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Clint could barely hear. Their dad had done something to his little brother in the few moments he had not been there to take the blows instead. His hearing's been finnicky ever since and it doesn't seem to bother Clint, but it sure as shit points out what a horrible brother and protector Barney is.
Barney's hands shake at his sides, the same sort of rage their dad has filling his heart. He knows he looks too much like dad right now though with the fact Clint flinched back as Barney stepped in. He has to calm down, but Barney's no good for that in the way he's no good for anything else. He's lifting Clint up harshly and looking his little brother in his eyes. There's a sort of meekness around his little brother that he needs to train out of him. It's why their dad turns to him when their mom is too out of it.
He has to calm down because his next move is going to involve a lot of hand movement where Clint can't be flinching in fear nonstop. Tugging his brother over to his frayed book bag and watching his little brother peer into the overcrowded bag makes him smile just a little. They've never had one those fancy library cards some of the other kids get. He had to be quick in swiping up every single damn book he could about American Sign Language.
They spend all summer learning as much as they can. At least he can talk to Clint better like this. Their dad can't hear them. The old man doesn't see Clint's hands forming the signs to say he's afraid of their dad. That he wants to leave. That he wants him dead even if that's wrong to say something like that.
—
Barney's spitting out one of his few baby teeth left into the toilet. He's still not sure how his dad expects Clint to answer or do the things he's told to do if he can't hear it half the time. He knows his little brother needs some sorta fancy surgery to fix his ears. His mom had tried to softly ask for it once. The bruises inflicted on the whole family after that were a clear no. At least Clint was getting better at reading lips, but today was one of those slip up days. Their dad had been quieter in asking on purpose and made sure Clint couldn't read his lips— Barney swears it up and down the man did not want to actually be understood.
He has to watch over his brother. He has to take the beatings some days. What if one day Clint gets smacked too hard and he can't fucking hear anything anymore after that? At least right now if something's loud-ish Clint can pick it up.
His little brother is blurry in the doorway, but he can at least pick up enough to see the sign for okay. A weak smile splits his face. Anything for Clint. He'll do it all for him, even if the kid is weak. He has to be better. He's bigger and stronger, he has to be better.
—
There was something quite nice about the funeral. Barney puts it high in fond memories. He knows Clint likely never will with the way he cries for their mom. He can't really be bothered to cry. They've been wishing death upon the old man for so long that they could sign the words in their sleep if it came to it. Clint'll get over it. Kid's weak, but Barney's here to burden on the pain. It just makes sense to argue til he's red in the face to never be separated from Clint.
The social worker hates them. He can tell she does, she kept trying to put them in different homes. If Clint goes anywhere, he follows. He leaves group homes for rowdy boys like him. He runs away and crawls through the windows of awful foster homes just to lay next to Clint.
Someone up above finally seems to snap and finally stick them into a home together one and done. A trial run on if someone can handle BarneyandClint because clearly they just should not have bothered the discipline route of making Barney do therapy and anger management and that hooplah.
It ends up being just like their dad and mom. Barney fucking hates the damn world. He hates it so much.
—
"Stick your hands up. C'mon, they hit you again, you hit back."
There's a bruise on Clint's face. The bright side of the few nice-ish homes or the ones where they had ignored his brother meant his hearing was a tiny bit better. Their case worker had pulled a few strings and gotten him shitty hearing aids. The battery's pricey, but Barney found out ways through books to charge them for real cheap. It was just always a risk of burning them or something. Hopefully that day never came. He keeps blinking up at Barney until a swing comes again.
The bruise on Clint's face isn't from the home. No, those are under his shirt. They're careful in it. They make sure the checks come in and that the boys seem cared for enough. Anything visible is Barney. His brother can't keep up life like this. He can't. He has to fight, he has to scrap back, and he has to be just as good as Barney's proven himself to be. He can be good and maybe, maybe Barney'll string him along to whatever he chooses to do.
Clint's given him a few bruises too. Not as many, but it always gives him some sweet pride and a hint of jealousy. He learned how to fight faster somehow. It stings, in a way. Shrugging it off is the smarter thing to do. He's so jealous and so proud of every correctly thrown punch that it makes him feel like a walking contradiction.
