HAWKEYE

Hawkeye

Giant size #1, backup story by Adam Di Stefano

One of these days, some genius psychologist is going to come along and figure out exactly why I’ve done everything in my life the way I’ve done it. He’ll tell me I have some catch-all complex that’s deeply rooted in my childhood, and the whole thing is my mother’s fault. Until that day, the reason I do the things I do will remain a mystery to everyone in the world, including myself.

I was walking down Hollywood Boulevard at around midnight. Now you see, why would I do that? Consciously, I had no idea. Unconsciously, still not a clue.

Okay, so I was walking down the street, letting all the bars and nightclubs pass me by, and I was basically in a world of my own until I almost ran someone over.

I looked up and was face to face with a cute young lady who was wearing far too little for the cool night air. She had shoulder length blonde hair that I could have sworn was a wig and cute feminine features that gave me the impression that in any other scenario, this girl would be too young for me. She had an attractive figure, but wasn’t drop dead gorgeous. Then again, if you’re a lonely red blooded male, walking down Hollywood Boulevard at midnight, and you see someone with her body, wearing what she was wearing… let’s just say she might as well have been a supermodel.

“Hey, Sugar. What’s a handsome guy like you doing walking all alone?” she asked me with a sultry voice that I just knew couldn’t be her normal voice.

The whole thing felt like a scene out of Pretty Woman, only I’m not Richard Gere and I wasn’t driving an expensive car.

To my utter amazement, I responded to her with, “Even handsome guys have lonely nights, pretty lady.” God was that awful.

She giggled and drew a little closer to me. “You know, I could probably help you with that.”

That’s when, finally, warning sirens went off in my head. I was trying to have a serious relationship with Gayle, what was I doing? I scoured my head for ways to get out of this mess that would leave me with the least amount of difficulties. Finally, my quick thinking paid off, I plunged a hand into the pocket of my jeans and pulled out a rather thin looking wallet. I opened it and examined the contents making sure Blondie could see exactly what was in it, too. Let’s just say she lost interest pretty quick after that.

One crisis averted.

I continued my walk down the street until I got to an intersection and that little orange hand was lit, so being the law-abiding superhero that I am, I stayed put even though I couldn’t find a trace of a car.

The orange hand turned into a white stick figure guy who got frozen in time so that he is now perpetually stuck in mid-step. I took to the crosswalk without a care in the world, when suddenly I had a near death experience. Some crazy kid in one of those modified imported cars, with the loud music and the overly bright stickers, came roaring down the street. I jumped out of the way of the car and was lucky to escape with my life. Well, it wasn’t that bad, but it was close!

One day I’m going to write my memoirs and apart from the chapters about Dr. Doom, Ultron and the Masters of Evil, I get the feeling they’re going to be devoted to the perils of walking along big city streets.

Lost in my thoughts as I was I kept walking, taking a few turns here and there. I don’t know why my mind was wandering so much, but the walk felt good. It felt normal. How often does a guy who wears purple pajamas and fires hi-tech arrows at bad guys for a living get to say those words? Not often. That’s why I didn’t think too much about it and just enjoyed the experience.

After having walked for quite some time, I decided to stop before I got lost and had to call back to the compound and get a Quinjet to pick me up. That would have been embarrassing.

I took a look around and found the perfect spot to take a rest. The place looked like a run of the mill Americanized Irish Pub. The sign on the front of the building read “O’Boyle’s.”

I walked in and was greeted with the friendly atmosphere of a fine drinking establishment. The air was thick with cigarette and cigar smoke. The middle of the room was taken up by a couple of pool tables. All around were round tables and at the far side was the bar, complete with bar stools and regulars.

I walked up to the bar. No one gave me any funny looks or anything, after all these were my people. The average joe. I get the feeling if I had come into the place as Hawkeye, the reaction would have been slightly different, but I didn’t. I went in as Clint Barton, jeans and T-shirt kinda guy.

I took a seat at the bar next to a group of three guys who were having a passionate conversation about what I could only surmise was football. At any given time, there was at least two of them speaking simultaneously so it made it nearly impossible to pick out the words of their conversation as well as almost any other words in the room.

The bartender walked slowly towards me, obviously in no rush. He was a middle-aged man with dark brown hair. Or at least what was left his hair. He was at an advanced stage of hair loss and had almost reached the point where people start referring to you as bald. It seemed he tried to make up for the loss of hair on his head by cultivating a really long moustache.

