Author's Note: Please keep in mind that I do not speak Russian. Actually, the only languages I know confidently are English and ASL, and the latter isn't exactly something that you write down. So if there's a language used in this fic that's not English, assume that I used Google Translate and that I know it's not 100% reliable.

Chapter One - The Way the Cookie Crumbles

Melissa turned five during the Cold War and her Soulmark appeared in the form of Russian scrawled across her left forearm: Я мог бы убить тебя.

The first words out of her father's mouth were a snarled, "No daughter of mine is going to be a Soviet's whore!"

Her mother didn't say anything. She just cried.

When she asked what the words said, her father told her that it didn't matter; the fact that her words were Russian was enough. The next day, her mother came home with a cuff that laced up painfully tight and was impossible for Melissa's childish fingers to undo. It was her parents' way of hiding her fate from the world and from herself.

It took her a year to figure out how to get the cuff off on her own. Then she spent hours tracing the foreign words and wondering what it was about them that scared her parents so much. It wasn't until she lost her cuff at school and her class saw her Soulmark that she realized it wasn't just her parents. Her teacher wouldn't stop giving her pitying looks and the other students started mocking her for having a Russian, of all things, for a soulmate. She asked her parents if she could learn Russian; she wanted to know what her Soulmark said. They said no.

The Cold War ended when she was nine and it took two year for the taunts about her Russian soulmate to disappear. But the damage was done and she had grown used to living in the background to avoid the slurs and harassment. And not only had she grown used to being unnoticed, she'd gotten good at it. That was the only reason why it was so easy for her to sneak books out of the library and into the hidden box under her bed without anyone noticing.

Teaching herself a new language secretly wasn't easy. Being terrified about learning a new language was worse. She started hiding more and more from her parents, afraid of what her violent father would do if he found out and afraid of what her sharp-tongued mother would say if she learned. So she only learned in secret in the dark hours of the night.

Melissa was twelve when she found out that her words translated to I could kill you and she learned to be terrified of her soulmate too.

She was thirteen when she decided she was done being scared. So she ignored the brutal teasing of those around her—your soulmate is going to hate you, he's going to kill you—and focused instead on being smart and strong enough that no one would dare to try. Because she was tired of being frightened.

She hadn't known that rising through the ranks in both her school and her dojo so quickly would have gotten her so much attention. She wasn't surprise that her parents weren't there when she graduated two years early, but she was surprised to find that someone else was there for her. Someone she didn't even know.

"Nick Fury," he said, shaking her hand firmly.

"Oh, I'm—"

"I know who you are. I have an offer for you."

And that was how she finally got an escape from her family. And for the first time in her life, she didn't wear her cuff to hide her Soulmark; no one at the Operations Academy looked twice at the Russian on her arm, and she was no longer under the furious gazes of her parents. But even without the bullying and judgment of others holding her back, she still found herself as a wallflower. It was just better for everyone, after all, if she didn't make friends. She wasn't the friends type.

Which was why it took her so long to realize that the strange probationary student was talking to her.

"Heeeeelloooooo," he said, waving a hand in front of her face.

Melissa jerked in surprise and grabbed that hand on instinct, wrenching it behind his back. At least, she would have if he hadn't easily countered by sweeping her legs out from under her. All the air left her lungs in a rush and she found herself staring up into a grinning face that was just a little too worn for its age.

"Good," he said, voice tinged with a touch of a lisp. "Looks like I have your attention now."

"Didn't realize you were talking to me," she groused, pushing herself up to her feet.

"Yeah, I kind gathered that," he said, scratching at his ear and wrinkling his nose like it itched. "Word has it that you have a Russian soulmate."

That defensive, angry feeling grew in her chest again. She hadn't felt it in so long and she hated it. She hated her soulmate, she had to remind herself. And he obviously hated her. So she just narrowed her gaze. "What about it?" she snapped out.

"Jeez, chill there, Taz," the man snarked, rolling his eyes. And then he stuck out his left arm. "I never had a chance to learn Russian. I was hoping you could help."

She eyed him for a long moment before ducking her head down to study the Russian written across his arm. The script was thin and neat, nothing like the looping handwriting on her own skin.

Тебе придется убить меня первым.

"Oh." And then suddenly, she was painfully aware that she wasn't the only one with an angry Russian for a soulmate.

"Oh?" The man squinted at her. "Is that a good 'oh' or a bad one?"

"That's up to you, I guess," she murmured. "Do you want to know what it says?"

"That's kinda the point," he said, scratching at his ear again. No, not at his ear. He was scratching at the device curled around it. "Tell me."

