Chapter Text
How to Fuck With (and Feed) Your Soulmate
They called it the Grey Space.
Not everybody had one. In fact, very few people did. But everyone knew what it meant.
It was exactly as the name implied; a small patch on your body, different from the rest of your skin, marked by its flat grey color. Ugly in appearance, though not by its meaning. Because to have one meant you were one of the lucky ones, gifted by the Fates with a soulmate, one other who would balance your heart, your life, and whose love for you would be bright enough to fill all of the greys in your life, and not just the one your skin, with color.
His mother had had one. Steve could remember sitting on her lap, running his fingers over the small band that curled around her wrist like ivy, and asking her over and over to tell him all about what it meant.
“It’s your father’s kiss,” she would always respond with a laugh, pressing one of her own to his forehead.
“And you were born with it?” he asked for what must have been the millionth time.
“Yes.” They might not have had much, but Sarah had always had an abundance of patience for Steve’s endless questions. “We both were, but his was on his right wrist instead of his left.”
“Why?”
“Because a Grey Space is the reflection of the love you’re going to find with your Soulmate.”
“But weren’t you afraid?” he pressed. Because while they may have been rare, everybody knew what a soul-mark was, but not everyone was kind about it.
“Not at all,” was her response, the same response she always gave. “It meant I was blessed and there was someone out there for me, someone who would love me just the way I am. I just had to find them.”
“But how? Weren’t you scared you weren’t ever going to find daddy?”
“Not really, no.” And here she paused to turn her wrist over, so he could see the swirls and curlicues that were thickest over the inner vein, right above the pulse. “It didn’t always look like that, you know. It was grey, just like everyone else’s. But then one day it started to itch, and change, and I started to see the leaves, and I knew it would be soon. And then came –“
“The whistling!” Steve always cut her off at this point, because this was his favorite part.
“Who’s telling the story?” his mother would ask, but there would be laughter in her voice, and another kiss to his forehead.
“Sorry,” Steve mumbled, even though he wasn’t, and they both knew it.
“Silly bear.” One more kiss to his forehead, this time accompanied by the feel of the fingers of her other hand running through his hair. “But yes, the whistling came next. Because the Fates can be kind, and sometimes cruel, but even they know it can be hard to be sure, so they give you a Sense to help you find your one.” A Sense. From what Steve had understood then, it was as simple, and as difficult, as that. As the day grew closer and closer, to help two soulmates find each other, you began to share one of the five senses with the one who was meant for you. You could smell what your soon-to-be beloved was smelling, feel it in your fingertips if they held their hands under cold water, or see something when it caught their eye. It was meant to help you find the one who was your other half, but the Fates, while kind, could also be capricious, and it was never easy as all that. You could spend hours, days, weeks, months, even years in some cases, with a hint of bread on your nose, but that wouldn’t tell you which bakery your other half was in, or if they were even in a bakery at all; only that they were often surrounded by the scent of bread. Those who shared the sense of sight with their yet to be found soulmate were often considered the luckiest, but just because you could see the sign for Stone Street out of the corner of your eye, it didn’t give you the day or time, or even the season. It seemed that while the Fates were willing to help, they still wanted you to do most of the work yourself.
Sarah’s Sense had been hearing, and while challenging, his mother had been determined, and his father clever. Not too long after the shapes had begun to form on her wrist, Sarah started to hear a low whistling, the same soft but cheerful tune over and over again in her left ear, which always made her laugh. It was how, when she heard it for real one day at the market, she knew when she turned around it would be her soulmate’s eyes she would be staring into, and her laughter the first sound he would hear from her lips.
They were married less than a week later. And less than a month after that, they sailed across the Atlantic to build a new life for themselves in New York. Times had been tough back in Ireland, and they knew they would be in their new home, but they had each other, and they should have gotten their happy ending.
Except they didn’t.
Just three years later, and less than six months after Steve was born, Joseph had been killed by mustard gas in the Great War. And his mother’s soul-mark, which had once been a vine of the brightest greens around her wrist, didn’t revert back to its band of grey, but turned black instead.
Even at seven, Steve knew better than to ask what the last sound she had heard from him had been. It was the reason why all the other wives in their building were always kind to his mother; why she never had problems finding someone to babysit Steve when she needed to work extra shifts at the hospital, and there was usually extra food left on their doorstep when Steve’s health had taken a turn for the worse. And why, when she whistled the tune that was the love song of her life, it never sounded bright or cheerful to Steve, but sad and lonely instead.
