#martian chess

[thepringlesofblood]

Zarcana Rules

(both as "rules for the game Zarcana" and as "Zarcana RULES!!!")

the board/card game Zarcana is maybe the most obscure shit I've ever played. my friend from middle school introduced it to me, from an out of print board game box found deep in the back of the sci library.

If you're familiar with Looney Pyramids (and the associated games such as Ice House, Martian Chess, Zendo, and Pyramid Arcade), this is one of thems.

It isn't sold. You can't buy it. You can get some Looney Pyramids, and if you have the pre-existing knowledge of how to play it you can get a tarot deck and do that. You can buy Gnostica, which is the more widely used adaptation of Zarcana. You could find Pyramid Arcade on eBay (it isn't in print anymore) or buy the pamphlet on looneylabs.com which includes Zark City, another adaptation, and recommends Gnostica on the back of the pamphlet. But to the free market, Zarcana does not exist.

It only exists in archives. Websites from 1999-2002.

I want to put all the information on Zarcana I can find online in one place, bc it's really hard to find a concrete set of rules online bc of how old it is, and it's really really fun.

Cheatsheet

Rules (it says you need to buy a special deck of zarcana cards but you do not, you just need a complete (78 cards) deck of tarot cards)

This lovely website that has links to articles about the development of Zarcana and Gnostica, as well as pdf printable stickers you can put on your cards so the rules are all on there.

If you don't have Looney Pyramids, I figured out how to macgyver it w coins of different sizes but it's v hard and complicated. will put under the cut.

so each person playing needs 5 small, 5 medium, and 5 large pyramids.

personally, I was able to replace them with 5 pennies, 5 nickels, and 5 dimes.

as a game piece, the things a pyramid needs to do are

be 3 different sizes (you can use 3 different denominations of coin)

be distinguishable b/w players (if it's just 2 of you, you can do heads & tails, if not you'll need either more denominations of coins or some way to mark coins as belonging to a certain person (nail polish, stickers, poster putty, beads, sticky notes?)

point in directions (instead, you can put the coin on the edge of the card that it's pointing to, or in the center for standing up straight. alternately, you could use the heads/whatever symbol on the coin to point to different directions and then due tails as standing straight up)

also here's the urls directly copy-pasted in case the links break or some shit

[evilhorse]

Justice League of America #1 (Facsimile Edition)

[venussaidso]

𝐌𝐄𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐍'𝐒 𝐈𝐍𝐅𝐋𝐔𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐄 — Vedic Astrology Observation (based on shows/films part 7)

Merlin is also a sorcerer who is played by Ketu-nakshatra natives, much like Morgan Le Fay/Morgana Pendragon. I also noticed the trend of Ketu male actors playing King Arthur, and I made a small list in the later part of my 𝗠𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗞𝗲𝘁𝘂-𝗿𝗲𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗺𝗲𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗠𝗲𝗱𝗶𝗮 post. This means that the big 3 (Merlin, Arthur, Morgan) can be considered Ketu nakshatra natives, among other possibly frequent nakshatra influences of course.

Just like Morgana Pendragon, Merlin is depicted with magical abilities such as shape-shifting, manipulating the material plane and divination.

In the popular TV program Merlin, he is played by Magha Moon Colin Morgan.

In the 2011's series Camelot, Merlin is played by the Mula ASC native Joseph Fiennes.

In 1981's Excalibur, Magha nakshatra native Nicol Williamson played Merlin.

In the Starz TV series Camelot, Morgan and Merlin have a complex and antagonistic relationship. They're enemies from the start, and they're always in a battle of wits. Her character is famously defined as the bringer of chaos to the kingdom and Merlin is always a big threat of hers.

She despises him for his influence over the King (who she seeks to overthrow), while he is both wary and fond of her intelligence.

In the BBC's series Merlin, they have a deeper connection. They're less cunning, as this adaption is lighter and more magical. Merlin is portrayed as a kind, powerful warlock while Morgana is introduced as a kind-hearted, just, noblewoman — both (especially Merlin) embodying the Princess Belle archetype with seeing the good in others beyond the surface (a flaw in Merlin as Morgana's evil gradually increases).

She starts embracing dark magic and plots against King Arthur. As all adaptions go, Merlin's loyalty strictly lies with King Arthur and he struggles to stop her without getting her killed. But his betrayal only fuels her hatred.

It's interesting that in Camelot, the two are presented as political adversaries with no personal history, and their dynamic is more like a chess game if anything (again with Ketuvians playing mind games with each other).

While in Merlin, their conflict is ultimately tragic as they shared friendship.

I also love how Morgana is an outright, calculating villain in Camelot, while she is a magical heroine-turned-villain in Merlin.

I am certain that Eva Green's Morgan highlights Ashwini nakshatra. I'm still watching it, and she comes off more Martian than anything. She quite literally approaches everything like a chess game, using strategy (Mars) and dark magic & tricks (Ketu) to achieve ultimate power. Another obvious Ashwini hint is in her collecting allies to strengthen her position. This is just Mars energy to me.

Magha is an Ugra nakshatra, and we see this so perfectly through Katie McGrath's Morgana as she becomes so blinded by rage that she loses control.

Ugra nakshatras carry so much intensity and fierceness, almost all being fire signs.

Eva Green's Morgana remains composed and strategic even in moments of defeat. She is always planning her next move. Ashwini is more cunning and masking, being the only Ketu nakshatra which is not fierce or dreadful. Not to say this Morgana doesn't have a temper, but her mind is just always racing with schemes.

Instead of brute force, Ashwini natives can rely on manipulation, deception, and psychological warfare — using charm & wit to get what they want (with her, it's the throne); whether that's through persuasion, seduction, or feigned vulnerability.

She is literally just female Loki.

[star-lights-up]

OKAY OKAY OKAY BUT: Cherik "The Martian" AU

So I'm rereading the martian today because i am sick again, so obviously I need hard science fiction to combat the existential dread, and my brain just kept latching onto dialogue bits and going "CHERIK! MAKE IT CHERIK"

My thoughts are:

Charles and Erik were friends at one point, maybe during college, maybe at the beginning of training, IDK, at some point they had a bit of a falling out. They're civil enough to still get put on the mission together but it's well known they don't get along.

Though there was that one night, where they were both kinda drunk, and they got together......... ("We can't do this again." Erik said, angrily, in the morning. Charles left without so much as glancing at him, let alone responding.)

There's a sandstorm on sol 6, and the team is trying to evacuate (probably the first class team because that's just easy. Hank = pilot. I bet you moira is the leader lady, lewis, military trained or whatever. And everyone else is there too, but i'm on my asthma medication so I can't think clearly, so they don't get specific roles)

The radio dish comes off, impales Charles, he blows backward while unconscious (lower gravity or some shit idk physics) and crashes into Erik, who then gets hit by more debris. The thing that impaled Charles also impaled his biotelemetry reader, and Erik's got crushed on impact/by the debris, so both of them read as dead to their crew members, who have to leave or else they die too.

Erik wakes up first, since he's not actively bleeding and his suit's not impaled and loosing air. The sandstorm is over, the HAB (think space station/tent) is intact (yay!), but the MAV (think small spaceship good for like, a round trip to and from a larger vessel) is gone (fuck).

He tries to wake Charles up, but ends up dragging him back to the HAB on his own. He takes out the antenna that impaled him and sews up and bandages the cut, while Charles is semi-conscious. It's painful for now, but he'll live. Erik's exhausted, so he goes back to his own bunk and falls asleep, kinda hoping this is all a nightmare.

It's not gone in the morning. He's still stuck on mars in a glorified tent with limited resources and his least favorite person on the team.

They talk to each other, Charles thanks him for helping him, and they decide that they're just going to have to work together to get off of mars alive.

Charles = botanist, erik is the engineer (basically gonna have them split the original main guy's braincell. They already share one anyway).

Potato farming

Along the way, they kinda sorta start becoming friends again. They're relying on each other to survive, they're the only people each other can talk to... They play chess on the computers and watch Moira's awful 70's television and listen to disco that she brought along with her. They farm potatoes and jerry rig rovers and then oops, they fell asleep in the same tiny bunk watching tv together. Oops, they hugged after the potatoes germinated. Oops, they kissed in celebration when they finally made contact with NASA again.

Just like that, they've fallen into a new rhythm. They still argue a lot, but now there's also a good amount of kissing and little fleeting touches while they work together and they put their bunks together and fall asleep in each other's arms ("Do you realize," Charles says one night, Erik curled against his chest, pressing slow kisses to his collarbone, "We're the only people to have made love on a planet other than Earth?" Erik snorts softly, "NASA's not going to be hearing about that, if I can help it." "You realize that the HAB's always recording us, yes? They'll get the footage when we get back to Earth." "...Right. Huh." Erik frowns, then shrugs, "Worth it." Charles laughs.)

Erik gets stuck inside the airlock when the HAB deflates and they loose all their potatoes. Charles is in the rover and, for a while, was convinced Erik was dead. Until he saw the airlock start to roll towards the HAB, and then he started steering the rover over.

After they got the HAB back up, NASA tells them they're sending a supply probe called "Iris." (Transmission goes like this: [08:31] JPL: Keep us posted on any mechanical or electric problems. By the way, the name of the probe we're sending is Iris. Named after the Greek goddess who traveled the heavens with the speed of wind. She's also the goddess of rainbows. [08:47] LEN/XAV: Gay probe coming to save us. Got it. Erik heads back to the HAB. "Hello, darling. How's Houston?" Charles says, not turning from his soil samples or whatever the fuck he's been doing for three days. "They're sending us a pride-themed probe full of granola bars." Erik answers, shoving off his EVA suit. Charles turns to give him a quizzical, are-you-joking kind of look, then bursts out laughing upon seeing Erik's dead serious face. "Well, it's certainly fitting," He says, walking up to Erik and wrapping his arms around his neck, pulling him down for a kiss.)

Anyways. Iris doesn't make it, shit keeps going wrong, BUT eventually their team catches wind of a plan -- a risky plan, but one that could save cherik. So, without houston's permission, they pilot their ship on a course back to mars. They'll do a flyby, and if Charles and Erik can get to the site of Ares 5 and the MAV for that mission, retrofit the MAV, make it to their team's ship without dying/miscalculating and shooting off into the depths of outer space, they can get to that ship and on a course back to earth by sol 549.

They spend a bunch of time retrofitting their rovers for the trip, and so begins the classic cherik roadtrip -- martian style!! (I just want to mention that there's like no space, so just picture them cuddled up for a good night's sleep on the front bench of the rover. there. cuteness among the science).

They flip at one point. I could add details but it's been a while of me writing this and my brain is slowly dying and i'm tired so. that's it.

They make it to ares 5, they retrofit the MAV, then they do The Riskiest Space Flight of All Time. Random shit goes wrong, everyone's improvising, it pretty much seems like they're done for...

They get back to the big ship. They're safe!! (well, as safe as you can be in space.) But they get a hot shower and full meals and much more comfortable bunks (in separate rooms, technically, but Erik refuses to leave Charles's side so they end up in one bunk that first night. Usually they'd try to be a bit more discreet, but what the fuck. They've been stuck on mars. They almost just died. They deserve to fall asleep in each other's arms.)

They are HEROS back on earth. They get married almost immediately -- it seems quick to a lot of people, but they're so trauma bonded that, like, it's necessary. they go to paris on their honeymoon and get lots of free stuff. They never go to space again lol (and gladly)

THE END (fucking finally, it's 12:00 am on the dot and i've been writing this for 45 minutes.)

EDIT: some art I did for this au

EDIT: I fucking did it. I started writing it. Oops.

[dcdreamblog]

so You Have talked a bit About Shadow ORGANIZATIONS ON The past and There One i Want to Know a bit more About

CHECKMATE

What Was Up With Them?

What did They Have to do With That Waller Lady How Feels like She Had a part in Every Shadow org and That Maxwell Lord Guy?

and Why did Everything About Them Have Something to do With Chess? i just NEED to know

"Checkmate" known in official documents as the "Metahuman Monitoring and Defense Directorate" (when it was forced to come up with a real name after being dragged into the spotlight after the OMAC mess) was originally an American espionage organization created by infamous politico Amanda Wallter as a more intelligence based branch of her Task Force X directive.

(The organization's logo, showing a knight chess piece in a crosshair half filled with a chessboard pattern)

Its original mandate was to support Task Force X through the collection of intelligence and to undermine metahuman or extranormal threats through the use of targeted assault, cyberattack or assassination. Its internal bodies are all named after chess pieces. King/Queen (Co-Head of Operations) Rook (Intelligence Correlation and Planning) Bishop (Communication and Mission Overwatch) Knights (Field Operations) Pawns (Logistical or Mechanical Support)

Basically from the instant of its foundation it fell back into the same bad habits anything with Waller's name on it does. Paranoia surrounding superheroes leading to alliance with untrustworthy partners that then lead to deadly outcomes. It and every other spy agency like it at the time from the Force of July to the clandestine project that produced Captain Atom were all turned against one another by the terrorist group Kobra through a very simple false intelligence scheme that nonetheless wiped out more than 2/3rds of Checkmate's manpower and its original base of operations. The organization hung around for a few years after that playing cops and robbers in the shadows until eventually it was co opted by a madman by the name of Maxwell Lord who had taken governmental paranoia of superhumans to a violent extreme and planned to use Checkmate as a cudgel to destroy all metahumans on the planet. Unleashing the OMAC virus as the climactic assault on the superheroes of the world in a pointless tragedy that left both Lord and the beloved second Blue Beetle dead. It was THIS even that unveiled Checkmate to the world, acting FAR beyond it purview and having been taken over by a murderous con man with a bigoted grudge it was disbanded by law after a several hour private conversation between the then president and the Martian Manhunter that revealed just how deeply rotten the organization was. Never one to waste an opportunity to throw good money after bad the organization was then REconstituted by the UN Security Council in an attempt to create a body that could police and corral the metahuman population (which always goes SO well). The intention was to balance out that directive by including experienced superheroes within the organization including Alan Scott, the second Mister Terrific and Fire to name a few balanced out by a human counterpart for each superhuman agent. As one can imagine this almost INSTANTLY went awry, within days of the organizations refounding it had invaded the sovereign territory of the French Republic seeking a domestic corruption scandal in an attempt to strong arm the nation into supporting Checkmate in the general assembly. Directly after THAT the organization nearly came to blows with China's Great Ten when a clandestine infiltration of a Chinese facility turned out to be an invasion of the Ten's secret base of operations. While that mess was deescalated before it got bloody, the act of deescalating with his Chinese counterparts saw the United States forcing Alan Scott to resign because he had saved the Chinese government from a public embarrassment. Showing that the organization was going to spend its time getting dicked around by international partisan interests despite its charter as an international peacekeeping force. Gaff and scandal were layered on top of gaff and scandal as a scheme to blackmail former Justice League member Fire into committing assassinations for the organization lead direction into laying groundwork for Operation: Salvation Run a HORRIFICALLY inhumane plot to deport Earth's supervillains to an uncharted planetoid in a distant galaxy without trial. This final, MASSIVE fumble lead to every superhero within the organization resigning in protest and to force the resignation of Waller from all of her government posts pending criminal investigation and government court martial. Checkmate is just one more attempt at the governments of the world to play Mutually Assured Destruction with the global superhero community that falls apart because superheroes have no leverage by which to be blackmailed and any wider worries about a superhuman takeover always end up being so much hot air and paranoia. Government doesn't like superheroes because superheroes don't answer to government. And stories like Checkmate's are a good example of why that is a 100% positive dichotomy

[jesncin]

did you see that deniz camp was announced as the writer for absolute martian manhunter?

I woke up to this news and many of my friends pinging me (thank you friends I love you all)

let's get the elephant out of the room: WHY IS HE WHIIIIITE WHY I HATE IT

I mean I get why he's white- it's part of the pitch that this alien is the ultimate outsider possessing the ultimate insider, so it looks like they're leaning towards a buddy cop scenario instead of J'onn shapeshifting into and impersonating a dead human but. Isn't that just Halo. An Alien possessing a human? I get that there's some crossover with impersonating the dead here but this isn't technically a new concept.

I thought the appeal of the Absolute and Ultimate lines was rearranging the chess pieces of a Superhero's story and showing how even when you make drastic changes, they can still feel quintessentially Batman, Spiderman, Superman, etc. Bruce can be working class but still Batman. But right now this pitch feels like disregarding Martian Manhunter lore entirely except for the most superficial parts kept intact. Also DC seems so allergic to racebending for their Absolute line compared to Marvel. We get Polynesian Hulk and Native Two Spirit Hawkeye (from Deniz Camp also!!), but this line can't even give us Black Martian Manhunter? Part of why Black!J'onn resonates with so many people is because it grounded his character by making his marginalization as an othering alien (especially compared to Superman) relatable to humans (the whole point of stories). Trading that humanizing element of J'onn for more sci fi wackiness is only going to make J'onn struggle in the long run. It's such a bummer.

I've had a suspicion that instead of DC taking Martian lore and rearranging it into something new that could revitalize J'onn, that they just don't have the creativity to see any potential in the mess they made of him, so they'd just toss it all out. And that's disappointing. If you told me this was a Tom King pitch, I'd believe you. Because what is this.

