Flashback – Age 14
The underground fight club reeked of sweat, blood, and desperation. Fistfights weren't just entertainment they were survival rituals. Every blow, every bone cracked, was a wager: your will versus theirs.
There were no names. No entrances. No cheers. Only the sound of fists meeting flesh and bodies hitting the mat.
For Eli, it had been four straight months in the pit. He was smaller than most, younger too, but mean. Fast. Smart. He didn't fight to climb ranks or earn respect but he fought to eat, to sleep under a roof that wasn't leaking, to stay one step ahead of the ghosts that hunted his dreams.
The fire had taken everything.
He still remembered coming home to the scent of smoke and sirens. Still remembered the way the night glowed orange against the skyline. His parents, zipped into black bags. Their faces were barely visible through the melted seams of memory.
The police chalked it up to a robbery gone wrong. Open and shut.
But Eli had seen the man. A twisted grin. A pair of pitiless eyes. And a skull tattoo just beneath his jaw. No one else believed it, but the image was etched into Eli's mind like it had been carved in stone.
He fought because there was nowhere else to put the rage. And that night after his fifth match in a row, bleeding from his brow, ribs screaming with every breath he finally couldn't stand. He slumped against the pit wall, half-conscious, blood drying on his knuckles.
And then a shadow stepped through the haze.
A man. Tall. Lean. Short blond hair. Blue eyes sharp enough to cut glass. He didn't belong there especially not among the dealers and dirtbags that bet on kids breaking each other.
"You fight like you got nothing to lose," the man said, crouching beside him. His voice was steady, calm. Controlled.
Eli didn't answer. Couldn't.
The man tossed him a water bottle and a protein bar. "But I think you do. Name's Clint."
That was the moment everything changed.
The Training – Ages 14 to 17
Clint Barton was not gentle. He didn't believe in comfort. He believed in control, in precision, in making every movement count. If you were late, you ran ten miles. If you hesitated, you got hit. Simple.
But beneath the steel of his discipline, there was something else. Something Eli couldn't quite name. Maybe regret. Maybe redemption.
Clint took Eli in like a soldier, not a son. They trained in abandoned warehouses and crumbling gyms, the kind of places where the walls told stories in rust and graffiti.
"Forget strength," Clint told him during their first week. "Strength fades. Precision lasts."
They trained with knives. With bows. With batons and makeshift weapons pulled from the trash. Clint drilled Eli like a machine. Balance. Accuracy. Reaction time. Repetition until exhaustion.
"Your body's a weapon," he'd bark. "Treat it like one."
They ran rooftop obstacle courses at night, climbed scaffolding blindfolded, sprinted across broken glass. Every inch of Eli's body was pushed to the brink. And yet Clint never once let him fall without picking him up again.
He wasn't nurturing. But he never gave up on him.
"Why me?" Eli asked once, during a rare moment of rest. They sat atop an old water tower, the city stretching beneath them like a graveyard of neon and steel.
Clint lit a cigarette. "Because you remind me of me," he said, exhaling. "And I know how that story ends if no one changes it."
For three years, Clint turned Eli into something else. Faster. Stronger. Smarter. He taught him to throw a playing card with lethal force, to calculate wind drift by instinct, to fight not for vengeance but for survival on his own terms.
Two Months Before Bullseye – Age 17
The warehouse smelled like rust and old gasoline. Rain tapped lightly against the high windows. The night was silent, heavy. Eli followed Clint through the dark like he had a hundred times before. But tonight, something was off. Clint was quiet. His shoulders were tense, like a bow drawn too tight.
In the center of the room, beneath a swinging bulb, sat a man tied to a chair.
Eli's breath caught in his throat.
Skull tattoo. Same hollow smile, even now. It was him. The man from the fire. The man who had ripped his world apart.
His knees weakened. Every nerve went cold.
Clint stepped beside him, handed him a pistol.
"Do it," he said. "He's the reason you lost everything. You've earned this."
Eli stared at the gun like it was alive. His hands trembled as he took it. His thumb found the safety, flicked it off.
"I…" he whispered.
