Title: Common People (Inspired by the song by Pulp)

Characters: M'gann M'orzz (Miss. Martian)/Marvin White

Story: After the failed training exercise, M'gann feels that she needs to take an extended break from the team and try to do what she had set out to do in the frist place - experiance earth and be like a normal human. However, after seeking out her new friend, Marvin, for help, M'gann finds she has a lot to learn - and some of it is just as bad as the training exercise she was trying to avoid.


I felt as though I was about to collapse. My knees became weak, and my head began to spin. I stared at Megan - who was bitting her lip gently - in complete shock.

"You're… you're a-" I struggled to speak. It was hard to make any sound from my mouth after what she had just told me.

Slowly, I watched as Megan's skin turned from a tan peach to a vibrant green.

"Martian." she said, finishing my sentence. He voice was low and shaky. I could tell she was extremely nervous and worried about what my reaction would be.

I took a seat on a park bench. It was midnight in Happy Harbor, and there was a cold November breeze that chilled my skin.

She had texted me an hour ago to meet her. I would say that I was confused, but that would be an understatement. While Megan and I had been good friends since she first started attending Happy Harbor High, I was never really her go-to confidant.

When I saw her text, it had woken me up from a deep sleep. For a second, the possibility of a midnight hook-up came to mind. But by the time I texted her back agreeing to met her in the cold late at night, I was fully woken from my slumber, and remembered that she and Conner were kind of a thing.

Taking in this news was quite big for me. I had so many questions! But the first thing that came to mind was; "Was that you on Halloween?"

Thinking about it now, it made sense; how was it that only her boyfriend that guy she brought were the ones who were attacked? Where was she? No wonder she would want to call me out on my prank, I had offended her entire race that night.

I could see that she was trying to keep from chuckling at the memory as she nodded her head. "Sorry if we embarrassed you," she said quickly.

Feeling bad for myself was the least of my worries. I still had a lot of questions.

The second question that came to mind was probably a very obvious one. "So… do you know Martian Manhunter?"

"He's actually my uncle," she said with a proud smile.

I gasped. Martian Manhunter was my all time favorite superhero! And she was related to him! I was going to ask for an autograph but I figured that would be lame.

Instead I asked; "Do you do crime fighting as well?"

I could see her smile fade a little at the comment. She gave me a small nod as a response. "I go by Miss. Martian. I don't do much, but I do a little."

I was going to ask her another question, but instead she took a seat next to me and sighed. "I've actually been through… a lot recently… and I think I need a break from it," she explained.

I rubbed the back of my neck. As we sat there in silence I gave more thought to the idea of being a superhero. It must be really stressful as well as physically, emotionally, and mentally exhausting. But there was one thing that still confused me; "So - and I don't mean to offend - but why did you call me?"

It was a legitimate question. She had a boyfriend and a whole cheerleading squad of girls she could talk to. Why me?

She looked at me with sad, wide eyes. Then, she took my hand in hers and took a deep breath.

I started to panic. Conner was a big guy. If anything goes down, I'll be dead by morning.

But instead, she spoke. "When I came to earth, I really just wanted to be here as opposed to being a superhero. I wanted to experience this planet, not just save it. But I need someone to show me world. My uncle hasn't been here very long, the girls on the squad would probably freak out, and Conner… never mind," Marvin let that sink in a bit. Why did she want to keep her boyfriend in the dark about her troubles? He obviously knew as she 'attacked' him on halloween. What was their deal? "So, I wanted you to know cause… cause I figured you would take it the best, and really help me learn about this planet."

She scooted closer to me so our shoulders were touching. With my hand still in hers she looked into my eyes and said "I just want to be like a normal human for once. I want to live, see, and do everything that normal humans do. Can you help me?"

She seemed so helpless, so what else could I say?

I shrugged "I'll see what I can do."

She squealed and through her arms around me in a tight hug. "Thank you, thank you, thank you!" she chanted loudly. Then, she jumped from the bench and pulled me along with her.

"Where do we start?" she asked.

