Avengers Imagines

Soulmate AU - Winteriron

A/N: i've been reading a lot of tony/bucky and this was the result

and by a lot of tony/bucky i mean A LOT of tony and bucky it's getting obsessive

Description: a person can only see shades of grey until they meet their soulmate

mostly tony pov, tony-centric, lots of tony angst (basically i love tony stark) :)

civil war doesn't exist here because it's rude and painful thx for understanding

Warnings: howard stark's a+ parenting, language, this is incredibly angsty you've been warned

no seriously i wrote this at 1am, nothing happy is written after midnight :/

Word count: 2667

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Tony was used to seeing shades of grey, his whole life was a series of them. And sure, he means that literally and hypothetically. Everyone sees grey until they meet their soulmate (Tony is only slightly bitter over that), so it isn't a surprise his life is pretty monochromatic. He's gotten used to the idea that it'll always be this way. Besides, his childhood filled with harsh language, raging disappointment and more empty bottles than Tony could count only added to the overwhelming bleakness of it all. Surely, no one could blame him for feeling positively dreary all the time.

Tony tried for a long time to stay hopeful, truly, he did. He lived his life as normal— he went out, laughed, took on the burden of a multi-million dollar company and tried not to be the miserable disappointment his father always told him he was. And it seemed to be working because he met Pepper.

He was sure— absolutely positive— that Pepper was his soulmate. Tony might not have been able to see color but he didn't miss the way her smile sent a ray of heat though his chest or the way her eyes completely sparkled during the day. Maybe the color took a little while to appear? Maybe he needed to spend a lot of time with Pepper before he could see clearly? But as time went on, that hope dwindled just the same. They tried to hold on to whatever fake love they could for awhile, but a person can only lie to themselves for so long. So just like everyone else, Pepper let Tony go.

And that was just fine. Stark men are made of iron and Tony knew how to survive alone.

He managed to forget about his soulmate, or lack thereof, when the team moved into the tower. Sure, the world was still a series of grey but at least his life wasn't boring.

Sometimes, when nobody was watching, Natasha would sneak down into the lab to help Tony with the colors of his suit, or his cars, or anything else that would otherwise just seem grey, grey, grey. Maroon or red, she said for the suit. It compliments your dark hair.

And, though he'd never admit it, that's the first time Tony found out he had brown hair.

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The first color Tony saw was blue. It was the color blue Tony imagined water to look like; not too bright but with sparkles of light swimming in the center. Admittedly, he thought his mind was playing tricks on him. He was getting older and this soulmate business wasn't funny anymore, so if his mind could get the memo and just give up, that'd be great.

But then he saw brown. And he had heard Natasha and Clint speak wonders of the soft color of chocolate or the rich image of his morning coffee, but never did he imagine it to fall so effortlessly in small waves on someone's head. Brown was warm and smooth and comforting all at the same time, and Tony might be a genius but his mind was struggling to piece it all together.

All of the colors seemed to rush in at once after those first two. He was suddenly aware of the bright red of Nat's hair and the shiny white of Steve's teeth as though he'd been able to see them all along, really. He wanted to laugh at the ridiculousness of it all; because had he really been missing color the whole time when it was right here but he couldn't bring a smile to cross his lips.