CLINT
Clint had known that he had soulmates out there – the markings on his chest told him so clear enough – but he'd never cared too much to look for them. His childhood had been taken from him before he could even walk, so the forced growing up he had to do from so young an age had caused him to take a step back and really ask himself if he wanted to risk soulmates. After a bit of pondering when he was twelve and he'd been accused of crimes he hadn't committed, he'd decided that soulmates took a back seat to the rest of his life.
Besides, he'd thought, no one would really care to have a circus-performer-turned-assassin-for-hire-turned-SHIELD-agent-archer as a part of the apparent group of seven soulmates. They'd have the others, and he knew he wasn't anything special, so why even bother trying? Sure, it might be nice to have just one soulmate, but he wasn't going to cry over not having them. He had more important things to concern himself with.
But then he had the mission in Hungary.
It had been a simple execute-and-run mission, even if the famed Black Widow was the target. He knew he was a good shot – after all, SHIELD wouldn't want him if he was anything except the best – and he knew she was there on a different mission, so he was certain she wouldn't be looking for any assassins on her own tail. Relatively certain, anyway.
He'd seen her arrive with a faceless politician, looking as gorgeous as her file suggested. He watched her through binoculars from the building next door – he would wait for her to leave the gala before taking the shot. Beforehand, there was too much security around, and while normally he wouldn't mind the added risk because he was certain he could get away, this time it was the Black Widow as his target, and that was enough risk right there already. He could bide his time – if there was one thing being a sniper had taught him, it was patience. He was not going to jump the gun on this one – and he chuckled at the unintended pun.
He had been watching the doors for some time, having come up on top of the roof a half hour after the party had started, when he saw movement at one of the side exits. He peered down, and saw that it was his target, and he couldn't help smiling to himself at how easy this would be. No one was around, the gala in full swing, and the snow had started up minutes before, meaning that if it picked up as expected, her body may even be hidden by it before the party ended.
He picked up his bow, stringing an arrow through it and pointing it down at the gorgeous young woman. He pulled it back, preparing to shoot –
And then he stopped. Years later, he would never be able to explain what it was that stayed his hand, caused him to lower the deadly weapon without firing. Perhaps it was the fact that he'd just noticed her crying, the tear trailing down her cheek sparkling in the moonlight. Perhaps it was just his sudden realization of how young she really was – barely nineteen, if her files were correct in their estimate. Perhaps it was that he could see grief and regret in her expression, and it was like looking into a mirror, seeing the same guilt that he felt now at his past assassinations.
He didn't know why he climbed off of the building and approached her – it was suicide, really, because even if he felt some empathy with her, she had absolutely no reason not to eradicate him as soon as she recognized him – and it wouldn't be hard, with the bow and quiver of arrows still on his back.
And, as expected, as soon as he'd touched her arm, she was spinning on him, and he was locked in a furious battle to subdue the other.
As he fought, he cursed himself mentally at letting his guard down, at getting this close to her, because he knew she was skilled in hand-to-hand combat, and they were evenly matched, so they would have to keep going until one of them lost their stamina and the other killed them. Because that was clearly what the Widow intended to do – she was holding nothing back, and he could only try to keep her occupied enough that she was unable to get inside her dress where more of her weapons undoubtedly were. If she reached any of her Widow's Bites, he would have no chance.
The fighting did serve one purpose, though – it reminded him that he should not underestimate someone just because they looked guilty, because guilt didn't always stop someone from killing further. And when that realization was returned to him while he dodged her blade and fists as best he could, he firmed his resolve to complete his mission, and to kill her.
But then, when he finally got his chance, and he was holding her down to the snow-covered ground, his eyes caught on her chest. Somewhere in the melee, he had managed to grab her knife and slash open the front of her dress, and the force of her fall had caused the fabric to fall open, revealing the pale chest underneath – and below that, the soul mark that had a portion matching his own hexagonal mark.
After a moment where he could only stare at the mark in shock, because the Black Widow is one of my soulmates, he released her and rose to his feet. She rose quickly and smoothly after him, standing defensively in front of him. But he wasn't going to kill her – he wasn't even going to hurt her. Because he suddenly felt differently about soul marks than he had just an hour beforehand. He'd met one of them, and already he could feel the warm glow of happiness at part of his soul being joined to hers.
He hadn't spoken Russian in a few years, focusing more on brushing up on his Hungarian for this mission (just in case), but he thought that perhaps she would feel more comfortable if he spoke in her native tongue, so he tried to remember how to form the words he needed.
