Bound
Title: Bound
Author: locke-writes
Summary: Soulmate AU, Arranged Marriage Trope x Tony Stark for @thranduilsperkybutt 11k writing challenge
Rating: T
Word Count: 6,691
AN: I had an idea and this happened. Could it have been split into chapters? Probably, but that’s too late now.
Tag List: @lotsoffandomrecs @lgbtonystarks @scarletsoldierrr @moonlit-imagines
In a world where soulmates existed you felt that it was particularly cruel that arranged marriages also existed. All over the world parents bound their children into marriage contracts with the disregard of soulmates. Stories often met your ears of children running from family as they came upon their soulmate while bound by contract to marry someone else. You wondered if you would have the courage to do the same if ever you met your soulmate. You dreaded if you would ever be in the position to find out.
It was no secret to you that you would never have the chance others might have. It was no secret to you that you otherwise has more privilege than most despite this fact. Others would marry freely, living happily with soulmates, people cosmically bound to them and you knew that while sometimes there were painful moments in the lives of soulmates, being bound to one another meant having a tether when you're world was collapsing.
Your world had been collapsing from moment one as your fate had long been sealed or rather in some ways ignored from birth. Arranged marriages were seen by yourself as torturous, something used as a way of controlling what couldn't be controlled. Fate was a cruel mistress, wasn't that the saying. But fate had not meant some of the more stubborn people on Earth. Perhaps the only reason you held your particular position on the subject matter was due to your being in an arranged marriage yourself.
At age five it was decided that you would be married to Tony Stark when you both came of age. Specifically after you both turned twenty-one and at said time would begin to transition into leadership roles of your family companies. Stark Industries and your families own company would benefit from a marriage and it would be a marriage of convenience not of love. At age five you were taken to Stark Manor and sat down next to Tony while a contract was being signed,
You supposed it could have been worse. At age five you were completely unaware of the predicament you had just been placed in. Soulmarks didn't appear until a persons thirteenth birthday and at the time you had yet to understand the complete concept of soulmates only just grasping some small details of the idea that there was someone out their in the world that you would love in an instant, that you would feel you had known all your life.
Arranged marriages occurred for a number of reasons. Yours happened to occur for pure financial gain. No more competition between companies, simply a merger due to an imminent wedding. Not something you would understand for years to come but something you would come too despise. Arranged marriages seemed to you a destruction of the complex concept of love, love in which should be an instant feeling.
At five you were more concerned with the fact that the boy next to you wasn't sharing the blocks he was playing with than anything. At five you hardly understood your reason for being in the house that you were in, you only recognized that you had never been there before and you knew from the way your parents spoke that it wasn't going to be the last time you set foot here.
At age seven you'd begun to develop a friendship with Tony. Weekends were often spent together with it being more irregular that you would be elsewhere than by his side. There was no doubt of his burgeoning genius at that time and you were not far behind. Trouble seemed to follow you both wherever you ran as if it had been glued to you. At age seven you began to understand what a soulmate was and at age seven you began to understand that you would live to never meet your own.
You couldn't grasp what it meant to lose your soulmate before you'd even met them but you knew that this was something you'd never have. Tony didn't seem to mind or at least he never showed it and in your mind that meant that he had accepted his fate. This was ultimately something that you realized you would have to accept as well. This was the life designed for you and it would be easier to live if you embraced wholeheartedly that there would be no soulmates in your life.
No seven year old should stare straight into the face of fate and reject it but you weren't staring into fate you were shoved in front of it and yanked away without warning. It was hell and yet you wouldn't understand what was being taken away from you until you were older. At the moment you'd a vague idea yet there'd be no confirmation yet, there couldn't be. After all you hadn't a soulmark yet.
At age ten you started questioning if being married to Tony was such a bad thing after all. Of course you hated the fact that he was going to be keeping you from meeting your soulmate but still, ever since the day you first met you'd become friends. It helped that your minds worked in a similar way. Oh and also you were forced to spend Sundays together as part of the marriage contract but still, after five years he was certainly a friend.
