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The Concealer always hurts; it’s bonding with the skin on a molecular level so of course it’s going to hurt. But Bruce has sprung for tech updates again, and the Concealer attach time has been reduced to only three seconds of burning sharp prickling instead of five. When Dick first started this business it had been an agonizing twenty four seconds, and apparently before Bruce had started fixing the formula it had been left at the subpar level of working after a whole entire minute. Ick.
It’s interesting, the chemical makeup and workings of the Concealer. Wally geeks out over it all the time which is ironically hilarious seeing as he’s kind of a nonbeliever in the ‘science’ behind soulmates. “Everything in the human body has been designed with specific, logical, survival intentions. Through evolution,” he argues. “Why in the world would our left palms suddenly decide ‘hey, it would be really good for survival if I showed people the names of people they should monogamously hook up with’? Like, it discourages the primal instinct to try and mate as much and with as many people as possible, letting the human race live on. Makes. No. Sense.”
And by ‘kind of a nonbeliever’ Dick means Wally is a full out atheist in the ism of soulmates.
“And while you may have a tiny bit of a point,” Artemis says. “You seem to be forgetting that, uh, we still all have these marks anyway.” She holds out her left hand to show the Cassandra Sandsmark written there as clear as day and she scoffs at him. “I think you’re just angry that you can’t get laid.”
Wally frigidly glares at her with all his might. “Ha ha, you’re hilarious,” he grouses and Dick swallows his laughter.
The two of them have dated before, and it shows in arguments like these. Artemis is all about choosing what constitutes as her destiny and living in the now so had been down for it, while Wally had just wanted to prove that these marks on their hands don’t mean anything. And it’s not that there wasn’t a spark and there wasn’t good chemistry – they had a really good run at it. But this constantly at each other’s throat thing…it played a huge part in both their getting together and breaking up and really, it’s just funny to what extent Wally is proof to his own counterargument.
“I can’t wait to tell Linda Park all about these theories of yours,” Dick snickers, and Wally blushes and hides his hand, despite that he’s got the Concealer on already. Artemis rolls her eyes and attaches the black patch onto her hand, only gritting her teeth against the burn.
“Done,” she says triumphantly when the three seconds pass.
Dick grins at them both, the three of them all in stealthwear (well, his wear is always stealthwear, to be honest). It’s a small team today because it’s a sneaky job to do, and fewer numbers mean fewer chances at being caught. “You guy ready to go do some convert ops?”
+++
They try not to have those kinds of conversations around Superboy.
(He hears them anyway. His superhearing only has so many volume down notches.)
He’s a clone, so of course he doesn’t get a soulmate.
It’s just. Not fair. Superman’s an alien so why should he get a soulmate, why should he be so close to similar to humans that he’s always been destined to end up on Earth and marry someone?
(No one knows who. No one within the superhero community ever knows who with the heroes who are serious about keeping their IDs secret – like Batman, Superman, and even Robin. And no one outside of the community ever knows any of the superheroes’ and sidekicks’ soulmates – that’s the whole point of the Concealer.)
Superboy just thinks he might not mind his suspiciously blank palm so much if it turned out that his source material was like that too. If he wasn’t so alone in being alone.
+++
He could love M’gann, maybe. When they go to school she gives herself a fake soulmate on her hand along with her other more humanoid changes, because Martians don’t work the same way as humans.
They’re talking about what names she should put before the first day when she explains it. “Martians kind of just…know. You feel them from the inside out, right? On Mars everyone’s feelings and personalities are out on display, so you just feel that…connection when you meet the one. It all clicks into place.” She pauses and smoothes her skirt a little with her right hand while staring at her still blank palm. “…So I’ve heard, anyway.”
“Oh,” Superboy says. Dumb, he thinks to himself. Dummy, that was beautiful and all he can say is ‘oh’? “So…so Martians can only fall in love with other Martians?”
She frowns and shifts writing onto her hand that reads John Doe. “I don’t think so. I mean, I plan on staying here so I guess it’s more that I hope not. But some human out there could have M’gann M’orzz on their hand.”
“Superman’s soulmate has his name on their hand, I think. Destiny probably takes into account aliens and space travel,” Superboy points out. “And I don’t think you can use that name. It’s kind of a give away that it’s fake.”
