Steve doesn't have a soulmate. Oh sure, he has a dreamscape, but as far as he knows he's the only one who's ever been there. If he had a soulmate they would have shown up by now.
But they haven't, so he doesn't.
And Steve accepts that, or at least he tries to, because he kind of understands. He's small and sickly and probably won't live to see thirty. He would be a burden if he had a soulmate.
But Bucky doesn't have one either. He tries to pretend it doesn't bother him but Steve can tell it does and it's not fair.
Steve can understand why he doesn't have soulmate, is a little grateful for it, even.
But Bucky is great. He's strong and healthy and anyone would be lucky to have him. Steve told him that once, and Bucky just laughed, quirked his lip in a cheeky little way, and slung an arm around Steve whilst changing the subject.
They don't really talk about it, after that.
Then the war breaks out and they have bigger issues than nonexistent soulmates.
Things happen fast after that. Steve kind of thinks he fell in love with Peggy Carter, but he knows they can't be together. She's normal. She has a soulmate, though she won't say who, that she already loves. She's never met them in person, but after the war, Peggy says, maybe a little melancholy, like she doesn't fully believe that there will be an after, they plan on meeting up somewhere, anywhere, and running away together, just like in a romance novel.
Steve decides to be happy for her. Knows him and her never stood a chance, anyway, and Peggy deserves to be happy.
The Howlies do it, too. When there are lulls in the war, or they just blew up another HYDRA plant, and they're sitting around a fire, or in a trench and trying to get their mind off all the bloodshed and horror they saw that day. They plan futures around these people they see in their dreams, some having already met them, others waiting for the opportunity, but they all have the same attitude about it.
They would live through the war, of course they would, because why have soulmates, if you don't get to live out the rest of your life with them?
Neither Bucky or Steve have the heart to tell them that they don't have soulmates.
(A rumor got started that they were soulmates. Bucky laughed so hard when he heard about it that Steve was afraid he'd start crying.)
(Howard won't talk about soulmates. Steve doesn't think he believes in them.)
And then Bucky falls from the train, and Steve thinks maybe the Commandoes are right.
And he hates himself for it, but he's thankful that Bucky doesn't -didn't, fuck- have soulmate, because that means he's not leaving anybody behind.
(Anybody but Steve.)
And then he has to crash a plane into the arctic not a week later and is thankful all over again, and Peggy is rescheduling their fake date (Steve had found out that her soulmate was a woman and had jokingly offered to date her as a misdirect), and he knows he's never gonna make it to that dance.
But he's known that since Bucky fell.
Then it's cold and Steve can feel his lungs fighting for air and icing over at the same time, and he's drowning and freezing and he's not sure which will kill him first, realizes he'll never know when his world starts to fade around the edges, then goes completely dark.
And he's happy he never had a soulmate. He doesn't have to feel guilty about this. He's not leaving anyone behind.
…
He wakes up in his dreamscape.
Blinking, he sits up, ignores the chill in his bones, and looks around, even though he already knows the place like the back of his hand. He feels the grass beneath his palms as he leans against the tree at his back.
It's a shady clearing in the middle of a forest, and the sun peaks out between the branches. It's quiet; peaceful. Steve could hear the sound of running water in the distance if he strained his ears.
He doesn't know why he's here.
Had they found him? Was he unconscious somewhere?
(Is he dead?)
The back of his head hits the tree and he closed his eyes. He didn't know, wouldn't until he woke up. If he woke up.
Groaning, he scrubs a hand over his face. He couldn't think like that. If he was here than he had to be alive, and if he was alive someone must have found him, must have gotten him out of the freezing water, because surely not even a super soldier would survive that for long.
He just has to be patient.
(He's not sure what he's waiting for.)
…
Hours turned into days, days turned to weeks, weeks to months to years to decades.
Steve's lost count of how long he's been trapped in his own head. It's always noon(ish), sun high in the sky, and time flows differently; what feels like an hour could be a day, a day could be a week, and Steve might never know how much time is actually going by.
