Essay --

Clint Barton's past is a bit of a tricky subject, but not because he has any trouble remembering what took place. Born in Waverly, Iowa, Clint and his brother Barney never got the chance to feel particularly at home, and certainly never got the sense of safety that might have come with it. The Bartons never had much to their name, and the kids grew up in a rural area with no real community or extended family, but those factors merely amplified the existing problems. Their father, Harold Barton, was an abusive alcoholic with a violent streak who regularly took out his anger on his wife and two young children. And while their mother, Edith, did not perpetrate the abuse herself, she showed no signs of caring and made no efforts to stop it. In a tragic - or perhaps, fitting - twist of fate, Harold and Edith Barton were both killed in a car accident caused by Harold's drinking, leaving both young boys in the hands of the state. Clint was only 8 years old when his parents died, and Barney 10 - young enough that they were still impressionable and largely defenseless, but not young enough that anyone was really interested in adopting, especially if the boys were to be kept together. For the next four years, Clint and Barney were shuffled from foster home to foster home. Their life became a veritable parade of new schools, new "homes," new "parents," and new "siblings." Most of whom seemed more interested in the checks than in Clint and Barney. But they never stayed in one place long before it was off to the next one. Sometimes it was nobody's fault - a caregiver realized they just weren't cut out for this, the checks just weren't enough to feed two growing kids anymore, or the foster family finally got pregnant and wanted to start the... ...ning, order, discipline and regulation, they actually seemed to have a higher tolerance for individual difference and mild insubordination than he'd ever seen from the military. Plus, the beds had mattresses! It was like he was Alice in Wonderland, stumbling down the rabbit hole or some shit. And outside of all that, being picked up by SHIELD was one of the few times in Clint's life that somebody really demonstrated some faith in him. It was the first time that someone gave him a shot that he probably didn't deserve, and let him live up to their expectations. He grew up hearing that he was a piece of shit who would never amount to anything, and he'd spent a fair amount of his life proving people wrong when they assumed as much, but he'd never really had someone take a chance on him. And that was... well, he certainly couldn't let them down after all that, could he?