A Gift From: findthesea
Type Of Gift:Fic
Title: i am my own savior, you are a companion
A Gift For: be_compromised community gift
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Brief mentions of abuse
Summary/Prompt Used: “This is not a beautiful life, Clint Barton.” (For the prompt: their lives were far apart, yet oddly similar: Clint in the circus, Natasha in the Red Room – both were made to perform at other people’s behest, and for other people’s profit. When they discovered choice, they chose…)
Author's Note: This is rooted a little more in comic canon than MCU canon, and it’s also technically an AU. But I started writing this when a plot bunny took shape in my brain and as with most things, it took on a mind of its own. Since you mentioned in your request that you didn’t mind letting the imagination run wild and free, I’m hoping you’ll enjoy!


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The sunlight dips slowly behind the perfect circle of the ferris wheel, two interlocking spherical orbs for just a moment entwined in perfect synchrony, before it drops into the watery grave of the Hudson while scattering remnants of its sparkle over the water like diamond-sized pieces of glitter. Clint bites down on his tongue and leans back against the brick wall of the alley he’s chosen to make his home in for the night, laying his bow carefully across his lap with two fingerless gloved hands. A barely-there chill of wind is winding its way through the air, but here -- enveloped in almost-darkness, mostly hidden from the world -- it feels stuffy and stagnant, like time has chosen to stand still.

He can’t quite remember when he started sneaking out after dinner, after meetings and after most of the performers had retired to their rooms for the night. At first, it had been a sense of thrill – there was a danger associated with breaking curfew, with wandering outside of the bounds of what was considered a “safe area.” After awhile, it became a habit, and soon after, a place of solace, somewhere he could hide without worrying about being bothered or catering to everyone else’s will; that alone was worth it for him to willingly give up a comfortable bed in favor of sleeping on the streets.

Clint looks up, catching the first few stars as they start to punch their way through the waning summer day’s slowly darkening sky. As far as New York City was concerned, Coney Island was far from magical – more dingy and touristy than glitz and glamour, even when the sideshows were hopping and the amusement parks were overflowing and the beaches were crowding. But Clint thinks it’s probably the most perfect home that he could ask for, and even if he’s not entirely happy here, with his job, with his company, well…he can move on. He always moves on, one way or another.

He shifts his weight on the ground and it’s only out of his peripheral vision that he catches it: a thin flicker of what looks like a shadow across from his knees. It disappears when he blinks and Clint takes a deep breath, holds, holds holds, freezing his body until his lungs start to burn. Two minutes at most, he knows, has perfected the art of survival in this respect, though he hopes his assessment won’t take that long. As if on cue, he spies it again – a quick-moving silhouette skimming along the edge of the earth that confirms what his earlier thoughts have suspected.

There’s someone else.

(There’s never been anyone else.)

Clint allows his chest to open, drawing in breezy air that tastes like early fall, white-knuckled fingers curling around the string of his bow. It’s not so much that he feels unsafe (and he’s had enough close calls, has had enough muggings and bad experiences to know what it feels like when something is going to happen) but he’s learned to never let down his guard, no matter what the situation is.

“You can come out,” he says quietly when the minutes ticking by still indicate no sound. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

The sight of what emerges surprises him – a girl no more than twelve or thirteen, pin-straight coppery hair complementing a round face and bright eyes. She’s dressed in a thin shawl and ripped stockings and while Clint knows he looks far older than his eighteen years, even by his own standards, there’s something about the girl’s form that makes her look like she should be older, wiser than her physical appearance suggests. He almost wonders if she is, until he sees the smallness of her hands, the way her thin legs knock against each other.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Clint repeats, this time a little more gently, and the girl looks at him with wide green orbs. He relaxes his grip on his bow, inching his fingers towards her and she looks at them but doesn’t reciprocate, instead moving to sit by his legs, drawing her knees up to her chest.

“Looking for a place to hide?”

He doesn’t know why he says it, why he feels like he knows that’s what he should say, but to her credit, she doesn’t seem too bothered by his what could be considered an intrusive question.

“Yes,” she answers, and the huskiness of her voice is betrayed only by the way her face changes as she says the words. “And you?”

Clint nods, moving his fingers along his bow without thinking, feeling the girl’s eyes on his body.

“Do you perform?”

