Chapter Text
It had been a hard day, and nothing but the soothing rhythm of the batting cage could calm him down. Two tests he didn’t know about because of his crappy interpreter, plus another paper due in a week that he couldn’t pass without perfect grammar. It was too different, English grammar. ASL had that flow, a fluidity of understanding that English couldn’t match. A single sign, a picture painted in the air, could easily encompass what took English an entire paragraph to describe. He wasn’t even qualified for the English all the foreign kids took, ESL, because sign “doesn’t count as a first language, since it isn’t a language at all.” Stupid administrators, making his life a living hell.
He was just falling back into the groove of the swing when a he felt a presence behind him. They were probably saying something, but with the helmet over his good ear and the whir of the pitching machines and the clang of the metal fences, Clint couldn’t hear anything if he tried, so he didn’t bother. They wanted his time, they could wait for him.
He only had three more balls left, so he tore out all the stops, swinging the bat with all of his considerable force to smack the ball hard at the far nets, watching for half a second as the ball swung back out onto the green painted floor. After his time was up, he tore off the helmet and shook out his sweaty hair, reveling in the feel of the breeze running through his soaked scalp. He stretched his shoulders out languidly as he strolled over to the bench that held his things, making sure to get out all the knots from being hunched over for so long. Tomorrow was his ASL 1040 course, and with the amount of signing that took place, every sore muscle was a burden.
The shadowy presence – a Suit, of all people, with the mirrored sunglasses and everything – followed him to the bench, jaw yapping the entire way. Clint ignored him in favour of running through his backpack for a towel and his hearing aids. He found them both quickly where he stashed them in the front pocket and went about his routine, drying off his hair, then swiping around the outside of his ears with the towel, then a wet wipe, only interrupted a few times by Lucky insistently pawing at his legs to tell him the man was talking. Only after that would he put his aids back in, otherwise they’d get clogged up with wax and sweat and shed skin, and he really couldn’t afford any new ones.
Once his aids were in and clicked on, he heard a suspicious silence beside him where the suit stood. Clint frowned up at him. “Were you saying something?”
The suit gulped and tensed his hands quickly before relaxing them. “Did you not hear a word I’ve said in the last ten minutes?”
Clint could only shrug. It really wasn’t his fault the guy assumed he could hear him. Blame it on living in a Hearing world, he supposed.
The suit sighed and ran a gloved hand over his face. “Right.” He said, taking off his glasses with his free hand to reveal the bluest eyes Clint had ever seen. “Long story short, I’m here to recruit you for the Avengers.”
Clint frowned. The only Avengers he knew was the New York major league baseball team and they only recruited from their minor farm system, never from community colleges in Queens. “Why’re you here?” He asked lamely, running a hand over Lucky’s head to calm him down. He could tell that he was slurring and he wasn’t sure those words even made sense together, but it was the best he could do without his crappy friend-of-a-friend interpreter.
Thankfully, the dude seemed to understand. “I know the r[oo]s, and that Major League teams are only [ow]ed to re[oot] from the Minors, but there is also a [loss?] that states that a Major League team can re[oot] a player from outside the Minors if they are at[ending] a community college on an [laundry?] [aided] sports scholar[tip], and are over 18 years old. You, being just 25 and here on an [march] [airy] scholarship, are perfectly [koala] [fried].”
Clint didn’t quite know what to say. Sure, he knew there were more loopholes in baseball than actual rules – Barney made sure to teach him that – but he didn’t think anyone actually used them. “You want me?” He asked, eyebrows automatically furrowing as he pointed to his own chest.
The suit nodded. He grabbed a packet out of who knows where – Clint’s best guess was either a special pocket in his suit or up his ass, either was plausible – and handed it to Clint. “Here’s [hour] [Jenna] [rule] contract for incoming players. Read it over. My number is on the back if you have any questions, [rick] [west]s or [concert]s.”
Clint looked down at the paper. It was at least ten sheets thick and written in tiny print. He stared hard at the words, willing some sort of meaning out of them, but all he got was that there were a lot of numbers and dollar signs. That and a raging headache. He looked up to see if the suit could help him make sense of any of it, but he was nowhere in sight. He looked down to Lucky, but the dog seemed just as confused as he was.
Sighing, Clint picked up his phone and opened up his text messaging app. He knew who he needed to talk to.