A Little Less Mystical

******

Fury takes Stark to the spare bedroom that everyone is legally required to keep available for their other half. Fury must have been waiting a long time, because the room is full of exercise equipment and cardboard boxes, which he moves to reveal a full sized bed underneath, made up simply with some pillows and a yellow and gray quilt.

“Gee, thanks for letting me stay in your junk room.” Hardly the romantic, heartfelt words Tony had always imagined himself saying to his soulmate, but...there it is. 

Fury scowls. "It's my pleasure," he grits out.

“Is this pretty blankie from the post-prison Martha Stewart collection?”

 “My mother bought that for me. You know. Just in case.” Fury glares at the bed as if it offends him as much as the man he’s offering it to.

Tony blinks in surprise. Mother. Nick Fury’s mother. That was something he had never considered before—that Fury has a mother. A probably-human one that birthed him and made him birthday cakes and washed his fragrant teenaged-Fury socks. Who worried when he joined the Army and bought him a quilt for his future soulmate’s bed.

“Ah. The pre-prison Martha collection, then,” Tony says sagely, not sure why he does. He’s always had the compulsive need to fill any silence, but moreso now than ever. His skin is crawling and he feels hot and painfully loose limbed, like the time he boxed a few rounds with Happy and then let himself get talked into a run with Steve right after.

“Yeah, whatever.” Fury clears his throat. "The bathroom is across the hall. Feel free to put your stuff wherever. Do you think-"

“I don’t love you,” Tony interrupts suddenly, forcing himself not to shrink under Fury’s accusatory glare. “I mean, I don't hate you or anything," he hastens to say, "but I did think…that when I found my soulmate I’d feel something. Like love.”

Or happiness, he doesn’t add. Or excitement at the very least, the coming together of two halves, bells ringing, angels giggling, and all that happy crappy. That’s what he expected.

“You read a lot of romance novels or something? Cosmo articles? It isn’t supposed to be anything. It just is.” Fury is obviously attempting a neutral tone of voice and failing, sounding more than a little angry instead. Then again, he always sounds like that, in Tony’s experience—hell, the man probably sounds mad when he orders a ham sandwich or asks his secretary about her weekend.

“Well.” Fury—Nick, Tony supposes he should call him Nick now—says finally, breaking the unpleasant silence. “I better go grab a few groceries if I’m going to have a guest. You can come if you want, but…”

The whole reason they’re here instead of camping out at the Tower is to avoid the press, who will be descending rabidly as soon their soulmark is registered—which should be any moment, unless Pepper has decided to be anything less than perfectly reliable and responsible. Nick’s place is undoubtedly buried in aliases and overlapping paper trails, cloaked in perfect anonymity. Tony couldn’t be further off the media’s radar.

Tony shrugs dismissively and Nick clears his throat again. “Make yourself at home, I guess. Feel free to look around.” He looks incredibly displeased and uncomfortable at that prospect, which is understandable. The man has lived alone for who knows how many years, hadn’t even had time to clean up a little before meeting the supposed love of his life. “I won’t be gone long.”

Tony stares at him for a minute before throwing an offhand “Yeah, whatever.” He remains motionless, his hand still on the strap of his overnight bag, dark and awkward against the pale colors of the bed, until he hears the front door to the apartment bang shut. His body sags in relief, his muscles and bones all rubber, the shakes that have wanted to manifest for hours now finally overtaking him.

Tony Stark is well and truly fucked, in so many ways.

*******

It was supposed to be Pepper.

He did it for her, so they could have a chance together. After meeting Pepper Tony was finished having dalliances and dirty flings with other unmarked people. He loved her and he was pretty sure she felt strongly for him also, though she’d steadfastly refused to allow anything more than chaste handholding. She’d been waiting patiently since taking on the mark in her college days, and even if the law would allow it Pepper would never risk the relationship with her potentiall soulmate. So when Steve had suggested that the Avengers—none of them, for various reasons of their own, were soulmarked—do this thing together, as a group, it seemed like the right time for Tony to try it. To see if fate agreed with his heart, agreed that he and Pepper belonged together.

They gathered together in one of the lower level conference rooms. Thor was off world but sent his regards in some convoluted way involving magic and Jane Foster's text messages. Pepper was there, nominally to be a support to Tony but more due to their mutual hopes. Her face was carefully schooled, only her tapping fingers betraying her nervousness. Nick Fury showed up at the last minute, citing national security concerns, but really just wanting to keep an eye on his pet team of superheroes, some of whom might suddenly fall off grid in pursuit of the other halves.

Tony had been so excited, and now that feels like the most pathetic part. It was a nervous excitement, laced through with a thrill of misplaced rebelliousness—Tony’s parents had forbade him to activate his soulmark, certain that he would be financially ruined. Obadiah Stane had discouraged it as well, stressing that staying romantically untethered gave Stark Industries bargaining power with those hoping for a self-determined match with Tony.

He knew there was a good chance nothing would happen; many people had to wait a long time for their soulmate to activate their own mark—if they ever did. Sometimes people were left waiting forever. Sometimes a soulmate was already dead, the other half of the pairing left alone, never knowing for sure. But most of the time it worked—eventually—and the soulmates lived happily ever after. That was the draw. That was the dream.

Whoever his soulmate would be, Tony hoped they would be strong. Pepper or one of the Avengers would be ideal, because they already knew him, won’t expect him to be anything but himself. A stranger wouldn’t know. A stranger would be excited and hopeful and completely unprepared for the emotional tsunami of being paired with Tony Stark, would be in constant danger of cutting themselves on all his sharp edges.

