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The Soulmate Fuck-up Meme

The Soulmate Fuckup Meme
There's a name on your wrist. Maybe you were born with it; maybe it arrived around the time you reached adolescence. It's spelled out, in clear script - the script you learned to read first, your native language. It's the name of your soulmate.

What would a world like this be like?

Fucked-up, that's what.

(Based on this tumblr post.)

PROMPTS:
Choose just one, choose a couple, mix and match. Do what you want.

RELATIONSHIP
1: ORIENTATION CONFUSION. The name on your arm is the wrong gender. Maybe you thought you were straight, but the name is the same gender as yours. Maybe you knew you were gay, but the name is opposite-sex. Maybe you just didn't want anyone to know, and you hide your arm, pretend to be something you aren't. But there it is - the evidence glares at you every time you brush aside your sleeve. The name has to be right. Doesn't it?
2: JUST PLAYING AROUND. You're not soulmates with the person you're with. You're just playing around. Or maybe you're really in love - and no one will believe you. How do you face the complete inability of society to accept you? How do you face the inevitable, fated end of your relationship? How can anything be important, when you know it won't last?
3: ONESOMES, THREESOMES AND MORESOMES. You're soulmates with person A who's soulmates with person B who's soulmates with you. What now? - Or maybe you're meant to be in a polyamorous relationship. Or you're asexual, and the thought of that name fills you with dread.
4: ALONE. Your soulmate died. Your soulmate never showed up. Your soulmate never existed. Or your soulmate refused you.
5: FIRST TIME. You've never dated anyone else before. What would have been the point? And now you're moving in, you're getting married - why wait? You're soulmates, aren't you? What could go wrong?
6: TOGETHER. Yep. Here we are. Here you are, and here I am, and here are our names on each other's arms.
7: OTHER.

STAGE
1: INVESTIGATION. So there's this name, and you've plugged it into Google, and the only match you can find is some asshole's Facebook account. He looks like a real jerk. Or maybe you got nothing, and you hired a private investigation firm that specializes in this kind of thing. Now you have an email address, or phone number, or a home address, and what's next is to pick up the phone, write that letter, knock on that door.
2: REVEAL. A superstar's name is on the wrist of a teenager. The President's name is on the wrist of her opponent. Your name is on the wrist of someone in jail. Turns out that name on your best friend's wrist was yours - only you never knew, not until you found out who your parents were. You've just discovered your soulmate, or just revealed yourself to them. What next?
3: GETTING TOGETHER. You're in the early stages. Dating, maybe. Getting to know each other. Moving in, under the watchful eyes of other friends, happy and soulmated and eager to have their view of the world confirmed in you. But do you even really know this person? What makes you so suited, anyway?
4: TOGETHER FOREVER. Maybe you've been together thirty years, and you still have that same fucking argument about who washes the pans after you cook a steak. Maybe you sit in silence because there's nothing to say, and it's incredibly boring. Maybe you work in harmony, but you wonder: is it because you were supposed to be together all along, or just because you never had another choice?
5: TECHNICALITIES. Society won't let you get married. So what if you just change your name to the name on her wrist, and she changes her name to the name on yours… Or maybe you can't get insurance, because you're not married with a soulmate. Don't have the right to vote. Can't get promoted in your job.
6: A BROKEN SYSTEM. Soulmates might be perfect, but people aren't perfect. The world isn't perfect. And this world has screwed you over, time and time again. But - maybe you still found a way to be happy.
7: OTHER.

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Simmons's smile, when it was real, was pretty. If it didn't hurt Bryce's cheeks to smile these days, she would have smiled back. Instead, the corner of her mouth quirked.

But it wasn't entirely happy. Bryce wasn't a happy person. Her expression had an edge of grimness to it. "Can you be sure that's all Coulson's interested in?"

Bryce wanted to trust Simmons. She had bright eyes and an innocent smile and a brilliant mind. Bryce knew well enough that scientists weren't always told everything they should know, though.

Jemma knew that same fact. But Agent Coulson was different. He would break the rules if he needed to, he only withheld information if it would put them in danger.

"I trust him," was all she said. But given everything that had happened in their lives, in the world, being able to so firmly declare trusting anyone was significant. There was no one Jemma had come across who hadn't been hurt or betrayed when SHIELD fell, no one whose trust in people hadn't been shaken.

