Disclaimer: I only own the plot and my OCs. Anything you recognize as not mine belongs to Marvel Studios, Disney, and/or their otherwise respective owners.
Author's Notes: So, I got this story idea a couple of months ago after listening to (I Can't) Forget About You by R5 (story title!) and Hurricane by Bridgit Mendler and wrote a good portion of it up, then had to set it aside 'cause of college and other writing projects. But I came back to it and finished it up over the past couple of days, hence why I'm posting it now. ;)
Also, if you've read my previous Harley/Peter/MJ post-NWH story, to come home, all I've got to say is this: if I had a nickel for every time...
Anyways, hope y'all enjoy!
~TGWSI/Selene Borealis
~can't forget about you~
Harley woke up that morning as he did almost every morning: to his non-existent leg being a bitch.
Really, he thought a little mutinously as he blearily cracked his eyes open, groaning at both the pain and the light filtering in through his window, you would've thought his body would be used to not having the limb by now. It had been six – eleven, if you counted the five years when he technically hadn't existed, although he sure as hell didn't – years since his bout with osteosarcoma. The phantom pain should've mostly subsided. For most people in the same boat as him, the phantom pain had probably mostly subsided.
But then again, Harley had never been "most people."
As if agreeing with him, the muscles that weren't there anymore, that had been replaced with cybernetic metal a long time ago, spasmed. With another groan, Harley rolled on his back and sat up, wiping the sleep from his eyes with one hand while he grabbed his phone off of the end table with his other. The time, 8:06, seemed to stare back at him mockingly. "Fuck," he sighed.
Well, at least it was a Saturday.
Throwing the covers off of himself, he set down his phone and reached for the other object on the end table besides the lamp and the stupid alarm clock he never used, the bottle of ibuprofen. Popping two of the pills into his mouth seamlessly, he grabbed his phone again and headed into the ensuite bathroom. Setting down his phone on the counter there, he took off his shirt and threw it onto the floor, preparing himself for the shower he was going to take once he used the toilet when suddenly –
– A flash of red, just along his left ribs, caught his eye.
"What the fuck?" Harley said before he could stop himself, his eyebrows furrowing as he twisted back around to look at himself in the mirror. For a second, just a second, he thought he had been seeing things. After all, he had to be seeing things. There was no other explanation for it.
But contrary to that one second of belief, the five Words that had been black for all of his sixteen plus one years of life, the five Words that were written in a strange half-cursive he both admired and liked to poke fun at, the five Words that his soulmate was supposed to say to him one day, were not black. They were red.
Because apparently, his soulmate had already spoken them to him.
So, you knew him too?
To be honest, the Words had always been a little bit of a fickle concept to Harley.
As a kid in Rose Hill, Tennessee, he'd always been taught that the Words were the first words that his soulmate was going to speak to him. Which, granted, was what pretty much everyone else on the planet thought, too. But the difference there between Rose Hill and the rest of the world was that, he'd always been taught his soulmate was going to be a girl.
Which would've been fine. Really. Harley liked girls in a romantic way. But he also liked boys in that way, too, and for some reason, he'd always thought his soulmate was going to be a boy. It was an intuition, a hunch, and one that had given him the great Identity Crisis™ of 2017, which had only been successfully calmed down when his mom had sat him down and told him in no uncertain terms that 1) it was okay for his soulmate to be a boy, 2) it was okay for him to be bisexual, and most of all, 3) it was okay for him to be happy about both of those things. It was okay, even, for him to be happy period.
God, he missed his mom.
However, the Identity Crisis™ was not the first major time he'd had troubling thoughts about his soulmate. The first major time was when he'd first gotten diagnosed with osteosarcoma. Getting told as an eleven-year-old kid that you had cancer was already bad enough as it was, but the idea that you would meet your soulmate as an eleven-year-old dying of cancer? Worse. Because he didn't care what most people thought because of The Fault In Our Stars. Cancer was not romantic. Dying was not romantic.
But hey, he hadn't died of cancer at least. And with the help of Tony Stark, he had not only been cured through Extremis (though it had given him his weird brown-and-blonde hair he had taken to dyeing a dark brown for a while now), but he had also been given a robotic leg to make up for the one he had lost. He counted that as a win.
All of this was to say, Harley had gotten used to imagining what his soulmate might be like, how they would meet. The Words seemed to imply he wouldn't meet his soulmate through the happiest of circumstances, and he didn't really know what to think about that. He hoped that he could not be a snarky asshole long enough to be comforting to them, or at least to be nice. Asking for anything more was probably a lost cause.
Had known, his mind corrected him automatically. Had hoped.
Because again, apparently, Harley's soulmate had already said his Words to him.
But he didn't remember him saying Them, much less meeting him. He didn't remember anything about his soulmate. At all.
Harley sucked in a deep breath as his hands gripped the counter. This – this shouldn't be possible. People did not just forget meeting their soulmates. It was, like, the one thing you couldn't forget, the feeling of your Words heating up as they turned from black to red. Even amnesiac patients, for the most part, didn't forget their soulmates. At the very least, they had some idea as to who they were.
Yet, as he stood there, desperately trying to think back to the previous night, and then even before that when he remembered he hadn't gone anywhere last night, Harley realized he couldn't remember his Words heating up. He couldn't even remember when they had been said. Because the more that he thought about it, the more he realized...his Words had been red for a while now. Practically since he and the rest of his half of the universe had come back from the Blip. But he couldn't remember his soulmate. He couldn't remember meeting him. He couldn't remember at all.
"What the fuck," he said again, just to hear himself say it and somehow convince himself this wasn't as terrifying as it actually was. "What. The. Actual. Fuck."
Naturally, his plan didn't work. At all.
One shower to (unsuccessfully) calm himself down later, Harley walked out of his bedroom and to the living room of his flat. It was kind of weird, living in a flat, much less living in a flat in Manhattan. All his life, he'd been used to living in a house basically in the middle of nowhere, where things were much quieter because there weren't any people around to make noise. Except for the crackheads and the drunks, of course, but he figured those types of people could be found anywhere.
But when he'd come back from the Blip, he'd come back to find that he didn't have a place back in Rose Hill, Tennessee, to go to. His mom and Abigail were dead; they'd been killed in a car crash back in 2021. But Tony, Tony must've always figured he'd find a way to bring everyone back somehow, because the mechanic had put it in his will to give Harley this flat in Manhattan he'd bought for him, along with enough money to cover all his expenses for several years plus tuition to MIT. Tony was – had been – like that, always thinking one step ahead of the game.
Just thinking about his mom, about his sister, about Tony hurt, though. Harley clenched his jaw as he walked over to the little cylindrical object sitting on his coffee table, trying to stifle the grief that welled up inside him. "ROSE? ROSE?"
The blue lights on the cylindrical object blinked to life. "Good morning, Harley," the southern AI said – another gift from the mechanic, the asshole. Well, at least he hadn't hooked her up to the whole flat – before she paused. Her tone turned a touch more inquisitive a moment later as she asked, "I am sensing that your heartbeat is elevated and your blood pressure is higher than it should be. Are you alright?"
Harley wanted to laugh, or cry, at the question. Since when had he ever been "alright?"
"I want you to scan this," he said instead, pulling up the fabric of his shirt to reveal his Words. "I want you to scan this and look through every single database and social media account that you can, and look to see if there's a match for the handwriting."
There was a beat of silence.
"Harley," ROSE said, sounding highly admonishing. "What you are asking me to do is highly unethical."
"Just do it," he snapped, and then, sighing, ran a hand through his hair. "How long will it take?"
"According to my calculations, approximately two hours."
"Right," he said, nodding. And just in case she hadn't already, repeated, "Do it."
The two hours which followed were two of the most excruciating hours in Harley's entire life. He made himself a cup of coffee with his stupid Keurig machine, chugged it, then made himself another one for good measure. He scrolled through his entire phone, from his texts to his photos to his social media accounts, looking for any sign of his soulmate within them. And he pretty much turned his flat from top to bottom, going through his closet, his photo albums, and even his trash.
In the end, the only thing he found was a black hoodie he was one-hundred-percent sure he had never bought for himself, which had the words S Ar Ca Sm PRIMARY ELEMENTS OF HUMOR written on the front. But that was only because 1) as he had said, he was sure he had never bought it for himself, and 2) he was sure if somebody else had given it to him, he would've remembered it. And since he didn't, the only logical conclusion in his mind was that his soulmate, who he also didn't remember, had given it to him.
At least his soulmate had a good sense of humor.
"ROSE, status update," he said at the end of the two hours while sitting on his couch, his head in his hands and the black hoodie in his lap.
"I have gone through as many databases and social media accounts as I can without breaking any laws."
"And?"
"I have found no matches."
"Fuck," he swore, for the fifth time that morning. He could practically hear his mom scolding him for it from beyond the grave, but he didn't care.
He didn't have any memories of his soulmate. His soulmate didn't have a social media account, nor did he pop up in any databases. It was almost like he – it was almost like he –
No, don't even think that, he told himself silently. Your soulmate does exist. You have the proof written on your skin. You just – I'm just gonna need some help to find him. That's all.
"Look, kid, I don't know what you're expecting me to do, honestly," Clint Barton told him a month later in Central Park, a sympathetic expression on his face. "I'm kind of out of my depth here. I've never even heard of this happening before."