“I’m so sorry, Momma,” Steve could remember saying to her, just as sad and lonely, as he ran his fingertips over the shadows of his mother’s broken heart.
“It’s okay, little bear.” It was a lie, and they both knew it. But it was a lie they both chose to believe. “Your da may be gone, but I still have his mark, which means I’ll always have a piece of him with me.” She would pause then, to tighten her fingers over his own on her wrist. “And even better, I still have you, and that’s the best gift he ever gave me.”
“Even better than the whistling?”
“Even better than the whistling.” And this time the laughter was back in her voice. “And his heart, his bravery, his kindness, they all live on in you. I couldn’t ask for anything more.” Her fingers tightened over his, before she let him go and sat back, pulling him even higher into her lap.
“I don’t have one,” Steve remembered confessing once, just once, feeling like he was sharing his deepest, darkest secret, although she already knew. Even at just seven years old, Steve couldn’t help but think it unfair. His life was already so filled with greys; the phlegm that his lungs never seemed to cease coughing up, the thick, heavy air that made his throat tight and his chest constantly ache, his stupid eyes that didn’t work right and allow him to see colors the way everybody else did. His world, his life, his body was all about greys, except for the one that might make it better.
“No, you don’t.” She didn’t say it like it was a bad thing, just a thing that was. “But that’s alright. Lots of people don’t. That doesn’t mean they don’t fall in love all the time. Look at Arnie’s parents. Are you going to tell me they aren’t happy with each other?”
“No.” Even Steve could admit his voice had been mulish.
“And just because you don’t have a Grey Space, doesn’t mean there isn’t someone out there waiting to love you like me and your da loved each other. You just get to choose that person for yourself, just like they get to choose you. It’s not a patch on your skin that’s important, Steven Grant Rogers, but what’s in here.” She tapped her index finger over his heart, once, twice, three times. “Always remember that, my little bear, and you’ll be fine. Now come on, enough stories. It’s time for bed.”
***
Her words, just like always, had been a comfort, a balm to all his worries. But neither of them had any idea just how prophetic they would be.
Because the fact that Steve didn’t have a Grey Space had been one of the deciding factors why he was chosen for Project Rebirth.
“We just can’t risk it,” Dr. Erskine explained to him, after the most embarrassing physical examination Steve ever had to endure, where they checked between his toes and even behind his balls in search of a Grey Space. “In spite of how far science has come in the past forty years, there’s still so much we don’t understand about soulmates. It might just be one of those things we never understand. And if you did have one, we have no idea what effect it could have on you, them, or the procedure. I’m willing to bear a lot of things on my conscience, but not that.”
Steve couldn’t fault him his logic, and he thought it fair at the time. Besides, he had already met Peggy by then. She didn’t have a Grey Space either, and his mother’s words about choice over destiny never felt so true to him as they had during those all too short years, as filled with war and battle as they had been, they were lucky enough to share. It wouldn’t be easy, and it would take a lot of effort on their parts, especially Steve’s, but they held so many of the same beliefs and goals, Steve couldn’t help but feel it would definitely be worth it in the end.
But Fate, or the Fates, had always had their own way of doing things, and they often balanced the choices of humans with ones of their own.
When he decided to fly the Valkyrie into the ice, Peggy on the radio begging him to reconsider, and Arnie shouting at him to stop being an idiot, Steven Grant Rogers did not have a Grey Space anywhere on his body.
When he opened his eyes for the first time nearly seventy years later, he did.
***
He hadn’t understood at first. After the disastrous sham of that fake hospital room, a panicked run through streets that should have been familiar but weren’t, a horrible realization and a crash course on history and all the changes he missed while he’d been “sleeping,” even weeks later he still hadn’t realized.
It had been Agent-Please-Call-Me-Phil-I’m-Such-A-Huge-Fan-Coulson, a nice enough fellow, Steve supposed, even if the way his eyes ran over Steve whenever he looked at him put Steve in mind of an overly-eager-to-please puppy, who had been the one to make him realize something even bigger than the fact that although he was barely twenty-eight-years-old while nearly a hundred years had passed, something even stranger had happened.
