Hawkeye's Entire Timeline In The MCU Explained

Baby Clint was born in Iowa to one Edith Barton. A headstrong lad, he dropped out of high school, preferring to spend his time working on his exceptional marksmanship. Clint was especially adept at working with a bow and arrow. He also learned to use a sword under the guidance of Jacques "Jack" Duquesne, an expert swordsman.

After maturing into adulthood, Clint met a woman named Laura (Linda Cardellini), and married her. It was around that time that Clint's skills with weaponry of all kinds drew the attention of Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), who personally hand-picked him to be a part of SHIELD (The Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division). 

Clint soon developed a reputation as one of SHIELD's most skilled operatives, and one of Fury's most trusted men. When Clint and Laura decided to start a family, Fury helped keep their personal data out of SHIELD's files, and also found a farmhouse for the couple in Missouri to raise their children away from the eyes of their enemies.

After becoming one of SHIELD's top agents, Hawkeye was assigned increasingly complex missions of an international nature. One such mission would prove to be a turning point for Hawkeye and the future team of Avengers as a whole. Clint was assigned the task of locating and eliminating a dangerous new Russian assassin called Black Widow, who was stated to be a threat to global peace.

Clint managed to track down Black Widow in Russia, where she turned out to be one Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson). During their interactions Clint realized that there was a potential for good in Natasha, who had been forced to become Black Widow — along with a bunch of other kidnapped women — by a clandestine Russian program called "Red Room." Instead of killing her, Clint offered Natasha the chance to defect from Russia and become a SHIELD operative. Natasha accepted the deal, and she and Clint teamed up to put an end to the Red Room once and for all. 

To that end, they tracked down Dreykov (Ray Winstone), the leader of the Red Room, to a secret location in Budapest. Natasha and Clint arranged to bomb the building Dreykov was operating from. As a result special forces got after Clint and Natasha, forcing them to engage in a brutal firefight before hiding out for 10 days in the ceiling of a subway station. With Dreykov apparently dead, Natasha officially joined SHIELD and became Clint's partner on many new missions, and his close friend.

Thanks to working for SHIELD, Clint found himself dealing with increasingly bizarre and extraterrestrial problems that his previous training and missions had not prepared him for. After the events of New Mexico, Hawkeye was tasked with breaking into SHIELD's Helicarrier as a means of testing the giant machine's defenses. Upon breaking through the last level of security, Clint obtained secret files pertaining to something called "The Avengers Initiative."  

Soon afterward, Clint was put in charge of the security detail for Project PEGASUS, a team founded to explore the nature of the Tesseract that had been previously used during the Kree-Skrull war in the 1980s, as seen in 2019's "Captain Marvel." Fury brought in Thor's friend Erik Selvig (Stellan Skarsgård) to examine the Tesseract. Clint did a background check on Selvig and his team to make sure they were clean, and they discussed what they knew about the Tesseract's alien origin.

As shown in 2012's "The Avengers," Clint saw the Tesseract as a doorway through space. He reasoned that a doorway can be opened from both sides. That was when the Tesseract started acting up, and Clint and his security team were caught unawares by the arrival of Loki (Tom Hiddleston). In the ensuing battle, Clint managed to save Fury's life, but at the cost of becoming a mind-controlled slave to Loki along with Selvig. At Loki's command, Clint took himself, Selvig, and the God of Mischief away from SHIELD's area of control, while telling Loki everything he had learned about "The Avengers Initiative."  

While Loki had been captured, the effects of his attack on Earth were felt long afterwards in a number of ways. Clint was now officially a member of the Avengers. The team of heroes learned that Loki's enchanted scepter had passed into the hands of prominent HYDRA agent Baron Strucker. Strucker had already used the scepter to carry out experiments on humans, with the most successful products of such tests being Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) and her twin brother Pietro (Aaron Taylor-Johnson).

While the Avengers managed to retrieve the scepter at the start of 2015's "Avengers: Age of Ultron," Wanda slipped in a bit of hypnosis in Tony Stark's psyche to make him paranoid. With the help of Bruce Banner, Tony began work on an AI named Ultron that could defend humanity against any alien threats. The AI eventually broke free of Tony's programming and became sentient. Ultron decided that humanity needed to be destroyed, and once again Clint and the other Avengers had to step up to save the world.

After a long and hard-fought battle, during which Clint was forced to reveal the existence of his secret family farm to the other Avengers, they were able to destroy Ultron. Pietro died while saving Clint, and Wanda became an ally to the heroes. A new member was also added to the team in the form of Tony's former AI butler-turned-sentient-cyborg Vision (Paul Bettany). 

While Steve Rogers aka Captain America broke Clint and the others out of prison soon after the events of "Captain America: Civil War," they were still wanted fugitives. Clint decided to turn himself in to the FBI and agree to the Sokovia Accords in return for being placed under house arrest on his own farm instead of being imprisoned. 

