When he decided to go on vacation with his wife and children, Clint never expected to end up in such a dangerous situation. Everything seemed normal: a quiet road, light conversations, the strange and almost forgotten feeling of not being on a mission. That changed abruptly when they came across a fallen tree blocking the road.
They turned around without much concern, but they didn't end up where they should have. The scenery repeated itself in a deeply unsettling way, and before they realized it, they found themselves in a town they were certain they had never passed through before.
The people of the town watched them in silence. Some looks were filled with curiosity, others with something much worse: pity. Clint noticed it immediately. The atmosphere was heavy, sad, as if fear were embedded in the walls and in the faces of the people. When they asked for directions, the answers were vague, evasive, always the same: to keep going. No matter how much they insisted, no one seemed willing to say more.
Clint knew something was wrong the first time, after driving for several minutes with no visible detours, they ended up back in the same town. The same sign. The same houses. The same uncomfortable silence. No new road had appeared along the way.
That was when his instincts fully kicked in. With all his experience as an elite SHIELD agent, he understood it wasn't a coincidence. He had stumbled into something supernatural. Something similar—though never identical—to cases SHIELD had begun to uncover more and more frequently in recent years.
He himself had participated in several extermination missions involving similar creatures. The last one had been a few years earlier, when his target was an убийца who wore a white hockey mask. It hadn't been an easy job. Whatever that thing was, it didn't behave like anything human. Clint had to inflict enough damage to kill a normal person a hundred times over before it finally stopped moving.
And even then, a year later, disturbing reports came in: it seemed that thing had come back to life and was killing civilians again. This time, they couldn't stop it. When the agents arrived, all the civilians were dead and the killer—whom they called Jason based on the information they managed to gather—had vanished without a trace.
After that, SHIELD began to truly grasp how many similar situations were happening around the world. Paranormal events that defied any logical explanation. Many couldn't be resolved. When agents were sent, they often ended up dead or unable to truly affect the supernatural creature, forcing SHIELD to prioritize damage control rather than eliminating the threat.
With that knowledge burned into him, Clint didn't hesitate when, on the second loop, he ended up back in the town again. He stopped the car abruptly. The first thing he did was try to contact Fury.
Useless.
There was no communication with the outside world. Not even a cutting-edge communicator worked. If that failed, there was no point in trying anything else.
After that, Clint and his wife—clearly worried—got out of the car. After insisting for a while, Boyd—who seemed to be in charge of the town—finally answered their questions. He told them what happened there, about the dangers that came out at night, and about the strict rules they had to follow if they wanted to stay alive.
Several days later, after choosing to stay in the town and seeing the creatures come out at night with his own eyes, Clint planned an attempt to kill one of those monsters. He prepared everything carefully, analyzing movements, weak points, and escape routes.
The result was worse than he expected.
Those things weren't just tough—they seemed impossible to kill. He had no choice but to flee and return to the house, the only place the monsters couldn't enter.
From that day on, Clint never stopped looking for a way to get his family out of that place. With no success. Every night he could feel his wife's constant fear and his own silent worry about what might happen to his children at any moment.
As time passed, and with no real alternative, Clint began helping the town. He taught the people what to do in dangerous situations and, to those willing, showed them how to defend themselves. Not because he believed it would truly work against the monsters, but because they needed to feel like they could do something. That they weren't completely helpless.
He spent much of his days at the sheriff's station, being one of the few who had weapons and knew how to use them, helping maintain order alongside Boyd and Kenny.
Until, a few days ago, he saw something that finally shattered his hope. Not even a Ghoul was able to defeat those creatures. In a matter of minutes, several of the monsters tore it apart with ease. In that moment, Clint felt that nothing in that place could kill them.
Nothing… until today.
That day, he heard that new people had arrived. One of them seemed to have telekinesis so powerful he could send the monsters flying as if they weighed nothing. The other, with absurd physical strength, treated them like toys—though he couldn't harm them… until he pulled out what people said was a bright green dagger.
With that weapon, he had managed to wound one of the monsters.
The wound was small. Insignificant.
But to Clint, it was hope.
Something he had been waiting for a very long time.
A while later, he saw Jim Matthews approaching, accompanied by a teenage boy about fifteen years old, tall for his age, and a seventeen-year-old girl walking hand in hand with him, a constant smile on her face.
Clint fixed his gaze on the boy.
And he knew that, for the first time since arriving in that place, maybe things could change.
Besides Clint Barton, Liam saw Boyd and Kenny as well. Boyd stood firmly near the entrance of the sheriff's station, but Kenny was a few steps away, shoulders tense and gaze averted, clearly upset and avoiding any eye contact with Boyd. The tension between them was evident even before a single word was spoken.
"Boyd, Clint, Kenny, I brought you the leaders of the new group that arrived last night. They need information about the town and everything that's happened," Jim Matthews said once they were close enough, gesturing with his hand to introduce them.
Clint, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, analyzed Liam and Carrie with professional attention. His eyes scanned small but telling details: their relaxed posture that was still ready to react, the way they moved without wasting energy, and above all, the clear physical signs of real strength—the kind that doesn't come from a regular gym, but from years of training or extreme situations.
Boyd, standing at the doorway of the station, observed them with a hard, tired expression. He had heard rumors, stories that sounded exaggerated even for this town, and he still seriously doubted that two teenagers could do anything against horrors that had torn apart armed, prepared adults.
Kenny, for his part, seemed unsure. His hands clenched and unclenched slowly, as if he didn't know whether to trust them, distrust them, or simply stay out of it.
"Welcome to the town. I've heard some hard-to-believe things about the two of you," Boyd said. His voice was deep and exhausted, as if the last few days had drained what little energy he had left.
