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Steve’s eyes didn’t linger on Natasha’s chest as she stripped down to her underthings right there in the middle of the quinjet.
To be fair, Steve’s eyes didn’t linger anywhere on his teammates, neither her nor Clint.
He especially kept his eyes from getting stuck on the inky black of the soulmark resting over her heart and on full display to the jet. Something that was even more taboo in Steve’s day than a woman stripping down to her bra and panties in a room full of men.
She smiled at him as if in response to Steve’s unseeing eyes.
He is familiar with that smile. Its reserved for when Steve reacts to something in an appropriate twenty-first century manner instead of the knee jerk reaction that he wants to have to something.
But Steve had seen his fair share of soulmarks in the war. It wasn’t completely unheard of in his time for someone’s mark to be revealed in public, for eyes outside the intended recipient to land on a mark. Steve’s been to weddings too, and in his day there had been an entire ceremony for revealing the couples matching soulmark before the vows.
He knows it’s not like that now though. People who aren’t soulmates are allowed to marry now, and tradition has changed.
Steve knew he was still stuck and old fashioned in some ways, but he liked to think he was up to date in this kind of thinking. He had always advocated openly for marriage outside of soulbonds, so he really didn’t think much about it.
Looking at hers or Clint’s marks, that it.
Sure, there were a few modern values that Steve didn’t accept quite as readily or quite as hard as he did marriage outside of soulbonds… like say the new trend of taking photos of matching soulmarks for things like social media, or seeing actors and models posing with their exposed soulmarks on the covers of magazines, in picture films, and billboards. For the most part though, Steve considered himself pretty accepting of the new not-so-taboo taboo.
So, at first, Steve was frustrated when Tony, the only other of the team to get coated in slime during their latest mission, tried to slink out of decontamination. Though that only lasted a second before Steve recalled a real reason why Tony might put up a fuss about the decontamination shower.
The light of the arc reactor shown brightly and vaguely green through the layer of slime Tony was covered in.
But then Steve recalled the other reason why Tony might have had that cringing expression on his face when he squared his shoulders and peeled off the top half of the flightsuit in anticipation for his turn in the shower stall.
Tony used his balled up and soiled top to wipe away the slime from the arc reactor, causing the dim blue to brighten considerably in the dark of the quinjet, but it also drew Steve’s eye to the light’s origin, despite the social decorum that said not to look at your topless teammate.
Which drew Steve’s eye to the ink that resided in the skin of Tony’s chest.
Over Tony’s entire chest.
One of those pesky twenty-first century cultural shifts that Steve just couldn’t wrap his head around.
Tattoos.
Not just any tattoos of course. Steve was aware that the act of tattooing the skin was an important part of many cultures, and he had no qualms with any form of art, really.
But Tony’s tattoo wasn’t just any tattoo.
It was a cover-up tattoo.
One that covered his soulmark.
That was not something Steve’s 1940’s sensibilities knew how to handle, not after seeing mutilated soulmarks of same-sex bondpairs in concentration camps throughout the war.
Then again, Tony’s tattoo caused qualm with a lot of people born in this century too, despite how famous he is. How famous he is because of it.
Steve has always known the tattoo was there. He just hadn’t ever seen it. Shield kept soulmarks in their records, as did the army. Shield kept records of the soulmarks of more than just their employees though. They liked to have the marks of some of their targets and people of interest too, which has unsettled Steve a bit. Tony Stark’s soulmark, even though he was incredibly famous, had always alluded Shield.
Because of his tattoo.
He posed on the covers of magazines, topless and with his tattoo on display, for the first time at eighteen years old, so Shield hadn’t been able to catch Tony’s soulmark on camera in the three years before the young billionaire had it covered. Shield had reason to believe he got the tattoo long before that scandalous photoshoot too, if their reports were anything to go off of.
When Steve had read about Tony, Howards son and heir, that fact, that shame, the ink, the tattoo, that desecration of something more sacred to Steve than his own damn life, it hadn’t exactly endeared Steve to the already cocky and abrasive man.
Since they’ve become friends, and Steve would say pretty good friends at that, he’s rationalized why Tony might have done it, since his idea of a man who would ruin and distort something so sacred didn’t exactly match up with the kind of man Tony was once you got passed his media personality. When you found the friend, and hero beneath it all.
He thought maybe Tony had gotten the tattoo in order to protect his soulmate since the Starks were so famous and already Tony would have had been held ransom twice before he turned fifteen and got his mark. He also wondered if Tony might have had to deal with people claiming to be his soulmate just to get something from him, the way some other beautiful celebrities do these days.
Steve had a lot of reasons why a good man like Tony would have covered his soulmark.
None of them were true though, Steve knew the moment his eyes landed of the broad expanse of the genius’s chest.
Tony’s tattoo stretches wide and proud, symmetrical across his chest. The tips of wings brush the bottom of his collar bones and feathers stretch down to the bottom of his pectorals. The artwork is done entirely in greyscale, but the detail is extraordinary and lifelike. The arc reactor sits in the center of Tony’s chest, and though Steve can see that the reactor came after the art, and scars have left the ink milky and lines wide in a few places, the tattoo is in no way ruined by its addition.
Steve can’t tell what kind of bird it is, not with the way the reactor has become the centerpiece in place of the bird’s head and upper body, but he isn’t sure he needs to know in order to understand. The body language is enough, the great bird looks strong and powerful, proud, yet at the same time the wings curve in slightly, like this bird of prey is readying to strike when it is not. Steve knows this because there is already something clutched in the bird’s deadly talons. Maybe, Steve thinks, they bird is protecting something.
