Notes: Oh, hello there! As you have probably guessed, we've had yet another burst of activity creating yet another universe because we went chasing some plot bunnies, okay? See, what had happened was, CC did her 907 universe with a tiny Scott, which inspired dragonwriter, a reader of ours, to write a universe with a teenage Clint and Logan. Which prompted us to talk about our own thoughts on Clint … and we decided that we, too, think he deserves better, but we want to start even younger and set him up with K instead of Logan because … K. (Plus, we wanted dragonwriter to have her own separate thing. She's got her teenage Clint, and we have a different direction.)

Anyway, we also have a universe with a teenage Noh meeting the X-Men instead of SHIELD for his introduction to Earth, which we will probably put up sometime soon… it's just that with me in the middle of an adoption process, the story of a tiny kid and an adoptive mother is really high in my thoughts, mkay?

So… here it is. The 495 Universe. In all its tiny tiny tiny Hawkeye glory.

Chapter 1: "Run Away to the Circus"

Clint sat up on the hill overlooking the circus with wide eyes as he took it all in.

He and Barney had always said that one day, they were going to run away and join the circus. They'd always said that. And here was the circus.

Clint stared at the big tents and the mob of people, his too-big shirt slipping over one shoulder. He didn't have anything that actually fit him, if he was honest. He hadn't had time when he ran away to grab anything more than what he was wearing. He just knew that he wasn't going to stay in that home any more.

Barney was getting older now, hard to place in homes, but Clint was still young. Six was still young. People still wanted kids like him, with a few freckles and his front tooth missing from where someone had knocked it out before it was ready to grow back in. His last foster dad had said that it was one of the kids on the playground who hit him in the mouth with a soccer ball.

It wasn't.

Barney wasn't six. Barney was old enough that he didn't have freckles. Barney was old enough that he knew every curse word in the book, and Barney had gotten them kicked out of their last home for knocking the guy's lights out.

Clint got a new home, but Barney didn't, and Clint wasn't sure who had been luckier.

It had taken Clint five days to decide that he was going to run away. The first day had been the best. After that, it had all been downhill, but when that first crash of a bottle being broken and not because it had been dropped echoed in his ears, Clint's heart was pounding so hard in his ears that he'd only heard every other word shouted after him as he ran and ran and ran.

Mr. Nelson was probably looking for him, and he was going to get dragged back to that place… but maybe not if he ran away. Maybe if he could hide in the bearded lady's beard, or if he could stow away in one of the magic boxes, maybe Mr. Nelson would go somewhere else.

But now that Clint was looking at it, he was suddenly unsure.

Before, he'd always run away with Barney. And if he went with the circus now, how was Barney supposed to know where he was?

Clint heard a noise behind him and startled, scrambling down the hill as fast as he could until his foot caught underneath him and he came tumbling down the rest of the way — on the opposite side of the hill from where the circus was. Green and blue and brown and a little bit of red all rushed up in front of him, and when Clint finally rolled to a stop, he had rocks in his elbow and dirt in his eyes, but he scrambled to his feet anyway, scrubbing the dirt away from his eyes so that he could see, because if it was Mr. Nelson, or if it was someone official to get him in trouble for running away again, then he needed to know about it.

But when he looked up at the top of the hill, there wasn't anyone there, and he shook his head to himself as he picked himself up.

Maybe he'd just heard nothing. His hearing still wasn't totally better anyway after his dad had screwed it up and than up and died on him.

His jeans were all scraped up now, and his elbow was pretty busted up, but he made his way back toward the circus he'd been looking at from on top of the hill. Probably safer if he was around a lot of people.

In his little boy imagination, he was sure he'd heard something, at least, and since it wasn't someone in a suit or Mr. Nelson, he couldn't help but think that maybe it was one of the lions. Or an elephant! Yeah, it was probably an elephant.

Clint was back to grinning to himself as he wandered around the circus. No one tried to tell him that he wasn't supposed to be there as he peered around the tents, looking at some of the posters and the games that he didn't have any money to play. There were a few other kids around who looked like they'd been roughhousing and playing around and who didn't exactly have strict supervision, so he might have just fit in, so that was good.

But now that Clint was there, he wasn't exactly sure who he was supposed to talk to if he wanted to run away to the circus. How… how did that work, anyway? Did he just walk up to the first carnie he saw and inform them, "I'm running away to you!"

That sounded weird. It was probably not that.

Maybe he needed to find the ringmaster. That was the guy in charge of things, so maybe he would give Clint a job. He didn't know what he would do, but he would do… things? Circus things. Maybe he could learn to tame a lion.

