Archive of Our Own

Superboy is not used to pain. Superboy is no kind of used to pain, and even though he can hear voices around him, hear people moving towards him, the idea of moving himself is the last thing he ever wants to consider.

“Oh my god this is the worst mission ever,” a disgusted voice says from not so far away.

“Worst, or best?” another asks—a girl's voice, tone leering. Superboy frowns, and becomes vaguely aware that he's on the ground. He feels . . . spilled, as if everything has fallen out, like there is nothing left to him at all, and even opening his eyes is almost too hard. Not that there's much point, because when he manages he can't even see—everything is bright, shining yellow.

That's probably what Robin and Wally were talking about that time they were comparing concussion stories, he decides, and just lets them close again.

“Definitely worst, you idiot! And how many times do I have to tell you, stop touching yourself!” the first voice snaps back. Male, sharp, irritated. Superboy doesn't recognize it—either of them—but feels like he should.

“Make me!” the girl taunts, and the boy growls, and someone else sighs. Bodies, onetwothreefour five people. Counting isn't painful. Five heartbeats, five scents, five breathing sets of lungs. He doesn't recognize them, still, but still feels like he should.

“This is so strange,” a new voice says, soft and male but . . . sweet, somehow, even sounding concerned. “I can't turn into a human girl anymore.”

“I suppose that would make sense,” another new voice murmurs—female, low, melodic. Much closer than any of the others. Its owner crouches and a slim, cool hand lays itself on Superboy's head, and the slight weight of it is painful, but almost in a good way. He tries to open his eyes again, but still all he can see is bright and shining yellow. “Superboy?” the voice asks. “Is that you?”

What kind of question is that, he wonders.

“You know, I think the most whelming part is the whole 'suddenly being a redhead' thing,” the fifth person says thoughtfully. For a second Superboy thinks it's Robin, but the pitch is just barely too high—it's another girl, maybe even smaller than Robin from how light she steps, although just barely.

“Dude! Suddenly something's wrong with being a redhead?” the first girl demands indignantly.

“We've already got two—three if you count Speedy,” the Robin-girl says reasonably. “It's just, you know, a guy likes to feel a little more special than that, maybe it's just me.”

“We count Speedy, okay? And it's really awful on you, if it helps,” the first girl volunteers. “Cut's all poufy and weird-looking.”

“Oh yeah, that totally helps,” Robin-girl says sourly. Superboy wonders how long the yellow in his vision is going to last, and finally tries to push himself up. His fingers curl against the ground and he makes it up an inch or two, but that's about it.

Oh, and the yellow whites out into agony and drops him back in the dirt on his face, but other than that.

“Superboy!” the second girl exclaims—the not-arguing girl, the one with a voice like a song, it's a really pretty voice, he thinks dazedly, and her hands are on him, flipping him over, and then the yellow's gone except for a few strange lines splitting the world apart and she's really pretty, the second girl, all warm dark skin and skinny blonde cornrows and . . . gills.

Gills and clothes that don't fit.

“What?” Superboy manages, staring at Kaldur's vest on a pair of broad but still definitely feminine shoulders, and the girl sighs in relief and touches his face, and brushes something out of it. The lines of yellow go away, and the eyes in that pretty face are . . . those are Kaldur's eyes.

“Yeah, so we totally all got cursed. Thus the 'my whole body went through a blender' hangover you're having down there,” Robin-girl says, leaning into his line of sight, and Superboy blinks up at her. Her hair's short and red and choppy-cut, but otherwise . . . otherwise she really doesn't look very different. Even her uniform looks like it still fits right, unlike Kaldur's, although it doesn't look very good with the hair.

“Robin?” he asks in bemusement anyway, and she sighs and tips her head back.

“You know, dude, the rest of us all got this part over with while you were still unconscious,” she says—he says—accusingly. “But yeah, Robin. And that's Aqualass, Girl Flash, Mister Martian, and Apollo all standing over there, congratulations, now you're all caught up!”

“Why are you the only one who doesn't have to change their code name?” Wally demands—Wally whose costume fits all wrong, whose lips are pink and full and eyes are bigger and brighter, whose hair is miles longer than usual and spilling down over his shoulders in wind-blown curls. The effect is . . . disconcerting, definitely, but at least it's still the same color.

“Um,” Superboy tries, looking back to Kaldur, and then the lines of yellow fall back into his line of sight and that's when he notices that his voice sounds wrong.

“C'mon, 'Supergirl', we've still got a hostile to beat the tar out of and I know how much you'd hate to miss that,” Artemis says with a smirk, stepping forward and offering him a hand. Superboy takes it, watching his own arm reach out—it's so small, still muscled but somehow slender and not at all like it was, and Artemis pulls him to his feet and then they stand eye to eye and . . .

“You're tall,” he manages, stupidly, and she laughs in surprise and looks down between them and it's a low, masculine sound that is . . . different.

“Hah, I guess so. But you're pretty tall for a girl, too,” she says, and lets go of his arm. Superboy takes a step back and his waistband slips, and he grabs the belt just in time to keep his pants from slipping down around his thighs—and then he's looking down at himself, at the shirt that's ridiculously huge and swimming on him, the suddenly too-big boots and sagging pants, and the yellow slipping into his line of vision again—

Oh, he realizes, and touches it.

“Wow, that is so not right,” Wally says, just eyeing him. “Seriously, Supes, you really needed to turn out a smokin' hot blonde?”

“'Smoking'?” Superboy repeats blankly, just staring at his hair. It's long—not as long as Artemis's usually is, but longer than Black Canary's. He's never had long hair before. He's never had his hair any way but how Cadmus kept it, and now he feels . . . now he feels odd, thinking that.

“Still got a hostile at large,” Artemis reminds them, stepping close and cinching Superboy's belt tight. He almost yelps, except they're eye to eye again and Artemis is handsome, he realizes suddenly, and has no idea what to do with the knowledge. She steps back, and he feels awkward and unnerved and does the same.

“Let's avoid splitting up,” Kaldur says, looking around. “I believe one curse is more than enough for one day. We should not tempt fate by making ourselves easier targets.”

The others make agreeing noises, and Superboy nods belatedly, only half-listening. Wally and Artemis are both trying to tug their uniforms into more comfortable positions—Artemis especially, since she's the only one who got bigger and doesn't have psychic clothing—and he's noticed Kaldur and Robin both making efficient little adjustments once or twice, but . . .

Kaldur starts talking about the plan, then, and Superboy tries to pay attention but . . .

They all look so uncomfortable, he thinks; everyone except M'gann.

Is that really just the clothes?

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They find the target—the “definitely not magical, this is totally scientifically explainable” target, Wally keeps insisting—but beating him into the ground does not immediately undo their “scientifically explainable” transformations, which everyone else seems kind of insulted by. Superboy isn't sure why they all thought punching the guy into unconsciousness was going to instantly fix the problem, but they have been doing this longer than him.

M'gann's ship works like normal, but explaining why Mount Justice won't let them in to Batman is kind of awkward, and in the end the Martian Manhunter has to drop by and brainscan them. Superboy grits his teeth against the invasive presence, but it's not as bad as he expects it to be and it's over quick.

“It's them,” Manhunter confirms, and Batman fixes them all with this look that everyone else turns bright red and starts readjusting their uniforms under. Superboy frowns a little, but feels . . . normally he would be very angry to be looked at like that, he thinks, but right now he's only a little irritated. Kaldur explains and Batman listens, and then sends them all to wait in the living room while he calls Zatara.

“This is so embarrassing,” Artemis groans, tugging at the bottom of her barely-zipped shirt like she's trying to cover her bare stomach with it. Superboy doesn't understand why, it's not like she doesn't normally go around with her stomach bare, but strips off his T-shirt and tosses it at her. It doesn't fit him right anymore anyway. “Thanks,” she says automatically, catching it—then stares at him.

“. . . you know, I hate to say anything that even kind of agrees with Arty, but 'mmmm, that girl',” Wally says after a long moment spent staring too. Superboy frowns at both of them, not understanding, and then Artemis is very quickly yanking the shirt back over his head and oh, right. Girls have breasts.

He didn't even think about it. Well—it was uncomfortable while they were fighting, but that was it, really. It wasn't even that uncomfortable. They weren't in the way or anything, they were just there, and he doesn't feel any different about taking off his shirt either way.

Wally and Artemis are both bright pink, though, so maybe he shouldn't have.

“Uh. Sorry?” he tries.

“What for?” Wally asks dreamily, then seems to realize what he just said and shakes himself quick, pretty red curls bouncing into his face. “I mean that's okay, totally that's fine, no one minds!”

“I mind you,” Artemis growls, glaring at him, and he glares back up at her and it's weird, Superboy thinks, he can tell they're Artemis and Wally but they just look so miserable in their own skins, and if there's one thing he'd never associate with either of them it's the idea of them being uncomfortable in themselves.

But everyone seems to be, except again, for him and M'gann. Superboy glances at her, wondering why, and she looks the same as ever, apart from the fact she took the heels off her boots and changed her skirt into shorts. And, well, being a boy. He supposes this kind of thing isn't anything new to her, though—it's probably even good practice.

They wait around for a while, Wally and Artemis bickering and Robin getting dragged into it too, and Kaldur getting more and more restless as time goes by and the other three get angrier and angrier. M'gann starts to get anxious when both her and Kaldur's attempts at peacemaking fail and retreats into the kitchen, and Superboy follows her because he isn't really sure what else to do. He doesn't understand why they're so upset. The pain from the initial transformation wore off hours ago, the mission was otherwise a textbook success, and no one has so much as a bruised knee or bloody nose. Normally they'd all be ecstatic.

“Everyone's so unhappy,” M'gann frets, flipping anxiously through her cookbook, and Superboy just leans over her shoulder and watches the recipes fly by. It's not as easy to lean over as it used to be, though, and he has to go up on the balls of his feet to manage it; even then the vantage point isn't the one he's used to. M'gann notices, and adjusts, and the next thing he knows he's slipped in under her warm strong arm and she's the one reading over his shoulder.

It's . . . different, he thinks.

“Your hair's so nice,” M'gann says somewhere between seafood chowder and steak salad, and Superboy blinks and gives her a startled look. She immediately looks anxious and nearly fumbles the book. “I'm sorry, I don't mean—I know it's girl hair, I just thought it was nice. I didn't mean anything by it.”

“I don't mind,” Superboy says, slowly, and tilts his head so the yellow falls into his field of vision again.

And he doesn't.

M'gann looks surprised, but not as surprised as he feels.

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Zatara comes and checks them all over, says “This is going to take a few days”, swats Wally with a deck of cards for calling him a fraud, and then leaves to interrogate the criminal who cast the spell to begin with. Wally and Robin and Artemis get even angrier, and Batman gives Kaldur a credit card and tells them all to go buy three days' worth of clothing that will fit and support appropriately. Kaldur blushes for possibly the only time ever, and they all raid each other's closets to cobble together temporary fixes before heading out. M'gann even borrows one of Superboy's shirts, although she obviously doesn't need to. He figures she felt left out, though, so doesn't say anything. Besides, she said she liked them.

