I do not own Batman/Bruce Wayne, Superman/Clark Kent, J'ohn J'ones/Martian Manhunter, Lucius Fox, or Alfred Pennyworth. DC does. Please read this chapter for free.

Basement Under Wayne Tower Eleven Years After Waynes' Deaths

Bruce fell asleep on a non-rolling cot in the medical area of the Wayne Tower basement. Six hours later, enough noise was occurring close enough that he woke before he was fully rested. His brain foggy and temperament rather dark, he grabbed a few of his less-bat-themed weapons and sneaked to the source of the sounds. Then he realized he was hearing Clark's and Lucius' voices. His old teacher was saying "It's amazing what you get done after a quick trip into the sky!"

Then Clark responded with his usual casualness. "We're just lucky it's a sunny fall day."

Bruce stumbled around the corner into their sight with a frown and bags under his eyes. "Sounds like you two have been getting along and hard at work."

Lucius' eyes widened. "Bruce! We thought you'd sleep another few hours."

"I'd like to." He looked to Superman, "What are you doing?"

Clark grinned at him above his blue jumpsuit and large golden "S." "I'm a friend of the Martian's, so I introduced myself to your friend Mr. Fox here and said 'I'm here to help!'"

Bruce blinked. Clark had found a way to finally enter his circle and keep their secret. His attention was diverted from this realization by Lucius. "Bruce, he can melt this metal with heat vision, withstand that heat without protective gear, and cool it with his breath. He just has to keep flying out of here and sunbathe once in a while. This construction project is going 10 times as fast as it would with a whole human team let alone just the two of us."

"I see."

Lucius glanced around at the floor and then to Bruce. "Can you tell the Martian we need more titanium on your way back to bed?"

Bruce raised his eyebrows. "He's moving titanium for you?"

Superman chimed in while studying the curvature of the metal he'd been molding. "He insisted."

Lucius nodded. "He wanted to help, and prove he's ready to take the trip. He's an amazingly fast healer once you get the proper nutrition into him. And his telekinesis ability ..." Bruce's old teacher whistled.

Bruce nodded, turned, and walked away. As he strode down the hallway, he heard wheels ahead, and paused. A cart of titanium bars rolled toward him while a Green humanoid walked beside it holding out a hand toward the cart even though he didn't touch it. The Martian looked away from the cart and met his gaze. His green face became drawn in concern. "Bruce, you look like you need more sleep."

"The roughest part of my night was apprehending and lugging you around."

John frowned slightly and then continued on with the cart. Instead of moving back to bed, Bruce moved to one side of the hallway and leaned against the wall till the alien returned with an empty cart. John stopped to meet Bruce's gaze again. The human looked at the cart and then him. "You found a way to help without being there for the metal melting."

Bruce glanced down to watch the Martian's throat bob in a swallow. He then looked back up into John's red glowing eyes. "What are we sending you back to?"

"I'm not certain. Hopefully my niece and a place with enough life we can both live there."

"You sound doubtful. Perhaps, you, or you and your niece, can travel the galaxy with my contact instead."

John stiffened and stared at him. Bruce continued with a hard stare of his own, "But before I send my friends there with you, or send you with them, I'd like to know where I'm sending them and with whom. I'd also like to tell Waller, if she asks that 'earth does not need to fear Mars."

John walked to the same side of the tunnel as Bruce and sat against the wall some feet from him. When he spoke again, his voice sounded soft yet heavy. "I will share this with you, though I don't think Waller will believe it if you tell it to her. However, it may evoke in her a belief you believe it. Perhaps she will then see you as niave, not a traitor."

Bruce tried to hide how doubtful he was of that considering his earlier meetings with her. The Martian went on. "Mars isn't like Earth, so much life right at the surface. The only life on Mars is ... or 'was' underground in caves connected by tunnels."

"Were Martian communities small and spread apart in different caves then?"

"Yes."

"What destroyed so many of them so far apart?"

"Machines that released flammable gases and sparks to ignite them. Sometimes, they also shot metal projectiles."

Bruce winced. "You said you and your brother survived?"

"Yes."

"Alone?"

"Yes."

"How?"

The Martian sighed. "A large predator snapped its jaws around him. I freed him even though being covered in the creature's mucus made him vulnerable to disease."

"Did he get sick?"

"Yes."

"What about you?"

'I was sent away to hibernate as punishment."

"For saving your brother?"

"For favoring his safety over everyone else's."

"Are Martian diseases so contagious?"

"They were, and quite deadly it seemed then."

"Then?"

