Seven

Tony, like just about everyone else on the planet, was born with two soulmarks. One belonged to him, and one was the mark that linked him to his perfect match. Two circles, a smaller one inside of a larger one, with a small star in the middle, colored red white and blue, marked the right side of his rib cage, just below his armpit. And in the center of his chest, another circle, this one not filled in, but just the outline of a circle in electric blue. This one belonged to him.

Tony’s third soulmark appeared a month and three days after his second birthday. It was another star, this one red and on his shoulder. Tony, even at a young age, knew that having more than two soulmarks wasn’t normal, so he hid it. Few people in his life cared enough to look anyway.

By his fifth birthday, Tony had four soulmarks and he knew that if Howard ever found out, he’d wish he were dead. Three-ways weren’t exactly idolized, but now they were accepted and even legalized for marriages. Having more than three soulmarks was generally sneered at; after all, what kind of person needs more than two people to love them unconditionally? How self-centered and vain would you have to be?

The fourth soulmark was a bright green neutron on the side of his hip, and whenever Tony was feeling stressed or angry, he’d settle his hand on the mark over whatever clothing he was wearing, and it would somehow help him calm down.

Howard had sent him away to boarding before the fifth mark came, which was partly a relief and partly a curse. It was much harder to hide soulmarks when you shared a room with someone else and had things like communal showers, but Tony had been using makeup regularly since he was six, and this one was much easier to hide. A small black-widow spider, hiding at the base of his hairline like it didn’t want to be seen. Tony had only noticed it because he’d gotten into the habit of searching his body head to toe whenever he got the chance in case another mark showed up.

It wasn’t even a week after the nearly hidden spider showed up when his sixth mark appeared on his shin while he was sleeping. Two crossed arrows just below his kneecap. Tony prayed that night for the first time in his life that it would be the last.

For the better part of a decade, Tony assumed his prayer had come true. It wasn’t until he was out of boarding school and into his own apartment just off of MIT campus that his seventh, and final, mark appeared.

This one was different from the others – different from every soulmark Tony had ever seen or heard of. Appearance wise it wasn’t that strange – a thundercloud with a white beam of lighting arching down and spider webbing over his thigh. Sure, it was a little more intricate than most, but that wasn’t unheard of. But when it rained, and particularly when it thundered, it felt like the lighting came to life under his skin. It wasn’t painful or even unpleasant, but the first time it happened Tony had bolted out of his seat in the middle of class with a yelp he was so startled. That had been great for his already suffering reputation.

It was the last mark though, and for that Tony was grateful.

By the time Tony was seventeen, Maria Stark had long since lost herself into a bottle, and she’d forgotten the marks Tony had been born with, if she’d ever bothered to look. Jarvis, who’d known of the first three, had died a few back, and he’d never known of the following four. Howard was the only real problem, but so long as Tony played his part and stayed out of sight as often as he could, Howard generally didn’t bother him. And when the old man got drunk, he could barely see straight enough to throw his whiskey bottles at Tony, much less think to check the marks decorating his skin.

The media was fond of speculating what the Stark heir’s symbols were, but Tony was careful enough that not a single picture had ever been taken of the marks. Most magazines and newspapers simply assumed that, as a person in the public eye, Tony and his father had decided to keep the marks a secret so they wouldn’t have people getting fake tattoos and pretending they were Tony’s soulmate in a bid after the riches and fame that came with being a Stark. A few – not many, but just enough to make some noise on the subject – claimed Tony Stark was one of the few, truly despicable people who were so destined to be alone, that he didn’t have any marks.

It’s amazing how wrong those people were.

Howard didn’t have a soulmark. Maria did, but it was faded and grey in the way that told you whomever she had belonged to was long gone. They got married mostly as a business deal – Howard gave Maria all the money she could ever want and in return Howard got a reputation as a family man and an heir for his company – and faked tattoos for each other. Howard was rather indifferent to the whole industry of soulmarks, unless it directly affected his way of life.

The day Howard found out about Tony’s marks, the elder was supposed to be in China. Christmas Eve, and both Howard and Obi had insisted Tony be home for the holidays – it would be bad PR if he remained at school – despite the fact Maria would be visiting her family in Italy and Howard was meant to be on the other half of the world for a press conference.

