Does it look like I own Young Justice?
A/N: Please note that all Arabic is pulled together by me from (a really good) online lexicon/dictionary and is fashioned after the style used in the comics and CW's Arrow. Half the time it is also my best shot at rendering it phonetically and thus is very much likely not to be completely correct. My personal headcannon is that the League of Shadow's official language is a dialect of Coptic Arabic, but I speak exactly none of the language so it is very piecemeal. Hey, it's comics. (Though if anyone has experience with either dialect of the language, whether a standard dialect or Coptic, and wants to help, I would be thrilled!)
It is a struggle, but she manages to hold it together through their briefing and until the others have departed the mountain, leaving her alone with Superboy and the newly named Sphere. Her mind a tumult of thoughts not her own, all clamoring for attention.
When she withdraws to her own room she can feel Superboy's concern and sends him a quiet wave of reassurance, privately reveling in their new psychic closeness. The bond the Team shares is strengthening, but is not yet even near to the closeness she is used to. The faint presence of Superboy in the back of her mind is a welcome addition that makes her, for the first time in her life, feel like she is truly not alone.
Still, she makes sure to mostly block him for the exercise she is about to engage in. It will be enough of a violation of her friends' privacy without including him. She is nowhere near her uncle's skill, he would be able to do this without viewing the memories she had inadvertently skimmed from their minds but she has already tried and failed to lay them to rest and their churning clamor is making concentration difficult. Even doing her best to only touch memories of the Team, and staying firmly within the past six months, that means she acquired a great deal of psychic debris that has to be cleaned up.
Once her door locks behind her, she moves to the corner to hover in the air, cross-legged and closes her eyes, dropping into the meditation state that she had mastered before she had ever learned to control her physical form. In the midst of the maze that is her own mind she finds the deep pool of her friends memories, smooth as glass in some places, reflecting images within, frothing and roiling in others, no clear pictures, only a wash of pain, fear, and uncertainty.
She opts to begin with the imprints of Kaldur's memories, as they float near to the surface, a little apart from the others, reflecting the manner she had obtained them.
There aren't many, his mind was well structured and she had not needed to repair broken glass so much as clear away crumbled edges. The skies of her mindscape darken and she shudders at the memory of Psimon's handiwork. His mental blasts had shown no care, only a cold, cruel, delicate efficiency that had left all their minds covered in a layer of shattered shards coated in a grimy layer of the echoes of his sadistic humor.
"Just like that? We are a team on a mission?"
"Right now, my king. I am more focused on the matter at hand."
"Wally uses his understanding of science to control what he cannot comprehend. Acknowledging magic would relinquish the last vestige of that control."
"Have you ever wondered what would have happened if I had stayed behind and you had become Aqualad?"
"Noooo. Nothing odd going on here."
"I can hear you glaring!"
"I am considering rejoining you at the Conservatory."
"Superboy, you live. That gives you the right to follow your own path. A weapon or a person, the choice is yours."
"Such a waste. You really have no ambition beyond serving Aquaman? Aren't schools of others willing to die for their king?"
"To be honest, I'm not sure we have a team."
"We picked the right guy to lead. Automatically making you the right guy to explain this mess to Batman!"
"Of late, I am not even convinced I belong on the surface world."
"Then I accept the burden. Until you are ready to lift it from my shoulders. You were born to lead this team. Maybe not now- but soon."
"Kaldur, I'm sorry. We wanted to tell you sooner. But Garth and I - we're together."
"Together on our own we forged something powerful, important."
"I am here. One hundred percent."
She pulls out with a gasp and allows the rush of sensations and emotions to recede, shrinking in upon themselves and forming a fishbowl in which a small fish, glowing with a soft light swims.
Poor Aqualad. Even she had never guessed how much pain and doubt he struggled with, he keeps it so tightly controlled. Her soul aches for his losses, an easy friendship, a love that might have been. She makes a note to bake cookies especially for him and takes a deep breath before reaching for Superboy's memories, in a part of the pool that is shallow and turbulent and dark with light reflecting off of it like diamonds.
"I live because of Cadmus! It is my home!"
"Subject Kr displays positive responses to both the aging procedure and knowledge implants."
"Like Superman, you deserve a life of your own beyond that solar suit, beyond your pod, beyond Cadmus."
"Since when does the big blue boy scout have a brat?"
"Is this a super-hearing thing?"
"I like your t-shirt."
"So now we take out your trash?"
"Get on board, or get out of the way!"
"I am the Superboy, a Genomorph, a clone made from the DNA of the Superman, created to replace him should he perish, to destroy him should he turn from the light."
"Quit staring! You're creepin' me out!"
"GET OUT OF MY HEAD!"
"We'll, a, we'll figure something out for you. The League will I mean. For now I better make sure they get the Blockbuster creature squared away."
"Give me your best shot."
"Huh. I don't seem to have heat vision, so I suppose helping is my only option."
"Wanna see me channel that anger!"
"I hate monkeys."
"Stay out of our way."
"Sorry Super...boy. Duty calls."
"No capes. No tights. No offense."
"I can read, write. I know the names of things."