In the bird’s claws is an hourglass, and maybe the most revealing part of the entire tattoo. Steve isn’t sure how Shield never noticed it before, but then again, Shield tends to wear a certain colour glasses when it comes to Tony Stark, and that shade isn’t in pink. The hourglass is clutched in both feet, hangs horizontal in the air. The glass in cracked and broken where the claws have pierced through. No sand escapes through the cracks, and no sand is exchanged between the bowls of the hourglass either. Just two separate heaps of sand, never touching.
“They’re dead,” Steve heard his own voice speak out into the relative quiet of the jet.
He wished he could take the words back the moment he said them out loud, as his voice prompted the room to follow Steve’s line of sight to stare directly at Tony.
Steve braced himself for Tony’s reaction, likely a harsh one. Steve’s heart fell, terrified he had just overstepped vastly as Tony’s shoulders tensed.
Tony gave a tight smile that looked incredibly forced, but his tone was calm, if a little sad, “Yeah, he is,” Tony admits and turns slightly away from the prying eyes of the jet.
Right away Steve knows that this is more information than Tony has ever given on the topic, and despite how many other people are in the room, it’s Steve who Tony stared back at, as if he’s speaking only to Steve, like the others aren’t there at all.
“I’m so sorry, Tony,” Steve says into the space between them and no one else.
Tony’s forced smile relaxes minutely, until he almost looks like he’s smiling for real, just a small sad thing.
“Yeah, me too,” Tony replies easily, or he pretends its easy at the very least.
Tony looks away then, takes his turn in the decon shower, and yet Steve see’s nothing but the image of Tony’s torso, like the image is burned into his eyelids for the 3 minutes that Tony hoses down.
When Tony exits the stall, hair sticking up wild and wet in nothing but a pair of loose sweatpants, Steve see’s the tattoo all over again as Tony comes and sits down next to Steve. Steve’s the only one who didn’t end up in the blast radius of the slime explosion at the end of the mission, and he suddenly feels very overdressed amongst his pajama clad teammates.
Steve can’t help but let his words get ahead of him again with the heat of Tony’s naked skin beside him, radiating warm enough that Steve thinks he can feel it through his own layers of canvas and Kevlar, “He must have been a good man,” Steve says softly, quiet between them.
Tony laughs to himself like Steve missed something, but Tony laughs like that often enough it hardly bothers him anymore.
“What makes you say that?” Tony replies, at his regular volume like he cares not for the rest of the team hearing them talk.
“The tattoo,” Steve says, taking it as permission to continue on the topic, and he doesn’t whisper either, doesn’t make it more intimate than he needs to. “It’s a beautiful memorial, Tony,” he says.
“He died before we met,” Tony said with a shrug, casual, “I imagine he was a better man for it,” he said with a wink and a sultry smile.
“Should have left it a surprise,” Clint says, though not unkindly.
Tony snorts, “You’re telling me?” he laughs and that’s it. They don’t talk anymore about it, yet Steve can’t stop thinking about it.
Thinking about the tattoo.
Thinking about the kind of soulmate Tony might have had.
Thinking about how Tony had gotten it tattooed over sometime before he turned eighteen, that it took some less than three years before Tony had dared check the global database of passed single bond halves. Something Steve still hasn’t worked up the nerve to do himself, knowing it will only lead to another gravesite to visit.
He can’t stop thinking about how Tony’s soulmate must have died after he turned fifteen for his mark to have been visible to be recorded and for Tony to find. Thinking about how Tony must have done some pile of research into this man before he got the tattoo, and somehow three years didn’t seem like long enough to capture such a beautiful tribute to life as Tony’s tattoo was. Steve wondered if Tony had visited his passed soulmate’s family and friends after finding out, trying to learn about the person who made up his other half.
Steve thought about it a lot, but they rarely spoke about it, and never again around the team. Already the information that Tony Stark’s soulmate was dead had been updated in his Shield file. Steve didn’t blame Natasha for reporting it, but he still cringed at how fast the change was made.
Sometimes, rarely, when all the stars aligned, Tony would talk about it with Steve when it was just the two of them.
It was normal for just Steve and Tony to spend time together when they were both staying at the tower, as rare as an occasion that this was of course. It was rarer still that more than two members of the team were at the tower at any one time, the night after Avengers missions notwithstanding. With Steve and Natasha working for Shield in both DC and New York while they tied up all the loose ends that followed cleaning house post-Hydra and Loki’s tip, and Tony working as both Avenger and for Stark Industries, Bruce traveling all over the globe almost as often as Tony, and Clint spending most time at his family’s farm, there were a lot of nights that found Steve and Tony alone in the tower, finding their way to the balcony to sketch or smoke in the fading evening sunlight.
On those nights, especially if Tony was smoking something a little more earthy than tobacco, they might talk about it.
“What made you look it up?” Steve asks on one such night.
He’s had a fair few drags himself, though he knows it never lasts more than a couple of minutes in his system, but he can’t help the turn his thoughts take when Tony’s restless fingers are tapping out a beat against his own chest, right where Steve’s soulmark rests on his chest.
It starts Steve on thinking about his soulmate. The one who’s long gone and left nothing but a plot of land to complete Steve’s soul if he gathered his nerve and just looked it up already.
What holds him back isn’t the knowledge that his soulmate is long passed though. It’s the thought that he won’t find their name in any database, and he’ll face the reality that he’s missed a whole lifetime with his other half, and even though they are still here on earth with him, he’s never going to find them in time for their mark to get added to the list. He can’t stand the thought of being years late, to catch only the final few moments of a long and hopefully happy life like he has with with Peggy.
