After the performance ended, Atlas returned to his dressing room. Wrapped in a coarse blanket for warmth, he sat on a simple wooden chair, a half-empty glass of cheap brown liquor dangling from his hand.
The air in the room was thick with silence — heavy, suffocating, and filled with a kind of loneliness that clung to the walls.
His gaze fell on the mirror across the room. The glass was clouded and unclean, warped by age. The reflection it gave back was faint and indistinct — a fitting image, perhaps, for a man whose life had become equally blurred and uncertain.
He took a sip of the liquor and held it on his tongue. That familiar sour burn spread slowly through his mouth. Within ten kilometers of this dusty little town, this was the only kind of alcohol you could get. Damn it.
Things hadn't always been this way.
He swallowed hard, then turned his head slightly toward the presence behind him.
"So… after all these years, you finally decided to kill me?"
As he spoke, his eyes flicked to a faded photo hanging by the mirror's edge — a photo of several men and women in skintight suits. His old comrades. His teammates. A snapshot of another life.
From the shadows stepped a man in golden power armor. The dim light reflected off its polished plating, outlining the face of Hawkeye, grim and composed. He forced himself not to look at the photograph — his eyes stayed fixed on Atlas instead.
"I treated you well," Clint said, his voice low but sharp. "We went through hell together. So why did you betray us?"
"God, Clint…" Atlas gave a bitter laugh. "You really think the world revolves around you? I did what I had to — I just wanted to stay alive."
The bald giant's voice carried the weight of resignation. He lowered his head, staring into the dregs of his drink, as though hoping the liquor might offer him an answer he'd never found elsewhere.
The villains saw him as a failed antihero from the Thunderbolts.
The heroes saw him as one of Zemo's Masters of Evil.
No one saw the man he'd become.
"You haven't had it easy either," he murmured. "A wife, kids… bills to pay. We all said we'd never sell out, remember? None of us kept that promise."
He set down his glass, poured another, and raised it toward Clint with a small, rueful smile.
"One last drink? To the old days?"
Clint said nothing. He merely raised his right hand.
With a soft click, the mechanical bow built into his armor extended, an arrow sliding into place. Its tip gleamed coldly in the dim light.
Before coming here, he'd asked the craftsman to install this auto-loading wrist bow onto the suit — a compromise between weapon and tradition. He was deadly with firearms and unarmed combat, yes, but it never felt right if he didn't have something that fired.
"No drink?" Atlas tilted back his own glass and downed it in one swallow. Then he stood, shrugging off the blanket and baring the large A emblazoned across his chest — the initial of his old codename.
The cloth fell to the ground like a discarded skin. It was a declaration: no more hiding, no more pretending. The past and present would meet here, openly, in this room.
"Then you'd better pray that toy of yours hits harder than your ugly face!" Atlas roared, his voice booming like thunder. The glass in his hand shattered to powder between his fingers.
And then he grew.
His body swelled in an instant, muscles expanding, veins bulging. The flimsy tent roof above him burst apart with a deafening crack, torn to shreds by his sheer size. Within seconds, he was over twenty meters tall.
The audience outside, moments ago laughing and clapping, now screamed in terror. They watched the giant tear through the big top, stomping and swinging wildly, sending canvas, lights, and props flying in all directions.
Panic erupted. People ran in every direction, tripping over benches and each other.
But as each person reached the circus gates, a faint red halo flickered briefly around their heads — and their frightened expressions softened into confusion. Then, as if nothing had happened, they resumed running further into the distance.
"What's the matter?" Clint's mocking voice came through the comm. "Didn't finish growing? You were taller ten minutes ago."
With a roll and a burst of thrusters, Hawkeye dodged the giant's hammering fist. Even without armor, his enhanced reflexes could have saved him — but with the power suit boosting his speed and strength, he danced through the air with ease.
Rubble and debris struck him in a metallic clatter, leaving not so much as a scratch on his golden plating.
"Keep flapping your mouth," he taunted. "We should've killed you back then instead of cutting you loose. Zemo was an idiot to spare you."
Enraged, Atlas grabbed the nearby roller coaster track and swung it like a whip toward the airborne figure. If the Ferris wheel had been closer, he might have tried to stuff Clint inside and roll him across the ground like a hamster ball.
The coaster cars howled through the air — before splintering mid-flight into three jagged pieces. As the wind roared around him, Hawkeye's visor lit up with data streams and trajectory calculations.
The engines in his armor howled, preparing for impact.
He clenched his fist — and punched.
The largest piece of wreckage exploded into shards. The shockwave propelled Clint's blurred figure forward like a meteor, slamming straight into Atlas's chest.
The giant staggered backward several steps, each one driving deep craters into the ground beneath his feet.
But Clint didn't let up. The leg actuators in his armor flared, launching him forward in a burst of speed. Within seconds, he was moving at over a hundred kilometers per hour.
"You're still the same," he hissed. "Always wasting your size advantage — always turning strength into weakness."
As Atlas swayed dizzily, Clint drew two short blades from his waist — vibranium-edged combat knives, forged to match his armor — and drove them into the giant's Achilles tendons like ice axes.
"ARGH—! You little bastard!" Atlas howled in pain, reaching down to grab him.
But Hawkeye was already gone — climbing swiftly up the giant's back, his blades flashing as he cut open a dozen wounds along the way.
Normally, a giant enhanced by Pym Particles would be nearly impervious to bullets or even missiles — but Clint's blades weren't normal steel. When crafted, they'd been alloyed with vibranium, melted down from the Duplicant's personal earrings, making their edges razor-sharp beyond belief.
By the time Atlas realized what was happening, his back was a map of deep, bleeding gashes.
Clint leapt onto his shoulder. In one clean motion, he drove a blade into the gap of the cervical spine — and twisted.
A fountain of blood burst out. The giant shuddered, then collapsed like a felled mountain, the impact shaking the ground and throwing up a cloud of dust.
Clint landed lightly beside the fallen titan, flicking crimson droplets from his knives.
"Ready?" he said coldly. "You can go see Baron Zemo now."
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