Not that you'd ever tell him that you thought marriage to him was going to be ok. After all how bad could it be being married to someone who hated the idea of arranged marriages as much, if not more, than you did. Both of you had resigned yourselves to believing that there could be no other way. And unfortunately you were correct, even if you had found your soulmates before marriage there was nothing you could do, you couldn't acknowledge such a person existed. If you met them afterwards that posed another problem entirely.
But you were being thrust headfirst into a barrel full of problems. That was life, or rather the harshness of your life alone.
For most, the day they turn thirteen is a celebration. It is the day when the soulmark appears and you can now begin the search for your soulmate. Each soulmate will have the same mark although the placement of it is random. Treated like New Years Eve, the night before a thirteenth birthday was used as an excuse to stay up all night as a soulmark would appear at the stroke of midnight. Fate may be full of tricks but it was nothing if not punctual.
On the eve of your birthday however, you were in bed. Asleep. You didn't want to face what would be on your skin until the morning and even then you dreaded it. In your life you'd seen friends with their marks completely visible on hands and around eyes, you hoped that wherever yours was that you could cover it one way or another.
Tony had already received his mark but you'd never see it. A pact had been made between the two of you that it your marks were never to be shown to one another and your families had each been informed that you were never to be asked about it. They were aware of your distaste regarding the concept of arranged marriages and understood that you felt that your life had been controlled by them. While they refused to accept any blame, you knew it was them at fault.
The next morning you stood in the mirror noticing the mark crept over your upper arm and the tip of your shoulder. You traced the pattern with your finger, the only time you would ever touch your mark in that way. It was in a position that was easily hid by shirt sleeves but you took extra precaution by taking bandage wrap to the area, covering it completely so there was truly no way for anyone to see what mark had been bestowed upon you.
While he wanted to call and ask you how you were doing Tony thought it best to keep silent. He knew how you felt about receiving your mark, it was the same as he felt. The mark that had been placed upon him was a betrayal. He'd never get the chance to be with his soulmate thus there should be no mark, no reminder that his future had been stripped away from him. If you wanted to reach out to him you would but for now he refused to reach out, it wasn't the time and it certainly wouldn't have made you feel better hearing from the person who had taken you away from your soulmate.
You never blamed him for that. You knew he had no choice in the matter, neither did you. After a time you began accepting your misfortune. Tony was the one who you would marry and that was that. Although you supposed it could have been worse, the two of you could have held one another in contempt, animosity building between you. Rather you were lucky enough that the man who was to become your husband in years to come was a friend now.
The next few years went by in a blur as both you and Tony were attending college.
At age fourteen Tony had decided to attend MIT. Always a brilliant engineer you had no doubts that he'd succeed in his higher education. You knew if you had wanted to you could have started college at the same age but you couldn't view yourself becoming a teenager, embracing the oncoming adulthood while dealing with college courses. If it was what Tony wanted then it was what he should do.
At age sixteen you began college, choosing to attend Stanford. Tony had helped you figure out which colleges you should apply to and while you had applied as well as been accepted to MIT you couldn't bring yourself to accept. You were sixteen, in five years you'd be married to Tony and if four years of freedom (or the three it became as you graduated early) was what you could provide for both yourself and him then it was all that you could bring yourself to do.
Besides, Stanford was an exceptional school and you knew that while your name more than likely was what allowed for your acceptance it didn't mean that you hadn't put in the work to be there. Not to mention you forced your parents to set up a scholarship fund in your name that would provide full ride scholarships to anyone with a STEM field as their major or declared minor. Students who declared their major after their first year were also able to apply and receive funding for the rest of their education and were able to keep the money even if later they changed their major once more.
A clause had been put into the marriage contract for when you and Tony each started college. The Sundays that you were required to spend together had been still going on for years with the added free will hangouts that came sometimes on weekdays and Saturdays. Sundays became less forced and more of something you each looked forward to but with college there was no need for you to see one another every week, it wasn't practical. The clause simply stated that these visits should be deemed null and void. Tony offered to continue with making weekly calls to you on Sundays but you told him not to bother.