Artemis and Wally fit each other's clothes best and take it as a personal affront, Robin still fits his own and takes that as a worse affront, and Superboy and Kaldur both end up just barely fitting into Wally's, which has him sputtering indignantly for the next half-hour. They go to the mall and M'gann is excited to shop, but everyone else looks ready to die of embarrassment. Superboy doesn't understand what the big deal is, but Robin and Wally and Kaldur all choke when Artemis drags them into the lingerie section of the first department store they get to.

He doesn't mind that much, and looks around while she browbeats them into getting their measurements taken. The salesgirl seems a little weirded out by a boy intimidating a bunch of embarrassed girls into buying bras and panties, but she's nice enough when it's Superboy's turn for the measuring tape. Robin only needs a training bra, Kaldur is an A-cup—apparently bra sizes come in numbers and letters; who knew—and Wally is a C, which immediately has him and Artemis arguing again, although Superboy can't figure out why. Something about speedster metabolisms and “where did you even get the body fat for that, you bastard?!” and “hah, you're just jealous I'm bigger than you!” and the like.

It's all very unnecessarily confusing, Superboy thinks, and the salesgirl tells him he's a C too and then goes to get them all something to try on.

“That is not fair,” Wally says vehemently when he sees all the lacy and racy bras the salesgirl brings back. Superboy just takes off his shirt and grabs the first black one he sees, because he doesn't see the point of complaining. Wally and Robin and the salesgirl all choke, and that's the first proper explanation he gets of the point of changing rooms. Artemis helps them adjust the bras right—M'gann doesn't wear real ones, so she's as hopeless as the rest of them—which they get more weird looks from the salesgirl for but goes okay otherwise. Wally really doesn't like it, though, and almost vibrates through the changing room door trying to get out of it; in the end Kaldur has to help him with his.

Robin gets the first training bra the salesgirl offers him and Wally and Kaldur both find the plainest and most appropriately supportive bra they can and immediately buy three of it apiece, but M'gann comes up with a lacy pink thing and a silky blue one and beams up at Superboy, and so he ends up with three different ones. They fit fine and they're going to be under his clothes, he reasons, so he doesn't see why it matters if they're especially girly or not. It's not like they make manly bras, and besides the ones M'gann picked out both come with matching panties so that's one less thing he has to look for.

He still likes the black one best, Superboy decides as he looks at himself in the mirror, and then he looks at himself in the mirror. He has long pale legs and long pale arms and long pale hair, and his face is still severe and his eyes are still blue but there are . . . curves to him, now, and when he smooths his hand down his own side it's . . . it's very . . .

The line of him is different.

Artemis finds underwear for the others, Wally shrieks at her until she stops trying to put him in frilly pastels, and Superboy watches himself in mirrors as they argue and Robin tries to melt into the floor and M'gann frets and Kaldur pays. They go to the next section and Artemis gets underwear too (“BRIEFS, are you SERIOUS?!” Wally demands) and Superboy keeps catching glimpses of himself in mirrors, the long sway of his hair, the . . . the way his legs look, how slim and strong they are under Wally's too-loose but too-short jeans, and M'gann goes flitting through the racks and comes back with a short dress, pink and swishy and light, and Superboy looks at it and . . .

It looks how he feels, he thinks; he feels pink and swishy and light, like his feet could step right off the floor. He tries it on and Wally and Artemis both sputter at M'gann for picking it out but Superboy just looks at himself in the mirror and it's a pretty dress, pink and swishy and light and pretty and . . . and he doesn't really know, besides that. But M'gann fights in dresses, he reasons, so why not?

And it's pretty.

Wally and Robin and Kaldur all get the most shapeless jeans and T-shirts they can find and hide in their clothes, and Superboy wonders why. Artemis isn't much better, although she tries harder not to grimace about it. M'gann, again, doesn't really care, and doesn't buy anything—she keeps flitting through the aisles in her borrowed T-shirt, though, and Superboy goes with her and the pink dress swishes around his thighs (is this what wearing a cape feels like, he wonders, would a cape make him feel this light and free). She finds him two pairs of boot-cut jeans and two baby doll S-shield shirts and a pair of boots, but he doesn't really want boots right now, so she finds little white slip-ons that don't weigh a thing too and that's perfect.

That's really perfect, he thinks, tugging long blonde hair over his shoulder and looking at himself in another mirror.

He just feels so light.

Superboy has never felt this light. Even seeing the moon . . . even seeing Superman, before he landed, before he tried to say anything to him . . . even that didn't feel this light.

“Hey, Supergirl, move your butt!” Wally yells from somewhere in the men's section, and Superboy blinks, slowly, and keeps looking at himself.

Supergirl, he repeats in his head, and it sounds . . .

Different.

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The next day Black Canary says they still have to train. No one's very happy about it, but Super(girl, his head tries again, quietly)boy doesn't mind. They were a mess during the last fight against the guy who cursed them and their lives are never so simple as to stay quiet when they're at less than their best, so it makes sense.

Super(girl)boy wears the dress again when they go to the training room, and Black Canary doesn't tell him to change so he doesn't. Robin and Artemis spar first, and both end up tripping over their own feet; Robin's faster to recover and faster to adjust, but when Artemis finally gets room to draw her bow, the first arrow flies so fast Super(girl)boy barely sees it. Wally and Kaldur go next, and it's messier and clumsier and Wally trips half a dozen times and skids into the wall twice and Kaldur keeps forgetting his arms don't have the strength or the reach he's used to, and Super(girl)boy watches them fight and when Wally figures out how really, really effective kicking is with a girl speedster's legs, he makes a note of it.

M'gann and Super . . . boy are next. Superboy steps out of the little white flats, because they look like they're bad for kicking in, and M'gann smiles at him and sends him skidding him back a good ten feet with a telekinetic shove that wouldn't have moved him half that far the day before yesterday. His bare feet slide across the floor and he feels—light.

So light.

M'gann's smile brightens and Superboy . . . he doesn't even know where it comes from, but he smiles back. More than smiles, he . . . more than smiles, he didn't even know you could smile wide enough for it to hurt.

They fight, Black Canary calling out advice in the background, and it's mostly Superboy trying to kick M'gann and M'gann blocking with telekinetic shields, trying to sweep his feet out from under him with her shifting cape, and normally that'd work, he'd get knocked over every time and hit the ground like a wet sack and be jarred out of his efforts, but today he jumps above it, today he lands in a roll every time he falls, today is easy—today is different.

The floor doesn't even shake when he lands and the dress doesn't even tangle him up, although Wally and Artemis make weird choked noises a few times and Robin laughs a lot. Superboy doesn't care about that, though, all he can think about is how good he feels, how alert and in himself, how . . .

Something was crushing him, he realizes absently, jumping back to avoid a telekinetic strike. Something was crushing him, and now it's not.

Superboy . . . Super(girl)boy . . .

Supergirl feels so light.

M'gann stops, and stares at her in surprise.

“Go limp when a telekinetic grabs you like that,” Black Canary advises in the background. “The heavier you are the harder you are for them to hold, and if they don't have a good grip on you or something distracts them they might—”

“I don't have a grip,” M'gann interrupts, wide-eyed, covering her mouth with her hands.

Supergirl looks down at her swishy skirt and long legs and bare feet and the floor they're all not touching, and laughs.

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“It's probably because you're lighter—I bet the flying isn't strong enough to carry you when you're normal-sized yet,” Wally decides around a mouthful of M'gann's cookies after training, and Supergirl just nods along blissfully, still hovering above the floor. She hasn't touched it since she figured out how not to touch it, and now she's bursting with . . . with so much, so much and it's wonderful, it's . . . it's the moon, it's the sun, it's Superman.

She wants to fly that high. She wants to disappear against the light of the moon, too high to even see, super-vision or not; she wants to be infinitely high and above it all, but Black Canary already told her not to go any higher than would be safe for landing from if something happened. Supergirl can fall pretty far, though—she's not quite as durable as she was yesterday, she thinks, but barely enough for it to matter. Gravity by itself can't possibly bring her down harder than her own jumps do anyway.

She wants to go outside.

“At least put some jeans on underneath the dress before you do? Please?” Artemis asks, covering her face with a hand.

“No,” Supergirl says, and is so pleased with the thought. Jeans are constricting, are weight, and she wants nothing to do with them.

“It gets pretty windy if you go too high,” M'gann warns.

“I don't care,” Supergirl says, smiling to herself, and M'gann smiles back and they head for the door and Wally groans in frustration.

“This is the worst time ever to not be able to fly,” he declares despairingly, and Artemis snaps at him and Robin snorts and Kaldur just sighs, and Supergirl and M'gann leave the room and hurry down the hall, both floating above the floor—both holding hands, and Supergirl doesn't usually want to hold hands or hold on to people at all for very long, but M'gann's hand is cool and strong and wrapping hers up in a really nice way, and she likes being the smaller hand, likes how she feels like that.

She's so used to being uncomfortable touching people, but today everything is so easy and seems to interlock just how she wants it to and anyway, she's been in M'gann's mind, so what's the difference?

They get outside and rise off the ground and everything in the world is right, everything is perfect, she can't stop smiling and that's so . . . it's so strange. Supergirl has never felt like this, and somehow the newness and novelty of the feeling just makes it even better, makes everything bubble up into laughter and M'gann laughs too and grips her hands, and their foreheads brush together.

Supergirl remembers not remembering, and remembers M'gann reminding her, and remembers G-gnomes whispering in her mind, telling her about this, about how good this would be.

“They were right,” she says, and lets go of M'gann's hands and tears across the sky. M'gann zips after her and they weave and spiral through each other's paths, and maybe they're racing and maybe they're playing and maybe they're just—

“It's a little like dancing, isn't it,” M'gann says with a shy smile as they cross close, her cape and Supergirl's skirt nearly tangling together, and yes, Supergirl thinks, this must be dancing.

And if it's not, it should be.

M'gann stops first—Supergirl never wants to stop—and touches her temple, expression turning distracted. Supergirl loops around her, still relishing the feeling of motion without gravity attached, and flips backwards in the air once, just because she can. And then again, because why not, and again and again and this is exactly what dancing is supposed to be, she thinks, this is exactly what she is supposed to be, and when she remembers to glance back to M'gann, breathless and brighter than she ever remembers feeling, M'gann is watching her and smiling just as wide as she is herself.

“I like this,” Supergirl says, kicking her feet in the air, floating up higher, and M'gann smiles wider and reaches up, and Supergirl grabs her hand in both of her own and pulls her higher, takes them both up.

“Flying is wonderful,” M'gann agrees warmly, still smiling at her as she draws level, as they hold each other's hands, and then M'gann's hand is on the small of Supergirl's back and they spin around and Supergirl laughs, head full of G-gnome memories and they taught her how to dance, she thinks in giddy delight, how did she forget that? “But I have to go—Uncle J'onn is calling me. Will you be okay by yourself?”

