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It always seemed cruel to Ned that it was your soulmates last words that were imprinted on you. You never knew, for sure, who your soulmate was until you lost them. Of course, there were the odd recorded case of one half having a medical death and then gaining new words. There was the rarer, but still recorded case of people moving on, and gaining new ones.
But for most people, all they could do was guess, and either been proved right, or for it to be all too late.
⁂
Ned was on a school bus, on a bridge, and his words had yet to come in. He was only bothered by one of those things at that moment, and it was the one that had trapped him in a smelly metal can for several hours, with Flash. Oh well, at least he had Peter.
Whose hand hit him repeatedly in the face.
“Hey, hey, I need you to cause a distraction.”
Ned looked up, saw his best friend, felt his heart twinge, then saw the giant spiny wheel of death.
“WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!”
When Ned looked back at Peter’s seat he was gone, the window open.
His stomach sank. He had faith. Peter would be alright. He’d be alright, he had to.
⁂
No-one questioned Peter’s absence, which was fortunate as Ned’s eyes were not leaving his phone’s screen as he frantically searched for any mention of Spiderman, of any news.
His mum hustled him into the car. “Peter okay?”
It took everything Ned had to look up and say: “Aunt May’s got him.”
“You okay sweetie?”
Ned didn’t look up from his phone this time. Magic? Was that a thing now? “hmmm,”
“Do you want me to call May, see if her and Peter can come over? I know how – close - you two are, and this seem- this seems Battle of New York bad.”
His phone vibrated.
Aunt May: I saw
At least he wasn’t alone in his worry.
“It’s not safe to travel.”
“Okay, love.”
Ned went back to monitoring his phone.
Livestream, that’s what he wanted! He clicked on the video, just to see it zoom in on Spiderman falling.
Down and down.
That was a long way off the ground and Peter was amazing, Peter was beyond amazing, and Peter was falling.
Ned gripped his phone tighter and tighter as the fall seemed to go on and on and was that Iron Man?
It wrapped around Spiderman’s form and he finally stopped falling.
Ned exhaled, climbing out of the car without looking up. He was going to be okay. He was-
He was on the circle of death. Peter had weird thing attaching him to the circle of death and the damm camera was zooming out and he couldn’t see-
“Peter!” he gasped pointlessly as he realised the video hadn’t been zooming out, the circle of death had been leaving. Had left.
Peter was gone.
Peter, his friend, his closest friend, his other half, hell at that moment his guess: Peter had gone.
Dimly Ned felt a hand on his shoulder as his mother led him to the living room sofa. His legs bucked under him as he blinked.
“It’s going to be okay sweetie, it looks like the fighting has stopped. We’re going to be okay. I’ll put the news on. Peter will be okay.”
Little did she know.
Ned nodded when it became clear she was waiting for an answer.
Peter was-
Peter was going to be fine, he was Spiderman, he was with Iron Man and a wizard. He’d be back tomorrow, or at the very least by next week and they’d geek out about the fact he got to go to Space together. Maybe he’d even visit another planet, and they could talk about that, and what it was like compared to Star Wars.
Peter was going to be fine.
He was, he really, really totally honestly was…
Ned wasn’t fooling himself.
So he sat, and stared at the TV, ignoring the itching on his arm. His phone bleeped, taken off silence for the first time in his life so he didn’t miss a message.
MJ: uthere loser
Oh.
He sent the shortest confirmation and focused back in on the news, trying to quell his disappointment that the message hadn’t been from Peter. That he wasn’t back and safe and that Ned couldn’t hug him and do their handshake. That they couldn’t go create Lego Starkiller base, and that Ned would spend his time being more overjoyed that Peter was there, than wishing at what wasn’t.
At least the message hadn’t been Aunt May.
His phone bleeped again.
MJ: Seen P?
Ned: N
MJ:K :(
He threw his phone to one side, it landed on the floor with a soft thump.
Immediately, Ned got up and retrieved it, hugging it close for a moment not caring how it looked.
⁂
Eventually his mother sent him to bed. The fighting was done, both in New York and in Scotland. The danger was over, for Ned anyway. They hadn’t gotten any answers, but had they ever really about New York, the first time.
Ned pulled off his shirt, passing his reflection in the mirror.
He stopped blank.
When had he?
OH.
Ned lifted his arm to read his words, his terrible fated words.
“I need you to cause a distraction”
The words were written there, in a messy sprawl of a hand, but legible nonetheless. Especially if you were Ned. Ned who’d been reading that handwriting since Middle School.
I need you to cause a distraction.
I need you to cause a distraction.
I need you to cause a distraction.
WHY?
Maybe it wasn’t this time. Peter was Spiderman right? There’d be loads of times he needed him to cause a distraction. It could happen at any time, there was no guarantee is was – that it had been – that Peter was-
Ned backed up and more fell onto than sat on his bed as his legs buckled under him.
Why?
“Why? Why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why,” He took a shaky breath before screaming “WHY?”
Would Peter even know? The words didn’t come in simultaneously. Had he had “We’re all gonna die”, written on his arm for weeks or months now, not knowing if it was joking or serious. Maybe not even sure whose words they were.
Or maybe he never would. Maybe Peter had – maybe Peter was going to die with his skin clear and he wouldn’t know. Maybe that was for the best, maybe-
“NED!” His mom called, opening his door, “hon, I’m gonna make –“
Ned looked up to find no-one there.
Then his arm started to burn.
He screamed in pain and in surety, joined by thousands of voices as they burned, as they burned and they knew. They knew for sure that they were the one left behind.
⁂
Some time later, his vocal chords hoarse, Ned picked up his phone and dialled.
“Ned! You’re alright, please tell me-“
“Aunt May,” was all he said.
“Okay, okay, I’m gonna call you back, okay,” the call ended abruptly as Ned was left alone in the apartment.
Okay? Nothing was okay. Nothing would ever be okay again!
I need you to cause a distraction.
What kind of words were those?