He spent most of his time drawing, after realizing that he could conjure up sketch books and pencils (and not much else, a fact he'd learned as a sickly kid that spent a lot of time 'sleeping it off'), or writing down his thoughts in order to feel less alone.
The solitude was getting to him.
…
Steve was sitting on the riverbank sketching when he first heard it.
It started out as a quiet, high pitched whine, but that was enough to put Steve on edge. No one is supposed to be here. There wasn't even any animals.
He set aside his sketch book, it would either be there when he came back or it would disappear completely, either way he didn't care right now.
As he stood up the sound got louder, became a distinct cry. Steve took off in the direction it was coming from, heart pumping. He felt himself hope for the first time in years, because if there was someone here that would mean-
His thoughts were cut off as he exited into the clearing. The cries have only gotten louder, turning anguished the longer they were unanswered and Steve didn't know what he was expecting, but it certainly wasn't this.
He dropped to one knee and gently lifted the small bundle up. It's cries slowing to breathy hiccups as Steve brought it, close.
It, he, was so small, and his face was red from screaming. He couldn't have been more than an hour old, dressed in a red onesie with the name 'Tony' stitched in gold on his chest.
Steve was shocked. People tended to have 'normal' dreams until they or their soulmate hit puberty. Why would-
Oh.
Either Steve had gone mad in seclusion and had imagined up a… a baby (though he couldn't think of a reason why, because if he'd ever dream up someone it would have been Bucky), or his soulmate had finally been born.
And Steve felt bad for him, through the shock. for Tony, as he stared down into the boy's eyes; dark, even this young.
"I'm sorry." He says, and he barely recognizes his own voice, having not used it in what must have been years. And it's not fair, because Tony is going to grow up and see Steve every time he goes to sleep, but he'll never meet him like all the other people in the world will probably meet their soulmates, he'll never get to see Steve in person.
It's a terrible thought. The idea that this child (his soulmate) might live out his life alone, waiting, because Steve was either dead or lost somewhere-
"I am so, so sorry." He says again, choking on the sudden onslaught of tears. He goes down from his kneeled positing, and just sits there, pulling Tony closer.
Tony, for his part, doesn't really do anything, looking up at Steve. Too young for real expressions, even in his dreams.
…
Tony grew like a weed.
Babies spent most of their time asleep so Steve was able to watch as Tony went from being unable to roll over by himself to crawling, to walking, to running. He had heard his first words. The kid had unending energy, and Steve didn't know if it was just because he was in the dreamscape or if he was naturally like that.
By watching Tony grow Steve also caught glimpses of the outside world, of Tony's home life.
He doesn't like what he sees.
(Who tells a two year old they're too old to be carried?)
Tony was four when Steve noticed him getting more subdued. He would catch Tony looking at him with a pensive look on his face when he thought Steve wasn't paying attention, or he'd get lost in his own head when they were supposed to be playing a game.
"Tony, are you okay?" Steve finally asks, Tony curled up in his lap after a halfhearted game of tic-tac-toe.
Tony tried to bury his face in Steve's chest.
"Tony," Steve sighs, but doesn't push, petting Tony's head.
After awhile, a moment filled with quiet breathing and Steve running what he hopes were soothing circles on Tony's back with the hand not in his hair, the kid finally speaks.
"My dad says you're not real, that I'm making you up."
Steve freezes.
…What?
"He's right, isn't he?" Tony accuses after Steve is quiet for too long, and he sounds like he's on the edge of crying.
"No!" Steve readily assures, hugging Tony tighter, "I just wasn't expecting that. I am real, Tony. I promise."
"But Dad said Captain America is dead, so you can't be real." Tony hiccups. Tony's smart, of course he figured out that Steve was Captain America.
Steve feels the blood drain from his face and his grip tightens to uncomfortable. He only loosens it when Tony whines.
So he really was dead. That was…
He leans back against a tree, body slacking.