Tony is quiet a long time in the wake of Steve’s question, but he knows Tony knows what he’s talking about because he stops tapping against his chest.
“I knew as soon as I saw it,” Tony admits on a resigned sigh, “Soulmates are funny like that, Steve,” he says and looks at Steve with a little grin.
Steve nods, and silence stretches on between them as Steve thinks.
Most people think Tony is incapable of companiable silence, but Steve finds there’s few people he would enjoy silence with than with Tony.
He thinks about what Tony said, and he feels dread well up because he doesn’t know, not like Tony said he knew, and that isn’t a whole lot better.
“You know,” Tony says slowly, “They might not be dead,” voicing Steve’s greatest fear of all, “or dying,” he adds with a pointed look, like he knows where Steve’s head is at.
Steve shoots his own look back, raising an eyebrow, “You think my soulmate was born in this century?”.
Tony shrugs one shoulder and drops his sunglasses back over his eyes, “Weirder things have happened,” he says.
Tony is laying out across a reclining lawn chair, soaking up the remaining rays of sunlight in his grease-stained jeans and long-sleeved shirt. Steve himself was leaning against the railing, looking out over the skyline as the sun set. It was the height of summer, the nights refusing to dim until nearly nine now. It was Steve’s favourite light to sketch in, yet he hadn’t been able to make himself draw the city when he came out to find Tony relaxing in his chair.
“Eh,” Tony says again, waving a hand, “I don’t put much stock in that soulmate shit anyway,” he sighs, “Better off not knowing. Keep your shirt on during sex, cover it up with some pen ink and be rid of it all,” he said loftily.
Steve found it hard to believe someone as down to earth and kind as Tony was most of the time, could seriously believe such things about soulmates.
It wasn’t the first time Tony had said something so crass about soulmates, but he usually reserved that kind of talk for when other people were around to hear him. He kept those things to himself with Steve when it was just the two of them. Steve was sure it had a lot to do with Steve’s dead soulmate and less to do with the inherent rejection Steve’s brain had to ideas about hiding a soulmark like it was something shameful. After all, Steve knew the truth. Tony didn’t hide his soulmark out of shame or fear or disrespect, just out of sadness.
Still, Steve couldn’t help but demand, “How can you say that?” harsher than he really wanted to.
“Soulmates are meaningless, Steve. Loveless,” Tony sighed, rolling his neck and stretching out languid and relaxed. At least that’s what he wanted to portray.
Steve shook his head, frustrated with the other man. Steve knew Tony wasn’t really so heartless, wasn’t nearly as unaffected by his soulmates passing as he made it seem. Steve still hated the way Tony mislead everyone, the way he tried to force himself to be bitter and distant instead of accepting the truth.
“Why? Why do you say things like that? How can you be so jaded when you never even met yours?”
Despite Steve’s outrage, Tony doesn’t reply harshly in kind. He’s silent for a long, long moment.
Tony sits up though, swings his legs around like he’s going to stand up and walk away without getting the final say, but he just reaches for his whiskey that he had been sipping at a leisure pace and then downs it.
“He didn’t just die before we met,” Tony says, voice flat and smooth despite the harsh alcohol that should burn his throat, “Did I mention that before?” he laughs humourlessly, “He died before I was born,” he spits.
In the answering silence of Steve’s shock, Tony adds softer, “So I kind of have to, you know?” and his voice is far away and distant, “Think it’s all meaningless, that is,” and his smile is nothing but a fragile and cracked mask, “Wouldn’t want to assign that more meaning than it’s worth and all,” he huffs shaking his head.
Steve still cannot form any sort of reply before Tony really does stand up and leave.
He just sits there for hours, and then later for days as he goes through the routine of his life. He just thinks about what that must have been like for Tony as a young man.
It’s nothing short of horrifying, really, when Steve thinks about it.
He’s never heard of something like that happening. Never knew it could happen. How was it even possible? Why would something like that happen? And to Tony of all people? God, Steve cannot imagine how awful it must have felt to discover the other half of your soul never even existed in your world.
Steve knows that is without a doubt what Tony probably thought. And many things that are much, much worse.
What a heartbreaking thought.
Steve understood why Tony tried so hard not to care now.
You would think that would teach Steve to drop it, but he never stops thinking about it. He knows Tony doesn’t want his pity any more than Steve wants Tony’s, yet they are both helpless to stop it, Steve thinks, with how gentle Tony usually is about bringing up Steve’s mark.
The next time they are both staying in the tower, Tony catches Steve as he’s sketching by the little gas stove pit they have up here, the setting sun cooling the air rapidly now as autumn creeps up on them.
“I figured Shield would have heard about this by now,” Tony says in leu of an actual greeting.
Steve sits up and stares at Tony’s back as he leans against the rail this time.
“It wasn’t my place,” Steve says softly, apologetically.
Tony hums, and the silence grows uncomfortable.
Tony pushed away from the railing with a sigh and Steve worries this is it, that Tony will leave right then because Steve couldn’t find the right words, but Tony doesn’t leave.
Tony comes to take a seat next to Steve in the plush outdoor seating around the fire.
He lights up, and hands it to Steve before he’s identified the smokes origin. It’s answer enough that Tony hands it to Steve though, since he doesn’t bother sharing tobacco with him.
Steve takes his own hits before he hands it back.
“He was older than you,” Steve says for no reason he himself can identify other than being a complete masochist who can never leave anything alone.
