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It was her.
“Where’s Fury?” Carol had asked a moment before.
“Who are you?” the blonde woman had said, and Carol’s heart had skipped a beat.
Who are you?
Three simple words. The same ones that once wrapped around her wrist. The same wrist that was now stinging, as if she needed a reminder of what it used to say.
“Where’s Fury?” she repeated.
“He’s not here,” the blonde woman said. “Who are you?”
Your soulmate apparently, Carol didn’t say.
“A friend.”
--
“I’ve never seen a soulmark like that before,” Maria had commented once in another life. Back when they were young and idealistic and just happy to be doing what they loved.
Carol had held her wrist out for Maria, to offer a closer examination. To let her friend see the jumble of lines that meant nothing in any language on earth.
“What do you think it means?” Maria had said.
Carol had shrugged. “That my soulmate is dead? That’s what the doctors say. The connection never formed so there’s no first words.”
“I’m sorry.” Maria had looked at her with sad eyes.
“Don’t be. I think I’m luckier this way.” She hadn’t wanted to talk about her parents and how unhappy they had been, how they would have been happier with anyone else, even though destiny said they should be together. She hadn’t wanted to talk about how ridiculous it was that a person’s fate was determined before they were even born. She hadn’t wanted to talk about the fact that she had no desire to settle down with someone else, ever, and this way she never had to.
Instead she had picked up her drink and toasted her friend. “To freedom,” she’d said, and Maria had laughed.
--
She hadn’t told Maria for three days. She hadn’t told anyone. Not about the pain that woke her in the middle of the night, causing her to grit her teeth in agony. Not about the words that suddenly appeared on her wrist, the jumble of lines now forming something legible.
Who are you?
Not exactly the words someone dreams about.
“I didn’t want this,” Carol had said when she finally did confess her secret.
“What do you think it means that it just now appeared?” Maria had touched the newly formed letters, like she couldn’t quite believe they were there. Carol hadn’t blamed her; she couldn’t believe they were there.
“I don’t know.”
That wasn’t true. It could only mean one thing. Her soulmate was alive now. But how was that possible? Carol hadn’t wanted to think about why her soulmate would be so much younger than her.
Besides, she had told herself, it didn’t matter. She didn’t want one anyway.
--
“So you found your soulmate,” Maria said softly.
“I guess so.”
“Does she know?”
Carol held her wrist up, studying the bare skin, the words that had once been there long removed by the Kree during her time with them. Words she hadn’t remembered she’d had for years. Not until Maria had told her what they’d said.
“I don’t know. I’d guess so.”
She certainly wasn’t going to bring it up. Fortunately, it seemed Natasha wasn’t either. If she did know — and Carol had no reason to suspect she didn’t — she also was keeping it to herself.
Carol supposed they had that in common. A desire to just be left alone, to not be connected to anyone they didn’t want to be.
Carol figured it was for the best.
--
She’d been reluctant to spend time with her, to get to know her in any way, in case destiny tried to force Carol to feel something she didn’t want to feel.
Yet Carol found herself spending more and more time with Natasha, against her better judgement. They trained together, they hunted down threats together, and sometimes they even drank beers together and commiserated about life.
What they didn’t do, ever, was discuss soulmates and soulmarks. Carol never saw Natasha’s wrist, and Natasha never saw hers.
Sometimes Carol thought maybe she should let her— it was blank after all. In case Natasha had been wondering, maybe it would change her mind, make her doubt their connection in the event she did someday want to talk about it.
But Carol never did. Instead, she kept it covered at all times.
--
Steve’s words didn’t make any sense.
“She’s not coming back, Carol.”
She frowned at him.
“Clint saw her fall,” Steve said. “He wouldn’t have gotten the soul stone if she were alive.”
Carol shook her head and put the fingers of her other hand over her wrist, right where the words used to be. She could still feel the warmth they made, could still feel the slight vibration beneath her skin.
“No,” she said. “She’s still alive.”
“Carol …” Steve began, but she interrupted.
“I’m sure,” she said, and then she said the words out loud, for the first time to someone who wasn’t Maria. “I know. Because she’s my soulmate.”
--
Carol was there when Natasha finally woke up. Surviving and then coming back from the soul stone realm wasn’t something that one did easily.
“You saved me,” Natasha said to her later that night, when they were alone after the line of well-wishers had finally dissipated.
“I knew you were alive.”
“You risked everything to come get me.”
“You would have done the same for me,” Carol said.
“Would I have?” Natasha studied Carol’s face.
“Yes,” Carol said.
Natasha pulled her arm out from under the comforter and turned it over, laying her wrist on Carol’s lap. Pale, unmarked flesh. Just like Carol’s.
“The Red Room removed it,” she said. “They tried to remove my memory of what it said. But when you talked … I knew.”
Carol turned her own arm over, laid her wrist beside Natasha’s.
“The Kree removed it,” she said. “A friend helped me remember what it said. But I would have known the second I met you even if she hadn’t.”
“I never really wanted to have a soulmate,” Natasha said. “Everything in my life was chosen for me. I didn’t need something else.”
Carol understood that. “I once thought I was lucky not to have one,” she said. “That was before you were born. I wanted to choose my own path.”
“And now?” Natasha said.
Carol studied her, thought about the way she made her feel, thought about the moments they’d spent together.
“Now,” she said carefully. “I choose you. If you’ll have me.”
Natasha smiled. A real smile. It lit up her face. Carol thought she had never seen something so beautiful.
Carol leaned toward her, stopping short, waiting.
Natasha’s eyes met hers.
“I choose you too.”
Carol closed the gap, their lips finally meeting. On her wrist, the spot where her soulmark once was radiated warmth, as if it knew she had finally found her future.