Atlas was condemned to hold the heavens
Peter Parker hates his soul words. When they appear on his skin, he desperately tries to wash them off in the bathroom he shares with his aunt and uncle in their tiny New York apartment. What’s the point of being destined to someone if they can’t help you when you need it? He’s already buried his parents, he doesn’t want someone else to come in and risk being caught in the curse that surrounds him.
He cries in earnest when he reads the handwriting. Isn’t this a little out of your paygrade, bug boy? They’re mocking. The words burn when Peter realizes his soulmate doesn’t even want him around. They don’t think Peter can handle whatever situation they’re in. They think they’re better off without Peter around. They haven’t even met yet and Peter’s already being told to go away.
–
It only gets worse from there. When kids at school find out they call him bug boy until the teachers make them stop. Being reprimanded only makes Peter more of a target, kids start telling him he can’t afford to be friends with them, can’t play above his station when it’s so obvious Peter Parker isn’t loveable. His own soulmate doesn’t want him.
Peter becomes keenly aware of how to hide bruises with foundation he steals from May’s cosmetic drawer. He learns what bandaids are the closest shade to his skin tone and memorizes the pattern that lockers leave on his skin when they collide.
Peter learns that most people don’t think words count as bullying. People don’t like getting caught in “he said, she said” and he’s turned away by more than one teacher. Peter stops reporting the kids and starts learning how best to curl into a ball to protect his ribs and glasses.
–
Peter thinks it’s turning around when May and Ben hire Skip to watch him after school three nights a week while they’re at work. Peter’s seen Skip in their building a few times. He knows he wears thick bracelets on both wrists and he’s sixteen and Peter’s ten and he thinks he’s finally got a friend.
The first time Skip speaks to him, Peter’s trying to get to the good cookies above the fridge before he has to start his homework.
“Hey, isn’t that a bit above your paygrade, bug boy?” Skip asks, seeming so genuinely curious about what Peter’s doing that Peter doesn’t even notice the difference between what Skip said and what’s written on Peter’s wrist.
“I can’t believe you’re finally here” Peter says back, eyes watering and cookies completely forgotten.
–
Skip lies about his words.
He never takes off the bracelets around his wrist, telling Peter that he doesn’t want to show him his words until their second set come in. That he wants to show Peter his words once both sets write themselves on his skin, making Peter officially half his soul - forever.
Peter thinks it’s the most romantic thing he’s ever heard.He’s ten and he listens to Skip because Skip is his soulmate and soulmates don’t hurt each other. He goes along with the games Skip wants to play because he wants Skip to like him, wants desperately to be loved and liked by his soulmate and Skip says if Peter listens he’ll love him.
It doesn’t matter if Peter feels sick or if it hurts or if he can’t tell May and Ben because the only thing that matters is the half of a soul that comes by three times a week and says he’ll love Peter if Peter just does this one thing…
–
It’s never just one thing.
Peter’s eleven when Skip burns himself on the stove making them macaroni for dinner and has to remove the bracelets around his wrist to treat it. Peter’s pressing an icepack to the wound, trying to soothe him when he notices it.
“Why, aren’t you just a pretty little thing” is written in neat print around Skip’s wrist, adding insult to injury, it reflects red when Peter turns his wrist in the light.
Peter’s eleven and he’s been abused for months thinking he was doing something nice for someone he loved.
Peter Parker hates his soulwords.
–
A lot changes after the spider bite. Peter loses Ben. He remembers sitting in the emergency room, covered in his uncle’s blood and thinking maybe if you had been better. Peter had powers, yet he still let someone take another of Peter’s already small family.
He watches May’s words fade to gray. “I always knew April was my favorite month - gets us all ready for May and her flowers” written in Ben’s smooth hand lose all the color they once contained.
People at school call him bug boy more often than his own name. There’s one kid, Ned, who seems different. He tries to connect with Peter in a way Peter hasn’t had anyone try to connect with him since before the words scrawled their way across his skin.
Peter thinks it’s a waste of his time.
He starts creating Spider-Man. He takes inspiration from Tony Stark and the way he always seems to stay one step ahead of anything that comes his way. He makes his suit red and blue, he wants to make it the same red as the Iron Man armor but he’s working with what the Salvation Army has in their craft section.
Spider-Man stays local. Clinging to Queens and never getting into anything he can’t handle. Stay below your paygrade, he thinks as he rescues cats from trees and helps find missing bikes. Stay in your lane, bug boy, he chants as he leads little old ladies across busy streets and stops a few car thefts.
