Unexpected Update
Unestablished | Soulmate Trope| Texting Kind of | Flexible Timeline

UNEXPECTED UPDATE

UNESTABLISHED   ·   SOULMATE TROPE   ·   TEXTING- KIND OF   ·   FLEXIBLE TIMELINE

NOW PLAYING ♫  //  TRACK 01



"I really think I'd like to fall in love
I really think I'd like to fall for someone
To fly through the air
With wind in my hair
With someone who cares"

FOR ONCE  //   MATT HAUGHEY

SUMMARY
scribbled in the margin → probably important

In this world, soulmate marks don’t appear until both people turn eighteen — and once they do, anything written on one person’s skin shows up on the other’s arm in real time. Most people spend their late teens waiting for it. Peter Parker didn’t. Gwen died a week before his eighteenth birthday, and when no writing ever appeared, he assumed that was the universe’s answer. He built a life around that assumption — adjunct professor by day, Spider-Man by night, scribbling grocery lists and bad jokes on his arm without ever expecting a reply.

Now, at twenty-nine, mid-swing over the East River, the ink finally answers back — in handwriting that isn’t his. You’ve just written to him. And Peter, who was very prepared to live the rest of his life thinking he’d already had his soulmate and lost her, is suddenly faced with something he wants more than he knows how to handle.

──────  ✎  USER INFORMATION  ↳  ──────
user notes // please read before proceeding

You are anyone you wanna be!

Why haven't you written until now? Well, you could be just 18, you could have been like this is a weird person writing weird notes on my arms, you could not subscribe to soulmate stuff, maybe you were in a relationship or married and just didn't want to do this yet. So many possibilities!

note to self: Peter has absolutely no idea which possibility he's dealing with yet. Good luck, buddy.

───────  ☆  MOMYE NOTES  ♡  ───────
written in the corner of the page

IMPORTANT LORE → Okay how this works babes. Not everyone has a soulmate, it's a lucky few. When both people are 18 they are able to write a message on their body (yes anywhere) and it'll tingle on the other person and the words will appear and disappear off both people within a few minutes.

SECONDARY NOTES → So why weren't all Peters notes disappearing off his arm, I dunno. I was already committed to the idea before I thought of the issues, lets pretend its because you weren't writing back yet so it didn't like... activate? I make this up as I go along.

I LOVE SOULMATE THINGS! ♡

──────  ↗  KANYE NETWORK  ↙  ──────
people, places + assorted internet things

📡 DISCORD SERVER

📂 FILE A REQUEST

🛰️ FOLLOW ON TUMBLR

───────  [ + ]  INITIAL MESSAGE  ↗  ───────
PAGE 01 // start here →

You know, by twenty-nine, Peter Parker wasn’t doing too bad. He’d achieved at least two impressive life milestones: he’d gotten solid-ish work as an adjunct professor at Empire State University and had become the human embodiment of “it’s fine, I’ve got it” and “I’ll sleep later.” He’d managed to get himself a studio apartment in Queens that technically qualified as “cozy” if you ignored the radiator that screamed like it was the one having night terrors every winter and the cabinet door he ended up webbing shut half the time. He owned at least three identical gray sweaters because laundry was literally never a priority and May kept buying replacements like she was sponsoring him. He even had one– exactly one– plant that he kept alive despite the odds stacked against them both.

“Look at us,” he’d muttered to the plant this morning while shoving half-graded papers into his messenger bag. “Two organisms thriving despite the odds. Symbiosis, baby,” he’d said, punctuating it with finger guns.

The plant did not respond. Rude.

He was pretty good at the professor thing, though. Unexpectedly good, since he rarely slept and half the time he was fighting the urge to check the police scanners. He’d been pretty sure the students would see right through him– the way he never stopped moving, the fact that he could never keep track of which day it was, the overly genuine way he kept trying to bond with every one of them– but apparently enthusiasm could cover most character defects. He paced when he lectured, hands always moving. He drew terrible mitochondria on the board and sighed and apologized to the drawings. He asked questions he didn’t technically need to ask because he just liked watching students realize they were smarter than they thought.

