I don't have to explain my OT3 to you :|
Title: The Best Thing Of All
Fandom: Young Justice
Characters/Pairing: M'gann/Superboy/Kaldur, with appearances from the team
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 5,138
Summary: After the events of Bereft, Superboy and M'gann have established a form of Martian mental bond. They're happy together, but something's missing...
A/N: I wrote this for a prompt on
yj_anon_meme and decided to post it here instead because I didn't feel like cutting and pasting to nine thousand comment boxes. Um. So, yes, enjoy, and if you like it, be on the lookout for a potential upcoming continuation-of-sorts.
Sometimes, these days, M'gann finds herself traveling an ethereal trail set out for her by Superboy's brainwaves; it is less a linear pathway than a directional spark of thought and emotion that guides her, pulls her to find him.
In this particular instance he sits with his back to the wall of his bedroom, the side of his face pressed to the plaster. His eyes open like shutters meeting the morning sun when he hears her and M'gann finds her breath sticking in her throat. "It's cold," he tells her, lips quirking upward in a smile.
M'gann goes to him, sits down beside him, and presses her face to the wall. She looks into his eyes and reaches - it used to be difficult, among her Earth friends, to touch the parts of their minds and souls that Martians gave so freely, but with him it is simple, now. He reaches back to her and sighs, a pleased sound, as their minds connect; she feels what he feels, and he feels her. M'gann knows, twofold, the cool, smooth texture of the paint beneath their skin, the rough weave of the carpet, the heat and new-formed calluses between them as their hands meet.
"It's cold," she echoes, smiling at the pleasant sensation of cool drywall, the way Superboy feels it - new and not-quite-alien and comforting in its simplicity, because sometimes it is reassuring for him to be still and quiet and experience something, no matter how small. M'gann understands this now, and takes her own comfort in the act.
Their thoughts converge; their senses balance, and M'gann knows. They share the image of him as one, impossible to know which of them originally conjured it, if either. She smiles as Superboy does and his fingers lace through hers, the touch as intimate (but different) as the way their minds unite.
"I wonder what he feels like," and it takes M'gann almost a second to realize it was her own voice that spoke. "Do you think he's cold too?"
"I want to find out," Superboy tells her, the words a mere formality - M'gann's mind is filled with sudden pictures, bright sparks of imagination that trace electric fingers down her spine. She can't help but giggle; so devious, his mind can be, or was that her own?
"Yes," she whispers, reveling in the trust Superboy has granted her - curse that chaotic mission in the desert, but what was that Earth expression about silver clouds? - and when their lips meet it's as though nothing has changed and everything at once.
"Yes."
*
Kaldur is perceptive, a trait trained into him over years of partnership with his king. He is sure he's the first to notice the new ways M'gann and Superboy communicate - fleeting glances heavy with meaning, brief touches that imply too much to follow, the singular consensus they always come to during missions and meetings. He is the first, but perhaps not the only.
He may be the last to realize what it means.
Perhaps, he makes himself admit, it is because he does not wish to remember. First there was Atlantis, and Tula - Tula, whom he has always loved, and Garth, his best friend. His only consolation is that he can think of no two better people to watch over and care for one another than they.
And then Bialya. The desert. He remembers little of it but heat - scorching, dry, fatal heat - and the hazy delirium of his team, their voices, and the occasional brush of psychic influence over the surface of his feverish mind. And then, waking, his memories returned to him in a restless whirl of images and thoughts and emotion and reality and suddenly everything fell into place with M'gann's fingers at his temples and Superboy hovering nearby like a ghost attached to a relic of his life, unwilling to leave M'gann's side.
Or perhaps, unwilling to leave Kaldur's.
There'd been a spark, sharp and hot and unbidden, stabbing through the mix of memory, a glint of emotion not his own--
He has to wonder. Something seems…amiss.
Amiss, or not yet in place.
He watches, across the mountain's library, as Superboy and M'gann speak-without-speaking (he sees it now, the silent transmission of knowledge between them, clear as day) and turn as one to flash him a gaze too soft, too diffident for Kaldur to know how to react to it.
Not amiss. He is simply outside of the link.
*
M'gann is afraid. The intensity of it makes Superboy want to fear for her, with her, but he has to be strong for her. He has to protect her. She'd do the same for him; that's what this bond is for.
He steels himself against the fear and sends her hope, courage, love. She can do this. They can do this.
Superboy is alone in his room, but he doesn't feel alone - he never does, anymore, and it's good. He feels M'gann in the living room, feels what she feels (the fear, the acknowledgement and gratitude to his encouragement, the human mimicry of the sweat on her palms, quickness of her heart, and he does what he can to soothe it, because he loves her and this is important) and he doesn't see Kaldur, not really, but he knows him, through M'gann. He knows the presence of him, the feeling of him, the color of him, peaceful blue and green shot through with winding tendrils of commanding, steady red.
He knows it when M'gann goes to Kaldur and touches the back of his hand, hesitant, and tells him I'm sorry.
Why?
For leaving you. For going to find Superboy in the desert instead of--
There is no need. A creeping, uncertain orange threads its way into Kaldur's aura and Superboy turns his face to the pillow and wills it away, as though it would do any good. My only request is that, in the future, you stay to think through every available option with the rest of the team and decide on the best course of action with everyone.
Superboy knows when M’gann turns her head, eyes tightly closed - he tries to calm her, but the faintest hint of tears still come, and he can't blame her. But you could have died, and it was my fault.
Melancholy, guilt, cloudy gray streaks through Kaldur's aura and Superboy feels the touch of a hand at M'gann's shoulder. It was not your fault. You did what you thought was best.
Superboy shakes his head almost before M'gann does, because what if Kaldur had died - he won't, can't blame M'gann for her choice; they all have to make hard choices, every day, and all any of them can do until the day one of those choices results in unavoidable disaster is live. He knows that; M'gann does, and he can only hope Kaldur does too, if not now then soon.
I should have stayed, M'gann is saying, and it's true, but it's in the past. I should have helped you - what if, what if something happened to you?