[1-xo-xo-xo-7]

The JLA meets The BatFamily gone wrong. ^^

___

Superman : Good morning, Batman -and Agent A! I see you have brought company-

Batman : Nightwing. Red Hood. Red Robin. Robin. Signal. Spoiler. Orphan. Oracle. There, do your meet and greets. Let's go, Agent A. [Very dramatically flaring his cape before exiting with Agent A]

...

Flash : Wait... Did Bats just call her an orphan-?!

___

Wonder Woman : Hello, children of Batman! I am-

Red Hood : Wonder Woman.

Wonder Woman : Ah, I see you already know who I am. Now, I would just like to give my appreciation for agreeing to meet up with us, I know you all have a very hectic schedule-

Red Hood : Wonder Woman.

Wonder Woman : Yes. That is I, my boy. [Is smiling like a ray of sunshine, regally standing with her hands to her hips, and a flutter of her midnight hair]

Red Hood : Wonder Woman.

Nightwing : Please, excuse him. He died once, it's gotten to him.

Flash : WHAT?!

___

Flash : Sooooo... Hi.

Red Robin : [Is practically like a zombie with his eye bags and coffee-stained mouth, nevermind he just got shot but it isn't really relevant right now] Hi.

Flash : Are you ok?

Red Robin : Peachy.

___

Green Lantern :...

Robin :...

Green Lantern : You're scary.

Robin : Good.

___

Aquaman : [Is actually having a great time chatting with Signal, just yapping about his knowledge about different sea creatures before-]

Signal : Can skinwalkers shift into sea creatures too? Since, it IS confirmed merpeople are real, y'know? [Is looking up at him with eyes filled with genuine and innocent curiosity]

Aquaman : Uh... Uhm, I guess?...

___

Martian Manhunter : *Please... Stop. Speaking...* [ Is about to combust after having to hear about Spoiler's 30th recounting of her latest fight with a goony]

Spoiler : And so I suffocated him with my cape! You can't blame me Mr. Martian Manhunter! I'm just a girl and he was about to hit me with a BAT! Do you get my joke? But seriously, our goon WAS about to hit me with a bat and-

Martian Manhunter :... I am happy for your victory, Miss Spoiler. [Is practically close to a BRAIN ANEURYSM]

Spoiler : Aw! How sweet, Mr. Martian Manhunter! But you can just call me Spoiler. Anyways—

Martian Manhunter : T<T *Stooooop...*

___

Flash : So, you're not really an orphan? You're just NAMED Orphan?

Orphan : Sure.

Flash : Ha. Ha. Ha. Haaaaa...

___

Green Lantern : So, what's your favorite color?

Orphan : Triangle.

Green Lantern :...

___

Superman : Hello, Nightwing. I am glad to see you again.

Nightwing : Hey, Supes! And me too you.

Superman : Oh, where's Oracle? Wasn't she just here?

Nightwing : That was a hologram. She's with Robin now.

Superman :... [Tweaking...] What?

Nightwing : She's with Robin-

Superman : She was a HOLOGRAM? [He didn't even NOTICE she was a hologram despite him being SUPERMAN]

___

Wonder Woman : I must say, Robin, it is quite rude to not acknowledge a friend who is right in front of you.

Robin : Are you a friend? No. No, you're not. [Is continuing to play online checkers with Oracle on his IPad]

Red Hood : YOU LITTLE SHIT! DON'T TALK TO WONDER WOMAN LIKE THAT-! [Is getting held back by both Nightwing and Red Robin]

___

Red Hood :...

Red Robin :...

Nightwing :...

Red Robin : How?

Nightwing : I don't know, Little Wing.

Red Hood :... [Grumbling] That's unfair...

Robin : [Is being held by Wonder Woman as she snuggles on his head of surprisingly soft, spiky locks, now playing online chess with Oracle] I command you to stop.

Wonder Woman : Aren't you cute, My Little Prince? [Is chuckling, fondly]

Oracle : Your move, Little Prince. [Is, most definitely, smirking in delight at Robin's current predicament]

Robin : Hmph! [Is very much scowling and unamused]

___

Pennyworth : Master Bruce, you are quite cunning.

Bruce : Admit it, Alfred. A day without my children making chaos left and right, is a day filled with rest and relaxation. [Having a spa day and is currently sun-bathing by HIS FOOTBALL COURT-LENGTH POOL]

Pennyworth : Hm. [Is playing golf with his specially made golf clubs and golf balls implemented with an 'A'] Do you want to play with me after your sunbathe, Master Bruce?

Bruce : Sure, Alfred.

___

Basically, Bruce made The JLA babysit his already grown children and I'm here for it. ^^

ALSO,

Green Lantern : So, what's your favorite color?

Orphan : Triangle.

Green Lantern :...

This bit was from a JLA meets BatFam Fic on AO3 but I forgot what. T-T

I've read too much fics I can't differentiate anymore...

[sonosvegliato]

To an Athlete Dying Young: Deleted Scenes Pt 2

Since Ao3 is down :(

Occurs after McCrispy incident of Part 1

Still unedited; feast on my under the couch cushion popcorn 

“All you did was make us look like fools,” Superboy mutters. His fists clench and unclench at his sides, like he can’t decide to be angry or resigned. It’s late; Tim’s still in the suit. He practices slipping in front of the heavy bag—he’s avoiding Bruce’s room tonight. Avoiding him will convince Bruce that there’s something Tim’s ashamed of. 

“When I left, what did Superman say to you?” he asks Superboy.

“That I’ll never measure up to him and I’ll be trapped in this prison block forever.”

Tim stops the bag and looks past it at Superboy.

“It was implied,” Superboy protests.

“I’m sure,” Tim says disbelievingly. “And how did he look at you?”

“The same way he always does. Like I’m a dead mouse his cat left on his doorstep.”

“You’ve got to be more specific,” Tim says. “At what angle were his eyebrows? Were his pupils dilated? How often did he blink?”

Superboy scowls.

“Did he look like he was trying to X-ray vision you?” Tim restates. “Because that’s not pity. That’s concern.” He points an expert finger at Superboy. “That’s your start.”

###

###

Bruce speaks little the next day. 

But there’s a wrinkle between his eyebrows that only shows up when he’s been studying a particularly elusive case file. It deepens when Tim speaks little, too.

###

###

“What are you doing?” Superboy asks.

“Finding solace in you.”

Superboy’s nose wrinkles in disgust, and he moves away from Tim. 

“No,” Tim hisses, pulling on his arm. “When Batman’s at the Hall, he and Martian Manhunter play chess in the rec room—” he points to the room down the corridor— “every day before dinner. They’re set to come by any minute now. Look concerned, think about me.”

Superboy scowls.

“You just look constipated,” Tim complains. “Just—” he hears footsteps rounding the corner, and quickly morphs his expression into one of panic. Superboy’s face twists in confusion, but it’s close enough. Tim’s still holding onto Superboy’s wrist.

“Robin,” Bruce says curtly, and Tim whirls like he’s surprised. He drops Superboy’s wrist and crosses his arms.

“Batman,” he greets, making sure to look higher than Bruce’s chin, and then replays You’ve disappointed me you’ve disappointed me you’ve disappointed me until when he breathes his chest shudders with the weight of it. 

Bruce walks past him into the recreation room. Martian Manhunter looks back at Tim before following him inside. 

###

###

Tim is retelling Wonder Woman when he got his suit when he catches Bruce in the corner of his eye and trails off. 

“Well,” he says, getting up and keeping his eyes trained on the table. “We’ll see how long I can keep it. I, uh. I just remembered I’m supposed to meet Superboy. We’re going to spar.”

He shoulders past Bruce. He walks all the way around the corner before doubling back. Bruce has disappeared, and the breakroom’s conversation is muffled and low. He edges closer until it’s just within his earshot.

“Why does your protege suddenly slink away from you like Odysseus hiding among the sheep?” Wonder Woman asks.

Bruce must sigh, because Wonder Woman’s next words are, “What did you do?”

“Nothing,” Bruce says, but the rest stumbles out like he’s been waiting for someone to ask. “He—and I—I don’t know.” Metal creaks as he must pull out a chair. “He…he avoids me. When there’s something wrong. Dick only avoided me towards the end, and Jason—” a long pause—“Jason never avoided me.”

“You cannot compare him to his predecessors,” Wonder Woman says severely. 

“You think I don’t know that?” Bruce replies sharply. 

Tim flattens himself against the wall, but Bruce’s voice turns muffled, like he’s talking to his hands. “I’m sorry.”

“I am not hurt,” Wonder Woman replies immediately. “Only concerned. And curious.”

“I’m terrified of him,” Bruce says. “And what I’m going to do to him.” 

“So this explains why you avoid him, too.”

“I don’t avoid him.”

“Letting him walk by you while he looks at you like you’re the pit into Tartarus is avoiding him,” Wonder Woman argues. “When did this start?”

“Four days ago. After he left without my permission. We had a discussion.”

Wonder Woman says nothing.

“It was a discussion,” Bruce presses. “He—he thinks he’s ready for the streets. I told him he’s not.”

“And that was it,” Wonder Woman says after a beat.

“And that was it,” Bruce affirms. 

“What were your exact words?”

“Diana.”

“I want the truth from you, Bruce.”

The chair creaks again, Tim hears the soft scrape of the weights in Bruce’s cape on the floor. “I said, ‘You’re not ready for the streets,’” he recalls tightly. “He said, ‘At least let me start shadowing you’. I said, ‘No, we’re not discussing this.’”

“Bruce.”

“I meant about shadowing me,” Bruce protests. “He revealed himself. The whole world knows he exists, now.”

“To the world, there’s always been a Robin,” Wonder Woman explains. “You’re the only one that knows the truth.”

“He disappointed me,” Bruce says.

“You have very high expectations; it’s not very hard to disappoint you. In fact, I’m sure he will disappoint you a hundred more times by the time he’s sixteen. And you’ll disappoint him two hundred times.”

“I know,” Bruce says softly.

“And he’ll still look up to you,” Wonder Woman continues. “He’ll still do his best for you. That’s love.”

  “He—”

“He loves you,” Wonder Woman says firmly. “Give him time to grow into his mistakes.”

“I can’t,” Bruce says. “He thinks I’m overbearing, but—I can’t bear the thought of something happening to him. I’d rather him hate me than be hurt because of me.”

Tim’s stomach flips.

“You’re so self-sacrificial,” Wonder Woman sighs. “Pandora’s box has already been opened, Bruce. There are countless evils in this world; you cannot hope to protect a boy from them all.” A pause, the clink of metal cuffs sliding across the table. “No matter how much you love him.”

It’s okay, Tim thinks frantically. It’s okay. There’s still time to fix this.

When he first clambered into the Batmobile’s passenger seat, in the stolen suit with his face stinging from a brick Two-Face threw at him, and Tim said, I’ll be your Robin and Bruce had grunted one of his we’ll see grunts, Tim never considered—he wants Bruce to like him, sure, of course.

He can’t let Bruce love him. 

That’s Jason’s place, not his. And if Tim is going to—if he’s ever going to get out of this imitation game, he’s got to prove he’s not Jason Todd. He’s got to figure out why Jason Todd is Hood. 

And he’s got to keep the Dark Knight in the dark.  

“He wants to be by your side,” Wonder Woman continues. “I think he only avoids you because he thinks you want to avoid him.”

“But—”

“You gave him the suit. Don’t stop him from the thing you’ve trained him for.”

“But I—”

“No butts,” Wonder Woman says, with a note of amusement. “They’re inappropriate for a table.”

Bruce grunts. A moment later he mumbles, “I don’t like his choice of friends.”

Wonder Woman laughs. “They’re around the same age, in theory. You didn’t expect your protégé to be entertained by us for this fortnight, did you?”

“This could have been avoided if I let him bring his Xbox,” Bruce says morosely. His voice raises. “What if I bought a gaming station for here? Xboxs. Playstations. Wii Sports Resort. We should put it in the recreation room.”

“You can’t prevent Robin from being friends with Superboy.”

“You don’t know what MarioKart is.” 

“Bruce.”

“Why him?” Bruce asks. “Tim is a good kid. He follows rules. Mostly. The clone is—is—a punk.”

“I think they make a surprising pair,” Wonder Woman admits. “But without surprises, you would never have penicillin or super glue or chocolate chip cookies.”

“I don’t want them to invent something together,” Bruce says darkly.

“That’s not up to you. But it does give me a good idea.” Wonder Woman’s voice lifts. “What if we partake in a friendly wager?”

“I don’t gamble,” Bruce says with distaste.

“Then it can be a statistical observation exercise, with risks,” Wonder Woman replies back. Without waiting for Bruce’s response, she explains, “I have instructed your protégé in proper battle technique. Why not put it to the test against me?”

“No,” Bruce says.

“Robin and Superboy both. If they make a good enough team, as I think they will, they’ll find a way to incapacitate me.”

“No,” Bruce repeats. “Diana—”

“Why not?” Wonder Woman continues firmly. “Because you do not trust Robin, or you do not trust his mind, or you do not trust his choice in allies?”

“That’s not—”

“He’ll surprise you,” Wonder Woman says.

Bruce releases a weary sigh.

“Yes,” he says finally. “I know he will.”

###

###

The plane is crashing again. Jeremy sits in the copilot seat, slumped and bleeding over the controls.

Tim yanks the yoke.

###

###

“Tim,” Bruce says, then coughs to cover his surprise. 

“Yeah, it’s me,” Tim says flatly. The door hisses closed behind him. He slumps at the bottom of Bruce’s bed, picks up a piece of chalk. 

“Goodnight,” Bruce says, softly. His arm shifts so it’s hanging off the bed. His knuckles brush the space besides Tim’s ear. 

“Goodnight,” Tim says, leaning away from him. He starts sketching a very wonky shielded S. He waits a very long time for Bruce’s breathing to even, then erases it and draws out a plan.

###

###

(Tim can do this).

###

###

“Tim,” Bruce says, just as Tim’s about to leave. Bruce’s floor is smeared softly white. Tim’s shirt is covered in dust. It’s all over his hands, his knees. He’d worn the stick of chalk to a fingernail’s width of a wedge.

Bruce gets out of his bed. He walks over to Tim. He reaches out to touch.

Tim jerks his chin. 

Bruce’s hand falls before it can find Tim’s skin. 

“You didn’t sleep well,” he says flatly.

“No,” Tim says, equally expressionless. “I did not.”

He presses his chalky fingers to the back of the door, steps out into the corridor. He leaves his hand on the side of the metal door before it can separate him and Bruce. 

“I am sorry,” he whispers. 

“Talk with me,” Bruce says. “I—your actions disappointed me, but I’m not disappointed in you. Sometimes I forget—that you’re only—and—”

“We’re partners,” Tim says.

Bruce sighs. “Yes. We’re partners. And I don’t like it when you hide from me.”

“Old habits die hard,” Tim replies. 

Bruce’s mouth turns up. Tim mimics it, then drops his hand from the door so it can slide back into place. When he hears the metal lock, the last swathe of air ghost the back of his neck. He walks stiff and purposefully back to his room. He can’t clip the cape at his shoulders. His fingers tremble. He curls them into his palms, the cape a pool of black around his feet, until the shaking stops. 

By then, he has convinced himself that the ache in his bones is sleeplessness, the smallness in his stomach is pre-breakfast hunger, that the knot in his throat is righteous fury. When he latches the cape at his neck, he is Robin and nothing else.

(But Tim is terrified for Bruce, and of what Tim will do to him.)

[mugman64]

Heroes of the DC universe but it’s only about fishing.

Aquaman- No, nope, not happening, he hates that shit.

Batman- Too rich for this, if it isn’t a Sherlock novel, chess, or one of his kid’s events he doesn’t do it

Superman- Grew up fishing with Pa, really wants to be good at it. Isn’t.

Green Arrow- Same as Superman but it’s doubly insulting because Dinah is so good at it

Black Canary- Insanely good, like made Diana think she was related to Poseidon good. Growing up around the retired JSA members wears off I guess.

Wonder Woman- Refuses to fish ever since she challenged someone to a fishing competition and lost

Doctor Fate- Expert angler, fishing was the common pastime of the JSA, taught Dinah how to bait a hook

Wildcat- Same thing as fate, but he taught Dinah better

Martian Manhunter- Enjoys fishing, finds it almost meditative, him and Dinah go out once a month

Hawkgirl- While she hates the waiting it’s all worth it when she finally gets the chance to reel in a big catch

Flash- Wally hates it, with a passion. Barry loves it and introduced J’onn to it. Bart doesn’t have the patience for it and was banned when he caused a hurricane to send all the fish on shore

Artemis of Bana-Mighdall- Won a fishing contest against Diana back in the 80’s when she was Wonder Woman and has never let her forget it. Takes Bizarro out fishing as often as she can, he enjoys it.

[just-an-enby-lemon]

I was thinking and I got the conclusion that stalker!Tim works as an AU not because Tim is (while not a stalker) canonically a weirdo (he is) but because Bruce is canonically even more of a weirdo.

We know that just like his reaction to the fake uncle shit, after dealing with the shock that this kid figured out his identity and bonding more with his new Robin, Bruce would just compliment Tim stalker abilities and give him new ones.

