Disclaimer: I don't own AMC's "The Walking Dead" or "The Avengers," wishful thinking aside.

Authors Note #1: A quick little two-shot written for the crossover/alternative universe option for the USS Caryl's 'Mish-Mash' Fanfiction/Fanart Challenge. I told myself I wasn't, but I did. I am awful and have absolutely no control over my life. And hey, what else is new? - Prompt goes as follows: "Daryl is actually distantly related to Clint Barton (Hawkeye)."

Warnings: *Contains: fandom appropriate violence, adult language, adult content, deals with aspects of past abuse (childhood and adult), and rather blatant abuse of time-line and canon details regarding both Clint Barton and Daryl Dixon's background. Hopefully AMC and the Marvel gods will not be too offended.

Arcus

Chapter One

He grew up knowing two things for sure.

One, archery ran in the family.

And two, Clint Barton was an asshole.

Which is why he figured it made things pretty fucking awkward, considering they were currently back to back in the middle of a burnt out trauma ward, covering each other's six like they'd been born to do just that.

"Heard you joined the circus or some shit," he hollered, skipping the 'holy shit, where've you beens' in favor of brushing elbows with America's so-called finest. He took the nurses station at a dead run, coasting down the sloping side of the desk as Barton followed him, whipping the crowd of walkers into a froth as they stampeded down the hall after them.

"Oh, you heard that, huh?" Barton replied, eyes rolling as he popped off a shot with his bow, thinning the herd as some red-headed dame he'd called Natasha cleared the side of the desk and flipped right over them, landing in a defensive crouch a few meters away, breathing hard.

"So, what really happened?" he tossed back, coasting high on the smoothness of it all, not even having to warn him as Barton tucked and rolled, ducking out of the way with a graceful arch as the buck knife he'd pulled out of his waistband went whizzing between them. Sinking bone deep into a walker's eye socket before the dumb-fuck could creep up and set its teeth into the red-head's exposed flank.

"I joined the circus, actually."

He chewed on the edges of a shit-eating grin, feeling the ripples through the layer of blood and grime coating his face like a second skin. There hadn't been time to do anything else but drive. Judith needed those meds. That's why they'd chanced splitting up in the first place. He just hadn't reckoned on getting hemmed in at the wrong moment. Nearly taking a bullet and a shiny black arrow up the ass when Barton and the red-head came tearing down the block and through the shattered sliding doors of the dinky county hospital to ruin his day.

What was it, fucking old home week or some shit? Christ.

Carol was never going to believe this.

He tipped his chin in acknowledgement when the woman threw him a nod and appraising glance, busying himself with yanking a handful of bolts – his and Clint's – free before dancing back, using the desk as a barricade, the air above his right ear whooshing as Barton loosed another volley.

It was the three of them against the world and he was fuckin' loving it.

"What about you?" Barton asked, raising his voice to be heard above the racket as the crowd of walkers moaned, pushing against the overturned desk in a way that made his hackles rise. "Heard you went to jail or something."

"Nah, that was Merle. He did a stint in juvy and then some," he shot back, hooking a walker – something that might have once been a woman – by the collar and sinking his knife into its temple. It dropped like a bag of bricks, stinking and desiccated. He ignored the brief flash of a grocery-store name tag as it went down. He didn't want to know.

"And let me guess, you spent half your life hauling his stupid ass out of the fire every time they cut him loose, right?" Barton returned, tone whip-crack sharp and just shy of scathing as another arrow whizzed into the melee.

He fixed him with a glare from behind his fringe as Barton shook his head, an emotion, not pity, but perhaps closer to disappointment, coloring the back of his gaze as their eyes met unexpectedly through the fray.

"And you guys wondered why we left?"

He didn't say anything.

He didn't have to.

Silence had a way of speaking for itself in their family.