–
Harry Osborn is the most beautiful boy Peter thinks he’s ever seen. He’s partnered with him because Peter’s swinging up a grade or two and Harry, while being a senior, doesn’t seem to mind working with a sophomore in their chemistry class.
Peter tries really hard to impress him. He even does most of their work in class so Harry can talk to his friends. It’s worth it when Harry call his Pete and not bug boy. When their hands meet during labs, Peter thinks that maybe someone finally wants him around, finally thinks he can handle it.
Peter shows him a variation of his web fluid he made to stop clotting in blood streams. He thinks if he can get it to be longer lasting, it could become an over the counter life-saver. He tries not to think about how much he needed it the night Ben died. Harry calls him brilliant and kisses his cheek.
It’s worth it, Peter thinks as he goes home that day, not noticing his chemistry notebook isn’t in his backpack.
Oscorp releases the clotting method a month later. Harry’s dad pulls him out of public school and sends him back to the fancy boarding school he pulled Harry out of for not “taking the family name seriously”. Peter’s heart shatters as the most beautiful boy he’s ever seen tells him not to give away his ideas for free. That maybe, Peter should know what’s in his pay grade before spilling his ideas.
–
Peter doesn’t really do friends for the rest of high school. He graduates a year early and is only friendly with the Ned kid. He gets a scholarship to NYU and takes out hefty loans so May won’t have to worry. He knows everyone thinks he’s going way outside his pay grade.
He moves into the freshmen dorms only to be surprised by Ned Leeds in the twin bed next to him. Even then, he tries not to get too attached. Ned isn’t like the others. He’s a computer science nerd and he’s never once asked about Peter’s words. He covers his own words but acts as if he doesn’t even know how bad Peter’s are.
They become friends against Peter’s better judgment.
–
He meets Gwen Stacy in his analytical mechanics class and thinks he’s in love again. She’s three years older than him and says she likes his hair the first time they work together. Slowly, he finds himself making a little home at NYU with Ned and Gwen.
Neither one of them call him bug boy.
Gwen Stacy makes him wish he had her words on his wrist, makes him wish he coil change out the fancy too-perfect penmanship for her own. He wants to help her achieve her dreams, wants to follow her to medical school and help her study to become the best surgeon anyone’s ever seen!
She tells him he reminds her of Atlas, taking on more than he can handle yet somehow always staying balanced. She tells him to share the load and maybe he’ll find it easier to carry. She says he works himself too hard, spending too much time in the suit and not enough time with friends. Peter doesn’t really get it, thinks he’s doing everything he can with her and Ned, he doesn’t need to give them any more reason to leave him. He knows they both hate how he gets hurt on patrol, knows Ned and Gwen can’t stand the growing number of scars covering his body. He wears long sleeves more often than not. He can’t give them more reminders that he’s not worth it. Any more reason to change their minds like his soulmate will one day.
She tells him she loves him after finding him asleep in the chemistry library, working on revising her paper for her med school applications. He tells her he’d follow her anywhere, Spider-Man can go on the road until she’s finished with her doctorate. They have crime in other cities.
Gwen’s smile is almost sad when she tells him Spider-Man is going to get them all killed one day unless he learns to stop carrying the weight of the world.
–
He’s twenty when Gwen’s killed in the crossfire of a fight Peter put her in the middle of. He’s desperately trying to keep a mentally unstable Norman Osborn from killing an entire bourough’s worth of people just to “flush out the spider”. As he jumps off the bridge after Norman drops Gwen, he finds himself wishing the Avengers would show up - that he’s outside his pay grade and he can’t do this.
He’s not fast enough to save Gwen.
She never even got to meet her soulmate.
Peter takes the remaining finals in his degree and graduates two years early because Gwen would’ve been mad if he just dropped out instead.
He really wanted to drop out.
–
He’s twenty three and working on his last bit of his doctorate (because Gwen never got hers but he can still get his for her, even if it’s in theoretical physics and she wanted to be a surgeon) when he meets Michelle “my friends call me MJ, or they would if I had any” Jones. She’s beautiful and smart and knocks Peter on his ass by accident when he tries to squeeze behind her at a crowded bar Ned dragged him to and accidentally touched the hem of her skirt.
It’s the first time in a long time his spider sense didn’t warn him of a punch before it landed.