The man, Harley knew from that summer he had spent at the Tower, building his leg with Tony, had two sets of Words on his body. One was on his right clavicle, written in a tight and neat script; he kept it as covered up as possible. The other was on his left arm, faded red, the Cyrillic script clean and crisp; he kept this one uncovered for all of the world to see. Не заставляй меня убивать тебя.
"I know," Harley said, wincing at how his eyes trailed over to those five Russian Words for probably the fifth or sixth time in their conversation. He couldn't help it.
In an ideal world, Clint wouldn't have been his first choice for help with this. It wasn't anything against the man, it was just. His first choice would have been Tony, and if not Tony then Steve, and if not either of them then Natasha. They were the ones he had spent the most time with that one summer, and Tony was the one he had been connected with. (God, he had been a cringe-y little shit back at age eleven.)
But this wasn't an ideal world, because Tony, Steve, and Natasha were all dead. It wasn't an ideal world because he didn't have any memories of his soulmate, despite the fact that he had already met him.
(It wasn't an ideal world because Harley hadn't died when he should've, and his mom and Abigail had died when they shouldn't've at all.)
So, basically, he was taking what he could get.
"No, I'm being serious," Clint said, frowning. "The Red Room – they were able to burn Natasha's Words from her skin, but they were never able to erase my existence from her memory after we met. Not even HYDRA was able to erase Bucky's memory of the existence of his soulmate."
"I know," Harley repeated, his jaw clenching with an audible click.
"And for any physical or online trace of him, assuming that he had a social media account, to just be erased like that," Clint continued, his look turning speculative, "are you sure that you shouldn't be asking Dr. Strange about this?"
Harley sighed, turning his head to over where the Barton kids were playing in the snow. Lila and Nathaniel were having a blast, but Cooper looked over at them every so often, his expression one of genuine concern. The two of them had been friends ever since that summer, as Clint and Natasha had decided he could meet theirs and Laura's kids in order to cheer him up...without telling the rest of the team. Yeah, that had been a blast, to hold one over Tony like that.
"I probably should," he admitted, before running a hand through his hair. "I just – I don't know."
Of course, it was a lie. He didn't know Dr. Strange beyond Tony's funeral, had never spoken to any of the Avengers in-depth except for the original six, but something about the wizard set him on edge. It was a recent development, too, seeing as how he could remember thinking nothing except weirded-out good about him a few months prior, and one he was ninety-nine-percent sure was connected to the mystery of his soulmate.
His soulmate, who he didn't remember.
Thankfully, Clint didn't call him out on his bullshit. His gaze softened, but he didn't call him out on his bullshit. "Just think about it," he said instead, with what Harley presumed to be fatherly affection. He wasn't sure, though, seeing as how he had never had one. "I'll look into it, I promise, but like I said, I don't think I'm the person you should be asking about this."
Relief flooded through Harley's system. "Thank you," he said honestly, eagerly.
Clint offered him a bittersweet smile. "Hang in there, kid. I know what soulmate problems are like." Here, the fingers of his right hand twitched towards the faded red on his arm instinctively, and Harley swallowed hard at the sight. "And let me know if you find anything out, alright?"
Harley nodded. "Yeah. Alright."
One month later, after Clint had nearly killed himself helping out a girl named Kate Bishop and had found no leads, and Harley had also found no leads but thankfully hadn't been put through any life-endangering ordeals, he found himself determinedly standing in front of the New York Sanctum in Greenwich Village.
He didn't really want to be here. The longer that time passed, the more he was convinced Dr. Strange had something to do with him forgetting about his soulmate. It was an instinctive feeling, a hunch, just like his hunch about his soulmate being a guy. However, when all else had failed, Harley had accepted the fact he was going to have to go to the source of the problem to find the solution. It was the only logical answer now.
Taking in a deep breath, Harley walked up the steps to the front doors, and pulled back one of the knockers once, causing it to land against the door with a loud thud. To the surprise of literally no one, that was all it took for both doors to open inwards, revealing a large entrance hall with a wide set of stairs in the center, leading up. Harley stared at those stairs for a moment, then shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans and walked inside.
Honestly, he had seen weirder.
"If you're looking to sell us popcorn, I'm afraid we're not interested," a voice said to his left, and Harley spun around. There, walking out of one of the hallways, was Dr. Strange, missing his famous cloak but decked out in what he assumed to be standard wizard regalia otherwise, looking bored yet still vaguely amused.
Harley tensed up, barely resisting the urge to clench his hands into fists. God, why had he liked this guy before? He was totally a Tony-wannabe, from the stupid goatee to the charismatic smile to the holier-than-thou attitude. Except, he didn't do it nearly as well, because there was only one Tony Stark and he was dead.
"I'm not a Boy Scout," he snapped irritably, scowling. Then, realizing how that sounded, forced himself to add in a calmer tone, "I need your help."
Something indescribable flashed in Dr. Strange's eyes. "Also not interested," he said, and all of the warmth from his voice was gone.
Yep, it confirmed Harley's suspicions.
"You made me forget my soulmate," he accused – although, was it really an accusation if you knew it to be true? "I don't know how you did it, but you did. Now, undo it."
The indescribable look in Dr. Strange's eyes increased in intensity, and he moved to go back into the hallway from whence he had come. "I'm afraid I can't help you with that."
Now, Harley's hands clenched into fists. "Bullshit."
The wizard paused, turning back to face him and raising an eyebrow. "Excuse me?"
"Bullshit," Harley seethed. "What, you're not even gonna deny that you made me forget my soulmate, but you are going to refuse to help me remember them? Why? What the fuck gives you the right to make another person forget the existence of their soulmate, to make the world forget the existence of him too, and then to refuse to help get him back?"
"It's not that simple," Dr. Strange sighed, and shook his head. Harley was pretty sure he heard him whisper something about "teenagers" under his breath, but he wasn't able to confirm it and it didn't really matter anyways because then the wizard gave him a more appraising look. "Follow me, and I'll explain it to you."
"What?"
Dr. Strange rolled his eyes. "Follow me, and I'll explain it to you. Vishanti, was I really that hard to understand?"
Harley bristled, however the wizard was already walking away, so he had no choice except to follow him. He was led through the hallways, which were all full of strange, ancient, magical artifacts, and into a kitchen which looked like a modernized Victorian one. Dr. Strange directed him to sit at one of the chairs of the island counter with a gesture of his head, and when he did, the wizard got out a teakettle and filled it up before placing it on the stove. Instantly, a fire came to life underneath the burner. Magic.
Harley shifted uncomfortably.
Neither of them spoke as the water in the teakettle heated up, nor did they as Dr. Strange got out two teacups and set them on the island. It was only once the hot water had been poured and the teabags were steeping – Dr. Strange's an earl grey, and his a jasmine – that the wizard finally asked, "What exactly do you know about what I do?"
Harley's face twisted. "You're a wizard. You do magic and spells and stuff."
"Sorcerer, or Master of the Mystic Arts," Dr. Strange corrected him, his right eye twitching slightly. "And that's true, I suppose. But my main goal is to protect the Earth from mystical threats, whether they be intergalactic, inter-dimensional, or...multiversal."
"Wait, are you saying that the multiverse exists?" Harley questioned, gaping, before he flushed and reeled himself in. "I – I mean, continue."
Dr. Strange's lips quirked. "It does. But anyways, two months ago, I helped cause a rift between our universe and several others. I'm still not sure why I did it, but I did. And the only way to fix it was a spell to...make the entire multiverse forget the existence of one person. Your soulmate."
"...Okay then," Harley said with a frown, as his heart dropped into his stomach. Holy shit, this was a lot worse than he had expected it to be. How could Dr. Strange just do a spell to make one person be forgotten like that? "Why haven't you fixed it, then?"
"As I said, it's not that simple," Dr. Strange replied. "In order to make the spell work, to prevent our universe from being destroyed and potentially many others as well, I had to make it unbreakable. I can't undo it. And even if I could, I still wouldn't be able to. Undoing the spell would just leave us in the same position as we were before: imminent to destruction."
Harley froze.
He froze, and as he sat there, tears welled up in his eyes. His heart felt like it was breaking into two – a thousand – no, a million pieces. "So, you're saying...I won't ever be able to remember him?" he choked out.
"Not before the spell, no," Dr. Strange said gently. "After the spell, you will, but not before. I'm sorry, kid. I wish I hadn't done what I did to cause the rift. I wish I hadn't made us all forget the existence of your soulmate. But, as it is, you'll have to wait for him to find you again...or you'll have to find him."
Harley waited until he was back in the safety of his apartment to fall apart.
He cried, the tears he had kept in falling down on his cheeks as he screamed, tore at his hair, and raged to the point where ROSE asked him again if he was alright, though he ignored her. But none of it was for him. Because sure, this sucked for him, but for his soulmate? His soulmate, who was out there, all alone, because nobody was ever going to remember him from before Dr. Strange's spell? It must've been absolutely hell on earth.
And it wasn't fair. Sure, life was unfair, Harley knew as much because he was a freaking childhood cancer survivor, but nobody deserved for their friends, their family, and their soulmate to just forget them like that. Absolutely no one.
Eventually, he cried himself out. The tears didn't necessarily stop coming, however his rage became more directional, given a purpose. Because Harley didn't know why his soulmate hadn't come to find him himself, he didn't, but he was alive. So, Harley thought as he pulled up the Notes app on his phone, he was going to find him, one way or another. Even if it killed him. He just needed to make a list about what he knew of him first, to narrow it down.
