When Clint came to, he would've gasped, but his training had taught him better than to make any noise upon awakening. Instead, his body jolted a little with the surprise. Eyes still closed, he parted his lips slightly and let out a slow, controlled breath. He was lying down, but he wasn't in his bed, he knew that much. He wasn't strapped down or bound though either. So where was he? What was the last thing he remembered? His eyes darted back and forth under closed lids as he tried to mentally recreate the scene, but this kicked up a massive headache. He had been on a mission with Agent Romanoff… No, to get Agent Romanoff, to get her out. An extraction. She'd gotten in too deep and they'd sent him to help her get out. But what had happened?
"Hawkeye?" her quiet voice came.
"Natasha," he mumbled. If she was there and talking to him, then it was safe to open his eyes, but it didn't help much. The room they were in was pitch-dark and he couldn't see a thing. He lifted a hand just slightly and immediately, Natasha's hand grasped his, warm and soft but with a firm and reassuring grip. She must've had more time to adjust to the darkness, to not have to feel around for him.
"It's ok, Clint, I'm here. You're safe," she said. It was obvious that she was making a considerable effort to keep her voice as steady as it was.
Clint took a deep breath and ran his other hand through his hair. Safe. He trusted Natasha's assessment, but it didn't explain why the room was so dark. "What happened?"
"What do you remember?" she asked.
"Breaking you out. Running out of arrows. Waiting for the chopper and then being surrounded," he said. His headache was getting worse and he scrunched his eyes shut and shook his head, but that only magnified the pain.
"Don't move so much," Natasha said, her other hand coming to rest against the side of his face, keeping his head steady. "We got out. The chopper came. But they had guns on us before it was close enough. I wasn't armed and you were out of arrows." She paused and took a deep breath, but when she spoke, she wasn't able to stop her voice from breaking. "We used a flash grenade. Remember?"
Behind closed eyes, the memories began to swim to the surface. He had gone in less prepared than he should've. The mission was supposed to be about stealth and speed, but there'd been more of them than he'd counted on, too many to fight hand-to-hand when he and Natasha had been surrounded at the last minute. The S.H.I.E.L.D. helicopter had been above them and lowering a rope ladder but he and Agent Romanoff would've been shot before they had a chance to get to the helicopter. The flash grenade had been a last resort, But between the downdraft of the helicopter's rotors and intensity of the situation, Clint had mis-thrown it. The last thing he remembered was a bright flash of light. "Yeah, I remember," he said.
"But we got out. And we got back here," Natasha continued, squeezing his hand.
"Stark Tower?" Clint assumed, having worked it out by now. After New York, Stark had made the Tower into something of an "Avengers Headquarters," which included converting a whole floor to medical and hiring on private physicians to take care of any injuries that happened in the field. It wasn't the first time Hawkeye had lain on one of the medical tables there.
"Yeah," Natasha said slowly.
Clint opened his eyes again but they hadn't adjusted at all to the darkness, and that was the one thing that hadn't been explained. He turned his head toward where Natasha's voice had been coming from. "Why's it so dark in here?" She didn't respond but he could feel her tense up next to him. "Nat?"
She took another deep breath. "It's… not dark in here," she said.
He laughed. "What are you talking about? It's pitch black, I can't see a-…" but then it hit him and all the laughter went out of his voice. "I… can't see a thing," he finished quietly. He waved his free hand in front of his face, bringing it closer and closer until his palm was pressed over his eyes but everything remained a uniform black.
The quietest sob escaped Natasha's lips as Clint dropped his hand and stared unseeingly straight ahead. "It went off too soon and you… I think you were looking for me, to let me go up the ladder first," she said, still trying to keep her voice steady.
"Have Stark's doctors looked at me?" he asked. He had a feeling he already knew the answer but it was worth a shot.
"Yes… Stark even flew in some ophthalmologists, but..." she sighed. "There's nothing they can do, Clint. It's… It's permanent." Her voice was riddled with guilt.
