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Harley Keener is born with one soulmark. A phoenix with fire licking at its wings spread wide on his chest, curling over his heart and climbing up his neck.
When he’s one and a half years old, a surge of love envelopes him, and a yellow daisy finds its home on the inside of his left wrist.
It wasn’t odd to have two soulmates. Some people had three, or four. But almost everyone in Harley’s hometown of Rose Hill, Tennessee, had just the one, and Harley is shunned.
His dad leaves when he’s seven, and God, it stings. His mom blames him. “This is your fault, your fault, your fault!” Abbie, with her chipped tooth and bright eyes, doesn’t understand what had happened. “Harley, when’s he coming back?”
As he gets older, he learns to cover up both of his marks. The daisy is easy to hide; he wears long sleeve shirts and shies away from personal contact. The phoenix, with its flames that spiral over his chest and neck, is much harder to conceal from greedy eyes that want to catch a glimpse of his larger-than-life soulmark.
He retreats into himself, taking to math and engineering like a prodigy, and converting the garage they never used into his workshop. He makes weird gadgets and goofy toys, experiments with explosions and tries to avoid the cops that showed up whenever the neighbors called in a noise complaint.
He never expects to meet either of his soulmates. He never expects to escape Rose Hill, to escape the judgment and whispers and hatred.
In the winter of the year that he turns twelve, everything changes.
---
Abbie wakes him up frantically, climbing into his bed and clinging close to him.
“I heard a noise,” she whispers, and Harley immediately goes on alert.
“Where’d you hear it, Abbster?” he asks softly into her hair.
“Outside. The garage.” Her voice is muffled by his pillow, but the fear Harley feels is clear and strong.
“Okay, kid, I’m gonna go check on it. You stay here, okay? Don’t leave this room.”
She nods and curls into the empty space he left, soaking up his heat. He smiles fondly at her, before grabbing the potato gun from its place beside the door and slipping softly out of the room.
There’s a newspaper on the stoop outside; the newsie, as Abbie likes to say, must’ve already been by. He grabs it with his free hand, and almost drops it when he sees the headline. Mandarin Attack: Stark Presumed Dead.
Harley inhales sharply. No. Tony Stark can’t be dead.
Another noise echoes from the garage, and Harley tucks the paper in his back pocket, adjusting his grip on the potato gun.
He sees the man before the man sees him; he’s using pliers to pull a form of shrapnel out of his arm, and Harley raises the gun in his hands.
“Freeze!” he says loudly, and it comes out weak and frightened. The man looks up, and oh my God that’s Tony Stark. Stark’s alive. He swallows. “Don’t. Move.”
Stark drops the pliers and slowly puts his hands up. “You got me.” Harley watches him silently, unflinching. “Nice potato gun.” Oh my God, Tony Stark complimented him on his tech. “Barrel’s a little long; between that and the wide gage, it’s gonna diminish your MPS-”
Harley doesn’t let him finish the sentence, his eyes finding a glass jar on one of the shelves. He fires and hits it perfectly; Stark stares at him, and Harley lets the corner of his mouth twitch. “And now you’re out of ammo,” Stark points out. Harley wants to mutter a curse, but he holds back.
“What’s that thing on your chest?” he asks, voice low. He knows what it is, it’s one of the most advanced pieces of technology in the world, but he wants to hear Stark’s answer.
Stark’s eyes dart away for a split second, before he says, “It’s a-uh. Electromagnet. You should know. Got a box of ‘em right here.” He taps the plastic box, and the magnets rattle.
“What does it power?” Harley asks, because oh my God, what if Stark has the Iron Man suit with him?
Stark stands up and angles the lamp at the ratty couch Harley likes to sleep on. The potato gun falls from his hands and a grin lights up his face. “Oh my God,” he says, and Stark watches him. “That’s-is that-Iron Man?” He meets Stark’s eyes as he asks it, and Stark furrows his brow in thought. Harley’s testing him.
“Technically, I am.”
And that’s what Harley was looking for.
“Technically,” he starts, moving towards the suit, towards Stark, “You’re dead.” He slaps the paper into Stark’s chest, and Stark’s hand comes up to grab it, brushing his.
Harley gasps as his entire chest burns with light and love and warmth.
“Kid,” Stark breathes. Harley feels a tug on his sleeve, and then Stark’s arms are around him tightly.
Harley says into his chest, muffled by his shirt, “If I was building Iron Man and War Machine, I’d have added in, the, uh-retroreflective panels-”
Stark tugs at his ear. “You find out you’re my soulmate and you decide to judge the way I design my suits.”
