Cupid

Chapter One: Stupid Cupid, Stop Pickin' On Me

"Well Fuck."

The capital F was important. It stood for "Frankly Ulcers Can Kill," as in he felt a lethal ulcer forming because of the given circumstances. Those weren't things a person said upon meeting the love of their life, with a capital F or otherwise. However, Clint had never been a normal person. Not even in the unusual fellow sort of sense – he was literally not a person. To be more precise he was a Cupid. 'Match Maker, Match Maker make me a match'. That kind. He had wings and everything (though they were tiny – no bigger than a quail's wings, not even restaurant quality). Clint even had an inexhaustible set of magic love sparking arrows, though that's getting ahead of things.

More important than all the menial tidbits about Cupids and their duties was the fact that Clint could see the love strings that connected any random person to any other random person. They came in a multitude of colors from platonic friendly yellow to Roxanthin Red for romantic love, invisible and intangible to non Cupids. He once followed a rosebud pink line from a quiet girl on a city bus to a farm hand several miles away. The string connected the two by their ring fingers over the long distance without snagging. Clint pricked the woman with an arrow (just as invisible to her as her own love line) with an urge to stop by the farm one day soon. As far as he knew the couple was still happily married.

After years of adapting to the various shades of strings, Clint learned to zone them out. It was like lingering too long in a room with clocks. Eventually all the annoyances faded away. Clint hadn't acknowledged a love string in months.

Today though, moments away from killing the Black Widow (reiterate: THE BLACK WIDOW), Clint was blinded by a glaring neon red string that wove around the woman's pointer finger and stabbed directly into Clint's heart. His heart, not his ring finger – the difference was important. Black Widow was his soulmate but he wasn't hers. The strings only attached themselves when potential lovers have contact. For the City-Farm couple it was at a farmer's market, for Clint it was staring down a scope when Black Widow turned to look at him. He froze and dropped his bow without hesitation.

The result of the new bond left Clint winded and reeling. It was like taking a battering ram to the chest. Pretty soon an entire SWAT brigade would barge through the hole in his heart to defuse the situation. Until that metaphor settled, Clint was dodging Black Widow's strike as best he could. In the precious moments after Clint dropped his guard, Black Widow climbed up to his position like a dog ready to flush out birds.

Clint sucked when it came to hand-to-hand. Coulson had told him so more than once. Whenever he fought with his fists, Clint found himself tracking wind speeds and where the best snipe points were instead of dodging. The same was true now. Black Widow was a woman worth her reputation. Although covered in dirt and her fair share of blood, the woman was beautiful as a ruffed up ruby. Perhaps a bit on the thin side but hey, Siberia was cruel to weight reserves.

Clint also suffered from an "images in mirror are closer than they appear" situation. He liked a distance between himself and an enemy. This close he forgot how quick things moved. Black Widow on the other had moved like she used men like Clint to mop the floor. She probably had. Horrified affection pooled in Clint's gut as he ran for his life. He blamed the damn string for that. At least his soul mate was kickass.

"Can't we talk this out? I don't want to fight you anymore. I threw my bow away! That's gotta count for something, right?"

Stupid, stupid, stupid. He shouldn't have chucked his bow but the weapon scalded his hands – emotionally in any case. The moment the strings connected, Clint knew he was done. Once he'd shot a mark he was connected to and it nearly killed him. That one had a thin eraser pink string, hardly even a color to be considered red. If he shot Black Widow he'd be yanking out what was left of his heart, like a plug to a sink. Everything Clint was would drain away until he was a husk. He'd seen it happen to another Cupid before. It was horrible beyond description; like all the color in the world turned sour. Also, Black Widow was hot and it'd be a shame to kill off two sweet asses with one arrow, if Clint did say so himself.

Clint kicked her back but Black Widow used his momentum against him. Clint rolled like he was trying to set a record, over the gravel and shards of ice. Tiga climate sucked worse than his fighting skills. He lunged out of the way as his other half came at him with a knife.

