Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

[March 16th, Team Year Seven]

Conner squints and shields his eyes against the fluorescent light. The clothes on the racks don't change in size. People come that tiny—start out that way, usually—intellectually, he knows that. His eyes still go to his hand as he brings it down from his forehead, looking for sense in how it compares. He makes a fist.

Behind him, M'gann yelps and steers their cart into a display at his right, the plastic packs of diapers wisping against the metal as they slide to the front. They slide back towards M'gann as she slips the cart out from the parted curtain of mini-clothes.

One ensemble falls to the floor. M'gann reaches for it just has Conner does—Conner grabs it first. He looks it over: a starched pinstriped shirt, a shining red bowtie, a straw-toned tweed vest, and a pair of rolled-up khakis, with replacement buttons in a tiny bag behind the price tag. The numbers don't register, just how the whole outfit laid flat in his palm barely drapes past his wrist or fingertips.

"Should we get it?" M'gann asks.

Conner frowns as he thumbs at the fabric of a sleeve, paper-stiff and plastic-slick. Some strange impulse to crumple the whole thing in his hand, hanger and all, passes through him, and out of him as soon as he recognizes it. A reminder from his body that he could, he figures, and that he shouldn't, or—

"How are we supposed to know what he'd want?" Conner blurts out, satisfyingly. His eyes unlock from the clothes, free to ease up back to M'gann.

M'gann sighs, hands on her hips as she casts a look out over the surrounding sea of early life apparel. "I really wish I had been at the shower—to get a frame of reference, of course, for what they already have—but for babies, it's pretty hit-or-miss." She puts a hand to her chin. "LIke for one thing, Raquel says Amistad hated overalls until he figure out how to work the straps himself, and now it's a big production getting him back into his pajamas at night. They're still forming their personal tastes, not to mention physically growing, so—"

M'gann cuts herself off with a hand over her face, muffling a snort. Conner waves his fingers at her through the neck and sleeves of the tiny shirt, feeling the fabric give now with something alive in it.

"It fits," he jokes.

"Like a glove!" M'gann exclaims, clapping her hands together.

"Yeah." Conner slides the shirt back off of his hand and onto its hanger, placing it back into its open spot on the rack. "Think I'll stick with mine, though."

"Anyway..." M'gann rolls her eyes, smiling, and returns her hands to the handle of the cart. "Babies never like everything they're given, so what matters is giving them a wide selection to choose from," she says as she gets moving again, steers the cart around and past Conner to wade out further with it into strange waters: pools of pink and blue on either side of an invisible line. No signs, but clear suggestions. Soccer balls and dinosaurs in blue, tiaras and butterflies in pink. Conner shrugs and catches up with M'gann just as her steps slow. She parks the cart beside a rack of hand-sized polo shirts, all the same navy blue.

They're getting warmer, Conner thinks, relieved at the sight. If they decide one shirt is right, then they can get a dozen.

M'gann looks less than assured, thumbing at her chin as her eyes wander. "...Or at least, we need to think about the parents and what will make it easier. I know Bart's dad and aunt apparently figure out how to burn through their footie pajamas by kicking with superspeed, so Iris switched them to these long gowns that tie at the end, and—"

"—Yeah, I don't think we're supposed to call them that," Conner says, hand on his hip as he lets himself smirk.

M'gann blinks at him with curiosity. "'Gowns'?" She matches his smirk with one of her own. "...'Footie pajamas'?"

"Bart's dad and aunt."

"Oops, spoi—" M'gann moves to bop her head but just shakes it instead, leaving her hand hanging halfway in the air as she snickers. "I guess he's rubbing off on me!"

"Explains the 'Hello Megan's," Conner says as he reaches for one of the uniform shirts. "Guess it's mutual."

He lifts the shirt off the rack by its hanger with two fingers. Good weight. Soft collar. Two buttons to undo at the top for neck room—three's better, but there's only so much space on a smaller scale, he figures.

"Actually..."

Shirt still hanging in his hand, Conner looks back at M'gann as she bites her lip, her eyes to the floor. She shrugs her shoulders and smiles. Conner looks to the floor as well, trying to find where the smile was aimed.

"Never mind." M'gann shakes her head, looking off at nothing—or just at something Conner can't discern. After all, there's plenty to look at.

Conner stifles the urge to ask if Hello, Megan! survived the Reach Apocalypse in Bart's original timeline—there are some things he'd rather not think about. He hangs the shirt back onto the rack, feeling less secure, the more he thinks about it, in his idea of buying a set of all the same shirt. A little variety, he thinks instead. That's what Wally said, at least, when they were shopping for Superman's—

"—Too much?"

Conner blinks. The shirt M'gann holds up to show him blinks back at him, pink glitter and sequins dotting its surface. The white unicorn at its center is silhouetted, almost like an emblem. It'd be a joke if Wally was showing it to him, but even through her smirk, M'gann seems earnest: her fingers keep fluffing out the tulle skirt attached to the shirt at the bottom, trying to make it look its best.

"I mean..." Conner tries it on in his head. It looks bright, colorful, and overall special enough to be worthy of—of who they're shopping for, but the tiny, stiff sequins stuck to fluttery netting would scratch at the insides of his arms, he thinks. He'd—he'd—lose it.

Watching M'gann play with it, though, makes touching it look like some kind of fun, if not his own kind.

"...You're not gonna shift down to fit that, right?" Conner jokes.

M'gann coughs out a laugh and fumbles with the shirt, catching it before it can fall to the floor. "N-no!" she responds, laughter shaking her voice. "I-I'm just... evaluating its structural integrity, that's all," she lies, eyes flicking at him just as brightly as the sequins.

"That's the thing, though." Conner gestures to the tulle. "He yanks on any of that, he'll rip the shirt in half."

"You're right," M'gann half-sighs, half-sings as she puts the shirt back, but the consternation in her face turns real as she looks around again. "That's... everything in here, though, isn't it?"

"Uh..." Keep it simple, Conner thinks, and he won't want to tear it up. If he himself were a baby—

—It's his best guess, anyway.

"...Yeah," Conner mutters.

"What if I..." M'gann opens her mouth then snaps it shut. "Mmn."

"What?"

"I could always make him a Martian collar, like... w-well, that would—still tear, eventually, but... not as easily." M'gann's hands cross at her stomach, thumbing at her wrists. "But I..."

M'gann trails off. Conner stares at her. M'gann stays silent, and her eyes don't pick back up from the floor this time. Conner squints again under the lights, looking for even a trace of the smile that should be there.

"No way I'm giving him a collar," Conner then says—less tactfully than he would have wanted, but he had a space to fill—no time to think. "Thanks," he adds quickly. "For, uh... offering."

M'gann swipes a lock of long hair behind her ear and smiles back up at him, cheeks turning pink under her spray of orange freckles. "I was just... thinking out loud. But realistically, I really wouldn't have wanted to risk the psychic connection affecting a human infant's mi—"

"Kryptonian."

M'gann's cheeks flare pinker as she winces. Conner averts his eyes, presses his mouth shut—the words still feels firm and heavy, steel-like on his lips. It should feel better than this. By now, it should—it was, it did, but—

"Did... I say 'human'?" M'gann asks quietly.

"It's fine," Conner says straight into her eyes—glares into her eyes, he realizes, and he swallows, trying to soften his face back to how he wants it to look.

"Oh-kay!" M'gann cheers as she rubs her palms together then takes hold of the cart again. She smiles at him softly but wholly, almost disarmingly happy again as she pushes the cart past him, gesturing with a tilt of her head for him to keep moving, too.

The curve of her cheek under the crinkle of her eye lingers in his mind even with her back to him now. He's doing something right, he thinks as his own cheeks warm, if he can get that look from her.

What more he's doing right than that, however, he's not quite sure. He follows behind M'gann, skimming past more options, more choices. Baby boots—rainboots, it registers—catch his eye. Something simple and sturdy. Another something he'd like if this trip was for him. It isn't. It's for...

...His mind won't even let him think in names. The son of Superman. That's a title, a symbol—both of them are, "son" and "Superman."

He may not look any different than before Kal was his brother, but to not think any different—

"—I don't like the name of this store," Conner says aloud—and loudly, he realizes. "Messes with my head," he adds, more to himself.

"It is kind of strange that Forever Sixteen would have a baby section," M'gann responds over her shoulder. "I'm... honestly not sure how to feel about the kind of message that might send." She returns to looking straight ahead and shrugs. "Younger... siblings, maybe?"

That doesn't help, Conner thinks, feeling his teeth clench. All the same, he makes the effort to respond. "Maybe."

"Wait."

M'gann freezes. Conner gulps.

M'gann then looks back at him with eyes sharp and eager, though they soften again as they settle into his, and she giggles quietly from the top of her throat. "We have to. You know we have to at least take a peek."

"Peek at what—oh." Past the top of M'gann's head, Conner spies the superhero display against the back wall. Without a second thought or second look back at M'gann, he's going; the wheels of the cart roll along close behind him, in time with the patter of M'gann's excited footsteps. The colors coming at him now aren't arbitrary like the pink and blue divide—they're real, more familiar, and they mean something.

Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash...

"Oh... I was hoping Uncle J'onn had a shirt." M'gann's voice tickles Conner's ear as she takes her place beside him. "Or at least a thermos. Something to have for him when he gets back." A hand goes to her hip. "Is a red 'X' just too simple? Because on Mars, it's a very potent symbol of our strength via our interconnectedness and unity."

Conner raises his eyebrow at her. It's all he needs to do, if that—her eyes are already flicking down over a sinking smile, and she draws her lips in tight.

"It's a... nice thought, anyway," she adds.

"Central City's was bigger," Conner states, unsure of what other comment to offer. "The, uh, superhero section, at their Forever Sixteen, I mean." He rubs the back of his head. "Nothin' Super in black here either."

M'gann's eyes widen with what he would think was delight if he could guess a reason why. She tucks whatever thought is in her head behind a quick breath of a giggle, though a smile still dents her cheeks. "Well, of-of course, I mean, they have a hometown hero—at least, one they know about, so of course they're a little more... enthusiastic, about us."

"Guess it was seven years ago, too," Conner adds.

Brow furrowing, M'gann looks to the side and nods to herself. Noted, she mouths—the word hovers just close enough under the surface of her breath that he can tell.

Then her heartbeat at the edge of Conner's perception seems to catch on the word, and Conner forgets that there's anything else to look at but her. Gar's on her mind. He doesn't need her powers to sense it, or even his own—it hangs over her like a cloud, palpable but not quite tangible. If it was, he'd pull it down. His hands twitch at his sides.

And then once again, it shifts, dispels too fast for Conner to understand or believe it, as M'gann reaches for a pacifier with a black bat wing stuck atop either side of its yellow guard. "Oh-ho-ho, no!" she exclaims, smacking the side of her face as she holds it up.

"Is that a... Bat-Pacifier?" Conner can't help but comment—its pull is too strong. He takes it without hesitation as M'gann passes it off to him.

"Bat-Binky," M'gann answers, her face glowing with delight. "Should we?"

"Uh..." Conner blinks at her, having already forgotten what he's holding.

"For Dick."

Conner furrows his brow hard enough at M'gann that he thinks Ma would scold him, tell him his face could get stuck that way. "You know something I don't?"

"I meant as a gag gift, silly," M'gann says, rolling her eyes with a satisfied smile. She's okay, Conner concludes—has to, with no other steady read on her. She keeps shifting, but then shifting back—to happy.

That's him, Conner lets himself think for a moment, and suddenly the sun is in his chest instead of a heart.

At least, it always used to be him.

And with that thought, his heart is just a heart again, but the warmth lingers in his bones.

"I dunno, Artemis already started doing this stuff before us," Conner says, teases. "She might've already..."

M'gann gasps softly and then slowly nods, but doesn't lose her smile. "...Good point." She punctuates the response with a giggle, shoulders rising up towards her ears.

The Bat-Binky stays pinched between Conner's thumb and forefinger, hovering just beside M'gann's face in his vision. It's only when M'gann finally blinks at looks away, hand returning to her hair, that Conner's hand remembers that all it's holding is a baby toy, not anything precious. He sets the binky back where M'gann had found it, a shelf littered with baby Bat-Gadgets. His elbow rustles what's on the rack beside it: a line of small white Super-Suits, each specially designed to absorb the yellow sun radiation inside Project Kr's pod.

No.

"...Conner?"

M'gann's voice is a whisper, a crackle in Conner's ear. Past it is just silence, or something emptier—a low mechanical him. His own pulse, clockwork, even if it ticks away at nothing—time doesn't move. He doesn't move—

—Until he does again, shaking away the white haze settling into his head. Blinks—remembers to, even if his eyes sting at first.

"Here," Conner says to her—about himself, but her hand following his as he reaches towards the rack of footie pajamas tells him that he must have confused her. She pulls away though, as with a slow and precise touch, he turns the top hanger over to leave the white suit's blank side on display instead.

Empty, but open.

M'gann's fingertips skim the edge of his palm at his side. Conner feels a corner of his mouth quirk up into a smile at the touch. He looks down, and M'gann has already locked her hands behind her back. The dread sets back in.

"Guess nobody can hurt the League's rep enough to keep people from wanting their kid to be..." Conner's eyes fall back to the suits. "...You know."

[Superboy, B04,] the computer announces as Conner steps through the zeta tube. It repeats itself as he arrives on the Watchtower, following up M'gann's designation. The golden light around him fizzles into pieces at the edges of his vision then flickers out like well-blown candles, but for a moment, the atoms of his head and stomach still feel scrambled. He clenches empty fingers around air in one hand, and around paper-thin handles in the other.

He's zeta'd a hundred times and come out the other side intact; a rush of adrenaline still hits his system at the thought of needing to check the bag. He yanks its two sides apart, barely holding himself back from tearing it in half—some part of him thinks it, anyway, makes him imagine the sound of the rip and the feel of the split. All he sees at first is its red insides—he shoves his hand in and feels through the tissue paper for each item wrapped within it, stirring a storm of crunches and crackles around in his head.

"Conner, it's fine."

Conner's eyes snap back up to M'gann. Her honey-brown eyes fall soft and warm over him, but he keeps his brow furrowed.

"They're going to love what you got," M'gann elaborates on her assurance. "So will he," she adds with a wink, popping one shoulder up and scrunching her nose.

Conner sighs through pursed lips. "Yeah," he responds, wrapping his fingers around both handles again and giving the bag a shake just to hear and feel its weight. The wave of anxiety crawling up his skin fizzles out like the zeta light, sparing M'gann the specifics and himself the embarrassment of having to explain.

"After all," M'gann adds all the same, voice syrupy with sympathy, "they'll love it because it's coming from you."

Conner huffs a half-laugh out through his nose. "Think I'd rather it just be good," he mutters, honestly but purposefully deadpan, and M'gann giggles, bats the outside of his arm with featherlight fingertips, and then returns her hand to the other at her back. She sways in place for a moment as her gaze drops slowly to the floor, and Conner watches her bite her lip, bring a hand back out to push away hair from her face. M'gann smiles back up at him.

Conner stares at her until, on a heel, M'gann spins and turns her back to him. Only then do his eyes remember the need to blink. M'gann takes her first few steps away from him, and at first, it's right. It's natural—understandable, at least. Their mission, such as it was, is over. They separate now, like after any mission. Go back to their rooms, their work, their lives. M'gann's hands curl into each other at the base of her spine, and tips of her hair flick one way, then the other, as she walks away. For a moment, all Conner can do is watch them as they swish. Then, he opens his mouth.

"I, uh..."

M'gann's whole body blinks like a light at his voice. She whips around to face him again in an instant, and her feel flop against the floor and over each other as she rushes back to him, eyes wide and attentive, toothy smile curling with a gasp.

Conner feels his heart skip a beat. "I, uh," he repeats, and he rubs the back of his head with his free hand. "Got all my shop hours in for the week."

M'gann says nothing in response, just blinks at him curiously.

"...'Shop' as in 'workshop,'" Conner adds, fighting back a grumble at himself. "Not, uh, what we were just..."

M'gann's eyes widen, and her pink cheeks darken a shade. "Oh, I'm... I'm all caught up on clinic hours, too," she says, punctuating her response with a heh-heh and a tenuous smile. "Why do you ask?"

"Uh..."

Blinking her eyes wider, M'gann presses her mouth shut tight, and Conner can hear the hard thump of her heart in her chest. "Not that you... asked anything, but..."

"Tonight."

"T-Tonight?"

Conner nods and swallows, resist the urge to stomp the words out. "If you're not busy, anyway," he manages only upon looking away from her. The Watchtower's walls stretch up higher than he could ever jump—or at least look so from where he stands. "You and me, just—"

"Y-You and me?"

Conner frowns up at the fuzzy distant ceiling then looks back at M'gann. Somehow, seeing his own anxiety reflected back at him in her face makes him realize how ridiculous it is. "It's not like we didn't just... you know."

"I..." M'gann's eyes dart off to silver walls or to space, and then come back to him. "is there... something else you'd like me to... tag along for?"

"No." Yes, maybe, but he's even less ready to ask her for that. "Just... you know."

Wordlessly, M'gann gives him a tiny but earnest shiver of a head-shake.

A date, Conner thinks loudly inside his own skull just to hear how it sounds before he says it. The word should feel so foreign behind his clenched teeth. It wouldn't be their first date, wouldn't have to be—anything—maybe it's not the word to use. Too soon, the wrong time, the wrong way to ask—the wrong reason—two days until he meets him. Two days until his world changes—the world, the universe already has. Another Kryptonian.

The last thing he should be feeling right now, he knows, is alone.

M'gann, on the other hand, has a reason to, and he can't change what the reason is, but he can give them both a reason not to.

"No mission," Conner says aloud, and the word feels correct to say even if only to call it wrong. "I'm not askin' for a favor," he continues, another feel-good rebuttal. "All I mean is just us, back down on Earth, for a..."

M'gann looks at him like the fate of the world is in his hands.

Somehow, that steadies him.

"...Night," Conner calls it for now, smiling at the simplicity. He'll decide what else it's been when it's done. "For a while."

M'gann's eyes spark with joy even before a smile can reach her lips. "Y-yes!" She gasps out a breath, shaky laugh. "I mean... of course! I'd lov—ah... really... really would like that, absolutely—sure!"

"Okay," Conner says, if only to stop the yesses. M'gann's face beams a bright, almost painful-looking red, like she's too close to heat. Instinct puts him a footfall backward—M'gann's smile blips out of her face like a glitching screen then comes back half as bright lips curling inward.

"I just need—fifteen minutes, tops, I promise," M'gann then says proudly.

Conner furrows his brow. "I said night. It's still daylight. We were just there." The moment he says it, though, his mind puts a golden tint over his last view of Happy Harbor's sky, already cloudy, its brightness not what it could have been—any thought to speed up the clock.

"Oh... right," M'gann whispers, pinching her lips together. "...Sixteen minutes, then," she then says, her teeth peeking out of her smile again.

Conner smiles back and scoffs. "Right."

M'gann's hand goes to the side of her head, heel of her palm bopping it. "Well—see you soon!" She lifts off from the floor and floats away, one foot popping up behind her in the air as she heads towards the dorms.

Far off to his right, Red Tornado swipes through screens, dragging them into clusters in the air. Without any provocation—other than the sudden silence, Conner figures—Tornado pauses, turning his head in Conner's direction, and lifts one hand up from a screen.

Thumbs-up.

"Uh." Conner's own cheeks pick up the ghost of the heat of M'gann's. "Thanks."

Chapter Text

[March 16th, Team Year Seven]

She can't pin the feeling on rose-tinted lighting. The light emanating from the room's central hub—the bar—is moss-green with touches of a bluish purple—familiar, in a way, even thought it's her first time here. She can't blame her drink either, as she takes only her third sip; all the same, M'gann can't help but feel something like a pink fuzz tickling at the edges of her vision. The warmth in her cheeks feels strong enough to chafe her skin, and it seems to seep out past her to traverse the closeness, the mere inches of cracked vinyl and stained wallpaper and sticky tabletop between her and Conner, to frame Conner as he sits across from her in their island of a booth, no one else at either of their backs. Conner eyes his own drink curiously, frowning pensively as he rattles the ice cubes around in the glass with his straw.

Laughter and uninhibited voices have been rising and falling in swells against traces of faint and fuzzy speaker music, but he's stayed quiet since the two of them sat down with their drinks. And because he has, she's stayed quiet, too.

It's not an entirely comfortable silence. For one thing, they've sat too close to the front door, and she managed to seat herself facing the exit sign. Its fire-red letters glower down a message at her that's both a command and a promise of the inevitable. Conner's knee juts out past the edge of a booth not quite built for someone of his build, and it only adds to the feeling that the two of them are on the edge of something. Storming out of the bar, shuffling out timidly with their heads down—joining in on all the strangers' laughter, sinking into the haze of warmth around them for hours, tumbling out of this crevice and right down onto each other and the carpet below—

—Some of them are dangerous thoughts, she knows. But whenever her eyes break from tracing the dim, cool shadows of Conner's face or the contours of his fidgeting fingers, the thoughts are at least entertaining enough for her to let pass through her head. She can feel her lip curl into a smile against her own skin as she presses her cheek deeper into her palm, keeping her head propped up by her arm atop the table.

Conner had actually asked her out on a... "night, for a while," as if the day hadn't been enough. Even without a connection to his mind, M'gann could sense his mouth chasing away the very shape of the word "date"—she pushes it out of her own head in kind. He'd wanted to keep spending time with her, just her, and spend it somewhere other than the Watchtower. Nothing about that is anything she's willing to challenge by assigning it such a divisive, decisive word.

"Okay." Conner lifts his glass off of the table, pulling off the soggy napkin sticking to its base. "On a scale of one to ten, how much do you think I'll like this?"

M'gann straightens up her posture, her heart having skipped a beat at the return of Conner's voice. "Hmm! Well, I know you like sweets, and it honestly doesn't taste much different than a regular strawberry lemonade. In fact, I seem to recall Zatanna dubbing it 'Baby's First Booze.'"

Conner pauses with the top of the straw pinched between his fingertips, and he raises an eyebrow. "Not sure how I feel about that."

Hel-lo, Megan! Baby is a loaded word right now—how could it not be? M'gann sighs at herself internally—aloud, she hums a quick giggle through closed lips. "Well, if it means anything... while I haven't tried much else other than this, this is still the only thing I really like."

"Hm." Conner's eyes drop back to his glass, and his mouth once again takes the shape of a contemplative frown. His ice cubes have started to melt into soft shards, and though tempted to warn him that what he's got won't taste like much of anything by the time they disappear completely, M'gann simply leads her mouth back to the tip of her own straw. The patterns of diamonds, stripes, and flowers on the wall beside her are busy enough in their design, and the lighting dim enough to make her eyes search for them, for her to stay occupied through another spell of silence.

But motion quickly pulls M'gann's eyes back over to Conner as he plucks the straw out of his glass. A soft oh! escapes her mouth as Conner downs a large gulp of hard strawberry lemonade, his lips to the rim and his head tilting all the way back.

He keeps his head tilted back. His glass returns to its coaster with remarkable precision—his hand finding it either by touch or by memory—but seemingly as much as possible, Conner keeps his face out of M'gann's view. Where before, time had been slipping along softly but steadily, now, all the seconds that should be proceeding as scheduled pile up behind this wall of a moment. M'gann's eyes trace up Conner's neck and stop at the top of his throat, waiting to see his expression—or even a sign that he's actually swallowed—and the suspense brings her legs out form underneath the table to prop her up against the top of her creaking seat. It might be an old bad mindset that makes her so desperately want to know what he's thinking, to want in his head when he's not ready to share, but she has a sneaking suspicion that he's deliberately hamming it up, and the thought of that being the case is almost more fascinating than his actual opinion on flavored malt beverages.

Conner drops his face back down into view to answer her curiosity. And when he does, it's with a mouth skewed tightly into a lopsided grimace, and a brow furrow in what M'gann can only discern as being somewhere between utter disbelief and utter despair. Her own brow furrows sympathetically, but something—still too soon to be her own drink, but that same kind of warmth, and maybe that corner of Conner's mouth quirking up as he meets her stare—tells her that it's okay for her to laugh.

And by "okay," that something must mean "exactly appropriate," or even "vital," because M'gann finds herself sliding back down to her seat in a fit of hiccuping laughter, the noises barely containable by her palm pressing now into her bare teeth. She wraps an arm around her shaking ribs to hold them in place, and her eyes have to leave Conner's face for a moment in order for her to regain her composure. Staring into the face of the napkin holder instead, M'gann asks on a still-weak breath, "What did you think?"

"Think I could clean my grease rags with this," Conner says succinctly, prompting M'gann to snort. Pressing her knuckles against her nose, she manages to hold back the next round of laughter that threatens to erupt from her when Conner, amazingly, decides to take another sip, and manages to make the exact same expression as before. "Tastes like candy dipped in acid," Conner adds. "Like pure syrup and burning, how does this not burn you?"

"It's a good burn," M'gann responds before a deep breath, and her hands return to the sides of her cold, sweating glass for stability. "Or burning sensation, I guess. I don't think it could actually burn anyone, at least not on its own."

"I guess if it could it would be you," Conner says as he drops his straw back into his drink, leaving it to bob and spin around as it settles.

"Well, technically," M'gann responds, once again taking hold of her own straw, "susceptibility to heat doesn't necessarily carry over to corrosive chemicals."

"So you admit this is a corrosive chemical."

M'gann narrows her eyes in mock displeasure but with a smile she couldn't shake loose from her face if she wanted to. She then takes her longest sip of the night so far.

"Slow down," Conner says. M'gann releases her straw from her lips and rolls her eyes.

"I'll have you know it takes two or three of these before I get woozy!" she declares. It's something he doesn't already know, she realizes once she's said it. "We've... never actually drank together, have we?"

"Not alcohol." Conner lifts his glass a hair's breadth off its coaster, turns its cylindrical form around in his hand, and sets it back down. "I don't even really know what it does to Martians."

"Hm, nothing special, I don't think." M'gann repeats the motion with her glass that Conner made with his, even if somewhat absentmindedly—the grooves along its exterior simply feel satisfying to rub her fingertips against. "I haven't really ever had much at one time, and if Uncle J'onn's got any embarrassing stories to tell about his experiences with alcohol, he hasn't told them to me." M'gann breathes a laugh at herself at the thought of what J'onn's first taste of a burning Earth beverage must have been like—she had the good fortune of making it to Earth as a teenager, at an age where she may have had the potential to already know, but not as strong of an expectation. "I, uh... would worry about having too much," she adds, "since I know it affects concentration—if you shouldn't get behind the wheel of a car at a certain blood alcohol level, imagine me with Bioship." She giggles at herself even louder. "Loop-de-loops in the sky!"

Her mind's also a problem—and it supplies her with that very thought as a reminder the moment she lets her giggling end. She can't ever let herself get to a point where she can't hold back its power. But not the time, she tells herself as the burn in her throat starts to hurt more than tickle. Her fingers slide down the cool shaft of her glass to land onto her soggy but soft napkin, and she clears her throat.

"Although technically," M'gann continues, happily noting the cheer in her voice hasn't left her, "I could make my body process it a lot quicker than the average human, but I'd really have to concentrate on voluntarily moving those involuntary functions along, and by the time I might actually need to flush alcohol out of my system, concentrating would... be kinda difficult!"

She's officially rambling, but by the look on his face, Conner certainly seems to have at least stayed tuned into all the noise coming out of her mouth—he just doesn't look too pleased.

"Okay," Conner says as he rotates his glass again, this time without lifting it. M'gann watches the wet napkin sticking to its base shred with the force of the motion. "Glad I could bring you somewhere to poison yourself."

It's barely a joke—if it's a joke at all—but M'gann offers up a laugh all the same. Questions bubble up at the back of her mind—and not for the first time tonight—but at the moment, laughing is all that feels appropriate to do. Conner smiles faintly and looks back down at his glass; the sight of the ruptured napkin pulls his mouth back into the frown. M'gann laughs at that, too.

As Conner picks the sticky shred of white off the bottom of his glass and replaces his napkin with a fresh one, M'gann decides to ask one of her questions, however carefully. "That's a... funny attitude for someone who's brought us to a bar, don't'cha think?"

Conner shrugs. "Well, people do it. Go to bars, I mean. It's not like we're the only ones here."

"So you picked it for the ambiance?" M'gann then asks playfully, just before a round of loud whooping sounds rise up from the farthest-back corner of the room. M'gann's eyes can't make the turn past the bar itself to see the noise's exact source, but as she twists backward in her seat to look, she can see, at least, that she's not the only one looking. Once two or three people turn their heads back to their companions or drinks or both, M'gann does so as well. As she raises an eyebrow and smiles back at Conner, the joy M'gann feels is less sarcastic than she knows it must look; it's always more exciting than she can even explain to have a moment of unity like that with other people, even and especially strangers, and to feel herself so comfortably and effortlessly falling into such human patterns.

Conner seems mostly unaffected, but with that comes less annoyance in his face than M'gann would have expected. He thumbs at the texture of his glass again. "It's not that bad. I got kinda used to it when I'd come here with Wendy and Marvin. It's like white noise." His brow furrows, though, and he glares past M'gann, as several people in the distance all suddenly start to clap—and fail, if they were trying, to do so to any kind of discernable rhythm. "Especially since it doesn't make sense."

"You, uh..." M'gann pins her mouth shut until she can pick the right next word. She embarrassed herself enough on Rimbor by concerning herself with whom Conner was—or wasn't—with, when it wasn't her business anymore. It should have been no surprise to her—and in a way, it really wasn't—that her apology then turned out to not be enough.

She'd just had to prove—maybe only to herself, and maybe that was the problem—that she wouldn't keep hiding from any uncomfortable new reality. They're alone together now, and once again, she has to say something. Conner's drink won't distract him long from her silence if he keeps only touching the outside of it. "You came here with Wendy and Marvin?" M'gann asks after another sip of her own drink, working herself up to a giggle. "What did you drink then?"

"I didn't," Conner responds. "I was just, y'know, the buffer. Just kinda there to be there. The way Marvin phrased it, I was the designated thinker," Conner says as he taps his chest with his finger to repeat what M'gann can imagine Marvin—especially a tipsy Marvin—had done before, "and they were the designated drinkers."

"Clever! But it doesn't sound like much fun for you," M'gann says sympathetically before another sip of her drink. "I think the closest I've ever been to being anybody's buffer is having Wally flirt with me when Artemis was right there."

"I don't... know if that's better or worse."

"I... don't either," M'gann says, instantly regretting having steered the conversation there. It can't be that they never talk about Wally again, but nine months into the aftermath, some images are still too fresh in M'gann's mind to bear. An expanse of white she'd cheered into, thinking they'd won—they had won, she supposes, but not also without loss. "So... hold on." M'gann pulls her mouth into a very deliberate smile as she slides her drink to the side and leans with both elbows onto the tabletop. "This... wouldn't have happened to have just been your first drink ever, would it?"

"Well... no." Conner's eyes dart away, and he clutches his drink possessively. The ice melted from all the warmth of his hand has begun to replace what he drank, raising the height of the glass's fill. "Because I haven't finished it yet," Conner concludes. M'gann opens her mouth to assure him that he doesn't have to drink it, but he grabs the top of his straw and takes another, tinier sip, blinking in consideration as he pulls his lips away. "To be honest, I'm kinda surprised that isn't yours," he says, and he flicks his straw up in M'gann's direction instead of his finger. Drops sparkle in the air before falling in a line across the tabletop, and one stray drop hits as a cold spark against the tip of M'gann's nose. M'gann giggles before Conner can fully frown at his mistake. He smiles instead, then reaches towards the napkin holder. "What were you sneakin' into the Cave that I didn't know about?"

"Nothing, nothing!" M'gann responds as she pulls a napkin out for him and passes it off to him. It's only once she lets it go that she realizes how close to touching their fingertips came. Her mind presents her with both relief and disappointment as options on what to feel about it, but she chooses neither, letting the moment pass like the nothing it should be. "You know I wouldn't have broke the Cave ban on alcohol with Gar there!"

"Okay, so before," Conner says. "Now I'm kinda feeling left out."

M'gann laughs softly at the accusation. "As if any trouble I wanted to get into back in the day wouldn't have involved you," she tells him warmly, and she resist the urge—the reflex—to reach out and stroke his arm. "My first drink was with Zatanna and Zatanna's apartment," she says as she begins to count on her hands, "and then at Raquel's bachelorette party, and then a... few times with Artemis, at... her apartment." Hers and Wally's, until it wasn't. M'gann's pointer finger weighs down hard enough against her pink to pull the skin of her palm tight. "And that's about it!" she says, dusting off un-dusty hands. "And yes, legally, I was already over twenty-one when I started."

Like melted ice, a quick list waters down the harsher parts of the truth. Her first drink was on a cold and congested late November night after she had zeta'd to Manhattan in a hot and dizzy flurry. Halfway through the bottle, she'd sobbed from the fear that the feeling she had always heard about—that mythical promise that alcohol would trade her problems for the night for a headache the next morning—would never kick in for her and her biology. She'd thought it would be a fair exchange, and she was ready then for a consequence that she deliberately chose, all set for an assurance that ends really could justify means. Zatanna had watched her snivel and mope and had quietly switched her to the real magic elixir she had needed—one that just gently knocked her into a blank, heavy sleep until sunrise, no side effects besides some sparkles in her eyes as she woke up on Zatanna's couch. The age on her driver's license then is her only saving grace in thinking back to it now, the only aspect of the situation she can be unashamed of.

Especially when the nights with Artemis have meant even more shame. Amidst empty walls and cardboard boxes only half-packed with souvenirs—not from missions, but of the life Artemis and Wally had shared—M'gann has sipped Artemis's choice of wine and watched Artemis putter, pace, and flip through channels, tear into Wally's leftover snacks and quickly abandon them to her and Brucely with claims that they were making her sick. Sometimes Artemis seems too chipper, sometimes aimlessly angry, but once the bottle has been halfway gone, Artemis has usually been ready to cry. Trembling, tear-streaked questions of how clearly M'gann remembers "his stupid face" have never gone as far as M'gann knows they could. Artemis has always been stronger than her, and her first post-breakup blubbering session has never felt more pathetic in her memory than it has with Artemis's nails digging into one shoulder and Artemis's lip quivering against the other. Artemis had done nothing wrong, and had lost Wally all the same. M'gann had done everything wrong, and never really lost Conner in any way that truly mattered.

She's had nothing to cry about.

"...Well, if that's your timeline," Conner says, here in front of her now and pulling her out of her head, "you weren't all twenty-one yet."

"Oh," M'gann responds. Even without full context, she realizes, Raquel's bachelorette party anchors the events in time. "Oops. W-well, for the record, it's not like I bought it for Zatanna, it's more like she lives alone and no one can stop her." M'gann swallows. "I think people must not card her because of the..." She gestures with cupped hands in the space around her chest, curving her fingers to a point directly in the center. "You know." She gives her own breasts two light pats.

Conner raises an eyebrow. "Okay..."

"You know I have to keep track of things like that!" M'gann says as she lets her own laughter rock her in place. "Remember how confused I was the first time she came to breakfast without a bra?"

"...Actually, yeah, I remember you scarin' me," Conner responds with a laugh in his voice, "the next time I held you and you just squished against me like that. Superstrength, y'know? You could've warned me."

"I just hadn't known they could be that soft and... floppy! It's not like Uncle J'onn would have told me. His experience leans more towards flatter-chested forms, and... how do you even have that conversation? I can't imagine having had to be in his shoes."

"You call this flat?" Conner says, patting his own pectoral.

"Well, considering you can bounce a bullet off of there," M'gann laughs as she slides her drink back in front of her, "I'd certainly call it firm." She shakes a fist for emphasis before taking back hold of her straw. "Even skimming Dr. Roquette and Tuppence Terror's minds to get a sense for how to duplicate their forms didn't clue me in. That's just how people think breasts are supposed to be, I think, even people who have them." She takes a sip and has to wipe her closed lips on her knuckles as the giggle taking up space in her mouth makes it hard not to let her drink dribble out. "Like these hard, high-up muscles—oh, perky!" M'gann releases her straw and rolls her eyes. "Hel-lo, Megan, that's the word. AT least I'm not the only one who was lost. I guess I've gotten used to thinking of Zatanna as a little older instead of a little younger than me, just because she always seems like someone who understands what's going on."

"I get it," Conner says as he pokes at the inside of his glass with his straw. "I guess you and me and ages... I'm six. Uh..." His straw goes still. "Seven, almost. But, y'know, twenty-two."

Five days. M'gann holds back a sigh. And you still haven't gotten the gift. You're really cutting it close, aren't you? she chides herself internally. "And if I were still on Mars, I still wouldn't quite be considered an adult," she responds aloud, pinching and releasing the tip of her straw, smiling as it opens and closes like a tiny gulping mouth. "Give it about three Earth years, and that'll be close enough. I know for me, it's all so strange to think about." She chuckles quietly to herself. "Things move fast on Earth."

"And then there's..." Conner looks off at nothing in particular, as far as M'gann can tell. "You know."

"Uh..." M'gann looks at him expectantly, but like with his reaction to the taste of hard strawberry lemonade, he seems to be holding out on her. "Uh-huh?"

"The fact that we've been running covert ops for the League since high school. Which, I dunno, pretty sure that's not really typical teenage stuff."

"Shhhh!" M'gann shushes him more loudly than he'd even spoke, her finger to lips that can't close around the smile digging deeper and deeper into her face. "Besides, espionage can certainly be an age-appropriate activity for teenagers... as long as you can trust them not to drop cover and make out."

"Hey, in my defense, the mission was over," Conner responds, playfully jabbing a finger in M'gann's direction, "and you were really cold. I was kinda giving you mouth-to-mouth."

"There's no tongue in mouth-to-mouth! And I was already breathing!" M'gann laughs the loudest she's laughed since they came in—or maybe even longer ago than that, as something seems to pop open inside her ribs as she throws her head back—and suddenly she realizes that her hands are up past her shoulders, that her knees and feet are back on the seat, and that she's just shouted the words. If it's her turn to draw stares, she doesn't care. She knows they'll only linger for a moment. "I think we scarred Icicle Junior for life," she adds from her elevated position before dropping back down with a taut and crackling thump against her seat. Conner all but snorts.

It's nothing short of miraculous, how good and easy it feels to talk about their past. The warmth of that revelation rushes all throughout M'gann's skin, not just her cheeks. Conner's eyes are bright and crystalline blue—they always are, but right now they're on her, and she can just look at them, and see them looking back at her. She's not sure she's ever not needed a drink more in her life.

Though it's easier to talk about their past now than their present, or their future. That thought leeches the warmth right back out of her skin, and she returns her attention to her drink. It's still cooler than her hands, and she swivels it in place on her coaster, her thumbs fooling with the base. "Well, here we are," she says as simply as possible, trying to let it just be a basic fact.

"...Yeah," Conner responds in a tone as neutral as hers.

"I, um, hope as far as company goes that I'm as fun as Wendy and Marvin, o-or not worse." She gives her glass another twist against the coaster. "Whichever it... should be."

"To be honest, I'm still trying to figure them out." Conner says it like he's been holding it in, his voice loud and clear and a little faster than his typical speech, and he sets his glass aside to make room to lean his elbows on the table. M'gann blinks in mild surprise but slides her own glass forward with her as she leans in to listen. "I get that they felt weird about changing their relationship," Conner continues, the gesture of his hands very clearly signaling a weak grasp around the subject, "but if they needed this and me around to feel like they were a couple..." Conner looks right into M'gann's eyes, and M'gann nods to confirm he has her full attention, "...that's not much of a foundation."

"Hmmn." M'gann looks down into her glass, traces the thin white outlines with her eyes of the few ice cubes still cold and hard inside the pink drink. "Maybe it's just easier for them to work their way up to it? Baby steps, you know."

"They've known each other for years, there's no baby steps there." Conner leans back into his seat, still clutching with his empty hands at thoughts. "What I don't get is—"

"Why now?" M'gann offers it as an answer and then immediately bites her lip—she interrupted him. Conner doesn't seem to mind, though, just thinks for a moment before giving her a faint nod.

"That, kinda. But more like... if they know they want to be together like that, why not just do it? And I mean 'if.'"

"You think they really wanted a buffer because they weren't sure they wanted to date at all?" M'gann asks.

Conner nods more firmly this time. "People were always botherin' them back in high school about whether or not they were dating. That's what's weird about it. If they were gonna give in, why wait until the pressure's off? No one cares like that at college."

"Well, you never bothered them about it," M'gann says with an emphatic nod. "Maybe they just wanted to date the whole time but just didn't want it rubbed in their faces! With you, they could give it an honest try. To be honest, I always thought—well, it's not my place to speculate." Having spent her first year on the Bumblebees still picking up rogue waves of emotion, M'gann hadn't been able to help but make some private observations about the girls' different interactions—with each other and with boys—that she technically wasn't allowed to think, let alone share. "It's been nine months and they're still together, aren't they?"

"Yeah," Conner says, returning his hands to his glass. "Just can't imagine what they do without me around."

Don't say it, M'gann warns herself, but the pink in her glass whispers say it to the warmth once again budding in her cheeks. "I guess they just make do with... imagining what you'd be doing if you were there," she says, then turns her head to the side bashfully as she scrunches her face at Conner. He may not get it, and that's fine, M'gann thinks—but she can tell he's working it out in his head, watching scrutinizingly as she wiggles her shoulders, pulls a lock of hair out from behind her ear, and wraps the hair around her finger.

She won't elaborate, but she's giving him plenty of hints, she thinks. Sure enough, Conner does seem to figure out what she meant, and his eyes bulge.

"M'gann..." Conner chides her, and M'gann crashes against the back of her seat, throws her head back and hurls her laughter as high up towards the ceiling as it will go. Peeking out past her nose, she sees Conner shut his eyes and slowly shake his head.

"Sorry, sorry!" M'gann coughs out as she grips the edge of the tabletop to pull herself back upright—and if he really were uncomfortable with the insinuation, she really would mean it, but instead, the sulking stir that he starts to give his straw is undercut by the smirk pulling up at the corners of his mouth.

M'gann takes hold of her own drink again. She's having enough fun that she won't need it any longer, so with a softening giggle, she settles herself down into a cool and casual silence to polish it off. Lifting the glass off the table, she angles the straw up to her mouth and presses her lips down onto it, closing her eyes.

"...So is that how you and La'gaan did it?"

M'gann's glass falls and rattles against the table—it's strong glass, at least, or a very convincing plastic—and as it spins on its side, its once-remaining contents spill out from it in an arc. The gulp she did manage to take now burns more in her nose than in her throat, but she would think she'd swallowed her straw whole if not for how the white streak of it shoots across the table and bounces off of Conner's ready palm. "C-Conner!" M'gann chokes out as she throws the napkin she already had down onto the puddle to keep it from spreading, then quickly starts pulling more out from the napkin holder.

Quietly but clearly, Conner laughs. For a moment, M'gann's mind forgets to give her the guilt of having made things—many things—stickier than they needed to be. Conner pulls out the next napkin for her before she can reach for it herself. M'gann plucks it delicately out of his hand.

"Oh, wow," M'gann says, catching both her breath and her rolling empty glass. "When exactly did our conversations start getting so... adult?"

"Guess when we got adult," Conner responds as M'gann slides her ice into a pile and sops up her drink, a trace of a chuckle still in his voice.

"Oh," M'gann replies with an attempt at a sly tone that falls completely flat. She then sighs as she unfolds a dry napkin to wrap around her gathered clump of wet ones. "What a mess," she says as she stuffs the napkins into the empty glass. "And I really had my mouth set on that." She hears herself say it, and her face flares hot. "I d-don't mean, um—n-not that, I—"

"What?" Conner asks. He inches his drink back towards himself, and M'gann realizes he'd been in the process of pushing it towards her.

"Oh. I, uh, didn't mean—"

"You want it?" he asks her in a casual voice, one that tells her that his thoughts have already left the salacious place in which hers still linger. "You'd be doing me a favor."

"Well, alright!" M'gann accepts the drink, placing her fingers carefully around the glass in the spaces in-between his. But it's only once her hands are the only ones on it that she realizes there's no place she can touch that he hasn't touched already; he's been stroking and flicking and melting the glass all over the whole time they've been here. Even the rim and his straw have had his lips on them—she wasn't thinking like this then, but she can't ignore it now. She had watched.

Her own straw lies wet and dirty at her feet. Five-second rule, M'gann thinks to herself as she snaps it back up, and the thought plays itself in her head in Wally's voice—it's been far beyond five seconds, she knows, but Wally was the first person she ever knew to actually be able to invoice the "rule" effectively, and right now, she wants to borrow some of that power. She takes the briefest of glances at Conner's raised eyebrow, then focuses on wiping off the straw and blowing whatever she can off its hollow tips before switching Conner's straw out for it in the glass. "I, uh, hate seeing things go to waste!" she says before taking a quick sip to claim the glass as hers. Just as she'd thought, the melted ice dulls what would be sharpness on her tongue, leaving a thin, cool sweetness in her mouth. "So I guess this just was... not for you?"

"Not that much of it," Conner responds, rubbing his thumbs against each other in the absence of his glass.

"Oh, that reminds me, I meant to ask," M'gann says before another sip, "as it's only fair I be interested, too, of course, since you asked about me... has Clark ever told you what alcohol does to Kryptonians?"

"Pfft, no." Conner drops back against his wall of their booth, laying his arms across the top. "Can you imagine him drinking?"

"Anything stronger than milk?" M'gann says with a laugh. Unlike J'onn, she supposes, Superman had the benefits of being raised by Earthlings as an Earthling—including getting a primer on what Earth-based vices to avoid. "Not really."

"I'm half-human anyway," Conner responds softly with a faint shrug. "Besides, I'd rather not know."

"Oh, that's fair!" M'gann responds, though she does give her new glass an anxious spin in her hand. "To be honest, it's probably not a bad thing if getting drunk has no appeal to you."

"I mean... people can do what they want. I just..." He turns his head to the side to address the wall instead of her. "Fine. I get weird around it. Or people get weird when they've had enough of it. It's not like... it's just like all of a sudden they stop being the them I'm used to dealin' with. Doesn't exactly put me in the greatest position. And the thing is that they want that—they're doing it on purpose. I mean, not trying to... weird me out, but they want to just... check out, make themselves lose control."

"Well... that's the thing," M'gann says, looking down and speaking to her glass. "If they're making that choice, then they're making that choice, so it's not really like they're losing control. I mean at some point if they've had too much, they definitely need to be understood as not being fully cognizant of their actions, or as needing someone to intervene and look out for them, but for the most part, it's something that they can do, so they do it." She gives the thought a light shrug. "I think that's why age makes drinking such a big milestone, because it means that once you're twenty-one, you're old enough to be responsible for making your own mistakes!" She smiles wincingly at her own words. "Not that that's... all it's cracked up to be."

"Okay," Conner says, a little defensively. "I'm not judging."

"Well, considering you just bough me not one but two drinks," M'gann says to ease the tension—or at least put it into words, which would still be a start, "I guess you're... trusting me not to get too weird?"

"Well, I'm watching you." Conner crosses his arms, reinforcing the idea of a shield already on his chest. "So if you need me to step in, I'm here."

"I know you are," M'gann says, soundlessly and aimlessly stirring her straw around in her drink. There's nothing left to do but to finish it off, but suddenly, she's lacking the heart to do so. "Aren't I always making you have to do that?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean what we both just described..." M'gann sighs, already regretting her step in this direction, but knowing she can't take it back now. "Sounds a lot like when Psimon trapped us in my mind."

"No, it doesn't." Conner says it straight into her eyes without hesitance. "You didn't have control over that."

"It's my fault I even had that vulnerability for him to seize upon and exploit," M'gann responds. "My distraction from the mission, and my fantasy—even if I hadn't meant to slip that far into it, I was already indulging in it by going to the panel in the first place instead of staying on alert."

"...Why are you beating yourself up for that now?" Conner says with a voice impatient despite his initial pause. Either way, M'gann notes that it's not a rebuttal of her point. "It's been months," he continues. "All that happened was that he got away."

"Are you—" Relieved I didn't get a chance to prove you right? M'gann loses the nerve to ask it; she knows her own answer to the question. "Are you, um, sure you know the me you're talking to now?" she says with a gentle laugh at her own expense. "I don't let my mistakes go that easily."

Conner's eyes leave her and go instead to the glass that she spilled, set between them full of the resulting debris. "...That's any you, I guess."

"I guess so," M'gann replies a little vacantly. Her new glass feels like nothing now, no cooler or warmer than the fingertips she keeps pressed into it. "Should I even be drinking this?"

"Well, don't ask me," Conner says, shrugging with crossed arms. "But I gave it to you."

"Right," M'gann responds, and she takes a reasonable sip, not too hesitant or too hasty.

All the same, thunder rumbles overhead. Their fellow patrons let out a mixture of cheers, gasps, and groans, and a wave of glass clinks passes through the room like a storm wind itself.

M'gann simply releases her straw from her mouth. "I hope that's not some kind of omen."

"It's just rain," Conner says. "But hurry anyway, I don't like that smoke."

"The cigarette smoke?" M'gann asks. She's been smelling it the whole time—there's no way he hasn't. "I don't think you have to worry about anyone getting looped enough that they burn down the bar with a cigarette," she says, letting a laugh flutter through her breath to shake out some tension. "And I'm the one that has to worry about that kind of thing."

"It doesn't have to be a threat to your life for it to bother me," Conner says tersely, glaring out in the direction of the people undeniably having more fun than the two of them are now.

Maybe silence was better, M'gann thinks as she gets back to work on her drink. They are friends now, are friends again—it's the longest they've ever been friends without also dating, and that realization hits her in sync with the next wave of thunder in the sky outside. She can ruin this, too, if she tries—or even if she doesn't. Any slip she makes can take them down.

Her own slurp echoes back at her from the straw in her glass, a tightly contained thunderclap in her hands as the line of her drink disappears at the bottom. Conner looks back at her and smiles, however faintly, recognizing the noise either as another accident or as a sign that they can leave.

"You ready?" he asks her, holding out a hand from his side of the table. M'gann isn't sure what to do with it. She hands Conner her cup of trash. Conner stares and frowns at it.

"I hope you got your money's worth!" M'gann chirps as she slides out of the booth. "Next time, I'll, uh—um."

"'Next time,' huh," Conner says curiously, still in his seat and looking up at her.

"Y-you know, if you ever wanted to come here again for... whatever reason, even though you don't like to drink." M'gann fumbles the words out of her mouth and holds tight to what was his glass, noting gravity as a new adversary now that she's on her feet.

Conner sets her old glass down. "We leave those here."

"Oh, really?" M'gann asks, though even before Conner can answer, she follows his example. "It seems rude to leave a mess."

"It's what we did before," Conner says as he stands. "Me and Wendy and Marvin. And they let me back in anyway." He holds his hand out to M'gann again.

"I thought you didn't drink before," M'gann teases with a raise of her shoulder and a smile, doing her best to draw attention away from her hands wringing together at her stomach.

"Water," Conner says, his voice soft, not quite cheerful but not quite annoyed either. He puts a fist to his hip, but his other hand is still waiting to take hers. No other explanation makes sense. There's no way for M'gann to rationalize herself out of thinking it.

Of course, friends hold hands. And beyond that, they do, or at least, they have. They can. There's years' worth of proof of that. She wouldn't have asked to do so now, wouldn't have even thought to ask—but he did, and he is.

M'gann lays her hand down onto his. It's soft and thick and warm and substantial, and just wet enough from the perspiring drinks to lace a chill along the edges of her fingers but fill the pocket of air between their overlapping palms with steam.

Conner curls his fingers against her hand, not quite around it, in a suggestion of a grip more than an actual grip. But he pulls her hand forward all the same. "Now, c'mon."

Chapter Text

[March 16th, Team Year Seven]

The thunder they'd heard was no empty threat. Rain keeps falling outside in a muffled rattling against the roof, the sky having opened up and dropped it over Happy Harbor like a sheet. Shifting her sweater to a raincoat did M'gann no good—her clothes are her clothes no matter what form she puts them, and they and she are now thoroughly drenched. Under amber light too concentrated by narrow walls and a low ceiling to ambient, dark streaks and spots in Conner's brown jacket betray its own limitations against rain, as does the water weight it adds to M'gann's shoulders. M'gann pulls it tighter around her all the same as it drips a trail behind her into ornately patterned carpet.

Conner leads her by her jacket's wrist. The rain has gathered his hair into limp, wet spikes along the back of his head. The fabric of his shirt clings to curves of his back, wrinkles popping up in the crevices like lines of protruding veins. M'gann's fingers could glide right over them, could press down into them and smooth them out. She lets the idle fantasy of it simply play out in her mind as they walk.

Or, run, as he keeps pulling her along faster, or as the way her feet bounce against the floor prods him into keep up with her pace—she's not sure. She's not even sure why they're running, other than that it feels right to move, and move together. If they have the room for the night, she supposes, then the sooner they get to it, the more they'll get their money's worth. She is, after all, Miss Picks a Straw Off the Floor So It Doesn't Go to Waste.

She's also Miss Martian, but at the moment, neither matter so much. Conner slows as they come up to the door with their number bolted onto it—a 1 and 6 that may be pieces of plastic painted gold, but still make it fancy—and with her attention on the door, M'gann bumps face-first against the back of Conner's arm. Her nose makes impact with his shoulder, and as if from the press of a button, giggles come spilling out of her as she stumbles backward. Throwing splayed fingers up against her face isn't enough for her to turn herself off. The jacket slides off one of her shoulders.

"Shh," Conner tells her with a glance around at the doors that aren't theirs, but M'gann knows he's teasing. Conner slides their card into the key slot, and the tiny light beside it turns from red to green. M'gann reaches out and hooks herself with both arms around Conner's arm, letting his jacket swing and flap against him as it slides off her other shoulder.

"What if it's a bomb?" she whispers with her chin against his shoulder. It's cold at first touch from the rain, but she can imagine finding more and more warmth if she were to press herself further into it. But having something so thick and cold and his in front of her now reminds M'gann that she just dropped his jacket. "Oops..." she says, disconnecting from him to reach down and pick the jacket up.

"If it's a bomb, we're in trouble," Conner says with his low, warm crackle of a voice. "'Cuz if it is, you're way too close."

"Then I'll back up!" M'gann offers, finding the opposite wall with the fingertips of one hand as the other hangs onto his jacket. Conner reaches for the jacket but takes hold of her wrist.

"Good thing it's not a bomb," he says, and M'gann laughs as he pulls her back to the door, back to him.

"Are you sure we're not still in trouble?" M'gann quips. Conner chuckles. M'gann wraps only one arm around his arm this time—more prudent, definitely, though it complicates the both of them getting through the door. She's not letting go, and neither is Conner; Conner tries to nudge her into the room first, but their arms stay hooked together, and M'gann pulls him inside the moment her feet cross the threshold. She yanks harder than she means to—though too hard would be hard to accomplish with him—and Conner chuckles again as the hand he'd had in the doorframe lets go.

They spin. Maybe only once, maybe only a half spin—all M'gann knows is that the inside of her head spins and spins and spins until there's just a fluttering wind in her skull and a gasping laugh escaping her throat as wet denim and wet simulated denim slosh together at their knees. They don't need their coats anymore, so M'gann makes hers recede back into her shirt, snapping the fabric against her chest with a wet smack; Conner's jacket falls to their feet as a tripping hazard, but Conner steers them away from it.

He does so with both his hands catching her around her waist. She's lost track of where her own hands have gone—everything is wet but solid and cold but warm all at once. M'gann stretches out her arms and find her hands up above Conner's head; Conner's eyes are bright and blue and she's not sure where her hands should go next, but her whole body could just fall limp in his hands right now like a rain-soaked jacket to the floor, and she knows it would feel good. Conner's eyes are also bright and blue and only visible to her from the light of the hallway—oops, M'gann thinks, however passively. Shifting the shape of her clothes isn't something a human is supposed to be able to do. Dropping clothes and dancing isn't something anyone's supposed to do in front of an open door in an otherwise public place, unless it's that kind of place, and it isn't. At least she doesn't think that this is that kind of place.

Her clothes are technically all still on her, feeling thick for how they hang but thin for how they cling. Her human chest—her very human chest, or at least what is very much her human chest—asserts its shape against her blouse even with the mass of her raincoat absorbed back into it.

"Door or light?" M'gann asks aloud, making an attempt, at the very least, to think of something else.

"Door or light what?" Conner responds as he walks himself and her—the two of them, the pair of them, the big wet clump of them ambling around on four legs across the floor—farther into the room, him moving backwards as he pulls her forward. The backs of his legs must find the bed, because the impact jostles the both of them, shoves Conner's chest into M'gann's and makes M'gann's breath catch in her throat.

The fingers dangling off the edges of M'gann's limp but airborne arms flick up with the thought of a far-reaching motion. Behind her, the door to the hallway swings shut.

"Picked one!" M'gann informs Conner cheerily. There's a window, she realizes with the shunning of the hallway light, and it's big and it's wide and it's glittering from the rain still streaking down the other side of the glass. Everything is blue now, not just Conner's eyes, though nothing but the distant streetlights is exactly bright. The two hands on M'gann's waist turn into one arm—Conner dips her, though rather than let her drape over the crook of his arm, he seems determined to hold her tightly in place against him. All the same, M'gann's hands slip down to the space around his neck, cling to the fabric of his shirt as gravity flirts with her still-spinning head. It's then that M'gann's thumb runs across a hole in his shirt atop his collarbone, a little slip of skin, a little secret tucked right under the seam. M'gann gasps.

And gasps again when the lamp to her left lights a stark yellow fire against the room's dim blue shroud, burning it up instantly. Conner pulls his hand out from under the lamp's shade. Oh, M'gann thinks as the arm around her waist guides her back up, and fingertips press into the flesh just under the edge of her ribs. That makes sense.

Conner's other arm moving even lower down M'gann's form than the first one, cradling her hips, makes less sense—or, maybe, so much sense that M'gann can barely process it. Conner's body sinks and slides around underneath her, and M'gann feels her feet officially leave the floor. Her knees find support against the edge of the mattress by opening as far as they're naturally inclined to go. The rest of her finds itself seated nice and snuggly into Conner's lap.

Her eyes hang as wide and open as her mouth as she looks down at Conner's face. Involuntarily functions are involuntary functions unless she really can concentrate, but M'gann never knew her lungs could be so shameless—she can feel herself already starting to pant. Conner looks up at her like she's hanging the sun in the sky—intensely, but curiously, at best, if not a little critically, like the sun she's hanging might actually be the wrong one. Red instead of yellow. Her cheeks certainly feel red enough as she realizes Conner must feel her panting on her forehead.

"You're shivering," Conner says.

"W-what?"

Conner's arms slide apart around her waist only to be replaced by two sets of fingertips pressing into the base of her spine, the top of her jeans. His thumbs seat themselves against her hips. Conner leans his chest back to examine hers, and M'gann can feel clenching, twisting in every muscle of her torso—and even in some places that decidedly aren't muscles. Conner's mouth doesn't gulp at air like hers does, but she can see his lower lip hanging past the parting of his teeth, and the shiver comes—M'gann laughs. It's more reflex than anything, or at the very least, a thoughtless act. She laughs at how good it can feel for her body to shake itself to the bone.

"Oh, yeah?" M'gann then asks, eager to know what Conner will say—or do—next.

Conner's thumbs find her belt loops, one pressing through the bottom of her shirt, the other pushing the shirt up for more direct contact. The pit of M'gann's stomach clenches tight, pulls itself far enough inward to disconnect from his. "Yeah," Conner says, eyes running back up her body to return to her face. "I watched you break out of a block of ice and not shiver this much," he says in disbelief, but a corner of his mouth quirks up into a barely-restrained smile.

"You got me soaking wet in winter, what did you expect?" M'gann says as if spring isn't days—five days—away, and as if she hadn't had a sweater on earlier just for fashion's sake. She slides her arms out past his shoulders, hooks her wrists together at the back of his head and just breathes laughter into the space between their faces—along with a stale, sticky, sugary kind of smell that she can pick up from her own breath from how tight and narrow that space is.

Objectively—as hard as it to think as such with Conner staring up into her eyes—M'gann knows that she's not completely sober. With how much she had and how long it's been, she knows the alcohol is still working its way through her system. But she also knows she doesn't feel it. She feels something, but not it. The something feels too real to be the artificial ease achieved by having enough to drink. Having Conner's body underneath her and his hands around her feels good in her body because her body simply is what it is—the two of them spent years together carving spaces to be touched by him into the very blueprint of her form, lining it with all the right sense and muscle memories. She's barely ever known the physical reality of this form without him as a part of it.

It's a thought that's as intoxicating as it is sobering. M'gann finally wills herself out of her indecent panting, closes her mouth and swallows down the thought of falling right back into what would be an excitingly familiar pattern. Conner's eyes fall from her eyes to her throat as she gulps, and they stay there, low and avoidant. His head tilting down makes his breath flare right against her collarbone, and M'gann shivers again, but pulls her arms back from around his neck to simply hold onto his shoulders with her hands.

"Are you..." M'gann's tongue suddenly feels heavy in her mouth, and those two words already don't come out as clearly as she'd like. She rubs her lips together to set her mouth back right. "...Thinking what... I'm thinking?"

Conner's eyes stay on her neck, or maybe lower—his breath trickles farther down her chest than just her collarbone. "I think so," he replies.

M'gann contemplates shifting a button at the top of her blouse to close off Conner's view of her breasts, but several problems with doing so arise in her mind: one, that it would unavoidably communicate that she knows what he's staring at; two, that she would have to thicken or darken her shirt as well for it to even do any good; three, that she likes his eyes there as much as she likes his breath, as much as she'd like his lips—

—Her own lips and tongue go dry against the air above Conner's head, and M'gann realizes she's starting to pant again.

"How are you?" Conner asks all of a sudden, voice thrumming against her collarbone.

"Me?" M'gann swallows again, clamps her mouth shut and runs her tongue against the insides of her lips. "Well, I've certainly been worse."

"You had two drinks," Conner says as he meets her eyes again, his voice firm but his expression a little pleading, a little hopeful—or, M'gann realizes as the relevance of his statement registers with her, a little disappointed.

"Oh, it's—it was probably more like one and a half, really, if you take out what I spilled and what you drank. Or at least not a full two—and they're very light drinks. This isn't that. Not that this is, um... anything... n-necessarily, but it's... good of you to ask! I mean it's not like we ever, um... had, uh, alcohol as... part of the equation? At least not us, as in the two of us together, and I've never either. I guess you, also... well, I—either way, I think we are in fact both thinking about the same thing—not that I know for sure, just what I've... assessed... from... the situation...?" M'gann still finds herself panting, only now it's mostly just to catch her breath. "And may I just state for the record, that I'm trying very hard not to think about it."

It's something of a lie.

Conner shifts a little in place underneath M'gann. M'gann can feel both his legs clench at the knees, tensing his thighs against her bottom and making his feet slip against the floor. "You had to say 'hard'."

"Ooh. Sorry." M'gann raises herself an inch off Conner's lap and slips further back onto his knees. Conner's hands leave her hips to hold her instead by the elbows, and M'gann lays her hands atop his forearms, looks straight down into the open space between their open legs and decidedly nowhere higher. "You know, technically, we, uh..." Heat rises up M'gann's cheeks again, making her skin prickle. "We could. O-or we couldn't, just as easily."

"Yeah," Conner says simply.

"There's just a... a time and a place for that kind of thing."

"Alone in a motel room?"

"Oh. That... that does sound like the time and the place," M'gann says. The carpet below them is smeared with moisture and dirt from their shoes, tiny pebbles and twigs embedded in the fibers like they dragged the beach in with them from the docks. Conner's boots are more to blame than her sneakers, M'gann knows, but that doesn't change the fact that they're in a mess and she helped make it. They're in several messes all at once that she did more than help make. M'gann lifts one arm away from Conner's arm to press it over one thinly-sheathed breast and brings a lock of hair out from over her shoulder to play with. "Some... some people do do it, you know," she says, "without... being a couple."

"Yeah."

"Sometimes without ever being a couple."

"Yeah."

"And sometimes people wait a very long time to do it, or they don't ever do it at all, and all of that is fine," M'gann says, unsure of why she's suddenly making Conner's lap of all things into her sex-positive soapbox other than that it feels good to be saying something she knows is right.

"It's a little late for that," Conner responds, shrugging his shoulders.

"Oh. R-right," M'gann says, and she bites her lip.

"And then you got Dick."

M'gann's heart jumps in her chest. "What?"

"You know, what Dick does," Conner says, eyebrow raised incredulously.

"I, uh—oh. Oh, right."

"What did you...?" Conner blinks at her for a moment, then furrows his brow. "M'gann."

M'gann can't help but giggle lightly at the top of her throat, though she tenses at the ribs to keep her chest from shaking too much. "Context clues are important, Conner."

"I meant how Dick and Zatanna... you know."

"Mm-hmm." M'gann nods. "And Raquel, too, for a while there. But I think Dick and Zatanna still do it."

"You know, I still don't get how all that squares with Barbara."

"Mmn, it's not like it's a secret or anything. And nobody seems unhappy with it. I think they just... have a system worked out." M'gann shrugs and rolls her eyes—at herself and her own limited but disastrous history. There'd been none of Dick's aster when it came to her attempt at dating just to explore a connection, or, ultimately, to fill a space. "Who am I to judge?" she says.

"Are we..." Conner's eyes hang by her shoulder now, just like her hair and her hand still busying itself with it. "...Like that? I mean... could we ever... be like that, y'know. Casual."

"I... don't know?" M'gann replies, feeling unease crease her brow. "What do you think?"

"I think I, uh..." Having been freed by M'gann pulling away from it, Conner's hand moves to rub the back of his neck. "I mean, can't say I don't like sex, but—"

M'gann groans.

"What?" Conner asks.

"You had to say it."

"'Sex'? Might as well, it's what we're talking about, right?"

"You're right, it just—" Does something to me when I hear it in your voice, M'gann thinks inside her head, and only her own head. "I just... didn't have the nerve."

Conner scoffs lightly through his nose. The two of them are both still wet enough from the rain that M'gann could mistake the sound for a cold sniffle. "You had the nerve to get in my lap," he says, just barely under his breath.

"Y-you had the nerve to pull me down to the bed!" M'gann exclaims, and her lips curl into a smile on reflex.

"You were the one hanging onto me," Conner counters, complete with his own smile.

"Well, you're the one who..." Who took me out for drinks and then got me all wet, M'gann thinks. "...Oh. Oh, no. Never mind."

"Good. I was runnin' out of excuses," Conner says as his hand moves down from his neck to support himself against the edge of the bed. The hand at M'gann's elbow slips back from a hold to an idle touch, though Conner still doesn't remove it. "Though it's not like we need 'em to... you know, do or not do anything."

"Oh, I agree," M'gann says. "It's completely up to us. This? Can go any way you want it." The words leave M'gann's mouth, and M'gann immediately closes her eyes give herself a mental slap to the face. "I mean..." She sighs, but has to chuckle a little at her newfound inability to stop twisting everything into an innuendo. It's not the power of Wally's that she'd meant to take on earlier when mentally invoking his memory. "Well, you know what I mean," she says.

"I hear you," Conner says, shifting his legs slightly underneath her. She's not exactly heavy, she knows, and certainly not for him, but the position he's in with her is not one he's used to holding for long. "I guess what I'm trying to say is... I like sex, but it's not like I need it. But—I know that right now, I am thinkin' about it."

"Oh, I'm—I'm thinking about it, too," M'gann admits, even if that much had already been clear. But despite both of them having said it, neither of them make a move—in either direction, closer or farther away from each other. "We're, um... doing an awful lot of thinking about it, aren't we?" M'gann says.

"Not so much a lot of doing it," Conner responds.

"How's that working out for us?" M'gann asks.

"Dunno," Conner says. "But we never used to make it this complicated."

"Are we actually making it complicated, or is it just... complicated... on its own, for us? At least... now."

"I guess if we're not even sure about that..."

"It's... probably a sign that we're not, uh..."

"That you're getting off my lap."

