Chapter Text
Since he was a small child being ignored by his entire family, everyone Brett Hand met had waxed poetic about the phenomenon of soulmates. That one someone who was meant for you and you alone. Your perfect match in this universe. To Brett it sounded like a built-in best friend and he had been desperate to meet his one and only for as long as he could remember. To feel the tingling burn of their first words to him burning into his skin as soon as they met. He prayed for it every night and thought about it every waking minute of the day.
Brett didn’t get lucky like both of his brothers and meet his soulmate in elementary school. They also weren’t waiting to make his acquaintance in the hallways of his highschool like his only sister. He had tried to branch out; joined every extra curricular, been part of every social group in an attempt to meet as many people as he could in the hopes one of them would be her , but no dice. In college Brett had opened himself up to the idea that his soulmate may actually be a male and so pledged every frat. Thirty-eight Hell Weeks and still no words appeared anywhere on Brett’s body. He checked every night.
By twenty-two Brett was starting to think his parents may have been right that he was simply not meant to have a soulmate. By twenty-six he was positive of it. By thirty he had given up all hope of ever meeting someone who would actually be interested in sharing their life with him. Still, Brett continued to throw himself into social interactions. He went to birthdays and bars and barbeques in the hopes of filling the hole in his heart with fair weather friends. That’s how he’d met JR and JR was how he met Reagan.
It had been scary enough, being snatched from some random backyard and having a bag thrown over his head, but having the bag removed and being met with the withering glare of a gorgeous woman was even scarier. Reagan had looked annoyed and tired and like she wanted to rip Brett’s head from his body with her bare hands. He’d been dazzled immediately and had thrust his hand towards her with his usual plastic smile.
“Brett Hand,” he’d introduced. “Thrilled to be serving whoever gives me approval!”
“What the hell?!”
There was a stinging itch all around his right wrist and Brett had missed whatever was said next between JR and Reagan. While the apparent mad scientist chased after his new boss, already decked out in his golf gear, Brett had stayed behind and rushed to yank up the sleeve of his suit and dress shirt. It felt like he’d been burned and as he rolled his cuff out of the way he’d realized he was feeling hope for something he hadn’t dared to hope for in over five years. He’d watched, breath caught in his throat, as ever so slowly a line of text started to stain into the skin around his wrist. The script was tiny and cramped; barely legible.
What the hell...
Reagan Ridley was his soulmate.
That one someone who was meant for Brett and Brett alone.
His perfect match in this universe.
His one and only built-in best friend.
And she hated him.
Reagan was beyond suspicious of him and Brett couldn’t blame her. He had spent the majority of his life just trying to make himself palatable to everyone around him. Now he laid awake at night not even sure what his favorite color was. He had no special qualities, no unique interests, no personality. It was obvious Reagan thought he was some sort of sleeper agent created in a lab by Abercrombie to steal her job. She hadn’t even mentioned her soulmark appearing. Still, Brett had been determined to make her like him.
So he’d brought bagels to the big day of her robot reveal. Had shown her his Pitbull posters and played her ‘ Crash Into Me ’. He had even tried to give her a cute work nickname, but Reagan was having none of it. Instead she spiraled on and on about how he was nothing and no one and couldn’t be trusted. She’d thrown his resumes and test scores and social media accounts up on a giant screen and Brett had been transfixed by the fire in her exhausted eyes. But then JR was firing her and it was all his fault. He’d wanted to chase after his soulmate as she was escorted from the building, but then JR was telling him to prepare ROBOTUS for Airforce One and that he was in charge now.
“You’re not some flighty genius that’s gonna crack under pressure,” the older man had said, a smile in his voice even as the figurative walls started to close in on his newest employee. “You’re Brett!”
And what had being Brett ever gotten him?
Within a few hours of Reagan leaving, the robot she had declared her life’s work was announcing some sort of weird cube that would go around the entire country and the office was literally on fire. It felt like the end of the world order and Brett had done the first thing that came to mind and called his soulmate, begging for her to come back and fix the mess he just knew was somehow his fault. She’d agreed and Brett had wanted to ask her then; ask her why she hadn’t admitted they were soulmates. Why she hadn’t come to talk with him about the words somewhere on her body. He wanted to ask her if she was embarrassed of him, but it hadn’t seemed like the right time.
Then he was jogging up the stairs with her on his back and that hadn’t seemed like the right time.
Then they were fighting a killer robot in a helicopter and that hadn’t seemed like the right time.
Then JR was giving Reagan her job back and that hadn’t seemed like the right time either.
