Reason #6 -- Clint Barton
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Reason #6 -- Defining Deafness. -- Clint overcoming the fear and insecurity of his deafness.
Word Count: 2285
Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Clint Barton (Winterhawk)
Warnings: little bit of angst, insecurities, minor panic attack, lots of fluff
A/n: I hope you all enjoy! If you do, leave a like and a reblog or comment! I’d love to hear what you think and honestly I need the validation. (Mistakes are mine!)
Read on AO3!
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Clint hates these places. Hates them with more passion than he hates decaf coffee.
It’s just pointless okay? Don’t fight him on it.
He can’t help his fidgeting as he waits, his hands pressing together rubbing and pressing, probably too hard, on pressure points to calm himself down. He can feel the odd stares of the others in the waiting room of the too sterile feeling Otolaryngologist’s office. Most of them older folk, not exactly incredibly common to see someone as young as him in this place. Beyond that, he assumes their stares aren’t just limited to his youth, but the fact that he is with another well known Avenger.
And maybe because he is sitting with another well known Avenger, a terrifyingly bulky, metal armed hunk of pure beef. Yeah, that’s probably a major contributor. Bucky’s flesh hand settled on his knee, the one that’s been jumping relentlessly for almost twenty minutes now. It’s a calming gesture, at least outwardly. But Clint can’t help that nerves that are firing on all cylinders inside his mind.
It’s when Bucky’s lips press softly against his head, just above his hairline that, inwardly, Clint minutely calmed down. He lets out a nervous laugh and a fond smile before kissing Bucky’s lips. Clint couldn’t be more glad he had Bucky here with him, he almost decided to go this alone but at least had enough sense to know that if he had, he might’ve spontaneously combust, or at the very least give himself a heart attack.
He smiles when Bucky signs to him. “Stop worrying. It’ll go great.”
Clint never saw himself getting to this point. He had spent so many years struggling in silence, unable to communicate with his friends and people he considered family. He’d never imagined he’d find himself confident enough to break free of the cloud that followed him, to come here and face the fear that held him back in many ways.
Bucky had been pushing for this, for him to get hearing aids for some time, knowing that Clint struggled more than he’d ever let on with his deafness. He knew Clint felt inferior to the other avengers on days where that dark cloud followed him. He always said he was dehanced as the others had been enhanced. Bucky couldn’t count the amount of days he spent questioning why he had a place on the team. But Bucky knew getting hearing aids was a big step that may lighten the load he carried on his shoulders.
It was a big relief for Clint to have had Tony as a main consultant on making these aids. Giving him different designs for different aspects of his life, like missions and everyday designs, even going as far to make them all fairly waterproof. He’d still have a special pair for if he needed them and was swimming in water, but if he got them wet on a mission or forgot to take them out before getting into the shower, they could handle that. It pushed away some of Clint’s fear of going through the process.
It still felt weird to him, though. He’d spent so many years, since he was a young kid still too afraid of his father to say anything , without the sounds of the world. It was silence for him. Well, he heard very muffled sounds, maybe less muffled when they were extremely loud. He was beside himself with what he’d do when he could hear people talking. Would this make team life easier? What did Bucky’s voice sound like? Was it deep and raspy, one that matched his appearance, or would it be gentle and soothing like it may have been before the war? He had no idea and was pretty sure that only sent him farther down the rabbit hole of anxiety.
Bucky’s fingers wove between Clint’s and gave a reassuring squeeze. It’d be okay. And then he felt him squeeze again and it pulled Clint’s gaze upwards where a nurse was waiting to take them to the back room.
No turning back now, right?
Well, he presumed he could turn back now, break from Bucky’s grip and run until he found a high and hidden perch to wallow in his thoughts. But one, he knew he needed to do this, it was good for him, something he needed to lift a fraction of the weight he carried on his slumped shoulders. And for two, he was fast but he wasn’t fast enough to out run Bucky, the man could beat a cheetah if he wanted to.
He was so in his thoughts, he’d spaced out for a while and walked like a twice dead zombie into the room. If it had not been for Bucky pulling him along, Clint is sure he’d have never moved from the waiting room. When he comes back from his spaced out thoughts, he is wrapped in Bucky’s arms, his hand running smooth and soothing lines up along Clint’s spine. He hums into Bucky’s shoulder, where his head is tucked and can feel the jump of Bucky’s body telling him he is chuckling.
He likes being here, in Bucky’s arms. It’s warm and inviting. So inviting he never wants to leave. There have been many days where he’d done just that, the two of them in bed on a Saturday with nothing to do and so they spend it in each other’s arms because with the lives they lead, they need days like that. It’s always nice and Clint wishes in a distant part of his brain that they were doing that instead of this.
He spaced out again, staring at a piece of artwork hanging on the wall of the office. It’s exactly what you’d think would be in the doctors wall, meant to calm you down and smooth you because, as Clint clearly exhibits, it’s more than just a bit nerve wracking to be here.
And then the door opens with a click and Bucky’s hand is squeezing his again letting him know to pay attention now and maybe answer questions. The doctor and Bucky have a conversation that Clint only catches a few words from, most of which are his name. But Bucky seems to be happy and smiling so it can’t be bad right?