The List™ went something like this:
1. His soulmate was a guy.
2. His soulmate had a good sense of humor.
3. His soulmate was the reason why he had taken a gap year after graduating early from high school – because now that he got to thinking about it, he couldn't remember why he had taken a gap year, and that was pretty darn terrifying.
4. His soulmate had been at Tony Stark's funeral – because Harley couldn't remember his Words being red before then, but they definitely were afterwards.
As he typed out the word funeral and looked over The List™, Harley couldn't help but grimace. After all, it wasn't much to go off of. It wasn't anything to go off of. But, he reminded himself, he would find his soulmate.
He had to find his soulmate.
It was almost funny, how Harley wondered every time he passed an attractive guy on the street if they were his soulmate or not.
And by "funny," of course, he meant that it wasn't funny at all. It was saddening, sickening, because this wasn't the way things were supposed to go. Once you met your soulmate you were supposed to be happy with them, not searching for them with no way of knowing if they were just a random guy on the street or not, because the Words had already been spoken and there was nothing you could do to make them black again.
The fact that Harley didn't have any friends up here – or, at least, none that he remembered, because he was pretty sure that 5. His soulmate had been his connection to his friend group was the reason why he didn't – only made matters worse. Harley had never been one for having friends, as back in Rose Hill the other kids had liked kicking him in the stomach more than they had being nice to him, but with his mom, Abigail, and Tony gone, he could've really used some right now. He needed to vent about the unfairness of this all in-person to someone, anyone. Because as it was, he was beginning to feel like a snow globe which had been all shaken up.
With a sigh, Harley looked up from the sidewalk to glance at his surroundings. He'd taken to walking the streets of New York for the past couple of weeks to look for his soulmate, because he couldn't really help himself. But it was cold, and the wind was biting at his face, and his leg was beginning to act up, so as his eyes saw a sign for a doughnut shop that read Peter Pan Donut & Pastry Shop, he couldn't help but walk towards it. He figured he deserved a break and a hot drink, after all this.
(Besides, a voice in the back of his mind told him. It's unlikely you're going to find him again on the streets, anyways.)
Inside, the shop was pretty much deserted. There was a girl behind the counter, with her curly dark brown hair done up in a ponytail, and a guy sitting next to her at the counter. At one of the corner tables, another guy was sitting, looking at his phone with his closed laptop in front of him. Strangely, Harley found himself looking at that guy for a second longer than was necessary. He was a little ragged-looking, with dark brown hair curled differently than the girl's, and possibly the largest arms Harley had ever seen on somebody who wasn't Steve Rogers. He was even almost –
"Welcome to Peter Pan Donut & Pastry Shop, how may I serve you?" the girl behind the counter asked.
Harley blinked. Right.
He took a look at the menu. "Yeah, can I have a large coffee with a cinnamon roll, please?"
The girl nodded and went about to make his order.
At the same time, from behind him, where the guy at the corner table was sitting, Harley heard the distinctive sound of a phone falling to the ground and an added hiss of "oh my God!" Turning around, he saw that the guy's phone had fallen, landing right next to Harley's shoe, and the guy was reaching towards it with a face that was somehow both reddening and paling at the same time.
Without even thinking about it, Harley reached down and picked up the phone, his leg twinging all the while. The guy's head snapped up, his dark brown eyes wide as they locked with Harley's own blue, and for a moment they just stood like that. Staring at each other.
"Here," Harley said.
It effectively broke the moment. The guy spluttered, his face coloring even worse than a tomato as he took his phone back. "Oh – oh my God, I'm so sorry. I can't believe I was that freaking clumsy."
"It's cool," Harley replied, though his eyebrows furrowed. He didn't really understand why the guy was freaking out like this because of a phone. Did he have really bad social anxiety or something? Not that it was Harley's place to know. "Don't sweat it, dude."
At the word "dude," the guy's face paled again. "Yeah. Thanks," he said softly, before he hurriedly stood up, grabbed his coffee and closed laptop, and all but ran out of the doughnut shop without another word.
Harley stared after him, confused.
Just what the hell had that been about?
"Wow," the girl behind the counter said. "I don't think I've ever seen Peter Parker freak out that much before."
His own cheeks flushing, Harley turned around. The girl was looking at him, a smirk twitching at her lips, while his coffee and a bag containing his cinnamon roll rested on the counter. Next to her, the guy at the counter was staring at him with wide eyes. "You know him?" Harley asked.
She shrugged. "He's a regular. Comes in once or twice a week. Kind of a loser," she said. Then, her eyes widened and her cheeks flushed as well. "I'm sorry. That sounded incredibly mean."
Despite himself, Harley chuckled. "It's alright." Somehow, he could tell she didn't really mean it. His eyes drifted over to the register. "Ten-fifty, right?"
She nodded. "Yeah."
Harley got one of his cards out of his wallet and paid the bill. When he was done, he grabbed the coffee and the bag off of the counter, having already decided he was just gonna walk while he ate instead of resting – he could take the pain, before the lettering on the one guy's hoodie caught his eye. "You're going to MIT?"
"In the fall, yeah," the guy said, and gestured over to the girl. "We both are."
"I am too," Harley replied, smiling. It felt like his first actual smile in months. "Maybe I'll see you guys around. The name's Harley Keener."
"Michelle Jones," the girl said.
"Ned Leeds," added the guy.
...Well, if he still didn't have his soulmate by the time fall came around, at least he had two familiar faces to look for at MIT.
Months passed. Eventually, The List™ became something like a mantra for Harley, one he repeated so often he didn't even have to look at his Notes app to recite it anymore:
1. His soulmate was a guy.
2. His soulmate had a good sense of humor.
3. His soulmate was the reason why he had taken a gap year after graduating early from high school.
4. His soulmate had been at Tony Stark's funeral.
5. His soulmate had been his connection to his friend group.
Unfortunately, just because he memorized it, didn't mean he had any luck finding his soulmate. Because he didn't.
He didn't have any luck at all.
In August, Harley went to MIT, still soulmate-less. He didn't like it, because oh hey, 6. His soulmate probably (?) lived in New York, but as much as he hated to admit it, his life had to go on. His mom, and Tony, would've been very disappointed in him if he didn't go to college just because of his soulmate, and he didn't want to disappoint either of them. Especially because his mom hadn't exactly had luck when it came to the soulmate department – just look at what his sperm donor had done.
When Harley got to his dorm room on the second floor, his roommate was already there. The guy looked up at him in surprise at the sound of the door opening, and Harley stared at him for a second with his first box of stuff in his hands, before he finally recognized him for who he was. "Oh, hey, you're the guy I met back in March at that doughnut shop."
"Ned Leeds," Ned confirmed with a small smile. "Do you need any help getting your stuff up here?"
"Nah, I'm good," Harley said with a shake of his head, his eyes surveying the room. It wasn't much, of course it wasn't much, but Ned had already made it feel a little cozy with the assortment of Star Wars posters he'd put up. Harley frowned, looking at them. Something tingled in the back of his mind.
7. His soulmate liked Star Wars – perhaps?
"Please, don't tell me you hate Star Wars," Ned suddenly complained, his face twisting.
Harley blinked, before he realized his roommate had probably mistaken his frown for a dislike of the movies. "No, I don't hate Star Wars. I mean, Episode IX sucks, but Episodes I through VIII are pretty good," he replied, then grinned. "Stargate's where it's at, though."
Ned gave him a confused look. "What's Stargate?"
"Oh, you wound me," Harley fake-groaned, setting down his box to stumble back as if he'd caught an arrow to the heart. "Let me get the rest of my stuff up here, and then I'll tell you all about the greatest sci-fi franchise you've somehow missed out on."
Ned was a nice guy. The two of them talked about Star Wars, Star Trek, and Stargate, and LEGOs, and where they had gone to school. Ned had come from a school in Manhattan, the Midtown School of Science and Technology, and for a moment, Harley could've sworn he'd felt that tingling again. It was gone as just as soon as it'd arrived, though, and he ultimately discarded it. After all, if his soulmate was his age, and he probably was, he wouldn't be going to Midtown anymore. And there'd be no records of him there now, in the first place.
And they talked about Harley's cybernetic leg, too. Well, Harley talked; Ned absolutely freaked. It was a familiar reaction, though, and by familiar, he didn't mean it in a soulmate sort-of-way. So he just smiled and nodded along until Ned successfully reined himself in with a red face, and told him not to sweat about it when he tried to apologize. Really, he was used to it. One had to be when they had something they'd created with Tony Stark attached to their body at all times.
Around dinner time, they walked over to one of the dining halls. Ned's friend, Michelle, was already waiting for them. Her curly dark brown hair was fanned about her, and for a second, Harley thought it was almost –
"You're the guy that freaked out my regular," Michelle said by means of greeting, her eyes alight with sneaky amusement.
Harley laughed awkwardly, reaching up to scratch the back of his neck. "Yeah. Sorry about that...again," he replied, then paused. "Wait, did I ever actually apologize about that? I don't think I did."
"You didn't. And don't be," she told him with a roll of her eyes. "I just thought it was funny, that's all. Don't think I've ever seen someone give such a visceral reaction to another person like that."
Visceral. Harley liked her already – as a friend, of course. He didn't have time for anything else, and he wouldn't betray his soulmate like that. He wouldn't.