“Yes,” Supergirl says, because the idea of ever not being okay again is just the most ridiculous thing she's ever heard, and M'gann lets her go and calls back a goodbye as she leaves, and Supergirl flies out over the water, dropping low to watch her shadow skim across the waves and then pulling up high to watch it disappear, to feel the wind tear through her hair and tangle in her skirt, feel it in her face and between her fingers and toes, feel herself, the air she's always known she belonged to, and she throws her head back for the sun and closes her eyes, and everything is—

Something wraps around her middle and Supergirl yelps in shock, nearly dropping out of the sky, but an unfamiliar arm steadies her and when she turns it's. It's.

Oh.

“You may not want to be flying around like that in a dress,” Superman says, smiling ruefully down at her, and Supergirl stares back up at him wide-eyed and manages a mute nod. He wraps his cape a little tighter around her and she tries not to look too obviously worshipful but it's Superman's cape and it's on her, on her as she's flying, and this may just be the most perfect moment of her life.

“S-sorry. It's a new—I'm not used to the body,” she manages nervously, awkwardly, and he smiles again and pats her shoulder.

“Don't be,” he says. “I used to get just as excited about my powers when I was younger. I would have stayed up here for days if I could've gotten away with it.”

“I would too!” Supergirl blurts out excitedly, too bright and too loud and much too eager, and she immediately reddens in embarrassment and covers her mouth with her hands and Superman laughs, not mockingly or meanly, and the air up this high is supposed to be freezing but Supergirl feels nothing but warm. Superman came to see if she was okay; he wrapped her up in his cape and smiled at her and he's talking to her about her powers. She didn't even think Batman had told the League how they'd all gotten cursed yet, but he's Superman, of course, he could've just found out and already be here.

The idea that he'd come right away makes her feel even warmer.

“I mean. I mean, I like it that much too,” Supergirl gets out awkwardly, quieter but still embarrassed, and Superman just smiles—again, and she has never seen him smile this much before, not in person.

Forget days. Supergirl never wants to touch the ground for the rest of her life.

“I think anyone would,” Superman says, then looks her over thoughtfully. “I didn't even recognize you,” he says. “The hair's very different.” Supergirl beams, pulling it over her shoulder with the hand not holding up the cape.

“Kid Flash said I was a smoking hot blonde,” she tells him, feeling oddly proud of the compliment even though she doesn't fully understand the meaning behind it, and Superman looks ruefully amused.

“Did he now,” he says. “Well, boys will be boys, I suppose.”

“It is—it is pretty, right?” Supergirl asks, face falling a little at that reaction—maybe Wally was just teasing again and she didn't get the joke, like always, but M'gann said it was pretty—and Superman just smiles at her again.

“You're very pretty,” he says reassuringly, and the whole world stops and Supergirl glows. She has to duck her head behind her hair before she dies of embarrassed delight, skin prickling with warmth as she buries her painfully wide smile in cape-wrapped hands.

Superman thinks she's pretty.

Superman thinks she's pretty.

This one. This is the most perfect moment of her life.

Superman's communicator makes a small sound and he pauses, reaching to touch it, and Supergirl hears Green Arrow's voice coming from the earbud—“Batman's calling an emergency debriefing about the kids' situation. He wants you there.” Superman frowns, just for a moment, and gives Supergirl a puzzled look.

“'Situation'?” he repeats to himself, and then frowns at her in concern. “Is everything alright?”

“Oh—yeah, no, it's good,” Supergirl says, still beaming at him because really, everything is so much better than good—everything is the best it has ever been, with Superman looking at her like that. He still looks puzzled, but touches his communicator to respond to Green Arrow.

“I'll be right there,” he says, then lets go of the button and gives Supergirl another briefly concerned look. “You can make it back to Mount Justice on your own?” he asks, and she flushes and nods, fast. Even a moment's hesitation to leave is . . . it just feels like so much more than she ever hoped for, coming from him.

“I'm okay,” Supergirl says, warm and light and feeling like the sun. “Um, your cape . . .”

“Keep it. And I'll say hello to your uncle for you,” Superman says, giving her another smile, and Supergirl startles and nearly drops her grip on the cape.

“But—” she starts, and he just pats her shoulder again and tells her, “Don't worry about it, I have plenty,” and then he's gone and Supergirl is alone in mid-air, wrapped up in red and feeling shell-shocked, wearing his mark again because she will always, won't she, she thinks; no matter pretty dresses or long blonde hair or lightness or anything else.

She will always . . .

Supergirl thinks about crying for a moment, but then she looks down at the cape and really, all she's thinking is, does this mean it's not ME he doesn't like, just how I was made?

And thinking about it . . . it's not exactly the same, but thinking about it?

She doesn't really like how she was made either.

Then she cries after all, once she's sure Superman's too far away to hear.

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Supergirl lands on the beach with her long blonde hair a windblown mess and eyes that hurt from crying and Superman's cape balled up tight against her stomach and doesn't know if she's still happy or if she's miserable or if she's both, somehow, and all that lightness and rightness is still there but it isn't enough to keep her feeling perfect anymore. Of course he thought she was M'gann. Of course he didn't know, he was probably just passing by, of course he didn't know.

Her bare toes touch sand and Supergirl crumples, collapsing to her knees and burying her face in them, in the cape, wanting to bury herself and—and—

“Supey?” Wally's voice—Wally's girl-voice. Alarmed, sudden, right there and of course Supergirl wouldn't hear him coming in time to avoid him, how fast he is, and she wants to cry again but mostly never wants to move again. “Supey, what's wrong, are you hurt?” he asks, anxiously shaking her shoulder, and she tries to say yes, no, shut up, go away, but nothing comes out. “Superboy!”

Her head jerks up so fast it nearly hits him—would have hit anyone else—and she stares at him through aching eyes and says, “Supergirl.”

Wally looks relieved, and settles in beside her.

“Is that all?” he asks. “I knew you were taking the freaky gender-switchy thing way too well. Look, we'll figure something out, no way we're gonna get stuck like this.”

“'Stuck'?” Supergirl stares at him, and something odd curls in her gut. He grins at her, reckless and fearless and without doubt.

“Right!” he says firmly. “Look, you're new to the business and all, but everybody gets turned into something weird at least once. It's no big deal. It always gets worked out in the end and everybody gets back to normal.”

“. . . normal,” Supergirl says, slowly, and Wally grins wider and she feels sick, suddenly. “Normal” is not flying, normal is being heavy and wrong, normal is Superman not ever making eye contact with her ever, not even mistakenly like this, normal is—normal is—

Normal is Superboy.

Not Supergirl.

She doubles back over and bursts into fresh tears and Wally yelps in shock, grabbing onto her, and that is okay, that is fine, being touched as Supergirl is fine but when Zatara fixes them—when Zatara fixes them, no, no, that can't be the word, not fixes—

Wally is crying her name, the name she doesn't want, and Supergirl is just crying.

He zips away, zips back with another heartbeat, and then M'gann is tumbling down into the sand beside her and throwing her arms around her and Supergirl hates everything, wants to tear the whole world apart but she can't—stop—crying and M'gann's arms are big and warm and holding on tight, but all she can think of is Superman, the cape in her hands, he will never talk to her like that again, he never would have if he'd known who she was, she's so stupid, she thought he knew but why would he, why would he even pay that much attention—

“Oh, Superboy,” M'gann says, voice wretched, and pulls her close and lets her hide against her, and Supergirl can't stop crying, she is so stupid.

“Seriously, worst mission ever,” Wally says despairingly, sounding about an inch from panic, and Supergirl wants to punch him but not really, she doesn't know what she wants except for Superman to look at her like she's more than the way she was made, except to just have been made differently to begin with, except for M'gann to never ever ever let go of her.

So stupid.

M'gann pulls her to her feet and they go inside, and Kaldur and Robin and Artemis all look startled and rush over and Supergirl just keeps shaking her head to every question, denying them all.

But then Kaldur looks down at her hands and asks, “What are you holding?”

Supergirl's face crumples all over again, and she lets Superman's cape unfurl in her grip, so big and bright and long enough to drape over the floor.

“. . . oh,” Kaldur says, very quietly, and they all just look at it, this bright and beautiful symbol of truth and justice and all the worst things Supergirl has ever felt.

“He thought. He thought I was M'gann,” she manages, wretched and weak and hating herself for being stupid enough to believe he'd known it was her, to ever even consider the idea. “He thought I was M'gann so he talked to me like I was . . . like I was . . . so he talked to me.”

“Oh Superboy,” M'gann says again, soft and stricken as she reaches out and pulls her back in close, and Supergirl goes with those arms and does not cry again, she will not, she is never, ever going to cry again. Weapons don't cry, she thinks savagely, except M'gann is holding her so tight and she still never wants to come back from it.

But none of it matters, because Superman's cape is in her hands and he will never talk to her like that again and Zatara will—Zatara will fix them, and everything will go back to the way it was before, Supergirl will be heavy and uncomfortable and wrong, she will be that forever, and she was so stupid to think she wouldn't be. So stupid to think she was allowed to feel any other way than that.

Supergirl—Superboy is a weapon. Weapons don't get to feel like . . .

Weapons don't get to be happy.

.

.

.

The next day Zatara isn't back yet but Batman tells them they have a mission anyway, and everyone is upset about the mission except M'gann, who is worried about everyone else. Supergirl—boy, she thinks—he thinks angrily, boy boy boy you can't have this BOY—Superboy wants to tell her he's okay, wants to take away at least a little of that worry, but she's a . . . he's a horrible liar.

He's a liar.

She's . . .

M'gann touches his arm and gives him a concerned look and asks him, “Are you going to be alright?” soft and under her breath and he nods, tries to nod, wants to nod but it doesn't work, it won't, it can't, he is a horrible liar. He is a horrible liar wearing girls' jeans and girls' boots and a baby-doll T-shirt with Superman's symbol on it and he is not anything he wants to be, or anything Superman wants him to be. Which is “gone”, probably, and he wonders if Superman ever realized that he hadn't talked to M'gann yesterday. If it matters to him either way.

He doesn't know why he's even wondering. There's no reason it would.

Batman briefs them and sends them away and they cobble together civilian disguises appropriate for infiltrating a club from what he's supplied. Wally blurs into tights and a T-shirt dress, Robin switches his mask for pink sunglasses and shimmies into bright girlish leggings and an over-large button-down shirt that hides his utility belt, Artemis gets into ripped-up jeans and a tank top, and Kaldur uncertainly changes into a sleeveless, high-necked shirt and a pair of very short shorts, pulling arm warmers over his webbed fingers. M'gann just shifts, of course, and then her clothes look a little like what Superboy wears when he's the right . . . when he's . . . when he's “fixed”.

Artemis snaps the other boys into the accessories, arguing with Wally about what's appropriate and threatening them all with makeup, and Superboy just stares at the racks of clothes and doesn't know what to wear. What would the right Superboy pick, he wonders, what is he supposed to choose? This isn't him, but he is supposed to be “him”.

He doesn't have anyone else to be.

