Chapter Text
If there is one thing that Clint Barton hates the most, its people looking down at him in pity like he was incapable of handling things like a normal human being. A liability. Weak. He was doing just fine working solo missions and the occasional one with Natasha Romanoff or another member of SHIELD that has the jurisdiction of working with Clint (he was never given rookies, and he was just fine with that). And only Natasha, and Director Fury, of course, knew about his hearing loss. He’s had it for a while now, but it feels like forever rather than just a few odd months short of 6 years. A mission gone awry, an explosion that had left him staring at the blue sky as everything erupted around him. Bombs had gone from trembling sounds to muffled thumps and voices became mumbles. His partner, Jacob, was yelling in his face and he had absolutely no idea what the hell the guy had been saying and he passed out seconds later. He woke up in a SHIELD infirmary and he was bombarded with tests, assurances, and doctors calmly telling him that it was most likely not coming back any time soon. He was disabled.
The incident had rendered him nearly deaf, and that hadn’t stopped him one bit in his work with SHIELD. Actually, it did him good. He had been great at his skill as a marksman, but his senses after the explosion? Just months after, he could notice a difference with his precision of what things come next and what each smell is and what something feels like. Every sense was heightened now, especially his eyesight, and that had been the only blessing he felt he had gotten from the curse. Sometimes, when targeting a shot and having a need for concentration, he turned off his hearing aids and was greeted with a familiar empty silence that surrounded his entire being and felt like it could swallow him up. It didn’t, and aimed and fired and always hits the shot. He wasn’t bragging. He was just that good.
He read lips like a pro now. He hardly even had to hear at all for him to understand people since he had unconsciously mastered this.
Natasha never mentioned anything. Fury hardly did. He liked it better that way.
And then the Avengers happened. Don’t get him wrong, he wasn’t angry that he was a superhero now. He just maybe should have realized he was signing off his personal information as well as his skillset in the paperwork. When the disaster with the Chitauri subsided, and he got the chance to meet the team officially, it had been a crushing blow.
They all seemed so powerful.
Thor was a god, for Christ’s sakes, and Steve was a super solider. Tony was a genius and billionaire with an attitude, Natasha was…Natasha. And Bruce Banner aka the Hulk? He didn’t even have to explain that one. None of them had a petty disability holding them down. He knew that wasn’t fair. After all, they all had their own shitty things to deal with. It didn’t change the fact that Clint felt a little inferior to them. It was bad enough that he’d been mind controlled by Loki and had committed things he never wanted to ever speak of again. He didn’t tell his team about his hearing loss. He had hacked into SHIELD’s databases long ago and erased all information about his disability, so they’d have to get it from the source. Or Natasha. But she wouldn’t ever betray Clint’s trust like that.
“You’re going to have to tell them eventually.” Natasha remarked to him one day.
“I will.” Not until I have to.
2 months living with the Avengers in the Stark Tower (which was almost done with repairs) and cleaning up the “space whales and their fish” as Stark called them and Clint was sitting in a spaced area of the air vents. His hands were pressed against the metal and his eyes were closed. He could feel Thor talking and Steve punching the shit out of a sand punching bag in the lower gym. He could easily determine the difference, too. Thor’s voice, deep and booming even to Clint, rumbled short and quick vibrations. If he tried hard enough, he could pick out a few words. Steve’s punches rattled the bag tethered to the ceiling, fairly close to the vents. There was no sign of Bruce or Tony, but he could bet that they were in the big lab doing science-y things. Clint was smart, sure, but he was no genius. He didn’t understand half of what Tony or Bruce was trying to say to him. Natasha was probably…wait, he could feel the bullets. Shooting range, then.
He’d been in the air ducts for most of the day now, in his “nest”. He liked it up here because there wasn’t anything distracting. The only thing he didn’t like was the air that disrupted the feeds of his hearing aids. The air blowing into them was a bitch. It sounded like static. He froze suddenly as there was a pounding on the metal sides. His hands gripped the metal tightly until his hands were white.
Someone was saying something, and because of the blocking of the metal he couldn’t understand all of it. But he did know Tony’s voice. “What do you want, Stark?”
“Up for some shawarma, Legolas?”