He’s enthralled with her from then on. He thinks Gwen would’ve loved her.
She says she doesn’t believe in soulmates and thinks it’s an archaic way of determining who to spend their time with. Peter loves the way she thinks, even if Ned thinks it has more to do with the faded gray “The pleasure’s all mine, Miss Jones” printed on her wrist.
MJ never hides her soulmark, even when people stare at her for the gray lettering when she’s only twenty three. Peter tells her about his soulmate and how he wishes he knew what they meant when they said what they said.
MJ says if you love someone, you don’t tear them down. You build them up. Peter thinks she’s the smartest person he’s ever met.
He starts wishing he never meets his soulmate.
–
At 6 AM on August 10th, he turned twenty five. Ned and MJ are staying in his and Ned’s tiny post grad apartment, all huddling around and waiting to see what Peter’s second set of words are. They’ve got three bottles of cheap wine, two handles of discount bourbon and a chocolate cake in the fridge. They’re prepared for anything.
He’s twenty five and he never wants to meet his soulmate but he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t curious. Ned’s reflect red and he got his second set months ago, a simple “I think I’m in love with you” to go on his chest along with his “You have a typo in that line” wrapped around his wrist.
MJ turned twenty five last month and they’d had a quiet night in, watching a docuseries about women in male dominated roles while they held her as she cried, the simple “I’ll see you later, MJ” written almost mockingly in the faded gray script.
Peter’s dreading what the second set will say. He knows already that his soulmate doesn’t like him. He can tell in his core that he’s not worth his soul’s time. The clock changes to 6:02 AM and Peter pulls his shirt off.
“You’re not coming and that’s final” is written in the same handwriting on his wrist over his heart.
Peter runs to the bathroom and throws up everything he has. MJ and Ned hold him while he sobs about a soulmate that would rather be alone forever than have to spend time with him.
–
He’s twenty five and half when robots attack Tony Stark’s birthday party. He’s on the subway with MJ when he hears the screams and gives her an apologetic look. She’s smarter than he is, so she just nods and tells him to be safe.
Peter tries, he really does. He works best at a distance and he knows that, using his webbing to send bots colliding into each other and most importantly, away from Natasha Romanov.
“Spider-Man!” She calls, and Peter would bet money she actually smiles when she says it. He’s so proud of himself for a second he nearly asks her for an autograph. MJ would love an autograph from THE Black Widow - and hey, maybe spiders stick together!
Peter’s opening his mouth to respond when he hears Iron Man pass overhead, thrusters adding a metallic whine to his presence “Isn’t this a little out of your paygrade, bug boy?” the world stops. Peter chokes on his own breath, the same ten words that have ruined his life time and time again hang in the air like a death sentence.
Suddenly he’s ten and scrubbing at his wrist like there’s no tomorrow, hiding his words away from May and Ben. He sees himself blindly trusting Skip Wescott and Harry Osborn with just the hope that someone could, would like him the same way he likes them. He can hear the familiar taunts from the school hallways, feel the cold press of lockers as he’s slammed into them over and over and over. He shakes his head to clear his vision, he should be pissed. He should be so angry he rips into Tony Stark for marking his skin with the worst phrase and dooming him for years of bullying and hurt.
But he isn’t.
The same words that have haunted Peter for over a decade aren’t said to be cruel. Tony said them with a laugh on his lips - like they’re old friends who just found each other on the same bus for the first time in years and the coincidence is far too great not to be preplanned. Tony said it the same way Ben used to call May, “Mayday Parker - always one foot into calamity but the only one strong enough to steer us away from it”. The same way Ned says he’s the “guy in the chair” or the way MJ calls them all losers.
Peter shakes his head and, surprising even himself, smiles. There’s no malice in the way Tony said his words. For the first time in Peter’s life, he thinks “bug boy” might be an endearment and not an insult. The relief that washes over him feels like taking a shower after a week in the wilderness - like he’s taken off layers of dirt that he’d long forgotten cling to his skin.
“That’s a misnomer - spiders are arachnids like you’re tougher than iron, Metal-head.” he shoots back at Tony Stark because he may be reliving all of his trauma in real time but Peter B. Parker has spent far too long as the butt of a joke and he’s not going to let Tony Fucking Stark off the hook now - his soulmate is Tony Stark, if he can’t take a joke, they won’t work out.
Peter wants this fight to be over, he wants to run back to MJ and Ned and tell them everything and decide his next move because there’s no way he’s prepared to deal with this right now - it’s way out of his paygrade.
