Chapter Text
Clenching onto your possessions is nothing more than a reflex from the years of living in New York city. Pickpockets and everyday crooks snatch possessions regardless of the time of day. Though it is no doubt that evil grows denser as the moon rises. With summer approaching, the sun stays out longer; but nine in the evening is still rather late and so by the time you got off work, you were walking alone in the dark. You are no stranger to this predicament and know what alleys to avoid, shortcuts to take. Majority of these commutes back to your studio go without a hitch, tonight is no different. Apart from the ever-insistent feeling of those eyes watching your every move, nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary.
Stepping into the complex you made the final stretch to your studio but taper when seeing another one of your neighbors seated on the ground with her head buried in her hands and a shake in her shoulders. You can hear the screaming and crying coming from the other side of the wall she leans on.
Hesitant about poking your nose where it doesn’t belong, you quietly lean on the wall she’s up against and slowly slide down to sit next to her. Her shoulders go ridged once realizing someone is sitting beside her, but from this close proximity you can hear the shallow sniffs from within her caging arms.
“Bridgett?” Voice like butter and smooth to the touch, you notice her visibly relax when recognizing your voice. “How are you holding up?”
Bridgett Davis, 32 years old and a mother to a five-month-old baby boy. She didn’t want kids, but accidents happened and now she has one. After realizing that she was pregnant she tried to find the father, but he disappeared before even realizing that Bridgett was pregnant in the first place. In the eight months she carried Rody Bridgett managed to get fired from her job and hasn’t been able to get one since. With Rody being premature he required more medical care and wasn’t able to be brought home until three weeks after birth. The doctors and nurses were expecting a longer stay, so when the baby boy was doing better than they anticipated, they praised Bridgett for giving birth to such a strong fighter. However, postpartum depression has really been hitting her and it’s not necessarily uncommon to find her in the hallway.
Answering your question she shook her head in a feeble attempt at saying ‘not good.’ Having never had kids of your own, you can’t even try to understand what she’s going through and therefore can only provide support.
“Am, Am I a bad mother?” Bridgett sobs.
Immediately your eyes widen and go to comfort her, “No, no. You’re just stressed. You’re doing your best and that’s what’s important.”
Lightly rubbing her back, the two of you sit in the hallway for some time before she lifts her head and wipes the tears off her face. Her brown eyes are bloodshot, and cheeks rosy red. Bridgett’s eyes look at the wall parallel to the two of you, but obviously her mind is somewhere else.
Taking a deep breath she whispers, “I don’t know what to do. He’s just so, so much. I don’t think I can handle him.”
Not knowing what to say, you choose to keep quiet, letting her vent.
“Just today I looked at him, but he didn’t look like my baby, it was like I forgot what my sweet boy looked like,” she continues. “How does someone just forget a face?”
There is little you think you can do in this situation, so you offer something that you’re not entirely sure you can fulfill.
“Would you like a break? I could, well, y’know. Look after him for a few hours after work or something?” You suggest.
Tilting her head to look at you she responds, “I can’t accept that.”
“You don’t have to. I could just take him, and you can act like it was a surprise,” you offer a reassuring smile.
Scanning your face for any deception or hesitance, she soon succumbs to the idea and provides a nod. “Would tomorrow work? When do you get off?”
For the next few minutes the two of you lay out a plan of action for tomorrow’s endeavors. You’ll pick up Rody after work around 5:30 and the two of your will spend some time together—maybe going out for a walk (assuming your feet aren’t killing you) or play with some rattles. Bridgett said she’ll put together a bag for everything Rody might need, which will be picked up at the same time as Rody. You’ll babysit him for about five hours (which isn’t a lot but all you can offer) then give him back.
You can handle this. You’re doing your over-stressed neighbor a favor for the sake of her sanity. And who knows, maybe some good karma will come your way.
Waking up the next morning wasn’t nearly as terrible as normal. However, waking up before your alarm is a bit irritating. Nevertheless, this provides you with ample time to formulate a plan. Initially you had set your alarm 30 minutes earlier than usual to give you time to decided what your “rules” for Stark were going to be. But since you woke up another ten minutes before your alarm, now you have 40 minutes to get your shit together.
