Title: now ask me a serious question

Author: Jedi Buttercup

Disclaimer: The words are mine; the world is not

Summary: When you're born with "So you're our newest babysitter" written jaggedly across your abdomen and "I apologize, he really needs to get some new lines" slashing across your palm, it's pretty obvious that a) there's likely to be a significant age gap between you and your soulmates, and b) they'll already be together when you meet. 1500w.

Rating: T

Spoilers: Olympus Has Fallen (2013)

Notes: For Addison R, written as a treat in Yuletide 2015. Originally posted to the AO3.

Benjamin Asher knew it said something about him that he had never once looked at his second soulmark - the one that curled in a tight spiral on his side - and thought it named him anything as mundane as the leader of a company or the chief officer of a club.

It had been a little disheartening when he'd realized he probably wouldn't meet the owner of the strong, declarative handwriting until he was a middle-aged adult, and that by that time practically every person he met was going to utter those words. On the other hand, it was encouraging to know that destiny had given him such a lofty goal to reach. Some people's soulmarks said things a lot less flattering, and they ended up spending a lot of effort trying to make them not come true.

Ben was glad he didn't have that problem. He respected those that chose otherwise, but he couldn't imagine viewing his own as anything other than inspiration and guide.

He hoped that destiny had been just as kind to the person who would one day greet him as 'Mister President'.

His first soulmark, on the other hand, was much less mysterious: a simple 'Hi, Ben, I'm Maggie' that had appeared in a band around his left wrist when he was only thirty-eight days old.

But just because it was easier didn't make it any less foundational to his world. Simple logic said that he would meet her first ... but also that whatever they were to each other would be vital to reaching the goal that had written itself on his skin a year and a half after her name.

Ben had been taught that soulmarks only meant those so connected were deeply and uniquely compatible in some way; most people chose to explore that within the bounds of romance, but not all, especially in cases of multiple soulmarks or those that appeared late, tied not to a partner's birth but the date of a significant life change. His mother had had one of those. Knowing that, he kept Maggie's name covered with a watch band to keep well-meaning friends from introducing him to every Margaret they knew; he wanted their first meeting to be as unpressured as it could be.

It never occurred to him that the bearer of 'Hi Maggie, I'm Ben' might feel any differently; might not be content to wait for him to appear in her life before pursuing her own goals. Waiting to decide on a school or an occupation might have been more practical in past centuries when people were born and lived and worked in the same small town all their lives, but it wasn't very convenient in the modern era, especially if you ever wanted to get anything done.

Finding a Benjamin Asher in her student directory at Dickinson College had felt like a validation of the best kind. A sign that not only might Margaret Whitmore be one of the lucky ones whose first match was easy to recognize, but also that he would lead her to her second: the one whose 'Doctor Asher', curled boldly around the back of one ear, had sent her parents to a lot of sessions in her childhood about raising kids with more than one soulmark and how it might influence their lives.

She got her hands on a copy of Ben Asher's schedule the first chance she got and tracked him down.

The amazed, bashful grin she received when she introduced herself was, for her, only a confirmation of what she'd known all along: how very much she had been blessed.

Maggie wasn't in any way ashamed of her second soulmark, but given what it said, she'd decided it might be better to let the subject come up naturally, rather than showing it off from day one.

Ben was earnest and idealistic and the dimple in his chin had just begged to be kissed right from the start; but she hadn't wanted to bring it up and then have him think she was telling him it was okay to shortcut the wooing process. She deserved all the romance she was due.

He discovered it on his own several weeks after their first date, when he reached to tuck her hair behind her ear ... and sucked in a sharp breath at the words under his fingertips. He looked stunned, and not in the way she'd expected; she stiffened under his touch, searching his face with a frown.

"Ben?" she prompted him. "Is something wrong?"

He jerked his gaze back to her face at that, mouth softening in a wondering smile. "Kind of the opposite, actually. Look." He dropped his hand and pulled back, untucking his shirt with both hands and yanking it up his torso to expose a patch of skin over his ribs.

Maggie reached out instinctively to the tight spiral of writing, so different from the carefully formed scrawl of Ben's words up the line of her pulse, or the curls and swooshes of her soul around Ben's arm. She may have never seen it before, but she was intimately familiar with the dramatic lettering.

She brushed her fingertips over the dark letters, then gazed up in astonishment to meet Ben's gaze. "So that's why..."

The corners of his eyes crinkled, and he caught her hand, kissing her fingertips as he let go the hem of his shirt. "That's why. The only thing that's ever concerned me was how to balance you both."

"But they aren't just yours," Maggie marveled. What were the odds? "They're mine, too."

Mike Banning had known he'd be a third wheel from the very beginning. When you're born with "So you're our newest babysitter" written jaggedly across your abdomen and "I apologize, he really needs to get some new lines" slashing across your palm, it's pretty obvious that a) there's likely to be a significant age gap between you and your soulmates, and b) they'll already be together when you meet.

Even the rarity of knowing he was part of a trio of reciprocal soulmarks - about as common as identical triplets, according to the studies - wasn't enough to make his so-called destiny feel any less like a booby prize.

He made a practice of avoiding the families with little children in his parents' neighborhood, and when he graduated from high school, he chose the furthest possible career from child-care worker that an eighteen-year-old could dream up. He wasn't alone in choosing that path, either; the motto of the 75th Ranger Regiment felt especially apropos. Sua sponte: 'of their own accord.'

It wasn't until he finished out his twenty, joined the Secret Service as the most appealing of the options open to him afterward, and worked his way up to a post on the President's Protective Detail that he realized exactly what he'd set himself up for; why the words had never faded. It was a good thing Congress had finally passed legislation making soulmarked matches a protected class, though it was going to be a challenge, proving he could still do the job.

He chuckled in amazement as the First Lady back-handedly chastised her husband for his response to Mike's greeting, then clasped her hand and said, "No need, ma'am, I think that one will do."

It wasn't easy, at first, them keeping a respectful distance while Mike learned his duties.

It was less easy, later, striving to maintain that distance while they were in public. To take off the boxing gloves when it was time to put on the suit; to keep his eyes on the crowd and not the pair on the stage; to tease her about earring choices and then get into a separate car where he had to be Agent Banning to the boy he'd rather treat like a son. But it was worth it.

If the limousine had fallen from that icy bridge ten seconds sooner, before he could cut the second belt and pull them both to safety-

If he hadn't been escorting Maggie to a nearby presentation when a C-130 roared down over the National Mall-

If he'd been any slower handing her off and sprinting through the surface streets before the ground attack took the White House and the building was locked down-

In the aftermath, Maggie curled up between him and Ben, one hand over Ben's wound and the warmth of Mike's bruised body at her back, and trembled in the joined clasp of their arms. Mike ran a comforting hand down her side and pressed a kiss against the words behind her ear.

"I truly am sorry about the house," he said, hoping to cheer her up, as he'd done for Ben. "It's going to be a real bitch to clean."

She snorted, then turned over, Ben shifting behind her to hook an arm over her waist as she moved.

"Are you volunteering?" she asked, smiling through her tears. "Because I can think of a few more important things for you to do."

-x-