There’s an Anthony tattoo on Y/N’s left wrist, six Anthonys in their contact list, and 1.218.094 Anthonys in the United States: Y/N knows these facts off the top of their head and already calculated the probability of meeting their special person, coming to a quick realization that the best would be let the fate do its thing. Everyone and their mothers heard stories about people who have gone crazy in a maniac quest looking for their meant-to-be and Y/N decided they weren’t going to be another number for the statistics.
As hard as it was, the special agent concentrated on their profession and made their life purpose to be the best, the smartest, and to make the world a decent place. Natasha always said that Y/N would be a great addition to the avenger’s team but they always dismissed the underlying proposal in the redhead’s comments — being in the spotlight, having your face (or the masked version of it) in t-shirts? Sure, it was a very noble occupation but Y/N couldn’t see how being known by the masses could boost their career. Or being known at all, to be fair. The secrecy of being an agent was comfortable to Y/N: living with a fake name, covering up their soulmate tattoo, and only sharing basic personal information with a selective list of close friends represented an ideal type of life. A secure, private, stable —as ironic as it may seem — type of life.
Y/N could hack an entire country’s system in a couple of hours, make someone pass out with a simple hit, and fire two guns at the same time, but nothing was harder than ignoring the stupid little imprint in their arm. It was everywhere: films, books, music; hell, every conversation seemed to be centered around “finding your person”. Especially today at the Avenger’s tower, for what It seems from all the whispering and giggling In the halls.
“Hey, wait for me, Speed Racer!”. Daisy, the nurse, jogged behind Y/N in the relatively crowded corridor. “Have you heard? About the news?”.
“What news? That’s why you are all looking like middle schoolers with all the gossiping?” Y/N teased.
“We know who Tony Stark’s soulmate is! Well, not exactly who they are, but their name”. Her eyes were wide with excitement as if she discovered the most well-kept secret on the entire planet, waiting for a reaction from the agent. Frowning a little bit as her expectations were only met with furrowed eyebrows by the other part, Daisy promptly clarified.
Tony Stark was a hero, a billionaire, and one of the most brilliant men alive, but none of these things, sadly, made him immune to paparazzi. Being in contact with - and somewhat close to - important people like the Avengers made Y/N rapidly learn that the media leeches didn’t care about privacy, security, or respect. Opposing what others may think, their moral and critical sense wasn’t reserved for the (literal) protectors of the Earth.
No, what was gratitude for saving their asses a billion times compared to a mediocre paycheck for spotting Tony in his private time with his wrist uncovered? The nurse kept on talking, but her voice sounded barely above a whisper compared to the agent’s racing thoughts, the injustice their friend suffered drowning every word. Y/N sensed that the blonde was in the middle of a sentence when they hurriedly excused themselves to the lab. Proper manners could wait but maybe Stark couldn’t.
“Hey Banner, is Tony here?” Y/N questioned with a smile that didn’t fulfill the purpose of hiding their worries after knocking on the glass door in an attempt to not scare the doctor.
Bruce greeted Y/N with an expression that they couldn’t quite read, almost surprised with their presence in the room as if it wasn’t a morning ritual between the trio. He greeted them stammering his words and fidgeting his fingers, looking behind his shoulders uncertain about how to proceed. “Y-Yes, he is here but I… I don’t think he wants to see anyone-”.
“Y/F/N, I’m in the back. Let them in, Jolly Green”. Y/N followed the sound and found its source leaning over projects for a new suit. For the untrained eye, Stark looked the same: cracking jokes, cocky attitude intact. But the agent spent way too much time analyzing every line off his face than is appropriate for a friend to do. His eyes were puffy, wide, and underlined with dark circles; his hair was slightly disheveled, hands shaking most discretely by the excess of caffeine as pointed by the empty coffee bottle on the table.
Tony puffed some air out of frustration as Y/N only shot a pitiful look as he tried to make fun of Bruce’s eerie behavior. “So, you know huh?”.
“I heard about what happened and went straight to you. I’m so sorry that happened”.
Both of them sat there in silence. Y/N knew that Stark wasn’t the type to ramble about his feelings freely and he knew that Y/N understood every thought in his mind just by being in the same room. Instead of interrogating the billionaire, they just offered some comfort by placing their hand on his tense shoulders, that relaxed immediately.
“How are you feeling? Do you want to talk about it?”. They asked, testing the waters, knowing that Tony tended to explode after bottling all the emotions he felt to maintain his confident persona.