He wore a white t-shirt that stretched over his fairly large abdomen, and over his right shoulder was a white towel. The quaintness of the image was almost too perfect.

“What’ll it be?” he mumbled to me after it had taken him about two days to get to my spot.

I put on my most dazzling smile and said, “Surprise me.”

The guy’s facial expression didn’t even twitch. Not a chuckle, not a smile, not a grin, nothing. The guy looked more apathetic than a depressed Quicksilver.

He turned away from me, grabbed an empty beer mug and filled it from a tap. As he handed me the mug, a single thought kept popping into my head, “when was the last time this got washed?”

I pushed aside my doubts and took a sip. I paused. “This is really good,” I said, “What is it?”

Finally, the guy beamed and I began to regret asking the question. He went into an incredibly long and tedious story about how he and a few of his friends had opened up a microbrewery, the name of which was too foreign for me to pronounce much less spell. I think it may have been French, or maybe German. It could very well have been Japanese.

Suddenly, much to my delight I was saved from my plight when a big commotion started up to the left of the bar. The ‘tender stopped twisting my ear long enough to go see what the hub-bub was all about. As for me, I just stayed put.

Well, that lasted for all of two seconds as howls of laughter came from the left side of the bar which every patron of the room was now crowded around except for me. My curiosity got the best of me, so I grabbed my beer mug and went to check out the scene. I’m lucky I’m pretty tall, I was able to see from the back of the small crowd.

In the middle of the circle of people was a guy who was obviously the center of attention. He held a bottle in his left hand while slurring out non-sensical words and pointing at people with his right. He was swaying back and forth and in grave danger of falling when you consider the fact that his boxers were down around his ankles.

Everyone was having a good chuckle at this poor guy’s expense. Okay fine, so was I, but I didn’t feel good about it.

That’s about when things got out of hand. The drunk guy chucked his bottle at one of the more amused patrons. Luckily, his aim wasn’t too great and the bottle shattered against the laughing guy’s knee cap. His howls of laughter turned into a howl of pain and he started jumping around on one leg. Some of the patrons didn’t know what to make of this turn of events, while the less sober ones just howled louder with their laughter.

The hyena who had been hit stopped hopping around and started scowling, and then he made his way towards the pantless wonder with a look in his eye that I’ve seen on the face of too many bad guys. He wanted payback.

Despite my misgivings, my heroic sense kicked in and I made my way through the crowd that I was now realizing was only about twenty people and stepped between the Hyena, as I had begun to think of him, and Mr. Winky.

“Get outta the way,” the guy said stopping about two feet in front of me.

I could smell the alcohol on his breath, and I’m not really sure why that surprised me. I was in a bar after all.

“Look, you don’t wanna do this, pal,” I said putting a hand up trying to be as diplomatic as I could. The beer mug was still in my left hand.

“Get outta the way, Blondie,” he said with his teeth gritted.

“Look, man, this isn’t right. Are you really gonna hit a guy with his pants down?”

I got a hand of applause and a chorus of laughter for that line. I guess when you’re drunk just about anything sounds clever.

“I’m going to teach that boy a lesson,” Hyena said pointing past me at the still exposed drunkard.

I didn’t want to hurt anybody, I really didn’t. I searched my mind to try and figured out what Cap would do in a situation like this and the only thing that kept coming back was Cap wouldn’t get into a situation like this.

Apparently, I had stood there thinking for a moment too long because Hyena shoved me backwards. I stumbled and spilled most of my beer on the floor.

“Are you gonna make me go through you, Blondie?”

I was getting royally ticked off. First of all, I never have appreciated being called Blondie. Second, that beer was freakin’ expensive, coming from a Puerto Rican microbrewery and all.

I breathed in and out trying to calm myself. It was so tempting to take a swing at the guy. With my skills he would have been on his back in less than a second. But there had to be a better way to handle this mess.

“Fine, have it your way,” Hyena continued. HE took a swing at ME. Every instinct I had told me to shift my weight grab his arm in mid-swing and use his own strength against him by sending him over my shoulder and into the wall about ten feet away. But I didn’t. Instead, I let the punch fall.

My head snapped to the left and I took a step backwards which pretty much emptied what was left of my beer. I caught a glimpse of Hyena, out of the corner of my eye, shaking off his sore knuckles. I turned my head towards him and rubbed my swelling jaw..