M'gann--
I couldn't stand it if something happened to you, Kaldur. I know that now. I couldn't. Neither of us could.
So much sudden emotion; yellow of happiness riddled with confusion's murky brown and the sharp black of retreat, disbelief, convincing himself that what he knows to be true isn't possible. Superboy reaches for Kaldur and longs and wants but nothing connects - of course not - and he reaches to M'gann instead and tells her, wills her, he doesn't believe us, do something.
He feels the warmth when M'gann embraces Kaldur, solid contact and shock and a tint of confusion-yearning-denial, and then M'gann leaves him and runs because neither of them can stand to be there for Kaldur's reaction.
Superboy is waiting when M'gann runs to him, bodies connecting in the only way their minds cannot.
*
"I wish it were easier."
Fingers through red hair, soft as silk, gliding over green skin. "Me too."
Textureless hands skim the back of his neck. "I didn't know it would be like this. Where I come from…"
"Things are easier." The collar of her shirt feels almost the same as her skin - more like plastic. He strokes it with a thumb.
"I wish I could…" She still doesn't know how to articulate it in any human language, and says it in Martian instead, knowing he'll understand - reach out to him, connect to his mind. The way she does with him. The effortless, natural way that doesn't require permission or apology. Superboy cups her jaw in his hand and counts her freckles for the hundredth time; like constellations across the face that's half of his universe.
"I know," he tells her, and wishes there were more he could say. "I know," and he kisses her, but it isn't enough. It's perfect, but it isn't right; he should be able to taste salt on her lips, smell the arid twilight scent of an alien world on darker skin.
“We'll get it right," she whispers, and Superboy brushes discontent hands along the length of her back and believes her.
*
Kaldur goes through entire days now feeling like a satellite. He orbits the central point of M'gann and Superboy's connection, drawn inexorably to the bond between them for reasons he cannot name (cannot bring himself to contemplate). He tells himself that he is imagining things, that he is setting himself up for more punishment, and does his best to ignore it.
Pushing the issue to the back of his mind only turns it into a restless beast that scratches at his attention every waking second, leaping to the forefront whenever his thoughts stray. As a leader, it is his duty to resolve this problem.
If only he knew how.
Perhaps surprisingly, or perhaps not at all, Wally is the one who comes to him first.
Kaldur is sure he has asked Wally a dozen times not to sit on the back of the sofa, and tells him as much. The response this earns him is something of a non sequitur.
"Have you decided to take her up on it yet?"
Kaldur pauses, book in hand, to process the question. "I'm sorry?"
"On her offer," he clarifies, and upon witnessing the persistence of Kaldur's confusion, he prompts, "Megan."
"I'm afraid I do not understand."
Wally's feet thump a staccato beat against the cushions as he rolls his shoulders in a shrug. "It's pretty obvious - to me, anyway - that she's been coming on to you. All the moony eyes and the extra food…" He sighs wistfully as Kaldur attempts to parse the more colloquial pieces of his speech.
Never one for fidgeting (but Wally's excess energy always seems to fill a room), Kaldur thumbs restlessly at the page corners and thinks fast. "Perhaps you misunderstand," and it wasn't supposed to sound hopeful. "M'gann and Superboy--"
"Hey, I don't get it either, but Supey doesn't seem to care. I guess it's a Martian thing." Wally produces a packet of cookies from the recesses of his cargo shorts and proceeds to open them right over the sofa. "I don't know how Atlanteans do relationships, but if I were in your place, I wouldn't need any encouragement."
Kaldur focuses on the tumble of cookie crumbs into the cracks between the cushions because a minor frustration is soothing in comparison to his inner typhoon of doubt and disbelief and denial. Eventually, he clears his throat. "And…you do not mind?"
Wally spreads his hands, deflection and a small, defeated smile. "I jumped ship around when they started sharing a room." He brightens. "And the way I see it, maybe this means there's room for one more!"
Without ceremony, Wally topples down onto the sofa proper in a jutting array of reedy limbs. "Ahh, my sweet, green angel…" He vaults upright in an unprecedented explosion of speed and Kaldur finds himself with a pale finger jammed into his sternum. "I'm obligated to warn you that if you ever hurt her, I'm going to have to kill you."
And with the same deadly serious demeanor, he unfurls his fingers into a flat palm and offers it, turned edgewise, for Kaldur's appraisal.
There are days when Kaldur doesn't know what to make of Wally, let alone what to do with him, but he is a good friend, and Kaldur decides, as he accepts and shakes the proffered hand, that he appreciates the encouragement.
*
It's becoming difficult for M'gann to restrain herself.
She knows now (because Kaldur explained it to her) that to touch another’s mind on this planet is an invasion, a violation of privacy and trust. She respects this and adheres to it strictly, outside of missions, but there are so many things she wants to say to him that would feel brittle passed over her tongue, weak and lacking their full breadth of expression. Things too sacred to expose to open air.
She reads Kaldur's emotions and feels heartbroken with how often he is sad. How much time he spends dwelling on secrets she cannot know. M'gann wants only to comfort him, to touch his face, his hands, his mind, to embrace him with every part of herself, including those parts of herself that are now Superboy. She wants for the three of them to make new secrets; happy ones.
Instead she hones her patience and shows him kindness - and all of her love - in smaller ways, and winds her way slowly closer, offering a connection to herself and Superboy that is there for Kaldur to take at any time. She doesn't yet know how to make him fully aware of that offer's presence, but every day she tries.
In the meantime, she does her work, loves her friends, learns and lives in her second home, and spends every night wrapped in Superboy's arms, sharing his dreams of the day that Kaldur's smile is real again.
*
Artemis comes to him second, though she bends the situation, as is her way, to make it look like he has come to her.
The space between the briefing table and the walls is more than equitable; Kaldur would deem it an expanse, in fact. M'gann and Superboy behave as though to conserve a limited amount of maneuvering room as they exit, each brushing close enough past either side of Kaldur for their shoulders to touch his.
Kaldur does not, will not, turn to watch them go, instead taking in the movement of Artemis's eyes as they flick between the departing pair and the remaining others, who each give Kaldur a reasonable berth on their way out, and then narrow, calculating and deeply thoughtful but without obvious judgment.
