Chapter Text
The most annoying part about getting caught is that nobody realises that he wanted to get caught. That he let them catch him. Clint isn’t an actor by any stretch of the imagination, but apparently, apparently, he’s good enough that some of the secret service dickwads around him figure they actually caught him out.
Like Clint isn’t smarter than that. Like Clint would ever, ever let six secret service agents sneak into his bathroom, guns drawn, with his back turned to them, pants around his ankles, mid-stream.
The apartment is a shithole, it’s a khrushchevka in Tartu, pre-upgrade, all concrete and asbestos and completely falling apart. There’s a leak in the ceiling that runs the length of the apartment, the gas stove hasn’t worked in about ten years, Clint reckons, and the furniture is always just a little, little bit damp to the touch. The toilet he’s pissing into only flushes once a day and shakes the entire building when it does.
It isn’t even a safe house. It’s just a shit apartment with a landlord that won’t ask questions about a random baby-faced American guy who doesn’t speak any Estonian but is almost fluent in Russian turning up wanting a place to stay in the outskirts of the city, keeping weird hours and a low profile. Clint definitely isn’t a student here to study at the University. He’s sketchy. His landlord doesn’t care. He just likes that Clint pays cash. Lots of it.
It really pisses him off that the agents give him so little credit. Besides, with all that dumb excess gear clacking and those heavy boots stomping, they pretty much announced themselves on the ground floor of the building - and Clint’s place is on the fifth. About as sneaky as a fucking rhino.
“Got you, bitch,” one of them hisses in his ear as they grab his wrists roughly from behind and pin him to the wall. The cistern digs into Clint’s stomach. His legs buckle as they’re forced against the rim of the toilet seat.
Yeah, sure you did, buddy. Clint doesn’t fight as they cuff him, which should be another hint to these stupid fucks that he isn’t exactly surprised, but whatever. They’re breathing heavily around him, like they’re riled up at the win, and isn’t that pathetic.
Two of them have him by the arms, gloved hands digging in tight enough that he knows he’s already bruising, which is embarrassing.
He hears the four others crowd into the bathroom, all noisy combat gear and rifles pointed at him.
“Jesus Christ,” someone says, voice surprisingly gentle, even if it sounds real angry. Someone standing in the doorway. Someone who moved comparatively silently - enough that Clint’s hearing aid didn’t pick it up, anyway.
“He’s a minor,” the man says, sharply, “Cover him up, for god’s sake.”
One of the soldiers grabs Clint’s pants and hoiks them up over his hips. Clint snorts, softly, and gets a jab to the ribs for his troubles. So these guys aren’t above hitting kids. Nice. In the scuffle, his hearing aid falls out - into the toilet.
The world is starkly, perfectly silent.
Clint feels but doesn’t hear the voice of one of the men holding him, a low rumble in the man’s chest, and figures he’s asking what the fuck that was. Which surprises him. The way they’re holding him, they can’t see into the toilet bowl.
It’s a split-second decision. A stupid one. But Clint is seventeen and petulant and these grown-ass men are assaulting him in his own fucking bathroom. He doesn’t want them to think he has some kinda weakness.
So Clint lashes out. Yells wordlessly. Makes a pantomime of twisting and squirming his top half, like he’s trying to get away. Draws their attention perfectly. Maybe he is an actor.
They’re so busy getting a hand over his mouth - and getting bitten for good measure - that they don’t notice his legs coming up, one bare foot hitting the flusher perfectly.
Bye bye hearing aid.
The victory is short-lived, though. They spin Clint around and the last thing he sees is a figure in the doorway in a neat grey suit, and then there’s the butt of a rifle hitting him just so across the temple, and everything goes black.
+ + +
Clint is in a bed. It’s pretty comfy, all things considered. Not damp like the khrushchevka sofa he’s been passing out on the past month or so. There’s a mattress. Crisp, clean sheets. A duvet. Pillows, holy fuck. Practically the height of luxury.
His head hurts. That’s the next thing Clint notices. A low, pulsing ache, from his right temple all the way over to his left. His head feels like it’s full of cotton wool. He knows this feeling. He has a concussion. Fuck. Clint hates those.
Clint takes a deep breath. Shifts under the duvet. Realises, belatedly, that he’s just in his underwear. Which is… fucking weird. Someone undressed him.
Clint finally cracks his eyes open. And frowns. The room is dark, lit low, there’s a source of light behind him, some light leaking through, but it’s covered. A window, with thick curtains. Clint blinks. Lets his eyes adjust.