Tony just smiles softly though, “I took that to mean I was mature for my age,” he says with a wink at Steve.
At least fifteen years older than Tony, actually, Steve thinks.
“I thought it was meaningless,” Steve says gently.
Tony nods, “It was,” he says simply.
“Was?” Steve asked, wondering if maybe Tony had taken Steve’s questions to heart and changed his emotionless opinion about soulmates. He doubted it though. Tony was far too stubborn for that. Besides, what Tony did was little more than a defense mechanism, and Steve couldn’t find it in him to begrudge the other man such a thing.
“To me,” Tony nods, ignoring the real question, “But you think it means something,” he says decisively like he’s chosen to agree to disagree about it and move on.
Steve can see that defensiveness that Tony tries to hide now though, “When I was a kid,” Steve says, “I was sick,” he admits softly, “Really sick, all the time,” he recalls and he thinks Tony knows just how sick he means, how close Steve was to death all the god damn time, “and small” he adds with a self-deprecating chuckle, “I liked the idea that someone out there would love me anyway, if I met them, for however long I had with them,” he says to Tony, “You could say I kind of had to,” he finsihes with a sad smile of his own.
“It’s hard to change your thinking, isn’t it? Even when you know it’ll be a better situation all around if you could just change the way you think about it,” Tony says, sufficiently enjoying his smoke and leaning into philosophy, “Thinking doesn’t really change at a compatible speed to the situation,” he tells the skyline, “Harder to stop caring when you’ve cared too long,” he says to Steve with a nod in his direction.
“I’m starting to though,” Steve admits. After thinking about how Tony must have felt, how he must still feel, having been born in a world without his other half.
“I’m a bad influence then,” Tony says.
Steve laughs, “No, no you’re right,” he grins but if falls from his face a moment later when he goes on, “I keep thinking about whoever my soulmate was,” he’s looking into the fire and blaming the heat for the way his eyes sting, “How their thinking must have had to be similar to yours,” he can’t really look at Tony, but goes on, “I hope it was,” he admits. “My mark wasn’t added to the public databases,” he says, “They must have thought I didn’t want them, we never met,” he mumbles but then he glances at Tony, “I hope they learned that soulmates aren’t everything” a pause, “I hope they still let themselves be happy” he finishes.
He hopes Tony let himself be happy, too.
Tony doesn’t look at him, just nods at the skyline and says, “It must have been hard,” like Steve wasn’t just explaining a version of Tony’s own misery.
“Maybe this is karma,” Steve laughs at himself, “for putting them through that. It’s my turn to suffer,” he says with a chuckle.
Tony looks at Steve then, “Are you?” he asks, “Suffering, Steve?” and there’s something sharp in his voice, something urgent but nervous that Steve can’t begin to understand.
“Sometimes,” Steve admits honestly. “Not always,” he adds.
Not when he’s with Tony, he thinks but he doesn’t say it out loud. Just thinks stupidly about non-soulmate marriages for reasons he can’t exactly explain to himself.
Tony doesn’t look thrilled at the answer, but well neither is Steve, if he’s honest.
It’s not long before Tony makes up an extravagant excuse to leave that Steve can’t tell if he’s lying about or not, and they don’t bring up soulmates the next time it’s just the two of them, but Steve’s gets brought up the next time there’s a mission and the team all have breakfast together the next day.
When Steve shares his new, slightly more pessimistic view on soulmates, Natasha looks immediately to Tony as if he alone is responsible.
Maybe he is, but maybe not for the reason she believes. He doesn’t think he’s that transparent. Doesn’t think Tony would ignore it if he was.
In the weeks following that discussion she spends far more time than Steve is really comfortable with trying to find him a date. When none of it works, she challenges him on his pessimistic attitude. She swears Steve’s still an optimist at heart, and Steve thinks that’s incredibly kind of her, but to prove her point, she goes ahead and looks up Steve’s mark.
Then she tells him.
Suddenly it’s all Steve worst fears, because his soulmate is still alive. That alone is heart breaking, knowing he’s had to miss out on an entire beautiful life, that everything he’s ever loved is well and truly buried without him.
If that wasn’t enough to warrant the psych eval Shield orders him to get, then the Avengers mission a week later that lands Steve’s soulmark across the front page definitely is.
Being as that’s Steve second worst fear realized. Having the chance to meet the soulmate he was never there for and knowing that the time they will have together will be nothing but a blip in Steve’s radar by the time his own unusually long life comes to a close.
They don’t find out that the media caught a lucky shot of Steve crawling out of an explosion of rubble, his suit torn and exposing his soulmark to the world for a single shifted moment until they are back at the tower, everyone more than ready to pass out still caked in sweat.
The pit falls from Steve’s stomach and his face pales. Everyone turns to Steve, yet he cannot tear his eyes away from the news story on the TV.
It’s paused, a freeze frame of the lucky shot. They’ve edited it, blown it up and traced the outline to make it all the more clear to the viewers.
From bottom to top, following the gentle contour of Steve pectoral he traces the seven small forget-me-nots braided around the long line of a reaper’s scythe. The minute curve of the handle, the devastating point of the blade. Steve feels like he’s seeing it for the first time all over again.
He’s always known death would be significant in his soulbond.
How he ever looked at this mark and held hope in his heart beneath it, he has no idea.
Tony’s voice snaps him out of it as he swans into the room, later then the rest of the team since he was escorting the Shield van with the mission’s prisoner. “You know Steve, most people make an online dating profile”.
