Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Their teammates stand, frozen like ice sculptures, in positions that would be funny were they not so off-putting, and Tony feels tired, annoyed, and a little bit on edge from standing so close to the supersoldier duo. Barnes radiates a similar mix of fear and exasperation, which — yeah, not a good day for everyone involved. Rogers stands, unreadable.

Strange keeps doing his cheap tricks before them, and Tony’s inches from stopping the whole deal and trying to find a more scientific approach. But Strange stops and turns and looks at them, face grim, and that’s a second of relief — he found the answer. It doesn’t last.

“You need an extremely strong soulmate bond to break the curse.”

“Oh fuck this,” Tony mutters, throws up his hands, just to be dramatic, and leaves the room.

Rogers and Barnes are more than welcome to move the others around.

But let’s go back.

Tony first hears about soulmates when he’s a kid.

It might have come from books full of stories and history and fiction that his mother keeps, were he not so focused, even that young, on the ones belonging to his father. It’s hard to say whether he’s fuelled by a true passion for all things mechanical or is it a cry for attention from a neglected child. Maria Stark watches her little boy, so serious with his tools that are so much more complex to be called toys, and she hopes it’s the former. She hopes that even if her love isn’t enough, there’s something else to him in this work besides the absence of a father’s pride.

No, the story of soulmates comes not from books but from the source all stories come from: Edwin Jarvis, who notices early that the best thing he can do to comfort the child in his care is to tell him of the past, adventures, miracles of life. And comfort is needed often; too often for Jarvis’s liking. Soon, the Arthurian myths share the first place in Tony’s preferences with Captain America stories, followed by the recalls of Jarvis’s own adventures with Miss Carter. But not every day calls for a favorite story, and there are not enough of them to cover all days, so Jarvis talks about the world and retells everything he remembers from literature canon until Tony’s eyes are big and bright and awed, until there’s no tears in them anymore.

That’s the way Tony finds out about soulmates. The story fascinates him, at first. It is a mysterious phenomenon, an enigma, a problem waiting for a genius to solve it. There are so many whys and hows around a simple undeniable fact: soulmates exist. It is incredibly rare and completely unexplained, but the fact is such: there are people out there who can feel each other’s emotions, almost hear each other’s thoughts. It’s said they live in harmony and joy, never misunderstanding each other, always feeling what the other feels. A person, given to you by the universe itself, who never leaves you, will never hurt you, and is supposed to love you unconditionally — it is a heady concept.

After hearing about it for the first time, Tony asks Jarvis to repeat the story more and more, asks questions that the man has no answers for. He never asks the one Jarvis can see in his eyes — the one Jarvis fears, for he has no answer to it, too — whether Tony himself has a soulmate. Tony Stark, six years old, still believes in miracles of fair kings and noble heroes. Tony Stark, six years old, already knows that he doesn’t get a miracle for himself; nobody is waiting for him.

Times marches on, years come, and the story unfolds. He isn’t waiting for the magical appearance of his soulmate, but the enigma of it still fascinates him. Tony is a child: he’s earnest in his aspirations. He hasn’t learned how to lie yet — not completely, not as deep as he will need in years to come; he can tell lies but he still remembers the truth behind it. And so he learns. He asks his mother for more books when Jarvis’s stories start to lack substance. He hides them from his father, knowing instinctively that he won’t approve, think of it as a childish fancy instead of biological interest. He tells himself that it is, in fact, only a scientific interest, and cuts the fiction from his reading list.

And fiction’s greedy for soulmate stories. The books and movies love a romance plot with star crossed lovers finding themselves by a shared feeling. It’s too dramatic. It’s inaccurate: the characters can hear each other’s thoughts whenever necessary, they see each other’s backstory at the first meeting, there is too many special effects that celebrate the making of a bond. They’re fake. They’re too focused on the romance part. They speak nothing of the real soul bond: the feeling of everything true in the world, the joy of understanding, feeling complete. In one word, they are bullshit.

Scientific papers, unfortunately, are no better. They talk too much in words unnecessarily complicated, but by the end of the day, they only manage to create new terminology for things still unexplained. How are the bonds created? Are they determined or it’s a matter of meeting the first compatible person? Why only a few people ever bond? How does it work?

Nobody knows, and Tony is frustrated. He aches for knowledge, longs for it. His focus on the subject is unending, desperate. Most importantly, it’s unfulfilled.

Years come, and Tony grows into the place prepared for him, and the need to cut off things from himself is stronger than the ability to change the restrictions. He tries; he riots against his father; he’s sent away to boarding school, and then to college, too young and thoroughly alone. Years come, and Jarvis dies, and his mother grows distant and unfamiliar from the absence — and from Tony’s insistence to hurt before he’s hurt. He learns to exist alone. He lies to his reflection, tells it that he doesn’t care, that he enjoys the company of people that go to his parties and talk to the money they see behind his eyes; he tells it he’s not lonely, or sad, or aching for something true, better, real. By the time college comes, he almost can believe it.

The soulmate stories live hidden at the back of his mind, covered by the pretense of indifference; his books lay carefully under his bed, an odd bio research between the engineering ones. He still believes in honesty and fairness of the world, and while it’s not for him, someplace someone can have it, the happiness of belonging.

Then Tony goes to college and meets James Rhodes, who becomes Rhodey, and then becomes best friend in a path accidental and too fast — between a shared bottle of whiskey and a fight Tony gets himself in because of flaring pride. It takes them two nights to create a life long bond. It takes Tony more than a year to believe in it. He acts like a feral cat, Rhodey will him later, spooked by kindness more than by hurt. They make it work.

