The Story of a Bird and Spider || Clintasha

14

"Whoever said killing people has no effects has no idea what they're getting themselves into. The first time I completed a mission, I was a broken man for a long time. I'd thought that since my life had been hell ever since I was born--taking blows from a father that never loved, sugarcoated sympathy from a mother who couldn't love, and a brother that died for me to make up for the atrocities of my own life--that killing would come easily to me. I didn't even have to think about it, if I didn't want to.

"But no matter who you are, no matter who you killed or why you did so, it's going to change you. It's going to fill the crooks of your brain and consume you, even if you aren't one to have a guilty conscious. The killers who are uncaring of what they're doing are only able to kill without concern because they've already died inside.

"For the longest time, I convinced myself that every human was just a piece of meat. That's the way I defined mankind, because if I had to assassinate them, I could just brush it off. It became a psychological lie, and I believe I almost went crazy.

"My perspective of people changed when I met Bobbi Morse. She showed me that we all have layers, that we all have stories. That, even if it's a story between a bird and a spider, the bird won't always pounce on the spider and feed it to its babies, or that the spider won't always encircle the small bird and nest in its intestines.

"Everyone would be surprised of the cohabitation between the bird and the spider. But not me, not anymore. Actually, I think I'm starting to root for them."

"Director Fury used to make under-the-breath comments calling me the Devil's rascal son when he'd first recruited me all those years ago-- with the father I had, the term wasn't all that far off. I was young when S.H.I.E.L.D. opened its doors to me, just getting used to being called an adult. The Director was younger, too, but he was about ten years older with his wise mentality. Either way, he's twenty or so years older than myself.

"I also believe he had both eyes at the time, too. After the grenade accident, he had a regular injection of this thing called the 'infinity formula.' He's still got a lot of years left in him. I'm quite certain he'll live past my own death date, though with my job, that could come at any time.

"At first, I didn't know him; I'd just heard the rumors. After all, he's not the one that saved my ass, but rather the blonde I had come to know as Bobbi Morse: Mockingbird. She wasn't on a mission to kill me, but we had the same target. We'd literally bumped into each other when we spotted the mission at the same time. But who the person was doesn't matter.

"What did matter is that Bobbi was my change of heart, my new perspective. And now it's my turn to be the Black Widow's."

"Before the car accident, there are very few happy memories I have. None of them concern my father, and my mother was only an enabler. She couldn't do anything to help us even if she tried, although I don't think it would have been any worse for her if she had just done something to help my brother and I.

"We didn't get to live the luxuries that other kids did. We were home schooled, preached Atheist, and mainly reclusive to the outside world. So, while holed up in the room we shared, Barney and I made up stories.

"They started outrageous, with dinosaurs and knights and all that bull shit. And then, in a way, they got even crazier as we vividly described saving people's lives, being the knights ourselves. Now, with the alias 'Hawkeye,' I know it isn't all as far-fetched as I thought. But at that time, it was our only escape. And so we dreamt out loud, our voices excited whispers, until our father would pound on the wall and tell us to go to bed.

"The next best memory I have is when we finally escaped that hell hole."

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