It was a bitter cold January in 1975 day when the Winter Soldier was perched on a roof in Moscow, watching the head of the KGB through the scope of his sniper rifle. Nothing could and would distract him from killing that man in t minus 30 seconds. Not the cold and wet snow he was lying on, not the icy wind whipping through his hair and definitely not the almost uncomfortable burning he suddenly felt on the inner side of his left thigh.
The man ignored the warmth spreading through his body. He was trained to ignore such things. Nothing was going to distract him. Because if something would distract him, he knew what he would get. A few jolts of electricity for being disobedient. The soldier didn’t want that.
The Soldier killed his mark with a neat head shot and made his way to the extraction point. He was three minutes early when he arrived at the old, abandoned supermarket. . His thigh was still tingling and started to distract the Soldier. He wouldn’t have that. He couldn’t have that.
Sitting down behind a broken shelf where a few dusted cans were still scattered, the Soldier opened the zipper of his cargo pants and pushed them down until he could see the inside of his left thigh. There was something on his thigh. The Soldier swiped his thumb over it but it wasn’t dirt. It had outlines. It looked like something. Like a small hand. A little left hand with purple contours.
The Soldier started at it. There were only a few things he didn’t understand and if he tried to understand, his head often started to hurt in a bad way. But this…he couldn’t make sense out of this. The hand was formed in a special way, as if it wanted to say something.
The hand formed a letter with ASL. The hand was showing him a ‘C’.
The Soldier stared a bit more. How was that possible? Only roughly one third of the world’s population did have soulmarks. Why would he have one? The Soldier was feeling a nauseating uneasiness. Something was very wrong. He couldn’t have a mark like that.
A soulmark something whispered in his mind and the Soldier gripped his head and groaned. Suddenly it felt like his head was splitting in two and when the Soldier opened his eyes again he wasn’t seeing the super market. He saw…
Blond hair, blue eyes, a nice smile.
“It’s okay, Buck. I don’t have one either. Mama says that’s because our significant other isn’t born yet. I’m sure we’ll have one when we’re older.”
“What if I’m going to end up alone? I know the marks are not that common, but…I wanna have one...I don’t want to be alone...”
“You won’t. You’re Bucky. You can charm your way in every heart. You even melted the heart of old Mrs. Molinelli. You’re going to be fine, Bucks.”
The Soldier breathed heavily and could hear the footsteps of three men approaching. His extraction team. The Soldier hurriedly put his pants back on and stood up to meet the men. His mask was still in place and it was one of the few times that he was glad about it. His employers didn’t like it when he showed emotions on his face.
But there was no point hiding his emotions. As soon as they entered the Russian operations base, the usual procedure started. They saw the mark immediately during their process to undress him for checking every inch of his body.
“What is this?” one of the men asked. But he didn’t ask the Soldier. He asked his colleague, who was checking the metal arm.
The other man bowed down and squinted at the mark.
“That is a soulmark,” he said and the machines, monitoring the Soldier’s vitals, were beeping in alarm.
Both men looked up when they heard the noise and the one who had been working on his arm, pressed a button immediately. One minute later, the Soldier’s employer was standing in the room. He looked at the mark, then at the two scientists. He wasn’t looking at the Soldier. Not even once.
“Wipe him,” he said to them. “Then put him to sleep.”
No.
~+~
While the Soldier was sleeping again, an exhausted woman was smiling down at her newborn son. He was perfect. Her precious baby. She stroked over his chubby cheek and peeled away the towel, the boy was wrapped in. She checked the space next to the bellybutton but couldn’t see anything. Huh. She had been sure that she had seen a mark when she had held him in her arms the first time. It had looked like snow-covered mountains and a train driving through them.
But now it was gone.
The woman shrugged and kissed the small nose of her precious boy.