"Definitely," M'gann says, and she quickly dismounts. The feeling of having to pry her legs off of Conner makes the though that she'd straddled him at all feel even more obscene, though she supposes thinking had not quite yet been a part of the equation.

"And I need a shower," Conner says as he stands.

And I am absolutely not going to think about that, M'gann thinks. "Me, too."

"After mine."

"R-right, of course, absolutely—"

"Unless you wanna go first," Conner offers, shrugging.

M'gann forces out a huff of a sigh to decompress. "All I care is that they are not at the same time."

"Deal."

M'gann nods then stands in place for a moment, waiting to respond to Conner's next move. Conner does the same. M'gann shuffles her feet somewhat vaguely to her left just to get out of his way, only to halt Conner as he tries to shuffle his own feet past her. M'gann breathes an anxious laugh into the still too-tight space between them. Conner gestures a silent after you to her, at which she smiles and nods before turning on a heel and powerwalking the relatively short distance over to the bathroom.

M'gann showers quickly, even if somewhat absentmindedly. The motions come automatically as she lets her body just be her body again, and not the endlessly exciting thing it becomes in Conner's hands. Turning off and stepping out from the shower, M'gann shifts her clothes into a simple sheet of bio-cloth in the air, and after being wrung and flapped, the sheet is dry enough to go back on her as her white blouse and blue jeans. Her hair shakes dry with much the same ease as it smacks itself against the air around her head then falls back down around her shoulders. She comes out from the bathroom refreshed, but keeps her head low and her eyes averted above a meek smile as she and Conner pass by each other, him heading to the shower and her heading to the bed.

With both lamps on now, things are clearer. M'gann isn't sure whether she or Conner will be taking the bed for the night, but regardless, the large wet spot that their bodies left at its edge is a problem. M'gann lays her otherwise barely-used towel across the area and sits on top of it to force the moisture to soak in, putting the pressure of her body to use in solving the same problem it helped cause. Crossing her legs and tapping her toes at air—no need to keep shoes shifted onto her feet—M'gann waits as Conner takes his own shower.

His clothes are with him on the other side of the door, of course—it's not like she stepped out to find him already stripped—but she knows they'll still be wet when he comes out. The thought of slipping in to grab them so that she could try shaking them out for him, however less effectively than she could shake-dry her own, passes through her head. It's a fantasy she's absolutely not about to act out, but it would be some kind of funny, she thinks as she pictures it: Conner opening the door clinging to his towel in dismay only to find her furiously flapping his jeans against an air vent, or waving his underwear out of the window and into the parking lot outside. If Hello, Megan! had skewed towards an older audience, or even had just been made ten years later, M'gann thinks, all that could have happened there with that Megan and Conner.

There is not here, though, so, eyes resting on the blank black television screen beside the bathroom door, she simply sits quietly and waits, gives Conner his privacy and leaves Conner's clothes alone for him to deal with himself. They've never been that Megan and Conner. And even when she's wished they—she—could be different, she's never really minded that.

When Conner Kent steps out from the bathroom, he does so with a towel to the back of his head and with a shirt still noticeably damp but no longer clinging so tightly to his form. M'gann smiles and flutters the lashes of Megan Morse's eyes, her own eyes. Conner raises one hand in a small silent wave to her as his other hand runs the towel from the back of his neck to the side. M'gann waves back at him from the bed.

"Y'know, I never got the point of taking a shower after getting rained on," Conner says as he picks his boots up from the floor by the foot of the bed, hooking one finger into each, and moves to set them by the door. "Aren't you already wet?"

They needed showers for more than just recovery from the rain, M'gann thinks, but rather than address it, she lets him get away with burying that truth. "I think it's to warm up so that you don't catch a cold," she says, leaning more onto the very edge of the bed and crossing her legs at the ankles.

Conner drops his boots at the door. For a moment, both boots seem like they'll stay upright without further adjustment, but sure enough, one slumps over onto its side. "Us, colds?" Conner says incredulously as he props the problem boot up against the other.

"Don't pretend you've never had a runny nose before," M'gann teases. Conner's distance from her makes doing so feel safer, less bold of her.

"That was pollen," Conner responds, and M'gann rolls her eyes playfully. "And dander," he adds. "S'what happens when you bring home a wolf that's never been bathed." He then turns to approach M'gann, and while M'gann's smile doesn't leave her, she can feel something in it shift.

"Wolf... doesn't mind that you're down here without him, does he?" M'gann asks quietly. She hadn't though of Wolf until now. Getting a room for the night wasn't even her idea, but she'd agreed to it, which makes her just as responsible for leaving Wolf up in the Watchtower alone.

"That he gets the whole bed to himself? Pretty sure he's fine with it." Conner's voice is soft and affable, but he doesn't take a seat beside M'gann, just stands and puts a hand on his hip. "But I mean, imagine if Kaldur had to shower off every time he came out of the water."

"Kaldur's an Atlantean, Conner, he can tolerate the cold better than me!" M'gann laughs, but scoots herself ever so slightly away from Conner, widens the space between them even if just by a sliver. With her hands gripping the edge of the bed and her toes touched down to the floor, she waits for any indication that Conner wants her to move. His body language is all she has to go by with his mind off-limits and his mouth likely too polite to shoo her off of the bed outright.

"Guess so," Conner says somewhat flatly, and his eyes move away from her, looking out instead at the window's large black pane and the beaded streaks of light running down it. M'gann follows suit, folding her hands in her lap. As far as distractions go, it's a pleasant one to get lost in. If left alone, she thinks she could stare at it for hours. Cold, gray days in Chicago gave her practice.

But she's not alone, not tonight.

"So..." M'gann says to break the silence, though she keeps her eyes on the window. "I guess... here we are for the night! What do you want to do now? Watch TV?" She crinkles her nose at the thought. "We probably don't have much, but there's always the news or... infomercials! Those can be fun."

"I, uh... don't know about for the night, but..." Conner steps forward and pushes his knees against the edge of the bed. M'gann looks to see his hands anchored in his pockets and his eyes still on the glass. "Okay, fine. I kinda wanna ask you a question." He leans forward slightly, furrowing his brow. "And I... kinda don't."

"Oh. Well, you can... ask away if you want!" M'gann offers, the cheer in her voice ringing too sharply in her own ears. "Or you... don't have to, if you don't. Want to, that is."

"It's... something I don't really need to know. It's not like I really think about it. Much." Conner rolls his eyes. "And I probably would've never asked if we hadn't, y'know... started talking about it," he says, finally looking back at her.

"I, uh... don't know," M'gann says, at a loss for how else to respond, "because you... haven't asked. So it's... it's not too late to not have asked it! If... if you don't want to, of course. If you do, we can... talk?" She quickly waves a correction to her words with both hands. "I mean, we can still talk anyway, it just wouldn't have to be about... whatever it is—"

"—I'm not... sure you're up for talking about it," Conner admits, slipping his hands out of his pockets to cross his arms over his chest and turning his whole body to face her now, leaning into the bed with his hip.

"Well... why?" M'gann asks with what she hopes is a gently prodding curiosity. "I feel fine. If—if it's about the drinks, that's beyond worn off. And it was barely a buzz to begin with. Besides, I... I already say plenty of things I regret while completely sober." M'gann laughs, shaking her shoulders. "So it's not like you'd be taking advantage of me in some... uniquely vulnerable state. That's... sweet of you to be worried about something like that, though, if that's... what it is."

"I'm not sure if it's sweet so much as it is decent," Conner says.

"We're a little... past the point of 'decent,'" M'gann responds, shrugging then keeping her shoulders high as she folds her arms against her chest, finding long hair for her fingers to claim. That darn top button—she'd had her chance to shift it on discreetly when she was getting re-dressed, and she blew it. "Or at least, we toed the line for a bit there but managed to pull back from it alright." M'gann offers Conner a smile. "We can do it again. I mean, not 'do it' as in do that again—b-by which I mean what we, uh, what we effectively did, which was decide not to do it, but only after our consideration of, um, doing it—"

"Did you and La'gaan ever do it?" Conner asks.

M'gann's mouth goes completely slack for a moment, and not for the first time since they made it to the room—but pure shock is at least less embarrassing than arousal. M'gann swallows. "Oh, um... is... that the question?"

"Yeah." Arms still crossed, Conner turns himself over to be facing the door instead, standing with the backs of his legs against the bed now but still refusing to sit. "Told ya it was none of my business."

"Well, I..." M'gann swallows. "I think it's fair to ask. And I... I guess that's up to me to decide, right? Whether or not it's fair? Do..." She looks up at Conner. "Do you agree?"

Conner shrugs. "Sure, I guess."

"We... weren't exactly shy about public displays of affection, after all, so in a way we were sort of making it... everyone's business."

"Yeah, that wasn't..." Conner pauses, draws his features in tight, and looks down at the carpet at his feet. "I mean I guess it was... like you, because it was you, but it wasn't... like us. We kept things between us when we first started dating."

"Well, us, and... Icicle Junior," M'gann dares to joke, feeling an odd ease settle over her that could make her eat her words about being sober now. But miraculously, Conner cracks a smile.

"Okay, us and Icicle Junior, but that was kinda an accident."

"That was an accident?" M'gann asks smirkingly.

"Kinda," Conner repeats, and he finally sits himself down onto the bed. There's plenty of distance still between them, M'gann notes, as he's taken the very foot of the bed and she's scrunched herself up against the pillows at the top. It is what it is; part of her wants Conner closer, but she's not sure what she would even do if he were there. Reasonably—not realistically or ideally, but somewhere in between—what she'd do would be nothing anyway. "Did you..." Conner starts tentatively, and M'gann realizes he must have caught the look she gave the empty space on the bed. "Did you want that instead?"

"Did... did I want...?"

"The kind of show you guys made of it," Conner responds, his smile having vanished. "Kissing in the mission room. The crab cakes. All that."

"Were you..." For a moment, M'gann loses her voice. "Were you... really jealous?"

Conner frowns. "I'm asking the questions."

"And I'm... starting to lose track of them, I'm sorry." M'gann uncrosses her arms, sliding her hands down her arms to cusp her elbows. "But to answer your first question, we... we didn't, actually. Ever, um... go there, that is. Not... deliberately, so to speak—neither of us really just got to a point where we wanted to. And then he got captured, and then I got captured, and then you... a-and the Team got captured, while he was recovering in Atlantis... and we didn't last the year." M'gann scoffs. "Heck, with all that, we barely even lasted four months." She embeds as much humor into her voice as she can. "At least four months of actually being able to be together. Not a lot of time for anything more than a little necking."

M'gann tilts her head to the side and flashes a set of green gills at Conner, and quickly fills the rest of her skin from her collarbone up to her face with green, It's a little half-joke to break the tension, but as exaggerated as actually shifting her neck makes the emphasis, it's also her sharing the truth. La'gaan's lips always felt better on her neck when she had gills for them to run across; the brushing of his facial fins on her skin always drew them out, and they made her body feel like it fit with his. And aside from one brief view of her birth form before they were even a couple—a painful and uneasy symmetry between him and Conner—she was always green with him. Some nights it may have been a bluer green just from touching him, and some nights she may have gazed back at him with eyes she could feel turning a little red—

—It was through no fault of La'gaan's own, and hardly—if she's being fair—even her fault, as there were so few places they could go, but Megan Morse was never La'gaan's "Angelfish." It may have been wrong of her not to have ever offered up her human form for him to touch, or, ultimately, it may have been right. The less of herself she had given to him, the less she had to end up taking back.

Not that that was ever quite the plan, but if she had it to do over, she'd do whatever she could not to break a heart again.

A chill hits the back of M'gann's neck, and M'gann realizes that her hair has shaped itself into how she'd been wearing it back then, drawn up tight and close to the base of her skull. Conner stands, and with a slowly-registering alarm, M'gann thinks that maybe she shouldn't have answered him in such detail, that she's shared more than she should. But before she can say anything to mitigate the damage, another chill spreads across her entire body as Conner's hand is suddenly at her neck, on her skin again.

M'gann gasps, and her gills flutter. Conner's finger's fit all too well in the spaces between the slits. Her neck goes stiff as she straightens it back up, and her mouth drops open. Conner looks at her like she's the motel window: sparkling, and made of glass. A view for him of something distant. His touch holds the same kind of caution and reverence as his fingertips slip to the back of her neck and his thumb anchors itself just below her ear.

Conner is silent, but M'gann can still hear his voice, if only in her head—and not coming from his head, or even from the present. She remembers the first time she'd ever tried gills in front of someone other than the mirror, using the anatomical blueprint she'd gleaned during mission links from Kaldur's awareness of his own—she'd meant to ask Kaldur what he thought, but Conner was there, with bright eyes and a grin beaming just at her—

Gills. Nice touch.

M'gann feels her face go as red-on-green as it did then, cheeks turning as hot as her gills under his hand. Her hair drops to her shoulders as if being released from an invisible pin, deciding on its own to drape over his hand and keep it there, hold in the warmth.

M'gann takes back control of herself by slipping out of Conner's touch. Conner's hand lingers in the air for a moment in the space in which she left it. M'gann stares at it guiltily until Conner lets it fall back to his side.

"I'm... not sure I should be talking about this after all," M'gann says as she brings her skin back to a full, even peachy tone under its freckles, draining away the reddening of her cheeks as well as the green.

Conner gives her a measuring look then sits back down, closer to her than before. "I don't mind," he says, though with some reservation in his tone.

"I, um, noticed!" M'gann says with a half-cough, half-giggle, running a hand through her hair. "But is it really... appropriate for me to be talking about it, or am I... violating La'gaan's privacy? I mean, it's one thing for me to be telling on myself like this, but it was his relationship, too. That's... kind of how it works," she adds, punctuating the statement with a nervous laugh. "Again, not that we were very private, but behind closed doors... was still behind closed doors. I can't decide for him what to share."

Conner's thumbs rub together as his hands hang between his knees, body leaning forward off the edge of the bed. "You thought of that a little late."

M'gann looks down at her own hands lying still in her lap. "Better late than never?" she tries. "No, probably not."

"I get where you're coming from," Conner says, leaning back onto his palms, "but it's a kind of thing friends talk about, like it or not."

Not like that, M'gann thinks, and she fights to push down a smirk. "That's true. I mean, with Artemis, she—well, no, I shouldn't."

"Y'know, you weren't like this at the bar," Conner says, mirth edging into the suspicion in his voice.

"Oh?" M'gann lets a smile form after all and leans back onto her own hands to mirror him. "And?"

"So you either gotta admit you were drunk or tell me the thing about Artemis."

"Wow, your interrogation skills have really gotten impressive!" M'gann says, and Conner's mouth twists into a half-smile, half-frown, his brow furrowing almost helplessly in confusion. M'gann lets out a tiny, quiet, purely mental scream at herself, but untoward compliments aside, she can't help but find Conner's facial expression cute. "I just... couldn't help but think of Artemis telling me Wally vibrated his tongue for her," she then admits. "I thought it was the naughtiest thing I'd ever heard in my life."

"Really?" Conner says with such a lack of hesitation that M'gann throws her hand to her chest and coughs.

"Okay, the naughtiest thing I'd ever heard out loud!" she clarifies, remembering her very curious younger self's internet history. "Granted, we were still in high school."

"Really?" Conner repeats with the pitch of his voice reaching so rare a height that M'gann almost cries with laughter, squeezes her eyes shut and doubles over as she hacks out some tiny noise that's vaguely human. She's lucky, though, that her body chooses then of all times to mute itself; Conner's own laughter plucks softly and gently at her ears, coaxing her eyes back open.

He's not laughing hard enough to have stopped looking at her, M'gann notices, but his eyes fall so much more comfortably on her now than they did when he had hands on her. This—what she and he are now—could be so much easier now, could be better than they've been.

The thought pulls at something in her chest—her body already starting to try to prove it wrong. M'gann runs her hand briefly through her hair to get her thoughts back on track. "Apparently," she says, "it was a skill he had already developed to impress people with how well he could get his tongue unstuck from metal in the winter. Though I think Artemis was a... little embarrassed about how long it took him to realize it had... other applications."

Artemis flustered but happy and in love without it hurting—that's the kind of moment with her that M'gann would rather have, rather keep in her memory.

"Y'know, that does explain why he dragged us out just to watch him lick Sphere," Conner says.

"I'm still surprised you let him," M'gann responds. That memory, too, in spite of its clarity, fills her with warmth.

"I'm still surprised Sphere did," Conner says.

"Maybe she thought she could call his bluff!" M'gann suggests after a laugh. "But aren't you glad you didn't take him up on his dare?"

"I'm just glad Wolf didn't," Conner says, and they both laugh again, voices mixing in the air. The room feels fuller with just the two of them laughing than the bar did with twenty or so uproarious strangers—maybe, M'gann thinks, because she actually knows what the laughter's about. Rain still patters on the window out past them, but in the space between them, there's nothing that could be considered white noise.

"To be honest," M'gann says, "at the time I thought I'd rather be looking at the snow. I'd never seen it in real life before! At least, not being generated by a supervillain. Now, I..."

No white noise, but a blank white field of snow having fallen heavily into her memory. Forever in her memory. Wally's never in it, no matter how hard she looks. Just two lonely figures where there should be three. They did it! she'd shouted, lying on accident, as if she actually knew.

She did know, she reminds herself—and not for the first time tonight or ever. They did do it. They saved the world.

M'gann lets a deep breath out. "I... I'm glad I didn't. I'm glad I let him distract us. There was plenty of time to look at the snow once he was done."

"Yeah," Conner says solemnly, as if he could read her mind—or maybe, M'gann realizes in a momentary lapse in selfishness, he's just thinking about the same thing she is. They'd all watched and waited in the cold. Artemis may have felt it the worst, but they all felt it. Before and after the threat was ended.

Grief doesn't have to be silent, M'gann knows, but she'd been right not to let the conversation become this back at the bar. If Conner had really wanted a test of whether or not she'd been impaired then as opposed to now, then she'd say the results clear her.

"Well, it's... kinda late now," Conner starts, and M'gann furrows her brow in confusion. "But I guess you oughta know—Wendy and Marvin managed to get some stuff out of me about... us." Conner rubs the back of his neck. "I know, I'm not usually one for talking, but they seemed like they really wanted to know. Like one relationship in five years made me some kind of expert."

"Oh," M'gann says, somewhat blankly as she processes the information. "You... mean that kind of thing?" she asks, thinking about the topic they'd been on before. "Because some of that might have been hard to explain, given my powers—"

"—None of the really fun stuff," Conner responds with a small smirk. "Wouldn't be big on sharing that anyway. But, y'know, date stuff. Where to go, when to—" His face goes unexpectedly red, and M'gann swears she can see him gulp. "Okay, kind of some of that. More timeline than anything."

"That... that's right," M'gann says, thinking about that timeline and her other. "We... we didn't even take four months to... get there, did we?"

"Nope," Conner says. "Not you and me."

"So, wait, they asked you out for advice?" M'gann asks. "Not—not that that would be a bad thing, but any means, I just..." She'd sooner offer up the story of their relationship as a cautionary tale, she thinks, but not for anything Conner ever did. "I... I don't know what I'm saying."

"I think if they'd wanted advice, they would've gone to Mal and Karen. They've been together forever, and they're living together now," Conner says. "You know, just the two of them," he adds. "On... on purpose." Conner then looks at M'gann with a helpless frown.

M'gann nods sympathetically. She and he are living together now, too, again, and as just the two of them for the first time in a very long time—but not in that way, of course.

"But I dunno," Conner continues, shrugging in acceptance of his point having been made. "Maybe that's more commitment than they want. Or it was a 'learn-from-failure' kind of thing."

"If they wanted failure, then they should've called me," M'gann says with a smile despite the twinge in her chest. Conner doesn't smile back. M'gann bites her lip. "So, uh, first date ideas? Did you suggest the Bialyan desert or Belle Reve Penitentiary?" M'gann jokes with an anxious edge to her voice. "Or there's always Atlantis," she adds, including all of her and Conner's almost-kisses before their first, "although that... that really was mouth-to-mouth." She curls her lips in tight to force down any more thoughts of kissing. "I'm kidding. I know we had normal dates, too, I'm just teasing."

"Guess that means you're not upset," Conner says with a questioning look. "At least I think it does."

"Of course I'm not upset!" M'gann responds with certainty—but all too insistently, she realizes, against Conner's incredulous stare. "Really," she says to dispel her own doubts as much as his.

"Something's bothering you," Conner says without a shred of doubt to dispel. M'gann lets herself frown. After all, it's not as though he can read her mind better than she can.

"What makes you say that?" M'gann asks with a laugh."

"Your heart."

Hi! says M'gann's heart with a hard thump against the inside of her chest. The sensation passes only for her to feel her pulse return to a rate that's still elevated.

"You know I can always hear it," Conner says.

"I didn't..." There are two ways M'gann can will her heart slower; she picks the safer, more humanlike approach, takes a breath in through her nose and lets it out shakily through her mouth. "I didn't think you... always listened."

She leaves out the word "still," for his and her own good. Too many nights of her head on his chest but him telling her he loved the sound.

Conner shrugs. "I can tune it out when I feel like it, but it's there. Background, uh—" He looks down at his hands. "Wouldn't call it 'noise,' but you know. It's the same as your powers. You pick up things in waves. 'Specially when they spike."

"I... did," M'gann says cautiously, else too many questions come pouring out of her—but why are you listening now? "I mean, of course I still have the ability, I just... had to learn to suppress it. To control it." M'gann looks down at her own hands. "You... know more than anyone the risk to—" Another breath in. "—To privacy my powers pose, don't you? My training with J'onn helped me break that habit of unwanted—or, um—" She pushes a lock of long hair behind her ear. "Unintentional reads, at least. People's minds need to be their own, right?"

"Uh." Conner's mouth and brow tense as he looks away somewhat guiltily. "Right."

Don't worry, M'gann thinks privately, in a space deep and lonely enough in her mind that she can guarantee the thought absolutely will not reach him. My heart's already yours.

Even if it hurts her heart to think it.

"I, um, thought you already knew that, I'm sorry," M'gann says softy. "Though I don't blame you for forgetting it. I've done plenty to cast very reasonable doubt on the thought of me having scruples." She breathes a gentle, tiny laugh out through her nose. "Or control, at the very least."

"None of that was you losing control," Conner says firmly. "I never doubted that."

"Not even for a moment?" M'gann asks in a way that she could almost trick herself into thinking sounds casual. "How were you so sure?"

"You were never sorry enough," Conner says simply. "So I knew you were doing it on purpose."

M'gann nods and smiles at him. The words don't quite sting like she knows they could; instead, Conner's acknowledgment of her mistakes sense an odd sense of peace washing over her. They've been through not talking about it, and she knows there's no fantasy of herself that her mind can create that can free her from feeling the weight of it—she found that out firsthand.

By talking about it, they make things stay real, make everything stay right.

Which, on top of the fact that she's now warm and dry and definitely, definitely sober but they're still here of all places, is more or less the problem Conner picked up from her heart.

"Did... Wendy and Marvin ever ask what happened?" M'gann asks Conner, keeping her eyes and her voice steady. "You know... to us?"

Conner regards her pensively for a moment before dropping his gaze to the floor. "No. It never went there. They were either too drunk or too focused on just trying to have fun. And it's not like I minded."

"It'd be a... complicated thing to explain, without... having to explain my powers, wouldn't it?"

Conner's brow furrows resolutely. "Details, maybe." He looks back at M'gann. "But not the gist of it. I'm the one that wanted the breakup, and it was because of what you did."

"Do you..." M'gann mentally shushes her heart, wanting that odd peace back that she'd just had. "Do you think they really would have believed that?"

"Does it matter? It's the truth." Conner crosses his arms. "What would you have wanted me to say?"

"I... wouldn't have wanted you to base that decision on anything you thought I'd want you to say."

"Your relationship, too, right?" Conner says with a light shrug of his shoulders.

M'gann hums discontentedly at losing to her own logic. "Well, then I should..." Then I should have done a better job of keeping it, she wants to say at her own expense, but she stops herself. She'd thought that was what she was trying to do.

That was the problem.

"What?" Conner asks at her sudden silence.

"Nothing," M'gann says, shaking her head. "I just... want you to be able to speak honestly about your own experiences, that's all. We... we both need to. My feelings shouldn't be a factor."

"Pretty sure I just did," Conner says with a hint of impatience. "Besides, how would you tell it, without powers? Lie and say you wanted it?"

"No! No." Taken aback by her own reaction, M'gann momentarily puts her hand to her mouth. "No, you're... you're right," she then says as she removes it. "That was the gist. You summed it up nicely." She then offers up a smile to Conner. He doesn't quite return it, but his eyes soften, and his arms uncross.

"Thanks," Conner says. "Because I don't want to argue about it."

"Oh, me neither," M'gann says.

Conner then stands, pushing himself up from the bed with his knuckles. M'gann holds her mouth and her mind completely silent for a moment, but her heart keeps talking, keeps hitting her hard—and not in any fun way—at the view Conner suddenly gives her of his back.

"Y-you're not leaving, are you?" M'gann asks in a voice too high and urgent as she jumps to her own feet. "I-I mean, because we did go halfsies on the room, and it wouldn't be fair for you to have wasted your money, so I could either pay you back, or—"

—She's stopped from offering to be the one that leaves instead by the halting gesture of Conner's hand. "I'm just stretching my legs," Conner says. M'gann sighs and smiles at him, rolling her eyes at herself.

"Sorry. I assume the worst sometimes," she says.

"Yeah, it's kinda rude," Conner says frankly, too matter-of-factly to even come off as harsh. But a twist in his brow and his lip hint at a real criticism to come. "'Halfsies'?"

M'gann can't help but snicker. "Would you rather I not call it that?"

"I think I'd rather pay for everything if you're gonna," Conner responds with a shrug and a smirk just as he turns away, steps out into the room's more open space, and interlocks his fingers behind his head to stretch his shoulders.

Without the threat—the thought—the fear of him leaving, something she can't pin all on him but can't deny she really felt, M'gann can just enjoy his back like she did when her mind was a sweetened, fizzy mess in the hallway. A fantasy too tiny to pose any kind of risk passes quickly through her head: an honest thought of how she'd like to run her hands down his back, a thought that cleanly stops when, following her eyes, those imagined hands reach his very real hips.

"Oh, don't worry about that," M'gann says with her hands tucked behind her own back instead, following him to the window but pacing herself to keep a good distance from him; her eyes thank him as much as her conscience does. "You need your money for supplies. My classes don't have that. If anything, I should be paying for everything..."

Everything, M'gann says, quoting him without knowing his meaning. This isn't a date. It's certainly not their first, and there's no promise in it of any others. Because it isn't a date.

Night for a while, night for a while, M'gann repeats in her head. "Everything... that... may possibly come up, of course," she manages to say aloud.

"It's not like I pay rent," Conner says, standing in front of the window and turning to face M'gann with his arms still raised. "The Watchtower's exclusive, but it's free." Against the window's brightly-speckled darkness, the red S-Shield on Conner's chest glows like another one of the outside world's lights, but no matter how faint the boundaries of his body become in that mix of darkness and light, he's still clearly not behind glass. He's here.

And M'gann can be, too, if she'd let herself. "Well, I don't either anymore!" M'gann responds cheerfully as she brushes her fingertips along the edge of the bed, giving it a quiet goodbye before she unmoors herself from it completely. "That was a... fun exercise in being a normal adult that I'd rather not repeat for a while. At least, not alone. Not that I was quite alone until the end of it, but..."

"...Yeah," Conner says simply as he plops himself down into the window's seat.

"It... certainly worked out that Garfield Logan and Megan Morse had a real home on file that wasn't a mountain or a satellite," M'gann says, keeping her voice chipper and her thoughts distant from her heart. "On top of me being able to help out my Uncle J'onn by taking over John Jones's lease for the rest of the year."

"You miss him."

The open space between the bed and the window already felt like something of a stage with Conner sitting and M'gann still on her feet; the question—statement—hits M'gann like a spotlight, but she keeps her poise. "At this point," M'gann says with her goodest of good humor, "which 'him'?"

Conner brings his foot up to the edge of the seat and drapes an arm across his knee, leaning into his leg. "...You got a point," he says gravely.

M'gann sighs. It wasn't goodbye. It was just seeing Gar off on his—not quite a new life. And Uncle J'onn will be back when he can—regardless of fault, there's damage that needs to be undone. M'gann shakes her head and feigns dusting off her hands, then takes stronger, more deliberate strides over the Conner and the window. "Anyway, that's all the moping I intend to do on that for the night."

"...Okay," Conner says after what sounds as though it was earnest consideration, calling the believability of her little performance into question. But without another word on it, Conner slides to the left corner of the window seat so that she can have the right side. M'gann hesitates for a moment, then shakes her head in exasperation with herself and breathes a small giggle of a why not before taking her seat.

Some potential reasons why not occur to her, though, once she's actually in it. The booth at the bar may have been a little compact, but for both her and Conner to squeeze in together here, they have to draw their knees up to their chests. M'gann watches Conner frown to himself as he follows her example in doing so, like the space is much smaller than he accounted for before making his offer, or like his own legs are simply much longer than he thought. The cushioning of the booth may have been distressed, but the stiff boards now pressed against the top and very base of M'gann's spine make her think they might have misjudged the intended function of the window's low, wide frame as being a seat at all.

After a minute or two of their combined weight bearing down on the wood and no sounds of straining, though, M'gann concludes that it's just a very minimalist seat. "Should I... get pillows?" she asks Conner.

"Don't get up," Conner responds gruffly, but his hand reaching up to grip the edge of the frame is no precursor to him getting up himself; instead, it just hangs there as support as he tries to fit himself more comfortably into the base of his seat, the junction of the panels. M'gann blinks in confusion for a moment, then smiles.

Holding a hand out back towards the bed, M'gann wraps her will around its two plush white pillows, then beckons the pillows over with a twitch of her fingers. "Here," she says as she drops the pillows into both hers and Conner's laps. "They're like a cloud."

"Guess so when they float," Conner says, admitting defeat by raising his rear end and tucking the pillow underneath it. M'gann laughs as she re-arranges herself the same way.

Both sets of knees stay upwardly bent, but at least there's cushioning now, and M'gann curls her toes around the edge of her pillow. "Better?"

"Better," Conner answers.

"Happy to oblige! It'd be a shame to waste such a nice view on uncomfortable seats," M'gann responds, despite having barely spared the world outside a glance since sitting down. Her "nice view" is of Conner, of the contours of his smile and his body caught between the hazy edge of the lamp light's reach and the window's crisp but fractured reflections.

It'd be nicer, more special, M'gann thinks, if they turned out the lights in the room completely, let the glow from the window shine strongly over the two of them instead of it staying force into superficiality. With that thought, M'gann begins to gently feel around the lamp that's closest to them with her mind. Her physical fingers would feel the heat from the bulb, but her projection of her mental fingers slide down the bulb easily to find the lamp's switch. She clicks off that light. Conne smiles approvingly, and the shift in the lighting turns his eyes a brighter blue, one just when she and he had first stumbled into the room. The other lamp wobbles for a moment in place, making M'gann's heart jump, and M'gann resolves not to look back at Conner until she's switched it off, too.

But pulling her focus back over to that side of the bed means dragging her thoughts back along there as well. Her towel remains draped over the edge where she sat and where they'd—also sat, just in a decidedly more intense way. With her mind having wandered to it, M'gann decides to at least fold the towel up neatly and have it take the pillows' place at the head of the bed for now, setting aside that unfinished business.

But she can't. The folded towel falls in a heap to the floor, out of sight but not out of mind.

"Can I... take us back for a moment to what we were talking about before?" M'gann asks, squirming a little in her suddenly too-soft pillow, its slippery fabric and yielding cushion making her support against the frame feel unsteady.

Conner's eyes return to her from watching the towel drop. "I thought you wanted to be done moping," he says, but the seriousness in his face doesn't match the snark in his words.

"I am! About that," M'gann responds, putting up a smile like a boundary wall. "But about us and... our privacy when it comes to... certain things..."

"...You mean La'gaan," Conner says. M'gann blinks in surprise, checks her mind and its own actual boundaries to make sure nothing is seeping out. Convinced enough that she's not losing her mind, she nods.

"...I never told him," M'gann admits, staring down at the peaks of her knees, another boundary wall. "Not while we were dating. I did everything so backwards—all that, that you were seeing from him? That was him not knowing why you and I broke up." She looks back up at Conner. "I didn't lie... at least, not on purpose. All he knew was that I felt hurt, and... I did. But he couldn't have known how... how self-inflicted that hurt really was. I don't think he could have imagined that I had been the one in the wrong. He didn't... know me very well, going in." Her lips curl into a bitter smile. "Not yet."

Conner stares at her for a moment, his face uncomfortably neutral. "He could've asked."

"Do you... really think I would've told the truth?" M'gann asks. "I barely even—well—I knew the truth, but... not in the right way. I knew what happened, and I knew what I felt. That would have... unavoidably colored how I explained it to him. I don't things would have been any better if I had told him then." M'gann furrows her brow at what just left her mouth: an argument for why keeping it a secret wasn't bad. It surprises her that her mind could even come up with it, or even reflect on it now as such. If she could, she'd pull the thought of the words right back in, snuff it out before it could even start to take form.

"But you did tell him," Conner says, picking out an even better argument from her tangle of words. It doesn't surprise her—not really. Conner's always better at defending than she is. He finds the better ways.

But that still doesn't mean a defense is what she needs. "I only told him after I had already broken up with him. Really—so backwards. But he'd jumped into fire to save me, and so I... I thought he had a right to know exactly the kind of person he had saved."

"That doesn't stop us," Conner snaps back. The shadows cast by the window light map out burgeoning points of tension in his neck as he straightens and stiffens in his seat. "That doesn't stop any of us. Including La'gaan."

"Oh. I..." M'gann feels her heart start to pound. Stop it, she seethes at it internally. "I-I know, I mean—" She straightens her own back against the frame. "Of course it doesn't." She shakes her head. "It shouldn't. And I would never accuse La'gaan of being capable of compromising on that just because of what I—"

"So why are you?"

M'gann gives Conner what she knows must be a pitiful, pleading look as she breathes deep to unclench her heart. "Conner, I... I didn't mean anything by it, I'm sorry. I just meant that the full truth is what he deserved from me from the start, and I waited until after the end. It wasn't right of me. I just want to acknowledge that." She tries a smile. "Maybe that's more of how I should have phrased it instead."

Conner crosses his arms and darts his eyes to the window. "I just don't wanna hear you even think like that."

M"gann lets her shoulders slump, drops her eyes back to her knees, and twists a lock of hair around her finger. "...Don't worry, I won't make you," she says softly, but with sarcasm dripping off the words nonetheless.

"M'gann."

M'gann winces. "Is it... wrong that I liked it better when you said my name like that to scold me about... 'Grayson' jokes?" She says it to her knees and not Conner's eyes. "It was like a tit-for-tat, my name for his name. Granted, my name doesn't work like that for any jokes, but..." She smiles, however meaninglessly—at the moment, it's just something she knows that she can do. "It does make for a good reprimand."

Conner sighs, closing his eyes as the back of his head gently knocks against the wood of the frame behind him. M'gann's fantasizing takes a turn for the mundane: she imagines herself offering Conner her pillow for his head. "Look, it's not like you're telling me anything I don't already know," Conner says. "I know you're guilty." Conner's eyes blink open wide, and he furrows his brow. "I know you've felt guilty, but—"

"I'm not sure you need to make that distinction," M'gann says gently, biting back her real thought: you shouldn't.

"You know, telling me what to think's not helping your case," Conner says brusquely.

"I don't have a case," M'gann says with a laugh that's too tired to even be anxious. "Or if anything, I'm trying to mount one against myself, not in favor."

"Why?"

M'gann blinks for a moment then lets the back of he own head bump against the frame. "...I don't know. I guess it's just been a while since you and I just had some real one-on-one time. No... mission, no distractions, just... talking. So there's a lot that's just..." She smiles. "...Spilling out."

Conner huffs, shrugging his shoulders. "Glad to know I bring out the worst in you."

"Conner, there's nothing in the world that could be more untrue than that," M'gann says. It feels so good, so right for her to say, but the fact of it needing to be said at all keeps joy from overtaking the firmness in her tone. She can tell how much Conner wants to believe her—she lets herself see it, dares to think it as his eyes shine at her in the light with reserved hope and thinly-veiled wanting from her, of her.

Of course, her recognizing it is her own self-punishment. She's done everything so wrong, so wrong.

"There's just... a lot that's been building up," M'gann explains, not expecting her voice to catch on tears, straining her throat. She quickly pushes the tears down. "But I love... I love talking to you, about anything. About everything. Even the harder things, the messier... facts. If anything, you bring out the... the truth in me, even when I don't think that I can face it. If that's the worst of me, then... I'm sorry." M'gann pulls her knees even closer to her chest as she wraps her arms around them. "I'm so, so sorry."

Conner responds with his foot—his foot sliding into the space between her and the window, that is, as he stretches one leg out across the surface of the seat and drapes the other atop his knee. M'gann feels one of her own heels slip off her pillow in kind. It's certainly not him leaving, she thinks, but beyond that small, strange comfort, she's at a loss. She meets Conner's eyes with confusion.

"I was kinda joking," Conner says, looking away to the window with his arms still crossed. "But thanks."

"I... suspect there was a kernel of truth in there," M'gann says carefully.

"...Maybe," Conner responds. "But I like the truth, so I'm not complaining." His foot at her side twitches idly, and it tickles M'gann without even quite touching her. "Or—I guess I am, but that's why," Conner continues, and the twitching of M"gann smile stops just as his foot does. "Because you're not telling it right."

"I'm... telling the truth," M'gann says, blinking inquiringly at Conner. "Everything I've said, I've meant it, about La'gaan, and... I can't even think what I would have lied about, to be honest." She breathes a laugh. "Is something wrong?"

"La'gaan already told me everything you're telling me now."

M'gann blinks even harder. "Everything?"

Conner frowns and breaks the hold of his arms against his chest to scratch awkwardly at the back of his head. "Okay, not everything. I still kinda figured you guys had... never mind. I'm saying I already knew you didn't tell him what happened with us 'til you and him were through. You did it that night at the Warehome. S'why you and he snuck off to the docks during the victory party." Conner re-crosses his arms. "Don't think nobody noticed you guys were heading somewhere just because you were whispering."

"Were you..." A small smirk pushes to form at the corner of M'gann's mouth, and as she curls her lips into each other to force it back, all M'gann can think is that she must truly be evil. "...Listening?"

Conner rolls his eyes up to the ceiling and keeps them there. "You wanted privacy, you should've used the link. It's a party." He looks back out the window. "I mean, it was one. And that's what we always did."

"We, uh... didn't do much of that either," M'gann admits. "Linking, that is, outside of missions. I didn't..." She takes a deep breath, lets her mind swirl with delicate ways to phrase it that all disappear as she exhales. "Want to. Simple as that." She bites the inside of her lip. "Not that that's... simple, anyway, but... I don't know. I was trying to... find the... good in... different. Or just... to let it be different. Or just..." Her thoughts from then clash with her thoughts now; she'd wanted love to be different for her then in a way that she actually chose, but she knows now with crystal clarity that she had already made a choice. There's no one right truth to tell that encompasses it all. "I just didn't."

"...So you're saying not linking was good."

"Well, I, um..." M'gann folds her hands neatly atop her knees to find composure, or at least project it. "Well, this is good, isn't it? Just talking like this. Out loud and everything! It's..." She stares at her hands for a moment, blinking in a way she knows is too fast and too much. It feels both right and wrong at once to want to insist that distance between them can be good, but right or wrong, no matter how she feels, she knows it's the truth. "It's... better to... have those boundaries set," she says to soften it nonetheless.

"We're not together," Conner says.

"No, we're... we're not."

"You guys were."

"Conner," M'gann can't help but say with a scoff, if only out of frustration with her own confusion. "S-so? That doesn't mean we had to! After what I—" After what I did to you, M'gann almost says, but it's revisionist history and her head knows that even if her heart can't feel any other way about it now. "No, I... just... didn't want to."

"And he didn't ask," Conner says sullenly.

"Why does it matter?"

The words leave M'gann's mouth with no forethought. Conner's face hardens. M'gann's own face flares hot with what could be anger or shame or both, or just meaningless tears threatening to spill out aimlessly—M'gann can't tell, but she does know there's no taking back what she's just said.

"I... seems like it bothers you that La'gaan and I never had our own link," M'gann then says to reframe her question more constructively. The tension in her voice as she says it, though, makes it sound more like passive aggression to her own ears, and she sighs to let that tension go. "To be honest, I would have expected you to be... jealous if we had." M'gann winces a little at her own words, but knows the discomfort is from the truth. "So I'm... very confused. Do you... just not believe me? Because it's... not like I'd have much to gain from pretending that I practiced some discretion in a relationship I never should have been in to begin with. In... either direction, really—remember, I'm not trying to... defend myself in any way here. If anything, saying I did share a private link with La'gaan would just prove I was trying to replace you, and then I'd be... proving myself right about... well... being a bad person." M'gann lets herself smile and sigh in satisfaction of at least having been able to verbalize her thoughts, then promptly drops her forehead down onto her hands. "This is a mess," she murmurs into the space behind her arms.

"...Were you tryin' to replace me or not?" Conner asks.

M'gann raises her head back up to find Conner regarding her pensively, but with otherwise no easy-to-define emotion in his face. His thoughts are in his own head, and it's where M'gann leave them—she has her own to get out of hers. "Not... quite... on purpose?" she responds. "That's not a very satisfying answer, I know. But I just... wasn't exactly thinking long-term, just... reacting."

Conner sighs almost silently, letting his shoulders lightly slump. "I'm not trying to catch you on anything. It just... rubbed me the wrong way how you were talking about linking."

"But... don't you—u-uh—oop." M'gann covers her mouth. Conner's brow twitches ever so slightly. "Sorry," M'gann says.

"I know what you're trying to get at. It'd have been better if we'd never linked either, right?"

For a moment, M'gann can't parse from Conner's tone whether the accusation is of her having had the thought or if the question itself is him accusing her outright. She knows what she feels it should be. All signs then point to him meaning the opposite. "Well, I mean..." The heat that had subsided from her cheeks flares again in her eyes. "Wouldn't it?"

M'gann feels heat come off Conner's own eyes as Conner glowers at her—she's more sure of what it isn't than what it is. If she could make his heat vision manifest in earnest just by making him angry enough, it already would have happened. "You don't get to take it back like that," Conner says.

"O-oh," M'gann says blankly, her mouth going numb. "Oh."

"You don't get to decide what it ever meant like that, take that something that was ours and make it just something else for you to feel guilty about, like that's all it ever should have been," Conner says. "In case you never noticed, it meant something to me. It meant..." He goes silent for a moment as his face twists into something like anger, but colder and sharper. He fails to maintain it, though as his head falls low towards his chest. "It meant a lot."

What did it mean? M'gann wants to ask. The desire to hear him spell it all out feels equal parts sadistic and masochistic on her part—as much as she'd like to believe that him talking about it could make him hurt less, she can't convince herself that such encouragement from her could do him any good. M'gann drops her head back against the frame. "Didn't I.. already ruin what it meant, though?"

"You..." Conner trails off, but keeps his teeth bared in preparation for whatever his next word will be. M'gann's mouth forces itself into a smile, and she doesn't pull it back. He said it all, she thinks, with just the one word.

"...For the record, I'm not sure it ever occurred to La'gaan that we could use my telepathy like that, especially since he... didn't know... you-know-what," M'gann then says to free the both of them from Conner's silence. "I think for him, it would have been like if he used his powers—"

"Yeah, I don't need that image."

"Conner, only his upper body expands."

"...Yeah, I don't need that image either."

Oops, M'gann thinks to herself as she presses her fingertips to her mouth. "E-Either way, we just... didn't. All we did was spend four months talking and... kissing... er, mostly that, and... pretending to be a real couple. Though I suppose he wasn't pretending."

"He knew you still loved me," Conner says.

Fire rushes back to M'gann's cheeks, to M'gann's eyes; there's no muffling or masking the spike in heartrate now. Her mind flips furiously through its mental log of everything she can remember saying to Conner out loud since—for as long as they haven't been together, for a moment, but she pulls her recollection back in to just this night.

The rain is a blur. The hallway is crisp only in effervescent bursts. The bed was her body being too loud but her mind doing its best to keep her steady, letting her mouth help talk the both of them down.

It was nothing she did say out loud, M'gann realizes, but it's something she did say—or sing.

...When I still love him, and there is no excuse.

She hadn't meant to say it. But she meant it.

All of it.

"He..." M'gann sighs, letting herself go soft and cool again like water, and ignoring the chill that follows. "La'gaan... told you that?"

"Yeah," Conner responds. "Said he was just... tryin' with you anyway."

"I suppose that's... still not quite pretending," M'gann says, letting her head slip to the side to rest against dark, icy glass.

"Were you really..." Conner's voice sounds as sore and tired as her heart feels as he pulls a knee back up to lean himself against, slipping his foot back out of M'gann's space. "...Pretending either?"

Were the circumstances any different, the pain in Conner's voice would compel M'gann to touch him, to stroke his arm or hold his hand. M'gann curls the hand that wants to into itself instead, feeling nails push into her palm but not willing them shorter. "Is there even a good answer for that?" she asks.

"Yeah, the truth is."

M'gann smiles in spite of herself. There's no better thing Conner could say, and she would expect nothing less from him. M'gann smiles at Conner because he's himself. "I think the truth is that I was... well, trying with me, too. Not even really him. And that was... the problem." M'gann finds her eyes turning somewhat watery, but rather than hide them, she lets them rest on Conner's face as he looks at her with strength above all else, but some shade of it between compassion and scrutiny that she'd rather not try to define. It's how she should be looked at, that's all she knows—that's how right it feels to have his eyes on her, despite everything—but it's no sentiment that she'd be able to properly assign to herself. "So you were right about calling him my 'rebound guy,'" she says. "I could have... spared La'gaan a lot of trouble if I had just listened to you."

Conner half-smiles before a shrug. "Wasn't my business. Or my problem. It was a 'made your bed so now you gotta... wake up from it' kind of thing."

"That's not quite the phrase!" M'gann says laughingly. "But it fits! Was that on purpose?"

"Yeah, never been big on idioms. I get 'em, I just like things better when they mean what they're supposed to." Conner nods and smiles as he answer, but then a thought seems to yank his smile down. "Though I guess if the bed never did factor in..."

"Oh, we... well, think of any night we weren't commandeering a couch..."

"Fine."

"...Is that fine?"

"You know, you're kinda late in asking me permission if that's what you mean."

"No, it's not that. I just... honestly am... still trying to understand whether you actually were jealous or were actually... rooting for us? Which is a very strange thought I would have never thought I'd have, but..."

M'gann's mind finds a barb amidst all the unclarity and seizes upon it: of course he'd want her to move on. It'd keep her away forever. He'd wanted to be over her after, just as some part of her had at least thought that she wanted to be over him, too. It's as hateful a thought as she thinks she must be capable of—and more than anyone, towards Conner. Of course La'gaan simply has Conner's sympathies, M'gann corrects herself—La'gaan deserves them, and Conner is Conner. She's seen and felt enough of exactly how he thinks to know he doesn't think like her.

"...But maybe that's a consequence of us never having talked about it like this," M'gann concludes.

"No, trust me, I was jealous," Conner admits. "But I..." His eyes fall to what little empty space there is between his body and hers, and at his sides, his hands clench into fists. Again, M'gann's nails dent her own skin, this time in both of her palms; there's no right way for her to comfort him through a problem she created. All she can do is hope that the stinging in her heart doesn't translate into anything harsh being broadcasted into his ears. "It's not like I really wanted it," Conner says. "I didn't want either of us to be alone. I... I still don't. So at least you weren't."

"But I'm the one that should have been."

Tears leave M'gann's eyes fast enough for them to already be gone when Conner meets her eyes; if she's lucky, the single lamp still on in the room muddles the light enough for the trails left on her skin not to show. As it stands, that same light does nothing to dull the sharpness in Conner's eyes. "Neither of us should have been," Conner says. "You just made it so that we had to."

M'gann loses her breath for a moment, then catches it just to let it back out shakily. "Okay," she responds, willing her voice steady so that more tears won't use it as a cue. "I... suppose that's a... fairer way of putting it."

"Thanks," Conner says, somewhat blankly.

"I'm sorry," M'gann adds. Her voice fades out into a whisper instead of breaking on a sob. It's at least a better failure from her than crying at Conner's feet about it, M'gann thinks. A gentler betrayal.

Conner stares at her for a moment before sighing and adjusting his legs, dropping one back flat against the seat and letting the other slip down off the edge. M'gann scoots herself closer to the edge to give him more room.

"I know," Conner says softly.

"I'm... glad, by the way, that you and La'gaan could get along after... everything," M'gann offers as not quite a change of topic, but at least a lighter view. "You and he are... a lot alike, you know, so in a way, it's really not that surprising. After all, you're both... very fair."

Conner scoffs gently and grins. "We also both kinda have a habit of wanting to punch things to blow off steam. And the Watchtower's not big enough for me and him to have dodged each other forever." He shrugs. "Or, y'know, the time we ended up having left of being roommates."

"I did just miss him, didn't I?" M'gann muses. "That wouldn't have happened to have been—"

"No," Conner says firmly. "I mean, ask him yourself, but no."

"I... don't think that would be a very appropriate thing for me to ask," M'gann says with a laugh. "And that's even if he's been honest with himself about it."

"You're a little late in wanting in his head like that," Conner retorts. M'gann breathes a silent oof. "Besides," Conner adds, "you know it's Kaldur."

"Oh?" M'gann asks. "He told you that?"

"Well, no." Conner leans back and hooks his hands together behind his head, glances up for a moment at the ceiling. "No way his ego would let him. But you learn a lot about a guy when you're holdin' his punching bag and he knows he can't hurt you. He, uh, didn't take Kaldur accepting the League nom well."

"Really?" M'gann tries to think of why, or of when she even could have gotten some clue on what La'gaan's feelings were. She's kept a respectful distance from La'gaan since the coda to their breakup at the docks, and it's a distance that he hasn't challenged. They've been teammates for as long as La'gaan stayed on the Team, and friends as far as necessary, as far as unavoidably so with the intimacy they did have. She may have her lingering guilts about their relationship, but no cause for fresh ones—in turn, La'gaan's resignation from the Team had caught her completely by surprise. "Could it... really be jealousy?" she asks, though she prepares to refute that possibility the moment she can finish putting it to words.

Conner shakes his head before she has the chance to. "Abandonment—again. And pressure, more than that. He got left as the Team's only Atlantean again, and you know he hated being stuck as the—"

"The water guy," M'gann says in unison with Conner. Conner rolls his eyes—at the situation, M'gann hopes, and not at her—and nods.

"And on top of that, he was stuck in Kaldur's shadow. Taking a traitor's place was one thing—try feeling like you're good enough when the other guy's being celebrated and you're just the one that's left, that's there just because you need to be good for something and the people you need need somebody."

"He... may have already had some experience in that."

Conner looks at M'gann quizzically.

"Or... maybe not quite the same, since, after all, as far as he knew..." Holding Conner's stare, M'gann bites her lip.

Realization dawns softly in Conner's expression, and he gives a vague, subtle nod. "Far as he new, I was both, huh."

"The traitor being celebrated?" M'gann spells out for clarity's sake. "I was that, really, by him. And it's my fault he treated you like that."

"That's not all on you," Conner tells her in a voice that almost dares M'gann to believe it. "You may have made the crab cakes, but he didn't have to eat 'em. Like that."

M'gann laughs more loudly than she could have ever expected out of herself regarding La'gaan and Conner and her. "I think you just coined your own idiom!"

"Well, don't spread it around," Conner says, laughing even as he groans. "All I need is for 'crab cakes' to become the new 'crash the mode'."

"I think La'gaan deserves a better legacy on our Team than that," M'gann assures him. "Certainly not just some joke between us. And one better than just 'the water guy,' too."

"Y'know, with Kaldur and La'gaan out, we're the water guys—at least when it gets deep enough."

"Hey now," M'gann counters, "don't discount Jaime and the Scarab! Blue's armor has the breathing capability and the pressure resistance for deep sea terrain."

"Blue's more our air guy, but you're right," Conner responds. "Which is probably a good thing, since just me on rebreather and you on gills can get... kinda risky."

The quirk of Conner's eyebrow and his smile tell M'gann it's a joke. All the same, M'gann knows there's a kernel of truth in that joke, too. M'gann feels her throat flutter at him—just a giggle and not gills, but all the same, she smooths her hair over the side of her neck.

"I... promise to keep any intervention strictly out of necessity," M'gann half-jokes back. "Mouth-to-mouth with no tongue whatsoever."

"As long as you don't get weird about it," Conner says with levity still in his voice, but M'gann tenses all the same. "No debate about whether or not you should while I'm there drowning."

"...What makes you think I'd hesitate?"

Conner holds M'gann's stare for a moment, smile dropping out of his face, and then looks down at his lap. "Nothin', I mean, just..." His brow furrows. "Just nothing like tonight. Not when it counts."

"Tonight wasn't a mission," M'gann says with a weak try at a laugh. "I... I know something like that would be... strictly business, not, um... personal."

"...Okay," Conner says, and he holds out his hand.

M'gann blinks wide eyes back at him. "Hm?"

"Well, if it's business, let's shake on it," Conner says. Still offering his hand, he looks up at the ceiling and shrugs—bashfully, M'gann can't help but think.

Feeling similarly shy—and knowing it's far, far too late for her to become so—M'gann lets the barricade of her knees slide down and collapse. Leaning forward, she takes hold of Conner's hand.

They forget to shake. Both of them. From the shower, Conner's palm is even warmer and softer than before, and M'gann could almost forget the shape of her own hand against it, forget that her hand itself is anything more than an extension of her bio-mass meant to melt and morph around this piece of him until it matches and fits into him. Luckily, that would-be amnesia only last for a half a second. She remembers she has a hand and remembers what she's supposed to do with it—Conner does, too. They give each other's hands a good, firm shake in near-perfect unison, then another—then let their hands go limp together in the air, this time failing to disconnect.

M'gann's body takes over for her mind, though in the most reserved way possible of all the ways tonight that it's threatened to—her pursed lips let out one loud, sustained sputter until they can finally push out a full, hiccuping laugh. A burst of a snort on Conner's end follows right after.

"What are we even doing?" M'gann manages to ask through her laughter.

"To be honest, I got... no idea," Conner responds, voice trembling faintly with his own.

"Then whatever it is, we should probably stop it," M'gann says, still laughing, "before who-knows-what happens."

"If you say so," Conner chuckles out before returning to calm. M'gann sighs to quell her own laughter. Their fingers slip out of each other's grasp like an exhale. M'gann slips back neatly into her seat.

"Light?" she then asks with a hand raised in the lamp's direction. With a smile lingering on his face, Conner nods.

It's the perfect last thing to see before all warm light leaves the room, an anchor of softness within the freshly crisp darkness as the light from the window becomes a thin, hard sheet of white cast down onto them. All the same, the window itself lights back up in earnest with all the outside's colors. Red and green and yellow stars hang twinkling, not rippling, in the distance; rain still drips off the edge of the roof and leisurely crawls down the glass, but the storm is over.

"You miss it?"

M'gann smiles and blinks curiously at Conner as he leans back, draws his knee back up to prop his other leg atop it by the ankle. Him doing so makes his face harder for M'gann to see, but rather than take it as a barrier being put up, M'gann can tell he's just making himself more comfortable in the place the two of them have found themselves.

"Miss what?" M'gann asks Conner good-naturedly as she lets her feet slide into his space to cross at the ankles.

"Living on Earth," Conner responds as he locks his hands behind his head to cushion it against the frame. "Hasn't been that long for you, but—" Arms still up, he manages to shrug.

"I... don't really like to think of it as not 'living' on Earth," M'gann says, rubbing her thumbs against her folded hands. "Just because the Watchtower's where we go to sleep at night, doesn't mean our lives aren't still on Earth, right? We're still a part of this, no matter what." She drops her head against the window and sighs, more in relief than pure contentment, but her cheek against the glass forgets to feel cold when all her eyes reflect back to her is pretty and home. "But how about you?" You've been living in the Watchtower since we, uhm... got back from Mars!" she says with a determined cheer. "Do you miss living on Earth?"

Conner swaps the positions of his legs. "...I like your answer, so no."

M'gann laughs and looks back out the window. "We fight for this, you know. This is it. This is life and love a-and—" Hel-lo, Meg—hel-lo, Megan! He already knows. "And everything really, down here. It's still ours either way, but I'll certainly never mind spending another night in it. And despite how... difficult I... think I may have made it, I... wouldn't have wanted to spend it with anyone else more than you."

"Well, I asked you out—for, uh—" Conner pauses. M'gann smiles quietly, letting him take his time—and ignoring the jolt through her chest brought on by his wording. "For the night, and... I knew what I was signing up for when I did."

"Really?" M'gann asks, more teasing than challenging, though mostly just genuinely curious. "Was all this part of your plan?" She nods her head to the side, gesturing out into the room.

Conner shakes his head. "Didn't really have a plan, but getting caught in the rain definitely wasn't it. I would've been fine just hanging out a while on the docks, but this worked out fine. Glad I thought of it." Conner lets his legs fall back down to the seat. M'gann pulls her own back up towards her chest. Conner shakes his head and pats his thigh. "C'mon."

"I... thought I was supposed to get out of your lap!" M'gann says with a wide, anxious smile.

"It's just your feet, M'gann," Conner says sternly with a hint of exasperation. "And we already ruled that out."

M'gann obliges—as strange as it is for propping her feet up in Conner's lap to feel like obliging him—but she lets herself smirk as she crosses her feet at the ankles again. There's a comment about feet there that she could make, but enough is enough.

At least until she feels Conner squeeze her toes and press the sole of her foot into his palm like he's holding a hand.

"I've missed you, you know," Conner says lowly, voice rasping at the edges.

A rush of heat dizzies M'gann's head, leaves it completely blank on who and where and when she is for a moment—who and where, she recovers quickly. When, for a moment longer, still leaves her reeling; long hair itches at the sides of her neck. "Oh, um..." Her mind reaches back for a joke. "Like... that?"

Conner frowns but doesn't let go of her foot, just rubs his thumb across her skin. "Not like that... okay, yeah, fine. Like that. But more than that. I just... I missed us being us."

M'gann's body sends every signal that it can to her mind for her to let herself feel safe. Some part of her—in her heart, in her mind, or somewhere in-between—still feels dangerous. "You know we're... not quite like we were, of course."

"I don't care. I mean..." Conner's thumb goes still. "...We can't be. I know that. I think you know it, too. Doesn't mean that I can't like us now. Nothing..." His hand squeezes tighter. "Nothing in our lives was gonna stay the same anyway. Everything's always changing."

"But it didn't have to change like that." The words almost feel good enough. "Like this. Maybe it was... going to happen anyway, us separating, us changing, but... I picked the worst way to make it happen. The most harmful and... destructive. I... I think about it every day, and every day, I regret it." M'gann's mouth lingers open even after she's said it, and doesn't close even as she blinks hard, shakes her head. "As... dramatic as that is to say, it... really is the truth."

"You know I believe you by now," Conner says simply. M'gann looks at him for more a response—of what kind, she's not even sure. Hand curling more around the top of her foot now, Conner stares at her resolutely—stubbornly, M'gann thinks, but at the moment, she can't find the strength to challenge him further.

"...Thank you," she responds simply, smiling. "That's... all I can ask."

Conner gives her foot a final squeeze, then lets go. "I've got something else to ask for."

M'gann gulps. "What's that?"

"That blanket."

"Oh!" M'gann looks to the bed and lifts the comforter off the mattress telekinetically, curling it into a ball once it's in the air to make it easier to direct. "Are you cold—uh! Hmm..." Keeping it stationary for a moment, she smirks. "Are you really cold after all?"

"I mean, we went halfsies on that, too, you know," Conner responds, starting with a grumble in his voice but losing it on halfsies, his mouth curling into its own smirk instead. "So don't just drop it on my head either. We're sharin' it. 'Specially with how you were shivering before. It's not exactly warmer here by the window."

"I guess we've saved ourselves a debate over who gets the bed for the night!" M'gann says laughingly as she floats the wadded comforter over to them.

"That's a relief," Conner says, though not without a smile.

M'gann returns the smile. "You know I can get hot under thick sheets," she says—especially with you, she adds only in her mind. "But I promise to drop it onto both our heads," she says as she unfurls the comforter in the air.

Sure enough, its edges as it falls reach beyond the tops of their heads. With just the thought of letting go, of letting that cool, soft weight fall around the both of them at once, M'gann plunges them into a shared pocket of darkness.

But that weight and darkness pass as both ends of the comforter slide down to her and Conner's chins. Conner catches his end just as it slips past his mouth. M'gann lets herself giggle for a moment at the feeling of being half a head peeking out from a sheet and then folds the sheet under her elbows, running it across her waist. Conner wraps his end around his own waist in kind, but keeps a part of it in his hand to fiddle with.

Done with the foot, M'gann notes, half-disappointed, half-guilty about still having her feet in Conner's lap—but until he tells her to move, she thinks she might be stuck. And as she slides her pillow up telekinetically from her seat to her back, she decides—all guilt and any disappointment aside—that she really doesn't mind. There's certainly no way for her to slip away subtly when moving would thump his lap and shake the sheet; density-shifting is an option, but then, where would she go?

It takes willpower to make the shift, and there's nowhere else she'd rather be.

Silence settles back over the two of them just like the comforter, and the window once again welcomes M'gann's eyes, even with her recurring glances back at Conner. Every glance tells her that he's occupying himself in much the same way. After enough times, the accidental meetings of their eyes even manage to stop feeling so momentous, just simple and understood.

A night not alone, M'gann thinks as her head starts to droop and as her eyes settle into the spaces behind their lids. It's been a while.

Chapter Text

[???, Team Year ???]

The glass against M'gann's cheek melts away into something feather-soft and weightless, but still just as cold. Her body feels weightless against it, but it's not quite air. She feels it hold her, suspend her in itself; there's kindness in it, or at least a welcoming yield to her presence despite how expansive it feels around her—maybe even because of it. Here, she can tell, she's barely a drop.

She opens her eyes.

She's not a drop, she's a shard in an ocean full of cold white marble broke into pieces, and of all the shards, she knows that she's the sharpest.

Atlantis, in ruins. This is how he perceives his psyche.

She did this.

"Wait, but this is—agh—"

Her throat constricts, and the weight of the ocean is in her lungs faster than she can think to make gills.It's not real, it's not real, she tells herself in order to push her airways back open—and even when thiswas real, she didn't need gills. M'gann forces herself into a deep breath, at least on this plane; it's somewhere to start. Physically, she knows she's still—and only—asleep. Escape is as simple as waking up. She's only just slipped into this—this time can be different.

Two already broken slabs before her shatter into a spray of dust. M'gann closes her eyes on this plane and begs her body to open its own back to reality, because she doesn't deserve this. It was never her fault. What she deserves is the hologram, the honor of her memory having served as protectress of Kaldur's mind, and her real legacy—

—Tula descends out of nothingness and into form behind M'gann. Closing eyes on this plane, M'gann knows, is a token gesture at best. Nothing her mind generates can escape her perception because nothing in her mind takes any form unless she's already conceived of it. M'gann opens her eyes, and the world shifts to put her face to face with Tula, no choice but to engage. Tula's hands curl into blazing fists as her mouth curls into an empty snarl. She's no one, nothing, a memory of a memory, a visage warped to fiat a role that was never hers in life. Tula had always had a kind smile and sharp eyes, beautiful and perceptive—that, M'gann knew on her own, even before piecing Kaldur's memories back together with him. This Tula glares at her with eyes glazed over in rage, ready to take the two of them once again through motions automatic and thoughtless.

"I'm sorry," M'gann says to Tula even though it's not Tula, and isn't even any part of Kaldur's mind here—just part of her own now.

And to this part of her mind, the apology means nothing. Tula releases a shower of ice shards from the center of a sigil cast between her hands. M'gann takes hits the moment the first shards manifest and flies back through water that yields to her like air.

She feels it, just like before: hot and cold, almost electric shocks searing through her chest.

An unanchored wall amidst the wreckage catches her. The back of her head meets crumbling stone, more damage she can do just by being here—being anywhere. Even with the attack over, pain persists in wringing itself through her neck and shoulders as she drifts off from the wall. Okay, she wants to say, that's enough this time, but she knows there's no negotiating this. There can't be, when she's the only one that's really here—all she can do is make a choice.

You wanna blame yourself, fine, but only if you're willing to do something about it!

M'gann's mind doesn't give her any projection of Artemis to lean on other than that echo of her voice, but it's something, and she takes it. She can't be back here, hurting herself over and over instead of fixing things—

—Kaldur's mind has already recovered, M'gann answers back to the memory. What else can I still fix?

What's left that even should be—

More shards like daggers shoot M'gann back into the wall and immobilize her there, none piercing through her but each one bursting against her only for another to follow before she can react. Pain rips through her mind so brightly that for a moment, all she can see is white, but the flash fades in time for her to see the hot blue fire between Tula's hands swirl and grow into a charging sphere of light. Given a momentary reprieve, her body—her form, at least, on this plane, suited and green with hair cast up in short, choppy waves—sinks limply down the wall.

M'gann pulls enough strength back into her form to avoid meeting the wall's fate: total obliteration as Tula's full blast overtakes it. The shockwaves aid M'gann at first but quickly knock her off formation, turn swimming back into falling. With her heart racing now—mental or physical, both as far as she can tell—M'gann tries pushing her legs into forming a tail, but they stay separate and flailing as another beam churns and seethes to life in Tula's hands. Gasping at the drag on her ankles, M'gann reminds herself that it's not water, and that it's as good as air—that it's her mind and it's anything that she truly wants it to be.

Nothing changes at that thought but the force with which M'gann can will herself forward, but Tula's next attacks at least miss her like the first. Parts of her surroundings crumble in small crashes, but the distance M'gann races to put between herself and Tula turns the sounds muffled and dull to her ears. She slips behind a floating chunk of stone for cover, letting a sense of safety wash over her—only for a single gasp at relief to immediately make her sick.

She's doing all this to herself—what good is there in hiding from it? What point, what use is there, and what help—

—What right does she have to want this to be over?

M'gann drops straight down as the next blast claims her cover. A smoke-like cloud of dust disperses above her head as chips of stone patter like raindrops onto her shoulders. The dodge was automatic; she knew exactly when the attack would come. Each time before has been a drill preparing her for the next, with no end in sight—

—Save for one end, she think as she continues to sink—one possible, permanent end, if that's really what she wanted.

She could simply let it happen.

M'gann tenses to brace herself, curling her fists. Every part of this hurts. Every part of this, she hates—and every part of this hates her back. But no part of it would be worse than that.

She'll do anything in her power not to let herself get close again.

The next blast doesn't miss her. She lets herself cry out from it, rakes her voice pitifully along the coals of her throat as the pain burns her down to her bones. It's a declaration to herself that she's fully alive to feel it. Her form proves stronger than the stone—it doesn't break, and the pain passes through it quickly—too quickly, and her form turns terrifyingly numb to everything but the feeling of falling again.

But a piece of ground rushes up to meet her in a momentarily satisfying crash. Her form lies in rubble, but in one piece itself, no matter how twisted and sore her limbs tell her she is. Nothing is over, not for her or her punisher; M'gann pushes herself back up onto her hands and finds herself unbroken, unbreakable to every extent that every part of her needs or hates it to be true—

—But turning as pale as the color of the stone.

And as the color drains from her hands, so does the strength. M'gann's form drifts back up on its own as if from a slow-motion ricochet, falling in reverse into position, into the inevitable.

Tula isn't waiting for her because Tula is gone now. The figure that was Tula's has shed its guise of humanlike skin to steal M'gann's green instead, and her clothes have shifted from yellow and light blue into a full suit of black and red. A dark blue cloak fans out around her like hair in water, though red hair still hangs short around her head, just in different waves and a different hue—and what was water slowly thins as the atmosphere dries and rusts itself into the very same red as her hair. Jagged white stone settles and smooths itself into winding red cliffs. Atlantis—any piece of it—is gone.

