PETER 🕷

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MAY WAS ASLEEP, SO SHE DIDN'T HEAR [Y/N] WALK IN.

The last time I had a girl over this early was when MJ was yelling at me for forgetting to finish our group project, but I stopped liking her a long while ago. It's a little more scary when it's your soulmate instead.

And it's even more scary when they don't know you're their soulmate, and said they had something to talk to you about.

"Hi," I said quietly, shutting the door behind her, "everything okay?"

She looked around my apartment space, almost wearily as if she didn't know she was allowed to be here. I motioned for her to follow me to my room, careful not to let the floorboards creak and alert my Aunt that I was still awake.

Before she came here, I thankfully cleaned the pile of clothes off my bed, removed any traces of my super-hero identity, and made sure the tech-project I was working on didn't look like it had Stark funding—which meant covering up his logo with a sticky note.

"Star Wars, hm," she said softly, pointing at the poster on my wall, "love it."

She stood awkwardly in place, hands shoved into the pockets of her jeans, unsure of what to do. I gestured for her to sit on the mattress of my bed while I leaned up against the opposite wall.

"I'm sorry for intruding like this," she explained, "I just couldn't sleep, and I need to get something off my chest."

I blinked in anticipation. "Oh, okay."

"Please don't tell anyone."

"Promise."

Even though I was nearly certain I knew where this conversation was going, I felt anxious thinking about my reaction. Should I look shocked, horrified, amazed? Would it be more believable if it was 'over-the-top' or 'not bothered at all'?

She looked like she was struggling how to arrange her words, but after a deep inhale and exhale, she finally let them slip out.

"My soulmate," she said bluntly, "is Spider-Man."

Ooooo shocking.

What caught me off guard was that she didn't seem disappointed by at all. She merely stated it as sa fact. All the pranks I pulled earlier were to make her despise him to a large degree—so she'd think it was all a mistake—but it was clear that's not what was happening.

I didn't realize I hadn't responded until she spoke again.

"Peter?" She asked, waving her hand, "hello?"

I snapped back to reality. "Oh, sorry, what?"

"I said my soulmate is Spider-Man."

"Nice."

Heck, I screwed that up.

I'd been fussing about making the perfect reaction to her words, but I seem to have forgotten in the heat of the moment, and all I could say was a one-word adjective. She gave me a confused look, but brushed past it—she probably thought that was just me being awkward (again).

"Remember that gift with the spider in it?" she asked, "yeah, he gave that to me."

Shocker. "No way."

"I just don't understand it, Peter. I have a fear of spiders, and yet the universe is telling me he's my soulmate?"

At this rate, the universe sucks, because it left me with the task to beat up criminals all day (which is great, but unfortunately I get beat up too). The only good thing is that it tied me to someone as amazing as her, but left us with a complicated thing I can't seem to get around.

I pursed my lips, crossing the room and settling down next to her. She shifted to her left to make more room for me, and I had to resist the urge to pull her back to where she was.

"I know it sounds crazy," she sighed, "but I didn't know who else to tell. Luka can't keep his mouth shut, and you're..."

I tilted my head. "I'm what."

"My only friend."

I've gotten to know her over the past few weeks, and I forgot who she used to be entirely. People called her 'The Ghost', because she seemed to never be around. They'd say she spent so much time in the lab, she never had time to make friends. Maybe it used to be true, but now it wasn't—I was glad to be here.

"I'm honored," I smiled, "but maybe it's a mistake."

She furrowed her brows. "Mistake?"

"Maybe your soulmate isn't Spider-Man, maybe they're someone else."

I was referring to me—Peter Parker—as the 'someone else'. She looked like she debated it, but then shook her head in defeat. I guess she wasn't going to fall for it.

"No, it has to be him," she stated.

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah," she nodded, "it's gross, but instead of a red-string, I had spider webs."

I remembered the day I woke up to see my webs tangled all over the place. I was panicking, because I thought I was about to have my identity revealed. I didn't realize she—my soulmate—was most likely having an arachnophobia attack on the other end.

I looked at her, seeing a flicker of painful remembrance in her mind. I shouldn't have done this, should I? Clearly my plan to get her to hate my alter-ego went too far. I was blinded by the hope we could be together without complications.

