This is a repost of a fill I posted on the yj_anon_meme kink meme. The content has been edited from its original content, as I post the original before I truly edited it. I did indeed write this in its entirety, before and after the edits.
Original Prompt:
Five times M'gann's puppy eyes unknowingly saved the world.
Disclaimer: M'gann M'rozz/Miss Martian and Superboy do not belong to me, nor does the universe they occupy.
I hope you enjoy!
"Hey kid! Get back here!"
Curiosity makes her look up from her perusal of dress behind the window. She's never seen so many clothes in so many styles before and even though she can make whatever she wants herself, it's nice to wonder what it would be like to just wear something else for a while. But she's curious of why someone's shouting (are they in trouble?) so she looks up just in time to get nearly knocked over by a child running full tilt.
He lands on his butt and glares up at her before scrambling to his feet, "Whatcha do that for?" He demands, clutching at the loaf of bread in his hands, half-squashed from his grip on it and the abrupt tumble.
"I'm sorry! I didn't mean-"
"What the hell do you think you're doing, kid?" Demands an irate man as he comes up from behind, to grab at the kid's filthy shirt. M'gann gasps at the rough action. What did he need to do that for?
"Nuthin'! Lemme go!" screeches the boy, squirming and wriggling enough to half choke himself with his own shirt. She stares at them for a moment, trying to parcel through the sudden influx of information, both from what they're saying and their mental tirades.
"Um, sir?" She asks, tentatively, biting her lip against the man's harsh look and meaner thoughts, "I'm sure he didn't mean anything by it. Can't you just let him go?"
"He stole from me! Me! And how am I supposed to live if a brat like this keeps stealing my stuff? A man's got to eat—"
"And so does a child," She replies firmly, planting her hands on her hips, "You own your own store, sir, and as much as you say you won't tolerate this sort of thing, this boy needs to eat. Look at him!" She glares at him until he complies, muttering under his breath, "He's skin and bones! Can't you find it in your heart to forgive him? He's just trying to live!"
The man grumbles something inaudible, sneering at her words. She grimaces at his thoughts, they're too loud to immediately ignore before she shoves them away and tries to stay calm. "Fine, then I'll pay for it." She digs into her purse. She's seen the girls on T.V. carry them everywhere and had bought one for herself last week with some of the Earth money her uncle J'onn had given her. She holds out a five dollar bill for him and the man looks at it and takes it, dropping the squirming child to the ground without so much as by-your-leave.
"If you ever come back in my store again, kid, I'm calling the police." He crumples the bill in his fist and storms off, leaving them both alone on the street.
She bends to help the little boy up, straightening his shirt despite his protests.
"Why did you steal the bread?" She asks, sincerity radiating off her as she looks at him. The boy fidgets under her gaze, clearly uncomfortable.
"'Cause we need ter eat, duh," He mumbles finally, avoiding her eyes.
"That's a bad thing to do and you and I both know it," She answers, pinning him with her solemn stare. He swallows and nods, looking downward.
"I'm not going to ask you why you had to do it," She already knows, his poor mother, "But I don't think you should do it again. There's a soup kitchen just a block away from your house. You should go there to eat."
"But the line there is soo long!" He whines, his lower lip jutting out impishly. She smiles and pats his head, "But at least there you won't get in trouble for stealing right? And you should never steal. It's mean and people don't someone who takes their things."
The little boy pouts, crossing his arms and squishing the bread against his chest. M'gann smiles helplessly and holds out a hand, "Here, let's go get you something to eat and then we'll go shopping for more food, okay?"
He stares at her open-mouthed, "Really? Can I have ice cream?"
And with his momma's and his bellies full that night, as he lay in his bed with its new blanket of stars and space ships and listening to the quiet that meant his momma iwasn't/i crying tonight, the little boy thought that maybe he didn't need to take other people's stuff anymore. Not if the nice green lady and her friends were going to help them out now.
She has to be quiet; floating just off the ground as she slips through the ranks of armed guards outside of the compound. It's so, so important that she doesn't make any sound; the rest of the team needs to get into position and they're on a limited time frame as it is—and she squeaks out loud as she bumps into a guard at the end of the hall. Her control of her camouflage mode slips just enough that the man can point his gun at her and open his mouth to shout.
But she moves too quickly, shoving him up against the wall and knocking his gun out of his grip with a twist she learned from Black Canary just last week. She hisses for him to be silent, the look in her eyes desperate because oh god she screwed up and her teammates won't ever forgive her, Superboy won't forgive her, and she stares into his eyes like maybe she can will him to see that he needs to be quiet, but what she sees makes her stop. Makes her wonder what's happening right in front of her.