"Steve?" Tony peeked up at him, eyes wet.
"I'm sorry, Tony, I," He takes a shaky breath, "I'm sorry."
"So I really did just make you up." He asks, devastated.
"No," Steve denies, still in shock, "I'm definitely real. I just-" He cuts off. He just what?
"…Does that mean you're a ghost?"
"I don't know."
They sit there for a few minutes, Steve processing the information, Tony clutching his tiny fists into Steve's shirt.
Tony finally gets twitchy staying in one place too long. He bit his lip, "I built a circuit board today."
Steve takes a fortifying breath and smiles down at him, "Yeah? Tell me about it."
So he was dead. At least his (after)life wouldn't be boring with Tony around.
(Steve waits until Tony leaves to have a panic attack.)
…
Tony's seven when he shows up with tearstained cheeks and a busted lip.
"What happened?" Steve asks, rubbing the pad of his thumb over Tony's lip.
He's pretty sure he already knows the answer.
Tony's father, whoever the man was, had a drinking problem. This would be the first time he actually hit Tony.
(Steve knew it was him anyway.)
Tony sniffs and shakes his head, hugging himself tightly and practically falls into Steve, who picks him up, ignores the halfhearted protests that he's too old to be coddled, and pulls him close.
If Steve ever found a way to get out of his dreamscape, dead or not, he was going to kill-
"What's his name?"
"Huh?" Tony mumbles, peeking up at him.
"Your dad," though Steve loathed to call the man that, "What's his name?"
Tony tenses and buries his face back in Steve's chest, "Howard." He finally answers, "Howard Stark."
Steve barely kept himself from dropping Tony.
"Steve?"
"It's nothing, don't worry about it."
(Howard…)
…
The abuse gets worse after that. Tony's eight when he gets sent off to boarding school, and Steve had assumed that would be the end of it. That Tony would be safer, happier.
He was wrong.
Tony starts to suffer from bullying, and not just from the other kids. The teachers don't like that he's smarter than them and they show it.
One day, Tony stops crying over it. Starts trying to convince Steve that he was 'fine'.
Steve hates it.
…
Not long after that is the first time Tony gets kidnapped. Before, he had never left the grounds of Stark Mansion. Turns out the boarding school is not nearly as secure.
He shows up in the dreamscape panicking and freaking out, but unharmed. Apparently they got him with chloroform.
After he calms down, he informs Steve, voice wobbly, that his dad doesn't pay ransoms.
(And Steve can understand why, really, he can. It doesn't stop him from hating the man he used to see as a friend just a little bit more.)
Tony gets out three days later, because no expects an eight year old to build a bomb out of a microwave.
He comes away from the whole ordeal with mild burns and a more jaded look on the world.
Steve hopes it'll be the last time Tony has to go through something like that.
(It isn't)
(Tony is absolutely horrified when he finds out Steve doesn't know what a microwave is, and takes it upon himself to educate Steve in all things electronic.)
…
Tony starts attending college at fourteen and it's everything that boarding school was times ten.
Except this time he has a protector in the form of a James Rhodes.
(Steve thinks 'Rhodey' might just be Tony's 'Bucky'.)
…
At seventeen, Tony doesn't sleep as much as he used to.
When he does he's always either drunk or with the beginnings of a hangover.
Because he's a fucking drunklike his father.
They're always fighting and Steve wonders if this is what it's like to be a parent to a teenager.
They yell and shout and say things they don't mean, and Steve can accept a lot of things about Tony, but this wasn't one of them. He hates it, but Steve can already feel them drifting apart.
"What do you want from me!?"
"I don't want anything from you, Tony!"
…
And then Howard dies.
(So does Maria, but the only time Steve had ever heard of her was when a little Tony was telling him that 'Mama told me to take a nap because she's busy/tired/has a headache'. He doesn't even know her name until Tony starts rambling about media headlines.)
(So does Jarvis, a man Steve has heard a lot about. The man that basically raised Tony.)