There’s a small part of him that’s growing larger by the second that wants to stay and demand Tony show him his wrist and see if it’s real or not. He tells himself it doesn’t matter if it’s real, he doesn’t need his soulmate, he doesn’t want his soulmate.
He really wants his soulmate. He really wants his soulmate to want him back.
Peter slams his fist into the center of a bot and rips out their blinking power source. He throws it to the side and jumps onto the next one, using more of his strength than he means to as he takes down bot after bot. He loses track of the Iron Man suit and tries to fight the anxiety that appears with not knowing where his soulmate is. Natasha is staring at him with eyes that seem to already know exactly what Peter had for breakfast this morning (toast with one slice of prepackaged lunch meat, because protein is important for growing boys).
He can feel himself opening and closing his teeth, the soft clicking noise in his jaw another reminder that he’s more spider than man and the way spiders deal with anxiety is to inject the source with venom. Peter’s lucky he hasn’t developed venom even though the urge to bite something becomes harder to stave off when he’s stressed.
She’s looking at him when his spider sense flares. It’s different when it’s warning him of someone else’s danger, colder almost, like when a breeze comes directly off the ocean and makes every hair on your body stick straight up before it’s over just as fast as it came by. He’s crouched on the back of a bot while it fails to knock him loose and he can see another take aim at the super spy.
Peter’s moving before he can stop himself, knowing that if she gets hit there’s no way MJ will forgive him for letting the world’s first female superhero die. He collides with her with all the force of a human torpedo.
He hears Tony’s reaction before he even feels the pain in his abdomen. The Iron Man’s scream sounds like it was forcefully torn from his lungs. Peter hits the ground hard but isn’t alone for long. The Black Widow - the actual Black Widow - presses a hand to his wound to stop the bleeding.
“When they said never meet your heroes, I thought it was more in a living up to ideals kinda way and less in a ‘you may get shot in the stomach’ kinda way” Peter jokes, trying to sit up only for Natasha to rip his suit to show off the flesh wound he’s acquired. Distantly, Peter notices they’re no longer being shot at. He thinks that’s probably a good thing.
“Yeah, well, don’t take bullets for people you just met” she presses down, maybe a little harder than necessary - he’s tender, damnit. Peter sucks air in through his teeth but can’t quite hide the smile when he remembers the person mad at him this time is the Black Widow.
He’s about to ask for that autograph when the billionaire his soulmate is suddenly standing above him without the suit on. “Don’t take bullets for anyone, taking bullets is off the list of spider-approved activities” the tinge of worry isn’t quite lost on Peter but it is lost in the thick, overwhelming audacity.
“You don’t get to tell me what is and isn’t allowed. I think I’m good. I’m gonna go now” he bats Natasha’s hand away and starts getting up. He should’ve listened to MJ more, men are the worst. He’s said less than two sentences to this man and he already thinks he can tell Peter what to do? After everything his words have put him through? Peter glares.
“Spider-Man, let us help you. Let us-let me make sure you’re ok” Natasha’s voice sounds so much like when Gwen would find him half asleep in the chemistry library that he has to blink hard to stop seeing blonde hair where there’s actually bright red. He hesitates, hating the fact that that’s all it takes to get him to do what they want. When did he become such a softie for strong female characters?
He hopes MJ won’t mind him missing the rest of their day together as he lets himself be taken into the medical center. He’ll get her the autograph and maybe she’ll even let him rain check without a ten minute apology.
–
It turns out, the Avengers have been hoarding the good drugs. The doctors give him something that actually numbs the area before they pull out the bullet and Peter’s so impressed they have something that works on his metabolism, he finds himself asking more questions than the nurses have answers for. Natasha Romanov hasn’t left his side the entire time he’s been here. Peter knows how it feels to have someone get hurt in your place so he tries his best to show off the fact that he’s ok. They’ve just finished the stitches when he notices Tony Stark standing in the corner closest to the door.
Natasha’s eyes meet his before she stands up and follows the nurses out of the room, a promise to find her later whispered to her fellow spider. He smiles at her before he realizes she’s leaving him alone with Tony and suddenly he’s back to thinking spiders don’t stick together as much as he’d hoped.
“So…” Peter’s bouncing his leg anxiously. The spider part of him is begging to climb the wall and hide in the farthest corner. It’s far from the window and overhead lighting so it’s dark enough to soothe his senses. He could be up there faster than Tony could reach him but he forces himself to stay on the cot. Can’t weird the man out even more by showing off how much more spider he is than man.