“No, I’m okay, I just-”. He sighed loudly in an attempt to ease his stress, running a hand through his hair and unconsciously scooting closer to Y/N who was now sitting on his desk. “You know me, I love being the center of attention. I’m used to being in the headlines but since the day I forgot to use my stupid watch and the paparazzi got a glimpse of my tattoo, I’ve been going through hell. To be fair, never bothered me that much catching people hitting on me for the wrong reasons”.
He made a pause, reached for his phone, and showed his friend all the notifications that covered the screen. “See? This morning I woke up with 500 emails from people claiming they are my soulmate. By this point, I feel like every single person in the world is called Y/N”.
Y/N was so focused on listening to Stark that the last piece of information that left his lips felt like a bucket of cold water igniting their whole nervous system alive. Actually, it felt like Tony accidentally threw the iceberg that sank the titanic on their head, by the fact that he kept on talking without realizing the staggering breath of his interlocutor. Y/N felt their tattoo itching below the wristband but resisted the urge.
For the first time, they truly understood what Jane Austen meant by “feeling half agony, half hope”. Y/N felt like their soul split in two, imagining a million scenarios at the same time and panicking about 500 thousand of them. Since after the battle of New York, when the new agent ran into the Iron Man at the SHIELD facilities, they hoped and prayed for whoever was listening that the “Anthony” marked on their body belonged to the genius that made their stomach ache after so much laughter.
The meaningful glances, the giggles, the late-night talking, and their fingers brushing when sharing a cup of coffee at breakfast gave Y/N hope for a future in which their tattoo could be shown with pride. But God, it felt stupid to think about prince charming when the prince is worldwide famous and could have everything and everyone he wanted with a snap of his fingers. It felt stupid to think about prince charming when there’s no fairytale about them falling in love with their friend or work colleague. So to this moment, Y/N treated all these feelings like this: a stupid crush, material for daydreaming when Tony couldn’t see them staring.
But now, seeing all the pain, stress, and anxiety Tony endured because of their real name written on his right wrist, rather than stupid, Y/N felt guilty. Sure, it was part of the job, but making their real name known to their closest friends couldn’t be a mistake, right? Or it could if maybe Tony interprets it as Y/n using this turmoil of events to take advantage of him, like all the terrible people on his private messages?
“You know what? I know it’s taboo but I’m saying it: I wish soulmates weren’t a thing. Like, imagine if you could actually choose who are you spending your life with. Because-”. Tony took a breath and shifted closer to Y/N, trying to guess if they could understand his point of view. As they didn’t make a comment claiming it was “crazy talk”, he continued. “I don’t even know a Y/N, okay? Have you heard those stories about people feeling nothing special before they meet their partners? To me, it’s utter bullshit!”
Just as Y/N suspected, once Tony started talking he couldn’t stop: trading his tiredness and anxiety for a boost of energy fuelled by irritation, he spoke passionately about beliefs that would be quickly shushed in one of his press conferences.
“Those paparazzi took out any freedom that I have to, I don’t know, figure out all of this soulmate stuff by myself! I DO think it’s kind of dumb, but I actually lost any hope I have because of all those people claiming to be Y/N. Jesus, stopping to think about it, I didn’t get any freedom since the start. We can’t choose who we REALLY want to be with, it’s not free will”. He left out a humorless laugh.
Hope pulled Y/N’s heartstrings as they stared into dark brown eyes that were so painfully close to their own, trying to listen to Stark logically and not distort his words into a beautiful fantasy. But he was so close, his cologne was so deep and earthy and his hair so beautifully messy that their mouth functioned way faster than their brain:
“What type of person would you choose?”. Y/N questioned.
“You”.
He grinned and searched for a response, the slightest reaction that showed that his feelings – as outrageous as they may seem, as purposely choosing to ignore his soulmate to be with someone else – were reciprocated. But nothing, nothing Y/N fantasized about before going to bed took a similar direction and their brain’s gears couldn’t turn on their own out of a sudden. They were a trained agent and rapidness was their trademark, but time now seemed like a construct made up by kids playing as crazy scientists. Nothing and everything felt real at the same time. So they just stood there, mouth agape in the most excruciating silence.
Tony’s expression falls as their lack of response sinks in. He takes a step back, running a trembling hand on the back of his neck. “Sorry. I got ahead of myself, I- shit, I read this all wrong. I’m just tired, forget I said anything, it’s the stress talking. Don’t get all weird on me, please. Not right now”.