Rhodey is his partner in crime, his closest companion, somebody who’s always ride or die but never takes him on his bullshit. Rhodey is his, undeniably, unquestionably, and while Tony is so certain he doesn’t deserve it, he hoards Rhodey’s attention, his time, his affections. Rhodey is everything Tony has ever hoped for, but he’s not his soulmate, and so, one night, Tony comes to the most obvious conclusion. This friendship that they have is already better than he deserves, and so he won’t have more, never have more. This friendship is the warmest thing in the world, the strongest thing in the world, and so there cannot be more — he can’t imagine it. He’s a lonely child starved for attention, and when he gets it, he can’t imagine more.

But they’re not soulmates; therefore, soulmates are bullshit. A tale made by Hollywood or its predecessors. There’s just a natural phenomenon, random and inconvenient. It doesn’t mean anything. No true love, no sharing of the souls. Just oddness of a human nature.

Tony thinks about it: feeling other people’s feelings, forcing them to do the same with him, and he scoffs. Who’d want that?

He burns his books. He tries to burn the knowledge from his mind. He becomes unnecessarily aggressive in the face of soulmate-related stories. He’s diminishing others’ experiences, fickle and unconfirmed. He embraces his annoyance for the subject with the same fever he had for loving it.

He holds to his friends, even though sometimes he doesn’t; he thinks of them before himself and alienates them when he’s hurting; he longs for them and keeps to them and fears to let go. He loves them with the fierceness so necessary to hide, for it’s too much, too strong, too desperate sometimes, and that kind of passion belongs in children stories and soulmate ones that he grows to despise. Tony loves as people who’s in love often don’t, but he isn’t aware of the greatness of his love, and only celebrates the fact that they — Rhodey, followed by Happy and Pepper — let him do so.

By the time he’s Iron Man, the concept of soulmates is nothing but frustration.

Chapter Text

Rogers comes to him, looking like a wounded puppy.

It’s his signature look, these days. He’s open and accessible and has a sudden belief in team building. Tony’s whole essence refuses it: this earnest sincerity, attempts at fixing what is lost. He’s seen too many cases where that honesty was fake, where it hid a not so good intent behind it, and while it’s Steve, who’s hardly going to pretend he’s something he is not, it still rattles Tony. He would prefer an open displeasure.

They were good at it, the first time. They annoyed each other, pushed each other’s buttons and barely could exist in the same room, and yet — it worked. They had a fragile balance of almost enemies, almost friends, and they made it work. But now Tony feels like he’s turned inside out every time he sees Rogers, his scars too tender still, and Rogers acts like he cares for their future. Like almost breaking Tony in half switched some control inside his brain and now he respects Tony; wants them to become a real team, not just a bunch of people who learned to exist with each other in one room. It’s strange. It feels wrong. It can’t be true and yet it can’t be false.

But who Tony is to know? He didn’t noticed Rogers lying in the first time, and that was a big one. He hopes it was; he hopes his life and sorrow and tragedy and loss wasn’t just a footnote in the case.

But we digress; there’s a mission. His teammates are frozen still, now moved to the compound, and it’s Tony, Rogers, Barnes. Rhodey wasn’t caught, too, and there are others who aren’t Avengers yet (the kid, and Cap’s new guy), but from the core team it’s only them unfrozen, and so they need to work together to bring the others back.

“Can you search for the existing bonds in our vicinity?” Rogers asks, voice hopeful, aching for the normality of mission.

It’s better than team-building, still; they have to be normal, have to be working together, saving the world. The fact that the three of them are alone for the first time since Tony had a broken prosthesis in his hand and a chunk of metal inside his chest shouldn’t be an obstacle. Rogers is right to feel unbalanced; he’s righter to try to get through it, fake it until they make a resemblance of a team. Yet, it is to be expected that it’d be triggering.

What Tony doesn’t expect is that his reaction to the question flares up more at the concept of soulmates. In the moment, he doesn’t care about Rogers getting in his space, about his never changing stubbornness and hopes that usually make feel Tony guilty without any crime. He hears bonds and he is full of anger that lacks direction, lacks control.

Barnes comes out of the shadow behind Rogers’s back — hiding as always as if he isn’t the brightest thing in the every room he’s in — and places the metal hand on Rogers’ chest, raising the other in placating gesture.

“Sorry,” he grumbles, his voice quiet and hoarse as usual. “Didn’t mean to burst into your space. But if the weird curse is a thing we’re doing now, we’re kinda useless without a direction.”

Rogers watches the arm on him as an alien appendage (Tony knows that look, he’s seen it with actual aliens in place). Tony cringes. What was written on his face for Barnes to react so? Is he that obvious? He tries to school his face.

“Sure,” he waves and shows them FRIDAY’s data of people who agreed to be part of the soulmate research. She was busy, good girl, while he was agonizing over the insane paths he now has to wander on. “You’re in luck because there are way more bonded pairs in New York than average. There’s gonna be some footwork.”

FRIDAY shows them the map. Tony doesn’t look at it.

It’s a fragile, tender web of actions, thoughts, and feelings between the three of them. He’s overwhelmed by input from it. But the focus has shifted to Barnes since he started talking. Barnes, who noticed Tony’s anger, who acted upon it, who wanted to make it better and chose to silence Rogers as his answer; Barnes, who stands there exhausted as usual and so mindful of them being there, together. Barnes, who’s so— approachable, so open, but so different than Rogers, for when Rogers is a wide open door that seems a trap, Barnes is a broken window that lets out rivers of pain and sorrow and disbelief.