Clint moves his head up and down again. “One of the acts at the Coney Island Circus Sideshow.” He points across the street where a sign is just barely visible, one half of the top torn down his hard face like a jagged scar. “The Amazing Hawkeye.”

The girl stretches out her legs before drawing them up again, placing her chin on her knees. “Amazing, huh? What’s your signature move?”

“Oh.” Clint feels a little startled, mostly because it’s a question no one has bothered to ever ask or care about. “The William Tell.”

“Hmm.” The girl makes a sound in her throat. “Isn’t that pretty standard for your type?”

Clint smiles. “Not if you’re shooting at an apple on someone’s head a hundred yards away while blindfolded,” he says, unable to keep the pride out of his tone, and the girl tilts her head in curiosity, as if she’s drinking his words along with his appearance.

“I’ve never seen an archer perform. Maybe I’ll come watch you.”

He feels his words catch in his throat, and swallows them down before they come up again. “You’d like it,” he says, giving her a sideways glance. He expects her to discontinue the conversation, to leave or roll her eyes in response, but surprisingly, she goes on.

“I perform for other people, too,” she says, picking at a hole in her tights, and Clint notices the dried blood that gleams dark underneath her long fingernails. “I’m a dancer at the Red Room.”

“Heard of you,” Clint says slowly, staring at her face, because suddenly, she does seem all too familiar, and he recalls stories from other performers about their experiences at the bar, his own from being dragged there too many times on too many occasions before he should have actually been allowed. She turns up her face.

“I’m sure you have,” she replies evenly, as if she’s reading the secrets he feels prickling behind his eyes, and Clint suddenly can’t help himself.

“You got a name?”

She looks a little wistful, as if trying to decide on an answer, as if trying to decide if she wants to answer. “Natasha,” she says finally. “I think. I don’t have a name, sometimes. Usually it’s just…girl. Or woman. Or…or whatever people want to call me.” She shrugs and Clint thinks she looks sad and not all at the same time. “You?”

“Clint,” he says and the words seem heavy on his tongue. “Clint Barton.”

“Hawkeye,” she decides, standing up, and Clint offers a small smile.

“Yeah.” He motions towards the poster in the distance again. “Hawkeye.”

Natasha dusts dirt from her shawl and wraps it tighter around her body, brushing her hand through a shadow of red. Clint hesitates as his brain works to formulate a response but she’s moving before he has a chance to form words, her shadow and her body disappearing from his presence in the same discreet way she had previously appeared – as if she was a magic act of her own, one that defied all conventions of logic.

-

He doesn’t believe she’ll ever actually come see him perform (it wouldn’t be the first and last time someone had promised him something they didn’t deliver on) and he means to pay her a visit of his own, but an act goes awry when one of his arrows breaks by accident. The commotion causes the crowd to complain and demand the return of their money, and also causes Clint to receive a few nasty backhands across the face.

And so their second meeting is not exactly what Clint would have preferred, but he doesn’t know anyplace else to go, and he also hasn’t expected her to return so quickly, if at all, figuring the first visit had been more of a one-off -- a mistaken meeting of someone trying to find their own place to lie low. When he hears the soft fall of footsteps behind him, he doesn’t bother to jump or turn around, instead continuing to dip his towel back into the bucket of cold water that he’s carried outside.

“I’m sorry,” she says softly, as if she senses the reason behind the way he’s hunched over, his bow laying by his side, his stance ragged. “Should I leave?”

Clint sighs. “No,” he says, wringing the bloody cloth out. “It’s okay.” He turns, letting her see the full extent of his injuries, the large cut on his cheek and the swelling taking place across his eye. Natasha makes a noise before pulling her lips together.

“Yeah,” Clint says tiredly, watching the way her gaze roves over his face. “A freak working for a freak show. I’ll fit in even more now.”

Natasha reaches up to touch his forehead, letting her fingertips linger over his darkening bruise. “Did they do this to you?”

Clint shrugs and drops the cloth back into the pail, sitting down more fully on the ground. “Who cares if they did? My living is performing for other people, making them feel satisfied. If I don’t do what I’m supposed to do, I get punished. Doesn’t the same go for you?” He observes her with his good eye. “Don’t you have a job where you work for other people’s gain?”

