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Peter had never worked with Clint. He didn’t really know what to think, or what to expect. All that had come in the mission brief from Fury was a note that said: Meet Agent Barton at the compound Saturday at 12 noon.
Trademark Fury secrecy, Peter assumed.
May was obviously a nervous wreck, and Tony wasn’t much better. He still wasn’t used to being out of commission (it had only been a few months after Thanos, after all) so he was definitely struggling as his son protege was called out on his first official Shield mission.
Peter was pretty sure they’d be up half the night staring at the “baby monitor” and talking over the phone about every move he made, but it just meant they loved him, so he decided to let it slide.
Buuuuuut, the mission wasn’t even dangerous. It was a simple stakeout. They were going to be in an apartment across from the target, some supposed hydra agent, to gather intel. 48 hours, in and out. Peter was actually pretty sure he was going to be bored locked in a room, staring at monitors for two days.
“Ready, kid?” Clint asked, hauling his bag from his room at the compound and out to the car waiting for them out front.
“Yes, Sir, Mr. Hawkeye!” Peter followed Clint to the car with his own overnight duffel bag.
“Just Clint is fine. None of that sir stuff, though I don’t mind being appreciated around here for once.” He directed the last portion of his sentence into the living room.
“Don’t be such a drama queen, Barton,” Nat answered, appearing in the doorway. “And if anything happens to my little spider-“
“Yeah yeah yeah, I know. Tony and May already threatened me. Geez, I thought we were friends.”
Nat smirked and walked over to hug Peter tightly. The archer just shook his head and hopped into the car.
“You’re gonna do great,” Nat whispered in Peter’s ear, and headed back into the compound while Peter slid into the passenger seat.
***
Riding with Clint was not like riding with Tony.
For one thing, they definitely didn’t have the same taste in music. And Peter was honestly kind of grateful that they didn’t. He had come to associate the sound of Led Zeppelin and AC/DC with the smell of motor oil and the sound of Tony’s voice, and listening to classic rock like that didn’t seem right without Tony. Instead, Clint (surprisingly) turned on a playlist of shuffled disney songs.
Peter raised an eyebrow, trying to seem cool despite the fact that he was using everything in himself to not start singing about the gospel truth alongside the Muses.
“How can anybody not like Disney?” Clint shrugged, grinning.
And with that, they both broke into song. From Hercules to Frozen, Brother Bear to Toy Story, they sang the whole three hours to the remote suburbs in upstate New York where their mark lived.
“Okay kid. Here’s the deal,” Clint said, pausing the music, his tone becoming more serious. “He’s going to be gone at work until about 5 tonight. Which means we have,” he glanced at the clock on the dash, “3-ish hours. We gotta wire up his apartment. Full video, audio, the works. Then we’ll head over to our place and order some pizza and hunker down, yeah?”
Peter nodded, and they set to work.
The apartment didn’t seem like a hydra agent’s place, despite being fairly minimalistic, but Peter supposed that was the point. The bed was neat, there were pictures of family on the bedside table, even a few boxes of Christmas decorations in the living area. He surreptitiously checked a few areas to see if there was anything hidden, but found nothing with the limited time they had.
They were packing up the last of the wires when Peter’s neck tingled in time with the unmistakable sound of steps coming down the hallway towards the very apartment they were in.
Peter grabbed the rest of the chords while Clint frantically tied off the one he was working on before realizing there was a key turning in the doorknob so the front door was blocked. Peter gestured to the bedroom with his head and they ran in.
“Yeah, they let me leave early today, actually,” they heard the man say.
Peter slid open the window as quickly and quietly as he could, and motioned for Clint to climb on his back.
“No way!” Clint whispered.
“You have any better ideas?”
“Fine.” Clint jumped onto Peter’s back piggy-back style. “This is so humiliating,” he whispered in the younger boy’s ear.
Peter just grinned and slid out the window, sticking to the outside wall of the apartment. He slid the window closed just in time for their target to come in the room, still talking on the phone and oblivious to what had just happened.
“Sorry, Clint,” Peter said suddenly.
“Sorry for what?” Clint looked over just in time to see Peter snap a selfie, grinning unrepentantly. “Oh, I will get you back for this, spider.”
