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aslightstep · 7 years

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I Come With Knives

I never promised you an open heart or charity/I never wanted to abuse your imagination

“Howard? Why are you looming over the baby?”

Howard didn’t look at his wife, instead once more turning Tony’s wrist to the right, then to the left. “I don’t loom,” he muttered when he felt Maria’s hand on his shoulder.

“Hover, then.” Together they looked down at Tony, fast asleep in his crib. Howard carefully placed his son’s hand back on the mattress, palm down so the name on his wrist was hidden.

“We should get it removed,” he said quietly. “While we have the chance.”

“Howard, that’s his soulmate,” Maria said sternly.

“His soulmate that he’s never going to meet?” Howard asked derisively, turning towards her. “It’s cruelty, Maria. We get it done now, he’ll never know.”

“So we let him grow up thinking that there’s no one out there that will or would ever have truly loved him?” his wife challenged.

He sighed, steering her out of the room. “You place too much stock in soulmates, my dear. They’re not the be all and end all of everything.”

“Should I be insulted?” Maria laughed, running her finger along her own name carved into Howard’s skin. “Look, all I truly know about soulmates is this: when the fascists were chasing us out of Italy and I lost my parents, when I thought every day was my last, knowing that somewhere out there, dead or alive, you had carried me in your heart was the only thing that kept me going. No, soulmates are not everything, Howard, but they are enough. And besides, Tony deserves to know.”

Howard pursed his lips, thinking it through, knowing Maria won’t back down on this, and he finally nodded, earning a smile and a kiss from his wife. “He never said anything, you know,” he said to her as she began to walk away. “He must have wondered. Same last name and all. But he never said.”

Maria shrugged. “Maybe he was scared. Forties homophobia is a pretty big deterrent, Howard.” She headed towards their room.

Howard took a deep breath and let it out slowly, rapping twice on the door to Tony’s room. “You hear that, kid? You grow up and hate that name, you don’t blame me.”

There was a reason Maria didn’t want Howard to remove her son’s soulmark. One that she would never tell him directly to her face.

Howard was never going to be a good father.

She never even meant to get pregnant, even though Howard wanted an heir. Especially because Howard wanted an heir. She loved her soulmate, but he was never going to view any child of theirs as anything but another one of his inventions.

And Howard expected his inventions to be perfect.

Tony, beautiful, brilliant Antonio, was anything but perfect. He was a noisy, overly-inquisitive child who had a know-it-all streak a mile wide and was a bit spoiled. He was messy and loud and forever saying nonsensical things. In other words, he was a perfectly normal four year old, but Howard would never see it that way. Everything wrong with Tony needed to be fixed, NOW, instead of letting him grow out of his more negative qualities.

Maria picked up Tony as he cried, running ice along the burns on his fingers and internally cursing her husband’s name. Of course he had pushed Tony to finish the circuit board, of course he had let their baby use power tools. He had been so disappointed when Tony’s first board hadn’t worked, told Tony not to even bother if he couldn’t get it right. Howard had always prized the scientific method, but with Tony, his creation, he couldn’t seem to fathom inaccuracies.

“Daddy will be mad,” Tony sobbed. “You have to let me down, Mama, I have to try again.”

Maria hushed him, running a hand through his hair. “Daddy won’t be mad, baby.”

“Yes he will, he’ll hate me. He hates me!”

“He doesn’t, sweetheart, he loves you.” As best he could, anyway. “And I love you, too.”

Tony only just sobbed harder, shaking his head.

This was why Maria insisted they kept the mark. Because Howard was going to carve their baby into a scientist no matter what, and Maria could say the words for both of them until she turned blue in the face, but Tony needed proof. She gently turned Tony’s hand so his wrist was facing them, running her hands along the name there. Her poor son. “He loves you, Tony.”

Tony slowly quieted, reaching out with his other hand, so small, and following her movements. “He does?”

“He’s your soulmate. No matter where he is, no matter what you’ve done, he loves you. Always. That’s what a soulmate means: always.”

“Always,” Tony echoed, a hint of a smile in his voice.

Edwin Jarvis dragged the glass of whiskey away from his young charge and replaced it with a glass of milk. “Would you like to tell me what brought this on?”

He had come home to find the liquor cabinet’s lock picked and Anthony flung out on the piano bench, contemplated the tumbler in his hands like it was a hand grenade. He had ushered both pre-teen and tumbler to the kitchen where he now sat beside him, rubbing a hand on his back.

