Chapter Text
Tony Stark; genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist.
Markless.
Where most people had a swirling cacophony of constantly changing colors and words and thoughts adorning their forearms, Tony had nothing.
His wrists were as pale and unblemished as the day he'd been born.
Growing up, he'd delighted in watching the kaleidoscopic of his mother's wrists. Her soulmate. She'd pull up her sleeves, a sly smile on her face, and allow Tony to view the private, secret thoughts of his father.
His thoughts were constantly changing, jumping from one formula or decree to the next. Usually red and black, and almost always words.
He didn't get to see it often, surely not often enough for Tony, but it was enough to make him long desperately for the day his own arm would burn and come to life, would tie him perpetually to another person.
And not just any person; the person supposedly crafted from the same atoms as him.
Tony had practically ached for it, tracing patterns and words across his dull wrist. None of his wishing or conjuring had ever summoned his soulmate though.
The worry would build. Maybe he didn't have a soulmate. Maybe the atoms that had built him had been too fractured to craft another. The worry would send him hesitantly into his parent's room, peeking around the corner before entering.
Checking for his father. Making sure the coast was clear.
He didn't need to see the secret words on his mother's wrist to understand that he wasn't enough for the man. Would never be enough.
"My darling," his mother would coo softly from her bed, a kind smile painting her face. "You look troubled."
"There's nothing on my wrist," he'd tell her, brokenly, holding his cursedly-clean wrist up to the gentle bedside lamp light. "Will there ever be anything?"
"Everyone has a soulmate," she'd assure him, patting the empty spot in her bed. Downy pillows and satin sheets to practically swallow him in comfort. His mother's warm understanding. "Yours just hasn't made it earthside."
"What if I'm not good enough for a soulmate?" His lip would tremble as he met her sky-blue eyes.
A frown gracing her lips. "You have a soulmate, my darling. You are good enough."
He'd glance down at his own wrist, encircling it with his opposite hand. "Can I see?"
" Bambino ," she'd scold half-heartedly, running her fingers through his hair. "You know these things are to be kept private."
Tony knew. He'd never even had a glimpse of his father's unwrapped or unsleeved arms. He didn't have any clue if his mother's thoughts were blue, like her eyes, or words or pictures. He'd never gotten a peek into her mind.
"Please?" He'd beg, just a little. As wrong as it was, he craved looking into the small window that was his father's steeltrap of a mind.
It helped convince him that soulmates did exist, even if his hadn't been born yet.
"Just a peek." That devious gleam in her eye, the conspiracy of unwrapping the motiffed wrap she kept around her wrist. "Here."
Awed, he'd let his vision tunnel to the shifting text on his mother's arm, watching as his father's thoughts jumped from numbers to letters and then back again. He'd pick out the faint outline of a diagram against her skin, the picture barely there before his father had whirled away.
"It must get so confusing," he would tell her earnestly, unwilling to tear his gaze from her offered limb. The second he did, she'd rewrap the words and he'd be alone again.
Alone with only his own empty thoughts.
She'd laugh, staring at the jumbled thoughts with love. "Everyone is different. Your soulmate might not be as chaotic as your father is. Some people describe watching their soulmate think like a relaxing river."
His father definitely wasn't a relaxing river. His thoughts churned and swirled, more akin to a waterfall.
"You're sure I have a soulmate?" Downy-soft questions, asked only when his father was too busy tinkering in the lab to watch his wife's thoughts.
"Yes, baby. Just wait. They'll be here before you know it."
Gentle kisses, soft promises. "Okay."
*****
Tony's wrist never burned.
Even as everyone at school started to show up with banded forearms, proudly displaying the wraps they'd gotten for Christmas, or birthdays, showing off their new soulmate in the only respectable way possible.
He'd watch with jealousy as his fellow classmates would push their swathes down, smiling as they privately watched their soulmates think.
His wrist never came to life.
He spent hours scouring the library for some kind of a hint for why he'd had nothing. They all said the same thing; the words would appear when the time was right.
He waited and waited, trying his hardest to prove that he was worthy. To himself, to his father, to his soulmate. Working himself to the bone and he still never ended up being good enough.
Not to his father, to himself. To his soulmate.
When Lawrence Halder, the last unmarked person in the school received his mark, showing up to school with a paisley wrap adorned proudly on his wrist, Tony felt something break.
It meant that Halder had an age difference of fourteen years between himself and his soulmate. Fourteen years. Anything past ten was rare.