I thought about that for a moment. As a kid, you learn about the world from experiencing it. By the time you're a teenager, you know what it's like (mostly). How do you teach a teen about life? And an alien teen no less?

"I have a place in mind," I announced sheepishly. I didn't really know where to take her, but the place I had thought of sounded like a good idea.

She beamed at me. "Great! Where to?"

"I'll tell you how to get there, but first -" my lips curved into a smile as I realized a way that I could experience my greatest fantasy. "I have one favor to ask."


As we landed on the sidewalk, I felt like a kid at Christmas - receiving a gift that I wanted that I never thought I would have.

My first time flying - it was too cool!

"Thanks Megan!" I said as I gathered my bearings on the ground.

She giggled and turned her skin back to a peachy colour. "No problem, that was fun!" When she had collected herself, she glanced up at the tap building that towered over the both of us. She recognized it almost instantly, and her face lit up like a Christmas tree.

"Oh my goodness, the mall? I love the mall! I come here all the time!" she squealed as she burst through the doors.

I mentally slapped myself for a moment before I joined her. What I had originally thought was a good idea was actually something she was quite familiar with.

The Happy Harbor Mall was probably the most famous mall in the world as it was the only mall with retail stores that were open for 24 hours a day. However, in the early hours of the morning, only the sales clerks and night owl teens like us were stalking about the halls.

She grabbed my arm and pulled me around to all of her favorite shops. When I asked her why she would buy anything if she could just shift her cloths, she just giggled and answered "Inspiration."

After an hour of window shopping, Megan finally got bored and ear me back to the exit (I didn't know my way around the mall - it was kind of embarrassing that someone from an entirely other planet knew my mall better than me).

"That as so much fun!" cheered Megan. "Being an earth teen is so easy!"

When she said that, I froze. Because she had been holding my hand while dragging me to the exit, she lurched back.

She gave me a confused look and asked "Why did you stop? Is everything okay?"

I looked back at her. "Why would you think that?"

She blinked - probably puzzled at my inquiry. "What do you mean?"

"You said it's easy - being an earth teen."

She looked past me, then back at me. She seemed to have no idea why I would be (for lack of a better term) insulted by that comment.

And I was. I couldn't think of any one kid my age who had an easy time. Not the geeks, the popular kids, or even the kids somewhere in the middle. Each of us suffered in our own way. I was confused as to why she thought it was 'easy' to be like one of us.

I tried to analyze her situation. She was a Martian. She could fly, read mind minds, go through walls, make things move with just a thought, shape-shift, turn invisible, and so much more. She fought crime everyday, but did it out of the public view. She's probably experienced pain, but being a Martian she probably didn't feel it all that much.

Then, I got it. She's been on earth for a few months now, she probably understands all of the commercial and simple things of life. Human's have to go through a lot worse - especially the ones who aren't so well off.

I calmed my face and relaxed my tense body. "Let's get out of here," I said calmly and quietly, "I have a few places in mind we could visit."


"The hospital?"

As we landed on the sidewalk just outside of the emergency room entrance, I could see her slightly puzzled, slightly intrigued manner. I nodded to her and gestured for her to enter through the spinning doors. Shrugging, Megan followed my lead and stepped inside.

I lead her to the waiting room. It was fairly full, which didn't surprised me. Happy Harbor was pretty safe compared to all the surrounding cities, but the crime rate was still high.

Megan looked around with a sad, but curious look on her face. In the waiting room, there was a man with a bleeding head injury, a woman cradling a child with a harsh fever, A few slightly intoxicate teens (one of which had a broken ankle), and a confused old man walking around and muttering to himself. The child was practically screaming in pain, and a group of doctors were hovering around the man with a head injury - often checking up on him and ensuring that he would soon be seen by a doctor.

Suddenly, a group of emergency doctors burst through the front doors followed by a gurney. On it was a girl who was bleeding from the wrists.

"We have a failed suicide attempt, but she needs attention, now!"

All of the doctors in the waiting area scampered over to the gurney and started dragging the girl off while trying to treat him as best they could on the way.