It looks… like a dorm room. He’s in a single bed. There’s a window behind him with a thick windowsill, a chest of drawers perfectly fitted under it. At the end of the bed is a wardrobe, and opposite that is an empty bookcase. There’re two doors, one internal, another opposite the window. He guesses - hopes - the internal one is a bathroom.
Somehow, there’s a TV screen embedded in one of the walls. A fucking bean-bag chair on the floor.
There’s a glass of water on the windowsill chest of drawers thing, and two pills. A pile of what looks like black clothes. Some boots on the floor.
Clint rolls over. Picks up one of the pills. Sniffs it. Touches it to his tongue. Tylenol. Huh. Clint takes both tablets with a swig of water, then downs the rest of the glass in greedy glugs.
He sits up when he’s done. Considers the stillness of the room. Figures it’s probably safe to explore.
Clint gets to his feet. Walks over to the internal door and opens it up. Bingo. A shower, toilet, sink. A nice big mirror. A pile of plush-looking black towels.
Clint turns on the bathroom light, winces, but takes a look at himself in the mirror. There’s a wicked purple bruise spanning the right-hand side of his face, like someone spilled dye over him. Hell of a hit he took, then. Clint probes at his cheekbone with his fingertips.
“Ow,” he grumbles, to nobody.
Clint takes a shower, then. A thorough one. There’s shower gel, shampoo, all built into the wall. He washes all of the grime of his time in Tartu off, the dried sweat from travel, and steps out feeling like a new man. He brushes is teeth. Cleans the little cut at his temple.
Heads back into the bedroom and dresses in the clothes left for him. They’re a bit big. Clint’s not a tall guy. He’s not finished growing and he’s not even close to filling out his frame yet. He’s a wiry little thing, and he has to fold the cargo pants over at the top to keep them up. The muscle-fit tee is actually kind of flattering. Clint appreciates that.
He slips on fresh socks and boots. Smiles, just a bit, at the pair of sunglasses left for him. Nice touch.
Clint puts the sunglasses on. Opens the curtains.
Well, it’s an exterior window. He’s looking out over a river. Something about the trees he can see tells him that for all his sins he’s back in the US.
Right.
Clint figures he’s killed enough time. Gotta see if this is, like, a proper prison, right?
So he tries the main door. And it opens. Into a pretty bland looking empty corridor - a bit like a hospital, if anything, ‘cept nothing like any hospital Clint has ever found himself in. Just lots of doors like the one he just came out of. All numbered. He’s 1057. There’s a floor-to-ceiling window with a great view of the river at one end of the corridor and a set of double doors at the other.
Well, that makes things easier. Clint heads for the double doors. Keeps an eye out as he does. No movement. Nothing to indicate that anyone else is there.
Clint pushes through the double doors and finds himself at a bank of elevators. Huh. Alright.
He’s debating going up or down first when the light above the elevator right in front of him blinks on. The doors open.
Clint finds himself staring right into the chest of the most anonymous man Clint has ever seen, dressed in a tidy charcoal suit and a lawyer’s blandly patterned tie, a laptop tucked under his arm. The fact that he’s relatively tall is about the only thing that stands out about him. That, and a subtle air of absolute confidence. This guy can’t be more than thirty years old, but he’s clearly some kind of important dude.
Something about the purple and red striped tie looks… weirdly familiar.
“Clint Barton,” the man says, and Clint is a pro at reading lips without looking like he’s reading lips. Makes it real casual. They both know the guy knows the answer to what he’s asking.
Clint nods.
“Nice to meet you.”
The fucked up thing is Clint’s pretty sure the guy really means it.
+ + +
The office he’s taken to is on the top floor. The view outside is phenomenal. Clint can see for miles and miles. It’s a huge, sprawling room, high-tech, with a sweet curved desk and a bunch of screens. There’s a whole-ass sofa against one wall and the seats look dead fancy.
The man in the suit takes a seat and opens his laptop and Clint… well, Clint wanders over to the window.
“What river is this?” Clint asks, calm and easy, ‘cause he doesn’t know if this guy is going to want to give him any information.
“The Potomac,” the man replies, looking up from his laptop, “You’re looking at Arlington Cemetery. The Pentagon is at ten o’clock.”
“Sheesh,” Clint nods, turns and has a look out over the bay, and there it is, turns back to the man, “DC, then?”
