Marvel: A Tale of Shadows

Waverly, Iowa

11:23 PM, December 24th, 1987

He flinched in pain and fell to the ground as another strike across his face sent him tumbling down. His already bloody and bruised face hurt more than his arm that he felt was broken at this point.

As he laid on the ground he could see his unconscious brother who was bleeding from a gash in his forehead. While his mother was sporting a bloody visage that looked similar to his own no doubt.

"Damam famsi, nothing but a vwvaste!" The man with bloodied fists yelled before pulling up the boy's mother and carrying her up to their shared room. The last thing the boy heard was the sound of bumping and shaking coming from upstairs before he went unconscious.

The next thing he remembered was waking up from his brother shaking him. "Clint!" He blinked his eyes for a moment and saw his brother crouched over him with an annoyed expression on his face. "Did you try to defend mom again? I told you it would only result in you getting hurt even more. It is not like mom ever tries to protect us."

Clint fought back a tear as he pouted. "I know but… it still feels right to at least try." His brother helped him up but he flinched in pain because of his arm. "I think it is broken again. Where should we go?"

"Hmm… nowhere. It is Christmas day. I don't think anyone would take the time out of the day. Just patch it up with some of the band aids and stuff we have under the bathroom sink." His brother explained before he walked away and up the stairs into his room no doubt.

While Clint walked to the bathroom on the first floor. Entering it he opened the area under the sink and pulled out the first aid kit that the old lady across the street gave them. Then he used the ointment for the cuts on his face and then made a sling for his arm. After he was done he walked into his room that was next store and went inside. He crawled into his bed and laid down.

Letting out a tear from the pain he felt.

It wasn't until an hour later after twisting and turning that he got up and walked out of his room and into the kitchen. Inside his mother was mopping up the blood that was on the floor. His father was sitting at the kitchen table reading a newspaper. On the table both his father's, his mother's, and what he assumes is his brother's place setting has a plate with food remnants on it.

Clint walked up and sat where the only clean plate. He then reached with his one good arm to pull some pieces of bacon onto his plate. Only for his father to pull the plate away with a cruel smile on his face.

"You slept in, Clint. You do not get any breakfast. Try to wake up on time tomorrow. Don't bother looking for food until your mother makes you lunch." His father spat out while shooing him away from the table.

Clint sighed and then flinched in pain when it hurt before he walked back to his room. Where he fell asleep again only to wake up a few hours later and come out to eat a sandwich made by his mother.

She sat across from him as he ate. His father had already left, no doubt out at a bar. While his brother left to play with the other neighborhood boys.

She gave him a sad smile, "Clint, thank you for trying to protect me last night. But you should not get in your father's way when he is like that."

Clint flinched as he chewed his sandwich, "I know, but I just felt like it was the right thing to do." He struggled to swallow a bite of sandwich while his mother contemplated his words with a sad smile.

Then she sighed and stood up walking into the kitchen to no doubt do the dishes. As Clint was sitting at the table he saw her walk over to the pantry and pull out a long object that was covered in parchment paper. She looked at it for a moment before she put it away. Her blonde hair danced as she shook her head.

Instead she pulled out a pair of boxes covered in similar parchment that were about an arms width in length and as wide as two of Clint's hands. She set down one on the table before she walked up stairs with the other one. She came back down a moment later as Clint was finishing his sandwich.

Walking up to the table she smiled, "I wanted to wait until your brother got back after playing with his friends. But I think this is the only chance I will get to teach you. So open up your christmas gift my son." She took the plate out from in front of him and pushed the parchment wrapped box in front of him.

Clint eyed it suspiciously for a moment before he started pulling apart the parchment. Every Christmas he and his brother would always get some home made gift from their mother. His brother always tossed them aside, saying it was cheap and insincere. But all those carved wooden figures and sown clothes, all felt like the most sincere and special thing to Clint.

But they always came in small sizes, never something this big. When Clint opened up the parchment he saw a box and slid off the top. Opening the box.

Inside he saw a curved shaped stick that looked like a C that was a bit too tall that had a string tying the ends together. Next to it was a bunch of sticks with feathers on the end in what looked like a reused leather sleeve made into a pocket.

Clint blinked then tilted his head in confusion, "what is it?"