"Then you already know about our abilities. It's hard to believe, but in a town like this, it doesn't seem that strange," Liam replied. As he spoke, out of the corner of his eye he noticed Carrie slightly frown, fixing her gaze on Boyd with an intensity that didn't go unnoticed.
Clint noticed it too. His attention immediately shifted between Carrie and Boyd, as if anticipating that something was about to happen.
"Something is wrong with you. I can feel strange creatures in your blood," Carrie finally said, her voice firm, after noticing Liam looking at her, waiting for her to say what she had sensed.
Boyd immediately stepped back, almost on reflex. He lowered his gaze to his arms and began rubbing them nervously, as if expecting to see the worms moving beneath his skin, just as he had seen on other days since returning to the town.
That made Liam frown. He didn't remember anything like this from the first season, and the realization hit him hard: he was clearly further along the timeline than he had thought. That made the information now more important than ever if he wanted to prepare for future problems.
"H-how do you know that?" Boyd asked, his voice tense and trembling slightly.
"I can feel it. It's like when I know someone is pregnant just by being near them, except yours feels like hundreds of creatures moving inside your blood," Carrie hesitated slightly before speaking, trying to find the right words to describe the sensation through her telekinetic perception.
"I thought I was going crazy these last few days—the worms, the music, and other things no one else could see. It was a nightmare," Boyd said. His breathing became irregular for a moment; there was fear in his voice, but also clear relief at knowing he wasn't imagining it all.
Clint and Kenny exchanged quick glances. Both looked surprised, but also relieved to have confirmation that what Boyd had been saying was real. Watching him deteriorate day after day had been hard.
Clint, in particular, seemed more willing to believe it. With everything he knew existed in the world, it wasn't impossible. Even so, he didn't see a clear solution.
Boyd, a bit calmer now, lifted his gaze toward Carrie with a spark of hope and asked, "Can you take them out?"
Carrie looked at him for a long moment, then closed her eyes, focusing. She stayed like that for several seconds while everyone held their breath, watching in silence. Finally, she slowly shook her head.
"It doesn't seem physical. It's more like something spiritual. You'll have to find another solution," Carrie said.
Boyd's head dropped forward in disappointment. However, a second later, he took a deep breath and forced himself to recover. At least now he knew he wasn't crazy. That was something.
At that moment, Liam remembered what had happened the day before when he used Observation on one of the Smilers and, under the weak points category, had seen the jailer's worms. The idea formed quickly in his mind: those worms could probably kill the Smilers. But without knowing how Boyd had acquired them, mentioning it now would be pointless. First, he needed information.
"Let's leave that topic for another time. Now let's continue with what we came here for. I need information about everything that's happened in the town," Liam said seriously, taking control of the conversation again.
Hearing this, Boyd snapped out of his thoughts, nodded, and spoke. "Let's go inside to talk. I hope your abilities help the people trapped here improve their lives—or even better, leave the town." There was genuine hope in his voice, something he hadn't felt in a long time, after seeing how the young people in front of him perceived things no one else could.
"Don't worry. I'll get everyone out of here in a week at most," Liam replied, recalling the system's mission.
Liam's words lifted the spirits of everyone present—people who had been trapped in that place for far too long without finding a way out.
"If you manage to do that, I wouldn't know how to repay you for getting my family out of this nightmare," Clint said, with a seriousness that made it clear how much it meant to him.
Liam looked at him and immediately understood that Clint wasn't alone in that place. His family was there too. Thinking about it, having the goodwill of someone like Clint in the future wouldn't hurt at all.
"Leave it to me," Liam said seriously.
A few hours later, Liam knew practically everything that had happened in the town over the past few months. He stood leaning against one of the tables in the sheriff's station, arms crossed and brow furrowed, processing every detail as he listened to the accounts.
He learned how a bus full of passengers had arrived a few days earlier and how many of them had died quickly after refusing to believe what was happening in the town. Some ignored the warnings, others panicked, and several simply refused to accept reality—paying the highest price.
He also understood how Boyd had obtained the worms. That information made Liam's eyes shine slightly; it wasn't just curiosity, it was calculation. It gave him a clear idea of how he could remove them—or even how to use them to kill a Smiler. His mind was already connecting possibilities, risks, and advantages.
He learned that the portal trees seemed completely random in where they sent people, transporting anyone who entered them to unpredictable locations. And also about the lighthouse they had seen in the distance—a solitary structure that many barely managed to glimpse before being forced to flee.
All of it fit into Liam's mind like pieces of an incomplete puzzle, forming a new idea of how they might escape that place. It wasn't a solution yet, but it was a direction.
Then he heard about the collapsed Matthews house and how Jim had survived something that should have killed him. About Tabitha finding the place where the Smilers slept—information as dangerous as it was valuable. And about the children… those strange children some people saw, who asked for help, and whose presence left an unsettling feeling even among the bravest.
With all that information, Liam took a deep breath. His posture shifted slightly; he was no longer just someone listening—he was someone about to speak. He was about to explain his plans for the next week, organize ideas, assign priorities and risks.
But at that moment, the door to the sheriff's station opened.
The dry sound of the door drew everyone's attention.
It was Donna.
The leader of Colony House entered with firm steps, unhurried, but making it clear her presence was no coincidence. Her expression was hard, serious—the kind that could make even armed men step back. Her eyes quickly scanned the room before stopping on Liam and Carrie, analyzing them with a cold, calculating stare, as if evaluating the danger they might pose to everyone trapped there.
The atmosphere immediately grew tense.
Donna finally turned her head toward Boyd and spoke:
"Boyd, we need to talk."
Her tone left no room for discussion. It wasn't a request.