She remains seated as Kaldur bends to collect his papers from the table. Quite without ceremony, she tells him: "I'm sorry, but you have got to get him under control."
Kaldur pauses in the act of shuffling the dossier into order, allowing himself a moment to decipher that before sliding them into their folder. "I do not feel that it is my place to comment on the behavior of my teammates unless the problem affects the quality of their, or anyone else's, work," he explains in his most measured tone, and looks up, folder tucked neatly under his arm, "but who did you have in mind, and why? Perhaps I might have a word."
Artemis quirks an eyebrow, arms crossed, and Kaldur is quite certain he's being judged. "You know who I mean."
He takes a breath. "Artemis--"
"I'm shocked the big guy hasn't just tackled you and ripped your clothes off." She tilts her head a fraction. "Unless he has, but I doubt it. You seem as sullen as ever."
There is no polite response he can make to that, Kaldur decides, that won't involve a loss of composure. He chooses a safer route. "Am I sullen?"
"As hell," Artemis informs him, blunt to match her sharp-edged performance. "For awhile now, at least. You didn't used to be; it started sometime in September." Her tone of voice tells him that she has her suspicions regarding why, and Kaldur has an uncomfortable feeling that they're largely correct. He feels, briefly, like a failure. Like he's let his guard slip and appears weak and undependable in front of his team. Then he remembers certain remarks about collisions and clothing damage and feels flustered instead, but Artemis continues before he can rally. "Superboy's been all over you for months, and it looks like you're not giving him or Megan the time of day. Maybe you're not into men, maybe you don't want to tangle with the relationship issue - whatever, but say something to him. It's starting to weird everybody out and it's not really fair to him."
For a moment, there is little Kaldur can do but blink. Artemis regards him, leaning back in her chair, and in this situation, neither his standing position nor his position as leader can help him convince himself that he has any control here. He is, if nothing else, determined to maintain his poise. "What makes you so certain that Superboy is interested in me? He and M’gann are quite close." Which is the single greatest understatement he has ever made - they are nearly one person in ways that Kaldur cannot decode and can't keep his eyes off of. Ways that he convinces himself every day he doesn't want.
Artemis shrugs. "Maybe it's something Martians do. Maybe she wants to keep him happy. Trust me, we will be having a long discussion about that second possibility next girls night." And then Artemis leans forward, one forearm flat on the table. "I thought it was her after you at first, but she was the one who spent ages pining while Superboy had a passionate affair with the concept of feeling sorry for himself, and he's definitely the possessive type. It looks like he discovered his sexuality in one fell swoop and decided he wanted a piece of Atlantean ass, and I'm betting he didn't learn monogamy in his pod. Now, this." She leans back again, fixing Kaldur with a cool and decisive look. "So yeah, I'm pretty sure. How much convincing do you really need, Kaldur? Talk to him. I'll take care of Megan."
With that, she stands, tilting her chin down and her eyes up to meet his in an expression that conveys both finality and expectance. Then she moves to leave the room, thumping an open palm once against his shoulder in a rare gesture of reassurance as she passes.
Kaldur contemplates the conversation, and his life, and the fact that for the often brash and always inscrutable person Artemis is, she can be refreshingly direct.
Unfortunately, for everything she's cleared up for him, he is, if anything, more confused.
*
Superboy wonders if having M'gann's abilities would make this easier or harder for him - for them both. For all of them.
As interwoven as his consciousness is with hers, it's taking him time to realize (and remember) which things need to be separate. His own wants and needs, his own strengths and limitations. It's the limitations that are hardest to accept. They have always been difficult to accept, but now…
But now, he is learning to curb an impulse to reach out with a part of him that doesn't exist (or does, but not within his own mind and body) to touch something he wouldn't be able to feel. To offer the link between he and M'gann for Kaldur to take. To speak to him the way he does with M'gann, in their minds; to feel what he feels and know what he knows, to be with him. Superboy wants that.
He needs that.
He needs to see Kaldur's eyes light up like they used to, to chase away the downward crease at the corner of his mouth that seems like it's been there for months. He has to feel the solid weight of Kaldur's body in his arms again, to hold him up when he needs it. He has to give him back whatever was taken away from him. He has to show Kaldur, as M'gann showed him, that nobody needs to be perfect and that they can catch him if he stumbles.
But Superboy can't do that; not yet. Not until they figure out how to make him see.
So he lends M'gann his strength, his encouragement, and his support, and he holds her hand as they share in wondering what it would be like to hold Kaldur's hands as well.
*
Robin is the last to approach, and, true to form, when Kaldur is least expecting it.
In the process of deciphering The Riddler's latest cryptic plot, Batman had pinned down one possible lead in a rotary club that had once been an abandoned detention center. Perched on a window ledge twelve stories up the neighboring building, Robin seems completely at ease, still as stone but free of tension.
Kaldur lowers his binoculars from his face to rub a spot from the lens, and Robin takes the opportunity to speak, breaking a long silence with an abruptness that nearly makes Kaldur jolt: "So, Megan and Superboy are totally head-over-heels nuts about you."
This, Kaldur considers as he blinks at the gap plummeting down to solid asphalt not two feet away, would be a very long way to fall.
And there's nothing he can say to that. It was not a question, nor a cryptic, leading remark, but a simple statement of fact.
He looks over at Robin, at his impassive, masked face, and stares.
And then Robin says something else - something that catches Kaldur off guard. Something that makes everything settle flawlessly into place.
"What are you going to do about it?"
Robin is still watching him through hidden eyes when the distress call rings through their comms, and after that Kaldur doesn't have space to contemplate his answer for a long time.
*
Kaldur thinks.
Most of his time, in actuality, is occupied by thinking. This is different. This is the sort of thinking a person does when his world has been flipped on its head and he is forced to confront it, sort it out, and figure out how to proceed.
He thinks about M'gann. Her smile, her laugh, her cookies. The way she speaks, conforming to the pattern of a foreign language in a manner intimately familiar to him. The way she moves, as though weightless. Her compassion, her sense of justice, the open love and care she displays to everyone around her. Her freckles.
