Work Text:
1: EDWIN AND ANA JARVIS
Soul marks—platonic, familial, or romantic—appeared in one of three places. The hip, the heart, or the spine, each with its own meaning.
For Tony, his real soul mark—two different decorative circles, one blue and the other gold, linked within an infinity symbol—appeared on his hip, a silent promise that his soul mate would be his equal, someone he could walk with side by side.
It was better, in his opinion, than having a soul mark placed on his heart, which promised a love full of passion. Tony had seen passionate love—it was the soul mark that his parents shared—and Tony couldn’t help but find it lacking. From what little of the world he’d seen, passion didn’t seem to last, instead coming in fits and bursts with an emptiness that lay in between those bright sparks of love.
He couldn’t imagine a life with that constant, yawning emptiness he saw in his parent’s relationship.
He did sometimes wish he had the mark on his spine, though. Quietly thought that of all the mark placements, this was the best of them. It was a promise that two soulmates would have unbreakable trust in one another. He wasn’t sure he believed in unbreakable trust—promises seemed made for the sheer purpose of being broken—but he wanted to.
But his real soul mark lay on his hip, with its promise of a love in which he was an equal partner. Giving neither more nor less than his soul mate. And that, he decided, was more than good enough.
His fake soul mark, however, was tattooed onto his heart. He was seventeen when he got it, only three weeks after his parents died in a car crash, when he felt the media turn their attention to him with a ferocity they hadn’t shown since he was fourteen and going to MIT or when he was four and creating a circuit board.
He had known then that he would never leave the spotlight, that everything about him would be watched and dissected and torn apart.
Part of him knew, even then, that he would break under that pressure, and that small part of him just wanted to protect what little he had that was his and his alone.
After three years at MIT, Tony wasn’t quite as naive as he’d once been. He knew that the moment his soul mark was identified that there would be people who would try to claim to be his soulmate. And he knew, deep down in the most vulnerable part of his soul, he would want to believe it. Knew, even at seventeen, that all he wanted was to be loved.
Which was when the idea of the fake soul mark fell into place. If he gave them a false soul mark to emulate than Tony would always know that he was being lied to.
It wouldn’t be enough to protect his heart, but it would be something.
So he went to Jarvis.
It was Jarvis who found him a tattoo artist who was both discreet and willing to overlook traditional soul mate etiquette that meant no tattoos on the spine, the hip, or the heart. It was Jarvis who quietly, lovingly, sketched out the fake mark that would appear over his heart, a sparrow with a blue iris between its claws.
Tony recognized the mark. It was the same one Jarvis had on his hip, the one that he had shared with Ana before Ana’s death.
Tony had only cried once after his parents had died, too aware of the eyes on him and too numb from the shock of it, but Jarvis bestowing his and Ana’s mark to him was enough to make the tears he’d been holding back since the funeral fall.
Jarvis had always understood him in ways that no one else had ever, would ever, understand him. And Tony might be the son of Howard and Maria Stark, but he had been loved and raised by Ana and Edwin Jarvis.
Not that Tony had been able to say as much. No, Tony had solemnly commented that there was a logical reason to take the Jarvises’ mark. Neither had ever gotten their soul marks registered, having found each other long before registries had become popular. No one had ever cared about the Jarvises enough to try and find their soul marks and so it was a soul mark that he could be certain that no one else would legitimately have and that would have no reason to show up in the registries for anyone else.
Not that he ever intended to put himself in a registry. He just knew that other people wouldn’t care about his privacy.
They hadn’t cared about his privacy since he was four.
If Jarvis had accepted that reason with a quiet nod and a small smile, then Tony could always be assured that Jarvis understood him, would always understand him, and that Jarvis knew all of the things that Tony had never learned how to say.
Jarvis loved him as the son he’d never had. And Tony loved him as the father he wished Jarvis could have been. And Jarvis, Jarvis was always going to be there.
