May 1976

"Aunt Peggy! Aunt Peggy! Look!"

Maintaining a secret identity was not easy, especially when one of the people who knew the secret was a five-year-old.

Luckily, Tony Stark (because Maria and Peggy had been right, much to Howard's annoyance) was a very smart five-year-old and, although he was too young to completely understand why, he knew that he had to call his Aunt Peggy 'Aunt Sharon' if they were anywhere other than his house or hers.

Today, it was his house, since 'Sharon' was still officially Howard Stark's personal assistant (when she wasn't Lady Liberty, that is).

"Wow!" Peggy dropped to one knee, catching her godson as he hurtled towards her and dodging the plastic shield that threatened to hit her in the face. "Is that your shield?"

"No!" Tony crowed triumphantly. "It's Captain America's shield!"

"Hmm." Peggy held him at arms' length and examined him. "Let's see now … Captain America t-shirt … Captain America's helmet … Captain America's shield …" she saluted. "I think you might be Captain America today."

Tony's face lit up with an even brighter smile and he tugged on her hand. "C'mon, Aunt Peggy, c'mon! We gotta fight the bad guys!"

Peggy laughed, letting him pull her along to his playroom. "Just one minute, Tony; I need to talk to your father …"

"Morning Peggy," Howard greeted, dashing past them. "Maria's home this evening; tell her I'll be back in a week!"

"A week?!" Peggy repeated incredulously.

"I'm going with Operation: Valkyrie," Howard explained, backtracking to kiss her cheek and to ruffle Tony's hair. "Think I've got the key to finding him."

Peggy frowned. "That's wonderful, but …"

"We'll be home in a week," he called over his shoulder, just before the front door slammed.

"Daddy's bringing Captain America home for my birthday," Tony informed her, bouncing with excitement.

Peggy smiled weakly. "Let's hope so."

Tony's sixth birthday was in three days - and Howard was going to miss it.

On top of that, all he could hope to bring home was - at best - the wreckage of a WW2 plane and a dead body.

If Tony noticed the doubt in her voice, he gave no indication of it. "Come on, Aunt Peggy!" He took her hand again, finally dragging her into the playroom and directing her into the middle of it. "You stand there, Aunt Peggy, and be in trouble, and I'm going to rescue you."

Peggy set her hands on her hips in mock-indignation. "I'll have you know, young man, that Captain America never needed to rescue me."

Tony gave her a weary look that looked hilarious on a child so young. "I know that, Aunt Peggy, but I have to rescue someone. That's what heroes do."

Peggy bit her lip, trying very hard not to laugh. "That's a very good point."

She was 'rescued' by 'Captain America' for the rest of the day, until Maria arrived home, whereupon she was even unhappier with her husband than Peggy was.

"That man," she ranted over a glass of wine. "I swear he just doesn't think sometimes."

The look on Tony's face a week later when his father returned empty-handed was nothing short of heart-breaking.

August 1987

As Tony grew older, two things happened.

First of all, his infatuation with Captain America waned (which Peggy had expected) and was slowly replaced by bitterness (which she hadn't).

Secondly, he grew smarter. By the time he was fifteen, he was at MIT.

As time passed, Peggy also began to worry about Howard. Admittedly, she had regaled Tony with Captain America stories when he was a child, but only when he asked.

Given the way Tony clammed up and changed the subject whenever she included Steve and Howard in the same sentence, she started to worry that maybe Howard's obsession had been getting worse without her noticing.

Howard refused to talk about it. He seemed to take Peggy's believe that Steve was dead as a personal insult (even if she was just as adamant that they shouldn't stop looking).

Howard also didn't seem to be able to figure out how to deal with a child that was smarter than him.

Maria and Peggy did their best, trying in vain to get him to view Tony as a progeny rather than competition, something that became an increasing sticking point between him and Peggy.

She was going to need to step away, preferably before their friendship was damaged beyond repair.

When Tony was seventeen, and Peggy was sixty-six, Sharon Rogers resigned from her post as PA to Howard Stark and quietly disappeared.

