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In Clint Barton’s second month with the circus, right before it changed from a fantasy to real life, Alina Spinova fell off the tight-rope while doing a backflip and broke her ankle. In the space of forty-eight hours, Clint, who at age eleven was skinny, flexible, and fearless, was given a crash course in basic acrobatic skills and put into a glittery blue spandex suit.
They glued a wig to his head for the Thursday night show and Alina did his make-up while hobbling around on uneven crutches.
“Don’t forget to change the direction of your flips after the third time you hear cymbals,” she reminded him, eyes tight with nerves. The routines they needed Clint to be a part of were relatively simple, and Clint had watched the Spinovas’ act every night since he and Barney first hitched a ride. He only had to do about half of the actual tricks after they simplified their routines, and his body memorized the moves with an ease he’d never known before.
“And Alexi is always late on the first catch,” she added. “Now make your lips big again—no, do this—”
Clint acted as an obedient mirror and sat patiently while she put on bright lipstick and thick eyeliner and tried to adjust the wig. Clint wasn’t sure it would come off his head without scissors, at this point.
When he looked at himself in the mirror, he looked—he looked like Alina. Or like one of her sisters or cousins; the crowd of pale, pretty girls who ran around the circus singing in Russian, graceful and strong and cared for.
He recognized his reflection in a way that he never had before.
He didn’t feel like Clint Barton. He didn’t feel like he was connected to his body. He felt like he had been through an earthquake that no one else had felt, the ground under his feet splintered and reshaped.
He made it as far as the curtain that separated the main tent from the small backstage area before his courage failed him. There, still hidden, the stage lights touching only his toes, he looked down at his hands—blue polish on his nails, and something on his skin that made it glitter—and tightened them into fists. Feeling pretty was new. Feeling afraid was familiar.
When the music changed, he put on a smile that was bigger than the one drawn in red lipstick on his face, and danced into the light.
He performed with the Spinova family for weeks. The make-up never completely washed off. He practiced with the girls—learning Alina’s part until it became his, and then it became bigger, until they were adding tricks and spins and catches just for him.
Barney put a stop to it when he found Clint in the middle of the day with the wig still on and the make-up only partially washed away. “You look like a girl,” Barney hissed. “You look like a fag.” Ice flowed down Clint’s spine. “Come on. Let’s get this shit off you. I heard the Swordsman wants a partner. He was asking around about you, and he’s not going to make you dress up.”
There was something secret in Barney’s words. He shook Clint too hard and scrubbed the make-up off until Clint was raw, and he stepped between Clint and the Spinova girls every time they came around, wanting to play.
Years later, when Clint proved to be a better marksman than sidekick and became the star of his own act, he picked out his own costume: purple, with a sort of skirt; it glowed under stage lights. Barney didn’t speak to him for months.
He pretended the costume hadn’t been his choice.
Living with secrets was better than living with shame.
*
“Phil’s worried, and he won’t tell me why.” Natasha had placed herself right in front of Clint, squarely between his fully-drawn bow and the target at the end of the range.
Slowly, Clint lowered the arrow and raised an eyebrow. “Why aren’t you harassing him about it?”
“What did you do to Phil?” Clint jerked slightly under the force of her words, and her eyes narrowed. “What did Phil do to you?”
“Nothing.” He craned his neck, fingers tightening involuntarily, and Nat shifted position to block his view. “Fine. Not nothing. He just—he gave me this form. Updates for Medical.”
“I got one too. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing! It just—”
He hung up his bow and grabbed the crumpled paper from his pants pocket. He’d filled in the first part—name, birthdate, race. Below that were two empty boxes. Natasha scanned the form. “Did your pen run out of ink?” she asked, after a long pause.
“No. I just can’t figure out why they’d ask me that.”
“Your form looks the same as mine. Explain it to me. Use your big boy words.”
He flushed uncomfortably. How was he supposed to fill this out? How did everyone else do it so easily? “They really asked everyone these questions? Not just me?”
“I think so.”
“Oh. I thought it was...” He’d seen the questions on the form, questions that hadn’t been there when he’d first filled it out, and thought that he’d been found out. Sex, and, after a long blank space, Gender.
“I’m impressed you didn’t write, ‘Yes, please,’” Natasha said, pointing to the empty line next to ‘Sex.’ “You’re more mature than I gave you credit for.”
“Yeah, well, the thought did cross my mind.”
“It would be more subtle than your usual attempts to flirt with Coulson.”
“That’s not—I don’t—”
She let him bluster for a few more moments. “Big boy words, Clint. Explain it to me. Please?”
