The first time they met was with a bang. Well, a bullet actually, but Clint likes to argue that it totally counted as a bang.

Clint cursed even as he fell to the ground. He twisted deftly so that he fell on his ass rather than his face, but that only made the pain in his leg worse. Of-course, he was still the Amazing Hawkeye, so naturally he had his bow drawn and aimed at the suits chasing him before he fully connected to the ground, despite the bullet now lodged in his thigh.

Clint had just shot some dead-beat drug lord, and had been running across the rooftop. He needed to get away before the two blockheaded bodyguards used their two brain cells and figured out where the shot had come from.

Clint had planned to use the fire escape to get down to the alley where his getaway car waited. But nothing in Clint's life ever went so smoothly.

Just after taking the shot, the roof access door next to the fire escape opened and poured out suits. Not just any suits either. Most suits at-least gave a warning before they began shooting. Whoever these guys were, Clint had apparently pissed them off enough to shoot on sight.

"Drop the weapon and put your hands in the air."

Ha. Yeah right. Clint aimed for that suit.

As fast as Clint was though, someone else was faster. There is always someone faster. The tranq dart hit him directly in the neck. His grip on his bow slackened, arrow falling uselessly to the ground as Clint fell unconscious.

The second time they met was in medical. Clint liked to pretend that it didn't really count though.

When Clint regained consciousness it wasn't with something as cliche as a cement prison cell like in the movies. No, Clint woke to restraints pinning him down unforgivably to a hospital bed. Given that Clint didn't believe he'd wake up at all, he's supposed restraints and a hospital bed were something of a win, even if it was a pretty sucky win.

A bland, forgettable face filled his vision. It was the suit from the rooftop. The one who shot him. Fantastic.

"Good morning, Mr. Barton."

The guy's mouth moved. Clint heard nothing. Clint knew what the guy said. He perfected his lip reading skills long before he ever had money for hearing aids, but Clint knew he was in trouble now. They'd taken his hearing aids.

They didn't know he was deaf though. That was obvious. If they knew he was deaf this guy wouldn't be trying to talk to him like a normal person. When people found out he was deaf, they always tried to talk louder and over enunciated words. Saying everthing real slowly and treating him as if he were stupid.

Clint would have to try to pretend he could hear. Pretend to be normal. If they didn't know, they couldn't use it against him. Clint still panicked a little, inside, not letting it show on his face. His situation just went from "mildly inconvenienced" to "more difficult than normal."

And the fact that waking up, tied up, in various, unfortunately not kinky, situations was rather normal for him, was kind-of depressing.

The suit, Olsen? Poulsen? Whatever. Clint thinks he is trying to convince Clint to join his organization. Talking at Clint about some kind of offer. Whatever it was, Clint wanted nothing to do with it. Killing people for shady maybe-government organizations never ended well.

Clint kept his mouth stubbornly sealed shut.

If he could hear, Clint would have been spouting off all kinds of smart-ass comments and very likely getting himself beaten. Too afraid of giving himself away though, Clint stayed quiet, and the suit eventually left.

He kept coming back to medical though, one visit every day. Just after the oddly perky nurse in the aquamarine scrubs brought him lunch. Kept talking at Clint, every day.

If Clint could hear, he might have said yes already, just to shut the guy up.

Eventually, Clint's thigh was healed and they transferred him to a prison cell. Clint had been hoping that he would get a chance to escape during transit. Someone must have guessed that because they sedated him. One minute, he was in his bed in the hospital room, and then he was waking up in a cell with a mouth that felt dry and full of cotton, and a churning stomach.

It took a few hours for the effects of the sedative to fully wear off, but soon Clint paced the cell, examining everything carefully.

The cinder block walls were covered in graffiti from past occupants. They ranged from "fuck shield" hunh? To the more standard gang symbols and lewd pictures. The cell had standard government prison bars, a bed anchored to the wall, a toilet, sink, and-bingo.

Below the sink was a vent. It was small. Maybe two feet wide and less than a foot tall. The vent cover was set into the cinder block in a way that was probably secure once, but time and water from leaking from the sinks exposed pipes had fixed that problem.

A quick check outside the bars revealed what Clint had already suspected. Unlike the guards in the hospital room, these guards weren't paying much attention to him. Guards on places like these rarely did. They got so convinced that no one could possibly escape from their little cells that they didn't watch.

It was a tight fit, but Clint had been raised in a circus. He had the cover off the vent and was gone before the guards noticed a thing.

The next time they met, Coulson was not amused.

Clint had been crawling through the vents for what felt like hours. Probably actually was hours, but it's not like the suits left him a watch or anything. He finally found what looked like a safe place to exit. A nice, empty office with a nice, not too small window. Clint hoped it would actually open, but he doubted it.

He dropped down into the space from the ceiling vent, knowing how to land soundlessly in a crouch even without his ability to hear. He was not expecting the pistol in his face as he rose.