"I'm not going to hurt you," he said, trying to reassure her. Hoping she would at least hear him out, he continued explaining, "You have my mark."
"Your mark?" the Widow repeated, not looking like she had any clue what he was talking about.
So, he reached up to unsnap and then unzip his vest, before pushing the shirt underneath up to reveal the circular soul mark. He saw the moment she recognized her own soul mark, the look of startled bewilderment before she looked down, moving her dress aside to see her own soul mark. He had noticed the red hourglass centered in black on her chest, and curiously thought how it suited her, what with her being the Black Widow. He kept his gaze on her while she seemed to realize the implications of their matching marks, and didn't move, not wanting to spook her into running.
She looked back up at him, and he was struck with the realization that her green eyes, while not the color of emeralds, were breathtaking. Even with a face wet with snow, with hair falling out and several rips in her gown, she looked gorgeous, and he was not ever going to do anything to hurt her.
"I'm not going to hurt you," he repeated, hoping that some of the wariness could disappear from her face, because even if she didn't want to go to the U.S., if she wanted to continue as a Russian spy/assassin, he was going to let her go. If need be, he would lie to SHIELD about what had happened – he would lead them astray, even shoot himself in the leg to explain how she got away from him. But it was all her choice.
"I'm yours," he iterated, hoping that she would see how he was completely in her hands from this point.
And, amazingly, it worked. She didn't want to go back to Russia after all, and when he went to the jet waiting for him, the SHIELD agents were stunned at the redheaded assassin walking freely alongside him. It was clear she needed no protecting, but he gave it anyway, keeping the agents from handcuffing her or putting her in a holding cell, telling them that he was taking responsibility for her from here on out.
It was difficult, at first, getting Fury to agree with him, and there were weeks of red tape and various other issues with the Black Widow walking freely about SHIELD headquarters, but they managed to pull through it. She wasn't shy by any means, but sometimes her silent appearance made agents jittery and avoid her. He dismissed it, and any time someone got too loud in their discontent with her presence there, he would loudly and firmly declare that she wasn't going anywhere, that she was on their side now, that he didn't want to hear anything negative said about her, and that they'd better get used to it.
And there were times when, in the dead of night, he would awaken to find her lying next to him in bed. He would see the crinkle between her eyebrows as she slept, telling him that it was a night of bad dreams, and he would pull her close, because he understood. She was a private person, and always had been, but she was slowly putting her trust in him, and it meant more than he could say that she trusted him enough to come sleep next to him on a bad night. And even though more often than not, he would awaken in the morning with the bed empty, and Natasha would act like nothing had happened throughout the day, it was enough so far.
Because they were only just beginning.
TONY
When Tony was little, Jarvis would always tell him with enthusiasm of the joys of having a soulmate. He was always eager to hear the stories that Jarvis would share with him, and he looked forward to having a soulmate, because then he would have someone who would really love him. His parents didn't love him, he knew that – he was just an heir, not a son. And Jarvis loved him, but he knew that Jarvis was just his butler, and if he was fired he'd never be seen again. So he wasn't really Jarvis' family. That was okay though, because he liked Jarvis, and he knew he would havesome time with him, and when he was older he would have a soulmate just for him.
Jarvis had a soulmate. Her name was Grace, and she was just as nice as Jarvis, even if Tony didn't see her as much as he did the blond man. She made really yummy oatmeal raisin cookies, and if she had the time, she would share with him stories of soulmates and her perspective of how she and Jarvis had met, and he grew to love her just as much as the closest father figure he had.
On the night he turned eight, his father was in Austria with his mother, and Jarvis and Grace stayed awake with him to wait until the soul mark would appear on his chest. Grace made oatmeal raisin cookies in the kitchen while he sat on the counter next to her, glancing at the clock on the microwave about every twenty seconds. Jarvis simply sat in the chair next to the counter, making conversation, and chuckling fondly every time Tony almost fell off the counter in his excitement.
Then, at midnight, when it finally appeared on his chest like ink rising to the surface of the water, he couldn't help the grin that appeared on his face, even though he didn't understand why his mark looked so different from everyone else he knew.
After congratulating him on receiving the mark, Grace and Jarvis had seriously informed him that it would be best if he didn't show anyone the mark. He discovered that the hexagon meant that six more shapes would be appearing around it, and while he thought it was odd that he would be in a group of seven people, wondering if they even made beds big enough for seven people, he agreed readily to what the other two said. It would be a while before he would understand exactly what sort of prejudice and persecution anyone in a relationship bigger than a triad would face.