“Trust me, pal, I’ve taken hits from a lot more than the likes of you in my time. You really don’t want to do that again.” It was taking every ounce of my self-control not to smack that guy across the bar.

The naked guy behind me picked that moment to start laughing hysterically. In the mood I was in, I had to hold myself back from turning around and knocking him out myself.

Hyena snapped and made a lunge for the guy behind me, I caught him by the waist and again tried to talk reason into him.

“C’mon man, he’s not worth it! If he wakes up and ends up remembering what happened he’ll have a lawsuit on you before you can say pecker!”

Nope - that sure wasn’t working. He tried swatting me away and still kept making towards the guy in his birthday suit.

Desperate times call for desperate measures, so I did what had to be done. I spun the guy around so that he was facing me. I did it so fast I think his head was still spinning when I grabbed him by the collar. I tried to avoid inhaling through my nose as I moved to within four inches of his face.

“Maybe you’ll understand this in your own language,” I started menacingly. “If you cut this out now, I’ll… buy you a round!”

The guy’s eyes seemed to light up, and all trace of homicidal anger disappeared from his face. I let out a sigh of relief and began to wonder if that kind of tactic would work on Dr. Doom.

The bartender apparently had been holding his breath the whole time, because when I looked at him he was breathing heavily and his face was blue.

I put an arm around Hyena’s shoulders and led him back to the bar, impressed with myself. Sure, maybe I didn’t save the world, but I sure saved a drunk naked guy a world of hurt… and without throwing a punch! Alright, so I’m not ready to quit the Avengers to become a diplomat, but it still worked out okay.

“C’mon, man, the bartender has some really great Swedish beer.”

Hawkeye

Giant size #1, backup story by Scott Chamberlain

2030 A.D., near Jefferson City, Missouri.

Ka-pow!

The sound repeated itself several times as more shells thundered into enemy ranks. The tanks fired three more salvos before the infantry was given the order to attack. Thousands of troops wearing fatigues emblazoned with the USAC* symbol charged forth, yelling at the top of their lungs.

*United States of America and Canada

The enemy fired back. a hailstorm of lasers and energy beams pummelled the Americanadian forces. Well disciplined, however, they continued to surge ahead and engaged the enemy hand-to-hand.

The enemy were blue-skinned Kree, renegades trapped on Earth after a failed invasion by the Kree Empire some six years ago. The Kree had maintained several enclaves around the world, the largest of which was centered in the western third of North America.

The Americanadians fought with rifle an bayonet. The toll of battle was high for both sides, neither army willing to retreat.

"Avengers Assemble!" came the cry. Earth's mightiest heroes had arrived at last. A ragged cheer went up from the soldiers' ranks.

The Avengers; Scarlet Witch, Red Devil, Captain America, Black Hole, Hawkeye and Moon Knight threw themselves into the fray. A hail of enemy laser-fire shot in at the Avengers as they arrived, but Black Hole's gravatic powers merely deflected them all.

"Hit the enemy's center!" Cap yelled out. "Help our boys to drive a wedge between the two halves of the army. Break them up!"

The Avengers complied, with a bit of grousing from Hawkeye. "We break 'em in half, old man, and then we've got baddies on either side of us? Brilliant plan!" Hawk's sarcasm as dripping. "But don't worry, me an' my arrows will save us all, as usual.."

"Shut up!" Captain America yelled back. "Get to work!"

"Now's not the time, Hawk." Moon Knight said, while calmly braining a Kree with a thrown truncheon.

"Yeah, yeah..." Hawk muttered, but went about his work, letting loose with several blast arrows. Eventually though, Cap's plan did work and the Avengers drove a wedge into the enemy and the Kree were forced to retreat to the sanctuary of nearby hills.

"We ought to go after them..." Hawkeye observed, afterwards during the quinjet ride home.

Moon Knight took off her mask, letting her blonde hair fall around her. "You know better than that, Nick. We follow them into those hills, the advantage shifts to them. Remember what we saw last time?"

"Oh, shut up, Ashley." Hawkeye replied. "They can't have a Super Sentry with them everytime. There aren't enough of them in the world. Who made you team tactician anyway?"

"Enough!" Scarlet Witch yelled, exasperated. "I swear you two would still find things to argue about, if the day were 30 hours long."