“She’s still alive, you know,” Coulson said to him quietly the first time Steve had ridden on a Quinjet.
“Who?” Steve asked, handing him back his collection cards, wondering if he should hijack the plane and fly it back into the ice if it meant he could escape the way the man kept looking at him.
“Peggy Carter.”
“What?” The words left him dumbstruck, because he had been out of the ice for just over two weeks at that point, and no one thought that would be something he’d want to know, instead of endless lectures on the advances in technology (still no flying cars, much to his disappointment), and something called Twitter (whatever the hell that was).
“Fury didn’t want us to tell you,” Coulson went on, and this time instead of hungry, his expression was apologetic. “Thought it would be too much for you to handle, all at once, with everything else. She’s old now, obviously, and not in the best of health these days, but she is your soulmate, and I thought you had a right to know.”
“What?”
“There’s still so much we don’t know about soulmates,” Coulson continued as if he hadn’t just knocked the ground out from beneath Steve’s feet. “And your situation is certainly unique, just like the rest of you. But as best as we can guess, that’s why your mark is grey, instead of black.”
“What?”
***
And okay, maybe Steve hadn’t noticed there was something different about his body when he really should have. But given the fact that just a little over two weeks ago, he thought he was going to die, only to find himself seventy years in the future, in a world that was strange and loud and bright, where there still weren’t any flying cars (he was never going to forgive Howard for that), but a man in a red and gold flying suit, another who turned into a huge green thing that liked to smash, and a device that was smaller than a pack of cigarettes where he could access something called Snap Chat, where apparently people could post pictures of themselves with things like dog ears (seriously, what the hell?), he hadn’t honestly taken the time to give his own body any consideration. While the serum had done more for him than anyone originally working on Project Rebirth could have ever imagined, as evidenced by the fact that he was still alive, he hadn’t had a Grey Space when he first stepped into that chamber, and there hadn’t been one when he’d walked out. He hadn’t even thought to look for one. Why would he? Either you were born with one, or you weren’t. Everyone knew that.
Except, well, apparently for him.
It had taken him a while to verify what Coulson told him. First there had been the Battle of New York, where Steve discovered that the Tesseract, the very thing he had sacrificed his life to prevent it from getting into the wrong hands was still around (fuck you, Fury), and learned along with the rest of the world aliens were apparently a thing (what the fuck?). Not only that, but Norse myths weren’t just myths (he supposed he could accept that, but seriously Loki, what was the deal with that hat?), Howard’s son Tony was even more arrogant and egotistical than his father (great, just great!), and that unfortunately Loki wasn’t an only child, (Thor actually wasn’t so bad of a fellow, but who the hell thought that giving him a hammer that could shoot lightning was a good idea? If he ever met them, he was going to punch them in the face). If that wasn’t enough, after all that, there was the cleanup and trying to find and help as many survivors as they could, and then dealing with the press once everyone realized Captain America hadn’t actually died in World War Two, but by some miracle was alive and well.
It had been a clusterfuck of a week, and Steve barely had enough energy to keep ploughing ahead and putting one foot in front of the other just to get through it, never mind having a chance to focus on the fact that his body was now marked with a Grey Space.
It wasn’t until days later, after he had gorged himself on the high-calorie protein shakes the SHIELD scientists synthesized for him, sleeping for over twenty-four hours straight, and a scalding hot shower that he had both the time and energy to search his body for the kiss from the Fates. It didn’t even take very long, and once found Steve realized he probably should have noticed it much, much sooner. But as he finally managed to rinse away both the grime and the soap from his body, there, there it was.
A circular patch of dull grey skin, about the size of a palm-print, on the outer curve of his deltoid on his upper right arm.
***
In the end, it didn’t change much. It didn’t itch, no matter how much he poked and prodded at it, and there was no shading to it, or hint of what shape it might take, which were the initial signs a first meeting was imminent. And his senses, enhanced as they were these days, certainly didn’t seem to be affected. It was just there, as if it had always been, when he knew for damn sure it hadn’t. An empty piece of him, waiting to be filled, that meant there was someone out there who would love him like no other, and whom he would love just as much. But only when the time was right, and not a year, day, moment before that. Then the signs, the Sense, would come.
And for the first time, the very first time since he opened his eyes in that hospital room that really wasn’t a hospital room, Steve thought that waking up in the Twenty First Century might not be such a bad thing after all.