M'gann comes up with a frothy white minidress, and he wants to yell at her, wants to snap and lash out—SuperBOY I am a BOY stop making me feel like it's okay if I'm NOT!—but she is smiling and the dress is . . . it's so . . .

It looks like it weighs nothing, while everything else in the world is too heavy to bear.

Superboy puts it on, and M'gann dabs something pink and glossy on his lips and traces his eyes with a brown pencil. It feels odd and sticky and he doesn't really like it, but girls don't go to clubs without makeup and they're supposed to . . . they're supposed to act like girls, for this. Batman said . . . Batman said to be girls. To be not suspicious.

Superboy wants to cry again, but weapons don't cry.

“Superboy,” M'gann says softly, lowering the pencil, and he blinks fast and doesn't cry. “I'm so sorry about . . .”

“It's not your fault,” he cuts her off quickly rather than ever hear those words again, and she just looks sad.

“I know,” she says. “But I'm sorry.”

Superboy doesn't understand what she's trying to say, but by then the others are all dressed and accessorized and made-up and they're leaving. Wally and Robin and Kaldur all look upset and keep trying not to touch their makeup or catch their jewelry on anything, and Artemis just looks uncomfortable and embarrassed and won't look at Wally at all, just like he won't look at her.

They leave. Superboy ignores the way that his chair in the bioship cradles him more softly than usual because paying attention to that would mean paying attention to the other ways it's different, smaller and curved in places it didn't curve before. He sits stiffly and refuses to relax into the promise of its comfort and the others sit the same way, all wrong in their bodies, and that's the first time Superboy wonders—do they all feel heavy and wrong now? Is that why they've all been so upset?

What's wrong with him, he thinks, that he feels right when everyone else feels wrong, and wrong when everyone else feels right? Is it because they were all made naturally and grew up naturally and he was grown in a tube, in his pod?

Would everything not hurt, if he was like the rest of the team?

No one talks very much. Wally and Artemis argue, but strangely, and they keep cutting themselves off in the middle of sentences. Robin says a few sniping things and laughs a few times, and M'gann says a few soothing things and tries to smile a few times, and Kaldur says nothing at all. That seems like a good idea, Superboy thinks, and follows suit.

He remembers what Superman's cape felt like wrapped around him and in his hands, and the way Superman smiled at him when he didn't know who he was. He remembers that and he thinks: if weapons had hearts, if weapons were allowed to be happy and real, if he'd been made right or at least just born right . . . if any of those things, if all of those things, if anything . . . if . . .

He remembers what Superman's cape felt like wrapped around him.

“You're very pretty.”

.

.

.

I am going to KILL the next one, Wally threatens sourly from the far end of the room, his pretty red curls tangled around his pretty red face as he quickly escapes the third guy who's hit on him in the past five minutes, looking humiliated and angry.

It's the legs, Artemis tells him from the opposite corner, without sympathy. Shouldn't have worn the tights.

They're just LEGS! Wally yells.

RUNNER'S legs, and a runner's ASS, Artemis replies pointedly. On a GIRL. Wally descends into incoherent cursing and M'gann's concern ripples through all their minds, but Superboy feels drained and useless and does not even care; why does it matter, why does any of this matter, it's just a mission. It's a mission, it's nothing, and not even the frothy lightness of the dress M'gann picked out makes him feel any differently.

Target sighted, Robin says, crisp and sudden, and unease reflects in all of the others' minds.

I could try turning into a girl again? M'gann offers hesitantly. Maybe I'm just not trying HARD enough, hello, Megan, that's probably it! If you just give me a second—

It's fine, M'gann, Kaldur murmurs, and Superboy glances across the room at him. Kaldur is at the bar in his high-necked shirt and arm warmers and little shorts and skinny blonde cornrows and he is so . . . something odd speaks in Superboy, he isn't sure what, but what he thinks (she thinks, NO, there IS no she) is “handsome”.

Kaldur is handsome.

Kaldur slips away from the bar, walking just barely unsteadily in the high-heeled boots Artemis talked him into, and discontent reflects through their mental bond again.

Batman's totally just doing this to be a dick, Wally accuses.

Totally, Robin agrees, uncharacteristically subdued, and the ghost of Kaldur's frustration echoes through them.

He is testing our efficiency in compromised situations—

Being a DICK! Wally and Robin chorus, and Superboy glimpses the brief grimace that flashes across Kaldur's face.

Concentrate on the mission, Kaldur says lowly. Retrieve the stolen plans. I will . . . occupy the target. Even as calmly as he speaks, though, discomfort is clear in his voice, and Supergirl—Superboy—frowns unthinkingly at the sound of it.

Aqualad? he asks uncertainly, but Kaldur is approaching the target with a thin, odd smile and . . .

Worst. Mission. EVER, Artemis seethes, then starts dictating flirty dialogue based on what M'gann's reading off the target's surface thoughts. It's a mess, and unnecessarily complicated, but M'gann and Kaldur can't flirt and Artemis and Kaldur can't read minds and M'gann and Artemis can't be girls, so there isn't really another choice. The rest of them stay silent on the link, aside from an occasional pained groan from Wally who's being hit on again, and Superboy looks around the club absently.

He doesn't like it here. He doesn't know why anyone would; it's loud and crowded and stinks of sweat and drugs and disease and . . . other body fluids, ones he isn't really comfortable with concentrating on.

It's unpleasant here.

A weapon shouldn't care about 'unpleasant', something in him thinks, and he closes his eyes and exhales, leaning back against the wall. The tones of the others' voice start to change in his head but he doesn't pay attention; the only problems he's any use for are the ones that involve punching anyway. That's all he is, this heavy unrefined thing that can't have lightness, can't have anything pretty, and isn't worth Superman's time.

It's not fair.

He isn't interested, M'gann says.

What?! Artemis demands. Is he BLIND, Aqualad's hot as hell!

He thinks Aqualad's a . . . butch? M'gann says hesitantly, and Artemis curses viciously. I don't understand, what IS a butch?

It MEANS he thinks he's not GIRLY enough, shock of shocks! Wally snaps, and Superboy catches a glimpse of him ducking out of an especially persistent man's personal space. I TOLD you guys, there's no WAY this is going to work!

KF's really cute, Robin says abruptly, and Wally starts choking.

DUDE!

No, he's— Artemis's cringe might as well be vocal, for how obvious it is—No, he's right. Kid Flash IS really cute. Even if he acts a little boyish, the guy might not care.

No! No WAY! Wally yells, and Superboy glimpses fury on his face as he disappears deeper into the crowd. I've been creeped on ENOUGH tonight, make ROB do it!

Thanks, buddy, throw me to the sharks. I am so remembering this at Christmas.

Robin is not physically mature enough to be sexually attractive, Kid Flash, Kaldur says evenly, the barest traces of dissatisfaction in his thoughts. He's probably blaming himself, Superboy thinks. You are much more . . . ah . . . that is, your BODY is much more . . . developed. Besides, he is the one who needs to break into the computer.

I don't CARE! Wally snaps. SCREW what body I'm in, I'm still a GUY! He's going to know something's wrong, same as he did with you!

Bullshit, you've got tits out to here and legs that won't quit, that's all he'll care about! Artemis snarls. All you have to do is repeat what I tell you to!

Because that worked SO WELL with Aqualad! Wally snarls back.

AQUALAD isn't a five-foot-four C-CUP! Artemis yells at him, and Superboy stops listening because . . . because Wally said a thing, and that thing's sinking in. Because . . .

He looks down at himself, his soft frothy dress and long blonde hair and long pale legs, and feels . . .

Different.

You don't even have to hit on the GUY, okay, you just have to keep him distracted, Artemis bargains. Hit on AQUALAD, he already thinks he's butch. Or pretend you think HE'S hitting on Aqualad and get all jealous. And slip the word 'share' in a sentence, you can do that, it's not hard.

I'm a GUY, dammit! Wally yells, loud enough that most of them wince. A STRAIGHT guy! I CAN'T sell femme lesbian!

Who do you WANT to do it, the pedobait or the six month-old BRUISER?! Artemis demands, and Superboy looks down at himself again. His dress, his hair, his legs; his feet that even now don't want to be touching the floor.

Himself.

Not himself. Not that heavy and awkward person who always feels wrong, who doesn't belong to anyone, who even free of Cadmus and Desmond's control still isn't anything more than a body doing as it's told, a weapon in someone else's hand.

Something to be directed.

Cadmus was wrong. Living in the dark, in dreams and lies, in his own head . . . that wasn't how it was supposed to be. That's why he left. Why he lives at Mount Justice where he can go outside any time he wants, where he gets to decide things.

Where he gets to decide what he is.

All this time, and he hasn't decided a thing.

Robin, how do I look? Superboy asks, because Wally and Artemis are distracted arguing and Kaldur and M'gann are distracted trying to keep the target's attention as long as possible.

Supergirl asks.

Supes, this kind of isn't the—oh. Ohhhh, Robin says, with dawning horror. Supergirl (because really, really, how could she EVER have thought to go back, how could she EVER have thought it was okay to let Cadmus say what she was again, let ANYONE else say what she was again?) catches a glimpse of him in a far corner and sees alarm flash across his face, sees him immediately jerk forward and try to rush to her side. In another situation that might warn her off, but all she can really think about is . . . well, the salesgirl said she and Wally were both C-cups, so that means her breasts are just as “out to” as Wally's, and her legs are even longer, and she's definitely dressed girlier than Kaldur.

And Kaldur is so uncomfortable alone at the bar and trying to get the attention of this bad, bad man.

Weapon, something inside says, but the word falls flat in Supergirl's head and she draws herself up and pushes off the wall and strides across the dance floor like she's still wearing steel-toed boots and not cute little sandals that would break under her most halfhearted kick. She is a weapon, that is how Cadmus made her.

But Cadmus made her wrong.

And Wally's right. No matter what body she's in, girl or boy or weapon or person, it doesn't change who she actually is.

.

.

.

“Oh my God,” Artemis says in dreamy horror when they make it back to the bioship. Robin makes an odd croaking sound in something like reply, the zip drive with the stolen plans on it still clutched to his chest.

“That was . . . that was more fun than I ever want to have again,” Wally manages faintly, stumbling onto the ship, and Artemis and Robin both nod. Vehemently. Supergirl tries not to glow, but can't really help it. She did something right. She did something not punching right.

“I thought that all went very well!” M'gann volunteers brightly, clapping her hands together as they all take their seats, Supergirl relaxing into her own perfectly-fitted one in a languorous sprawl. She feels wonderful again, and refuses to feel anything but. Wally said it: people are what they are inside. And Supergirl isn't a weapon, and she isn't a boy either. She isn't anything she doesn't want to be.

Her body's just her body, and it can't change anything inside her.

“M'gann. Babe. Oh my God,” Wally says, collapsing into his own seat and burying his face in his hands. “That was not well.”

“But I thought you said human males like homosexual human females?” M'gann asks, giving him a puzzled little frown.