And that's to say I need more of stalker Bruce creeping people up. We already have him knowing all JLA secret identities without them telling him. But we need more. I want him knowing Hal Jordan's favorite ice cream flavour or Diana's birthday or Dinah's food alergies without no one telling him. He figures Ollies favorite fucking arrow and Zatanna's favorite Barbie movie, he discovered Arthur favorite snack and how exactally Martha Kent made her fried chesse to give a perfect copy to Clark when he was missing Smallvile during a space mission. He discovered Barry's competitive pokemon team! Everyone on the JLA is freaked. They think he has a secret mind reading/guessing superpower he might not even know about but is just stalkish paranoia. The only person he can't figure things out (and it keeps he awake some nights) is Captain Marvel (he is still the first to discover Billy is a kid). Martian Manhunter is the only one that knows Bruce is just weird but he knows he has good intencions so he doesn't care.

And it isn't only with the League. He makes extensive background checks in all his kids friends. The Teen Titans (both Dick's and Damian's) are freaked out by it. The YJ is actually fine 'cause they are used to Tim and it makes sense Bruce would be like that. The Outsiders (both Jason's but also Cass and Duke's) make their personal quest to mislead him. Not to mention the civilian friends. He is less obvious about it but the kids know and it freaks them up. Steph has a serius discussion over bondaries the day Bruce asks about Crystal's dentist visit and Babs is annoyed af when he just knows things about Alysia. And not only the kids all the other batfam members! The Birds of Prey straight up told him to stop multiple times. Helena once asked Sage's help to trick Bruce, Kate just used Alfred to order him to stop. Barbara interceded in name of Montoya as if she wasn't even in the paranoid stalker game with Bruce and Tim (Babs is worse than Bruce actually). Jim Gordon thinks is cool actually. But Lucious Fox is just "kid, I love you, but Alfred needs to teach you bondaries" and "how did you know Tam's baby tooth was starting to fall before me??" (Yes Bruce does this stalker thing since he was a kid/teen)

He also does it with the Rogues. At first they don't notice it because it's normal that their oponent knows things about them but starts to get weird. Selina freaks out when Bruce tells her to say happy birthday for her cat n12 (Dollie, he called it by name) when she hadn't even introduced him to her cats yet. Riddler had a genuine breakdown when Bruce just gave him the exact perfect copy of his glasses prescrition and all to replace his broken ones during an interrogation (he needed Riddler's help against a copycat). Harley punched Bruce in the face after he correctly pointed out she had just started her period and offered heater packs for her cramps, a chocolate ice cream and some snacks while driving her to Arkham, Penguin stopped doing crime for a whole week after he had almost fainted (being a crime lord is hard) for not eating the whole day and having high blood pressure for stress reason and Bruce just gave him a snack, a bottle of water and his meds (except it wasn't his meds, Batman just had a pill of Penguin's prescription in hand and wtf), Scarecrow recomended him therapy when he somehow figure out Jon's favorite candy bar and tried to use it as a bargain for information, Joker felt very flaterred that Bruce not only knew that he made his own dye using two pre existing dye products and a mix of chemicals but had the formula including the recomended brands for everyhing.

The only person who had no reaction was Clark. Clark sees Bruce being a weird stalker as just a fact of life and no one knows how to deal with it. (It's better than Tim "I wanna be like that" and Babs "cool but I'm better " aproaches at least). Talia Al Ghul used to consider it impressive and have a flirty competition to see if Batman could figure details about her. After they stopped being an item they respected each other enough that he just stalks Talia if is related to Ra, crimes, Damian or the League.

[themartianwitch-fic]

Yours In Fractions - Ch. 5 - Sinking Feeling

Fic summary: After the invasion, Conner and M'gann re-connect with each other and themselves. (Set primarily between Seasons 2 and 3, with flashbacks. See pinned post for full fic's content warnings.)

[March 17th, Team Year Seven]

Wolf raises his head and grumbles, spreads his front paws out and taps impatiently at the floor.

Conner blinks, and the black, red, and blue shapes in his vision become real objects again. He raises his chin from his hand and pops the tension out from the side of his neck. “I know,” he says to Wolf. He lifts the red and blue bag up by the handles, tissue paper crackling, and sets it on the opposite side of his desk, as if it’s a chess or puzzle piece to move towards a solution. “I’m almost done, then I’ll turn off the light.”

Wolf responds with a quick, soft warning woo, then lays his chin back down to the floor. He twitches an ear, eyes staying open and on Conner.

“Right,” Conner mutters to himself, and he returns his attention to the desk.

He doesn’t have to do this.

What he has for them is enough on its own. They wouldn’t know he thought of this, wouldn’t know he thought of it and decided no.

No one would know but him. And now that he’s thought of it, whatever response he has to the thought is still a choice he’s making, even if it’s nothing.

Conner starts again at the top of the pile. If he remembers correctly, it’s the hole in the collar. He runs his thumb over the seam until he finds the spot that yields, that shows the skin of his fingertip peeking through when he turns the collar over.  No.  He restarts his reject pile. The next should have the hard part in the stitching at its bottom hem. Sure enough, it’s there: Ma’s thread reinforcing where the factory threads had loosened.

Reject pile. He’s not giving them something that’s already had to be fixed.

The S-Shield flakes on the next shirt. Subtle cracks, but they’re immediate the moment he looks at it, no microscopic vision required. Little paper-thin slips of red. He doesn’t try to fold that shirt back, just bunches it in his fist and smacks it down over the pile. Next shirt. More stitches, this time at the shoulder–not in the seam, just out in the body of the cloth. Little scabs of thread. Conner tucks that shirt into a tight square like he’s wrapping a wound, then adds it to the pile. The next one bares longer scars in nearly the same place, only on both shoulders–the drag of long claws.

Conner looks back over at Wolf on the floor. You did this one, buddy, he thinks at him. Wolf’s eyes hover half-open, lids heavy but his ears still flicking. Conner folds the shirt. The reject pile grows.

Another shirt, another flaw: this time, grease stains. Fresh ones, too–he rubs a darker-than-black spot on the faded bottom front and feels his skin both stick to and slip off of it. All it took was one lazy wipe on the cloth that he had closest at hand. It didn’t matter then. He didn’t think it ever would.

“What did you think?” M’gann rasps at him, her laughter still ringing in the air.

“Think I could clean my grease rags with this,” he says, giving the pink drink in his sweating glass a swirl. M’gann snorts, more laughter bubbling up behind her hand. He takes another sip.

The next shirt has the opposite problem: light spots against a larger splotch of darkness on the back. He still remembers M’gann’s green fingers wringing into the cloth, and her mouth curling inward into a crooked, anxious frown. She’d tried to fix it before telling him, but the dye didn’t take right. The bleach she’d spilled left permanent damage–and didn’t even fix the grass stains on her Bumblebee blouse. Hel-lo, Megan, she had said, a Martian doing laundry–

He’d let shirts rip and burn back then. Some little stains meant nothing.

“You look like a constellation,” she’d said later once the guilt had gone away. He did that. All it had taken was his words.  Not even backwards, just magic–he forgave her, and it mattered. She giggled and walked her fingers across the stars on his back. He turned and poked her freckled cheek.

“Like this?”

She’d laughed, whole face, whole chest. Whole heart.

He’d buried it at the bottom of his drawer at the farm. He couldn’t look at it again. If he’d kept it at the Cave, it’d be gone now.

Thank God for small favors, Conner imagines Ma saying. He folds the shirt back neatly. Reject, he labels it mentally, for more reasons than one. It joins the stack of shirts he knows he’ll keep.

What’s left is the shirt slashed straight through the S.

Or at least, the one that was. Ma matched the threads exactly to the colors. He’d thought that it was magic the first time that he saw it, but he’d just had to look, to find the faultline. Find the proof that what held it together made it wrong.

[Superboy, you’re cut?! But a Kryptonian can’t be cut!]

A line of little blistered eyes all opening at once, and there it was. His blood. His inside. The liquid warmth–the liquid cold at the edges. The air on it, still cutting into him like the blade. The blood starting to seep over the clean line of the wound, gravity and his pumping heart pulling it down. Part of him, falling out. If it could, so could all of it. All of him. All the nothing that he ever was–

“No!”

Robin shouting. Clattering blades. M’gann gasping out the breath she’d been holding. Robin’s teeth clicking against the force of Rako’s fist. Wally’s soles skidding to his side.

“C’mon, Supey! Get it together!”

He didn’t have to keep it, but the lack of any other souvenir from the mission gave him an excuse, even if he didn’t let it go to the trophy shelf. Artemis helped him wash out the blood once the mission was over–”girl secret,” she’d said. “Nuh-uh,” Wally had said back. M’gann had just watched–him. Kept staring like she could see the scratch through his new shirt, some psychic trace embedded in his healed-over skin.

“It… is my mind," M’gann says, head low, hair framing her face and cutting through the bright and blurry sunlight streaming in around her, putting the smell of lavender in his head. “It’s like a… scar that's... on my psyche.”

Conner sighs, rubbing at his forehead. His ears want to tune in to her. He’s fought the urge most nights, and he can fight it now. Focus.

Focusing still leaves him with the same problem he started with: none of the shirts are good enough. He topples the reject pile down with a swipe of his hand, letting the shirts fall back into a mess on his desk. He lifts the bag again, feeling the few light weights inside it tug against the bottom, and he moves it back to the other side of the pile.

On the floor, Wolf smacks his lips loudly enough for Conner to hear–which doesn’t take much, and he knows that Wolf knows that. The intent is clear. “Alright,” Conner says, standing. He slides off his jeans, clicks off his lamp, then heads to the control panel at his door to get the overhead lights.

M’gann’s heart beats gently on the other side. Past the turn of the corner and four doors down, but out there. She’s asleep. He dims the lights, closes his eyes, and lets the sound of her sleeping fade out. His hand goes to the door, palm soaking in a few seconds’ worth of cold from the metal, then lets it go. All of it. He’s done all that he can.

After seven years of missions, he’s used to little sleep, but weighing last night against tomorrow, he knows he needs it now.

Ten hours, the clock on his nightstand says. He could count that on his hands. He does, just to check, like he hasn’t known basic math since before he could open his eyes. He looks down at all ten fingers up, at the open, empty hands he's left with. He curls his hands back into fists.

Wolf flicks a tall white ear in the low light as Conner heads to the bed. The moment Conner’s weight crackles down onto the sheet, Wolf rolls onto his side, stretches out his white legs, and lets out a deep sigh tinged with a groan of satisfaction. His heart keeps time in a way that digital doesn’t, ticks softly under layers of muscle and fur, but as Conner’s head drops down into the pillow, the clock on the nightstand blinks a new red number. Conner’s eyes trail up to the ceiling. Shadows overtake the corners, same as every night. The walls stretch up into a void. He closes his eyes and thinks of the moon.

"Your home is a test tube," says the intruder–the smallest one, in the mask that hides his eyes. "We can show you the sun!

"Uh, pretty sure it's after midnight, but we can show you the moon!" one of the other ones chimes in–the one in the mask that doesn't.

The zeta tube light fades at Conner’s back. The rubber of his heels thuds against the cement floor. Bare rafters and support beams line the warehouse’s interior like a skeleton, caging in the dim walls and the fuzzy ceiling. Static buzzes on the TV screen, a thousand black and white dots seething with life but still trapped behind the glass. Mal’s arm and leg dangle off the edge of the couch. Gar’s bed is empty; his heart beats instead in the corner behind the curtains, just like it has every night since–

Since they lost her.

Conner lays a hand over his hip pocket. The four corners of the box press back into his palm.

“You’re not going to need those.”

Nightwing–Dick–appears like he always does: out of nowhere. He’s quiet now. It’s been years since the laugh. He gives Conner his best Batman impression now, standing with arms crossed and mask eyelets narrowed.

Conner blinks at him for a moment, then scoffs. “What, not part of your plan?”

Dick drops his arms but keeps the glare. “None of this was part of the plan,” he says slowly.

"Doesn’t matter,” Conner snaps back, keeping his hand over the box. “It’s part of it now.” His eyes dart back across the warehouse–Warehome, it’s supposed to be. No one stirs, but without even trying, Conner lowers his voice–the clenching of his teeth does it for him. “You still don’t have a plan to get them back, do you?” he seethes under his breath.

Dick sighs, deflating all the air from his puffed-up chest. For a moment, he’s thirteen again, spindly-armed and narrow shouldered and barely up past the S-Shield on Conner’s chest. But his hands go to his hips, and he’s Nightwing again, not quite Batman or Robin. “Trying to extract the three of them now would mean more risks and more unknowns than just staying put,” he says. “Look, I don’t like it either. But Tigress wouldn’t have involved Miss M unless it was her only option, hers and Kaldur’s, and even if we wanted to send a squad, there's a whole lot of ocean between us and them.” Dick steps closer to Conner, leans his several inches of height down over him. “Trust her.” His shoulders give a light shrug. “Trust Miss M.”

M’gann, Conner thinks back at Dick from behind a glare. Artemis. Say their names like you said Kaldur’s. They’re part of this, too.

Those words don’t come out. What comes out instead is a growl. “We don’t even know if…”

Those words won’t come out either.

If they’re still alive.

“…They’re not.”

Conner feels his eyes bulge.

“Dead, I mean.” Dick steps back and puts a hand up, swallowing audibly. “They’re not.”

Conner shoves his hands into his pockets and turns away, head airy with the fumes burning off from his face. The box in his pocket is cold and solid. Feeling sweat in his gloves, he grips it.

“You don’t think so either,” Dick then says, all too proudly. “Unless what you got's your revenge plan, not your rescue.”

Breath hitching, Conner clenches the box and lunges at Dick, huffing in his face. Dick smirks back at him. “And SB,” Dick continues, “I know what’s more your style.”

The box crunches. Finger-shaped grooves melt into the steel like butter. Conner doesn’t let go. “It’s mine.” The steel turns liquid-smooth between his fingers, heat pooling at the center of his palm. He squeezes tighter. “And it’s none of your business.”

“You’re on this team, you are my business.” Dick holds out a hand. “Gimme.” He flicks his fingers.

“No!” Conner shouts, wet heat in his eyes. A pulse through his body knocks him back on his heels; he stumbles, but each step back pulls him up, makes him lighter. He stomps to ground himself. “You don’t get to decide–” What I feel, but his lips twist and turn then pull themselves back inward. A knot in his throat holds his voice back. You and Kaldur, he still tries, grunting, snarling–Dick smiles, hand outstretched. The heat from the box seeps into Conner's skin.

No!

Conner’s hands leave his pockets. His fists come up empty.

How could you–

“Agh!” Conner's fist hits the concrete floor, cracks splitting out from the impact. The crater pulls his fist in–Conner slips to his knees. Pain pulses up from his knuckles, runs through the veins in his wrist, and throbs at the center of his forearm. Clutching his arm, he fights the magnet pull of his fist to the floor, groaning until his fingers uncurl in the grit and then go limp. The pain washes out of him in a cold sweat, leaves his body full of lightness, but the world still warps itself around his eardrums, booming, crashing. The beat pushes his feet from the floor. He shuts his eyes to hold it in, feel it–control it. Raising his fists, he thrusts out his chest, lifts his knee. Higher. Higher. More.

He opens his eyes. Light streams in from the rafters. Nothing matters but its warmth. Every cell in his body opens to it, teems with it, burns in it.

There's no one waiting for him on the ground anymore. Dick is gone–Gar, Mal–the warehouse itself. No walls, no ceiling, just the light, and the dark beyond it, a vague shadow at vaguer edges. Some semblance of something more than this. Tinges of red. Hard, cold, deep. He almost doesn't need to touch it, doesn't want to, but the beating at his core says to reach. He puts out a hand.

His torn white sleeve slips down from his wrist to his elbow. A blood-red blur marrs his skin, but he needs it, he knows. Without it, his hand couldn't even move.

His fingertips press flat against glass. He pushes forward. The glass takes the same force and pushes him right back against the slab. A tiny bump, not even a fall. He hadn’t moved far from it.

He pushes again. Nothing moves. The gaps between his fingers close as he makes a fist–it hits the glass, but leaves no cracks. The pounding inside his head and chest gets softer, distant. Silence creeps in, trickles down as the light brightens, nearly forcing his eyes shut. He squints against it, still keeping his fist. The pounding hasn’t left his arm. He throws his arm against the glass.

The glass shakes. He slides down it, head to his arm, slaps a hand to it to catch himself and push himself back up–the light sears his eyes shut, knocking his head back down. He keeps his head low as he rams his shoulder into the glass. Another shake. Growling, he tries both fists. The pod itself moans back at him as a rattle runs through its walls, but no impact makes an opening.

Sucking in through gritted teeth, Conner opens his eyes. The light burns white–he takes it in. Heat pools in the pits of where tears should well up, but he holds it all in. Red stains the light–blood, fire, he doesn’t care. His head–his skin–his body throbs with power.  Power to end this.

Somewhere out there in the white expanse, a hollow ring becomes a keening howl. Conner blinks, and the heat in his eyes becomes just a cool wetness. He puts his hands back to the glass. His palms still find solid, but his fingertips find soft. Thick, rough, dull points press back into him, running short swipes of shallow trails over the skin of his chest. A wet gust of air hits Conner square in the nose, making his lips curl shut on reflex.

Conner opens his eyes. Wolf sniffs his breath so rapidly that it tickles the back of his throat, making him cough. Wolf pulls back, but his paws don’t leave Conner’s chest. Spots of blue, purple, and green still drift bruise-like in Conner’s vision, but he finds the side of Wolf’s neck and rubs his hand into Wolf’s fur.

