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“You don’t deserve a soulmate,” was the first thing Stephen heard about this soulmate business. “Freak,” was the second. He was seven.
His mother gently wiped the tears from his eyes. “Hush now, sweetheart. Dry your eyes.”
“What’s a soulmate?” Stephen managed to ask in between frantic, needy gasps and choked exhalations.
His mother’s hand turned to stone on his forehead. Wordlessly, she looked to his father. Stephen watched the interaction unfold with solicitous detail, his eidetic memory committed to storing every second of this.
Soulmates were your other half – Stephen’s father explained slowly – shaped and moulded by the hand of the universe itself. Furthermore, there were multiple variations on the manner of which a soul-pair were connected. Some shared a mental link, communicating not with words but thoughts and images and emotions. Others shared scars, bodies mirroring the marks of their other like a brand of ownership. There were shared dreams; a countdown clock that ticked all the way down to serenade the exact moment they would meet; living life in black-and-white until the world burst open with colour upon meeting. There were an infinite number of possibilities.
But what they all had in common was that instinctive knowing. “When two soulmates meet, they know it immediately.”
Even at his young age, Stephen picked up on the third person. He never spoke of dreams; did not have a scratch on his body that did not belong to him, neither did he have names or first words inked on his skin; did not stop and stare at random intervals, mind lost in silent conversation. His world was in colour, and there wasn’t a ticking time bomb in sight.
In short, Stephen’s soulmate just… didn’t exist.
“What if my soulmate isn’t born yet?”
His father looked sad. Stephen didn’t have to look over at his mother to know she was crying. “How old your soulmate is affects the type of bond you have. If you’re the same age as your soulmate, you would have the mental link or the shared dreams. If you’re older than your soulmate, you would have the shared marks or the first words they say to you.”
And Stephen’s skin was flawless.
He mulled over his father’s words for a few seconds. Quiet, he asked, “Am I a freak?” and his parents unceremoniously sandwiched him in between their bodies, whispering soft murmurs of no, no, no, no, and you could never be a freak, you’re perfect into his hair.
Stephen thought: if I was so perfect then why will I be alone?
Donna was very excited when she walked into the kitchen one morning a few years later, eyes alight with wild joy.
“I had my first soulmate dream last night,” his sister exclaimed. “I spoke to my soulmate!”
Stephen made a conscious effort to swallow his jealousy lest it spring forth unwelcomed. Two years younger than him yet having experienced something he never would. A half-hearted, “Congratulations,” was the most he could spare.
Donna’s expression dropped, guilty. “Stephen, I’m– I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to–”
He waved away her apology like a pesky fly. “Don’t worry about it.” He smiled to show her how fine with it he was, but her face remained unchanged, prompting him to ask, “What was your dream about?”
Donna bit her lip, exchanging careful glances with their parents, and that irritated him. He was not some delicate little flower to be treated with care. He could handle this; he just said he could.
After a beat, she launched into a beautiful rendition of her soulmate dream. Stephen was completely and utterly fine with it.
Who needed soulmates, anyway?
This whole... soulmate business meant that there was a reason for his loneliness, his solitude, for the terrible ache in the pit of his gut. Because: he wasn't supposed to be like this – unattached, aloof, a nightmare at forming attachments. The universe just hadn't made one for him. Maybe that was okay. His mind was companionship enough. All he wanted was to sit in a room, alone with nothing but his brain.
Why not? If the universe decided he wasn't worthy of a companion, then he would fashion one for himself from his mind. Hey, it worked for Adam and Eve.
His sister drowned. Stephen failed her. By the time he dragged her lifeless, floppy body to shore, she was too far gone. He performed the kiss of life all the same, pressing down on her chest so hard he felt her ribs give away under the palm of his hand.
It was in vain.
Donna did not spit water. Nor did she suck up the atmosphere with desperate, thankful inhalations.
She was dead.
And Stephen failed her.
First, do no harm – that was the oath draped along his shoulders, as brilliantly white as the coat that came with it.
