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She remembered when she was younger. The way she would trace her fingers over the name on her wrist. It had been confusion at first (though later it had turned into something else). When she’d gotten old enough for the name to appear, she had spent too long staring down at the five letters that made up her own name.
D-I-N-A-H .
Her name.
Though its not her handwriting. It’s a little too messy for that, sloppy around the edges. The D significantly larger than the other letters crammed together on the space on the inside of her right wrist. The A written more like a squashed O than the letter that she knows it's meant to be. But still unmistakable.
She had spent hours before when she was younger trying her best to imitate it, to make the pattern of her own letters match the ones that marred her skin a familiar reminder of her soulmate .
A woman with her own name.
There was always something incredibly narcissistic about it.
Something that Dinah had been certain that she wasn’t made for. Something that she had been certain was nearly impossible, her name a rare enough one as it was, that the thought of two people with the same name somehow destined for each other had seemed foolish at best. Though it hadn’t stopped her when she was younger for looking up every Dinah that she could in hopes of finding someone with the same name on their wrist.
Without ever any success.
As she had gotten older she had started to stare down at the letters and insist that maybe it was all just a sign, that she was her own soulmate, that she didn’t need anyone else. It had certainly helped the feeling of loneliness, of an inability to commit, of the inability to make a lasting emotional connection with anyone, but now -
Now that she knew the truth it was...
Different.
She almost wishes for those days where she was naive enough to believe that she could be her soulmate, when the reality was who actually was her soulmate was staring back at her with that smug smirk, leather jacket, and bloody gash above her eye that Dinah had put there less than an hour before.
The infamous Black Siren, who had gone by her first name back on her Earth... Dinah .
Seeing her like this, out of the costume and in normal clothing, it’s impossible not to see the letters that stand out dark against Black Siren’s wrists, in her own handwriting, small cramped capital letters, unmistakably the style of writing that she had mastered during her police academy training. Her name clear as day on Siren’s wrist. The wrist that Dinah had been handcuffing into place a moment before, making the mistake of bumping theirs together just for a moment.
Soulmate mark against soulmate mark.
Something traitorous inside of her had instinctively reacted to the contact.
It had been impossible to deny at the touch, the rush of feelings that had come from coming in contact with her soulmate. She had read up on what it would feel like, back when she was younger and had fantasized about finding the woman that was meant for her, but she had not imagined that it would feel like this.
She knew that it had meant the second she had felt feelings that weren’t her own. Pain from wounds that Dinah had inflicted upon the other woman… Upon her apparent soulmate. As well as desire and frustration all mixed together.
The desire was most shocking off all.
But the truth was she had thought about it, Siren was frustrating and evil and had taken one of closest things Dinah had to happen away from her, but she had always been nice to look at. Always been the person that Dinah couldn’t tear her eyes away from in the middle of a fight. As if drawn to her by an unknown cause. Only now Dinah knew the cause.
Now she was cuffing Siren into place, listening to her say, “Are you always this rough with all your partners?”
Teasing Dinah, with a smirk on her lips, like she knows all of Dinah’s secrets from just the lightest touch.
Maybe she did.
The mythos of soulmates has never been completely understood.
Some bonds stronger than others, when they had time to their advantage.
“You’re not my partner,” Dinah hisses out.
She takes a step back from Siren instinctively, a step that the other woman does her best to mimic despite being tied down. Dinah watches she leans forward, pushing her body away from the wall and as close to Dinah as manageable with the cuffs.
As if she yearns for the contact.
Everyone talks about the connection soulmates needed after first contact, the desire by their souls to be as close as possible to solidify the bond. A small part of Dinah yearns to do the same to step into Siren’s space. Another part of her refuses to do that, after all that this woman has done to her, the fact that they are to now be soulmates was the most cruel twist of all.
To now be - no, that wasn’t right.
They were always soulmates.
She was always meant for this.
Somehow.
In some horrible way.
“You’re my soulmate,” Siren says, matter of fact still in that terribly smug way, the words that Dinah knew but didn’t want to admit. Had been hoping to avoid having the conversation as long as possible. “I know you can feel it.”
She can.
Of course she could.
How could she not?
“If you think I’m just going to love you because of this, you’re insane, you killed-” Dinah stops unable to finish the sentence, not wanting to even look at the other woman any longer.
Siren makes a sort of sharp angry sound at that.
Enough that Dinah jerks her head back to Siren in an instant.
Meeting eyes that were dark and angry even though if anyone had the right to be angry it should be Dinah .
“On my Earth if someone touches your soulmate you kill them so that nobody ever makes that mistake again,” Siren says.
Her words are dark and possessive.
Demanding attention.
Demanding so much more than that.
Not for the first time Dinah wonders what exactly Earth 2 was like… From what little she’d heard about Earth X… If the other Earths came even close to that, then maybe whatever made the woman in front of her into the monstrous Black Siren had something to do with that.
Regardless, she refuses to feel compassion.
Refuses to give into the tugging in her soul.
That compels her to stay as close to this woman as possible.
That compels her to uncuff her, to remove her restraints and pull her in.
“We’re not on Earth 2,” Dinah points out, “And what, you’re saying that you knew we were soulmates before just now?”
That Dinah couldn’t believe.
There was no way.
If she had known surely she would have rubbed it in Dinah’s face by now, used it to the advantage in our of their numerous faceoffs. Instead she had never mentioned it, never implied, never used it to attempt to win Dinah over to her side.
“Of course, I knew,” Siren insists.
“How?”
That one word renders Siren silent for a moment.
A brief second that before would have felt like relief but now feels like the worst sort of anticipation.
The way she looks aside now, away from Dinah, some of her own bravado fading in an instant and how when she does speak it’s with the softest of echoes, the most carefully chosen of tones, “Soulmates seem to carry across Earth's.”
There’s something about that.
An implication that Dinah cannot avoid.
As much as she would very much like to.
It made sense. The whole concept of soulmates hinged on the idea of being made for each other, surely that would carry across the universes.
She rubs at the name on her wrist, instinctively as a reflex, wondering if there was some other version of her on another Earth with a named that had faded when Siren had been brought across.
“That doesn’t-” change things .
She had been meaning to say, but she’s saved from saying the words. Words that she still wasn’t entirely certain that she meant. Words that seemed to go against the will of her very soul.
By a third person joining the room -
She turns away from Siren, away from her soulmate , to where Quentin stands. Barely listening to what he’s saying, barely able to focus on much of anything. But she tries to brings herself back to the present, concentrating on the mission at hand.
Whatever was going on with her and Siren would have to wait until later.
When she could figure out whether she wanted to kiss her or kill her.