copperbadge:

tehnakki:

theappleppielifestyle:

musicalluna:

theappleppielifestyle:

Tony is forty-three, tired, in a business meeting and bored out of his mind when a voice vertebrates through his head, panic and shock griefgriefgrief bleeding through: I had a date.

Tony jerks in his chair, making nearly all the businessmen stop talking and look over at him. 

I- hello? hello, the voice continues, sounding even more panicked now, which probably isn’t helped by Tony’s constant stream of ohshitohshitfuckfuckfuck.

“I have a thing, sorry,” Tony says, getting up and accidentally catching his hip on the edge of the table. He assumes he looks godawful, since Pepper actually stays when he says not to follow him.

Walking through the hall on shaky legs, Tony tries to calm his breathing. Seriously, what the fuck.

No offence, but where the hell have you been for the past 43 years, Tony sends, trying to get a hang on how this works, trying not to let any stray thoughts seep through the link, because he guesses blind panic isn’t what this guy needs right now.

What he gets back is grief, an overwhelming flood of it that makes Tony have to stop and lean against the elevator wall. Grief and shock and disbelief and the beginnings of anger, all mingling and getting shot through the link at Tony.

I’ve been, the voice says in Tony’s head. I. I’ve been away, I guess.

For how long, Tony sends. And you sound younger than me but you’re definitely not a baby, what with the talking thing, I thought this got activated when your soulmate is born, none of this is making sense, today is awful.

Whatever kind of day you’re having, believe me, I’m having a worse one, the voice sends back darkly. 

I do, Tony sends. Believe you. He’s still reeling from his borrowed grief, sagging against the elevator wall. What happened?

Another flood, unstoppable, and Tony’s head aches with it. Okay, okay, how about you explain it to me in person? Wherever you are, I can get a jet there.

You can get a jet, the voice says, dubious. I’m, uh, I’m in Brooklyn right now, but I’m being transported.

I’m in Manhattan, Tony sends, excitement brimming in him despite himself. Wherever you’re being transported to, I can get there. Do you know?

Back to SHIELD HQ, the voice sends, and Tony pauses as the elevator doors swish open. 

Would’ve pegged you for a soldier, the way you think, Tony sends, and he gets a laugh, quite bitter, in return.

I am. Or, I was. 

SHIELD doesn’t have soldiers.

That’s news to me, the voice sends, and Tony nods at Happy as he gets in the car, says, “SHIELD Headquarters,” and ignores the funny look Happy gives him.

What’s your name, Tony sends, and there’s a pause before the voice says, Steve.

–

It’s not until he sees him, until Fury introduces them with a deadpan voice and Tony realizes why the voice in his head, his soulmate, sounded so familiar, and how someone younger than him could have been away for 43 years-

“Oh,” Tony says, staring at Captain America, who stares back at him with wide eyes and the beginnings of a smile that can’t quite make it yet.

In Tony’s head, Steve says, Tony… Stark. Huh. Not a coincidence, then.

Tony bristles, inwardly and outwardly, and Steve’s smile dies completely. 

Right, Steve says in his head, and Tony doesn’t know what he just broadcast to him through his mind or otherwise, but he assumes that Steve now knows Howard was never Father of the Year.

“Well, it’s nice to meet you,” Steve says, standing and holding out his hand, and Tony startles a little at hearing his voice aloud.

It takes a second for Tony to remember to hold out his own hand, and they don’t really get to shake hands, they pretty much just stand there holding hands as the bond solidifies and Tony can pretty much feel most of Steve’s mind, which isn’t a very good place to be at the moment.

“Sorry,” Steve says, trying to smile and failing, dropping Tony’s hand after he squeezes it. “I know I’m not-”

“Hey, you’re sort of entitled to be a complete fucking mess right now,” Tony points out, and beside them, Fury swears loudly.

They both look at him, and Fury glares back. “If you just did what I think you did-“

“Sorry not sorry,” Tony says, and Fury swears again.

omg i feel like this is a jerk thing to do, THIS FIC IS DELIGHTFUL OK, but i just—i read this prompt differently and I COULDN’T HELP IT??

