First Encounters [Multi-Fandom]

Clint & Scott

Clint Barton had not been born with his soulmark. In fact, he was nine years old when the words in two lines appeared on his outer right forearm, stretching from the side of his wrist to elbow. His older brother always cracked jokes about the age gap, but surprisingly it didn't bother Clint at all seeing as the Fates thought it best to give him a soulmate that young. However, Clint did think for the longest time that his soulmate was going to be female.

He had never given much thought that his soulmate might have been of the same sex because at a young age his parents were killed and he and his brother went to an orphanage. There was absolutely no talk of the birds and the bees, and there definitely wasn't talk about any of it at the orphanage. The orphanage wasn't exactly the happiest of places- especially a place to think about a future with the soulmate he had yet to meet- so he covered up his words and pushed them to the back of his mind. For years the Barton brothers stayed at the orphanage and then when they couldn't take it the two of them ran away to join the circus. They flourished doing their own thing within the circus and Clint was soon known as the World's Greatest Marksman.

Things had then turned sour with the circus and brother turned against brother. Clint had been left for dead, but this particular Barton was as stubborn as ever and refused to die. He picked himself up, nursed himself back to health and used his particular skill set to make a name for himself in any way that he could. And that name- that name landed him on SHIELD's radar where he ended up being recruited rather than put down as agent Coulson had explained.

Coincidentally, meeting agent Coulson was when Clint first found himself attracted to someone of the same sex. Though seeing as Coulson was his boss, Clint let his eyes wander elsewhere to see if he really was attracted to the male form or if Coulson was just an exception. And when he was finally given free reign after proving his loyalty, Clint hit up the seediest bars with a false persona only to figure out that he very much liked both sexes and that his soulmate could be either or. Though with a job inside SHIELD, Clint didn't have much time to put himself out there and meet his soulmate. He had actually thought he'd meet him or her in SHIELD given his words, but no one above his ranking ever spoke them.

He had eventually been given the mission to put down the Black Widow, but when he had found her and managed to actually be in the position where he could kill her, he couldn't do it. She was just a girl and his conscience ended up winning, he eventually dragging her back to Coulson when he had given her the same speech that Coulson had given him long ago. But the Black Widow was such an enormous threat that her handling took a lot longer than Barton's, and since Barton had brought her in he had been assigned to her to make sure she didn't stray.

Their partnership- Hawkeye and the Black Widow- became a big deal within SHIELD and the two were never seen far from each other. Even after the Avengers Initiative was put together and the duo moved into Stark Tower- the two agents were a solid unit. So that's how Natasha Romanoff- the Black Widow's name when she wasn't on mission- found herself in on the secret when Clint was bitten by a supposedly ordinary man during a mission. The teeth had been too sharp and the mark been too large for a human's jaw, but when he felt no immediate effect of the bite, Natasha helped clean him up and bandage it.

They had planned to keep it a secret since there was no side-effect and managed to keep that little detail of Clint's attack out of their debriefing. But when Clint woke up the following day and went to shower, the bandage came off and he was met with flawless skin. In a panic, he forgot all about his shower and fled to find Natasha. The redhead was just as gobsmacked at he was- the two realizing that he needed to be checked out, but they didn't want SHIELD involved. Instead, they sought out Bruce Banner since they knew he'd be discreet if asked.

Tony was eventually brought in since it was his Tower and he apparently had a right to know everything going on- especially when blood tests were being done after Clint mysteriously healed. Steve and Thor, however, were currently away from the Tower, so the least amount of people who knew about Clint's condition the better.