Archive of Our Own

Back Then

“Anthony Stark,” Bucky read and raised an eye brow at Steve, “something you gotta tell me there, Steve?”

Steve whose eyes hadn’t left the name that appeared on his wrist laughed for the first time since he’d begun to see the translucent clear ink begin to write a name on his wrist and yet he was still shaken by it especially now that he could completely see it. It wasn’t uncommon exactly for someone to have a Soulmate Mark with the name of someone of the same gender, but Steve had never expected his Soulmate Mark to be a man’s name.

“Maybe it’s a platonic bond,” Bucky said.

Steve scoffed. He and Bucky both knew that wasn’t how it worked even if most same gendered bonds were often depicted as platonic bonds. It didn’t seem to matter to religion or whatever other bigoted views people took that the fates themselves had decided on the bonds. Living in New York had taught Steve at least one thing: that gender didn’t matter when it came to love. Steve had just never considered that his own inclination was towards men.

“Well,” Bucky said, “either way, you have a Soulmate, Stevie, which beats me.”

“Anthony Stark,” Steve said and his voice sounded a bit awed.

“He better be good to you,” Bucky said.

“He will be,” Steve said.

Bucky nodded and Steve caught him looking down at his own bare wrist.

“You’ll get one too, Buck,” Steve said, “you still have time.”

Soulmate Marks had been around for what seemed like forever, and no one could really explain them except that in every single culture around the world there were references to them and that they seemed to never be wrong.

Of course there were cases where someone just didn’t get a Mark, or when someone died before they met their Soulmate. Worse were the rare cases where Soulmates killed each other or where one was abusive to the other. But it was such a low percentage that most people didn’t worry about things like that. Instead, people worried about when they would get their Marks and when they would meet their Soulmates.

“Yeah,” Bucky said, “I just – I want to know, you know.”

Steve did. After all, he’d been convinced for a while that he wasn’t going to get one at all. He was too sickly and too frail and no one would want someone like him: stubborn and too headstrong for his own good. Not to mention that for most of his childhood, Steve had expected to catch a bad cold and die and in those days he had wished desperately that no one was paired up with him because then they might never find happiness if Steve died.

“It’ll happen soon, you’ll see,” Steve said. He reached down to touch his wrist. The skin was irritated and red but the black cursive letters that looked far too elegant to belong on Steve’s wrist made up for that.

---

Later On

Tony didn’t even realize that it was happening until a few days after the name was complete on his wrist and it had probably been like that for a while too before he noticed it because none of the irritation or redness that he had expected to see was there. He remembered when Rhodey’s Soulmate Mark had appeared that Rhodey had even gotten a rash all over his arm, but Tony’s wrist looked just the same except that the name Steve Rogers had appeared there in neat handwriting.

It took Tony about an hour for the name to sink in, and for his brain to connect the dots. Then, he screamed.

Jarvis quickly followed by Rhodey rushed into the basement. A few seconds later his mother appeared there too.

“Tony? Are you alright?” Rhodey asked, and he seemed to be looking around for the reason for the scream.

Jarvis had rushed to his side instead of carefully walking down the stairs. He was the first to see Tony’s wrist and his eyes widened.

“Master Anthony,” he said, but didn’t seem to have the words to continue.

“Tony, what’s wrong?” his mother asked.

She looked like she’d been getting ready to leave, which didn’t surprise Tony.

“I – I got my Mark,” Tony said.

“Oh, that,” Maria said and waved her hand, “there’s no need to be so dramatic, dear, I’ll be back before midnight. Be sure to eat dinner.”

Tony couldn’t have expected more from his mother. He nodded and watched her walk back up the stairs. Her heels clicking with every step she took.

“What does it say?” Rhodey asked, moving closer.

“There’s more than one Steve Rogers, right?” Tony asked.

If there wasn’t then Tony was one of those lucky few that never got to meet their Soulmates, the kind that would never know if the whole Soulmate thing was even real.

“I’m sure there are,” Jarvis was quick to say, “first and last name are pretty common.”

Tony nodded. He stared at his wrist for a while. He couldn’t explain it, but something told him that his first instinct to think about Captain America was right. And wasn’t it just ironic that his father had known him and worked with him and made him Captain America in the first place? That right at that moment he was out somewhere in the Artic looking for his friend still because he wanted to give him a proper burial.

“You’re right,” Tony said, “it has to be another Steve Rogers.”

He didn’t know if he sounded too sure.

---

Back Then

Steve had to lie. He hated doing it, hated how in each and every form he had to be explicit about how he expected his bond to be platonic. He hated it even more because after getting used to the idea of Anthony Stark, whoever he was, Steve had realized that maybe he actually was attracted to men and it was something that he just couldn’t tell anyone aside from Bucky.

Somehow, though, he just wasn’t good enough. He was too sickly, too small, he had asthma. They didn’t want him. It made him wonder if he’d be good enough for Anthony. But, he had to be. They were fated to be together and it had to be for a reason.

Bucky didn’t agree with his methods of trying to get sent into war either, and Steve hated the frown that marred Bucky’s face every time that Steve lied his way through yet another form only to get the rejection yet again.

