A/N: yeah, there's going to be another part. I should feel bad for making this longer than I wanted it to be, but at the same time, I shouldn't expect anything else from myself. I get carried away waaaay too easily. Good news, should be up tomorrow. On another note, I watched Onward for the first time the other night, and I was so lucky that it lived up to the amount of hype I added to it since I started seeing the ads. It's a great movie!
Warnings: the obliviousness begins in this chapter, we all knew it was coming. Also, this isn't really a warning, but I might've added a certain line in here on purpose just because I saw the opportunity and to see what the comments would do. Shouldn't be too much of a worry unless this story blows up big time.
You weren't expecting to feel this bad after meeting your soulmate. The amount of guilt you felt for probably crushing probably Spider-Man's biggest dream, or rather whoever Spider-Man was behind the mask's dream.
You felt yourself frowning at the thought as well as the golden words on your skin.
You...you're it!
They weren't going anywhere, they were a reminder that you now had your soulmate in your life, you learned from your parents and anyone else who studied soulmates. You sighed as you opened your laptop, typing in "could you feel your soulmates emotions?" Into the search bar and waiting for the results to load. You needed to figure whether you were truly sad, or if Spider-Man was making you suffer through his emotions with him.
"It's very rare, but a few reported cases around the world state that it is possible to feel your soulmates emotions once you met them, if the emotion is strong enough. If you do, then you're really lucky! Now you know exactly how your soulmate feels every hour of the day!" You mimicked in your best reporter voice with a fake grin plastered on your face before dropping your head down onto your desk in your bedroom. "This is just great. The best thing that's ever happened to me," you groaned maybe a little too loudly, because a minute later, you heard a knocking on your bedroom door.
"Y/N?" Another knock. "You all right?" Your mothers voice from the other side and you sat up.
"Yeah," you answered back and when you heard your door creak open, you pulled on your cuff to cover the shiny gold letters. "Yeah, I'm fine." You lied, turning around in your seat to face your mom, giving her a small smile.
"Either you're lying or I'm getting worse at hearing sarcasm and you're truly having the best day of your life." She raised her eyebrows at you and stepped forward, looking over your shoulder at your laptop, which you forgot you had open. It was too late to close it now. "You're researching soulmates?" Her voice got lighter from happiness and her smile widened.
Gulping, you slowly closed your laptop and shrugged. "I just got curious," you tried to answer, but your mother got the wrong idea.
"Are you finally coming around?" She asked with a grin, nudging your shoulder and inviting herself to sit on your bed next to you.
"I- what? No." You shook your head, your guilt feeling heavier in your chest, weighing almost as much as the sadness Spider-Man was involuntarily giving you. "It's just a project for school. We have to write an essay about the rarest things that can happen with soulmates and all that jazz," you quickly lied.
"Oh, I had to do that too." Your mom smiled, although you could see in her eyes she was a little disappointed your answer wasn't yes. You knew she wanted a daughter that was just like her. Normal. "Did you know some soulmates can hear each other's thoughts once they meet? Or feel each other's emotions, or pain if they get hurt."
"Yeah." You mumbled, turning your head and glancing at the brown leather covering your skin. Part of you wanted to just tell her everything. How you almost got crushed by an off the rails SUV just yesterday, but Spider-Man, who also happened to be your soulmate, saved you, and now you were sitting at home feeling his emotions of hurt because you told him you didn't want him. You knew that no matter how much your mother wanted you to be crazy about your soulmate, she, as well as your father, respected your decision because they taught you also be the type of person you wanted to be, and that she would offer the best advice she could give you. But you didn't.
"That's amazing, isn't it?" She beamed. "I wish me and your father had one of those. I would do anything to be more connected to him than I already am." She sighed and you watched as her eyes lit up.
"You and dad already seem like you know each other's every move," you carefully said.
"That's because soulmates are connected." She leaned towards you. "Plus, we already know everything about each other, it's easy to predict his next move, although, he still keeps me on my toes," she laughed and you smiled.
"You guys really love each other."
"We really do." She tilted her head to the side as she stood up. "Or else, you wouldn't be here," You let out a breath through your nose at her words. There was way too much going on in your brain for your liking, too many emotions, too many thoughts. "I know you've heard this a million times, from both us and anyone else, but soulmates aren't bad." She sighed, taking one last look at you before opening the door and walking out of your room.