His mother chuckled in amusement. She pointed toward the curved C, "this is a bow." then she pointed at the leather pouch, "this is a quiver," she then pulled out one of the sticks which had a sharp end opposite the feather end, "and it holds arrows like this one."

Clint's eyes brightened in curiosity. He quickly tossed off the sling for his hurting arm and picked both up out of the box. "How do you use them?"

His mother seemed worried for a moment until she heard his question. Then a smile blossomed on her face, "go wait in the backyard for a moment while I put these things away."

Clint staggered as he jumped out of the chair before he moved to the back door and quickly threw it open and walked outside.

His mother quickly tossed out the parchment and stashed the box in Clint's room before she walked out as well. Chuckling when she saw her son trying to figure out what to do with a bow in one hand and an arrow in the other.

She walked up behind him and started teaching him how to shoot a bow. Less than a minute later he let loose an arrow and it smacked into the tree he was aiming for.

"Mom! I did it! I hit the target!" Clint shouted in joy.

His mother had a stunned look on her face until she smiled and kissed him on the head, "yes you did my son. You really do have my talent with a bow."

They continued to practice for several more hours until it started to get dark and his mother started to panic.

"Ah Shit! Clint go and hide your present in your room. I have to get dinner ready before your father gets home." Edith walked into the kitchen while Clint collected his arrows and walked into his room finding the box his mother left inside.

He placed his bow and quiver of arrows inside. He still had a smile on his face despite the throbbing in his arm from shooting the bow and the pain in his face from smiling. He walked back into the dinning room and put his arm sling back on. Storing his throbbing and sore arm inside the sling.

He sat at the table with a stupid smile even when his brother walked in and kicked off his shoes by the front door before walking into the kitchen as Edith started cooking up steaks on the stovetop while tossing tin foil to wrap potatoes with butter and other spices.

His brother gawked at his mother, "you are just starting that now? What are you? An idiot? He will be home soon no doubt." He proceeded to sit across from Clint, who still had a smile on his face. "And what are you so happy about? Useless moron."

Clint did not get a moment to answer as the front door slammed open and all three of them flinched. "Wassit food!" The drunkard staggered into the dinning room and sat at his seat. It took him five minutes of drunken swaying in his seat before he slammed his hands on the table. "Food!"

A worried chuckle came from the kitchen, "in a moment honey, I am almost done."

The drunkard grunted in annoyance before he looked at Clint and saw the smile on his face. He suddenly got incredibly agitated but then smiled with a twisted idea. Like that idea he had right before his first time with Edith.

He chuckled as he stood up, "I can't beat you. You make food and are my ticket to pleasure land. But we can always make another kid. *Hiccup*" He then staggered to Clint and picked up a chair.

Clint was about to jump out of his chair as his smile disappeared when he felt his world spin. His whole body ached as he began to realize being hit with the chair sent him flying across the room. Everything hurt, but what hurt the most was his arm and his ear, which was making him hear strange sounds. Not to mention he could only barely hear his brother as he stood up to defend Clint only to get knocked to the side.

Clint could only watch because his body would not respond to him trying to move. He watched as his father made a hearty laugh that he could barely hear. He saw his father walk towards him. But as he went to pick up another one, the first having broken on impact with Clint, something caught him off guard. He looked toward the kitchen and redness from his face drained out of it. His smirk transformed into a look of horror. He held up his hands towards the kitchen only for a loud ringing to hit Clint's ears as he watched his father's head disappear. It burst like raspberry getting squashed, causing red stuff to scatter everywhere even covering his stunned brother in the red stuff.

A moment later his father's body dropped to the ground, but Clint focused more on his mother when she came running over and picked up Clint. Pulling him into her arms. He strained his neck as he looked up into his mother's face and could barely hear her words through what he could only now figure was some kind of ringing.

"I am so sorry, my son. I should have done it earlier, but I just hoped he would change. I did not know what else to do. Now your mom will have to go away for a long time. But I hope you remember that feeling you always had. To always do what is right, no matter what. Because that is what we do." His mother's tears dropped on his face as he lost consciousness.

He woke up several hours later in a hospital. He had been to one before when his father made him puke up blood. Clint could barely hear anything and that ringing sound was so persistent. He looked over to the door as a nurse ran in. She started to say something but Clint started shaking his head and yelled, "stop the ringing! It hurts!" The nurse frowned while Clint struggled and failed to point at his ears. "The ringing in my ears, it hurts too much. I can't hear anything else!"

