Peter Parker Writings

Red Watch (soulmate au)

pairing: college!Peter Paker x reader / soulmate!au

word count: 5.3k

prompt: Your clock is counting down way too fast (as opposed to everyone else's) and you have no idea what's going on anymore

warnings: slight swearing

a/n: Hi! I'm so excited to share my first piece of writing!! I'm open to any and all feedback ! You an send a requests or if you just want to swing by for a chat I'm all ears :) 

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Everyone received a soulmate watch on their twelfth birthday. The watch would count down the hours, minutes, and seconds until the time a person was supposed to meet their soulmate. And once you met your soulmate your watch fell off. No one knew how they were produced, the only thing publically known about the watches was that it was run by a select few people and headquartered somewhere in Europe. There were myths that floated around how the watches made it to people or how they were created, but there was no one to squash any rumors because no one knew anything.

"I heard there's some ice in the arctic that powers the watches––"

"No, I think it comes from the moon––"

"People have had watches before the moon landing, you idiot."

It was the eve of your twelfth birthday and your parents allowed you to have your two best friends sleep over. While it was a school night, getting a watch was one––if not the most––monumental moment in a person's life. Next to actually meeting your soulmate. And you wanted your best friends to share the moment with you.

Hayley, who was thirteen, got her watch a bit over a year ago, and was still waiting on her soulmate. You hadn't been there for her watch giving, but you saw her the next day at school when she shoved the shiny watch in your face.

You had been at Mary's watch giving, your other friend who was sleeping over. It was three months ago and it was incredible to watch, albeit a tad anticlimactic. It was more of the excited nerves of not knowing what the time on the watch would read that made it important. It was essentially your future.

"What if––What if it's broken?" You positioned yourself to sit criss-cross on your sleeping bag facing your friends, "I've heard stories––"

"And that's just what they are," Hayley gave you a pointed look, "Stories."

You let out a deep sigh. Since people in your grade at school were right around the age of twelve, everyone only talked about their watch. Even if they didn't have one yet. You knew people––mainly the fourteen year olds who already had their watches––purposefully spread wicked lies about messed up watches. All they wanted was to scare the twelve year olds, was what Hayley told them.

When you were ten, the school required you to read two novels with your parents. One novel was about the joy of finally finding your soulmate and basking in the happiness. And the other novel was an auto-biography of a man's watch that stopped working. It was the only case of a broken soulmate watch known by the public because he detailed the experience of going somewhere in Europe, having taken him years to have someone at the watch factory to talk to. And in the auto-biography, it was confirmed that his watch was broken and there was nothing he, or any of the watchmakers, could do.

Reading purpose of reading the books were to create an open discussion between kids and parents about the watches. It was almost like sex-ed, but for soulmate watches.

Not wanting to press the subject any further, you nodded and buried your head in your hands. How could a watch predict who you were meant to spend the rest of your time with? Who determined that? Why did people blindly trust the watches? Would your watch malfunction?