Freedom. It was the last thing you could think to provide for Tony and secretly he was grateful. Marriage was coming and there hadn't been a time he remembered that he'd been able to explore who he was without that fact looming over him like the Sword of Damocles.
Ate age seventeen Tony graduated from MIT and began working in his own sector of Stark Industries. You were invited to the graduate ceremony and it felt awkward having pictures taken together that you knew one day you'd look back on. In the moment to others who had no knowledge of the arrangement simply saw Tony with his friend but you knew that to your families it looked like Tony and his future fiancé, not that a proposal would even happen or was going to be needed.
It was an arranged marriage. The proposal was the contract. No romance, just lawyers with pens to use for signing and initialing.
Nineteen was what became, in your mind, the hell year. There was only one good thing in all the gloom, your graduation.
Nineteen was filled with horrors. Nineteen was the year that Tony's parents died and it was the year that you finally understood how unfeeling your own parents were. You suddenly began to grasp in full just how much of a benefit to them this marriage was meant to be.
Tony was numb. He should have felt something, anything at all. He should have wailed, cried out in pain but nothing happened. Nothing occurred. The call had come in, his parents had been found dead, a car crash he was told. He responded calmly to the questions that were asked of him, made funeral arrangements over the phone and informed the board of Stark Industries what had occurred. He'd arranged meetings with them to go over the next steps in terms of the business and what it would mean, how it would go about in press releases although the news had already picked up on the incident.
He took care of what needed to be done and then when all was over, when all business was taken care of, he called you. For a moment he was silent and then the news was whispered, it was a dagger to your heart. Howard he had never gotten along with but Maria, she had been the person he confided in often. For Tony, his mother had been practically his only parent and the only person in his life that for the longest time he felt had understood him other than you. And for you, Maria had been the only person to sympathy for your cause. She knew you felt as though it was unjust, your eventual marriage to her son and in private she apologized to you both for not trying stop it.
Words seemed useless that day, you simply sat by Tony as he grieved and you took his hand in your own. On the day of the funeral you did the same, you stood by him when he needed it and you left him alone when asked. He delivered the eulogy and looked to you for guidance in terms of where to place his grief. All you wanted in that day was to be a friend he could count on and all you wanted was for others to understand how he felt. You should have known your parents would be the exception to the rule.
Instead of offering condolences they simply reminded Tony of the contract, telling him that while his parents may be dead it didn't void the contract. It had been and still would be considered legally binding as Tony was an adult and full capable of upholding his end of the contract. Tony only nodded while you fumed and chewed out your parents later for what they had said that day.
Nineteen turned into twenty and twenty into twenty-one. The year of the wedding.
As was to be expected it was a very publicized affair. Every night there seemed to be a new segment on you and Tony. In every newspaper and magazine there was a new article. Your life was plastered everywhere and there was no privacy to be found. The wedding itself was large, planned by people you had never met and would never meet. It had been handled entirely by your family who you supposed had been planning every single detail from the moment the contract was signed.
There were people in attendance whose names you knew but had never met. There were businessmen there only to make connections, hoping that either you or Tony would be willing to listen to a pitch. There were friends who'd you both made during your years at college, friends who in secret apologized to both of you, friends who felt apologetic for something they had no control over but still felt as though they shouldn't be in attendance.
As far as parties go, it was fine. But it wasn't a party, it was a wedding and the photos you'd have of it would forever prove that the contract was upheld.
In the weeks afterwards you and Tony moved into the house (or rather mansion) gifted by your family. There were enough rooms that you and Tony agreed to move into separate areas of the house and for the most part treat this union as simply roommates rather than a married couple living together. When family was around you'd up the facade of being a married couple but you were friends and friends you would remain. A merger was formed and Stark Industries absorbed your families company, acquiring new technology and a few new business ventures. Everything seemed to be going as smoothly as it was hoped to be by those involved in the arranged marriage.
In secret you were two friends who lived together, in public you kept up the appearances of a married couple. Time may pass but to you and Tony it never wavered the nature of your relationship. You'd heard stories of people who had been in arranged marriages coming to love one another in the romantic sense yet you had only ever loved Tony in the platonic sense and he had felt the same way.