"A little peace and quiet, please." Cap asked, and continued piloting the quinjet.

Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch, Moon Knight, Black Hole and Red Devil sat in the conference room, awaiting the mission debriefing. There was some idle talk between Black Hole and Red Devil as they waited for the conference to start, but otherwise icy silence reigned.

After about 15 minutes that seemed more like a couple of hours, The door opened. In strode Captain America, holding the door for the other person entering.

That other person was an older man. He rolled up in a wheelchair. His hair was a pale gray, a few lines of age were beginning to crisscross his face and bare hands. But his eyes were sharp blue and alert. They remained in the prime of youth. So sat Clint Barton, as his severed spine forced him to perpetually do. He shuffled papers in his hands, notes for the debriefing, which he'd abandon 5 minutes into it and work by the seat of his pants. Which as always was when Clint was at his best.

Though confined to a wheelcair, and having given up his Hawkeye identity to his son Nick, Clint still served as tactical advisor and Chairperson for the team. He didn't go into the field anymore, naturally (Cap served as field leader for the team).

Clint viewed the situation in the room and sighed. The team was fractured, and his own two children were largely responsible.

He eyed Nick and Ashley. Ashley sat at the far end of the table, away from the others, idly flipping a moon dart with one hand. Nick stood at a window looking out, his arms crossed and his back to everyone else.

Clint took a deep breath. He looked up to Cap, who shrugged, took a seat, and pulled down his mask. John Walker wasn't looking any younger these days himself. His old yellow crewcut was mostly gray now, and he'd taken to wearing a full beard several years ago. Clint still thought he looked ridiculous with it and reminded John of that fact every so often.

Clint eyed John in his Captain America costume. He was reminded of the day nearly 5 years ago when he had first tried to coax John into wearing it...

"Listen John. It's got to be you. You're the only one who can do it."

"Me?" he replied. "Why?"

"Because you've been Captain America before. You know what the job requires like no one else."

John scowled and shook his head. "Sorry. I already have an identity. I'm USAgent. Been him for years. I like USAgent."

"John." Clint said in a stern manner, holding the other man's gaze. "I'm going to be brutally honest. The world doesn't need USAgent. It needs Captain America. It needs someone to wear the suit, even if he's not the original. The world needs the symbol, so that it can see that a chance of hope and freedom still exists in the world today."

John was silent a long while. Clint watched him pace the room. "Yeah," he said finally. "Maybe. But I failed miserably my first time as Cap."

"That was then. You're wiser now. You're better. You're ready."

"But-"

"No 'buts'. Steve Rogers is gone. It has to be you."

John had ultimately rejected that first plea to take up the Cap identity, but three months later he finally, reluctantly, accepted.

Cap cleared his throat. Clint snapped out of his reverie and came back to the present. The assembled Avengers were all now staring at him, waiting for him to begin.

"Ah.... Well." He threw his notes aside and looked at everyone. "I had a lot of things I wanted to go over about today's mission. You know what though? Forget it. You guys did good today, on the whole."

There was stunned silence. Clint had always had something to take them to task over. Only Captain America was unsuprised, he wore the slighest of smirks. Though had anyone actually noticed it, they would have caught a hint of sadness on his face as well.

"So, that's that." Clint continued. "Now, if you would all excuse me, I need to have a private talk with Hawkeye and Moon Knight."

Red Devil, Scarlet Witch and Black Hole departed, but Cap remained in his seat next to Clint.

Hawkeye sat at the conference table with his feet propped up, hands behind his head. He eyed Clint cooly. Ashley clicked her tongue at him and looked away.

"So, Dad... what this time?" he asked. "Another lecture about how we're not team players? We're dragging the team down? No Avenger's Spirit, rah! rah! rah?"

Clint sighed. "You don't need me to say all of that, Nick. You already know. I do wish at least you and your sister would get along."

"Not likely." quipped Moon Knight.

"Shut up, Ashley."

Clint got red in the face. "Both of you shut up! For God's sake you're grown adults, not kids. I shouldn't have to talk to you like this."

The twins looked momentarily subdued. Hawkeye though, looked for another target instead. He eyed Cap. "What's he doing here still? I thought this was a 'family' chat."

"It is-" began Clint.

"But it's also Avengers business," finished Cap. "And as field leader, I need to be here."