Tony’s eyes were red. Jarvis didn’t even know Tony remembered how to cry anymore.

“M’ soulmate’s dead,” Tony whispered, and Jarvis felt his heart sink. He and Maria had talked about this moment, how to handle it. He was amazed, honestly, that it had taken Tony so long to piece it together. He only wish Maria was here now.

“You knew.” Tony was staring at him now, betrayal in his eyes. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t anyone?”

“Because he made you happy,” Jarvis answered. “And you deserved that feeling for as long as we could give it to you.”

Tony’s lower lip trembled. “Why even let me feel that when you knew it was going to be taken away? He’s dead, Jarvis! Like, really dead, like for-decades dead. I’m never gonna see him. I’m gonna be alone forever.”

Jarvis pulled his charge into a hug, holding tightly until Tony relaxed. “Not so, sir,” he said softly. “He’ll always be with you. He was meant for you. That makes him a part of you, and nothing, not even death, can take that away.”

Tony’s body shuddered and Jarvis felt his shirt grow damp, but Tony remained silent. Jarvis hoped that meant the words sunk in.

“You’re seriously not gonna tell me?” Jim laughed, hitting Tony with a pillow. His roommate toppled over in a pile of gangly limbs and giggles. “I showed you mine!”

“And I’m sure Virginia Potts is a hell of a lady, whoever she may be,” Tony said. “But I didn’t ask you to show me, man, this isn’t quid pro quo or something.”

The words were as teasing as ever, but Tony’s eyes had shuttered by the end of his sentence. Oh. Oh. Dammit. Jim had overstepped some serious bounds here. “’Course, man. I didn’t mean - I just thought if I knew I could keep an eye out.”

Tony shrugged, sitting up, fiddling with the thick band around his wrist covering the name of his soulmate. Rhodes had never seen him take it off in the entire year he had known him. He’d bet that was one serious tanline.

“He’s dead.”

Jim blinked, head snapping towards Tony, not sure he heard right. “He’s-”

“Dead,” Tony repeated.

Well, Jim was definitely taking Worst Best Friend this year. “Tones, I’m sorry.”

To his surprise, Tony looked up and smiled. “It’s okay. He loved me. Even if he never met me. He had my name. He loved me. That’s enough for me.”

“That’s…” Jim searched for words. “Weirdly mature of you, boss.”

Tony laughed, pushing at his shoulder. “Don’t rag on my coping mechanisms, man!”

Jim dragged the younger boy into a headlock, and promised himself he’d never let anyone bother Tony about that wrist band where he could hear them.

“What’s it like?” Tony asked Pepper once, as they were both drifting on inflatable tubes neither should have brought into the lazy river installment circling the hotel pool. But hey, who was going to stop Tony Stark, or his platinum card?

She made an inquisitive hum. “The soulmate thing,” Tony clarified, and Pepper opened her eyes to look at her boss. He wasn’t looking back, his eyes firmly placed on the ceiling, but she could read the yearning in his face.

Tony had told her the truth about his soulmate years ago, but it still hurt her every time she thought about it. To know that Tony would never feel what she felt-

Well, maybe she could describe it to him. Tony had always had an amazing imagination.

“You feel…complete,” she said, and Tony sighed and closed his eyes. “You feel finished. Like you’ve been a puzzle all your life and here someone has all the missing puzzles you didn’t know were missing. And you have all of theirs. It’s mutual, and that’s what makes it - so great, I guess. That you’re needed as much as you need. That your love is returned equally.”

She and Rhodey had turned out to be platonic, both happily seeing other people who were also platonically-bonded, but she couldn’t imagine being without him now. Functioning like she did now. Sometimes it scared her, that level of devotion. She knew now why some people killed themselves after losing their soulmates.

“Sounds wonderful,” Tony murmured, his right hand encircling the band on his left wrist. “You and Rhodey are lucky.” He didn’t mean it to sound petulant, and it didn’t, but she still felt a spike of guilt anyway.

“Very,” she agreed, reaching out to take his hand. “And lucky to have you, too.”

Bruce watched as Tony stuck a hand out to the Captain while popping blueberries into his mouth. “Tony Stark,” he said when he was finished chewing.