M'gann's hands drop down far past her hips as claws. It stings just as much to see herself floating above in that form as it does to feel herself weighted down into this one, but at least when this part comes, some guilt tapers off. There's nothing now that her mind has stolen from Tula, or from Kaldur.

This is all hers.

M'gann's punisher glares down at her from a Martian sky as if M'gann is an alien invader of her own mind. Power flares to life in her eyes in a sharp bright green even against the green of her face. She roars with a sound that's barely human despite her shape, and behind red lips, her teeth still flash white.

A beam of raw psychic energy hurls M'gann down into slick, dry sand and sends her skidding into the shadow of a dark red cliffside. She groans in her human voice as her head rolls to the side, feeling the disconnect between the sound and her throat. The next attack strips her voice away completely—the force drives her through several layers of Martian rock, and all she has is the thought of wanting to scream, but her jaw cracks open to release nothing but breath. Breaking through the surface of Mars, her form falls freely in the open air for eternity in a moment, stone-like as every piece of rubble caving in with her.

But somewhere deeper down inside herself than where she already is, or so beyond herself that it escapes her own mind's influence, she feels herself at least being able to squirm. The goal is to thrash, but the part of herself that can move at all won't meet her more than halfway. The feeling is left to be a fantasy within a world already imaginary, but a fantasy that refuses to dull her other feelings and drop her somewhere safer, like some fuzzy-lit room on Earth full of laughter—

—Her mind throws her down once again to the ground. Her limbs curl up towards her core before losing the strength to hold even that tension. Get up! M'gann shouts to herself without any voice to make it real. Her form grants her no motion beyond the closing of her eyes and the clenching of her teeth. Get up, she tries again. Get up,run, hide, do something, stop this, please, please, wake up!

M'gann opens her eyes again, at least on this plane. She's dreaming. Of course. She'd almost forgotten she was dreaming, or at least what dreaming even meant. It doesn't have to be a fight. She can let the images pass through her mind and wake up tomorrow on the other side of them as long as she accepts that they're not real. The only power that they have is hers.

It's the wrong thought to have as her punisher swoops down through the hole in the crust above, still wearing her face. The body M'gann is in still won't move. To anyone else, the sight of an opponent sprawled out in the dust and stripped bare of all defenses would be a sign to stop, but M'gann knows herself far, far too well to expect that.

The next psychic beam rips a long, thin gash into the exterior of a hollow cavern, and M'gann crosses her thin white arms in front of herself to block the oncoming rubble. The ground lets her pass right through itself before the impacts crumble it away, and this time she can propel herself down rather than freefall. The rubble falling with her simply passes through the taut but wide cavity of her chest whenever close enough—she's not a part of it now. She's felt it enough. She's truly, truly, felt it enough. She lands gracelessly in a small crater but with wrists and knees now strong enough to support her, no matter how weak and tired they feel.

Bio-orbs embedded in the rock turn the blood-red world a soft yet bright blue-green. The small cavern she's landed in is cold and empty beyond the freshly-fallen debris, but it's a respite all the same from the battle and the pain. M'gann rises to her feet, and the motion comes effortlessly; her form could almost float without her even needing to will it. The thick air and heavy wash of color that pervades the space soothes, makes her feel almost underwater.

And then, more than almost. M'gann loses the ground beneath her feet and swipes at emptiness with clawed toes to try to anchor herself back into her small haven. She's still under a planet's surface, no doubt, but that planet isn't Mars again—safe walls crumble around her and give way to another dead and broken Atlantis. M'gann's punisher hovers above with eyes still beaming and a green form still cloaked in darkness—it's at least the right form for her. Tula never ravaged a world, only died to save one, and Tula's memory, even with every shred of grief and longing embedded in it, still held enough inherent good not to tear Kaldur apart—that had only been his cover, and only part of it.

It took an invader to cause this much destruction, and M'gann looks up at herself and seethes.

A sharp light then floods her vision, and M'gann's body goes skipping across platforms of earth like a stone across water. The part of her that's beyond herself gives her all these inklings of gasps and grunts and groans—she doesn't know why. She knows that she's hurt, but nothing feels wrong. Momentum finally releases her, and she slides backward into place below a towering gray-blue wall, jagged at its edges from being broken off of something greater. Maybe it was something sacred, M'gann muses numbly for a moment as she lies in its shadow. Maybe it was something magic. Or mundane. It doesn't matter. It was something that deserved to be made whole again, and to be left whole to begin with.

An energy beam rips another gash into the stone above her. M'gann's arms won't cross to shield her—it wouldn't matter if they did. She knows either way that the rubble will just crush her without killing her. After all, it's not real. It's not substantial enough to make any real difference. M'gann can see right through the rubble even as it falls into place on top of her. Her punisher zips over to see the attack's result only to look down with disgust when M'gann is still alive to look back at her. M'gann shares in the frustration. They could do this all night. They could do this every day and night until the end of time, and nothing would change.

She can't keep doing this. She thinks it every time, but every new time proves her wrong. She's tired of being wrong. She just wants things to be right.

M'gann rises to her knees. Dust and debris slide out from the cradles of the membranes between her arms. Hot seafoam froths to life under a broken marble pillar nearby, spilling out around the pillar's edges and lifting the pillar off the ground.

No, says some part of her, but not the part that has control now. M'gann's punisher extends a hand and takes telekinetic command of the pillar. Obligingly, M'gann's head and shoulders start to slump.

No! No, no, no—

It worked when Artemis said it. It made things—made her—stop this, snap out of it—at least as long as she had to. But M'gann's form on this plane has something else to say instead, even without a mouth shaped to speak the words.

[Do it.]

No!

M'gann's punisher raises the pillar high over her own head, arms braced and body coiling itself back like a spring. It's the last look M'gann takes at her. There's nothing more to see.

No!

She just wants to sleep.

[Finish it.]

M'gann closes her eyes, letting the gesture mean something this time, willing her sight into black. It's the same smothering, empty darkness she can imagine will be there when it's over, when it's all that will be left. Oblivion. It'd solve everything.

[It's what I deserve.]

But she doesn't want to die.

"No!" leaves M'gann's lips in a way that feels real and leaves her gasping at the faint but blank sky above her. The darkness returns quickly as her eyes roll back shut, but it's shallow this time, a thin veil draping over her face and letting some light still peek through to her.

Her body might be floating. It's hard for her to tell. All the same, it feels too heavy for her to move. Her head bumps into something soft then simply drops back into air. Neither motion does anything to interrupt the throbbing behind her eyes, and this is what she wanted, she thinks—concrete proof that she's alive. The sound of her victory rings sharply through her head, and each peal is another declaration: she's alive, she's alive, and she's awake.

And now that she's awake, it's the last thing in the world that her body wants her to be. The pounding in her head and in her chest demands relief. She squeezes her eyes shut tight, pressing back against the pressure, and sighs a promise to her heart that she won't move again for hours if it would only let her sleep.

But there's more agitation at her chest than just her heart, and more to the ringing in her head than just the recoil.

Her name. Fingers digging into her arm. Conner's voice.

M'gann groans. If she opens her eyes, she knows her head will split in two.

If it hasn't already.

"M'gann, wake up!"

"Mm-mm," M'gann responds defiantly, shaking her head side to side as something else shakes her chest up and down, but mostly just in place. Conner's arm is at her back, she realizes. He has her. It's nice. She rolls her head against his shoulder.

She drifts only for a second before feeling her back hit the carpeted floor. "Mm?" she hums, confused, and rolls her head to her own shoulder. Conner was just there—if she's dreaming still, then this part has never happened. And if she's still in her mind, then she's not sure how she's ever going to wake up.

That thought has no time to panic her when thick fingertips are suddenly pushing and pulling at her eye, letting sharp air in to tell her in no uncertain terms that there's nothing left between her and the waking world. M'gann squeezes both her eyes as tightly shut as they'll go and shakes off the touch, raising her arm slightly to swat at the intruder, but letting her hand bounce back against the floor without actually making contact. There's no need when the strange hand has already left her alone—or, not a strange hand, really, just a strange thing for him to do with it—

"—M'gann. C'mon," Conner says as his thumb runs up the center of her brow. M'gann gasps at the warmth of his palm against her temple—for a moment, it melts away everything, but the hurt is much deeper than skin or muscle, deeper even than bone. Keeping her eyes closed, M'gann rolls her head against Conner's hand and wills for his touch to keep her numb, but pain trickles back into the forefront of her mind and pools behind her eyes.

"M'gann."

His hand doesn't leave her, but he's angry, she can tell.

"Wake up."

His voice shakes. He rolls her head back into facing him, swiping a wet thumb across her cheek. M'gann tries to open her eyes, but they're insistent. Sleep. Nothing else. There's no recovery without rest.

"I'm sorry," M'gann at least manages to say. Her lips feel as heavy as her eyes, but she can tell that she still has to say it.

"What's wrong with you?" Conner says—M'gann thinks. Her head—ears included—suddenly feels full of cotton balls. She's not quite sure what the question even means, but he sounds upset.

"It's okay," M'gann assures him, a shallow recess of sleep opening up deeper beneath her. "I woke up."

A warm, empty darkness waits for her inside her head. Too tired to do anything else, M'gann simply lets herself sink into it—imagines smiling, though whether the thought reaches her lips or dies off below the surface is beyond her. But here, she can tell that this time, she's safe.

//

[March 17th, Team Year Seven]

A flash of headlights raises Conner's eyelids. He finds his head leaned forward at an angle he didn't choose for it; he straightens up his neck. Speckled shadows flitter across the white sheet over his and M'gann's legs as raindrops keep streaking down the outside of the windowpane, but the fog of M'gann's breath on their side of the glass keeps her freckles as the only patterns on her face. Her mouth hangs open wordlessly, a slack lower lip and the scrunch of her cheek pulling her upper lip at a slant.

One solid snore flares and crackles at the top of her throat, breath whirring in her nose and then puffing out past her teeth. Conner holds his laughter for the next one, and when the next one does come, he let out his own—however subtler—snort. Underneath the cover, he taps his foot against M'gann's hip.

"Hey," Conner breathes out softly.

As he expects, M'gann's face stays still and serene as it hovers in the light, draped on either side by hair that pools around her shoulders, slips down and rides the rise and fall of her chest. It's all just bio-mass that she shapes to her liking, Conner knows, but at this distance, he could mistake her for sixteen again. Just as easily as he could himself.

The comforter in his hands doesn't quite do its job—he squeezes his fists around white puffs with too much give and then sighs determinedly. Outside, an engine revs as wet wheels seethe softly against the asphalt, and another pair of headlights passes by the window, pulling Conner's eyes in its direction. He's too used to space, he thinks, frowning; the inky blackness outside the Watchtower's windows never budges and never looks back in at him. But the golden lot stretching out to the road and to the docks is empty now, too, again, save for the overlapping blurs and rings of light crowding the sky.

We fight for this, you know, the memory of M'gann's voice echoes back into his head. This is it. This is life and love and... and everything, really, down here. It's still ours either way.

I like your answer, he'd told her. Still do, he thinks to her now, looking back her way.

Old habit. She's asleep. And even if she were awake, her mind wouldn't be open for it, for him, Conner figures. That's where they are now. Her legs laid over his are barely a warmth or a weight, but she's there, and his hands stay full of comforter. Her breath is quiet again, and his ears go anywhere else: the waves sliding over the shoreline, the residual rumble in the clouds from the storm already passed, more engines, more wheels, other guests in other rooms—conversations, sleep, adrenaline—hearts. M'gann's heartbeat hangs immovably at the edges of all of it.

People's minds need to be their own, right? she'd asked him.

Conner scoffs at himself and pries his eyes away from her face again. It's not a kind of problem that he's used to. The old them slept chest-to-chest, legs wrapped in legs, hands in hands and shirts and hair and anywhere. Permission to let all of her, every sound and sight and touch, wash over him when she was there would have been like permission to breathe.

This is the new them, or at least, the newest. He'd stopped listening to her heart before.

He'd wanted her out of his head, after all.

And what La'gaan's touch did in her chest, he didn't want to know—didn't want to want to know. Her cooing, fawning voice lilting through the air did enough inside his own chest.

You were right about calling him my 'rebound guy,' M'gann had admitted. I could have spared La'gaan a lot of trouble if I had just listened to you.

It's nothing Conner didn't know—or nothing he hadn't hoped—but it's still a strange thing to have dropped in his lap now, to hold now in his hands. He's proud of her for owning up to it—less proud of himself for how good it still feels to be right. The tide pulls back from the sand in the distance, and he remembers the impact from his side of the punching bag sliding him back on his heels as sand spilled out onto the floor over the sound of a hiccup, not a roar. The split knuckles left behind after inflated arms deflated showed Conner exactly how thick La'gaan's skin really was, just like La'gaan's half-hearted growl when Conner had brought out the bandages:

"I don't need this from you."

"Take it anyway."

La'gaan had snatched the gauze out of Conner's hand, wrapped his wounds himself—slowly, drawing back his pointed teeth and slumping his shoulders in a sigh.

"Thanks... chum."

Still don't know what you'd see in a guy like that, Conner jokes alone in his head, rolling his eyes back at M'gann. Without her laughter to follow it, though, the joke falls flat.

Conner loses himself in her breath for a moment, just the sight of it. Motion self-perpetuating and self-contained. In arm's reach but intangible. She could be static on a screen, and his eyes grow heavy as he stares, but something holds him up and out of sleep, keeps him staring at her, waiting.

She's asleep. It's over for the night. Whatever it's been, whatever they've been tonight, is over. For now or forever, he can't decide, can't tell. He'd blamed the alcohol a little for the fun of it, but also to get the truth out of her—any truth, all the truth, whatever she would give him—

If anything, you bring out the... the truth in me, even when I don't think that I can face it. If that's the worst of me, then... I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorr—

Stop, Conner thinks at her in his memory, in his head, as his cheeks flare hot at her faraway face. Her hands lie limp and crossed at the wrists in her lap, and it takes every ounce of conscious thought for Conner to convince himself not to reach for her. Stop saying things like that.

He rips his stare away from her hands, but his eyes refuse to linger in the darkness of the room for long. They find their way back to her face, cool and soft in the window light, but his own face feels hot and brittle, eyes burning, teeth clenched—

I thought you were stronger than this.

Conner growls at the thought. It's not what he means, not what he thinks—but explaining that to himself would be easier if he had said it out loud. Her strength—with everything that's weighing on her, everything she's still carrying—but even he knows when that strength isn't a virtue. He thought she put it d own. He thought he'd helped her when he finally said it—

—Cheeks still stinging, Conner breathes out, loosens his bite. He closes his eyes. An afterimage of M'gann lingers in his vision, however vague, and he breathes in, out again in time with how its pieces drift apart and fade. It's easier when she's already linked, but, concentrating, he fumbles through the dark inside his own skull until he can feel a place to push. Calling back the picture of her in his head, he wills the thought forward.

[I forgive you.]

He opens his eyes.

A single streak runs down the outside of the window, a fresh cut of light through the center of the glass. The rest of the world is as good as still. M'gann keeps breathing, in and out.

At least with her asleep, it makes sense that what he says doesn't matter.

Conner closes his eyes again tightly, forcing the dark to flood in faster this time. His turn to lean a cheek against glass. It registers briefly as some kind of cold, then it's nothing.

Two days.

A shiver hits him from the inside, runs through his bones.

M'gann reminds him that she's there with a tap of her voice against his eardrum, a small hmnh in her sleep. Conner slides his hand forward until he finds the jut of her toes, and he squeezes, feeling more fluff than foot. All the same, he leaves his hand where it lies. The ocean fades out into drips off of streetlamps, thunders and engines into her breath and his, and then just his own.

The glass gives him distance. Just enough to hold him in and the rest of the world out.

Away.

Gone.

The white light coming down is his whole world now, just like at the start. The slab against his back keeps him upright. There's no will in his limbs; the strength in his muscles is static, feels like nothing, means nothing. The urge to twitch a finger doesn't make it down to his hand.

No.

Conner makes a fist in his head, then another, then again, then again. His hands stay flat against the slab.

No! he shouts behind closed eyes, closed mouth. Around him is all breakable—the walls, the glass—more grasps at fists. He thinks it through. It doesn't matter that he's alone. All he has to do is to move. Just an inch. Just a push. Just like a heart, keep beating, keep pushing, keep being alive until he's through—

A needle-thin prickling in his ears opens his eyes: the chime of a crack. A jagged white line ruptures through the case of light around him, draws in the empty dark outside it. Conner grits his teeth, holds his breath an extra second just to push it out stronger the next. The pressure outside presses back—the glass trembles. The crack grows new offshoots, white veins across his vision. His own veins throb in his wrists. His hands tremble like the glass—just a curl of his fingers, just one twitch into a fist, and he could do it. He can do it. It'll pass. He'll get through. He can do it—he can—he—

—A fist-sized hole in the glass breaks into view and knocks the breath out of him, lifts him limply off the slab and throws him to the top of the pod. Before his body can bust through it, it shatters on its own. The light splinters into shards around him; the dark becomes a dimly-lit haze and carries the broken glass away in a wave.

But the wave that launched his body up doesn't send him back down. His hands hover at level with his shoulders now, and as he brings fingertips to palms, his fingers cut through little resistance. Something solid enough to feel, but not enough to grip. Over his head, he finds no sun; under his feet, no ground. The world floats around him in pieces: slabs of earth and marble, displaced tiles littered across the sky, whole pillars ripped from foundations. He's just one more thing suspended in freefall. His feet don't need a ground—his body doesn't need the sun. What destruction there was has already been wrought. What's left in the brokenness is silence. Stillness.

He could float here forever.

Forever only last seconds—a flash rips through his eyes, and a scream burns through his head. Forever returns too fast—the silence and the stillness become a gaping numbness, his body a dead weight again. Conner shakes his head, finds his breath, brings his fists down to his sides and blinks, thinks.

He's not alone. A figure, bright and flowing, descends from the sunless, horizonless sky. Yellow and pale blue. Sharp cuts of dark red hair. Her own fists clenched at her sides, swirling light streaking off of them. Snarling teeth and icy eyes all but glowing.

"Tula?"

Tula's name leaves Conner's mouth, and the weight of the ocean fills his chest. His throat strains for power it doesn't have—breath or a scream—and he throws his hands up, out, grasps for a line, for a rebreather, for hold of anything. Tula shimmers in his watering eyes. The sash at her waist writhes snakelike at her side then disappears behind her in a dark blue shadow. Her suit darkens at her chest and stretches out over her limbs. Conner blinks, and Tula's face goes sickly yellow, then vibrant green, darker freckles spraying out across her cheeks and to the feather edges of short copper hair.

Conner reaches for her.

M'gann!

The thought itself seems to set light to the haze and crumbles the ocean into dust. A horizon stretches into view, brings floating white stone tumbling to the ground and rolls it into red cliffs. The sun hangs distant, a blue dot at the bottom of a yellow-gray sky. Conner hangs above it, holding his throat as air flows back in.

The world behind him goes bright green. He looks back to M'gann—he doesn't find her. In her place, a screeching, sizzling beam of energy rushes at him, swallows him whole.

—And spits him back out. Conner lowers and uncrosses his arms without so much as a singe on his shirt or a tingle in his skin. M'gann is a momentary blip in his vision, a smaller flash of green—then a crash below quickly steals his attention. Sand hisses and billows up like smoke at the bottom of a nearby cliff. The trail carved through the dirt leads Conner's eyes to the body before the cloud can start to thin, and at first, all he can see is white.

And at this distance, the pointed white head rolling to the side could be any White Martian's, but the weak groan that flickers in Conner's ears is hers.

Conner dives. The world becomes a hot blur in his eyes—he squints to focus in. M'gann's upturned claws tremble, then fall limp. Conner lands without dust, without craters—as he runs down the length of her skid through the sand, his feet barely touch ground. He crouches beside her. Her eyes stay wrenched shut. [It's me,] he thinks to her, reaching for the white crest of her forehead.

His hand freezes as the sound of his own thought rings right back through his head, reverberates in pieces off every wall and surface around him—both above him and below him, a peal becomes a pulse.

Above him, M'gann descends, green fists at her sides, blue cape whipping up behind her head as hair flicks around her face like flame. Her eyes are blank with light—they narrow, and energy sears past their edges, charges into form between them as a cell of light. She raises her fists and roars.

"No!" Conner throws himself over M'gann's bare white form. For a moment, he can see her teeth part for breath in his shadow. The next moment, her mouth is open wide in a soundless scream, and the ground below him is in pieces falling with her. Gravity leaves his body dangling over the chasm, the dark haze blooming wide as each layer of rock crumbles into the next. The white spec of M'gann's form vanishes into the dust.

Then a hot streak of green and a violent snap of cloak folds ripples past Conner's head.

Conner growls, kicks off against air, and throws himself in after her.

[M'gann!]

No response; more echoes. The pulse of M'gann's presence thrums in every shard of rubble. But in the rust-red haze, a flicker of blue flags the red X on her back. Conner steers himself closer to her in his descent, thrusting an elbow, twisting his waist. His arms and hers align in his sight—his hands open for her—

[M'gann, stop!]

—His fingers curl around air. He tries again, empty fists. She's solid in his vision. He tries again—his arms phase right through her and close over his own chest.

[M'gann, what are you—]

A ripple of her cloak hits his eyes but not his face, and M'gann slips farther ahead of him. Conner reaches out again—his hands don't follow the thought. They snap back to his sides. Momentum leaves his limbs; in his eyes, he's still falling, but his back feels a wall.

No, he thinks.

Light filters in around him—

No!

[Get up!]

As a distant shout as soft as a breath, M'gann's voice grazes the surface of his mind. The light hits the dust—his vision blurs and frays into a white rippling haze. Static. Empty.

[No!] he shouts back to her, reaching, reaching—nothing, nothing. Each thought dies in his head. Each thought pulls his body further back into stillness—he holds his eyes shut to keep falling, to force the picture back. The ground never comes.

[Get up. Get up, run, hide]—M'gann's voice only grows more frantic as it fades—[do something, stop this]—pounding thunder drowns her out, fast and rhythmic like a drum—[please, please...]

Conner slams his hand into the glass.

No air comes rushing in. His knuckles tell him cold, hard, wet, but no shards litter down as his hand slips along the surface. Something light and papery shuffles at his knees—the hand in his lap tightens around itself. A metallic glint—the door handle—the white block of the bed—his own shadow, smeared across its side—

—Carpet fibers prickle against his chin and cheek, matching the pins and needles already in his limbs. The thud of the floor against his skull catches up to him—no pain, but an impact. His feet finish sliding out from the window seat and drop him to the floor. Holding his eyes open, he watches the static slowly fizzle all the way out of his vision.

When it clears, M'gann is at his side, body white and crumpled.

Conner claws at the carpet until his hands have their strength again. He blinks, and the white becomes only the comforter over her head. Conner shoves himself up onto his knees and wrests the sheet off of her, feeling it press tangibly into his grip. A half-awake thought over the thunder in his head says rip it—he shakes it out of his hand instead, tossing it aside.

M'gann looks out past him with eyes half-open, white light peering through. Her face is green—gray in the window light, but Conner knows it in any light—and her hair curls short around her jaw, framing bared, clenched teeth. The pounding of her heart drowns out his own in his head—his adrenaline, her panic.

"M'gann."

She's solid—so is he. The fabric of her shirt creases under his fingertips—small victory, Conner lets himself think. He rolls her onto her back, her arm dragging limply over her stomach. Her eyes stay half-open; she doesn't blink. Conner shakes her by the shoulder. Nothing. "M'gann," he tries again, both shoulders now. Face unchanged, her head rolls to the side. [M'gann!] he tries projecting with his mind—

She was there. Traces of her. Hot trails of her touch leading off over the edges. Conner blinks at a floating afterimage, rust-red flickering to green—

—M'gann twitches under his hands and lets out a sharp, breathy whine. Her eyes open wider, shining more light. Conner shakes off the why, the how, even the what—for now. He needs her awake—she needs to wake up. [M'gann, can you hear me,] Conner pushes out to her, concentrating, feeling for connection. The thought drifts out and dissipates. "M'gann." Out loud agian. He shakes her shoulder, lifts her arm, squeezes her wrist. [M'gann!] Another hanging thought. He clutches at her temple, rooting fingers in her short hair.

M'gann's breath hitches. Conner's hand goes slack. He waits for a response. Her eyelids flutter, and her chest jumps; she grunts as if from effort, or an impact. Her hands curl and uncurl. She rolls her cheek into his hand then out again, only vocalizing a hard gasp for breath once she's staring back out at nothing.

Conner's hand tenses around M'gann's head again. As if from a switch, the light from M'gann's eyes goes out as her eyes fall shut.

Conner jumps to his feet, teetering back but catching himself. That wasn't him, he thinks determinedly, feeling fresh sweat between clenched cold fingers. It wasn't him. The thought shifts from self-assurance into its own frustration. What he's doing isn't working. His eyes scan the room for a solution, but there's the bed, his boots, and the door. Some reflex says he has to get her out of here—it's wrong, he knows that, but not why. How. What. Her touch was in his mind—that's all he senses now, and all he sensed then—now that he's awake, he knows it. He knows her mind. She pulled him in.

Psimon—Conner sweeps the motel for heartbeats and heat signatures, throws pulsating colors up into his vision—he wouldn't know Psimon by either scan, wouldn't even know what's changed since before he fell asleep—he didn't count then, but now, everything's quieter. That's all he can tell. Their guard's been down all night—

—Civilians. Conner eyes the door again, a blur of murky blue-gray. He remembers to blink, and his sight returns to normal. Even if it's just her—especially if it's just her—he needs to get her out of here. And if it is her, then she—

—She's not in control.

M'gann lies still and quiet again at Conner's feet. Her heart beats softer. Slower.

Conner drops back to his knees.

"M'gann." Conner strokes her forehead and jostles her shoulder. Still no response—from any part of her. His hand leaves her shoulder, but the tremor stays in his wrist. He can still hear her heart, but the sound isn't enough. He waits to see her breathe.

Artemis in the sand—fake blood and a pill, Conner reminds herself.

But Wally in the white haze—a flash of light and then one fewer pulse, one fewer flicker of yellow and red.

M'gann's chest rises. Conner puts his hand to his own head in relief and remembers to breathe, too.

Then M'gann breathes out a groan, tightening her brow. Her breath hitches and stutters, drawing her shoulders up to her ears. Her chest rises again.

The rest of her follows. A wave pushes at Conner's knees, kicks up tendrils of M'gann's hair and tosses the comforter off the floor and towards the door. Space opens up between the floor and M'gann's back, and M'gann whimpers, grunts as her heels kick at air. Fighting the tug of telekinetic resistance, Conner pulls her to his chest. A pant already sets her own chest throbbing against it as her pulse quickens again. She gasps and throws her head back—her eyes open up wide and white again. Conner holds her head to his shoulders with his chin. Her body quivers like a plucked string; her voice catches in her throat, comes out in half-choked cries.

Then just as quickly as it rose, her body goes slack in his arms. Conner's mouth forms around her name again, but nothing comes out. His eyes fall to the streaked glass of the window. Her body is too heavy and too light all at once. It's still ours, he thinks idly in her words, waiting for a drop to fall, waiting for thunder. Her heart beats slower again, a missed half-second. Another missed half-second. A third sets the pattern. She's breathing, but there's nothing—

There's nothing he can—

—No. Conner's hand tightens around M'gann's bicep until his fingers burn with a pulse—two pulses, hers and his own. He lets go and raises his head. M'gann's head beneath it drops back, white light flickering through her fluttering lashes. Conner raises a knee to prop up her back, and with his freed hand, he pushes her head into his, brow to brow.

If he can't get her out, he needs to get back in.

Conner closes his eyes. [M'gann.]

"Ngh," M'gann grunts out. Her breath hisses back in through clenched teeth.

[M'gann, listen to me.]

"Nnnn—" M'gann's head beats in place against his like a heart, and she hiccups, gasps—sobs. Hot tears trickle into Conner's hand at her cheek. Conner pulls his face back form hers. "Nnh—nuh—uh—agh—" She moans, then bites at air and seethes. More tears shine at the edges of her eyes, sending white streaks down the side of her face.

Conner shuts his eyes tight and brings her forehead back to his. [I know—] The knot forming in his throat makes even his mental voice snag. [I know I can get to you. Let me help you. Let me in.]

The world stays black behind his eyes. M'gann's whole body trembles in his hands. The darkness in his head pulsates with her heart—her mouth still fights against the sound for a word. "Nuh—"

[—M'gann, please.] Conner drops his knee and rocks her forward, ignoring the quiver of his legs against the floor. [Please. I—]

"Nnn—unhhhh..."

A long hot breath runs over the skin of Conner's throat, leaving a chill in its wake. Another doesn't follow. M'gann's brow falls flat under the curve of his forehead. His head throbs—his own heart. It's all he can hear. His own breath leaves him. He opens his eyes. Hers hang open in sliver, lashes unmoving and light dimming.

"M'gann—"

"—No!"

M'gann shouts it to the ceiling, body rising out of his hands, light flashing out of wide open eyes. Her eyes roll back shut, and her body drops back down. Her head bumps Conner's shoulder; it falls back over the edge of his arm, and long hair cascades down over his sleeve and skin. The green leaves her face as she gulps down air, heart pounding in time with hard, determined breath after hard, determined breath.

For a moment, it's all there is to do. Hear her heart. Watch her breathe. Hold her. She's alive. That's all. She's alive.

He knew that.

He knows that.

And now that he knows that, he needs her to be awake.

A determined breath becomes a determined sigh. M'gann's body half-relaxes in Conner's arms—Conner can feel the tension linger in her knees and shoulders, see her hold it in a crease between tightly-shut eyes.

"M'gann..." Any other name, any other word by now would have already lost its meaning. "M'gann, wake up."

M'gann holds her body still and her eyes closed.

"M'gann."

Nothing. Just her heart. Not sleep, but not panic. Conner shakes her. She groans and resists the movement, fights to keep her head in place.

"M'gann, wake up!" Conner shouts, rattling her again. Her arm pulsates in his grip.

"Mm-mm." M'gann shakes her head once then drops it against Conner's shoulder, sinks her whole body into his arms. In his hand, her arm feels thin and full of feathers—soft, yielding, too yielding, no comfort—too much give—

—Conner throws her to the floor. She barely makes a sound. Her head rolls to the side. She breathes—Conner sees it. Hears it. Everything. His skin prickles. His hands are as cold and stiff as ice as they hover over her, ignoring his commands. Move. Move. Draw back. Check her arm. Move the sleeve—rip the sleeve. He has to know. A bruise, and he won't touch her again. A bruise, and he won't touch anyone ever again.

A finger twitch breaks through. His hands still shake—he steadies them with fists, squeezing until he can feel the pressure under his skin release, until he can open them back up and trust them.

Rip the sleeve—Conner smacks himself on the forehead and pulls at his own hair. He knows. He knows how too much feels. There's no bruise. He has to know that. He has to know that by now. No spike of her heartbeat—he would have heard her feel it.

Unless—

—Holding his breath, Conner reaches down to M'gann's face and nudges one eye open between his forefingers and thumb. Her pupil shrinks—he thinks—before she squeezes both eyes shut and shakes her head at him, and his fingertips don't stay a second longer on her eyelids. Conner releases the breath he was holding. M'gann's hand rises halfway off the floor and then drops back to the carpet—searching for him, maybe, but not finding him, and giving up. Conner lays his palm flat against her cheek, the tear streaks on her skin now cold but not yet dry. "M'gann," he tries again, softly. "C'mon." He runs his thumb carefully along the hard crease in her brow. M'gann gasps, lashes fluttering—her eyes don't open, but she feels him, he can tell. She presses back against his palm, digs into it—sweat-stuck bangs loosen from her forehead as she feels for the curve in his hand to fit her quivering brow into. A fresh beat of pain—quickening, shallowing—starts in her heart and her breath. She grits her teeth and pushes harder into his hand.

Whatever his touch needs to do, it can't.

"M'gann," Conner says, stifling a growl. "Wake up."

M'gann's eyes keep fluttering. Every second, they keep not opening. Conner stares as if his stare could do anything more than his touch. He pushes M'gann's head back to face the ceiling and wipes the tears left on her face before any more can form. [Wake up,] he thinks into an empty space in his own head. [Wake up. Wake up.]

"I'm sorry."

Conner barely sees M'gann's lips move, but two tiny thumps of her voice hit his ears—not his mind.

A fire starts in Conner's head, stinging in his eyes. Not sorry. Answers. What did this. What is this? Why aren't you waking up?

"What's wrong with you?" Conner manages to blurt out, lip curling into a snarl.

"It's okay." M'gann gives her head the slightest nudge back towards him, then stops. She smiles. "I woke up."

She breathes out.

Conner watches her breathe back in, then out again. In, then out. In, then out. Sleep sinks back into her heartbeat almost instantly.

M'gann! starts on his lips. His voice doesn't rise far enough up his throat to make it out of his mouth. He bites the insides of his lips instead. His hand touches down onto M'gann's shoulder, then slips off into the hair pooled around her on the floor.

Don't think about how it looks, Conner tells himself, trying not to let his eyes soften on her heavy-fallen lashes or loosely-hanging lip—trying not to see another slip and I've lost her—trying not to see Mars, Atlantis, Tula—

—Don't think about more than how it looks, Conner then adds to himself, though he does the opposite. He keeps it all, holds it all in, and thinks. Whatever happened psychically has passed; it makes sense that it'd have drained her. His fingers part a gap in her hair laid out in the carpet. It's something—it's nothing. There's nothing left to do. Run her to the Watchtower, run her to—

—Genomorph City.

Conner jumps back to his feet and stumbles past the bed, hitting his hip against the corner of the mattress but not letting it slow him down. He dives for his boots. His balled-up socks pop out and roll onto the floor; Conner snatches them up, too, unpeeling one from itself and rolling it, still damp from the rain, back onto his foot before he can even sit. The other tears as he pulls it on—not a hole, just some oomph of the elastic. His boot still fits over it. He stomps both rubber heels into the floor as he stands. M'gann still lies unconscious in the spotlight of the window, chest rising and falling.

Genomorphy City, Conner repeats to himself. How. It's miles and miles away. They left Sphere at the Watchtower. The zeta tube near Palmer's lab is the only one left after the Cave, and it's too small. His bike in the shop still isn't road-ready. There's always on foot—in the air and on foot. Enough leaps down the highway, and—and if that didn't wake her up, that'd tell him something.

I'm sorry, she said.

That told him nothing.

Conner kneels back down at M'gann's side. Urgency makes room for caution, sits and stirs at the back of his mind as he slips his fingers between the back of M'gann's neck and the carpet, inching them up to the base of her skull. Her head drops into his hand like an apple from a tree. He nudges her hips up from the floor and hooks his arm around them. She comes up weightless. He lets her slip just until the backs of her knees lock into place around his arm.

If he dropped her on the way there—

Conner shakes his head at himself, stomping a foot. He can't think like that: what if I fail. He's a hero—this is a crisis. He always has to try.

This is a crisis. The smile stays on M'gann's lips. He knows panic, he knows pain, he knows adrenaline, and he knows sleep—M'gann's heartrate says nothing but sleep.

It's okay, she said, forming that smile. I woke up.

Conner stands in the window light, holding her. The last straggling raindrops roll down the glass. I woke up—she woke up enough to tell him that. It's okay, his mind plays back. I'm sorry.

If that's the worst of me, then... I'm so, so, sorr—

Stop, Conner tells her in his head again. Behind his eyes, Atlantis still sloshes, and pieces of Mars still crumble. Tula was alive again, if only for a second. M'gann made him see it, made him think it—

Panic, pain, adrenaline—what hits his system now is close, and he knows it just as well.

Anger.

M'gann knew what this was.

Conner fixes his eyes to the window. He can't look down at her. He'll see her smiling in his arms, and he'll let it go. He needs answers—deserves answers. The anger coils in his head and hands. There's nowhere else for it to go.

The shoulder of M'gann's sleeve crackles in his hand, too-slick hair slipping in-between his fingers. His grip gives him two options: drop her or hold on tighter.

Keeping his footsteps as even as her breath, Conner walks M'gann to the bed. The mattress creaks faintly as her body settles into it. Save for her breath and pulse, it's the only sound. Conner gathers the pillows and comforter from the floor.

Anger—he looks at her. His eyes soften as much as they sting. He doesn't let it go, but he doesn't hold tighter.

He waits.

Chapter Text

[March 17th, Team Year Seven]

A would-be darkness starts to glow with tinges of red at its edges. M'gann wakes up in sunlight. Her head feels like it should be slipping, but instead it's cradled gently, and her body feels grounded, settled, maybe even melded into whatever surface has her now. She throws a hand limply into the space beside her head to regain a sense of her form's boundaries, and she feels the puff of a pillow deflate under her knuckles. The hand lying at her hips pulls back to find the edge of the comforter laid across her waist, and she rubs a part of the material between her fingers just be to sure of what it is.

Conner had it in his hand, she remembers. Conner had her in his hands.

Conner.

M'gann opens her eyes and shoves herself upright in the bed, kicks at the comforter clinging to her legs. Her first sight is the door. Her next sight is Conner in the window seat, elbows to his knees. Sunlight cascades off his shoulders, hangs halo-like in his hair. His feet lie flat in his boots against the floor.

The hair hanging past M'gann's shoulders doesn't stop a chill from running up to the base of her skull. Conner looks at her with the closest thing to age his skin can simulate: dark creases under his eyes, grim lines in his forehead and around his mouth.

"U-um, good morning," M'gann says.

Conner doesn't say a word. M'gann doesn't know what she would say either, in his shoes—literally. He looks anchored to the spot like a statue, but the boots betray some half-formed thought of leaving.

She has to say something.

"Thank you... for..." Her body in his arms still could have been a dream, but she's more sure that the floor wasn't, and either way, she didn't get herself onto the bed—she thinks. "For, um..." Putting into words the picture in her mind of Conner propping her head onto the pillow and pulling the comforter up as high as she would need it is too daunting a task for her to bear. "For... waking me up," M'gann decides to say instead.

Conner's shoulders move like stone shuddering to life. Straightening his spine, he still keeps his head low. "I don't think I woke you up," he says dryly, gravel in his voice.

"Oh, then..." M'gann feels back by hand to fix the pillow that her thrashing knocked askew, aligns it back with the one underneath. He gave her both, she realizes. More evidence that he didn't sleep. "Thank you for... all this," she says. "You didn't have to do all this for me."

Conner's eyes stay to the floor, hands gripping the edge of the window seat then returning as fists to his knees—another half-formed thought of leaving, she's sure. M'gann removes the comforter from her legs completely, shifts socks onto her feet and promptly dyes what little white then peeks out from the hemlines of her jeans a solid green. The starchy white fabric of her blouse crackles like the puffy white field of the comforter as she breaks the comforter down neatly, folds it by hand into a tight, clean form to leave at the corner of the bed—remembers once she's done that that's not how they found it and fights the urge to Hel-lo, Megan at herself, even as a whisper.

Because despite his posture, M'gann can feel Conner's eyes on her. And even if his eyes do stay determined to just pick at carpet fibers instead, she knows she can't escape his ears. Her heart beats fast. She not sure what the panic's even for. He could only know so much from what he saw outside of her head. Everyone has bad dreams. She's no exception.

He would already know that, five years of him in her—their—bed.

"Did I... wake you up?" M'gann finally asks, plucking at the only thread of guilt that she thinks would make sense to him. "If so, I'm so sorry." She sniffles a laugh and runs a hand along the top of her head. "I must have fallen out of the window. It's a good thing we had carpet!" She slides her legs over the edge of the bed. "That's what the Watchtower's missing, I think. Just because it's a headquarters doesn't mean it can't be cozy. We know that." She smiles, hearing her own breath shake before swallowing. "Not that the Cave had carpeting either, but..."

"M'gann."

M'gann strokes the hair hanging down past her shoulder. "Yes, Conner?"

Conner joins his hands in his lap and looks her straight in the eye. "What was that last night?"

"I'm sorry," M'gann says, automatically. "It... seems like I woke you up, and that must have been... alarming. Especially when—I mean, I woke up this morning forgetting where we are, and I was at least on a bed!" She flexes a smile. "Last night was... a lot, but it was... really nice, I thought." The next smile settles more comfortably into her face.

"That's not an answer," Conner says with a low growl.

"I-I fell out of the window," M'gann responds, curbing the defensive edge in her own voice. "I... I was asleep. Okay, I was—" She breathes in sharply. "I was... having a bad dream, and... you know I can be a very animated sleeper. That's probably why I fell out. It—it wasn't your fault, I had plenty of room, it was just... me having a bad dream."

Conner stands, holding fists at his sides. "Then why was I in it?"

"What?"

"You pulled me in," Conner says as he approaches, boots thumping over M'gann's heartbeat in her head.

Warily, M'gann rises to her feet. "Conner, I—I really, truly don't know what you're talking about—"

"—You linked us in your sleep. I get that. What I don't get is..." Conner drops his stare to escape her own, but still holds her in his shadow. The light in his eyes just inches away from her is thin and harsh, and she can see him grit his teeth. "...What was happening that made you have to link me."

"I—I didn't"

"—You were being attacked," Conner says firmly. "Just, no one was there but us. Nobody real. You were—" He blinks hard as his brow creases even further. "I tried stopping it, but it all went right through me—"

"—Are you alright?!" M'gann's voice swells and shrieks like a storm wind stopped by the wall of her clenching throat, and she falls as far back as she can from Conner without shifting herself through the bed; the limp, soft thump of the mattress against the backs of her knees makes her consider it, but instead she simply swallows and shivers out a poor attempt at steadying breath. "You... you d-didn't... feel it, did—did you—"

Please, please, no. A line she wouldn't cross again rises up past M'gann's eyes before she can even blink. The room is still the room, but without losing sight of it, M'gann feels her heart plunge her head back underwater, deeper with every beat. Her feet lose the floor. Please no, please no, please no. She drops her head into her hand, blocking out the light and gripping at her temples to make the waters in her mind stop churning. Her hair falls and encloses the prickling heat of her own panting breath around her face.

"...I knew it wasn't real," Conner says, however cautiously. "But for you to be this freaked out means it's serious. And some part of you wanted me in it." M'gann can hear his boot as he steps one foot closer to her then hesitates, steps back again. "But you didn't even know I was there, so why—" A faint and shallow growl leaves the top of his throat. "Tell me what's going on."

M'gann exhales and lets her hand sink down light and limp into her lap. Her head stays bowed, floating heavy on its own. "It was an accident," she says coolly.

Peering up through her bangs, M'gann watches Conner's fists twitch at his sides, clenching even tighter than before. "I get that. I said that. That's not what I need to know."

"I... I didn't know. I didn't... realize it could..." M'gann's breath shakes. "I-If I had, I would have never—"

"—You knew what it was."

M'gann blinks up at Conner wincingly, sun in her eyes. "What?"

"You weren't scared," Conner says with hurt in his voice that M'gann wants to feel with him, if nothing else, but the heart in her chest is wrenched too tight to feel anything. "You said it was okay when you woke up."

"It... was a nightmare, Conner," M'gann says numbly, managing a light shrug. "Of course it was okay when I woke up."

"M'gann, this was more than just a nightmare!" Conner loses his hesitance in stepping closer. Visibly swallowing, he turns up his chin and looks down at her with a suspicious eye. "Maybe you did drink too much."

"Con-ner!" M'gann's own uneasy laugh shocks her out of her haze. "No, that wasn't it, really. That was barely enough to do anything—"

"—And what about Gar?"

The laughter stops dead in her chest; Conner hears the slam of her heartbeat, she's sure. "W-What about Gar?"

"This hasn't happened at the Watchtower, but I don't know about when you and he were in Chicago."

"I—" M'gann's heart slams more, like a loose shutter in a hurricane. "G-Gar would have known." That it wasn't real. She shakes her head. That's not what he's asking. "I-I mean, Gar would have said something if—"

She would have known, M'gann thinks, because Gar would have never looked at her the same.

Conner glares down at her for only a second longer before turning and walking away. His shadow gives way to the sunlight streaming in from the window, but M'gann's eyes stay on him. He lifts his jacket off of the floor and shakes its lingering moisture out in one whip-like thwap, sending droplets glittering through the air in a single burst that fades before he even has a hand through the cuff of one sleeve. But the jacket doesn't make it past one shoulder before he's sliding it back off again, grunting in frustration and scrunching already worn and tarnished leather into his fist instead. He looks to the door and huffs, stomps towards it determinedly, then stops and waits at it once he's there.

M'gann stands. Her feet hold the floor, no matter how floaty she feels. "I guess we should... check out now?" she asks Conner.

"Do what you want," Conner growls at her, still facing the door.

He doesn't see her nod, and M'gann barely feels it herself. This time doesn't feel like the others. The fantasy—the fear—the threat of someday watching Conner walk away from her was enough to make her break her first mind. When it was happening for real, it felt like life and death. This time feels like truth, and nothing else.

This time, she's already proven that Conner is someone that she deserves to lose.

"You should, too," M'gann says simply, and as softly as she can—sarcasm, she knows, could come out without her meaning it. But she doesn't expect to be understood, just brushes hair out of her face and smiles at him, even if he won't look. Easing herself away from the bed and over to the window seat, M'gann sits where he sat, prepares herself to be alone until she really does have to leave.

Conner's response is just his hand going to the door handle. The latch clicks in the door, in her ears, and in her chest.

The latch unclicks only in the door and in her ears. M'gann starts to summon up the will to ask if it's stuck, but the thought doesn't quite make it out—Conner's taken all her breath with him to the door, and she can't find the nerve to gasp for it back, can only let her mouth fall empty and open at him.

Conner's hand drops to his side. "M'gann, I... I believe you, you know. About it bein' an accident. That's what..." He shakes his head, puts his hand back to the handle but doesn't budge it. "Something's going on with you—with your powers. Something dangerous enough to affect another person. Which means people could get hurt, M'gann, and... not just me. Not just our people. Anyone, friend or foe, if you lose control. You know that. At least... I thought you did. By now, I... I thought..." Conner shakes his head again. "But if you don't care, if you just wanna hide it... if you don't care, then I don't care if it was an accident. Not if you're not doing anything to fix it. And if... if that's where we are, M'gann, if that's where you are, then I..."

He trips the latch again. "Then I can't trust you. Again. And... I thought I could. I... did. I wanted to. I want to."

I don't, Conner doesn't say out loud, and M'gann doesn't hear him think it.

She still hears it.

Let him go. Let him go, let him go, let him go, let him go, M'gann's heart beats at her head. Her hands and feet echo the thought, hold themselves down against her lap and the carpet. She knows what it means to want to stop him. She knows it would only mean her dragging him down by clinging to him, like claws in his flesh, claws in his mind—

She won't stop him if that's what it takes. She won't love him if that's what it has to mean. And that might be all her love really is—it's easy to think when there's no better example. She's never loved anyone as much as she's loved him.

But there's no anger in his voice this time to warn her away from reaching for him, only a defeated-sounding hurt—all aching, no bite. Maybe it shouldn't take anger—what more does he have to say?

Other than what he's just said: that he wants to trust her again.

If he wants to believe her, then she wants to believe him.

"Conner, please," M'gann starts, only managing a whisper at first. She shuts her eyes for courage. The sun makes the darkness behind them burn up again like she's just waking up, but brighter this time. "Please don't leave thinking that you..." Can't trust me, were right, were wrong—she's not even sure anymore how to orient it. "That you... have to worry that I'm slipping again," she decides to say. "At least... let me tell you everything, and then you can decide. It's not..." Her voice gains strength as she swallows. "It's not something I meant to hide from you, it just... wasn't something I thought I needed to make your problem. Anybody's problem but mine, really, but... that's only because I didn't think it would ever have to affect you. Or-or anyone, it's not something that's had any impact on my operations in the field, so I..." She opens her eyes but keeps them anchored in her own shadow. "I guess, really, that I've been determined not to let it be anybody's problem, but I just... didn't want anyone to worry about it."

Looking back to Conner, M'gann finds him already turned and looking back at her. "Whatever it is, I'm part of it now," he responds.

"You'll... worry either way, won't you?"

Conner nods.

"Then either way, that's my fault—o-or my responsibility, that is, to let you know what's going on."

It sounds good for her to say, at least.

"Am I it?" Conner says, curling his around the collar of his jacket tighter as he steps closer. "I mean, who else have you told what you're about to tell me?"

"I... I'll have to tell her about the accidental sleep-link," M'gann responds. "That's a... new development and I... still need to process it fully, but she—"

"Who?"

"Oh. Sorry." M'gann manages a smile, breathes something like a laugh at herself. "Dinah."

Conner throws his jacket back onto the floor.

"I could... hang that somewhere for you, if you'd like," M'gann offers.

"Forget it," Conner says, dropping himself onto the foot of the bed just as promptly as he dropped his jacket. "Just tell me what's going on."

"Well, I... I guess to start, you should know that... you're right. This wasn't the first time I've..." A breath in, a breath out. "Experienced something like that before—a-at least, by myself, in my own mind, which... is what I thought was happening last night, but I... guess it's deep enough that another presence didn't matter." M'gann bows her head. "I'm sorry. It... it truly wasn't a conscious choice."

"Enough apologizing," Conner says brusquely. "Just tell me what it is." The space between the window and the bed seems wider in the daylight; Conner's stern expression may lose nuance in the distance, but his eyes are still bright and his voice is still clear. He looks down at his hands and curls them into fists in his lap. "The only touch I felt was yours. No Psimon this time."

"That's right," M'gann responds, voice cracking as she says it. Only Conner's direct call for no more apologizing keeps the sorry locked in her chest. "I suppose saying 'it' like it's something separate from me is... misleading. It is me. It's my mind."

The sunlight looked warmer in the seat than it feels on her back now, but all the same, the light coming in from the cold glass turns her sleeves a blinding white and leeches the color from her hands. She watches her knuckles shift and cluster as she wrings her fingers into themselves, searches for stability in her own grip.

Conner's eyes are another light on her, she remembers in his silence, and meeting them again, she finds him looking at her like she hasn't said a word.

"It... is my mind," M'gann then says, realizing the need for clarification. "It's part of... it's... it's like a... scar that's... on my psyche."

The insides of her hands flash white then fade to red as she releases her fingers from themselves. For a moment, there's a disconnect in her head from herself and the truth that she just spoke aloud. No Megan, neither herself nor the one that she once wanted to be, is supposed to have this kind of problem. A shift to green skin wouldn't make things any truer, though. She folds her hands together in her lap.

"From—"

Conner's voice seems to snag on itself. His hands dig into the edge of the mattress, heels sliding in the carpet but stopping before he makes it onto his feet. "From what?" he asks once he's still again.

It wasn't a momentary desire to leave this time, M'gann knows—it'd be rude to assume the worst of him, even if she wouldn't blame him. It's the pressure of knowing her secret already starting to weigh on him.

She'd stop if she could, but she has to see this through.

"Well, it... it starts in a sort of... tricky place for me to talk about—with Dinah, there's confidence, so I don't feel so bad, but..." She shakes her head. "B-But I'm not trying to be so cryptic, truly, just... to fully explain it, really, means I have to talk about some things from... Kaldur's mind, and... after everything, I owe him his privacy—"

"—I saw Tula," Conner says impatiently.

"Oh!" Oops. "Well, that..." Tells her something, she thinks, of when she must have linked him—nothing good, but nothing of it could be. "That's about the extent of it, really, that's... exceedingly personal, I think. At least as far as what's relevant to, um... this."

"It's not exactly a surprise that she's still in his mind," Conner says with a light shrug. "He loved her. They didn't have to be together for losing her to hurt."

M'gann nods, swallowing. "Could you... tell where we were?"

"Atlantis." Conner frowns, furrows his brow. "At least to start."

"What, um..." M'gann swallows again. "What else did you see?"

Conner ponders the question for a moment, shadows rooting under his eyes even in the sunlight and the distance. "...Tell me first," he replies, looking down like he's reading his response from the carpet, "and then I can make sense of it."

M'gann nods then bites the inside of her lip. "That's very fair. Well, um... you remember, of course, when Artemis brought me in to fix the damage I did to Kaldur's mind—"

"—You mean when Manta had Artemis abduct you."

M'gann nods to the side. "Well, it was that, too. But I, um... I had some concerns about how my presence would be perceived in Kaldur's broken psyche—namely, how it was... likely that he wouldn't recognize me as anyone other than his attacker—"

"—You didn't know how to restore his psyche. That's what you'd told me."

M'gann's memory of the apartment with only her and Conner in it is a blur of things spilling and dripping, the watering can overflowing in the sink and numb words falling out of her mouth sporadically like a broken faucet. She can barely remember Conner's presence through any of it, his face or his voice, but despite how intangible he—and everything—had felt, she was the ghost then, she knows. "Well, until then, I-I never had, but—"

"—What did you have to do to make it work?"

M'gann's mouth drops open. She hears the accusation in his tone, but isn't sure that it's quite the right one for her to confess to. "I... didn't have to do anything, really... other than accept that there truly was no other way for me to make it right. From there, Kaldur had preserved enough of himself that he still knew the blueprint to his mind, so I just had to... follow him. To give my power to make the pieces connect. It was amazing, really, the strength he had through all of it—and Artemis truly was the only reason we didn't lose both of them—"

—Conner crosses his arms.

"...Maybe this is sounding off-topic, but it really isn't."

"I didn't see Artemis there. Or Kaldur."

"I didn't pull you into a memory, Conner. I really did... pull you into a nightmare. Or at least... something like it. It's... it's from the scar—it's warped—it's how the damage manifests itself when my mind is—"

"—What damage could Kaldur's mind have done to yours?"

It's the fairest question in the world, M'gann thinks, even if at the sting of it, her heart wants her to gasp and jump. "Kaldur's mind couldn't do anything against mine, of course."

Conner leans forward in frustration, stomps a little, and grips the edge of the bed again. "Then what—"

"—Please," M'gann says, voice weakening. "I want to explain." She clears her throat. "Artemis went with me on the initial dive. It was a calculated risk, but Artemis knew she wouldn't be perceived as a threat. We found... Atlantis, like you saw—of course, not the real Atlantis, and barely recognizable, but... those ruins were how Kaldur perceived his broken psyche. It was the only way he could. And as far as his mind's defense against further damage from his attacker... that was Tula. At least, Tula's was the form taken by that part of his mind to confront my presence there again."

"...But she didn't keep it," Conner says softly—no accusation, just his voice fading into a quiet, knowing dread.

M'gann lets herself blink in surprise but barely feels any real shock; it's just as well that Conner has the right face in mind to blame. "You—" It's only in getting so close to just saying it that M'gann loses her breath. "You... you saw that, too, then."

"And it wasn't a memory," Conner says with certainty—of course. He believes her.

M'gann nods. "What you saw last night was all from my mind."

"...I'm asking it again, then."

It should be easier for her to explain it than this, M'gann thinks—Dinah's talked it out of her before, but now she's making Conner do all the same work. "What are you asking?" she says genially, hopefully showing that she isn't trying to hide.

Conner's stare lays into hers like a physical weight. M'gann doesn't dare blink—she feels consequence waiting at the edges of her vision where his form ends and the rest of the world blurs. Not anger—something worse. "What did you have to do to yourself to make it work?" he says again, voice sharp and shaking, fragile enough to make her gasp.

"...N-Nothing," M'gann responds. "It was nothing I had to do. It's what I did anyway."

"Explain that," Conner responds, voice firmer now.

"Tula—not Tula—" M'gann shakes her head. "What looked like Tula, the response to my presence... we were attacked. And I made it real. For me—Artemis knew it wasn't real. She stopped me, she was—she was the only reason I stopped it, but it was..." On a breath, M'gann catches herself veering towards the overdramatic. "It wasn't... too late. Too late would have been... so much worse. But it was enough to have a lasting effect on my psyche. What I did, that is. Kaldur's—no non-psychic's mind could ever make this kind of impact on its own. I made the attacks cause me real damage—which isn't to say I took control over that aspect of Kaldur's mind, just..." M'gann puts a hand to her dry throat and swallows. "I decided it should hurt me, so I made it hurt."

"You had to make it real for yourself to be able to fix it," Conner offers, voice soft but strained. "At least you thought you did."

M'gann's mouth hovers open for a moment before she presses it closed into a smile, however meek. "No, it wasn't that. That's... amazing for you to come up with, though, I-I mean it's... amazing how you can just assume the best of me, even after everything. I don't know what I've done to deserve that, but really, it's just you, I think. You can always see the good in people."

The compliment is no real attempt at a distraction, but either way, Conner seems unmoved. "Then why?"

"I just... wanted it to." M'gann wrings a hand around her wrist and watches her freckles flicker on her skin like shadows. "I think I... I just wanted the justice of it. I wanted revenge against myself for what I broke, o-or maybe, it's more like I wanted what I broke to have its revenge on me. Kaldur's mind—Kaldur—" Was never going to blame her like he should have, and she already knew that then—she had to do it herself. "Kaldur deserved wholeness again, but when I looked at the ruins, it was just... so wrong... I just... all I could think was how it was... that what I'd done to him, for what I'd done to him, it was really what... I deserved. And in the moment, I let that matter more than what needed to be done. That's how Artemis stopped me, by reminding me that I needed to fix things."

"...Revenge and justice aren't the same thing."

M'gann smiles at Conner again, this time even more in earnest. He's always himself, no matter what. "I know that, Conner. It's just... too easy for me to forget that. I think I've proven that by now. None of this would have happened if I..." Her heart shakes behind her wavering smile, stomach clenching at the ribs. It's too easy to put herself back on the Reach ship, to feel the fire raging in her chest and behind her eyes again as she'd locked onto the figure in the distance, the killer hiding behind the face of someone she'd once trusted with her life—with all their lives. Forcing the memory into a fantasy of Kaldur passing peacefully out of sight does nothing to soften it, only sharpens her regret and clarifies what's real.

"...At least, I'd like to think that it was just me forgetting," M'gann adds on the exhale of a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. "But really, I just—"

"—What would have happened?" Conner asks with a stare that could see through her bones, making her head and chest feel pale and brittle and empty. "What was going to happen if Artemis didn't stop you?"

"I..." She's run through it enough times in here head by now to recite it. "Kaldur would still be broken. Or lost—the Light still had Psimon, Artemis had only incapacitated him temporarily, and Kaldur's mind in Psimon's hands would have been a plaything for him to do with as he or the Light saw fit. Manta wanted his son whole again, but Psimon still could have changed him—the real Kaldur could have never have come back to us." His body would have still been alive, but he would have been killed. "And Psimon knew the truth of Tigress's identity, so Artemis—" She would have been killed. "The plan would never have succeeded. The LIght and the Reach would have won."

M'gann makes herself think it: I would have gotten us all killed.

"I mean what would have happened to you, M'gann!" Conner shouts himself to his feet. "What exactly did you think you were trying to do?!"

The guests in the other room must be so confused: that thought distracts M'gann just enough to keep the hurt of Conner's raised voice from sinking in. "It... sounds like you have some idea," she responds.

"M'gann!"

By some still-waking thought, M'gann half-expects to see the pillar as she gathers up the strength to look Conner in the eye again. She shivers the thought out of her mind and out of her spine, clutches at her elbows, to hold herself, and raises her head.

Conner looks at her like she's right, like something with the power to break her is, by her command, dangling right over her head. And she's never—never—seen Conner look so afraid.

Of her. All that hangs over her head is a clear but gentle beam of sunlight. There's nothing else there for him to be afraid of. There's nothing else that could break her.

Except maybe this.

M'gann feels her head start to shake some weak assurance at him, or even match the plea in his eyes with one of her own—you don't have to look at me like that—but as much as she wants to close her eyes to him for even a second of relief, she knows she has to make herself see it, to face it.

This is what it would mean to him. This is what it does mean. This is what it means outside of her own head.

"I—" Her own voice cuts whatever threat was holding back her tears; she blinks them back as they surface now, a last resort. "I-I don't know, exactly, what the impact would have been on my physical form. With my mind, it—it depends on how much my subconscious truly believed it, and I don't know if..." If any part of her was left that would have wanted to reject it. "It—it didn't happen, Conner, it—it's never happened. You know the closest I've ever been to truly dying in my mind was the—the failed exercise, and—" And it wasn't the same. She knows that. But she shakes away the thought. "And all that really happened is that I just woke up! This is only different because—" Because she's stronger than J'onn, and she was doing it to herself. "Because I wasn't thinking about it right, I-I let myself be distracted and—"

—She's on her feet now, somehow, and doesn't even know why—her head spins at the new distance between her eyes and the floor, and she catches herself on the edge of the window frame before she can fall back against wood and glass. Conner moves towards her; the red S-Shield on his chest blurs as it advances, and M'gann holds her tears back by hand now, covers her eyes as she clutches at her head and shakes it faster. The gesture turns into trembling that she can't stop. "Conner, no, it's—please, it's—"

She sobs into her hand as Conner's arms cross at her back. The warmth of his body is too much at once—even with her arms still boarded up between their chests, she feels her body weaken in his hold. His hand clings tight enough around her bicep to send a shot of heat up through her arm and to her wrist, but all she really notices is how the arms around her twitch and tremble, and all she feels is like a monster. "Conner, stop, please, stop—" She shudders against him, pushing down more sobs before they can break through and trying to push him away without using her hands. "You don't have to do this, please, it's—it's okay, it was—"

It was all my fault.

Conner's cheek presses softly into the hair over her ear, nudging her head down into the crook of his neck. He closes his arms tighter around her until there's no room for either him or her to shake. The pocket of darkness between her head and his chest becomes M'gann's only sight, even with her eyes open.

And she could hate herself for feeling it, but it's the safest she's felt for as long as she can remember. The part of herself that knows how to hate herself feels as distant as a dream. Some softer, simpler part of her wants to sink, to close her eyes and sleep there, maybe for days if she could. Her knees could give out, and she'd still be floating and grounded at the same time, she knows. He could hold her. It could be alright for her to be held by him again.

M'gann lets her eyes fall shut like they want to. "Conner, please," she murmurs into his chest, unsure now of what she's even asking.

Conner gulps—M'gann can feel it in his neck and his jaw against her head. "What else am I supposed to do?" he asks raggedly, voice projecting out into the space behind her, breath only barely tinging the hair pooled around his neck.

The words still pierce straight into her heart. M'gann opens her eyes back up to light again, raising her head from Conner's chest and working her captive hand up to his shoulder. "You're not... supposed to do anything, Conner," she says softly as Conner then pins his chin to her forehead, determinedly keeping her head close and steady. "I mean there's... there's nothing to do. It's... it's already over."

"It's not," Conner mutters into her hairline, bouncing her head gently as he moves his mouth. "Last night..." He trails off. His arms slip down her back and lock around her waist, squeeze the breath out of her for a moment before she can settle her stomach back right against his.

"I'm not... hurting like I was, it just... hasn't gone away yet. It's a scar, it's not... going to go away quickly. It may even... last a long time." M'gann's head slips against his chin. She lowers it to fit into the crook of his neck again, but doesn't quite touch it down, just rubs her thumb against his shoulder. "I don't... want to feel it anymore, but it... it won't be forever. Someday, I won't feel it anymore, i-in a good way. I really do believe that. It's just going to take work, and... time, and... patience... with myself."

Conner release her waist slowly, but his hands still catch her by the shoulders and guide her back down to the seat, and M'gann doesn't let go of his shoulder until he lets go of her first. She gives Conner the deepest smile that she can with flushed cheeks and stinging eyes, and Conner evaluates it for a moment before looking away shyly, weaving his hands together at his knees.

They sit. For the moment, M'gann feels comfortable in the thought that that's all they need to be doing. The sunlight from the window is gentler now, and warmer with Conner in it—a good kind of warmth, one that soothes, not threatens. M'gann crosses her legs and holds her knee, tries to settle into the stillness with a brief and quiet hum to herself, pushing a contented smile into her lips.

"...How long?" Conner finally asks her, putting away his silence but still looking at his hands. "How long have you..."

"How long have I... felt like this?" M'gann asks back, looking at his hands, too, at how intricately he can hold them. "Or... how long has this... been happening?"

"Is it both?" Conner asks, glancing back at her out of the corner of his eye.

"Well, it... it didn't exactly start all at once. It's been... a process. What's going on now is... proving to be part of that process." The answer sounds dissatisfying even to M'gann's own ears, but there's too much to pick apart—too much work she'd be making him do to understand.

"Then why didn't I see it before?" Conner's hands pull apart into two separate fists as he turns his head to face her again. His hands—the urge to lay her hands over them and soothe their tension with her thumbs keeps M'gann from meeting his eyes. "When Psimon trapped us, I mean," Conner adds, and the veins popping at his wrists ease back into subtle traces of blue.

His eyes are forever less subtle, piercing into her like hot, electric ice. M'gann blinks like her lashes alone could soften the pain in them, and Conner seems to catch some sense from her of what must be showing in them, because he blinks away his own sharpness and looks down at her hand between their bodies in the seat.

"Psimon trapped us in a safe space in my mind. You wouldn't have seen this," M'gann assures him. "Or—heard this," she adds, remembering with slight dismay that she sang. "What you saw last night was more like... why some part of me thought I still needed one."

Conner's eyes dart back up to hers. "Do you still have it?"

"It wasn't... safe anymore after Psimon used it against me. And... realistically, it... wasn't the best thing for me if all it did was keep me from... dealing with everything else in my mind."

Conner's expression turns scrutinizing again, but the thin creasing of his brow and inward curl of his lip can't full mask the wounded look in his eye. M'gann feels her heart skip at another pointless apology, one that would only make her feel better for the second she'd waste saying it instead of continuing to explain.

"I didn't get rid of it on purpose, Conner," M'gann clarifies. "And it's nothing you did. We needed out of that fantasy—I wouldn't have wanted any of us trapped in there forever. I just... if it's still there, I'm not sure how to get back to it. And, truthfully, I... don't think I should try."

Conner's breath thrums just below a growl as his lips curl now to show gritted teeth. "You need J'onn for this, not Dinah."

M'gann shakes her head. "Uncle J'onn's on the other side of the galaxy, and he's needed there."

"He'd come back for this. It's an emergency."

"It's not an emergency, it just—"

"—What could Dinah do?" Conner's voice rings harshly in the space enclosed around them. At his chest, the red S-Shield rises and falls quicker than before, throbs like a bared heart. "This is psychic. It's in your mind."

A cool wave crashes gently across M'gann's shoulders, and lingers as a small chill at the back of her neck—a counter to the heat pouring off of Conner's stare. What he's processing now, she's already had time to consider. "It... is my mind, Conner. And it's... my mind." She blinks her coolness out at him, hoping her composure can mean something towards what she's about to say. "What could J'onn even do?"

Conner scans her face as if looking for a better answer; when he doesn't find it, he stands. pushing himself up with his fists. He doesn't leave, just hovers above her with the window running light down his back and turning his dark clothes new colors, his shirt a pale ashen gray and his jeans a bleached white. But the sun sparks sweet brown tones in the hair framing his face as he turns his head and looks down his shoulder at her, and his eyes are soft, almost careful as they meet hers again.

Both love and guilt swirl in M'gann's chest at once. She's tired of the two feelings always intertwining. With her own reserved sense of caution, she runs two reassuring fingertips down the inside of Conner's wrist, right on the edge of where light meets shadow.

"The scar is only there because I still feel it," M'gann tells him. "That won't change unless I do. The psychic... events are a side effect. But it starts with me." She pulls her hand away from Conner and lets it fall like a leaf, curling in mid-air before joining her other in her lap. "Approaching it in any other way would be like... trying to suppress the part that hurts me just because it's inconvenient, instead of truly resolving the problem." She shakes her head. "I can't treat a mind like that anymore, not even my own."

Conner turns to face her slowly, like he knows moving too fast would come off as a recoil from her touch. "When you say you still feel it..."

M'gann nods solemnly. "I wasn't thinking straight, I truly wasn't sure exactly what would happen, but... I still... knew what I was doing, if that makes sense. What I wanted, what I was asking for. A scar didn't cause that, it's the other way around. I won't fix that until I fix me. And it's not... a mistake that's as easy to undo as it was for me to make. I let myself think like that. I don't... want to... hurt anymore, but it's a whole... pattern of thinking that I have to take apart, little by little." M'gann offers Conner a smile. "The hard way, but a better way."

