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Tony grows up his entire life thinking he’s a freak with no soulmate. He searches his whole body in the mirror as a child and into his teens, wondering if it’s written somewhere obscure he can’t see properly, but there’s nothing. Wondering if it’ll show up one day, because maybe he’s five years older than his soulmate. Maybe ten. Maybe fifteen.....? Sometimes he tells people it’s somewhere private like below his belt, making up weird phrases it could be, and he almost gets expelled once from school for beating up another kid after they tease him and say he must have no soul at all.
He grows up hearing stories about everybody else’s soulmate - how his father even had two (Howard’s first soulmark read “call me Bucky”, which he spent a lot of his life covering up for obvious reasons - it faded away after the train incident, and mysteriously reappeared like an ugly scar days before his murder) and that after his second appeared, Maria’s first words to him - “Hello there handsome” - were said to him so many times he almost married the wrong woman twice.
Maria tells Tony his lack of soulmark doesn’t make him less of a man. That many great minds through history have never married. That perhaps his soulmate is just mute. Tony never really believes her, but he appreciates his mother’s efforts. The truth is that he feels utterly unlovable. Especially when he sees how his mother’s soulmark for Howard fades over time, as her love for him fades away. By the time she dies, he’s given up hope of ever finding real love.
He spends the next 10 years of his life drinking and partying and sleeping with loose women and men, finding easy company in anyone who has a soulmark that just reads ‘let me buy you a drink’ or something along those lines. One night stands are simple. They satisfy the craving for human closeness, for a while.
By the time the words “Umm.... what are you doing?” appear on Tony’s chest, right over his heart, he’s not having any of it. It’s practically laughable. He’s not waited over 30 years for umm, and there’s no way he’s that much older than his soulmate. So he carries on as he always has done, and ignores the tiny glimmer of hope that ignites in his chest.
It feels kind of poetic, in an ugly way, that the mark on his chest is cut right out when the arc reactor goes in. A metal heart for a heartless, unlovable man, he thinks. He never even heard those words, and he never expects to make it out of that cave.
When he falls for Pepper, it always kills him how she hides her mark from him. He knows it’s not his words, but the way she tries to pretend makes it feel even worse.
Peter’s soulmark has been plastered across his left hand since birth. His parents - and May and Ben - were always wary of “nice work, kid” because they’re scared of Peter finding his soulmate young, or in someone too old for him. Not that it can be avoided, they figure, but they don’t want him being whisked away as a child. But his mark is hard to hide, and although Peter hears the phrase (and variations of, as adults in his life try to avoid those exact words after seeing his hand) many times over the next 8 years of his life, it’s never the first words.
Not until the droid attack at Stark Expo.
Not until that hand is covered in a tiny replica Iron Man repulsor and he’s holding it up to defend himself against a towering droid. Not until Iron Man, the real Iron Man, is right beside him saving his life.
“Nice work, kid.”
By the time May and Ben find Peter amongst the destruction, it’s all he can talk about. His soulmate is Iron Man. His hero.
No one believes him, of course. The man is old enough to be his dad twice over, and he’s a little boy. May tries to humor him, but his excitement fades a little when she asks what he said to Iron Man in response.
Nothing. He said nothing.
Eight year old Peter doesn’t let that dampen his spirits, but twelve year old Peter, and thirteen year old Peter, and fourteen year old Peter loses hope a little more every year.
It doesn’t stop him soaking in every piece of news about the incredible, talented and handsome Tony Stark that he possibly can. He never hears nice work, kid as anyone’s first words to him ever again.
Tony’s almost forgotten about his soulmark by the time he has the arc reactor removed because he’s so used to having not had one, and not caring. So imagine his surprise when he removes the bloodied bandages after his surgery to replace them and finds the words umm... what are you doing? reforming crookedly across his scarred skin. This time Pepper sees them, and she tries to pretend she remembers those as her first words to him, but neither of them ever really accept that (Pepper’s first words to Tony were in fact “Mr. Stark, I am a woman of business, not an ornament” and he’ll never forget that.)
They make it last a while longer, but ultimately it destroys them. He lets her go not because he has to, but because he wants to. She deserves so much more than he can give her. She deserves her “you need anything, you can call on me anytime.”