The overarching goal is to get him to be uninterested in you. Since meeting him the second time you have come up with three ways to get rid of him and another reason that appeared naturally. The first course of action is to be generally unpleasant to be around. Although you don’t think your personality is necessarily appalling, it certainly wouldn’t hurt to highlight some of your more . . . interesting qualities. The second section is similar to the first in which you then showcase your questionable personal traits. Like your unique hobbies, bland social life, and rude demeanor (granted, you don’t consider yourself rude, but for Stark you might as well be an ass). However, the final ploy you had in store has unfortunately already failed for the most part—to be stubborn. You didn’t realize that your soulmate was going to be just as irking as you, so there’s no point trying any harder than you already are when knowing he’s able to counter. As for the naturally occurring attribute to get rid of him . . . it is in the process of falling apart. You didn’t realize you looked older than you are and that he didn’t bother looking into you. So, if you constantly remind him of the age gap between the two of you, maybe he can be “smoked” out (embarrassed) and decide to break everything off. This will prove to be difficult in time, however, because he seems to have already accepted the age gap. And again, you don’t mind older guys, but nearly a 20 year gap is absurd, so maybe emphasizing the distaste would work in your favor.
Now with the game plan in motion, it’s time to create some rules to that very same game. Which is a bit more difficult than one might imagine. It’s easy to know what one wants, but to know what one doesn’t want is a different can of worms.
After a moment of staring intently at the ceiling an idea came to you. Physical touch. You don’t want physical touch. This is because if he’s so inclined to—damn it, you’re going to need a pen and paper to write this all down.
Getting up from your warm make-shift bed, you search around and find a pencil along with a discarded envelope that originally carried your water bill. Then you get back into bed in hopes of feeling the same warmth only to be met with a cold mattress.
Sighing defeatedly, you sit up and wrap yourself in the few blankets you have then begin to write. Alright, now where were you . . . right. Physical touch.
He’s keen on getting to know you, and the only way he’s realized that is happening is by becoming friends. Obviously, there is an ulterior motive because this is Tony Stark. So, the best way to thwart his efforts is to apply the unspoken rules of being friends onto the relationship. Which means no touchy-touchy. Friends don’t typically cuddle, and they certainly don’t kiss. Sometimes they will hug, but he doesn’t need to know what you mean by “no physical touch.” If anything, the initial interpretation would be no touching at all. So, as long as he interprets it as that and not as “nothing that is too weird between friends” then you’ll be fine.
With the first point comes the second that is building off of the first: “No woo-ing.” Friends don’t try to court each other unless they never intended to be just friends in the first place (which now that you think about it, this second rule might not be on stable ground). It’s a known fact that friends don’t let friends bring home ugly men, and although Stark is by no means ugly, he, as a friend, will not be allowed over to your apartment for so many reasons that you could probably feel yourself burn calories just by thinking about it. Although you know this will not stop him from trying to make advances at you, it will however, provide you with a little leverage if the need comes.
The third point took a couple minutes of you rolling it over in your head. It’s definitely going to be a little hard on the both of you, but you think it’s necessary. “No bringing up soul-related affairs” is the third rule. This includes things like fate and the marks the two of you have. Not discussing things like that will probably be more of a pain in the ass for you, but it feeds into your delusion that the two of you can’t possibly be soulmates. However, this guideline does come with an essential advantage. If nothing about soulmates can be discussed, then the two of you are forced to converse in a way that puts friendship on trial. Simply going out with the hope of becoming friends doesn’t mean there will be a connection worth pursuing. Pursuing something that holds no ground or commonalities is a toxic connection and cannot be entertained. No friendship means no contact, which means no soulmate, which then results in your peace of mind.
At last, the final rule. Something so important that if at any point it is threatened, you will high tail out of the country by any means necessary.
The Public Eye.
There are three things in life that terrify you: hurting those around you, opening your heart to the one person you truly hate, and being scrutinized at every corner. You are not one to confine to the whispers behind your back, it honestly doesn’t bother you. However, if everyone is saying the same thing, it is bound to be true.
Merely entertaining the thought of your every movement being watched by the press is enough to get your heart to start thumping louder. You’re not entirely sure what you’ll do if the day ever comes when the public gaze turns to you due to your affiliation with the richest man in the world—although you know with an absolute burden of truth that if that time comes, you will do everything in your power to get as far away from Stark as possible. Even if leaving the country is the only answer.
And there it is, your terms and guidelines for how the arrangement will work along with some possible ways of getting rid of him. All that’s left is texting the rules to Stark before you go to work.
Glancing at your alarm, you take note that there was still ten minutes before you needed to begin your morning routine. Reaching over onto the ground, you unplug your flip phone from the charger and mentally prepare yourself for the torture that is texting on a small device. The smart thing to do would be to take a picture of the notes you have been jotting down and send them, but unfortunately something is wrong with your phone camera, and it only shows a black screen. Which then leads you to cursing at the small letter/number keys and thinking back to his phone. It was easy to enter your information in with his phone, all the buttons were in the scream, somehow.