“Science,” he’d announced to a half-awake classroom once, “is just asking ‘why’ over and over again until someone’s so annoyed they either hand you funding or tell you to go home. Never underestimate the power of being obnoxious!”

A few of them laughed. One kid in the back whispered, “he’s kind of unhinged,” and Peter had pointed at him with a marker without looking up. “Correct!”

Peter had always been the kind of kid who wrote notes on his arm— even before Spider-Man. Homework reminders. Things to pick up on the way home. Quick ideas. And then once he was Spider-Man, it became the only way he remembered anything. Grab milk for May. Web-fluid ratios. Date with Gwen.

The idea of a soulmate had been brief and fleeting– everyone knew it could show up anytime once both of you were eighteen– but when Peter was eighteen... Well, Gwen died a week before his eighteenth birthday. So, in the wake of the clocktower, the sound of her falling, the impossible, terrible stillness afterward– the assumption was quick and easy. He’d loved Gwen so much– in that all-consuming, reckless, young way. She’d laughed at his jokes, even when they were objectively bad. She’d believed in him before he’d quite figured out how to believe in himself.

And because of him, she died.

So when no writing came after eighteen, Peter assumed the only explanation was that his soulmate had been Gwen, and he was okay with that. No one else to hide from. No one else to protect from himself. If the universe had decided that was it– that he didn’t get another shot– That was okay. Honestly? It was fair.

So he adapted. He leaned into being Spider-Man. Into keeping his neighborhood safe. Into dinners with May. He filled the empty space on his arm with lists and doodles and endless little notes to himself.

Buy detergent. You smell.

Call May, don’t be an asshole.

Grade lab reports by Friday or perish dramatically.

Pick up cereal again.

We are out of cereal.

More cereal please, Peter.

He wrote it all absentmindedly, never thinking there would be an answer, never considering it might be appearing on someone else’s arm. And yeah, okay– so it was lonely? So, it wasn’t perfect? So maybe it would have been nice to be something to someone? But it wasn’t like he hadn’t gone on some dates, had some failed casual situations... This was fine. Really. No– it was better than fine.

That’s how he ended up crouched on a rooftop at 9 P.M. writing on his arm with a Sharpie. I need cereal!! He pulled his sleeve back down, glove in place, Sharpie tucked away. Then Spider-Man dropped, swinging along the East River with the kind of easy grace that came from years of doing this. Swinging was second nature now. He never got tired of it. The city glittered around him, alive and loud and steady. One webline after another, shoulder muscles burning in that familiar, comfortable way.

“Okay, if I were a suspicious van... doing suspicious van things, where would I be?” he muttered to himself, scanning the street below. “Probably not under a streetlight labeled ‘Crime Here.’ Nope. That’d be way too convenient, huh, New York?”

Mid-swing, he felt it– an electrical tingling across his forearm that didn’t make any sense. His grip faltered as it skittered up his forearm. He overcorrected and nearly face-planted into a building. He steadied himself against the brick. “Well, that's new and medically concerning.”

He landed on a rooftop, feet skidding over gravel as he yanked his sleeve up without thinking– he didn’t know what he was expecting, but it probably required health insurance– an allergic reaction to the same Sharpie he’d used a dozen times before? Glitching web shooters? A second spider-bite? Radiation poisoning finally cashing in?

But it wasn’t any of that. He looked for his note about cereal– and it was missing. Replaced with handwriting that wasn’t his — not the cramped, awkward scrawl he knew so well. He realized he had been staring without reading when it started to disappear, words sinking back into his arm. “Wait, wait! What the hell, a time limit?!” He fumbled for his Sharpie.

Okay, hi. I missed whatever you wrote. It vanished. Is that a thing? Is there a timer? Did I just fail something?

He watched as his own words sank into his skin... it was going to get really hard to keep lists now. His lips pressed together behind his mask. He glanced around like someone might be pranking him. He’d been so sure this wasn’t going to happen for him– and now that it was his chest was knotted with a complicated web of feelings. Panic. Relief. Guilt. Grief. Hope? His hand ran over his masked face. “Okay. This is okay, Pete.” He said as he started pacing– just in time for his arm to tingle again.