She hums and removes it, still thinking. “Then what name…? Oh!” She looks up from her palm and instead at him, face panicked and twisted into something indescribably sad. “Wouldn’t that mean – I mean. They say there’s not a guarantee that soulmates meet or sometimes one dies beforehand or… And if people have aliens as soulmates, isn’t that horrible? I mean, if there’s someone out there with my name and – and I don’t have their name, I don’t know who I’m looking for. Or that I should be looking.” She frowns down at her palm and Superboy clenches his left hand shut, something inside him suddenly hot and tight. “People like that…might not meet.”
“Is it really so bad, not to have a soulmate,” Superboy growls. “Why can’t everyone just live their life and not worry about that kind of stuff?”
Her eyes are full of worry and guilt when she looks at him, and she touches his arm gently. “Sorry Superboy, you’re right. And at least we have each other, right?”
And he remembers: he could love M’gann. Maybe. There’s nothing predetermined for them here so. So there’s a chance.
“Yeah,” he says, smiling a little at her to let M’gann know he’s okay. “So what name should you fake?”
+++
Kaldur tries not to explain to the others. He likes letting them assume that the mark on his hand is Atlantean, is like their Russian and their Chinese and their many many other written languages that do not share the same alphabetical symbols – that they simply cannot read his language, read this symbol, read who is his soulmate. It is lucky for him that the King has a different mark or else clearer explanations would be needed, assumptions would not be allowed to let lay where they have been made.
(It is a bit funny, Kaldur thinks idly sometimes, that they remember that M’gann is not human always, but him only sometimes. Though, given his mixed status, that may not be a fair accusation on his part.)
Superboy notices – connects the dots – first. Probably because he is obsessed with what he does not and cannot have. Possibly because Cadmus pumped his brain full of encyclopedic knowledge of who-knows-how-much of who-knows-what. “I don’t really know Atlantean or anything,” Superboy starts out faltering, cautiously, gesturing at Kaldur’s hand. “But uh, your mark.”
Kaldur waits, then opens his palm to show the mark when Superboy withdraws into a brooding silence without further explanation. “Yes, Superboy?” He never wishes to discourage nor shy away from what his palm means in his world, just often chooses not to go out of his way to correct (sometimes he’s not sure if that’s any better, but…).
“That’s not Greek, I don’t think,” Superboy finally blurts, looking everywhere around the room except at Kaldur’s face. “It’s similar but – I learned Greek and – and Aquaman too, his isn’t Greek either.”
Kaldur looks down at his hand and traces his palm carefully with his index finger, because he too has things his does not and cannot have. “No, you are right. It is Phoenician. We have Phoenician letters as markers.”
Superboy still is avoiding his eyes, but his face scrunches in only mild bewilderment and he doesn’t ask for elaboration on Phoenician itself – maybe the basics of language development are something his education has covered. “But aren’t your names longer than a single letter? I mean…Kal-dur-ahm. That’s three syllables, plenty of letters.”
Kaldur smiles slightly in amusement, because Superboy can be very unintentionally funny sometimes. “You are right. This is the letter ‘bet’,” he explains, though he may not need to: maybe Superboy has a working knowledge of how to read Phoenician, he knows both Surface and Atlantean Greek after all and the similarities are not so difficult to find. “When we are born, depending on the month, there are a few different letters Atlanteans may end up having. Your soulmate is someone who has the same letter as you, so in that sense it is the same as here on the Surface.”
Superboy frowns harder still and he tilts his head, trying to understand. “How many different marks – uh, letters, for each month?”
“About four. And the letters cycle by month.” Kaldur really does not mind so much explaining this process to others, but it is always hard to gauge. How much is too much? When does he lose his listener’s interest? When does he lose his listener’s intent to really understand?
Such subtleties normally hold Kaldur back. But he will discuss this as freely as he can with Superboy because he knows there aren’t certain stigmas that will immediately follow this conversation. “There are twenty two Phoenician letters and our ancient calendar had thirteen months, so the cycles are not split in a way that matches modern, Western calendars neatly, but…”
Kaldur thinks of showing him how the letter cycle banks look for each month and how each of those months falls in relation to the months of a Gregorian calendar, but immediately thinks against it. Paper and pencil and breaking down the old calendar is a little more intensive than even Superboy, in his infinite curiosity and attempts to understand everything in this world, is looking for. And the cycle itself is hardly the important part people of the Surface focus on. “Honestly Superboy, those specifics get a little complicated for casual explaining. All you really need to understand is that there are quite a few others who have bet: those born in my month of birth, and those born in two other months as well, thanks to the way the cycle breaks down.”
Superboy is listening closely, carefully. “So…there are others born in your month who don’t have bet too, right? And in those other two months?”