The following day, twenty-year-old Sharon Carter, niece of Belinda Carter and great-niece of Peggy Carter, walked into a SHIELD meeting room to meet Director Pierce and those agents with level eight security clearance.

With a glance, she recognised several of her new colleagues as old ones, not lease the new deputy director, Nick Fury. He had obviously aged since they last met, and was missing an eye, but he was still unmistakable.

Pierce greeted her with a handshake so warm that it was almost a hug, and introduced her initially as Belinda's niece.

"I thought Belinda was an only child," Fury said suspiciously.

Peggy smiled. "Actually, Belinda never existed."

"You're Peggy Carter," another agent said quietly. "You got the serum too."

Peggy's eyes darted towards him. At first glance, he was a wholly unremarkable man - young for his security clearance, but then everyone seemed to register as 'young' to her - but there was a depth of intelligence and humour in his eyes that made her decide immediately that she was going to like him.

"We've seen the files," one of the other agents said dismissively. "Director Carter died in 1959."

"Welcome to level eight, gentlemen," Peggy said with a smirk. "Agent Peggy Carter, at your service, formerly Agent Belinda Carter, currently going by Agent Sharon Carter, and also known as Lady Liberty. If anyone knows who coined that name, please let me know so I can introduce them to my sidearm." She held out a hand to Fury. "Sorry I lied to you."

He shrugged, shaking her hand. "No hard feelings; it's the job. Good to see you're alive."

Peggy greeted the people she knew, and then Pierce introduced her to those she didn't, including Phil Coulson, the man who had figured out who she was.

After the meeting, he was also the only one who lingered. "You're really Agent Carter of the Howling Commandos?"

Peggy bit back a sigh, but smiled all the same. "That I am. Let me guess - you want to know all about Captain America?"

Coulson turned a little red but shook his head. "Not going to lie; growing up, he was my hero. I've read the books. Fairly sure I can recite some of them. But the books are just propaganda. If you're happy to tell me, though, I'd like to know about Captain Rogers."

No one ever asked that.

Even Tony had only ever wanted to hear about the heroics.

(In hindsight, maybe she should have sat him down and told him the messy truth.)

"Well …" she said slowly. "The first time I met Steve Rogers, I thought someone was playing a joke."

His eyebrows rose into his hairline and she smiled.

"Let's grab a coffee," she said. "I'll tell you all about it."

April 1990

Over the next few years, Phil and Peggy became very good friends. It may have begun due to his fascination with all things Captain America, but she was confident that it had given way to true friendship and affection.

So it was little surprise when he poked his head around her office door with a cup of coffee.

She was on the phone, so she waved him in without breaking her sentence. He set the coffee on her desk and waited patiently for her to finish the call, sipping at his own drink.

"Thank you very much, Major," Peggy said with a bright smile. "Goodbye." As she hung up, her smile faded to something less fake and she picked up the coffee with a groan, taking a large gulp. "Oh my God, Phil, I love you."

"I do my best," Phil said with a smile. "Bad day?"

"I hate dealing with army brass," Peggy grumbled. "At least the rank and file show respect to your face. If that asshole called me 'sweetheart' once …" She took another long drink. "You have no idea how much I needed this."

"Well, it's a bribe," Phil said, with a hint of apology in his tone.

"See, that's what I like about you, Phil," Peggy said, leaning back in her chair. "You don't beat about the bush. It's refreshing. What do you need?"

"Well, I … I may have lost a new recruit," Phil admitted.

Peggy faltered.

Generally there were two ways someone entered SHIELD - they were either head-hunted, or they entered the SHIELD Academy and graduated.

Those that were head-hunted required extra training, having not gone through the rigour of the Academy, and it had somehow fallen to Phil to do so.

Peggy had to admit that he was perfectly placed to do so, with somewhat endless patience and a demeanour that tended to invite confidence.

But this was a first.

"How do you lose a recruit?"

