Chapter Text
Clint Barton was exhausted.
This was not particularly surprising, being the ordinary guy on a team full of super-powered people meant he frequently felt tired in comparison to his team mates. That probably had to do with the fact that when he got injured, which was far too common for his liking, he spent days healing when others could just walk it off. However, after spending the last few months hunting down the Asgardian scepter, Clint was quite ready to fall into a coma. The only relief he got was the knowledge that they had finally found the last research base and were planning on attacking in a few hours, hopefully with the element of surprise on their side.
That was when Clint felt the sharp aching sensation in his chest. It felt like someone had grabbed a knife and started carving into him. Shit, Clint thought, panicking, praying this wasn't a heart attack or something. He stumbled out the shower, banging into the bathroom sink with a loud curse. Groaning, he pressed his face onto the cool surface of the mirror, ignoring the sound of the door opening. Nudity wasn't that much of an issue when you were possibly dying, besides, he'd recognize his best friend's hand anywhere and she'd seen him in much worse conditions.
"Am I bleeding?" he slurred, although why he'd suddenly start bleeding in the shower was beyond him. He's pretty sure his new soap didn't actually scrape the dirt from your skin, they'd probably put it on the label. Then again, Clint didn't bother reading the label, so how would he know?
"No," Natasha huffed, sounding exasperated.
She manhandled him into leaning against the sink, wrapping a towel around his waist quickly. Clint could see the concern on her face as he continued to clutch his chest which was beginning to feel better. He dropped his hand, using it as leverage to prop himself up into a standing position. Nat's eyes widened in surprise, she inhaled sharply as she stared at his chest. Clint turned, panicking, as he quickly wiped the mirror and looked at his chest. A soulmark. He had a soulmark. Clint squinted, suddenly grateful that he could read backwards.
'You didn't see that coming?'
"Shit."
In the many ways Clint had feared being a liability to the team (the recurring need for him to be carried back to the Quinjet after a fight, for instance) he never thought that fate would make him not ideal to bring to a fight. However, they hadn't exactly had the time or resources to find someone to replace him for the mission. Steve hadn't been pleased about the recent soulmark development, nor had he been amused when Clint joked he could always make his soulmate switch sides. He managed to make Natasha join SHIELD, he could totally do it with his soulmate. Who was most likely a Hydra Agent. Clint was wondered if the universe was playing some large cosmic joke on him. You know, Hawkeye's life has been going pretty well recently, let's make his soulmate the enemy!
Clint shook the thought away, notching another arrow and aiming for the tank. He didn't have the time to contemplate how messed up his life was considering he was surrounded by Hydra Agents, and Cap had already mentioned some girl with superpowers. He let the arrow fly and ducked behind the tree, waiting for the explosion before he aimed again.
The explosion never came. Clint frowned, he never missed, and certainly not an easy shot like the one he just did. Notching another arrow, he twisted round, aiming for the tank again. He was about to let the arrow fly when he suddenly found himself flying through the air, feeling as though he just got hit by a speeding truck. He landed on his rib cage with a thud. Clint twisted his head around at the sight of a silvery-blue blur. The blur turned into a young boy, early twenties, with bleached white hair, dark roots and silvery-blue eyes.
The kid smirked down at him, all youthful arrogance and swagger as he strutted around Clint. Despite his pale skin, he spoke with a deep Eastern European accent as he teased, "You didn't see that coming?"
Clint stared at the boy, dumbfounded.
"You have got to be kidding me," he mumbled, his soulmate was some superpowered Hydra agent that looked like he just passed jailbait territory. Nat and Laura were never going to let him live it down. Christ, Clint probably just reached legal drinking age when the kid was born.
The kid, Clint was going to have to get his name at some point, stared at him with wide eyes and a dropped jaw. All that cockiness had faded from his expression, leaving a startled look behind. Stuttering out a few vowels seemed like the most Clint was going to get from him as they continued to stare at each other, sizing the other up.
"Y-you...", before the kid finished his sentence, if he'd actually planned on doing so, he vanished in a blue flash.
Fuck, Clint thought, rolling onto his back with a groan. He couldn't even have gotten a regular Hydra Agent for a soulmate, he had to get the one with superpowers that was young enough to be his son.
Maybe the boy wasn't a Hydra Agent, Cap had mentioned human experiments, like the enhanced girl he'd met in the facility. Plus, the boy had been wearing some black and white tracksuit, not exactly a Hydra uniform. Thinking about the boy being a human experiment made him feel queasy, he was just so young, why would he let Hydra experiment on him? Clint was just going to have to find out answers later, when he wasn't woozy and in pain.