Disclaimer: I own nothing. Please don't sue.
Shine
Alex frowned.
She knew that Hank—J'onn—was home (well, in his Earth home, at least). His car was in the parking lot and his apartment complex's security guard had assured her that she'd seen him just a few minutes ago. So it looked like he wasn't answering the door, which would mean that he was avoiding her, and while she really couldn't blame him (whatever he'd had to do in Lord's turf haunted him still), she really needed to talk with him.
Besides, she'd brought Oreo truffles, and if she didn't give them to him right now, she'd give into temptation and eat them all herself.
So either he wasn't in the apartment or he was avoiding her. She couldn't do anything about the latter situation except abandon the truffles on his doorstep, so she thought about where else he might be. Perhaps he'd gone for a walk or flight or—
Oh. Duh.
J'onn lived on the fifth floor of the apartment complex, which meant that there were five more stories to climb before Alex reached the roof. Sure enough, her boss sat with his back against the stairwell's enclosure, staring into the night sky.
"I brought you something," Alex told him softly.
He raised an eyebrow at the offering in her hand. "What are those?"
"They're Oreo truffles," Alex replied. "Try some. I promise they're not poisoned." She put the bag into his hands.
J'onn's lips twitched ever so slightly. He reached in, selected a treat, and popped it into his mouth. "It's good," he told her.
"Good, because they're all yours."
His smile lasted a little longer this time. "Then have some."
"I just told you that they're yours."
"I know. I'm offering one of my delicious snacks to you, the only person I've met who likes Oreos almost as much as I do."
His smile faded at that, melancholy returning to his eyes. They were brown, Alex noted, not their natural red. That bothered her. She almost commented but had to stop herself. Commenting would defeat the purpose.
"I'm sorry."
"Alex—"
"It's not about Jemm again, though I am still really sorry about that. I'm sorry for pushing you, J'onn. They're your powers, your legacy, and they should be yours to use as you see fit, not just to make me stop nagging you." She sighed heavily.
"You're just trying to help," he reminded her. "I know that, Alex. You're showing me your acceptance, and I think you'd be surprised by how much that means to me. And anyways—" Now it was his turn to heave a sigh "—you had no idea what would happen. You didn't know what I could…would do."
Alex stayed quiet. She had to bite her lip to do it, but she stayed quiet.
They stayed there in companionable silence, his eyes raised to the heavens, her eyes wandering from him to the red-hued world of his birth. He spent surprisingly little time looking at his erstwhile home, she observed, though she didn't know why.
As though he'd read her mind (which he hadn't because he asked for permission before looking through almost everyone's thoughts. Enemies like Astra's lot were the exception, not the rule), he said, "They're the same stars, the same patterns. They're not always in the same positions, just like you can't see Polaris from the Southern Hemisphere, but the patterns are the same." His smile made Alex's heart crack. "Sometimes, when the moon is dark and the stars are bright, I can almost pretend…." He trailed off. "Except I can't. Not really."
Alex thought about it for a moment. "Mars has two moons, right?"
"The Dancers," he murmured, "Mother and Child. There's an old, old story about them."
"Like the Greek myths?"
"Originally, yes, but they became more like folktales as time went on." His eyes were distant, his voice soft and sad. "When I was very young," he murmured, speaking almost to himself, "my grandfather would go up on the roof with my brother and me and tell us all the old stories. It drove my mother crazy because she always thought that we were staying up too late, but sometimes my father would join us. When I was grown, I would go up with…." But here he trailed off.
"When I was little," Alex replied, just as softly, "my dad got me one of those mini telescopes. He didn't know much about astronomy, but he borrowed a couple star guides from the library. We learned about the stars together. The planets, too, and the craters and seas on the moon."
"Did you wonder, then, if those stars were looking back at you?"
"Yeah. Did you? When you looked up at the stars—or even one of the other planets in our solar system—did you wonder if anybody was looking back?"
"Sometimes, yes." He met her gaze. "We knew that there was life here on Earth, you see, and I often wondered if your ancestors looked to the skies like we did."
"They did."
"Yes."
The conversation faded then, words tapering off into silence. The air cooled as the last vestiges of dusk faded into true night. Beneath them, streetlights lit up, filling the air with a dull orange glow.
A flash of brightness streaked across the heavens. "A shooting star," Alex observed. "Make a wish, J'onn."
"I did," he told her. "We had the same superstition back on… Ma'aleca'andra. There's kind of an interesting story about it." If you wanted, he didn't say.
She did. "How does it go?"
Red light danced around her boss's body, changing him from his human façade to his true Martian face. "My ancestors used to believe in a god called H'ronmeer…."
They both had the next day off, so they could afford to stay up all night talking about the stars, about the stories. They could stay up until dawn, speaking softly and eating truffles and showing sides of themselves that they didn't and honestly couldn't at work.
So that is exactly what they did.
Why are there so few fics featuring these two? WHY? I'm thinking of writing a series of one-shots to rectify this horrible fact. Does anybody have any ideas?
Written before 1X11, which will no doubt inspire more feels-stories.
-Antares