When Jarvis died, one month after Tony had the mark tattooed over his heart, at least Tony had that to carry with him.
2: SUNSET BAIN
The first fake soulmate appeared just after he turned eighteen, a beautiful woman six years older than him named Sunset. She was smart about it, too. She didn’t immediately throw her soul mark in his face, instead waiting until they’d been dating for months to show her mark, all demure smiles and hopeful eyes as she asked him if, maybe, possibly, they might match.
Tony almost threw up, seeing the sparrow and blue iris drawn so carefully over her heart.
Tony showed his own mark, a perfect match, from all accounts.
Then he took a wet rag and rubbed at her mark until it smeared.
Sunset screamed at him, begged him, promised him that she loved him, and it was the only reason she’d lied to him, the only reason she’d tried to deceive him.
Sunset was the first, but she was not the last.
It never stopped hurting, though, when something he thought was real was proven just another promise that had been made for the sheer purpose of being broken.
3: HO YINSEN
“You are a man of mysteries,” Yinsen told him, looking first at the soul mark over his chest and then to the soul mark on his hip.
Tony tried to smile, but he was pretty sure he failed. “You’d be surprised how many people have found themselves with a sparrow over their heart, despite having a soulmate out there who would love them much better than I ever could.”
He rubbed his thumb over the mark on his hip, normally covered with the special makeup used to protect soul marks.
“And so you give them a lie to believe, so that you will always know that their promises are not real,” Yinsen said quietly. “I would not have thought that of you.”
Tony shrugged, the motion sending crippling pain through his body where a the battery was hooked into his chest. “I always knew that promises were only made to be broken. Now I just have the evidence.”
Yinsen stared at him, eyes too discerning, seeing far more of Tony than anyone had bothered to see in what felt like years. “And when did that start being true for your own promises?”
The words hit him with the same ferocity of his own bomb. Though where the bomb had missed his heart, Yinsen’s words did not.
Because he was right.
When had he become the person whose promises were words meant to be broken? Had he always been like this?
He touched the mark on his chest, the mark that symbolized every broken promise and every lie. The mark that also symbolized the one promise that had never been broken and the one man who had never lied to him.
When had the first started to outweigh the second?
The thought that Jarvis would be ashamed of him hurt more than the battery in his chest.
“I don’t know,” he answered quietly. He gripped the battery tightly in his hands, feeling the edges of it dig into his fingers, thought of the his impending and near inevitable death.
He was going to die. And he couldn’t even find it in him to regret it.
What was there that he was leaving behind? Nothing.
“I’m not sure it matters anymore,” he admitted, the words painful in his throat.
Yinsen stared at him, and there was something sharp and uncompromising in his gaze. “It always matters, Stark. Now are you going to give up and die? With nothing but broken promises and broken lives as your legacy?”
The question was haunting, and there was only one answer for it.
“No.”
He pushed himself to his feet, battery still in his hands.
And then he got to work, because if he only had a week to live, then he was going to make it count.
And he did.
He stared at the arc reactor held carefully in his hands. The thing that would save his life. And he recognized it. It was an exact replica of the blue decorative circle on his hip. Not so decorative after all.
As though this, everything happening now, was just another thing meant to be.
“There is symbolism there,” Yinsen said, as Tony pressed against the mark on his hip. “That your soul mark is the symbol of the very thing that will keep you alive.”
Tony snorted at the thought. “So it’s destiny for me to be here, to possibly die here.” Destiny marked into his skin.
“Perhaps it is,” Yinsen said, and there was no hint of sympathy in his voice, just quiet understanding. “Perhaps no matter what steps you had taken you would have ended up here, or perhaps no matter what steps you would have taken the arc reactor would have been born. Or perhaps it is just chance that these two align. You will never know. All you know is what is, and even that matters little. All that matters is what this, now helps you become.”
Tony didn’t know what to say to that, so he didn’t say anything.
He rubbed at his mark, fingers tracing the arc reactor on his skin.
