AN: I first posted this is Bloopers, which a fic of ficlets, and reading that is not necessary for reading/understanding this. Also posted on AO3 like I've posted it on here - in Bloopers and as it's own fic.

After he hit age 10, Steve had always had weird cuts and bruises, and pain in odd places. His muscles had memory they shouldn't, and often, he felt an odd sensation in his stomach that made him want to throw up.

He knew that they were from his soul mate, who he figured must have been getting beaten or something (also, the last one, to his mortification, was what he assumed was womanly problems that he first got around the age 23). He tried to lessen any wounds he sustained as soon as he could, or completely not get them in general, since his mate was already getting so badly hurt on a regular basis.

He couldn't just stop standing up to the bullies, though.

He figured that whoever she was really didn't appreciate the black eyes and bruises he got from the fights. She always gave him her injuries, though, so a few bruises that didn't even hurt couldn't be that bad to her.

Once, in the beginning, he drew a portrait - more like an outline - of his own body, and added the injuries he got. He put the date he got them next to the picture, to remember, because was fairly certain he'd have to know when these things were happening. He honestly thought that he'd find his soul mate and have to go to court with her over an abusive fella or parent. Bucky thought he was ridiculous, or so he said. Steve knew his best buddy was serious concerned.

He went on in life, though, and read up on as much as he could about people suffering from abuse. A lot of it didn't apply, but he read it anyway.

It was his second biggest goal, being able to help his mate once they met, only after becoming a soldier.

He didn't think about what his being a soldier would do to her, though. He didn't think about how much older he was than her. He didn't think.

He'd come out of the chamber with a giant cut, lots of bruises and a split lip.

"Jesus," Howard had whistled.

Steve had smiled sheepishly, blushed, and wondered if he'd had some part in getting the wounds.

That was the start of army officials looking at him weird.

One day, everything about her felt wrong. Natasha couldn't explain it, but her whole body felt out of place.

She told her handler that she was sick, having cramps and taking her only day off to date.

He'd been angry. She couldn't imagine what her mate was going through after the punishment she got.

Natasha didn't know who exactly her mate was, but he seemed like a taunting dumbass, if the minor wounds he suffered EVERY DAY were any indication.

The injuries he gave her were certainly not as bad as the ones she gave him, not by a long shot, but still. What the hell. How did he spend his days, flinging himself into the way of fists? Really, it was kind of ridiculous, considering he probably didn't have as good an excuse as her.

The only good thing he gave her was the ability to draw like a champ. And, okay, she was pretty skilled at the whole duck before a fist could hit her directly in the face thing, too.

She deducted that she was younger than him, seeing as from day one, she'd been getting his injuries (try explaining why you're a three year old with a split lip and a bruise as big as your face without it sounding like you're covering up abuse - she dares you). That's why, when the war was going on, and she would've been too young to get in had she been a guy, she knew he was older for sure and thus, the bullet wound on her torso, and the coldness in her bones.

At the same time that the news about Captain America going down in the ice came to her - days later, she'd like to point out - she was shivering. She had a migraine, her head hurt and was fuzzy, making it hard to focus, there was pain in every inch of her body. Also, her stomach was dying, even though she was fed. It had started the same time that Captain America had gone down.

It seemed obvious who her soul mate was, but she refused to believe it.

(She might've requested to learn English, the one language she'd never asked to be taught, once she figured it out. What? She might go to Britain, or North America, and if she couldn't speak the language - what was she going to do?)

Many, many years of excuses later, and she was fluent and also being rescued - rescued? Or taken against her will, since her only other option was death? - by an American who went by the name of Hawkeye. He got a giant cut on his hand while they were going back to where he worked. He'd cursed and called someone over the phone.

She just looked down and blocked the ensuing conversation ("What the fuck just happened!?") out.

When Steve woke up, it was a slow and gradual thing.

His ears told him he was listening to a game from before he went off to war, which made as much sense as how clean the room was once he finally looked around it. Where was the grime? Where were the other boys who were injured? Would they put him in a room all alone, away from the others that were wounded? Where was his nurse?

Those things, along with the fact that the sound outside would be more common in New York than in war torn Europe, led Steve to know who he'd been taken by. At least he still had his soul mate, right? The wounds he was sporting were considerably less worse than the ones he'd gone done with. (That's not to say that he can feel a multitude of healed wounds, making do now that he's not in the plane anymore.)

That was a relief. If Steve couldn't be safe - and yeah, HYRDA was not about to let him get away scotch free - then at least she was.

(He'd make sure she was safe as best as he could once he met her. He knew it.)

The nurse finally walked in, and something about her, the way she dressed, the words she spoke, rubbed him wrong. And when the guys dressed in black with guns like he'd never seen before, he got angry. You could hardly blame him.

