Budapest

Clint - Three Months Later

CLINT

Clint lay flat on his back in bed as shadows danced across the ceiling, chased by the headlights of passing cars outside his window. He sighed and rolled over, turning his back on the glaring red numbers of the clock beside his bed that ticked away the minutes with agonizing slowness.

3:00am.

3:01am.

3:02am.

Fury moved Clint to a safe house outside of Stockholm a few weeks ago when Clint wouldn't sit still at the hospital anymore, further aggravating his injuries. But it hardly eased Clint's boredom. The place was tiny, no bigger than a closet really, and it didn't help Clint focus at all. The television annoyed him; he couldn't hear it anyway unless it was cranked up to floor-vibrating level which wasn't exactly conducive to staying hidden. Coulson paid a visit once, and left a stack of paperbacks behind, but Clint had read through them all within the first two weeks. Twice.

All he could think about was Romanoff, a roaring chant in his head for all hours of the day. Hiding out only God knew where.

Clint clung to the thought of Romanoff like a lifeline above the boiling waters of insanity licking at his heels. If he stopped trying to figure out his next move with her, his mind started to wander into the dangerous, mine-filled territory of his hearing loss. And that, he'd decided long ago, was a road strictly off limits.

When Clint had been in the hospital, he did nothing but test his hearing over and over again. The muted, drowned quality of his surroundings frustrated him. He'd crank up the hospital's small, chunky television until he could feel the vibrations in the floor. And yet, the only thing he'd been able to hear was a low, buzzing drone, like one pissed off bee buzzing around in his head. Then half a dozen angry nurses would flock into his room and wrestle the remote control from him, chastising him. He still couldn't hear a word they said. Just the bee, buzz, buzz, buzz.

In the quiet, long, gray hours of the early morning, Clint would lie in his hospital bed and, slowly, tentatively, close off his good ear – barely functioning as it was – to leave his deaf ear exposed. It terrified him. Never had he heard silence so...complete. So dead. He hadn't paid much attention to the noise that existed around him on a daily basis until it wasn't there anymore. The hum of voices. The whispering rush of traffic. The soft swish of his tshirt when he moved. It was all gone.

So Clint made himself stop thinking about it and he occupied himself with Romanoff instead. He might not be a SHIELD agent much longer, after the disaster that was Russia, after the disaster that was his hearing, but he was going to track her down, no matter what. He just had to figure out how. Week after week, he watched people from his third story apartment window and silently pleaded for his body to heal a little faster so he could get back to work again.

When a faint blush of golden light tinged the gray, shadowy cobwebs shrouding the ceiling, Clint eased himself up into a sitting position and pushed off his tangled covers. He sighed and gritted his teeth against the ache in his ribs. His body just wasn't going to be ready then, he thought. He'd have to muscle through because he was not going to sit around anymore.

As Clint headed for the shower, movement from the corner of his eye caught his attention. He startled and took a step back, tense and ready to defend himself.

Fury stood in the doorway of his bedroom, one hand raised in surrender.

"Take it easy," he said. "Didn't mean to sneak up on you."

Clint could barely hear a word Fury said but he got the gist of it anyway. Fury held out a small box and pointed at his ear.

"Is this the..." Clint's throat constricted. He still couldn't quite bring himself to say "hearing aid." It made everything too final, and a tiny, desperate part of him wanted to hold out hope that he'd wake up one day and everything would be back to normal again.