailer, kicking his feet onto the table he used to count money on (among other things). Barney just looked at him, arms crossed, a stern expression on his face. Damn the kid needed a haircut, the Swordsman thought to himself.

“Have you told Trick Shot?” the teen then asked, and Jacques absolutely couldn't resist rolling his eyes again at him, a 'really?' motion. He shrugged.

“Non, didn't feel like it was important to tell him,” he said, blazé. Barney looked at him, his blue eyes piercing. Damn those kids had blue eyes. He broke eye contact as he motioned towards the stool across from him, but Barney ignored it as he replied.

“Good.”

That was it? That was all he wanted? Barney turned around and exited the trailer without a single word to add and Jacques was left sitting there, completely dumbstruck. He had to give them credit, the Barton boys knew how to get shit done or get shit through to adults.

But he had to admit it, now he was wondering how the injury had happened. How can you be partially deaf and then recover? He had never seen or heard Clint having any trouble with his hearing, so why was it relevant to tell him? Barney was probably just looking out for his brother, but from what Jacques heard from Solveig and the other carnies, things were starting to heat up sometimes between the siblings. They had to, Clint was still a little kid and Barney was starting to become an adult, it was bound to explode sometime soon. He had just wondered how long it would take before things went South for real, though.

“Ah, n'importe,” he whispered to himself as he pulled off his boots, getting ready for bed. Tomorrow was another day, and the dynamics between the two brothers didn't bother him. Just as long as it didn't keep Clint from performing properly in his act, he honestly couldn't give three shits. That's all that mattered to him.

Not how the brothers worked as a team, not how Buck Chisholm took care of the kid, not how Carson interpreted it. If the kid stopped being beneficial for his act, he would drop him, absolutely no questions asked. No dead weight in the world of circuses and carnivals. Especially if the dead weight is a whining 10 year old.

Chapter Text

It wasn't that he was going to admit it. But Barney knew it, because he had seen it come from far away. He was absolutely aware of what was going on, and he hated it. He was jealous of Clint. He was jealous of the attention his little brother was getting.

Clint here, Clint there, look at Clint doing a gig with the Swordsman, look at Clint doing a gig with Trick Shot, look at Clint, Clint, ClintClintClintCLINTCLINT – ENOUGH!

Barney didn't exactly know what he had expected. They'd run away from the children's home when they were kids. Maybe he'd thought that they were going to be equals, that Clint would have to work like him, in the kitchen, in the background. He had never imagined that Clint would be given a costume one night, purple, with a mask and everything, and would have to shoot at the same time as Trick Shot. They wore matching clothes, just in a different color.

And when Solveig came over to tell him that Carson and Jacques and Buck had decided with Clint for a stage name for Clint, he felt like he had been gutted like a fish. Clint hadn't even asked him? No opinion? It was only when he came over to Swordsman's trailer that he realize why Clint hadn't asked him.

The Amazing Hawkeye. That's what had been added to the Circus' posters that he was going to have to set up in the next town. Some dirt city in the middle of nowhere, somewhere along the Missouri river. He didn't care.

But his brother now had a stage name. Clint Barton was now the Amazing Hawkeye. Somehow, he felt happy about it. Clint was standing between Jacques and Buck, and he was beaming. His shoulders had begun to widen in the last year, and Barney was sure that the archery training that Buck had beaten into him was starting to work. He'd grown, too, and was starting to look like a real proper adult more and more, not like the baby little boy he had been for so long.

Coming closer, Barney put his hands in his pockets and smiled at Clint, until his little brother noticed him.

“Barn'! Look!” he yelled, as he pointed at the poster, before he went over to a box and pulled an A4 poster out of it, to hand it over to Barney. He took it, and rolled it open. “It's me!” Clint beamed again, and as the picture unraveled, Barney couldn't help himself but smile.

It was a picture of Clint in his costume, with his stage name stylized above his head. It looked amazing.

“Hawkeye. Like mom,” he commented, and Clint nodded at him.

“She always liked hawks, remember? And there was that hawk that lived in the tree next to the fields and-”

“Yeah, I remember,” Barney cut him off as he rolled the poster together again, watching Jacques and Buck and Carson who were talking about something, pointing fingers at him and at Clint. “You look amazing, I'm proud of you, Clint,” he then stated, ruffling his fingers through Clint's hair. He then looked at the other men, and nodded at them, acknowledging them. They nodded back, and he left to go back to the trailer, holding Clint's poster in one hand, leaving Clint standing there.

He didn't know what he was supposed to do. How would he be able to protect Clint if Clint was suddenly the center of attention in every town they went? Did Clint even need him anymore? He had no idea. Clint looked like he was beaming. He looked like he was a happy kid, and with three grown up men and an entire circus family to look after him, then maybe... Maybe Barney needed to move on. Let Clint go? But they had promised to be together. They had promised that they would go through life together. They had ran away together.

Did they have to part ways now?

When Clint came back to their trailer two weeks later, Barney knew that he wasn't going to leave him anytime soon.

“Barn'?” his voice had asked, from outside. Barney had been lying in his bunk bed, waiting for the show to be over and go to sleep. When he heard his brother's voice asking for him, Barney immediately opened his eyes, alert within the second.

He moved quickly, as he scrambled to get some pants on, and as he opened the door to the trailer, not caring if they woke Solveig or not, he saw Clint standing his head low, still in full costume.

“What's happened?” he asked, as he stepped down the slippery wooden stairs to be at the same level as Clint. His little brother refused to look up. In the darkness, Barney wasn't too sure what was going on, but he could smell the saltiness of blood and the way Clint held himself was exactly the same way he used to hold himself after their father had been at him with his belt.

“Clint. What happened?” he asked again, this time moving around, to try and get Clint inside. He saw the light flicker on from the corner of his eye – Solveig was awake, then – but Clint just shook his head. The answer that came broke Barney's heart all over again.

“I missed.”

Clint then looked up, and under the starlight, Barney saw the wet veil of tears across Clint's eyes, and he knew that one of his tutors had hit him. Clint was still wearing his archery gear, the armguard and the finger gloves, so the first thought that Barney got was to Buck. Buck fucking Chisholm who drank like an endless hole, but he was never as violent as their father. Never. Had he done it this time?

“Hey, let's get you inside,” Barney started as he went to take Clint's shoulder and guide him inside, but Clint took a quick step to the side to avoid contact, and as Barney saw Solveig's figure in the doorway, he knew that this was bad. Him and the bearded lady exchanged a quick glance, before he tried again. “Clint, you have to get inside. We'll take care of you inside,” he stated, as Solveig came closer to them, holding a candle, trying to get some light to Clint, to assess the damage.

What Barney saw made him angry. Clint's face was, though hidden by the mask he was wearing, blue. His left eye was swollen, and he had bled from his nose, as there was dried blood on his upper lip. He had some cuts on his neck, and from what he could see, his costume had been torn on the shoulder, and there were blood trails across his costume.

“Clint, what did they do?” Solveig asked, as Clint sniffled quietly, looking down at his booted feet.

“I missed. So they taught me a lesson.” He paused, as he took a deep breath. “They said 'you don't miss, kid. You don't miss ever, or you're just nobody', that's what they said.” And he paused again, searching for Barney's eyes.

“And then they beat me up. Said it would help me remember the lesson.”

That was all it took for Barney to see red.

Leaving Clint to be taken care of by Solveig, he barged away, barefooted, across the cold grounds. He was barechested, and he didn't give four shits about catching a cold. The only thing he needed to do was reach Jacques and Buck, and he needed to reach them now, so he could put his fist across their face and break them.

He went all the way to the backroom that they always stayed in after a show, where they played poker and all those other gambling games, and he barged in there like a demon. His eyes were wide with anger, and when the men in there saw him, two sides appeared immediately: those who moved away from him to leave him do what he had come to do, and those who would stop him from doing what he came to do.

“Whatcha want, boy?” Jacques' stupid French accented voice came through, as the older man motioned to everyone to stand down. Barney could feel everything in him scream to hit them. He knew that Jacques kept knives all over his body, and he knew that if Buck landed a punch to his temple, he would get knocked out. But they hit his brother.

They kicked him down into the dirt and let him walk home alone because he had missed one shot.

One.

Little.

Shot.

“You two.”

Barney's reply took them all by surprise as he pointed at them, and Bryan the clown made everybody move aside. Circus fights were common, and this was something that they would handle internally. Nobody called the cops. Ever. You didn't rat out another carnie, that was the rules.

Jacques moved first, Buck being too drunk to focus entirely on what was going on, and as Barney moved to the side to avoid the first knife being thrown at him, he lunged forward, trying to land a punch in the Frenchman's upper body, trying to jab him in the loins or in the ribs. He felt a punch connect with his own bare shoulder, and as he jolted back, he tried to stabilize himself by planting his feet in the ground, and as soon as he felt the other punch connect with his other shoulder, he launched himself forward, with all his weight, tackling the older man down to the ground.

“You hit Clint, you fucking dumbass!” he yelled at him, as he threw two, three, four, five punches to the face of the Swordsman, before a kick hit him from behind, right in his spine, and he fell flat on top of Jacques, who was wheezing, trying to spit out blood from his mouth.

The next few seconds passed too fast for him to realize, but as he was trying to hit back, to bite back, to claw back at them, Buck was kicked him in the ribs with his thick boots, with a constant rhythm, and as Barney tried to lie in a foetal position to relieve the pain, he felt Jacques move from beside him and get up, before he got a kick to the back of the head which knocked him out cold.

