(A/N) Hey so as some of you may know my both of my Clintasha fanfics have titles based on songs I think fit their relationship. So I've decided to make a playlist for our favorite spies. You can go on my profile and click on the link to my 8tracks profile if you want to listen to it. The title of the playlist is First Defeat there are also some other marvel playlists on there if you wanna listen to them.
When Natasha entered Clint's room what felt like hours later- when in reality it was only the time it took her to run to the locker room and change into whatever was in her locker which happened to be a standard issue S.H.I.E.L.D. issued zip up and athletic shorts. She didn't care about how she looked though, all that mattered was getting to Clint's room before he woke up. Because Phil was right and she had be there when her partner woke up. He was also right when he said that she felt a large amount of guilt over what happened, of course she did, but it was time to get over that for now because Clint needs all the strength he can get.
Phil didn't look surprised when she entered. He noted how her hair still clung to her neck from the sweat produced by her impromptu workout. It was obvious that she didn't waste time with a shower. But he doubted Clint would care.
He checked his watch. "You're here three minutes before I thought you would."
She shrugged as she pushed down the barrier to Clint's bed so that she could sit on the edge of the mattress. "I took a shortcut." Natasha wasn't surprised in the slightest that he had her expected reaction down to the time she would get to Clint's room. To be honest she expected it. "How do you wanna handle this?"
He took a turn to shrug and sunk lower into his chair that seemed to be planted at Clint's side since they had arrived to base. "I honestly have no idea. I scheduled a hearing exam tomorrow morning so we can see the extent of the damage, but until we know exactly what we're dealing there isn't much we can do except keep him calm."
Natasha nodded and turned to Clint. The bandages that wrapped around his head had been changed as well as the ones around his nearly healed shoulder wound. His features were relaxed though his eyes started to twitch beneath their closed lids signalling that he was about to wake up.
A pad of memo paper and a sharpie sat was handed to Natasha by her handler who she thanked with a quick smile. Quickly she wrote her message on the paper in large letters so they would be easier for Clint's drug addled mind to comprehend. She held the pad in front of her and waited for Clint to wake up.
"Let's do this."
When Clint woke up his mind was far less focused than he would have liked. He grimaced at the sensation of whatever sedative that had been in his body wore off. There was nothing he hated more than sedatives- their only purpose was to numb the senses and knock him out. Even worse they left him feeling nauseous but not enough for his body to do something about it, even if he was sick enough for himself to throw up he could feel that he hadn't eaten any real food in a long time. Immediately Clint knew that he had been out for a few days. Natasha was going to kill him.
Then he remembered. The memory of why he was sedated in the first place struck him along with the sensation that he couldn't hear anything no matter how hard he tried to. If the sedation had wanted him to have a slow, peaceful, awakening then it was out of luck.
His eyes darted open and he tried to push back on the bed to find that he had, once again, been restrained. This time a heavy bandage was wrapped around his thumb- an injury that he didn't remember getting. That wasn't the most troubling thing that he realised though. The winner of that title was the deep silence that he was stuck in. He was deaf.
A hand fell on his and he flinched away from it on reflex. His senses were too muddled to still make any sense of what he was seeing- which was essentially a mass of swirling colors- the fact that he couldn't properly see made his panic worse. He could sense that there were people near him but he couldn't tell who they were.
Slowly his sight came back into focus and the first thing that he saw was Natasha. She looked like she hadn't slept in a few days and was sweaty for some reason. Her bright red hair was tied back like a second it was a second thought- strands of hair had fallen from the loose binding. If he wasn't so panicked he'd tell her how beautiful she was.
Her green eyes caught his and she looked down at what she was holding in front of her and back to him. Read this. Is what he interpreted as he looked down to the notepad she held.
In giant capital letters written in Natasha's handwriting which was a constant mix of elegance and chaos, which was fitting. It took his mind a few seconds longer than he would have like to process what was written but in the end his mind got the message.
Relax.
Clint took a moment to follow the one word demand. He found a spot on the ceiling to focus on and just focused on calming himself down. It took some doing but he got his breathing under control along with his heart that had been thumping harder than necessary.
It could have been hours later or a few minutes, his sense of time was shot from his foggy mind, but he focused back on Natasha who had been joined by Phil. He had no idea when that had happened or when Phil had even gotten to his room. Clint made a mental note that he was going to have to keep a constant watch of his surroundings.