“You know, you’re the first person who has seen my real soul mark since Jarvis.” He placed his hand over his heart where the fake soul mark rested. “He was the one who gave me this. A way to protect myself from those who would prey on me.”
Yinsen stared at him for a long moment, and he seemed to understand a wealth of things that Tony didn’t say.
Just like Jarvis.
Yinsen turned, pulling his shirt down so that his soul mark, high up on his spine, just below his neck, showed. Tony took a moment to stare at the lion with the olive branch in its mouth.
“The king of peace,” he said quietly. “Fitting.”
“Ah, it’s my wife who is the queen, not I.” He turned back around, soul mark once again hidden from sight.
“Thank you for showing me.” Tony was not foolish enough to not recognize it for the honor that it was. “You didn’t have to.”
“Choices are all we have in this cave. And it was my choice to do so.” Yinsen met his gaze. “You were not who I thought you were. You are not who you think you are. I trust you, Tony Stark, it was my choice to show you my heart.”
Tony smiled at him, and quietly promised himself that he would help Yinsen get out alive, help Yinsen get back to his wife and kids.
He didn’t realize that it was already a broken promise.
4: PEPPER POTTS
He didn’t know when he fell in love with Pepper Potts. But it was somewhere between her bursting into his office with pepper spray in hand and a trip to Afghanistan that ended with shrapnel in his chest.
Pepper was fierce and kind in equal measure, brilliant and beautiful and not perfect, never perfect, but real in a way that Tony had always desperately admired.
Pepper knew who she was and was herself so unashamedly.
Tony didn’t know if he’d ever really known who he was, and he wasn’t quite sure how to figure it out.
Kissing Pepper, Hammer drones blowing up below them, was a revelation. His heart felt fit to burst in his chest, the sensation almost painful but all the more precious for it.
This, whatever it was, was real. And Tony didn’t need anything more than that.
Quietly, Tony started to hope that Pepper might be it for him, was already trying to find a way to explain to Pepper about false soul marks and hope that maybe, just maybe, her mark might match his own.
And even if it didn’t…
“You’re all I want,” Tony had told her, desperate for her to understand that he’d had a lifetime of people pretending to love him, and her love, matched or unmatched, was one of the realest things he’d ever had.
“Your soul mark doesn’t matter to me,” Pepper had told him, quiet and sincere, as she ran careful fingers over the sparrow and blue iris. “It doesn’t matter that we don’t match.”
And then she showed him her mark. And Tony loved her and she loved him, but she had always deserved better. Maybe if it had been a stranger, then Tony would have been able to be selfish, would have reminded Pepper that it didn’t matter.
But it wasn’t a stranger whose mark rested on her skin.
“You should talk to Rhodey,” Tony said quietly, staring at the mark on her spine.
He recognized it. Wings spread wide, rain falling from them like they were clouds. How could he not recognize it when he had seen that mark numerous times, back when he was just a kid who had hoped, quietly, deeply, that maybe his best friend shared his mark? That maybe there was a promise between them that this friendship, one of the best things that had happened to him in his life, was going to last.
But then, Tony and Rhodey hadn’t needed a matching soul mark to last, and maybe that made it all the better for it.
And maybe he and Pepper would be all the better for not sharing a mark. Even if he already knew that their relationship, beautiful and genuine and real, was fated to end here and now.
He could already see it, how perfect the two of them would be together.
If his heart broke a little bit when Pepper officially ended their relationship, then the pain was drowned out by the need to be happy for two of the most important people in his life.
5: STEVE ROGERS
He knew from the start that Steve wasn’t his soulmate. It was impossible not to know. His dad had been obsessed with Steve Rogers, and Tony had read the files on him when he was four and he’d never really forgotten it since.
So he knew that Steve wasn’t his soulmate. Knew that Steve carried the mark of the same shield that had made Captain America, the shield held by a silver, almost metal-looking arm. Knew that Bucky Barnes had carried the same mark.