Business thrived and so did your friendship due to the closeness the two of you were forced to uphold. Days turned into weeks and weeks to years, you began to know, to identify, to anticipate every one of Tony's quirks and predictable actions. You knew when he was hiding something (which was often that he took the last cookie without telling you it was the last or something he'd planned for your birthday). You could identify each one of his moods and you wouldn't hesitate to call him out on anything.
You were at his side when he took over from Obadiah, finally the age stipulated in the will that would allow him full control of Stark Industries.
You were at his side when he attended business meetings (although you had to be present for some of them anyway as co-CEO).
You were at his side throughout thick and thin but you knew the idea that you were at his side because you were married was a lie. You were at his side as he was at yours because you were friends and that was what friends did, they supported one another. The only people aware of the act other than you and Tony were both Happy and Pepper. If anyone else knew then they never let on.
But that was what happened when you lived with him, you were made aware of everything.
When he was taken hostage in Afghanistan you were fielding calls left and right. Obadiah was trying to keep the company afloat as were you and the only people who seemed to care in regard to your own well-being were, once again, Pepper and Happy. You were grateful for them both as they seemed to be the only people with gift of the voice of reason. Even your parents didn't seem concerned and they were still under the impression that you viewed Tony more as a husband than as a friend.
Never had you liked the idea of Stark Industries manufacturing weapons, you'd always voted for removal of that sector of the company. Your main focus was on medical improvements and research. Every time you were outvoted yet you were pleased to find Tony's change of heart on his return. You were especially pleased to find that Tony still had his heart as he spoke to you about what he'd been through.
Iron Man became another shared secret for a time until Obadiah's betrayal and Tony's press conference. From then on you supported him in whatever way he needed, often coming to his aid when it came to manufacturing new suits or putting in upgrades. At one point he offered you a suit but you refused. This was his world, he was to be the hero and you would give that to him. It might be the only true thing that was his own.
Perhaps you should have spoken earlier when the woman named Natalie Rushman became Tony's personal assistant. Providing Pepper with a higher role in the company was something you encouraged but there was also something off with her replacement. Preoccupied with what was poisoning Tony's heart put investigation on the back burner but you weren't surprised when you found out that she was Natalia Romanoff, an agent of SHIELD.
You'd heard rumors regarding the organization but never had it been confirmed until a meeting with Nick Fury and Nat, as she asked you to call her after the discovery. While you were angry at her for lying at first, you recognized that she had a job to do and was only trying to do it well. Quickly she became a friend and confidant, the one person you knew would keep any secret you told her.
The discovery of Vibranium ended the fear you felt when Tony confessed what the palladium was doing to him. Ivan Vanko's death ended the fear that something was going to harm Tony. The idea of the Avengers, as presented by Fury did not end the fear even with the insistence that Tony was not ready for such a team. Of course this would end up not being Fury's choice when the time came.
You had a hard time keeping a straight face when Tony was pulled to join the Avengers later on. While the circumstances for the request were dire it still didn't help that Fury failed Tony as a candidate and was no turning to him for help. Part of your amusement also came from Nat's heads up that it was going to occur and from Phil Coulson's enthusiasm regarding the invitation being extended to one Steve Rogers, or Captain America as most knew him. Part of you felt sorry for the man who woke up in a new century and part of you was simply excited to meet him.
Tony asked you to stay in New York while he was taken to the Helicarrier. You understood and respected his concerns. What you could offer was only research which seemed unnecessary since there was to be Bruce Banner also investigating what you learned to be called the Tesseract. You received daily updates and despite knowing what was coming you stood your ground at Stark Tower helping fight the Chitauri in whatever way that you could.
Odd didn't even begin to cover how you felt after learning about the existence of other worlds. Scared didn't even begin to cover how you felt when you watched as Tony attempted to close the wormhole over New York. While you knew that you were already doing the most to help the team in whatever way that you could it never seemed to feel like enough despite reassurances from not only Tony, Nat, and Steve but from the god of thunder himself.