Donna's memory framed his motivations, sure, but Stephen couldn't deny the sheer thrill that hummed through vertebrae whenever he saved a life, whenever his hands kept death at bay – the sheer power and responsibility he had.
His internship was gruelling but it made him into a man. He climbed the medical ladder from resident to attending, to genius neurosurgeon at the forefront of cutting-edge technology.
In the fourth year of his residency, his mother fell ill.
Beverly Strange was a storm of a woman – a monument unto herself. It was a shock to the system to see her so frail, so without the fire she held in life, so bereft of the
Every day he had free was spent at her side.
As death closed its grip on her body, the resemblance between her and Donna refined.
When his father's time came, Stephen couldn't face him. After losing so many of his family, he couldn't bear to watch as the remaining member took death's hand and wandered into the ether.
Eugene Strange died alone.
It was better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all, or so they say, but if that was the case then what did that mean for Stephen’s empty, soulmate-less existence?
Stephen cemented himself as a god amongst men: a neurosurgeon even death feared. His reputation was absolute. His hands were the greatest things in creation.
He had a resident alongside him – a Dr. Christine Palmer.
It went something like this:
“I don't have a soulmate.”
Christine's expression crumpled. She placed her hand on his wrist. It was warm to the touch. “Everybody has a soulmate.”
Stephen grinned: a grim, sardonic, toothy little number. “Not me.”
Christine accepted Stephen's offer of a date with a somewhat puzzled smile, a pretty pink flush decorating her cheeks. He was smitten.
Some time after that, Christine told him her soulmate was dead. She gave him her arm: the name branded on to her skin had blackened and hardened, besmirching the name of whoever the universe deemed worthy enough of her.
Stephen soothed the marred flesh with a gentle kiss. “Perhaps we could be each other's soulmate?” he offered, little more than a whisper. He kept his eyes trained on hers, not blinking for fear of missing her reaction.
Her face cracked open like the sun breaking through clouds as grey as his eyes. “Yes,” she whispered back, and pressed her mouth to his.
Stephen fell in love with Christine, and she with him. Soulmates did not matter; had no business interfering in this relationship. It mattered not what came before or would come after them – all that mattered was this: her palm in his for eternity. Never letting go.
Spoiler alert: she let go.
Death stole her away in the night, a thief stealing its most priceless treasure.
But it wasn't fair, it could never be fair, not in any stretch of the word. Not for his sister, who was so very excited to meet her soulmate, proudly telling him every time she shared a dream. For his soul-bonded parents who bore the other's mark for years before they met.
For Stephen, who was denied a soulmate and when he met someone with whom he desired to spend the rest of his life with, they... Christine...
Enraged, Stephen resisted, became more powerful than ever, absorbed countless demons and dark forces, undid the very fabric of her death until she lay in his arms breathing and so very humanly alive, and–
Enraged, Stephen undid the universe.
Peter's first memory was a dream: a purple prison, crystallised and fragmented, a universe decomposing around him. Panic wanted to seize his throat, claustrophobic and sublime, but it was slow on the uptake, statuesque, allowing Peter to scour his surroundings.
A monster melted from the shadow, an amalgamated creature of dark intent and eldritch terror. Darkness was its servant, parting at the monster's command like the red sea of the Bible. It did not allow Peter to glimpse its face, clinging to the side.
Peter couldn't name the emotion he felt in its presence. It wasn't fear, not exactly, but it wasn't far off. Unsettling, sinister, and yet there was something that called to him, something that let him know he was safe in such a bone-deep way.
Soulmate, he realised with a jolt, instinctive.
Peter wanted to speak, but it was as though his vocal chords no longer belonged to him. Words refused to form, his brain unable to communicate.
“After all this time…” the creature said in a hoarse whisper, every syllable eking out like it physically pained his soulmate to say. Peter thought it sounded human – human and... male.
Before Peter regained control over speech, his soulmate bled into the shadows once more, and the dream forcibly ended.
After that, Peter never dreamt again.
His parents died, and he went to live with his Aunt May. He kept expecting his soulmate to reach out, but the monster rebuffed any of his attempts to know him, giving him dreams of sheer black, impossible to penetrate.
