"How is she?" Batman asked J'onn as he looked down through the clear glass roof of the Watchtower's infirmary.
While most infirmaries and hospitals had adequate privacy there was no such thing in the Watchtower's infirmary anymore. Too many disasters had occurred or very nearly occurred while heroes had been in the throes of recovery. Someone always needed to keep an eye out and this was the best way to do it without getting in the way.
The air rippled to Batman's right and J'onn J'onzz quietly materialized by his side. While most would have been shocked Batman knew a phase-shifter lingered nearby, Martian Manhunter was so used to Batman always knowing where he was that it no longer came as a surprise. Besides, there were far more serious matters at hand.
J'onn looked down at the infirmary bay where M'gann lay, his ledged brow puckered with concern and worry. "It was a very close call but she will recover," he said at last.
"Did you know she was a White Martian?" Batman asked.
"No," J'onn admitted simply. "Though, in all honesty, I never suspected her to be anything more than what she said she was. I should have seen right through her green guise, but after she helped me defeat those Kunds I took her at her word and didn't search her mind with the stringency I should have. Tonight I rectified my error and looked into her mind to see if there was anything else I missed."
"And?"
J'onn blew a sigh of relief. "She is who she said she was, she only lied about being a White Martian."
"Why lie?"
Consternation clouded J'onn's normally somber face. "My people are prejudiced towards the White Martians. I hold no hatred against them but that is where I am in the minority."
Batman's frown deepened. "I thought your people had a tribunal of Red, Green, and White?"
"We do, but in name only. It was created in the hopes to bring togetherness and peace after the Triumvirate Wars. Even after the war was over the Green and Red Martians did not stop killing the White Martians. Many of the Red and Greens believed the White Martians had committed too many atrocities to be forgiven. They wanted the whole of them extinct. It was only the creation of the Triumvirate that helped quell the butchery, and even then it didn't stop until the White Martians were on the verge of annihilation." J'onn studied the unconscious M'gann from above. "Perhaps she feared if she showed me she was a White Martian I would have taken her back to Mars."
"Would you?" asked Batman.
J'onn considered the question a moment then sternly shook his head. "No. M'gann has both the heart of a hero and the bravery to act upon her desire to help others. Despite what the rest of my kind believe there are good White Martians. But if I had taken her back the Triumvirate would have let politics cloud the truth. If she goes back now she'll be treated unjustly, far harsher than I was for leaving Mars. However I am aware that she betrayed our trust. The secrets to which she was privy are now in the hands of our enemies. I cannot help but think that it might have been avoided had she told us the truth from the start."
Batman finally turned to look at him, intrigued. "How so?"
"It takes a great deal of concentration for a Martian to shape-shift," J'onn explained. "It's paradoxical but the hardest shifting a Martian can do is to shift into another Martian's colors. Had she not been keeping up the guise of a Green Martian I think she may have been able to use that power to secret away sections of her mind that Perfection wouldn't have been able to find so swiftly. Remember she is the equivalent of an eighteen-year-old in human years. It is difficult to keep many complicated mental tasks as once, especially for one so young."
"So her secret jeopardized the team," concluded Batman.
"I believe so, yes," J'onn admitted gravely. "But I impress that that is only a theory. Perfection could have been too powerful and it wouldn't have mattered. She made a mistake but she did her best to save your undercover team. I hope you consider it in the judgement you cast."
Below them the infirmary room swished opened and Superboy walked inside. He looked bone-tired but at least someone had managed to bring him a new shirt and he had been coerced into taking a shower. That had taken a total of ten minutes though. Now he was back to where he had been since they had gotten M'gann stable – right by her side.
He pulled up a chair to the bedside and sat mechanically. Worry lined his fraught face as he watched her. The rest of the team had come by to see her to check on her progress, but besides for those ten minutes Conner had not left her side.
"I will consider it, J'onn," Batman promised at last. "And a lot more besides."
0000
M'gann dreamed of Mars. It was a strange dream, more like a memory mixed with a dream than a pure dream itself. In her dream-not-dream she was running through the twisting stone gorges of home, trying to get to the bio-ship that had ferried the famous J'onn J'onzz to Earth.
It was the Festival of Awakening and he was celebrating with his family. The bio-ship was all alone, enjoying its own reprieve. M'gann had met the bio-ship on accident when she was seven years old. The Martian Manhunter had been standing trial for a crime he had not committed and the months it had taken to clear his name had found M'gann bonding with the lonely vessel that had sequestered itself in the White Martian's gorge.
