Chapter Text
The Asset’s cheek had been tingling for a few hours. An annoying distraction from his mission, not that he’d allow it to interfere. He suppressed the urge to touch his cheek and took aim, waiting for the perfect moment to pull the trigger and watch the target fall limp.
A boringly easy mission. The target was eliminated without any surprises or complications. He reported back to his Handler quickly and was brought back to base for debrief. He then was escorted to medical just to be hosed down and looked over for anything that might cause a delay in putting him back on ice. Usually it was a need for recalibration. He hated the process, but he did not fight it. They did their parts, and he did his. That was how things were supposed to be.
So, when he was told to start stripping down out of his gear, and was asked if he had anything to report about his body, he obediently mentioned the tingle. They demanded he remove his mask first, before his boots which he’d been working on unbuckling. He did so, reaching back to loosen his mask so he could pull it away from his face.
The medic assigned to look him over didn’t look happy. His lips were pressed into a thin line with the corners ticked downwards. “Impossible...they should be dead by now…” He moved over to a computer, pulling up the Asset’s file, taking a moment too long scanning over it as the Asset himself simply continued to remove his mission gear before standing ready for his next orders.
The medic then picked up a phone and dialed a number.
“Sorry to bother you, sir, but it regards the Asset.” a pause, “He has a soul mark. —No, this is the first case of one being noticed. It’s possible some had shown up while in cryo, if they were ones left by bruising or minor cuts. —I double checked his file. No one has recorded an instance of one blooming across his skin, not even in the beginning when he was first acquired. It’s possible the other half is young.” another longer pause, “Yes sir. What shall I do? —Understood. —Yes. —No, he has not seen it. —Yes. —Alright, sir, thank you for your time.”
The medic hung up and turned back around. “We’ll be continuing on as normal from here.”
The Asset didn’t respond, he only looked ahead and allowed the medic to give him the usual look-over.
Across the room his blue-grey eyes caught sight of his distorted reflection in some equipment. Upon his cheek that tingled was the image of a flower. Orange that faded into pink towards the center with a touch of yellow. It was…pretty.
He was processed and frozen again.
The next time he was thawed out, the flower was gone, but more littered his body, some already fading away, some tingling as if it was fresh, one series of small purple flowers that curled around behind his left ear, mirrored by one larger white flower behind his right seemed to be permanent as they had not started to fade at all, nor did they tingle like they were new.
He ignored them. He did not ask, even as the medic who had defrosted him marked down notes about the flowers in his file.
The flowers were important somehow, but acknowledging that fact would only guarantee that he be sent to the chair for recalibration. And it wasn’t as if he knew why they were important, so it didn’t matter.
Clint Barton was not like most kids his age. It wasn’t unusual for someone’s soulmate to be born a few years before or after they were born, but Clint had been born already heavily covered in permanent soul marks. While most kids his age would get small flowers blooming on their skin in commonly scuffed locations like knees, only to fade away again in a few days, his whole left arm, fingertips to shoulder, and creeping across his chest and back was covered in flowers. They had been since the moment he was born. And occasionally he’d get another flower blooming with a tingle in his skin, but they always faded away again.
He knew what they meant, the flowers. He’d asked his mother once why his arm was covered in flowers that never faded when any time his older brother Barney got a flower, it did always fade away again. Why his mother had flowers that bloomed in black and grey instead of bright colors across her lower leg. She had gently scooped him up into her lap, pushing a lock of hair back off his forehead before explaining that the flowers were soul marks. That every time his soulmate got hurt, he would get a flower in that same spot on his own body. That they faded away when the injury healed, but sometimes the injury wouldn’t ever truly go away, and if it scarred over or left another permanent reminder, then the flower matching it would also never fade. She also explained that if one soulmate died, the color in their soulmate’s flowers would fade away.
Ever since then, whenever Clint felt a tingle of a new flower blooming or he studied his arm, he was filled with a mix of emotions. Sadness for the pain his soulmate had felt, but also hope to one day find them.
He also wondered if his soulmate studied the flowers that undoubtedly bloomed on their skin every time Clint was clumsy and scraped his knee or he’d been too slow in getting out of his father’s way. He wondered if his soulmate would protect him like his mother tried to. He wondered if they would just run away together like Barney talked about wanting to do.
He kind of wished they had run away. It became too late for that one night when his father had too much to drink. He had lost both his hearing and his mother that night.
His father had claimed she had abandoned them.
Life was even more unbearable after that. Without the gentle love of his mother to soothe the hurt and fear delivered by his father. Barney kept promising that they’d run away, but night after night, it never happened.
Then one day while Barney was at school, Clint’s father shoved him in his old pickup and started driving to a town much bigger than Clint had ever seen before. They pulled into an old, empty parking lot. His father grabbed him and dragged him across the sun-faded pavement and gravel to an old building in disrepair.