He begins to wonder if the way Atlanteans and Martians kiss is anything alike - if her lips would feel the same; if her skin would give the same way; if the smooth texture of her skin is the same everywhere, and he decides that that is a dangerous train of thought and swiftly veers it from the tracks.
He thinks about Superboy. His power, the sheer strength of his will, the way he's getting better at controlling his anger but still wears his emotions on his sleeve. His eyes, blue as arctic water. The innocent enthusiasm with which he reacts to a new experience. The lengths he would go to to protect his teammates. The way he smiles when someone is unexpectedly kind to him. His intensity.
Kaldur thinks about Superboy's intensity for a long time, and about the fact that he's never really known anyone strong enough to subdue him, and then shelves that particular exploration of the hypothetical on the grounds that it is rapidly getting out of hand.
He thinks about Superboy and M'gann together, the way they communicate, interact, fit together. The way they look together. The way they look at him. He thinks about them and realizes that he finds them beautiful in ways he hadn't previously known possible.
He thinks about himself. The mature one, the responsible one, the leader, sealing himself off to remain objective and rational and untouched. His past, his present, possible paths of his future. He thinks about how he feels, not just about others, but about himself, about his life. He thinks about what he wants his life to be.
He thinks about Superboy and M'gann and himself.
And he thinks he's known all along what he wants his life to be, and hasn't been letting himself believe that he can have it.
*
When it actually happens, it's on a weekday in the afternoon when the humans are at school.
He finds M'gann and Superboy at the base, sitting together on the sofa in a manner that suggests they've been waiting for him. He supposes they've sensed a change, or noticed him beginning to return the looks they've been giving him all along.
They look up when he walks in, at each other and then at him, and their eyes are hopeful and a little wary. It makes Kaldur's heart throb painfully; why did he make them wait so long? Why did he make himself wait?
He doesn't know how to begin. He sits down on the adjoining sofa and can't take his eyes off them. They're holding hands, he notices. It looks, to Kaldur, more like a grasp of mutual support than simple affection.
Mentally, Kaldur runs down a list: We need to talk or There is something I want to tell you or Why do you love me when sometimes I cannot even like myself?
Instead he says, "I am sorry. For - for taking so long. For ignoring…" Kaldur can normally consider himself well-spoken and concise. He huffs a frustrated breath and flexes his hands, staring at the floor because he can't look at the others. He feels as though he's come all this way only to face rejection. "If you will have me," he says, so quietly that he worries M'gann won't hear, "I would…I would like that very much. I want," and he has to take a breath - he was so sure when he said these words to Tula, so confident, and all for nothing. "I want to be with you. Both of you. Please."
The instant he says it he feels pathetic, and he almost forgets to pay attention when the pair of them get up and move to sit on either side of him. M'gann takes one of his hands between her own, and Superboy is pressed against his side shoulder to hip, and it's still terrifying but equal parts exhilarating to look into their eyes.
He looks to Superboy first, who is wearing an expression so vulnerable and open and giving that it would look utterly out of place on his face if it didn't also look exactly right. "Kaldur," he says, almost a whisper. He's never wanted more to hear someone say his name.
M'gann squeezes his hand and he looks at her, wearing her own version of that same face, and it is a whisper when she says, "Yes."
There is a flutter of something at the edge of his consciousness, an odd sensation he's experienced before, in these past few months, and suddenly Kaldur can clearly see the shape of it.
A part of him can feel it, feel what he needs to do, and he reaches out with that part of himself and touches and
And suddenly he knows
He understands everything, how they feel and why they want him and what they've longed to do with him (oh) and all their support and acceptance and love and their fierce need to protect him, to carry him if he needs it, and that they need him to know that he doesn't have to be their flawless leader because he's perfect to them.
He knows the touch of M'gann's silken skin and the warm, solid weight of Superboy at his side and all of their individual and combined hopes, dreams, desires, all of their feelings for him and each other - it's so much at once, almost too much. Kaldur is overwhelmed; his heart clenches so hard in his chest that it hurts, and he sucks in a ragged lungful of air that finds its end on M'gann's lips.
It doesn't feel like kissing an Atlantean. It feels better.
It's long and sweet and ardent and Kaldur is lost in it - he loves this woman, would die for her, how did he not realize? - but then M'gann breaks away and half-turns him and before he can take stock of the situation, Superboy is kissing him instead.
M'gann curls up against Kaldur's side and wraps an arm around his waist as Superboy kisses him, hard. And it is, as suspected, intense. Kaldur loves him too, and would beat himself up for not admitting sooner how much he wanted this if he wasn't busy concentrating on the teeth tugging at his bottom lip.
This goes on for some time, and eventually ends with Kaldur sandwiched between two warm bodies who seem satisfied to pin him in a comfortable tangle of limbs. Kaldur thinks, on one hand, that it should feel smothering (a thought that draws a lazy chuckle out of Superboy as M'gann nuzzles at Kaldur's neck), but it…it isn't. He feels safe. And for the first time in a long time, he doesn't feel like he has to be the faultless, stalwart leader. He doesn't feel like he needs to hide who he is from people who care about him.
And he doesn't think he could, now, if he wanted to. Not completely; perhaps not ever. Kaldur doesn't think he minds. In fact…
All he can feel is radiating warmth and a low thrum of contentment coming from three different people; thoughts that are not all his own drift lazily through his mind, and it's easy. Easier than he'd ever thought it could be.
No, Kaldur doesn't mind at all.
*
For all the human customs and traditions and rules of conduct humans have, the best thing Superboy has learned since leaving his pod isn't human at all.
He still wants to fit into human society; all three of them do. But that's the best part.
They can do it together.
*
M'gann feels a little silly for having worried so much about something that didn't have to be nearly as complicated as she was making it out to be.
As they were both making it out to be.
Well. As they all were.
She feels silly, then, but relieved. And overjoyed, and ultimately satisfied with the outcome of things, a feeling she is confident they all share.
A feeling she knows they all share.