"I don't know," Phil said, sinking into the chair opposite her with a sigh. "We were down in the shooting range and there was an … altercation. I didn't hear what happened, but he took a swing at one of the others. Rather beautiful left hook actually. I separated them, and he took off. Turned right, rounded a corner, and … disappeared."

"What about the other agent?" Peggy asked. "Another new recruit?"

Phil nodded. "He insists he didn't provoke him, but he won't tell me what he said." A wry smile crossed his face. "And honestly, I've had to resist the urge to deck the guy more than once myself."

Peggy raised an eyebrow. That was saying something. "What do we know about the missing recruit?"

Phil passed her a file. "Name's Clint Barton."

Peggy flicked the file over and almost physically recoiled. "Shit, Phil, he's just a kid!"

"He's eighteen," Phil corrected.

"That's what I said," Peggy said with a scowl. Then again, Phil was only about ten years older than him. "How'd you find him?"

"He was working for the circus when I went after the Sword Master," Phil answered.

Peggy remembered the case well, even though she hadn't actually worked it.

The Sword Master was an arms dealer who had been using his job in a circus to traffic stolen weapons across state lines. He had turned up on SHIELD's radar when he began fencing them to terrorist organisations.

The case had wound up with a chase through the circus grounds until their target wound up pinned to one of the tents with an arrow.

"What was he doing at the circus?" Peggy asked.

"Archery," Phil answered. "They called him Hawkeye."

"He was the marksman none of our guys could see?" Peggy asked.

"That's the one," Phil said with a smirk. "See why I recruited him?"

Peggy sighed. "Yes, but … Skills like that … He's going to end up in target elimination. Do we really want to send a kid out to assassinate people?"

"Want to?" Phil asked. "No. But he doesn't have any family. He was abandoned at the circus when he was ten, and they weren't happy when he stepped to help us against one of their own. He's got nowhere else to go, and if we don't scoop him up …"

"Our enemies will," Peggy finished wearily. "Yeah, I know. I assume we've got something in place to get him his GED; what's your take on him?"

Phil sipped his coffee for a few minutes. "He's very focused," he said finally. "Probably the most focused of any recruit I've worked with. Quiet."

"Was that the kid you recruited?" Peggy asked.

Phil cracked a smile. "No, he was a smart-ass. This place can be a bit intimidating though."

"Probably why he's done a runner," Peggy said. "You want me to find him?"

Phil nodded. "If you don't mind."

"Yeah, leave it with me," Peggy said. "Go and sort out the other ducklings."

Phil departed gratefully, and Peggy turned back to the file. She skipped past the official write-up to Phil's notes and immediately noticed something. He had alluded to Agent Barton's focus, but his write-up noted more.

Probationary Agent Barton pays close attention to whoever is speaking, no matter the subject matter.

Peggy took another look through the file, this time reading through the official part. Oddly enough, this part didn't agree with Phil's assessment.

Probationary Agent Barton occasionally pays no attention and ignores his superior officers.

Peggy frowned.

She was more inclined to trust Phil's assessment, considering that he recruited Barton and would have spent the most time with him.

By now, she had finished her coffee, and left her office for the coffee machine in the hall to get another cup. While she waited for it to brew, she considered how someone could just disappear from a secure area.

If Barton left the shooting range, turned right and rounded the corner, he would have ended up in an empty corridor.

But then Phil was pretty quick of the mark; he wouldn't have been far behind him, so he should have caught up with Barton easily.

There weren't any rooms or closets in that corridor, not close enough for Barton to reach without Phil at least seeing him.

So then where did he go?

The answer hit her all at once, and she groaned loudly, startling another agent down the hallway. She waved him off and poured two cups of coffee, before returning to her office.

It was so obvious.

It was probably a natural instinct for someone with such a turbulent background; that was why people with backgrounds like that tended to make natural spies. His file didn't speak about neglect or abuse - but if he had been abandoned at the circus, she had to assume that his parents weren't amazing.

Shutting the door firmly behind her, Peggy set the coffees on her desk and crossed the room, standing on one of the chairs to open the air vent, peering inside.

