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The first man Nick Fury ever killed died because of his soulmate. He was gasping, bleeding from a cut in his arm and a large gash in his side, hair slicked down with blood, but he might’ve lived if he was smart.
The man hadn’t been smart. He’d jumped in front of Nick’s gun like it was free money- because there had been a girl behind him, the person Nick was actually meant to kill, the woman who’d been shoving US secrets into KGB hands behind their backs.
Nick didn’t know if the bleeding man knew that. What he did know what that his last words were “I love you” as Nick pressed the barrel of a gun to his head, and that when Nick finally shot the mole the words on the man’s wrist went white.
He thought, what a waste, and then moved on.
.
His soulmate is Maria Hill, a woman with a brilliant poker face. In fact, the only reason he knew the bond was reciprocal was because when he shook her hands her fingers twitched in pain. It’s in that moment that he thinks fate and destiny might have gotten something right, for once,- because hell if he’d fall for anyone but a woman who could lie like her life depended on it, walk through hell and back without anyone ever even noticing the bruises.
And Maria Hill is indeed that woman. She runs after Loki without a second question, without a goodbye- and even though she knows he’s her soulmate (he never bothered to hide it; let them think he has more weaknesses then he does), she never once even glances at him awry. If he believed in soulmates, if he believed in the concept of ones that could be platonic, he’d call that right there it. But he doesn’t, so the story ends right there.
Sometimes he’ll catch a wayward thought of what might’ve happened had he been different, the type who believed in love at first sight and soulmates and words like forever as anything other than ink to fill up empty spaces on a report. Hill is a woman who maybe, in his most delusional moments, he thinks he could’ve fallen in love with, perhaps in some other time or space or alternate reality. But his job relies on living in the here and now, in being aware of reality at all times, and anytime he confuses it with fantasy lives are lost, so that always ends as soon as it starts.
And besides, had he been a different person, then Maria Hill wouldn’t be his- soulmate.
Although he prefers to think of her as his right-hand man, the person he can always count on. That’s a lot more reliable than some scribbled out ink.
.
Soulmates were always an exploitable weakness. Which is precisely why SHIELD kept track of them all- all of their agents. It was a requirement for signing up, even if not everyone knew it at the time.
It’s useful, to some extent, although as always, the emphasis is probably somewhat misplaced. He knows, for example, that Romanoff's soulmate has been dead for years, but that she would give her life for Barton within a pin’s drop. He knows that Barton has a soulmate, but given the choice, he will always, always choose Romanoff. He knows that Banner’s wrist is blank, and he’s terrified that one day he’ll wake up with a white name on his wrist and think, the Other Guy killed them. He knows Thor has no conception of soulmates, and thinks them below gods. He also knows that absolutely nothing would convince him to kill his brother, and that Loki himself has gone to great lengths to keep the mark secret. He knows Maximoff’s wrist is bright white with the name of her twin.
He also knows Steve Rogers' weakness.
The glass elevator slides downwards slowly as Nick tells Steve of his grandfather, the words, never trust ringing in his mind as if they were spoken yesterday. He thinks of Insight, thinks of the first man he killed, and he thinks of doing what needs to be done. He thinks of twisting the knife in so hard no one could ever get up. Because everyone has limits, soft points, things that can and will break them if given even the slightest chance to see the light. Everyone has weaknesses, things that will persuade them if put in the right context.
Steve Rogers is a mystery only because Nick hasn’t found his yet.
“Grandfather loved people,” he says, cheery as they begin to drop below ground level and the lights faded. “Just didn’t trust ‘em. It’s a concept your soulmate would understand.” He glances at the floor level, G, -1, -2 . he waits.
Then he looks at Steve. Captain America looks like someone dealt him an artillery shell to the gut, face pale and stark, eyes like saucers. When he talks, the words sound mangled. “How do you-”
“Future, Steve. Love people, just don’t trust ‘em.” And Stark, oh boy, Stark would agree. The only person Nick had ever worked with whose soulmate he still hadn’t figured out. He knew Stark had a soulmark, knew it with all the certainty that the sun would rise tomorrow and international politics would always be more about guns than diplomacy. He felt it, and he trusted his gut, but no matter how he tried, that clever son of a bitch simply wouldn’t let up. It was, as Stark himself, a constant thorn in Nick’s side.
Although soulmate bonds always hurt more if they’re unrequited. Or so he’s told.
Steve doesn’t stop looking sucker-punched, and Nick knows he’s hit a nerve. He’s just betting it was the right one, the one that will make Steve see reason.
But when he sees how Steve looks when he walks away, he knows he made the wrong call. That there is a thing he forgot about Steve Rogers: fear doesn’t make him walk away. It makes him run faster, towards whatever bloody collision Nick has now set them full speed ahead towards.
He supposes that concept could be applied to heartbreak as well.
Nick can feel his jaw tightening as he thinks through ways to best handle the problem. There’s a reason he avoids this stuff like the plague, and it’s because it never ends well for anyone.
Next time, he'll stick to the tried and true methods of bullets and bribery.