And Tony is devastated and numb, and angry, and drunk off his ass when he finally shows up after what felt like a week.
Steve is ready to be furious again, ready to try and get it through the kid's thick skull, again, when he notices the black tux Tony is wearing. Notices the haunted look in his eyes.
Steve somehow ends up with a lap full Tony, and hugs him tightly.
And, for the first time since he was eight, Tony cries.
…
Steve tries to be a little more lenient, because Tony's grieving, and Steve can't be there for him in the waking hours.
They don't talk about the drinking, they don't talk about his parents or Jarvis (though Steve had tried to gently bring it up).
Tony tells him he's built an AI.
"Really?" Steve asks curiously, but not disbelievingly, because he knew Tony could do it.
"Yeah," Tony answers. They were lying on their backs in the grass staring up at the unchanging sky.
"What's it like?"
Tony actually smiles, "He's a Dummy."
…
The drinking gets worse, and at nineteen Tony ends up in the hospital for alcohol poisoning.
"This has to stop, Tony!" Steve yells, clinching his hands so he doesn't try and strangle the kid.
"You think I don't know that!" Tony's breath his coming out haggard and his eyes are wet, but no tears fall, of course they don't. His legs can't hold him up any longer and he finally collapses, "I don't know what to do," He whispers hoarsely, staring at his hands in his lap.
All the fight leaves Steve at that, and he flops down too, across from Tony.
They sit in silence for a long time. A part of Steve thinks they won't talk at all for the rest of Tony's time there, wonders when such a rift grew between them, but then Tony speaks up in a tired voice;
"I need help."
…
Steve convinces Tony to talk to Rhodey, because if he's really Tony's Bucky he'll help.
He does.
Tony cuts back on drinking (even if it doesn't stop completely) and he sleeps more, and him and Steve have finally started to reconcile.
They talk more, and Tony says Obie got him a new PA. Again. He doesn't remember her name but "She has a lot of freckles so I'm just gonna call her Pepper," and it's not like she's going to be around for long because, Tony tells him, he's working on an even more advance AI then Dummy, You, and Butterfingers (who he had created on the nights where he couldn't sleep, but really didn't want to fall back on alcohol) and how it was going to run his life for him so he, and anyone else, wouldn't have to worry about it.
Steve downright laughs at that, and they end up wrestling like they'd done when Tony was a kid and just like then Steve eventually lets Tony 'get the drop' on him.
"Ha!" Tony laughs in triumph. He's breathing hard, straddling Steve's waist and 'pinning' his hands above his head. All Steve can see is the little seven year old grinning down at him with a missing tooth and mischievous eyes.
This is why it's such a surprise when Tony kisses him.
Steve jerks back and scrambles away, "Tony!" He's so confused.
"Sorry," Tony mumbles, flopping down in the grass, "I wanted to test something."
Steve finally gets his heart to calm down and looks at Tony, really looks at him, and can tell something's wrong, "What were you testing?" He asks cautiously.
Tony sighs, but rolls over to look at Steve anyway, "This girl, -her name is Sunshine, if you can believe it- she sorta kissed me."
Steve blinks, "Okay…"
Tony groans, burying his face in his arm, "It's just- I've never really thought about it before. Y'know sex? Like, it's crossed my mind, but only in an abstract way?" Steve nods, willing his face not to blush, and Tony goes on, "Well, when she kissed me, nothing happened, at all. Sunshine is really pretty, okay, so you'd think something down there would stir? Nope."
"…Okay." Steve repeats slowly. He was starting to see where this was going.
"And you and I both know there's definitely nothing wrong with the equipment," Tony continues.
"I remember you asking me if you'd go blind or grow hair on your palm if you touched yourself," Steve deadpanned.
(And hadn't that been a conversation.)
"So I figured maybe I was just gay," Tony ignores him, "So I tried making out with Ty –I've mentioned him, right?"
Steve nods, "In passing." Rhodey apparently didn't like him.
