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Clint married a woman with two names on her wrist – his, and one written with Russian letters. Cyrillic, Laura told him it's called, and she told him that her other soulmate's name was Natalia Alianovna Romanova. At first, Clint had been a bit disappointed that his soulmate had two names on her wrist, but then he had thought that it was kind of hot that it was another woman. He had never met anyone with two soulmates before, but he had heard people talk about them, often in very negative terms. They were said to be greedy and promiscuous, that they couldn’t really love or commit to anyone. That they didn’t have real soulmates. Getting to know Laura, though, Clint soon learned that there was no more committed or loving person in the world. And she was his soulmate. And she made him whole, even if a part of her was still missing.
They didn’t put their life on hold, waiting for Laura’s second soulmate. Clint asked Laura more than once through the years if she wanted to go looking for Natalia, but she usually just shook her head, and said that she’d found him and that was enough; she wasn’t greedy. She had found one soulmate, and that was more than a lot of people ever did. Clint still took night courses in Russian, just in case, and during his third year at SHIELD that was the reason he was sent to Moscow to take out the KGB agent known to them as Black Widow. Not because of his amazing Russian, but at least he could read the language and speak it like an American. Laura was much better at Russian, but then she had been at it since she'd been eight.
It wasn’t the most exciting of missions, though the Russians always knew how to put up a good fight. Clint sat waiting on a roof, trying to remember the Russian word for “money”, when a voice in his ear told him that the target was on her way. He put on his holster, picked up his bow, and got in position. He pulled an arrow, and then he waited.
It didn’t take long before he saw her on the opposite rooftop. He fixed his eyes on her as she walked to the side of the roof and attached hooks of some kind to both the building and her belt. Clint had seen photos of her during briefings (and if that red hair was her natural color he would eat the drive belt of the tractor he was fixing up back home), and he had read her file, but watching her through the telescope sight was different. Something felt different, or rather, he felt something at all. Something other than the strain from the string on his fingers, and the slow beating of his heart. Instead he actually felt his heart beating faster, and harder, and when the go signal came, he put the arrow in Black Widow’s thigh instead of in her head.
The KGB agent still took out two SHIELD agents before they overpowered her, and even then they were probably only able to do that due to her blood loss. Agent Coulson didn’t even try to hide his annoyance when Clint reported in – apparently “I thought she could be of use to us” wasn’t the right response to “Why didn’t you follow orders?”. To be honest, Clint wasn’t sure why he hadn’t taken the shot. He had an inkling, but that explanation would have sent Coulson off a cliff, so Clint had decided to not tell him. He had, however, asked for permission to talk to Black Widow. It hadn’t been a very popular request, but since she didn’t seem to talk to anyone, he was allowed.
Clint was nervous when he walked into the room where they held her. If he was wrong, then he would have sacrificed two agents for a hunch. He could stand by his claim that the KGB agent would be useful to them, but he wasn’t actually sure about that. The Russians didn't turn easily.
Black Widow gave him a suspicious glare when he opened the door, before turning back to staring at the ceiling. She was tied to a hospital bed, her injured leg dressed, and a blood bag hooked up to her left arm. Clint was surprised that she hadn’t pulled it out; he know he would have in her situation, even with the straps on her arms. The straps were a problem, though, since they held her down by the wrists. Removing them didn’t seem like a good option, so instead he took a firm hold of her hand and pushed up the strap as far as he could along her arm.
And there it was, as clear and as familiar as if he had been looking at his own wrist: Laura Martinelli. The relief of being right was brief, and it felt as if a bucket of ice had been poured over him when he realized how close he had come to kill Laura’s soulmate.
He let her go immediately after he’d seen the name, but she kept fighting against the restrains so violently that he was afraid she’d reopen the arrow wound on her leg. When she finally calmed down, looking greenish and pale after the struggle, he removed his armguard to show him the name on his own wrist. Black Widow’s eyes widened, and when she looked at him, she looked both confused and scared. Clint didn’t know what to do other than smile.
Later, when Clint left the room, the first thing he did was to call Laura. It wasn’t until the first signals had gone through before he realized that it was in the middle of the night in Iowa.
“What’s happened?” Laura said as soon as she picked up, sound more worried than drowsy. “Something’s not right, something feels different.”
“Everything’s fine,” Clint said. “It’s just that… Laura, I’ve found Natalia...”