Okay, so Carter had seen his mother’s soulmark. He wasn’t supposed to have seen it, obviously – soulmarks were private, up until the point they were actually said. The fact that he had seen it, of course, was a secret that everyone knew. A lot of children had seen their parents’ soulmarks, and it was kind of a secret, unsaid tradition that your children knew your soulmark.
But Cat Grant was notorious for not showing her soulmark, even in private – she’d talked about it once, on her show, and it invited many views. These days, celebrities’ soulmarks were well-known, the paparazzi getting paid a lot of money for good mark-shots. Carter’s mark had been photographed before, to his misfortune, but his was in a very easily-seen place, the black ivy and dark grey aster that would eventually fill with colour tracing around the left of his face, over his eyebrow. It was another reason for his dad to ignore him.
Every mark meant something. His mark being flowers just made it easier to discern. His dad’s mark was a flower too – an orange lily. Hatred.
His mother’s mark was on her stomach, just above her belly-button. It seemed that flowers were a thing on both sides of his family, because hers was a strange mix of symbols, twirling in a spiral of azalea petals in such a beautiful, realistic way that if it hadn’t been tattooed to his mother’s skin, he would have thought it real. He’d been fascinated with it for a long time, but his mother never let him see it again. Sometimes, he tried to remember what the symbols were like – he’d draw them idly on his skin when he was bored.
Like now.
“So do you, uh, want some juice, or something?” Kara questioned him awkwardly. Carter looked at the girl. She was trying, he could tell, but she wasn’t used to looking after kids, and obviously nervous.
“No, I’m good.” He went back to writing on his arm, only to jerk as Kara knocked over something on her desk. He looked up, staring, expecting her to curse, or something, tidy up maybe – but she had her eyes locked on his arm, on the writing. He glanced at it. “Can you read it?”
“How…that’s my name, nearly.” She looked confused. Carter blinked.
“Your name?” He peered at the symbols – so it was a language after all. “So it says Kara Danvers?”
“No, it’s a really badly spelled version of my real name.” Kara reached over, taking his wrist gently and staring at the symbols like they were the Holy Grail. “I haven’t- I haven’t seen my name written down like this in…a long time.”
Carter frowned at her. “Aren’t you American?” She paused, then shook her head, letting go of his arm. “What are you then?”
“Something else. I was adopted, after the last of my people died. Well, after nearly all my people died. I was separated from them.”
Carter twisted in his seat, “Were you from a tribe or something?” Kara’s lip quirked.
“No, not a tribe. More like a supremely advanced civilisation in hiding. Here.” She grabbed a notepad from her desk, and a pen, then – with an ease Carter had never seen before – she wrote out the symbols that were tattooed on his mother’s skin.
And that was when it clicked.
“Oh my god, you’re her.” Carter stared. “But you’ve already met!” Kara looked at him with a frown.
“What?”
Carter moved his hands back and forth, trying not to attract too much attention from anyone surrounding them while he had his revelation, while also trying to explain to Kara without explaining that his mother had her name.
“Carter, you’re acting weird.”
“Where- where I saw this,” he put his hand on the notepad, eyes wide. “It’s important what I saw this on.” Everything about this was weird and strange – Kara was like, not even thirty! His mother was fifty, or fifty-one – he wasn’t quite sure, as they didn’t celebrate her birthday – and twenty years? Really? Carter had never seen a soulmate gap so big before. Five years, ten, even but twenty?
“Where did you see my name before, Carter?” Her eyes were wide behind her glasses, before they suddenly became disturbed. “Do- do you have that name?” It took a second to translate, before Carter shook his head sharply. Kara slumped in her seat, looking relieved.
“Good. That- if you had my name I’d never forgive myself.”
Things aren’t making sense. Carter pursed his lips. “Kara, how do soulmate marks work? For your people?” Kara looked at him with fearful eyes. “I won’t tell, I promise.” The way she talked about it – her people had to have different soulmarks.
It was the only idea he could think of, sue him.
Kara looked nervous. She fiddled with her glasses, before clasping her hands together.
“My, uh…my people, our soulmarks are names, that don’t come until we’ve, uh, made something for ourselves – found our place in society.”
Carter looked at her, appalled. “But that could take forever.”
Kara looked strained, “On my- in my civilisation, we were given a place, and usually soon after, our marks came in. On Earth- in National City, I mean, uh, in National City it’s harder, obviously, but I’ll get there – I’ll get my mark.”
“And what will it be like? Will it be a name? A picture?”
Kara flushed, “In my people’s society, it was a name, but…if they weren’t from our civilisation, it was a name, like in our culture, and something from there’s, so…a picture and a name, probably, unless they’re dead.” She looked sad, at that, and in pain. Carter looked down, remembering what she said before. After nearly all my people died. She probably felt so lonely – and to have not used her language in years must have been terrible.
“How long did it take you to learn English?”
“A few days – I already had the basics down. It was more the cultural and social aspects that confused me,” Kara explained. Carter nodded, thinking more on that.
“Teach me how to write in your language?”
Kara blinked, “You- you want to learn?”
“Yeah. And apparently-” Carter grinned “-I’ve been writing your name wrong. What’s your name then, anyway, if it’s not Kara Danvers?”
Kara smiled.
“Kara Zor-El.”
“The end of Working Girl always makes me cry.”
Cat smiled, “Me too.” She was going to leave, happy in leaving her former-assistant to herself – only for her eyes to stray to the girl’s cheek, where her skin was shimmering and colouring. “Kara – what’s that?” She frowned, stepping forwards quickly, reaching up to take her chin softly, pushing her cheek sideways to watch as a golden bouquet of daffodil started drawing itself on her face in a long line, curving from her forehead to her chin.
