This is the first of a two-parter. Enjoy.

Cosmolve

(verb)

To change one's mindset or attitude pertaining to their place or position in the grand scheme of the universe.

Percy was starstruck.

"This looks nothing like the picture."

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" Diana smiled softly.

Percy's brain was only functioning so much, thus his response came out to be: "No shit." This only made Diana smile wider, her wish for Donna not to hear such language pushed to the background at this moment.

"Batman designed the place so that right as you got out of the Zeta tube, you'd see this." Diana gestured to the window before them. Large would be heavily understating just how wide and tall the glass stretched, allowing for an unimpeded view of the sight before them. Percy might not like the man with the bat fetish based on the stories he'd been told, but he'd go as far to say that Annabeth would be envious of this design aspect.

The Earth in all its glory stared at them. Blues, greens, and wisps of white swirled around in a sphere of life. It was massive and it was beautiful. Percy couldn't really describe the exact emotion he was feeling, but he knew that the Batman had put this here for a reason.

It was a reminder. A reminder that this is what the Justice League had sworn to protect. It was powerful and thought-provoking and amazing all at the same time.

"Damn," was all Percy could say. He sighed and shook his head, glancing over at Donna that she was pressed up against the glass, eyes wide with wonder and a big smile on her face. He couldn't blame her. The combination of being in space and seeing their home planet created that inevitability of shock and awe.

"We should probably move on. We're on a tight schedule, after all." Diana commented, lightly tapping Percy and Donna on the back to get them going.

"We are?" Donna asked.

"Batman doesn't normally allow unknown visitors on the Watchtower, and I might not have told him that I was bringing you guys here." Diana smiled sheepishly. "We have a League meeting in a couple hours, but J'onn said that memory restoration isn't the longest process. We should be fine." Diana sounded like she was assuring herself more than them.

"Wonderful," Percy muttered. "Well, lead the way I guess."

Diana leisurely led them through the hallways of metal and glass, greeting people who they passed by as if it was just any other office. The only differences between where they currently were and a regular mortal office being that they were in space and some of the people she greeted didn't exactly look normal. People dressed in colorful leather and unitards. Some had names that didn't sound common. Others had varying weapons or advanced technological gadgets in their grasp.

It was an odd experience, to say the least. Percy and Donna kinda just awkwardly smiled and nodded to anyone that Donna greeted (which was everyone they saw), but thankfully nobody stopped them for an extended chat and they reached their destination in only a few minutes.

It was an unsuspecting entrance. Just the usual bland metal doors that opened automatically once it detected motion before it. But once those doors opened, Percy could tell that the room was different from the rest of the metal hunk that orbited the Earth.

Assorted tapestries and rugs lined the walls and floors of the room. Most of the colors Percy saw were red (more like a muted maroon, but most everything was some variation of red), but there were some various other colors seemingly randomly thrown in the mix. Almost no metal could be seen to the naked eye, which was a miracle considering Percy wasn't sure he had seen something on this base not made out of metal.

Besides the odd choice of decorations, the most outstanding aspect of the room was the man sitting with his legs folded beneath him in the center of the room. Well, at least, Percy thought he was a man. It was sort of hard to tell with the green skin and everything. He looked as humanoid as one could get, the only difference being his skin color, odd head shape (too narrow and jagged for Percy's liking) and clothing choice.

It was hard to explain the form fitting suit that the Martian Manhunter wore, but it was a mashing of red, blue, and black. It seemed that the color scheme was favorable for a good amount of "heroes" he had seen thus far.

"Diana, it's good to see you again." the Martian smiled, moving casually to stand up. His gaze shifted from the Themysciran to the two next to her. "Ah, I've heard about you Perseus."

"Not too much, I hope." Percy said with a smile, shaking J'onn J'onnz's outstretched hand. He glanced at Diana for a moment, who sent a reassuring smile back at him.

"I trust J'onn with my life, Percy. You can too." J'onn bowed his head slightly to Diana and gave Percy a genuine smile.

"Thank you, Diana," J'onn replied. "Have no fear, Perseus, I'll treat your mind with the utmost care and respect. Although memory restoration is by no means easy, I've plenty of experience. You have no need to worry."

And for some reason, Percy believed every word that J'onn spoke. There was a vibe that the martian gave off, a comforting vibe that Percy couldn't help but trust. Even though he was about to dive into the deepest, most private parts of his mind, Percy felt safe. His gut said he should trust him but his mind was arguing that he was letting some stranger into his fucking thoughts. It was weird.

"Alright. I trust you J'onn." Percy let out a deep breath and allowed his shoulders to sag in an attempt to release the tension he felt. "And just call me Percy. If you're gonna be digging around back here, you can call me Percy." The demigod tapped his temple and grinned one of those signature lop-sided smirks he had become famous for back home.

"Well then, Percy, feel free to sit down. You can join us, Diana." J'onn returned to his sitting position and gestured to the carpeted floor in front of him. "And it won't just be me in your head, Percy. Memory restoration is a journey that requires both the searcher and the holder of the memories, and having a root to the mortal realm will help you to not lose yourself in our journey."