Grumbling to yourself you sent the message and glancing at the one he initially sent you.
You know who I am, the screen read.
His contact’s name was just a reflection of the jumble of numbers tied to his phone, and although you wanted to keep him as far away and detached as possible, you couldn’t help yourself when given the opportunity to give him a name.
So, after fumbling with the keys again you gave him a name that brought a satisfied smile to your face: Homewrecker.
Quite fitting all things considered, even if not in the affair sense, he still ruined a family. Your family.
Your phone buzzed just as you hit save for the new nickname.
Although it was rather early in the morning (almost 7:30 to be precise), it would seem this “friend” of yours was something like that of an early bird.
His response was right below your text, and it read: Is there room for negotiation?
For the second time that morning, your heart got louder—except this time in excitement. Maybe all this can be swept under the carpet a lot quicker than you anticipated.
As a response you decided to give something that could be written off as false hope: For what term in particular?
All of them, was his quick reply.
Your smile widened with malicious intent, No.
The instantaneous response you expected was more drawn out compared to his previous texts. Maybe you scared him off, pushed him into conditions he couldn’t comply with.
What is the penalty for breaking a rule? Read the text that eventually came in.
Your response was coordinated and tilted in your favor knowing no excuse he had could even be good enough: Failure to comply results in the termination of this friendship without a proper excuse.
Another moment of hesitance at his end then the phone buzzed again, and his response was not what you expected: I’ll have to take this up with my attorney.
What?
A million thoughts went through your head. Was he joking? Is this a joke? Is he just messing around with you? Is he serious? Your brain runs through a variety of ways to ask the same thing.
You don’t have money to talk to an attorney. You don’t have money period. This is not going how you wanting it to go, but then again, you didn’t exactly plan for this conversation to happen. Really you just assumed he’d be compliant considering he’s the only one really trying to pursue a relationship. But now you think you should’ve been more insistent at rejecting him if this was the outcome. This man is going to make you so financially dependent you won’t have a choice in the matter!
Actually, no. Screw that. Over your dead body, if he thinks for one second that you’ll lean on him for support, he is naïve. You’d rather be homeless than—.
The phone buzzed again and apparently your lack of a reply was enough for him to figure out what was going through your mind.
I was making a joke.
Any worry that you felt washed away like warm water flowing down your skin at the new information—which was then promptly replaced with anger.
I hate you, was your reply. The statement was more truthful than he most likely would believe, but he doesn’t need to know why.
As your phone chimed you didn’t bother to look at his response because it was time to get ready.
Halfway through your morning routine you heard another notification ping. Much like the last one, you ignored it for the sake of making it to work on time.
It wasn’t until your lunch break at noon did you finally have a moment to look back at your device. This shift was going by fast, but it was rather busy all things considered. Nothing you and your coworker couldn’t handle, of course, just a little out of pace from the norm.
Traditionally you don’t pack lunch and today is no exception. Typically you just rely on whatever product is cast aside for the reason of being unfavorable. Whether it be because some bread started to mold, a pastry got too soggy, or some bacon got a little too crispy after being forgotten due to the rush. You haven’t told your boss about your little secret of hiding away these distasteful items, but chances are no one will even know it’s gone. Mold and its surrounding area can be cut off, a soggy pastry is still edible, and charcoal crispy bacon still holds protein. Sure, your lunch isn’t always a balanced meal, but you can only do what you can with what you have.
Today you have a soggy strawberry cheese Danish, day-old coffee, and a croissant. There’s nothing wrong with the croissant, instead it was a purchase made by a customer who never came up to retrieve their order, or in other words, finders keepers.
Saving the best for last you decide to start eating the Danish while opening your phone.
His response to your hate statement was: No you don’t. And you’re not entirely sure if he enjoys lying to himself or if it’s just a pastime. Then again, he doesn’t seem to realize how literal you are when it comes to your hatred towards him.
The second text he sent was one you probably could’ve assumed.
Are you free tonight?
The answer to that question is simple enough considering the promise you made to your dear neighbor last evening. Tonight will be spent coddling and taking care of Rody, therefore rendering you unavailable for whatever shenanigans Stark wanted to partake in later in the day.
. . .
And just then, like a whisper of sin and a temptation of evil, a devious thought griped onto your brain. Your selfless intentions sparked a need to satisfy your selfish desire. Perhaps your altruistic attempt is proving to be more of an asset than a waste of time.
I am, what time are you available?