trans clint thoughts
ok so if ur familiar with hawkeye comics u know the trope of "clint's shirt gets lost/destroyed in fights or just in everyday moments of life" and it got me thinking like these times kate remarks on it can't be the first. and in the context of a trans ftm clint, this is interesting!
so im thinking about a young 19-20 year old clint, having just joined the avengers, they barely know his name, and at the end of a fight his shirt is torn to a ridiculous degree and his chest bindings are just out for all to see. obviously he runs the fuck away.
tony comes and finds him. ("but merv, tony wasn't an avenger at this point!" yeah but he was still in charge of elements of funding) and he's like "whats up let me help do u need better armour or smthn" so clint has to come out in this situation.
and tony, being tony, is thinking 'how can i throw money at this problem to make clint feel better?' so hes like oh!! let me pay for ur top surgery, then there's no worries about this! and because its clint the initial response is 'no i cant ask that of you im fine alone'
tony just goes "clint, i funded whatever the fuck hank pym had going on when he was an avenger, i can fund whatever's going on with you"
so then i guess after than point when the shirt tears clean off, it's less embarrassment and more that kind of pride and non-chalance we see in current comics clint, where its almost an experience of gender euphoria that yeah, that's his chest. hell yeah, its flat and masc!!
(p.s im operating with sliding time scale, so if clint is in his early 30s now as he tends to be in 616 canon—two years younger than tony who generally stays around 35 years old—that means he was born around the late 80s, and by the time he's an avenger its the late 2000s, almost 2010, so there's less transphobia than if it was set in the time that clint's early avengers appearances were published)