When he came to, the first thing that hit him was the burning head ache. He had no idea where he was, but as he came to, he felt every single fiber of his being starting to hurt again. Then, he felt a cold hand on his forehead, and Barney knew where he was.

“Shh, Barney, stay still.” It was Solveig's voice, and he recognized the smell of her trailer. Why was he there? What about Clint? What had happened? He couldn't remember.

“Hey, Barn',” Clint's voice came through, and he pushed his eyes open, forcing them to look out of the darkness that embraced him. Turning his head, he looked to the side, to see that he was lying in Solveig's bed. He usually slept on the top bed, but he wasn't this time. Maybe they hadn't been able to carry him up there. Or push him up there.

“You Barton boys are some tough kids,” Solveig stated, as she kept put a cold and wet cloth across his forehead. “Getting beat up by men three times your age and you're still alive and kicking, that's gotta be a miracle in itself,” she rambled on, as she moved away from him. Closing his eyes again, Barney felt the pain in the back of his head and he tried to move his arm to feel it, but a burning sensation kept him from moving.

He heard Solveig cluckle, apparently amused. “Oh no, Barney boy, you're not gonna move that arm for a while,” she said, as he heard Clint take a sharp intake of breath. “Broken, three places, Francine says,” she added, and Barney sighed as he let out a huff.

“I'm surprised Carson didn't give in and call some ambulance on you both,” she went on, as she moved from the beds to the front of the trailer to fetch something, “but I suppose it's got to do with you both being runaways and underage and all of that.” She paused as she watched them both. Barney had closed his eyes again, and Clint was trying to fall asleep again.

“You know, it was Bryan who called Francine and, when they pulled Jacques and Buck off you, Barney, they thought you weren't breathing anymore, but as soon as they moved you, you started screaming and kicking,” she announced, as she pulled the covers from his upper body down to look at him. “Gotta say you got one hell of a survival instinct.”

She smiled at the two brothers, and let out a sigh. “Now, you boys don't move, I'll be out for a while. Get some rest, and we'll figure this out.”

Barney heard her footsteps move to the front of the trailer, and then he heard her move outside. Though her voice was muffled, he could still hear her talking to someone. A female. He wasn't too sure who she was talking to.

“They'll make it,” she was saying, “but they'll have to rest for at least a month. Barney won't be able to work until his arm is fixed, and I doubt Clint is going to be ready to pull a bow string with the state his fingers are in,” she went on. The other voice, Francine?, broke in.

“But nothing serious? No brain damage or internal bleeding?” She sounded worried. Barney tried to move his head to the side to watch Clint, and when he finally managed it, he felt the room start turning around him. Clint was quietly lying on the bed opposite his, his face plagued with a frown.

“I think Barney may have a concussion, but I'll have to keep an eye on him to see if it's that or not... Clint hasn't gotten anything serious. He's bruised and battered, but he'll live.” Solveig paused. “Remember when we took them in? We sent Bryan to investigate? They come from an abusive family, that's why they ran away. This isn't their first rodeo, and I suspect it won't be their last, Francine.” Another pause.

“We just gotta make sure it doesn't happen again this year at least, or we'll be ready to go to the hospital with them. Or worse, to the morgue.”

Then, there was only silence. Barney suspected the women of having moved away, since Solveig had closed the door after finishing her last sentence, and he was left to his thoughts. What had gone so wrong that they had to end up with people like this? Some would protect them. Some wouldn't. Some would take advantage of gullible little Clint for their own reasons, and Barney was afraid for him. Clint wanted to do good: he was so proud to have his own name and costume. He wanted to be the best archer, he wanted to be the best, and he worked so hard... so hard to be worthy of Jacques' and Buck's acts.

And the audiences loved him. The kids loved him because he was their age, and he was so good already. But there they were, the two of them, lying in a trailer, unable to move until their bones had grown together and their minds had mended.

“Barn'?” Clint's voice suddenly rang, and Barney opened his eyes again, looking at his little brother. He had turned his face too, and was now watching him back.

“Why d'you do that?” he asked, and Barney felt pain throughout his mind again. Clint would always be like that. Clint would always wonder why anyone did anything for him, because that was just how it was. Clint was just eleven years old, but he would sell his soul for someone else, if it meant that person being happy. And here he was, asking why Barney had gotten himself beat up. If anything, Barney felt sad for Clint.

“I gotta protect you,” he managed to get out, as he felt his tongue thick and useless in his mouth. He felt tired, and hungry and thirsty at the same time. “I gotta protect you, Clint, that's my job,” he added again, as he tried to move, but the pain in his arm and shoulder shot through him like a bullet.

“You're my little brother. I gotta protect my little brother.”

He saw Clint's gaze move from his face down, and he saw his little brother turn his head so he couldn't watch him anymore. Clint was looking up straight ahead of himself, into the ceiling of the trailer. “You ain't gotta protect me, Barn'. You gotta protect yourself.”

Barney shook his head, even though it hurt, refusing to let himself go silent. He didn't want to have this discussion now, but Clint didn't seem to want to let it go. “I gotta protect you,” Barney repeated again. “I protected you from dad, I learnt sign language with you, we ran away together, Clint. We're supposed to be together. You and I. That's how it works.”

He had to pause, to take a breath. And then he heard Clint let out a sob. No. No, no, nonononono- why was Clint crying? He wasn't supposed to cry! He hadn't cried in a long time! Why was he crying now? And he couldn't move! Dammit, why was Clint crying?

“Don't cry,” he tried, but he saw Clint shake his head as he blinked the tears away from his eyes.

“I can't, Barney. It's so hard. I thought living in a circus would be fun, but it's not, and I don't want to be with Jacques anymore, he's mean and you're always working at night, and I just want to go home.” Clint's voice broke as he finished the sentence, and Barney understood. Clint missed their parents, he missed their home, he missed their beds and the life they'd had. Sure it hadn't been a perfect life, but he wanted to go back.

Only they couldn't. They couldn't go back, it would be too complicated. So he found strength within himself, and he took a deep breath as he turned his head to look straight ahead of himself too. “We can't, little brother. We gotta stay here until we move on. We gotta stay here, until we find some place better to be. Understand?” he asked, and as Clint quietened, he knew.

Clint knew that they had to stay here. It was their only safe place. They had people like Francine, Bryan, Solveig and Carson who would take care of them. The animals would be there to cheer them up, too. If the Swordsman was such a mean person, then maybe Barney could talk to him. Talk to Buck. Buck wasn't such a bad person when he wasn't drunk. When he wasn't around Jacques. The Swordsman had a negative influence on Buck, who was genuinely kind, if a bit violent from time to time. Nothing they couldn't handle. If they could just get the Swordsman out of the picture...

But Carson would never agree to fire him. The Swordsman was one of the main attraction – who didn't like the sound of a French blade thrower? They would have to figure something out. Ask Francine. Ask Bryan. Ask Buck. Ask them for help. One of them was bound to help them, wouldn't they?

And if nobody wanted to help them, then... Then Barney would have no choice but to take matters into his own hands. He'd been thinking about getting his GED. Maybe if they lied, in a couple of years, Clint could take his too. Maybe they could get into the army. Maybe they could get away from here, get a real sense of purpose?

Chapter Text

When he looked back at how things had gone, maybe it hadn't been the most clever move in his career. When he looked back at how things had evolved, maybe it hadn't been the wisest thing to say yes to having a 14 year old kid running around and pretending to be a carnie.

The last thing Jacques DuQuesne ever saw of Carson's Circus of Traveling Wonders was the lit up tent and the broken body of Clint Barton lying in the middle of the ring, surrounded by dust and blood.

The past four years, thing had gone their way. Clint had learnt a lot of things off Jacques and Buck, and Barney had been distancing himself more and more from his little brother. Jacques could see jealousy from miles away, but it was more than that. Whenever he saw the two brothers, it felt like Barney tried to get Clint to realize he felt betrayed.

Betrayed that Clint liked the circus better than Barney. That Clint felt more at home than Barney had ever done. That the reason why kids came to see the show was that young Clint was able to take that incredible shot from up within the rafters and nail the apple to the wooden board. And he never missed.

Ever.

Jacques was proud to say that he was one of the reasons the kid never missed. He was proud to say that he was one of the reasons that Clint was the best archer and knife thrower on the circus. He was proud of it.

But he never spoke of the training, of the breaking of fingers and bones, of the blood and tears it had cost both him and Clint. And Buck. Buck had something to do with it too. But good ol' Buck was never hard enough with the kid. He would always allow him one or two mistakes. Jacques would always tell him that if he missed, he meant that he was just another guy with a bow and arrow. To make his act unique, he had to never miss. Ever. Every time he missed, Jacques would be there. Waiting for him. He would teach him what it meant to miss.

Barney was 19 years old. He had begun talking about his GED when he had turned 18, and he'd been trying to get Clint to come with him. Trying to talk him into the army. That there, they would have purpose. For the sake of the circus, Jacques, Buck, Carson, Francine, Bryan, Solveig and all the others had spoken with him, in turns, to try and get Clint to stay.

Things had gone the wrong way, of course. He'd told them all to fuck off, that him and his brother knew how it was supposed to go, that them coming to the circus had been a temporary thing. But, unlike Barney, Clint always came back. He always put on his costume when the curtain called, and he always smiled to the audience like there was no tomorrow.

Every single day.

Every single hour.

Clint remained a showman, and a good one at that.