"I just want to be sure," you whispered in response, although your mom wasn't there anymore. You just stood up and grabbed your book bag, you needed to get ready for school.
—————
You were starting to get annoyed with the boy who sat in front of you in English.
It wasn't a bad annoyed, he just kept turning his head to look over his shoulder to look at you almost every minute, like he wanted to say something to you, but as far as you could tell, you've never spoken a word to him before. But he was definitely nervous, his breathing a little rushed and when his right hand wasn't tugging at his left arm sleeve, it was tapping on the desk, either with his fingers or with his pen.
You pursed your lips when the period was almost half done. You'd caught his brown eyes on you at least three times although you knew he looked back a lot more than that, and you were getting a little sick of it. You figured maybe he needed a little push to say whatever he wanted to say. You wracked your brain for his name, finally remembering it from roll call.
"Hey," you leaned forward and spoke in a whisper, poking his shoulder with your pencil. "Peter, right?" You had to stifle a gasp when you suddenly felt your stomach churn, but not from nausea although it felt like it, but from...nervousness? Why the hell would you be nervous to talk to someone?
The boy jumped and he turned his entire head to face you, eyes wide with shock.
"H-hi!" He blurted a little loudly and you tilted your head slightly to the side. "What- what are you doing?" He asked, his voice getting higher as well as softer as he asked the question.
"Do you have something you want to say to me?" You asked as nicely as you could because you weren't sure what his deal was, but your annoyance was still showing. You hated it when people watched you.
"Me? Um," you watched with a confused stare as his eyes focused on everywhere but you. "Uh, no? I-I don't think so? I'm sorry." He turned around and faced forward again, head low as he stared down at his paper.
You knew for a fact he was lying, but it wasn't your problem or job to figure out what it was. Sure, it might've had to do something with you, but it obviously wasn't important.
You heard the teacher announce that testing time was done, and that he wanted the tests to be handed in so you stopped doodling on your already completed paper and handed it to him as he made his rounds around the room.
"Also, I think it's time we all do a partner project, yeah?" You watched your over enthusiastic teacher say with an grin and the class have its mixed reactions. "I want everyone to pair up, no independent working this time." You knew that last comment was directed towards you, but you just shrugged. Working alone was great, but you couldn't get away with it all the time. "I want to keep it pretty basic this time, since we're working on our non fiction unit, I want you and your partner to find a time where you both felt a certain type of emotion and find a way to explain how they could connect. It could be in any way, like you both dropped your ice cream in the summer and felt mad or sad. There'll be more detailed instructions online if you still have questions." He looked around the room. "Be careful who you pick, I do have the authority to change partners if I want too. You have the rest of the period to get talking, go!"
You let out a sigh and closed your eyes when students started to get up and fill the classroom with moving bodies as they tried to get to their friends. When you opened them again, you saw that Peter hadn't moved from in front of you, and a weird feeling appeared in your chest, like something was telling you to talk to him. You shook the feeling off, but the thought was already in your head.
"You wanna work together?" You asked before you even had double thought about it, and Peter turned to look at you again, confusion on his features. "What? It's not like I have any friends anyway," you rolled your eyes. "It's fine if you don't want too."
"No! I just- um, I'm not sure if that's the best idea?" He cringed at his words, like he was unsure of them leaving his mouth. "Uh, actually, sure. I-if you want too."
"Great." You sighed. How the two of you have anything in common, you had no idea.
—————
You decided against listening to music for a while on your walks home for now, you were too scared something like yesterday happening again, and you knew the chances of Spider-Man being there to save you again were close to zero. Especially because of your last conversation. Who would want to save someone who hurt them that bad again?
You couldn't feel any emotion that wasn't yours at the moment, and you thought maybe he was over it. Maybe he really didn't care about his soulmate after all. Relief flew through you at the thought, that would definitely make things easier for you. But once you got home, your entire mood shifted.
What if you really were going to be alone forever because of this?
You pushed the negative feelings away, although the thought still lingered. Your reasoning for not wanting a soulmate was good, and there was no way you were going to change your mind unless you were proved wrong, which didn't seem to be happening anytime soon.