Tony has a surge of understanding and relating every time he looks at the man, and that usually pisses him off; today, with Barnes spotting his anger so clearly, so easily, Tony’s more unbalanced than usual (what else does he see? and what did he think he saw?), and that frustrates him more, so much more.

“Can they all help us?” Rogers, brows furrowed, eyes staring with a laser focus.

“Who knows. This is magical bullshit, you can’t ever be sure what substitutes for a strong bond.”

“So we need to try them until it works.”

They do. They start. They try.

Tony asks FRIDAY to send them a list of couples’ names and known addresses, and he thinks: how much of them are real? How much lie? How much see the weird magic of their brains as duty, a pressure to be the perfect relationship they hear of at every turn? They wouldn’t tell to strangers so, of course, but often it’s visible, when you know where to look: how much of them are broken? How much are, simply, people?

The first couple is young and seems like a picture from an ad: both white and pretty, hetero, with smiles so wide they seem unnatural; they change to shock at the sight of Tony and Rogers at their door.

“Hi there,” Tony smiles, crooked and false. “Wanna have a chance at helping save the world?”

It’s a reach at best, the consequence too indirect, but it sounds so much better than do you want to do weird magic to help some vigilantes you probably despise for destroying your street once or something.

The couple agrees, excited at the prospect. They nod in sync and move to grab their things in perfect agreement, without having to look at each other. Tony averts his eyes.

They are in love; of course, they’re probably newly married, not long ago since the first meeting, the realization of the bond between them. They’re still in the good phase.

“Is this about the soulmate thing?” The guy — Aaron — asks.

“Yes,” Rogers nods and starts to explain, serious as ever.

There’s belief in his voice, the belief that says we’re going to make it, we’re doing the right thing. Tony knows firsthand how wonderful it is to hear it, how hard it is to refuse hope. He cannot do so anymore; everything Steve says feels like a lie to him.

“We’ve been married for five years now,” the woman — Pauline — smiles, and oh, look at that, Tony was wrong, it seems.

Still; five years isn’t much, and there’s always an option that they are lying.

“Seems like we met just yesterday. Don’t believe the movies — it’s so much better. Like you found someone who’s perfect for you, not just romantically.”

Tony focuses on the road. He sees Rogers, sitting in the front seat, change in his face. That must have been a dream of his, finding a soulmate, judging the ideals of romance he shared once. It must suck, hearing people bragging about being so happy, so complete.

He thought, once, that Rogers and Barnes were soulmates. It would have explained some things, would have made it easier. They weren’t; they were just like him, alone and lost and forced to work for people around them, people who got hurt and died and left so many scars. Now, Tony watches Rogers from the corner of his eye and softens.

This mirage of completion is unfair.

“So are we going to do magic?”

“The wizard’s gonna do magic, you two are going to stand there looking pretty and hope it works.”

“It may not work?” Pauline’s voice is distraught, and Tony smiles despite himself.

People, even annoying ones, tend to be good in more cases than you think.

“Magic’s like that. Don’t worry, it’s not exactly life and death. We have time, so even if your particular flavor of a bond won’t take, we’ll find another.”

That settles it. Tony drives to the Sanctum and helps the gawking couple to the doors, then stops. Steps back.

“You’re not going to..?” Rogers, eyebrows raised.

“You don’t need me there. Call if it doesn’t work.”

He has another day job, anyway, and it’s too much: magic and curses, soulmates and smiling couples. He’ll say something wrong or piss off Strange, it’s bound to happen. Better to remove himself from the situation. Better to get away as soon as he can before he sees — what? Soulmate bond unfolding? The magical solution to the enigma that he was so enthralled at childhood? Tony doesn’t know, but he’s certain that he needs to get away.

He leaves, and he’s at home — at his workshop in the Compound, fixing an annoying bug that refuses to be fixed, when he feels a presence on his doorstep and knows immediately who that is.

Barnes knocks. He looks appropriate for a bearer of bad news — with a unique flair of well, that was for nothing, but are we surprised, really.

“Didn’t work, huh?”

Barnes shakes his head.

Chapter Text

Barnes is a strange figure in Tony’s workshop. He stands like a man who’s built himself from fickle parts and is afraid to break them — but he always stands like that.

“Sit,” Tony waves at the bench in the corner, unable to look at him so still anymore. “I’ll look for new ones.”

Barnes does what he’s told. His relief is almost audible.

“You should sleep more,” Tony can’t keep himself from saying.

“So do you,” and that makes him snort.

Fair. They are both more ghosts than people. Tony turns to look at sees Barnes being Barnes at him; that makes his insides scream with conflicted feelings he aches to burn and throw away.

But it’s okay. It’s their normal protocol.

When Rogues come back, Tony is worried about many things. Accords and new committee, the revisions, the public upheaval, new norms of being around the team, team as it is, Rogers. Lots of it is Rogers.

Barnes is on the list, of course, but he’s low enough. Most issues Tony has with him lie in the area of feelings, and that’s a ridiculous enough place to pay it any notion. They will avoid each other. Tony will get over it. It will be fine. Ignoring emotional issues always worked for him in the past.

But then Barnes comes into the picture, and all Tony’s plans are broken, because, as it turns out, he lacks the capacity to ignore him. It is impossible up close, for misery and guilt that Barnes radiates are the loudest noise, the ocean’s waves, a cry for help, unbearable and desperate, and Tony can’t, he can’t.