It was on the way back to holding, when Coulson realized Clint was deaf.

Phil followed along behind as Barton was escorted down the hall. He watched Barton's eyes flit between faces, staring intently at anyone talking, but when Agent Youseff dropped her coffee mug, out of his eyesight, and everyone else jumped, Barton just looked at the guards, confused.

Interesting.

Three days later, Coulsom presented Clint with a brand new pair of hearing aids, and Clint knew he was fucked.

After that, Coulson was harder to ignore, and Clint ended up taking that offer. He spent his first few months at Shield second guessing that decision. Maybe he would have been better off in a prison somewhere. The endless training and meetings and classes were boring, but it stares and the whispers that set Clint on edge. These people did not trust him. Would never trust him, he thought.

One mission changed everything.

It was supposed to be a milk run. Go in, meet with the informant. Get the intel, and get out.

Clint knew he was only assigned to the mission as a test. He was like the back-up's back-up's back-up. His role was to keep an eye on the op from a distance and radio if he saw anything suspicious. There were at least ten other people, people who Shield trusted, doing the exact same job all around the meeting point.

The handler of the op, Agent Maddox, stationed Clint on a rooftop at a right angle to the meeting point. Clint didn't like the location, but when he tried to point out better viewpoints, the Maddox told him to shut up and do as he was told. As much as he wanted to argue, Clint's position at Shield was too new, too fragile, and so he shut up and went to his assigned location.

The location was too exposed for Clint's taste, and had terrible sightlines, but it was supposed to be an easy op with no combat expected. Many of the other agents assigned were newbies; many of them had only been in the field once before, if at all.

There were two other agents with Clint: A newby who looked so nervous Clint thought he was going to faint, or possibly throw-up, and a more senior agent, Guthrie, Clint knew was there to babysit him.

Agent Guthrie was a jerk and an moron. If Clint wanted to slip him, he'd already be gone.

Clint spotted the sniper scope peeking out from a nearby window just seconds before the meeting was to start.

He pointed it out to Guthrie. Guthrie called him an idiot and told him making shit up wasn't going to distract Guthrie from making sure Clint didn't run.

Clint tried to radio Maddox, but Guthrie stopped him. Yelling about recruiting him was a mistake and making a scene.

Then the bullets started.

Maddox and Guthrie died. So did the informant, and three junior gathered the five survivors and got them to the extraction point.

The newby that had been on the rooftop with Clint was among the survivors. He told Shield what happened. Explained to everyone how Guthrie and Maddox screwed up. How Clint saved them. Clint didn't really think he was due that much credit, but Shield finally started trusting him.

Clint's first mission with Coulson was not long after that. Clint thought it would be terrible. Turns out it was pretty awesome. Coulson actually listened to him. And together they kicked ass.

It was years after that first mission, well after Natasha joined them even, that Clint realized his relationship with Coulson was the longest relationship he had ever had, and they didn't even know they were dating each other. Natasha found it hilarious.

"I thought you said we didn't have to sleep with the handlers?"

If Clint was a normal person, he would have jumped at the way she just showed up from nowhere.

"You don't. Has someone been pressuring you to-"

"No. But you and Coulson, though?"

"Phil and I aren't sleeping together," Clint laughed.

"Right." Natasha rolled her eyes.

"Seriously!" Clint protested, "we aren't!"

"You spend more nights at his apartment, then you do in your quarters." Natasha replies.

"My quarters are small and have no kitchen."

"You know how he likes his coffee."

"We go on a lot of missions together."

"You eat off each other's trays in the cafeteria." Natasha is looking at him with her eyebrow raised, the way she does when she thinks Clint is doing something dumb.

"Oh."

"If you're not sleeping together, then you're a dolt." Natasha left, but Clint sat there for a long time, thinking.

Their one year wedding anniversary found them in a supply closet at Shield.

Their lips kept meeting in hurried, breathless kisses, and Clint's hands were fumbling with Phil's belt.

"Why did we-" kiss "-have to-" kiss "come to work again?" kiss.

"You didn't," Phil stopped kissing Clint in order to undo his own belt. "I had to come in, because someone screwed up that op in Croatia."

"Fuck Croatia." Clint kissed Phil one more time before sliding to his knees.

He was just getting his hands on Phil's dick when Phil's phone vibrated.

"Damn it."

"Don't answer it." Clint begged.

Phil ignored him, pulling his phone out and unlocking it with one hand. The other hand was in Clint's hair, holding him firmly away from Phil's crotch.

Phil stared at the phone for a moment before he started cursing in Russian and trying to fasten his pants.

"Phone, no." Clint whined.

That was when Phil turned the phone so Clint could read the text.

M. Hill: I'm not shutting the security cameras down in that closet.

Then Clint was swearing to.

AN: This was cross-posted from A03. I never really post on here anymore though. Come find me there under the username Ravin.