Work Text:
May 2006
Ringing. It was all that he could hear, and it surrounded him like an impenetrable bubble. His head felt like it had been stuffed full of cotton, and seemed very heavy at the moment. It was had to open his eyes, and he didn’t know where he…
Wait.
Slowly, Clint Winchester (although most knew him by his birth name of Barton) opened his eyes. From what he could see – off-white tiled ceiling and similarly colored bare walls – he wasn’t out in the field. He had been in Germany, on assignment with Natasha Romanoff as his partner once more, trying to stop some stupid group from recreating the Super Soldier serum that had been used on Captain America back in the 40’s. And then… and then…
His brow furrowed as he tried to concentrate, but it was just so darn hard to do that with this ringing in his ears!
He turned his head slightly to his left, and saw that he had an IV tube placed in his arm, and a heart monitor attached to him as well.
“What?” he mumbled to himself, and felt both shock and confusion when he realized that he couldn’t hear himself speak.
‘Sorry, Clint.’ Natasha wrote on the small hand-held whiteboard, her normally expressionless face looking somewhat apologetic. ‘They had a bomb.’ She erased the black marker and wrote something else. ‘I was able to get far enough away but you weren’t as lucky.’
Cling gripped the starched white sheets that he laid on, gritting his teeth together.
“So,” he said, unnerved by how he couldn’t hear himself. “I’m gonna be deaf forever, then.”
She nodded.
‘The doctors said 80% in both ears.’ She wrote down.
He ran a hand through his hair. Eighty percent. That meant that he wasn’t completely deaf, at least. Silver lining, he supposed.
Natasha’s head turned towards the door of the S.H.I.E.L.D. med bay, as if someone had called for her. They probably had, Clint thought to himself ruefully.
What luck he had, that he’d been damaged not by a Wendigo, or a Siren, or some other monster, but by pure human stupidity. He really was the worst hunter ever, then.
Natasha waved at him as she quickly left, and he raised his hand, half-heartedly returning the sentiment.
This sucked balls.
June 2006
“Hey, Dean,” Laura said when the younger man picked up his phone. “Are you able to make a trip out to the farmhouse, you and Sam? Clint, he really needs to see you.”
“Uh,” came the reply, thickly coated with static. “It might take a couple of days. But yeah, we’ll be there.”
She breathed a sigh of relief.
“Thanks,” she said. “Let me know when you get here.”
“Will do.”
She ended the call and turned to her husband, who was currently absorbed in a book, and she smiled. It had been a month since the accident, and while Clint’s hearing had not returned – rendering him almost completely deaf – but with the help of hearing aids, he had almost normal hearing once more, and he had even agreed to learn sign language with Laura, much to her pleasure (she loved wining arguments).
“Your brothers will be coming up in a few days,” she informed him, and he grunted a bit in acknowledgement. She frowned and crossed her arms. “Clint, Dean and Sam would have found out sooner or later, so it was better to call them now.” She said, and he looked up at her, sighing.
“I know,” he said. “But I feel like if I ignore it, it isn’t real.”
Laura’s face softened, and she leaned over to hug her husband.
“It’s gonna be okay,” she murmured in his ear, and he believed her.
Natasha was one of the incredibly few people who knew of the location of Clint and Laura’s farmhouse. Cooper, who was almost a year old, recognized her as she walked in unannounced, and he gurgled happily in greeting.
Clint never even bothered to do any supernatural tests on his partner, mainly because there were devils traps on the underside of the floorboards, salt under the door and window frames, and a silver doorknob on the front door, not to mention the iron latch on the gate. The house was pretty much demon proof.
(Naturally, it was not angel proof, but that is a tale for another time.)
“Heya, Nat,” Clint greeted her from the couch, not even bothering to look up.
She allowed herself a small smile at the sight of him.
“Clint,” she said. “The hearing aids are helping, then?”
He looked at her and nodded, with a smile that highlighted the small laugh lines around his eyes.
“Yeah,” he said. “They’re pretty much perfect, if not a little bit better. Fury really had them go all out with these, didn’t he?”