And that is the best thing of all.
*
Fandom: Young Justice
Characters/Pairing: M'gann/Superboy/Kaldur, with appearances from the team
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 5,138
Summary: After the events of Bereft, Superboy and M'gann have established a form of Martian mental bond. They're happy together, but something's missing...
A/N: I wrote this for a prompt on
yj_anon_meme and decided to post it here instead because I didn't feel like cutting and pasting to nine thousand comment boxes. Um. So, yes, enjoy, and if you like it, be on the lookout for a potential upcoming continuation-of-sorts.Sometimes, these days, M'gann finds herself traveling an ethereal trail set out for her by Superboy's brainwaves; it is less a linear pathway than a directional spark of thought and emotion that guides her, pulls her to find him.
In this particular instance he sits with his back to the wall of his bedroom, the side of his face pressed to the plaster. His eyes open like shutters meeting the morning sun when he hears her and M'gann finds her breath sticking in her throat. "It's cold," he tells her, lips quirking upward in a smile.
M'gann goes to him, sits down beside him, and presses her face to the wall. She looks into his eyes and reaches - it used to be difficult, among her Earth friends, to touch the parts of their minds and souls that Martians gave so freely, but with him it is simple, now. He reaches back to her and sighs, a pleased sound, as their minds connect; she feels what he feels, and he feels her. M'gann knows, twofold, the cool, smooth texture of the paint beneath their skin, the rough weave of the carpet, the heat and new-formed calluses between them as their hands meet.
"It's cold," she echoes, smiling at the pleasant sensation of cool drywall, the way Superboy feels it - new and not-quite-alien and comforting in its simplicity, because sometimes it is reassuring for him to be still and quiet and experience something, no matter how small. M'gann understands this now, and takes her own comfort in the act.
Their thoughts converge; their senses balance, and M'gann knows. They share the image of him as one, impossible to know which of them originally conjured it, if either. She smiles as Superboy does and his fingers lace through hers, the touch as intimate (but different) as the way their minds unite.
"I wonder what he feels like," and it takes M'gann almost a second to realize it was her own voice that spoke. "Do you think he's cold too?"
"I want to find out," Superboy tells her, the words a mere formality - M'gann's mind is filled with sudden pictures, bright sparks of imagination that trace electric fingers down her spine. She can't help but giggle; so devious, his mind can be, or was that her own?
"Yes," she whispers, reveling in the trust Superboy has granted her - curse that chaotic mission in the desert, but what was that Earth expression about silver clouds? - and when their lips meet it's as though nothing has changed and everything at once.
"Yes."
*
Kaldur is perceptive, a trait trained into him over years of partnership with his king. He is sure he's the first to notice the new ways M'gann and Superboy communicate - fleeting glances heavy with meaning, brief touches that imply too much to follow, the singular consensus they always come to during missions and meetings. He is the first, but perhaps not the only.
He may be the last to realize what it means.
Perhaps, he makes himself admit, it is because he does not wish to remember. First there was Atlantis, and Tula - Tula, whom he has always loved, and Garth, his best friend. His only consolation is that he can think of no two better people to watch over and care for one another than they.
And then Bialya. The desert. He remembers little of it but heat - scorching, dry, fatal heat - and the hazy delirium of his team, their voices, and the occasional brush of psychic influence over the surface of his feverish mind. And then, waking, his memories returned to him in a restless whirl of images and thoughts and emotion and reality and suddenly everything fell into place with M'gann's fingers at his temples and Superboy hovering nearby like a ghost attached to a relic of his life, unwilling to leave M'gann's side.
Or perhaps, unwilling to leave Kaldur's.
There'd been a spark, sharp and hot and unbidden, stabbing through the mix of memory, a glint of emotion not his own--
He has to wonder. Something seems…amiss.
Amiss, or not yet in place.
He watches, across the mountain's library, as Superboy and M'gann speak-without-speaking (he sees it now, the silent transmission of knowledge between them, clear as day) and turn as one to flash him a gaze too soft, too diffident for Kaldur to know how to react to it.
Not amiss. He is simply outside of the link.
*
M'gann is afraid. The intensity of it makes Superboy want to fear for her, with her, but he has to be strong for her. He has to protect her. She'd do the same for him; that's what this bond is for.
He steels himself against the fear and sends her hope, courage, love. She can do this. They can do this.
Superboy is alone in his room, but he doesn't feel alone - he never does, anymore, and it's good. He feels M'gann in the living room, feels what she feels (the fear, the acknowledgement and gratitude to his encouragement, the human mimicry of the sweat on her palms, quickness of her heart, and he does what he can to soothe it, because he loves her and this is important) and he doesn't see Kaldur, not really, but he knows him, through M'gann. He knows the presence of him, the feeling of him, the color of him, peaceful blue and green shot through with winding tendrils of commanding, steady red.
He knows it when M'gann goes to Kaldur and touches the back of his hand, hesitant, and tells him I'm sorry.
Why?
For leaving you. For going to find Superboy in the desert instead of--
There is no need. A creeping, uncertain orange threads its way into Kaldur's aura and Superboy turns his face to the pillow and wills it away, as though it would do any good. My only request is that, in the future, you stay to think through every available option with the rest of the team and decide on the best course of action with everyone.
Superboy knows when M’gann turns her head, eyes tightly closed - he tries to calm her, but the faintest hint of tears still come, and he can't blame her. But you could have died, and it was my fault.
Melancholy, guilt, cloudy gray streaks through Kaldur's aura and Superboy feels the touch of a hand at M'gann's shoulder. It was not your fault. You did what you thought was best.
Superboy shakes his head almost before M'gann does, because what if Kaldur had died - he won't, can't blame M'gann for her choice; they all have to make hard choices, every day, and all any of them can do until the day one of those choices results in unavoidable disaster is live. He knows that; M'gann does, and he can only hope Kaldur does too, if not now then soon.
I should have stayed, M'gann is saying, and it's true, but it's in the past. I should have helped you - what if, what if something happened to you?
M'gann--
I couldn't stand it if something happened to you, Kaldur. I know that now. I couldn't. Neither of us could.
