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All Kara’s life she knew she was different. She was incredibly smart for her age and she showed that in her education on Krypton. When she was told her planet was dying, she was not surprised to learn of this. She did not have the chance to reflect on this discovery before she found herself in a pod and sent off into the vastness of space.
Before reaching Earth, her pod was knocked off course and she was stuck inside the phantom zone. It was here that she started to develop a surprisingly strong soul bond. As she sat in her stasis, her emotions were overwhelmed with years of a newly developing soul connection.
Once she left the stasis, her mind was overrun with thoughts about who her soulmate was and why they still exist after the destruction of her home world.
March 6th, 2009:
Once Kara had landed on Earth, she discovered that she was too late to be there to protect her cousin who had already grown up to become Superman but he helped her find a family to live with. After living with the Danvers family for a few years, she turned 16 (2011) and was expecting to obtain the normal Krptonian crest any Krptonian soul bond had. Instead a lightning bolt symbol had formed on her outer thigh without any other words. When she asked Eliza, her foster mom, about this, she learned that this was unheard of on Earth and Eliza said she would contact her cousin and see if he had any answers.
Clark came as soon as he could but did not have the answers Kara wanted. See Clark was raised as a human from infancy. He developed a human’s soul bound. It also did not help that Clark’s bond did not seem to be nearly as strong as Kara’s was.
Around the same time of year, Kara could feel a wave of sadness, grief, and guilt. It seemed to correspond to some date but she couldn’t put her finger on when exactly. Kara was confused on why her soulmate was so sad, from her perspective, humans had everything perfect in life. Even if they didn’t they were surrounded by other humans while Kara’s entire species rested on just her and Clark.
As Kara adapted to human society, she realized all of the hardships humans faced on a daily basis. She saw families torn apart, relationships ruined, friendships broken, and more. Kara was finally understanding what it was like to be human, which made the mystery of her soul mark even more confusing.
January 14, 2015:
On the night of the particle accelerator, everything changed. Kara’s once very active emotional stream from her bond had abruptly ended. Fearing the worst, Kara went to Clark for comfort that night and had decided to become Supergirl. For the next 9 months, Kara had trained hard for her new role as Kansas City’s superhero. It made sense for her to patrol National, she grew up there and most other cities were starting to develop their own heroes such as Portland’s Emerald Archer, New York’s Ironman, New Orleans’s Dark Knight, Chicago’s Fantastic Four, and, of course, Washington DC’s Superman. Kansas City was in desperate need for a hero, the crime rate had spiked since the creation of Meta Humans in the Midwest region of the United States.
A/N: I decided to change some of the fictional cities in my story to make it more interesting for a geography nerd like myself. As interesting as fictional cities are, I thought it would be more interesting to put the heroes in real american cities. As for Novi Grad in the first chapter, I decided to keep Wanda’s home city since that is important to her and her story but it could realistically be related to any major eastern European city, Kiev, Moscow, St. Petersburg, etc.
October 14, 2015:
After those agonizing 9 months, Kara’s bond was sending her emotional signals again, but this time it was to the point of a complete emotional connection. For the majority of the day, Kara knew her soulmates every mood, in times of good and times of bad. Not only this but she had formed words underneath the lightning bolt, “Supergirl?” She decided, after 2 confusing months of mood swings, that she would go and actively seek out her soulmate.
To Kara, there were a few things that were unique to her soulmate. Firstly, the night of the particle accelerator explosion, their emotions had completely stopped and secondly that the emotions had come back 9 months later. She also understood that somewhere in Colorado, it had been reported that a strange meta-human hero had popped up that had super speed. This hero, coincidentally, only appeared 9 months after the explosion. With all of this information, Kara decided that this was where she was going to look first.
December 6, 2015:
Once arriving in Denver, Kara was alerted to a robbery in a nearby bank. After flying to the scene she saw what she could only describe as a bolt of lightning chase down the getaway car and arrest the criminals. Thanks to her own super speed and enhanced senses, Kara could make out a man inside the lightning. After the robbers were arrested, Kara tried to confront the hero and heard the speedster say “Supergirl?” In a bright red flash, Kara’s body exploded into light and she screamed. Fearing that he had somehow hurt or angered the super-heroine, the speedster ran off before Kara could regain her composure and ask him who he was.
December 23, 2015:
After searching for a few weeks and stopping small crimes every now and then, Kara could not find her soulmate. She knew that the speedster was a hero and worked in the state but couldn’t figure out a specific location that he operated out of. He seemed to be everywhere in Colorado, Wyoming, and Nebraska in a matter of seconds and it made it hard to triangulate his position. Luckily, while in Fort Collins, the site of the S.T.A.R. Labs Particle Accelerator, she encountered the speedster again and decided to confront her soulmate for the first time, knowing she needed to act quickly if she wanted to go home for the holidays. “You're a hard man to find,” she said and, as she expected, the speedster erupted into a bright blue light. After letting the bond settle, she was finally able to hold a conversation with the man.
“Oh man, who knew that I was the soulmate of Supergirl, I mean I guess this explains the weird symbol I have on my arm,” he said as he turned to show her his mark. At first Kara was surprised, her family’s crest was well known on Earth and would have been identified easily and, since kryptonian soul marks usually showed family crests, she thought her soulmate would know to look for her. Surprisingly, the speedster’s soul mark was not her family’s crest but instead the actual kryptonian word/character for hope. On his left arm, surrounding the distinguishing mark were the words she first said to him completing his soul mark.
“I think it is finally time for introductions,” Kara said, as she shook his hand, “My name is Kara Zor-El but on Earth I go by Kara Danvers.”
“Barry Allen,” he responded, “It’s nice to finally meet you. I’m sure we both have a lot more to talk about. Let’s head back to STAR labs, and I’ll introduce you to the team. After that we can get to know each other better.” With that, they raced back to STAR, Barry holding back enough to allow her to beat him there even though he could leave her in the dust.