Chapter 2
Tony knows. Oh god, does he know.
It’s after the arc-reactor (and somehow seeing the chunk of metal embedded in his chest a mid a field of ugly scars doesn’t make him want to vomit quiet as much as seeing the burns that still lie heavy on his skin) and after the world learned who Iron Man was.
The arc-reactor makes sense to him, in a way. The blue circle that he knew was his personal mark, the same diameter as the reactor, in the same spot. A warning, maybe, or a vision of what the future was.
He sees Natasha’s mark first, when she’s still Natalie. She’s leaning over his desk like she wants him to look down her tight dress shirt, but his eyes are transfixed on her neck where, under minuscule smudged makeup, he can see a small spider, crawling up into her hair.
That night Tony learns a few things. He learns his assistant isn’t an assistant but a spy for the organization his dad helped start. He learns she’s got a small black widow spider as her soulmark.
He learns she’s in a relationship with a co-agent, a man named Clint Barton, codename Hawkeye. He learns that they’re soulmates, and that they share the spider along with a set of crossed arrows on their calves.
There is no mention of a blue circle anywhere in their files.
That night, Tony gives up two of his soulmates, one before they’d even met. He lets them go before he’d ever had a chance to hold on, and though it makes the faded marks on his neck and calf burn like Howard destroyed them only yesterday and not a decade and a half earlier, he does it anyone. Feels a little lighter for letting them be happy.
Natasha stabs him with a needle and helps save his life, he meets Agent Agent and discovers the video his father left for him long before he knew about Tony’s marks, and then Tony saves himself with a new core and a new element. He’s pretty proud of himself, all in all, and it doesn’t really hurt when he sees Natasha walk away, especially when Pepper is in his arms.
Pepper’s personal soulmark is, hilariously enough, an orange bell pepper on the inside of her wrist. Her second mark though, to Tony’s only slight disappointment, isn’t a red star or a thundercloud, but a small black steering wheel on the bottom of her foot. They don’t talk about it.
Pepper never asks Tony about his lack of soulmarks, but she’s seen his scars and by the sad looks she sometimes shoots him, Tony thinks she knows.
Tony is really, amazingly happy with her, content in a way he’s never really been. This should be his first clue that they’re never going to last. They weren’t destined to last.
It’s Tony’s fault, actually, because the day Happy Hogan roles up his sleeves and Tony is actually paying attention for the first time in forever, the billionaire doesn’t hesitate on calling Pepper before he darts out of the room. He doesn’t even think about it until he’s already left. Doesn’t even recognize what the orange bell pepper on Happy’s wrist actually means.
Pepper calls him later that night in tears and Tony gently shushes her with assurances that all he wants is her to be happy. Happy with Happy, he says, and she chokes out a laugh. They break up by unspoken decision and Pepper is with Happy by the end of the week.
It doesn’t hurt Tony quite as much as he expected it to, but it hurts a great deal more than he lets on. A good bit of the pain gets dulled every time he sees Happy and Pepper sitting close to one another and smiling softly or sharing kisses. But the pain comes back at night when he goes back to his penthouse and back to his empty bed. By morning time, each and every morning, his mask is back in place.
The Battle of New York is unexpected, but Tony is almost grateful. For one thing, it righteously knocks his ass out of the funk he’d been settling into, gives him something to fight for. For the second, he meets them.
Clint Barton has been taken by Loki by the time he meets up with Natasha for the second time, and he respects the hell out of her and how she keeps her cool even though her soulmate is missing, taken under-control by a psychotic god. He, Thor (and really, Norse gods? What is his life?) and Steve manage to level a forest before the real fighting begins and they capture the aforementioned psychotic god together. Tony gives him a nickname and ignores the way electricity is racing under the skin of his thigh for the first time in years.
The scepter gets the best of them all and Tony and Bruce’s brief bromance is interrupted, and Steve says some things that Tony knows are true but doesn’t want to hear anyway, and he says some cruel things in retaliation and apologizes after they’ve fixed the helicarrier because at least what Steve said was correct. Steve apologizes as well, though Tony knows he doesn’t mean it. But that’s okay, because Steve doesn’t hate him quite so much anymore and Tony gets to meet his childhood hero. (He thinks briefly that he went about meeting Captain America much smoother than Coulson did, before immediately shutting down that line of thought. He doesn’t ever want to think about him again.)
He flies a nuke into space and tries to call Pepper while he does it, because even if they’re not together anymore she’s all he has. She doesn’t answer and Tony flies into an expanse of blackness so big he feels like a grain of sand in a universe of beaches. He watches the alien base explode as his eyelids flutter closed, and wonders what will happen to his soulmates – the ones he’s met, and the ones he never will.
He wakes up to Steve Roger’s heart-breakingly concerned face and a roar from his favorite rage monster and suggests that they go out for shawarma because he’s never tried and he suddenly can't stop thinking about all the things he never would have experienced had he died just then. So they go out and get shawarma and it’s delicious, and for just a moment, just a single brief moment, Tony is content.
But he’s stupid, and impulsive, and for some unfathomable reason he can't stomach the idea of not having the Avengers – his team – near him at all times, so he invites them to live in his Tower, renamed Avengers Tower because why not? The board members loved it and stocks were higher than they’d ever been.
He redesigns the top ten floors of the Tower, originally meant to be his own residential living space, so that all the Avengers can comfortably live together without getting in each other’s space.
But to his surprise – and unexpected delight – after only a few weeks, they all seem to gravitate to the common floor more often than not, and somehow – Tony honestly has no idea – movie nights become a thing. It starts as a way to catch Steve and Thor up on pop culture, but soon enough it just turns into what Clint lovingly dubs their ‘chill sesh.’
(Tony won’t ever admit how much he loves movie nights.)
It’s one of these nights are they’re watching one of Tony’s favorite childhood movies, The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai Across the 8th Dimension, when Bruce happens to turn his head just so in the dim light.
Tony sees Clint freeze. Tony sees Clint tug on Natasha’s sleeve. Tony sees them both stare at the mark at the base of Bruce’s hairline. He pretends like he doesn’t.
He pretends like he doesn’t because he sees it too.
A little black spider on the nape of Bruce’s neck.
Clint, Bruce, and Natasha leave rather quickly after that. Both Thor and Steve worriedly ask if something’s wrong, clearly seeing Bruce’s expression, caught between nervous and petrified, and Clint’s eager excitability. Natasha remains impassive, but when Tony catches her eye, they pass the understanding between them. The understanding is this;
I love Clint and I like Bruce and Clint likes Bruce and Clint loves me and Bruce likes us both.
Alright.
Will that be a problem?
Not at all. Do you want me to start working on a plan to connect all of your rooms?
Natasha smiles.
(Not once in the silent conversation does Tony mention that once, a long time ago, he had a pair of crossed arrows on his calf, a bright green neutron on his hip, and a small half-hidden spider on his neck.)
By morning, Tony has drawn up a new set of blueprints and Bruce has two matching sets of love bites on either side of his throat.
Tony can live with this, so long as the happy smile stays on Bruce’s lips. That’s what matters.
That’s all that matters.