But Bucky Barnes was gone and Tony was there and in the wake of New York their tense rivalry turned to friendship turned to lovers.
So, yes, Tony knew that Steve wasn’t his soul mate. But he hadn’t cared. And Steve, who had already loved and lost, had chosen not to care either.
It wasn’t easy. They were two very different people, and where they tried to fit their edges together they too often rubbed each other the wrong way, digging into each other’s vulnerabilities in a way that was too often cruel instead of kind.
But Tony couldn’t deny that, when they managed to get it right, they were good, in their own way. Steve was grounding and genuine, with a solid belief in what was right and what was wrong.
And maybe Tony was still a little wild—even if it no longer showcased in parties and alcohol—but that was what Steve needed, too. Someone to help remind him what it meant to be free.
So no, they weren’t easy, but Tony thought they were all the better for it.
“You’re the best thing that’s happened to me in this century,” Steve told him, quiet and sincere as they lay in bed, both exhausted from a very satisfying bout of sex.
Tony stifled a yawn. “I never thought something this good could happen to me,” he admitted in return, not after he’d lost Pepper. “I always thought I’d have to wait for my mark, but I think…”
“That we’re perfect without it,” Steve finished for him.
Washington happened, SHIELD fell, the Winter Soldier appeared, Bucky Barnes returned. “I’m sorry,” Steve whispered as they kissed for what Tony knew was going to be their last time. “But he’s my soulmate.”
“Find him,” Tony told him, heart breaking, just a little. “Bring him home.”
+1: STEPHEN STRANGE
Stephen Strange was all sharp edges. Not that Tony had any room to talk, his own edges were like ice, cutting and cold.
Maybe that was what made it so surprising when their edges seemed to fit together, melting into each other so that it was hard to tell where one of them ended and the other began.
“That’s not your soul mark.”
Tony blinked at Stephen, too exhausted from a long day to do more than cuddle into Stephen’s side. “What?”
Stephen ran a finger over the sparrow and blue iris on his chest, a frown on his face. Tony had not bothered putting makeup on his fake soul mark this morning, and now it was bared for Stephen to see. “That’s not your soul mark. I can feel it, you know,” Stephen said. “Or I can feel the absence of it at least.” He met Tony’s gaze again, the look in his eyes searching.
Tony paused, not quite sure what to say. “No,” he said finally. “It’s not.”
Stephen’s jaw clenched. “Why do you have a fake soul mark?” he asked, voice testy in a way that Tony hadn’t it heard it be in months. At least not directed at him.
Tony was too tired to want to have this conversation, but he could already see that this wasn’t something that he could delay. He considered Stephen for a long moment, thinking through his possible answers. He was going to tell the truth, of course, but it was hard to figure out where to start. “Because I’ve been on camera since I was four years old, broadcasted for the whole world to see.”
Stephen blinked, clearly thrown off course by the answer. Whatever he had expected, that clearly had not been it. “What does that—“
“Do you know how many people have come to me with a sparrow and blue iris over their heart, promising that they were my soulmate?” Tony interrupted with a shake of his head. “I stopped counting after the 25th.” Had stopped trying for relationships almost entirely, forcing himself to be satisfied with one night stands that carried no promises that could be so easily broken.
It hadn’t stopped the fake soul marks from appearing, but it had hurt less.
Stephen looked a little sickened at the thought. Tony plowed on, determined to get his point across.
“Some of them would just have it drawn on them, others went so far as to have it tattooed on. Some of them just showed it to me at the very start and hoped that would be enough. And you know what? I preferred them. Preferred to see them for the liars they were at the very start. Others dated me for weeks, months, before they’d show me their mark. I used to live in dread of the day when someone would show me their soul mark, praying that our marks wouldn’t match, because that would mean that whatever we’d built had been genuine, even if we weren’t fated.”
“That many times?” Stephen asked faintly.
