ʙᴀʀᴛᴏɴ (cauterising) wrote in somerealityrpg, @ 2021-02-20 21:31:00 |
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Mornings weren’t usually Clint’s thing at the best of times, and he knew that Natasha mostly humoured his deep hatred for getting out of bed before at least ten in the morning. But the last few days, between the insomnia that struck just whenever, the repairs to the villa, he was more annoyed with mornings, but also afternoons, and evenings and night in general too.
He knew he was grouchy in general right then, and it was partly sleep deprivation and partly the incessant pain in his skull that refused to shift. It might be something to worry about, but it wasn’t really like he had the time to do that either.
There was only so long he could bury his face into Natasha’s neck though, given that there was still some repairs to deal with and life to get back to, the hope that by then the headache would fuck off just had to hold fast.
Rolling onto his back with a groan, Clint frowned a little at how pitch-black the room was, given it should be sometime mid-morning. Reaching towards the side table, Clint hit the lamp to turn it on, presumably lighting up the room…
Except it was still pitch-black. “Nat… is the light busted?” He was sure it was working last night.
The last couple of weeks had been hard on everyone. Natasha had been doing whatever she could to fight the monsters as well as checking on James and Clint. She was fairly certain that Clint was hurt worse than he was letting on, but that wasn’t unusual for him. Mostly she just let him complain while keeping a sharp eye on him and hoping he didn’t notice.
She was surprised when he asked her if the light was working because there was sunshine coming through the window and no need for a lamp, but before she could fire off a sassy answer, she looked at him more closely. Something about him looked different, his eyes……..he didn’t seem to be focusing on anything, and she sucked in a breath. “No, the light’s fine, you just turned it on.” She shifted around so that she could see his face more clearly and then held up two fingers. “How many fingers am I holding up?”
There were plenty of times when Clint had been forced to get used to total darkness -blindfolds, captive, missions without any light for visibility. He could deal with it, his eyes tended to adjust. But there was nothing to adjust to, least of all when Tasha told him the light was on.
“I’d have a sassy guess, but I can’t fucking see.” There was a hint of panic in his voice, because that nagging feeling that something was more wrong than he was prepared to look at was almost laughing in his head at the fact that he couldn’t see Natasha to guess where her hand was, never mind how many fingers she waved in his face.
The urge to clamber out of bed was there, but he likely would just clatter into things and draw attention and he’d rather to anything but that. A shaky hand reached out to grab for Natasha, finding her elbow where she was presumably still holding up those fingers.
“Tash, I can’t see.” Definitely panicking now.
She moved her arm and took his hands in hers. Seeing him scared wasn’t something she’d seen very many times just as he’d been one of the few people to ever see her cry. “I know, babe,” she said quietly. “Take a deep breath for a minute and just hold on to my hands. I’m right here, I’m not going anywhere, okay? If I have to get up or move, I’ll tell you first.” Natasha couldn’t imagine what it must be like for him. After all, they called him Hawkeye for a reason. “You haven’t been having episodes like this and not telling me, have you? I just want to make sure this is something new and not something that you know will come and go.” The panic in his voice told her that it wasn’t.
“So you still have the headache?” she knew he hadn’t been feeling well since he’d hurt himself trying to help Nate and Tor. He’d also been working too hard to get things in the building back to normal but she’d known better than to tell him that. Mostly because she’d been working as hard as he had. “Nothing else different? I’m sorry to ask so many questions, but we need to figure out how to help you, so I gotta know.”
It was a lot at once, and Clint’s mind was mostly swirling with the fact that everything was in darkness, while he was entirely aware his eyes were open, he just couldn’t see a single thing. Gripping to Natasha’s hands at least gave him some kind of steadying reassurance -he trusted Nat with his life, with everything, they were both keenly aware now that they’d die for one another. It didn’t quell the panic entirely, but it did settle a little something.
“No,” he hadn’t lost his vision entirely, although the persistent headache had routinely caused him to jam his thumbs into his eye sockets in an attempt to push the irritation away. “Slight blurring here and there,” he’d completely lost focus a few times, but with the insomnia he’d put it down to that, “headache hasn’t ever really quit.”
And he did know it wasn’t a good sign, but he’d had enough concussions to know how to handle them without being poked or prodded, and he hadn’t really had the energy to deal with a bright light being shone in his face. “Felt a bit nauseous sometimes, but this is… I cannot see a single thing.”