“I know,” Captain Rogers said, a hint of disdain in his voice. “I read about you.”

“Then obviously you know absolutely everything about me there is to know,” Tony said, blisteringly dry, but it was the expression on Tony’s face that caught Bruce’s attention more than anything. He looked strangely nervous and - expectant? Like he was waiting for a specific reaction.

Whatever it was, he didn’t get it. Rogers snapped at Tony a bit then left, and Tony came back to the lab equipment looking small and lost, fiddling with the band around his wrist.

Jesus, Bruce thought. Please don’t let them be soulmates.

Thor respected the Captain and his command, but even he had to admit that so far the man was absolutely dismal at connecting with the Man of Iron.

It was not all Steven's fault, of course; Tony was pricklier than most monsters Thor had faced and his manner of speaking took time to get used to. Between the two of them, both men were terrible at communicating with each other.

So Thor did what he would do with his fellow warriors back home when they would fight.

He sat them down, and got them drunk.

"You both have much in common," he said as he filled Steven's cup with liquor straight from Asgard.

"Like what?" Tony asked, one eyebrow raising.

"You are both leaders of your people. You are both quick-witted and ingenious. You both are missing your soulmates." That last one was a gamble; Thor was never sure when it was appropriate to talk about soulmates. (Personally he found the whole thing strange and frightening in a way he couldn’t define, but it was not his place to pass judgment on them.)

“My soulmate’s not missing,” Tony said, staring at Steve with an intensity that seemed out of place. “He - They’re just. Not here.”

“Neither is mine,” Steve said quietly, looking up at Tony, a curiosity in his eyes that wasn’t there before. “It’s hard, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know,” Tony said stiffly. “I’ve never known any different.”

“You mean you have never met yours?” Thor asked, a bit shocked. From what he had been told and what he’d seen, people had ways of hunting down their soulmates now, and Tony was quite famous.

“No. And I never will, so just-” Tony down his finger of scotch and then wiped at his mouth with a shaky hand. “Look, Thor, this has been great, but I know what you’re trying to do. Me and Cap here, we just don’t mesh well. I think he’s got a giant stick up his ass and he thinks that I’m not good enough-”

“When did I ever say that?” Steven cried, outraged.

Tony lifted his chin in the air. “Oh, you didn’t have to. Your face is plenty expressive, Cap. You’d make a terrible spy, by the way. But also, let’s not forget that you knew men worth ten of me with none of this. We all know who you were talking about, Rogers.”

“I don’t,” Thor volunteered.

Steven looked devastated. “Tony, I was - I was confused, and angry. I didn’t mean that, I’m sorry. Besides, didn’t you make me look like a complete idiot not one day later, flying that nuke into the portal? I thought you’d never come down.”

Tony’s chin slowly dropped so he could meet Steven’s gaze more fully. For one long tense moment Thor thought he might get up and leave, but then Tony sighed. “I didn’t mean what I said either. I just. Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Steve said. “Hey, Tony. You’re good enough.”

“Yeah?” Tony said with a tentative smile, and Thor finally relaxed. They began slowly discusses other things, people and culture, the differences between Asgard and 1940s New York City and the world today. It felt like camaraderie. Thor would be most pleased to take this news to the Widow.

“What was he like?” Tony asked a few drinks in.

“Who?” Steve rolled his head to look at the other man.

“You know...” Tony laughed and fiddled with his wristband. “Barnes.” Thor detected a peculiar note of reverence when Tony said the name, but from what he’d said, Tony had grown up hearing tales of these Howling Commandos. Thor suspected such respect was not so far-fetched.

“You really want to know?” Steve asked. Tony tilted his head, a strange smile on his face.

“’Course I do. We could swap stories if you want. I could tell you ‘bout all the crazy shit Aunt Peggy got up to.”

And then Thor watched as a real smile, the first he had seen in this new world, grew on Steve’s face. “I’d like that.”

“I can’t thank you enough,” Steve said to Tony as they both stood in the kitchen, watching Bucky carefully fiddle with the remote.

“It’s no problem,” Tony replied, his voice very faint. “Couldn’t leave him out there in the cold, could I?”

After hearing what down in DC, Tony had spared no expense helping Steve track down Bucky and bringing him back to the Tower - “only if he wants to,” Tony had said, cautious but hopeful. Now they had him back, and neither of them could take their eyes of the man.