Conner drops back down to her, touching one knee down into the carpet and leaning against the other. M'gann's shadow falls over every part of him except his shoulder and the edge of his cheek. "You're not talking about just hurting. And you're talking around it, but..." But I can read your mind, his sharp eyes seem to say—not on purpose, or at least, not exactly in those words. There's no threat or apology in them like the same thought would surely be in her eyes, just a reflection of the truth.

M'gann sighs, feeling the weight of everything drop back into her head. "I don't... want to want to die anymore, Conner."

Conner's chest—the heart-like shield—jumps at her words, and his eyes widen beneath his tightly-wrenched brow. M'gann can hear his breath curl at the back of his throat as a snarl. He looks down at her hands as if they're bleeding, catches them like they're slipping away when the only thing that moves them is him pulling then to the edge of her lap. "Tell—tell me how I'm supposed to believe that, M'gann, because I need to know."

His grip is too tight. His hands make the bones of her fingers feel like matchsticks, hot and brittle, and his pulse pounds itself into hers through his palm, building a liquid fire under her skin. Nearly seven years of having mastered his own strength—he knows what too tight is. He holds her now like they're kids again, raw and clumsy and desperate for each other. And his grip isn't truly what hurts: it's how she could make him slip like this, and the thought of how when he used to hold her too tightly, she could kiss his hands back to softness and tell him it's alright.

M'gann pushes against Conner's palms and frees her fingers by threading them up in-between his. She leans down to him, her hair falling in his face. His forehead rises to meet hers. She closes her eyes to accept it. "Can you... trust me?" she asks, feeling the warmth of his skin against her skull. "I could understand if you don't, but... I know that I'm needed, Conner. I know that I have a responsibility to not give up. I... I know what it does, losing someone—I've seen it enough now." Gar, Kaldur, Artemis, Dick—the League's garden of holograms where there should only be flowers—images flash in M'gann's mind that she keeps behind her eyes but that she still tries to project the meaning of out into her next breath. "I owe it to all of you to be stronger than this. I won't... ever let myself stop fighting."

Lifting her head again, M'gann can't help but feel as if she's pulling away from a kiss. Conner looks up at her with liquid-lit eyes, flushed cheeks, and a lower lip hanging worn and red below his teeth—she caused it all, she knows, just not in any way she would have ever wanted to. M'gann moves to slip her fingers out from Conner's, and while Conner's don't open, they do slacken enough in their grip to let her go.

Conner looks down at the floor. "...It has to be a fight, huh."

"Right now, it... still is," M'gann responds. "At least, sometimes, like last night. I'm sorry. But other times, I... don't even think about it," she adds with a smile. "Like... last night, before... my mind had other ideas."

Conner gives the faintest of nods, eyes now floating somewhere halfway between the floor and her face. M'gann lays a hand gently atop his shoulder as she stands in the sliver of space between him and the seat. She holds on as Conner stands with her.

The sun has settle into a higher place in the sky; the light from the window is softer now, keeping everything more solid and true to the color that it is. "We, um... really do have to check out soon," M'gann reminds him, even without a look at the time—the storm is over. There's no reason for them to linger here as if they need the shelter. She removes her hand from his shoulder.

"Yeah," Conner says blankly, dragging his foot in one slow step out of their shared space. M'gann smiles at him, but he doesn't look. M'gann eyes his jacket on the floor and floats it over with both hands, catching it and holding it out to him. Conner looks at it like he'd forgotten that he had it, or even had forgotten what it is, but he takes it and slips it back on as M'gann locks her hands behind her back and heads towards the door, stepping lightly as she shifts her sneakers back on over her socks.

Conner meets her at the door with little delay. M'gann smiles at him again. She sees him see it this time, but he still doesn't return the smile, just fishes the room card out of his pocket to have in his hand as they leave. M'gann's eyes fall to the door handle; it's her turn now, she supposes. But the silver wedge of the handle is cold and knife-like to her fingertips—the latch clicks and unclicks under the wavering pressure of her hand.

"I-I want to thank you," M'gann says. "For listening. I know it... wasn't easy, but it..." She can't say that it helped. Helped would be a promise, and an obligation—for him. It'd mean listening was something that he had needed to do for her. "...Means a lot," she concludes, trying one more smile.

Conner still doesn't smile back, but his eyes soften a bit. With his empty hand, he rubs the back of his neck. "I mean, it's not the weirdest date we've had, right?"

"W-wait," M'gann says, hand slipping off the handle as she jumps in place. "Who said this was a date?"

Conner furrows his brow. "I did, just now." He shoves both his hands into his jacket pockets with an emphatic shrug. "How was this not a date?"

"W-we didn't say it was going to be a date!"

"Yeah, and what difference would that have made?"

"It... um... I..." Would have been better, somehow, is all M'gann can think, but it's nothing she can say; there's too many mistakes last night to even tally. She would have said and done better things, not drank, not gotten a room with him, not climbed into his lap, not talked about La'gaan, not let herself fall asleep beside him—she would have undone the whole night. They wouldn't be here now. There'd be cash left in their pockets. When he asked her out for the night for a while, she would have said no. She wouldn't have told him anything like what she just finished telling him. She would have spent the night alone.

Her mind, somehow, sides with her heart against her on this. As much as she should, she can't make herself regret it.

"I would have... done something different with my hair," M'gann says instead, running a hand through the hair behind her ear.

Conner gives her a serious look for a moment, but M'gann can soon see the corner of his mouth twitch. "...Fine. Then it's a half-date."

M'gann laughs. "Which half?"

"...The good half."

"You know you... have to be careful, thinking like that," M'gann tells him. "You can't just define something by when it's at its best."

"So it's gotta be all or nothing?" Conner says, quick to respond.

"No..." M'gann takes in a deep breath and surrenders to a smile. "I guess... half-date it is."

Chapter Text

[March 17th, Team Year Seven]

Wolf raises his head and grumbles, spreads his front paws out and taps impatiently at the floor.

Conner blinks, and the black, red, and blue shapes in his vision become real objects again. He raises his chin from his hand and pops the tension out from the side of his neck. "I know," he says to Wolf. He lifts the red and blue bag up by the handles, tissue paper crackling, and sets it on the opposite side of his desk, as if it's a chess or puzzle piece to move towards a solution. "I'm almost done, then I'll turn off the light."

Wolf responds with a quick, soft warning woo, then lays his chin back down to the floor. He twitches an ear, eyes staying open and on Conner.

"Right," Conner mutters to himself, and he returns his attention to the desk.

He doesn't have to do this.

What he has for them is enough on its own. They wouldn't know he thought of this, wouldn't know he thought of it and decided no.

No one would know but him. And now that he's thought of it, whatever response he has to the thought is still a choice he's making, even if it's a choice to do nothing.

Conner starts again at the top of the pile. If he remembers correctly, it's the hole in the collar. He runs his thumb over the seam until he finds the spot that yields, that shows the skin of his fingertip peeking through when he turns the collar over. No. He restarts his reject pile. The next should have the hard part in the stitching at its bottom hem. Sure enough, it's there: Ma's thread reinforcing where the factory threads had loosened.

Reject pile. He's not giving them something that's already had to be fixed.

The S-Shield flakes on the next shirt. Subtle cracks, but they're immediately there the moment he looks at it, no microscopic vision required. Little paper-thin slips of red. He doesn't try to fold that shirt back, just bunches it in his fist and smacks it down over the pile. Next shirt. More stitches, this time at the shoulder—not in the seam, just out in the body of the cloth. Little scabs of thread. Conner tucks that shirt into a tight square like he's wrapping a wound, then adds it to the pile. The next one bares longer scars in nearly the same place, only on both shoulders—the drag of long claws.

Conner looks back over at Wolf on the floor. You did this one, buddy, he thinks at him. Wolf's eyes hover half-open, lids heavy but his ears still flicking. Conner folds the shirt. The reject pile grows.

Another shirt, another flaw: this time, grease stains. Fresh ones, too—he rubs a darker-than-black spot on the faded bottom front and feels his skin both stick to and slip off of it. All it took was one lazy wipe on the cloth he had closest at hand. It didn't matter then. He didn't think it ever would.

"What did you think?" M'gann rasps at him, her laughter still ringing in the air.

"Think I could clean my grease rags with this," he says, giving the pink drink in his sweating glass a swirl. M'gann snorts, more laughter bubbling up behind her hand. He takes another sip.

The next shirt has the opposite problem: light spots against a larger splotch of darkness on the back. He still remembers M'gann's green fingers wringing into the cloth, and her mouth curling inward into a crooked, anxious frown. She'd tried to fix it before telling him, but the dye didn't take right. The bleach she'd spilled left permanent damage—and didn't even fix the grass stains on her Bumblebee blouse. "Hel-lo, Megan," she had said, "a Martian doing laundry—"

He'd let shirts rip and burn back then. Some little stains meant nothing.

"You look like a constellation," she'd said later once the guilt had gone away. He did that. All it had taken was his words. Not even backwards, just magic—he forgave her, and it mattered. She'd giggled and walked her fingers across the stars on his back. He'd turned and poked her freckled cheek.

"Like this?" he'd asked.

She'd laughed, whole face, whole chest. Whole heart.

He'd buried the shirt at the bottom of his drawer at the farm. He couldn't look at it again. If he'd kept it at the Cave, it'd be gone now.

Thank God for small favors, Conner imagines Ma saying. He folds the shirt back neatly. Reject, he labels it mentally, for more reasons than one. It joins the stack of shirts he knows he'll keep.

What's left is the shirt slashed straight through the S.

Or at least, the one that was. Ma matched the threads exactly to the colors once she got it. He'd thought that it was magic the first time that he saw it, but he'd just had to look, to find the faultline. Find the proof that what held it together made it wrong.

[Superboy, you're cut?! But a Kryptonian can't be cut!]

A line of little blistered eyes all opening at once, and there it was. His blood. His inside. The liquid warmth—the liquid cold at the edges. The air on it, still cutting into him like the blade. The blood starting to seep over the clean line of the wound, gravity and his pumping heart pulling it down. Part of him, falling out. If it could, so could all of it. All of him. All the nothing that he ever was—

"No!"

Robin shouting. Clattering blades. M'gann gasping out the breath she'd been holding. Robin's teeth clicking against the force of Rako's fist. Wally's soles skidding to his side.

"C'mon, Supey! Get it together!"

He didn't have to keep it, but the lack of any other souvenir from the mission gave him an excuse, even if he didn't let it go to the trophy shelf. Artemis helped him wash out the blood once the mission was over—"girl secret," she'd said. "Nuh-uh," Wally had said back. M'gann had just watched—him. Kept staring like she could see the scratch through his new shirt, some psychic trace of it embedded in his healed-over skin.

"It... is my mind," M'gann says, head low, hair framing her face and cutting through the bright and blurry sunlight streaming in around her, putting the smell of lavender in his head just by the sight of it. "It's like a... scar that's... on my psyche."

Conner sighs, rubbing at his forehead. His ears want to tune in to her. He's fought the urge most nights, and he can fight it now. Focus.

Focusing still leaves him with the same problem he started with: none of the shirts are good enough. He topples the reject pile down with a swipe of his hand, letting the shirts fall back into a mess on his desk. He lifts the bag again, feeling the few light weights inside it tug against the bottom, and he moves it back to the other side of the pile.

On the floor, Wolf smacks his lips loudly enough for Conner to hear—which doesn't take much, and he knows that Wolf knows that. The intent is clear. "Alright," Conner says, standing. He slides off his jeans, clicks off his lamp, then heads to the control panel at his door to get the overhead lights.

M'gann's heart beats gently on the other side of the door. Past the turn of the corner and four doors down, but out there. She's asleep. Conner dims the lights, closes his eyes, and lets the sound of her sleeping fade out. His hand goes to the door, palm soaking in a few seconds' worth of cold from the metal, then lets it go. All of it. He's done all that he can.

After seven years of missions, he's used to little sleep, but weighing last night against tomorrow, he knows he needs it now.

Ten hours, the clock on his nightstand tells him. He could count that on his hands. He does, just to check, like he hasn't known basic math since before he could open his eyes. He looks down at all ten fingers up, at the open, empty hands he's left with. He curls his hands back into fists.

Wolf flicks a tall white ear in the low light as Conner heads to the bed. The moment Conner's weight crackles down onto the sheet, Wolf rolls onto his side, stretches out his white legs, and lets out a deep sigh tinged with a groan of satisfaction. His heart keeps time in a way that digital doesn't, ticks softly under layers of muscle and fur, but as Conner's head drops down into the pillow, the clock on the nightstand blinks a new red number. Conner's eyes trail up to the ceiling. Shadows overtake the corners, same as every night. The walls stretch up into a void. He closes his eyes and thinks of the moon.

"Your home is a test tube," says the intruder—the smallest one, in the mask that hides his eyes. "We can show you the sun!"

"Uh, pretty sure it's after midnight, but we can show you the moon!" one of the other ones chimes in—the one in the mask that doesn't hide his eyes.

The zeta tube light fades at Conner's back. The rubber of his heels thuds against the cement floor. Bare rafters and support beams line the warehouse's interior like a skeleton, caging in the dim walls and the fuzzy ceiling. Static buzzes on the TV screen, a thousand black and white dots seething with life but still trapped behind the glass. Mal's arm and leg dangle off the edge of the couch. Gar's bed is empty; his heart beats instead in the curtains, just like it has every night since—

Since they lost her.

Conner lays a hand over his hip pocket. The four corners of the box press back into his palm.

"You're not going to need those."

Nightwing—Dick—appears like he always does: out of nowhere. He's quiet now. It's been years since the laugh. He gives Conner his best Batman impression now, standing with arms crossed and mask eyelets narrowed.

Conner blinks at him for a moment, then scoffs. "What, not part of your plan?"

Dick drops his arms but keeps the glare. "None of this was part of the plan," he says slowly.

"Doesn't matter," Conner snaps back, keeping his hand over the box. "It's part of it now." His eyes dart back across the warehouse—Warehome, it's supposed to be. No one stirs, but without even trying, Conner lowers his voice—the clenching of his teeth does it for him. "You still don't have a plan to get them back, do you?" he seethes under his breath.

Dick sighs, deflating all the air from his puffed-up chest. For a moment, he's thirteen again, spindly-armed and narrow shouldered and barely as tall as the S-Shield on Conner's chest. But his hands go to his hips, and he's Nightwing again, not quite Batman or Robin. "Trying to extract the three of them now would mean more risks and more unknowns than just staying put," he says. "Look, I don't like it either. But Tigress wouldn't have involved Miss M unless it was her only option, hers and Kaldur's, and even if we wanted to send a squad, there's a whole lot of ocean between us and them." Dick steps closer to Conner, leans his several inches of height down over him. "Trust her." His shoulders give a light shrug. "Trust Miss M."

M'gann, Conner thinks back at Dick from behind a glare. Artemis. Say their names like you said Kaldur's. They're part of this, too.

Those words don't come out. What comes out instead is a growl. "We don't even know if..."

Those words don't come out either.

If they're still alive.

"...They're not."

Conner feels his eyes bulge.

"Dead, I mean." Dick steps back and puts a hand up, swallowing audibly. "They're not."

Conner shoves his hands into his pockets and turns away, head airy with the fumes burning off from his face. The box in his pocket is cold and solid. Feeling sweat in his gloves, he grips it.

"You don't think so either," Dick then says, all too proudly. "Unless what you got's your revenge plan, not your rescue."

Breath hitching, Conner clenches the box and lunges at Dick, huffing in his face. Dick smirks back at him. "And SB," Dick continues, "I know what's more your style."

The box crunches. Finger-shaped grooves melt into the steel like butter. Conner doesn't let go. "It's mine." The steel turns liquid-smooth between his fingers, heat pooling at the center of his palm. Conner squeezes tighter. "And it's none of your business."

"You're on this team, you are my business." Dick holds out a hand. "Gimme." He flicks his fingers.

"No!" Conner shouts, wet heat in his eyes. A pulse through his body knocks him back on his heels; he stumbles, but each step pulls him up, makes him lighter. He stomps to ground himself. "You don't get to decide—" What I feel, but his lips twist and turn then pull themselves back inward. A knot in his throat holds his voice back. You and Kaldur, he still tries, grunting, snarling—Dick smiles, hand outstretched. The heat from the box seeps into Conner's skin.

No!

Conner's hands leave his pockets. His fists come up empty.

How could you—

"Agh!" Conner's fist hits the concrete floor, cracks splitting out from the impact. The crater pulls his fist in—Conner slips to his knees. Pain pulses up from his knuckles, runs through the veins in his wrist, and throbs at the center of his forearm. Clutching his arm, he fights the magnet pull of his fist to the floor, groaning until his fingers uncurl in the grit and then go limp. The pain washes out of him in a cold sweat, leaving his body full of lightness, but the world still warps itself around his eardrums, booming, crashing. The beat pushes his feet from the floor. He shuts his eyes to hold it in, feel it—control it. Raising his fists, he thrust out his chest, lifts his knee. Higher. Higher. More.

He opens his eyes. Light streams in from the rafters. Nothing matters but its warmth. Every cell in his body opens to it, teems with it, burns in it.

There's no one waiting for him on the ground anymore. Dick is gone—Gar, Mal—the warehouse itself. No walls, no ceiling, just the light, and the dark beyond it, a vague shadow at vaguer edges. Some semblance of something more than this. Tinges of red. Hard, cold, deep. He almost doesn't need to touch it, doesn't want to, but the beating at his core says to reach. He puts out a hand.

His torn white sleeve slips down from his wrist to his elbow. A blood-red blur stains his skin, but he needs it, he knows. Without it, his hand couldn't even move.

His fingertips press flat against glass. He pushes forward. The glass takes the same force and pushes him right back against the slab. A tiny bump, not even a fall. He hadn't moved far from it.

He pushes again. Nothing moves. The gaps between his fingers close as he makes a fist—it hits the glass, but leaves no cracks. The pounding inside his head and chest gets softer, distant. Silence creeps in, trickles down as the light brightens, nearly forcing his eyes shut. He squints against it, still keeping his fist. The pounding hasn't left his arm. He throws his arm against the glass.

The glass shakes. He slides down it, head to his arm, then slaps a hand to the glass to catch himself and push himself back up—the light sears his eyes shut, knocking his head back down. He keeps his head low as he rams his shoulder into the glass. Another shake. Growling, he tries both fists. The pod itself moans back at him as a rattle runs through its walls, but no impact makes an opening.

Sucking in through gritted teeth, Conner opens his eyes. The light burns white—he takes it in. Heat pools in the pits of where tears should well up, but he holds it all in. Red stains the light—blood, fire, he doesn't care. His head—his skin—his body throbs with power. Power to end this.

Somewhere out there in the white expanse, a hollow ring becomes a keening howl. Conner blinks, and the heat in his eyes becomes just a cool wetness. He puts his hands back to the glass. His palms still find solid, but his fingertips find soft. Thick, rough, dull points press back into him, running short swipes of shallow trails over the skin of his chest. A wet gust of air hits Conner right in the nose, making his lips curl shut on reflex.

Conner opens his eyes. Wolf sniffs his breath so rapidly that it tickles the back of his throat, making him cough. Wolf pulls back, but his paws don't leave Conner's chest. Spots of blue, purple, and green still drift bruise-like in Conner's vision, but he finds the side of Wolf's neck and rubs his hand into Wolf's fur.

"Thanks, Wolf."

A groan starts rough in the middle of Wolf's throat, dips low into his vocal range, then shoots high into a short, sharp whine. He slides his paws off Conner's chest and drops them to the floor, but his yellow eyes stay on Conner, crisp and clear in the dim light of the bedroom. The view outside the window is stars and darkness—up here, it always is. The clock says it isn't morning; the automatic timer on his room lights agrees. Conner brings his eyes back down to Wolf and brings his nails down to the top of Wolf's chest. Wolf leans his head slightly to the side, but his hind leg stays flat against the floor, no kicking or scratching motion.

"Sorry," Conner then says, reading judgment in Wolf's stare. "I know." He leans back and runs a hand through his own hair, feeling sweat collect under his fingernails. "Happens. Wakes you up, too, though, I know."

Wolf maintains his stare and pads at the ground, the shifting weight between his two front paws making him wobble. He groans again, voice deep and assertive.

Conner furrows his brow. Wolf's eyes stay insistent, but his tail swishes apprehensively. A ghost of anger flickers at the back of Conner's head—the dream. The weird part. He had his anger at Dick. That was months ago, almost a year now. Things were different then. Things were still wrong.

The rest of the dream—a thought will take him back there. That stays where it belongs.

"It was just a bad dream," Conner argues into Wolf's determined face. He pats the top of Wolf's head. Wolf tilts his head critically and out of Conner's touch. Conner retracts his hand, but not his statement. "It happens. It's not like..."

"I didn't pull you into a memory, Conner," M'gann said. "I really did... pull you into a nightmare. Or at least... something like it. It's... from the scar—it's warped—it's how the damage manifests itself when my mind is—"

Conner's eyes go to the floor. "It's not like—"

"—Nnn—agh-ahhh-uh-uh—!"

Wolf turns, body stretched out straight towards the door, and lets out a gruff, decisive bark. A crackle of M'gann's voice lasts a second longer before a sharp, high gasp cuts straight into Conner's ears. Her heart from here reads panic—adrenaline hits his own.

"Like that," Conner says, kicking the sheet off of his legs and jumping to his feet. He breezes past Wolf and smacks the door's controls open—hops back several steps and reaches back for Wolf's head. An ear twitches against the side of his hand. "Good boy," Conner adds quickly, tapping fingertips to fur. He then sprints out the door.

He's in her range. Silver walls stay silver walls for now. But through his ears, her voice is right there in his head—another almost-no! before she groans and gasps for breath. Conner rushes past the doors of several vacant rooms then halts himself at hers, catching himself with a still-sweaty hand against its cold, smooth surface. [I'm here,] he thinks to M'gann on reflex. The dread sets in even before the thought fades out. He already knows it won't reach her.

I'm here, Conner mentally repeats to himself.

Now what.

The door doesn't yield to the pressure of his hand. Locked. Her passcode at the Cave was—was the date that Cadmus started him in the pod, what everyone has always called a birthday. Last year, it passed without a word from her. If it became just numbers to her, it would have been easy to change.

Back then, too much to her became easy to change.

A hard thud, a soft thump—M'gann grunts with the sound of both like she feels it. Conner hits the door with his fist. No dent—he wasn't expecting one. He knows how hard he hit it. But the sheet of metal quivers in its frame, sending a high, sharp ring up the wall towards the ceiling. Conner waits. The ringing fades. Then M'gann gasps a stray gasp at nothing—nothing he can see, nothing he can reach—

Nothing he can stop.

"Nnghh-agh!"

"M'gann!" Conner shouts, hitting the door again and sending out a fresh chime. Still no dent—yet. He puts his palm to the door to end its rattle, then his head to the door to listen closer—the pounding of his own heart drowns hers out. He peers through the metal to her heat signature—she's on the bed or floating. Dim heat seeps past her edges—the bed. She drags a hand through sheets—Conner hears the rustle—and her hand leaves smears of yellow-green trailing behind it. She draws up a knee, shakes her head. Her fire-red chest throbs.

Enough, Conner thinks, blinking his eyes back right. His hand goes to the control pad. Its screen lights up with keys. Her old passcode, or emergency override. Wasted seconds, or guaranteed alarms.

"No!" M'gann shouts.

Having already tapped 0, Conner drops his hand from where it hovers over 3. M'gann's breath comes ragged on the other side of the door, but he can hear the purpose in each inhale, and some small relief in each exhale. Conner takes his own deep breath and steps back from the door. The control panel resets to a blank screen, leaving 2 and 1 and all the rest untouched.

She's awake. He could leave it here. She's woken herself up before—even did it in his arms. It wasn't him. Nothing he did—

He doesn't need to be here. She's dealt with this before. A few times, she'd told him—Conner scoffs at the thought. He doesn't know that, just because she said it—only, he heard this time. It hasn't happened on the Watchtower. Two and a half months. Then why last night—

—A hard, flat thwap hits Conner's ears—her hand against a pillow or the mattress is his best guess. The next sound is a sob. M'gann's voice breaks in pieces, in place, sobs muffling as they deepen—Conner looks back through the door. Yellow-green and orange, only spots of red—her form hunches over, curls in on itself—

His eyes come away hot as he blinks his vision out of infrared. That's it, he thinks, biting back a growl.

Conner knocks on her door: no fist, no shake, no dent. One knuckle. "M'gann."

M'gann gasps, chokes—holds back a half-sob, breath shaking. "C-Conner?" she calls back.

Conner drops his hand back to his side and nods, forgetting she can't see him. "Yeah, it's me—"

"—Are you alright?"

Conner blinks at the door, processing the mild whiplash of her asking him that—again. He frowns, holding back another growl.

"Conner?"

The growl escapes him anyway. His fist swings at the seam of the door—he stops it, softens it, lets the side of it slide down the cold sheet of metal. His fingers flick toward the control panel, close enough to trigger its screen. He presses them flat against the door instead.

"Here," Conner calls back over the sound of M'gann's rising pulse and the feel in his chest of his own. "Now you. Out here. Now."

Another gasp, another sob—a cut-off, muffling the next. A hand to her mouth—just by the sound, he can tell. Conner's fingers curl against the door. He blinks her back into his vision—she's upright, looking back at him. Face red-hot, she wipes her eyes. Conner's eyes pull back to cold, gray metal, then drop down to his two bare feet.

"...I didn't mean to sound like I'm—"

"I—I'm coming."

Mad at you fades out in Conner's head—all his focus goes to sounds outside of it. The swipe of sheets, the padding of footfalls. A sniffle; a stray sob, quickly snuffed out by a hand. The rattle of something empty yet contained—a breaths, a determined mmnh!—hesitance laced into a moment of silence, save for the anxious undercurrent of her pulse. Then more footfalls, staying soft but growing louder. Another stop. Another shaky wisp of a breath, close enough now on the other side of the door to itch at Conner's ears.

The door starts to give underneath Conner's palm. Conner lifts his hand away. The door slides open. M'gann's hand slips down from the controls on her side and crosses over her chest to clutch at her elbow.

Her skin is white.

Martian white.

A'ashenn white.

Her light gray grown sits dark on her skin, hanging up from one shoulder and down past the other. Her messy-strewn hair draws scratchy red lines along the sides of her white neck. Her freckles are gone, but bruise-like splotches stain her cheeks gray; she raises her head high enough for liquid light to peek out from under her bangs, and her eyes are red. Human red. They meet Conner's then flick away, stare down the other end of the empty hall then come back to him. M'gann holds his stare and breathes in deep through gray lips, a shiver of a sob lingering in her breath.

"...I'm sorry."

Her eyes flicker at Conner, pitch-dark lashes batting at her white skin. Conner feels his jaw fall dumbfoundedly slack. He pulls his mouth back shut.

"I tried to..." M'gann hugs both her arms to her chest. "...Exert influence, it... it didn't work. But I... I really tried." A white hand comes up to brush hair behind her ear. "Could—" Her voice cracks. "Could you tell?"

Conner blinks at her, feeling the knot in his brow tighten.

"You... didn't link me," he responds.

What? M'gann mouths. "B-But how—" She shakes her head. "Then—why are you... here?"

Conner points at his ear. "Heard you," he says bluntly. He gestures with his thumb back toward his end of the hall. "Me and Wolf."

"O-Oh!" Eyes staying on him, M'gann reaches for the doorframe. She stops herself seconds before touching fingers down to it and wraps her arms around herself again instead. "T-That's..."

"Are you... cold?" Conner asks, eyes still running over her white skin. M'gann blinks in confusion, brow furrowing, then cracks a smile over a half-gasp. A soft groan keeps the smile from turning into a laugh, however, and her hand goes to the space between her eyes, slides up to her forehead.

Her other hand smacks into the doorframe. Her fingers curl around its edge. She pants softly, heart beating with adrenaline, but as she brings her hand down from her face, her eyes drop to the floor, still swollen red and already heavy again. Conner's hands twitch up on reflex, shaping themselves to cusp her by the waist. He stops them, stops himself—another reflex, Conner realizes, when he can't think of why. He keeps them ready at his sides. "M'gann, what happened to—"

"—Do I scream?"

"What?"

"When I—" M'gann lays her head against her hand in the doorway. "When I'm having the... when I'm... in it. Could you have heard me without superhearing?" She winces. "I... ask because I... I need to know if—unngh!" Baring her teeth, brow quivering, M'gann rolls her forehead against the bones of her knuckles.

Conner's hand meets the doorframe inches above hers with a soft thoom. Sweat rolls down the side of M'gann's face in his shadow. "M'gann, look at me." He slides his hand down over hers, separating her head from it. Eyes still shut, M'gann gasps and stumbles back, reaching her other hand towards the other side of the doorframe. "Snap out of this," Conner commands, catching her hand. "Look at me—"

—M'gann rips both her hands out of Conner's touch. She locks her arms tight around her ribs, hiding her hands form him—drops close to the floor, but doesn't fall. "Conner, please, I—" Stomping her heel, she forces herself back upright. Folds of her gown pull tight behind her arms—her hand slips down her stomach and reveals clenching white fingers. "—Can't—just—could Gar have heard me screaming when I—"

—Conner's hand flies back to the control panel. "I'm alerting the med bay."

"No!"

M'gann falls to her knees. Her hands catch on the floor, white fingers splaying out. Panting hard, she squints up at Conner. "I'm just—hghh—tired, I—hghh—"

Conner drops down beside her. His knees thud against the floor; he hears it, barely feels it. M'gann's whole body throbs like her heart, panting turned to shivering, eyes wrenched shut. Conner reaches for her face. His fingers touch down on her hot, damp cheek. "Ngh—" M'gann jerks her head away from him. Conner's hand drops to her shoulder. M'gann gasps and dips her shoulder out of his touch. Conner's hand curls around itself.

"Are you—" Conner's throat goes tight. Her sleeve covers where he'd dug his fingers into her arm trying to wake her at the motel. He blinks away the thought of fingerprint bruises—gray on white, green on white, red hot on yellow-green—any color. "Why," he makes himself ask instead. "Why can't I touch you?"

M'gann's hand flies to her mouth, muffling the crack and shudder of a sob. "You—"

—Conner swallows. "Me?"

"N-no! No!" M'gann shakes her head. "Me! It's not—safe. Not right now—"

"—M'gann, what does that even mea—"

"—The window. I-I—" Eyes still shut and hair falling in her face, M'gann gropes blindly at the doorframe. Her other hand pushes off from the floor. "I think—I think I know." Slowly, M'gann starts to rise—her hand misses the doorframe, swipes then flails at air. Conner jumps up to catch her from below, but M'gann falls into the frame, finding it with her shoulder, and claws at the smooth outer wall for support. "What happened, I—can't let it happen again, I—"

"—I'm alerting the med bay," Conner growls, eyes darting from her to the control panel and then back to her.

"Please just let me go back to sleep." M'gann lays her head against the frame. "Please. It can be over." A crackle of a groan, and she pushes herself up an inch from the frame. "I can just... make, make it back to my bed, just... wake up... tomorrow... and... unhh..."

M'gann's head falls back, white throat flashing under cascading hair. Conner catches her while she's still on her feet, loops an arm around her waist and brings her head to his shoulder. "M'gann?" He notes his mouth barely an inch from her ear: no response. "M'gann!" Gripping the back of her head and keeping her propped up against himself, Conner shakes her. Her dangling arms slide over his arm at her waist, bumping it gently as they sway side to side.

She's out.

Conner pushes her head up to the crook of his neck and holds it there as he scoops the rest of her up into his arms. The med bay remains a screen-press away. Conner fixes his eyes to the control panel and tries to imagine her bleeding. Burnt. Fractured. Poisoned. Whatever thought is strong enough to make him move his hands. Her psyche split in two, tearing itself apart—that should be enough, but his feet stay anchored to the floor, and his arms go stone-stiff.

"You're not... supposed to do anything," M'gann says softly, determinedly bringing her hand up to his shoulder from the space between their chests. "I mean there's... nothing to do, it's... already over."

It's not, Conner echoes back to the memory. His hand clenches around a fistful of her sleeve.

"Can you... trust me?" she says, her forehead warm and solid against his own. Sunlight filters in through her curtain of hair; her presence floods his mind even without a psychic touch. "I know that I'm needed, Conner. I know that I have a responsibility to not give up. I know what it does, losing someone—I've seen it enough now." She breathes out into their space, and he feels it in his chest. Her warmth. Her life. "I owe it to all of you to be stronger than this. I won't... ever let myself stop fighting."

M'gann lets out a deep sigh in Conner's arms, hot air puffing onto the skin of his throat. A contented hum thrums from her lips into his collarbone. Her heart pulses against his chest in a soft and steady rhythm.

Conner lets his chin fall to the top of her head. Fine, he thinks, sighing back at her. This time.

He crosses the line of the door track between the hall and her room. Keeping her head pinned under his chin, he raises his knee to catch her legs as he slips his arm out from under them and turns on the lights. He slides his arm back under her legs, dropping his foot back to the floor. Her body stays ragdoll limp. Conner clutches it—her—tighter.

Her room is like a time capsule, gutted. Nothing it could have possibly been salvaged from the Cave, but she's filled it with replacements, familiar pieces in familiar places. Posters hang on smooth, flat metal, the shadows of craggy rock walls gone from around them. Conner tries not to look, tries not to think too much about it. Her bed sits nestled between twin nightstands—that's his target. He steps down into star-spotted carpet, its fibers still factory-fresh under his feet.

Her bedsheets are the same as his, the Watchtower's standard issue. The green-gray top sheet lies crumpled on the edge of the bed in a body-shaped knot. The white bottom sheet is wrought with twists and creases, signs of struggle. Conner lets M'gann back down to it legs first, then the rest of her, feeling her lips unstick from his skin. Hand to the mattress, letting her sink with it, he reaches over to grab her pillow off the floor. His weight leaves the mattress, raising her back up. Pillow in his hand, he reaches for her head.

The pillow leaves his hand, bounces gently off her chest, and falls back to the floor.

The red of her hair seeps out around her head, but her a'ashenn skin makes her look translucent against the sheet, half-camouflaged or half-ready to slip right through the mattress.

It shouldn't look so wrong.

From the moment he first saw it in his head, he never saw the wrongness—he saw truth. Saw her. Felt her shame, felt her fear—felt the echo of his own in what he was in the face of what he was supposed to be, and understood. Waited. Kept waiting, some part of him, even after she'd shared it. Always held her when she used to sleep-shift, helped her will herself back human or g'arrun, whatever she needed to be—but kept waiting. Hoped, even, but only if it would be good—that if choosing it someday would be the right choice for her, she would make the choice.

This wasn't a choice. He knows that. If he didn't, he could see it like he wants to.

He could call her beautiful.

And she would be awake to hear it.

She's too still now, face stonelike in its serenity. Conner runs a hand down her cheek. She breathes, heart beating. His hand goes down the length of her arm, stopping at her wrist. He keeps expecting cold, keeps thinking marble veins instead of bedsheet wrinkles, keeps hearing an electric hum at his feet instead of overhead. Poseidonis's hall of heroes. The Grotto, one light brighter. Tula's pale, hard face in her wreaths, seconds before the shroud hid it away. The ice blue halos her hologram cast around everyone—Wally and Artemis, hardened faces, knowing looks, hands locked tight—Garth, shadow behind him, the empty space where Kaldur should have been—M'gann, kneeling to hold Gar, her cloak draping over his shoulders—

It took days to get her alone again. Conner needed her to cry. He needed something to get it out of him, get the light out of his eyes. She wasn't a hologram. Yet—yet, yet, yet. All he could think—who next. Not a question—an accusation. He spent those days silent, eyeing everyone, like all of them knew but him. Who next.

He finally found her again in their—her—bed. He reached out in the dark—she clung on, curled into him—became muscle and bone and skin and tears again, soaking his collar, wringing fingers at his back. [We're never going to lose each other like that.] All the trembling her in his arms, and yet her mental voice was steady. Her grip was resolute. [Never,] she'd said. [I promise.]

Conner shakes the years-old thoughts from his head. His hand goes back to M'gann's face. The only cold is drying tears. He wipes away what's left of them. It doesn't help. She doesn't feel it.

Her voice cuts fresh into his head, but only as a memory. "I don't—"

No. Conner looks away, his hand leaving her face, his knuckles dragging through her hair until his fist slots into place at his side.

"I don't want to want to—"

The space behind his eyes burns red. He clamps a hand around his head and holds back the thought, the memory, her voice whisper-quiet, her head drooping low, her eyes too soft, so tired—

"I don't want to want to—"

—No. No, no, no, no!

"I don't want to want to die anymore, Conner."

A sound sputters out of Conner that he barely recognizes as his voice. The feel of a hand around his whole chest squeezes the breath out of him, crunches his ribs, leaves him wheezing, shaking. He bites down. His voice comes out again, this time halfway to a growl, but catching, quivering like a plucked string. He gulps out a breath, a hard, rubbery cough that bounces back into his throat. He hisses air back in through wet teeth. His lips curl in tight. His clenching knees drop him to the edge of the bed.

He knows what this is. He's done it before. She's done it countless times. Humans are born doing it, humans and—it doesn't matter. He wasn't born anything. It hurts. A wave knocks him forward. A fist curls in his gut. A tremor wrenches both his shoulders—he swallows it down. His voice kicks against the backs of his clenched teeth—it doesn't matter if she hears it. He doesn't want to. He doesn't want to feel it. His body doesn't care—it trembles with power. He locks his arms around his ribs and bends, toes curling against the carpet, head nearly at his knees.

Liquid heat hangs at the edges of his eyelids; a single tear breaks loose. Even he can't hear it land. The carpet soaks and swallows it up in an instant. His eyes sting with more, ready to fall—they can't. He can't let them. If he lets them, they won't stop.

M'gann groans behind him. Conner hears her hand bounce against the mattress with a soft, dull thud. At his right, her heels slide in the sheets. Conner raises his head, holding his eyes shut as everything behind them shifts and settles back into place. He blinks away the tear-blurs and turns to look back at M'gann. M'gann's brow furrows at something, and though only by the slightest nudges, her head shakes side to side. Her pulse starts to quicken.

The knots in Conner's throat and chest all snap loose at once. "M'gann, wake up!"

M'gann jumps up, white limbs scrambling, eyes and mouth popping open in a gasp. She catches herself against the mattress and does a quick visual sweep of her surroundings. Her eyes land on him. "Conner?" Conner hears her heart slam in her chest. "Conner, are you alright?"

Conner steps back from the bed.

Thumpthumpthumpthump—

—M'gann reaches for his wrist then pulls her hand back. Her eyes dart across his face, widening in horror—

—Thumpthumpthump—

"—Conner, what happened?"

No.

He can't. Not another second. He shuts off the sound of her heart in his head. Fire burns in its place, running down his throat and into his chest. His eyes go blisteringly dry—what's in him won't leak out again, just explode. He starts towards her desk—anywhere else. His feet leave the carpet, returning to the cold floor.

"Conner?"

No. He'll leave. It's better than the alternative. It won't matter—none of it does. There's nothing he can do.

"Conner, please, w-what—" He hears her slide against the sheet. His eyes look at nothing but the wall, at empty, at solid, at contained. He stares at the metal and presses the thought of it against the feeling swelling inside him. Empty. Solid. Contained. Cold.

"Conner!"

M'gann's breath trembles, teeters on a sob—slips right back into Conner's ears. He pushes it out. No. Nothing else inside him. The swelling in his chest won't stop. His eyes sweat and sting with tears. No.

"Conner, please just answer me," M'gann lets out on a whisper.

Something opens in his chest. The heat behind his eyes evaporates his would-be tears. Growling through his teeth, anger boiling up and blowing through him, Conner whips back around. "M'gann, you were out for five minutes!"

M'gann's eyes widen into pinpricks in her white face. Her hand floats up to curl into the hair hanging over her shoulder. "O-oh." She shrugs faintly, her eyes still wide but falling from his face to the foot of the bed instead. "It... felt restful enough."

Conner huffs. The tension doesn't leave him, but just as quickly as it flared, the anger starts to drain away. M'gann's hands drop to her thighs and wring into the hem of her gown. Even with his hearing pulled back into his head, Conner can still see her steady her breath, her shoulders inching up then dropping as she stares down at the mattress. Something in his chest twists—if he lets himself feel it, it will wring out more tears. He forces a sigh instead.

"You don't know what's happening," Conner states through gritted teeth. His hand goes to the top of the chair at her desk, gripping it lightly for calm. His mind still feeds him the sound of splitting wood. He lets go of the chair, dropping his hand back to his side. "You thought you did, but you don't."

"N-no, I... I think I do know what happened. Last night. Why I linked you in my sleep." M'gann tucks her legs neatly beneath her and folds her hands together in her lap. She opens her mouth to speak but then hesitates, her eyes darting away. She clears her throat. "...We were touching."

"What?"

"In the window! The way we..." A smoke-gray flush starts in M'gann's white face. "...Crammed ourselves in there. I... think that my subconscious mind... misinterpreted that closeness as an open invitation to—" She bites her lip. "Well, at least, it... it made it much more possible... I—I didn't consider the possibility that—" She shakes her head. "I'm... sorry. I... don't remember if I already said that. I know I keep... coming up with more things to apologize fo—"

"—So now I can never touch you again?" Conner coughs out, voice snagging on touch as he steps forward, squeezing his hands into fists at his sides.

A flicker of pain runs across M'gann's face. "N-no, I..." Her mouth again hangs open soundlessly. "I don't... mean that, necessarily, I... just mean when... when I'm, um..." She bounces lightly on the mattress as her hand flaps at air. "When there's a risk of you..." Her eyes fall to her hand, and it goes still.

"A risk of me what?" Conner says sharply.

M'gann doesn't answer, just blinks at her hand.

Conner waits, then takes two steps closer. "M'gann." M'gann keeps staring, statue-still. Marble white without the veins. Conner rushes to close the gap between him and the bed. "M'gann, answer me."

M'gann squeezes her eyes shut and buries her hand behind her hip as a fist in the mattress. "I'm—" She winces, ducks her head under an invisible weight. "—Fine, Conner, really." Her other hand curls and claws at her white knee, gray marks trailing up her skin but disappearing in an instant. "Th-these, um... episodes... to... to call them that, just... just take a lot out of me." The last few words tumble out of her on a ragged breath, but she opens her eyes back up to him and flashes him a small, strained smile. "But what I meant was—"

"—How much more of you is it going to take?" Conner snaps at her, barely biting back a growl. "What happens when it takes all of you?"

M'gann's eyes widen at him. Conner fights the urge to dart his own away. He narrows them instead. I mean it, he thinks—if only at himself.

"It's... just an... expense of psychic energy," M'gann says slowly, carefully, the effort of concentration wrinkling her brow. "One easily recovered just be a little sleep... really. After that, it's... just like it was a... normal... bad dream." She shrugs faintly. Her eyes flutter and slip shut under their own weight. Her head bobs in place. She forces her eyes back open on the swell of a deep breath; they fall right back into blinking heavy, and her breath turns short and shallow. "I... I know that tomorrow is the big day—can—can we maybe talk about this after—"

"No," Conner says.

M'gann brings a hand up for her head to drop into. "Oh. Okay. Then just... let's agree. I mean, the... the first part should be easy enough, but if... you're awake and think I might be..." She trails off, goes silent. Conner's eyes circle the fire-red halo in her hair until it and her whole body wobbles. She drops her hand down from her head momentarily to catch herself, then brings it back up. "Since... you could tell, and—and maybe that's good, just..." Another spell of silence. "Just... let it pass," she then says, still awake. "It's making you responsible, but—" She sways again. "But it's safer, un... until I can fix—"

—Conner pulls M'gann's hand from her head. M'gann's heart jumps. Keeping hold of her hand, Conner sits down beside her. His weight on the mattress edge sends her sloping into him. With her free hand, M'gann catches herself against his shoulder; the hand quickly leaves him. Her other hand in his grip gives a slight tug. "C-Conner, what are you..."

Conner slides his hand down to the bone of her white wrist and presses his thumb into the center of her palm, soft and solid. The pressure yields the feel of his own pulse in his hand first, but soon enough, her pulse answers back from underneath her skin.

He knows what too tight is. Conner loosens his grip to the point of disconnecting, just holding his hand around hers and maintaining a pocket of warmth. He watches her fingers twitch with apprehension, consideration, her thumb hovering over his—her hand slides out from around his thumb and sinks into the mattress, taking on her weight.

Conner drops his hand to his thigh.

"Conner, please don't—"

"Don't give me 'safer,'" Conner says. "You're not a bomb. And you're not about to 'fix' this." His eyes fall to his fists in his lap. "If you could, you already would have."

"It's..." M'gann shakes her head. "It's just going to take time—"

"You can't wait that long. Neither can I. I'm part of this now. I told you that."

"You don't have to be if you just leave me a—"

"No." Conner sets his hand beside hers on the mattress, pulls the wrinkles that her fingers have wrung into the fabric into straight, taut lines. "I heard it tonight. Even without you linking me, I'm here. And if I hear it again, I'll know what it is."

"Can't you just—forget it?"

A chill hits the back of Conner's neck.

—A thin, needlelike heat at the back of his mind. Prickling; precise. Already deeper than a link she'd use to talk, and he just said he was done talking, that there wasn't any talking to her anymore—

M'gann's gasp slices out of her throat like a blade.

—For the night was all he really meant. He's not done. None of this will be done until she stops. But the thought comes, and he thinks it: there might not be any more talking to her.

Conner feels her feeling him have the thought.

She wouldn't—

"Oh, no, no, nonononono—" M'gann wrings her hand into the side of her shaking head. "No, I—I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I know exactly what that sounds like, I know how wrong, I promise I—" She lets out a shaky breath, wipes her eyes, and wrings both hands around the edge of the mattress instead. "I—know I need to be better than this. You're—trying to help, I know that. And that—it—means so much to me, th-that I... that I'm..."

Conner waits. M'gann's gaze hangs down at her white knees. Beads of liquid light collect along her lashes over the dark circles under her eyes, and her chest rises and falls with a quiet urgency. Her lips stay curled on the verge of a word.

"...You're what," Conner says.

M'gann closes her mouth. Her eyes blink away the clinging tears—they break and trickle down her gray-flushed cheeks, but she keeps her breath steady, like a closed-off loop.

"Say it," Conner says. "...You owe me."

M'gann swallows. "The truth," she responds, barely a question. Conner nods—barely an answer when she still won't look at him, but out of the corner of her eye, she must see it, because she nods back.

"I'm... starting to... maybe... get a little... scared."

"It's okay," M'gann says with a smile seconds before slipping back inside herself, away from him. "I woke up."

Conner watches her now curl her body into a tight white knot, draw her knees up to her chest and wrap her arms around her legs. Scared. The word repeats itself in his head and pulls a knot into his throat. Scared.

"...You didn't seem like it before," Conner rasps out, curling and uncurling his hands in his lap.

"I... wasn't before," M'gann replies, chin set between her knees. "Not like this. When it was just me... I felt like I had it under control." Her chin slips behind her knees, muffling and amplifying her voice all at once. "Now it... feels like..."

"...You're losing control." Conner's voice comes out weak, fragile. He swallows against his sandpaper throat, feeling weight on his tongue and in his chest.

"...I don't know if it just feels like it," M'gann responds, mouth reappearing from behind her knees. "You know now. I accidentally... made it your problem, too. And that matters to me. You matter... and I... I can't control how you see it. I can't control how you feel about it." M'gann's feet slide halfway down the side of the bed, heels digging in to keep her from falling further, and she keeps herself perched there, arms crossed in her lap. "And it's—not that I want to try, but... when all it is is what's inside me, that's... a kind of control I'm losing over... well, me." She looks back up at him with softly pleading eyes. "...Does that make sense?" she asks.

A headlight flash runs through Conner's mind of Wolf's eyes in the dark. The skin of his chest itches with the ghosts of rough paw pads. "...Makes sense, I guess," he mutters back at M'gann.

M'gann hums in acknowledgement, mouth quirking at the corners into a suggestion of a smile. "It's an ugly truth." She looks down at the floor. "I don't like it either. But..." Her hands tighten around her biceps, white fingers digging into white flesh. "What really scares me, I think, is... that I'm scaring you."

You're not starts at the back of Conner's throat—his lips stay parted silently over his clenched teeth. He can't say it—it isn't true. He can recognize the feeling down to the beat of his own heart—knows panic in his hands, knows too tight and cold and shaking and every comforting, steadying fist he's formed to help swallow it all down—knows paralysis and a mouth that won't move and knots in his throat and tears—he pushes that last thought back. Almost crying at her bedside when she was just asleep—no one else had to see it for him to feel the shame of what it looked like. It wasn't. It wasn't what it looked like. "I'm not scared of you," Conner says defiantly, towards his own thoughts as much as towards her. "Never have been."

M'gann winces out a half-smile, lashes fluttering as her eyes go to the floor. "You... don't have to say that."

"I've been scared of losing you," Conner then says, making M'gann's breath hitch. She jolts up straight and meets his stare. "Even to you." Conner's hands squeeze into fists, feeling empty no matter how deep his nails sink into his palms. "To something in your mind that I can't get through to."

M'gann's eyes blink soft and sharp and liquid all at once. "Conner, please be... well, I already know you will, but—"

"I'll be honest," Conner says, guessing the request before she says it.

For a moment, M'gann's eyes are just soft. "Thank you." The sharpness comes back in. "How much is... this... like... that?"

A weight drops in Conner's chest. He lets his eyes fall to her rug, tracing the new trail of stars that he's already walked more than one way. Her rug at the Cave was purple, this one is blue—a concrete difference, he thinks—a self-distraction, he knows. "...I know you're not doing it on purpose," he settles on as a response, loosening his fists. "Like I told you last night, you weren't sorry enough."

"Am I... sorry enough now?"

"Yeah. I can tell." Conner looks back at M'gann. "That's what's scarin' me."

M'gann mouths a silent oh back at him. A faint hiss starts in her breath as her lips form around another familiar word. He can read it as clearly as if their minds were linked.

"You don't wanna tell J'onn, fine," Conner says, cutting off another sorry. "Let me take you to Dubbliex."

M'gann shuts her mouth, bites her lip. Her feet drop from the edge of the bed to the floor. Her lashes flutter down at her white knees, her brow furrowing. "...I'm not going to risk anyone else's mind on this," she says lowly. Then she hums a warm smile up at him, cheeks curving under the crinkles of her eyes like always, even without color. "I know I don't have to face this alone, Conner. And... I'm not, really. But I can. It's my mind. I have to take back control of it myself."

Conner holds her smile in his eyes and her words in his head and tries to make them feel real, give them weight, take them as something substantial—he can still see the ground crumbling around her in one form, and still see her slip right through his arms in another. His mouth clenches around a thought—on a link, he would have already thought it to her. Out loud, he has to make the words come out:

If it were anyone else, is that what you'd say?

M'gann is on her feet before Conner can decide to speak. "And I can start with this," she says, flicking her white hands in the air as if to shake them dry. "I can't believe I'm sleep-shifting again." She rolls her eyes emphatically, one hand going to her hip and the other skirting the edge of a Hel-lo, Megan—she flips hair behind her shoulder and giggles instead.

You were already sleep-shifting, Conner thinks at her, remembering her shortened hair falling back long over his arm and her green-gray face going pale in the light. He's too slow to say it—M'gann is already on her toes, and the line between a'ashenn white and Megan Morse's skin is reaching up her calves, past her knees, disappearing under the hem of her gown. She drops back onto her heels and holds out her arms. The color starts in her fingertips and runs down to her elbows.

Conner's eyes skip ahead to her face. M'gann smiles at him from a face still white. Conner looks back down, and the color has reached her collarbone. Meeting M'gann's eyes again, he nods, waiting until she's done to speak again.

The line snags halfway up M'gann's neck. In an instant, her skin snaps back to a'ashenn white. M'gann's heart thuds in her chest. She swallows visibly, shadows flickering clearly over her white throat. "Oh, I—" Her white cheeks flush gray. "Whoops!" she cheers, clapping her hands together. "That was—silly. Anyway..."

M'gann starts again, holding out her hands. The color blooms out from the center of her chest this time, reaching past her shoulders and up her neck. Peach tinges her chin and jawline, then stops—recedes. Her freshly white chest throbs, then flushes as gray as her cheeks.

"This is—embarrassing, I—" M'gann shivers out an imitation of a laugh and clutches her elbows. Green bursts out from the pressure of her fingers like blood vessels breaking under her skin. The color inches its way up her arms, running up under her sleeves—a sliver of it reaches her exposed shoulder, but as soon as Conner sees it, it slips back under her sleeve. He blinks, and her arms are white again.

He looks back to her face. M'gann's wide eyes beam back at him helplessly. A familiar beat of panic hits his ears.

A familiar rush of adrenaline hits his own heart. Conner jumps to his feet. M'gann stumbles back several steps then whips around, putting her back to him. "My—concentration is a little..." Her hands go to the sides of her head. "I-I just need to—" She tries her feet again—the line of peach halts halfway up her calves and quivers like a plucked string. Her hair hides her neck, and her arms curl inward, but Conner can see her fingers turn green then white again as they knot into the sides of her head. M'gann growls and stomps her heel, but the white just slips back down to her ankles, and her whole body starts to tremble. "I-I just—need to—"

Conner lays his hand down on M'gann's shoulder. M'gann jolts under his touch, sucking in a deep breath. Her hands unlock from her head and drift down slowly, cautiously, as she lets out the breath. Keeping the ball of her shoulder rolling under his palm, M'gann turns to face him.

The only color in her face is still her bloodshot eyes. Tears roll freely, almost unnervingly steady down her gray cheeks. She holds her gray lips shut and stares into his eyes.

He's not sure what she sees. There's nothing he can say. If there was, he would have already said it. Some small, nagging part of him wants her just to stop it, to keep her skin a'ashenn—wants to run his hands across her skin and wants to call her beautiful—wants it to be that easy. Wants the truth to be that easy. Wants to see the truth in it, just as he always has in his mind.

There's more truth in her tears and in her struggle to shift back. Her truth.

And his truth, he concedes to himself, is that he'd want to run his hands across her skin and call her beautiful no matter what form she was in. The thought is a resolution, but no comfort—the sight of her tears starts to sting in his own eyes. His hands stay where they are, one at his side, one on her shoulder; he cusps her shoulder in his hand, clutches it tight.

M'gann's eyes fall shut. Conner loosens his hold. But before he can let go, M'gann's white hand falls warm and soft over the top of his. Conner feels her shoulder rise and fall under both their hands on the wave of another deep breath, hears the air rush in sharply through her nose and whisper out slowly through her parted lips. She bows her head. In a ripple—in a thought—her skin becomes hers again—she makes the choice, and her body responds. She's Megan again.

M'gann looks up at him again with soft, clear amber eyes.

His Megan, Conner thinks.

He blinks at the thought.

Her Megan, too.

"Thank you," M'gann says simply, smiling up at him gently—tiredly. The dark circles under her eyes are gone, but Conner knows that was a choice, too.

You were already sleepshifting, he starts to say again. His mouth twitches but doesn't open. M'gann curls her hand around his, gently nudging his fingers up from her shoulder.

Her body lists to the left. Both his grip and hers tighten at once, locking their hands together. M'gann keeps her footing and smiles down at the floor. "Well, it... it's late," she says as she carefully pries her hand off from around his, leaving his limp fist hovering over her shoulder. She takes several steps back from his hand and smooths hair behind her ear. Her brow scrunches apologetically. "You're going to be a zombie tomorrow."

Tomorrow. A knot forms in Conner's throat. He swallows it down. His fist drops back to his side, curling tight. Only hours left to ask, or to decide that he's not.

"...We are," he decides to say.

"Oh?" M'gann breaks from wiping her cheeks to shrug lightly. "Mm, there's a chance." She gives a quick giggle and shakes her head. "I'll be fine."

Conner watches her stand and blink at him. The smile on her lips sinks into a straight line. She sways in place anxiously, rubbing at her wrist.

Say it, Conner prods himself.

"Come with me."

M'gann's heart skips a beat, and her cheeks go bright red. Her eyes dart down his body then back up to his face. "W-what?"

Conner can't help but quirk his eyebrow up at her—he's no less dressed now than he's been the whole time. But his own cheeks flush hot when he realizes his error. Say more than that, he chides himself. That could have meant anything. "Tomorrow."

M'gann's brow furrows in confusion. The hand at her wrist slides up to her elbow.

"Wh... why?" she asks.

Conner's eyes dart off to her window. The pocket of space framed in its four corners is empty, no stars visible from where he's standing. "They said I could." It's not a lie. He looks back to M'gann. She stares at him as helplessly as when her form was stuck. It's not a lie, but it's not an answer either, he realizes. "Said that I could bring a friend," Conner tries again. "It'd be good for him, or—something," he mumbles.

"But... after..." M'gann shakes her head. "Y-You could bring anyone then," she says, smiling with a shrug. "Why me?"

Because I don't want to be alone. No. Because I don't want you to be alone. Maybe. Because you owe me after last night and tonight. That's anger, and that's easy—he could say it, and he knows it would work. All he'd have to hear is one more sorry, and then she wouldn't say more, wouldn't challenge him on anything. She'd be too ashamed.

The thought makes him sick the moment he thinks it.

"Are you..." M'gann swallows audibly. "...Thinking it would be like a..."

"What?"

M'gann shimmies her shoulders and nods to the side. "Well..."

Conner gulps. His eyes escape back to her window. "Are you?"

"It... wouldn't have to be unless we wanted it to be," M'gann assures him. "I-I mean, if we—decided to call it that, that is—a-at any point, really, and to whatever extent you would want it to count as a—"

"Call it a mission," Conner blurts out. He meets M'gann's eyes again. "And we don't do those solo."

"...Oh," M'gann says blankly.

A pulse quickens in Conner's head: his own.

It keeps pounding as M'gann brings herself back closer to him. "Honestly, Conner..." Her fingertips brush against the back of his hand. She shakes her head and hums to herself in determination, then gives his whole hand a light squeeze, rubbing her thumb over the back of his wrist. "I'd be... honored." She lets go of his hand, then beams a smile up at him. "Thank you."

I'm supposed to say that, Conner thinks back at her, but the warmth and softness of her eyes pulls him in. For a moment, all he can think about is falling. "You're, uh, you're welcome," he fumbles out instead.

"And you're, um..." M'gann's eyes widen then dart away, come back to him sharp and shallow. "...Welcome to change your mind, of course, between now and tomorr—"

"No."

"Are you... sure..."

"Are you saying yes or no?" Conner snaps at her.

M'gann's mouth pops open silently then presses into a wincing smile. "That's a... fair question. Yes, Conner. Of course."

Anger worked after all. Conner feels it curl back inside him, shrinking to a flicker in the pit of his stomach. He rubs the back of his neck. "...Sorry," he mutters.

"N-no, I'm—" M'gann clamps her mouth shut, pressing her lips into a tight, straight line. She lets her lips go, and for a moment, their edges flash paler than her skin. "...Me, too," she says softly.

Conner feels his own mouth loosen into a smile.

M'gann's heart thump hard in his ears. "So, um, should we...?" she nods once towards her bed and once towards the door.

"Uh... yeah." Conner pulls his eyes away from her. M'gann's feet brush softly against the carpet, her heartbeat inching away from him—it's easier to listen than watch. His eyes wander to her desk, then to the poster above it.

Martian Manhunter.

His eyes dart to blank wall. There's privacy, and there's a secret—J'onn would come if he knew. Conner knows that, and he knows she knows it, too. Just like Clark—like Superman came back for—

—A feather-soft thud rips Conner's eyes away from the wall with the force of an explosion. A tiny oh! pops out from M'gann's lips as she catches herself against the edge of the bed—she glances back at Conner and giggles, brushing hair behind her ear. With a small whoop!, she turns on a heel towards the head of the bed.

Feeling his mouth twitch into a half-smirk at her vocalizations, Conner lets his eyes go back to the poster. It's a perfect match for the one she had at the Cave, he thinks, as if paper in plexiglass could somehow survive a bomb. But the closer he looks, the more he sees wrong with it: matte tape over its glossy corners, thumbtack holes under and around the tape, a jagged line of white through the otherwise empty green space at its bottom edge—nothing she would have ever let happen to hers, he knows. But the pressure of the glass holds the damage in, the two sides of the tear laid together so carefully that the white line barely shows.

Conner blinks his focus out of the frame. Less staring, more walking—he started out with ten hours 'til, and he's down to at most eight. They both are. That thought gets his feet moving; leaving barely feels like leaving when he knows she'll be there, too, and at the same time, the longer he lingers, the closer he gets to taking it back:

He shouldn't need her there.

It's not need, it's want, he argues to himself. His other excuses are worth buying, too—they did say he could bring someone, and they did say meeting people is something good for babies. He's said it, he's doing it—she's doing it. It's done. His feet drag him to the other side of the room; his hands twitch at his sides. M'gann's chair stick out inches from her desk—it's out of his way to tuck it in, but he does, pushing it forward with a single finger. Its laminate wood feet slide like butter over the metal floor and knock it hard enough into the desk to topple her stack of books. Conner growls and holds his hand out to keep them from falling to the floor—most stop at his palm, but the top book slides over the stack. He catches it last minute with the hook of his finger into its spine.

M'gann gasps. Something hard thumps and rattles where she is at the bed—her heart, and something else. Conner meets her eyes across the room; holding her thermos to her chest with both hands, M'gann stares at him in horror.

"Uh." Conner blinks back at her, swallowing. "Sorry. I—"

"You didn't see it, did you?" M'gann yelps. She then slaps a hand over her mouth. "I mean... um..."

Conner frowns, furrows his brow down at the book around his finger. A dozen colored tabs stick out from its white pages: pink, bright blue, light purple, neon yellow, green. He holds it by a page marked green. "'Complex Trauma in Teens and Young Adults'?" he reads off from the cover.

"Oh, good." M'gann wipes her forehead. Her hand leaves her bangs sticking to the side and out of place. She pulls the thermos away from her chest, and freckles of moisture stain the front of her gown.

Whatever he wasn't supposed to see, it wasn't a book. "What's that," Conner says pointedly, eyes narrowing at her thermos.

"Hm?" M'gann holds the thermos up inquiringly. She shakes it; something sloshes, but not much. Small ice cubes click inside it. "Oh—oh, chamomile, Conner," M'gann says, rolling her eyes at him and grinning. "I thought it would... help! After... last night." Her grin fades to a meek smile. She sets the thermos back down to the nightstand with a hollow clunk. "I think if anything, it... might have done the opposite. After all, it's... not like I need help falling asleep." She bites her lip. "I should have bought a better thermos, too, it... didn't keep it very cool," she adds under her breath. "Maybe warm next time?"

"M'gann."

M'gann's eyes flicker up at him. The darkness seeps back out under them, less stark than on white skin, but he sees it. He sees the weight fall into her eyelids again, the red break into her sclera—sees marble and snow and hologram light—

"I see Dinah the day after tomorrow, Conner," M'gann says. "That will help. Trust me, it... already has, so much."

Too many questions pile up in Conner's mouth. Then why aren't you better? Then how were you before? Then why didn't I know? Then why didn't you tell me—

Conner bites his tongue and swallows all the questions down, save for one. "...Does she know?"

M'gann blinks once but doesn't speak, just tilts her head slightly to the side. It's an expression he's seen Wolf give him a thousand times: confusion. Curiosity. Patience.

"...What happened last night," Conner clarifies. "And that I know now, too."

M'gann blinks off to the side and rubs her lips together. "...Yes," she responds, nodding decisively.

"What did she say?"

M'gann's cheeks flush, and worry lines scrawl across her forehead. "We... haven't really had a chance to talk about it in depth..."

Conner swallows. "Right. Besides—privacy and all that, I guess," he fumbles out. His finger doesn't leave the book.

"Uh—" M'gann steps forward, holding up her hand then curling it inward, hooking it into the hair over her shoulder. "The, um... the touching thing was... my idea, my, um... a theory, anyway, once I had some time to think about it... if that's what you were wondering. Dinah and I haven't gone over... causes and solutions yet. O-or, not solutions, but..." She draws in a deep breath and sighs it out. "'Strategies' is... what I should say."

Conner doesn't respond, just sets the book in his hand back atop the stack. He starts to slip his finger out from its center pages; his eyes fixate on the green tab. Slowly, carefully, using only one more finger than he already has in it, he lifts the book open, letting its front half flutter then droop over the edge of the book underneath it.

"Well, um... goodnight!" M'gann cheers over the soft thump of her body dropping back down to the bed. White legs flicker at the edge of Conner's vision—he looks up, and they're Caucasian, not a'ashenn. He shuts the book. He then pushes the stack of books from the edge of the desk to the wall for stability, accidentally catching her empty tote bag by its stiff handles and sliding it out of place. Beneath it, something crackles.

M'gann gasps again. Her heart goes back to beating too fast in Conner's head, setting his own heart speeding aimlessly. Panic, adrenaline—

"Uh-uh—" M'gann jumps from the bed. "Y-You can just leave it, really, it's fine, it—"

He's tired of anger—but it's easy.

"What is it?" Conner growls at M'gann. The ball of his fist hits the cushion of the paperback book with a targeted, determinedly soft thud. "What am I not supposed to see now?" His voice comes out louder that time—he hears it hit the wall beside his ear and echo back at him, a puff of heat with a metallic chime. The wrongness sets in—she's let him do this. He's letting himself do this. It's just her desk—it's her room, and he did let himself in. She made him have to let himself in by collapsing in his arms, just like she made him have to see her the damage in her mind by dragging him into it—

And he made her explain it. And he ran to her side the moment he heard her fighting it. And he's here. And he's still here. Guilt, blame, guilt, blame—back and forth, back and forth. All it does is dig a hole in his head. He doesn't think like this—he can't.

He's thinking like her.

M'gann's hands curl at her stomach, fingers rubbing and twitching in silence. Conner doesn't let his eyes go higher.

"...Forget it," he breathes out, stepping back from her desk and turning toward the door.

M'gann gasps, gulps—Conner shuts it off in his head. He doesn't need to hear. He doesn't need to know. He takes a step.

"Forget..."

M'gann's voice still stops him. He doesn't look back, just waits.

Either a second passes, or an hour. A year. Conner's thinning patience crackles like whatever's on her desk. "Forget I asked," Conner says to end the wait.

"Oh." M'gann starts the clock on another round of silence. Conner's hand clench at his sides. His shoulders pull back and tighten like a wall is at his back. His lips begin to curl back. He huffs out through his nose to vent the heat behind his eyes.

"Tomorrow, too?" M'gann then asks.

The heat leaves him in a flash, drains out of his cheeks and down his spine. He's left with cold.

"Because... I would understand," M'gann says.

Conner sighs. It doesn't loosen the knot in his chest—a breath only pulls it tighter, makes it sharp, makes it sting. Of course you would, he almost says.

The crackle at her desk becomes a clap of thunder, a shot of lightning through his head. Paper rustles—something thicker thwups inside it between tight, closed walls. M'gann hums. Her feet pad softly against the floor, but Conner barely hears them—the paper announces her steps instead, shooting off firecrackers inside his ears.

He tunes out the sounds and turns to look instead. M'gann holds out a paper bag, glossy and red. "At least take it," she says, eyes glossy and red, too. "You don't have to open it now, i-it's four days early—er—more like three, now, but... in a way, it's... also almost a year overdue."

Conner holds out his hand, more on reflex than thought. M'gann slides the bag's smooth ribbon handles over his fingers. Paper scratches at his ears as a soft, light weight drops against his wrist.

Whatever it is, he knows it.

"Well... there it is." M'gann's hands move to clap together, but her fingers cult like wilting flowers, and she drops them to her sides instead, then tucks them behind her back. She pins her lower lip under her teeth then lets it go to smile at him, face beaming like soft sunlight. "...Happy birthday."

The bag nearly slides off of Conner's hand. He catches it by its handles, crumpling the ribbons into hard, thin strips. "That's it?" he blurts out.

