Chapter Text
At first, Morgan thought being able to see people’s soulmate was cool as hell. At least, for the first twenty-four hours. Actually, more like the concept was cool. The initial visual overload was too much to enjoy getting powers, and the realization that they weren’t even sidekick worthy powers instantly killed any remaining joy.
Then, when any single member of his family, except for his sister, started asking him to find their soulmate it sucked more. And when his brother Chad mentioned Morgan’s power to a friend offhandedly, his entire high school started asking, then reporters, then everyone . Morgan had only had his power for a week and he already wished he had stayed powerless.
The power barely even worked! He couldn’t touch the strings, they were all the same shade of red and laid over each other, practically impossible to follow. Morgan had spent whole days trying to find an end to a string and would always have to give up to sleep, and whoever the string was attached to would drag it somewhere else before he could continue. Only twice had he been able to unite the two ends, and only knew because of those meetings that the string didn’t even get taunt when close, just shorter. It was still laid on the ground tangled with all the other strings.
People didn’t like hearing this answer, and they especially didn’t like hearing they didn’t have a soulmate. One such person being Chad, who thought it was Morgan’s attempt at revenge for telling everyone his power. Chad also refused to believe that Morgan could come up with a better revenge than that, lots of people didn’t have soulmates it was pretty common. Sure, not yet having figured out that revenge wasn’t exactly helping but it was gonna be so good when he did.
Soulmate shit quickly became bullshit, and Morgan had no interest in ever finding who was on the other end of his own red string.
So, a few years, some superhero family problems and a handful of hopeless romantics later, Morgan had made himself a cozy little spot among the D tier villains. Sure, it was mostly his being a landlord and his natural game winning skills being mistaken as some sort of mind control but he liked it. He’d done it all on his own, no matchmaker powers involved.
Except.
Except the most dangerous villain alive had just been trapped in the Eternity Area, and Morgan knew very well how far people would go if they believed you could lead them to their soulmate.
He had so many restraining orders.
It would be so easy too. He found several Eternity Area guards on facebook, and how terribly, terribly lonely they were. Just sneak in like any other heist, tell the terminally single guard his soulmate was trapped inside. Sure lying wasn’t him using his powers, but the acknowledgment of them felt like it. But he knew it could work and he could just sit back and watch it happen. He shouldn’t. It’d be fun, the heroes would be absolutely pissed, but he shouldn’t. Way out of his league.
It is way easier than he imagined. Cameras are on a simple swivel and the patrol is more worried about keeping people in than out. Morgan finds his target guard, who jumps at the sight of him.
“What are you doing here?!” The guard pulls his gun on him.
“I know where your soulmate is,” he says.
This makes the guard hesitate long enough that if Morgan had been planning to kill him he could’ve.
“I know where your soulmate is,” he repeats, pretending to pick a string off the ground. “This thread is yours, and it’s glowing. That means your soulmate is close .” Not how it works, but the guard has no way of knowing.
“How did you…How close?” The gun lowers slightly.
“In this building.” Morgan clutches the fake thread in a fist. “I can lead you to them, just follow me.”
He waits for the guard to nod, then turns and goes. He heads to the gate to the Eternity Area following the floor map he saw when he snooped around the security room. The guard occasionally slows, probably doubting him, before catching back up. They come upon the gate and Morgan gives the guard his best sad eyes.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “They’re in the Eternity Area.”
The guard steps back, horrified. “My soulmate is a villain?”
“Maybe not. Maybe they got stuck somehow. It is its own place, maybe it has doors besides this one.”: He gestures to the gate. “But it doesn’t matter, they’re stuck.”
This was the riskiest part of Morgan’s plan. Hoping the guard doesn’t go through the gate himself or snap out of it and arrest Morgan. He crosses his fingers, and it works as the guard grits his teeth and opens the gate, which now that he’s really looking there actually is a single red thread trailing out of the gate and-
-and Morgan doesn’t realize he didn’t make a plan for S tier not killing him until S has stepped free from the Eternity Area and turned the guard to mist, and has him by the throat in the span of a blink. Fist at the ready, S looks him up and down, taking in his not-so-stealthly fur-lined hood yet clearly not-a-guard-uniform.
“You did this?” He asks.
Morgan nods, faintly wondering if S cares enough about his own potential soulmate to not kill him.
S lowers his fist and looks at the smatter of guard on his hand. “Mind control?”
"No, just lied to him a little bit. Stalked his social media, it was easy. N-not that it wasn't hard! Like I could've picked the wrong guard. I-I actually thought he'd arrest me." Morgan backpedals, trying not to imply that S should’ve busted himself out already. His voice strains from the chokehold.
S cocks his head. "Then can you teleport? How'd you get in here?"
"Walked in. Looked like they put more effort into keeping you from breaking yourself out than someone else doing it."
Recognition and realization dawns in Alex's eyes and he lets go. "You're the love guru guy."
"Oh, no, don't- don't call me that, I don't really do… any… love guruing."
Alex grins. "No, no, that's great! Guy with the goody two shoes power of love breaks me out for… why did you break me out? What do you want?"
"Nothing, I just wanted to fuck over the heros." Morgan shrugs.