“For other people’s profit, yes,” she says, bending down to take off her shoes. The tights that she’s wearing today are footless, allowing Clint to see the cracks and scars that line her toes, and even though they still barely know each other, it somehow it feels like they’re sharing the most intimate of secrets. “Dancers aren’t always so graceful.”

“Smoke and mirrors,” Clint says, leaning back against the wall in his usual position. He doesn’t have to look at Natasha’s face to know that she understands what he means, and he hears her feet shuffle as she moves to sit beside him. Cracking open one eye, he finds her tucked almost into his side but not really, a thin barrier between trust and suspicion.

“What do you think is out there?” she asks after a long silence, and Clint frowns, letting his gaze travel to the street, to where the road meets the beaches and then what he knows is the open ocean beyond.

“The world.”

“I’ve never seen the world,” Natasha admits in a small voice. “Not much of it, anyway.”

“Overrated,” Clint says lightly, and Natasha manages a laugh.

“You sound like you know what you’re talking about.”

“Nah.” Clint shakes his head. “I’ve only traveled a little bit. Grew up in Iowa with my brother, did some time with other traveling circuses before I came to New York. Happened to be luck that my boss was hiring when he was, otherwise I probably would’ve left this place a long time ago.” He stops, making a face. “You don’t get many people who care about a regular old marksman when they have rides and hot dogs to keep them company.”

“You don’t get many people who care about dancers, either,” Natasha points out. “A few tourists, but nothing that makes this worth killing yourself for.”

“So why do you do it?” Clint finds himself asking as Natasha sits up suddenly, pinning him with a hard look.

“Why do you do it?” she challenges. “At least I don’t get abused.”

“But you’re governed by other people,” he argues back. “Same way I am.”

Natasha sighs in frustration, and there’s a look in her eyes that seems almost hurt. “I told you, I don’t know anything else. I thought you understood that.”

“I do,” Clint says hotly, his frustration mounting, unsure of why this conversation suddenly feels so personal. He looks down at her feet again. “I guess sometimes I wonder if it’s worth all the scars.”

Natasha seems to turn that thought over in her brain for longer than he thinks is necessary, toeing back into her shoes almost as if his words have ignited a need to draw back into herself.

“I never said it was worth it,” she says. “I said it’s my job. This is not a beautiful life, Clint Barton.”

He considers that, because it’s not like they’ve known each other for more than three days, but the thing is, he realizes she’s right. It’s not a beautiful life, not in the least. But it’s the only life he’s ever known, the only life he thinks she’s ever known, and there’s something strangely soothing about that. He turns to the sky and watches the stars through half-cracked-open eyes as she vanishes again, disappearing into the night as if she was never there at all.

-

Four days later, Natasha comes to him past midnight, thin blue ribbons parting her hair and make-up still smeared on her cheeks.

“I came to see your act today,” she says, taking her usual seat next to him. “The afternoon show. You were right about being good.”

Clint gives her a sideways glance, easier to do now that his face is starting to heal. “Why did you hide?” he asks, because he hadn’t been entirely stupid, he had known she was there the minute he spotted her red hair hiding behind one of the pillars. At the time, he guessed it was money, perhaps not wanting to pay the price of seeing a show that probably didn’t interest her. Now, he thinks, it’s probably something more personal.

“I didn’t want to be noticed,” she says, affirming his suspicions. “Is that wrong?”

Clint shakes his head. “No,” he says, knowing if it was him and if he had come to watch her, he would have done the same thing. Natasha sighs, as if hearing his thoughts.

“After so many hours in a day of needing to be something to someone…where I need to tell people when and how I do things…it’s nice when I don’t have to.” Her candidness surprises him but he doesn’t let it show on his face, leaning forward to trace a small hourglass into the dirty ground.

“We should get away from here.”

“Yeah, like running away,” Clint says sarcastically, running a finger through the dirt and blurring the crude drawing. When he raises his eyes, Natasha is looking at him with something akin to seriousness.

“Yes,” she repeats. “Like running away. I’m sick of being treated like some sort of object. Aren’t you?”

“Well, yeah. But…” Clint trails off, realizing he doesn’t actually have much to go on in terms of his rebuttal. He was planning to move on anyway eventually, it was what he did, and the only reason he hadn’t yet was because Coney Island was comfortable, it was comfortable and besides, the gig paid well, and sure, he hated being paraded around, but he also liked knowing that he had a constant routine where he could shoot his arrows and feel alive in a way that he couldn’t otherwise.

