The Girl With the Six Marks The Hidden Mark Chapter Six
Avengers Headquarters
Natasha sips a cup of coffee as she walks through the lab. Bruce had fallen asleep, slumped over the computer screen as exhaustion finally overtook him. She covers him with a blanket before taking a seat at the table.
Tony was gone, doing god knows what. Steve was with Alyanna's family, making sure they were alright. Thor had disappeared, leaving Natasha, Clint, and Bruce to work in the lab.
Clint sits across from her, staring blankly at the table. His whole body felt numb, the missing soulmark evident of that. The red headed woman passes a cup of coffee to her fellow teammate and old friend. "Do you...think she's really gone?" Clint asks, barely above a whisper.
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Natasha felt her stomach twist in knotts and her heart literally tearing in two. "I don't know, usually soulmarks don't fade when a soulmate dies. They just grow cold. But ours...just vanished."
Clint frowns and squeezes the cup in his hands tightly, staring down at the dark liquid. "Oh god," he breaths as emotion overcomes him. "How could we let this happen!"
Natasha swallows, her red hair looking flatter than usual and her face looking a little dry. "We knew this day would come. Alyanna warned us of that man. She knew something was up with the scepter."
"But that was almost a year ago, we've been in peace," Clint wines.
"Exactly. The world can never stay saved. It was only a matter of time. And Erik decided that a wedding would be the perfect day to attack," she says as she digs her nails into her palm.
"I can't imagine what Alyanna must be going through right now. I just want to hold her, and never let go."
"Believe me, we all do," Natasha agrees. "But if know our soulmate I know that she is strong and smart, and she'll learn to survive. No matter what."
Clint nods, a small pained smile spreading across his lips. "I've never met anyone more stubborn," he chuckles.
Natasha smiles, "Or courageous."
Clint shakes his head. "Did I ever tell you the moment I got my soulmark?"
Natasha leans forward, intrigue to hear the story.
Clint runs his hand through his hair. "Well shoot, I was about seventeen years old. I was down in the dumps, being an orphan and growing up never knowing anything more than my marksmanship. I didn't have a soulmark so no one in the world really cared about me...."
A young Clint staggers down the empty street with a brown bag in his hand. Today he just got news that he would be kicked out of his foster care home and he left to fend for himself. He decided to celebrate by getting smashed.