“Thanks, Wolf.”

A groan starts rough in the middle of Wolf’s throat, dips low into his vocal range, then shoots high into a short, sharp whine. He slides his paws off of Conner’s chest and drops them to the floor, but his yellow eyes stay on Conner, crisp and clear in the dim light of the bedroom. The view outside the window is stars and darkness–up here, it always is.  The clock says it isn't morning; the automatic timer on his room lights agrees. Conner brings his eyes back down to Wolf and brings his nails down to the top of Wolf's chest. Wolf leans his head slightly to the side, but his hind leg stays flat against the floor, no kicking or scratching motion.

“Sorry,” Conner then says, reading judgment in Wolf’s stare. “I know.” He leans back and runs a hand through his own hair, feeling sweat collect under his fingernails. “Happens. Wakes you up, too, though, I know.”

Wolf maintains his stare and pads at the ground, the shifting weight between his two front paws making him wobble. He groans again, voice deep and assertive.

Conner furrows his brow. Wolf’s eyes stay insistent, but his tail swishes apprehensively. A ghost of anger flickers at the back of Conner’s head–the dream. The weird part. He had his anger at Dick. That was months ago, almost a year now. Things were different then. Things were still wrong.

The rest of the dream–a thought will take him back there. That stays where it belongs.

“It was just a bad dream,” Conner argues into Wolf’s determined face. He pats the top of Wolf’s head. Wolf tilts his head critically and out of Conner’s touch. Conner retracts his hand, but not his argument. “It happens. It’s not like...”

“I didn’t pull you into a memory, Conner,” M’gann said. “I really did… pull you into a nightmare. Or at least… something like it. It’s… from the scar–it’s warped–it’s how the damage manifests itself when my mind is–”

Conner's eyes go to the floor. "It's not like–"

"–Nnn–agh-ahhh-uh-uh–!"

Wolf turns, body stretched out straight towards the door, and lets out a gruff, decisive bark. A crackle of M'gann's voice lasts a second longer before a sharp, high gasp cuts straight into Conner's ears. Her heart from here reads panic–adrenaline hits his own.

“Like that,” Conner says, kicking the sheet off of his legs and jumping to his feet. He breezes past Wolf and smacks the door’s controls open–hops back several steps and reaches back for Wolf’s head. An ear twitches against the side of his hand. “Good boy,” Conner adds quickly, tapping fingertips to fur. He then sprints out the door.

He’s in her range. Silver walls stay silver walls for now. But through his ears, her voice is right there in his head–another almost-no! before she groans and gasps for breath. Conner rushes past the doors of several vacant rooms then halts himself at hers, catching himself with a still-sweaty hand against its cold, smooth surface. [I'm here,] he thinks to M'gann on reflex. The dread sets in even before the thought fades out. He already knows it won't reach her.

I'm here, Conner then mentally repeats to himself.

Now what.

The door doesn’t yield to the pressure of his hand. Locked. Her passcode at the Cave was–was the date that Cadmus started him in the pod, what everyone has always called a birthday. Last year, it passed without a word from her. If it became just numbers to her, it would have been easy to change.

Back then, too much to her would have been easy to change.

A hard thud, a soft thump–M’gann grunts with the sound of both like she feels it. Conner hits the door with his fist. No dent–he wasn't expecting one. He knows how hard he hit it. But the sheet of metal quivers in its frame, sending a high, sharp ring up the wall towards the ceiling. Conner waits. The ringing fades. Then M’gann gasps a stray gasp at nothing–nothing he can see, nothing he can reach–

Nothing he can stop.

“Nnghh-agh!”

“M’gann!” Conner shouts, hitting the door again and sending out a fresh chime. Still no dent–yet. He puts his palm to the door to end its rattle, then his head to the door to listen closer–the pounding of his own heart drowns hers out. He peers through the metal to her heat signature–she's on the bed or floating. Dim heat seeps past her edges–the bed. She drags a hand through sheets–Conner hears the rustle–and her hand leaves smears of yellow-green trailing behind it. She draws up a knee, shakes her head. Her fire-red chest throbs.

Enough, Conner thinks, blinking his eyes back right. His hand goes to the control pad. Its screen lights up with keys. Her old passcode, or emergency override. Wasted seconds, or guaranteed alarms.

"No!"

Having already tapped 0, Conner drops his hand from where it hovers over 3. M’gann's breath comes ragged on the other side of the door, but he can hear the purpose in each inhale, and some small relief in each exhale. Conner takes his own deep breath and steps back from the door. The control panel resets to a blank screen, leaving 2 and 1 and all the rest untouched.

She's awake. He could leave it here. She's woken herself up before–even did it in his arms. It wasn't him. Nothing he did–

He doesn't need to be here. She's dealt with this before. A few times, she'd told him–Conner scoffs at the thought. He doesn't know that, just because she said it–only, he heard this time. It hasn't happened on the Watchtower. Two and a half months. Then why last night–

–A hard, flat thwap hits Conner’s ears–her hand against a pillow or the mattress is his best guess. The next sound is a sob. M’gann’s voice breaks in pieces, in place, sobs muffling as they deepen–Conner looks back through the door. Yellow-green and orange, only spots of red–her form hunches over, curls in on itself–

His eyes come away hot as he blinks his vision out of infrared. That's it, he thinks, biting back a growl.

Conner knocks on her door: no fist, no shake, no dent. One knuckle. “M’gann.”

M’gann gasps, chokes–holds back a half-sob, breath shaking. “C-Conner?” she calls back.

Conner drops his hand back to his side and nods, forgetting she can’t see him. “Yeah, it’s me–”

“–Are you alright?”

Conner blinks at the door, processing the mild whiplash of her asking him that–again. He frowns, holding back another growl.

"Conner?"

The growl escapes him anyway. His fist swings at the seam of the door–he stops it, softens it, lets the side of it slide down the cold sheet of metal. His fingers flick toward the control panel, close enough to trigger its screen. He presses them flat against the door instead.

"Here," Conner calls back over the sound of M'gann's rising pulse and the feel in his chest of his own. "Now you. Out here. Now."

Another gasp, another sob–a cut-off, muffling the next. A hand to her mouth–he can tell. Conner's fingers curl against the door. He blinks her back into his vision–she’s upright, looking back at him. Face red-hot, she wipes her eyes. Conner’s eyes pull back to cold, gray metal, then drop down to his two bare feet.

“...I didn’t mean to sound like I'm–”

“I–I’m coming.”

Mad at you fades out in Conner's head–all his focus goes to sounds outside of it. The swipe of sheets, the padding of footfalls. A sniffle; a stray sob, quickly snuffed out by a hand. The rattle of something empty yet contained–a click. Uneasy breaths, a determined mmh!–hesitance laced into a moment of silence, save for the anxious undercurrent of her pulse. Then more footfalls, staying soft but growing louder. Another stop. Another shaky wisp of a breath, close enough now on the other side of the door to itch at Conner’s ears.

The door starts to give underneath Conner’s palm. Conner lifts his hand away. The door slides open. M’gann’s hand slips down from the controls on her side and crosses over her chest to clutch at her elbow.

Her skin is white.

Martian white.

A’ashenn white.

Her light gray gown sits dark on her skin, hanging up from one shoulder and down past the other. Her messy-strewn hair draws scratchy red lines along the sides of her white neck. Her freckles are gone, but bruise-like splotches stain her cheeks gray; she raises her head high enough for liquid light to peek out from under her bangs, and her eyes are red. Human red. They meet his then flick away, stare down the other end of the empty hall then come back to him. She holds his stare and breathes in deep through gray lips, a shiver of a sob lingering in her breath.

“...I’m sorry.”

Her eyes flicker at him, pitch-dark lashes batting at her white skin. Conner feels his jaw fall dumbfoundedly slack and pulls his mouth back shut.

“I tried to…” M’gann hugs both her arms to her chest. “...Exert influence, it… it didn’t work. But I… I really tried.” A white hand comes up to brush hair behind her ear. “Could–” Her voice cracks. “Could you tell?”

Conner blinks at her, feeling the knot in his brow tighten.

“You… didn’t link me,” he responds.

What? M’gann mouths. “B-but how–” She shakes her head. “Then–why are you… here?”

Conner points at his ear. “Heard you,” he says bluntly. He gestures with his thumb back toward his end of the hall. “Me and Wolf.”

“O-oh!” Eyes staying on him, M’gann reaches for the doorframe. She stops herself seconds before touching fingers down to it and wraps her arms around herself again. “T-that’s…”

“Are you… cold?” Conner asks, eyes still running over her white skin. M’gann blinks in confusion, brow furrowing, then cracks a smile over a half-gasp. A soft groan keeps the smile from turning into a laugh, however, and her hand goes to the space between her eyes, slides up to her forehead.

Her other hand smacks into the doorframe. Her fingers curl around its edge. She pants softly, heart beating with adrenaline, but as she brings her hand down from her face, her eyes drop to the floor, still swollen red and already heavy again. Conner’s hands twitch up on reflex, shaping themselves to cusp her by the waist. He stops them, stops himself–another reflex, Conner realizes, when he can’t think of why. He keeps them ready at his sides. “M’gann, what happened to–”

“–Do I scream?”

“What?”

“When I–” M’gann lays her head against her hand in the doorway. “When I’m having the… when I’m... in it. Could you have heard me without superhearing?” She winces. “I… ask because I… I need to know if–unngh!" Baring her teeth, brow quivering, M'gann rolls her forehead against the bones of her knuckles.

Conner’s hand meets the doorframe inches above hers with a soft thoom. Sweat rolls down the side of M'gann's face in his shadow. “M’gann, look at me.” He slides his hand down over hers, separating her head from it. Eyes still shut, M’gann gasps and stumbles back, reaching her other hand towards the other side of the frame. “Snap out of this,” Conner commands, catching her hand. “Look at me–”

–M’gann rips both her hands out of Conner’s touch. She locks her arms tight around her ribs, hiding her hands from him–drops close to the floor, but doesn’t fall. “Conner, please, I–” Stomping her heel, she forces herself back upright. Folds of her gown pull tight behind her arms–her hand slips down her stomach and reveals clenching white fingers. “–Can’t–just–could Gar have heard me screaming when I–”

–Conner’s hand flies back to the control panel. “I’m alerting the med bay.”

“No!”

M’gann falls to her knees. Her hands catch on the floor, white fingers splaying out. Panting hard, she squints up at Conner. “I’m just–hghh–tired, I–hghh–”

Conner drops down beside her. His knees thud against the floor; he hears it, barely feels it. M’gann’s whole body throbs like her heart, panting turned to shivering, eyes wrenched shut. Conner reaches for her face. His fingers touch down on a hot, damp cheek. “Ngh–” M’gann jerks her head away from him. Conner’s hand drops to her shoulder. M’gann gasps and dips her shoulder out of his touch. Conner’s hand curls around itself.

“Are you–” Conner’s throat goes tight. Her sleeve covers where he’d dug his fingers into her arm trying to wake her at the motel. He blinks away the thought of fingerprint bruises–gray on white, green on white, red hot on yellow-green–any color. “Why,” he makes himself ask aloud instead. “Why can’t I touch you?”

M’gann’s hand flies to her mouth, muffling the crack and shudder of a sob. “You–”

–Conner swallows. “Me?”

“N-no! No!” M’gann shakes her head. “Me! It’s not–safe. Not right now–”

“–M’gann, what does that even mea–”

“–The window. I-I–” Eyes still shut and hair falling in her face, M’gann gropes blindly at the doorframe. Her other hand pushes off from the floor. “I think–I think I know.” Slowly, M’gann starts to rise–her hand misses the doorframe, swipes then flails at air. Conner jumps up to catch her from below, but M’gann falls into the frame, finding it with her shoulder, and claws at the smooth outer wall for support. “What happened, I–can’t let it happen again, I–”

“–I’m alerting the med bay,” Conner growls, eyes darting from her to the control panel and then back to her.

“Please just let me go back to sleep.” M’gann lays her head against the frame. “Please. It can be over.” A crackle of a groan, and she pushes herself up an inch from the frame. “I can just… make, make it back to my bed, just… wake up… tomorrow… and… unhh…”

M’gann’s head falls back, white throat flashing under cascading hair. Conner catches her while she’s still on her feet, loops an arm around her waist and brings her head to his shoulder. “M’gann?” He notes his mouth barely an inch from her ear: no response. “M’gann!” Gripping the back of her head and keeping her propped up against himself, Conner shakes her. Her dangling arms slide over his arm at her waist, bumping it gently as they sway side to side.

She’s out.

Conner pushes her head up to the crook of his neck and holds it there as he scoops the rest of her up into his arms. The med bay remains a screen-press away. Conner fixes his eyes to the control panel and tries to imagine her bleeding. Burnt. Fractured. Poisoned. Whatever thought is strong enough to make him move his hands. Her psyche split in two, tearing itself apart–that should be enough, but his feet stay anchored to the floor, and his arms go stone-stiff.

“You're not… supposed to do anything,” M'gann had said softly, determinedly bringing her hand up to his shoulder from the space between their chests. “I mean there’s… nothing to do, it’s… already over.”

It’s not, Conner echoes back to the memory. His hand clenches around a fistful of her sleeve.

“Can you… trust me?” she'd said, her forehead warm and solid against his own. Sunlight filtered in through her curtain of hair; her presence flooded his mind even without a psychic touch. “I know that I’m needed, Conner. I know that I have a responsibility to not give up. I know what it does, losing someone–I’ve seen it enough now." She breathed out into their space, and he felt it in his chest. Her warmth. Her life. "I owe it to all of you to be stronger than this. I won’t… ever let myself stop fighting.”

M’gann lets out a deep sigh in his arms, hot air puffing onto the skin of his throat. A contented hum thrums from her lips into his collarbone. Her heart pulses against his chest in a soft and steady rhythm.

Conner lets his chin fall to the top of her head. Fine, he thinks, sighing back at her. This time.

He crosses the line of the door track between the hall and her room. Keeping her head pinned under his chin, he raises his knee to catch her legs as he slips his arm out from under them and turns on the lights. He slides his arm back under her legs, dropping his foot back to the floor. Her body stays ragdoll limp. Conner clutches it–her–tighter.

Her room is like a time capsule, gutted. Nothing in it could have possibly been salvaged from the Cave, but she’s filled it with replacements, familiar pieces in familiar places. Posters hang on smooth, flat metal, the shadows of craggy rock walls gone from around them. He tries not to look, tries not to think too much about it. Her bed sits nestled between twin nightstands–that’s his target. He steps down into star-spotted carpet, its fibers still factory-fresh under his feet.

Her bedsheets are the same as his, the Watchtower’s standard issue. The green-gray top sheet lies crumpled on the edge of the bed in a body-shaped knot. The white bottom sheet is wrought with twists and creases, signs of struggle. Conner lets M’gann back down to it legs first, then the rest of her, feeling her lips unstick from his skin. Hand to the mattress, letting her sink with it, he reaches over her to grab her pillow off the floor. His weight leaves the mattress, raising her back up. Pillow in his hand, he reaches for her head.

The pillow leaves his hand, bounces gently off her chest, and falls back to the floor.

The red of her hair seeps out around her head, but her a’ashenn skin makes her look translucent against the sheet, half-camouflaged or half-ready to slip right through the mattress.

It shouldn’t look so wrong.

From the moment he first saw it in his head, he never saw the wrongness–he saw truth. Saw her. Felt her shame, felt her fear–felt the echo of his own in what he was, what he was supposed to be, and understood. Waited. Kept waiting, some part of him, even after she’d shared it. Always held her when she used to sleepshift, helped her will herself back human or g’arrunn, whatever she needed to be–but kept waiting. Hoped, even, but only if it would be good–that if choosing it someday would be the right choice for her, she would make it.

This wasn’t a choice. He knows that. If he didn’t, he could see it like he wants to.

He could call her beautiful.

And she would be awake to hear it.

She’s too still now, face stonelike in its serenity. Conner runs a hand down her cheek. She breathes, heart beating. His hand goes down the length of her arm, stopping at her wrist. He keeps expecting cold, keeps thinking marble veins instead of bedsheet wrinkles, keeps hearing an electric hum at his feet instead of overhead. Poseidonis’s hall of heroes. The Grotto, one light brighter. Tula’s pale, hard face in her wreaths, seconds before the shroud hid it away. The ice blue halos her hologram cast around everyone–Wally and Artemis, hardened faces, knowing looks, hands locked tight–Garth, shadow behind him, the empty space where Kaldur should have been–M’gann, kneeling to hold Gar, her cloak draping over his shoulders–

It took days to get her alone again. Conner needed her to cry. He needed something to get it out of him, get the light out of his eyes. She wasn’t a hologram. Yet–yet, yet, yet. All he could think–who next. Not a question–an accusation. He spent those days silent, eyeing everyone, like all of them knew but him. Who next.

He finally found her again in their–her–bed. He reached out in the dark–she clung on, curled into him–became muscle and bone and skin and tears again, soaking his collar, wringing fingers at his back. [We're never going to lose each other like that.] All the trembling her in his arms, and yet her mental voice was steady. Her grip was resolute. [Never,] she’d said. [I promise.]

Conner shakes the years-old thoughts from his head. His hand goes back to M’gann’s face. The only cold is drying tears. He wipes away what’s left of them. It doesn’t help. She doesn’t feel it.