Tony Stark wasn't good enough. He wasn't loved enough. The universe had looked at him, at the atoms and particles that he was, and decided he didn't deserve a soulmate.
So Tony stopped. Stopping begging his mother to watch the words on her wrist, stopped trying to prove to his father he was enough.
He stopped caring. He didn't need a soulmate.
He had enough.
*****
He graduated early, far before anyone else in his school was even close to finishing.
He left behind whispers. Whispers of a man that was so incapable of love that the universe hadn't given him a soulmate.
Tony Stark; heir, narcissistic, unmarked.
They wouldn't be the first to utter those words, but they were the most painful. The first of anything usually is.
College was better for him.
There was an autonomy to being out of his home, to being away from disappointed stares and incredulous looks. His father would have to settle for long-distant disappointment now. A disappointment-call-collect, if you will.
Tony wore his unmarked arm proudly, keeping his sleeves rolled up at all times. The pale flesh of his forearm attracted curious, mostly disgusted looks.
He hid the pain in snark, snarling and biting at anyone who came too close.
Everyone except James Rhodes.
The dark-skinned man had walked into their shared dorm on the very first day, his wrist all done up in an American flag motif, and Tony had audibly scoffed.
Rhodey had risen an eyebrow, depositing his boxes onto the mattress closest to the window. Closest to the light. Tony didn't want the sunlight.
"What's your problem? You hate America?"
"Only as much as the next guy." He collapsed back onto his own bed, throwing his arm up to cover his eye. To give Rhodey a clear, unfettered look to the blankness of his wrist.
To get the gasps, and the rumors, and the scorn out of the way.
Tony Stark; genius, heir, prodigy. Markless.
"Only terrorists hate America," Rhodey had replied evenly. No sharp intake of breath. No shocked whispering.
Tony peeked behind his arm, finding Rhodey's back. He'd been pulling items from the boxes he'd brought, arranging them on the small bedside desk.
"Probably Britain, too. That whole revolution thing," Tony had bantered curiously, watching the man all but ignore him.
Rhodey shrugged, never even turning around. "They lost. Opinions matter less if you lose."
"Don't you care?" Tony blurted out, jack-knifing up in bed. He'd waved his arm about, cocking an eyebrow. "I don't have a soulmate."
Rhodey had turned slowly, gaze walking up and down Tony's forearm before settling back on his face. "Not everything's about you, man."
Tony had smiled before he could forcefully knock it back down. He forgot about his empty canvas of a wrist for the moment.
He'd spend many embittered nights wondering why he and Rhodey couldn't have been made from identical atoms.
*****
His parents died. He made sure their caskets were closed, their wrists forever hidden from view.
*****
He took many women to bed. A different one each night. All of them, every single one, kept their wrist hidden behind lace and gingham and paisley.
Tony didn't care. He hadn't for a long time.
He'd catch them sometimes, in the middle of passionate throes, eying his unmarked arm curiously. The brave ones would let tentative fingers travel across his shoulder, down his elbow-
Those ones he'd thrown out. They had trashed his name to the press.
Tony didn't care. Didn't really remember how to care.
Rumors swirled around his name. The elusive, eccentric Tony Stark. Unlovable. Merchant of Death. He added playboy to his resume.
He was alone in a way that no one else was. There was no one etched into Tony's flesh, no other half to complete him.
The only person close to whatever Tony was was Harold "Happy" Hogan. A man who was once a professional boxer, a man whose life had fallen apart after the words on his wrists had frozen in time.
Happy had walked into Tony's office stiff, face set in a grim countenance, and offered his unwrapped arm out for Tony to shake.
Unwrapped, with the grayed words oh God please no .
Tony had always hated when people perceived his wrist before him, even when he started acting like he didn't, and yet he still found his eyes widening, unable to tear away from the final plea emblazoned on Happy Hogan's skin.
"I never met her," he'd responded, gruff. A no nonsense man used to being hurt and ridiculed, he shoved his wrist directly under Tony's incredulous face. "I never met her, and I wish I could've. Wished I could have protected her. Now I want to do my best in this world."
He'd hired the ex-boxer on the spot.
Happy would continue to wear his wrist like that, open for the world to see. A muted grey stuck forever.
Tony discovered he liked the surly man. A lot.
He wondered often if having an unmarked or a grayed out wrist was better.
*****
Tony made bombs and weapons that were extraordinary, like nothing no one had ever seen before. Tech that was light years ahead of it's time.
So, even if they called him unloved, unmarked under their breaths, they called him Boss to his face.