"Yeah, I kind of have that effect on people," he joked, laughing awkwardly again. "I don't know why."
Michelle smirked. "Yeah, I don't see why."
God, he liked her already.
For a few months, it went like that. Harley quickly became friends with MJ – as she had soon insisted on him calling her – and Ned, in-between their classes. It was fun, having friends. They mostly just hung out in his and Ned's room, or at the library, or at one of the places for eating on campus. However, once he had helped the two enact a wicked prank on one of their classmates, Flash Thompson, at a party, which had been done by giving him a rather sexual nickname during a game. The guy had flushed something awful and strangely, though he was confident he had never met him before in his entire life, he couldn't help but feel a sense of justice from it.
"Why did we do that again?" he found himself asking after it had happened, while he, MJ, and Ned laid on a hilltop, after having laughed their asses off.
"...For a friend," MJ said hesitantly. He watched her and Ned exchange a glance while she spoke, waiting for either one of them to elaborate.
They didn't.
But, that was okay. Harley had his own secrets to keep.
In November, the anniversary of him forgetting his soulmate came around. At first, Harley thought he was okay with it. He'd already been living without remembering them for so long, and the permanence of it was something that couldn't be undone, so. He just had to accept he was either going to find his soulmate or his soulmate was going to find him, and wait – search, too, yet still wait – until the time came.
But thinking about how it had been a year since he'd forgotten his soulmate made him think about how it had also been two years since he'd come back to a world without his mom, Abigail, and Tony, and suddenly he wasn't fine. He wasn't fine at all. He kept it to himself for most of the day, saying he was fine when MJ and Ned asked, but as soon as he could, he walked around campus, looking for something to take his mind off the fact of how alone he actually was.
Thankfully, he didn't have to look far. There was a party at one of the frat houses not too far from his dorm, already in full-swing, and Harley walked inside. The people there didn't ask him why he was there, didn't ask him for his name, didn't ask him how old he was. They didn't say anything at all as he went into the kitchen and helped himself to an alcoholic drink. And another. And another. And another.
Later, he kind of wished that someone had, as he sat on the front lawn, throwing what felt like his guts up. The air was cold as it bit at his face, and the tears there, the tears which wouldn't stop coming because oh God, he was all alone, with no mom, no sister, no mechanic, and no –
"Jesus, dude, you're messed up," a guy's voice said.
Harley laughed through the pain, his stomach contracting painfully. It was a broken laugh, nothing like the ones he was used to making. "I'm so messed up," he agreed.
"Do you want us to call someone?" another voice asked, a girl this time.
Wordlessly, Harley grabbed his phone from out of his pocket, his fingers trembling, unlocked it, and set it in the offered hand. He went back to heaving as soon as he did so, the alcohol tasting even more bitter on his lips now than it had before.
"Hey, loser, you could've told us you were going to get drunk off your ass," he heard a familiar voice say what felt like an eternity later.
Eyebrows furrowing, he dazedly looked up. MJ and Ned were standing in front of him. "I didn't give you guys my number," he stated, his voice slurring slightly.
Somehow, MJ's harsh expression softened at his words. "Well, we're here," she said, reaching down to pull him up by his left shoulder. Ned did the same with his right. "Come on, Harley. Let's get you to bed."
The two of them basically dragged him all the way back to the dorm, stopping twice because Harley wound up having to vomit another two times. They dumped him on his bed as soon as they walked inside his and Ned's room, and Harley laid down with a groan. He was kind of wanting to sleep and never wake up again right now.
"Aw, dude, your shirt is all gross," Ned said.
Harley moaned incoherently in response, closing his eyes.
Suddenly, gentle and nimble fingers were pulling at the hem of his shirt. Harley's eyes flew open, and he looked at MJ in drunken surprise. "Emm, what are you doing?"
She stared at him, her lips pressed into a thin line. "You're not sleeping in this. Come on, Harley. Sit up."
"No," Harley whined. He didn't want her to see his Words. It was nothing against her; the Words were an inherently private thing, even before you forgot your soulmate so completely like he had.
Unfortunately, he didn't have much of a choice. MJ kept pulling up his shirt, and he was so wasted he was helpless to stop her. He could only watch as she pulled up his shirt over his Words. Instinctively, her eyes darted down to it, before they became wide. So wide. Then her breath hitched, and her face paled several shades in color.
Shame coursed through his body. He wasn't sure why.
"MJ," he whispered.
She didn't say anything, just pulled his shirt up and over his head. The gesture suddenly felt a lot more intimate than it had before, especially as she grabbed his duvet and pulled it over him. "Sleep," she said.
There were tears in her eyes, he realized. He wanted to ask her why they were there. "MJ," he said again.
And then he was out like a light.
Harley woke up the next morning with a pounding head and a spasming leg.
He groaned, and kept on groaning, his hand reaching out blindly for the ibuprofen bottle he always kept near his bed. When he found it, he opened it up and popped two pills into his mouth, and sighed.
"Oh, good. You're up."
Blearily, he opened his eyes. MJ was sitting in a chair directly across from his bed, both her arms and legs crossed. She looked tired, with dark bags underneath her red-rimmed eyes. Obviously, she had been crying.
"MJ? What – " he breathed, pushing himself up into a sitting position. He was cut off quickly, however, by his duvet falling away from his body, revealing his exposed torso...and Words.
Nervously, Harley swallowed. Hard.
His eyes flitted about the room. Ned was sitting at his desk, an equally grim expression on his face. "Uh...guys," Harley said at the sight. "Why are you looking like I just murdered somebody?"
"Depends on what you mean by 'murdered,'" Ned said.
Harley gaped at him. "Wait, what?"
Abruptly, MJ stood up. She walked over to him, coming so close she was right in his personal space, and looked him deep in the eyes. "You have his Words."
A chill went down Harley's spine.
"What – what are you talking about?" he asked.
MJ's face twisted. She reached down, and at first he thought she was going to lay a hand on his Words, but she didn't. Instead, she pulled down the hem of her jeans on her right side a little, and then lifted up her shirt. He saw the flash of red on her lower hip first, the six Words of Sorry I threw up on you next, and then –
"Oh my God," Harley choked, spluttering. "That's – that's the handwriting of my Words."
"Don't play dumb," MJ hissed, her hand pulling her shirt down.
Harley shook his head. "I'm not. I swear to you, I'm not."
Her eyes darkened dangerously. "No? Then how come my Words have already been spoken, but I don't remember it? How come I don't remember my soulmate? How come it seems like his existence has been wiped away from the Earth?"
Her expression crumpled as she spoke, and Harley hated it, though suddenly so many things made sense inside his mind. The reason why he had forgotten Ned and MJ as friends – because surely, that's what they had been, right? – was because Ned was his soulmate's friend and MJ his soulmate's other soulmate. The reason why he had taken a gap year was because of all three of them, to make sure they all got into the same college, because he remembered Ned and MJ talking about how they had applied to the same colleges together in the hopes of getting into the same one.
5. His soulmate had been his connection to MJ and Ned.
Because:
8. MJ was his soulmate's other soulmate.
In truth, people having multiple soulmates wasn't rare. It wasn't common, either, but it wasn't as rare or as sinful as the people back in Rose Hill, Tennessee had made it out to be. Clint Barton had (had) two soulmates, Laura and Natasha. Tony's soulmates were (had been) Pepper and a woman he'd told Harley had been named Mary Fitzpatrick. And that Mary Fitzpatrick had had three soulmates of her own, as if that wasn't completely bonkers to think about. Because soulmates didn't have to be between all the same people, though they usually were.
Case in point.
The thought brought Harley back to the present. Swallowing again, he confessed, "I don't remember him either, MJ."
She glared at him. "Bullshit."
"No, I'm telling you the truth," he said desperately, pleadingly. He had to get her to understand. Dr. Strange had taken so much more from them than he'd thought he had, and Harley had to get her to understand that. Not for his own sake, but for hers. "I got drunk last night because yesterday was the one year anniversary of the day I woke up with completely no memory of my – our – soulmate. I promise you, I'm telling you the truth."
MJ stared at him, saying nothing.
Then:
"Prove it."
He blinked. "You want me to prove that I have no memory of our soulmate?"
"Yes."
"How am I supposed to prove that?"
She threw her hands up into the air. "I don't know! Just prove it!"
From his place at his desk, Ned snorted.
Harley moved around MJ and stood up. He walked over to his dresser, first pulling out a shirt which he proceeded to put on, and second the S Ar Ca Sm hoodie he hadn't worn once since rediscovering its existence, yet absolutely had to have around him ever since. "He gave me this," he said, handing it over to MJ. "It's literally the only thing I have in my possession that I have no idea when or where I got, much less who gave it to me. It's like there's a...hole in my memory. A black hole."
Gingerly, she accepted the hoodie from him. The fingers of her left hand ghosted over its surface, before reaching up to touch her black dahlia necklace. Harley's jaw clenched, watching her do it. It seemed he wasn't the only one who had a token from their soulmate he couldn't explain.
"When I realized not only could I not remember my soulmate, but the world didn't seem to be able to, either, I went and got help. I went to Clint Barton first," he continued, ignoring how Ned's eyes widened at the casual mention of the superhero. "And when he couldn't help me, I went to Dr. Strange himself. He's the one who told me what happened."
MJ sniffled. "And what happened?"