But she knew as well that if she could trust anyone in the world, it was Agent Coulson.

Well, and Fitz. But that was a different story all together.

"I'm glad that you do."

Because it meant a lot to be able to trust your boss, especially after something so rattling as the fall of SHIELD. Bryce had learned that.

She'd try to be less nervous, but she wasn't going to be putting her guard down entirely.

"Did they tell you who you'd be working with before we got started?" she asked, turning her attention back to the microscope and her notes. It could be taken as a casual question, but she was trying to gauge how much Coulson told Simmons, how much say and warning he gave her before turning Bryce loose. It could imply what else he'd be willing to let her in on.

"Yes." The answer was prompt, honest. She had been told. She hadn't believed it, but Coulson had told her. "I mean, obviously I didn't believe someone as brilliant as you would come to work with me but Agent Coulson did say."

Jemma would have known exactly who Dr. Banner was from the start, even if Coulson hadn't said. She'd seen the name and the photo in SHIELD files, not long after she'd joined. It was one of those names and faces and stories most of the people in the sci-ops had remembered, both an inspiration and a warning.

Bryce let out a little amused huff, some kind of parody of a laugh--the sort Agent May would probably make.

"That was really your first thought, huh?"

Bryce assumed it was closer to 'Oh god my boss is trying to kill me,' but she found it genuinely charming that Simmons would make conversation and be kind to her. Steve Rogers had been the only other person to put aside her condition entirely in conversation and treat her like a human.

It was nice, actually. To be able to work again. It almost felt like it used to.

"Well no. Not really. If I'm honest it was something a lot more like what if you don't like me, but wondering why you'd come in the first place was definitely close second."

She didn't know what had possessed her to confess that. The casualness of the question or the way she'd been able to lightly tell the truth. Either way, Jemma was fairly close to actually mortified when she realized the words that had just come out of her mouth, and hid the faint blush that rose in her cheeks by burying herself in her own work.

Okay. That was genuinely surprising. And the way the young woman was turning red seemed to imply that that was genuine.

Bryce paused in her work. The other side of her mouth quirked, her mouth forming a tiny, baffled smile.

"I like you, Dr. Simmons. So don't worry about that."

And she was a little surprised to realize that she was being completely honest. Even if she didn't trust the new SHIELD, she could say that Simmons had been nothing but kind to her, and that was preciously rare among people who knew what she was.

"Oh good." Relief was obvious in Jemma's voice. "I've heard stories about these sorts of things not going well."

She didn't really specify what she meant. But she'd heard stories about people meeting their soul mates for the first time, not realizing who they were and not getting on. She'd never heard of it not righting itself, but she'd always looked at her wrist and known she wanted to make a good impression.

And she'd always worried that she wouldn't be able to. She knew the sort of person she was, slightly awkward and a little too eager, easily distracted by the things that excited her and often forgetting to use all of her words.

She was glad that she'd made the right impression, if nothing else.

Bryce assumed Simmons was talking about people meeting with Bryce herself, and that would make sense. None of the good stories were likely to be plastered over the news.

"Well, it's gone well so far."

Bryce was oblivious to the real meaning behind Simmons's words. She stopped playing with her watch so much.

If Simmons was glad that she had made a good impression, Bryce was thrilled that she wasn't dealing with anyone who would be cowering the whole time. It was nice to be treated like a human sometimes.

"Have you guys run samples through a mass spectrometer yet?"

They were on completely different pages and Jemma had no idea.

Luckily she was able to save her own embarrassment. She wasn't good with things like this, never had been, had almost no romantic experience at all, if she could even call this situation romantic. It felt more like being forced to share her life with a stranger, and she knew that wasn't the truth of things, there was nothing that said they had to be anything at all. But Jemma wasn't good at it any way she wanted to call it and she wasn't the sort who could just come out and say things.

She kept herself to herself, and so she said nothing of it, just turning back to her work with a smile.

"Of course we did." She reached across to pull up a file, and the motion made her shirt shift up her wrist slightly, the words on her wrist not quite hidden if Dr. Banner's gaze happened to fall on it. "Here are the results. Nothing conclusive, I'm afraid. But that's been pretty usual for all the tests I've run so far. Whatever this is, it doesn't work like anything I've ever seen before."

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