/Hey y'all! I recommend reading Whispers in the Dark by StarStepper instead of this.

/Cool, you're still here! I'm very excited about this story! I am hearing, so please understand that the deaf culture aspects of my story may not be entirely accurate. That said, I have a passion for the deaf community; my goal was to write an inclusive story without romanticizing deafness. For reference, this story takes place around/after Avengers: Age of Ultron. I took creative liberty with the order of several events in the MCU. I also don't own any Marvel property. Enjoy!

Another explosion occurred behind the huddled girl. She no longer would look for the cause of each tremor, instead focusing on becoming as small as she could.

Hawkeye shouted at scared civilians, urgently telling them to get to the lifeboats. After watching Pietro die moments earlier, he pushed on. No one else would die today on his watch. As the last few stragglers loaded, including the young boy whom Pietro had died for, Clint noticed a small figure still in the city. For a brief second, he thought the still figure wasn't even alive, but he quickly dismissed the thought. No one else will die today. He ran towards what he could see was a child, his eyes becoming blurry from the smoke.

As he approached, he yelled with a raspy voice. "Hey! Kid!" She didn't respond. "Hey! We have to leave now!" A piece of building fell from the sky behind him, causing him to startle.

Clint ran towards the girl, talking incessantly with calming words as he went to pick her up. The moment his hands touched her shoulders, she flinched violently. Her terrified eyes searched for the danger, finally locking in with Clint's. He saw that she was young, but older than his own kids, older than he had first assumed. But she looked so fragile.

"I need to get you to safety," Clint gently spoke. The girl didn't acknowledge his words, but shook her head in the tiniest movement, no. Almost as sudden as the explosions surrounding them, he stopped his efforts.

Hawkeye slowly signed, "Can you hear me?"

The girl shook her head again, no.

Clint didn't have time to think of anything but the standard emergency questions. "Family?"

"Dead." Her eye contact didn't waver, although Clint's trained eye noticed the slight shake in her hands.

Though he doubted she'd follow him, he signed, "Come with me."

The girl nodded once.

Clint and the girl jogged towards the last lifeboat, Clint impressed with the apparent athleticism of the small teen. A pain prodded his side like a hot iron. He told himself it was a cramp, but he knew what bullets felt like.

As they finally boarded to safety, Clint became aware of his watch vibrating, alerting him that his team members were trying to reach him through the coms. "Clint. Clint!" Steve's voice shouted.

"Hello, hey, yes; I'm here," Clint replied, only slightly annoyed.

"Are you on board? We have to leave now if we are to get out of here."

"Yeah. Just got the last one on board, take her up." The city sank away as a plane full of bleeding and terrified victims breathed a collective sigh of relief.

The girl tapped Clint's shoulder. "What's your name?"

"C-L-I-N-T," he fingerspelled. "What's your name?"

"N-A-O-M-I."

Clint nodded understandingly. He began to reply to figure out who this kid was, but he felt the twang again from his abdomen. He glanced down at his suit, which revealed a spreading crimson. Though he was tempted to ignore his injury, he knew the other Avengers would lecture him later if he did, and he was not in the mood for that today- especially not from Natasha. And his wife.

With every step, Clint could feel more and more blood oozing out of his side as his adrenaline faded. Bullets don't hurt that much, Clint thought. After a bit more poking, he concluded that it was likely one of the giant lazer thingies being shot from the sky by Ultron. Stupid space magic. As he trekked on in search of Nat or Steve, he was stopped by a scared looking nurse. Instinctively, he refused the help. Immediately, he regretted it. Clint paused, leaning heavily on a nearby seat. "Nat, are you on this last lifeboat," he asked into his com.

"No, Bruce had other plans for me. I'm on the helicarrier now."

"Shit."

The trained spy detected the excess raspiness in her friend's voice. She knew "Are you okay" wouldn't get them anywhere, so Natasha asked, "What happened, Clint?"

"Nothing too serious, I don't thi-"

"Clint Barton I will call your wife right now if you don't tell me where and how bad you were hit."

Clint paused. "Big scary lazers, left abdomen, just under the ribs. Pretty nasty entrance and exit." Natasha's calm facade faded with each word. "Blood loss isn't slowing and I'm getting progressively more dizzy."

Once again knowing her partner better than he knew himself, Natasha didn't bother asking if he had accepted the medical treatment she knew was available. After hearing his description, however, it wouldn't have helped much anyways. "Tony, are you hearing this?"

Tony grunted in response as the floating city erupted above him. "It's fine; don't worry about me; just saving the planet as always. Why aren't we telling this to the scientist on our team who is actually capable of handling it? Bruce, do you copy?"

"Bruce is feeling a little green right now, so you're what we're left with- regrettably." Natasha rolled her eyes. "Also, he stole the Quinjet," she added quickly under her breath.

"Okay, I'll deal with that later- and yes, I heard you Kim Possible. Clint, you still with us?" Clint moaned, barely audible over the jet engine. "Shit, is Cho available yet?"

Vision chimed in, "She's mostly recovered, but still at the compound."

"Looks like Clint's going for a ride. Rhodey, give me a hand with him." Tony instructed FRIDAY to alert Dr. Cho about her incoming patient.

"From what he said, he won't make that trip, and judging by the fact that he tends to downplay things, he really won't make it."

"That is why Rhodey will be generously donating his suit to Clint," Tony replied to Natasha's concern, not missing a beat.

"I'll be wh- fine just take it. With all of you guys' rambling, it'll be a wonder if he's even still conscious."