“I don’t understand it,” Bucky said, “there’s so much more you can do. So many reasons to not want to join the war. Steve, think about Anthony. I don’t – I don’t have anyone. It doesn’t matter if I go but you – he’ll be waiting for you.”

Steve didn’t like to think about that too much. He just knew that Anthony would understand. That he would understand why Steve felt like he needed to be a part of it and why staying at home just wouldn’t cut it. If he didn’t, then they couldn’t be Soulmates.

“Someone will be waiting for you too,” Steve told Bucky.

Bucky laughed. “If I haven’t gotten a Mark already, it won’t happen. Anyway, we have somewhere to be.”

They went to the World Exposition of Tomorrow. It was interesting, all the different things that people were coming up with. Some of them didn’t look like they would turn into anything but others were promising. Then, there was the main attraction. Bucky led the way to the stage where a crowd had formed.

“Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Howard Stark,” one of the girls on the stage announced.

Steve’s world stopped and he looked towards Bucky who was looking at him. “Could be related,” Bucky said.

Steve didn’t want to bring his hopes up. Stark couldn’t be that rare of a last name, but it was still also possible that Anthony was somehow related to Howard Stark.

Howard came out and Steve watched him, wondering if his Anthony looked at all like him because he couldn’t help but admit to himself that Howard was an attractive man. Howard made the car hover a few feet off the ground before it collapsed. He had charm and ego by bounds. Steve didn’t know if he wanted him to be related to Anthony or not.

“I’ll meet him when I’ll meet him,” he whispered to himself.

All the books and everyone said it. Soulmates met when they were supposed to meet and nothing could stop it from happening if it was meant to.

---

Later On

Tony knew Soulmates weren’t like in all the Disney movies where anything could be solved if someone found their Soulmate and bonded. He knew first hand how naïve thinking of the world like that was from watching his own parents. They were Soulmates but by the time that they died around a year after Tony got his Mark, Tony didn’t know if anyone could have been able to tell that they were indeed Soulmates.

Howard was always drinking or working or both and Maria was often aloof, also lost to her own drinking or doing her own work on the numerous charities and foundations she was the chair of. At least that’s what Jarvis reported to Tony when he was picking him up from the airport every time he returned home from school. And they were both uninterested in Tony unless it was to do with his father telling him that he had to do better and be better or his mother trying to pretend that she was still the same mother Tony had when he was a child.

So, Tony didn’t have a good outlook at the whole Soulmate thing especially since any search for Steve Rogers had given him very little that didn’t relate to Captain America and because his father had seemed oddly sad when he saw it. Tony had asked him, then, if he knew who Captain America’s Soulmate had been, but Howard had just shrugged his shoulders.

“We were at war, Tony, that wasn’t stuff that we were discussing.”

Tony had never asked again and he hadn’t dared to ask Aunt Peggy because everyone knew about how close Captain America had been with her. And after all, Aunt Peggy had far more than even Howard, told Tony countless of stories about Captain America in a way that for a large part of his childhood, Tony had actually believed that she was Captain America’s Soulmate.

Eventually, Tony realized that Peggy didn’t love Captain America like that – that her husband was her Soulmate. Still, it would have never felt right to ask her, so he didn’t.

There was no one else to ask and Tony always held the hope in the back of his mind that it wasn’t Captain America that was his Soulmate but someone else that just happened to share his name. He had other things to worry about, anyway, than searching for a person that might complicate his life.

Tony had a company to run and so many ideas and inventions to deal with that the last thing he really wanted was to commit himself to someone when he wouldn’t have the time for them. So, instead he hid his Mark under a leather bracelet and he threw himself into work and occasionally charming the odd man or woman into his bed because everyone was a consenting adult and Soulmates weren’t everything to everyone.

It went on for years like that through Jarvis’ retiring and going back to England, to the day that Tony hired Pepper Potts as his assistant and Happy because one person wasn’t enough to replace Edwin Jarvis and his new Jarvis couldn’t do absolutely everything yet though the AI was learning and he was becoming only too much of a necessity for Tony not that he minded.

Never once during that time did Tony consider looking for Steve Rogers. He didn’t even think about his Soulmate even when Aunt Peggy asked him about it during a rare phone call, and even then he didn’t tell her whose name Tony had.

It wasn’t until he was in a cave in Afghanistan that Tony’s mind wandered to Steve Rogers wishing with equal measure for his Soulmate to be Captain America so that at least when Tony died there would be no one waiting for him and other times letting himself hope that he wouldn’t let his Steve down and that they would meet after he figured out a way to get out of the cave.

Then, he did. Yinsen died. Tony was Iron Man.

Somewhere in the back of his mind Tony supposed that becoming a superhero made him a little bit more likely to be Soulmates with Captain America, but he shut that thought down quick.

“Jarvis, give me a listing of every Steve Rogers and if they’ve found their Soulmates.”

The search didn’t give him much.

