He sat atop a building looking up at the night sky above. For whatever reason whenever he gazed up at the stars it reminded him of his parents. He could still vividly picture that horrible day. The day that his parents had died. He remembered how they had perished in that dreadful automobile accident. There was nothing he could do to stop that car crash and he knew it, but for whatever reason he still kind of blamed himself. He would never forgive society for what had happened. That’s who he blamed: society. He sighed and gazed back down at the streets below. He saw a black car down below start flashing its lights. That was his signal. He stood up and readied himself and began to climb down the side of the building…

“Bank robbed by mysterious masked man and accomplice!” Iron Man threw the newspaper onto the desk after he was through reading the headline aloud. Warbird picked the newspaper up off the desk and began to examine the front page intently. “That’s the third time this week.,” continued Iron Man, “I just know that they have to be connected some how. There’s no way that this is all just some sort of coincidence.”

Warbird sighed and put the paper down on the desk. “Well I suppose that the only way we’re going to find out is by investigating. I know that we have a lot on our hands right now but we have to put a stop to these robberies right now. After all that’s what we Avengers are here for. We have to help society.”

“Yes, Yes, I agree,” muttered Iron Man, “But how are we supposed to catch this guy. It not likes he strikes in a pattern or anything. He randomly robs different banks sop we never know where he will strike next. And he hasn’t left behind any evidence…any clues. It could be anyone out there for all we know.”

“Yes but I’m sure that we’ll be able to catch him, won’t we? I mean we’ve had to face tougher things then a little bank robber.”

“I’m not so sure that it’s that simple…”

Hawkeye climbed down the side of the building until he reached a window. He looked down below and saw the ground some several hundred feet down. He wasn’t used to this. After all this was the first time that they were attacking something other than a bank. But he kicked the glass in and flung himself in through the window. He looked around but the room was empty. So he reached down and spoke into the transmitter attached to his suit.

“Black Widow, this is Hawkeye. I’m in the building right now. I’m on the top floor in room number…,” he checked the number on the door and said, “Room number 927.”

“Very good Clint, the room you’re looking for should be right down the hall. But be careful, it’s sure to be heavily guarded.”

“Now Natalia…When am I never not careful,” he laughed into the transmitter, “You underestimate me. I’ve been doing this for long enough. We’re the most wanted criminals in the world. A couple of security guards ‘aint gonna stop me.”

Hawkeye walked out of the room and started heading down the hall. Although he didn’t doubt the fact that he could take on anyone in this building in a fight, he still tried to remain stealthy. After all, he knew that if he was caught the Avengers would come this time. He had been lucky before but he knew that this time they would come. And that was one fight that he wanted to try to avoid. So whenever he passed an open door he would first make sure it was safe, and then quickly tiptoe past the room. As long as he could avoid confrontation he would. He was there to take some money, not to cause a fight.

“You there yet?,” came Black Widow’s voice again, breaking the dead silence.

“How in the hell should I know? What room is it? Maybe next time you should give me some of this information before I attempt one of your god dam missions.”

“Shut the hell up, okay? I’ve got the freaking information right here you ass. It’s room number 936. Now hurry up. I aint got all day.”

Hawkeye didn’t really Natalia, or Black Widow as she called herself. He didn’t really trust her with her being a spy and crook and all. But she got the job done and helped him in his crimes so he put up with her shit. And he often pretended that he liked her. He really did like her at once. At one point he had even loved her. But now he had just gotten sick of her. He told himself that he liked her because he figured that if he could trick himself into thinking it then he could trick anyone into thinking it. But the truth was that he had a nagging feeling that he wasn’t truly where he belonged. But he had once tried to join the Avengers. He had wanted to be a hero. But he was rejected, mistaken for a criminal. And so he had really become one. But this wasn’t where he belonged, and he knew it. He wasn’t good enough to be hero and he hated being a villain. And he could never fit in as a “normal” person in society. After the dea th of his parents he had been abandoned and joined a circus. But even then his brother soon died and he was abandoned once again. He would never again trust society. Therefore, he really didn’t have a place in life. To him that was the scariest thing in the world was that feeling. The feeling of not knowing why you wake up in the morning.

