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Clint heard a knock on his left. Confused, he turned to the window before he realised he still hadn’t found his second hearing aid and the sound had probably come from the door.A second, more persistent knock broke him from his stare, and he hurried to the door.
“Sorry, I’m just...” Clint started as he pulled the door open, but when he saw who was standing outside, he cut himself off. "You're not, uh, room service?""You're not, uh, dressed." The guy standing in the hall eyed him with raised eyebrows. He was wearing a black hoodie and black jeans, and with the dark hair falling in his face and the subtle eyeliner, he looked almost scary. But Clint also recognised him from somewhere.For a moment, Clint just blinked at him before he looked down at himself to realise he had only a towel draped around his hip. “Okay, this looks bad.” He sighed. “You’re uhm…” Clint remembered he had seen the shorter man on set earlier, but he couldn’t remember his function or even his name.“Bucky.” The man—Bucky, apparently—was still staring at Clint unwaveringly.Clint could almost feel his steel blue eyes burning through him, and the way the shorter man was not moving a single muscle made Clint want to wriggle and vibrate out of his skin.
“Hi. What can I do for you, Bucky?” Clint pressed out, trying to resist the urge to fidget and ignore the fact that his bare chest was on full display.Finally, Clint saw a movement, and for a split second, he thought there was something like insecurity in Bucky’s eyes. “Someone on the team messed the booking up.” His gaze flickered into the room and over the number plaque next to the door. “There are not enough rooms, and yours is the only one with a free single.”Clint threw a glance over his shoulder at the mess he had already managed to make in the room. He didn’t like sharing, but there was no use in arguing, so he just sighed. “Sure. Come in. Just give me a second, and I’ll clean up.”Running a hand through his hair, Clint turned and walked back to the bed where he had emptied his bag in search of his second hearing aid earlier. He quickly put on a clean pair of sweats and a bright purple T-shirt before starting to pick up the rest of his belongings from the floor.While he did so, Bucky dropped his bag on the second bed. He pulled a bathroom bag, a pair of sweatpants, and a different black hoodie out of it. “Can I use the bathroom?” He asked.
Clint had never been good at reading tone, but he thought he heard insecurity and maybe even pain in his voice.“Yeah, just let me get my stuff.” Clint ducked into the bathroom, picked up his dirty clothes, and cleared the shelf in the shower. “All yours.” Clint stepped away from the door. “Oh, and if you find my second BTE somewhere, I’d highly appreciate it.”“Sure.” Bucky agreed, and this time he was definitely trying to suppress pain.Clint looked after him and then stared at the closed door for a moment longer. There was something off about the way Bucky moved, but Clint couldn’t quite pinpoint it.Shaking his head a little to clear it, Clint focused back on his bag. For a minute, he looked at the mess and decided this moment was as good as any to sort and fold his clothes.When Bucky came back out of the bathroom, he seemed overall more relaxed, but now Clint could also see the pain in the lines of his body and his movements. “Hey, are you okay?” Clint asked hesitantly, tilting his head a little as he studied the other.“I’m fine.” He muttered but also winced when he leaned down to put his bag on the floor.“You don’t look like it.” Clint pushed his bag off the bed with his foot and grabbed his phone from the nightstand. “But you do you, dude.”Bucky, who had sat down on his bed, flinched, barely noticeable, at the last word. “I’m not.” He whispered. And while it was much too quiet for Clint to hear it, he understood anyway.And he also recognised the expression Bucky had now. “Not? Not what? Not a dude?”
