If there's a god, he was punishing me. I was convinced. Every possible trial and tribulation was thrown my way.

My ma' had been the only one who prayed in our family. My father always preoccupied with drinking and Barney, adventuring. I popped along to church with her because I appreciated the community and the respite from my father; but what can I say? Preaching didn't fascinate me as a kid; an old man in a dress reciting page after page of a complexly worded book. Plenty of the biblical passages captured my imagination and inspired me, but beyond that? I wasn't dedicated to religion.

The day our farm and butchers fell through and the bank came knocking at the door to repossess the house, I prayed. What should've been a Spring Break was turned on it's head.

I confessed every unholy deed I'd committed, I professed my apologies and I begged for forgiveness. I wanted the pain in my life to end. Barney found me, knelt at the porch, head bowed in silence.

I hoped that with a cloudless blue sky and the sun smiling down on me that my prayers would be heard. There wasn't a single barrier between me and the heavens.

I heard the hum of his voice in my ears and simply ignored it at first. I blotted out the world, focusing on seeking penance. The full buzz of his voice became more urgent. Then I received a kick to my coccyx and sprawled forwards onto my hands and knees.

"Ow! Asshole!" I spat, turning around to scowl at him. It wasn't exactly a reprise of 'amen'.

"You prayin', Clint?" My brother fleered, hovering over me and casting a long shadow that consumed the daylight above me.

"What of it?" I spat, clambering to my feet and brushing the muck and dust off myself.

Chortling at my desperate hopes of redemption, he told me "It's a bit late for that..." Shaking his head and taking a wander back indoors. "Should've thought about that before you neglected the family business and racked up the medical bills."

"'S not my fault I incurred those injuries y'know?" I said under my breath, looking daggers at him.

My brother made a noise of disbelief, wandering about the soulless house, traipsing his hands solicitously across the walls he'd grown up fortified by. It was brick, mortar and wallpaper now, with small cavities of glass slotted between. A home, by my definition, requires family and furnishings. But with the lack of either of those, the spirit had diminished and the house had lost it's personality.

Having everything repossessed was melancholic. It's like watching your life get disassembled piece by piece whilst your hands are tied behind your back. The furniture was snatched from the space article by article, swaddled in bubble wrap and duct taped up. The animals were lead sheepishly from the barn and their pens into the back of animal transportation vehicles; I could hear their distressed bleats and clucks as they were stolen away. Our vehicles were hijacked by men in pristine suits and driven away in clouds of thick black smog.

Watching the last of our goods sail away down the sandy highway, Barney slung an arm around my shoulders and said "We're leaving Waverly." The house was gone, and there was no way we were realistically going to be able to find another one in the region.

Battling to throw his weighty arm off of me, I shoved him away by the chest contemptuously. "No." I shook my head with insubordination. "You can't make me-"

"Yes I can. I'm your legal guardian," he retorted aloofly, a fiendish smirk on his face. "What you gonna do? Run away?"

"No, absolutely not! And maybe, one of these days I will!" I disputed. "That's not fair!" I yelled, standing at the side of the road.

Then that sly amusement drained from his demeanour and his temper went rancid. "Hey, you better show me some damn respect, because I'm the one slaving away to pay for the mess you got us in. I've had to pay for your outrageous medical bills because you're too dumb to look after yourself-"

"Oh my god!" I growled, throwing my arms into the air with exasperation. "How can you possibly blame me for that?! I'm sorry I got injured through no fault of my own! How about ma's medical bills, huh?! I'm sure they're just as costly! And how about the expenses Harold cost us with his bar tabs?!"

Barney seized me by my upper arm, my muscle being macerated by a vice like grip. I seethed and struggled, but his fingers only served to crush my arm tighter. "Our parents are dead! How can you speak about them like that, you ungrateful shit?!" He shook me, making my teeth chatter in my skull.

"Do you know what dad did to me?!" I screamed at close proximity, watching him wince as my shrill shrieks pierced his ears. "Do you?!" My voice became a tearful squeak. "No, of course you don't, because you deserted us! Me and ma' - left us to suffer!" My voice cracked and my eyes became laced with dewy beads of tears. "He beat us Barney! He beat me and Ma' constantly!"

His eyes were wild and I could see that he was on the point of a choleric breakdown. "Don't lie!" He scolded me, crushing my arm tighter. "Just because dad preferred me-"

"I'm not a liar!" I winced, and my tears of anguish became tears of agony. "Why so you think there's so many medical bills?!" I was silenced by a calloused hand to my cheek, disciplinary.

The acidic sting resided in my skin, heat flaring where hand had met cheek. I felt a sharp nip in my lip and then felt the dribble of blood slither down my chin. He'd split my cracked lips in the process.

It took everything in me not to cry in front of Barney. I wasn't going to cry in front of Barney. I wouldn't let myself seem weak in front of Barney.

He grappled me by the collar, hauling me nose to nose until I could feel his stagnant breath brushing my cheeks. My feet scuffed on the floor as I tried to tussle my way out. "You really will make up anything to deny this is your fault," Barney hissed venomously, the depiction of my father, the echoes of his features etched onto Barney's face. "Your pathetic Grade Point Average says it all; selfish, lazy, reckless. This is your fault!"

Barney hurled me onto the dusty sidewalk, landing face down and getting a mouthful of sand and gravel. I spluttered as clouds of chalkiness billowed around me. I emitted a defeated sob.

