When the doctor told them that Clint was deaf, the only thing Clint could feel was relieve. That way at least he didn't have to hear his soulmate say the words that were etched into his hip.
'Why did it have to be you?'
Clint could just picture the voice in which it would be said, a mix of exasperation and resign, with a good dash of disappointment. Yeah, no, not something he needed to hear. So Clint learned to cope; he learned sign language and how to read lips, even though that one was pretty hard and mostly unreliable.
His disability never stopped him though and when Fury told him to join the Avengers he was pretty damn proud with himself. He lived through some pretty strange things with the Avengers and Steve's assassin/amnesiac-not-quite-boyfriend didn't even make the top five.
Steve had briefed them all before Bucky came to live in the tower and so it didn't come as a surprise that he didn't talk.
Steve had told them that he most definitely could, but he seemed to refuse to do it ever since his memories came back.
What Steve hadn't told them was that Bucky knew sign language. It was a strange and almost outdated slang he used but he and Clint understood each other just fine.
So much in fact, that one evening Bucky told about the mute technician Hydra had in the beginning and how he had to learn it in order to understand what the man wanted from him. After he had died, Hydra had apparently used the signs to test the motor function of the arm.
So Bucky wasn't as out of practice as Clint had thought but the more time he spent with Clint the easier the signs came to him.
While Bucky talked to Clint and his therapist that way, he didn't so much as make a peep, claiming that this was all the form of communication he needed and so Clint only used sign language with him as well.
The more time passed, the more often Clint caught himself thinking that talking with Bucky was not only kind of the highlight of his day, but also save, because there was no danger of him uttering the despised words on Clint's hip.
Steve had told them that Bucky did have words on his body, but he didn't want to talk abou them, not even before the war and Clint found himself hoping more often than not that maybe they could be something outside of this damned soulmate thing.
Which was of course when it happened.
Clint was in the kitchen, late at night due to a nightmare, looking forlornly in the fridge and cursing whoever ate the last of his cheese cake when there was a noise behind him.
He ignored it in favour of finding something else he could eat when someone touched his elbow.
"Oh for fuck's sake, leave me the hell alone," Clint snapped without even turning to look at whoever it was only to be treated with a sharp intake of breath, which finally prompted him to look around.
It was Bucky who had come in and he was as pale as a ghost.
"Shit," Clint muttered and extended a hand towards him but Bucky shied away from him.
"I'm sorry," Clint said and Bucky shook his head, taking some deep breaths before he cleared his throat.
"Why did it have to be you?" he asked with a raspy voice, but despite that the pain in it was quite obvious, and Clint felt like the ground had been pulled out from under him.
Now that Bucky had said something for the first time, it seemed like he couldn't stop. "Why you? I thought we had something and know you go ahead and say this to me and I know you don't even have words, so what's the point here, really?" he rambled, all the while he edged towards the door.
Clint needed a few seconds to comprehend Bucky's words, he was too fixed on the voice to actually listen to the content, but when the meaning finally reached him, he almost yanked down his sweatpants.
Bucky's eyes were glued onto the black words on his hipbone and he frowned. "But Natasha said..."
"That's because I don't talk about it. Never. Just like you never talked about yours."
"Yeah, well, my soulmate did just tell me to fuck off. That never gave me a lot of confidence."
Clint smiled sheepishly and shrugged. "Well, I always thought my soulmate would say this because they are disappointed."
"That's the last thing I am," Bucky admitted and Clint smiled at him.
"And I didn't mean for you to leave me alone forever, so we're good?" he asked, unsure again, if this would be enough to reassure both of them.
"I did enjoy spending time with you before," Bucky slowly admitted. "I might even have ogled your ass."
"Oh my, I can see why you never talk. Seems like there's no filter."
"I can say it in sign language as well, if you'll believe me then."
"Better do that," Clint said and slammed the fridge shut. "I always had a thing for your hands."
"If that's the case then you can damn well be sure that I will not leave you alone for a very long time to come."
"Good thing I'm intending to spend quite some time on showing you just why exactly it had to be me, then," Clint said with a wink and Bucky smiled at him.
Hearing his soulmates words said to him didn't turn out to be the worst thing in the world after all.