Uhhhg, he didn't like the sound of that, not one bit. What the hell, Universe? Hadn't they done enough to him? Clint thanked whoever was still on his side in the cosmos that Black Widow didn't have any more bullets to empty into his face like she'd done to the other members of his team (hopefully James could get plastic surgery – it came with the SHIELD benefits package).

Clint sprang up and skidded away from Black Widow as his equilibrium cussed him out. Note to self, rolling away is a bad idea.

"What's your name?" Clint asked with a frantic confidence. Like genius and insanity, hilarity and hysteria ran a thin line. "I mean aside from Black Widow. What do your friends call you?"

He asked in port to distract her and in part because he couldn't stop wanting to know her. His sharp eyes catalogued her movement, the way her hips or her hair swayed, and that perfect bow of her lips. It sucked being in love, especially when the emotion collided with you like a freight train.

"Friends? No? No friends?"

Black Widow kept coming with spin kicks and a knife aimed at his face. She made no sound and her eyes were as frigid as the sleet pouring down around them. Oh, Clint hated that look. He hated it more than the fact he was infatuated with a mark. Those were the eyes of someone already dead, following the chain of command with no more resistance than laundry being hung out to dry. Clint saw the expression on suicide bombers in Iraq. The love strings disappeared first in a radiant green flame. The conscious decision of death over life always resulted in the same tragic brilliance, even in men with black colored strings.

Black Widow had the same expression but her – their string shone with an intensity to make the sun wear shades. It was hot to the touch and alive! So alive and begging for Clint's attention that he knew somewhere under the mask and makeup and programming that made Black Widow was a woman desperate for help. Somewhere under the world's best assassin was the woman of Clint's soul.

"What about your family?"

No reaction. He dodged a quick swipe but got tripped by a foot. Their string twisted between the two like a glowing, writhing eel. As Clint stumbled and cart-wheeled away the string pulled slack like a fishing line. Clint kicked up a flurry of snow. If Black Widow really wanted to, he'd be dead by now. That thought kept him talking.

"That's alright. My family's dead – at least the parts that mattered. My older brother is a bastard. You have any siblings? Middle child, I'd guess. Got that vibe about you. Oldest children are shackled with responsibilities and the youngest gets all the love. I know that's right. Just about the only thing my parents could agree on was spoiling me rotten until the day they died."

Black Widow snarled under her breath as she attacked and Clint counted it as a win. They danced around each other now, both with their paws at the ready. Someone got Widow's code name wrong. She was more of a tigress. Clint removed his guns and his knives, tossing them aside without a look. Black Widow tracked the weapons with her eyes, gaunt shock about her face. Clint shrugged. Honestly, he knew he was crazy at this point.

"The middle child gets left alone to decide who they are. That's you, right? You decide your own path, don't you?"

"You talk too much," Widow said.

First words out of her mouth. Clint wanted to dance. Instead he got socked in the throat. Clint squawked and wheezed at once, which was as unpleasant as it sounded. Caught in the whirlwind of dizzy agony, he tumbled into the wet snow and spat up something gross. Although down, he could have had his throat slit, not punched. Perhaps there was hope yet.

"You know nothing of my childhood," Black Widow bit. She kicked him over and put a knee to his gut, her blade to his throat. Still wheezing, Clint's drew red lines in his skin against the knife, though none of them were more than a paper-cut in depth.

"I know you aren't one to be controlled." Black Widow yanked him by his hair, tugging a few locks loose. Clint winced then laughed. It strained his throat so much he started hacking again. "You know you're on a leash and more than anything want to gnaw it off. I know what that's like."

"You know nothing of what it's like."

They were so close now; flush together, an eye lash's distance from kissing. Fire made its way into Black Widow's glacial eyes and he was so happy to see the emotion he wanted to sing.

"Why didn't you kill me? You had the shot. You had the shot for twenty seconds."