It was dark, and she couldn't see or hear anyone.

"Clint?" She called softly. "Are you in there?"

She didn't get a response.

Peggy thought about Phil's assessment, and the contradiction with his official file, and a second thought occurred to her.

What if Barton wasn't ignoring anyone?

What if he just … couldn't hear them?

Retrieving one of the coffees, Peggy scribbled a quick note, reassuring him that he wasn't in trouble, and set it inside the vent along with the coffee, hoping that the air flow would take the scent of coffee through the maze of pathways.

Then she returned to her desk and to her paperwork.

Two minutes later, she heard a soft noise in the vent, so soft she would have missed it, if she hadn't been listening for it.

She didn't move, even when the vent cover popped open. She only looked up when a body slithered to the floor, and even then, she waited for him to look at her before smiling. "Hello Clint. I'm Sharon."

Sure enough, as she spoke, his eyes zeroed in on her mouth.

"Why don't you sit down?"

Clint moved silently, clutching the coffee like it was a weapon, his whole body poised like a cornered animal waiting for a beating, and something in her chest clenched.

"What did he say?" Peggy asked. "The other agent, I mean."

"He was insulting one of the others," Clint said. His voice was deceptively soft for his size. He wasn't particularly tall, but he was quite muscular, especially across his shoulders, and she would have expected a louder voice, were it not for her growing certainty about his condition.

"He said that she got the job by spreading her legs. She didn't hear him."

"You didn't either," Peggy said gently, making a note to keep an eye on the other agent (and, indeed, to check with Phil who the other agent was). "Did you?"

Clint tensed even more. "How did you know?"

Peggy tapped the file. "Few contradictions. Plus you've been fixated on my mouth since you left the vents. You're either supremely attracted to me or you're lip-reading. How long have you been deaf?"

"Since I was nine," he muttered, looking down at his lap. "I got really sick and we couldn't afford the treatment."

Peggy waited for him to look back up at her. "Was that with the circus?" She asked when he did, keeping her voice gentle out of habit.

Clint shook his head. "My brother. We were on our own. He left me with the circus a year later because he couldn't look after me."

This only opened up more questions, but he still looked like he was about to bolt, so Peggy dropped the subject - for now. "Okay, Clint - Probationary Agent Barton - you're not in trouble. Generally, we tend to report abusive language, rather than take a swing at people, but I think we've all broken that rule at least once."

At her smile, Clint seemed to relax slightly, even managing a small smile back. "I'll try to remember that, Agent Carter."

"We will need to note up your file," Peggy added. "It's kind of important for us to know if one of our agents can't hear."

"I wasn't hiding it on purpose," Clint said. "It's not … It's been a way of life for so long that I don't … I don't think about it. It's not something I think to tell people."

Peggy nodded. "I know that." She tapped her fingers against her coffee cup a little restlessly. "There's one thing that's bothering me, Clint. With your skill set … you know what you're going to end up doing, right?"

Clint shrugged. "It's more than I thought I'd make of myself." He scowled. "Although given my range scores today …"

Peggy flipped to them and her eyes widened, taking a moment to re-read them in case she'd missed something. "You're kidding me, right?"

"I know," he said morosely. "They're crap."

At that, Peggy transferred her shock from the page to him. "Clint, these are some of the best range scores I've seen in years."

"I can do better," Clint insisted, not looking like he believed her. "I'm not used to guns."

Peggy tilted her head slightly. "Right, come on. We're going back to the range."

A quick call to Phil confirmed that the bow Clint had been using at the circus was in lock-up, and Peggy had it in Clint's hands and both of them in the empty range in under five minutes.

"What do you want me to do?" Clint asked.

"Whatever you like," Peggy said. "There's not really a procedure for assessing archery. I don't think we've ever utilised it."

Clint snorted. "Why? Not everyone's deaf."

Peggy frowned. "And?"

"Guns make noise," Clint said simply. "That's the only reason I hit that guy, you know. He didn't hear me."