And that’s why Tony stared at his arm and tried to do it just like all the books said, like all the bonded people had breathlessly recounted—it was all in the intention, apparently. Intention and determination. I want my soulmate, he thought, feeling only slightly foolish. He stared harder, in case that mattered. Soulmate soulmate soulmate soulmate.

There was nothing, and he starting to suspect he was doing it wrong somehow when Steve’s chair screeched loudly across the floor. The captain rose suddenly, meeting Natasha in the middle of the room, already lost in one another’s eyes. Tony's mouth dropped open in surprise and now he glared at his arm, willing for something to happen for him, too.

But there was still nothing as Clint gasped a choked “Oh, shit!” and ran for the door without so much as a backward glance. Clint had steeled himself for disappointment; he had been so sure that Phil Coulson was his soulmate, and Coulson was years dead. Tony grinned, happy for him, happy that there was someone for Clint Barton after all.

Still nothing. Tony frowned, wondering if the universe or fate or God or whatever force that decided this damned thing could somehow sense his slight unease and hesitation, had judged him unworthy of a soulmate. Then a place on his forearm started tickling, the sensation turning rapidly into a gnawing itch, then a burn. He barely registered Bruce leaving also, grinning and muttering apologies, Pepper laughing and shooing him out, insisting “Just go! Go find them, Bruce!”

Tony looked up frantically then, wanting to catch her eyes before it happened, because it was going to be Pepper. It had to be; he’d never felt for anyone what he felt for her and—

It wasn’t Pepper. She knew it, too, her smile sad but already resigned. The realization was a knifeslash of hurt and regret across his chest, but something underneath it, something even stronger, pushed the disappointment aside. Tony felt his eyes drag away from Pepper and move up, and up and up until he looked at the figure that moved to stand in front of him while he was so absorbed in dashed hopes.

It was Nick Fury.

No.

Nick Fury.

Tony’s brain shorted out in a loop of No and why and fuck no. It had to be a mistake. A joke. A bad dream.

But it wasn’t. Fury’s face looked as stricken as his.

*******

There’s a closed door across the narrow hall that Tony suspects is Nick’s bedroom, and he’d throw it open in a heartbeat if he weren’t sure a puff of poison gas or some other homemade booby trap surely lay in wait. He locates the single bathroom instead, a space so tiny that Tony can touch two walls just by raising his arms shoulder height. Unlike the bedroom, the medicine cabinet is too tempting to ignore, but disappointingly holds only shaving supplies and a lone toothbrush. Tony scoffs in disgust—instead of rolling up the toothpaste properly from the bottom of the tube Nick apparently squeezes from the middle like a goddamned monster.

There are a few pictures on the living room wall and Tony is both baffled and astonished by a teenaged, grinning Nick standing alongside two sisters and their parents. Nick and one sister favor their father to a shocking degree, and all the siblings have their mother’s smile. There’s a second picture, everyone years older, another man added to the group—a sister’s husband, perhaps. The last picture is fairly recent, Nick looking more like the man Tony knows now. Mama Fury is nowhere to be seen. Dead maybe.

Tony scratches his neck uncomfortably. Great. Just great. Not only had Tony made fun of the quilt Nick’s mom picked out, but he’d made fun of the quilt Nick’s dead mom had picked out.

There are more pictures on a side table, several from Nick’s army days, posing with friends and various guns, but Tony’s eye is drawn immediately to a framed snapshot containing some rather familiar smiles. It’s Nick, Phil Coulson, a woman Tony doesn’t recognize, and two people he does—Clint and Natasha. They’re all seated around a table heaped with food and wine glasses, all of them grinning like fools. Coulson has his arm draped across Clint’s shoulders.

Clint had been so sure Phil was his soulmate, as sure as Tony had been about Pepper. He wonders if it hurts Clint now, knowing he’d been wrong, or if the thrill of finding the person actually intended for him lessens the heartache. If he's already getting over the fact that Phil apparently wasn’t the one.

Tony abandons exploring and sinks onto the couch, a worn thing with one side mashed down visibly lower than the other. That’s where Nick usually sits, he thinks, settling on the higher unused side. He pulls out his phone and sends out the prearranged signal they’ve all agreed to respond to, so they would all know the others were well and safe. Not as invasive as actively tracking each other, not as intrusive as a phone call when they’re supposed to be busy bonding.

The phone chimes softly as he sends a call into the ether.

A Ping! sounds immediately, followed by another Ping! Ping! in rapid succession. Clint. Steve. Natasha. All three of them perfect soldiers, responding instantly. A few moments go by before Bruce’s answering Ping!, and Tony grins to himself, imagining the scientist bumbling around to find his phone, squinting at the screen, trying to remember how to send the signal back.

Bruce is far away—the last Tony had heard the scientist was on a plane and crossing the Pacific ocean.

There’s a theory that soulmates are unconsciously drawn geographically to one another over time, marked or not, and that’s why they often end up in the same city, sometimes even working in the same building, like Steve and Natasha. And Nick and himself, though Tony’s mind skitters uncomfortably away from that thought. Those soulmates that aren’t close to one another when both marks were activated would be pulled together like two ends of the same cosmic rubber band, moving ceaselessly toward one another until they were united, two halves of one whole. By all accounts it is a beautiful thing, a mystical thing, a thing romanticized by art and poetry and every hopeful human heart.

But then, what happens after the soulmates meet is often a little less mystical.

Life happens after that.