The right time never came and Brett eventually figured he just needed to leave the ball in Reagan’s court. Even without spending a large amount of time with her, he could tell the scientist needed to feel like she was in control. From the way her father seemed to taint every aspect of her life to the obvious dismissal of her intelligence by JR, Reagan Ridley didn’t seem to get a lot of respect and choice where her life was concerned. Brett made a personal vow to give her both of those things in spades for as long as they were cosmically linked which really meant forever. Because soulmates were forever. His parents had said so.
So instead of pressuring her about starting their life together, Brett committed himself to being Reagan’s friend first and foremost. He helped her interact with their odd team and tried to lend a hand wherever he could. Not that Reagan needed it. For all her lack of social emotional skills, the woman really was a genius. If that wasn’t clear after she’d succeeded in stopping a Cronenburg type JFK monster from escaping Cognito, it was definitely obvious after she’d managed to win a trial against the Reptoid courts. While making some deep personal growth at the same time!
Brett Hand took the time to learn as much as he could about Reagan Ridley. Like the fact that she wasn’t actually a scientist, but a robotics engineer! Watching her experiment with a robot boyfriend and then having the whole thing turn into an ex-machina situation hadn’t been his favorite, but Brett didn’t judge. His soulmate needed time and space to grow and feel comfortable and he was totally comfortable giving that to her. If he still went out of his way to impress her with things like the drone throne and ensuring he was rated a perfect ten on Right Swipe’s attractiveness scoring, that was his own business. He was just biding his time until Reagan felt comfortable enough to bring up the whole ‘destined to be together forever’ thing.
Brett probably should have realized it would only be a matter of time before someone else brought the subject up first. Soulmates were a pretty hot topic after all and he was honestly surprised it had taken the others so long to ask after his. Their team was a collection of interesting soulmate stories without him though. Myc, being from Hollow Earth as well as a mushroom, didn’t have one and found the whole idea of soulmates to be ‘dumb as shit’. Gigi and Andre were a marked pair, but apparently kept their situation casual and open, neither of them ready to be together forever just yet. Glenn’s soulmate had been his wife before his surgery, but once he became half dolphin the words had slowly faded away. Brett didn’t think he’d ever heard something so sad.
“What about you, hot stuff?” Gigi had prompted, elbow deep in a box full of 80’s paraphernalia. “Where’s the Barbie to your Ken?”
Brett had glanced towards the front of the jet, but Reagan hadn’t reacted to their coworker’s question, eyes still focused on the sky ahead of them. They were headed towards Still Valley, Wyoming, dozens of canisters of Nostalgia Max taking up the rear storage unit. She hadn’t offered up any information about her own soulmate or soulmark during the conversation and didn’t seem like she was about to. Brett had shrugged.
“I have my words,” he’d said vaguely, keeping his eyes on the box of scented markers he’d just found. He’d wished Cosmic Berry Blast would take him away from the discussion. “But she’s a bit…shy?”
“She?! Damn. I owe Grassy Noel fifty bucks,” Myc had complained, mushroom cap glowing irately as he tossed about leg warmers and parachute pants haphazardly.
Gigi had asked to see his words, but Brett had deflected, saying they were in an embarrassing place and trying not to pick too obviously at the sleeve of his letterman jacket. He’d comforted himself with the fact that even if it pulled up, his Casio watch would hide the scribble scrabble of words around his wrist. He’d looked towards the front again. Maybe…?
“What about you, Reagan?” he’d asked, voice cracking half way through the question so that he’d had to clear his throat. “Soulmate?”
The rest of their work team had burst into rude and raucous laughter and Reagan had waved it off like she did so much of their jeering, but Brett had been confused. Gigi was the first to regain her composure and she’d smiled up at him with her too-pretty-to-be-natural face. She’d said, “Come on, Brett. You seriously think that woman has met her one and only?”
“Or even has one to begin with?” Andre agreed, flipping a Rubix cube quickly between his slender fingers.
“She probably doesn't have one for the same reason I don’t have one,” Myc had added on, tilting his tall stem thoughtfully, a tentacle poised where Brett had always imagined a mouth would be. “I haven’t ruled out her just being a very ugly mushroom.”
“Oh fuck off, you guys,” Reagan snapped, shoulders stiff in the way Brett had come to realize meant they’d struck a nerve. Like when they called her difficult or criticized her hugs. “I have a soulmate, it’s just…complicated.”
“Sure, Jan,” Glenn had huffed from the co-pilot seat.
Brett had still been confused.