He had a point, Peggy realised, but that didn't mean he wasn't good at what he did.

The bow was old and mostly held together with string, and the arrows weren't much better, but Peggy sat back and watched, as Clint selected one and carefully strung his bow.

He was clearly in his element like this and, from the moment the first arrow flew, she could see why.

Each arrow hit its mark perfectly, without fail.

Once he had collected them, Peggy hit a switch on the control panel, setting the targets in motion.

Clint smirked. "Are you testing me, Agent Carter?"

Peggy didn't answer, since she was behind him, watching instead as he started again, still never missing a shot.

She moved so he could see her out of the corner of his eye. "We need to get you a new bow."

"Why?" Clint asked, turning to look at her properly. "This one works fine." Without looking away from her, he let another arrow fly, hitting the dead centre of one of the targets.

Peggy glanced behind her, at the shiny surface of the metal walls. He had made the shot based solely on his reflection. "And if it falls apart in the field? I'll get Stark Industries on it."

"I'm sure they've got better things to be doing," Clint muttered, looking away.

But Peggy was not going to take no for an answer.

A few weeks later, she collected Clint from Phil and drove him to Stark mansion.

"Are you sure it's okay for me to be here?" He asked, as they made their way downstairs.

"Of course," Peggy said, signing as she spoke. "Otherwise you wouldn't be."

Sometimes Peggy loved the serum. She absorbed information so much faster.

As soon as she and Clint had parted ways, she had made it her mission to learn sign language. She wasn't quite fluent, but she was getting there.

He had even taught her his own name-sign - Hawkeye - given to him by one of the other performers in the circus.

He had a name-sign for her, but she wasn't sure what it translated as. When she asked, he hadn't told her.

"It'll change," he had said instead, "as I get to know you. I'll tell you what it is when it settles."

As they approached Howard's workshop, something metal came whizzing out of Tony's (empty) workspace.

"What is that?" Clint asked dubiously.

"This is DUM-E," Peggy said. "Tony made him a few years ago while he was at MIT."

"He's a robot?" Clint asked.

"Something like that." Peggy patted the metal arm. "He thinks he's a dog."

"That's …"

"Don't comment in Howard's hearing," Peggy whispered. "It's a thing."

Clint nodded, waiting for her to shoo the robot back into Tony's workshop, and followed her into Howard's.

"Mr Stark?" Peggy asked.

"Sharon!" Howard abandoned whatever he had been working on and came to shake her hand, placing a kiss on her cheek. "Lovely to see you again, my dear. And this must be Agent Barton."

Clint held out a hand. "It's a pleasure, sir."

"Howard worked with my great-aunt during the war," Peggy said, giving Howard a conspiring smile. "Have you got gifts for us?"

"I do indeed." Howard went back to his workbench and retrieved a package. "One bow and quiver, complete with arrows. Make sure you give me feedback."

"Of course, sir, thank you," Clint said.

To Peggy's surprise, Howard handed the package to her, rather than Clint.

"I've worked with quite a few deaf people over the years," he continued. "Some of them don't like the idea of hearing aids. Where do you stand?"

"Howard!" Peggy hissed.

"They must be people who've never heard a thing," Clint said. "I don't see why anyone would turn them down."

"Well then," Howard said. "In that case, I've got something else for you."

Peggy set the package down, a smile crossing her face. Sometimes, Howard reminded her why they were friends.

"Are you serious?" Clint asked, his voice breaking a little.

Howard ushered him into a chair and carefully fitted the small devices. Peggy paid close attention, just in case she needed to do it herself in the future.

"They have a switch at the back," Howard said, guiding Clint's hand to it. "You'll need to turn them on."

He clapped Peggy on the shoulder and hastily left the workshop, murmuring something about an errand.

Peggy shook her head in amusement. He wasn't the best when it came to sentimental moments. "Clint?"

Clint met her eyes. "I'm a bit nervous."

"Go ahead," Peggy urged. "It's just you and me."

