Work Text:
Normally, being drugged would be fucking fantastic. To not feel the aches and pain from battles, the permanent ache in his arms and shoulder blades from handling his bow-
Clint just felt paranoid.
All of his senses were numb, his balance completely thrown off. He felt fucking useless and defenseless, whatever adrenaline wasn’t numbed by the drugs at high alert.
He had essentially locked himself onto his floor since getting back from the triskelion, drowning everything out with a Netflix binge with captions on.
Jarvis paused the show he was on, and Clint grumbled, turning towards the lift behind him to see Natasha give a semi-nervous wave before signing.
How are you?
He just grumbled, turning back to the tv.
A few moments later of just sitting and listening to his ears ring, a tentative hand touched his shoulder before Natasha sat by him on the couch, gently pulling him to face her.
Are you hungry?
Clint shook his head. Natasha looked concerned when he stopped, making a face as his ears started crunching and ringing even more at the movement.
Clint- She stopped signing, giving him a look before resuming. What can I do?
“I don’t-” God, speaking felt weird. I don’t know, I feel awful.
You should probably get more sleep.
I feel gross and my ears are noisy.
Take a bath. I’ll wash your hair afterwards, if you want.
He started to nod, stopping and signing yes before carefully getting up only to almost fall over. Damn it.
-
Natasha ended up sitting on the toilet lid, the curtain around the bathtub pulled closed, staring at her hands as she waited for Clint. The water kept splashing around, and he occasionally made noises of pain or annoyance under his breath, muffled by the curtain.
-
Clint had said he didn’t want to try a million surgeries to try to get his hearing back. SHIELD had freaked out when he had come in for medical care after a surprise attack on Avengers tower, his ears bleeding as he screamed hoarsely in pain.
Now he was recovering from a horrible surgery that had less a hundred percent chance of working, less even of total success.
-
After the tub drained, Natasha handed the towel around the curtain, taking it back and giving him fresh pajamas, trying to sign sit down with the one hand.
-
His drugs had just hit, so everything looked a tiny bit like a seventies rock poster, and he was lazily watching Natasha’s hair floof in the bun she had pulled it back in, the red strands burning orange in the light. It probably didn’t help that his head was being gently swished around as she tried to wash his hair without getting his ears.
Even though he couldn’t hear her, Clint could see your lips barely move as she sang in a whisper to herself.
“It’ll be ‘kay, Nat.”
The corner of her mouth quirked up, her face softening from worry.
“-’md I lo-” Clint stopped.
I do too Natasha mouthed, looking at him before cupping his ear, carefully pouring water over it.