He’s angry, still. Perhaps. He doesn’t know. His brain hurts whenever he’s around Barnes, in these first days, and he tries and tries to silence it with everything at his disposal. Running away works.

Finding Barnes at 3am awake in the kitchen and making him to go out and explode some junk works as well, even if Tony keeps screaming at himself internally what the fuck is he doing through the all of it, until they fire up the last explosive, and Barnes looks at him, shy and relieved and something else, and Tony can’t deal with it, he can’t, so he runs away and calls himself angry. Anger is his friend; anger is safe.

But it repeats. He takes his tools and finds Barnes — at night again, it seems easier at night — to fix the issue with his wrist that he was so bad at hiding through the whole training. He sees him feeling homesick during a mission in Brooklyn and spends a weekend searching for any trinkets from his past. It’s a pointless task, something that nobody asked Tony for, and he doesn’t know why he does it but for the ludicrous reason of he can’t not to.

Barnes watches him with eyes that are like ocean, calm after the storm, and thanks him, glowing with gratitude and relief, and Tony’s angry — yes, he’s angry.

He’s a horrible person, after all, an angry old man hiding in his hole from everyone’s attempts at reconciliation.

Rogers waits for him after the mission and asks to join him for his idea of team-building, and Tony keeps saying no until he doesn’t, because at some point he has to try, too, because he sees the need for them to work together. And Rogers tries, oh how he tries, and he’s weird with his new attention, which is another thing to deal with. His ideas tend to look like training but with the words but it’s for fun written on them; but they agree, they try, they play paintball or laser tag and don’t even want to kill each other for real, most of the time.

Barnes doesn’t miss these things but doesn’t show his face, preferring hiding in the shadows. Tony envies him a little and then snorts at Steve’s face when he says, “I wish Bucky would come at least to watch us.”

That almost breaks into an argument, until Barnes himself emerges from the shadows and calms Rogers down. He looks annoyed at that, like he has to deal with a small stubborn child, and that picture keeps Tony in good spirits for the rest of the day.

The others are on him for using FRIDAY to spy on everyone, but first — it’s well in his paranoid right, dealing with these enhanced assholes as he is, and second — come on, he didn’t use the cameras, Barnes was right there. A super spy, his ass.

So that happens, and times marches on, merciless with its pace. Tony gets used to living with the people he can’t fall asleep around. He lets Barnes in his workshop — out of necessity, not want.

At some point, Barnes comes up to the Accords revisions meeting to sulk in the corner and look menacing at the governmental officials, and Tony’s not even that angry about his existence there.

It turns so much more fun when Barnes shuts up Rogers mid-word and says with gravity, “This is such bullshit, Steve.”

The room freezes; Tony barely keeps his laughter. Barnes shows half a smile. They manage to go through the day’s agenda in half the usual time.

The next night Tony’s in Barnes’s kitchen, eating blueberry muffins that he keeps for an unknown reason — not for himself, he despises blueberry, Tony’s seen him eat it — and it’s a fragile balance.

Barnes jokes about killing himself — he does it sometimes when Rogers is away with his worried face, it’s despicable and unfairly funny — and Tony doesn’t laugh but Barnes doesn’t need him to, and Tony tries not to think why he needs to be here, and it’s a good night. Tony’s anger seems more like a quiet simmering in the background; it lacks direction or purpose and is only here as a cover, he suspects.

The muffins are heaven in a food form. Tony eats like a person who forgot that humans need feeding for the whole day, and Barnes stares at him with an air of a person deeply disturbed.

“Why are you so scandalized?” Tony grumbles. “I’ve seen Rogers eat, this shouldn’t shock you.”

“Nothing shocks me. I’m just judging you.”

“Something has to shock you. I’m pretty sure I can find something.”

“Nah. I’m immune. It’s all the electrotherapy.” Tony stares at him with his best unimpressed glare. “Get it? Because—”

“No,” Tony points at him and leaves with his muffin, and Bucky — Barnes — dares to laugh behind his back.

Tony doesn’t want to think about it, the thing is. It works only if he doesn’t think.

Chapter Text

Rogers waits for them at the door, face conflicted, and Barnes transforms. He looks momentarily calmer, but then extrudes guilt, as a kid that just stole candy from a store. Then he moves to stand a connecting point between Tony and Rogers.

It’s harder, when there are three of them. That’s why Tony preferred to surround himself with others whenever that happened, find a safety net. Now, they are opened raw, alone with themselves, their history too close to the surface. Now, the air is full of history and pain and words unsaid: years between Rogers and Barnes, all the pain between Rogers and Tony that’s as stubborn and unyielding as they are, this thing between Tony and Barnes that— that is hard to think of, hard to find a name for.

“Split up?” Rogers calls to him, looking less cheerful than before (or maybe no, who the fuck knows, definitely not Tony — his face is a cipher Tony doesn’t have a key for).

“Divide by three?”

“Sure—” Tony opens up the list but then is quickly interrupted.

“By two,” Barnes says, and, in answer to their questioning stares, “How many people you think would agree to come with me?”

Tony winces and sees Rogers do the same. Barnes rolls his eyes at them.

“Anything useful to be done here besides?” he waves at Tony’s list, and, well, not for him, not really.

“You can go, too, drive,” Rogers says, then glances at Tony and suddenly changes in expression.