Tony was finally meeting one of his heroes; he was forever asking Steve about Bucky, what he had been like when they were kids and during the war. He looked up to Bucky in a way he didn’t to Steve, and at first that had made Steve a bit jealous, but then he realized that Howard had essentially poisoned Tony against him by constantly putting him in competition with Steve’s memory. Bucky was safer, and not seemingly impossible to live up to. Tony actually had a Bucky Bear, although he had turned bright red when he admitted he had bought it in his teens.

And Steve - Steve was getting back his soulmate.

He had taken a careful peak under the wrist band Bucky never took off when Bucky slept on the plane ride over, and breathed out a sigh of relief when he saw that HYDRA hadn’t marked over or cut off his name. God, he had missed him. Had missed having a soulmate, period, but Bucky more than anything.

Tony moved from beside him, approaching Bucky and sticking out a hand. Steve tensed; Bucky’s reactions weren’t always reliable. “I’m Anthony Stark,” Tony said, which was a bit odd as Tony hated his full name, but maybe he was saying it to give Bucky something concrete to latch onto. “But you can call me Tony. You okay with Bucky?”

Bucky stared at the hand, then Tony’s face, and then slowly reached out with his metal arm. Steve stepped forward, but all Bucky did was shake Tony’s hand. Tony inhaled sharply and the air seemed to freeze before Bucky broke it with a rough, garbled “Bucky’s fine. Anything’s better than ‘Asset.’”

“I bet,” Tony said, smirking a bit. Bucky dropped his hand and a shadow passed over Tony’s face, but then he was all smiles. “How ‘bout I give you the nickel and dime tour?”

“Ain’t got any money,” Bucky grumbled. “Didn’t exactly get paid for killing people.”

Tony shrugged, not looking the least bit horrified. “Eh, I’m rich enough for the both of us.”

Tony was quite possibly Bucky’s favorite person in those first few months. Steve and Sam tried to be there for Bucky as best they could, but Tony just had an uncanny knack for knowing when to hold his hand and when to back off. Tony would drag Bucky down to his lab and plunk him down amongst the mess and make him sorts nuts and bolts into drawers. It had infuriated Steve until he realized that the order soothed Bucky, helped him think.

Tony dragged them out on tours of New York, to all the best and the absolute worst restaurants in the city. “You’ve got cast-iron stomachs, you can handle it,” he’d laugh when Steve and Bucky would complain. And Steve was grateful that Tony had gotten Bucky out and about, grateful that he could see his soulmate in the sun, but part of him also resented it.

It was only that he recognized the way Tony looked at Bucky. Because it was the same way Steve did. It was the same look Steve saw everytime he glanced at a mirror. And he didn’t know how to feel about that. Sure, he had never told Tony, anyone, about his soulmark, but Tony had to know, didn’t he? Steve had moved heaven and earth to get Bucky back, he had never given up, gone weeks without sleep to bring him home. Surely Tony wasn’t that oblivious?

“You should tell him,” Natasha advised when he went to her. “Tony is that oblivious. If you don’t, I will. He follows Barnes around like a puppy, Steve, it’s not good. You’re all going to get hurt.”

“Who’s going to get hurt?” Clint asked, coming into the kitchen and opening the fridge to grab the milk.

“Tony.”

Clint’s face screwed up in a frown. “Seriously, I’m starting to think he’s doing it on purpose. You and Barnes are literally made for each other, no way he doesn’t know. Soulmates are - you don’t get between soulmates.” Steve’s eyes flickered down to the ‘Phillip Coulson’ written on Clint’s wrist. “He’s being an ass, is what it is. You want me to talk to him, Cap?”

“Steve should talk to him,” Natasha interjected, looking at Steve meaningfully before getting up and leaving. Clint watched her go and then turned to Steve with a dark look.

“Look, I’ll set him straight, Cap. You go be with your soulmate. You gotta cherish every moment while you still got it.”

Steve hesitated, uneasy about the entire situation. What if this pushed Tony away? Tony had been so good for Bucky - Steve wasn’t always capable of dealing with the person Bucky had become, too wrapped up in what they used to be, but Tony seemed to know what this Bucky needed before he even needed it sometimes. Steve didn’t want to ruin that, not when they both were doing better than they ever were before.

But, no. He had to think better of Tony than that. Tony was a good man, and a lonely one. Steve completely understood the appeal of Bucky Barnes, but Tony would get past this.

