Avengers isn't mine. Bringing some of the comic-verse into the movie-verse, namely Hawkeye being deaf. Spoilers only if you squint, no romance. Not particularly nice to everybody at times.

The first time he shaved his head, it wasn't by choice. Some of the other kids at the orphanage took umbrage to something his first week there – he still didn't know what – and sat on him and chopped his hair. The adults clucked over it all, but dragged him off to the barber who cut it so short that he looked bald for nearly a month.

The second time he shaved his head, it was for a mission. People asked fewer questions of a bald man than one that had a large supply of hair dye, or visible roots, and they were traveling light. Lucky Natasha, who had the right color hair, and even if she hadn't, her entire being was designed around fitting in, so it wouldn't have mattered anyways.

The third time Clint Barton shaved his head, though, he blamed Stark.

More than that, he blamed Stark and his creativity.

"Stark has something for you," Natasha muttered, dropping down into the chair next to Clint's at the weekly meeting. "Pepper says that he told her that whatever it is non-lethal, but there have been several rather large explosions from his workroom recently, but Pepper was not sure just what he was working on at that point in time, since he's also been working on a new suit. Be warned."

"Huh." Clint grunted, shifting to face her. "Thanks. Good or bad, you think?"

Watching Natasha shrug, Clint went back to sharpening a knife, the repetitive activity helping him to relax prior to what was sure to be another long, annoying meeting. They were always annoying, because while they all could and had worked together, there were too many conflicting personalities to prevent arguments from breaking out, usually between Stark and Rogers, and long because of those petty squabbles. He and Natasha tried to stay out of them, passing notes back and forth like kids did in school, but since the arguments were becoming repetitive, so were the notes. Part of Clint's mind wondered just why these meetings were needed; it would be much easier to simply send around a note each week that said "nothing new from Loki, HYDRA, or whoever else Tony Stark has annoyed recently," and save these meetings for actual emergencies, but what the others wanted, the others got.

He heard the door open again, and casually held the knife up, looking at it and running a finger lightly along one side, as a body sat down on his other side. Banner. Good. As long as he stayed...human, Clint liked the man to the point where he could actually consider liking anybody else in the Avenger's Initiative other than Natasha, simply because the man left him the hell alone. The rest of the time, Clint kept at least one tranquilizer-loaded arrow close at hand. Clint didn't like to think about the rest; Steve seemed to feel that since he was an Army captain, and the titular head of the Avengers, and Clint and Natasha weren't, he had the right to poke his nose in where it really didn't belong. The two SHIELD operatives didn't only have responsibilities to the Avengers, but also other roles in SHIELD, some of which they knew Steve wasn't cleared for – but the super-soldier either didn't understand or didn't care. Plus, Clint liked his privacy, and when he had time to himself, he didn't want to be dragged off to be sociable. Tony was the type of person that Clint had grown up hating and envying in equal amounts, and while Clint knew that his feelings were irrational, he still hadn't seen anything to change his mind. Thor was another one in the same category as Banner, but he was around rather infrequently, so Clint didn't think about the demi-god much.

As Dr. Banner sat down, he whispered "did she warn you? About the arrows?"

"Yeah, but she didn't tell me that. Thanks." Clint sighed, putting away his whetstone and knife. Sure, he respected Tony Stark - he respected all of these guys - but there were times that he wished that he could go back to a time when it was just him and Natasha working together, with Coulson acting as their handler or boss or whatever they wanted to call him that day – they had once gone an entire week-long mission calling him "mother hen," and only stopped when he threatened to rig their showers, would they rather go around bright pink or purple for a while? There were a lot fewer of these meetings, for one, meetings that cut into time that Clint had very carefully mapped out.

After all, it wasn't like he had superpowers. "The Greatest Marksman in the World" title came through hours and hours of practice, and stayed because of more practice.

The door opened a third time, and Clint mentally braced himself for whoever walked in next. "Agent Barton!" Stark. Great. "Glad I caught you!"

"It wasn't like you were going to miss having a chance to speak to him," Natasha observed sardonically, leaning back in her chair. "After all, it isn't like these meetings aren't mandatory."

The wave of self-confidence that Tony Stark extruded swept over the three already at the table as he took a seat at one end, waving off Natasha's comments. Leaning forward, he propped his elbows on the table and stared at Clint. "Yeah, sure, but I wasn't sure if he'd be all here today. So look, Clint, I was thinking that you've got a pretty good arsenal that you're carrying around and all, but you don't have anything not, well, harmful for your average human, right?" Leaning back, Tony put his feet up on the table. "So I made you some. Well, I made the electronic heads, but the folks here turned them into arrows."

Clint had to choke back laughter at Natasha's whispered "now I really hope that the reason Pepper's plans for the day were ruined was because he was playing with something personal, because if he's suggesting that you use a noise emitter that likes to blow up then I will have words with him."

"So I'll have Pepper or Happy drop 'em off for you later, and you can give them a try. They use a sonic emitter, creating just enough sound at a frequency that most humans find disturbing. The thought was that, you know, drop a couple to help clear out the civilians, maybe also help distract whoever we're fighting."

Clint hummed noncommittally. "What about us? Or were you thinking more of herding the bad guys?"

"True, clearing out civilians would probably be better. So, you'll give them a try?"

Clint could only shrug. "Sure. What's the worst that could happen?"

As he ran up a fire escape, Clint's fingers ghosted over the arrows in his quiver. He wasn't completely sure if the new sonic arrows were really worth it, but orders were orders. Loki had – apparently – escaped whatever punishment he'd been undergoing, and Thor had shown up just as the first explosions went off. He didn't think that Loki was putting his full energy behind this attempt; compared to the first time, this was like a walk in the park. Pulling himself over the ledge of the roof, Clint pulled an arrow out and peered over the edge, where Thor, Captain America, and Iron Man were busy swatting at what looked like knee-high ants. "Eyes in the sky up, no sign of anything but those...things."

Taking a glance up and down the street, he continued, "we need some ant spray." He swiftly drew his bowstring back, stood, and fired at what he'd swear was an oversized bumblebee. "Correction, we need some fly paper. Watch the air." A small part of him was glad that Natasha had been sent on some undercover thing in South America – she hated bugs, and there was only so much cursing in a multitude of languages that Clint could take before he got bored.

A crunch of gravel behind him had the marksman spinning around. "Need some help up here!" he barked into the comm as he rapidly fired arrows at the rather large robotic something that was supposedly in charge, aiming at what he had been told was its weak spot. He frowned as it caught them all, eyed the curiously, and then threw them back towards Clint, along with a blast of energy. Swiftly calculating trajectories, Clint did the only thing possible, spinning around and dropping to one knee, covering the back of his head and neck with his hands.

The energy blast and an arrow hit his quiver straight on. The resulting explosion threw him off the roof, bleeding. Tony had been looking up when Clint called for assistance; the high-pitched screams of sonic arrows being blown up had him flying up to catch the unconscious archer. Landing next to a SHIELD van, Tony lay Clint down on a stretcher. "If you die, Hawkeye, your girl will kill all of us."