Chapter Text
I picked a rose for you
A red rose filled by love
It left me with torns in my heart
Thorns that stayed when you left
When a child is born, no matter where, no matter who, he will always have two flower marks interaced over his heart. One represents who he is, what he will be remembered as. The other is a faded bloom, one who will remain grey and dead to the world until the day they meets their soulmate.
Some people spend their whole lives searching for their destined ones and die without them. Others meet them on a random city, at the corner of a street, and wonder, days later, if they will ever find each other again. And then, there are the lucky ones, those who meet and love each other and whose skins are marred by bellflower and forget-me-not as time goes by.
Howard Stark's soulmate was never found, not that the man even bothered to begin with. Maria Stark's soulmate died when she was sixteen, the clover on her chest turning darker and darker until there was nothing left on her rose beside a wilted flower.
When Anthony Edward Stark was born to them later on, his existence revealed a new case nobody thought to explore before.
Those with no soulmate.
Howard could have learned to accept it. He himself didn't see the need of what he saw as a distraction, and the marriage he had with Maria was by no way a happy one. In a way, he was more than satisfied that the boy wouldn't be bothered by some kind of soulmate searching later in his life.
When he saw the single olive branch, however, his face went blank.
Peace.
Howard never bothered to give his son more attention after that. He had no care for useless things.
When Tony was four, he made his first circuit board.
When Tony was four, he gained his first mark beside the one who rested upon his heart.
When Tony was four, he learned that no matter how beautiful a flower may seem, their story was not always a happy one.
When he was four, broken parts on the ground around him, a stinging pain on his cheek and a burning sensation on his chest, when his father looked at him with so much contempt and disgust, Tony learned that he would never amount to anything in his father's eyes. He would never be enough.
Later that day, when Jarvis held him as he finally let the tears down, because it hurt no matter what Howard said and, despite his best efforts, he couldn't seem to become a man of iron like his father wanted, Tony saw the yellow carnation on his chest. It was surrounding his olive branch and for a moment, Tony desperately wished he had gotten a soulmate. Because...this?
Rejection.
This thing hurt more than anything else.
It was another mocking remember that not only Tony would always be alone, but he would never be able to escape Howard's shadow.
When Tony was almost seven, he showed Jarvis his new invention, a V8 motorbike engine. Jarvis smiled at him, and congratulated him. He listened to him with something Tony could have mistaken for fondness, had he not known better. Tony loved Jarvis, and he loved his mother despite her regular absences. But Tony wanted Howard to look at him, wanted Howard to tell him he had done well.
Tony wanted a father.
At seven, another broken invention by his side, another yellow carnation on his chest, another failure by his fault, another lecture about how Captain America could have done better, Tony learned the meaning of a new flower.
At seven, Tony looked at himself in the mirror.
He saw a boy with an olive branch on his heart. He looked at the boy who wished and wished and wished. He looked at the boy whose skin was marred by peace, at the boy who was probably the first without a soulmate.
He would probably also be the first one who would never get to live like he was 'destined' to.
Tony knew better than to think he could do something else than to destroy. Than war.
He saw a boy with yellow carnation spreading over his upper chest, tangling with each other and circling the lonely flower in the center. There were a lot. Probably too much. Tony had stopped counting after twenty.
He saw a boy with yellows roses and yellow hyacinths tangled in the circle. Jealousy.
Tony laughed. He laughed until he was crying and he cried until he was screaming.
He never heard Jarvis enter, he never felt him hold him close to his heart.
For a long time, Tony would, in the deepest part of his heart, wish that Jarvis had left him alone that day.
After all, it would have been a great way to get used to being alone.
At ten, Tony stopped trying to get his father's affection.
At ten, Tony grew tired of the flowers that kept spreading around the olive branch.
At ten, Tony finally gave up.
For a long while after that, he would wonder why he never got another flower when he made that decision.
Because he was old enough to know that the flowers...they appeared because of his feelings.
And Tony could never quite manage to stop feeling.
He loved too much. And he wished, sometimes, that he could stop loving.