“Sometimes. Kind of,” Artemis replies vaguely, still sounding something between awestruck and horrified. Supergirl doesn't see the problem, personally; she thinks it went very well too. They distracted the target, got the information, and even got out without any punching or explosions for once. As far as she's concerned the only downside is that Kaldur's lipstick tasted kind of bad, and that was gone pretty quick anyway.

“Why only kind of?” M'gann asks, still frowning.

“Ask your sister,” Wally grumbles, not lifting his face from his hands.

“No, I'm not even—ask Robin,” Artemis groans, throwing an arm across her face and slumping over in her chair. “He survived Bat-training, he can deal with this.” Robin just makes a weird noise and curls up, hiding his face in his knees. Supergirl gives them all puzzled looks, wondering what's wrong, and glances over to Kaldur in expectation of an explanation. Kaldur seems to be oddly interested in fiddling with his seatbelt despite the fact it's already fastened itself just right, though, and doesn't look askable. Also, his face is flushed, which is odd because he told them all not to drink anything at the club.

“Are you okay?” she asks, leaning over to peer at him. Kaldur startles, and almost manages to fall out of his chair despite the seatbelt. Supergirl blinks at him, bemused, and he stares back at her for a moment, then offers a hesitant but reassuring smile.

“I apologize, Superboy,” he says quietly. “I was—distracted.”

“Supergirl,” Supergirl corrects. Kaldur's eyes flicker, and he frowns a little.

“What?” he asks. Supergirl opens her mouth to repeat herself, but then Red Tornado's voice comes across the commlink requesting their ETA and distracts everyone.

“Is Zatara back yet?!” Wally demands impatiently, head jerking up and shoulders hunching.

“He is not,” Red Tornado says, and Wally and Artemis groan in audible pain, both covering their faces again. Robin slumps back in his seat, Kaldur bows his head, and Supergirl and M'gann both frown in confusion.

“I can't take this any more, this is horrible,” Wally moans. “Seriously, getting hit by lightning was better than this! Gym class is better than this!”

Supergirl starts to open her mouth again, starts to say, but there's nothing WRONG with this. Then she remembers what she feels like when she's not like this—what being in the wrong body is like when it's really the wrong body.

Supergirl is a girl, but Kaldur is not. Wally and Robin are not. And M'gann and Artemis, they're not boys. Supergirl is in the right body, but she's the only one. She's wishing Zatara won't come back while they're desperate to see him again. She's dreading the return of the same heavy wrongness that they're all waiting to escape.

She's happy while they're not.

“It's okay, Kid Flash,” Supergirl says, looking down at herself, remembering both what Wally told her on the beach and what he said in the club. “Everything's going to work out in the end.”

For them, at least. The others shouldn't have to keep feeling the way she's always felt.

She won't let them have to.

.

.

.

“Report,” Batman says.

“The mission was, ah, successful,” Kaldur manages, his face all odd and flushed again, and Supergirl really does not understand why. Wally and Artemis are both hiding their faces, and Robin is wearing a weird, fixed grin.

Batman frowns.

“And?” he asks.

“And . . . the mission was successful?” Kaldur tries, looking embarrassed. Supergirl has never seen him so . . . flustered. It must be because his body is wrong, she thinks, like how everyone else has been so uncomfortable.

Batman's frown deepens, Kaldur's flush darkens, and Supergirl decides, in an echo of what she decided on the bioship: she is the one who likes it this way, so right now it is her responsibility to make things easier for the others. Maybe M'gann's a little too, but mostly hers.

“We used feminine wiles,” she volunteers, raising a hand, and the others make simultaneous choking noises, except M'gann who nods eagerly. Batman just looks at them.

“Whose?” he asks, and the rest of the team chokes again.

“Aqualad's, Artemis's, and Superboy's!” M'gann says cheerfully, clapping her hands together once. “Aqualad was the distraction and Artemis told him what to say to be sexually attractive, and Superboy was his backup.”

“Backup,” Batman repeats, slowly. M'gann beams, and so does Supergirl because for once she did something smart and subtle and didn't just punch something until it stopped punching back; for once she's being looked to to explain success and not failure (and she will remember that, she whispers to herself, when she is heavy and wrong again she will still have that memory to hold onto).

“The target thought Aqualad was a homosexual in an uninteresting way, so we decided he should be one in an interesting way,” Supergirl clarifies, and she and M'gann both beam again.

Batman looks at them.

“We did not decide. We whelmingly did not decide, this was not my idea at all,” Robin says quickly, bright red behind his hands. It's the first time he's said anything coherent since they left the club.

“It was Artemis's fault!” Wally accuses, pointing at her, and she glares at him.

“My fault?! You were the one who wouldn't help with the plan!” she shoots back, and he gives her an outraged look.

“Because it was a stupid plan!”

“Well it worked, didn't it?!”

“If 'worked' means 'scarred everyone for life', yeah, no, it totally worked!”

Batman folds his arms, and the argument instantly cuts out. Supergirl gives Wally and Artemis a weird look, wondering what that was all about. The plan did work, and they got the plans and got out clean and with no one even the wiser about them—and no magic curses this time, which means this mission went even better than the last one. How is that supposed to be scarring?

“Why don't you clarify that for me,” Batman says, his mouth a thin line. Robin covers his face again, and Wally and Artemis both cringe.

“Ah . . .” Kaldur starts, then trails off helplessly. Supergirl gives M'gann a puzzled look, and gets one in return. She still doesn't understand the problem, but if they're too uncomfortable . . .

“Nobody got scarred, we didn't even fight,” she says, tugging her hair over her shoulder to stroke. “Aqualad's flirting didn't work because he wasn't girly enough, so Robin suggested Kid Flash try, but he didn't think he could flirt with a guy right either.”

“Then Artemis said he should just pretend to be Aqualad's girlfriend and be jealous because that'd be easier, but Kid Flash said he couldn't do that either because he's a boy and boys aren't the same as lesbians,” M'gann adds.

“So I did it,” Supergirl finishes, gesturing at Kaldur. “I went over and hugged Kaldur and Artemis told me what to yell at the target to make a scene, and then we kissed and Robin stole the plans while he was distracted. With, um. Stuff.”

“Sexual fantasies!” M'gann pipes in brightly, turning a little pink but wearing a pleased smile despite the blush. Kaldur pales, and Wally makes a horrible choking noise. Batman . . . looks.

“I see,” he says finally.

“I am so sorry,” Kaldur says, looking mortified.

“But we got the plans,” Supergirl says, confused.

“So sorry,” Kaldur stresses. Supergirl just frowns in frustration, folding her arms beneath her breasts.

“But we got the plans,” she stresses back. Batman tilts his head slightly, expression turning considering, and Robin and Wally both immediately hide behind Supergirl.

“I'll explain to Superboy,” Kaldur blurts, quickly.

SuperGIRL, Supergirl opens her mouth to correct—again—in vague annoyance, but Wally and Robin are grabbing her arms and tugging really insistently at her and Batman is just eyeing them all resignedly, and then Artemis and Kaldur start pushing, and they all end up in the hall with M'gann floating after and Supergirl feeling markedly disgruntled.

“I don't get it,” she says, scowling at them even as they keep jostling her down the hall, and she goes with it because everyone not Kaldur would get knocked over if she didn't. “What's the big deal?”

“You're explaining why the matching underwear and little sundresses are a bad idea too, right?” Wally asks Kaldur, who just looks embarrassed.

“I do not think the dresses are really the problem—” he starts uncomfortably.

“I like the dresses!” Supergirl cuts in indignantly, and Artemis and Wally both groan like they're in pain but M'gann looks indignant too, at least.

“You're the leader,” Robin accuses Kaldur, ignoring Supergirl, who scowls. She doesn't care about flying or fighting in dresses being inappropriate, she likes them—and she still doesn't see what it has to do with anything, anyway.

“We'll . . . figure something out,” Kaldur manages, not quite looking at Supergirl for some reason.

For all the things having the right body has fixed, she really wishes it could've made her teammates make a little more sense.

.

.

.

“Was that your . . . that was your first kiss, wasn't it,” Kaldur asks hesitantly after everyone else has gone their separate ways and Supergirl's been sat down on the couch to be explained to.

“Did I do it wrong?” she asks, automatically concerned.

“N—no, you did very well,” Kaldur says awkwardly, ducking his head as he sits down beside her, and Supergirl frowns. “But you should not . . . kissing is important. You should only do it with someone you like.”

“But I do like you,” Supergirl replies, frown deepening. Of course she likes Kaldur, he told Robin to free her and whispered the truth into her ear and brought her up from the dark, to the moon and Superman and all the beautiful and ugly and real things she could ever possibly stand. Kaldur is the reason she is free to fly and fall and be happy and be miserable and just be.

“Not . . .” Kaldur hesitates, and shakes his head. “There are different kinds of liking. Liking someone so you want to kiss them isn't like liking a teammate or a friend.”

“But I did want to kiss you,” Supergirl protests. It was her idea to kiss Kaldur, she wanted to make sure they looked like girlfriends. Kaldur looks anxious, and shakes his head again.

“Not for a plan,” he murmurs, watching her with strange eyes. “Just to kiss someone. Because you like them. Their personality, the things they say, the way they look.”

“I like those things too,” Supergirl argues, frustrated. She's always liked those things about Kaldur; he's so easy to listen to, it's never really orders even when it is orders—he never makes her feel like a thing or unreal or just a weapon, no matter what he tells her to do. Asks her to do.

“You . . . like how I look?” Kaldur asks, looking uncomfortable, and Supergirl nods firmly because this at least is something easy.

“Yes,” she says. “You're handsome.”

“Handsome is for boys,” Kaldur corrects, and Supergirl gives him a funny look and tucks her hair behind her ear. Kaldur is a boy.

“Superman said I was pretty,” she tells him unthinkingly, and Kaldur's eyes soften and turn sad and that's . . . awkward. Unnerving—embarrassing? She's not sure. It's warm, but it hurts. “M'gann and Wally did too,” she adds quickly, wanting that look gone from Kaldur's face.

“You . . .” He struggles for words for a moment, and Supergirl bites her lip and pulls her knees up and waits, and it's funny how the waiting feels. “You are very beautiful,” Kaldur says finally, hesitantly, looking her in the eye as he speaks. Knowing her, and who she is, and not just talking about her hair or maybe-teasing or mistaking her for someone else.

Warmth blossoms inside of Supergirl like . . . like nothing else ever, maybe, or like Superman's cape around her shoulders and Superman's smile, before she knew . . . before . . .

Warmth blossoms inside of Supergirl like something perfect, and nothing else can cut it down.

“Now I want to kiss you just to kiss you,” she says abruptly, and grabs the back of Kaldur's neck as she leans in. His eyes flare wide and his mouth opens and maybe she should be patient, maybe she should wait for him to speak, but everything is bubbling up warm and spilling out of her, and she just wants to share that feeling and isn't kissing a way to do that?

Their lips collide and Supergirl knows her feet aren't on the floor anymore, knows this is bubbling and warm and perfect, and she never wants to come down or come up for air.