Perhaps, Kaldur thinks as he nods, it would not be such a stretch to draw the specifics out for Superboy. He seems very interested in them after all. “Yes. Bet reoccurs three times in the thirteen month calendar. Months that share letters are usually called sister months.” Kaldur thinks about using the months’ names, but ultimately decides against it, because those names are related to and derived from Babylonian culture and testing the lengths of Superboy’s education is for another day. “Two of the sister months with bet, months one and twelve, share the same letter bank. The sixth month shares only two of the letters with its sisters.”
“Ah…‘letter bank’?” Superboy asks.
It is hard to remember when casual terminology needs clarification, but Kaldur backtracks without a pause. “The letter bank is all the four letters Atlanteans born in a month can possibly be marked with – for my birth month it would be alf, bet, gaml, and delt. Since it all cycles, there are a few sister months that have the exact same letters, and thus share a letter bank.”
Now Superboy looks absolutely mystified, though Kaldur is not exactly sure why – letter banks and sister months are not exactly the most amazing subjects, honestly. Superboy reaches out hesitantly for a second before his hands snap back to his side, like he wants to touch Kaldur’s palm but thinks he should not. And…Kaldur does not mind. Superboy is so young and unsure and trying so hard to learn about these sorts of things. It is fine.
So Kaldur holds out his palm. “You can touch it, if you want.”
It is telling how eager he is, as Superboy takes the offer without a second pause, his fingers running lightly along the dark lines of sharp angles of the symbol. It tickles, just a little. “How do you guys find each other, though?” He looks up at Kaldur, expression very obviously schooled into what he thinks will portray disinterest. It looks like a grimace instead.
Kaldur shrugs and he too looks at his palm. Here is where the trouble usually starts when he explains. “Good fortune, I suppose. There is not any specificity, just… You know you are compatible with people who share your sign. I know someone with bet will be the one.” He thinks of Tula and Garth, and how in his youth that they all shared the same letter led him to believe their friendship was stronger than most and would last forever. He sometimes still believes that, but it gets harder every day. For many, and sometimes contradicting, reasons. Like distance. And like love.
Superboy’s eyes are wide even as he keeps tracing the skin of Kaldur’s hand. He has a question, but he keeps it to himself, clearly waiting for more. Kaldur obliges him and goes on, though unsure what it is Superboy is looking for. “It is better odds than nothing. And we have professionals on the court who read astrology and use divination and other magic to narrow the search – though that is used mostly to match up important officials and rich families.”
Kaldur hears how that sounds (that only the rich can afford love), and does not like it – because it is not like that. He tries to address the possibility of such preconceived notions best he can. “There are less renowned but still certified matchers outside the kingdom capital, of course. And anyway, even with this field it is still not a sure thing for anyone.”
And though that is the way it is, it sounds foreboding and condemning once he has said it. Kaldur does not know how to make sure the fact that this just is, and that it is not a problem to be mourned, come across. Superboy is still tentatively touching, silently asking with an almost-frown on his face. Kaldur wishes he would use his words, tell Kaldur what he is looking for. He cannot keep guessing and throwing out what is probably an overload of information.
“It is also said that depending on how sensitive and attuned you are to magic it is possible to, ah, feel out your one.” Kaldur does not know if those are the right words, but they feel right enough. “I know Wally is skeptical of the humans’ marks but for Atlanteans the letters are explained as a sort of natural magic. It shows our connection to it and that the potential to utilize it is in our blood. It is how our ancestors got the idea to begin experimenting with the tattoos.” He uses his free hand to gesture at his left arm as an example.
Though Superboy angles his head further forward as he inspects the letter closely, blocking off most of his face from view, Kaldur can sense his frown deepening again. “Folklore, huh? But does any of that really happen in real life? The magic and feeling out your soulmate and stuff?”
His fingers really are tickling Kaldur’s palm now, and Kaldur wonders what he is looking for that can be found through such prolonged touching. “It has been said the Queen knew right away when she and the King met that they were meant to be. And that the King felt something so strongly that he was struck speechless.” Kaldur smiles a bit at the thought – his King left without words at the very presence of the Queen. At how even if this story is propaganda of the court and of the union of the monarch (and it very well could be, Kaldur has no delusions of that possibility), this truly happens now: he has seen it in person. “But no, such immediate conviction does not happen often.”
Superboy hums. He then slowly and finally, somewhat shyly, pulls his hands away, eyes still locked on Kaldur’s letter. Kaldur is beginning to feel a little self conscious about it, so he closes his hand and brings it back to his side.