It hadn't been Jacques fault. It hadn't been his fault that he'd lost that hand at the last draw – Bryan had a lousy poker face and he has about five different tells, and he'd been showing them all off. He wasn't supposed to have this good of a hand. Bryan never knew how to bluff.

He had never known how to bluff.

Never.

So, when, that day, Jacques bet over two thousand dollars on a poker hand, absolutely sure that he was going to rip off the smiling and quiet clown, he wasn't expecting to loose. He was not expecting the hand that Bryan flashed him with a grin, and as he heard all the other player's exclamations, the realization dawned upon him that he would never be able to pay Bryan. And if he couldn't pay Bryan, then he wouldn't be allowed to gamble anymore.

That possibility was too much for him. He had to do something. He had to do something about it, and he had to do it quick.

“Yeah, Bryan, mind if I hand you the cash tomorrow?” he said, as he got up from the table. He saw all the player's eyebrows rise. If someone said they couldn't pay now, it usually meant trouble. He knew it. He'd been the one to beat money out of people several times.

“Come on, guys, I know the rules. I made some of them myself, non? I'll bring you the money tomorrow, after the show.”

And with that, he took his retreat. He bowed and left, his mind tossing, and turning, and wondering just how the hell he was going to come up with so much money on such short time. He could ask the Bartons, he knew that they kept money somewhere, but they wouldn't have more than a couple of hundred dollars. Nothing more for a bus ride, some clothes and enough to maybe buy their way into the army.

“Putain!” he exclaimed as he reached his trailer, his mind racing through the possibilities. Rob a bank downtown? They'd suspect the carnies the next morning, and he'd bring trouble to the entire circus. No, that wasn't a good act. If he had to create trouble in the circus, he knew that it were better if it was among them and not among towns people.

So, as he got into his trailer, his mind suddenly fell on one of the ideas that had been knocking at the back of his skull. Carson. The money. He knew that the circus master kept a large amount of cash somewhere in his trailer, to pay off police or other things, or just to tip the artists and performers. He knew that they were two weeks away from the next pay, and that meant that Carson had accumulated a lot of money already. Two grand wouldn't be missed. At least not yet.

Pushing himself out of his performing clothes, he sat down on his bed and contemplated the options: he could steal from Carson and pay his debt, hoping that one of the boys or one of the gypsies would get the blame. Or he could tell Bryan that he didn't have the money and that he would have to pay him as he got paid, but be banned from the gaming tent for a long, long time.

And, frankly, that wasn't an option Jacques liked. He needed the gambling. If he could just turn this ten dollar bill into a hundred, and even more... If he could just prove to them that he would get the right hand. That he could read their poker faces, that he could read their lines and that he could see right through them, then he could prove that he was better than them all.

All in all, the decision to rob the circus and put the blame on Barney was the easiest one. The older Barton boy had been getting troublesome, talking about getting out... It was logical that he would be looking for easy money, right?

Easy. Go in, find the money. Get out.

Easy.

“ Il est où, ce putain de fric ?!” he couldn't help himself, as he unlocked yet another drawer in Carson's trailer. He had gone through most of them already, and he had found nothing but a pile of stinking 20s, that had probably been laying in that drawer for years.

Where did Carson keep the fucking money? Where was it? Why couldn't he find it? The circus master wasn't supposed to keep these things from them! It was as if he didn't trust them!

“Bordel!” he finally yelled, as he kicked one of the benches. It moved, and as he settled down, breathing in and out to keep his composure, he realized that the upper part of the benche had moved. Hinges? So it opened and closed? Clever hiding place. As soon as he moved the pillows away from the sleeping bench and threw them on the floor, he opened the space and saw different boxes, piles of silly things, but most importantly a neat pile of American Dollar bills.

Putting his hand down, grabbing as many as he could, he started counting. Had Carson put them by 100, or by 1000? They were 20$ bills, and by the thickness... It had to be piles of one thousand. It had to. So, as he grabbed three of them – two for him, and one to put in the Bartons trailer – he heard the door to the trailer open.

When Clint Barton's head popped into the trailer, with those curious eyes of his, Jacques quietly cursed. Not that kid. Not the kid, not the kid, notthekid, DAMMIT!

“Jack?” the kid asked, and Jacques just wanted to yell at him to get out of there, and to forget what he saw. But when he read the expression on the kid's face, he realized that the kid wasn't going to forget willfully.

“Are you stealing?” came the question, and he got up, shoving the money into his back pocket, walking towards the door, trying to look intimidating. Clint had grown, he looked like a broad young man now, his dirty blonde hair a little bit too long, his shoulders wide, his hands rough, his arms strong. But he still had a childish look about him, and the girls loved it.

“No, I'm not,” he replied, gritting his teeth, hoping the kid would take the bait. But if he knew Clint well – which he did, after years of training him – he wasn't going to let it go. He was going to ram into him until Jacques had to do something about it.

“Yes you are. That's Carson money. That's our money, that's our pay!” the kid protested, as he tried to pick pocket him, one of the tricks Barney had taught him. But Jacques shoved him away with a hand to the face, and tried to walk away. Don't get any attention drawn to you, that was what he kept humming himself. If someone notices you, you're as good as screwed.

“Shut up, Clint, let me expla-”

“No, you're not, you're stealing from us, give it back!”

And before he knew it, the kid had managed to move past him, pull the three neat piles of cash from his pocket, and was sprinting away, towards the circus tent, towards Carson – towards telling everyone what he had done.

Jacques didn't have a choice.

He started running behind Clint, as fast as he could.

“Kid, come back here!” he growled, on the way, and as he gained in on the kid, he felt his heart rush into his throat. What if he got caught? Would he be able to pin it on the kid? He had to tell everyone that he was chasing Clint because Clint had stolen – that would work. And then again, maybe not... If it had been Barney, then it would have. No doubt there. But Clint was a good kid. Never did any trouble. Never hurt anyone. Why would he steal? It made no sense.

But somehow, he had to make everybody believe that Clint had been stealing from Carson.

“Screw you, Jack!” the kid called back, as he reached the tent. Somehow, when he passed the curtains, Jacques half expected it to still be filled with two or three carnies, cleaning up, but the ring was empty. They would probably hear the ghosts of all the past carnies, but they were alone.

When Clint stopped up, realizing the same thing at the same time, Jacques stopped, put his hands on his knees to catch his breath. He then remembered – how could he have been so stupid? - and he pulled a knife out of his boot and threw it towards Clint.

The knife embedded itself in Clint's thigh, and the kid cried out. “Give me the money, you stupid monkey!” Jacques barked again, as he started towards the blonde kid again, but Clint shook his head, and as he pulled out the knife to throw it back at him – missing him by a couple of inches, God what an idiot – he started to pull himself up the rope ladder the acrobats used.

Jacques could see the blood seeping through Clint's pants, down his leg, but that didn't seem to stop him. He had no choice but to climb up behind him. If he could just reach his foot, he could pull him back down, he would be able to grab the cash, he would be able to pay his debt, he would -

He saw Clint reach the platform before he heard him. “You're not going to steal from us! It's wrong!” the kid cried out – loud – and Jacques pushed himself further up, heisting himself onto the platform, a wild look in his eyes.

“I'm not stealing, I was going to repay it later, kid! Now give me the fucking money!” he screamed, trying to be louder than the kid, to intimidate him, but instead of staying on the goddamn platform, Clint looked around, the look of a trapped animal on his face, and when he saw the tightrope... Jacques felt his heart leap. No.

“You're not going to go out there, kid,” he tried, as he moved towards the edge, Clint hesitating: to go out, or not to go out? The carnies had moved the security net away at the end of the equilibrist act, there was nothing to catch him if he fell. But he wouldn't dare, would he?

“Fuck you,” the kid snarled at him, and he moved one foot, walking backwards, onto the rope. If he hadn't known the kind of courage the kid had, Jacques had to give it to him, he knew now. Clint had only tried to walk on the rope once or twice, when the equilibrists had asked him if it was something he was up to, but Clint hadn't managed to cross it in one piece, before falling down on the security net.

Jacques watched the kid move back, and back, holding his hands onto the side, as he was looking down at the rope, trying to keep his balance. The only solution to stop his progress came to Jacques as a struck of lightning. He went to the edge of the platform, and stomped down on the rope with one foot as hard as he could, holding himself onto the railing to keep himself from falling down.

Clint's balance broke, and he let himself fall down, his crotch hitting the rope, catching himself with one hand, holding the money in another. A yelp of hurt echoed in the empty carnival tent, and Jacques smiled at himself, but before he knew it, Clint had thrown the money towards him, and that's when it came-

“Barney!”

One cry. Loud. Too loud. It would bring trouble.

“BARNEY! BUCK! CARSON!”

The kid was going to wake everybody, he had to do something, quick, quick-

“TRICK SHOT! BRYAN!”

Clint was screaming louder and louder, every single time, his voice sounding more and more hoarse, but somehow, it was going to bring people in. Someone was bound to have heard. So, Jacques took the only logical decision he saw for himself.

Cut the rope.

He pulled out the knife from his other boot, and knelt on the platform, cutting the rope with one swift movement of the wrist. He saw everything in slow motion. As soon as the rope was cut, Clint started falling. He saw the face of the kid go white as he realized that he was going to fall down, over 50 feet, and that there was no net to catch him.

He saw the scream that never came out of the kid's lips, and he saw the body of the 14 year old archer fall, down, and down, and down...

