Disclaimer: Avengers characters are the property of Marvel and supporting companies. No profit is being made, and no copyright infringement is intended.

Notes: This is just an idea I was playing with and I'm not sure if I'll continue it. This is slash, guys. Also, if you also watch Changing Tides, I am working on the next chapter. It's just slow going and it's filled with Thor events.

Finding Fate

It is something they learn about in grade school. The first week of third grade, they are collected as a whole and told about the beauty and joy of meeting your Intended. Steve misses the day when they do this because a cough lands him in bed. He tells his mother that he wants to hear the stories, wants to know how it will happen. His mother smiled, runs a hand through his sweat-soaked hair, and tells him not to worry. She tells him to listen to his instinct and he will find the one for him.

She doesn't need to tell him that life will be better once you're with your Intended. Steve can see it in Bucky's family. He can see it in couples as they walk down the street. She also doesn't need to tell him that life can get worse once you're with your Intended. Steve can see it in his own living room if he dare look. He can see the misery in his mother's eyes just as much as he can see the undying love.

Steve doesn't know if he wants to meet his Intended or not. The doctors don't even think he will live long enough to meet her anyway, not with his health.

Bucky is the first person Steve feels relatively safe with. At first, Steve thinks that Bucky is the one for him and, in the middle of a camping trip (a living room camping trip) when they were twelve, he says so. Bucky laughs and says that he feels something for Steve as well, but it isn't the pull he feels toward his own soulmate. He explains that he can feel this pull in his gut every time he makes a choice and, for some reason, Steve was Step One.

Steve isn't sure what to think other than "I don't feel that." He tells Bucky this and Bucky shrugs, saying that maybe Steve is too good to have someone. Steve just thinks that he isn't good enough.

Everyone has a soulmate, and Intended. Everyone, it seems, except Steve. By the time he is sixteen, Steve believes that his Intended died young, before he knew how to feel whatever the pull is. He is so not used to feeling anything that when he does, it becomes a shock. Bucky joins the army and, suddenly, Steve knows that he has to join it, too. He needs to join it.

It's why he fakes his papers. Why he goes to a different one every week. Bucky calls him crazy, but he's there every time Steve goes to a new recruiting station. He's there every time Steve gets rejected.

He isn't there the one time Steve gets accepted and he doesn't understand why. Steve doesn't even see Bucky before he is shipped out, but he has little time to think about it before he is hustled off to a training base. After that, he was too busy trying not to kneel over and die to worry too much about soulmates or what he was feeling or anything.

Peggy was nice and he likes her, but he knows that she doesn't like him. Not like that. Because she is eyeing one of the nice women secretaries in the camp tents and Steve can see the woman smile back. Still, Peggy is the closest he is going to come to a crush without having them be his Intended. She humors him, he can tell, but they grow close enough. Steve knows he will miss her once the war is over.

He misses her sooner than later. After the serum takes hold and he chases the Nazi and they dress him in tights… Steve misses Peggy and he misses Bucky and, even though he only met the man properly once, he misses Howard Stark. Steve knows that Howard is his second sign, but he only notices after he jumps from that plane to break Bucky out of the base. He feels whole with Bucky here with him. Buck and Peggy and Howard.

Steve thinks that maybe Howard is the one for him, but Howard shrugs and says that he has someone at home, someone who doesn't like the spotlight and doesn't want people to know that she is attached to him. Steve can see Howard's depression and he hates it, hates that Howard will live like his mother and not enjoy his relationship.

Steve hopes that his, when it comes, will not be like that.

Steve takes Bucky and a few men and he enjoys himself as he destroys Red Skull's bases. He doesn't know why, but he takes pride in watching as they explode one-by-one, despite the fact that he has to kill a lot of men to do it. It's war, of course there are deaths. There are casualties. There are explosions and escapes and rescues.

And there is so much death.

Steve wishes he could die or get drunk or do something other than sit at a broken table in a broken bar and cry his stupid, useless broken tears. Peggy tries to make him feel better, but it doesn't work. He feels numb and there is still one more base and he doesn't think he can do it.

Steve goes in not caring whether he lives or dies because, after losing Bucky, he knows that nothing will be the same. Bucky is not his Intended, but he is close enough. There was a connection that was almost deeper and Steve doesn't think he can be whole without it.

So he goes to the base with every intention of dying. He goes to the base, hoping that they will have something strong enough to kill a super soldier. Steve gets his wish, but not the way he wants it. He doesn't want to die a martyr. He doesn't want to die saving people. He just wants to die.

