2015, MISSOURI, UNDISCLOSED LOCATION

The prickling of her knee bugged her all the walk back home. She'd stop in between steps, squeezing the pinkish skin and watching in fascination as a bubble of blood poked out, before remembering what Dad told her about cuts and how they needed alcohol as A-S-A-P as possible.

"Mommy! Paper cut!" Jackie yelled in advance, as Laura Barton sets her watering can on a fence post, reaching down for her daughter instinctively before remembering Jackie was nearly as tall as her.

"Doesn't look that bad-oh, eick, is that dirt?" Laura said, holding Jackie's knee close to her eyes and inspecting.

"Yeah," Jackie said sheepishly.

Laura tsked, before grabbing Jackie's hand and leading her through the open door of the house and into the living room.

A lumpy leather couch took up a lot of the space, with Lila's amateur calligraphy displayed on the wall. Cooper's race car toys and picture books were scattered across the oak floors, and Jackie's multitude of crocheted animals were lined up neatly, taking up all the five shelves in the room.

Laura opened the bottom drawer beneath the shelves and took out a white bottle of alcohol, a plastic bag of cotton swabs, and a band-aid.

Jackie grabbed the bottle, wanting to get it over with. Hissing as the damp cotton bud pricked against her cut, she ran her knee under the sink (a feat that involves a lot of an unathletic person doing contortion), before slapping on a band-aid while Laura watched her (seeing if she'd mess up, probably).

"That tomato soup better still be simmering," Laura said as she walked into the kitchen after Jackie was done.

Let it burn, Jackie thought. She liked tomatoes in any form but a melted puddle.

With a huff, Jackie trudged back upstairs to her room, passing little Natash-no, Nathaniel's room. More crocheted animals lined the shelves, textbooks on her desk. A pair of ballet slippers were slung over a nail in the wall above her bed.

Leaning her feet against her desk while lounging in her chair, Jackie could hear scuffling coming from Lila and Cooper's room, probably due to them planning to blow some other thing up. Taking a sip of water out of her mug labeled 'Is it Friday yet?', Jackie rubbed her fingertips against her temples. A rush of wind whooshed through the open window onto her face, and Jackie briefly savored the feeling of open air kissing her cheeks, before she noticed that the wind felt stronger than usual.

It felt like the source was coming from the opposite side of the house, and Jackie was about to get up from her chair to investigate, but, as per the loud thumping on the stairs, her siblings would get there first. Trotting downstairs and skipping the very last step, Jackie pursed her lips together in curiosity and slight concern.

"Mommy, I can't find my dark pink yarn, do-"

Wow.

Either she'd forgotten about one of her siblings' birthdays and her dad spent a buttload of money on hired party avengers (which would probably never happen), or real avengers were in her living room.

"Hey, Jackie!" her dad called, Lila and Cooper clinging to his legs.

Jackie grinned as she walked into his open arms, one of which he wrapped around her shoulders.

However, the thought that the Avengers were in her house didn't leave her mind.

"Did you bring Auntie Nat?" asked Lila, puppy-dog eyes in full force at Clint.

"Why don't you hug her and find out?" Natasha said, smiling as she held her arms out.

"Auntie Lia!" Jackie said, beaming as Natasha flashed her a smile.

"Have you been working on your pirouette?" Natasha asked her, eyes narrowing slightly.

"Yep, I don't think I over-rotate anymore," Jackie said proudly.

"Sorry for barging in on you," said Captain freaking America. Jackie was too scared to meet his eyes.

Iron Man crossed his arms, waving one of his hands as he spoke.

"Yeah, we would have called ahead, but we were busy having no idea that you existed,"

"Yeah, well Fury helped me set this up when I joined. He kept it off SHIELD's files, I'd like to keep it that way. I figure it's a good place to lay low," said Clint.

The familiar bitterness bubbled inside Jackie, but she squashed it down. Not the time.

Natasha then went over to Laura and placed her hands on the latter's swollen stomach, and Jackie giggled at the fact that her namesake wouldn't be, well, word-for-word.

Unfortunately, her laugh attracted the attention of two of her idols, aka Captain America and Thor. The captain gave her a nod and a slight smile, the kind that she'd see given in the military. Should I salute? Or something? Meanwhile, Thor, who'd looked a bit weirded out by their house, frowned a little, but maintained his polite posture until he walked straight out the door.

Rude.

Or maybe not, Jackie thought again, looking at the unfolded pile of laundry on the couch and a stack of dirty dishes she was supposed to wash sitting in the sink.

"Auntie Lia, wanna come see my form?" Jackie said excitedly.

She'd been doing ballet for a few years now. A part of the basement Clint had converted into a small studio. Jackie might not have a formal teacher, but Natasha was more than enough to sharpen her up into a ballerina.

"Uh-sure thing, kiddo," Natasha said, blinking. Jackie furrowed her brows, wondering why she seemed a bit disoriented at the mention of ballet.

"Actually, Jackie, Auntie Lia had a long day, maybe tomorrow?" Clint said, casting a concerned glance towards Natasha.

"O-kay," Jackie said, slightly puzzled.

"Cheer up, Jackie, your dad's home, let's celebrate!" Laura said, Clint's arm wrapped around her waist.

Deciding to take their leave, Natasha, and the Hulk left through the hallway, the former walking a few paces ahead. Captain America walked out the door, where Thor had just been, and Iron Man went out the back.