"I...choose...freedom."
Superboy is easier. Because of the link they are building and the unity they experienced in the battle with Psimon, she has already seen a great deal of this and it is swiftly wrapped up and placed in a box that shapes itself after his Cadmus pod. Feeling whimsical, she gives it Super-symbol wrapping paper and a red bow.
The remaining foreign memories churn around together, the center of the pool. Robin, Wally, and Artemis' memories, mixed together and intertwined because of the way she retrieved them. This will not be as simple. She will have to pick through the threads and untangle many of them before she can settle them away. While dealing with Aqualad and Superboy's memories had been like riding a gentle breeze, albeit emotionally wrought breezes, this will be like venturing into the thorn hedge from Sleeping Beauty, if the thorns had a life and will of their own.
Cautiously, she dips a probe into the pool and extracts a single memory. It flickers with electricity and twitches a subtle sensation of flight, a joint moment for Kid Flash and Robin.
A small room, computers. Tap-tap under her fingers, the crunch of a protein bar between her teeth. A two-fold sensation of combined competitiveness and easy partnership, knowing that the other has your back.
"That takes some serious nerdage."
The threads are sorted and she gently moves Robin's portion to one side and Kid Flash's to the other. Neither take a true shape yet, floating as small orbs of light, one a deep, soft warm red with wild, golden lightning crackling over the surface and the other marbled in shades of gentle gray, traces of red and green and blue and black swirling and flickering over the surface like a flock of birds against a stormy sky.
Another electric thought, tinged with a deep green focus with sharp edges and an overcast of deep-felt sorrow. Wally's retrospective pain and Artemis' present frustration.
Leaving the awkward shelter of the elevator, stepping out into exposed openness, surrounded by constructs that can't be real can'tbereal.
"Right. You're a Lord of Order."
"Oh, no. Not me. I'm just an old coot Fate used to put on. Until my wife Inza convinced me there was more to life. Ah, she was a real pistol, that Inza. Anywho, Klarion's after the helmet. If he gets his sticky little mitts on it, he'll turn the planet into his own personal playground of pandemonium."
Hard on it's heels comes another, drenched in lightning-wrapped grief and guilt.
Kent Nelson lying on the ground, kneeling beside him, desperate to do something but feeling so overwhelmingly helpless
"I have no idea what I need to do."
"Have faith in what you can't explain. Believe in what you can no longer deny."
Reaching, reaching, reaching, strangely warm metal beneath her fingertips.
"Hey, dumb kid. You put that on, you may never get it off!"
Mind-numbing terror, determination, refusal to be ruled by fear. Not again. Never again.
Pulling out of this one is harder, the pain-strands cling to her self-projection like tendrils of a clinging plant, venomous and reluctant to release their hold. She drops a few deep green sparks to the side for Artemis and bundles the roiling cloud of Wally-memories into the others she has already put aside. They darken the orb, but the lightning still covers the outside, resilient and refusing to be dimmed, made stronger.
It is a perfect picture of how she has always seen Wally. A cover of wild light and exuberance over deeper, darker, calmer, things.
The third memory she selects is green shadows with black sparks and a tangled mess of emotions. Artemis only, no one else connected.
It's been years and she feels like she should be happy but all she can feel is loneliness and a deep-burning anger because you left us with him and now you are back and just like that you want it to be better?
A woman with short-cut black hair and a wheel-chair, love and cynicism and pain and hurt and loss and, deep below, not sure how to live but knowing that it does, a tiny glimmer of hope.
The memory turns Artemis' sparks into a orb, smaller than Wally's and about the same size as Robin's. Black masses like a dust-storm over a rich, forest green that makes M'gann think of the lush vegetation that covers the side of their mountain. Green and growing and everything that is good and whole about Earth, concealed behind a smog that doesn't quite manage to hide what is beneath.
This is something that M'gann loves, seeing these projections, evidence of the essence of her friends, their light and their darkness. Wally's kinetic energy, Robin's mystery and shadows, Artemis' cautious hope...
It's all so honest and M'gann can't take for granted, not after having lacked this level of closeness for her entire life while surrounded by a culture that offered it freely to all others.
"And just like that? We are a team on a mission?"
Determination, exhilaration, anticipation.
"We didn't come for a play date."
More lightning, more haunting cackles.
Family and warmth and closeness.
"Wally's fast enough when he wants to be. We're suddenly out of ice cream!"
"Wally!"
Sharp pang of nervousness, don't want to be a disappointment. Please don't be mad. Don't forget me.
"Ummm, Happy Birthday."
Another dark tone behind the lightning, but it grows brighter in response to both the shadow and the warm wrappings of belonging.
Darkness, tense, alert. Have to find him, have to leave here, everything could be a trap.
Turn around.
But up means out and out means away and away is safe.
Turn around.
Clashing steel. A small child. Quick action. Enemy unconscious. Angry eyes.
"I don't need you to save me. You are unworthy."
"Do you even know who I am, kid? And who are you?"
"You are Al Ta-er Saghir. My father's false apprentice," A sneer on a face so small it is somehow adorable. "And I am Ibn al'Xuffasch, Warith al Ghul."
