Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

1. Phil Coulson

Clint shifted slightly, watching as a man walked through the door. With his left hand cuffed to the table in front of him -- which was bolted to the floor -- and all of his belongings in the custody of whoever managed to catch him.

He had been scoping out a parking garage in Texas when the Suit appeared seemingly out of nowhere.

Clint hated when that happened. When his deafness was a liability to him. The only way he wouldn't have been caught was if he could hear.

Needless to say, when the man in the suit sat down across from him in a calm, relaxed way, Clint was fairly angry.

The two men started at each other silently, and Clint's already bad mood worsened when he realized the Suit didn't bring an interpreter with him. What were they going to do, pass each other notes like they were in middle school?

After a couple minutes go by with neither attempting to communicate, Clint huffs. The sooner this was over, the sooner he could start working on his escape plan.

Leaning backwards, Clint blew out a breath before opening his mouth and speaking. "Yo."

The agent raised a singular eyebrow, before repeating what the younger man had said. "Yo? We [...] [...] in [...] [...] fifteen minutes [...] all you [...] [...] [...] [...] yo?"

Clint frowned, sighing frustratedly. Clint could hear the man talking, but it was so muffled and quiet that he couldn't make anything out. He was better than some others at lip-reading, but it was still incredibly hard to understand long conversations. He can see the man say something else, but he had already started ignoring him. 

Another few minutes pass by, and when he doesn't hear another word from Hawkeye, the Agent stands up, eyebrows furrowed and expression angry. The change in position catches Hawkeye's attention, and the two men finally make eye-contact.

With the suited man not speaking and all of his attention on Clint, he took the opportunity and raised his uncuffed hand -- his right -- and pointed it as the agent, turned both hands from palm up to palm down, before moving a curved pointer finger in the mans direction. 'YOU FINISH?'

The shock on the agent's face was priceless, and Clint couldn't help but smirk with satisfaction.

Clint watched -- thoroughly amused -- as the agent excused himself and left the room. Quietly chuckling, Hawkeye shook his head.

When the man returned about a half hour later with an interpreter in tow, Clint was pleasantly surprised.

The agent sat down, and Clint watched the interpreter sign to him. 'MY NAME A-G-E-N-T C-O-U-L-S-O-N. AGAIN WE START.'

Chapter Text

2. Natasha Romanoff

Clint was flipping through a sports magazine, struggling to recall his knowledge of the Dutch language in order to read it when a flutter of movement caught his attention.

Looking upwards, he smiled as he saw the long-haired redhead on the motel couch was waking up.

The redhead was a woman named Natalia Romanova, who goes by Natasha Romanoff, she was a Black Widow assassin that he had been sent to kill.

He had ended up knocking her out taking her to S.H.I.E.L.D. medical, and recruiting her instead.

Oops.

Fury had been furious (Clint giggled to himself at that) with his actions, and was about three seconds away from firing him before Coulson had come to his rescue. Phil had explained to the Director how if Natalia was to be recruited for S.H.I.E.L.D., it would be a huge advantage for them.

Needless to say that, while nowhere near being happy, Fury had reluctantly agreed to allow Clint to question and attempt to recruit her. It took a few hours, but she had accepted and had since been made a proper S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. Flashforward about two months and she was allowed on her first mission, with Clint accompanying her.

Natasha blinked open her eyes.

"Good morning, sleeping beauty." Clint said, he hoped he was speaking at an acceptable level. He couldn't tell because when he was out making a quick supply run, it ended up raining, sending his hearing aids on the fritz.

You would think S.H.I.E.L.D. would have a few doctors and engineers try to create proper hearing aids for one of their top agents to be able to be able to still work in the rain, but nooooo. Luckily he had a spare pair in his suitcase, if only he remembered to put them in.

At the sound of his voice, the Black Widow's head shot up, temporarily tensing before remembering who he was.

"Jesus, Barton. Why do you like watching people sleep so much?"

Snorting, Clint stood up and started walking out towards the kitchen. "Because it's fun to see people's reactions, duh."

"You're a weird person, Clint. You know that, right?"

Natasha frowned as she watched Clint ignore her and started making himself coffee. Grumbling, she sat up properly and called out for him to make her a cup, too.

Ignoring her yet again, the man put up the instant-coffee powder before turning around and leaning against the counter.

"Jeez, what crawled up your ass this morning?"

Clint looked up from his cup of coffee, looking confused. "Excuse me?"

Natasha snorted as she stood up from the couch and stretched her neck. "Seriously. You silently watched me wake up and then ignored two of my questions."

With eyebrows furrowed, Clint brought up one hand and cupped one of his ears, before his eyes widened. "Ah, shit. Forgot my hearing aids."

Doing a double-take, Natasha watched as her work partner rushed to his backpack and started going through it. She saw him pull out a small case, and remove the hearing aids to put on.

After a moment of fiddling with his hearing aids, she loudly cleared her throat, causing Clint to jump.

"Since when were you deaf?"