While Tony’s still trying to understand what’s wrong — is there something wrong with Barnes driving? Did he fuck his arm again? — Barnes himself snorts and radiates exasperation.

“What?”

“He’s an idiot. But I’m coming with you, then,” and that is said like an easy answer to the problem Tony still cannot get ahold of, so he just stands there, stewing in his confusion. “You okay with that?”

Rogers, meanwhile, makes more faces at Barnes — what’s with the silent speak, boys — ending up at something happier. Tony thinks.

In the end, there’s nothing for him to do but say yes.

Rogers watches them leave like a mother seeing her child getting away from home for the first time. They drive away, and Tony breathes out when they are on the road, alone, and Barnes is a fixture on the front seat of the car, both impossible not to notice and blending in as a chameleon.

Tony’s not on edge, here’s the thing. He’s many things around Barnes, but he doesn’t want to jump out of his skin, doesn’t wish to run away. It’s like they had so much discomfort between the two of them that it went over the limit and reset itself. Or, maybe, they just managed to deal with it before, in all those nights together; Tony doesn’t know. He doesn’t want to know.

“What was that with Rogers?” he asks instead, and Barnes is amused.

“You know how you’re so afraid of my arm or try to pull your punches whenever the two of us are around?”

“I don’t?”

“It’s the same thing. He’s feeling guilty about stupid shit, like appearing to choose me over you, I guess.” While Tony gapes at that, he continues, “and he likes to see us bond.”

“We never bond.”

“Oh no. But don’t tell him that.”

Tony lets himself laugh, and — yeah, fuck it, he lets himself go. Barnes still has the ability to read his face so well, and it’s so easy to stop masking himself with him — easier than Tony has it alone. He gets a smile in answer, and for a moment, the world is peaceful.

They drive on.

At first, they do not pay it any mind. It is a task, unpleasant and slow, with long drives to the unsuspecting couples and then back to the Sanctum. Strange could have done it so much faster, Tony grumbles, but to no avail: their problem, their labor. The first one is a bust, too, however, and the second, and the third, and by the time night comes they covered half of New York’s soulmates with no result.

That’s when it gets worrying. It’s normal for the magic to backfire like that: Strange warned them about only specific bonds being able to help, and, well, Tony was skeptical from the beginning, but now they feel for themselves just how tiring that could get, how hopeless. Their teammates are as frozen as they were this morning, and there’s no clear simple path, it seems, that leads to victory.

“Is there, maybe, a way to do it without a free drive with a superhero deal? Maybe give us what to look for, not just grab the random ones?” Tony asks when Strange yet again comes out of the ritual with nothing but hands still wet from — you can’t lie about it — a real freaking potion.

“I’m not enjoying it as well,” Strange snaps, and yes, Tony can see the bags under his eyes becoming deeper with each attempt, but — but.

“Maybe we can join forces,” he offers half-heartedly. “Figure out a checking device or something.”

“There’s nothing,” a sigh, a tone of finality. “Not counting the rituals more tiring, of course. The strength of the bond isn’t a thing that can exist before our eyes. The only thing you can do is look for obstacles.”

“Obstacles? As in, what, magical barriers?”

Barnes checked out at the beginning of the ritual and is now napping on the couch. Tony envies him.

“No,” Strange replies, and there’s such a clear you idiot at the end of it. “Life obstacles. They strengthen the bond. The harder it was for them to get together, the better chances we have. Why do you think the most popular soulmates are always star-crossed lovers? Romeo and Juliet and such.”

“Eh, they’re fictional, and drama sells.”

“Drama also lets the bond grow if it withholds it.”

Which is more than they had at the beginning, but not enough. Tony believes in data privacy: the list of soulbonds he has is open-sourced, made of people who agreed to participate in soulmate research. To stalk these people, look into their personal histories wouldn’t be a decision he’s comfortable with.

And asking them outright? People lie.

So Tony wakes up Barnes, and there they go again.

When they’re back in the car, Tony retells the new parameters to him. Barnes looks thoughtful for a moment and then — just a little afraid.

“Do you think we could…” but then he trails and looks uncertain, so sad.

“What?” Tony tries for gentleness, feeling the need to tread lightly.

But Barnes just shakes his head.

“Forget it. Wouldn’t work.”

He’s still a bright spot of sorrow. Tony can’t do anything with that. He drums on the wheel with his fingers and glares through the window, at the dark nothing of the night.

They drive on.

Chapter Text

It turns out all the soulmates of New York are either charlatans or rip-offs.

They check everyone. They exhaust themselves with talking, asking, hoping, driving. At the end of it, Barnes keeps coming to the doors with Tony and glaring at those who try to refuse. It works — they surpass Rogers by a few.

They still are unsuccessful.

“We need to search for more. Somebody has to work,” Rogers says with utmost conviction as Barnes lies down in the car and Tony stands leaning on it.

“Do you really believe in everything you say in that tone or just faking it in half the cases?” Tony asks, and he’s tired and frustrated and useless, so it doesn’t come out with a bite, simply curious.

Rogers blinks at him for a moment and then says, “More than a half, honestly.”

And Tony can’t help himself. He loses it.

It’s not even funny; the sleepless night might be a huge factor. But Barnes, moved to wakefulness from the commotion, sits up near him and joins him, and it’s nice.

“Is it, like, a super genes thing, you can’t help but say everything in that way?”

“Oh no, he was like that before the serum. The effect is better when he’s clearly contradicting himself, like telling me I have to follow the rules while stealing food from upperclassmen—”

“I was re-stealing it—”

“Do you talk like that about normal stuff, too? Say Tony, you need to refill your groceries. The house is depending on you.”