And with a loud thud, he saw it hit the ground, the sand of the ring, raising a cloud of dust around him. There was no sound, but the ragged breathing of the kid. He wasn't dead? How wasn't he?! He had just fallen from a tightrope! How was he not dead?

“Barney?” came the hoarse and broken voice, and Jacques knew that Clint wasn't going to let it go, until he was dead.

Looking around, he found the rope ladder down, he climbed it down as fast as he could. He found the pile of bills lying on the floor where Clint had thrown them, and as he was walking up to Clint, to shut him up for good, he heard voices.

“Clint?!” Buck's voice. Buck Chisholm was the first one to make it into the tent, and when the two men locked eyes, Buck understood what had happened before he looked down, seeing Clint's broken body on the ground.

“What did you do?” the archer asked, as Barney followed behind him, his eyes wild, furious and scared at the same time. Jacques could only stand there as his brain processed what was going on, and as some other shadows crept into the tent, he realized that he had to run. He had to run away, and he had to give up Clint or he would face justice.

If only the kid had just let it go. If the kid had only just gone along with his plan. He would have shared.

“Jacques, what did you do?” Buck's voice echoed in his head, as he turned, shoving the money in his pocket. Letting go of the knife, he turned around, and he ran out of the back entrance to the tent, letting go of Clint.

Clint lying in the middle of the ring, on the side, blood all over him. His breathing. His breathing as ragged as a broken doll. Crying out for Barney. For Buck. For help. Anything.

As he ran out into the night, he didn't go back to his trailer. He had to leave. He had to get out of there. Clint was going to die.

Clint was going to die and it was him who killed him. If the carnies told the cops, if they told them who had done this, he would be found immediately. If he left now, he had a chance of getting out. This entire circus thing had been going on for too long.

He ran. As fast as he could, as fast as his lungs and legs allowed him to. He ran into town, thankful that it was the middle of the night. He found a parking lot, and he broke into a car. He jump started it, and drove away.

But no matter how fast he drove, or how many times he blinked, Clint's face as he fell from the rope he had just cut wouldn't go away. It was there, engraved in his eyes, and he couldn't get it away. Why didn't it want to go away?!

He hadn't meant to kill the kid, just get him to shut up! Clint hadn't been supposed to find him! He wasn't supposed to be there, he was supposed to be in bed! Why didn't Clint just do as he was told? Why did he always have to find justice and do the right thing? If sometimes doing a bad thing meant getting things right, then why didn't Clint understand it?

Jacques didn't stop until the tank was almost empty. When he stopped at a gas station, he filled up, and drove away again, not paying for the fill up. He didn't care. It was a stolen car, if someone was going to report the plates, they wouldn't find him. He had to get away. He had to get far away, or they would find him.

Leave the circus behind.

Leave the swords and the knives behind. Those could be replaced. He could find new knives and new people to use his tricks on.

Chapter Text

“Hey kid, I got you, I got you,” were the first words that came to mind as Buck saw Clint open his eyes.

“Easy, easy,” he whispered as Clint suddenly took a deep breath, as if he had been under water for too long. He watched the young teenager open his eyes, blinking several times as he took in his surroundings. The look of distress that he shot him made Buck smile.

“Don't worry kiddo, you're in a hospital.”

It had been the only way to save the kid's life.

When he had walked in on him lying broken in the middle of the ring, Jacques standing as the murderer over him, he had thought that Clint was dead. It was only when Jacques had left, and that Buck had realized what was going on, getting worried shouts of help from Barney, that he had noticed the signs of life.

Clint crying out for his brother's name, his thigh bleeding from a knife wound, his arm broken, his wrist broken, his head bleeding from where his head had hit the ground.

If anything, it was a bloody miracle that Clint hadn't died. The equilibrists had come up with the explanation that Clint had fallen on sand. It had absorbed some of the impact, and even though it hadn't protected him from internal bleeding, concussion and broken bones, it had saved his life. And if there was anything in this world that was the sign of a guardian angel, then this was it.

He saw Clint's body shift in the hospital bed, and as the kid's eyes closed again, now that he realized he was safe, he thought back to those frantic hours between finding him and getting him to a hospital.

The carnies had haggled about it: taking him to a hospital meant that someone had to stay behind and that he would miss out on his act, it meant that official people would get involved and that someone had to explain what had happened. But if they didn't take him to a hospital, he would die, no matter how many different grandmother's tricks they tried on him.

In the end, Barney had asked him to stay behind. Buck knew what it meant to stay behind, it meant missing out pay, it meant missing out gigs and loosing audience to the other circuses, but was any of that worth a life?

The reply was no. So he had told everybody that he would stay behind with Barney, and take Clint to a hospital. Moving him from the middle of the ring hadn't been a good idea, because he didn't know how many injuries the kid had sustained from the fall, but he made it alive to the emergency room.

And from the moment the doctors and nurses took over the 14 year old's body, Buck and Barney had stood bloody and tired in the waiting room. Waiting. Praying. Lord knows Buck had said a million prayers, asking for the kid to be alright.

What had happened, he wasn't too sure. But by the sight of the bills of money on the ground and Jacques reaction, he thought that Clint must have caught the Frenchman stealing and tried to tell on him.

One of the rules of a circus was that you never gave up your mentors. You never give them up, no matter what they do. Or tell you to do. But Clint was a good kid, he always had been.

And seeing him now, lying in that bed, bruised, almost embalmed, broke Buck's heart.

Barney had gone to sleep in the chair behind Clint's bed, and the look of worry that transpired on the oldest Barton boy's face made Buck realize that there was still some affection left between the two of them.

Clint was stable, he was going to be alright, the doctors had told them. He'd gotten a concussion, which meant that he would be disoriented and sensitive to sound and light for a couple of days. Barney had talked with the doctors for a long time about the hit on the head, but Buck had given him the privacy he needed: there was something important about Clint's head, but he didn't want to pry. He would ask, when the time was right. Clint had broken some ribs in the fall, and one of them had pierced his lung, but they had stitched him up just fine. His arm was broken too, and three of his fingers as well. At least, Buck thought, that wasn't going to trouble him. Jacques had broken his fingers before too, and Clint had gotten over it just fine.

Clint was in the hospital a total of 9 days. Mostly because they wanted to keep his head clear of any more injury and track something, but Buck wasn't sure what. Barney didn't want to tell him, and Clint hadn't been very talkative, so there had been no way to ask. Since Barney was over 18, the doctors had told Buck that if he wanted to know, he had to ask Barney. Because the older Barton boy was the responsible adult in Clint's file, and the doctors couldn't compromise doctor/patient confidentiality for him.

It took Clint 9 days to get over the fall enough to be able to sit up for a longer amount of time, and to manage to keep food down. He lost some weight, but nothing that made him look sick. The doctors and the cops had questions, and when the boy had been awake enough to tell them that Jacques DuQuesne, French carnival artist and former freedom fighter somewhere in Asia, had tried to rob Carson, it had been enough.

Somehow, Buck knew that this was usual proceedings concerning carnies – there was no reason to look further, since they lived a life parallel to all others. They did ask Barney and Clint if they had been staying at the circus ever since they had been reported missing from the children's home, and when Barney replied yes, it had been enough.

At least, Buck thought, the cops and federal agencies could finally pin down a location on the boys, and pull out the 'dead' question mark from their files.

The hardest part, however, after getting Clint back in some sort of shape, was locating Carson's circus again. Sure, Buck had his truck with him, with the trailer, so they had a place to sleep. They couldn't follow the ads in towns, because nightriders from other circuses had already pulled Carson's down to put theirs up instead. They couldn't ask around, because the circus could have gone one way or another, and it was too difficult for people to tell a name.

“Did a circus pass through here recently?” was the question they tried most times, and the reply they got almost everytime was:

“Yes,” but as soon as they asked for the name or how the tent looked, nobody knew.

Nobody paid attention to circuses. Not the names, maybe the acts. And since Clint was with them, if they had gone to the show, it was hard to ask them about some acts.

It was only one time they asked some children at a playground and one of them mentioned a bearded woman, that they knew they were on the right track.

The hospital had said to stay around. But a carnie never stays put for too long, and Clint had told Buck that he would be fine. The intimate moment of bonding between him and his brother made the older archer wonder what kind of hell the boys had been through before the circus, but he never asked.

It took them a little over a month to find the circus again.

When they did, everybody welcomed Clint back like a hero. Barney and Buck stood on the sidelines as they all cheered for the little archer, and they exchanged a knowing glance. Clint was going to make it out alright if he just kept going the way he had.

Carson came over to Buck and put his hand over his shoulder, embracing him as an equal and as a friend.

“We've been talking,” he started, as he nodded towards Francine who was smiling and talking to Clint, standing next to Solveig. Barney stood behind them and looked on, a gentle smile on his face.

“I'm listening,” Buck replied, as he followed Carson's lead, out of the crowd.

“With Jacques gone, the boys can take his trailer. He left everything behind when he bailed,” Carson started, a smile creeping onto his lips. “And with him gone, you'd become Clint's new mentor and master. How does that sound to you? No more knife throwing.” He paused.

“And the circus has been missing its archery act. Kids were disappointed Clint and you weren't there three nights ago, they had been looking forward to it.”

Buck knew that this meant that Carson was counting on a quick recovery from Clint's part, but Buck wasn't too sure how fast the kid was going to make it back to one hundred percent. Maybe a couple of weeks more, but he didn't know...

“Sure, Carson. I'll take on as his mentor, I'll teach him. Best as I can, but he ain't gonna be ready before a couple of weeks,” he started, but Carson shook his head as he put on that salesman face he had mastered years ago.