He headed upstairs to the floor he shared with Bucky. They weren’t back to sharing a bed yet, but Steve felt comfortable walking into Bucky’s room and laying down beside him while he read.

“Something wrong, punk? You got that constipated look you always get when you’re unsure about something.”

Steve punched at his arm. “Jerk. Nah, it’s nothing. I just-” He trailed off, looking down at his wrist band. He had been hiding it for so long. Out of fear, then out of grief, and now out of habit. He had nothing to hide anymore. Bucky was his soulmate. His always.

“You just?” Bucky asked, and when Steve looked back Bucky was gazing down at him, that old well-worn look in his eyes that Steve loved so much.

“I wanna take ‘em off,” Steve said, snapping at his band. Bucky’s eyes followed the movement and lit up.

He leaned forward to kiss Steve on the mouth. “I’m game if you are.”

Six months ago he would have gotten Tony drunk to do this conversation. But five months ago Tony stopped drinking, coincidentally at the same time Bucky Barnes came to the Tower.

Tony got sober. Tony came up to socialize. Tony slept, Tony ate. Tony took care of himself, and even managed to take care of Bucky, too.

If Clint weren’t so mad at the guy, he’d feel damn sorry about doing this. Because with Bucky around, Tony had gotten better.

But soulmates? You don’t mess with soulmates. You don’t get in between two halves of the same heart; that was just cruel. And Tony might pretend to be socially inept to get out of whatever gala Pepper wanted to drag him to that month, but he was almost as good at reading people as Natasha was. Steve was his best friend. He had to know what he was doing to the guy, blatantly going after his soulmate like that. The soulmate that Steve had watched fall of a fucking train, the soulmate that had been tortured and brainwashed by HYDRA.

Bucky needed stability right now. He needed the feeling of completeness and finality that only a soulbond could provide. Clint knew from experience. Pulling himself out of the nightmare that was Loki’s meddling had been a nightmare without Phil.

God, now Clint needed a drink.

The point was, soulmates should never be torn apart. Not by death, not by time, not by megalomaniac Gods, and not by narcissistic genius with the emotional quotient of a teaspoon.

As if summoned by negative thoughts, Tony appeared in the living room, surreptitiously looking around. For Bucky, Clint figured.

“Promise me you’ll be chill,” Sam whispered urgently. He had insisted being here when he caught wind of Clint’s plan, to ‘defuse the situation if need be.’ Clint thought it was unnecessary. He wasn’t going to pull any punches, Tony wouldn’t appreciate that. He was gonna give it to him straight and true.

Tony saw them looking, quirked an eyebrow, and sauntered over. “The arrows give you trouble, Katniss?”

“We need to talk.” Tony stopped in his tracks, looking between the two of them, and then slowly nodded, making a gesture for Clint to go on. “You need to leave Steve and Bucky alone.”

“Steve and...Bucky?” Tony asked, glancing at Sam for guidance.

Clint leaned forward to draw his attention back. “Look, we all see the way you look at Buck, and it’s not okay, Stark.”

“What’s wrong with the way I look at Bucky?” Tony’s hand went to his left wrist, where his customary black band covered his soulmark. “Did he say something? I know I can be a bit...much.”

And Tony looked so hurt and earnest that second doubts began to creep into Clint’s mind. Natasha had always said emotions had to be shoved in Tony’s face. “Tony,” he said, voice softening. “Steve and Bucky are soulmates. You do know that, right?”

Tony went still as a statue. “What?”

Clint looked at Sam, who nodded and shifted forward, taking the reigns. “Bucky is Steve’s soulmate. Always has been. And you’ve been so helpful, and they both adore you, but you’re starting to - overstep, a little.”

“Overstep,” Tony repeated faintly.With his right hand he dragged his left wrist over his heart and held it there. Pulse against pulse. Clint knew that trick; it was a textbook coping mechanism for those that had lost their soulmate. No one knew why it worked, but feeling a heartbeat next to your soulmark made everything not feel so lonely. He’d woken up in that same position several times after Phil died. “Why did - why didn’t Steve say anything?”

“I don’t think.” Sam paused, searching for words. “He hid it for so long, back in his time. I don’t know if he knows how to say it. He thought you would know. You two are so close.” For some reason that made Tony flinch hard and Sam rushed to reassure him. “No one’s mad, Tony. Just maybe take a few steps back. Give them some room. Just...be their friend.”