The conference had been called off, unbeknownst to Tony, and Howard arrived back at his mansion at 8 o’ clock, peeved that even a moment of his precious time had been wasted planning the event. He sought off in immediate search for his son, adamant in grilling his heir on why he’d been so prominently featured in three too many magazines for his college stunts, but when he arrived at Tony’s suite and burst into his room (Howard either stormed into rooms, strode into rooms, or stormed into rooms, and bursting was about as good as Tony ever hoped for) he came across the unusual sight of his only son standing in the middle of his room in nothing but a pair of black boxers smearing what appeared to be nude colored makeup onto the skin under his armpit.

Tony whirled around and the second he saw his father, he prayed for the second time in his life.

(This time, the prayer would not be granted.)

Howard had first assumed his son was simply covering up his marks – not incorrectly – and was actually pleased his son took the initiative to do so. Then he eyes drifted down from the half covered shield on his side, and he saw the circle on his son’s chest. And then the cloud on his thick. The neutron on his hip. And the arrows on his knee.

Tony stood petrified – his room had no windows and by the way fire was burning in his father’s eyes, Howard had definitely seen and recognized the marks. He’d had nightmares about this very moment, hundreds of them and all the possible ways Howard might react and what Tony himself would do – but now, when it really mattered, Tony had nowhere to go.

“Dad-” he tried, speaking around his dry throat, but the single seemed to kick start Howard back into motion.

Howard lunged forward and grabbed Tony’s arm, twisting it roughly and causing Tony to keen high in pain, while his father tugged him from the room. “Six?” Howard growled, shaking him roughly and nearly breaking Tony’s arm as he dragged him through the house. “Six? Were you born to disgrace me, boy?”

“Dad – Howard, please-”

“Shut up!” Howard shouted, and his other hand turned into a fist and connected with Tony’s jaw, knocking him down and out of his father’s grip. It was far from the first time, but Tony’s breath still catches as he tumbles to ground.

Howard let out a vicious stream of curses, only a few phrases reaching Tony’s ear – “stupid fucking child, not a Stark” “disgrace to the company” “no one can know” “doesn’t deserve love” – as the older Stark unlocks and throws open the door to the his lab.

Tony tried to scramble away, but Howard’s hand shot out and grabbed Tony’s shoulder and threw him into the workshop. Tony’s temple collided with a metal table, and Howard’s toolbox fell off it and onto Tony’s head. He was out cold.

When he woke up, Tony was handcuffed to a metal support pole in the back corner of the room, and Howard was looming over him.

None of these things really registered in his head though, because all he could focus on was the feel of the flame from the blowtorch licking away at his skin.

It felt like his soul was burning along with his soulmarks and Tony screamed continuously for nearing an hour before Howard shoved a spare rag into his mouth and shut him up. The pain was… indescribable. Like being the center of a nuclear explosion. And it didn’t stop.

Howard left Tony lying on the floor, twitching, after burning off all his visible soulmarks. But soulmarks were a peculiar thing, and there was very little understood science around them. By the next morning, the marks had reappeared over the red and black blister skin, a little blurry and now sitting on ruff skin, but still very much there.

So Howard burned them off again.

(The pain was worse each time, if that was possible.)

Howard only found the spider on his neck on the third day, and he nearly burned off all of Tony’s hair trying to get rid of it.

Tony woke up five days after it started, uncuffed but still lying on the cement floor. His soul marks were nothing but black smudges now.

Stuffing down his tears and wiping snot off his face, Tony hightailed it out of the house and into the first car he saw in the garage, not even bothering to grab his license or his clothes. He drove through the night back to MIT where he collapsed onto his dorm room bed and passed out for two days straight.

He woke up to Rhodey’s frantic shouting and was taken to the hospital. Tony claimed he’d been abducted from the train on his way back to the school and that he’d gotten out by short-circuiting the electricity of the building he was being held in, and that’s how he’d gotten the burns. The doctors and nurses thought his story was convincing enough, but it was clear by the way Rhodey kept eyeing him that his closest (only) friend didn’t believe him.

Later when he asked, Tony repeated the story. And when he asked again, Tony told it again. And again and again and again. Until Rhodey stopped asking.

(Tony thought maybe, if he’d asked one more time, he would’ve told him.)