"It says 'You're going to have to kill me first.'"

"Oh."

"Yeah. Oh." Melissa pulled away and stooped down to snatch up the bag she'd dropped. "So have fun with that." She turned on her heel, only to have something snatch against her collar. She looked back, expression already darkening again. "What?"

"I don't know Russian."

"Yeah, you've made that pretty clear." She knocked his hand away. "I don't see what that has to do with me, so." She made to leave again.

"Well, I have to learn somehow, right?"

At that, she didn't even remember to glare at him. Instead, she incredulously asked, "You learn that your soulmate hates you and you still want to learn Russian?"

He shrugged. "Without context, everything sounds bad. You sound a little bitter." He cocked his head down to get at look at her arm. "What does your say?"

She drew her arm up to her chest, hiding the ink on her inner forearm from his gaze. Melissa studied him for a long moment before she said, "You'll have to learn Russian to figure it out. I think I might have a couple books that could help."

And that was how she met her first ever friend. It wasn't like she meant to make a friend, but Clint made it very clear very quickly that she was stuck with him. And then, after a little while, she discovered that she didn't mind. She discovered that it was actually nice to have someone that liked to be around her. Someone that cared. She was used to having Clint all to herself, even after they both left the Academy and separated for missions.

And then Clint came back from one of those missions with a redhead and tears in his eyes.

"It's her," he sobbed while Melissa held him. "I found her."

"I'm glad," she said, because it would be a lie to say anything else. "I don't know if I like her, though."

"You don't like anyone," he mumbled. "Don't worry, you'll get there," Clint teased, though there were still tears staining his face.

But she didn't. Not for a while. It took a long time for her to stop studying Natasha suspiciously every time she saw her, as if she was just waiting for the woman to make a wrong move. She only realized she'd stopped that when she used the word friends for the first time.

"I'd rather be here with my friends," she said when Clint asked her if she was sure that she wanted to spend Christmas with them instead of her—judging, angry, violent—parents.

Natasha stared at her for a long moment, unblinking in a way that Melissa had complained about more than once. And then a thin smile curled her lips. "I'm a friend, now?"

A surge of anxiety threatened to suffocate Melissa right then and there, but she had spent her entire life spewing out quick comebacks and prided herself on not being taken off-guard. So despite the shock blooming in her chest, she just shrugged. "I guess. You're stuck with me now."

And that's how it was for a long time. Melissa had teammates, but it wasn't the same. She knew they would watch her back during the mission, but that they didn't care otherwise. The first time she ran a mission with Natasha—Ahvaz was miserably hot and she never wanted to go back—she could feel the difference in just how much more comfortable she was in trusting herself completely to her friend.

She hated going back to her regular SHIELD team, and she couldn't deny the anxious feelings she got about Clint and Natasha going on missions where she knew she couldn't protect them.

And then New York happened.

Melissa wasn't there. She was just entering deep cover in Izmir when she heard that Clint and Natasha were fighting for their lives in New York City, and there wasn't a goddamn thing she could do about it. Because then she found herself buried in her mission and knew that trying to leave now would mean certain death.

She didn't get out for two months.

She met a SHIELD team at the extraction point and immediately passed out from blood loss, her question about whether her friends had survived dying on her tongue as she lost consciousness. And when she woke up, she didn't need to ask that question.

Because she woke up to two familiar sets of eyes staring down at her, colors laced with worry.

Melissa let out a breath that she'd been holding for the last eight weeks and sagged into her hospital bed. "You're alive."

"We should be saying that about you," Clint said in exasperation, but the relief on his face belied his teasing tone. Natasha didn't say anything; she just refused to let go of Melissa's hand.

It took five days for her to be cleared and she let the two of them argue over who got to push her wheelchair. By the time Clint won, they were already outside. And there was a limo waiting for them.

"Courtesy of Stark," Clint said proudly. "Speak of the devil."

She had heard about the Avengers during her time in the hospital, and she'd even heard about the Initiative in general from Fury himself over the years. But there was something different about seeing all six of them there together. It was just . . . she didn't quite know why they were all there.

"We're all getting lunch together!" Clint announced loudly. "Tasha and I agreed that you should meet our new friends!"

Oh, god, no. There's no room left in your heart for more friends, her brain hissed. And she had to agree.

But then Steve politely asked if she'd prefer a limo ride to the restaurant or if she'd like to be wheeled there. And he was smiling cautiously, but there was something sunny and bright and honest about it.

There's a little room, her heart whispered.