1980.
As a child, Bruce was content knowing his soulmate was out there somewhere. He didn't feel injuries very often, so she was probably not very clumsy. He'd felt the occasional bump or bruise or scrape since he could remember, so she was about his age or maybe even older – god, he hoped she wasn't very old. As a ten-year-old boy, it didn't matter how smart he was: a fifteen-year-old was basically thirty, and a twenty-year-old was basically fifty. No, he hoped she wasn't older than him. When he found himself daydreaming about her (embarrassing!), she always looked his age and very pretty.
1982.
When Bruce was thirteen, his parents put him in therapy. He'd become… numb. He often didn't notice people talking to him, and he couldn't get up the energy to do things he usually enjoyed. He had trouble waking up and no matter how much he slept he was tired, so tired, all the time. He was stuck like that for months, until one day it simply went away on its own. His therapist was concerned that his soulmate was having very bad trouble with depression for Bruce to be able to feel it, although she had never heard of mental health impacting one's match, only physical.
Now, when he found himself daydreaming about her, she was just a pair of sad eyes. Where are you? they seemed to ask. Sometimes he worried that she was going to die before he ever got to meet her. But the depression stayed away and he slowly assured himself that she would be fine.
1983.
Bruce was just settling in for breakfast when the faintest of scrapes appeared on the first two knuckles of his right hand. He stared. His eyes widened. And he laughed. His parents, confused, asked what was so funny.
His soulmate, so careful, so rarely injured, had just punched something or someone! He had a very vivid picture of her personality: bookish, careful, and possibly very sad. The idea of her punching anything at all was so completely out of line with that that he just couldn't stop laughing.
Even Mom and Dad laughed at that. "I hope she's not very violent," his mom said.
"Sounds like she could be a handful," his dad mused. His mom smacked him on the arm with the newspaper, and they had breakfast, and that morning was the best part of Bruce's whole week.
1986.
Bruce was having a heart attack. He was sure of it. His parents cataloged his symptoms and decided that while it wasn't a heart attack, something was wrong. His dad packed an overnight bag just in case and his mom drove them to the emergency room.
He stripped his shirt in the little curtain-surrounded 'room' the nurse had brought him to and was greeted by hisses of surprise from everyone in the room: the doctor, the nurse, and both of his parents. Once he looked down, he let out a little gah!
A stark reddish-purple slash crossed his chest, shoulder to waist. The ends of it looked singed but despite the searing burning Bruce felt at the edges there was no burnt tissue, no actual heat, just black skin he wished he could carve off of his chest. Nerve damage, maybe? Some… unexplainable kind of nerve damage? There was mercifully no blood, but he had never had a scar or injury like this before. "Your soulmate," the doctor said unnecessarily, "has suffered something terrible."
"You don't think she just got cut open for surgery?" Bruce asked lamely. He knew that wasn't what happened. Anesthetics would've kept her from feeling pain, which would've kept him from feeling pain. What the hell was happening to his soulmate?
They waited in the ER in case things took a turn for the worse, and eventually the slash simply disappeared. It faded away gently, and his mom broke into tears. His dad held her against his chest and gave Bruce a pitying look.
His soulmate was dead.
He waited for a feeling, some other injury – feeling horrible waiting for her to suffer but needing her to send him some kind of pain just to tell him she wasn't – but nothing came. A dark shadow was cast over the summer. He felt numb again, but it was a feeling all his own.
At least he didn't have to worry about making her feel that numb.
1988.
Holy shit how could he ever have thought she was
He was on fire
Burning, electric,
brutally forceful fire
something
The worst pain he'd ever felt in his entire life
So much worse than the slash because
in between the fire
there was
carving
His arm son of a bitch this didn't feel like self harm this was just
1993.
The scar on his arm hadn't faded. It seemed unlikely it ever would. Bruce oscillated between curiosity at what could have caused it and horror at the same.
Betty Ross was beautiful and kind and the smartest woman he'd ever met and her russet eyes sparkled when she laughed, but she wasn't his soulmate. It wasn't out of the norm for someone to date around before meeting their soulmate, but the idea had never appealed to him. Building a connection, falling in love, and then meeting your soulmate seemed like a special kind of hell. To avoid any temptation, Bruce had thrown himself into his work his first year of college and never emerged. He may not have met his soulmate yet, but he felt a certain loyalty to her. His work would fill his time until he found her.
He almost hated Betty the moment they first met, just for being the way she was.
"I'm sorry you're still waiting," she told him softly when she found out. It was a late night at the lab and they were the only two researchers in. In biology, certain work has a specific timeline. It was the worst waiting for fresh organs. They had to be on call, waiting by the phone for someone at the nearby hospital to die so they could go pick up a styrofoam cooler with a bagged heart or liver on ice.
"Spare me the sympathy," he'd told her gruffly. The endless apologies when people realized he hadn't found her were frustrating on a good day, infuriating on a bad one. He was twenty-four, not ninety-four. There was still so much time for him to find her! At least, that's what he told himself.
"It isn't fair," Betty argued in the way only people who'd already found their soulmates ever did. "You're a good guy, you deserve to find her." It would be hilarious if it wasn't so frustrating that he was apparently a terrible actor. He needed her to think he was a bad guy so she'd stay the hell away. She had a partner and he was waiting for his soulmate.
Bruce grunted. "Life isn't fair."
She walked out of the corner of his vision and he thought he'd finally scared her away. Instead she was back within thirty seconds to drape a red flannel blanket around his shoulders. It smelled floral, like a perfume. "Sarah keeps it in her file drawer." It was motherly, the way she smoothed down the ripples after wrapping it tighter. The attraction began to melt away, easy as that. "She said anyone can use it."
He looked up at her appraisingly. "So that's why she never knows where any papers are."
She laughed, and Bruce relaxed. She wasn't so bad.
Later he decided that maybe she was a little bad. Betty constantly told him he worked too much, and he couldn't articulate why he felt he didn't work enough. Some part of him needed his dad's approval of course. He'd admit that. He was almost definitely projecting that relationship onto that with his co-investigator. Working at all hours kept him from feeling the burning jealousy of others who had found their soulmates. He would find her someday, he hoped – knew – but he hadn't yet, and it was killing him inside. Another part of him just wanted to stay distracted from his worries about her. For five years he'd felt nothing, and every day he was reminded by the thin scars on his forearm. Bruce wasn't a religious man, but sometimes in his weakest moments he prayed for her.
1998.
A gentle bop.
She must have hit her head on something.
He'd long since gotten over feeling guilty about the rush of relief when she got hurt. It wasn't the injury, it was the contact. The reassurance that his someone was still out there. That despite whatever she had gone through those years ago, she was still alive.
2005.
He really, really hoped she didn't feel that.
2008.
God he really, really hoped she didn't feel that.
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