He drew his knees up, resisting the urge to push the heels of his hands into his eye sockets, knowing it wouldn’t make a difference. “Fuck, I hate this already.” It wasn’t the need to cling to Natasha just to ground himself, but it was the lack of awareness of what was around them, potential threats, changes in the environment, what was happening outside of their space. He hated not being able to tell.
“Don’t say that,” she said. “It could be a side effect of your concussion that didn’t show up right away for some reason. Compared to some head injuries you’ve had this one wasn’t so bad.” She would know since she had given him a few of those head injuries. Banging his head against the metal catwalk of the helicarrier came to mind. It worked though, even if it was a rather extreme method of getting an unwelcome visitor out of someone’s head.
He needed to see a doctor but convincing him of that might not be easy. There were very few medical people that Clint trusted and sadly the one he had trusted the most wasn’t here anymore. “Is there anyone in the building that you’d let take a look at you? A medical person I mean. I know you don’t want to go out.” It was too dangerous at the moment whether one could see or not, but she also knew that he wouldn’t want anyone to know what was happening. He’d talk about it when he was ready.
Concussions weren’t exactly standard, and Clint did know that there could be a side effect he hadn’t thought about. Going blind hadn’t really cropped up in his experience before -delirium, hallucinations, mild memory loss, sure those were familiar enough. Hell, he’d had his sight go a blurry mess when he was six days deep into insomnia and sleep deprivation really set in.
“Usually crack the front of my head,” maybe it was the placement of the injury, since he absolutely saw stars for a minute or two afterwards. “Or get kicked in the face.” Which was a tease, and an attempt to hopefully convey that while this was the most messed up situation ever, he was glad that Natasha was right there.
It would’ve been Christine he’d sent her to get, except Christine had been gone for a while, and as much as Clint had just kept up with the medications she’d given him, going through the bouts of insomnia far less frequently because of it. “Joan, the one that patched up Nate’s head a couple weeks back.” Because of course his kid hit his head a lot. “You could get her.”
“Sometimes nothing besides a good kick in the face will work. And if I recall correctly, it did.” She, too, had thought of Joan. Natasha hadn’t spent a great deal of time with her but she’d met her in medical a couple of times and remembered her from when she had been there before and had taken over chaperoning the kid’s floor. From what she could see, she was a good doctor. “That’s who came to my mind too. She’s smart, and I think she was a trauma surgeon? I heard that somewhere. Either way she can look at you and tell us if we need to get you to a hospital.” She hoped that wouldn’t be necessary because Clint was as good at being a patient as she was, which is to say, not at all.
“I’ll go get her. Do you want me to help you go pee or anything before I go?” Let no one ever say, Natasha was not practical. “I can get you some water, I don’t know if coffee is a good idea until Joan takes a look at you. I assume you don’t want me to mention anything to Lila and Nate if they’re here? I’m pretty sure Lila isn’t, but Nate might be in his room.” She knew that Nate wouldn’t just appear in their room out of nowhere, he’d text one of them or knock, so it would be easy enough for Clint to not let on that anything was wrong.
“Jesus Christ, that’s depressing Nat.” He wasn’t a good patient, and even those times his ass had been laid up, he wasn’t good at accepting help to do basic things, even when he probably should. “I’m… it’s fine, just… If Nate’s home tell him to walk the fucking dogs. Should give plenty of time.”
Lila was more prone to spending the night with Oliver, and Clint was fine with that, she was an adult (which took getting used to) and Oliver wasn’t so bad. But Nate would freak out, and they really needed to limit the household to one freak out at a time. And he was definitely claiming this one for himself.
“Okay, yeah, Joan works, that’s… yeah.” Giving in, Clint took his hands to shove his heels into his eyeballs. “Chuck a shirt on the bed, I’ll put that on while you’re gone.” Which didn’t make his blood run cold, he knew she’d be back, it was just a matter of not focusing on how long she was gone.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean for it to come out that way. I’ll tell him to walk the dogs. You’re right, that will keep him occupied for a while. Hopefully he won’t come back with another one.” She hated to leave him even though she wouldn’t be gone that long, but Nat knew he was scared. She was scared too, but there was nothing they could do at the moment and once Joan had seen him, they’d both feel better. Hopefully it was just a temporary thing.
