Work Text:
Some of them are mutants. Gods. Super soldiers with mystery-glitter-serum pumping through their veins. Broken bones mend over night. Their skin stays strong and healthy and pink even when it should be bruised black, ripped open and torn to reveal everything hiding underneath. When their head hits rocks, the rocks come out with the biggest bumps.
But some of them? Some of them are just human. Hidden behind thick layers of metal, hugging the body close and doing as much as it can to hide the incredibly vulnerable body underneath. They are not mythical beings, not science projects or accidents, and while they all feel human and weak and exposed in the light of day when they're in the kitchen having coffee, watching TV and making fun of each other for all the things in a domestic world they don't know, in a battle situation Clint is still the only one risking his vulnerable neck without any kind of armor or super-duper-powers.
And so really, it's just a matter of time.
It's the first time in his life that he's been the weakest link, really. He was an athletic kid, healthy and as strong as the mediocre living arrangements could make him. Sure, he'd sprained things and broken things, but he had a standing theory that the harsh living conditions of orphanages, circus caravans and the streets had made him all but immune to illness. He could deal with pain, too, pushing through it because he had that space in his head where it didn't matter. That meditative state where physical aches and pains just couldn't reach.
But for fucks sake, he thinks to himself, flat out on a slab of concrete sidewalk in a world that seems to be defying a gravity that's changing directions every two seconds.
He needs to learn to wear a goddamned helmet.
-
Concussion . That's the first thing he thinks when his head settles on a little ledge, just above the swirling sea of nothing that threatens to take him down. He's been here before, right here, flat on his back with a head that can't be moved. Is too big to move, and too painful to even think about. Ow.
There's light behind his eyelids, but he can't tolerate that now. Knows not to open his eyes, and not to say a single word. The world hums at him, like the sea is lapping up at his ears now. It's not the sea , he reminds himself. You're hearing the inside of your head.
And really, he has nothing more to add to that. He fades out again, and the world tilts madly backwards, like gravity is still playing circus around him.
-
He doesn't know what time it is. If it's been days or minutes or hours. If he's still on a stretcher on the pavement, or if he's in a hospital. He entertains the idea that he's at home for just a moment, imagining that the fabric he can feel around him, rubbing painfully against his skin is his own bed. His own pajamas, but he knows for a fact that just isn't true.
A hand on his forehead has his eyes twitching, and before he can tell them to keep closed they're opening in slits. They feel swollen and wet, and he squints up at the murky scene forming in front of him. The room is barely lit, the window covered in a thick curtain. Phil – Coulson – Phil is leaning over him, talking. The din of it is barely distinguishable over the whoosh in his ears.
«What?» He says, and Phil recoils slightly, his mouth turning down in a grimace before the din of his voice picks up again. He tries to listen, and to distinguish the sound of his voice over the noise of the storm in his head, but he can't, and then his eyes are closing again. Gone.
-
It's a long time before waking up makes sense. He has a niggling suspicion that it happens more than once, but the faces that greet him are all patient and calm and full of soft smiles when he manages to crack his eyes open, and they look understanding and worried around the edges when they close. It's not the first time a concussion has messed you up , he reminds himself, soft hands turning him to his side as he tries not to choke on his own vomit. There's a tube down his nose, taped to his cheek, and something is pinching his elbow. Needles. IV's.
Still in the hospital, then.
-
His eyes clear up a little. Enough for him to notice the patient looks on the people around him turn extra super patient and extra super soft when he's repeating himself, the distant din of his voice rumbling oddly through his chest.
«My ears are weird», he keeps saying, and though he can hear the sound, he can't distinguish anything more from it. He only knows what he's saying because he's saying it, and he only knows what the others are saying because he knows what to expect.
«Give it time», they're saying. «You're concussed. Give it time to heal.»
But it doesn't. He still can't sit up without a pillow behind his head, can't move his head sideways without gravity throwing a fucking party around him, drink without someone holding the cup or focus on more than one thing at a time without getting a migraine, but he's better. Mending. Getting there, slowly and surely.
It's just that his ears aren't.
Nurses are a soft chime of high voices, muttering at him from the opposite side of a football field. Clint cups his hands around his ears to protect them from the worst of the storm howling inside his head, but it does no good. Coulson is a deeper rumble, the tone of his voice rising and falling with the vibrations in Clint's chest, and he knows what that voice is saying, even if he doesn't know the words. He knows because he's spent years watching. Watching people from so far away that the slightest bit of body language is enough.
But body language can only get you so far. And Clint knows he's not eating enough, and that he's puking up all the oatmeal and jelly the nurses can bring him, and that his head is getting better, but that it's a slow haul. He knows not to move around too much, and to let the doctors shine the goddamned light in his eyes and throw him through a scanner every so often. He knows all that, because he's been here before. In that space where time skips forth and back, like a rewind function on an old VCR. But he doesn't know what's wrong with him. How long it's been, or what's going to happen. They try to talk to him, show him cards with carefully written sentences made not to upset him any further, but he pukes all over his pillow, the white sludge they're stuffing down his nose sour and slimy on his gown and skin.
They try to have him read their lips, pronouncing slowly and carefully, but he's dizzy and tired and confused, and lips don't form the words like voices do. He can't read them at all.
And all he really has to hang onto are the familiar faces around him, the hands that stroke his hair as the bruises fade and his brain settles in the original position instead of the one it assumed when he threw it down onto a slab of concrete. And slowly, he thinks, though he doesn't know, time settles. He can distinguish one day from the next, doesn't insert half of Thursday in Wednesday just to fast forward into Monday. Night comes after day after night. He can turn his head, smile without breaking down in tears and can almost sit upright in the bed without fainting. Almost.
But still the voices around him are muted and soft, like they're speaking through pillows. Their mouths full of cotton, and his ears under water.
