Chapter Text
One room that you could always locate by the sound in a high school was the band room, especially during marching season. That was where two teens, a girl with bright red hair and a boy with dirty blond hair, were using ASL to talk. At first glance, you might think it was strictly due to the noise level, but a second glance at the boy would show that the boy had hearing aids in. He also had a black cast around his left ankle and lower leg.
The redhead shook her head before growing and signing, “How march with broken leg?”
The boy replied, “Not march. Teacher-percussion putting me in pit. Drum set.”
The girl gave an evil smile. “What you doing about not hearing line?”
“Work with P-H-I-L and teacher-percussion after practice.”
A whistle is blown in the room and it gets silent in the room. Everybody turns to a stout boy with rich chocolate-colored hair and black glasses. “Winds and drumline, be in the opening set in five minutes, without instruments. Pit will have an indoor practice today.” The redhead got up and walked out the door and the teen with the whistle maneuvered through the room until he was standing in front of the blond of the pair.
He spoke facing the blond. “How are you doing, Clint? I thought that you wouldn’t be back for another week?”
“It hurts, but they said I was clear to come back as long as I don’t stand on it for long. Ms. Hill is going to put me on drum set I think. I get to sit for that. Thanks for asking though, Phil.” Clint leaned over for his crutches and walked over to the drum set that a black-haired girl was moving so that it was next to the keyboard percussion instruments. “How was the rest of your summer, Kate?”
“Better than yours, apparently. What the hell happened anyway?” Kate moved around Clint to pull the last suspended cymbal over along with a stool. Kate put the stool down and allowed Clint to sit as she maneuvered the equipment around so that it was set up correctly.
“You know how something bad happens wherever I have a perfect practice?” Kate nods. “I did the last day of camp and I was helping Barney set up and fell off the light rigging and down into the pit at the drama center. Net caught me, but it gave way so I got all twisted and ended up hittin’ the risers that are stored down there and broke it. Lucky that it wasn’t my head instead.”
“I don’t know it may have knocked some sense into you, Barton,” another voice spoke up. Clint and Kate turned to the voice who was setting up an electric piano and amplifiers.
"Stark you're an ass. You know Hill will be back anytime now to get us started so why don't ya get that done before she does." Clint looked around for a second. "Katie-Kate, can you get my bag from the chair stack? I think I left my sticks in it."
Kate nods and goes over the rack of chairs that has a bright purple bag sitting on top. She unzips the bag and grabs two things, the drumsticks, and a purple three-ring binder. She hands them over to Clint who nods in her direction.
It was then that a woman with a stack of sheet music came into the room. "Alright, Bishop, run the pit through warm-ups. Barton, here's your new parts. You'll need to mark the sets using your old parts." Clint nods as he takes the papers.
He tucks them into his binder and does the warm-ups with the rest of the pit. After that, they get ten minutes of solo practice. Clint uses that time to look over his new part and transfer the sets from his old part. Hill brings him over a stand and he places his binder on it. He starts to run through the harder parts of the music.
“Time's up! Get to your place for the top of the show!” They get ready and Hill counts them off and conducts through the parts. They quickly run all three parts and Clint smiles, it hadn’t gone as bad as he thought it would. Hill focused on the sections where they had had the worst time and soon the band came in for a water break. Hill let the pit take a break as well.
Clint made his way out into the hall and looked for the bright red hair of his friend, Natasha. She was standing with a few other people. Clint recognized only one of them, Loki Odinson, younger brother of the fifth bass drum player, Thor. Clint made his way over to them. As soon as Natasha noticed that Clint was there she raised her hands in greeting.
“How’s practice?” Clint leans against the wall, careful of the broken ankle.
Loki and Natasha both raised their right hands at the same time and opened them, palm facing the floor before shaking them. Clint huffed. “What made it so bad?”
“Sif learning your old spots and having to close the spot left by Sif changing instruments,” Loki spoke and Natasha signed. Clint’s hearing may not have been quite so bad to need an interpreter at all times, but the school halls and gym were often the exceptions, too many voices and noise for his hearing aids to pick up.
“I didn’t mean to break my ankle, alrighty? I wanted the pride of being center snare this year, even if I wasn't section leader.” Clint would have crossed his arms if it weren’t for the crutches.
“Alright, we believe you. We’ve got to get back outside before Phil flay’s us alive.” One of the other flute players says. It was true that the hallway had emptied, most of them going back outside. Clint, Loki, and Natasha made their way back to the band room. The rest of the band members were hurriedly putting instruments together, meaning that they had been told that they were marching with them before coming inside. Clint made his way back to the drum set and sat, ready for the rest of practice.
The second half of practice didn’t go anywhere near as good as the first. Hill ended up giving them solo practice for the last twenty minutes because she was done trying to get them all on the same page. She went over to Clint five minutes into it, “Barton, we’ll need to figure out how to rack mount the drum set, and it still be usable from a chair.”
“We’re not worrying about having a hi-hat right?” Hill nods. Clint looks around and he knows that they have a second rack somewhere in the side rooms.
