Carry On Living

When I was young I read stories about great heroes doing great deeds. The truth is, real heroes don’t look at all like I pictured.

and

it’s fun to watch conservatives get pissed that they can’t shop at target anymore because the big bad rainbows will corrupt their children :(

and

the existence of rainbow capitalism in the first place proves that society is now in a place where supporting queer people is the more profitable and thus more popular opinion and that means something

Devastation. POLICE and CITIZENS milling amongst the wreckage of the street. Lying on top of a car, clearly having fallen from a great height, a MAN, eyes closed, possibly dead.

CLINT (VO) [big intake of breath] Okay. This looks bad.

And we go into REWIND. The MAN flies upwards, flailing wildly, a bow rising up into his hand, finally crashing back through a reassembling window about SIXTY STORIES UP. PAUSE on the fist of an AIM AGENT just inches from his face.

CLINT (VO) (CONT) You cowboy around with the Avengers some.

BACK IN REAL TIME, the fist hits him square in the jaw. As he turns back to smack the agent with his BOW, we get our first proper look at him - HAWKEYE himself, CLINT BARTON. Blonde, muscular, probably already somewhat battered; big heart and no common sense.

CLINT is holding his own against the AIM AGENTS, in a fight that seems to be mostly punching.

CLINT (VO) (CONT) Guys got, what, armor. Magic. Super-powers. Super-strength. Shrink-dust. Grow-rays. Magic.

KATE (VO) You said magic.

CLINT (VO) (CONT) I know I said magic. It was emphatic.

It’s gonna give you a bit of a complex. These guys are superheroes. I’m a carnie with a bit of stick and string from the Paleolithic era.

A huge BLAST OF ENERGY smacks CLINT straight in the chest and he flies backwards, shattering the window, and plummeting. Flailing wildly.

CLINT (VO) (CONT) So when I tell you ‘this looks bad’?

CLINT slams into the ground, hitting the roof of the car, unconscious.

CLINT (VO) (CONT) I promise you it feels worse.

KATE (VO) Hold up. Hooooooold up.

Freeze.

That is not what you told me, bossman.

CLINT (VO) Katie, would you please -

KATE (VO) Why is it that whenever it’s time to tell the story to other people you’re suddenly cool and badass and oooh-emphatic? Why is it just me who gets to hear about your incredible screwups?

CLINT (VO) I didn’t screw up.

KATE (VO) You fell off the roof from like two feet up.

REWIND AGAIN - Clint flies upwards once more, wildly flailing until the AIM AGENT has a fist at his face, but now we’re on top of a THREE STORY BUILDING in DOWNTOWN BROOKLYN.

KATE (VO) And it wasn’t fifty bad guys, it was fifteen.

AIM AGENTS disappear, leaving only a handful.

KATE (VO.) And I’m pretty sure Spider-Man was there.

SPIDER-MAN appears in the background.

CLINT (VO) He was not.

KATE (VO) He was.

CLINT (VO) I don’t need a kid to -

KATE (VO) It was all over Twitter, Hawkdude, just get over it. The AIM dude punched you in the face -

Which is exactly what happens as we come back to REAL TIME.

- and you fell over and landed on Spidey and he knocked you over and you fell off the roof of a hipster deli.

And CLINT trips over SPIDER-MAN in the middle of the battle and plummets from the rooftop -

CLINT [yelling] Oh, SHI-

- to land on the now familiar car below, thankfully unconscious once more. POLICE cars pull up around him as the battle draws to a close.

The camera pulls up, over the BROOKLYN skyline of brownstones and docks and MANHATTAN in the distance, and we see our title:

HAWKEYE

and as if it has been drawn on by pen, suddenly someone adds in:

HAWKEYE(s)

CLINT (VO) I don’t remember asking for your input, Hawkeye.

KATE (VO) [cheerfully] You’re welcome, Hawkeye.