Clint scrambled to stay up so he wouldn’t stumble and scrape his legs up, bare as they were in the shorts he had on. He didn’t even have shoes to protect his feet from the hot, cracked pavement and pointy rocks.
Inside the building wasn’t any less depressing than outside. Walls were reduced to old wood beams and a pile of plaster and drywall on the floor. Crude and amateurish graffiti covered the ones that were still intact, not that Clint knew what most of it meant at four years old. He did recognize a badly drawn dick, however. He’d seen Barney doodle those things on his school notes before, though the attempt at adding bird wings to the dick drawing was something Barney hadn’t done as far as Clint knew.
After looking around, Clint looked up at his father, realizing the man was saying something. Clint sometimes had better hearing days where he could barely make out the sounds of louder talking or shouting, but this was not one of those days for him and he had to struggle to try and read lips that were not angled in an easy way to read—and he was still learning to read lips, so it really wasn’t helping and he found himself staring up at the man dumbly.
His father noticed and scowled, looking down at him, and finally Clint could read enough to piece together what was being said.
“...You dumb fuck, stop staring at me like the braindead little shit you are!” he raised a hand as if to smack Clint, and the boy flinched, curling away to try and lessen the pain he’d received when a group of strangers walked into the generously called ‘room’ they occupied.
Clint couldn’t keep up with the conversation that started the moment his father had been interrupted in his latest lash of anger, so he just looked down at his feet, trying hard not to be any more of a bother while the men talked to his father.
“I’m Harold Barton. We spoke over the phone—I was told to meet you here.” the father spoke.
“I see.” one of the men responded, looking at a clipboard and making a mark on it before nodding and handing it off to one of the other men. “Alright, Mr. Barton, if you’re sure you wish to conduct this business with us?”
“I am. My wife was...she left, and I can barely manage one snot-nosed brat that should be able to take care of himself, let alone a broken one who can’t.” Harold gestured down at Clint. “And I have debts to pay.”
“And we will be happy to take care of both those issues for you, assuming what you claim is correct.” the man said.
Harold rounded on Clint, taking him by surprise as he yanked his too-big long sleeved shirt up over his head and tossed it aside as Clint looked up at him confused, turning his attention back to trying to follow along.
“He was born with them already. I figure he’s destined to find some ugly girl with a crippled, deformed arm for his to be that covered.” Harold said.
The man nodded and strolled forward before stooping down to the boy’s level, looking him over and turning him around, inspecting him. His fingers poked and prodded at old bruises and cuts that were trying to heal, nodding each time before he gestured to one of the other men who pulled out a brick and dialed a number. “Test it.” he said into the mobile phone after the other end picked up. Only seconds later Clint felt a tingle on his cheek and across his nose as a series of little yellow flowers bloomed across his face.
The man gave a triumphant grin before standing with a nod. The man who had taken the clipboard strolled forward with a briefcase.
“The promised money for the boy.”
Harold took the briefcase and opened it, looking at all the cash that filled it to the brim like in some old mafia movie.
“I suggest paying off your debts before starting to slowly trickle that into your bank account so it doesn’t raise suspicions. Especially as both your wife and younger son have quite suddenly disappeared within months of each other.” the man who was likely in charge said.
Harold nodded, closing the briefcase and starting to walk away. Clint grabbed his shirt and moved to follow as a hand reached out to grab his shoulder. “No no, little one, you’re staying with us.”
Clint gave him a confused look, having not seen his lips well enough to read them.
Harold shouted back over his shoulder as he left out the door they had come in through, “The brat’s deaf. He can’t understand anything. Best to just drag him. Doctor said he has enough hearing to use hearing aids. Considering your friend has a near four-thousand dollar phone on him, I figure you could afford to get him those if you think it’s worth it to try and make him useful in any way.”
Clint watched his father disappear, leaving him behind with strangers. He was a mix of emotions, not understanding what was happening. It was good to get away from his father, but he had no idea what would happen to him next. If he was in a better or worse situation.
And…
And Barney was being left behind alone…
The man turned Clint around and gently pulled the discarded shirt out of his hands before getting it ready to put back on the boy. Once Clint was dressed again, the man motioned with his hand to catch Clint’s attention before pointing to his mouth and asking “Name?”
Clint blinked before looking back down, “Clinton.”
The man nodded and stood up, heaving the boy onto his hip, “Well, come along, Clinton, we have a lot to prepare you for.” he said, turning and leading the way through the building and out a back door to a nice looking black car.