“Alright, alright,” Rogers lifts his hands, tries to placate them, but he smiles, too.

He seems sincere in it, too. Believable in his mirth, not just pretending to be calm, to be excited and determined.

It’s easier to breathe, somehow.

“So,” Barnes says, after they all calm down. “Road trip?”

They agree with Strange that he’ll start to teleport them back as soon as they will find new couples, new bonds, but they still need to reach them. It may have been easier to fly, for Tony, but he lets himself be dragged into the car and doesn’t think about it, tries to prolong the sense of easiness that still resides inside him.

So they drive. He and Barnes again. He asked Rogers if he wanted to switch up, but he refused—

“I’m getting sick of his face already,” he said. “You get to have him for a while.”

And Barnes complained loudly about them thinking he’s a child of divorce, but there wasn’t any heat in it — or disagreement — so they continued as they were.

And so they drive.

Barnes gets the wheel for a while to let Tony sleep, which turns out to be a hard task, obviously, for Tony barely can sleep in his own bed, sometimes, and it’s an exercise in frustration.

“Just lying with your eyes closed helps, too,” Barnes says after watching him for some time. “If you were thinking you’re failing to get rest at all.”

Tony was.

“I’m never failing at anything,” he grunts at Barnes, though, and Barnes laughs and lets him choose the radio station.

Tony sees the opportunity to educate him on modern music and takes it.

The cloud of sorrow that Barnes takes with him everywhere recedes — or, maybe, it was a long process that started weeks ago, and Tony notices it just now. Whatever it was, Barnes seems lighter, gentler, and the weight of emotions he radiates is bearable. It’s like he finally found his place, the shape of himself that he accepts: a little broken, maybe, far from perfect, but his, just his, and one he can take up.

It makes Tony restless to see it. He cannot stop moving, cannot be still: the new sight of Barnes that made peace with both his skin and soul activates his flight response, it seems. He doesn’t know why it bothers him — does it? — why is that a thing that birthed a thought in him that now refuses to end and calm down and be gone. But he cannot stop noticing this transformation. The frown between Barnes’s eyebrows, eased into nothing, his more open face, his smile, a little crooked, never quite full but present. Tony catalogs his face, commits to memory his features, his expressions. He can’t stop looking.

He can’t fall asleep.

The road is far, and there’s not much room inside the car, and they’ve been trapped here together for two days straight, and Tony has to ache to run away but doesn’t, and Tony is supposed to want his space, to tire from them, but he doesn’t.

He tells Barnes the whole life story of Freddie Mercury as Somebody to Love plays in the background, and Barnes listens, genuinely fascinated, and Tony doesn’t want to stop.

He sleeps a little just before dawn and wakes up with the first rays of sunlight shining right in his eyes.

Barnes stops the car.

“Wanna stretch your legs?”

They go out. The road is empty, with no living soul in sight, and everything seems slightly odd but gorgeous in the light of dawn. Barnes stares at the sky, and he’s a picture of a person that’s inches from finding faith.

“It’s gorgeous, isn’t it?”

“It is.”

A sound, indistinguishable.

“What?”

“I’m always a little guilty, like that,” he seems it, too. “Me, being alive. Able to see that for myself, feel this… awe before the enormity of nature. Is that fair?”

He sounds fragile, lost, unsure. Tony stares at him.

“Oh come on. You’re a survivor. You lived, and that wasn’t for anything. Be greedy. Take all the awe you get.”

Barnes turns to him, the fire in his eyes now on Tony, and it’s impossible to hold his stare. Tony does that anyway and maybe burns with something he has no name for.

“Alright,” Barnes says so softly and breathes like a man drowned, and off they go.

Back in the car, with air rearranged and yet the same; they drive on.

Chapter Text

At one point their quest starts to seem like a frustration that can’t be solved.

They find several more couples, all of them still appearing disgustingly happy. They call Strange. They cajole strangers to come with them into the portal, yes, it’s perfectly safe, takes just a moment of your time, please, I’ll give you a ridiculous amount of money, it’s for a good cause.

It doesn’t work.

Failure sits in Tony’s bones as an old friend. It’s heavy, and the whole of him is made of it: it slows him down, bends him closer to earth in ways that gravity cannot, makes every movement exhausting. It’s a familiar feeling, the one he knows how to fight. Barnes seems to have a grasp on it as well and only goes quieter.

They spend five hours in the motel and check out early from the shared inability to stay in one place for long, both haunted by the consequences of their failure.

Not every bond can work — that’s easy. But what if most of them don’t? What if none? With each new failure, the odds become less and less, and the thought, uncalled but urgent, feasts upon their brains: what if they fail? What if the team will stay like that — frozen, non-existing, as well as dead? What of Clint’s family, still waiting for their answer? Of people Nat has her secret conversation with in hushed Russian? What of Bruce’s new experiments, promising a connection between him and his alter ego, what of his hope for life without fear? What of Thor’s people? Sam’s nephews and sister?

What of the world that’ll lose its protectors? Will it grieve? Will it survive?

The guilt for such a failure is a heavy burden, but they share it. Both of them have old relationships with it.

Rogers calls every day, retelling his own losses. The conversations are tense. The truth is hard to swallow.

“We need to entertain the idea that there’s nobody who—” he says one day, and Tony can’t, he can’t.

So he snaps, “Oh don’t you dare, Captain Conviction,” and throws the phone at the wall.