It's just a side effect, he tells himself, the room dark and soft around the edges from the drugs the nurse just inserted through his IV. It'll pass. Like the time you thought all people were blue, or that time you thought water tasted like apple juice. It's just your head, playing a prank. It'll straighten itself out.
And it's not until a lady sits down next to Coulson, spreading a few things out on the table placed over his bed that he gets it. A plastic ear, with the innards on the back. Like a puzzle, much larger than real life. She points, shows. Draws, and his eyes go dizzy and almost crossed as he tries to follow her fingers as they point to different things, explaining with her hands and expressions. Phil is quiet next to him, one hand on his shoulder, warm through the thin hospital gown.
«Permanent?», he mumbles, and they nod at him, slowly and clearly. « Bad?», he says, and they shrug, shake their heads and nod. We don't know yet. «Can... Fix?» he asks, the room tilting oddly around him. The table is removed, his eyes go crossed and he might have blacked out for a moment, because the lady is gone the next time he opens his eyes.
«Still permanent?» he asks, and Phil looks like he's about to laugh, but he nods sadly instead. «Yeah.» he says, and Clint watches his mouth form the word.
-
«Press the button when you hear a noise», the note says in block letters. Big. Black. He nods carefully, still trying to keep his head as still as possible. It's the third time he's out of bed, and while he's embarrassed to be sitting in what looks like an old people's wheelchair, with a pillow behind his head to keep it still and protected because moving even the slightest bit sends the world twirling around him, he recognises that it's kind of necessary. The headphones smell of leather and hospital, and they're heavy on his head as he settles them, holding the little plastic button in his hand.
He listens for all he's worth, closing his eyes and paying attention. It's hard, he keeps drifting off into strange daydreams before he can pull himself back in. He presses when he thinks he can hear something, but it's barely distinguishable over the roar in his head. Presses again, just to be safe, and again because wasn't that a noise? A short beep, muted and soft and far away.
-
It's not a fun conversation. He feels dizzy and nauseous and tired, his neck and head aches, and the deep cut that's still healing on his leg hurts and pounds even through the thin layer of drugs covering everything. «Severe hearing loss», the lady writes. Points to one ear. «Moderate to severe hearing loss» she writes, points to the other one. «We're hoping hearing aids will help.»
He knows it's difficult to explain the full situation to him right now, because reading is still a challenge, and he can't hear them. He can almost hear their voices, but not their words, no matter how hard he tries, and everything seems to hum around him. Just a little bit, but it's frustrating none the less to be let out of the loop. He can see her talking a mile a minute to Phil – Coulson – Phil, dammit, about his ears, but not to him. He gets it. He does, so he watches. Tries to pick up whatever they're talking about, but the thumb rubbing his forehead feels warm and heavy, and he gives up without really trying. Stares out the window instead, pretending to pay attention but really counting the buildings he can see outside.
-
He's discharged a few days later. Everything feels wonky and heavy and tired, his body thinner and paler than it has been in in a long time, and he feels lopsided with one sense down. It's like he's wearing someone elses head, and by the time they make it back to the tower, it's throbbing and he's sweating profusely, trembling all over.
He doesn't leave their bedroom for almost a day.
-
Gradually, things start to look up. He can read easier, without his head pounding. His eyes turn back to normal where he doesn't feel dizzy or unsettled just by changing focus, and he's cleared for watching TV and reading books again. Which is a good thing, because oh boy are the others getting tired of playing poker with him. He's won enough matches to light up the whole tower by now, should he feel like it. He's cleared for hearing aids, too, once his ears have healed up and his head has adjusted and the concussion can't be found on any machinery the doctors have available.
«Don't get your hopes up», Phil writes when they leave the doctor's office.
«The hearing aids can't fix what's entirely gone, you know that, right?»
And he nods eagerly, because he'll hear again. Fuzzily and only for an hour a day to begin with, but it's something.
By the end of the first day, he's prepared to throw the piece of shit skin coloured plastic in the trash, and the only reason he doesn't is the look Natasha throws him when he rips them out of his ears.
-
There are nice moments, too. Phil telling him he loves him with just his hand from across the room, without Clint having to pause or ask him to speak up or repeat himself. Phil, sticking with him even though this thing between them is fresh and awkward and new. Sitting down with the team for a very surreal movie night with his eyes blissfully free of the hearing aids, the bottom of the screen filled with bright yellow captions.
...but mostly it's a mess of being dragged to ASL-classes he's not entirely certain he'll ever need and asking people to repeat themselves while he twitches his head closer to them as if it'll clear up the fuzziness of their voice until they give up and he has to drag out the little pad he's bringing everywhere. Of missing Phil's mumbles at night when it's just the two of them in the dark, and the inability to hear anything at all if there's more than one person talking at a time, feeling left out and confused at meetings and debriefings and when the team gathers for dinner.
He punches a few walls. Walks around town until he's lost and cold and sopping wet with late autumn rain, like he's the star of an 80's music video until Nat sits him down and tell him to stop feeling sorry for himself. Chews people out because they shout things to him from different rooms or forget to turn off the sound on the TV and talk to him with their mouths full so he can't help but watch and try to read their lips with half digested food on full display. Curses because his balance is still off and he stumbles and weaves around the furniture in the tower, stubbing his toes and bruising his elbows.
Falls asleep with Phil's hand tight around his waist. Watches Natasha spell out her name in painstakingly precise hand movements, even though he knows her name already. Smiles indulgently at Tony when he programs Jarvis into sending him any and all announcements he might have an interest in via text to his phone.
The first time he feels like he might actually feel comfortable in his own skin ever again?
The exact moment he sets an arrow through a bastard megalomaniac super-villain's mind-twisting head.