***
Or so he thought at first.
But while a lot of things had changed since Steve had been trapped in the ice, lots of things hadn’t, and even the sharpest and most brilliant minds of this new world were no closer to understanding the soulmate bond than they had in the forties. His research into the topic gave him data, but no real answers.
It was still considered an unbelievably rare phenomena, with the latest statistics saying that only one person in every ten thousand was born with a Grey Space on their body. In spite of that, it was as highly romanticized as ever, with more movies made, songs sung, and books written about it than previously. Attitudes had both changed and remained the same; those with the mark were now allowed to join the Armed Forces, when that had been banned in Steve’s lifetime, and those of the same sex who carried matching marks proudly claimed they were soulmates, instead of being brutally shunned. There were even different classifications now. Usually it was still considered a romantic and sexual pairing, but there were those who shared platonic bonds which were supposedly just a loving and deep. But some things were still very much the same, in that those who bore a Grey Space seldom talked about it outside of their families and closest friends, nor did they display them in public, not out of shame, but more due to the intensity of what having a soulmate entailed.
And while times had changed, and technology improved, it seemed as if it were no easier now than when Steve had been growing up to find the one who the Fates had destined to be yours. While there were forums for advice and even something called apps on Steve’s new phone that promised to help you in your search, there were no blood or DNA tests, retinal scans or other ways to narrow the playing field.
Just a patch of skin somewhere on your body that was either grey, slowly starting to fill with color, or black, depending on what your individual circumstances were.
The fact that Steve’s Grey Space had appeared was in itself another anomaly. All existing evidence claimed either you were born with one or not, so he had no idea why he now had one when he hadn’t before.
“Who knows?” had been Peggy’s response to his question on one of her good days when he had gone to visit her after moving to DC. As frail as her mind could now sometimes be, he still got most of his best answers from her. She was the reason no one had known he hadn’t been born with a Grey Space. Once V-Day was declared, she continued doing the work she so believed in, and been able to intuit how the times were changing; World War Two may have been over, but the Cold War was just beginning, and in her infinite wisdom had destroyed the few remaining samples of Steve’s blood, as well as most of the remaining notes on Project Rebirth, including the fact Steve hadn’t been born with a Grey Space on his body. “We never did know much about them, and that hasn’t changed. I was never one to put much stock in luck or fate in my younger years, but I’ve come to believe in miracles in my old age. How can I not, when you’re sitting here in front of me, looking not a day older than when I last saw you? And the Fates will have their way, no matter what the rest of us may want or think is best.”
“You’re still my best girl, Pegs,” Steve said, curling his fingers around her old and gnarled ones as they rested against his cheek.
“P’shaw,” she snorted, in the exact same tone she always used when frustrated with him, her eyes as bright as he could remember them ever being. “We both know that was never meant to be,” she continued, touching ever so delicately on a truth about him no one aside from her and Arnie had known. Even in her nineties, ravaged by time and dementia, she was still one of the most beautiful people Steve had been blessed to know, and he still loved her, as much as he ever had. But no, she was never meant to be his, just as he was never meant to be hers, not really. He supposed the Fates would have always known that, even if he’d never been able to admit it out loud.
“And if you’ll listen to someone else for just once in your life, listen to me now. It is a miracle, and a blessing. If there’s anyone in this world who deserves it happening to them, it’s you, Steve. Don’t ever question that.”
***
He wouldn’t, and he didn’t. Truth be told, after that day, he honestly didn’t think much more about it, because life, being life, decided to fuck with him yet again, and the next two years were the biggest clusterfuck he’d ever had to deal with.
First it was finding out that HYDRA, those motherfuckers who he had died trying to stop, were not only still alive and well, but thriving, and had infiltrated not only SHIELD, but most of the world’s governments as well. Then there was Project Insight, (once again, fuck you Fury!), and having to go on the run while stopping a government sponsored genocide. Followed by Ultron, (if he could figure out a way to go back in time, he would just so he could kick Howard in the nuts hard enough to keep him from ever reproducing, because Jesus-fucking-Christ, really Tony?), and any spare minute he had after that locating and destroying ever single still active HYDRA cell remaining in the world, (there was even one in Disney World! Was nothing fucking sacred?), until finally, finally things seemed to settle.