She nodded, and leaned down to pick up her godson, who squealed with delight.
There came a sudden knock on the door, which Natasha looked at curiously before shifting her gaze to Clint, who looked a little uneasy.
They never really got visitors, and never gave their address out to anyone, so the only people who could possibly be here were either very, very lost road trippers, Nick Fury (unlikely), or his brothers…
“I’ll get it,” Clint announced as Nat made her way towards the door. She looked at him for a moment before shrugging and settling herself on the couch with Cooper.
He was a little surprised when it was his brothers who stood on his doorstep – vaguely, he remembered that Laura had called them a few days ago – and then he was worried, because Dean had been on the news for a murder spree and was supposedly dead (he had, of course, called to make sure that his younger brother was still kicking, being the mature person that he was, and learned that they’d dealt with a case of shape shifters). Naturally, this could pose a problem, what with Natasha being just a few feet away, and all to eager to shoot people.
Against his better judgment, Clint had them come inside.
To be fair, Clint wasn’t really thinking about the consequences of having criminals (even if they were framed by shape shifters) in his house. Needless to say, Natasha whipped out a concealed gun as soon as she recognized the two younger Winchester brothers.
“Clint,” she said, her voice a low growl, “Do you know who those two are?”
Clint blinked at her, before he put the pieces together. He really wasn’t the smartest assassin out there.
“Oh,” he said. “Nat, you can put your gun down, they’re not going to hurt anyone.” He smiled at her, and his brothers stood behind him, their posture tense and ready to pull out their own weapons.
“Laura and the baby are in danger,” Nat tried to argue, but Clint simply laughed.
“No,” he said. “They’re not. Seriously, Laura and Cooper are the last people that they would ever do something to.” He turned to Sam and Dean. “It’s all right, stand down.”
Sam moved his hand away from the gun in his belt, and Dean shot the Russian woman a scrutinizing look.
“Nice welcome home present, dude,” the middle brother said, and Nat’s glare hardened.
“Clint,” she said, and there was warning in her tone. Tell me what is happening or I shoot them, and probably you as well.
Clint sighed, and motioned for her to sit down. He walked over to her and scooped up his son from the floor.
“Want to go to Uncle Sammy?” he cooed at the boy, who giggled and made grabbing motions at the tall man.
“It’s Sam,” he said, stressing the name, and Clint smirked at him.
“You really want to be ‘Uncle Sam’?” he asked, and Sam grimaced.
“Sammy is fine,” he grumbled, causing Dean to give a snort of amusement.
Clint faced his partner once more.
“Nat,” he said, “do you remember that one time last fall when I had you dig up all that info on John Winchester for me?”
She nodded, and Clint ignored Dean’s outburst of, “So that’s where you got all those files on Dad!”
“Well, I told you that I would let you know what was going on later,” the blond archer continued, “And I guess ‘later’ is now. Natasha Romanoff, meet Sam and Dean Winchester, my little brothers, and hunters of the supernatural.”
He held out his arms wide, and Natasha simply stared at him for a long moment. Finally, she said, “Supernatural? Clint, how am I supposed to believe that? And really, your brothers are murderers. I can understand the name change.” She glared at the younger men, and Dean glared right back.
“We, uh, we’re not murderers.” Sam said, looking at her a little sheepishly. “And we’ve never killed anything that wasn’t human.”
“Not on purpose, at least.” Dean added as an after though, and Sam shot him a bitchface.
Clint rolled his eyes at the two of them. They could be so juvenile, sometimes. Not, he would admit, that he was the perfect example of maturity, himself.
“It’s true,” he explained, and continued to tell Natasha about his birth family’s death and his subsequent adoption by John Winchester, his father’s cousin. He told – along with Dean – of how their mother had burned on the ceiling above infant Sam’s crib, and how John had thrust the three boys into the life of Hunting. She learned of Bobby Singer, and Missouri Mosley, about the poltergeist that had taken over their childhood home, and how the three of them had saved the current family’s lives. There was a slightly uncomfortable moment of silence before Natasha broke it with a question.