Natasha moved his hands away from his eyes. “Stop that. It’s not going to help.” Sliding off the bed, she opened a drawer and found a shirt and handed it to him, which did accomplish her goal of getting his hands out of his eyes. “I’m going to throw on a sweatshirt and some jogging pants and go get Joan. I won’t be gone too long”
Clint knew that snapping at Nat wasn’t going to change anything, and he didn’t want to get at her about something that really wasn’t her fault. “Maybe he can adopt a fucking guide dog.” Now that was the really depressing thought.
He didn’t fight her on moving his hands, or taking the shirt she gave him. Sleep pants and t-shirt would do, it wasn’t like he was going to fight to get into some clothes right now. “Well, I’ll be here. I’m not stupid enough to try and wander off. Fuck knows I don’t need to break my leg falling over Nate’s games.” He pulled the shirt on, flopping back on the bed to lie there, in the dark, feeling sorry for himself.
Natasha pulled on her own clothes and then stood looking at him. She’d seen him this way before, and usually she’d have a mouthy retort but not this time. If it were her, she’d be acting the exact same way, and she knew it. They were two halves of one whole, always had been even when they couldn’t be together the way they were now. It was why they could work together even though she had never stopped loving him.
“He’d just get the biggest guide dog ever, and it would drag you around because you know Nate believes go big or go home when it comes to dogs.” She walked over to him and leaned in to kiss his cheek. “We’ve gotten through worse, we’ll get through this. You know that.” That was the way she looked at it. They were in this together regardless, but she had a feeling that things would turn out okay in the end. When did she become such an optimist, she wondered?
Clint genuinely just had to sigh at the whole situation.
He’d had numerous injuries over the years, wore scars from some that almost ended his life, had minor injuries that remained on his body just for the stories they brought. He’d dealt with bullet wounds that threatened his mobility, breaks that took a lot to work back to health with, losing his mind and regaining it.
But there was something far deeper about his sight. His life had revolved largely around what he could see, his sight was an intricate part of his job, even day to day.
And there was this stuck something in his chest at the notion that it might not be reversible, that his brain took too many hits and his gray matter was done with him. And what would that mean for everything.
He had to stuff it back, waiting silently for Nat to come back with help, hopefully with a solution.
Natasha was relieved to find Joan in her apartment. She would have hunted her down if she had to but this meant that Clint wouldn’t have to wait so long. He didn’t need to be alone with his thoughts too long especially since she had a good idea what those thoughts might be. As soon as Natasha explained the situation to her, Joan asked one of her roommates to watch Arthur and the two women went back to Clint’s bedside.
“Hey you, we’re back,” she said and went to sit beside him in the bed. “Joan’s here, she’s going to take a look at you.”
Clint couldn’t really tell if Nat had been gone for several hours or barely minutes, given that he was left to his own devices with no way to properly track the passage of time if he didn’t want to count the fucking seconds -which he couldn’t have done anyway because of the panic spiral he was trying to talk himself out of anyway.
So Nat reappearing with Joan was something of a relief if only so that he wasn’t left inside his own head much longer.
“Hey Clint, can you do me a favour and try to sit on the edge of the bed just now?” Hearing the details from Natasha, at least what she assumed was most of the details, gave Joan something of a bad feeling. Concussions were tricky, in that most of the time people didn’t take them as seriously as they needed to. It was a traumatic brain injury, after all, and hearing that Clint had a history of them was deeply concerning.
Getting Clint upright, perched on the bed, Joan pulled the kit she’d grabbed as she left Arthur under Enola’s watch, and took out her small torch. “What other symptoms have you had?” Since vision loss was a pretty serious symptom if it came on its own.
“Headache, some nausea, coordination issues.” And since they were being honest with the doctor to try and fix his eyes, “Probably some irritability issues?”
As Joan shone her torch directly into Clint’s eyes, getting no reaction from him or his pupils, she glanced at Natasha to see if there was something Clint had skipped.
“Clint has insomnia and has been working hard to clean up the building, so I didn’t notice anything really different. The nausea I didn’t know about until just now.” She shot Clint a look even though he couldn’t see it. “He just woke up this morning and couldn’t see anything.” She was trying not to let on how worried she was but the concern on Joan’s face made her uneasy. Natasha had been through enough concussions of her own and a few of Clint’s to understand how serious this could be.
