Chapter Text
Peter's soulmark is a beautiful thing. And it's true to his nature. A small infinity sign made of spiders and webs in the corner of his wrist. It was colored red and blue. In the same exact shade of his suit. No one in his friend group was surprised, especially after they found out about his secret identity. In fact, MJ had teased him relentlessly, calling it cliché. Arun had just smiled, his fingers caressing the mark; it was his old habit, something he had developed to do whenever they sat next to each other. He would press his finger against the mark, and Peter's day seemed to brighten up in a way even Flash's cruel, crude insults couldn't dim. The action made Peter's heart stutter in a way he couldn't explain, and he never tried to. It was a comfort he never wanted to let go, a way to remind him that his day started with his soulmate's touch on his skin.
That was four years ago.
The colors on his mark are fading now, turning into a sick grey he hates to look at. The soulmate rejection is occurring, his bond in the final stages of breaking apart completely. He was losing his final, most permanent connection to them. One that even Strange couldn't erase is now close to being gone. However, there's nothing he can do about it; this isn't something his healing factor can fix. This isn't a Spider-Man problem after all; it's a Peter Parker problem. And he doesn't have the time to handle a Peter Parker problem.
He hasn't been Peter Parker for a while now.
Even now at the party he has followed Ned into. He's not Peter Parker, he's Maynard. He sees MJ and feels his heart break. This was a mistake, an impulse he should have controlled. He feels dirty for following Ned like a stalker. He feels helpless because he didn't make the choice, there was simply nothing he could do. His feet wouldn't take him to another direction, wouldn't let him turn away and leave. He sips the cheap beer in his plastic red cup, looking around at the people he doesn't recognise, people who were a part of their day, weeks, months and years, seeing the life the three had created without him in it.
It makes him smile. His lips twitching softly as he walks around the apartment. It's broken and sad, the people around him are too busy drinking the free booze to see it. He soaks it all in, sketches everything in his mind, and tattoos it on his brain. He sees the LEGO set Ned has built without him, and the books that surely belong to MJ, the spices and the kitchen being fully stocked have to be a courtesy of his soulmate. He won't ever get the chance to see their new home like this. He knows the next time he walks in here, he might not want to leave at all. And he can't take that chance, not while he's still Spider-Man. He can't be this selfish again when he's already given up so much for them.
He can't- won't let history repeat.
Pictures are hanging on the wall with the three of them. MJ, Ned & Arun starring in all of them. High school graduation. Different trips. MIT. He was there with them in some of it, but now, just like everywhere else he's hidden, removed, a bird was covering his face in one of the pictures. He looks around, his senses heightened, his breath caught in his chest. The photo was a polaroid, pinned to a brown board. He's ashamed of what he does next. But he does it anyway, stealing the memory for himself, stuffing the photo in his jeans before anyone can catch him.
And for some of the pictures he sees, he never existed to begin with. Already gone from their lives.
This is torture, he decides.
A torture he deserves.
Because he continues to stay.
He meets MJ, handing her the flowers. Choking when he was called a friendly neighbour. His heart jumping to his throat, he was ready to cough it out in cold dread. Smiling hesitantly at Ned when his best friend (ex-best friend, surely he has new, better friends now) introduced him to the board dedicated to him and showed him the prime candidates to his alter ego. It was easy. Familiar to be around them. If only he could ignore his bleeding heart and his mind yelling at him to get out of here, he could have pretended he was finally home for a second. MJ had worn a black dress, she looked beautiful, like she always does, and Peter could barely hold himself back when he saw she was still wearing that necklace.
He wants to spill his guts out, bleed the truth over their new apartment. Better late than never, right? He's so close to giving it all up, to just give in for once. To give Peter Parker a win. Then he sees MJ with someone else. A guy. He made her smile. In a way Peter never could. Never will be able to, not while he dons the red and blue suit.
A smile without any concerns, without the worries and the burden that goes hand in hand with being Spider-Man's girlfriend. He needs to leave, he decides; he needs to be up in the air, swing and fall, he needs to run. He turns, and it was the first of his many mistakes he makes in the upcoming weeks.