“Their friend,” Tony echoed again. Clint had never seen the man so lost for words. “Because they’re soulmates, so they’re like one entity. Complete. My mom always told me-”

He stopped, closed his eyes, and let his wrist drop. He looked, for a moment, like a puppet with its strings cut. Lifeless.

“I thought you knew, man,” Clint said quietly, because God, did he feel like a jackass now. Tony clearly did not know. “I’m sorry I came on so strong it’s just - soulmates are special, you know?” Sam kicked at him; once again, no, Tony did not know.

Clint watched as Tony visibly pulled himself together, pasting on a little smirk. “No, it’s cool. It’s good to know before I - well, I - I can’t come between that. Thanks for cluing me in, birdbrains.” Tony turned away, heading for the door to the kitchen.

Later when Clint went looking he found one of the liquor bottles missing from the cabinet and wondered how disappointed in him Phil would be.

Sam watched Tony's face carefully as Steve emerged from the elevator with Bucky, their right wrists uncovered for the first time.

JAMES BARNES Steve’s read, in the clear blocky print that Bucky sometimes slipped into on his better days. STEVE ROGERS, read Bucky's in Steve's messy cursive.

Sam brightened at the sight, damn proud of both of them. Tony's jaw clenched tightly but other than that he didn't respond, and Sam breathed a sigh of relief.

"I'm such an idiot," Tony said under his breath. Sam allowed himself a small smile. He wasn't usually a fan of Tony's level of self-deprecation but in this case it was a sign that Tony was accepting things, that everything could be normal, no hard feelings.

"Only a little," he said, nudging Tony playfully. "But it's understandable." Neither of them looked down at the wristband hiding Tony's soulmate. Sam felt for the man, he did. Everyone deserved to meet their soulmate, but Tony was approaching forty-five and there was still no sign of them. Whoever they were, Sam hoped they got their asses in gear and weren't dumb enough to listen to whatever the media said about Tony. "Hey. You'll meet them. You've waited this long right? I promise once you do, it'll be worth it."

Tony looked at him and for a moment he looked so lost, so devastated, that a low swoop of dread filled Sam's stomach. He'd seen that looked before, on soldiers who made it back only to find their home was gone. Some of them never found it again.

Then the moment passed, and Tony smiled tremulously. "I've always heard soulmates were a wonderful thing."

“They are,” Sam reassured him, thinking of Layla Simmons, stationed over in China, waiting for him to call on Skype soon.

Steve and Bucky make their way over to the couch, holding hands, both looking apprehensively at Tony. The billionaire took one look at Steve's wrist, one look at Bucky, and chuckled. "So, it's always been you two against the world. All alone."

"Yeah," Steve said softly. Bucky was focusing intently on Tony, watching every minute twitch of his face, but beyond the slightly bitter tone of his voice, Tony was completely calm.

"Well," he said, standing to clap Steve on the shoulder. "Not anymore. You've got all of us supporting you no matter what. I'm proud of you, Steve."

Sam knew he was not imagining the relief on Steve's face. He had been so worried after Clint told him about the intervention in the kitchen; Tony's friendship was important to him. To both of them. "Thanks, Tony."

"And I'm sorry-" Tony faltered, his eyes going distant and vague before a tiny, full-body shudder went through him. "If I've been a bit over-bearing and ah, oblivious. I've been told I have that problem. Selfish." Bucky opened his mouth to speak but Tony was barreling forward. "You two-"

For the first time he looked at Bucky, and that inexplicable dread rose up in Sam's gut again as the light in Tony's eyes flickered out. "You deserve to be happy."

Bucky rubbed at his left metal wrist, a nervous habit Sam had noticed he'd picked up since arriving at the Tower, and nodded. "Thanks. 'M not sure about deserving but-" He looked at Steve and smiled, heartbreakingly hopeful. "I am lucky."

Tony's responding smile was all wrong, distorting his face into something alien. He wagged a finger at Bucky. "Don't take it for granted." His voice was all over the place and Tony began stepping backwards. Sam tensed, ready to step in if Steve's brand of mother-henning prevented Tony from saving some face but they all watched as Tony turned neatly and made his way to the elevator, calling for JARVIS to take him to the lab.