“I know, Trick Shot, but you gotta live up to it man. We've been waiting for you and pulling Jacques' trailer around for a month, gotta understand where I'm coming from,” he went on, and Buck rubbed the back of his head, as Clint was thanking people, backing up slowly towards Barney, meaning that he needed to rest again.

“Yeah, I know you need the money, but Clint's recovery can't be rushed. He almost got killed, for crying out loud,” Buck muttered, as he pushed Carson's arm off his shoulder, and walked up to the brothers who were moving towards Solveig's trailer, looking for their shelter and their calm peace in there.

The bearded lady was following close behind, and as Buck left Carson standing there, like a fish out of the water, the lady caught up with him.

“So, I hear you're going to teach Clint how to be a proper archer and drop the knives now,” she started, as she pulled her fingers along her braided beard, an eyebrow raised.

“You were eavesdropping,” Buck growled at her, but she just laughed out loud.

“Honey, in a circus, there's ears everywhere. In an hour everybody's gonna know you're Clint's new mentor,” she stated, as she poked at his side, walking next to him, up to her trailer, watching the Bartons' backs. They were gesticulating but not saying anything, and if Buck had any guess to give, he would be sure that they were talking in sign language.

But those kids didn't know sign language, did they?

The first time they tried training after the accident, things didn't go too well.

Well, Buck hadn't exactly wanted to train, but Clint had asked for it. He'd wanted to get a bow and some arrows on the string as fast as possible, but as Buck had seen him strain to string the bow, and then pull back the string, he'd seen that Clint wouldn't be able to hold for a training session.

Clint released the arrow before he wanted to because his fingers gave in, and the lack of speed and power made the arrow sway in air, and it embedded itself completely out of the target, hitting the back of Buck's trailer instead.

As Clint lowered the bow, a defeated look on his face, Buck only wanted to tell him that it was okay. Clint's hands were shaking, his arms were shaking. Moving closer, Buck sighed.

“It's alright, kiddo, you'll get it back.”

The fact that he had survived that fall was a bloody miracle in itself, and Buck had no idea how he had managed it.The fact that he was standing up a month later, trying to get back in shape, back to training, back to performing – it meant dedication. Clint loved this. He loved it so much his own wellbeing didn't matter anymore.

“I know, Buck, I just...”

“Take it easy. We'll train again tomorrow.” There was no need for Clint to worry about missing. If he got disappointed in himself now it would mean that he wouldn't rest properly. Barney would worry.

Barney had been missing for a couple of days, and when they'd asked around, he'd gone into town for things. Settling paperwork with the hospital and things like that. Clint had said that the money they had been collecting for years was gone and that it probably meant Barney was doing something behind his back.

Loosing Clint wasn't an option for Buck. He had just sacrificed a month's pay to watch over him. Even though he had promised it didn't matter, it did, because he needed that money. He needed it. Soon. He was going to have to get it soon.

In the end, robbing a nice out of town villa when they reached the circus reached their last night in that Cleveland small town, hadn't exactly been the first plan.

Plan A had been gather enough money from the crowd to make up for the money lost while waiting for Clint to recover. But, with the difficult weather coming ahead – fall was going to be on them soon, and they had even seen snow some days before as they travelled on the free ways... It had been a Plan B instead.

Of course, Buck hadn't wanted to involve Clint at first. He was able to stand and walk and was getting even more consistent with the bow again. But when the older archer had scouted the place and realized all the valuable things inside – silver ware, cash, expensive clothes, etc. - he had realized that he needed a pair of keen eyes to be on the lookout while he robbed them clean.

Anything that he could sell within the circus and make it look like a fortunate event.

That's where Clint had come into the picture. Of course, it had taken some arguing, a couple of hits to the kid, but in the end, the 15 year old had agreed to come with. Just as long as Buck was absolutely sure that nobody would get caught and that he wouldn't have to kill anyone.

“Don't worry kid, you just have to remember, never aim an arrow at someone unless you mean to kill them,” Buck had told him very seriously as they were getting ready.

However, when he'd made it over the walls, pulling the teenager with him, he'd realized his mistake. It wasn't supposed to be a difficult mission as Clint was just supposed to look out, with those keen eyes of him, to make sure nobody came and discovered them.

But when Clint's worries started coming through his mouth, Buck wanted to shut him up again.

“Don't worry, we'll just be in and out. Nothing too dramatic.” He reassured the kid as many times as he could count on his hands, but in the end, it didn't matter since Clint always shook his head.

“This is wrong. We shouldn't steal.” Pause. “I caught Jacques stealing from Carson.”

Clint's eyed let go of the main entrance as he watched Buck, while the older man was cleaning out a closet for silver ware.

“I caught him stealing and I almost died. I can't believe I'm helping you steal, Trick Shot,” Clint growled, as he tightened the grip on his bow. It was a little bit paradoxal that he was helping Buck out, that was true, but Buck felt that the lesson Barney had taught him was finally working. You never turn on your mentors. No matter what they're doing, they're taking you in and teaching you how to be a better person and how to make the best of things. You don't tell on them. No matter what they're doing.

Buck smiled at himself as he finally closed the bag, walking up past Clint and rubbing his head like he would a dog watching a fence. “Then don't think of it as stealing, kiddo, we're just borrowing,” he continued. And, as he watched Clint suddenly raise his bow, an arrow ready to fire, he frowned, suddenly feeling the anger in his chest.

“Don't shoot at me, kid,” he barked, but when Clint moved the arrow slightly to the side, Buck frowned and looked over his shoulder. Someone was standing there. In the entrance. Clint hadn't told him someone had come inside the house. Why hadn't he? As he turned back to face Clint, he saw that the kid was shaking.

“What're you waiting for? Either loose the arrow or put it down so we can get the hell out of here,” he mumbled, as he threw the bag over his shoulder, the shadow not really moving, probably trying to figure out what the best way to proceed was.

And, Buck would probably think that this was the first time Clint really, truly, deeply impressed him. Clint loosened the arrow, and Buck turned his head just fast enough to see the end of the arrow embed itself in the shoulder of the shadow, enough to pull him back, and to fly out from the other side of the body. Clint hadn't made a kill. He'd made the cleanest shot he had ever taken, and it had saved them from getting arrested.

However, it didn't make him wait for anything. He grabbed Clint's arm, pulling his back, forcing him to turn around.

And that's when they both ran as if hell was on their heels.

Chapter Text

That night, when Clint came home shaking and talking about having shot someone, Barney thought everything was going to end.

He thought that they were going to get kicked out of the circus for good. He'd come out to Buck and Clint heaving, pulling in air like it was an icy knife in their throats, and as he got the explanation for what had happened, he thought that everything around him was going to crumble.

The next couple of minutes passed in a blur – trying to get Clint away from all the commotion, trying to get him to calm down, his cries of 'I killed someone' breaking through to everyone. They were all staring, trying to figure out what had happened, and then, Carson had come out from his trailer, and walked straight up to Buck Chisholm.

And then he'd slapped the man.

Barney Barton had seen Carson go through all sorts of angers, all sorts of arguments, but not one single time had he seen the man loose his cool and cut short to any and all discussions like that. Silence fell on everybody.

He shoved Clint out of the way, pushing at his little brother in the back, getting him out of all the attention, get him away, get him out, all of his brotherly instincts screaming at him that this was something Clint needed to sort out on his own. His broken arm screamed in protest, and he could feel the blood pumping through it, he could feel everything tenfold. Everything was going wrong. Something was wrong.

They needed to get out of here. Soon.

When the two boys finally reached the quiet of Solveig's trailer (it was as much theirs than hers now, though), he sat Clint down on the beds and looked at him. Clint was pale as a ghost, and he had refused to let go of the bow in his hands. His knuckles were white, and he was barely breathing.

“Clint.” He snapped his fingers in front of Clint's eyes, to get his attention. The only time that Barney had ever seen his brother like this was the day he'd come home to their father haven beaten Clint's head so bad that he'd lost his hearing.

“Clint. Listen to me,” he tried again, trying to undo Clint's fingers around the edge of the bow, trying to wedge the weapon out of his brother's hands. But he couldn't. So he had to force his nail down on the edge of Clint's fingers, and it was only through the pain that he now caused his brother that he managed to get a hold of the bow.

“Clint, you gotta listen to me,” he said, as he threw the bow away, throwing it onto the floor as if it was on fire or poisonous. He snapped his fingers in front of Clint's face again, this time getting his brother's focus.

“You didn't kill the guy,” he exasperately growled at him, knowing full well that being angry with Clint right now wasn't going to solve anything. But he couldn't believe it. He couldn't believe that Clint – sweet, gentle, nice and loving Clint – had loosened an arrow at someone. And he wasn't even beginning to think about the fact that Clint had agreed to help Buck rob someone – he'd agreed. From the few things that Barney had understood of the argument between Buck and Carson, Buck had taken Clint with him to be a sentry, to look out. Not to shoot.

Something was wrong. Things were starting to rot here again, he could feel it, he could feel their lives spinning out of control.

“Clint, baby brother, you gotta listen here. You shot a guy. Carson and Buck are going to settle it, and say that it was Buck. Theyre going to say that it was Buck who shot him, not you. You didn't kill anyone. You can't kill anybody, okay? You never hit or hurt anybody, not if they don't deserve it, and even then. Clint. Listen to me, stop avoiding my eyes, look at me. Listen to me. You have to focus.”