You thought about how stupid your English teacher was for giving out a partner project on a Friday, because you had no class time to work together. It wasn't like you had any way to contact Peter, you hadn't thought about getting his number or giving him yours, and by the looks of it, neither had he.
You had tried to go to bed early, because the last couple of nights you hadn't been getting much sleep, but ultimately you couldn't fall asleep. So you made your way through the dark and to the fire escape in the living room, climbing up to the roof. You liked to sit up there from time to time. It wasn't any quieter than if you were inside, but there was something different, somewhat calming about it.
Of course that wasn't the case this time. As you jumped up, you turned around to find Spider-Man pacing the roof and anger and confusion, both yours and his, filled you.
"What the hell? Did you follow me home or something?" You called out walking towards him and his head shot up in your direction.
"What?" He took a clumsy step back after you stopped right in front of him, arms crossed. "No. I didn't today. But-but I did yesterday,"
"What part of leave me alone don't you understand?" You asked, flopping your arms angrily down at your sides and huffing.
"That's the thing, I-I don't understand!" He replied. "I don't get why you wouldn't want a soulmate! I mean, everyone in the world does!"
"Looks like not everyone," you blinked, your face blank. "This conversation is over. I already said I was sorry." You turned to walk away, but confusion you started to feel from Spider-Man behind you and his voice stopped you.
"Tell me why."
"What?" You spun back to face him.
"Just tell me why you don't want a soulmate. Why you won't give me a chance." He paused, desperation in his voice. "Please."
Sighing, you shook your head, biting your cheek because you couldn't believe you were even going to stay, and sat down right where you were standing, fixing your shirt and glancing at the hero as he slowly moved forward, sitting down a safe distance in front of you.
"It isn't fair." You began. "Why is everyone just okay with letting the universe decide who you're supposed to spend the rest of your life with?"
"Because... it's the universe?"
"Yeah, but what even is this higher force that decides? No one knows, but we let it anyway." You shrugged. "It's really not you, there's nothing wrong with you, I bet you're amazing, if you're supposed to be my soulmate, but I can't love someone just because I'm supposed too."
"I don't think just because we're soulmates means that you have to love me right away," He added before you could speak again.
"But doesn't it?" You stared into the whites of his mask. "Because of this whole soulmate thing, people assume that whoever says those words," you motioned to your still covered wrist. "Is the one that you spend the rest of your life with, give all of your love too in just a blink of the eye. Look, I've been studying soulmates all my life, and I think that people love their soulmates because that's what they think they have to do."
"W-what do you mean?" He asked softly.
"I really don't have anything against soulmates, some people really do love theirs, but to me it's just a word." You took a deep breath. "I want to be able to fall in love with whoever I want, not who the universe picked for me. I want to be able to experience those feelings for myself without the nagging feeling of knowing that I'm supposed to feel like that for them."
There was silence.
"So what you're saying," Spider-Man started softly. "Is that, if I didn't say anything, you wouldn't have known I was your soulmate, and there could've been a chance you fell in love with me without feeling pressured to?"
You paused, your eyebrows furrowing at his words. "I guess you could say it like that." You shook your head sadly. "If I didn't know we were "soulmates", and I somehow did fall for you, that would be enough proof for me that these words, the words that have been on us our entire life, they mean nothing and it's just a push in the right direction. Not instructions."
"Okay." You looked up at him curiously.
"What?"
"Okay." He repeated. "I understand now." He stood up and held his hand out to help you, which you hesitantly took. "What if I could prove you wrong?"
"And how would you don't that?" You laughed dryly, not believing him for a second.
"I..." he stopped, looking around. "I can't tell you."
"Right," you nodded your head. After the two of you were quiet for a second you spoke again. "Are you okay?" The feelings were faint, maybe because they weren't strong anymore, but you still felt sadness. The confusion was gone.
"I will be." He answered, and you noticed his voice was filled with hope. But also, it sounded familiar and you couldn't figure out why. "I-I'll see you later Y/N!" He called to you as he took steps back to the edge of the roof and jumped off, swinging away.
You weren't sure what to do as you stood on the roof alone, stuck with the question of trying to figure out how Spider-Man knew your name.