“You-you’re them. You’re…you said my words” Tony’s voice breaks in the middle, like he can’t quite believe his eyes. Peter winces, of course this would happen. He can hear the disappointment in Tony’s voice and no matter how much Peter always knew his soulmate didn’t want him around, it still hurts.
“Look, Mr. Stark, I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean…I can pay you back for all this, I just, I’ll get out of your hair” he starts moving immediately, starting to get off the bed “you didn’t ask for this, I’m sorry. Maybe, maybe it’s just a coincidence? Maybe they’re still out there!” Peter tries to sound happy, tries to force the same happy-go-lucky tone Spider-Man became known for. It ends up sounding more like the way he promised Ned and MJ he’d be ok on the morning of August 10th.
It sounds like the way MJ says she doesn’t care that she never met her soulmate.
Tony doesn’t move and somehow that’s even worse. Peter could handle being yelled at, being called bug boy and chased out of the room. He could handle being hated, he’s prepared for it. Instead, Tony’s face almost looks soft. Peter starts moving, he can’t stick around to find out how this ends, he can’t go through pity again.
“No! No, stop trying to get up, you'll tear your stitches! What are you talking about - still out there? You’re right here. There’s nowhere else to look” Tony presses Peter back into the bed by the shoulders. Peter’s eyes are wide and he’s furiously blinking back tears when the words register. There’s no way, Tony Stark, the Tony Stark, means that. Peter’s soulmate doesn’t like him. Peter’s soulmate thinks he’s a pest and doesn't want him around. Peter’s soulmate doesn’t gently press him into the bed because he’s worried about Peter’s stitches.
“I’m not…you’re Tony Stark! And I’m…I’m just a kid from Queens, sir. I can’t be your soulmate, I’m nobody” it sounds weak to his own ears and Peter hates himself for it. Tony Stark has a way of making Peter feel like he’s ten years old again and it’s making his skin crawl. Tony reaches for Peter’s right hand and he doesn’t stop him. He knows he should, knows MJ would tell him he doesn’t have to do anything he doesn’t want to - but Peter finds himself letting it happen anyway.
His webshooter comes off, followed by the glove and suddenly they’re both staring at the words written on Peter’s wrist.
“I’m sorry. I dreamt of what I’d say to you…never in a million years did I think I’d insult you” Tony’s fingers are following the words gently like he’d bruise Peter if he pressed any harder. “ ‘s fine” Peter whispers, trying his hardest not to look at Tony to see if there’s any chance there’s anything but hate in his eyes. He tells himself he doesn’t care what Tony thinks. He has people that love him, he doesn’t need his soulmate to be one of them.
“Move the leg, I’m gonna sit here. Can you take off the mask? I promise I won’t tell anyone. Scout’s honor” Peter’s eyes widen, watching Tony pull the watch off his wrist and move closer to him. He can’t lose the mask, it’s the only thing keeping Tony from seeing how much this is all affecting him.
“You were never a boy scout so that’s not really comforting”
“Ah so you are a fan!”
“I never said- you know what, fine. Yeah, obviously. Who isn’t? You’re like the guy in clean energy right now and the stuff you did with fluid dynamics for the leg braces for Colonel Rhodes’ leg braces revolutionized spinal cord injury treatment, like -” Peter rants only to cut himself off - people hate when he rambles. No one likes a know-it-all, Peter knows that more than anyone. “Sorry, you knew that. I mean, it’s your work. Obviously you know it”
“Hey, don’t do that. I’m glad you know me for my day job as well as my…hobby” he waves a hand - his right hand - where Peter’s handwriting is staring right back at him. It’s mind numbing. Part of Peter convinced him that no one would ever have his writing on them. After Skip, Peter didn’t think…Peter didn’t let himself hope…
“So…this is real. I mean, obviously this is real but like you’re not lying about it - I really said…I said your words”
“Lying? Spidey, people don’t lie about their soul words”
Peter makes a choked noise in the back of his throat, he glances up at Tony, sees nothing but concern written in his features. There’s no hate, no malice. Maybe - just maybe - his soulmate doesn’t hate him. He rips his mask off his head.
“I-I’m sorry, it’s just…a lot. I’m Peter. Parker… Peter Parker and I guess…I’m your soulmate”