He’d been through torture that didn’t feel this painful, but he’d never had secrets more shameful than this one. And who was he supposed to tell, if not his best friend? If not his sister, in all but blood?
“Barney knew,” Clint said, not sure how else to start. Barney was the only other person close enough. And Natasha was family in a way that Barney never had been; a way that felt safe. She deserved to know the truth. “He used to keep an eye on me. Make sure I played by the rules.”
“What did he know?”
Clint took the form back from her and pulled a pen out of another pocket. The ballpoint hovered over the blank lines. “I don’t know what to write,” he said. He wanted her to answer for him, wanted her to take the pen or laugh; he expected her to understand.
“Sex is biological,” she said slowly. “I’ve seen you naked, Hawkeye, I’m pretty sure you’re not packing a strap-on under those cargo pants.”
He nodded. Wrote down ‘Male.’
“And gender is—is—” She stopped. “I wrote down ‘Female,’” she said. Then, slowly, carefully, with all the deliberation of a knife sliding through flesh, she asked, “Is that what you want to write down?”
He shook his head. Wrote down ‘Male.’ Felt like a liar and crossed it off. “Not all the time,” he said, wishing for white-out. “Sometimes.”
“You said Barney helped you follow the rules.”
“Yeah, you know—what to wear. What not to wear. In the circus anybody could look like anything, you know? Our strong man was actually a woman, just with a beard glued on. And enough make-up can make a guy look like a chick. Even an ugly fuck like me.” He smiled. It didn’t fit on his face. “It’s different out in the world,” he said quietly. “But I figured that out quick. You’d never have guessed,” he said, feeling sick and cocky, “looking at me, you’d never guess that I was the kind of guy who put on dresses or make-up or anything weird, would you?” She shook her head. She looked about as happy about it as he did.
“You should tell Coulson,” she said, like it was simple. Like it wouldn’t change everything.
“Tell him what, exactly?” Her silence said too many things. "Tasha, it’s not that important. Really, it’s not.”
She took the form from him, crumpled and crossed out, and tore it in half. “Phil’s worried,” she said. “You should tell him something.”
*
There were no dresses in Clint’s closet, no high heels in the pile of combat boots by the door, no make-up in his bathroom or lace in his underwear drawer, nothing pink.
Nothing girly.
The absence was visible to him, an empty space that should have been full. Spare hangers. Too many dark colors, like hidden bruises.
Some days he noticed it more than others. Some days, he kicked off his combat boots and pulled off his t-shirt and took off his cargo pants and boxers, and he pulled out clothes from the back of the bottom drawer of his dresser.
Two V-necks: one in robin’s egg blue, one in a pastel purple. They were the same style, both too long, both worn thin, the material faded and soft. Carefully folded next to those was a pair of light-grey sweatpants that clung to his hips and fell past his ankles.
Some days, when his every-day clothes felt like more of a costume than spangly purple ever had, he’d put on those clothes and feel soft.
*
Clint and Coulson were in Manila on a small op a few weeks later. Three in the morning and everything was going smoothly. Clint was up in his perch, and Coulson was humming Beatles songs over the comms to keep them both from falling asleep.
“I’m not giving you back the form,” Clint said.
“Which one?” Coulson sounded more resigned than annoyed.
“Uh, the one from Medical.”
“Which one from Medical?”
Clint smiled guiltily. “The latest one?”
“Well, at least you’re giving me some warning this time. Is there any particular reason you’re refusing to participate?”
“It’s got questions I can’t answer.”
“If you need help with the terminology or the history, you know I’ll help.” The thing is, Clint did know. He trusted Coulson.
Time passed. Crickets chirped. Coulson hummed ‘Yellow Submarine’ off-key. “Why do they need to know my gender?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Why is it medically necessary for SHIELD to know my gender?”
“I’d have to check with them,” Coulson replied, sounding vaguely surprised.
Clint fiddled with his viewfinder for a while. “It’s not an easy question for me to answer,” he said finally. “Sometimes—most times—I feel normal.”
“When you say normal, do you mean male?”
“I don’t know. Probably. Maybe.”
“And what about the rest of the time?”
“The rest of the time—I don’t know. I feel…” He tried to ignore it when it happened. It was hard to drag it out and verbalize it now. “I feel like if I was a girl, I’d feel better. Just sometimes.”
“That must be hard.”
“I don’t know. I’m used to it, I guess.”
“I’m glad you told me. I wish it didn’t have to be a secret for you.”
“I’m not going to just start waving my freak flag all over the place. I’m not going to just show up with Gucci sunglasses and a Prada bag after a montage.”