"Thirty-seven," Clint corrected. "I had you before taking out your men."

She yanked his hair again, arched his neck for slaughter. Clint breathed heavy through his nose, every rational thought screaming at him to move but his blood was cool and perfect in Black Widow's presence. Maybe the Universe was onto something; he felt good.

"I didn't take the shot because I didn't want to be the one to stop you when you're so close to breaking free. You feel it, right? Maybe not today, maybe not this moth but sometime soon you're planning to overthrow your handler and escape."

"Shut up."

"You're not going to kill me either, are you?"

"I said shut up!" She kicked him again and dragged the knife. Clint swallowed and tried not to giggle from adrenaline. He needed to focus, needed to center himself with his arching mind set. Being so close was really throwing him. "I can kill you now; bleed you like a deer."

"You can. And then what? Go back to your handler? Not after this. Not when you're so close to getting away."

"What do you mean?"

"You're alive . . . but you're dead right now. Going back to your handler is a sure-fire way to crawl back into your grave. Just come back with me and be alive."

Did he read that off the back of a dime store romance? He had to have read that off of a cheap novel. Clint made fun of men who spoke like that; all heartfelt and meaningful while tripping on their face down and up escalator.

Black Widow seemed to agree. Her sharp mask cracked as a laugh tore from her chest. She dropped the knife and then his hair to hold onto his coat collar. Black Widow curved in on herself in a fit of giggles, worried little noises like snapping twigs. Clint had no idea what was going on but he grinned up at her and couldn't help but join in. When she started to shake with a hysteric emotion that curled his toes, Clint reached up to touch her face. Black Widow didn't cry but her eyes were squinted shut. Along their line, the string fluctuated in color like a sign with flickering lights. It settled on red quartz, fragile but beautiful. She accepted Clint's palm against her cheek, his dirty and numb fingers smearing blood across her nose.

"What's your name?" he urged again.

"Romanoff."

The name fit so well it was like she was a story-book character. Stunned but not entirely surprised that his soul mate bore a name with such a fearsome reputation, Clint smiled.

"It's nice to meet you Romanoff. Would you like to see my helicopter?" He wiggled his eyebrows as she scoffed.

Just like that the moment was gone. Romanoff stepped off him and retrieved her knife. She sent a flat, warning look to shank him if he made any sudden moves. Clint couldn't stop smiling – interacting with Romanoff was like when he added fire to one of his stunts at the circus. If the fun wasn't dangerous it wasn't fun at all.

"Is that what you say to all the girls?"

"Only the ones I want to impress."

He moved to a sitting position, watching Romanoff as she stared right back. Her left hand twitched and dull excitement was about her eyes. They were actually going to do this. Clint wasn't dead and he'd somehow convinced his soulmate to come back with him. The hell did that even mean? No one taught him about this. Before today he didn't even think Cupids could have soulmates. A love connection, yeah, but love was easy. People loved their food and their TV shows and their pets. A soulmate though, that was something decided before a person was born by whoever The Powers That Be are. The short answer was that Clint was in some deep shit.

"Coulson, I have a situation," he said into his mike. "I don't think you're going to like it."

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For the first third of Clint's life he had no idea what he was. At puberty, his parents decided. At puberty they would explain his heritage and duties. The same process was expected for his older brother, Barney. Until the boys were old enough to see the strings that connected lovers they had no reason to know their family's history, especially since the parents were defected from the clan. Until then the Barton boys would be raised as perfect mortals.

It was a good plan but best laid plans are subject to a wrench in their system. For the Bartons it was a car crash. Clint and Barney (both under ten) were scooped up by Child Protective Services and dumped into foster care. From there the unstoppable force that was Barney fled with Clint to the circus. Both boys remained unaware of their heritage for another handful of years until Clint started noticing girls. Up high on his perch, Clint liked to watch the goings on of guests and workers. Better than that, he got to check out the butts and boobies of every cute girl.

