So I was rewatching the beginning of The Avengers and I noticed something
When Clint shoots Fury, he shoots at his chest, which seemed like an odd choice to me. If Clint had been far away or not one of the best marksman SHIELD’s got it would make more sense to aim for center mass instead of the head, which is unprotected and much more likely to be a lethal shot if hit, but Clint’s up close and there’s no way he couldn’t hit Fury straight through his damn eyepatch if he wanted to. But he doesn’t. He aims for the chest. Fury comments that he always wears a bulletproof vest, and considering Clint’s frequent contact with Fury and his attention to detail he can’t be unaware of this. Clint shot Fury the one place where Nick had a chance of surviving while still looking out for the count.
Further, in his initial encounter with Maria Hill after that, he shoots at her and doesn’t manage to hit her. It’s easy to give Maria all the credit for this (and I’m not for an instant trying to downplay how good of an agent she is) but the fact is that Clint “I Never Miss” Barton goes on to shoot a goddamn thumb drive into a usb port. If he wanted to hit Maria, he could have.
Clint Barton was fighting Loki’s control with everything he had. Loki had a fucking infinity stone, there’s no way that Clint could overcome that, but maybe, just maybe, he could resist enough to save his friends.
tl;dr Clint is so much stronger than everyone gives him credit for