Title: my end, my beginning
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: ~3,100
Characters: Steve/Natasha
Prompt: soulmate au
Summary: No one knows what the importance of the shape is, if there's any importance at all, yet, he's not all that surprised by the small hourglass stamped over his ribcage.
For: iavenge
A/N: Work sucks. I'm sorry about the lag in getting this out, but I fell in love with this au so hard and I hope the result was worth the wait!
my end, my beginning
He remembers the way the mark seared his skin, ghosting over his ribcage and causing him to wince – not quite at the pain (or, not just at the pain) but at the sensation in general because—well, now he knows. Now he knows why his mark never came in his first life, the way it had for all of his classmates. Not that this brings him any closer to knowing who his soulmate is supposed to be, because the marks don't show right away. His mother used to say it was a lot like falling in love – you meet your better half, but that doesn't mean you know just how much they're supposed to change your life. No one really knows what it is that causes the mark to finally show when it does, and right now, he wants to know why.
Why, with the city crumbling around them, his every muscle aching with his effort not to collapse—
Why does it appear now?
A squeak of metal brings him from his thoughts, and he watches as Natasha slumps against a car, taking a moment of quiet to catch her breath. It's a luxury neither of them has had in the last few hours, and, somewhere in the back of his mind, he wonders if it's selfish of them to steal it for themselves.
"Captain, none of this is going to mean a damn thing if we don't close that portal," Natasha tells him, tilting her head up to the portal overhead, and the moment is gone.
"Our biggest guns couldn't touch it." He says this, but his mind is already going elsewhere, taking in their surroundings, their resources, and he thinks—
"Well, maybe it's not about guns," Natasha muses, echoing his thoughts. His eyes snap onto her as a twinge of something shoots through his side. It can't… but maybe…
Not now, he tells himself, and he glances away.
... ...
He sees the mark later, as he dabs a wet cloth to the dried blood over his bruised side, and he lets himself get distracted by it. No one knows what the importance of the shape is, if there's any importance at all, yet, he's not all that surprised by the small hourglass stamped over his ribcage.
Man out of time, he muses with a shake of his head. The Lord has a sense of humor, at least.
... ...
They broach the topic of it in the middle of brunch, while they're gathered on the patio of the penthouse, lounging in the summer sun. Clint is the one that sees, of course, and he gets this bemused expression on his face as points the neck of his beer bottle to the collection of dots on Tony's shoulder, poking out from underneath his muscle shirt.
"Are those supposed to be for Pepper?" he asks, squinting his eyes at the mark.
Tony blinks at the sudden change in conversation. "Yeah," he replies, hooking his thumb underneath the material of his shirt to tug it aside, giving them a better look.
Steve glances but doesn't stare. He's always believed that there's something incredibly intimate about the marks, about having this part of you so exposed to the world, and perhaps this is just another thing that time has changed. He remembers how private marks were as he grew up. It was almost taboo to have them bared so easily, and it was not uncommon for kids to have a new Band-Aid on their arm or leg at school every day just to keep them hidden. He's come to realize that there are very few people that still carry this belief today.
"Hers is right here," Tony goes on, tapping his Arc Reactor.
"Fitting," Bruce says.
"Poor girl must've been traumatized once she realized what it meant," Maria comments. Tony scoffs.
Steve chuckles, and beside him, Natasha shifts in her seat, dabbing at the sweat at her collarbone with a napkin. "You alright?" he asks, soft enough for only her to hear. She grins and nods, but the flush on her cheeks tells him otherwise. It's hot, even under the large patio umbrella, and the fact that she has her hair down probably doesn't help with anything.
He frowns. Maria has her hair up, and Steve is about to ask Natasha if doing the same might help, but he stops as Natasha brings her napkin up again to dab at her neck.
It's a careful motion, fingers curling just so to keep her hair in place, but it's also an absent gesture, as if she's done this time and time before.
As if she's always careful to not expose her neck.
... ...
He catches himself staring sometimes, his impulse going against his beliefs as he searches, trying to catch a glance for any sort of mark on Natasha's neck.
He hates himself a little every time he does it, because—it's rude, he thinks, trying to see this part of her that she's obviously being careful not to show. And he has no real reason to believe that that's where her mark is, but he has a feeling, and so he keeps looking, trying to see. It's a little ridiculous. He thinks that he and Natasha are close enough that she might show him if he just asked. But she's a private person, just like him, and he respects that. He wants to respect that, which is why he tries so hard not to look. But he can't help himself.
"It's forbidden to show it," Clint tells him. It's usually Natasha who spars with him, but today Clint showed up, too, and Steve just went with it.
"What?" Steve asks.
There's that bemused expression of his again. "The mark," Clint clarifies. "Natasha—when she was being trained—she was taught it was forbidden to have it exposed." Clint tips his head back to chug some of his water, then licks his lips and shrugs. "Now it's just habit."