—
When Clint's thirteen years old, they decide to live out a cliché. They run away from the foster system and join the circus. They have to tear down missing posters of their faces in the area until it starts moving along.
The circus takes them in and it's not nice nor is it bad. Barney's keeping his head down more than his damn brother is. One minute he's the one they wanna teach archery more... The next minute Clint's the fucking protégé instead.
Swordsman and Trickshot both say he's good. He is. He knows he is; he hits every target and he's good with the knives too. He's just not as fast as Clint is.
Barney will shoot the target dead on twenty times and turn for praise. He'll look over to Clint having done the same but upside down. He's so proud. He beats the jealousy down, but it always crawls up his throat in the worst ways.
Maybe they should have toughed it out for Barney to turn eighteen instead. He's starting to hate this shit. He hates it. Clint's not even fucking safe here with the crimes the circus keeps committing. They wanna set his little brother up to join their schemes. Arguing against it barely works.
Fuck, Barney should've never dropped out of school at this rate. At least they got a place here as long as they keep their heads down. He signs up to do a GED and the day he finishes it is the day Clint manages some big ass show where he rakes in so much damn money. No one but his brother congratulates him. Barney goes to bed full of envy and pride. He knows he'll wake up like this every damn fucking day for the rest of his life. As long as Clint's alive, his little brother's proven himself to be the better one of them.
—
"You shoulda just kept your trap shut, Clinton." There's anger in Barney's voice that he knows makes him sound like their father. He's saying his full name just like their father used to. The flinch from Clint says enough on how much he's picking up their dad.
Clint's hands are shaking. He's hurt beyond belief. They took the one way that Clint can pretty much confidently speak to anyone. His hands weren't just for his bow, but for signing. A hand tries to form the sign for sorry and Barney... Barney smacks his hand down. His little brother's letting out a moan of pain and guilt rushes through to him. He can salvage this. He can string Clint into what he had done. It can work. He wipes blood off Clint's brow and thinks of the anger in their mentors mirroring their father and the houses that they were cycled through. He wants Clint to follow him like he's always followed Clint's shadow. Shorter than him and yet, Barney stands in it anyway. Maybe it'll be his turn.
"Come with me to the military. You don't got a GED, but they'll take you in anyways with how you shoot. It'll be good. You never miss. We'll find a way to be together through it too."
A shaky nod. A smile to each other.
Clint isn't there at the bus stop come morning.
Barney goes alone.
—
They run circles around one another. People take to not talking about the Avenger Hawkeye near Barney after he grows angrier and angrier every conversation. There's whispers about what he did to the guy despite the fact he should like the Avengers as a government agent. Two shots to Hawkeye don't make up for the pain inside of him. His little brother left him in the dust. He's always left him in the dust.
Barney did everything to keep Clint alive. He did everything to stay near him. For what? For Clint to make it big and forget him? To see Captain America patting his back on the news as Barney crushes a can in his hand. Scarlet Witch smiling with him in the newspaper and Barney's using a paper shredder like the dramatic man he is. Iron Man nodding hello to him perched on a building and Barney's pulling a move just like the father he looks like and punching a wall. There's a frame covering it now in case his landlord sees it. He shakily slid in a picture of Clint in the old circus Hawkeye gear. He doesn't look at it whenever he's home.
Sometimes if someone's brave enough they ask if Barney ever misses. He's usually there to kill them, but hey. He doesn't miss. Mostly. Hawkeye's alive, isn't he? Two shots and yet still kicking it enough for the world to know about him and how stupid he looks in that purple getup.
—
Bullseye apparently doesn't want the work anymore. Osborn's tempting with the pay and the anger brewed inside of him. So maybe, maybe Barney does the stupidest thing he's ever done. Clint's died and come back so maybe Barney'll come back if he dies in this. Purple really isn't his color the way he can grudgingly now admit that it is Clint's color. His little brother's up to other dumb shit though and it's time to don Hawkeye his own way.
Though, fighting Clint's ex-wife is kind of an awful fucking thing. Picks ones that sure pack a punch because he's heard whispers about Hawkeye and the Black Widow, Hawkeye and the Winter Solider, Hawkeye and Falcon, and Hawkeye and Spider-Woman and— Damn it, Clint; is his brother a commitment-phobe or something?
