ETA: Ozhawk betad this chapter. I really appreciate her doing that for me!
If a person happens to be born after their soulmate, that person will have the first words spoken by their soulmate to them scrawled on their body in their soulmate's handwriting. If a person happens to be the oldest of the pair their soul mark will appear on the day of their mate's birth. Rarely, a person will have two sets of words.
Roberta Emerson felt it was unfortunate for her to have two such soul marks. Being a rather introverted sort, she didn't really see how well she would make it work with two people at once. Never mind the fact that she would be happy not to have a soul mate at all. From what she had seen, having a soul mate was a rather messy business and at times more painful than happy. Not to mention being a spy wasn't really conducive to a healthy relationship, in her opinion.
However these personal feelings did not negate the fact that she did indeed have two soul marks. Her marks had been with her since the day she was born, and they were part and parcel of her problems. She was apparently born to a very conservative family that had a problem with polyamory. Triads were rare but that was the only known cause of any one having two soul marks. Knowing that their bouncing baby girl would one day bring home two men, or worse some combination including women, they put her up for adoption.
Roberta was not particularly grateful for what could be seen as a kindness as her birth parents would have been incapable of accepting her as she was. Growing up in the system she bounced around quite a lot, destroying her ability to develop relationships easily since she always expected them to be broken by choice or circumstance. She grew to have a great deal of detachment from other people. Without the typical American dream family to provide her with stability in the monetary or housing departments the only options left for legal employment were the military or fast food. Shooting guns sounded like a lot more fun than flipping burgers, and had the added benefit of free housing.
Her emotional detachment and lack of ties eventually enabled her to become a very good double agent since she had no one she cared to share personal information with, which helped cut down on the amount of lies to keep straight. Being seemingly cold hearted also made it believable for Hydra to accept that she wasn't really a Shield agent.
Roberta didn't actually happen to be cold hearted. She felt a great deal, but she never made herself vulnerable enough to other people for them to see that. Since Hydra was not concerned with the quality of humanity it recruited they didn't really care much that she seemed slightly sociopathic. In the minds of those that had tried to recruit her to their cause that made her the perfect mole inside of Shield. What hadn't occurred to her Hydra handlers was that being exposed to the amount of injustice through the foster system that she had been, it made her that much more keen to see justice served.
Roberta knew her own shortcomings, she didn't play well with others since she refused to trust, and she did seem cold because she refused to nurture relationships. To top it all off she was jaded and somewhat disillusioned. She sounded like the more sane members of Shield that had defected to Hydra. Which made her a perfect mole for Shield inside of Hydra.
Roberta rarely felt embarrassment, since she didn't chase relationships she needed very little outside approval; however she felt a great deal of embarrassment over the placement and content of one of the soul marks she bore. Situated over her heart, it read quite simply in a fairly sharp and sloppy scrawl, "I will have Skye, kill the asset if you want or whatever, but leave her for me." It was her first indicator that she wasn't going to be a kindergarten teacher or senator's wife. It was also a good sign that fate had most likely paired her with at least one psychopath, but in all probability it was an established mated psychotic pair if the second mark that spiraled her right thigh was any indicator. She knew that the chances were high that at least one of her soul mates would be Hydra after accepting her post from Fury.
Since the one mark was so sinister, and quite frankly telling, she kept it covered with high-necked shirts or cosmetics. Her soul marks were her second best kept secret, the last thing she needed was Hydra or Shield to try and fabricate one or both of her soul mates for leverage.
Her one hope was that the owner of the mark on her thigh was some clueless good-hearted schmuck that was besotted with the owner of the mark over her heart. His/Her mark was written in a neat cursive script, "It's an honor to meet you. Bucky has told me so much about you." It curled elegantly in a spiral from the point where her thigh met her hip down to her knee. At least she thought she might know what the more sinister mate's name was. Her hopes died a quick death the day she met the owner of the mark on her chest.
She had finally gotten a glimpse of the light at the end of the horrendous tunnel that was her life as a Hydra mole. Director Fury had left a list of assets for his successor, which included her. The new Director was kind enough to give her orders to bring in an ex Hydra mole, which would more than efficiently blow her cover. Director Coulson wanted Grant Ward in a very bad way as he was quite done playing Ward's games in relation to a certain hacker.
True, Ward wasn't with Hydra anymore, but he was a thorn in the side of the multi-headed beast and they too wanted him off the board. However, using Hydra resources and intel to take him into Shield wasn't going to go over well with those that had thought she was their own little sociopath on a leash. As far as they knew, up to this point she had been a wonderfully docile soldier.
The thought of finally being done with walking the fine line of carrying out just enough Hydra orders to maintain cover and botching enough of the truly despicable missions that she could stand the sight of her own reflection, was a true taste of bliss. Things were looking up in spite of the foreknowledge that one of her soulmates was going try to have her kill someone.
With that thought in mind she walked into her meeting with her target in fairly good spirits. After all, it's hard to remain moody knowing that you're about to get a vacation away from mad men. Unfortunately for her it was about to get worse. Ward was pacing the office space above the abandoned warehouse that they had agreed to meet inat like a caged tiger. His long legs eating up the square footage only to spit it out and repeat. Too bad the cute ones are always so Byronic, the stray thought ghosted by her consciousness.
He looked up as she entered the room. Practically foaming at the mouth her began without preamble, "I will have Skye, kill the asset if you want or whatever, but leave her for me." She paused and blinked a bit owlishly. She was most assuredly not expecting that today of all days. Quickly recovering she pulled out her tranq gun and did her best to calm the nerves that threatened to give away her uncertainty when she spoke, "I'm afraid that I am not at all afraid that it's time for you to leave the Director's girlfriend alone."