"We could use the half rack. Someone will have to carry the bass, but that's the only thing I can think of. I mean we have the mounting plates to do that right?"
Hill nods and has Kate go get the rack and box of mounting plates. She has one of the other boys help her get it over and flip the arms open. They start to pull apart the drum set and get it mounted to the rack in such a way that Clint can still reach everything. It took until most of the marching band had either found rides or had left before they had it fully set up.
The only ones left in the band room were Phil, Kate, Clint, and Ms. Hill. Even director Fury had already left. Phil came up to them just as Clint started to play some of the show tunes. He wanted a hand in front of Clint and waited for him to stop playing before speaking. "Are you ready to see if you can hear the Drumline?" Clint nods and Ms. Hill goes to grab one of the snares out of the lockers.
Kate grabs a woodblock as Clint stands. "Phil, do you mind carrying Clint’s stool out?” Phil shook his head and as soon as Clint was on his crutches bent over and picked up Clint’s seat. Clint glanced at his ass as he bent over and those shorts did make his ass look nice. He continues to watch as Phil carries the stool out of the band room.
“Earth to Barton. We’ve got a test to do, and believe me, I like staring at Phil’s ass as much as the rest of the band does, but you better hop to it if you don't want Ms. Hill to yell at you.” Kate says in his ear and he blushes before heading outside.
Kate hands Clint the woodblock as soon as he gets settled on the stool that Phil had placed on the front sideline. Phil had already climbed to the top of the drum major stand and was waiting for Hill to take her place. Kate stood back to listen.
As soon as Hill made it back to the back hashmark Phil raised his hands. He was soon conducting and Hill was playing. Clint knew that the pit had to listen back, instead of watching the drum major, and he attempted to do so. It didn’t go well. Mostly because Phil was the drum major and he got distracted. Phil dropped his arms and Kate came over. “Dude, you do that at a comp and I’ll beat your ass and then hand you over to Sif. Want to try again?” Clint nodded and Phil raised his hands again.
The second time Clint doesn't even watch Phil, he just listens back. He can hear the initial rat-a-tat of the snare and tries to tell the echo apart from it after, but it gets harder with each successive hit. After a few seconds, he just stops playing.
Phil drops his hands as Kate steps out from underneath the drum major stand. “You can’t tell the echo from the initial hit can you?” Clint shakes his head. Hill comes from the back hash marks and rests the drum next to Clint.
Phil climbs down from the stand. “Hey, it might be better with the rest of the band behind you.”
“Probably won’t be. Everyone knows that my hearing aids are the cheapest model around.” Clint’s face was twisted in disgust.
“Barton, we’ll figure it out. We’ve got Murdock and Rhodes marching in the band, you’ll be able to play in the pit.” Hill places her hand on Clint’s shoulder and shakes him a little. “Do you have a ride home, Barton?”
Clint looks over at where there were a handful of cars sitting, seemingly looking for one in particular. After a few seconds, he shakes his head. Hill looks at both Kate and Phil with pointed looks. “I live on the other side of town and if I take a detour to take Clint home my dad will be pissed.” Kate looked apologetic, but Clint had a sneaking suspicion that she wasn't.
“What about you Coulson?”
“Sure, just let me get the stand stored away and my stuff from the band room.”
“It’s fine, I’ve got to get my stuff as well.” Clint stands and Kate picks up the stool. All four of them head in the direction of the band room. Clint goes over to his bag and puts his sticks and binder away and puts it on. He sits sideways in one of the chairs that had been pulled down and waited for Phil. It didn’t take Phil long to gather his stuff from the second row of the chairs and soon they were headed out to Phil's car, a cherry red Chevrolet Corvette.
Clint gulped and carefully set his bag on the floorboard of the car as he got in. Everyone knew not to touch the corvette that belonged to Phil Coulson. The last kid that had was still running concessions four years later, and he didn’t even go to Shield County High. Clint buckled his seatbelt and moved his crutches so that he didn’t scuff up the inside of the car.
“Where exactly do you live?” Phil asked as he turned on the car. Clint rattled off his address and Phil nodded, “I hadn’t ever noticed that you lived that close to me.”
“What do you mean?”
Phil pulled out of the parking space. "You live a street over from me."
Now, this wasn't new information for Clint, he knew exactly where Phil Coulson had lived due to the bus route being horrific and Phil having such a nice classic car. What now he had to do was acknowledge that fact without acting creepy. "I hadn't realized." Or not acknowledge it at all apparently. Clint stared out at the passing houses and soon Phil was pulling into the driveway of the Baron's house.
Clint got his stuff together and was about to get out of the corvette when Phil grabbed his arm. Clint stared at him for several seconds before shaking his arm loose. He opened the corvette's door and made his way to a standing position.
"You ride the bus in the morning, don't you? That's gotta be a pain on crutches isn't it?"
"Nat's picking me up. Thanks for the ride, Coulson." Another lie, Natasha wasn’t picking him up, Clint was riding the bus in the morning. Clint waved and made his way up to the door. He needed to work on the music and his homework before Barney got home and wanted his help with something.