Work Text:
Clint wasn't going to lie, being on the run was shit.
He was hardly a stranger to running away. The first time around, he had been following his older brother's lead as they ran from one foster home to the next, comfortable in the belief that Barney was making the right call. The time after that was when he finally left the circus, running from the closest thing to a home he'd ever known, from the people who'd trained him and the people who wanted him dead and the blood on his hands that he could no longer ignore because they were practically dripping red.
Then he was running from SHIELD. Then he was running /for/ SHIELD. Then he ran away again because he didn't think he could deal with all the blood, and the death and the fighting anymore.
Then he ran away from that, because he couldn't live without it.
And here he was now, running because the world's law enforcement was out after him. In fairness, that bit was new to him - he was used to working in the shadows, being unknown, but now his face was on pretty much every database imaginable, since the Battle of New York. Of course, he was still ordinary-looking enough that in a cap and a hoodie, he could pass for a normal guy to your average passer-by, and he knew how to blend in, but still.
Being on the run was shit.
No archery, for one. That was a bit too conspicuous, and they'd taken his favourite bow when they'd thrown him in prison.
But, worst of all, no Lucky. Clint had made sure the dog was being looked after before he left, with a direct debit from his not-insubstantial-any-more bank account going straight to a lovely lady who’d offered to look after him while Clint was away ‘for a while’ - as a wanted man, he could hardly hang around in his old home. Still, missed the big lug getting him up in the morning by licking his face, or trying to comfort with little head bumps when he got low.
The looking over his shoulder the whole time? Constantly being on edge? Worrying about being followed as he moved from town to town, state to state, and eventually country to country? Hell, that was nothing. He’d done that his whole life. Maybe it was because he’d gone soft, got used to his home in Bed Stuy, his routine, but Clint?
Clint really fucking missed his dog.
As much as it sucked, though, the whole this was at least better than being locked up in prison, he thought. But this charade was getting worryingly familiar. He was always running, and he wondered if he would ever be allowed to stop - if he would ever be /able/ to stop.
Clint was currently wearing his cap, and hoodie, and he was peppered in bruises from his encounter with one of the local gangs. He was buying groceries in some little backwater town, trying to pass for no one in particular, and simply trying to get by. Today he was called Jimmy Johnson. Last week, it had been Carter Moore. The month before that, he’d been Jack Anderson.
He didn’t know who he was going to be next week, or the week after that, after he started running again, on to the next town.
If he was honest, he was starting to wonder who Clint Barton had ever been at all.