“Ah Clint,” Peter said dramatically, making his way down the wall. “Rumors only grow, and we both know what we know.”
Clint narrowed his eyes. Peter didn’t need to look to see it; he could literally feel it and hear it in his voice. “Was that a Hamilton reference?”
“Maaaaaaaybe,” Peter chuckled as he jumped the last 3 feet to the ground.
Clint rolled his eyes as he untangled himself from Peter. “Well, that was cutting it a little close. Let’s get over to our place and get our eyes and ears set up.”
As they walked across the street to the little house that was to be their home for the next two days, Peter couldn’t help his curiosity. “Hey, Clint, can I ask you a question?”
Clint stuck the key into the front door. “Shoot.”
“So, while you were on my back-”
“Never doing that again, by the way,” Clint interjected.
“Sure,” Peter laughed, “But, uh, I heard this sound. Probably too low for anybody else to really hear, but it was kinda this mechanical humming? And I couldn’t help but notice when you scratched your head earlier...do you wear hearing aids? Sorry if that was rude or anything, I don’t mean to pry, but-“
Again, Clint interrupted. “It’s fine, squirt. I really don’t mind talking about it!”
Peter quieted, giving a small smile.
“Of course. But to answer your question, yes, I do wear hearing aids. You probably heard some feedback. It usually happens when something brushes up against them, and I can normally ignore it. You must’ve picked up on it with your super hearing.”
Peter nodded, and the conversation paused as they set to work setting up monitors for watching their target, unpacking their small bags, and ordering pizza for dinner.
“How’d you lose your hearing, if you don’t mind me asking,” Peter asked, munching on a slice of pepperoni.
“Not at all. Um, I guess it started with my dad. He was an abusive piece of crap, liked to box my ears. Eventually the ruptured eardrums took their toll. I was able to hide it, but it got worse after one of the guys I fought- a real piece of work called the Clown- got the better of me. He stole my arrows, jammed them in my ears. Laura was a real trooper through it all. I took a break from the superhero gig, she took care of me while I healed up from surgery, we learned sign language together. Once I was patched up enough, I looked at getting hearing aids. They’ve been amazing.”
“I remember when I first got my glasses,” Peter said, smiling. “I didn’t realize trees had individual leaves! I thought they were all just big green blobs!”
Clint laughed. “When I first got my aids, our dog barked and I never realized how loud he was.”
“Thanks for sharing, Clint,” Peter smiled.
The archer shrugged. “I’ve gotten used to talking about it. Plus, my hearing aids are great, and most of the time I forget I’m deaf!” He chuckled.
They finished their meal, put the fancy paper plates into the trash, and settled in for a long night of watching the various monitors.
Peter was fidgeting after barely 15 minutes. Their target was just sitting on the couch, watching a show. Nothing villainous.
His bouncing leg was stilled as a warm hand was placed on his knee. “The first stake out is always the worst. Trust me.”
Peter ducked his head, sheepishly. “Sorry.”
“Nah. You’re good. Besides, the guy’s just watching Psyche reruns. Wanna watch something ourselves?”
“Seriously?” Peter couldn’t quite hide his eagerness. “That’s allowed?”
“Sure it is! Plus, the TV’s Roku.” He grabbed the remote, turned on the TV, and scrolled to Disney+. “Hey Parker,” he said, grinning slyly as he found Hercules. “How ‘bout a reprise of our roles?”
Peter jumped onto the couch shouting “Yes!” and Clint pressed play. They sang their hearts out just as fervently as in the car, even getting a little dancing going during Zero to Hero , the music flowing through their bodies and making it impossible to resist moving around like idiots.
But they never forgot the reason they were there. They glanced at the screen every 2 minutes, but their target didn’t move from his spot on the couch until nearly the end of their movie.
“Good grief, it’s only 9:45. It’s way too early to go to bed,” Clint complained as the man on the screen began getting into his pajamas.
“You’re right, Clint, it is. Look. I don’t think those are his PJs,” Peter said, taking a closer look.
Sure enough, it wasn’t a onesie he was wearing, but a black suit with a small hydra on the corner.
“I’d much rather it be his pajamas,” Clint groaned. “C’mon kid. Let’s see where he’s going.”
“Ugh. Stupid guy ruined our movie night,” Peter muttered.