"Wait," Percy paused. "She's coming in too?"

"I am?" Diana asked as well. Her face was equally as confused as Percy, although slightly not as concerned as him. If anything, she seemed slightly excited, which Percy could confidently say he didn't exactly share.

"Especially since Percy isn't familiar with me, you diving in with us would do wonders to soothe his worries as well as actually help if we encounter any issues." J'onn explained slowly and succinctly.

"Issues?" Percy's eyes rose a fraction of an inch. "I thought you said I don't have to worry about this."

"Every memory restoration process is different. Each person had different capacities and thought processes and experiences. For instance, we may encounter mind guardians, figures constructed from your memory that will attempt to protect your mind and memory in the name of your subconscious or some other power. Or, your mind may not have created said guardians. We might enter and find that the environment is strange, unfamiliar, and confusing, or it could be a familiar location. It's a complicated and abstract process, so I don't want to promise you a hardship that might not occur."

Percy took a moment to digest this information and repetitive soothing of potential anxieties. He exhaled.

"Alright, cool." Percy nodded. "Let's do this."

"Perfect." J'onn nodded. With both Percy and Diana joining the alien on the floor, J'onn reached out his hands for the two to take. "Donna, you may do as you please. This shouldn't take long. If you two would take my hands."

The young girl smiled brightly at the acknowledgement and nodded enthusiastically. Percy frowned internally. She better not do anything stupid like draw on his face or something equally annoying.

"Relax, take a deep breath, and prepare yourself."

And then his eyes closed of their own volition, and all Percy knew was darkness.

Where was he?

Scratch that, he knew exactly where he was.

New York was his home, after all. He could smell what avenue he was on even if he was blindfolded with his hands bound and his legs tied together.

Thankfully, that wasn't the case. He wasn't tied together or anything like that and his vision was fine as far as he could tell.

In fact, his whole body seemed to be in one piece, so that was nice.

"Where are we?" Diana asked from beside him. She was dressed in her superhero costume as was J'onn, who was looking much less disoriented than the other two.

"New York, New York, baby." Percy smiled. Although the three of them (or, at least Diana and J'onn) were rather strange looking to the public, nobody seemed to bat an eye at them. Three people just standing in the middle of the sidewalk, one of them with green skin and another dressed in battle armor. That wasn't suspicious at all. "Home sweet home."

"Where you grew up, then?" Diana raised an eyebrow and smiled before she immediately wrinkled her nose. "That stench isn't flattering at all. How did you stand this for so long?"

"Eh, you get used to it." Percy shrugged. A middle-aged man with a newspaper loosely gripped in his hands approached them, and Percy got an idea. "Excuse me, what's today's date?"

The man acted like he didn't hear him at all, simply walking by and almost running into Percy had he not moved over to the side at the last possible moment.

"Idiot." Diana breathed out.

"Percy, this is a mindscape shaped by one of your memories." J'onn chuckled. Percy flushed. How was he supposed to know that? "This may be even easier than I anticipated. Usually, the journey is rather abstract and confusing, but the goal is always the same. We find where you are in this memory, we find what you've lost."

"Great. Sounds easy." Percy responded quickly, eager to get past his earlier misstep. "Now, where am I?"

"That is the question, isn't it?" J'onn asked, still amused. Diana snickered. Percy wanted to punch her.

"Do you know where we are?" Diana asked. "We should probably go towards wherever you most commonly frequented."

"True." Percy frowned and tapped his foot. "Okay, so we're at Lexington and 83rd. My apartment isn't too far from here. We can start there I guess and if we don't find anything then we can go to camp."

"Lead the way." J'onn nodded, affirming his proposed course of action. Percy started to walk, leading his comrades through his home territory. While they made their way to the apartment he had inherited from, his mom, Percy just took the time to soak in the experience.

He hadn't been to any place besides Themyscira (and technically the Watchtower) in so long, and the fact that he was in his hometown, just a few blocks from his apartment? It was surreal. Granted, it wasn't actually reality. Percy knew that this was all in his head, but everything just felt so fucking real.

He smelt the New York he had come to know and love. He saw the shops and corners he'd visited day after day. Hades, some of the people he saw he recognized as owners of local businesses and everyday people he commonly came across. Even though he wasn't in New York, it felt just as authentic.

"So, camp?" J'onn asked a few minutes into their stroll. Percy looked at Diana for a moment. He wasn't sure whether or not he should reveal the true nature of his life and his identity as a Greek demigod to a member of the Justice League. Sure, Diana trusted him, but the presence of the Greek gods in the mortal realm wasn't knowledge to be thrown around all willy nilly. It had been a closely guarded secret for a millenia for a reason.

And yes, Percy realized that Diana was a daughter of Zeus and had revealed that to her peers (although not exactly the same type of daughter as Thalia). But to Percy's understanding, since Diana and the Amazons hadn't believed the gods were still on the same plane of reality as Earth anymore, neither did the Justice League.

