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Natasha gets the name Leonid Asimov at a party, or rather a soirée. He's twenty three, a prominent millionaire, and a renowned enemy of the KGB. He kisses her knuckles and a dark flare of pain goes up her wrist- nothing that makes the knees buckle, but distinctly present- and his eyes glitter when he smiles.
He's her soulmate. She runs a finger up his chest and he shakes his head, says he's waiting for his soulmate, a girl named Natasha Romanov, who Natalya Ivanovich has certainly never heard of before, what a shame. When she finally collapses on her bed, she barely finds it in herself to chuckle.
She doesn't kill him. But she places a few phone calls on cell line that the KGB couldn't hack if they tried and brings up a few debts with some people who know not to talk, and three days later the dark black name on her wrist is bleached white. She takes to wearing a bracelet to cover it. The bracelet has a secret compartment full of various poisons, so no one questions it much.
.
The first thing she thinks when she sees Clint is, nothing like Asimov, which is an oddity in it of itself because she hasn't thought of Asimov for years. Yet somehow in Budapest, behind the screens of smoke and through the dim bar light, she catches sight of a man with a bright smile and bright hair, and there she is.
She crosses the room to him. Within a minute, she knows three things; he's a spy, he's dangerous, and he's American.
She knows the first two because she can't read a thing about him. The average person she would already know at least ten things about, and she almost wants to congratulate him, although that was what gave him away in the first place. She knows he's American because his Hungarian is flawless, in a schoolbook way: and from the way he holds himself he seems far from the type to speak from a textbook. And there's only one spy agency besides the KGB who would bother teaching their agents Hungarian.
He holds her gaze long enough that it should be making her uncomfortable, but when he opens his mouth all he says is, "Wanna drink?" And she says yes, orders a scotch and watches his eyebrows twitch just the slightest bit before he smiles. She drinks her scotch just a bit slower than he drinks his whiskey, and at the end when she stands up to leave, he abruptly puts his hand out, nearly knocking the barstool over with how fast he stands up.
"Clint Barton," he says, a slight smile on his face, eyes cutting in a way that expects a response.
"Nadyeska Romanoff," she says, and an hour later she'll realize, stupid, Nadyeska isn't even a real name.
.
He saves her, in Budapest. And then in Tokyo, San Francisco, New Delhi, Hanoi and Singapore. She gets him back sometimes, in Cracow and Helsinki and Ottawa and Guadalajara and Santiago, but she always feels indebted to him, like there so much red in her ledger it's bleeding.
But sometimes, when she's on the verge of sleep and everything feels all too close to a dream, she thinks that at least it's him. At least it's Clint, whose smiles never feel like cutting glass and who will only hit her hard enough that when she comes back she comes back stronger. A debt this large to anyone else would be intolerable.
.
He has a name on his wrist, always covered by a long sleeve and sharp but humorous words, but she's covert enough that after three months she finally gets the name Laura Miller, scribbled in black ink. So. He has a soulmate, he's already met her, and she's not dead.
She wonders why she's never heard him say anything of her.
.
The first time they kiss, it's three in the morning and they both have other people's names written on their wrists. Clint is gripping her so tightly that for the first time in her life she thinks she might break, and there's blood soaking through his clothing and he's saying, "Nat, I'm sorry, I lov-" and she puts a hand over his lips and says, "Stop making deathbed confessions, you're going to live, Clint, do you hear me, " and he must, because for the first time in her life she can read him perfectly and the look in his eyes says everything.
He lives. Three days later, he says, "Natasha, about what happened a few days back-" and she doesn't wait, because she's spent the last three days (three years, really) thinking about it and that's enough, she grabs him by the collar and presses his lips to her own.
.
"I have a soulmate," he says one night, their clothes a tangled heap on the floor, a hand on her hip as she lays a kiss to his collarbone. She thinks about telling him I know, but when she pushes up onto her elbows and opens her mouth and looks into his eyes what comes out is:
"Me. Me too." Then she shrugs. "He's dead and I don't care, so long as you choose me." Later, she'll think she could have said it better, but a smile curls up on his lips as she talks and in that moment it's perfect.
.
She takes to running her fingers over his wrist: in bed, when they talk, when they pass each other in the hallway. Sometimes her hands will twitch with desire when they're on a mission, and she's grateful for the years of training that let her tamp those urges down.
Clint gives her odd looks for wanting to touch his soul mark so much, obviously wondering why she would revel in the fact that he’s bound, destined, for another person. He acquiesces anyways, telling her that he doesn't understand. She shrugs, and he lets it drop.
She doesn't tell him the reason her fingertips are always finding his wrist is because it's a reminder. He has a soulmate and he still chooses her, over and over again.
.
She tells Loki, "Love is for children," and it's only a half lie.
Love that you think comes prepackaged, foretold by fate and made perfect- that's for children.
But waking up to a mug of coffee and a smile and enduring bad cooking and always, always having someone's back- and knowing they'll have yours- that's different.
Love that you choose- that's for adults.
That's real.