~+~
Ten years later, 1985, the Soldier was lurking in the shadows of an evergreen forest and watched the woman he was supposed to kill. She was singing with her family at the camp fire. He was contemplating if he had to take out her kids and her husband too, when a warm tingling feeling on his back let his concentration slip for a moment.
He had a strange sort of déjà vu but stayed stock still. He didn’t move. They had taught him that from the beginning. Do and think nothing else until your target is dead.
The warmth on his back receded slowly and the Soldier soon pushed it to the back of his mind.
A few hours in, and he was staring at the dead woman lying to his feet. It hadn’t been necessary to kill her husband and the two sons. The man had taken the sons for a little hike a while ago. The Soldier placed the gun that his employer had given him, in the hands of the woman and turned around to leave. He estimated that he had roughly 14 minutes to vanish.
Nothing easier than that.
On an impulse, he took her pocket mirror with him.
By the time the husband discovered the gruesome sight and tried to hinder his kids from looking into the tent, the Soldier was in his hide-out waiting for extraction.
He stared at the pocket mirror for a while until he shifted so he could take off his west and jacket. The Soldier could see that a picture had appeared on his back, exactly between his shoulder plates.
It was a purple circus tent.
Something was niggling in his mind.
Yes.
This wasn’t the first one.
The Soldier let the pocket mirror fall to the ground and pulled his pants down. Yes, right there. There was another mark.
But the Soldier didn’t have any marks. He couldn’t have. It was not possible that the Soldier would have a…a
soulmate.
And how did he know of the mark on his thigh?
Not.
Possible.
The Soldier snarled and put his clothes back on.
Later, when he was sitting in the helicopter, the Soldier cracked the mirror between his hands and threw it out. It disappeared in the unforgiving waves of the ocean under him.
The scientists who looked him over noticed the mark on his back. Of course they did.
“There’s a memo here that he has one on his left thigh, too. A hand print.”
“Really? Lemme see,” the other man said. They both pull his pants down to look.
The Soldier clenched his fists.
“Huh, you’re right. He has a soulmate. How is that even possible?”
The one, who said that, was pressed face-first into the wall immediately. The Soldier was holding his head with his metal hand. Just a little bit tighter. And he could crush the man’s head. Just a bit more…
“Stand down,” a voice snapped.
His employer.
The Soldier didn’t move, just put a bit more force into his grip.
“Soldier, I told you to stand down.”
The Soldier sneered but let the man go, who in return coughed and slid down the wall.
“What’s the matter?” his employer asks.
“He has a second mark, Sir.”
“Soldier, in your seat,” his employer commanded.
The Soldier sat down.
“Wipe him. And then put him to sleep.”
The Soldier opened his mouth so they can give him the bite guard. It was always so painful, but the soldier had always long forgotten it as soon as he was awake again.
~+~
Thousands of miles away, a boy had climbed up the frame of a big circus tent. He had a perfect view of the people under him, searching for him.
“Lil’ Bro, I swear to god, I’ll kick your ass so hard when I find you.”
His big brother could be very scary when he was angry.
But he wanted to be alone. If Barney would see him crying again, he would just make fun of him. The boy sniffled and lifted his shirt to touch his stomach. He was not crazy. There had been a soulmark there. Right there. He touched the spot next to his navel. It had been a beautiful mountain scenery with a train. Over the last years he sometimes had seen something in the corner of his eyes when he had been in front of the mirror, changing in his pajamas or getting ready for a shower. But as soon as he had looked closer nothing had been there.
But today. Today he had seen it. He had touched it. Someone’s soul thought that his soul was worth to be loved.
The boy had never been happier in his whole life.
He had a soulmate.
But when he had looked in the mirror half an hour ago (to admire the work of art again) the mark had been gone. It just had vanished. The boy had never imagined that seeing something vanish could be so painful. Not even when his mother had left, taken away by an angel. Or when his dad had hurt him so bad that his hearing wasn’t fully functional anymore.
The boy broke out in tears and had fled the trailer where he now lived with his big brother.