As soon as he touches the controls of the plane, he feels it. The numbness falls away and there's a sense of this being right. He talks to Peggy, telling her that he needs to put it in the water. That he feels like it is something he needs to do. She cries, but she understands. She understands because Steve had told her about his oddity with finding his soulmate. She will not deny him this.

Crashing the plane in the arctic is his third pull and Steve accepts it willingly. He accepts the water rushing into his lungs and the ice sealing over his body. He doesn't care if it hurts because it's so right.

Waking up in a white, cold room feels wrong and Steve hates it. He can hear the false city and the false words and the game he had been to with Bucky. He sees the worried smile and can feel her fear. He hates it and he wants out. So he takes a deep breath and leaves, physically, and runs until he's so dizzy he can't stand.

A black man –and isn't that odd to see one in such a high power- tells him that he is in the future. Steve is confused, but he looks around and he believes it. He hates this flashy city and it's big ways and he misses everything about what he left behind.

Except for one thing. The hook in his chest is strong and it's settled right on his heart. His Intended is in the future, he can feel it. Steve panics and it's like he is having an asthma attack despite the serum. He cries in the middle of Times Square, arms wrapped around his waist, and begs whomever might be listening that this would be real, that this would be true.

The man, Fury, asks him to come back to their base, or at least stay at a local branch, and learn about the future. When he agrees, he feels as if his entire heart is ripped out of his chest and he knows that it was the right choice. His fourth sign. Steve wants to meet the girl he is obviously meant to be with so bad that he doesn't care what this SHIELD does.

He would gladly strike through civilians just for a chance, just for a glimpse, of the one person that would have escaped him had he not listened to himself and flown that plane into the ice.

Fury approaches him a few weeks later with a file and a warning. Steve stares at the Tesseract and takes a deep breath. He never wanted to see this damned thing again, but it seems as though his past is following him. Steve lets out a sigh and tells Fury that he should have left it in the ocean, but he does accept the mission.

If it could, Steve knows that his heart would have run from his chest. It is the fifth sign and, honestly, Steve is tired of the signs.

He barely pays any attention as he is flown to the Helicarrier. He shakes Doctor Banner's hand and feels guilt that the man's life is ruined trying to become a super soldier. He enjoys speaking with Coulson and he sees a little of Peggy in the man. He is nice to speak to and Steve readily agrees to sign the Captain America cards. He disagrees with becoming such a legend, but he cannot deny this man his request. Steve can see that it is important and he hates to let him down.

Steve is silent as he boards the jet to Germany. Romanoff is silent, but her co-pilot fills him in on what is going on, who they are after, and what they might find. Steve knows this, but he can tell that reiterating this is simply a way for the man to relax. Steve lets him talk, nodding when he thinks it is appropriate.

It isn't long before he is fighting with Loki, a so-called God. Steve doesn't believe this until he throws a punch and the only thing Loki does is look at him with a hurt expression. Steve saw that expression on Bucky the first time someone had hit him, demanding to know after why they dared to do that. He tries to hit Loki harder just because of the memory that he doesn't want to remember.

He is down and he is tired when a strange kind of music suddenly blasts through the square. There is something growing in Steve and he has no idea what it is, and he is unsure if he likes it. He looks around as a metal suit comes crashing in, knocking Loki out of the way. From the files Steve had been given, he knows this is Tony Stark. This is Howard's son.

As 'Iron Man' lands and threatens Loki, Steve knows that this is more than just that. He knows that this is more than just a man he will meet and work with.

No, this is his Intended. This is his soulmate. He is giddy through the entire confrontation with Loki and, when they finally get aboard the jet again, Steve turns to Tony with a wide smile. Tony returns the smile with an arched eyebrow and words, but Steve is too drunk on the feeling of being around Tony that he hears nothing.

Tony asks him what is wrong, and Steve finds himself being unable to stop his words. "You're my soulmate," he says, reaching a hand out to Tony.

Tony simply bats his hand away and levels Steve with a glare that shatters his heart. "Out of everyone that has ever pulled that line on me, I never expected it from Captain America. I'm going to tell you the same damn thing I told every other girl or guy or whatever that tried that shit, okay? I don't have a match. I don't hate a fated mate. That part of me is dead and has been dead since I was born so thank you for reminding me."

From his seat, Loki laughs and tells Steve that he could have said that because he can see the threads that connect people. Tony had no threats inching out from him.

Steve punches him just as thunder rumbles across the sky. Loki's bloody nose is soon the last thing on his mind.