So much sudden emotion; yellow of happiness riddled with confusion's murky brown and the sharp black of retreat, disbelief, convincing himself that what he knows to be true isn't possible. Superboy reaches for Kaldur and longs and wants but nothing connects - of course not - and he reaches to M'gann instead and tells her, wills her, he doesn't believe us, do something.
He feels the warmth when M'gann embraces Kaldur, solid contact and shock and a tint of confusion-yearning-denial, and then M'gann leaves him and runs because neither of them can stand to be there for Kaldur's reaction.
Superboy is waiting when M'gann runs to him, bodies connecting in the only way their minds cannot.
*
"I wish it were easier."
Fingers through red hair, soft as silk, gliding over green skin. "Me too."
Textureless hands skim the back of his neck. "I didn't know it would be like this. Where I come from…"
"Things are easier." The collar of her shirt feels almost the same as her skin - more like plastic. He strokes it with a thumb.
"I wish I could…" She still doesn't know how to articulate it in any human language, and says it in Martian instead, knowing he'll understand - reach out to him, connect to his mind. The way she does with him. The effortless, natural way that doesn't require permission or apology. Superboy cups her jaw in his hand and counts her freckles for the hundredth time; like constellations across the face that's half of his universe.
"I know," he tells her, and wishes there were more he could say. "I know," and he kisses her, but it isn't enough. It's perfect, but it isn't right; he should be able to taste salt on her lips, smell the arid twilight scent of an alien world on darker skin.
“We'll get it right," she whispers, and Superboy brushes discontent hands along the length of her back and believes her.
*
Kaldur goes through entire days now feeling like a satellite. He orbits the central point of M'gann and Superboy's connection, drawn inexorably to the bond between them for reasons he cannot name (cannot bring himself to contemplate). He tells himself that he is imagining things, that he is setting himself up for more punishment, and does his best to ignore it.
Pushing the issue to the back of his mind only turns it into a restless beast that scratches at his attention every waking second, leaping to the forefront whenever his thoughts stray. As a leader, it is his duty to resolve this problem.
If only he knew how.
Perhaps surprisingly, or perhaps not at all, Wally is the one who comes to him first.
Kaldur is sure he has asked Wally a dozen times not to sit on the back of the sofa, and tells him as much. The response this earns him is something of a non sequitur.
"Have you decided to take her up on it yet?"
Kaldur pauses, book in hand, to process the question. "I'm sorry?"
"On her offer," he clarifies, and upon witnessing the persistence of Kaldur's confusion, he prompts, "Megan."
"I'm afraid I do not understand."
Wally's feet thump a staccato beat against the cushions as he rolls his shoulders in a shrug. "It's pretty obvious - to me, anyway - that she's been coming on to you. All the moony eyes and the extra food…" He sighs wistfully as Kaldur attempts to parse the more colloquial pieces of his speech.
Never one for fidgeting (but Wally's excess energy always seems to fill a room), Kaldur thumbs restlessly at the page corners and thinks fast. "Perhaps you misunderstand," and it wasn't supposed to sound hopeful. "M'gann and Superboy--"
"Hey, I don't get it either, but Supey doesn't seem to care. I guess it's a Martian thing." Wally produces a packet of cookies from the recesses of his cargo shorts and proceeds to open them right over the sofa. "I don't know how Atlanteans do relationships, but if I were in your place, I wouldn't need any encouragement."
Kaldur focuses on the tumble of cookie crumbs into the cracks between the cushions because a minor frustration is soothing in comparison to his inner typhoon of doubt and disbelief and denial. Eventually, he clears his throat. "And…you do not mind?"
Wally spreads his hands, deflection and a small, defeated smile. "I jumped ship around when they started sharing a room." He brightens. "And the way I see it, maybe this means there's room for one more!"
Without ceremony, Wally topples down onto the sofa proper in a jutting array of reedy limbs. "Ahh, my sweet, green angel…" He vaults upright in an unprecedented explosion of speed and Kaldur finds himself with a pale finger jammed into his sternum. "I'm obligated to warn you that if you ever hurt her, I'm going to have to kill you."
And with the same deadly serious demeanor, he unfurls his fingers into a flat palm and offers it, turned edgewise, for Kaldur's appraisal.
There are days when Kaldur doesn't know what to make of Wally, let alone what to do with him, but he is a good friend, and Kaldur decides, as he accepts and shakes the proffered hand, that he appreciates the encouragement.
*
It's becoming difficult for M'gann to restrain herself.
She knows now (because Kaldur explained it to her) that to touch another’s mind on this planet is an invasion, a violation of privacy and trust. She respects this and adheres to it strictly, outside of missions, but there are so many things she wants to say to him that would feel brittle passed over her tongue, weak and lacking their full breadth of expression. Things too sacred to expose to open air.
She reads Kaldur's emotions and feels heartbroken with how often he is sad. How much time he spends dwelling on secrets she cannot know. M'gann wants only to comfort him, to touch his face, his hands, his mind, to embrace him with every part of herself, including those parts of herself that are now Superboy. She wants for the three of them to make new secrets; happy ones.
Instead she hones her patience and shows him kindness - and all of her love - in smaller ways, and winds her way slowly closer, offering a connection to herself and Superboy that is there for Kaldur to take at any time. She doesn't yet know how to make him fully aware of that offer's presence, but every day she tries.
In the meantime, she does her work, loves her friends, learns and lives in her second home, and spends every night wrapped in Superboy's arms, sharing his dreams of the day that Kaldur's smile is real again.
*
Artemis comes to him second, though she bends the situation, as is her way, to make it look like he has come to her.
The space between the briefing table and the walls is more than equitable; Kaldur would deem it an expanse, in fact. M'gann and Superboy behave as though to conserve a limited amount of maneuvering room as they exit, each brushing close enough past either side of Kaldur for their shoulders to touch his.
Kaldur does not, will not, turn to watch them go, instead taking in the movement of Artemis's eyes as they flick between the departing pair and the remaining others, who each give Kaldur a reasonable berth on their way out, and then narrow, calculating and deeply thoughtful but without obvious judgment.