Pepper blazed into his life like one of his bombs. Loud, hot and jarring.
He'd heard her long before seeing her, hurling threats to Happy as she'd marched unseen down the hall to his office.
He could hear the bomb coming, and he decided to wait and let it arrive.
She'd burst into his office, face awash with impatience, holding a stack of papers in her arms. A splattering of freckles across her face, practically sparks of fire.
"If you touch me," she'd spat, turning the intensity of her eyes on Happy, her gaze not once faltering at the sight of oh God please no , even though her own forearm was wrapped tightly with a sleek, professional black band. "I will pepper spray you."
One quick once-over had proven the woman had no such weapon. A tight, black pencil skirt, a flattering blouse. Fire-hot hair. "Hello," he'd greeted nonchalantly, earning an irritated glare from Happy.
All of his glares were irritated, though.
"Mr. Stark," she exclaimed, twisting furiously to avoid Happy's incoming grasp, "You have made an error."
"Impossible," he'd quipped back. "Where?"
Tossing the papers tucked in her arms to his desk, she'd pointed out a single mistake that would have cost him millions. Billions.
"This is impressive, Pepper. Can I call you Pepper?"
Happy huffed.
"My name is Virg-"
"Listen, Pepper. This is amazing. I want you working here."
She froze, regarding him. "I already work here, Mr. Stark. I'm an accountant."
"Not anymore." He'd shaken his head immediately. "I'll triple your pay. You're my new personal intern."
Tony Stark knew bombs.
He didn't want to let this one go.
*****
He'd seen Rhodey's unbound wrist once, in college, after he'd stepped out of the shower.
He'd had a towel wrapped around his waist, water dripping, his marked wrist held high to rub his head, and Tony had seen.
He'd caught a glimpse of the cool, dark blue words there, the relaxed font they'd been written in.
Rhodey had followed his gaze, lowering his arm immediately. The blue vanished, hidden against the towel on Rhodey's waist.
"I haven't met her yet," Rhodey had offered instead of the rebuke Tony had been expecting. "But I know. She's a woman."
" How?" He'd wondered, his brain always seeking to solve life's mysteries.
Rhodey shrugged, careful to keep his wrist obstructed from view. "I just do, Tones. You'll understand too, one day."
Tony hadn't believed him.
He didn't believe him now.
He didn't need a soulmate or a burned wrist.
He had everyone he needed.
*****
There was a nameless woman in his bed the night it happened. Blonde, shapely, loud.
He'd been all splayed limbs, his arm thrown across her back in slightly intoxicated slumber, when he felt it.
Hot, burning ache.
The sting of it roused him of a boozy, hazy sleep, and he groaned, pulling his arm off the woman's toned back. Wearily wondering what in the hell she'd done to him.
The pain faded quick, hardly more than a second before the sharp tange was gone, and he clutched the wrist to his chest in befuddled confusion.
"What the hell ," he demanded of the sleeping woman's back, glistening in the moonlight. " Fuck."
He wiped his eyes with his free hand, trying to dispel the weariness embedded there. There was an acrid, bitter taste in his mouth that he knew was last night's alcohol.
He'd tossed the sheets off of him, not even once glancing at his wrist, before making his way to the bathroom. Nausea bubbled in his gut.
He'd flicked on the light, reaching down to maneuver himself to piss, when his still blurry eyes saw it.
His heart had stopped, his breath stolen from him.
There were words dancing across his wrist.
Rapidly flickering, faint in the way that a soulmate's thoughts would be.
Soulmate.
Tony's hand had shot out to the bathroom counter, desperately seeking purchase as his vision swam. A soulmate .
He'd watched the thoughts on his wrists for a solid minute, breath hitching, trying to make sense of what he saw.
Hungry hungry hungry scared cold new new
The words were hard to read and hard to follow, obscure to the point of being unintelligible.
He choked, watching the words. Words that somehow meant he had a soulmate. Had a worth.
Holy fuck.
"Pepper?" He'd whispered, starstruck, fuddled. She wasn't here. The nameless woman in his bed was just some blonde he'd snagged at a gala.
Warm warm milk warm
The words on his wrists jolted him further, his eyes widening. A baby. His soulmate was a baby.
But he had a soulmate.
Tony Stark wasn't unlovable. He wasn't a mistake. He wasn't markless.
He clutched his wrist to his chest, desperately, protectively, sobbing.
The tears had tasted like booze when they hit his lips, but he didn't care.