Kaldur does, though, because he jerks back, red-faced and breathing fast, and Supergirl stares at him in confusion. Does it feel wrong because he's in the wrong body, she wonders—is it not bubbling and warm for Kaldur? She knows she never really thought about kissing before, but it seemed like such a good idea just then.

“What's wrong?” she asks, and Kaldur looks . . . angry is the wrong word, but very upset.

“I am not . . . attracted to other males,” he says carefully, stiff in his seat, and Supergirl frowns.

“I'm not male,” she says, but Kaldur stays stiff and still and doesn't relax.

“It is inappropriate to experiment with these bodies,” he tells her. Why is that, she wonders; they're still their bodies, even if they aren't shaped the way they were before. “If you are experiencing an interest in girls, you should meet real ones. This will just confuse you.”

“You're not a girl,” Supergirl says, and Kaldur nods.

“That is correct,” he says, like he thinks he's explaining something. Supergirl just frowns again. She knows that.

“But I shouldn't kiss you?” she tries, and Kaldur nods very firmly at that, gripping her wrists and taking her hands away from him. Supergirl feels a sharp twinge inside and curls her fingers in on themselves, hiding them against her stomach to protect them. “I don't get it.”

“These are temporary transformations,” Kaldur says, pointing at himself. “Just because we find each other's forms pleasant does not mean we should . . . take advantage of them. They are not real.”

“I'm real,” Supergirl says, bristling reflexively, and Kaldur's face softens again.

“Of course you are,” he says. “But you are not a real girl, and neither am I.”

“I am a—” Supergirl starts, suddenly angry because he keeps trying to explain to her and she's not stupid, she knows what she's saying and she knows what she is—

And then Wally tears into the room, curls blown everywhere and nearly tripping over his pretty feet, and Robin's laugh echoes in the hallway, sweeter and more melodic than usual but no less difficult to pin down. Supergirl scowls, and Kaldur frowns, and Wally waves his arms urgently.

“Guys! Guys guys guys guys!” he crows enthusiastically, practically jumping on them as Robin sweeps into the room after him with glee radiating off him, and Supergirl is still upset and Kaldur still looks uncomfortable, but Wally is beaming in delight and doesn't seem to notice. “Move come on let's go, oh my god right now.”

“We're talking,” Supergirl says angrily, folding her arms.

“This is so much more important than that!” Wally insists, grabbing her by the shoulders and yanking at her. Supergirl can't think of anything more important than making Kaldur want to kiss her, but Kaldur looks anxious and uncomfortable and perfectly willing to follow Wally and Robin, and somehow they end up doing that.

Supergirl doesn't want to. She wants to kiss Kaldur and wrap her arms around his neck and feel warm and bubble over and have her feet leave the floor; it's nice, kissing Kaldur. And he is handsome, and he always tells her the truth and always asks before he orders.

And he thinks she's beautiful.

He thinks she's beautiful, and he thinks she deserves to be real.

Except he can't tell that she is, she remembers uncomfortably, looking at her feet as they follow Wally and Robin down the hall and out to the living room and Supergirl doesn't even get what the big deal is, it's . . .

Oh.

. . . oh.

.

.

.

Zatara is setting up the counterspell with Batman and Black Canary and Red Tornado in the training room and Supergirl is sitting in the kitchen with the team, all of them dressed in their ill-fitting usual clothes again. She’s trying not to think too much. M'gann is baking, which helps a little with the not thinking—at least she has something else to watch.

She wishes she could get to kiss Kaldur one more time before Zatara changes them back. She knows it wouldn't feel the same in that awkward, ill-fitting other body as it did in this one, so much better than the G-gnomes' data had ever led her to believe. She wishes she could hold M'gann's hand again, too—no, she wishes M'gann would hold her hand, so it's small and hidden and vanishes inside her much bigger one. That was better than the G-gnomes said it would be too.

She guesses the G-gnomes never said much about how things like that would be, though.

Or about . . . a lot of things, really.

Supergirl closes her eyes, and remembers flying.

Even that, she knows, won't be the same—assuming she'll even be able to, anymore. She knows how it feels, now, how to do it, but . . .

She doesn't think that body can feel like that.

“Isn't it ready yet?” Wally asks impatiently, nearly vibrating in his seat. Supergirl almost yells at him, but bites her tongue instead. It's a bad time to get upset.

“We must not rush Zatara,” Aqualad says a little less patiently than usual. He seems a little less patient all over right now. “A spell meant to change one’s physical form is very complex, and even a minor error could end very badly for both us and him.”

“There’s no such thing as magic!” Wally says in exasperation, rocking backwards on his stool. “Could we please at least use something approaching real terms for whatever he’s actually doing over there?”

“Why don’t you have that conversation with Wonder Woman and we’ll see where we go from there,” Artemis snorts, rolling her eyes. Supergirl pictures it, and is pretty sure Wally does too from the way he visibly pales.

“Superman’s vulnerable to magic,” she offers, mostly as a distraction. It’s relevant, anyway; they’re four different species, something science-based shouldn’t have affected them all the same way. M’gann should’ve still been able to become a human girl, too. Magic’s a bit less precise, but a lot more precise. It’s interesting like that.

“Superman is vulnerable to a very specific type of science,” Wally stresses firmly. “And rocks. Irradiated rocks, that we can explain with science. Because science is a thing!”

“Seriously, what do you even think Aqualad’s powers are?” Artemis asks, leaning across the counter to squint at him doubtfully. “I’m very interested in this, go on, explain the glowing tattoos and shapeshifting water weapons to me.”

“Neural-interfaced bioluminescent hydrokinetic nanobots in the ink, duh,” Wally says matter-of-factly, and the rest of the team stares blankly at him as Artemis drops her head into her hands. “Neural activation of the nanobots triggers luminescence mirrored in the affected--”

“It’s magic, Wally,” Artemis bites out. “From Atlantis. Which is also magic. Magic! Could you at least try to be a little open-minded?”

Supergirl listens to them bicker because it usually helps with the not-thinking, except right now it doesn’t. Wally doesn’t believe in magic even though magic did this to them, and she misses the frothy little dress she’ll never get to wear again and feeling light and right, even though she still feels it right now. Wally doesn’t believe in things right in front of him and she misses something that isn’t even gone yet.

She’s not sure why those things feel related. They aren’t, she’s almost sure, but there’s still something . . . there’s still something.

Kaldur looked at her and didn’t believe in her.

He’s never done that before.

“Alright, kids,” Black Canary calls as she leans in the doorway, and Supergirl looks at her and her long blonde hair and long legs and feels . . . heavy, mostly, which is not how she wants to feel right now. “Zatara’s ready for you, come on in.”

Wally’s already blasted past her by the time she says “ready” and Artemis and Robin aren’t far behind and Kaldur’s only a little behind them, but they’re all halfway to the training room before Supergirl’s even managed to make herself stand up. She looks at Black Canary and wonders if she will ever be able to look at her again without feeling jealous or cheated or heavy or--

It’s not Black Canary’s fault she’s wrong, she cuts her own thoughts off with, fingers curling on the counter. Just like it’s not the team’s fault. That’s why she has to change back, because it’s not their fault. They shouldn’t have to feel wrong just so she can feel right.

Supergirl lets herself float the distance to the door and down the hall because this will probably be the last time she ever gets to feel light, and she grabs M’gann’s hand on the way because M’gann’s hand is just right for hers like this, because hers is just right for M’gann’s, because she wants to do this even more than she wants to kiss Kaldur and after this they will never hold hands just-right again.

M’gann smiles at her, floating along like she feels light too, like they can both be like this and be just-right, and entering the training room is just . . . awful. Awful. As bad as Superman’s cape settling around her shoulders like a weight. Zatara is adjusting a series of chalk lines on the floor and the others are all clustered up close, just barely kept back by Batman and Black Canary’s presences.

They all want to turn back, Supergirl reminds herself as she looks at them. They all feel wrong and stifled and heavy inside, and they’re her team. They saved her; they showed her the moon.

This can’t be worse than being in Cadmus. This can’t be worse than Superman looking at her and stepping back, being upset when she tried to help, leaving her alone when she’s asking him for help. It can’t.

“Stand here,” Zatara says to each of them in turn, directing them to different parts of the chalked-up floor, and then Supergirl has to let go of M’gann’s hand and land and it is worse, it is so much worse. She thinks about the cape hidden under her bed and wants to cry into it again.

The chalk on the floor isn’t a pentagram, but it’s something like one, and there’s a place for each of them in it and a bigger place in the center. Supergirl looks down at her place and the confusing mish-mash of symbols around it and wants so badly to step out of the circle and lift off the floor and get away but--

“Don’t move,” Zatara says, stepping into the middle of the diagram and raising his hands. “The diagram is very delicate, you must avoid disrupting the lines.” He goes on to talk about the actual flow of magic and the potential for electrical interference from the mountain’s systems and Wally looks physically pained to be keeping his mouth shut but somehow does. Supergirl only listens to so much of it, because eventually all she’s hearing is this is how we’ll fix you.

And she doesn’t want fixed. She’s selfish and terrible and broken and no wonder Superman doesn’t want her and Kaldur doesn’t believe in her anymore. No one should. No one ever should’ve. She was broken from the start and she only feels right when everyone else is wrong, she’s only happy when they’re all miserable.

Of course she doesn’t deserve wanted or believed in.

Zatara opens his mouth to cast the spell, magic gleaming at his fingertips, and Supergirl flinches--

“Zatara,” Batman murmurs, stepping up to the edge of the circle, and Supergirl’s vision nearly whites out with relief as Zatara lets his magic dissipate unspent and she hates herself for it, she does, but she feels it anyway. Wally and Artemis and Robin groan in frustration and Kaldur lets out a little sigh and M’gann does neither of those things, at least, but she’s not like Supergirl either, she doesn’t look--

Batman is looking at her, Supergirl realizes suddenly, and then does not feel relieved at all. Can he tell? Does he know, is he going to tell them how selfish she is, how terrible a teammate, how--

“Lleps lanigiro eht etagen t'nod,” Batman says to Zatara, and Supergirl blinks. Everyone else looks bemused too, so for once she knows it’s not just a “her” thing. “Mrof eurt rieht ot elpoep snruter taht lleps-retnuoc a tsac tsuj.”

“. . . if you say so,” Zatara says, eyeing Batman a little oddly himself as he steps into position and shakes out his wrists. Supergirl has no idea how he understood that, but is too busy with the nauseous pressure in her gut to wonder very hard about it. “Alright, kids, second try. Brace yourselves, this will definitely hurt.”

“Finally!” Wally whoops, throwing his hands up in the air and not even saying anything derisive about the magic or cringing at the “this will definitely hurt”. Supergirl squeezes her eyes shut and holds onto this moment, just for a moment: the last moment of this silent, natural rightness that she will never feel again.

It’s okay, she reminds herself. It’s for the team. It’s what the team needs. It’s what the team wants.

Zatara casts the spell.

“MROF EURT RUOY OT NRUTER!”

.

.

