that's how the story goes

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/17443232.

Rating: General Audiences

Archive Warning: Choose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel (Comics), The
Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Character: Clint Barton, Lucky (Hawkeye)
Additional Tags: I'm Sorry, I'm just writing what I want because I want
Language: English
Stats: Published: 2019-01-16 Words: 755

that's how the story goes

by despicientia

Summary

Back then, Clint Barton was little more than just a kid and yet the taste of betrayal was
familiar in his tongue.

This is something that vaguely resembles a character study.

Notes

sorry

Honestly, it had been a while since he had done something like this.

It’s not that Clint had lost his touch, you don’t become an assassin and then lose that sort of
training after a few months of reclusion, but it felt like it. Before, when he was still doing this for
Trickshot and Barney, he had something to keep him motivated. He could stay in the same position
for hours, waiting, watching, and not feel the need to move. If anyone could see him now, they
wouldn’t believe he was that guy. He was twitchy and a little maniac, leg bouncing in anxiety as he
waited for his mark. He wanted to be done, to be gone. He wanted to be home, with his one-eyed
dog and pizza and his broken tv and bad heating. Life had taught him at a very young age he
couldn’t always get what he wanted, though.

So here he was. On a dirty rooftop, laying on his stomach while the drizzle made his clothes wet
and his hair stick to his forehead. His fingers laid on his gun almost lazily. He would have
preferred to use his bow but he was trying to not give anyone the opportunity to make connections
to his old persona. That old boy, the person who did what he was told hoping to make his mentor
proud was dead, shot in the belly by the very man who taught him everything he knew. Some days
Clint missed his old life with a hollow fierceness, the circus, the animals, the people, even the
show. Most days, though, he was glad to be rid of all the abuse. The three months he spent on his
own had been the best of his life, even if he had spent it in the streets with his dog, even if he had
ran away from the hospital while barely healed to live it.

Someone came out of the building he was watching and lit up a cigarette. It was a man, probably in
his early twenties and wearing a dark hoodie. He didn’t move much further from the door, using
what little cover the walls provided from the light rain. While he smoked, the sniper watched him.
Clint noticed everything, from the unpreoccupied way leaned on the wall to the man’s long drags
on the cigarette. That was what finally made his leg stop bouncing.

In this line of business, this type of casual behaviour was uncommon. Only two types of people
acted like that: The stupid ones and the ones with the confidence to back it up. It wasn’t exactly
rocket science to figure out which ones would be hanging out outside a seedy motel while a low
level drug boss chilled inside. As the sniper watched, the man checked his phone. Whatever text he
got made him stop smoking and move away from the door, watching the street both ways before
looking up. For a second, it seemed as if he would made eye contact with Clint, but that would be
impossible. At night, with the rain and the light pollution, it would be almost impossible to see
someone so high up.

When he seemed confident that no one was around, the bodyguard typed something on his phone
and soon after three other men came out. It was possible to tell they were heavily armed due to the
bulges the guns made in their clothes, none of them seemed in any hurry to hide that fact. After
them came a little guy who looked harmless at first glance.

Of average height and built, he wasn’t a small man by any means but he gave the impression of
being little. His hunched shoulders and one-size-too-big clothes seemed to engulf him. As the man
came out of the building, his car was coming around the street corner. “It’s a shame,” - Clint
thought as he pulled the trigger “that a car like that is wasted on a man like this”. He didn’t wait
around to see the body hit the ground, time was a precious commodity he never took for granted
and as he disassembled his rifle, thoughts of his dog made their way into his mind again. Lucky
wouldn't care that he was a gun for hire now, that he came home smelling of gunpowder and sweat,
that he used blood money to buy dog food, he was a dog better than that. The problem was that
Clint had hoped he was a guy better than that too.

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