When Tony and Rhodey landed, no more than two minutes after the conversation had begun, they discovered Rhodey had been correct. Clint was on the ground propped up against the side of the ship, a shirtless girl sitting next to him, pressing her dirty t-shirt against his wound.

"He needs help," Naomi signed desperately. "He needs help." Both men shrugged helplessly at the foreign language, and set to moving the delirious man into the suit of armor. As Tony and an injured Clint launched to the compound, Rhodey stood awkwardly. He suddenly felt extremely naked; of course, not as naked as the kid in front of him.

"So," Rhodey rocked back on his heels, "you know Clint?" Naomi stared blankly up at him. Rhodey blew air out his lips. "Do you...want my shirt?" Naomi pointed at her ear and shook her head. "OH." He was just a little relieved that she couldn't hear his awkward attempts at comforting small talk. He tugged at his shirt and then pointed at her torso. She shook her head again.

Down at the compound, Cho worked double time, hooking up machines and tubes, yelling at frightened interns. Tony stood helplessly in the way of everything, growing increasingly more concerned for his friend. "This isn't as easy a fix as the last one, Stark. It's the same side as last time which, as I remember clearly telling you, was not fully healed. The lazer seems to have cut through both his tissue and the nanoparticles, which started a reaction that is actively deteriorating the rest of the particles." After receiving a concerned, but slightly confused look from Tony, she continued on, "He's still breathing though, surprisingly. You said someone was applying pressure?"

"Yeah, there was a kid next to him," Tony sputtered, "I don't know how long she was there, though. And she wasn't putting any pressure on the exit wound." Cho continued to work.

"Well it seems to have been enough for now at least. He's almost stable and we should be past the worst of it. Go share the news with the team, or take a nap. You don't look too hot yourself."

Stepping out of the room, Stark tapped into his com, "He's stable." A collective sigh was heard from the Avengers still in the air. They were making their way to the ground a safe distance away from the crater, which used to be home to the thousands of new refuges. Natasha remained tense, her tongue pressing against the back of her teeth- a tactic she had learned to prevent her from clenching her jaw, a dead give away of nerves and anger. As she knew, stability doesn't equate to recovery. A corpse is stable, but it's not coming back to life.

As Rhodey made his way to the other Avengers aboard the helicarrier, Natasha approached him to inquire more about Clint's apparent state, but she paused when she saw a young teenage girl walking a half pace behind him. A quick glance at her, then back to Rhodey was enough for War Machine to understand her inquiry. "This is...actually I don't know her name. She was helping Clint when we got to him. She's deaf."

Understanding Clint's soft spot for the deaf community, Natasha nodded. This kid was likely the reason that the last lifeboat almost didn't leave in time; Clint had probably been injured while saving her. She capped the bottle of resentment that threatened to leak inside of her. She's just a kid. Clint made a choice. This is our job. "N-A-T-A-S-H-A," she slowly and roughly fingerspelled.

"N-A-O-M-I." She might not be able to communicate with anyone on this ship, but at least they could know her name.

By the time the helicarrier had landed, been unloaded, and the Avengers had snatched one of Fury's jets to get to the compound, Clint was in the tissue generator and conscious (though heavily medicated). The Avengers entered the compound in various stages of mental and physical health. Steve led, his arm around Sam who assisted the supersoldier in getting through the doors. Wanda stared heartbroken into space; Vision following with his hand gently guiding her on the small of her back. Natasha took up the back, walking with a now clothed Naomi.

The Avengers parted to allow Natasha into the room first.

"How many times have I told you to avoid getting shot? I'm starting to think you just like the attention. What is this, twice in 72 hours," Natasha joked tensely.

Clint's eyes stared in Natasha's general direction. "Heeyyy Nat," he slurred, smiling to himself. His eyes suddenly widened and he grabbed at the wires around him as he attempted to sit up. "The kid! Na..N-Naomi! I lost a kid! I think she was one of mine- Laura's gonna be so mad..." Natasha's firm hands pushed his shoulders back into the table.

"She's here; she's okay," she comforted.

Naomi shyly stepped forward. Correction- Rhodey gently shoved her forward. "Hey C-L-I-N-T. Thanks for not leaving me to die."

Clint's flopping hands sloppily signed, "N-A-O-M-I. Are you okay?"

Effortlessly deflecting, Naomi signed, "Fine. And you?"

"Awesome," he weakly smiled. "Awesome."

"Alright kids, that's it for today's Saint Jude's ad. Disperse! Scat! The old man needs his nap," Tony shooed everyone to their collective rooms, cafeteria, and med bays, stopping Natasha before she could leave. "Where's Banner? Is he okay?"

"I got him to turn around. Even the Hulk cared when I told him Clint was hit. He's asleep now, probably will be for the next couple days. You know how it is."

Internally relieved, Tony said, "Good, good. Go do what you have to do."

Natasha motioned for Naomi to follow her. Once they had reached her quarters, she retrieved a tablet and bluntly typed, "I don't know what we'll do with you, but Clint would want you to stay for now." She passed the tablet to Naomi.

"why," she concisely replied.

"Ask him for his history tomorrow. Was deafened a bunch of years ago. Probably sees himself in you."

Naomi stared off before taking the tablet again. "i dont like pity." They held eye contact.

"Caring for someone and pitying them are not the same thing." Naomi looked away. Tapping her shoulder to regain her attention, Natasha typed, "There's a spare room. Stay here tonight. Clint will be better in the morning."