“Where would we go?” he asks, choosing to let his mind wander. Natasha shrugs.

“Atlantic City. I’ve heard that there are some openings for dancers there. Or maybe…” She swallows, her voice dropping, as if she’s figuring this whole conversation out as she goes along. “Maybe we don’t have to do this anymore at all.”

Clint scrubs a hand over his eyes and then the lower half of his face, where four days worth of stubble has materialized. “And do what, then? Become drifters? Scrounge for food like homeless people? In case you couldn’t tell, I like being able to take care of myself.”

“I took care of myself just fine before I joined the Red Room,” Natasha says sharply, as if his words are some sort of personal insult. “When I was my own person, when I wasn’t made to be someone else’s puppet.”

“And you also said you didn’t know the world,” Clint reminds her, putting his head in his hands. “I do, Natasha. I know the world, and it’s not as easy to live in it as you think it is.”

“Then show me how to live in it,” Natasha says, and she sounds exasperated. “You hate this too, so stop being so scared, and show me.”

He thinks about it the next morning, when he’s eating lunch at the long picnic table in the performer’s room, away from the eyes of others – traveling the world with Natasha, learning about the world with Natasha, performing for his own sake rather than the sake of others. He thinks about it until he can’t, until he feels like his brain might explode from the pressure, and when he gets a break between shows he sneaks out and heads to the Red Room, positions himself in the shadow of the doorway as smoke and music permeate the dingy bar.

There’s fluidness to the way she moves around the stage, clearly pandering towards the men who are leering near the catwalk that she’s claimed as her own. But unlike most girls who dance for profit, Clint notices that she’s not all sexual adoration. There are cracks, he thinks, chinks in her armor that she hasn’t yet figured out how to fully iron, fractures that show when she moves a certain way or locks eyes with a stranger, ones that seem to indicate she’s more little girl and less sultry vixen than the general public would be led to believe.

He thinks she catches him, has managed to look through the layers of darkness and pinpoint his hidden form, but when the performance is over and the bills have been collected and the catcalls have finished, she returns behind the curtain, and the stage goes dark.

-

“I came to see your act today,” he says later, although he knows by her look on her face that he doesn’t have to tell her. “You were right, you are good.”

They’re sitting across from each other; his usual position has been vacated in lieu of stretching out on the ground like a cat. She’s cross legged beside him, and it’s the most vulnerable of positions they’ve allowed themselves while in each other’s presence.

“Maybe one day we’ll be able to watch each other without hiding,” Natasha says, her words slightly disjointed, and Clint nods slowly.

“Maybe. I’d like that.”

“Me, too.” Her hand crawls along the ground until fingers snake into his, and he touches her back without even thinking about it, as if it’s a natural response, like something his body innately knows how to do.

“Do you like dancing?”

Natasha looks surprised, like the question has thrown her normally cool self off-guard. “Do you like archery?” she throws back, and Clint frowns.

“Yes,” he responds without hesitation, because while there are many things he’s not sure of, if there’s one thing he knows -- knows deep inside his bones -- it’s that he feels achingly lonely without the feel of a bow in his hands. Natasha stares at him for a long time, her gaze transferring from skeptical to gentleness.

“I don’t like dancing that much,” she admits with a carefully constructed edge to her voice, as if her words are a sharp knife that’s wrapped in thin tissue paper. But I do it because it’s what I’ve been told I’m supposed to do. And because it makes a living.”

Clint side-eyes her, feeling the breath leave his body. “That’s how you want to live?”

“Survive,” Natasha corrects sharply, jerking away from his hold as if he’s a surgeon who’s hit a nerve by accident. “Do you even know what it means to try to survive, Barton?”

“Of course I do,” Clint responds just as tensely, rubbing his eyes until they start to burn. “What do you think I’ve been doing for the past ten years, Natasha?”

She smiles, then, and given the nature of their conversation Clint can’t figure out why until she speaks, her voice dripping with something close to cold sarcasm.

“Living, of course.”

-

Clint forces himself to stay away for the next few days after their conversation, cautious about how much he lingers outside of the bounds of the venue, a part of him not wanting to be caught in another situation where he’s going to be forced to think about or talk about things that Natasha obviously wants him to consider.

