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Changing Lives	By : Strailo Category: Marvel Verse Movies > Avengers, The Views: 1441 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own the Avengers, nor the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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Title: Changing Lives
Fandom: Avengers
Pairing: Phil/Clint
Chapter: 2
Words: 2390
Warnings: stabbing of a brother, attempted homicide, theft
AN: It is the 5^th of November. I am nearly at 10K for my Nano. It is ten minutes to 6AM. I am…exhausted but can’t stop my brain from working over-time.

Enjoy.

*~*~*~*

It all came to a head two weeks after he had celebrated his eighteenth birthday by going to see the Freakshow Museum. After that, he had gone to a pizza parlor that had come highly recommended by his uncle. His brother had been noticeably absent from his own job as one of the trash pickers for the day. His friend and partner, TrickShot, the circus’ trick shooter, had also disappeared that day.

Phil hadn’t even known about that until his uncle had told him the day after. Even then, he hadn’t cared about what was going on with his brother, still trying to ignore him.

The night that changed things, while in his trailer, he had been lounging in bed, reading when a knock came from his door. Standing up from his bed, he padded to the middle of the trailer, opening the door to find his brother standing on the RV steps. The man was smiling brightly up at him and chuckled softly at his look.

“Phil, let’s talk, my brother,” Barney said, looking bright eyed and bushy tailed.

Staring at his brother, Phil sighed before stepping back. “Alright, come on, get on in,” he said, shaking his head at his brother. Barney stepped up into the trailer, allowing Phil to close the door behind him with an eyeroll. “So, you going to tell me why you’re here and not helping the night crew clean things up? Like you’re supposed to be doing.”

Barney snorted and waved him off. “Don’t worry about it, baby brother,” he said, sitting down on the small couch after grabbing a beer from the refrigerator. “Come on. I came to you to talk about something that me and Trickshot has been working on,” he continued.

“Something?” Phil asked slowly, staring at his brother. He knew what his brother often did, or as much as he could while ignoring them when he could. Grabbing a bottle of juice from the fridge, he sat down next to the kitchen table, watching him carefully.

Barney just smiled and pulled some papers out. “We know where the guy whose running this circus has been hiding all his money. Asshole hasn’t been at all truthful about how much he makes,” he said. Phil didn’t say a thing about that, knowing that his brother was talking out his ass about that. All money went through Phil and his Uncle.

Every. Single. Dime.

Popping his beer open, Barney took a long drag of the beer as he sat back with a smirk. “We have a plan on how to get it and get out of this bullshit place. Build a proper business venture,” he said, looking at his brother with an eager grin. “But what we need is your help.”

“Why?” he asked, crossing his legs as he continued to watch his brother. Something about the look on Barney’s face had the hair on the back of his neck standing up.

Which was new since despite the distaste that he had always felt, he hadn’t ever had problems with feeling unsafe with his brother.

“Because you have access to the accounts. And to all the safes that hold the cards to said accounts,” Barney said. Phil slowly put his juice down onto the table next to him, staring at his brother with a hard look.

“What exactly do you mean by that?” he asked, eyes narrowed as he uncrossed his legs and shifted slightly to jump up and defend himself if it came down to. Or get out of the place if he could do that instead.

Barney snorted. “He hides all the account cards in the safe! The very safe that you stick the monthly books into every first of the month so that he can go over them and send them to his safety box for the tax accountant,” he said, standing up and pacing around. His hands waved as he walked around in a small space, Phil watching with narrowing eyes.

“Are you high on something?” he asked. Barney just gave him a ‘you’re an idiot’ look from the other man. “Alright, so you’re not high. What is up with this fucking colossally stupid idea?” he asked.

Barney scowled. “It’s a chance to get the fuck out of this bullshit fucked up shithole, Phil,” he said. He was starting to sound pissed off, his face pulling into a snarling sneer.

Phil stared at him with narrowed eyes and snorted. “You’ve blown through your trust fund, haven’t you? You had nearly a hundred thousand in that thing, and I should know since I helped it to damn well grow it for your lazy ass.” He stood up, eyes dark with anger. “You squandered it on whatever it is you fucking well do with all of your goddamn money. And now you’re wanting to steal from the person who has helped to give us a chance to have a job resume for outside of this circus? And a chance at a proper scholarship? I know you’re smart, you idiot, but you’re not showing just how smart you are.”

Barney snarled, fists curling into fists. “I don’t think you quite get it. I’ve been setting up this goddamn business for years,” he snarled. “I’ve been working on this and getting it ready to be fucking well launched but all I need is a couple thousand more! And that old bastard has held us back!”

“No, he hasn’t! You have! You stupid fucked up bastard! You had every chance at getting up higher, at getting a better position with a better pay, if you had just fucking well done your goddamn job,” he snarled, voice quiet and deadly. Standing up straight, he smoothed his shirt down with a cold look. “You’re lucky that uncle went to bat for you again and again and again. Goddamn. You never knew that he made sure that you had a job to come back to at all. He made sure that even if you don’t like them, at least they paid for you to do the work.”

Barney’s lips pulled back into a bigger snarled as he reached into his back pocket, pulling out a butterfly knife and flipping it open. With a yell, he attacked Phil, catching him off guard and sinking the knife into his side, missing anything deadly but still painfully deep. Phil gasped and shuddered as Barney pulled away with wide eyes, figuring out just what he had done as the other man gripped at his side and stared down at the blood that was sliding through his fingers.

Sliding down to his knees and leaning against the cabinet, Phil grabbed at his fresh dish towel and pressed it against the wound.