"Field leader?" Hawkeye said. He laughed out loud. "Field leader, he says! Man, you couldn't lead a blind lady across the street! Old man, if I were field leader, the Kree woulda been wiped off the face of Earth by now."

"Pffff..!" Ashley breathed, rolling her eyes at Hawk. "Nick, you're nothing but a follower with a big mouth. You know as well as I which one of us took charge when we got in tough scrapes as kids. It wasn't you, bro."

Hawk ignored her, focusing his wrath completely on Cap, gritting his teeth in a nasty smile. "Captain America, huh? Wanna know something? I know your dirty secret. You think no one knows you're a fraud? I've known for about a year now you're not the real Cap. Just a second-stringer brought in 'cause the real one was gone. Musta been slim pickings if you're the best that could be come up with.

Cap exploded. He stood up, slamming a fist down on the table, which cracked under the stress. "You little piece of crap! If you weren't my best friend's son, I'd shove those words right back down your throat with my fist!"

"Don't let that stop you," said Hawk, rising. "Anytime you think you can take me, step right up."

"Sit down, boy!" yelled Clint. Nick glared at him, but sat down. "You too, John. Geez, look at you. You're no better than they are, I swear." He gave Cap a brief smirk. Cap blushed quickly and sat.

"It doesn't matter if John's not the original Cap." Clint continued. "He's the only one there is now and he deserves some respect. He was out there proving himself as an Avenger before you two were born."

Ashley thought Out there proving himself a rogue and maverick, from what I've heard, but she thought better of saying so.

"Anyhow," Clint went on. "This all has nothing to do with why we're here. You'd better respect Cap here, because effective immediately, he's taking over my job as Chairperson. I'm leaving the Avengers. You two are too old for me to coddle anymore. From now on, your status as Avengers is in Cap's hands."

Dead silence reigned. Ashley's eyes went wide. Nick went pale, looking like he had just been kicked in the privates. He sputtered like an engine out of gas for a moment, but could think of nothing to say.

Ashley however, after a thoughtful moment, spoke. "Why, dad? You love the Avengers more than anything, it's been your life since you were a kid."

Clint looked at his daughter with a pained expression. "You're wrong, Ash. I love you kids more than the Avengers. Your statement just now adds more proof that I need to leave. It was a horrible mistake for me to try to be your chairman first, and father second. I want to spend my remaining time trying to fix things with you two."

Ashley's eyes widened more. Her breath came quickly now, dreading to ask the next question, but refusing to leave it unsaid. "Wh-what do you mean, your remaining time?"

Clint looked sadly between his two children, then at Cap, who bowed his head, unable to meet his stare. Clint breathed deep. "I've suspected it for a few weeks now, but I just got the official word from Dr. Foster yesterday. It's cancer. Terminal, she caught it too late... I'm dying."

The room fell to shocked quiet. Finally, Nick regained his voice. "How long...?" he managed to croak hoarsely.

Clint shrugged. "A couple of months, maybe three the doctor thinks."

Silence again. Tears welled in Ashley's eyes. Clint couldn't bear it. "That's why I have to leave. The Avengers and New York."

"New York?" asked Ashley, bewildered. "Why? Where?"

"Out west." Clint answered. "I want you and Nick to go too. It's our last chance to be together... and also, I need you kid's help."

"What for?" asked Nick stonily, staring at the ceiling for fear of making eye contact with anyone.

"I need your help to get to Los Angeles. When I die, I want to be buried next to your mother."

Next...?

Hmmm.... I don't know, really. This is a side project I've been pondering doing for a long, long while now. After I finish runs on USAgent and Avengers West Coast, which I plan to write a good long while, I might get back to this. It depends a lot on reader reaction as well. If it goes over well, I may get to it sooner.

This is a much different story than I've ever written before. Less action, more human *inter*action. I hope to be be able to incorporate this type of story into my future works, without sacrificing the action part, which I've always felt was my strong point in writing. We'll see how it goes.

My thanks to Lonni for allowing me the opportunity to write for HAWKEYE again. This book was once my personal baby, back in the 'distant' past of the early days of MV1 and that loveable, fallible archer is still my favorite character. I hope my part of this giant-size issue lives up to Lonni and Adam's contributions. I'm sure theirs will be fantastic.

Scott Chamberlain
February 3rd, 2002