The nurse's expression went from one of confusion to understanding. She quickly went to the door and called out before she walked back inside and started to breath in and out heavily and motioned for him to do the same. So that is what he did, he took deep breaths in and out.

Less than a minute later a police officer walked in with a doctor. The police officer waited by the door. While the doctor quickly ran to the bedside of Clint and pulled out a device and looked in his ear. Causing him to groan in pain. Less than a minute later the doctor was on the other side of the bed and looking in his other ear. He then stopped and looked at Clint with a pitying expression.

He knew because he had seen it several times before. On all of the people that knew what was happening but did not lift a finger to help them from his father's abuse. He hated those people, he hated their expressions. Clint knew when he grew up, he would never stand by and do nothing like they did.

The doctor then pulled out a clipboard and started to write on it. Clint writhed in pain until the doctor showed him what he was writing and Clint started reading it, "your ears drums are ru-rup-ruptu-" the doctor frowned then flipped the clipboard and wrote something down real quick. When he turned it back around Clint started reading again, "your ears drums are broken," that other word that Clint was trying to read was scribbled out and replaced with broken. "So you won't be able to hear normally anymore. The ringing noise you hear is a side effect of what happened to your ears."

"So, you can't fix it!" Clint asked. The doctor visibly flinched for a moment before he nodded. The nurse looked off to the side in shame.

The doctor then wrote something else down on his clipboard and showed it to Clint, "the police wanted to know if you would like to see your mother one last time before the police took her away for a long time."

Clint started nodding quickly, "yes, I want to see my mom!" The doctor sighed before he shook his head and walked out of the room. While the nurse gave him a sad smile and started walking around checking the tubes and stuff that was coming out of Clint.

A few hours passed when a pair of police officers walked in. They looked around the room before one stood by the window while the other stepped outside.

Clint shuffled around in nervousness until he saw the same officer leading his mother in with cuffs on her wrists. She smiled and said something, but Clint only blinked before he smiled and yelled.

"Mom!" He tiredly lifted his limbs, trying to reach out for a hug. She reached out in response and came to the bedside and looked at him and smiled sadly. She ran one of her hands along his face and said something but Clint only frowned.

But his mother suddenly turned around when the doctor from before walked in. He talked to his mother for a minute when she started making an expression he had never seen before. She was furious, she spat something out before she took the clipboard out of the doctor's hands and then started writing down a message.

Clint silently read it a moment later, "Clint, remember to always do what is right my son. I am going away for a long time. But while I am away I want you to strive to be as happy as you can be." She was crying while she wrote, "I will write to you and your brother when I can. But I want you to continue to practice with your bow. They will split you up but try to keep in touch with your brother as well."

Clint nodded and started to cry as he hugged his mother and she hugged him back. Unfortunately it did not last as less than five minutes later the police pulled his mother away. Clint was restrained by the nurses as doctors as he started throwing a fit, but he fell asleep shortly afterward.

—--------------------------------------

Clint spent another four months in the hospital. While he was there he often was visited by the nurses who started to teach him sign language.

His brother dropped by several times along with an adult his brother kept calling 'Child Services', apparently they would set each of us up with new homes.

His brother already knew where he was going, a foster home in Texas was going to take him in. They had a good track record of sending out children who could get into universities or other forms of higher education. But in the last month he only received a letter from his brother telling him that he was already in Texas.

Clint then learned he was being discharged and another person that they called 'Child Services' was in front of him now. He was signing out a message, "they found a place for him to live where they know some sign language. But the people in question are a bit strange. They travel around a lot."

Clint nodded in understanding and then the 'Child Services' person called over to the door and a man and woman walked in.

The woman walked forward and started to sign, "hello, I am Chelsy Buckholm. This is my husband, Jacques. We would like to take you in if at all possible? We do work with a traveling circus, so it will be a bit difficult to keep in contact with your mom and brother. But I will try to help with that as much as possible."

Clint frowned for a moment before he nodded in understanding. He then signed back, "can I practice with a bow?"

The man raised his eyebrow. While a smile blossomed on the woman's face.