And it wasn’t as if it was all bad. He had met Sam, after all, and while his relationship with her had been tumultuous at first, he now viewed Natasha as the sister he’d never had. Thor was actually one of the nicest people in the world (supposedly one of many, but still, it was the thought that counted), if a bit on the strange side, and Tony wasn’t too bad. (Okay, he was, but Tony came with Pepper, and Steve could admit that Pepper was pretty amazing.) When Bruce wasn’t in Hulk mode, Steve could always count on him for a peaceful afternoon, and Wanda was like a second sister, a younger one, who Steve enjoyed getting to know. Clint was Clint, and that was pretty much all he could say about him, but Steve definitely included him on his list of friends. All the time spent hunting down HYDRA had given Steve a crash course in modern technology and cultural norms, so things like #whateverwastrendingthatday and yeet no longer threw him for a loop, (although Natasha had banned him from Twitter after the third time he destroyed his phone by throwing it against the wall. “But there are Nazis on there, Natasha! Nazis!” “Welcome to life in the Twenty First Century. Now shut up and let me pilot the Quinjet. And you better make sure your ass is in a parachute before we get to the drop point. I am not going to waste my time digging you out of a hole again.”)
So honestly, he really hadn’t had the time to think much about the Grey Space on his arm, or the one soul in the entire world the Fates had chosen for him. He’d been really busy, and he thought he was perfectly justified in perhaps not paying as much attention to it as he should. And he was grateful, he was.
Or at least he was until he got the Sense.
And discovered that his soulmate was a dick.
***
The first time he noticed wasn’t actually the first time, Steve would come to realize later. The first time had probably been when the Avengers had been called out to Arizona to infiltrate and destroy an AIM lab. Steve had been hauling the last of their prisoners into the Quinjet, when for just an instant Steve could have sworn there was a hint, ever so brief, of the sea and fresh tomatoes at the back of his throat, which made no sense, since they were all standing in the middle of the desert, and the sand was fucking everywhere, the back of his neck, his shoulder, his ass-crack, and that shit itched. It had been a fleeting thing anyway, there and gone in less than an instant, and Steve already forgotting about it by the time they were airborne, and was scarfing down one of specially designed protein bars that were always kept on hand so Steve could ingest the required calories to keep his body running at top functionality.
It wasn’t even the second time, Steve determined once he had been able to think on it. That had most likely been when he had been using his shield to clear a path through the Monteverade Rainforest in Costa Rica, Natasha and Sam right behind him, and out of nowhere, he started to burp. Uncontrollably. So much so that even Sam and Natasha noticed.
“Are you all right there, Cap?” Sam asked, because Sam was amazing like that.
“Yeah,” burp, “I’m,” burp, “fine,” burp. And why was he tasting cherries and…cough syrup? What the hell was in this fucking rainforest? He hated rainforests; they were unbearably hot and humid, to the point where everywhere his uniform touched his skin, the back of his knees, his shoulder, the base of his spine, felt irritated and itchy.
“Are you sure about that?” Sam persisted.
Steve never got the chance to answer him. Before he could reply, he burped again, and a fucking bug flew into his mouth. Then he was no longer burping, but coughing and gagging, while Sam, no longer an amazing friend but an amazing asshole instead, started laughing his ass off.
The third time, well, the third time it finally clicked, and Steve realized what had been happening. His soulmate made sure he did.
Because the third time it happened, the motherfucker tried to kill him.
Or at least it felt that way to Steve.
It was right after another exhausting mission, three days spent tracking down a ship full of armed hostiles in the Gulf of Guinea, and Steve had just stumbled back onto his floor at Stark Tower. Those fuckers had been nasty, and somehow they’d managed to get their hands on weapons that none of them, even Stark, had ever seen before, and the ensuing battle had been brutal. Vibranium could still deflect even the most powerful of blasts, and thankfully lightning bolts trumped lasers, so aside from a few cuts and burns, none of his teammates were too badly hurt. But Steve was grimy and exhausted, with barely enough energy to strip from his uniform, shower, and gulp down three of his protein shakes before he collapsed face first into bed. It had taken him a while to get used to the mattresses of the future, too soft, too comfortable, but he now loved his bed. Big enough for even his body, it was probably the best part about living in Stark’s Tower (and Pepper), and on nights like this he was grateful this was the place he now called home. Scratching at his shoulder, his last thought before his head hit the pillow was that he would kill anyone who tried to wake him up in less than twenty hours, debriefing be damned.
