Reach
Without the memory of his soulmate's visit many months ago, or even knowledge of what a soulmate is, Tony crawls around his mother’s room under Jarvis’s watchful eye while Maria Stark gets ready for a gala later that day. Tony is making his way towards a shiny pair of shoes when he catches his reflection for the first time in his mother's floor-length mirror. His nursery, where he spends most days in, doesn’t have a mirror so this is his first experience with one.
He freezes, staring at the glass in wonder and confusion. He sees Jarvis and his mother behind him. The mirror-Jarvis smiles and waves, prompting Tony to turn and see if the actual Jarvis is also waving. What perplexes the one-year-old is that he does not see himself in the mirror. Where he should be instead he sees a very tall person with red eyes and blue skin covered in strange lines. They are also wearing odd clothes Tony has never seen before. Confused, but not scared, he looks closer, leaning so that his face is an inch from the glass, but he was still unable to comprehend what he was looking at.
The person’s face isn’t very expressive and their mouth is moving but no words can be heard. Their face then twists into a smirk and they flaunt a dismissive hand to something Tony can't see. Tony looks down at his not blue hands and then the blue ones in the mirror where his hands should be. Giving up on trying to understand, he starts to giggle finding the situation to be quite silly. Tony thinks that the pretty blue person looks kinda like mommy’s favorite blue dress and he laughs to himself finding that thought silly as well.
Jarvis watches his young master in amusement finding the laughter quite adorable even though he doesn’t understand where it’s coming from. But, fearing that the mirror may fall from the toddler leaning on it, he picks Tony up to take him to his nursery for lunch. To his surprise, Tony begins to cry as soon as they are about to exit the room, reaching out for the mirror. Jarvis tries to calm the boy down but Tony’s a squirming mess in his arms trying to get back to the mirror. Jarvis says to Rita, as she approaches to help him, that Tony must have just seen his soulmate in that mirror. They wonder who will be having that talk with the boy whenever he's old enough to understand. Likely the task will be left to them.
Loki never checked his reflection, even now, months after he left Midgard. It pains him not to know, but something keeps him from checking whether Heimdall ratted on him and if someone else was sent to finish what he was too weak to. It would make sense that the man would go straight to Odin, but other than one time when his mother attempted to comfort him, the subject of his soulmate is never mentioned again by anyone.
After a rough night of once again being the subject of jokes by Thor and The Warrior Three, Loki is stuck feeling inadequate. 'Why bother with tricks', they taunt. 'Pick up a sword and fight like a warrior for once, leave the magic to the healers'. Going as far as saying that they can have weapon crafted light enough to not weigh down his 'delicate hands'.
Weak they think him to be, but isn't his 'tricks' what ends up saving their asses again and again? Loki's father doesn’t care to stop the disrespect aimed at his youngest son and so it will never stop. But still, Loki refuses to degrade himself by ignoring his affinity for magic, even if he would gain him respect from his peers at last.
Loki is alone in his quarters when he makes the self-destructive decision to be even more upset. He walks up to the mirror he had covered with a sheet, feet dragging, but determined none the less. When he uncovers the mirror he is surprised to see the young boy that he was pretty sure had been assassinated by now. Loki's understanding of Heimdall changes once again, the man an ever unraveling mystery.
The surprise wears off, and now, looking at the child and knowing it will still grow and likely live on for years to come, he can feel nothing but resentment growing in his chest. He debates going back to Midgard but relents knowing he still wouldn’t be able to kill it. Mortality will finish it off in enough time.
Still, Loki watches the human, not done being toxic to himself. He notices that the child's expression is one of surprise but then it shifts to wonder. Loki briefly wonders why, until the child then smiles and waves at him, now seeming to stare directly into Loki’s eyes. Loki is then reminded of when those intelligent brown eyes saved the boy’s life.
Resentment and spite fill Loki's mind. Filthy mortal. Weak. Puny. Insignificant. Now all Loki sees in the mirror is his biggest flaw being reflected back at him. How dare this mortal peer into Loki’s private moments? How dare he think himself worthy enough to take in the glory of a god. As Loki stares back he makes sure to put as much hate into the stare as he can.
The boy tilts his head in confusion, eyes filling with tears. He reaches his hands towards Loki as if he could reach through the glass. In a fit of fury and frustration, Loki shatters the glass with a swipe of his hand. Not fury. Fear. A voice in his head whispers. Fear that those hands would reach you, shattering all that you are, all that you believe. Loki grips his temple trying to shut the voice out but he can't because it's his voice. A single tear he refuses to acknowledge drips audibly onto a shard of glass.
He vows to never have the mirror replaced and tries not to think of the teary brown eyes he's sure is watching him.