"Yeah, well he seemed really into it, but I still felt… Nothing." Tony bites his lip, "Anyway, I, uh, read somewhere that sometimes people can only feel 'attracted'to their soulmates, sooo… yeah." He blushes and looks about ready for the ground to swallow him.
"So you thought you might feel… something," Steve winces, "If you kissed me?"
"Yeeessss…?"
A pause.
Steve starts laughing. After a moment in which he probably tries to figure out if he should be affronted or not, Tony joins in.
(Later, Tony learns the terms 'asexual', and 'queer-platonic' and does his Almost-Cry thing when he tells Steve. It had apparently bothered him more than he had let on.)
…
Tony's twenty-one and JARVIS is up and running, and Tony takes over Stark Industries, and Pepper has become a permanent fixture in his life along with a new bodyguard Tony calls Happy ("because he's always happy, Steve.").
His hormones also start to level off, and he returns from his stint as a prickly teenager back into a cuddle-bug.
Not having to deal with the apparent crisis of possibly having sexual feelings for the man you saw as a father figure growing up certainly helps.
Tony snuggles up against Steve and complains that they should figure out a way to conjure up a TV, or at the very least change the scenery, "Because this is fucking boring Steve, how do you live like this?"
(They never talk about the fact that Steve is dead.)
…
Tony's twenty-seven when Afghanistan happens.
Steve doesn't have any idea what's going on other than the fact that Tony shows up with a whole in his chest, and he's in too much pain to be coherent enough to ask, and he's fading.
(Steve doesn't know if he's waking or dying.)
Tony leaves- almost immediately comes back, and Steve tries to hold him through the worst of it, holds him when a metal thing appears in his chest.
In a dreamscape you can change your clothes (Steve had gotten rid of the red white and blue uniform, content with a white tee-shirt and khaki pants that Tony hates), but you couldn't hide injuries, not permanent fixtures in or on your body. Like tattoos.
Or whatever that was.
Tony eventually stops struggling, relaxing against Steve.
…
Tony builds himself a heart. Grieves for Yinsen. Doesn't drink.
Gets rid of the weapons.
Steve's proud and terrified, because Tony is doing everything he can to right wrongs, to help people, but he's also flying around in a tin can suit getting shot at!
So yeah, proud and terrified.
He doesn't say anything when Tony shows up with bullet size bruises.
(He knows what it feels like to need to do something.)
…
Then Tony's Godfather tries to kill him. Again.
By this point, Tony's numb.
Steve holds him close anyway.
…
Then Tony is dying for a (not) completely different reason.
He doesn't tell Steve, but then, he doesn't have to.
This isn't like when Tony was a teenager trying to drown himself in alcohol.
But Tony doesn't sleep nearly enough, and when he does he ignores Steve, and it's all Steve can do not to start the fighting again.
(It hadn't worked the first time, if anything it made it worse. It wouldn't work now.)
…
Tony's not dying, and he finally decides to shed a little light on what's been going on in his life.
There's a lot of yelling, some tears, but in the end it's impossible for them to stay even a little mad at each other for long, not after everything they've been through.
…
Then Steve wakes up.
He hadn't realized how the ever present chill in his bones had been slowly disappearing, hadn't realized that with one blink he could be back in the land of the living.
So it surprises him when he does. He's disoriented, glancing around what looks like a hospital room, but knows it's not.
(The air's all wrong. The windows open, and it's supposed to look like New York, but it just looks like a cardboard cutout and it doesn't smell right.)
Then the 'nurse' walks in, and nothing about her is right (Steve should know, his mom was a nurse) and the baseball game just put the final nail in the coffin.
So he runs. Far and fast, and ends up in the middle of Times Square, and the big screens and the cars and the cell phones probably would have come as a shock had Tony not already told him all about it, even tried his hand at sketching some of the stuff Steve had trouble imagining (he couldn't draw anything that wasn't technology to save his life, though).
Then there's a man with an eye-patch apologizing about 'the show back there' and how they had wanted to break it to him gently.