“Why not?” Coulson asked.
“Why not what?”
“Why not get Gucci sunglasses and a Prada bag? You wear sunglasses all the time, and every time you change pants you leave about a dozen things behind in all those pockets. The laundry department has sent several complaints.”
“It’s not that easy,” Clint replied. Men in dresses were a punchline, not normal.
“I know,” Coulson said quietly. “I’m sorry. I wish it was.”
“What do you expect me to do? Walk in to work wearing a dress? Carrying some dumb-ass bag?”
“I think you’d look fetching in Chanel sunglasses,” Coulson offered. “Much nicer than those sporty things you insist on wearing.”
Clint tugged the sunglasses from where he’d tucked them in the neck of his shirt. “They’re standard field issue,” he said defensively.
“They look like they should have racing stripes on them.”
“You like Chanel?” Clint asked, smiling for the first time that night.
“Well—honestly, I have no idea. The label just has a very distinctive logo. Sharon Carter has a pair.” She wore them all the time: they were gigantic, black and round, with what looked like diamonds on the edges. “I think they’d look very nice on you.”
“Fuck off.”
A few minutes later Coulson started humming ‘Across the Universe,’ less off-key than usual, and Clint settled back down to think.
*
He went to Chinatown with two hundred dollars in cash and spent an afternoon sidling up to street vendors and joining crowds of visiting Midwesterners following quiet Asian men down long alleys, into rooms overflowing with knock-off purses, wallets, sunglasses—things he’d only ever wanted from afar.
He didn’t go back to SHIELD until he’d spent every last penny.
*
The next morning he burst into Phil’s office wearing bright purple sunglasses and carrying a gigantic blue hobo bag with oversized buckles. He felt edgy with adrenaline and drunk with confidence that didn’t feel half as forced as he’d expected.
“You look chipper,” Coulson said, blinking slowly.
“No, I look fabulous.”
“I stand corrected. You do, indeed, look fabulous.”
“Thank you.” Clint stood there for a moment, in the center of Phil’s office, the door to the hallway still open. He felt more exposed than a model at the end of the runway. He felt like he was back at the circus, wearing Alina Spinova’s outfit, looking at a stranger in the mirror that he wished he could be.
Then Coulson smiled, the corners of his eyes going soft, and Clint felt like the stage lights had finally found him again.
“I got you something.” He tossed a small velvet box at Coulson. “It’s not a ring.”
“Alas,” Coulson said, opening it up.
“They’re cufflinks. And they’re fakes.” Coulson still smiled at him, and held the cufflinks up to the light like they were precious, and asked Clint to help him put them on. “All of this is knock-offs,” Clint said, straightening Coulson’s suit sleeve unnecessarily.
“Far be it from me to put down your new frequenting of illegal manufacturing, but you are aware that your bank account has more than enough funds for you to purchase the genuine articles?”
Clint shrugged and settled into the chair in front of Coulson’s desk. He realized he was sitting up straighter than usual. He had his legs crossed. He couldn’t stop smiling. “It feels better this way. All of this—it’s all— It feels like a secret. Like I’m getting away with something right under everyone’s noses.”
“It’s not a secret from me, though,” Phil said, as if Clint needed reminding. “Or Natasha.”
“No. She’s family.”
“And I’m not?”
“No, you’re—if you were family, then—”
Natasha, who had probably been waiting in the hallway the entire time—Clint knew she’d been trailing him since he left his apartment that morning, both his shadow and his shield—took that as her cue to enter. “If you were family, then Clint would have to come to terms with being openly fabulous and incestuous at the same time,” she said, closing the door behind her. She sat down next to Clint and pointed a finger in his face. “Also, I’m going to steal that bag from you later, and you’re going to let me.”
“It’s a knock-off,” Coulson said, like Natasha hadn’t just brought Clint’s feelings into the light and given them a name, like this was a conversation like any other. Maybe it was.
“They’re really good knock-offs,” Clint added. “I only buy the best.” He looked down at his hands: no blue nail polish, no glittery make-up, just his own beat-up knuckles and calluses. “So, uh. Coulson. You and me. Friday. Eight o’clock. I’m taking you to see the circus. Dress nice.”
Clint couldn’t quite bring himself to look Coulson in the face, but he darted a glance at Natasha, who was smiling at him, pleased and proud. She nodded encouragingly. "Eight o'clock works for me," Coulson said. He sounded flustered. Happy. "I'll pick you up in Lola."
Clint stood up, swung his bag over his shoulder, and sashayed out the door.