The ship had taken a liking to her all those years ago. M'gann had snuck aboard it several times in her childhood and believed now that she was older, sixteen in human years, the ship would gladly take her as a stowaway. But she had to be swift. At any moment the Manhunter could return and if he found her he certainly wouldn't let her come – who would willing smuggle a White Martian off Mars? No, better she hid until it was too late for him to turn around.
The thought galvanized her and she ran faster, moving between the large stone pillars of the underground cavern. The rock was smooth and volcanic and shone like dark glass. As she ran she looked at herself against the cavern walls and saw to her immense relief it was not the White Martian loping along but the human form of her favorite Earth show character Megan.
She would make a pretty decent Earth girl, she thought, and help people like the Manhunter did. A lot of her kind only wanted to hurt others, many of them still ruing their loss in the Triumvirate Wars but M'gann wasn't one of them. That had all been before her time. She wasn't blood thirsty or bitter, she was simply M'gann.
No one outside of her own people saw that though. No matter where she went or who she met, no matter how open or sincere she was the first thing they saw was the chalk-white flesh that marked her as a violent, conquest-hungry monster.
But no more. Not when she could be anyone on Earth. No. More.
"You were truly going to leave without saying goodbye?" A familiar male Martian voice asked her from behind.
M'gann staggered to a stop, her human chest heaving as she whirled around to face the Martian who spoke – her father.
M'aatt M'orzz was over eight feet tall and, when he was walking instead of floating, carried himself with a heavy limp, one gotten in the last of the Triumvirate Wars thousands of years ago. He had been forcefully conscripted into the war but that hadn't made much of a difference. He had still paid the price for fighting on the wrong side.
Still, he was swift and knew those caverns better than she ever would. M'gann had often accompanied him through the treacherous caverns, it was why she was so confident in where she was going and why she thought she could pull off the escape quickly and without anyone noticing.
But when had she ever been able to fool M'aatt M'orzz?
M'gann bit her bottom lip in frustration. No one knew she was planning to run away. She hadn't told a soul. But her father had known anyway. He always knew. "Dad this isn't what it looks like," she liked hastily.
M'aatt said nothing, only arching a singular unscarred brow.
M'gann sighed, her human shoulders slumping. She had often seen that familiar incredulous look in her childhood. She was sure it was universal dad-speak for "do you want to rethink that lie?"
"Well I mean it's…." She shook her head and came clean. "It's exactly what it looks like. I was running away," she admitted defeatedly.
M'aatt fully lowered himself to the ground and limped the rest of the way towards her. "You need not confess to me, dear M'gann. I have known for a long time you planned to run away. You wear your desires fresh on your shirt, that is what the Earthlings say on the television, yes?" her father chuckled. He finally came to a stop in front of her, proud and looming in his White Martian form. He rarely ever shapeshifted.
Kindly he raised a dual-fingered hand and rested it on her shoulder. "So you have decided being the Earth girl from the tv show is what you want."
"It's just the form I'm borrowing," she said hastily. "I'm not her."
"No, you're not," M'aatt agreed gently. "You're M'gann M'orzz."
M'gann sighed sadly. "I know that. Every time I look in a mirror I see that, but that isn't me."
"Are you so sure?" he asked kindly.
Tears burned in the shape-shifted Megan's eyes. "What I'm sure of is that White Martians are supposed to be… be ruthless, cruel, violent warriors and that's not who I am, but that's all anyone ever sees! I can't take it anymore, father. I have to leave. I'll never have the life I want on Mars. All most people will ever see me as is a disgusting White Martian!"
"My dearest daughter though we are shape-shifters by nature, you will always take what you are where you go. You will never not be a White Martian."
"But I can go somewhere where no one knows that. I can do it, father, I can."
M'aatt stroked is daughter's hair and she leaned against him, hugging him tightly for the last time. She hadn't wanted anyone to know that she was gone until it was too late but now she was glad that he had come to see her off.
He wouldn't try to stop her, they both knew that. He didn't agree on her outlooks of being a White Martian but he understood better than anyone the turmoil she felt. "Do what you must, my daughter. You are unlike any other White Martian I know, even your mother. Your heart beats strongly for what you believe, but you are still so young. I hope on Earth, my child, that you find at long last what you have sought, what you could never find on Mars – acceptance for who you are."