She was a very young girl - no more than sixteen years old.

I glanced over at Megan. She was trying to blink away small pools of tears that had formed in her eyes as she watched the girl get pulled away to the nearest surgical room.

I knew a lot about Martians, but only from the observations I had seen on earth. I knew about their powers and their physical appearance. I was usually very proud of my knowledge. But, in this moment, I realized I knew nothing about who they really were and where they really came from. I began to wonder if Megan knew what suicide was. Well, she probably knew what it was, but I wasn't sure if she understood it.

"Let's get out of here," I whispered to her. I felt like she had seen enough.


We walked for a few blocks - she didn't say a word the whole time.

Perhaps I was too harsh on her, but I felt like she needed to know. I wasn't sure what Martian's were like in a social environment, but knowing Megan for a short period of time she seemed like she didn't really understand thing like hate, depression, injury, death. And these were some pretty important things to understand about the human condition before she even started you teen years.

As we walked past old streets and sketchy neighbor hoods, Megan was able to see a hole slew of things I'm pretty sure she had never seen before - drug deals, homeless people, prostitutes - all of the kind of people who only come out at night.

"I-I don't understand," she said after a while. "Why-… how do all of these people end up like this?"

I didn't know how to answer that question. I could only answer with "I don't really know. There's a lot of bad people in this world."

Megan looked as though she was getting it "Like, criminals?" Obviously she didn't.

"No - well, yeah - but not exclusively. Selfish people who bring others down, bullies, greedy assholes - it's not all peaches in cream. some people hate others just for where they come from, or what they believe, or what they look like -"

"I know how that feels."

I was stunned by her comment, but she shook her head. I took that as a sign that she didn't want to talk about it.

"Either way," I continued "To become a real earth citizen, you have to realize that, well, life isn't fair. And if you're not careful, you'll end up in a pretty shitty situation. You want to be a norma human teen? Gain ten pounds, be bullied, get rejected, fail at everything, feel bad for yourself, and then try to find some way out of it. And den when you do, then a whole new batch of problems will come after you.

"But that can never happen to you; you can shape shift to look a certain way, you can read minds to hear what people are thinking, you can just fly away or turn invisible if you wanted to, and when that doesn't work, you can just leave the planet all together. Many girls you age would kill to be able to do that."

She began to blink again - more so than when we were in the hospital.

I started to feel really ad for how I was talking to her. I didn't want to upset her so much, but I think she needed to know. I hope she did anyway, I don't want to be responsible for messing her up.

I sighed, she needed some good news. "That's why… we need you stay here."

She looked up and stared desperately into my eyes. I could tell by now she needed some good news. I inhaled quickly and continued, "We need someone to protect us. Not just from criminals and villains, but from ourselves. The work you do brings hope to all of us, and with hope brings change. You can inspire girls everywhere to work hard and be who they want to be despite what they look like. But the first thing you have to realize is that you're not one of us and you can never be one of us. You have to be your own self - and that's half the battle of normal humans."

She looked back at her feet as she let my words sink in.

"And - if you'll pardon me - being a normal human fucking blows."

She chuckled at that, but went back to thinking. In the meanwhile I congratulated myself for getting so deep. I don't know how I became so inspired, but it looked like it was doing some good.

"I think…" she said after a while "… I think that I need to go to my headquarters." She looked up at me and smiled "There's a world I need to protect."

I smiled back at her, and extended my arms for a hug.

Instead, she gave me a thankful kiss on the cheek. And just as quickly as it had happened, she had flown off into the night.

I watched until her green skin had faded out of vision. When it was gone I slowly made my way home.

I guess I'll never know what was really going on in her head that night - she's the mind reader, not me. I just really hope that what I said helped her with whatever she was going through.

I don't know what's going to happen at school tomorrow, but I know that I'll keep her secret. Not only do I owe her that for protecting me and billions of others, but she could probably kill me if she wanted to.

All in all, I think it was a good night.

Wait… day now. What time is it? 4am! I have to be up in three hours for school!

Dangit!


Please REVIEW!