Probably not the time to be thinking about this with the fact he's Hawkeye. For now. Until he can kill Clint or something to handle the anger and rage that sticks to him. He's not as proud as he was before. Ronin really isn't something he can manage to be proud of. Everyone seems to be in agreement that he's just a straight menace now. No real way to sugarcoat the anger seeping out of people towards Ronin or any of that.
Not his problem, not anymore. Clint stopped being his problem to take care of when he didn't follow along. It's why he's fine doing this, arrow pointed right to Ronin's calf and letting it sail to give a new scar. Brother's still weak and squishy after all this time.
—
The anger and jealousy slowly die down. They can never really leave, but it's something at least that he can see Hawkeye in general and not feel the need to kill Clint Barton.
Hawkeye's back in some girl's hands then in Clint's then in both of their hands. That photo of Clint in the circus with the original Hawkeye gear follows Barney place to place. He's got new scars from fighting people stronger than him. Just as weak and squishy in the big leagues that Clint runs around in. He swallows his spit as he stares in the bathroom mirror. He's going to that apartment building he's heard is attributed to the male Hawkeye's public identity. He shaves his face a bit in an effort to look a little less like their father. Clint's blonde like mom and Barney's red like dad. They're both respectively too much like the parent they look like. It's easier to slip out the door and walk and walk.
Taking a beating meant for Clint just because he looks like him is easy. It's in his nature. It is exactly what Barney was born to do. Protect his little brother in ways that people just cannot understand. The arrows, the bruises, and the almost killing him. Warped protection that ends with that girl leaving with the dog. Clint's cleaning him up and shaky. Maybe this is the first time someone took the chance to leave his little brother before he had left them.
"So. What are we gonna do now?" It comes out of him easily. They're back in the circus and they're a team again. Maybe they always stayed as one even if Barney couldn't fathom it.
—
Clint's fully deaf by the end of their endeavors. Gone. There's not a chance for anything to come back. He knew Clint could at least hear shit for now, but it makes something settle uncomfortably in him that he'll need to see real and genuine hearing aids on Clint all the time. It makes him think of his mom's meek whispers asking for surgery.
When the Avengers and Thunderbolts and Kate and more slip in and out of the hospital room, Barney grows accustomed to the glaring. The Black Widow didn't like him already in that little place they met at. She's somehow the most forgiving of him though because Clint is forgiving. Because Clint uses his sign language to go back to the most basics from when they learned that one summer. The letter "B" and a two fists raised quick in an x-form for protection. It brings tears to his eyes when his little brother's back to saying that's the way they can all sign Barney's name again.
Kate just takes to signing the letter B and it's enough for the two of them two at least grudgingly start talking.
—
Stubborn asshole can't talk the way he used to or do anything like before, but Clint is still standing in his apartment building. He's frustrated at the hearing aids, all of his friends, and even the way that he truly can't hear even the slightest bit anymore. The gap between hard of hearing and deaf made Barney stay even longer with Clint. Perhaps too long, but hey, is it his fault it made seeing Simone easier? She was real sweet and she even took to the little sign language lessons Barney was offering Clint's tenants well. Even her kids liked him.
"I missed the bus that day, Barney," and Clint's so damn loud now, but maybe it's even louder than it actually is since it reverberates inside of Barney's thick skull. He has to blink a few times and turn around to face Clint. Hip checking the fridge to close it and staring down his little brother in pure confusion gives him no immediate answers until Clint opens his mouth maybe a lifetime after. "I was going to go with you. I was. I wanted to try to stay with you, and maybe it's fucked to say it, but you were really the one person I regretted never telling—"
Barney's moving so quick he sees Clint flinch. A fleeting thought that Clint doesn't even flinch about the fact Barney looks like their father anymore. He flinches because Barney's spent almost half their lives trying to put Clint in a grave for a third time. The flinch does not stop Barney from hauling him into a hug. Weak little brother, always looking for some form of comfort. Bruised and always battered. Barely any memories of a Clint Barton without some sort of injury on his frail body. Holding him close and tight, trying to protect him in a way he does not deserve a chance to.
The fists tightening into the back of his shirt say enough though. Wet spots onto his shoulder easily. Barney does not deserve Clint's forgiveness and everyone else in his little brother's life has made that well aware.
It's nice getting to try to earn it regardless.