—

Tony’s internal voice doesn’t sound like him.

His voice is all edges and sharpness, hard-hit consonants. His enunciation is very precise. He knows because he spent the first decade of his life being taught how to speak clearly and confidently.

The voice in his head is different. Deeper. It’s easy, almost drawling—which Tony has tried his damndest to fix, it is insanely difficult to learn proper diction when the voice in your head refuses to match it—and has this hint of a Brooklyn accent that Tony finds mystifying.

It’s not until he’s fifteen that he learns it’s not normal for one’s inner voice to sound different from one’s outer voice.

He’s fifteen when he learns that the voice in his head is the voice of his soulmate.

–

Twenty comes and goes and Tony figures he’s still got time for that soulmate to show up, he’s young, and there are plenty of other pretty people to keep him occupied in the mean time.

He’s less optimistic when his thirtieth birthday rolls by and there’s still no sign of his supposed soulmate. He’s still enjoying spreading himself around and seeing what’s out there, but there’s a part of him he tries to shunt to the back of his mind that aches at the sound of his own thoughts.

By forty, Tony’s given up entirely. He’s read everything there is to read about soulmates and apparently it’s possible to go through life without ever meeting yours. Some people hear a voice in their heads that never comes to fruition because the person kicks it as a kid or whatever. That voice in that person’s head is all that remains of them. Tony had been skeptical about those anecdotes, because how the hell do you know your soulmate’s dead if you never meet them? But there have been a couple cases where somebody heard a recording and recognized the voice instantly only to discover the horrible truth. It doesn’t take much when you’ve heard something your entire life.

So Tony guesses his soulmate died somewhere along the way. That’s fine. He’s done pretty well for himself, considering, if you discount a few major missteps along the way. No one has to know about the way his chest burns when he sees other ‘mated couples.

He’s got a reputation to uphold anyhow.

–

When he’s forty-two, Tony gets a call from Agent, and the only thing he says is: “We’ve got someone we’d like you to show around.”

Tony bitches and moans and shows up twenty minutes late, but he shows up, because Agent is good people.

He tips his sunglasses down so he can look over the rims at him, one hand fiddling with the nuts and bolts he’s got in his pocket—he’s not sure how they got there in the first place. “So?” he says. “Who’s the special gal or guy S.H.I.E.L.D. is going to pay my very, very pricey hourly consultant fee to escort around? Does this mean you’re dabbling in prostitution? I’ve never been a prostitute, this could be fun.”

“You are not under any circumstances to do anything that might be considered prostitution,” Agent says sternly and Tony grins at him. He beckons Tony forward with a crooked finger and leads him through a door in to a drab gray lounge. Everything at S.H.I.E.L.D. is drab and gray. “Captain Rogers?” he calls.

A tall blond man with eyes the color of the California sky and broad, broad shoulders, Mary mother of God, steps through a doorway in the opposite wall and Tony says, without meaning to, “Hel-lo.”

The man’s features widen and slacken in a boyish expression of shock. He touches his temple and takes half a step forward. “You—that’s what it sounds like.”

Tony processes the words first and replies, “That’s what what sounds like?” and then hears it and his jaw drops. “Oh my god.”

“What’s happening?” Agent says, wary.

“You’re my soulmate,” Tony blurts.

“Oh no,” Agent says.

“I thought you were dead.”

Rogers blinks, something like wonder on his face. “I kind of was.” He tilts his head forward just a hair and smiles crookedly, shyly. “Soulmates; is that what they’re calling it now?”

“Now,” Tony repeats and then everything comes together all at once. Captain Rogers, tall, blond, and broad, S.H.I.E.L.D., now, holy shit, his soulmate is Captain Goddamn America. “You’ve gotta be shitting me.”

“I’ve got to report this to Fury,” Agent sighs. Tony’s barely aware of him exiting the room.