When he was thirteen, after his parents died in the car crash and he got away with nothing more than a sprained wrist and a concussion, he stared down at the new mark on his chest in confusion. He hadn't met anyone new – he knew that.
And yet… He had a vague recollection, of a motorcycle coming up behind the car after they'd crashed, of blue eyes staring blankly, unseeingly into his. He'd thought it was nothing more than a hallucination brought on by the crash and the knock to his head. But perhaps it had been real. But if that was true, then his parents' deaths weren't an accident, and he couldn't handle that, so he dismissed the memory as imagination and moved on, wondering who the person whose mark was a yellow background with a red star in its center.
And then, after Afghanistan, he never saw the mark again. The arc reactor that was keeping him alive covered all record of him ever having the soul mark, even though that was impossible because everyone had one, even if one side appeared the dull grey that showed the other half was dead when a person got it at eight. But there was nothing he could do about it, and not having the soul mark on his chest made him feel empty – emptier than when Stane ripped the arc reactor right out of his chest and left him to die.
But he dealt with it. Because it only confirmed that the Merchant of Death didn't have a soul, because if he did then he would have soulmates. So he ignored the pang he got whenever he heard a story of soulmates meeting, or when he saw a complete soul mark on someone's chest that told all that they had their soulmate and both of them were alive and together. It's true that the arc reactor looked a bit like his soul mark looked before it had been cut away, but that was just coincidence. Really. Besides, the red in the center of the triangle wasn't a part of his arc reactor – the reactor was all blue.
And when the option came to reveal himself to the world as Iron Man, or tell everyone it was a bodyguard, he chose the latter. Because no one wanted the Merchant of Death as their hero. No one wanted the soulless man – the man whose soul mark had been literally cut out of him – as their hero. No one would believe that Tony Stark – genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist – could or would save anyone, be a hero. And he insisted he was fine with that – it was better this way. The only people alive who knew who he was were Pepper, Rhodey, and Agent Coulson – and because he'd chosen the bodyguard story, Coulson had told him that it was unnecessary for anyone save his boss to know who he was. And Coulson could tell Eyepatch whatever the hell he wanted, because his opinion meant nothing to him, and he knew that there was no reason for either of the SHIELD agents to reveal who he was to someone else.
And then the Avengers were formed.
BRUCE
When Bruce was young, he loved science. It was something that made sense, but it changed enough that it kept his attention. He loved science because science was always making new discoveries that improved on old knowledge. When he was little, and there was the day at school where everyone dressed up as what they wanted to be when they grew up, he always donned the white lab coat his mom had gotten him one Christmas, because he was going to be a scientist. He thought it so fascinating how a couple of combinations of different chemicals could cause an explosion, or how DNA had to split just so for there to be no errors that would cause sickness in the body.
When he was eight, and the soul mark appeared on his chest, he was so happy that his mark was green like chemicals, with bubbles floating around inside. He thought it was interesting how a couple of bubbles were red, and he was glad that his mark seemed to show his love for science. He wanted to be a scientist all the more, and see if there were any chemicals that were green but had some red bubbles in it.
Of course, then he made the mistake of showing his father the soul mark the next day, and what had once been dismissiveness and neglect quickly escalated into physical abuse that left his ribs perpetually sore and sometimes made it difficult to go to school. What had once been a dismissal towards him because he was so intelligent soon became assault for the "freak with too many 'soulmates'".
He escaped his house as soon as he could, because he knew he wouldn't live long with his father, who had gotten worse after his mom died when he was fifteen. He pushed aside any want for soulmates, and hid his soulmate mark from everyone. He pursued science in his career, just as he'd always dreamed, and that's where things went downhill.
Later, he understood exactly why there were red bubbles in his mark. Red was the color for death, after all, and as the Other Guy – or the Hulk, as the media called it – he had inadvertently killed a lot of people.
He hid away in India, and he was safe for several months, away from the U.S. government and General Ross in particular, until one night a little girl led him to the edge of town, and he met a beautiful woman with red hair, and something…clicked.
That was the night he finally got his first soulmate mark, and it was that that convinced him to come with her for the Avengers initiative.
...
I feel like I gave Bruce the short end of the stick, because his back story was way shorter than anyone else I wrote out. But I think that with more, it would just become repetitive with the rest and you'd get bored, so I'll leave it as-is.
Next chapter we get Steve and Bucky! Thanks for reading!