Tony gave him his best, most perfect smile, the one that was so patently fake that it made Stephen cringe. “Genius, Billionaire, Playboy, Philanthropist, here. I mean, for most of them it was the billionaire that did it, but there were a few that were really aiming for the genius to help them along.”
“That’s wrong,” Stephen said quietly. “They should never have done that. Soul marks are…” he frowned. “I used to just think they were, special yes, but just another facet of life that we’d all accepted as normal. But now that I know the mystic arts, you can feel the power behind a soul mark. They’re real Tony, real in ways I can’t even describe. Two parts to one whole.” He shook his head. “No one should fake a soul mark.”
“Well, I did,” Tony said, and he refused to be apologetic. “And I don’t regret it. No one has ever once faked my real soul mark. I don’t know… I don’t know if I’d have been able to cope if they had used that against me.” It had already been hard enough when he’d seen the lies for what they were. If he’d had to discover the truth after fully believing that he had found his soulmate… It would have broken him in a whole other way.
Stephen’s hand came up, gently touching the fake soul mark again. “Why this, then?” he asked quietly. “Why fake this specific mark?”
Tony didn’t answer immediately, watching Stephen carefully. Only a few people knew the truth. Jarvis, of course, because he had been the one to give it to him. Rhodey, because he was one of the few people who knew about his true mark. And Yinsen, who in three months had known Tony better than nearly anyone else had ever known him.
“Jarvis gave it to me,” he said quietly. “He and his wife raised me just as much, if not more, than my parents did. It was the same mark he shared with his wife. He gave it to me to protect me. And he gave it to me so that I’d always know the truth.”
Stephen met his eyes and Tony saw understanding in his gaze.
“So that you’d know who loved you and you’d know who didn’t,” Stephen said quietly, most of the tension that had been in his voice disappearing. Tony felt some of his own tension slip away in return. Stephen might not approve, but he did understand. Tony could live with that if Stephen could.
“Yes,” Tony agreed.
Perhaps it wasn’t a real soul mark, but it was just as much a symbol of broken promises as it was the one unbroken one.
Stephen pressed his palm against the mark on Tony’s chest, before his hand trailed down until it rested on his hip, right above his real soul mark.
“It’s right here. Your real mark. The symbol of the person who will be your equal in every way, who’ll walk your path alongside you.”
Tony swallowed, heart racing. “Fifty-fifty guess, Stephen. It was either my hip or my spine. You got lucky.”
“I can feel it,” Stephen countered, lips twisting up into a smug smile. “There’s no luck involved.”
“And how does it feel?” Tony asked.
Stephen met his gaze. “Like a promise,” he said quietly. “Like truth.”
Tony blinked, the words taking him back. He swallowed. That was how he had always seen his mark, it was why he’d faked a mark, so that he could maintain the illusion as long as possible.
“Promises are made to be broken,” Tony said quietly. “And truth is subjective.”
“This one isn’t,” Stephen said. He ran his thumb over where the mark lay, hidden by makeup. “Would you let me see?’
Tony inhaled sharply.
Stephen met his gaze again, quiet and accepting, as though Tony could answer either way and Stephen would accept it.
“Will it change things?” Tony asked, heart pounding in his chest. “Will it end things, if we don’t match?”
He pressed his hand to Stephen’s hip. He didn’t know if that was where Stephen’s mark lay, but he couldn’t help but hope it did.
“I don’t know,” Stephen admitted. “I don’t want it to.”
Tony didn’t want it to either. What he and Stephen had was new, only four months old and yet it felt right, felt natural, felt like something that could last.
And yet, with one show of his mark, it could end.
But wouldn’t it be better to end now, while it would hurt less, than it would be to pursue this further and have his heart shattered in the wake of marks that didn’t match?
“Can you magic the makeup off? Or should I get up to find a rag?” Tony asked.
Stephen froze for a moment, as though surprised by the answer despite having asked for it. Finally he nodded, fingers brushing over the spot where Tony’s soul mark rested again.