The man isn't a man. He's teenager, like her, and he's staring back at her with the frantic eyes of someone caught with their hand in a trap they don't know how to get out of. His pulse races under her fingers as his Adam's apple bobs from the strain of keeping himself quiet, and she wonders for the first time just why it's okay to take out the goons. Sure, they're bad guys and she gets that, they're doing bad things for bad people and she gets that. But they're people too. He probably has a family and needed the money, or he just got lost on the wrong side of the tracks (she only understood that phrase after Wally and Robin demanded a classics movie night) and just needs a little help finding his way back. She doesn't know and she doesn't care; because she can help, she wants to help him, and all it takes is him wanting it too.
"Why are you here?" She asks, her voice an just an edge above a whisper, "Why do you do this? What's the point?" He stares at her, uncomprehending, and tries to shake his head.
Her eyes search his face, confusion and sadness warring openly over her expression, "There's no point to this. You'll just end up hurt and maybe dead. Working for someone like this—it never ends well, can't you see?"
The young man stares at her from behind too-big goggles, not daring to move. Not knowing what to do.
"Help us." She whispers, "Help us and we'll get you out of here. I'll help you—we'll all help you figure something out so you don't have to do this anymore. Your life is worth more than this. You can have more than this. I promise. We can help you." She looks at him, and the sincerity of her gaze makes him want to flinch, he hasn't felt guilt in a long while. Not with this job.
"Tell us where Mister Twister is. Please."
Slowly, shakily, he raises his arm to point down the hall. He's probably signed his own death warrant, he's probably not even going to make it through the night, but the sweetness of her smile makes it hard to regret it.
They're clearing out a sex-slave operation and, not for the first time, M'gann wonders just how a person, any person, could be capable of such a thing. Children, teenagers and adults, all crippled, all in terrible pain, if not from the abuse, then the drugs they use to control them. She hugs herself tight, holding herself as far as she dares from the pain and suffering, wishing she didn't feel so alone. She knows the others feel the pain too, but they can't imagine what it feels like to have firsthand knowledge of the destruction to a person by another person.
She clenches her teeth and rides the pain, too guilt-ridden to completely detach herself from it completely. Someone has to accept the full brunt of the pain. Someone has to acknowledge and sympathize because that much pain can't go unnoticed. It has to be known and felt even in just the slightest way, because these people have been scarred and they can't start recovering until someone understands and helps them-and she feels a faint pop in her skull and her eyes fly open.
"No!"
She doesn't remember if she says it out loud, or when she flew past everyone else and down the hall, but she does remember bursting through the doorway, horror-stricken, as she watches a woman raise a gun at the man before her. Her eyes are wild, hair greasy and skin dark from grime and grease. The snarl on her face is sickening and M'gann wonders for a moment if she's too late—but the man at her feet coughs up blood, and she thinks imaybe there's a chance.
"Don't!" She cries out, taking a step toward the woman, who jumps and swings the gun toward her, "Please," She begs, "Please, don't do this. It's not worth it. You know that."
"He raped me," spits the woman, her body shuddering with effort, the gun swinging back to the man's prone from, "He raped me and he was going to do it again. I couldn't—I can't—!"
"He's not worth it," M'gann answers, firmly, vehemently, "He's not worth giving your life up for; he's not worth giving up your soul." She takes a step closer, feeling the woman's pain batter at her senses, strangles the keen in her throat, "You're stronger than this," She declares, because it's real, it's true, "You're stronger and you're better. Don't do this. It won't be worth it."
"It's not worth it now!" Shrieks the woman, her grip tightening, fingers clenching around the trigger, "He should be dead! He deserves to die!"
"But that wouldn't fix anything." Another step, and another, "He's not worth it. He's not worth any more of your pain." She reaches out, touches the woman's shoulder and projects as much comfort and warmth as she can. She knows she's not supposed to, but there has to be exceptions and she'll make this one if she has to fight to her last breath, "It's okay." She whispers as the woman dissolves into tears, burying her face in the young Martian's neck, "You're safe now. He'll never hurt you again."
There are papers all over the street, so M'gann feels more than a little justified in helping tidy up. She's collected a good twenty or so when she spots the woman sitting on the front steps of a house, her head in her hands and shoulders shaking. She watches her for a moment, unsure of whether or not to interrupt her, but the waves of anguish rolling off of her are too dark to keep her from needing to help. She bites her lip and collects as many more papers she can in the instant before she sits down on the step next to the woman, reaching out to touch her shoulder as gently as possible.
"Ma'am," she asks softly, "Ma'am, what's wrong?"
The woman jerks and looks up at her, cheeks stained and ruddy from her tears, "Oh! Oh god, I'm so sorry! I-I didn't mean to—" Her words choke off on a sob and M'gann wraps an arm around her shoulders immediately,wordlessly inviting her cry to as much as she needs.
"I-it's just I can't take it anymore," She sobs out, "There's just so many and I can't help them all and I just don't—I don't know what to do a-anymore and I thought I could actually help them if I worked as hard as I could but there's too many and I don't know what to do and I just—I j-just," She collapses against the young Martian, weeping uncontrollably into her shoulder.
