𝐛𝐮𝐭, 𝐢 𝐝𝐨𝐧'𝐭 𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐬.

      @sevenbulletsavior sent a protective prompt, accepting.              “  i’ll be okay. i promise.  ”

      “ look, i don’t know shit about shit but, ” how could anyone be alright after something like that? there was little in the way to make clint miss the quiet of iowa (on the good nights, at least) but new york city certainly was wearing on him. between the violence, would-be thieves, and more serious conundrums he was only happy he wasn’t a police officer. or really, any other civil servant. still, he knew how it could wear you down, take the strongest of armor and slip little weaknesses here and there that would eventually collapse in on itself. “ you might want to take it easy, anyway. ”

      and he wouldn’t press it. maybe she was tougher than he thought ---it wouldn’t be the first time he was pleasantly surprised from initial meetings. maybe she’d seen some shit, too. maybe she was made of stronger stuff than he was. “ you know, so you don’t keel over inconveniently. ”

      @vdovasrevive​ sent a protective prompt, accepting.              “ i’m not letting you go alone.  ”

      “ nat, ” there was the slightest tone of an argument beneath her name, but even clint knew that no amount of willfulness would keep natasha romanoff from doing whatever it was she set her mind to. perhaps it was why he had been drawn to her company in the first place ---they’d always worked well together, they’d always wordlessly understood the intention of the other. no amount of pressing how dangerous it would be, or how pointless it was to have someone as skilled as her come along for something that could just be easy would deter her. ... so he relented.

      @femvoir​ sent a protective prompt, accepting.              “  why are you helping me?  ”

      mindlessly his index finger circled around the tip of one of his arrows. his quiver rested between his thighs, against the trunk of his body where the fletching tickled at his cheek when he spoke. but one of those arrows was in his hands, the idle motions of tinkering with it something of a lazy habit ---or a nervous one, he had never really considered it too much. teeth chewed at the inside of his cheek while the woman spoke, and his eyes traced the shape of her lips as she did so.

      why, indeed. he’d never quite been public enemy number one like she was, but he understood what it was like to be under the gun. that was clint ---always in but out, included but distant, just getting enough to paint the picture but missing some colors to keep it really eye-catching to anyone who might be interested. “ i don’t know. ” a half lie. it pricked the corners of his lips upward, a gesture lost against the shadow of growing stubble. “ maybe there’s something interesting about someone everyone wants dead. maybe your side of things interests me. or, ”

      fingers stopped their traced pattern and with a quick gesture he slid the arrow back into its home, “ maybe i’m bored and looking for something to do. does it really matter? ”

      @bornbshell​ (kate) sent a protective prompt, accepting.              “  i’m not letting you go alone.  ” from katie cakes

      a stream of air left his nostrils in a puff, indignation in the form of a grin smeared itself across his lips. whatever antagonistic mood they were in that day always fell by the wayside. he’d never had a younger sister ---just barney, and never much thought of what it’d be like if he’d had one. and yet ... their jests and jibes, the sneering and teasing, it felt as natural as siblings could be. he loved kate bishop ---she was more than his namesake ( and really, if anyone asked he’d sincerely suggest that she was the superior hawkeye by all standards ), and she was family. he understood her desire to keep him safe in turn. to shirk their momentary war in favor of keeping an eye out for one-another. and he appreciated it.

      headcanon: clint is hard of hearing.

      prior to joining the avengers and affiliating himself with the individual members of the team he did not wear any sort of hearing aids or implants. he was not born this way ---rather much of his hearing loss was sustained in his childhood from his abusive father, where clint lost up to 60% of his hearing in one ear and 40% in the other. as a result he learned american sign language (asl) and was taught how to read lips. he can read lips in english and spanish (as they are his two most fluent languages, and most commonly used),

      he can, and does, respond verbally, though he communicates with asl whenever his hands are free to do so, if his conversational partner also speaks it.

      after a period of time with the avengers, clint uses hearing aids created by tony stark. his hearing is almost completely restored with their use.