He could feel Clint's hand shaking in his own, and as soon as he stopped talking, Clint's face broke. He could see all the pain in his eyes, all the despair, all the regret and all the fear – his brother's eyes were wide with it. He could see it. There was no doubt. Clint was terrified. He'd done something unforgivable, but they were going to fix it.

“Clint, listen to me for fuck's sake,” he tried again, as he took Clint's face in one hand, and moved closer, letting their foreheads touch, to show his brother that he was there for him. Forcing Clint to look him in the eyes. “Buck is going to take the blame. You're going to get over this.”

But Clint just shook his head. He shook his head, and then he closed his eyes. Barney let out a sigh, and then he pulled Clint close, pulling him into a hug as he tried to take all the pain in his little brother's body. Take it all. Give it to me, I can handle it, he silently said, to whoever was listening. Don't cause more pain to my brother. Don't turn him into something that he isn't. Don't make him a criminal. Please.

In the end, Buck took the blame. Carson brought the stolen goods over to the police in the city, and Buck took his truck and drove away.

“He's going to tail us from behind, and in a couple of weeks, when things have died down, he'll come back to the circus. Lay low. We're going to stop the archery gig until the fire has died out.”

But that didn't change Clint's general demeanor after the episode. Barney saw him change. From a laughing and bright boy, Clint turned into a darker creature. Having loosened an arrow at someone had changed something. Sure, Barney had been in fights, he'd been beaten and bruised and battered, but he had never had a deadly weapon in his hand. He had never been in the situation where he could kill someone if he had felt like it.

He could see how it scared Clint. He could see how his little brother was afraid of touching the bow now. He couldn't pick it up, and he stayed far away from it.

“Hey, we can leave,” he quietly suggested one night. They were laying in the trailer, waiting for the fire to die out. Solveig was out with the ladies of the circus, to some sort of town event. It was the beginning of December, and the cold was breaking through the wooden planks of the trailer.

“We can leave the circus, you're going to be 16 next month. Get our GEDs. Join the army. Finally get to see the world instead of staying here,” he went on, as Clint remained quiet. He hadn't been speaking a lot these pase few days, and honestly, Barney wasn't expecting an answer. But then.

“If we keep running, we won't ever get anywhere.”

Pushing himself to rest on his elbows, Barney frowned as he watched his brother.

“What?”

“If we run from the circus, we're not going to go anywhere good. Not like this. Not as we hide and run.” Clint looked so somber, so serious, Barney felt his heart sink. Back when they were kids, it would always be him who talked about running away. It would always be him to take the decisions, and to ensure Clint that things were going to be alright if they ran.

This time, however, he came to realize, it was going to be different. Clint wasn't going to blindly follow him anymore. Not after all that had happened in the circus.

“We're not running from anything. We're running towards something, Clint.” He paused, as he frowned, trying to think of the right argument to use, so that he could convince Clint that they would do good in the army. “You've got the best aim I've ever seen, can you imagine if you got into the special forces? The good you could do?”

He took a long time to think about what to say next, half expecting Clint to break into his argument, but like everytime he'd tried to talk these past few days, Clint just remained quiet. He didn't even move. He was lying under his blanket, in his bed, looking up at the ceiling as if it would hold the secrets to their problem.

Barney sighed again.

“You almost killed someone the other day. You gotta talk to me about it.” If Clint wasn't going to talk to him about it voluntarily, he had to pull it out of him. He had to get it out. Suck the thoughts and the guilt out like the venom in a wound. He had to get his little brother back. Or else, he was going to have to leave him behind. Barney was 20 years old now. He was old enough to enlist, if he just got his GED.

Clint would be able to pass. He didn't look like a kid anymore. He looked as old as Barney, and if he just let the duvet on his upper lip grow out a little bit more, Barney was absolutely sure that he would be able to convince officials that he was older than 16.

“I don't want to talk about it.”

That was the only reply he got. That was all Clint ever told him about it. How was he supposed to help Clint out if he refused to get any help? This was exactly the kind of thing that had made their father the man he was, and Barney couldn't bear to see Clint do the same thing. If they didn't talk... Then how would they be able to work as a pair? How would they?

It was supposed to be him and Clint.

They'd suffered from their father's hand together. Barney had been with Clint through his hearing loss. He'd been there when their parents had died. They'd been together at the funeral. Then they'd both been the main attraction in the children's home. And they had both joined the circus. Together. They'd told Carson that it was both or nothing.

Him and Clint. Not one going one way and the other another. If they weren't together... Then nothing meant anything anymore.

“Fine. You don't want to talk about it, then we don't have to keep pretending that we're a team,” Barney finally snapped, as he let himself fall onto the mattress again, turning his back to Clint and pulling the bedcovers up to his face. He was staring at the wooden walls of the trailer, and everything in his mind screamed at him to keep trying to get through to Clint.

But, as he thought about it, then maybe now was a good time to let go. Clint was going to be able to fend for himself. He was big enough. Strong enough. Barney was tired of trying to make things alright, he was tired of trying and seeing Clint either not care or do things better than him. Maybe Barney needed to cut the last emotional bond he had to Clint to finally break free.

A week later, when they reached a city with a recruitement center, Barney went down to get some information. He went down to talk to the officers and the other soldiers, to get some help.

He hadn't asked Clint to come with him, but his little brother had come nonetheless. He'd come, but Barney wasn't sure why or what he expected. But the officers helped them out. They gave him the information he needed, and the address that he needed to go to in order to get his information, papers and all those things together.

He saw their eyes squint at Clint though, and he wondered if they saw through their lie. But he didn't care.

It was only on the walk back to the circus, through the snow, that Clint finally asked.

“You're going to join?” It was a simple question, really. Barney shrugged, looking up at the cloudy sky. He didn't know if he wanted to join. He wasn't afraid of the physical requirements, and getting some sort of discipline knocked into him would do him some good.

But it meant leaving the circus behind. The animals, the other people, the girls. But most of all, it meant leaving Clint behind.

“I don't know. Maybe? I need to think about it for a little while,” he replied, as the two of them walked on a snowy path, across a field, towards the circus tent.

“You're not going to wait for me.”

It wasn't a question. Stopping abruptly, Barney frowned as he watched Clint's face intently. He didn't know what it meant. Was Clint giving him the green light to go? Or was Clint condemning him for not asking?

“I don't know. I don't know anything.”

A sad smile crossed his features, and he looked down at his feet. He wanted to bend forward, grab some snow and make a snowball to throw in his brother's face. But somehow, he felt that the childish brotherhood that they had both shared was broken. And that he wouldn't be able to mend it.

“Let's just go home.”

And he turned his back to Clint, and started walking, his hands deep in his pockets, trying to think straight. Was this the right thing to do? He hated that he had doubts. He hated that he didn't know what he was supposed to do.

All his life, ever since Clint had come into his life, his mission had been to protect Clint. It had been his role, and nothing else. But now... Now that Clint seemed to not need him anymore, the freedom he was granted felt strange and alien to him. How was he supposed to grasp it?

He could hear Clint's footsteps behind him, the creaking of their boots against the snow as they walked up to the circus tents. Buck had come back to them, and they'd been trying to get Clint to touch his bow again. But the kid still refused. Barney had no idea what he was supposed to do. For Clint. For the circus. For himself.

And for once in his life, he thought about himself. What did he want to do? What was it that would make him happy? He wanted to fly with his own wings now. He could do it. He could hatch and leave Clint behind. The Amazing Hawkeye didn't look like he needed a brother looking and helping from the shadows.

When he reached the trailer, Barney had made up his mind.

“Carson?”

The knock on the door to the trailer was the only sound tonight, and he felt like the snow was slowly entombing them all.

“Yes,” the manager's voice called out as the door opened, and when Barney's eyes met those of the manager, they both knew what was going to happen and what they were going to talk about. “Ah, Barney. Come in.”

Knocking his boots onto the wooden steps into the trailer, Barney looked around. He could still remember the first day, all those 7 years ago, where he had walked in there for the first time. He had been so impressed he hadn't been exactly sure about what it was he wanted to say. But Clint had spoken for them both and impressed Carson and Francine with his throwing skills that they had been accepted into the circus.

“I want to leave.” Might as well get it out now, Barney thought. Carson smiled faintly.

“I have been suspecting your wishes for quite a while, Barton,” he said, as he sat down, inviting Barney to do the same. “Does Clint know?”

“He suspects. I don't think he understands what it means if I leave. I'm going to the army. They'll know how to find me a spot in the world,” Barney explained, looking down at his entertwined fingers. As if not looking at Carson would make it any easier.

“You've thought about this enough?”

“Yes. I've been waiting for Clint to change his mind to come with me. After his fall, and after Buck made him shoot someone... I thought he would want to leave.” Barney paused, as he took a deep breath. “But he doesn't want to run away anymore.”

Carson looked at him, wary. “Are you?”

“Sir?”

“Are you running away, Barney?”

He hadn't allowed himself to think about it that way. Barney hadn't put it that way. He bit his lower lip, his tongue suddenly unable to move in his mouth. And then he remembered what he'd told Clint in the trailer.

“I'm not running from something. I'm running to something.”

Carson nodded curtly. Then he wet his lips, as he put his fingers together too.

“And you know where you want to go?”

“Yes. I know which bus to take, and they already have my name. I just need some money, and I can be ready to leave within the hour.” Saying it like that felt so final. He felt like he was betraying Clint by having come directly to Carson, but he was also afraid that if he asked Clint first, he would never make it out of the circus. He tried to smile at Carson, but he knew he wasn't fooling anyone.