When Bucky just looked at Clint, the blonde sighed and pulled his shirt up. “You did notice I’m trans, right? Look, we don’t have to be friends or anything. Honestly, as soon as we’re done filming here, we don’t even have to see each other outside the set anymore. But that doesn’t mean we can’t be civil with each other and try to make this as easy as possible. I don’t care what you hide under all that black, but I don’t want you to be uncomfortable around me.”Bucky took a shaky breath and looked at Clint for a moment before he sighed and turned so he was fully facing him. “You’re deaf, right?”“As Deaf as a doorknob.” Clint chirped, and he smiled when Bucky snorted at his bad joke. “Why, what about it?”It took another moment and clearly a lot of willpower, but Bucky closed his eyes and pulled his hoodie over his head. Not for the first time, Clint noticed that he was pretty much only using his right hand to do so, and when Bucky let the black fabric slide off his left arm, it became clear why, as a silver and black prosthetic became visible.Bucky still didn’t look at Clint, but he talked again. “I’m nonbinary; my pronouns are ke/ker or they/them, and I definitely do not want to talk about how or why I lost my arm.” The insecurity in kes body was clear, and it mixed with the pain to make Bucky look truly miserable.It took Clint a second to pull his eyes from the web of scars that spanned over Bucky’s shoulder and vanished into the socket of kes prosthetic. “You’re in a lot of pain.” Clint pointed it out, and that simple statement made Bucky look up at him again. “Like I said, I don't care what your gender is. As long as you don’t misgender me, I will do my best to address you correctly.” Bucky scoffed and looked around the room, so ke didn't have to make eye contact while Clint continued. “But what I do care about is that you are clearly not doing well.”“It’s been a long day, is all.” Bucky muttered, then cocked his head a little and got up. Ke crossed the room and picked something off the floor. “This what you're looking for?” Ke handed Clint his second hearing aid.“Yes, thank you. I’ve been slowly going insane with just one.” Clint wiped off the dust and fiddled with the device for a second. “It’s nice to have working aids, but sometimes I just need a break,” he mused, hoping Bucky would pick up on the underlying message.“Yeah, but if you take them out, most people won’t look at you like you’re a freak.” Bucky snapped.“No, but they treat me like I’m stupid. Because God forbid the Deaf man has an actual job and can still do all the same things he could do while hearing.” He had to swallow the bitterness and anger walling up in him before he could continue. “You’re not the first amputee I’ve met. And you won’t be the last. Like I said, we don’t have to be friends, but I don't want you to have to hide in your own hotel room.”“It’s not pretty.” Bucky replied coldly.Clint just shrugged. “Not everything in life is.” He got up and walked to the small bathroom. “You don’t have to show me, and if you don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine; I won’t mention it. But stop hurting yourself; no one gains anything from that.”Before Bucky could answer, Clint closed and locked the bathroom door behind him. He leaned over the sink and let his head hang for a moment. What hopefully looked like an out for Bucky on the outside was more an excuse for himself to get his own head on straight again.There were a lot of things Clint didn't talk about. And seeing Bucky hurt kerself and clearly miserable, just to try and hide kes disability, pulled a lot of them to the surface.When he managed to look up at himself in the mirror again, he remembered what he had been doing before Bucky knocked. “Well, that explains the expression.” Clint sighed to himself and leaned closer to the mirror to gently pull at the edge of the cut he had been meaning to take care of.With a quick look through the small bathroom, Clint remembered that the search for his first aid kit was part of the reason he had tipped his bag out in the first place. And it was still lying on his bedside table.Sighing, Clint turned and unlocked the bathroom door, but before he actually opened it, he hesitated. It felt weird knocking on the inside of a bathroom door, but that was still better than walking in on Bucky and making kem even more uncomfortable. “Buck? I’m coming back out.”For a second, there was no reaction, and when Bucky said something, Clint couldn’t make out most of the words. “I can’t hear what you’re saying.” Clint rested his head against the door but regretted it immediately. “Aw, door...” he cursed quietly before continuing. “I’m coming out now.”He waited another few seconds before he walked out, carefully feeling over the cut to make sure it hadn’t started bleeding again.“That doesn’t look good.” Bucky commented. Ke was now wearing some band shirt that Clint didn’t recognise. The left sleeve covered kes residual limb completely, and the prosthetic was lying on top of Bucky’s bag.“Occupational hazard. The fights are choreographed, but something can always go wrong. I mean, that’s why we’re there, right?” Clint could feel Bucky’s eyes tracking him through the room.“I was almost expecting you to say something like, ‘you should see the other guy.’”“Na, I’d have no chance against Nat. Have you seen her fight?” Clint raised an eyebrow at Bucky, who just shrugged with his good arm. “Do you know first aid?”“I was in the army,” Ke answered, and it sounded like that should be common knowledge, but ke also cut kerself off abruptly. “Yeah, I know first aid.”“Can you tape this for me?” Clint already held the small purple bag out when he turned to look at Bucky again.