The Avengers became a second family to you. They were more welcoming, more understanding than your own. This was even proven evident when your parents showed disdain for your friendship with some of the team. You questioned how they could view such a friendship as lowly only to find that the opinions were held simply based on the class status of your newfound friends. It didn't matter that they saved the world it only mattered that they weren't rich. Even Thor didn't get a pass as he was a god.
You realized then what Tony had been saying for years was true. Your parents saw you as a financial gain and not as their child. It was something you'd always seen and recognized but denied because you wanted them to be your parents, you wanted them to be your family. They should be the ones who cared about you but that hadn't cared enough to provide you with freedom and they would never prove to you that who they saw you as was not someone they could respect but they'd always see you as someone they could control.
After the Battle of New York you helped Tony deal with his anxiety and PTSD as he helped you work through the trauma of your own childhood or lack thereof. The Mandarin and Killian seemed to be minor inconveniences in the long run as it was personal growth you were working on for the both of you. You worried more for Tony in those weeks and months than you did for yourself, hoping that he would find some sense of peace in anything and as he chose to remove the arc reactor and repair his heart you knew that he was slowly changing.
He was changing and it was certainly for the better but you should have known that there was to be some hiccup on the way. There never could be peace or happiness or prosperity with you and Tony, there always had to be some sort of grievance with you on behalf of the world. This grievances name happened to be Ultron.
The concept was wonderful, it was the execution that seemed to fall short. After the incident in Sokovia when innocent lives were caught in the middle of the Avengers warfare Tony wanted to step back, he wanted to give the team a break. AI's were always finicky but it was hard to imagine that Ultron would take on a mind of his own in a way that was so far removed from his purpose. Protecting the world didn't mean ridding it of all humanity.
You wondered if, due to Ultron's own existence, you'd ever become comfortable with the fact that JARVIS suddenly became a living being. It was odd seeing the AI walk around and go by a new name. This was the AI that you had talked to on late nights when you were stress baking in the kitchen, now here he was with a cape and a new name. But you didn't care as long as he did what you knew only he could do. Tony at least had created one loyal and valuable AI.
With Ultron gone, Tony returned home to the world of peace he so desperately craved. This, as was usual for Tony, would not last long. However you would always be there with him. He was your husband but you did not feel for him in the way that you presented to the media, yet this never meant that you failed to care for him or failed to be by his side. When the Sokovia Accords were introduced you were the one Tony turned to. He wanted to sign them, he knew what had happened, the killing of innocent lives, was his fault. It weighed heavy on his conscious.
Other members of the team held reservations which both you and Tony understood but you knew that if this was what Tony wanted then it was what Tony would and should do. Being held accountable meant identifying yourself as a hero and you were saddened by the rift this statement seemed to cause. Steve had been like a brother to you and you were well aware of his friendship with Bucky but even you could not excuse what had happened in Sokovia or in the UN.
It broke your heart when Tony retold what he had seen in the footage of the day his parents died.
Or were murdered.
Murdered changed everything.
It changed the way Tony viewed Steve who knew that Bucky was responsible for what had happened to Tony all those years ago. It changed how you saw Steve knowing that he could have told you or Tony at any point in time. Secrets sometimes had their benefits but you couldn't fathom that Steve would keep one so large from the both of you. You didn't question it when Tony cut contact with the super soldier.
You did however question Tony's bringing Peter Parker to Germany although you had to admit that you had underestimated the kid after he refused to become a full fledged Avenger. That was an offer you would have assumed he's jump at. The press conference set up to announce him was instead used as a way to announce some of the new research breakthroughs for the medical branch of Stark Industries.
That conference you had hoped would enter in an age of research and technology that would assist in the evolution of not only cures and treatments but more precise and efficient surgeries. Then of course Thanos had to come and ruin all of that. Then of course Thanos had to come and the medical advances had to be pushed aside for a rush of medical equipment and mass funding for hospitals. Tony approved the expansion of the Avengers medical bay to feature treatments for civilians rather than its main focus on powered individuals.