"We learned during the war parasites infecting Green Martians died and left us alive if we lived in the colder regions of the White Martians instead of our own."

"That was only discovered during the war?"

"White and Green Martians stayed far from each other until the machines attacked White Martians. Finally, they began to come to us for help. I was also being punished when my home was attacked, because when White Martians came to warn us about the machines, I was the only one who believed them. I came out of hibernation to listen to their warning. One focused on me and let me probe his mind to see he didn't lie. I went against the council's wishes by telling everyone to take the White Martians at their word. They did not."

"Did they wish they listened later?"

"I don't know if they had the time. I sensed my wife, my daughters' experiences of the attack most clearly, though I also felt the deaths of the others as well."

Bruce gave the Martian a long stare. "You 'felt' their deaths?"

"Yes."

Bruce sighed. "That would explain your fear of fire."

"Yes."

"But your brother survived?"

"He joined the White Martians when I warned our people. He was sick, dying. And he longed to stand up for me against those punishing me for saving him. So he went with the White Martians. He came back for me after the fire and told me to come fight with him and the others."

"You don't think your old home is livable now?"

"Everything was burned alive above the water level in the cave, even the water was poisoned."

"I'm sorry. That kept happening to other caves, other communities of Martians, throughout the war?"

"Yes."

"And the White Martians were hit as hard?"

"They were hit first. That's why they came for help."

"But not many helped them?"

"Not unless they believed us or had already been hit. Mostly, those who survived were other sick Green Martians who'd been in quarantine, or those being punished for some reason. It got a bit better the more Green Martians there were to plead our cause, convince fellow Green Martians. Even then, though, few free healthy Green Martians joined us. Most were needed to feed their families until they were all wiped out together."

"Sounds like there was a lot of hate between the two groups."

"Green Martians considered the White ones monsters: selfish, violent, and proud. They considered us weak, incapable of doing much unless we were in groups, afraid of standing up for ourselves as individuals, especially against our councils of elders."

"Was either side right?"

"There was truth in both views and exaggeration on both sides. We ... Green Martians preferred to do things together. But I was surprised how much White Martian families, spouses and children and parents, accomplished together."

"But the war broke the boundary between white and green?"

"White Martians who stayed in their cold caves thinking little of you for generations seem like allies, compared to machines that burn you both alive for no known reason."

"You didn't know why you were being attacked?"

"They had mindless metal bodies. How could we?"

Bruce paused and thought through everything he'd heard. "You're saying, every cave and group of Martians you and your allies knew about was wiped out?"

"Any survivors joined us to destroy more machines. But yes, it seemed like every cave connected to my brother's and mine ... was wiped out, and almost all the White Martians knew of. I think some tried to store their children, like my niece, in small caves incapable of sustaining waking life. But we found one of those ... attacked and filled with the burned dead as well. Not the one my niece was hidden in, though."

"Where did the machines come from?"

"The surface we thought. Then, when we ventured there, we learned they came from a ship in the sky. The last of us made it onto it."

"And what happened there?"

"Before we even reached it, the machines had whittled us down to three, on it, down to two ..."

Ship in Orbit Around Mars 1955

"Why did you do that?" He knelt beside the White Martian slumped against the metal wall breathing shallowly and staring back at him. He stared into his best friend's eyes truly confused. "You are the strongest. You should have saved yourself until the last, to destroy the core of this monster."

"You and your brother together are even stronger than me and more in sync. And ..." The lips above the dimming eyes turned up into a smile. "White Martians aren't always selfish ..."

Anger built up inside him. "You still have a living daughter to get back to!"

The smile fell away, but the eyes grew bright. A large hand snapped up and almost swallowed the back of his head. Then, he was places and with people he'd never been and never knew ... But, he did know them, especially ...

He saw the girl nearing maturity, almost no longer a child, yet still one. Her laugh, so innocent even with her mouth full of sharp teeth that dug into cold almost frozen flesh and then grinned at him for bringing it to her. She danced over ice crystals. She then broke some hanging off the ceiling. Chains of them hung and then spun in the air around her as she spun herself at their center. She lifted her arms and concentrated melting ice to form a house. She turned around and greeted him. She ran to him with open arms, eyes shining with pride at what she accomplished for him on his return, and gratitude for the food he brought her. Then ... a sad memory, they were both grieving swimming down a deep dark, dark tunnel toward a cold, cold, small chamber neither had been before, but sensed was there, sensed was still pure, un-found by the machines. He was being careful to study and memorize landmarks along the way. Then, he was melting the ice forming a place for her in it. Finally, she clung to him, panicking, begging him not to leave her. Mother was gone, was dead, like most of their people. He couldn't leave her too! Couldn't leave her to die alone.

