No way was Natasha ever going to trust a shield hospital ever again. Ok, she never trusted them anyway- but after this incompetence? This massive mess up? Idiots. How on earth could a hospital lose a patient? She had spent one night in her room,just one! Utterly exhausted from staying in Barton's hospital room all day and night for the past week. She had been gone for five, six hours tops. And they had lost him. Ok, more like he had escaped, but honestly they should have been paying better attention.
She should have known this would happen.
After she brought her partner to the med ward, and he had been rushed to the operating room for a couple hours, they had broken the news of his poor diagnosis to Natasha. They explained the small injuries first. A concussion, a few burns from flaming rubble, some cuts and bruises. Then they told her the news she had been dreading.
The explosion had severely ruptured Clint's eardrums. The terrified looking doctor who was the unlucky one who had to explain all of this to the Black Widow, had told her Barton was a good candidate for Shield's hearing aids, but he would never be able to hear on his own again. He would forever have to live with this handicap.
Probably scared that Natasha was going to blame him for her partners misfortune, or worse take her anger out on him, the doctor had fled the room quickly after answering a few questions, and at her insistence, again explaining in detail the state of Clint's ears to Tasha.
After that, the next few days were a blur in the Black Widows mind. Waiting for her partner to wake up from the medically induced come he had been put in, wondering what she was going to say when he awoke. Coulson calling her to his office, explaining that he felt he should be the one to break the news to Barton. His reasoning was that he had known Clint for far longer than Natasha, and would know what to say. That had secretly killed her inside. Because sure, she had been partners with Clint for under two years- but she still felt she knew him better than anyone she had ever worked with before. That she knew him better than anyone else. But whatever. It was going to be a hellish job breaking the news to the archer, she would let Coulson do it, whatever. She didn't care. That's what she told herself.
That was the night she decided to sleep in her own room, after four nights of sleeping in a chair next to her partners bed. When she woke up, someone was pounding on her door. Grabbing the gun from under her pillow, Natasha went to see who it was. Phil looked like a kid who had just lost his dog. "Romanoff, we have a situation- Um, well, Barton woke up, and we broke the news to him, and he took it well enough. And then I left the room for ten minutes, because I thought he might want some food- and when I came back,um, he was gone."
Natasha just stared at her handler, in disbelief. Still holding the gun in her hand. "What? You LOST him? But, he was in the med ward, weren't people watching him to make sure he couldn't get out?" Coulson rolled his eyes, "Well, duh, but come on, it's Clint we're talking about. Just remember all the times you've escaped from the med ward when you didn't want to be there." The Black Widow put the gun back on her bed, began rifling through her closet for an outfit to wear that was more suitable than the usual yoga pants and tank top she slept in.
"Please tell me this just happened", she said, her voice had a threatening edge to it. Coulson was suspiciously silent. "Coulson….. How long ago did Barton get out?" Phil sighed, nervously ran a hand through his thinning hair. "Um…. we thought it would be easy to find him at first. It took time to search the med ward…. We looked in the cafeteria….. Then we sent out people to start scanning the rooms and offices….. And the target practice and shooting range… And the garage….So…." Natasha had just grabbed a handful of knives from her nightstand, and now she turned to Phil, a dangerous look on her face.
"Coulson- how long ago did Barton escape?" The man's eyes darted to the weapons the spy was holding. "Put down the weapons and I'll tell you…." She threw the knives onto her bed, where they landed next to her gun. "Um…. Don't be too mad Natasha, we will find him. But- he's been missing for almost two hours."
Not ten minutes later, Natasha was dressed ready to go, a packed bag in hand. Coulson had been confused as he watched her pack. "What are you doing? We need to get into the city and begin looking for him, widen our search range. I have a list of possible places he would go-" Natasha stuffed a couple more pairs of jeans into her bag, grabbed the list from his hand. She snorted and tossed it back to him. "Yeah, good luck with that." She began piling sweaters, jackets and weapons into her bag. "Romanof, what exactly are you doing? Where do you think you're going?" Coulson had expected Natasha to tackle him to the ground when she heard her partner was gone, then instantly begin searching. He did not expect her to start packing her bags.