“Technically, we’re in DC in this office,” the man tells him, “Though depending on what part of the building you’re in, you can sometimes be in Virginia.”
Clint looks down, to a bunch of people buzzing about a courtyard below. Some in suits, some dressed like Clint. They all look busy.
He sees the door open in the reflection of the window, and turns naturally as a big black bald man with a fucking eye-patch of all things and a dumb as all hell floor-length leather jacket walks into the room.
Clint looks between the men. The man in the suit is suddenly engrossed in his laptop.
“My name is Fury,” says the man in the dumbass coat, of course it fucking is, “I’m the director of S.H.I.E.L.D. It’s nice to finally meet you, Barton.”
Clint squints a bit at that, didn’t quite pick up the word, “Director of what?”
“S.H.I.E.L.D - Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division,” Fury explains, then walks over to a cabinet in the wall and pulls out a goddamned bottle of scotch like an actual supervillain.
He tilts the bottle to the man in the suit, with his back to Clint, and says something. The man in the suit shakes his head. Seems friendly between them. Comfortable, at the very least. So the man in the suit is top brass, okay.
Fury pours himself a glass. Doesn’t offer Clint one. Rude ass supervillain.
Fury turns, gestures for Clint to sit down next to the man in the suit. Clint briefly considers disobeying, just ‘cause, but it doesn’t seem worth it right now, and he needs to be able to see this guy’s mouth.
Clint sits. Fury sits behind his desk. The man in the suit types steadily - he must be a touch-typist.
“We’ve been keeping an eye on you,” Fury tells him.
“Which one?” Clint asks, “The one that works, or the pirate-ass one?”
He’d swear to god he sees the man in the suit crack a smile at that out of the corner of his eye, but it’s gone so fast Clint isn’t completely sure.
“Funny,” Fury says, deadpan, and Clint stretches lazily. Wants Fury to know he isn’t intimidated, wants to push against the sheer amount of authority rolling off of this guy, “Am I boring you?”
“I just woke up, man,” Clint points out, “Give me a break.”
“I could give you a lot of things,” Fury responds, “Like a life sentence - or seven.”
Clint doesn’t point out that it should be closer to fifteen, sixteen… he’s not sure, any more. This sounds like proper government shit, though, not just military.
“But I won’t,” Fury continues, “Because what I want to give you is a chance.”
“A chance?”
“To make up for what you’ve done. To be the good guy.”
Clint snorts, “There’s no such thing.”
“Then give us a chance to prove you wrong. It’s that, or prison,” Fury shrugs.
“What do you want from me?” Clint asks, because they always want something, and prison comes with three square meals a day, and he knows he’d be top dog at juvie, if it came to it.
“I don’t want anything from you. I want you.”
Clint casts a glance at the man in the suit. He’s studiously ignoring the exchange. There’s a line about kiddie fiddlers on the tip of Clint’s tongue, but -
“I want your skills, sure,” Fury continues, “They’re pretty handy. Got you this far. But what I really want is your loyalty. That’s a lot more useful to me.”
Clint is almost convinced that he’s hallucinating this whole thing, the insane man in the coat talking in riddles, until Fury takes a file out from under his desk, slides it across the desk to Clint.
“We can make all of this go away,” Fury tells him, “And we’ve got much better facilities than your man in Estonia.”
“Technology you couldn’t dream of,” the man in the suit says, Clint catches it, just.
The way Clint sees it, he doesn’t really have a choice. He’s already here. It’s either work for them, escape from a building next to the goddamned Pentagon, or go to juvie. The bed here is pretty nice, he’s not gonna get that shit in juvie.
“I’ll do it…” Clint purposefully trails off.
Fury seems frustrated at taking the bait, but, “If?”
“If you let me go see the Lincoln Memorial,” Clint smirks.
“Agent Coulson will be responsible for your training. Welcome to S.H.I.E.L.D, Barton,” Fury tells him, and then turns on his heel - that stupid fucking coat flapping behind him - and leaves the office.
Clint looks out the window. Back up at the man in the suit - Coulson, then. Coulson tilts his head to the door.
“Let’s go, Recruit.”
+ + +
When Clint was nine and his mama still loved him, she begged the local church for a grant to send him to St Gregory’s School for the Deaf for a year. Clint was small for his age, away from home, a destitute kid from the sticks of Iowa suddenly transported to a big old school in Portland, all stone blocks and oak panneling, the charity case in a school full of kids whose parents could afford their tuition.
