Chapter Text
Gwen kicked her feet up over Peter’s lap and smiled at him, “You mind?”
He shrugged and said, “You’ll do it whether or not I mind, so why do you even ask?”
Her grin widened, and she stole the remote to scroll through the menu. Nothing was on so he let her flick. She paused on some BBC show he’d never seen, and she became immediately invested. Setting the remote down, her mouth opened slightly and she licked at her lips, shifting to get comfortable.
“What is this?” Peter said, grabbing a pillow to hand it to her. As the Info bar faded, he noticed that the episode was old—she’d probably seen it before.
Obviously he was right because she actually responded; were she truly invested, she’d have shushed him. “Orphan Black,” she said without looking. “Sh,” she said. He rolled his eyes. Right on both accounts.
He slipped out from under her feet, “I’m gonna go to the corner store. We need milk.” He leaned down to kiss her cheek and she allowed the motion but immediately pushed him out of the way to peek around him.
“Grab some tampons while you’re there, please,” she still didn’t look at him, which he was lucky for—had she seen his blush, she’d have mocked him for sure.
On the way out, he checked his timer. It still read 01d 14h 02m 54s and it just kept ticking down. He sighed, wishing—not for the first time, and probably not for the last—that Gwen was his soul mate. Her timer was blank, and while she liked to say that it didn’t bother her, he knew that she often wished he’d been hers as well. She was more logical than he was though—so her life had been spent mostly ignoring the entire concept of timers.
Her mother had bought her one on her fourteenth birthday, and she’d had to be forced into the chair for the surgery. She had this running belief that everyone had multiple soul mates. A romantic soul mate, a platonic soul mate, a musical soul mate, and her list went on and on. So why should she have a timer that counted down to the meeting of just one? Besides, she'd said in a particularly cuddly mood, Peter was the only soulmate she'd ever need.
Her timer was set up to 345d when it had been installed, but it woke her up one night just after her seventeenth birthday with a weird beeping sound. “It was just blank,” she’d said and he hadn’t needed any further explanation. He’d heard enough horror stories before to know what a blank timer meant. “Another worry off my shoulders,” she’d said. But Peter also knew that she’d cried for the girl or boy she’d lost that night. She’d had the timer uninstalled first thing in the morning.
Peter was different; he’d grown up excited to receive his. His parents had been soul mates before they died. His aunt and uncle were too for that matter. He’d waited until his eighteenth birthday to buy one with the money he’d carefully saved up just for that purpose. When he’d had it installed, he was already dating Gwen. She had never explained the missing timer to him, too passionate about her disbelief to tell him the truth. He knew there was a possibility his would be blank, but that’s exactly what he wanted. Blank meant his soulmate didn’t have a timer. And no timer would confirm his suspicion that Gwen was his soulmate.
When the timer turned up with numbers, he hadn’t known what to do. His first idea was to break up with Gwen, but that hurt too much to even debate and he shut the idea down before it could haunt him. When he told Gwen, she sat him down and apologized for letting him hope. Then, she told him she’d understand if he wanted to leave, but she wished he wouldn’t. “You can’t sit around waiting, hoping that what you might have with this John Doe will be better than what we have right now,” she’d said. “I understand what this count means to you, and I’ll understand if you need to end this. But Peter, I love you and I know we’re soul mates, no matter what a silly precognitive count-down tells you.”
And he’d stayed. He had to. She’d been right.
That didn’t mean he didn’t wish the count-down would go blank every day.
At the store, Peter picked up the milk, and cringing, grabbed the tampons as well. He successfully avoided eye contact with the cashier, and hurried home. On the way out, he even thought to pick up a movie at the Redbox one block over.
When he returned, Gwen wasn’t on the couch. He called out her name and received a reply from their shared bedroom. He found her at her desk, typing something—assumedly work-related—on her laptop.
He dropped the box of tampons on the desk and unceremoniously sprawled himself across the bed. She laughed, “Have any trouble?” He groaned into a pillow, and after a moment she joined him on the bed. She crawled onto the mattress, pressing a kiss onto his shoulder blade. “Thanks, Peter,” she said. “You know how much I appreciate this, right?”
“I’m pretty sure you just like to fluster me,” he said, turning his face to the side to look at her—as well as to make his words audible.
Gwen nodded and sat up with one leg propped up so she could rest her chin on it. Peter eyed her grin. She was so smug about this. He’d need to rectify that. He tugged her leg out from under her, successfully pulling her whole body down so he could crawl on top of her. She gasped, but started giggling when he pressed his fingers along her sides and began tickling her. “Peter, stop,” she laughed, swatting at his arms.
Years of exercise as the friendly neighborhood Spider-man had honed his muscles, so he was able to brace himself against her weak movements. He moved his fingers faster, and her legs came up as she tried to curl her body in and away from him. Gwen laughed helplessly underneath him. “Peter,” she gasped. He grinned and dropped his weight onto her, earning a grunt and a relieved sigh as she tried to regain her breath.
Peter moved off her, lying beside her and interlacing their fingers. Gwen leaned over and pressed a kiss against his jawline which he returned by bringing her hand up to his own lips. Just as he was about to kiss her palm, she jerked it out of reach. He grunted and turned his head to stare at her. She’d turned their hands over so his wrist was facing her. Using her free hand, she traced a finger over his timer.
It was his turn to jerk his hand back.
Beside him, Gwen sat up, pressing her back to the headboard and tucking her legs up under her, “It’s getting close, huh?” Her voice was soft, almost sad.
He turned over to watch her. Normally so confident in her actions, Gwen’s eyes were downcast and her position reminded him of that of an insecure child awaiting a parents’ scolding. Peter swallowed and rolled over. He sat up so he was facing her, his hands on her knees. “Gwen,” he said.
He didn’t get any further because she interrupted him, “I’m fine.” She coughed and repeated it, her voice deeper and more sincere, “I’m fine. Don’t worry about me. Worry about your timer.” She closed her eyes, and when she reopened them, she was smiling, “And your soul mate.”
Peter’s hands went to her jaw, angling it to kiss her. “You’re my soul mate,” he whispered against her lips.
Gwen pulled away, “Not your only one.”
Sitting back, Peter nodded. The silence surrounding them was deafening.
01d 13h 24m 29s
The timer kept counting down.