0000
M'gann slowly opened her eyes as the memory-dream faded. Her body throbbed with a dull ache and so did her head, but the pain felt muted and far away. Machines beeped and chirped to the right of her and she felt a presence to her left. For a moment her mind was blank, her panic mounting. Had Perfection captured her? Was she a prisoner in one of the Light's testing facilities?
Slowly she cracked open her black and amber eyes and looked around for anything familiar – then, to her left, she saw Conner.
In an instant it all came rushing back, the fight with Perfection, Red Tornado's interference, the team thinking she was an enemy, and then Conner stopping La'gann from attacking her. Without mental warning, without even being able to speak. He had figured it out. He had known.
Conner watched her intently as her eyes focused on his. His eyes widened with a rush of relief but he made no sudden moves.
"M'gann." It sounded like something saying her name from far away.
M'gann blinked twice, not sure if the name had been spoken out loud or in her head but a second later she realized his mouth wasn't moving. He was in her head then, but she could barely feel the connection. In fact she couldn't feel anything but the frail thread that connected them. Somehow it had survived Perfections mental beating.
"Conner." She couldn't keep the relief out of her mental voice. "Where… where are we?"
"Watchtower. We Zeta Tubed here right after bio-ship picked us up." His frown deepened. "You're hurt pretty badly."
"I feel it," M'gann admitted tiredly. "Perfection she… she was too powerful for me. It doesn't feel too bad right now though, like a dull ache from head to toe."
Head-to-toe. She wished she hadn't said it. It brought back exactly what she looked like right to the fore of her mind.
"J'onn gave you some sort of Martian medicine. He also tried to go into your mind and… fix what Perfection broke."
M'gann looked down at her hands, curling them into fists as she tried to shape-sift but to no avail. Her body did not respond to her wishes. "He did not succeed."
"It's alright, M'gann."
"No," she replied weakly, sorrowfully. "It isn't."
"We don't need to talk about it right now," he assured her. "You just woke up. You've been out cold for two days. You should be taking it easy."
M'gann weakly shook her head. "I won't be going anywhere for a while. Will you find J'onn for me? I need to talk to him."
"You just woke up," he protested.
"Please Conner?" she begged. "I have to know what's happened to me."
Conner stared at her pleadingly as if wanting her to reconsider but she held firm. With a nod he consented and slipped away leaving her alone.
M'gann couldn't cry in her Martian form, not the way humans could anyway. Martian crying came in the form of keening, loudly expressing their anguish. She didn't want to draw the attention of the Watchtower to her so fought it back, swallowing down that lump of emotion in her throat as Conner returned with J'onn.
The Green Martian stared at her not angrily but certainly not sympathetically. She tried to reach out to his mind but winced in pain even at the effort. She felt nothing.
"Do not exert yourself trying to link with my mind. You won't be able to harness your telepathy for a time, M'gann." J'onn spoke aloud instead of mind-to-mind.
"That can't be right, I can hear her in my head," Conner said bemused.
J'onn arched his ledged brow. "Truly?"
Conner nodded. "She's talking to me just fine." His brow beetled as he received a mental communication form her. "She says our mind link is weak but not shattered."
"Interesting," J'onn replied in a tone that said he would be privately revisiting that fact later. "And fortunate. If M'gann is willing, you may stay and act as her interpreter."
Conner looked at her questioningly and she nodded in agreement. There wasn't, to her shame, anything left to hide now.
Conner moved towards the chair cozied beside the bed and sat down. M'gann ached to reach for his hand but with a faint glance at her white limb she forced the need away from her mind. She doubted he would appreciate her clutching at his hand with one so queer and alien.
"Ready?" he asked gently.
She nodded faintly. "Ready."
Conner relayed her readiness and J'onn stepped towards the foot of the infirmary bed, staring at her sternly. "I'll try to keep this brief, that way you can get back to resting. While you were unconscious I accessed your most recent memories about the fight with Perfection. We need not go into detail over the altercation, however her power was greatly amplified and while she didn't have Amazo's calculating coldness she made up for it by… thinking outside the box. Perfection harmed you both inside and out. She battered your body but also battered your mental abilities and, for lack of a better word, broke them."
Conner looked from M'gann to J'onn. "She wants to know if it is… permanent."
