Winterhawk

“I love you.” 

 Clint froze for a second. Maybe even stopped breathing. Then the tension in his hunched shoulders deliberately uncoiled and he went back to stirring the pot on the stove, letting out a breath. 

“Nope,” he said. “Try again.” 

“I’m sorry too,” Bucky said, “I just - that one seemed kinda more important to say.” 

“Because you figured it’d make me less mad at you?” Clint asked, and his voice was sharp. Bucky risked taking a step closer. 

“Because I meant it. Because that whole thing, with the -”

“Falling to your death?” Clint said. “Because you’re too much of an asshole to prioritize your own goddamn safety?” 

“With the quinjet, and the parachute, it brought some stuff into focus.” 

“Was it the ground?” Clint asked, sting of sweetness, “what with you getting a close up and all.” 

“Clint,” Bucky said. He took another step closer, almost close enough to touch, and he didn’t miss the way Clint swayed just the barest fraction backwards. 

“Fuck you,” Clint said. 

“I love you,” Bucky told him, hand hovering just an inch away from his side. 

Clint’s a shivering, dripping mess on the welcome mat that Steve had insisted on, sniffling pathetically as rain drips off the end of his nose.

“I know you’re still mad at me,” he says, before Bucky can even react, “you’re just the only guy I know who lives nearby.”

He’s clutching at his ribs, and there’s that moment of terror, ‘cos if there’s anyone in Bucky’s life that’ll get themselves killed by accident, probably saving some old lady from a mugger or some other horrendously noble shit, that person is Clint goddamn Barton. There’s a tiny squeaking, though, a shifting movement, and a tiny bedraggled ginger kitten pokes its head out of Clint’s zipped sweatshirt.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Bucky says, blankly, and scrubs a hand across his face before hopelessly stepping aside.

Clint doesn’t go further than the entry, rainwater spattering onto the newspaper that’s set there for Steve’s boots. Bucky holds out his hand, expecting Clint to strip off his soaked sweatshirt; instead he gets a handful of damp fluff and grumbles, its tiny accusing blue eyes hating on him for not being food shaped.

“The fuck am I supposed to do with this?” he asks, while Clint hauls off the outer layer of clothes, leaving him in a gray shirt that’s damp enough to cling to him, and Bucky’s mad at him, this is an important thing to remember. “The fuck am I supposed to do with you?” he asks, despairing.

Clint steps out of his shoes, and his sock’s got a hole in it in the heel, and Bucky turns around and heads straight for the bathroom because he’s mad, okay. He pulls a towel off the heater and coils it into a nest for the kitten, then grabs another for Clint, turning to find that the man’s followed him in, that he’s close enough to touch.

“You need to remind me why I’m angry at you,” Bucky says, his eyes flicking between the rainwater beaded on Clint’s eyelashes and the bitten-red of his lips.

“I - er -” Clint says, his pupils wide and dark and his voice low.

Bucky let himself out onto the roof through the access door, crunching across the gravel there without any sort of attempt at secrecy. It was the kind of day where the cold settled into the bones of you, aches along the length of them; it was pain-cold and the sharpest shade of gray. His hair whipped across his face and he was grateful for the leather jacket he wore, and he was grateful for the hooded sweater and the blanket he’d bundled up in his arms, because the idiot curled up by the low parapet had a hospital gown flapping against his bare legs.

He didn’t give Clint time or space to protest, ‘cos he was practically blue. Just got straight to bundling him up, careful of his ribs and the cast around his left arm, swaddling him up until his hair was wild with static and he was twice the size he oughta be in Bucky’s arms. Of course he got him situated there; once he was incapacitated and unable to do accidental damage to himself or others, Bucky insinuated himself behind him and pulled him back against his chest, his feet planted flat and his knees crooked up to provide a little more of a cage for him, make him feel a little more surrounded and safe.

The difference was immediate and welcome, but Bucky still didn’t like the fine tremble of Clint against his chest. He wrapped his arms around him, careful to keep the pressure light, and traced his lips along Clint’s neck, across the cold line of his jaw. Clint made a soft noise and leaned into it, and Bucky’s lips curled into a smile against frigid skin.

“Why’ve you got to do this, huh?” he asked, low and warm and gentle and the polar opposite of everything that was the sound of the wind.

Clint shuddered a little and pressed backwards into him.

“Every time,” Bucky said, rubbing his hands up and down Clint’s arms over sweater, over blankets, still feeling the ridge of the cast, the solid reminder that he hadn’t been fast enough to help. “Every damn time you gotta tumble yourself outta the hospital bed, and I’ve gotta track you down and make you look after yourself.”

“Well you make such a pretty nurse,” Clint croaked, and Bucky nipped at his throat, a punishment. Clint sighed, tipped his head back onto Bucky’s shoulder, stared up at the miserable sky. “I do it,” he said, “'cos someday pretty soon I’m not gonna be able to crawl out of that bed, and it scares the shit out of me.”

“I won’t let anything happen to you,” Bucky answered, quick as breathing, quick as the heartbeat that suddenly thumped rabbit-fast in his chest.

“Nothing about this is on you,” Clint said, suddenly stern, but only so long as he was talking about Bucky, 'cos he could only ever be fierce for someone else. His voice softened back into something that Bucky thought was like snow, soft and gentle and cold until suddenly it was heavy enough to pull down the roof on you. “I’m getting old,” he said. “Everything hurts more, everything bends less, every injury is a little closer to pulling me out of this.” He let out a breath that Bucky could see. “And this is everything. I don’t know what I’m gonna have when everything is gone.”

“Me,” Bucky said, monosyllabic 'cos of the fist around his throat, 'cos he could barely swallow or breathe. He pressed a kiss to Clint’s frozen cheek, scared stupid and fierce. “You’ll have me, Jesus Clint, you -”

His usual approach was useless here. He couldn’t squeeze tighter, rock him a little, show him with his strength and his solidity that he’d always stick around; maybe that wasn’t what Clint needed, maybe he’d always needed Bucky to make himself weak with words.

Happy disability pride month!!

Tattoo Artist!Clint commission for @hawksonfire

I saved it because of the Hawkeye and Fadral interaction, but then noticed the Thing and Thor arm wresting and Peter absolutely CHOWING DOWN on that leg

"He's had worse."

it's complicated!

from 1984-1991, there are about 8 references total to clint having hearing aids. in some of those panels he just says "hearing aid," in others he says hearing aids (plural), but in any case he's shown to touch both the left and right ear at separate points.

a visual depiction of a hearing aid is only shown once (confusingly, the ear is not shown to be outside the mask so it doesn't make sense. let's attribute that to a coloring error despite the linework suggesting otherwise).

so, i would say after clint initially went deaf in hawkeye v1 #4, he wore in-the-ear (ITE) hearing aids in both ears (thus, two)

after clint is again deafened in hawkeye v4 #15 (2014), he's shown wearing behind-the-ear (BTE) hearing aids in both ears.

and then all-new hawkeye immediately switched that to ITE hearing aids

but, presumably, still in both ears. he switches back to BTE hearing aids in hawkeye v5, but it seems he only has one in the right ear.

he then was consistently portrayed with a BTE hearing aid in only the right ear

as for his last most substantive series appearances: in black widow & hawkeye, he wasn't really visually portrayed with any hearing aids, but a small ITE aid was shown in the left ear in like two panels, and in avengers assemble v3 and subsequent related infinity comic appearances, there were no visual depictions at all.

however, for his 2-issue arc appearance for this disability month, he's portrayed with a BTE aid again, but only in the left ear.

i guess they mixed up that it had previously been the right ear?

second base: torture