Clint turned up with a backpack. Two changes of clothes, brand new, donated by the local church back home, and a toothbrush. A big coat with a fluffy hood- Barney’s, a hand-me-down. He’d hidden an action figure from the church donation bin in his pocket so Barney wouldn’t laugh at him. A Captain America, missing one hand, but whatever.
The school was brutal. A radical approach to teaching cultural assimilation: no hearing aids, no sign language. Just lipreading, and the staff wouldn’t make it easy for the students. The men had big bushy beards, all of the staff spoke fast and only ever said things once. Corporal punishment for mistakes.
They’d run special tests and drop the students off in random parts of the city. Leave them alone. Expect them to find their way back without help. Kids went missing and turned up days, weeks later.
Clint always, always passed those tests with flying colours.
The other kids largely ignored him. Clint wasn’t invited to play with them, to sit with them, or to talk to them outside of class activities. They had a sign name for him, when the staff weren’t looking: both hands, palms flat, turned inwards and hitting their own neck once, pinkies first.
Broke, No Money.
Using both hands wasn’t necessary, it was emphasis.
Clint had never felt so isolated.
He escaped four times over the course of the year. Was found wandering the streets of Portland alone, in the middle of the night, by cops, every single time, and dragged back by the collar. He’d curl up under the sheets of his bed with Captain America and dream of being back home, of being top-to-tail on a mattress on the floor with Barney.
S.H.I.E.L.D Recruit training without a hearing aid feels a lot like St Gregory’s.
He’s integrated into the current cycle of recruits. They’re all at least twenty-one, most of them have been in the army, or the navy, or the air force, or whatever. A couple were recruited right out of Harvard. One guy is British, apparently.
They’re all a hell of a lot more grown than Clint. He looks like a runt standing in a line with them. Some of the women have more muscles. It’s kinda embarrassing. Clint isn’t even allowed to sleep on the same floor as the other recruits. They’re all housed down on two. Clint is on ten, which hosts one of Agent Coulson’s offices.
There are a bunch of other precautions around Clint being a minor, apparently. He’s accompanied almost everywhere by one of Agent Coulson’s approved Agents - occasionally by Coulson himself when he has the time. Clint has a curfew, is grounded on base, and has additional restrictions around weapons sign-out.
It’s frustrating. But more so for the class of recruits he has joined.
Clint beats them at everything. He’s no teacher’s pet, but where they were trained by military minds, Clint has lived experience. Whilst they trained in safe, risk-free environments, Clint’s life has genuinely been in danger more times than they’ve had hot meals. Speed, dexterity, marksmanship, evasion, close-quarters combat, knifework, bushcraft… he’s better at all of it, except sheer strength. Some of these guys have been on steroids for years, by the looks of them. There’s no way Clint can compete there.
But Clint is also desperately, desperately trying to cover up the fact that he can’t hear shit. He’s relying on the intensive lipreading St Gregory’s taught him, on always being in advantageous spots in a room, where he can see everyone and all the exists, on reading social cues from the recruits around him to know what to do when he’s missed an instruction.
It’s exhausting. So Clint falls back on something that is written big and bold across his file, he’s sure.
… struggles with being told what to do.
… inability to follow instruction.
…. lack of respect for authority figures.
…. simply cannot be relied upon to listen.
Clint plays the problem child. And maybe he is an actor, ‘cause the other recruits and the S.H.I.E.L.D handlers buy it completely.
Any time Clint can’t understand what’s going on, can’t catch an instruction, feels too vulnerable in training, he kicks off. He fights the other recruits, breaks equipment, talks back to his instructors, whatever he needs to do to mask his vulnerability.
Every single time, without fail, Coulson is the one they call in. Coulson makes his way down to the range, to the classroom, wherever they are. Looks mildly perturbed to be called, but comes down all the same. It’s Clint’s ticket out of whatever class he’s in, and Clint is happy to shut up, stop fighting, stop breaking shit, whenever he sees Coulson coming down to deal with him.
Coulson’s fucking weird. He’s not one for punishment. He’s not even all that bothered when Clint fucks up. He just walks Clint up to his office, has Clint fill out his own disciplinary paperwork three times over, then shreds it in front of Clint.
“Blank slate, Recruit. Let’s try to do better next time,” he says, every time he shreds the paperwork, like he’s taking personal responsibility for Clint’s behaviour.
But whatever, it gets Clint out of classes and situations he feels uncomfortable in.
