Marksman~Clint Barton

Nightmares

"I don't love you, Clint. I'm weak if I do."

Clint shifted in his perch in his room. He didn't like beds. He never had. They always felt.. constricting, like he could barely move. He had been asleep for only a few hours at that point, but it was rare for him to sleep through the night.

"I need to do this. You can't turn him in."

Barney's fist came down across young Clint's face, striking the first blow that wouldn't be the last.

"Barney, please!"
"I can't let you turn them in!"
"But it's wrong! Bubba, please! Stop it! You're hurting me!"
"I'm sorry, Clint."

Clint shifted again, almost falling off of the small ledge. He hated these nightmares. He hated the flashbacks. Since when has a nightmare ever been good?

The blows kept coming from everyone. From the Swordsman. From Trickshot. From his brother. From everyone he trusted most. He remembered the tears down Barney's face, the pain in his eyes, but all Clint felt was betrayal. His own brother was leading the charge against him.

He was beaten to death's door and left in a ditch to die, the circus moving on without him. They left him without a second thought, and they never came back.

Clint sat straight up in his perch, looking around wildly in a cold sweat, rattled from the flashback. It was gone. Everyone was gone. Barney was gone. He was used to it, at this point. Everyone needed to be abandoned one time or another, right?

He got off the perch, grabbed his bow and quiver, quickly going to the shooting range to shoot shit, obviously. He needed to calm down and blow off some steam. He wouldn't tell anyone, of course. Why would he? They didn't need to know his personal problems. He was just a sharpshooter. Clint arrived to the range and picked up a pistol, loading it and shooting it at some of the targets in front of him.

He wasn't going to be left behind again.