Peter crashes right into the man he wanted to avoid tonight. The only one he didn't want to see. He had thought he wasn't here, Ned's recent vlog had suggested that he was out of town for work. What kind, however, he doesn't know, he didn't try to find out, he knew he had no right to.
The hypnotic smell of vanilla and oranges engulfs him. It's embarrassing how he has to physically stop himself from taking a deep breath. He hates himself for it, hates how he needs to stop breathing for a second so he doesn't simply melt into him. Peter should have kept his head down and stepped aside to walk away. But he just couldn't. His wrist burned but it wasn't painful. No, being close to him ignited a fire down his soul, warming him up faster than his layers could have. It's pathetic, and he can't deny himself, not when he's right there. He tilts his chin up to look at the man who shared the same soulmark as him.
Arun had been taller than him, now he has gained even a few more inches on Parker. The years have been good on his soulmate, Peter thinks. His jaw is sharper than before, his eyes brown as ever, glittering from the lights around the room, reflecting the people around them. Reflecting him. Arun's lips are stretched into an apologetic smile as he says, "I am sorry."
His voice is different now, he realized.
It's a voice Peter doesn't remember, because he wasn't there to witness the change. It's deeper than when he was sixteen and ready to fight the world for him. It's a baritone that vibrates Peter's bones in a frequency just right, curling into his chest, wrapping itself around his ribs. A voice he wouldn't have minded hearing every day on the daily, just like he hadn't when they were fourteen and Arun was going on, and on about this new movie he had watched and the possible interpretations about the characters and objects' symbolism in it. How the boy wished he had been listening more intently back then so he could remember his words, his excitement and joy now.
"It's fine," Parker replied, his lips curling into the same sad smile, the only kind of smile he had now for the past four years.
He twisted himself to give Arun a clear path to Ned and MJ, hating how his chest ached when his hearing picked up them greeting him cheerfully. He needs to go now, he decides before he gets desperate to carve up a space between the three, a space that no longer existed for him.
In his hurry, he misses the way Arun looks back at him, staring at his jacket with eyebrows furrowed. The way his eyes widen when he pulls up the sleeve of his own shirt to see a familiar red and blue on his wrist, the mark looking a tiny bit brighter, more colorful. A sign of his soulmate being near. A sign that his soulmate was the stranger he just crashed into.
Peter doesn't know Arun's footsteps are heavy now, nothing like the way he walked back in high school, another change he has missed. He's too busy trying to forget the smell of vanilla and orange to realize it's trailing right behind him. The sound of traffic and laughter of New Yorkers is loud in his ears, making him miss the erratic heartbeat behind him.
The hand pulling him into the dark alleyway is familiar; there's no panic in his head, no Spider tingle warning him; he already knows who it is. The touch bringing jolts of electricity on his skin is the same. And oh, Peter thinks, not everything has changed, and he's so relieved by this revelation he could cry. Some things remained the same. It will remain the same until he dies, details he won't get wrong when he thinks of them at night, dreaming about them, mourning their loss as if they were dead in the same way May and Tony are. Imagining a life where he's in the pictures and the videos, where Mysterio didn't exist, where he didn't haunt him after his death, didn't punish him for a grudge that he wasn't at fault for.
"You're mine." Arun Dey, his soulmate, growls, an honest-to-God growl that shakes him to his core. Peter is pinned between him and the wall, his instincts failing him as he remains, not even trying to fight back. His soulmate grabs his wrist, and Parker is weak.
He is weak.
Peter Parker is not as strong as Spider-Man.
He doesn't have the strength to pull away.
His mark is out there for him to see. Arun looks at it, his thumb pressing the tattoo, his fingertip brushing against the ink, as if to check it's real. It is. It always has been. It's ridiculous how fast the bond snaps back, demanding their lives to be intertwined again. Even if he can't afford it.
"Who are you?" He demands.
And Spider-Man doesn't know the answer.