.

Supergirl is not used to pain, but this time it doesn’t hurt, this time it’s just everyone yelling as power blasts up from the circles beneath their feet and bathes them all in light and color and a shocking shine that forces Supergirl’s eyes open against all reason. M’gann looks gorgeous, diamond-iridescent colors lighting her up, and Kaldur is blue-white and brilliant like he’s ready for a fight. She can’t see anyone else.

It’s awful that it doesn’t hurt, even when Zatara said it would; this is the time that should hurt.

The light around her is golden like Earth’s sun, and like her hair where it splits her vision.

She doesn’t feel gorgeous or ready to fight at all.

The light dies, and everyone else collapses to the floor with a groan. Supergirl blinks the afterimages out of her eyes and looks around the room in confusion, not sure what made them drop. M’gann’s not quite how she’s used to seeing her and the last afterimages of light in the room are washing the green out of her skin, but she’s already shifting back to human-shaped, and everyone else is back to normal. They all changed but the change didn’t hurt this time, it didn’t feel like--

Superboy, Supergirl reminds herself, stopping to brace herself against it. Himself. She can’t keep--he can’t keep--

“Hm,” Batman says, looking right at Supergirl.

“Well, that’s not right,” Zatara says with a grimace, outright staring at her, and she immediately freezes up. They can tell. They can tell, they can see, they’ll tell everyone else how awful she--

. . . she.

“Oh no,” Black Canary murmurs, stepping in closer, and Supergirl looks down at herself and it is, in fact, herself. Batman doesn’t say anything, but Wally and Robin and Artemis start freaking out and in a flash Zatara’s across the room running his hands up and down Supergirl’s arms and face and cursing under his breath--

“Oh hell, I must’ve misaligned something in the circle. Kryptonians and magic, I hope I didn’t make this permanent--”

“You promise?” Supergirl asks breathlessly, eyes wide and face lit up and light, and Zatara goes still. And she’d be worried or upset by that, usually, but everyone else is back to normal and she’s not and does that mean she gets to keep this, does that mean it’s okay if she does? “Everyone else is back to normal and it’s permanent?”

“It . . . might be,” Zatara says slowly, watching her face very closely. Supergirl doesn’t even care, though, not when she hears that, and she’s never--she’s never--

Supergirl is no kind of used to pain.

She remembers now, though, that you can smile wide enough for it to hurt.

“Superboy, are you . . .” Kaldur starts warily, stepping out of his circle and lifting a hand towards her. He doesn’t believe in her, she thinks, except that’s stupid, she knows he does. He just doesn’t understand. So--

“Supergirl!” she corrects him giddily, and then her feet leave the floor and she spins around once in the air and it feels so good, and M’gann looks up at her and laughs.

“Ohhhh, you feel so happy! It’s wonderful!” she says delightedly, jumping up off the floor too and grabbing Supergirl’s hands, and Supergirl grips back tight and beams at her, face still hurting from how hard. And her hands don’t disappear in M’gann’s anymore, not now, but they still lock together just right.

She could cry right now and love it, Supergirl thinks. Even Superman could not possibly be disappointed enough to ruin this for her.

“I do! I am!” she crows, spinning M’gann around, and M’gann laughs again and spins with her as they both float up over everyone else’s heads.

“What the hell,” Wally says in disbelief.

“I didn’t negate the original spell,” Zatara says, his tone and expression both odd, but Supergirl beams down at him anyway because he fixed the rest of them without breaking her and just might be her favorite person in the world right now. “I cast a spell to return you all to your true forms.”

“. . . ah,” Kaldur says slowly.

“What the hell?!” Wally yells. “That’s not even a thing!”

“Wait, so--like, you were a girl and then Cadmus turned you into a guy?” Artemis asks incredulously. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

“No, I always looked like that,” Supergirl says, shaking her head. It’s okay to say now, now that the rest of them turned back and she doesn’t have to. “They just made me wrong.”

“You were never a boy,” Kaldur says, voice still slow and very careful, and Supergirl feels giddy lightness again, because of course he understands. She knew he would. “Did you always know that?”

“No.” Supergirl shakes her head again. “I figured it out when we were training the second day. When I flew.”

“This makes no sense,” Wally mutters, rubbing at his temples, but Kaldur just takes it in with a thoughtful expression that makes Supergirl want to hold his hands at least as bad as she wants to hold M’gann’s. If he could fly himself, she’d already be pulling him off the floor.

“Actually this explains, like, a million things,” Robin says, squinting assessingly at Supergirl. She smiles at him and spins around again to make it easier for him to look her over, and he balks for a second and then unexpectedly blushes. “Uh. I mean, definitely the little pink dress. And the undercover mission. And the . . . underwear . . . uh.”

Robin and Wally’s expressions both glaze over slightly and Artemis blinks a couple times, then shakes her head fast.

“I like the underwear,” Supergirl supplies helpfully, already thinking longingly of putting it back on as she gives her chest a little pat, and for some reason all three of them start choking.

“I like it too,” M’gann agrees, smiling warmly at her. “It looks really good on you.”

“Oh my god,” Robin says, clapping his hands over his ears, and Wally does the same but for some reason looks horribly torn about it.

“Alright, that’s enough for now,” Batman says dryly, stepping forward, and most of the team makes various strangled noises that might be relieved and might be disappointed; Supergirl can’t quite tell. “Supergirl--” Supergirl lights up, can’t even help it--“we need Zatara to look you over one more time and make sure the spell’s stable, and we need to ask you a few questions while he’s at it. The rest of you, back to the living room or your rooms.”

“But--!” Robin starts to protest, but Batman just gives him a look and he cuts himself off. “Yeah, alright,” he mutters, shoulders slouching stubbornly.

“Not alright!” Wally protests. “Nothing is alright! This is the opposite of alright!”

“Quite alright,” Kaldur says emphatically, grabbing him by the arm and dragging him towards the door with Artemis and Robin in their wake. M’gann gives Supergirl’s hands a last squeeze and Supergirl squeezes back, and then M’gann lets go and floats after the rest of the team. Supergirl wants to go too, but Batman reaches up to lay a hand on her shoulder where she’s hovering and . . . he has “questions”, she guesses.

She could land, but she doesn’t.

.

.

.

Batman only has a few questions, and they’re all easy--are you comfortable, are you a boy or a girl, are you both or neither, how do you feel, when did you start feeling this way, do these feelings predate the original spell. Zatara takes longer checking her over, and that’s pretty much just random-looking hand gestures and mirror-voiced muttering Supergirl still can’t understand but officially loves the sound of.

Batman told Zatara to cast the “true form” spell. If he hadn’t, Supergirl would be Superboy again right now. Black Canary teaches her some new words and phrases Cadmus hadn’t--basic definitions of much more complicated terms, Supergirl suspects from how she phrases them, and isn’t surprised when Canary tells her they’ll talk more about it in their next session.

It’s definitely a better topic than the ones they usually cover.

They let her go, and she zips down the hall and tears into the living room, feeling brightness and lightness and like she leaves a streak of color in the air behind her, after-images of gorgeous light. She doesn’t, she knows, but she feels it. Wally yelps and Artemis hisses in surprise, but M’gann just laughs again.

“I’m going to get changed,” Supergirl announces proudly, tossing her hair back over her shoulder. She doesn’t have to wear clothes that don’t fit anymore, that hang too-loose and too-heavy on her, so she’s not going to. Next time Batman tells her to go buy clothes, she can pick out good ones--things that don’t weigh her down, that don’t make her look awkward and wrong in the mirror.

“This is not information I needed, Supey,” Wally says, voice a little strangled.

“The pink dress?” M’gann asks hopefully, and that, Supergirl decides, is the best idea she’s heard all day. After Batman and the “true form” spell, obviously.

True form. Magic knows this is her true form. Magic believes her. Kryptonians are vulnerable to magic, she knows from her training, knows from being warned about the dangers of it, but right now she loves that vulnerability like nothing else in the world.

“Definitely the pink dress,” she agrees, and M’gann beams.

“And the blue underwear?” she suggests shyly, pulling her legs up onto the couch. “I haven’t seen you in it yet.”

“That sounds good,” Supergirl decides, ignoring the strangled noises Wally and Robin are making and Artemis’s bright red face. Kaldur looks a little faint too, and sits down next to M’gann a little too suddenly. Supergirl glances down at him and bites her lip, thinking--maybe he will kiss her now, now that he understands. She already knows M’gann will still hold her hand, so . . .

But that can wait, because she wants out of Superboy’s clothes. Supergirl darts off down the hall to her room, feet never touching the floor, and doesn’t even land to get changed--she yanks the belt open and kicks the heavy jeans off, strips out of the T-shirt and boxers that fit her all wrong, and turns upside-down in the air to pull open her bottom drawer and pull out the blue bra and panties from where she’d hidden all of her real clothes away after Zatara’d shown up, some part of her sure they’d disappear with the breaking of the spell.

She wouldn’t even have been able to wear them anymore, but she hadn’t wanted . . . she’d just thought . . .

Supergirl grips the dress tight against her chest, hair hanging to the floor, and looks up past her long slim body to the ceiling, toes curling anxiously for a moment at the memory. She breathes out and thinks of M’gann’s happy smile and Kaldur’s steady certainty, and lets the tension go. That didn’t even happen. And even if . . . even if she did change back, well--Zatara could return her to her true form again, even if that happened. Zatara could--fix her.

And it would be fixing her.

She beams at nothing, grins face-hurtingly hard, and then flips back upright and dresses in mid-air, zipping back out into the hallway even as she’s still pulling the dress on. Her dress. Her first dress, because now she can have more and now that she’s allowed she can’t imagine wearing anything else.

. . . well, maybe for missions, she thinks as she jerks to a stop in the living room and the bottom of her dress flies up with the motion and Wally yelps and falls off the couch. Or at least a tighter one, for missions--something like M’gann’s, without the being organic fabric part.

“You wore the blue ones!” M’gann says delightedly, clapping her hands, and Supergirl preens and fluffs her skirt before giving a little spin to show off. She thinks the blue ones suit the pink dress best anyway--the black had shown through, a bit, and the pink had been too much pink. The blue, though, that feels just right.

“How do I look?” she asks.

“Great!” M’gann enthuses, floating up and morphing her own clothes to match the cut of Supergirl’s, although she keeps the harness and cape and her dress is still half blue and half white. She looks pretty great too, Supergirl thinks, and also thinks that she kind of wants a dress like that.

“Yeah. Great. Uncomfortably great,” Wally manages. For some reason he’s still on the floor. “I’m, I’m gonna need a minute, if everyone’s okay with that.”

“Idiot,” Artemis hisses down at him, kicking him in the shoulder so he yelps again. “You look--fine, Superboy. Uh, Supergirl. Um. Do you . . . wanna go shopping? Tomorrow? You’re gonna need more than three days’ worth of stuff and Batman’s creepy clubwear rack. I still don’t want to know where that came from, honestly, especially since he sent us shopping in the first place. Like, that was weird. That was really weird.”