---

Back Then

Steve felt weird whenever he had to interact with Howard Stark. After the expo, he’d never expected to have to see Howard again but then he somehow managed to get chosen to take the Super Soldier Serum and Howard was one of the people working on it and then later after Howard had taken the time to admire what he’d become, they had sort of become acquaintances, but not friends. So, Steve had never really thought that he had the right to ask if Howard had any brothers or cousins named Anthony. He had been tempted to ask Peggy, but despite being friends with her, he always felt that she was too serious and unbothered about stuff like Soulmates. There was one thing he was certain of: like Bucky, Peggy didn’t have a Mark yet.

Then, he was separated from both Peggy and Howard, off selling a story to soldiers and the public alike. Steve had never considered himself an actor, but if it was the only thing he could do for the war, then he’d do it.

When he finally saw Peggy again, Bucky was missing. Howard Stark flew them on Steve’s half planned rescue mission and for a moment before he jumped out of the plane he felt the words forming on his lips, but then he didn’t dare.

“You have to ask him,” Bucky insisted later, on their walk back to the camp after the rescue, “you keep being brought together. It has to be because of Anthony.”

Bucky rubbed at his own wrist as he spoke and Steve knew without asking that Bucky was getting his own Mark.

When they got back, Steve took the first chance he got to speak to Howard.

“So any other Starks out on the field or helping the war efforts?” Steve asked, instead of blurting anything out.

Howard looked at him strangely and then shook his head. “No siblings,” he said, “just me.”

Steve nodded. “Oh,” he said and didn’t have the courage to ask about Anthony although from time to time he thought that Howard stared at him with an odd look in his eyes. Steve couldn’t be sure exactly why, but he knew that Howard was too smart to not add things up together.

He didn’t make an attempt to ask Howard about Anthony again and focused on the war and what needed to be done. He also tried his hardest to stop the growing crush he had for Peggy Carter but it was difficult when she was just too amazing for words. Bucky thought it was hilarious and Steve felt like he was betraying Anthony. One night when the three of them were out he even told her about Anthony Stark and Peggy showed off her bare wrist with a wistful smile.

“Because of the war,” she said, “I’m glad there’s nothing there.”

From Peggy he got the confirmation that he’d suspected. Howard Stark did not have a relation named Anthony Stark.

Bucky on the other hand didn’t seem to even care about his Soulmate. He hid the Mark from everyone even Steve and just sulked whenever the topic was brought up.

Then, Bucky fell off the train.

Later Steve crashed in the Arctic and he felt every moment of the ice cold water touching his skin and how he began to freeze until it became so cold that he felt nothing and then he knew nothing. His last thought was an apology to Anthony.

---

Later

“Anthony Edward Stark,” Howard announced to Peggy, Jarvis, and Ana while the small bundle wrapped up in a white blanket cried in his father’s arms.

Peggy froze.

“What, too stuffy for you,” Howard said, “and you’re supposed to be Brits.”

Jarvis and his wife approached Howard first and Howard passed his new baby right into Jarvis’ hands. Peggy knew that it would be happening a lot in the coming years.

“We’ll call him Tony,” Howard said, “if that makes you feel better.”

Peggy moved forward and looked over Jarvis’ shoulders at the tiny pruned up baby that already had a tuft of dark hair. She felt the kind of love that she had only ever felt when giving birth to her own son a few years earlier, and knew that she would never leave Tony on his own if she could help it.

Howard took Tony back and after Peggy had caressed his cheek one more time and offered a “congratulations” he was off to join Maria once more.

“What’s the matter, Peggy?” Ana asked.

Peggy shook her head. “Nothing, just got lost in my own thoughts.”

She had to just hope that Tony’s Mark would be for someone else, that the man Steve was supposed to be Soulmates with was around her age or long gone. That tiny babe didn’t need to have tragedy already weighing him down.

The next time she saw Howard, a few months after Tony’s birth, she insisted he try to keep the search for Steve going.

Once, Howard had admitted to her that his interest in finding Steve wasn’t just because he wanted to keep trying to make the serum again but because he was his friend and an icon. Peggy hadn’t known if she should believe him, especially after all that nonsense with Howard keeping a vial of Steve’s blood. But the way that he just kept trying made her want to believe in him.

A few years later when Howard was getting uninterested in continuing the expeditions, Peggy had to push him again.

“Keep looking for him, Stark, we don’t know what the serum could have done to him,” she urged him.

He stared at her for a long time. “Carter, he’s not your Soulmate unless you lied to me about that and I know you didn’t. Why do you keep insisting?”

Peggy told him.

“His Soulmate is Anthony Stark,” Peggy said, “and I don’t – I don’t know if that’s Tony or someone else and we won’t know until Tony gets his Mark, but what if it is Steve? What if he’s still alive and he’s supposed to be with your son?”

After that, Howard was almost relentless in his search and Peggy wasn’t always around to see how every time he came back Howard drank more and more and how Tony and Maria both expected less and less from Howard. Peggy was too busy with Shield and with her own family to notice or take action and Steve was never found.

“He has Steve’s name,” Howard told her one night at Shield headquarters, “we have to find him. This has to mean Steve’s alive, right?”

“I hope so,” Peggy said.