Clint didn't know where the ringmaster would be except for at the center of the biggest tent during the main show, so that was where he went, looking at all of the posters of the different acts.

He slipped into the big tent with a bigger family — lots of rowdy blonde kids, so people didn't look twice at him — though he slipped away from them after that and sat behind a different family, close enough that people wouldn't ask him questions about who he belonged to, but not close enough that the family would actually notice him.

Plenty of people filed into the tent, filling in the seats. Another family sat close by, a few couples, some guys who looked like they were just going to get drunk… Clint scooted over to the seat on the very end of the bleachers as a lady with some popcorn sat down nearby too and tried very hard to look like he belonged with the family in front of him now that there was someone close enough to notice that he might maybe be by himself.

The show was set to start soon, so the last of the people trickled in before the music started up, and Clint was entranced as he watched all of the acts come in for a dramatic entrance to start the show.

As the trapeze act started up, Clint started to lean back, grinning through the whole show as he watched the acrobats twist and spin high above them.

The acts were transitioning when Clint noticed that the lady beside him had pushed her big bag of popcorn toward him, and he blinked at her for a moment, sneaking a peek up at her to see if she was paying attention. It looked like she was just moving it aside so she could lean forward and watch the lion taming act coming in….

He looked over his shoulders and grabbed a quick handful, popping the whole thing into his mouth at once and chewing fast so he wouldn't get caught before he grinned and went back to watching the show. He hoped he would be able to steal a few more mouthfuls like that… he hadn't thought to bring any money or any food or anything and now that he'd had a bite, his stomach was reminding him just how hungry he actually was.

But it was hard to focus too much on his stomach when there was a cool show to watch. By the time the weapons master came out, Clint was really entranced, his grin widening even more as the man in the center of the ring twirled his sword.

But he was the only one impressed, apparently. "Sloppy," the woman next to him said under her breath.

Clint looked her way for a moment, his eyebrows high, but it didn't look like she was talking to anyone else. He bit his lip and turned back to the show, though now he was keeping half an eye on the lady beside him. The next time, the guy in the middle of the ring pulled out something that Clint thought looked cool, a complicated sort of maneuver with his swords. But the lady didn't look impressed at all, and she gave Clint a sort of almost knowing look. One of those, "Oh, you tried" that some of the younger kids would get at the group home.

"He's going to cut himself," the lady said, tipping her head with that same expression.

Clint blinked at her before he turned back in time to see that, even though the swordsman was moving in what looked like a fluid transition, doing a spin and sheathing his swords to move onto knives, there was a cut along his chin now that Clint knew to look for it.

He turned back to the lady, who had a little smirk, so she must have known he'd seen it too. He watched the man in the center ring toss knives at an assistant wearing bright colors — and not much of them — before he turned back to the lady beside him.

"If you don't think they're good, how come you're watching 'em?" he asked. Which… was not what he'd meant to say. Or, it was. Just not how he meant to say it. That sounded like he was telling her to go away. He frowned to himself and scrunched up his shoulders, trying to look smaller as she looked his way.

She shrugged. "Gotta sit through this one to see the next," she said. "Want some of the popcorn? I got too much."

Clint tipped his head to the side. He didn't think that was true, but he didn't really know what this lady was up to, so for now, he just nodded and took a handful of popcorn. "Which one do you wanna see?"

"The horses," she said with a little smile.

Clint nodded. "Okay," he said. "That's cool too, I guess."

"I'm a little critical of them too," she said as she leaned his way. "You've been warned."

Clint nodded. "That's alright," he said, still watching the lady carefully as the weapons master moved on and the clown act started up. Clint made a face and then took another handful of popcorn. "I would've liked more of that guy," he said. "He had a Robin Hood bow in the pictures."

"Maybe he'll come back out with it," she said. "Break up the act a little bit."

Clint nodded, still watching the lady out of the corner of his gaze as the show continued. She wasn't eating any more of her popcorn either, so he stopped too, because he didn't know what she was trying to do, and he didn't want to owe her anything. Sometimes, adults did that — acting nice so that you felt like you had to earn their favors.

But when the horses came out, he did shoot her a little smile all the same. "You going to call them sloppy too?" he asked.

She gave him a little smile. "Little bit. But this is one act that has no shortcuts," she told him before she took a moment to explain how they made it look like the horses were doing it all on their own. "They probably take better care of those horses than any other animal here."

"Even more than the elephants?"

