#steelatomweek

Nate is 16 years old when he loses the crest. He's in a hurry to leave his parents' house for good, and it must have fallen out of one of the moving boxes. Nate is devastated, and too proud to call up his father to ask him to look for it on the off chance he lost it while he was still home.

Nate spends the next few years looking for his soulmate. Hoping. Maybe, just maybe his soul mate found his star, and maybe they're like Nate and they've kept it and then they'll meet and just like his mother returned his grandfather's dog tags to his father, maybe his soulmate will return his star crest to him.

He acquires a lot of useless knick knacks in the meantime, and despite the initial annoyance he feels when he finds wires everywhere, Nate eventually develops a fondness for all the unintentionally discarded items his soulmate leaves lying around. He does wish his soulmate would lose more useful things than wires and screws and paper clips. It's beginning to get a little ridiculous. His apartment is beginning to look like an electronics shop with all the spare parts lying around. He knows he's not obligated to keep every little thing his soulmate loses, but somehow, Nate can't bring himself to throw any of it away.

One day, the items stop coming completely.

Nate waits a day. Then two. Then weeks and months pass by without a single new item appearing anywhere in his apartment. A year goes by before Nate gives up and accepts that his soulmate is probably dead. Dead before they could even meet.

After that, Nate vows to never lose anything ever again. He can't afford to, he's already lost the three most important things in his life, his Nana, his star and his soulmate. And now, anything he loses is gone forever. Nate suddenly understands why his father was so closed off and so protective of him, although he'd never admit to the man himself. Losing something important just hurt so damn much.

 Nate doesn't think about soulmates again until after Ray finds his stupid doodle on the floor. Nate swears he remembers where he last put the drawing and it definitely was not in a place where Ray, or anyone else could see it, but before he can even think to stop the other man from looking at it, Ray's already asking him about the design.

Nate's throat tightens. Stupid stupid stupid, he thinks to himself, but he forces himself to talk about how his clothes stretch awkwardly when he steels up and doesn't he deserve a suit like the rest of them? He knows he's preaching to the choir, especially since he's the one who destroyed Ray's suit back in the shogun era.

Ray smiles sympathetically at him, and tells him not to worry, as long as he sticks with him, he'll figure everything out. Nate normally hates being pitied and fed false platitudes like that, but for some reason when it comes out of Ray's mouth, it sounds genuine and truly believable. It's been like this since Nate first got on the ship too, for some unfathomable reason, Ray can do no wrong in Nate's eyes. At first, the historian had chalked it up to guilt and Ray's sunny personality, but lately it's been getting harder and harder to ignore the ba-dump ba-dump in his chest whenever he sees the other man.

"Interesting accessory you got going on here," Ray says, interrupting Nate's thoughts and pointing to the star crest on his drawing. "Very patriotic."

"Oh yeah, that thing," Nate replies, trying to laugh it off, but he's pretty sure Ray can hear the tension in his voice. "Fun fact, that star is based off this crest my nana gave me when I was young. Said my grandfather wore it. I loved that thing, and I always dreamed of putting it on my own superhero costume you know?"

Ray nods thoughtfully. "Sounds like it was really important to you."

"It was!..It...it was," Nate trails off. "Actually, truth be told, I lost it a long time ago. Spent forever trying to find my soulmate on the off chance that they found it, but that never worked out so...But enough about that, let's go do some fun cowboy stuff!"

Nate doesn't see Ray's quizzical look when he practically rushes out the door trying to avoid his feelings. He also completely forgets about the drawing, and doesn't know that Ray tucks it away into his jacket for safekeeping.

Nate's still sore from stopping the train and from hauling a heavy piece of dwarf star back to the ship, but he still follows Ray to his lab anyway, because more and more, he can't seem to say no to the man's smile.

The physicist is practically thrumming with excitement, and Nate can't blame him, even though time doesn't work linearly out here, it still has been quite a long time since Ray has had a superhero suit. Nate may still not have his own, be he can be patient. Really, he can.