“Tony, it’s not that. It’s just…I..I don’t know how to explain-”. They took a deep breath to put their thoughts in order. “Wait a second”.
Y/N turns to the table below them, closing iron man’s suit projects on his technological devices to search for the old SHIELD database. They didn’t know in which order to explain all of the reasons they didn’t confess before or all the things they were feeling inside their chest right now, but the agent was counting on his intelligence and quick logical thinking to put all the pieces together.
“Look Y/F/N, I usually think it’s cute when you cut the conversation to show me dumb videos on YouTube but this is not the time. You are usually better at reading the room- Wait, what?”. He watched the hologram in the middle of the room, dated a few years before 2012. The document showcased an old photo above every crucial information about them, but one singular line of text jumped in front of Tony’s eyes. “Full name: Y/N Y/L/N”.
For what felt like the first time in a lifetime, Tony was speechless. No sarcasm, no joking, no cocky attitude. Just his eyes shifting to the light blue hologram and Y/N, who was apprehensively taking off their wristband.
“When Fury took me under his wing, he said that it was more clever to go by a fake name. I couldn’t trust anyone, he was the only person I knew, so I took it as gospel”. Y/N took a step closer to Tony and showed their wrist while looking deep into their eyes, trying not to tremble so much. “Is it too late now?”.
He instinctively grabbed their arm and examined the tattoo, comparing it to his own. Seeing their names on each other bodies side by side made him feel like a teenager opening a valentine’s day card left on his locker, butterflies in his stomach and all; but opposing to Y/N moments before, his brain worked fast, very fast. Tony tensed up, and let go of their arm.
“We talk to each other every day. You have my phone number, my email, and my address. You could even drop a letter, for God’s sake, so DON’T tell me you didn’t have a chance of telling me earlier. Why did you never tell me? Didn’t you trust me to know your real name?” He talked loudly, holding back to not shout all the emotions off his chest.
“Of course I trust you, you’re my best friend, you know almost everything about me! My real name and the name on my wrist were the only secrets I ever kept from you”. Y/N pleaded. “Hey, you can’t be angry at me, you never showed your tattoo to me either!”.
“You never showed yours! You never even gave me a sign you liked me!”
“I couldn’t get my hopes up, why would you want to be with someone like me!?” Y/N cried out, not even realizing what left her lips.
“What? What do you mean?” Tony asked after a pause with a softened voice, while the agent stared back with widened eyes.
“Uh, nothing. Forget I said anything please. I… I will be leaving now”. They turned their back in the direction of the door, but Stark’s sudden grip prevented them from completing the task.
“Please, explain what you meant”.
“C'mon Tony, we are good friends and all, but you have to understand my point of view… Look, everyone loves you, you are ridiculously important, and you are a big superhero. The People magazine listed you as the most wanted bachelor in the country, Jesus”. Y/N left out a bitter laugh. “And I’m just me. I’m just someone who literally stumbled into your life, who thinks you are an incredible person and feels way too special just because you consider me your friend. The whole world reminds me every day that you are way too much for me, and I’m way too little for you-”.
It’s common knowledge that Tony could have terrible manners and loved to interrupt people when they talk, but Y/N was expecting sassy remarks and not Tony’s lips on theirs. His hands were placed firmly on the back of their neck and waist as if he was afraid they would run away and Y/N’s hands turned into fists holding his Black Sabbath t-shirt, sharing the same fear. Time stopped and the world stopped spinning as the taste of coffee on his lips and the smell of his cologne engulfed all of their senses, letting all worries behind.
“Don’t you ever talk smack like this about my soulmate again” Tony joked, brushing their nose playfully with his own when the couple stopped in mutual need of air. Y/N giggled and he smiled back proudly, as he always did when he managed to make them laugh. “I’m flattered that you think all these great things about me, but I’m the lucky one, okay? You have no idea how much you’ve changed me”.
“Tony…”
“I mean it. I was an arrogant, egocentric, anxious mess, and now… I am arrogant and egocentric in a charming way” Stark smiled. “I am less nervous about everything since I started talking to you. To be honest, I’m really relieved that you’re my soulmate because I was scared that I couldn’t have this type of connection with anyone else, you know that I suck at this emotional shit”.
“I’m relieved too. Thank you Tony”. He gave a quick peck at Y/N’s lips as his response.
“So, I know we’re destined to spend our whole lives together and we gotta start somewhere so… Do you want to go on a date with me?”.
“Okay, I will pay” Y/N giggled.