"Fortunately not. You will make a full recovery," J'onn added quickly. "But it will take time."
"How long?" Conner translated again.
"I honestly don't know. Weeks…months? I do not think a year but it is certainly not out of the question."
A look of alien shame crossed M'gann's White Martian features. "And in the meantime?" Conner asked for her.
Martian Manhunter stood silent. M'gann could tell he was thinking, trying to align the words as best as he could. "Surely you understand there will be consequences for what has happened," he said at last.
Conner didn't reply. M'gann merely nodded.
"Batman is making his choices as we–
"I've already decided on our next course of action," Batman said as he appeared behind J'onn.
J'onn turned and stepped aside revealing Batman's grimly cowled visage. Had M'gann still had her ability to go invisible she would have done so on the spot. J'onn was one thing, Batman another matter entirely.
"This wasn't her fault." Conner spoke in her defense though she had not asked him too. This was all him.
Batman's gaze continued to bore into her. "Perfection wasn't her fault. Lying to us, was."
"She must have had her reasons," returned Superboy.
"Teams aren't built on lies, Superboy," Batman countered. He looked from Superboy to M'gann once more. "And you, M'gann, haven't been fighting at full capacity, have you?"
Silence fell upon the room then she looked away, ashamed.
"She says you're right. She wasn't," Conner translated, his voice cold towards Batman.
Batman ignored his tone. "Was it to keep your guise as a Green Martian in place?"
Conner looked to M'gann. "You don't have to answer him. You don't owe him an explanation."
A brief conversation passed between them and Conner sighed, giving in to her mental request. "She says, yes, that's right."
"You understand then that because you were holding back you put your team in jeopardy?" Batman asked sternly.
M'gann forced herself to look Batman in the eye and nodded. Come what may she wouldn't deny the truth now.
Batman didn't belabor the point nor admonish her. "Because our covert operation failed the Bialyan state-controlled media caught wind of the fight and Red Tornado was filmed flying through their airspace. Whoever this Perfection is working for stole all of your memories and has no doubt given them over to our enemies. As such I've decided to disband the team for–"
Conner jumped to his feet but didn't leave M'gann's side. "You can't do that!"
"For," Batman continued on, sterner than before. "Several months to a year. The length of time it should take you to recover."
Conner looked to M'gann then back at Batman. "She wants to know if she's been removed from the team."
"No," Batman said flatly.
M'gann saw the look of surprise in J'onn's eyes. Evidently he hadn't expected Batman to make such a bold choice.
"Despite the disaster you didn't abandon your team, M'gann. It showed great courage, especially after what Perfection did to you," Batman explained.
"So why are you disbanding the team?" Conner demanded to know. "Perfection is still out there."
"Perfection is no longer your concern," Batman replied coldly. "The League will handle her. And the team's disbandment is for the safety of its members, not as a punishment. The intrusion into Miss Martian's mind revealed all the classified information she had access too. Every scrap of Mount Justice's security will have to be revamp and the team must be scattered to protect you from the Light."
Conner's eyes narrowed dangerously. "The rest of the team may have to scatter but me and M'gann are adults. We don't have to go where you order us, Batman. I'm not going into hiding. I'm not leaving M'gann."
"You need to go underground, Superboy, but you and M'gann will not be separating," Batman reveled. "In her weakened state she will need someone to watch over her. She can't shape-shift, she isn't going back to Mars, and she can't stay here. Our Zeta Beam coordinates were compromised as well." He looked from Conner to M'gann then back again. "You will both be staying in Rhode Island. There is a defunct safehouse about three hours away from Mount Justice – close enough if we need you but far enough and obscure enough that no one will think to look for you there. There are no longer any security measures or safeguards there which is why we chose it, no one will think to look for it but while M'gann heals and the security measures for the cave are put into place you two will be on your own.
"You need to understand that this failed mission has not only put your team in danger but our team as well. Until we figure out how to stop Perfection You will lay low and you will follow orders or you'll find that the Young Justice will be disbanded permanently and all the work you've done in securing a way for young heroes to make a greater difference in the world will have been for nothing."
Conner opened his mouth to protest but Batman turned on his heel and left. J'onn stared at M'gann and Conner for a heartbeat longer then he too departed leaving the pair alone.
Conner cursed darkly as the infirmary door suctioned shut behind them and sank back into the chair. Frustration and anger brooded in his blue eyes.