Then: the spider happened, gifting him powers of incredible strength and agility. Peter became Spider-Man, fought his heroes, turned down a place among the Avengers, and snuck aboard an alien spaceship.
–and then he died.
Five years later, Dr. Strange took his shaky frame in hand. “You're okay,” he said. Peter imagined he was making a conscious effort to be calm even as urgency demanded him to act now.
It's been five years, Strange said next. Come on. They need us.
The Battle for Earth commenced. Iron Man fought inevitability and won but at the cost of his life.
Failure became Peter's legacy.
“I want to meet you,” Peter said in front of the first mirror he could find, eyeing the war-stained, bloody reflection in front of him with fragile indifference, knowing his soulmate would see this when they went to sleep. Mr.– Tony's blood was drying on his hands, the gamma radiation of the Infinity Stones dusting his hair. Five years had passed since his last soulmate dream; he didn't know whether they fell victim to the same demise Thanos inflicted or whether they were part of the chosen half that remained. He wondered what his soulmate looked like; wondered what band they liked; wondered what they thought about Spider-Man. There, in front of the mirror, Peter wondered all those things and more, knowing later that night, the answer would find him:
“No.”
Flat, unforgiving, rejecting, and in between the spongy balloons of his lungs, Peter's heart turned to iron.
Being rejected by your soulmate had its perks, he guessed. Number one being that now he had nothing left to lose. Nobody was gonna come running round the corner to stop him from doing something decidedly dangerous – which, well, was most of the things he did, he guessed.
It meant he no longer had to feel guilty about the feelings he had for MJ, about the Paris date he had planned, about the confessions and kisses he wished to bestow upon her – yes, exactly as cheesy and corny as that sentiment implied.
Damn Parker luck prevailed: Quentin Beck outed his identity, and Peter sought Dr. Strange's help to clean up the mess.
Needless to say, it backfired. Hard.
Once upon a time, MJ looked at Peter Parker and said, I love you.
Now she looked straight through him and said, “Can I help you?”
And Peter– Peter–
Peter smiled, thanked her for the coffee, and said: “No.”
That night, his soulmate attempted to reach out for the first time; purple diamonds coalescing in the landscape of his dreams.
The creature that inhabited this hellscape, the monster the universe decided was the only thing in existence he deserved, tried to speak to him, Peter thought. Broken English, English unused to being spoken after so many years without, perhaps. He couldn't decipher the tongue, the conglomeration of words garbled into a single sentence, but as far as Peter was concerned it mattered not.
Peter took hold of the lines of communication and clamped them shut.
Multiversal mayhem ensued. Possibly a drawback from the botched spell Peter had more than a hand in creating. Guilt determined his thoughts, and stayed his hand.
If he had learned just one thing from his multiversal adventures – well, to be fair, Beck was sort of a liar anyway – it was that sometimes doing nothing was more vital than forcing an action that only splinters reality more.
No, Peter could not help, much as he greatly wanted to. His responsibility was to take care of the world beneath his feet, not go off displaying a power that would only be ineffectual amongst the sorcerers and wizards and witches that suddenly sprouted up like weeds.
Speaking of–
A zombie came barrelling through the streets, snarled, rotting. Peter's tingle alerted him just in time to avoid becoming an afternoon snack.
Peter braced for impact, scrunching his eyes tight shut.
–and then...
The ground melted into darkness, and Peter's soulmate cracked open the universe to save him.
His soulmate: the creature who shunned the bond, who tormented his thoughts and emotions for years, who rejected Peter time and time again.
His soulmate: Dr. Strange.
Well, not this Dr. Strange, Peter was fairly sure about that. But it was a Dr. Strange – a Dr. Strange who dwelled in past mistakes, haunted by the past, unable to let another get close enough to touch.
Peter snapped back to reality soon enough to realise Dr. Strange was about to, uh, consume(?) the rogue zombie.
“No,” Peter said forcefully. “No killing.”
Strange's face twisted in anger, shadows laying siege to the flesh there, but he stopped his assault at Peter's command.
“He's already dead,” Strange retorted, sounding as though the words physically pained him to say.