Forty years he had to wait, because his soulmate is CAPTAIN FRICKING AMERICA and he was frozen in some godforsaken iceberg in Antarctica. Although, he supposes it’s good the guy wasn’t defrosted when he was like, a toddler or something, when his half-crazed dad had been hoofing it around every summer looking for him, because that would be weird, and gross, and weird, and Jesus, he’s somehow simultaneously cradle robber and cradle robee in this scenario.

“Um,” Rogers says, and scratches at his forehead, a little crease forming between his eyebrows. “No?” His shoulders start to hunch like he’s trying to make himself smaller and it’s adorable and Tony wants it to stop.

“You sure took your sweet time. Any longer and this,” he gestures between them, “would be way creepy.”

Rogers looks at him with wide eyes for a second and then starts to smile and it’s the sweetest thing Tony’s ever seen. “I’m sorry for making you wait,” he says sincerely. “This isn’t where I expected to find you.”

Tony lets out a burst of surprised laughter. “Not in your wildest dreams.”

He shakes his head. “Not even.”

Rogers closes the distance between them then and Tony feels the prickle of excitement along every nerve. He can’t believe how much better the voice sounds in reality, how perfect every intonation is. He can’t believe he’d given up. “Hi,” Rogers says, face schooled into a serious expression, and holds out a hand. “Steve Rogers. It’s nice to meet you.”

Tony can’t help the stupid grin that spreads across his face as he reaches out and takes it. “Tony Stark. It’s a pleasure.”

“It sure is,” Steve murmurs and squeezes his hand.

—

PLEASE FORGIVE ME FOR HIJACKING THIS theappleppielifestyle D:

omg this is adorable

I DEMAND ANOTHER! *throws post on the floor*

Nakki you are an awful person and you bait me constantly. 😛

Here’s a third take:

***

“Oh fuck,” Tony says, right before the bomb goes off, and he wakes up to Steve saying “Oh fuck” in his ear.

“You got that right,” he says, sitting up. Steve, who is standing a weird distance away considering he was just whispering in Tony’s ear, looks startled as he turns to him.

“What right?” he asks, and then the voice in Tony’s ear — no, in his head, oh shit, says, Oh God, what if he’s concussed? Why won’t he pad his goddamn helmet?

The guy who set them up the bomb was ranting right before it detonated about how he would bring all of Manhattan together. Tony has a really bad feeling about this.

“Me too,” Steve says aloud, and then looks confused. 

Tony gives it a shot. I think we’re telepathically linked, he tries.

Steve stares at him, eyes wide.

Oh, FUCK, they think in unison.

*

*

*

I WROTE A THING. Since everybody tackling this prompt seems to be in fashion. And because I’m me, I totally subverted it.

Pygmalion’s Folly

(Sam’s fic below, I just had to put my coding here or it got hid by the cut.)

*

*

*

***

Tony doesn’t know whether the guy who telepathy-bombed them intended for this level of chaos. Hulk stomped him right after the detonation and he’s now in a coma, so he can’t explain his goals.

The city, meanwhile, is a mess.

Every single person in Manhattan now has another voice in their head. And that is causing a lot of freaking out. SHIELD, too, is freaking out, because they have no idea how to handle this. The Avengers, to an extent, are freaking out; Tony and Steve are doing okay, but Bruce has some woman in his head who is yelling at him a lot about hiding from her, and the depth and breadth of Thor’s memories are unsettling Jane. Clint and Natasha and Phil are in a three-way bond which would probably be awesome if all three of them didn’t have super-dark pasts that now all three of them are aware of. Sam has some lady in his head he’s never met, which is justifiably wigging him out. 

And it’s horrible for nearly everyone because the first thing you think about, of course, when you find out someone else is in your head, is: oh shit do they know about [insert horrible thing I have seen/done/thought here]?

The weirdest part about it is that, okay, Manhattan has a daytime population of about three million people. All of them now have a voice in their head. But there are also — well, later, the SHIELD numbers will show about 2.8 million people outside of Manhattan, all over the world, also had a voice in their head. The voice of someone in Manhattan. 

Someone needs to figure out what happened and how to reverse it, on both the biological and the engineering sides, but someone also has to keep riots from breaking out in Manhattan, and make sure city services stay operational.