"He'll be alright," Sam told them both when they looked worried enough to follow him. "He's hurt, and probably a little embarrassed. Just give him some time."

Steve nodded and sat down to watch some TV, but for a long moment Bucky remained standing, watching the elevator as if waiting for Tony to come back.

JARVIS watched his creator stumble into the lab, holding his left wrist to his chest. He was crying. JARVIS did not have any previous recordings of Sir crying.

Something was very wrong.

“Can I help you, sir?” he asked, and Tony responded with a laugh, lasting two seconds longer and two decibels higher than the average of his past instances of real laughter. “Sir?”

Tony made his way to the table where his main computer was kept and sat, swaying in a similar manner to previous instances of Sir being inebriated, but JARVIS knew he didn’t do that anymore, had stopped shortly after learning Sergeant Barnes was coming to live in the Tower.

Sir laid his arm out on the table, his wrist - his bare wrist - facing up. JARVIS analyzed the handwriting there in an instant, a thousand if/then statements colliding to form a very distressing conclusion.

“Did you know,” Sir said in a hoarse voice. “That my mother once told soulmates carry around pieces of each other? That way they’re never alone. Not even death can stop that. No matter where they are, no matter what you’ve done, you’ve got somebody who loves you. Always. That’s what a soulmate is.” Sir laughed again, reaching down for the liquor bottle he had brought in from the kitchen earlier, the one he had yet to crack. He did now, taking a long sip before JARVIS could even begin the sequence to remind him of his pledge to stay sober as long as Sergeant Barnes needed him.

“Oh God, I thought I was going to be happy. Can you imagine, J? What a fucking joke. I should have known. Dad did. Said the mark was a fucking mistake. He always did know best.” Tony held up the bottle in some form of a salute.

JARVIS remained silent. For all that Sir had given him room to grow, he was still a machine. He didn’t know how to respond to this. For awhile he simply watched Sir drink, and quietly mourned along with him a future they that was lost to them now.

“I thought he loved me,” Sir whispered. “All that time, I thought he loved me. But he didn’t. He couldn’t. No one could.”

He drank.

“Hey, J,” Tony said some time later, only slurring a little. The cameras couldn’t fully capture his expression, his head tilted into shadows, but he was staring at the mark on his wrist again. “Fire up the soldering iron.”

Natasha helped Thor tear Tony out of his armor, piece by piece, cursing him all the while. “Дурак!” she spat, tossing one of the gauntlets aside as Thor worked on the legs. Steve was going to have to bench him after this stunt for certain; he’d have no choice. Tony had always been reckless but this was borderline suicidal.

What had changed, she wondered in the back of her mind. Tony had been doing so well, all of them meshing well, living together at the Tower. Barnes coming back had made it even better, slotting neatly into their little circle, and though Tony’s obvious crush on him was doomed to go nowhere, surely that wasn’t enough to send Tony into this kind of tailspin.

She didn’t even realized the band that hid Tony’s soulmark had broken off until she was staring at the skin of Tony’s left wrist, mottled by a deep burn. A very recent burn, the scar a very bright pink. If there had been a name under there, it was gone now.

The pieces fell into place very quickly after that.

“Oh.” The small, simple word fell out of her mouth like a stone. “Oh, Tony.”

It felt weird to be sitting around drinking while Tony was in the hospital, but the nurses had chased them out hours ago and after a battle like that, they all needed to unwind. They left Bruce at the hospital, and their phones were all at the ready, but the environment had relaxed just a little.

Bucky didn’t know that he could follow suit, though. He kept seeing Tony diving into that explosion over and over. What had he been thinking?

That had been a common thought these past few weeks, as Tony withdrew further and further from the team for no apparent reason. He’d overheard Clint telling Steve that he had advised Tony to back off a little and honestly, that still kind of bothered Bucky; everyone had been so worried about the attention Tony was paying him but Bucky liked it. He liked that Tony never treated him like he was fragile, he liked being the center of Tony's world and he liked making Tony the center of his if only for a brief time, because it always made Tony smile and Tony should always be smiling.

There hadn't been a need to confront him; Tony was smart and would realize his crush had a soulmate and they would ease into being friends. But he also knew it bothered Steve so he didn't say anything. Tear the bandaid off quicker, he supposed. He didn’t know Tony would take it this seriously.