"It's really him, Peter," she sighed, "I promise."

I screwed up, didn't I?

I can't let her find out I'm Spider-Man, because that would seem like the utter betrayal to her. One, I'd be someone she was afraid of, and two, it would look like I did all this as a joke; a terrible exchange just for my amusement. She'd find out the one friend she thought she had was actually pulling pranks behind her back.

She wouldn't understand why I did it, and I had no faith in myself to be able to explain properly.

Besides, then my identity would be leaked to someone other than Ned, and Mr. Stark is already going to kill me if he finds about that as well.

I'm going to be crushed with these secrets.

"Okay, Miss Scientist," I said, getting up and pacing to my desk, "let's do our favourite thing."

She furrowed her brows. "Our?"

"Yeah, considering we're both in the science arena."

It didn't take her another second to figure it out, because she was smiling widely, nodding her head. Not to mention, I've been realizing we're nearly the same person (soulmate things, I guess?).

"Nice," she said, "research."

Sitting back down beside her, I flipped open my laptop and pulled up a new tab. The bright lights nearly killed our tired eyes, but we managed to squint through the discomfort and pull up as much as we could concerning the situation.

I searched up:

What are Mutated Red-Strings?

Much to my sadness, she searched up:

Cases Where Soulmates Aren't In Love With Each Other.

After a deep scour of articles, presentations, and websites, we ended up finding little to nothing of things that could provide an explanation for why she didn't love Spider-Man (me) back when they were fated to be together.

At one point, she glanced at the clock on my night stand, letting out an exhausted sigh. It was past 2AM now. I felt her chin resting on my shoulder as she looked over and towards my computer. At the contact, I felt that strange feeling I had before.

She definitely felt it too, because she flinched, body tensing up.

"God, I'm so tired," she said, deciding to lay on my bed instead, "I should head back home, Peter."

I frowned. "I'm not letting you go home this late."

"Technically it's early."

"[y/n], it's dangerous."

"My foster mom's gonna freak out when I'm not there, though," she explained, groaning, "and I'm certain your Aunt will be confused about a girl coming out of your room."

She brought up fair points, but her safety was my priority. I'd figure out a good explanation tomorrow morning. Besides, we had the Stark Tower visit again after school (as we now usually did), and had to get at least some sleep.

"Take my bed," I said, looking towards the top, "It's a bunk bed, anyways."

[y/n] laughed quietly. "Peter, you can't sleep up there."

"I can."

"I saw it when I walked in," she smiled, "you've got all your tech quiment piled on top."

"I can move it...?"

I started to hoist things off of the above mattress and onto the desk, but since that's where I put a lot of my stuff when cleaning my room, it was going to take a while before I had a place to sleep. I also wouldn't have a pillow or blankets, because I never sleep on the top bunk, but I assumed I'd suffer for a good moral reason.

I had just reached for a keyboard I found in a dumpster a year ago, when I felt her hand on my wrist, tugging me down to her level (another little flicker of tingles at the touch—she didn't seem to notice this time).

"Pete," she said bluntly, "we can just share."

I blinked. "But—"

"We're just friends, there's nothing wrong with it," she said, oblivious to the stake that ran through my heart at that, "I don't want you sleeping on the floor."

I didn't know what else to say but, "okay."

My heart started beating at the speed of Lightning McQueen as she shifted over towards the wall, making room so I could slide in beside her. She didn't seem bothered by it at all. I felt like I was about to cause a war if I accidentally stole the blankets, or something.

"G'night, Parker," I heard her mumble, already curled up next to me.

I turned my head, realizing she was facing away from me, so all I saw was the back of her head. I still couldn't help but smile to myself. Even if it meant getting friendzoned for a million years, I'd still try to make us work.

She doesn't understand yet, but once you know someone's your soulmate, you can't help but fall in love with them. Maybe you didn't at first, but it was in the little things. The way she bit the insides of her cheek when measuring scientific amounts, the way she always wore her goggles too tight, and had compression marks on her cheeks when she took them off—I found them all so wonderful.

One day I'll get her to love me back.

Closing my eyes, I nestled underneath my end of the blankets, beginning to dream. Even if she was already asleep, I still whispered back to her:

"G'night."