He opened his mouth to speak but Phil held up a hand to stop him. Clint was never good at following orders and talked anyways. "What happened?" His throat felt like he had swallowed glass, but that was the last thing on his mind. "Why can't I hear?"
Natasha scribbled something on a blank sheet of paper and held it up for him.
What's the last thing you remember?
He raced back through his memory looking for the spot that didn't exist. "The Hungarian, he found us in the vault. But before that my memory is like swiss cheese."
It was weird not hearing himself speak. If it wasn't for his mouth making the movements that it was used to he wouldn't have any indication that he was speaking at all. Even with his mouth moving he had no idea if what he was saying was loud enough to understand.
With thin patience he watched Natasha write down her next message. He was already getting tired of this, something that Phil noticed. With one look Clint's nerves were calmed. In his mind he called the relaxing effect that one weighted look from his handler gave him The Phil Effect. It seemed fitting but that could have been the drugs making him a bit more loopy than normal.
Do you know ASL?
He shook his head. He never had the need.
She took a heavy breath and held up a finger saying that she would take a minute to write down her explanation. He noticed her biting her lip when she didn't know which words to use.
The Hungarian, he cut your ear drums. You hit your head shortly after and fell into a coma for a week. That's probably why you're memory is spotty. Phil scheduled an appointment tomorrow morning to figure out the extent of the damage.
He nodded. It was a lot to take in and he didn't know where to start. A gush of wind stopped his slow processing and he looked up to see Phil closing the door behind him as he left Clint's room. Inwardly Clint swore at himself for letting his guard down.
Natasha's hand barely made it to his before she had his attention. She noticed that his eyes were darting around the room. They would rest for a moment before the grey blue storm would shift around the room. Her stomach dropped when she realized how on edge he was feeling with the loss of being able to hear someone sneaking up on him.
Keeping her movements slow she removed the restraints around his wrists. Clint followed her every movement as she slid off the leather cuffs. He nodded a thanks to her, part of him didn't see the need to speak if he couldn't hear. It was a selfish thought but it still consumed him. All the time while he was answering Natasha's questions, with every sound he made but couldn't hear, his situation seemed more hopeless.
She wrote out another message. This one she seemed almost afraid to show him, something that Clint noticed right away and set him slightly on edge.
Do you remember us doing recon the night before we broke into the vault?
Automatically Clint nodded. He doubted he would have forgotten, then again he didn't remember losing his hearing so it was probably a fair concern of her's to have.
"Does Phil know?" Part of him wondered if the words he said even made sense. He couldn't hear them to find out. He mentally kicked himself for not learning sign language when Natasha offered to teach him it a few months ago, which was aggravatingly ironic. Out of the fifteen languages he knew well enough to jump into any conversation none of them were near the help that knowing how to communicate without Natasha having to take a minute to write everything down. In all of ASL he knew one phrase, 'where's the nearest hospital?' That's it. Not very helpful when he was already in a hospital.
Natasha didn't waste time on writing down her next answer. She simply nodded.
Clint threw his head back into his soft, but not too soft, hosptial issued pillows. Even though he was probably going to be out of the field for the rest of his life, an issue he purposely avoided thinking about, now that Phil knew he would have to tell Fury. That meant long, boring, invasive meetings about Natasha and his relationship.
Sensing his inner turmoil Natasha held up a hand to signal him to wait while she explained.
He's not putting it in his report unless he knows that you can't do field work.
For some reason that angered him. What did Phil mean when that he didn't know if Clint was able to do field work. It was obvious to Clint. He was a liability now. He had seen agents with less grievous injuries than his taken out of field. Even if he was allowed back in, for some reason unknown, he doubted that he would take any mission offered to him. If Clint couldn't even notice his handler had left the room until the breeze from the door hit him there was no way he could keep Natasha safe. She deserved better than him.
He couldn't tell her that though. She would just try to talk him into staying and she would only get hurt because of him, or he would get hurt cause he didn't hear her warning and she would blame herself for his death. Clint cared for her to deeply, more deeply than made it able to call what they had love- which was to childish of a word for their intense bond anyways.
No, he would wait until he had Fury alone before he made his plans to withdraw himself from field. Because to Clint a thousand years of sitting behind a desk was worth it as long as Natasha was safe.