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For as long as Bruce could remember, he’d never had a mark from his soulmate appear on his skin.
As a boy, he’d grown up watching his parents reacting to each other’s injuries with a gentle concern, going to check on each other when they noticed bruises or cuts appearing on their own skin.
When they died, they were brought into the coroner's office with twin gunshot wounds. They died like they lived; together until the last moment.
Bruce grew up in that large, empty house, mourning both his parents and the soulmate he’d never know. He could only guess that they had died before he got the chance to meet them. The world was so unfair. It made Bruce’s heart burn with a righteous fury. What sort of just world would kill the love of his life before he even got the chance to meet them?
As Batman took to the skies, Bruce locked his heart away completely.
If he couldn’t have his soulmate, he didn’t want any part in romance.
Clark had grown up watching his Ma and Pa holler across the arm at each other when they noticed new injuries appearing. When he started getting marks from his soulmate, he had gone to Pa, showing a cut across his palm. “I think they’re learning to cook!” he exclaimed. “That’s a cut from a kitchen knife, right? Can I learn to cook too? We could cook together!”
Pa had smiled, the affection showing in his eyes, and showed Clark how to dice an onion. When the knife slipped, it didn’t cut into Clark’s hand, like it would have, if he was a normal boy.
Clark had never been a normal boy.
Eventually, halfway through dicing his second onion, Clark spoke up. “Pa…?”
“Yes?”
“What if… what if they think I don’t exist?” Clark’s voice was barely a whisper. “What if they think I’m dead? But– But I’m not! I’m right here. They’ll never know I’m here. What if they give up on trying to find me?”
Pa carefully sliced the carrot he was holding. “I reckon… fate has a way of working out the way it’s meant to. Even if they give up, you’re not going to stop looking for them, are you?”
“Of course not!”
As Clark grew older, that childish desire soured into something else.
Fear .
When you were as powerful as Clark was - able to lift tractors one-handed and capable of kicking over trees without even trying - you didn’t get the luxury of a worry-free life. Whoever his soulmate was, theirs didn’t seem to be much safer. Over the last few years, Clark started getting more and more wounds, courtesy of his soulmate. It started with minor bruises and cuts, before escalating to gunshot wounds and massive bruises that suggested internal bleeding, sometimes worse .
Clark’s greatest worry was that his soulmate would die before he found them.
The Justice League had been active for a few months, and Superman had been avoiding any situations that would reveal any bare skin, barring his face and hands. Batman had seen a little, when his suit ripped, but Superman had always been careful.
Batman could only conclude that Superman was trying to hide the marks he got from his soulmate. That made sense. Superman was infamously invulnerable, so any cuts or bruises visible on his body would have been from his soulmate. A sufficiently obsessive villain would have been able to match those marks up to a person, and Superman would be put into an awful situation, possibly having to choose between his soulmate and his loyalty to the Justice League.
In moments like these, Batman was glad that his soulmate was dead.
They’d just come back from dealing with a mind-manipulator. Though J’onn had reported that Kal was no longer under the effects of the villain, Kal was still a little disorientated, and would be for at least 48 hours.
For the first time since joining the Justice League, Kal agreed to join the guys in the showers. Underneath his suit, Batman, Green Lantern and the Flash saw…
… warm, golden skin, completely covered in scars. Most were thin and white - older marks - but some were fresh, including a bullet wound in the shoulder.
“Aren’t you supposed to be bulletproof?” the Flash said, whizzing around to get a better look at Kal’s shoulder. “That’s kinda weird…”
“I am bulletproof, but my soulmate isn’t,” Kal said.
“All of this is from your soulmate?” Green Lantern said. “They must be hardcore.”
The Flash examined the bullet wound, before pausing. “Wait… didn’t Batman get shot in the shoulder last month?”
“What?”
“Yeah! You weren’t there, I guess.” The Flash called out to Batman. “I’m right, aren’t I?” You got shot there like a month ago.”
Batman was momentarily stunned into silence.
Like Superman, he had avoided situations where his scars would be visible. He had no one to protect, but he was uncomfortable showing his injuries. They were another reminder that he was a man amongst aliens and metahumans.
In that moment, though, Bruce didn’t care. He had to know. He had to see .
Removing his suit, Bruce and Kal compared their scars.
A perfect match.
All those years where Bruce had believed his soulmate was dead, and there he was, standing right infront of him.
“Of course… I never saw any injuries because you’re invulnerable.”
Kal was quiet for a moment, then he spoke. “You have got to get better armour.”