Steve wipes a towel over his face. "Guess I wasn't being all that subtle."
"You were. But I'm still a spy." The way he says it sounds almost like a joke Steve probably wouldn't understand. "She wouldn't mind if it's you asking."
Steve feels a spark of something at the idea of Natasha being comfortable with that, with him being the one to ask, but he shakes his head. "It's not that important," he says, which is the truth—it isn't, and no matter what her mark may be, he's sure it's not going to distract him any less from his urge to always be around her, to get to know every part of her.
... ...
When SHIELD – Hydra – comes after them, they run, and they end up at Sam's, and it isn't until he's standing in the bathroom and staring up into the reflection that the mark even crosses his mind again. He probably had his fair share of opportunities over the last few hours with her to get a good glance, but that was the last thing on his mind given the situation they found themselves in. But now, tucked into the safety of Sam's guest bedroom, the two of them stealing another quiet moment to catch their breaths, the mark crosses his mind again, and this time he can't bring himself to ignore it. He watches as she tugs at the ends of her damp hair with the towel, his eyes following the motion as she pushes her hair back—
And his eyes are drawn to her face, to the ever so slight quiver of her lips, the flutter of her eyelashes as she blinks a little too quickly.
She's shaken, and he knows she's been ever since Nick died. But seeing it on her face is something he wasn't expecting. Not in this moment, at least.
He sets his towel down, makes his way over to her, and his chest squeezes a little at the way her face calms completely as soon as she realizes the attention that's now on her. You don't have to hide, he thinks – wants to say – but he doesn't, and he hates that he can't.
"What's going on?" he asks instead, meeting her eyes, and any thought he has about her mark is already gone.
... ...
He feels the press of her kiss on his cheek even after she's pulled away, stepping away from him, and his first urge is to reach for her and pull her back. But he's not selfish enough to do so, so he just watches as she steps away, and there's a stupid flutter of something akin to hope in his chest when she pauses her stride.
"Be careful, Steve," she tells him, turning to meet his eyes again. Her smile is gone, expression serious, but her eyes are overwhelming. "You might not want to pull on that thread."
Then she turns again, his eyes drawing to the hair grazing her jacket collar as she leaves.
... ...
"First time I've seen yours," Sam tells him as he stands to the side, out of Maria's way as she cleans out the gash on Steve's chest. It's already healing – he can tell – and before, he wouldn't have bothered to do anything with it, but between Maria and Tony and now Helen in his ear about proper treatment, he doesn't put up much of a fight anymore when one of them insists on cleaning his cuts. Steve furrows his eyebrows at Sam, and even Maria pauses for a second, following his gaze downward until she realizes what he's talking about.
Steve lifts a hand, touching the pad of his thumb to the hourglass.
"Really?" he asks. Steve doesn't make it a point to show it or anything, but the marks are kind of common knowledge amongst their growing circle of friends by now.
Maria has the silhouette of a wing on her right shoulder blade, Sam a curved slope above his right ankle. Helen has this sort of asterisk-like shape high on her left arm, Clint a laurel branch inside his left wrist, Thor an X just above his right hip. They even know that Nick's is a jagged line under this left eye.
Maybe because of the placement, Steve's is the only one that isn't exposed rather easily. His, and Natasha's, he realizes with a sort of tug in his chest.
He hasn't seen her in weeks, which is still the most he's seen her in the last year since SHIELD fell. After that day at the cemetery, he'd gone three whole months before seeing her again, and it was almost by accident, because he happened to be in New York visiting Pepper and Tony when she was in town, dropping files off to the guy from Nick.
He's not arrogant enough to believe that she's avoiding him, specifically. She wanted to leave everything behind, if only for as long as she could hold out, and he understands why.
But he can't quite get rid of this feeling that she's distancing herself from him for as long as possible.
"You alright?" Maria asks, casting a strange glance at him. She prods gently at the bandaging now placed above his chest. "Does it hurt?"
"No," he tells her, maybe a little too quickly. "No, it's fine."
... ...
She's cut her hair the next time he sees her, which happens to be a year after that day in the cemetery, almost to the date. (Not that he's been counting or anything.) It's shorter – the shortest he's seen her hair since he first met her in New York – yet her curls still manage to cover her neck, grazing the collar of her dress. Somehow he's not surprised.
She's barely said two words to him all night, and that doesn't really surprise him, either. He isn't any less bothered by it, though.
"Okay, what's up?" Sam asks, handing him one of the scotches from the bartender. As extravagant as Tony's parties always are, Steve will admit to liking them if only for the quality alcohol he manages to unearth for the occasion.
"What?" Steve asks.