Her voice cuts fresh into his head, but only as a memory. "I don’t–”

No. Conner looks away, hand leaving her face, knuckles dragging through her hair until his fist slots into place at his side.

"I don't want to want to–"

–The space behind his eyes burns red. He clamps a hand around his head and holds back the thought, the memory, her voice whisper-quiet, her head drooping low, her eyes too soft, so tired–

"I don't want to want to–"

–No. No, no, no, no!

“...I don’t want to want to die anymore, Conner."

A sound sputters out of him he barely recognizes as his voice. The feel of a hand around his whole chest squeezes the breath out of him, crunches his ribs, leaves him wheezing, shaking. He bites down. His voice comes out again, this time halfway to a growl, but catching, quivering like a plucked string. He gulps out a breath, a hard, rubbery cough that bounces back into his throat. He hisses air back in through wet teeth. His lips curl in tight. His clenching knees drop him to the edge of the bed.

He knows what this is. He’s done it before. She’s done it a hundred times. Humans are born doing it, humans and–it doesn’t matter. He wasn’t born anything. It hurts. A wave knocks him forward. A fist curls in his gut. A tremor wrenches both his shoulders–he swallows it down. His voice kicks against the backs of his clenched teeth–it doesn’t matter if she hears it. He doesn’t want to. He doesn’t want to feel it. His body doesn’t care–it trembles with power. He locks his arms around his ribs and bends, toes curling against the carpet, head nearly at his knees.

Liquid heat hangs at the edges of his eyelids; a single tear breaks loose. Even he can’t hear it land. The carpet soaks and swallows it up in an instant. His eyes sting with more, ready to fall–they can’t. He can’t let them. if he lets them, they won’t stop.

M’gann groans behind him. Conner hears her hand bounce against the mattress with a soft, dull thud. At his right, her heels slide in the sheets. Conner raises his head, holding his eyes shut as everything behind them shifts and settles back into place. He blinks away the tear-blurs and turns to look back at M’gann. M’gann’s brow furrows at something, and though only by the slightest nudges, her head shakes side to side. Her pulse starts to quicken.

The knots in Conner’s throat and chest all snap loose at once. “M’gann, wake up!”

M’gann jumps up, white limbs scrambling, eyes and mouth popping open in a gasp. She catches herself against the mattress and does a quick visual sweep of her surroundings. Her eyes land on him. “Conner?” Her heart slams in her chest. “Conner, are you alright?”

Conner steps back from the bed.

Thumpthumpthumpthump–

–M’gann reaches for his wrist then pulls her hand back. Her eyes dart across his face, widen in horror–

–Thumpthumpthump– 

“–Conner, what happened?”

No.

He can’t. Not another second. He shuts off the sound of her heart in his head. Fire burns in its place, running down his throat into his chest. His eyes go blisteringly dry–what’s in him won’t leak out again, just explode. He starts towards her desk–anywhere else. His feet leave the carpet, returning to the cold floor.

“Conner?”

No. He’ll leave. It’s better than the alternative. It won’t matter–none of it does. There’s nothing he can do.

“Conner, please, w-what–” She slides against the sheet. His eyes look at nothing but the wall, at empty, at solid, at contained. He stares at the metal and presses the thought of it against the feeling swelling inside him. Empty. Solid. Contained. Cold.

“Conner!”

Her breath trembles, teeters on a sob–slips right back into his ears. He pushes it out. No. Nothing else inside him. The swelling in his chest won’t stop. His eyes sweat and sting with tears. No.

“Conner, please just answer me," M’gann lets out on a whisper.

Something opens in his chest. The heat behind his eyes evaporates his would-be tears. Growling through his teeth, anger boiling up and blowing through him, Conner whips back around.  "M'gann, you were out for five minutes!"

M’gann’s eyes widen into pinpricks in her white face. Her hand floats up to curl into the hair hanging over her shoulder. "O-oh." She shrugs faintly, her eyes still wide but falling from his face to the foot of the bed. "It… felt restful enough."

Conner huffs. The tension doesn’t leave him, but just as quickly as it flared, the anger starts to drain away. M’gann’s hands drop to her thighs and wring into the hem of her gown. Even with his hearing pulled back into his head, he can see her steady her breath, her shoulders inching up then dropping as she stares down at the mattress. Something in his chest twists–if he lets himself feel it, it will wring out more tears. He forces a sigh instead.

“You don't know what's happening," Conner states through gritted teeth. His hand goes to the top of the chair at her desk, gripping it lightly for calm. His mind still feeds him the sound of splitting wood. He lets go of the chair, dropping his hand back to his side. “You thought you did, but you don’t.”

"N-no, I… I think I do know what happened. Last night. Why I linked you in my sleep." M'gann tucks her legs neatly beneath her and folds her hands together in her lap. She opens her mouth to speak but then hesitates, eyes darting away. She clears her throat. "...We were touching."

"What?"

“In the window! The way we…" A smoke-gray flush starts in her white face. "...Crammed ourselves in there. I… think that my subconscious mind… misinterpreted that closeness as an open invitation to–” She bites her lip. “Well, at least, it… it made it much more possible… I–I didn’t consider the possibility that–” She shakes her head. “I’m... sorry. I… don’t remember if I already said that. I know I keep… coming up with more things to apologize fo–”

“–So now I can never touch you again?” Conner coughs out, voice snagging on touch as he steps forward, squeezing his hands into fists at his sides.

A flicker of pain runs across M'gann's face. “N-no, I…” Her mouth again hangs open soundlessly.  “I don’t… mean that, necessarily, I… just mean when… when I’m, um…” She bounces lightly on the mattress as her hand flaps at air. “When there’s a risk of you…"  Her eyes fall to her hand, and it goes still.

“A risk of me what?” Conner says sharply.

M’gann doesn’t answer, just blinks at her hand.

Conner waits, then takes two steps closer. “M’gann.” M’gann keeps staring, statue-still. Marble white without the veins. Conner rushes to close the gap between him and the bed. “M’gann, answer me.”

M’gann squeezes her eyes shut and buries her hand behind her hip as a fist in the mattress. “I’m–” She winces, ducks her head under an invisible weight. “–Fine, Conner, really.” Her other hand curls and claws at her white knee, gray marks trailing up her skin but disappearing in an instant. “Th-these, um… episodes… to… to call them that, just… just take a lot out of me.” The last few words tumble out of her on a ragged breath, but she opens her eyes back up to him and flashes him a small, strained smile. “But what I meant was–”

“–How much more of you is it going to take?” Conner snaps at her, barely biting back a growl.  “What happens when it takes all of you?”

M’gann’s eyes widen at him. Conner fights the urge to dart his own away. He narrows them instead. I mean it, he thinks–if only at himself.

“It's… just an… expense of psychic energy,” M’gann says slowly, carefully, the effort of concentration wrinkling her brow. “One easily recovered just by a little sleep… really. After that, it’s… just like it was just a… normal… bad dream.” She shrugs faintly.  Her eyes flutter and slip shut under their own weight. Her head bobs in place. She forces her eyes back open on the swell of a deep breath; they fall right back into blinking heavy, and her breath turns short and shallow.. “I… I know that tomorrow is the big day–can–can we maybe talk about this after–”

“No.”

M’gann brings a hand up for her head to drop into. “Oh. Okay. Then just… let’s agree. I mean, the… the first part should be easy enough, but if… you’re awake and think I might be…” She trails off, goes silent. Conner’s eyes circle the fire-red halo in her hair until it and her whole body wobbles. She drops her hand from her head momentarily to catch herself, then brings it back up. “Since… you could tell, and–and maybe that’s good, just…” Another spell of silence. “Just… let it pass,” she then says, still awake. “It’s making you responsible, but–” She sways again. “But it’s safer, un… until I can fix–”

–Conner pulls M’gann’s hand from her head. M’gann’s heart jumps. Keeping hold of her hand, Conner sits down beside her. His weight on the mattress edge sends her sloping into him. With her free hand, she catches herself against his shoulder; the hand quickly leaves him. Her other hand in his grip gives a slight tug. “C-Conner, what are you…”

Conner slides his hand down to the bone of her white wrist and presses his thumb into the center of her palm, soft and solid. The pressure yields the feel of his own pulse in his hand first, but soon enough, her pulse answers back from underneath her white skin.

He knows what too tight is. Conner loosens his grip to the point of disconnecting, just holding his hand around hers and maintaining a pocket of warmth. He watches her fingers twitch with apprehension, consideration, her thumb hovering over his–her hand slides out from around his thumb and sinks into the mattress, taking on her weight.

Conner drops his hand to his thigh.

“Conner, please don’t–”

“–Don’t give me ‘safer,’” Conner says. “You’re not a bomb. And you’re not about to ‘fix’ this.” His eyes fall to his fists in his lap. “If you could, you already would have.”

“It’s…” M’gann shakes her head. “It’s just going to take time–”

“–You can’t wait that long. Neither can I. I’m part of this now. I told you that.”

“You don’t have to be if you just leave me a–”

“–No.” Conner sets his hand beside hers on the mattress, pulls the wrinkles that her fingers have wrung into the fabric into straight, taut lines. “I heard it tonight. Even without you linking me, I’m here. And if I hear it again, I’ll know what it is.”

“Can’t you just–forget it?”

A chill hits the back of Conner’s neck.

–A thin, needlelike heat at the back of his mind. Prickling; precise. Already deeper than a link she’d use to talk, and he just said he was done talking, that there wasn’t any talking to her anymore–

M’gann’s gasp slices out of her throat like a blade.

–For the night was all he really meant. He’s not done. None of this will be done until she stops. But the thought comes, and he thinks it: there might not be any more talking to her.

Conner feels her feeling him have the thought.

She wouldn't–

“Oh, no, no, nonononono–” M’gann wrings her hand into the side of her shaking head. “No, I–I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I know exactly what that sounds like, I know how wrong, I promise I–” She lets out a shaky breath, wipes her eyes, and wrings both hands around the edge of the mattress instead. “I–know I need to be better than this. You’re–trying to help, I know that. And that–it–means so much to me, th-that I… that I’m…”

Conner waits. M’gann’s gaze hangs down at her white knees. Beads of liquid light collect along her lashes over the dark circles under her eyes, and her chest rises and falls with a quiet urgency. Her lips stay curled on the verge of a word. 

“...You’re what,” Conner says.

M’gann closes her mouth. Her eyes blink away the clinging tears–they break and trickle down her gray-flushed cheeks, but she keeps her breath steady, like a closed-off loop.

“Say it,” Conner says. “...You owe me.”

M’gann swallows. “The truth,” she responds, barely a question. Conner nods–barely an answer when she still won’t look at him, but out of the corner of her eye, she must see it, because she nods back.

“I’m… starting to… maybe… get a little… scared.”

“It’s okay.” M’gann says with a smile seconds before slipping back inside herself, away from him. “I woke up.”

Conner watches her now curl her body into a tight white knot, draw her knees up to her chest and wrap her arms around her legs. Scared. The word repeats itself in his head and pulls a knot into his throat. Scared.

“...You didn’t seem like it before,” Conner rasps out, curling and uncurling his hands in his lap.

“I… wasn’t before,” M’gann replies, chin set between her knees. “Not like this. When it was just me… I felt like I had it under control.”  Her chin slips behind her knees, muffling and amplifying her voice all at once. “Now it… feels like…”

“...You’re losing control.” His voice comes out weak, fragile. He swallows against his sandpaper throat, feeling weight on his tongue and in his chest.

“...I don’t know if it just feels like it,” M’gann responds, mouth reappearing from behind her knees. “You know now. I accidentally… made it your problem, too. And that matters to me. You matter… and I… I can’t control how you see it. I can’t control how you feel about it.” M’gann’s feet slide halfway down the side of the bed, heels digging in to keep her from falling further, and she keeps herself perched there, arms crossed in her lap. “And it’s–not that I want to try, but… when all it is is what’s inside me, that’s… a kind of control I’m losing over… well, me.” She looks back up at him with softly pleading eyes. “...Does that make sense?” she asks.

A headlight flash runs through Conner’s mind of Wolf’s eyes in the dark. The skin of his chest itches with the ghosts of rough paw pads. “...Makes sense, I guess,” he mutters back at M’gann.

M’gann hums in acknowledgement, mouth quirking at the corners into a suggestion of a smile. “It’s an ugly truth.” She looks down at the floor. “I don’t like it either. But…” Her hands tighten around her biceps, white fingers digging into white flesh. “What really scares me, I think, is… that I’m scaring you.”

You’re not starts at the back of Conner’s throat–his lips stay parted silently over his clenched teeth. He can’t say it–it isn’t true. He can recognize the feeling down to the beat of his own heart–knows panic in his hands, knows too tight and cold and shaking and every comforting, steadying fist he’s formed to help swallow it all down–knows paralysis and a mouth that won’t move and knots in his throat and tears–he pushes that last thought back. Almost crying at her bedside when she was just asleep–no one else had to see it for him to feel the shame of what it looked like. It wasn’t. It wasn’t what it looked like. “I’m not scared of you,” he says defiantly, towards his own thoughts as much as towards her. "Never have been.”

M’gann winces out a half-smile, lashes fluttering as her eyes go to the floor. “You… don’t have to say that.”

“I’ve been scared of losing you,” Conner then says, making M’gann’s breath hitch. She jolts up straight and meets his stare.  “Even to you.” Conner’s hands squeeze into fists, feeling empty no matter how deep his nails sink into his palms.  "To something in your mind that I can't get through to.”

M’gann’s eyes blink soft and sharp and liquid all at once. "Conner, please be… well, I already know you will, but–”

“–I’ll be honest,” Conner says, guessing the request before she says it.

For a moment, M'gann's eyes are just soft. “Thank you.” The sharpness comes back in. “How much is… this… like… that?"

A weight drops in Conner’s chest. He lets his eyes fall to her rug, tracing the new trail of stars that he’s already walked more than one way. Her rug at the Cave was purple, this one is blue–a concrete difference, he thinks–a self-distraction, he knows. "...I know you're not doing it on purpose," he settles on as a response, loosening his fists. "Like I told you last night, you weren't sorry enough."

"Am I… sorry enough now?"

"Yeah. I can tell." Conner looks back at M’gann. "That's what's scarin' me."

M’gann mouths a silent oh back at him. A faint hiss starts in her breath as her lips form around another familiar word. He can read it as clearly as if their minds were linked.

“You don’t wanna tell J’onn, fine,” Conner says, cutting off another sorry. “Let me take you to Dubbilex.”

M’gann shuts her mouth, bites her lip. Her feet drop from the edge of the bed to the floor. Her lashes flutter down at her white knees, her brow furrowing. “...I’m not going to risk anyone else’s mind on this,” she says lowly. Then she hums a warm smile up at him, cheeks curving under the crinkles of her eyes like always, even without color. “I know I don’t have to face this alone, Conner. And… I'm not, really. But I can. It’s my mind. I have to take back control of it myself.”

Conner holds her smile in his eyes and her words in his head and tries to make them feel real, give them weight, take them as something substantial–he can still see the ground crumbling around her in one form, and still see her slip right through his arms in another. His mouth clenches around a thought–on a link, he would have already thought it to her. Out loud, he has to make the words come out:

If it were anyone else, is that what you’d say?

M’gann is on her feet before he can decide to speak. “And I can start with this,” she says, flicking her white hands in the air as if to shake them dry. "I can't believe I'm sleep-shifting again." She rolls her eyes emphatically, one hand going to her hip and the other skirting the edge of a Hel-lo, Megan–she flips hair behind her shoulder and giggles instead.

You were already sleep-shifting, Conner thinks at her, remembering her shortened hair falling back long over his arm and her green-gray face going pale in the light. He's too slow to say it–M'gann is already on her toes, and the line between a'ashenn white and Megan Morse's skin is reaching up her calves, past her knees, disappearing under the hem of her gown. She drops back onto her heels and holds out her arms. The color starts in her fingertips and runs down to her elbows.

Conner’s eyes skip ahead to her face. M’gann smiles at him from a face still white. He looks back down, and the color has reached her collarbone. Meeting M’gann’s eyes again, he nods, waiting until she’s done to speak again.

The line snags halfway up her neck. In an instant, her skin snaps back to a'ashenn white. M'gann's heart thuds in her chest. She swallows visibly, shadows flickering clearly over her white throat. "Oh, I–" Her white cheeks flush gray. "Whoops!" she cheers, clapping her hands together. "That was–silly. Anyway…"

She starts again, holding out her hands. The color blooms out from the center of her chest this time, reaching past her shoulders and up her neck. Peach tinges her chin and jawline, then stops–recedes. Her freshly white chest throbs, then flushes as gray as her cheeks.

"This is–embarrassing, I–" M'gann shivers out an imitation of a laugh and clutches her elbows. Green bursts out from the pressure of her fingers like blood vessels breaking under her skin. The color inches its way up her arms, running up under her sleeves–a sliver of it reaches her exposed shoulder, but as soon as Conner sees it, it slips back under her sleeve. He blinks, and her arms are white again.

He looks back to her face. M’gann’s wide eyes beam back at him helplessly.  A familiar beat of panic hits his ears.