And so Hawkeye vowed to once again retire from the superhero business and devote all his time to taking care of his farm and his family. Clint spent his house arrest bonding with his children and teaching archery to his daughter Lila, who showed a similar talent with the bow and arrow as her father. 

While Clint was enjoying his downtime with his family, in 2018 his life was turned upside down when he discovered that his wife and children had mysteriously disappeared in his very presence. He would later come to learn of Thanos' (Josh Brolin) mission to eradicate half of all life in the universe, and how the Avengers had failed to stop the Mad Titan, resulting in the death of untold trillions including Clint's entire family at the end of "Avengers: Infinity War." 

Initially, Clint was reluctant to hold on to any hope at all that his family might return, fearing he would not be able to bear it if their plan failed. Eventually he came around to the plan the Avengers were making to go back in time to collect the six Infinity Stones before Thanos and make their own Infinity Gauntlet. 

Clint was the first to volunteer to test the new time-traveling technology. He used Ant-Man's (Paul Rudd) Pym Particles to successfully travel back in time to his farm, where he heard his children's voices nearby. An overwhelmed Hawkeye called out to his daughter, but was whisked away before he could see her. Now convinced the plan could work, Clint helped the other Avengers decide on a plan of action to retrieve the infinity stones.     

Clint and Natasha were tasked with getting the Soul Stone on the planet Vormir. Arriving at the location, they discovered that one needed to sacrifice the other in order to find the stone. Clint insisted he be the one to sacrifice himself, but Natasha beat him to the punch. Devastated over now having lost his best friend as well, Clint returned to the Avengers headquarters with the Soul Stone as the other teams brought each of the other five stones. Bruce Banner was able to use them to snap everyone who had disappeared five years ago back into existence, including Clint's family.   

After the events of "Avengers: Infinity War," Clint distanced himself from the Avengers once again and tried to put his past as a crimefighter behind him. He was living with his family on their farm when he was invited to attend a musical based on the Chitauri Invasion, which he and the Avengers thwarted years earlier. Clint took his kids to the show, but he was unable to enjoy it due to the many inaccuracies and being reminded of Natasha's demise. His experiences on the battlefield had also severely damaged Clint's hearing, necessitating the use of a hearing aid in his left ear.

Clint was frequently accosted by Hawkeye fans whenever he went out in public, and he felt uncomfortable with all the attention. All he wanted to do was enjoy the holiday festivities with his children in New York before returning home, but his plans changed after he saw a troubling news report — someone was using his old Ronin assassin uniform to terrorize the city. Still haunted by his time as Ronin, Clint decided to set off on a quick secret mission to nab his doppelganger and get his old suit back before things got out of hand.

Kate and Clint's private moment was interrupted by the Tracksuit Mafia launching an assault on their hiding place. The duo managed to escape, but it wasn't exactly easy — Clint felt hampered by the lack of his usual arsenal, as well as his worry for Kate and his desire to get back to his family.

Meanwhile, the Ronin suit had once again disappeared. Clint discovered that it was in the possession of a group of live-action role-players. He also found out that Kate came from a powerful family with a sketchy background. Despite her wanting to work alongside him, Clint opted to complete the rest of his mission on his own and sent Kate back to her family. After assuring his wife that he would be home soon, Clint set out to hunt down the Ronin costume alone.

Unfortunately, Clint was still being followed by the Tracksuit Mafia, who were initially recruited to get their hands on a special Rolex watch that belonged to his wife. He would come to learn that the villains were acting on behalf of a woman named Maya Lopez, aka Echo (Alaqua Cox), who held a personal grudge against Clint for killing her father during his time as Ronin.

With his enemies closing in around him, Clint was forced to confront the demons of his past. He revealed to Maya that Wilson Fisk had orchestrated events so that Ronin would kill her father, because Fisk saw Maya's dad as a threat to him. The savvy villain had used Ronin to get rid of his competition, manipulating the situation to his benefit.

Clint also finally had it out with Yelena, telling her the truth about Natasha's death. He revealed how hard he fought to be the one to sacrifice his life on Vormir instead of her, and spoke of how devastated he still was over the loss of his best friend. At long last, Yelena believed Clint and the two grieved over the death of Natasha together. Meanwhile, Kate discovered that her mother Eleanor was secretly working with Kingpin to pay off an old debt.

After a narrow escape, Kate was able to take down Fisk and regretfully handed her mother over to the authorities. With the whole affair finally put to rest, Clint asked Kate to spend Christmas at the farm with his family. In the end, Clint was able to enjoy the holiday with his loved ones. He returned the Rolex to his wife and suggested to his new protégé that they should share the name Hawkeye going forward.