The fucker didn’t even give him an hour.
It started as a tickle, then a tingle that was annoying but could be ignored if he tried hard enough. Except it didn’t go away. In fact, over the course of the next three minutes, that tickle that started off as a tickle turned into a burn that exploded into a blaze that felt like a dragon had shit a fireball into his mouth.
‘Are you all right, Captain Rogers?’ JARVIS’ voice asked over the apartment’s speakers. Steve was surprised he could make the words out, because he was certain all of the wax in his ears was melting.
“Head…fire! Tower…being attacked?” he was barely able to gasp as he stumbled blindly into the bathroom, turning on the cold water in the sink.
‘I can assure you, Captain, that the Tower is not under attack, and there are no contaminants in any of the vents that I can detect. Do you need me to contact the medical team?’ JARVIS asked.
Or he thought he might have; it was hard to tell with his head under the tap. And it wasn’t like it was helping, nor were the palmfuls of icy water he was able to gather in his hands to greedily slurp down. If anything, it was only getting worse. That dragon that had shit that damned fireball into his mouth was wreaking havoc on the back of his skull, down his throat, and into his chest. His eyes were tearing, his nose running, and every desperate gasp he took made it feel like C4 was going off in his stomach. If this was some practical joke of Tony’s, messing with his protein powder, he didn’t care how much he liked Pepper, he was going to piss in Tony’s coffee.
It took an hour before the burning finally started to fade into something that made Steve not want to rip his head off, all while gurgling assurances to JARVIS that no, he did not need the medical team storming into his room. It was another hour after that of sucking on ice cubes before Steve could even think of getting back to his feet and making his way into the bathroom to check the damage in the mirror, shocked at what he saw. His eyes were bloodshot, his hair matted to his head with sweat, and the skin of his face, neck and upper chest all flushed a vibrant beet red. What the fuck? Seriously. What? The? Fuck? As far as he knew, he was in peak physical condition, and as best as anyone could determine, the effects of the serum were permanent. So what the hell had just happened?
‘Are you certain you don’t want me to contact medical, Captain Rogers?’ JARVIS asked for what must have been the hundredth time.
“No thank you JARVIS. Like I said, I’m fine,” Steve answered for the hundredth time.
‘If you’re sure, Captain,’ JARVIS said, sounding strangely condescending for an AI. ‘It’s just that your heartrate is elevated, your skin is flushed, and you keep scratching at your right shoulder. From what I have been able to ascertain from my observations of others in my Tower and well as the medical files I have access to, it appears as if you are having an allergic reaction to something.’
“I’m fine, JARVIS. Like I said…Wait a minute. What?”
What?
‘As I said, Captain, your heartrate…’
JARVIS’ voice became nothing more than a background murmur, as Steve stood there, staring at his reflection, running through everything JARVIS just told him, especially that last bit. Because Steve was scratching at his right shoulder, had been, repeatedly, for at least the last fifteen minutes. And not just anywhere, but right over the mark, that patch of skin he hadn’t paid any attention to in far too long, his Grey Space. Except, as he scrutinized it more closely than he had in months, he realized it was no longer just a patch of discolored skin. If he squinted, he could see just the faintest hints of a pattern, a few of the palest lines that might be the beginnings of a star maybe?
And while the past two hours had most definitely not been pleasant, the sensation when he first became aware of it, had originated in his mouth. It wasn’t an attack, some virulent contaminant in the ventilation system, or a goddamned allergic reaction. It wasn’t any of those things. It was a sharing, the first formations of a bridge the Fates would allow so two soulmates could begin to communicate with one another. A clue to help them find each other, because their time was drawing closer.
A Sense.
A rare one, taste, probably the most intimate one of all, because what passed through one’s lips would resonate with the other, like a kiss, without being kissed.
That his soulmate had obviously already figured out, and was using to try to murder him, the goddamned, motherfucking asshole!
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
***
It only got worse from there.