Howard didn’t look like he believed her, but he nodded anyway.

When she attended Howard and Maria’s funeral she felt a great sadness for Howard because he would never know if Tony got to be with his Soulmate and Peggy didn’t want to confront Tony about it because he’d never told her what his Mark read. She could only discuss it with Jarvis and hope for the best, but Steve was nowhere to be found.

---

Presently

Tony had always thought that he would cut the funding for the search for Captain America to spite Howard, but he just hadn’t been able to. Every time it came up, he just found a reason to not discuss it or change how things had always been. So, on a late night while Tony was in the middle of repairing the War Machine suit, Tony didn’t expect for Jarvis to speak up and lower his music.

“Sir, it appears that Captain America was found,” Jarvis said.

Tony went cold. His hands froze over the boot of War Machine’s suit and then he took a step back.

“Sir?” Jarvis asked.

“Who – who found him, Jarvis?” Tony asked.

There was only one sole expedition team searching for Captain America that Tony was funding, but he was well aware that there were others. Shield definitely, but he suspected that some part of the American government was looking as well.

“Russian oil team,” Jarvis said, “but their call came to us. No one else knows yet.”

Tony knew they would soon though. They would notice it either out there or get the intel in some other way.

Tony nodded. “Get a suit ready, J.”

As he suited up, Tony talked through it with Jarvis.

“What can you tell me?” Tony asked.

“They came upon the ship he crashed and started looking around and then the report that someone saw his shield and body was made. They’ve been working on getting him out since.”

Tony nodded to himself. “Make a flight plan, Jarvis.”

“One is already programmed, sir,” Jarvis said.

Tony didn’t think about it, or at least he tried not to think about it. He focused on flying and on all the other things that he still had to worry about even though Pepper was his CEO now and Tony wasn’t actually dying anymore.

Those months when the reactor was poisoning him had been almost eye opening to Tony. They had allowed him in a way to come to terms with never meeting his Soulmate. He’d been glad that he wasn’t hurting anyone. In that time, he’d decided that he liked the idea of Steve Rogers his Soulmate being Captain America. He didn’t know if he still felt the same way anymore. Especially not since he’d been found.

Tony had always known that there would either come a time when Captain America was found or a time when the search was finally given up.

He arrived to the men still working at extracting and Tony’s appearance surprised everyone.

“Iron Man,” one said, “we didn’t expect you.”

Tony would have lifted his face plate off if he didn’t think he’d freeze his face off. As it was, he had Jarvis turn up the heat inside the suit just in case.

“I was alerted,” he told them, “my father searched for him my entire life. So, where is he?”

He was pointed towards what looked like just a bunch of ice, but a moment later Tony stopped in his tracks because there he was, his shield right over his body and all of him including the shield completely frozen. He didn’t know what to do.

“Sir, Agent Coulson is calling,” Jarvis said and sure enough his display showed Coulson’s number.

Tony sighed. “Do they know, J?”

“I would assume so, Sir,” Jarvis said.

“Put him through.”

Ever since the whole thing with Shield putting one of their spies on him, Tony hadn’t been too keen on them. Never mind that they had also provided the answers that Tony had been searching for. Still, he knew he needed their help.

“Agent,” Tony said, “I’m surprised you’re up so late.”

“I know where you are, Stark,” Coulson said, “I also know what you found.”

“Yes,” Tony said, “found with my privately owned company and funds. I don’t see how this is Shield business.”

Coulson almost sounded amused when he said, “I don’t know what you plan to do with a frozen body, Stark, but we have the equipment to have him defrosted properly so that he is not damaged. Let us help.”

“Sure, sure,” Tony said, “I was just here to see what my dad was obsessed over.”

“Obsessed over a good man and a hero,” Coulson said.

Tony made a noise. “I have a say in everything,” he said, “it doesn’t matter what Romanov said about me, in this I am allowing Shield access.”

“Noted. Fury won’t like it.”

It took a few more hours but a jet landed and Coulson with a team of agents collected the body and Tony went with them, getting out of the suit the moment they were up in the air. He hung back while the agents placed Captain America and his block of ice in a sort of tub and they began to scan him.

Tony wasn’t sure what they were searching for, or if there was anything there to find, but he watched them carefully. While he did, he made a mental list of things he needed to do. Top of the list was contacting Aunt Peggy.

The last time he’d seen her she wasn’t doing too well, the lack of lucid moments growing and growing in comparison to her lucid ones. Maybe he’d get in touch with one of her kids first. Tony just knew she’d want to know.

“Your father believed he was alive in the ice,” Coulson said suddenly.

Tony had known that was one theory.

“He thought the serum might have allowed him to go into a suspended animation state,” Coulson continued, “of course we don’t know how long that kind of state might have lasted, but—”

Tony didn’t want the hope. He didn’t want the possibility that the frozen man a few feet from him could be alive. Scientifically Tony knew it was impossible, and yet the serum was unnatural and different. But it had almost been seventy years. It wasn’t – no, he couldn’t be alive.