Shock, wonder, confusion, and Talia, B. Really?
"And someday I shall kill you, and take my rightful place by my father's side!"
Disbelief, amusement, pain and We really don't have time for this right now. Did this kid swallow a thesaurus? Who am I kidding, he's just mimicking what Talia's told him.
"Except you can't."
"What are you talking about, Hasana Raeae?"
"I saved your life. By the laws of the League, you owe me a life debt."
Satisfaction at his dumbfounded look. Slight guild at feeling so smug at pulling one over on a toddler. The urge to get out of this dark place.
M'gann adds the new memory to Robin's orb on auto-pilot, her mindscape feels numb around her, assimilating the new information on its own. The language the angry (afraid) child had spoken is unfamiliar to her, but she is able to pull the translations from the memory itself.
Little Bird. Son of the Bat. Heir of the Demon. Charity trash.
Batman has a son. It isn't Robin.
She has always thought that Batman and Robin were father and son. They have bonds so strong that it seems unbelievable that they are not. Tangible, strong, bright bonds that are so real.
That there is not a blood connection seems…impossible.
There are golden flecks of warm protectiveness and deep, focused love coloring Robin's orb now. Love like M'gann felt from the mother in the supermarket, brushing the dirt from her child's knees and tears from his face. Love and a flowing stream of guilt and "How could I have forgotten them."
M'gann wrestles with her curiosity for a long moment before she turns back to the pool.
Sharp forest fletchings and red-breasted feathers.
Looking up, in the shadows, someone watching, protecting. Sister? Roy?
Looking down, awe, hope, excitement, fear. Looking to the side, dark shadows, small but dangerous.
Run, run, over rooftops, home, safe, heart pounding, breath gasping.
Artemis' orb spikes a brighter green and Robin's shifts and settles.
Speed and static and soft feather-down like a cloud and sharp metal edges to throw.
Laughter, the thrill of the chase.
"So you changed too?"
Running, lightning in her blood and energy crackling within, seeking for release, restraint, an easy pace to match her best friend.
"You kidding? Ugh! I feel naked in civvies. You still tracking the parts?"
Business, focus, checking data, frustration.
"They were heading through Gotham, but they veered- Wait! Dude, they're at my school!"
Disbelief, concern.
Memories shared by Wally and Robin are harder to separate, the strands intertwining with an easy trust and familiarity, the lighting reaching into the shadows and pulling the wary little bird into its circle.
The orbs are beginning to take a cautious shape, Robin's growing longer, more cylindrical and Wally's seemingly unable to decide what form it wants to take.
One last memory should untangle the remnants enough to sort themselves.
Eyes opening, he's standing over her, fear, scuttling back to the wall, bow in hand. Armed, can protect herself.
"Hey it's okay. It's okay. I won't hurt you. I'm one of the good guys. You know, Kid Flash."
Soothing, she doesn't want to frighten the green girl any more. Pride in the symbol she wears and what it represents. Family, ability, worth.
Closing down, wrap up tight.
"Seen Kid Flash on the news. He doesn't wear black."
Confusion, sheepishness.
"Uh, little unclear on that myself. What about you? Green Arrow fixation?"
Startled, fear, confusion, anger, fear-fear-fear
"WHO PUT ME IN THIS?"
Amusement, awkward, She's actually kinda hot, embarrassment.
"Wow. I am not touching that with a 10-foot - uh, so you know how to us that bow?"
Pride. Resignation.
"Yeah, my dad taught me... DAD! He must've done this. Another of his stupid tests."
"What kind of test?"
Pain. Tamp it down, don't feel it don't show it.
"He probably wants me to kill you."
As she tucks the protective speedforce and lonely arrows away the remainder of the pool wavers and slowly vanishes, absorbed into the individual projections.
Kid Flash's settle as a chemistry set like she sees on TV sometimes, each bubbling beaker and tube holding its own memory.
Artemis' take the form of a sleeping cat, striped in a way that no cat she has ever seen looks, a broad grin on its slumbering face, the teeth reminding her of the assassin Cheshire. The cat looks more like a kitten though and she tenderly tucks it into the corner of a mental shelf beside Kaldur's fishbowl.
Robin's orb has become a birdcage, full of brilliantly colored little birds, flitting from perch to perch. The darker memories have formed bats, hanging from the top of the cage, slumbering seemingly unaware of the activity below them. As M'gann forms a stand to hang the cage from, she notices that the door is open and every now and then, one of the little birds will fly down to perch in the opening and look out, before returning to the others. She reaches to close the door but some instinct stops her.
She stands back and looks at them all, these projections of her teammates and feels the overwhelming curiosity again. She strokes Artemis' kitten, wondering...
Just one peek...
A soft knock on the gate of her mindscape.
M'gann? Are you alright? It's been hours."
She pulls back and slowly returns herself to the physical world.
The memories will always be there for later if she needs them.
A/N: As I'm sure those of you who also write know, reviews are a fan-writer's life blood and the bread upon which we live!
So help a girl out and push that nice little button right down there...Let me know what you think, what you are exited about seeing, what you liked and didn't like...