Turns out he's in the future. And who knows, maybe his soul mate is old and in love with someone who's not him. Shit. As if God hasn't thrown more than enough curve balls his way.

He meets Agent Natasha Romanoff during the days before aliens are supposed to invade. She's beautiful, and graceful and deadly. (He is hopelessly attracted to her.)

They fight together like a dream, but she's uneasy around him. He doesn't know what he did, and he doesn't know how to fix it.

When he asks, she tells him that he's reading her wrong, and he thinks that she's lying. He could tell that she was, especially since she'd tensed when he'd walked over to her, and tensed even more once his question was out.

One night, most of the Avengers on Earth (meaning all but Thor) get drunk. They're at the meetings SHIELD makes them have sometimes - usually they don't drink, but they do that time.

It takes Natasha a long time to get tipsy, and after at least 3 gallons, Steve's got nothing but softened edge.

Tony and Clint sing show tunes, Bruce tells everyone mathematic formulas about the Hulk, even though no one is listening, and Steve just sits and thinks. Natasha, who after getting enough tipsy, got drunk, and sat next to him.

"You know," she said, "the reason I'm so weird around you is because you remind me of my soul mate."

"You've met him?" Asks Steve. It must be nice, he thought.

"Yeah. He's big, strong, and so much better than me," and it sounds like she believes what she's spouting. Steve can't fathom anyone better than Natasha - or anyone who was bad and tries as hard as she does to be better, at least. "He doesn't know. I don't want to tell him, because he's got so much other stuff going on in his life, and I'd only be a burden when he needs to work through the other things first."

Steve can't help but think that her mate's situation is a lot like his in some aspects. He draws off of that. "Maybe you would help ease the burden he already has? You won't know until you tell him." He'd love to have someone at his side during the therapy sessions and the WSC meetings about his mindset.

"And what if he wants nothing to do with me? It would be unlike who he usually is, but still. I'm not the best person to ever walk the Earth, and he knows that. Not to mention, the things he has to work through? Massively psychological, they are. I play with people's minds, and he doesn't need that."

She gets up, walks away, and he lets her. She doesn't remember the next day.

Natasha has told Fury, at least 3 times before, that Steve and her do not belong working together. It's not him, it's her, she even said, going against her NEVER EVER BE CLICHE thing. He knew about them being mates - he saw the ice burns she got even though she never even saw the ice he was trapped in. But still, he put them together. Something about them being one of the best damn teams SHIELD had ever seen.

Nat doesn't accept the compliment, instead requesting - again - that she be paired up with anyone but Steve.

He must be offended by her doing that, and forces them back together each time.

They're in New Zealand when Tony's mansion is bombed into the sea.

They're in Chile when Malekith comes down to London.

They're together in the thick of things in D.C. when HYDRA rears it's ugly red head.

Always together, sharing wounds. Steve hasn't noticed, and she wonders how the best tactile mind of the 20th century could possibly not know. If not the wounds they dress for each other, then it should be the way she knows exactly how to hold the shield correctly, or how was so nimble and spine-what-spine. But he never saw. She thought it was maybe because they had lots of missions, with lots of objectives and not too many breaks.

Sam's with her when they're in the air, and she's getting every single one of Steve's wounds. She wonders just how much he's letting James win the fight - she's bruised and bloody like she's never been from him. Her lips is split, her cheek is bruised, she feels fuzzy in the way she had all those years before.

He sends her a look that says he knows, and she just shrugs. She doesn't care anymore if people know. (It hadn't always been the best thing, possibly having Captain America as her soul mate, i.e. the Red Room.)

He asks, even though he more than likely already knows, "you tell him?"

She shook her head, and the conversation was over, because there was the last helicarrier falling out of the sky even though Steve was still on it.

Later, they find him on the banks of the Potomac, and he's not breathing right at all.

The EMTs try to help her, but she just tells them she's his soul mate, and they leave her be.

She doesn't leave his side, and goes into the ambulance with him, feeling the pain he was down to her bones.

When Steve wakes up in the hospital later, he thinks about how everything was so similar to how he died 70 years before.

A plane that had to go down. Someone with him when it happened. A body of water. Him sacrificing everything. Waking up to find he didn't die.

This time, he can see Sam next to him, looking like he hadn't aged a day, and he can breathe easier.

When Natasha walks in, sporting wounds she hadn't been last he'd seen her, he'd asked after them.

"Same ones as your," she'd told him. It took a moment, what with the drugs and the concussion, but then he got it. It snapped into place like nothing else ever had, and he grinned, despite it all.

"Really?" He sounds elated. He thinks he does, at least. The look on her face is indescribable. The feeling that's welling up in his throat makes his lips stretch widely into a smile, even if it hurts his split lip.

"Really," she says, then leans over and kisses him on the forehead. "Now, you need to get better, soldier. We got a ghost to catch."

He couldn't think of a better soul mate.