"You've been asleep Cap, for almost seventy years."
Steve couldn't wait to meet Tony in person.
…
They wouldn't let him out.
They, SHIELD, who Tony had said were full of assholes, decide (without his consent) that it would be best if he stays in HQ, under supervision, until he gets 'acclimated' to the twenty first century.
They give him files on the people he knew, and their families, and Steve can understand why Tony and said they were all assholes, because Steve knows for a fact Tony doesn't get blackout drunk anymore (claims it's because he can't escape the lectures even in his dreams) Steve laughs, because he's certainly not a playboy. Or narcissistic.
Steve decides not to believe anything in the files at all.
He tries to sleep a lot, to catch Tony, but Tony doesn't exactly have a set sleep pattern. Steve worries about how Tony will react if he goes to sleep and Steve's not there.
The SHIELD mandated therapists think he sleeps so much because he's grieving, or not handling the situation in a healthy manner, or whatever it is they say behind his back despite the patient/doctor confidentiality.
(He knows they do because people forget he has super soldier hearing.)
The only reason he doesn't bust out of this place is because he wouldn't know where to go, and he knows they'll hunt him down if he does.
They try to get him to interact with other people, like Natasha Romanov (the fake nurse. Also the person who wrote Tony's personality profile. Steve doesn't like her on principal, but stays civil) and Clint Barton, her partner, who actually reminds Steve a lot of Tony after you get past the stone wall.
And Coulson, who is, as Tony would put it, a fan-boy. Steve feels like he's back on the USO tours when he talks to the man.
(He means well, but it's hard not to be put out when all the man seems to want is for him to sign cards and tell glorified stories.)
…
Steve's asleep when he finally sees Tony again after three weeks.
It's the longest they've ever gone without seeing each other since Tony was born.
"Steve!"
Tony hugs him. Hard. Like if he loosens his grip even a little Steve will disappear again.
It breaks Steve's heart and he clings back, not as hard, but just as desperate.
"What happened? Where were you?" Tony questions, voice slightly muffled from where it's buried in Steve's chest.
Steve breathes out "I woke up." And feels Tony tense in his arms.
Tony pulls back just enough to look at him, "You woke up? I thought…" 'I thought you were dead.' Right.
"So did I," Steve agrees with the unsaid statement, "Turns out I was just frozen. SHIELD has me. I'd leave, but I don't know where you are, and I doubt they'd let me go willingly."
Tony growls, "Where are you?"
"New York."
A pause.
"I have a plan."
…
Tony's 'plan', if it could be called that, consists of Steve going to the roof of SHIELD HQ, claiming the need for some peace and quiet while he draws, and Ironman picking him up.
SHIELD doesn't even realize he's missing for three more hours.
Tony hacks their video feed, and him and Steve laugh as they watch SHIELD agents scramble around like ants looking for him, and cuddle up on the couch Tony keeps in his workshop. Dummy, You, Butterfingers, and JARVIS all act like they've known Steve their entire existences.
And it feels really good.
…
Nothing changes between them. Not really.
Sure, the scenery's different, and Tony can finally educate Steve in all the movies, and TV shows, and music, and technology he's missed out on -but them? Nothing changes.
Steve meets Rhodey and Pepper and Happy, and they're all shocked he even exists because Tony's never even mentioned him (for which Tony shrugs unrepentantly), and they all assumed he didn't have a soulmate, but welcome Steve with open arms.
(They share knowing glances and whispered 'thank you''s when Tony's distracted with explanations about the internet that Steve's already heard, but this time there's demonstrations to go with it.)
And, looking around the table at smiling faces and listening to Tony's enthusiastic ramblings, Steve feels, for the first time since Bucky fell from the train, entirely content with his life.
…
Then aliens invade Manhattan…
…
A/N: Something that popped into my head and wouldn't go away. I also tried a different tense, and I think I like this one best.
The theme song is 'Here I Am' by Bryan Adams from the Spirit soundtrack.