Much to his surprise, he noticed a string connecting his brother to his most recent girlfriend by their pointer fingers. The string looked like wool woven into light and its orange color felt fleeting to Clint. To be honest Clint didn't think Monica was the right match for his brother. That acknowledgement surprised Clint. Never before had he paid any attention to the romances of his brother or anyone else for that matter. All of a sudden he could look at a person and know who would be a perfect match for them. Clint scoffed at himself and trained harder with his archery.

He asked Barney about the string later when the strange string was still there and stretched an impossible distance with Monica gone. Barney denied the string's existence even though it was bright and almost tangible to Clint. He reached for it but pulled away when his heart fell past his stomach. The most unsettling sensation over came Clint, like his spine had become a spider. It evened out when he moved away.

Clint rationalized the event as another of Barny's jokes until he saw more than a hundred strings from his perch connecting everyone in sight. Green, gold, lavender and mauve strings crisscrossed the grounds. From Clint's perch they wove the messiest yarn scarf imaginable (and Clint received a hand-made yarn scarf every Christmas from The Woman With No Arms). What was odd about the strings was that they had no resistance to other objects. Clint saw strings that cut through buildings and trees and even a funnel cake stand. They didn't snag or tangle. The only things they avoided were other strings or people, keeping at least a three centimeter distance. They jumped over, wiggle around, or swayed side to side to avoid contact. Seeing all of them moving at the same time, vibrating, changing color, dodging, extending or contracting depending on the distance from its persons was all a little much. Clint felt sick watching it all.

Either this was the most elaborate prank Barny ever constructed or Clint was certifiable.

Lucky for Clint the resident fortune teller turned out to be both the real deal and experienced with magic-folk. Clint accepted the title with begrudging grace. No point in denying what he was after all these years. The fortune teller was the same one he visited now, Madam Cassandra. After convincing SHIELD to take in Black Widow and making sure she would be properly cared for, Clint made a B-line for his old stomping grounds. Coulson promised to look after Romanoff while he was away (though Clint suspected it was to make sure she didn't kill anyone opposed to a friendly check-in).

In his years away from the circus, not much had changed. Diamond in the rough attractions were hidden amongst two-bit shows. Fair rides were still straddling the wrong side of safety codes. It even smelled the same, like popcorn and dirty sex. Clint took a deep breath, both nostalgic and glad his got out of here when he had. Time had not caught up with the circus where even the air was stalled in the '60s. At the front entrance the same security guard inspected tickets and grunted at guests as he had since Clint was a child. He squinted once at Clint but said nothing. Either he didn't remember Clint or the circus had a 'Once You're Out You're Out" policy. Both could be true. When Clint left it hadn't been so much, "This is all I know – this place is my family" as "OHMYYGOSHSHITIGOTTARUNNOWI'MGONNADIE"

Clint cut through the crowds following a luminous alabaster string. In all his years' only one person he met was connected to such a color. The string led him to a tent the size of a club house decorated by a middle aged drag queen from the '70s. It was gaudy and sultry while somehow remaining hidden. Patrons wandered close then away, like they were drawn away by an unseen force. A person did not meet Madam Cassandra by accident but by destiny. Or so Madam Cassandra said. Clint huffed and prepared himself whatever torments Cassandra had for him today.

"Clint Barton, I've been expecting you," Cassandra hummed on cue as Clint pulled back the flap to enter. A hot blast of warmth enveloped his face. Compared to the cool Iowa breeze outside, Cassandra's tent was like a sauna.

"Yeah, I bet," he snaked back, taking a seat on the pillow offered opposite the Fortune Teller. Despite its age the pillow still managed to be fluffy enough to engulf half of Clint.

Madam Cassandra was the picture of elegance, draped in enough robes to make Queen Antoinette jealous. Cling suspected she was hiding an air-conditioning unite between the outrageous train of sleeves. She wore the darkest shade of every color imaginable, from a deep viridian to a sooty brass flecked with violet. A heady aroma of spices swarmed about the tent from burning incenses and a smart looking tea pot sat on the table between the two. Cassandra mused with laughter and drew two cups, tea leaves at the ready.

