My prompt for be_compromised’s Secret Santa 2012 was this gorgeous thing from sugar_fey: 1930s dustbowl AU. Clint and Natasha are members of a travelling circus. Dark/supernatural elements a la Carnivale optional but very welcome. The bones of this fic was what I started to write before my eventual gift, The Nature Of Dust, took over my brain.

Title: Dust to Dust
Author: inkvoices
Rating/Warnings: PG13 for language and adult themes; highlight to view: *a burial, cootch show, 1930s sexist thinking, implied/off-screen selling of sex (consensual), brief reference to past domestic violence*
Length: 1,360 words
Summary: The carnival stops for a stick of a lad, nothing but bones and bones are what he’s burying. Natasha doesn’t care what his story is. She’s not a goddamn fortune-teller. Clint is a farm boy that the carnival picks up and Natasha is one of the carnival’s dancers. Avengers/Carnivàle fusion.
Author Note: I’ve only watched half of Season One of Carnivàle so far, so if there are any spoilers they’ll only be for that :)

Link to fic: It starts with ashes to ashes, dust to dust