Okay this is an optional read. Meaning you can skip it. The only thing you really need to know before I start is this key:
/Writing\
[sign language]
"talking"
(Side notes)
regular
thoughts
important
UBER IMPORTANT Thought
Alright before I begin this story I would like to let you into my head real quick. So my friend recently dragged me into her obsession with Marvel like she did with Fire Emblem before hand. (Even though she scoff at me at the rare times I fangirl, guess I'm just too nice) Anyway whenever I get interested in something I love to fixate on normally unpopular or hardly used aspects of it. Hense why I became interested in the older comic Hawkeye being 80% deaf. Now as will all great creators the best ideas come in the shower and after reading fanfics all day today (I really need better hobbies I swear but insomnia doesn't exactly make it easy) I came to realize something important. In almost all the fanfics they focused on how much of a liability the deafness was and it seemed to make him hard to function.
Now I am going to sidetrack for a moment and let you in on something of myself. When I was a child I got struck in the nose with a baseball which caused it to swell and gush for almost an entire day. I had almost broke it. Ever since then I hardly ever am able to have bloody noses, my breathing is more labored through such, and I can easily pop it near the bridge. But I have also learned that my sense of smell is compromised and what I can smell is typically through my mouth as opposed to my nose (before you flame about how that isn't possible or my taste buds are compromised as well I will tell you this. For all I know how I taste things can be completely wrong from your ability to taste. I wouldn't know any better because I have had my nose like this since I was rather young.) which means I can really only detect the strongest of smells and they will often linger in my mouth for an hour afterwords. Now since it is only distortion and not complete loss I do not have a great increase of my other senses. Though, as a way of helping to tell if food is bad before I eat it, my mouth is more sensitive to textures. If a cherry in a cake is bad I can pick up a hardness or an unnatural squishiness or if I don't notice meat is bad but it feels too wet compared to regular meat I will spit it out. Though it gives me a run for my money when eating oatmeal and makes me near incapable of stomaching fat and in some cases marshmallows. Wow. I have gotten really off track. So time to get back to my point.
While there are disadvantages to having messed up smell (not noticing possible rotting, oblivious to certain chemical smells, most likely things that may give my trouble in chemistry) as well as certain tasting problems, I have adapted to it to the point where I don't really focus on it unless I really think about it. So now then to lead this to the topic on hand.
Given that Hawkeye has supposedly been deaf for years then it doesn't seem likely that the moment he loses his hearing aids he is a liability. With his personality and such the likely hood of him not training himself to be able to continue to fight on if his hear is compromised is an oddity. While the chance of being snuck up on is increased there are certain ways he can find his way to deal with the increase and be careful enough to handle these problems.
1. Keep his back to the wall. If someone is going to seek up on him there they have to come from above or break the wall. From above he would see a shadow depending on the light angle. And breaking through a wall is painfully obvious especially if one's back is against it.
2. He can pick a metal roof, wood, or catwalk. Vibrations are more likely to come through those surfaces as opposed to solid stone or concrete.
3. Keep his back to the light and use the projections of shadows to his advantage.
4. If all else fails he can go back to back with someone.
In short my fanfic will focus less about it being a MAJOR EARTH SHATTERING LIABILITY to more of him simply not telling because it really only effects communication, he doesn't know them well enough, and he is slightly embarrassed to admit it. Anyway that is how this fanfiction idea was born. I will update with an actual chapter tonight. As for the other fanfictions I will work on them eventually. Wow, priority much?
With lots of Love, TPDR