---

It took a full day before Tony had any answers. He hadn’t dared to leave Shield until he did, something keeping him rooted in the room where Captain America was no longer in a block of ice but still sitting in a bath of some sort of anti-freeze.

At one point he had given Peggy’s son a call and gotten to speak with Aunt Peggy for a few confusing minutes.

“I knew you’d find him,” she’d said, “all that’s meant to be is for a reason.”

Mostly, though, he just sat there in the room and did work on an ipad or his phone and continually texted Pepper with what was happening and had her figure out anything he might need while he was in New York. He knew he was driving her crazy, but it was why a huge expense would be on his credit card by the end of the week. More than likely it would be shoes.

He didn’t get in the way of the scientists or Coulson, and was surprised when Fury didn’t once appear to see him. Tony had expected to have to fight to have access.

Then, they were getting closer to finishing off the ice when one of them gasped and Tony couldn’t see past the crowd of white lab coats.

“He’s alive.”

Tony almost fell out of his chair.

“He has vital signs,” another said.

“Call Coulson,” yet another added.

Tony absently rubbed at his wrist right over where his covered Mark would be.

---

“We’ll have to ease him into our time,” Fury said, “let him wake up thinking he’s back in the 40’s and then tell him where he really is.”

Tony who was leaning against the window that looked into where Captain America was getting dried now that most of the ice was gone, shook his head.

“He’ll see right through that,” Tony said.

“Even if he does it will make it easier to calm him down,” Fury said, “or do you have any better ideas?”

Tony didn’t. All he wanted was to rush back into the room and look at Captain America’s wrists. He wanted to know. He wanted to have it confirmed for him.

“Fine,” Tony said, “someone better get all the details right.”

Fury nodded. “They’re already working on it.”

Tony didn’t let his eyes stray from the man on the table. He looked like a drowned cat at the moment.

“What – what will happen to him after?” Tony asked.

“They’re sure he’ll have all function,” Fury said, “the serum really has done some amazing work. We will set him up and help him adjust to our time and the things that have changed. When he’s ready we will invite him to join Shield.”

Tony shook his head. “So he comes back from war only to be trust into a secret organization and expected to continue being Captain America. No. I think he gets to make that choice for himself. After all, I found him, Director Fury, and that is the shield that my father created for him and the serum that saved him was also in part due to my father. So when he is deemed medically well enough and once we have explained to him exactly where he is, he will be coming with me.”

Tony rubbed at his wrist again. Ever since he’d become Iron Man, Tony had gone as far as to put a piece of synthetic skin over the Mark. Suddenly, he wanted to take it off and show it to the world.

Fury stared at Tony. “And what will you do with him, Stark? Don’t you have a company to run?”

“I have a CEO,” Tony said, “which you know well and I’m well ahead on my work.”

He was. Tony just also had piles upon piles of ideas that he wanted to start work on, but the most important of it all the sustainable energy and his new Stark tower, all of that was ahead of schedule. They were going start building in a few weeks.

“You have no right,” Fury began.

“Neither do you,” Tony said.

Then again, it was possible he did have a right. He rubbed at his wrist again. Could Captain America really be his Soulmate? Tony pushed off the window and walked back into the room.

“He’s quite something,” one of the Shield doctors said.

Tony nodded. He walked to stand at Captain America’s side. There were a lot of black and white reels of him, not to mention all the photographs. Tony had seen almost all of them. None of them made him any justice because Captain America in the flesh was a completely different experience altogether and Tony was captivated by just looking at him.

They were just managing to take the shield from him, and Tony grabbed it before they placed it on the floor. It wasn’t as heavy as Tony had supposed it to be, but Tony could tell that it was different and so absolutely balanced. Eventually he set it aside near a wall.

“When do you think he’ll wake up?” Tony asked.

“Within twenty four hours,” the Shield doctor said.

---

“So, that worked out well,” a voice that sounded a bit familiar said, “a well thought out plan, Fury, lying to the guy when he’s just coming to.”

Director Fury looked up and Steve turned his head. The man that had spoken looked too much like Howard Stark to not be related to him. Steve didn’t want to think about it, to wonder if this man might be his Anthony. But, no, it was more likely that his Soulmate was long gone or still alive but unwell or just aged. Still, something about him captivated Steve. Maybe it was his eyes, brown and expressive, or his neatly trimmed goatee. He was certainly handsome.

“Stark,” Fury said, “I’ve been explaining things to him.”

Despite having expected the name, Steve was still surprised. Stark nodded and walked towards the desk. He grabbed the folders that Fury had been in the process of giving to Steve.

“You know very well that those files won’t tell him everything he needs to know. Like I said, if he is medically able to leave he’ll be better off out of the hands of Shield.”

Steve watched Fury. He didn’t look happy, but he let Stark take the folders and then he nodded and looked between the two of them.

“Captain, this is Tony Stark, you knew his father, Howard Stark, he’s responsible for bringing you out of the ice and he’ll be taking charge of—”

Tony Stark. It had to be short for Anthony. Steve heard nothing that Fury said. Instead he was staring at Tony Stark whose hand had absentmindedly reached to touch his wrist right where a Mark would be. He looked nervous.