Clint grins to himself when he realizes that won’t be as hard as it used to be, he will be able to take part in more conversations because he won’t have to rely on lip reading which he knows from experience, even years of it, it’s so hard to follow a conversation with only speech reading. Everybody is different in how they form the words and the sounds and sometimes without the context of other words, they all become jumbled. He distinctly remember a time when Bucky had his hands unavailable and was trying to tell Clint he loved him, but with only speech reading, Clint thought he’d said ‘olive juice’ instead of ‘I love you.’
Bucky had been more than just a little confused when Clint came back from the grocery store with a can of olive juice.
What made it more embarrassing was that it was the first time either had said it to each other. Though, it had become a running joke between the two and sometimes when Clint needed to smile, Bucky would look to him and say olive juice. It would always send him into a fit of giggles and have him blushing harder than when you talked about anything sex related around cap.
Then the conversation in turns to him and he talks easily with the doctor. Mostly filler small talk until she can get everything pulled up on her computer and gets everything going. Clint’s surprised she does it so easily, signing to him and typing away at her computer. It’s impressive.
And then, she reaches down and opens a drawer pulling out a small protective case with his name scrawled across the front. He feels his heart leap back into his throat, the doctor and Bucky must be able to see it pounding away and constricting his breathing. His hands are clammy too, and his face must have gone two shades whiter than it had been because Bucky is fretting over him like he does when Clint drops into a panic attack.
And he can’t do this, he doesn’t deserve these, he doesn’t want these because... because why? He really isn’t sure why he is so hesitant to put two little earpieces in, two earpieces that are barely noticeable, thanks to Stark, and that will give him nearly limitless possibilities. It’s a positive thing and he can’t figure out why his brain is making it out to be so terrible. It isn’t painful, the hard part is done, and he may finally get to hear his boyfriends voice. He couldn’t ask for much more.
With a surge of confidence, he wipes his hands down the legs of his pants, drying the sweat and reaches out for the box. His hands are still shaking, because he can’t help that nagging voice of his anxiety in the back of his mind but he does try to turn the volume down a bit.
The doctor signs a bit, pointing out various switches, buttons and how best to work the aids and Clint nods along, hoping she will finished before that shot if confidence he’d given himself wears off. She finally finished talking and Clint skids the pieces into his ears, they fit like a glove and are decently comfortable all things considering. The doctor reaches over and with Clint’s permission turns the aids on and waits to see.
But Clint deflates.
It’s still silent. He can’t hear anything more than he could three seconds ago and all he wants to do is break down. Why couldn’t something go right for him, he’d done so much to finally get himself pumped up enough to do this and for them to not work? It’s crushing him under the weight and all he wants to do is break down. He wants to sit in Bucky’s protective embrace and just cry until his eyes run dry because this was the cherry on top. He had nothing left in him to want to be okay. He’d spent so long without his hearing, what was a few more years without it.
He was about to turn them off, thrown them down and find that perch he’d thought about before coming in here. Being able to outrun Bucky be damned, he needed solitude away from the sterile reminder he was a dehanced agent who had no place sitting among the tech geniuses and living legends of his team. But it’s when his fingers reach the button that he hears it.
Hears it.
He hears something. And Clint’s head shoots up, his eyes wide and frantic and he tried to piece together where that was real or just a thought in his head to placate his pain. Whatever he heard, he thinks it was Bucky, it was deep, rumbling from the chest and he loved it. Then he hears it again, it’s his name. It’s his name spoken aloud, something the hadn’t heard since he was a young kid.
“Hey, how do they sound?”
He still can’t wrap his thick head around hearing his boyfriends voice and he can’t contain the grin any longer. He smiles wider than the universe and it’s perfect, better than perfect. It’s everything.
And then it hits him harder than that one times he got hit by a literal truck. He hears, and he hears Bucky’s words to him and it becomes so overwhelming. He can feel it begin in his chest, a pressure he can no longer stop until tears are streaming down his face and he is ugly sobbing as he falls into Bucky’s body. His hand is fisted in Bucky’s shirt and his tears are soaking spots onto his shirt but neither care because this moment is one they will never forget.
“I can hear you. I can hear your voice.”
The volume is still a bit off, he is speaking a little too loud but nobody cares because that will come in time, as he gets used to his new hearing.
Bucky pulls back and laughs and Clint has never heard a sound more melodic and beautiful and he wants him to keep laughing.
“It’s fucking hot.”
And that sets the both of them off, and they even notice the doctor wiping away a few tears through her laughter. And Clint can hear that too and he just can’t stop the flood, the tsunami of emotions that are washing over him and it’s just everything that he could want and more.
He makes Bucky talk to him the whole way home, keeps the radio playing in the background because he can hear it now. He drives with the widow open once they get into the busiest parts of the city, and listens to the sounds everyone is always complaining about. Maybe he will one day too, but for now? Those sounds are beyond magical.
The first thing he does once they are in the tower is talk to JARVIS. The second thing he does is wrap Tony in the biggest hug he could manage and smirks when he hears Tony yelp.
And then Tasha is hugging him so tight he is afraid she might break a few of ribs but he doesn’t care. She kisses his cheek and says she loves him as a passing thought, almost as if she’d forgotten that he could hear now. And he smirks before he can even say his smart ass remark.
“I heard that.”
