Today's unfinished fic is from our friend lar_laughs, who says:

Once upon a time, this was meant to be the third portion the New Mexico State of Mind 'verse. This was written quite a few months ago and I'm just not sure what I think of this idea any more. Mostly, I have no idea why Clint would go back to the circus.

(Remember, submit your unfinished snippets of >1000 words to bc.unfinished@gmail.com!)


As soon as she’s out of the shower, her phone rings but it’s not Clint. Of course, it isn’t Clint. She’s not that lucky in life. It is Fury with an assignment that puts her into play as soon as she hangs up the phone. It feels like copping out of her life but she doesn’t care. If nothing else, it gives her time to take some deep breaths and reevaluate what’s been happening lately.

When she gets back, there’s nothing in the bedroom that gives any indication that Clint ever lived there. Not even an old pair of underwear at the back of the drawer or a spare razor in the bathroom. A few minutes of conversation with JARVIS gives her the basics (he left the tower in the early hours the day after she started her SHIELD assignment, he only took a single bag with him, everything else he owned was in a box in Bruce’s lab) and she’s off and running once again.

“I hear Clint left something behind with you.” She studies the man as his head raises so fast it looks like he might almost have given himself whiplash. There are so many things she wants to ask him but she knows he can’t, or won’t, answer most of the questions she can find words to. It’s okay because all she really wants to see is the box.

“He did.” But the thing that Bruce puts on the table is not the box. It’s the metal gray box holding the two tiny hearing aids that should have been in his ears. “Said they needed adjusting. That he’d be back for them.”

The someday is implied but she’s not sure if it’s being implied by Bruce or by Clint. Or by her own bruised psyche.

She’s turning to leave, her throat too closed up for words, when he surprises her. “And he left you this.”

Her knees nearly give way when she turns around. Next to the box is his SHIELD issued phone. The phone that never, ever left his person, even when he was undercover. Next to the phone is a slip of paper. She reaches for it, reluctant to break the suspense. The not knowing is sometimes better than the knowing.

Tasha,

I hope you find some use for this.

There’s nothing else written there. She turns it over to make sure. Nine little words that mean nothing to her and yet... and yet.... She folds the paper, tucking it deep into her pocket for later. Now is not the time to memorize the slant of the letters or the fact that he used the name that is meant only for the two of them.

Instead, she pulls out the smaller slip of paper that fell from the folded note. ADMIT ONE is emblazoned on the top, followed by some pertinent information she can’t seem to digest. The only thought that is getting through this fog is that this is a ticket. For a circus.