“I can try, but I don’t know how well I manage.” The insecurity was back in Bucky’s voice.Clint just shrugged and pulled a chair over. “Doesn’t have to be perfect; it just has to hold until tomorrow morning.”Bucky nodded and took the bag. Holding it between kes knees, ke dug through it and pulled out disinfectant and butterfly bandages. “Hold this,” ke instructed, handing Clint the bandages. “I’ll need a little help.” He muttered, but Clint just shrugged.A moment later, ke had cleaned and taped the cut, instructing Clint to hold things and basically using him as a second hand. “It’s not great.” Ke smoothed down the edge of one strip.Clint felt over the bandages and shrugged again. “Probably better than when I do it myself. My coordination with mirrors is rubbish.” He got to his feet and picked up the chair in one swift movement. “Thank you.”“I’ve seen you work earlier. That was pretty impressive.” Bucky commented as ke watched Clint.“Yeah?” Clint plopped down on his bed and threw the kit onto his bag.Bucky chuckled quietly and shook kes head. You still have no idea what I do, do you?”“I know I’ve seen you on set.” He answered defensively and pouted a little.At that, Bucky let out a sound that Clint chose to interpret as a laugh. “I’m with the new sound crew.”“Pfff, that’s almost ironic.” Clint snorted, fidgeting with his phone.The irritated tone and expression were back when Bucky asked. “What is?”“Your job is to make sure the movie sounds good in the end and the audience can understand everything the actors are saying. And every time I’m on screen, I’m basically fully Deaf.” Bucky raised an eyebrow questioningly. “You’re not supposed to be able to tell the difference between me and the actors. And hearing aids would make that pretty easy.” He shrugged. “Sure, I know some folks just have them edited out in the end, but I prefer just not wearing them when we’re rolling.”“That is a little ironic.” Bucky had to agree. Then ke took the remote from kes bedside table and gestured to the TV. “You wanna watch something?”“If it has captions.” Clint shrugged but nodded. “Sure.”They quickly found a movie they both liked and fell into a comfortable silence together. After the first movie, they both got ready for bed but decided to watch the second part instead of going to sleep immediately.Halfway through the movie, Clint took out his hearing aids, and when he looked over at the other bed a few minutes later, Bucky had already fallen asleep.***The next morning, Clint was less than gently shaken awake. Groaning and blinking at the light from the window, Clint turned around to see Bucky holding kes phone up. It took a second until the screen came into focus and Clint saw the time. 7:02.“Aw, futz.” Clint turned back and pulled the blanket over his head. But he knew he had to get up, so he bundled all his energy into some sort of frustrated sound and swung himself into a sitting position.Bucky, who was still in kes pyjamas but wearing kes prosthetic again, stood in the middle of the room, brushing kes hair and raising an eyebrow.“I’m not a morning person, okay?” Clint defended himself as he trotted into the bathroom.They got ready quietly, partly because neither of them was particularly talkative that early in the day and partly because Clint only put his hearing aids in just before they left the hotel room together and Bucky had been wearing earphones most of the time.“Sorry, I hope it was okay that I didn’t...” Clint only realised it was probably not the nicest thing to actively refuse to hear when he shared a room with a stranger.“Nah, it’s fine.” Bucky cut him off with a wave of kes hand. “Sometimes not talking is just nice.”“True…” Clint tried to suppress a yawn, and when he rubbed the sleep from his eyes, he swayed dangerously.Just before he collided with one of the hotel’s hallway-vases, a strong arm around his shoulder pulled Clint back into the middle of the corridor.Of course, that was also the exact moment Steve and Tony came from their room, and the first thing they saw was Bucky wrapping kes arm around Clint and pulling him close.“Uuuuh, looks like someone got lucky.” Tony stage-whispered to his snickering colleague and boyfriend.Almost as one, Clint and Bucky turned around and all but spat out. “I’m not interested in that, and you know it.” The only difference was that, while Clint turned to Tony, Bucky addressed the other actor.For a second, a stunned silence filled the hall until Clint and Bucky turned to look at each other questioningly.“You’re ace?” Clint blurted it out once he found his voice again.“I’m not the one who is generally known as slutty.” Bucky sounded almost hurt.“We’re going to leave you two alone.” Steve commented awkwardly and pulled Tony past Clint and Bucky towards the elevator when the awkward silence went on too long. At first, the shorter man wanted to protest, but with one stern look, Steve put a quick end to that.“Okay, first: Being shirtless a lot is part of my job. It’s not my fault all those hot characters have to be fighting without any protection. And second, I was trying to figure stuff out and also not coping well with… stuff. I don’t do that anymore.”“Hey, I’m not judging you.” Bucky raised kes hand defensively. “I’m just saying I’m not the one anyone was surprised about coming out as Aroace.”“I mean, my friends weren’t that surprised either…” Clint muttered. “Apparently they had bets going on how long it would take me to notice.”Bucky chuckled and nudged Clint with kes elbow. “Come, let’s go get breakfast.”Clint just frowned. “I’m not hungry.” But Bucky pushed him towards the elevator.“Me neither, but it’s a long time ‘til lunch and you need the energy.”“You’re a real mother hen.” Clint signed after the elevator started moving. He didn’t expect Bucky to understand, but ke just raised an eyebrow and signed back.“It’s not nice talking about someone in a language you think they don’t understand. Now go eat something, or I’ll call Natasha.”“That’s not fair.” Clint muttered, but he didn’t dare test Bucky’s threat and followed kem into the dining hall.