Barney, staring at his brother in shock, looked down at his hand with the bloodied knife before swallowing, closing it and sticking it back into his pocket. He knew that Phil could survive it, but he had bigger things to do. Like getting out of the trailer and getting the money.

Spotting the book that held all of Phil’s notes and combinations that he used, he grabbed it and rushed out of the trailer, glad that it was so late as the door slammed behind him. No one saw him running towards the back edges of the land that they were set up on.

He ran to his own trailer, a much smaller fifth wheeler that he had been loaned, to wash off and then ran to meet with TrickShot at his huge trailer. The plan was going to go ahead, even if his brother wasn’t going to be smart and join them. When his friend asked where his brother was, he brushed it off and said that it would be a smart idea not to use him since he had stolen the combinations.

They found out that Phil hadn’t labeled them so went through them quickly and calmly in the large office trailer, finding that it was the third combination in the set.

Back in his trailer, while his brother was working on breaking the safe, he pressed the towel against his side and reached for the interconnected phone, pulling it down. Squinting through blurry eyes, he swallowed around the pain and pressed the numbers into the phone to call his uncle, choking on his words as he started to shiver with shock.

“Uncle…help…trailer,” he got out, spitting the flood of drool, glad that he wasn’t bleeding so badly that he was tasting it. Or that he had been stabbed any higher and by something longer than a butterfly knife. Dropping the phone, he slumped back, using what little energy he had in his shocked state to keep the dish towel against the wound in his side.

His uncle was quick to storm into the trailer, eyes widening at the sight of him before pulling the phone to him. Hanging up, he called nine-one-one and had them send emergency services.

As they usually did, the circus had it set up that there was an emergency set of EMT’s at the circus just in case something so bad that they were needed to get to the hospital were close by. They had their own trailer and were fed well while on duty. They also did some of the work in the Circus ‘healer’ tent, a place where people who needed Band-Aids or other such items could go.

They pulled up in a blaze of red and blue lights, sirens going hard as they rushed in with a backboard, their third person setting up the gurney in the back. They didn’t take it out, instead sliding Phil onto the backboard and out of the trailer, telling his uncle to meet them at the hospital in his own truck, and placed him onto the gurney from there.

All he remembered after that was having an IV laid into his arm, his shirt being cut off to expose the wound, and a daze of words and responses.

Two days later, he was awake enough to see his Uncle walk in after his shift at the circus for the day, looking tired and worn. “I guess I’m lucky that it’s off-season and that we tend to plant ourselves in the warmer areas for a few weeks,” he rasped.

His uncle chuckled and patted him on the shoulder. “Leon is holding down the fort for you while Mark is getting the needed permits for another week just in case. We’re doing brisk business since this place is a winter hot spot for a lot of people after warmth,” he said, shaking his head with an amused smile on his lips. “So…it won’t be hard. They’re gonna discharge you in about three days and your bills are all covered by the circus insurance.”

“Cool,” Phil said, huffing lightly. His uncle gave him a small smile and stroked a hand through his hair. “You know it was Barney, don’t you?” he asked.

“Yeah, I know. Asshole stole the owner’s personal money that he’d been saving up for a ring for his girl,” he said.

Phil groaned and rubbed at his forehead. “Why am I not surprised?” he asked, shaking his head with a frown on his lips. “Okay, yeah. The police came in,” he told his uncle, the man sitting down next to his bed with a frown. “They asked who did it. I told them what I could remember at the time since the heavy morphine doses were slowly working its way out of my system,” he said.

The man hummed and patted his hand with a smile. “Are you going to call them about your brother and tell them?” he asked.

Phil shook his head again. “No. No, I don’t think I will. Knowing Barney the way I do? He’s going to fuck up big time and get into enough hot water without my help,” he said, leaning back into his bed.

His uncle watched him before nodding with a smile. “I cleaned up your trailer. I need ta know what you plan on doing, though.” He looked at his stomach.

“I’m supposed to start college in two months. I figured that I’d travel out that way,” he said, smiling at his uncle. “Hook my trailer up to my truck and drive off. Maybe see if I can’t get my classes online,” he continued.

He got a nod. “I…have an idea that you might like. I’ll show you what I’m talkin’ about when you get out and cleared,” he said. Phil smiled.

Three days later and they were pulling into a storage unit in the next town, lounging back on the back seat of his extra-large truck. “Come on,” his uncle said, parking in front of a vehicle storage unit. The man smiled softly as Phil slowly sat up with a wince, holding his side but able to move. The wound had been bleeding a lot and it had been kind of deep, but it had been easily closed fully.

Sliding out of his cab, he sighed and stood while his uncle rolled up the shutter of the storage unit. Within it, there was a brand-new travel RV that was just the perfect size for a single person and would sell for a good price should Phil want to. “Wow.”

His uncle chuckled. “Mark is offering a hefty price for your trailer plus this RV, straight across.” Phil looked at him. “Ten grand. The RV is brand new, well taken care of, and has under a thousand miles on it. He owns some land here and rents out the main house while usually living in the small cottage with his girl when they’re on vacation or not at the circus,” he said, shrugging with a smile.

Phil stared at it before looking at his uncle. “Can we look inside?” he asked. His uncle nodded and lead him through the RV. It didn’t take him long to agree to it, along with the small truck to tow behind it. He would take the money and buy a new vehicle when he got to college. And sell the RV if he didn’t find a cheap park to live in.

A week later, the circus was on the move to another warm tourist city and he was driving across the country to Seattle, Washington to start college.
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Changing Lives