He shrugged. "Apparently, the end of the universe. Almost. The only way for Dr. Strange to prevent it was to, um," he paused, closing his eyes at the memory. Even after ten months, it was still too fresh. "The only way to prevent it was for the entire multiverse to forget our soulmate's existence. And the spell is unbreakable. It can't be undone."
Harley heard his hoodie drop to the floor first, followed by a primal moan from MJ. He opened his eyes just in time to see her clutch her hands into her hair as she paced back and forth a few times. The tears in her eyes were obvious.
Hastily, he wiped his own away.
"Okay, I believe you," she said at last.
"We believe you," Ned corrected her. He looked like he was going to be sick.
They both ignored him – not to be mean, there were just more pressing matters to attend to. "How much do you know about him?"
"Not much," Harley admitted. He grabbed his phone off of his end table and unlocked it, pulling up the Notes app to let her see. "This is all I've got, outside of this incredibly both enlightening and terrifying conversation."
MJ took his phone and read through The List™ as fast as she could, her eyes darting back and forth, back and forth. "That makes sense," she muttered. Then, in a louder voice, added, "You don't know as much as we do, but we hadn't realized he'd attended Tony Stark's funeral."
Harley gave her a look. "And just how much do you know?"
In the end, The List™ wound up looking something like this:
1. His soulmate was a guy.
2. His soulmate had a good sense of humor.
3. His soulmate was the reason why he had taken a gap year after graduating early from high school.
4. His soulmate had been at Tony Stark's funeral.
5. His soulmate had been his connection to MJ and Ned.
6. His soulmate lived in New York.
7. His soulmate liked Star Wars.
8. His soulmate's other soulmate was MJ.
9. His soulmate had gone to Midtown School of Science and Technology.
10. His soulmate had been on Midtown's Academic Decathlon team.
11. His soulmate was Spider-Man.
It took them a lot longer than it should've to figure it out.
Not that there necessarily was a timeline for how to figure out who your soulmate was after the entire multiverse had forgotten his existence, but still. They didn't figure it out in that one sitting. Nor did they figure it out in the next few days, or even the next few weeks.
It was only in December, after Thanksgiving had come around, that they did. Harley, MJ, and Ned were all waiting in line at one of the coffeeshops on campus, all of them needing caffeine while stressing about their finals. "Man, I just can't wait for this to be over," Ned moaned. "No one told us it was going to be this bad."
"It's finals, Ned, what did you expect?" MJ huffed.
"You and me both," Harley agreed at the same time. They took a step forwards as the line progressed. "I'm so tired."
"Well, it's a good thing we're in line for coffee then, isn't it?" MJ asked.
He ignored her.
When they finally got to the front of the line, the barista looked at them expectantly and asked them what they would like. Harley, since he was marginally in front of MJ and Ned, went first, his eyes first squinting up at the menu and then at the display case. "Hey, um, can I get a large, plain black coffee and a, uh...cinnamon roll, please?"
Behind him, he heard Ned grumble, "Still can't believe you always order a plain black coffee. Who does that?"
(Tony, Harley's mind supplied bittersweetly. He wasn't going to say it out loud, though.)
The barista nodded and asked him how he wanted to pay for it. "Flex," he said, and swiped his card.
He didn't think much of it, as he grabbed his drink and the bag containing his cinnamon roll off of the counter. But then, once she and Ned had ordered their drinks (they would have to wait for theirs, since they'd ordered coffees that weren't plain), MJ walked over to him with a frown, her eyebrows furrowed.
"What?" he asked.
"Nothing," she replied quickly. Too quickly. She shook her head. "Well, I – it's not nothing, but just give me a second, okay?"
One second turned into two, two seconds into three, and so on and so forth. Harley stared at her, confused, but didn't actually press the issue until the three of them were sitting down at a table in the shop. "MJ? MJ, what's going on?"
MJ took a long, desperate sip of her drink, and shook her head for a second time. "I – I don't know," she said, but she was lying. Harley opened his mouth to say something, anything, yet before he could: "Do you remember what happened when you came to Peter Pan's, back in March?"
Harley frowned himself. He thought back to that day he had gone to Peter Pan's, which he couldn't remember that much of now, except for it being the "first" time he had met MJ and Ned...and the time a guy had dropped his phone and had acted like doing so was the end of the world. A guy with curly dark brown hair, wide dark brown eyes, and –
His own blue widened. "You think – ?"
"Peter Parker's our soulmate," she finished for him. And, while Ned spluttered next to her, continued, saying, "It makes sense. He started coming to Peter Pan's in December, only a month after everything...happened. But the first time, it was so strange. The only reason why I know his name was because he introduced himself with it, and he knew things he shouldn't've. I thought it was weird, but I didn't think much else about it, because Ned and I had just gotten into MIT. But..." She trailed off, fidgeting with the chain of her necklace. Slowly, her expression became more determined. "Peter Parker is our soulmate."
It made sense, Harley thought. Maybe it was weird, but he could imagine it. He could imagine Peter, standing next to him at Tony's funeral, tears in his eyes as he looked up at him and said, "So, you knew him too?"
He could imagine Peter giving him the stupid S Ar Ca Sm hoodie, a teasing grin at his lips and fire in his eyes.
He could imagine Peter kissing MJ, and it didn't bother him one bit. Something told him that he and Peter hadn't been there yet, but if Peter and MJ had been, that was fine. Soulmates were tricky, he'd learned, and identity crises even more so.
He could imagine all of this, and a part of him wondered if it was even him imagining it, or actually memories in disguise that had somehow wormed their way past Strange's spell.
"Alright," Harley said, swallowing. "So Parker's our soulmate. That should make finding him easier, right?"
. . .
. . .
. . .
Spoiler alert: it didn't.
Two weeks and a whole host of finals later, they scrambled their way back to New York. They all would've preferred to have gotten there sooner, of course they would've, but regardless of finally placing the last piece of the puzzle as to who his and MJ's soulmate was, they still had finals. And neither of them were all too enthused about telling their professors about their situation. It was complicated, and messy, and private, and the last thing Harley wanted his professors to know was something complicated, messy, and private. He figured the same was true for MJ, too.
Peter Pan's was pretty much exactly the way he remembered it being, the one and only time he had been there. The only exceptions were that there was a lot more snow on the ground then there had been, the decorations up were ones for Christmas instead of St. Patrick's day, and there was no sign of Peter Parker in the shop at all.
Harley felt his stomach twist at the sight. Somehow, he instinctively knew what was going to happen before it did.
He and Ned hung back towards the front as MJ talked to her boss. They spoke in hushed tones, but Extremis had done a lot more for him than just cure him of his cancer. Harley could hear them anyways, though by the end, he kind of wished that he didn't.
("Jesus, kid, do you know how many people a day come in here? How am I supposed to remember all of them?"
"Please, sir. He's a kid about my age, curly dark brown hair, dark brown eyes. He only ever came in when I was working."
"You know, you've just described every average white boy in New York. That's not helpful."
"He's my soulmate."
"...Was he the one who always wore the dark brown coat, usually over a flannel?"
"Yeah."
"He hasn't been in here since you left for college, Michelle. Sorry.")
When MJ walked over a few minutes later, a scowl on her face and tears in her eyes, Ned winced. "MJ, I'm so – "
"Zip it, loser," MJ snapped. She turned to Harley. "My boss said he hasn't come in – "
"I know. I heard," he replied.
Shakily, she took in a deep breath and looked out of the frost-covered windows. Her hands were clenched into fists. "We're so close," she whispered. "How can we be so close and yet – ?"
Abruptly, she broke off, because they all knew the answer to her question.
For whatever reason, Peter Parker didn't want to be found.
Wait.
Peter Parker didn't want to be found.
Harley felt a grin twitch at his lips.
"Oh no," Ned said, his eyes widening, already knowing the six words that were going to come next well. Extremely well, considering the second to last time Harley had said them, he'd exploded their chemistry lab. "Don't you say – "
"I think I have an idea."
"You know, when Clint said helping you out was going to be a challenge, I didn't believe him," Kate Bishop said as she sat across from them, her quiver resting between her and the wall of the booth. She was wearing her Hawkeye outfit, which was garnering more than a few looks, but Harley couldn't exactly blame her. If he had his Words plastered on the side of his neck like the way he had seen hers as she'd sat down earlier, he would've taken to wearing high-collared shirts and jackets or scarves all the time, too. Kate Bishop! "Your soulmate is Spider-Man?"
"Yes," Harley said.
"And Dr. Strange made everyone in the universe forget him."
"Yes," said MJ.
"And you want me to find him."
"Yep," agreed Ned.
"And tie him up so that you can tell him you know he's your soulmate."
"Well, maybe not that far," Harley winced. "But that's the idea."
Kate huffed and ran a hand over her face, muttering while she was at it something that suspiciously sounded like, "And I thought my soulmate problems were bad."
Wisely, Harley chose to ignore it.
"You do know Spider-Man has his webs, right?" Kate asked, once she was done freaking out. "He'll be able to just, swing away if I get close to him."
"We didn't say this was gonna be easy," he replied. Then, tentatively, added, "But it's not like you couldn't get help. I mean, it's not like the White Widow hasn't been helping you out the past couple of months or anything."
Kate's face suddenly flushed. "That's not her name!"
