long day living in reseda
rating: pg
warnings: injury
characters: Clint Barton/Natasha Romanoff
summary: Deafened, blinded, her hands will guide him home.
author's note I: For the prompt "Clint loses his hearing when a mission goes wrong. Until he gets hearing aids, he and Natasha need to figure out how to communicate." on the be_compromised LJ community's promptathon.
author's note II: Title from Tom Petty's 'Free Falling'.
long day living in reseda
For just a moment, everything goes white.
He freezes as the shock of the explosion rumbles through his bones, up through the metal floor that's suddenly the only guide he has to the world around him. When the plane pitches to one side, his gut and gravity recognizing the warning sign for what it is, he holds himself upright; he waits.
Then she's there, forefingers against his cheeks, middle fingers aligned with his jaw, holding, being held. He shakes his head; the movement he can feel through her hands stills.
She understands.
Two fingertips touch his eyelids and guide them down. Her other hand lifts from his face and slips into his, and she pulls him forward, pulls him out, and the wind snatches them away from the plane.
He fights to stay level, doesn't try to calculate head terminal velocities, feet per second, the friction of the air rushing by in utter silence. He is falling, a thousand feet every heartbeat, blind but for the fingers linked with his, the iron grasp holding him steady.
Her grip loosens slightly, tightens three times in succession. He finds the handle of the chute with his loose hand, feels her squeeze and knows it's the right one. A finger taps five times on his wrist, holds for a three-count; he nods, begins forcing his breath into a steady, burning rhythm.
When her fingers go slack he holds them for just one more second, just one more moment.
Then they're slipping apart, his last link to the invisible world gone, and he pulls his chute.
x
She freefalls past him, twisting in mid-air to watch as he is carried away from her. The parachute flares out right on cue, catching and holding the air; no rips, no damage, no flaws that would send him to an early grave and a broken coffin. Relief rushes through her veins, unbidden and unconscious and not unwanted, before she turns over and plummets downwards, letting gravity drag her down to where the ground swallows up the horizons below her, rising to meet her like a relentless lover. Her fingers find the pull, drag it out, and when she hits the earth she falls into its dusty arms.
Then the snap of his chute draws her from her agony and she rises, shrugs out of the harness's tangled embrace and moves across the deserted field on bones that grate against each other.
x
In; out. In; out. Fourteen counts in, he feels the thump of hands on the soles of his boots and braces for the impact that's one count away. The landing is far from the smoothest he's ever made, the taut lines jerking as Natasha grabs a handful and heaves to keep him upright, but he's on solid ground and alive and the breath that escapes him is too worn out to have a name.
x
They sit in the pale grass, dried stems scraping against their hands and thighs as they lean against each other. The weak sun is washing over the sweat on his brow and the scattered wreckage around them when he swallows, speaks.
"We made it."
She tips her head back, looks up at the weary sky with one hand draped over the Glock in her lap.
"You doubted it?"
He laughs without strength and closes his eyes again, but his fingers find hers and hold on.
the end