“Fine, then.” The older man pulled a drawer open and pulled out a roll of twenties, handing them to Barney, not even bothering to count them. “Take these. It's a long way, where you're going, and you're going to need it.”

Then, he paused and looked at Barney. Straight into the eyes, as if what he was about to say was of the utmost importance.

“I'll keep an eye on Clint. We both know he needs guidance. I promise you, I won't let anything bad happen to him. Not as long as my name is on that circus tent outside.”

Nodding at him, Barney stood up. He put out his hand, to shake the man's hand. To make it final.

“Thank you, sir. For everything.”

And when Carson shook his hand, Barney knew that he had to leave.

“I'll leave in the morning.”

And then he walked out of the trailer.

As he came into the trailer, Clint's face shot up from the arrow he was working on. Ah, at least he was touching those again, Barney thought. Then, Clint's expression became crossed. But Barney spoke before he allowed Clint to say anything.

“I'm leaving for the army tomorrow, Clint. Offer still stands if you want to come.”

And he started packing. He could feel Clint's eyes on his back, and as soon as the trailer door opened and closed, he knew that Clint had run away again. Run away from watching his brother leave him behind. If he knew Clint well, he would find him up in the high ropes in the circus tent. He would find him there, he was sure. Get him down, talk to him. But it was no good.

He was done talking.

Next morning, Barney was standing at the bus stop, two bags over the shoulders. He had hoped that Clint would show. He had hoped that he was going to show up, with a bag across his own shoulder, telling him that he was coming with him. The snow had been falling for days, and it covered everything around him. There was a thick layer on the side of the road, and he could feel the cold air he breathed in make him shudder. If he exhaled long enough, a puff of hot air crystallizing into the emptiness around him, made him think and smile. If he breathed hard enough, he could pretend to be a dragon.

They used to do that, when they were kids and it was cold outside. When they would stand on the porch of their house, breathing as much as they could, pretending to be fire breathing dragons in the cold, until their mother would call them back inside and suggest they make pop corn or help her bake some cakes.

The snow had covered everything in a blanket of silence, and if he was careful as to not make any noise, he could practically hear the snow melting around him. He thought back at his life with Clint. What he had done for him, ever since he had appeared in his life and become his goal. Ever since his father had hit Clint for the first time, Barney had promised himself that he would never let anyone treat Clint that way. Had he failed? He wasn't too sure. He hadn't protected Clint and made him a squeamish baby who cried at every single hit he took, but he hadn't protected him enough to keep him out of the grasp of death. Did that make him a failure as a big brother?

He hadn't said farewell to anybody, as he'd left under the cover of darkness. It was better to make a swift disappearance, and walk into his new life with no regrets.

As he was standing there, his eyes darting left and right, trying to see a shape. Trying to find Clint's silhouette. Even though he knew that Clint wouldn't show up, he still hoped for it. And, in the darkness, as the front lights of the bus appeared, he sighed.

The bus came to a stop in front of him, and the doors opened. He didn't get in. He kept his gaze to the left, up the pathway he'd come from, hoping. Come on Clint. He prayed. Wished.

“We ain't got the all day here, you comin' on or not?” the driver smiled, and Barney pursed his lips. No going back. He'd promised himself that he was going to leave. He had to. So, he got onto the bus. As he walked up the two steps and the door closed behind him, he fumbled after one of the bills Carson had given him.

“You waiting for someone?” the driver then asked, and Barney shook his head.

“No, I'm not. He's not going to come.”

As the two men exchanges paper – Barney handing the driver the bill, and the driver handing the ticket to Barney – neither of them paid any attention to the pathway.

As the driver activated the indicator, Barney found a seat, pushing his bags up in the overhead compartments. He didn't look out the window.

And, as the bus drove away from the stop, neither of them saw or heard Clint's voice cry out to wait for him.

Chapter Text

Nothing made any kind of sense.

Nothing.

It was all wrong.

He was alone.

Barney had left. He'd left him behind. Clint had packed his bag, throwing the bare minimum together, and he had run. As fast as he could. He had jumped, fallen, and he had pushed his way down to the bus stop, hoping that he wouldn't be too late. I want to come! he wanted to scream at Barney. He wanted to tell him.

He had spent the entire night thinking, tossing, turning, wondering, praying for help, hoping that someone would come and tell him what to do. What was he supposed to do? He couldn't choose. He couldn't do this: he couldn't choose the circus or Barney. But his older brother was forcing the choice onto him.

In the end, he had gone with his gut feeling. If Barney was running from the circus, there had had to be a reason. There had been a reason, and he knew perfectly well what it was. Because he could still feel it all over his body. Jacques had pushed him and almost killed him, and now Buck had been pushing his mental well being to the limit. Getting him into things he shouldn't get into. Shooting at people.

So, he'd run.

But, just as he arrived down at the stop, Barney was getting on board. And just as he was about to reach the bus, Barney disappeared from his view. He tried screaming. He couldn't remember if any sound actually made it out of his throat, but as the bus drove away, he let go of everything.

He fell to his knees as his bag hit the snow, and he felt every single last fiber of his being give up. It was supposed to be him and Barney. It had always been him and Barney. Barney had always been there. Always.

He felt the tears come before he knew they were there. And then he just started crying. All of his fears, his anger, his love, burning out of his soul as he lay there, on the snow and cold ground, hoping somehow, that the bus would turn around.

“Clint?”

He heard the voice faintly. As he tried to move, he realized he couldn't. He couldn't move. Why? “Clint, oh my God.”

Barney? Was it Barney?

“You are cold as death.” Oh. No.

It was a woman's voice. Solveig.

He forced his eyes closed again, and he just ignored her. He wanted to stay there. Maybe if he stayed there, the bus would come back again, and Barney would take him with him. Clint had no idea where to go. He didn't know. How far. How much.

He felt some arms wrap around him, and then he was being carried back up the path he'd come running down from. He tried to fight it, he tried to fall down again, he needed to get back to the bus stop.

“I have to go back,” he thought he said, but later, when he asked, Solveig said that he hadn't said anything. He hadn't said anything as she brought him inside the trailer, and pulled him under the bed covers, warming him up again.

She told him he hadn't moved for days. She'd brought in Carson to look at him, and when he asked later, she said that they had been afraid he was going to die. Again. He hadn't been getting warmer at first.

And then the sweat had broken out.

But, in the end, his body hadn't given entirely up on him.

And for Clint, that was more than his mind.

Weeks passed. Christmas passed. His birthday passed. He turned 16, and for the first time in his life, he realized how much Barney had meant to him. But now, his brother was somewhere else. He had abandoned him. He had left him behind, and Clint wasn't sure what he was supposed to do now.

He was all alone. There was nobody to protect him. There was nobody to tell him things were going to be alright.

Except Buck. Buck who had been there at the hospital, and who had helped him get better the first time around. Buck who had always been the better and kinder teacher when Clint was training with Jacques. Buck, who had always been the shoulder he had gone to talk to when Barney was making a fuss or talking about leaving. Buck, who somehow, understood what he needed exactly more than any other member of the circus did.

Buck helped him get over his heartbreak. He helped him hold a bow again. He slowly but surely managed to get Clint focused again, making him forget his brother, as he became a better archer than Buck had ever dreamed of becoming.

Clint felt like he had been betrayed. Barney had always told him to trust his mentor. To trust him. But, in the end, Barney had betrayed him by leaving without him. A cold anger and a cold flaming madness grew inside his mind, and the first time he felt alive again, was the first time he killed someone.

It had been the exact same scenario as the first time he'd shot someone with an arrow. They were robbing a mansion again, and this time, he had said that if they would be compromised, he wouldn't hesitate. His brother was as dead to him as their parents. He truly tried to believe it, because it was the only way for him to move on. If he kept thinking back to Barney, to the army, to his family, he would never move on.

And the first time his arrow broke through the eye socket of an unsuspecting security guard, he felt like this was what he had been made to do. Like, somehow, taking that life, was paying back for all the hits he had taken in the past.

The guard died immediately, and as both Clint and Buck jumped down into the yard, Clint retrieving the bloody arrow, he secretly felt proud.

Clint would never hurt a fly, people had always said about him. But no. That was a lie. He had just killed a man, and he honestly couldn't give three shits that it wasn't a fly. All the pain he had been through in his life, this was his way of paying it back. Take as much as you can, and give nothing back. That was what he was going to do from now on.

What else was he going to do? No education to show, no family to go to, no real money anywhere? He might as well make his stay with the circus pleasant.

But in the end, even that wasn't enough. Buck started to drink even more, and after some months, Clint couldn't take it anymore.

“I gotta leave,” were the three words he spoke to Carson as he came into his trailer. It was no secret in the circus anymore that Clint had killed at least 3 people in the past five months, and the fact that nobody had ratted him out meant how much he meant to the circus. Financially.

“You want to leave,” Carson sighed. “You can't.” Stern. He had spoken in a stern but decisive voice and tone.

Frowning, Clint sat down on the stool in front of Carson's table. He didn't know Barney had sat there, in the exact same spot to ask to leave too. “Why?”

“You've killed people, Clint. We wouldn't want the wrong people to get to know that, would we?”

The way Carson raised an eyebrow, and looked at him like they were both in on a secret, Clint snapped. That was the moment that Clint decided it was enough. He couldn't depend on anyone anymore. He had to get out, and he had to get a life of his own. He wanted to get out. If Carson ratted him out to the cops, he wouldn't make it very far. Some juvie prison, maybe not even that since he had three lives on his conscience. But he didn't care. Not anymore.