And now he was here, high up, a place where he felt most comfortable and thought about it.
Maybe, the boy thought. Maybe his soulmate was a ghost.
~+~
“The mission is easy. Make it look like an accident. It won’t be that hard. Stark’s a drunk anyway.”
The soldier nodded and boarded the private plane that would bring him to New York.
When he inspected the burning wreck hours later, the Soldiers’ breath hitched.
He knew that man. He had known him when he was younger. Ages ago. Decades ago.
A long, long time ago.
Terrible pain shot through his head.
It was the first time that the Soldier was showing emotions while being extracted from the scene. His employer didn’t like that at all. He was questioning him for hours but the Soldier said nothing. He was scared and confused.
His employer made a frustrated sound.
“Wipe him.”
~+~
The Incredible Hawkeye missed his shot.
He had missed his shot.
His brother was cackling at the sight of his face.
“Yeah, yeah, ‘I never miss’ my ass, lil’ bro.”
But the 16-year-old didn’t listen to his brother. He was too excited about the distraction that made his arrow fly past the bullseye. He packed his bow and ran out of the circus tent in the direction of the trailer he shared with his brother. The inside of his left upper arm was still tingling with warmth and –
“Yessss,” he shouted out and grinned. There was a tattoo on his left arm. Another soul mark. When he could make out the outlines of it, his grin dimmed a bit. It was a burning car wreck.
Oh god. Did his soulmate die in a car accident?
He lifted his shirt and saw the other mark, his first one, again. It was the first time in six years that it was visible. He traced the mountains and the train with his fingers.
He was stupid. His soul mate couldn’t be dead.
Could he? What happened to your marks when you soulmate wasn’t alive anymore? He had to research that.
(When the marks disappeared hours later, the boy cried into his pillow silently. Every time when his marks vanished the pain in his heart was almost unbearable.)
~+~
The Soldier didn’t have another mission for ten years.
His employer didn’t have any use for him during that decade. His plan was working out perfectly. He could already taste his victory.
~+~
“Captain Barton?”
The freshly promoted US Army captain turned around and raised his eyebrow at the sight of the smiling man, who standing there in a sharp suit like he had no care in the world.
“Wow, where did you come from? Please don’t tell me that you’re C.I.A. Because in that case, the answer is already ‘no’.”
The man smiled a smile that was both friendly and passive-aggressive.
“My name is Phil Coulson. I’m from the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division. I would like to talk to you about your future.”
“You’re the fifth guy to approach me during the last two days. Why the hell am I so special all of the sudden? And what’s wrong with that name? You seriously have to shorten that.”
Mr. Coulson answered unfazed.
“The success rate of your latest missions, Captain. It’s very impressive. You got our attention.”
“Well, I never wanted in in the first place.”
“Give me half an hour. You only have to listen to me for half an hour and I’ll be out of your life. Or not,” Mr. Coulson continued as if the captain had never interrupted him.
“Fine…”
~+~
The Soldier’s skin on his right wrist tingled and burned two times during his mission in Tokyo. When he landed in the Japanese capital, the top of his right wrist featured a new tattoo. It was a United States Army Office Rank Insignia. The Soldier’s soulmate was military. A captain.
The Soldier stroked with his thumb over the tattoo. He had the feeling that he had forgotten something very important. Something nudged at him from the back of his mind when he thought about the word ‘Captain’.
As soon as the Soldier met his employer in the dark corner of an expensive restaurant that was overlooking the Tokyo night, the Soldier forgot his soul mark and received his instructions.
It was only three days after – the Soldier was naked and in front of the scientists again – when the next tattoo appeared. Now on the underside of his right wrist.
The scientist, who had been writing down the military soul mark, frowned. He had held the wrist between his hands when his fingers suddenly got burned. Flinching away from the pain, the scientist followed the outlines that were starting appear.