“If you truly do hunt these things, these demons and monsters,” she said, almost thoughtfully. “How do you know that I’m not one of them? I could be a vampire, or a demon, for all you know.”
Clint threw his head back and barked out a laugh, causing Cooper to jump a little in Sam’s lap.
“Are you kidding me?” he said. “Really, Nat, I’m better than that. I’ve given you glasses of holy water, spilled salt on you, and you’ve walked over and through all the devil’s traps in the house. Silver and iron don’t make you burn.” He smiled at her. “And besides, I would know if you were a vampire. Don’t like to go out in the sun.”
Nat stared at him.
“Really? Just like the lore?” she asked, and he nodded. “Then you can kill them with garlic, or a stake to the heart, right?” This last comment was fairly sarcastic, and Dean smirked at her.
“Nah,” he said. “You pump ‘em full of dead man’s blood and chop off the head.” He leaned back and flashed her a predatory grin, to which she didn’t react.
“I can tell you know quite a bit about all of this,” she said, and Sam gave a small smile.
“Well,” he said. “We have been doing this for almost all of our lives.”
“Oh,” Laura said, a bit surprised as she walked into the kitchen of the farmhouse to find her husband, his partner, and both of her brothers in law surrounding the kitchen table. “I guess I’ll make some more dinner then.”
Dean moaned in absolute pleasure as he filled his mouth with yet another bite of the pie that Laura had made for dessert. Cooper had the filling smeared all over his chubby face as he pounded his fists on his high chair.
“Laura,” Dean said, his eyes closed. “I am proud to call you sister.”
She laughed.
“That’s nice, Dean,” she responded. “Did Clint ever tell you why we needed you to come over?” she asked, and both of the brothers shot Clint a look.
The archer slouched low in his seat.
“It, uh, never came up?” He offered, and Laura fixed him with a stare.
“Tell them. Now.” She said, voice firm.
Clint sighed and looked over at the younger Winchesters and took his hearing aids out of his ears. Even after a couple of months of this, he still wasn’t used to the silence that swallowed him as soon as the devices were removed. He supposed that it would always be like this, every time.
Dean stared at the hearing aids in confusion, but a horrified expression crossed Sam’s face, and he lifted his head to meet his oldest brother’s eyes.
Really? His eyes conveyed the question, and Clint nodded, face solemn.
“I don’t get it,” Dean said as Clint placed the aids back into his ears. Sam elbowed Dean in the ribs, and the middle brother gave a short yelp – more out of annoyance than real pain. “What?” he complained, and Sam opened his mouth to retort, but Clint held up a hand, silencing him.
“It’s okay, Sam.” He said. “Dean’s never been the brightest crayon”
“You’re one to talk,” Natasha said quietly as she took a sip of water.
Clint ignored her, instead continuing what he was about to say.
“Dean, I was involved in an accident a little while ago, and I lost eighty percent of my hearing in each ear. I need hearing aids now.”
Dean looked surprised at first, and then his face paled and his eyes went wide.
“You- No!” he cried. “But, if you can’t hear…” his facial expression echoed the way that Sam had looked only moments
Clint smiled, a little sadly, and the younger man.
“It’s okay,” he said. “The hearing aids are designed by S.H.I.E.L.D. I can probably hear better than before, anyway. Don’t you worry about me, Bean.”
Sam snorted a little at his brother’s nickname for Dean, and Natasha smirked a bit in his direction.
“Shut it, Sammy.”
Laura stood from the table, stretched a little bit, and picked Cooper up from the high chair.
“Do you want to go to sleep, sweet boy?” She said to him, and he made a soft cooing noise, reaching for Natasha, who gave a soft smile.
“I can take him up for you,” she offered, and Laura smiled at her gratefully.
When she was gone, Sam spoke to his brother.
“Clint,” he said. “I’m so sorry, man.”
Clint waved him off.
“It’s okay, dude. Really.”
And in that moment, it was okay. Natasha knew about the Winchester brothers (all three of them), and now she knew about the family business.
Hopefully, they could keep this from Fury for just a little bit longer.
END