M'gann only listens as the woman continues, comforting her as much with her presence as the soft words of encouragement she tries to murmur into the woman's ear.
"I think you're doing an amazing job," She says at least, after the woman has calmed. Her sobs have become hiccups and she dabs at her eyes with a worn handkerchief, "Just look at how many you've helped find good homes. You're doing your best, I know you are, so please don't give up. The children need you; you're their guiding light. You give them hope they'll find a family who loves them and cares for them. You're amazing. I'm so proud of what you can do. You're the sort of hero I've always wanted to be."
She smiles at the woman, radiating warm and encouragement, and the woman lets out another hiccup, her mouth twitching as she tries to smile back.
"Thank you," She whispers, her voice wavering and thin, but there's a smile in there somewhere and that's as good a start as any, "Thank you so much."
M'gann beams and helps her pick up the rest of her papers.
She can feel his anger before anything else; a dark red haze clogging at the back of her skull, too thick and pressing to be her own and too pain-filled to be ignored. It's familiar, distressingly so, and she flinches against it instinctively before sucking in a calming breath. He's in pain, he's always in pain, and if she could she'd calm it and sooth it away with a thought, but mind-to-mind linking isn't allowed here and especially with him—it'd only make things worse.
She finds him in the training room. His specially made (and specially abused) punching bag lies in pieces on the floor. He's torn through it and shredded the thick fabric until it was nothing more than thin strips. He's taking it out on a replacement bag now, because he'd long ago gotten the lecture than the walls of Mt. Justice were not to be punched through and he'd felt chastised enough, Superman never punched through the walls because he was angry, that he'd resorted to requesting extra equipment just so he could destroy it if he needed.
His movements are so fast; slamming into the crumpling bag almost too fast for her eyes to see and she flinches again as the dark haze blooms, thrumming behind her eyes and pounding in her ears. He's in so much pain and she wants to cry because it's not his fault. It's never been his fault. He's only wanted to know Superman acknowledged him, recognized him as something, anything and each rejection shakes him to his core. Sometimes she wonders if it's possible to hate one of the universe's greatest men.
Sometimes she wonders if she already does.
A sudden crash jolts her out of her reverie. The punching bag is halfway into the wall. It gives a whining hiss at it deflates, sliding toward the ground with a defeated sigh. She watches Superboy stare at it, panting as his fists clench and unclench viciously as he fights against hurting more.
"Superboy?" It's only a faint question. She doesn't want to be too loud—but he hears her anyway and looks up. There's something in his ice-blue eyes, something that makes her heart break, and she's flying over to him before she can think about it. He watches her the whole time, and she feels a twist in her head, the bitter ferment of jealousy on her tongue and stops partway there, lands, and continues toward him. Slowly, because he's never hurt her but she still doesn't know how he'll act toward her half the time. His moods have never been predictable.
She reaches out to him, once she's close enough, and prays that he'll let her touch him. Sometimes he just leaves and won't talk to her for hours, stewing in his own negative emotions until they're buried deep inside, waiting for the next trigger to make him explode with even more violence. It's not healthy and she hates it—why do Earthlings insist on hiding their emotions? What was so wrong about letting what you needed to let out, out?
He flinches as her fingers brush his arm, and she clasps his wrist before he can draw away, "Don't," She says, fingers flexing against his arm. He's so much stronger than her, he could crush her if he wanted, but he doesn't, he won't; he just watches her with those pain-filled eyes. She stares back, trying to project comfort, to give him what he needs even if he doesn't need it from her.
It's a long, silent moment before he looks away, and for a horrified second she thinks she's lost him. She moves to cup his cheek, to turn his head to look at her again because he needs to know it's okay. That it will be okay.
"Superboy," She murmurs, "Superboy, please. Look at me. Please," His head snaps around, and he stares at her fiercely as if daring her to do something. There's so much anger and hurt and confusion in his eyes and she just looks back as she cups his cheek, holding his wrist and just trying to show him she cares that she accepts him for who he is because that's all that's ever mattered to her.
"It'll be okay," She says, watching his face twitch, his mouth twist and his expression finally crumple, "It's okay. You're here." She moves, just a little, and as slowly as she can, pressing her face into his chest (warm, just like she's, hoped, dreamed) and letting go of his wrist so she can properly wrap her arms around him. Even if he doesn't hold her back, even if he doesn't understand what hugging means, he needs this. Cadmus' education was leery at best and who knows what else they did to him, but hugging is almost as universal as a smile and he needs more than that right now.
He doesn't move for several moments, and her face begins to feel hot for her foolishness; her daring to think that just a hug could help him, that he would understand, but she feels him move. His arms raise slowly, awkwardly, as if he's unsure how, to hug her back. He squeezes her close and it's a little too tight, she can't really breathe, but she doesn't mind. It's a step, and that's all that matters.