“It’s good to finally meet you,” Tony said and he extended a hand out to Steve, “I’ve heard a lot about you. Whenever you’re ready we can head out. I’ve had someone make the New York house ready for us.”

Steve reached out a few seconds after the hand had been offered. He felt something like a jolt of electricity go through him when they touched and it took everything in him to not gasp. When he met Tony’s eyes, he looked equally as surprised.

“I’m ready now,” Steve said after a moment.

Tony nodded.

“Got a car for us, Fury?” Tony asked.

“I’ll let them know you’re coming,” Fury said, “and I’ll be in contact, Stark, he still is Captain America.”

“Sure,” Tony said, “but I’m still not qualified for your little team so I don’t work for you and he doesn’t either.”

Fury looked like he was going to say something, but instead he shook his head. When they were at the door he finally spoke, “there are things you do not know,” he said.

“That’s why I have Jarvis,” Tony said before the door closed behind them.

Steve didn’t know what to make of everything around him. He was a bit overwhelmed, had been from the moment he woke up in a foreign room where nothing seemed right. The game had tipped him off, because he remembered being there for it so clearly, and also the woman they’d sent in who was nothing like the women from his time. Then, it turned out that the room was all fake and nothing made sense. He had felt so lost being out in the middle of a street that looked more different than he could have ever imagined it looking.

Tony didn’t speak aside from thanking an agent for the car. Then, after they were in the car he laughed.

“Is this another spy gig, then?” he asked the driver.

The woman that turned to look at them just smirked.

“So is it Natalie or Natasha this time?” Tony pressed.

“Can’t have a hidden identity when you already know who I am,” Natasha or Natalie said, “not to mention I volunteered. I wanted to see what everyone’s made such a big deal about.”

“I don’t really understand that either, Ma’am,” Steve said.

“Call me Natasha,” Natasha said and then pulled the car out into traffic.

During the drive, Natasha didn’t speak and Tony kept his eyes on a tiny square glass looking thing.

“It’s a phone,” Tony said suddenly, startling Steve, “a mobile one. They can basically do anything.”

“Oh,” Steve said, “there’s a lot that I have to learn about.”

Tony nodded. “You do,” he said, “but I know for a fact that the serum will make it easier for you to pick up on most things. I can’t wait to test that out.”

Natasha laughed from the front.

“I thought spies were supposed to be silent,” Tony said.

“Depends on the spy,” Natasha responded.

Tony didn’t say anything else.

Steve wanted to talk to him. He wanted to ask every question that had popped into his head since he’d woken and more. He wanted to know how Tony knew so much about the serum, and about him. If it had anything to do with the very real possibility that they were Soulmates. He wanted to know about the future he’d woken in and he wanted to know absolutely everything he could about Tony. He could also recognize that while Tony seemed to know Natasha, he wasn’t talking for a reason.

So, Steve tried to look out the window at all the new things and the new people when he could tear his eyes away from Tony. From time to time, he caught Natasha looking at them on the rearview mirror, but she didn’t say anything.

Natasha took them to a house in upstate New York. It was more mansion than house and when Tony got out, he looked at it warily.

“We will contact you, Stark,” Natasha said, “make sure Jarvis puts us through.”

“But I like keeping people on hold,” Tony said with a grin.

They stood outside the house and watched her drive off before Tony turned to Steve. “There’s someone here that wants to see you,” he said.

Steve followed Tony not to the front door but down a path to the back of the house. It took them a while to get to the back because the house was so wide, but when they did it was to be faced with a pool that was covered up by a dark green cover and a woman sitting right outside the house in a comfortable looking loveseat, the French doors of the house wide open.

It took Steve a moment before he recognized her.

“What,” she said, “did I not age well?”

“Peggy,” Steve gasped.

He hadn’t been expecting to see her, hadn’t even dared to ask because he was so afraid of what he might be told.

She was white haired and wrinkled, but smiling. Tony next to him grinned. “First person I called,” he said, “figured she more than anyone would want to know you’re alive.”

Steve turned to gap at him. “I – thank you.”

Tony gave a nod. Then, a young woman stepped out of the house holding a blanket.

“Mom, the least you could do is have this blanket on you. I don’t want you getting sick,” she said, not even noticing Tony or Steve.

She looked a bit like Peggy had back when Steve knew her and yet there were enough differences that Steve wouldn’t have mistaken her for Peggy.

“Well, come on now,” Peggy said, “I deserve at least a hug.”

Steve couldn’t move. Tony did instead, moving to hug and press a kiss to Peggy’s cheek. Steve moved forward then and Peggy opened her arms for him. It was strange to see her like that when what felt like mere hours earlier he’d said goodbye to a different Peggy.

“Oh,” Peggy’s daughter said, “you’re here.”

“That we are,” Tony said and swung an arm around her, “how is she today, Mer?”

“It’s a good day. One of her best days.”

Peggy pulled Steve to sit next to her and Steve knew as she began asking him questions about Shield why Tony had insisted that Steve go with him. The files that Fury had given him would never have given him as much as Tony was already providing and there was so much more that Tony probably knew or just had that might link him to the past and everyone he’d left behind.