M'gann's cheeks go pink. "I-I—I thought it would be good not to go overboard, especially since—well, since we—um—since we're not—e-exactly—"

"I meant that's all it was," Conner says. "That you were trying to hide from me."

M'gann's bright eyes widen then look down at the floor. "...This time, right?" She looks back up at him and smiles meekly. "I... wanted it to be a surprise. A... good one, hopefully?"

"I don't like surprises," Conner says. He means it as a consolation, even an apology: you didn't do it wrong. I did it wrong. I'm bad at this. M'gann takes it with a twinge in her brow and the quirk of her mouth into a lopsided frown. "I mean..." I'm really bad at this. "...Sometimes," he tries to add.

It made Megan happy to throw them for you, Wendy had said, so secretly, you loved it.

"...Depends on who's throwin' them," Conner says as softly as he can, managing a smile.

M'gann gives him another Wolf-like head tilt.

"Or—giving them." Conner rubs the back of his neck with his free hand. "It's late."

M'gann giggles. "That's okay."

"Thanks," Conner says simply, lifting the bag at her. The paper inside crackles, but nothing slides or rattles. He shakes it once just to test it. Whatever is in it feels fitted to the bottom, like it won't budge until he opens it.

M'gann eyes it and him with delight. Her knuckles press eagerly against the underside of her chin. "Do you want a hint?"

"No," Conner responds on reflex. Maybe, he thinks the moment he's said it. Yes—no, he decides in his head, this time with certainty. He'll let her keep some of the surprise.

"It's... probably pretty obvious if you really think about it," M'gann says. She looks at him with eyebrows raised and her mouth pinned shut into a barely-stifled smile.

The dimpling in her cheeks makes Conner's own cheeks ache. Wendy was right—about all of it.

"Hey, I said no," Conner pretends to whine, smiling at his own answer.

M'gann erupts into sputtering, crackling laughter. She throws her head forward then back, arms crossing and hands clutching at her ribs, pulling at her gown. The laughter shakes her body, shakes the walls—the room shrinks. Her voice rings off every surface—she's there. He's here. The gap between them feels like a hair's breadth.

He wants her on his skin. His body wants her on his skin. Barefoot in his boxers, he hasn't felt so close to naked until now. It isn't cold—his skin blisters, stings. She looks at him with eyes still creased in laughter, and all of her shimmers like a light—and he can feel her in his arms, in his hands, just by looking at her, as real and solid as the floor under his feet. Every memory of her there before. Every want of her there again, endlessly repeating—every heartbeat in his chest is another reach for her, another thought of her—

"—I don't... want to want to die anymore, Conner."

Her body in his arms, limp and ghost-white.

"Tell—tell me how I'm supposed to believe that, M'gann, because I need to know."

Her body in his arms, panting and shaking, sobbing, eyes alight and empty—

"—Can you... trust me?"

M'gann straightens her back and flips hair behind her shoulder, laughter fading to snickering and then to just breath. The curves of her cheeks slowly fall back flat, her white, toothy smile closing up into a soft pink line. Her eyes shine—laughter-tears, Conner thinks.

His eyes burn. His heart locks tight in his chest, too tight to feel it, hear it, or to let in a breath.

M'gann blinks at him, flickering—blurring. Conner squeezes at the handles of the bag in his hand, too light and thin to feel like anything. His skin feels more than bare—it feels open. Seeping, trickling—he can't—he can't—he can't—

—If he lets it out now, it won't stop.

Conner makes himself breathe. Makes his eyes clear. It's his body. He has to take control.

M'gann's lips part again, but not in a smile

"Is... something wrong?" she asks.

Conner swallows. "Nothing." He shakes the bag again just to make the noise. "Thanks."

M'gann nods, ducking her head and tilting it to the side to view his face at a different angle. Her brow furrows as her eyes narrow—rather than scrutinizing, her expression looks pained. "Are you... sure?"

"Why wouldn't I be," Conner huffs out, eyes shooting off into space—not to her window, but to the poster above her bed. Another replica of a relic: a picture of a view of Earth from just outside its atmosphere. She could see the real thing out of any window up here; the photo was there in her room at the Cave, so the new one is there now. Back to normal. A joke. Something he doesn't understand.

"Well, I... don't want to keep you here any longer." By the pull of her voice and the shuffle of her feet, Conner hears M'gann steps back from him. "You've got a big day tomorrow."

Conner's eyes dart back to her. "Me?"

M'gann's mouth drops open silently. She curls her lips back shut and pops up onto her toes, keeping her arms tucked behind her back. "...We?"

"I didn't take it back," Conner says.

M'gann gasps softly.

"I mean I..." Both his hands curl into fists at his sides; one has the bag, one has nothing. Both feel empty. He looks down at the bag's slick red, deep red surface—thinks of blood, and shakes his head. "I didn't... mean to, anyway."

"Oh, I thought... you had changed your mind," M'gann says. "Since I... did make you upset—"

"You didn't," Conner interjects, shooting her a look that he knows says the opposite. Oops.

"Conner, can I... ask you a question?"

Conner gulps. "Yeah?"

"Are you... nervous... about tomorrow?"

Conner's eyes fall back on printed stars behind plexiglass. "No."

"Are you... mmn." Out of the corner of his eye, Conner watches M'gann shake her head. "Never mind. I don't mean to pry." She's quiet for a moment, then softly, under her breath, she lets out a quick giggle.

"What?" Conner asks.

"Oh, I... didn't realize you would hear that," M'gann admits. She giggles again, louder this time, as if to catch him up on any note of it that he might have missed the first time. "I was just thinking about an old saying, 'don't look a gift horse in the mouth,' and then I thought about... you and what you said about idioms last night." She snorts. "I'm sure that it meant something at some point, but it's such a strange phrase now."

"Am I the horse?" Conner asks, prompting another snort from M'gann.

"Should I... check your mouth?" M'gann jokes.

Conner's mouth twitches. He tries to press it down into a frown, but it pops up at the corners. He lets himself breathe a laugh through his nose instead. "You gave me a gift."

"You've invited me! That is a gift. I just—hopefully won't start trying to talk you out of it."

Conner's eyes drop back down to the bag. Her gift to him. Whatever it is, it's his now. He's not giving it back. "...Why would you?" he asks.

M'gann bites her lip. "Maybe because... I'm a little nervous, too—uhhp!—to... see your family again," she says with a shaky laugh. "It's... been over a year, and... there's a new member to see now." She pulls her hands together and rubs a thumb over the bone of her wrist. "Are you sure I won't be intruding?"

"They said I could bring a friend," Conner reiterates. "You're a friend."

"Mm-hmm..."

"You gonna argue with that?"

"Mm-mm." M'gann shakes her head. "We're friends and teammates. And I like being both."

"Roommates, too," Conner says with a shrug.

"That's three! And, uh..."

Conner's eyes fall to M'gann's reflection on the floor, a bright, hazy smear tinged with red light from his bag. "...More than that," he says.

"...Exes."

Conner looks up, and M"gann's eyes lock onto his, sharp and wide—looking for answers. Approval. Evaluating his reaction by every detail, every second; he holds his breath, and she holds hers. For a moment, all Conner can hear is hearts.

"...Yeah," he then responds, if only to relieve them both. It's not not an answer, but it's not enough—not for him. He shakes the bag and watches red flicker around her feet. More than that, he wants to repeat, but she'll take it as another prompt, he knows, and he doesn't want another word for what they are. He wants words for how he feels.

There's one, but it doesn't work. He thought it did. It got them out, brought them back to reality—it is reality. It's his. I love you, Conner thinks to her, knowing she won't hear. Even out loud, it wouldn't matter. It's not enough.

Friends, roommates, teammates, exes, he repeats back in his head. "Guess that means you mean a lot to me," he mutters half-jokingly, feigning sarcasm. He means what he said. He means more than it, but the understatement is the joke, he thinks. She'll get it. She'll laugh. They'll move on.

M'gann's heart skips a beat. The rest of her stays silent—no laugh, not even a gasp. Just a deep breath. Conner meets her eyes again; they soften into liquid light, tingeing with red. Oh. Conner swallows. Oh no. He's bad at joking, too. He opens his mouth to take it back—take back the joke and only the joke, somehow, how—

"You, too, Conner," M'gann responds, voice barely above a whisper. A small smile presses into her lips and pushes warmth into Conner's skin, pushes through him, cell by cell. She's sunlight. He feels her in his bones. He stares at her until his eyes sting.

So stop it, he thinks to her, forgetting the joke. Stop making yourself hurt. Stop acting like you deserve it.

M'gann's eyes slowly droop to the bag in Conner's hand. "I... hope you like it," she says, lashes fluttering. She squeezes her eyes shut then blinks them open, smiling back up at Conner apologetically. "Goodnight."

"Uh..."

M'gann takes several steps past him, stops, and turns to smile at him again. Conner's eyes run down her form one more time, tracing the creases under her eyes, slipping down her arms and off her curling fingertips, following her legs down to the floor, watching her raise a foot and cross it behind the other at the ankle. It's time to leave, her body tells him. Part of him agrees—he knows he has to leave, so some time would be the time. He already was leaving—already almost left more than once. Already decided to stay more than once. His feet don't move forward or backward; they just tense against the floor.

He makes one foot rise, then the other. One step, two steps—by the third step, it's real. He's leaving. It's over. M'gann walks a step ahead and brings him to her door. She presses the panel beside it, and the metal sheet slides away, ripping open a hole into a world of bright white. Conner blinks, and it's gray again, silver and solid. His eyes sting from the outside now—nothing boiling up inside him, just too much air. Too much time open.

He looks to M'gann at his side. M'gann crosses her arms—holds herself—and lays her head against the wall, inches from the doorframe. Her eyes on him are tired but awake, more thoughts flicering behind them than he could even begin to track. His own thoughts go simple: reflex, instinct, what feels right in his body—the hand nearest to her moves to cusp her arm, stroke its thumb over her shoulder.

The hand already isn't empty, Conner remembers just as the gift bag slides to one fingertip. He catches it before it falls, crumpling the body of it in his grasp. His heart jumps—hers doesn't, not in the second he can hear it over the sound of paper walls crashing in his ears. Creases don't leave the paper as he returns his fingers to its handle. Conner holds the bag up for both himself and M'gann to see, and light fractures across its glossy surface into pieces of red.

M'gann hums a small laugh, her cheeks dimpling. "Nothing's broken," she says raspily. "That's hint number two."

Conner lowers the bag back to his side. His eyes fall on nothing. A seam in the floor of the hallway. The very edge of M'gann's hanging sleeve. "Okay," he says flatly.

He steps out into the hall. Eyes keeping hold of M'gann's sleeve, he turns, using it to pull himself back to her. M'gann pushes herself up from the wall by one hand, and by the same hand, keeps herself propped up against it. The flickering behind her eyes stops; the look she gives him now is simple, and easy to read. She's about to fall asleep. Smiling still, she nods at him. Her eyes leave him for the door's controls.

"Wait."

M'gann looks back at him, blinking in mild surprise.

"...It wasn't a joke," Conner says to her.

M'gann puts the sun back in her eyes, in her smile, holds it within her flushing freckled cheeks. "I know." Her lip twitches, quivers; she blinks down at the floor and then back up at him. "Thank you," she says.

All Conner hears is another I'm sorry.

The door slides shut between them. The world in his eyes goes blank.

He blinks, and the polish and seams return. Conner lays his empty hand against the door just to feel solid, cold. Something to convince him to move. She's in there, he's out here. She's okay—as much as she can be. As much as he can make her be. There's nothing else to do. He can leave.

The sound and feel of a thump against the door makes Conner's breath catch in his throat.

M'gann hums on the other side and sniffles out a breath of a laugh. Footsteps, slow and methodical, trail away from the door, softer with each step, and then the slipping of sheets, comes, like waves hitting a distant shore. M'gann lets out a muffled sigh, and then nothing.

Not nothing. A heartbeat.

She's asleep. Conner lets himself wait for a moment, listening for a break. Setting the pattern in his head, checking it against what he knows: sleep, sleep, sleep. Still sleep. Still sleep. Sleep.

Sleep. His eyes drop shut. His body doesn't sway—it straightens, stiffens, holds him upright and in place.

His eyes snap open. No.

He gets his feet moving again. The bag in his hand bounces against the side of his leg as he walks, all crinkles and thwaps. If he didn't know better, he'd think she got him a paper bag full of tissue paper, like April Fools' came early. It's enough of a thought to keep him awake until he reaches his door—doorway, he finds once he's back there. He hadn't bothered to shut it.

Cast in the long, broad strip of light from the hall, and then in the stretched silhouette of Conner's body, Wolf raises his head from the center of Conner's bed. Conner puts his hands to his hips, letting the bag hang off his wrist. Wolf grumbles and lowers his head back to the bed, ears twitching and eyes staying open. Conner slips the bag back into his hand. "Fine," he says to Wolf as he steps inside the room. "But I'm not takin' the floor."

Conner taps the room lights back to daylight bright. Wolf huffs out a wet snort through his nose. "S'only for a moment," Conner tells Wolf as he walks the gift bag over to his desk—his desk, and his mess. Black blobs litter its surface. He slides the shirts aside with the swoop of one hand. At least one shirt falls to the floor—Conner hears the thwup, but doesn't look. Tomorrow, he figures, or even later. It doesn't matter. He sets M'gann's gift at the center of his desk.

Behind it stands the blue and red bag, taller and wider, but with the same stiff, glossy outside, same slick ribbon handles, and based on what he's heard, the same thin, crinkled paper inside. If he's not careful, he'll grab the wrong one in—seven and a half hours, a glance at his clock tells him. Okay, he thinks, stepping back from the desk. Moment over.

A new countdown starts in his head: four days. Er, more like three now, M'gann had said. Three days.

But in a way, it's also almost a year overdue.

Conner's first cheat is with his eyes. Infrared turns up nothing—nothing discernable, anyway. A blue and green mass, hints of yellow: heat from his grip lingering on its handles but almost faded from the body of the bag. He blinks his vision back to normal, unsure what he was expecting.

He dips his fingers into the bag next, feeling past the paper. Just a touch, and he can wait three days. One more hint: something obvious, something hard to break, and what. His hand reaches the bottom and presses down into something cool, soft, and firm. He lifts his hand an inch, drags two fingers across the surface of whatever he's landed on. Soft turns to slick and then soft again. His fingers follow the edges. He traces an S.

He knows exactly what it is.

Conner crumples the tissue paper in his fist and throws it out of the bag, letting it drift and bounce and tumble across the floor. Wolf groans in suspicion—Conner doesn't listen. His hand returns to the bag. He pinches the cloth between two fingertips, lifting it up with surgical precision. The empty bag tips over on the desk, a flash of red behind a small black curtain.

It's his shirt. The red S-Shield burns bright at its center. The fabric around it has never seen the sun, or anything—not grease, bleach, claws, or a blade. The seams are stitched tight in factory-pressed rows; he stretches the shirt between his hands, and nothing gapes open.

Conner tucks his thumb into the hem and rolls the shirt up in his hands. The world goes dark inside it for a moment, but then his head is through. He starts one arm and feels his body stretch the fabric to its limit, sees the puckering around its seams.

Nothing snaps, but he freezes. He didn't think to check the size. His hand curls carefully against his chest to slip into the other sleeve. He raises his arms and rolls the shirt down past his pecs.

The black cloth splits down the center of his chest before it can even reach the end of his torso. Threads stick out from the torn edges like hairs, scratching at his skin. He pinches one on either side of the split between his thumbs and forefingers and tries to pull them back together, tie them like his bootstrings—they're long enough to itch, long enough to look wrong, but too short to tie. He growls. His chest is bare where there should be an S-Shield. He got these to fix that. He's supposed to be Super—

"Eh, cheer up, Supey, there's plenty more where that came from!" Wally's hand falls to Superboy's shoulder and pats the shirt sleeve sagging off of it. Superboy cranes his neck to find crumbs clinging to the cloth. He frowns harder, brow furrowing. He stares at the crumbs, and at the ragged cloth—still no heat vision. He rips the ruined shirt off of his body instead, tossing it to the floor.

"Dad's shirt was big on you," Wally says, mouth full, more crumbs flying out on his breath. The crunching sets Superboy's teeth on edge—he has to get used to it, he reminds himself. That's how eating really works. There are powers he doesn't have, but he does have superhearing—he has to hear things less, hear talking without the lip smacks, hear silence without the breaths. Wally swallows. The sound is a relief until Wally crumples up the chip bag and shoves it in his pocket—Superboy winces, shutting his eyes—the ceiling could be caving in for all he knows, but he knows that it isn't—three, almost four days now outside of his pod, and he thought he could control this.

He has to control this.

"And that supersuit the bad guys had you in was made of tougher stuff," Wally continues—Superboy tunes his hearing to the level of Wally's voice. "And with superstrength" —Wally pokes Superboy's chest—"you can't just yank these on. They're gonna be, like, skin-tight!" Wally tosses Superboy another shirt from the pile on the bed. Superboy catches it against his chest, holds it out and opens it up—wrong side. Blank. Superboy grumbles as he balls the shirt up in his hands and flips it around.

Stretching it back out, he finds the S-Shield staring back at him.

The shirt ends at Conner's hips. She remembers his size; his size hasn't changed. He smooths the fabric down over his stomach. It's softer than he remembers a new shirt could even be. On the blank wall above his desk, he's a blurred smear of a shadow. Skin and shirt, no face, barely even the red of the Shield. He knows it's no mirror.

"Bet girls are gonna like it, though," Wally assures him, smirking with hands on his hips in their shared reflection in Wally's bedroom mirror. Wally then raises one arm and rolls his long sleeve back, exposing his freckled bicep—he flexes it then looks at Superboy's reflection. Frowning, he rolls his sleeve back down. "Anyway, let's get movin'. Bats is finally giving us the verdict." Wally's hand hits his back—physically, Superboy barely feels it, but warmth sparks inside his chest. He looks at himself in the mirror and runs a hand up from his stomach to his sternum. This is his shirt. This is him.

"First day of the rest of our lives, Supey," Wally says, already at the door. The knob turns—the latch releases. Creaking on its hinges, the door opens.

Conner brings his hand up to his chest, feeling an S-Shield with no cracks or stitches, no signs of age. His heart beats under it, inside it, just like it always has. Always will. He's always—going to—be—this—

Conner chokes—gulps—shudders. His heart wrings itself tight in his chest—his stomach clenches, pulls back into his ribs—burning starts in his eyes. He knows what it isn't—he knows what it is. No, he tells his body, his mind, whatever needs to hear it. Stop it. His hand goes to his ribs. A fistful of shirt finds its way into his hand. The heat in his eyes starts to prickle, leak out over his lashes. No. I don't want to.

His fingers dig in deeper—nails against skin, fibers stretching and thinning. Easy to break: the shirt, his skin. Cut through to blood, all of it out, all of him—out of this—just a clench, a pull, a rip—

—A creak, and Wolf stands, tail swishing in a flash of white at the corner of Conner's eye. Conner breathes out—gasps out, finding himself panting for air. The fingers at his ribs uncurl. The cloth stays creased from his grip, but nothing scratches at his skin, and no air pokes through. He runs his hand down his stomach and look down past the S-Shield at flat black.

Conner gathers the shirt up at its hem slowly, one finger at a time taking on a new fold. His eyes stay on the floor as he slides the shirt up past his ribs; his hands cross at the wrists, then switch sides to hold. Tucking his chin to his chest and bending at the waist, he slips the shirt up over his head. He releases its folds to pluck it off his wrists by the ends of the sleeves instead, keeping the right side out.

It's all but weightless in his hands, but it drapes soft over his palms, his wrists. He holds it open to the Shield burning bright and dark all at once at its center.

Around the Shield, Conner folds the shirt into the shape of a box that fits into the palm of his hand.

His eyes go to blue and red. He slides the rest of his shirts to the floor and lays the new shirt down on his desk. The red bag lies empty and open beside it. The blue-and-red bag stands tall and full. Conner pushes the red bag down flat, pressing it shut.

"I... hope you like it," M'gann said, eyes hovering at the edge of exhaustion.

Conner swallows, adrenaline throbbing inside his chest, but a chill running up his spine.

It's perfect.

Chapter Text

[March 18th, Team Year Seven]

[...Wolf, C02.]

Super-Cycle's wheels never touch ground. She passes through the zeta tube and shoots straight up into the sky, gusts of wind in her wake kicking at the wet branches of the surrounding trees. Leaves smack against the wind and each other, ripping into the air; acorns plunk into the zeta tube's metal arch and click against the stone bridge that camouflages it. The portal closes, fizzling out.

A clear blue void stretches out before Conner's eyes. Without a look down, he could think that he's anywhere. Hands on Super-Cycle's controls, he looks down anyway, glancing over the edge of his outstretched arm. The only clouds in the sky below are thin white wisps, stray pieces dotted over the view like smudges on glass. Smallville's white water tower stands the tallest of all the structures beneath them; next tallest are the telephone poles, lines threaded between them like a net with gaps too wide to catch whatever might fall into the cluster of rooftops below. Raindrops hang like string lights off the thick black wires, some sporadically breaking loose to drop into faintly rippling puddles. Heads and shadows lightly speckle the sidewalks. Cars and trucks border the curbs—few move. Smooth, shimmering streets give way to country roads, edges of their lines scratched with grass, or mottled with dirt and grains of loose gravel—

Conner blinks, shakes his head, and brings his eyes back to Supercycle's controls. Wolf grumbles, yawns. His claws click against the outside of his compartment; a glance down, and Conner sees Wolf's large black nose poking up into the air, head tilted back to let the breeze blow through his neck fur. In the backseat, M'gann's hair flicks against her shoulders, close enough in Conner's ears to be flicking against his own. The rest of her sounds as still as a statue—save for her heart, on the thought to tune into it. The thin ribbon handles of the bag at her feet bat against the bag's stiff exterior and crinkled insides like lashes over tired eyes.

Conner growls softly, teeth on edge. He can't think about that now.

For more reasons than one.

Soon enough, another glance will take them straight there, he knows. Soon enough, he and M'gann will be earshot, and Ma will have them being listened for, he knows.

It's now or never.

Keeping hold of the controls, Conner turns his head. "M'gann."

"Hm?" M'gann leans towards him, meeting his eyes, hair waving at him then dropping flat to her shoulders. "Yes?"

Conner holds his breath for a moment, then lets it out. "Link us."

Tha-bump goes M'gann's heart. Eyes wide, she snaps back upright, hitting her head against the top of her seat with a thud. "What?"

Conner's shoulders tense, but he doesn't move, doesn't blink. "I mean it."

"I-I—" M'gann's voice crackles out into a low stutter. Her heels click against the floor of her seat. "Wh-why?"

Conner's eyes dart back out to empty blue. "Said it was a mission," he reminds her. "Last night. You agreed to it."

"I—we didn't... talk about... being linked," M'gann responds.

Conner huffs. "You know that's not true."

Tha-bump again.

Conner growls. "I mean—"

"I—know, I'm... sorry, again," M'gann rasps. She clears her throat. "But I—I just don't think it would be a good idea..."

A barn's tin roof flashes white sunlight into Conner's eyes, a signal flare from below. It's not the Kents', but it will be. Soon.

"...Especially today..."

They don't have time for this.

"Don't start with that," Conner snarls down at plowed rows of dirt.

M'gann gasps faintly. "I'm not—starting anything, I just think—"

"You're gonna tell me it's not safe because we can't trust your powers after telling me your psychic scar is your problem only." Conner faces back away from her, hands wringing at Super-Cycle's controls. Super-Cycle bleeps at him in defiance, keeping her pace. "Save it," Conner says to M'gann, huffing down at his own chest. "I don't buy it. You're here. Any thought you had of wrecking this, you wouldn't've come. So I don't wanna hear it."

M'gann meets his words with verbal silence and a racing heart. Wolf looks back at Conner with a whine and a groan. Conner meets Wolf's yellow eyes and stares. I mean it, he thinks to Wolf with a furrow of his brow. Wolf stares back at him, unmoved.

Conner blinks and looks away.

"That's... not... entirely true," M'gann then says. "But, um... Conner?"

Conner swallows. "What?"

"Could you, um, please, um... look back at me, just for a moment?"

Conner's eyes hone in on a lone cloud, the only speck of white overhead other than the sun. "Can't," he responds, suddenly short of breath. "Eyes on the road."

"We're in the sky!"

"I'm not hittin' a bird." His heart starts to quicken. "Or a plane." His hands slip off the handlebars to curl into themselves and clench. "But we're almost in range, so anything else you wanna say, you're saying it to Superman, too!"

M'gann's gasp slips and fades into the pool of their shared heartbeats, both pulsating through Conner's head at increasing speeds, one faster—hers, he thinks.

Super—Conner's eyes sting against air. Clark, he corrects himself, jerking his head down like he could mentally punch the right words into his brain. Kal. Kal-El. He forces out a breath. The beat in his head becomes one deafening pulse, pounding up from inside his chest. Stop it.

A breeze rolls into the back of Conner's shoulder with fingertip precision. His back stiffens, his body focusing to identify the source. A point of soft pressure travels down the outside of arm, fading just before his elbow.

M'gann's presence trickles into his mind on another breeze. The wave of it rolls against the edge of his perception then drifts back, leaving an opening, a trail lined with warmth and light straight back into her mind. Conner's shoulders slacken.

[...Link established,] M'gann's voice in his head says.

Conner slowly turns in his seat to face her again. M'gann smiles at him, hand curled up near her heart, eyes blinking at him fast. She heard him have to tell himself—or, no. He hadn't felt her link yet. Conner stares at M'gann's hand; he felt her telekinetic touch first. But if she didn't hear that, then—Conner starts to open his mouth, then remembers: she's there.

[What was that?] Conner asks her.

M'gann drops her hand down to her lap. [Oh, I'm—sorry, I—]

[No.] Conner shakes his head. [Just wanna know why.]

[I just... thought it'd be nice to give a little warning,] M'gann responds, shrugging tightly-drawn shoulders. [After, you know... the other night?]

Conner stares at her.

M'gann holds her smile.

[...Warning for something I asked you to do,] Conner says.

M'gann's cheeks go pink, and she drops her head down in defeat, then snickers under her breath. [I guess I'm... still a little nervous.]She raises her head and bats away hair.[But I promise to be on my best behavior.] She nods, vocalizing a hm! behind tightly-closed lips. [I won't embarrass you in front of your family.]

M'gann, that's the last thing on my mind, Conner thinks several layers deeper than the link, a mutter under his psychic breath. Sure enough, M'gann does keep her reach shallow—she stares at him expectantly for a response, lips disappearing under the bite of her teeth. Worry lines etch themselves into her brow.

[M'gann, you can't embarrass me in front of my family] Conner says to assure her, pushing the thought up and into the psychic channel, feeling it leave him and reach her.

[I'll just worry about embarrassing myself, then!] M'gann responds with a wink, hands to her hips even in her seat.

I mean that's not—Conner shakes his head. [I mean that's not how families are supposed to work. They're not supposed to judge you.]

M'gann's mouth opens in a silent gasp; eyes drifting off to nowhere, she closes it back in a crooked smile. [Right.]

Conner watches her hands wring together in her lap. He bites his tongue—physically. Psychically, he feels his end of the link tense, pull back, and flex shut, like the curl and uncurl of a fist. M'gann feels it, too—a flicker of alarm brushes the surface of Conner's mind, and M'gann's presence becomes less, shrinks down from a breeze to a breath. Conner pushes against the widening gap between his own mind and hers: no. Not a thought, just a thought-act, a mental gesture—he reaches for her. She feels it—he feels her feel it. She nudges her mind back closer to his. He presses his thoughts into hers: here. Stay.

M'gann's mind presses back: here.

They lock eyes again. M'gann's mouth starts on a word—she leaves it hanging half-open instead. Conner swallows.

[Sorry,] their minds project in unison, mental voices overlapping.

M'gann clamps her mouth shut; Conner's mouth drops open.

[I...] A giggle jumps to the top of M'gann's throat. Her lips part in a toothy grin as she snorts. She squeezes her eyes shut and shakes her head from side-to-side as the rest of her bounces up-and-down in place. [Should I be laughing right now?]

[Don't know,] Conner says, feeling warmth release into his chest like a valve. [Keep doin' it anyway.]

M'gann opens bright eyes back onto him. Her laughter fades out; she sighs through her nose, mouth fixed open in a grin, freckled curving and creasing over the contours of her cheeks. [Aren't we... in range?]

[Oh.] Tension replaces the warmth in Conner's chest. [Right.]

M'gann's smile wanes. [Conner, I'm... happy to stay linked with you—even though we probably shouldn't—]

[Says who?] Conner snaps.

M'gann bites her lip and looks away, nodding to the side. [I... seem to recall a certain house rule being made because of us.]

[Oh, uh.] Conner nods. He hadn't forgotten. He just hadn't expected her to remember—or care. They broke it plenty of times. [Yeah,] he concedes.

[Well, because of me, specifically—]

[What's your point?]

[My point is, well...] M'gann folds her hands neatly in her lap. [I'm here. And I'm happy to be here. And I'm still thrilled that you invited me—]

[There's a 'but.']

[There is a 'but.'] M'gann nods. [And it's about my butt—so to speak.]

Conner's brow furrows. [Oh-kay...]

[Sorry.] M'gann grins and smooths hair behind her ear. [Couldn't resist.] She scoots forward in her seat and leans closer to him. Out loud, she takes a deep breath. [I... don't want today to be about... me, okay? I feel like I've... distracted you enough these past two days, t-two nights, definitely, with my... issues, but... today is about you, and your family... and of course, that includes you-know-who.] She gestures towards the bag with just a quick glance down, then looks back into his eyes. [Promise me you won't... let me overshadow that. I'm here as a guest. I don't want my presence to take away from... how special today is.]

Nothing is ever less special with you, Conner lets slip through a low part of his mind—in frustration more than any other feeling. He keeps the thought to himself, but not the frustration. "Why do you think I invited you?"

M'gann's eyes widen at him.

Conner's open lips still thrum with his voice. He presses them shut and growls at himself as silently as possible, a quick slice of a breath through the inside of his throat. [Yeah, I know, I know.] He furthers the dismissal with a wave of his hand. [Question still stands.]

M'gann breathes out through pursed lips. [In all honesty, a-and I want to be honest, so... I... know what you said last night about exposing him to new people, but...] She winces. [It's... not at all your fault, nothing you've said or done, just my mind... going to... well, rude places.] She sighs, holding visible tension in her jaw. [I feel almost like a... pity case?]

"No." Blood rushes through and out of Conner's thumping heart, boils in the heat burning in his cheeks. "Why?"

M'gann straightens in her seat. [Are—are we not—]

"I don't care."

[Should I... go ahead and disconnect the—]

"No." [No,] he repeats back over the link. [Just answer the question.]

M'gann sighs again. A hard crease forms in her brow. She looks at him with her own hint of frustration, but it quickly shifts to a silent plea, then small apology. [The short answer is... I'm embarrassed about what a mess I've been these past two days, and I'm projecting that onto you. More than unfairly.] She offers up a small shrug. [And... that's it, really.]

Conner stares up into her eyes. [The long answer is Gar.]

M'gann gasps at him, a sharp, high note of her voice ringing out from her mouth as her eyes turn liquid-bright. [That's a... very... long answer,] she responds, keeping her mental voice steady. [And... exactly what I meant when I said today isn't about me.] She presses her mouth shut, brow furrowing in determination. [I mean it, Conner, I am not going to ruin this. If that means I have to leave—]

[What am I supposed to tell them if you leave?] Conner snaps at her, eyes hot as he glares. [They already know you're coming. How would that not ruin it?]

[I-I didn't mean I planned to—] M'gann's head shakes, then goes still as her heel stomps the floor of her seat. [Actually, you could—you c-could t-tell them I'm on a mission!] She nods determinedly. [They would understand.]

[And what fake crisis am I supposed to make up that needs you and not me?] Conner throws back at her.

[I—I don't know, tell them I'm under deep cover as someone who won't ruin someone else's family gathering by moping!]

[I invited you to be my backup.] Conner huffs in time with the words of his projected thought, his teeth clenching. [It's got nothing to do with pity. I was already going to ask you before the other night—why else do you think I wanted you to help me shop?]

[Because... you don't like shopping for clothes?] M'gann shrugs her shoulders up to her ears, shakes her head, then pinches the bridge of her nose between her fingers. [Conner, this is your family! You don't need me for backup!]

[You needed us for yours!] Conner shouts at the top of his mental lungs.

M'gann half-gasps, half-scoffs; the sound cuts off behind a wall in her throat, but her mouth stays open at him in dismay. Her eyes slowly sink to the floor of her seat. [That's—that's different.] Her eyes flutter back up to him, and she bites her mouth shut, cheeks puffing slightly as she holds her mouth in a firm line. [Martha and Jonathan Kent are some of the nicest people I've ever met—on any planet!]

Conner narrows his eyes at her. [And J'ann and M'att M'orzz?]

[They—just—] M'gann blinks at him furiously, eyes glistening despite the beating of her lashes. [You—never ran away from your—] She shakes her head, hair blustering up from her shoulders. [Conner, this isn't about me!]

"Ww-ruff!"

Gravity hits Conner's stomach. His knees clench on reflex around his seat, hands feeling for grip against smooth red metal as he holds himself between his display board and M'gann's. M'gann's hair whips behind her head as her hands smack straight down into her seat. The bag at her feet slides; her heels click as a thup stops it in place.

Super-Cycle pulls out of her nosedive into a slow, easy descent. Wolf looks back at Conner, grumbling—Conner's eyes skim over twitching white ears to the bright razor edge of a barn's tin roof, watching shadows dull its shine as his eyeline sinks below it. Super-Cycle's wheels touch ground, and her motor slows to a resting pulse.

All four of Wolf's paws land at once with a flicking, shimmering splash into wet grass. Conner's eyes dart back to M'gann. M'gann blinks at him, biting her lip, then shrugs, smiling as she sighs.

[Do you... want to keep arguing now, or wait 'til we get home?]

Conner's mouth twitches with a half-smile, but he holds it back, keeping his eyes on M'gann's face—and nothing else. A glance behind him, and it's real. [Depends. You staying?]

M'gann's eyes take on an airy softness as she flops her head to the side and smiles. [Of course.]

Conner swallows and nods, feeling warmth brush his cheeks as the smile breaks through to his lips. [Then just drop it,] he says.

M'gann nods and lifts the gift bag up from the floor, red ribbon handles draped over upturned wrist and pinned in place by her fingertips.

[But, uh, but not that,] Conner adds.

M'gann giggles and rises from her seat. Pressing her hand to her thigh to hold her pale pink skirt in place, she drifts up and over Super-Cycle's rear wheel.

Super-Cycle bleeps at Conner for him to get out, too. Conner can't help but welcome the command. He jumps down to the ground and feels the earth sink under his boots as they hit it—no cracking or crumbling, just the squish. With all seats emptied, Sphere curls into her resting form and rolls down the crunching gravel path into the barn. Conner hears her settle down into her concave bed of rustling hay, beeping and whirring with contentment.

M'gann floats to Conner's side, the tips of her pointed white shoes touching down into the grass. She lands standing taller than usual—his eyes take an extra half-second to find hers, like she's accounting for time since he last brought her here. Only her unshifted form ages naturally, he thinks, furrowing his brow. And the Kents have never not known what she is.

He almost says something. Out loud first—he bites the inside of his lip—and then within the link—he dips his presence low and thinks only to himself, staring at her as she smooths her hair back behind her stiff, high collar. It's not worth saying—it's none of his business.

She's dressed for a wedding, Conner thinks instead—in black, it'd fit a funeral.

She'd left his side to pin herself to Artemis, their black-clad arms woven into knots. His hands kept clenching at voids, ears kept listening for heartbeats in the headstone, eyes kept waiting for lightning to shoot up from the empty ground—

—No. Conner's eyes go to the sky, an excuse for them to water. Not now. The shirt on his skin starts to itch, sealed claw holes on his shoulder feeling as thick as knots but thin enough to unravel on a breath. I'm fine, Conner thinks at M'gann before she can say anything—the words spin in place in his head like mud-stuck wheels.

[You look nice,] he gruffs out instead, forcing his thoughts back light enough to float to the surface of his mind.

[Thank you!] says M'gann's disembodied voice as Conner's eyes stay filled with too-bright blue. [I tried my best on such short notice.]

[Yeah,] Conner responds blankly.

Wolf's nose brings Conner's attention back down to Earth as it rises into the air, sniffing the breeze. Soon enough, Conner smells it, too, practically tastes it on his tongue: apple and cinnamon.

[Should we... head on up?] M'gann asks.

Conner's eyes trail down the front yard and up the porch steps to the screen door. He walks himself there in his mind once, twice, three times—his feet stay glued in place. [Wait,] Conner replies. ['Til they see us.]

With a flick of his tail, Wolf starts towards the house.

Conner growls.

M'gann giggles. [Well, I heard you,] she says, [but nobody told him.]

Wet specks spring out from the grass under Wolf's feet with each step. Wolf raises his head again, giving the air a more determined sniff. The smell sets his tail spinning in circles.

Conner sighs.

[Think of it this way,] M'gann says, bag rustling in her hand. She leans it against her knees now, both hands around its handles. [It's not like Lois didn't already do all of the work.]

Conner huffs. [Yeah, and Super—I mean Kal already had all of the fun, too.]

He's heard Artemis say it about Will and Jade, about Lian. He could tell she didn't mean it.

But saying it now himself, Conner realizes what it does mean.

M'gann looks back at him with cheeks turning red. [We, um, probably shouldn't say anything like—]

[Forget I said it, period.]

M'gann snickers aloud, curls her lips in tight, and continues the giggle over their link, warm wisps of her presence flicking against his mind. [Gladly,] she responds. [I'd rather not have that mental image.]

The thought of thinking of it sets a picture forming in Conner's own mind. He forces grainy, buzzing static behind his eyes. [Thanks.]

[Sorry!]

Thump, thump, thump.

Heartbeat-like steps hit hard, hollow wood with no click or scratch of claws. Conner's eyes dart back to the house. Wolf sits at the doorstep, tail low and swishing. The steps grow louder.

Conner's hands twitch at his sides. One curls into a fist. The other stops short of doing so—M'gann's fingers slip between his.

[Here.] M'gann holds the bag up towards him. His smeared reflection shines on its glossy blue and red surface. [You should be the one that has it. After all, they're your gifts!]

Swallowing, Conner snatches the bag from M'gann's hand. His muscles expect bricks and steel; the bag all but floats in his hand. He squeezes the handles tight to feel them in his grip. All he feels is his own nails digging into his palm.

[Yours, too,] Conner says, mental voice not betraying his tightening throat.

[I helped!]

Conner gulps. [No, you—]

"Ah-huh!"

The latch unhooks. The screen door creaks open.

Wolf's tail thumps in circles against the porch as Ma pats the top of his head.

"Somebody's got the right idea, don't you, boy?"

Wolf stands, tail curling up and ears pointing forward. Ma laughs a whooping, crackling, breathless laugh as Wolf moves past her, marching straight into the house.

M'gann's hand dematerializes in Conner's grip, leaving his hand cusped around a ball of air. Conner half-expects her to be gone, camouflaged and sunken down into the ground—his heart lurches into his throat—anger sits ready behind a wall of numb shock—

—M'gann stands solid but board-stiff, chin tilted to the sky, arms pulled tight behind her back. A breeze could knock her over. A breath nearly does. Her rising chest tips her backward; she catches her footing, but adrenaline keeps her heart booming in his ears.

Numb shock releases into pure confusion. Conner furrows his brow at her. [Are you... okay?] he asks her.

M'gann breathes out. Her head and shoulders drop into more natural positions, even if still too tall. A hand returns from behind her back as a fist against her lips; she clears her throat and smiles, staring beyond Conner and nodding.

There's no time to follow her eyeline—soft, thin hands grip Conner by the shoulders and set him facing forward like an object on a shelf. Ma pulls Conner's chest down to her own and plants a loud, wet smack of a kiss right in the center of his hairline, her calloused yet delicate fingers brushing aside his bangs for direct contact.

"Now don't make me have to carry you in!" Ma exclaims, squeezing her arms tight around Conner's shoulders.

Conner's limbs go a good kind of numb, a warm, tingling looseness that lets Ma's arms feel strong against his muscles and his own arms feel small and featherlight as they float up and fall against Ma's back. "Hey, Ma," Conner says simply.

The bag slips from his wrist, falling into the wet grass with a ripple from its outsides, a crunch from its insides, and a gasp from M'gann.

"Oh!" Ma releases Conner and steps back.

[...Dammit,] Conner lets out, thankfully just in his mind—though also in M'gann's.

The bag rises off the ground, ribbon handles arching up to be gripped. Ma's oh becomes an oh-ho-ho; M'gann floats the bag back up to Conner. "Uh." Rather than take hold of it again, Conner gestures to it with a weak wave of a ta-dah, and M'gann raises it higher in the air to compensate. "Brought this," Conner declares, half-muttering.

[Nothing too fragile in this bag, either,] M'gann says with a gentle slyness, a smirk in her mental voice.

Conner peers over the dark blue edge of a wrinkled red void. [...Right.]

"Oh, now, that's sweet," May says, patting Conner's cheek—and only stopping once a smile is on his face. She takes the bag into her arms with both hands—it's light even by normal human standards, Conner knows, ignoring the pins and needles in his now empty hand, and Ma makes the same determination: after bouncing and rocking it in her hands, she drapes its handles over her arm. "And you also brought this lovely stranger here, I see!"

Ma gestures M'gann closer. M'gann nods and obliges, stepping into range of Ma's swatting fingertips. They connect with the outside of M'gann's arm, and Ma pats her sleeve.

"It's so nice to see you again, Mrs. Kent," M'gann says in a polite, even voice.

Ma's smile doesn't recede, but she scoffs at M'gann, putting both her hands to her hips and shaking her head.

M'gann's eyes shoot Conner a quick S.O.S., her end of the link buzzing with stifled anxiety. Audibly—at least to him—M'gann gulps.

"It's from both of us," Conner blurts out. "The—bag is, I mean. And what's in it." If he says any more, he'll spill it all. "Both of us," he repeats somewhat numbly, watching M'gann for a reaction—her eyes don't flicker back to him. Her eyes don't even blink.

"Now, dear," Ma starts, "I was having my fun, but I hope you don't think that I'm just some missus." She wags her finger at M'gann. "As long as my boy keeps bringing you here, you keep calling me 'Ma,' because his Ma is who he's bringing you to see." Her reproachful hand then falls gently to M'gann's shoulder.

M'gann's next few heartbeats hit harder and deeper in Conner's ears, and Conner watches her eyes take on a liquid sheen before her lashes start their telltale flutter. "Okay, Ma," M'gann says, smiling wide.

[Thank you] flits across the surface of Conner's mind in a whisper, almost too softly for him to perceive—M'gann gives him a wide-eyed glance and pins her smile shut timidly, guiltily. [Oops—well—yes.] She sniffles and parts her lips again in an open grin. [Thank you,] she repeats, stronger this time.

Conner's cheeks flare hot. He pries his eyes away from her—after all, their link is a secret. Guess you admit you needed this, he thinks at her, but not to her, keeping the thought low.

"And you here in your Sunday best," Ma then continues, making Conner and M'gann both snap to attention. Ma plucks at M'gann's sleeve then smooths down its creases. "My boy didn't lie and say he was taking you somewhere fancy, did he?" The question tapers off with a laugh. "We've had our April showers a month early here in Smallville—I'm afraid those nice clean heels will sink right into the mud!"

Oh. Conner mentally slaps himself—quietly. Hello, Megan.

"O-Oh, it's alright—I float, too!" M'gann responds, rising an inch—yet another inch—off the ground and kicking one leg up behind her. "I maybe... cheat in heels, sometimes."

Ma leans in close to her, cupping a hand against the side of her mouth to block it from Conner's view. "The heels don't play fair to begin with, dear," she murmurs, feigning a whisper.

M'gann sputters out a laugh, quickly muffing it behind her own hand.

Ma then returns her hand to the side of Conner's face, tapping his cheek and jaw as if trying to find the right button or nerve to press to make him smile. Conner rolls his eyes to the sky and lets his mouth stretch until his cheeks ache. Ma then swipes at his sleeve—Conner looks down to see her brushing Wolf hairs off his shoulder. Her fingertips hone in on the old holes from Wolf's claws—she presses in and runs her fingers over her own stitches.

He feels her feel the flaw, then the fix—the would-be knot in Conner's throat unravels as Ma hums in satisfaction and pats the spot on his shoulder. Her handiwork has held up; he's brought proof of that.

His eyes go to the bag at Ma's hip. His throat pulls tight again. That's different, he insists to himself. That's for him.

"Well, I made plenty of pie for seven," Ma declares matter-of-factly. Her fingers test M'gann's sleeve again. "And we've got plenty of napkins to boot." She gives them both a nod and turns, gesturing for them to follow.

Conner watches blue and red shimmer in the sunlight as Ma walks the bag away. Something warm grazes his knuckles—he looks down to see M'gann's hand swing back to her hip and clench a fistful of her skirt. [You're... sure they knew I was coming,] she says warily.

[What—oh. Yeah.] Conner shakes his head, stops, and switches to a nod. ['Course.] He looks back up into her eyes and furrows his brow. [Why?]

[She said seven,] M'gann answers. [You, Clark, Lois, Mr. and Mrs.—I mean, Ma and Pa, Wolf, and, well...] M'gann wavers on her already hovering feet. [That... doesn't leave much room for me.]

[Do babies eat pie?] Conner psychically blurts out before more assuring thoughts can form.

M'gann blinks at him. [Oh—] Her hand swings at the side of her head. [Hel-lo, Megan!]

"Those shoes aren't stuck in the mud after all, are they?" Ma calls out from halfway up the yard, eyes going from M'gann to Conner. She gives Conner an expectant smile and nod before turning back around.

She saw that, Conner thinks—or not. Doesn't matter. [C'mon,] Conner says, grabbing M'gann's hand and pulling her forward. M'gann lets out an oh! as her heels click together in the air. Earth squishes and squeaks under Conner's rubber soles; a few steps in, and two more footfalls join his, padding down softly into the grass. A flit of red at the corner of his vision tells Conner that M'gann has shrunk—or at least, that her shoes have. White heels shifted to white sneakers follow close behind his black boots. Conner looks up again and meets M'gann's eyes where he's used to them being, several inches lower than they were seconds before.

[You're shorter.]

M'gann smiles at Conner meekly. [Well, Ma was right. There's a reason I gave up on heels on missions pretty quickly. They work out a lot better in my head than they do on my feet!] Blushing, she tucks hair behind her ear with her free hand. [And this... is a mission... right?]

[Uh, right,] Conner responds. He squeezes M'gann's hand—he hasn't let go, but he can if he has to. When he has to. When she wants him to.

M'gann squeezes back, her fingers curling around his thumb.

A smile twitches onto Conner's lips. M'gann keeps her eyes out ahead on their destination, but an easy smile rests lightly on her lips, and through the pull of their joined hands, Conner feels the hint of a skip in her step. She glances back up at him from her right height and shrugs her shoulders, breathing out a laugh.

[So far, I'd say it's the best mission we've had in a while,] M'gann says jovially, [though I... can't help but feel I'm not properly suited up.]

Conner feels his smile flatline but stop short of a frown. [I said you look nice.]

[I-I know, but...] The hem of M'gann's skirt stretches past her knees and down her calves, splitting and separating into two pant legs that dye themselves a faded blue and cling closer to her legs. Her now-shirt dims the shine of its fabric, untucks itself from her new jeans, and loses its throat button, leaving its collar hanging looser around her neck. M'gann slips her hand out of Conner's hold to unbutton the cuffs her sleeves manually and roll them up to her elbows. [There,] she says, tugging the end of her shirt down over her hips.

The porch's wooden steps announce Ma's ascent with three slow, precise clunks; the contents of the bag slide around and crackle. Conner's hand hovers empty at his side as he continues to walk. [You didn't have to do that,] he tells M'gann, hearing the pout in his own mental voice as his eyes dart off to distant trees.

M'gann slips her fingers right back into his hand. [I... just don't like feeling like I look out of place.]

Conner slows to a stop at the base of the porch steps. M'gann halts at his side. Conner squeezes her hand tighter, feeling it solid in his grip, taking his hold to the verge of beating her pulse back into his own hot palm, but knowing too tight, and slackening his grip enough to keep from reaching that point. [You're not out of place,] he growls at her through the link, gritting his teeth outside it. [So stop it.]

[R-Right, sorry.] M'gann runs the pad of her thumb over the knuckle of his. [I... promised, after all.] She flashes a disarming smile at him and moves past him to the steps, pulling him forward. [C'mon!]

Conner frowns but follows her up the steps. [I just did this same thing to you.]

[And you had the right idea!] M'gann responds, smiling back at him over her shrugging shoulder.

Ma waits in the doorway, holding the screen door open for them; she gives them both an approving nod and quick humming laugh, then proceeds inside, gesturing them in and releasing the door for one of them to catch.

Conner and M'gann's hands break apart. M'gann has the advantage of starting slightly ahead of him, but Conner closes the gap quickly, boots booming against the wooden planks below them. Both his arm and M'gann's reach out. She could cheat at least two ways, maybe three—telekinesis on him or the door, stretching her form out of its default bounds—her grunt and gasp as she rushes at his side betrays normal human effort, and Conner's arm stretches out naturally past hers, reaching up over her head. His fingers touch down into the door's wire netting. M'gann scoffs, but as she turns to meet his eyes, her face is all grin.

Still holding the door, Conner shrugs and smirks back at her. [After you.]

M'gann rolls her eyes and ducks under his arm. The soles of her shoes scratch against the welcome mat as she wipes them clean. As she passes through the doorway, she turns and pokes Conner's side. [Boop.]

Conner flinches, momentarily losing the door but catching it just before it shuts with him outside it. [Hey.]

M'gann giggles, tucks her hands behind her back as if to hide them, then pivots to show them innocently woven together at the base of her spine. She spins back around to face him, hair lightly gusting off her shoulder in a sunny wave. [Couldn't resist,] she says as she steps backward from the door.

Conner kicks clumps of mud off his own rubber soles and enters behind her. [You know, when it's not just 'cuz you're under pressure,] he says as he turns to latch the screen door back behind him, [I kinda like that you're shorter.]

[Oh, atmospheric pressure or otherwise?] M'gann says slyly. Out of the corner of his eyes, Conner watches her step back into Wolf. "Ooh, sorry," she whispers aloud, hand going to Wolf's fur; Wolf doesn't acknowledge her, just keeps his body and mind trained on the pie at the center of the kitchen table. [And why's that?] M'gann then continues over the link.

Conner turns back around to face her. [It's cute,] he says simply.

M'gann half-gasps, half-snorts, and smothers her face in her hands. [Con-ner,] she says as her eyes peek out from between her fingertips, her snickering breath muffled yet echoing in her hands. [You're going to blow our cover saying things like that.]

[Fine,] Conner responds, rolling his eyes and placing his hands on his hips. [But I'm not taking it back.]

His eyes graze the white speckled ceiling. Cobwebs above his head hang tantalizingly low, like he could keep his feet to the floor and still pull them down—as a reach disguised as a stretch, he tries for one and misses, then shrugs. His eyes need adjusting from the Watchtower's tall, hazy voids, he figures, and he was just in the sky. Checkered curtains rise and fall, breathe at the edges of the open window above the kitchen skink. The refrigerator stands humming in its corner, magnets faintly rattling against its outer surface.

"Oh!"

Conner's eyes snap to M'gann with their own magnet pull. M'gann holds a hand over her mouth, but her eyes and cheeks give away her smile as she starts towards him. [Is that what I think it is?]

Conner furrows his brow as M'gann passes right by him. [Is what what you think what is?] he asks her.

M'gann approaches the refrigerator with reverent caution, eyes trained on an askew photo that her hands slowly hover toward. With the tips of two fingers lightly touching down on the bottom corners of its white border, M'gann nudges the photo back straight. [Talk about cute—I can't believe I hadn't asked to actually see him before now! Hel-lo, Megan!]

Her fingers leave the frame around the picture, and Conner hones his vision in on it: dark strings of hair hanging around Lois's smiling face, and in her arms—

Conner's phone hangs in his pocket like a brick against his hip. His hand runs on reflex over its rectangular form. The same photo sits in his messages. He's seen it before. Once.

[Yeah, well, that's what we're here for, isn't it,] he mutters back at M'gann over the link.

"...Tuckered him right out," Ma's voice sighs into Conner's ears. Pat-pat. A soft shuffle. The crackle of a snore cuts a mental picture into relief—Ma's hand shakes Pa's shoulder. A tsk leaves her teeth.

"...He has that effect on people, just ask Clark," Lois's voice chimes in next. "He's been a quick study in the art of the dad nap."

"Once he's asleep, I can't move, Lois," Superman's voice winces out, barely above a whisper.

"And that only applies after dinner when there's dishes in the sink and not at three A.M. when there's a cat stuck in a tree," Lois answers back. "Even I can hear you whoosh."

Ma yelps out a laugh.

M'gann snickers. Keeping his thoughts silent, Conner shoots M'gann a look. What kind of look, he isn't sure, but M'gann pinches her mouth into a coy smile and shrugs her shoulders.

[I know I'm eavesdropping. Are you?]

[Uh, yeah,] Conner fumbles out in response. [Eavesdropping. Call it... recon work.]

[Oh, right, because this is a mission!] M'gann responds, mental voice eager and earnest.

A ripple from the living room rips Conner's attention away again: paper walls and crackling tissue settling with a soft thud. His head skips voices and goes straight to heartbeats: one, two, three, four—five, but a different kind of resonance, a smaller chest—

[Well, Ma's not stingy with her helping sizes, so this one pie? Is not for seven,] M'gann's voice chimes back into Conner's head. [There's my recon work.] Out loud, she giggles lightly. [So I guess it's you, me, and the proud new parents! And of course, the—]

[Don't—]

Conner's eyes ting. Air chills his bared teeth. A fist hits the inside of his chest and yanks his heart down. M'gann's eyes widen at him, her lips parting in a small, whispered gasp.

[Don't...] Conner pins his stare to crumbs on the tablecloth instead. His own breath turns too loud in his ears, the red center of his chest throbbing into view. [...Say it. I already know.]

The son of Superman.

Wolf's white tail swishes at one edge of his vision—chair legs tip up and slide back gently at the other, replaced by M'gann's blue knees and white sneakers. Her Megan Morse hands fold in her lap.

[Conner, I... understand this may not be the best time, but...]

The frame of the living room sofa creaks. Footfalls hit like muffled breaths against the rug.

[Do you... want to talk about how you feel about all this?]

Conner's breath hitches in his throat. M'gann looks up at him with soft eyes and a firmly shut mouth, holding her expression determinedly, transparently neutral—Conner can hear the elevation of her heart rate. Tension flashes for a moment in the center of her brow, worry lines popping into view through her bangs.

[No,] Conner answers her, darting his eyes away this time to the pot rack hanging from the ceiling. Wood rungs and thin chains keep cast iron from crashing into the counter, keep the whole row of skillets cheating gravity. Dangling weights, ready to fall. Any moment—

[—I know it's a little late, but... well...]

[Well what?] Conner snaps back at M'gann, immediately sending her heart banging against his own ears.

Any moment—

[...No, I'm sorr—ex...cuse me, I mean. I'm... pushing, and that's... not appropriate.] M'gann waves her hand as if trying to kill a flame, or at least chase away smoke. Hide it. Mask it. Her heart edges towards panic; she bites her lower lip dark and shakes her head. [Never mind. Really.]

[No,] Conner growls. Stop, he thinks below the link. [Answer it.] Please. [You asked. You can't take it back.] Don't let me do this. [What's wrong with me?]

[N-Nothing's wrong with you!] The words start in M'gann's throat. A sound like a whimper leaves her mouth before she clamps her mouth shut, drawing her lips in tight. [I just—you just—seem a little tense, and...] Her eyes start to blink fast. [And if I could help, then I—but I don't think I—]

Can, Conner fills in.

[—Am. Or, should try if I'm just making it worse—]

"—Earth to Kon and Megan!"

M'gann jumps up from her seat with a yelp. Conner's hands rise on reflex; M'gann bounces against his palms like something light and plastic. If she falls, Conner doesn't hear.

Lois hums and smirks in the doorway, hand on her hip. Another face hangs near her shoulder, eyes big and blue, mouth round and wet-looking—a small, grasping hand barely hooks a finger into the face's lower lip before slipping, leaving saliva trailing down the bump and wrinkle of the chin below it. Short strands of dark hair sprout in a thin patch just above a broad yet tiny forehead.

Him. The son of Superman.

The son of Superman is a baby.

"Kon-El, M'gann M'orzz, I'd like you to meet Jon-El."

Superman takes his place beside his son. Jon-El turns and grabs for Superman's shirt collar, pulling at the plaid. Superman wraps an arm around Lois's shoulders, bringing her and Jon-El closer to him. With his free hand, he adjust his slipping glasses. "Or, Jonathan Kent. Junior, that is."

Lois scoffs and rolls her eyes to the ceiling. "For the last time, Clark, it resets if you skip a generation!"

"I know," Superman responds, smiling and shrugging. "But I still like to say it."

[Re... member when Uncle J'onn—um.] M'gann hmms to herself, quietly but still aloud. [N-Never, never mind,] she mutters psychically. "Nice to meet you, Jon Kent!" M'gann then cheers aloud, waving at Jon.

Jon lets out some sound between a hiccup and a gasp and stretches his tiny arm out toward the both of them, her and Conner.

M'gann giggles. Her elbow bumps Conner's arm as her hand drops back to her side. Its closeness to his puts out warmth—a chill then grazes Conner's knuckles as her hand swings behind her back.

"We call him Jonny," Lois corrects her. "For one thing, it makes for better baby talk." She hefts Jonny higher up on her shoulder and purses her lips. "Doesn't it, little Jonny baby?"

Jonny doesn't look at Lois, just keeps reaching for them—for him—smacking his lips, grunting, kicking his doughy, dimpled legs at Lois's chest. His pink face puffs and wrinkles in distress.

"That usually gets a reaction, I swear." Lois gives Jonny a gentle jostle in her arms. "Kid, I don't employ the voice lightly. Meet me halfway here."

Superman chuckles—a deep, distant sound echoing from too far up, too high in the sky. Solid, empty blue stretches out to nowhere. The sun overhead shines too bright, too white—

[Um, Conner?]

Conner blinks the sun out of his eyes. The window at his back whispers hints of the four walls and ceiling he still stands surrounded by, contained in—Superman meets his eyes, bright blue turning sharp, and Conner's heart beats inside-out of his chest, pounding off of every surface—

M'gann's fingers brush against the inside of Conner's hand. [You haven't... said anything.]

Conner's breath catches in his throat. His eyes dart to nothing. The screen door. M'gann's white shoelaces. "He's, uh..." He swallows, closing his hand around air and his own fingers. "He's..." Something, say something. "Cute," Conner says.

Superman—Kal—smiles at him. A short, small sigh of relief passes through Conner's ears—not from M'gann, and if from himself, he didn't feel it leave him. The sight of Kal's pursed lips gives a hint, starts to align with the sound in Conner's head—

Jonny's lips pop and curl into a perfect O; he twists and flops himself back toward Superman, small hands slip-sliding against his sleeve. "Ah-ghh-hh!" he cries out.

Wrong. A chill rushes over Conner's skin. I said it, and it was wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong—

Lois lets out a long sputter and passes Jonny smoothly from her arms to Superman's; her now-free hands slap over her still-protruding stomach as she throws her head back and laughs. Superman brings Jonny to the center of his chest—his one hand covers Jonny's whole back. Two hearts beat close, the smaller one a perfect echo of the other. "Oh?" Superman says, glasses sliding to the tip of his nose as he smiles down at Jonny. "Is that a question?"

Lois's laughter fades into an amused hum. "He wants to know how Daddy's voice came out of someone else."

Conner feels his throat close shut. His mind puts up glass.

"O-or maybe he—" M'gann feels for Conner's wrist. "Maybe he doesn't like being called 'cute'!" Her hand wraps around his wrist, squeezes it, and lets go. The sound of her gasping then hits Conner's ear, and her fingertips are back against the inside of his arm. "N-Not that... he, um... has anything to say about it, because... whether he likes it or not, he's a cutie!" She finds his wrist again. [Conner, you know Lois just means that Jonny's limited frame of reference is—]

[Stop it.] Conner curls his hand into a fist before M'gann can slip her fingers in and squeezes it hard enough that the throbbing in his chest starts an echo through his knuckles. [Just stop.]

[O-Okay.] M'gann's touch leaves him—physically. [Understood.]

Understood, Conner repeats back to himself. A growl threatens to escape from behind his clenched teeth. No. At his side and hers, her hand is already gone, withdrawn behind her back. Don't understand. I don't want this to make sense. I'm not supposed to feel like—

"—Hm, hear that, Jonny?" Lois coos as she pinches Jonny's hand between her thumb and forefinger. "Girls already think you're cute." She moves Jonny's hand back and forth until Jonny squeaks and babbles out a giggle. "God, I'm such a sap for this kid already. All it took was one look to forgive nine months of backache and heartburn." She gestures for Superman to hand Jonny back, then presses Jonny back against her shoulder. Jonny stares up at her small glinting earring only for a moment, then, hand in his mouth, his eyes fall back on Conner.

Fine, Conner thinks at him, to himself—stamps into his brain like a fist coming down on something solid, firm. I get it. A burning starts behind his eyes; he swallows and thinks of ice. Snow. Blank white light. There's nothing to get, he chides himself. You're you. I'm me. It doesn't matter. It doesn't mean anything.

[...Conner?]

Conner jolts at M'gann's voice in his head. Her eyes are soft and knowing as he meets them; she sighs, and her brow creases with concern. With pity.

[You heard that?] Conner snaps at her accusingly, feeling his face twist into a glare—the anger in his head recoils into a pang of guilt in the pit of his stomach. Of course she heard that, he's the one that wanted her to—

[I—felt something,] M'gann responds, audibly swallowing as she bites her lips out of view. [Not specific—I can tune out most underlying thoughts, not matter how loud—our Team link would get too distracting during a fight otherwise,] she reminds him, [but—what I felt—didn't... feel... good.] She squirms in place, shoulders tensing and hands wrenching behind her back. [Do you... want an excuse to step out for a moment? I could manage something.] Her mouth curls into an unconvincing smirk. [Like, I left my purse in Sphere? Or, no, something better, like maybe—]

"Are they..." Superman's voice rasps in Conner's ear.

Conner's eyes rip away from M'gann to Superman. Superman leans down, face half-masked behind Lois's head. Lois's eyes roll as she raises an eyebrow. "Isn't it obvious?" she mutters back at Superman.

M'gann's breath hitches, pulling Conner's eyes back to her.

[Are they onto us?] Her heartrate spikes. [Should I disconnect the—]

[No.]

["No"?!]

Superman clears his throat. "Well, now that we're all here, how about we help ourselves?" Wood screeches against wood as Superman pulls a chair out from the table. "After you," he says to Lois, gesturing for her to sit.

"Oh, after me, he says," Lois says as she takes her seat; Jonny wobbles at the shift in elevation, his small, wide eyes to the floor as he pulls at Lois's shirt. "I didn't need super-sight to see you sneak a piece of crust, Clark Kent."

M'gann huffs at Conner's side, her hand ghosting past his as she brings it to her chest and wrings at her shirt's collar. [We—need to sit down, too, or else we'll look suspicious.]

[Yeah, I know that,] Conner responds, biting his tongue the moment he finishes the thought. M'gann turns away before he can see any reaction, any shift in her expression—but with a subtle gesture under the table, as she takes her own seat, she telekinetically pushes a chair out for him.

A sigh escapes Conner's clenched teeth and tight throat. He takes the seat. An unreadable smile waits for him on M'gann's face—she doesn't meet his eyes, just stares straight ahead. Conner peers down at the neatly-folded hands lying statue-still in her lap. Another sigh escapes him; wrists against the edge of the table, he lets his hands curl into fists.

"Are... we sure he's okay around kids?"

Conner's fists drop to his sides. In his mind, the table splits in two, buckles and caves in, splinters sticking to sweat on his skin and pattering down with crumbs and dust to the floor. Nothing real—the red checkered tablecloth leads his eyes down endless pathways in its flat, intact surface.

All the same, M'gann gasps, and the panic in her heart sends a shot of it through his own. His eyes snap to her face—eyes wide, and lips curled open in apprehension, she meets his eyes and nods back to Lois and Jonny.

And to Wolf, whose wet black nose sniffs at Jonny's dangling foot. Jonny's heel makes impact with Wolf's nose, causing Wolf to step back and sneeze a loud har-umph sound. Front paw padding at the floor, Wolf tilts his head at Jonny and whines. Jonny blinks at Wolf for a moment, then pops his mouth open like a bubble to let out a squeal of happiness, one that makes his arms and legs and whole body wiggle with glee.

[Great, he's a little sadist,] Conner thinks, pressing sarcasm into his thoughts like ice against a wound.

M'gann snorts then slaps a hand over her mouth. Snickering escapes her pinched-shut nostrils—she coughs a shallow cough into her palm and then into her fist, clearing her throat with a verbalized "hm-hmm!" before ducking her head and tucking hair behind her ear. Lips pressed shut to muffle still-shaking breaths, M'gann meets his eyes from the corner of hers and gives a quick shrug.

[Are you... laughing at me?] Conner asks her.

[I'm—laughing at your joke!] she responds. [Th-That's all.]

Conner feels his eyebrow rise on reflex. [Who said it was a joke?]

M'gann blinks at him, mouth falling open but lips still curved at the corners in a smile. Conner's own mouth tugs itself into something like a smirk—M'gann flashes a grin at him, and the tension in his jaw relaxes, letting his smirk settle into a smile.

"...I'm sure Kon-El and M'gann wouldn't have brought him otherwise," Kal says, his hand running over the top of Wolf's head. Wolf twitches his ears at the touch, then lets out a soft, low grunt as he sits, facing himself away from Jonny and back towards the pie on the table.

[Oh, hel-lo, Megan.] M'gann rolls her eyes and shakes her head. "O-Of course!" She claps her hands and bounces in her seat. "Wolf is great around kids. When we brought Garfield in, he was..."

The silence of her pause broadcasts the skipped beat in her pulse loud and clear. Conner watches her breathe deep and press the quiver out of her lower lip with a smile.

"...He was great!" M'gann breathes a laugh. "Nothing but gentle. Really, just... perfect... company. Part of the family, really! Which is... all anyone could ask for."

Conner's eyes follow her hands as they fall back to her lap. The scratching of her nails as her fingers curl against her denim-clad thighs flicks like matchsticks at the edges of his hearing.

[You really miss him, huh,] Conner thinks to her.

M'gann sighs quietly through her smile. [Of course.]

[And you're just never going to talk about it.]

M'gann swallows. [This isn't about me.]

"Oh, M'gann, that reminds me," Lois says, waving her hand across the table. Jonny grunts and reaches for her arm as it moves. "I meant to say sooner—you don't have to hide yourself for Jonny's sake! I figure knowing our lives, the sooner he sees his first green person, the better."

"Oh!" M'gann's cheeks turn pink instead of green. "I, um..."

The memory of her gray-flushed cheeks burns like ash in Conner's mind, her bloodshot red, darkly circled eyes flooded with tears as they looked into his, looked for help—

—The feet of Conner's chair groan against the floor, but by digging in his heels, he makes himself still again. His hands grip his section of tabletop only at the very edge, fingertips pinching at slippery cloth covering solid wood. His mind feeds him splinters again; he swallows down the thought. [You can't?]

[Oh, no, it's not that!] M'gann answers back, eagerly—and openly—waving her hand in dismissal. [It—it's not anything, it's nothing, nothing to it.] She stretches her arms out across the table for display, angling them away from the warm pie still untouched at the center of it.

"Oh, I don't know, Lois," Kal then says, his own chair creaking as he slides it back and stands. "Us Kryptonians have a funny relationship with the color green." He shoots a wink down at Conner.