What was the worst thing that could happen to him anyway?

“I don't care. I gotta leave.” He clenched his fists as he looked at Carson, straight into the ring master's eyes. “If you don't let me leave, I'm going to bring your circus down, Carson.”

Silence fell on the trailer, and Carson bent slightly forward, accepting the challenge. But, he didn't speak.

They were at a stalemate. Clint knew enough dirty secrets to bring the circus down entirely – and that meant Bryan, Francine and Solveig getting it too – and Carson knew it. But Carson knew that Clint had blood on his hands, and Clint knew it. What to do?

“Fine.”

The word felt as final as anything, and Clint didn't even wait for anything else to come out of Carson's mouth before he got up and got out. He took his bags, and he left, in the dark night that came after that. He travelled quietly, trying to get some work here and there, but nobody wanted a young boy with no degree, no school background.

He managed to get some money by helping a hunter bring down some animals, getting shelter and food. He managed to work around in a butcher's shop, even if he hated every second of it, every single stinking steak he sold reminding him of his father and his stupid shop.

But, eventually, Clint found another circus. He didn't care, he needed the work, and he said so to the owner as soon as he met him. Maynard Tiboldt. He was known as the Ringmaster, and when he joined that circus, Clint put one foot in the world of crime. And then two. He learnt about the Circus of Crime, and the business of robbing the audience as they attended.

It hadn't exactly been a secret either. Carson's Circus of Travelling Wonders knew all about Tiboldt's circus, they were some sort of urban legend. Nobody wanted anything to do with them, and every time a carnie told them that he came from Tiboldt's or that they had family members there, Carson would gently push them away and thank them for their interest. No, we don't want that here.

Clint couldn't say it hadn't at least made him curious as to why nobody wanted to do with Tiboldt'.

He figured it out on his own.

Joining this new circus, as an adult with his own act, his own name and his own reputation was quite the experience. Drinking, girls and fans all over him, and he wasn't sure how to react to it all. Soon after he showed his skills and his lack of moral etiquette, Tiboldt pulled him aside.

And then.

Then, Tiboldt introduced him to the interesting people. Those who knew things, who wanted things done, and who could pay for them. Not one single thought went to Barney when he said yes to his first target. Barney who was somewhere only God knew. Barney who didn't exist anymore. If he pretended long enough that he didn't have a brother, Clint could probably forget about him.

He didn't give one single thought to the right or the wrong as his first target fell.

That made four.

Four human lives on his conscience. He could have thought about the moral ambiguity of it, but when payment came through, Clint didn't mind it too much.

When he killed his next target, he knew that he was being watched. Clint knew it because he saw the man watching him from afar as he performed at Tiboldt's circus. As he loosened an arrow at an apple, he saw the man smile, then nod, and then leave.

They knew. Maybe he should let them take him.

But, in the end, he didn't. Mostly because they never came for him.

His path met that of Buck Chisholm again. Trick Shot had made it out of Carson's Carnival of Travelling Wonders soon after Clint had left, and made his way through the world, all the way to Tiboldt's circus. Which was known by carnies as the perfect hiding place for criminals. And, frankly, Clint wasn't surprised to meet his old mentor one day there.

“You still up for a job, kid?” Buck asked, a couple of months after his arrival at the circus. Shrugging, Clint laughed it off.

“I don't think you know, I've moved on from robberies, Buck,” he spat at his old mentor's face. He was going on 19 now, and he was getting strong minded. Wild. The things he did, he did it out of spite and out of a survival instinct he had developped when his brother had abandonned him.

“I know you don't rob. You kill. I need someone who kills,” Trick Shot had smiled, and that had gotten Clint interested.

In the end, robbing a wealthy criminal's mansion was the one thing that he shouldn't have done. Or maybe it was. At least, it was the event that made him turn around. It was the event that caused him so much pain, that he had to change if he wanted to live with himself.

It was a simple get in, kill the guards, rob, get out, kind of thing. Tiboldt's circus would be waiting for them to leave, and they'd disappear like they always did, finding some locals to blame. They were four members of the circus in on the coup – Buck, Clint, and two of the acrobats, who would help them balance the security codes and different weight sensors that they had picked up on their first reconnaissance. After all, their target was a wealthy criminal's mansion – there had to be some secret rooms and fancy secret codes, hadn't there?

Clint was charged with getting rid of the security guards. He was supposed to take the thugs out with a single arrow to the back of the head (or straight through the eye socket), but when he nocked his third arrow and aimed, something inside his stomach suddenly jolted.

His aim lowered, and the arrow embedded itself in the guard's shoulder. The cry of pain that reached Clint's ears made him wince. Something was off. He took out the other two guards as he paced himself close to this one, the one he hadn't been able to kill. Something in the dawn made him familiar. Maybe it was the fire in his hair? The fiery hair. Just like Barney's.

Barney.

Barney?!

He crossed the short distance between him and the body that had fallen to the ground, and as he pulled his sunglasses off, he recognized his brother. He was sporting a fancy suit, looking more professional than he had ever seen him, but it was his brother nonetheless.

“Barney?” he whispered, as he heard the moan of pain, the arrow sticking out at an odd angle from his brother's back.

“Hawkeye?” Buck's voice called, and Clint looked up from Barney who had just recognized him. The gasp of surprise – or pain? - that came from him made Clint bite his lower lip. He couldn't finish it. He couldn't go help Buck when his brother was lying there, bleeding out onto the tiles. Could he? Barney had abandonned him once before, why shouldn't he do it here and now?

Get his revenge.

Barney coughed something as he winced again, but Clint couldn't make the words out. He couldn't figure out what was going on, nor what he was supposed to do. All these years, all these people killed, now none of it made sense to him. Had he done that? Had he done all that?

“Damn it, Barney, stay with me,” he called as he put down his bow and his quiver, putting his hands on Barney's uninjured shoulder. “It's just an arrow, you're not going to die on me, okay?” he whispered, when he heard Buck's heavy footsteps come back towards him.

Looking up, his heart suddenly panicking, he felt a protective urge flow through his body. Buck wouldn't touch Barney. Buck was supposed to be inside, robbing the criminal clean. If Buck saw Barney now, he was going to finish him. And, when Buck finally made it to them, he had a knowing look on his face.

“Ah, you couldn't kill your own brother,” he stated.

“What?”

“The man on the floor. That's your brother, right?”

Barney moved beneath Clint's hands, and the young archer just shook his head.

“You knew? You knew one of the guards was my brother?” he spat, as he felt the panic, the fear and the rage he had been channeling with Buck's help suddenly set loose. Now he saw all Buck's games. Buck had been playing with him, he had played him.

Molded him into a killing machine, perfected him without his knowing. He'd gone into his head, played around with him, taken him and like a puppet, he'd made him do his bidding. He'd shot Barney in the back with an arrow, fully intending to kill him, right until the last moment when he had veered the arrow out of its path.

“You knew!” he suddenly called as he reached for his bow, but Buck had pulled his own from his back before that. The arrow facing him suddenly a direct threat to his life, Clint stopped moving.

“Never point an arrow at someone-”

“Unless you mean to kill them. I taught you that, kid,” Buck finished for him. Clint saw his mentor aim for Barney, then him, the arrow swaying, purposedly.

“You're going to come with me, and we're going to finish the job.”

Shaking his head, Clint gritted his teeth, as he slowly, slowly moved back close to Barney's body, who was still heaving, every single breath a torture with the arrow still in his muscles.

“No.”

“Fine, then,” and Buck loosened.

Clint couldn't remember if he had cried out before or after. Before, to protect Barney from the arrow, and after, when the arrow came through his skin, hitting the bone in his shoulder. The shock of the impact throwing him back, he called out in pain, the tip of the arrow sticking out on the other side, rackling against the tiles on the floor.

He couldn't hear anything, the pain was numbing everything around him. And, through his veiled eyes, he saw Buck's figure outlined against the sun.

“If I ever see you again, I will kill you, Barton.”

Thinking back at that moment, all Clint could remember was Barney's breathing. His steady breathing, even though he was bleeding out. Their blood mixing on the floor, as they both laid there, gazing up at the sky.

Clint felt like the kid he had been, hiding in his brother's bed after their father had hit them.

“Barney?” he called.

Barney had grunted in reply.

“I'm sorry Barney.” Another grunt. Barney tried to move, but a wince of pain kept him on the ground.

“Don't be,” came the reply. Barney moved his uninjured hand back, as he tried to scramble back around, to look at Clint who was lying behind him. Worming his hand towards his brother's, Clint sighed.

“I know why you left,” he tried, but Barney's ragged laugh cut him off. He was laughing? Now? Why?

“Oh, Clint.”

Barney sighed, and Clint frowned, trying to ignore the pain radiating from his shoulder.

“There's only one thing you have to remember. Ever,” Barney said, as his speech slurred slightly. Clint recognized that as the sign that Barney was going to faint. He was going to loose consciousness, and there was nothing he could do. Maybe call out for help?

But he was in a criminal's mansion, both of them shot with arrows. Both of them bleeding out. There was nothing he could do.

“What's that, Barn'?” he tried, to keep his brother going. Just until someone came around. Someone to call 911. Someone to help him save Barney.

The half grunt half laugh that came from his older brother made him realize, that maybe, just maybe, things were going to be okay. If Barney could still laugh in a time like this, it would be okay.

"Remember, I loved you.”

THE END.