“That’s…different,” Superboy murmurs after a long pause, voice strained in awe. “That’s really different. Why don’t you tell the others?” He looks up quickly, as if he’s actually just heard his own question. “Yeah, why isn’t this public knowledge or whatever? About Atlanteans, I mean.”
Kaldur exhales slowly and smiles depreciatively at the question. Yes, here it is, that moment. “First of all it is a complicated explanation. People up here with such an easy system are not expecting the need for…exposition to understand.”
Superboy’s eyebrows furrow a little at that but Kaldur only shrugs, because that is the least troublesome part. “The other reason is…well. It tends to create a sense of pity from others – humans, who know so specifically, pity how we don’t have the same certainty.” Even though they are in turn pitied by Atlanteans who know of the Surface’s ways, because humans let their destinies and lives be controlled so much by this one certainty. “And it also kept bringing up an offensive counterpoint when my King was first attempting to interact with the Surface and become a hero.”
Superboy’s eyebrows are now deeply furrowed in a mix of anger and confusion. “Counterpoint?”
Kaldur suddenly worries – is that not the right word for it? “Argument – debate,” he tries instead. No, perhaps – “Theory?”
Superboy blinks as he tries to understand. “I don’t – what? What were people saying?”
Right, Kaldur reminds himself, semantics are not always stifling if enough context is there. “They were discussing the worth of my people’s life,” Kaldur explains slowly, aiming for a tone that is as though he is speaking of the weather, as though he is unaffected and unharmed by such assumptions. “It all revolved around rumors of rampant immoral polygamy, and how we were species-supremacists since the system is less compatible with non-Atlanteans.”
Kaldur has more bitter and opinionated thoughts on this matter than he wants to let on. It is true that polyamory is not at all uncommon, but the word and concept are not nearly as negative among Atlanteans as it is on the Surface. The claim of supremacy through incompatibility, however, is ridiculous. Because – well, how many Atlanteans’ names had been on human hands before? Did it not go both ways, this lack of species intermingling? But Kaldur keeps these interjections to himself.
“The theory,” Kaldur says instead. “Claimed there was brutish and savage behavior Atlanteans were sure to inherently exhibit because of frustration at our inability to ‘truly’ locate our significant others. It was as if we were less than humans because we do not have the exact names on our hands. As if that means something.”
He has failed at keeping his voice neutral, words edging into something audibly upset, and Superboy is looking at him with apparent concern. So Kaldur takes a deep breath before going on. “When the King proved his worth as a hero on the Surface, the League did its best with its influence and connections to discourage the rumors and bad press. Which led to everyone simply…not talking about it. The only way to stop getting attacked was to stop letting them know there was a target to aim at.” Kaldur shrugs, trying his best at nonchalance. “And since years have passed since the initial shock of Atlanteans existing and the King’s entering the League, the public knowledge of a difference in Atlantean and human ways has…‘fizzled out’, I think is the term.”
“That’s horrible,” Superboy says immediately, bristling. He is visibly startled and bothered by such issues. “What’s wrong with your way? I like it. It’s not so black and white – or something. Not so restricting, I guess.”
Kaldur smiles at him, grateful, and carefully pushes thoughts of Tula and Garth (and maybe not friends forever, maybe something else and more, or maybe nothing at all because of his choices, but – ) to the back of his mind. “Thank you.”
Superboy smiles back, soft and small, for a moment – but then his expression becomes troubled once again. “Wait, so the others…?”
“If they ask I will tell them,” Kaldur says. “M’gann possibly already knows due to her studies or her powers. Robin too, with Batman as his mentor. But the others’ level of understanding and their immediate prejudices, however slight and harmless, may be apparent.”
Kaldur thinks briefly of Roy after finding out and his initial stumbling attempts to avoid bringing up any talk of soulmates, any accidental remarks – and Kaldur had to sit him down and tell him that the difference in treatment was offensive, explain in depth the cycles and the letters and the high rates of Atlanteans finding and loving their significant others and that his culture wasn’t something that needed pity.
So Kaldur says quietly, hoping he will not have to explain this, too, “And I do not feel like dealing with that. Not yet.”
Superboy nods slowly, eyes drifting to Kaldur’s hand by his side. “Right. I understand.”
And Kaldur thinks of Superboy’s empty palm, the startled and wary looks Superboy sometimes gets when the people they save see it, that Superboy has to wear a wrist brace that covers his palm to school and lie about childhood accidents and severely injured muscles – and how he said restricting but now Kaldur hears the word ostracizing lurking underneath it. And Kaldur knows he of all people really does understand what he means.