Clint Barton
Since waking up, Steve had found plenty of new things that he appreciated. One of those things would be the access to hearing aids. He was never completely deaf, but he did appreciate not having to arrange it so his good ear was closer to whoever he was trying to talk with. At least back home he had Bucky who knew and automatically adjusted to fit his needs without making a big deal of it.
When Steve met Hawkeye without the mind control nonsense, he noticed the hearing aids the man used. Subtle, but he saw. None of the others seemed to notice the small devices, but Steve didn't point it out. Hawkeye was one of SHEILD's top spies, his disability didn’t seem to affect his work so why should Steve out him.
He still remembered the rare jobs he would get where he could hide his disabilities just long enough to get the money for the month’s rent before being fired for being ‘incompetent’.
Steve wasn’t expecting the Avengers to already know about the archer’s disability. He also wasn’t expecting them to assume he’d be judgmental about it.
Steve had walked into the communal kitchen around 3 in the morning to find Clint perched on top of the fridge, don't ask him why, eating directly from a casserole dish from that night's supper.
The archer seemed content to keep eating in peace, so Steve just went about his own business. He had woken up in pain and with the phantom taste of his Ma’s apple cake in his mouth. Seeing as any one of them could easily afford the ingredients these days, and he didn’t have a 9-5 job, Steve decided to make it. At 3 am. Clint was eating leftover casserole, the other Avenger had no room to judge.
It wasn't until Steve was in the middle of mixing the ingredients (by hand, he wasn't fragile, he didn't need a machine to do the work for him) that Clint spoke up with a sigh.
"You know, if you're talking to me, I can't hear you."
Glancing up, Steve frowned at the archer's stance. Still on the fridge, Clint was very tense, eyes narrowed at WW2 Veteran.
"I wasn't saying anything. If you want to have a conversation though, you're gonna have to move over there," Steve replied, gesturing to a chair across from him and to the right.
The biologically younger man took a certain amount of pleasure in the tentative confusion lingering in the archer's expression.
"I don't have my hearing aid in, I'm not quite used to it yet."
"Wait, what?"
Steve snorted.
"Buc- We couldn't exactly afford hearing aids back then. Besides, it was easier to hide that I couldn't hear perfectly when I didn't have some big contraption to carry around. Any one of my illnesses were enough to be denied employment. Hearing aids today are much more convenient."
The archer seemed a little stunned, staring at the smaller man incredulously as he finished with mixing and put the batter in the oven.
There was a certain amount of malicious joy Steve got from messing with people. Agent Barton was making it all too easy.
"How long have you had hearing issues?" Clint asked at last.
Steve scoffed.
"Seems history didn't care about the history so much as their preferred story. It's been this way for so long, I could hardly remember hearing normally before the serum. Got sick when I was a kid, messed up my hearing."
"Yeah, the world has a history of not recognizing disabilities. I was never really shy about my deafness, but even most SHEILD agents I've worked with don't know."
Steve raised an eyebrow, seeing the peace offering for what it was.
"Well, at least then you can easily ignore stupid people without them realizing that."
Clint laughed his agreement and the last hours of the night passed with pleasant conversation. The archer could appreciate the smaller man's dry humour. It was quite dark at times, but as Steve said at one point, that's what happens when you live during the Great Depression.
Come morning, Bruce came searching for a cup of tea and found a partially eaten apple cake. A quick look around showed that no one else was around, so the scientist grabbed a piece for himself and retreated to his lab.