Steve got lost talking to Peggy, listening to her tell him about her life after the war, that he didn’t even notice when Tony and her daughter disappeared until they were back to usher them both inside the house what might have been hours later.

Peggy and her daughter left soon after and Steve was finally alone with Tony.

“She’s led a full life,” he said, “I’m glad.”

“She really has,” Tony said.

“So, what’s wrong with her?”

Tony closed his eyes for a moment, looking a bit sad. “Alzheimer’s,” Tony said, “it’s really progressing. Some days she can’t remember anything. I hope she remembers finally seeing you again. She used to tell me so many stories about you when I was a kid. I was obsessed. Anyway –”

Steve couldn’t handle it anymore. He had waited through all of that stuff with Shield and the car ride and he had lost himself to talking to Peggy, but he couldn’t wait any longer.

“Are you my Soulmate?”

Tony stared at him for a long moment and then he turned his wrist over and removed something that looked like skin from the spot.

---

Tony hadn’t expected Steve to be the one to ask, although he’d been wondering about how Steve had reacted to his name in Fury’s office. There just hadn’t been a moment to bring it up and Tony had planned to do it on the ride to the house at first except that Natasha turned out to be their driver and he knew she’d blab to Pepper and Tony wouldn’t hear the end of it. So, he’d waited and then realized that Peggy was already at the house and he’d had to wait even longer.

“See for yourself,” Tony said.

Steve stepped closer and he gasped when he saw his own name there before he trust his own wrist out at Tony.

“Anthony Stark,” Tony said and laughed.

His Soulmate was Captain America. Not only that, but his Soulmate despite being born in the 1920’s, was alive and physically younger than Tony.

“Fate really has a humor then, doesn’t it?” Steve said, “is that why you fought to take me with you?”

“Partly,” Tony said, “I mean, I didn’t even know for sure until just now. Probably would have done it either way.”

Steve tentatively reached to grab Tony’s wrist and Tony felt a sense of rightness to the moment. His fingers touched the Mark and Tony fought a shiver.

“I’m glad you brought me with you anyway. All those people there, Fury, the Shield people they don’t see me as Steve Rogers the boy from Brooklyn. All they see is the uniform and the shield.”

“They see the soldier,” Tony whispered, “well, we’ll just have to show them there’s more than that. Now, come on, I’ll give you the tour even though I think it’ll serve our interests better to go to my regular house in Malibu.”

Tony led him around the house that he’d had someone clean up in anticipation of their arrival, but which had still gone unused for longer than Tony could even remember. It was childhood home, and the memories that arose for him upon entering every room sometimes landed like a punch but Steve’s very presence made it easier somehow.

When they made it past the kitchen and the dining room to his father’s office, Tony had to wonder.

“Did you ever tell him,” Tony said, “my dad, I mean, about your Mark?”

Steve shook his head. “No. I asked him if he had any relatives once but never about that. But, Peggy knew. Did she tell you?”

Tony gasped. He had never told Peggy, but he’d long suspected that his father or Jarvis had. He suddenly had to wonder if Howard’s insistence on finding Steve was about more than just finding a friend and the only person that had the serum running through his veins.

“I think – well, I don’t know for sure, but maybe he did know. He knew what mine said which could have been enough. He looked for you my whole life, Steve. I could never get myself to believe that you were the same Steve on my wrist then but now…”

“It’s different now we’ve met,” Steve said.

“Yeah,” Tony said and then led him upstairs.

It didn’t take long to take him through the bedrooms including his old childhood room which had been cleared up ages ago to leave boxes of old things among the furniture and other odds and ends that had ended up there.

Steve was amazed by how big everything was, Tony could tell. He also seemed confused about a few others, but mostly he seemed to be taking it all in.

“It needs a bit of work, this house,” Tony said when they finished, “it needs to get a bit more modern. Maybe at some point I’ll have someone work on that. I’ll have to let Jarvis know to put it on the agenda.”

“You live in Malibu, you said,” Steve said.

“Nicer weather,” Tony said, “but the company is mostly based there, too, and when they died I didn’t want much to do with this house.”

---

It felt a little awkward, which Steve supposed that he should have always expected and yet he just hadn’t. He hadn’t known what to expect, actually, and he certainly hadn’t expected to be frozen in ice and wake up seventy years later to meet his Soulmate. Still, Tony was captivating. He was everything Steve had wanted and didn’t know he wanted. His Anthony was quick and witty and brilliant. He was also gorgeous and he seemed to know it too.

The tour had let him see a little more into the life Tony had had, and Steve could tell that the memories weren’t all good.

“I bet you have a million questions,” Tony said.

They were sitting in a spacious room that Tony claimed needed to be more modern. To Steve all of it looked like it was too futuristic.

“I do,” Steve said, “Peggy gave me the basics on what happened after I went in the ice with her and my other friends but I’ve missed seventy years.”