The Soldier just stared into nothing stoically, moving the fingers of his right hand a bit.
A small hand print, the Soldier thought.
A circus tent.
An army symbol.
And now –
“Holy shit,” the scientist gasped. “Call the boss,” he yelled at his colleague, still staring at the new mark that had appeared. “He’s got to see this.”
“What’s wrong with you, man?” he then scoffed at the Soldier. “How can you have four symbols already, and most of us don’t even have one.”
The Soldier said nothing and lifted his right hand, turning it so he could see the tattoo. It was a black symbol. It looked like a bird. A bird in a circle. There was something written around the circle.
Strategic--
“Soldier, show me your right wrist.”
The Soldier stared at his employer, not moving. There was something he had to remember. He –
Three men were suddenly holding him back while a fourth man grabbed his hand, showing the wrist to his employer.
Instead of getting angry, like the Soldier had suspected, his employer grinned in merciless way and chuckled darkly.
“Your work is being honored, Soldier,” he said. “Not only has it been a gift to mankind, but apparently you’re helping your soulmate with your actions. You can be proud of you.”
What?
“Your soulmate is close, Soldier. Try not to let him or her suffer because of your bad actions. Do you understand?”
“…yes, Sir.” Could it be true? Did he have a soulmate? Someone inside the Soldier was screaming; he was begging to come out, see it with his own eyes. The Soldier refused.
“Put him to sleep.”
No, please, no.
“Are we not going to wipe him?”
“Oh, no. It’s perfect like that. He won’t be disobedient with a soul mark like that.”
~+~
One week in, and Agent Barton wondered why he had joined in the first place.
“Excuse me?” he asked, staring at the three men and one woman.
“I am very sorry, Agent. But that new procedure has become effective a few hours ago. Rumor has it that these are orders from the top. Everyone has to undergo the procedure.”
“Oh my god, this is ridiculous. It’s none of SHIELD’s business if an Agent has soulmarks or not.” But he stripped anyway. He liked the philosophy of SHIELD and was hoping he could help with making the world a better place.
When he was stark-naked, there was only one male doctor in the room and he searched every inch of the Agent’s body, noting everything in a paper file.
The agent caught a glimpse of what he was writing down.
Barton, Clinton Francis (born January 7th, 1975 – Age 26)
Joined: May 15th, 2001
Security Clearance: Level 4
Former Rank: Captain (US- Army)
.
.
.
Soulmarks: zero
Soulmate: none
none.
Reading it hurt more than he would like to admit.
Agent Barton decided to not tell the doctor that every few years his body would prickle with pleasure and show him two soulmarks. Sometimes they vanished after a few hours. Sometimes they stayed for days.
He didn’t want them to think he was broken.
He was.
“Thank you for your cooperation,” the woman – Agent Hill – told him afterwards.
“What is all this about?” Agent Barton asked, picking up his bow. They had interrupted his training for the examination.
“Soulmarks are now treated as security threats. Apparently Director Fury didn’t want to do this but Mr. Pierce forced the order through.”
“Huh,” Agent Barton said.
It did make sense in a twisted way.
When If the soulmarks would appear again, he would hide them. None of SHIELD’s fucking business anyway.
~+~
The Soldier had been inactive for another ten years.
His employer knew it was only a matter of time until his whole plan would be a raging success.
Hydra was so intertwined with SHIELD, it was almost too perfect.
SHIELD agents were working for Hydra without realizing it. Especially Strike Team Delta was accomplishing the missions in such a brilliant way that the employer almost decided to let them become full Hydra agents.
But the employer knew where their loyalties lay.
Nicholas Fury was the last obstacle to be put out of the way.
~+~
The day aliens came down on earth to threaten the world was something the Soldier’s employer did not expect.
He wanted the Soldier as his personal shadow during that time.
