Spiderman Oneshots

Soulmates (1)

Everybody is born with two soulmates, one platonic and one romantic. The platonic soulmate was the easiest to find, as anything one person wrote on their skin would appear on the skin of the other, personal information excluded. The romantic was harder, as the soulmates could only feel each other's pain, both emotional and physical. However, neither of the bonds form until both of the soulmates are at least sixteen.

Tony Stark had given up hope of ever finding his platonic soulmate. At first, he'd written to them every day after he'd turned sixteen, but after years of no reply, he'd given up. Pepper, who he'd discovered was his romantic soulmate after a series of awkward and painful encounters, said she remembered the waves of crushing sadness she'd felt every night from him. It had been painful, yes, to see his friends writing to their soulmates, but over time the pain had lessened and he'd learned to look on the bright side. After all, he could jot equations on his hands without worrying about bothering anyone, and it wasn't like him being sad would change anything other than making Pep sad too, which he hated the idea of. It was a fact of life: Some soulmates died young, and others just chose to ignore the person fate had paired them with. Tony pitied those who lost their romantic soulmates before they ever met them - they said the lack of that bond tore some people's souls in two. But the point was, Tony had moved on.

Which made it even more of a shock when his platonic soulmate finally wrote back.

Peter Parker was turning sixteen soon, and he was both looking forward to and dreading it. Looking forward because he might get to meet his soulmates, and dreading because he'd been Spider-Man for nearly a year now, but had never had to worry about the pain he would be causing his romantic soulmate every time he got injured - until now. Also, they said that trying to keep a secret from your platonic soulmate was almost physically painful.

The day finally came, and Peter had to say it was a pretty uneventful day. He didn't feel too different, except for the fact that if he really tried, he thought that he could sense the bond deep inside of himself. He tried slapping himself just to see what happened. That bond wobbled, tremors pulsing down it, but they seemed to slam into a wall and rebound, giving him a phantom ache in his cheek. He assumed that meant his romantic soulmate wasn't sixteen yet. He really hoped the same didn't apply to his platonic one - he wasn't sure he could bear having all the suspense lead to nothing. Still, the small smiley faces he tried drawing on his arms didn't merit any reply, and Peter was too scared to write anything obvious in case of rejection. 

Peter's birthday was uneventful, but the day afterwards most certainly was not.

Tony was stressing. He hadn't slept, properly eaten or even changed out of the clothes he was wearing for the past two days. He knew he didn't have much longer until Pepper, who had been sending him messages about the exhaustion she was feeling from him, flew back from the meeting she was at in Wakanda just to shove him into bed. But he just couldn't work out the last equation for the project he was working on. He promised himself he'd rest just as soon as he finished.

Tony scribbled out the formula he'd been working on, crushing the paper and reaching for a new sheet, only to find the notebook was empty. Sighing, he pushed up his sleeve, not even noticing the smiley faces dotted on his skin in his exhaustion, and jotted the unsolved equation down, taking a moment to stare at the numbers blankly.

Then, something crazy happened. Beneath the equation, in the empty space where Tony was about to start his working again, a series of exclamation marks appeared.

Peter was in class when there was a tingle on his arm. He gasped, recognising the sensation he'd had described to him as what happened when your platonic soulmate wrote to you. Hurriedly, he rolled up his sleeve, expecting a friendly greeting or a comment about his smileys, only to be greeted by an eye-wateringly difficult sum. Still, at least his soulmate was writing to him! He jotted a couple of exclamation points to let his soulmate know he was there, then threw him arm into the air and excused himself. Locked in a cubicle, Peter was free to examine the equation. For some reason, his soulmate still hadn't written back. Maybe the sum was some kind of test? Fine, Peter could play.