"It could have gone worse," M'gann offered timidly.
Conner leaned back in the chair, shaking his head. "I don't see how."
"They could have put me on a one-way trip back to Mars," M'gann said wryly.
Softness suddenly lightened the grim scowl on Conner's face. He leaned over and touched her alien hand. "I wouldn't have let them."
M'gann felt warmth spill into their connection. It helped brace her and for a moment it was as if they had never been apart at all. "I know you wouldn't," she replied then as his hand gripped an elongated finger she felt a familiar sadness suddenly skitter across her heart and slowly pulled her hand away from his touch. "At least, before my secret was revealed, you wouldn't have."
An oppressive, heavy silence once more smothered them. Conner's face was unreadable and M'gann dreaded it. "So this is what you wouldn't tell me?" He finally asked but it wasn't really a question.
M'gann nodded wordlessly. She looked down at her chalk white form, her long bony arms and her two-fingered hands and hated every part of herself. "I am a White Martian, the lowest of the low on Mars. A White Martian, so unhuman we horrify most people in this Solar System." The ridges on her brow bunched sadly and she wrapped her right arm protectively around her tall, lanky body, her dual fingers easily gripping her scalloped shoulder. "How could I tell you that this is what I am? How could I let you tell others that I was your girlfriend? How could I lay in your bed at night and let you think I was some green version of Hello Megan when in reality I was this? It wouldn't have been right. You needed to know the truth, I just couldn't tell you. I was afraid you'd be grossed out or horrified. I knew I would lose you completely when you saw me for the monster I am."
"You're not a monster," Conner denied passionately through the mental link. "I don't care about what you look like, M'gann."
M'gann looked down at her long white Martian hands, not wishing to stare into his face anymore, not wishing to see herself in the reflection of his blue eyes. "There has never been anyone, on Mars or Earth who didn't care what I looked like, Conner. On Mars I was alienated because of my white skin. White Martians were responsible for destroying the surface world in the Triumvirate Wars. Anyone of us born with white skin is seen as accursed and hideous and blood thirsty. And on Earth I look like the thing you kill with fire at the end of a movie. No matter which way I turn all I see is a monster. All my life I've been told that's what I am."
"You're M'gann."
"I'm M'gann the White Martian, not M'gann niece of J'onn J'onzz. I've lied to you and the whole team. I've told you that I was something that I wasn't. Don't tell me you haven't thought about that."
"M'gann, for two whole days all I've thought about is how I'd give up everything that I am if you would just wake up."
M'gann continued to look at her hands, afraid to look him in the eye. "I wish I hadn't."
He tried to look her in the face and she turned her head further away. "All because of this, your true form?" he asked gently. "Do you really think anything has changed?"
"Yes, something has changed, Conner. My identity… what could ever be between me and you… all of it has changed." He felt her mental words waver. "Now that you know I'm a White Martian what is it you really think?"
Conner did not respond right away. The silence mounted with agonizing slowness. She trembled, afraid to look at him, then he reached out again and grabbed the hand that wasn't wrapped around her shallow chest, holding it at the base of the fingers. "I think that you're everything that means anything to me in this world."
"You can't mean that, Conner, look at me!" sobbed M'gann.
"I have for two days." Conner squeezed her hand. "And I want us to be together again."
M'gann finally looked up and met his eyes. The strength and warmth within his blue gaze enveloped her. It might have saved her once, when she had been green M'gann, but it couldn't save her now. Her strange diamond shaped eyes looked away from him and she shuddered and shook her head. "I'm sorry Conner. I don't think I can. You don't deserve a monster."
"That's really what you think?" he asked gently.
She nodded wordlessly.
"M'gann–
"Please Conner, just… not now," she whispered, hoping he didn't hear the tremor in her mental link. A lifetime on Mars had taught her the truth.
The Boy of Steel didn't want to let the conversation drop. His brow furrowed contentiously and his mouth dipped into frustrated frown. M'gann knew from experience he didn't let things go easily, stubborn man that he was. That was often his biggest asset and his biggest flaw, but, finally, he relented.
The determined look in his eyes however told M'gann that the conversation, while done for now, was far from over. He wasn't about to give up.
But how could it not? She wondered dismally. His emotions were charged, that's all it was. Once everything died down he would come to his senses and realize the truth – she was a White Martian monster and that was all she would ever be.