After that night when Steve honestly believed his head would explode, he foolishly thought they had reached a détente. Once he drank three bottles of water, and sucked on four more ice cubes, he took a few deep breaths and tried to remember everything his mother had told him of her experiences, all of the things he learned from his research. There really wasn’t much to go on, and while scientists hated to use the word, the most common one used to describe what the first sensation of their soulmates felt like was magic, which gave Steve no answers. But still, his mother, and the personal accounts from all the blogs he read about it said that sometimes, if you were still enough, calm enough, it was more than one of the senses you shared, but a feeling too, an awareness as thin as gossamer of someone walking by your side. It didn’t always work, but if you were careful enough while also being persistent enough, you could almost see the thread the Fates had woven between you. The Japanese went so far as to call it the Red String of Fate, which Steve supposed made as much sense as anything else he read.
So once he calmed down enough, and his skin returned to its normal color, Steve sat on his bed, with his legs crossed at the ankles, and pressed his hand to the Grey Space on his shoulder. He closed his eyes, took three deep breaths, turning all of his focus inward, and thought I’m here. I feel you. I know.
Unsurprisingly, there had been no response, just a quelled silence that told him absolutely nothing. While disappointing, Steve was too tired to try anything else at the moment, so he decided to let it lie, and finally catch up on the sleep he was so desperate for. He would figure it out in the morning.
There were two problems with that line of thinking. The first being that taste, along with touch, was the rarest form of communication between two soulmates, so there was very little information Steve could find on the subject. The second one was that while by now Steve had pretty much adapted to living in the Twenty First Century, food was the one area where he was least comfortable. It wasn’t that he didn’t like food. He enjoyed the shawarma place Tony had taken them to after the Battle of New York, and he loved all the variety of coffees he could now find on any given block in the city. Cold pizza with Clint was also always a treat. But unlike the rest of his teammates, he was a super-soldier with an enhanced metabolism, and his body required at least three times as many calories as theirs to function properly. While he knew they didn’t really mean any harm, their teasing about the way he usually ordered twice as much as they did made him uncomfortable. He probably should have just brushed it off, like he did everything else, but it reminded him too much of his youth, when he had been made fun of for his scrawny stature, instead of his enhanced one. So he found ways to work around it, primarily by drinking the protein shakes and consuming the protein bars both Pepper and JARVIS made sure to keep in stock for him at the Tower and while on missions. They weren’t the tastiest things he’d eaten, but he’d certainly had worse.
And sometimes, just sometimes, he really missed his mother’s cooking.
So the language of food was not one he was familiar with. And that was fine; it was really no one’s business but his own.
Except now it wasn’t. It was also his soulmate’s. And his soulmate wasn’t the kind, loving partner Steve had been led to believe he’d be, but a demon from hell sent to personally torture Steve at every opportunity. Because Steve hadn’t already suffered enough.
The sonuvabitch struck again, two days later, when the team finally gathered to debrief. Maria was in the middle of the intel they had downloaded from the ship’s computer, a list of potential buyers, when it started, the strangest sensation in his mouth. A series of tiny explosions on his tongue that thankfully didn’t burn, but were irritating enough that Steve found himself shaking his head like a dog in an attempt to get it to stop.
“Are you alright there, Cap?” Sam asked, just as Steve reached for a glass of water.
“Fine,” he grunted, with another shake of his head.
Pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop.
What the fuck was that? And why wasn’t the water helping?
“As I was saying -“
Pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop.
Jesus Christ, that was annoying. And it was getting louder too, the popping increasing in its frequency.
Pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop.
What the hell was that? And why on earth would anyone put something like that in their mouth? And was that…was that grape he was tasting? Had someone found a way to make grapes explode? Was his soulmate some sort of mad scientist?
Pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop.
“I’m sorry. Am I boring you, Captain Rogers?” Maria’s voice cut through Steve’s mental rambling.
“What? No. I’m sorry. What were you saying, Maria?”
Pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop.
Was that cherry he was tasting as well? Were fruits now weapons of mass destruction?
Pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop.
“Steve, are you sure you’re alright?” That had been Sam again, he was certain of it. Or as certain as he could be with the racket going on in his mouth.
“What?” Steve looked up to find every single person in the room staring at him.
“Your eyes have been bugging out of your head for the past fifteen minutes. It’s kinda freaking us all out dude.” Clint sounded as serious as Steve ever heard him.
“Sorry. I’m fine, I promise. Just -“ Was that orange now as well? Gleh. What the fucking hell? “A tickle in my throat. Excuse me, I’ll be right back.” That had been the last thing Steve had been able to say before he bolted from the room.
Pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop.
***
Two hours of that shit. Steve had to endure two hours of that shit before the goddamned popping finally stopped and he was able to hear the rest of the world again. While his hair didn’t feel like it was on fire, his tongue felt like he had French kissed a cactus. Steve had no idea what his idiot soulmate had put in their mouth this time, but he did know that when they did finally meet, he was going to punch him in the face.
***
The next time that cowfucker struck, Steve knew exactly what it was he was eating. But the knowing didn’t make it any easier, especially as it happened right in the middle of a sparring session with Natasha.
She was the most challenging member of all the Avengers to face, and he always had to keep his attention focused when he fought against her. Not only was she deceptively strong for her size, but she knew how to seize any weakness and turn it to her advantage. Steve normally loved training with her, because she forced him to combine both instinct and intelligence whenever they sparred, and he could never predict what she was going to do next. He was doing well that day, and they were in their second hour of training, Steve just having blocked a kick from her with his forearm, when it hit him in a sudden wave.
The brutal, acrid bite of a lemon. And not just any lemon, no, but the sourest lemon he had ever tasted in any century he’d been alive. Sour enough to freeze him in his tracks, and cause not just his lips, but his entire face, to pucker.
And Natasha, being Natasha, of course took advantage of the opportunity, wrapping both of her thighs around Steve’s neck and slamming him to the floor.
“I fucking hate you!” Steve shouted as the sourness somehow grew even more intense.
“You always say the sweetest things Steve,” Natasha smiled down at him. “Now are you ready to tap out, or shall we go for another round?”
“Kill me, just kill me now, please,” Steve begged her.
“Like I said, you always say the sweetest things.”
***
And then, as if the fire, the popping, and then the goddamned sourest lemon to ever lemon weren’t bad enough, the shithead finally took it a step too far.
To top it all off, it happened in front of not just his teammates, but Pepper too. It had been a good day, a great day actually, and they were all in the common area to celebrate. Whatever latest project Tony had been working on must have been going well, because he was less snarky than usual, which was always a welcome respite. By some miracle of miracles, Clint hadn’t been hurt on his last assignment, which was a relief to both Steve and Natasha. The final analysis of the data that had been gathered from the ship allowed Steve, Sam and Natasha to capture and imprison the small cell of terrorists who had been planning to buy the weapons. And Pepper had closed on a business deal that had been in the works for months, increasing Stark Industry’s profits, while also guaranteeing better regulations that would further help the environment. She was so pleased with the outcome she was actually cooking for all of them. There was an entire team of personal chefs employed at Stark Tower, so it was rare that she cooked. But it was something she admitted she found relaxing, and Steve always enjoyed whatever she prepared (even if he still had to go up to his room and drink three protein shakes to ensure he satisfied his daily caloric requirement). Even Bruce was feeling calm enough to join them, so all in all it was the perfect way to end a great day.
Steve really should have known better.
He had just swallowed his first mouthful of the delicious chicken pasta dish Pepper had spent so much time carefully preparing when he was hit by what could only be described as something that tasted like dirty feet and vomit.
Whatever it was, it was the vilest thing Steve ever tasted. Not only did it taste like someone was sucking on a corpse’s toes, but had dipped that corpse’s toes in paste, and were licking it off with their tongue. It was the most disgusting thing Steve ever experienced, and he’d witnessed the Red Skull ripping his own face off.
Steve wanted to die. Or at least cut his tongue off, because sweet. Baby. Jesus. What the fuck was that?
“Steve, Steve, are you alright?” Of course it would be Sam who would ask that question. “You’re starting to turn green man. Is everything okay?”
“Are you actually getting sick?” Even Natasha sounded concerned.
“Oh my god, it’s not my cooking is it?” Pepper looked horrified.
“No, no,” Steve somehow managed shake his head. “Your cooking is fine, it’s delicious, I promise you -“ Steve was cut off by his own burp, and as bad as it was the first time, it was a million times worse coming back up. And then Steve ended up doing something he hadn’t done since before the serum, barely managing to make it to the sink in time before he puked his guts out.
“Oh, it’s on!” he shouted, reaching for a raw onion on the counter, only to drop it to the floor, when his stomach convulsed once more, and the process started all over again.