A familiar rush of adrenaline hits his own heart. Conner jumps to his feet. M'gann stumbles back several steps then whips around, putting her back to him. "My–concentration is a little…" Her hands go to the sides of her head. "I-I just need to–" She tries her feet again–the line of peach halts halfway up her calves and quivers like a plucked string. Her hair hides her neck, and her arms curl inward, but Conner can see her fingers turn green then white again as they knot into the sides of her head. M’gann growls and stomps her heel, but the white just slips back down to her ankles, and her whole body starts to tremble. "I-I just–need to–"

Conner lays his hand down on her shoulder. M'gann jolts under his touch, sucking in a deep breath. Her hands unlock from her head and drift down slowly, cautiously, as she lets out the breath. Keeping the ball of her shoulder rolling under his palm, M’gann turns to face him.

The only color in her face is still her bloodshot eyes. Tears roll freely, almost unnervingly steady down her gray cheeks. She holds her gray lips shut and stares into his eyes.

He’s not sure what she sees. There’s nothing he can say. If there was, he would have already said it. Some small, nagging part of him wants her just to stop it, to keep her skin a’ashenn–wants to run his hands across her skin and wants to call her beautiful–wants it to be that easy. Wants the truth to be that easy. Wants to see the truth in it, just as he always has in his mind.

There’s more truth in her tears and in her struggle to shift back. Her truth.

And his truth, he concedes to himself, is that he’d want to run his hands across her skin and call her beautiful no matter what form she was in. The thought is a resolution, but no comfort–her tears start to sting in his own eyes. His hands stay where they are, one at his side, one on her shoulder; he cusps her shoulder in his hand, clutches it tight.

M'gann’s eyes fall shut. Conner loosens his hold. But before he can let go, M’gann’s white hand falls warm and soft over the top of his. Conner feels her shoulder rise and fall under both their hands on the wave of another deep breath, hears the air rush in sharply through her nose and whisper out slowly through her parted lips. She bows her head. In a ripple–in a thought–her skin becomes hers again–she makes the choice, and her body responds. She’s Megan again.

M’gann looks up at him again with soft, clear amber eyes.

His Megan, Conner thinks.

He blinks at the thought.

Her Megan, too.

“Thank you,” M’gann says simply, smiling up at him gently–tiredly. The dark circles under her eyes are gone, but Conner knows that was a choice, too.

You were already sleepshifting, he starts to say again. His mouth twitches but doesn’t open. M’gann curls her hand around his, gently nudging his fingers up from her shoulder.

Her body lists to the left. Both his grip and hers tighten at once, locking their hands together. M'gann keeps her footing and smiles down at the floor.  "Well, it… it's late,” she says as she carefully pries her hand off from around his, leaving his limp fist hovering over her shoulder. She takes several steps back from his hand and smoothes hair behind her ear. Her brow scrunches apologetically. “You're going to be a zombie tomorrow."

Tomorrow. A knot forms in Conner’s throat. He swallows it down. His fist drops back to his side, curling tight. Only hours left to ask, or to decide that he’s not.

"...We are," he decides to say.

"Oh?" M’gann breaks from wiping her cheeks to shrug lightly. "Mm, there’s a chance." She gives a quick giggle and shakes her head. “I’ll be fine.”

Conner watches her stand and blink at him. The smile on her lips sinks into a straight line.  She sways in place anxiously, rubbing at her wrist.

Say it, Conner prods himself.

"Come with me."

M’gann’s heart skips a beat, and her cheeks go bright red. Her eyes dart down his body then back up to his face. “W-what?”

Conner can’t help but quirk his eyebrow up at her–he’s no less dressed now than he’s been the whole time. But his own cheeks flush hot when he realizes his error. Say more than that, he chides himself. That could have meant anything. “Tomorrow.”

M'gann's brow furrows in confusion. The hand at her wrist slides up to her elbow.

"Wh… why?" she asks.

Conner’s eyes dart off to her window. The pocket of space framed in its four corners is empty, no stars visible from where he’s standing.  “They said I could.” It's not a lie. He looks back to M’gann. She stares at him as helplessly as when her form was stuck. It's not a lie, but it's not an answer either, he realizes. “Said that I could bring a friend,” Conner tries again. “It’d be good for him, or–something,” he mumbles.

“But… after…” M’gann shakes her head. “Y-you could bring anyone then,” she says, smiling with a shrug. “Why me?”

Because I don't want to be alone. No. Because I don't want you to be alone. Maybe. Because you owe me after last night and tonight. That’s anger, and that’s easy–he could say it, and he knows it'd work. All he'd have to hear is one more sorry, then she wouldn't say more, wouldn't challenge him on anything. She'd be too ashamed.

The thought makes him sick the moment he thinks it.

“Are you…” M’gann swallows audibly. “...Thinking it would be like a…”

“What?”

M’gann shimmies her shoulders and nods to the side. “Well…”

Conner gulps.  His eyes escape back to her window. “Are you?”

“It… wouldn’t have to be unless we wanted it to be,” M’gann assures him. “I-I mean, if we–decided to call it that, that is–a-at any point, really, and to whatever extent you would want it to count as a–”

"Call it a mission," Conner blurts out. He meets M’gann’s eyes again. "And we don't do those solo."

“...Oh,” M'gann says blankly.

A pulse quickens in Conner’s head: his own.

It keeps pounding as M’gann brings herself back closer to him. "Honestly, Conner…” Her fingertips brush against the back of his hand. She shakes her head and hums to herself in determination, then gives his whole hand a light squeeze, rubbing her thumb over the back of his wrist. “I’d be… honored.” She lets go of his hand, then beams a smile up at him. “Thank you.”

I’m supposed to say that, Conner thinks back at her, but the warmth and softness of her eyes pulls him in. For a moment, all he can think about is falling.  “You’re, uh, you’re welcome,” he fumbles out instead.

“And you’re, um…” M’gann’s eyes widen then dart away, come back to him sharp and shallow. “...Welcome to change your mind, of course, between now and tomorr–”

“No.”

“Are you… sure…”

“Are you saying yes or no?” Conner snaps at her.

M’gann’s mouth pops open silently then presses into a wincing smile. “That’s a... fair question. Yes, Conner. Of course.”

Anger worked after all. Conner feels it curl back inside him, shrinking to a flicker in the pit of his stomach. He rubs the back of his neck. “...Sorry,” he mutters.

“N-no, I’m–” M’gann clamps her mouth shut, pressing her lips into a tight, straight line. She lets her lips go, and for a moment, their edges flash paler than her skin. “...Me, too,” she says softly.

Conner feels his own mouth loosen into a smile.

M’gann’s heart thumps hard in his ears.  “So, um, should we…?” she nods once towards her bed and once towards the door.

“Uh… yeah." Conner pulls his eyes away from her. M'gann's feet brush softly against the carpet, her heartbeat inching away from him–it's easier to listen than watch. His eyes wander to her desk, then the poster above it.

Martian Manhunter.

His eyes dart to blank wall. There’s privacy, and there’s a secret–J’onn would come if he knew. Conner knows that, and he knows she knows it, too. Just like Clark–like Superman came back for–

–A feather-soft thud rips Conner’s eyes away from the wall with the force of an explosion. A tiny oh! pops out from M’gann’s lips as she catches herself against the edge of the bed–she glances back at Conner and giggles, brushing hair behind her ear. With a small whoop!, she turns on a heel towards the head of the bed.

Feeling his mouth twitch into a half-smirk at her vocalizations, Conner lets his eyes go back to the poster. It’s a perfect match for the one she had at the Cave, he thinks, as if paper in plexiglass could somehow survive a bomb. But the closer he looks, the more he sees wrong with it: matte tape over its glossy corners, thumbtack holes under and around the tape, a jagged line of white through the otherwise empty green space at its bottom edge–nothing she would have ever let happen to hers, he knows. But the pressure of the glass holds the damage in, the two sides of the tear laid together so carefully that the white line barely shows.

Conner blinks his focus out of the frame. Less staring, more walking–he started out with ten hours ‘til, and he’s down to at most eight. They both are. That thought gets his feet moving; leaving barely feels like leaving when he knows she’ll be there, too, and at the same time, the longer he lingers, the closer he gets to taking it back:

He shouldn’t need her there.

It’s not need, it’s want, he argues to himself.  His other excuses are worth buying, too–they did say he could bring someone, and they did say meeting people is something good for babies. He's said it, he's doing it–she's doing it. It's done. His feet drag him to the other side of the room; his hands twitch at his sides. M’gann’s chair sticks out inches from her desk–it’s out of his way to tuck it in, but he does, pushing it forward with a single finger. Its laminate wood feet slide like butter over the metal floor and knock it hard enough into the desk to topple her stack of books. Conner growls and holds his hand out to keep them from falling to the floor–most stop at his palm, but the top book slides over the stack. He catches it last minute with the hook of his finger into its spine.

M’gann gasps. Something hard thumps and rattles where she is at the bed–her heart, and something else. Conner meets her eyes across the room; holding her thermos to her chest with both hands, she stares at him in horror.

"Uh." Conner blinks back at her, swallowing. "Sorry. I–"

“You didn’t see it, did you?” M'gann yelps. She then slaps her hand over her mouth. "I mean… um…"

Conner frowns, furrows his brow down at the book around his finger. A dozen colored tabs stick out from its white pages: pink, bright blue, light purple, neon yellow, green. He holds it by a page marked green. “‘Complex Trauma in Teens and Young Adults’?” he reads off from the cover.

“Oh, good.” M’gann wipes her forehead. Her hand leaves her bangs sticking to the side and out of place. She pulls the thermos away from her chest, and freckles of moisture stain the front of her gown.

Whatever he wasn’t supposed to see, it wasn’t a book. “What’s that,” Conner says pointedly, eyes narrowing at her thermos.

“Hm?” M’gann holds the thermos up inquiringly. She shakes it; something sloshes, but not much. Small ice cubes click inside it. “Oh–oh, chamomile, Conner,” M'gann says, rolling her eyes at him and grinning. “I thought it would… help! After… last night.” Her grin fades to a meek smile. She sets the thermos back down to the nightstand with a hollow clunk. “I think if anything, it… might have done the opposite. After all, it’s… not like I need help falling asleep.” She bites her lip. “I should have bought a better thermos, too, it… didn’t keep it very cool,” she adds under her breath. “Maybe warm next time?”

“M’gann.”

M’gann’s eyes flicker up to him. The darkness seeps back out under them, less stark than on white skin, but he sees it. He sees the weight fall into her eyelids again, the red break into her sclera–sees marble and snow and hologram light–

“I see Dinah the day after tomorrow, Conner," M'gann says. "That will help. Trust me, it… already has, so much.”

Too many questions pile up in Conner’s mouth. Then why aren’t you better?  Then how were you before? Then why didn’t I know? Then why didn’t you tell me–

–Conner bites his tongue and swallows all the questions down, save for one. “...Does she know?”

M’gann blinks once but doesn’t speak, just tilts her head slightly to the side. It’s an expression he’s seen Wolf give a thousand times: confusion. Curiosity. Patience.

“...What happened last night,” Conner clarifies. “And that I know now, too.”

M’gann blinks off to the side and rubs her lips together. “...Yes,” she responds, nodding decisively.

“What did she say?”

M’gann’s cheeks flush, and worry lines scrawl across her forehead. “We… haven’t really had a chance to talk about it in depth…”

Conner swallows. “Right. Besides–privacy and all that, I guess,” he fumbles out. His finger doesn’t leave the book.

“Uh–” M’gann steps forward, holding up her hand then curling it inward, hooking it into the hair over her shoulder. “The, um… the touching thing was… my idea, my, um… a theory, anyway, once I had some time to think about it… if that’s what you were wondering. Dinah and I haven’t gone over… causes and solutions yet. O-or, not solutions, but…” She draws in a deep breath and sighs it out. “‘Strategies’ is… what I should say.”

Conner doesn't respond, just sets the book in his hand back atop the stack. He starts to slip his finger out from its center pages; his eyes fixate on the green tab. Slowly, carefully, using only one more finger than he’s already stuck in, he lifts the book open, letting its front half flutter then droop over the edge of the book underneath it.

“Well, um... goodnight!” M'gann cheers over the soft thump of her body dropping back down to the bed. White legs flicker at the edge of Conner’s vision–he looks up, and they’re Caucasian, not a’ashenn. He shuts the book. He then pushes the stack of books from the edge of the desk to the wall for stability, accidentally catching her empty tote bag by its stiff handles and sliding it out of place. Beneath it, something crackles.

M’gann gasps again. Her heart is back to beating too fast in Conner's head, setting his own heart speeding aimlessly. Panic, adrenaline–

“Uh-uh—" M'gann jumps up from the bed.  "Y-you can just leave it, really, it’s fine, it–”

He’s tired of anger–but it’s easy.

“What is it?” Conner growls at M’gann. The ball of his fist hits the cushion of the paperback book with a targeted, determinedly soft thud. “What am I not supposed to see now?” His voice comes out louder that time–he hears it hit the wall beside his ear and echo back at him, a puff of heat with a metallic chime. The wrongness sets in–she’s letting him do this. He’s letting himself do this. It’s just her desk–it’s her room, and he did let himself in. She made him have to let himself in by collapsing in his arms, just like she made him have to see her the damage in her mind by dragging him into it–

And he made her explain it. And he ran to her side the moment he heard her fighting it. And he’s here. And he’s still here. Guilt, blame, guilt, blame–back and forth, back and forth. All it does is dig a hole in his head. He doesn't think like this–he can't.

He’s thinking like her.

M’gann’s hands curl at her stomach, fingers rubbing and twitching in silence. Conner doesn’t let his eyes go higher.

“...Forget it,” he breathes out, stepping back from her desk and turning toward the door.

M’gann gasps, gulps–Conner shuts it off in his head. He doesn’t need to hear. He doesn’t need to know. He takes a step.

“Forget…”

M’gann’s voice still stops him. He doesn’t look back, just waits.

Either a second passes, or an hour. A year. His thinning patience crackles like whatever's on her desk. “Forget I asked,” Conner says to end the wait.

“Oh.” M’gann starts the clock on another round of silence. Conner’s hands clench at his sides. His shoulders pull back and tighten like a wall is at his back. His lips begin to curl back. He huffs out through his nose to vent the heat behind his eyes.

“Tomorrow, too?” M’gann then asks.

The heat leaves him in a flash, drains out of his cheeks and down his spine. He’s left with cold.

“Because... I would understand,” M’gann says.

Conner sighs. It doesn’t loosen the knot in his chest–a breath only pulls it tighter, makes it sharp, makes it sting. Of course you would, he almost says.

The crackle at her desk becomes a clap of thunder, a shot of lightning through his head. Paper rustles–something thicker thwups inside it between tight, closed walls. M’gann hums. Her feet pad softly against the floor, but he barely hears them–the paper announces her steps instead, shooting off firecrackers inside his ears.

He tunes out the sounds and turns to look instead. M’gann holds out a paper bag, glossy and red. “At least take it," she says, eyes glossy and red, too. "You don’t have to open it now, i-it’s four days early–er–more like three, now, but… in a way, it’s… also almost a year overdue.”

Conner holds out his hand, more on reflex than thought. M’gann slides the bag’s smooth ribbon handles over his fingers. Paper scratches at his ears as a soft, light weight drops against his wrist.

Whatever it is, he knows it.

“Well… there it is.” M’gann’s hands move to clap together, but her fingers curl like wilting flowers, and she drops them to her sides instead, then tucks them behind her back. She pins her lower lip under her teeth then lets it go to smile at him, face beaming like soft sunlight. “...Happy birthday.”

The bag nearly slides off of Conner's hand. He catches it by its handles, crumpling the ribbons into hard, thin strips. “That’s it?” he blurts out.

M'gann's cheeks go pink. “I-I–I thought it would be good not to go overboard, especially since–well, since we–um–since we're not–e-exactly–”

“I meant that’s all it was,” Conner says.  ”That you were trying to hide from me.”

M’gann’s bright eyes widen then look down at the floor. “...This time, right?” She looks back up at him and smiles meekly. “I… wanted it to be a surprise. A… good one, hopefully?”

“I don’t like surprises,” Conner says. He means it as a consolation, even an apology: you didn’t do it wrong. I did it wrong. I’m bad at this.  M’gann takes it with a twinge in her brow and the quirk of her mouth into a lopsided frown. “I mean…” I’m really bad at this.  “...Sometimes,” he tries to add.

“It made Megan happy to throw them for you,” Wendy had said, “so secretly, you loved it.”

“...Depends on who’s throwin’ them,” Conner says as softly as he can, managing a smile.

M’gann gives him another Wolf-like head tilt.

“Or–giving them.” Conner rubs the back of his neck with his free hand. “It’s late.”

M’gann giggles. “That’s okay.”

“Thanks,” Conner says simply, lifting the bag at her. The paper inside crackles, but nothing slides or rattles. He shakes it once just to test it. Whatever is in it feels fitted to the bottom, like it won’t budge until he opens it.

M’gann eyes it and him with delight. Her knuckles press eagerly against the underside of her chin. “Do you want a hint?”

“No,” Conner responds on reflex. Maybe, he thinks the moment he’s said it. Yes–no, he decides in his head, this time with certainty. Let her keep some of the surprise.

“It’s… probably pretty obvious if you really think about it,” M’gann says. She looks at him with eyebrows raised and her mouth pinned shut into a barely-stifled smile.

The dimpling in her cheeks makes his own cheeks ache. Wendy was right–about all of it.