Clint’s life after he got into that black car was...interesting to say the least. He really didn’t know what to make of it. The man—Mr. Pierce—was always gentle with him. He never hit him or lashed out in anger at him. He had taken over as Clint’s guardian for the most part, taking him to see a doctor to be looked over. He’d gotten Clint the hearing aids his father had always claimed were a complete waste of money, and he never withheld food, bringing Clint three meals a day along with a snack for him to eat whenever he wanted. However, Mr. Pierce never took him home, or to a home. Clint was given a small room in the building he assumed was a hospital because it was the same one a doctor had looked him over in. The walls were plain, he had a cot, table and chair, no windows, a small chest of drawers with some clothes and had a box of a few toys, crayons and paper to keep himself busy through most of the day when he was left alone. There was also a small side room with a shower, toilet, sink, and step stool for him to use when he needed to.
Sometimes the doctor would visit him, checking him over again and giving him a shot and a little band-aid with cartoon characters on it. He rarely got to leave his little room. It was lonely and depressing, but at least no one hit him.
He had no way of knowing how long he stayed in that room, only getting visits from the doctor and Mr. Pierce. Days, weeks, months...he really didn’t know as it all blurred together, every day the same as the previous.
Which is why Clint was surprised when Mr. Pierce came in with some shoes and a coat for Clint, having him put them on before he was picked up and carried out of his room.
A long drive in a car, a flight across the ocean, and a train ride followed by another car ride later Clint found himself sitting in some sort of office as Mr. Pierce spoke to someone Clint hadn’t caught the name of, even with having his hearing aids in.
“You specialize in training children.” Mr. Pierce was saying.
“We train young girls. Not,” the person gestured to Clint, “little boys.”
“So put him in a tutu and grow his hair into pigtails. He’s young enough not to care.”
The person leaned forward in their seat, elbows on the desk between them, “The alliance between our respective organizations have not included any negotiations on us training a child for you, Alexander. Why is it important that this boy be trained?”
“We’ve spent a hefty sum to get our hands on the boy in a way that won’t get his family trying to hunt him down.” Mr. Pierce stated, “That makes him an investment to us, but one we do not have a system in place to get our money’s worth out of him. Alone, the best we could do is wait for him to reach an age durable enough to enter into one of our existing training programs. And until then we’d have to deal with raising him. It’s not the most effective way to handle having him. While the Red Room trains children from very young ages to put them ahead of any agents that start training as near adults or older.”
“Why would Hydra invest in a child when they don’t have experience with children?”
Mr. Pierce sighed and gestured at Clint, “He is the other half to a very important Asset we own.”
The person’s brows shot up in an understanding Clint did not share. “I see. Best to acquire him early so as not to have troubles down the road.” they said, dipping their head forward.
“Precisely. And we do not come with this request without an adequate offer in exchange for this favor. You have been expressing interest in borrowing the Asset from time to time. For every year you train the boy for us, you will have access to borrowing use of the Asset at any time barring when it’s already in use by us. Our only rule on this is that the boy not be brought in contact with the Asset.”
The person leaned back, considering the offer on the table before giving a nod. “Very well. We can slip him into our newest group of girls. He won’t be too behind in training that way, and the girls won’t have formed a grouping so tight that they’d not welcome a new face.”
“Excellent.”
The person nodded and called in their assistant, “Please take the child and get him dressed in the usual uniform for the girls. Introduce him to the new girls as he’ll be joining them from today on.” he instructed and the assistant walked over to take Clint’s hand.
“Now, let’s draw up the official contract for this exchange so that there can be no question as to what we have agreed upon today.” the person said as Clint was guided out of the office and down a series of halls.
They stopped in a room full of racks of clothes, and he was handed a bundle of pink, being told to change into it.
Clint was confused as to what was all happening, but a life fearing his father had taught him to keep his head down and do as he was told. So he did as he was instructed. Stripping out of his clothes and putting on the tights, leotard, and small tutu. He was then led to another room where a bunch of girls between the ages of three and five were gathered, all in the same outfit Clint had put on. The room was very red. Red walls, red floor, the furniture that lined the far wall also had red upholstery.
“Welcome to the Red Room. You would do well to do exactly as you are told without question.” the assistant stated as she led Clint over to the group of girls. “Girls. This is your new team member. Make sure he learns the rules.”
“A boy?” the instructor who was working with the girls asked.
“We are training him for Hydra. That’s all I know at this time.” the assistant explained. “He only speaks English and some American Sign, based on the file Hydra provided. He’ll need to be taught everything else during the academic period.”
The two adults stepped away, continuing to discuss things, and the girls all gathered around Clint. One girl, with bright green eyes and a red ponytail gave him a studying look before stepping closer, “I’m Natalia.” she introduced herself with an accent the country boy had never heard before.
“Uh...I’m Clint.” he responded shyly.
“Word of advice, Clint, don’t act shy here. It’s seen as a weakness, and weaknesses are punished.”
He nodded and tried to stand up a little straighter. She gave him a small smile before nodding at the other girls and they began to show him some of the things he needed to know for the lesson he’d walked in on.
To be continued...