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You said you'd be fine.
The words are accusing in his head. You said you'd be fine, Hawkeye. Why aren't you fine?
He's lying at the bottom of a stairwell with ringing in his ears. He knows the sound, he knows how it fades into fuzzy nothingness the sounds of friendly voices can't get past, he knows it might not fade, it might get worse, and this is what he knows.
You said you'd be fine.
Sorry, Katie-Kate. I never meant to lie.
He lies. He's lied before. There is no absolution in the pain as someone trained in emergency medical services puts him on a stretcher and takes him away out of sight of his brother, body broken at the bottom of the stairwell, and away from Lucky he can't hear howling and away from the accusing voice in his head.
You said you'd be fine.
I can come over, Hawkeye had offered him. I can keep an eye out, watch your back.
I'll be fine, Hawkeye.
Whatever, Hawkeye.
She was so much like him, like he was at her age. They were so much alike. But he wasn't like her in this. She wouldn't have missed them coming. She would've been fine.
He can't read the words from her mouth, just see them moving silently, furious tears on her cheeks. He wants to reach out and brush them away, but it hurts too much and he does nothing but stare.
I didn't mean to lie, Katie-Kate.
His voice is still inside his head, but hers is not. It's silent and her mouth is moving and he thinks he groans with more pain than what's in his body, but he can't hear himself to tell.
Kate's body twists in the chair beside the medical bed. She's calling the nurse, he thinks. He thinks. He can't hear her, so he doesn't know.
You said you'd be fine. You said you'd stay hidden.
Barney's voice has taken up residence now, hissing from a younger kid than either of them are anymore. He'd left Clint under the bed, told him to stay there.
I'll be fine, Barney.
Don't come out. I'll bring you something to eat when I get back.
It was hours before his stomach cramped, before his head hurt, and before he finally crawled out from under the bed and snuck downstairs into the kitchen.
His father found him there and he doesn't even remember now what excuse he used to raise his fists.
You said you'd be fine. Furious big brother hovering over him in a hospital bed, trying to be there for him without shaking him in frustration.
And in his head because he couldn't ever seem to get the words out right, I didn't mean to lie.
It's fine.
She signs and he stares at her fingers as though they are strange to him. They are. Hawkeye doesn't sign. He used to, but she doesn't, and the hinges on that door in his brain are rusty. They squeak when he tries to find the meaning of the movement in her hands.
I've got this. It's fine.
She knows his home like it's her own, and she'll always have a place here.
Be my guest, Hawkeye. He can't say it, just gesture because he can't hear and he doesn't remember yet how to sign. There's a part of him that wishes he never will, will never have to. Somehow this will go away like it did the first time.
There's a part of him inside himself that knows this isn't going to go away and worse, he deserves this because he pushed her away when he needed her most.
He lets her take over his kitchen, his apartment, doing whatever it is she's decided needs to be done and goes to check on his brother who took his own wounds at the bottom of that stairwell.
It's fine, Hawkeye tells him, and he wants to say to her in the way her voice has been saying inside his head, Katie. Don't lie.
They're not fine.
He's sprawled across the couch with the dog, trying to figure out how to deal with the rest of his life. It might be short. He might tick them off enough to finish the job, but he's a Barton, and a sober Barton is a pretty hard thing to kill. And there's Hawkeye sitting on the arm of his couch, perched up like something delicate, like a bird he might just startle away.
Hawkeye.
Her nose wrinkles. She smiles. She mouths back, Hawkeye, taking the same way he chose to speak this time.
He leans back. He breathes as he settles into his own couch. He said he'd be fine. Maybe one day, eventually, he will be.
He wakes up and she's still there, and there's a part of him that doesn't know how to fathom it. She's got that grim look around her mouth she gets when she's determined, and she's corralled his brother into eating breakfast at the table.
Lucky is already looking adoringly in her direction as chows down way too much dog food.
Katie-Kate?
He sits up. She looks over as if she heard his thought. But that's silly. She noticed him sitting up.
"Hawkeye," he makes his mouth form the word, makes his throat push it out. He feels something even if he can't hear it.
She looks at him, jaw set and eyes soft and goes over to corral him too.
You said you'd be fine.
He can read her fingers moving in the lamplight. He's been studying like he was supposed to.
He looks at her helplessly, wishing he could do more than shrug at her and see the disappointment flash in her eyes.
I thought I would be. I thought I could handle it. I thought we'd be okay. Are we okay? You and me, Hawkeye, are we okay?
He reaches out and makes his hands do what they must to say, I never meant to lie.
The disappointment lingers in her gaze for just a moment, another brief and endless moment before fading, before he sees her chest move as she sighs out an exhale. She leans over and rests her head against his shoulder. He puts his arm around her carefully.
He doesn't say it, he won't say it, but he knows it, and that makes it feel all right.
They're going to be fine.