Barnes lifts an eyebrow. Tony counts to ten, sighs, goes for the phone. He even calls back to say sorry, that’s how nice he is.

So they continue. Barnes gets him food every time Tony’s getting too angry, and, to his dismay, it works. He bullies Barnes to sleep in retaliation when the man grows back into his misery, and is gleeful when that works as well. Somehow they don’t hurt each other in feats of frustration, too mindful of each other, perhaps, or too familiar with such a mind space.

At the end of the week Tony watches Barnes sit at the diner, half-asleep, pesters him with questions that he gets one-word answers to, and suddenly it’s too much.

This, them, together for so long Tony has forgotten how to breathe and think without Barnes around, his whole existence, now so achingly familiar, the picture of him, tired and with half-closed eyes but still replying to whatever Tony bothers him about, looking like a mess with unwashed hair and clothes he’s been wearing for a week, and still so— and he’s the one who — fucking hell.

It sneaks up on him. He doesn’t know what triggers it, but one minute he’s asking Barnes who would he choose to stay on a deserted island with, and the next he’s seething with rage. He thinks it’s rage. It’s hot and red and bright and wants to crawl out of his skin — and he cannot breathe, and he cannot deal with it.

Tony closes his eyes, drops his phone on the table and gets out.

He needs to stuff it back on, to stop thinking, stop feeling, get rid of it — it worked before, it worked so well. He doesn’t want it. He doesn’t need it. What does he need to do to cut the whole emotions feature out of his body? It’s despicable. He wants to— he’s a vessel waiting to be emptied, but he doesn’t know how, doesn’t know where to start.

There’s a hand on his shoulder; the touch is sudden and burning.

“You okay?”

“Will be. Oh don’t you— fuck, I don’t know. I’m just—”

“Angry?”

Tony turns his face (that is too vulnerable, too dangerous, too—)

“You seem like it.”

“Sure. Yeah. I’m angry. Can you fuck off for a while? I’ll be better.”

Bad things happen when Barnes is around Tony at the time Tony’s angry at him (at the world, at their history, at the pain they share), Tony thinks hysterically. He needs to not be here.

Does he understand?

Tony thinks he does, but why doesn’t he move?

Self-hating asshole.

“Just let it go,” Barnes says, and screw him, okay? Fuck him and his gentle voice and fuck his kind eyes. “It’s okay, Tony, just let it out.”

“Fuck you,” Tony lets out, and it’s a breath and a sob and a yell. Who knows. “Fuck you and everything that’s happened, and fuck the world, and double fuck the Nazis, and fuck death, and fuck it all— and fuck me for hurting you— fuck Rogers, too— fuck this.”

Breathing is hard. Words are harder. They come by themselves, still, running to his throat and forcing themselves out.

“This is unfair, and horrible, and I can’t fucking deal with— and you’re here— you’re always— I can’t fix it, I can’t help it, I fucked it up and I don’t know how to— you’re the best person I know, and that wasn’t your fault. Okay?”

His voice is hoarse and something is so very wrong with his body. Tony looks at Bucky, helpless and exhausted, and sees him watching back, and sees him crying. There’s a moment of silence, stillness, a pause prolonged, and then Tony steps forwards, and then Tony’s being hugged. It’s the best thing in the world; in that one moment, in that one touch there’s everything, and Tony thinks, disjointedly: he doesn’t care that he doesn’t have a soulmate — this is enough.

Later, reflecting on this thought, he will worry how much truth it holds — will rotate it in his head for hours. But he will come to the same answer, to the simple truth he knows even now: the thing that they have has nothing to do with magic, with soulmates and strange bonds inside people’s brains. It’s a connection between people. It’s the ability to forgive, move on, find peace. It’s people aching for each other — finding each other despite whatever the world brings to them. It’s simply an ability of the human heart to feel — and it is endless.

Bucky holds him in his arm for a long, long time, and says into his hair, muffled and hoarse from all the crying, “I like you too, you know.”

And Tony laughs.

Chapter Text

After their shared breakdown, Tony feels empty — hollow inside.

It’s a good feeling, mostly a relief, a burden finally gone, all those emotions released and let go. It is a little raw, too, as the skin gets tender after healing its scars.

They spend the night at another motel, actually staying for the whole night and waking up with hope for the new day. There’s no place for sorrow in their hearts, no guilt, no blame for their failures — it will come back, but now there’s nothing but peace and hope and joy.

“Morning,” Bucky grunts from his bed, still half-asleep, ridiculously adorable, and squints at Tony. “You look chipper.”

“Brought you coffee.”

“How many of those have you drank already?”

Tony grins.

“Not telling you.”

Bucky rolls his eyes at him and takes the cup, their fingers brushing. The touch is electric; it’s exciting and comforting both. Tony lets himself be excited.

Tony lets himself be, that is, feel whatever he wants to feel, accept everything that his heart — so full, so eager — concocts.

“What’s next for us?”

“Hm, around six hours of empty road.”

“Man, this road trip sucks.”

It’s hard not to laugh.

“Next time I’ll let you plan it, then.”

Bucky smiles, nods, mutters next time, and suddenly it seems so real, material instead of a transparent fickle idea of the future. Tony trusts them not to fuck it up, to see whatever’s brewing between them through. It is a heady thought. To be that certain in the future, don’t let his mind panic over various possibilities of everything going wrong is unfamiliar for Tony.

Still, it’s understandable. After everything they’ve been through, nothing seems enough to break it. They survived the biggest thing, the worst possible problem — they will figure out the rest. A simple truth. An unbreakable certainty.