And Tony deserves his umm. He’s starting to accept that.
When he finally hears it, when he hears it in the living room of May Parker’s two bed apartment in Queens, right in front of her, from her fifteen year old nephew, he swears he nearly faints.
Tony always expected the words to be accusatory. Nasty, even. So many people approach him with anger these days, he wouldn’t be surprised if his soulmate came at him with a verbal attack. He never ever, not once, anticipated the sweet, nervous stuttering of words out of Peter’s soft mouth, the big wide doe eyes looking at him in utter awe and adoration. Tony’s heart aches so hard at the realisation, he starts to panic that he might be having a heart attack.
He can feel the connection.
At least, he thinks he can. Is this what it feels like, he wonders? Meeting your soulmate? He’d heard from some people that they knew in the moment, like a flash of lightning in their chest. For others, it was nothing. No feeling. No movie moment. Sometimes it even slipped people’s minds entirely, and they didn’t figure it out until later.
By the time he gets Peter alone in his bedroom, Tony’s heart is pounding so hard in his ears he can hardly hear himself think.
“Mr. Stark?” Peter says. Tony realises he’s been staring at him dumbfoundedly.
“Sorry. It’s just that you-” he stops himself. Tony can see Peter’s hand. He can see nice work, kid as clear as day, a soulmark never meant to be hidden.
Those weren’t the words he said to Peter as the kid entered the apartment.
His heart plummets. He’s wrong again.
But if he’s wrong, why does it feel so right?
Peter feels the connection too. He’s spent years denying himself the pleasure of accepting that Tony Stark might be his soulmate, because he doubted they’d ever meet again, but here the guy is standing right in front of him and looking at him like something about Peter has just changed his life forever. They both stutter through the conversation, and by the time Tony leaves Peter’s heart is soaring. It’s Tony Stark.
Tony Stark is really, truly his soulmate.
He tells May later that evening. She’s not completely comfortable about it, but she admits she knew from the moment she opened the door to Tony that Peter must have been right all along.
They spend hours talking about it and May makes him promise he won’t rush into anything because he’s still so young.
Tony doesn’t exactly make it easy, so there’s no problem there.
It’s not until after the Vulture incident that they even really spend time together. Tony’s always giving him these sad, stressed out looks when he thinks Peter’s not paying attention (Peter’s always paying attention) and Peter wonders if Tony is upset that Peter is his soulmate. He probably wanted someone else. Someone older, more attractive. Maybe a woman. Peter’s so embarrassed to be a disappointment that he can’t bring himself to bring it up.
Instead it’s Tony who first mentions it. They’re working on upgrading his web shooters together in Tony’s workshop, shoulder to shoulder at the work bench. Tinkering in silence like this is one of his favourite activities, when he can just watch Peter and wish his soulmate didn’t have a soulmate who wasn’t him. When it feels like the thought is choking him, Tony forces himself to bring it up.
“Must have been crazy, having that on your hand your whole life,” he says casually, as if it’s not burning him up from the inside out. “Where everyone could see it.”
The way Peter flusters and hides his hand makes Tony regret his words instantly.
“A bit,” Peter says, fidgeting in his seat. “People always ask about it but I gave up telling them anything a long time ago because no one ever believes me.”
“What do you mean?”
Tony’s got his full attention on Peter now.
“That it’s you,” Peter says without a moment’s hesitation. “I get how ridiculous it sounds but that’s the point of the mark, right? It takes the guessing out of it?”
He’s sure the look of shock on his face is comical, but Peter doesn’t laugh at him. Instead he questions the shock, and then he explains. He tells Tony about Stark Expo. Tells Tony how he saved his life.
Tony doesn’t know what to say, so instead he just opens his shirt and shows Peter what he’s spend so many years hiding - the crooked letters spread across the scars on his chest spelling out Peter’s first words to him. His mouth is dry with anticipation. He’s nervous, and Tony can’t remember the last time he was ever this nervous, but he explains how he thought he wasn’t the one for Peter, how he doesn’t remember the expo, how much he’s been pining after him.
Peter kisses him then, finally, at last, and Tony knows in that moment it’s been worth every minute he’s waited.