Bruise
Stark men are made of iron. The words, edged with steel, punctuated in a fracture of broken glass, echo in the recesses of his mind.
There's a tweak at the side of his mouth, soft but serrated, as he fiddles with a gauntlet, flexing the fingers in admiration. Gold-titanium alloy, more like.
He picks the screwdriver out of his mouth, about to dive into the mindless repairs, when he gives pause at the sight of his work roughened hand.
It's been a while since the blood-strung throes of fate had crossed his mind. They do now.
He kicks at the ground; gives the chair a little spin. What the fuck ever, right?
He, whose life was shaped by pain, having never felt the slightest of scratches from the other end of the spectrum. He, whose hands have crafted death, he who had suffered beneath the hold of those who wished to wield it.
He, who made his soulmate's life a living hell.
After all, he's nearly forgotten what it was like to truly breathe. Several inches of metal pressing on your lungs tend to do that to you.
He should be grateful he feels little pain but his own, right? Guilty that he's wrought so much agony on a stranger so unfortunate as to have won his initials in the lottery of life.
He is, most days, when the constant whirlwind of the world slows, when he's given time to catch his gasping breath in the eye of the storm.
Now, though? He feels an explicable bitterness, clawing up his throat, thrashing behind closed teeth.
He'd been seven, when he first felt the scrape of knees on asphalt. It barely registered, but when he deigned to notice the burn of his palms, he rolled his eyes. Finally. Howard had cut his childhood short, his tactile nature batted away, nonexistent affection curling into a hard ball in his chest, cold and heavy.
By his standards, his soulmate was swaddled from the world.
He'd stared at his hands, the ornate curvature on his wrist, thinking.
How strange that, of all the peppered phantom scratches and bruises, should his hands always remain untainted. Protected.
His lip curls again, but the contemplative curve is gone, sharpened to a sneer.
He's littered with bruises, blood smeared on his cheek. He's running on nothing but coffee and adrenaline, working through the night and into the morning. Can't sleep. Won't sleep. What's his soulmate doing?
He scoffs. Sipping tea with his polished, callused, hands, surely.
With a violent spin of his chair, he snaps at Jarvis to turn the music up and throws the gauntlet to the side, queuing up designs for Stark Industries.
He sets upon them with a vengeance, ACDC and the roar of blood in his ears.
-
Well, he isn't completely off the mark.
Stephen's slumped in a couch, gingerly poking at bruises that aren't there, a cup of tea held close to his aching chest. He just can't seem to breathe.
With a sigh, he sets down his cup, slowly lifting the band of his watch.
A.E.S. glares up at him in the bleak light of dawn.
More like A.S.S., damn them, he mutters to himself, pissed at the patchwork of injuries that map his body.
-
They both stay where they are until the sun sinks low in the horizon. It's not a good day.