Wait For It - Jason Todd x Reader, Soulmate AU

Wait For It

Everyone is born with a bracelet. No one knows for sure why, whether it be evolution, fate, or God trying to makes things easier on humanity, but before you even take your first breath, the bracelet appears on your wrist. The color always starts out muted, on the very coldest end of the color spectrum. It is different for everyone, but most are born with a deep true blue. Very rarely is a person born with a green or even a purple bracelet, closer to the warmth of meeting their soulmate. Scientists had figured out long ago that the color of your bracelet changed with age, not distance, which kept many a lonely heart from wandering the world in search of their love.

Y/N's parents were both born with purple bracelets. They met in middle school and continued on to be high school sweethearts. Even after being together so long, the bright white of their bracelets had yet to fade in the slightest.

Y/N, like the majority of the world, was born with the deep blue that meant she wouldn't meet her soulmate for many years. She tried not to be jealous of her baby sister's green wrist. Everyone has a soulmate right? And all good things come to those who wait. Everyday of her life she would wake up and check for any hint of change on her wrist, but for many years it remained blue.

She and her family, like many, decided to take pictures of the bands on birthdays to see the color change over the years. One of the happiest days in her memory was the day she realized that her band had become the slightest bit more purple since last year.

The day her little sister's band turned white was painful and yet she was still happy. Her band was a lot more purple than it had once been, and she still had a long time to meet her mate. She watched many of her friends meet their soulmates in middle school and high school. She watched them and was content with the blue-purple of her band.

Until one day, she woke up in the middle of the night to see the purple fading into black. She turned on the light just in time to see the darkness spread until it engulfed every bit of pigment. She felt a cold chill engulf her entire body.

They were dead. Whoever they were. She would never meet her soulmate. She felt like oxygen was no longer enough for her body. She was lightheaded and the room was spinning, but no matter how much air she gulped, it didn't change the emptiness in her chest.

She didn't realize she was making noise until her parents burst into the room to find her sobbing and clutching her wrist to her chest.

Things changed after that. She tended to wear long sleeves or tie a wide ribbon over her band. For a little while she would pretend the band wasn't black underneath. For a while she even would have sworn it was dark purple, but when she finally had the courage to look again, it was just as black as she remembered.

After several months, she grew used to it. The pain wasn't as constant and seeing the black didn't sting as bad. So she embraced it. She stopped trying to cover the fact that her soulmate was dead. People still flinched when they saw the black band on the wrist of one so young, only 17 and already alone. Many even went so far as to apologize, as if the words of a stranger could possibly change the color of her wrist.

One day, long after she had come to terms with the fact that she would never have a soulmate, she woke up to find her bracelet of magenta. Something had changed and she was much closer to meeting her soulmate than she had ever been before. She felt that same breathless feeling she had felt so long ago when her bracelet had first turned black. She had spent so long coming to terms with never meeting her soulmate that the idea of suddenly having one again was world shattering. What had suddenly changed? Why now? After all she had been through? Asking questions wasn't going to change the color of her wrist and only time would bring the answers so she continued on best she could.

She heard about the new vigilante in town. He was shaking things up and making life hard for a lot of bad people, but he also stood against Batman. She didn't really have a strong opinion about him, other than she didn't want to get on his bad side.

She pretended not to notice how warm her bracelet was beginning to look. The fiery red her band was becoming, but it almost seemed to glow at times. She took to wearing long sleeved shirts again.

She didn't expect her life to change again so soon, but not too long later she found herself in the wrong place at the wrong time. She was walking home from work when the Red Hood stumbled out of an alley and fell onto the sidewalk in front of her. She didn't really put a lot into helping him, but before she knew it he was lying unconscious on her couch while she patched up his wounds.

She knew the moment he woke up. His breathing changed before he grabbed her wrist, his hand closing over her band. She let him gain his bearings and stayed silent while he realized he wasn't in danger. Even though she had left his helmet on, she could tell the moment his eyes fixed on hers.

"Who are you?" His voice came out, garbled and a bit unnatural.

"Nobody." She answered quietly.

They sat studying each other for several seconds before his eyes caught sight of his band. It was a vibrant snowy white against his skin. He slowly released her hand and gently moved the fabric of her sleeve to find that her band was the same.

That now familiar breathless feeling came back. Luckily her soulmate has good reflexes and caught her before she slipped of the couch and onto the floor.

"Are you okay?" He asked, extremely concerned at how his soulmate had reacted.

She nodded and steadied herself. He cautiously let her go and reached for his helmet. He lifted it off to reveal an attractive young man with dark hair and bright blue eyes.

"Hi, I'm Jason. And I guess I'm your soulmate, doll."