Natasha, who he’s known for less than two weeks.

And yet, Clint realizes, that’s how this crazy life worked. He heard it all the time – people who met during shows or on the road, who bonded over the type of lifestyle you could only understand if you committed yourself to some kind of sick business that prided itself on ripping out the best parts of you, like that of a wild animal. Clint’s listened to the stories, indulged in the stories, but he never thought the rules of the nomad life would apply to him more than the constant jumping from place to place.

Maybe she’s right. Maybe he is scared, he thinks as he prepares for the nighttime show. He fixes his mask across his face, and the eyes that stare back from underneath the disguise are dull and resigned, as if even he can’t make himself believe the words. He squashes the thought and in a twist of irony, has the best night he’s had in years -- gets the biggest cheers he’s ever gotten, a slap on the back instead of the face, and a large pile of bills shoved into his right hand some hours later.

“Seriously?” Clint asks, unable to help himself as his boss turns his back and shrugs.

“Your work, your tips. Hell of a show, Barton.”

Clint stuffs the money in the pocket of his suit, pushing his collapsible bow back together as he leaves the stuffy office, struggling to shake the feeling that he can’t seem to parse. Part of him wants to go back and pull the covers over his head for the rest of the night, the other wants to leave town completely and never look back.

He sheds his costume when he gets back to his room and then hides the money in an old pair of shoes before slipping out the back door the careful and stealth way he’s mastered. When he gets to the alley, he finds that she’s already there, massaging what looks like new cuts on her toes. Somehow, he’s not really all that shocked, by the nature of her situation or the fact that she’s seemingly waiting for him.

“Hi,” he says hoarsely as he approaches, shoving his hands in his pockets as he stares at her bleeding feet. She looks up in surprise, red staining her palm.

“Hi.”

Clint lapses into silence in an attempt to push his voice out and Natasha arches a brow, as if she’s judging his behavior.

“I’ve, uh...I’ve been thinking about what you said. About leaving.”

“Yes,” Natasha says without raising her voice, her tone bordering on something that sounds emotionless, and he digs his feet into the ground. She doesn’t press him, and he knows she won’t, that she’s not going to do anything to goad him into an answer just because she wants to hear it.

“I don’t know if there’s anything for me out there. I’ve never really looked,” he continues, avoiding her gaze, as if he’s making some sort of confession. “But I’m starting to wonder if I shouldn’t try.”

“Well.” Natasha clears her throat, standing up more fully to meet his height. “That’s the thing, Clint Barton.” She reaches up and places a soft palm against the side of his face, as if trying to absolve the sadness he knows is masquerading in his gaze.

“You don’t have to try alone.”

-

He doesn’t have much to keep him company – his thoughts usually do that well enough – but he’s used to traveling light, a bow and his quiver and an extra set of arrows stashed in a bag that contains some clothes and other necessities. It was the nature of a circus boy, someone who made their living moving to other places, or who was hyper vigilant about being on the run. He thinks Natasha might travel even lighter than he does, her bag loose and barely filled, hanging off her arm where her coat sleeves droop. In her right hand, there’s a bus ticket that she clutches tightly, whose words he knows dictate their travels to New Jersey.

They would try to get work there, would try their hand at hustling or performing or odd jobs where they weren’t in control of anything but themselves. And if Atlantic City turned out to not be worth it, well, they would move on. They could always move on. There was a lot of the world to explore, there were railways in the Midwest and boats in Brooklyn and sky-high limitless chances for them to restart, rebuild, reclaim, even if Clint wasn’t quite sure how.

“Do you trust me?”

Natasha breaks the silence and stretches her hand forward, and he takes it slowly, curling his fingers around her palm. It’s warm and smooth, unlike his own calloused and blistered skin, but he thinks that if he holds it long enough, maybe it’ll heal some of the pain, smooth over his own cracks that he can’t seem to fix.

“Yeah,” he says quietly, meeting her eyes. “I trust you.”

The last days of August are dripping away with the speed of melted ice cream and it’ll be fall soon, he knows, colder air and closed-up shops and boarded up lifeguard perches and restaurants. It’ll be fall soon, and everything will change, and life will move on, and so will they.

The atmosphere dims its stage lights, afternoon bleeding into an early dark, and they walk hand in hand out of the alley, into the crowded streets and towards the unknown.