“Are you sure?” Stephen asked, voice low and careful.
He wasn’t, not really, but he didn’t let that show on his face. “Do it.”
Stephen’s fingers made a complicated movement against his hip, though Stephen didn’t look away from where their gazes were locked even as Stephen muttered something un-intelligible under his breath. Then there was a cool breeze against Tony’s hip and Tony knew the makeup had vanished and that Tony’s heart was out for Stephen to see, leaving Tony vulnerable.
Stephen still didn’t look, gaze locked on Tony’s.
“You can look,” Tony whispered. “You should know.”
For a moment Stephen just searched his face, but then his gaze drifted down Tony’s body and toward his hip.
The sharp intake of breath and Tony stiffening and then Stephen was touching the mark, Tony looked down to see his fingers were tracing the second decorative circle that Tony had never quite been able to place.
“The Shield of Seraphim,” Stephen said quietly. Stephen sat up, fingers coming to his own hip. Tony watched breathlessly as Stephen repeated the complicated hand gesture and the makeup on his own hip appeared to wipe itself away.
For a moment Tony genuinely considered the possibility that he was hallucinating. Because Stephen’s mark matched his own. And that… that just wasn’t possible. Was it? Surely Tony wasn’t actually this lucky.
“It’s… it’s real?” Tony asked, heart racing. Stephen wouldn’t fake it, he knew that, but some part of him still needed to ask.
For a moment Stephen just watched him, and then he was bringing his hands together in a familiar movement, conjuring the two shields he often used in battle. He let one of them vanish as quickly as it came, before letting the second shield hover harmlessly above Tony on the bed. “The Shield of Seraphim,” he repeated. “Look familiar?”
For the first time Tony really looked at the shield that he’d seen Stephen create so many times. His breath caught in his chest as he realized that it did look familiar. It was the second decorative circle on his hip, linked to the replica of the arc reactor.
A symbol for each of them, linked within an infinity symbol. Tony reached out carefully, glancing up at Stephen for permission before he touched Stephen’s hip, pressing his fingers against the image of the arc reactor.
Stephen vanished the shield he’d created and for a long moment they just sat there in silence.
“I never thought I’d see it,” Tony admitted. “Some part of me had decided that all I would ever find were fake marks over people’s hearts.”
“I’m sorry,” Stephen said quietly. “You deserved better than that.”
He had, he really had. No one deserved to have their heart ripped into that way.
His fingers were still trailing over Stephen’s mark, still reveling in the fact that it was the same as his own. “And now I have better than that.”
Stephen’s lips quirked up into a smile. “You do,” he agreed. “Or at least I’d like to think so. But I might be biased.”
Tony huffed out a laugh. “What does this mean?” he asked finally. Did it change anything? He already loved Stephen, that much he knew, even if he had never actually put the emotion into words.
“It doesn’t have to mean anything,” Stephen said slowly. “Just as it can mean anything, if we want it to.”
“I already loved you,” Tony admitted. “Or at least was on my way to it. Even before I saw your mark. If I hadn’t… if I hadn’t I’d have never let you see it.”
Never would have exposed himself to that pain.
Stephen’s face softened. “I would never have asked to, if I didn’t already love you as well,” he said quietly. “I thought I was never going to be able to. I’d already known about the mark on your chest, but it wasn’t until now that I realized it didn’t feel like a mark.” Tony could see him swallow. “And just for a moment, all I could feel was hope. I’d always seen you as my equal, as someone who could love me the same way that I love you, and now I have proof that I was right.”
“So we’re going to try. Or keep trying, at least,” Tony concluded, relief filling him.
Stephen’s smile was soft, warm. “Yes, I think so.” He leaned forward, kissing Tony gently. “I can’t promise that it’ll be perfect, Tony. But I can promise that I’ll always do my best to love you the way you deserve.”
And Tony knew broken promises, had been given broken promises all his life. But this promise… this one he was going to trust.