Hmm, well if you need more ideas on that front...I believe in the comics background Clint was physically abused by his father, so I don't know for certain, but I doubt it would be much of a stretch to assume he also abused Clint's mother. And then he killed himself and Clint's mother by drink driving. Also, I can imagine Clint seeing abuse of women and children in the foster system maybe, and if he joins a circus in this verse maybe abuse there, or maybe it's the circus where he learns that everyone is different, that's okay, and no kind of prejudice should be tolerated, or maybe he learns it from his last foster family. Is Clint deaf in this? Because he could have personally experienced prejudice with that.

As for Natasha, maybe she was abused herself and decided, like the kick as lady she was, that she was going to stop that from happening to anyone else? Or to solve the problems that fell on her? And if you're not cold in that kind of job, if you give your heart away, could you keep doing it, 24/7?

Ooo, maybe Clint show Natasha that it's okay to emotionally connect? That it won't stop her from doing her job?

*throws thinky thoughts at you like woah* feel free to throw them into the bin ;)

In my experience, parent- to parent abuse goes hand in hand with child neglect at least. I think Clint's father was an unpredictable and violent man, and Clint had learned early on to observe and make himself invisible, in one way or the other. His near - deafness was, in my headcanon, caused by beating. His father hit him, missed his back and hit his head, he got a head injury and nearly lost his hearing.

Not all foster homes are bad (professionally, I've seen both kinds - horrible ones and amazing ones,) and after changing two or three, Clint finally found some kind of family with all these diverse children, where foster mom was blind, and where differences were respected. I'm still thinking about Natasha, and what happened to her in her childhood, if her parents were killed and case was never solved (a la Kate Beckett, only without major conspiracy), or if she was perhaps adopted, and prior to her adoption she spent few years in - what's the right phrase - home for abandoned children? Not foster family, but a home. She would have ton of identity issues from that.

And exactly, if you don't know where to draw a line, this sort of job can eat you away. And that's the exact thing Clint should teach Nat. :D SHARED BRAINWAVEEES!

My headcanon is also that if Clint is deaf it was from being hit over the head as a child. (If he becomes deaf later in life I'm following the people who say it was from a mission, or he did it to himself on a mission to stop someone trying to control or 'unmake' him again.)

I know foster homes, and any kind of care home, can be anything from fantastic to hell. It think in this scenario it'd be nice to see it being an eventual foster home that teaches Clint how things can be better, because we're talking about him going on to want to help others right? Which is what fostering is pretty much all about :)

I'm up in the air about Natasha, but it would have to be something that causes her to drift a bit, to believe that showing emotions is pointless, but she still has to care to do the job and that there's something there in her for Clint to draw out...

SHARED BRAINWAVES INDEED :D

I'm up in the air about Natasha, but it would have to be something that causes her to drift a bit, to believe that showing emotions is pointless -

Many things can cause that, but I'm voting for emotional abuse. What if she was adopted by her close relatives? her father's sister who blamed her, a kid, for the death of her father? (and blamed her dead mother as well) In a situation where she couldn't get unconditional love, but only under some kind of condition, which eventually lead her into situations where she had to deny parts of herself, just to (emotionally) survive. Showing emotions could be pointless, because nobody cares if you're upset, or may even be dangerous because it shows you're weak.

or he did it to himself on a mission to stop someone trying to control or 'unmake' him again.

OH MY GOD. Knife through my heart! that's an awesome, but such heartbreaking idea. (needless to say, it needs to be written. Oh, the emotional fallout form this!!

I believe that would do it.

I read two, I think it was, fics on AO3 where Clint does that and oh my gosh, yes, straight through the heart *wibbles*. I know that one hears clearly only with the heart was one of them. It's Clint/Coulson, but oh, Clint.

Edit: there should be a Clint/Natasha type version of this, shouldn't there? *runs off to prompt*

Edited 2012-07-24 08:28 pm (UTC)

THERE SHOULD BE. OH CLINT.

I would seriously, seriously, spend entire days writing about these two. This didn't happen to me in YEARS. (Also, I find it hard to read about Clint or Natasha with other people, and that had happened to me only once before, with my mommy - OTP -- one that turned me into a fic writer and mad fangil. I have a bad case of - what should we call this?)

A bad case of...assassination? Compromisation? Promptathon Pen? Whedon Got Me Again? *grins*

Edited 2012-07-26 07:48 pm (UTC)