He held her close to his chest tried to steady his heartbeat and breathing to help steady hers, there wasn't much atmosphere in here, so he had to try to preserve it for her. "I'll come back ... I promise. I need you here to come back to. We'll be a family again. You won't be alone. I promise. Now, be a big brave girl like your mother: a big brave White Martian girl. Nestle in and sleep. I'll cover you. You'll keep till I come back."

So, she let go and backed up. She even pushed her back up against the wall of ice and waited watching him. He looked at her, proud, but needing to demand more. "Go to sleep." She closed her eyes. He helped her calm and fall asleep with his own mind till she was truly hibernating. Then, he carefully pulled the water around and over her before freezing it. He then scanned her body to see that her cells had indeed adapted well to their new surroundings. Then he turned and left.

His White War-Brother released his mind. He stared back at him in shock. He'd pushed a few of his memories of his family toward his mind. His White brother had told him with words some of his, but never, never had a White Martian, even this one, shared his mind so with him. The face drawn with pain now, looked back up into his. "Find her. Share those memories with her. And she will know, her father did come back for her. Raise her, like you would your own, save ... giving her what a White Martian needs. Please ..."

He placed his own hand on the large head and rubbed his thumb over the long brow. "I promise."

The white face smiled at him. "Won't it be strange if you are the only three left? Two Green Martians and a White? Go finish this for all three of you."

"I will, now rest. Go to sleep."

The face sagged in sadness, but he felt the form and mind relax beneath his influence going limp, though there was still life there, dimming like the light in the eyes. He sighed and sat next to his dying brother pulling him into his arms crying on his shoulder. Then he felt a small gust of air hit his fingers, and his sense of his brother's sleeping mind disappeared.

He looked up and saw a piece of sharp metal protruding from the back and bottom of his brother's head. He stiffened. He pushed his War-Brother's body back and saw the light in his eyes was gone. Then, he turned to the only other there, who still had an arm partially raised and pointed at his other brother. The Green Martian lowered its arm back to his side under his gaze. He closed his own mouth before asking him, "What have you done?"

His twin glared back. "Did you want a machine to come along and attack us while you're distracted? Or did you want us to leave him alive for a machine to come along and burn? One still might, but at least he won't be alive for it."

His heartbeat increased with rage. His twin kept glaring back into his eyes, his increasing too. "Direct that anger at the machines and mind behind them, brother, not me!"

He nodded. "Yes. Let us finish this." He stood and continued in the direction they finally sensed a mind ... an alien mind behind the machines. As his brother turned to go that way before him, he shouted, "No! I go first!"

His brother turned back to him wide-eyed. "After that promise you just made, shouldn't i?"

"I am strongest! Yes! I finally admit it! I am perhaps the strongest Green Martian there has ever been! I am more enraged, and I will not lose you too!"

He strode past his twin and began pulling the doors keeping them and the alien mind beyond apart. His brother helped. When they opened, more machines flew their direction. He ripped the doors off their hinges and crushed the swarm against both walls before striding on toward that now terrified mind behind all Martian deaths he'd witnessed for so long.

Basement Under Wayne Tower Eleven Years After Waynes' Deaths

"They injured my White Martian War-Brother, so he couldn't continue the fight. I made my promise and went on with my twin."

"Your twin?"

"Yes. Then we went on where we found the captain of the ship, the killer of my people ... I murdered him."

Bruce's brow furrowed and he tilted his head. "Did he have a weapon?"

"No. He'd run out of weapons ..."

Bruce froze. "How did you kill him?"

"I didn't mean to break Private Waller's mind. I 'meant' to break the mind of my people's murderer. It was not as satisfying as I'd thought it would be. I've hesitated to kill even animals here ever since especially with my Martian powers."

"I'm glad to learn that last part ..."

"I didn't realize till it was too late. His ship was programmed if he had a 'medical emergency' to take him to the nearest livable planet he 'hadn't' attacked."

"So, that's how you ended up on earth."

"Yes."

"The ship?"

"I ... didn't do a very good job guiding it down. My brother and I barely survived, we didn't do well in the desert either. We woke up in an army base, a human, American army base."

"That explains a lot."

"Yes."

"Where's your brother now?"

An English accented voice broke in. "Yes, where 'is' the other Green Man from Mars these days?"

Whumptober 20th Prompts Emotional Angst, Shoulder to Cry On, Permission to Die: mostly regarding J'ohn's White War-Martian Brother and his daughter/John's niece.

God bless

ScribeofHeroes