"Elephants are tough," she said, tipping her head to the side. "But if a horse hurts their feet or their legs … that's it. No more horse." She turned his way. "And … if a horse gets scared, or if they're mistreated — they always run. Not so with the elephants."

"That's why I like 'em," Clint said, drawing himself up and puffing out his chest with his chin tipped out. "Big and tough and not scared of anything."

"They're fun to ride, too," she said, nodding.

Clint's eyes went wide despite his best attempts to look cool. "You've ridden an elephant?"

"You haven't? Young man your age? Thought you'd have at least one or two elephant rides under your belt."

Clint rolled his eyes. "Not me."

"Not yet then."

Clint tipped his head to the side as he considered her. "Maybe," he said. "I think I could learn to tame lions, though."

"Oh sure," she agreed. "They're big kitties deep down. You'd be great at it."

Clint shook his head at her. He still had no idea what this lady's game was, and he couldn't figure out if she wanted something from him, like a sort of advance scout for the circus. But then… she wasn't out there with the rest of them, and she was critiquing them…

"Okay, but you're not in the circus... are you?" he finally asked, curiosity winning out over anything else as he peered at her closer.

"No, I'm not a fan of having that many people watching me."

"I don't mind," Clint said, looking back at the horse show with a little smile. "I could be good at it, right? I could do maybe… maybe I could walk a high wire. I'm not scared of nothing. Not heights, that's for sure."

"I think … you're young enough you could probably master all of it if you put your mind to it."

He couldn't help but grin at her. "Really?"

She nodded slowly. "I don't see any reason why you couldn't."

His grin widened a bit. "Then... yeah. I can… I can do that," he said, though he trailed off a bit as he realized he'd bit about to tell this lady he was gonna join the circus, and that was definitely not a thing he should tell people if he didn't want them asking who he belonged to. He ducked his head and grabbed another handful of popcorn and pretended he was really, really interested in the finale of the show.

As soon as the people in the crowd started to disperse at the end of the show, Clint stood up on the bleachers to try and spot where the ringmaster was, but he couldn't see any of the performers when everyone was so much taller than he was, so he jumped back down into the bleachers and caught the lady watching him again.

She hadn't gone away yet, and Clint still didn't know what she wanted, so he just tipped up his chin at her and decided he'd had enough. "What're you doing?" he demanded.

"Not a thing."

"Well…" Clint scrunched his nose up at her; he hadn't been expecting that answer at all. "Well, fine," he said and tried to just slip into the crowd and try to find the ringmaster or somebody that he could talk to about running away to the circus. He didn't want to deal with the strange lady who shared her popcorn with him and seemed to be encouraging him with his circus dreams even if she wasn't actually part of the circus. She didn't seem to have a reason to help him, and it was weirding him out.

He was making his way around the big tent, toward where he figured the performers would be and away from most of the crowd headed home or getting more cotton candy or beer or whatever, when he heard, clear as day, a sort of gravelly, "There you are."

He spun around to see that Mr. Nelson had finally caught up to him, and it looked like he'd found wherever it was they were selling the really cheap beer, too, because he was worse than when Clint had run away, staggering every other step and looking even madder than before.

For just a second, Clint's eyes went wide, and he darted away, around the tent, as Mr. Nelson ran after him, breathing out threats with every step on what he was going to do to Clint for making him come all the way out to get him.

Barney had always told Clint that he had to give it back hard, though, so when Mr. Nelson caught up to him, Clint bit his hand before he could really get a solid hold of him to start dragging him back to the house that wasn't actually home. That was only going to get him in more trouble, he knew, but he couldn't take it lying down or Mr. Nelson would get worse.

But even with as much as Clint gave it back, Mr. Nelson was much bigger than he was, and after he shook out his right hand, he grabbed Clint by the shirt with his left and then, when Clint was stuck, grabbed his arm as well. Clint flinched and closed his eyes, ready for the hit when he saw Mr. Nelson draw his hand back — but then someone stepped forward and caught his hand, and Clint stared wide-eyed at the lady who had shared her popcorn with him.

"You need to stop before you get hurt, mister," she said in a perfectly even tone that somehow sounded even more dangerous than if she had been shouting. It had Clint holding his breath, unsure whether to tell her to get out of there before she got hit too or to wait and see how dangerous she was too. So, he stayed quiet, watching the two adults even as he tried, unsuccessfully, to get Mr. Nelson to let go of his arm.

Mr. Nelson narrowed his eyes at the lady and then sneered. "Stay outta this," he snapped at her. "Ain't your business."