I should be out there with you, Tony thinks to Steve, as he works on what’s left of the bomb. He dragged it to a nearby garage and set up a makeshift workshop, but any damn engineer could do this, and the city needs Iron Man.

We’re doing fine, Tony, Steve says. He’s across town, helping mobilize the police, at least the officers that are managing to function with someone else in their head. He’s already had to break up a fight when one officer found out his wife was in another officer’s head.  

His words are reassuring, but Tony can feel the undercurrent of longing, of wish-you-were-here, and also the resolute way in which Steve is ignoring that. They are both ignoring the immediate discovery that Steve has a schoolboy crush on Tony and the only reason Tony hasn’t jumped his bones in the last six months is that he was worried it would ruin one of the best friendships of his life. 

I really need you to fix this, Steve adds. No pressure. I know you can do it.

Yeah thanks, no pressure, Tony replies. When this is over, can I buy you dinner?

Not right now, Steve sends, less stern than desperate. 

“Tony,” Bruce says over the speakerphone. He’s at a nearby hospital, having commandeered a lab to work on the biological aspect of this. Tony somewhat wishes he’d had Bruce in his head instead. Bruce sounds stressed.

“How you doing, big guy?” Tony asks.

“Well, Betty stopped yelling,” Bruce says. “My head is killing me.”

“From the yelling?”

“From the ignoring.”

“Bruce, you gotta talk to her sometime. I mean, she’s in your head, now you’re just being a jackass about this.”

“She knows,” Bruce sighs. “And so do I.”

“Okay, well, I’m not going to pile it on. What’ve you got?”

“Zip. We’re dealing with unusual parts of the brain lighting up. I’ve got four MRIs going, but I’m getting nowhere. It’s a totally new science. I am literally the leading expert in a branch of medicine that did not exist two hours ago." 

"How can I help?”

“Keep working on the bomb, I guess. I just needed confirmation I’m not crazy.”

“You’re a little crazy. You need to talk to her." 

"I thought you weren’t going to pile it on?”

“Yeah, I lied,” Tony says. A spark shoots out of the remains of the bomb, and he jerks back. 

“Careful,” says a voice. Tony glances to the side. Super-dramatically, a man about his age, with grey hair at the temples, steps out from the shadows.

“If you are an alternate universe me, I really don’t have time to kill you right now,” Tony says. The man smiles.

“My name is Stephen Strange,” he replies. “I understand you’re the man to speak to about the voices in everyone’s heads." 

"Yeah? Who’ve you got in yours?”

“No one,” Strange replies serenely. “I was shielded. Who is in yours?”

“Captain America, for my sins,” Tony says.

I heard that, Steve says, not without amusement. 

“How very interesting,” Strange observes. “You’re a lucky man, Mr. Stark.”

“Yeah, doesn’t really feel that way right now,” Tony says, gesturing at the chaos outside.

“Oh, they’re lucky too, they just don’t know it yet. I can help you reverse the effects. If I may?” Strange rests a hand on the workbench and Tony figures, why not, so he steps aside.

“Do you know what the bomb was?” he asks, as Strange presses both hands to the bench. The parts laid out around them begin to glow, and then to hover.

Tony? Steve asks, because Tony’s frantic internal screaming is probably upsetting him.  

If I die of strange glowing magical lights, you can have all my cars, Tony tells him.

“It’s a wide-spectrum magical broadcast bomb,” Strange says. 

“We have magic now?” Tony demands, voice rising an octave.

“Well, we’ve always had it,” Strange says. “And apparently some of us have badly misused it. Ah, here we are.”

The pieces are starting to coalesce, and Tony forgets to be really terrified in his fascination over how they’re coming together. 

"He was, genuinely, trying to help. He’s just very terrible at helping,” Strange continues. “Did you know that each person on this Earth has a soulmate?”

“Bullshit,” Tony says automatically.

“Well, that’s a very simple way of putting it, so I don’t blame you for refuting the idea. The rules are complicated, and subject to influence. But in essence, we share a link with all other people, and there is one person for whom that link is strongest. A soulmate, give or take a few degrees of semantics." 