She remains seated as Kaldur bends to collect his papers from the table. Quite without ceremony, she tells him: "I'm sorry, but you have got to get him under control."
Kaldur pauses in the act of shuffling the dossier into order, allowing himself a moment to decipher that before sliding them into their folder. "I do not feel that it is my place to comment on the behavior of my teammates unless the problem affects the quality of their, or anyone else's, work," he explains in his most measured tone, and looks up, folder tucked neatly under his arm, "but who did you have in mind, and why? Perhaps I might have a word."
Artemis quirks an eyebrow, arms crossed, and Kaldur is quite certain he's being judged. "You know who I mean."
He takes a breath. "Artemis--"
"I'm shocked the big guy hasn't just tackled you and ripped your clothes off." She tilts her head a fraction. "Unless he has, but I doubt it. You seem as sullen as ever."
There is no polite response he can make to that, Kaldur decides, that won't involve a loss of composure. He chooses a safer route. "Am I sullen?"
"As hell," Artemis informs him, blunt to match her sharp-edged performance. "For awhile now, at least. You didn't used to be; it started sometime in September." Her tone of voice tells him that she has her suspicions regarding why, and Kaldur has an uncomfortable feeling that they're largely correct. He feels, briefly, like a failure. Like he's let his guard slip and appears weak and undependable in front of his team. Then he remembers certain remarks about collisions and clothing damage and feels flustered instead, but Artemis continues before he can rally. "Superboy's been all over you for months, and it looks like you're not giving him or Megan the time of day. Maybe you're not into men, maybe you don't want to tangle with the relationship issue - whatever, but say something to him. It's starting to weird everybody out and it's not really fair to him."
For a moment, there is little Kaldur can do but blink. Artemis regards him, leaning back in her chair, and in this situation, neither his standing position nor his position as leader can help him convince himself that he has any control here. He is, if nothing else, determined to maintain his poise. "What makes you so certain that Superboy is interested in me? He and M’gann are quite close." Which is the single greatest understatement he has ever made - they are nearly one person in ways that Kaldur cannot decode and can't keep his eyes off of. Ways that he convinces himself every day he doesn't want.
Artemis shrugs. "Maybe it's something Martians do. Maybe she wants to keep him happy. Trust me, we will be having a long discussion about that second possibility next girls night." And then Artemis leans forward, one forearm flat on the table. "I thought it was her after you at first, but she was the one who spent ages pining while Superboy had a passionate affair with the concept of feeling sorry for himself, and he's definitely the possessive type. It looks like he discovered his sexuality in one fell swoop and decided he wanted a piece of Atlantean ass, and I'm betting he didn't learn monogamy in his pod. Now, this." She leans back again, fixing Kaldur with a cool and decisive look. "So yeah, I'm pretty sure. How much convincing do you really need, Kaldur? Talk to him. I'll take care of Megan."
With that, she stands, tilting her chin down and her eyes up to meet his in an expression that conveys both finality and expectance. Then she moves to leave the room, thumping an open palm once against his shoulder in a rare gesture of reassurance as she passes.
Kaldur contemplates the conversation, and his life, and the fact that for the often brash and always inscrutable person Artemis is, she can be refreshingly direct.
Unfortunately, for everything she's cleared up for him, he is, if anything, more confused.
*
Superboy wonders if having M'gann's abilities would make this easier or harder for him - for them both. For all of them.
As interwoven as his consciousness is with hers, it's taking him time to realize (and remember) which things need to be separate. His own wants and needs, his own strengths and limitations. It's the limitations that are hardest to accept. They have always been difficult to accept, but now…
But now, he is learning to curb an impulse to reach out with a part of him that doesn't exist (or does, but not within his own mind and body) to touch something he wouldn't be able to feel. To offer the link between he and M'gann for Kaldur to take. To speak to him the way he does with M'gann, in their minds; to feel what he feels and know what he knows, to be with him. Superboy wants that.
He needs that.
He needs to see Kaldur's eyes light up like they used to, to chase away the downward crease at the corner of his mouth that seems like it's been there for months. He has to feel the solid weight of Kaldur's body in his arms again, to hold him up when he needs it. He has to give him back whatever was taken away from him. He has to show Kaldur, as M'gann showed him, that nobody needs to be perfect and that they can catch him if he stumbles.
But Superboy can't do that; not yet. Not until they figure out how to make him see.
So he lends M'gann his strength, his encouragement, and his support, and he holds her hand as they share in wondering what it would be like to hold Kaldur's hands as well.
*
Robin is the last to approach, and, true to form, when Kaldur is least expecting it.
In the process of deciphering The Riddler's latest cryptic plot, Batman had pinned down one possible lead in a rotary club that had once been an abandoned detention center. Perched on a window ledge twelve stories up the neighboring building, Robin seems completely at ease, still as stone but free of tension.
Kaldur lowers his binoculars from his face to rub a spot from the lens, and Robin takes the opportunity to speak, breaking a long silence with an abruptness that nearly makes Kaldur jolt: "So, Megan and Superboy are totally head-over-heels nuts about you."
This, Kaldur considers as he blinks at the gap plummeting down to solid asphalt not two feet away, would be a very long way to fall.
And there's nothing he can say to that. It was not a question, nor a cryptic, leading remark, but a simple statement of fact.
He looks over at Robin, at his impassive, masked face, and stares.
And then Robin says something else - something that catches Kaldur off guard. Something that makes everything settle flawlessly into place.
"What are you going to do about it?"
Robin is still watching him through hidden eyes when the distress call rings through their comms, and after that Kaldur doesn't have space to contemplate his answer for a long time.
*
Kaldur thinks.
Most of his time, in actuality, is occupied by thinking. This is different. This is the sort of thinking a person does when his world has been flipped on its head and he is forced to confront it, sort it out, and figure out how to proceed.
He thinks about M'gann. Her smile, her laugh, her cookies. The way she speaks, conforming to the pattern of a foreign language in a manner intimately familiar to him. The way she moves, as though weightless. Her compassion, her sense of justice, the open love and care she displays to everyone around her. Her freckles.
