blue | darcy/tony, soulmates (color)
When Tony made the Mark I of the Iron Man suit, he chose hot rod red and goldenrod yellow for the color scheme – flashy colors, bordering obnoxious, that he knew every single person could see. The point was to stand out, and when a good chunk of the world couldn’t see greens, or blues, or even browns – not that he’d ever choose those colors, but it was the principle of the thing that mattered – what use was there in picking those colors for his precious suit?
Except… well, blues – he didn’t really know about blues. Pepper’s eyes were blue, but to Tony they looked a flat grey, odd against her bright hair and pale skin. To her, she couldn’t see browns, but Tony figured that there wasn’t much missed in a world like that. He was always more of a steel and glass kind of guy anyways, and since brown was likened to earth and wood most of the time, Tony always happily passed.
His own eyes were brown – dark brown, nearly black in fact, but he figured that his soulmate got the better end of the deal. He didn’t know what the sky, or the sea really looked like – all he saw were greys, shifting and sliding into purples and pinks and reds at dawn and dusk, and then into slate black at night. He’d asked Pepper to describe it to him, but he couldn’t picture how a color could be both soothing and electric, or stormy and calm. It made no sense to him – if anything, blues sounded like they were the ultimate mood swing, with a spectrum broad enough to make anyone’s head spin.
Red though – red was energy and fire, lust and boldness. He loved the red and its wildness and passion, and since childhood he favored the crimson color in every shape and form, particularly in women. It was why he’d been drawn to Pepper in the beginning, really – bright, pomegranate-red hair, sparking gold and twisting blonde in the sunlight. Red was bright and bold and beautiful.
Then, he met her, and it was like being doused in cold water, made to see with new eyes. Darcy – nearly half his age, brunette, curvy, snarky, red-lipped Darcy – had looked at him, and for that second he felt the world slow. Her eyes were grey, like Pepper’s, only darker, and warmer – and he felt the oddest sensation, of something stretching out beyond him, when he noticed her pupil dilate, spreading wide across her corneas.
Only, it wasn’t her pupil. It wasn’t even dilation – it was color, spreading out from her eyes and washing across his vision like some kind of aftershock, the waves spreading out and beyond, into his peripheral vision before disappearing. And the blue – and it had to be blue, because he’d never seen anything this… this… this eye-catching before – was just… it was warmth and mischief, sun and wind, promises and laughter. He looked up, his eyes widening as he took in the deep, warm blue of the sky, expansive and all-encompassing above him, and for the first time he understood what it meant to be so small in a world so big.
“You have no idea how nice it is to be able to see your own hair color,” she joked, bright-eyed and glorious.
“This is my first time seeing the sky in forty-one years, kid,” he replied archly, the sarcasm a little lost in his breathlessness. How had he lived without knowing this is what blue looked like? “Let the senior citizens savor the moment, please.”
She laughed, loud and warm, her teeth white against the contrast of her mouth, her eyes crinkling and peeking at him through dark, long lashes. Tony decided then and there, looking at the combination of those lush red lips and striking blue eyes, that he changed his mind.
Red was the color he had claimed for himself, but blue was perfection personified – and he had his soulmate to prove it.