You watched him as he disappeared into the ship. You knew that this would maybe be your last chance of seeing him. Still you couldn't bring yourself to tell him what you had uncovered in your heart. You loved him, not just as a friend. You were deeply in love with Tony Stark and you had been for years now. It seemed foolish to tell him as part of you still held hope that the two of you would one day be able to be with your soulmates. Your feelings needed to be pushed aside for Tony to ever gain happiness with the person who was his soulmate.
After the Snap as it would come to be known, you hoped that Tony was still alive.
Tony hoped that he would live to see you again if you hadn't been one of the ones affected by the Snap. He wondered if he annoyed Nebula with stories of you. He really didn't have many stories where you weren't involved at all.
His arrival back on Earth shocked you, not just because of how he looked but because he was alive and not dissipated. Per his request you took him away from the compound and took him home, to whatever home you had left at that time of course. Retreating to New York in the country for the next five years allowed for you and Tony to recover, it allowed for Tony to be at peace.
Five years you had together, five years in which you could hav told him how you felt but five years you never said a word to him about your feelings about the fact that you truly did love him not just platonically but romantically as well.
Reckless, it wasn't new for Tony. He'd always been reckless, always been the person who would put himself first, put himself before everyone. This time was no different.
Five years. It should have been enough time and somehow it wasn't. Somehow you couldn't bring yourself to say the words that would change everything with Tony Stark. There was guilt lingering inside you for what if after telling him the truth you found your own soulmate or Tony had found his. You couldn't take fate away from him whether he would have chosen to advance in finding his true soulmate or not.
You journeyed with him to Wakanda for the final battle. While they gathered the stones you had kept away from the Avengers but something told you that you needed to be there. There was no fighting, Tony simply agreed although deep in his heart he hoped you would change your mind. He had seen danger, fought danger, for years and while he knew you were going to stay behind and work as a medic for the wounded he was worried for your safety.
Only when the sky turned to ash did you know the battle was over. Only when Tony was brought it to the medics did you know what he had risked. His arm was damaged far beyond repair even for what Wakandan tech could do. You were no surgeon and while it pained you to relinquish Tony over to others you allowed for them to operate knowing that a prosthetic was something he could learn to live with.
The procedure itself took a few hours, enough time for you to be caught up on what had occurred. You mourned losses, needing to process what you had heard and what you had seen, uncovering the connection between both.
As soon as Tony was awake you were permitted to see him. Your heart ached as you saw him lying their in a hospital bed, bruised but no longer bloody. The loss of his arm didn't bother you but the look on his face that showed he blamed himself for the lost lives did. Whatever it took you would fight to remove that guilt from his mind, he saved more people than he could have ever known and more people than would ever be aware that their lives were saved by him.
He looked toward you as you walked to the chair next to his bed. Sitting you took his hand in yours and waited to see if he would speak. He didn't and you knew instinctively that he wanted a quiet moment, he wanted time to reflect. You would not deprive him of that even though you wanted desperately to use this moment as a way of telling him the truth, as a confession and a way of convincing him that he was the hero he sometimes denied himself to be.
Leaning forward a little he moved to push himself back but his back was bare before you as he had been dressed in a gown after the surgery. You had never meant to look upon it, never meant to break the pact that had been initiated long ago and still, there it was. Located directly between his shoulder blades was his soulmark. Quickly you released his hand stumbling back, nearly knocking over the chair you had been sitting in, running out of the room as Tony apologized, realizing what you must have seen.
You sped past the team in the hallways rushing past Clint who reached for your arm to stop you but you broke free of his grip, turning down a hallway and leaning against a wall to catch your breath and focus. Clint came to stand before you, asking if you were all right.
"I've been a fool. All this time I've been a fool, I could've said something, said I changed my mind. I should have sensed it, don't people sense it Clint?" You asked.
He was confused, "Sense what?"
Staring him in the eye you spoke, "Tony is my soulmate."
Like Natasha, Clint had been aware of the fact that the marriage between you and Tony had been arranged. He was also aware that you and Tony had never seen one another soulmmarks which led him to be skeptical of your statement even though the look on your face told him everything you spoke was indeed true.