Clint took a deep breath and forced a little smile, squeezing Natasha's hand. "Don't go blaming yourself for this, Tasha," he said. "It wasn't your fault." She didn't say anything but he could picture the scowl on her face. The scowl that I'll never see again, he thought as the realization hit him like a punch in the stomach. But he shook her hand a little bit, maintaining his smile. "It wasn't your fault, okay?"
"Okay," she said quietly, obviously not believing it for a second.
"I'll get through this," he said. "I'll just have to adjust a little." But in all honesty, Clint didn't know what he was going to do. Terror was rising inside him. He hid it only so that Natasha wouldn't feel worse than she already did, but he was on the verge of a total breakdown. He wasHawkeye, the main pillar of his identity hinged on his marksmanship, his sight, his eyes.
He let them fall closed, not that it made any difference to him now. What good was the world's greatest marksman if he was blind?
The wind whistled past his ears as he sat perched on the edge of the roof of Stark Tower. Clint had often come up here before the accident to be alone, to think, to watch the people in the city streets below. Now he could only listen to the sounds of traffic and feel the wind wash over his face.
Six months. It had been six months since the mission. Since the flash grenade. Six months of darkness.
Everyone had tried to help Clint adjust to his new sightless life. Meals were prepared for him, letters and news articles read to him. Natasha was by his side whenever she could be. She knew that Clint didn't like asking for help so whenever she saw him struggling, she'd wordlessly come to his aid. She was the one that Clint minded least accepting help from. But S.H.I.E.L.D. didn't know what to do with him and Clint hated being babied. He started retreating to his room more and more often, eventually becoming more or less nocturnal, wandering the tower at night when there was no one around to bother him. Day or night, it was all the same to him now. Natasha checked up on him and tried to talk to him, but he told her that he just didn't want the other to feel like they had to help him all the time. She knew it was more than that, but for all her experience with plying men for information, she couldn't get anything else out of Clint.
He'd gotten used to getting around Stark Tower by touch, but in the real world, he was hopeless. S.H.I.E.L.D. had outfitted him with one of those white canes but he was pretty inept at using it. He didn't know what he was going to do.
Clint sighed, leaning back and tilting his head up and imagining he could see the stars. If things were different, if they weren't S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, he might've asked Natasha to settle down with him. They could move somewhere outside of the city and get married. Maybe even have kids. He at least didn't need his eyes for that. He could stay at home, be a father. Or maybe not, maybe he and Nat could just live together, just the two of them. But that wasn't how things were. Natasha was still a valuable S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. They needed her and she was very dedicated. He couldn't drag her away from that. He couldn't drag her down.
Down, Clint thought, leaning slightly forward and tilting his head as though he was peering toward the ground, down the side of Stark Tower. The updraft of wind hitting the building swept across his face. Maybe that was all there was left for him. What else could he do, really? He couldn't keep wandering around Stark Tower in the middle of the night. He was useless to S.H.I.E.L.D., useless to do his job. And Clint was a restless person. The monotony of the darkness would drive him mad anyway, he knew. Darker thoughts plagued him, too. Clint hated this existence, hated the mistakes he'd made in using the grenade. He hated himself for how useless he'd become. Hated the pity. Hated the note of sorrow in Natasha's voice every time she spoke to him. As long as he lived, she'd be constantly blaming herself for what happened to him.
Clint slowly got to his feet on the ledge. He almost laughed, imagining what the headlines might read. "BLIND MAN FALLS FROM ROOF." "THERE SHOULD'VE BEEN A RAILING." Anyone who read about it would think it was just a tragic accident. The Avengers, of course, would probably know better. Natasha definitely would. And it would hurt her, he knew, but less than it would hurt her to be constantly reminded of his injury for the rest of her life. It's better this way, Clint thought, better for everyone. No more mopey Hawkeye. No more inept Clint wandering around. No blind Barton to burden anyone.
Clint took a deep breath, imagining the city lights twinkling in the night around him. No more darkness, he thought. And then, Agent Clint "Hawkeye" Barton jumped.