The Soldier was being put to active duty in a big hurry, so no one but him noticed the new marks on his feet. When his employer was sleeping in his personal bunker days later, and the Soldier was outside, lurking in the shadows and looking for threats. He took his shoes off and stared at his naked feet in the darkness.
(He could see the outlines of his new tattoos very clearly, despite the dim lights.)
The Soldier estimated that he had been sleeping for a whole decade. During that time, his soulmate had been very active.
At the top of his right foot were two connected symbols. One was an arrow, the other one was an hourglass. His big toe was now sporting a tiny Greek letter. Delta.
The inside of his right ankle was marked with a hammer.
Yesterday, a quote had appeared on the Soldier’s left foot. Reading it made the Soldier very uneasy. As soon as he had read the words, his fingers had itched for a weapon with the sudden urge to hurt someone. Someone who was hurting his soulmate. He knew that his soulmate was feeling terrible because of someone. He just knew.The Soldier’s heart was clenching again when he re-read the sentence on his left foot.
He shouldn’t feel anything of that. His employer wouldn’t be pleased.
You have heart.
Interestingly enough, the quote was barely visible now. A big letter - A - was concealing half of the sentence.
And A stood for –
“Soldier, the threat is over. You will stay active from now on,” the comm in his ear flared to life.
“You’ve helped shaping the world. Now, take the last step with us. For us, for you, for your soulmate.”
(They didn’t see his new marks. Everyone was busy with more important things. The Soldier was merely a weapon. Look, how obedient he was, thinking that he was making a better world for his soulmate.)
~+~
Clint saw them when he was washing the sweat away from his bruised, tired body.
He stared into the mirror, towel halfway to his face.
A sob was escaping him as he was taking in the sight of the mountain scenery on his stomach; the wrecked car on his left upper arm seemed to blind him. He rubbed over his arm but the tattoo wouldn’t go away.
Was he still under Loki’s influence? Was that a mean trick?
Who the hell was doing this to him?
He hadn’t seen his tattoos in over a decade. His SHIELD file had told him so many times:
Soulmate: none
.
Clint wasn’t a boy anymore. He didn’t get excited upon seeing the soulmarks. It just hurt too much. He’d rather have no soulmate instead of this…this coming and going of soulmarks.
He had long known that he was broken, but now…so shortly after being mindfucked by Loki…
He put on a fresh shirt, forcing himself to not think about the soulmarks. They would be gone in a few hours, anyway.
Clint could hear the one and only Captain America behind the bathroom door. With the towel still in hand, he stepped out of the door and told him that he was capable of flying the jets. He flinched internally when Rogers looked at Natasha for confirmation that he was the real Clint Barton, Agent Barton with security level 7, codename Hawkeye, master marksman and master assassin.
Yeah, that was him.
Or wasn’t he?
“You got a suit?” Rogers asked.
Clint nodded.
“Then suit up.”
(Clint swore to himself that he would try to help saving the world. Somewhere out there his soulmate was probably dying of fear.)
~+~
Imagine Clint Barton’s surprise when his soulmarks didn’t vanish again.
~+~
Clint had been in a undercover mission when shit hit the fan in Washington, D.C.
One moment he was trying to get intel about the newest mob boss of Shanghai, the next moment all of his covers were blown and he was hiding between huge containers on a cargo ship, sailing across the Pacific Ocean to get on US ground.
He had a vague idea what the fuck had happened after he had swiped a newspaper in the port of Shanghai. SHIELD was no more. Or was it? Apparently he’d been a Hydra agent for 13 years.
Clint would be more concerned about that fact if it wasn’t for the new soulmark that had appeared on his chest, directly above his heart.
I’m with you ‘til the end of the line..
That sounded very romantic.
And wasn’t that another punch in the gut? Clint had been suspicious at first, when his two marks wouldn’t disappear after the battle of New York. But he had slowly accepted that maybe somewhere out there his soulmate was alive and well.
Not a ghost, like he had imagined as a kid.