“How’d you know it was mine?” Steve asks, since there is no headline running across the screen the way it’s paused.
Tony probably got the news from Jarvis, Steve knows, or even the colours of his uniform giving it away in the grainy photo, but that isn’t what Tony answers.
“It was in my father’s files,” he says easily, “Seen it a thousand times,” he tells him.
“You’ve seen my soulmark?” Steve asks, sharply, though he’s not sure why.
“Well now the whole world has,” Tony says breezily.
Steve really doesn’t know why he’s so interested in the fact that Tony has seen his mark. He’s not upset about it exactly. He just doesn’t like that Howard would share something like that. Howard was a different man in those days though.
“Hey,” Steve says later the next day after Steve done countless meetings to discuss how to deal with it by not dealing with it, “Where are those files, anyway?” Steve asks.
“His office, all destroyed now, not that it’s much secret these days” Tony replied, glancing up from the circuit bored in his hands. They were in the lab now, the wind far too cold to justify standing outside in it.
“And he just showed it to you?” Steve asked. Maybe Tony had peeked where he shouldn’t have or something.
“What’s it matter, Steve?” Tony replied, and that was the real question, wasn’t it?
He had no idea why it mattered so much.
“Well, I haven’t seen yours,” Steve says in answer.
“Yeah, you have,” Tony mumbles to himself, then looks up sharply, “It’s all over the internet,” he says, then winks a second late.
“That’s different, Tony,” Steve scoffs, “It’s a tattoo”. Though it was arguably more revealing about Tony’s soulmate than the mark would have been.
Tony goes back to what he was doing, “Well it’s not like I can wipe it off and show you,” he grunts.
“I suppose,” Steve says, and he’s not pouting per say, but he might be pouting.
“I’m going to be offended if you keep acting like me seeing it is worse than the whole world seeing it,” Tony says jokingly.
“I’m sorry,” Steve says despite the joke in Tony’s tone, “It just seems weird, you seeing it before we met,” he says, “You saw it before I was—when I was still in the ice”.
“Because he thought you were dead,” Tony assures, “My father would never have shown it to me if you were alive”.
They sit in the quiet for a while before Steve speaks up again, “How come you never looked it up?” he asks, since Natasha hadn’t seen it as a line.
“What?” Tony asks.
“You’re all about the meaninglessness of soulmarks,” Steve says, “I figured if you could, you’d have looked mine up to make a point,” he says.
“Maybe I have,” Tony says softly, “but what point would it prove?” he asks.
Steve supposes Tony has him there. Has knowing their alive really proved anything besides the fact that the fates are cruel?
Sometimes Tony, for all his childish and stubborn personality, can seem wise in a way Steve is completely unfamiliar. It’s usually in these conversations that Steve finds himself listening to a very different version of Tony Stark than most people get to witness.
Sometimes Tony has a look like he knows something no one else does, and it drives people crazy.
Right now, Steve is looking at the hybrid expression of those two distinct Tony Stark looks ™. Wise beyond his years, and arrogant know-it-all wrapped up into one.
They were finishing up the debrief on their last mission when Fury requested Steve stay a moment after the group cleared out, but Tony had this sharp gleam in his eye and refused to leave, stayed seated and gave Fury that infuriating look that meant he knew the steps in whatever dance this was better then Fury himself and demanded Fury go on with him present.
Steve didn’t ask Tony to leave either, on account for that look and the way Tony’s hands where clenched in fists under the table.
When Fury broke the news, Steve gets a hint of that wise expression that goes with that know-it-all attitude.
“You’re lying to him,” Tony spat at Fury when Steve failed to open his mouth to speak in the wake of the revelation. Of hearing Fury tell him his soulmate was alive and likely born here in the twenty-first century.
“How do you think you know that?” Fury demanded in turn.
Steve looks sharply to Tony like maybe what he says will mean something, and he supposes that it does mean something to Tony, to Fury, to the argument, but it’s meaningless to Steve when Tony answers.
“You sent him for a psych eval when he found out his soulmate was alive and a week later you tell him his soulmate is young wild and free right here in the bright new century?” Tony spat, “Nice try,” he said.
“You can’t prove that they’re a senior citizen, and that’s to say nothing of the fact you shouldn’t be questioning my motivations,” Fury said.
“Someone should always be questioning your motivations, Fury, but you can’t prove they’re thirty any more than I can prove they’re ninety,” Tony argued.
Thirty does sound far too young to Steve, though he’s pretty sure he’s lost track of his own biological age at this point so what does he know, really? Is he thirty? Doesn’t much matter. He just thinks forty is a better number for a soulmate, given the life Steve’s led.
“We know they are not in any recorded database for the dead, we know they are not in any seniors home, we know that no one has come forward to have known someone from that era who had that mark and it’s been streaming all over the planet for days now,” Fury combats, “The only people coming forward are in their twenties and thirties”.
“That’s not enough! That isn’t proof and you know it! Unless you have his soulmate hiding around that corner, you’re lying to him,” Tony spits venom.
“We could,” Fury challenges.
Steve knows as soon as Fury says it that it’s a bluff, but that’s before Tony even opens his mouth.
“You don’t,” Tony says with more confidence than Steve is sure Tony can possibly have about anything, and Steve’s seen the way Jarvis runs numbers before Tony says he’s sure in the field.
It rattles Steve and leaves a ringing in his head that doesn’t seem to ever leave.
Throughout the argument, Tony and Fury’s back and forth, Steve says nothing. Steve says nothing on the matter at all, actually, but the team all still find out about Tony and Fury’s spat the next day.
