Title: Resounding Ruin
Author: MitchPell
Disclaimer: I don't own anything that has to do with The Avengers, its characters, Marvel comics, Netflix, Disney or the anything else that's related.
Author Notes: This fanfic is meant to take place within the MCU; however, some chapters are based, if just loosely, on comic book canon. According to the Marvel Cinematic Universe Wiki timeline, Clint was already a member of S.H.E.I.L.D by the age of 27. I have tried to adhere to that timeline. Thanks to kiss_me_cassie for all the help and suggestions as my beta reader. This fanfic was originally written for alphaflyer as part of the be_compromised Secret Santa 2017. It has been significantly edited from the original version.
Summary: Five times Clint lost his hearing and one time he gained it.
Email: mitchpell
Chapter 1
Clint stopped just outside the house and looked down at the tears in his mud-stained jeans. He was in trouble. No doubt about it, he was in trouble. He'd been told not to play in his new school clothes. And he hadn't. At least not intentionally. It had just been recess. They'd been playing tag and he'd tripped while running across the playground. But he knew that wouldn't matter to Dad. All Dad would see is the ruined jeans and he'd be in trouble.
"You are so dead," Barney snickered as he pushed past and climbed the porch steps.
"Shut up, Barn!" Clint yelled back.
"Nice comeback, loser. Better hope Dad's not drunk!"
Clint just watched, half furious, half terrified as his older brother disappeared into the house. He briefly considered running, but that would just get him in even more trouble. Besides, he wasn't going to run. He wasn't a coward and only cowards ran. So he steeled himself against the inevitable and climbed the porch steps before entering the house.
Clint entered just as his Dad was coming out of the kitchen, beer dangling from his hand. From the smell of him, it was far from his first. Clint stood frozen, like a deer caught in headlights, as is father scrutinized him.
"What the fuck is that?" His fathered slurred as he pointed his beer can at the mud-torn rip in Clint's jeans. "Didn't I tell you not to ruin those?"
"Yes, sir," Clint muttered, dropping his head to avoid looking at his father.
"What was that? I can't hear you."
"Yes, sir."
"'Yes, sir.' That's what I thought. But just like your bitch of a mother, you don't think you have to listen."
At the mention of his mother, Clint peered past his father to find her cowering on the kitchen floor. Even from where he stood in the foyer, he could see her split lip and the tears streaming down her red swollen face. Barney was also in the kitchen, but on the side farthest from their mother. The two of them locked eyes and for the first time Clint saw fear in his older brother's face.
"Get over here!" his father yelled.
Clint kept his eyes on his brother.
"I said get over here!"
Barney shook his head.
Clint bolted. Out the door, down the porch, and across the yard. He didn't know where he was going to go. He just ran. He heard the screen door slam again and glanced back to find his father chasing after him.
Panicked, Clint pushed himself faster. He didn't look back, he just kept running. Out of the yard and into the prairie. The tall grass ripped across his arms and legs and grabbed at his feet. He stumbled, once, but somehow managed not to fall. He kept going until something large and heavy slammed into him from behind, knocking him to the ground.
His father's weight landed on top of him, knocking the wind out of him and pinning him face first into the ground.
"You don't think you have to listen to me!"
Clint struggled to breathe against his father's crushing weight and the dirt pressed into his face.
"You don't want to listen to me? I'll make it so you can't listen to me."
His father grabbed his hair and turned his head to the side; one large hand pressed hard against his temple. Out of the corner of his eye, Clint could see his father pull something from his breast pocket; sunlight glistened off of it.
Pain exploded in his left ear as his dad forced the object inside. Once, twice, again, and again. Clint screamed; the sound was muffled.
His father grabbed his hair again, turned his head, and shoved his weapon into his other ear, until Clint's muffled screams and sobs fell silent.
Clint woke in the hospital to a painfully silent world, surrounded by the grief stricken faces of his family. The doctor told him, with the help of a notepad, that he'd been deafened by the accident.
Accident. That's what his father had called it. And his mother, too afraid to go against her abusive husband, had backed up the story.
Justice would be his in the end, though. Time gave him back some of his hearing. Enough to classify his loss as severe in his left ear, but only moderate in his right.
And his father...well his father took out both himself and his cowardly mother in an alcohol induced car accident.