The explosion went off one minute too early. Skye knew that as she skidded across the pavement feeling her elbows turn to gravel as she did. She was sailing through the air. The flames flying through the air, the columns buckling beneath the pressure. Large clouds of dust rising, spiraling around her as she flew into a freefall. It was all she could do to use her powers to push the debris away from her, but she couldn't see how she was going to survive the fall.

Lincoln was there, watching her. He mouthed something, his hands moving as sparks flew from his hands, enveloping her then slowly easing her to the ground.

Well that was one way.

When had Lincoln arrived? She coughed, choking on the dust that had trapped in her lungs. There was the ringing in her ears and the strange heaviness when she turned to look at Lincoln. He cupped her face, murmuring something. No. He wasn't murmuring. He was saying something to her, the knots on his eyebrows, the vibrations in his chest. He wasn't mumbling or whispering, he was yelling at her.

Hands shaking, she gripped his wrist tightly. Green eyes catching her brown eyes. "What are you saying? Why can't I hear you?" She said it, but she couldn't hear it. "Why can't I hear myself? Lincoln, why can't I hear anything!?"

He pulled her into his embrace, rubbing circles on her back. The vibration in his chest told her that he was saying something, but she didn't know what. Just the ringing. The neverending ringing and the deafening of silence.

"Agent Barton, it's good to see you again." Coulson smiled at the archer who only nodded back.

Coulson would not have personally requested him away from the Avengers if it wasn't any small thing. "What do you need?" Straight to the point as he always was. He still did like Coulson, it was just that he was more fed up with all the secrets. The irony wasn't lost on him though. Secret agent hating secret agency for keeping secrets.

Coulson handed him a file. "Agent Quake has been one of our top operatives for a while. She has recently lost all hearing on both sides and as all medical examinations have indicated, is permanent."

Clint flicked through the file which was pretty impressive for a newbie agent as her. Really pretty too, she was exactly the sort of woman that he would have gone after back in the old days. Bad ass, taking no shit. Wait. Commander of the Inhumans? What is that? He paused on that page, finger tapping on printed paper. "What is this, Coulson?"

Coulson clasped his hands together, levelling him a look that almost made Barton nostalgic - a fierce, protective look. So she became part of his family after he and Nat refused to rejoin Shield. His curiosity was piqued. What was so special about her that made Coulson 'adopt' her as his family?

"She's an…" He pursed his lips with a weary look. "Inhuman. As what they like to call themselves. She has the power to control and manipulate vibrations." He ran a hand down his suit, tugging his lapels straight. "With her loss of hearing, she hasn't been able to get out into the field. It's hard for the other operatives to work with that. You understand it. This is a class 5 injury."

Clint knew exactly what that was and he knew exactly what that meant to a superpowered being. Class 5 - forcibly retired. For a field operative that would mean adminstration work or returning back to the 'real world', for a superpowered being that meant locked down and away for the rest of their lives. Coulson didn't want that for his adopted daughter and Clint wouldn't wish it on anyone, especially one that had been always been on the straight and narrow highway.

"So you want me to work with her?" Was Coulson trying to play some kind of pity thing? He hated that. Clint flipped the page, eyes falling onto the attached pictures of her in action. Yes, he did hate that, but it didn't sit right with him to abandon her. "Okay."

A look of confusion and relief flooded Coulson's face. "Okay?" He reiterated like he didn't expect Clint to accept. "You'll do it?" He pressed, trying to make sure that they were all on the same page.

"Yes. I did say that right?" Clint replied hotly. He snapped the file shut and tossed it onto Coulson's table. "I'm your man- for now."

Coulson beamed widely. "I don't- I don't know how to thank you!"

Clint only waved it off and wandered off to look for his new partner.

She was in her bunk. Lights off, door shut and completely and utterly unmotivated to do anything. There was no point in getting up, no point in showering, no point in heading to her office anyway. She didn't want people to type or write what they were saying to her, she didn't want their fucking pity looks and she definitely didn't want any of their goddamn hugs. She just wanted to be left alone. She wanted all this to be a dream. She wanted to wake up in the middle of the night because the sound of the engines woke her up. She wanted to be annoyed with the clattering of lab trays rumbling up and down the hallways when she was trying to get work done.