"If you would be so kind as to pour?"

"You really want tea? In here?" It was at least 80 with 60% humidity. Clint felt like he was drowning just sitting there.

"Has my routine ever been different?" Cassandra asked. Clint shook his head and extracted himself from the bean-bag quagmire. As he poured he brushed already forming beads of sweat from his forehead. "Two cups are set, Clint."

"Has my routine ever been different," he quoted back. "I'm not a tea person." Besides, it was too hot to drink boiling liquid.

Cassandra glared and her enchanting persona shattered like an ice sculpture to a sledge hammer. Her eyes narrowed and her features sharpened. Clint gulped and poured himself tea. The only woman who had come close to being as scary (aside from his beautiful and horrifying Black Widow) was Lady Galadria from Lord of the Rings. Clint blamed Coulson entirely for showing those movies to him while both men were drunk and should have been in the medical ward from earlier concisions. Nothing like mixing meds and alcohol while playing a Lord of the Rings drinking game!

Honestly, sometimes Clint wanted to travel back in time if only to slap himself.

Cassandra smiled like a freakin' "U" and set pinches of lavender tea into the cups. Clint pulled a face at that. He hated lavender; the color, the smell, the fact that it was always a candle and in most hand soaps. Clint hated lavender so long he hated it out of principal.

"I see that you have made a bond." Cassandra took an elegant sip of her tea and Clint wondered if the nerves in her tongue had burnt off years earlier. That tea was like Hellfire.

"How can you tell?" He ran a finger by the bond, unable to touch or interact with it but admiring the color. Since both he and Romanoff had settled the string decided to be a red velvet. If he was being honest here, their string was the best Clint had seen. Totally processional opinion. Not biased at all.

"There's an air about you. I'm afraid if I don't pin you down with a rock you might soar off."

Clint laughed between sips of the yucky tea. "Please don't. I'd like my feet not to get squished."

To be honest, Clint felt good, really good. He hadn't felt this great in a long time. Maybe even never. He wanted to run and shoot arrows and his wings wouldn't stop fluttering like coy tassels on a dancer's dress. The dumb appendages never liked being in concealed clothes but it was worse now than ever. They itched and felt crushed like wearing shoes two sizes too small. All Clint about were all those statues and depictions of buck naked Cupids. Was that the reason? Did they all fall in love and strip for life? Barney was damn lucky he hadn't inherited their father's magic genetics.

Clint snorted into his drink. Magic genetics was a silly phrasing.

"About that, the bond – care to explain why you never warned me I could get one?"

"Do try to recall our original meeting. I noted that everyone has a soulmate but not everyone finds them." She took another satisfied sip of tea and Clint stuck his tongue at her. "It is your destiny, no privilege to guide others to becoming whole."

"But you never said I was one of those people! I'm a freakin' fairy for pity's sake! I didn't think I counted as a person."

Cassandra patted his bicep. "There, there Barton. A person's a person no matter how tiny his brain."

"That's not the right quote."

"I'm paraphrasing."

"Your paraphrasing stinks."

"Thank you, I'll keep that critique in mind."

Both took another drink, Cassandra cooing and Clint wincing. The years had been good to the fortune teller, her previous corn hair weathered silver. Kind wrinkles gathered about her eyes, making the woman appear mid 40s instead of her indeterminate Gandalf age. Another note to self: stop watching Lord of the Rings. This was getting weird.

Clint watched his string with a sigh of distress. He wondered how Romanoff was, what she was doing at the moment. Was she angry he left? Was she scared? Had she broken out and taken down SHIELD? Nah, if she had Coulson would have called. Oh, unless she killed Coulson. Hmm. Maybe bringing a wolf back home was a poor choice. It was that or freeze in Siberia. Leaving Romanoff alone on the battle field was not an option. Even pulling away from her to speak with the fortune teller had been excruciating. He wanted to put his face in the crook of her neck and learn the pattern of her skin. More than anything he wanted to get close to his soul. If things were different – if they were mutual he bet there'd be no problem with the two just holding to each other.