“So…you’ve met your soulmate?” he’d prompted, head feeling like it was full of cotton as he stared a hole into the back of Reagan’s head. “You have a soulmark?”
“Yeah,” she replied with a forced casualness, “I actually met them when I was really young, it just…didn’t work out. Plus my dad would have gone so crazy if he knew, so absolutely none of you can tell-!”
“Wait,” Brett had interrupted, pinching the bridge of his nose as he felt a headache start to bleed behind his eyes. What was she saying? “You didn’t meet your soulmate, like…recently?”
The gang had followed this wild line of questioning like a tennis match and so whipped their heads around to look at Reagan in anticipation of her response. Brett noticed how she'd shifted about awkwardly in the pilot’s seat, one arm coming down to wrap around her middle in some sad semblance of a hug. She’d muttered, “No, dude, I met them almost two decades ago. What’s the big deal?”
Brett’s world had tipped; Brett’s world had spun . Because his soulmate, the one someone who was meant for Brett and Brett alone, his perfect match in this universe, his one and only built-in best friend…wasn’t his soulmate? Or maybe she was his…but he wasn’t hers? Was that a thing? Brett had never heard of anything so disgustingly lonely and if he had he would have done everything he could to avoid it, but now it was too late. Reagan had already met the person she was meant to spend the rest of her life with and even if it hadn’t worked out…it was never going to be him. At that moment Brett had wanted to talk to Reagan about his soulmark, but then they were dropping the Nostalgia Max and Myc out of the back of the jet and it hadn’t seemed like the right time.
Then Reagan was breaking his heart and tearing down The Growing Years and that hadn’t seemed like the right time either.
Then he’d been turned into some sort of nostalgia monster and the fact that he’d lost his soulmate before he’d even met her wasn’t even a blip on his radical radar.
Then Reagan was pulling him out from the depths of some truly awful childhood memories and calling them real BFFs and suddenly it didn’t matter. She was part of his business family forever so maybe…he didn’t have to be her soulmate. She’d hugged him, really hugged him, for the first time and Brett made a new personal vow to be whatever Reagan needed him to be. Even if being her friend never turned into being her soulmate. He just wanted to be in Reagan’s life because she was still his soulmate and he was going to take care of her as much as she would let him. He was definitely going to need a therapist after all the nostalgia trauma anyway so he figured two birds, one stone.
Life carried on.
Mostly things stayed the same, but some things changed too.
Brett and Reagan still worked together, but now they also had movie nights and lunch hangs. He helped her plan her mother’s wedding to herself because he of course had tons of hookups for any and all party scenes. Going dress shopping and cake testing with her became one of Brett’s favorite pastimes. She became his emergency contact. He bought her a ticket to Bora-Bora for her birthday which absolutely everyone else, including her parents, forgot about. In return Reagn taught him how to tie a bow tie.
Things were good.
Even after Tamiko’s wedding was hijacked by flat-earthers and Reagan hooked up with the super spy that saved them, things were good. Even after said super spy became obsessed with Reagan and forced her into hiding and then into a super villain persona, things were good. Even when they all almost died in a sex cult on the moon, things were good. It was absolutely amazing what his therapist could coach him through. Brett made sure to keep up to date with his audio journal so that he could work through the complicated array of emotions that he was constantly experiencing. It wasn’t easy trying to be the best soulmate to his not-soulmate.
Things were good.
Until the mole.
Brett had been so proud of Reagan for finally getting her dream job and so excited to be working for her alongside the gang. He really hadn’t seen any way working for his best friend and the woman he was secretly in love with could be complicated at all. Reagan was smart and ethical and she gave them jackets with their faces on them. She was going to create Cognito 2.0; a Deep State they could trust, but then the security breach had gone and ruined everything on her very first day. The Unspoken File was gone, the gang were all turning on each other, and then Rand Ridley had fallen through the ceiling and made everything ten times worse.
Brett wasn’t proud of the way he had immediately turned on his soulmate’s father, but the stress of the day was really tearing at him and he couldn’t stand the fact that Reagan had turned away from them. From him. Climbing onto Bear-O’s back with her alcoholic dad, she’d run away from everything they’d built and Brett felt his world tipping and spinning all over again. He’d wanted to tell her then. Tell her that she was his soulmate and he would do anything, anything for her if she’d just stay with him but then they were fighting a giant, indestructible Terminator bear and it hadn’t seemed like the right time.
Then Reagan was being lowered into a giant tank of (...ew) Myc’s fluids and that hadn’t seemed like the right time either.
Then Brett was falling into that same tank and…and…