God. She missed Fitzsimmons finishing their sentences and getting annoyed at that.

She scrubbed her face angrily, brushing the tears away. And she was fucking annoyed with the crying. With a cry of rage, she threw the pillow at the door, swearing in every language that she knew of.

The door swung open.

Oh for the love of everything good in the world, did people just not understand on wanting to be alone? She growled at the blond man.

He signed at her. 'Hello. Didn't expect a pillow in my face.'

'Who the fuck are you?' she signed back angrily. She had learnt it when living in one of the foster families and never actually figured she would need it one day. Actually, it never crossed her mind that the reason why she would be signing one day would be because she couldn't hear.

'Your new partner. My name is Clint Barton. By the way, you kinda smell. When was the last time you showered?' He quirked an eyebrow at her.

Snark. She could handle that. It was better than the pity or people tiptoeing around her, not that they needed to do that anymore since she couldn't fucking hear anyway.

Skye shot another bot that had hovered too close to Clint. He grinned back at her.

'Watch out you idiot!' She signed to him.

His eyes danced with merriment, its corners crinkling in that distinct manner that she had grown to love. He drew his bow, sniping the bot that had been creeping up on her and signed back, 'You too!'

He let out a chuckle before shooting the one sneaking up on Natasha. Her heart beat traitorously as she watched him. They were partners and she wasn't allowed to fall in love with him. Skye sighed, flinging a wave of vibration that sent a whole fleet of doombots crashing.

They couldn't afford to fall in love with each other. He was sweet, funny and there were times there was that look that he gave her that seemed to bore into her with a heat that caused her stomach to flutter. But they couldn't so she ignored the times when the touch on the small of her back lingered a moment too long and suppressed the impulse to press her lips onto his.

They were a good team. It felt like they had been working together for far longer than two years. People called them SkyHawk sometimes rather than Quake and Barton. At least that's what Barton told her. Though she was less of a Shield agent and more of an Avenger which struck her as unbelievable. She had never imagined that there would come a day where she would become an avenger as well, fighting alongside Captain America and Ironman with Hawkeye as her partner.

"It's weird," she tells him. "I can sort of hear again." Pausing, she fingered a hole in her uniform.

Stark was on the left bickering with Steve yet again, Sam and the Black Widow were sitting on the kerb exchanging money. It looked like Sam had lost yet another bet. He never knew when to stop betting against the Black Widow. Were they betting on how long it'd take before Stark would cave in to Steve's disappointed eyes again?

Skye shook her head, noticing how Clint had stiffened at her words. Was her voice weird sounding? It had been such a long time since she spoke. "It was kind weird. It's just some stuff I hear…" she dipped her head. "Like my ability to pick up vibrations is helping me translate it into sounds."

Her partner had yet to say anything. "Clint?"

He chewed on his next words, regarding her with a strange look as he replied, "I never expected it to be you."

Her breath stuttered in her chest, heart leaping with odd thumping when she registered his words - the masculine handwriting on the sole of her foot.

"Y-you're my soulmate?" she choked on her words.

"Funny isn't it?" His lips twisted, the usual snark absent from his face. There was the fondness in his eyes that she had become accustomed to seeing. "The whole time I was falling for you and I told myself that I couldn't because someone out there was your soulmate. And it turns out that lucky guy was me all along."

"What we call the beginning is often the end, and to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from,'" Skye said and offered her newly-found soulmate a smile.

Clint moved slowly, hands lifting and resting on either side of her face. His fingers tracing her cheeks. Blue eyes staring intently into hers. He drew close, lips lingering on hers. "May I kiss you?" he asks, sotto voce.

She pressed her lips against his, breath frozen. His lips were warm, spreading a warmth that shot straight through her body and to her toes. Blooming across her chest like being out in the sunlight. He slanted his mouth across hers, deepening the kiss, breath hitching. His hands cupping the back of her head and shifted deeper into her hair, trailing his mouth around her lips. Clint pulled back reluctantly, resting his forehead against hers. His fingers were loose in her hair, his thumb caressing her cheek.

Then she noticed money exchanging Sam and Natasha's hands again, this time Sam with a smirk directed at them.

"Took you long enough!" Sam hooted.