+ + +
It wasn’t like Clint figured he could hide his deafness forever or anything, but he sort of figured he’d have more time than he ends up having.
He’s a month and a half into his recruitment and Clint has settled into the routine of classes and range time and not giving a shit about his curfew. It’s a range day, and whilst Clint would prefer a bow, he’s an elite marksman no matter what he’s using, he’s seen that written in his file, and it’s true.
The recruits are on pistols, today. Basic shit. Tearing them down, putting them back together, hitting moving and complex targets, discerning between targets and civilians, blah blah blah.
The range is packed out. Clint is at the far end, opposite the door, in a lane against the wall. If he turns and looks, he can see everyone. It feels safer that way.
Protocol says that the recruits have to wear ear defenders, which Clint thinks is bullshit anyway, ‘cause they’re not wearing them in the field, are they? But whatever. He nabs a pair and rests them around his neck. He’s far enough away from the range instructor that he’s not being bugged for it any time soon.
Recruit Beck, a guy more suited to, like, being some kinda computer whiz, is struggling to hit a single target anyway and needs all the instructor’s help he can get.
Clint’s quite happy on the range. He’s hitting every target perfectly, holding crisp form and reloading swiftly. He ignores the dumb distraction civilian dummies and gets a spot-on headshot every single time. If he’s worked out the pattern and the rhythm of the targets popping up, nobody needs to know.
It rarely happens. It so, so rarely happens that Clint gets too into what he’s doing and fails to notice what’s going on around him.
But he doesn’t notice the cessation order given to the recruits. Doesn’t notice the lack of anyone else’s bullets firing out of the corner of his eye. Doesn’t turn and face like the others, just reloads and is about to begin his next round of firing when -
A hand lands on his shoulder, out of nowhere.
Clint has whoever it is up against the wall by the throat, pistol jammed in under their jaw, finger on the trigger, before he even realises what has happened. An absolute, adrenaline-fuelled panic response to the surprise.
The instructor blinks back at him, shocked.
Fuck.
Clint takes a breath, two. Releases the instructor.
He doesn’t fight as Recruits Cresswell and Paqueta pull him away and restrain him. As the gun is taken from his hand. He’s taken down, pinned to the floor, and he doesn’t fight for a second as they wait.
He sees Coulson’s shoes before he sees the man himself. Coulson says something, and the recruits finally let him go.
Clint rolls his shoulders first, feels bruises in his back where Cresswell in particular had been putting all of his weight on his knee in Clint’s spine. Slowly, slowly, gets to his feet. Takes a beat before he meets Coulson’s eyes.
Coulson knows.
Clint can read the man, just about, sometimes, by now. And the way Coulson’s eyebrows are knitted together tells Clint that he knows exactly why Clint just did what he did. He’s a clever man, he’s put two and two together.
And Clint knows he’s just gone from being an asset to a problem, and he figures his time at S.H.I.E.L.D is up.
The walk up to Coulson’s office is uneventful. Coulson doesn’t try to talk to him. Doesn’t reach for the weapon Clint knows is strapped to his chest. It’s like a normal day. Like he’s not about to send Clint to eight months in juvie and then god knows how many consecutive life sentences in big boy prison.
It’s a real fucking shame, Clint decides. He could’ve liked it here, he thinks. If he’d had more time.
Clint doesn’t bother to sprawl over the sofa in the back corner of Coulson’s office. Doesn’t think, for once, that this is a time for their now-familiar little routine about boots on the furniture. He sits across the desk from Coulson. Glowers down at the solid wood. Resists the temptation to trace the grain with his fingertip, as he’s so accustomed to doing when he’s facing disciplinary.
Coulson taps his hand on the desk, catching his attention, and Clint looks up.
Coulson’s expression is more curious than anything else, not resigned, not disappointed, but curious. He raises his hands and, Clint realises after a moment of bafflement, Coulson is signing at him.
It feels like a punch to the gut, that all this time Coulson has known ASL, has been at least capable of alternative communication with someone like Clint, and Clint… Clint, who has been deaf since day dot, has never learnt the language.
“I don’t-” Clint frowns, “I can’t…”
“Oh,” Coulson says, “Lipreading, then?”
Clint nods.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Coulson asks, and there’s that curiosity again, on his face.
“Why would I?” Clint retorts, “So you could kick me out faster?”
“Because we can help,” Coulson tells him, “I can help. It’s my job.”