“Is it out of the ordinary for this kind of symptom to show up when it’s been a week or more since the injury?” That was what kept bothering her. The other symptoms she’d seen him have before but not a complete loss of sight.
Joan nodded at the additions from Natasha, getting a little more of a picture from things. “Okay, I need to check the back of your head,” the torch was put away, Joan smoothing her gloved hands up the back of Clint’s skull from his neck upwards, noting the tightness and the flinch when she got to an impressive bump. “Well, it’s not common for these side effects with concussions, but you had to remember, it is a brain injury, and the brain is very unpredictable.”
Given Clint’s history of brain injuries, brain fuckery and the general shit show his brain was at times, it didn’t really bode well for him in the long run. “So… what does that mean?”
“You’ve got an impressive knock on the back of your head, right where your occipital lobe is. That’s the portion of the brain that controls vision. Now, you’d need an MRI to confirm it, but I’m guessing the concussion caused swelling on the occipital which has reactively affected your sight.” It was an extreme case, but if the history of head injuries was something to go by, there was a chance the grey matter was already fairly damaged.
“Is there a chance the swelling will go down on it’s own? Or is there some kind of medicine he can take?” Natasha had no idea but there had to be something. “And he’d have to go to the hospital for an MRI obviously.” That idea wouldn’t please Clint but she didn’t want to miss anything that might help fix this thing It was hard watching him this way, feeling his frustration and trying not to let him know how she was feeling.
“There’s a chance, there’s also a chance it could be a ruptured vessel, or that a fragment of bone is pressing on something,” Joan didn’t want to peddle out the worst case scenarios when this was clearly already a high-tension situation, but she couldn’t stress enough that with the brain there really wasn’t a way to know for sure without tests. “The MRI is really the only way to know for sure.”
And none of that sounded fun, potential for traumas from before biting him in the ass now was not ideal at all. But going in… well, blind, also wasn’t ideal.
“Once it’s clear what is wrong there will be options, it could go away on its own, it could take a minor operation or just some medication. But without knowing for sure what it is, I can’t give you a recovery time.” Joan knew these things were fickle, and she didn’t want to tell them one thing and then another was the case. Having the cards on the table was better.
As much as Clint hated the notion of a hospital, or sitting around waiting, his sight wasn’t really something he could just take a chance on. “Okay so… we get the MRI and… go from there?”
Natasha let out a breath. She was glad he didn’t protest, given how he felt about hospitals and she certainly didn’t blame him. “I think that’s a good idea. At least we’ll know what we’re dealing with and how to handle it.” She refused to believe that he would lose his sight permanently. This place had given them so much, surely it wouldn’t take something so important away. Or would it?
“How soon can we get it done?” she asked, turning to Joan. “I don’t know how that kind of thing works in Fake New York. I’d hope it would be faster than real New York.” As real as Goodland was, Natasha knew that ultimately they were at the mercy of whoever or whatever this entity was.
The lack of fighting on the issue definitely made it easier -Joan knew she could suggest asking one of the magical people, but there were still some people who didn’t trust it, and she was a woman of science and medicine. “I can get you in this afternoon, there’s very few non-Villa related emergencies in the hospital, so I can clear it.”
The sooner they knew what had happened the sooner they could get things dealt with for recovery. “I need to stress this likely will not be an instant fix. If surgery is needed it might still take a few days for the swelling to subside and your eyesight to return. I can’t ball park this for you, but it’s not going to happen over night.” She knew they were both part of the group that went out when things like this happened, who fought to protect what was being built here, so she disliked that she couldn’t wave a magic wand for them. But she could hope it would be a positive outcome.
Clint just sighed heavily; not having his sight for any length of time was too long, but he knew better than most pushing things likely wouldn’t help either. Hand flailing out in Natasha’s direction, going almost solely on the sound of her voice and the knowledge that she wouldn’t have been far, Clint just wanted to grip on. “Something is better than not knowing at all.”
He’d just need to grind his teeth through it.
She reached out and took his hand, giving it a squeeze. If there was a way she could give him some of her own vision, she’d do it without hesitation but that wasn’t possible so for now, she’d give him some comfort, knowing he’d understand that no matter what happened, she’d be with him all the way.
“Then that’s what we’ll do. I think we’ll all feel better when we have some definitive answers,” At least Joan hadn’t flat out said that there wasn’t anything that could be done which was a relief. It was going to be okay, she told herself. It had to be.