soulmate au: where you soulmate’s name is written on your skin [part1]
The first flash of memory is of a stripe of skin. Bold, black English alphabets, spelling out three different names; ANTHONY EDWARD STARK.
On nights when the war in his mind takes its forefront, he pulls out that piece of imagery and forces himself to breathe.
Slowly, once he’s sure he’s shaken the last of HYDRA off his tail and is safely concealed within a mass of European public, he nudges the slit in his brain a little wider and he unfurls from the rush of pain that comes with it.
More memories bleeds out of that gap; of guns and boxing rings. Of little girl and a familiar faced man. Of his finger tips across those three names and once he puts two and two together, he takes a sharp inhale.
Shaking legs lead him to the adjoined bathroom in the dingy motel room he takes cover in. And on his knees, he blinks back hot tears – what summoned them exactly, he doesn’t know – as he presses a palm over his shoulder. Fingers reaching desperately behind for those bold black letters which now he knows are imprinted just beneath the upper border of his right shoulder blade.
That skin he saw, that is his.
And it’s one name. Not three.
He knows that now. And the weight of that information leaves him breathless for fourteen days.
On day fifteen, he opens the browser - after watching a teen click away in the internet café for hours on end - and he googles the name.
On day fifteen, he decides to keep the name to himself, safely tucked beneath the snagged shirt he wears for days on end and to never tell another soul about it.
Much less, the man to whom the name belongs to.
Because, said man looks happy on the screen in front of him. In relationship with a woman called Pepper Potts and he doesn’t know in precise word how he feels about it. But it’s bad.
Then the world topples around him.
Suddenly he’s facing the man from his memory; a lot taller and heavier looking. But that face, he’ll know that face anywhere.
And there are guns ablaze. A tunnel falling behind him and then he’s on his knees on the very street he’d once prowled freely.
The last thing he remembers is a set of words, repeated over and over to wreck him from within.
The next thing he comes to is his left arm pinned between something heavy, ready to crush with a whisper of breath and his head a splitting disaster of pain.
A concoction of mess. Something unnatural and that which shouldn’t be.
A horrible mix of old memories, fragments of new ones and reality which makes him wants to scream, waves of nausea crashing within him.
He can finally put the right name to the man who confronts him; Stevie, with piles of newspapers under his feet. Something about it is funny that his muscles contracts accordingly and his face splits into a smile. All on its own.
But the throbbing in his head doesn’t cease.
Not even a little through the whispered conversation Stevie holds in a corner with his pal.
“If we call Tony…”
“No, he won’t believe us.”
“Even if he did…”
“Who knows if the Accords would let him help.”
“But it’s Tony.”
“You’re gonna call him?”
“Even if the Accords wouldn’t let him help, he’ll at least divert their attention.”
That’s how he found himself facing the man whose name is tattooed on his skin.
His soulmate.
“The rest of the winter soldiers are shot to death. A man named Zemo is behind this. Wanted to tear us apart from within. Saw a video of my parents getting murdered by your buddy here, not cool at all. Kind of hate you and Nat for not telling me but I can’t be mad to not knowing about seven wonders of the world when I could google it myself. So, you three.” The man points, the seemingly unending ramble of his slowing down as he points at Stevie, his pal and him, and he says,
“You’re hopping on the jet with Nat and I and we’re going to Malibu where I’ll drop the four of you off while I go back to New York and try to clean this damned mess without getting strangled by Pepper in the process.”
Pepper.
He knows that name.
It makes something twist horribly inside him - combined with that splitting headache he has going, he winces out in pain, walls crumbling all around him as he tries again to gather the rubbles, patch everything back together, futilely.
Two men reach for him.
One expected while the other, unexpected but not unwanted.
In fact, everything inside him purrs submissively as the man, Tony, or Anthony Edward Stark reaches for him. Snapping into splinters the second he catches himself and steps back.
“Bucky?” Stevie crouches in front of him. “You alright?”
Bucky - because that’s who he is - nods, eyes still fixed on nervous browns that a beat later, disappear behind a loud shade of orange. He blinks and drops his head down. Throat dry as he nods again, wishing Stevie would stop worrying about him. At least until they’re all safely out of here.
Three days later, he sees the man again.
Five days from then, he walks into an argument between Stevie and him. He doesn’t stay after he hears the man hiss, “They won’t trust him as long as the Winter Soldier is dormant in there, Cap and you know that.”
It’s a little over a month after, when he’s out under pelting rain when the man comes to find him.
“I know you’re big on the cold and stuff, but getting drenched in rain is still a health hazard, you know.”
He says as a way of greeting, leaving no space between them when he sits - thighs brushing with electric sparks - on the edge of the pool, legs dipping into chlorine tainted water up to his shins.
They sit in silence, listening to raindrops fall heavily into water, neither under any kind of shelters which makes him snort at the hypocrisy and he mumbles, “Pot, kettle.”
A delightful laugh bursts out his companion. Something that sends shivers up his stiff spine and he shudders, not from the cold but from the blooming emotion that overwhelms him entirely.
It’s unfair how much someone he doesn’t even know to have this much of an effect on him.
Strip him out of decades of control drilled into his bones. Bare him naked and raw with overflowing feelings for the whole world to see. An impossible feat that he does so easily.
It makes him want to hate the man, but he knows that’s a lie.
And the effect of the bond seems to go both ways. For the man opens his mouth with an audible breath, hesitates just a second and asks with palpable nerves,