However, it wasn't mutual.

"I'm not her soulmate, by the way." Cassandra's eyes flashed to his but Clint forced his gaze away. It kept zeroing in on the string. Damn thing. "Her side is connected at her pointer finger but mine is right here." He jabbed his chest. "Her string is lose and ready to pop off. I've seen pointer finger romances. It isn't pretty. They last a few hours; maybe a few days then rip apart. What happens to me then? What happens if she disconnects?"

Cassandra was quite for a long, terrible moment. "What color is it?"

"Red." Had been since it sprung into existence.

"What shade?"

"Do I look like an interior decorator? I dunno, it's red. Pretty dark, more brown on her side."

Visibly relieved, Cassandra sighed. "Good. That's good. You have hope. The color is strong, pure. Go back to her and foster the bond. If you work at it the bond will grow and move finger to finger. It may never get to the heart but the ring finger is close."

"I don't understand. How can I be her's but she doesn't belong to me?" It didn't seem fair. He was miserable and in love over here and owned by soul to Romanoff and she didn't contribute even a pinky to their relationship. Love was crap.

Cassandra shrugged. "Perhaps she is incapable of love. Perhaps she does not have a soul. Is this a human or one of your kin?"

"Human. . . I think." Maybe she wasn't human. That would explain how talented she was – and beautiful. Clint had never seen another human or otherwise so enchanting before and he spent six months undercover with SHIELD's resident succubus. All of the magic folk he encountered had souls. He saw their strings just as easily as on humans. Was it even possible for something alive to bare no soul? Even golems, giants made of rock had souls.

"What if I don't want her, or to have her as my soulmate?" The very idea stirred a shudder through his spine. Everything in his being rejected the thought like bad milk.

"I think you have your answer," she observed. "Part of your soul is with her. You can no more ignore that than your own lungs need for air."

Another termer ran through Clint when he thought of his next question. This was worse than the one before, pulling off his own fingers. Clint's lips sealed shut and his chest caved like he'd been punched. Despite the emotional turmoil he had to ask, had to know.

"And if she leaves me?"

His voice was quieter than he intended, small and muffled in the near silence of the sound proof tent. It was so quiet Clint swore he could hear the lapping of candle flames.

"You've wondered why my string is white, yes?"

Clint flicked his gaze at the haunting string.

"It's crossed my mind."

"My soulmate left. He ended our marriage without a word and took another woman. I can still feel him, even now, but no affection remains from either of us. The connection is draining. It's sour. Before then I was a business owner, rich beyond imagination. Feh. After he left, my 'abilities' manifested and it became too cumbersome to keep the regular job. I fled here and stayed."

"Does it hurt?"

"Of course it does. You never get used to missing half of yourself."

"Does he know?"

"That we are soulmates? No. He assumes he has early onset arthritis, bedridden and cared for by his wife." She spat the last word. "I am alive because I can feel the fragments of our connection – we were both each other's half. The same cannot be said for you. If she leaves you may be cut off completely. You're at the edge of the map, Barton. I've never met anyone in your situation. There's no telling what may happen."

"Would our split hurt her?" If she would be okay then he'd be alright with it. He didn't matter, not anymore. Cassandra drew a hand over his hair.

"There's no way to know for sure."

Clint groaned into his palms. They smelled like lavender. Clint hated lavender, it smelled like heartbreak

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Notes: The suicide bomber is a reference to "The Hurt Locker", a film Jeremy Renner acted in. Most of Jeremy Renner's films have been absorbed into my head-canon of Clint, especially the military ones. For this story, Clint served in the US Military for several years as a bomb detonator before being picked up by SHIELD.