He begins to wonder if the way Atlanteans and Martians kiss is anything alike - if her lips would feel the same; if her skin would give the same way; if the smooth texture of her skin is the same everywhere, and he decides that that is a dangerous train of thought and swiftly veers it from the tracks.
He thinks about Superboy. His power, the sheer strength of his will, the way he's getting better at controlling his anger but still wears his emotions on his sleeve. His eyes, blue as arctic water. The innocent enthusiasm with which he reacts to a new experience. The lengths he would go to to protect his teammates. The way he smiles when someone is unexpectedly kind to him. His intensity.
Kaldur thinks about Superboy's intensity for a long time, and about the fact that he's never really known anyone strong enough to subdue him, and then shelves that particular exploration of the hypothetical on the grounds that it is rapidly getting out of hand.
He thinks about Superboy and M'gann together, the way they communicate, interact, fit together. The way they look together. The way they look at him. He thinks about them and realizes that he finds them beautiful in ways he hadn't previously known possible.
He thinks about himself. The mature one, the responsible one, the leader, sealing himself off to remain objective and rational and untouched. His past, his present, possible paths of his future. He thinks about how he feels, not just about others, but about himself, about his life. He thinks about what he wants his life to be.
He thinks about Superboy and M'gann and himself.
And he thinks he's known all along what he wants his life to be, and hasn't been letting himself believe that he can have it.
*
When it actually happens, it's on a weekday in the afternoon when the humans are at school.
He finds M'gann and Superboy at the base, sitting together on the sofa in a manner that suggests they've been waiting for him. He supposes they've sensed a change, or noticed him beginning to return the looks they've been giving him all along.
They look up when he walks in, at each other and then at him, and their eyes are hopeful and a little wary. It makes Kaldur's heart throb painfully; why did he make them wait so long? Why did he make himself wait?
He doesn't know how to begin. He sits down on the adjoining sofa and can't take his eyes off them. They're holding hands, he notices. It looks, to Kaldur, more like a grasp of mutual support than simple affection.
Mentally, Kaldur runs down a list: We need to talk or There is something I want to tell you or Why do you love me when sometimes I cannot even like myself?
Instead he says, "I am sorry. For - for taking so long. For ignoring…" Kaldur can normally consider himself well-spoken and concise. He huffs a frustrated breath and flexes his hands, staring at the floor because he can't look at the others. He feels as though he's come all this way only to face rejection. "If you will have me," he says, so quietly that he worries M'gann won't hear, "I would…I would like that very much. I want," and he has to take a breath - he was so sure when he said these words to Tula, so confident, and all for nothing. "I want to be with you. Both of you. Please."
The instant he says it he feels pathetic, and he almost forgets to pay attention when the pair of them get up and move to sit on either side of him. M'gann takes one of his hands between her own, and Superboy is pressed against his side shoulder to hip, and it's still terrifying but equal parts exhilarating to look into their eyes.
He looks to Superboy first, who is wearing an expression so vulnerable and open and giving that it would look utterly out of place on his face if it didn't also look exactly right. "Kaldur," he says, almost a whisper. He's never wanted more to hear someone say his name.
M'gann squeezes his hand and he looks at her, wearing her own version of that same face, and it is a whisper when she says, "Yes."
There is a flutter of something at the edge of his consciousness, an odd sensation he's experienced before, in these past few months, and suddenly Kaldur can clearly see the shape of it.
A part of him can feel it, feel what he needs to do, and he reaches out with that part of himself and touches and
And suddenly he knows
He understands everything, how they feel and why they want him and what they've longed to do with him (oh) and all their support and acceptance and love and their fierce need to protect him, to carry him if he needs it, and that they need him to know that he doesn't have to be their flawless leader because he's perfect to them.
He knows the touch of M'gann's silken skin and the warm, solid weight of Superboy at his side and all of their individual and combined hopes, dreams, desires, all of their feelings for him and each other - it's so much at once, almost too much. Kaldur is overwhelmed; his heart clenches so hard in his chest that it hurts, and he sucks in a ragged lungful of air that finds its end on M'gann's lips.
It doesn't feel like kissing an Atlantean. It feels better.
It's long and sweet and ardent and Kaldur is lost in it - he loves this woman, would die for her, how did he not realize? - but then M'gann breaks away and half-turns him and before he can take stock of the situation, Superboy is kissing him instead.
M'gann curls up against Kaldur's side and wraps an arm around his waist as Superboy kisses him, hard. And it is, as suspected, intense. Kaldur loves him too, and would beat himself up for not admitting sooner how much he wanted this if he wasn't busy concentrating on the teeth tugging at his bottom lip.
This goes on for some time, and eventually ends with Kaldur sandwiched between two warm bodies who seem satisfied to pin him in a comfortable tangle of limbs. Kaldur thinks, on one hand, that it should feel smothering (a thought that draws a lazy chuckle out of Superboy as M'gann nuzzles at Kaldur's neck), but it…it isn't. He feels safe. And for the first time in a long time, he doesn't feel like he has to be the faultless, stalwart leader. He doesn't feel like he needs to hide who he is from people who care about him.
And he doesn't think he could, now, if he wanted to. Not completely; perhaps not ever. Kaldur doesn't think he minds. In fact…
All he can feel is radiating warmth and a low thrum of contentment coming from three different people; thoughts that are not all his own drift lazily through his mind, and it's easy. Easier than he'd ever thought it could be.
No, Kaldur doesn't mind at all.
*
For all the human customs and traditions and rules of conduct humans have, the best thing Superboy has learned since leaving his pod isn't human at all.
He still wants to fit into human society; all three of them do. But that's the best part.
They can do it together.
*
M'gann feels a little silly for having worried so much about something that didn't have to be nearly as complicated as she was making it out to be.
As they were both making it out to be.
Well. As they all were.
She feels silly, then, but relieved. And overjoyed, and ultimately satisfied with the outcome of things, a feeling she is confident they all share.
A feeling she knows they all share.
And that is the best thing of all.
*