Tony is having trouble breathing, but there’s a warm flood of affection and happiness from Steve. In fact that might be why he’s having trouble breathing, because Steve’s reaction to the information being relayed to him through Tony’s frantic thoughts is overwhelming. Tony is suddenly the one place another whole human being belongs and that’s so much pressure on someone who has, traditionally, fucked up relationships with other people. 

It’s okay, Steve sends, like a thick blanket on a cold day. You won’t mess up with me. Because we’re soulmates.

Stuff it, Tony tries, but his heart’s not in it. 

"Here you are,” Strange says, offering him the newly-reassembled bomb. “You’ll need to plug it into the broadcast antenna on Stark Tower to get the proper spread, but this should dampen the links back down to normal level." 

"Who are you?” Tony asks. 

Strange grins. “You should come see me, sometime. After the honeymoon,” he adds, and presses a thick card into Tony’s palm.

Dr. Stephen Strange
Master of the Mystical Arts
Freelance Consultant
Sliding Fee Scale & Validated Parking

***

Tony finds himself alone in the penthouse that evening, which in a city full of people who have suddenly found the person (or people) they’re meant to be with is a little sad.

Ten minutes after he set off the reverse-bomb, Rhodey landed on the balcony of Pepper’s office and now they’re on their way to France or some damn thing. Tony personally escorted Betty to Bruce, and there haven’t been any Hulk-related incidents so that probably went okay. Clint, Natasha, and Agent are curled up together in Natasha’s apartment, Thor and Jane are asleep at Jane’s place, and Sam’s off meeting his mystery lady, who sounds nice (Sam texted that she’s a Marine). 

Steve, last Tony checked, was still pulling shifts with the police, because (unsurprisingly ) blanking out the voices did not solve everyone’s problems. Gonna be a lot of fighting and fucking in Manhattan tonight, he thinks, pleased that it stays in the privacy of his own head as he stands at one of the tall Stark Tower glass walls and looks out on the city. 

It’s probably best Steve will be out late tonight, maybe into tomorrow morning. Tony doesn’t believe in soulmates and while he would have been okay with acknowledging that they’re attracted to each other, the weight of that burden (even if he doesn’t believe in it) is pretty heavy. Better to ignore that it ever happened. 

Which is, of course, when Steve clears his throat from the doorway. “I’m home,” he announces, unnecessarily.

Tony turns, leaning back against the wall. Steve is not merely home; Steve clearly came home, showered, shaved, and combed his hair. He smells like aftershave and toothpaste. He’s wearing nice clothes, clothes Tony talked him into getting tailored. 

"I’d like to take you up on dinner,” Steve says, fidgeting nervously. 

“I don’t know if that was a smart offer to make,” Tony answers. 

“Are you rescinding?” Steve asks. “That’s rude.”

“Steve, I just don’t — ”

You do, you’re just scared, he hears in his head. Tony looks at him, wide-eyed. Steve steps forward, not quite meeting his eyes. 

“I got a visit too. Strange said it might take longer to wear off on me, because of the Serum,” Steve says aloud. 

“So you’ve been reading my thoughts all afternoon.”

“Yup,” Steve says. He’s still moving forward and Tony has glass at his back, nowhere to go.

“That’s a dick move, Steve,” he says.  

“Probably. So is rescinding a dinner offer.”

“Will you shut up about the dinner — ” Tony starts, but Steve kisses him and it’s hot and sharp and fireworks go off in his head, which he’s pretty sure aren’t his own. 

And for just a second he has this impression of what could be: a lifetime with someone, the kind of utter trust that only builds with years of experience, the knowledge that whatever he does, whatever happens, at least one person will always be there. Steve has already seen the inside of his head and if that didn’t run him off, literally nothing else will. 

“Marry me,” he blurts, when Steve leans away.

After dinner, Steve insists. 

I WROTE A THING. Since everybody tackling this prompt seems to be in fashion. And because I’m me, I totally subverted it.

Pygmalion’s Folly