Disclaimer: don't own Young Justice.
Background Notes: roughly two years after canon. obligatory war fic. more of a study on M'gann.
Other notes/warnings: character death(s). somewhat gruesome imagery (though not explicit).
Lost some pieces in the war
In the aftermath no one notices her.
And that's preferable, to be honest; their looks would be too much of a burden to carry, and to say 'I'm fine, don't worry' without screaming is a talent she does not have.
She sits in a corner of a building torn apart. Rocks push against her skin, jabbing and rude, and the heavy smell of smoke settles into the empty spaces. Sirens cry in the distance, and while her hearing is not as good as Conner's, she can still make out the murmur of older voices.
Black Canary's is the clearest, though it cracks and seems to be just a moment away from falling apart. M'gann has never seen the woman break down, not even when Roy –
Her breath catches.
Breathe, she reminds herself, her hands splayed out on the ground. Her throat is closed up – breathe, human girl, breathe—
She does. She heaves in a lungful of smoky air, hacking and coughing the next second, but at least she's crying from that and not from the memory of a singed red head, a blackened arm curved around a screeching, red-faced little girl.
Artemis left after that, taking Lian with her. She and her mother dropped off the face of the earth; M'gann believes Batman hid them away, and she is glad. Someday, if she makes it out of this mess alive, she will go find her sister and be the aunt Artemis had whispered she was.
It's a half-miracle, probably, that the only deaths among their generation have been Roy and, only an hour ago, Conner.
M'gann keeps breathing this time. She watched Conner die, after all; her mind remembers in crisp detail the way the kryptonite protruded out of his stomach, the way his eyes got wide, the way he gave one terrified, I'm sorry I can't help anymore look at her. She doesn't have to make up anything up the way her brain does with Roy's death.
Her head leans against the wall of the building – it had been a home, she thinks; there are broken frames and the charred edges of old pictures littering this room. She brings her hands up for inspection. Where they are not red from blood (though whose blood it is escapes her), they are pale and white, almost translucent in the glaring sunlight. Right now she is Megan Morse; being Miss Martian, the hero, is too much.
She thinks she does not ever want to be a hero again. Being a person, an everyday girl, sounds so much nicer – she can start all over. A third chance, because three is supposed to be a lucky number.
The sirens slowly filter away, their blaring replaced with the sobbing of a baby. M'gann listens for one second, then two, three—
Her knees crack when she rises, and she sways, the room meshing into a single blur of brown. She takes in another breath, coughs, and puts one foot in front of the other until she's outside and the street littered with motionless bodies and cars in pieces is before her. It reminds her of home, of Mars and the cesspool of her childhood. People like her were thrown around like rags, and she'd thought that here on earth things would be different.
She steps around a boy who is face down on the concrete. Half over him is a woman who could only have been his mother; her eyes are squeezed shut and her hands have a death-defying grip on the shirt on her boy's back.
The slight breeze drags her red hair away from her face, and in her clear vision M'gann sees a black and red figure sitting on the curb.
She stops. She has to will her change, has to drag out the power from the practical, seething section of her mind that says just go away, leave it for someone else. But M'gann wins – she always does – and she feels her skin bubble back into being green as she joins Robin, making sure that her elbow brushes his. Robin is the tactile one of the group; where the others will make do with kind words and burnt cookies, Robin, the youngest and the performer, thrives on contact.
It means something, then, that he flinches away from her.
"Conner's dead," he says. His fingers are curled into fists that are jammed to his sides. "He – he's dead."
Robin is the youngest; Robin is the one who grew in Gotham, so M'gann does not patronize him.
"Yes," she says. She puts her chin on her knees and looks across the street where she can almost make out the blurry outline of gathered League members. The blue of Superman is striking. "Conner is gone."
"Nice to see how upset you are about it," Robin says scathingly. His face is turned away from hers, but M'gann can imagine the set jaw, the furious frown.
"I don't think we have time to be upset," she says lightly, pointing at the League. The members have dispersed, leaving only Superman and Black Canary standing at the sight of Conner's – Conner's place.
Robin shakes his head. "We never have time."
M'gann gets a glimpse of his face; part of his mask has been ripped off, and she can see the edge of a red-rimmed eye. Robin is fifteen and she still doesn't know what color his eyes are.
"Come on," she says, holding out her hand. The blood has dried and crusted on her skin, but it's not like Robin is any cleaner. "We should – we should help the others. Look for survivors, see how much damage's been done…"
He ignores her hand, instead staring at her.
"You're smiling," he says. He sounds both amazed and accusing.
M'gann touches her mouth with a finger and finds that her lips certainly aren't frowning. She shrugs; she'd been remembering the enormous, blinding smile Conner had worn when he'd returned to the cave after his first Christmas with the Kents. Since meeting them some of her thoughts have always been centered around the team. Her family.
She takes Robin's hand anyway and drags him upwards with her. Her smile grows wider when he, slowly, twines their fingers together. Tactile. Robin has never managed to stay mad for long.
"Someone has to," she tells him. Smiling used to be Wally and Robin's job; it's fallen to her now, and M'gann does not shirk her duties for long. "Come on," she repeats. "We have work to do."