He had been waiting for the next kick in the balls, though. Because he was pretty sure that he couldn’t have nice things. He must be broken because whose soulmarks appeared and disappeared constantly? He did his research and he had never found a case like him.
Soulmarks disappeared when your soulmate died. This was a known fact.
Clint didn’t have soulmarks most of the time.
When you looked at it from the logical perspective, Clint’s soulmate should have died a few times.
Since this wasn’t possible…
Clint must be broken. Something went wrong when he had been born. And now he had the proof.
His supposed soulmate clearly had someone else, loved someone else. And that someone’s love declaration was now written over Clint’s heart.
That knowledge was almost unbearable for Clint. It hurt worse than that time when he was 10 years old and discovered that he had a soulmate, only to lose him or her hours later.
God, this soulmate mess was so fucking painful.Clint had only ever read the good, happy cases. But what about this mess? Missing somebody you haven’t even met yet. Nobody told him that it almost hurt physically.
Fuck this.
Clint creeped back in the shadows where he had built a little nest for the ship ride.
He did not cry.
But it was a near thing.
~+~
James Buchanan Barnes (that was his name, apparently?) was raiding an abandoned Hydra base for more clues about himself when he just couldn’t anymore.. He sat down between old computer terminals and buried his head in his hands, sighing. But tears wouldn’t come. He hadn’t cried for 70 years and he wouldn’t start now.
He was bone-tired. He wanted to sleep for days. He wanted to curl up in a warm bed, in warm arms, against a warm body. And just let go. But he couldn’t do that. He could never do that.
He’d done things. So many bad things. He remembered every assassination, every kill.
Bucky looked at his right wrist, where the SHIELD Logo was still visible. His soulmate was SHIELD. Had been SHIELD. He or she probably knew what he had done. Maybe the whole world knew what happened to him. With him. Because of him.
He couldn’t go back to Steve.
And he sure as hell couldn’t go to his soulmate.
Because he had to be there, somewhere in Steve’s periphery.
Bucky had realized what the interestingly shaped ‘A’ on his foot stood for. He had seen the letter in every newspaper during the last weeks.
Avengers save Sokovia.
New Avengers Facility built.
Captain America on his new team: Exclusive interview.
His soulmate sure as hell wasn’t Steve. Bucky knew that much.
Bucky had been so surprised when he finally had gotten his thoughts together and understood that he had a soulmate. It all added up. His soulmate was born half a century after him. If he would…
If he would have come out of the war…if he would have lived, really lived, through the decades….he would have felt like a perverted old man.
But like his. After living this really fucked-up life so far. It all added up and his soulmate must be looking older than him, by now.
No, Bucky shouldn’t think about him or her (he’d avoided reading about Steve’s team mates.)
Because he could never be with his soulmate –
“Well, well, well. Who do we have here?”
Shit.
He’d been so sure that the facility was abandoned. One single fucking Hydra agent. Bucky would bet that his only purpose had been to wait for the Winter Soldier, if he would return. Before he could react properly, he had a knife in his abdomen. The guy sneered and even turned the knife at Bucky’s gasp.
Shit.
But he had worse. (Or so he thought. He couldn’t really remember. He only remembered targets. Their faces, how he killed them.)
Hydra was more stupid than Bucky had thought. Because only one Hydra Agent for him? That was almost too easy.
Unfortunately, he was right with that assumption. The man had only been a decoy. As soon as Bucky had the very same knife in the neck of the man, two other men grabbed him by the shoulders, pushing other knives into his body.
Fuck, it was painful.
“We’ve been waiting for you,” one of them said, sneering at him. “It was fucking boring. We have a little surprise for you.”
Normally they wouldn’t be a match for him, but Bucky’s vision began to swim and his knees gave out.
The knives must have been coated with something. Something that his replicated serum couldn’t fight very well.
“Don’t worry. It’ll be over soon,” the other one said and Bucky was being dragged into another room.