"That's the spirit. C'mon kids, what'd you say to some mac n' cheese and Back to the Future? No, I'm not leaving after the movie like last month," said Clint jovially, messing around Cooper's hair. "I'm staying this time,"

He left the next day.

2018, MISSOURI, UNDISCLOSED LOCATION

"Nathaniel Pietro Barton, I swear to god-"

"Whatever it is, don't say it," Laura pointed at Jackie with the tip of a mayonnaise jar. The spring air stirred a few leaves into the breeze as it gently swept accross the open fields of the Barton home.

Jackie simply scowled as she rubbed her upper arm, throwing the baseball that had just been barreled at her back to Nathaniel, just a tad hard.

It hit Nate's chest and bounced off.

"Ow," he whined, but Jackie could tell he wasn't actually hurt.

"Oh, boo-hoo," she shot him an extremely sarcastic expression and accidentally dropped a hot dog bun. 

She made a face, then proceeded to pick it up from the grass and set it on an napkin. Maybe Nathaniel could eat that one.

"Hey, you guys want mayo? Or mustard? Or both?" Laura asked, placing a chopping board with ten hot dogs on it (besides Lila, all the Barton kids usually ate at least two hot dogs) in front of Jackie.

"Why am I on sauce duty?" Jackie asked flatly, staring at the chopping board.

"Because you weren't on hot dog bun duty, nor grilling duty," said Laura, her chocolate brown eyes twinkling as she took a sip of iced lemonade.

"Uh, two mustard, please! Thanks, mama!," said Clint from a distance away. He and Lila were doing archery, something Jackie had never been good at.

"Got it!" called Laura, nodding to Jackie "Time to work,"

Jackie huffed, but inside she enjoyed the feeling of wind blowing onto her neck, her feet on grassy ground and her insides happy.

Squirting identical squiggles of mustard on two hot dogs, Jackie flicked a few pieces of dark hair behind her ears.

"Nate, mayo or mustard?" asked Laura.

"How 'bout ketchup," he said, not facing Laura nor Jackie.

Laura shrugged, while Jackie stood up straight in triumph.

"There. The debate is finally settled, team ketchup-4, team mustard-2!" she said, hands waving dramatically as she yelled towards Clint and Lila. "You lost!"

Doing a hair flip like the girls in high school movies, Jackie sat down with a flounce and squirted a neat amount of ketchup on her, Laura, and Nathaniel's hot dogs. 

She decided to squirt just one drop of ketchup on Cooper's, for what was the point of being the oldest sibling, if not picking on the younger siblings?

"Guys, enough practice, soup's on!" called Laura, using a wooden spoon to stir, thankfully not tomato-pumpkin soup.

"Alright, we're comin', we're hungry!" said Clint, a few arrows in his hands. "Lila, let's go,"

Jackie's stomach growled and she stood up to let Nate and Cooper grab some food, before immediately falling over.

Jackie looked down, before realizing nearly all of her legs had disappeared.

Her view was fully blocked by the picnic table, as her eyes began to water, as was her instinct when panicking. She frantically scooted back from it, cold creeping up inside her. Her breathing grew heavier as she could feel herself hyperventilating. Her hearing buzzed out-it was only the grass cruching against her hands and the sound of her own breathing that she could discern. She could feel the breeze coming through the gaps in the wood, whittling at her skin and causing the prickly ice feeling to twitch. God, why was it so cold?

Her thoughts rushed through her brain, it might've only been a few seconds but there were thousands of them. Her mind had already decided between fight or flight, but there wasn't anything to fight, nor was there any way to flee. Her watery eyes blurred her vision and she frantically raised her hands to rub her eyes, but she couldn't feel her fingers. She waved her arm around but there wasn't anything there. It wasn't even numbness, it was just nothing.

It couldn't have been more than a second before Jackie could be no more. Brown eyes pleading in desperation, she felt a clammy feeling at her throat, like when she went swimming in the lake nearby at five, she accidentally didn't come up to breathe too long. I don't want to die. Her vocal cords went numb, her lips parted in a silent scream, as the intense feeling of nausea surged up her head, the concentrated feeling of being trapped with nowhere to hide overwhelming her. She squeezed her eyes shut before she disappeared entirely, a single tear escaping.

It fell to the ground amidst her dust, before being carried away by the wind that had once kissed her cheeks.

━━author's note ━━

we're starting here, huh?

so, basically, this prologue covered jackie as a child and her a few years later when she gets..uhm..we won't talk about that anymore...

speaking of blipping, jackie's 16 when she blips, so that ✨trauma✨ is def gonna come back and bite her. in fact, spoiler alert, that's one of the biggest plot drivers for her character arc throughout part one.

also, in terms the whole 'the world doesn't know about the barton kids' existence', i've made it so that the world does technically know about them, (cmon if there were paparazzi pics of clint and his kids in the first ep people would piece stuff together pretty quickly). however theyre existence isn't that big of a deal as theyre protected from the media+public by s.h.i.e.l.d (s.w.o.r.d now ig).

i tried my best to write a 16-year-old dying, and boy after my break from the asoiaf fandom my poetry skills really wilted, hopefully i can revive them.

anyways as im writing this ep 4 just came out, i wont give spoilers, but i am EXCITEDD for the next eps. 

tell me your thoughts on this prologue! 💗