“Right, because boxing glove arrows are such a bastion of arre,” Robin scoffs, clearly offended.

“. . . what,” Artemis says, just staring at him.

“Arre!” he repeats, looking even more offended. “Without the biz!”

“What.”

“I want to go shopping,” Supergirl says, bare toes just brushing the back of the couch as she smoothes her dress again. If she put her weight down, the couch would creak. She’s knocked it over before, dropping down into it too hard or rushing through the room too quickly. In her right body, in her true form, she’ll never even have to be on the floor with it again if she doesn’t feel like it.

She can’t get over the words: “true form”. Who she’s really supposed to be. Not an insufficient knock-off of someone else, not a cheap copy or a waiting trap, not a lie--a lie made to lie, to work in service of liars. Something fake, something that could be mistaken.

No one would ever mistake long blonde hair and a little dress for Superman.

“Well, okay then,” Artemis says, shifting uncomfortably in her seat and glancing up at her. “We can get you something you can actually fight crime in, maybe, the swooshy dresses are a little . . . questionable. And trust me, girls’ jeans don’t let you move like guys’ do, the ones you got aren’t gonna cut it long term, they’ll shred like hell the first time you kick somebody with super-strength.”

“This is going to kill me,” Wally groans, sticking his head under the couch. “We are five minutes into girl-Supey and I am already about to die.”

“I was always a girl,” Supergirl tells him, tucking her feet up underneath herself and floating up a little higher away from the couch. “They just made me wrong.”

“That doesn’t even make sense, who told you that?!” Wally asks in exasperation.

“You did,” Supergirl says, frowning down at him in confusion. Did he forget? “You said you’re a boy no matter what body you’re in. And I’m a girl no matter what body I’m in.”

“I--oh. Yeah,” Wally realizes, withdrawing his head from under the couch and blinking rapidly. He still looks confused, but the exasperation is gone. “I did say that, huh. But that’s not . . . I mean, it felt awful being in a girl’s body. Like I was all wrong and messed up and nothing was how it was supposed to be.”

“Yes,” Supergirl agrees with a nod. No one else says anything for a long moment, but they’re all looking at her.

“Oh, Supergirl,” M’gann says finally, softly, and she sounds a little sad but Supergirl still can’t help smiling again at hearing her say it. It feels so good to hear her say it. M’gann floats up and throws her arms around her without hesitation in a way she never did before and Supergirl wonders if it’s because she’s different now--if M’gann can tell it feels good now, even though it didn’t then.

The idea that she maybe can . . . it doesn’t bother her like before, the idea that she maybe can.

She thinks she likes it, now.

.

.

.

First thing the next morning Superman knocks on Supergirl’s door. The idea that Superman has ever in his life knocked is so alarmingly confusing that she accidentally flies straight off the bed into the ceiling and nearly dents both it and her head.

Mostly it, though.

Batman probably won’t like that, she thinks, wincing at the sight of the damage.

Superman knocks again, Supergirl nearly flies into the ceiling again, and she might not have all that much in the way of super-speed but she’s still much faster in this body and she’s in one of Superboy’s T-shirts inside the next blink. She really just kept them for sleeping in but the pink dress is in the laundry so right now they mean not having to stop and put on a bra and answering the door faster.

And also they fit her a little like dresses now, so she really doesn’t mind them so much anymore.

She opens the door just as Superman’s raising his hand to knock again and stares--not up at him, this time, because she forgot to put her feet on the floor, but at him. He stares back, and she just barely keeps herself from panicking and slamming the door.

“I’m not M’gann,” she blurts instantly, because he--because he probably still doesn’t know, and she just can’t--

“I know,” Superman says, clearing his throat awkwardly. “Black Canary and Zatara, er . . . explained. To me.”

“Oh.” Supergirl tightens her grip on the door, toes curling nervously in the air. She should probably land, she thinks. She doesn’t.

“Do you . . . are you . . .” Superman trails off, struggling for words, and Supergirl thinks longingly of the sky and his cape wrapped tight around her and how easy he talked to her then.

“Did you come to get your cape back?” she asks. He looks startled. “I can get your cape.”

“I . . . no, I--that’s not why I came,” Superman says, clearing his throat.

“. . . are you sure?” Supergirl asks, because she can’t imagine what else he’s doing here. Superman looks at her for a long moment. She can’t tell what he’s looking for and the wait doesn’t clear it up either.

“Yes,” he says eventually. “I’m sure. Can we talk?”

“Talk,” Supergirl repeats blankly.

“Yes,” Superman says, and comes in and folds himself up carefully and sits on the edge of her bed where he looks big and awkward and doesn’t fit the room at all. She stares, speechless. “If that’s alright.”

“Yes!” she blurts, immediately dropping down next to him and then internally panicking because maybe she wasn’t supposed to do that, but Superman doesn’t get up and leave so maybe she was. She doesn’t know. “Yes, it’s--it’s alright. Uh.”

“How are you feeling?” Superman asks.

“. . . terrified?” Supergirl tries, not sure how to actually respond. That was the last question she ever expected Superman to ask her, unless maybe she got impaled or crushed and there was literally no one else available to administer emergency medical treatment. And even then, she’d always assumed it’d mostly be awkward silence and stoically muffled grunts of pain or . . . whatever.

Superman looks bothered by the answer and her heart skips a beat, but he still doesn’t get up and leave, so . . . so she doesn’t know what.

“I mean about, uh . . . the spell,” Superman says uncomfortably, and Supergirl would still be concerned except that’s not concerning at all, that’s--easy. Maybe the only easy thing she’s ever had to say to Superman, if it comes down to it.

“It’s my true form,” she says in relief, so glad there’s at least one easy thing to say to him.

“Yes,” Superman says quietly, looking her over. Supergirl draws herself up, stiffening nervously under the attention. “Black Canary and Zatara explained that too.”

“Okay,” Supergirl says, not sure if there’s supposed to be more to that or not. Superman is still looking at her.

It’s good that he’s looking, she thinks, but she doesn’t actually know. It’s not what she expected, although she also never expected Superman to show up in her room first thing in the morning or ever, so clearly her expectations are not on-point for this situation.

She thinks it’s good that he’s looking.

Or she wants it to be.

“You’re very pretty,” Superman says after a moment, carefully catching her eyes, and Supergirl feels a rush of warmth all through her. “I was thinking . . . maybe it’s time you had a civilian name. That is, if you want one. Unless you don’t want one, just if you do you can have one, and it’s--not that I’m saying it’s up to me if you have a civilian name or not, just . . . I thought you might want one.”

“. . . maybe,” Supergirl says after a long moment, still high on the warm rush of him calling her pretty again, and also a little overwhelmed by how overwhelmed he so clearly is.

“How about Kara?” Superman suggests, and Supergirl melts--he had a suggestion that fast, he thought of suggestions. He thought about her.

“Okay,” she says, already knowing no other name will ever do anyway. Superman smiles at her, a little slow and uncertain, and this time it is not the most perfect moment of her life and somehow the fact that it’s not makes it even better.

She doesn’t know how to explain it past that.

.

.

.

“Kara Kal-El,” Supergirl says. M’gann and Kaldur both look surprised, and then light up.

“Congratulations,” Kaldur says with a soft smile as he reaches over to squeeze Supergirl’s shoulder. She relishes the contact and smiles back, and relishes being able to do that so easily too.

“That’s a great name!” M’gann says delightedly, floating up high enough that she barely manages to keep her toes scraping the floor. Supergirl isn’t quite feeling Kara as a “name” yet, not really, but it is pretty amazing to have it all the same. The whole team spent the morning at the mall again picking out dresses and S-shield t-shirts together, although they couldn’t find workable jeans, but she wanted to tell just M’gann and Kaldur first. It felt like she should.

“He said I could be Cara Kent for, uh, civilians,” she tells them, still not entirely sure why she needs a civilian name anyway. It’s probably Black Canary’s fault, she’s been talking about what high school is like for a while now. Originally Supergirl had assumed they’d been about to infiltrate one, but that idea’s looking increasingly less likely. “But I like Kara Kal-El better.”

“I like them both,” M’gan says, smiling at her. “They’re both going to be your name, after all.”

“That is so,” Kaldur agrees with a nod. “Both are fine names, whichever you prefer we call you.”

“I guess,” Supergirl says, shifting slightly. “Supergirl” is still such a new name itself, and is the one she really wanted. Superman coming to her to talk and ask how she’s feeling and understand--that was the part that mattered to her this morning, not the name. “I don’t want called either of them yet.”

“We won’t unless you do,” Kaldur promises.

“I like being Supergirl,” Supergirl says, then thinks of this morning and the failed hunt for girls’ jeans that can take the punishment her powers give and amends: “Even if the costume is harder to shop for.”

“About that,” M’gann says, biting her lip around a little grin. “I had an idea.”

.

.

.

They break three pairs of scissors before Kaldur suggests the laser cutter in the garage, which works much better, although they still have to get the promethium syringes out of the med lab and use mil-spec wire for needle and thread. There’s probably an easier way--they break two needles before they’re done and the wire is hard as hell to knot off--but Supergirl doesn’t want to ask anyone else for help anyway. Doing it with Kaldur and M’gann feels right.

At least they’ve all got super-strength. Kaldur is definitely better at sewing than she and M’gann are, though. The skirt he makes is perfect, gathered just right to flare when she flies but short enough not to get in her way in a fight; the cape that Supergirl and M’gann take turns hemming looks fine from a distance but is definitely a little crooked at the bottom. It’s shorter than it was, though: not the too-long thing Superman wrapped her up in and she cried all over--not a heavy weight to live up to, but something made for her, something that fits her.

Supergirl tries on the skirt and cape with some stretchy little shorts and one of the S-shield T-shirts Artemis picked out and looks in the mirror. She thinks about the mirrors that first day at the mall, standing in front of them, tugging her hair around and looking at herself, feeling light and unfamiliar and not knowing enough to recognize that lightness for what it was--for rightness, and the absence of a weight she hadn’t understood she was carrying.

The first time he looked at himself and thought “Supergirl”.

She has a severe face like she always had and her eyes are the same brighter-than-human blue, and she’s still tall and pale and strong, and she skids back farther when she gets hit but she can hit back faster and never has to put her feet on the ground again, and she doesn’t break concrete when she does. She has soft parts and curves, and doesn’t stand quite so stiffly as she remembers standing before. Not that she ever spent much time in front of a mirror, before; before mirrors were just reminders of everything that was wrong, how awkward and weak and inferior and flawed she was, how Superman would never talk to or look at her.

Well, he’s talked to her now. He’s looked at her and told her he liked what he saw.

And now she’s here in a cape he didn’t mean to give her but let her keep, bright and swishy and light.

Supergirl looks at herself and remembers the first day, when she’d wondered if wearing a dress was anything like wearing a cape, if a cape would make her feel free and light like that, and now . . . and now she knows.

It does, but it’s not the only thing that does.

“I like it,” she says, feeling light, and looks at M’gann and Kaldur’s smiles in the mirror.