Clint took a deep breath and flicked the switch on one of the aids, then the other. For a second, nothing happened, then his eyes widened. "There's a … humming noise?"

"That's the machines," Peggy said softly. "Can you hear me?"

Clint, she discovered, had a beautiful smile. "Yes," he whispered. "I can."

December 1991

A year later, Peggy opened the door of a dingy motel room in the back streets of Luxembourg, and ushered Agent Barton inside. "Report?"

She shut the door quickly, not because he was followed, but because the room was marginally warmer than the corridor outside, and she wanted to keep what little heat there was inside.

"Target down," he repeated mechanically. "Package acquired."

He had already said all of this over the radio, but she wanted to keep him talking before he went into shock.

Clint's first mission with SHIELD was a big one. A former federal agent had been selling defence secrets to the highest bidder, and the order had come through to proceed with extreme prejudice.

Clint's job had been to track the agent to a secluded area, make the kill, and retrieve the file he had been trying to sell.

Peggy was his handler - a job that would normally have been Phil's, but he was in medical after being shot two weeks earlier, and she didn't want anyone else doing it.

Clint appeared much older than his years, but he was still only nineteen, and he had just killed a man.

He was also beginning to hyperventilate, so Peggy quickly radioed for an extraction team and turned her attention to her charge, putting her hands on his shoulders to get his attention.

"Clint, try and breath with me, alright?"

The hearing aids worked like a dream - not perfect at all, but far better than anything they could have acquired commercially (Howard had confided in her later that they weren't even commercially viable yet).

Despite that, he still resorted to lip-reading when he was particularly stressed, as though his brain stopped processing sound.

Ever so slowly, his breathing steadied, matching her own, and he suddenly slumped forwards, his body breaking under the weight of his actions as the adrenaline flooded out of him.

Normally, Peggy tried to keep a professional distance between herself and the younger agents - she was only supposed to be a few years older than them after all - but sometimes she couldn't ignore her base instincts.

This was going to be one of those times.

Wrapping her arms around him, she stroked his hair gently, soothing him as though he was a child, an action she doubted he had experienced since he was very young.

Or at all, given how his body trembled even as he clung to her.

Peggy held him until he stopped shaking, and still didn't release him until he pulled away.

At that point, she stood, crossing the room to the window, giving him time to regain his composure under the pretence of checking the empty street below. She rubbed her hands together to try to warm them, her breath congealing in the cold December air.

"I'm sorry," he said finally, his voice hoarse. "Some agent I am, huh?"

Peggy hesitated, trying to decide how best to comfort him without being patronising. "Bravery isn't the absence of fear," she said finally, turning to face him with no trace of pity. "It's perseverance through it. If you had walked in here absolutely fine, I would have been very worried. The day you take someone's life and it doesn't get to you, just a little bit - that's the day you quit."

Clint rubbed a hand over his face. "I just bawled like a baby."

Peggy smiled at him. "And that, Agent Barton, is the difference between us and them. Understand?"

"I think so," Clint said, managing to smile back. "When's extraction getting here?"

"About twenty minutes," Peggy answered.

A soft tinny noise sounded from her bag and she opened it with a frown, realising it was her cell phone.

SHIELD still used radio transmissions in the field, but cell phones were sometimes useful, if not the most discrete method of communication.

This, however, was unlikely to be SHIELD.

In a situation like this, they would definitely use the radio.

Her frown deepening, Peggy pressed the button to answer the call. "Hello?"

"Aunt Peggy?"

Peggy closed her eyes. "Tony, you know damn well that when I'm working …" She stopped suddenly, ice flooding her veins.

Tony never called her that outside of his or her home, and he never called her that on the phone.

"What's wrong?"

"It's Mom and Dad," Tony answered, his voice trembling. "They're dead."

I've never read the comics. My Hawkeye is some strange combination of MCU and headcanon, which has been influenced mostly by fanfiction. Fairly sure some of it comes from the comics, but I wouldn't know. I am also not deaf or HoH, so my apologies if my portrayal of this is inaccurate.