Gone were the movie nights catching him and Steve up on modern cinema, or the weekly Wednesday tours to the weird hole-in-the-wall joints dotted across New York City. No more sitting in the lab watching him tinker. No more random spurts of Italian desserts filling his fridge. No more Tony, period.

It hurt, and it also irritated him a little. Just because he didn’t want Tony didn’t mean he wanted Tony gone. He missed him, like a physical ache, like cold in his bones. Steve said that Tony wasn’t very in touch with his feelings and didn’t handle rejection well, but it had been weeks. Bucky just wanted his friend back.

“So,” Clint suddenly said loudly. He was a bit drunker than the rest, and looking at Natasha. “Heard you two had to take off everything. Even that little band of his. D’you see a name or is he actually a robot?”

“Clint. Dude,” Sam breathed out, annoyed. “Not cool.”

Clint frowned, seemed to internally repeat what he said, and then frowned harder. “No. Wait. I just mean-”

“Shut up,” Natasha snapped. The room froze. She had never spoken like that to Clint before. Bucky wondered if anyone else could see the minute trembling of her fingers. “You don’t know what you’re asking, so be quiet.”

It’s not like Bucky wasn’t curious, too. Whoever was Tony’s soulmate - well, they were damn lucky, and the sooner they realized it the better. They had to know, Tony was on TV three times a week. Tony was brilliant, and funny, and had a mountain of issues and insecurities but wasn’t afraid of pushing through them for the right person.

Tony just needed that right person. Like Steve was for Bucky. Bucky turned towards Steve, sitting beside him, and nuzzled into his neck, finally relaxing when he felt Steve’s hand begin running through his hair.

"Something wrong with the arm?" he asked, and Bucky looked down to where he was rubbing against his metal wrist. It bothered him sometimes, even though there was nothing wrong with it. Like a phantom pain.

"'S nothing," he murmured. Steve kissed his forehead and they settled in closer together.

Everybody deserved a Steve.

He hoped Tony found his soon.

Tony stared down at his wrists as Helen helped him fasten the cufflinks. He was leaving the hospital, finally, two days later than planned, but it had taken awhile to get Helen and her prototype skin-grafting machine here and a little bit longer to convince her to help him.

He couldn’t take his eyes off of his left wrist. Smooth, bare, free of markings. No scars. No names.

No soulmate.

“You’re a life-saver, Helen,” he whispered, and she glared at him before sending him on his way.

He was heading back to the tower now, back to the team, back to the bots and JARVIS, back to him. Except Tony couldn’t go back to him - that would mean that Tony had ever had him in the first place.

Of fucking course you never had him. Who in the hell would deserve to be the other half of you, Stark?

His mother, Jarvis, his friends, they had all told him that soulmates were love, and acceptance, and unconditional. And it had saved Tony’s life more than once to know that he ranked that, even those years when he thought his was dead. He had lived his life dreaming of that kind of bond, that even when he was the scum of the earth, Merchant of Death, he could have that kind of love.

But it wasn’t for Tony. There was no other half. There was no love, no acceptance, no unconditional. There was just him, alone. Like always. Like he deserved.

Still a disappointment, after all this time. Sorry, mom, for single-handedly - ha - ruining your entire philosophy on soulmates.

He should have known from the beginning. He had just been so caught up in, the swelling tide of everything that had been promised to him. Completeness. Serenity. An open heart. He had been so caught up in waiting for that moment when he would finally be loved back that he hadn’t seen there wasn’t anymore love to be given.

There were paparazzi waiting outside, swarming the car where Happy waited for him. Tony, with a practiced smile, threw up a peace sign with his left hand, his sleeve pulling back, and a thousand pictures were taken of his blank wrist.

Tony Stark had no soulmate. It would be front-page news for the next week. He preferred it this way. This was his story, and his alone now. He wasn’t abandoned, unwanted, a cast-off of a failed bond. When future interviewers ask him, he’ll smile and say “I guess I just loved myself enough for two people.”

Tony had burned his heart out of his chest a long time ago. This was just making it official.

He never had a name. It never said James Barnes.

Tony Stark had no soulmate.

#christopherevans #winteriron #song is #i come with knives #by iamx #alanna writes #drabblethon 600 #tony stark #bucky barnes #since this is so delayed #it's more like an actual fic #angst #hurt no comfort #stucky mentioned

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