This last mission has ended, yet for the first time since the first Battle against Loki, the team don’t all immediately scatter again.
Steve pretends he doesn’t know why.
Natasha comes down hard on Tony, asks why Tony can’t just be happy for Steve, and Tony makes some snide remark that’s more defense mechanism than answer and they all know it.
“Shield’s been vetting all the people who have been claiming it’s them,” Steve says to Tony later that night on the balcony. It’s still far too cold to be enjoyable, hence why they find themselves alone, “Said they’d call if anything comes up,” he tells him.
“Good for you,” Tony says, but his tone gives the opposite impression.
Steve sighs, “Clint says you’re just bitter because you don’t have one,” Steve says without guilt, “He was actually less sensitive than that,” he adds, and Tony snorts a laugh.
“Maybe he’s right,” Tony shrugs.
“There’s more to it than that,” Steve insists. There has to be, Steve thinks.
He wants to know why Tony feels like this. He once told Steve that there was a chance Steve’s soulmate was in fact born in this century and Steve had denied the possibility. The sudden change of heart is unlike Tony and Steve doesn’t care for it.
There was something else at play.
“What if you don’t like them?” Tony asks after a long moment.
Steve scoffs, “I don’t think that’s how that works,” he said.
Tony’s laugh is harsher than Steve expected, and he shakes his head, “Love at first sight, really Rogers?” he asks, but there’s less teasing in his voice now.
“Well, no—” Steve tries, but Tony waves him off.
“I’m sure the girl Shield plants will be perfect, Steve,” Tony says sharply and stalks off.
For all Steve has come to understand Tony more and more, he still cannot say what he had said or done to make Tony so mad that night.
Natasha tells Steve that Tony is jealous, and Steve tries hard not to like the way that sounds, but then he recalls Tony’s own soulmate who is dead, and guilt washes over him. Besides, Natasha was talking about a different form of jealousy anyway.
Despite Tony and Steve’s fight, Steve can’t help but be just a little suspicious of the women who finally checks out and clean with Shield.
Peggy Carter’s niece, Sharon.
It seems another cruel twist of fate, painful enough to be believable, that’s for sure.
Still, he is weary, though he cannot say why.
Something about how Tony always seemed to get Steve when it had come to his soulmate, and the rejection of this possibility felt important some how.
When Steve meets Sharon, she asks if they can do this the normal way, instead of immediately shoving her mark into his face and Steve appreciated it more than he can say really.
Tony does not care much for Sharon Carter.
He refuses to let Steve stay at the tower when he and Sharon are visiting New York for Shield business. Something about needing time to update security to allow her access, something about being in Hong Kong, something about another bullshit excuse not to let Sharon come to the tower.
That behaviour resembles the kind of jealousy that Steve feels guilty over wanting, so he crushes it down and pretends he believes the lies and excuses.
It’s been weeks with Sharon now, and yet they move at a glacial pace. That’s Steve’s fault, he knows. He just can’t shake the feeling that maybe Tony was right. Sometimes he thinks she’s so perfect it’s suspicious, then he reminds himself that the relationship is bittersweet and flawed anyway so it must be real. Then he thinks that the pain is too spot on to be coincidental, and it’s the whole thing in reverse.
He comes to New York alone the next time it comes up. There’s more romance in a few days long distance than in separate hotels rooms.
“Look,” Steve says to Tony, no greeting, no pretense, just straight to the point, “Unless you know something I don’t know, I’m going to have to trust Shield on this,” Steve says because sometimes it really does seem like Tony might know something more than he lets on. More than Steve for certain.
To say nothing of the way Steve hopes that Tony is right.
“And if I do?” Tony sighs.
“What?” Steve says, shocked that he may have been correct. For all he hopes for something else, he doesn’t expect it. Expectation is a terrible thing, but then again, so is hope. Maybe he should be trying harder to squash that down too.
“If I do know something, what then?” Tony asks.
Hope is a funny little thing though.
“What do you know? Steve questions in reply.
“Nothing, Steve. Leave it,” Tony sighs.
Steve does, if only so that they can enjoy the late spring sunshine for a little while in peace.
It’s after Peggy’s funeral that Steve is back in New York again, and he’s still rattled by the whole thing. It didn’t feel right being there with Sharon, and Steve thinks that’s not entirely on him. Sharon… she seemed about as distant as Steve imagines he himself has been since the very start of this, since the day they met.
This time when he’s in New York it’s not for work, it’s because he just wants to see Tony again.
It’s been weeks but there’s been no work for Steve out this way and he has grievance days that won’t do him any good in his DC shoebox apartment.
When they’re both giggling their asses off on the balcony, Steve feels lighter than he has in months. Peggy’s death doesn’t hang over him so much when he has Tony nearby.
He thinks about all the conversations they have had up here, and he thinks about how he and Sharon just aren’t there yet in their growing relationship. Aren’t anywhere really.
He remembers Tony asking Steve what might happen if he didn’t like his soulmate. He remembers laughing it off completely. Now, he’s not sure that Tony was wrong about that point.
Instead of tackling those feelings, Steve asks instead, “Tell me about him,” because it’s mid-summer and Tony’s in a loose open collar shirt that reveals both ink and arc reactor to Steve who wears no shirt at all.
Tony’s eyes have been fixed on Steve’s chest for a long time when Steve speaks, so he knows it’s already on Tony’s mind.
“He was military,” Tony says, disinterested tone but his eyes haven’t moved, “Died young, went out in a blaze of glory,” he says shortly.