All Conner can do is blink at him. Us Kryptonians. It's a joke—not that part. He's joking—laugh.

Superman coughs into his fist before Conner can react; his other hand reaches for the pie. "I'll, uh, take that pie to go," he says, lifting it delicately from the tablecloth—edges still crumbling—and moving it to the counter space beside the stove. "Over, uh, here, that is."

M'gann breathes a tiny laugh at Conner's side. Her outstretched fingers, lingering in human guise, flutter with joy or nerves—Conner can't tell. [I don't think I'll ever get over how Superman's sense of humor makes a fifteen-year-old Wally seem subtle and smooth.]

[...Right,] Conner manages to think back at her. His eyes peer past both her and Superman, pinning themselves to Wolf instead. Wolf parks himself at the counter, his back straight and his ears forward, as if waiting for the pie itself to tell him he can eat it. Only a short, shallow grumble from the top of his throat betrays his impatience; other than that, Wolf's watchful eye, the pie is as good as guarded.

It doesn't need guarding, unless at any moment, a whir of yellow and red slams the screen door open.

Unless at any moment, he comes back—

[—If that's... okay to say,] M'gann adds, the flutter leaving her fingertips to beat audibly inside her chest instead.

Conner's own chest tightens. [Just do it.]

[R-Right.] M'gann's open fingers flex into fists. Her hands relax, and the line of green rises up her skin like her body sinking into invisible water, arms first, then neck and face.

She's submerged.

Conner blinks. Green freckles dot his vision like the tapping of her voice in his ears from her vocalized giggle. She's M'gann. She's what she always is.

One night, and it already looks wrong, somehow.

A yelp from the other side of the table pulls Conner's eyes away from M'gann. Jonny wriggles like a sea-plucked fish in Lois's grasp, mouth and eyes wide open, just with limbs instead of fins to flap around at air. With gritted teeth, Lois leans in with him toward the surface of the table, both of her arms locked tight around his tiny torso—Superman slaps a hand over his own stomach and echoes out a laugh, pots and pans ringing with his voice.

"If our son falls and hits his head, you'll wish you never told me about kryptonite," Lois hisses back at Clark.

Kryptonite, Conner repeats in his head. Funny relationship with the color green. He gets the joke now. His lips twitch, but no laugh comes. Kal chuckles and leans over Lois from behind as if blocking her from an attack, hands cupped around Jonny's sides, hooking into his underarms—a second later, Jonny is floating inches above the table and flying to M'gann.

Why can you—oh. Cause and effect catch up to Conner's thoughts as Superman's hands take Jonny on a momentary detour, a soft swerve to the side before weaving him back on course. Superman's lips thrum out an accompanying propeller noise. Jonny's lips sputter, drops of saliva falling on the tablecloth and M'gann's skin.

Conner feels his face curl in disgust, then remembers: baby. What—who—he's looking at it is a baby.

"Clark!" Lois whisper-barks.

"Oh, uhm." Clark turns Jonny around in his hands, putting Jonny's head against his shoulder and leaning in with him, kneeling to the floor. "Right."

"Oh!" M'gann's hands flail up in defense as Clark tips his armful of Jonny towards her. "I, um—really, that's—I-I don't think I—"

Jonny taps the tip of one flailing green finger, and M'gann's hands go still. Jonny gasps, or simply states his acknowledgment—whatever the loud, flat ah that escapes his mouth is supposed to mean—then touches her again, this time open-palmed, more than once, and hard. The impacts against the back of M'gann's hand hit Conner's ears as faint pattering, but Jonny's grunts of effort are clear, just like the tension and release of his tiny arms' gestures. Rrht-tht-tht-thih-trr-trr-trr—

Conner starts to growl.

M'gann's voice then flutters through Conner's head in a giggle, both in his ears and in his mind. "That tickles!" she exclaims, gently pulling back her hand to then reach for Jonny's hand instead. She holds his palm between her green thumb and forefinger, giving him a tiny handshake. "Nice to meet you, Jonny!"

Conner watches Jonny's fingers wrap around her thumb. No crackle, no pulsation—its shade of green doesn't darken. Conner huffs then lets his eyes stray to a seam between boards in the floor's wood paneling. [You already said that,] he thinks to M'gann.

M'gann doesn't respond. Conner looks back to find her still shaking Jonny's hand, side-to-side now instead of up-and-down, and the motion slowing. Her eyes are on him.

So are Superman's.

[Are you... jealous?] M'gann asks.

Immediately, Conner scoffs. [Of a baby?] he responds. His eyes dart back to their safe spot. "Does he even know what green is?" he snaps aloud, addressing no one in particular—the void answers him back with the echo of his own tone of voice and of one, two elevated heartbeats. "I-I mean at this point, y'know, age-wise," he adds, swallowing.

"He... may not know the word for it yet, " Kal responds, voice low and raspy with warmth as it breaks the silence. Jonny floats up and away as Kal stands. "But he knows when... encountering something new..." Kal props Jonny up to his shoulder, putting them face-to-face, and smiles at him. "...Makes him happy."

Not the sun—the moon—hole in his suit letting air on his skin—Superman—me, too—lifting the flap of his torn suit, showing what they put there, what they made—him—Superman's eyes widening—Superman glaring, not heat vision—cold—

[—Conner?] M'gann's voice blips into his head.

Conner stares, feeling his chest turn empty—trying to will it so, taking the hard, hurting heartbeat at his core and twisting it in his mind to just whistling air, to a soft but steady rush through this moment to the next, where he won't still be feeling like this—

[Conner? Are you—]

[No.] He says it to himself as much as to M'gann as he squeezes his eyes shut, makes the world go solid black for a moment before the heat building inside his head comes out. No stinging, no blurring. Nothing. No. [Don't ask,] he says as his eyes open back up to fading static, and he drops them to the tablecloth before they can catch sight of anyone's face, M'gann's, Superman's, Lois's, or Jonny's.

"Now, this is some silly sight, isn't it, boy?" slips Ma's voice into the room—no footfalls first, like she could fly, too—like Superman carried her in, like telekinesis—like I wasn't listening, and that's why I didn't hear, that's all, Conner chides himself, gritting his teeth. Wolf's thumping tail is harder to miss as Ma rubs circles into the top of Wolf's head. "A pie left cold on the counter, and it looks like they've barely got through saying hello," she says, addressing Wolf, but with voice and eyebrow raised.

"We're just, um, taking it... slow," Clark fumbles out. His hand bounces Jonny lightly in place against his chest. Jonny fills both his hands with folds of Clark's shirt and pulls himself up to peer over Clark's shoulder at Ma. Lois's breath hitches, her human eyes momentarily threatening heat vision. "Despite how this... little one likes to move," Clark adds, pulling Jonny back down. "And I could always heat the pie!"

Ma doesn't glare, but she does shake her head. "Get that baby into one of their arms before I have to do it myself!"

Conner's arms go stiff and cold. M'gann's green arms slide and thump under the table. Conner furrows his brow down at her lap. M'gann breathes a nervous giggle and pulls her arms back into view, setting her crossed wrists and curled fists at the table's edge. [Right,] she thinks to him, a would-be smile failing as she draws her lips in tight. [But it shouldn't be me.]

[What'd'you mean?] Conner's mind yelps back at hers without forethought. The slip sets his heart pumping with adrenaline, strength to patch over the weakness. But too much—a tremor starts in both of his wrists. He sets his powder-keg fists in his lap and swallows, clears his throat aloud in a thin, inward growl. [He likes you,] Conner manages to project to M'gann in a strained, but even tone.

[I'm sure he'll like you, too!] M'gann's mental voice flutters back at him. Her lips rub together and pop back out as a chewed, raw red, but they fall into gentle curves all the same. [After all, why wouldn't he?] she adds, a soft sigh reaching Conner's ears. [What's not to lo—I mean, like, of course.]

Conner sees the warmth in her face—like staring at the sun, it just makes his eyes sting. He thinks of ice instead. [He doesn't know me.]

"Let me just go check my film," Ma calls out from the counter. "So expensive these days. And you know they don't make it to last," she mutters as she leaves the room, voice tapering out.

"Did you freeze it, Ma?" Superman—Clark calls back to her, holding Jonny still now at his shoulder as Lois slides her chair back. "Jimmy says if you store film in the freezer, you can extend its shelf life. Over sixteen years, even."

"My baby. Gimme," Lois half-whispers, flicking her hands impatiently as she approaches Clark from behind. Clark and Jonny both mouth a silent oh, and Clark starts to guide Jonny up over his shoulder. Lois frowns, clears her throat, and taps her finger against Clark's shoulder, then gestures for Clark to turn around.

"With my cold cuts and veggies?!" Ma yelps from the living room. Pa snorts and grunts in his sleep at the sound. Ma's laughter quickly fades into a rasping chuckle, and then the low grinding sound of Pa's snoring resumes.

The feet of M'gann's chair graze Conner's hearing like a skid through sand as she stands. [He doesn't—know me either, Conner, he just... likes that I can change colors.] She shakes her head and taps the back of Conner's chair encouragingly, leaving her fingertips pressed into the panel of wood just below the base of his neck. [Besides, that's the whole point of today, isn't it? For him to get to know you, and for you to get to know him!]

The almost-touch of M'gann's hand sends a chill down Conner's spine and a twitch through his shoulders. He slides his chair back to shake her off. [Nothin' to know.] The floor accepts his feet, and his feet accept his weight. He stares down into his own shadow, eyes skirting the edge of the tablecloth. His back goes as stiff as the back of his chair, something hard and built to hold him. The air in his chest becomes a breeze again, blowing through a hollow chamber, his heart tight enough to be still. [I mean, him,] Conner adds, shaking his head down at checkers and shadows and wood knots and seams, the ceiling suddenly right at his eyeline. He blinks to force the edges of his vision to unblur. [Nothin' to know. He's a baby.]

M'gann's fingers touch down in the center of his back but immediately curl, nails and knuckles sliding over and off of him. "Mmn—" The sound leaves her throat, cut off by a half-gasp, half-seethe, as if she'd been cut. Her breath shakes before a sigh, and out of the corner of his eye, Conner watches her hands lock together behind her back.

I... I think I do know what happened, her voice echoes in his head from mere hours ago.

Conner stares at her hands and growls. One hand breaks from its grip around the other to cover her mouth as she clears her throat, then it snaps back into place.

So now I can never touch you again? his own voice echoes back.

M'gann's feet slide a step away from him. [I'm—sorry.]

O-Okay, M'gann's mind shook out at him just moments ago, her hand leaving his freshly-curled fist. Understood.

Stop it, he'd said, forming that fist. Just stop.

Conner says nothing now, just huffs the steam out of his head. Fire still prickles in his cheeks and in his chest, down to the bone. It needs to die before he can meet her eyes again. Anger would make sense. Anger at her, or something else, or anything. Anything instead of too much and everything and nothing. The fire nicks at his bones like a blade against stone.

[But... that's just it, of course,] M'gann's voice offers now, nerves tingling at the edges of her presence in his mind. [He is a baby. He's your baby—]

[He's not my baby brother,] Conner snaps, pinning his eyes to hers. Something has to give. Something has to prove how wrong this is, how wrong everything in his head is. [Don't make this about Gar.]

M'gann jumps back another step, sneaker soles thumping hard against the floor. [I-I know he's not—] Her green cheeks flush darker, turn red under her freckles. [I-I-I'm sorry, I'm making this about Gar? You're the one who keeps—] She huffs, eyes watery as they dart to the floor. [N-No, actually—] She locks eyes with him again, brow furrowed and mouth pressed shut tight. [How would me making this about Gar mean I wouldn't want to hold Jonny?]

[Because you think you deserved to lose him, too,] Conner says, letting his hands at his sides form the fists they want to make. [You think it's better, safer for him not to be around you, don't you.] His own heels thudding against the floor, Conner closes the gap between himself and M'gann. [When's the last time you even talked to him?]

M'gann gasps aloud at him, and the link goes thin between them, becomes a trembling wire pulled too taut. [It—just—I—he—any child in his situation needs time to process—] M'gann's hands curl at her sides, too, and Conner can feel a wall rising, thickening between his thoughts and hers—but her teeth slip through as a sharp cut of white against the green of her face, and her eyes stay bared into his, holding his stare.

Both M'gann's heart and his own pound inside Conner's head. He glares back into her face and sees himself.

Then in a breath, M'gann's face shifts. Every edge turns soft again, hazes over as if from distance. The only sharpness in her eyes is light, and she blinks it back dull, lashes fluttering as she sighs. [I will always be there for Gar if he needs me, Conner, I—I always...] Her gaze drifts to the side, off to nothing. [Want to be there, if I'm needed. But for me to be the one to reach out first? Would be intrusive, a-and inappropri—]

[Knew it,] Conner says, crossing his arms and turning his back to her.

[C-Conner!]

Can you... trust me? she'd asked with her head pressed into his. I know that I'm needed, Conner. I know that I have a responsibility to not give up. I know what it does, losing someone—

['If' you're needed,] Conner scoffs back at her now.

[What?] M'gann exclaims, mental voice wrought high and breathless. [Conner, please, this isn't about me!]

"Okay, now this is too much."

Conner jolts, arms dropping back to his sides. Lois props Jonny up against her shoulder and puts her free hand to her hip, rolling her eyes. "I let you off the hook for some of it because it's cute," she says lowly, her tone as threatening as it is furtive, "but as a journalist, nothing offends me more than a public display of privacy." She holds out a hand between Conner and M'gann and snaps her fingers twice, like she's breaking up a schoolyard fight. "Knock it off, or I tell Ma. And you know her rule." Her eyes fix on Conner's; she smirks, then looks over to M'gann. "No cell phones and no psychic links at the table."

Conner tries to swallow—there's no spit and no air. Past Lois's head and over Jonny's, Superman's eyes are on him. "Or I tell Ma"—not him—he already knows. He knows I'm wrong, Conner's head feeds itself. He knows I couldn't do this—

[Conner.]

M'gann's wide eyes are white in her paled green face, her mouth pressed into a thin red line. She swallows, and even if he couldn't hear it, the rise of her shoulders betrays one hard, heaving breath. [Conner, this is about me.]

Conner's throat fills with a lump of nothing; he swallows it down, gritting his teeth, and it drops like a rock into the pit of his stomach. [No.]

[Yes!] M'gann's head snaps his way, and red floods into her cheeks. [I'm doing this. And it has to stop.]

On stop, the link shuts off like a held breath.

Then with all the urgency of a gasp for air, M'gann immediately reconnects. [We just didn't talk this through like we should have, a-as much as we should have, and it's not your fault, b-but—]

[M'gann—]

[—But if this is a mission, it's time for a new plan.]

[M'gann, don't you dare—]

M'gann's brow furrows resolutely, and Conner's thoughts hit the wall. Hot air swells and fumes back in on itself, flooding the inside of his skull.

[M'gann!]

"I'm... sorry," M'gann then says aloud, voice soft and small as it leaves her now-moving lips, and her eyes disconnect from him, too, meeting Lois's instead. "It's... all my fault, really," she says with a smile. "I'm the one that facilitates it."

Lois smiles back at her amicably but nods at her words. Conner bites back a growl. He pushes at the closed gap left at the edge of his consciousness, feels for her mental fingerprints with his own mental fingers. [I'm the one that asked you. This isn't about you.] The trail starts to fade—he just makes his thoughts louder. [M'gann. I know you. You're going to use this against yourself. Just like you keep—]

"We... just... haven't gotten a lot of sleep the past couple of nights," M'gann says raspily, punctuating the statement with a satisfied hum.

[What?] Conner gasps—mentally—and his mental touch slips. The trail goes cold. He hovers at the wall, watching M'gann's eyes droop, and then narrow—wincing with effort, or indecision. The truth hangs right at the edge of her mind. Even without the link, he senses it.

Are you... really going to tell them you're—

"Missions?" Superman asks as he sets his hand on Lois's unoccupied shoulder. Wedged now between his parents, Jonny tilts his head back, mouth gaping open—Superman's hand tips Jonny's head back towards Lois, then rests against Jonny's back. The distraction doesn't last—Conner looks up, and Superman's eyes are on him, looking for a response.

At Conner's side, M'gann hums pensively, then breathes something like a laugh. "More like... training exercises, really," she lies. "Not the whole Team, just us. You know, reviewing maneuvers..."

Clark and Lois share a look; Lois raises an eyebrow. Clark blinks in astonishment and clears his throat. M'gann chuckles again and nods her head at Conner, looking to him, at him—

—She's not there behind her eyes. And if she is, her smile isn't. With only a look, she projects one quick, emphatic please, and then her gaze goes cold again. Her thoughts stay on her side of the wall. The rest of her, she puts up on a screen.

"And so it's an old Team trick we use to stay awake!" Megan—even in green—claps her hands together and hops in place. "It helps us keep our focus. But we got a little off-focus trying to decide which one of us should get to hold Jonny first." Her hands go to her hips proudly, her chest jutting out. "I think it should be Conner, but... he's too generous." She nods his way, giving him his cue.

Whatever he's supposed to say, he won't. He stares at her in silence instead. M'gann's eyes flicker in acknowledgement, then dart away. Her hands drop to her sides.

"Well, then let's fix that," Lois says, scooping Jonny up off her shoulder and out of Superman's hand. "Here he is."

Conner's heart jumps. "Wait, what—"

Tiny fingers touch down into the center of Conner's chest. They slip over the S-Shield, grasping only once there's nothing but air to fill them. Jonny ahhps—a gasp, hiccup, or cough—then waves his hand again as if groping through darkness, trying to make sight and reach connect again into touch.

He barely even knows what it means to have a hand. The first thing Conner did—ever did—was make a fist. The second thing was lunge, and make that fist connect with skin, muscle, and bone, trying to break it.

"Head, neck, and bottom," Lois states, supporting all three with her hands as she pushes all of Jonny into Conner's chest. "Get those, and you're good. Comes more naturally than you might think, Also, try to keep him close," she adds with an eyeroll in her voice.

"Uh! ...Mmmh," M'gann chirps and groans at Conner's side.

This isn't his first baby. He's held Amistad, Lian—had kids crawling all over him when the world was split along age lines. Conner's hands drift halfway up from his sides then stop. This isn't his first baby, but it is his first... Jonny.

Half-human, half-Kryptonian.

You're you, Conner thinks at him, meeting his eyes. I'm me. It doesn't mean anything. You're not—

"Aah-bbb," Jonny babbles, looking back up at Lois.

Conner makes his shoulders slump, forcing out a sigh. You're not—wrong. You're a baby. There's nothing wrong with you. You're supposed to, deserve to exist. You don't even need to hear that. You're not even thinking like that.

Nodding to himself, swallowing, and firming his brow, Conner holds out his hands. You're never gonna think like that, he concludes in his head. Not if I have anything to say about it. Jonny's soft, heavy head settles into one of Conner's hands. Jonny's palm-sized bottom fits into the other. Lois's hands slip out from under Jonny.

Jonny's body crackles in Conner's hands.

Conner's breath halts. His hands lose all feeling. His skull fills itself with pieces of broken. No.

Jonny kicks the feeling back into Conner's hands with two tiny feet against the inside of Conner's wrist, and this time, the sound is just the rustling diaper under Jonny's gown—was already just the diaper, Conner chides himself, pulling air back into his chest just to huff it back out. Jonny bounces on the wave of the breath. Conner brings him higher, setting Jonny's side against his sternum.

Jonny's eyes are wide and blue enough to fit the sky over Smallville into two tiny marbles, excluding only the clouds. He's skin, muscle, and bone, too, just like Conner—just like any of them here—but beyond that, beyond the heartbeat, breath, and warmth, and deeper than the mind, there's a soul in Conner's hands, blinking up at him with those eyes. The body holding that soul is small enough to fit in arms, in hands, to have been carried in a womb, but it—he—will grow; even now, second to second, gravity bears his body down harder and harder on Conner's chest.

But, someday, he'll fly. Conner can see it in his head. Jonny looks up at him like he can see it, too, in Conner's head. He knows. His eyes are wide, but calm. He knows what Conner is. Conner knows what he is, too.

Half-Kryptonian, half-human—it doesn't matter. It doesn't mean they're the same. Jonny was made in love, to be loved, to love, and to live.

Conner was made to kill.

Jonny's neck and spine flex stiff inside Conner's hands; his mouth strains to open as wide as he can make it go, his wide eyes wrenching shut with effort. Conner's stomach leaps into his chest—his heart leaps into his throat. Something's wrong—he's wrong—

They have to know.

"H-He's—I'm—"

Jonny stretches his arms straight up into the air and yawns, sighs, smacking his lips. His arms stay reaching for Conner, waving in tiny circles, hands opening and closing. "Aah—bbbpft," Jonny says, poking his tongue out through his lips.

"Uh." Conner's mouth falls slack. He forces it shut tight; his heart thumps loud enough to echo out of his throat. "I... dunno what... that meant," he then mutters, knowing it's stupid, but the words out of his mouth are some other noise besides his heart. Superman can still hear, still knows—Conner squeezes the toes in his boots. His hands are full—he can't make a fist.

"Hmm," Kal hums in sincere contemplation, or a good faking of it—he wouldn't fake it, Conner thinks. He's Superman. "It sounded almost like... 'apple'?"

"Or 'uncle'?" Lois counters. "Nah, couldn't be, he's not telepathic." She blinks and cocks an eyebrow at M'gann. "Unless..."

"Oh, no, I wouldn't!" M'gann yelps, stumbling backward. Her green hands flail up in defense, and for a moment, the throbbing of her heart drowns out Conner's own. "That would be intrusive, a-and inappropriate, and—"

"—A joke, M'gann, relax," Lois laughs. "We trust you here. Trust me, you wouldn't be here if we didn't." She nods her head toward Conner.

Conner furrows his brow. M'gann. If Superman could hear it, M'gann could feel it—feel his mind being wrong. At least, if they'd been linked, she couldn't have missed it. Instead, it's however strong the wave was—or however open her mind stayed. He felt her shut it tight. She knows how to tune him out.

[M'gann,] Conner tries anyway. If she felt it, then he'll know: it's stronger than him—and stronger than her. If she didn't, then he'll know: it's all in his head. It's nothing.

Either way, he needs to make it stop.

Conner dares a look at M'gann's face. M'gann gives Lois an uneasy smile and works her nervous fingers into hair at her shoulder. "R-Right, of course," she says, nodding.

[M'gann!]

M'gann glances his way. Conner holds his breath. M'gann's lashes flutter at him, then she smiles at him meekly—the smile gains more strength and softness as her eyes trail down his face.

It tells him nothing, except how much he wants that same strength and softness in his still-shaky hands. M'gann's eyes reach Jonny, and she looks how she's supposed to look. Jonny is a baby. M'gann unhooks her hand from her hair to wave at Jonny and then lets it fall back to her side. She looks back up at Conner, and her smile wavers. Her eyes widen with concern—

—Conner darts his own eyes away. Fine. You know.

Jonny's hand grasps and slips at Conner's chin. Conner blinks down at Jonny, feeling his face freeze. Jonny's cheeks puff out around a fiercely puckered mouth, his baby brow furrowed with determination as his arms keep reaching up. Sorry, Conner thinks at him. You don't deserve—me. He can't think it any other way; out loud, he'd try harder to catch himself, make it sound like anything other than exactly what he means. This, he offers to his own thoughts anyway, however half-heartedly. Me being—me, he ends on all the same.

"Aaa—aahgh!"

Jonny slaps his hand flat against Conner's nose then balls his tiny fist around the tip of it and yanks it down. Conner's head follows the pull without a thought. Jonny's fingers still slip off, but with a babbling laugh, he reaches up again to poke his fingers into Conner's nostrils, scrunching Conner's nose up from the inside. Conner blinks furiously, feeling his eyes water.

Already this strong—

"—Ma, hurry!" Lois calls out, rushing to the living room doorway.

Jonny lets out a satisfied, almost taunting sputter and then brings his hand down to pluck at Conner's lower lip. On reflex, Conner grits his teeth.

He's just showing off, Conner then tells himself. Let him show off.

Conner forces his jaw to unlock. Jonny then slaps a hand down over Conner's mouth.

Okay, now that's just kinda rude.

"Hey-bbb-bey-bb—"Conner's voice comes out like a ribbit—Jonny's hand beats against his lips. Jonny lets out a thunderclap of a squeal, all four limbs wiggling in Conner's hands with joy.

"I think that sounded like 'hey, baby,'" Superman says, laughing. "At least, I think Jonny seems to think so."

"How about 'cheese!'?"

A half-gasp at Conner's side hits Conner's ears seconds before the flash. Squint lines lingering in her face, Ma peers out from behind her camera; over hers, Pa's, Lois's, and then Superman's face, a green-and-purple spot floats its way through Conner's vision. It fades to white and vanishes.

Ma tsks and shakes her head, but her smile doesn't leave her face for long before she gestures at M'gann to move in closer.

"Oh, um—cheese?" M'gann whimpers out from an anxious grin, hopping one cheerleader step back over to Conner's side.

"You'd think I was setting off a firecracker," Ma mock-scolds M'gann, laughter trailing from her voice as she brings the camera's viewfinder back up to one eye and squints her other eye shut.

Pa lets out his own chuckle and pats Ma's shoulder. "Kids these days don't know what to do when they see one o' these old dinosaurs." He shakes his head and slides his hands into the pocket of his overalls. "Not when they've got their telephones in their pockets." He slips his hand back out of one pocket and flips his cellphone open, keeping his eyes on its screen as he tilts it into position at his hip, puckering his lips into a breathy miming of a casual whistle. He glances up at Conner and winks.

Conner nods. A half-smile worms its way into his mouth. M'gann sways at his side, flips hair behind her shoulder. Conner watches her beam a perfect smile back at the oncoming flash, white teeth and curving cheeks, eyes crinkling at the corners. Jonny's hands softly beat at the tiny drum of his own stomach. He smacks his lips at Conner, eyes narrowing but not focusing. His heartbeat inches towards a slower—still steady—rhythm in Conner's ears. His body grows lighter and heavier all at once. The prickling from Jonny's fist around Conner's nose reaches Conner's eyes again, even without another touch. It's sleep—Conner knows that. The twinge in his own chest is neither panic nor adrenaline. Babies get sleepy. The same stupid, obvious thought runs through Conner's head yet again: Jonny is a baby.

Too many thoughts flood in after it. And he likes me. And I love him. And I don't want to let him go. And I don't know what to do.

And I was never a baby.

The first half-flash pulls Conner's eyes tight.

"Cheese," M'gann murmurs too quietly at Conner's side.

The second flash in his eyes strikes white like an impact.

M'gann's hair brushes against Conner's shoulder as she tilts her head back away from him, shrugging the flash off with a giggle.

Conner's eyes sting like splitting skin. His vision quickly trades bruise spots for blurs—he blinks them away. Eyes closed, Jonny pushes his chubby cheek into Conner's collarbone, immediately dribbling a dark spot into the neck of Conner's shirt; Jonny settles, but Conner's breath still shakes him. Conner holds his breath. The twisting, trembling inside doesn't stop. His throat and brow tighten into something that can't even be alive, hardening from skin and muscle to only bone.

"Conner."

M'gann breathes it below a whisper. His name barely clicks against the roof of her mouth, but it's as familiar as a heartbeat, and he hears it.

Conner blinks, and M'gann's hand is halfway to his face. There's too much light in her eyes. He knows her face when she's on the verge of tears. She knows—

—No. Conner rips his eyes away from her, wrenching them shut. Weight and heat pool in his lashes. No.

M'gann's next breath is a gasp.

"Here," Conner heaves, pushing Jonny's head into M'gann's hand and slipping his own hand out from in-between. The rest of Jonny leaves him easily. Conner doesn't meet M'gann's eyes again, just waits for an oop! or an oh! of acceptance—he watches M'gann's green hands press Jonny's head to her chest, but the only sound she makes is inside her. Jonny's eyes stay closed against her pounding heart. Already, he can tune it out.

Already, he has more control than—

—Three, almost four days now outside of his pod—crunching, crumbling, the lip smacks, breath—Wally crumples up the bag—he shuts his eyes—the ceiling caves in—he has to control this.

Fine, Conner thinks now. Good. Good for him. He nods his head at M'gann and Jonny, but he keeps his eyes to the wall.

Wolf's claws click against the floor. Wolf slips his head under and into Conner's hand, pushing it up. Conner keeps it there as Wolf sits. Wolf's ears twitch around his hand like antenna tuning into a signal.

Right. Yeah. Conner rubs the spaces in front of Wolf's ears. You know, too, don't you, boy. Wolf's eyes stare into him. If only for a moment, Conner locks his world right between those two points, letting his own eyes move only to trace the grain of Wolf's fur. Guess I could be... less obvious. Stealth ops for seven years, you'd think I'd be better than this at... whatever this is.

A mission is what he'd told M'gann. And we don't do those solo, he'd said.

Conner sighs. The wall between his mind and M'gann's stands strong. He feels for gaps, for any weak point; his eyes fall back to the red lip that M'gann bites redder as he looks, but he lets his eyes go no higher—and no lower. He just stares. What he'd even say if she could hear him, he's not sure.

Sorry?

Wolf grumbles, brow twitching under Conner's hand.

Conner's eyes slip down to Jonny then leave him and M'gann both. For what, inviting you in the first place? Conner thinks at her and to himself sullenly. You needed it, too. Not that that's why I—Conner shakes his head, then forces it still, realizing he can still be seen. Not the only reason, but fine. Doesn't matter if it's helping. He bites his tongue at the thought, even without anyone else having heard it. Helping me or you? His tongue slips, and his mouth is just tension and teeth again, like Jonny's hand is back on his face. He unclenches his jaw again; his fingers curl tight into the fur between Wolf's ears. Right. He flattens his hand against Wolf's head, the curve of Wolf's brow fitting snugly into his palm. Sorry, he thinks to Wolf. Sorry I keep—thinking like this—

"Okay, promise me this is it."

Conner jumps—his hand slips from Wolf's head. Ripples as sharp and as close as his own breath in his ears cut through the air; a metallic sheen flashes like a signal flare in the kitchen light. The blue-and-red bag slides off of Lois's arm and into the center of the table—Conner half-expects the wooden legs beneath it to creak with its weight. With a crackling thwup, it settles.

"Because already, this is too much," Lois adds, patting the top edge of the bag—the sound hits Conner's ears like loud footsteps, or tiny thunderclaps. Gritting his teeth but masking a wince, Conner tunes his hearing back down to voice level. "Seriously, you guys shouldn't have."

Maybe I shouldn't have, but I did, Conner responds in his head, but he quickly shakes away the thought. That's not what Lois means, he thinks. It couldn't be. No one knows.

Hand to her hip, Lois turns to give Clark a pointed look.

Clark pushes up his glasses. "For the record, I haven't peeked." He raises up his open palm. "Scout's honor."

Even x-ray vision wouldn't show it, Conner thinks.

"You were never an actual Boy Scout," Lois chides Clark playfully.

Unless he was looking for the flaw, Conner thinks.

"Actually I was!" Clark responds. "Scout's honor! But, long story."

He wouldn't be.

"God." Lois bats at the side of Clark's head and leans her elbow on his shoulder, rests her chin on her arm and hums a smirk at him that Clark returns in kind.

But if there was a flaw, Conner thinks, Superman could see it.

"Uh-um, before we... open presents..." The shakiness in M'gann's voice pulls Conner's ears back to her heart, but in spite of its speed, she sways her body in slow, broad sweeps, keeping Jonny's head against her chest. "I think... this little guy..." She trails off, then gives a quick giggle, grinning wide.

"Oh, wow, that was fast," Lois says, dropping her hand from Clark's face. Her hands are already out to accept Jonny as she approaches M'gann, and M'gann happily passes him off, maintaining a smile down at Jonny's sleeping face. Lois holds Jonny to her shoulder and bounces him gently. "Huh, you really knocked him out cold."

Conner's heart kicks against the inside of his chest; M'gann's heart booms in his head. Jonny's heart is a distant pattering until Conner can focus again—it's sleep. Of course it's sleep. He's fine. Horror lingers in M'gann's expression all the same, her eyes wide and white against the green. Jonny uhps in his sleep, voice both muffled and amplified against the side of Lois's neck, and his tiny hands curl loose fists into the fabric of Lois's shirt. M'gann sighs through pursed lips. Conner watches her eyes flutter heavy, with dark creases peeking under her lower lids—

Enough. The bag. Empty now, Conner's hands freely curl themselves into fists.

"You let me put him down for his nap," Pa says to Lois, holding his hands out to take Jonny next. "Only fair, he sure put me down for mine!" he adds with a hearty chuckle as Lois pries Jonny's hands from her shirt with one finger and tilts Jonny onto his back, then hands him off to Pa. Jonny moves from person to person with ease—it's what it means to be that small and vulnerable, Conner thinks. That loved, his mind just has to add, a thought sharp and thin and aimlessly wistful. He's not not. He's never been, not really. Not since he's been out of the pod. Seven years, almost—that's almost a hundred Jonny lifetimes.

Wolf grumbles and paws at the floor, clicking his claws. Conner lets his hand drift back to the top of Wolf's head, setting his fingers on autopilot scratching at one spot behind Wolf's ear. Wolf's brow stays tense against Conner's palm.

"You want that baby all to yourself," Ma says as she winds her camera's carry strap neatly around her hand. She follows Pa and Jonny out of the kitchen, her hip joining to Pa's like a magnet. "Just because he's got your name doesn't mean you get a mini-me," she teases, her free hand perched on Pa's shoulder as she peers into his arms. "Gramma needs her special time, too."

"The next one's going to have to be named Martha, huh," Clark mutters under his breath, wiping his glasses on the end of his shirt and returning them to his face.

Lois spins in place to face him, setting one hand to her hip and slapping the other to her stomach.

"The what," she says, voice low but firm.

Clark coughs lightly into his fist. "Nothing."

Wolf slips his head out of Conner's hand and turns away. Conner watches M'gann's green hand touch down on Wolf's white fur, fingertips rubbing a small circle into the center of his forehead; Wolf half-closes his eyes in acceptance, lets out a wet snort of a sigh, then points his ears forward again and shakes M'gann's hand off as well. His yellow eyes hone in on Conner's. Staring contest, Conner thinks, somewhat dismissively—he engages all the same.

M'gann's hand disappears from the edge of Conner's vision. She half-gasps a deep breath in to speak then cuts it off, humming her hesitance to herself. "They're—" M'gann clears her throat. "They're... going to love what you got them, got him, that is," she says, her voice thin and raspy as she repeats herself from two days ago. She swallows. "I promise."

Conner's eyes dart to M'gann, breaking from Wolf's. M'gann keeps her own eyes averted, only glancing back and meeting his for a second—just a tug of a smile, and she's staring straight ahead again.

After all, she doesn't add this time, they'll love it because it's coming from you.

Conner looks back down at Wolf. Think I'd rather it just be good.

Wolf's eyes stay on Conner. His tail hangs low, lightly brushing the floor as it swishes from side to side. A small groan becomes a soft, high-pitched whine, followed by a heavy breath. What, Conner thinks, mouth almost moving, voice almost breaking through—M'gann at his side and waiting on a response from him keeps his throat tight. There's nothing to say—no excuse. She'll know or she won't. He brought her here; it's up to her now to notice. In that way, it's barely even a secret at all.

Even though there's a better way for it not to be, and that's to just say it.

"I'm getting Wolf a piece of pie," Conner blurts out instead of anything else, voice cracking as he finds it again. Wolf's tail whirls upright, wagging Wolf turns to lead Conner to the counter.

"Oh!" M'gann responds softly at Conner's back—he's already gone. Wolf twitches his ears at the rustle of the paper as Lois thrust her arm into the gift bag, but Wolf's eyes are on his target; Conner flinches at the sound, but steadies his breath. Wolf halts at the counter and stomps a paw. Conner reaches for the cupboard door, pinching its knob delicately between two fingers—the hinges still yelp and squeal as he pulls the door open. Anyone could have heard that, Conner thinks over the residual throbbing in his ears—everyone did, he's sure. The sharpness leaves his eardrums, but the pulsing stays deep in his head. His fingers feel for a plate already chipped along its rim. He knows there are plenty, but the only one that he can find is under several smooth, pristine plates. His hand freezes.

He looks at Wolf.

"Oh, diapers, good," Lois says over whispering plastic and a single soft thump.

Wolf tilts his head at Conner.

...Right. Conner nods and slips his fingers into the stack of plates, his thumb skirting the rough edge of the correct plate, the plate already flawed. He slides it out millimeter by millimeter, second by second; his thick fingers stick into the widening gap between plates as cushions, but they can't stay there forever. He has the plate—next comes the clatter.

"I, u-uh, we—"

The gap closes like clenched teeth, a hard clack through Conner's skull. He hears M'gann pause.

Dammit, Conner lets out, thankfully just in his own mind—not even M'gann's.

"Conner and I..." M'gann continues, "asked some of our friends who have babies, or at least a baby in the family, and... that brand was the favorite!"

"The League of Supermommies, huh," Lois responds before the sound of another rustle. "Iris did give me her contacts. And this is—oh. Oh, no."

The ceramic plate bounces like rubber in Conner's hand. He smacks it to his chest to steady it—it hits his bones, but doesn't break.

One deep, loud guffaw crashes through the air instead.

This time, he has to look.

Superman—Clark—Kal-El stifles another laugh with hands slapped over his mouth and stomach as Lois holds up the Bat-Binky like a jewel to the light. M'gann meets Conner's eyes across the room with a grin. She's proud. He is, too—he's not not, anyway. Her eyes try to pull him in, inviting him to feel it, too—inviting him back.

He'll have to see it. Her face, when the moment comes. He'll have to see what he's done, and what it means.

And Wolf still deserves his pie. Conner prices the plate from his chest. It's green-gray with age, and the yellow and red flowers dotted along its rim are more faded on one side than the other. White scratches cut across its otherwise empty center. He won't break it—and on his watch, neither will Wolf—but it fits for him. Something already broken.

"...You can't stop me, you'll be in space," Lois's voice filters back in. "Wayne Manor, no return address—he doesn't even have to know it's me."

"Lois..." There's mirth in Clark's scolding voice, just like Ma's. "Do him a favor and at least let him know it's you. He's paranoid enough." One soft footstep. "Besides, knowing Bruce, he'd track you down anyway."

"There's gotta be some law against Batman trespassing in Metropolis," Lois retorts, "especially with the stick Luthor's got up his ass about—"

"Lois."

"No politics at the kitchen table either, right." Something fingertip-sized and hard yet yielding taps the table, any echo muffled by the tablecloth. Rubber and plastic. The Bat-Binky. Next, Conner acknowledges. He slides open a rumbling wooden drawer and digs out a clattering fork, gritting his teeth and forcing his hand steady. A thin strip of metal could warp and snap under his fingertips in an instant. He looks at the fork in his hand.

It's already bent.

He didn't—mean to—didn't—even feel it—

Superman—Clark—Kal-El laughs as Conner holds the fork up and furrows his brow. "I was seven," Kal says. "Or... maybe still six. And a little too excited that morning for the first slice of pie." He slips his glasses off of his face to wipe their lenses on his shirt. Their wire frame keeps its shape under the pressure of his fingertips, lines staying straight and narrow.

"You can fix it now, right?" Conner blurts out in response. His voice rings against the pots dangling from the rack. His cheeks burn like heat vision starting in the wrong place. "I mean, why not just bend it back?"

"Oh, don't you dare!" Ma snaps, plucking the fork from Conner's hand. Conner freezes. Ma slaps her hand down on Conner's shoulder and shakes his muscles loose, then pats her soft, cool hand against the side of his face. "That's a keepsake," she tells him proudly, handing the fork back to him. "We wouldn't want it any other way."

Superman's house, Conner reminds himself factually; the moment he thinks it, the thought sits wrong in his head. He's not a stranger, or some tourist—he's not even a guest. This is home—this is a home. There's still the Watchtower, still Happy Harbor even without the Cave, still Earth—

We fight for this, you know, M'gann had said. This is it. This is life and love and... and everything, really, down here—

—Conner stakes the fork into the crust of the pie. Small, paper-thin cracks break into the surface. Crumbs tumble off the edge. Conner blinks at his stinging eyes. Enough. Wolf. Pie.

It's still ours either way, the memory finishes all the same. Another latches onto its soft, wispy trail, still in M'gann's voice:

I don't... want to want to—

—The drooping stack of crust and filling that Conner slips onto the plate slides itself in two, collapsing into a mess. Wolf won't mind. Wolf's alert tail flickers at its tip, and the growling whine in his huffing breath hints at the howl he's been holding back. His claws rake against the floor as Conner lowers the plate, and before the plate can reach the floor, Wolf's tongue and teeth are on it. Conner squeezes the rim tighter to keep from letting the plate fall, pinching his thumb into the rough groove of the pre-existing chip. It fits like a fingerprint. Wolf's teeth clink and drag against the plate's surface, following trails of old scratches and cinnamon-speckled apple down the other end of the plate and off its edge. They didn't make it flawed. The flaws made it made for them.

History—someone else's, but shared with them, with him. He's a part of it now.

Jonny is a new part.

Wolf releases the plate, lips and tongue now smacking against the floor. The plate springs up in Conner's hand, but his grip is already too tight to let it slip. His shirt would have been fine. Any of his shirts would have been fine. No good because it's flawed, because he affected it, because it's already had to be fixed—he doesn't think like this. He can't think like this. He can't. The burning, hollow feeling cracking open in his chest—

—Paper rustles between his ears, shooting off sparks in his skull. Conner holds his breath, holds his eyes shut, holds it in—

"And this is," Lois says. "Uhh—"

I can't keep thinking like this, Conner's mind blips at him in a moment of cold clarity. If I do, it's going to kill me.

"It—should fit, or do you think... it..." Conner hears M'gann's hard swallow behind her bitten-shut lips. He hears the quick release into a willful, breathed-out smile just as clearly. "It shouldn't be too big, right?" M'gann asks Lois with a soft, pensive giggle. "Jonny's such a little guy."

Conner breathes out, opening his eyes. That's it, he tells himself. It's over. It's done. Conner seeks the shirt out first before letting himself see anyone's face, braces for the impact of bright red against jet black—

In Lois's hands is the white onesie. She flips it to its reverse side, adorned only with a zipper, then back to its front, completely blank. "Oh, it's fine," she says, spinning the suit around now in her hands, checking and double-checking the undersides of the arms and the soles of the feet. "He'll grow into it."

Oh. The plate wobbles again in Conner's grip—Wolf's tongue laps against its surface for any and every glob or crumb that remains, licking the back of the plate as clean as the front, grazing Conner's knuckles with his tongue.

Conner pulls the plate up over Wolf's head and sets it on the counter. "That's it," he mutters at Wolf softly. Wolf drops his tail and head then starts a slow stride away from Conner, giving his equivalent of a shrug. He treads a direct path to the front door and softly nosedives towards the bristled welcome mat, engulfing it completely in white fur as he settles down on top of it, chin resting between his paws on the floor. He smacks his lips for any traces of pie left on his muzzle, then sighs resolutely through his nose.

"I'm just surprised there's not a... you know."

Conner looks. Lois taps her chest.

"Five sides and a fancy letter in the center, if you catch my drift?" Lois says.

"Oh!" M'gann exclaims. "That was, um..." M'gann peers past Lois, head leaning to the side. She meets Conner's eyes with help! scrawled across her face all but literally, etched into her thin frown and furrowed brow.

Conner furrows his brow back at her. What?

"That... was, um..." M'gann repeats slowly, wobbling on her toes despite her shoes' flattened heels.

What—oh. My idea. Say it, Conner thinks to her. His eyes fall to the almost empty bag, its surface sharp and bright in the sunlight, red stuffing poking up from its open top. Doesn't matter. Say it. It's fine.

The thought goes nowhere. The wall is still there. Conner's mental breath sits hot inside his head with no vent, tension budding at the base of his skull.

...Right.

Lois reads M'gann's mind, and his own—at least enough to know where she'll get her answer. She whips around to face Conner and pins him with a look. Conner gulps.

"Your idea?"

Anger, disappointment, derision—her tone betrays nothing, and could mean anything. Conner dares to glance away. M'gann's face broadcasts pity—no. Sympathy. An anxious helplessness as she bites her lips out of view and barely holds back a grunt.

Meeting her eyes, Conner shakes his head. Don't feel sorry for me.

M'gann blinks at him, eyes wide.

"Yeah," Conner then says simply.

It's the only one I liked. His mind starts him with the truth, then works on better response to the inevitable why. 'Sorry'—no. 'It's not like you have to put him in it'—Conner growls at the thought of sounding that angry. 'It's... an option'—better. 'You think he'll like it?' That's too close to where he started: it's the only one I liked.

Another step in his head towards why, even to answer himself, puts him on the edge of a white haze. The slab meets his back.

Lois shrugs and smiles. "He'll be the only kid in Metropolis without an 'S' on his chest, believe me." She folds the suit into a neat white square. "I love it. We'll get him glasses next, let him really blend right in." She rolls her eyes at Clark and hands him the folded suit. "No one will guess."

"You didn't," Super—Clark teases right back, slowly opening the suit back up in his palm, a single finger nudging one limb loose at a time until it drops over the edge of his hand.

Lois crosses her arms. "You don't want to go there with me, Smallville."

"...Understood," Clark responds, but his eyes stay on the suit. Conner scans his face for why. X-ray vision will reveal nothing special—unless Forever Sixteen lines their baby clothes with lead, which would be worth knowing, and worth investigating further. Conner frowns at the thought. He knows it's not that.

Superman—Clark—Kal-El catches Conner staring. Before Conner can look away, Kal smiles and shakes his head. "I'm—still getting used to it," he says softly, laying his hand over the body of the suit, pressing it between his palms. "How little he is. Although I guess before I know it, he'll be..." Kal slides his hand from atop the suit and keeps it palm-down in the air beside him, marking a height just above his shoulder. "Just like that."

Conner blinks to force the hand down shorter, his eyes latching onto the glint of Clark's wedding ring to prove that he can see above it. "Yeah," he mutters in response. "Happens."

At least it will take years, not sixteen weeks—he can't say that. He knows how it will sound.

This isn't about him.

Lois's arm takes another dive into the tissue paper. The sound is a roar on first impact; Conner tunes the rustling down to a whisper. "Now, don't tell me," Lois says, "but I know I felt something else clunking around in here... unless I'm wrong, in which case do tell me, or else I'll just look like I'm being greedy..."

M'gann hops in place, crosses her legs at the ankles, and hums a smile. "There's one more thing." Meeting Conner's eyes, she nods and shrugs, giggling faintly. "Well, technically, I suppose it's..." She leaves the thought hanging, eyeing Conner eagerly.

Another cue. Conner just blinks at her. Whatever she thinks he's supposed to say, she'll have to tell him through the link before he'll say it—and she won't risk getting caught again, he knows.

I invited you to be my backup, he'd all but growled at her.

"Uh...huh!" By a single finger hooked around their connecting plastic tag, Lois lifts the pair of small black rainboots out of the bag. "Two more things," she says. "Gotcha." She chuckles. "You guys sure are looking out for our little guy's feet, huh."

A flash of disappointment runs across M'gann's face, a twitch in her smile and brow, but her eyes stay soft on Conner, flicking lightly even over an audible, visible gulp.

Conner, this is your family! she'd reminded him before. You don't need me for backup!

"They're, um, little black boots," M'gann starts, eyes only darting to Lois for a second before returning to Conner's face, her expression uneasy but focused. "He'll, um... he can..." Conner feels his own brow furrowing harder and harder, twisting under the scrutiny in her stare. She shut the link down, but she's still trying to read his mind. Even without a sense of her mind-touch, he can hear it in her heart, see it in her eyes: what do I say?

More than that.

What do you want me to say? her eyes ask.

Conner stares back at her, pushing out a thought she'll either read in his face or feel on the psychic plane: just link us and you won't have to guess. At least on the link, I can tell you to stop looking at me like—

"...He can look... just like his Uncle Conner, if he wants," M'gann says finally.

Conner's breath hitches. The knot in his brow releases. He blinks down at his shoes. Right. He hadn't said it to M'gann, hadn't even thought it—to her or to himself. But it fits—it's better than his reason. If it were me—that didn't matter. Jonny isn't him. Jonny is a baby.

The simplest facts in the world, and he has to keep thinking them, over and over, to make them real in his head. Jonny isn't him. Jonny is a baby. Jonny isn't him. Jonny is a baby. Jonny is—asleep in the other room, and barely bigger than his hands. Jonny is—alive, and happy. Jonny is—half-Kryptonian, half-human. Jonny is—the son of Superman.

Jonny isn't him.

The stinging starts in Conner's eyes again, the ghost of Jonny's hand on his nose like a button pressed. Never mind, Conner thinks at M'gann, keeping his eyes to the floor, knowing she won't hear anyway. Keep the link down.

"Well, you've set yourself up for another photo op," Lois jokes, dropping the boots back into the bag with a papery splash. She plucks the Bat-Binky up from the table and drops it in after, a single tap, like a knuckle on glass. Clark hands her the white suit; she folds it back half as neatly as before, scoffs, and then drops it inside. The package of diapers goes on top, pushing out the bag's sides from the inside. Lois brings the ribbon handles together in her hand. "Good job, guys, great haul for our baby stash."

Wait.

"I believe, translated, that means 'thank you,'" Clark says with a chuckle, setting his hand on Lois's shoulder. "But, really, Kon-El." He nods to Conner. "M'gann." He nods to M'gann, and then his eyes skip back across the table to Conner. "Thank you for everything."

The warmth in his smile doesn't reach Conner—Conner's eyes dart back to the bag. That's not everything.

"Translated from what, 'city-girl' to 'country-boy'?" Lois quips back, drumming her fingers idly against the hand on her shoulder. "We say thank you in Metropolis, too. Just with a little less 'bless-your-heart' added in." She lifts the bag off the table. "Thank-you," she says emphatically, voice almost sing-song. "But seriously, we wouldn't have even thought to ask you to bring anything but yourself—er—selves." The bag slides to her elbow, contents rumbling faintly. "Thank you."

Conner knows what's at the bottom of the bag, neat and flat, dark and bright all at once—his eyes still blip into infrared. Yellow spots of fingerprint heat linger almost everywhere, but the bottom is cold and untouched.

He hid it too well.

"Well, bless your heart," Clark says. Lois half-scoffs, half-sputters out a laugh. Clark's arm slips to her waist.

He has to say something.

"...You're so welcome," M'gann says softly, her voice miles away but her breath crackling in Conner's ear. "Really, I'm—so honored to have been here. He's such a sweet, beautiful baby boy."

M'gann. Conner watches her green hand skim the top of her chair and then push the chair under the table. The soles of her sneakers scritch against floor, fine grit against the wood. She steps from one side of Conner's chair to the other, nudging it closer to the table with her hip as she tucks her hands behind her back, then waits, bouncing her heel as if keeping time. Another scriff sound. She stops and hums, tapping her toe now.

She's working her way to his side, Conner realizes, circling the table like a wheel on an axle, her eyes pinned to the center. Avoiding his eyes. Stealth op, Conner thinks.

He could work his own. A moment alone with the bag again—the paper filling would be an obstacle, but carefully enough, he could pop the bag open from the bottom on a seam, paste it back—if he has to, lick his finger and seal it like an envelope. That'd be the how—he knows the what. He'd need the when, maybe even the where—

—And the why, he thinks, heat starting in his cheeks. The why I'm even thinking of stealing a t-shirt from a baby. He's heard people say "like taking candy from a baby"—that'll be next, he thinks. Throw me back in Belle Reve at that point. I'll be a supervillain.

M'gann's white sneakers approach the edge of Conner's shadow. Conner takes a breath. His thoughts go back to why. This isn't about her, he says to himself, half-parroting M'gann from before, half-refuting the her in his imagination that he knows would be blaming this all on herself if he were thinking it to her. But he can't leave it there—if they were linked right now, and she knew what he was thinking, he knows she wouldn't let him get away with it. Conner turns that thought of M'gann back on himself, picturing what would be her face in all its pity, sympathy, anxiety, and concern as she would ask him:

Why are you hiding this?

Conner tries an answer: because I don't want to see your face when I give him your shirt. It's the first thing he thinks of, the worst thing he can think of, and his best guess. She would believe him, if only because he would have said it, and she wouldn't want to argue with him. Except—whether she wanted to or not, if she didn't believe him, she would argue. And he can't picture her convinced. He tries to argue back. Yeah, I know I brought you here, but—nothing. He could have taken back the offer this morning if he had wanted to—he's sure she was still waiting for it.

M'gann—the real M'gann, heartbeat and breath in his ears—takes a step closer, shoe soles softly padding against the floor. Fine, he starts up again, needing an answer—and fast. Because I'm bad at surprises. Because I'm... not sure it's even good enough, anymore. Because it made sense last night and doesn't make sense now—I should have given one of mine. Because I choked. Because... Conner breathes in sharply, trying to muffle the sound of his own pulse in his ears. Because they won't understand. They'll think it's a good thing. They'll think I knew how to handle this. They'll be proud of me.

"Well, speaking of which, it's been a Metropolis minute since I've checked my baby, or my—" Lois clears her throat loudly. "—Phone. And any time Jonny's not making a sound, I get nervous. So..."

"I can hear Jonny's heartbeat," Clark—Superman says. "Oh. Right. We need to—go. Do that, that is. Step out for a—minute."

Slow but steady footfalls and gentle bumps of rustling paper take the shirt away. It's fine, Conner thinks, gratefully alone inside in his head. The lump in his throat wouldn't let him speak if he wanted to. I don't want anyone to be proud of me.

"...Conner?"

M'gann's voice cracks in its failed whisper; something cracks behind Conner's eyes. He hold it in, tightening the knot in his head.

"...Are you okay?" M'gann asks, voice even softer than if she were speaking to a child. He knows. He just heard her speaking to Jonny.

Conner's eyes reach as high as M'gann's green throat, her buttonless collar, and then drop down to the hands wringing at her sides, the unrolled sleeves now pulled down over her wrists. He doesn't need to see anything else to know that he can't look at her face. His own face could break at any moment. What's inside could leak out. One slip, and he'll lose control.

"If that's... okay to ask," M'gann adds warily.

Conner steels up his insides. Solid. Cold. Contained. Empty. "Well, you asked it," he mutters back at her. "Too late to ask permission." His eyes dart a quick glare into M'gann's eyes, then retreat back to the floor, to overlapping shadows. "What do you think?"

Answer me this time: what's wrong with me? He already knows the answer. This is just me. This is just what I am. It makes sense because I'm wrong.

Say it.

Wolf raises his head from the floor. Ma tsks over the sound of dull tapping in the living room. Jonny's heart beats softly through sleep. Pa chuckles and clears his throat—slower tapping, than an electronic whoosh—a moment later, all tapping stops. "Uh—awh," Lois offers a quick response, her tone flat. Superman is a wall. He could be any other heartbeat. He's there—that's all Conner knows. Tap-tap, blipping on a screen, a faint buzz like a bug against a lightbulb. Superman hums decisively. The sound stops.

In front of Conner, M'gann is a statue, save for the determined rise and fall of her chest. Conner dares to look higher. Her eyes are fixed on him, and every muscle in her face is drawn tight. On first glance, he could think the look in her eyes is a glare, but the raw hurt there is too open for him to miss. He can see it for a second, and then his eyes won't focus. Back to Wolf, white head tilting to the side. Back to the floor, and a pocket of darkness to sink into—back to solid wood and two shallow shadows, and the place they overlap. Back to any wall—back to dangling pans—back to the photo on the fridge and to cobwebs on the ceiling and to the screen door he could tear his way through on a breath, not even a thought, just a twitch of his fingers at his side—

—Conner pulls his hands into fists and blinks. Hard. Too much. He blinks his sight into a blur and then blinks his way back out of it. Enough.

His eyes go back to M'gann.

M'gann winces at him. Almost immediately, she drops her stare. Conner follows the fall down and sees her own hands clenching into fists. He hears her swallow. "I'm... not trying," she starts. "I swear it. But... it's starting to reach—I mean—I'm feeling that you—"

Thump, thump, thump, thump.

Conner feels his own breath hitch; M'gann gasps. Her wide eyes flit back up and past him—with effort, her face shifts. She pushes the curve of her mouth into a smile. The crease in her brow only twitches back into view for a second.

Whatever his own face shows, Conner doesn't know, and can't care. He's hiding enough. He turns to face the doorway.

"So... M'gann. Kon-El." Kal—Clark—Superman nods at Conner. Lois pats the back of Superman's shoulder. "How about that pie?"

Wolf rises to his feet and whines.

"You got yours," Lois says to Wolf, smirking. Wolf drops back down on top of the welcome mat and grumbles.

"I-I'll get the plates!" M'gann volunteers. The cupboard door snaps open above her and Conner's heads. A single plate floats down telekinetically from the top of the stack. "Or, we will?" She meets Conner's eyes again and smiles with a shrug, a soft plea. She holds her hands out to guide the plate down, but rather than grab it, she brings it level with the S-Shield on Conner's chest and keeps it floating there. Conner stares down into its glossy white surface. Blinking away the hazy smears of his own would-be reflection, he takes the plate. M'gann gasps—delight, not panic. The second plate starts its smooth descent into Conner's hands.

"God." The legs of Lois's chair creak against the floor. "I'll spare everyone here the joke about flying saucers, given that..."

Superman laughs before she can finish. The second plate clicks down into place over the first. M'gann blinks down at the floor shyly, smile going lopsided. "Right, aliens," she says under her breath.

The pie behind Conner slides to the edge of the counter. Conner's brow furrows. He thought she was just giving him the plates. His eyes snap to M'gann's—M'gann's are up past his head. She gives a wincing smile.

Conner whips around. Superman steps back, nearly dropping the pie. His eyes widen behind his glasses. Conner's face won't unlock, won't catch up—

Superman nods and leaves. "Well. Well, uh, don't forget, Lois," he says as he sets the pie back into the center of the table, only smiling again now that he's walked away. "You're the mother of one."

M'gann slides the last two plates down to herself. Conner feels his frown deepen. Let me do that, he starts to say—the knot in his throat loosens, but doesn't unwind. In his mind, all four plates go to his hands like he expected them to; in his mind, all four plates shatter in his grip, and bone white shards cut through the air, cascade to the floor, fall right through his fingers. Fine. The clatter is sharp enough on its own as Conner pushes his plates into place onto M'gann's stack—the oh! that escapes her lips just fits. I don't trust me with them either, he thinks.

He doesn't try not to stomp back to his chair. His feet feel like concrete; the thudding of his heels against an unyielding floor announce that his boots are still rubber and leather, and can take the brunt of his steps. Nothing breaks as he slides his chair back out, or as he sits, or as he lays his fists onto the tablecloth.

"...And as the only human in the room, I guess that makes me just as much an alien as the rest of you," Lois says as silver forks drift through the air then down to the table. They sit for a moment then spin in place, turning the pronged ends away from where hands are meant to go. Lois's fork slips into her hand like a pen; she threads it between her fingers and bats its handle lightly against her ring finger in impatience. Conner stares at his fork, scrutinizing its curve, visually matching it to the two forks still lying flat at empty seats and confirming what he has is something not already broken.

Wrong thought, but he doesn't care. He's had too many now to keep track of.

Three plates land next, barely audible against the tablecloth: Clark's, Lois's, and M'gann's. The fourth slowly tilts into his vision, guided by M'gann's green hand. Her fingers hover and curl at the edge of his vision even once she's set the plate down. It's as far up as Conner looks, and then his eyes are back on his fork. Carefully, he picks it up, holding it heavy in his hand, forcing the weight of it to bend his wrist instead of him bending it.

M'gann wisps herself into the seat beside him. Her chair legs wobble and clack slightly against the floor, but there's no skid and no screech. No hands of hers land on the table—green, white, or Megan. His eyes vaguely pick up on green fingers gripping green elbows below the tabletop, pink sleeves sagging over them. His world wants to shrink. She's barely a heartbeat—all of them are. Checkered cloth and gleaming white ceramic hold his stare. The refrigerator him steadies his head from the inside out. Superman—Clark sets down the pie. Conner blinks because he should. Tension starts to twist his arm from the top of his wrist to his elbow, but he keeps his fingers open around the fork, keeps his thumb hovering a sliver above it.

Napkins manifest, flickering blue and red—Ma hums overhead, putting a hand to Conner's shoulder as she leans. "Here you go, sweetie," she says to M'gann, patting the folded blue triangle down in place. "Do your best, and we'll take care of the rest. There's nothing a little vinegar and soda can't fix."

"Oh, I—" M'gann's hand pops up to wave away the offer, but her fingers curl tight then uncurl to pin themselves to the corner of her napkin. "Thank you."

Ma's hand ruffles Conner's hair then slides down to his back, pressing into him for one moment, then leaving the next. Conner blinks again because he should.

M'gann's heartbeat stirs the air inside his head. A hard thump—an echo—hits inside his own chest. He blinks again because it hurts. He squeezes his eyes shut because it doesn't stop. The fork slips smoothly out of his hold, thumping the table—he can't be feeling this now. He won't. The hurt goes down, sinks below his heart—he makes it go there, then opens his eyes.

M'gann's crumpled napkin puffs out like a blue blooming flower from her loosening fist. A quick, sharp pant flicks at Conner's ear, then M'gann flattens her hand against the napkin, swatting it down like a bug. He blinks, trying to think, trying not to think—he wins and loses. All that gets through is action. Conner's hand closes back around his fork, pushing its prongs into his palm. They're dull against his skin. To make himself stop squeezing, he tells himself they're needles. Already-broken glass. Another hand in his.

M'gann's hand squeezes her napkin again.

"I'm—looking forward to—having my first bite of this in a while!" M'gann laughs out. "But please, don't worry about cutting me too big a slice."

"Don't tell me shapeshifters think they have to watch their figures, too," Lois says. "I mean it, don't tell me. That's too depressing to think about." Lois shifts in her chair. Her hand goes to her stomach. "Clark, give her the big piece."

"What if I wanted the big piece?" Clark says in a voice like a child's. A plate full of pie passes in front of Conner all the same. M'gann pulls her napkin to her lap and pushes at her sleeves. Conner's plate lifts up next, Clark's hand on the other end.

I'm not hungry is too much to say. His voice would have to break back out of his throat, out of his head. Next would have to be why, and with five people to answer to. Six counting Wolf. Jonny would still be asleep. It would be nothing to him—it would be Conner being only as wrong as Jonny knows him to be, now that they've met.

The steel prongs turn hot and soft in Conner's hand. Jonny. Is. A. Baby. Stop. This. Now. His teeth feel like they would snap steel even sooner than his hand, or like they might break against themselves and leave him to gum at pie crust, shards all falling out the moment he unclenches his jaw to eat—his tongue slips between his teeth to cushion them. A second later, his tongue burns.

M'gann's fork clatters against the edge of her plate; Conner's shoulders jump, and his teeth release his tongue. M'gann's fingers scramble to take hold of her fork again, fingertips pattering against the tablecloth. The fork slides into her hand prongs-first, and the prongs disappear into her fist. "Oh—oops!"She bumps the other end of the fork against the table and pushes back into the correct position in her hand.

Right. Conner bumps his own fork out of his own fist. His plate falls back into place in front of him, now with pie.

"You've still got three days 'till you-know-what, so don't fill up too soon," Lois says—to him, he thinks. Conner nods, eyes following invisible lines through the checkered cloth to the pie's lattice crust. "Meanwhile, I'm back to eating for one, which, of course, means I have room to spare." Her fork clinks against her plate. "And for all I care, it stays there. I'm print, not television."

"Kon-El isn't pregnant, Lois," Clark says with a light chuckle.

"I didn't say—okay, fine, I'm free-associating. But I'm tired of Perry giving me the look every time I walk in the door." Lois's speech turns muffled, crunching only between words. The sound is a cue. Conner takes his own bite. "You know what I mean. Jimmy, too!" Smack and swallow—his own, at least, but Lois's voice turns crisp and clear again. "Like, it's the miracle of life, buddy." Another mouthful, but her words are clear enough. "Get over it."

Conner watches his hand move his fork, then watches his other hand reach for the clean, blank red shape of the napkin—a triangle, not the other shape. Once it hits his skin, it'll darken, haze over—the mark will last longer than the feeling, and he'll still need to hide it—no. Back to the moment. He leaves the napkin on the table.

"I think everyone at the Planet's more amazed that Lois Lane is actually a mother, more than anything," Clark—Superman—Clark says. His slice sits untouched on his plate. The moment Conner notices so, he feels eyes on him. Not heat vision, nothing so tangible—the burning in his head is only in his head, Conner knows, and the eyes on him might be, too. He'd have to look to know.

"Ha-ha," Lois snaps back, silver fork waving limply through the air. Conner blinks, and Clark's fork starts to move.

"Mmm," M'gann moans, close enough to Conner's ear that an odd jolt runs up his spine. "Oop, excuse me." The blue of her napkin flutters out of view.

"I heard that!" Ma calls out from the living room. "Don't think you'll be walking out of here without my recipe! I've been fine-tuning it, as always."

"Oh, um, thank you!" M'gann calls back out toward the doorway.

"...Superhearing?" Lois asks.

"Ma-hearing," Clark responds.

"Super-ma," Lois then mutters through another bite. "One letter off, you know. No Superman without a Superma."

Clark chuckles under his breath and swallows. "Believe me, Lois, I know."

Conner takes another bite; everything keeps moving. It will stop when he stops, and then it will be him—he'll be the thing that's wrong. He keeps his eyes on the tablecloth, on his own hands, on lightly falling crumbs, on speckled smears across his plate. Voices soften into murmurs; his motions turn mechanical. The plate below gets cleaner, becomes a brighter, blanker light. The haze in his head is home. He's home.

The motions take him to the point where his mouth just closes around empty steel, pie already gone. His eyes sting like the metal on his tongue could actually cut him. He slips the fork out of his mouth—his hand releases it to the plate. The clatter is like water splashing, just one drop in the ocean—one is somehow enough to make his eyes blur. He blinks back their heat. The burning in his palm and wrist, however, don't leave, even as he tries to will them cold. His hands want to break. He drops them under the table, and they close around themselves.

He's fine.

Chapter Text

[December 1st, Team Year Zero]

Rrht-tht-tht-thih-trr-trr-trr—

How the bullets bounced right off his chest, Conner's knuckles bounce against the assassin's mask. The assassin's head bounces against the concrete. Rubber, but crackling. Pieces of red burst out—a shattered lens, little flakes, little drops. Strings of red. A flash of it on Conner's own wrist—not broken. Whole. Complete—

—Burning. Conner grits his teeth. The bouncing is in his chest as much as against his knuckles. Rapid-fire pounding—he growls over the feel, the sound. The world is in ripples—he can feel it all. Fight it all. Protect it all. The world is full of killers—he hates them, hates him. Conner's knuckles find skin, tufts of hair, planes of the skull, the crunch of the nose, the cavity of the eye—it starts here. All the evil. It's one piece of it, one piece in Conner's hands—he can break it. The gunshot and the heartbeats—one exploding, and every other speeding up. The footsteps on the rooftops, a clean shot, a clean kill—it was easy. Too easy. How dare he—power. Because he could. That's all his type needs to justify it. The why is power, the how is the weapon.

The air hits sharper against Conner's teeth, copper smell filtering in, as he feels his lips curl. The why and the how—he is the weapon.

And this is his power.

One impact has no recoil. Thunk, sglit—Conner's fist sinks into heat. It's not good enough. He needs to breakthrough. Conner pulls his fist out, raises it back up above his head—

—Conner's arms both lock behind his head, and his chest goes tight. His knees leave the concrete. No! he shouts inside his head, wrenching his eye shut as his body fights him. He doesn't want to fly, not now, all he wants is to—

"Superboy, stop!"

The voice booms through Conner's ears and straight down into his chest, reverberates in his bones like it ripped out of his own throat. Hands tighten around his shoulders. The rippling of the world shrinks down to the ripple of cape folds—Superman. The hot blood on Conner's hands goes cold, but inside, his own blood surges. Right now, it's the same as Superman's. It's every bit as Kryptonian as his. Conner growls, kicks, and swings his fists. Superman keeps his hold, but not without one momentary falter—too soft, too yielding—his strength a match for Conner's, but Conner's—Superboy's—a match for his. The Shield on Conner's wrist pulses an affirmation—do it. Finish it. The hold around his arms won't let him—it disconnects him from himself. But his feet know who and what he is, and his fists know what the assassin is. He lunges again. Superman holds him in place.