Hope for the future.

Tony smiles, and off they go.

The difference is obvious when they get on the road. Bucky’s driving, and Tony watches him, for there’s no better thing to do — and it’s far from a hardship. It turns out fascinating, when he lets himself watch, stops trying to do it covertly, to force himself out of the habit, and the difference between Bucky of yesterday, last week, last month is astonishing.

When Tony thought that Bucky found peace he was immensely wrong: that was nothing comparing how he is now. There’s a lightness to him, easy grace of movement, an almost constant smile. He’s a man unmade and built again, a picture of new life and hope; he looks happier, feels it, excludes it in heaps.

Tony’s basking in it. The world seems so much bigger, suddenly, so much kinder.

That’s when Bucky decides to breach the topic.

“Do you think we should try it, too?”

“What?”

“The ritual. I mean, it’s a stretch, yeah, but everyone is, so. Might as well try, right?”

Bucky’s face is hopeful, his voice a little shy, and Tony has the urge to agree to anything he says; if only he understood what the hell Bucky’s talking about it.

“What are you talking about?”

Bucky sends him an exasperated stare, and — okay, not Tony’s fault he’s being cryptic.

“I mean we could go to Strange and ask him to try to do the unfreezing ritual with the two of us. As, you know, our bond.”

Tony thinks he hears his mind make a rewinding sound.

“Come again?”

Bucky makes a face — incredulous like he’s not the one to be weird all of a sudden — and stops the car.

“Okay, what in the hell—”

“Tony. Look at me please.”

He looks.

“Are you fucking with me right now?”

“Are you?”

Bucky scoffs. It still sounds fond (but what does not, today?).

“Really? You don’t know?”

He hasn’t said that outright yet, and Tony clutches to the fact with all his mental strength; he doesn’t want to hear it. Does he? Does he want it to happen? Would it be— Bucky turns to him, with eyes so kind, so tender, as if Tony’s fragile, as if he’s going to have a hard time accepting that— and this is bullshit, he doesn’t need to be coddled with— but it’s impossible.

It can’t be.

They can’t be.

He would know. He would. Would he?

“We’re soulmates,” Bucky says, and he’s unbearably gentle, and Tony is a ghost barely tethered to his body.

“No,” he shakes his head, and it’s so stupid, but he just can’t, “no, no, we’re not. We can’t be.”

“Tony. Come on. What am I feeling right now?”

“The need to act like I’m a child, which I’m not, by the way, so stop that, and also — you’re wrong. We can’t be. No.”

“You always know what I’m feeling. You clock my presence immediately. You read me like an open book.”

“You have a very expressive face.”

“I have a resting murder face, as kids put it. There are literally never any emotions on it. Steve can’t say whether I’m very angry or very happy half the time, and he’s known me for a hundred years.”

Tony wants to laugh, to run away, pretend, pretend, pretend.

“And you’re shit at reading people’s faces, honey. Why are you so much better with me, then?”

Tony gets out of the car and breathes. It’s all a bit— and he knows. It’s obvious, so clear in his mind now, but he just can’t accept it for a moment, because—

Bucky comes out to stand with him, his presence’s just as much comfort as usual.

“Why can’t it happen?” his voice is so quiet, and he feels— vulnerable, and so sad. Rejected and already half into acceptance of it.

“Because I hurt you. Can’t you see? That’d mean I hurt the one person I’m supposed not to, not ever.”

“I hurt you too.”

“Yeah, doesn’t make it better, really.”

Bucky lets out a laugh.

“Haven’t we dealt with it already?”

“Oh, come on. Not like this.”

“What’s the difference, then? What, some magic bullshit in our brains suddenly means that we can’t fuck it up, ever?”

Tony shrugs. He breathes.

“I mean, you know me. Everything means I can’t fuck it up, ever. That’s just the mode in which I operate.”

Bucky shakes his head, and — fuck him for feeling so fond.

“Well, sucks to be you. It already happened, and you gotta get used to it,” and his voice is light enough for Tony to feel a little calmer, a little more comfortable in his skin.

Bucky does know him.

“I’m happy that it’s you, for what it’s worth,” Bucky continues, and isn’t that a shock — isn’t that something Tony never expected to hear in his life. “What? I said I liked you, didn’t I.”

And Tony laughs, and moves a little closer, so that their shoulders touch, and everything becomes a little better. A little bearable.

“You think you could learn to live with that?” Bucky asks, a little raw, a little fearful, a little hopeful.

“Y’know what? I think I do.”

They stand there for a while, just breathing, and Tony gets it, feels it, for the first time with a conscious mind — the flow of Bucky’s emotions coming through him, his presence at the back of Tony’s mind. It’s the easiest thing in the world. It’s a comfort, a promise of something better to come, a tender, precious thing.

He can get used to it, he thinks he does. Despite everything, despite the guilt and pain and hurt. They will endure; they will survive; they will find out how to be happy.

It makes sense, after all these years, it finally does, the concept of soulmates. There’s no enigma, no mystery — just another person near him, the connection between them, so simple and so strong. A peace that was lost, invisible for so long.

“I can’t tell whether Rogers is going to be excited or upset about it.”

Bucky snorts.

“Oh, mostly insufferable.”

Yeah, that seems so.

“Call Strange?”

“Sure.”

They do.

When the others come back at the first minute of the ritual, Strange throws his hands, swears them out, and leaves without any word.

They do not care.