"That's what they're calling her," he retorted. When all Kate did was stare at him in response, he sighed. "Please, Kate? Clint told me to tell him if I found anything, and I did. Then he told me you're the one who would be better at helping me, since his ass is all the way out in Iowa. He trusted you to help me."
Kate continued to stare at him.
Her right eye twitched.
"Okay, fine," she finally relented, her shoulders slumping. "But it's probably gonna take a while. Spider-Man isn't exactly known for sticking around in one place for long."
This time, it was MJ who spoke. "That's fine," she said with her signature hard, penetrating stare. "Just get him back to us, Bishop."
1. His soulmate was a guy.
2. His soulmate had a good sense of humor.
3. His soulmate was the reason why he had taken a gap year after graduating early from high school.
4. His soulmate had been at Tony Stark's funeral.
5. His soulmate had been his connection to MJ and Ned.
6. His soulmate lived in New York.
7. His soulmate liked Star Wars.
8. His soulmate's other soulmate was MJ.
9. His soulmate had gone to Midtown School of Science and Technology.
10. His soulmate had been on Midtown's Academic Decathlon team.
11. His soulmate was Spider-Man.
12. His soulmate's name was Peter Parker.
Harley had never really cared for Valentine's Day.
A lifetime ago, February 14th had been the day his sperm donor had walked out on his mom for good. He could still remember the day. His mom had still been pregnant with Abigail when his sperm donor had come home after a long day at work. He had kissed her on the cheek and given her a bouquet of red roses and a box of chocolates, as if they were going to make up for the black eye he had given her the previous night. Then, after eating dinner, he had pulled his boots back on, ruffled Harley's hair, and said he was going out to get some lottery tickets.
He had never come back, after that.
Harley couldn't even remember what his name was anymore without looking at his birth certificate. Good fucking riddance.
He would be lying, though, if he said he didn't hate this particular February 14th the most. His sperm donor walking out of his life might have hurt, even if it undoubtedly become one of the best things he could've ever done for Harley, considering the piece of shit that he was, but Harley had now gone two Valentine's Days without his soulmate. Without Peter Parker.
And the same was true for MJ. He heard her coming a good few seconds before she sat down next to him in the snow. She didn't say anything at first, just sat there, and he heard the pop of a can as she opened it.
It was then, and only then, that she spoke.
"Want one?"
Harley blinked, then looked down to see what she was offering him. He snorted. "You know, I didn't take you for a beer kind of girl, MJ."
She shrugged. "I'm not. This just sucks."
"That it does," Harley agreed. He grabbed one of the cans from the six-pack she had brought and opened it, before bringing it to his lips. The taste of it was fucking awful, but also soothing. It burned the back of his throat, making him grimace as he resisted the need to cough. "Where did you even get this shit?"
"A girl never kisses and tells," MJ replied conspiratorially.
Harley stared at her. "...Right."
It was her turn to snort now. Playfully, she punched him in the arm. "I bribed the sorority girls who live right across the hall from me," she said.
"You mean the ones you hate with a dying passion?"
"Well, not a dying passion," she corrected, making a face. "Though it comes close, sometimes. It just depends on the day."
Harley laughed.
For a long time, they sat like that in the snow, just the two of them. They talked a little while drinking; MJ made it through two of the cans, while Harley drank the other four. Thanks to Extremis, he had just enough of an enhanced metabolism that he could drink that much without quite getting drunk. He was tipsy, to be sure, but not drunk.
Eventually, though, his ass started to feel more than just a little numb. Grimacing, Harley stood up and offered his hand to MJ. She accepted it and, once she threw out the cardboard the six-pack had come in, walked back together with him to his and Ned's dorm. In silence.
It wasn't awkward, because they were well past that, but it wasn't quite comfortable, either.
When they finally got to the dorm's entrance, Harley turned to her. "Do you wanna come up?" he asked.
It was starting to snow. The snowflakes caught in her curly hair as she looked up at him through her eyelashes. "That depends."
"On what?"
"Are you going to kiss me?"
Harley, for what it was worth, did not gape at her.
Instead, he choked on his own spit.
He coughed, violently, spluttering as his chest spasmed. "MJ – MJ, what the – "
"I like you," she told him bluntly. "And not just in a 'you're my soulmate's other soulmate' sort-of-way. And I know you like me, too. We've just been caught up in this...clusterfuck of a hurricane Peter left us in, so we haven't had time to deal with it. But now I'm making the time, because I've been thinking about this for a while. It's not just the alcohol talking."
"MJ," he said again.
But it wasn't a protest.
Because, well...she wasn't wrong. He did like her. He liked her curly hair and the way her eyes gleamed when she was passionate about something. He liked how blunt she was and how she called him a "loser." He liked how she always stood up for what she believed in and how, despite going to Massachusetts Institute of Technology, she'd still chosen to pursue a double-major of anthropology and political science. He liked her.
But...it wasn't that easy. He wasn't protesting the idea of them having a relationship, like he'd said, but it wasn't that easy. They weren't the only people in this relationship to consider. There was Peter, too. Their soulmate. He was out there, somewhere in New York City, and even if it was obvious that he didn't want them or anyone else to find him, it still felt wrong to be doing anything without his permission. It felt wrong to be doing this without him there, with them.
MJ huffed, rolling her eyes. "You're overthinking this," she accused.
Again, Harley spluttered. "What? No, I'm – mmph!"
Before he was able to finish, MJ reached up and pressed her lips against his. It was searing, in more ways than one. Every particle in his body suddenly felt like it was going to explode. He could taste the vanilla lip balm she always liked to use on her lips, along with something that wasn't quite describable. It was almost like...coming home?
From their spot on his ribs, Harley's Words began to heat up.
He pulled away as soon as he felt it, gasping and panting to the point where he felt like he couldn't breathe. "What the – what the hell, MJ?"
"I was right," she said, sounding more smug than she had any right to be.
"Right about what?"
"We're connected." She said the words with a smirk and a gleam in her eyes, and for a moment, his mind flashed to a night over a decade ago.
"Admit it, you need me. We're connected."
The moment was over as soon as it had begun. Harley shook his head, trying to clear the memory from his mind. "What – what do you mean?"
"My anthropology class on the Words," MJ explained, as if that made any sense without additional context. "I've told you how fascinating it is, right? We're the only species on Earth with Words, and according to the Asgardians, our two species are part of a limited number who do. The appearance of Words seems to coincide with us developing written language, and outside of them being the first words soulmates say to one another, there's no rhyme or reason to them. Some people have one soulmate, others have many. Some soulmate relationships are closed, others are open."
"Okay, so what – ?"
"Shut up, loser, I'm getting there," she huffed. "In some forms of literature, like the Hellenic Iliad or the Chinese The Meaning of Souls, some people who were not soulmates but had one in common were said to be...bonded as well. Like Briseis and Patroclus. My professor said recently, it's led to this theory. Some people are not soulmates, she said, but they're thought to be pretty darn close.
"And I think that's us," she finished, her eyes flashing something dangerous. "And I'm tired of waiting for Peter to come back so we can duke this all out properly. He's our soulmate, yeah, and we love him, but the world does not revolve around him, so why should we?"
...Okay, so maybe she had a point.
Still, Harley opened his mouth in a slight protest. But the only words that were able to escape his throat were, "This is so messed up. MJ, we're so messed up."
"We're so messed up," she agreed, before she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him into another kiss.
(Two hours later, Ned might or might not have walked into their dorm room while he and MJ were in a...compromisedposition. The other boy took one look at him, his eyes widening and his face flushing, before he went back through the door and slammed it with a, "Ugh, seriously, guys? You couldn't have texted me that you got your shit together?"
The two of them looked at each other for a moment, utter shock written on their faces, before he snorted. Then MJ started to cackle, and they laughed and laughed, and maybe, Harley thought in the aftermath, maybe they were going to be alright.
At least until Peter came back into the picture.)
1. His soulmate was a guy.
2. His soulmate had a good sense of humor.
3. His soulmate was the reason why he had taken a gap year after graduating early from high school.
4. His soulmate had been at Tony Stark's funeral.
5. His soulmate had been his connection to MJ and Ned.
6. His soulmate lived in New York.
7. His soulmate liked Star Wars.
8. His soulmate's other soulmate was MJ.
9. His soulmate was the reason why he and MJ were "connected" in the way that they were.
10. His soulmate had gone to Midtown School of Science and Technology.
11. His soulmate had been on Midtown's Academic Decathlon team.
12. His soulmate was Spider-Man.
13. His soulmate's name was Peter Parker.
Spring break couldn't have come fast enough.
Although he was pretty deep into the trenches of schoolwork since it was halfway through the semester, every bit of Harley was glad he would be going back to New York. Despite Rose Hill being the place of his birth and his home until the Blip, he'd missed the eponymous city. He'd grown used to the sounds of the city, of cars and sirens and people chattering, and though Boston (and Cambridge) had those things as well, it wasn't quite the same.
Besides, being in the city meant that he was just that much closer to his and MJ's soulmate.
She had decided to come home with him on this break. Ned had wanted to stay back at college because of all of the work he had to do, but MJ had agreed to follow him to the city, and his apartment. Without having to press to much, he knew her home life wasn't the greatest, and since it didn't really make sense to him for them to be in two different places when they would be doing the same thing all break together, searching for their soulmate, he had offered her to stay at his place. And she had accepted.