"If you think I'm going to let you hit a kid, you're out of your damn mind," she asserted. "Back off. Sleep it off. Whatever it takes."

"Get lost," the man sneered at her. "It's not your business what I do with 'im."

She looked over to Clint and then, in a quick move, pulled Mr. Nelson's arm behind his back, yanking his hand up between his shoulder blades until it was clear something was going to break if she went any further. "Is he always this nice?" she asked Clint, still in that same even tone that sounded like trouble.

Clint looked wide-eyed between Mr. Nelson and the lady and very slowly nodded. "Uh-huh," he said, finally settling on that as the safe answer. This lady sounded dangerous, but she was also a lot smaller than Mr. Nelson, and he didn't know if he'd get in trouble for taking her side when Mr. Nelson and the lady finished their pretzel impersonation. After all, Clint knew well and good that Mr. Nelson wasn't going to stay stuck like that. No matter how much he deserved it.

But if the lady knew that she was smaller or that Mr. Nelson wasn't afraid to hit a woman, she didn't show any signs of it. She leaned forward until she was almost even with Mr. Nelson's shoulder to whisper, "You need to apologize to him. For everything you've done. And make it sound pretty."

"You're crazy," Mr. Nelson spit out.

"Do you really want to have your backside handed to you by a woman of my size? Really?"

Clint almost laughed at that, but he remembered not to at the last second, because he was pretty sure Mr. Nelson would be even madder if he thought Clint was laughing at him.

Mr. Nelson tried to twist his way out of the hold but wasn't going anywhere. "Stay out of this, lady. It ain't your place."

"Are you… are you trying to tell me my place?" she nearly hissed. "Do you want me to stay out of it?" she asked Clint, twisting Mr. Nelson's arm a little harder as she did so.

Clint watched the whole thing with his eyes still wide. He really didn't know what to do, because he was already in trouble for running away, and Mr. Nelson knew where he was. He wanted to tell this lady that he didn't want her to stay out of it… but he knew that Mr. Nelson would remember him speaking out and make him pay for it later.

"Go hide," she suggested.

That was the first thing that had happened that made sense to Clint, and he nodded quickly, taking off to find a cart that was selling some snacks that he could hide behind. It was all shut down for the night, and no one was there, but it had enough space that he could run in any direction if Mr. Nelson came back.

As for Mr. Nelson, as soon as Clint had started to run, he was swearing, but it wasn't until Clint was a solid distance away that it got more creative and more painful a moment before the woman let him go and stepped back from him — only to this time start to lay into him hard.

None of the carnies tried to stop it, either, especially not when the woman explained that this guy had tried to put his hands on her. One of the vendors even offered her something heavier to hit him with, but she knocked him down and out easily enough on her own.

With that taken care of, she headed down the path Clint had run and found him easily enough behind the cart, where he was watching her warily, though with a little bit of awe as well.

"He's gone now," she told him. "And he'll be in the hospital for a few days."

"Oh," Clint said, watching her carefully. "Okay."

"I'm sorry you're with such a creep."

Clint wrinkled his nose and drew himself up a bit. "I'm not with him," he said. "He's not my dad."

She nodded at that. "Well, good." She paused and frowned. "So. Now what?"

"I dunno," Clint said.

She looked over her shoulder, then slipped down to sit cross legged in the grass. "What do you want to do?"

"I dunno," Clint said. "I guess I was gonna run away to the circus. That's what people do, right?"

"Sometimes," she said, nodding. "Sometimes they just run away."

"I can't run away to this circus though," Clint pointed out. "Because I got busted, so they'll just come get me."

"Well … I've got a truck. And I was headed north. If you have nowhere else to go, maybe …"

Clint frowned at her for a moment with his eyes narrowed. "Why?"

"Because I don't like people picking on kids," she said. "It makes me mad."

"Okay, but he's gone now," Clint pointed out.

"For a few days," she said. "But if you don't want to run away, I won't try to talk you into it."

Clint wrinkled up his nose. "But… I do? I … I am running away."

"Then let me try to keep other guys like that idiot from taking advantage." She shook her head. "There are a lot of them. And I have no patience for guys like that."

Clint tipped his head to the side and then very slowly nodded. "Okay, I guess."

"You're not the only one running away, you know," she said with her chin tipped up.

For just a moment, Clint's eyes widened even more, and then everything about the way he was standing shifted as he nodded. If she was running away, then she shouldn't have to do it alone. "Yeah, okay," he said, this time more seriously. "Yeah, we should go."