Thing is, Jason Mamoa as Clint Barton/Hawkeye isn’t going to be the same sort of Clint Barton/Hawkeye that we see Jeremy Renner doing in the MCU. He doesn’t need bland. He needs a different sort of mask.

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Clint Barton here learned to laugh with everyone because he couldn’t afford to stand out, even when he wanted to tell the people around him it’s not funny, these are people, not jokes. He’s a gangly, too-tall, always-hungry teenager who knows he’s not white enough for the circus patrons not to stare at. He’s good with a bow, the best, but it’s a side-show oddity to them. He’s dressed up in a caricature of Native American dress because the circus doesn’t care if he likes it or not, it gets people into the seats.

(He will never wear anything like that again, once he’s out. He wears hide-in-the-shadows gray armor and shirts that no one can quite put a color to and rich royal purple dyed jeans and combat boots and fuck anyone who thinks they can dress him up as anything he doesn’t want to be just so he can be allowed to eat.)

A teenager who bottles up all the rage, and smiles, and smiles, and when it finally explodes out of him, it’s because his so-called brother and the people he thought were at least marginally safe were really not. The people he learned to laugh with are the ones who turned against him. He’s still gangly and if he doesn’t have his bow, he’s not coordinated enough to keep himself safe.

Oh, he gets his blows in, and he leaves bruises and cuts, but they leave sprains and broken bones, and the first place he finds to help him is a nowhere little vet clinic where a technician teaches him how to set bones and splint them. Teaches him how to stitch cuts, because he’s not going anywhere with a broken ankle, and it’s good to have an extra set of hands with the animals that need help.

He makes his own way once he’s healed up enough to do so. Never mind that he’s maybe sixteen. Maybe seventeen. He finds his own way. Army or Marine recruiter might take him in a heartbeat if he had any records. Or had enough cash to get them made. Or, well, he’s got his talent with a bow, maybe there’s someone who can use that.

When SHIELD picks him up, he’s better than he was in the circus. He’s the best. There’s a lot before SHIELD that no one ever knows but him and maybe his handler, maybe the director. Nick Fury and Phil Coulson, and maybe Natasha Romanov, but who knows when he met her, or how much they know about each other? They’re never going to tell.

Maybe he knew Natasha Before, and maybe that’s why they’re both at SHIELD. Maybe she came in before he did, or they came in at almost the same time, or she came after. It doesn’t matter, in the end, because they are a team. They’re the best at what they each do.

(Maybe they met in Budapest, each of them running from their demons or chasing them down. Maybe Budapest was After and not Before. Maybe it was both, and they’re just not telling all the stories of Budapest.)

They’re not being a team when Natasha is assigned to get close to Stark, when Clint is sent off with Coulson after a hammer. They’re not a team when Clint is left watching over a possibly-mad scientist and a glowing blue cube. Nick says it’s to develop other skills, other connections. Clint isn’t sure why it’s stoking an old and he thought maybe forgotten rage, an anger that he covers up with a cheerful smile and laughter.

It’s not his loyalty that Loki sees. It’s that bottled and waiting rage. He knows that rage. He can use that rage. And it will bring all the plans of more than one being crashing down in ruins.

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… ok, I was not actually expecting to write fic already. But. This. Yes. Good.

(And oh, that’s perfect for Nick Fury! *adds to notes*)

@elegantmess-southernbelle