No one knew how to explain it. It had always just… been. It went all the way back to cave paintings, depicting this somehow small but important piece of red string connected to two human beings.
Something so small, that somehow depicted the one thing that influenced so many people's lives.
Yet, not everyone's was red. Not everyone's stayed with the same person. Sometimes the red string untangled and fell to the ground - a fate no longer destined to be. Some were green, blue, purple, orange even. Not all strings were the same. Even where they were connected was different.
Tony always had his choking his neck, an invisible weight tugging him along in life. It constantly got tangled, tripped him up, did everything it could to remind him that I exist, this is your fate .
Unfortunately for it, Tony didn't believe in fate. He believed in his own two hands and mind.
So when he was kidnapped in Afghanistan, when they drowned him over and over and over again until he complied, when he put on a suit he had made himself and Yinsen died, he ignored the insistent tugging from the stringing like it was tightening. He ignored the feeling that he was sealing his fate - because surely this would kill him.
Surely this would be the end. This had to be the string unravelling, coming apart as he trudged his way towards death.
But he didn't die. He lived.
He lived with a hole in his chest and a new goal, make the world a new, safer place.
The new suit to go along with it was just a bonus.
Ultimately, it didn't surprise him when Obadiah betrayed him, tried to kill him and instead was forced into tearing his own string to pieces in the ensuing chaos, dying only minutes later because of his own reckless ambitions.
His disregard for his own soulmate… maybe it was for the better the two had never met.
Somehow Tony's string stuck around. Even glowed redder in the light.
Every new thing only made it tug tighter, glow brighter. It scared Tony as much as it thrilled him.
When he met Captain America, he knew he was close. The string tangled around him, though he wasn't the one. They had both laughed it off. What could you really say to that?
It was a coincidence and nothing more.
The New York invasion came and went, Tony travelled into the stars and only came back with the help of the string, tugging him back through the hole and back down to earth.
It was like the person on the other end was desperate to see him return.
He tried not to think about that too much.
The Avengers split.
Thing returned back to normal, or as normal as they could be when aliens had just invaded earth and destroyed a city.
Tony kept ignoring his string that kept tugging and tightening and tugging and tightening. He wanted to yell at his soulmate stop , but he knew they wouldn't hear. Not until he met them.
The string only grew tighter when he saw what was on the news.
Captain America. A car chase, Fury dead , a fight on a highway and suddenly the helicarriers were falling out of the sky.
Who was behind it? Hydra. Thought to have been long dead, but for once an organisation had lived up to its mantra.
Cut off one head and two more grow back.
Then Ultron happened, the blame slapped onto him as if it had just been him behind it all. A crushing weight of dread, and then 114 countries signing a deal. The Accords.
He agreed. Cap didn't.
The Wakandan king was dead and the Winter Soldier was to blame.
The cold icy feeling in his stomach grew and grew.
And then he met him.
He met his parent's killers.
He met his soulmate, with eyes so sad and remorseful, full of hope and a future for the two of them.
He didn't believe in fate.
He believed in his own two hands and his mind.
"Bucky's my friend!"
"So was I." and he's supposed to be mine.
The string wilted.
It grew darker, a sickly red colour before beginning to grow black.
It no longer tugged, it no longer tightened.
Instead, it began to unwind.
When there was a knock at the door, he ignored it. He may have never believed in fate, but there was always something so comforting about the knowledge. There was someone out there for him, the mercenary of death.
Now the string was wilted.
A part of him wondered if he would get a new one, but no one wanted him, even his soulmate didn't.
The door opened anyway.
The string lit up for the first time in months, his eyes trailed the path of light.
Bucky stood there, string wrapped around his chest, eyes wide and fearful.
"Finally decided to show up, huh?" He meant for it to come out bitter and biting, it just sounded tired.
"Tony… I want to make things right between us," he whispered, pleadingly.
"Or you're just following fate. Forget it, alright? Fate has never done anything good for either of us."
He shifted uncomfortably before leaning against a desk. Tony absently noticed that he didn't have a replacement arm.
"I've, uh, always liked to see it more as a chance. Why would some disappear otherwise? Why do some appear out of the blue? Destiny is still our own, the string just provides us with an open door that we can close if we want." He hesitated. Then he smiled and turned to Tony.
"Want to try and open it with me?"