(...No, he totally hadn't just basically said the same thing three times because he was giddy with joy over the fact they would be in such close proximity together without having to worry about Ned, college beds, and etcetera. Of course not.)
Hence why they were standing in the elevator of his apartment building now, waiting for it to take them to the proper floor. Looking at his...girlfriend (it still felt weird calling her that, even after a month) indiscreetly over his phone (he was debating which takeout to get them for dinner), he could see she was staring at everything with slightly wide eyes as her teeth worried her bottom lip nervously. It wasn't hard for him to understand why: the elevator, and indeed the entire building, was nice. Too nice. Luxurious.
It had been the very reason why he had been uncomfortable when he had read Tony had left this all for him, and still kind of was.
"What do you think?" he asked, hoping to divert her attention.
MJ turned to and gave him a smile, one which didn't quite reach her eyes. "It's nice," she said.
He snorted. "It's a lot."
"Yeah, that too," she said. Then, with a mischievous shine to her eyes, continued with, "But, you never know. It could be worse."
He decided to play along with her. "How so?"
"You could have been the billionaire to buy the flat here, and not just his apprentice."
Laughing, Harley held his arm out over the elevator doors as they opened, letting her leave the car first. The two of them walked the short distance it took from the elevator to his front door. Once there, he got out his key to unlock it, but just as he put the key into the lock –
He frowned, his head tilting slightly.
"What?" MJ asked in a whisper. "What is it?"
He put a finger to his lips, before pushing her back behind him with his other arm. She let out a quiet scoff, but he ignored her in favor of slowly twisting his key in the lock, then even more slowly opening his door.
At first, his eyes couldn't believe what they were seeing. He looked in at the living room of his flat in pure shock, a strangled noise of surprise escaping from his mouth. From behind him, he heard MJ have much of the same reaction.
"Harley Keener! Michelle Jones!" Yelena Belova, the White Widow, said as she turned around at their noise. Quickly walking over to them, she grabbed both of them by the arm and pulled them over the threshold and into his flat, making them drop their bags from their shoulders and onto the floor. "Oh, I have heard so much about you two! Kate says – "
"I say a lot of things," the younger Hawkeye interjected, her cheeks flushing a distinctive red. She nodded her head at them. "'Sup. We found him."
"Yeah, I can see that," Harley remarked dryly.
But he wasn't looking at them.
He was looking at one of his dining chairs, where Spider-Man with his mask off, Peter Parker in the flesh was sitting. His torso was tied to its back and his legs to its front two, and a set of vibranium cuffs was on his wrists while a piece of duct tape was placed on his mouth.
If it wasn't for the fact he knew better, he probably would've laughed at the situation. Here was his soulmate, the person he had been searching for over a year now, tied up in his house as if he was a weird sort of present. The irony, too, that his soulmate was a superhero who had been caught by two others like some sort of criminal was not lost on him, although considering everything which had been going on with the Scarlet Witch, perhaps that wasn't an irony he could laugh at.
Regardless, it didn't matter.
Because all Harley could do was stare.
Peter, who had been glaring murderously at Kate and Yelena when he had opened the door, was staring back at him and MJ. The rapid change in his expression had been no small thing as he now looked at them with wide eyes, ones which spoke of a myriad of emotions. Shock. Disbelief. Anger. Sadness. Grief.
Oh good God, what all had his soulmate been through?
MJ was the one to break first. Stepping past him, she walked over to Peter, her hands tentatively reaching out for his face, where several bruises were. Before she could touch him, he flinched back and violently shook his head.
Harley felt his heart split in two at the sight.
"What the hell did you two do to him?" his girlfriend hissed, murderous fury flaring in her eyes.
"Nothing!" exclaimed Kate. When both of Peter's soulmates narrowed their eyes at her, however, she hurriedly amended herself with, "Nothing that isn't superficial. It wasn't exactly easy for us to catch him."
"Did you really have to tie him up?" questioned Harley, half-incredulous, half-angry beyond belief.
"Kate said that was the plan," Yelena said.
"I did not!" spluttered the other superhero. "I said they preferred if we didn't – "
"Really? Because that is not what I heard, лисичка."
The red in Kate's cheeks intensified so much at this she practically looked like a tomato. "Yelena – "
"Okay, okay," Harley cut in before the two could get any further. If there was one thing he didn't want to see right now, it was the two women flirting. "Thank you, Yelena, Kate. Really. But we can handle this from here."
Yelena smirked. "Of course you can." She tossed something at him – a pair of keys. "Those will unlock the cuffs. Make sure you thank Princess Shuri for them, next time you see her. She was absolutely thrilled to help out 'another pair of broken white boys and their girlfriend.' And you," here, she went back over to Peter and patted his cheek, causing him to glare at her once more, "listen to these two. They care about you, a lot. They must in order to put up with your фигня."
"Yelena," Kate sighed.
The former spy waved a hand. "Alright, alright! I'm going." Rather than going to his front door, she went over to one of the windows of the living room that opened out to the fire escape and lifted it up. She winked at him. "See you around, Harley, Michelle!"
With that, she disappeared into the night.
Kate gazed at the window for a second, then sighed a second time. "Sorry about her. I know she's a little...much, but in her defense she's a little new to being able to do what she wants. And in mine, I had to bring her in on this. Parker here didn't give me a choice," she apologized. "Also, I already contacted Clint that I found him, since he was interested, but you might want to either call him or text Cooper later. It's been a while, and they'd like to talk with you again."
"Thank you," Harley repeated.
Like Yelena, Kate said something to Peter before she left, but whatever it was, she whispered it into his hear in such a way not even he was able to hear it. But he did see the way resignation settled on his soulmate's face, as he hung his head low and stared at the floor.
In the aftermath of the other two superheroes leaving, Harley walked over to Peter's chair as well. As MJ worked on the ropes tying his torso, he worked on the ones on his legs. His touch was gentle and nimble, but still Peter continued to flinch, as if every slight brush was pure torture.
"Sorry," MJ whispered.
Harley was sure she wasn't able to hear the quiet sob that welled up in their soulmate's throat in response, but he did.
Tears blurred his vision.
When they were done, Harley sat in front of Peter, his hands playing with the keys (he wasn't going to use them yet, just in case), while MJ gripped a corner of the duct tape covering his mouth. Gently, she pulled the piece off, careful to not cause their soulmate any more pain than what he had already gone through.
With bated breaths, both of them waited for him to say something, anything. Seconds passed, then minutes.
Finally:
"Wh – who are you?"
The lie was shaky, and not to mention completely unbelievable, an obvious last-ditch effort.
Harley and MJ shared a look.
"Peter," she said softly.
The boy squeezed his eyes shut at the sound of his name in her voice. "L – look," he began, and then he was rambling in a way which was hauntingly familiar. "I – I know you're the girl from the coffeeshop, MJ, right? And you must be her friend. But I have no idea who you guys are outside of that or what I'm doing here, or why you recruited Hawkeye and the White Widow to come find me. I swear, if you're doing this because J. Jonah Jameson offered you guys a ton of money to unmask me or something, I get that, but really I'm not the threat he makes me out to be. So, I'd really appreciate it if you just – "
"Cut the bullshit, Peter," Harley said over him, before he could get any farther. "You know why you're here. You're our soulmate."
Peter let out a harsh and bitter laugh. "Nope, see, you're wrong about that. I don't have one soulmate, much less two."
MJ raised an eyebrow. "Really? So the Words Sorry I threw up on you mean nothing to you?"
"Or the Words So, you knew him too?" added Harley.
"No," Peter whispered. He groaned. "I – I mean, yes! They really – "
"You're lying, loser," MJ said.
Peter stiffened, then sighed. "You weren't supposed to figure it out," he murmured. "You weren't supposed to remember, nobody should. I thought the spell was irreversible."
"It is. We don't remember," Harley confirmed. "But, we figured it out anyways. It's not like your Words are written on our bodies or anything."
Peter huffed, the ghost of a smile appearing briefly on his face. "Right, probably should've remembered that."
Deciding their soulmate probably wasn't going to run away on them, Harley unlocked the vibranium cuffs, slipping them off of his wrists. Peter rubbed at them through the Spandex of his suit and, looking between his two soulmates, tilted his head slightly. "How did you figure it out?"
He didn't sound angry, Harley didn't think, but there was a resignation to his voice which was equally as dangerous.
MJ seemed to realize this, too. "You're not going to make us forget again, Parker, so don't even think about it," she spoke, taking one of his hands in hers. "And even if you did, we would just figure it out again."
Peter opened his mouth, then closed it and opened it again. "Yeah, you're probably right about that, too."
Harley took that as his initiative. "What happened, Peter?" He frowned as his soulmate let go of MJ's hand to fiddle with each of his own anxiously. "You don't have to tell us if you don't want to, darling, but – "
Peter's head snapped up. "What did you just call me?"
His frown deepened. "...Darling, I think?" He paused. "Wait, did I not call you that before?"
"No, you did," Peter replied, sniffling as he wiped at his eyes. "Just wasn't expecting it, that's all." He looked away from them and around the flat, his teeth worrying his bottom lip. "Can I...change into something else? I'm not going to run away on you, I promise, it's just I can feel the blood from the cut Yelena gave me making my suit stick and I've – "
Abruptly, he cut off, but it was easy to tell what words exactly were going unsaid, seeing what they knew about him.
I've been on my own for the past year and a half and I don't know what to do.