His mother's laugh echoed in his head. His father's voice, patient and warm, teaching him how to tie his shoes. How to hold a fork. How to stand tall even when the world told you to kneel.
"They wouldn't want this," Eli said, lowering the gun.
Clint's face darkened. "He'll kill again. People like him don't change."
"I did," Eli snapped. "I changed. You helped me."
Clint's jaw clenched. "Then you're a fool."
Without warning, Clint turned and fired. One clean shot.
The man slumped forward, blood blooming across his shirt.
Eli's scream tore from his chest. He lunged at Clint, rage boiling over, fists flying.
The first punch caught Clint in the jaw. The next, a glancing blow to the ribs. Clint grunted, staggered, but recovered fast and he always did. He moved with brutal efficiency, deflecting strikes, countering with elbows and knees. He wasn't fighting to hurt Eli but he was fighting to end it.
Eli ducked under a hook, drove his shoulder into Clint's gut, and slammed him into a stack of crates. Wood splintered. Dust rose.
"I trusted you!" Eli roared.
Clint threw him off, rolled, and pinned him to the floor with a knee. His fist came down not once, but twice blurring Eli's vision.
"You think mercy makes you strong?" Clint shouted. "It makes you vulnerable! It gets people killed!"
Blood filled Eli's mouth. But he spat it out, headbutting Clint hard enough to stagger him. He scrambled to his feet, wild with fury. He swung wildly, forcing Clint back but Clint was too sharp, too experienced. A sharp sweep knocked Eli off his feet, and as he fell, a jagged shard of broken crate rammed into his side.
Eli screamed.
Pain like lightning shot through him. He clutched his side, vision swimming.
Clint hesitated. Just for a second.
And that was all Eli needed.
He rolled, found Clint's dropped pistol, and fired.
The shot grazed Clint's shoulder, tearing through muscle. He stumbled, grunted but didn't cry out.
Eli didn't wait. With everything he had left, he launched himself forward and kicked Clint in the chest, sending him backward and over the railing and into the cold, black water below.
Silence followed.
Eli collapsed, gasping, blood soaking his side. His fingers trembled, the gun slipping from his grasp.
He didn't cry because of the pain. He cried because the man who saved him had become the man he feared most.
And now… he was alone again.
But this time, he wouldn't break.
Now – Present Day
The news blared in the background. Mary Jane Parker's voice cut through the static:
"Mayor Carvers body was discovered in his office this morning. The walls were painted in blood, and a message scrawled across the windows in red: You never forget your first shot."
Eli didn't need confirmation. Didn't need DNA. That line? That was for him.
Clint was back.
And he was killing again.
Eli stood in the center of his apartment, fists clenched so tight his knuckles went white. His reflection in the TV's black screen stared back at him. Cold. Hardened.
He had worked for years to build something different. To be something more than the pain he came from. He swore never to become the kind of man who saw the world as targets and monsters.
But Clint never believed in lines.
He took a breath, slow and deep, then turned toward the closet.
"I have to stop you," Eli whispered. "No one kills in my city."
The closet door creaked open. Inside, behind old coats and dust-covered gear, sat a long black case.
He dragged it out. It was heavier than he remembered—heavier with memory.
He clicked the latches open.
Inside lay the suit.
Dark charcoal and black, reinforced but flexible. Trimmed with deep silver. The bullseye insignia marked the gloves and chest—white concentric circles, crisp and cold. Tactical armor for movement, speed, and precision. It had been designed for war.
And for Eli, war was coming.
He stripped down, ignoring the chill in the room. Pulled on the bodysuit piece by piece. Each strap clicked like a vow. Each layer felt like shedding his skin and stepping into purpose.
The gloves came last.
He slid them on slowly. Flexed his fingers.
"I'm not that kid anymore," he said to the empty room. "I'm not your weapon."
He pulled the mask down. The white target symbol centered above his brow like a challenge.
He stared at himself in the cracked mirror.
Not a victim.
Not a killer.
Something else.
He stepped into the night, a shadow moving through the city's veins, silence wrapped around precision and fury.
Because if Clint wanted a war, Eli would give him one.
But it wouldn't be his first shot.
It would be his last.