Jarvis and Rita have moved a mirror into Tony’s nursery and often watch as the toddler reacts with giggles to something they cannot see. One day Tony is staring at the blue person in his mirror and is shocked when they look back at him for the first time. It never occurred to him that they could see him too. Delighted by this Tony smiles his biggest smiles and waves at them. They do not smile back. They just stare at Tony, their expression growing darker until they are practically sneering at him.
For the first time, Tony feels scared while looking at the mirror. He begins to cry and reach for them, hoping to make them feel better. Tony doesn’t know how he made them mad at him. But then they swing a clawed hand at Tony, startling him, causing him to flinch back and fall on his behind painfully. He then watches how they cover their eyes and cry before turning away from Tony. He feels incredibly guilty but can't think of what he did to make them so upset with him.
Jarvis returns from a quick errand to find Tony with his face tucked into his knees, crying inconsolably.
Tony is almost two years old when he finally starts speaking actual words and sentences, skipping new growth milestones every day. It’s already recognizable that he has inherited his father’s brilliant mind. Recognizable by the house staff at least. Now that he can understand what he's being told a bit better he is told about soulmates. In return, Tony tells them about how he has the 'coolest' soulmate.
He has long gotten over the bad interaction even if he never again tries to interact with his soulmate's reflection, other than simply observing, not wanting to anger them again.
Tony describes the person in the mirror with skin like his mother's dress and eyes like her rubies, to Jarvis when prompted. It’s concerning, to say the least. When Jarvis mentions it to the boy’s father, Howard begins to call in child psychologist after child psychologist. But none of them understand why Tony says his soulmate looks like that and why he isn't scared of what sounds like a demon in his mirror. It doesn’t make sense especially since he seems to be telling them the truth. They struggle to diagnose him.
One day, Tony's latest doctor is overheard saying that perhaps the boy actually is soulmates with a demon as punishment for the sins committed by his family. Howard stops with the psychologists after that. By now, Tony has turned five.
Howard is at his wits ends. This will not do, he thinks one night. Nothing can be wrong with his son. Not a Stark. He orders Anthony to be brought into his office despite the late hour.
"Anthony, what do you see in that mirror?" Howard said stiffly.
"A person with blue skin, daddy," Tony says innocently, confused that his father had him be woken up to ask that.
"No, you don't, Anthony." Tony is even more confused by this.
"But, I do-"
"NO." He startles when Howard suddenly raises his voice. Tony quiets and looks fearfully to Jarvis for help where he stands by the door. Jarvis looks away. "When I ask you again, you are gonna say a simple pretty girl. Now, what do you see Anthony?" Tony isn't sure what to say. He doesn't understand why this is happening.
"...but Dad-" He is slapped across the cheek, his father's adult hand almost completely covering his face, making his world spin. Jarvis’s hands clenched into fists.
"What do you see Anthony?" Howard asks again.
"A girl," Tony stammers, tears rolling down his cheeks, stinging, "A p-pretty one."
"Good. That's how you'll answer that question from now on. If I hear anything different you will be punished for lying." As if nothing happened, Howard grabbed a folder and stood, walking towards the door where Jarvis stood like a statue. "I’m going back to work. Anthony," he paused making sure Tony was listening. "You're a Stark. Stark men don’t cry. Wipe your face." With that, he left, the door closing heavily behind him.
Jarvis quickly picked Tony up and checked his face. It was red and hurt to touch. He carried the boy to his room, careful not to pass anyone in the halls, stopping to grab something cold to ease the sobbing boy's pain. He was up with Tony for hours trying to stop the flow of tears, whispering apologies to him, until finally, he fell asleep exhausted. It still took Jarvis another hour to release the boy from his arms.
Tony's mother was happy at the change and spends more time with him now that she doesn’t have to deal with his nonsense ramblings about a red-eyed blue man. Tony is happy for this at least, hanging onto any show of love she spares him, not knowing how long it'll last. At least one parent gave him some attention. His mother explained that she was glad he had a nice pretty girl for his soulmate and acted as if that was always the case. He acted along with her.
One day, while Tony watched his soulmate, which he now only felt safe doing when alone, he found their usually passive emotionless face instead looked… incredibly sad. He dared to press a hand on the glass as he studied them closely. Their face soon closed off once again and became cold with the fake polite smile that they often wore.
Tony was filled with empathy for them. He wonders if they count as being a Stark man too since they're his soulmate. After seeing them express themself openly it interested Tony and it became a thing where he searched for a glimpse of more expressions on them any chance he got. He caught a few more sad moments and a couple of rare moments of relaxation and content. It amused Tony whenever his mate showed attitude or sass. But it concerned him when he also caught many moments of anger and frustration. Tony wondered what could be making his soulmate so unhappy?
Over the next few years, Tony has less and less time to himself to study his mate as he also had to study his books. He is a natural genius like his father and tries to make his father proud of him with every compliment from his teachers. He never feels like he's accomplished that. But at least his understanding of the world around him grows. He takes a liking to math and science, the logic of indisputable facts gives him a sense of security whenever he begins to understand exactly how strange his soulmate situation is.