"You ruined everything! Mom and dad are dead because you wanted an extravagant Thanksgiving! The family business fell through because you wouldn't pull your weight! You haven't got any hope of graduating highschool with a singular qualification! I was supposed to go to college; but we're stone cold broke! I was going to have a life before I was saddled with you, you selfish inconvenience!" Shouted loud enough, and at the correct pitch, I didn't even have to read his lips. The hatred rained down on me, ringing like thunder in my ears.

I mewled, stifling the cries. Retiring from bravery, I wept, my face buried in the dirt.

"Look at you! Wallowing in self pity!" A hand twisted in my hair, and I have a strangled whine at the pain forking through me. "What about me, huh? What about the life I was supposed to have!" Barney drew his leg back and booted me in the ribs.

I choked and coughed, kicking up more dust around my face. I cowered, tucking my knees to my stomach, curling tight like a woodlouse.

"Who's gonna be my hero huh?! Well, there are no heroes, Clint! There's no god that's gonna rescue us, Clint! This is life! Wake up!" For good measure, he gave me a final kicking, leaving me drooling blood into the dirt and wheezing.

I spent the day trying to drink in the scenery that I would be deserting. And possibly never revisiting. That and staring at the blank notepad I'd managed to pilfer from the repossessed possessions. Over and and over I tried to compose the words to apologise to Kate and explain to her where I was going and why. She wouldn't be back in time to properly thank her for being my only advocate. No ink on a page could do my gratitude justice. I tore out page after page and scrunched them into balls - hurling them on the ground.

It was no use.

There was no excuse.

It was that evening we finally left Waverly behind.

He dumped a couple rucksacks in the trunk, bulging with a few precious possessions we managed to reclaim from the jumble that was repossessed.

I vied for Barney's attention. "I need to say goodbye to-"

"Tough luck. We're leaving..." I was viciously ushered into the car, a seatbelt crushed into my hand and the door shut on me.

The engine coughed and croaked before whirring to life. Barney pulled away from the house that I'd known all my life and headed down the highway through the town centre.

Lightheaded, I watched the world whiz by as we meandered out of town. We briefly halted at a set of traffic lights, and I saw Kate's vacated residence in all of its opulent splendour.

I pawed at the window, almost as a wave goodbye. A tear streaked down my cheek.

She'd never know where I'd gone. I'd never got to say goodbye. My only friend in the world, and I'd evaporated without a trace.

"Bye, Katie..." I uttered. I was jolted back in my seat as Barney accelerated and I could do nothing but stare regretfully at the house as it left my line of sight.

We travelled for hours on end. Lush cornfields of green, swaying wheat fields of gold and vivid rapeseed flowers of yellow were left behind. Rolling green traded in for a concrete jungle. Towns came and went in the blink of an eye; and I watched as signs went by.

Every now and then we'd stop at a run down petrol station in the wilderness and fill up the gallon-guzzling pickup, anywhere with a reasonable price.

The evening humidity became a cloudy night, and my only distraction was watching the raindrops race down the window, like the sky was crying on my sorrowful life.

I drifted off to sleep, listening to the dull hum of sounds in my ears; the growling and clunking of the old vehicle, the distant thunder and the occasional plane overhead. It all melted into one pleasant buzz.

When we arrived a our destination, I was awoken by Barney's temerarious parallel parking - back and forth and left and right, not gentle with the accelerator or brake.

I was elbowed in one of my botched ribs until I had sat up and woken properly. Bleary eyes zoning in on Barney's mouth, I watched his lips say "Move it, kid. we're here."

I shuffled myself out of my seat, through the door and onto the street. My arm was still marked with the impressions of what I lent on when I slept. My feet feeling leaden, I stretched out my knotted muscles and trudged around the car to the trunk, catching the bag my brother lobbed at me. I staggered backwards, my centre of gravity still thrown by sleepiness.

Barney locked up the truck, as if there was genuinely some threat that someone might joy-ride the heap of junk. "This way..." He snagged me by the crook of my elbow and dragged me reluctantly up the street.

I was woven between streetlamps, small microcosms of illumination in the drizzling night. Bugs dodged the bullets of rain and hovered around the enclaves of light, typical of the Spring. Our final destination wasn't on the main street. Down a dark, dank and wining alley, there was a crooked door with a sign hammered into it. What the sign said wasn't clear; acid rain and time had worn away the iron letters and tarnished them indistinguishably.

"What the hell is this?" I demanded, my feet plodding to a halt. I could smell pee, damp and rotten wood.

"Our new home."

A/N - I'm beginning to run out of pre-written chapters. I only just have one put together for the coming Sunday. This one was written the Sunday before last. My writer's block has been killer as of lately; but I'm trying to ease it by working on my other books.

If you haven't checked them out already, I'd love some feedback and support on my other new projects:

-'Vagabond Chronicles: The Diary of Charles Xavier'
-'Genosha » [Cherik]'
-'Mens Rea » [James Wesley]'
-'Daredevil VS Hawkeye » [DareWidow/Clintasha]'
-'A Man's World » [Cartinelli]'
-'Love & Law » [FoggyMatt]'

And also my older works that have been untouched for a while; but I will pick up!

-'Checkmate » [Cherik]'
-'Infinitum » [Guardians of the Galaxy]'

If any of those take your fancy, please do go and check them out!

Dedication goes to nightvving because I am loving '•the best hawkeye• [kate bishop one shots]'! x