He realized that he had been thinking about all this while he was walking and that he was now almost right in front of the target room. He rounded the corner and headed to the door. Sure enough, two security guards walked up to him and asked him what his business was.

“My business is none of yours.” He steadied his bow, grabbed an arrow and shot the first guard right between the eyes before anyone knew what had happened. The second guard reached for his gun but he was too late. Hawkeye just shot him with an arrow as well. That was the one thing he had always been good at in life: archery.

He walked up to a large safe and laughed. There was no way that a little safe was going to stop him now. He sat there and listened to the clicks as he attempted to crack the code. But he just couldn’t do it. No matter how hard he tried he just couldn’t open up that safe. He was just about to give up all hope when he heard a voice through the transmitter again.

“Clint, are you there yet?”

“Yeah, but I just can’t seem to crack the code behind this safe. I don’t know what we’re going to do. I’ve come too far to fail. We have to thi……”

“You idiot,” interrupted Widow, “There’s some dynamite in that bag that I gave you. Why don’t you try using that genius?”

“Aw, shut up.” He reached back into the bag and sure enough there were a couple of sticks of dynamite. Although he hated to admit it, even his archery skills were not going to help him here. He lit the dynamite and dove for cover as the safe exploded revealing the contents. Inside of it lay a single golden jewel: The Pearl of the Great King Tashmir. He smiled to himself and removed the object as he got ready to leave. But it was not that simple. Although he didn’t know it yet, one of the guards had tripped an alarm…

Iron Man jumped up as the phone rang and rushed to answer it. And just as he had hopes, it was a lead on that masked robber.

Warbird looked on as Iron Man talked to the person on the other side of the phone.

“This is Anthony Stark speaking. Yes. Sure. We’d be glad to help. Quite frankly we were beginning to get quite annoyed with this robber ourselves. I’m really, really irritated so this guy better watch out.” Iron Man continued to listen to what the man on the other line was saying. Warbird couldn’t remember Iron Man being so angry before in his entire life. But it was what he said next that really shocked her. “Yeah, so listen I don’t like the fact that this guy kills innocent people during his robberies. But he’s always been one step ahead of us. So do you mind if I make sure he never gets ahead of us again, by removing him from the picture permanently? Okay good. Well, we’ll be over there right away. Bye.”

Iron Man hung up the phone and walked over to Warbird. “Well it’s just the two of us on this one. Let’s go.” He began to walk out but Warbird didn’t immediately follow.

“Do you really mean to kill him?”

“If he doesn’t come easily…then, yeah!”

“Well…um…” Although Carol didn’t very much like the idea of killing anyone, she couldn’t argue with Anthony on this one, so she just followed him out the door and off to the crime scene as quick as they could go.

“STOP RIGHT THERE!,” yelled one of the security guards as he ran towards Hawkeye just as Hawkeye was attempting to make an escape. He fired a shot at Hawkeye, but he just dodged the bullet and fired one of his arrows at the guard. Once again hi dead-on accuracy didn’t fail. The guard fell to the floor, dead.

As Hawkeye ran towards the open window yelled into the transmitter, “Get ready Natalia, I’m coming down with the pearl now. Get the car started up because we’ve gotta get the hell outta here right now. I think the alarm must have been tripped cuz I’m being chased.” He hopped onto the window sill and removed an arrow form his quiver. He tied a rope to the back end of the arrow and fired it into the wall of the building across the street. The arrow stuck in the wall and he gave the rope a tug to make sure that his makeshift grappling gun was safe, and then began to climb down the rope that was attached to the arrow. But when he reached the safe ground below he realized that the Black Widow was nowhere to be found.

“Great,” Hawkeye yelled out loud, “She left without me, that wuss. Just like always I’ve been abandoned.”

“Are you looking for the Black Widow?,” asked a voice from above, “Because you’re not going to find her here. She has already been handed over to the proper authorities. And now I suggest that you come quietly with us or pay the price.”

