d’you think that sometimes when clint gets stuck in some bickering match with tony he just subtly takes his hearing aids out? like he’s sitting there nodding while tony gestures emphatically and makes all his elaborate snarky comments, waiting to see how long it’ll take tony to notice.

maybe he does it in meetings or whatever too. things get boring and he palms his hearing aids like he’s doing a magic trick and now he can just doze while whatever explanation or reprimand from fury carries on around him.

he’s probably got a prearranged hand signal with natasha so he knows when he’s supposed to put them back in, or at least when he needs to pretend like he’s engaged with a nod and a “yes, sir, absolutely!” whenever natasha tugs on her ear.

"you don’t do that when i’m talking do you?" steve asks him.

"course not," clint says, hoping to god he’s not gonna need to prove it by recalling whatever steve was telling him about watercolours last week.