They followed the hydra agent from a stealthy distance all the way to their base.
“Woah!” Peter breathed, his eyes huge, as they took in the Hydra factory in front of them. Clint took pictures and began sending them to Fury.
“Fury says wait for reinforcements. We’ll take them down once they get here.”
Peter soon realized that sitting on the ground with his back to a tree in complete silence so nobody heard them was much less fun and far more boring than sitting in an apartment watching their target eat salad and watch Psyche. He sighed, and Clint again patted his knee.
Luckily, it didn’t take 3 hours for Nat, Steve, and Sam to fly the quinjet to the base like it had for Clint and Pete to drive, and soon Peter was flipping around a secret Hydra base, webbing up agents, dodging bullets, and fighting alongside some of the coolest heroes ever.
This is what I came here for he thought, elated. He loved fighting with the Avengers.
Once the hydra agents were out of the way, some of them prisoners to be taken back to SHIELD headquarters and interrogated, they blew up the base.
Peter quickly covered his ears and closed his eyes, but he could still feel the heat and his sensitive hearing making the explosion almost unbearably loud despite his efforts.
“Ugh,” he moaned, his ears ringing. “That was way too loud.”
Clint looked at him, his expression apologetic and confused. “What, kid? Sorry, I lost both my hearing aids back there, and can’t read your lips through the mask.”
Peter immediately lifted up his mask, keeping most of his face covered from the Hydra agents. Just in case. “Sorry, Clint. I said: The blast was so loud, it hurt my ears,” he spoke a little slower and enunciated a little more than he normally would.
“Too bad you don’t have hearing loss. You could just turn off your hearing aids,” Clint chuckled.
Peter grinned. “Yeah, that’d be great. Maybe Tony can make noise cancelling ones for me.”
“Maybe!”
They headed onto the quinjet, the doors closing behind them, and started back the direction of the compound.
“But what about all our stuff at the house?” Peter asked. “My phone! My backpack. I can’t lose another one, May would kill me!”
“Easy, маленький паук [little Spider],” Natasha said, patting his shoulder. “Shield already has agents packing up everything. They’ll bring the car back and meet us at the compound with all your stuff.” She then turned to Clint and handed him two small objects.
“Oh, thanks Nat!”
“You’re welcome. But those are your last pair of extras, so don’t lose them.”
They landed at the compound, and Peter was immediately greeted by May and Tony, who enveloped him in a huge hug.
“I’m so glad you’re okay, kid,” Tony whispered.
“I’m fine,” Peter chuckled. “But I missed you guys, too.”
“So, it’s getting late, and your stuff won’t be here for another couple hours. What do you want to do?” May asked, kissing Peter’s head.
“Hey Clint. Wanna finish our movie?” he called, and the archer nodded eagerly.
Later that night, after finishing the last little bit of Hercules and then watching Toy Story (Peter even got Tony to sing along), Clint was asleep on the couch, May was curled up, snoring delicately with her head resting on Peter’s shoulder. Peter was finally starting to get sleepy, but he remembered he needed to ask Tony something important.
“Hey Tony, do you think we could do a special project tomorrow in the lab?”
“Sure, kiddo. What’d you have in mind?”
“Well, Clint lost his hearing aids-”
“Again!?”
Peter chuckled. “Yeah, again. Is that a fairly regular thing? Anyway, I was thinking maybe we could make him some extra special ones with bluetooth and maybe his own mini AI like Karen or something, and we should definitely put in GPS so he can track them when they get lost.”
“Kid,” Tony interrupted Peter’s rambling gently, “I think that’s a great idea, bud. Why don’t we get to sleep and we’ll set to work on that first thing tomorrow!”
Peter yawned, and they softly shook May awake and shuffled sleepily off to their rooms.
The next evening, Clint found a note on his bed with two of the coolest looking hearing aids ever. They were his trademark purple and even had a small bow and arrow etched into the side.
Dear Clint,
Pete and I thought you could use a new pair since you lost your last ones (again). These ones have bluetooth m, and a GPS tracker so no matter where you go, you should be able to track them. Hopefully that helps. Oh, They’re also connected to Friday.
Hope you enjoy.
-TS (and Peter Parker) .
And if Clint got emotional, well, nobody was around to see it.