The Black Widow zipped the bag closed, grabbed the gun off of her bed, tucked it into the pockets of the pants she had changed into. "I"m going to go where I know Barton is. But good luck searching for him, have fun with that." Then she was gone, leaving Coulson alone in her room, wondering what the heck was happening, and why nothing could ever just be normal with this job.
_
The plane ride didn't take very long, though it was odd for Natasha to be on an airplane not belonging to shield. Honestly she would have preferred one of their faster, private planes, but then she would have had to tell someone where she was going. Tell them about the farm even, maybe. And she wouldn't betray Clint's secret like that, not after all he had done for her. So, the Black Widow had to put up with flying on an overcrowded plane, with a last minute ticket landing her in the coach section. Fun.
But soon enough, Natasha was back in Iowa. She rented a car, and made her way to Clint's farm. She didn't have to hope that Barton was going to be here, because she knew there was no where else he would want to be right now. Sure enough, as she pulled into the driveway, she saw a second rental car was already parked in front of the farm house.
The door was locked, of course, but Natasha was able to make short work of that. It took her almost a minute to pick it, and open the door. Not bad, that was a pretty good lock- usually it would have taken her less than ten seconds.
Once Natasha was standing inside of the house, she realized she was not sure what exactly she should do next. She imagined herself in this situation. No longer able to hear anything, probably scared, trying to cope with this new way of living. After a lifetime of hunting down people, knowing how it felt to be hunted, she knew she would be paranoid in Clint's situation. Knew that if someone just appeared with no warning, she might shoot first and ask questions later.
So, she proceeded with caution. Trying to find Clint before he saw her, and possibly acted without thinking. He wasn't on the first floor. As soon as she went upstairs, Natasha saw the bedroom door was closed. But light was streaming out from under it, and she heard movement on the other side. Well, she found him. But now what?
After some thought, the Black Widow went downstairs, and found some pencils, and a notebook. She scribbled a note down, and slid it under the door.
"It's me. Open the door, dumb-ass."
She waited a few minutes, wondering if maybe Clint was asleep, or if she should just open the door and assume he would not freak out, and possibly, probably, accidentally shoot her with an arrow. Then a scrap of paper slid out from the crack, and landed against her feet. It was written in the familiar scrawl of her partners handwriting.
"You shouldn't have come here. I just wan't to be alone, go back to Shield."
Natasha grimaced, and slid another note through the crack.
"Open the door or I am opening it myself."
It didn't take long for the next note to come-
"Open the door, and I am climbing out the window."
It took less than five seconds to pick this lock, Natasha was in the room before Clint was halfway across it. She grabbed him by the shoulders, and forced him into a chair, then stood between him and the window, just because she so did not feel like chasing after him right now.
But then, she opened her mouth to begin talking to him, and it hit her again that he couldn't hear her. And that was hard to realize. She saw Clint flinch after she opened her mouth, and she felt like an idiot. Natasha grabbed the paper he had been writing with, and jotted down a note.
"You are being such an idiot. They can get you hearing aids, you'll be able to hear just like before. This won't be a handicap, you will still live a good life."
Clint stared with dull eyes at his partner, after he read the note, he flipped it and began writing on the other side. The pencil moved furiously across the paper, when he was done, he shoved the note towards Natasha.
"No, it won't be just like before. I know how these things work. I am never going to be able to hear the same way again Nat, never. And I am only going to be able to hear, when I am depending on stupid devices in my ears. What if they go out in the middle of a mission? What if we are undercover, but I am not supposed to be wearing hearing aids, and someone notices? How am I going to be able to hear someone coming behind me, I wouldn't even know if someone prepped a pistol behind me, and was about to shoot me in the head. Hell, I didn't even know you got into my house until you slipped a damn note under the door. The hearing aids will only help, they can't give me my hearing back though, not like before. Things will never be the same again. I will never be the same."
Natasha read the note, and was trying to think of an argument, trying to think of words to say that would help one of the only people she cared about. Then, she herd Clint speak for the first time since the accident. His voice sounded almost normal, but you just knew something was wrong by the way he spoke louder than he had to, the way he pronounced each letter.
"I'm quitting Shield, Natasha."