“Just to make sure—“ they were doing something with his metal arm, lifting it, straining the connection between him and the arm.
Suddenly an incredible weight was pushing down on his arm and he screamed in agony as multiple parts of his metal arm broke. It felt like his real arm was being broken.
Who was he kidding? The metal arm was his real arm. It was a part of him now. Had been for 70 years.
“Now you can’t run off again, little soldier.”
Bucky tried to free his arm from the vise, but his movements were sluggish and even without being poisoned (or drugged?) he would have never gotten out of the vise.
“So, let me just call somebody, and they will pick us all up. We need our best man back, after all.”
No!
Not again. Never again. No. No. NO!
He lashed out. He kicked, he punched with his right arm.
He managed it to kill them (with troubles but he was the Winter Soldier.) They didn’t have the chance to contact someone.
But now Bucky was stuck. Probably poisoned, and stuck. He would die in here.
The Winter Soldier would die at the same place where he had been born.
1943-Bucky would laugh his ass off.
2016-Bucky did too.
~+~
”I think I’ve found something.” Falcon’s voice sounded surprised. ”I need to get to Cap first. Second floor, third room on the right…that’s -- wow…”
“Copy that,” Clint said, crawling through the ventilation system. “I’ll go check it out. You go find Cap and bring him here, then.”
“Will do. Don’t get your ass killed. We don’t know what state he’s in,” came Falcon’s reply and Clint snorted.
“He didn’t kill anyone since D.C. I think I’ll live.”
Clint had no idea what had possessed him to join Sam and Steve on their hunt. He was pretty sure that Cap’s long lost best friend would turn himself in some day, but since Cap feared that the Registration Act would become reality, he had intensified his search for James Buchanan Barnes.
And since Clint was unemployed (thanks Steve) and bored out of his mind, he had offered his help. This abandoned Hydra base did seem like a red herring at first, but they had wanted to give it a shot.
Clint reached the room Sam had described and 30 seconds later, he dropped down into the room.
The sight that greeted him was heart-breaking.
The man in front of him was kneeling, his metal arm was twisted in a sickening way and when he looked up, he looked so utterly defeated that Clint’s breath hitched. Seeing the man like that physically hurt. It fucking hurt Clint.
“Kill me,” the man – Bucky Barnes – whispered in a broken voice.
Clint dropped to his knees and before he knew what he was doing, he cradled Bucky’s face between his hands, staring at him. Something had made him move.
And as soon as his skin touched Bucky’s, three scenes were flashing in front of his eyes. Memories that weren’t his. The three soulmarks on his body were prickling and burning. Finally, they seemed to sigh.
Clint was seeing things.
He saw a train, Captain America’s shield and snowy mountains. He felt fear. He was holding onto his life. Steve. Steve, help!
And he fell, fell, fell…
Clint blinked and he saw a burning car wreck, it was his doing. And there behind the wheel. He knew these features. A long time ago. He remembered that man from another life.
He remembered, remembered, remembered.
He was fighting the captain. Steve. He knew that man…from somewhere.
Over and over again. The meaning behind his three soulmarks.
Clint Barton’s soulmate wasn’t a ghost. He was alive. His soulmate was alive.
Tears were dwelling in his eyes.
He could hear a ‘shit, fuck… Steve help me’ behind him and when he looked up there were Sam and Steve, freeing Bucky’s metal arm.
And Clint pulled the man against his chest, hugged him tightly and buried his nose in the crook of Bucky’s neck.
“I’ve found you. Oh god, I’ve found you,” his whispered.
Clint’s soul was not broken.
It did have a counterpart.
His soul was whole again.
~+~
His soulmarks were on fire and brimming with energy.
He had buried his face in his soulmate’s (Clint, his name was Clint) chest, let the tears fall from closed eyes and experienced memories that weren’t his.
And James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes cried.
He cried for the first time since 1928. And his badly bruised soul cried with him.