“Hey, I said no,” he pretends to whine, smiling at his own answer.

M’gann erupts into sputtering, cackling laughter. She throws her head forward then back, arms crossing and hands clutching at her ribs, pulling at her gown. The laughter shakes her body, shakes the walls–the room shrinks.  Her voice rings off every surface–she’s there. He’s here. The gap feels like a hair’s breadth.

He wants her on his skin. His body wants her on his skin. Barefoot in his boxers, he hasn’t felt so close to naked until now. It isn’t cold–his skin blisters, stings. She looks at him with eyes still creased in laughter, and all of her shimmers like a light–and he can feel her in his arms, in his hands, just by looking at her, as real and solid as the floor under his feet. Every memory of her there before. Every want of her there again, endlessly repeating–every heartbeat in his chest is another reach for her, another thought of her–

“–I don’t… want to want to die anymore, Conner.”

Her body in his arms, limp and ghost-white.

“Tell–tell me how I’m supposed to believe that, M’gann, because I need to know.”

Her body in his arms, panting and shaking, sobbing, eyes alight and empty–

“–Can you… trust me?”

M’gann straightens her back and flips hair behind her shoulder, laughter fading to snickering and then to just breath. The curves of her cheeks slowly fall back flat, her white, toothy smile closing up into a soft pink line. Her eyes shine–laughter-tears, he thinks.

His eyes burn. His heart locks tight in his chest, too tight to feel it, hear it, let in a breath.

M’gann blinks at him, flickering–blurring. Conner squeezes at the handles of the bag in his hand, too light and thin to feel like anything. His skin feels more than bare–it feels open. Seeping, trickling–he can’t–he can’t–he can’t–

–If he lets it out now, it won’t stop.

Conner makes himself breathe. Makes his eyes clear. It’s his body. He has to take control.

M’gann’s lips part again, but not in a smile.

“Is… something wrong?” she asks.

Conner swallows. "Nothing." He shakes the bag again just to make the noise. "Thanks."

M’gann nods, ducking her head and tilting it to the side to view his face at a different angle. Her brow furrows as her eyes narrow–rather than scrutinizing, her expression looks pained. “Are you… sure?”

“Why wouldn’t I be,” Conner huffs out, eyes shooting off into space–not to her window, but to the poster above her bed. Another replica of a relic: a picture of a view of Earth from just outside its atmosphere. She could see the real thing out of any window up here; the photo was there in her room at the Cave, so the new one is there here and now. Back to normal. A joke. Something he doesn’t understand.

“Well, I… don’t want to keep you here any longer.” By the pull of her voice and the shuffle of her feet, Conner hears M’gann step back from him. “You’ve got a big day tomorrow.”

Conner’s eyes dart back to her. “Me?”

M’gann’s mouth drops open silently. She curls her lips back shut and pops up onto her toes, keeping her arms tucked behind her back. “...We?”

“I didn’t take it back,” Conner says.

M’gann gasps softly.

“I mean I…” Both his hands curl into fists at his sides–one has the bag, one has nothing. Both feel empty. He looks down at the slick red, deep red–thinks of blood, and shakes his head. “I didn’t… mean to, anyway.”

“Oh, I thought… you had changed your mind,” M’gann says. “Since I… did make you upset–”

“You didn’t,” Conner interjects, shooting her a look. Oops.

“Conner, can I… ask you a question?”

Conner gulps. “Yeah?”

“Are you… nervous… about tomorrow?”

Conner’s eyes fall back on printed stars behind plexiglass.  “No.”

“Are you… mmn.” Out of the corner of his eye, Conner watches M’gann shake her head. “Never mind. I don’t mean to pry.” She’s quiet for a moment, then softly, under her breath, she lets out a quick giggle.

“What?”

“Oh, I… didn’t realize you would hear that," M'gann admits. She giggles again, louder this time, as if to catch him up on any note of it that he might have missed the first time. “I was just thinking about an old saying, ‘don’t look a gift horse in the mouth,’ and then I thought about… you and what you said about idioms last night.” She snorts. “I’m sure that it meant something at some point, but it’s such a strange phrase now.”

“Am I the horse?” Conner asks, prompting another snort from M'gann.

"Should I… check your mouth?" M'gann jokes.

Conner's mouth twitches. He tries to press it down into a frown, but it pops up at the corners. He lets himself breathe a laugh through his nose instead. “You gave me a gift.”

“You've invited me! That is a gift. I just–hopefully won’t start trying to talk you out of it.”

Conner's eyes drop back down to the bag. Her gift to him. Whatever it is, it's his now. He's not giving it back. “...Why would you?” he asks.

M’gann bites her lip. “Maybe because… I’m a little nervous, too–uhhp!–to... see your family again,” she says with a shaky laugh. “It’s… been over a year, and… there’s a new member to see now.” She pulls her hands together and rubs a thumb over the bone of her wrist. “Are you sure I won’t be intruding?”

“They said I could bring a friend,” Conner reiterates. “You’re a friend.”

"Mm-hmm…"

"You gonna argue with that?"

“Mm-mm.” M’gann shakes her head. “We’re friends and teammates. And I like being both.”

“Roommates, too,” Conner says with a shrug.

“That’s three! And, uh…”

Conner's eyes fall to her reflection on the floor, a bright, hazy smear tinged with red light from his bag. “...More than that,” he says.

“...Exes.”

Conner looks up, and M’gann’s eyes lock onto his, sharp and wide–looking for answers. Approval. Evaluating his reaction by every detail, every second; he holds his breath, and she holds hers. For a moment, all Conner can hear is hearts.

“Yeah,” he responds, if only to relieve them both. It’s not not an answer, but it’s not enough–not for him. He shakes the bag and watches red flicker around her feet. More than that, he wants to repeat, but she'll take it as another prompt, he knows, and he doesn't want another word for what they are. He wants words for how he feels.

There's one, but it doesn't work. He thought it did. It got them out, brought them back to reality–it is reality. It's his. I love you, Conner thinks to her, knowing she won't hear. Even out loud, it wouldn't matter. It's not enough.

Friends, roommates, teammates, exes, he repeats back in his head. “Guess that means you mean a lot to me,” he mutters half-jokingly, feigning sarcasm. He means what he said. He means more than it, but the understatement is the joke, he thinks. She'll get it. She'll laugh. They'll move on.

M’gann’s heart skips a beat. The rest of her stays silent–no laugh, not even a gasp. Just a deep breath. Conner meets her eyes again; they soften into liquid light, tingeing with red. Oh. Conner swallows. Oh, no. He’s bad at joking, too. He opens his mouth to take it back–take back the joke and only the joke, somehow, how–

"You, too, Conner," M'gann responds, voice barely above a whisper. A small smile presses into her lips and pushes warmth into his skin, pushes through him, cell by cell. She’s sunlight. He feels her in his bones. He stares at her until his eyes sting.

So stop it, he thinks to her, forgetting the joke. Stop making yourself hurt. Stop acting like you deserve it.

M'gann's eyes slowly droop to the bag in Conner's hand. "I… hope you like it," she says, lashes fluttering. She squeezes her eyes shut then blinks them open, smiling back up at Conner apologetically. "Goodnight."

“Uh…”

M’gann takes several steps past him, stops, and turns to smile at him again. Conner’s eyes run down her form one more time, tracing the creases under her eyes, slipping down her arms and off her curling fingertips, following her legs down to the floor, watching her raise a foot and cross it behind the other at the ankle. It’s time to leave, her body tells him. Part of him agrees–he knows he has to leave, so some time would be the time. He already was leaving–already almost left more than once. Already decided to stay more than once. His feet don’t move, not forward–they tense against the floor.

He makes one foot rise, and then the other. One step, two steps–by the third step, it’s real. He’s leaving. It’s over. M’gann walks a step ahead and brings him to her door. She presses the panel beside it, and the metal sheet slides away, ripping open a hole into a world of bright white. Conner blinks and it’s gray again, silver and solid. His eyes sting from the outside now–nothing boiling up inside him, just too much air. Too much time open.

He looks to M’gann at his side. She crosses her arms–holds herself–and lays her head against the wall, inches from the doorframe. Her eyes on him are tired but awake, more thoughts flickering behind them than he could begin to track. His own thoughts go simple: reflex, instinct, what feels right in his body–the hand nearest to her moves to cusp her arm, stroke its thumb over her shoulder.

The hand already isn’t empty, he remembers just as the gift bag slides to one fingertip. He catches it before it falls, crumpling the body of it in his grasping hand. His heart jumps–hers doesn’t, not in the second he can hear it over the sound of paper walls crashing in his ears. Creases don’t leave the paper as he returns his fingers to its handle. Conner holds the bag up for both himself and M’gann to see, and light fractures across its glossy surface, pieces of red.

M’gann hums a small laugh, her cheeks dimpling. “Nothing’s broken,” she says raspily. “That’s hint number two.”

Conner lowers the bag back to his side. His eyes fall on nothing. A seam in the floor of the hallway. The very edge of M’gann’s hanging sleeve. “Okay,” he says flatly.

He steps out into the hall. Eyes keeping hold of M’gann’s sleeve, he turns, using it to pull himself back to her. M’gann pushes herself up from the wall by one hand, and by the same hand, keeps herself propped up against it. The flickering behind her eyes stops; the look she gives him now is simple, and easy to read. She’s about to fall asleep. Smiling still, she nods at him. Her eyes leave him for her door’s controls.

“Wait.”

M’gann looks back at him, blinking in mild surprise.

“...It wasn’t a joke,” Conner says to her.

M’gann puts the sun back in her eyes, in her smile, holds it within her flushing freckled cheeks. “I know.” Her lip twitches, quivers; she blinks down at the floor and then back up at him. “Thank you,” she says.

All Conner hears is another I’m sorry.

The door slides shut between them. The world in his eyes goes blank.

He blinks, and the polish and seams return. Conner lays his empty hand against the door just to feel solid, cold. Something to convince him to move. She’s in there, he’s out here. She’s okay–as much as she can be. As much as he can make her. There’s nothing else to do. He can leave.

The sound and feel of a thump against the door makes Conner’s breath catch in his throat.

M’gann hums on the other side and sniffles out a breath of a laugh. Footsteps, slow and methodical, trail away from the door, softer with each step, and then the slipping of sheets comes, like waves hitting a distant shore. M’gann lets out a muffled sigh, and then nothing.

Not nothing. A heartbeat.

She’s asleep. He lets himself wait for a moment, listening for a break. Setting the pattern in his head, checking it against what he knows: sleep, sleep, sleep. Still sleep. Still sleep. Sleep.

Sleep. His eyes drop shut. His body doesn’t sway–it straightens, stiffens, holds him upright and in place.

His eyes snap open. No.

He gets his feet moving again. The bag in his hand bounces against the side of his leg as he walks, all crinkles and thwaps. If he didn’t know better, he’d think she got him a paper bag full of tissue paper, like April Fools’ came early. It’s enough of a thought to keep him awake until he reaches his door–doorway, he finds once he’s back there. He hadn’t bothered to shut it.

Cast in the long, broad strip of light from the hall, and then in the stretched silhouette of Conner’s body, Wolf raises his head from the center of Conner’s bed. Conner puts his hands to his hips, letting the bag hang off his wrist. Wolf grumbles and lowers his head back to the bed, ears twitching and eyes staying open. Conner slips the bag back into his hand. “Fine,” he says to Wolf as he steps inside the room. “But I’m not takin’ the floor.”

Conner taps the room lights back to daylight bright. Wolf huffs out a wet snort through his nose. “S’only for a moment,” Conner tells Wolf as he walks the gift bag over to his desk–his desk, and his mess. Black blobs litter its surface. He slides the shirts aside with the swoop of one hand. At least one shirt falls to the floor–Conner hears the thwup, but doesn’t look. Tomorrow, he figures, or even later. It doesn’t matter. He sets M’gann’s gift at the center of his desk.

Behind it stands the blue and red bag, taller and wider, but with the same stiff, glossy outside, same slick ribbon handles, and based on what he's heard, the same thin, crinkled paper inside. If he’s not careful, he’ll grab the wrong one in–seven and a half hours, his clock tells him on a glance. Okay, he thinks, stepping back from the desk. Moment over.

A new countdown starts in his head: four days. Er, more like three now, M’gann said. Three days.

But in a way, it’s also almost a year overdue.

Conner’s first cheat is with his eyes. Infrared turns up nothing–nothing discernable, anyway. A blue and green mass, hints of yellow–heat from his grip lingering on its handles but almost faded from the body of the bag. He blinks his vision back to normal, unsure what he was expecting.

He dips his fingers into the bag next, feeling past the paper. Just a touch, and he can wait three days. One more hint–something obvious, something hard to break, and what. His hand reaches the bottom and presses down into something cool, soft, and firm. He lifts his hand an inch, drags two fingers across the surface of whatever he's landed on. Soft turns to slick and then soft again. His fingers follow the edges. He traces an S.

He knows exactly what it is.

Conner crumples the tissue paper in his fist and throws it out of the bag, letting it drift and bounce and tumble across the floor. Wolf groans in suspicion–Conner doesn't listen. His hand returns to the bag. He pinches the cloth between two fingertips, lifting it up with surgical precision. The empty bag tips over on the desk, a flash of red behind a small black curtain.

It's his shirt. The red S-Shield burns bright at its center. The fabric around it has never seen the sun, or anything–not grease, bleach, claws, or a blade.  The seams are stitched tight in factory-pressed rows; he stretches the shirt between his hands, and nothing gapes open.

He tucks his thumbs into the hem and rolls the shirt up in his hands. The world goes dark inside it for a moment, but then his head is through. He starts one arm and feels his body stretch the fabric to its limit, sees the puckering around its seams.

Nothing snaps, but he freezes. He didn’t think to check the size. His hand curls carefully against his chest to slip into the other sleeve. He raises his arms and rolls the shirt down past his pecs.

The black cloth splits down the center of his chest before it can even reach the end of his torso. Threads stick out from the torn edges like hairs, scratching at his skin. He pinches one on either side of the split between his thumb and forefinger and tries to pull them back together, tie them like his bootstrings–they’re long enough to itch, long enough to look wrong, but too short to tie. He growls. His chest is bare where there should be an S-Shield. He got these to fix that. He’s supposed to be Super–

“Eh, cheer up, Supey, there’s plenty more where that came from!” Wally’s hand falls to his shoulder and pats the shirt sleeve sagging off of it. Superboy cranes his neck to find crumbs clinging to the cloth. He frowns harder, brow furrowing. He stares at the crumbs, and at the ragged cloth–still no heat vision. He rips the ruined shirt off his body instead, tossing it to the floor.

“Dad’s shirt was big on you,” Wally says, mouth full, more crumbs flying out on his breath. The crunching sets Superboy’s teeth on edge–he’ll have to get used to it, he reminds himself. That’s how eating really works. There are powers he doesn't have, but he does have superhearing–he has to hear things less, hear talking without the lip smacks, hear silence without the breath. Wally swallows. The sound is a relief until Wally crumples up the chip bag and shoves it in his pocket–Superboy winces, shutting his eyes–the ceiling could be caving in for all he knows, but he knows that it isn’t–three, almost four days now outside of his pod, and he thought he could control this.

He has to control this.

“And that supersuit the bad guys had you in was made of tougher stuff,” Wally continues–Superboy tunes his hearing to the level of his voice. “And with superstrength–” Wally pokes Superboy’s chest–”you can’t just yank these on. They’re gonna be, like, skin-tight!“ Wally tosses Superboy another shirt from the pile on the bed. Superboy catches it against his chest, holds it out and opens it up–wrong side. Blank. He grumbles as he balls the shirt up in his hands and flips it around.

Stretching it back out, he finds the S-Shield staring back at him.

The shirt ends at Conner’s hips. She remembered his size; his size hasn’t changed. He smooths the fabric down over his stomach. It’s softer than he remembers a new shirt could be. On the blank wall above his desk, he’s a blurred smear of a shadow. Skin and shirt, no face, barely even the red of the Shield. It’s no mirror.

“Bet girls are gonna like it, though,” Wally assures him, smirking with hands on his hips in their shared reflection. Wally then raises one arm and rolls his long sleeve back, exposing his freckled bicep–he flexes it then looks at Superboy’s reflection. Frowning, he rolls his sleeve back down. “Anyway, let’s get movin’, Bats is finally giving us the verdict.” Wally’s hand hits his back–physically, Superboy barely feels it, but warmth sparks inside his chest. He looks at himself in the mirror and runs a hand up from his stomach to his sternum. This is his shirt. This is him.

“First day of the rest of our lives, Supey,” Wally says, already at the door. The knob turns–the latch releases. Creaking on its hinges, the door opens.

Conner brings his hand up to his chest, feeling an S-Shield with no cracks or stitches, no signs of age. His heart beats under it, inside it, just like it always has. Always will. He’s always–going to–be–this–

Conner chokes–gulps–shudders. His heart wrings itself tight in his chest–his stomach clenches, pulls back into his ribs–burning starts in his eyes. He knows what it isn’t–he knows what it is. No, he tells his body, his mind, whatever needs to hear it. Stop it. His hand goes to his ribs. A fistful of shirt finds its way into his hand. The heat in his eyes starts to prickle, leak out over his lashes. No. I don’t want to.