"He's a killer!" Conner roars at being held back. "He deserves what he gets!"

"That's not how we do things!"

Conner growls. The voice is wrong, sounds wrong and says the wrong thing. We find the threat. We end it. We stop it, the rampage—hearts like fists keep pounding into his head from below, above, all around—it's fear, Conner knows. The assassin's keeps beating—it's evil, Conner knows, and he knows what he is. He knows what he was made to do.

To replace him should he perish, to destroy him should he turn from the light.

Superboy breaks free—all the power is in him, and he is the weapon.

"No."

Even Superman's voice is weak against him now. Superboy descends.

"Superboy—"

[—Conner?! Conner!]

Conner's feet hit the rooftop, and his breath bounces out of him. He snarls. M'gann's voice leaves an echo in his head, a pulsing through his skull that forces his eyes shut—it's fear. It's fear, too. His hand goes to his wrist—fire floods his veins. Stay back springs up from his mind but doesn't leave his lips, his clenched teeth. All that escapes is a rough pant as he forces his eyes back open.

It—it's more blood than how he left it—left him, left the assassin. It's more blood than he meant. M'gann's eyes are wide and white in her green face. With a shock through the concrete that Conner's boots don't absorb, Superman lands behind him.

Conner closes his eyes again, and it's daylight. He's falling—he's floating. A cloud of dust fades from the crater below in a breath. One last exhale leaves a broken face. Red splays out around the body in blue, more than just from the cape.

No.

[Conner—]

—Conner jerks his sleeve down over his wrist. [No.] He starts to move. He has to move. Has to—go. The fire won't leave his veins. Superman's hand grabs his shoulder—his heart only stops for a second, and then the adrenaline is back. Growling, Conner shrugs off the hand. The assassin lets out a ragged, whistling breath through gaps in his teeth—fine. Still breathing, Conner acknowledges. He stomps towards and then past the assassin. Another breath cuts through Conner's ears—a short sigh of relief. Conner's head goes low on reflex, pulling at his neck. He shoves his fists into his pockets, plunging into puffs of hot, sticky air.

M'gann lands in front of him, heels clacking like teeth against the concrete. The soft sway of her cape draws Conner's eyes up to her rising hands. Conner braces himself for upturned palms, for a wordless stay back from her, for a look in her eyes that says the fire inside him has burned all the way through and made him into something that could kill her.

The burning doesn't stop, but a shiver makes his breath hitch. He's always been something that could kill her.

M'gann's gloved hands touch down on his jacket.

"Aargh!" Conner barks out, jumping back. Seething, he meets M'gann's eyes.

They're not not afraid, but not—not even surprised anymore. Just scrutinizing—pleading—too on him, looking through him, or at least trying to—

[Conner, what happened?] M'gann reaches for him again. [This isn't like you—]

No. With a growl, Conner storms past her, too. ['Course it is.]

[Conner—]

[—Leave me alone.] Conner doesn't look back, just thinks of a wall, something cold, hard, and opaque between them, wrapping around and holding in his thoughts—just like she's taught him. Rock, steel—a sheet of glass pulled in tight, with light inside too bright to see through. It works. M'gann's presence tingles at the edge of his mind, and then it flickers out.

Conner's feet take him to a wall outside his mind, bricks barely up past his knees. Below is inky black concrete, wet as if with blood. The copper smell doesn't leave him. Neither do the heartbeats. He stands still—the world keep rippling. M'gann's heels knock softly, trailing away from him. The assassin groans—tissue crackles, slick and wet—pieces clatter against the concrete, broken mask mixed with broken teeth. Conner doesn't need to see any of it to know it—everything is there in his head. Everything wrong. A small thwup becomes a hard thwap against air—two hearts take off into the sky.

"This man needs medical attention," Superman's voice declares.

"At least President Harjavti is safe, and we stopped Queen Bee from taking revenge," M'gann declares back, a defensive edge to her voice over an anxious skip in her heartbeat. Faster than a speeding bullet, Superman is gone—though Superman must still hear her. No response. Conner feels a fresh snarl start on his lips—ignoring him is one thing, but ignoring her—

—A fresh pulse starts in Conner's wrist, sending him lurching towards the gutter below. He keeps his footing and jerks up his sleeve. The blood on his skin is still bright—the Shield in his skin has gone dark, but holds its edges. Five points in all directions. Power fanning out and flowing through him, sinking in, making him whole—making his skin hot to the touch and making his fist curl tight enough to turn his knuckles bone-white and his fingers a purple-blue. He could break himself. Kryptonian nails against Kryptonian skin. Kryptonian teeth against Kryptonian teeth. His heart pounds against his ribs. He could break anything.

"...So that's good, right?" M'gann's voice lilts back into his ears. Footsteps bring her closer, like the ticking of a clock, the ticking of a bomb.

It has to stop. Conner clamps his hand down on his wrist, squeezing against the pulse. Pressure on a wound—stop the bleeding, even on the inside. A cold tingle starts in his palm, and a twitch runs up his elbow—his fist drops open, uncurled and limp. It feels like death, like powerlessness—his hand shakes. Blood rushes to his head—he staggers back, both feet leaving the concrete at once and then hitting it again—the power is back, coiling all his muscles tight and then snapping them loose, releasing heat into his bones until it melts them away, and he's lighter than air. He could float. He could fly. He could fight. He could kill.

"Right?" M'gann's voice gets closer, yet only gets softer. "...Conner?"

"No! What are you doing?"

The vision never tells him who the woman is—

"Superman! What are you doing?"

—But it knows—but he knows, watching it—that whoever she is, she trusts Superman. Believes in him. Even with the Daily Planet's globe ripped from the rooftop and hurled into the sky—

"Stop! What's wrong with you?"

To anyone—to everyone—

"What are you—erk!"

—When Superman's hand closes around her throat, it's a betrayal.

Conner blinks back the vision and claws at the Shield. He needs it. He needs it to make himself strong enough. He needs it to make himself right—even with the blood on the concrete, even with the crunch under his knuckles, even with the squish—but right now, he needs it gone. Luthor plucked the Shield right off of his arm. This one is still in him, is him now. It's deep—he'll tear the skin out if he needs to. He can't let her see it. He can't let her see what he is.

He can't tell if his nails break through his skin. Something behind his eyes splits instead. He wrenches them shut; inside, somehow, he still feels them opening. Heat flares up in his cheeks, rushing to the very edges of his eyelids—heat vision. Has to be. He's only felt it once—it didn't burn like this—but it wouldn't have. Before, he didn't try to hold it in.

One look at her now, and he'll kill her.

M'gann's hand presses into his back. "Conner?"

Conner jolts, gasps. Liquid heat runs down his throat like a gulp of his own blood, pulling the muscles in his neck and chest tight. He gathers his sleeve back over his wrist, crumpling leather in his fist. M'gann's own gasp cuts into his ears, and her hand leaves his back.

It's as good as a push. Conner's feet find the ledge. He kicks off.

"Conner!"

The alleyway below swallows him down quickly—something in his chest wants to pull towards the sun, or the moon, but even with the power to fly, he remembers to fall. The ground buckles under his knees, sending up splatter—bone breaks against his own, blood hits the skin keeping his own trapped and rushing inside of him—no. Just concrete and rainwater. The crater he feels beneath him is nothing new. It's how he lands.

It shouldn't take his air. He heaves, breath rasping out, and without a thought, his eyes snap open.

No!

The heat bristles in his head, stinging his eyes. He shuts his eyes again before they can fire—his lids barely hold the heat back. It doesn't stop. It has to stop. Something has to stop this, something has to stop him, something has to give, something has to break—

—M'gann tumbles down from above like an avalanche, cape rippling, heart throbbing. Conner scrambles to his feet, rubber heels of his boots slipping against uneven ground and wet grit. His hand finds a wall and makes it own hold: five points of impact, then a fistful of rubble. His grip tightens. Shards shoot out from his fist and hit his own chest and leg as quickly as bullets. As weakly as bullets.

M'gann's touch floods his nerves and his mind all at once. Her hands close around his heart from either side, one against his chest and the other against his back, and her urgent voice takes all the heat in his head and makes it her for a moment, forcing his blistering eyes to meet hers without a thought. [Conner! Please!] There's fire in her own eyes, nestled in a web of worry lines and creasing freckles across her face. [Please, tell me what's wrong—]

—It's too much at once. The pulsing in his head, his chest, his wrist—all of him demands release. Conner roars. A thread snaps between his shoulders, and his fists fly up. M'gann goes back. His arms swing—burn—search. M'gann's eyes are a sharp light, then a wet blur. His knuckles hit something harder than air, but something with give, then a stop—it pulls his fist in and holds him. The air crackles. A ringing peals through his ears.

Something beats breath back hot into his face. For a moment, it's alive; Conner holds his breath, and instantly, he feels the cold. A sound he knows is M'gann's voice flickers weakly in his ear. His chest starts to throb before he can remember how to let the air back in—he opens his mouth, and the gulping comes too fast for any air that reaches his lungs to stay.

"Conner..."

M'gann's voice comes from behind him. It brings her heartbeat back to his ears, and the rest of her fills into place. Her heels tap the shattered concrete—a single step towards him, then she stops. A short huff of a sigh leaves her nose, her lips pressed audibly shut.

Inch by inch, Conner pulls his fist out from the hole he made in the wall. More cracks reach out across his vision with every twitch. Tatters of leather slide out with the crumbs of stone. What's left of his sleeve flops down past his elbow. Brown and gray grit sticks to the blood on his skin; under his skin, the mark of the Shield blots at the edges like an ink stain, like a bruise. There's nowhere else to hide it now. Conner pins his arm to his chest and digs his fingers into his wrist.

M'gann lays her hand over a crack in the wall in front of him. Conner's eyes let in green, blue, and white, and then the world blurs. Hot white sunlight bleeds in behind his eyes again—Cadumus's light. Luthor's light. The vision shows him Superman again, dead in the debris. It's wrong. Conner knows it's wrong.

It should be me, he thinks.

The light swallows up the corpse, the debris, the voices—every voice. What's left is blank. An expanse. A space for him to sink into without a sound, a thought. Without an impact. The space closes around him, containing him, making him all he needs to be. He knows it. His body knows it even better than his mind. He knew it before he ever thought, ever opened his eyes. The light, and a wall. The glass keeping him in.

A knock hits his ears and the inside of his chest. Another follows. A thrumming starts below it. A low, metallic hum, and then a pulse. Then a beat. A pounding. Throbbing—

—Conner growls, blinking darkness, grit, and grime back into his vision. M'gann leans in, eyes round and sharp in his shadow. Conner steps back; M'gann's brow furrows in determination, and she steps closer. Heels and concrete leave his sense—all Conner hears is a boom.

"Conner." The beating of her heart muffles her voice, but the word is too familiar for him not to catch it. "I know thi—" Thuh-bump. "—You really are." Thump-buh— "Thi—" Thump-thuh-bump-thuh-buh. "—N't your fault. Superman—"

—No matter what, Conner knows that word, too.

"I told you to leave. Me. Alone." At first, Conner's voice can barely rise. The words come out panted through gritted-shut teeth. "What—part of that—don't you understand?!" Tendons in his neck quiver with tension until a snap throws his head back, lifts him up and sends air rushing through his ribs, heat tingling through his skin. His eyes latch onto M'gann. "What part of that don't you understand?!" he roars, feeling shock waves of his voice reverberate off stone and back through his chest. "Get away from me!" More concrete crumbles under his foot. "Don't you get it? Get—away from me—right—now!" His fists fly out at his sides. The Shield mark throbs against open air.

A thought cuts a chill through the anger in him: she can see it.

But M'gann doesn't see it. He can tell. Her eyes don't break from his for a second. Wide and white in the darkness, they don't even blink at him. Conner's head loses heartbeats again—all that fills it instead is a roar to match the one that left his throat. Echoes of his own heart. Reverberations that hit. Light prickles in M'gann's eyes, a slow release, slivers skirting the edges of her lashes. It hangs there until it breaks, and then trails of it slice down both of her cheeks in an instant.

Air abandons Conner's lungs again. He doesn't gasp for it back. A stillness creeps over his body like a weight bearing down—what it doesn't reach, he tries to freeze in place himself. His knees and elbows twitch as he clenches them still. It's too late. More tears flicker down M'gann's cheeks like licks of flame.

"I-I-I'll be in the... Bioship," M'gann breathes out through the tremor of a sob running visibly through her chest. Her mouth curls into a thin, puckered line, and then she nods. A sniffle, and she's gone. Her cape ripples overhead like crumpling paper, then as liquid as her tears, her form slips into the sky, movement invisible against the blank evening haze. On reflex, Conner's eyes switch to infrared to keep her in sight—he forces them shut before X-ray vision can show him muscle. Bone. Heart. Anything else he can break.

It's too quiet too fast. Conner hears his own nose pull in a wet, shaky breath. A tremor runs through his own chest. It stops at his throat and sets off another through his shoulders, his wrists, his knees. A deep, guttural breath shakes itself out through his teeth.

He checks his arm. The mark is there, but fading. The human—the Luthor—starts to drain back in. Back to normal. Back to what he really is.

"...Big Boy Blue lives in the world of black and white," Luthor says coolly. "You were created by the bad guys, so there must be something wrong with you."

There is, Conner snaps back at the memory, however pathetically—outside his head, his voice keeps leaking out on every breath, bubbling up from deeper parts of himself than he's ever felt. Wounds buried in his chest. That first cut, never fully healed.

"But we both know life isn't that clear-cut."

The assassin shot to kill Harjavti. Conner almost killed the assassin. Superman took the assassin's side—Superman stopped Conner from killing the killer, and he was, is a killer, even if they stopped him today. What's my body count have to be before he decides I'm worth that attention—the moment Conner has the thought, the thought makes his stomach turn. Attention—that's not what he wants, or what he deserves. He screamed M'gann away for trying to give it to him. Her face—

Conner's back finds the wall. It should tumble down and bury him. His back braces against it; all that feels weak is his knees. Nothing else—there's still too much strength in his fists as he curls them tight, still too much heat in his eyes as he wrenches them shut. He growls, then bites his lips. If he makes himself bleed, it doesn't matter. Something needs to. Something needs to be able to. Something needs to be strong enough. Something needs to be strong enough to kill him.

He may never see that sword again. Kryptonite—exists, but in scarcity. He's never felt it. That could be wrong with him, too. It may not even hurt.

If he's really half-Luthor, then this should work:

"R-Red..." He can't recognize his voice. It's not Luthor or Superman. It's barely anything. It's broken. He keeps trying anyway. "R-Red... Red Sun."

Conner slides down the wall, conscious of every inch, every second of the fall. The ground doesn't break twice beneath him—he's just a drop. Liquid heat leaks out from his eyes—on reflex, his hands slide back up to the hot, wet trails on his cheeks and press against his eyes. He's not supposed to want to bleed. He's supposed to try to stop it. Conner pries his hands from his eyes. If it's bleeding, let it bleed, he thinks. He can barely smell the copper now—he can barely smell anything, even as his nose keeps sniffing, his breath catching over and over. His body twitches, jerks. He pulls his knees to his chest to try to hold himself still—why, he's not sure. Another reflex. His body begs itself to break, then doesn't listen. Stop it, he commands it from inside his head, as if any thought he could think could give him that kind of control. Do something, he demands. His head goes to his knees. Just give up or get up, he seethes at himself, hearing the stilted, muffled hiss of his own breath before his throat shoves out a tiny yelp. His heart keeps beating—too hard. His breaths keep coming—too fast. His head keeps thinking—too much. He's supposed to be—stronger than this. He's supposed to be—better than this. He's supposed to be—he was supposed to be a weapon, then he was supposed to be a person. He's supposed to be—something. Anything. Anything but this.

Even under all the pressure, all the tension of his body against itself, something split Conner's chest from the inside like a blade. He jerks his head up and gasps, taking in a determined gulp of air. His eyes open raw and blurry, but despite how they feel, the world isn't blood-red. He knows what this is. He's felt it—through the link—the psychic training exercise, Artemis—Superman—Wolf—the League dead, and the world ending—M'gann bleeding out tears like an open wound in his hands—

—Conner growls himself to his feet. His fist finds the wall again—the wall still doesn't topple down on him, just grows more cracks instead. Stupid—Conner runs a hand up his wet face again to knot fingers in his sweat-matted hair. I'm crying. That's all this is. He wipes his eyes against his knuckles and wrist, holding himself back from full-on punching himself in the face. Red Sun didn't work, but the sky is still darker than the last time he looked, and it's empty, save for faint streetlight haze and moonlight. I scared M'gann off for this—

Conner's eyes drop two more hot tears at the thought. M'gann's eyes do the same in his memory, seconds before she flies off and vanishes. I made her cry. Again, his stomach turns, pulling his throat tight again. Like this. I made her feel like this.

He also almost beat a man to death in front of Superman.

Conner checks his wrist: dirty, but no Shield anymore, neither the slip nor the mark. He checks his hip pocket: still intact, both the pocket and the box. Reflex pulls his hearing out in search of M'gann's heartbeat—dozens flood into his head at once, with sirens wailing through the thunder. Right, he thinks, hand to his head, drawing his senses back in—and that's not even 'cuz of me, he has to remind himself. What started all this was the assassination attempt on Harjavti, not his own assassination attempt on the assassin—and M'gann did say they'd stopped him. The shot was fired—it must have missed. What they'd—what he'd stopped was another shot from being fired, at least on anyone but himself, anyone it could have hurt.

Conner starts to jump, but his feet sit in the rubble just like two more slabs of stone. M'gann—

—Was she—proud of me?

Ice runs down Conner's face, draining all the way into some empty pit in his stomach as the thought sinks in. It's too much to think. Too much to feel. He growls both the thought and the feeling away. With adrenaline from his thumping heart rushing to his legs, Conner takes off for the rendezvous point.

[He didn't mean it.]

The moonlight traces a thin outline around Bioship's camouflaged form. M'gann looks up at Bioship, feeling herself squint despite Bioship's presence registering plainly in her mind. It's more of a wince, she knows.

[R-Right?]

Bioship shuts off the radio—right, M'gann thinks, realizing she had already tuned it out of her thoughts. Bioship then coos and sends a flickering ripple across her form despite the standing instruction to remain camouflaged. M'gann's mouth twitches into a smile. [I know. I shouldn't be asking you.] The smile slips back out of her face with ease. She tugs her hood down tighter over her head and re-crosses her arms. [Do... Do you see him yet?"

Telepathically, Bioship projects a negative. M'gann sighs. [I shouldn't have—well, I... don't feel good about having left him. It... was a choice, even if I was just doing what he asked.]

"Get—away from me—right—now!"

The thought of Conner's voice makes M'gann flinch. Her flinch at the thought makes her sick. Her hand goes to her mouth, knuckles pressing against her lip to keep it from quivering again. Hel-lo, Megan—this is Conner! He was just—upset. You know that. And you know it was because of Superman—

—Clark Kent. Superman's human—er, civilian identity. Hel-lo, Megan—of course Uncle J'onn knew that. And now, so does she. Uncle J'onn likely wouldn't approve. And even though she didn't read it psychically, just put two and two together visually, Kaldur would probably try to explain to her again the importance of telepathic privacy—save for the bad guys' minds. And Clark Kent—Superman—

"M'gann, try to understand... I want to get to know him... as a person, not as Superman's clone."

Superman isn't a bad guy. He's just hurting Conner all the same, without even trying. If he didn't care at all, that would be easier, M'gann thinks. Easier to resolve, or at least easier to respond to.

[M'gann, you must understand. This will not gain you their acceptance,] her father's pleading voice rasps into her head, his white claw awkwardly clutching at her human-shaped shoulder. [They will still see you and know who you are inside.]

[But they will hurt you for trying to deceive them!] her mother's voice peals through the link, her eyes bright red with alarm, her green claw stretching out to M'gann's green face but stopping short, curling back instead of touching down onto the hot, wet spot on her soft, sore cheek.

M'gann's green fingers, all five to each hand, clench around her elbows, curling into the folds of her stealth cloak. This is who I am inside. Her cheeks burn freshly hot. [Is he there yet?] she projects out to Bioship again. [At least in range? Not that... I could link with him again after he...]

Bioship projects back a flicker of confusion. M'gann lets some of the memory slip out to show her: the wall going up, but the waves not stopping. Conner's thoughts thrumming and churning and crackling on the psychic plane, but one small, deliberate gesture telling her to keep out—a whisper in a hurricane. [I tried to listen,] M'gann insists to Bioship. [Really, I—I understood what he was trying to signal psychically, but—and I know jumping off the roof shouldn't mean anything for him, didn't necessarily mean anything, like it would for someone without powers, but—but I wasn't trying to read his mind, I was just trying to reach him, and he wouldn't respond to anything else, and—]

—Bioship sees the fist plunging into the wall and jumps, her form ripping in the air. M'gann closes off the memory. [It's okay, girl. I wasn't trying to scare you. And he wasn't—]

M'gann pauses.

She shouldn't be so sure. She's not supposed to know how he felt, no matter how clearly she could feel it, too. She was—is—supposed to just ignore that. Supposed to able to. Thought she could—it's her power. He isn't a telepath. It's her responsibility—her mind could break someone with the wrong thought. Like Artemis—gone—and then an exercise becomes the apocalypse, and the only way to save her friends is to kill her—to snap her out of it. Like if Psimon thinks she won't hurt him, he doesn't know her at all, and Psimon...

...Is a bad guy, M'gann reminds herself. The air she floats in is still, but a cold gust cuts through her, straight to her bones. She clutches her elbows tighter, feeling her nails pushing into her her arms through her suit. She wills her nails down into soft stubs—all that lessens is the sharpness, not the pressure. This is me. I can't lose this. A wave swells up inside her, shooting heat up to her eyes. I can't lose—all of this. The tears come back like they never stopped, like her body was just waiting for that one wrong thought again. In her mind, she sees the blood, the red-purple-blue tissue where the assassin's face should be; in her mind, she feels the still-crackling void where Psimon's presence on the psychic plane had been, sees him look at her empty eyes, sees the saliva running down his limp jaw—

—An echo of Conner's pain blazes through M'gann's mind. She shuts her eyes and swallows against the urge to sob. She shouldn't be feeling—shouldn't have felt it—and Conner shouldn't have either. If it had been Psimon, she thinks to herself, I would have done it again.

That thought flips a switch in her mind. All the feelings inside her turn light and simple, almost disappearing. The emptying almost scares her, but as the new feeling sits inside her, she decides it's not quite numbness. She thinks it might be certainty. Acceptance, at least. Not of everything—Queen Bee is still a threat, maybe not now to Qurac, after today, but to her. But Psimon—maybe what Conner said about the assassin was right. He deserves what he gets.

With a psychic nudge, Bioship blips a visual into M'gann's mind: Conner. M'gann gasps and whips around in the air. Conner lands at the edge of the rooftop, head low, flaps of shredded leather dangling past his elbow. Instinctively, M'gann's mind reaches for his, more immediately and urgently than eye contact—a tingling starts, and she whips back around to face Bioship, slamming a wall down at the edge of her psyche. Right, she reminds herself. Don't.

"...M'gann?"

M'gann sniffles. Every instinct screams at her to fly into both his mind and his arms. She knows she can't do both.

But just his arms, at least—

"You're there, right?" Conner asks in a small, sore-sounding voice. "I mean..."

His voice gives way to silence. M'gann doesn't look, just holds herself still. Unease creeps into every muscle almost instantly—oh. Breathe, she reminds herself, letting air out.

"...Can see you on infrared," Conner then mutters.

Oh! Hel-lo, Megan! With a thought, M'gann drops her camouflage and herself, her feet quickly falling to the cement below. Bioship lowers herself in kind to be boarded; M'gann sends her a mental impression of a pat, lacing an apology into the gesture. [Not yet.] She bites her lip. [I'm not... ready to turn around yet.]

"Are you—" Conner chokes on the word. M'gann winces. Faintly, Conner growls. "You okay?"

"I'm fine!" M'gann blurts out. "And reportedly, so is Harjavti—both President Harjavti and his brother Sumaan, who took the bullet for him—in the shoulder, and reports are that his condition is stable. That's—not the same as us going to check ourselves, of course, but—but it's something! Right?" She's been speaking out loud for all of six months—hearing her now, she thinks, anyone would know it. "We ended the threat. That was our mission!" It's as clinical a response as she can stomach, and a spoonful of cheerleader cheer helps it come out—it's nothing Megan would ever say on TV, but if she did, it's how she would say it, M'gann thinks.

And it's said to Bioship, who already knows. M'gann shifts her weight between her feet. Her hands find their way back to her elbows. I'm not ready to turn around yet. She blinks—no more tears, just the faint stinging that always lingers in her eyes after she cries, like using up all her lacrimal fluid at once leaves them dry. It's how her new eyes are supposed to work—she thinks. She's never asked. For now, she wipes the cold stickiness from her cheeks and wills the dilated blood vessels of her eyes to shrink back down. Any redness there, Conner doesn't need to see—she doesn't want him to see, though some small part of her thinks that she should want it.

With everything else aside—Conner's pain, the mission, even Superman—with just her own thoughts in her head, she can't ignore the one that wants to spring out from her mouth:

I didn't deserve to be yelled at like that.

Or the one that holds it back:

Did I?

"Did I..."

M'gann jumps. Conner's voice puts him inches away, right behind her. Bioship alerts her late, and with a tinge of confusion in her mental nudge as to whether she was supposed to do so at all—M'gann sends back an assurance of no, despite the strange burst of adrenaline that persists in her bloodstream. She puts a hand to her heart.

"Did I... make you cry?"

M'gann lets out a gasp and then pins her mouth shut. ...Yes. No. Maybe? I mean, I—yes, I was crying, but I stopped now, and even when I was, I—I didn't blame you. I—not really, I—blamed Superman, even thought that's—not really fair either, but—but...

M'gann lets out a determined huff of a sigh. ...But I really should be saying all of this out loud, she thinks.

"Um..." M'gann's fingers find the end of her hair sticking out from the hood she had shifted into just to hide. With another sigh and with both hands, she lowers the hood from her head. I don't like lying to my boyfriend, she had boldly claimed right to Superman's face—she could shift red back into her eyes now, but it wouldn't be the same. A cover-up of a cover-up. Lie on top of a lie. And they say I'm pathological, Psimon had sneered at her before she—

—Enough. He deserved what he got, M'gann tells herself, just like Conner would.

Maybe even if he knew the whole truth.

But she can never take that chance.

M'gann then turns around, determinedly steady on her human-shaped feet. "Uh... what was the question?" Her low-hanging gaze gets stuck on Conner's hands, picking out grit and little slips of red. Blood, she knows. Before any other thought, there's pure relief that it isn't his.

"I said did I—make you cry, M'gann," Conner says, choking again on his own urgency. "Tell me."

M'gann's eyes trail up to Conner's chest, to the ever-familiar red S-Shield. Superman is a distant thought—when she sees it, it's Conner. "I... guess," she responds. "But, it's fine, I mean... I'm not... upset like I was, I just..." She doesn't want to talk about this. She doesn't want to keep feeling this. All she wants is to lay her head onto Conner's chest. She pushes away the fantasy, and instead, she makes herself meet his eyes.

Thin smears of red cut across his cheeks and temples, nicking the edges of his eyes. More blood. M'gann squints just to be sure—it's on the surface of his skin only, disappearing into his sheen of sweat when the moonlight hits it right—no wounds, but it's evidence all the same, she realizes. The streaks go up and away from his eyes—she then knows what from them must have trailed down.

M'gann's hand flies to Conner's cheek. "Oh, Conner, you—"

"Don't," Conner says, backing out of the touch.

M'gann steps forward, closing the fresh gap between them. "But—"

"No." Eyes puffy as they narrow, Conner looks away. "Don't."

"Conner, I can tell you've been crying, too, so let me—"

"—No!"

Conner meets her eyes with fire in his. M'gann drops her hands to her sides. Again, she thinks immediately, before she can decide exactly how she wants to feel. He's doing it again.

He's not usually like this, she'd said to Superman. I mean, he used to be, but recently he's been much better.

She was telling the truth.

"I just... wanted to help... make you feel better," M'gann fumbles out. It's more truth, at least. "Can... can't I do that?"

Conner shoves his fists into his pockets. With the hunch of his shoulders, his jacket curls and hardens around him like a shell. "Thought on missions, you were my teammate, not my girlfriend, right?" he half-spits, half-mutters, his collar jutted up to his mouth. "You're not my keeper, either." He stomps as he turns away. Gray dust from the busted wall puffs off his shoulder then disperses into the air.

Her own words against her—ugh. She didn't mean for them to mean this. There's got to be a way out of this, she thinks—Hello, Megan. "But... the mission is over," M'gann starts optimistically. "So... I go back to being your girlfriend now. Right?" There, she thinks. I solved it.

No answer. Conner keeps his back to her, fists at his sides.

"Love you?" the projection snarls with worse anger in Conner's face than she has ever seen: a cold, closed disgust. "I can't even look at you—"

Stop it, stop it, stop it, M'gann stamps into her mind, shutting out the memory—it wasn't real, it's not real, and it's not this. This isn't about her. This isn't even about them. It's about him and Superman.

"R-Right?" M'gann repeats, voice cracking all the same. No, she tells her body—this body that's supposed to be hers—but tears are already past her aching cheeks again, breaking at the edge of her jaw before telekinesis can pull them back. She holds her head up and sniffles, biting her lip and wincing to keep any more tears from leaking out of her eyes. This isn't about me, she insists to herself.

It just—feels like—

Conner whips around. There's no anger in his face—M'gann sees that much before a wave of raw, wounded fear from him crashes through her chest and sets her eyes to overflow. She squeezes her eyes shut against more pooling heat and gulps for breath. Her throat itches for gills. A pressure like the ocean all at once threatens to force her down small, too small, compress her lungs, burst her heart—

"S-Stop."

Conner's voice opens her eyes.

"Don't—" he chokes out.

She's never seen Conner's eyes this red. Even the blast from Ivo's M.O.N.Q.I.s had healed by the time she and Kaldur had reached Gotham. M'gann pants for breath now, panic in her chest like she's never cried before, like her body already forgot—like her body is wrong, and wasn't built for this—

"Don't," Conner tries again, softer now. "Don't cry." His eyes slip from her face. M'gann's panting breaks in a shudder, but the next gasp pulls more air in. "Please," Conner says just above a whisper. M'gann watches his hands curl and uncurl into fists, grasping and wringing at air—she feels his touch. A memory, a projection, an intent, a want—his, hers—it's all everything. It's all in her head.

The waves shift inside her. Physical and psychic separate—she finds the line. His feelings, her feelings—they feel the same, but with focus, she can source them, sort them out. His—the look on his face stings in her chest, but that's hers—sympathy. It's as far as she can let herself reach. M'gann roots herself in place and forms the wall again. Letting out a sigh, she feels her shoulders slump with relief.

Her heart still lurches for him.

Her body follows suit. She's tired of—whatever this is. Fighting. It should be so easy to fix—that is, if she can do anything. If she can do anything, she will do anything. Give everything. M'gann dives into Conner's chest and wraps her arms around him as tightly as she wants his arms around her. A little sound escapes Conner's throat—a gulp or a gasp—but it barely registers as the warmth of his form against hers sends a fuzzy wave through her head. A good kind—the best kind. M'gann breathes out and feels her body shape itself into him, everything inside her going soft.

Conner's shoulders twitch, and then his body goes stiff. M'gann catches herself starting to slide down his chest; she holds him tighter and holds herself in place. Her mind stays closed, but her ear against his heart tells her that his pulse racing—another twitch in his arms, and the sound Conner makes this time is an unmistakable growl.

M'gann lets go. Her arms come back to her feeling like they're too long, her chest too hard, all bone. Stepping back, she teeters on her feet again, forgetting the shape of them, how they're meant to fit against the ground. Her body feels wrong again, when different would only be wrong-er. She looks to Conner's eyes for answers.

Conner still won't look at her.

"C-Conner?" Stay whelmed, M'gann chides herself. Her mind itches to open to his again. Use words, out loud. Talk about this. She takes a breath. "Why are you—"

"—Why did you just hug me," Conner grunts out, more accusation than question.

M'gann stiffens at his tone. A swirl starts up again inside her, this time all her own. Why wouldn't I? Why wouldn't you want me to? Why are you mad at me? That thought comes hot, scratches something brittle in her chest. Why are you mad at me? Heat sparks in her cheeks—she bites her lip and dampens the thought. "Be-cause... you... felt—er—" She's not supposed to know. She's not supposed to feel him. "Looked like you needed it," she responds, honestly but hollowly. It isn't the whole truth. "And because I... wanted to," she adds.

Selfish? Maybe.

Intrusive? She didn't know. He seems to think so.

True? Yes. Too much so, maybe. In whatever way it's wrong, Conner doesn't like the answer. His creased brow and bared teeth say it for him first, then he growls again, meeting her eyes.

"I could have hurt you."

With no forethought, M'gann scoffs. Conner's eyes widen at her. Why did I... oh, no. Am I being dismissive? "You didn't," she adds quickly. Hel-lo, Megan—that's worse.

"That's not the point," Conner snarls out. "I almost killed someone."

So? M'gann's mind supplies as an immediate response—this time, she catches herself. "You didn't!" she manages to instead repeat. That's not better! she laments in her head. I'm making this worse, aren't I?

Conner confirms her fear. His eyes break from hers, wincing as if from too sharp a light, even for him. His head drops low, as does his voice. "We don't know that."

"I—" Hadn't thought of that, M'gann realizes. Her heart skips a beat. She's felt death—not it, really, but the before and after was—enough. Henry Yarrow died in her hands and on her link. She felt panic, but only when she first connected—the disconnect was quick, and involuntary on her part—just a slip, fade, and tapering off into nothing, nothing for her to feel. The bullet in his chest came from his own gun. If he hadn't fired at Robin, Conner wouldn't have had to deflect it.

Is this really so different? M'gann thinks, almost says. The assassin brought it on himself—not that he is dead. She bites her lips. Please. She wills a small prayer to C'eridy'all, or any Earth god listening—to Superman, even, that he got the assassin treated in time. Not for the assassin's sake. For Conner's.

She has felt death—Artemis's, Kaldur's, Robin's, Wally's, and Conner's. All almost just as real. All her fault. Pain then nothing. Her death was just pain, even if not all her own—her own drowned it out fast, but guilt tinged the hand cutting into her chest. Hurting someone else can hurt, too, she notes with a desperate calm, trying to find some conclusion to reach to make the thoughts pass. Even if it's truly needed—

Her head and stomach churn. Too many thoughts. Too much at once. Too much at once, too much at once! M'gann chirps at herself in Megan's voice inside her head, letting the world behind her eyes go fuzzy and bright, not sharp and dark. That's so me. Her hands—are her hands, and they find her elbows.

"I guess—we don't know," she finally chokes out, shaking her head. Her mouth twitches with a smile—something has to make this better. Her hands want Conner. They break from her elbows. Head spinning, she swings for his sleeves—intact or shredded, she doesn't care. "But—"

"No buts." Conner's fists go up. M'gann's fingers close around air as Conner takes one, two steps back from her. His fists fall back to his sides, clenching tighter, tension rippling visibly up his exposed arm. "No excuses. Not for me." He turns his back to her. "Not from you."

"W-What—" Not again—please. M'gann shoves her palm into her cheek and pins her fingertips to her forehead. Her eyes burn. Her head pounds. A trickle of heat runs through her mind, in counterflow to her own thoughts—tears threaten to spill out, and Conner's emotions threaten to spill in. The walls of her mind are so weak—and so dangerous. She forces a breath out, and another in. Focus. Ask the question. "W-What does that mean?"

"...I made you cry," Conner says simply, voice barely above a whisper.

"So?" This time, she doesn't—can't—hold it back; the word bursts out from her mouth. She doesn't try to take it back—they have to get past this. Conner has to get past this. "Superman made you cry."

That sound again, straight from his throat, a quiet choke—then on a heel, Conner turns and roars, "What did I say?!"

M'gann's own throat goes tight, but she keeps herself from flinching. A wave of emotion cuts right through her defenses, but it's a backwards anger; it hits her coldly, brushes the edges of her perception, then swirls back into Conner. The vacuum pull of it nearly knocks M'gann forward—she braces the treads of her stealth-suited feet against the concrete. He doesn't want her gone—he's not angry at her. He wants her mad at him. It's more than she should know—or something so obvious, she already should have known without her psychic senses. It doesn't matter. She can't ignore it now. "Conner, please—"

"Why are you okay with this?"

I'm not, M'gann thinks, and then it happens: tears. The last thing she wants to feel again—the last thing Conner needs to see. M'gann squeezes her eyes shut again, forcing pressure down on them to stop the trickle. Human anatomy comes with the reflex to cry but no easy way to turn it off. It's not fair. Chemicals in her brain want to override her willpower—so does Conner, without even meaning to.

She's supposed to be stronger than this.

She's supposed to be stronger than this, and she knows that she is.

M'gann opens her eyes. She swallows, and a weight drops through and out of her chest. One blink, and her eyes are clear, and Conner is clear in them. She meets the blue of his eyes like the blue of Earth outside Bioship's window six months ago—no matter what, this is where she belongs.

You're strong, and I'm stubborn, he'd said.

Together.

"Conner, I love you," M'gann says simply.

"Don't say tha—"

"Don't tell me not to say it. I mean it. I still mean it, just like I meant it earlier, at the sanctuary. I won't let you put yourself down like this. Not as your teammate, or your girlfriend." Holding his stare, M'gann reaches for his hand again. Her fingertips touch down on rough, sticky knuckles—Conner flinches and steps back, a hurt, wary look in his eye. M'gann places her hands on her hips instead. "All that happened is that you went a little overboard."

"'A little'?" Conner huffs. M'gann's hand don't leave her hips. She straightens her back and her knees—cheer formation, if that's what it takes. Conner looks her up and down, brow furrowed tight, then shrugs, sliding his fists into his pockets. "Huh. Guess that's my 'a little.'"

No! Ugh. M'gann's hands drop from her hips. "Fine. A lot overboard! But I know that's not your normal." M'gann returns her hands to her hips. "So would Kaldur, Robin, Wally, Artemis... anyone who's taken time to get to know you, who you really are."

Conner scoffs then goes small again inside his jacket, collar returning to his mouth. "Superman saw all he needed to see," he murmurs.

"Superman...!" M'gann bites her lip and stomps. "Well, if—if—Superman thinks badly of you after today, then he only has himself to bla—"

"Then he's right."

"And I'm wrong?"

"You..."

The word leaves Conner's mouth, and the anger slips out of Conner's face. Conner closes his mouth and sighs, shoulders slumping. His whole form seems to soften in the moonlight—bright, blurring edges—M'gann blinks away anything else it could be, batting air-dried lashes. Letting her arms fall back to her sides, she dares a step closer to him. Conner's eyes flicker down to the concrete. A strange warmth starts in M'gann's chest—he looks so sad, and so sweet. It doesn't make her happy to see him like this, but it makes her love him—more, somehow, or just as a reminder. He looks so... himself. She takes another step, and their hands become close enough to slip into each other, no need to reach. Hers waits an inch away from his. She looks up into his eyes, and he eclipses the moon, and every star in the sky. Every distant sun.

And I'm wrong? she repeats in thought, just at edge of her own psyche. She doesn't project the thought out into his mind; instead, she thinks the answer into her eyes for him to see and know. Absolutely not. Not about you.

Conner stares back into her eyes until he winces, then he drops his gaze, brow furrowing. He's close enough that when he swallows, M'gann can see the shadows shift over his throat—a second later, he's one step's worth of distance back from her. M'gann blinks, shaking her head. The warm haze behind her eyes shuts off like a valve; the absence of it sparks a shiver up her spine. "...Yeah. You are," Conner responds with one last look straight into her eyes. Another step, and his back is to her now, again, this time receding against a darker sky.

"Ah! I—I-I..."

M'gann's mouth gapes open but barely takes in air. Her eyes want to burn and leak one more time, like something's broken behind them—like anything Conner says or does will start it now—like he is right, and she is wrong. M'gann's mouth closes on clenching teeth. No. I'm not crying again. She takes a step forward instead, then another—by the third step, she's airborne, and barely a thought later, and she's right over Conner's head.

"You don't... really think that," M'gann calls down to him softly.

"Don't tell me what I think," Conner snaps back, lowering his head and picking up his pace.

M'gann speeds up in kind. "I'm not trying to tell you what you think, Conner!"

"You're tryin' to tell me what to think, then," Conner grumbles.

"I'm just trying to tell you you're—that if you ask me, I think you're wrong!"

"I didn't ask you." Conner slows. From her vantage point, M'gann sees it: only a few more steps until he's over the edge and down off the roof again. Behind them, Bioship lifts herself back up into the air and sends a soft pulse through M'gann's head: now? [No, girl, sorry, please wait—] M'gann shakes her head. No. No more waiting. Conner stops, but M'gann keeps flying—skirting right past him, she turns and places herself between him and the drop, crossing her arms. Conner stumbles back a step, jerking his head away from her. I'm ending this now, M'gann thinks, narrowing her eyes at Conner even if he won't look. In her mind, it's no longer a question:

"I don't deserve to be treated like this."

Wow, out-loud and everything, she can almost hear Zatanna say. Conner meets her eyes with shock in his own but fight in his furrowed brow and pouting lip. M'gann does her best to hold his stare, but his face as a target makes the words she said feel less real, barely even as substantial as an unshared thought. Conner breaks the stare back, and M'gann almost takes the statement back.

Almost.

"No, you don't," Conner says, turning his back to her again.

M'gann huffs and locks her arms together tighter, pulling folds of her cloak into her grip. No, I don't—w-wait. M'gann gasps. That wasn't him arguing with—

"You deserve a better boyfriend."

M'gann's heart swells and stings beneath her crossed arms. "C-Conner..." She feels herself drop an inch down in the air. You're talking about you. The words almost leave her mouth simply as a reminder, a correction—he doesn't sound like he's even talking about himself. Anymore. Already. Like he's already decided. She didn't—doesn't—want that—anything but that—

M'gann takes in a breath and lets it out slow. He didn't... he didn't mean it.

"Conner, I..." M'gann floats back to the edge of the rooftop, touching her toes back down onto concrete and pinning herself there. "I want you. I love you." She keeps her voice soft and low, letting it rasp a bit—any stronger, and she knows he'll hear it crack, and she'll hear it, too. She reaches for Conner's back, but stops short of touching him. She's not sure if she's supposed to, allowed to, now. The rules keep changing. She drops her hand and holds it herself instead, wringing at the sleeve over her wrist. "So do I... do I deserve to lose you?"

The beam rips through Conner's bones, and then the weight of pain turns paper-light—ashes, then less than ashes—numbness, then nothing. A hole. M'gann feels it in her head first, then the meaning of it blasts through her heart—

Not that kind of "lose"! M'gann snaps at herself. That one was my fault. It was all my fault. M'gann huffs through gritted teeth, squeezes her eyes shut, and shoves the memory as far back into her thoughts as it will go. Not now. Not ever. Enough.

She opens her eyes to Conner facing her again her snapping back from her, his eyes down past her feet she keeps at the rooftop's edge. Gravity rushes down M'gann's form in a cold wave, the breeze pushing her backward in her head even as she holds herself in place. On a spike of adrenaline, her thoughts go simple. She'll block his jump. Telekinesis, or her own body. She can fly; he can't. I can stop him—he can't stop me. Conner's body angles down, no sound, no warning, but she's ready—

—Slowly, carefully, like the concrete or the air itself could crack at one wrong move, Conner sits himself down in place, folding his legs under him.

Oh. M'gann's own feet leave the roof, braced legs going limp with relief.

She drifts to Conner's side and drops herself next to him, crossing her legs to match his. Conner rubs the hunch of his bent neck, his body going almost spherical—Sphere folds up to rest, M'gann thinks, so maybe this is... good? Reddish-brown smudges linger on the skin just above Conner's collar as his hand goes to his lap, his elbows to his knees. Without thinking, M'gann lays her hand over the back of his neck and wipes at the dirt—the blood—with her thumb, feeling sweat and rising hairs, prickling skin—feeling a twitch up his spine.

"Oh," M'gann half-whispers, snatching her hand away. She wipes her thumb on the inside of her cloak. "I'm—sorry."

Conner shakes his head. Clasping a hand around his wrist, he stares down at his lap and lets out a whisper-quiet sigh through his nose. His expression—what M'gann can see of it past his collar—loses intensity by the second but doesn't relax, just turns blank, distant, like he's staring straight down to the ground stories below. M'gann fights the urge to reach over again to wiggle her hand in front of his face. The silence cramps her crossed legs, makes all her toes and fingers clench.

She's tried—she's trying—but no part of her, body or mind, knows what to do. Every part of her just knows that she has to do something.

"I just..."

"Oh!" Oops—shush! M'gann slaps a hand over her mouth.

Conner holds himself silent for what feels like too long, however long it is—like a drawn-in breath being held underwater, even with super-strength—her fault? She can't tell. Her hand gets too comfortable over her mouth—if Conner looks, he'll see her looking horrified, not patient. She quickly swipes her hand back down from her face, pulling it tight into a fist in her lap to be covered by her other hand, her other fist, as she waits. The second Conner does look, her hands relax. There's the blue, even if only out of the corner of his eye, even if only peeking up from his slumped head—even if framed by what she knows rubbed off from his hands when he wiped his own tears. There he is. There he is.

Conner's eyes dart away, landing somewhere between the sky and the ground. "...I just don't get how you can look at me like that," he mutters.

"Like..." M'gann feels her brow furrow—eyes widening in realization, she tries to pull her face back to how it was seconds before. She must have been smiling, she realizes. She rubs her lips together into a lopsided line. "Like what?" she asks with a soft laugh to sell the smile.

"Same as you always do," Conner responds.

"Oh."

Conner's hand around his own wrist clenches it tight, shadows rippling across his knuckles.

M'gann's own hands sit uselessly in her lap, pinching at her sleeves. "Well... well, of course I can. Nothing about tonight changes anything, Conner, about how I see you, or... about who you are."

"'Course it does." Conner's hunched back goes as stiff and straight as a board. His eyes are somewhere else again, somewhere she can't see—like telescopic, microscopic, and infrared vision all at once, staring out, piercing inward, burning hot. "It should. I'm supposed to be over my Cadmus programming. They wanted a weapon, they got it."

"You're not a weapon, and they don't have you, Conner." M'gann's hand is halfway to his arm before she remembers; she makes it drop to the concrete instead, pressing her palm down firmly into rough and cold and willing the touch of her hand to reach him. Not as a psychic act. Just a wish. "Not anymore. And never again," she adds, pressing warmth and softness into her voice instead, as much as she can.

"Yeah, well, maybe they should." Conner sinks into himself again, curling tight. "I lost control," he says, voice thin and muffled by his chin against his chest. "Didn't even feel like it. It just felt... right. Like it's what I'm supposed to do, what I'm supposed to be."

"You're not."

"Says you."

"Don't I get a say in it?"

Conner's only response is a growl. M'gann bites her lip. Not the greatest comeback, she laments to herself. And we're fighting. Again. Her teeth release her lip to clamp down on her tongue instead. How do I win an argument with someone so set on losing? Her tongue starts to prickle under the pressure of her teeth. It shouldn't be a fight, or about me winning it—I just want him to understand. Her hands wring together in her lap. She's left with, stuck with words.

Her own and his.

"You said it... felt right," M'gann starts tenuously. "But now it... clearly doesn't, I-I mean, you pretty clearly feel now that it was wrong, know it was wrong..." It's a concession. I don't think you did anything wrong won't help—that much, she knows—and after I don't deserve to be treated like this, she can't even claim it as true. "You regret it now, right? Doesn't that count for something?"

Conner's head tilts up promisingly, his shoulders slipping up then back. His eyes stay narrow, and razor-sharp with light, as he keeps them looking out into the hazy darkness.

"...Doesn't change what happened," he says quietly.

"No, it... it doesn't," M'gann concedes. "But it... can change what it means. About you, it'd... be different if you weren't upset, if it didn't bother you, if you were proud of it... you'd be different. So this is you, you can't control now what's already happened, but you can control how you feel about it—I mean..." M'gann's eyes trail away from him, tracing the edge of the rooftop down to the corner in the distance. "As much as anyone can control how they feel. I know I sometimes have... trouble... too." No, we need to end this now, J'onn's voice commanded, cutting through the chaos seconds before contact, every second of it real until it was too real to stand. "You—" M'gann swallows, throat turning tight. "You... wouldn't say I'm better off as someone else's weapon, would you?"

"No!" Conner's voice hits her ear like a hot shock of breath coming from inches, not feet, away. "Why would I?" he adds; M'gann flinches, blinks, but doesn't look. The crackle in his voice alone puts sympathetic tears back in her eyes. Even blocking him off psychically, she can still feel the anger, the hurt.

"After..." Stop it, M'gann chides—begs—herself. It's too much, too much her for this, too much for him or anyone else to be burdened with. But there's no other way for her to put it. There's no other way she can think of to connect. "After the exercise—"

"That wasn't your fault."

Conner cuts her off on the end of an exhale, his own voice breathless as he rushes the words out of his mouth. M'gann pauses, then remembers to breathe back in. "I... I didn't do it on purpose, but it still—"

"Nobody blamed you. Not J'onn, not Batman." Denim and leather shuffle and shift, and Conner's voice gets both closer and softer. "Not me."

"I-I know—" Her height above ground catches up with her, every inch all at once, like it never has before—a thin edge of light gray, then murky darkness below—M'gann shuts her eyes. The tears budding out aren't from him now, just her own. She tilts her head back to keep them from falling—her head tells her she'll fall instead—with both palms to the concrete, she shakes her head, fighting back against the feeling. "B-But I just," she hiccups out, voice turning higher and thinner the more tightly-shut she forces her eyes. "I just mean—"

"M'gann."

Something locks around her elbow with a vice-like grip—"Agh!" flies out of M'gann's mouth on reflex, the sharp clench of her tendons shocking her eyes open. The world stops spinning—it all shrinks down to the hand now, even as its touch goes soft, light, then limp before he lets her go completely. Oh, no. No, no, nononono—

—Conner is already on his feet, veins popping in his wrist from the clenched-tight fist at his side. "Conner, no," M'gann tries, a featherlight feeling in her head as she rises too high too fast, feet flailing in the air for leverage to push off from. Conner's feet crack the concrete, every footfall another crunch as he stomps toward the corner of the roof, a blade's tip of light against wide open dark. Every crunch gusts out heat, like cracks in the earth itself—the world pulls down. Below is all spinning, and a sick kind of inviting—she feels the need, the hope, the disappointment for one act that will fix things, when the jump won't do it—

M'gann's toes curl in the air. What jump? I'm not going to jump. No—she gasps. This isn't me! These are his thoughts! Not again—both of us!

I have to stop this.

M'gann's eyes lock onto Conner—the hunch of his back is her target, and she has to get there now. Her body foregoes physics; sheer will sends her flying. The wind seethes in her ears, then chokes out on impact, just as a deep "umph" hits the inside of her own chest like a heart like a heartbeat. Without another thought, M'gann slings her arms around Conner's shoulders. Conner freezes. M'gann hooks her fingertips together over Conner's chest and pulls him back up, straightening his spine, rocking him back on his heels and nearly knocking him off of his feet. She sets her forehead against the top of his head and holds him still. It should be a hug. Even on her end, it feels like an attack. But her head, heart, and gut all tell her: anything less won't be enough.

"Let go," Conner grunts out, his neck and shoulders trembling with tension in his grip.

"No," M'gann huffs into the pocket of space between her face and the back of Conner's neck. Conner shivers, breath sharp and wet like a sob, and then his shoulders go slack. M'gann loosens her grip enough for her to slip d own and set her head into the crook of his neck. Her arms slide down to his waist, where he's narrow enough for them to lock around and press into him. Stretching one leg down, she taps toes to the concrete—it's all the anchoring she needs now. He's not jumping with her. And if he does jump, he's not jumping without her.

M'gann feels the growl start in Conner's chest before his voice can even reach his breath. "You can't help me, and I can't help you," he spits out through audibly bared teeth.

M'gann just turns her head to the side to press her temple into his neck instead, letting cold air wash back over her face. "That's not true. That's what I was trying to say before I..." She gulps. "Got... lost in thought. That wasn't very helpful, but I know what... could be. What I wanted to say. After the exercise, Black Canary said I need to practice until I gained control and regained my confidence. That's all you need, too! I..." M'gann drops her right hand past her left elbow until she finds his exposed arm, and—ignoring his twitch—she runs her fingers over his skin. "...Have to believe that, for you and for me."

Her fingertips can only reach as far as one or two of his knuckles. She ponders an extra arm—some strange growth from her hip—or willfully lengthened fingers—an all-too-familiar claw—before sliding her hand back up his wrist, finding the space just below his elbow, and squeezing as hard as she can. It's nowhere close to his grip, she knows, but she prays it makes her point: do it again. I'll do it, too. I know you're only ever trying to show me that you love me. I don't care if you do it wrong, just please let me try, too. I love you. I love you. Every part of her form curls tighter around him, down to the wrenching of her brow as she tries to push the thought out and into him without using her mind. I love you.

M'gann hears a sniffle, and then Conner's hand is over hers—barely, practically hovering, but the warmth of it seeps down into M'gann's skin. M'gann touches her other foot down to the concrete. Conner lets his hand weigh more substantially onto hers, and his thumb nudges its way in between her palm and his wrist. He sets his fingertips over hers, then with the faintest suggestion of pressure, wordlessly asks to fit them between hers. M'gann loosens her grip enough to oblige. Conner's fingers start to curl around her own, and at first, M'gann holds her hand still in gentle resistance; when his fingers slip through and under to wrap around her hand, however, she lets herself let go.

"Mmm," M'gann hums and sighs into Conner's back, feeling her cheek curve against the leather as she smiles. "See?"

"It's..." Conner starts, his voice a throaty whisper.

"...Yes?"

Conner's hand tightens around hers for a second—a twitch, almost like a fluke. M'gann feels his fingers slacken and a tremor run up his arm instead. "It's not that simple," Conner rasps, gravel in his voice. "You don't even know everything that's wrong with me."

M'gann curls her fingers into his, squeezing his rough, sticky knuckles. "I know that nothing is."

"I don't wanna hear that," Conner huffs. "Tell me something I'm gonna believe."

"I love you." Pushing herself up onto the tips of her toes, M'gann props her chin up on Conner's shoulder. "Do you believe that?"

"Yeah, I guess."

"You... you guess?"

Conner sighs a low, rumbling sigh, and turns M'gann's hand around in his. From over his shoulder, M'gann sees her own green palm nestled into his; his thumb pins hers back, opening her hand wider. She hears Conner's breath catch in his throat. Squinting, she sees it: a smudge of reddish brown barely peeking out from her palm's creases and shadows. Conner yanks his fingers out from between hers—friction like struck matchsticks leaves the back of her hand hot. M'gann grasps for his hand, but he drops it away. Rolling his shoulders, Conner tries to shrug her off like a coat—her body yields to the push, arms unlocking from around him, but when he takes one step away from her, she latches her hand around his wrist.

No guessing. I love you. "Conner."

Conner huffs, then turns his head enough to the side to address her, just not to look at her. "I got it on you."

"I got it on me, and I'd do it again!" M'gann declares. Hello, Megan, you're talking about blood, and someone else's to boot.

"Uh..."

"I... would rather not," M'gann clarifies, "but... my point is..." She shakes her head. "I'm not taking it back!"

"Fine," Conner then says. "Guess I don't guess. You..."

Yes!

Conner says nothing, seemingly losing the thought. Even without trying to check his mind, M'gann knows he hasn't.

"Say it." M'gann gives Conner's wrist a slow, firm squeeze. "Please."

"...You love me, I just don't get why," Conner fires back, adding the latter part quickly before the first part can sound like a victory.

Undaunted, M'gann wraps both hands around Conner's wrist and gives it a light tug. "Because you're you," she insists.

Conner scoffs. "Gonna need a better reason than that."

"I can't give a better reason when it's the best reason there is." Keeping hold of Conner's wrist, M'gann steps out form behind him to face him instead. Lifting up Conner's hand, she delicately presses it like a flower—like Quraci poison sumac, even, if she had gotten the chance—between both of hers.

"Stop it," Conner says, almost listlessly now, the least fight in it yet out of any of his objections.

"Well, why?" she asks.

Conner's head droops, but his face is tight again, eyes narrowed in a wince. "Because I can hurt you."

"You already said that. It didn't convince me the first time," M'gann says. "Why would it now?"

"Your arm," Conner answers.

"It's fine. All you really did was surprise me." The really makes it not a lie, M'gann decides. "And you snapped me out of a... well, something I needed to be snapped out of." Just like a hand through her chest—stop, M'gann pleads with herself, for her sake and his, everyone's—stop! "I want to help you, too," M'gann says in defiance of her own shortened breath, her own skipped heartbeat. "Is... pushing me away really helping?"

"No," Conner responds immediately. The way the line of his mouth skews and his eyes almost cross tells M'gann he may have meant to lie, or at least think before answering. M'gann can't help but smile. A reflex. A natural reaction. She'll never be able to look at him long without smiling again. And you don't get why I love you? she thinks at him. Isn't it obvious?

Conner doesn't hear her—of course—but her smile is enough to put a pleading look in his eyes for the split second before his eyes dart away, and his mouth curls into a firm grimace. "But you're not—making it easier," Conner then says. "'Cuz you're wrong. I—just—look. I don't—I don't like it. I'm not gonna let you just—like it was nothing to you, and nothing coming from me, and nothing you say is gonna change what could've happened when you don't even care—"

"C-Conner, I'm—not even sure what you're talking about, but of course I care about—"

"Exactly."

"Exactly what?"

Conner growls, his shoulders hunching up. "I was overprotective after the Reds. I get it. But why did—" The taut line of his mouth quivers. "Why did that bother you more than me trying to hurt you?!"

A prickling rush of anger brushes the edges of M'gann's psyche, leaving her cheeks hot. This time, it is aimed at her—in part. The wave recedes quickly, sucking back towards Conner and crackling in place around him. M'gann blinks herself out of her wide-eyed stare and makes the glare on Conner's face makes sense in her head. It's more anger at himself. She take a breath and shakes her head. "Conner, you've... never tried to hurt me."

Conner's glare turns no less intense but shifts to an almost pleading look, eyes turning liquid bright as the creases beneath them only darken. The wave from him sinks dizzyingly low. Hand to her head, M'gann tries to both think and not think about it. It's not a clue that she should have, and even though she has it, it doesn't help.

Until the low wave dips completely out of her perception for a moment, and the familiar chill up her spine solves it for her. That blankness. Hello, Megan.

"Wait, you... you mean in the alley?" M'gann asks. "You weren't trying to hurt me. I know that."

I know too much about that—

"No, you don't. You have no idea what's going on—I mean it." Conner's hand goes to his hip, fingers curling at the top of his pocket. "There's no way you could."

"A-Actually, I..." Shouldn't, but I— "Do, sort of, but..." M'gann swallows. "But only by accident, I promise."

Conner's hand drops to his side, and the crackling around him starts to billow, burst. "You read my mind?!"

"No! I—" On reflex, M'gann steps back as if the heat from him is physical. "Made no attempt to try to read your thoughts without you knowing, and I didn't read your thoughts, but I... could still overhear, almost, some feelings, w-without trying, I..." M'gann sighs. "I'm... still... I'm not sure how to say this... but I'm not—" Completely in control—no. Used to things on Earth—as if I ever liked how things were on M'arzz. "On M'ar—" The slip makes her pause. She's on Earth now. She can say it like an Earthling, because it's there and she's here. "On... M-Mars, there's a... basic shield up around every Martian's mind. Most intense emotions don't get broadcasted onto the psychic plane unless it's very much on purpose. On Earth... no one really has the power for that same kind of shield—no non-psychic, anyway. Instead of a two-way closed connection, I have to... block it out from my end, if it's... loud enough. I... really thought I was better at it by now—even before coming to Earth, I had to—" Hel-lo, Megan, T-M-I! "I—well, I... I couldn't block out your emotions. It's true, I... I don't know exactly what you were thinking, but... I know how you were feeling. The most detail I get is some very strong intent—a-and I wasn't quite getting that from you, back there, but—but that's how I know you absolutely weren't trying to hurt me, you just... wanted me to leave. I mean—" A laugh breaks out of her throat, quick and shaky and breathless. "That was clear enough from what you were expressing out loud, of course, but... a-as for the rest, the waves of it are like, well, um..." She tries to weave her hand through the air to illustrate—immediately, the wiggling motion of her wrist feels silly. And inadequate. For what she felt from him, she'd almost have to dance—the most joyless dance she could imagine. The clearest way to show that pain, Conner already performed himself: a fist into a wall. "I'll... stop," she assures him, pulling her hand into a still, tight fist instead, and putting it to her chest. "But it... it comes and goes, and there was enough of it coming that I... I just couldn't ignore it." The last words tumble out of her mouth in dismay, the force of the sigh that follows shoving her head and shoulders down. "Does..." She catches her breath and raises her head, biting her lip. "...Does any of that make sense?"

Conner's stare softens but turns inward again; his mind still feels like a campfire that she's put herself too close to. Roaring ripples, tight and contained, reach her head and echo in her chest, and little sparks of thought break off and flick out in her direction, nicking her skin. Whens and whats and whys—slips of anger, patters of shame, and a rush of something that she can't discern that only makes her mind want to focus, hone in and lean in, sink into his. If any time's the time to stop, it's now, M'gann, if you really are sorry—with a lump of guilt in her throat, M'gann forces a wall back down at the edge of her mind.

"What you said about..."

M'gann gulps.

"...Havin' a shield..." Conner continues, putting a hand to his wrist.

"Y-Yes?"

Conner's hand slides up his exposed arm, then back down, clutching his wrist. "...Never mind. Doesn't matter." Both his hands drop to his sides as loosely curling fists. "I... really made you... have t'feel all that, too?"

Oh, Conner. Hand at her chest, M'gann barely keeps herself from whimpering the thought aloud. "You didn't make me feel anything, Conner," she says instead, keeping her voice sturdy. "Or... at worst, I guess you could say you made me feel... powerless to help."

Which, to be honest, I still feel, M'gann thinks, almost says, but the fists at Conner's sides tighten, and M'gann hears the faint rumble of a growl.

"That's not it," Conner says firmly.

"You... don't believe me?" M'gann asks with a determined neutrality.

"I yelled at you and made you cry. Don't try to tell me that was anything else."

The hand at M'gann's chest slides down to her side. Oh. Right. She'd almost forgotten, almost lost track. Between his emotions and her own—between his emotions and her own, there's her, and she's supposed to be strong. She is strong. "Okay, you're right," M'gann says coolly. "I know how upset you were, and that it... wasn't really my fault, but that it came out in how you were responding to me. And that made me upset, too, even without adding in what I was feeling psychically. But you're so clearly sorry for that, that I really didn't even see the point in—"

"Don't." Conner slips his hands into his pockets and shrugs the shoulder of his jacket up to his ears again, crumpling himself up into another ball. "Don't forgive me this time."

"I—wh-what?"

"I keep saying sorry," Conner rasps, his eyes thin and hot in a glare pointed straight down at the concrete, or his own shoes. "I'm tired of it. Doesn't mean anything if I just keep messing up. Just keeps letting me off the hook 'til I do it again." His fists shove against the insides of his pockets, giving the leather of his jacket a hard thwap. "Like being sorry is my excuse," he grumbles into his own shoulder, sneering off at nothing—nothing but himself, M'gann knows, as if his reflection was there in the dark, hazy void. And as if he would recognize it.

If he could see himself through her eyes now, M'gann thinks, he'd never say anything like that again. This should be so simple. I love you. And I... I know you love me. Why is this so hard?

"Conner..." It's a start. Next step: M'gann brings herself back close to him. Conner takes a step back—M'gann matches it. Conner's hands stay in his pockets—with nothing else to hold, M'gann wraps her hands around her own arms, crossing her arms loosely over her chest. Conner's chest rises and falls under the armor of his jacket, the red S-Shield pulsing like a bare open heart. Love, love. For a moment, there's nothing else to feel. The next moment, there's love and everything else. M'gann sighs, feeling herself blinking too much. Tears could always come back. "I... want to forgive you," she says softly to keep herself steady. "Actually, I... I already do. But if I don't get to, then... then this will never go away, will it? And that means I have to keep feeling it, too. Please don't... do that to me, too. Me or yourself." Slowly, M'gann brings her eyes back up to Conner's, meeting his widening stare with a soft squint and fluttering lashes, trying to push a feeling out to him with just her eyes, not her mind: love, of course, and hope.

Please let this be enough, she prays again to whoever may be listening now, but most of all, to him.

"...Okay?" she adds, tilting her head to the side.

A bare, open sadness takes hold in Conner's expression—M'gann feels it with her eyes before any wave can reach her mind. Conner's liquid bright eyes slowly sink down past hers, lips parting and quivering in voiceless words. As softly as she can manage, her own mouth merely patting at air itself, M'gann starts to ask him what?—Conner finds his voice first, even if only a piece of it, raspy and low.

"...I'm sorry."

A smile breaks instantly across M'gann's face. A laugh wants to bubble up and pop out of her mouth—release and relief—but she holds it back, locking it behind the suddenly-aching curves of her cheeks. Conner still needs her to be soft. Looking at his eyes, it's easy. "I forgive you," M'gann says, and Conner's eyes shoot right back up to hers. For a moment, he just stares, but then with a flick of his eyes off to the side, he nods faintly.

M'gann then watches his eyes watch her hand rise to his cheek again. Letting her hand hover inches from his skin, she waits for an objection. Conner neither nods nor shakes his head. M'gann waits. Conner waits, too, unblinking. M'gann touches her hand down onto the side of his face. At first, there's the flinch—M'gann barely feels it as more than a twitch at the corner of Conner's mouth, but she hears his breath catch. Before she can pull back, though, Conner's heavy, wincing eyes close completely, and his head starts to droop into her hand. He leans his cheek into the curve of her palm and sighs deeply, puffing his breath onto her wrist.

Her lips want to kiss him everywhere, not just his lips. Her body wants to press a million I love you's, a million blessings, a million pieces of anything and everything good inside her into his skin, take away every spec of blood, sweat, dirt, or tears. Her body doesn't move. The weight of his head in her hand is enough to paralyze her, and she feels her mouth gaping open as she stares into his surrendering face, cold air on her tongue. Dampness from the edge of his closed eyelids reaches the tip of M'gann's thumb—the moment she feels it, the paralysis breaks. She strokes the top of his cheek, slowly but steadily, until the tear streak is gone, soaked into the pad of her thumb. Conner furrows his brow briefly but doesn't pull away, just sighs again into her hand.

Thank you, M'gann thinks to him, even if only in her own mind. For this. For the honor.

Keeping his head in her hand, Conner slowly opens his eyes. He dodges her stare at first, darting his eyes out towards other rooftops, then down at her feet and his own. At any moment, he could raise his head again and disconnect, but he doesn't—instead, his eyes rise to hers full of need. Thinking softness and light, M'gann feels the smile that her face gives him, sees it in her mind's eye: it's perfect. It has to be. It couldn't feel more important, and more real.

Conner doesn't smile back, but he nods against her hand. His own head inches up to hers; his fingertips brush her knuckles and the bone of her wrist, then fall back away. M'gann feels a twitch at the edge of his jaw, the top of his throat—Conner swallows, frown deepening, and lifts his head from her hand. Again, M'gann doesn't move. Whether or not she even could, she doesn't know—she doesn't think to try. Her hand stays empty in the air as Conner steps back, rubs at his wrist, and then slips his hands back into his pockets.

Was that... really enough? M'gann thinks, watching Conner's eyes watch her again. The look on his face turns from solemn to confused, then critical—his brow furrows, then one eyebrow quirks up at her. M'gann drops her hand back to her side. The fingers of both her hands reach back and curl into small fistfuls of her cloak, wringing at the folds.

