Title: Heavy in Your Arms (1/?)
Author/Artist: Koren M. (cybermathwitch)
Disclaimer: Not mine. If they were, there'd already be a Black Widow/Hawkeye movie. But Marvel has owned my loyalty since I was about 3, so...
Pairing: Clint/Natasha, Coulson/The Cellist
Rating: Adult 17+
Warnings: language, violence, eventually sexual content, dub-con only if you feel that mystical/destiny sorts of compulsions qualify as dubious consent
Spoilers: None
Type: WIP
Word Count: 3231
Summary: For every romantic happily-ever-after there were also horror stories of the pain and torment that awaited those who found and lost their soul mate. A favorite trope was the idea of soul mates who were on opposite sides of a line, who chose to kill one another than betray their beliefs or live without their companion, or stories where one's mate was torn from them by the forces of evil - the list of ways it could go south seemed endless. An AU, in which Clint knows all the stories about how it could go wrong. He never expected it to be real, and staring back at him from the other side of his arrow.

Author's Notes:

Thank you to my awesome betas! Much, much <3 and many thanks to kadollan, lar_laughs, and SidheRa! I totes owe you guys snicker-doodle crusted brownies.

A fill for heartequals's prompt at the be_compromised's awesome Promptathon of Awesomeness:

Have we had a request for soulbonding/imprinting fic yet? And if not, may I request soulbonding/imprinting fic where "making a different call" actually meant "we couldn't let each other go"? It's not even about love, it's about self-preservation. And all that that entails of course -- for civilians it's this happy wonderful thing, finding your other half, but this is SHIELD. Natasha's still programmed to kill everything and Clint's trained to work alone for months on end and on top of that soulbonding tests/paperwork/lifestyle changes/etc. It's so overwhelming that at the end of the day they don't have the energy to actually try to get to know each other, so they just sit in silence and hold each other. (And then later they become sexy master assassins who drop everything when the other is compromised.)

Also inspired by the prompt from workerbee73:

place me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm
for love is as strong as death

Title is from Florence + the Machine's "Heavy in Your Arms"

I'm trying something new, and doing this as a WIP, since it - amazingly - seems to be coming in chronological order. IDEK.

whispering like it's a secret