The desk groaned, metal bracings buckling. He hissed, clipping his shin against the table leg as the desk started grinding across the floor, slowly backing them into the wall as the weight of the walkers behind it multiplied. He ducked his nose under the bandana tied around his neck, the stench of old death and living rot almost unbearable in the close space.

"We need another plan," the woman piped up, smooth as silk and not a hair out of place. Talking like she was asking about the weather or some crap. Like, 'no big deal, but we are probably going to die. No rush or anything.'

"No shit, lady," he snapped, tasting the acrid back-wash of a bitter sweat as he weighed his options, frustration getting the better of him as he eyed the storage room just off to the left of the nurses station. He was so fucking close!

"But I ain't leavin', not till I got what I came for; you guys do what you want."

This was the last place on his list, the last resort. He wouldn't have chanced it otherwise. He needed those meds. Judith needed 'em and this was the only place in twenty miles he hadn't checked. And from what he'd managed to sniff out before Barton and his lady-friend rang the dinner bell, they hadn't been completely cleaned out.

Something unspoken passed between the two, an assessing nod, the tilt of a head, the slight rolling of a shoulder that indicated-

He blinked, taken off guard when, not two seconds later, Barton shouldered his bow, laced his hands together and gave the red-head a boost towards the ceiling. There was the quick wrench of screws, the screech of rusty hinges and she was in. Right up the frickin' air conditioning vent.

"Be right back!" she called, thigh-high boots waving lazily in mid-air before she squeak-squeaked through the vent on her elbows. His eyebrows arched on their own accord. There probably wasn't even enough room to sneeze in there and she was going at it like it was yesterday's news.

Fucking mental, the both of them.

He fixed the man with a questioning look, taking a swipe at a walker that was getting a bit too adventurous, trying to crawl up the side of the barricade just off to his right. But Barton just shrugged, inspecting an arrow he pulled from his quiver like this was nothing out of the ordinary. And really, considering the news stories he'd seen before Wildfire hit, he figured that was probably pretty damned true.

"She always like that?"

"Worse. There was this one time in Budapest when-" Barton began, only to be cut off when his ear-piece, some new-fangled piece you don't see outside of those shitty sci-fi movies on the tube, crackled to life.

There was a beat of silence before Barton replied, clipped and to the point as the corner of the door frame bit into his back. They were running out of time.

"An alternative route really isn't an option here, Phil," the man answered, knocking another arrow as the meaty shhlock-thunk of the first meeting its target echoed above the snarls and growls.

"Copy that, we're coming to get you," the voice – also apparently known as Phil - replied, fading off into static as some woman in the background yelled: "Form up, Barton's team needs an extraction."

They were shoulder to shoulder and down to three arrows each when they both seemed to come to some sort of unspoken agreement. Trading solemn glances as the walkers piled up, trying to crowd surf and crawl on top of each other as they pushed up against the overturned desk - reaching with bony fingers as they prayed for the desk to hold just a little bit longer.

"Whatcha thinkin'," Barton asked, the hint of that childhood Georgian drawl haunting the backdrop as the archer notched another arrow and held it tight against his ear.

"I could do with a change of scenery."

The grin he got in return hit him soul deep. Stinging in ways he figured seemed only natural, considering. Because he knew that smile, that shit-eating, smack-talking smirk. It was the same one Merle used to sling him back when they were just pups growing up in the sticks.

It was the kind of grin his brother used to flash right before he did something monumentally stupid and dangerous to boot. Something that would make him laugh manically the whole way down. Whether it was jumping from the hayloft with only their mama's worn terrycloth robe for a parachute or making a run for it after nicking a pack of cigarettes and a Playboy from the corner store when the clerk wasn't lookin', that smile had never failed to light up across his face.

Seemed like some things really did run in the family after all.

A/N #1: Thank you for reading. There will be one more chapter, so stay tuned. Please let me know what you think! Reviews and constructive critiquing are love!

Reference: According to Wikipedia, archery is the art, practice, or skill of propelling arrows with the use of a bow; from the Latin word 'Arcus.'