“Yeah, well,” Peter shrugged, remembering the conversation he had with his Dr. Strange: what if we could change their fate? “We could fix him. You and me.”
Frankenstein's monster was unimpressed.
“You're a doctor, right?” Peter carried on, scrambling at anything to get Strange to stop. “You took an oath: first, do no harm.”
His answering noise was dark and beautiful, velvety and dangerous, emanating from his throat like a baby bird learning to croon. It took Peter a second to realise he was chuckling. “I haven't been that man in a long time.”
But Strange did as bid: trapping the zombie in a... pocket dimension? Something for him to carry around in his pocket, a spider caught in a glass.
The shadows receded, leaving the man behind. His eyes were red and sunken. Peter's lungs welcomed the air, relaxing in the stalemate.
“Okay,” Peter said, shaky, more to himself. The next, “Okay,” was firmer, stable, followed by a confident, “Follow me.”
Strange let himself in to Peter's shoebox apartment, all dark and dangerous, with talons and claws as fingers and nails, with wings and frighteningly sharp teeth, with eyes as red as arterial blood, and Peter couldn't shake the hysterical thought that yes, he had invited the devil into his home. Once he stopped freaking out, he set about fixing up some food for his unexpected guest – you know, in case the devil fancied some toast.
Peter had no idea how long this, uh, Dr. Strange creature-human planned to stay. Although, after having glimpsed at his homeworld, he could understand why Strange wasn't in any hurry to go back there.
There was no spare bed for Peter's soulmate, and he volunteered his own.
Strange refused. “You have it. I don't need sleep.”
It was Peter's time to frown. “You saved my life.” He had seen the dark bags adorning his soulmate's eyes; he needed rest. “I will not let you sleep on the floor.” He cleared his throat. “There's plenty of space in my bed.”
(Spoiler alert: there really wasn't.)
Pointedly, neither of them mentioned the whole soulmate shtick.
Peter's soulmate paused to ponder their predicament. After a beat, something resembling a smirk began to blossom along his now-human face, lighting it up so beautifully Peter's breath caught in his throat.
“Fine,” he acquiesced, and Peter failed to stop the faint flutter his heart gave at Strange's acceptance.
Turns out, this Dr. Strange was a surprisingly, uh, cuddly guy.
Touch-starved, Peter recognised as if on intuition, the soulmate bond working overtime to compensate for the lack of memories between the two. This Dr. Strange had been imprisoned inside a decaying universe for god only knows how long, living as the monster in every child's dream, lost to companionship and the warmth of human skin. No wonder he actively sought it out now that he was free.
But only with Peter. Only with his soulmate.
He and Strange fixed the zombie virus that seemed to plague this dude's soul before sending him back to his universe. When Peter asked how he was going to fare in a zombified universe, Strange cured the whole damn planet.
Awestruck at the power and responsibility Strange endowed, Peter kept his thoughts to himself.
Still, he stayed in Peter's apartment, and Peter was loath to chuck him out.
Not two weeks passed before:
Strange invaded his personal space; Peter took a step back – a discordant mating call.
“I can feel it,” he said, voice straining with the effort. His eyes fell closed, contemplative. “Your spell.”
Peter opened his mouth. Not a sound came out.
“I can undo it for you,” Strange murmured, deceptively soft. He opened his eyes, hand coming to rest along the curve of Peter's cheek. “If you want.”
And, oh, did Peter want. So much so he could scarcely breathe.
Nevertheless, he could not.
With great power comes great responsibility.
Peter said as much to his soulmate, and Strange shot him a wry smirk, face still set in the monster's façade.
“No,” Peter's answer came, as calm as iron. “It's better this way.”
Wisely, Strange did not say any more on the matter.
In a weird twist of fate, Peter grew accustomed to his soulmate's presence in his universe.
Strange's had been destroyed, you see. Reluctantly, Strange– Stephen parted with the details: it all started with a woman and the love he bore her.
Peter thought about MJ, and it all started to make sense.
A few months later, Peter kissed his soulmate on a cloudy Monday morning, and the memories exploded between them. Neither would have it any other way.