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Unlike everyone else on planet Earth, your string seemed to be the definition of “inconsistent” as long as you could remember. For the entire length of history, humans existed with their strings. The red, metaphysical threads connected them to someone important in their lives, and it was always something memorable to see someone meet their person for the first time.
At first, you didn’t have one at all. Easy enough to explain away: your person just hadn’t been born yet. Looking back, your brothers didn’t have them yet, either.
Then you got older.
Then you and your brothers realized you all could heal from anything. You ran away together after the mess of your parents’ deaths.
Then you were adults and you stopped aging. Still, none of the three of you had anything resembling the strings that twined faintly around other people’s pinkies.
And one day, you woke up in the middle of the night to a mild stinging sensation on your hand, and there it was. Victor called you a cradle robber for years after that.
War came and went and with the rise and fall of Nazi Germany came the loss of your string. Easy come, easy go. He must have been a soldier, you supposed when you were tired enough to fall victim to your own thoughts. Maybe he even shared a battlefield with Vic and Jimmy somewhere out there. You tried not to make it obvious, the way you rubbed that finger sadly when you found yourself thinking too much.
Eventually, you struck out on your own, leaving Vic and Jimmy to bicker without you. They’d manage for a while. You needed space.
Then, the string came back while you were having lunch by yourself in Paris. You’d never heard of someone getting a new stringmate before, but weirder things had happened, you supposed. You were pushing a hundred soon, after all. Hours later when it was gone again, you wondered if you hallucinated the whole thing.
Only, it happened again months later.
And again.
Sometimes, the breaks would last years. Others, days. Never did it stay for more than a 48 hour span.
When you mentioned it to Jimmy, he shrugged. He’d never been one for speculation. You weren’t surprised that he wouldn’t start now.
Victor had no real insight either, other than an insane suggestion that they kept coming back to life.
Then your brothers had the mother of all sibling fights and Vic was in the wind while Jimmy Logan couldn’t remember you anymore.
You found yourself mixed up with the Avengers in a hacker capacity--somehow managing to keep everyone but Fury in the dark about your healing factor. You attributed the decision to join up to the craving for connection that aura reader kept yapping about back in New Orleans. New York had been a mess, but DC was worse. Both you and Steve found your steps dogged by a man Natasha called the Winter Soldier.
A fight happened in the middle of traffic, all knives and Steve’s famed shield. You punched the attacker so Steve could get an opening. He threw the assassin several feet away, his mask hitting the pavement with a quiet clack. The man turned.
“Bucky?” Steve sounded desperate, like he knew this Winter Soldier personally.
All you could focus on in that heartbeat of stillness was the crimson thread that spanned the space between you and him. It gleamed the dark red of heartsblood.