“Kara, why is-” she stopped, watching in fascination as Catherine Grant wrote itself onto her skin in tiny, black italic, edging the petal of the centre daffodil – small enough that from a distance it would look like a shadow. Dear God above.
“Ms Grant?”
“I think you should call me Cat,” the CEO muttered, before feeling an amazing warmth in her stomach, tracing her soulmark like a fine-haired paintbrush. Swallowing, she let go of her chin, stepping back and smiling tightly. “Get settled into your office.”
And then she did the cowardly thing and ran off.
Visiting Winn and James half an hour later, Kara was grinning as they stared at her in shock.
“I got promoted!” Neither of them reacted the way she thought they would. “Well? Isn’t that good?”
“Kara, look at your face,” Winn said in a serious tone. Kara frowned, before hearing a whisper that surprised her.
“Since when did Kara have a soulmark on her face?
“A what?” She murmured, before looking in the glass of James’ office-wall, eyes blowing wide as she saw the faint reflection of her face. “Rao…it came in.” And there was a name on it.
“People are going to notice, Kara – they’ll think you’re a cradle-robber,” James warned. Kara blinked. Cradle-robber. Alex had called her that once, when she said her mark would come in once she got a proper job. “And what about Supergirl?”
“Uh…” oh that was problematic. And then, just to add to that, she heard a scream. “I’ve got to go.” The glass wasn’t good enough for her to see the name just yet, but she was meeting Carter at the library in a few hours for lessons in Kryptonese – he could tell her.
“Kara-” Winn started.
“I’ll put some foundation on,” she muttered to him, before speed-walking away, covertly grabbing Cynthia’s pale foundation as she did. I’ll get her a new bottle.
Supergirl saved a woman from being murdered by her boyfriend, put together two IKEA units – word had apparently gotten around – entertained a gaggle of girl-scouts whose leader had gone to the bathroom, put out a house-fire and stopped a man from committing suicide. And then Kara Danvers went to St Edmund’s Hall and signed in as a visitor to their library and sat down in wait for Carter, wiping away the remnants of the foundation over her newly-acquired soulmark, the fire earlier causing it to melt a little. Hopefully it wasn’t caught on camera.
“Hey Kara,” greeted Carter as he approached.
“Hey buddy,” Kara smiled at him, smiling only wider as he saw the mark on her face.
“You finally got it! And it’s like mine!” He scrambled to sit down beside her, reaching up to push her hair out of the way, staring at it. “And I was right – you are her soulmate.” Kara’s heart beat faster.
“Her?”
Carter nodded, “Yep. I like the daffodils, by the way – so do you get the colours right in, then?” Kara froze.
“Coloured? It’s coloured? Oh no. I’ve met her already! She’s probably wondering why I didn’t respond.”
Carter frowned, “Wait, were you alone when it came in, do you think?”
“I don’t know – though Ms Grant was acting a little weird after she promoted me- oh, oh. She- she must have seen it come in! Oh my god, how am I going to explain that?”
It turned out, she didn’t have to.
“You are a lying liar who lies,” Cat glared as Kara entered her office. “Tell me right now why I shouldn’t print proof that Supergirl has a soulmark identical to Kara Danvers’?” She dropped the pile of photos on the floor. Kara, paralysed, stared at them. “How did you even get a soulmark? I watched it form on your face. It isn’t supposed to do that – people are born with their soulmarks.”
“Not- not my people,” Kara whispered into the deathly silence. “We gain them after we find our place in the world. You- you promoted me. I got it because I found the stable point of my life.”
“What do you want me to do, Kara? I need you to tell me what you are going to do – is Supergirl going to ‘come out’ to the world? Is she going to hide her soulmark so her normal identity stays a secret? Give me direction, Kara, or so help me-”
“I have your name on my soulmark,” Kara blurted out. Cat froze. “I- I read it last night. I hadn’t looked in the mirror till then, and I saw it and I’m sorry and Carter said he saw my name on someone once and I think he meant you but he never told me and I’m just so sorry and-”
“Kara, shut up,” Cat growled, stalking forwards and lifting her silken shirt to show a tight, white band, which she lifted as well, to show Kara’s name, emblazoned over dark pink petals that floated on her stomach in a spiral, as if the wind had lifted them up and painted the picture onto her skin. “I know you have my name, and I’ve been reading over the things Carter’s been bringing home and leaving out for me on purpose. I know this is your name, but not just because he wrote it down – I was there when it came in, and when my mark became coloured.” She tugged the wrap and shirt down, pursing her lips together. “People are going to think you hid your mark because otherwise me promoting you would seem like favouritism. If you want to keep working for CatCo after this, you’ll need to fill it in.”
“You mean, c-cover it?” Kara said, startled by Cat’s honesty.
“Yes.”
A tense silence filled the air, before Cat spoke again, shaking her head.
“Carter knew the entire time. No wonder he kept asking to see you again, for me to give you a promotion, to get you out from under my thumb into your own department…”
“Uh, Ms Grant?”
“Cat.”
“Cat…” Kara fiddled with her glasses. “Would it be inappropriate to ask you out at some point?”
“Very. But go ahead.”
Kara blinked. “Really?”
Cat rolled her eyes. “Let me give you an incentive, Keira.” Then, she stepped forwards, taking Kara’s face in her hands and leaning up on her tiptoes, pressing a kiss to her lips, before whispering lowly, “Ask me out at some point, Kara, and while I have this chance, tell Carter something for me?”
“What?” Kara whispered, staring into Cat’s very beautiful eyes. Cat gave a smirk worthy of her name.
“Tell him to stop meddling in my love-life – I can get my own soulmate.”