Harley knew the feeling all too well.
"Yeah, sure," he said, getting to his feet. "Come on, I'm sure I've got something you can wear."
An hour or so later, Peter stepped out of his bedroom wearing one of the hoodies Harley had kept at the flat as well as a pair of his sweatpants, both of which were a little big on him. He looked at them warily as he walked over to where they were sitting at the dining table, which was covered with Chinese takeout, as if he couldn't quite believe his eyes. "Beef and broccoli," he said, pulling one of the largest boxes in the mix towards himself while also doing the same with a few egg rolls. "It's my favorite."
"I had a feeling it might've been," Harley admitted. He'd had the strong urge to order the dish while ordering the takeout, and his instincts hadn't failed him yet where Peter was concerned.
They didn't talk until after they'd all finished eating. There was something to be said for not combining food and "shop talk," as Tony had called it, and even if there wasn't, Peter ate...well, he ate like his life depended on it. Harley felt his own gut twist, watching him and seeing how thin the other boy's face were, and the gaunt look to his cheeks and the deep bags underneath his eyes. Obviously, he hadn't been eating well.
Hell, with no document to his name, even if those had easier to come by since the Blip, he undoubtedly hadn't been livingwell, either.
"What do you already know?" Peter asked once he had finished, setting down his fork.
After sharing a glance, Harley and MJ told him everything. It wasn't much, but it was enough to last about twenty or so minutes, which meant when they were done, Peter was looking at them with a pale face. "Wow," he said. "That's a lot."
Harley laughed a little, despite everything. "More than you were expecting?"
Peter shrugged. "I mean, yeah. Nobody was ever supposed to remember anything about me."
He said it so casually, both Harley and MJ winced.
"So...what happened?" Harley queried. "I know Dr. Strange told me a little bit, but – "
"I asked him to do a spell," Peter blurted out. "Not that one but, um, a spell to make everyone forget I was Spider-Man. Over the summer, I got into a fight with this guy, Quentin Beck..."
So, Peter told them his – their – own story. By the end of it, Harley felt sad and angry that his soulmate had had to go through so much, but also...confusion.
"Wait," he said. "I wasn't with y'all when...?"
His cheeks flushing, Peter shook his head. "No, uh. Despite being soulmates, we weren't there yet. I hadn't really realized I might have been bisexual until you said the Words to me, and between school, Spider-Man, and then everyone knowing my secret identity, I didn't feel comfortable with getting romantic with you yet, although I did give you the S Ar Ca Smhoodie as a birthday present. You were cool about it, though. Didn't make me feel like I was in any rush." He swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing. "But after everyone forgot, I really wished we had. Rushed. It would've made the memories I had of you easier..."
"No, it wouldn't've," Harley wanted to say.
Or, "you never should have been in that position in the first place."
Or, "I'm sorry we gave you the literal definition of a bi panic."
Or even, "whenever I see Dr. Strange again, I'm going to kick his ass so bad he won't walk for days."
But, he didn't.
Instead, getting up from his seat, he walked over to his soulmate. Peter watched him, his mouth opening slightly as he first stood above him, then straddled his waist slightly. He leaned down, close enough that his lips brushed up against the other's, and whispered, "Then let's make sure we do."
If kissing MJ was like coming home, then kissing Peter was like sitting down in front of a crackling fire with a weighted blanket wrapped all around his body. The feeling of him was electric, magnetic, searing. His Words felt like they had just been said all over again, and he knew it must've been the same for Peter. Beneath him, he felt his soulmate relax, the tension which must've been weighing on his shoulders disappearing as Harley deepened their kiss, a soft moan humming in his throat.
Their kiss was slow and sensual, and Harley didn't break it until he had to come up for air. As he did, he looked down into Peter's dark brown eyes, and saw the tears which were flowing from them. With a tender caress of his thumb, he wiped them away and kissed his forehead. "My memories of you might be permanently locked away, Parker," he told him gently. "But I can't forget about you, ever."
"The same goes for me," MJ said, appearing on Harley's left, Peter's right. She nudged him slightly with her hand. "My turn."
Harley got up. The sight of her straddling Peter like he had, kissing him like he had, was truly a sight to behold. He felt something twinge in his stomach, seeing them like that. This was his girlfriend and their soulmate – no, all three of them, together at last. This was everything he had ever possibly wanted for the past year and a half, here at last.
They wound up in his bedroom, sitting on his bed. Harley wound up removing his shirt, since though it was only eight o'clock he was tired after all the revelations they had just had, and MJ did the same, keeping her bra on. Peter gazed at his Words on their skin with holy reverence, his fingers reaching out to trace Harley's five and the first two of Michelle's, up until she lowered the hem of her jeans like she had with Harley all those years ago. Both of them jerked a little at his touch.
"They're still red," he mused quietly. "I mean, I knew they must've been for you two to find me again, but – "
"You still spoke them," MJ pointed out. "Why wouldn't they be?"
"I don't know," he replied. "I just – "
Scooting back, Peter grabbed at the bottom of his hoodie and began to slowly lift it up. Inch by inch of his skin was revealed, and Harley felt his breath catch, because God, Peter was hot, not that that mattered much to him. But he didn't quite understand why his soulmate was lifting up his shirt, because his Words were –
Oh.
Written on his chest, just where his heart should be, were each of the two sets of Words. They were written around each other, twisting in a way Harley had never seen before. The Words Whatever, loser were written in MJ's clean, beautiful script, while Harley's messy He broke into my garage and made fun of my potato gun served as a stark contrast.
"Oh my God," Harley choked out, laughing slightly. "We gave you those?"
Peter frowned. "What? I like them. My uncle Ben and aunt May always said they were perfectly unique, and I guess my mom's weren't really any better."
MJ scoffed. "No, I'm going to have to agree with Harley on this one. Their positions are beautiful, definitely something my one anthropology professor would be interested in, but these are awful, Peter."
He gave another shrug. "The context of them made sense. I'd just gotten by the radioactive spider with you," he nodded his head towards MJ, "and I threw up on your shoes. It was, like, the one and only time we talked until sophomore year because I had thought you were the most terrifying person ever. It was Mr. Stark that convinced me I should try and get to know you better, since we are soulmates and all."
Her lips quirked. "You thought I was terrifying?"
"Well, what can I say?" Peter grinned. "I was a nerdy kid, even for someone going to a nerd school, and you gave off this badass energy. Totally Girl All the Bad Guys Want vibes. I thought you were going to kick my ass just by me talking to you."
Snickering, MJ leaned over to kiss his cheek, and the action was so natural, it looked like something she did all the time. Probably because, once upon a time, she had. "But you eventually got over it, right?"
"We didn't start going out until after the Blip like I said, but yeah." He turned to Harley, his face apologetic. "I wish ours was more romantic than that, but it wasn't. We met at Mr. Stark's funeral, and – "
"That's okay, I told you I figured as much," Harley said. "You're here now, Peter, that's all that matters."
"Yeah," echoed Peter. Running a hand through his hair, his eyes darted between his two soulmates. "So...besides looking for me, what have you guys been up to for the past year and a half? How's life at MIT?"
Harley and MJ shared another look, their third one that night.
"About that..."
"Actually..."
. . .
. . .
"Oh my God, I don't really know what to say to that."
"We're so messed up?"
"...Yeah, we're so messed up."
The next morning, Harley woke up to an all-too-familiar feeling.
Grimacing, he tried to stretch in his bed, but found that his right leg couldn't get very far, as it and most of the rest of his body was pinned down by something. No, not something.
Someone.
His eyes cracking open, he looked down to see Peter's head resting on the right side of his chest, with one of his soulmate's muscular-but-way-too-thin arms (Jesus, they were really going to have to make sure he was getting enough food from now on) splayed out over his torso. The other arm was squished between him and MJ, as she partially spooned him.
Both his soulmate and his girlfriend looked content, peaceful, as if years of stress had been wiped away from them. Smiling, Harley reached over to grab his phone off of his nightstand and opened it up, snapping a picture of them. Then, he sent a text to Clint and one to Ned, telling them each a variation of Kate and Yelena had found Peter and thanks. Clint replied immediately, with a short and sweet:
Clint: Glad to hear it, kid. Maybe you can bring him and Michelle around to Iowa over the summer, yeah? Laura would love to meet them.
Ned hadn't replied yet as he switched his phone on to airplane mode, but he figured that was okay as he set it back on his nightstand. His roommate was probably sleeping a long night of studying off, and the reaction he was going to have would be more than able to make up for it. Especially since he and Peter had been best friends – Harley couldn't wait to see that dynamic in action, though he knew the action of waiting itself wasn't something he would necessarily mind now.
...After all, he thought, settling back into his position for just a little bit longer despite knowing he wouldn't be able to fall back asleep, they had all the time in the world for that now. They were going to have to get to know Peter again, and he probably them after all the time which had passed, but they were going to get to do it. Things probably weren't always going to be easy, maybe even never, but they were going to get to work through it.
Because now that Harley and MJ had found Peter, he was sure of one thing: they were never going to let him go, regardless of any Quentin Beck-esque figure or stupid sorcerer who tried to separate them.
And screw his phantom pain, his daily dose of ibuprofen could wait another couple of hours because of that.
...Oh, yeah, and one last thing:
In the end, he'd decided, fuck The List™, because the real Peter Parker was so much better.
Word Count: 16,088
