Silence.

Clint looked around, there was no sound and yet he could see that there should be. He could see chaos, explosions, robots falling, there should be a deafening amount of sound, so many different sounds overlapping each other that it was hard to differentiate between the different sources. But there wasn't, there was just silence and Clint knew what that meant.

'Shit,' he thought, 'this is really not what I need right now.'

Clint felt a presence behind and turned just in time to see Tony Stark in his Iron Man suit blow up the robot that was just about to attack him. Without his hearing he could not hear the robots that were sneaking up on him, he needed to do something about that fast.

Clint quickly ran towards a building and pressed his back against the wall, this way he would not get surprised from behind again. He carried on fighting any robots that came his way and shot an arrow at any others. He knew that Steve was probably yelling orders at them all through his earpiece but right now there was no way to know what those orders were.

'If I just stay here then when this is over Tasha will figure out what is wrong and come and help me out,' Clint reasoned as he shot another robot that was sneaking up on Thor.

After what felt like hours Tony managed to find and catch the guy who was controlling the robots and the fight was finally over. Clint slumped against the wall that we was backed up against, he hated it when he could not hear anything. His hearing was an important tool for him, especially in battle.

Tony landed next to him and presumably started talking to him but Clint wasn't sure, Tony's faceplate was still down and so he couldn't see his lips moving. Tony turned to look at him, his faceplate still down, a few seconds later.

'He probably asked a question,' Clint reasoned, 'damnit! Why does he have to have a faceplate?'

Having seen the distressed look on Clint's face, Natasha started making her way towards the two avengers.

"Clint?" Natasha said as she walked towards the two, making sure to keep her head facing towards Clint.

Clint's face lit up when he saw that Natasha was finally here. He nodded his head, not trusting his voice when he couldn't hear it and not wanting to use sign language in front of Tony.

"What happened?"

Clint looked over at Tony who had brought his faceplate up by this point. Clint sighed and pointed at his ear hoping that she would understand what he was trying to say.

Natasha, having understood, nodded and grabbed Clint's arm and started to walk towards the other avengers.

As they were walking Natasha subtly signed, "You have to tell them," to Clint. Reluctantly he nodded as they reached the group.

Natasha started talking to everyone and Clint carefully watched her lips to see what she was saying.

"Hey guys. So we need to get back to the tower soon."

"Why?" Steve asked as he looked around at the destruction around them, "Shouldn't we help clear up here?"

"Look, we need to get back because right now Clint can't hear anything and that needs to get sorted out as soon as possible."

The other avengers all turned to look at Clint, worried and confused looks on their faces.

"He can't hear?" Thor asked.

"Did his ears get damaged during the battle?" Bruce asked as he pulled on some clothes having just transformed back from the Hulk.

"No his ears didn't get damaged during the battle. He has had damaged hearing for a long time."

"How bad is the damage?" Tony asked as he looked at Clint, now understanding why his previous question hadn't been answered.

"He's 80% deaf. He uses hearing aids but something happened to them."

Clint tapped Natasha on the shoulder and signed something to her and she translated for the rest of them, "He says that one of the robots hit with an electrical pulse and it shorted out his hearing aids."

"Alright," Steve said in an authoritative voice, "let's get back to the tower. Does he have spares there?"

Natasha nodded at the same time as Clint and the group of superheroes started to walk towards the tower.

As soon as they arrived Clint ran off towards his room to retrieve his spare hearing aids. The other avengers all watched him run off and then turned to Natasha, they were all bursting with questions.

"Why doesn't he keep his spares with him?" Bruce asked.

"He never kept them with him because they could still get damaged. Coulson used to keep a pair with him in case Clint ever needed them, he just never got around to giving a pair to anyone else to look after since Coulson died." Natasha said as the group all sat down in the lounge.

"Why didn't he tell us?" Steve asked as he sat down on a chair next to where Bruce was sat.

"He doesn't like telling people," Natasha said as she took a seat next to Tony on one of the couches, "he didn't think that it was necessary to tell anyone because usually it makes no difference. He didn't even tell me, I found out by accident."

"It was hardly an accident Tasha," Clint said as he walked into the room, he looked much calmer now that he had regained his hearing, "you hacked into S.H.I.E.L.D's systems and looked at my profile."

"I did that," Tony said, "I didn't see anything about you being deaf."

"That's because since Tasha found out I got it removed from my profile as anyone that needed to know did and so it wasn't a necessity to have it on my record," Clint said as he sat down on the other side of Natasha on the couch.

"Were you going to tell us?"

Clint turned to look at Bruce, who had asked the question, "Eventually I probably would have. I don't like people to know my weaknesses so I don't tell people."

"We all have our weaknesses," Steve said.

"I know, I just don't like to broadcast mine around the whole of S.H.I.E.L.D."

"We understand," Thor said as he looked around the room, "Just tell us things in future so that we can help."

Clint nodded in agreement, they were meant to be a team so they had to know things about each other and trust each other. "Alright, but that applies to everyone."

The other avengers all looked at each other and nodded.

"Sure."

"Seems fair."

"So does anyone have any weaknesses that we should know about?" Bruce asked, "I think debilitating fears also count as weaknesses we need to know about. You know in case something happens that you are really scared of and we need to help you out."

"Well..." Steve began but stopped here as all the avengers turned to look at him, "it's not really extreme or anything but... the cold, as in really really cold is something that I try to avoid. It brings back memories of the ice."

They all nodded and made a mental note to make sure that Steve was never extremely cold, it was always best to avoid flashbacks.

Tony looked down at his hands, unsure if he could really speak up and tell them all. "Well, if we are all sharing," Tony took a deep breath, "I'm scared of being surrounded by water."

The avengers all turned to look at Tony, their eyes questioning. "You guys know how I was kidnapped in Afghanistan?" They all nodded, they had all read the profile on Tony, "Well my profile doesn't really go into detail but there was an element of torture involved. They pushed my head underwater repeatedly until I gave in and said that I would build them weapons. Ever since then I have avoided being in water as much as possible."

Tony looked up and saw that Steve, Bruce and Thor were all looking at him, a horrified look in their eyes. Clint and Natasha were looking at him with understanding, they had been through torture training and had experienced the same thing. However for Tony who had not been trained for situations like that, they both dreaded to think what it would have been like for him.

"Alright," Steve said to break the silence, "there will be no secrets about these important things anymore. We are a team and we need to know how to best help each other."

They all nodded in agreement but stayed sat down, most of them looking at their feet, thinking about what had been said.

A few minutes of silence passed before Tony decided to break it, "So... Drinks?"

"Hell yes!" Clint said glad that the silence had been broken, he had had enough silence for the next few weeks.

"Sure," Steve said, he may not be able to get drunk but he figured he may as well join in.

"Excellent idea," came Thor's enthusiastic cry.

Natasha said nothing but nodded at Tony as he started to stand up.

"I'll help," Bruce said as he stood up with Tony to go and fetch glasses and some bottles of whatever alcohol Tony had on hand.

The two men soon returned with glasses and a few bottles that Tony had nearby. They placed it all on the table in front of them before handing each of the avengers a glass and leaving everyone to pour themselves a drink.

When everyone had filled their glass with their chosen beverage they all leaned back in their chairs. Clint was about to take a sip when Steve lifted his glass of the table and said, "Well, we saved the day again."

"I'll drink to that," Tony said as he began to drink. Everyone else took this as a cue that they too could start to drink and soon the tower was filled with laughter and the sound of glasses hitting against each other.