He felt it then, that pull. The one that so many poems and love songs had been written about. It was strong and he couldn't ignore it. Looking into her lovely grey eyes, that were so thickly fringed by gold tipped lashes, he felt the need to touch her, breathe her scent in, hold her, never let her go, and be everything that she needed him to be. He felt the need, like an ache in his bones to be the hero, to stop being the villain that chased after a young girl who didn't love him or want him.
That last little sane corner in his mind finally sucked in a breath and tried to take over, but he was too far gone on this road that he had begun when he tried to burn down his home with his family inside it. And now he was pissed. How dare she come in here with that calm steely voice and try to change him. He wanted Skye, not this mousy haired girl who must have deepened her voice to sound convincing in her bravery.
He didn't want a soul mate that had been chosen for him. He wanted to choose, he wanted to be the one with the power to reject or accept for once. The surge of anger he felt at the audacity she had to come in here and make him doubt his path, make him want what he hadn't chosen, pushed him over that last edge.
There was nothing left sane in him, and Roberta saw the break as it happened. His eyes had widened as he registered her first words to him, softening ever so slightly; and then something in them snapped. The brown hardened into the color of petrified wood as they became glassy and she knew that she had been right: one of her soul mates most definitely was psychotic. The man that stood before her was officially unhinged, and he was incredibly pissed off at her. The way he looked at her was as if her very existence offended and enraged him. She had no doubt that it actually did.
Roberta, being the sort to prepare thoroughly for assignments, had researched known cases of psychopaths that were paired with sane mates. It didn't normally turn out well for the sane mate or anyone around him or her. If the psychopath responded favorably to the discovery of their mate, they became possessive, irrationally jealous, controlling and abusive. Many such pairs ended in murder/suicide cases, others normally involved a lot of police involvement. Despite the unstable nature of a mate's mental state, many of the sane half of the pair found it impossible to live without their mate if the bond had been established; and since psychopaths rarely announced their mental shortcomings before sleeping with their mate to form the bond, that meant at least ninety percent of the documented cases were of bonded mates. The ten percent that had the luxury of not bonding to their insane other half still had to go through counselling to recover from the guilt of not accepting their mates and the mental damage from being stalked by said mate.
On the other side of the coin, sometimes the psychopath was not happy to have discovered their mate. They became murderous, seeking to punish the one whose existence threatened whatever happy place they had invented inside their own head. It appeared to Roberta in that moment that that would be the case for her and Grant Ward. At least she was wrong about both of her soulmates being psychotic… She hoped. Whoever owned the script on her leg was still a mystery, but Grant Ward obviously was not someone named Bucky; so perhaps there there really was hope to be had. However she had never heard of a psychotic mate recovering and leading a nice quiet life, and she would hate for whoever her other mate was to have to put up with Ward too; if he, or she, was in fact not insane or evil.
Roberta tried desperately not to focus on what the future implications of her predicament were, and instead concentrate on not getting herself killed. She needed to above all take Ward in to Shield so that she could get the freaking hell out of Hydra. She really couldn't live with herself much longer if she had to kill one more person that wasn't attacking her.
Roberta had unfortunately had involvement in one too many Hydra missions where someone ended up dead, scarred, or as a lab rat. It was lamentably her job though, she had to maintain her cover. She had tried to spare as many lives and as much innocence as she could without blowing her cover, but to get as deep as she had, and to stay there as long as she had, meant sacrificing pieces of herself. Pieces she had at one time respected. This would be one more scar on her soul, but betraying her soul mate meant getting out of this damn hell she lived in. She would give a lot more to be done with the sickness she was part of currently.
That was the thought that gave her the strength, in spite of his obvious insanity, to tranq him into submission. Coulson wanted this man alive. Ward would sing for Shield, and then be incarcerated. If he ever recovered from his mental state maybe he would forgive her for what she was doing. After all if she didn't take him in would he ever receive treatment? If she didn't take him in how would she ever be able to recover from what she had done? Their only chance to be together was for her to do this.
He was more than a fair bit woozy, and therefore easily guided. His large frame rested heavily on her smaller one, as she slung one of his arms across her shoulders to support him. She was tall for a woman, yet he still towered over her. Thankfully he was just conscious enough to drag his feet in the direction she led.
It was either divine intervention or a sheer dumb luck that he had come to this meeting alone. Her cover within Hydra was truly convincing for Ward not suspect that she was not 100% Hydra set on bringing him back in to the fold. All she had had to do was agree that yes their purposes did coincide and he could have the girl as long as she got the Soldier, dead or alive, for Hydra of course. It either spoke of how far gone his mental state now was, or how much this Skye person meant to him.
From the information that Director Coulson had provided her with, she knew Ward was obsessed with the New Shield's star hacker. He professed to be in love with her, and had left grisly tokens of affection for the girl, as most crazy stalkers are want to do. For whatever reason the new Director was very tired of the pain this was causing his hacker. Roberta assumed that he must be in love with the girl. Her life was shaping up to be a regular Soap Opera, full of star crossed lovers.
"Roberta's soulmate is in love with a young up-an- coming hacker who is in love with her boss, tune in next week to find out what Roberta will do. " I'm gonna tranq his ass again, she thought darkly as she half dragged, half gave herself a hernia trying to carry her insane soul mate to his meeting with justice. Might even aim for his dick this time. God this man is heavy! Why didn't they send Captain America after him instead of little ol' me?