One shrug of Diana's shoulders let Percy know that it was up to him. It soothed Percy a little to know that she hadn't mindlessly let that tidbit of information fly.

"A place where I learned to hone my abilities. It's in Long Island, so we can take a cab there if we have to." Percy said vaguely.

"Or we can fly there." Diana commented offhandedly with a grin. "I can even carry you."

"No thanks," he said immediately. He'd rather not be shamed so publicly (in his own memory, no less).

"Were there others like you?" J'onn asked. One look at the martian and Percy could tell the man was just curious. If it were anybody else, Percy might've been suspicious about their motives. But even a few minutes spent with the man and Percy could tell he was nothing but empathetic and understanding.

Plus, J'onn was a martian. He was one of the last of his kind. He'd known solitude and he understood isolation. He'd experienced discrimination and hate and everything in between because of his appearance and foreign abilities.

"Kind of, but not really." Percy said, again being vague. He didn't want sympathy or pity from the man, although he doubted the martian would pity him for potentially being without peers or friends growing up with such strange powers. "It was just a place that housed runaway kids that had strange experiences and such. Some people had more… aggressive abilities, but most didn't."

Percy shrugged to finish his terrible explanation. How was one supposed to explain Camp Half-Blood without actually explaining it? He didn't want to worry J'onn and say that there were a bunch of kids with extremely volatile powers hidden to the world. He also didn't want to just completely lie to the man. Although Camp Half-Blood was first and foremost a home for those hunted by monsters and immortals, it also trained the attendees to be heroes. Warriors. Soldiers.

Sure, Chiron and the counselors did their best to help the kids hone their strange gifts and godly heritage, but that in turn lead to a lot of combat training and quest leading and fucking Capture the Flag with swords and knives? Percy knew Chiron had the camp's best interests at heart, but at times he felt like it was just a place to groom child-soldiers. It made him fucking sick to his stomach.

"We're here." Percy finally said. The doorstep of the apartment complex that his mom lived in greeted them.

"Looks… cozy." Diana noted. Percy smiled. Cozy was a forgiving description of the place. From the outside, the complex was old, rundown, and just waiting to collapse in a heap of concrete and drywall. On the inside… well the inside of the place wasn't any better. But Percy's mom had done well to fix their individual unit up and it wasn't too bad aesthetically speaking.

"Well, let's get on with it." Percy said, his voice slightly wavering for some odd reason.

Their apartment was on one of the upper floors, but thankfully the elevator actually worked, which really confused Percy. Like, the people didn't see them, but they could interact with the environment? They could push the elevator buttons and actually go up? It was all weird. Best not to overthink it. Percy overthinking led to his brain hurting and his already limited mind power to shrink.

"Wait, how are we going to get in?" Diana asked when the elevator dinged and the doors to Percy's floor opened. "Don't you live alone?"

"Always leave a spare key under the plant." Percy said, gesturing to a pot of moonlace sitting on the windowsill next to his apartment entrance. The original plant had grown with time and care from his mother and Percy'd learned to plant the other seeds in whatever space he had and care for the plants sufficiently. They really were a sight to behold at nightime. Were they bioluminescent? Was that the term? Percy vaguely remembered Annabeth talking about bioluminescent algae that inhabited the bay near her San Francisco home.

"I've never seen that type of flower before." J'onn commented.

"Yeah." Percy sighed with a soft smile and a hint of nostalgia. He picked up the plant and slid the key from under it into his hand."It's a long story for another time."

Neither of his companions said a word, and so Percy took his time in opening the door to his apartment unit. After hearing that familiar, satisfying click that signified the door being unlocked, Percy paused for a beat before his hesitation passed and he pushed the door open. The hinges squeaked from the age and rust, but that wasn't the most prominent detail Percy noticed.

A trio of teenagers stood scattered in his apartment, all visible from the entrance. He blinked, thinking his eyes to be playing tricks on him. Yet the more he stared the more evident it became that what he was seeing was real.

"You don't belong here." Jason said stoically, his blond hair fluttering just slightly even though no windows were open. His golden gladius shined in his tightened grip. Percy's hand twitched, his battle instincts taking over even though his mind protested that these were his friends. Not to mention they were supposed to be dead.

"Leave now, or face the consequences of your trespassing." Thalia added in the same monotone, robotic voice that Jason had spoken with.

"And trust that those consequences will be fatal." Frank finalized, his bulky arms crossed and his stare as harsh as Percy had ever seen.

A pregnant pause of silence overtook them, the three demigods staring down at Percy and the two superheroes that flanked him. He could feel the tension in the martian and demigoddess behind him, waiting for something to cut through the stillness.

"J'onn, what do we do?" Percy asked without turning. His heart wanted to sit down and chat with his supposed-to-be dead friends, but in his head he knew that these were not the people he had formed bonds with. They were shadows of his memories. They were what J'onn had told him about. Mind guardians.

Percy felt J'onn take a step forward so that he was almost in line with Percy, and his next words were so quiet it was almost a whisper.

"We have no choice. We fight."