His fingers dig in deeper–nails against skin, fibers stretching and thinning. Easy to break: the shirt, his skin. Cut through to blood, all of it out, all of him–out of this–just a clench, a pull, a rip–

–A creak, and Wolf stands, tail swishing in a flash of white at the corner of Conner’s eye. Conner breathes out–gasps out, finding himself panting for air. The fingers at his ribs uncurl. The cloth stays creased from his grip, but nothing scratches at his skin, and no air pokes through. He runs his hand down his stomach and looks down past the S-Shield at flat black.

Conner gathers the shirt up at its hem slowly, one finger at a time taking on a new fold. His eyes stay on the floor as he slides the shirt up past his ribs; his hands cross at the wrists, then switch sides to hold. Tucking his chin to his chest and bending at the waist, he slips the shirt up over his head. He releases its folds to pluck it off his wrists by the ends of the sleeves instead, keeping the right side out.

It’s all but weightless in his hands, but drapes soft over his palms, his wrists. He holds it open to the Shield burning bright and dark all at once at its center.

Around the Shield, he folds the shirt into the shape of a box that fits into the palm of his hand.

His eyes go to blue and red. He slides the rest of his shirts to the floor and lays the new shirt down on his desk. The red bag lies empty and open beside it. The blue-and-red bag stands tall and full. Conner pushes the red bag down flat, pressing it shut.

“I… hope you like it,” M’gann said, eyes hovering at the edge of exhaustion.

Conner swallows, adrenaline throbbing inside his chest, but a chill running up his spine.

It's perfect.

[blogger360ncislarules]

The season one finale of The Agency ends with Michael Fassbender’s Martian in nearly the same emotional space as he was when the show began: longing to be reunited with Dr. Samia Zahir (Jodie Turner-Smith), the Sudanese anthropology professor he fell in love with while stationed as a CIA operative in Ethiopia.

However, their inability to be together is no longer just a matter of distance and duty to one’s country, as it once was when Martian ended their relationship upon returning to his post in London to resume life under the cover of Paul Lewis. It’s now one of life and death, as Martian’s failed attempt to recruit Samia to the CIA has not only put her life in danger but also his own when he agrees to become a double agent for the U.K.’s Secret Intelligence Service in an attempt to save her.

The episode, aptly titled, “Overtaken by Events,” is an action-packed ending to a slow burn of an inaugural season that saw the CIA nab a major win by successfully executing Operation Felix and facilitating the return of Coyote (Alex Reznik), an agent who was held for ransom by a Russian mercenary group when his cover was blown in Belarus. Daniela “Danny” Ruiz Morata (Saura Lightfoot-Leon) also completed part one of her mission to uncover Iranian nuclear engineers, landing in Tehran, Iran, with her professor (Reza Brojerdi) where she’ll continue to work undercover. And Martian, who spent the season going rogue to satisfy his own personal interests, must now exist in a world where he ultimately answers to senior MI6 official James Richardson (Hugh Bonneville), who exploits his desperation for Samia and manipulates him into being his mole.

“This is a world where everybody’s playing chess against everybody else,” says John-Henry Butterworth, who co-created the Showtime espionage thriller, which is based on the French series Le Bureau des Légendes, with brother Jez Butterworth. “Martian treats [James] as a friend and asks him for a favor, and instantly this man weaponizes it and uses it against him. He sees Martian having a personal vulnerability and he uses it as a professional weakness and suddenly he’s on him, he’s controlling him and he owns him, and Martian has to try and get out of that trap in order to survive.”

Below, the Butterworths talk with The Hollywood Reporter about Martian’s decision to betray his country and what it symbolizes. They also dive into plot points for season two, following the show’s early renewal, including whether they’ll explore the global issues currently unfolding with the incoming U.S. administration.

***

Going back to the early stages of developmen, why did you choose to set the intelligence agency in London versus the U.S.?

JEZ Originally it was going to be in Italy.

JOHN-HENRY It was always about a foreign station house, so it was always not going to be in the U.S.

JEZ It was the U.S. abroad, and so we looked around for where it could be, and, of course, looked everywhere except on our own doorstep, and then discovered that it felt like the best place to set it for a whole bunch of reasons. One of them was that it would happen on our doorstep (laughs), but the main thing was this is based on a French original and when you’re looking for events and locales, it felt like it came into focus when we looked at it through a London lens.

One of the big changes from Le Bureau was bringing the global issues The Agency deals with into the present day. Were there any other major changes you made from the original in season one?

JOHN-HENRY There’s a huge, huge change geopolitically if you’re writing about America instead of France. The stakes are much greater. The effects that America can have, the shadow they have and the different theaters they’re interested in are much greater. So it becomes a very different story and it was that opportunity to write about places that were in the news right now. Like Ukraine and places that I felt quite strongly should be in the news and weren’t being covered enough in the Western news, like what’s going on in Sudan, that I think that we are seeing more coverage of now, but certainly when we sat down to write this wasn’t on the front page.

In season two, you’re heading into Iran where Danny’s journey as a new officer will continue. What might you explore there?

JOHN-HENRY She’s a really interesting character. Saura, the actress who’s playing her, is superb, an enormously talented young actor and the part has kind of been grown around that bit of casting.

JEZ It’s great fun, isn’t it, when somebody does it better than you imagined? And by the way, this is happening across the board. We are spoiled by our fellow storytellers. It just seems ridiculous when you think about it. You’re writing scenes for Jeffrey Wright, you’re writing scenes for Richard Gere, you’re writing scenes for Jodie and she’s bringing stuff to it that is so much greater than we imagined. We’ve had that experience before, but I don’t think to this intense and concentrated across-the-board degree. Sometimes, if you’re writing a film, you encounter that. But you never get the chance to revisit it. We’re already into the thick of writing season two, and it’s absolutely been informed by the talents and the magic that we’ve been presented with in season one.

In episode seven, Dr. Blake (Harriet Sansom Harris) suggests Naomi (Katherine Waterston) has romantic feelings for Martian that have blinded her ability to accurately assess his actions. Is she right?

JOHN-HENRY I think there’s a sense that a character like this in this environment has in different ways charmed and manipulated and created an attachment that is controlling with almost everyone he comes into contact with. Some of it is conscious and some of it is unconscious, and I’m fascinated by writing those types of characters. I think you keep changing your mind about what is and isn’t intentional with Martian. What’s an accident? What’s him playing the notes like a puppet master, what’s him just being able to move on the fly really fast and change his direction? I think that’s a fascinating question of who has fallen for him or what he’s doing and, is it real? I think that’s what’s at stake between him and Samia for the whole of their relationship: is what they experience the real thing?

JEZ That’s really at the heart of any good espionage, isn’t it? It’s the question mark of, did you mean what you just said or are you just saying what you just said? Is that truth or is that for effect? How am I being manipulated here? And that’s why people come to stories. I think stories are puzzles, the way you learn to spot lies, and spotting lies is almost the most essential tool you need in life, and it’s the hardest.

What does it say then that Samia wasn’t willing to betray her country to save her relationship with Martian, but he ultimately agrees to in the finale?

JOHN-HENRY I think there’s a purity to their relationship that she is the torch bearer for and that he spends, certainly most of the early stages of this story, trying to live up to and trying to bear the responsibility for in an honest way. And he’s not used to it. He’s not been living an honest life, he’s not been living a whole life, and he suddenly encounters this person who is, and it changes him.

JEZ This story equates betrayal of your country with becoming human. If you are willing to do that, you are willing to recognize the human in yourself. That’s what it kpresents you with. And then it throws up all the complications of that because at that point, your humanity is costing everybody around you and your country. So it’s a really, really phenomenal ambiguity where you can position drama endlessly.

Is Samia dead, as Osman (Kurt Egyiawan) claims in episode nine?

JOHN-HENRY I don’t want to spoil anything for anyone.

Henry (Jeffrey Wright) can sense Martian’s personal life is going off the rails a bit but he also gives him a lot of rope with which he somewhat hangs himself.

JOHN-HENRY It’s such a great relationship. I love the way that it develops. I love that it’s got deep roots and you sense that there’s a history between these men and that at some point [Martian’s] been a protégé of Henry’s and he’s somebody who’s taken him under his wing and taught him the ropes of this world. Then they start to come into conflict, and, as the story goes into season two, there’s more of an antagonism there. For much of season two, Henry’s actually hunting for him, trying to prove what’s happened towards the end of season one actually did happen. And it’s just another way of showing this conflict that Martin has running through his character like Brighton Rock.

I was having an early conversation with Michael Fassbender and I said as a sort of throwaway phrase that he loves his country, this is why Martian’s doing what he’s doing, and Michael just blinked and went, “but he met something he loved more,” and I suddenly felt goosebumps go up the back of my thing as he understood this on such a deep level that that’s what this story is about. I think Henry’s character sits there to remind you of the Martian who loved his country, that that’s where he comes from because Henry still will do anything for the agents. He is as pure as it gets in terms of his commitment to what’s going on and his self-sacrifice for the greater good. And what he starts to see in Martian is someone who maybe has a personal agenda that conflicts with that. That’s something you’re not allowed in the CIA.

That’s an important perspective because with each passing episode, I thought more and more, who would want to do this for a living in real life?

JOHN-HENRY That was one of our intentions. There is a genre out there, which is the spy movie or the spy show, and the second you meet real spies and real people who work in intelligence, you realize it bears no relation. We’ve got an advisor on this who actually was in the CIA for a while, and we were laughing about this. He’s like, “what is the spy genre?” There isn’t one really, because as soon as you’re driving a tank through Moscow with everybody chasing you, like happens in Bond films, you’re not a spy anymore. I don’t know what it’s called, but it’s not this. By its very nature, it’s secret and it’s quiet and it’s subterfuge, it’s second intentions, and trying to portray that is fascinating to me. Trying to portray the human cost to them. This is what they’re so good at, this group of actors, showing you that all of these other things that you’ve seen, there’s a different thing going on out there. And as we move into this period where all these countries that we are part of and are frightened of are all in conflict with one another, there is a group of men and women who are out there who are prepared for reasons I fully don’t understand to do this.

You said you’ve written most of season two already. Do you plan to implement aspects of what’s presently happening with the new U.S. administration into that?

JEZ We’re offset by a couple of years.

JOHN-HENRY There’s an offset, but the forces that have come to create what’s just happened there, it’s a definite factor. I think it’s dangerous to try to guess what’s going to happen next in the world with a show as fast as we’re doing it; it still takes a while to come out and I don’t think we’re trying to look into any crystal balls and work out what’s happening. It’s been enormously gratifying to see that the work that we did do hasn’t been superannuated or made inaccurate. I think that’s the challenge with writing a show that’s set in the last five minutes.

But I think it’s fascinating what’s happening in America at the moment. It’s going to have a big bearing on everything. I grew up in a period in the ’90s and, internationally speaking, it was quite boring. The golden age of espionage that John Harry wrote about was over around 1989 when the Berlin Wall came down. But we’re entering another golden era. Espionage now is more important than ever. I thought that human espionage was going to stop when technology caught up with everybody. But I think that being able to disappear off a grid where everyone’s under surveillance, got it in their pocket, is now the most valuable thing in the world.

Have you heard any feedback from Éric Rochant, the creator of the original series, or anyone else who worked on it?

JOHN-HENRY I met the producers in London, and it was nerve-wracking that he was going to be watching it because there’s a responsibility to the original show, which we both thought was wonderful and we wanted to live up to, and he was delighted.

JEZ I sat next to him at the premiere in New York and the lights came down and he did not double his fist and punch me in the face. That was a relief.

[penrose42]

One of my comfort pastimes is listening to horror game OSTs and lately I've been delving into both the music and secrets of P.T. since I wasn't really on the pulse when it was in the zeitgeist, and I gotta say I love the implication that either

The Order, which has fully operated a wholeass town and drug ring for years and has worked with government officials, believes the 'War of the Worlds' prank broadcast was real and that their only salvation was their God OR

The 'War of the Worlds' broadcast was real, and it was later placated to be a prank by the successful Martian invaders to subdue any and all resistance while they took over covertly and politically, meanwhile this cult in bumfuck Maine knows somehow.

Regardless this further implies that the Order sent out the radio message in Swedish because they believe Martians can't understand Swedish and that somehow the average American can, or that Martians legitimately cannot understand a lick of Swedish at all and have no means of understanding it faster than the average American, even though the Martians would have regulations over all radio stations and would be able to detect a pirate signal and circumvent it before the whole message would be able to get out if they controlled the government.

I'm just saying I know the Order isn't presented as the most competent group of people on the planet, but for the sake of any and all preservation of face they either gotta be right and playing 4D chess with the Martians or just high as giraffe pussy on their own supply at all times.

[kwebtv]

Character Actor

Vaughn Everett Taylor (February 22, 1910 – April 26, 1983) Film, stage and television actor. He became known for his roles in many anthology series, including Kraft Television Theatre (1947–1957) and Robert Montgomery Presents (1950–1954).

Taylor portrayed Horatio Frisby on the comedy series Johnny Jupiter. He was also a regular performer on Montgomery's Summer Stock, which was a summer replacement for Robert Montgomery Presents from 1953 through 1956.

In his many television appearances, Taylor was cast as Julian Tyler in the 1957 episode "The Chess Player" of the CBS crime drama, Richard Diamond, Private Detective, starring David Janssen. He appeared too in several episodes of CBS's Twilight Zone, including the role of the salesman in the episode "I Sing the Body Electric". He also appeared in "Time Enough at Last", "Still Valley", "The Incredible World of Horace Ford" and "The Self-Improvement of Salvadore Ross".

 His other television credits include:

Wanted: Dead or Alive

Cheyenne

The Untouchables

The Man from Blackhawk

Colt .45

Bourbon Street Beat

Tate

Coronado 9

The Real McCoys

The Hathaways

Death Valley Days

The Investigators

The Rebel

Mrs. G. Goes to College

Perry Mason

The Outer Limits

The Invaders

The Cara Williams Show

My Favorite Martian

Get Smart

Bonanza

Petticoat Junction

The Ghost & Mrs. Muir

(Wikipedia)

His complete IMDb listing

[supercantaloupe]

happy sleepover Saturday Sasha!! I hope you’re having a lovely day, I’ve been unironically loving your food blogger arc. Do you have any books you reach for to recommend to people (whether or not they’re your personal favorites?) 💕

happy sleepover saturday :) don't encourage me sola or i'll become even more obnoxious and start posting pics of everything i eat...

fiction wise: i read a lot of sci fi so this is going to be mostly that. the martian is probably my all time favorite novel and i will always recommend it. i also really liked andy weir's other novels artemis and project hail mary, the latter of which i just recently reread and the former i think i might over the winter. the sparrow (mary doria russell) is another book i absolutely love, a friend in my group chat got me into it a few years back and it's been really fun seeing other people in the group chat one by one read and fall for it with us. i'm not wild about its sequel children of god though. finally i don't necessarily recommend this one per se cause i think it's a very acquired taste of a series and definitely won't be for everyone, but if you want to dip your toes into something Different and Dense and kind of high concept, you might check out the terra ignota series by ada palmer. it took me about a month to really get through the first book, the experience of which i likened to "watching a chess game being played in the dark," but once it was through i finished the next three books in about a two week span, so. if this one is for you it'll definitely be for you

nonfiction: the anthropocene reviewed is a wonderful essay collection and easily my favorite of john green's books, speaking as a big fan of his YA novels in my t(w)een years and a still current fan of his writing style. tara westover's memoir educated has been stuck in my brain for like four years now. ingredients by george zaidan is a pretty good and entertaining primer on some of the chemicals we use in our everyday lives, and even though i'm secretly a bit of a chemistry geek i think the way it tackles the science-y stuff is very approachable.

[ask meme]

[yourboardgamepal]

Brief Collection Tour

Hey everyone! Thanks for following :] This’ll be a collection of some of the highlights of my board game collection; I don’t have that many physically right now, but I’m hoping to expand it if I find any more games that sound good and are reasonably priced in the future!

We’ll start off with my Catan games, regular Catan and Star Trek Catan. Star Trek Catan’s still in shrink since it’s been a bit hard to find a day and enough people to play it, but I have played another person’s copy of the game numerous times.

Catan was actually the first board game that I actively picked out for myself. My family bought it for me after asking what I wanted for my birthday one year, and we’ve played it a few times since.

One of the first board game that I bought for myself, though, was Retrograde—a newer game that I got a few months ago when the board gaming hobby truly gripped me. See picture and more games below the cut.

I bought Homeworlds with it, but mostly use the pieces to play another Looney Pyramids game: Martian Chess.

All three of them are fun space themed games, though I haven’t gotten to play Homeworlds proper yet. Maybe I’ll try it on BGA though if I can’t find someone to play it with irl 🤔

And lastly I wanted to show you all my Fluxx game, one of the newest games in my collection! I haven’t gotten to bring it to game night yet, but I’ve already played it over 50+ times on BGA and am dying to introduce it to my irl game group since Martian Chess was such a big hit with them already (and these two and Homeworlds were all done by the same company).

Boop. Here’s Fluxx:

It’s pretty neat. Probably one of my favorite games right now. As much as I want to buy other versions of Fluxx though I’m putting myself on a temporary purchasing ban because I’m realizing these games cost SOOO much money lmao 😂😂😂

So for now, those are some of the highlights of my collection currently as is. Have you ever played any of these games, gang?