Chapter Text
They meet in college. Almost.
Tony is standing on a curb outside a diner in Central Square, waiting for someone or another. He honestly can't keep track of names at this point. He's going to be graduating soon enough anyhow so it's not like it matters.
Then it happens, he feels the urge to turn his head left and look down the block. It's early evening on a Friday and crowded with college students and Cambridge residents so he's not even sure what he expects to find when he looks. Maybe he's looking for his date, but he's pretty sure she would be coming from the opposite direction.
He continues to scan the crowd when his eyes stop of their own volition on a boy; said boy doesn't look much older than himself given his size, but he can't see more than a slight profile given the guy's angle. Mr. Unknown has dark hair, sort of a messy curls thing going on, and he's wearing a sweatshirt that Tony can tell by the colors of it indicates he's a Harvard student.
He stands there unable to look away, face pinched into a confused and studious gaze like he's being drawn over or through the crowd to where the guy is without even moving. There's a niggling in the back of Tony's mind, the beginnings of the thought. According to the textbooks and stories, it's the thought everyone with a soul mate supposedly gets at that precise moment when the two souls are predetermined to meet. It's the thought: Is this it? Is that them?
Tony takes a few steps forward, unable to fight his curiosity, his scientific mind always set on inquiry.
"Hey, Tony!" What he had briefly entertained as possibly being the thought seemingly vanishes like a phantom. Broken from his trance, blinking and shaking his head, he turns his attention to the crosswalk at his right hand side and sees a classmate he sometimes parties with heading his way. "Hey man. So I hear your dad's giving a guest lecture next week." Tony rolls his eyes at the mention of his illustrious father and for now he doesn't meet Robert Bruce Banner.
On the other side of the crowd, just as Tony looks right, Bruce feels an urge to look left, as if there are eyes upon him and he needs to find out who and why. So he looks down the block, past the bustle of people, and his eyes fall immediately on a boy, close to his own age he guesses, who looks like he comes from money; Bruce just has a way of knowing these things since he definitely does not come from money. He doesn't see much besides the hair color and style and a slight profile before the boy seems to see somebody he knows and turns his back completely and disappears into the crowd. He blinks a few times in slight confusion, the previous urge to find out who was watching him vanishing, and returns his full attention to the group of friends he's with. For now he doesn't meet Anthony Edward Stark.
So they don't meet after all, but the thought still forms in their subconscious minds at that moment. They don't meet, but their souls acknowledge one another without their knowing it. When Tony fucks his might as well be nameless brunette date that night, his mind creates images of a faceless brunet boy with curls and lean body that fits perfectly with his own; and when Bruce dreams that night, he's being fucked by a faceless brunet boy with shaggy hair and slightly muscled body that seems made for him. They won't consciously remember any of it in the morning, but the thought will still be there guiding their lives for better or for worse.