"You, uh." Conner's voice comes out rough but thin, like speech is new again for him. The sound of it clearly bothers him; he clears his throat with a low, sharp cough behind a tightly-closed mouth, and his hand leaves his pockets to rub the back of his neck. "Guess we're—done here. You, uh, wanna go back and... y'know." Another cough, and his eyes are too bright in the darkness again. "See your... family?"

M'gann jolts. "M-My—"

"S'what they called you, right?" Conner says, kicking the heel of his boot against the concrete, knocking bits of rubble loose from the sole. "Thought it... makes you happy, so." He slips his hand back into his pocket and shrugs.

My daughter Megan—the memory gives M'gann fresh goosebumps, gets her heart racing in her chest again. But Superman—it isn't fair. This feeling in her heart, in her bones—Conner deserves it, too. They both have the Team—they both have friends—it's like a family, but...

...But now, she has something that he doesn't. Especially now. Superman saw a fluke, a slip, an overreaction—Conner couldn't be more sorry, and Superman may never know. May never care to learn—he said he wanted to get to know Conner, but that was before. It's not fair. It's not—

"M'gann?"

"Ah! Um..." M'gann blinks the tension out of her face, taking in a deep breath to regain her focus. "I... no, um... we... need to get back to the Cave to give our report to Batman, after all." She flexes a smile at Conner to cover her thoughts. I won't make you have to face another reminder of what's hurting you, she decides, half-regretting even stopping by the sanctuary at all—though her heart pulls back in the other direction. My daughter Megan. Marie's hand on her shoulder. Garfield bounding out of the house to greet them—both of them, her and Conner. That was for him, too. She's not sure how much it counts. Did you feel it? she wants to ask him, mind-to-mind. They love you, too. I love you, too. I love you. M'gann huffs a sigh out through her nose, biting the insides of her lips, and stomps her flat heel against the concrete. How do I help you?

"...Right," Conner says lowly, making M'gann jump back out of her head again, her teeth unclenching. Her eyes dart straight to Conner's—with a furrowed brow and lopsided frown, Conner looks her up and down for a moment, then sighs, rolling his eyes. "That'll be fun. I guess unless Superman's already reported me himself."

"Superman, a reporter?" flops out of M'gann's mouth. Oh, no. "Oh, no, I—can't imagine. I mean, after all, he—"

"Probably hasn't had the chance. Still busy with the assassin."

"R-Right, there you go, uh—oh. Right."

Conner shrugs faintly in response, but he's already inside himself again, too far for M'gann to feel any real reaction—not that she's supposed to. M'gann reaches for him nonetheless, if only by hand. He doesn't flinch as her fingers brush his arm. It's almost not a good thing. He looks at her hand like it's a leaf blowing past him in the wind. She presses her hand firmly into his shoulder, curling her fingers and stroking the leather with her thumb.

She does feel a wind. A short puff of air comes from behind Conner, kicking up tendrils of M'gann's hair. Bioship lifts herself off the surface of the rooftop and nudges herself forward a few feet, then touches back down, waiting. Even without optical sensors that readily resemble eyes, Bioship makes her stare felt. M'gann re-links with her. [Sorry, girl, I know you've been ready to go, and we've been ignoring you. We just... needed to talk first.]

Conner shrugs off M'gann's hand, turns, and starts a silent walk towards Bioship.

Not that I'm... sure it really helped, M'gann adds quietly to herself.

Bioship lifts up into the air again, spins herself around, and sets herself back down, opening her back port and letting down her ramp. M'gann swipes down the hairs that fly into her face and fights the urge to pull her hood back up. She might as well hide if she can't do any good, if she can't change anything. It's an uncomfortably familiar thought. Something opens inside her chest, some small part of her that she thought had been kept closed, pushed out of her new anatomy. A cold feeling leaks out.

The hands on either side of her neck fluff her hair out instead, pulling the end of every last strand out from under her cloak. On Mars, she gave up—on everything but Earth. She's here, she fights. Whatever that fight looks like. This one is love. She flies up to Conner's side. Once her feet touch back down beside his, she matches the pace of her footsteps to his. Her hand goes to his back.

I forgive you for everything that happened, not just what happened with me. Even though the assassin won't. Even if Superman never does.

Conner's eyes stay on the flickering, bobbing shadows cast by his and her footsteps.

I just... don't know how to make that matter to you.

M'gann lets her hand slip from Conner's back.

But I won't stop trying.

She wraps her hand around his at his side, threading her fingers through.

Conner slows, but doesn't stop. His fingers don't curl into hers, but he doesn't pull away.

"The attempt on President Harjavti's life was a failure."

The screen is blank and it's full. The dots go nowhere but don't stop.

"Do not mistake the enemy's failure for your own success," Batman then says, white eyelets of his mask going narrow. "That Rumaan and Sumaan Harjavti are alive comes down to sheer force of luck."

The buzzing sits in Conner's head, a low crackling, muffled hissing.

Right as "luck" hits, M'gann's heart unmistakably skips a beat. Out of the corner of his eye, Conner checks on her—if not for that heartbeat, he may not have caught the anxious twitch in her brow. The empty space on his bare wrist itches, a brief lick of flame from under his skin. One spark. That's all it takes.

"Luck? You mean Superman," Conner spits back at Batman, clenching his fist and letting the resulting pulse stifle the itch. "You didn't trust us to begin with. Why else send him?"

Soft fuzz. It's comfortable.

"...So in a way, I guess you could say Sumaan Harjavti saved the day!" M'gann's voice filters in over the fuzz.

"Oh, c'mon. That was luck"

That isn't her. It's almost, but it isn't.

"I, um, well, it—"

That's her.

Batman only glares, but he has a heart, too—M'gann's thumps louder, but Conner hears something. M'gann's heels clicking against the metal floor block out any further hint of the sound. He hears her "hm!" under her breath, if at herself.

"Was Superman meant to be part of the mission?" M'gann then asks Batman, her voice barely about a murmur, but her eyes so resolute that, on reflex, Conner gulps.

"...Superman was on his own mission," Batman says.

Whatever that means. Conner spins the TV remote in his hand, each of its four corners taking turns pressing into his palm.

"I'm willing to bet no assassin shows up to the job with one bullet in the gun, if you catch my drift," Marie Logan says, voice tinged with its own static.

"I recognize the likelihood that Superman was a distraction," Batman says, "but one by now you should be able to handle."

There's nothing to say. He's right.

"But..."

M'gann wobbles on her feet; Conner watches her gloved hands form tightly-curled fists at her sides, and then she stands firm. "We did end the threat."

'We'—

"Oh, well, yes—that was Conner!" M'gann cheers.

The remote's plastic body clicks in Conner's grip. Her hand, too. He thought he saw it, and had to know. He was right. The blood. Just from touching him—just from him letting her.

"Your objective is always to neutralize the enemy." Batman takes one step towards M'gann. Another spark. "Not eliminate."

"...And?" says one of the voices coming from M'gann's room—almost hers, again, but off. Metallic tinge. Slightly too deep.

"Oh, it's—nothing, just..." M'gann that time. It's clear.

"She didn't do it." Ignoring the quiet gasp behind him, Conner stomps his way to the center of the mission room floor. "You're talking to me," he tells Batman, gesturing with his thumb at himself, at the red S-Shield on his own chest—whatever it should mean, it's his. It's him.

"I guess... between him and Superman, I just..." M'gann pauses, and a soft thumping starts in the back of Conner's head, faster than the static on the TV can ripple. The pocket at his hip is empty, its secret buried under layers of black t-shirts in his room. All the power left to reach for is in the remote's small rubbery buttons.

Batman meets Conner where he stands and glowers down at him. "I know" is all Batman says.

"...Don't think I managed to be much help at all," M'gann says.

Conner throws the remote out of his hand. One weak bounce across the couch cushions, and the remote lands face-up with a dull thup. NO SIGNAL stays up on the screen.

[Conner?! Conner!] M'gann's voice brings him back. "Oh, Conner, you—" M'gann's hand goes to his cheek—he just doesn't let it touch him. "The mission is over. So I go back to being your girlfriend now. Right?" She almost cries again, but just hugs him instead. "Conner, I love you," she says simply. "Don't tell me not to say it." He keeps pushing—she keeps catching him. "I want you. I love you. Do I... deserve to lose you?" She looks at him like there's nothing wrong with him. "You regret it now, right? Doesn't that count for something? If it didn't bother you, if you were proud of it... you'd be different. So this is you." She says it like it's a good thing.

Then one touch and she screams, and he knows she's wrong. He knows he's wrong. He's wrong. He's wrong—

"—Oh, please. You're sixteen," Marie says, her signal momentarily cutting in crystal clear. "Both of you. It's a miracle at your age if you even do your homework."

"Oh—ohh," M'gann responds to her, sounding confused. Conner takes a breath and hears himself shudder. His eyes and cheeks are hot again, like heat vision trying to burn through. He knows, of course, that it isn't that—instead, it's an ability that he's never wanted. Not even a power. A weakness. He checks his cheek—it's dry, at least.

"You are doing your homework, right?" Marie then asks. "I get your bit about civics credit was just cover for the press."

Conner's brow furrows. What's it to you?

"Oh, of course!" M'gann responds eagerly. "It's—" Thump. Deep screech of a zipper. A quick, thin scraping noise—the clatter of tiny firecrackers going off. Paper avalanche. "Um, somewhere in all this—" Papers start shuffling, scritching and flapping against each other. "I-I mean, it is all this. Civics is just, well..." More smacking—Conner winces, tries to put the static buzz back closer in his ears to soften the blows. "A-Actually, Mr. Carr doesn't really give a lot of homework, he just tells us to watch the news, um..."

"Uh-huh. This is starting to sound flimsy," Marie says.

She said she doesn't have any civics homework, Conner thinks, gritting his teeth. Down the back of his neck and inside his wrists, his skin prickles.

"I just... wasn't expecting you to ask!" M'gann keeps her cheer, but Conner hears the anxious edge in her voice. "I..."

"...Uh-huh?"

Conner waits. Without a thought, his eyes are off the screen and down the hall. No X-ray vision—he can only peer so far before hitting solid rock.

"C'mon," Marie prods, but there's a laugh in it. Not at M'gann—Conner thinks. But M'gann's heart fills the silence with quietly-building adrenaline. The static is gone. His head is just her.

"I don't... need... any help with my homework," M'gann finally says.

She sounds... sorry.

"If—If I knew, I would have... saved it," she adds. A tiny crinkle, then a deep breath. "Is... is that really not something that just happens on TV?"

Something cold and heavy drops down into Conner's chest. He slumps back into the crook of the couch. Right. Kids and parents. His eyes fall to the uncurling fists atop his knees. That 'quality time' I've heard so much about. "I try not to live or die over getting his approval," Icicle Jr. had said—good thing I don't either, I guess, or else I'd be dead, Conner thinks.

"...They didn't want you, did they?"

Conner's breath catches; M'gann's high, sharp gasp cuts through his head, right through a string behind his eyes. Heat rushes to the surface, blistering—his eyes water to cool it down, make it stop, get it out—he knows what this is, again. He holds his eyes shut and clamps a hand around his head to hold it in.

M'gann sniffles. "W-What?" she responds, her wet breath shaking with a stifled sob—whether Marie hears it, Conner doesn't know. What matters is that he does.

He's on his feet in an instant. Wolf raises and tilts his head at him, twitching an ear.

"If I hear it, I know you do," Conner mutters to him. "We proved that," he adds, remembering being the one thing alive with less than four legs that can hear this frequency, Superboy—

—Luthor in his head, even as a memory. Conner growls and shakes the thought out.

"Please, don't take this the wrong way, I'm still not mad," Marie's voice flickers into his head instead. "But accepting Gar and me as family was one thing—"

"Me accepting you?" M'gann interjects, a spike in her heartbeat and urgency in her voice. "I—uh—mmn. I'm sorry. ...Go on?"

"But M'gann, I'm not psychic, but I didn't just hear that 'really' in my head when I called you my daughter. I felt it. And I know this much: a kid that needed to hear someone say they're theirs that badly hasn't heard it enough before."

That 'really' in her head—private link, Conner deduces—not that any of it wasn't obvious. He'd said it himself: this makes her happy. They make her happy. And he makes her—cry. Hide. Yelp. Make excuses for him. Talk him down. Hold his hand.

Wolf grumbles and sets his head back to the floor. His eyes stay on Conner. Conner drops back down onto the couch cushions, bouncing the remote again with no effect on the static. He might as well not move. He's not needed in there.

"I... wouldn't say that it was... quite like that..." M'gann's voice returns to his ears, quiet but steady. Careful. "Me and... them. I just... wasn't... what they... thought I would be. I'm... I'm not what they thought I would be. But... this is... who I am. I... I tried. I think... they tried, too? But it—just—" Paper crackles, crumples. "It just wasn't going to work." M'gann's voice flickers between a whisper and a sob. "Nothing was—"

"You can stop there, Megan. I'm sorry," Marie says, her voice a static-tinged but still soft rasp. "I know exactly what you're talking about."

"...Really?"

Conner hears—and feels—that one this time. Right along the insides of his arms. The empty space between them. The pockets of air left in his hands as his fingers curl into fists.

"Really," Marie answers back. "Your friends accept you, and so do Gar and I. That is family."

"Thank you," M'gann says, just like before. The moment plays back in Conner's head like an old tape, her leaving his side to go running into Marie's arms. He can see the smile on her face now, even without X-ray vision and without budging. If he were a good boyfriend, he thinks, the mental picture wouldn't hurt. He'd be smiling, too. A knot forms in his chest—it pulls at the inside of his stomach. Nothing's wrong—with any of this—her there, her happy, him here, Superman—somewhere. Anywhere but here. It's how it is. It's how it's going to be. Conner's head already accepts that. The tension is still in his chest. The empty, quivering ache is still right under his ribs—

Superman is anywhere but here, and he should be, too. Conner rises to his feet again. He's going. He's gone.

"Fin-ished!" says a third voice from M'gann's room—familiar enough, but neither M'gann's nor Marie's. Process of elimination says that it's Gar. "Hey, sis!" confirms it.

"Hi, Garfield," M'gann responds, sounding breathless with relief. Good, Conner thinks, walking past the remote, then past Wolf, ignoring Wolf's groan of confusion. Good for her. "What's that?" he still hears M'gann ask. It doesn't matter. He needs air. Even just in his head, he can see the sky above the mountain, and see himself in Supercycle taking off. Moon, sun, even stars—doesn't matter. Just the darkness. Just going and gone.

"My report," Conner still catches Gar saying proudly. "Where's Superboy?"

Conner freezes in his tracks.

"Uh-um, Conner?" M'gann half-yelps.

Marie chuckles. "Are there any other Superboys we should know about?"

No, Conner thinks immediately. Project Match sits in a pod, frozen over like a corpse. There was nothing he could do, nothing he can do—even with the pulsing in his wrist—

"N-No, of course not!" M'gann's anxious laugh pings against the rock walls around him like a bullet bouncing off the back of his head. "He's just..." Her heartbeat starts to trickle in like a release from a valve. Like blood from a wound. "He's, um, just... after today, and everything, he just... well..."

"...Is he okay?" Marie asks lowly.

"Don't answer that," Conner blurts out, as if him hearing M'gann means M'gann can hear him. And if she can feel him... he's not sure what she's feeling. The most detail I get is some very strong intent, she'd said, and I wasn't quite getting that from you. He'd wanted gone. He wanted to just disappear—he's still here, listening to them. And listening to himself ruin it for her without even trying.

He knows that's the last thing that he wants to do.

Conner pivots and runs. He's no Wally, but he clears the living room in seconds, passing Wolf's swishing tail and the still-buzzing screen. He turns down the hall, grazing the entrance with his shoulder—if anything crumbles, he doesn't hear it, and doesn't stop to look.

I'm coming.

"I... think... he..."

M'gann stalls as if she knows. Conner passes several unclaimed rooms, then Zatanna's—he stops himself at M'gann's with a palm against the rock wall, keeping his head from colliding with the metal door. He pictures his head busting through it anyway—yeah, I'm fine, why wouldn't I be? he says to himself sarcastically, imagining saying it to them.

Then Conner freezes, staring down his own shadow and his own blurred reflection in the door's smooth silver surface. Even without that kind of entrance, he still has to say something.

"Um..." M'gann keeps stalling.

Conner growls at his own hesitance, then he knocks on M'gann's door, giving it two quick taps with the side of his fist. The door ripples like a clap of thunder. M'gann gasps. Papers rustle and crash.

Conner slaps his hand against his forehead, runs it down over his eyes. The ripple leaves a ringing both in his head and the air above it, reaching up to the ceiling. Stupid—

"Are... we a secret, all of a sudden?" he hears Marie ask.

"Oh, no!" M'gann responds quickly. "Just, um, force of habit, b-but that's him now, I bet!" Papers swish and scritch. "Uh, come in!"

The ringing fades out from the impact, leaving M'gann's rippling heartbeat as the only thunder in Conner's ears. Of course it's me, he thinks, gritting his teeth. No one else could get this wrong, too. All the same, he floats his hand over the control panel.

Blinking cursor, blank lines, number pad.

"It's locked," Conner grunts out at M'gann through the door.

"Oh! Um—" A soft thud, a dull creaking. "Right," M'gann whispers under her breath. "Uh, coming!" she then calls out for everyone to hear. Footsteps bring her breath and heartbeat closer. Conner huffs out a sigh and makes his jaw unclench. Whatever she sees when she opens the door, whatever they'll see, it will be wrong. But it will be him.

Get what you ask for, Conner tries in his head, readying his defense. If they want him as a part of this, if she still wants him as a boyfriend—

The door slides open. M'gann, in her human skin, looks straight up into Conner's eyes, pure astonishment in her face. Her eyes look bright but sore, red at their edges. Her cheeks are red, and redder as he stares back at her. He almost looks away, but M'gann gives him a nod into her room, a smile settling into the corners of her closing mouth before her lower lip disappears under her teeth.

"I, um, it's them," she then says just above a whisper, releasing her lip. "Do you..."

"Yeah, fine," Conner responds with a glance toward her lamp, to EARTH above her bed in all red letters—anywhere else. He braces himself to be led again, just like early, when she called him her boyfriend in front of that reporter—no matter what, his hand cannot move. She'll sense what's still in him the moment her touch makes him flinch. Not the Shield—everything else. Everything the Shield drowns out.

M'gann just steps aside, her hands around each other, her smile aimed at her laptop screen. Her heart gives a momentary spike, then it's normal again. What's behind her smile, Conner can't tell from his angle, and what she's sensed from him—

Maybe nothing. Maybe this just is normal, his normal.

"Yay, Superboy!" Gar cheers from the screen, green eyes wide and bright. Conner just stares for a moment, forgetting to match the joy to the name and the name to himself in his head. Above Gar, Marie smiles but cocks an eyebrow at Conner. Conner blinks himself back to alertness. Right, he reminds himself. Don't blow this for M'gann.

"Hi," Conner says aloud flatly, raising his hand in a gesture like a wave. Immediately, he knows it's not enough.

Immediately, it's accepted anyway. "We stole your idea about writing a report on the impeachment hearings," Marie says. "Gar's been working on his."

"M'gann made that up," Conner supplies factually. He hears how it sounds. "I mean... don't give me credit," he adds.

Marie chuckles. "Extra or otherwise, huh?" She lifts a sheet of paper into view and plucks her glasses up from the neck of her shirt. Opening them up and slipping them onto her face, she looks at the paper and gives a lopsided smirk. "None for you either," she says looking down at Gar.

"What?" Gar snatches the paper back from her and looks at it, eyes darting across its surface. "What's wrong with it?"

"One sentence is not a report," Marie states coolly as she hangs her glasses back on her shirt.

M'gann's stifled giggle hits Conner's ear, a low, soft fluttering of her voice.

Gar crosses his arms, smugly tilting his head up in the air. "Then it's a headline," he counters. "You know, like a report, but the only part anybody reads."

M'gann snorts. Her hand flies up to cover her nose.

"Mm-hmm," Marie hums. Both the corner of her mouth and her eyebrow twitch. Her blue eyes keep it strange, but in some form, Conner knows he's seen that face before—M'gann's form. Over Wally's shoulder, just a hint of sarcasm—humoring, but kind.

Conner blinks, and blue eyes win out. Marie is alien again—no matter what he is, or half-is. Yeah. 'Family resemblance,' all right, he remarks to himself in his head. The moon fills in the space around the thought, carrying along Superman's descending silhouette and the no in Superman's eyes when Conner raised his S-Shield. Family resemblance—nothing Superman can do about that, he thinks.

"...If it's a headline," Marie then says, "then it's too long."

Gar flops his arms down at his sides. Through the laptop speakers, the sheet of paper in his hand gives a weak patter as it snaps against air. "I thought it was too short!"

"For a report," Marie says, plainly smiling now. "Not to mention it's embellished."

M'gann lets out a full laugh. The delight in her eyes—maybe he has seen it, or come close. First day of school, cheerleading tryout. Close, but not close enough—he can't dismiss it, can't look away. She doesn't even notice his stare. He's barely even there.

"What does it say?" M'gann asks, bouncing on her heels.

Marie smiles at her, very gently rolling her eyes. "All it says is 'Superboy punched the bad guy in the face.'"

Fire erupts under Conner's skin. He tried. It's done. This time, he is gone. M'gann gasps discreetly enough, but she feels it, he's sure—"Exactly, what's wrong with that?" Gar quips. Good. They don't know. Keep it that way. Conner moves his feet, starts to turn—

M'gann's hand on his back freezes him.

"For starters, that's adding detail you can't confirm," Marie says.

Gar scoffs. "I totally can! Hey, Super—"

"—Number two, for a report on the impeachment hearings, I'm not hearing a lot of impeachment."

"Meh, that's the boring stuff," Gar says with a wave.

M'gann's fingertips press into Conner's back. Conner waits for a flicker in his head. Tell me something that's going to convince me to stay, he dares her. Tell me it's okay. His throat turns tight. Please.

He thinks it, but he hates the thought. It doesn't matter—her touch inside his mind never comes. It's fine, Conner thinks to himself. Wouldn't've believed it anyway.

"Oh, you're right," Marie says to Gar teasingly. "It is the grown-up stuff."

Gar looks at Marie with wide eyes, then crosses his arms, crumpling the paper between them and his chest. "Fiiiine," he lets out, throwing his head back and rolling his eyes.

Marie gestures for the paper back. Gar keeps one arm to his chest as he hands it to her, then keeps his arms crossed as he waits. Marie smooths the paper's creases out. "Call it a rough draft," she says, scratching the top of Gar's head. Instantly, Gar drops the pout—like it's rehearsed, or programmed in—just instinct—Gar ducks and grins, wiggling his head in time with the touch. "We'll save it for later," Marie says.

"Ohh-kaaay," Gar moans with a smile, then he accepts the paper back. He runs out of frame, the sound of no more than two footfalls picking up on the call before he's gone, but Marie stays looking in his direction, smiling warmly.

It's real life, not a TV show, but it's on the other side of a screen, and Conner knows: just seeing this can make M'gann feel like a part of it. Or at least, like she could be. It's how she lived before. It's why she's here now. It's the only reason he has her: that hope—that need—but that hope for something better.

He tries to feel it. He can't. Whatever is supposed to be in him to make him able, Cadmus left out. A weapon didn't—doesn't—need it.

Marie looks at Conner and M'gann again. "I know, he's eight. But he likes acting like an adult so much that sometimes I like calling his bluff." She winks, then shrugs faintly. "Consequence of no time around kids his own age, I'm afraid."

Conner's eyes fall past the laptop screen and down into the fake sky on M'gann's floor, settling into the empty space between two white star shapes. "Yeah, I know how it is. I'm the only I know that's eight months. Force-grown in a pod by the bad guys and all that."

Marie says nothing. M'gann sucks in air through her teeth, and her hand at Conner's back curls around a fistful of his shirt. You wanted me here, Conner throws back at her, still not looking at—or feeling—her or anyone. This is what you get. The thought bounces against the walls of his own head.

"Eh, Gar was IVF," Marie then says. "And I've birthed a live oryx by hand that was, let's say, stuck. There's no way into the world that isn't weird." She hums a laugh. Conner looks up to see her shrug and smirk. "We're just happy you're here. And, if it's any consolation, you're a very mature eight months."

Marie gives him a smile that, seconds ago, was just meant for her son.

"Uh..." Conner's cheeks turn hot. The words start to sink into his chest—like his insides are all soft and thin, easy to break, ready to dissolve. Seep out. Like a cut from the right blade, letting heat rise to the edges of his eyes. Conner grits his teeth and swallows, wanting everything steel again, like it's supposed to be. He forces air in—all he needs—and M'gann's hand rides the wave of his back, then slides up to his shoulder, rubbing it softly, carefully.

Without even looking, he can see her face. Tonight alone, he's seen the expression enough times to know. She says there's nothing wrong with him, and then acts like he's about to self-destruct. "Thanks," Conner says flatly at both M'gann and Marie, if only to get their eyes off of him.

M'gann's hand goes still, but doesn't leave his back. "Well, I... I should probably go get dinner started," she says. "It's already so late."

Conner rolls his shoulder forward and steps out of her touch. No. No way I'm letting you let me ruin this. "I'll go," he states. "You don't." It comes out like a command. "...Don't have to, that is," he adds, just to soften it—slightly. He means it: don't leave them. Just let me go.

"You mean no one's making you dinner?" Marie asks, voice cutting louder through the speakers than before. M'gann's heartbeat spikes to match it as her hand drops away from Conner. "The Justice League doesn't just stash you two away in a cave alone, do they?"

"Oh, no, there's three of us now!" M'gann assures her. "It's... not under happy circumstances, I'm afraid, but..."

Losing a dad—Conner knows objectively, intellectually, that it hurts. The rest is an empty space inside him that feels like a gap in his DNA. He keeps it empty. Nothing in him that could fit there is anything he wants to feel.

Zatanna had a dad to lose, and had a normal reaction. He'd thought Superman was dead, and all he felt was relief.

"...But we're... trying to make her feel at home," M'gann continues, "and the rest of the Team hangs out here all the time! It really is like a clubhouse. I... think at first no one wanted to call it that, because it made it sound... less serious, but—"

"Okay, so I'm hearing a lot of minors and no adult supervision."

"Oh, no, Red Tornado is our den mother!" M'gann says, clapping her hands together. "He lives upstairs."

"Red Tornado..." Marie's own hand rises into frame. "Wait, don't tell me, I'll think of it in a minute."

"Mo-om, c'mon," Gar calls out from wherever he is. Moments later, he's back at Marie's side. "Robot, wind powers. He makes tornadoes! Duh."

"Riiight." Marie nods solemnly. "And I'm guessing he's purple."

Gar throws his head back and whines, fists out at his sides. "Moooom!"

Conner waits to hear M'gann laugh again. He almost smiles himself—his mouth seems to remember how, at least, as he feels one corner try to twitch up, but his lips stay heavy and stuck. M'gann stays quiet.

"Where have you been?" Marie asks Gar.

"Looking for Monkey," Gar responds.

M'gann's eyes are on Conner instead of the screen. Conner frowns down at her. Look at them, not me, he thinks—if he thinks it hard enough, she'll hear it, feel it.

M'gann keeps staring at him with a face that he can't read. A heartbeat starts in his head that could be hers, but feels like his own.

"Well, did you find him?" Marie asks Gar.

Slowly, M'gann's eyes drift away form Conner, but her brow furrows, and her hand wrings at the fabric of her skirt.

Whatever. Conner looks back at the screen.

Gar's hands go to his hips. "Nope!" he says with a wide grin.

"Oh, boy." Marie rolls her eyes back to M'gann and Conner. "Sorry, guys, but I think we have to sign off for the night. But we're not done talking about dinner. Christmas, Eve or Day, both of you, if you're not busy saving the world."

"Really?!" M'gann jumps and latches onto Conner's arm. Conner lets the bounce of her body against his make him sway. It's easier than a reaction—to her or to the invitation. Too many thoughts crash into each other at once—who should be inviting him, if he even cares about Christmas, if he even belongs there, if he even belongs here, and M'gann holding onto him with both hands—

M'gann releases his arm.

Fine. One fewer direction for his mind to spin in. His thoughts get simpler from there: his hands were on him. He watches them disappear as she tucks her arms behind her back.

"Really," Marie says, smiling and nodding. "And if you don't mind vegan. Actually—even if you do."

M'gann giggles. It sounds at least half-earnest. One hand leaves her back to pull at a lock of her hair.

"Bye-ye!" Gar waves at the screen with both hands—one for each of them, Conner guesses. It would make sense. "Bye, Superboy! Bye, sis!"

M'gann releases her hair to offer her own wave, though while keeping he rhand close to her chest. "Bye, Gar!"

"Bye, you two," Marie says, leaning forward and looking off to the side, squinting.

"Bye, M—mmn." M'gann bites her mouth shut, lips disappearing into a firm line. "Mm... mm-hmm, g-goodbye!"

"Mom, we need a new computer," Gar says, leaning over Marie's shoulder.

"It's just our signal. Miracle it held up this long," Marie responds, still squinting.

Gar's finger nearly pokes through the screen, his shadowed, blurry hand blocking both him and Marie from view. "Right there, Mom," he says, sounding exasperated.

"Gotcha."

They disconnect. On the screen, M'gann's digital reflection knots her hand into her hair and squirms at Conner's side. Conner just stands there, board-stiff, arms limp. Weapon deactivated.

Eventually, the screen goes black.

"Was... that okay?" M'gann asks him.

Conner's eyes go to hers on reflex at the sound of her voice, but the moment they connect, he looks away. The mirror in the corner sits at the wrong angle for him to see himself again—or see her, with him. "Don't ask me," he mutters back to her. They're your—he swallows—family.

"Oh, no," M'gann says softly. "I meant... for you."

Conner clenches his teeth. "Yeah, why wouldn't it be? We were just there this morning." Thought you said nothing about tonight changes how you see me, he thinks, keeping his mouth shut. But his mind is—loud and messy and defective, and the wrong thing could come out of it. The wrong thing could even feel right. "You think I'm jealous?" Conner asks M'gann, bracing himself for the answer—if it's yes, he deserves to hear it, to know just how bad he is—

"N-No!" M'gann's hands fly up in defense. "No, not... exactly that." Her voice is soft again, held back in a muted rasp, as her fingers curl closed. "But... I just thought—"

"You tell me 'exactly' then," Conner commands her. "What do I feel?"

What am I supposed to feel—

"I-I can't... tell how you're feeling, Conner, honestly." M'gann's lips curl in tight, and there's more light in her eyes than there was a second before. Her cheeks start to redden. Conner holds his breath. M'gann lets hers out heavy through her nose, heaving her shoulders. "That's why I was asking."

Conner releases the breath, but his throat stays tight. "I don't wanna talk about it." The back of his neck prickles with heat; he only raises his hand to rub it once he's taken a step away from her, feeling too big and too close. "I'm fine." Conner's eyes pick through purple and white carpet fibers again, wander over to M'gann's black shoes and up her tall white socks before darting back to the black-screened laptop, then the empty mirror. Nothing makes the pulsing any weaker in his ears or in his veins. He can't blame the Shield. This is him. "I'm fine," Conner argues at air, and at his own cells. "You gonna try 'n' tell me I'm not?"

His eyes shoot back to M'gann's face as he says it. She's a target, an endpoint. If he hurts her, then he's right, and he doesn't have to fight it anymore. She's strong enough that she might even say it—even if she won't, he knows her eyes will: I give up. There's too much wrong with you.

Her eyes almost say half of it: something's wrong with you. But no matter how he stares, he can't find the accusation in it. Something's wrong. That's all. And absolutely no give up—just a plea. Help me. Help me fix you.

It's just her expression, not a transmitted thought, but it's enough. He hit his target. It just doesn't mean anything gets to stop.

"...I'm sorry," Conner then says, for her sake.

I want to forgive you, she'd said. Actually, I already do. But if I don't get to, then...

"...For what?" M'gann asks, a hint of a smile forming at the corner of her mouth.

...Then this will never go away, will it? And that means I have to keep feeling it, too. Please don't... do that to me, too.

The smile is meant. It just isn't right. "Making you... look at me like that again," Conner answers her, barely keeping his eyes on her, fighting the pull to look anywhere else again and escape.

"I'm... sorry if I'm looking at you in a bad way." M'gann turns her head and puts up her hand to block her eyes from his view. Her thumb hides the corner of her mouth, but Conner sees her smile go flat, her lips firming up into a thin line.

"Stop it," Conner barks out. M'gann drops the hand on command but keeps her eyes averted, shooting an anxious laugh and a quick shrug of her shoulders towards her room's back wall instead. Conner holds back a growl. Stop letting me do this. "I'm the one that barged in here in the middle of your call."

M'gann's head jerks back his way. "Oh, that's perfectly alright—they were asking about you!"

"I know."

"Oh—ohh." Instantly, M'gann's smile deflates again. "You... heard everything, didn't you."

Conner slips his fists into his jean pockets and shrugs. "None of my business. 'Specially since your door turned out locked."

You wanted me out, he thinks. It's not an accusation. Had enough of me for one day. He shrugs again just at the thought. You and me both. A knot still wants to form and rise up through his chest, sit sin his throat—I get it, he asserts to himself to force it down.

I'm sorry wants up and out of him instead, just for that. For her locking her door, like he demands she have a reason, and that reason be him.

M'gann looks at him with a wince and the slightest jump of her shoulders, and another sorry inside him pushes up against the first. M'gann's head starts to shake. "I... wasn't trying to keep you out, Conner, actually, I just... hadn't told you yet, and I wanted to—" She rolls her eyes and bops the side of her head with her palm. "Hel-lo, Megan! It really was silly, wanting to wait for the perfect moment when it's something as practical as opening a door."

Conner feels his brow furrow. "Wait for what?"

"Well... your birthday!" M'gann says. "I-I mean not... wait for your birthday to ever let you back into my room—" She lets out a nervous laugh. "But... I finally assigned the passcode to my room, and I wanted to pick numbers that were special, so I... picked ones that would make me think of you, every single day." M'gann blinks fast as her cheeks turn bright red, and she holds her arm by the elbow, swaying in place. Less than an inch above her hand is where he'd touched her in a way that made her cry out; Conner's own hands turn cold as his eyes focus in, picking through orange freckles for any sign of a green bruise. "Not that I... don't already," M'gann continues, "but—"

Suddenly, M'gann goes still. The sound of her voice stops. The sound of her heartbeat doesn't, but Conner's own heartbeat spikes inside him—he's the only one that can hear it, save for Wolf if he's awake.

"Conner?" M'gann's hand slips down to her wrist. Conner watches her knuckles flash white as she squeezes her wrist tightly. Conner blinks, shakes his head. Right. Door code. Birthday.

Birthday?

"Why?" leaves Conner's mouth the moment it enters his head. It comes out angry. Immediately, M'gann recognizes that—Conner hears it in her heart and sees it on her face. He doesn't recognize it in himself. It's not anger at her—what he feels at her is something else, something deeper that hurts but makes him feel featherlight all at once—almost like the Shields. The anger is—Cadmus. The pod. Luthor.

There's no way into the world that isn't weird. We're just happy you're here, Marie had said in a voice so close to M'gann's—and that M'gann's is allowed, welcomed to be so close to. Said back to himself in his head, the words feel like nothing now.

M'gann wants something special from him, and all he can give her is a start date.

"I don't have a birthday," Conner says succinctly, no fight and no sorry. It's just what he is.

"Of course you do! It's the first day there was... you in the world! It's right there in the data Robin accessed from Cadmus the night they found you. He showed me. And it's the first day of spring, which I think is just... perfect for the person who brought me flowers just this morning."

M'gann puts her hands to her hips and holds her head up proudly. He didn't always see it at first—he didn't know her well enough—but when she talks and smiles like that—sing-song emphasis, big stance—she's trying to be Megan. Not herself, but what she wants herself to be.

It doesn't matter what new name for him they settled on. He's never going to fit into her fantasy.

"That was poison sumac," Conner reminds her, gritting his teeth.

"Well..." M'gann's smile deflates, and her brow furrows. "I-I know, b-but—you're not! Not poisonous, or dangerous, and absolutely not—"

Conner puts up a hand. "I know, don't say it, don't even think it, I'm your boyfriend." He drops the hand, waving in dismissal. "Already heard it."

"...Did it really not help?"

Conner gulps. "What?"

"I thought... when I kissed you, it... felt like you were smiling." M'gann's hand wraps back around her elbow. "And I felt... a warmth coming from you in the link like... you were happy." She looks straight into his eyes as if looking for confirmation, or denial. Conner just stares back. The moment he finally manages to blink, M'gann looks away. "I know what came later, and I know how it hurt, but—" M'gann holds her mouth firm, but her brow quivers. "But, at the time, I really thought it... if only for the moment." Her hand rises up and flicks at her bangs, but Conner sees the heel of her palm wipe the corner of her eye as she turns her face away. "I know that's not enough, but I—"

"It—It's not that," Conner fumbles out. "I'm just—" Ruining everything again. "Bein' sarcastic, I guess. Forget—or don't. Probably shouldn't. I don't know." All the powers he does have, all the more he can get, all the things in his head, and he can't do this. "I don't..." The veins in his wrist start to pulsate, and all his muscles tighten up, twisting and throbbing. All he's good for is force. Not care. Not love—either end of it. "...Know what to say," he admits. "Or do. I just don't—" He walks clenching toes and twitching knees backward until he finds the wall, and the bump against it makes his already shaking breath catch in his throat, makes his voice come out in a loud gulp. He grits his teeth. The growls is already starting behind them—the roar is already in his chest—"I just don't, okay?!"

He yells again. He can see her face in his mind: shocked, scared, hurt. He can't see it with his eyes—tears flood his vision in an instant. He shuts his eyes. He knows it shows. She's still right there—closer in his ears than to the rest of him, but she sees him. Her bedroom wall won't topple down and cover him unless he makes it fall, and he could—just a thrust of his elbow. Only him—no matter what she'd want to try and prove, their training would kick in, and she'd jump back. It wouldn't crush him—wouldn't kill him—just hide him. Bury him underground. Hold him. Contain him—

Two points of pressure hit Conner's chest from the outside. His eyes stay shut, but he gulps for air. The touches linger, and he knows them, knows the shapes; his heart bounces into M'gann's palm. M'gann's hand slides up past his collarbone, stops at his shoulder—his heart keeps going until it hits his throat. M'gann's fingers slip and curl against his shoulder, trying to hang on against his breath—no matter how much his chest tightens, it won't go still.

M'gann's other hand leaves his chest. She wraps her arm around his, squeezing tightly. Something hard and warm hits him next, dead center—M'gann's breath floods his skin through his shirt in an instant. Conner holds his breath and opens his eyes. It's what he thought: she's put her head against him. Her heart and his own beat out of sync, but at the same pace, with the same adrenaline. Bullet-fast. He can't hold his breath forever—underwater, if his lungs gave up, they'd fill and he'd die. Here, he holds his mouth shut and sucks in air through his nose—M'gann's head bounces. Rrht-tht-tht-thih-trr-trr-trr—

M'gann's head, soft and dry, rides the tremors of Conner's hiccuping breath. He felt the skull crack. He felt the blood seep. It didn't stop him. The liquid heat in his eyes rushes out and down his cheeks; two tears disappear somewhere into his shirt, but the third leaves a dark spot on the top of M'gann's head. Conner shuts his eyes again to hold the rest in. M'gann pushes her head up against the underside of his chin, leaning more of herself into him, giving his chest less room to jump. The hand on his shoulder slides up to the side of his neck—her thumb swipes across the corner of his jaw. He feels her find the wetness—he hears her muffled gasp, and then her whole hand is there, pressed into the side of his face.

Conner's hot, wet cheek melts into the warmth and softness of M'gann's palm. His chest goes still. He opens his eyes and lets them rise up to the ceiling, stares into the Cave's embedded lights until the blurry rings fade and slip out of his vision.

Again, huh.

M'gann slowly disconnects her hand from his face and brings her palm back d own over his heart. Conner breathes in deeply and huffs out a short, sharp sigh, letting the air pull his chest up and push it out. M'gann doesn't even notice, or if she does, she doesn't react. Her body stays awkwardly fit against the front of his, no space between his back and the wall for her arms to reach around him. It's a hug, Conner knows, just like on the rooftop when she latched onto his back. It's the best she could manage with him.

I'm not even good at this part, Conner thinks.

The thought makes his body tense against hers. M'gann doesn't budge. Conner doesn't either, just stares down at the top of her head. The tear spot is gone. All that's there is a ring of light. Conner blinks at his still-stinging eyes and sniffles. The pressure inside his head release enough that the smell of her shampoo slips in. Lavender, she's told him before—she'd read somewhere that it makes people happier, she said. Humans, maybe—full humans, at least. If poison sumac can't hurt him, there's no chance lavender will help. Nothing will.

"...Not gonna say anything?" Conner decides to say. The sooner she gives up and lets go of him, the better for her.

M'gann's fingers curl, pulling at the fabric of his shirt. "I don't... know what to say or do either, Conner," she murmurs into his chest. "I just know that when I cry... this is all I want."

When I cry, Conner repeats in his head. He knew she knew that he was crying—hearing it said still sparks a small panic in him. The wall at his back becomes breakable again; tension ripples up his arms as he holds them stiff and straight at his sides. She's there—smashing the wall and burying himself isn't an option anymore. At least you know how to cry, Conner thinks at her inside his head. After J'onn had told them what went wrong, Captain Marvel had reached her first—better him than me, Conner thought then, and still thinks. Conner knew, they all knew how she felt, all felt it—it still felt like a guess to him. He should have felt like her. Losing everyone, losing himself—it should have hurt.

If he was ever going to cry, that should have been the first time. Not today.

"...I'm sorry that it doesn't help," M'gann then says, her voice a tiny shard of glass.

Conner's breath hitches. His hand flies to the small of her back. Reflex. He keeps his fingers splayed and his palm flat against the curve, barely touching her. "Don't be," he responds, turning his head to speak out into emptiness instead of into her hair. "It's not your fault I'm me."

He says it, then fights the urge to growl at himself. In his head, he knows it's the problem. Out loud, it doesn't sound obvious, or adequate. It sounds like an excuse.

"You don't have to be so hard on yourself," M'gann then says, voice stronger and clearer as she turns her head in the same direction as his, laying her cheek against his collarbone. "Really. I wish you wouldn't be." She sighs quietly, but Conner hears it, feels her breath push into him. "But even saying that, I know, doesn't do any good." M'gann's grip on his shirt slackens. Her hand goes flat against his chest, then starts to slip off. "Should I just... leave you alone for now? Because I... I just—"

"I'm right here, aren't I? You supposed to just ignore me?" Conner puffs up his chest to keep her hand as close as it was. His fingers at her waist close around creases in her shirt. "'Cuz I wouldn't expect it. Not from you, anyway."

You're not Superman.

M'gann hums. The vibration from her cheek puts a warm buzz in Conner's bones. "I'm glad for that at least. That you know I'll always keep trying. Honestly, it... makes me feel better about... going after you like this—"

"Don't say it like that," Conner interrupts again, furrowing his brow. Like you did something wrong. It's me.

"Well, I-I sort of tackled you from behind earlier, and right now I... kinda have you pinned against a wall..."

"Uh, right." Conner pushes up from the wall. He steps forward, keeping hold of M'gann's waist; backwards, M'gann steps with him, keeping her place. The arm she'd locked around his own lets go—Conner reaches for it back, hand brushing her elbow only to find her hand already reaching up to him, slipping past his shoulder. Over her shoulder, Conner watches her heels leave the floor as she pushes herself up onto her toes. Both her arms wrap around his neck. Her temple leans against the side of his jaw, and her lashes flutter against his cheek. The warmth of her breath hits the lobe of his ear. The sound is close, but soft. Normal.

Conner closes his eyes. It feels right to do. Objections creep back up into his head—he shouldn't accept this, shouldn't want this—but he feels her wanting it, too, and maybe more—but maybe not—and the thought of forcing her off of him feels like the thought of tearing at his own skin. All his hands want to do is travel up her back and into her hair, under her shirt—as far as they can go. As close. As full of her as they can get. The adrenaline in his chest keeps him still. Her heart beats soft and steady against him; the pounding in his head is only his own. She feels too good. He wants her too much. There's no Shield on him, no Shield near him—

—But the Shield was no excuse. He knows that. What he did with it on, he could have done without it. He could do again. All that can stop him is guilt. Fear. Regret. Nothing outside him, not even Superman. Only what's in him. Only himself.

"...Black Canary said I needed to practice until I gained control and regained my confidence," M'gann says. "That's all you need, too! I..."

M'gann's touch on his skin. His twitch.

"...Have to believe that, for you and for me."

I don't have any easy answers, Conner, Canary had told him. But one thing's clear. Admitting it is the first step.

Yeah, and what's the next supposed to be? Conner thinks now, and his beating chest starts to ache. I almost killed someone. I still want to hold M'gann. I still want to be with her. HIs aching chest starts to quiver, like all that holds him up from the inside is one shaky beam. I still want to be happy.

From the outside, M'gann holds up, stable on her toes. The fluttering at his cheek stops. M'gann's nose and mouth brush his jaw as she tucks her head under his. The wet heat of her breath against his neck feels like a direct line of oxygen into his throat, his lungs. It wasn't meant to be a kiss in Atlantis, he knows—not that time, not yet. It was just the way she saved his life.

It felt like both.

He needs it to be both again.

Conner presses his lips into the first part of her that they can find: a bed, a mouthful of hair. Lavender quickly fills his head—he doesn't care what scent it's supposed to be. It's her. M'gann's breath at his neck cuts off in a gasp, whistling through her teeth. At the back of his head, her hand clutches at his hair, curling around a shallow fistful. Her head moves under his; he lifts his lips from her.

For a split second, Conner opens his eyes and meet hers, heavy-lidded and bright. Her eyes close first. No thought passes from her mind to his, but he knows—it's obvious—there's no time to overthink, second-guess, change his mind or hers—

M'gann pushes a kiss into his lips. Conner locks both his arms around her waist and lets himself fall back, meeting the wall with his hips. M'gann moans into his lips; her voice runs down his own throat like syrup. The hand at the back of his head releases its grip, and both of M'gann's hands touch down delicately onto his shoulders. Conner opens one eye—he knows both should stay closed, but he can't just feel this. He has to see it. M'gann leans closer into him, stomach soft against his—past the edge of her face, Conner watches her foot pop up into the air behind her. He closes his eye again and breathes deep, breathes more of her in—parts his lips and hers, runs his hand up her back and into her hair, lets the weight fall, lets himself sink. His heart beats hard, but steady. Her heart beats with it. One sound, one pulse, one warmth. Nothing else.

Every gap in him fills in. In a way, he doesn't feel any different, just better. He's himself, and he's hers.

It's all he needs to be.

M'gann sucks in air sharply through her nose, her chest pulling back from his, and her heart starts to beat one beat ahead of his, then more. Her fingers curl into his sleeves. He knows what it means: he has to stop at some point. Conner raises his head, breaking the kiss. His lips, sore and suddenly cold against air, won't close at first, leaving his mouth hanging open—he has his own breath to catch, he realizes. He opens his eyes to M'gann's eyes still closed and both sides of her neck quivering independently of her breath, rows of slits forming and peeking open. They quickly shut and slip back out of existence, her skin smoothing back over. M'gann opens her eyes and lets out a soft pant.

"I was... ready to try to keep going," she says to him, breaking out into a fluttery laugh that shakes her body in his hands. Her heart is still fast as the laugh tapers off, her lips and cheeks flushed red with warmth.

Conner stares, shuts his mouth, and swallows. Too soon, he tells himself. Give her air.

"...Are you okay?" he then watches M'gann's mouth ask him. A moment later, the words catch up. Conner shakes his head to focus.

"Yeah," he responds, his eyes darting above then back below hers.

He watches M'gann frown. "Are you sure?"

No. Instant response, but it stays in his head. Nothing's changed, but he feels better. It's what he should have wanted—it's the best that he could hope for. It still feels strange, shameful—letting it go shouldn't be so easy. But his eyes land on M'gann's, and she needs an answer. That shouldn't be so hard.

For more reasons than one. "I mean, you would know, right?" Conner says. M'gann's hands still on his shoulders keep him from shrugging.

"I... that's not how it's supposed to be," M'gann responds. "I know that." Her eyes drop down to his chest. "I... have control, after all, and I need to exercise it. I... actually haven't been sensing you psychically since Dhabar. I... wanted to re-establish that boundary—b-but also I... know enough about you, I think, to know, um, Gar's 'report'? Maybe... made you feel—"

"Don't worry about it."

"I'm just... sorry if that came at a really bad ti—"

"I said don't—" Conner stops himself. Not this again. He unclenches his jaw. "It's not their fault or yours. It happened. It's okay. And, to be honest, it..."

M'gann looks straight back up into his eyes. Her face shows no scrutiny, no confusion, just something like awe, like he's high above her head—like he's the one of the two of them with the natural ability to fly. This is how it feels, huh, Conner thinks, the image prickling at the back of his mind of blue tights and a red cape. No wonder the guy's a jerk.

"It... kinda doesn't help if you... keep bringin' it up," Conner then admits, forcing himself not to mutter.

M'gann's eyes spark. "Oh!" Her hands knead his shoulders, mostly clutching at fabric, but the soft pressure of her fingertips sends a shot of both warmth and coolness down his arms, like fresh air on his skin. "I understand," she says gently. Her eyes and smile make him believe it.

"Thanks," Conner says in response. At least one of us does, he adds to himself,. He still sent a man to the hospital, if not the morgue—

"Do you want to help me make dinner?" M'gann asks.

"No." Instant response, this time out loud. Wait.

M'gann tilts her head to the side and furrows her brow, but a hint of a smile stays on her lips.

"...Yes," Conner then says, re-orienting himself with a pinch at M'gann's shirt at her waist. M'gann breaks out in a grin and breathes a laugh.

"It is just you and me tonight, after all," she then says, raising her hand from his shoulder to tap one finger to his cheek. The touch pulls his mouth into a half-smirk in the direction of her hand. "Since Zatanna is in Gotham, of course."

Conner frowns. "Of course?"

"You didn't get her text?" M'gann asks, eyebrows raised. "She said Artemis invited her to the 'afterparty' of this boy from her schools' birthday party. We weren't here, so that's why we weren't invited," she says with a determined nod. "...I think," she then adds quietly. "But she did send a picture!" M'gann's hands pat Conner excitedly then push off from him, fingers curling into open, fluttery fists. "Hold on."

She says hold on but means let go, Conner realizes as he feels her stepping back. M'gann turns and skips towards her bed, leaving Conner's hands to drop back to his sides. Haven't looked at my phone since we got back, he thinks to himself. Just debrief then showers then to the couch to stare at static and sulk. M'gann doesn't need to know that, he decides. He watches M'gann close her laptop and then gather up the papers scattered around it, knocking the bottom of the stack in her hands against the top of the laptop to straighten it out. Her fingers pinch and pull at the zipper of her backpack, then flick up as she drops the papers in. The sound stay normal in his ears—she's here, and he is, too, even if several feet away. His hips stay pinned to the wall; his back hovers inches off of it. He doesn't have to be even several feet away—there are no glass walls around him, and no rubble ready to fall. He stands up straight and makes himself move.

M'gann lifts her backpack then her laptop, then sets them aside, smoothing out her crumpled sheets. She lets out a displeased-sounding hmmn at the now-flat spot on her bed, then lifts her bag again, knocking the pillow behind it against her bed's headboard, where it bounces then flops back into place. "Where did I..." she murmurs under her breath before a sigh. Hands on her hips, she raises her head and steps back from the bed, starting to turn. "Hello, Megan, where does a phone go—ah!"

M'gann's hands fly up at Conner, her whole body jumping at his presence. Conner keeps himself determinedly still. It's fine, he says to himself, and would to her as well if she could hear it. Just need to learn to... walk louder, I guess.

M'gann's hands fall back onto him, and her shocked-open mouth settles back quickly into a grin. "Hi!"

Conner's heart starts to fill in the sound that his feet didn't. She's here, and he is, too, and there's no good way to say he doesn't care about the phone, or parties, or anyone else in the world right now, unless they're in danger and need him more than he needs this. Statistically, someone might—he'll be selfish, then. Conner doesn't say anything, just puts his hands around M'gann's waist until they cross and lift her closer. His lips touch teeth and intercept a gasp, and then M"gann's lips close and press back into his.

Her knee brushes up the outside of his thigh. His stomach clenches. His head spins. Blood rushes out of it to... somewhere else, and on impact, on reflex, he grunts into the kiss. M'gann moans back at him, sending more pulsating warmth down and through him. She pushes her stomach deeper into his, pulling her lips back from his only for a moment's shaky breath before resuming the kiss, harder now, fistfuls of his shirt swirling in her hands as she groans, almost whines. Pressure becomes a pull. Conner feels a thump then slips down, catching himself by one knee at the edge of her mattress. M'gann doesn't stop sinking. Their lips break apart again. Conner groans as their bodies disconnect, save for at the legs. M'gann's knee rubs against his inner thigh now, slow up and slow down, then back up again. Instinctively, Conner's hips rock into the motion, against air. His jeans are a wall.

Conner bites his lips around her name, or just a moan. "Mmn" is all that comes out. He opens his eyes.

His hands are in his hair. It fans out around her head, her headband slipping up at one end; her eyes are round and dark and bright all at once in his shadow, her lips red and open like ripe fruit, her cheeks pink and orange and gold like a sunrise. The sight of her breath puts the sound of it back in his head: steady, but heavy. With her small jacket flipped open, her chest rises and falls in swells against the inside of her thin white shirt. Her heartbeat ticks inside her chest with urgency, calling him down, calling him closer.

He doesn't move. He thinks to, but nothing happens. M'gann raises her hand and taps fingertips to his lower lip, traces the curve of his chin—Conner watches her arm move, her lashes flutter. Her lips close enough that her breath wisps through her teeth now, still heavy, still hard. Conner looms over her with all his weight, all his force. Gravity starts a pulse in his palms, his fingertips, his wrists.

No. Conner falls back onto his feet, lifting his hands. Red sticks to them, drips off of them, hangs in the air. M'gann lets out a gasp, high and sharp. The pulsing inside him doesn't stop, pumping heat under the chill rushing over his skin. Gunshot, impact, shatter, breakthrough—blood, heat, power—bullets, heartbeats, his fists—rrht-tht-tht-thih—

—Red Sun.

His mind goes empty, save for blank light.

[Conner.]

Conner's eyes snap open, and he gulps out a breath. M'gann's hands hold his head. Her knees prop up his chest. His hands hold clumps of fabric at the edge of the mattress. Conner looks down. It's all blue-green. Not red.

[Conner?]

Conner looks back up. M'gann's wide eyes scan his face, her mouth closed tight. [Are you—are you with me? I felt—] Conner hears her swallow. [I know I shouldn't have, but this...] Bh-dmp, bh-dmp, bh-dmp, bh-dmp— [Is starting to scare me, Conner—]

"S-Scare you?" Conner chokes out, voice mangled by his own throat, but the sound muffles M'gann's heart. Speaking moves the muscles of his face against her hands, and he feels the skin of her fingertips unstick—sweat. Just sweat.

[Not you—this.] Bh-dmp, bh-dmp, bh-dmp. One hand leaves Conner's cheek to slide across his forehead—the same hand quickly goes to M'gann's own forehead, her brow furrowing in a wince. [I—I don't know what this is. Maybe I—shouldn't know, but you're—] Bh-dh-bh-dh-bh-dh-bh-dh— [You're hurting so much—]

"I'm fine," Conner states, numb reflex.

[Con-ner!]

She says there's hurt. There's tightness in his chest, and prickling in his hands, but in his mind, there's just—her. And everything else. A wall in between. Memory versus a presence. In some part of his head, somewhere deeper than she is, every feeling is right there, ready to come back. The sound of the gunshot. The feel of the crunch. The smell of the blood.

It's there, but he's here, and all he smells is lavender.

Conner's hands let go of the bedsheet. His shoulders slump, but his legs feel sturdy. M'gann's hand stays pressed into his left cheek, her palm soft. Her knees slowly slip down from his chest. Her free hand nudges her skirt back down over her thighs as her feet touch the floor.

Right, Conner thinks to himself, then he realizes: he doesn't have to. Engaging with her psychic presence again feels almost like clearing his throat—physically, a small cough hits the back of his teeth. [We were going to...]

[What?] M'gann lays her free hand on his arm. Fresh skin-to-skin makes Conner flinch, a chill rushing up his back as his heart lurches towards her. M'gann looks down at her own hand on his arm and lets out a tiny gasp. [Oh, that's—the farthest thing from my mind right now, honest!] Both of her hands leave him. Patches of warmth turn cold on his arm and cheek. [Not that I... didn't want to, of course, but—but it was all me in the first place, wasn't it? I misunderstood your signals—]

[No, you—]

[—And then physically, I felt you—]

[Yeah, let's not—]

[—I'm sorry.]

[Don't—] Without a thought, Conner cups his hand around M'gann's hipbone. His own heart jumps with hers, but he holds his breath; hers keeps rising and falling against the pad of his thumb. [Don't... be... sorry.] M'gann's presence in his mind spins and flickers—confusion, Conner thinks, and concern, pretty obvious—but still, it's living light. He closes his eyes. M'gann's hand goes to his forehead again, palm pressing in, fingertips pushing past his hairline and into his hair. Outside and inside, physical and psychic, her touch sinks in. Conner sighs, feeling his own breath bounce off her wrist. [I think you're... helping,] he thinks to her.

[Re—] M'gann's presence in his head ripples as she steps back from him. Shock, at first, it feels like, then it softens, flutters. Even with her hip out of his hand, her hand stays on his forehead. [R-Really?]

Conner opens one eye at her, keeping the other scrunched to hold in the feeling, and hold himself in—part of him feels like he could float up out of his own head. He's not sure it's relief. [You tell me.]

[Conner...] M'gann lifts her hand from his forehead. Conner squeezes both his eyes shut in a wince as much as in a mental grasp. M'gann's presence in his mind doesn't fade, just shrinks down slightly, like her body under the pressure of the ocean. The ghost of her hand on his forehead becomes the impression of her psychic presence—a touch, just one hand, laid fingertips to palm on his mind's surface.

Psychically, Conner leans more into the touch. Physically, M'gann wrings her hands together in her lap. Conner takes a seat beside her. His weight on the edge of the mattress drops M'gann into him. Her head bumps his shoulder. M'gann presses her hand into his arm again, if only to catch herself. Conner watches her pull it halfway back to her lap then leave it hovering, fingertips pinching and rubbing at air. He frowns. M'gann's psychic touch lessens, like fingertips staying pinned but her palm tilting up and off.

Her physical hand, he could grab and hold—and hurt, his nerves still remind him. He leaves it where it is. The only power he has to maintain this touch is his will and his words. [I mean... tell me,] he says. [Really. Whatever you felt before—you still feel it?]

[I...] M'gann's physical hand settles on Conner's knee. Her eyes stay fixed down on the hand, her lower lip pulled behind her upper lip and teeth. [Surface-level reading only, of course, I...] She shakes her head. [...Don't. Not anymore. But I can't believe that it's just... gone.]

Rrht-tht-tht-thih—Conner forces his tight throat to swallow, and with the push, imagines rolling a boulder back. Stay there, fine, he says to the weight, keeping the thought directed inward. But let me keep going. [You've been trying to make me feel better right?] Conner then says to M'gann, rubbing the back of his still-prickling neck. [You didn't think it'd end up working, why'd you keep trying?]

[Conner, I... I'm not pressing, not psychically, I promise, but...] M'gann runs her hand over the curve of Conner's knee just like she did his forehead. Her thumb rubs a smaller circle higher up on his thigh. Her hand sits inches away from the pocket at his hip—Conner's mind goes to the Shields. [Are you...] M'gann asks. [Well, I—I don't...]

Don't, Conner tells himself. Don't think about them. They're not in his pocket—they're in his room, and all they do is make him stronger. He's still broken either way.

M'gann's hand on his knee twitches, curls. [...Want to say 'being honest,' but... are you... just... trying to make me feel better now instead?]

'Honest,' huh, Conner thinks. Whether you wanted to say it or not, you did.

Private thought. That's what it's meant to be, and that's how it stays. M'gann doesn't even blink—her eyes stay wide open and locked onto his. What she's seeing in him—is just him staring right back, he realizes, his stare just as strong as hers. Conner gulps, more at himself than at her. Heat vision is locked away in his cells, but it's there. So are tears. He knows which is easier to access, and which is more dangerous. He knows which one should scare him more.

[...Conner?]

Conner breaks their shared stare. His eyes fall to the freckles on the knuckles of M'gann's hand on his knee. Past them are the stars on her rug, trailed out at his feet and hers. The mirror, the door—his "birthday" as her code—anywhere he looks is a piece of her, and a piece of him with it.

It all just feels like wreckage in his chest. Cracks, rubble. Smears of blood.

[You want honesty, then no,] Conner tells her. [I'm not putting on an act. You think I know how to just—make this stop?] His fist falls down onto his right knee. M'gann's hand stays on his left. [I don't. It's like any moment, you're gonna see me cry, or yell, or freak out again, and I'm gonna hate it, because it's gonna matter to you, but I don't wanna feel it. And I'm gonna hate me for making you have to feel it, and deal with it. But, same time, I don't...] He huffs a sigh out through his nose, feeling his chest heave. [...I don't wanna get over it. I don't want it to just... not feel like anything. And worse than that, I...]

His eyes are too hot again. He blinks until the world is flickering, until there's just as much darkness as there is light in his vision. It's not enough. He shuts his eyes.

M'gann's hand curls tighter around his knee. [...Yes?]

Conner breathes out through pursed lips, hearing himself shake. [Worse than that, I... don't...] He forces his eyes to open and fall into her freckles again. [...Want to be alone right now.]

M'gann crashes into him, over him, but doesn't move—not physically. Her heartbeat is part of it, but it's just a sound—the pulse she sends into his head is a curtain, a gust, a wave. It slides right off, passes through him, but the wave leaves sparks crackling in his skin, opens up air and sunlight behind his eyes. Her hand leaves his knee. Conner looks up at her. M'gann ducks her head and pinches her lips together shyly, her cheeks flaring pink.

[What was that?] Conner asks.

[Well, we were... already linked, so...] M'gann's thumb rubs at her wrist, her hands folded back together in her lap. [Rather than... saying anything, I thought I could just... share the feeling itself as a response.] Her pressed smile becomes a tight frown. She swallows, a thump down and then a beat back up—her heartrate spikes. [Was that too much? Please tell me. I won't do it again if I shouldn't have. I promise. I really didn't mean to—]

[It's, uh.]

M'gann goes quiet. Just as he'd hoped, Conner halts her apologizing—as well as her telling him how to feel about it. Now he gets to decide.

Now he has to.

[It's... fine,] Conner decides to say, [just... to be honest, I'm...] He blinks at her floor's upside down sky. His vision is clear, but in his mind, the fading ripple tells him everything should be soft. The stars in her rug twinkle. [...Not sure I got it,] he admits.

Confusion—disappointment, even—skepticism, maybe—Conner isn't sure, but he feels something simmer on her end of the link. M'gann tilts her head and crinkles her brow. [You didn't... feel anything?]

[No, I mean, what it was. I feel—] Conner reaches back into his mind, trying to pull the feeling into the forefront again—his mental hands, if he has them, grope at empty, shallow space. [I felt... something. It just... felt like...] He's left with memory for reference—from seconds ago, from what he's lived, and from everything Cadmus stuffed into his head. [It felt like... flying. Kinda. I mean... what I think it—]Match knocking him back, but him catching himself—on nothing—Conner shakes his head. [You know. I don't know.] Honesty, sure, he thinks to himself. [But, kinda like...] Something closer. [Being... scared to, but needing to,] he manages to say. [To fly anyway. Even if... you're not sure you're supposed to. And it feeling...] He swallows. [...Good.] His wrist itches, burns. Reflex doesn't put his nails to his skin. It puts his eys to M'gann's hands instead, inches away from him. [What does that mean?]

[I... felt it just as you did, Conner, not before, so I've had just as much time to think about it,] M'gann tells him. [And, well, I... know what I think I'm thinking—]

[You think you're thinking?]

M'gann giggles aloud. [Sometimes I have to think! Even though I'm always thinking. I think.] A giggle becomes a laugh that rocks her backward and kicks her feet off the floor. Reflex puts Conner's hand to the center of her back to keep her from falling over. The short gasp and soft sigh she gives as a response convinces Conner to keep his hand there. [I think I'm thinking of...] Her wide smile shines, but flashes closed for a moment; the tip of her tongue peeks out from between her lips, then she grins again. Her hand floats up to Conner's face, taps gently on the edge of his jaw, then falls back to the top of his thigh, fingers spreading out. [Well, to put it simply, all I can think about is... how much I love you.]

[Oh.] Love. That's what he should have said. [Is that all,] Conner thinks back, forcing psychic sarcasm. It's an effort, but not impossible. He's done it before. But M'gann leans her head onto his shoulder, and he chokes. [Sorry,] his mind spits out at her with no forethought. M'gann rubs her head against him, nestling it closer into the crook of his neck. A flutter runs up through Conner's chest, lifting him up from the inside as if by a string around his sternum.

[Conner, you know that...] M'gann's hand leaves his leg to travel up his hip, past the empty pocket. [...I don't...] Her fingertips walk up his side, finding places soft enough to sink into. [...Like to be alone, either.] She lays her palm over his ribs.

[Yeah,] Conner responds, letting his hand on her back creep up to her shoulder, her hair catching and then slipping through his fingers as they go, brushing over his knuckles and the back of his hand. It's her hair, and his hand, but he thinks of soft kisses. His shirt soaks in her breath. His lips go dry against open air, tingling with memory.

[So if I... really am helping just by being with you, then that's... perfect,] M'gann then says. Her hand slides back down to his thigh. [As long as it's... really true.] She hums and nudges her shoulders up in a shrug, enough to be felt but not enough to move his hand. [I... like what you said you just felt from me.] She says it almost like an offer. [About flying?] she adds.

Conner feels his brow furrow. [You want me to read your mind?]

[I want you to know how I feel,] M'gann says, fingertips swirling and scritching at the denim of his jeans. [I think it... I really think it's worth sharing, actually. A-And I haven't always... felt that.] Her hand goes still. [I don't, always...] Her fingers curl into a loose fist. [But I do around you. And I always want to know what you're feeling, too. Maybe too much, sometimes.] She raises her head. Conner keeps hold of her shoulder, her sleeve clumped into his grip, as she sits straight enough to look into his eyes. [Right?]

Conner sees parting lips first, watches them curl and catch under teeth, and then makes himself blink. Her eyes don't make sense. She asked him a question as if she can't see right through him, into could, but isn't, Conner reminds himself. The look in her eyes is just want, need.

He almost tells her that she is right, but just like in a battle, his mind plots an outcome, a reaction from her and his own reaction to it: if he says "right," and if it makes her look away for just one second, a cold hole will rip itself open in his chest.

[Not tonight,] Conner answers her instead.

M'gann bounces in place, in his hand. The mattress shakes under him. [Really?]

...I didn't just hear that 'really' in my head, Conner remembers Marie saying, I felt it. [Really,] he responds, feeling a smile twitch at his own mouth as M'gann grins. Part of him wishes it was a lie, just so that he could say it only to make M'gann happy—that it was something he could give, just by choice. Part of him wishes he didn't want her, need her, to care. Everything caring about me did to you tonight, he thinks into her eyes, but not into the link. Everything I did. He looks for ghosts of tears to address, his evidence against himself. All he has is in his memory. Her face hasn't kept them. And you just... M'gann's eyes soften at him, turning almost wistful, and pure warmth thrums through the link like sunlight on the back of his neck. Words, he could twist—his mind is Luthor enough for that. This feeling is a fact. All he can do is look inward and decide what it means to him.

Someone who sees the psycho that you are, and likes you anyway, Junior had said.