He also uses his fixation on these subjects as a way to distract from how lonely he is. He is far more knowledgeable than anyone else his age in the states and after winning international robot competitions one after another he can begin to claim further than just the states.
Tony is very smart, a genius even. So he rationalizes with himself that no person like the one in his reflection exists on earth and that it was more likely that he has a mental illness that makes him see stuff that isn't real than an actual soulmate out there. A voice at the back of his mind asks whether he actually believes that but he ignores it.
He has his own little workshop now and that's where he is, working on the hardware for his next robot. He's now twelve years old and can enter more advanced contests so he's been working hard tinkering for hours now. He decides to give his hands a break from using the soldering iron and just sit for a minute when he notices his reflection in a large shiny plate of metal that he had left on his worktable. After a long moment, Tony looks away shaking the sadness out of his head and gets back to work. No time for feelings he tells himself. He has a robot to build.
As Tony gets older, self-hatred starts to build up in him. He looks at his reflection less and less, not wanting to see the evidence of how messed up he is or think about how there isn’t actually another side to the mirror. Tony blames his obvious mental illness on why his father doesn't love him. How could he? Tony must be the biggest disgrace to the Stark name as broken as he is.
He starts acting out and whenever his antics reach the papers his father visits him. With each visit, he reminds Tony that Stark men don’t cry. After a year of this Tony listens to Howard and never cries again. Instead, he smiles. He laughs and jokes and smiles his way into the hearts of everyone that would pay attention to him. His mother loved him, whenever she spared him the time, and he loved her, and he pretended it was enough. That he was enough.
Tony still acted out to send a message to his father that he didn’t care what he thought, but his father is smart and instead of the 'visits' he stopped seeing Tony at all outside of when he had to make a public appearance. Howard disregarded his existence almost completely and showed Tony who would win the 'don’t care' game. That proved to hurt more than the visits.
Tony still never cried. He swore to himself he didn’t care while at the same time pouring his all into his education. He was in M.I.T at fifteen. All he got was a nice letter from Jarvis and an article on the front page of The Times that mentioned that his father also started his higher education young, at age fourteen. The question of whether Tony is ready for University life is asked. Tony thinks to himself that he's been practicing getting shit-faced drunk since he was thirteen so he should be plenty prepared.
Tony still manages to get himself in trouble in University, a new tabloid featuring pictures of him half-dressed and drunk off his ass is published weekly. This slows down a little whenever he meets his best friend, Rhodey, who has much more sense than he does. Rhodey is special because he manages to make Tony feel less lonely and he doesn't make Tony feel like he's only friends with him because of his last name. He treats Tony like a person, not a prodigy.
Tony still smiles his way through life, that is, until the day he sees on the news that he is now the CEO of Stark Industries. That's when he finally cries. Not for his father, but his mother who he knew loved him on some level even if she barely knew him. He was still her son and not just her heir. He cries a little for his father just because he knows that he never managed to make him proud or even care before he died. He'll never know if it was ever possible.
This is when Tony starts to take life seriously. He has to prove himself now. He's gonna have people look at Stark Industries and think Tony Stark not Howard Stark’s son. He grieves for a few days before announcing his intentions to make Stark Industries bigger and better than ever. It feels like the weight of the world is on his shoulders and he only just turned eighteen. Good thing his godfather, Obadiah, is there to help him. Obadiah believed in him. He trusted Tony's abilities and so Tony trusted him.
Loki hasn’t looked at his reflection in years. He perfected averting his eyes whenever he's faced with something reflective. The avoidance is as easy as breathing now. He is content with never having to see that mortal again. That is, until one night when he gets incredibly drunk, which is pretty rare for him, but to be fair he is at an all-time low mentally. Thor is getting closer and closer to becoming King of Asgard. Thus he's feeling extra self-destructive, and Loki wants to wallow in it.
So he conjured a mirror in front of him and steeled himself. When he finally peers at the boy he’s been successfully avoiding for years he’s taken aback when he sees a young man instead of a child. Immortals age slowly so at his age an Aesir would still be a toddler. He curls his lip at the blatant display of their mortality and weakness. He looks even closer wanting the pain it brings him. Craving it.
Loki notices how tired the mortal looks and how it doesn't fit his young face. The weight his shoulders seem to carry is odd for a boy of his age. Yet, he wore a bright smile, and only one as adept at observation like Loki could tell how fake that charm really was. For a moment, Loki wondered about his soulmate's life. But he stopped the thought before it could begin to fester.
With a wave of his hand, he wiped the mirror out of existence and with it wiped the boy from his mind. That was enough wallowing. He felt like making someone suffer tonight. He started to plan an ugly trick that would end in tears and heartbreak, ignoring the tired brown eyes that kept popping up in his mind.