Theres a pause, then S grins wider. "That's even better. I think I might love you."
"I’d be down," Morgan says, floundering.
S looks him over again. "You’re cute. C'mon, let's get out of here."
The friendship that follows wasn't a part of the plan either. S showed up one day saying their lair had been destroyed and he had nowhere else to go, and after that he just kept coming back. Morgan kept waiting for him to ask about his soulmate, but the questions never came, and he stopped waiting. He learned things about S too, that his name was Alex, his favorite drink was blood, that his handle on his powers wasn't always the best (his poor fridge,) and that behind all the murderous intent, he was a complete and utter dork.
"I could make them fix it," Alex grumbles as the credits roll.
Morgan shakes his head. "Let it go, dude."
"It could be so good!" He throws his hands out. "But they only care about their own versions and destroying what the other makes at every opportunity! It's ruining the series! They just need to work together!"
"I think they'd rather die than work together." Morgan pats him sympathetically on the back.
"Humans are inherently selfish and a plague on this planet."
"Oh, so this is twitter's fault then?"
One other thing Morgan learns about Alex, that takes him an embarrassing long amount of time to realize, is that they're soulmates.
They're sitting on the couch in his apartment watching a movie that Alex is much more into than he is. Like they have a thousand times before, his eyes idly follow the red string from his hand. It goes down the couch to the floor, loops once around the coffee table then heads towards the kitchen, but turns back before leaving eyesight (something that rarely happens.) It goes back to the couch, up the couch, across Alex's leg and stops at his best friend's hand. He blinks, traces backwards. Alex's hand, the floor, towards the kitchen then around the coffee table, up the couch, his own hand. He follows it one more time to no change.
"You good?" Alex asks, making Morgan jump out of his skin.
"Yeah, sorry. Zoned out," he lies on instinct.
"Ah. Thought there was a bug. Your eyes were all-" Alex holds out his pointer finger and moves it in random circles.
Morgan doesn't respond and Alex returns to the movie. He's shocked Alex let it go, like his poker face was good enough to discredit his rabbit-fast heart that he knows the other can hear.
Several minutes pass and Morgan's thoughts haven't moved an inch. It's not fair that he's the only one blindsided here, this is important, and decides fuck it.
"Hey, uh, Alex?"
"Mhm?" Alex looks at him.
"You know my… love guru thing?"
Alex nods and waits.
How exactly does he say this? That even though he can't turn his power off and they practically live together he's only just realized they're soulmates? Lay out all the disclaimers first? Say something poetic? He's terrible at poems. He takes long enough trying to figure out what to say that Alex decides to take a sip of his drink. Which is of course when he speaks.
"Turns out we're soulmates."
Alex spews blood out his nose.
"What?!" He chokes out, wiping the back of his hand under his nose.
"I just found out!" He defends. "I know it's my power and I should've noticed sooner but normally the thread is impossible to follow! I follow my thread all the time, I never expected it to go anywhere!"
"...You say that like it's a bad thing." Alex says hesitantly.
"No, of course not you're my best friend, nothings changed." Morgan quickly replies, then notices a sad look in Alex's eyes and panics. "Unless something has? Wait, do you think I'm confessing to you? I promise I'm not doing that, I don't even think soulmates are romantic."
Alex clearly wasn't expecting that, leaning towards Morgan. "Soulmates aren't romantic?!"
"Well," Morgan starts. "They could be, I admit I'm working with a very small sample size, but the two other pairs of soulmates I've found are platonic. One pair is friends with benefits but those are just two very horny individuals. And I mean, we're friends." He gestures back and forth between them.
Alex sits back slowly. "Right…"
Morgan gives him a worried look. "Are you okay?"
He bites his lip as he thinks. "I just… wasn't expecting this."
Morgan's heart sinks. He feels like that by the existence of his powers he promised Alex someone to be his one true love and that he just took that all away. "I'm sorry I'm not want what you expected."
"No," Alex says before he's even finished speaking, reaching across the couch to squeeze his hand. "You're a great soulmate, I can't imagine having anyone else, I don't want anything different. I just had this idea in my head of what a soulmate was, it's my fault for not asking you, the literal expert, if that idea was correct."
Morgan squeezes his hand back and smiles. "I don't know if I'd call myself an expert."
"You are the only recorded case of soulmate related powers."
Morgan groans and flops back dramatically. "Don't remind me. Had another stalker last week begging for me to find their other half. Told her her other half was gonna be a jail cell if she didn't back off."
"You did?" There's a proud tilt to Alex's voice.
"No. Slammed the door in her face and filed another restraining order."
Alex chuckles and a comfortable silence falls over them, and Alex takes advantage of their still joined hands to rub circles into the back of Morgan's hand.
Alex hums and smiles gently. "You know soulmate, if you ever want to try something more effective than a restraining order, your soulmate is happy to help."
He lets out a breathy laugh. "Thanks soulmate, I'll remember that."
Alex's smile turns into a toothy grin. "You're my soulmate."
"I am your soulmate, soulmate."
"Soulmate doesn't sound like a word anymore," Alex says.
"Soulmate soulmate soulmate."
Alex —lightly— launches a pillow at Morgan, who takes the hit with a joyful laugh.