hospital? hearing aids? hawkeye? hell yeah

"...you know I can lip-read pretty well, right?"  

Hospital in Iowa - January 4th, 2016

"He got burned in several places, has a few broken bones, and a collapsed lung, but other than that he's fine."

That had been the unofficial summary of Angus's problems given to Christa by Clint Barton just hours ago. But to Christa, it seemed like the list should be a lot longer. She stood by his side in his hospital room, and dangit, he looked so freaking helpless and Christa couldn't quite grasp why. Okay, so she knew why--part of a building had collapsed on him while he was trying to keep it from collapsing on her with a freaking shovel--but he wasn't supposed to look like this. He was Angus. He just wasn't.

"So... officially deaf...?"

At least, that's what Christa thought he said. Being unable to hear just about anything, she wasn't exactly able to completely understand what people were saying. Reading their lips was currently her best option. And, as she had realized over the past couple of days lying in that hospital bed, she was pretty darn good at it.

Lucky her.

Christa nodded, letting out a sigh and then wrapping a weak arm around an even weaker chest. It had hurt slightly with the sigh. Even now, a few days later, her lungs still weren't fully used to breathing clean air again--or rather, they were getting over breathing in dust and smoke and bomb residue during that interesting experience. She was sitting in a seat beside Angus's hospital bed, having been let out of her own just hours ago. The nurses and doctors attending to her had finally deemed her able to walk--slowly, though. They had made sure of that.

"Cochlear damage is pretty damn permanent," she said. An air of sarcasm was in there, but it was half-hearted.

At Christa's obviously glum look, the brown-haired teenage boy gave a small smile. She wondered how he could muster to try cheering her up with all those tubes attached to him, all those healing scars painted across his body like faint graffiti.

"Hey... some... pool--" no... cool? "... characters... deaf. Hearthstone... Magnus Chase...." That's what she pieced together from what he said, anyway.

Christa rolled her eyes. "Do you want me to get you some water or something?"

Angus's dark brown eyes met hers and he gave a slightly teasing smile. He pointed at himself with a finger, giving her a thumbs-up, as if to say, "I'm good."

There was a slightly awkward pause for a moment.

"Do you... owl--" know how...? "--cool it is that Hawkeye... painted tutus--" saved you?? "--An Avenger," Angus finally said.

Christa raised an eyebrow. "So?"

Okay, so... yeah that part was kind of neat.

The fact that she needed saving wasn't.

"He's... visiting... in your room, right? ...must be... cool." Angus looked over to the side in a kind of longing way.

Christa's eyebrows both raised. "He visited you, too."

"... I... n't... then," he said, looking like he was kind of whining.

She couldn't figure out what all he said this time. Something about... knitting...? "What?"

"Yeah--but--I--was--not--conscious--then," Angus repeated.

"Do you want me to go get him?"

The boy blushed slightly. "He's... hero duty...."

"Yeah, the thing is, I'm actually retired."

Christa couldn't hear what had been said, but Angus could. His eyes widened and Christa turned around.

Clint Barton smiled at the girl. He held up a piece of paper that said in big letters, How ya doing?

"Fine, no thanks to you," she responded sarcastically. "And you know I can lip-read pretty well, right?"

Clint pulled up another chair and sat down on it, writing a quick note.

Yeah, but this way you don't accidentally think I'm talking about taco cats.

That had been an interesting several minutes.

Christa rolled her eyes. "Fine."

Clint wrote something down on his notepad and held it up to her. Christa's eyes widened as she read.

I just talked with the doctors, and they said you're ready to go home tomorrow.

Oh yeah. Going home.

With the Bartons.

That was a thing.

Christa stared at the words for a few moments. Then she looked up at Clint. She wasn't sure what to say.

"I don't have a home."

She wasn't quite sure why she said it. The other day, Clint and his wife, Laura, had come into her hospital room, just after she had been officially tested for deafness, and shown her the papers that contained signatures and tons of information she didn't care about except for the stuff that included the fact that they were going to be fostering her.

The Bartons fostering her.

She didn't ask how they'd gotten it officiated so fast.

Christa kept staring at him for several more seconds. He gave a soft smile. Then, he wrote down:

We'll try to make it close.

| | |

She wasn't quite sure how it all worked out, in the end. It was the next day, and she was feeling better. Good enough, according to the nurses. She suspected they were getting tired of her grumpy and sarcastic attitude. She had been told multiple times that it was a major flaw of hers, so it wasn't a surprise.

And the fact that the Bartons were going to be taking her in was so surreal she came somewhat close to forgetting the whole reason she needed to be fostered in the first place.

Your mom's dead.

The voice inside of her kept telling her that.

Your mom's dead.

Shut up! she would tell it.

Your mom's dead, it would merely repeat.

| | |

Hearing aids.

Those were apparently a thing.

Christa was so freaking happy when they came to her. Those tiny pieces of technology were so cool and she could touch them and she'd never seen any up close before. It was like a toddler petting a puppy for the first time.

Oh yeah, there was the plus that she might be able to hear a bit better now.

"Be careful with these," the doctor had said slowly and carefully, Christa reading his lips to be able to understand. "They're quite easy to--"

Before he was able to finish his sentence, Christa had grabbed the things out of his hands and started stuffing them in place. She was able to somehow put them in with as little instruction as the diagram on the wall in front of her.

But no.

It didn't work.

She let out what was probably a very loud scream of frustration as she practically ripped the pieces of metal out of her ear. Damn her damaged ears--damn them!

A scowl lit up her face and she threw them onto the floor with a huff of rage.

Why did life have to be like this?

Why?

"Be careful!" the doctor in front of her repeated quickly.

That's what she thought he said, anyway.

After all... all she could do was read lips.

| | |

"So... you live on an isolated farm, then?"

Clint raised an eyebrow. My, my, you are a clever one, was written on a pad of paper for Christa to read.

They sat in a car that Clint's wife drove, Christa alone in the backseat. On their way from the hospital to where Christa would now be staying for a yet undetermined period of time.

Blue skies, white clouds dotting them, a whole country-like, isolated area was where the Barton family lived. It was beautiful--so beautiful. Christa couldn't deny that. She wasn't surprised they had decided to live there.

The sight almost made her forget she couldn't hear.

Isolated: It was that way because of an important secret thing that Christa knew about, but still found fascinatingly insane.

S.H.I.E.L.D.

So the thing is, Clint had written to her as they were getting in the car, starting the drive to the place, living in public and being a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent isn't the best idea....

Christa had just nodded. It made sense. After all, some people probably didn't like him. And he was a pretty dang well-known guy.

They spent the car ride not quite in total silence but close to it. The windows were tinted so that nobody was able to see Clint's face and be like, "Oh! It's Clint Barton! An Avenger! Who recently helped with the destruction of an entire city! Let's kill him!"

Yeah, that was a thing that Christa was positive some people were thinking. She wasn't stupid. News got around.

She thought back to the hospital. After the little incident with the hearing aids, the doctors had said something about the possibility of cochlear implants. They'd tried that. They hadn't worked.

But somehow, now, looking out at the Barton house and the seemingly endless fields of grass all around her, and the blue sky, and the trees, and the two people who had been so strangely selfless as to even consider taking her in....

Wow.

As they came closer to the place (and the car ride wasn't long, maybe an hour or so), she began to feel a slight bit of something she hadn't fully realized in what felt like quite a long time.

Hope.