“Well, technology has advanced,” Tony said, “and my company is a huge part of that. It’s what I do. I’m an engineer and a mechanic and an inventor. So I’ll be giving you a run through of all of that once we get to Malibu. I have my lab there and Jarvis. I feel a bit naked without him.”

Steve frowned. It wasn’t the first time Tony had mentioned Jarvis. “Who’s Jarvis?” he asked.

“Just a rather very intelligent system,” Tony said, “but some people claim I named him after my dad’s butler, Edwin Jarvis.”

Steve didn’t think that explained anything aside from the fact that Tony clearly had a close relationship with the former butler.

“He’s an AI,” Tony said, “sort of like a robot assistant. It’s a program I made, artificial learning intelligence.”

“Oh,” Steve said, still a bit confused.

Tony smiled. “You’ll understand better when you meet him. He can be a right sassy jerk though, as a warning.”

“What about,” Steve said, “what about bonds like ours?”

It was the one thing that had come immediately to mind after he’d calmed down a bit from finding out he was in the future.

Tony stared for a moment and then “Oh! Yes, it would have been different back then. Not illegal but frowned upon. Some people still don’t like it, but it is widely accepted.”

“Good,” Steve said, “that’s really good.”

Tony smiled at him.”It is,” he said, “now there’s something else I need to tell you about.”

Steve didn’t know what to expect. Everything about the future was one twisting turn after the other.

Tony stood up and he looked a bit nervous as he led him down to the basement. He hadn’t taken him down there during the tour and Steve had supposed that there wasn’t anything down there for him to see.

“You wouldn’t be able to tell, but the space down here has really old equipment by my standards but this was where I first started experimenting and really making my ideas instead of just dreaming about them. It used to be Howards but he worked mostly from the office than from home.”

It looked a lot like the labs and workshops that Steve had seen back in the war, where Howard would be tinkering away on some sort of weapon or new technology to help with the war effort. He could almost picture Howard in that room. A lot of the things inside were more advanced than Steve had supposed they were back in the 40s, but he couldn’t even begin to imagine the even further advancements than these.

“In the files that Fury gave you there’s one for me,” Tony said, “and I almost want to just have you read it because it’d be easier.”

Steve frowned. He watched Tony turn on all the lights in the room. It made the room look bigger somehow. Then, he watched as Tony took the jacket of his suit off and couldn’t tear his eyes away as Tony began to unbutton his shirt. He couldn’t move from his spot at the bottom of the stairs because his eyes were glued to Tony’s deft hands.

He had an undershirt under the shirt so it wasn’t skin that kept Steve’s eyes captivated but a blue circular light. He didn’t know what to make of it, or how he was supposed to react, so instead he just stared.

Tony undid the wrist buttons of his shirt and dropped it aside and Steve actually gasped when he took off his undershirt.

“What—” Steve began.

“This is an arc reactor,” Tony said, “it’s basically the reason I’m alive.”

“Tony, what – what happened?”

While there was a lot that Steve had expected to be surprised by, there was so much more that he just hadn’t expected. Actually meeting his Soulmate was one, but the round circular light in his chest was not something anyone could have seen coming.

Tony smiled a little and then he extended his hand out towards Steve, almost nervously. Steve moved forward and grasped it, his eyes never leaving Tony’s chest and not even being able to appreciate the toned chest and stomach and the muscular arms because he was so captivated by the reactor.

Tony held his hand as he turned and walked towards another side of the room and he turned on another light and Steve almost scrambled back because it was a robot. Tony laughed.

“Relax,” Tony said, “this is what I wanted to show you.”

“But your chest,” Steve burst out, “we have to talk about it.”

“It’s all relevant,” Tony said, “see the thing is you’re not the only superhero around here not that I’d really call myself that. That’s my armor.”

Steve didn’t have words. It was armor. It was Tony’s armor.

“I – I wanted you to see it,” Tony said, “before I told you everything.”

Steve still couldn’t say anything and when Tony turned to look at him he found that it didn’t matter. Whatever Tony had to tell him, whatever the armor meant and the blue light from his chest meant there was nothing that could change that Steve felt that Tony was everything.

Tony led him to a secondary part of the room where an old couch sat. They sat down right next to each other and Steve didn’t let Tony let his hand go. Tony smiled at their hands. Then, he began to speak and Steve felt himself tense up because Tony had gone through so much. He had suffered so much.

“So I am Iron Man,” Tony said, “and I don’t regret that despite how I got on this path. Fury, he’s wanted to form some sort of team for a while. Jarvis tells me you’re a part of his plans for that and so am I to an extent.”

“I don’t know what to say,” Steve admitted, “you’ve gone through so much and—”

Tony turned so he was directly facing him and with the hand that was still free, he pushed Steve’s chin up, his hand caressing his face gently.

“So have you,” Tony said, “you were frozen for seventy years. I think we had to go through those things to finally meet. To be meant for each other. And that is a lot more sentimentality than anyone has ever heard from me.”

Steve didn’t say anything. Instead, he pressed forward and captured Tony’s lips in a gentle kiss that didn’t last longer than a few seconds. Tony pressed their foreheads together, their breath mingling between them. Steve felt like for the first time everything was right.