"Actually there's something I've been working on before I started building a new exo-suit," Ray says, grinning in excitement. "It's not exactly what was in your drawing but..." the physicist trails off and then yanks a sheet off from a figure behind him to reveal…

Nate feels like the wind has been knocked right out of him.

Behind Ray is his drawing brought to life. It’s brightly colored and sleek and just amazing. It even has the star crest in the middle. Only...it's not a replica. Nate would know that handiwork and design anywhere even though it's been more than ten years since he last laid eyes on it.

Realization dawns on him and suddenly, the drawing makes sense. Nate hadn't misremembered where he put it, he'd lost it and Ray had found it. Which meant…

"Y-You...you're...you're my soulmate?" Nate gasps disbelievingly.

It was impossible. His soulmate had stopped "sending" him things ages ago, and Nate knew Ray, the man lost something new every other hour and it hadn't made its way to Nate. Or had it and he hadn't noticed? There was no other explanation for why the other man had his grandfather's crest.

"Yeah, I kind of pieced it together after I started finding some of your pens and pencils whenever you misplaced them on the ship but I kind of just knew after I saw your drawing and..." Ray suddenly stops, panic visible on his face.

"Nate? Oh my god, Nate are you okay?”

It's then that Nate realizes that there's tears running down his face. He unconsciously moves a hand to the wetness on his face before his brain kicks into overdrive and he launches himself straight at a bewildered Ray.

Kissing Ray is like everything and nothing like he’d imagined it would be. It’s fireworks and butterflies but it’s also warm and inviting and soft. Ray tastes like honey and smells like sunshine after the rain. It feels like he’s breathing oxygen for the first time in his life. It feels like coming home.

Nate thinks he could keep kissing Ray forever and die happy.

When they finally break apart, Ray leans down and presses his forehead against Nate’s, and they stay like that for a while, their breathing slowly evening out. Nate still can’t believe everything that’s happened to him and it takes a moment before his brain starts really processing everything.

Ray is his soulmate. Ray is his soulmate. RAY IS HIS SOULMATE. Ray is here and alive and breathing and holding him in his arms. Nate is pretty sure he's clutching the other man too tightly but he's afraid that if he lets go even a little bit, he'll lose him all over again.

"I thought I lost you," Nate whispers against Ray's chest once he's regained the ability to speak again. He's ridiculously close to openly sobbing but he doesn't care.  

"Lost me? Where did you think I went?" Ray replies, amusement and affection laced in his voice.

Nate takes a few deep breaths to collect himself before he finally answers.

"You used to lose things all the time and then one day it just stopped and I....I thought, I thought you were gone."

Ray hums thoughtfully at Nate's answer. "Remember how I'm technically legally dead?" he asks.

Nate nods.

"Well, what happened was, I was just really tiny for a while. It was my first run with the suit, and then I couldn't un-shrink after that. Can't really lose anything when you're the size of an atom, you know?"

It makes sense, Nate thinks. But that still doesn't explain one thing.

"How come I never found anything from you after that?"

"Well, pretty much right after I un-shrunk myself, I was recruited to the Legends team, which I think has something to do with it. Like if I lose something in the time stream or a different time period, that breaks the rules somehow and so it doesn't make its way back to you since we're not in the same timeline.”

Nate shrugs. It made perfect sense, and no sense at all, but then again, most things relating to time travel were that way.

"But now that we're both on the ship together, the whole lost and found thing applies to us again.” Ray continues, smiling. “And well, to be fair, I leave my stuff lying around everywhere so I guess it makes sense that you didn't notice that you started finding it all again once you got on the ship. Truth be told, until you showed me that drawing, I thought you were just as absent minded as me."

Nate just smiles and pulls Ray into his arms again.

"I'm never letting you go now, you know that right?" he finally says after a moment of silence. He can feel Ray smile against his shoulder as he nods and wraps his arms just as tightly around Nate.