It’s not what Steve was looking for, but it’s another clue in the puzzle of Tony’s soulmate. A puzzle Steve wasn’t aware he was actively putting together.
He adds that to the other information he has, knows now that Tony’s soulmate was at least twenty years older than he was.
How strange.
Maybe that is why Tony wondered about not liking your soulmate. He doubts it, but still wonders after it anyway.
Steve couldn’t picture Tony being with someone so much older than him, but lately Steve couldn’t picture Tony being with anybody without feeling an awful turning in his gut that resonated like jealousy does.
Even knowing this about himself, Steve doesn’t want to drop it. He doesn’t want to stop thinking about Tony’s soulmate. He doesn’t really want to think about his own. Not in any way that matters. Not in any way that does anyone any good because he’s instead thinking about Tony.
Steve’s soulmate remains a blurry face and no name in his mind, despite Sharon, despite everything else. He thinks it sort of has to be that way, less his brain make the jump and turn that unseen face into Tony’s.
“Really tell me about him,” Steve wheedled.
Tony takes a deep breath, he doesn’t stop looking at Steve soulmark, but Steve hasn’t lifted his own eyes from the wash of ink visible on Tony’s chest either.
“He was a good man, Steve,” Tony says, then he nods, “I know why he died before I was born,” he says confidently. “Had to, was fate,” Tony says and it’s all those horrible thoughts Steve wondered about Tony having.
Tony’s voice doesn’t make it sound like the good kind of fate.
It’s horrible to hear Tony admit he believes his soul was meant to be tied to death and nothing else.
Its different for Steve because he thinks that if he had made better choices, if he made it home after the war, he would have found his soulmate. A missed connection is still a connection nonetheless.
But Tony had no one. There was never a connection to have missed.
It’s different for Steve but he can’t help thinking he wishes it wasn’t. What that means, he cannot accurately say to himself or to Tony. Maybe he wishes it was just different for Tony.
“It can’t be fate to die before you were even born,” Steve rejects, but there isn’t vehemence in his voice the way he wants there to be.
“He wouldn’t be my soulmate otherwise,” Tony says and it’s worse somehow.
To hear Tony admit he thinks himself unworthy of a living soulmate might just be the worst thing of all.
“What does that mean?” Steve still asks, though he isn’t sure he wants to know.
“I would be a different man if I got to have him,” Tony says.
Steve inclines his head, looks up at Tony’s face and finds him biting his lip. Steve doesn’t think about kissing him for very long, he’s too melancholy.
“A better man?” Steve asks, softly.
Tony smiles one of those smiles at his own expense, “No,” he says, “A much, much worse man,” he answers.
“Tony—” Steve tries to plead, but the other man cuts him off, standing to leave, though he’s not mad, Steve can tell. Tony just suddenly looks exhausted.
“You know it’s not Sharon, right?” Tony asks.
Steve nods before he can get the words out, but Tony has his back to Steve now so he swallows thickly and replies, “Yeah, I know”.
Like Tony said, soulmates are funny like that.
Steve plans to stay at the tower for the week, and he pretends he’s surprised that Tony look a few vacation days himself, but he’s not, and they spend most of their time sunbathing on the balcony despite the tower full of amenities and one of the most lively cities on earth at their feet.
The more Steve sees of Tony’s tattoo over the week, the more he thinks about it. One of the things that Steve has noted about Tony’s tattoo that really prove it a memorial more than a disrespect, is that it isn’t actually a cover-up tattoo the way he had thought.
Tony’s soulmark isn’t covered so much as it has been obscured by the feathers of the great bird on his chest. Steve can see it when Tony strips himself of his shirt completely. He knows exactly where it rests, that it is a thin line of black that curves very gently and the feathers that surround it have been designed to cradle that gentle curve.
Steve can’t make out what it was, that soulmark. He knows where it is though, and he knows Tony knows that too. It is in an identical placement to Steve’s own, follows a similar gentle slope on his pectoral.
“When did you get it?” Steve asks, because he has also noticed that Tony maintains the tattoo very well. It’s recently been touched up, the ink a little darker, the lines sharper than they were the first time Steve saw it a year ago. It means Tony’s had it a long time, yet he doesn’t allow it to fade.
“1985,” Tony says because he knows exactly what Steve’s talking about.
Steve doesn’t say anything about Tony getting a memorial tattoo over his soulmark the same year it showed up.
He just files that next to died young in the military, and a hell of a lot older than Tony in his mental box of information about Tony’s soulmate. The box he only really has to glance at to get his heart pounding in his chest these last few days. Maybe longer than that.
“Yeah, Shield didn’t have much of a chance,” Tony laughs, “only had a twenty-four-hour window and all”.
Tony is high, and Steve is right there with him for the moment, so he says, “It’s a really nice tattoo to come up with in such a short period of time,” but Steve’s asking, and he’s implying a lot more than that when he says it, “The artist captured a lot of emotion,” he adds.
“In your professional opinion?” Tony teased.
Steve smiles, “Yeah, sure. Professional,” Steve laughs.
“It was a well-known blaze of glory,” Tony says after a while, somber.
Steve would file that away too, if he hadn’t already known.
“Has anybody else seen it?” Steve asked, thinking about the mark underneath the ink.
He thinks about Howard showing Tony Steve’s files.
“No,” Tony said, “I never showed anyone,” he says and then grins, “My father lost his mind over the ink,” Tony says, “I really thought he was going to kill me,” he laughs, “When I came home that summer from boarding, you know, my parents were all excited, couldn’t wait to see it, all that family stuff, coming of age, whatever,” he shakes his head, “I thought my mother was going to faint,” he tell Steve, “Jarvis was sure it was fake for a solid year before he realized,” he sighed like the memory was happy though, and Steve thinks that for Tony that sounds about right.