"You know what," Sam says, and Steve does. Sam is by no means a nosy person, but he's taken a particular interest in Steve and Natasha as of late, right around the time Steve stopped talking about her altogether. Before this mission, he'd gone a little over a month without seeing her, though she knew she was around. He heard as much from Maria. He knows Sam has hung out with them in the city whenever they ventured downtown, too. Steve was invited, of course, but he copped out every time. "Why are you avoiding her?"
"I'm not." It sounds unconvincing even to his own ears, but he can't really help it. "We've been busy."
"Even right now, at the exact same party, and no excuse in the world to not go up to her and catch up?" Sam gives him a look. "Did something happen?"
"Of course not," Steve says, and the truth of those words hits him harder than he expected. Nothing happened. Nothing will ever happen.
Sam shakes his head, glancing over at Natasha, and Steve can't help but follow his gaze. "You two," he starts, but then trails off, letting out a breath as they watch Natasha busy herself behind the bar, eyes shifting every so often to where Bruce is hovering. "I don't get what happened."
That makes two of us, Steve thinks, taking a gulp of scotch.
... ...
He watches them flirt all night, and he wasn't lying. It is different, the way she flirts with Bruce, and as reluctant as he'd been to come to terms with it, Bruce is still his friend. He's not about to lie to him over the sake of some fleeting connection he probably just imagined. But it's fine. He tells himself it doesn't matter anymore.
Then she smiles at him, thin-lipped and unlike any smile she's given him before, and he meets her eyes, something he hasn't quite done since that day in the cemetery—
And his hand almost slips on the handle of Mjolnir.
"Nothing," Thor teases, a deep chuckle rumbling from his chest as Steve steps away, hands up in surrender.
Natasha's smile eases ever so slightly, eyes sparkling with amusement and something else he can't quite place as he holds her gaze again before turning her attention to Bruce.
It doesn't matter anymore, he tells himself. It's his most unconvincing lie yet.
... ...
He stands with her on the edge of a falling, crumbling city, a bittersweet wave of nostalgia in the air as they steal quite possibly their last moment of quiet together. Her gaze is fixed on the horizon, and he can't really argue with her words. The view is beautiful. But it's certainly not the last thing he wants to see when he dies.
He turns his head to her, studying her gentle expression, the slight curve of her lips, the wind blowing her curls into her face. She looks serene. She looks completely at peace.
He can't stop himself from staring.
... ...
She shows up on his doorstep with a bottle of whiskey in hand and that slight smile of hers that has been his undoing since they stood together in the ruins of New York, the world opening up overhead. She doesn't ask to be invited in – she doesn't say anything, really, other than a soft hey that he barely catches – but of course he lets her in. Not only because things have bridged between them since Sokovia, or because she's become his partner again in this new chapter they've found themselves in—but because he'll always let her in.
She sits on the couch with her legs tucked up underneath her, body angled towards him, gripping her glass of Jack Daniels like a lifeline.
"I'm sorry, you know," she says after a long moment. She's gazing past him and into his kitchen, but her stare is unfocused. "I screwed it up."
I screwed us up, he knows she wants to say.
He nods slightly, still staring at her face, until her eyes slide slowly to meet his, and then his curiosity gets the better of him. "Why?" he asks, voice barely coming out. It's the question that's been lingering in the back of his thoughts over the past year.
Why did she pull away from him? Why did she avoid him? Why did she walk away from him so easily?
Why?
"Because you scared me."
He blinks, taken aback by her answer. Her lips tug into a bit of a grin.
"I saw," she says quietly, and before he can ask what she means, she reaches the small distance between them, fingertips pressing against his chest. His entire body tenses at her touch, feels a warmth against his skin through the material of his shirt where she presses her fingers, ghosting over his skin as her hand settles over his ribcage. "In D.C. when they had to operate on you—I saw your mark." She presses a little harder and he swears he holds his breath. "I saw, and then I panicked and ran, because I knew exactly what it meant."
He furrows his eyebrows ever so slightly. He knows – he thinks he knows what she's talking about, but he needs her to say it. He needs to be sure.
"Out of time," she breathes, pressing her thumb right over the spot he knows his mark is, and he brings his hand up to cover hers, squeezing ever so slightly. "Don't know how I knew that it meant me, but…" She shrugs a shoulder, a smile playing at the edge of her lips. "I just did."
"How did you know that your mark meant me?"
He asks this, but then she leans in closer, hair falling from her neck with the motion, and his senses are entirely distracted by her.
"I just did," she echoes, and when she kisses him, he tucks his fingers into her hair, thumb smoothing over her neck.
... ...
He crowds into her space, bodies flushed together as he presses as close as physically possible, and she – every time – will let out this little sound that he loves when his lips graze her mark at the curve of her neck. She clings to him a little tighter, one hand tightening its grip on him as the other skims down his front, circling over the side of his ribcage.
He takes his time loving her, just as he'd taken his time falling in love with her, and she likes it that way. They really are perfect for each other.