Prolog: Setting Up of the World

In 1820, Humans underwent a drastic evolutionary change. It started off as one person, then a group of people, then a larger group of people. Soon it was a common occurrence. Humans were no longer just defined by sex, nationality, race and the like. They were also defined by whether or not their were the 'Enhancements'. The Human species had evolved two different sets of people; The Mentalist and the Sensitives. However those names were not mainstream enough, so people began to call the two new types of humans; The Sentinel and the Guides. That sticks a little more then the other two words. The Mentalist, better known as the Guides, short for Empathic and Telepathic people, are able to sense people's emotions and very powerful ones can even read minds. The Sensitives, better known as the Sentinel, are given acute awareness of the world around themselves and their bodies normally are honed weapons. Their senses are heightened to a great degree and the pinnacle of strength is being able to see into the direct future. Early on it was discovered that Sentinel and Guides needed one another to be steady in their lives. It was hard for the Sentinel to live their lives normally because of the constant influx of sensory input and sometimes they were even driven mad by it. The Guides were basically the same expect with emotions and thoughts of those around them.

In 1890 laws were passed all over the world to protect the Guide and Sentinel relationship. While forming a Bond between a pair was sometimes difficult, it was still necessary for the Enhancements. It was even found that powerful Sentinel would fly into a violent and sinister rage whenever their mate was harmed. Needless to say a person with their skill were dangerous.

Time moved on and things settled into the regular time stream. However World War two was a little different. It was a dark time for Guides, for they were being slaughtered by the thousands. The idea was the the Sentinel were too powerful to be shackled down to a person who was in tune with emotions. That it made them weak to be under the influence of the Guides. Yet, what they did not know was that without Guides, Sentinel go mad and act out in a violent rages. The war was brutal.

That was the time when a scrawny Sentinel entered the Super Solider program. Steve Rogers was small and inconsequential, yet his score as a Sentinel was strange enough to make him a great candidate. When he under went the serum, everything exploded. Literally and figuratively. The entire world around him seemed to explode into colors, sensations and auditory inputs. The serum had made him perfect in all ways. He was the perfect Sentinel. The most powerful ever known. A blessing and a curse. For he knew in his heart that there would never be a Guide that would be able to handle his powers. Even Howard Stark, a genius and one of the highest Guides, could not handle all the input that he was giving off. He supposed it was for the best though. He had a mission to do. Even Peggy Carter, the Guide second only to Howard, could not handle him. Together though, the two helped him through the war and through losing his best friend Bucky. So he figured it was a good thing that he did a suicide mission. For his life would always be a half life, on a razors edge of insanity and violence at all times. The shock of the ice would have been a shock for anyone. But it was more intense for Steve, intense enough to slam his mind into a coma and thus into a state stasis with the help of the freezing properties of the ice.

After losing Steve to the war effort and once the war was done, Howard Stark continued on with his life. He married a nice woman named Jamie, an intelligence agent and a Sentinel. The first time they tried to have a child, Maria miscarried. Nearly destroyed by this, Howard threw himself even further into his work, until one day he stumbled across something that would change the world forever. He had been in a bar for Guides and Sentinel to mingle when he noticed something that was completely out of the norm. Across the room, a Sentinel stood up sharply and whirled around on his heels. He stared across the room at Howard, or rather to the left of Howard. The genius' guide abilities to read people's emotions exploded. Every Guide in the room was clutching their heads and every Sentinel was tense. The man next to Howard, however, was none of these things. He was entranced. The Sentinel crossed the room in definite steps and grabbed the Guide. Their bodies glowed bright blue before it vanished. Howard looked startled, the intense possessive emotions vanished and a strong sense of contentment fell across the room. Howard was perplexed by not only what happened but the blue glow as well. Hesitantly he asked what had happened and the Sentinel replied that he had found his Soul Mate, his perfect match. Howard stared at the man, assuming he was speaking of the legend. That wasn't possible….but he had seen it happen. So what did he do? He researched and tried to figure out a way to make it so that every Sentinel and Guide, even himself, could find their perfect match. But alas the technology of the day did not allow him to create the means to do so. So he wrote it down for the next generation.

Jamie killed herself after the next miscarriage. At the ripe age of 46, Howard went out to find another woman to marry. He found Maria Cerrera, who was 26 years his junior. Not that it matter to her. She was after his money and name, to increase her own career as a scientist, he was after a heir. But there was a catch. Maria was not a Sentinel, so she could not keep Howard from spiraling down into a deep depression which he used alcohol as a means to cover. That is the life Anthony Stark was born to. He was born to an alcoholic Guide and a mother who was emotionally vacant. Tony struggled to try and gain some kind of affection and love from his parents, but he got none. This would have destroyed a regular child, but Anthony Stark was no ordinary child. He was basically an amplified version of his father. His intelligence and his abilities as a Guide were far greater than his father's.

The lack of love that either parents felt towards him, started to drive Tony mad. He grew to be socially inverted. He struggled all his life to gain some kind of positive emotions from his parents. He tried to be the best son possible. At age four he created his first circuit board, just to see if his father would feel any kind of pride. Instead all Tony felt from his father was disgust that his son was surpassing him. It was a slap in the face. Tony heard every negative, degrading and angry thought his parents thought. He felt the hatred his father had when he fixed his mistakes. Being a powerful Guide was horrible for Tony. It was the reason he threw himself into science. Machines did not give off bad emotions, didn't think at all. But he needed some kind of affection. So he started to drink and have sex with random people at the young age of thirteen. But he never slept with Sentinel. They couldn't handle the smell of strong alcohol on his breath when he tried to sleep with them.

When he was seventeen, his parents died in a car crash. He couldn't help but feel some relief that he wouldn't have to deal with the constant influx of hatred from his parents. Obadiah Stane stepped up to take control of Stark Industries while Tony continued to move through college gathering degrees. When he turned 21, he took over the company. Things seemed okay. Obadiah was nice to him, though all his thoughts was the word soon and all the emotion that came off the man was a strange sense of glee. It wasn't until he was 24 that he figured out what that meant. He gained a great Sentinel assistant, Virginia "Pepper" Potts. She could ease some of the emotions that were influx in around him. But for the most part, she left him to his own devices. Things spiraled out of control when he was 25. He was kidnapped, tortured, made the Arc Reactor and the first Iron Man suit as well as felt, for the first time, someone die. All this made him drink more and more, have sex with more and more people. He was spirally down and it was like he was own a suicide mission. His self-destructive ways exploding all around him. He was on a downward spiral that no Sentinel in the world could stop. Which was a shame, because the entire Enhanced society desperately wanted to keep Tony alive. He was too powerful to lose. They had already lost the most powerful Sentinel to date, they didn't want to lose Tony on top of it.

A/N: So I have read about four Steve and Tony soul mate stories and I recently found this prompt online about Sentinels and Guides. I felt like I have a good idea for one since the prompt combines both soul mates and Alternate Realities. I love Alternate Realities as many of my followers know. This chapter is solely just to give a general condensed over view of everything. The first chapter will be posted soon after this one.

Again, I do not have a beta for my stories. So all mistakes are my own.