“But stealth mode!” Harley exclaims, and the blue light of the arc reactor pulses in his eyes.
“Yeah, okay, kiddo.”
But Stark’s tone is full of fondness, and Harley feels safe in his arms.
---
Tony has four soulmates. It’s Harley’s first time meeting anyone with more than one, and when Tony shows him the burning phoenix on his back that mirrors Harley’s, and the iron-colored salamander that winds its way up and around his neck, and the stars littered on his hip in the shape of the Ursa Major constellation, and the gardenia flower on the inside of his own left wrist, Harley cries.
“This is for my husband,” Tony whispers, touching the salamander. “And my best friend,” as he touches the stars. “And you,” as he grips Harley’s hand tightly. “I'll get you out of this shithole, kiddo,” he promises fiercely, and Harley feels loved.
---
Tony does get him out. Both him and Abbie. He uses his lawyers and his money, and argues, impossibly, for custody of them both. Macy Keener, with her drug addiction and history of abuse, never stands a chance against him.
Harley and Abbie move into Stark Tower, in New York.
The Avengers become family.
And over time, Tony becomes Dad.
---
Harley’s in the hospital, clutching a sleeping Rhodey’s hand and holding a tearful Abbie, when it happens.
His chest explodes with pain. The phoenix burns. He collapses, gasping out, “Dad’s-Tony-he’s-”
He screams. Abbie sobs.
The bond goes cold.
---
They find him, unconscious in a bunker in Siberia. Harley shakes with rage when he sees his father, bloody and pale. Almost dead.
Tony gets taken to the same hospital where Rhodey rests, and after hours of operations on his chest, he is brought to recover next to his husband. Their salamanders twist and shake, and the embers on Harley’s chest seem to flicker out.
Tony wakes up. Harley feels light, and warmth, and safety. They’re okay.
---
Tony tells them, lying in his hospital bed, that he found his gardenia. “Spider-Man,” he says, and his eyes shine with pride. Harley can’t help but feel a twist of jealousy, and Tony looks at him knowingly.
“I think he’s your daisy, kiddo,” Tony says, and Harley’s right hand moves to cover the daisy.
“Oh.”
“Disappointed?”
“N-no,” Harley says quickly, and Tony doesn’t press. But he will be, Harley wants to add.
---
Tony introduces them a few days later, and Spider-Man-Peter Parker-is in a short sleeve shirt. It has a math pun on it, and Harley bites back the laugh that forms in his throat upon glancing at it.
Find x. Here it is! His soulmate is a dork.
Harley’s eyes find the gardenia that weaves up his right forearm, and then, the daisy that’s on the inside of his own left wrist. It matches.
“Hey,” Peter says quietly, arm outstretched.
“Hi,” Harley whispers, eyes shining as his hand reaches out to meet Peter’s.
Their fingers intertwine, and as skin meets, so do their bonds. Harley feels a rush of warmth, just like six years ago in his garage, but Tony felt like coming home. Peter feels like a choice. Peter feels like something new.
But.
“I have to tell you something,” Harley says quickly.
“Me too. You-you go first.”
“Uh. Okay.” Harley clears his throat. “So. I don’t. I don’t do romance. I-I’m aromantic.”
Peter inhales sharply, and Harley feels their bond twist. He starts to pull away, I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry starting to form on his lips, but Peter whispers, “I am too.”
Harley looks at him sharply. “Are you-you’re being serious?”
“Yeah. Yes. I’m aro.”
Harley almost sobs, and Peter pulls him forward, and they nest in each other’s arms, the bond singing.
Peter presses a kiss to Harley’s forehead, and Harley smirks. “Our first kiss.”
Peter pinches his arm as he says, “Yeah, and that’s as far down your face as I’ll be going, Keener.”
Harley pouts playfully. “Aw, no cheek kisses?”
“Okay, fine, you might get cheek kisses. If you’re nice.”
Harley goes on his tiptoes and brushes his lips against Peter’s cheek quickly, grinning brightly. “’m glad you’re my soulmate,” he says quietly.
“I’m glad you’re mine.”
Tony clears his throat, and Harley turns his head to look at him. There are tears glistening in Tony’s eyes that he brushes away quickly, and Harley grins. “I’m happy you both found each other, but kiddos, we’ve got work to do.”
“Okay, Dad,” they say together, and Harley feels the phoenix’s fire burn with love for him, and the daisy feels sharp and crisp.
Harley’s home.