"I saw it Clint. It was an accident but there it was. The same mark. All this time, after everything we've been through, after all the years I've loved him I've wasted so much time thinking that I was keeping him and myself from being happy with our soulmates when he was mine. I have to leave."
"What? No. You can't go"
"Tell Tony I'm sorry and I wish I could stay and I hope that he'll forgive me but I do Clint. I need to go, there's something I have to do"
When you landed in New York the first person you called was Pepper. If there was anyone who could help you put together what was needed it was her. Friends you contacted were readily willing to help and you texted Clint to give him the full rundown of your plan so that he could inform you of when Tony might be coming home. You knew it would be normally four to five weeks but Wakanda had medical advances that you had only dreamed of and at three weeks of recovery Tony was given the all clear to return home.
You'd made sure that Clint directed Tony to the cabin that you had chosen to live in during the five years after the Snap. Now that everything was returned to somewhat normal you knew a conversation about returning to the Compound was in your future but you were steadily preparing for one specific day. The knots coiling and uncoiling in your stomach made it seem to you as though you had made the worst decision potentially springing this on Tony although you knew if he had discovered what you had this would also be his approach.
SHIELD agents, Avengers, and other friends you had made were all invited and entrusted to keep quiet until you arrived with Tony. Having been alerted to his arrival to the house you stood on the front porch to greet him. The stare he gave you wasn't filled with joy or anger, it was indifference and you only hoped that what you were about to tell him would change everything. Clint walked up to you first and you whispered to him the location of his suit that he could change into. Tony remained standing before the steps.
"I had to Tony. In a second you might come to understand."
"You saw my mark, that's why you ran. We could have worked through that, we could have adjusted the pact or we could have found a way to make you forget it or we could have done something but you left me in Wakanda."
"Tony Stark. I've been in love with you since before Iron Man existed. I never saw anything because I thought that maybe one day there might come a time in which either you or I would meet our soulmates and my feelings were only going to keep you from moving forward with whoever that might have been. I didn't run because I saw your mark Tony. I ran because after I saw it I knew that I had to do something."
"The being in love with me part makes sense. Not that I knew just that it's the only statement that makes sense in what you just said. But if you didn't run because you saw the mark then why didn't you stay? What was so important that you had to leave?"
You laughed a bit, knowing what you were about to say was absurd and would lead to no clarification just yet, "I had to plan a wedding."
"A wedding. You left me in a hospital in Wakanda after I had an arm amputated because you had to plan a wedding."
"Yes, Tony. Although I don't know if you can call what I planned a wedding. It's more of a vow renewal. Most soulmates get the wedding they want when they meet and decide to get married. Because of arranged marriages, we never got that. We never got a real wedding or the one we might have planned."
"What do you mean we."
Rather than give Tony the full explanation you lifted your sleeve to expose the bandage covering your mark. Gripping it you began to unravel the bandage leaving the mark fully exposed for the first time since your thirteenth birthday. Tony was stunned at what was upon your skin.
"All this time Tony. All this time and it was you."
Walking slowly towards you and up the steps he never said a word only reaching out and touching the mark as he was close enough. He traced over each line knowing that it was indeed the same mark he bore.
"We really have been fools haven't we?" He questioned, causing you to look into his eyes.
"We have."
"I've loved your for as long as I can remember and all this time I could have told you that. All this time instead of feeling apologetic that you were stuck in a marriage to someone who wasn't your soulmate I was wrong. I could have been holding you and caring for you and I could have been telling you I loved you for longer than just this moment. I could have been kissing you, you could have been mine in every possible way but I never said anything."
"Neither did I Tony. Neither of us knew. We're both fools here."
He smiled as he reflected upon your words about the vow renewal, "You planned our entire wedding in a month?"
"Pepper helped and a few friends offered there businesses to take of catering and everything else."
Tony kissed you softly and then pulled away to look at you once more, "I suppose we ought to get married then. In love and as soulmates this time."
You nodded and you led him out to the dock to where the ceremony was to take place.
In your life you had been bound to Tony Stark in three ways, by marriage contract at first, by marriage itself second, and unknowingly your whole life as soulmates.
Soul to soul you were bound.