"What? Oh. On-and-off since I was pretty young. Lost my hearing at a young age and it got better for a while, but got much worse after I started working. Gunfire and explosions are no joke, man."

Clint chuckled, shaking his head and pocketing the case for his hearing aids.

"So. Were you ever going to tell me you're deaf."

"Maybe. Like, if I lost them or they broke or something."

"Huh. Glad to know you wouldn't have mentioned it unless it caused you danger then."

"Don't be like that."

"Don't be like what? Like a person who doesn't mention something their work partner should know?"

"You're not going to stop bringing this up, will you?"

"Nope."

Chapter Text

3. Loki

Clint lowered his arm from protecting his face, eyebrows furrowed as he tried to look at what the Tesseract had... summoned?

The S.H.I.E.L.D. agents who were dressed in all black and armed with guns crept forward. Slowly, the agents approached what appeared to be a human silhouette, ready to fire if the being expressed harm. Shuffling, Barton moved closer to Fury and let his arms dangle by his sides, ready to grab his gun. The slick-haired human-esque alien raised his -- it's? -- head and smiled, before standing up and tightening it’s  grip on a spear it had.

"Sir, please [...] [...] [...] [...]." Fury commanded, his voice loud and echoing all around the warehouse. Clint wasn't wearing his hearing aids, and wasn't willing to look away from the extraterrestrial to try to lipread and understand what his superior was saying. Given the fact that the being was carrying a spear and Fury gave it a command, he could probably get the gist of what the man was saying.

The being looked down at his weapon, looked up, then thrust it forward towards Clint and Fury.

Clint watched as some sort of magic exited the spear and felt his body moving before he could properly think about it. Tackling the Director to the side, the two of them landed roughly on the metal floor. After rolling a few times, they came to a stop.

Refusing to waste any time, the agent immediately got up, grabbed his gun from where it was resting in his thigh-holster and shot out from behind a desk where he had landed. Although he could see and ever-so-faintly hear his fellow agents firing their guns at the mysterious being, Clint did the only thing he could think of and do the same.

He wasn't called the worlds best marksman for no reason. Lifting his arms, Hawkeye aimed and fired. Straight into the head.

He had succeeded in doing nothing except annoy it.

Standing up straight, the being shook it's hair out of it's face and held out the spear once more, thrusting it forward and sending the destructive magic towards him once again.

Scowling, Barton dove out of the destructive magics path for the second time in a row, hitting his head against a wall harshly, knocking the wind out of him.

Breathing heavily, the man slowly brought himself upwards, pushing himself onto his hands and knees. He could tell something was wrong, he couldn't feel any vibrations through the floor, and he didn't hear the muffled sounds of gunfire anymore.

Flinching as sparks landed close by his body, he successfully stood up before seeing movement through the corner of his eye.

Immediately turning around, he started to swing his left arm upwards. In hindsight, he doesn't know what he was trying to do. Bullets didn't harm the beings head, so why would hitting it with a gun? Nonetheless, he never found out, as the black-haired being grabbed his wrist, preventing his arm from moving towards it any more.

Grunting, he Clint tried pulling away from the being and it's painful grasp.

The alien tilted its head to the side and gave him a small smile, it looked... curious?

"Interesting. A lack of proper senses, yet you still have heart."

Clint's eyes widened in shock as the being spoke to him. He could hear it clearly. No muffled or quiet words, he didn't even need to lipread.

Held in place and frozen in surprise, the agent didn't fight as the extraterrestrial raised its spear and tap him on the chest with it.

Exhaling, Clint could feel his body move without his permission. Looking upwards, he could feel information flowing into his brain. The being's name was Loki, and in the spear was an extension of the tesseract.

Clint felt as his body holstered his gun and stood at attention for the asgardian. With his mind feeling muddled and sluggish, the trained assassin wasn't able to tell what Loki was doing or what was happening in his surroundings. Before he knew it, he was striding across the floor and felt his mouth open.

He knew he was telling Loki that Director Fury was stalling and planning for all of them to be buried when the warehouse exploded and collapsed, but he couldn't help but feel confused. When did Fury start speaking, and when did Loki start controlling those two other men? Even through his hazy mind, the spy could tell Loki was still the only thing he could properly hear. It reminded Clint of from before he lost his hearing for the first time, from back before he needed hearing aids to amplify what little he could hear but still provide a sorry substitute of.

He watched as Loki and the doctor he possessed conversed back and forth, hearing only one side of the conversation. With the confirmation of Fury's plan, Loki looked at the spy. "Well then,"

Despite not saying more than that, Clint could tell it was a command to deal with the Director. Fear flooded throughout his body and as his left arm pulled out his gun, he fought against the asgardian, focusing all of his energy on moving his arm and not hurting the man he respects so much. Somehow, he managed to lower his arm just enough to shoot the man in the chest, where Clint knew he always wore a bulletproof vest.

Now exhausted, Clint lost himself in his foggy mind, only focusing on how glad he was that Fury survived.