“When I first read about it in your Shield file, I felt sick,” Steve admits, “There was a picture, but I couldn’t bring myself to look at it,” he says, “After the war, all those camps, I couldn’t stomach seeing another desecrated soulmark,” he says, “It’s what the Nazi’s did to same-se—”
“I know Steve,” Tony interrupts, though his tone is soft.
“I think it’s why I just… I didn’t like you at first,” he said instead, “but I liked you fine even after that, even before I saw it,” Steve admits, “but when I did see it the first time…” Steve trailed off.
“I’m glad you like it,” Tony says quietly, almost too quiet to hear.
“Me too,” Steve said, and for some reason he felt his cheeks heat when Tony looked at him and smiled.
A moment passes before Tony speaks again, “It was supposed to be… Ruined,” he mumbles no longer smiling, “When I saw it, I wanted it gone,” he admits.
“Waking up, fifteen years old, I knew I wasn’t going to be the best soulmate to whoever it was, I knew my life was going to make their’s hell, but I still wanted one, even knowing my parents were soulmates and they were shit together. I looked forward to that little bit of sentiment,” he rubs mindlessly at the mark, “Instead, I got this,” he says with a shrug.
Steve doesn’t have the words, but it’s okay because Tony keeps talking and Steve keeps listening, “I tried to make it about me. Why wouldn’t I? It’s not like I had a soulmate to consider in it all,” he says flatly, “But then I sat down to design the damn thing and here we are,” he says this last part with a small smile, and it gives Steve the confidence to speak next.
“I keep thinking about what that must have been like,” Steve tells him, “I shouldn’t, I don’t want to, but I can’t help it. You must have felt so… alone,” he says.
“More than most people can imagine, Steve,” Tony murmurs back.
He says it like Steve is right there with him, and Steve has to shake his head, “I can’t,” Steve says. He can’t because if he can, if they’re both so similarly alone then Steve might do something stupid and kiss him. He can’t, because he isn’t sure anyone could every feel as alone as Tony must have felt, must still feel because it’s not like the situation has changed for him.
That’s just Steve. Steve’s situation is the only one that’s always developing, always changing. Not Tony’s.
“I don’t know that that’s true,” Tony says, “Karma, wasn’t it?” he says, but he doesn’t look at Steve when he says it even though it’s stealing away Steve’s plausible deniability, and Tony should be able to meet his eye when he does things like that.
Steve still felt his fingers itch to touch, to trace. The lines of Tony’s tattoo, the line of the soulmark he could still see but not in any way that could mean something between them. He balled his hands into fists instead. Tony’s own fingers traced though, almost subconsciously Tony’s thumb ran over the length of his soulmark as they spoke.
“You think it’s for a reason… the suffering?” Steve wondered aloud.
“I want to,” Tony said, and his answer was immediate, like he’s been thinking about it a long time. Steve supposes he must be. He did say he thought he’d be a worse man had he had his soulmate.
Steve was quiet a while longer, “I don’t know if I want to,” he admitted, “I want to believe the universe just messed up, that it was some cosmic fluke, because I think…” he trailed off and then took a breath, “I think if I don’t think that, then I’m just a selfish man who left his soulmate suffering, hurt, and alone all this time,” he whispers.
Tony laughs softly then, “Oh how the tables have turned,” he says, and looks at Steve this time with a smile that makes Steve’s breath catch. Tony sits up now, faces Steve who mirrors his movement and sits up far less relaxed than Tony who has his elbows on his knees, leaning forward, leaning in.
“But,” Tony says, matter-of-factly, “I don’t think you really want this to be a cosmic mistake,” he tells Steve, “because if it is, that means the suffering doesn’t really stop, does it?” he asks, and he knows the answer when he asks Steve, is the thing, “For either of us,” he says, and maybe Steve was mirroring Tony’s posture just a little bit more than he thought, because Tony was a lot closer than he was a moment ago.
Tony’s hand closes the distant between them.
Tony’s hand comes up and he doesn’t even look, just maintains a searching sort of eye-contact with Steve when his hand covers over Steve’s soulmark.
It feels incredible, and Steve always heard about this moment, and it’s not magical in a way that science and chemicals can explain the way it burns so fucking good. No, Steve knows it’s all in his head when it happens, just notions of fairy tales and romance films but it does nothing to stop the way his breath hitches slightly, audible between them.
“My soulmate, Steve,” Tony starts, “he was an incredible man that everyone loved and who I could never measure up to,” he admits in a rough voice, “and so all this time I blamed myself for his death because if he hadn’t been a part of me, then maybe he would have had a longer life, a happier life,” he says, “I know that’s conceded as hell, but I… I don’t know, I thought I was his curse, you know?” Tony admits and its justification that Steve doesn’t need.
Tony isn’t the one who needs to justify the way this has all turned out.
“I know,” he tells Tony softly, his hand trembling when it comes to cover over Tony’s, “Does… Does this mean I’m the curse?” he asks, scared to hear the answer, scared to know the truth. Scared more than ever not to.
Tony’s smile is soft and full of something great when he leans in just that much further and kisses Steve.
“You know what they say, blessed with a curse, and all that” Tony tells him, and Steve is pretty sure that sounds right.
Steve’s other hand comes up and rests on the scythe and forget-me-nots that live nestled in the feathers over Tony’s heart.