Hawkeye looked up and saw Iron Man and Warbird flying above them. He remembered them from when he had tried to join the Avengers too. But they had mistaken him for a criminal, which as it turns out, was the only thing that he felt he was fit to be. Iron Man shot a blast at Hawkeye in an attempt to temporarily knock him out, but Hawkeye just dove out of the way and fired an arrow at Iron Man. But the arrow barely pierced Iron Man’s hard armor and he was quickly ready to launch another attack at Hawkeye.

“Look, just please come with us,” said Warbird, trying to reason with Hawkeye. “We’re not going to hurt you. You’ll have to go through rehabilitation and all to get through your stealing habits, but if you come with us we’ll make sure you don’t do any jail time. I know what kind of person you are. I’ve seen people like you my whole life. You resort to crime because you feel unaccepted and unwanted. But that’s not true. Which is why if you come with us now I’ll make sure you don’t have to get behind bars. I just wanna help you.”

“You can’t possibly help me. Don’t you get it? I don’t care about jail. It feels like I’ve been spending my whole life behind bars. It’s like I’m in a cage. You think you know but you don’t. I’ll never come with you. Not alive anyway. There’s no way that I’m going back to the way my life used to be. I hate you all. I hate everybody.”

“Fine, have it your way.” Iron Man blasted at Hawkeye again who once more rolled out of the way. And as Hawkeye stood up he didn’t fire at Iron Man, but instead at Warbird, and the arrow pierced her left shoulder as she fell to the ground.

“That’s it buddy. You’ve really crossed the line now,” screamed Iron Man. He fired yet another blast which Hawkeye once again nimbly dodged.

At this point Iron Man was fed up with long range attacks and landed on the ground and charged at Hawkeye. But as he swung his fist in an attempt to land a punch, the acrobatic archer leapt over him and landed on his back. Hawkeye reached into his quiver, removed a custom arrow, and shot at the back of Iron Man’s neck. This time the arrow pierced both the armor and a little bit of Iron Man’s flesh. He flung Hawkeye off his back, forcing him to hit the cement hard. As Hawkeye stumbled to get up, Iron Man turned and fired another blast at Hawkeye. This time it made contact and Hawkeye went flying through the air and hit the side of the building and slumped to the floor.

Iron Man left the corpse of Hawkeye there and rushed to Warbird’s side. He knelt down next to her to examine her wound, but found that it had not hit the heart and that Warbird would in fact survive. As Iron Man stood up an arrow hit him in the back, sending him stumbling forwards. He turned around to see Hawkeye standing up again.

“You’re so dead now,” screamed Iron Man as he rushed towards Hawkeye. Warbird looked on in disbelief as Iron Man let his rage fuel his actions. She had never seen Anthony act like this before His hatred for Hawkeye must have been so great to drive him to such measures.

Hawkeye just laughed. “You can kill me physically, but not spiritually. I’ve been spiritually dead for the past 15 years.” He laughed again and aimed another shot at Iron Man. He no longer feared death. He no longer feared anything. All he knew was that he was going to give Iron Man one hell of a fight.

Iron Man dodged the arrow and lunged at Hawkeye. Hawkeye attempted to jump out of the way but it was too late. Iron Man smashed him against the brick wall and he could feel his bones snapping as he fell to the floor. All he could feel was a barrage of punches raining down on his face. A bunch of Iron-fisted punches smashing his head over and over and over again. He attempted to kick at Iron Man but he knew it wouldn’t help. But he squirmed and tried to put up as good a fight as he could. But Iron Man lifted him up and fired one last blast at his stomach and he hit the floor.

Hawkeye laid there and watched Iron Man rush over to Warbird and lift her up. He knew that she didn’t know anything about him. She always had somebody there to pick her up when she fell down, to cheer her up when she was feeling glum, and to just be there when she needed it most. But he on the other hand had no living relatives. Unlike Warbird, nobody would miss Hawkeye when he died. But he wasn’t mad at her. In fact he pitied her. After all, she was the one who was living in a false society. She was the one who would have to struggle to get through this hateful world, while he, Clinton Francis Barton, would be with his family again. After all these years he’d be with his family. He pitied Iron Man and Warbird for he knew that they’d never understand. And he smiled to himself and closed his eyes and prepared to meet his family.